WASHINGTON - The White House's ever-shifting economic relief agenda lurched in a new direction Wednesday as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin tried to make a deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to rescue the airline industry, a day after President Doanld Trump abruptly cut off talks on a broader stimulus bill.

Mnuchin and Pelosi, D-Calif., had two conversations Wednesday - one in the morning and another in the evening - about the possibility of a stand-alone bill for the airline industry, which just began mass layoffs after federal aid expired. Pelosi also discussed with Democratic lawmakers the possibility at a closed-door meeting Wednesday evening, according to three people with knowledge of the discussion who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe it.

Two of these people said Democratic members still would prefer a comprehensive bill but are sensitive to the many jobs at risk in the airline industry.

The new effort to fast-track airline aid comes as negotiators appear to have largely shelved prospects for broader unemployment aid and other assistance. But the situation seemed somewhat fluid in the wake of a late-night change of heart from Trump on Tuesday, where he demanded piecemeal legislation on $1,200 stimulus checks and small-business assistance, in addition to airline aid.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said the administration still held out hope for such one-off measures - even though Democrats have consistently rejected that approach - and Trump broke his coronavirus isolation Wednesday afternoon to go into the Oval Office, where a spokesman said he was being briefed on stimulus talks.

After sinking on Tuesday, the stock market rallied sharply Wednesday on the prospect of a partial deal. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 531 points, or nearly 2%. Airline stocks fared even better, with American and United airlines seeing their share prices rise more than 4%.

The herky-jerky nature of the economic relief talks has played out over months, as the White House and Democrats have failed to agree on a broader support package. The economy showed some signs of recovery over the summer, but pockets appear to be softening again. The travel industry last week announced layoffs, and the labor market has weakened while the coronavirus pandemic remains a factor across much of the country.

Trump and Pelosi exchanged insults again Wednesday, a sign that the broader relief talks are unlikely to be revived. But both sides did appear interested in trying to work out immediate aid for the airline industry, which has not recovered from the pandemic's impact. Last week, American and United began furloughing more than 30,000 employees.

The White House's approach has changed multiple times in the past few days. On Tuesday, Trump called off all talks until after the election. Mnuchin's outreach Wednesday morning came after Republicans running for reelection questioned - and in some cases denounced - Trump's directive to walk away.

Pelosi last week urged airlines to wait on the layoffs, saying she would renew a payroll support program either as a stand-alone bill or part of a broader deal.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., tried Friday to advance a $28 billion bill to help airlines keep workers on payroll under a procedure that would have required unanimous consent from lawmakers. Republicans blocked the move, with GOP aides saying they'd had barely any time to review the bill.

Senate Republicans have pushed a package of similar size for the airlines that has less stringent requirements on how the aid will be used. It's unclear whether Pelosi and Mnuchin could come up with a deal on airlines that both parties would support, especially after Tuesday's bizarre events that began when Trump suddenly announced on Twitter that "I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election."

The backlash was swift. Seven hours after Trump said talks were terminated, he appeared to reverse himself in a new string of tweets.

At 9:54 p.m. Eastern time, he called on the House and Senate to "IMMEDIATELY" approve $25 billion in new aid for the airline industry, which has already begun laying off thousands of employees after federal aid programs expired last week.

At 10:18 p.m., he called for Congress to direct $1,200 payments to millions of Americans and said he wanted immediate aid for small businesses.

"I am ready to sign right now," he wrote. "Are you listening Nancy?"

He was referring to Pelosi, though he also tagged White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and congressional leaders in the Twitter post.

White House officials and congressional leaders couldn't spell out how the process would play out.

Meadows told reporters on Wednesday morning: "The stimulus negotiations are off."

All of Trump's new directives and position changes have come from pronouncements on his Twitter account. He hasn't been seen in public since returning to the White House from the hospital on Monday evening.

"It's hard to see any clear, sane path on what he's doing, but the fact is he saw the political downside of his statement of walking away from the negotiations," Pelosi said Wednesday in an appearance on "The View." "He's rebounding from a terrible mistake he made yesterday, and the Republicans in Congress are going down the drain with him on that."

Pelosi also questioned publicly whether the steroids Trump is taking as he battles coronavirus might be affecting his cognition, a notion she'd floated privately to Democratic lawmakers Tuesday. "Also if you have the coronavirus it has an impact as well. So the combination is something that should be viewed," Pelosi said on "The View."

The House speaker said there should be "an intervention" by people around the president because "something's wrong."

Democrats have for months rejected the idea of passing stimulus funding on a piecemeal basis, instead insisting on one comprehensive package to aid the economy, although Pelosi has suggested Congress could act first to help the airline industry. The president's demands Tuesday night also left out addressing the expiration of additional federal unemployment benefits for tens of millions of jobless Americans.

Meanwhile, lawmakers reacted strongly to the called-off negotiations. The Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group that proposed a $1.5 trillion stimulus package, called for a resumption in negotiations, while Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., a House member in a difficult reelection race, said he disagreed with the president and would "strongly urge" Trump to rethink the decision.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Trump ally who is also in a tough reelection fight, wrote on Twitter Wednesday that Trump should look at the Problem Solvers proposal. "It has many good things for individuals and businesses," Graham wrote.

White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told CNBC on Wednesday that there was a "low probability" of approving additional legislation in time for the election but reiterated the call for passing piecemeal legislation.

"We've only got four weeks to the election, and we have a justice of the Supreme Court to get passed. It's too close to the election - not enough time to get stuff done at this stage in the game," Kudlow said. "What the president was saying is, 'We're too far apart for a gigantic bill.' "

The president has long sought an additional stimulus package ahead of the Nov. 3 election, and it remained unclear exactly why he suddenly gave up on talks, although Republicans have been skeptical all along of whether Pelosi would agree to anything that would be widely acceptable to the GOP. On a phone call with Trump on Tuesday shortly before he tweeted that talks were over, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., suggested that Pelosi might be stringing him along, according to two people with knowledge of the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it.

"It became very obvious over the last couple days that a comprehensive bill was just going to get to the point where it really did not have much Republican support at all," Meadows said. "It was more of a Democrat-led bill, which would have been problematic more so in the Senate."

The White House and Congress approved nearly $3 trillion in economic aid earlier this year in response to the coronavirus pandemic. A number of the programs in those laws, such as enhanced unemployment aid, small-business aid, rental assistance, airline aid and student loan protections, have expired. House Democrats have passed two large bills to direct more aid. The first bill would have approved more than $3 trillion in new assistance, while the second bill was scaled back slightly, seeking more than $2 trillion in new aid.

The White House has sought a roughly $1.6 trillion bill. One of the biggest sticking points between the White House and congressional Democrats is how to handle the budget crises facing states and cities. Democrats want to approve a large package of assistance for these governments, while Trump has repeatedly expressed opposition.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned Tuesday that the economy could suffer without more fiscal relief, a viewpoint Trump appeared to endorse before he began his second string of Twitter posts late in the evening.
Didi-Controlled Ride-Hailing App 99 Partners With WhatsApp to Offer Service in Brazil

Ding Yi / Oct 07, 2020 05:19 PM / World

Brazil-based ride-hailing app 99, a unit of Chinas Didi Chuxing, has partnered with WhatsApp to enable users to directly order rides on the Facebook-owned social media app, Didi said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

The partnership with WhatsApp could give an edge to 99 in its competition with American rival Uber in Brazil, where WhatsApp covers more than half the countrys population with its 120 million monthly active users.

99, which currently has 20 million registered customers in Brazil, will pilot the service on Oct. 15 in four cities in the state of Sao Paulo, according to the statement.

The service is expected to expand to the rest of Brazil by the end of 2020, Reuters reported citing 99s operations director. It is a big step forward in extending our presence, especially in the outskirts of cities, where the use of the 99 app grew by 54% during the pandemic, said Livia Pozzi, 99s operations director.

The announcement comes eight months after 99 announced the billionth trip via its platform.

In 2018, Didi bought a controlling stake in 99 in a deal that marked the Chinese ride-hailing giants first foray into Brazil. Didi also operates in other countries in Latin America including Mexico, Chile and Colombia.

This story has been corrected to clarify the source for when the service is expected to expand to the rest of Brazil. It was 99s operations director, as cited by Reuters.

Contact reporter Ding Yi (yiding@caixin.com)

Related: Didi-Owned Brazilian Ride-Hailing App Completes 1 Billion Trips
Toronto resident Miguel Ceron wanted to get a COVID-19 test when the restaurant his partner works at was shut down by public health for having confirmed cases of the virus.

Ceron, 33, is among scores of Ontario residents who took to social media or contacted the Star Tuesday to voice their frustrations about trying to book a COVID-19 test on the provinces new appointment-based system.

I just got off being on hold for half an hour and ultimately disconnected from a pharmacy trying to get information on appointments, said Ceron, who like others had difficulty getting through by phone because of high call volumes.

By early Tuesday evening, Ceron, who works in the insurance industry, was still unsuccessful in booking a test.

Now that the appointment-based system has come along, its been even more challenging. Oddly enough, that is when I really needed one, he said.

Ontarios shift to appointment booking, which launched Tuesday, came after many assessment centres saw hours-long waits for COVID-19 tests and many people being turned away during a recent surge of infections.

Youre going to confuse people, Ceron said. You have people who need access to tests and arent able to get them.

He and his partner are now unable to go home for Thanksgiving to Cerons 80-year-old stepfather who suffers with a chronic lung condition. He also has concerns about seeing friends in his social bubble  including one who is undergoing chemotherapy  because of the testing difficulties he has faced.

Wilfrid Laurier student, Mikayla McKinney, 20, had a COVID test in August and described it as the most simple experience ever. This time around, it was anything but.

Over a couple of days of calling, she said she couldnt make contact with a human. She continuously ended up getting an automated message that the testing centre was full for the day and to try again tomorrow  even when calling at 10 a.m.

She also contacted her local pharmacy and was told they were booking into next week, with no openings until then. After relentlessly trying, she eventually got a booking. Her roommate, however, still hasnt had any luck.

When booking either a pediatric and family COVID-19 test or an all-ages test through the Michael Garron Hospital COVID-19 testing centre, the website informs visitors there are currently no appointments to be booked online.

Continue to self-isolate and check back tomorrow for an appointment or go to your nearest emergency department if your symptoms worsen, the website said Tuesday.

Callers trying to get through by phone were often met with an automated message telling them the hospital is receiving a high volume of calls and to try again later.

The COVID-19 Assessment Centres at St. Josephs and St. Michaels are also fully booked until at least Oct. 8. Their online booking website encourages visitors to check back regularly as spots are released as they become open. New appointment blocks are released on the website at 7 p.m. each day.

During the provinces COVID-19 update Tuesday, Premier Doug Ford told Ontarians not to go to testing centres if they dont have symptoms. He also noted that the testing backlog had dropped to 55,483 tests and said the shift to appointment-only testing was going well.

More and more people Ive talked to, theyre happy about setting up a schedule, he said. They can make an appointment, they dont have to wait in line.

President and CEO of Ontario Health, Matthew Anderson, said the previous testing measures were not a safe environment. He also said the goals for appointment-based testing include providing enough testing, improving turnaround time, and being more deliberate.

Dr. Andrew Boozary, a family doctor in Toronto and executive director of Population Health and Social Medicine at University Health Network, said the switch to an online only booking system for COVID testing is adding barriers on barriers in the communities hit hardest by the virus.

After the Ontario government announced the change to testing on Oct. 2, Boozary tweeted: There was no mention of health equity at the press conference but it was a screaming divide  having to book a COVID test without paid sick leave is impossible for too many of our patients living in poverty/communities of colour.

In an interview, Boozary said it appears the province is failing to look at its testing policy through a health equity lens. He said the same communities who were unable to wait in hours-long lines for a COVID test before the switch to online booking will continue to face significant barriers, especially as demand for testing continues to outstrip capacity.

There are going to be equity concerns about who is actually accessing this digitally  being able to have the time to jump on and find a spot for people who dont have access to paid sick leave or child care or transit to get out to certain centres that actually have a spot, he said.

Dr. Abdu Sharkawy, an infectious diseases specialist at University Health Network, shares these concerns, which he says are heightened by new data obtained by the Star this week, which shows that more than 10 per cent of COVID tests are coming back positive in some parts of Toronto.

Moving to an online-only booking system for COVID testing is adding additional barriers that simply cant afford to be added in a situation that disproportionately affects those that are most marginalized, Sharkawy said.

The people that dont have either literacy, the resources, the wherewithal to be able to book tests online, theyre going to be essentially left out in the cold, ironically, when that is something that Premier Ford is trying to avoid, he said.

https://twitter.com/drandrewb/status/1312088338116083712

Meanwhile some people arriving for testing at sites in Mississauga on Tuesday said they were satisfied with the new model.

Mike Bradvic, who was getting tested for the third time, said he waited in his car for about an hour to get tested at a drive-thru assessment centre. He said that was better than when he had to wait between three to four hours for his previous tests.

I like it better, he said about appointment-only testing. I just think its a little bit more organized.

Sharida Appana, 53, also said she had a good experience after booking an appointment online Tuesday morning to get tested at Trillium Health Mississauga Hospital the same day.

Its better this way, very safe, she said.

Deepika Rajapaksha, who works at a hospital, said she was able to book an appointment on Monday for a test Tuesday morning.

It was very easy. Theyre very organized and we dont have too much waiting, she said, adding she had waited in long lines for previous tests.

With files from Rachel Mendleson and The Canadian Press

Irelyne Lavery is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Stars radio room in Toronto. Reach her via email: ilavery@thestar.ca

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by Vladimir Rozanskij

He is the first bishop of Russian ethnicity of the Latin rite in the history of the Catholic Church. The new pastor will reside in St. Petersburg, for the care of the north-west and west of the Archdiocese. The Catholic bishops of Russia were present at the celebration. Absent Msgr. Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, Archbishop of Minsk, "persona non grata" in Lukashenko's Belarus, and in Putin's Russia. No proselytism.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - On Sunday 4 October, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the auxiliary Catholic bishop of Moscow, Monsignor Nikolaj Dubinin, was consecrated. The rite took place in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The new bishop, the first of the Russian ethnicity of the Latin rite in the history of the Catholic Church, received the title of the ancient Diocese of the Waters of Bizacena.

The consecration ceremony was presided over by the Archbishop of the Mother of God in Moscow, the Italian Msgr. Paolo Pezzi, who concelebrated together with the bishop of the Transfiguration in Novosibirsk, the Russian-German Msgr. Josif Werth, and to the bishop of St. Joseph in Irkutsk, the Polish Msgr. Cyril Klimowicz. About 50 priests from the four Russian Catholic dioceses concelebrated, together with several conventual friars, confreres of the new bishop, and other religious.

The new bishop will reside in St. Petersburg, having received from Msgr. Pieces the task of following the north-western and western part of the archdiocese, which includes the "capital of the north" and the surrounding region, including important cities such as Novgorod and Pskov, and also the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, the ancient Prussian Konisberg. Msgr. Dubinin also completes the Episcopal Conference of Russian Catholic Bishops, which for the first time met with all five bishops in Moscow, after episcopal consecration.

In his greeting to his new brother bishop, Msgr. Pezzi expressed the hope that "blessing, proclaiming the Gospel, the work of evangelization, the witness of Christ are the main concerns of your new ministry ... we Catholic bishops of the Russian Federation are happy to welcome you to our college, may this communion accompany you in serving the people of God.

Dubinin's appointment has aroused keen interest in the countrys public opinion. In the days before his episcopal consecration, he gave several interviews to the Russian press. Speaking to Ria Novosti correspondents, the new bishop clarified that "several bishops in pre-revolutionary Russian history were citizens of Russia, even if they were not of Russian ethnicity, but mainly Polish, like the majority of the faithful". The Russian religious renaissance also began in 1991 for Catholics, after the end of the Soviet Union. At that time, only two "facade" churches remained open in Moscow and Leningrad.

The first bishops appointed in 1991 were Soviet citizens: Msgr. Werth, who has held the office of bishop in Novosibirsk ever since, after having been apostolic administrator of all Siberia (even today his diocese is territorially the largest in the world), while the administrator for European Russia was Msgr. Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, today archbishop of Minsk and metropolitan of all Belarus. He should have concelebrated at the consecration of Dubinin, but is currently in exile in Poland and Lithuania, being a "persona non grata" for both Lukashenko's Belarus and Putin's Russia.

The same Msgr. Dubinin explained to journalists that "the challenge of the Catholic Church in Russia is the proclamation to the world of the joy of the Gospel, as Pope Francis proclaims, the joy that the life of faith and its values brings to the life of all people, believers and non-believers it is the sanctification of society. The Catholic Church in Russia, despite being a small minority, "makes a positive and creative contribution to the life of society, of which it is an integral part". The motto chosen by Dubinin is "never tire of doing what is good", a phrase that evokes Paul's exhortations to the Thessalonians and which was used as a program by the famous "holy doctor" of Moscow, the Catholic Friedrich Haass, from the early 1800s whose canonisation cause is underway.

Among other things, in these days, the historic buildings of the Haass charitable works, are at the center of a controversy: after being returned to the Catholic Church, following a long legal battle and despite the incessant requests of the faithful, are now be put up for sale by the diocesan curia of Moscow.

The new bishop rejects the accusations of proselytism addressed to Catholics even in past years. He stressed that there has never been an action aimed at snatching faithful from the Orthodox or "Catholicising Russia", even if the Church by its nature "always remains open to all men who seek God, and we do not have the right to close that door.
SANAA, Yemen - Fierce clashes in Yemens strategic port city of Hodeida between government forces and Houthi rebels continued for the fifth straight day Wednesday, leaving 52 people dead, including civilians, Yemeni officials said.

The fighting has raged in the district of Hays and town of Durayhimi, just south of the strategic Hodeida port, which handles about 70% of Yemens commercial and humanitarian imports, the officials said.

The clashes marked the heaviest bout of violence in months between forces of President Abed-Rabu Mansour Hadis government and the Iranian-backed Houthis in the contested city, they said.

Around 70 people, including over two dozen civilians, were also wounded, they said.

The officials, who are from both sides, said the Houthi rebels have attempted to break a siege on Durayhimi, laid by government-allied force known as the Giants Bridges for over two years.

The U.N. mission to Yemen on Monday voiced alarm over the recent escalation of violence in Hodeida. It urged the warring sides to immediately stop the fighting and return to the joint mechanisms established over the last two years so as not to put the population at further risk and jeopardize the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

In 2018, heavy fighting erupted in Hodeida after government forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition moved in to wrest control of the strategic city from the Houthis.

After month of clashes, the warring sides signed a U.N.-brokered agreement in December that year that included a cease-fire in the port city and an exchange of more than 15,000 prisoners. The deal, seen as an important first step toward ending the conflict, was never fully implemented.

In oil-rich Marib province, officials said Wednesday that government forces reclaimed areas from the Houthis south of the province. The rebels have for months sought to take control of the province to strengthen their position in ongoing U.N.-mediated peace talks. Government forces also managed to push rebels out of areas in neighbouring Jawf province, they said.

At least 28 people from both sides were killed and over 47 were wounded in Marib and Jawf in the past 24 hours, they said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes on the Houthi reinforcement in Jawf, leaving several rebels dead and military equipment damaged, according to Abdu Abdullah Magli, a spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces.

The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of the capital Sanaa by the Iranian-backed Houthis. A Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since March 2015.

The war in Yemen has spawned the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, leaving millions suffering from food and medical shortages. It has killed over 112,000 people, including fighters and civilians, according to a database project that tracks violence.

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Anti-Semitic stickers. A poster blaming China for the COVID-19 pandemic. Racial slurs on a sign leading to Viola Desmonds headstone in a cemetery.

In the past few days and weeks, these are some of the messages of hate that have been popping up around Halifax Regional Municipality.

According to Robert Huish, an associate professor of international development studies at Dalhousie University, these incidents are often treated as isolated events, but they are becoming more and more commonplace in the city  and regularly documented on social media.

When you see something like what happened this weekend, one way to look at it would be to say, This is just a one-off event, and then a few weeks go by and theres another one-off event or theres another one, Huish told The Chronicle Herald.

When you see that this occurs again and again and again, these repetitive incidents, then we have to see that its a symptom of the nature of society.

Over the weekend, Halifax Regional Police said they found three highly offensive words written on a sign that directs visitors to the headstone of Viola Desmond in Camp Hill Cemetery.

The Chronicle Herald also spotted a poster on a lamp pole on Coburg Road, which appeared to blame China for COVID-19, but was covered with a note that read POSTER TO BE REMOVED.

In recent weeks, the Atlantic Jewish Council has also reported stickers around the city that read, The Bug That Backfired COVID-19, alongside the Star of David and a symbol resembling that of the Freemasons, according to AJC executive director Naomi Rosenfeld.

Those incidents are all being investigated by police.

Rachel Zellars, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Justice and Community Studies at Saint Marys University, said these incidents are all forms of white supremacy, which continues to be ingrained in North America by way of monuments, graffiti and posters, among other markers.

All of these things intentionally done and left behind in common spaces are storytelling devices, she said.

They tell us a story about the present, of course, about the temperature of white supremacy in our current moment, but they also tell us a very important story about our past, a past that we absolutely have not yet reckoned with or decided to tell in all of its fullness and richness and honesty.

Rosenfeld acknowledged that the vast majority of Nova Scotians do not believe these claims, but said that in the case of the anti-Semitic stickers and the poster about China, it seems like a radical fringe group is targeting and blaming specific cultural groups for the COVID-19 pandemic.

These are very, very tense, stressful times all around and I think that often times when we are in situations that are as drastic and as stressful and as tense as the one were in now with the global pandemic, some people will look to someone to blame for a scapegoat, she said.

Huish, who is conducting a study on consequences and outcomes of such cultural stigma from COVID-19 ordinances in Nova Scotia, New Zealand and Australia, said it will require a whole-of-government approach to address hatred in Halifax and Nova Scotia as a whole in order to create a society of compassion.

A whole-of-government approach refers to the joint activities performed by different ministries, public administrations and public agencies in order to provide a solution to a particular issue.

Kindness is not just an accident. It is a product of policy and its something that governments have to work very hard in order to achieve, and its something that the populations themselves have to work hard to achieve, especially in settler states like Canada, New Zealand and Australia, said Huish.

So if its police that need to rethink their approach to community engagement, its also going to involve education approaches to it, ... theres also roles for labour and roles for health-care to actively recognize that theres inequities and discrimination that feed on each other.

Apologies only go so far in addressing racism and discrimination and that all levels of government need to do more than apologize for systemic racism, Huish added.

To recognize that racism exists is the first step, of course, but to find ways of addressing this is whats much needed, he said.

Zellars agreed.

We know that apologies are meaningless without action and even when apologies entail next steps, the process is both very important and complicated, she said.

According to HRP public information officer Const. John MacLeod, there have been seven incidents reported and coded as hate crimes in 2020.

As of Monday, MacLeod said police have not made any arrests yet in relation to the recent string of events and that they do not appear to be related, as they are targeting different groups.

MacLeod said the police take hate-motivated incidents seriously and advises the public to record hate messages, remove them and report them to police.

If we know anyone that someone is exposed to behaviour or graffiti or those kinds of things that are threatening or intimidating, we just want people to bring those to our attention so we can look into them  because these are patterns and things that we need to be aware of, he said. Anyone with information about these incidents can call police at 902-490-5020. Anonymous tips can be sent to Nova Scotia Crime Stoppers by calling toll-free 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), submitting a secure web tip at crimestoppers.ns.ca or by using the P3 Tips app.
New Delhi: In a hard-hitting reaction, Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu on Wednesday asked the Chinese mission to "get lost" after the latter asked Indian media to follow "One China" policy". A tweet by Taiwanese Foreign Ministry, said, "India is the largest democracy on earth with a vibrant press and freedom-loving people. But it looks like communist China hoping to march into the subcontinent by imposing censorship."

READ | Free media in India: Centre strongly reacts to Chinese mission's letter to national press

"Taiwan's Indian friends will have one reply: GET LOST! JW". The tweet was undersigned with initials--JW or Joseph Wu, the foreign minister of Taiwan.

Ahead of Taiwan's national day on October 10, the Chinese mission in Delhi wrote to Indian media and called upon them to not refer to Taiwan as a "nation". Chinese mission in the letter said, "would like to remind our media friends that there is only one China in the world" and the "Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China."

It added, "Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory. All countries that have diplomatic relations with China should firmly honour their commitment to the One-China policy, which is also the long-standing official position of the Indian government."

The letter came hours after leading national newspapers in India carried full-page advert, on Zee Media running a programme on Taiwanese national day. The programme went on air at 7 pm on Wednesday and will again go on air on Thursday at 5.30 pm.

The letter by Chinese mission also hoped, "Indian media can stick to Indian government's position on Taiwan question and do not violate the One-China principle", asking the Indian media to not refer Taiwan as a "country" or The Republic of China or its Taiwan president Tsai ing-wen as President as it sends "wrong signals to the general public."

It was on October 10, 2011, that the start of Wuchang Uprising leading to the end of China's Qing Dynasty and establishment of the Republic of China. This day is marked in Taiwan, and this year will be celebrated amid tensions between China and Taiwan.
Nearly 20 years after the first Resident Evil movie hit theaters - and four years after the six-film franchise concluded - the reboot is coming together.

Kaya Scodelario has signed on to star as Claire Redfield in the Resident Evil reboot, which will serve as the 'official origin story' for the movie franchise, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Scodelario will be joined by Hannah John-Kamen, Robbie Amell, Tom Hopper, Avan Jogia and Neal McDonough in the film, which will be written and directed by Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down).

Kaya: Kaya Scodelario has signed on to star as Claire Redfield in the Resident Evil reboot, which will serve as the 'official origin story' for the movie franchise, according to The Hollywood Reporter

Co-stars: Scodelario will be joined by Hannah John-Kamen, Robbie Amell, Tom Hopper, Avan Jogia and Neal McDonough in the film, which will be written and directed by Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down)

The original film franchise centered on Alice, played by Milla Jovovich, a character who was not featured in the original video games and created solely for the movie franchise.

This project will take place in 1998 in Raccoon City, the fictional Midwestern town that was the epicenter for a virus outbreak that leads to a zombie invasion.

Amell will portray Chris Redfield, the brother of Claire, who, in this origin movie, heads to Raccoon City to visit her brother.

Robbie's role: Amell will portray Chris Redfield, the brother of Claire, who, in this origin movie, heads to Raccoon City to visit her brother

John-Kamen plays Jill Valentine, an operative within Raccoon City's special police division known as Special Tactics and Rescue Services.

Hopper portrays Albert Wesker, a researcher for the nefarious Umbrella Corporation, who secretly believes humanity needs to become extinct.

Jogia is playing counterterrorist agent Leon Kennedy, while McDonough plays William Birkin, a virologist who turns against the Umbrella Corporation but could but Raccoon City in even greater danger by doing so.

Hannah's character: John-Kamen plays Jill Valentine, an operative within Raccoon City's special police division known as Special Tactics and Rescue Services

Tom as Albert: Hopper portrays Albert Wesker, a researcher for the nefarious Umbrella Corporation, who secretly believes humanity needs to become extinct

Avan and Neal: Jogia is playing counterterrorist agent Leon Kennedy, while McDonough plays William Birkin, a virologist who turns against the Umbrella Corporation but could but Raccoon City in even greater danger by doing so

'With this movie, I really wanted to go back to the original first two games and create the terrifying visceral experience I had when I first played them whilst at the same time, telling a grounded human story about a small dying American town that feel both relatable and relevant to todays audiences,' Roberts said in a statement.

The video game series started in 1996 for the original Playstation, with the franchise selling over 103 million units worldwide as of this summer.

John-Kamen is coming off the new series Brave New World, while Hopper stars in The Umbrella Academy and Jogia is coming off The Stranger.

Roles: John-Kamen is coming off the new series Brave New World, while Hopper stars in The Umbrella Academy and Jogia is coming off The Stranger

Constantin Film, which produced the original movie franchise, will produce the reboot, with Sony Pictures' Screen Gems division planning on releasing the film sometime in 2021, though no production schedule was revealed.

Scodelario is no stranger to big-budget action franchises, coming off 20th Century Fox's The Maze Runner trilogy, and she most recently starred in Crawl.

Amell recently starred in the Amazon Prime series Upload, and the Netflix movie The Babysitter: Killer Queen.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. In an interview with TIME magazine, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan answered questions related to the ongoing hostilities unleashed by Azerbaijan all along Nagorno-Karabakhs borders and the deployment of terrorist groups to the region by Turkey, the PMs Office told Armenpress.

Below is the article about the interview: In an interview with TIME, Armenias Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan doubled down on accusations that Turkey is already intervening militarily on behalf of Azerbaijan, claiming President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to extend his influence in the region.

Armenia and Karabakh have now become a civilizational front line, Pashinyan told TIME by phone on Oct. 2, accusing Erdogan of sending between 1,5002,000 Syrian terrorists to the region in support of Azerbaijan.

In concert with Turkeys military incursions into Syria and Libya and its volatile maritime standoff in the East Mediterranean, Pashinyan claimed: Turkeys action is nothing short of action aimed at reinstating the Ottoman Empire.

Asked whether his actions in the run-up to the conflict were provocative, Pahsinyan told TIME that when he came to power he made a historic call for a solution that met the needs of Azerbaijanis as well as Armenians. His subsequent statements came only in response to Aliyevs reiteration of Azerbaijans maximalist position, he said.

Pashinyan said Armenias conditions for a ceasefire are Turkey discontinuing its engagement and the withdrawal of mercenaries and terrorists or their elimination. He claimed that mercenaries were harassing Azerbaijani villages, demanding the implementation of shariah law, and ransacking shops selling alcohol.

Pashinyan estimated that some 1,5002,000 terrorists were present in Azerbaijan.


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People make their way across the Peace Bridge in Londonderry (Brian Lawless/PA)

A high-speed rail service could run from Cork to Londonderry, ministers said.

Nichola Mallon in Northern Ireland and Eamon Ryan in the Republic have agreed to progress a feasibility study.

The route would consider connectivity from Londonderry-Belfast-Dublin-Limerick-Cork.

Stormont Minister for Infrastructure Ms Mallon said: Improving connectivity across our island is key in delivering better opportunities for communities, greening our infrastructure and enhancing our island-wide economy.

I am delighted that Minister Ryan and I both share a passion for enhancing our island rail network and that we are committed to working together to achieve transformative projects that serve all of our communities.

This study will be one of the most significant reviews of the rail network on the island in many years Eamon Ryan

It was a commitment in the New Decade, New Approach which restored Stormont powersharing this year.

Transport Minister Mr Ryan said: While the Belfast-Dublin-Limerick Junction-Cork line is recognised as the spine of rail connectivity on the island, we need to ensure that any review of speed considers the wider network and in particular connectivity to the North-West.

This study will be one of the most significant reviews of the rail network on the island in many years and will provide a framework to develop a much-improved rail network in the years ahead.
Dr Jeff Drew holds samples of a potential oral vaccine for COVID-19 being tested in the Stabilitech laboratory in Burgess Hill, West Sussex. (Getty)

People will have to learn to live with coronavirus because a pandemic-ending vaccine is quite a way away, the first minister of Wales has warned.

As the world races to come up with a vaccine to stop the pandemic, Mark Drakeford said the public will have to live with restrictions for quite a while yet and suggested the first immunisations may only protect a person for a matter of weeks.

He made his comments during a Welsh government online Q&A session with members of the public on Tuesday.

Drakeford said: The early vaccines will be vaccines that will give you some protection for a relatively short period of time. Months, sometimes maybe weeks, and then youll have to have it again.

First minister of Wales Mark Drakeford said the public must learn to live with coronavirus restrictions. (AP)

The sort of vaccine that really will put an end to coronavirus is quite a way away, I think. So weve got to learn to live with it.

Urging people to not get carried away by what government ministers say about a potential vaccine, Drakeford added: There is an enormous amount of work going on to create a vaccine.

"But I dont think the first vaccines we will see will be the sort of vaccine we are used to.

Drakefords comments come as Russia claims to have the worlds first coronavirus vaccine, which it has already sold to India.

Watch: How is coronavirus treated?

Russias vaccine, dubbed Sputnik V, was announced by president Vladimir Putin in August, who said his daughter had already taken it.

However, scientists around the world have been sceptical of the countrys claims, saying not enough tests had been done and that it was highly unlikely the vaccine was safe.

With coronavirus cases rising across England, government advisers have argued that a second national lockdown is needed to curb the spread.

Professor John Edmunds, who sits on the governments Sage committee, said the government should enforce stringent measures immediately.

First minister Drakeford said it was more likely to be the pattern for a while yet that measures will have to be repeatedly reintroduced across the UK in order to stay on top of transmission rates.

Story continues

Vaccines will come, and they will begin to make a difference, but its not going to be a miracle, he said.

And its not going to be a get-out-of-jail-free card, as I sometimes think other people like to imply.

A coronavirus sign outside Queen's University in Belfast. (Getty)

Figures released on Tuesday showed there were 478 new hospital admissions in England on Sunday  more than 25% higher than the 386 admitted on Saturday, and the highest daily figure since 3 June, when there were 491.

Daily figures showed there had been 14,542 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK, as of 9am on Tuesday.

These have trebled in a fortnight  on 22 September, there were 4,926 cases recorded.

The government said a further 76 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for COVID-19 as of Tuesday.

Watch: Are coronavirus antibody tests the way back to normality?

Coronavirus: what happened today

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T he EU has told Boris Johnson that it is time for the UK to put its cards on the table in post-Brexit trade negotiations.

The plea came from European Council President Charles Michel after he spoke with the Prime Minister on Wednesday.

Both sides agreed that significant areas of difference remain in trade talks, and Downing Street said Mr Johnson told Mr Michel that businesses and citizens needed certainty very soon.

The Prime Minister has set a deadline of October 15 if a deal is going to be in place by December 31, when the transition period in which the UK remains in the single market ends.

Michel Barnier and David Frost will meet in London on Tuesday to resume Brexit talks / AP

Formal talks have come to a close but informal discussions are under way this week in London.

After talking to the Prime Minister, Mr Michel tweeted: The EU prefers a deal, but not at any cost.

Time for the UK to put its cards on the table.

No 10 said Mr Johnson reiterated that the UK would be prepared to leave at the end of the transition period without a trade deal, but accepted brokering one would be better for both sides and that talks should intensify.

Although some progress had been made in recent discussions, they acknowledged that significant areas of difference remain, particularly on fisheries, a statement read.

Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Layen / AFP via Getty Images

The Prime Minister reiterated that any deal must reflect what the British people voted for and that businesses and citizens needed certainty very soon on the terms of our future relationship.

Earlier in the day, the UKs chief negotiator, Lord Frost, told the Lords EU Committee that a trade deal with the EU remained some way away.

He welcomed quite good progress in recent weeks and said that in many areas, the landing zone in the nature of the agreement is pretty clear if not exactly pinned down yet.

But he said progress was needed in areas with big gaps remaining, such as fisheries and the level playing field, which continued to be pretty wide.

Lord Frost said: I feel we are some way from a deal at the moment, if Im honest, but we are at least having a decent discussion on this and whats possible and isnt possible.

He was pressed on whether October 15 remained a hard deadline.

As we approach the 15th, and it is very close already, I will have to advise the Prime Minister on whether the conditions in his statement have been met or not and we will have to consider the situation at that point, Lord Frost said.

But he insisted that our door would never be closed and said even if a free trade deal could not be reached, talks could continue later this year on practical matters.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove, who also appeared before the committee, said time is running out to get ready for the end of the transition period and that preparations were intensifying as we speak.
Violent white supremacists pose the 'most persistent and lethal threat' to the United States, the Department of Homeland Security warned in its annual threat assessment.

The report released Tuesday said that since 2018, white supremacists have executed more deadly attacks on US soil than any other domestic extremist movement.

The DHS described 2019 as the deadliest year for incidents of domestic extremism in 25 years - noting that white supremacists were responsible for the vast majority of people killed in those incidents.

'As Secretary, I am concerned about any form of violent extremism,' acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf wrote in the report.

'However, I am particularly concerned about white supremacist violent extremists who have been exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent, targeted attacks in recent years.'

White supremacy was one of a number of threats outlined by the DHS in its 26-page 'Homeland Threat Assessment', which also included warnings about foreign threats to US election security and natural disasters.

Violent white supremacists pose the 'most persistent and lethal threat' to the United States, the Department of Homeland Security warned in its annual threat assessment. The report included the chart above which shows how white supremacist extremists (WSEs) were responsible for the majority of deaths in domestic terrorism incidents in 2018-2019 - trailed by homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) and all other domestic violent extremists (DVEs)

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf (pictured) wrote in the report: 'As Secretary, I am concerned about any form of violent extremism. However, I am particularly concerned about white supremacist violent extremists who have been exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent, targeted attacks in recent years'

The assessment, released less than a month before the election, was the subject of a recent whistleblower complaint from the former head of the DHS intelligence division, Brian Murphy, who claimed last month that it was being withheld in an effort to bolster President Donald Trump's re-election prospects.

In his complaint, Murphy accused the DHS of delaying the release of the assessment and directing analysts to downplay the threats of white supremacy and Russian election interference to remain in line with Trump.

The final report didn't hold back on those two topics - identifying both as the top threats in their respective categories of violent extremism and foreign influence activity in the US.

White supremacy was thrust to the forefront of last week's first presidential debate when Trump refused to condemn white supremacists - instead telling the far-right Proud Boys to 'stand back and stand by'.

Amid fevered outrage over his comments, the president changed his tune days later, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity: 'I condemn the KKK, I condemn all White supremacists, I condemn the Proud Boys.'

The DHS assessment did not name specific extreme white supremacist groups or highlight specific domestic terror incidents conducted by white supremacists.

It said that white supremacists have demonstrated a 'longstanding intent' to target racial and religious minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, politicians and those they believe promote multi-culturalism and globalization.

The DHS also warned that some violent extremists 'have capitalized on increased social and political tensions in 2020, which will drive an elevated threat environment at least through early 2021'.

'Violent extremists will continue to target individuals or institutions that represent symbols of their grievances, as well as grievances based on political affiliation or perceived policy positions,' the report states.

White supremacy was thrust to the forefront of last week's first presidential debate when Trump refused to condemn white supremacists - instead telling the far-right Proud Boys to 'stand back and stand by'

A Proud Boys member flashes a 'white power' sign during an 'End Domestic Terrorism' protest in Portland, Oregon, on August 17

In another section of the report, the DHS stepped up warnings about foreign threats to US election security, affirming other agencies' concerns regarding Russian interference in particular.

'Russia is the likely primary covert influence actor and purveyor of disinformation and misinformation within the Homeland,' the report states.

The DHS said it assessed that 'Moscow's primary objective is to increase its global standing and influence by weakening America - domestically and abroad - through efforts to sow discord, distract, shape public sentiment, and undermine trust in Western democratic institutions and processes'.

The report echoed an August assessment by US counterintelligence chief William Evanina regarding Russia's determination to undermine Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

'Russia uses divisive measures to disrupt the electoral process - including denigrating former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia "establishment" - as part of a broader effort to divide and destabilize America,' officials wrote.

The report also warned of possible US election interference by China and Iran through the countries' apparent efforts to spread misinformation about COVID-19.
The new Casetify and USPS phone accessories collection hits the mail on the head!

Lifestyle brand Casetify just launched a new collaboration with the United States Postal Service.

The USPS x Casetify collection includes eight exclusive designs paying homage to the USPS.

PHOTO: The debut USPS x CASETiFY collection introduces 8 designs, including signature CASETiFY products like the Impact Case, Ultra Impact Case, and special edition Essential Case. (USPS x CASETiFY)

The full collection includes iPhone and AirPods cases, Apple Watch bands, 2-in-1 grip stands and a cozy sweatshirt.

MORE: Upgrade your work from home style with these stylish picks.

Every purchase from the collection directly supports the United States Postal Service.

"Inspired by the Postal Service that delivers every day, this collection is our own love letter to USPS employees for always comin' through when we need them most," Casetify writes on their website.

MORE: Disney princess wigs line launch in time for Halloween.

The full collection starts at $25 and is available now on casetify.com.

United States Postal Service releases stylish new collection with Casetify originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Navy will add more than 50 vessels, including 20 major ships, to its fleet as part of an ambitious modernisation plan to improve its capabilities, the country's outgoing Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) said on Wednesday.

Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi said in his farewell address that the Navy will induct four Chinese frigates in the next few years and as many Turkish medium-class ships between 2023 and 2025.

He said the Hangor submarine project, which is being carried out in collaboration with China, was progressing according to the plan, and four submarines were being built each in Pakistan and China.

"This project will transform us from a submarine-operating Navy to a submarine-building one," Abbasi was quoted as saying by the state-run Radio Pakistan.

A fleet of more than 50 vessels, including 20 major ships, was envisioned to improve the capabilities of the Navy, the report quoted him as saying.

Abbasi formally handed over the command of the Pakistan Navy to the new naval chief Admiral Amjad Khan Niazi who assumed charge as the country's 22nd CNS on Wednesday.

A ceremony held for the change of command was held at PNS Zafar in Islamabad, the Pakistan Navy said in a statement.

Admiral Abbasi said his primary focus had been on transforming the Pakistan Navy into a combat-ready force, with special emphasis on optimum battle preparedness and professional competence.

According to the Pakistan Navy, Admiral Niazi was commissioned in the Operations Branch of Pakistan Navy in 1985 and has served on various command and staff posts.

His previous staff appointments include principal secretary to the chief of the naval staff, head of F-22P Mission China, deputy chief of naval staff (training and evaluation), and director-general of naval intelligence.

A graduate of Army Command and Staff College, Quetta, and National Defence University, Islamabad, Niazi holds a master's degree in Underwater Acoustics from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China.
Principal Fazel Rahim says the 1,700 students in grades 1-6 at his Allah Gul Mujahid primary school just east of the Afghan capital have no proper classrooms, safe drinking water or sanitary restrooms.

Rahim says there are only six teachers at the school and several classes must be combined to be taught by a single teacher.

He has been unable to get the attention of the Ministry of Education or others in the Kabul-based government, despite almost six years of attempting to provide classrooms, well-trained teachers, enough textbooks and other necessities for a proper learning environment for his students.

They study in open area," he told The Associated Press.

We don't have enough tents to provide them with a proper place to study, but still with all these difficulties we are trying to provide them some opportunity to learn something.

The World Bank said this week that nearly half of war-torn Afghanistan's 18,000 schools lack proper buildings and an estimated 3.7 million school-aged children are still out of school  despite massive investment in the country's education sector.

The report comes as representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban hold intra-Afghan peace negotiations in Qatar.

The negotiations are meant to end the country's decades-long long war and map out Afghanistan's future after a US-Taliban peace deal signed in February.

Also read: Afghan president urges Taliban to 'have courage' and silence guns

Henry Kerali, the World Bank's country director for Afghanistan, said in a blog that despite the challenges in the war-ravaged country, the quality of education has improved:

The number of children enrolled in schools increased from 3.8 million in 2003 to 6.3 million in 2017, he said.

Kerali said 3.7 million Afghan children still do not attend and almost half of Afghanistan's primary, secondary and high schools have no proper buildings, with some schools using structures with no roof.

This is despite heavy international investments in the country's education sector since the collapse of the Taliban 19 years ago.

Nooria Nazhat, a spokeswoman for the Afghan Education Ministry, said that of the 3.7 million children who do not attend school, 60 per cent are girls.

She said the reasons for Afghan kids not attending include the war, poverty and conservative traditional beliefs. Nazhat said 46 per cent of schools are without proper buildings.

"Right now, construction work on 2,700 school buildings is underway, but our target is for 6,000 new buildings for schools, she said.
HALIFAXA Halifax police officer has been charged with assault over the violent arrest of a Black teenager at a shopping mall  one of two high-profile incidents early this year that brought the municipal police forces treatment of Black residents under renewed scrutiny.

The charge against Const. Mark Pierce comes after an investigation by Nova Scotias police watchdog into the arrest, in which the 15-year-old boy suffered a concussion, cuts and bruises to his eye, fingers and around his wrists.

Pierce was one of two officers involved in the February arrest at the Sunnyside Mall in Bedford, N.S.

The police watchdog, the Serious Incident Response Team (SiRT), is responsible for investigating all serious incidents involving police in Nova Scotia.

Meanwhile, the watchdog also said Wednesday it had determined that a police officer would not face any charges in a separate, Jan. 15 incident in which a 23-year-old Black woman was forcibly arrested in a Halifax Walmart for disturbing the peace.

Santina Rao, who was shopping with her two children  one of whom was in a stroller  when she was confronted by police in the store on suspicions of shoplifting. In the ensuing altercation, she was wrestled to the ground by two officers and a security guard, suffering a fractured wrist, a black eye and other injuries. The SiRT investigation concluded that police officers did not use excessive force, and that there were no grounds for either of the officers to be charged.

In the Feb. 22 incident at the shopping mall, the teen recorded his own arrest. That video was later posted online.

The SiRT investigation report said the incident began when a security officer at the mall called police after telling the teen and a friend to leave.

The teen and his friend left and went to the nearby Bedford Place Mall, said the SiRT report, where they were confronted by responding police, who told them that Sunnyside Mall security did not want them to return.

According to the report, one police officer held up his handcuffs and said words to the effect that, if the teen did not change his attitude, he would end up in handcuffs.

The teen followed the officers out of the mall and began filming.

The beginning of the clip shows the teen talking to police officers. At one point he says to police, I can go outside if I want to. One officer responds, Youll get arrested.

Really, for what? says the teen. For speaking my mouth? For speaking?

Police begin to walk toward him, and he says, Dont you touch me, as one officer reaches out to him. At that point, the camera is jostled and then goes black as the officer says, Youre under arrest.

Sounds of scuffling are heard as the teen again says, Dont you touch me.

Youre under arrest. Dont move, says an officer.

The Halifax police officer, Pierce, is due to appear in Halifax provincial court Nov. 17 on the assault charge.

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Six years after the Islamic State beheaded American journalists and aid workers on camera, two men have been charged in U.S. federal court for involvement in those deaths.

The case against Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh in Alexandria, Va., is the first use of the American justice system to seek to hold Islamic State fighters accountable for the murder of U.S. citizens.

"Although we cannot bring them back, we can and will seek justice for them, their families, and for all Americans," Attorney General William Barr said in a statement.

He and other law enforcement officials described the charges as a warning to both U.S. citizens who join terrorist groups and foreign fighters who harm Americans that they cannot escape prosecution.

"If you have American blood in your veins or American blood on your hands, you will face American justice," said assistant attorney general for national security John Demers at a news conference Wednesday.

Elsheikh and Kotey were flown Wednesday to the United States from Iraq, where they had been held by the U.S. military for the past year.

Kotey was born in London; Elsheikh moved there from Sudan with his family as a child. Both became radicalized in Britain, and prosecutors noted they were arrested on Sept. 11, 2001, after taking part in a demonstration cheering the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

In 2012, both traveled to Syria to join Islamist militant groups. By that fall, according to prosecutors, they were torturing hostages for the Islamic State. Prisoners say they were waterboarded, beaten, subjected to electric shocks and made to fight each other, among other torments.

In interviews with The Washington Post and other news outlets, Elsheikh and Kotey admitted joining the Islamic State and taking information from hostages for ransom negotiations. They said they engaged with Americans James Foley, Kayla Mueller, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig and other Western prisoners who were subsequently killed. But they claimed to have no involvement in or advance knowledge of those executions.

The indictment says they were directly involved in torture and killings. According to prosecutors, when another man, Mohammed Emwazi, executed a Syrian prisoner, Elsheikh videotaped the slaying in front of a group of European hostages while Kotey instructed them to kneel and hold handmade signs pleading for release. After bringing the group back to an Islamic State-run prison in Syria, according to prosecutors, Elsheikh told one hostage, "You're next."

The indictment also says the two worked closely with Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, a top strategist and chief spokesperson for the Islamic State until his death in 2016.

Emwazi, who wielded the knife in infamous Islamic State videos, was killed in a drone strike in 2015. Like Kotey and Elsheikh, Emwazi - better known as "Jihadi John" - was raised in West London. Together with a fourth Londoner, Aine Davis, the group became known by their captives as "the Beatles" because of their British accents.

Kotey and Elsheikh were captured in Syria by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in 2018; Davis is imprisoned in Turkey. The U.S. military took custody of the two defendants from its Kurdish allies after Turkey invaded northern Syria.

The men will be prosecuted in federal court in Alexandria and are charged with hostage-taking resulting in death, conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens outside the United States, conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and related conspiracy charges. If convicted, they could face up to life in prison.

The defendants and their families fought for a prosecution in Britain rather than the United States, where criminal punishment is harsher. But Britain stripped Kotey and Elsheikh of their British citizenship and expressed reservations about a prosecution there. A court in London last month cleared the way for British authorities to provide evidence to U.S. law enforcement after Barr agreed not to seek the death penalty in exchange.

Demers said the British evidence allowed prosecutors to tell "the fullest story we could about what these defendants did." Asked whether the decision to rule out a death sentence was made to appease the British, officials said they were considering the wishes of the victims' families.

In a statement Wednesday by a foundation created in Foley's honor, the families thanked British and U.S. authorities for their work. "James, Peter, Kayla and Steven were kidnapped, tortured, beaten, starved, and murdered by members of the Islamic State in Syria," they said. "Now our families can pursue accountability for these crimes against our children in a U.S. court."

The bodies of the slain hostages have never been found; the circumstances of Mueller's death remain unclear. Their families said in an editorial this year that they hope a prosecution will reveal "the full truth" of what happened to their children.

Nicholas Lewin, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan who successful tried a number of senior al-Qaida figures, said the indictment reflects a playbook used successfully in the years after 9/11: identify overseas operatives, bring them to the United States, and charge them with, among other things, conspiracy to kill Americans and material support. "This was the al-Qaida prosecution game plan," he said, "and now we're using it against ISIS."
The economic offences wing (EOW) of the Madhya Pradesh government initiated an inquiry on Tuesday into an alleged multi-crore rupee scam involving officers of the horticulture and food processing department in the purchase of agriculture implements under the Mechanisation Scheme of the central government in past eight years, an official said Wednesday.

Deputy director level officers of the horticulture and food processing department allegedly not only cleared the bills related to purchase of sub-standard machines at much higher rate than the market rate but also transferred the amount of grant to dealers of implements instead of depositing the same in the beneficiary farmers bank accounts through direct benefit transfer (DBT), said an official who didnt wish to be named.

Under a scheme launched in 2013, the farmers get 50% subsidy in purchase of agricultural implements from the state and central governments.

Inspector, EOW, Pankaj Gautam, who is investigating the case, said, We have asked for details of the scheme, names of beneficiary farmers, amount transferred to their bank accounts and details of implements purchased in the past eight years. Similarly, we have sought details how the department procures the implement and hands over the same to farmers.

We will probe the scam which the complainant has alleged to be of 100 crore in the entire period since the scheme was launched. However, the amount of scam can be ascertained during the investigation, said Gautam.

A farmer Mukesh Patidar, of Richala Munha village of Mandsaur district, lodged a complaint with the horticulture department in August saying that it provided power tillers to farmers under the Farm Mechanisation Scheme without following the rules.

Instead of transferring the 50% subsidy in the farmers account by giving them a freedom of purchasing implements of their choice, the departments officers transferred the amount directly to unauthorized dealers. The department handed over China-made machines in the name of power tillers to the farmers, which dont meet any specification which a power tiller should have, Patidar said.

Patidar said the department purchased machines for 40,000 to 100000 or more and thus the scam in the past eight years or so was of more than 100 crores.

After his complaint, the horticulture department formed a four-member committee headed by Shrikanth Bhanot, managing director, MP Agro Industries Development Corporation Limited, to probe the matter for the year 2019-20.

The committee submitted the report on September 8 this year and also wrote to EOW to probe the matter as irregularities were found on many aspects, said an officer of the department.

The report said that about 9 crore was transferred as subsidy in the account of 24 firms against the purchase of 1774 machines.

The machines, which had been given to farmers as power tillers, are not authorized model and dont meet the specification set by the Central government for a power tiller. The horticulture department doesnt have any clear rules and regulations for procurement of machines, specification of the machines, transferring process of machines to farmers and registration of dealers. Most of the money was given in cash which led to irregularities in purchase, reads the report.

The committee recommended stopping payments against all pending bills and proposals and taking strict action against the officers involved in it.

Horticulture department commissioner Pushkar Singh said, The committee probed the purchase that took place in only one year. Now, we are going to share with EOW all the details.

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An air passenger has been caught on camera lifting his foot to a fellow traveller's face telling her to sniff his sock during an argument on a plane in China.

Footage released by Chinese media shows the man shoving one of his feet under the woman's nose after she told him not to take off his shoes and sit with his legs crossed on his seat.

He said to the woman 'here you go, smell' on the domestic flight by Sichuan Airlines, according to a report.

A Chinese air passenger has sparked public uproar after being caught on camera thrusting his foot to a fellow traveller's face and saying 'here you go, smell'. He has apologised, a report said

The man, who remains unidentified, has reportedly apologised to the woman after the clip caused an outcry on social media.

According to Mianyang Daily, which released the video yesterday, the incident took place on Sichuan Airlines flight number 3U8669 on September 5.

The Airbus A320 took off from the southern Chinese city of Kunming at 7:20am, bound for Chengdu in south-western China.

The clip, believed to be taken by the woman, starts by showing the man with both of his legs on his seat.

He appears to be filming the woman as she demands he stop sticking his feet towards her.

The man, who wears a face mask, then begins to speak towards his phone as he seemingly records the altercation. He says the woman 'wants to smell my socks'.

The incident reportedly took place on Sichuan Airlines flight number 3U8669 on September 5

The footage then shows him thrusting his right foot into the woman's face while saying 'here you go, smell'.

The clip cuts off when the man tries to call a flight attendant as the woman continues criticising him.

Hundreds of thousands of people have left comments to condemn the male passenger. The video has attracted more than one million 'likes' on Douyin, the Chinese version of Tik-Tok.

One person wrote: 'Lucky that he hadn't met me. Otherwise, I would teach him how to be a man.'

Another viewer denounced: 'This kind of people deserves to be beaten.'

A third commenter urged: 'Call the police.'

Hundreds of thousands of people have left comments to condemn the male passenger. The video has attracted more than one million 'likes' on Douyin, the Chinese version of Tik-Tok

According to a follow-up report by Mianyang Daily, the man has apologised to the woman and expressed his regret at his behaviour.

He said he had recognised his mistake and asked the woman to forgive him, according to the news outlet.

The Chinese government has grown concerned about the negative impact on the nation's image stemming from numerous incidents of bad behaviour by Chinese tourists at home and abroad, ranging from fighting with aircrews to defacing cultural artefacts.

In 2016, China released a definitive list of acts that blacklist tourists and ban people from travelling as part of the 'uncivilised behaviour law'.

Some of the regulations included interference with public transport facilities including planes, buses and boat; damaging public facilities and public environment, and offending local customs or way of life.
Wyoming environmental regulators effectively blocked an energy companys request to discharge higher volumes of produced water from a controversial oil and gas project proposed for the Moneta Divide on Friday.

Aethon Energy Operating LLC proposed to install over 4,000 new wells throughout a checkerboard of private, state and federal land about 40 miles east of Riverton. In its effort to increase drilling at the site, the energy company also asked for approval from the state to dispose more water, and therefore more pollutants.

But the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality ultimately chose to essentially retain the previous discharge water flow and pollutant load limits in the permit renewed on Friday, due to the lack of a functioning water treatment unit at the site.

The final permit effectively blocks the companys plan to release higher volumes of waste water if it expands operations at the Moneta Divide. The Department of Environmental Qualitys stipulations will limit the amount of waste water the facility can effectively discard in the Alkali Creek to around 2 million gallons per day, to keep pollutant and salt loads under control.

To protect nearby water resources, it will also impose routine water sampling and monitoring, among other requirements to prevent pollutants, like Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene and Xylene, or maintenance chemicals and hydraulic fracturing fluids, from contaminating nearby waterways. The discharged waters salt load can also not exceed 908 tons per month.

Despite the restrictions, Aethon Energy still has other options for pitching its produced water. It can still explore the possibility of underground injection, evaporation pits or land application.

Aethon Energy has already been discarding produced water into Alkali Creek, which is a tributary of Badwater Creek. The creek is about 40 miles upstream from Boysen Reservoir on the Wind River. Given the proximity to multiple waterways, the companys initial request to expand operations and dump more water was met with widespread protest from conservationists and nearby landowners. Many feared the contaminants in the briny water would pollute the creeks or eventually flow into the reservoir.

A letter, obtained by conservation groups through a public records request, revealed the company violated its existing permit by contaminating the nearby Alkali and Badwater creeks. The Department of Environmental Quality found black sediment deposits, foam and oil accumulation in the creeks, according to the Dec. 17 letter.

When produced water bubbles up to the surface with oil, its brackish and no longer clean. Its loaded with salts, minerals and metals, not to mention highly insoluble man-made chemicals needed for fracking. (The minerals and metals build up over years and years in underground formations.)

Some groups have called for the full rejection of the permit renewal request because of these outstanding violations. Though it acknowledged these violations had occurred, the Department of Environmental Quality maintained that the outstanding violations did not prohibit the permit from renewed.

The permittee is working in good faith with (Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality) to correct outstanding water quality issues, and the permittee has substantially complied with all terms and conditions of the expiring permit, the agency stated. The companies have four years to issue corrective measures and bring chloride levels from the facilitys outfalls into compliance with the states chloride standard.

The Powder River Basin Resource Council, a landowners group, is still reviewing the final permit issued by environmental regulators Friday. But Jill Morrison, the groups executive director, said she still has concerns about potential threats to fresh water resources, not to mention the companys past violations.

We do not want to pollute our fresh waters, Morrison said. Oil and gas needs to clean up their produced water and not contaminate fresh water. We cannot afford that.

Deterrent to drilling

When the state issued its draft permit for the company back in January, some residents criticized environmental regulators decision to impose these additional restrictions on the oil and gas company, noting it stifled economic activity for local communities. The company had initially planned an ambitious expansion. The project would produce 254 million barrels of oil and over 18 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over the projects estimated 65-year lifespan.

Others said the limits placed on pollutant levels, including chemicals like chloride or sulfide, were too restrictive and unnecessary. The conditions could lead the oil and gas firm to determine additional development at the site was not worthwhile and halt the project. Other landowners in the area welcomed the repurposing of discharged water for livestock and agricultural purposes.

The Department of Environmental Quality responded to the comments, justifying its decision to impose restrictions on the quality of the discharged water.

The intent of this permit is not to restrict drilling, but to prevent adverse water quality impacts to the receiving waters, the agency stated. Surface discharge is one water management option for this facility. In addition, the operator can pursue underground injection, evaporation pits, and/or land application of the produced water.

Overall, the conditions in the permit reflect necessary updates to address instream water quality standards of the receiving waters, it added.

The final state permit comes just months after the Bureau of Land Management finished its environmental review of the closely watched Moneta Divide project. Though the company now has both federal and state approval to pursue the Moneta Divide oil and gas project, questions remain over the next steps.

Oil and gas markets have dramatically changed since the project was initially proposed in 2012. Many oil and gas operators, including Aethon Energy, have laid off workers this year. The states low rig count has barely budged for months.

Though the company told the Star-Tribune in August it did not anticipate moving ahead with the project anytime soon, the developer declined to provide any additional details on Tuesday.

Aethon Energy is evaluating the new permit requirements and is committed to working with the (Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality) to meet these for the continued protection of the environment, a spokeswoman for the company said.

Follow the latest on Wyomings energy industry @camillereports

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Fine arts students at schools in the Beaumont Independent School District now will be the beneficiaries of star power, as the district partners with the 2020 Grammy-award winning educator of the year Mickey Smith Jr. to provide professional development and ongoing support.

The Louisiana-born music educator, who has been nominated for the multiple Grammy awards and received one in 2020, will be assisting fine arts departments with professional development, mentoring and helping to build a culture of excellence.

He will be working with the district on various levels, Ray Lavan, BISD Director of Fine Arts, told The Enterprise. Everything from speaking to entire departments or campuses  all the way to mentoring teachers on a one-on-one basis.

Lavan has known Smith for many years, but the program is part of Sound 180, a program Smith founded to support music education across the country.

The calling goes back to his time in college.

I was the first of my family to go to college, and I was able to go to college on a music scholarship, Smith told The Enterprise.. It was during my time learning that I discovered what I call my sound  my unique personal significance.

In his role as a band director at Maplewood Middle School in Louisiana, and through the Sound 180 program, Smith said he hopes to help others find their sound.

Through his collaboration with districts, Smith said he is teaching teachers how to teach by design and not by default and ultimately helping educators  all teachers as a matter of fact  succeed over frustration and fatigue that they face in the classroom.

That message is particularly relevant in the age of the coronavirus, where teachers are facing new challenges in fine arts education and beyond, with as many as half of their students learning remotely and at home.

When COVID-19 hit our country, it opened the door for me to connect and collaborate with educators from over 35 states via Zoom, via in-person professional development and more, he said. Over the last few months, we have helped a number of educators and a countless number of students to have a heightened educational experience in their classrooms.

Beaumont ISD has made the investment amid increasing cuts to fine arts education across the country in recent years.

Lavan said investing in fine arts through partnerships like this, and another recently announced with the Symphony of Southeast Texas, are important.

Fine arts are extremely important to the overall bottom line, Lavan said. A student involved in fine arts programs is four time more likely to be recognized for academic achievement than their peers, Lavan said. Low socioeconomic students who participate in fine arts programs have a lower dropout rate than the national average, not to mention all the other data that shows how fine arts affect areas of the brain and boost intelligence (and) memory recall.

Smith went a step further.

On a very broad spectrum ... I believe the measure of a society is uniquely shown by the value it gives to the fine arts, he said. And I say that because enrichment classes arent just electives. They are essential elements because they allow these young people to take those academics, those core curriculum classes and put them and shape them in such a way that they become less abstract, that they become something that's more viable, something that they can understand.

One of the biggest challenges Lavan and Smith will face along with all educators across the nation is how to adapt curriculum to serve students both in-person and virtually.

Lavan said that already has begun, with the use of applications like Smart Music for band, Zoom calls and components of Google Classroom.

We want the students to be fully engaged in the lesson and learning, and staying abreast of everything and still being able to participate in the fine arts and express themselves, Lavan said. Any and every way we can try and reach the student, that is what we will do.

isaac.windes@hearstnp.com

twitter.com/isaacdwindes
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, and others should focus more on internet safety.

As per the Wall Street Journal, Nadella said that it would have applied some of Microsoft's experience in internet safety in Bytedance's short video platform, TikTok. "What needs to happen is real reform in social media where internet safety is a top consideration," Nadella was quoted by WSJ as saying. Microsoft recently lost out on a bid to acquire the US arm of TikTok as Bytedance entered into a partnership with Oracle.

Earlier this year, consumer-advocacy groups filed a case against TikTok for allegedly flouting a children's law and breaking a settlement agreement over allegations that it collected personal data of underage children. TikTok had agreed to pay a $5.7 million settlement with federal regulators over claims that it collected personal information of children.

Nadella in the interview said that Microsoft has experience in dealing with such content-related issues through its Xbox gaming platform. He said that Microsoft could have used its experiences.

"Regulation will never come fast enough to overcome some challenges," he told WSJ adding that "any product at scale with unintended consequences will face regulatory scrutiny."

US President Trump had signed an executive order against the Bytedance-owned short video platform and WeChat. He had granted TikTok only 90 days to sell its share to a US-based company or face a ban in the country. Trump had even refused to extend the deadline. The US President had called TikTok and WeChat a threat to "national security" in its executive order. Repeated threats by Trump was also the reason behind CEO Kevin Mayer's resignation only 100 days after joining the company.

However, Trump soon agreed to the Oracle-Bytedance deal and gave it a thumbs up. He called the deal "fantastic" and also said that he has given his "blessing" to it."If they get it done, that's great, if they don't, that's OK too," Trump was quoted as saying.
~ I will fight to protect the peoples patrimony.~

PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of VROMI Egbert Jurendy Doran announced at the weekly press briefings that the government of St. Maarten has officially denied the Alegria Real Estate their request for water rights. Doran said that he has a duty as an elected member of the government to protect the peoples patrimony. He said his decision was also based on comments made by the Nature Foundation and several advises both internal and external compounded with the fact that visitors to the island use the area to watch aircrafts landing and taking off. Doran said the government has a duty to protect all beaches and as such he is obligated to protect the Maho Beach. The made clear that he cannot stand alongside his colleague's Ministers that are fighting to protect the countrys autonomy while giving away the people's patrimony.

Doran said that on October 6th the matter of Alegria was dealt with for the first time. The Minister of Housing and Spatial planning further explained that the decision of the courts will not prohibit him from executing his duties.

Doran said the government is of the opinion that the Alegria Real Estate approached the wrong court when they filed an injunction to force government to make a decision on their request. He further explained that the government is of the opinion that the matter had to be handled in the Administrative Courts since it have to do administrative procedures.

The Minister further stated that the Secretary-General of the Ministry of VROMI and the attorneys representing government had no rights agree to any settlement based on a draft decision.

It should be noted that the Minister has since suspended the Secretary-General due to the Alegria saga.

On Tuesday, October 6th, 2020, the Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure (VROMI), the Honorable Egbert J. Doran, denied the request of Alegria Real Estate N.V. (hereafter: Alegria) for rights to a water parcel.

Minister Doran stated that as basis for Alegrias request for rights to a water parcel, Alegria desired to develop their project by expanding on the parcels of land previously allotted with said additional water parcel.

While the Minister can understand Alegrias wish to have the requested water parcel granted to them, he made the decision that was best for Country Sint Maarten based on advices from the experts at the Ministry of VROMI as well as external advice and comments, including those made by Nature Foundation.

The Minister stated that his decision on the request of Alegria is an administrative one. Country Sint Maarten has stated in the previous injunction case filed by Alegria that it is of the opinion that Alegria presented an administrative matter to the wrong court by filing a civil injunction case.

This matter is still in appeal as well as a request pending to suspend the working of the injunction case of September 4th, 2020.

The decision given by the injunction judge is a temporary one based on Alegrias position that Country Sint Maarten agreed with a draft decision to grant them the requested rights to a water parcel. From the judges decision, it is clear that neither the Secretary-General of the Ministry of VROMI nor the previous attorney representing the Government was authorized to entertain or agree to any settlement agreement on the said draft decision.

Minister Doran informed that the decision of the injunction judge in the civil matter does not deter from his administrative right to make a decision on a pending request as was filed by Algeria for said rights to a water parcel.

The reasons behind the decision to deny the request have been communicated in the meantime to Alegria.

Residents and tourists enjoy watching planes land at Maho Beach. It is one of our main attractions. It is therefore important to safeguard Maho Beach and all other beaches for that matter.

The Minister stated that if it is indicated that there might be potential damage to our beaches or our environment, he will go all out to avoid it. He expressed that being a representative of the people of Sint Maarten and the Minister of VROMI, it is his duty to weigh everything out before making a decision.

This request would have been issued for 60 years. The Minister stated that he cannot afford to allow this potential wrong to happen because it would be something that he definitely will not be able to correct in his lifetime. By then the damage would already be done.

However, the Minister will continue to fight in the best interest of the people of Sint Maarten, as he was elected and eventually appointed to this position to do so.

I will not be fighting alongside my colleagues to protect our autonomy with one hand and give away our patrimony with the other, said the Minister.
FRO - Transition of Chief Executive Officer

Frontline Ltd. (the "Company" or "Frontline") (NYSE: FRO) today announced that Robert Hvide Macleod, Chief Executive Officer of Frontline Management AS, has decided to step down from his position. The Board has appointed Lars H. Barstad, Frontline's Commercial Director, to take the role as Interim Chief Executive Officer of Frontline Management AS. With his solid background within the industry and his profound understanding of the Company and its organization the board is confident that this new appointment will ensure a successful and seamless transition of the role. Mr. Macleod will be available for the company till April 30th, 2021.

"I would like to thank Robert for his contribution to Frontline. He has led the Company through a period of significant fleet growth and renewal," said John Fredriksen, Chairman of Frontline. I wish Robert continued success in his future endeavors."

"I have thoroughly enjoyed the last six years at Frontline, working with a great team through often volatile market conditions," said Mr. Macleod. "The organization is best-in-class, and Frontline's scale and presence in the tanker industry is unrivaled. I am grateful to the Board of Directors for the opportunity to lead the Company over the last six years and would like to express my sincere gratitude to my friends and colleagues who have contributed to Frontline's success during my tenure."

"I am grateful that the board has given me the trust to take the role as Interim CEO of Frontline after having served with the company for five years in various positions. It is exciting times ahead in the tanker market in which I will do my utmost to make sure that Frontline continue building shareholders value" said Lars H. Barstad.

October 6th, 2020

The Board of Directors

Frontline Ltd.

Hamilton, Bermuda

Questions should be directed to:

Lars H. Barstad: Interim Chief Executive Officer, Frontline Management AS

+47 23 11 40 37

Inger M. Klemp: Chief Financial Officer, Frontline Management AS

+47 23 11 40 76

About Frontline Ltd.

Frontline Ltd. (the "Company") is a world leader in the seaborne transportation of crude oil and refined products. The Company owns and operates a large, modern fleet of vessels within the VLCC, Suezmax and Aframax/LR2 segments and is one of the largest listed tanker companies by carrying capacity. Due to Frontline's brand, financial flexibility, and significant scale, it holds a unique position among its peers. Frontline is listed on both the New York and Oslo Stock Exchanges under the symbol "FRO."



Forward-Looking Statements

Matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts. Words, such as, but not limited to "believe," "anticipate," "intends," "estimate," "forecast," "project," "plan," "potential," "may," "should," "expect," "pending" and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions. Although Frontline believes that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies which are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond the control of Frontline, Frontline cannot assure you that they will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections. The information set forth herein speaks only as of the date hereof, and Frontline disclaims any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this communication.

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 23:49:51|Editor: huaxia

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DAR ES SALAAM, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania and Malawi on Wednesday agreed to foster economic cooperation in transport, fisheries, mining, tourism and agricultural sectors.

The agreement to promote economic cooperation between the two countries was made during talks between Tanzanian President John Magufuli and his Malawian counterpart Lazarus Chakwera in Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

The talks were held at the start of a three-day state visit to Tanzania by Malawian President Chakwera.

In a joint news conference, the two leaders expressed optimism that the two friendly neighbors stood a better chance of enhancing their countries' economic growth and improving the welfare of their people.

Magufuli said Malawi should not count itself as a landlocked country as Tanzania's leading port of Dar es Salaam was open for use anytime, as well as the Mtwara port in the south.

Magufuli directed the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communications and the Tanzania Revenue Authority to open offices in Malawi's city of Lilongwe in 60 days to ease transportation of Malawian freight to Tanzania's ports.

He said trade between the two countries has gone up from 60 million U.S. dollars in 2015 to over 80 million dollars in 2019.

For his part, the Malawian leader thanked Tanzania for availing his landlocked country two ports of Mtwara and Dar es Salaam.

President Chakwera supported President Magufuli's position toward implementation of flagship projects without depending on donor funding.

He said Malawi was also better placed to learn from how Tanzania has managed to control the smuggling of its minerals. Enditem
Mr. Andrews won a special election to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Rep. Hjalmar Nygaard (R) in 1963 and went on to serve eight more terms in the House before being elected to one term in the Senate in 1980.
Then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was clear in May 2018 that President Trump wanted to separate undocumented immigrant children from their parents in a conference call with the five U.S. attorneys whose states border Mexico, telling the officials, we need to take away children, according to a draft report by the Department of Justice inspector general, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

That statement contradicts an interview Sessions gave just one month later to the Christian Broadcasting Network, telling the outlet that the Trump administration never really intended to do that, referring to the administrations policy of separating undocumented immigrant children from their parents, who were being prosecuted under a zero-tolerance policy toward illegal immigration.

We need to take away children, Sessions told the U.S. attorneys on the May 2018 conference call, the Times reported, citing the notes of some of the people on the call.

The draft report, which is not public and contains preliminary findings, found that some of the U.S. attorneys pushed back, declining to prosecute two cases because the parents had infant children. But Rod Rosenstein, Sessions' deputy at the time, followed up with a second call to the prosecutors and said that they should have proceeded with the prosecutions.

But in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network in June 2018, Sessions said the Trump administration did not mean for the children to be separated from their parents, who were being prosecuted for entering the country illegally as part of the presidents zero-tolerance policy on illegal immigration.

We never really intended to do that," Sessions told CBN. What we intended was to make sure that adults who bring children into the country are charged with the crime that they have committed.

Michael Horowitz, the DOJs inspector general whose office produced the draft report, said in the preliminary findings that the administration believed the family separation policy would act as a deterrent for illegal immigration, according to the Times.

The policy, while publicly rolled out in 2018, started as a pilot program along the Texas-Mexico border a year earlier before expanding to all states along the southern border. It received widespread condemnation, and led Trump to sign an executive order withdrawing the policy in June 2018. But the American Civil Liberties Union claimed that despite the policy being nixed, more than 1,100 families were separated between June 2018 and January 2020.

The Times said Sessions did not respond to requests for comment.
Former President John Dramani Mahama has reiterated his promise for tertiary students to pay 50% fees in the upcoming 2020/2020 academic year if he wins the 2020 polls.

The NDC flagbearer said the move is to cushion students as part of efforts to support them following the Coronavirus-induced financial challenges.

The promise is also captured in the NDC's 2020 manifesto.

Speaking at the launch of the NDCs 2020 campaign in the Sefwi Wiawso in the Western North Region today, Wednesday, October 7, 2020, Mahama said: Because of the impact of COVID-19 and the challenges many parents face and self-financing students face, the NDC has decided that tertiary students will pay 50% only of their tuition fees for the 2020/2021 academic year.

This is what we call the kyemp policy. It is important because many homes and businesses are yet to recover from the shock and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ghanaians therefore have every reason to have hope again, and we, the NDC are offering a future to be proud of, he added.

Group kicks against increase in fees by tertiary institutions

Mahama reiterated the promise due to recent agitations by some tertiary students following increases in their fees for the 2020/2021 academic year.

A group known as the Concerned Tertiary Students of GIJ (CTSG) claimed that the University of Ghana and Ghana Institute of Journalism have increased their fees by 5% and 12% respectively for the next academic year.

The Ghana Institute of Journalism and the University of Ghana are facing a 5% and 12% respective fee increment for the upcoming 2020/2021 academic year with hints of the increment from other tertiary institutions, the group noted in a statement.

It further warned that: A larger number of students are on the verge of dropping out of school because of such an inconsiderate decision.

---citinewsroom
The mother of teenage girl who was dismembered and flushed down a pipe has told the man who is accused of killing her to 'go stick his head in a toilet and flush' after he sent his condolences to the victims' families.

Adam Strong, 47, is on trial for the murders of Rori Hache, 18, in Oshawa, Ontario, in 2017 and Kandis Fitzpatrick, 19, who has not been seen since 2008.

The girls' families watched as Strong told a police officer he wanted to pass on his condolences to Hache's mother and father in an 11-hour interrogation video played in Toronto Courthouse on Tuesday.

Strong told Detective Paul Mitton he 'worried' about Hache's mother in the November 2018 interview, just after admitting he dismembered her in December 2017.

Adam Strong, 47, who is on trial for the murders of Rori Hache, 18, in Oshawa, Ontario, in 2017 and Kandis Fitzpatrick, 19, paid condolences to the Hache's mother in a police interview played in court yesterday

Speaking after court yesterday, Hache's mother Shanan Dionne said: 'If he wants to give me condolence he could go stick his head in a toilet and flush and really impress me'

The dismembered body of Rori Hache, 18, was found in Strong's freezer and down some drains

He said: 'I'd like to pass on to [her] mother and father my condolences. I don't know if it is appropriate. I do mean it, I'm that kind of guy.

'I'm worried about her mother. I couldn't even imagine how that affects someone.'

Speaking after court yesterday, Hache's mother Shanan Dionne, told Global News Canada: 'If he wants to give me condolence he could go stick his head in a toilet and flush and really impress me.

'That's how he could show me he's sorry.'

Lost for words, she told CTV: 'He couldn't possibly have any compassion. Nothing he could say... what is he even thinking?'

In the 11-hour interview in November 2018, Strong (top left) said he expected to receive two years in prison for indignity to a human body and he worried what his life would look like after he was released

Strong has also been charged with first-degree murder in the case of Kandis Fitzpatrick who disappeared in 2008

In the interview, Strong refused to give a full account of the murders, insisting he wanted to keep his cards close to his chest in exchange for rewards in prison.

He said he expected to receive two years in prison for indignity to a human body and he worried what his life would look like after he was released.

Strong said: 'I have no illusions of having a life after prison, meaning Im a dead man, meaning someones going to kill me.

'You need to hold back to get what you want. I want Internet access, be comfortable for how many years I have left, not someone stabbing me in the neck.

Strong had not been on police's radar until he had been allegedly caught trying to dispose of Hache's remains

'I don't expect a get out of jail free card, I just want to be comfortable, but if I let those cards out here, I won't have them later.'

Hache's dismembered torso was discovered by a fisherman in Oshawa Harbour in September 2017 after she was reported missing.

Police had no suspects in the murder case until two plumbers were called to unclog pipes at Strong's basement apartment in Oshawa.

They found a gruesome 'fleshy-like substance' in the pipes and called police, who found Strong flushing something down the toilet in the apartment.

He allegedly admitted things immediately, saying: 'Ok, you got me, the gig's up, it's a body.

Hache was found with multiple injuries on her body, including two fractures to her skull although an overall cause of death could not be established according to a medical examiner

'If you want to recover the rest of her, it's in my freezer.'

Police also found the DNA of Kandis Fitzpatrick in his home after he was arrested, and he was charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Data from Google showed how his phone had been located at Oshawa Harbour one week before Hache's torso had been found.

After Strong's arrest, investigators found the rest of her body as Strong had said, in a freezer in his bedroom.

Her blood was found on Strong's bedroom walls and ceiling, and his semen was found on her body.

During their forensic search, investigators also found a large hunting knife on which Kandis Fitzpatrick's DNA was found. Her blood was similarly found in Strong's freezer and bedroom

Hache was found with multiple injuries on her body, including two fractures to her skull although an overall cause of death could not be established according to a medical examiner.

During their forensic search, investigators also found a large hunting knife on which Kandis Fitzpatrick's DNA was found.

Her blood was similarly found in Strong's freezer and bedroom.

'Ms. Fitzpatrick found the same fate as Ms. Hache,' crown attorney Bryan Guertin told the court on Monday last week.

'Both girls were vulnerable, were essentially homeless with no fixed address.

Information found on Strong's digital devices, including his cellphone, is likely to form some part of the evidence in the case against him

Data from Google showed how his phone had been located at Oshawa Harbour, pictured above, one week before the torso of Rori Hache had been found

'Both girls suffered from drug issues and sometimes worked in the sex trade to help fund their drug habit.'

Mrs Dionne, spoke outside court on Monday and said the trial was not about her daughter being homeless or 'a drug-addict tossed away that wasn't loved, because she was so loved'.

The 18-year-old was pregnant at the time but also struggling with an addiction to crystal meth.

Kandis's father, William Fitzpatrick, also testified in course and told how the last time he had seen his daughter was spring of 2008 and had not heard from her since.

She was also known to have struggled with drugs and would often leave home for weeks at a time without any notice.

Strong has pleaded not guilty to both first-degree murder charges. The trial continues.
Syracuse, N.Y. -- Syracuse University reported 20 new coronavirus cases among students today, the largest number reported in a single day this semester.

The school said it is still investigating and confirming cases related to one or more off-campus gatherings, including an off-campus party on Walnut Avenue last weekend. SU announced Tuesday that as many as 45 cases have been linked to the off-campus gatherings and it expects to confirm more cases related to the cluster.

SU has not said if it has disciplined any students involved in those gatherings.

SU reported today it has 134 students in quarantine, up 72 since Tuesday. Students awaiting test results are quarantined after being potentially exposed to the virus.

The school reported today it has 45 active cases.

New York requires colleges to suspend in-person classes when they get 100 positive cases within 14 days. SU has had 47 positive cases in the 14-day period that will end Friday.

In response to the surge in cases, SU has reduced the size of social gatherings allowed on campus to five people. Many in-person student activities, except for classes, have been suspended. Onondaga County planned to test 2,000 SU students today.

This is a serious situation, and as I said in my previous message, it will take quick and coordinated cooperation of the entire campus community to prevent this situation from expanding beyond our ability to control, J. Michael Haynie, an SU vice chancellor, said in a statement Tuesday.

James T. Mulder covers health and higher education. Have a news tip? Contact him at (315) 470-2245 or jmulder@syracuse.com
SALT LAKE CITY: Vice President Mike Pence defended the Trump administrations handling of the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 210,000 Americans while his Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris, condemned the greatest failure of any presidential administration during a largely civil debate Wednesday night dominated by the coronavirus.

With Trump recovering from the virus in Washington, Harris declared she would not take a vaccine if the Republican president endorsed it without the backing of medical professionals.

Pence, who leads the presidents coronavirus task force, acknowledged that our nations gone through a very challenging time this year.

But he added, I want the American people to know, from the very first day, President Trump has put the health of America first," Pence said, promising millions of doses of a yet-to-be-announced treatment before the end of the year.

He also condemned Harris skepticism of Trumps bragging about vaccines-to-be: Senator, I ask you: Stop playing politics with peoples lives.

There were heated exchanges early on, but overall it was a far more respectful affair than the opening presidential debate eight days earlier. While Trump was the aggressor then, butting in and almost yelling, Pence demonstrated more discipline.

The candidates debated in an auditorium where any guest who refused to wear a face mask was to be asked to leave, an extraordinary backdrop for the only vice presidential debate of 2020.

Ultimately, the prime-time meeting was a chance for voters to decide whether Pence or Harris, a U.S. senator from California, is ready to assume the duties of the presidency before the end of the next term. Its hardly a theoretical question: President Donald Trump, 74, is recovering from the coronavirus, and 77-year-old Joe Biden has not been infected but would be the oldest president ever.

For those reasons and more, the debate at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City shaped up as the most meaningful vice presidential debate in recent memory. It came at a precarious moment for the Republicans in particular, with growing concern that Trumps position is weakening as more than a dozen senior officials across the White House, the Pentagon and inside his campaign are infected with the virus or in quarantine.

Trailing in polls, Trump and Pence have no time to lose; Election Day is less than four weeks away, and millions of Americans are already casting ballots.

Before Harris said a word, she made history by becoming the first Black woman to stand on a vice presidential debate stage. The night offered her a prime opportunity to energize would-be voters who have shown only modest excitement about Biden, a lifelong politician with a mixed record on race and criminal justice, particularly in his early years in the Senate.

Harris, 55, is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She is also a former prosecutor whose pointed questioning of Trumps appointees and court nominees helped make her a Democratic star.

Pence is a 61-year-old former Indiana governor and ex-radio host, an evangelical Christian known for his folksy charm and unwavering loyalty to Trump. And while he is Trumps biggest public defender, the vice president does not share the presidents brash tone or undisciplined style.

The candidates also clashed on taxes  or specifically, Trumps refusal to release his tax returns four years after repeatedly promising to do so. The New York Times reported last month that the president pays very little personal income tax but owes hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

Itd be really good to know who the president owes money to, Harris said.

The one thing we know about Joe, he puts it all out there. He is honest, he is forthright, she added. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been about covering up everything.

Pence defended Trump as a job creator who has paid more than his fair share of taxes and shifted toward Biden: On Day One, Joe Bidens going to raise your taxes.

While the debate covered a range of topics, the virus was at the forefront.

Trump released a video just three hours before the debate calling his diagnosis a blessing in disguise because it shed light on an experimental antibody combination that he credited for his improved condition though neither he nor his doctors have a way of knowing whether the drug had that effect.

Pence serves as chair of the presidents coronavirus task force, which has failed to implement a comprehensive national strategy even as Trump himself recovers from the disease and the national death toll surges past 210,000 with no end in sight.

The candidates appeared on stage exactly 12.25 feet (3.7 meters) apart and separated by plexiglass barriers. Both candidates released updated coronavirus test results ahead of the debate proving they were negative as of Tuesday.

Critics suggested that Pence should not be at the debate at all.

The vice president attended an event last week at the White House with Trump and others who have since tested positive, but Pences staff and doctors insist he does not need to quarantine under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

___

Peoples reported from New York. Colvin reported from Washington.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

Read all the Latest News and Breaking News here
Netflix has been slapped with serious charges over the controversial film "Cuties."

Released last September, the award-winning French film revolves around the story of an 11-year-old Muslim immigrant, who joins a contemporary and liberated dance group along with her three other friends.

Following its release, the coming-of-age drama movie written and directed by Maimouna Doucoure received massive criticisms online for over-sexualizing the young actresses with their provocative outfits and dance routines.

Netflix Facing Criminal Charges Over "Cuties"

Amid the backlash, a Texas grand jury indicted the California-based streaming platform of criminal charges for promoting "visual material which depicts the lewd exhibition" of explicit parts of underaged girls.

This came after Texas Rep. Matt Schaefer filed a complaint on September 23 in Tyler County, Texas, stating that the film "appeals to the prurient interest in sex" with no form of artistic or literary value.

"Knowingly promote visual material which depicts the lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 years of age at the time the visual material was created, which appeals to the prurient interest in sex, and has no serious, literary, artistic, political, or scientific value," according to court documents tweeted by Schaefer.

#txlege pic.twitter.com/UJ1hY8XJ2l Netflix, Inc. indicted by grand jury in Tyler Co., Tx for promoting material in Cuties film which depicts lewd exhibition of pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 yrs of age which appeals to the prurient interest in sex #Cuties  Matt Schaefer (@RepMattSchaefer) October 6, 2020

Despite the charges, it appears that Netflix is standing their ground after insisting that the accusation is "without merit."

"Cuties is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children. This charge is without merit, and we stand by the film," a spokesperson from the streaming giant mentioned, as obtained by Deadline.

"Cuties" Received Online Hate and Caused Subscriptions Cancellation

The film sparked social media uproar as users expressed their dismay over the controversial film. One of its biggest critics is "Men in Black" actress Tessa Thompson, who described the movie as "hyper-sexualization of preadolescent girls."

"#CUTIES is a beautiful film. It gutted me at @sundancefest. It introduces a fresh voice at the helm. She's a French Senegalese Black woman mining her experiences. The film comments on the hyper-sexualization of preadolescent girls. Disappointed to see the current discourse," Thompson wrote.

Moreover, #CancelNetflix also went viral on Twitter after several viewers threatened to cancel their subscription as a protest over the release of "Cuties."

"#CancelNetflix Cuties is an unreal BAD movie, I hope the people are ASHAMED to have disgusted me, I am canceling my subscription soon!" one angry subscriber posted.

Meanwhile, another user also called out Netflix for ignoring the online plea despite the massive criticism.

"Can't believe after the incredible backlash against Netflix for Cuties and nothing has happened. Well, we can all make differences in small ways, child exploration is never okay, so I'll never watch anything on Netflix until it's gone, until then.#cancelnetflix."

With the surge of Netflix cancellation, The Hollywood Reporter cited that the streaming giant lost an estimated 2.5 million subscribers, most of whom are from the U.S. and Canada.

Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall predicted that if this move continues, the platform will receive a massive blow of "28 million deactivations in the third quarter."

READ MORE: Careless Mistake: Rihanna Apologizes Over Offensive Savage X Fenty Show
The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, one of the Bay Areas most prominent hunger relief nonprofits, was thrust into the spotlight this year, as long lines formed at food pantries and the need for food swelled. But behind the scenes, theres been a yearlong battle going on after workers voted to unionize  something they finalized just recently. After simmering discontent about institutional racism and lack of worker protections, the food bank and its staff have agreed on a new contract.

With Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 29, employees now have more job protections, guaranteed raises and better benefits, which they hope will make the food bank feel like a more equitable place to work as they continue to feed 60,000 households weekly.

After the firemen, police and other first responders during a crisis, food bankers come in and make sure the community is being fed, said Abel Murillo, business intelligence developer at the food bank. We take so much pride in that work, and we take that responsibility very, very seriously. We knew that our success in the community depended on us having a workplace that has the gears well-oiled.

Its a rare move for a food bank. Most arent unionized, and union representative Nat Naylor said thats common across mission-driven nonprofits.

There is a lot of real buy-in to the mission of the organization, and sometimes that presents a dynamic where people are not inclined to advocate for their needs, their rights, their wages because theyre so invested, she said.

The new contract includes a 3% guaranteed wage increase for the food banks 140 workers in the next three years  previously, some received as little as a 5-cent-per-hour raise, according to the union. The food bank will also cover a greater percentage of health insurance premiums, most notably for dependents. An added floating holiday allows the food banks employees to celebrate Juneteenth, Lunar New Year or another holiday of their choosing.

A spokesperson for the food bank praised the ratified contract.

We believe it is a fair and equitable agreement, reflecting the constructive approach taken by all representatives at the bargaining table, she said in a statement. We look forward to moving together positively as we remain focused on our mission to end hunger in San Francisco and Marin.

Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

Food bank employees are feeling optimistic, but they havent forgotten the tumultuous months that drove them to unionize.

Former employees pointed to a dramatic and sudden reorganization of the company last summer, with some employees put in more narrow roles or in jobs they didnt feel equipped to do. Others were left out entirely and felt undervalued.

Morale was already low, and the reorganization contributed to a greater sense that the food banks decision making lacked transparency. Some workers felt employees in similar roles earned different salaries or received uneven benefits  workers in certain departments were reimbursed for using their personal cell phones for work, for example, but drivers were not.

There was a sense of a lot of turnover, a lot of dissatisfaction, people feeling very frustrated and leaving and feeling like they didnt have any power to effect change, said Emily Citraro, a senior allocation coordinator who has been with the food bank for nearly 19 years.

There was also frustration about what some viewed as institutional racism within the food bank. The vast majority of the food banks senior leadership staff is white, while most of the food banks employees, as well as the individuals they serve, are people of color, according to employees. White executives earn six figures  Executive Director Paul Ashs salary is about $333,587, according to 2018 tax filings  while some warehouse workers of color earn as little as $17 an hour.

Theres something happening in this country with workers standing up, Naylor said. Its about having a public discourse, looking at predominantly Black, brown, POC organizations led by white staffs making double, triple, quintuple what theyre making.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Jessica Christian / The Chronicle

Equity issues seeped into the food banks services, too. Two former employees said they felt brushed off by management when they would suggest ideas to better serve Black and Latino people. This notion was emphasized in an email that former employee Nykki Jones sent to the whole staff upon leaving last year, which was one of the biggest catalysts for workers to start organizing.

Strong leaders must place aside their own temporary discomfort to listen and learn from the communities they seek to serve, Jones wrote. Essentially, the message I received was that the impact of institutional racism was not important enough to be a consideration in our work, even though there is plenty of data illustrating how years of institutional racism has led to the disproportionate rates of poverty, hunger and poor health.

The lead-up to last falls union vote included union-busting attempts by the food bank with the hiring of Jackson Lewis, a notorious anti-union law firm, according to Naylor. But after the election, Naylor said, the food bank was largely responsive to the workers.

The food bank declined to comment on workers specific concerns about equity, the reorganization and anti-union behavior.

Beyond the new contract, another source of hope for food bank workers is a revamped Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee. Marchon Tatmon, the food banks government affairs manager, said he quickly saw the disconnect between employees and senior management when he joined the committee, and that it functioned as a place to talk about issues without the ability to do anything about them. Now, theres an outside consultant in place to empower it.

We really do want the best for the food bank, Citraro said. We want to make it stronger and more efficient and serve the public better  and the need is so great.

Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker
New Delhi:

Researchers have been searching for life on planets other than Earth since long. A team of researchers studied the Earth, specifically the Archean Earth during 1-1/2-billion-year period early in the planets history in order to better understand which hazy and distant exoplanet could have habitable conditions to sustain life.

For years, astronomers have been trying to look out for alien life by studying distant planets for habitable conditions.

New NASA study suggests that the atmosphere of the Earth appears to have been different during the Archean era. The reason could be little availability of oxygen and high levels of methane, ammonia and other organic chemicals.

The haze might have come and disappeared sporadically from the Archean atmosphere, geological evidence suggests. But researchers are not quite sure why.

In order to better understand the hazy earth-like exoplanets, the researchers studied the haze formation during the Archean era.

We like to say that Archean Earth is the most alien planet we have geochemical data for, said Giada Arney of NASAs Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a member of the NASA Astrobiology Institutes Virtual Planetary Laboratory based at the University of Washington, Seattle.

In the best case, said the researchers, haze in the atmosphere of a planet could serve up a smorgasbord of carbon-rich, or organic, molecules that could be transformed by chemical reactions into precursor molecules for life. It might also push out much of the harmful UV radiation that can break down DNA.

However, in the worst case, haze could become so thick that very little light gets through. This could turn the surface to become so cold and freezed completely.

In order to see how haze affected the surface temperature of Archean Earth in turn and in turn how the temperature influenced the chemistry in the atmosphere, the researchers put together sophisticated computer modelling.

The new modeling indicates that as the haze got thicker, less sunlight would have gotten through, inhibiting the types of sunlight-driven chemical reactions needed to form more haze. This would lead to the shutdown of haze-formation chemistry, preventing the planet from undergoing runaway glaciation due to a very thick haze, said the report.

This phenomenon is called 'self-limiting haze' as named by the team. Their work is to first make the case that this is what happened on Archean Earth.

That self-limiting haze could have cooled Archean Earth by about 36 degrees Fahrenheit (20 Kelvins) - enough to make a difference but not to freeze the surface completely, the researchers concluded.

Our modeling suggests that a planet like hazy Archean Earth orbiting a star like the young sun would be cold, said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, a Goddard scientist and a member of the Virtual Planetary Laboratory. But were saying it would be cold like the Yukon in winter, not cold like modern-day Mars.

Such a planet could sustain life and can be considered habitable, even if the mean global temperature is below freezing, as long as there is some liquid water on the surface, the report added.

Haze may turn out to be very helpful as we try to narrow down which exoplanets are the most promising for habitability, said Arney, who is also the lead author of two related papers published by the team.

The study was published in the November 2016 issue of the journal Astrobiology.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-08 00:12:39|Editor: huaxia

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YAOUNDE, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- School attendance is improving in Cameroon's two English-speaking regions that have been ravaged by separatist violence since 2016, local officials said on Wednesday,

Schools, particularly in rural areas that shut down because of violence, are gradually reopening, according to Adolph Lele Lafrique, governor of the Northwest, one of the troubled regions, without giving further details.

"We are seeing students coming back to school in their numbers, schools are also gradually reopening. The situation is generally improving," Lafrique told reporters after visiting some schools in the region.

"We want to believe that this year will be a normal year for schools. Security of the children is guaranteed. We are pleased with the number of children coming to school," said Bernard Okalia Bilai, governor of Southwest region.

Separatists enforced a school boycott in the troubled regions since 2016 to protest against what they described as educational injustices against English-speakers.

The four-year school boycott has left more than 800,000 children out of school, according to the UNICEF, also known as the UN Children's Fund.

Last week, two key separatist leaders, for the first time in four years, called for school reopening in the regions, stressing that school boycott "is no longer a weapon" for the struggle for independence.

In 2017, separatist fighters began clashing with government forces in a bid to establish an independent nation they call "Ambazonia" in the two Anglophone regions of largely French-speaking Cameroon.

The new school year in Cameroon started on Monday. Enditem
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Probe: An alleged breach of rules at Glenabbey Manor is to get underway

Police and the Northern Health and Social Care Trust have launched a joint investigation into a Co Antrim care home over an alleged Covid-19 breach.

The probe centres on Glenabbey Manor in Glengormley, which is owned and managed by Runwood Homes.

It comes five months after a report that 14 residents at the care home had died of coronavirus-related symptoms.

While the nature of the specific allegations remains unclear, the Trust said the investigation is not linked to the deaths, which occurred during the first phase of the pandemic.

The Trust added that placements in the home were suspended on September 4 as a precaution and "in accordance with the Adult Safeguarding Operating Procedures", but had resumed again from October 1.

The investigation is being carried out by the PSNI's Public Protection Branch in conjunction with the Northern Trust.

The Trust said the safety of the 41 residents in the home is their "absolute priority".

It added: "We have put in place a rolling programme of visits to the home, along with individual reviews, in order to satisfy ourselves that the standards of care are what we would expect.

"We have also contacted the relatives of residents to inform them of the position".

The Trust also confirmed that a separate Serious Adverse Incident (SAI) investigation has been started as a result of "a number of serious concerns" which were raised over "inappropriate behaviour in breach of Covid-19 legislation" at the care home.

The spokesperson added: "As this is an active police investigation and the SAI investigation is ongoing, we will not be making any further comment at this stage. It is important to emphasise, however, that the SAI investigation is not an investigation into deaths which occurred in Glenabbey Manor during the Covid-19 surge phase."

A spokesperson for Runwood Homes told the BBC: "We are working closely with the Northern HSC Trust in respect of an investigation relating to Glenabbey Manor Care Home, and we are fully cooperating with all agencies involved to evidence the continued high standards of care expected at the service.

"Glenabbey Manor has welcomed several quality monitoring visits, as well as an RQIA (Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority) inspection, which have all been positive; a testament to the continued high standard of care delivery at the home.

"We thank the management and staff for their ongoing professionalism, and residents and families for their continuous support, at this time and throughout the pandemic."

Glengormley Alliance councillor Julian McGrath said: "The launching of this investigation is deeply worrying, for residents and their families. However, only an investigation can find answers for those same people as to if the home breached the Covid regulations.

"With the joint investigation now launched, it would be inappropriate to comment any further. However, tribute must be paid to those relatives and members of staff who have raised concerns, and I hope the investigation finds the answers needed to bring comfort to them."
Two thirds of the active ingredients needed to make generic drugs are manufactured in Asia, a study showed on Wednesday, the latest evidence to underscore Europes reliance on foreign imports for its medicines.

Europe was rattled at the start of the coronavirus outbreak when India, one of the biggest producers of drug ingredients, banned exports of certain products relevant to the pandemic, prompting concerns about a shortage of medicines.

Although those fears were largely unfounded, European Union health ministers have vowed to boost local drugs production to safeguard against future supply disruptions.

Price pressure and lower regulatory requirements have led to a shift in drugs manufacturing from Europe to Asia over the past two decades, the study by German generics lobby Pro Generika found.

The study analysed the global production of 565 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and found 63% of the quality certificates, which grant them suitable for use in medicinal products, were held in Asia, up from around 31% in 2000.

More than 80% of Asias certificates are held by manufacturers in India and China where the majority of producers are concentrated in just a few states and provinces, the study found. For more than half of the APIs, there are only a handful of manufacturers worldwide.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn said the pandemic had made painfully clear the risk of having a strong dependence on one region or country, citing shortages of medical protective masks.

He said Europe must first define which drug ingredients are system relevant as well as which incentives would best help boost local production.

He hoped the European Commission would have proposals ready by November at the latest so decisions could be taken in the first half of 2021.

Dual Sourcing

Europe holds 31% of API certificates, down from 59% in 2000 with producers mainly in Italy, Germany, Spain and France focussing on ingredients with low sales volumes that are complex to manufacture.

France has pledged 200 million euros ($236 million) to bolster domestic production of medicines, while Austria is also investing funds in an antibiotics plant owned by Swiss drugmaker Novartiss Sandoz division in Tyrol.

Industry players warn bringing production home may be complicated, saying higher labour costs and tougher environmental standards make it impossible to compete with Asian suppliers on price.

Novartis said rather than the proximity of a supplier, it was seeking to establish at least two sources for key ingredients to have fallback options in case of outages.

Dual sourcing is a clear area of focus versus this idea of localising more manufacturing, which I think is the primary instinct in a lot of health authorities, Maria Soler Nunez, head of group quality at the Swiss drugmaker, said at an online event hosted by the Financial Times.

Merck KgaA Chief Executive Stefan Oschmann told Reuters drug shortages at the start of the pandemic were minimal and it was unrealistic to repatriate large parts of the production chain to Europe.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.)

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In yet another political milestone for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the prime minister on Wednesday (October 7) entered his 20th year in a public office without a break.

PM Modi was appointed as chief minister of Gujarat by the BJP when the saffron party was battling infighting among its own leaders. It would not be wrong to say that PM Modi used his 3 terms as Gujarat CM to strengthen the party and helped the BJP end the stronghold of Congress party at the Centre.

Modi took charge as Gujarat chief minister on October 7, 2001 soon after the devastating earthquake which had rocked Bhuj. However, he took several steps to help in the development of the state at a rapid pace. Under Modi's leadership, Gujarat became self-sufficient on several fronts and 'Gujarat Model' became popular across the country. The massive development work done by PM Modi as the Gujarat CM played an important role in increasing his popularity across the country and the BJP used this very well during Lok Sabha election in 2014.

In 2007, Modi took oath as Gujarat CM for the second time and he became the CM in 2012 for the third time in a row. In 2014, Modi took oath as Prime Minister after BJP won Lok Sabha poll with majority. In 2019, PM Modi led BJP to a thumping victory to take oath as prime minister for the second time.

Live TV

When India did not know the concept of national-level investor summits, Modi launched the Vibrant Gujarat investor summit in 2003. Similarly, after becoming the prime minister, Modi has taken several steps to ensure that Indai keep on receivign FDI.

Experts maintain that Modi has remained a popular leader for 20 years only because he has always challenged himself to do better and it seems that he is in constant competition with himself. It is a known fact that PM Modi has a habit of taking risks and setting targets which seem impossible to achieve but he work relentlessly to achieve the targets and this makes him different from other leaders.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Russia has always fulfilled, is fulfilling and will continue to fulfill all its obligations to Armenia within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), President Vladimir Putin said in an interview to Russia-1 TV channel.

As you know, Armenia is a member of the CSTO, and we have certain obligations to Armenia within the framework of this treaty. However, the military operations, which are still ongoing, are not taking place on the territory of Armenia. As for Russias fulfillment of its obligations within the frames of that treaty, we have always fulfilled, are fulfilling and will continue to fulfill our obligations. As you know, we are in constant, lively working contact with the Prime Minister of Armenia, and Armenias leadership does not have any questions regarding the quality of Russias fulfillment of its allied obligations, Putin said.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
It has manifested in a long-running tit-for-tat between the party's Left and Right factions about the future of its energy policy. Despite being handed a plethora of reasons why its primary vote has continued to fall and why it has continued to lose elections at a federal level, MPs have struggled to maintain discipline. Among the starkest warnings about its drift was delivered by former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill in last November's review of its election loss. "Working people experiencing economic dislocation caused by technological change will lose faith in Labor if they do not believe the party is responding to their needs, instead being preoccupied with issues not concerning them or that are actively against their interests," he warned.

"Care needs to be taken to avoid Labor becoming a grievance-based organisation." Those MPs worried about a slow drift back to old habits point to a seemingly one-week fascination with attempting to stop the deportation of a Tamil family, from Biloela in regional Queensland, which had undermined years of discipline over border policies. They looked on in dismay as Albanese himself called for a fresh debate about an Australian republic following the release of the Palace Letters in July while the nation slowly faced the reality of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Then followed a series of confusing signals over whether the government was giving some people too much money, then cutting payments by too much, was racking up too much debt, but also not being generous enough. Some Labor MPs want Anthony Albanese to promote younger people to the shadow cabinet. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

There is a growing concern too that the party is in danger of re-prosecuting the 2019 election on the same terms - minus the big-taxing policies - and not adjust to the issues at hand. "I think it's fair to say there's a lot of us who haven't seen the lessons learned of last year and we see very little effort made by the front bench to drop old habits," one veteran backbench told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on the condition of anonymity. "I don't think there's anyone better to lead the party right now, Albo isn't in danger, but we do want to see the fight that he promised. Thursday night is the night for him to throw us a bone and let us take up the fight." Loading Younger MPs are also growing increasingly tired of a shadow cabinet full of Gillard and Rudd era ministers. No less than 12 of the current 20 on the Labor frontbencher have been in their jobs for close to a decade.

"It's the same people who have made the same bad decisions at every turn," another MP said. "It is not the look of a modern and fresh frontbench trying to remove a three-term government." That it has taken Albanese 18 months to begin a policy debate should not surprise anyone. He promised from the first day he would "hasten slowly", take a deep breath and wait until the moment was right. Those close to him point to the fact that oppositions that hit governments hard at a state level, especially in Victoria, during the pandemic, have not been warmly received by the electorate. Albanese reminded voters who he was and where he had come from on Wednesday when he promised $500 million to build new and renovate existing public housing units if he was in government. "I am the son of a single mum who was an invalid pensioner," he said. "I understand firsthand, from my own life experience, the difference that having a secure house makes to your life, no matter how difficult that life is."

He is expected to use his speech to argue women have be disproportionately left behind by the COVID-induced recession, that Australians in secure work have never been worse off and that for $1 trillion of debt, the government has nothing to show for its economic management. He said Labor's road to the next election was on track and was following Weatherill's election review advice. "It recommended the exact way in which I've been operating as the Labor Leader," he said. "We have used this period of the pandemic not just to be constructive, to put forward ideas about the immediate response that was required by the Government.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: Actor Tovino Thomas who suffered an injury while shooting for the movie "Kala" on Wednesday was admitted to a private hospital in Kochi after complaining of severe stomach pain.

In a detailed check-up, it was identified that there is internal bleeding in his stomach. He was referred to the ICU for 24-hour observation and according to hospital sources, the actor's condition is stable.

The shooting of the movie 'Kala' was going on at Koothattukulam near Piravom in Ernakulam district. There are a lot of action sequences in the movie and for the last three days, the actor was taking part in an intense fight scene, said his manager.

"On Wednesday morning, he complained of severe stomach pain. Soon we took him to a private hospital near Edappally where he underwent a scan. It was identified that there is minor bleeding inside his stomach. The doctors suggested a 24-hour observation," he added.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: As a young law student, Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett lived in a house owned by co-founders of People of Praise, a religious community that teaches that men are divinely ordained as the heads of both family and faith.

Barrett has not publicly discussed her role with the secretive organization founded in South Bend, Indiana, which some former members have alleged subjugates women. Barrett also did not list the group as among her affiliations on Senate judicial questionnaires filed last month or in 2017, when she was confirmed to her current seat as a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

The Associated Press reported last week that documents show both Barrett and her husband, lawyer Jesse M. Barrett, have been involved with People of Praise for decades and have immediate family members who have held high-ranking leadership positions in the group. Amy Barrett's father served for years as the head of the organization's New Orleans branch and on its all-male national board of governors. Her mother was a handmaid, the term used until recently within the group to describe women entrusted to help guide other female members.

A database that compiles public records and financial information indicates Amy Barrett lived during the mid-1990s in a nine-bedroom house on St. Vincent Street in South Bend. The house is located two blocks from the University of Notre Dame campus, where Amy Barrett attended law school from 1994 through 1997.

The same home address was also listed for Jesse Barrett on a 1998 traffic ticket he received in Ohio, according to a database of criminal records. He attended Notre Dame as both an undergraduate and for law school, between 1992 and 1999.

Deed and tax records show the spacious colonial was owned until last year by Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan, a couple that helped found People of Praise four decades ago. The Ranaghans also co-wrote Catholic Pentecostals, a 1969 book about the religious movement that helped spawn the South Bend group.

Amy Barrett's past residence in the Ranaghans' house was first reported by The Guardian. A number listed for the couple was not answered on Tuesday, but Dorothy Ranaghan was quoted by the newspaper as saying the Supreme Court nominee had lived with them.

Lets just say it was one of the better experiences of our life," Ranaghan told The Guardian. She is just a gem. But I dont feel comfortable talking right now.

Amy Barrett, 48, and Jesse Barrett, 46, did not respond to phone messages seeking comment on Tuesday. The couple live in South Bend with their seven children.

People of Praise spokesman Sean Connolly declined to comment, referring any questions back to the Barretts. He has previously refused to discuss whether the couple are members, though Amy Barrett is listed on tax records as serving on the board of private Christian schools affiliated with the group as recently as 2017.

The AP reported last week that numerous mentions of the Barretts, their children and other family members were scrubbed from People of Praise's website after her name first emerged three years ago on President Donald Trump's shortlist for a seat on the Supreme Court.

People of Praises belief system is rooted in charismatic Catholicism, which emphasizes a personal relationship with Jesus and can include baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. Founded in 1971, the group has 22 branches and organizes and meets outside the purview of the Roman Catholic Church and includes people from several Christian denominations, though the majority of its roughly 1,800 adult members remain Catholic.

Young single members of the group often live together in single-sex group homes or are invited to live with a married couple within the group. Single members are often encouraged to pair off and get married.

People of Praise is opposed to the legal right to an abortion, an issue likely to be raised during Barrett's Senate confirmation hearings, which are set to begin next week.

Former female members of the group also told the AP last month that a wife was expected to obey her husbands wishes in all matters, including providing sex on demand and having as many children as possible.

Current People of Praise members, including Amy Barretts father, told the AP that suggesting male members dominate their wives is a misunderstanding of the groups teachings and that women are free to make their own decisions.

Gene Stowe, a former member who left the community on good terms around 2011, said the Ranaghans were amazing people. He said Kevin Ranaghan had a knack for making his teachings very accessible and for explaining things in a way anyone could grasp.

Stowe recalled one teaching Ranaghan gave when a member of the community ran for a local office in the early 1990s. He said members of the group received an explicit teaching that they did not have to vote for him.

It was up to us to decide who to vote for, not just because he was a member of the community, Stowe said.
It is hard to get excited after looking at Valero Energy's (NYSE:VLO) recent performance, when its stock has declined 20% over the past three months. We decided to study the company's financials to determine if the downtrend will continue as the long-term performance of a company usually dictates market outcomes. Specifically, we decided to study Valero Energy's ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders.

See our latest analysis for Valero Energy

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

ROE can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations)  Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Valero Energy is:

7.5% = US$1.6b  US$21b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

The 'return' is the income the business earned over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made $0.08 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a companys earnings growth potential. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

Valero Energy's Earnings Growth And 7.5% ROE

When you first look at it, Valero Energy's ROE doesn't look that attractive. Next, when compared to the average industry ROE of 14%, the company's ROE leaves us feeling even less enthusiastic. For this reason, Valero Energy's five year net income decline of 13% is not surprising given its lower ROE. We believe that there also might be other aspects that are negatively influencing the company's earnings prospects. For instance, the company has a very high payout ratio, or is faced with competitive pressures.

Story continues

However, when we compared Valero Energy's growth with the industry we found that while the company's earnings have been shrinking, the industry has seen an earnings growth of 3.7% in the same period. This is quite worrisome.

Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. If you're wondering about Valero Energy's's valuation, check out this gauge of its price-to-earnings ratio, as compared to its industry.

Is Valero Energy Making Efficient Use Of Its Profits?

Valero Energy has a high three-year median payout ratio of 56% (that is, it is retaining 44% of its profits). This suggests that the company is paying most of its profits as dividends to its shareholders. This goes some way in explaining why its earnings have been shrinking. With only very little left to reinvest into the business, growth in earnings is far from likely. Our risks dashboard should have the 4 risks we have identified for Valero Energy.

Moreover, Valero Energy has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer dividends over earnings growth. Looking at the current analyst consensus data, we can see that the company's future payout ratio is expected to rise to 73% over the next three years. Still, forecasts suggest that Valero Energy's future ROE will rise to 15% even though the the company's payout ratio is expected to rise. We presume that there could some other characteristics of the business that could be driving the anticipated growth in the company's ROE.

Conclusion

On the whole, Valero Energy's performance is quite a big let-down. As a result of its low ROE and lack of mich reinvestment into the business, the company has seen a disappointing earnings growth rate. That being so, the latest industry analyst forecasts show that the analysts are expecting to see a huge improvement in the company's earnings growth rate. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.

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.
Sumi Sukanya Dutta By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Indias apex drug regulator has rejected a proposal by pharmaceutical major Dr Reddys Laboratories to directly conduct phase 3 trial for Russian Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V directly in India saying that the sample size for early human trials for the vaccine was small.

The regulator has now asked the Hyderabad-based firm, which has entered into a partnership with Russia for the local clinical trials and mass distribution of vaccine in India, to submit a revised proposal for phase 2 and 3 trials in the country.

A subject expert committee of the Drug Controller General of India, on Monday, in response to a proposal by the DRL noted that the safety and immunogenicity data in overseas phase 1 and 2 studies is small and insufficient for Indian subjects.

After detailed deliberation, the committee recommended that the firm should follow the regulatory requirements and conduct phase 2/3 trial in the country with proper monitoring for humoral and cell mediated immune response, the committee instructed.

It added that accordingly, the firm should submit the protocol for consideration of the committee.

Under the revised plan, the vaccine, which includes two adenovirus vectors, modified to express the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, will have to be first assessed in a small group of volunteers to study its efficacy before it can be tested on a larger population.

The development comes less than a month after the Russian government announced its partnership with DRL for mass vaccinations by the year-end.

Under the plan, the Russian Direct Investment Fund which is leading the Covid-19 vaccine project in Russian plans to supply 100 million doses to Dr Reddys, upon regulatory approval.

Queries seeking responses from both Dr Reddys and the RDIF on the development remained unanswered.

Sputnik V, which was found to be safe and effective in about 70 volunteers in Russia in phase 1 and 2 trials, as per a paper published in the Lancet, is currently under phase 3 trial involving 40,000 individuals.

As per the details of the trials published, the vaccine induced antibody responses in all participants within 21 days.

On August 11, the Sputnik V vaccine developed by the Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology had been registered by the ministry of health of Russia and became the worlds first registered vaccine against Covid-19.

While announcing its partnership with DRL, RDIF had claimed that more than 55,000 volunteers had applied to take part in post-registration trials and the first results of these trials are expected to be published in October-November.
Special Deal

7 October 2020

New Luxury Experiences Span Italian Cultural Experiences, One-of-a-Kind Immersive Activities and Eco-Conscious Roman Adventures

Rome Cavalieri, A Waldorf Astoria Hotel invites guests to discover three new luxury experiences this fall as part of Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts' brand-wide Live Unforgettable campaign. With each experience crafted around discovering authentic Roman history, culture and signature happenings, Rome's leading luxury city hotel offers new opportunities for guests to immerse themselves in a true Roman adventure.

From a sustainable drive experience through the Eternal City to horseback rides through archeological sites and an ancient art immersion workshop, the following experiences will be available for guests to book starting October 1, 2020:

Eco-Spiaggina Experience

Travelers seeking a sustainable, zero-emission city tour of Rome will enjoy the brand-new "Spiaggina experience." Starting at the hotel gates, participants will enjoy getting behind the wheel for a guilt-free thrill ride of the Eternal City and its treasures while comfortably seated onboard an electric FIAT 500 Spiaggina (meaning "little beach" in Italian), which runs solely on electric power. Rome Cavalieri's Concierge will be on hand to provide guests with valuable insider tips for a truly customized discovery of the Eternal City - from the Coliseum, the Baths of Caracalla, and the Castel Sant'Angelo, to the highest hills for an amazing sunset experience, or even modern attractions such as the MAXXI Museum, Eataly or the Auditorium.

Horseback Riding

Guests who are both animal lovers and adventurers will enjoy an immersive horseback ride throughout the largest archaeological site in all of Europe, Ostia Antica. This experience will begin with a horseback riding lesson where participants will learn the basics before saddling their horse. They will then be guided through a natural reserve followed by a charming walking tour of a Renaissance village. The experience concludes with an aperitivo with the Giulio II Castle serving as a romantic backdrop.

Facelifting Caravaggio

Centered on discovering the artistic beauties that lie around every corner and connecting with the immortal artists who gave birth to the expression "Eternal City," this experience invites guests to immerse themselves in an artistic laboratory and learn the various techniques used to restore beautiful works of art to their former glory. Participants will uncover a painting by Caravaggio, considered the father of the 17th-century Naturalism movement, with a supervised expert on restoring art and will learn the secrets that give life, light and color to his masterpieces.

Travelers can also take advantage of Rome Cavalieri's existing luxury experiences, such as Truffle Hunting in Umbria, the Ultimate Jet Lag Remedy experience, and more. All are bookable via the hotel Concierge at +39 06 35092040 or via email at [email protected].

Rome Cavalieri, A Waldorf Astoria Hotel operates in line with government guidelines and the safety of guests and staff is a top priority. To make a reservation or for more information about the offerings at Rome Cavalieri, please visit www.romecavalieri.com.
House Judiciary Committee's Democratic leadership's 449-page report found that Amazon has "significant and durable market power" in the U.S.

This is in terms of the online retail market, with a far higher market share than previously estimated. The report was published on Tuesday. Other companies under the lawmakers' scrutinization are Google, Apple, and Facebook.

Lawmakers added that these companies exercised and abused their monopoly power and called for the most sweeping changes to antitrust laws in half a century.

In the report, lawmakers claimed that Amazon had become a dominant force in the online retail market that resulted in the firm's having monopoly power over third-party sellers on its marketplace.

In addition, CNBC reports that the threat of competing with Amazon can push start-ups to avoid some industries entirely. For instance, one unnamed capital investor in the cloud market told investors that Amazon is useful but also dangerous.

"If you're far enough away you can bask. If you get too close, you'll get incinerated. So, you have to be far enough from Amazon and be doing something that they wouldn't do," the capital investor said in a report.

Lawmakers also found evidence that Amazon saw Zappos and Quidsi as competitive threats before acquiring them.Amazon acquired Zappos in 2009. Before then, it called the online shoe retailer as one of Amazon's primary competitors.

The same happened to Quidsi in 2010, when it acquired the latter in an "aggressive price war" to weaker its subsidiary Diapers.com, which was a competitor of Amazon.

Aside from buying out competitors, lawmakers said that Amazon's dual role of running the marketplace and selling on its own website "creates an inherent conflict of interest."

Lawmakers said that it encourages Amazon to exploit its access to competing sellers' data and information.

The report noted that Amazon publicly describes these sellers as partners, but internally they call them "internal competitors."

Third-party sellers further noted that there is an environment of bullying. Third-party sellers also told lawmakers that they are often left without any recourse after their account has been shut down.

"For sellers, Amazon functions as a 'quasistate,' and many '[s]ellers are more worried about a case being opened on Amazon than in actual court," lawmakers were quoted. Lawmakers also found that Amazon prevented competition in other areas than retail.

The report has recommended a wide range of solutions, including splitting different business units and forcing companies to prove mergers would be pro-competitive.

Meanwhile, Amazon opposed the lawmakers' findings. The company said that their recommendations would reduce competition, forcing "millions of independent retailers out of online stores."

It would then result in less choice and a higher price for consumers.

The company said that all large organizations attract regulators' attention, adding that they welcome close investigations. However, they noted that large companies are not dominant by definition.

Amazon said the presumption that success can only be the result of anti-competitive behavior is entirely wrong.

Want to read more?
Or maybe not.

Here's the word about tonight's social media conversation for voters that will likely blame all of this town's problems on their political opposition . . . Along with other unproductive insights.



Check-it:


Mandel Ngan/Getty

With her vacant stare and vapid, press release-y talking points, Ivanka Trump does not come off as someone who has a good sense of humor. But Tuesday morning, a day after her father risked infecting countless people for a deranged photo op, Ivanka tweeted out something that was truly hysterical.

Everyone 6 months of age and older should get a flu shot every season with rare exception, the first daughter wrote. Now more than ever it is critical to take care of ourselves and one another.

The rank hypocrisy of those words coming from this family, who would not know how to take care of anyone if Mary Poppins herself came down their chimney to teach a personal MasterClass on the subject, is not new.

Man With Raging COVID Infection Baselessly Claims the Flu Is the Real Problem

Neither is Ivankas first inclination to turn her fathers diagnosis into an Instagram aesthetic, superimposing footage of Trumps return from Walter Reed Medical Center over a twinkling background. A caption written in sans serif font said, Welcome home Dad!

The homecoming was a prediction that relied on the familiar beats we all recognize from our own personal experiences with ill or suffering loved ones. First: the shock and horror of an unexpected diagnosis and the gut reaction positivity channeled for the purpose of staying strong.

You are a warrior and will beat this, Ivanka wrote on Friday evening after her father posted a video announcing he would be admitted to the hospital. I love you dad. Reporters, and most Americans, wanted to know just how sick he was. Instead, she gave them a perfunctory heart emoji.

Don Jr. also sent platitudes to his father, but manly ones, through an Instagram video. Hes the toughest guy I know, Don said, while rolling his fingers through his unkempt hair and sitting in front of gym equipment. Im not even a little bit concerned, because I know how he is. (This contradicts reporting from Vanity Fair alleging that the presidents son pushed for an intervention about his recklessness at Walter Reed.)

Story continues

Only a few moments of Don Jr.s video were spent speaking about his fathers condition; quite predictably, he then lashed into a tirade against sociopaths who wished death upon his father.

If Ivanka tried to take some warped version of the high road, ignoring concerns about Trumps condition in favor of offering vague, supportive cliches, Don Jr.s social feeds devolved into childish rantings. DONT WORRY, IM ALSO ABOUT TO TEST POSITIVE FOR A 2ND TERM! his latest post, a meme of his fathers face, says.

Eric Trump also boosted his fathers social media addresses, calling him a Warriorr!!! on Friday. When Donald Trump released photos of him working, i.e., sitting at desk with sharpie and the thinnest binders Ive ever seen in my life, Eric wrote, If only all elected officials had this work ethic. . .I have admired this unrelenting drive my entire life. He thought it was so great when the president took a joyride out to greet supporters outside of the hospital and tweeted out images of the helicopter landing on the White House Monday night.

One adult Trump child has so far remained publicly silent: Tiffany. Her own COVID status is also unknown; the other adult Trump children have all (so far) tested negative and told the world so. Tiffany was pictured at the Rose Garden celebration for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett identified as a likely superspreader event.

The Trump familys Instagram posts document a disaster that has ended; the early days of well-wishes from Ivanka and company have faded into normal posting, or what is considered normal for these people. Most of us watching at home realize this is not over.

Donald Trump has been discharged from the hospital in the middle of an illness; his own televised return to the White House shows a man who is ill and struggling for breath.

Thats all lost on, or at least ignored by Eric, who is back promoting Trump events. Miami Florida: Join our family October 15th at 11:30 for a Pre-Debate Boat Parade! he captioned a video showing clear skies and water. Its going to be insane! Come have some fun and lets #KeepAmericaGreat.

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Ten states, including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and UP, account for 77% of the active COVID-19 cases, said Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan

New Delhi: About 48 percent of the COVID-19 deaths in the country have been reported from 25 districts in eight states, of which 15 districts are in Maharashtra alone, the Health ministry said on Tuesday.

Addressing a press briefing, Secretary in the ministry Rajesh Bhushan said the country has recorded the highest number of COVID-19 recoveries in the world at over 56 lakh and conducted the second-highest number of tests at 8.10 crore.

"New recoveries have been more than the new cases over the last two weeks. New cases being reported in the last 14 days are below the previous high of 90,000 per day," he said.

Bhushan further said the average daily COVID-19 positivity rate has declined from the 9.21 percent recorded between 16 and 22 September to 6.82 percent between 30 September and 6 October.

"Average daily new cases of COVID-19 have declined from 84,179 registered from 2 and 8 September to 77,113 recorded between 30 September and 6 October," he said.

Giving figures on the COVID-19 deaths, Bhushan said about 48 percent of the fatalities in the country have been reported from 25 districts in eight states.

"Of these 25 districts, 15 are in Maharashtra alone, two each in Karnataka, West Bengal and Gujarat and one each in Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh," he said, adding that the ministry is working with these states to bring down the COVID-19 case fatality rate there.

Ten states, including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, account for 77 percent of the active coronavirus cases in the country, Bhushan said.

Asked if the country has crossed the peak, he said it is perhaps not right from the perspective of public health to predict peaks or declines based on mathematical models and that public health activities such as aggressive testing, contact-tracing, surveillance, implementing containment plans, along with non-pharmacological interventions like wearing masks, not spitting in public, maintaining social distancing and hand hygiene, will have to be continued.

"We have found at the national and the international level that when we start saying there is a decline, people become negligent and less cautious and we see a rise in the number of cases again.

"As we approach the festival season and winter, which is conducive for the spread of diseases such as influenza, we need to be extra cautious. We have told all the states to ensure an effective implementation of public health strategies in the fight against COVID-19," Bhushan said.

Replying to a query, he said the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has an agreement with an Indian commercial entity, which has approached the Indian regulator for clinical trials of its Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19, and the latter has given some suggestions that need to be incorporated by it.

Analysing the trend of COVID-19 cases in different states, the official said in Maharashtra, 2.37 lakh cases were recorded on 8 September, the number rose to 2.91 lakh on 15 September and then declined to 2.75 lakh on 22 September, 2.65 lakh on 29 September and 2.52 lakh on 6 October.

"It is too early to take a call on the trend of active COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra, whether the number is stabilising or not, we need to observe for more time," he said.

In Karnataka, the number of cases has gone up (from 97,020 on 8 September to 1.15 lakh on 6 October), while in Andhra Pradesh, a trend of definite decline can be seen (from 97,932 on 8 September to 51,060 on 6 October). The most significant increase in the number of COVID-19 cases has been witnessed in Kerala (from 22,133 on 8 September to 84,958 on 6 October), Bhushan said, adding that a surge was seen during Onam.

In Uttar Pradesh, the number of cases was 62,144 on 8 September, which declined to 45,000 on 6 October. In Tamil Nadu, the number of cases was 51,215 on 8 September and it declined to 45,881 on 6 October.

The ministry is concentrating on these states and has come up with a special strategy on how to control the rising numbers of coronavirus cases as its target is to bring the case fatality rate below one percent, Bhushan said.

Replying to another query regarding insurance claims for the frontline healthcare workers, he said an amount of Rs 50 lakh each has been paid to the families of 95 such workers, who lost their lives to COVID-19.

He added that 176 claims are being processed and in addition, there are 79 claims, which are yet to be received from various states.
DALLAS - Oct. 7, 2020 - Endocannabinoids, signaling molecules produced in the body that share features with chemicals found in marijuana, can shut down genes needed for some pathogenic intestinal bacteria to colonize, multiply, and cause disease, new research led by UT Southwestern scientists shows.

The findings, published online today in Cell, could help explain why the cannabis plant - the most potent part of which is marijuana - can lessen the symptoms of various bowel conditions and may eventually lead to new ways to fight gastrointestinal infections.

Discovered in 1992, endocannabinoids are lipid-based neurotransmitters that play a variety of roles in the body, including regulating immunity, appetite, and mood. Cannabis and its derivatives have long been used to relieve chronic gastrointestinal conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease. Studies have shown that dysregulation of the body's endocannabinoid system can lead to intestinal inflammation and affect the makeup of gut microbiota, the population of different bacterial species that inhabit the digestive tract.

However, study leader Vanessa Sperandio, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and biochemistry at UTSW, says it's been unknown whether endocannabinoids affect susceptibility to pathogenic gastrointestinal infections.

To help answer this question, Sperandio and her colleagues worked with mice genetically altered to overproduce the potent mammalian endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG) in various organs, including the intestines. When the researchers infected these animals and their unmodified littermates with Citrobacter rodentium, a bacterial pathogen that attacks the colon and causes marked inflammation and diarrhea, the mutant mice developed only mild symptoms compared with the more extreme gastrointestinal distress exhibited by their littermates. Examination of the mutant animals' colons showed far lower inflammation and signs of infection. These mice also had significantly lower fecal loads of C. rodentium bacteria and cleared their infection days faster than their unmodified littermates. Treating genetically unmodified animals with a drug that raised levels of 2-AG in the intestines produced similar positive effects.

Sperandio's team found that increased levels of 2-AG could also attenuate Salmonella typhimurium infections in mice and impede enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli - a particularly dangerous gastrointestinal bacteria that infects humans - in order to express the virulence traits needed for a successful infection.

Conversely, when the researchers treated mammalian cells in petri dishes with tetrahydrolipstatin, a Food and Drug Administration-approved compound sold commercially as Alli that inhibits 2-AG production, they became more susceptible to the bacterial pathogens.

Further experiments showed that 2-AG exerted these effects on C. rodentium, S. typhimurium, and E. coli by blocking a bacterial receptor known as QseC. When this receptor senses the host signaling molecules epinephrine and norepinephrine, it triggers a molecular cascade necessary to establish infection. Plugging this receptor with 2-AG prevents this virulence program from activating, Sperandio explains, helping to protect against infection.

Sperandio notes that these findings could help explain some of the effects of cannabis use on inflammatory bowel conditions. Although studies have shown that cannabis can lower inflammation, recent research has shown that these conditions also tend to have a bacterial component that might be positively affected by plant cannabinoids.

In addition, cannabis compounds or synthetic derivatives could eventually help patients kick intestinal bacterial infections without antibiotics. This could be particularly useful for infections caused by enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli, Sperandio says, which produces a deadly toxin when it's treated with antibiotics, rendering these drugs not only counterproductive but extremely dangerous. Because many virulent bacteria that colonize areas elsewhere in the body also have the QseC receptor, she adds, this strategy could be used more broadly to fight a variety of infections.

"By harnessing the power of natural compounds produced in the body and in plants," she says, "we may eventually treat infections in a whole new way."

###

Other UTSW researchers who contributed to this study include first author Melissa Ellermann, Alline R. Pacheco, Angel G. Jimenez, Regan Russell, Santiago Cuesta, Aman Kumar, Wenhan Zhu, Goncalo Vale, Sarah A. Martin, Prithvi Raj, Jeffrey McDonald, and Sebastian E. Winter.

This study was supported by National Institutes of Health grants AI053067, AI05135, AI077613, AI114511 and NIH Training Grant 5 T32 AI7520-14.

Sebastian E. Winter, Ph.D., an Associate Professor in Microbiology and Immunology, is a W.W. Caruth, Jr. Scholar in Biomedical Research.

About UT Southwestern Medical Center

UT Southwestern, one of the premier academic medical centers in the nation, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution's faculty has received six Nobel Prizes, and includes 23 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 16 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 13 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time faculty of more than 2,500 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care in about 80 specialties to more than 105,000 hospitalized patients, nearly 370,000 emergency room cases, and oversee approximately 3 million outpatient visits a year.
Indigenous organizations are requesting the federal government not allow programming  intended to help survivors of Indian residential schools heal from egregious historical events  to lapse.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 7/10/2020 (472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Indigenous organizations are requesting the federal government not allow programming  intended to help survivors of Indian residential schools heal from egregious historical events  to lapse.

As part of the 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which ended a class-action suit involving roughly 86,000 Indigenous children enrolled in the Canadian residential schools system, a healing fund was set up.

The First Nations Mental Wellness Continuum is a complex model, rooted in culture and comprised of layers and elements foundational to supporting First Nations mental wellness. (Submitted)

At $5 billion, the agreement was Canadas largest class-action suit.

The agreement included a Common Experience Payment for all eligible former students of Indian Residential Schools, an Independent Assessment Process for claims of sexual or serious physical abuse, measures to support healing such as the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program and an endowment to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation commemorative activities, as well as the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The federal government renewed funding for the health support program in 2018, with $248.6 million over three years.

That fund is set to expire March 31.

The Assembly of First Nations (AFN), a national advocacy organization, has called for its continuation, and has released a 30-page report to that effect.

It includes the voices of survivors:

"We all needed counsellors, but we had none. The majority of us struggled to live normal lives. Most ended up having dysfunctional families. They are the product of this situation. They need to learn to function normally in their own lives. The effects had snowballed to the next generation."

"I may be able to tell my children what happened to me in (Indian residential school) someday."

"Trauma has always left me numb  Feeling the terror and pain of it paralyzes and numbs me."

"Grief consumes me. I have lost so much  so many family members, my children lost their language because I thought it would be better for them not to know and be known by other kids as Indian." I tried to protect them from that."

"Accepting myself as I am and accepting others as they are, too; and being part of a group for comfort, security, confidentiality, togetherness, love, acceptance, caring, honesty, courage and learning to feel again."

"I still think about it once in a while, but not all the time like before. I feel different now. I am more open and happy."

Along with the voices of survivors, the assembly presents numerous statistics, such as that between 2011 and 2019, more than 889,394 survivors and families reached out for cultural and emotional support 5.8 million times.

"As there is no predetermined timeframe for healing, survivors, their families, support workers and community organizations are now pressing for the continuation of this essential program," the report states.

"After enduring the most shameful chapter of Canadian history, fighting for the truth and recognition of the horrors experienced in these schools, and the conclusions disclosed in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, the future of the program cannot remain ambiguous."

The AFN also cites a federal government report.

"(A)lmost all (93 per cent) of community leaders and health directors/staff surveyed indicated that the program supported the community in its efforts to heal from the legacy of residential schools," the government states.

"(Eighty four) per cent indicated that as a result of the IRS RHSP, community members speak more openly about the legacy of the schools; 78 per cent indicated that community members seek help from counsellors, community workers and elders; 68 per cent reported an increase in attendance at community cultural events; and 50 per cent reported an increase in the number of community members who seek help to address their alcohol or drug use."

Closer to home, the Southern Chiefs Organization weighed in.

"There is no arguing with this kind of evidence, especially when we see the damaging impacts of residential school over multiple generations," Grand Chief Jerry Daniels stated in a separate news release.

"This programming is critical and is being accessed by those who need it. It would be an incredible injustice for the Trudeau government to stall the healing process."

The organization is especially concerned about elders.

"Currently, there is a survivors crisis exacerbated by the isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Elders in their seventies and eighties have time to reflect on the past and to relive their experiences, reawakening previous traumas and painful memories," according to the SCO release.

Daniels stated he cannot stress enough this healing program or something similar must exist, "always and forever," for survivors and their families.

"Anything short of that amounts to nothing less than betrayal by the federal government," he said.

The AFN report lists a variety of recommendations to improve healing services, including transitioning the program from the federal government to First Nations governments and organizations. It recommends developing a new program framework "of healing and wellness based on culture and on the strengths of community development, ownership and capacity building (embedded in community)."

Read the AFNs full report at bit.ly/2Sus6VX

 mletourneau@brandonsun.com

 Michele LeTourneau covers Indigenous matters for The Brandon Sun under the Local Journalism Initiative, a federally funded program that supports the creation of original civic journalism.
The long history of relations between Europe and the Middle East is a marvelous topic for the historian. Not only is the Arab world and broader Middle East Europes nearest neighbour, but the two regions also have much history in common.



Both the Middle East and Europe are the heirs of classical civilisation, with the Arabs and the Ottomans taking over much of the eastern Roman Empire in the same way as the Germanic peoples did the western. And at least after the 16th-century Ottoman conquest of the Middle East, and probably for centuries before, the states of the region were essential stakeholders  sometimes rivals, sometimes allies  in the European system.



Probably the latest historian to investigate these relations in detail is UK historian Noel Malcolm, who in his recent book Useful Enemies has reconstructed the history of European attitudes towards Islam and the former Ottoman Empire. The latter once stretched across Anatolia, the Arab world, and into eastern Europe before breaking up at the end of the First World War. While in the 19th century the Empire entered into the long decline that saw it dubbed the sick man of Europe, in earlier centuries it was both a formidable rival and an intriguing example for many Europeans.



Useful Enemies focuses on the period between 1450 and 1750, beginning with the aftermath of the conquest of Constantinople, last redoubt of the former Byzantine Empire, by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II in 1453 and ending in the mid-18th century with the analysis of Ottoman institutions by writers of the European Enlightenment. In the interval, Malcolm has much to say about the ways in which the Ottoman Empire was a useful enemy for many European thinkers. It allowed them to rethink their own societies, sometimes using praise or criticism of the Empire for quite other purposes.



On the morning of 29 June 1453 a ship arrived at Venice, bearing the news that Constantinople had been conquered by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, Malcom writes. Letters describing the fall of the city written by officials in some of the Venetian possessions on the coast of Greece were read out to a shocked Senate in the Doges Palace. On the following day the Venetian government sent a messenger to Rome to implore the help of the Papacy In Florence, Cosimo de Medici described the loss of Constantinople as the most tragic event the world had seen for centuries.



The immediate task was to identify whether the Ottoman conquest represented a military threat to neighbouring European states and whether to respond to it by military or other means. There was then the question of how to understand the new power that had arisen in the east and whether it could be either invited in or shut out of the European system.



Initial reactions were fearful, with the European humanist writers of the 15th and 16th centuries, themselves rediscovering the civilisations of Greece and Rome, seeing the Ottomans as latter-day conquerors on the model of Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. Many western thinkers, for whom classical history was a significant part of their mental world, found it easy to ascribe such motives [territorial conquest] to the Ottomans, as they believed the sultans were almost as deeply interested as they were in the history of ancient Greece and Rome, Malcolm says.



However, others wanted to see Ottoman virtues imported into Europe, thinking that there was much in the Empire that could be emulated. Malcolm quotes from the mediaeval English writer Sir John Mandeville, who in his famous Travels had imagined a conversation with the Mameluke sultan in Egypt in which the latter makes telling criticisms of the corruption and hypocrisy of Christian Europe. This was the beginning of a tradition of praise of first Mameluke and then Ottoman societies that saw them as being in some respects superior to Europe.



The mediaeval philosopher St Thomas Aquinass suggestion in his Summa theologiae, a summary version of Roman Catholic faith, that non-Christian religions should be tolerated also left the door ajar for some pragmatic [European] policy-making in later years, Malcom says, when various European powers sought to make alliances with the Ottoman Empire at the expense of their rivals.



Even if the Ottomans were not seen as being entirely part of the European system, they could be useful allies, perhaps something in the way the Russian tsars could be roped in from time to time to confirm or disrupt the balance of power in Europe.





The 16th-century religious Reformation in Europe saw a reshuffling of the cards with respect to the Ottoman Empire.



The Dutch scholar Erasmus was against Austrian Hapsburg attempts to drum up European support for their campaigns against the Ottomans, seeing these as veiled attempts to bolster Hapsburg prestige. The German reformer Martin Luther, neither a friend of the Hapsburgs nor of the rest of Catholic Europe, was suspicious of military campaigns against the Ottomans, seeing them as ways of raising troops for use against European Protestants.



One of the noteworthy things about Luthers whole approach to Islam and to the Ottoman Empire is his appetite for detailed knowledge about them, Malcolm comments. Catholic polemicists such as the early French orientalist Guillaume Postel claimed that the Ottomans were actually disguised European Protestants. Protestant polemicists such as the German reformer Philip Melanchthon argued that at least [Ottoman] Muslims were not as badly corrupted in their beliefs and practices as [European] Catholics.



It was against the background of European power-political discord that the Austrian Hapsburgs proposed an alliance with the Ottomans (against Venice), followed by the French (against the Austrians), the Dutch (against the Spanish), and finally the English (against the Spanish), all of them seeking Ottoman support against their enemies in Europe. The balance of forces in Europe made England a natural ally of the Ottoman Empire in the final decades of the sixteenth century, Malcolm comments, when the government of queen Elizabeth I was looking around for allies against Philip II of Spain.



Malcolms book explores the views, positive and negative, of European writers about the Ottoman Empire and its political and religious systems, taking in ideas associated with such influential writers as Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Montesquieu. Some of the ideas these expressed became commonplaces of the European response to the Ottomans, including the tradition of so-called oriental despotism developed by Montesquieu.



Like many of the other figures Malcolm considers, Montesquieu wrote in the absence of first-hand knowledge of the Ottoman system and perhaps relied on half-garbled reports that the Ottoman system, like the Mameluke one in Egypt, relied upon slave soldiers to replenish its elites. But there were also other European writers, as Malcolm notes, who were not convinced by Montesquieus scheme of government limited by law in the West and arbitrary despotism in the East. Some contemporary commentators considered the rule of the Ottoman sultans to be less despotic than the rule of king Louis XIV in France.



Malcolm ends his survey in the 18th century, when there was a new and more open-minded approach to both Islam and the Ottoman Empire associated with Enlightenment thinkers. Windows were thrown open and fresh air came in, with the crabbed controversies of previous centuries being hauled up before the tribunal of reason. While Spinoza in the 17th century was still worried about what he saw as the absence of freedom of thought in the Ottoman Empire, Voltaires main enemy in his critical writings in the 18th was what he considered to be the fanaticism and hypocrisy of the society of his day in France.



In his final pages, Malcolm considers other influential accounts of the historical relationship between Europe and the Middle East, including by Palestinian scholar Edward Said in his 1978 book Orientalism. The temporal sweep of Saids book is less than Malcolms, being confined mostly to the 19th and early 20th centuries, and so is its geographical range, since it mostly considers only certain English and French authors.



Said tends to lump the authors he considers together as illustrating a common tendency towards orientalism, whereas in fact there was always a range of different views. There were debates about the positive and negative sides of the Ottoman system, Malcolm writes, with these often reflecting debates about European societies at home. The reality here is altogether too multiform, too various and dynamic, to be confined by Saids own narrow and prescriptive disciplinary order, he comments.



What they [the writings examined in Malcolms book] show is active  even creative  engagement with their Islamic or Ottoman subject matter as part of a larger pursuit of religious and political arguments within their own culture. The Eastern material was not there to be beaten down, as Said imagined, into conformity with complacent Western attitudes; often it was used to shake things up, to provoke, to shame, to galvanize.



Noel Malcolm, Useful Enemies, Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, pp487

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

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Delhi HC refuses to stay release of movie 'Nyay: The Justice', purportedly based on Sushant Singh Rajput's lif

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

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

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

Actor Rhea Chakraborty released from Byculla jail after a month

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Oct 07: Actor Rhea Chakraborty was on Wednesday released from Byculla jail, hours after the Bombay High Court granted her bail. She was in jail for nearly a month over drugs-related charges in the Sushant Singh Rajput case. Her brother Showik was, however, denied bail.

Rhea Chakraborty granted bail by Bombay HC in drugs case in Sushant's death|Oneindia News

Rhea stepped out of the Byculla prison here around 5.30 pm amid heavy police deployment, an official said. A police vehicle escorted her car as a large number of media persons had gathered outside the prison.

The Mumbai Police had warned the media against "chasing celebrities and others" and "endangering lives" shortly after the actor's bail.

Bombay HC grants bail to Rhea Chakraborty, rejects bail plea of her brother Showik Chakraborty

Rhea Chakraborty will "spend her night after a month in her own bed," Rhea Chakraborty's lawyer Satish Maneshinde said.

Rhea Chakraborty, her brother and the other accused were arrested last month by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with its probe into the drugs angle related to the case of Rajput's death.

The HC, while granting bail to Rhea Chakraborty and two others, directed them to deposit their passports with the NCB and not to leave the country without permission of the special NDPS court.

The HC asked Rhea to deposit a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and said she must visit the nearest police station at 11 am for the first 10 days after being released from judicial custody.

It directed her not to leave Mumbai without the NCB's permission and to not tamper with evidence while out on bail.
In the Bible, the book of James tells Christians, "religion that is pure and faultless is this to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27, NIV).

A more modern interpretation of this passage might say, "take care of those who struggle taking care of themselves." For the Community Missions Committee of Plainview's First Baptist Church, this rang true.

Lori Brown who serves the church as minister to university students and the new special needs ministry, found a way for the committee to put their faith into action.

"It was a perfect storm of (Lori) seeing a need and our Community Missions Committee chomping at the bit for a project to work on, said FBC Youth Minister Tim Penney.

Brown identified a single mother with four special needs children, through their participation in church events and a series of home visits by Brown, who was in need.

"It was a perfect storm," said Penney.

The woman and her children were living with her mother and it was obvious the family needed a place of their own.

The woman found a home in a Seth Ward neighborhood, but according to committee member and local contractor, Jack Wirth, the home was uninhabitable.

"There were holes in the floor and the plumbing in the kitchen did not work, said Wirth.

In addition to fixing and replacing the floors, volunteers repainted the interior of the home and redid much of the plumbing.

The work on the house began back in May. Wirth estimates that volunteers have donated between 150-170-man hours to the project.

There's a little bit left to go," said Wirth. "We are going to try and seal up that southside and get it ready for winter and get to that east side in the spring."

"At the heart of it all we are trying to minister to a family who our hearts went out to," said Penney. "They have special needs requirements here at the house and so we wanted to reach out in a way that would really make an impact on the family,"

"It's just gives you a sense of being able to help and be the hands and feet of Christ by helping a family in need, by helping a family in need. To provide for their basic needs and to share our faith with them," said Wirth.
Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for establishing the all-too-weird reality of black holes  the straight-out-of-science-fiction cosmic monsters that suck up light and time and will eventually swallow us, too.

Roger Penrose of Britain, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and Andrea Ghez of the United States explained to the world these dead ends of the cosmos that are still not completely understood but are deeply connected, somehow, to the creation of galaxies.

Penrose, an 89-year-old at the University of Oxford, received half of the prize for proving with mathematics in 1964 that Einsteins general theory of relativity predicted the formation of black holes, even though Einstein himself didnt think they existed.

Genzel, who is at both the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the University of California, Berkeley, and Ghez, of the University of California, Los Angeles, received the other half of the prize for discovering in the 1990s a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

Black holes fascinate people because the idea of some monster out there sucking everything up is a pretty weird thing, Penrose said an interview with The Associated Press. He said our galaxy and the galaxies near us will ultimately get swallowed by one utterly huge black hole. This is the fate ... but not for an awful long time, so its not something to worry too much about.

Black holes are at the centre of every galaxy, and smaller ones dot the universe. Just their existence is mind-bending. They are so massive that nothing, not even light, can escape their gravitational pull. They warp and twist light in a way that seems unreal and cause time to slow and stop.

Black holes, because they are so hard to understand, is what makes them so appealing, Ghez, 55, said after becoming the fourth woman ever to win a Nobel in physics. I really think of science as a big, giant puzzle.

While the three scientists showed the existence of black holes, it wasnt until last year that people could see one for themselves when another science team captured the first and only optical image of one. It looks like a flaming doughnut from hell but is in a galaxy 53 million light-years from Earth.

Penrose, a mathematical physicist who got the call from the Nobel Committee while in the shower, was surprised at his winning because his work is more theoretical than observational, and thats not usually what wins physics Nobels.

What fascinated Penrose more than the black hole was what was at the other end of it, something called the singularity. Its something science still cant figure out.

Singularity, thats a place where the densities and curvatures go to infinity. You expect the physics go crazy, he said from his home. If you fall into a black hole, then you pretty well inevitably get squashed into this singularity at the end. And thats the end.

Penrose said he was walking to work with a colleague 56 years ago, thinking about what it would be like to be in this situation where all this material is collapsing around you. He realized he had some strange feeling of elation, and that was when things started coming together in his mind.

Martin Rees, the British astronomer royal, noted that Penrose triggered a renaissance in the study of relativity in the 1960s, and that, together with a young Stephen Hawking, he helped firm up evidence for the Big Bang and black holes.

Penrose and Hawking are the two individuals who have done more than anyone else since Einstein to deepen our knowledge of gravity, Rees said. Sadly, this award was too much delayed to allow Hawking to share the credit.

Hawking died in 2018, and Nobel Prizes are awarded only to the living.

New York University astrophysicist Glennys Farrar said: There is no doubt that if this prize were awarded when Hawking was still alive, he would share it. He did overall more significant work on this subject than almost anyone.

Genzel, 68, and Ghez won because they showed that black holes are not just theory  theyre real, theyre here, and theres a monster-size black hole in the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, said Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist and mathematician at Columbia University.

In the 1990s, Genzel and Ghez, leading separate groups of astronomers, trained their sights on the dust-covered center of our Milky Way galaxy, a region called Sagittarius A(asterisk), where something strange was going on. It was an extremely heavy, invisible object that pulls on the jumble of stars, causing them to rush around at dizzying speeds, according to the Nobel Committee.

It was a black hole. Not just an ordinary black hole, but a supermassive one, 4 million times the mass of our sun.

The first image Ghez got was in 1995, using the Keck Telescope in Hawaii that had just gone online. A year later, another image seemed to indicate that the stars near the center of the Milky Way were circling something. A third image led Ghez and Genzel to think they were really on to something.

A fierce competition developed between Ghez and Genzel, whose team was using an array of telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Chile.

Their rivalry elevated them to greater scientific heights, said Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb.

Unlike with other achievements honoured with Nobels, there is no practical application for these discoveries.

Is there a practical application to Beethovens Ninth Symphony? Columbias Greene asked. But its existence, this type of spectacular knowledge, is part of what gives life meaning.

The Nobel comes with a gold medal and 10 million kronor (more than $1.1 million), courtesy of a bequest left 124 years ago by the prizes creator, Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.

On Monday, the Nobel in medicine was awarded to Americans Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice and British-born scientist Michael Houghton for discovering the liver-ravaging hepatitis C virus. The prizes for chemistry, literature, peace and economics will be announced in the coming days.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.)

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WYOMING, MI  Godfrey-Lee Public Schools will offer free coronavirus tests for students and staff who show COVID-19 symptoms at school, making the district the first in West Michigan to offer in-house testing amid the pandemic.

After starting the school year fully remote Aug. 24, the Wyoming-area district of less than 2,000 began welcoming students back for in-person learning mid-September. Families also have the option for online-only learning if they dont wish to return face-to-face.

Students and staff are required to submit a daily health screener every day before coming to school, according to the districts Return to Learning plan.

With the districts new testing program, anyone who is flagged by the daily health screener will have access to free testing that has a 24-hour response.

Superintendent Kevin Polston said testing is vital to keep students and staff safe during face-to-face learning.

Testing is another mitigation strategy we believe to be critical in keeping our schools open for in-person learning," Polston said in a prepared statement.

Godfrey-Lee Public Schools has confirmed two positive COVID-19 cases since students returned to school, according to data on the Kent County Intermediate School District dashboard. The first was reported at Godfrey Elementary School on Sept. 8, the first day of school for grades K-5.

The second case was reported in a middle school student Sept. 25 at Lee Middle and High School. That student is still currently in isolation as of Oct. 6, according to the dashboard.

The districts new testing program is offered in partnership with the Kent County Health Department and a Grand Rapids-based testing lab called Arctic Medical Laboratories, according to a news release issued by the district.

Health officials plan to expand the rapid coronavirus testing program to other school districts in Kent County, according to the release.

Once we learn valuable lessons from this pilot with the Godfrey Lee school district, we will offer this rapid test resource to other Kent County School districts," said Joann Hoganson, Kent County Community Wellness Division director, in a prepared statement.

Our goal is to identify COVID-19 students and staff quickly so that they can be isolated. This will help prevent the spread of the virus in the schools.

Private health insurance or Medicaid will be billed for the testing, according to the news release. The Kent County Health Department will cover the costs of uninsured individuals through CARES Act funding.

The 24-hour testing would address problems with slow turnaround for COVID-19 test results, which some West Michigan school leaders have identified as a matter of concern. Rockford Superintendent Michael Shibler said he has been frustrated by slow test results, which he feels disrupts the learning process.

Rockford Public Schools, with around 8,000 students, reported last week that five students and two staff members had tested positive for the coronavirus. An additional 78 students and three staff members were also put into quarantine after being identified as close contacts.

Shibler said test results for those close contacts have taken three to six days to come back, and those individuals still had to be quarantined in the meantime. He said he thinks results should be available within a day or two, so those individuals arent out of the classroom for too long if they did not become infected.

Three to six (days) is not acceptable, he said. Bottom line, if you ask me, the greatest challenge, my greatest frustration, its that.

RELATED: Rockford schools superintendent frustrated by slow coronavirus test results

A new mandate from the state health department now requires Michigan schools to notify the district community about probable and confirmed cases of COVID-19 within 24 hours.

The order was issued by Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Robert Gordon on Tuesday and goes into effect Oct. 12.

Recent outbreaks throughout the country demonstrate that COVID-19 can spread quickly in the school setting, Gordon said in a statement.

RELATED: Michigan schools have 24 hours to disclose coronavirus cases under new order

Before the order was issued, schools were only required to report outbreaks, defined as two or more COVID-19 cases in people from different households who may have shared exposure on school grounds.

Six K-12 schools in Kent County have reported outbreaks so far, according to outbreak data from MDHHS last updated Oct. 5. Those schools are Rockford High School with four cases, Kent City Elementary with four cases, Parkside Elementary with five cases, Sparta Middle School with two cases, Sparta High School with six cases and Grandville High School with five cases.

More on MLive:

Coronavirus outbreaks reported at 58 Michigan K-12 schools, 24 colleges in Oct. 5 report

Great Lakes waterspout outbreak just shattered record amount

Anti-masker Republicans in Legislature wont make Whitmer hold back on fighting COVID-19, she says
National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval on Wednesday hosted a dinner for Abdullah Abdullah, Chairman of High Council for National Reconciliation of Afghanistan, who is in India on a five-day visit.

Abdullah, who arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday on a five-day visit, described it as a constructive discussion with Doval".

Discussed Afghan peace process and talks in Doha. He (Doval) assured Indias full support for peace efforts and any peace settlement acceptable to Afghans," said Abdullah.

He further said that his country is in favour of an independent, democratic, sovereign and peaceful Afghanistan, where no terrorists can operate," said Abdullah. I thanked India for the invitation, its continued support for Afghanistan and its constructive role in peace efforts."

Abdullah will also hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on the crucial peace initiative in the war-ravaged country. The visit of the influential Afghan leader to India comes in the midst of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha. Afghan officials said the visit is part of the efforts to build a regional consensus and support for the Afghan peace process.
Kim Kardashian West was planning to go all out for her 40th birthday party, but due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, her celebration has unfortunately been postponed.

In a new interview, the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star opened up about turning the big 4-0 and the birthday extravaganza she had planned for her special day. Not only did she share her epic party theme, but the mom of four also revealed the over the top outfit she was going to wear for the occasion had the pandemic not interfered with her plans.

Kim Kardashian West | ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

Kim Kardashian West planned to have a Wild, Wild West party theme

On Oct. 21, Kardashian West will turn 40-years-old, and she had quite the shindig planned to celebrate this major milestone.

However, with many parts of the country still limiting social gatherings to 10 people or less due to the pandemic, the KKW Beauty mogul has to hold off on her birthday bash  even though she had already solidified her original party plans.

During a recent interview with Grazia magazine, Kardashian West opened up about the blowout birthday party theme she had come up with and the custom outfit she would wear for the occasion.

RELATED: Kim Kardashian Has One Major Goal Before Her 40th Birthday

It was going to be called Wild, Wild Miss Wests 40th Birthday. I had Manfred Thierry Mugler make me a metal costume. Like, a cowgirl costume, she explained. I have it and it is insane. We did virtual fittings.

Since throwing a party during this uncertain time wouldnt be safe, the reality star has decided to postpone her western-themed shindig until next year.

I dont even want to waste it on a party me for myself with five people. I want it to be something. So, Im thinking maybe next year. I can have it on my 41st. We can still call it my 40th, right?

Though she didnt disclose how shell celebrate her 40th birthday this year, its likely the mother of four will have a small, intimate celebration with her family, instead of the star-studded bash she had originally planned.

How Kardashian West really feels about turning 40

In addition to talking about her birthday plans, Kardashian West also opened up about how she really feels about turning the big 4-0.

While many people are afraid of getting older, the reality star revealed to the outlet that shes more than ready to get ushered into her fifth decade.

Im not one that gets nervous about getting older. I obviously do what I can to try and feel as youthful or to look a certain way. But Im proud that my kids get me here another year, she said, referring to her little ones: North, Saint, Chicago, and Psalm. I always think about that. Particularly losing your dad or a parent or someone close to you at a young age.

So even though shes not ringing in this major milestone with an epic birthday extravaganza, it sounds like Kardashian West is still looking forward to her special day and finally leaving her thirties behind.
Suffering loss in business during the coronavirus lockdown, a 25-year-old readymade clothes seller robbed Rs 12 lakh from two banks in Bhubaneswar. Interestingly, the man identified as Soumyaranjan Jena learned the robbery techniques from YouTube. The man was later arrested by the police.

Bhubaneswar-Cuttack police commissioner Sudhansu Sarangi said Jena, who belongs to a Tangibanta village, looted Indian Overseas Bank and Bank of India last month. He used toy guns for carrying out the robbery. Jena who had accounts in these two banks had taken a total loan of about Rs 19 lakh from them. However, his business, which was earlier doing well, stumbled badly after the coronavirus lockdown hit. The accused even went back to the bank to repay some of the loaned amount.

"He had looted nearly Rs 12 lakh from the Indian Overseas Bank, near Infocity area on September 7, and the Bank of India's Barimunda branch in Mancheswar area on September 28. He got the idea watching YouTube videos and used a toy gun to rob the two banks. Police recovered cash amounting to over Rs 10 lakh and seized the vehicle and the toy gun used in the robbery," Hindustan Times reported citing the police commissioner as saying.
A Liberian man, Tamba Lamine, has drowned after jumping from a bridge into a river in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, to retrieve a $20 note that he had mistakenly dropped according to a report by BBC.



According to police spokesman Moses Carter who spoke to the BBC, Mr Lamine was walking with a friend on the bridge when the $20 note fell into the river.



Lamine, who is a street hawker then dived into the river and retrieved the money. After finding the money, he showed it to onlookers but then drowned, according to Carter.



He felt pressured to get the cash back because he needed to give his friend his $5 "share" of some merchandise they jointly sold , Mr Carter said.



Police now say Lamine's body has not been found.



Explaining the shocking story, Mr Carter said onlookers who saw Lamine dive thought he was safe after he emerged from the water to show them the note, but he then disappeared and did not resurface.



He drowned in the Mesuradu River, which runs between mainland Monrovia and the industrial district of Bushrod Island.



The United States dollar is a stronger currency than Liberias own dollar - $20 equates to around 3,900 Liberian dollars.













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JOHNSTON -- Health care was a central issue in their campaigns two years ago, and in their rematch Cindy Axne and David Young once again aired disagreements over health care policy during Monday nights debate.

Axne, the first-term Democratic incumbent in central and southwestern Iowas 3rd Congressional District, and Young, a Republican former congressman, participated in a live debate broadcast Monday night by Iowa PBS.

Axne and Young are squaring off in a rematch of their 2018 race, when Young was a two-term incumbent. Axne unseated Young by 2.1 percentage points.

The 3rd District race is expected to be close again this year: 34% of active voters in the district are registered as Democrats, 32% are Republicans, and 27% claim no party.

While both Axne and Young said they wish to provide protections for individuals with pre-existing health conditions, they disagreed about the proper way to do it.

Axne hammered on Youngs votes in Congress to repeal the Democratic-written Affordable Care Act. Young defend his votes, saying despite his desire to repeal the federal health care law -- which includes protections for people with pre-existing conditions -- he also worked to maintain those protections by introducing legislation.

I have always supported those with pre-existing conditions. I have two cousins who died of cancer. My uncle is missing two legs from diabetes. I have an aunt with (multiple sclerosis). To think that Im not going to act in their best interest, and all Iowans who are suffering the same, is despicable, Young said. These charges that just because you have a criticism of a current law that is failing  just goes to show how Iowans hate it when their health care is politicized. You did it in 2018, youre doing it again. Its a broken record. Its not going to work.

Axne stood firm in her criticisms.

You can slice and dice this any way that you would want to, but thats what you did. You voted against Iowans, and theres no way to erase that history, Axne said.

On the topic of federal COVID-19 relief, Axne said she opposed a proposal written and approved by her party because it had no chance of being approved by majority Republicans in the U.S. Senate or the White House under Republican President Donald Trump.

I knew that that deal was going nowhere. It was just something to make people feel good about going home and saying they did something, when the Senate wasnt even going to vote for it. They told us that, Axne said. Im out there to get things done, not to put in votes just to make people feel good, but to actually put forth policy that improves their lives.

On the topic of keeping Social Security solvent, both candidates said they do not think the retirement age should be raised, and both said they would be open to raising the ceiling on taxing high wage earners.

Young said he does not support privatizing Social Security, and said lawmakers must recognize its long-term funding issues and work across political boundaries to devise a solution.

First of all, it has to be done in a bipartisan way. This cannot be a partisan approach. It has to be done in a way that is very, very transparent, take it to the American people, to the committee process, on the floor of the House and Senate, and also you have to get the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue (the White House) invested in this to do this, Young said. Its happened before, and we can do it again. But it takes guts. I want to be at the table to help do that. But first of all we have to admit that theres a problem.

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Heck, Trump just got out of the hospital after single-handedly beating the so-called virus into submission with his bare hands and he tweeted this: Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone conversation on October 7, the Armenian Prime Minsters Office said.

Prime Minister Pashinyan congratulated President Putin on the occasion of his birthday. He offered warm good wishes on this occasion, wishing success in fulfilling the high mission of head of state. The sides also discussed the situation in Nagorno Karabakh, attaching importance to speedy halt of military operations, the PMO said in the news release.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Mike Gonzalez, a Senior Fellow in Heritage's Allison Center for Foreign Policy and an Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum fellow, has stated in a commentary that the Black Lives Matters movement founders are all committed Marxists.

Gonzalez had released an essay mid-September to The Daily Signal, explaining that the BLM movement and the Chinese Progressive Association (a Marxist based group in support of the People's Republic of China)- Explaining what? This sentence just ends without a conclusion.

I will add this a possible conclusion (had connections to one another.)

However, in Gonzalez's new commentary, he states, "A New York Times "fact check" report Friday claimed that my essay days earlier at The Daily Signal about Black Lives Matter's links to pro-China organizations was wrong." He goes on to explain that while the New York Times tried to completely discredit his essay, they were fundamentally incorrect.

From Gonzalez's research, he found that when donating to BLM, one can see that the money goes to the San Francisco CPA division, who support BLM founder Alicia Garza's Black Futures Lab. Gonzalez found this info rather disagreeable as he explains, "the San Francisco CPA is a left-wing group that from the beginning has been a supporter of China's communist revolution and whose members want revolution here in America."

"And yes, Americans do rightly support the sentiment that black lives matter. However, by and large they do not know that Garza and other founders of the Black Lives Matter organizations are committed Marxists," Gonzalez continued. Additionally, Gonzalez stated that BLM has been scrubbing their website to remove anything that could connect them to Marxist language or ideas.

"The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation was busily removing Marxist language from its website Monday. The Post Millennial, a media site, reported: "Black Lives Matter removed a section of text that had been under a section called 'What We Believe' that sought to engender the destruction, or perhaps reimagining, of the nuclear family structure." The communist term "comrades" also has been airbrushed out."

Gonzalez concluded, "It is clear, then, that both the Boston and San Francisco versions of the Chinese Progressive Association work at times to push the agenda of China's communist government he re in the United States, and that both chapters are praised regularly by China's state-owned mouthpieces."
The government has been urged to boost its support for research and development (R&D) in South Africa, to help the economy to weather the economic storms of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Image supplied

The call came from Cova Advisory Director, Tumelo Chipfupa, following a webinar which he hosted, on the impact of the pandemic on the R&D landscape in South Africa.Government officials who took part in the discussion noted that the Department of Science and Innovations (DSI) main R&D funding incentive, the new Innovation Fund (formerly the Sovereign Innovation Fund), has been scaled back due to the overall squeeze on government finances.R&D plays a key role in industrial development and job creation, said Chipfupa. We need to promote faster and more sustained growth, and investment in innovation plays a key role in this.He warned that at times of economic hardship, the erosion of business confidence means that companies often tend to cut their spending on R&D and skills development.Governments can play a big role in the promotion of R&D, he suggested. Some countries have increased the generosity of R&D incentives - Germany and Ireland, for instance, have introduced new tax incentives.Chipfupa noted that in South Africa, 80% of innovation funding comes from within firms themselves, whereas the global trend is for less than half of all funding to be found through external injections.It is clear we are underusing incentives, or we have insufficient incentives for R&D, he suggested.However, he also argued that there are several programmes which support science and innovation, and firms undertaking research should look more widely for support.There is a broad range of government funding opportunities, he said.He praised the DSI for its responsiveness to the private sector and its effective communication with grant applicants.Government participants in the webinar confirmed that private sector R&D has gone down as a proportion of overall innovation investment.The governments main R&D tax incentive has a sunset clause and is due to end in October 2022. Work is underway to assess its effectiveness and to see what support should be continued after the expiry date, with a decision expected early next year.Some form of support must continue as the economy will remain frail for a long time, and R&D is one area which will help to trigger and sustain recovery, said Chipfupa.It is not in dispute that state incentives do lead to an increase in R&D by firms.Access the full webinar on funding innovation
A Lagos-based human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, on Monday, paid a visit to the ailing Nigerian lecturer, Inih Ebong, who was unjustly sacked about two decades ago by the University of Uyo.

Mr Ebong is suffering from a life-threatening cardiovascular disease.

The lecturer has been out of job for so long and without any alternative source of income, he does not have the money to pay for medical bills or even feed himself and his family.

Mr Ebong was an associate professor in the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Uyo, when his appointment was unlawfully terminated in 2002. Akpan Ekpo and Peter Effiong were the vice-chancellor and registrar of the institution respectively at the time.

Three successive vice-chancellors of the university have refused to reinstate him, despite an unbroken string of victories at different courts.

Mr Ebong, before his sack, had a running battle with Messrs Ekpo and Effiong, who saw him as a thorn in their side for speaking up regularly against alleged maladministration and corruption in the school.

It would be a shame, the blood of Dr Inih Ebong will be on the management, will be on the Senate and the Governing Council of the University of Uyo if Dr Inih Ebong dies, without getting justice, said the lawyer, Mr Effiong, who flew in from Lagos to show sympathy and solidarity with the lecturer.

Mr Effiong, with his phone, did a live Facebook broadcast at Mr Ebongs home in Uyo, where he passionately appealed for peoples intervention and support for the ailing lecturer.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Enefiok Essien, is a professor of law and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.

Mr Effiong, in his broadcast, reminded Mr Essien of the oath he took before the Supreme Court, when he was given the award of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, to defend the law and human rights.

If this case is not resolved in your tenure, who else would resolve it? he said.

I am appealing to Professor Enefiok Essien, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Uyo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who was my dean when I was a student in the faculty of law, to please temper justice with mercy.

I know this did not start in your time, but history will remember you if you resolve this case.

You dont need to spend money on litigation, the money you could use in building and equipping libraries for the students, he added.

The lawyer appealed to the Akwa Ibom State Government, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, and other members of the public to intervene in Mr Ebongs case.

He publicised Mr Ebongs bank account details and appealed for financial support to enable the lecturer to get urgent medical care.

Mr Ebong, who looked terribly emaciated and could barely talk, thanked Mr Effiong for the visit.

He told the lawyer how he almost got a teaching appointment with a university in Australia but for a public disclaimer on him by the University of Uyo.

Its so sad. He gave me admission then to study theatre arts, a Facebook user, Blessing Mbakwe, commented on Mr Effiongs broadcast. He was a good lecturer.
New Delhi:

The apex consumer commission on Thursday dismissed a petition seeking a refund of over Rs 9,200 crore as excess amount allegedly charged by Ola and Uber cab aggregators.

A National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission bench of Justice K S Chaudhari dismissed the petition filed by NGO

Nyaybhoomisaying it was non-maintainable.

The NGOs had filed the petition in September last year, claiming that the cab aggregators indulged in unfair trade practices by overcharging in the name of surge pricing.

The complaint had alleged that these cab service providers were charging excess fare than the amount notified by state governments and sought imposition of a penalty of the like amount on them.

The petition was filed against ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs Ola, Uber India Systems Pvt Ltd and Serendipity Infolabs Pvt Ltd which runs Taxi For Sure.

It had sought a refund of an estimated amount of Rs 9239 crore from the cab operators on behalf of all passengers across the country as the excess money collected by them in the past three years.

It said that in August last year, the Delhi High Court had barred the cab providers from charging fares higher than those notified by the Delhi Government after August 22.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
(Natural News) The United Nations has appointed China, arguably the worlds most oppressive authoritarian regime, to help lead a Human Rights panel that exists to, get this, identify threats to freedom of speech.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will now be tasked with uncovering which countries are carrying out enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention of citizens, which is exactly what is happening in communist China!

According to the U.N., China will have a say in selecting at least 17 U.N. human rights mandate-holders over the next year. China will also assist in screening candidates for U.N. human rights positions, the globalist body indicated.

News of the appointment caught the attention of many human rights activists who are now scratching their heads trying to figure out if this is some kind of joke. U.N. Watch, for instance, called out the U.N. for basically making a mockery of itself with this strange decision.

Its absurd and immoral for the U.N. to allow Chinas oppressive government a key role in selecting officials who shape international human rights standards and report on violations worldwide, stated the executive director of U.N. Watch, which was the first to report on Chinas appointment to the panel.

Allowing Chinas oppressive and inhumane regime to choose the world investigators on freedom of speech, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances is like making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief.

Communist China also lied about COVID  why would we trust the regime concerning human rights?

The timing of the appointment is further strange in that communist China is the subject of international inquiry due to its mishandling of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.

Perhaps most prominently, the United States is actively looking into why China allowed the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) to spread so quickly and rampantly within its borders without taking steps to curb it. There are also serious questions about Chinas official death count numbers, which appear to be drastically too low.

It now seems, according to reports cataloging the return of thousands of cremated remains to families in and around Wuhan, China, the coronavirus epicenter, that more than 40,000 likely died from the virus in the Wuhan area alone, writes Emily Zanotti for The Daily Wire.

Early on in the plandemic, China further restricted its own scientists and doctors from speaking out about the crisis. Dr. Li Wenliang, as you may recall, was one of the first to notify the world via social media about a mysterious illness that was spreading in his country, only to be paid a visit by Chinese officials who told him that it constituted illegal behavior to spread such information.

More on that and other Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19)-related news can be found at Pandemic.news.

Fact: China HATES free speech and freedom of religion

The other elephant in the room is Chinas extensive record of oppression against free speech and freedom of religion. Christians and Uyghur Muslims, for instance, are not allowed to practice their faith openly in China because the regime does not tolerate any belief system except for atheism.

Chinas hatred for free speech runs so deep, in fact, that the communist regime actually went so far as to hire Google to create a censored version of its search engine for the Chinese market, something that the search engine giant later denied.

As for arbitrary detention, in the weeks and months before China suffered the first coronavirus outbreak, the Chinese government was being investigated for a series of concentration camps, where millions of ethnically-Chinese Muslims, known as Uigurs, were reportedly being kept in cramped, unsafe conditions and forced to work as slaves in Chinese factories, further notes Zanotti.

Sources for this article include:

DailyWire.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com
What happened: The Justice Department "inadvertently" altered a document it filed in court in its ongoing effort to dismiss charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, prosecutors said Wednesday, attributing it to a wayward "sticky note" that was scanned onto a key piece of evidence department officials have cited in seeking to abandon the case.

The document is a set of undated notes from former FBI agent Peter Strzok summarizing a Jan. 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting at which President Barack Obama, FBI Director James Comey and other national security officials discussed Flynn's contact with Russian officials. The scanned sticky note, however, included a date range of Jan. 4-5, 2017.

The government has learned that, during the review of the Strzok notes, FBI agents assigned to the  review placed a single yellow sticky note on each page of the Strzok notes with estimated dates, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine wrote.

Why it matters: Despite little ambiguity about the date of the Oval Office meeting, the inclusion of Jan. 4, 2017, as a potential earlier date allowed President Donald Trump to weaponize the issue during his debate last week with Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Strzok's notes indicate that Biden mentioned the Logan Act  a little-used 18th Century law that criminalizes efforts by private citizens to conduct U.S. foreign policy. The FBI internally discussed using the Logan Act as a basis for its decision to interview Flynn a few weeks later as it investigated his contacts with Russias ambassador to the United States. Ultimately, FBI and DOJ officials say the interview was conducted as part of the FBIs counterintelligence investigation of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Strzoks notes provide no context about why Biden raised the Logan Act, if it was in response to anyone else or how any officials responded. Biden has previously acknowledged being present in the Oval Office during the discussion of the Flynn matter and indicated he was broadly aware of the FBI investigation. But that's all I know about it. I don't think anything else, Biden said.

Story continues

Trump, though, accused Biden of dredging up the Logan Act himself to go after Flynn.

"You gave the idea for the Logan Act against General Flynn," the president said at the Sept. 29 debate.

But other documents released by the DOJ indicate that the notion of pursuing a Logan Act charge against Flynn first emerged inside the FBI on Jan. 4, 2017, a day before the Oval Office meeting occurred. Messages exchanged between Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page on that day reveal a discussion of the obscure law. Strzok provided the text of the statute to Page, as well as an analysis by the Congressional Research Service that noted the Logan Act had been in relative disuse for more than 200 years and could be unconstitutional.

The erroneously dated notes also mark the third time the DOJ and Flynn's legal team misdated the meeting as potentially occurring before Jan. 5. On June 24, the DOJ filed an earlier version of Strzok's notes that included an inaccurate date range as well.

"While the page itself is undated; we believe that the notes were taken in early January 2017, possibly between January 3 and January 5," the Justice Department wrote at the time.

A day later, Flynn's team cited the notes in its own filing and said they were "believed to be of Jan. 4, 2017."

"According to Strzoks notes, it appears that Vice President Biden personally raised the idea of the Logan Act," Flynn's lawyers wrote.

The controversy over the labeling of the notes alarmed the judge in Flynn's case, Emmet Sullivan, who told lawyers for Flynn and DOJ last week that he was "floored" when he first learned about the alterations.

The changes were first raised to Sullivans attention by Strzok's attorney, Aitan Goelman, in an unsolicited filing, prompting the judge to demand an explanation from DOJ. It's unclear how the departments response might factor into his decision-making as he considers whether to grant its motion to dismiss the case against Flynn.

In its Wednesday reply to Sullivans request, DOJ also acknowledged scanning a date onto notes taken by former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, also filed as part of the Flynn proceedings. McCabes attorneys have contended that the date applied to McCabes notes, May 10, 2017, is erroneous, and that Flynns team incorrectly suggested that McCabe participated in a briefing of the Senate Intelligence Committee that day.

That was the day after President Trump had fired FBI Director Comey and Mr. McCabe was consumed with various other responsibilities, his attorneys said in an Oct. 2 letter to Sullivan. Mr. McCabe did participate in a public Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing and closed briefing on worldwide threats, along with other intelligence community officials, on May 11. Neither the public hearing nor the secret briefing had anything to do with Mr. Flynn.

FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok is seated to testify before the the House Committees on the Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform during a hearing on

The background: Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russia's U.S. ambassador in the weeks before Trump's inauguration. Though he cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller for a year, he has since moved to rescind his guilty plea and allege misconduct by the FBI and prosecutors, who he accuses of coercing his initial plea to pursue a case against Trump. Attorney General William Barr ordered a review of the case in January and ultimately agreed to drop in in May. But Sullivan has so far resisted acting quickly, instead appointing an outside adviser, who has accused Barr of acting overtly to shield an ally of the president.

Comey testified last month that he had no recollection of Biden raising the Logan Act during that Jan. 5, 2017 meeting and isn't sure why Strzok's notes included the notation.

"I would remember it because it would be highly inappropriate if a president or vice president suggested prosecution or investigation of anyone. And it did not happen," Comey said.

Former national security adviser Susan Rice, who also attended the meeting, wrote in an email she sent to herself memorializing the Jan. 5 meeting that Obamas only comments on the matter were to urge the FBI to handle the Flynn case by the book. Obama also asked whether he should have any concerns about sharing intelligence with the incoming administration, given Flynns contacts with the Russian ambassador, Rice said.

Flynns team has been seeking Sullivans recusal from the case, alleging he has exhibited bias against Flynn. On Wednesday, Flynn attorney Sidney Powell formalized that effort in an 80-page filing contending that Sullivans actions and statements disqualified him from continuing to preside over the case.
Corroborating previous reports, leaker @L0vetodream says that Apple will be launching the HomePod mini and that there wont be a HomePod 2 this year.

Previous leaks and reports have also confirmed that Apple will be launching a cheaper and smaller version of the HomePod this year. The company has sent out invites for its iPhone 12 Hi, Speed event last night where it is expected to announce the new HomePod mini. There have not been any leaks surrounding the design and price tag of the HomePod mini but the smart speaker is expected to look similar to the existing HomePod albeit with smaller dimensions. Apple stopped selling third-party speakers and headphones through its stores as well which again hints at the impending launch of the HomePod mini.

there is no HomePod2 this year

only have mini one   (@L0vetodream) October 7, 2020

It will be interesting to see how much Apple charges for the HomePod mini especially since the original HomePod was panned for its original price tag of $349. Apple then reduced its price to $299 in 2019, though it is now frequently discounted to $199 across various retailers.

Apple is yet to release the HomePod software v14 update for the original HomePod as well despite tvOS 14 and iOS 14 already being released to the public. The new release of HomePod software should come with some new features and enhancements that Apple could use as a selling point. It also remains to be seen how Apple will improve the Siri experience on the HomePod mini since the virtual assistant lags behind Google and Amazons voice assistant in a big way and which was the major reason for the original HomePod being panned.

Are you looking forward to Apple announcing the HomePod mini? Do you think it will offer similar sound quality as the original HomePod despite featuring a smaller size? Drop a comment and let us know!
German researchers published a report on a series of cases on post mortem findings of COVID-19 patients who succumbed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection along with neurological complications. Their study titled Neuropathology of patients with COVID-19 in Germany: a post-mortem case series is published in the latest issue of The Lancet Neurology.

Background

Researchers led by Jakob Matschke explain that several symptoms of COVID-19 involve the central nervous system (CNS). It is not clear if these neurological symptoms are caused by SARS-CoV-2 or not. This study was an attempt to investigate the brain tissues of patients who died from COVID-19 for markers of inflammation and look for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the CNS.

According to the researchers, some of the CNS effects seen with COVID-19 include :

Anosmia  loss of smell

Aguesia  loss of taste

Dizziness

Headache

Ischaemic stroke

Haemorrhagic encephalopathy  bleeding within the brain and severe brain damage

Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome

Epileptic seizures

Encephalitis or inflammation of the brain

Meningitis or inflammation of the meninges

Polyneuritis cranialis

Guillain-Barre syndrome

Miller Fisher syndrome

These have been reported in several published studies over the past few months of the pandemic, they wrote.

Hypothesis

The researchers explain that it is not clear how the virus infects the brain, but there are two theories related to it. These are:

Direct invasion of SARS-CoV-2 into the CNS.

Indirect mechanisms mediated by the cytokine storm induced by systemic SARS-CoV-2 infection.

This is the first study that studied the post mortem findings of the brains of COVID-19 patients who had succumbed to the disease. This study included 43 patients aged between 51 and 94 years who had died under intensive care unit treatment.

Study design

This was a post-mortem case series where the neuropathological features in the brains of patients of COVID-19 were studied. The patients had died between March 13 and April 24, 2020, in Hamburg, Germany, in hospitals, nursing homes, or their own homes. The patients had all tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR).

The samples of brain and neural tissues were obtained on autopsy. The team performed histological staining and immunohistochemical staining of the activated astrocyte cells of the brain, activated microglial cells of the brain and cytotoxic T lymphocytes present within the olfactory bulb, basal ganglia, brainstem, and cerebellum region of the brain. From the brain samples, they also tested for SARS-CoV-2 by qRT-PCR and by immunohistochemistry.

Results and findings

The study included 43 patients who had died in hospitals, nursing homes, or at home. The median age of the patients was 76 years. The overall findings of the study were:

In 6 patients (14 percent) there were ischemic lesions in the brain

Among 86 percent of patients (37), there was the presence of astrogliosis in the studied regions of the brain

The brain stem and cerebellum regions of the brain showed infiltration with cytotoxic T lymphocytes and activated microglia

Among 79 percent of patients (34), there was an infiltration of cytotoxic T lymphocytes in the meninges

SARS-CoV-2 was detected in the brains of 53 percent or 21 patients among the 40 studied for the virus

SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins were found in the cranial nerves originating from the lower brainstem and in some cells of the brainstem.

SARS-CoV-2 virus in the CNS was not found to be associated with the severity of neuropathological changes in the study subjects

The Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor is known to be the entry point for the SARS CoV-2 virus, and it was seen that the gene coding for ACE2 was highest in oligodendrocyte cells of the brain.

Conclusions and implications

The researchers explained that astrocytes were key regulators of inflammatory and other processes in the brain, and since they rise in other critical illnesses, the astrocytosis seen in this study cannot be attributed to COVID-19. They wrote, Activation of microglia and infiltration of cytotoxic T lymphocytes were mostly confined to the brainstem and cerebellum, with little involvement of the frontal lobe, in line with clinical findings pointing to an involvement of the brainstem.

The authors of the study concluded that the neuropathological changes in patients with COVID-19 were generally mild, but there were prominent inflammatory changes in the brainstems of those who succumbed to the infection. They wrote, There was no evidence for CNS damage directly caused by SARS-CoV-2.

This study was funded by the German Research Foundation, Federal State of Hamburg, EU (eRARE), German Center for Infection Research (DZIF).

New clinical report on brain changes in deceased COVID-19 patients
President Donald Trump has been free of Covid-19 symptoms for 24 hours and has not had a fever in four days, his doctor said Wednesday.

The president this morning says I feel great,'" doctor Sean Conley said in a brief update on the status of the president.

Trump tested positive last week and returned to the White House Monday evening after spending three days at the Walter Reed military medical center.
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FOX News Media has signed a three book deal with HarperCollins Publishers, it was announced today.

Fox News Books will feature works by news personalities including Pete Hegseth and Shannon Bream, according to Suzanne Scott, chief executive officer of FOX News Media.

We are excited to partner with HarperCollins, utilizing our vast library of content to further enhance the audience experience. With a stable of bestselling authors already on our platforms, FOX News Books will provide our loyal viewers with more of the compelling stories theyve come to rely on FOX News Media personalities to deliver," Scott said in a news release.

Brian Murray, president and CEO, HarperCollins Publishers, said, The combination of FOX News Medias powerful content and marketing with HarperCollins' print, digital and audiobook publishing and distribution in the US and internationally, is a winning combination for authors, readers, listeners and viewers of FOX News Media everywhere.

The first book will debut on Nov. 24.

Modern Warriors: Real Stories from Real Heroes by Pete Hegseth will build on his Fox series Modern Warriors.

The book will showcase some of the nations most highly-decorated veterans as they share their war stories, combat moments, thoughts on military morale today, and why they served. Earning two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman Badge for his time served in the Army National Guard, Hegseth will also detail his experience on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Fox News @ Night anchor Shannon Bream will publish an inspirational faith-based publication celebrating the women of the Bible.

That book is expected to debut in the spring of 2021 alongside a featured program on FOX Nation, the book will examine the most influential women from the Bible and how their sisterhood helped to shape the Christian faith as we know it today.

Fox News Media is also home to bestselling authors Bret Baier, Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Martha MacCallum.

Shannon Bream attends the The Hill, Extra And The Embassy Of Canada Celebrate The White House Correspondents' Dinner Weekend at Embassy of Canada on April 24, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images)Getty Images

READ MORE
The trial of Governor Mike Sonko in the Sh14 million graft case against him has begun 'in camera' before Senior Principal Magistrate Peter Ooko.

Mr Ooko directed the case to proceed 'in camera' after State Prosecutor James Kihara said he had lined up two protected witnesses for Tuesday's session.

Mr Kihara asked the court to adjourn the public hearing to pave way for the court to be reconstructed to cater for the protected witnesses to be allowed to start giving their evidence.

In a case where witnesses are protected to hide their identity, the rules require that they testify from an enclosed dock but their voices can be heard and recognised.

Their recorded testimony is detracted and their voices may be convoluted.

They also use pseudo-names for security purposes.

During Tuesday's proceedings, the DPP introduced an application that caused a lot of confusion in the court as he sought to introduce new evidence that had not been served on Governor Sonko.

Defence lawyers Cecil Miller and George Kithi for Sonko and Paula Atikuda for the other accused persons urged the court to adjourn the case for seven days to enable them file responses.

Mr Miller accused the DPP of flouting the law on pre-trial directions that no fresh applications will be filed on the trial date of the case.

But Mr Kihara clarified that he had served the defence with the file and that he was not "ambushing the defence".

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Mr Miller said he had been served with the application which had been certified urgent.

The magistrate said the trial procedure is that all applications should be disposed of before trial starts.

Mr Ooko asked the DPP to choose to prosecute the fresh application or withdraw it if the trial will proceed.

Mr Kihara went for the latter and asked the court to put in abeyance the application which he will file later to introduce the fresh evidence.

But the defence indicated it will object to the new application.

The magistrate also allowed Mr Miller to challenge in the High Court the directions on calling of protected witnesses.

"The orders being challenged by defence lawyers Miller, Kithi and Atikuda were given by the High Court and l cannot question the same," Mr Ooko ruled.

Mr Miller is urging the High Court to vacate orders protecting witnesses.

The magistrate said in his ruling that the High Court orders cannot be questioned by a subordinate court.

Governor Sonko is seeking orders to vacate the directions on protected witnesses in all the three graft cases against him.

He has denied the charges in all the cases and is out on bond.
A man looks at the fenced-off entrance of a closed shopping mall in Jerusalem - AFP

The head of the Israeli agency tracking coronavirus breached lockdown by hosting a family dinner at his home, according to Israeli media reports, as a series of senior public figures were also accused of flouting the rules.

Nadav Argaman is the head of the Shin Bet security agency and oversees a mobile phone surveillance programme that tracks coronavirus carriers.

Mr Argaman hosted a number of relatives who are not part of his household during the Jewish festival of Sukkot, according to Israeli broadcaster Kan.

Israel has been placed under lockdown once again, following a severe second wave of coronavirus.

Under those rules, it is forbidden to enter another person's home except for essential reasons, such as helping someone in distress. Shin Bet declined to comment on the allegations

It also emerged this week that Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, broke lockdown rules by having a hairdresser visit her at home in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile Gila Gamliel, Israel's environmental minister, is facing calls to step down after she broke lockdown rules to travel from her home in Tel Aviv to Tiberias.

And Mickey Levy, a lawmaker in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, has resigned from the parliament's coronavirus committee for violating lockdown.
If New South Wales contact tracers cannot link three new coronavirus cases in Sydney to an existing cluster by Friday, the November 1 date for the reopening of the state border will have to be pushed back, Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles has confirmed.

Queensland Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington will be given daily pandemic briefings by Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young after the LNP state leader went on the attack on Wednesday, saying she had not been given a briefing from Dr Young despite numerous requests.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian have been in a war of words over border closures. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer, Paul Harris, Kate Geraghty

NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said the new cases were found in western Sydney  a woman in her 50s from the Camden local government area, a man in his 50s from Wollondilly Shire and a woman in her 50s from Parramatta.

There was "no obvious source" of the infection in the woman from Camden, Dr Chant said on Wednesday. The two other patients were being interviewed by contact tracers.
A fishing enthusiast who breached Covid-19 travel restrictions twice in the one day claimed he has "no excuse" as to why he did, but he has learned a lesson.

Vitalie Meriacre (35) was nearly 22km from his home, unpacking fishing equipment from his car at The Estuary in Swords, when he was approached by Garda Ciaran McGroder and directed to return to his home as he was contravening the regulations.

Gda McGroder told the defendant that fishing was not permitted during the lockdown in May and that he was contravening the regulations by travelling further than 5km from his home.

The defendant said he understood and was directed to leave and return to his home, Swords District Court heard.

However, two and a half hours later, while Gda McGroder was on patrol in the Portrane area, he came across the defendant for a second time.

"He had his fishing gear with him and he had committed an offence by not returning home when he was directed to," said Sergeant Patricia McGarrity.

The defendant, with an address at The Way, Hunter's Run in Clonee, Co Dublin, pleaded guilty to failing to adhere to Covid-19 lockdown regulations on May 19 in Portrane.

The maximum penalty for the offence is a fine of up to 2,500 or a prison sentence not exceeding six months.

Defence solicitor Fiona D'Arcy said the defendant should have gone home but he didn't.

"He has no excuse. He has never been in trouble before and it won't happen again. He has learned his lesson and he is putting himself at the mercy of the court," said Ms D'Arcy.

Judge Dermot Dempsey remarked: "He was warned at 9am and then two hours later is stopped again in a different area. Maybe we should be sending a message out."

The judge convicted and fined the defendant 350 and warned him if he comes before that court again it's custody he is facing.
After she became the duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markles former on-screen husband is afraid of her. Its not any malevolence from her side, but Patrick J Adams is simply too intimidated to call up a princess of the Royal family.

People.com reported that he spoke to Radiotimes about the whole situation and why he hasnt kept close contact with the woman who was his on-screen love interest for so many years.

The two used to be extremely close, so much that they sparked rumours about their relationship multiple times. But evidently, they were just close friends. Patrick and wife Troian Bellisario were invited to the Royal Wedding in 2018.

Quite frankly, I think Im intimidated, he said in an interview. He added he would have no clue what to say. He claimed theres no doubt that he can pick up the phone and call her at any moment, with her being his friend, but he isnt too sure of what conversation could follow.

It is a matter of pure fear since she is a duchess and a princess now. However, he confessed the last time he had a conversation with his TV-wife was in May 2019. Hed rang the couple, Meghan and Prince Harry, when they welcomed royal baby Archie into the world. However, the couple insists he wouldnt be getting a royal title as they want to give him a normal life.

After our children were born, there were some texts sent and gifts sent, he informed. However, he also confessed, hes a little scared. He further said that because of his fear, he is scared of whatever walls may exist between them and breaking through them.

Meghans royal journey had been a tumultuous one. With medias racist attacks in Britain, the couple ultimately stepped down as senior members of the royal members and moved to Canada. Meghan is reported to have landed a deal with Netflix to produce scripted shows.

Apart from the creative career, she is also actively participating in raising voter awareness, even cold-calling citizens and urging them to vote, E News reported. Patrick is evidently proud of his friend. He appreciated that he is happy that shes becoming very vocal and doing her part in the elections. I miss my friend, but Im very happy shes doing well, he confessed.
A delegation from the Council of State on Tuesday, 6 October 2020 called on former President Jerry John Rawlings to commiserate with him and his family on the loss of his mother, Victoria Agbotui.

The delegation was led by the Chairman of the Council of State, Nana Otuo Sereboe II, the Juabenghene.

In his message to the bereaved family, Nana Otuo Sereboe noted that the loss of a mother is a painful experience, stating, however, that, though you have lost your biological mother, you have a very formidable mother in the person of my sister, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, who has stood by you and will continue to stand by you and we also support her to stand by you through thick and thin.

Like President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Nana Otuo Sereboe confessed that when he lost his mother, he temporarily forgot he was a chief and wept like a baby.

He recalled the former President sending the then-Chairman of the Council of State, Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia, to mourn with him in New Juabeng.

That action really touched my heart, so, it is probably ordained that I should also mourn with you in the position that I honourably occupy as Chairman of the Council of State.

We want to assure you that we will be with you in all the activities marking Madam Agbotuis funeral. Take heart as the Lord is with you and will always be with you, the traditional leader told President Rawlings and his family.

Also present to offer their condolences to former President Rawlings was the Deputy Chief of Mission at the United States Embassy in Accra, Christopher Lamora.

Mr Lamora told President Rawlings and his family that he was conveying the condolences of Ambassador Stephanie Sullivan, the government and people of the United States and the Embassy on the loss of Madam Agbotui.

I do wish her safe passage, perfect peace and all of you, comfort. I learnt from a former Deputy Head of Mission that your mother showed a passion for taking care of the less fortunate. She left a lasting legacy, Mr Lamora said.

Members of the Diplomatic Corps led by its Dean, Colombian Ambassador to Ghana, Claudia Turbay Quintero, also called on the former President to express their condolences.

Ambassador Quintero was accompanied by Ambassador Dr Aisa Kirabo Kacyira of Rwanda, Namibian Ambassador to Ghana, Charles Josob, Japanese Ambassador Tsutomu Himeno, Ambassador of the European Union, Diana Acconcia, Abdulfatah Ahmed Khalil Alsattari of the State of Palestine and Kenyan Ambassador to Ghana, Eliphas Mugendi Barine.

The Graphic Communications Group, led by its Managing Director, Ato Afful, also expressed their sympathies to the former President and his family and pledged their support to ensure a fitting send off for Madam Agbotui.

Mr Afful was accompanied by the Editor of The Graphic, Kobby Asmah; Franklin Sowah, Director of Marketing and Sales; Charles Amoako, Director Technical; and Yvonne Aryee of Corporate Communications.

The National Democratic Party, led by its General Secretary, Alhaji Mohammed Frimpong, also called on the former President and his family to convey their condolences.

The Stool Father of the Anlo State and Chairman of the Central Planning Committee of the funeral, Ambassador Dan Abodakpi, welcomed all the delegations and expressed the profound gratitude of the family to all for their show of solidarity and commiseration.

He confirmed that the funeral of Madam Agbotui will take place at the forecourt of the State House on Saturday, 24 October 2020 after which the body will be conveyed to Dzelukope for interment .
Daymond John, founder of apparel line FUBU and investor on ABC's "Shark Tank," announced on Tuesday his launch of Black Entrepreneurs Day, a virtual event to support Black-owned businesses, on Oct. 24.

John has invested much of his time helping Black-owned businesses, which have been hit the hardest amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Only 4.3% of America's business owners are Black, according to a February report from the Brookings Institute.

Black business-owners launch with about "a third less capital than their White peers and have difficulties raising private investments from mainstream investment systems," reported Brookings. While 7% of white business owners get a loan in their first year of business, only 1% of Black business owners do so.

"We need to be building businesses, not burning them," John tells CNBC Make It. "And I am going to tell anyone who will listen that."

As part of the event, John will help in picking nine Black entrepreneurs, each of whom will receive a $25,000 grant funded by the event's partners: Chase for Business, The General Insurance, Pepsi, Cisco Webex, Quickbooks, Robinhood and Yappa.

In total, $225,000 will be given to Black-owned businesses.

The grants, called the "NAACP Powershift Entrepreneur Grant," will be administered through the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Applications are now open until Oct. 12 on the Black Entrepreneurs Day website.

The types of businesses encouraged to apply include food and beverage, technology, finance, beauty and wellness and retail.

"We are looking for people who need these grants," John said. "Entrepreneurs who are as passionate about their business as I was when I started."

John himself has achieved mega-success in business, but the road wasn't easy. At 23, he started FUBU with only $40  selling his hats on the street-corners of Queens, New York. He paid the bills by working at Red Lobster as a waiter on the side. Ultimately, John grew his brand into a fashion empire worth $6 billion.

In addition to receiving the grant, winners will get mentorship from John and $1,000 in Facebook ad credits.

Along with John, celebrity entrepreneurs Shaquille O'Neal, Gabrielle Union, Jamie Foxx, Robert Johnson, LL Cool J, Arlan Hamilton, Brian Lamb and Elicia Azali will speak at the event to share their stories, which will be "the biggest value of the event," John says.

"It is going to give our audience a first hand reminder that none of us were knighted in finding success. We found it through failures, struggles, missteps and a passion to learn from those mistakes."

"We created this event because we all want to do more. When we reached into our rolodexes to find out who could be involved, we wanted to make sure it extended beyond relationships," John said.

Although "writing a check is great," being able to associate with a cause and make a difference "carries an equal amount of weight," he said. "And that's what we wanted. We wanted our partners to stand up and say, 'If you are doing something like this, you are doing it with us.'"

This story has been updated to reflect nine entrepreneurs will be selected for grants totaling $225,000.

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank."

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Because of the quarantine, we had to watch this nightmare unfold from our screens and by phone from New York. We called the hospital every three hours for six weeks. There were extreme highs and lows; nothing was predictable. On Aug. 31, Susan  who had devoted so much of her life giving to others, including to food banks and animal shelters  died.
Russian-occupation forces once violated the ceasefire in Donbas on Wednesday, October 7, from the beginning of the day to 17:30, according to the Joint Force Operation (JFO) Facebook page.

"There are no combat losses or injuries among our military. Enemy shots did not pose a threat to the life and health of the Ukrainian servicemen, so they did not open fire," the JFO said.

The shelling was noted near the village of Vodianoe, Novoazovsky district of Donetsk region, with their small arms.

In turn, the military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, together with the rescuers of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, eliminate three contained wildfires near the village of Bolotiane, Stanychno-Luhansky district, the village of Katerynivka, Popasniansky district, and the town of Popasna, Luhansk region. From the Armed Forces of Ukraine, some 130 people and five units of special equipment were involved in extinguishing wildfires.

In the areas along the demarcation line of the sides, engineers of the State Emergency Service have cleared almost eight hectares of territory and handed over 41 explosive devices for destruction.

Joint Forces rescuers are also working to restore damaged houses and infrastructure. During the day, they repaired two houses, work continues at seven more facilities.
"There is evidence that the UAE is addressing critical mobility issues that have surfaced throughout the past few months," said Anshu Vats from Oliver Wyman. Image: Oliver Wyman

The Index highlights how countries are amending their urban mobility strategies which have become essential to mitigating and adapting to the economic and societal implications of the global pandemic COVID-19.

Anshu Vats, senior partner and Global Public Sector and Policy Practice Lead at Oliver Wyman, said: There is evidence that the UAE is addressing critical mobility issues that have surfaced throughout the past few months. Such progress has allowed the UAE to maintain its position as one of the leading countries in urban mobility in the region.

Analysed across 43 metrics, including regulation, infrastructure, social impact, and the ability to adapt future technologies, the index brings to light some of the key strengths and challenges of Dubai and Abu Dhabis urban mobility strategies.

The rise of Urban Air Mobility

The index highlighted Dubais efforts to remain one of the leading countries in urban mobility, gaining momentum with increased interest geared towards the creation of accessible, resilient and communicative cities. According to the index, some strides taken by the city include significant investments in urban air mobility, like testing air taxis and drones. The growth of the air mobility industry will contribute to the development of environmentally friendly industrial solutions and offer Dubai a unique mix of multimodal transportation systems. Other strengths include Dubais increased efforts to provide timely information about its multimodal transportation network. The city also maintains an integrated application as a core pillar of its smart city program.

Safe and secure road networks

Abu Dhabi, meanwhile, has been acclaimed for its road system. According to the index, Abu Dhabis roads offer some of the UAEs highest quality, well-connected road networks and have the capacity to support current demand with little traffic. Abu Dhabi is also noted for its extensive camera network and strict enforcement of traffic laws. Embracing safety and citizen well-being, the city is implementing a speed management strategy to further curb road traffic accidents in the Emirate.

The Urban Mobility Index was launched at a virtual event titled The Future of Urban Mobility which featured discussions among global leaders from industry, technology, academia, finance, and non-governmental organizations on ways to address the complex challenges posed by the global mobility revolution.

Anshu Vats added, In the UAE, there needs to be greater consideration directed towards the creation of international transportation systems and multimodal transportation  especially high speed trains. As emerging cities, urban mobility planning will allow them to attract the citizens they want, whilst also positioning themselves within the global community.
The errors which were found in the Leaving Cert calculated grading system were, without a doubt extremely disappointing, according to Longford student, Luke Casserly, who is Vice President of the Irish Secondary Students Union.

But he welcomed the swift action taken by the Department and the Minister to rectify the situation.

The initial announcement that errors were found and 6,000+ students were affected did very little to ease student stress and anxiety, and it brought about a lot of worry and uncertainty, he said.

At this point, all students have been notified by the Department whether theyve been affected by the errors or not, and new grades have been issued to those who were. This much is positive, however, what comes next is extremely important.

The ISSU believes that each student who has been upgraded, and missed out on their CAO offer because of these errors, should be offered a place in that course for this academic year - it is the only fair solution to this problem.

We can argue about whose fault the errors are, but it certainly isnt the fault of students - its vital that we are treated fairly and compassionately throughout this process.

These developments have also brought about a number of other key questions and concerns, he added.

Urgent clarity and communication are needed surrounding the issues of financial assistance and accommodation many students may now find themselves in.

For example, there are students who are SUSI grant holders who will have registered and processed fees for a course who may now receive a place in another course, potentially in an entirely different institution, wondering whether theyll be in a position to change their course of study this year.

There are also a number of students who will have paid a deposit, and potentially a first installment, for student accommodation in one area who may now receive an offer for a college in a different city - these students deserve a full refund.

The Leaving Cert Class of 2020 had a year like no other and thats no fault of our own. These errors are just another mountain many of us have had to climb this year - what matters now is that we are given a chance to move on with our education, take a place in the course we deserve, and be treated with decency, he concluded.
Washington :

In a U-turn, US President Donald Trump on Friday agreed to honour the decades-old 'One China' policy during his first telephonic conversation with hisChinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

"The two leaders discussed numerous topics and Presiden tTrump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honour our 'One China' policy," the White House said after Trump and Xi spoke over phone.

Xi appreciated Trump's affirmation of One China policy, Chinese state media reported.

Representatives of the US and China will engage in discussions and negotiations on various issues of mutual interest, the White House said.

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"The phone call between President Trump and President Xi was extremely cordial, and both leaders extended best wishes to the people of each other's countries," it said, adding that they also extended invitations to meet in their respective countries.

Trump and Xi look forward to further talks with very successful outcomes, the White House said of the "lengthy conversation" the two leaders had. Trump, after his election, had stated that the 'One-China' policy on Taiwan is up for negotiation and that he is not fully committed to it.

China had hit back saying 'One-China' policy which stipulates that Taiwan is part of Chinese mainland is"non-negotiable".

China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and insists all countries having bilateral ties with it to abide by the 'One-China' policy. Trump has also often accused Beijing of unfair trade practices, currency manipulation and military buildup in the South China Sea.

Earlier in the day, a presidential spokesman said Trump believes that a constructive relationship between China and America is in the fundamental interest of both countries.

"I think it (US-China relationship) is obviously important to us and the President understands that. He has spoken fairly often about China. He understands both the national and economic interests that we have, the desire for our companies to access the Chinese market, but also the national security interests that we have," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said.

Trump, Spicer insisted, wants to have a fruitful and constructive relationship with China. "And he looks forward to developing that as we go forward," Spicer said. The phone conversation between the two leaders happened a day after Trump wrote a letter to Xi and on the eve of his scheduled meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Xi Jinping had sent a congratulatory letter on the day of the President's inauguration.

Trump sent a letter to Xi to wish him and the people ofChina a happy Lantern Festival.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Danielle Moser, a Dickinson College graduate and current farm apprentice, spreads compost made from dining hall food waste on the school's farm. Read more

The Dickinson College dining hall serves up a varied menu ranging from Monte Cristo casserole and cranberry chicken to, of course, pizza.

But the 1,000 pounds a day of food waste produced by the Carlisle, Pa., campus is a hidden energy source that school officials say they plan to tap into.

That waste, along with local cow manure, scraps from local schools, and grain from local brewers, can create enough energy to power operations at the schools 80-acre, USDA-certified organic farm, and an adjoining dairy farm it leases, said Matt Steiman, energy projects manager at Dickinsons farm.

Not only that, but Steiman said there will likely be surplus energy to sell back to Met-Ed, the local utility company.

 READ MORE: These Pa. colleges are going all in on renewable energy  with a little help from a Texas solar farm

Currently, most of the schools food waste gets composted. By next year, plans call for it to go into a 14-foot-high, 75,000-gallon stainless steel biodigester where bacteria will break it down, producing a gas that runs a generator to produce electricity. The power will go into the local grid.

The plan is made possible by a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency toward the colleges purchase of the tank and equipment. The grant is part of the EPAs program to reduce what it says is 38 million tons of food waste sent to landfills and incinerators each year in the United States.

The total project cost is about $1 million, and the balance will be paid from a USDA grant and money from the school.

For the college farm, this is really a game changer, Steiman said. That will make us net energy producers.

Steiman said the biodigester should produce up to 300,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, or enough to power 25 homes.

 READ MORE: South Jersey Superfund site transformed into solar field capable of powering up to 2,600 homes

However, in this case, it would power the schools farm, where students grow and sell vegetables and beef, as well as the dairy farm, both in Boiling Springs, about six miles from the main campus. Dickinson also owns an adjoining farm that it leases to a dairy farmer.

The schools farm has been experimenting with a 2,000-gallon biodigester program since 2015. The new biodigester will expand the program into a commercial-scale operation. It will be placed on the dairy farm.

Cow manure from the dairy farm will go into the energy mix. Using manure in that way keeps it off the fields, where it can pollute a local trout stream.

Well use cow manure, cow urine, ground cafeteria waste from Dickinson College and the Carlisle School District, and spent brewers' grain, from three different breweries in Carlisle, as well as milk processing byproducts from Land OLakes, which is just two miles down the road, Steiman said. Youll see cupcakes, ground-up hot dogs, rice, and just about everything in the biodigester.

Steiman hopes the biodigester, made by Bioelectric, a Belgium-based company, will be producing electricity by fall 2021. For the purchase and installation, Dickinson is working with Martin Energy Group Services, a national engineering and construction group that has a Pennsylvania office.

Steiman said contractors are lined up for the work and await the arrival of the biodigester and permitting from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

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Kenneth Shultes, in charge of the schools sustainability planning, said the biodigester project will reduce the schools overall carbon emissions by 120 metric tons annually.

This fits with the colleges mission, and everything that were doing with sustainability," Schultes said.
Maher al-Akhras, 49, began his hunger strike after he was arrested and placed into administrative detention in late July

Relatives and supporters of a Palestinian man held without charge by Israel said he was in critical condition in an Israeli hospital Wednesday following a hunger strike of more than 70 days.

Maher al-Akhras, 49, began his hunger strike after he was arrested and placed into administrative detention in late July. Administrative detention is an Israeli policy that allows it to detain suspected militants without filing charges, sometimes for months at a time with multiple extensions.

Al-Akhras' wife, Taghreed, told The Associated Press that her husband has survived on water alone while he demands his release. Speaking from his room at Kaplan Hospital in central Israel, she said al-Akhras has been hospitalized since Sept. 6 and he was too weak to speak or get up to go to the bathroom.

``He lost half of his weight. He suffers spasms,'' she said. ``He has a constant strong headache and constant buzzing in the ears, fatigue, with no energy to talk to me.''

A medical official declined to provide details on his condition, saying only that it was stable. The official, citing confidential medical information, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Israel's Shin Bet security agency said al-Akhras was arrested on July 27 based on information that he is active in the Islamic Jihad militant group and was involved in ``activities that endanger public safety.'' It said he has been arrested five previous times for involvement in militant activities.

But al-Akhras' wife said he is not an activist in any group, and only has campaigned for the rights of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

His lawyer, Ahlam Haddad, said her client rejected an offer to be released at the end of his current administrative detention on Nov. 26 and demands to be let go immediately.

His wife said al-Akhras knows his life is in danger. ``He says this is the only way he can achieve justice,'' she said.

The Palestinians and human rights groups say administrative detention violates the right to due process, since evidence is withheld from the prisoner while they are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried or convicted.

Qadoura Fares, the head of the Palestinian prisoners' association, said: ``Administrative detention is a crime and should end. We hold Israel fully responsible for his life and call for his immediate release.''

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WASHINGTON - Two Islamic State militants from Britain were brought to the United States on Wednesday to face charges in a gruesome campaign of torture, beheadings and other acts of violence against four Americans and others captured and held hostage in Syria, the Justice Department said.

El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are two of four men who were called the Beatles by the hostages because of the captors British accents. The two men made their first appearance Wednesday afternoon in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, where a federal grand jury issued an eight-count indictment that accuses them of being leading participants in a brutal hostage-taking scheme that resulted in the deaths of Western hostages, including American journalist James Foley.

The charges are a milestone in a yearslong effort by U.S. authorities to bring to justice members of the group known for beheadings and barbaric treatment of aid workers, journalists and other hostages in Syria. Startling for their unflinching depictions of cruelty and violence, recordings of the murders were released online in the form of propaganda for a group that at its peak controlled vast swaths of Syria and Iraq.

The case underscores the Justice Departments commitment to prosecuting in American civilian court militants captured overseas, said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, who vowed that other extremists will be pursued to the ends of the earth. The defendants arrival in the U.S. sets the stage for arguably the most sensational terrorism trial since the 2014 criminal case against the suspected ringleader of a deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

If you have American blood in your veins or American blood on your hands, you will face American justice, said Demers, the departments top national security official.

At a brief initial appearance Wednesday in Alexandria, Elsheikh asked questions about his legal status. Asked if he wanted to hire his own attorney or have one appointed, he said he didnt know how to answer.

I dont know. I havent had time to consult, he said from a video hookup at the Alexandria jail. He wore an olive green T-shirt, handcuffs, long, unruly hair and a blue surgical mask he fiddled with and eventually removed.

He later asked if he was still under military jurisdiction. Am I under arrest? he asked U.S. Magistrate Teresa Carroll Buchanan. He was informed that he is.

Kotey also asked about his status. Im just waiting to be briefed on whats going on, Kotey said. This is all kind of foreign to me.

A public defender was appointed to represent both men at the hearing. Geremy Kamens, who heads the public defenders office in Alexandria, declined comment after the hearing.

Prosecutor Dennis Fitzpatrick said five of the eight counts against the men carry a mandatory life sentence if convicted.

A detention hearing and arraignment were scheduled for Friday, though public defender Ken Troccoli told the judge he may request a delay so he has time to go over the indictment with his clients.

The men are charged in connection with the deaths of four American hostages  Foley, journalist Steven Sotloff and aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller  as well as British and Japanese nationals who were also held captive.

The pair face charges of hostage-taking resulting in death and other terrorism-related counts. Because of a recent concession by the Justice Department, prosecutors will not be seeking the death penalty.

The indictment describes Kotey and Elsheikh, both of whom prosecutors say radicalized in London and left for Syria in 2012, as leading participants in a brutal hostage-taking scheme that targeted American and European citizens and that involved murders, mock executions, shocks with electric tasers, physical restraints and other brutal acts.

Prosecutors say the men worked closely with a chief spokesman for IS who reported to the groups leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in a U.S. military operation last year. They were joined in the Beatles by Mohamed Emwazi, who was killed in a 2015 drone strike and was also known as Jihadi John after appearing and speaking in the videos of multiple executions, including Foleys. A fourth member, Aine Lesley Davis, is serving a prison sentence in Turkey.

The indictment accuses Kotey and Elsheikh of participating in Foleys 2012 kidnapping and of supervising detention facilities for hostages, in addition to engaging in a long pattern of physical and psychological violence.

It also alleges that they co-ordinated ransom negotiations over email with hostage families. In interviews while in detention, the two men admitted they helped collect email addresses from Mueller that could be used to send out ransom demands. Mueller was killed in 2015 after 18 months in IS captivity. The indictment says Muellers family received an email demanding a cash payment of 5 million euros for Muellers release.

In July 2014, according to the indictment, Elsheikh described to a family member his participation in an IS attack on the Syrian Army. He sent the family member photos of decapitated heads and said in a voice message, Theres many heads, this is just a couple that I took a photo of.

The indictment describes the execution of a Syrian prisoner in 2014 that the two forced their Western hostages to watch. Kotey instructed the hostages to kneel while watching the execution and holding signs pleading for their release. Emwazi shot the prisoner in the back of the head while Elsheikh videotaped the execution. Elsheikh told one of the hostages, youre next, prosecutors say.

The 24-page indictment accuses Kotey and Elsheikh of conspiring to murder the hostages and of helping cause their deaths by detaining them. It does not spell out any specific roles for them in the executions. But G. Zachary Terwilliger, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, whose office will prosecute the case, said under U.S. law Elsheikh and Kotey can be held liable for the foreseeable acts of their co-conspirators.

Relatives of the four slain Americans praised the Justice Department for transferring the men to the U.S. for trial, calling it the first step in the pursuit of justice for the alleged horrific human rights crimes against these four young Americans.

We are hopeful that the U.S. government will finally be able to send the important message that if you harm Americans, you will never escape justice. And when you are caught, you will face the full power of American law, their statement said.

Elsheikh and Kotey have been held since October 2019 in American military custody after being captured in Syria one year earlier by the U.S.-based Syrian Democratic Forces while trying to escape Syria for Turkey. The Justice Department has long wanted to put them on trial, but those efforts were complicated by wrangling over whether Britain, which does not have the death penalty, would share evidence that could be used in a death penalty prosecution.

Attorney General William Barr broke the diplomatic standoff this year when he promised the men would not face the death penalty. That prompted British authorities to share evidence that U.S. prosecutors deemed crucial for obtaining convictions.

___

Barakat reported from Alexandria, Virginia.
The Nigerian government stopped subsidising the price of premium motor spirit (PMS), popularly called petrol, because subsidy had over the years been a drain on public finances, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, has again said.

Mr Kyari spoke on Tuesday at the opening ceremony of the African Refiners Association (ARA) Week 2020 held under the theme: Towards Cleaner Fuels for Cleaner Air.

The NNPC Chief delivered a keynote address to the meeting titled, Vision for the Downstream Sector on the Continent.

NEITI audits and fuel subsidies

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) audit report revealed that between 2009 and 2011 alone, over N3 trillion was spent on fuel subsidy by the government.

Details of the report showed fuel subsidy payment increased by 71 per cent from N406 billion in 2009 to N695 billion in 2010, and by 174 per cent to N1. 9trillion in 2011.

For the corresponding period, the NEITI report said subsidy payments by the NNPC alone rose by 110 per cent, from N198 billion in 2009 to N416 billion in 2010, and 89 per cent to N695 billion in 2011.

The report said while the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation said about N2.83 trillion was paid as fuel subsidy for the period, the Petroleum Products Pricing Agency (PPPRA), the government agency that monitors and regulates petroleum product prices, claimed about N3.002trillion was approved for payment to marketers and the NNPC.

The figures from both agencies showed a disparity of about N175.9 billion in the claims of payment for fuel subsidy for the period.

Also, in 2018, the NEITI audit said Nigerias payments on fuel subsidy rose by over 210 per cent from N722.3 million per day in March 2018 to N2.4 billion per day in May, amid rising fiscal deficits and growing debts.

Case for deregulation

Making a case for an end to fuel subsidy in the country, the NNPC GMD said the deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry would ensure competition, increase investment in the refining business and facilitate exponential growth in the nations refining capacity.

Mr Kyari called for a deeper and more focused collaboration among downstream petroleum sector players across Africa, to provide solutions to the challenges posed by the supply of substandard fuels to consumers.

He said although the idea of petroleum products price stabilisation, which led to the introduction of fuel subsidy in the 1970s, was noble, it has since become a huge financial burden on the nation over the years.

The decision by the government to remove subsidy and deregulate the downstream sector of the petroleum industry in March 2020, he said, was to help free up fund for infrastructural development in the industry.

Also, he said deregulation policy, which would allow the market forces of demand and supply of petroleum products to dictate prices, would help eliminate market distortion, foster competition between operators, get more private sector players to build refineries in the country and promote efficiency across the entire fuel value chain.

Partnership to boost Africas refining capacity

He said increasing Africas refining capacity as well as improving the quality of fuel required refineries to implement sustainable, coordinated pan-African solutions that would meet the target fuel specifications.

Such an arrangement, he noted, would help in protecting the health and well-being of African nations and their citizenry against the hazards of substandard petroleum products.

It is important to note at this point that the future of our continent does not just lie in our ability to unlock value from our vast natural resources, or powering an industrial and economic revolution, but also in our ability to implement proven refining solutions that consider the broader public health implications of our business decisions, the NNPC GMD said.

On its part, Mr Kyari said to make high quality petroleum products available in Nigeria, the NNPC was making concerted efforts for a holistic rehabilitation of its four refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna.

Besides, he said, the Nigerian state-owned oil company was also collaborating with relevant private sector operators and investors to establish modular and condensate refineries in strategic locations in the country.

These projects will be in line with the AFRI standards of AFRI-4 specifications of 50 particles per million for diesel; 150 particles per million for gasoline (petrol) by 2020, and AFRI-5 specification of 50 particles per million of sulphur in gasoline and diesel by 2030 respectively.

Considering that the revamp of petroleum products storage depots and associated pipeline infrastructures is key to optimal operations of the refineries, the NNPC has decided to use a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) strategy to restore these facilities using private sector financing, Mr Kyari said.

This process, he said, has progressed significantly as the process of partner selection was ongoing, to ensure sustainability of the refineries after their rehabilitation.

Nigeria, he added, was intensifying the promotion and utilisation of natural gas as a cleaner fuel in industrial and household operations, to ensure lower emissions to the environment.

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Natural gas, he said, has been identified as the fuel of choice for the future as it has the full credentials to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Future outlook

On the outlook for the downstream sector of the petroleum industry in Nigeria and across the African continent, the NNPC helmsman said the future is looking bright with attractive market conditions, large market, significant crude distillation capacity additions from various refinery projects, improvement of the distribution network and the use of natural gas.

He called on the refining professionals across the continent to use the abundant opportunities for strategic collaboration across the entire downstream industry value chain to deliver sustainable value for the continent.

On his part, the Executive Secretary of ARA, Anibor Kragha, who is also the Group General Manager, Chief Operating, Refineries at the NNPC, applauded the corporation for its efforts to bolster the continents refining capacity.

He assured participants at the online meeting that the association, along with other stakeholders, would continue to support the NNPC to achieve its set objectives in refining and supplying fuel consumers products that meet globally accepted quality and specifications.
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Convoys move along unpaved roads, bypassing official checkpoints and avoiding OSCE SMM patrols.

Russia has been pursuing covert supplies of weapons and military hardware to the temporarily occupied areas in eastern Ukraine's Donbas, the Joint Forces Operation Command reports.

In order to conceal its efforts, enemy convoys tend to move along dirt roads, bypassing official checkpoints and trying to remain unnoticed by OSCE Special Monitoring Mission's observers, the JFO HQ says, referring to the October 5 report by the Ukrainian side to the Joint Center for of Ceasefire Control and Coordination.

As an example, OSCE SMM monitors spotted in the southern outskirts of Huselshchikove, near the settlement of Novoazovsk, in the area with no checkpoints available, a white vehicle with a Russian inscription "military inspection," parked near the road.

Read alsoDonbas war update: Ukraine reports two ceasefire violations on Oct 6On the same road, they also saw fresh tracks left by an infantry fighting vehicle, leading to the settlement of Patriotychne in Donetsk region.

These facts testify to the violation of Minsk Agreements, Ukraine says, precisely of Paragraph 5, which bans the deployment of heavy weapons and military hardware in the area of Novoazovsk, under the OSCE monitoring, the Ukrainian side to the JCCC notes.

Donbas war: Other stories
They always had Mike Pence.

Deeply religious, strait-laced and unfailingly loyal, the vice president was supposed to be an insurance policy for the social conservatives and evangelical Christians who found President Donald Trump too crude, domineering and politically unreliable.

But Trumps hospitalization for complications from Covid-19 raised an unsettling question about Pence, and more broadly about the future of the party, for Republicans who have grown used to the alpha, tweet-first, consider-precedent-later leadership of the president.

In recent days, no Republican, including Pence, was able to fill the giant void left by the presidents brief disappearance from the public eye. Pence remained largely out of sight as Trump refused to delegate his powers, denying the man next in line to the presidency a moment to shine.

Before the vice-presidential debate Wednesday evening, the highest-stakes event Pence has faced in a political career he does not want cut short before he has a chance to run for president himself, it is not at all clear that his reserved and dutiful approach, conservative in both style and substance, can substitute for the sheer force of personality that Republicans now associate with the political success they have had under Trump.

One unforeseen consequence of Trumps dominance of the Republican Party has been how thoroughly he shattered the expectations of religious conservatives  the cornerstone of the partys base  for a presidents conduct and leadership. The mold for appealing to those voters used to look a lot like Pence: an evangelical Christian who has unabashedly taken up causes dear to the activist right, like opposition to abortion and gay rights and dismantling government regulations on businesses, schools and churches.

One of the biggest questions hanging over Pences future is whether Republican voters in a post-Trump world will embrace a candidate who seems to embody what the party thought it needed in a nominee before Trump came along, and who lacks the fearlessness and audacity that many conservatives say Trump demonstrated as he pushed policy and the courts further to the right than any president in recent history.

There are some qualities that Mike Pence has that Ill continue to hope and pray that Donald Trump adopts  and the reverse is true as well, said Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, a pro-Trump, social conservative group. There are qualities that Donald Trump has that I hope and pray Mike Pence adopts. And that is that he picks up a little bit of the fight and courage that Donald Trump shows on a daily basis.

Pence now finds himself in a position that he likely never could have imagined four years ago. The steady, paint-inside-the-lines manner that social conservatives once found so reassuring in him might be devaluing his political stock today.

The Trump years have made his life more difficult, not less, said Peter Wehner, a former White House speechwriter who served in three Republican administrations who broke with the leadership of his evangelical Christian faith over its alignment with Trump.

For one thing, somebody like Pence in the past would have had a certain appeal to evangelical voters that is less strong now because evangelicals, in embracing Trump, have changed their character, Wehner said, adding, The kind of appeal that a guy like Pence had is just not as great.

Trumps health problems, coming on top of a looming election that polls show Republicans at considerable risk of losing, have added greater urgency to the debate inside the Republican Party over its future and whether its next leader should be someone who emulates Trump. No small number of conservatives believe their political victories over the last four years would have been impossible without Trumps defiance of political norms and his frequent disregard for civility and compromise in domestic and foreign affairs.

As evidence, they point to actions Trump has taken that they said other Republican presidents would have been too restrained to pull off, no matter how conservative they were, such as moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and pulling out of international agreements such as the Paris climate accords and the pact on nuclear development with Iran.

It took Trumps determination to get these things done, Perkins said.

Republican elected officials have tried to copy Trumps renegade style, with varying degrees of success. Its difficult for most politicians to do. Some conservatives said that when they look at the senators and governors who are considered to be the next generation of Republican leadership, they do not see anyone capable of replicating Trumps style and having the same command over the publics attention.

There has to be a level of shamelessness that is not easy to achieve, said Yuval Levin, director of Social, Cultural and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

If most of the stylistic aspects of his leadership cant be copied, there are still some things about him that could carry over. One, said Levin, is the scepticism that Trump sows about government institutions, from the intelligence services he accuses of undermining him to the Federal Reserve he claims is stifling economic growth. Doubt about the trustworthiness of the countrys governance has been an animating feature of the American right, most recently as a force behind the Tea Party movement in 2009.

Trump followers and Tea Party supporters, Levin said, begin from the premise that the institutions are all corrupt and they turned against us. And that is the essence of populism that politicians are going to continue to emulate.

That could help someone like Pence, who despite holding public office first as a member of Congress and then as governor of Indiana, will likely benefit from the association with Trump and his attacks on the federal government.

Looking at the kinds of Republicans who have been elected since Trump took office  Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri  all have borrowed elements of Trumps populist angst. That suggests that whatever the future of the party is, even if Trump is no longer its leader after 2020, his imprint will remain for a long time. And it is impossible to tell how far Republicans will go in adopting Trumps anti-immigrant, race-baiting talk, which has an undeniable appeal with parts of his base but could become even more politically toxic as the countrys demographics grow more diverse.

Trumpism wont go away even if he has a bad election, said Pippa Norris, a professor of comparative politics at Harvard University. Whats to say that other Trumpists in the party wont replace him?

As long as enough Republicans believe that Trumps approach to winning the presidency was the right one, it will be hard to drive his legacy out of the party, Norris added. Its very difficult to change the perception of how you won the battle last time.

The question for more traditional Republicans like Pence is whether their relatively restrained styles will seem like a comfort to voters who are eager to return to something more normal and familiar.

Some conservatives said there was little use judging Pences likelihood of succeeding Trump as the leader of his movement, at least not with comparisons to a president unlike any in American history.

Trump is a historical anomaly, a once in a lifetime political phenomenon, said Ralph Reed, a veteran Christian conservative strategist. When FDR, John F. Kennedy and Reagan left the stage, there was no one like them. The same will be true of Trump. We wont see anything like this again.
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Police arrested the 15-year-old relative after he confessed to the crime, but is yet to nab the victims maternal aunt, reported to be an accomplice

Aligarh: Even before the outrage over the gang-rape and murder case of a Dalit woman in Hathras settled, a six-year-old girl from the district, who was allegedly raped by her relative, died during treatment at a hospital in Delhi, police said Tuesday.

The minor was held captive at a relative's house in Iglas area of Aligarh district and was rescued on 17 September, Senior Superintendent of Police Muniraj G said.

"On a complaint by a social organisation police raided the house, which belonged to a relative of the victim, found the girl and admitted her to Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College hospital where she was being treated till four days ago," the SSP told reporters.

The girl was shifted to Delhi's Safdarjung hospital after her condition deteriorated and she died on Monday.

An FIR was registered by police on 21 September on the complaint of the girl's father, a resident of a village in Hathras district, that he suspected the girl was raped in captivity. Police then arrested the 15-year-old relative who confessed to his crime, the SSP said.

"The boy's mother, who is the maternal aunt of the victim, is reported to be an accomplice in the crime and is absconding," he said.

On Tuesday, the victim's family sat with her body on the main road in Hathras in protest against the failure of the police to arrest the woman. After persuasion by senior police officials, they agreed to conduct the last rites.

The SSP said the Iglas police station SHO has been suspended for negligence. He also said two police teams have been constituted to trace the woman.

The incident has come to light amid a widespread outrage over the death and alleged gangrape of a Dalit woman in Hathras by four "upper caste" men and the Uttar Pradesh administration's response to the incident.

The woman's family alleged the body was cremated at night without their approval, but the local police said the cremation was done "as per the wishes of the family". Citing an FSL report, the Hathras police also claimed that the woman was not raped.

The UP government has requested the Centre to order a CBI probe into the incident as "fake narratives were being spread about the case with political motives". On Tuesday, it told the Supreme Court the CBI probe may be conducted under its supervision.
The Islamic Republic has issued a official statement to the Republic of Azerbaijan and Armenia in the wake of the shells and rockets hit Iranian territory, said Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Mehr reports.

"In addition to following up the issue by the border guards of our country in a meeting with the border guards of the Republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia and presenting a letter of official protest against the aggression on Iranian border areas by the two countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also strongly protested the issue."

"In an official note by Iranian Foreign Ministry, the two countries of Republic of Azerbaijan and Armenia were notified about the strong protest of the Iranian government against the firing of bullets and rockets into Iranian territory violating Iran's territorial integrity and causing financial damages to our citizens," he added.

Reiterating that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not ignore the security of its citizens in any way, he said, "In the light of friendly relations and the principles of good neighborliness, we call on both sides, while respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran, to take all necessary and security measures to prevent the recurrence of such unacceptable incidents."
When you need to warm up, what's your favorite winter comfort food?
OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 7, 2020 /CNW/ - Emergency situations in Canadian waters are a reality. The Canadian Coast Guard stands ready to respond when they arise, ensuring mariners are safe by leading search and rescue missions when needed.

Every summer, the Coast Guard hires Canadian post-secondary students to staff Inshore Rescue Boat (IRB) stations across the country. These stations, and the students who staff them, are an integral part of Canada's marine safety system, strengthening the Coast Guard's ability to respond quickly to calls for help on the water.

Successful applicants to the IRB program will have the opportunity to work at one of the Coast Guard's IRB stations for the summer of 2021. They will see parts of Canada that many Canadians rarely see, have a direct positive impact on the lives of fellow Canadians, and gain not only marine work experience, but develop valuable communications, leadership, and teamwork skills that will help all IRB crew members as they move forward in their careers.

The Canadian Coast Guard is currently accepting applications from post-secondary students who meet the eligibility criteria of the Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP) until December 21, 2020. Additionally, the Coast Guard is currently accepting applications from Indigenous students to staff the Rankin Inlet, NU IRB station until November 29, 2020.

As an employer, the Canadian Coast Guard strives to represent the diversity of Canadians that we serve. We encourage Canadians of all backgrounds who meet the eligibility criteria to apply for these postings and explore a career with the Coast Guard.

We look forward to the new cohort of students who will be an indispensable part of ensuring marine safety on Canada's waterways during the busy summer months.

Quotes

"Every year the Canadian Coast Guard welcomes bright, hardworking young Canadians to help lead search and rescue missions at one of the 26 Inshore Rescue Boat stations located across the country. During these challenging times, it is especially exciting to see opportunities for young people to gain meaningful employment, as they work to keep Canadians safe on the water. I am so proud of what these young people accomplish every summer, and I look forward to welcoming the successful candidates for summer 2021 to the Canadian Coast Guard family."

The Honourable Bernadette Jordan, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard

"Our Inshore Rescue Boat Stations help ensure that people using Canada's waterways in the summer can feel safe, and be certain that should they need assistance, the Coast Guard will be there. I see every year what the students crewing these stations accomplish, and every year I find myself impressed. I strongly encourage any student interested in the work to apply for an IRB position  it is a summer job like none other in Canada."

Mario Pelletier, Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard

Quick Facts

Canada's Inshore Rescue Boat program began in 1970 as part of the Career Oriented Summer Employment Program.

Inshore Rescue Boat program began in 1970 as part of the Career Oriented Summer Employment Program. Today there are 26 IRB stations spread across Canada's 3 coasts, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River.

3 coasts, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. In 2020, 160 Canadian post-secondary students were part of IRB crew.

Canadians who are interested in working for the Coast Guard but do not qualify for the IRB program are encouraged to consider other postings with the Coast Guard:

The Canadian Coast Guard College offers several fully funded programs that lead to rewarding career opportunities from ship's officer, to engineer, to maritime traffic control.



The Canadian Coast Guard (through Fisheries and Oceans Canada) is looking to fill a multitude of shore based positions. Postings for these positions can be found on GC Jobs.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard was recognized as one of the top 100 employers for young people for 2020 by the Canada's Top 100 employers project.

Associated Links

Stay Connected

Follow the Canadian Coast Guard on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Follow the Canadian Coast Guard College on Twitter

Subscribe to receive our news releases and more via RSS feeds. For more information or to subscribe, visit http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/media/rss-eng.htm.

SOURCE Canadian Coast Guard

For further information: Jane Deeks, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, 343-550-9594, [email protected]; Media Relations, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 613-990-7537, [email protected]

Related Links

https://www.ccg-gcc.gc.ca/


SPRING, Texas, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --South Plainfield, N.J.-based WholeFoods Magazine and Trust Transparency Center announced today the third virtual event in their Naturally Informed series: Driving Opportunities Across the Microbiome Space, taking place October 20-21, 2020. The two-day virtual event will offer insights and education to help ingredient companies, brands, and retailers succeed in this trending market, from a microbiome 101 overview to in-depth look at claims and enforcement issues and more.

Author and University of California San Diego professor Jack Gilbert to present the opening keynote Understanding the Microbiome in the Era of Precision Medicine at the Driving Opportunities in the Microbiome Space virtual event on October 20, 2020. Dr. Fred Pescatore will present Your Guide to a Complete Microbiome Makeover on day one of Driving Opportunities in the Microbiome Space virtual event on October 20, 2020.

"The Naturally Informed series is a curriculum of virtual events powered by Trust Transparency Center and WholeFoods Magazine designed to keep suppliers, brands and retailers informed on developments in the natural products industry so that they can make better business decisions and inform consumers about the opportunities, challenges and issues surrounding consuming these types of products," said Len Monheit, CEO, Trust Transparency Center.

"Our program provides you high-caliber content from virtual events, webinars, articles, white papers and sponsor materials that are provocative, colorful, engaging and illuminating," added Heather Wainer, Publisher, WholeFoods Magazine.

During live presentations, panel discussions and Q&A sessions, attendees will learn from world-class microbiome, health and retail insight experts. Keynote presentations include:

Und erstanding the Microbiome in the Era of Precision Medicine presented by author and University of California San Diego professor Jack Gilbert .

presented by author and professor . Your Guide to a Complete Microbiome Makeover presented by author and natural medicine expert Fred Pescatore , MD.

The event will also feature live panels including:

Winning Strategies: Innovating & communicating in the microbiome featuring Lisa and Alana Macfarlane , The Gut Stuff; Paul Schulick , For the Biome; and Jennifer Costello , Health Hut.

featuring , The Gut Stuff; , For the Biome; and , Health Hut. Postbiotics: What are they and how do they work? presented by Colin Hill , PhD, University College Cork, Ireland .

presented by , PhD, University College . The New Frontier? AI and personalization in the microbiome space featuring Aline de Santa Izabel , YOGUT; Mariette Abrahams, PhD, RD, Qina; and Jay Jacobowitz , Retail Insights.

The event will include a fully interactive experiences through breakouts and networking to help foster qualified leads and valuable connections.

Driving Opportunities in the Microbiome Space is supported by Premier Sponsor Stratum Nutrition, Champion Sponsors Sabinsa and Wakunaga, and Partner Level sponsors Amin Talati Wasserman, ChildLife Essentials, Essential Formulas and Health Wright Products.

Please visit NaturallyInformed.net for more information on speakers, sessions, and sponsors, and to register for the FREE virtual event Driving Opportunities in the Microbiome Space. The event will also be promoted on social using #NaturallyInformed and #WintheMicrobiome.

Media Contact: Traci Kantowski, Communications Director, Trust Transparency Center

832-843-7287 / [email protected] .

About WholeFoods Magazine

WholeFoods Magazine is published by Wainer Finest Communications, a family-owned media company based in South Plainfield, NJ. The magazine informs and educates the natural products industry and is produced monthly in both print and digital editions. Special issues include the Annual Source Directory, Annual Retailer Survey, Retailer of the Year, and Person of the Year. The company also hosts digital educational events and produces weekly e-newsletters and other digital products to keep the natural products industry informed. Digital resources can be found at wholefoodsmagazine.com and naturalproductfinder.com.

About Trust Transparency Center

Trust Transparency Center utilizes trust transparency principles to provide insights and guidance to nutritional product stakeholders in the areas of Business and Go-To-Market Strategy, Finance and M&A, Compliance and Risk Management, Strategic Services, Organizational Culture Development and Trust Transparency Coaching. rust Transparency Center utilizes trust transparency principles to provide insights and guidance to nutritional product stakeholders in the areas of Business and Go-To-Market Strategy, Finance and M&A, Compliance and Risk Management, Strategic Services, Organizational Culture Development and Trust Transparency Coaching. Trust Transparency Center also operates the Ingredient Transparency Center which identifies emerging and challenge categories of nutritional ingredients and devotes resources to identifying issues and potential, and then stewards aggressive work plans to lead these categories to potential and/or prevent their exploitation. To learn more, please visit TrustTransparency.com.

SOURCE Trust Transparency Center
Belarus Tests Rule of Authoritarian Leader

Protests continue for 9th straight week, showing no signs of waning

Mass protests in Belarus have continued for a ninth straight week against the countrys authoritarian leader, who won his sixth term in office in an election widely seen as rigged.

The demonstrators, including more than 100,000 in Minsk on Oct. 4 in the most recent rally, have demanded the resignation of Alexander Lukashenko and called for the release of political prisoners. Police have used water cannons in an attempt to disperse the crowds, but the protesters remain undeterred.

The protests have rocked Belarus for almost two months, with the largest rallies taking place on Sundays and drawing up to 200,000 people. The government responded at first with blunt suppression. Police used tear gas, flash grenades, and physical violence on the crowds in the capital Minsk and elsewhere.

How Protests in Belarus Started

According to the Belarusian election commission, Lukashenko won 80.1 percent of the vote while his main opposition rival, Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, won 10.12 percent of the vote in the presidential election held on Aug. 9. The remaining three presidential candidates received only minuscule support of voters, as turnout exceeded 84 percent of eligible voters, the Belarusian election commission said.

The results were questioned by Tsikhanouskaya, who claimed she won the election with 60 to 70 percent of the vote. The 37-year-old former English teacher has since fled to Lithuania and formed a council to coordinate a peaceful transition of power.

On the evening of the election, 33-year-old Anastasiya from Minsk and her husband joined the crowd awaiting an announcement of the election results in front of their district election commission office, Anastasiya told The Epoch Times in a Facebook message.

When no announcement was made at the expected time, the crowd started to shout. The riot police that arrived later told the crowd that the commission workers had left, Anastasiya said. She then went to another part of the city where more people gathered to learn about the results. People there didnt believe that Lukashenko had won about 80 percent of the vote and said that the election must have been manipulated, Anastasiya said.

The people shouted shame and Lukashenko, go away, she said. Riot police arrived and fired stun grenades into the crowd, forcing people to flee.

Police use truncheons on protesters during a protest of the disputed presidential election in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 10, 2020. (Sergei Grits/AP Photo)

On the third day after the election, Anastasiya and her husband again went to join the protest but before they were able to join other protestors, they were arrested. They were given a ride by volunteers with a car and the driver slowed down when they saw many people lying face-down on the ground asking if any help is needed, Anastasiya said in her post on the Stockholm Free World Forum website, which collects stories from victims persecuted for participating in the recent Belarusian protests.

A stun grenade was thrown at our car, and they were all arrested, Anastasiya said in her post. The men were beaten, and the police and the prison staff treated them very badly, humiliating the detainees in every possible way.

She realized that half of the detainees were those who were on their way home from a store, had gone outside for a smoke, someone stepped out from a taxi.

She heard the police screaming: You, doctors, scumbags, are helping the wrong people.

Our disciplinary cell was next to a male one, and we could hear how badly they were beaten and tortured, Anastasiya said. They were also deprived of using the bathroom.

While being detained, Anastasiya was called for a court hearing but was denied legal counsel. She was released the next day, after being forced to sign papers warning her of legal charges for any attempt to participate in unauthorized meetings.

Stockholm Free World Forum also collected accounts of other men and women including journalists detained by Belarusian police after the election. The people were severely beaten, tortured, raped, humiliated, as well denied food and water, medical attention, and the opportunity to speak to a lawyer, some for attending a demonstration, some for wearing something white, some for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the website said.

A protester shouts in front of a riot police line during a rally in Minsk, Belarus, on Oct. 4, 2020. (AP Photo)

More than 10,000 people have been detained since the election and at least 244 people have been implicated in various criminal charges related to the protests, Viasna human rights center leader Ales Bialiatski told The Associated Press. More than 70 have been declared political prisoners.

Tsikhanouskaya said in a video statement issued on Oct. 4, Let the whole world see: Belarusians want to live in freedom, not in prison.

Election Issues

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), an intergovernmental body focused on security in many aspects including election monitoring in 57 participating states, wasnt invited to observe the August presidential election in Belarusan OSCE member.

The lack of invitation has prevented OSCE from observing the electoral process, especially in areas that required improvement as documented in previous OSCE reports, Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir, director of OSCEs office tasked with observing elections, said in a statement issued a few weeks before the election.

Gisladottir said that the formation of election commissions and registration of candidates in Belarus required improvement. Gisladottir also reiterated her deep concern that prospective candidates had been intimidated and opposition activists arrested, the statement said.

The OSCE has monitored presidential and parliamentary elections in Belarus since 2001; the most recent was the 2019 parliamentary election.

Despite some improvements, OSCEs reports pointed out some irregularities and gaps occurring from election to election, such as restricting and discouraging opposition candidates from participating in the election, constraining media from giving adequate coverage to opposition candidates while excessively promoting the incumbent candidate, and gaps in ballot counting procedures.

The OSCE in a report (pdf) said that the 2019 early parliamentary election proceeded calmly but did not meet important international standards for democratic elections. There was an overall disregard for fundamental freedoms of assembly, association, and expression.

People with old Belarusian national flags march during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, on Oct. 4, 2020. (AP Photo)

Belarusians have previously protested election results, including the 2004 referendum to abolish the presidential term limit.

Hundreds of thousands of people were protesting across the country, Veranika Laputska, co-founder of the Warsaw, Poland-based EAST Center and Rethink.CEE Fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, told The Epoch Times in an interview.

Among irregularities that occurred during the referendum, the OSCE reported (pdf) a biased referendum campaign, cases of censoring media coverage of the campaign, presence of materials promoting only a yes vote in many voting rooms, breaches of voting secrecy, and procedural omissions such as multiple paper ballots in possession of one person.

The results of both the referendum and parliamentary election sparked opposition protests in Minsk which were forcibly suppressed, the report said.

This year, a campaign staffer of Viktor Babariko, an opposition candidate detained by the Belarusian authorities ahead of the election, created an online portal called The Voice for people to send photos of their ballots, Laputska said. The Voice partnered with another platform Zubr.in, which counted the photos of ballots and presented alternative election results.

Media Freedoms

The government maintains control over mainstream media in Belarus, according to a 2019 human rights report by the U.S. State Department. State-owned media dominates the market and maintained the highest circulation through generous subsidies and preferences, the report said.

Broadcast media are dominated by state-owned and Russian stations and there is no nationwide private television, according to the report.

The only independent television station is Belsat, a Poland-based TV station funded by the Polish government and international donors, but Belarusian authorities refused to register it, and harassed its journalists by imposing fines or denying accreditation, Laputska said. In addition, independent newspapers dont have the same access to retailers as the state-owned do, she added.

Obtaining foreign financing is almost impossible for independent media due to legal restrictions. Their websites can be blocked by the Belarusian Ministry of Information under the allegation of hate speech or insulting the president, Laputska said.

Opposition Candidates

Maria Kolesnikova, a representative of Viktor Babariko, right, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, candidate for president, center, and Veronika Tsepkalo, left, the wife of non-registered candidate Valery Tsepkalo, gesture during a meeting in support of Tsikhanouskaya in Minsk, Belarus, on July 19, 2020. (Sergei Grits/AP Photo)

Tsikhanouskaya never intended to be the leader of popular resistance to Lukashenko. But when her husband, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, a blogger, activist, and presidential candidate who criticized Lukashenko for years, was jailed in May and other candidates were barred from running in the election, Tsikhanouskaya took her husbands place as an opposition candidate.

Unlike Tsikhanouskaya, two other opposition candidates werent officially registered as presidential candidates.

Viktar Babaryka, the former head of the local unit of a Russian bank, who collected four times more signatures than the required minimum for the presidential race, was arrested along with his son Eduard, the head of his election campaign, on charges of tax evasion and money laundering, Radio Free Europe reported.

Another opposition candidate, Valer Tsapkala, a former Belarusian ambassador to the United States, was refused registration by election officials, who rejected half the signatures he gathered to support his candidacy, leaving him below the minimum, Human Rights Watch reported. Tsapkala then left Belarus with his children worrying about their safety.

Both candidates decided to unify with the strongest candidate, Maria Kalesnikava, a member of Babarykas campaign, told The Atlantic Council in an interview. Thus, Kalesnikava and Tsapkalas wife, Veranika, joined Tsikhanouskayas campaign against Lukashenko.

The three candidates decided to campaign together, Laputska said, adding that they were running for themselves with their own programs.

All three candidates had planned to organize a free election if they had won, Laputska said. Babaryka and Tsapkala were going to return the Constitution to what it was before a 1996 referendum, she said.

Lukashenko Consolidated Power

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko gestures as he delivers a speech during a rally of his supporters near the Government House in Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 16, 2020. (Stringer/Reuters)

Lukashenko has managed to build one of the most consolidated, adaptive authoritarian regimes in the post-Soviet space, and perhaps in the world while showing that he also highly values his countrys independence and sovereignty, Artyom Shraibman, a journalist and political commentator, wrote in a paper for the Carnegie Endowment Moscow Center.

Lukashenko devised a governing system that allowed him to deal with the Belarusian people and maintain a policy of balancing between Russia and the West, Shraibman said.

After the country regained its independence in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Lukashenko, a former Soviet collective farm boss, became president of Belarus in 1994.

The referendum conducted in Belarus in 1996 allowed him to consolidate power and obtain control of judicial and executive branches, the election commission, and media, Shraibman said, adding that the parliament lost its power as presidential decrees were set above the law.

In 2004, another referendum abolished presidential term limits.

The economic model that Lukashenko has preserved from the Soviet era involves a great deal of government regulation, state monopolies, and income redistribution. Loss-making state-owned enterprises are supported through subsidies and favorable loans, Shraibman wrote.

State-owned enterprises produce 70 to 75 percent of the countrys gross domestic product, and state banks make up 75 percent of the banking sector, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

To maintain his authoritarian regime, Lukashenko has built in governance mechanisms that made it resilient to potential threats such as mass protests, plots or coups among the elites, and external pressure mostly from Russia, Shraibman wrote.

Lukashenko has employed various measures to prevent mass protests, Shraibman said, ranging from bureaucratic obstacles to obtain protest permits, through disseminating propaganda to discredit protests, to preventative arrests of activists and opposition leaders.

State-owned companies that dominate the Belarusian economy mostly hire workers on a fixed-term contract ranging from one to five years with no obligation to extend it, according to Belarus in Focus, a non-governmental organization. Thus, those who fall out of favor with the government may have difficulty finding a job. Similarly, students can be expelled from mostly state-run higher education institutions, if they express political dissatisfaction, Shraibman said.

Lukashenko permits some opposition parties and non-governmental organizations to exist in the country, though they are marginalized, Shraibman said. They are unable to find a common agenda and unite to counter Lukashenkos rule. Even if they form a coalition, they do not have a chance to win an election because the votes are counted by people selected by the authorities and observers are prevented from monitoring the process, Shraibman said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-08 01:00:49|Editor: huaxia

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SHANGHAI/GUIYANG, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- In a room resembling a space capsule filled with blue light, tens of thousands of Petri dishes, nurturing clusters of white enoki mushrooms, were placed on shelves.

This was not a scene from a sci-fi movie but an edible fungus breeding room in Weining Xuerong Biotechnology Co., Ltd, one of the largest targeted poverty alleviation projects in China's southwestern mountainous province of Guizhou.

The factory has 320 such breeding rooms, with about 56,000 bottles of edible fungi growing in each room. These edible fungi are produced in a controlled environment where factors such as light, humidity, and temperature levels are automatically adjusted.

Growing edible fungi not only increases income for local farmers but also offers another possible food choice for human beings to survive in space.

Xuerong and the China Space Foundation established an edible fungus research institute in 2013 in Changchun, Jilin Province, and Xuerong has become a strategic cooperative partner of China Space in 2016, the company's chairman Yang Yongping said at Xuerong's headquarters in Shanghai.

"The space authorities are interested in whether it is possible to grow fungi in space crafts to solve space food problems. We are considering researching the food astronauts eat in space through further cooperation," Yang said.

China has seen rapid progress in its pursuit of space exploration over the years. Advancements in space science such as manned spaceships, space stations, and the moon and Mars explorations have aroused fascination with space among Chinese people.

The sci-fi movie "The Martian" proposes a bold food supply solution for human beings after "migrating" to other planets -- planting potatoes on Mars.

For Chen Xin, business partner and marketing center operation director of Xuerong, growing fungi in space could also be an option as edible fungi feature high protein and low fat and do not need soil, chemical fertilizers, or pesticides to grow.

The poverty reduction campaign that Xuerong has participated in may integrate with China's space efforts in the future, said Yang Aimin, head of the business development department of the China Space Foundation. "For instance, edible fungi could be space food someday, and a small-sized fungus production base could be established in future space stations."

Producing one-fourth of the country's total fresh enoki mushrooms, Xuerong served as one of the key companies supporting China's epidemic prevention efforts. It came to Weining to help reduce poverty in 2015 and has set up several poverty reduction projects nationwide.

"It is encouraging that impoverished Chinese farmers, who starved in the past and never left the mountains, can now produce high-quality agricultural products. They can learn new knowledge and broaden their horizons in the process," said Yang.

Science can change the destiny of ordinary people. The novel "Sun of China," written by China's sci-fi mogul Liu Cixin, tells the story of a Chinese migrant worker who is responsible for cleaning curtain walls of skyscrapers after coming to the city. He later cleans sunlight reflectors in space and eventually gains the chance to become a space explorer.

Visitors entering Xuerong's factory in Weining will be impressed by the sign of "a strategic cooperative partner of China Space." The factory provides jobs for more than 3,000 workers, many of whom live in poverty.

Li Zaoli and her husband have worked in Xuerong's factory for a year and a half. The couple's monthly salaries now total about 7,000 yuan (about 1,027 U.S. dollars), and their family has been lifted out of poverty.

Li said she used to do farm work and took care of children in the village, and sometimes watched TV news about space launches and moon exploration. "I am so proud that our edible fungi are likely to be part of the astronauts' menu. It is so incredible that many of my family members and friends can hardly believe it!"

She imagined that one day astronauts could eat edible fungi in space. "Can these foods be sent to Mars?"

In recent years, Xuerong has held space-related activities regularly, including inviting customers to watch space launches and introducing space knowledge in supermarkets. The company is planning to strengthen space education among impoverished workers and encourage them to take part in space-related activities. Enditem
Media personality Lulu Hassan celebrated Maria actress Yasmeen Saiedi in a heartening message as she celebrated her birthday.

Yasmeen turned 20 on Monday, October 5, and her boss was on hand to shower her with endearing praises. Lulu, who is the producer of Maria, said she was nearly lost for words to tell the young actress.

I wondered today what to say to you. I thought long and hard what you tell a young girl who is selfless, hardworking, a giver, a joy to be around, Lulu Hassan wrote.

She added: What does one say to someone with such resilience, such power, the discipline you display makes me wonder, what if we had more and more of Yasmines around us? Then it hit me. Your name, Yasmine is a flower. You blossom and refresh. You give so much of yourself it is hard to ignore your presence.

The mother of three noted that Yasmeen has a way of making life easy whenever they are on set and that she is destined for greatness.

The Swahili news anchor vowed to always be there for Yasmin if she ever needs her.

There is a way you make life so effortless on and outside of the set. You, Yasmine, you are destined for great heights. And I will be here to hold you, to walk with you. I am here if you ever need me.

On this day as you turn a day older, do not forget what you are. A flower. May your blossom always be as bright, may you always know sufficient grace as you turn a year older. Yasmine, our Maria, happy birthday baby girl. We love you ?, Lulu concluded.

Yasmin responded saying: One of the most heartly messages I got today  I love you maam And thank you for everything.

Elsewhere, Yasmeens co-star Brian Ogana alias Luwi Hausa penned a poetic birthday message describing her as one of a kind gem.

It read:

TO A GEM OF A KIND

Twenny today, I saw

The trees flare briefly like

The candles on a cake,

As the sun went down the sky,

A momentary flash,

Yet there was time to wish

A Birthday Candle

He added: They say you are what you eat, but I dont remember you eating an absolute legend!? You may not have been on this earth very long but you are wiser than anyone I know. Stay young at heart. As you open a new chapter in this book called life, I just want you to rem one thing, nature gives you the face you have at twenty, it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

As you get older @yasmeen_saiedi three things happen: the first is your memory goes, and I cant remember the other two. Happy birthday to an amazing soul whom I cant wait to see reach the pinnacles of success.
Falun Gong practitioners take part in a parade commemorating the anniversary of the persecution of Falun Gong in China, in Washington on July 18, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Man Arrested Seven Times for His Belief Dies Weeks After Being Released

A man from Northeast China died in August as a result of the persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for refusing to renounce his faith.

Quande Jiang, a dedicated husband and father, passed away on Aug. 26, 2020, six weeks after he was released from police custody. He was 66 years old.

Mr. Quande Jiang from Jilin Province, China. (minghui.org)

He and his wife were arrested at home in July for their belief in truth, compassion, and forbearance, the core tenets of Falun Gong: an ancient Chinese spiritual practice known to relieve stress and increase energy, according to a report by Minghui.org, a website that documents the CCPs campaign of persecution against the practice.

Jiang was already emaciated and in poor health at the time of his arrest due to years of continuous torture suffered during previous detentions. After he was released, his health deteriorated and he required daily IV drips until he passed away. His wife is still detained and CCP authorities refused to allow her to attend his funeral.

History of Persecution

Jiang, a former employee at a grain storage bureau was a heavy smoker and drinker before he took up Falun Gong in 1997. He quit his bad habits, his relationship with his family improved, and his heart condition and a skin disease disappeared after practicing.

Jiang would soon become a target for imprisonment, torture, and forced labor in the CCPs campaign to eradicate the practice in 1999 after Falun Gong grew in popularity in the 1990s for its health benefits and focus on spirituality and morality.

He was arrested for the first time in September 1999. During his 60 days of detention, he was forced to sit still on a small stool for long periods of time or do hard labor carrying bags of beans that weighed over 200 pounds.

He was soon arrested for the second and third time in early 2000 for appealing in Beijing for the right to practice Falun Gong and detained for a total of about a year and eight months.

He was brutally beaten, put in solitary confinement for a month, and forced to sit on a wooden board with his legs crossed in a small, humid room with 20 other Falun Gong adherents, and deprived of sleep because he refused to renounce his belief.

Jiang was arrested for the fourth time on Nov. 8, 2002, for making informational materials about the practice, and detained for over a year before he was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2004 for holding onto his faith.

Some of the tortures he suffered during this time include: being forced to sit on a bench with his legs tied, having his head covered with a plastic bag, and having his fingers and nipples poked with sharpened bamboo sticks.

Torture re-enactment  piercing fingers with bamboo sticks painting (Minghui.org)

They also broke his right arm, causing it to be permanently disabled when they handcuffed and violently shook his wrists, and pulled his handcuffed hands from his back to the front of his body ten times.

In prison, Jiang was repeatedly beaten, losing most of his teeth; held in solitary confinement for several months; shocked with electric batons; and had his four limbs tied up in a spread-eagle position.

Less than two years after his release, Jiang was arrested for the fifth time on Sept. 3, 2015, for talking to people on the bus about his faith. He was fined $147 and held for 15 days.

He was arrested for the sixth time along with his wife on Jan. 25, 2016.
Hyderabad: Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Tuesday announced that the State government will purchase the entire paddy produced in the State during the current monsoon season.

The CM has instructed the officials concerned to purchase the entire paddy in the State by setting up 6,000 purchasing Centres and ensuring that every grain of paddy is purchased and farmers are not put under any problem on the matter.

KCR reiterated that the governments aim is to stand by farmers at every stage from extending financial assistance for crop investment to purchasing the produce.

He held a high-level review meeting here at Pragathi Bhavan pertaining to purchase of the rainy season crops.

He said that in the state crops are cultivated at a record level in 134.87 Lakh acres. Of this, paddy was cultivated in 52.77 Lakh acres, Cotton in 60.36 Lakh acres and Red Gram in 10.78 Lakh acres.

He said paddy would be procured completely through IKP Centres, Cooperative Societies, marketing department.

Urging the farmers not to go in for any distress sale, he said if the Paddy is with below 17 per cent moisture, the government would give Rs 1,888 per Quintal for A grade variety, Rs 1,868 per Quintal for the B grade variety as the Minimum Support Price.

He asked the farmers to bring in dried Paddy to get the MSP and not to bring paddy with more moisture, which may create problems.

Rao said efforts are on to procure cotton through Cotton Corporation of India.
Representative image

The union cabinet on October 6 approved signing of an agreement with Japan that is aimed at enhancing cooperation in emerging technologies, protection of critical infrastructure, cyberspace and to mitigate threats to communication networks, the government said. It said India and Japan are committed to an "open, interoperable, free, fair, secure and reliable" cyberspace environment and will work towards promoting the Internet as an engine of innovation and economic growth.

"The union cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given its approval for signing a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) in the field of cybersecurity between India and Japan," the government said in a statement. The approval to the pact by the cabinet comes in the midst of growing concerns over cyber attacks from China, particularly after India banned over 100 mobile apps with Chinese links.

It said the MoC will enhance cooperation in the area of cyberspace and emerging technologies and provide for protection of critical infrastructure and sharing of information on cyber security threats and malicious cyber activities as well as on best practices to counter them. "India and Japan commit to an open, interoperable, free, fair, secure and reliable cyberspace environment and to promote the Internet as an engine of innovation, economic growth, and trade and commerce that would be consistent with their respective domestic laws and international obligations, and with their wide-ranging strategic partnership," it said.

It said both sides, through the MoC, affirm cooperation in the international arena including in the United Nations. The pact will also provide for sharing strategies and best practices to promote the integrity of the supply chain of information and communication technology (ICT) products.

It will also strengthen the security of ICT infrastructure through government-to-government and business-to-business cooperation, the government said.
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IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Allergan Aesthetics, an AbbVie company (NYSE: ABBV), announced that it has entered into an agreement with Luminera, a privately held, aesthetics company based in Israel with a portfolio and pipeline of dermal filler products.

Under the terms of the agreement, Allergan Aesthetics will acquire Luminera's full dermal filler portfolio and R&D pipeline further enhancing Allergan Aesthetics' leading dermal filler portfolio with its JUV DERM collection of fillers.

"The addition of the Luminera assets adds innovative technology, complementing our leading JUV DERM filler franchise. We welcome the Luminera team as we continue to build our global aesthetics company and a world-class product offering for healthcare professionals and patients around the world," said Carrie Strom, SVP, AbbVie, and President, Global Allergan Aesthetics.

Luminera Chairman Dadi Segal, PhD, added, "We believe bringing together key, innovative Luminera assets with the support of Allergan Aesthetics will provide an even brighter future for our people, products and a more expanded offering for our customers. This is a tremendous opportunity to further build, develop and collaborate with a leading global aesthetics company."

Luminera's key value driver for the future is HArmonyCa, an innovative dermal filler intended for facial soft tissue augmentation comprised of a combination of cross-linked hyaluronic acid (HA) with embedded calcium hydroxyapatite (CaHA) microspheres. The combination of HA and CaHA in a single product is highly differentiated in the dermal filler category. HArmonyCa is currently commercially available in Israel and Brazil.

Allergan Aesthetics will continue to develop this product for its International and US markets.

The Luminera dermal filler portfolio also includes a line of HA dermal fillers, as well CaHA based fillers commercialised across several markets. Brands include Crystalys, Hydryalix and Hydryal.

About Allergan Aesthetics

At Allergan Aesthetics, an AbbVie company, we develop, manufacture, and market a portfolio of leading aesthetics brands and products. Our aesthetics portfolio includes facial injectables, body contouring, plastics, skin care, and more. Our goal is to consistently provide our customers with innovation, education, exceptional service, and a commitment to excellence, all with a personal touch. For more information, visit www.AllerganAesthetics.com.

About AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas: immunology, oncology, neuroscience, eye care, virology, women's health and gastroenterology, in addition to products and services across its Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.

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Health Minister Nelu Tataru said on Wednesday that in the period immediately ahead cross-evaluations will be conducted in hospitals and public health directorates to find out if the healthcare providers are capable of operating, according to Agerpres.

"In the period immediately ahead, there will be those cross-evaluations in hospitals and directorates to find out whether or not there is that capacity for each of those who work in these hospitals to provide that care. The healthcare systems are still resilient, but our recommendation is not pushing these medical systems to their limits," Tataru said on Wednesday at the Government House.

He said that there are currently 226 COVID support hospitals in Romania.

Romania's COVID-19 case count jumped by 2,958 in the last 24 hours as resulting from tests performed nationwide, the Strategic Communication Group (GCS), the official novel coronavirus communication task force, reported on Wednesday.
ool Photo Mandatory Credit: Photo by MIKA SCHMIDT/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (10940668m) Participants arrive in court at the start of the trial about the murder in Kleiner Tiergarten in Berlin, Germany, 07 October 2020, with relatives of the victim in attendance. The accused is a 55-year-old Russian who allegedly shot a Chechen with Georgian citizenship in the Berlin park Kleiner Tiergarten on 23 August 2019. Start of 'Tiergarten murder' trial in Berlin, Germany - 07 Oct 2020 - MIKA SCHMIDT/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The trial of a Russian man accused of carrying out a Kremlin-ordered assassination on German soil opened in Berlin on Wednesday.

The case is expected to further damage relations between Germany and Russia, which are already strained by the attempted poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The defendant, a 55-year-old Russian, is accused of gunning down Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in broad daylight in a central Berlin park on orders from Moscow last year.

Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old ethnic Chechen from Georgia, fought against Russia in the Chechnya war and had links to Georgian intelligence.

The accuseds true identity is disputed and the judge said he would address him as Herr Defendant throughout the trial.

Police guard the entrance of the courtroom at the beginning of the trial of defendant Vadim K. in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020. The 55-year-old man accused of gunning down a former Chechen commander, a Georgian national, in Kleiner Tiergarten Park, on August 23, 2019 has so far stayed mum over the case. (Odd Andersen/Pool Photo via AP) Image title: Germany Russia Slaying - Odd Andersen/Pool AFP

According to the indictment read out in court, he was given orders to liquidate the victim by Russian state agencies.

He entered Germany on a false passport in the name of Vadim Sokolov but prosecutors allege he is really Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hitman previously wanted for the murder of a businessman in Moscow.

He is accused of approaching the unsuspecting Khangoshvili from behind on a bicycle in Berlins Kleiner Tiergarten park.

Prosecutors allege he shot Khangoshvili in the upper body with a Glock handgun fitted with a silencer, then shot him twice in the head after he fell to the ground. He escaped on the bicycle but was later captured.

No pleas are entered in the German legal system and the defendant did not make any statement.

The case is being held under intense security in a secure courtroom, and the defendant is being held in a secret location over concerns about possible interference.

The killing was already being spoken of as second Skripal case in Germany before the poisoning of Mr Navalny with Novichok, the same nerve agent used in the failed assassination attempt against Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7 2020

The Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) has issued emergency use authorization (EUA) for two antiviral drugs, favipiravir and remdesivir, to treat COVID-19 patients.

The BPOM also granted permits in September to several pharmaceutical companies to produce the drugs. PT Beta Pharmacon (Dexa Group) received a permit to produce favipiravir, locally sold under the Avigan brand. State-owned drug manufacturer PT Kimia Farma received the permit to produce a generic favipiravir product, tempo.co reported on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, permits to produce remdesivir have been granted to PT Amarox Pharma Global, which is a subsidiary of India's leading generic drug maker Hetero, as well as to state-owned pharmaceutical firm PT Indofarma and local private firm PT Dexa Medica.

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A family of four have created their own cardboard Greggs after discovering they couldn't live without the bakery chain when they moved to Australia from Croydon.

Michelle Brindle, 32, and her husband Ed made the move down under to escape chilly weather and looked forward to sunshine and barbecues.

But they soon realised their sons Parker, eight, and Doug, six, were devastated that they could no longer buy their favourite Greggs snacks.

So the creative primary school pupils decided to bake their own sausage rolls, and even made a cardboard Greggs store to eat them in.

A family of four have created their own cardboard Greggs after discovering they couldn't live without the bakery chain when they moved to Australia from Croydon

After realising they might never step inside the famous bakery again, they immediately got to work on their own branch of the store at home.

Made entirely out of cardboard, the pop-up bakery served coffee, Cornish pasties, steak bakes, chicken pies, sausage rolls and sausage and cheese melts.

Mrs Bridle, a banker, said: 'Missing family is one thing, but missing chicken tikka bakes is a whole new level.

'Our whole family loves Greggs, and we noticed when arriving here in Sydney, as beautiful as it is, they were missing some absolute gems that we had in the UK.

Michelle Brindle (pictured with her family), 32, and her husband Ed soon realised their sons Parker, eight, and Doug, six, were devastated that they could no longer buy their favourite Greggs snacks

'There is no Weatherspoon, Pret, Toby Carvery or Greggs here and we needed one of them back before we started to go a bit crazy.

'I think Greggs is just one of those staples on the high street of good old British food that is easy, cheap and no fuss.

'We had a Greggs on our local high street in Croydon which was frequented very often. The boys were suckers for their various glazed donuts, whereas for us it all about the steak bake.'

So the creative primary school pupils decided to bake their own sausage rolls, and even made a cardboard Greggs store to eat them in

'We had a stupid amount of cardboard around the house from moving and subsequently buying lots of furniture, so I utilised having my husband Ed home and it kept the family busy whilst I baked.

'It was actually really quick to finish, and we were ready to open for lunch time once all the goodies were baked.

'It sounds silly but it genuinely felt like I was popping into my local Greggs before work early in the morning.

Mrs Bridle, a banker, said: 'Missing family is one thing, but missing chicken tikka bakes is a whole new level. 'Our whole family loves Greggs, and we noticed when arriving here in Sydney, as beautiful as it is, they were missing some absolute gems that we had in the UK'

She added: 'We had a Greggs on our local high street in Croydon which was frequented very often. The boys were suckers for their various glazed donuts, whereas for us it all about the steak bake' (stock picture)

'I really missed the bacon butty with a coffee for a couple of pounds - something you just can't get over here.

'It was also just a lot of fun, it helped with being homesick and with the kids being at home more it gave us all a fun activity to together.

'We're currently working on a pop-up Weatherspoon, and luckily we won't have to close at 10pm over here in Australia..'

She added: 'One of the benefits of the pandemic is being able to spend more time as a family and being creative and just having a bit of fun with the kids.

'I think in times like these it made the home sickness much worse, but what better than to make your favourite food from home and have fun in the process.'
An Alabama man who broke into Disney World and camped out in an abandoned attraction has been fined $100 and banned for life from the park.

Richard McGuire, 42, of Mobile, was arrested back in May 1 after he entered the park during the coronavirus lockdown and used a boat to get to the shuttered Discovery Island attraction, which had been closed since 1999. McGuire camped out on the island for two days and posted videos on YouTube of his exploits.

According to The Street Journal, McGuire entered a no contest plea to a trespassing charge last week. He had faced up to a year in jail.

Disney World closed back in mid-March during the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, but reopened to visitors at a reduced capacity in July.

McGuire told authorities he spent two days camping on the island, claiming he was unaware that he was trespassing and that it looked like a tropical paradise."

Deputies earlier in the day had been searching for a man spotted at the island by Disney personnel. Deputies searched for the man on foot, by boat and by using a sheriffs helicopter. Orange County Marine deputies had been on Bay Lake making announcements via a public address system to tell the man to exit the island.

McGuire told them he had been sleeping in a building and did not hear them during their search, though he was seen in a video trying to hide himself with leaves.

Located in the middle of Disneys Bay Lake and only accessible by boat, 11-acre Discovery Island was once home to animal exhibits and walking trails, but has since been left unattended. Footage showed deputies wandering around the island with their guns drawn.

This is the best game of hide-and-seek ever, one officer says as he peers into empty animal enclosures.

Dude, this is sketchy, another replies.
Prime Minister on Wednesday said the Cabinet's nod to revised cost for Kolkata East West Metro Corridor Project for Kolkata and surrounding urban areas will further ease of living', give an impetus to local infrastructure and help commerce as well as tourism in the city.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved revised cost for Kolkata East West Metro Corridor Project for Kolkata city and surrounding urban areas, Railway Minister said.

Estimated completion cost of the project is Rs 8,575 crore and the target date of completion is December, 2021.

In a tweet, Prime Minister Modi said,"Today's will further Ease of Living' for my sisters and brothers of Kolkata. It will also give an impetus to local infrastructure and help commerce as well as tourism in the city."



He also tweeted in Bengali language, hailing the decision.

The project envisages construction of a metro corridor between Salt Lake Sector-V to Howrah Maidan in West Bengal for a total route length of 16.6 km, Goyal said while briefing reporters on the

"After today's cabinet nod, the East-West Metro Corridor project would be completed within the next 14-15 months. This East-West Metro Corridor will help in reducing travel time and will also help in connecting suburban transit systems in Kolkata. It will be beneficial for around 8 lakh passengers everyday," he said.

Goyal said the project was Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "gift to Kolkata".

(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.)
- Mutua toured Maua town in Meru county where he held a public forum with locals to reflect on issues they would like him to fix if elected president in 2022

- The Machakos governor promised to be a listening president who will be guided by dictates and nuggets of servant leadership

- During the launch of his presidential bid on September 6, 2020, Mutua pledged to usher in "a new period of better leadership and life" for Kenyans

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Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua has begun to popularise his 2022 presidential bid days after calling out Amani National Congress (ANC) leader Musalia Mudavadi for allegedly copying his strategies.

Governor Alfred Mutua interacting with locals of Maua town in Meru county. Photo: Alfred Mutua.

Source: Facebook

Mutua who has fashioned himself as the representative of the and Kenya's safe pair of hand commenced his journey to State House by meeting wananchi for consultative forums in Meru county.

While interacting with locals in the voter-rich county, the Maendeleo Chap Chap party leader said he was set to fix Kenya's problem if elected president in 2022.

Mutua blew his own trumpet saying he will be a listening president guided by dictates and nuggets of servant leadership.

"I have this morning, at Maua, Meru County, began my listening tours (Kuwasikiliza Wananchi) as I change the way leadership is managed. My aim is to be a humble servant president, and I want to hear from wananchi what exactly they want me to FIX for them. It is about the people," he said via Twitter.

"Stop copying me"

Mutua sparked rage on social media when he claimed Mudavadi was copying his political ideas and strategies.

The Machakos leader cited ANC leaders attempt to use of Sheng to address youths as one of the many imitation attempts he has been exploring.

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The second-term governor also claimed Mudavadi copied his slogan of presenting himself as the country's "safe pair of hands"

"In the last one year, my supporters and I have noticed that every time I go public with an idea, a concept and even part of my manifesto, a few days or weeks later, Hon. Musalia Mudavadi, comes out and says the same things or attempts to replicate what I have done.

"This has been going on for long enough. It has reached such high levels that when I strategise with my team, we joke that we have to be hush hush or Mudavadi and other leaders will copy us," lamented the Maendeleo Chap Chap party leader.

Taking on heavyweights

The Machakos county boss also launched his presidential bid on September 6, 2020, pledging to usher in "a new period of better leadership and life" for Kenyans.

"I have listened to the voices of Kenyans who have met me and prayed to God for a way to bring back hope. Kenya needs a young, dynamic, innovative but mature leader. A person who understands the system but is not a captive of the system," the former government spokesperson.

Mutua is likely to face off with Deputy President William Ruto, his Makueni counterpart Kivutha Kibwana and Mudavadi, all of whom have declared interest for the top seat.

Opposition chief Raila Odinga is also likely to join the race if the voices from some of his close allies is anything to go by.

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The Chattanooga Police Department/Fugitive Unit has arrested a 16-year-old male for the Aug. 7 murder of Toran Madding. He was charged with criminal homicide and is in custody at the Hamilton County Juvenile Detention Center.

Mr. Madding, 25, was killed in a drive-by shooting.

At approximately 8:16 p.m. on Aug. 7, Chattanooga Police responded to a person shot call in the 2600 block of East 45th Street. Upon arrival, police located the Madding suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.

He was taken to a local hospital by Hamilton County EMS where he succumbed to his injuries.

It was stated to police that he was walking when someone in a vehicle shot him and fled the area.
According to a federal health official, the White House has declined offers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC to help investigate the outbreak that is surrounding President Donald Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis.

Trump administration declines help

The offer was made by the CDC to help the White House in running contact tracing immediately after President Trump made it public that he had contracted the coronavirus.

Despite the growing concerns expressed by those at the CDC, including agency Director Dr. Robert Redfield, officials at the White House turned down the help offered by the CDC. The help was offered in a phone call on October 5, according to USA Today.

However, the White House has shown little indication that it is conducting a comprehensive effort to trace contacts from those exposed at events like the Supreme Court nomination ceremony where almost no masks were worn and there was no social distancing done both at the outdoor event and the indoor reception.

Also Read: Scientists Who Discovered Hepatitis C Virus, Awarded With Nobel Prize for Medicine

Some attendees of the event said that they had had no outreach, and others have said that they were not asked the slate of questions typically used to document who else may have been exposed through contact, according to The New York Times.

The CDC referred all questions for comment to the White House. Judd Deere, an administration spokesman, said that positive cases are taken seriously.

Deere said in a statement, the White House has plans and procedures in place that incorporate current CDC guidelines and best practices for limiting COVID-19 exposure and has established a robust contact tracing program led by the White House Medical Unit with CDC integration.

A White House official said that a CDC epidemiologist has been detailed to the White House since March and is assisting in contact tracing.

No contact tracing

Meanwhile, the Washington, DC, government, where many of the attendees live, did not get any response from the White House despite multiple efforts by political and health officials to get information. On October 5, Mayor Muriel Bowser said that there had been no substantial contact.

A spokeswoman for Bowser, Susana Castillo, said that there had been multiple attempts since October 2 to contact the White House at both the political and public health levels.

During the weekend, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that the White House would not be providing public information about how many staffers on the White House campus become sick due to privacy concerns.

McEnany herself announced on October 5 that she was also infected with COVID-19, and two of her aides have also tested positive, according to VOX.

In the days following the diagnoses of President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, there has been little clarity about how the White House is contact tracing and alerting those who may have been exposed to a string of events and gatherings he attended.

The efforts appear mostly contained to White House staff, who interacted with the President, First Lady Melania Trump, and top adviser Hope Hicks, and do not include many who attended their intimate meetings or crowded events.

Related Article: Pres. Trump Returns to White House and Removes Mask, Reassuring COVID-19 is Nothing to Be Afraid Of

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 23:39:13|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopian Minister of Health Lia Tadesse has commended a recently inaugurated Chinese-built COVID-19 test kit plant for its role in helping the east African country fight the COVID-19 disease.

In a recent interview, Tadesse said with testing being the key pillar of the fight against the COVID-19 disease, the commissioning of the plant will help boost the capacity of the country's anti-COVID strategy.

"Testing is one of the critical pillars in this fight against COVID-19 and improving testing capacity relies on availability of kits," Tadesse told Xinhua.

"Having the ability to produce test kits locally would boost the country's capacity in terms of the fight against this COVID-19 and will ensure continuous availability of the test kits," Tadesse said.

The BGI Ethiopia COVID-19 test kit factory, located inside the Bole Lemi industrial park on the outskirts of Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, was inaugurated by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last September.

Ethiopia expects the COVID-19 test kit plant will save much-needed foreign currency that the Ethiopian government spends towards importing test kits.

Tadesse said the COVID-19 test kit plant established as a joint venture between the Ethiopian government and a Chinese private firm BGI Genomics Co. Ltd is expected at full capacity to produce 10 million test kits annually.

"Once the plant reaches peak capacity of 10 million kits production annually, it will not only be serving Ethiopia, but will also be able to serve other countries in the east African region and even the wider African continent," Tadesse told Xinhua.

Noting that Ethiopia faces a variety of preexisting health challenges on top of the new COVID-19 outbreak, she said the COVID-19 test kit plant was also built to operate for other purposes.

"We're looking beyond COVID-19 that this plant capacity will enable us to produce other testing kits for diseases such as HIV/AIDS, once we've dealt with this pandemic," Tadesse said. Enditem
Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/07/2020 -- AMA Research added a comprehensive research document of 200+ pages on 'Whiskey' market with detailed insights on growth factors and strategies. The study segments key regions that includes North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific with country level break-up and provide volume* and value related cross segmented information by each country. Some of the important players from a wide list of coverage used under bottom-up approach are Beam Suntory (United States), Brown-Forman (United States), Diageo (United Kingdom), Gruppo Campari (Italy), Heaven Hill (United States), Alexandrion Grup (Romania), Barrel House Distilling (United States), Boone County Distilling (United States), Boundary Oak Distillery (United States), Kirin Brewery (Japan), Michter's Distillery (United States).



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What is Whiskey Market?

Whiskey is a type of distilled alcohol. Whiskey is made from fermented grain mash. There are different type of row material is used to make whiskey such as malt, wheat, rye, corn, blended and others. As per the quality whiskey is divided such as premium whiskey, high-end premium whiskey and super premium whiskey. Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey, Crown Royal Canadian Whisky, Fireball Cinnamon Whisky and other these are most popular brand of whiskey. The antioxidant enhancement from whiskey helps in coronary heart disease deterrence.



Market Segmentation & Scope

Study by Type (Scotch whisky, American Whisky, Irish Whiskey, Canadian Whisky), Application (Bars & Restaurant, Liquor Stores, Supermarkets, Mini Markets, Online Stores), Row Material (Malt, Wheat, Rye, Corn, Blended, Others), Quality (Premium Whiskey, High-End Premium Whiskey, Super Premium Whiskey)



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Market Influencing Trends:

Adoption of Premium Whiskey



Introduction of Organic Whiskey



Growth Drivers:

Increasing Consumption Habit in Youth



Up Surging Demand Due to Affordable Price



Challenges that Market May Face:

Strict Government Regulation



Check Complete Table of Content @ https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/reports/496-global-whiskey-market



Country level Break-up includes:

North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

Europe (Germany, France, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, Nordic, Others)

Asia-Pacific (Japan, China, Australia, India, Taiwan, South Korea, Middle East & Africa, Others)



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Extracts from Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Whiskey Market Overview

Chapter 2: Global Whiskey Market Share and Market Overview

Chapter 3: Whiskey Market Manufacturers/Players Analysis

3.1 Market Concentration Rate

3.2 Competition Scenario: BCG Matrix [Relative Market Share v/s Revenue Growth Rate]

3.3 Heat Map Analysis

3.4 FPNV Positioning Matrix

3.5 Comparative Market Share Analysis by Players (2018-2019) Rank, [% Market Share, Market Revenue]

3.6 Company Profile - Business Distribution by Region, Interview Record, Business Profile, Product/Service Specification, Price, Revenue and Gross profit 2017-2019

3.7 Price Benchmarking (2017-2019)

Chapter 4: Global Whiskey Market Segmentation (Country Level Breakdown) (2014-2025)

- North America: United States, Canada, and Mexico.

- South & Central America: Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.

- Middle East & Africa: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa.

- Europe: United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland and Russia.

- Asia-Pacific: India, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia.

Chapter 5: Global Whiskey Market Breakdown by Segments (Type (Scotch whisky, American Whisky, Irish Whiskey, Canadian Whisky), Application (Bars & Restaurant, Liquor Stores, Supermarkets, Mini Markets, Online Stores), Row Material (Malt, Wheat, Rye, Corn, Blended, Others), Quality (Premium Whiskey, High-End Premium Whiskey, Super Premium Whiskey))

5.1 Global Whiskey Market Segmentation (Product Type) Market Size 2014-2025

5.2 Different Whiskey Price Analysis by Product Type (2014-2025)

5.3 Global Whiskey Market Segmentation (Product Type) Analysis

5.4 Global Whiskey Market by Application/End users Market Size 2014-2025

5.5 Global Whiskey Market Segmentation (other segments) Analysis

Chapter 6: Methodology/Research Approach, Data Source, Disclaimer



What benefits does AMA research provides?

- 3-years of company financial and top-line figures by players

- Latest industry influencing trends by regions, commentary on local reform and market development scenario

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A beloved Laois country hotel has won the Irish Hotel of the Year Award.

Hannah and Paddy Flynn who own and run Roundwood House in Laois have won a prestigious Cesar Award, Irish Hotel of the Year from the Good Hotel Guide.

It is all the more meaningful for the couple who took over the reins 12 years ago from Hannahs parents, Frank and Rosemarie Kennan, because they themselves won a Cesar Award in 1989.

Winning that award was a real turning point for their business, says Hannah, and she remembers how excited her parents were as they headed off to London for the award ceremony.

Hannah and Paddy wont be going to London to collect their award, 31 years later, but rather will attend a ceremony on Zoom during which they will open a bottle of Tattinger Champagne, kindly sent to them by the Good Hotel Guide for the occasion. No doubt Frank and Rosemarie will join them for a glass too.

The Good Hotel Guides range of entries, 750 hotels, inns and B&Bs in the UK and Ireland, is deliberately eclectic and according to its editor, Adam Raphael, their selected properties are not just the pick of the best; they have hospitality built into their very fabric.

Cesar Awards are given to the ten best hotels every year. Named after Cesar Ritz, the most celebrated of hoteliers, these are, he says, the Oscars of hotel-keeping. Previous winners in the Irish Hotel of the Year Category are Gregans Castle in Ballyvaughan, The Quay House in Clifden and Newforge House in Co. Armagh.

According to Raphael, the award was given to Roundwood House because Hannah & Paddy inject oodles of personality into the hotel and guests love the warm welcome and relaxed atmosphere.

It comes at a difficult time when Hannah and Paddy have today closed their doors to guests for the third time this year, but is just the boost they need to keep their sights set on better times ahead.

We try to be as philosophical as we can about the pandemic, says Hannah.

Its a tough year for all of us in the hospitality industry but its also completely out of our control and so we take each week as it comes and do our best to focus on the positives, of which there are many. And even when we cant open to guests there is never a shortage of jobs to keep us busy in this big 300 year old house.

Paddy is also a musician and will be using his newfound extra time out of the kitchen to finish his latest album.

Roundwood is an 18th century Irish Country House set at the foot of the Slieve Bloom mountains, known for its pretty architecture, an impressive Library of Civilisation and singing chef. Of course singing to his dinner guests is no longer permitted but Paddy looks forward to the day he can reinstate the 5th course - a song - to the dining experience at Roundwood.
Dan Carsen is a writer, reporter and editor turned teacher. Share your thoughts or excellent Southern expressions with him at carsenwords@gmail.com.

I had my first non-television experience of Southern English in the hallowed glory of an I-95 truck stop in Virginia when I was 11. Even in a state some call barely South, the burger joint cashiers gentle rolling vowels and unrushed cadences caught my attention in a way that few things could back then. Her words struck me partly because I had an excited, they really talk that way moment that allowed me the delusion that I was worldly and well-traveled, but mainly because it sounded so sweet, so different, and just so .... noticeable.

Not long after that, I got my first taste of Pat Conroy. A novelist some critics havent taken seriously, Conroy wrote in a way that seems to bypass my eyes and mind and go directly to all-encompassing perception: Im in. From the first sentence, Im there. Theres nothing else. And he happened to write in what some call a Southern style  long, flowing, ornate, musical sentences, dripping with description.

Years later, I moved from New York to rural Vance County, North Carolina. I taught school and later was a crime reporter in the less-rural county seat of Henderson. Both places had their own particular Piedmont dialects, barely intelligible to me when I first arrived, but soon I realized Hunson was Henderson and eenk peeyen wasnt a kidney disease but a writing tool. And the contrasts between North Carolinas coastal low country Tidewater accent (vaguely reminiscent of proper British) and its western high country accent (to me seemed closer to Scottish, though the actual roots are complex) were fascinating on their own.

But nothing made me appreciate Southern-ese more than living in the South, then moving to Boston. Beantown is a great city, but the local accent, at least to me, is not among its many selling points. I found the Southies  from South Boston  and people from other neighborhoods almost impossible to understand. (Yes, thats right, Southerners: New Yorkers sometimes have trouble understanding Bostonians.) It seemed to me they had mouths full of marbles, misplaced rs and ws, and seriously denatured os.

Once, when I was teaching soon-to-be teachers in a training program in a public school building in Woostah, (spelled Worcester on maps), the following announcement blared on the intercom: Mr. Kassin, please come to the main office. Mr. Kassin to the main office. When the interruption ended, I resumed presenting whatever I was presenting. Soon, though, I noticed every soon-to-be teacher in the room looking at me like Id sprouted a third head and a first tail. Just before I became so uncomfortable I had to stop and ask what was wrong, one of these Bostonians, borderline indignant, barked, Are you really gonna just blow that off!? Huh? I cocked my head like a confused spaniel and asked, What are you talking about? She replied (with a look that strongly hinted at the word moron), They just called you to the office. It dawned on me only then that Kassin was Localese for Carsen, and that everyone in the room but me had not only understood it but been baffled by the fact that I hadnt recognized the name Id had my whole life.

To give the non-Boston-baptized an idea of the accent were talking about here, just in case someone is trying to negotiate any kind of human interaction in that city, Red Sawx tickets eeyah perhaps obviously means Red Sox tickets here, but bwawb is the nickname for Robert, and elehkawptis are flying wingless vehicles.

So maybe my standards were lowered before I moved to Birmingham in 2006. Then again, since I worked as an editor at a venerable publishing house while I was in Boston and should therefore trust myself, maybe the language and the expressions Ive heard in the South are just simply, objectively great. You decide. Here are some examples that always make an impression (combined with grits and honey accents, of course):

An elderly woman describing the scene of a school board meeting after someone stood up and said something shockingly inappropriate: Honey  it was so quiet in there you could hear a rat piss on cotton.

A Birmingham man who spent his childhood in Kentucky describing a less-than-stable person: Shes nuttier than five pounds of squirrel poop.

(He actually used the expletive. I think that kind gentleman included the profanity for my benefit; hes a considerate fellow, and he knows New Yorkers get nervous if a few minutes go by without a curse word.)

Now the same Birmingham man describing something malodorous he found and unfortunately had to handle long enough to get it into the trash: Man, I tell you what: It wouldve knocked a vulture off a gut bucket.

(By the way, that is really saying something. Ive actually experienced the aroma of a flock of wild vultures  long story  and let me tell you, the smell of vultures themselves, let alone the smell of the concentrated foulness they happily eat, is enough to knock almost anything off almost anything.)

And finally, a rural North Carolina sheriffs deputy at the scene of a minor train-on-car accident  yes, thats possible  as a ridiculously beautiful woman walked by: Man, thata' make a freight train take a dirt road! (Too bad she didnt arrive sooner: the slow train mightve avoided the car that had stalled on the tracks.)

Although the arresting woman didnt cause or prevent wrecks, as far as Im concerned, its case closed on the beauty of Southern expressions.

And now we come to the lynchpin, the single contraction that probably best symbolizes the differences between Northern and Southern speech and cements my appreciation for the latter: Yall.

As a former New York and Boston language snob, I hereby officially declare that yall is a good (actually, great) and proper constituent of the English language. Yall works. It fits a niche and fills a need in the language. Its efficient. And its accurate. In the past, when addressing more than one person, as a New Yorker, Id be forced by decades of unforgiving socialization to say, you guys. Obviously, there are problems with that. First, its more than one word (in New York, theres no time for extra words). Second, its inaccurate and possibly insulting if youre referring to a crowd that isnt exclusively men. All of you avoids the latter problem but compounds the former. Hence, the perfect solution: Yall.

Bam.

Done.

And we all referred to groups of humans happily ever after. It even sounds better. Lets all unite across the Mason-Dixon line and make a case for it everywhere.

As a polite New Yorker (there are more of us than some a' yall might think), its incumbent on me to say thank you, South, for kicking my early ear into gear, for solving the you, plural problem, and for still occasionally knocking me over with say-it-all expressions that have been around for generations but are blissfully new to me.

Carsen is a writer, reporter and editor turned teacher. Share your thoughts or excellent Southern expressions with him at carsenwords@gmail.com.
H arold Pinters celebrated play The Dumb Waiter is getting ready to return to the theatre where it premiered.

Alice Hamiltons 60th anniversary production about two men stuck in a room together was initially scheduled to take place at Hampstead Theatre in the spring, but will now play to a socially distanced auditorium from next month.

Artistic director Roxana Silbert said she is thrilled to have the theatre up and running again: When we closed the building on March 16 the set was on the stage and the show was about to open. At that point, we could not have envisaged how Pinters brilliant play of two men stuck in a room  their sharp humour, ennui, tensions,  would come to feel so extraordinarily fresh and resonant.

We are thrilled at the prospect of welcoming our artists and audiences back into the building and galvanised by the prospect of sharing the communal experience which is unique to live theatre.

The Dumb Waiter was originally staged at the north London theatre in 1960 and directed by the venues founder James Roose-Evans.

The Dumb Waiter will run from November 18-December 19, hampsteadtheatre.co.uk
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-08 01:48:18|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Iran's borders with Iraq have been closed following the resurgence of novel coronavirus, Iran Daily reported on Wednesday.

The Iranians will not be able to travel to Iraq for the Shiite ritual of Arbaeen this year, Iran's Police Chief Hossein Ashtari was quoted as saying.

Ashtari urged the pilgrims to avoid traveling to Iran-Iraq border areas.

On Sept. 20, the Iraqi Health Ministry said that the entry of foreign travelers into the country was banned amid the appearance of novel coronavirus.

Arbaeen, which falls on Oct. 8 this year, marks the 40th day of martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad.

The Iraqi city of Karbala, which hosts the holy shrine of Imam Hussain, attracts millions of pilgrims from regional countries for the rituals every year. Enditem
Former Supreme Court Justice Markandey Katju seems to have found his second coming as an internet troll. But in the wake of the Hathras rape-murder case in Uttar Pradesh, the man has emerged not only as deeply sexist and a rape apologist" but also as insensitive to the problem of caste discrimination.

On Wednesday, Katju took to the social media platform Facebook and announced that he had formed an association called the Dalits against Reservation Association" with the object to persuade Dalits to demand the abolition of reservation as it is doing great harm to them". The Association will allegedly run with Katju as President and invites applications from interested candidates across castes and religion.

The bizarre announcement came hours after Katju announced that he will be giving an interview to the BBC regarding caste reservation. In a Facebook post announcing the same, Katju called caste-based reservations is a vote-catching device" in India and that the only people benefiting from it were not those in need but politicians.

Far from benefiting dalits and OBCs it has done great harm to them. It benefits only about 0.1% of those castes, that too of the creamy layer (because the jobs and seats in educational institutions are too few ), but the SCs and OBCs are befooled into thinking that they will all benefit," Katju wrote.

He further added that Dalits must realise that their path of social emancipation is by joining hands with the enlightened sections of the upper castes (and OBCs), not by isolation.

Needless to say, his posts were hugely criticised on social media, as was his announcement to form what many called an anti-Dalit" association. Critics also pointed out the fact that Katju himself was neither Dalit not underprivileged, giving him no right to speak on behalf of the millions of SC/ST and OBC Idians who support the caste-based reservations, introduced by BR Ambedkar to further the Dalit community in India.

after

We are also on out way to form an association called the Anti-pervert-retired-SC-judges-who-desperately-need-psychiatric-help with me as the president and youd be our first research subject. pic.twitter.com/6g0khUlVLd Prashasti  (shadowbanned, not ignoring) (@nehazard7) October 7, 2020

Markandey Katju ,a Brahmin, former Judge at Supreme Court of India, whose father Shiv Nath Katju was the president of Vishva Hindu Parishad and a former MLA from INC, is saying that dalits should drop the idea of equal representation and has formed an organization named pic.twitter.com/x5RHpOusRc Kishore Haridas Meleth (@HaridasKishore) October 7, 2020

A born Brahmin, a former SC judge, a rape apologist and a ridiculously stupid person, Markandey Katju believes that he can talk on the behalf of the Dalits and he is the president of committe where they think they know what Dalits want better than Dalits themselves. pic.twitter.com/P8aag1M8T8 stfu sparsh (@sangriasheets) October 7, 2020

Katju has been all over the internet in the past week, starting with creepy comments to wome, justifying rape in a previous Facebook post where he said that men have the natural urge to have sex, which when coupled with unemployment, causes rape. The comments came hours after the nation was shocked by the gory details of the gangrape and death of a 19-year-old Dalit girl who was allegedly raped by four Thakur men.

READ: Good Girls Sleep Early: Former Judge Markandey Katju Faces Flak Once Again for Sexist Comments

The incident, including the hurried and overnight cremation of the victims body by cops in UP, has not only launched a debate regarding womens safety but also about caste-based violence and oppression that continues to thrive across the country.
The National Park Service has named a new superintendent for the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.

Christine Jacobs will replace Mardi Arce in the top staff position at the park, which encompasses four federally run mission sites that are open to the public: Concepcion, San Jose, San Juan and Espada. The missions and state-run Alamo, as well as Rancho de las Cabras near Floresville, maintained by the park service, comprise the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Texas.

Jacobs is returning to the park service after serving for five years with the American Battle Monuments Commission in Paris, France. The commission is an independent agency of the U.S. government. Shell start in her new job Oct. 25.

On ExpressNews.com: Ruins at Mission San Jose undergoing restoration

Christines prior experience with World Heritage Sites will be a great asset at the park, National Park Service Regional Director Mike Reynolds said. She has shown exemplary leadership and expertise in partnerships, operations, and resource management.

I look forward to returning to the National Park Service and working with the San Antonio team to help preserve, protect, and share the stories of this amazing park, Jacobs said.

Arce, a 35-year veteran of the park service, has served as superintendent of the San Antonio Missions park since 2013. She previously was deputy superintendent of Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas.

As director of visitor service operations and federal preservation officer at the battle monuments commission, Jacobs oversaw the agencys global interpretation program, the park service said in a release Wednesday. She launched the agencys first interdisciplinary cultural resources program.

Jacobs and her team supported memorial sites around the world that commemorate American military service and sacrifice; preserved the commissions architecture, archives and century-old artifacts; and maintained relationships with U.S. and international partners, the park service said. She also served as the attache to the U.S. Embassy Paris on behalf of the commission.

Before joining the monuments commission in 2015, Jacobs was director for Indian Affairs and American Culture for the park services regional office in Denver, where she served as the tribal liaison and managed the cultural anthropology and Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act programs.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonios World Heritage Festival shifts to virtual format

Jacobs started her career at the park service as an intern in the late 1990s, transferring to the regions cultural resources program in 2000. She worked in cultural resources at Grand Teton National Park from 2002 to 2004, then joined the Office of Indian Affairs and American Culture in 2004. She also was acting superintendent at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Curecanti National Recreation Area, both in southwestern Colorado, in 2014.

Jacobs graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts in art history and holds a master of social science in cultural anthropology and history from the University of Colorado. Her research interests include cultural perspectives on funerary practices, international repatriation, diplomatic relations, cultural heritage management and law, U.S. Indian law, environmental law, leveraging of technology to enhance public access and historic preservation, and material culture studies.

Scott Huddleston covers Bexar County government and the Alamo for the San Antonio Express-News. To read more from Scott, become a subscriber. shuddleston@express-news.net | Twitter: @shuddlestonSA
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. The delegation of the Eurasian Economic Commission has arrived in Yerevan, Armenia, the Commission said on Facebook.

The EEC delegation is led by Chairman of the Board Mikhail Myasnikovich.

The session of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council will be held in Yerevan on October 9.

Meetings with the leadership of Armenia are scheduled.

The member states of the Eurasian Economic Union are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

On October 6 Prime Minister of Kyrgzystan Kubatbek Boronov resigned.

The upcoming meeting is an inter-governmental council session if it is attended by all sides, however, in case of non-participation of the Kyrgyz side, a working meeting will be held with the participation of the prime ministers of the remaining states.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
One-day Chief Minister! All those who have watched Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor starrer 'Nayak' must be aware of the idea. Interestingly, something on the same lines happened in Finland. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin handed power to a 16-year-old on Wednesday as part of a campaign to promote girls' rights.

Aava Murto, from Vaasky in southern Finland, was the lucky girl to be bestowed upon the responsibility for a day. And, the teenager found it "exciting" as she faced the media on the steps of parliament after meeting with the Chancellor of Justice. Murto also said that she had "learnt some new things about legislation."

She was also involved in campaigns related to climate and human rights during the day. In her message to girls, she said that they "need to realise more how important they are, and how they are just as good at technology as boys."

"I think young people could teach adults to be more innovative and think more about the future," she also told global news agency AFP.

Sania Marin, 34, who became the world's youngest head of government when she took office in December, is leading a coalition of five centre-left parties who were all led by women.

Marin did not have Wednesday completely free however, as she took part in budget negotiations in the morning.

A planned working breakfast with Murto was cancelled at the last minute, but they were due to meet for a debrief in the evening.

"It's not up to me to decide that, but possibly, yeah!," said Murto when asked if she would be interested in doing the job full-time in the coming years.

Also read: Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages offers permanent work-from-home to employees
Philadelphia city leaders are again filing a court challenge to the states prohibition on municipal gun regulations, this time joined by families of gun violence victims in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

The city, along with the Ceasefire Pennsylvania Education Fund and 10 family members, filed the lawsuit in Commonwealth Court on Wednesday, asking a judge to find that the states Firearms Preemption laws violate Pennsylvanians right to life under the state Constitution. The lawsuit seeking to clear the path for stricter municipal firearms regulations comes as a surge in gun violence has sent Philadelphias homicide rate to the highest level in more than a decade.

In the absence of sensible gun laws at the state level, Philadelphia cannot be barred from enacting sensible gun laws at the local level, said City Solicitor Marcel Pratt at a Wednesday news conference announcing details of the lawsuit.

Pratt said there was clear evidence that the states preemption laws endanger low-income communities and communities of colour. The citys homicides surged to at least 366 as of Wednesday, a nearly 47% increase over last year at this time, and shootings were up nearly 57% over last year, city officials said.

The City Council moved more than a year ago to pass legislation that would ban guns from city parks and recreation centres, but the effort stalled at the General Assembly. The council passed a resolution to hire attorneys to sue the state earlier this year.

The simple reality is that what we are asking for from the commonwealth is something that is extremely reasonable, City Council President Darrell Clarke said.

City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said there were more deaths from homicide than from diabetes in the city, noting that homicide and gun violence has become the leading cause of death for young Black men.

The lawsuit says the General Assembly has refused to pass  and, in some cases, refused to discuss  measures proposed at the municipal level to increase gun safety. The lawsuit names the state, the General Assembly, the Republican Speaker of the House Bryan Cutler and the Republican President Pro Tempore of the Senate Joe Scarnati as defendants.

Jason Gottesman, spokesperson for the House Republican Caucus, said preemption is laid out in the state Constitution and has been upheld by the courts repeatedly.

Preemption is a necessary component of municipalities being creatures of the state, who retain ultimate oversight of them and their actions, Gottesman wrote in an emailed statement. Ultimately, this is another example of Democrat leaders making an end-run around the legislature by seeking action in the courts rather than the constitutionally-provided legislative process in changing our states laws.

More than 40 states have some form of firearms preemption law that prohibits local gun control ordinances, according to the Everytown for Gun Safety advocacy group.

This isnt the first time a Pennsylvania city has challenged the states firearms preemption laws.

Most recently, Pittsburgh enacted a series of stricter gun regulations, including a ban on high capacity magazines after the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue that left 11 people dead in October 2018. Gun rights groups sued, saying the laws were unconstitutional because only the state could regulate firearms. A Common Pleas judge agreed, but Pittsburgh appealed the decision to the Commonwealth Court in April, asking the laws be reinstated.

Philadelphia sued the state in 2007, also a year that saw a surge in city gun violence and gun-related homicides, saying the Legislature had created a state of danger. The states courts ultimately threw out the lawsuit, saying the city could not enact its own gun laws.
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Linkedin Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7, 2020 16:31 472 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49aa41e 1 National Education,omnibus-bill-on-job-creation Free

The newly passed Job Creation Law still contains several controversial education provisions that were previously said to have been dropped from the bill following public criticism.

The government and the House of Representatives had agreed to remove issues related to the education sector from the bill. However, the final draft of the law, a copy of which has been obtained by The Jakarta Post, includes at least two articles regarding education.

Article 26 in page 100 of the draft, under Chapter III on improvement of the investment ecosystem, mentions education and culture among 15 sectors in the business-licensing category.

Furthermore, Article 56 in page 392 stipulates that the implementation of licensing in the education sector "can be carried out through business licensing", the details of which will be regulated in a separate government regulation (PP).

Chairman of House Commission X overseeing education, Syaiful Huda, expressed disappointment over the provisions in the final draft, saying the bill's working committee had stated that all education provisions would be dropped.

"I am disappointed [...] I urge educational stakeholders who oppose the article to challenge the law in the Constitutional Court," he told the press on Tuesday.

Read also: Not the right way to do the job

Syaiful said he was worried that the articles could lead to commercialization of the education sector.

I see an effort to commercialize the education sector. We didnt agree with it from the beginning because this is not in line with the Constitution," the Islamic-based National Awakening Party (PKB) politician said.

A number of House legislators, especially those with close ties to Indonesia's largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), including the PKB, previously opposed the education provisions in the bill, expressing concerns about the requirement for people securing business licenses from the central government to establish educational institutions.

House Legislation Body (Baleg) deputy chairman Ahmad Baidowi said on Wednesday that the reason for including Article 65 in the final draft was to accommodate the government's plan to establish educational institutions in special economic zones (KEK).

He highlighted the word "can" in the provision, which means there is no obligation to obtain a business license.

We put the word can there so they are allowed to obtain a license but are not obliged to do so, the United Development Party (PPP) politician said.
By PTI

COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan authorities have extended police curfew in nearly 20 more areas in the western provincial Gampaha district, the COVID-19 task force said on Wednesday, a day after a new virus cluster of over 800 factory workers was detected in the area.

The Ministry of Health on Tuesday prohibited public gatherings until further notice.

Public service institutions have been asked to impose strict COVID-19 measures to restrict the spread of the virus.

An indefinite curfew was imposed in two areas of the district on Sunday after an employee of a garment export factory was infected.

The factory has over 1,000 workers.

The PCR tests conducted on the factory workers have found that over 800 of the employees are infected with COVID-19.

The police curfew, which was imposed to restricted areas of the district, has been further extended to cover nearly 20 more new areas, the COVID-19 prevention task force said.

It is headed by Army Commander Shavendra Silva.

With the detection of new cases, the country has reverted to observing the same COVID-19 protocols as during the height of the pandemic from March to June.

The government advanced the mid-year school vacation by four days from October 6.

The authorities have warned the public to be agile to contain the spread of the virus.

With the initial outbreak of the pandemic, the island nation went into a lockdown since mid-March which was lifted in May.

Chief epidemiologist Sudath Samaraweera said the factory employees had origins to multiple districts and they have created many contacts that need to be traced.

The health authorities have successfully curbed two previous big clusters, one in the Sri Lanka Navy and another in a drug rehabilitation centre.

According to the Johns Hopkins data, Sri Lanka has reported 4,252 COVID-19 cases and 13 deaths.
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriffs Office and the Midland Police Department. Compiled by reporter Mitchell Kukulka.

Thursday, Oct. 1

10:20 p.m.  Deputies, EMS and Homer Township Fire were sent to a Homer Townsip residence for a report of a suicidal 29-year-old woman. The woman said she is depressed and tried to harm herself. She was transported to the ER, and a mental health petition was completed.

8:49 p.m.  Officers responded to a domestic assault in the 4800 block of Inglewood Drive.

8:32 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a Lee Township residence in reference to a disorderly juvenile. The 12-year-old girl had calmed down before a deputy arrived on scene, though a deputy spoke with her at the request of her 59-year-old mother.

7:54 p.m.  A deputy made contact with a Homer Township woman who received a notification that someone tried to file unemployment under her name. The woman has been in contact with the Labor Department of Michigan and they are investigating.

4:17 p.m.  A Midland Township woman reported to the sheriff's office that her political sign turned up missing.

3:49 p.m.  Deputies responded to a two-vehicle crash in Midland Township.

3:17 p.m.  Officers responded to a suspect obstructing arrest in the 2500 block of Waldo Avenue.

2:27 p.m.  A Lee Township resident reported to the sheriff's office that they were a victim of computer fraud. The suspect activated ransomware on the victim's computer and would not release it until the victim paid $49.99 through PayPal. The suspect used the theme of a computer crash and they would fix the issue. The victim has already alerted PayPal.

1:48 p.m.  Officers responded to a vehicle crash in the area of Eastman Avenue and West Wackerly Street.

11:11 a.m.  After a traffic stop for speeding, a 28-year-old Mt. Pleasant man was arrested for a felony warrant.

9:09 a.m.  Officers responded to a car-deer crash in Lincoln Township.

3:56 a.m.  Deputies were dispatched to a Edenville Township residence in reference to a domestic dispute. Investigation revealed a 37-year-old woman got into an argument with her 14-year-old daughter. The daughter has had mental health issues in the past and the mother was concerned for her safety. There was a physical altercation between the two and a family member called 911. The 14-year-old was transported to the hospital where the mother had her admitted regarding her mental health issues. A report will be forwarded to the prosecutor's office for review.

1:56 a.m.  Officers responded to an intoxicated driver in the area of East Lyon Road and Bayliss Street.

12:46 a.m.  A deputy responded to a single-vehicle accident on a Jerome Township roadway. The 42-year-old Sanford female driver was admitted to the MidMichigan Medical Center-Midland for medical treatment. The woman's blood was drawn after she gave voluntary consent.

Wednesday, Sept. 30

10:14 p.m.  Deputies were dispatched to a Midland Township residence for a domestic incident between a 38-year-old man and his 35-year-old wife. Following an investigation, the 38-year-old man was arrested for domestic assault and lodged at the Midland County Jail.

9:04 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a Lee Township residence for a delayed report of a car-deer crash that occurred on a Porter Township roadway.

8:32 p.m.  A deputy was dispatched to a Homer Township residence in reference to a possible stalking complaint. The 51-year-old female caller said her 49-year-old ex-boyfriend was sitting in his vehicle in the driveway, though he was gone upon the deputy's arrival. The woman said she did not have contact with the man while he was there. She said she wanted him to know he was no longer allowed at that residence. The deputy spoke with the man on the phone and relayed the message.

5:58 p.m.  Officers responded to a hit-and-run crash in the area of Joe Mann Boulevard and Elisenal Drive.

4:39 p.m.  Deputies responded to a two-vehicle crash in Lee Township.

4:25 p.m.  Officers responded to an assault in the 300 block of Walter Court.

4:09 p.m.  Officers responded to a vehicle crash in the area of Jefferson Avenue and Northgate Drive.

8:28 a.m.  Deputies responded to a vehicle crash in Greendale Township.

7:40 a.m.  Animal Control was notified of a Homer Township resident being bitten by a raccoon. The animal was sent to be tested for rabies.

7:40 a.m.  Animal Control received a fax in reference to a cat bite. A Warren Township resident was bitten by her own cat, and an isolation notice was issued.

12:56 a.m.  Deputies were dispatched to an Ingersoll Township residence in reference to a possible domestic assault. A 38-year-old woman and her 16-year-old daughter accused each other of assault. Neither party had any injuries or marks on their body, and there were no other witnesses to the incident. Both of the women's statements were extremely different. The 16-year-old left to stay with her grandmother, and a report is being submitted to the courts. Child Protective Services was also contacted.
Actress Payal Ghosh has denied news reports that she is ready to apologise to Richa Chadha. Payal said that she has not made any statements against the latter and had only said what was allegedly told to her by Anurag Kashyap.

A report had quoted Payals lawyer Nitin Satpute saying that she is ready to render an unconditional apology to Richa, who she had named, along with two other actress in her video levying sexual harassment allegations against Anurag Kashyap.

Taking to Twitter, Payal wrote, I am not apologizing to anyone. I have not wronged nor have I given a wrong statement about anyone. I just said what @anuragkashyap72 told me. #SorryNotSorry."

I am not apologizing to anyone. I have not wronged nor have I given a wrong statement about anyone. I just said what @anuragkashyap72 told me. #SorryNotSorry https://t.co/xtAJ31RnpT Payal Ghosh (@iampayalghosh) October 7, 2020

Earlier this week, Chadha filed a defamation suit before the high court against Ghosh for making a false, baseless, indecent and derogatory statement and sought damages. Ghosh, while making allegations against Kashyap, had also dragged Chadha and two other woman actors into the controversy.

Chadha also named actor Kamaal R Khan as a defendant in the suit. On Wednesday, Ghoshs lawyer Nitin Satpute told Justice A K Menon that Ghosh regrets her statement, and it was not intended to defame Chadha.

She (Ghosh) said it innocently. She is a big follower of the plaintiff (Chadha) and respects her. She is ready to withdraw the statement and tender apology, he said. She regrets whatever she said and her intention was never to defame any woman, advocate Satpute told the court.

Chadhas lawyers Veerendra Tulzapurkar and Saveena Bedi Sachar told the court that they are willing to accept the apology and would not claim damages. The court then posted the plea for further hearing on October 12 when the parties will have to submit their `consent terms settling the matter.

Advocate Manoj Gadkari who appeared for Kamaal R Khan told the court that Khan was willing to assure that he will not post anything against Chadha on social media. The court accepted the statement.

Justice Menon also passed an interim order restraining any person from making similar comments against Chadha, after observing that a prima facie case was made out. Ghosh on September 23 registered a First Information Report at suburban Versova police station, accusing Kashyap of raping her in 2013.

Kashyap, who was last week questioned by the police, denied the allegations and provided documentary evidence to show that he was shooting for a film in Sri Lanka when the alleged incident was said to have taken place.
Ivanka Trump stepped in for President Donald Trump at two virtual fundraisers Tuesday, bringing in $10 million for the campaign while her father battles COVID.

President Trump was originally scheduled for the events but Ivanka Trump made an unplanned substitute and is stepping her political schedule with less than six weeks to go before Election Day.

The first daughter is working from home this week 'out of an abundance of caution,' an aide said, after she traveled with President Trump to Cleveland last Tuesday for the first presidential debate.

She and her adult siblings have increased their political workload as the president recovers at the White House.

'In light of POTUS' absence over the last few days Ivanka is stepping up even more than she already has been, so, originally unplanned, she picked up these two virtual fundraisers yesterday and is doing more political stuff this week,' a Trump aide told DailyMail.com on Wednesday.

Ivanka Trump, who serves as a White House adviser, has tested negative for COVID. She was mask free in her Washington D.C. home on Tuesday for the fundraising events but appeared to be socially distanced from the camera when she spoke to Trump supporters. The campaign sent in staff to help with the event.

She has raised $25 million for the president's re-election bid since August with a mere six fundraising events, the aide told DailyMail.com, and is the most requested surrogate and fundraiser after the president.

Ivanka Trump raised $10 million for President Donald Trump's re-election campaign at two virtual fundraisers on Tuesday when she stepped in for the president, who is battling COVID

Ivanka Trump tested negative for COVID but is working from home out of caution and has stepped up her political activities this week

She was holding regular events on the campaign trail before the coronavirus struck the Trump administration and first family, touting her father's bid for a second term in battle ground states like Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania

'The enthusiasm we are seeing for President Trump is stronger than ever. Our donors were thrilled to hear directly from Ivanka Trump about the policies her father has delivered on and his vision for the next four years,' Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement about the first daughter stepping in for the president.

The White House announced shortly before 1 am on Friday that President Trump and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID.

Since that announcement, more senior aides have tested positive, including press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and adviser Stephen Miller. At least 14 people connected to the president have contracted COVID.

'I feel great,' Trump said on Wednesday, according to an update on his health released by his physician, Dr. Sean Conley.

Conley also said the president is stable and has not experienced coronavirus symptoms for 24 hours. He also said Trump has not had a fever in four days.

Trump spent Wednesday morning in a tweet storm, complaining about the Democrats and the media while thanking his supporters.

He also went after former first lady Michelle Obama a day after she released a 24-minute video calling him a racist. Trump retweeted actor James Woods  who replaced the background for the clip with shots of urban mayhem and buildings on fire.

He returned to the White House from Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday night, after four days in the hospital.

He remains contagious, according to CDC guidelines, raising concerns about the Secret Service agents who guard him and the more than 100 staffers in the White House residence.

President Donald Trump returned to the White House on Monday night after four days in Walter Reed Medical Center

A member of the White House cleaning staff sprays the press briefing room; at least 14 people connected to President Trump have tested positive for COVID

Trump has expressed a willingness to get back to work even as his doctor said on Monday he not 'out of the woods.'

There was confusion Wednesday morning about whether Trump has gone back on the job.

His economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNBC's 'Squawk Box' that Trump went to the Oval Office on Tuesday, using 'extra precautions' but then refused to say what they were claiming they were 'much greater than simply masking.'

Astonishingly, just minutes later the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows claimed Trump had not been in the Oval Office but was planning to go back later Wednesday. That position was backed up Meadows aide Ben Williamson, who stated flatly that Trump 'was not there.'

That posture gibes with what previous reporting and official statements have revealed: That Trump is being specially set up with a work area in the White House residence, that personnel coming in contact with him are being required to mask up on and don yellow protective gowns, and that while Trump is eager to visit the Oval he isn't being permitted to go there as of yet.
When you have great people in your organization, you know that someday they may be lured away, President and CEO Dr. Mitchell Katz wrote in a statement. Israel Rocha is an extremely talented, compassionate leader and its no surprise that the Chicago Cook County Health and Hospitals system has tapped him as their next CEO. We will be sad to lose him but also are very proud that he will be leading one of the great public systems in the U.S.
Pregnant Princess Eugenie was seen showing off her blossoming baby bump as she stepped out in central London today.

The royal announced she is expecting her first child with husband Jack Brooksbank in 'early 2021' last month. A statement from Buckingham Palace said her grandmother the Queen was 'delighted'.

The mother-to-be, 30, was spotted in Mayfair leaving the luxury five-star Connaught Hotel, located on the corner of Carlos Place and Mount Street.

Eugenie was seen embracing the unpredictable autumn weather in a stylish black winter wrap coat, but opted for bare legs in a patterned navy blue dress.

Pregnant Princess Eugenie was seen showing off her blossoming baby bump as she stepped out in central London today

The mother-to-be, 30, was spotted in Mayfair leaving the five-star luxury Connaught Hotel, located on the corner of Carlos Place and Mount Street

She paired the causal look with a quirky statement leather handbag, emblazoned with shells designed to look like eyeballs with gold trimming and dark red lining.

The royal wore her brunette tresses loose around her shoulders and opted to go bare faced to show off her glowing natural complexion.

Eugenie also wore a fashionable printed face mask in the street to protect herself against Covid-19, being more cautious than government guidelines require.

She was seen carrying her mobile phone in a dark red case, and wore stylish black trainers to finish off her look.

Eugenie was seen embracing the unpredictable autumn weather in a stylish black winter wrap coat, but opted for bare legs in a patterned navy blue dress

She paired the causal look with a quirky statement leather handbag, emblazoned with shells designed to look like eyeballs with gold trimming and dark red lining

Eugenie could also be seen sporting her modern sapphire and diamond engagement ring

Eugenie could also be seen sporting her modern sapphire and diamond engagement ring and was pictured getting into a car as she walked away from the hotel.

Her husband Jack was also spotted moments later just a street away. He cut a handsome figure in a khaki green coat paired with a white shirt.

He donned smart black trousers, brown shoes, and carried a black backpack as he strolled down the Mayfair street.

Eugenie and Jack announced their pregnancy with a sweet Instagram post that came minutes after an official statement released by Buckingham Palace.

The royal wore her brunette tresses loose around her shoulders and opted to go bare faced to show off her glowing natural complexion

She was seen carrying her mobile phone in a dark red case, and wore stylish black trainers to finish off her look

Eugenie also wore a fashionable printed face mask to protect herself against Covid-19, being more cautious than government guidelines require

The princess was snapped getting into a car nearby the five-star luxury Connaught Hotel

Sharing the news on Instagram, Eugenie wrote: 'Jack and I are so excited for early 2021....,' alongside photos of baby slippers and her and Jack smiling.

Sarah Ferguson shared her own excitement in a separate Instagram post, writing: 'I am so excited by the news that Eugenie and Jack are expecting their first child. Thrilled for them both and in my 60th year cannot wait to be a grandmother. Welcoming a new baby into the York family is going to be a moment of profound joy.'

The baby will be the first grandchild for Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, and will be the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh's ninth great-grandchild.

The royal, pictured getting into a car in Mayfair today, announced she is expecting her first child with husband Jack Brooksbank in 'early 2021' last month

Her husband Jack was also spotted moments later just a street away. He cut a handsome figure in a khaki green coat paired with a white shirt

He donned smart black trousers, brown shoes, and carried a black backpack as he strolled down the Mayfair street

A spokesman for the duchess told the Mail that while she was clearly overjoyed at Eugenie's news, she also wanted to stress that she and Andrew very much saw Beatrice's stepson, Wolfie, as a grandchild too.

'Wolfie is already a very much-loved member of their family and the duchess is very keen to stress that she sees Wolfie as their grandchild too,' they said. The three-year-old is Mr Mapelli Mozzi's son by a previous relationship.

Eugenie and Jack's child will be 11th in the order of succession, which means the Queen's youngest son Prince Edward will slip down a place into 12th place.
"Q," claims to have insider knowledge of the Trump administration. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

QAnon followers espouse an intertwined series of beliefs, based on anonymous web postings from "Q," who claims to have insider knowledge of the Trump administration.

A core tenet of the conspiracy theory is that U.S. President Donald Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of child-sex predators that includes prominent Democrats, Hollywood elites and "deep state" allies.

QAnon, which borrows some elements from the bogus "pizzagate" theory about a pedophile ring run out of a Washington restaurant, has become a "big tent" conspiracy theory encompassing misinformation about topics ranging from alien landings to vaccine safety.

Followers of QAnon say a so-called Great Awakening is coming to bring salvation.

How has it spread online?

The 'Q' posts, which started in 2017 on the message board 4chan, are now posted on 8kun, a rebranded version of the shuttered web board 8chan.

QAnon has been amplified on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, the video streaming service of Alphabet Inc's Google.

Media investigations have shown that social media recommendation algorithms can drive people who show an interest in conspiracy theories towards more material.

A report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) found that the number of users engaging in discussion of QAnon on Twitter and Facebook have surged this year, with membership of QAnon groups on Facebook growing 120pc in March.

Read More

Researchers say that Russian government-supported organizations are playing a small but increasing role amplifying the conspiracy theories.

QAnon backers helped to organise real-life protests against child trafficking in August and were involved in a pro-police demonstration in Portland, Oregon.

QAnon also looks poised to gain a toehold in the U.S. House of Representatives, with at least one Republican candidate who espouses its beliefs on track to win in the November elections.

What are social platforms doing about it?

Twitter in July said it would stop recommending QAnon content and accounts in a crackdown it expected would affect about 150,000 accounts. It also said it would block QAnon URLs and permanently suspend QAnon accounts coordinating abuse or violating its rules.

Facebook in October said it would classify the QAnon movement as dangerous and began removing QAnon Facebook groups and pages as well as Instagram accounts.

The step escalated Facebook's move in August to remove pages, groups and Instagram accounts linked with QAnon that discussed potential violence, while restricting the reach of others. In September, it banned ads that praised or represented militarized social movements and QAnon.

A spokeswoman for the short-form video app TikTok said QAnon content "frequently contains disinformation and hate speech" and that it has blocked dozens of QAnon hashtags.

A Reddit spokeswoman told Reuters the site has removed QAnon communities that repeatedly violated its rules since 2018, when it took down forums such as r/greatawakening.

A YouTube spokeswoman said it has removed tens of thousands of Q-related videos and terminated hundreds of Q-related channels for violating its rules since updating its hate speech policy in June 2019.

YouTube also said it reduces its recommendations of certain QAnon videos that "could misinform users in harmful ways." It does not have a specific ban on monetizing QAnon content. ISD researchers found that about 20 percent of all QAnon-related Facebook posts contained YouTube links.

Reviews of major e-commerce sites Amazon.com Inc and Etsy Inc show sellers listing QAnon-branded items ranging from books to T-shirts and face masks.




Keralas Covid-19 woes continue unabated as the viral caseload on Wednesday crossed 10,000, the highest since the outbreak began in January. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said 10,606 new cases were reported on Wednesday and asked people to listen to the directives of the health ministry to tide over the crisis.

Among those who tested Covid-19 positive is Power Minister M M Mani, the fourth minister to get infected in the state. The pressure on the overworked hospitals is quite visible as most of them are filled to the brim and there is a shortage of beds and ventilators. But the state government put up a brave face saying the states mortality rate is the lowest in the country. State health ministry statistics show among 92,161 active cases 610 are in intensive care units and 179 patients are on ventilator support.

The surge in Covid-19 cases came as the state conducted the maximum number of tests (73,816) on Wednesday and experts said it will have to hike tests exponentially to contain the spread. They said the state had conducted only 33 lakh tests in six months and more than 60 per cent of them were antigen tests. Latest statistics show the test positivity rate has gone up to14.37 per cent against the national average of 8.4 per cent. The government has recorded 906 fatalities so far but independent doctors who are monitoring the pandemic situation put the toll at 1622.

The situation is really alarming. With high density of population and a large number of elderly population the state is going through a difficult phase. Political leadership will have to accept the fact rather than finding refuge in technicalities, said Dr S S Lal, a public health expert who earlier served with the World Health Organisation. Many health experts in the state are up in arms saying they were kept away and the government was only heeding the bureaucracy.

The CM and the Indian Medical Association had locked horns a couple of days back, with the former criticizing the doctors body saying it was propagating half-baked facts. But experts said going by the present surge the state may beat Maharashtra and Karnataka in active cases.

It is time for the state to surge ahead as a single unit foregoing political differences. Personally, I feel local body elections should be postponed. Lives are precious we have to save them. We are making suggestions to improve the system and minimize damage. But the government is taking them personally and singling out those who criticise it, said Dr Lal. He said the government will have to come out of its Nipah fight record as it was a self-limiting virus but more dangerous than the present virus.

This was expected. We have been warning the government about the need for more tests. It is natural once you increase tests, cases will go up. It is time for the state to re-draw its strategies, said IMA president Dr Abraham Varghese.

However, state health minister KK Shailaja asked people not to panic but take utmost precaution and heed the directives of the government. After the situation deteriorated, the state has strengthened its curbs and asked the police to enforce norms strictly.

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Sudan is celebrating a landmark agreement to end decades of war, but the first step to turn promises on paper into peace is also one of the most explosive -- disarmament.

Collecting weapons in a country left awash with guns after years of conflict in which hundreds of thousands died is one of most delicate parts of the October 3 peace agreement.

"Gathering the weapons is a very difficult business," said Gibril Ibrahim, commander of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of rebel signatories to the historic deal.

"It involves a collective effort. People will not hand over their weapons until they judge that the government can ensure their safety."

Ibrahim's JEM fighters battled Khartoum's government in the western region of Darfur, where fighting since 2003 left around 300,000 people dead.

Rifles taken from the public in Sudan are placed in a pit before they are blown up -- there some 2.76 million illegally-held weapons in Sudan in 2017, or 6.6 guns for every 100 people, experts estimate. By ASHRAF SHAZLY (AFP)

"If we have a democratic government that listens to the voice of the people, people will conclude that they no longer need to carry arms to protect themselves," Ibrahim said.

'Trust is key'

The historic deal signed by the government and an alliance of rebel groups, the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), was hailed by the international community as a milestone.

The rebels included groups from Darfur, as well as the southern states of Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan.

According to one rebel leader, it involves some 35,000 rebel fighters.

Peace was made possible after mass protests ousted president Omar al-Bashir from power in April 2019, and the transitional government has made ending the conflicts a priority.

Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur, has already been convicted of corruption, and is currently on trial in the capital Khartoum for the 1989 coup that brought him to power.

Sudan has been ripped apart by multiple civil wars since independence in 1956, including a conflict in the western region of Darfur that erupted in 2003. By (AFP)

The government has also agreed that Bashir will face trial for his role in Darfur.

But after so long at war, many are wary of giving up their guns.

"Trust is key to disarmament," said Jonas Horner of Brussels-based think tank the International Crisis Group (ICG).

"The military -- linked so closely with abuses during the Bashir government --- simply has not had the time nor shown the will to address violence in the way that many rural Sudanese would need to see in order to put down their weapons."

Warning of a "trust gap" between the ex-rebels and Khartoum, Horner said he feared some will keep a cache of weapons hidden as insurance.

Two holdout rebel groups -- including some 15,000 fighters, according to one estimate -- refused to take part in the October 3 deal.

One, the Darfur-based Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) faction led by Abdelwahid Nour, is believed to maintain considerable support.

Another, a faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) based in South Kordofan and led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, has signed a separate ceasefire.

The ouster of Sudan's ex-president Omar al-Bashir, here seen on October 6 during his ongoing trial in Khartoum, was a key reason that the government and rebels were able to strike a peace deal. By ASHRAF SHAZLY (AFP)

That deal allows the rebels to keep hold of their guns for "self-protection" until Sudan's constitution is changed to separate religion and government.

Rebels join army

Even before the deal was signed, Sudan's army launched a mass disarmament campaign, blowing up thousands of firearms collected from civilians in a huge explosion in the desert.

The Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based research organisation, calculates there were 2.76 million illegally-held weapons in Sudan in 2017, or 6.6 guns for every 100 people.

Rebels will be slowly incorporated into joint units with government security forces.

"For the stability of the country, the weapons must be handed over to the regular forces," said Yassir Arman, deputy chairman of the SPLM-N rebels who signed the deal.

Turning rebels into regular troops brings together old foes in often uneasy joint units.

"We must build a professional army which does not intervene in political affairs," Arman added.

Sudan has seen much-hailed peace deals crumble before, so this agreement lays out clear steps.

"The security aspect of the agreement is the most complex," said Mohammed Hassan al-Taichi, spokesman for the government negotiating team.

Sudan's government and leaders of a coalition of rebels signed a peace deal on October 3 in the capital of neighbouring South Sudan, aimed at ending decades of war. By Majak Kuany (AFP)

A "supreme council" will be created within 45 days to lead disarmament and the demobilisation of rebels.

"The collection of weapons will only take place when the rebels start to join the training camps," Taichi added.

In Darfur, the process should be complete within 15 months, but in other areas, a deadline is 39 months.

While building peace requires people to give up their guns, few will surrender their firearms until they are confident war has gone for good.

It is a tough conundrum.

"Until some semblance of sustainable peace is in place with a trusted central authority, there will be little incentive to comply with government-run disarmament programmes," Horner said.
(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc <C.N> said on Tuesday that it terminated a manager in its technology department following an investigation into his role as the operator of a popular website dedicated to the unfounded QAnon conspiracy theory.

Jason Gelinas had been placed on paid leave last month after he was identified as the operator of the website QMap.pub and its associated mobile apps by fact-checking site Logically.ai.

"Mr. Gelinas is no longer employed by Citi. Our Code of Conduct includes specific policies that employees are required to adhere to, and when breaches are identified, the firm takes action," the bank said in a statement.

QAnon followers espouse an intertwined series of beliefs, based on anonymous web postings from "Q", who claims to have insider knowledge of the Trump administration.

QAnon has become a "big tent" conspiracy theory encompassing misinformation about topics ranging from alien landings to vaccine safety.

A core tenet of the conspiracy theory is that U.S. President Donald Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of child-sex predators that includes prominent Democrats, Hollywood elites and "deep state" allies.

(Reporting by Abhishek Manikandan in Bengaluru and Imani Moise in New York; Editing by Anil D'Silva)
Montreal, CA (H4T1V6)

Today

Cloudy early with partial sunshine expected late. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Morning high of -8C with temps falling to the single digits. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Bitterly cold. Mostly clear. Low --27C. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.
Many Democrats are getting nervous about the upcoming presidential election. Ominous, extensively reported articles by two of the best in the business -- the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin and The Atlantic's Barton Gellman -- outline Boss Trump's plot to keep control of the White House in 2021 no matter how the American people vote.

Trump is hardly making a secret of it. He's pointedly refused to commit to "a peaceful transfer of power." "Well, we're going to have to see what happens," is how he answered the question. He added that after we "get rid of the ballots" -- presumably mail-in ballots he's been whining about for weeks -- "there won't be a transfer, frankly. There'll be a continuation."

Of course, Trump himself has always voted by mail, but then brazen hypocrisy is his standard operating mode. If you haven't noticed, he also lies a lot. Without prevaricating, boasting and bitching, he'd be mute. And even then, he'd still have Twitter. He recently tweeted that the winner "may NEVER BE ACCURATELY DETERMINED" because mail-in ballots make it a "RIGGED ELECTION in waiting."

Gellman gets this part exactly right in The Atlantic: "Let us not hedge about one thing. Donald Trump may win or lose, but he will never concede. Not under any circumstance. Not during the Interregnum and not afterward. If compelled in the end to vacate his office, Trump will insist from exile, as long as he draws breath, that the contest was rigged.

"Trump's invincible commitment to this stance will be the most important fact about the coming Interregnum. It will deform the proceedings from beginning to end. We have not experienced anything like it before."

No, we haven't. However, it's important to remember that Trump makes threats and promises almost daily that never happen. Remember that gigantic border wall Mexico was going to pay for? Trump has repaired existing barriers and built a few miles of new ones -- leaving him roughly 2,000 miles short.

His brilliant cheaper, better health care plan? Nonexistent.

On Labor Day, Boss Trump boasted of his unparalleled success in strong-arming Japan into building new auto-manufacturing plants. "They're being built in Ohio, they're being built in South Carolina, North Carolina, they're being built all over and expanded at a level that we've never seen before."

Not a word of that is true. Two new plants -- one German, another Swedish -- have opened in South Carolina, but construction began before Trump took office. Auto industry investment during Barack Obama's second term far exceeded Trump's. His version is sheer make-believe.

But back to the GOP scheme to steal the election.

First, it's clear that even Trump understands that he has virtually no chance of winning the national popular vote. He's been polling in the low 40s, with no sign of change. To have any chance of prevailing in the Electoral College, he's got to do the electoral equivalent of drawing to an inside straight all over again -- winning a half-dozen so-called battleground states where he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 by the narrowest of margins.

At this writing, that looks highly unlikely. The latest polling in must-win Pennsylvania, for example, shows Trump trailing Joe Biden by 9 points. That's a landslide. Trump's down 10 in Wisconsin, 8 in Michigan. And so on.

So spare me the screeching emails in ALL CAPS, OK? Polls were actually quite accurate in 2016. Trump narrowly defeated the odds. It can happen. But he's in far worse shape this time. Furthermore, early voting turnout is very high, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans 2-to-1.

Hence, The Atlantic reports, "Trump's state and national legal teams are already laying the groundwork for post-election maneuvers that would circumvent the results of the vote count in battleground states."

The plan is clear. Because more Democrats than Republicans are choosing mail-in voting during the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump hopes to prevent those ballots from being counted. Assuming he'll have a narrow "swing state" lead on election night, he'll declare victory and start filing lawsuits. "The red mirage," some Democrats call it.

"As a result," Toobin writes, "the aftermath of the 2020 election has the potential to make 2000 look like a mere skirmish" -- with Trump in the White House urging armed militias to take to the streets.

Mail-in votes take a long time to count. Things could definitely get crazy.

True, but filing a lawsuit to halt a Florida recount was one thing. Filing suits against a half-dozen states to prevent votes from being counted at all is quite another. Public reaction would be strong. Also, winning such lawsuits requires serious evidence of fraud. Trumpian bluster ain't evidence.

The Atlantic also reports that GOP-controlled state legislatures are thinking about sending Trumpist delegations to the Electoral College regardless of the popular vote winner -- theoretically constitutional but currently illegal.

Fat chance. If that's the best they've got, they've got nothing.

Anyway, here's the antidote: Vote early, and in person.

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Paris has already shut bars and cafes for two weeks.

With Europe topping six million coronavirus cases, Scotland and Brussels became the latest to introduce curbs on alcohol consumption Wednesday, while experts detailed the hugely divergent consequences of the pandemic for the world's richest and poorest.

A two-week pub closure in central Scotland, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, was designed as a "short, sharp action to arrest the worrying increase in infection," First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.

In Brussels, bars and drinking alcohol in public places will be banned until November 8, the regional government said. An 11pm bar curfew had already been announced for the rest of the country.

It is the second time Brussels has imposed such a measure since the outbreak, and comes a day after the same order was imposed for bars and cafes in Paris.

In Switzerland, there were strong words from Health Minister Alain Berset as the country saw positive tests top 1,000 in 24 hours for the first time since April 1.

"Get a grip," Berset told the public, urging respect for physical distancing and hand hygiene in private as well as public.

Meanwhile Italy imposed an outdoor mask-wearing requirement nationwide and extended its state of emergency to January 31.

Europe reached 6,031,890 infections and 237,976 deaths, according to an AFP tally at 1500 GMT.

The worst-affected European countries were Russia (1,248,619 infections and 21,865 deaths), Spain (825,410 infections, 32,486 deaths), France (669,235 infections, 32,365 deaths) and Britain (530,113 infection, 42,445 deaths).

Across the Atlantic, President Donald Trump's doctor said the Republican leader had been free of Covid-19 symptoms for 24 hours and without a fever for four days, after he emerged Monday from a weekend hospital stay.

"The president this morning says 'I feel great,'" doctor Sean Conley said in a brief update.

Rich and poor

A flagship World Bank report emphasised the long-term devastation being wrought by the pandemic, especially in the developing world.

It said as many as 115 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty this yearmeasured as living on less than $1.90 a dayrising to 150 million people in 2021.

Limited worshippers attend an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican.

"The pandemic and global recession may cause over 1.4 percent of the world's population to fall into extreme poverty," World Bank President David Malpass said in a statement.

By contrast, a report by Swiss bank UBS and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the world's billionaires have reached record new heights of wealth under the pandemic.

Tech, health and industry "innovators and disruptors" such as Elon Musk have led the way, with the cumulative wealth of the world's 2,189 dollar billionaires reaching a total of $10.2 trillion, exceeding the previous peak of $8.9 trillion in 2017, it said.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said the pandemic had shown that countries must increase efforts to provide universal health care coverage without delay.

"We must all draw the hard lessons of this crisis," Guterres said in a video message.

"One of those lessons is that under-investment in health can have a devastating impact on societies and economies."

A UN report stressed the need to "massively expand access to new rapid diagnostics and treatments and ensure future Covid-19 vaccines are a global public good with equitable access for everyone everywhere."

'An opportunity'

In Spain, the government announced plans for rebuilding the ravaged tourism-dependent economy on Wednesday, vowing to create 800,000 new jobs with its tranche of the European Union's 750-billion-euro rescue package.

The plan, focused on digital and green projects, aims to "transform the hard blow of the pandemic into an enormous opportunity," said Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Europe's hospitality sector continues to bear some of the hardest impact, with British pub chain Greene King the latest to announce job cuts: 800 across its 2,700 pubs, restaurants and hotels.

Meanwhile, in the desperate hunt for effective treatments and vaccines, the latest sign of hope came from US biotech firm Eli Lilly, which said it was seeking an emergency use authorisation for its antibody treatments after early trial results showed they reduced viral load, symptoms and hospitalisation rates.

Rapid progress is straining supply chains, however.

Swiss firm Roche apologised Wednesday for delays in processing virus tests in Britain, blaming the move to a new distribution centre.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP


BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - European stocks were moving lower on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump called an abrupt end to negotiations with Democrats over additional Covid-19 relief, saying they won't resume until after the election.



With Joe Biden's lead widening in the polls and Trump urging Congress to approve paycheck protection and airline support, the downside, however, remained limited.



In addition, investors are pinning hopes that whoever wins the November 3 presidential election will still introduce a fiscal stimulus bill.



The pan European Stoxx 600 slipped 0.1 percent to 365.36 after ending little changed with a positive bias on Tuesday.



The German DAX slid 0.3 percent, France's CAC 40 index edged down 0.1 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was marginally lower.



TUI AG shares tumbled 5 percent. The travel and tourism company said Birgit Conix, a member of the Executive Board and Chief Financial Officer, will leave the company as of 31 December 2020.



Luxury car maker BMW edged down 0.6 percent. The company reported that its third-quarter total vehicle sales increased 8.6 percent from last year.



Dialog Semiconductor rallied 2 percent after saying it expects to report higher than anticipated revenue in its third quarter.



Telefonica Deutschland fell about 1 percent and Deutsche Telekom shed 0.8 percent after they have signed a ten-year contingent contract for an early extension of existing cooperation in the fixed network.



Danone edged down half a percent after the French food group said it would sell its remaining 500 million euro ($586.60 million) stake in Japan's Yakult Honsha Co.



Total SA gave up 1.2 percent. The oil and gas company announced the acquisition of a 20 percent stake in the Eolmed floating Offshore wind farm pilot project in France.



Supermarket chain Tesco rallied 2.2 percent as it reported a higher pretax profit for the first half of fiscal 2021 on rising revenue.



EasyJet lost nearly 5 percent. The low-cost airline announced that Moya Greene DBE, non-executive director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee, has notified the Board that she will not be standing for re-election at the company's next AGM.



In economic releases, German industrial production dropped 0.2 percent on a monthly basis in August, in contrast to a 1.4 percent rise posted in July, data from Destatis revealed. Economists had forecast an increase of 1.5 percent.



On a yearly basis, industrial production decreased 9.6 percent following a 10 percent drop in July.



U.K. house prices increased at the fastest pace in more than four years in September, data from the Lloyds Bank subsidiary Halifax and IHS Markit showed.



House prices grew 7.3 percent on a yearly basis in three months to September, following a 5.2 percent rise in three months to August. On a monthly basis, house prices were up 1.6 percent but slightly slower than the 1.7 percent increase logged in August.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Tim Davie wants the BBC to represent a more diverse Britain (Ian West/PA)

BBC boss Tim Davie says the broadcaster has more to do to connect with all viewers.

The new director-general said many aspects of the BBC needed modernising to reflect the whole of the UK.

But he told a virtual Ofcom conference that the universal, licence fee model was the best way of funding the BBC.

He said that socio-economic diversity, different types of people, different voices was as big an issue as anything.

And he added: What is Britain? It cant be that were just taking people from a certain academic track.

Weve got to have a broader sense of what intelligent reporting is.

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He said trust in the BBC grew over the last year.

But I get a sense in our research that there are certain people who do not connect with us, he added. Is the BBC for me?

Thats about out of London, its about programming choices, who speaks for us, who we put up in the newsroom. All those things need modernising to represent what is a more diverse Britain.

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He said he was not just talking about traditional concepts of diversity.

Im talking about how secure you feel in your life, how comfortable you feel in your community, all of that, he added.

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We need more diverse voices and that is a challenge for every single institution, not just broadcasting

l have lit a fire on this. We wont recruit in the same way. And we need to look more broadly across the UK so that everyone says the BBC is for me and my views are represented.

Davie said that the TV licence fee model was the best way of funding the BBC.

The current licence fee model is guaranteed until December 31 2027, the end of the current charter.

I havent seen a model that beats the current one at the moment, a universally funded licence fee, he said.

The vast majority of households think it offers very good value. Thats what the BBC needs to focus on. Under my leadership, well focus on that.

Asked about an increase in evasion, he said it is marginally up Weve got 25 million paying households.

Yes, in a more competitive environment youre going to get some erosion. We are in a good position, he said, adding that the numbers of people who value the BBC rose during the pandemic.

The panel discussion also heard Channel 4 chief executive Alex Mahon saying she was not concerned about any prospect of the Government privatising Channel 4.

She told the Small Screen: Big Debate virtual conference that the issue will always be there as a question but it is not one that unduly worries me.
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Floyd, a Black man in handcuffs, died May 25 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against Floyds neck for several minutes as Floyd said he couldnt breathe. Floyds death was captured in widely seen bystander video that set off protests around the world. Chauvin and three other officers were fired. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter; Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter.
On January 3, 2013 a young mother took her one-and-a-half-years old daughter to Gertrude's Hospital Muthaiga following a series of seizures.

The girl had been diagnosed with developmental delay seven months after being born, and was also found to have brain damage. She was given medicine that she responded well to.

But after her first birthday, she started suffering seizures.

When the girl and her mother visited Gertrude's Muthaiga in 2013 to treat the seizures, they were attended to by respected paediatric neurologist Donald Oyatsi, and they had at least 10 other review sessions in the next six months.

Dr Oyatsi first prescribed Tegretol, which was intended to manage the seizures. When that did not work, the doctor added a drug called Epillim to the regimen. That did not do anything for the young girl.

The doctor added two other drugs - Keppra and Lamictal tablets - to the one-and-a-half-year-old girl's regimen but that did not work either.

Created complications

The girl's mother now says in court that the drugs prescribed did not improve her daughter's condition, and that Dr Oyatsi refused to present himself for consultation after the medicines created complications. She adds that Dr Oyatsi refused to refer her to another neurologist.

Two weeks ago, High Court judge John Mativo dismissed a case filed by Dr Oyatsi seeking to quash a Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board's Disciplinary and Ethics Committee decision that implicated him in overdosing the minor and ignoring drugs universally used to treat seizures in children.

Justice Mativo's decision has opened the door for the girl's mother to pursue Dr Oyatsi for negligence, which could culminate in a huge multimillion-shilling payout.

After falling out with Dr Oyatsi in 2013, the girl's mother opted to seek treatment abroad. She identified the Children's Hospital Orange County in California, United States. But this would cost millions of shillings, so the mother opted to sell a piece of land.

With the proceeds and a medical report from Dr Oyatsi, the mother and her daughter flew to the US, where they would stay until January 2014.

Doctors in the US advised that the girl be withdrawn from Tegretol and Lamictal, and instead use Phenobarbital. Phenobarbital is a mild sedative used to treat seizures.

Upon return, the mother consulted a doctor at Aga Khan Hospital, and a drug called phenobarbital was prescribed.

She says that since being treated in California, her daughter has only been hospitalised once, in 2017.

Dr Oyatsi argued in court that the Disciplinary and Ethics Committee falsely accused him of failing to file his written arguments in reply to the mother's complaint.

Treating epilepsy

Dr Oyatsi insisted that he filed his defence papers before the board six months before the decision implicating him was made.

He added that the panel that heard his case had no experts in treating epilepsy and that they relied on material downloaded from the internet to implicate him.

But the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board in its response said it is made up of several doctors and dentists who have the capacity and authority to determine such complaints.

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The committee added that on several occasions, Dr Oyatsi failed to file his papers on time, and had at first furnished a shallow statement that did not address the allegations on overdosing a minor.

Dr Oyatsi's final written arguments and detailed statements were filed in August, 2019, which was more than one month after the Disciplinary and Ethics Committee had ordered him to submit the documents.

The committee's lawyers argued that no professional body would simply arrive at a decision based on material downloaded from the internet without seeking opinions from experts in the affected field.

Justice Mativo ruled that the Judicial Review division of the High Court, where Dr Oyatsi sued, is only concerned with whether due process was followed in arriving at an administrative decision.

The judge found that the Disciplinary and Ethics Committee had followed the laid down procedures in arriving at its decision, which implicated Dr Oyatsi in wrongdoing.
LOS ANGELESAfter the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Nandi Zavala urged her Instagram followers to sign petitions and attend Black Lives Matter protests.

As a Black woman, Zavala felt a personal responsibility to do this. As a Mexican American woman, she was also anxious: Would the Latino side of her family think she was ignoring her other half?

Zavala, whose mother is Black and father is from Mexico, mined Instagram for pro-immigration infographics and anything else she could share to demonstrate solidarity with Latinos.

She felt an internal pressure to balance out her social media feed.

I want people to know that I am these things, and Im proud to be these things, because theyve all shaped who I am as a person now, said Zavala, 21, a student taking the semester off because of the pandemic.

Zavala and others with both Black and Latino heritage have been performing this cultural juggling act all their lives. Now, with one crisis in public health and another in police brutality, the shared struggles, as well as the misunderstandings, between the two cultures have moved front of mind.

The challenges faced by Black and Latino people in this time of illness and protest overlap significantly. Coronavirus has killed them at disproportionately high rates. Poverty, crowded housing and chronic health issues were already more prevalent in their communities. Many have lost their jobs or are essential workers braving hazardous conditions.

In L.A. County, they also bear the brunt of police violence  80 per cent of those killed by law enforcement in the last two decades were Black or Latino.

But some mixed-race people say the lifetime effort to bridge the gap between their two halves has intensified in recent months, particularly in helping the Latino side understand what its like to be Black.

They have fielded questions from family members, such as, Why have the peaceful protests turned violent?

With the new focus on racial accountability, they are also more determined to address the anti-Blackness coming from some friends and relatives, which can necessitate conversations including No, you cant say the N-word and Stop making offensive comments about my hair.

The pressure to explain, and the pain of seeing people like them in so many devastating situations, has made a stressful time even more stressful.

And there is the existential issue of feeling once again in the middle: Where do I fit in?

With interracial marriage in the U.S. on the rise  from three per cent of couples in 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided the landmark Loving case, to 17 per cent in 2015  more young people are wrestling with these issues.

Ebony Baileys Mexican American mother, a hair stylist, was told this summer by a Latino client: I know that your husband is Black and that your kids are Black ... but I think people are marching for nothing. Slavery was a long time ago.

Growing up in the conservative central California town of Porterville, which is two-thirds Latino with few Black residents, Bailey was singled out for her dark skin and Black features. She tried to prove to her peers that she had Mexican roots, too.

Now, she feels validated by the number of Latino people supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. In Mexico City, where Bailey lives, she has attended and spoken at protests against police brutality, where people held up signs that said Tu lucha es mi lucha  your fight is my fight.

According to a poll by the New York Times and Siena College, 21 per cent of Latino voters said they marched in support of Black Lives Matter  nearly identical to the 22 per cent of Black voters who said they did.

Im an incarnation of Black and brown unity, said Bailey, 29, a filmmaker who formerly worked for The Times as a web producer.

As the COVID-19 pandemic escalated, Bailey worried about her parents, who still live in Porterville and have underlying medical conditions.

Her dad worked in a chicken factory before stopping out of fear for his safety. Her mom was unemployed for several months before returning to her salon in September.

With the physical and financial well-being of both their cultures threatened at the same time, some mixed people feel hit by a double whammy.

Thats the burden of being Black and brown, said Bailey, 29. If its not something with health, then its something with your economics. Youre not in a safe space through the pandemic.

Like Bailey, Zavala grew up in a community with few other Black people.

She often got comments about her tight curls. It looks like you have spiders in your hair, a relative once said in Spanish.

She had to explain to Latino family and friends that just because they were people of colour didnt mean they had a pass to say the N-word, even when the intent wasnt racist.

Conversely, her Black classmates wondered if she was adopted when her tia picked her up from school in Lakewood.

She has found herself doing a lot more explaining this year.

A cousin said he didnt understand why people were breaking into stores during what were supposed to be peaceful protests.

That set off a series of discussions, with Zavala explaining the genesis of the movement. While it was about George Floyd, there was also pain in the Black community that spanned centuries, she told her cousin.

For someone who doesnt necessarily understand what its like (being Black and) seeing Black people in the headlines all the time being killed or injured, it feels less serious if you cant relate to it, she said.

After learning more about police brutality against other Black people, including the killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., the cousin wrote to Zavala: I get it. Its (messed up) that this keeps happening.

There are particular joys that come with being bicultural. Zavala points to her playlist, where Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion and Guadalajaran rock en espanol band Mana coexist in harmony.

But the last few months have been exhausting, between curating her social media posts to reflect both sides of her heritage, explaining Black struggle to Latino family members and keeping track of developments in both worlds.

Growing up mixed in the mostly Black and Latino neighbourhood of Willowbrook, near Compton, Geron McKinley recognized a common thread in both of his cultures, which have been oppressed but remained proud.

But some of his own family members couldnt see the similarities. Sometimes, they brought up stereotypes in front of him, as if they had forgotten that he is both races.

His usual response was to bluntly remind them that they were talking about him  and in the case of his moms Mexican family, some of his cousins who are also part Black.

As mixed people, its our job almost to be correcting our family, McKinley said. And if youre not correcting your family, youre letting them perpetuate stereotypes. Youre part of the problem.

As for law enforcement, they see him as a threat, no matter how they peg his race.

In the L.A. area, Latino officers are common, making up about half of both the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. County Sheriffs Department. But there are relatively few Black officers patrolling neighbourhoods with large Black populations, where relationships with law enforcement are the most fraught.

Hes either Black or hes Mexican. Either way, get him, said McKinley, 25, a model and founder of a clothing brand and non-profit called Concreet, which offers sports, arts, music and entrepreneurship programs for children.

After the events of this year, McKinley is even more determined to support both Black and Latino causes.

Now more than ever, even if Ive felt like Im not Black enough to be Black or Im not Mexican enough to be Mexican, if either side needs me to ride, then Im riding, he said.

For parents of mixed Black and Latino children, passing on knowledge and pride about both cultures can be a challenge that now feels even more crucial.

Since their daughter Soul was born five years ago, Alma Zaragoza-Petty and Jason Petty have engaged in a good-humoured rivalry, reflected in the wall decorations  both African masks and Loteria-style prints  in their Boyle Heights home.

Zaragoza-Petty, 38, who is Mexican American, advises first-generation college students. Petty, 41, who is Black, is an activist and rapper under the name Propaganda. Together, they host The Red Couch Podcast, where they discuss topics including social justice and systemic racism.

Soul may be too young to understand why people are protesting in the streets, but her parents take every chance to underline the richness of her dual heritage.

The reality is that she has to be prepared for a world that is going to have some feelings and thoughts about her as a mixed Black Latina woman, Zaragoza-Petty said.

In L.A. County, which is nearly 50 per cent Latino and eight per cent Black, the future may look something like Soul.

The couple are also raising a 15-year-old daughter, Luna, who is full Latina and from Zaragoza-Pettys previous relationship, with similar values as her little sister.

Petty believes the world will view Soul as Black, despite being mixed. He is making Black Girl Magic  a movement started by social media influencer and writer CaShawn Thompson that celebrates resilience, beauty and joy in Black women  a key part of her upbringing.

As she prepared to attend a racial justice protest with her parents this summer, Soul made a sign  a heart and some squiggles. It was about the coronavirus.

I dont want anyone to get sick, she said.
Covid-19 has killed more than one million people worldwide and experts warn that it could become a 'multi-species' pandemic unless humans are careful not to infect wild animals.

Researchers have again found that the strain of coronavirus which causes Covid-19, called SARS-CoV-2, can infect many animal species and not just humans.

While the biggest threat is to animals which come into close contact with humans, such as pets, there is also a transmission risk for wild animals, including lions, tigers and apes.

And experts warn that if animals do become widely infected, they can act as reservoirs for the disease, leading to future reinfection and repeat outbreaks.

Separate research, published earlier this week, found at least 28 mammal species that come into regular close contact with humans can catch the virus.

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The study pointed out that conservationists, forestry workers, pest control staff and wildlife tourists could unknowingly transmit the virus to wild animals

Dozens of domesticated animals at risk of coronavirus Dozens of animals which regularly come into close contact with humans are susceptible to infection with the coronavirus, a study shows. A total of 28 species were identified as being vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2, the same virus causing the Covid-19 pandemic in humans. While it was already known dogs and cats are at risk of infection, the latest research also reveals so too are guinea pigs, rabbits and hamsters. Outside of a domestic setting, researchers from the University College London (UCL) found animals in zoos (gorillas, polar bears and chimps) and on the farm (goats, donkeys and horses) can also be infected with the coronavirus. The study found that most birds, fish, and reptiles do not appear to be at risk of infection, but the majority of the mammals could potentially be infected. Advertisement

Lead study author Dr Sophie Gryseels, from the University of Antwerp in Belgium, said: 'It's difficult enough to control the SARS-CoV-2 in human populations. Imagine what it will be like if it spreads among wild mammals.

'They could also get sick and form a reservoir from which they can then again infect humans, but we can't ask animals to wear face masks and keep physical distance.

'Preventing human-to-wildlife SARS-CoV-2 transmission is important to protect these animals  some of which are classed as threatened  from disease but also to avoid establishment of novel SARS-CoV-2 reservoirs in wild mammals.

'The risk of repeated re-infection of humans from such a wildlife reservoir could severely hamper SARS-CoV-2 control efforts.'

Scientists are confident that SARS-CoV-2 is capable of zoonotic transmission, jumping from one species to another.

Bats are immune to coronaviruses but harbour dozens of them in their systems, acting as potent reservoirs for the viruses which wreak havoc in humans.

They speculate that the SARS-CoV-2 virus evolved up to 70 years ago and resided in bats, unable to spread to another species.

However, it is though that the virus last year jumped into an intermediate species, potentially pangolins or wild dogs, before again jumping into humans, but there is much debate over this.

Irrespective of what the intermediate host was, the virus successfully made the jump into humans in Wuhan, China, late last year.

It then thrived, replicated and spread, triggering the devastating pandemic the world is grappling with today.

Antibodies from LLAMAS can neutralise the coronavirus Antibodies taken from the blood of llamas and engineered to target SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19, could offer a future treatment for the disease. Llamas, as well as camels and alpacas, naturally produce very small antibodies, called nanobodies, which are dwarfed by those made by human immune systems. Lab-based experiments found these naturally-occurring antibodies can be tailored to neutralise the coronavirus by binding tightly to its 'spike protein' and blocking it from entering human cells. The research is still in a very early stage and has seen a rapid turnaround, with academics at the Rosalind Franklin Institute at Oxford University condensing a process which would normally take almost a year into just 12 weeks. However, the researchers believe the llama-derived nanobodies could eventually be developed as a treatment for humans struck down with a severe case of Covid-19 Advertisement

If a widespread infection of animals is discovered, it could lead to mass culling, similar to what happened when a mink farm in the Netherlands was found to be a coronavirus hotbed.

Previous studies have found humans can infect their cats or dogs with the virus, and it can also occur in a zoological setting.

But this latest research found there is a possibility it can also happen with wild animals.

In the study, scientists gathered data from several studies and reviewed all available information.

This was initially done in April, at the height of the pandemic, and then updated in July and August, as more literature emerged.

It revealed cats, American mink, raccoon dogs, Egyptian fruit bats, North American deer mice and Syrian hamsters can catch and spread coronavirus.

Tigers and lions can also catch the virus, and transmission from big cat to big cat is likely, but not currently known.

Domestic dogs, tree shrews and common marmosets also appear to be susceptible to the coronavirus but appear less likely to be able to pass on the virus.

It also found that most Old World Monkeys, such as apes, are likely to be susceptible, but New World primates, found in the tropical regions of Central and South America and Mexico, may be more resistant to the virus.

Scientists found hamsters may also be susceptible while house mice and rats appear not to be.

Dr Gryseels and her team warn that is the virus was to become prevalent among wild animals it would be almost impossible to contain the spread of the virus.

Scientists suggest precautions such as 'physical distancing, wearing face masks and gloves, and frequent decontamination' should be taken by people who come into direct and indirect contact with feral or wild animals to ensure the animals do not become infected

The study pointed out that conservationists, forestry workers, pest control staff and wildlife tourists could unknowingly transmit the virus to these wild animals.

Other groups include ecological consultancy workers, managers and staff of protected areas and natural environments, and staff in wildlife rehabilitation centres.

Scientists suggest precautions should be taken by people who come into direct and indirect contact with feral or wild animals.

Dr Gryseels said: 'During such activities, we recommend sanitary precautions such as physical distancing, wearing face masks and gloves, and frequent decontamination, which are very similar to regulations currently imposed to prevent transmission among humans.

'We further recommend active surveillance of domestic and feral animals that could act as SARS-CoV-2 intermediate hosts between humans and wild mammals.

Findings were published in the journal Mammal Review.
Footage shows boy hitting side of a red car with the blade before it drives away

Police rushed to the sixth-form college in Woolwich around midday on Monday

This is the shocking moment a 'sixth form student' runs at a car while brandishing a machete outside a south London college before a bystander tries to disarm him.

Police officers rushed to Shooters Hill Sixth Form College in Woolwich, South East London, around midday on Monday following reports of two boys with a knife.

Footage shows a group of students standing nearby while the man hits the side of a red car with his weapon before it drives away.

The Met Police confirmed today that two 16-year-old boys have been charged with possession of a knife and affray, and both were remanded in custody.

Footage shows a a boy hitting the side of a red car with his weapon before it drives away in Woolwich. The Met Police confirmed today that two 16-year-old boys have been charged

A boy pictured holding a machete, above, in a still from the video. The police force said no one was injured during the incident near Shooters Hill Sixth Form College on Monday

In the video, a policeman appears to stand on the other side of the car and speaks to the driver, while the person with a machete is held back by two others.

A separate clip shows a man chasing the vehicle before the incident while holding the blade in his hand, with a police constable appearing at the scene.

The footage was posted to Twitter yesterday, captioned: 'Madness kicks off at shooters hill college'.

The two teenagers will appear at Bromley Magistrates Court on the same day and police have appealed for witnesses.

A separate clip, stills above, shows a man chasing the vehicle before the incident while holding the blade in his hand, with a police constable appearing at the scene

A spokesperson for the Met Police told MailOnline: 'Detectives in Greenwich have charged two teenage boys with possession of a knife as they appeal for witnesses and anyone with mobile phone footage to come forward.

'Police were called at 12:54hrs on Monday, 5 October to reports of two males with a knife in the street at Red Lion Lane, SE18.

'Officers attended and two 16-year-old boys were arrested on suspicion of affray.

'They were charged on Wednesday, 7 October with being in possession of a knife/bladed article and affray. Both were remanded in custody to appear the same day at Bromley Magistrates' Court.

'There were no reported injuries. Anyone who witnessed the incident or has information or moving footage is asked to contact police on 101 or email via p239391@met.police.uk quoting reference Cad 3108/05Oct.'
Behind an unassuming storefront in Flemington lurks an underwater paradise filled with rare fish, coral, even stingrays and sharks.

FirstChoice Aquatics, located at 174 Route 31, opened its doors to the public on Oct. 1. As his last name may suggests, Randy Fisher, an 18-year-old recent graduate of Hunterdon Central Regional High School, is the stores founder.
Armenias Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan posted on Facebook a segment from his interview to BBC World News.

"Yes, Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)] is Armenia, it is the land of Armenians because always over 80% of the people, of the population there have been Armenians, and today that is the case. So what is the problem with it?

And Azerbaijan wants Armenians not to live there, and that is why with the help of terrorists, it is attacking Nagorno-Karabakh today.

So what is anyone's proposal that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are going to say, "Okay, you are terrorists, and therefore we give up on our roots. That cannot possibly happen," Pashinyan wrote.
This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 1751 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.

On Monday, the Brexit negotiations entered a two-week, supposedly intensive, supposedly very hush-hush phase intended to achieve significant progress. Thats because the gaps between the UK and EU positions are so large that any thing other that a very bare-bones deal would require serious horse-trading.

However, pretty much everyone except readers of the UK press realizes that the odds are close to nil of anything more than such a minimal agreement that it would be functionally only a bit better than a crash-out. No well informed commentator expects the UK to escape having hard borders with the EU, which in turn creates what economists like to call non-tariff trade barriers which can really gum up the works.

Remember that participants in talks have strong incentives to play up the notion that the parties are making progress, since a sense of momentum can lead to progress. However, despite some cheery spin, the more substantive accounts underscore that large gaps on fundamental issues like level playing field remain. And worse, a new story from the well-connected Tony Connelly of RTE indicates that the differences on another core issue, fishing rights, are if anything widening.

Reuters reported significant progress on social security rights and also said the EU had agreed to a longer negotiating runway by allowing them to go until mid-November, as opposed to the earlier end of October cutoff. However, the article also pointed out the biggest issues were still unresolved:

There was no breakthrough in last weeks negotiations on the three most contentious issues  fisheries, fair competition guarantees and ways to settle future disputes  but the prospects of an overall accord looked brighter. We seem to be getting closer and closer to a deal, even though the no-deal rhetoric in public might suggest the opposite, said one of the two sources, both of whom were briefed by the executive European Commission, which is negotiating with Britain on behalf of the 27-nation EU.

Contrast the Reuters account with Bloombergs take:

The European Union has no plans to offer concessions to Boris Johnson before next weeks Brexit deadline, betting that the U.K. prime minister wont make good on threats to walk away from trade negotiations if he doesnt get what he wants. The bloc is ready to let U.K. talks drag on into November or December, and even take a chance on Johnson pulling the plug on the deliberations rather than compromise on its red lines, according to a senior EU diplomat. The high-stakes strategy was confirmed by a second EU official EU officials say there has been little progress recently and they werent impressed by the five compromise text proposals the U.K. submitted last week. EU officials said they are pessimistic about the chances of a deal because the disagreements between the two sides are about points of principle. For progress to be made, they said, the U.K. will need to change positions rather than necessarily intensify negotiations.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Indeed, these leaks amount to the EU saying, Yes, weve never been kidding. Our red lines are our red lines. If anyone is going to give ground, it has to be the UK.

Bloomberg further claims that Johnson isnt budging on timetable, and intends to announce in two weeks that there will be no deal if there hasnt been significant progress by then.

One part of the Bloomberg account that seemed surprising was that EU officials supposedly want Johnson to come talk to them:

To break the deadlock, the EU wants Johnson to become more personally involved in the process. There is consternation in European capitals that the prime minister has been largely absent from negotiations so far. His video call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday was the first since June and French President Emmanuel Macron is the only major leader he has spoken to since negotiations started in March. One EU official said Johnson would have to hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel before a deal could be done. The U.K. rejects the idea that its up to Johnson to deal with EU capitals, preferring to leave talks to his negotiating team.

This makes no sense. Recall that when Theresa May tried meeting the leaders of various EU countries, it was tolerated even though it was viewed as a breach of protocol. The UK was and is negotiating with the EU, not with heads of state one on one. On top of that, Johnson is loathed in the EU, so having him make the rounds isnt likely to improve the negotiating dynamics.

So assuming Bloomberg has this right, what is up? Is it that the series of ministers sent to Brussels to represent the UK have all been so hopeless and perhaps unmoored that they have fallen back on getting Johnson as the only formal supervising sort-of adult involved? Is it that some EU leaders (maybe only Merkel, most of the EU seems not to want to spend a lot of cycles on Brexit) feel the need to sit down with Johnson if nothing else so they can tell themselves they did everything they could to prevent a crash-out or super hard Brexit? Or is it that European President von der Leyen wants to syndicate a Brexit negotiation failure?

Tony Connelly is the bearer of more sobering Brexit tidings. Fisheries, once seen as an issue where sensible minds would find a compromise, is looking even more intractable. From RTE:

Fisheries officials from eight coastal member states yesterday agreed unanimously that the EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier should take a tougher line in the talks, which are entering a critical phase. Under the terms of the future relationship negotiations, there can be no overall free trade agreement unless there has been a deal on fisheries. The UK wants a much greater share of fish quotas from stocks which straddle British and EU waters, and to be able to reduce the level of access European vessels enjoy in British waters. The EU has sought to maintain as far as possible the quota share and access rights which evolved through the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Following the ninth round of trade negotiations in Brussels last week, the UKs chief negotiator David Frost also said: On fisheries the gap between us is unfortunately very large and, without further realism and flexibility from the EU, risks being impossible to bridge. These issues are fundamental to our future status as an independent country. Sources close to the issue say coastal states are coordinating their position and taking a hard line. We dont see why there should be any concessions, says one source familiar with developments.

Note the eight coastal states include France and Germany, so they arent about to be muscled by other EU nations.

Irelands foreign minister Simon Coveney effectively confirmed the Tony Connelly account. From Reuters:

Irelands Foreign Minister Simon Coveney on Wednesday warned that it was difficult to envisage a landing zone for agreement on fisheries, a key stumbling block in trade talks between Britain and the European Union. The current British position creates a very difficult negotiation and a landing zone that is quite hard to envisage, quite frankly, for now, Coveney told a parliamentary committee.

However, the UK would be able to claim something of a victory if it at least got to a no tariffs agreement. Consider some of the alternatives, per Automotive News:

Toyota and Nissan will ask for reimbursement from Britain if the UK government fails to agree on a trade deal with the European Union, the Nikkei financial daily reported on Monday. The Japanese automakers are bracing for a 10 percent tariff on cars exported from the UK to the EU and are demanding that the government pay extra costs, the Nikkei reported on Monday. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday that he did not particularly wish for a Brexit transition period to end without a new trade deal in place but that Britain could live with such an outcome. Toyota builds the Corolla and the related Suzuki Swace compact cars at its plant in Burnaston, central England. It also produces engines at a factory in Wales. Nissan operates Britains biggest car factory in Sunderland, northeast England. The plants production includes the Qashqai, Juke and Leaf. Honda also builds the Civic in Swindon, near London, but the company is closing the factory next year. The plant would be unsustainable if Britain leaves the EU without a trade deal, Nissan said in June. Europe and the UKs car industries last month said a disorderly Brexit would cost the sector 110 billion euros ($130 billion) in lost trade over the next five years.

Richard North has repeatedly warned that the UKs live animal farmers would be devastated under a no-deal scenario, and the Guardian took up the impact on lamb farmers:

Sheep farmers are likely to be among the worst hit if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, farmers have said, with estimates showing that as many as 2 million lamb carcasses could go to waste and thousands of farmers could go out of business. The EU is the UKs biggest export market for lamb with no other farming sectors as reliant on that market, making it the most exposed to economic harm if tariffs are imposed. While about 82% of annual beef exports from the UK are sold in the rest of Europe, along with about 78% of the dairy produce not consumed in the UK, 90% of all lamb and other sheep meat exports go to the EU. Estimates by the Country Land and Business Assocation show that if exports remain around the same level as last year, but tariffs are imposed, about 3 million lamb carcasses normally destined for export to the EU would not find a market there. Sarah Hendry, the director general of the CLA, which represents 30,000 UK landowners and rural businesses, said many farmers could be forced to give up their livelihoods if tariffs followed a no-deal Brexit.

Note that the article doesnt consider the trade-reducing impact of physiosanitary checks, but presumably thats less bad than that plus tariffs.

Now it is possible that our reading is unduly downbeat and the EU side has it right, that Boris Johnson will blink. With Brexit now polling as unpopular, one would think he could sell a softer deal to Parliament and quell a revolt by the Ultras, but I am not on top of the party split. Either way, expect more theatrics before year end.
With the fall equinox having just passed, local municipal leaders join rural politicians across Alberta hoping a wind of change at the provincial level brings more than just a change in temperature.

Toward the end of August, Premier Jason Kenney announced a minor cabinet shuffle to accommodate the newly created Ministry of Jobs, Economy and Innovation. The shuffle resulted in the minister of municipal affairs, Kaycee Madu, becoming the new minister of justice and solicitor general, with Tracy Allard replacing him in Municipal Affairs.

On Sept. 1, Minister Allard held two meetings in Lethbridge to meet with southern Alberta municipal officials to discuss their concerns with the provinces review of the linear assessment tax model.

At the beginning of July, the Rural Municipalities of Alberta and the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association announced they had been in discussions since the beginning of 2020 with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Associate Ministry of Natural Gas and Electricity in regards to linear assessment rates.

Linear assessments are taxes municipal governments collect on industrial property like oil and gas wells, pipelines and electrical power lines. Four different scenarios of decreased rates were presented during talks, all of which the provincial government hopes will create a more competitive business environment, encouraging more companies to invest in Alberta.

When compared to other provinces, the provincial government says, Albertas linear assessment rates are higher.

There is an ongoing debate between industry and municipalities about whether taxes are too high on oil and gas properties, says Ministry of Municipal Affairs press secretary Timothy Gerwing.

A careful balance has to be found to ensure both sides are strong and viable.

The discussions had been embargoed for confidentiality, but with the beginning of summer the RMA was allowed to openly communicate with municipalities.

The news for municipalities was not good.

Early estimates figure that helping energy companies will come at significant cost to municipal budgets. Any of the four scenarios will cost urban municipalities a 10 to 12 per cent increase in provincial education tax requisition, alongside a four to five per cent increase in property taxes for residents and businesses.

Adjusting linear assessment will hit rural MDs particularly hard, since the majority of wells, pipelines and power lines are typically built in their municipalities. Estimates suggest MDs will collect $70 million less in education property taxes; the difference will need to be shouldered by residential taxes.

With expected cost downloads from the provincial government to municipalities to cover services like policing, many municipal governments are wondering how they will meet provincial responsibilities ranging from road and bridge infrastructure to weed control.

Back in August, the Breeze reported the MD of Pincher Creek could potentially be out $1.2 million of its annual budget. The looming drop in revenue, coupled with increasing provincial demands, says Reeve Brian Hammond, is deteriorating trust between the government and municipalities across the province.

You hear a lot of lip service from the province on the importance of local municipalities in the scheme of things and yet it seems like more and more were on our own and less and less pocketwise to do the things we need to do, he said.

The frustration, he continued, is how the provincial government is ultimately responsible for the impending drop of funds while also simultaneously increasing the spending load of responsibilities.

One fellow stood up and said, Give us the money and well do the job. We know how to do that. Theres a certain merit to that, said Reeve Hammond.

The proposed changes wont just affect the MD of Pincher Creek but will also carry serious ramifications for the town.

Currently, explains Mayor Don Anderberg, the town has an equalized property assessment with the MD. Because the MD has about four times the amount of assessed property, it covers a larger portion of the tax formula for provincial services like policing and education.

For example, if $1 million was owed for school requisition, $200,000 would be covered by the town and $800,000 would be provided by the MD. Should the linear assessment model change, the town would be on the hook for a lot more money.

As well, recent agreements signed between the town and MD, most notably the intermunicipal collaboration framework, would compromise the operations of local services like recreation or the newly built early-learning centres.

The effect it will have is we have some agreements with the MD  and weve already heard from them  that if the province takes that linear back they may not be able to honour their agreements with us, which would be huge, says Mayor Anderberg.

The situation is also serious for the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass.

The proposed models show a loss revenue for us of between $530,000 and $543,000 as a starting point, reported chief administrative officer Patrick Thomas during the Sept. 1 regular council meeting. The loss represents an eight per cent reduction in the municipalitys linear assessment.

CAO Thomas also mentioned municipal representatives at the meeting questioned the disproportionate scope of the assessment changes.

Who are we trying to benefit off the backs of? Eighteen per cent of the population is rural and theyre taking predominantly [from them] trying to create economic boost for the entire province. It should be more evenly shared across all municipalities, as opposed to just the rural population.

Having the government reconsider is vital, CAO Thomas said, because the goals associated with the proposed changes arent necessarily going to be achieved.

The changes would benefit only the largest corporations who are still displaying decent gains in portfolios, and a lower tax rate might encourage them to sit on developments, he said. This would have the opposite effect of the intended infrastructure investment that would create jobs.

Instead, the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association has suggested that companies be offered incentive tax breaks in order to ensure investment in the province actually benefits Albertans, as opposed to padding the coffers of corporate CEOs outside Canada.

Both CAO Thomas and Mayor Blair Painter had just returned that day from meeting with Minister Allard, and though the figures were sobering, both were optimistic about the dialogue that took place.

Shes a person that you can really have a two-sided conversation with, said Mayor Painter. She encouraged everybody to send her proposals on what they thought would be a better method to address this.

Mayor Anderberg agrees with the assessment.

It seems like shes more amenable to having a discussion about how it affects us. I dont know if its going to change or not but at least it was a reasonable conversation, he says.

We havent had that many reasonable conversations with this government  they seem to make decisions unilaterally and then tell us, and somehow were supposed to handle all the fallout. Well, theres some big fallout here.

The increased willingness to collaborate with municipalities adds a splash of hope to a situation that is otherwise pretty dire, said Reeve Hammond.

She struck me as a person whos very much open to suggestion and comment and input. [Im] hoping against hope that she can convince cabinet when the time comes, which is fairly short, that they need to take a second look at this and perhaps amend their approach to it.

Of course, making no promises, she has no authority to do that, he said. Shes simply a member of cabinet, and a new member of cabinet at that.

As so much news today circles back to, the reality of the situation stems from the very real financial challenges driven by the Covid-induced economic crisis.

Id like us to keep in the back of our mind what is clear: the $24 billion [deficit] announcement, Coun. Dean Ward reminded Crowsnest Pass council.

It is going to have an effect on us as a municipality. We are going to lose money somewhere in this equation, guaranteed.

Though no firm timeline has been set for the implementation of changes, Minister Allard indicated she was aiming to tell municipalities the governments decision sometime in October to allow them to plan for next years budget.

Read more about:
Hyderabad, Oct 7 : Authorities in Telangana will procure paddy directly from farmers in their villages as was done during the Covid-19 induced lockdown.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Wednesday said paddy would be purchased in full scale at the village level.

Since the coronavirus fear is still lingering, various government agencies would be sent to the villages to purchase the entire paddy production, he said.

For the second consecutive day, the Chief Minister held a review meeting on paddy procurement during this rainy season with ministers and officials concerned.

He suggested that as was done during the corona period, the government agencies would go the farmers and will purchase the paddy, and advised the farmers not to take their paddy to the markets and face problems.

KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, reiterated that paddy with less than 17 per cent moisture would be purchased by the state government at Rs 1,888 per quintal MSP for grade A variety and Rs 1,868 per quintal MSP for the B grade variety.

Stating that harvesting in villages is done for 15 days in a month, he instructed the Agriculture, Marketing and Civil Supplies Department officials to take precautions at every point. He wanted the officials to make an estimate as to how much paddy would be available and prepare a purchasing plan accordingly.

He also instructed officials to ensure that the farmers get their money on the sale of paddy immediately along with the bank guarantees.

The Chief Minister also said that since there is a lot of improvement in the water supply for irrigation, even arid lands are becoming fertile and are cultivated.

With the financial support extended by Rythu Bandhu Scheme, farmers who have migrated to urban areas are returning to the villages to cultivate their lands and it was a welcome trend, he added.

The Chief Minister said that since Telangana is fast becoming an agriculture-based state, the Civil Supplies Department should strengthen itself and it should make an action plan accordingly.

KCR had Tuesday announced that the state government would purchase the paddy and cotton cultivated during the current rainy season.

He directed the officials concerned to purchase the entire paddy in the state by setting up 6,000 purchasing centres and ensure that every grain of paddy is purchased and farmers do not face any problem.
From Popular Mechanics

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 to three scientists for their groundbreaking work on black holes.

Mathematician Roger Penrose will split the prize with the astrophysicists Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez.

Penrose solidified the mathematical understanding of black holesproving Einstein was, in fact, correctwhile Genzel and Ghez are credited with discovering Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

A trio of scientists received the call of a lifetime this morning. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics to three researchers for their work unraveling the mystery and majesty of one of the universe's strangest phenomena.

"This year's prize celebrates the discovery of one of the most exotic objects in our universe: the black hole," David Haviland, the chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said during a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

 You love our badass universe. So do we. Let's explore it together.

Black holes are impossibly massive cosmic objects whose gravitational pull is so strong, not even light can escape their grip. Stars that orbit too close are drawn into a black hole, which is surrounded by a glittering expanse called the event horizon.

Our understanding of these mysterious objects has sharpened in recent decades; the first image of a black hole was taken in April 2019, for example. (The Event Horizon Telescope astronomy network, which snapped the pictures, is also on the short list for a Nobel prize.)

Roger Penrose, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Oxford, will share the $1.1 million prize with astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel of UC Berkeley and Germany's Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, and astrophysicist Andrea Ghez of UCLA, who will split one half of the award.

Just 10 years after Albert Einstein's death, Penrose proved the formation of black holes was, in fact, mathematically possible. Penrose's equations revealed not only that black holes exist, but that Einstein's theory of general relativity paved the way for these mysterious cosmic phenomena to exist. His work led to a breakthrough in the understanding of black holes and their inner workings, including the concept of singularity, the point within a black hole at which time and space cease to exist.

Story continues

Ghez and Genzel are credited with discovering Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Separately, they discovered a pattern of motion in stars near the center of the Milky Way, which suggested the presence of a mysterious supermassive object. Over the course of several decades, their observations all but confirmed the presence of a black hole at our galaxy's center.

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Laying the Mathematical Groundwork

After Albert Einstein unveiled his General Theory of Relativity in 1915, scientists began puzzling over the concept of black holes. A large number of physicists (including Einstein himself) weren't convinced that the mysterious phenomenon could be reconciled with general relativity.)

The German astronomer Karl Schwartzschild theorized in the following months that if there were enough matter and energy packed into a small enough area, it might collapse and lead to singularity, "a point in spacetime at which the predicted gravitational strength is calculated to be infinite," theoretical physicist James Unwin, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, tells Popular Mechanics.

The discovery of quasars and their ultra-bright radio waves in 1963 revived interest in the search for black holes.

Photo credit: Fiona Hanson - PA Images - Getty Images

It wasn't until a decade after Einstein's death that the cosmic puzzle pieces began to fit together. In 1965, a breakthrough came to Penrose, then a professor of mathematics at Birkbeck College at the University of London, while he was on a walk with a colleague. Later that day, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences explains , he brought this idea to the drawing board and realized its potential.

In his landmark 1965 paper, Gravitational Collapse and Space-Time Singularities, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, Penrose proposed, in part, that black holes are a type of "trapped surface" in which rays of, say, light can only travel in one direction regardless of the direction in which the surface is bent.

He introduced new mathematical tools and proved with mathematical rigor that the formation of black holes is an inevitable consequence of general relativity, Ulf Danielsson , a theoretical physicist at Uppsala University in Sweden, said during this mornings press conference.



What Penrose showed is that the spacetimethis four-dimensional description of the universearound the black hole goes through a very particular switch when you cross a distance to the black hole called the event horizon, astrophysicist Feryal Ozel of the University of Arizona, tells Popular Mechanics.



Penrose concluded that the time coordinate (in which we measure our past, present and future) switches to become the space coordinate once you pass through the event horizon. Your future becomes the direction toward the black hole, Ozel explains. It becomes inevitable to go there. This, ultimately, leads to singularity.

"Penrose then continued to advance our understanding of black holes in his work with Stephen Hawking, resulting in the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems," says Unwin. (Ultimately, Hawking, who died in 2018, was never awarded a Nobel Prize for his cosmological work.)

In his spare time, Unwin also notes, Penrose also devised a mathematical structure that underlies quasi-crystal materials. One of his close colleagues received the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this effort.

Black holes are now a standard fixture in our understanding of cosmology. Astrophysicists have since puzzled out four main classifications of black hole: miniature black holes, stellar mass black holes, intermediate mass black holes, and supermassive black holes. Theyre found throughout the universe, including in our own cosmic backyard.

A Mystery at the Milky Ways Center

Photo credit: X-ray: NASA/UMass/D.Wang et al., IR: NASA/STScI

In 1931, an astronomer named Karl Jansky caught wind of a strange radio signal emanating roughly 26,000 light-years from Earth, near the center of our galaxy. The signal, eventually dubbed Sagittarius A*, plagued scientists, who, for years, could not pinpoint its origin. Then, in 1971, two astronomers, Martin Rees and Donald Lynden-Bell, proposed that a supermassive black hole might be the culprit. It was off to the celestial races.



Separate teams led by Genzel and Ghez have spent several decades toiling away, searching for concrete evidence that the object at the center of our galaxy was, in fact, a supermassive black hole. But it hasn't been an easy task.

The center of the Milky Way is shrouded in a dense cloud of gas and dust nearly impenetrable to optical telescopes. In order to cut through the noise, so to speak, astronomers must use infrared telescopes to peer into the heart of our galaxy. Genzel and his team turned to the Very Large Telescope array in Chiles Atacama desert to make their observations. Ghez and her team, meanwhile, tapped the Keck Observatory atop Hawaiis Mauna Kea volcano to conduct theirs.

Our Very Own Black Hole

Using these infrared telescopes, Genzel and Ghez tracked the movement of stars and stellar clouds dust in the vicinity of this peculiar cosmic mystery spot. They discovered that as stars in orbit around this curious location approached it, they sped up and their infrared signatures mysteriously brightened.

When there is a bright source that is not explainable by luminous matterlike a collection of starswe turn to the pull of gravity as an explanation for this, Ozel says. If nearby stars or the dust clouds they produce get too close to the black hole, they begin to circle it like water flushed down a toilet bowl in a phenomenon called the accretion process.

Because theyre falling into this deep gravitational potential, they actually heat up to millions or even billions of degrees,Ozel explains. When matter reaches that temperature before it crosses the event horizon and becomes part of the black hole, it radiates copiously.

Genzel and Ghezs teams tracked one star in particular: a young, blue star called S0-2, which orbits Sagittarius A* once every 16 years. At its closest approach, So-2 swings within 17 light-hours (11 million miles) away from the invisible object and can reach speeds of up to 5,000 miles per second, according to the New York Times.

Together, their calculations have provided the strongest evidence yet that a supermassive black hole lies at the heart of our galaxy. This black hole has a mass roughly four times that of our sun packed within a space approximately the size of our solar system. (Don't worry, it poses virtually no threat to Earthlings.)

Exploring our own galaxy in greater detail strengthens our understanding of the cosmos. "We have learned about the structure of our galaxy and similar galaxies like it, we can use this knowledge to advance our understanding about how galaxies form," Unwin explains.

Physics' Brightest Stars

Penrose's theoretical breakthrough paved the way for astrophysicists like Genzel and Ghez.It is all kind of intertwined, Ozel says. "Science works that way. We build on each other's work and observations and theories.

Thanks to this award, Ghez will now join an illustrious crew of scientists. She is one of just four women to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Marie Curie was the first in 1903 followed by Maria Goeppert Mayer 60 years later and Donna Strickland in 2018.

I hope I can inspire other young women into the field, she said at the press conference. Its a field that has so many pleasures, and if you are passionate about the science, theres so much that can be done.



 The Best Telescopes for Stargazing

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An 18-wheeler crashed near Interstate 10 in Houston's Heights neighborhood on Wednesday afternoon, forcing a road closure.

The eastbound lanes of the Katy Freeway service road at T.C. Jester Boulevard were shut down shortly after 1 p.m. due to the "possible hazmat spill," according to Houston police.
In July 2019, Somy Solomon left a little piece of herself in Tanzania. In a small village, less than 30 kilometres away from the city of Dar es Salaam, what she has left behind in her home of seven years continues to grow and evolve in the shape of Kichankani Library. Somy worked with the villagers to set up their first library, thanks to an extraordinary social media campaign and, of course, support of the people.

Born and brought up in Kollam, Somy grew up in the field. Her first taste of social work was at the age of 12 when she compared cases of tuberculosis in two colonies in the district for the Childrens Science Congress. Years later, after completing her Master's in History from Madras Christian College, her plans to do a PhD were briefly interrupted when she got married and moved to Tanzania in 2013. But it did not take long for her to find another subject to research  the issues of domestic workers in Indian extractories.

BOOKED IN: In 2018, Somy worked with the people of the village to build a library

The 34-year-old says, The way Africa is spoken about outside and what it really is is worlds apart. What is described as primitive and underdeveloped continues to progress daily and I was so fortunate to have witnessed that up close. Since her husband was a hotelier, the couple moved from the city to a nearby village with little connection to the outside world but for an internet connection. We were living inside a forest with the Indian Ocean ahead as far as the eye could see, she explains, Here, I began teaching the children of the housekeeping staff. I began by learning Swahili from them and teaching them a bit of English in the process. The children enjoyed it so much that they began coming back to the hotel with more of their friends. And soon, I had to approach the village officials for a space where I could teach.

Somy began teaching the children under a mango tree in the centre of the village. As an outsider, she had to hold continuous meetings with the village officials and undergo immigration checks to account for her foreign nationality. In 2013, books were much more expensive in the country where local publishing houses were scarce. After various requests, the village authorities agreed to help her teach children up to the seventh grade. So, she created Team Ubuntu. Students were divided according to their ages and taught basic language lessons through YouTube. She would share all her experiences with the world through Facebook. Support began pouring in from all over the world with donated books and resources. In 2018, Somy worked with the people of the village to build the library on their own. Somy left Tanzania last July after handing everything over to the village chairman. She says, English has opened up a whole new world for them. I could even slip in a few Hindi and Malayalam videos for the children because they enjoyed everything.

Back home in Kerala, Somy has dedicated her efforts to a range of other causes. Initially, she worked with a team pushing to build libraries for indigenous communities in parts of Kerala. Currently, she is also working on her PhD, which aims to study Indias long history with Africa, Our history with Africa is not documented. Our countries had traded with each other along the Indian Ocean and many slaves had settled in Kerala and had even gone on to become rulers. But Im still working on the proposal because slaves dont write books, only slaveowners do. So Im trying to find our forgotten histories from between the lines.
The European Union recognizes Ukraine's European aspirations and declares its commitment to political association and economic integration.

"We reaffirmed our commitment to strengthening the political association and economic integration of Ukraine with the European Union, including through continued close cooperation to strengthen the rule of law, advance reforms, foster sustainable economic growth, support the green and digital transitions and increase resilience," the leaders of the EU and Ukraine said in the joint statement on the results of the Ukraine-EU summit in Brussels on Tuesday.

The parties discussed the implementation of the Association Agreement following its entry into force in September 2017.

"In this context, we acknowledged the European aspirations of Ukraine and welcomed its European choice, as stated in the Association Agreement," the leaders said in the statement.

In this regard, the leaders agreed to exploit fully the potential of the Agreement and stressed the importance of Ukraine continuing to implement its commitments to that end.

"We welcomed the results already achieved in the implementation of the Association Agreement and the success of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, which has supported the increase of bilateral trade flows by about 65% following its application since January 2016, with the EU now Ukraine's largest trading partner," they said in the document.

The leaders agreed to proceed in 2021 with the comprehensive review of the achievement of the Agreement's objectives, as the Agreement stipulates.

In addition, the leaders reaffirmed the emphasis on maintaining Ukraine's macro-economic stability, keeping the IMF commitments on track and implementing all medium-term structural policies agreed within the EU macrofinancial assistance programme, as well as a strong and independent National Bank of Ukraine.

"The EU reaffirmed its continued substantial support for Ukraine, and its link to the effective implementation of reforms and policy measures. Building on successful Ukrainian reforms and international support since the Revolution of Dignity, the EU announced new programmes to support agriculture, local micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) notably through local currency lending, civil society, transport, infrastructure, environment and climate action, as well as specific support for the east of Ukraine. The EU also continues to support Ukraine on decentralization and strengthening local self-governance, and on enhancing the fight against corruption," the leaders said in the statement.

In addition, the leaders welcomed the continued successful implementation of the visa-free regime for the citizens of Ukraine.

"We underlined the importance of continuing to fulfil the visa liberalization benchmarks and accelerating related reform efforts. We looked forward to the resumption of the normal travel opportunities for our citizens, once epidemiological conditions allow," they said.

The leaders welcomed the Eastern Partnership Leaders' video tele-conference meeting of 18 June 2020.

"Taking into account the results and orientations from this meeting and building on the March 2020 Joint Communication, we reaffirmed the strategic importance of the partnership, and looked forward to the sixth Eastern Partnership Summit in 2021, which is expected to endorse long-term policy objectives and the next generation of post-2020 deliverables on the basis of these objectives and input of Member States and partner countries," the leaders said.
Girls Basketball: Watertown drops home games to No. 4 Rapid City Stevens, No. 5 Rapid City Central

Watertown High Schools girls basketball team lost to fifth-rated Class AA Rapid City Central 43-24 on Saturday and to fourth-rated Rapid City Stevens 50-29 on Friday in non-conference games played in the Civic Arena.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : : The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice over a petition against the rise in the examination fees demanded by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) from the students of Class X and XII for registration in the Board Examinations.

A division bench of the high court presided by Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan issued notice to the CBSE, Delhi Government and the Central government over a plea filed by an association called the Parents Forum for Meaningful Education.

The plea filed through advocates P.S. Sharda and Kshitij Sharda the CBSE for the year 2019-2020 arbitrarily enhanced its examination fee for Class X and Class XII Board examination by two folds as compared to the year 2017- 2018 and several folds as compared to the year 2014-2015.

The fee effectively translates to about Rs. 2400 in case of practical science and additional subject option case and increases by 2400% in case of sc/st students, the petitioner said.

"Due to inability to afford the blatantly arbitrary enhancement of fee by poor stakeholders of government and aided schools under R2 (Delhi government), it wisely met the fee obligation to R1 for academic year 2019-2020 and assured the stakeholders that it would have the same sorted out for future to avoid repeat of this malady in future," the plea read.

The plea further stated that it has emerged that the Delhi government has not only failed to sort out the matter as promised last year but this year it has declined to meet the steep fee obligation thereby abandoning lakhs of children in class X and XII in its schools.

"This has directly hit children hailing from economically poor sections who are from economically weak and deprived sections of society studying in the government and aided schools in class X and Class XII under R2 and are consequently imperilled and if not rescued will get left abandoned which cannot be acceptable to any responsible state," the plea stated.

The plea has sought court's direction to the Delhi government to permanently sort out the matter of payment of the fee for students in its school for the Board Examination for Class X and Class XII with other Respondents 1 (CBSE) and 3 (Central government) to protect their eligibility to take the Board Examination conducted by the CBSE.

The plea also sought the court's direction for establishing an empowered committee to examine and submit a report to this Hon'ble Court for necessary standards and standards for their implementation: for fixation of norms of fee for Board Examination by R1 for the children studying in the schools run by the Delhi government.

The petitioner organisation has also asked the court to direct the Central government to intervene and direct CBSE to pass necessary directions in matter of fee demanded from children studying in schools of Delhi government for academic year 2020-2021 ensuring that no prejudice is caused to eligibility of any child taking Board Examination for the year 2021 for class X and XII in schools run of R2 on account of non payment of such fee.
Health Department offering flu shots for school families, faculty

In partnership with Henderson County public schools, the Henderson County Department of Public Health will be providing drive-through flu vaccine clinics at local high schools on Oct. 13, 14, 15, and 19.

The flu vaccine will be offered to children, staff and parents in Henderson County Public Schools and charter schools on the following dates:

Tuesday, Oct. 13 from 4-6 p.m. at West Henderson High

Wednesday, Oct. 14 from 4-6 p.m. at Hendersonville High

Thursday, Oct. 15 from 4-6 p.m. at East Henderson High

Monday, Oct. 19 from 12-4 p.m. at North Henderson High

School staff and family members may visit any drive-through clinic regardless of which school in the county they or their children attend. No appointment is needed. The vaccine is available for those without insurance at no cost. Face coverings are required.

Parents, students and staff should come prepared with their insurance cards, as well as completed vaccine consent forms. Consent forms for students will be sent to HCPS families through SwiftK12 email notifications, and are linked at www.HCPSNC.org/parents. Consent forms for adults are on the HCDPH website at www.HendersonCountyFlu.org.

Since 2015, HCPS and the HCDPH school nurses have collaborated to annually provide flu vaccination clinics to students in schools during the school day, as a convenience to families and to support community public health.

The traditional annual flu vaccination clinics in every single school has not been feasible this school year, the increased responsibilities of HCDPH school nurses to perform COVID-19 screening and contact tracing, social distancing and building capacity requirements, and the restructured school day schedules.

However, the four flu vaccination clinics on high school campuses after school hours still support the initial goal of the school immunization initiative  to raise flu vaccination rates in order to prevent students from getting and spreading the flu, and ultimately reducing the burden of the flu on the community.

Our health department and school nurses have been doing a tremendous job supporting our community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and their workload is only going to increase as we move into flu season, schools Superintendent Bo Caldwell said. Were hoping we can support them by providing four regional locations that can accommodate socially distanced drive-thru lines, and meet the needs of our families whove expressed continued interest in receiving flu vaccines at the schools.

In North Carolina, flu infections are most common from late fall to early spring with activity usually peaking in January or February, according to HCDPH. Flu vaccines can make illness milder and reduce the risk of more serious outcomes. Its important to protect those in the community at high risk of complicated or severe flu infections such as children, pregnant women, seniors and those with medical conditions such as asthma, COPD and diabetes.

The flu strains in the vaccine this year are new, said HCDPH Medical Director Dr. Diana Curran. While this should give us better protection, it also may cause more side effects such as a sore arm, low-grade temperature or feeling fatigued for a few days. This is just an immune response to the flu vaccine. The vaccine does not contain any live virus so it cannot infect you.

A separate clinic for the general public is at the health department on Saturday, Oct. 10, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 1200 Spartanburg Highway.
For publicans, it was the briefest of windows as just two weeks after re-opening, they now have to close down again for another three weeks at least.



Felim Gurn from Gurns Milestone Bar, Manorhamilton hopes his business and others can survive the latest storm which saw most pubs close again as of last night. He confirmed his premises will remain open as a wet bar outdoors and for takeaway meals.



Cllr Gurn recently renovated his outdoor area with heaters but also noted this is Ireland, not Lanzarote and the weather will not be favourable. He said he shut his bar for ten days last month over a Covid scare which turned out to be negative, closing down at short notice and throwing out food which he said hit him in the pocket by at least 10,000. He said the pubs, restaurants and cafes cant keep coming back.



Felim said the big decision needed from the Government is to close off -licences in supermarkets. He said while pubs maintain table service, social distancing, etc the patrons leave at 11pm and gather together for house parties.

For normal wet pubs around the county he said these new restrictions will effectively mean families have been seven months without their normal income this year.



Alan O'Shea of Mulvey's Arch Bar, Jamestown said they had put in a lot of work to get their premises ready to re-open with all the various safety precautions in place. However, he said for the good of the country and the local community, they didn't mind shutting again for a few weeks.



Alan said they were widely praised by their customers who complimented them on the procedures they had put in place.

Everyone felt safe, we tried to get it right, to protect ourselves and our customers. Everyone was happy to be back in, not just for the drink, but for a chat and to put a bit of life back into the community again and get neighbours chatting again, he said. People were happy to get back to a bit of normality. Alan said they had a busy two weeks and would have been happy to keep going but he recognises there is a bigger picture out there. Leitrim had done so well with the figures and it's hard to be lumped in with counties like Dublin and Donegal but Alan believes that if they can flatten the curve again this time, things will reopen with county or regional lockdowns then enforced around the country if needed. One aspect that Alan said he would like to see it that all pubs, those that serve food, and the so-called 'wet' pubs would all be treated the same in terms of re-opening and would be all on the one playing field.



Meanwhile, on a Facebook post Jackies Bar, Ballinamore stated Here we go again ....we will be closing as of midnight tonight for the next three weeks or until the government tells us we can open fully again. It is not viable for us to serve takeaway drink to someone sitting on a bench in the street on a cold wet October night...!! Thank you to everyone who supported us in the last two weeks .... please stay safe and take care ...Jackie, Kathryn and Rebeccalee.

Also watch: Irish cafe brilliantly mock government's call for outdoor dining
KEY FACTS 2:15 p.m.: De Villa warns outbreak in Toronto could be worse than April

2 p.m.: COVID-19 cases increased 40% in Canada over past 7 days

1:27 p.m.: Italy imposes nationwide outdoor mask mandate

The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Wednesday. This file is no longer updating. Click here to read the latest coverage. Web links to longer stories if available.

10:35 p.m. South Korea has 69 new confirmed coronavirus cases, most of them in the Seoul region area where health workers are struggling to track transmissions tied to hospitals, churches, schools and an army unit.

The figures released by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on Thursday brought the national total to 24,422 cases, including 427 deaths.

Forty-nine of the new cases were reported from the Seoul metropolitan area, home to about half of the countrys 51 million people. The region has been at the centre of a coronavirus resurgence since mid-August.

10:25 p.m. Anger and resentment flared Wednesday in New York City neighbourhoods facing new coronavirus shutdowns, with some residents saying the state is unfairly targeting Orthodox Jewish communities as it tries to stamp out hot spots before they spread.

Protests erupted in Brooklyn's Borough Park neighbourhood Tuesday night after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced new restrictions on schools, businesses and houses of worship in some parts of the city and state. And frustration and grievances kept simmering the next day and into Wednesday night.

I understand you need to wear a mask. I understand you social distance. What bothers me is: You pick on the good people, said Brooklyn resident Meir Nimni.

He argued that Orthodox Jewish gatherings were being singled out for a clampdown, noting that huge crowds convened this spring for racial injustice protests where destruction and violence sometimes broke out.

Everybody here wants to live, and everybody cares about stopping the virus, Nimni said. But he saw a double standard thats just not fair.

Nearby, Renee Jeremias said authorities have absolutely no right to shut us down.

Read more here: Just not fair: Communities bristle at new NYC shutdowns

7:45 p.m. The Saskatchewan Health Authority says it is investigating a community transmitted COVID-19 outbreak that involves contact tracing of more than 100 people across different parts of the province.

The agency says the outbreak is linked to a series of Full Gospel Outreach events in Prince Albert from Sept. 14 to last Sunday.

Medical health officer Dr. Khami Chokani declared the outbreak Wednesday.

Doug Dahl, a health authority spokesman, said six people who attended the events have tested positive for COVID-19 and more positive test results are expected.

He said people from several communities have been identified as close contacts to the positive cases, including some First Nations.

"We have confirmed that six individuals who attended the Full Gospel Outreach events have tested positive since we became aware of the first case on Sunday, which was then connected to the Full Gospel Outreach events," Dahl wrote in an email.

"Additional contact tracing is underway and that number is expected to increase."

The authority did not identify the affected communities.

Health officials say that due to the number of positive cases that have been traced to these events, people who attended should self-isolate immediately until they can be assessed by their local public health unit.

Meanwhile, the province reported 10 new cases of COVID-19, bringing its total to 1,994.

The new cases are located in the Saskatoon, Central West, Central East, Regina and South East zones.

5:38 p.m. The rising number of patients being treated for COVID-19 risks forcing hospitals to cancel major surgeries, Quebec Premier Francois Legault said Wednesday.

Hospitalizations tied to the novel coronavirus have doubled in Quebec over the past two weeks, Legault told reporters, adding that the pressure on the "already fragile" health-care system could lead to difficult decisions.

If cases continue to double every week, he said, theres a risk the provinces health-care system wont be able to treat everyone who needs to see a doctor and that major surgeries could be postponed.

"My objective isn't to be popular; my objective is to save the health-care system," Legault said, adding that Quebecers should stay home unless they are going to work or school.

Authorities reported 900 new infections Wednesday and one death they said occurred in the past 24 hours. The province said six earlier deaths have been attributed to the novel coronavirus, bringing the total to 5,906 since the pandemic began.

Hospitalizations increased by 12 to 409, with 62 patients in intensive care, a decrease of five.

Public health officials in Montreal said Wednesday there are 130 COVID-19 outbreaks in the city. Of those, 42 occurred in schools, 50 in workplaces and 12 occurred in private senior care centres -- including in one that is tied to 25 infections.

While the second wave has largely affected younger people, Montreal's public health director, Mylene Drouin, told reporters Wednesday she's concerned by the rise in cases among the elderly.

Legault said that while some large cities in the United States have comparable death rates to Montreal, others, such as Boston and New York City, have higher rates. Toronto, however, stands out from the other large cities on the continent, with significantly fewer deaths, he said.

While Quebec has shut bars and restaurant dining rooms, Ontario, which has fewer restrictions, continues to report fewer infections than Quebec.

Public health director Dr. Horacio Arruda said there are a number of different factors that could be having an effect. Polling for instance, suggests Quebecers may have been less compliant with instructions from public health officials, he said.

Its a question experts have been unable to answer.

Kate Zinszer, a professor at Universite de Montreals school of public health said, Theres so many possibilities, it could be due to the different measures that are in place."

Compliance with those measures, she said in an interview Wednesday, could be a factor, as could the consistency of messaging from public health authorities. Adding to the difficulty, she said, is that the data needed to make comparisons isnt available.

Health Minster Christian Dube told reporters Wednesday that Quebec has improved some elements of its COVID-19 response, including its testing program, adding that theres still room for improvement when it comes to contact tracing.

If people continue to not pick up the phone when called by a contact tracer, they risk spreading the virus without it knowing it, he said.

Earlier Wednesday, the government said it will allow up to two people at a time to visit dying relatives in long-term care homes and will not limit the number of visits a patient can receive. Visits to long-term care centres were prohibited during the first wave of the pandemic last spring.

Meanwhile, eighteen players and staff of the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team based in the Montreal area, have tested positive for COVID-19.

League commissioner Gilles Courteau said in a news release, Although our sanitary and medical protocol is very strict and rigorous, we knew that COVID-19 was highly infectious and could eventually hit certain players and team staff members."

The team, along with the Sherbrooke Phoenix, who played two games against the Armada over the weekend, suspended operations Monday after an Armada player tested positive.

That positive result came just hours after the QMJHL condemned the Quebec government's decision to ban team sports in parts of the province under the maximum pandemic alert level, which include the Montreal area.

5:20 p.m. The Saskatchewan Health Authority says it is investigating a community-transmitted COVID-19 outbreak that involves contact tracing more than 100 people across different parts of the province.

The agency says the outbreak appears to be linked to a series of Full Gospel Outreach events in Prince Albert from Sept. 14 to last Sunday.

Dr. Khami Chokani, medical health officer, declared the outbreak on Wednesday.

The agency says the outbreak involves numerous people with close contacts from multiple areas across Saskatchewan. The exact number of positive COVID-19 cases linked to the outbreak was not released.

3:40 p.m.: Toronto plans to make an additional 560 beds available to the homeless this winter but advocates warn the spots wont be enough for the growing number of people living in encampments across the city since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

The increase in beds  100 of which will be at an exhibition centre, with plastic barriers to prevent the spread of the virus  is part of the citys winter plan for the homeless outlined earlier this week, Liam Casey of The Canadian Press reports.

Mary-Anne Bedard, general manager of Torontos shelter, support and housing administration, said the city believes it will have enough beds to house those who want to get inside during the cold months.

There will be 240 hotel rooms among the new spaces, along with 220 spots in shelters that will become available when the same number of people move into new homes, including two new modular housing projects, Bedard said.

This year, more than ever, we wanted to make sure we were offering a range of different types of services so we can hit as many people we could with a service that they would be comfortable in accepting, she said.

But Greg Cook, an outreach worker with Sanctuary Ministries Toronto, said the citys plan falls short.

Its a really inadequate response, he said.

There are encampments everywhere and theyre growing  we think over 1,000 people are outside and this only has space for 560.

3:15 p.m.: The prime minister is making clear that any COVID-19 vaccines approved by Health Canada will be free for all Canadians through the countrys universal health-care system.

Justin Trudeau made the statement in the House of Commons after being questioned by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who said Canadians are worried about whether they will have free and timely access to a vaccine against the novel coronavirus once one becomes available.

But it remains unclear exactly who would receive the vaccines first or how they would be distributed.

The government has indicated the plan is to ensure the most vulnerable and essential workers have ready access.

Trudeau told the Commons on Wednesday a committee of experts will counsel the government on how to fairly distribute vaccines to everyone.

3:15 p.m.: Manitoba is marking the deadliest day since the beginning of the pandemic with three additional deaths due to COVID-19.

One of the deaths is linked to an outbreak at a care home  a woman in her 90s.

The others are a man in his 70s from Winnipeg and a man in his 60s from a communal living community.

The new deaths bring the provinces fatality total to 27.

The province also announced 32 new cases of the virus  with 22 of those in the Winnipeg health region.

There has been a surge of cases in the capital city over recent weeks, which prompted health officials to mandate masks for indoor public places and introduce restrictions on restaurants and bars.

2:45 p.m.: Public health officials in New Brunswick are reporting 17 new cases of COVID-19 at a special-care home in Moncton.

Dr. Jennifer Russell, chief medical officer of health, says that brings the number of cases at Notre-Dame Manor to 19.

She says that number includes 13 residents, four health-care workers and two family members of an affected resident.

The first two cases tested positive after public health started an investigation into the facility Monday night.

2:15 p.m.: Toronto medical officer of health Dr. Eileen de Villa reports 187 new infections in the city.

With the current 1.2 reproductive level of transmission, disease activity in the fall would exceed April peak for Toronto, de Villa says.

Heading into November, it could get much worse, peak in early March to early May 2021.

Spend Thanksgiving only with people who live under the same roof, she advises. If you live alone, connect with others virtually.

Yes, the situation is that serious, de Villa says, adding that nobody should be in a crowded room with people they dont live with.

It just isnt worth it.

2 p.m.: The number of daily COVID-19 cases reported in Canada increased 40 per cent in the last week compared to the previous one, chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said Wednesday.

Canadas average daily count of new COVID-19 cases hit 2,052 over the last seven days, nearly 10 times the low it reached last July, Tam said in a statement.

The vast majority of new cases across Canada have been reported in Quebec and Ontario, which together account for some 80 per cent of the countrys COVID-19 infections.

There were some positive signs, however, in the data reported Wednesday by both provinces, although a continued rise in hospitalizations remained a concern.

New cases in Quebec dropped to 900 after authorities reported more than 1,000 new daily infections for five consecutive days.

New cases in Ontario rose from 548 Tuesday to 583 Wednesday, but a large number of recoveries meant that active cases dropped by more than 100. The province also reported one new death, compared to seven on Tuesday.

Hospitalizations continued to rise in both provinces, with an increase of 12 in Quebec and three in Ontario.

Quebec reported seven additional deaths, including one that occurred in the past 24 hours.

1:47 p.m.: Wisconsin health officials announced Wednesday that theyve opened a field hospital at the state fairgrounds near Milwaukee as a surge in COVID-19 cases threatens to overwhelm hospitals.

Wisconsin has become a hot spot for the disease over the last month, ranking third nationwide this week in daily new cases per capita. Health experts have attributed the spike to the reopening of colleges and K-12 schools as well as general fatigue over wearing masks and socially distancing.

We hoped this day wouldnt come, but unfortunately, Wisconsin is in a much different, more dire place today and our health care systems are beginning to become overwhelmed by the surge of COVID-19 cases, said Gov. Tony Evers. This alternative care facility will take some of the pressure off our health care facilities while expanding the continuum of care for folks who have COVID-19.

The move also came as a state judge was considering a lawsuit seeking to strike down Democratic Evers mandate that masks be worn in enclosed public spaces.

1:45 p.m.: Stocks are recovering on Wall Street Wednesday after President Donald Trump appeared to backtrack on his decision to halt talks on another rescue effort for the economy.

The S&P 500 was 1.4 per cent higher in afternoon trading after Trump sent a series of tweets late Tuesday saying hes open to sending out $1,200 payments to Americans, as well as limited programs to prop up the airline industry and small businesses.

The tweets came just hours after Trump sent the market into a sudden tailspin with his declaration that his representatives should halt talks with Democrats on a stimulus effort for the economy until after the election, saying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been negotiating in bad faith. The stakes are high, as economists, investors and the chair of the Federal Reserve all say the economy needs another dose of support following the expiration of weekly jobless benefits and other stimulus Congress approved earlier this year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 414 points, or 1.5 per cent, at 28,187, as of 1:17 p.m. Eastern time.

1:40 p.m. U.S. President Donald Trumps physician says the president had been symptom-free for 24 hours and his vital signs have remained stable and in normal range.

Dr. Scott Conley, in a memo, also wrote that Trump, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 five days ago, told him I feel great!

Conley didnt detail which medications the president was taking. He says the president has not required any supplemental oxygen since returning to the White House late Monday.

The president had also been fever-free for four days.

1:29 p.m. Tennessee will not be returning to the teams facility Wednesday after two more players tested positive amid the NFLs first COVID-19 outbreak, and the New England Patriots have cancelled practice amid reports that a third player has tested positive for the coronavirus.

Sports Illustrated reported that reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year Stephon Gilmore tested positive for the virus on Wednesday and was added to the teams reserve/COVID-19 list. The Patriots did not give a reason for Wednesdays cancellation and did not immediately respond when asked if it was related to a third positive test.

Quarterback Cam Newton tested positive Saturday and is on the reserve/COVID-19 list, and the Patriots placed a defensive tackle from the practice squad on that list Tuesday. The Patriots are scheduled to host Denver on Sunday.

WEAR YOUR MASK. KEEP YOUR DISTANCE, Newton posted on Twitter Wednesday along with a photo of himself wearing a mask.

1:27 p.m. Italy imposed a nationwide outdoor mask mandate Wednesday as the European country where COVID-19 first hit hard scrambles to keep rebounding infections from spiralling out of control.

The government passed a decree even though Italys overall per capita infection rate is currently among the lowest in Europe. But Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte warned that a steady, nine-week rise in infections nationwide demanded new preventive measures to stave off closures and shutdowns that would prove devastating for the economy.

We have to be more rigorous because we want to avoid at all cost more restrictive measures for productive and social activities, Conte said.

The decree was passed on the same day that Italy added 3,678 new infections and 31 victims to its official coronavirus toll, the highest increase in new cases since the peak of the outbreak in April. Both hard-hit Lombardy and southern Campania added more than 500 cases each.

Italy now has over 36,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths, the second-highest number in Europe after Britain.

1:13 p.m. A New York City neighbourhood erupted in protests after Gov. Andrew Cuomo moved to shut down schools and businesses and restrict capacity at houses of worship in areas where coronavirus cases are spiking.

Many areas that stand to be affected are home to large enclaves of Orthodox Jews, and community leaders have complained they are being unfairly singled out, though the Democratic governor insists the clampdown is based solely on coronavirus case clusters and science.

The criticism sharpened Tuesday night, when videos posted on social media showed hundreds of Orthodox Jewish men gathered in the streets of Borough Park, a neighbourhood in Brooklyn, in some cases setting bonfires by burning masks. Video posted on social media shows a crowd swarming and knocking down a man holding a camera. Police said there were no arrests.

Cuomo said Wednesday he realized that closures upset people, but he said they were necessary and would be enforced.

Theres always opposition. And we move forward anyways. And well continue to do that, he said on a conference call with reporters.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city is dealing with a health emergency and told New Yorkers to act accordingly.

1:12 p.m.: Scotland has lost three players, including Arsenal defender Kieran Tierney, from its squad for a European Championship playoff on Thursday after UEFA-mandated COVID-19 tests.

The Scottish soccer federation said Wednesday that midfielder Stuart Armstrong tested positive, and Tierney plus Ryan Christie were classed as close contacts and must self-isolate.

All three players are unavailable to face Israel in a Euro 2020 playoff in Glasgow on Thursday.

Im so disappointed and frustrated to be in this situation, Tierney said in a statement published by Arsenal. I have adhered to all regulations and made sure I was socially distancing from my teammates in the hotel.

The winner at Hampden Park will advance to play away against Norway or Serbia on Nov. 12 with a place at Euro 2020 at stake. Scotland is one of the 12 host nations and would have two home games in the group stage if it qualifies.

12:57 p.m. Canadas chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam says the countrys average daily count of new COVID-19 cases hit 2,052 over the last seven days.

Thats up 40 per cent over the previous week and is nearly 10 times the low it reached last July.

Tam says the Public Health Agency of Canada is seeing an upward trend in the number of COVID-19 patients being hospitalized, as well.

In a statement, Tam says the increasing number and variety of COVID-19 tests available in Canada is a good step, but she says testing cannot replace basic health measures like physical distancing and wearing face masks.

12:55 p.m. Quebec is reporting fewer than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 for the first time in six days.

Authorities reported 900 new COVID-19 infections today and one death attributed to the novel coronavirus that they said occurred in the past 24 hours.

The province says another four deaths linked to the virus occurred between Sept. 30 and Oct. 5, and says two other deaths occurred at an unknown date, bringing the total to 5,906 since the pandemic began.

Hospitalizations increased by 12 to 409, with 62 people in intensive care, a decrease of five.

11:12 a.m.: The number of new COVID-19 school-related cases in public schools across Ontario jumped by 111 for a total of 722 cases  with 541 reported within the last 14 days, the province reported Wednesday morning.

In its latest data, the province reported a 23.6 per cent jump in school-related cases from the previous day, with most of the new cases among students.

The Stars Kevin Jiang has the story

10:43 a.m. The CBC competition series Battle of the Blades has been temporarily iced due to someone on the shows production team testing positive for COVID-19.

In an email Wednesday, the broadcaster said Insight Productions has temporarily halted all training and pre-production on the new season to ensure the health and safety of the entire cast and crew. CBC fully supports this decision.

That means the sixth season of the series in which hockey players and figure skaters pair up to skate for charitable donations will no longer begin with a live premiere on Oct. 15.

CBC said it would provide more details on scheduling as soon as possible.

10:19 a.m. (will be updated) Ontario saw an increase of almost 7 per cent in COVID-19 cases while Torontos number of infections dropped slightly and Ottawas doubled.

Another 583 residents of the province tested positive for the virus and there was one new death, the Ministry of Health reported Wednesday.

The numbers are increasing, Health Minister Christine Elliott acknowledged in the legislatures question period. Were looking at the information daily.

Premier Doug Ford has argued against a push from Toronto Public Health and others to impose new restrictions at this point to slow the spread of COVID-19, saying more evidence is needed to justify any moves that could harm the economy and the livelihoods of business owners, such as banning indoor dining and drinking at bars and restaurants.

Instead, Ford said inspectors will focus on bad actors breaking the maximum limit of six patrons per table, for example.

The backlog of tests awaiting lab processing fell by just 70 to 55,413 as assessment centres came back into full operations on an appointment-only basis Tuesday, two days after walk-in testing was halted to allow labs to catch up. Labs processed 43,277 tests Tuesday, the most since setting a record of more than 46,000 on Oct. 3.

9:27 a.m. Sri Lankan authorities have banned all public gatherings as a new cluster of COVID-19 expands in the Indian Ocean island nation.

Health authorities said Wednesday the outbreak centred at a garment factory has risen to 1,022 confirmed infections while 1,500 people have been asked to quarantine at their homes.

The Health Ministry ordered the public not to conduct public gatherings such as exhibitions, parties, conferences, indoor or outdoor events, carnivals, musical shows and processions.

The majority of the infected people are co-workers at a garment factory. The government has also widened a curfew in two suburbs of Colombo where many of the patients live. It earlier closed schools and universities and imposed restrictions on public transport.

The country has reported 4,252 patients with 13 deaths.

9:21 a.m. Shares in major U.S. airlines were poised for gains Wednesday after President Donald Trump tweeted his support for relief package for the struggling industry and prodded Congress to take action.

The House & Senate should IMMEDIATELY Approve 25 Billion Dollars for Airline Payroll Support, Trump tweeted late Tuesday night. I will sign now!

That followed the presidents tweets earlier Tuesday saying he told his representatives to end negotiations on a relief package until after the election next month.

Airline stocks rose anywhere from 1 per cent to 5 per cent in premarket trading Wednesday.

The airline industry has been one of the hardest-hit sectors of the economy since the virus pandemic took hold this spring, with the largest four U.S. carriers losing more than $10 billion (U.S.) between them.

9:18 a.m. New England Patriots star cornerback Stephon Gilmore has tested positive for COVID-19 according to the NFL Network.

The Patriots played the Kansas City Chiefs on Oct. 5 in a game that was pushed from the previous day due to Patriots quarterback Cam Newton testing positive for the virus.

Despite Newton testing positive, the National Football League opted to play the game rather than postponing it for later in the season, a move that drew criticism for potentially exposing more players to infection.

With just one bye week built into the schedule for each team, the NFL season is highly susceptible to disruption from any outbreaks. If multiple games were to be cancelled, the league would be forced to consider determining playoff eligibility with teams having played an unequal number of games or might push back the Super Bowl, which is scheduled for Feb. 7 in Tampa, Florida.

Also on Wednesday, the NFL Network reported that the Tennessee Titans plan to reopen their facility was put on hold after two players tested positive for the virus. The Titans were slated to face the Pittsburgh Steelers on Oct. 4, but that game was delayed to Oct. 25, becoming the first NFL game to be affected by the virus.

In response to the uptick in positive tests, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell warned the leagues 32 teams on Monday that they would face penalties if they were found to be in violation of COVID-19 safety protocols.

Protocol violations that result in virus spread requiring adjustments to the schedule or otherwise impacting other teams will result in additional financial and competitive discipline, including the adjustment or loss of draft choices or even the forfeit of a game, Goodell wrote in a memo obtained by the Associated Press.

9:09 a.m. A new study says many Canadian entrepreneurs are focused on shoring up their balance sheets after recording a drastic drop in revenues and mounting debt during the first wave of COVID-19.

The Business Development Bank of Canada survey says the top priority of business owners is getting their financial houses in order, including reducing operating costs and improving cash flow.

Investing in technology was also a priority for entrepreneurs, according to the study which also listed a focus on remote work, online sales and reviving growth as other key areas.

The study found that small- and medium-sized businesses were hit hard by the crisis, with 76 per cent reporting a decline in revenues and profits during the pandemic.

Nearly half ending up laying off staff, while about 39 per cent of entrepreneurs took on more debt to survive, the BDC said.

Still, the BDC study said 87 per cent of entrepreneurs are confident they will make it through the crisis.

Pierre Cleroux, BDCs vice-president of research and chief economist, says his biggest worry is the high debt levels of many businesses.

If theres a second wave and we have to go into lockdowns, the good news is businesses are more prepared, he said in an interview. Theyve worked hard to be more efficient, reduce costs and be more present online.

The bad news is they are more in debt than they were six months ago, so they are more fragile.

8:49 a.m. Vice-President Mike Pence and his Democratic challenger, California Sen. Kamala Harris, are poised to meet for a debate that will offer starkly different visions for a country confronting escalating crises.

The faceoff Wednesday night in Salt Lake City is the most highly anticipated vice-presidential debate in recent memory. It will unfold while President Donald Trump recovers at the White House after testing positive last week for the coronavirus and spending several days in the hospital, a serious setback for his campaign that adds pressure on Pence to defend the administrations handling of the pandemic.

For Harris, the debate is her highest-profile opportunity to vocalize how the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, would stabilize the U.S., especially when it comes to resolving the pandemic and addressing racial injustice. She will be able to explain her views on law enforcement, an area in which shes viewed warily by some progressives, given her past as a prosecutor.

Ultimately, the debate is a chance for voters to decide whether Pence and Harris are in a position to step into the presidency at a moments notice. Its hardly a theoretical question as the 74-year-old Trump combats the virus, and Biden, at 77, would become the oldest person to become president if hes elected.

While the debate will likely cover a range of topics, the virus will be at the forefront.

8:46 a.m. Toronto resident Miguel Ceron wanted to get a COVID-19 test when the restaurant his partner works at was shut down by public health for having confirmed cases of the virus.

Ceron, 33, is among scores of Ontario residents who took to social media or contacted the Star Tuesday to voice their frustrations about trying to book a COVID-19 test on the provinces new appointment-based system.

I just got off being on hold for half an hour and ultimately disconnected from a pharmacy trying to get information on appointments, said Ceron, who like others had difficulty getting through by phone because of high call volumes.

By early Tuesday evening, Ceron, who works in the insurance industry, was still unsuccessful in booking a test.

Read the full story by the Stars Irelyne Lavery

8:38 a.m. Just weeks into a school term already marked by disruption, the Toronto District School Board is about to usher in some more.

In a letter sent to families Tuesday evening, the TDSB announced that up to 324 elementary schools will lose some in-person teachers as they will be moved into virtual classrooms.

The board said it announced the reorganization to help support the significant number of students  more than 66,000  who are currently enrolled in online school.

Out of the 324 schools, some will lose up to four or more teachers, while others will lose one or two.

As a result of the loss of teachers, some students attending in-person classes may have to move into different and/or larger classrooms with different teachers, just three weeks after starting school.

Read the full story from the Stars Breanna Xavier-Carter

8 a.m. Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche said Wednesday that problems at a U.K. warehouse are delaying shipments of testing products to clinics and hospitals, triggering concerns that COVID-19 testing may be disrupted as infection rates rise around Britain.

Roche informed doctors about the problem at its U.K. distribution centre in Sussex, southern England, in a letter that advised customers to prioritize essential services only.

Roche said the problem arose after it moved to a new automatic warehouse in September.

The company said that it was prioritizing the dispatch of COVID-19 PCR and antibody tests and doing everything we can to ensure there is no impact on the supply of these to the National Health Service.

The glitch affects materials needed to conduct blood tests and screening for diseases including diabetes and cancer. Roche said it could take two weeks to fix the problem.

British doctors have already raised concerns about the number of procedures, tests and screening programs that were put on hold as the health service focused on battling COVID-19 earlier this year.

While normal service has begun to resume, there is still a backlog, and long waiting lists for non-emergency operations.

Britain, which already has the highest virus death toll in Europe at over 42,500, is now facing a second surge in coronavirus cases. A total of 2,883 coronavirus patients were in U.K. hospitals on Tuesday, up from 2,291 a week earlier. A further 76 deaths of people with COVID-19 were recorded Tuesday, compared to 41 a week earlier.

Both figures are well below the peaks seen at the height of the U.K. outbreak in the spring.

Scotland is set to announce tightened social restrictions Wednesday in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus, and the British government is considering whether to follow suit.

7:26 a.m. Iranian state TV said the country has hit its highest number of daily deaths from the coronavirus, with 239 new fatalities reported on Wednesday.

The report quoted the spokesperson of the countrys Health Ministry, Sima Sadat Lari, as saying that the 239 died since Tuesday. Iran has in the past had 235 daily deaths.

The latest death toll brought the total number of fatalities to 27,658. The ministry spokesperson said health care professionals recorded 4,019 new confirmed cases since Tuesday, brining the total number of confirmed cases in Iran to 483,844.

7:17 a.m. World shares were mostly lower on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a stop to talks on another round of aid for the economy.

U.S. futures were up slightly after dropping on Trumps announcement the day before. Markets were down slightly in Germany, France and Japan but closed higher in Hong Kong.

Hours after his tweets about ending the stimulus talks, Trump appeared to edge back a bit, calling on Congress to send him a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200)

Trumps announcement via Twitter that he was suspending the talks until after the election came after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell urged Congress to come through with more aid, saying that too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship.

Some analysts characterized Trumps move as likely a negotiating ploy.

I do not believe hopes of a stimulus deal are now gone forever, said Jeffrey Halley of trading and research firm Oanda. One of Mr. Trumps favourite negotiating tactics, judging by past actions, is to walk away from the negotiating table abruptly. The intention being to frighten the other side into concessions.

6:45 a.m.: Takeout booze is here to stay, the Star has learned.

Queens Park is making permanent a key temporary pandemic measure and allowing restaurants and bars to sell beer, wine and spirits to go.

The sweeping liberalization, designed to help struggling businesses, means nearly every licensed facility in Ontario could be able to sell booze for consumption at home.

Associate Minister of Small Business Prabmeet Sarkaria will introduce the Main Street Recovery Act on Wednesday to legislate changes to reduce red tape and ensure the coronavirus-ravaged restaurants, bars and shops can stay afloat.

Our government is standing with Main Street businesses and we remain committed to their recovery and renewed success, said Sarkaria.

We are determined to support them through this pandemic and beyond.

Read the exclusive story from the Stars Robert Benzie here.

5:29 a.m.: Coronavirus infections in the Czech Republic have hit a record high, surpassing 4,000 cases in one day for the first time.

The Health Ministry said 4,457 people tested positive on Tuesday, almost 700 more than the previous record on Friday.

Most infected still have no or mild symptoms but the recent steep day-to-day increase is followed by an increase of people hospitalized and those who have died.

Of the total of 90,022 cases in the Czech Republic, 1,387 needed hospital treatment on Monday, according to government figures, with 326 in serious condition. That was up from 825 hospitalized at the beginning of last week with 187 in intensive care. Of the 794 people who have died of COVID-19 in the country, 169 were since Sept 28.

5:21 a.m.: South Korea has reported 114 new cases of the coronavirus, its first daily jump of over 100 in a week. Health officials had raised concerns that infections would rise because of increased travel during the Chuseok harvest holiday that ended Sunday. Ninety-two of the cases reported Wednesday by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency were from the Seoul metropolitan area, where the virus has been resurgent since mid-August.

5:19 a.m.: New Zealand has again eliminated COVID-19 in the community as life is about to return normal in its largest city, Auckland. From midnight Wednesday, limits on public gatherings and activities will be lifted, though social distancing is advised.

The Ministry of Health said the last six active cases associated with a minor outbreak in Auckland have recovered, an announcement that Health Minister Chris Hipkins described as a big milestone. New Zealanders have once again through their collective actions squashed the virus, Hipkins said. New Zealand went 102 days without a case of community transmission before the Auckland outbreak, which concluded with 186 cases between Aug. 11 and Sept. 25.

5:11 a.m.: India has registered more than 72,000 new coronavirus cases, driving the countrys total to 6.75 million. The Health Ministry also reported 986 deaths, taking the toll past 104,500.

Nearly 10 states account for 77 per cent of the total active cases in the country. Indias recovery rate stands at more than 84%. The government has cited that figure as a reason for further opening the economy by allowing movie theatres to partially reopen next week with 50% capacity. The Health Ministry also issued guidelines for large gatherings during upcoming religious festivals and barred people from touching idols and holy books at such events to prevent the spread of the virus.

5:08 a.m.: Israeli police clashed with hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews overnight as they sought to enforce restrictions on public gatherings during a nationwide coronavirus lockdown, the police said Wednesday.

Footage released by police showed huge crowds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem chanting and hurling stones and metal bars at police officers. The police said 17 people were arrested.

Clashes also erupted in Modiin Ilit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement in the West Bank. Police said they ordered people to leave a synagogue before being attacked with stones and fireworks, Four police officers were wounded and seven people were arrested, police said.

Segments of Israels ultra-Orthodox community have defied restrictions on religious gatherings intended to contain the countrys coronavirus outbreak, even as the insular community has seen its own cases soar.

5:03 a.m.: Authorities in Sri Lanka on Wednesday widened a curfew and warned of legal action against those evading treatment for COVID-19 after reporting a growing cluster centred around a garment factory in the capitals suburbs.

The number of confirmed cases has risen to 830 while more than 1,500 people have been asked to quarantine at their homes, health authorities said.

The Indian Ocean island nation had just reported its first community infection in two months on Sunday. The majority of the infected people are co-workers of the first patient, who is from densely populated Western province, which includes the capital, Colombo.

Hundreds of people  both factory workers and residents  waited in lines Tuesday at makeshift medical centres to be tested for the coronavirus in the small town of Minuwangoda, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Colombo, where the factory is located.

5 a.m.: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus wife may have violated the countrys coronavirus lockdown by inviting a hairdresser into the official residence last week to prepare her for a public service video advocating the wearing of masks.

The Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported that Sara Netanyahu had a hairdresser visit on the eve of the festive Sukkot holiday. Hair salons and barber shops are closed as part of a nationwide lockdown imposed last month, and people have been ordered to remain within 1,000 metres (yards) of home except for essential activities.

Wednesday 4 a.m.: The pandemic may serve as an opportunity for the restaurant industry to innovate in order to avoid closures as public health measures limit the sale of booze and erode already thin profit margins, say addiction and business experts.

Dr. Rupi Brar said the industry has a chance to pivot in ways that satisfy consumer demand while considering its heavy dependence on high markups on alcohol as well as the negative consequences associated with it.

We know that the production and marketing and distribution of alcohol does create employment and generate income, but the question is, at what cost? said Brar, an addiction medicine specialist and consultant in substance use disorders at St. Pauls and Surrey Memorial hospitals in Metro Vancouver.

She said harms related to alcohol use amount to about $14 billion a year, including for health care.

Restaurants and bars have fought the restriction of a 10 p.m. stop on alcohol sales in British Columbia and similar limits elsewhere in the country, but many have come up with new ways to make money and keep much of their staff employed.

Tuesday 10:12 p.m. Just weeks into a school term already marked by disruption, the Toronto District School Board is about to usher in some more.

In a letter sent to families Tuesday evening, the TDSB announced that up to 324 elementary schools will lose some in-person teachers as they will be moved into virtual classrooms.

The board said it announced the reorganization to help support the significant number of students  more than 66,000  who are currently enrolled in online school.

Out of the 324 schools, some will lose up to four or more teachers, while others will lose one or two.

As a result of the loss of teachers, some students attending in-person classes may have to move into different and/or larger classrooms with different teachers, just three weeks after starting school.

For example, two smaller classes may be combined to create one larger class, the letter from the TDSB stated. However, the board was clear in assuring that classroom sizes will remain within public health measures.

Since school began, there has been a number of shortages for teachers in virtual classrooms. In the letter, the board acknowledged the lack of resources, saying, The reorganization of schools and classes will increase the availability of permanent TDSB teachers for the Virtual School and enhance stability.

The board said it anticipates all students to have an assigned teacher once the reorganization is complete by Oct 13.

Read more here: Hundreds of teachers to be switched from in-person to virtual school as TDSB announces huge reorganization

Click here to read more of Tuesdays COVID-19 coverage.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Morning high of 33F with temps falling to near 20. Winds NNW at 15 to 25 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies with late-night snow showers. Low around 15F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 40%.
Chennai, Oct 7 : The Indian space agency is likely to test its reusable launch vehicle's (RLV) landing on the ground sometime in November or December 2020, said a senior official.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is targeting to build RLV similar to USA's space shuttle to put into orbit satellites and come back to land for the next mission. This in turn would bring down the satellite launch costs.

The two Indian rockets in service - Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) - and also the upcoming Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) - are expendable ones.

"We are planning to test the Reusable Launch Vehicle's landing in Chitradurga District in Karnataka. We want to do the test in November/December this year," S. Somanath, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) -- part of ISRO -- told IANS.

As per plans, the RLV will be lifted up by a helicopter and from the height of four km it will be released.

Post release by the helicopter, the RLV will glide and navigate towards the runway and land on its own in an airfield in Chitradurga District deploying its parachute, Somanath said.

According to ISRO, RLV Interface System (RIS) for interfacing with helicopter and Qualification Model of landing gear have been realised.

Simply put, RLV will ascend to orbit, stay there, re-enter and land on a runway like an aircraft. The technology has the challenges of meeting the complexities of both -- a rocket and an aircraft.

According to Somanath, about 30-40 ISRO officials have to be taken to Chitradurga and stay there for about two weeks.

In 2016, ISRO successfully tested RLV's descent from an altitude of 65 km, its atmospheric re-entry at around Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound).

According to ISRO, the vehicle's navigation, guidance and control system accurately steered the vehicle during this phase for safe descent.

After successfully surviving high temperatures of re-entry with the help of its Thermal Protection System (TPS), the vehicle successfully glided down to the defined landing spot over Bay of Bengal, at a distance of about 450km from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

Total flight duration from launch to landing of this mission lasted for about 770 seconds.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Rome: Italy has imposed a nationwide outdoor mask mandate with fines of up to 1000 ($1650) for violators, as the European country where COVID-19 first hit hard scrambles to curb second-wave infections rates.

The government passed the decree on Wednesday even though the overall per capita infection rate is currently among the lowest in Europe.

Visitors descend the Spanish Steps in Rome on Tuesday. Credit:AP

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte warned that a steady, nine-week rise in infections nationally demanded new preventive measures to stave off closures and shutdowns that would prove devastating for the economy.

"We have to be more rigorous because we want to avoid at all cost more restrictive measures for productive and social activities," Conte said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 23:59:06|Editor: huaxia

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WARSAW, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Few European technology companies ever succeed in the U.S. market, but the ambition itself can lead to insights that open up new paths, which may lead them to success elsewhere. The story of the Polish artificial intelligence (AI) company Cosmose is a case in point.

Many of the preconceptions held by Europeans about the Chinese technology sector are simply not true, Cosmose founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Miron Mironiuk told Xinhua in a recent interview.

The company, whose platform increases customer engagement and targeted advertising using smartphone data analytics, now serves 360,000 retail stores in China and Japan.

"When I started Cosmose six years ago, I was set on chasing the American dream," Mironiuk recalled. "However, the U.S. market is very large, and smartphone penetration was not very high at the time. So I looked further, and decided to try Singapore and Hong Kong, China first, due to their very high smartphone penetration of over 90 percent. I moved to Hong Kong, thinking I would stay for maybe half a year."

Making it to Silicon Valley in the U.S. is no longer a must for Mironiuk.

"My perception of China was completely wrong," he acknowledged. "China alone has 1.4 billion people with over a billion smartphones. It is the fastest growing -- and most competitive -- market in the world."

Despite preconceptions held mainly in Western countries, China does not simply copy ideas from others, Mironiuk said. "They are very competitive. You can't simply do something well once and relax. You need to improve your product constantly. That's something the Chinese market will teach you in a very short period."

He added that while most new ideas originate elsewhere, it is the attention paid to execution that sets China apart. "Everyone can have an idea. I personally don't care who came up with mobile payment, the only country where it really took off is China."

Cosmose kept its engineering team in the Polish capital Warsaw, working together with its offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

He sees many similarities between Polish and Chinese entrepreneurs. "We share the same mindset. Like the Poles, the Chinese are very patient in the long term, but quick on their feet in the short term. There is a true talent to integrate different innovations."

However, one stark difference is in the way entrepreneurs and innovators collaborate. "In many countries, innovation starts in the garage, and that goes for China as well. They show their ideas and seek feedback and help from their peers. The Poles, by contrast, tend to start from their cellars," Mironiuk said.

"When I started out, I was a typical Pole," he laughed. "I had an idea and did my best to keep it to myself. In China, however, I learned to pitch my idea. The Chinese are extremely helpful. We still work with the same companies as four years ago. There is energy, and you feel that Shanghai is a true startup city."

As it targets brick and mortar retailers, the COVID-19 pandemic did not leave Cosmose unaffected. But Mironiuk claims that his technology is well-positioned to help stores rebound after the crisis.

"What we see is that clients are trying to rebound from the pandemic. They are looking to get their customers back and can use our platform to inform them that they have reopened," he said. Enditem
Florida teenager Isaiah Oertel (pictured) has died after slipping and falling 80 feet from the top of a South Carolina waterfall during a Christian youth camp trip

A 14-year-old Florida boy has died after slipping and falling 80 feet from the top of a South Carolina waterfall during a Christian youth camp trip.

Isaiah Oertel, 14, of North Port, Florida, was killed in the tragic incident Monday evening after he plunged over the top of the Laurel Fork Falls on the Foothills Trail in Pickens County.

Emergency crews rushed to the scene to rescue the boy but his body was recovered the following morning.

Oertel was a member of the Punta Gorda youth group and was visiting the waterfall as part of activities with the Gator Wilderness Camp, a Florida-based Christian camping program for teenage boys aged 11 to 15.

According to the camp's website, it is nonprofit designed for boys who are 'significantly struggling to interpret a myriad of issues in their families, schools, and communities' and aims to 'offer a navigational beacon of hope and healing in the name of Christ'.

Pickens County Emergency Management said rescue teams responded to reports of a victim falling over the top of the waterfall at around 7:19 p.m. Monday.

Several agencies including a tactical response team were drafted in for the search for the boy.

The rescue mission became a recovery mission when the 14-year-old's body was found early Tuesday morning in nearby waters.

Investigators said Oertel had died before they got to him at the bottom of the waterfall.

Oertel, of North Port, Florida, was killed in the tragic incident Monday evening after he plunged over the top of the Laurel Fork Falls (pictured) on the Foothills Trail in Pickens County

Oertel was a member of the Punta Gorda youth group and was visiting the waterfall as part of activities with the Gator Wilderness Camp, a Florida-based Christian camping program for teenage boys aged 11 to 15

Oertel pictured at an event for the camp (left). According to the camp's website, it is nonprofit designed for boys who are 'significantly struggling to interpret a myriad of issues in their families, schools, and communities' (right the camp)

The operation ended around 5 a.m. Tuesday, emergency officials told WYFF4.

'We had received reports that he had slipped off the top of the waterfall and where crews unfortunately found him was about 80 feet from the top of the waterfall,' said Pickens County Emergency Department Deputy Director Pierce Womack.

Pickens County coroner Kandy Kelley later confirmed Oertel died at the scene from blunt force trauma.

His death continues to be under investigation by the Pickens County Sheriff's Office and SLED.

The New Day Christian Church in Port Charlotte that the teenager and his family attended confirmed his tragic death in a message to parishioners Tuesday.

'We are sad to inform you that Isaiah Oertel, the 14-year-old son of Dennis and DeAnn Oertel passed away suddenly in a tragic accident Monday, October 5,' the church said.

'We will keep you informed as service arrangements are made to honor Isaiah's life. Please keep Isaiah's parents along with his two sisters Savanna, age 17 and Breanna, age 15 in your prayers as they process through such a tragic loss.'

The teenager is the second person to die at the waterfall this year after the death of a woman back in March.

Taylor Coleman, 25, from Simponsville, fell to her death from the top of the waterfall on March 22 when she was on a camping trip with friends.

Laurel Fork Falls is located about 30 miles northwest of Greenville and empties into Lake Jocassee.
By PTI

CHANDIGARH: An MLA of the ruling BJP in Haryana on Wednesday staged a symbolic dharna in front of the state assembly building here, alleging that because of a senior bureaucrat, farmers were facing problems in mandis during crop procurement.

Goel, a second-term BJP MLA from Ambala City, targeted Additional Chief Secretary (Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs) P K Das during the dharna.

Das, however, said that he will not comment on what a political leader was saying, but assured that paddy procurement was going on smoothly.

The BJP leader alleged mismanagement at grain markets (mandis) and claimed that farmers were facing a lot of problems because of this.

"Farmers, labourers and traders are being harassed due to the delay in paddy procurement," Goel told reporters at the dharna site.

He claimed that farmers are facing problems in getting registration number on the Meri Fasal Mera Byora portal and even after waiting for long hours, they do not get permission to sell paddy crop.

"For six months farmers toil hard to grow the crop, but today they are facing hurdles in selling it.

And one official is responsible for this," Goel alleged.

"I am representing 5 lakh people.

I have not come to Chandigarh for a picnic, I am not against the government," the BJP MLA said during the dharna which lasted for about an hour.

Goel said that Chief Minister M L Khattar always gave him love and respect.

"A lot of development was undertaken in my assembly constituency.

But the people, including farmers, labourers, traders and other sections, who gave me blessings and because of whom I got re-elected, if they are facing problems, then I cannot stay silent," he said.

Das, however, told reporters that paddy procurement was going on smoothly in mandis.

"For this year's paddy procurement and paddy milling policy, decisions were taken at appropriate level in the government. Procurement is going on smoothly and under a system," he said.

Das said that as far as sitting on a dharna by a MLA is concerned, this is his prerogative.

Being a government official, "I will not like to comment on that", he said.

Asked if bureaucracy was calling the shots, the BJP MLA said "some officials have a big ego and think their ego is above the policies of the government".

"Today, I am staging this symbolic protest against that official," Goel said.

"He should admit his mistake. I have no personal grudge against the official, he should set right the arrangements in the mandis," BJP leader said.

Asked if his step to hold a dharna would give more ammunition to the opposition to attack the BJP-led government, which is already facing farmers protests and opposition fire over the new farm laws, Goel said, "I am not here sitting on this dharna to do politics.

" "No other MLA from a ruling party will sit on such a dharna, it takes a big heart to do so.

But I have been chosen by my constituents and for me they are supreme and if they are facing a problem, it is my duty to voice their problems, I have no right to sit silent, he said.

Goel threatened to hold a bigger protest next week if the situation at the 'mandis' does not improve by then.

At the dharna site, the MLA had also put up a banner behind him against the senior bureaucrat.

Opposition Congress hit out at the BJP-JJP government in the state, saying when it highlights farmers' concerns, the ruling dispensation does not lent an ear.

During his visit to Haryana on Tuesday, our party leader Rahul Gandhi also highlighted the problems farmers are facing in the mandis in the state.

So many of our state leaders have already brought to the notice of this government the problems and delay faced by farmers in paddy procurement, but they were not prepared to listen.

 Congress MLA from Mullana segment in Ambala district, Varun Chaudhary, told reporters outside the Haryana assembly complex.

Now, at least the government should listen to its own MLA, he said.
With the rise of coronavirus, the global travelling rate has succumbed to very low figures. At first, the travelling was dreaded because of the risks it posed. To this day, it still remains but the restriction is somewhat uplifted. Many people, who were visiting or touring abroad, were forcefully sent back to their homelands to ensure the safety.







Among all this, the immigration process took some toll. People waiting for their immigration were left in the dry with no further dates. The world of today has become less accepting of migrants than any other time in the recent history. There are still some countries who are opening their doors for the migrants to live and prosper but, on the other hand, countries are completely shutting their doors down for the newcomers.

The European Union has issued a new migration pact. According to that pact, Migration Acceptance Index, it is now believed that members of EU countries are among the least accepting migrant countries. These countries include Hungary, Croatia, Latvia and Slovakia. The index issued by the EU was a result of a survey consisting of three questions asked from 145 countries.





When there are several European countries not accepting migrants, there are other countries who are very accepting. Canada is an example as it is at the top of the scale with a score of 8.46 out of 9. Take a look at the following infographic for more details about the whole list.

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Infographic by: statista
By Donal Griffin, Ellen Milligan, Frances Schwartzkopff and Karin Matussek

Sanjay Shah, a former trader and hedge-fund manager accused by Denmark of orchestrating a $2 billion dividend-tax fraud, said he rejected a plea bargain with the Nordic country that would have meant four years in a really nice cell.

Shah, 50, said he attempted to settle a Danish criminal investigation into his trading operations in 2018 by offering a payment of 250 million euros ($293.3 million) to the countrys prosecutors. The confidential settlement would have encompassed a parallel civil case, and he said he wouldnt have admitted any liability. But, according to Shah, authorities had other ideas.

The response was: admit all allegations, pay all of the money you received, tell us how the trading was done, Shah, who has been based in Dubai since 2009, said via email. And, in return, we will give you a four-day trial in Denmark rather than four months and a really nice cell for your four-year sentence, he said. I obviously rejected that.

Also read  Sanjay Jha, the unemployed trader who became a $700 million exile

A spokesman for the Danish prosecutor service, known as SOIK, declined to comment.

Shah, a former trader at Rabobank Group and Credit Suisse Group AG who later set up his own fund, Solo Capital Partners LLP, is the subject of an array of legal activity across several jurisdictions as a result of his involvement in controversial trades that targeted dividend-tax laws. Authorities are probing him in Denmark and Germany while mammoth civil cases in the UK, Dubai and the US are underway. Shah has denied any wrongdoing and hasnt been charged.

In the UK civil case, the Danish Tax Agency, or Skat, alleges that Shah and Solo helped orchestrate a complex fraud that robbed the country of some 12.7 billion kroner ($2 billion) through illicit refunds on dividend tax. Shah received hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the transactions. According to his defence, Solo helped clients engage in lawful and legitimate trading strategies that were conducted at all times in accordance with Danish law.

Shah said he may be open to trying again to settle, this time directly with Skat. My lawyers have advised it is too early in the litigation to do so, but there might come a right time, he said.

For its part, the agency said that while it has previously entered into settlements in other cases, it doesnt initiate negotiations. Whether an agreement can be reached would depend on several factors, including the role of the defendant and how much in payment is offered.

The actions targeting Shah are part of a broader investigation across Europe into controversial dividend-tax transactions, which have since become known as Cum-Ex trades. Probes have so far ensnared hundreds of traders, bankers, hedge-fund managers and lawyers.

It was every bank you can imagine, mainly in London, and it was an industry involving hundreds of people, Shah said in an interview with Bloomberg TVs Manus Cranny on Wednesday.

Shah said he amassed in the region of $700 million from Cum-Ex. Unfortunately, I was an easy target given the amount of money I made.
People are less likely to give life-saving CPR during the Covid-19 pandemic because of fears they may catch the infection, a study has revealed.

Researchers asked 1,360 people in 26 countries whether or not they would be willing to intervene if someone was having a cardiac arrest in public.

Compared to before the Covid-19 era, 20 per cent fewer people would give mouth-to-mouth to a stranger, if they weren't breathing. And 14 per cent fewer claimed they would give chest compressions, which could be the difference between life and death.

The findings are concerning because it is already known that Britons are reluctant to carry out CPR, with around three in ten claiming that they would not assist in saving a dying stranger.

Survival rates for cardiac arrests  which are different to heart attacks  stand at less than 10 per cent. But CPR can more than double a person's chance of survival outside hospital, according to the British Heart Foundation.

Scientists urged people not to be put off giving first aid due to Covid-19 and insisted the odds of getting the infection this way was tiny.

Chest compressions can still be done with a towel, while wearing a face covering to avoid catching the disease. But health regulators have already urged Britons not to carry out mouth-to-mouth over Covid-19 fears.

People are less likely to give life-saving CPR during the Covid-19 pandemic in fear of infection, a study has revealed (stock)

A cardiac arrest is when a persons heart stops pumping blood around their body and they stop breathing normally.

It is different to a heart attack which is caused by a blockage in the artery supplying the heart, but sometimes a heart attack can cause cardiac arrest.

Every year in the UK, there are more than 30,000 cardiac arrests outside of hospital. The survival rate is less than one in ten. In the US, the figure is 350,000.

Data from Paris has shown decreased bystander CPR rates has led to lower survival rates from cardiac arrests during the pandemic.

But researchers in Seattle and New York, who have also investigated the claim, said they found no difference.

HOW TO GIVE CPR DURING THE PANDEMIC Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can be used to try to restart someone's heart if it has stopped. CPR should only be used in an emergency situation if someone is unconscious and not breathing. People without CPR training should stick to hands-only chest compressions, the NHS says. Due to the current coronavirus outbreak, there are several important changes to CPR that the Resuscitation Council UK advise. If you find someone unconscious follow these simple steps: Step 1: Shake and shout for help. Someone having a cardiac arrest will either not be breathing or they wont be breathing normally. They also wont be conscious. But do not put your face close to theirs to check for breathing or signs of life. Step 2: Call 999 if the person is not breathing or not breathing normally. Ask someone to get a public defibrillator which are found in public places like train stations. Step 3: Use a towel or a piece of clothing and lay it over their mouth and nose. Check if they are breathing. If you're sure the person is breathing normally, then put them in the recovery position. Step 4: Give chest compressions only - do not give rescue breaths. Kneel next to the person. Place the heel of one hand in the centre of their chest. Place your other hand on top of the first. Interlock your fingers. With straight arms, use the heel of your hand to push the breastbone down firmly and smoothly, so that the chest is pressed down between 56 cm (2-2.5 inches), and release. Do this at a rate of 100 to 120 chest compressions per minute  thats around two per second. Step 5: Continue until an ambulance arrives or until the person starts to show signs of regaining consciousness, such as coughing, opening their eyes, speaking, or breathing normally. Step 6: After the ambulance have taken over wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water or use an alcohol based hand gel. Source: British Heart Foundation Advertisement

Researchers led by University of British Columbia sought to find out more, and asked social media users for their thoughts.

The questionnaires asked respondents how willing they would be to intervene if someone was suffering a cardiac arrest on a scale of 100, both before the pandemic and during, according to the paper published in Resuscitatation Plus.

The findings, however, do not reveal how many respondents would give CPR as a percentage. They only revealed how much this had changed compared to before the pandemic.

A previous study by University of Warwick researchers on behalf of the BHF found that almost one in three people would not perform CPR on a person in need.

Compared to data from pre-Covid, the Canadian study found people were 10.7 per cent less likely to check if a stranger was breathing or had pulse.

They were 19.5 per cent less likely to give rescue breaths, 14.3 per cent less likely to give chest compressions, and 4.8 per cent less likely to use a defibrillator, a machine which can also restart the heart and are found in public places such as offices and train stations.

People were even less likely to call an ambulance, by a small 0.8 per cent, compared to before Covid-19. It is not clear why this is.

Willingness to help a relative or friend was much higher, but still lower than before the Covid-19 crisis.

Respondents were 1.2 per cent less prepared to check for breathing or a pulse if their loved one was having a cardiac arrest, 1.6 per cent less likely to perform chest compressions, 5.5 per cent less likely to give rescue breaths and 0.9 per cent less likely to use a defibrillator.

The results were similar across all age groups and gender. But there were some key differences, such as that healthcare workers were the most likely to avoid giving chest compressions compared to before.

The researchers suggested this was because they are most informed of the dangers of Covid-19 due to their work, and this may have led to a hesitancy to risk infection.

But they also noted a previous study, by University of Michigan, which suggested the risk of catching Covid-19 is just one per cent when giving hands-only CPR, even though being close to someone and the aerosols in their breath could lead to droplet transmission.

That's based on weighing up the odds of how likely it is the cardiac arrest victim actually has Covid-19 - less than 10 per cent, according to a cohort of almost 600 patients - and the odds of it transmitting during chest compressions, estimated to be 10 per cent.

Philippa Hobson, a senior cardiac nurse at the BHF, told MailOnline: 'Your risk of contracting Covid-19 from helping that person is very low and without CPR they may not survive.

'Survival rates for those who suffer an out of hospital cardiac arrest remain shockingly low, at just one in ten in the UK.

'When someone has a cardiac arrest every second counts, so knowing what to do could make all the difference.'

'Every minute without CPR reduces a persons chance of surviving by around ten per cent.'

Professor Naveed Sattar, an honorary consultant in cardiovascular medicine at University of Glasgow, said the findings show 'yet another indirect harm' of the pandemic.

He told MailOnline: 'None of this surprises me at all  people are anxious about getting Covid and so getting close to people or even touching them or giving rescue breaths would be really difficult for many to currently contemplate  yet another indirect harm from Covid.

'That said, giving someone the chance to live from a cardiac arrest will compel many still to try to help and even giving chest compressions can help save someones life.

'Many can do so safely as they carry masks and more and more have now had Covid leading a proportion of the population to hopefully have some level of immunity.

'What I would also say is that severe risks arising from Covid are very low for anyone under 50 who is fit and does not have any chronic conditions.'

There have been changes to the advice given by Resuscitation Council UK for giving CPR, including that you should cover the mouth of the victim with material.

They advise against putting your face close to the victims to check for breathing or a pulse, and to give chest compressions only, not mouth-to-mouth.

The survey did find that if there was protective items available - such as a mask, gloves or something to cover the mouth - people were more inclined to help someone in cardiac arrest.

The availability of personal protective clothing (PPE) significantly increased willingness to perform chest compressions on a stranger by 8.3 per cent.
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.
She Was Notorious and GloriousSupreme Court Justice RBG!

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stood at 51 and weighed less than most of us; yet what she accomplished during her lifetime stands tall against giants across the board. She was given the nickname, Notorious RBG, and she lived up to that name until the end. People who went up against her eventually came to realize that her quiet nature did not mean she was a pushover. She was modest, humble, and glorious. How many people can you name that hold these qualities? Her mother told her to always be a lady, which meant to be your own person and independent. No one could ever question if she were a lady in her demeanor or style. Sometimes being a lady has been underrated.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg believed that we should fight for the things we care about, but we need to do it in such a way that encourages others to join in what you are fighting for. During her lifetime, she sacrificed a lot personally to help make the world a better place. She has been compared to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall who was a civil rights giant. They both demanded equality for all and for America to live up to the promises laid out in the Constitution and Bill of Rights for all its citizens. We are currently living in a time, once again, where America is forced to look in the mirror to see how they are treating all their citizens. If we are going to come out of this on the right side of justice, we must be willing to sacrifice and do our part. Freedom is not necessarily free.

RBG died on September 18, which happens to be my mothers birthday. Of course, I knew who RBG was and many of the accomplishments she achieved over the years, but upon her death it made me a little more inquisitive to learn more about this small lady of great stature. We can all read about her professional achievements, so I would like to share two things about her personal life that really touched me. I recently celebrated my 59th birthday and with everything that is going on right now, I sometimes have questioned what is next for me? What can I still accomplish during my lifetime? When I read that she was 60-years-old when she was appointed to the Supreme Court, it made me feel the possibility that there is still so much more ahead for me. Often what we do along our journey opens the doors for where we are meant to end up.

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The second thing that really spoke to me was her relationship with her husband Marty. He was so supportive of her work and calling in life. He was never intimidated by her accomplishments. Not only did he encourage her, but he was her biggest fan and advocate. They were a true partnership and example of how positive a relationship can really be. I have been challenged in this area, but I am thankful that I now understand what that type of relationship looks and feels like. Having a husband that stands with you can help you accomplish anything life throws your way. One of the things RBG shared is that it helps to be a little deaf sometimes. Funny, my husband recently said the same thing. Do not major in the minors.

Whether male or female, Black or White, Democrat or Republican, we all have so much we can learn from the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We cannot let her life be in vain. We must all pick up our torch and continue the race. We must be notorious to bring about justice and the changes necessary for our country to survive our current crisis. We may be Ruthless, but her legacy will live on.

Healing Without Hate: Its a choice. Its a lifestyle. Pass it on!

Visit www.WendyGladney.com and www.forgivingforliving.org to learn more. Wendy is an international coach, consultant, trainer, author and speaker. She can also be found live on Instagram @Wendygladney on Wednesdays at 12 noon PST.
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President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky stated that representatives of Ukraine and the European Union outlined further steps of active cooperation and interaction during the 22nd Ukraine-EU Summit.

He said this at a press conference following the summit, the presidents press service reports.

Zelensky expressed gratitude for the organization and holding of the summit, which took place despite all the challenges related to the fight against COVID-19.

He noted that the progress in the implementation of the Association Agreement was carefully considered during the talks.

"Further steps of Ukraine's active cooperation with the European Union were outlined. I can assure you that our plans are ambitious and unprecedented," Zelensky said.

President of the European Council Charles Michel has noted that the EU will remain Ukraines biggest and most reliable partner and seeks to deepen cooperation as evidenced by the amount of assistance provided to the Ukrainian state. According to him, the cooperation in combatting COVID-19 has reconfirmed the solidarity and close partnership between the EU and Ukraine. He has added that the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement provides the framework for continuing political association and it aims to establish conditions for enhanced economic and trade relations leading towards Ukraine's gradual integration in the EU Internal Market.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell also noted the potential for cooperation.

"We will continue supporting you because your progress is our progress and your security will be our security. The macro-financial assistance is part of this partnership. The mobilization of resources to address the coronavirus crisis is also part of this partnership. We share borders. We share history, culture, interests and values. Ukraines people have sacrificed a great deal for a brighter, more prosperous future, he said.

As reported by Ukrinform, the 22nd EU-Ukraine Summit took place in Brussels on October 6, during which representatives of Ukraine and the European Union signed six financial agreements worth almost EUR 400 million.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 22:16:06|Editor: huaxia

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JUBA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- A South Sudan's oil marketing firm said on Wednesday it plans to set up about 8.2 billion South Sudanese pounds (about 500 million U.S. dollars) crude oil refinery in Paloch oilfield to serve the region with refined petroleum products.

Robert Eric Mdeza, chief executive officer of Trinity Energy, a company specializing in petroleum products and related services, said that the plan is to produce a 40,000 barrels per day scalable factory in Paloch.

"The idea is to build a scalable refinery that will eventually reach the size of 40,000 barrels per day. That is our plan," Mdeza said on Monday.

Mdeza revealed that the firm controls about 40 percent of the country's oil market, and noted that the company plans also to build a 50 million liter storage capacity of refined products along Juba-Bahr-el-Ghazal highway.

He said the initial purpose of installing the refinery in Paloch, located in the oil-rich Upper Nile region, is to reduce the cost of crude oil transport.

"So we have the source, we will refine it right near the sources, and from there we will find the market. One market is obvious is South Sudan, next door is Ethiopia, Sudan and the surrounding countries are the potential market," he said.

Mdeza said the company would seek ways to partner with banks to finance the construction of the project, adding that it will be a combination of a loan and a company investment.

He said the 40,000 barrel per day refinery will supply the east African region with refined petroleum by-products. Enditem
Anyone who grasps basic economics understands why an influx of foreign workers depresses wages. A larger pool of workers means employers can pay less. Various studies have found that a 10 percent increase in the size of a labor pool causes up to a 5 percent decrease in wages.

Ethnographic studies confirm that businesses prefer immigrants over native workers. In interviews, managers express the view that immigrants complain less about working conditions and are more willing to complete repetitive tasks. These discriminatory hiring preferences pose a problem for the 35 percent of Montanans who are over 25 years old and have a high school diploma, a GED, or less.

Meanwhile, Montanans have a clear choice on immigration in the Senate election this year.

When he was Montana's attorney general, Democrat Steve Bullock opposed a state law that would have denied government jobs and assistance to illegal immigrants. And  glaringly  as governor in 2013 and 2019, Bullock vetoed Legislature-passed bills that would have prevented Montana cities and counties from declaring themselves sanctuaries for illegal immigrants.
Carolyn Strom, left, arrives at the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan in Regina, Saskatchewan on September 17, 2019. Strom was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses Association in 2016 and handed the financial penalty. That ruling was reversed on Oct. 6, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Michael Bell)

Appeal Court Quashes Fine Against Saskatchewan Nurse Who Made Critical Facebook Post

Saskatchewans highest court has overruled a disciplinary decision and $26,000 fine levied against a nurse who criticized her grandfathers care on Facebook.

The Court of Appeal quashed the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses Associations finding of professional misconduct against Carolyn Strom, a registered nurse from Prince Albert, Sask.

A few weeks after her grandfathers death in 2015, Strom wrote on Facebook that some unnamed staff at his long-term care facility in Macklin, Sask., were not up to speed on delivering end-of-life care.

The associations lawyer argued that Strom personally attacked an identifiable group without attempting to get all the facts about her grandfathers care.

Justice Brian Barrington-Foote wrote in his decision that Stroms freedom of expression was infringed and she had a right to criticize the care her grandfather received.

The judge ruled that criticism of the health care system is in the public interest and when it comes from frontline workers it can bring positive change.
Justice Minister Naomi Long has said she will not pre-empt the decision of the Northern Ireland Policing Board on whether to remove Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly from the public body after he posted a tweet celebrating the anniversary of the Maze Prison escape.

The Sinn Fein MLA, who currently sits on the Policing Board, was one of 38 IRA inmates who escaped from the Maze Prison in 1983.

Mr Kelly described the breakout in a tweet last week as "one of Big Bob's best ops", referring to the late senior republican Bobby Storey.

"I had the privilege of the front passenger seat. Well someone had to check we were taking the right route out," he wrote.

Read More

UUP MLA Mike Nesbitt, who also sits on the board, later wrote to Justice Minister Naomi Long asking her to remove Mr Kelly.

Mrs Long, in a letter responding to Mr Nesbitt's complaint, said: "I said at the weekend that I found Mr Kelly's comments both offensive and thoroughly inappropriate, and I have asked that he reaffirm his commitment to non-violence and exclusively peaceful and democratic means, consistent with his responsibilities both as a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board and as a Member of the Legislative Assembly. "

Mrs Long said members of the Policing Board are expected to abide by a code of conduct.

She said that if there is a breach or allegation of the code, it should be referred in the first instance to the vice chair of the board for informal resolution.

Read More

She added: "If informal resolution is not appropriate or does not prove possible the matter is referred to the Chair for consideration. I understand that process is underway."

Mr Nesbitt said he believed it was Mrs Long's "duty" to remove Mr Kelly from the Policing Board "with immediate effect".

Mrs Long said it would not be appropriate for her to offer a view until this process is exhausted.

Mr Kelly later tweeted: "There has been big reaction to my tweet on the 1983 H Block escape. There are opposing views of legacy events. I am proud of being part of the biggest escape in British penal history, in wake of the British systemic brutality of prisoners and deaths of 10 comrades on Hunger Strike."

During the escape prison officer James Ferris died of a heart attack after being stabbed while attempting to stop the breakout. Another officer survived being shot in the head.
Columbia  supporting seafarer mental health

Columbia Shipmanagement is providing seafarers and office staff with access to a remote counselling service  and also recognising the importance that good technical management, and good social life onboard, can have to how seafarers feel in these difficult times.

Columbia Shipmanagement, one of the worlds largest ship management companies, based in Cyprus, is providing its seafarers and office staff with a free 24 hour remote counselling service, where they can talk through any worries they have, and also mental health concerns. More broadly, the company recognises there are many factors which can support good seafarer mental wellbeing, including a strong company culture, good organisation, communications with senior managers, as well as good nutrition and focus for socialising onboard. Counselling service The counselling service is provided by a Hamburg based company called Mental Health Support and Solutions (MHSS), which specialises in maritime mental health. Seafarers can use the service 24 hours a day, talking to a counsellor via phone, e-mail or WhatsApp. The service is offered free of charge to all shipboard and offshore personnel. Support is also available in common seafarer languages, via a network of psychologists. Posters have been placed on ships encouraging people to use the hotline, with messages such as you are not alone, we are here for you. Videos have been created for the crew explaining what the service is for and how they can take advantage of it. Providing access to a counsellor is something fairly new for seafarers, says Captain Faouzi Fradi, group Director of Training at Columbia. People have had access to remote medical advice for many years, but that is not the same thing. In many cases, having someone to talk to about an issue is the most useful part of the service, says Charles Watkins, clinical psychologist with MHSS. People do not need to give their name or the name of the vessel. They can be provided with mental health tips, or a counsellor can talk through their feelings and explain that they are normal. Seafarers can be asked what would make them feel better. They can be encouraged to speak to family and friends, and also consider if there is someone who has helped them in the past, in a relationship which can be reactivated. Encouraging them to talk to someone is the best advice, Mr Watkins says. Seafarers might be encouraged to connect more with people onboard. Sometimes the availability of internet communication can discourage people onboard from talking to each other. The counselling can re-emphasise the value of face to face communication, he says. One of the toughest aspects of the Covid period was difficulties changing seafarers on a vessel, which meant that many seafarers were staying onboard longer than they had anticipated. You were looking forward to going home on a certain date and now it is pushed back. Having a stay prolonged is one of the hardest issues for seafarers to handle, Captain Fradi says. While the company may not be able to do much when crew are unable to leave a vessel, the counselling service can help. It is about having the possibility to talk about these things  the anger, sadness, depression, having the ability to get it all out, Mr Watkins says. It is about understanding where these things may come from, helping them get a grasp of what is going on. It is helping them to normalise, bring helpful tips that they may not have thought of.

Suicide One of the toughest issues to deal with onboard is when someone is thought to be a suicide risk. In this case, whoever has the concerns is able to contact the counselling service to talk it through. It is easy to handle the situation in the wrong way at both extremes, Mr Watkins says. Sometimes such behaviour is thought of as a short-lived emotional outburst which does not warrant further concern. At the other extreme, masters may take drastic action to prevent someone from having any capability to harm themselves. If the issue is discussed with a counsellor, it is a type of crisis management. Theres a lot of different scenarios, Mr Watkins says. You need to assess if there is a current danger of someone harming themselves, or maybe you just need to take a tactical step, removing sharp objects from the persons reach. Once the captain realises theres a threat, we work closely together to make sure the person is getting every help they can. Socialising onboard As a former captain, Captain Fradi says he still misses the environment and ambience onboard. Apart of the heavy workload it can be very relaxing as well, with people having plenty of time to themselves, he says. On large tankers particularly, the accommodation space is comfortable and cabins are good. The standards in the whole industry have improved significantly. But alcohol, which in former times would have been a good social lubricant, is typically banned or highly restricted on vessels today. As a replacement for providing a social focus, shipping companies often provide gym or sport equipment. Providing better food, and running cooking competitions, also gives crew a focus for socialising, Columbia works with Christian Ioannou, Managing Director, of an international maritime catering management and training consultancy called MCTC, which both supplies food and provides training for cooks onboard. Things like cooking contests, or newsletters that seafarers write, [support] open communication where ideas are shared, Mr Watkins says. The culture is lived through how you communicate, the ability to know what everyone is doing. Everyone is on the same page. Everyone feels appreciated and valued. A better social atmosphere onboard also means that seafarers are more likely to spot if someone else is having mental health difficulties. It is hard to see psychological problems if people dont talk to each other, Captain Fradi says.

Four pillars More broadly, Captain Fradi sees four pillars for maintaining a healthy atmosphere onboard - good technical management, supporting wellbeing onboard, support for mental health (described above), and training. In terms of good technical management, seafarers are happier in general if there are robust management systems and procedures, all the necessary spare parts are available, and there is a well-regulated onboard routine, which people can get used to. Seafarers can get familiar with the company policies, and understand how they fit the company culture. The training provided to seafarers includes advising people on how to help their own mental health. We have sent a lot of training materials, in the form of videos and computer based training, to all our seafarers to prepare them for this [Covid] crisis, he says. Communication with the company is very useful. The company president personally makes short videos every week, separately for seafarers and office staff, giving them an update on the global situation and what Columbia is doing to help make crew changes. One video had over 30,000 views, Captain Fradi says. This was extremely helpful for the whole staff to get through this pandemic. All company top management and directors regularly call ships for a chat with the master, and other staff are also encouraged to talk to the crew. Communication will be the key word in this crisis.




Hundreds of mourners have bid farewell to independent Russian journalist Irina Slavina, who died after setting herself on fire in an apparent reaction to investigators trying to tie her to an opposition group and what's been described as years of harassment by authorities. Before her suicide in front of the police headquarters in Nizhniy Novgorod on October 2, Slavina wrote on Facebook, "Blame the Russian Federation for my death."
A retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer arrested in connection with a police job recruitment scam in Assam was on Wednesday sent to six days of police custody by a city court.

PK Dutta, who retired as deputy inspector general of police (DIG), was nabbed from Kakarbhitta on the Indo-Nepal border on Tuesday and brought to Guwahati by road. The former police officer, who had been absconding for nearly two weeks, was hiding in Nepal.

We knew Dutta was hiding in Nepal and informed the Union home ministry about it. Accordingly, we laid a trap for him and Dutta fell into it, GP Singh, ADGP (law and order), told journalists on Wednesday.

Dutta, who was rought to Guwahati by road in the early hours of Wednesday, was produced before the court of chief judicial magistrate which remanded him to the custody of the criminal investigation department (CID) of police for six days.

Before being produced in court, the former police officer was taken to Mahendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital (MMCH) where a rapid antigen test for Covid-19 was conducted. He tested negative for the virus.

Dutta, who reportedly suffers from some heart ailment, was later taken to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital (GMCH) where some tests were conducted before he was sent to CID custody.

Dutta and a ruling BJP leader Diban Deka are prime accused in the police sub-inspector recruitment scam. The written exam to select 597 SIs was postponed last month after the question paper got leaked. Deka (who has since been expelled by the party) was arrested earlier and is in police custody.

Dutta and Deka are suspected to have fleeced many candidates for the exam for sub inspectors of police by assuring them jobs in lieu of cash. Deka is alleged to have procured the question paper ahead of the written test.

Police investigation has revealed that a day ahead of the test on September 20, many candidates had taken a mock exam in a Guwahati hotel. Nearly 70 of these candidates were staying at one of the five hotels Dutta owns in Guwahati.

Police had issued look out circulars for both Dutta and Deka and alerted income tax department, enforcement directorate and department of revenue intelligence after unearthing many properties belonging to the for IPS officer.

We questioned Dutta for a bit after he was brought to Guwahati. The nexus of how the job recruitment scam would be revealed based on his further interrogation, said Singh.

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Her popular intimates brand SKIMS is releasing its highly anticipated 'Waffle' collection tomorrow morning.

And Kim Kardashian treated her 189million Instagram followers to some behind-the-scenes footage from the collection's quirky breakfast-themed photoshoot on Tuesday.

In the brief clips, the 39-year-old KUWTK star can be seen dousing stacks of homemade waffles with gooey maple syrup.

Diner babe: Kim Kardashian treated her 189million Instagram followers to some behind-the-scenes footage from the quirky breakfast-themed photoshoot she did for her upcoming SKIMS line on Tuesday

Kim and her creative team put together a diner set that looked straight out of the 1970s from its leather burgundy toned booth to the tiles on the walls.

Kardashian's 5foot3inch frame was surrounded by plates that featured giant stacks of delicious looking waffles.

The tallest waffle stack measured approximately 11 waffles high and each were topped with a slab of butter.

As the shoot's photographer clicked away at his camera, Kim lifted the classic syrup dispenser from the table and channeled her inner diner babe as she poured.

Super sweet: In the brief clips, the 39-year-old KUWTK star can be seen dousing stacks of homemade waffles with gooey maple syrup

Retro: Kim and her creative team put together a diner set that looked straight out of the 1970s from its leather burgundy toned booth to the tiles on the walls

In conjunction with the retro set, the KKW Beauty founder looked straight out of Boogie Nights with her large orange tinted shades and dramatic gold hoop earrings.

Her lengthy raven hair was parted down the middle and styled using a hair crimper in order to achieve a more textured look.

She slipped her famous curves into the Waffle scoop bra and Waffle joggers in the shade Ochre.

To finish off her photoshoot ensemble, Kardashian layered a few fold chains around her neck and sported some dramatic false nails.

Own best advert: She slipped her famous curves into the Waffle scoop bra and Waffle joggers in the shade Ochre

Nailed it: As the shoot's photographer clicked away at his camera, Kim lifted the classic syrup dispenser from the table and channeled her inner diner babe

She credited her makeup artist Ariel for crafting her glamorous look for the photoshoot.

Kim first unveiled the Waffle collection on Saturday by releasing the expertly edited photoshoot stills on her Instagram page.

'COMING SOON: @SKIMS WAFFLE  new, ultra-soft brushed waffle loungewear designed for stay-at-home style and comfort. Launching in 4 colors and in sizes XXS - 4X,' captioned the wife of Kanye West.

The collection is set to go live on the official SKIMS website at 9AM PT / 12PM ET on October 7.

Waffle: Kim first unveiled the Waffle collection on Saturday by releasing the expertly edited photoshoot stills on her Instagram page; Kim pictured on Saturday

Coming right up: 'COMING SOON: @SKIMS WAFFLE  new, ultra-soft brushed waffle loungewear designed for stay-at-home style and comfort. Launching in 4 colors and in sizes XXS - 4X,' captioned the wife of Kanye West

Earlier in the day, Kim uploaded a sultry snapshot to her Instagram that showed her posing in her closet, while wearing a colorful sleeveless top and a sexy leather skirt.

Behind her could be seen rows and rows of garments arranged in color-coordinated sections.

Some pieces lay on the floor as the reality star clearly had a couple of outfit changes before deciding on the one that was Instagram-worthy.

When she is not orchestrating her next big launch or curating the latest fashion trends, Kim is busy tending to husband Kanye West, 43, and their four children, North, seven, Saint, four, Chicago, two, and Psalm, one.

Fashionista: Earlier in the day, Kim uploaded a sultry snapshot to her Instagram that showed her posing in her closet, while wearing a colorful sleeveless top and a sexy leather skirt

In a recently published interview with GRAZIA, Kardashian opened up about how 'scary' it was single-handedly aiding Kanye's COVID-19 recovery back in March.

'Kanye had it way at the beginning, when nobody really knew what was going on,' she explained in the interview published Monday.

'It was so scary and unknown. I had my four babies and no-one else in the house to help.'

Kardashian said that he had tested positive around the same time that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson revealed that they had it in mid-March.

Mom duty: When she is not orchestrating her next big launch or curating the latest fashion trends, Kim is busy tending to husband Kanye West, 43, and their four children, North, seven, Saint, four, Chicago, two, and Psalm, one; Kim and family pictured on Sunday

However, during his infamous Forbes interview from July, Kanye revealed that he had it in February.

Regardless of the timetable, Kim stepped up to the plate to take care of her ailing husband.

She explained: 'I had to go and change his sheets and help him get out of bed when he wasnt feeling good. It was a challenge because it was so unknown.

'Changing his sheets with gloves and a face shield was really a scary time.'
KYODO NEWS - Oct 8, 2020 - 04:50 | All, World, Japan

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday that it has charged two alleged Islamic State militant fighters with terrorism offenses relating to the hostage-taking and killings of four Americans, as well as nationals of Britain and Japan, in Syria.

Former British citizens Alexanda Kotey, 36, and El Shafee Elsheikh, 32, have been leading participants in an Islamic State hostage-taking cell dubbed "The Beatles" -- a name their captives gave them because of their British accents and their history together in Britain -- from 2012 to 2015, according to the indictment.

The victims of the Islamic States' campaign of beheadings and other acts of violence included two Japanese, journalist Kenji Goto, 47, and Haruna Yukawa, 42, whose decapitated bodies were shown in images online in 2015.

According to the indictment, the two and their ringleader Mohammed Emwazi, a since-killed militant known as "Jihadi John," allegedly took part in hostage-taking that resulted in the deaths of four American citizens and conspired to murder them outside the United States.

They also allegedly conspired to provide material support or resources to terrorists, knowing they were to be used for hostage-taking and murder, the indictment said, adding that the offence resulted in the deaths of U.S., British and Japanese nationals.

"Kotey and Elsheikh engaged in a prolonged pattern of physical and psychological violence against the hostages," according to the indictment. The two were captured in 2018 by the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces.

The case is being investigated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the two are now in FBI custody, according to the Justice Department.

If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum penalty of life in prison, according to the department.

Emwazi, a British citizen born in Kuwait who allegedly beheaded American, British and Japanese citizens, was killed in a U.S. military airstrike in 2015 in Syria, the indictment said.

The other British citizen known for being part of "The Beatles" is currently incarcerated in Turkey after being convicted on a terrorism-related offense there, it said.

In the hostage crisis involving Japanese citizens, Islamic State threatened in January 2015 to kill Yukawa and Goto unless Japan paid a ransom of $200 million, and eventually killed both men.

A few days before the crisis erupted, then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had pledged $200 million for countries struggling against Islamic State during his Middle East tour.
Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was released from a Minnesota correctional facility after posting bond.

CBS Minnesota reports he left the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Oak Park Heights Wednesday morning to be transferred to another facility to post bail.

Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter in George Floyds death on May 25 following public outcry at video showing Chauvin kneeling on Floyds neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, even after Floyd became unresponsive.

His death set off a wave of protests nationwide.

Chauvin and three other officers involved were fired in days following Floyds death.

The other officers - J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao - were charged with aiding and abetting.

Chauvin was ordered held on bail in June, raised from $500,000 when a second-degree murder charge was added.

His bail was set at $1.25 million or $1 million with conditions, CBS Minnesota reports.

Amidst national attention on Chauvin as the result of Floyds death, Chauvin and his wife, Kellie, were charged with nine counts of felony tax evasion.

The couple failed to report hundreds of thousands in income, according to the complaint.

Kellie Chauvin filed for divorce at the end of May.

Through her attorney, Kellie Chauvin said she is devastated by the death of George Floyd and expressed her sympathy to his family, with his loved ones and with everyone who is grieving.

The couple were married for a decade.
The West Bengal government on Wednesday denied permission to BJP Yuva Morcha's 'March to Nabanna' (the secretariat) a day ahead of the protest programme, citing the Pandemic Act and said that peaceful and democratic rallies within "permissible parameters" of only 100 people will be allowed. The home department in a communication to BJP Yuva Morcha state general secretary Gobinda Ray and Prakash Das said the rally, slated to be held on Thursday, will not be allowed to march up to the secretariat as it will violate Section 144 Cr PC in force there.

To the Morcha's letter seeking permission for four rallies by more than 25,000 youths each for the mega march, the communciation signed by the special secretary to the home department said "This is not permissible in the pandemic situation". "You are probably also aware that Section 144 of Cr PC is in force in and around Nabanna. Therefore, we request you kindly to help us in providing you necessary help for peaceful and democratic rallies, within allowed parameters, within the rules of law and not headed to a destination where Section 144 of Cr PC would be violated," the government's letter said.

"We welcome all peaceful and democratic rallies having specific destinations where Section 144 of Cr PC and other provisions of the rule of law are not violated," it stated. As per the rules laid down by the ministry of home affairs, political congregations have been permitted with a ceiling of 100 people, outside containment zones only.

The letter was sent just hours after the TMC government announced that the state secretariat will be shut for two consecutive days from October 8 for "sanitization purpose". West Bengal BJP Yuva Morcha had announced in September its programme to hold the protest march to the secretariat on October 8 against the alleged worsening law and order situation and the issue of corruption under the TMC government in the state.

The government letter to the Morcha also cited the recent Supreme Court order regarding protest and occupation of sites and public spaces and public ways. It also pointed out the National Disaster Management Act, which has banned gatherings and political rallies by more than 100 people due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Reacting to the letter, BJP state president DilipGhosh said these are merely "excuses" to stop BJP and its cadres.

"The Pandemic Act comes into force only when BJP plans to conduct any rally or programme. When TMC conducts rallies and meetings, no rules are applicable. The people of the state are very well aware of the double standards of TMC," Ghosh said. Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee had led a rally in the city on Saturday against the Hathras rape and murder and alleged torture of Dalits by BJP.
A dissident republican group linked to the New IRA killers of Lyra McKee has been criticised for invading a branch of Santander bank in Londonderry.

Video footage on social media showed members of the group both inside and outside the bank on the city's Diamond on Tuesday afternoon.

Some of those involved wore balaclavas while others carried placards as one member addressed staff and customers inside on a loud speaker.

In a statement, Saoradh representative Paddy Gallagher described the PSNI Chief Constable Simon Byrne as the "English commander of the occupation forces".

He said: "This direct action was taken in response to Santander being complicit in the MI5 and Crown Force targeting of working class people by freezing their accounts and restricting access to meagre benefits at the behest of the sinister British intelligence agency and British Crown Forces.

"Over the past 12 months, republican activists have faced the wrath of British Military Intelligence, British Crown Forces and every agency that they have weaponised.

"This includes banks, like Santander, who are willingly allowing themselves to be used as pawns by the British state.

"This is an ongoing tactic that has seen countless republicans across Ireland targeted in such a manner that it threatens the livelihood of their children and families. This ploy of freezing, restricting and then closing the bank accounts of republicans is part and parcel of those same tactics which are strategic and directed."

He added: "While the old tactics of political policing, draconian legislation and felon setting have continued unabated, these new tools have been directed at activists and their families to literally starve them into submission; much like the banks themselves by way of their capitalist interests and slavery via debt.

"Santander and other banks under the control of MI5 have underestimated the republican family. Everyone who has faced these attacks has received support from Saoradh and will continue to do so."

Foyle DUP MLA Gary Middleton criticised the action: "Not only did these individuals disrupt the business of the bank, but their comments would appear to be a threat against anyone working for Santander.

"It is clear this group are determined to reassert themselves again within Londonderry following a quiet period after the murder of Lyra McKee. It is vital there is a united community response against this group and anyone who supports their warped agenda.

"The police must investigate this incident to identify those involved and bring forward charges for any breaches of the law identified," he added.

A PSNI spokesperson said that police were aware of the protest but added that there had been no complaints.

Attempts to contact Santander for comment proved unsuccessful.

Saoradh is regarded as the political wing of the New IRA, which was behind the murder of journalist Lyra McKee during street disorder in April 2019.

The 29-year-old was shot as she observed street disorder in the city's Creggan area.
Artist Shepard Fairey Supports Indie Venues With NIVA Flood Magazine Covers

Noted artist Shepard Fairey and Flood Magazine have partnered for a special Action Issue of the popular culture and arts magazine that will support the National Independent Venue Association and its emergency fund.

The 160 page special issue, which is reminiscent of a coffee table book features contributions from guest editors, artists, photographers, organizers, and creators including Shepard Fairey, H.E.R., Cordae, David Byrne, Vic Mensa, Michael Stipe, Patti Smith, Nicholas Braun, Flaming Lips, Rain Phoenix, Dem Jointz, Dinner Party (Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, 9th Wonder, Terrace Martin), Danny Clinch, Michael Lavine, and more.

The issue includes interviews with the organizers of voter advocacy organizations Rock The Vote and HeadCount, discussions about the coronavirus crisis being faced by independent venue owners across America, and more.

As independent-culture focused journalists, it is important to tell the stories that may not be told by mainstream media, resulting in a large part of the country remaining unaware of the indelible contributions many creators in the arts are making in an attempt to help make things better in their communities, raise awareness on troubling issues, and a myriad of national and global causes in between, said Randy Bookasta, Co-Publisher and Editorial Director of FlOOD Magazine. We thank Shepard Fairey for his support in helping us to elevate awareness of the voices, actions and initiatives of the creators featured in this special issue.

Fairey, who launched the OBEY clothing line, designed three special covers for the action issue of the magazine. Fairey will select one of those covers to reproduce as a limited autographed art print that will be sold to help raise funds for NIVA with 100% of the proceeds from the poster art prints dedicated to the cause.

I was honored to create this issue of FLOODs cover art, which is meant to inspire action and hope for the future. Ive been a longtime fan of the magazine, and in the spirit of making the future, I also felt it was important to help #SaveOurStages by donating to the NIVA Emergency Relief Fund. Music is the heartbeat of my work, it inspires me daily both sonically and lyrically. We can all remember the shows that shaped us, and the spaces where we experienced them, and I urge you to do what you can to support our independent venues so that many more generations can find their space too. Thanks for caring, and get your copy of FLOOD NOW!, said Shepard Fairey.

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Seoul-Tokyo accord should be starting point to mend ties



It is welcome Seoul and Tokyo have agreed to adopt fast-track procedures to allow businesspeople to travel between the two countries. The new measure, effective from today, permits them to enter Korea or Japan without being subject to the mandatory two-week quarantine to prevent the spread of COVID-19.



The steps are meaningful in that travel between Korea and Japan has virtually been suspended since March when Japan prohibited the entry of foreign nationals as a precaution against the coronavirus pandemic. Seoul took countermeasures, virtually blocking the entry of Japanese nationals. We hope the recent move will pave the way for the two countries to expand exchanges and mend soured relations in the near future.



Though businesspeople will be exempted from the compulsory 14-day quarantine, they will need to submit a package of documents including a guarantee from their company, a negative COVID-19 test undergone in the previous 72 hours and a travel plan. They must have a coronavirus test upon arrival in Japan and shuttle between their lodgings and workplace in a designated car.



Those wishing to stay in Japan for more than 90 days will, however, be quarantined on their return to Korea. But they can be exempted from the quarantine procedure if they get visas for special purposes such as for correspondents.



It is encouraging the two nations agreed to ease quarantine restrictions amid the resurgent coronavirus pandemic. Both Seoul and Tokyo have been suffering setbacks due to the travel restrictions as they mutually rely on each other as major trading partners.



The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), the mouthpiece of Korean conglomerates, issued a statement Tuesday welcoming the agreement. "We expect the agreement will facilitate the exchanges of businesspeople between the two countries at a time when they are undergoing difficulties from the coronavirus." It expressed hope that the two countries will move forward toward future-oriented relations, prompted by the recent accord.



Last year the number of Koreans who visited Japan for business purposes stood at 310,000, demonstrating the significance of the Japanese market. Japan lifted the travel restriction on Korean businesspeople after it did so for Singaporeans, indicating it has been eager to promote economic cooperation with Korea.



Yet, it is premature to believe the current move will lead to a full-fledged recovery of bilateral relations anytime soon. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has maintained a hardline stance over pending issues between the two countries. For instance, he has repeatedly said he would make no concessions regarding the compensation for surviving South Korean victims of wartime forced labor during the Japanese occupation of Korea.



Despite Suga's firm stance, expectation has been growing that bilateral relations will enter a new phase with the new prime minister who succeeded Shinzo Abe. Abe had been criticized for having plunged Seoul-Tokyo ties to their lowest point with his misuse of bilateral tension for political gain. It is time for the two countries to explore ways to mend relations and resolve thorny history-related issues. We expect the eased travel restrictions will be a starting point for better relations.




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The number of Covid-19 hospital admissions in England has soared by 25 per cent in a day, government data has revealed.

In another blow to hopes the virus is being brought under control, NHS figures show there were 478 new hospital admissions in England on Sunday  the most recent day figures are available for. For comparison, the figure for Saturday was 386.

It also represents a four-month high, the likes of which have not been seen since June 3, when it was 491. Data also revealed the number of people on ventilators is on the rise, from 259 a week ago to 349 on Sunday.

But while hospital admissions have increased, figures show hospital admission figures are still low in some areas, such as the south of England. And the number of people dying in hospital of the virus remains much lower than at the start of the pandemic.

On October 2, the latest date with hospital figures for the whole of the UK, there were 2,481 patients with Covid-19. However the number of deaths over the same period was 33 - equivalent to 1.3 per cent. On March 21, two days before the country went into lockdown, there were three hundred less people, but 131 deaths - 6.3 per cent death rate.

Improvements in treatment and a greater protection of the most vulnerable have been suggested as two major factors.

The latest surging statistics come as coronavirus cases continue to rise in the UK, with 14,542 new cases recorded yesterday  meaning the number of people testing positive for Covid-19 every day has tripled in a fortnight.

Last Tuesday's data, which would normally be used to measure how much the UK's outbreak has grown in the last week, is unreliable due to a catastrophic counting error at Public Health England. It means Tuesday September 22 is the most recent point of reference  there were just 4,926 cases on that date.

The extraordinary meltdown  caused by an Excel problem in outdated software at PHE  meant almost 16,000 cases went missing between September 25 and October 2, meaning the scale of the escalating crisis was vastly underestimated last week.

Health chiefs recorded 12,594 coronavirus cases the day before, which was also triple the figure of 4,368 recorded a fortnight earlier. The rolling seven-day average of daily cases  considered a more accurate measure because it takes into account day-to-day fluctuations  has also risen by a similar amount over the same time frame.

Another 76 coronavirus deaths were also recorded yesterday, up 7 per cent on last week's 71 fatalities and more than double the number of victims posted the Tuesday before, when there were 35. Data also shows the rolling seven-day average number of daily deaths is 53, up from a record-low of seven in mid-August.

Although the curves are clearly trending the wrong way, the number of Covid-19 deaths and infections are still a far-cry from levels seen during the darkest days of the pandemic in spring, when more than 1,000 patients were dying and at least 100,000 Britons were catching the disease every day.

Official NHS data shows there were 478 new hospital admissions in England on Sunday - the most recent day figures are available for. The figure is 25 per cent increase on Saturday's data, when 386 people were admitted the hospital with Covid-19. It also represents a four-month high, the likes of which have not been seen since June 3, when the figure was 491.

Government data shows that the North West and North East and Yorkshire are the only regions to have seen a sustained and sharp increase in people being admitted to hospital (line graphs show daily hospital admissions between April and October). All regions saw a rise in cases, hospitalisations and deaths in September as people returned to offices and schools after the summer, but across most of the country these have since come under control

The spiralling statistics come amid fears the UK could face draconian new lockdown measures within days under plans for a local 'Covid alert' system. Health Secretary Matt Hancock is expected to unveil details of the three-tier set-up as early as Thursday in an attempt to make the existing patchwork of restrictions easier to understand.

Government sources said the top tier would include tougher restrictions than those currently applied to millions of people living across the North and Midlands. A planned 'traffic light' system of measures will be redesigned after PHE's Excel bungle revealed that the virus was spreading much faster than previously thought in cities like Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield. Ministers will meet in the coming days to thrash out exactly how far to go.

Cities including Sheffield, Oxford and Nottingham are seemingly at risk of harsher restrictions as Boris Johnson tries to get a grip on local flare-ups. Options include the closure of pubs, restaurants and cinemas, a ban on social mixing outside household groups, and restrictions on overnight stays. Sources refused to rule out the possibility that some towns and cities could be placed immediately into the top tier, despite the fact that death rates remain low.

Meanwhile, separate official statistics show the UK's coronavirus death toll has spiked for the third week in a row. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)  a Government-run agency  revealed there were 215 victims in the week ending September 25 in England and Wales, up 55 per cent on the 139 deaths recorded the previous week and more than double the 99 posted a fortnight ago.

But, despite the climbing death toll, analysis shows the numbers of people being admitted to hospital with Covid-19 have levelled off in huge areas of England as data suggests the country is being dragged into panic by an out-of-control outbreak in the north.

In London, the South East and the South West  home to around half of the country's population of 55million  daily admissions appear to be plateauing after rising in line with cases during September from a low point over the summer. However, admissions are still accelerating in the North West, North East and Yorkshire, where new local lockdowns are springing up every week and positive tests are spiralling to record numbers.

Britain has recorded 14,542 more coronavirus cases as the number of people testing positive for the virus every day triples in a fortnight

Another 76 deaths were also recorded today which is more than double the number of victims posted last Tuesday, when there were 35 fatalities

Coronavirus cases in Scotland have been rising sharply since the beginning of September and Nicola Sturgeon has refused to rule out closing pubs and restaurants in hotspot areas or banning people from leaving cities and towns with high infection rates

How do regional outbreaks compare to a fortnight ago? Almost every region in the UK has seen coronavirus cases spiral in the last fortnight, Department of Health data shows. Like today, the North West recorded the highest number of infections on September 22, logging 1,896 positives from samples taken that day. For comparison, today it reported 4,441 cases  but not all of these occurred in the last 24 hours. The exact amount of infections that occurred today won't be known for at least five days because of a recording lag. The most recent up-to-date specimen date figure for the North West was 3,303 on October 1. Despite recording fewer cases on both dates, Yorkshire and the Humber has suffered one of the highest increases over the same period. The region had 721 infections two weeks ago but logged 2,437 today  a rise of 238 per cent. Only Northern Ireland has experienced a steeper rise in cases than Yorkshire, though total cases are still relatively low. Some 176 people tested positive on September 22 compared to 669 today  a rise of 280 per cent. Meanwhile, the rate at which the outbreak in the West Midlands is growing is somewhat slower than most parts of the UK. The region had 611 new positive tests on September 22, compared to 1,059 today, a rise of 73 per cent, one of the smallest jumps in that time. Only Wales has seen a less incremental rise (12 per cent). London and the North East of England were experiencing similar levels of infection on September 22, with 540 and 538 cases, respectively. But the North East has overtaken the capital in the 14 days since, suffering 1,233 cases today compared to Londons 916. The South East and South West  which have been relatively unscathed during the crisis  are both seeing case rates more than double. The former recorded 285 infections on September 22 and 659 today, while the latter saw cases climb from 161 to 401. A similar picture is playing out in Scotland, where infections have risen from 497 to 800 in a fortnight. REGION East Midlands East of England London North East North West South East South West West Midlands Yorks & the Humber Scotland Wales Northern Ireland CASES TODAY/SEP 22 888/286 492/218 916/540 1,233/538 4,441/1,896 659/285 401/161 1,059/611 2,437/721 800/497 425/379 669/176 The Department of Health says there was 14,542 cases reported today. Health chiefs have yet to reveal exactly when these cases were diagnosed but most will have occurred in the past four days. The figures for September 22 are based on specimen date, which is how many coronavirus samples taken on that day came back as positive. Specimen date figures lag by around five days because of a delay in analysing tests. National specimen date data shows around 13,000 cases are currently being spotted each day. Advertisement

In other coronavirus developments today:

Health Secretary Matt Hancock was hounded for claiming cancer patients will only be guaranteed treatment if Covid-19 stays 'under control';

Covid-19 deaths in England and Wales spiked by 55% with 215 victims last week - but are still only a fraction of the 8,800 recorded during the darkest seven-day spell of the crisis in April and account for just 2 per cent of fatalities from all causes;

Number 10 refused to rule out shutting pubs after Professor Lockdown Neil Ferguson warned it might be the only way to keep schools open;

All lectures for thousands of students at Manchester's two universities will be held online from tomorrow due to Covid, as 4,000 undergraduates have now tested positive for virus across UK;

The UK is heading for three-tier lockdown announcement this week, with the Prime Minister preparing a new system of regional rules with Liverpool and Newcastle on alert for tougher curbs;

Hospitalisations in the South are still only 6 per cent of levels seen at the peak but 30 per cent in the North, analysis shows.

The startling new figures came as Nicola Sturgeon announced new restrictions would be announced for Scotland tomorrow, to come into effect from Friday.

But the First Minister used her daily press conference to say the measures to be revealed at Holyrood would not amount to another full lockdown.

She said the new measures will not include travel restrictions on the whole country - though such restrictions may sometimes be necessary in 'hotspot' areas - and the public will not be asked to stay in their own homes.

Speaking at the daily briefing in Edinburgh, she said schools will not be closed 'wholly or even partially', and the Scottish Government will not 'shut down the entire economy' or 'halt the remobilisation of the NHS'.

'We are not proposing another lockdown at this stage,' Ms Sturgeon said. 'Not even on a temporary basis.'

Neil Ferguson - known as 'Professor Lockdown' - warned this morning that pubs could have to shut altogether in parts of England to keep schools open.

The Westminster government's Covid modelling guru said the extra cases added to the UK's tally after an Excel blunder painted a 'sobering' picture of the outbreak.

He said it was not clear that the government could contain the virus while keeping children in secondary schools - and suggested that the wider population will have to 'give up more' to maintain the education provision.

That could include shutting bars and restaurants altogether, as well as extending the October half-term for a two-week 'circuit breaker' lockdown to break transmission chains.

However, the problems the PM would face in pushing through such restrictions was laid bare with Conservatives threatening a bid to strike out the existing measures, including the Rule of Six and the 10pm closing time for pubs.

Asked if more restrictions are coming for Liverpool and Newcastle, the Prime minister's official spokesman said today: 'We keep the data under constant review by looking at a wide range of data in terms of the number of positive cases per 100,000 people, also the number of hospitalisations, the number of people who are moved into intensive care units and also sadly the number of deaths.

'We have always set out that if there is a need to go further on a local basis then we won't hesitate to do what is required to protect the NHS and protect lives.'

An NHS source revealed last night to the The Sun they had been told another Scottish lockdown was coming.

They added: 'We've been told to expect it from 7pm on Friday.' Figures published for the first time yesterday show 43 per cent of all cases across Scotland last week were in only two council areas - Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The truth about England's second wave of Covid-19: Hospitalisations are 6% of peak levels in the South but 30% in the North The numbers of people being admitted to hospital with Covid-19 have levelled off in huge areas of England as data suggests the country is being dragged into panic by an out-of-control outbreak in the north. In London, the South East and the South West  home to around half of the country's population of 55million  daily admissions appear to be plateauing after rising in line with cases during September from a low point over the summer. However, admissions are still accelerating in the North West, North East and Yorkshire, where new local lockdowns are springing up every week and positive tests are spiralling to record numbers. But as talk grows of a second national lockdown when winter hits, figures suggests the south faces being lumped under rules it doesn't need. The picture is more complex in the Midlands and the East of England  in the Midlands hospitalisations rose dramatically during September but there are signs they have peaked now, while admissions appear to still be rising slowly in the East, although at significantly lower levels than in the northern regions. Numbers of people in hospital in the worst affected areas have hit almost a third of what they were during the peak of the crisis in April, while in the south of the country they are still much lower at around six per cent. In the North West there are now an average of 107 people admitted to hospital with coronavirus every day, along with 94 per day in the North East. Both figures are the highest seen since May and do not show signs of slowing. For comparison, the rates at their peak for each region were around 2,900 and 2,600 per day, respectively. On the other hand in London, where officials are reportedly discussing tougher measures, there are just 34 admissions per day  down from an average 39 on September 25 and just 4.5 per cent of the level seen at the peak of the crisis in April. And in the South West, which has been least badly hit throughout the pandemic, just eight people are sent into hospital each day  six per cent of the peak number. Advertisement

It sparked renewed calls for Ms Sturgeon to avoid imposing draconian restrictions on parts of the country with low virus rates.

But a recent Government report warned there could be another 100,000 job losses by the end of the year.

Tim Allan, of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, said: 'Talk of a further blanket lockdown is unacceptable to Scottish businesses.

'It would damage consumer and business confidence, which have already taken an unprecedented economic hit throughout this crisis.

'Returning to national lockdown measures will take our economy back to square one - we simply cannot continue to keep switching the lights of the economy on and off. It risks not just jobs but the wellbeing of entire communities.

'Instead, we should focus on using the evidence we have to target problem areas.

'The data the Scottish Government now has is sophisticated and detailed and will show in which environments and geographical areas the virus is spreading.

'We know the virus will be with us for a long time. We must learn to manage it so we can carry on with our lives and protect livelihoods while keeping the risk of transmission as low as possible.'

New data published by Public Health Scotland puts five councils in the 'red alert' category as they have had more than 100 cases per 100,000 people over the past week: Glasgow, Edinburgh, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire and East Renfrewshire.

Out of Scotland's 32 council areas, 43.4 per cent of all cases were in only two, Glasgow and Edinburgh, between September 27 and October 3. In Glasgow, there were 1,224 cases - or 193 per 100,000 people - while in Edinburgh there were 750 cases, or 143 per 100,000.

There was not a single positive case in Orkney or Shetland. Moray had only five cases per 100,000, Aberdeenshire 14, Clackmannanshire 15, Perth and Kinross 20 and 26 in Angus.

Murdo Fraser, Tory MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, said: 'I don't believe there needs to be general nationwide restrictions when you see figures like this.

'We saw a local lockdown in Aberdeen when there was a recent spiking of cases there. If, as has been suggested, we see more restrictions introduced in coming days, then I feel it is essential that they are targeted at specific problem areas, instead of right across the country.'

Asked yesterday if blanket measures will be introduced, Ms Sturgeon said that would be one of the 'key considerations'.

She added: 'If we feel there are further restrictions needed, are they needed nationwide or are they needed on a local or regional basis? We haven't taken a decision on that.

The number of coronavirus deaths in England and Wales has spiked for the third week in a row, official figures show

Despite fatalities rising across the board, weekly deaths are still a fraction of what they was during the darkest days of the crisis, when there were 8,800 victims a week

Registered deaths involving Covid-19 increased in every region of England, except the East Midlands, where the weekly total fell from 14 to 11

There are still 750 more people dying in their houses than medics would expect at this time of year, highlighting the negative knock-on effect the pandemic is having on the nation's health

Cancer patients will only be guaranteed treatment if Covid-19 stays 'under control', Matt Hancock sensationally claims Cancer patients will only be guaranteed treatment if Covid-19 stays 'under control', Matt Hancock claimed today as he faced a roasting from MPs over an Excel spreadsheet blunder that has potentially led to tens of thousands of Britons being unaware they are infected with the virus. The Health Secretary claimed that it was 'critical for everybody to understand the best way to keep cancer services running is to suppress the disease', suggesting that hundreds of thousands of patients may face delays to planned surgery and chemotherapy, if the outbreak continues to spiral. Vital operations were cancelled and patients missed out on potentially life-saving therapy in the spring because tackling Covid-19 became the sole focus of the health service, instead of cancer and other cruel diseases. Almost 2.5million people missed out on cancer screening, referrals or treatment at the height of lockdown, even though the NHS was never overwhelmed  despite fears it would be crippled by the pandemic. Experts now fear the number of people dying as a result of delays triggered by the treatment of coronavirus patients could even end up being responsible for as many deaths as the pandemic itself. Surgeons have worriedly called for hospital beds to be 'ring-fenced' for planned operations during the pandemic, to avoid the upheaval of spring where patients faced a 'tsunami of cancellations' as the health service focused on battling coronavirus. But in the House of Commons today, Mr Hancock warned Covid-19 could once again disrupt cancer treatment and told MPs that controlling the virus would allow the NHS to 'recover the treatment that we need to for cancer and other killer diseases'. He said: 'Its critical for everybody to understand that the best way to keep cancer services running is to suppress the disease, and the more the disease is under control the more we can both recover and continue with cancer treatments. Advertisement

'Although we're seeing in West Central Scotland and in Lothian particularly high numbers of cases and levels of infection, it would be wrong to suggest we're not seeing rising infection in pretty much every part of the country. We are.' Ms Sturgeon said that on most days over the past week there have been cases in every mainland health board area, as well as some islands.

She added: 'There is a rising tide of infection across the country, albeit it is higher in some parts than in others.

'Part of our consideration about restrictions also requires us to take account of not just reacting to a problem that is there, but also are you wiser to take preventative action in areas where it might not look like there is as big a problem now, but if you act you can stop a problem developing.'

Meanwhile, parts of the UK - including a number of university cities - could be plunged into local lockdown within days after 'missed' Test and Trace data belatedly revealed soaring infection figures.

Cities including Sheffield and Oxford are among a dozen areas which have seen their coronavirus infection figures soar following the 'computer glitch', which meant 16,000 cases were missed off Public Health England's reporting system.

Residents in Nottingham, which has two universities, have reportedly been told to brace for lockdown measures, according to the Telegraph.

The city, which is home to Nottingham University and Nottingham Trent University, was previously not on the Government's Covid 'watch list'.

But the updated data reveals the city would have been one of the worst areas in the country last week when compared with the pre-adujsted figures.

The Department for Health insist the new figures do not impact its watch list or alter current restriction in the area, according to the paper.

It comes as new figures today revealed that cases are rocketing in some of the North's biggest cities.

Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle and Nottingham have all seen huge jumps, in some instances to a rate of 500 cases per 100,000 people.

That triggered a fresh round of frenzied speculation about tougher local lockdowns yesterday, with the threat of further restrictions later this week.

Manchester's weekly rate more than doubled to 2,927 in the week to October 2  equal to almost 530 cases per 100,000 people.

Liverpool was not far behind, with cases per 100,000 jumping from 306 to 487 in a week.

Cases in Sheffield almost trebled from just over 100 per 100,000 to 286. In Newcastle, the rate leapt from 268 to 435.

Many of the biggest rises are in cities with large student populations.

Following the revelation that almost 16,000 'missed' cases had been added to the system, infection rates spiralled in every authority of the country except four at the weekend  all of which were in the South. The cases have mostly been added to the North West of the country, with other areas in the North East and Midlands also hit badly

Manchester, now the Covid-19 hotspot in England, saw its infection rate - expressed as cases per 100,000 people - increase by 80 per cent from 289.4 on October 2 to 529.4 on October 5. Leeds infection rate increased by 112 per cent from 149.3 to 316.8 in the same period

Sheffield's rate shot up 160 per cent from 100.9 to 286.6. In Nottingham, East Midlands, the case rate jump up 3-fold, from 100.6 to 382.4

Scotland can be seen to have had increased infections that a lot of certain parts of England

Professor Lockdown warns pubs might close to save schools as PM faces Tory mutiny The government's Covid modelling guru today warned pubs could have to shut altogether to keep schools open - as Boris Johnson faces a Tory revolt against the 10pm curfew. Neil Ferguson - known as 'Professor Lockdown' - said the extra cases added to the UK's tally after an Excel blunder painted a 'sobering' picture of the outbreak. He said it was not clear that the government could contain the virus while keeping children in secondary schools - and suggested that the wider population will have to 'give up more' to maintain the education provision. That could include shutting bars and restaurants altogether, as well as extending the October half-term for a two-week 'circuit breaker' lockdown to break transmission chains. However, the problems the PM would face in pushing through such restrictions was laid bare with Conservatives threatening a bid to strike out the existing measures, including the Rule of Six and the 10pm closing time for pubs. Anger has been growing on the Tory benches over the government's refusal to exempt younger children from the Rule of Six - as happens in Scotland - while many believe that the curfew is causing more harm than good by fueling revelry on the streets and house parties. Advertisement

Mr Hancock said outbreaks on campuses would not necessarily lead to tougher restrictions for the wider community if they could be contained.

Meanwhile, Covid contact tracers were last night desperately trying to hunt down tens of thousands of potentially infectious Britons after the full impact of the IT blunder was laid bare.

Ministers admitted yesterday that officials had managed to get in touch with only half of the 16,000 left off the Government's daily tally of confirmed virus cases last week.

Estimates have suggested these people could have as many as 50,000 potentially infectious contacts needing to be traced and told to isolate.

The 697 positive cases confirmed yesterday across Scotland amounted to 12.8 per cent of newly tested patients. The number of people in hospital with the virus increased by eight, to 218, while those in intensive care remained unchanged at 22, and there were no new deaths.

Ms Sturgeon said there were more young people testing positive than at the start of the pandemic, but warned more older people had been catching the virus in recent weeks.

She said: 'This is a very important point, and actually one of the key points in our consideration of next steps in the days to come. It risks wellbeing of entire communities'

In the UK it is predicated that a number of university cities could be put into local lockdown days after a test and trace counting blunder rocked the infection logging system.

Cities including Sheffield, Leeds and Oxford are among a dozen areas which have seen their coronavirus infection figures soar following the 'computer glitch', which meant 16,000 cases were missed off Public Health England's reporting system.

Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle and Nottingham have all seen huge jumps, in some instances to a rate of 500 cases per 100,000 people.

That triggered a fresh round of frenzied speculation about tougher local lockdowns yesterday, with the threat of further restrictions later this week.

Manchester's weekly rate more than doubled to 2,927 in the week to October 2  equal to almost 530 cases per 100,000 people.

The truth about England's second wave of Covid-19: Hospitalisations are 6% of peak levels in the South but 30% in the North and deaths have flattened in all but the North West, North East and the Midlands

The numbers of people being admitted to hospital with Covid-19 have levelled off in huge areas of England as data suggests the country is being dragged into panic by an out-of-control outbreak in the north.

Covid-19 deaths in England and Wales spike by 55% with 215 victims last week The number of coronavirus deaths in England and Wales has spiked for the third week in a row, official figures show - as Britain recorded another 76 virus victims. Covid-19 was mentioned on 215 death certificates in the week that ended September 25, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This marked a 55 per cent rise in the 139 deaths recorded the previous week and more than double the 99 posted a fortnight ago. Just two of the 215 victims were under the age of 50, once again highlighting how the virus disproportionately preys on older people. Registered deaths involving Covid-19 increased in every region of England, except the East Midlands, where the weekly total fell from 14 to 11. Deaths were highest in the North West (60). Despite fatalities rising across the board, weekly deaths are still a fraction of what they were during the darkest days of the crisis, when there were 8,800 victims a week. And flu and pneumonia are still killing more than five times the amount of people as Covid-19, with 1,172 people passing from the respiratory illnesses in the last seven days. Meanwhile, there are still 750 more people dying in their houses than medics would expect at this time of year, highlighting the negative knock-on effect the pandemic is having on the nation's health. Experts say many people are still too scared to use the NHS for fear of catching Covid-19, while others don't want to be a burden on the health service. Hospitals are still scrambling to get services back up and running and cut down record waiting lists after months of operating at a fraction of their capacity. Advertisement

In London, the South East and the South West  home to around half of the country's population of 55million  daily admissions appear to be plateauing after rising in line with cases during September from a low point over the summer.

However, admissions are still accelerating in the North West, North East and Yorkshire, where new local lockdowns are springing up every week and positive tests are spiralling to record numbers. But as talk grows of a second national lockdown when winter hits, figures suggests the south faces being lumped under rules it doesn't need.

The picture is more complex in the Midlands and the East of England  in the Midlands hospitalisations rose dramatically during September but there are signs they have peaked now, while admissions appear to still be rising slowly in the East, although at significantly lower levels than in the northern regions.

Numbers of people in hospital in the worst affected areas have hit almost a third of what they were during the peak of the crisis in April, while in the south of the country they are still much lower at around six per cent.

In the North West there are now an average of 107 people admitted to hospital with coronavirus every day, along with 94 per day in the North East. Both figures are the highest seen since May and do not show signs of slowing. For comparison, the rates at their peak for each region were around 2,900 and 2,600 per day, respectively.

On the other hand in London, where officials are reportedly discussing tougher measures, there are just 34 admissions per day  down from an average 39 on September 25 and just 4.5 per cent of the level seen at the peak of the crisis in April. And in the South West, which has been least badly hit throughout the pandemic, just eight people are sent into hospital each day  six per cent of the peak number.

The same picture is true of the numbers of people dying of Covid-19. 171 of the 219 deaths recorded in the third week of September (78 per cent) all came from the three worst-hit regions  the North East, North West and the Midlands.

Statistics have shown that coronavirus cases appear to rise in most areas that get put under local lockdown measures, raising questions about how well they work at containing smaller outbreaks.

But Professor Neil Ferguson, whose work influenced the Government to start the first UK-wide lockdown in March, said today that the situation in Britain would 'probably be worse' if officials were not taking the whack-a-mole approach. He said there is still a risk that the NHS could become overwhelmed if cases aren't stopped  even if infections have started to come under control it can still take weeks for people to get sick enough to need hospital treatment.

The Department of Health yesterday announced a huge 12,594 new cases of Covid-19 after a weekend that saw Public Health England admit it had messed up a spreadsheet that meant 16,000 positive tests weren't counted last week.

Officials have warned the public that coronavirus is now spreading faster than it was in summer in every region of England, estimating that around one in 400 people have the disease, falling to one in 200 in hard-hit areas.

But Public Health England data shows the rate of cases in the North West and North East are around eight times higher than they are in the South West, South East and East of England.

The region with the highest rate is the North West, where there are 136.1 cases for every 100,000 people, compared to the lowest rate in the South East where there are just 16.1 cases per 100,000.

Professor Neil Ferguson, an Imperial College London expert, said on BBC Radio 4 this morning: 'We think that infections are probably increasing, doubling every two weeks or so  in some areas faster than that, maybe every seven days  and in other areas slower.'

He said scientists 'always expected' cases to rise once lockdown was lifted and that now was a time for trial and error of local lockdown rules to see how well the virus can be controlled while schools and work return to normal.

'We're about 10 times lower in infection levels than we were just before the original lockdown,' he said, but he stressed keeping new infections under wraps is crucial.

'The death rate probably has gone down [since spring], we know how to treat cases better, hospitals are less stressed, we have new drugs,' Professor Ferguson said.

'But admissions to hospitals, hospital beds occupied with Covid patients, and deaths, are all tracking cases. They're at a lower level but they're basically doubling every two weeks and we just cannot have that continue indefinitely.

'The NHS will be overwhelmed again and you can see what's happening in Paris and what's happening in Madrid and measures there. It's being driven by hospitals gradually becoming overwhelmed. Over half of ICU beds [there] are now Covid patients and their death numbers are again creeping up inexorably.'

Department of Health data shows that three quarters of all hospital patients who have Covid-19 (76.8 per cent) are in the North West, North East and Midlands regions. A third are in the North West alone.

WHAT IS THE HOSPITAL SITUATION RIGHT NOW? As per to Department of Health data up to October 5: Region In hospital now / average daily admissions: Compared to peak: Of England total in hospital now: East England London Midlands NE & Yorks North West South East South West 111 / 15 312 / 34 449 / 57 656 / 94 889 / 107 115 / 15 61 / 8 7% / 7% 6% / 5% 14% / 10% 25% / 23% 32% / 26% 6% / 5% 7% / 6% 4.3% 12% 17.3% 25.3% 34.2% 4.4% 2.4% Advertisement

Meanwhile, in the East, South East, South West and London  home to at least 30million people  there were just 318 patients with coronavirus yesterday, October 3.

While the rates of people being admitted to hospital are clearing soaring in the northern regions, they appear flat or even declining in other ares.

Every region experienced a surge in the numbers of people getting sent to hospital in September as cases rose in line with loosened lockdown rules, cooler weather and the return of schools and offices after summer holidays.

But in four out of the six regions of the country this increase started to slow down and tail off towards the end of the month while it continued rising in the north.

In the week leading up to October 3, the most recent data, the average daily admissions in the Midlands rose only from 52 to 57 after spiking into the 50s from below 10 a day at the end of August. In the same week, however, admissions in the North West continued surging and went from 79 to 107.

In London and the South East admissions fell from 37 to 34, based on a seven-day average, while they stayed flat in the South West, increasing from seven to eight. They kept spiralling in the North East and Yorkshire from 70 to 94, while also rising in the East of England from 10 to 15, suggesting the situation may be worsening in the East, too.

Comparing the numbers to peak levels from the spring outbreak shows that most of the country is nowhere near those levels.

Closest is the North West, where the number of people in hospital right now is about a third as high as it was on April 13  889 compared to 2,890. In the North East the number of patients is at 656 compared to 2,567 on April 9  25.5 per cent as high.

In other regions that are nowhere near as badly affected, however, hospital patients are hitting only six per cent of the levels they did at the height of the outbreak.

In London there are just 312 compared to 4,813 on April 8  six per cent as many  and in the South East just 115 compared to 2,073 on April 7.

Deaths, which are also significantly lower than they were at the peak but are the last figure to rise in an outbreak, also vary dramatically across the country and are only rising in some regions.

Coronavirus fatalities surged in September, rising from 41 in the week ending September 3 to 219 in the week ending September 28.

The latter is the most recent week that NHS data is reliable because it can take weeks for death reports to be filed, meaning the number of victims placed on each day continues to rise for days and weeks after the date passes.

Most of the rise came from hospitals in the North East, North West and the Midlands, the Health Service Journal reported, with all but 48 of the 219 happening in those regions.

NHS trusts in Greater Manchester, Cumbria, Lancashire and Cheshire and Merseyside accounted for half of all the deaths in that last week of September, according to the specialist news website.

But other regions have not seen a rise in deaths following the warnings of a national resurgence of Covid-19. Just one person died in the South West during that entire week and fatalities remain flat and low in London, the South East, South West and the East.

In a speech in the House of Commons yesterday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock acknowledged that the northern regions, Scotland and Wales were driving Britain's second wave.

He told MPs: 'Here in the UK the number of hospital admissions is now at the highest it has been since mid-June.

'Last week the ONS [Office for National Statistics] said that while the rate of increase may be falling, the number of cases is still rising. Yesterday [Sunday] there were 12,594 new positive cases.

'The rise is more localised than the first time round, with cases rising particularly sharply in the North East and North West of England, and parts of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

'Now, more than ever  with winter ahead  we must all remain vigilant and get this virus under control.'

Data for Scotland and Wales show they are proportionately worse affected than much of England, with the number of patients in hospital in Wales at 24 per cent of the levels seen in the peak in AprilNumbers are much smaller in Scotland and Wales, however, and combined they only have 393 patients in hospital  fewer than the Midlands, North East or North West of England. Scotland's hospital admissions are at approximately 12 per cent of peak levels.
New Delhi: Standing at a height of 6 feet and 10 inches, 17-year-old teenager Maci Currin from Texas, USA has broken not one but two records. She has been confirmed to have the worlds longest legs (female) and the longest legs on a teenager.

Currin was certified by Guinness World Records as having the world's longest legs (female) and the longest legs on a teenager.

Her left leg measures 135.267 cm (53.255 in), while her right leg measures 134.3 cm (52.874 in). It actually makes up 60% of her total height. She wanted to go after this record title to inspire tall people everywhere to embrace their height.

WATCH:

Currin says that she is the tallest in her family and having long legs comes with both advantages and disadvantages.

"I was never bullied for my legs... I was bullied because I was taller than everyone," she shared. "Around sophomore year I just stopped caring what people thought of me and once I just stopped caring I wasn't affected by anything."

Currin first realized she had more than average legs back in 2018, when someone asked her if she wanted a custom pair of leggings as she was unable to find one that fitted her.

In the future she hopes to go to college in the UK and achieve the record for being the worlds tallest professional model.

The teenager from Cedar Park, Texas knocked Russia's Ekaterina Lisina off the top spot for the Guinness World Record for longest female legs.
Illicit financial flows drain Africas capital and revenues, much needed to bridge the large financing gap to achieve the 2030 SDGs

Africa loses $90 billion to corruption annually. The amount is equivalent to the sum industrial countries give to the continent in the form of development assistance and direct investment.

These findings were released in a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report entitled Tackling illicit financial flows for sustainable development in Africa, published 28 September.

Every year, an estimated $88.6 billion, which is equivalent to 3.7 per cent of Africas GDP, leaves the continent in the form of illicit capital, said the report, which defined illicit financial flows (IFFs) as movements of money and assets across borders which are illegal in source, transfer or use.

These outflows include illicit capital flight, tax and commercial practices like mis-invoicing of trade shipments and criminal activities such as illegal markets, corruption or theft, the report noted.

The report shows that these outflows are nearly as much as the combined total annual inflows of official development assistance, valued at $48 billion, and yearly foreign direct investment, pegged at $54 billion, received by African countries  which represents the average investment between 2013 to 2015.

From 2000 to 2015, total illicit capital flight from Africa amounted to $836 billion. Compared to Africas total external debt stock of $770 billion in 2018, this makes Africa a net creditor to the world, the report added.

IFFs in Africa are not endemic to specific countries, but rather to certain high-value, low-weight commodities that can easily be smuggled, such as gold (77 per cent), diamonds (12 per cent) and platinum (six per cent), the report stated.

The countries most harmed by IFFs are Sierra Leone, Congo, the Seychelles and Burundi.

Congos natural wealth was the reason the country has been suffering for more than 150 years, since the bloody Belgium occupation that rendered more than 10 million people dead in mining and agriculture camps over a span of 80 years.

After the Congo gained independence in 1960 it endured massacres, civil wars and genocide that killed five million people during the Great African War between 1998 and 2003.

Thousands of people died in Sierra Leones Civil War over diamonds in the 1990s. Thousands others died in Burundi during conflicts between the Hutus and Tutsis.

IFFs represent a major drain on capital and revenues in Africa, undermining productive capacity and Africas prospects for achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, the report said.

In African countries with high IFFs, governments spend 25 per cent less than countries with low IFFs on health and 58 per cent less on education. Since women and girls often have less access to health and education, they suffer the most from the negative fiscal effects of IFFs, added the report.

Africa will not be able to bridge the large financing gap to achieve the SDGs, estimated at $200 billion per year, with existing government revenues and development assistance, the report continued.

The report finds that tackling capital flight and IFFs represents a large potential source of capital to finance much-needed investment in, for example, infrastructure, education, health and productive capacity.

Curbing illicit capital flight could generate enough capital by 2030 to finance almost 50 per cent of the $2.4 trillion needed by Sub-Saharan African countries for climate change adaptation and mitigation, the report stated.

Specific data limitations affected efforts to estimate IFFs. Only 41 out of 54 African countries provide data to the UN International Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) in a continuous manner, allowing trade statistics to be compared over time.

The report highlights the importance of collecting more and better trade data to detect risks related to IFFs, and increase transparency in extractive industries and tax collection.

The UNCTAD Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA), including its new module for mineral production and export, called MOSES (Mineral Output Statistical Evaluation System), are potential available solutions, said the report.

African countries also need to enter automatic exchange of tax information agreements to effectively tackle IFFs.

In 2014, Africa lost an estimated $9.6 billion to tax havens and money laundering, equivalent to 2.5 per cent of total tax revenue. Africas financial system suffers from data limitations that may allow the entry of illegal money into its banks. In many cases, agents in multinational financial companies commit financial crimes, in others the companies strike deals with armed local groups involved in illegal extraction of gold and diamonds.

But IFFs are not just a national concern in Africa, said Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari: Illicit financial flows are multidimensional and transnational in character. Like the concept of migration, they have countries of origin and destination, and there are several transit locations. The whole process of mitigating illicit financial flows, therefore, cuts across several jurisdictions.

Solutions to the problem must involve international tax cooperation and anti-corruption measures. The international community should devote more resources to tackle IFFs, including capacity-building for tax and customs authorities in developing countries, the UNCTAD report said.

An African trade free zone may be a good start to curb the spread of such crimes, the report advised. The project, however, was postponed until 2022 owing to the coronavirus outbreak.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Vietnams total import-export turnover for agricultural, forestry and fishery products in January-September was estimated at nearly US$52.8 billion, making for a trade surplus of $7.2 billion,

according to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien.

A worker of Thong Thuan Company prepares the first batch of frozen shrimp to be exported to the EU after the EVFTA came into effect on August 1.  VNA/ VNS Photo Cong Thu

Speaking at a press conference in Hanoi on Tuesday, Tien said the export value reached $30.05 billion, while imports were worth about $22.8 billion.

The September export value marked the highest in the last nine months since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Vietnam early this year, gaining $3.8 billion, up 3.8 per cent compared to the previous month.

The US was Vietnams largest market with an export value of more than $7.5 billion, up 19.3 per cent year-on-year and accounting for nearly 25 per cent of the market share. It was followed by China, ASEAN, the EU and Japan.

Since the EU-Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) took effect on August 1, this year, exports of agricultural, forestry and aquatic products to the EU have recorded significant growth, Tien said.

Total export value from August 1 to now has exceeded $766 million. The export value to the EU in August and September increased by 11.5 per cent and 32.4 per cent, respectively, compared with July.

We have received quite a lot of orders for exports, Tien said.

Despite serious impacts from natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic, the agriculture, forestry and fishery production still proves to be the pillar of the economy in difficult times and ensures a sufficient supply of food and essential goods for domestic consumption and for export, he added.

Tien said natural disasters and diseases on livestock and poultry would continue to be unpredictable in the last months of the year. The consumption of agricultural products (especially for export) would be better but face many difficulties as the pandemic had not yet been totally controlled in many countries.

In the last quarter of 2020, the whole industry strives to earn more than $10 billion in exports, bringing the total export value of this year to more than $40 billion, Tien said.

He said the ministry would continue to work with localities to grasp the production situation, difficulties and problems in agricultural product consumption, promptly informing and warning about new regulations of export markets, especially the Chinese market.

The ministry would focus on solving technical barriers and negotiating to expand markets with more production areas, types of products and exporting enterprises qualified to export to China, the EU, the Eurasian Economic Union, the US and Brazil, exporting seafood to Saudi Arabia and building mission programmes in China, Brazil, Russia, Japan and Australia after the COVID-19 pandemic ends. VNS

The secrets of trade surplus records By now, it can be concluded that albeit unable to reach the set goal, Vietnams export this year has yielded encouraging results.
Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris are set to face off Wednesday in their only debate.

While vice presidential debates have historically had little impact on the overall race, a lot is riding on how Pence and Harris perform. The debate, which begins at 8 p.m., will be available for viewing via livestream on HoustonChronicle.com and on ExpressNews.com.\

Here are five things to watch for tonight.

WHO IS PRESIDENTIAL?

With the health and ages of Trump, 74, and Biden, 77, Pence and Harris both are in a position to reassure the American public that they could step into the Oval Office, if need be.

Pence, 61, has a track record over the last four years that the public has been able to watch, while Harris, 55, is a first-term U.S. Senator who added to her national profile during her campaign for the presidency. Both have the same task of assuring that they could lead the nation.

CALM

Unlike last weeks raucous debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, Wednesdays showdown is likely to be a much more calm and professional, thanks to the backgrounds and personalities of Pence and Harris.

IN-DEPTH: How the biggest Democratic stronghold in Texas could cost Joe Biden a win here

Pence is a more polished and disciplined public speaker than Trump and has been seasoned through decades of political debate. Not only does he have the 2016 debates in his past, but he also served a dozen years in Congress and was Indianas governor for four years.

Harris is just as seasoned. A lawyer since 1990, Harris has been a district attorney and served for six years as the Attorney General of California. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, she also gained notoriety for her forceful questioning of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

POLICY FOCUS

Because of the chaotic nature of last week's debate, there is additional pressure on both Pence and Harris to articulate the policy positions of Trump and Biden. There is no guarantee of another presidential debate, given President Trumps bout with COVID-19.

A big piece of that policy dive will undoubtedly revolve around the coronavirus and the governments response. Pence was chair of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and will be left to explain Trumps decisions to intentionally downplay the virus, as well as the administrations medical recommendations, which he spent months crafting with national health care experts.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

But when it comes to COVID-19, watch the tone of Harris. Since Trumps diagnosis, the Biden campaign has taken down negative ads and tried to present a more positive message. Does Harris continue that approach? How far will she go in jabbing at the White House, given that Trump and the first lady are still recovering?

WHICH HARRIS SHOWS?

Harris showed two distinct approaches to debates during the Democratic Presidential Primary.

In her first debate, she was accused of being too aggressive for going after her then-rival Biden over issues related to race and integration. But when the debates came to Houston last Sept., Harris was much less confrontational  to a fault, some said at the time.

There is a potential for Pence to use some of Harriss past criticism of Biden against both of the Democrats. But Pence, too, has some vulnerability there, given that he endorsed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz during the 2016 presidential primary before joining forces with Trump after Cruz dropped out.

CLIMATE POLICY

For Texans still on the fence, Harris's tone on climate change could be big. Trump has continually warned that Bidens climate change proposals would hurt the energy sector workers who remain a driving force in the Texas economy. Biden has sought to blunt that criticism by insisting his plan wont hurt oil and gas workers and would help them transition into clean energy jobs.

But during the Democratic debates last year, Harris showed she was potentially more aggressive than Biden on climate change. During those debates, she relished in her efforts to sue big oil companies and reminded more liberal voters that when she worked as a district attorney in San Francisco she created that office's first environmental justice unit.

Given how much Trump has talked about Biden being bad for Texas because of oil, it stands to reason Pence will try to accentuate Harris's divergent stances on issues such as fracking. Last year she was clear that she supported ending fracking: Theres no question Im in favor of banning fracking. But that runs counter to Biden, who in August told Pennsylvania voters: I am not banning fracking.
Speaker Myrna Driedger runs through a semi-virtual throne speech rehearsal, with some MLAs in the chamber while others connected via video-conferencing at the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg on Tuesday.
Uttarakhand high court has directed the state government not to take any coercive steps against Rita Negi, wife of rape accused BJP MLA Mahesh Negi till November 18, provided she cooperates with the investigation. November 18 is the next date of hearing in the case.

A woman had filed a case against Mahesh Negi and his wife Rita Negi in August, accusing the MLA of raping her and her wife of trying to hush-up the matter by allegedly offering her money.

The HC order said that Rita Negi had sought quashing of the FIR filed under Sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) against her in Dehradun by the woman. The order was issued on October 1, but its copy was made available on Wednesday.

Also Read: Uttarakhand BJP MLA rape case: Survivor writes to PM demanding CBI probe

The court order said according to the FIR, the husband of the petitioner (MLA Mahesh Negi) sexually exploited the informant (woman) on multiple occasions.

Resultantly, she delivered a child from the husband of the petitioner. When the informant claimed right for her child, it is the petitioner who tried to hush-up the matter by offering money to the informant and she is trying to pressurise the informant. The informant is being threatened. The FIR is quite in detail, the order said citing the FIR.

Ayush Negi, counsel of the petitioner said the court has sought counter-affidavit from the state government on the matter within four weeks and posted the case for next hearing on November 18.

Till the next date of listing no coercive steps shall be taken against the petitioner provided she cooperates with the investigation, the order said.

Also Read: With 338 new Covid-19 cases, Uttarakhand crosses 52,000-mark, 8 more die

On August 14, Dehradun police filed an FIR on the complaint of BJP MLA Mahesh Singh Negis wife, accusing the woman of blackmailing her husband and trying to extort 5 crore from him. The accused woman, later on the same day, released a video on social media in which she accused the MLAs wife, Rita Negi, of lodging a false complaint and alleged the MLA had been sexually harassing her for the last two years. She also claimed that the MLA had fathered her daughter. She also demanded a DNA test to prove her claims.

On August 16, the woman filed a counter-complaint against the MLA, accusing him of raping her on several occasions, fathering her child and his wife for trying to hush-up the matter by offering her money.

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Joe Biden pushes himself forward as the dog lover's candidate in a new ad that questions why Trump is the first President in over a century to not own a pet pooch.

The ad features images of previous presidents and their loyal companions and a video of Trump from a campaign rally in 2019.

In the video, Trump says, 'How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn?', followed by a series of grimaces.

The 30-second clip then beams the words: 'Trump is the first President without a dog in the White House in over a century.'

After comes an image of Biden hugging his German Shepherd Champ followed by the ad's title 'Choose your humans wisely'.

In the same video, taken from a rally in El Paso in February last year, Trump explained that he doesn't have the time to take care of a pooch and that the idea seems 'phony' to him. He also said his base likes him with or without a dog.

The ad features images of previous presidents and their loyal companions. Pictured: Former president Ronald Reagan and his pet dog Lucky

The ad features images of previous presidents and their loyal companions. Pictured: Former president Bill Clinton and his pet dog Buddy

The ad features images of previous presidents and their loyal companions. Pictured: Former president Barack Obama and his pet dog Bo

Trump's explanation came as he spoke to the rally about how German shepherds can sniff drugs being moved across borders.

'You do love your dogs, dont you?' Trump said. 'I wouldnt mind having one, honestly, but I dont have any time. How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn?'

'I dont know, I dont feel good,' he added. 'Feels a little phony to me.'

At the time, the Washington Post reported, the exchange reignited a debate over whether Trump could be one of the few people in the world to actively dislike dogs.

In the video, a clip taken from a Trump rally in El Paso in February last year, Trump explained that he doesn't have the time to take care of a pooch and that the idea seems 'phony' to him. He also said his base likes him with or without a dog

After comes an image of Biden hugging his German Shepherd Champ followed by the ad's title 'Choose your humans wisely'

After comes an image of Biden hugging his German Shepherd Champ followed by the ad's title 'Choose your humans wisely'

Former wife Ivana Trump wrote in her 2017 memoir 'Raising Trump' that though Trump did briefly live with her poodle, Chappy, he 'was not a dog fan.'

Trump's presidency broke a long line of commander-in-chief's owning a pet pooch, dating back to President William McKinleys administration, which began in 1897.

Due to their universal popularity, dogs have often been seen as a way of softening a president's hard image for the electorate. A large part of their role is posing for photos with the commander-in-chief.

When president Obama was elected, he kept the promise to his daughters Sasha and Malia that they could have a dog in the White House.

When president Obama was elected, he kept the promise to his daughters Sasha and Malia that they could have a dog in the White House

After searching for a dog that wouldn't aggravate Malia's allergies, the former first family settled on a Portuguese water dog named Bo.

Later, in 2011, they would add another Portuguese water dog named Sunny to the family.

President George W Bush had a Scottish terrier named Barney, who had a website and would run around with a camera on his neck dubbed 'Barneycam'.

President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton had a chocolate Labrador Retriever named Buddy, who helped is said to have helped Clinton get through the aftermath of his affair with Monica Lewinsky. They also had a cat named Socks.

President George W Bush had a Scottish terrier named Barney (left), who had a website and would run around with a camera on his neck dubbed 'Barneycam'

President Ronald Reagan presents First Lady, Nancy Reagan, with an early Christmas present of a king charles spaniel named Rex

President George HW Bush had an English Springer Spaniel named Millie who was credited with 'writing' 'Millie's Book', which became a best seller.

While most presidents had a single cat or dog, President Ronald Reagan opted for a menagerie of dogs and horses.

They included Lucky, a Bouvier des Flandres, Rex, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Victory, a golden retriever, Peggy, an Irish setter, Taca, a Siberian husky and Fuzzy, a Belgian sheepdog.
Former CIA Director Says Trump Admin Declassified Agency Records for Political Gain

Former CIA Director John Brennan on Oct. 6 accused the Trump administration of selectively declassifying agency records for political gain.

It is appalling his selective declassification of information that clearly is designed to advance the political interests of Donald Trump and Republicans who are aligned with him, Brennan told CNN on Oct. 6.

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe, at the direction of President Donald Trump, released on Oct. 6 two pages of heavily redacted handwritten notes (pdf) taken by Brennan on a briefing he provided to President Barack Obama in late July 2016.

Brennans notes describe an intercept of Russian intelligence claiming that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to stir up a scandal about then-candidate Donald Trump by linking the Trump campaign and the alleged Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee.

Alongside the notes, the DNI released a heavily redacted three-page memo (pdf), dated Sept. 7, 2016, from the CIA to the FBI which stated that Clintons plan was meant to distract the public from the Clinton-email scandal.

The vast majority of both documents was blacked out prior to release, making it impossible to ascertain the full context of the portions released to the public.

These were my notes from the 2016 period when I briefed President Obama and the rest of the National Security Council team about what the Russians were up to and I was giving examples of the type of access that the US intelligence community had to Russian information and what the Russians were talking about and alleging.

Bellow Brennans notes on the alleged Clinton plot there are several bullet points grouped under the headings POTUS, the acronym for president of the United States; JC the initials for FBI Director James Comey; Dennis, the first name of White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough; and Susan, the first name of national security adviser Susan Rice.

The only bullet point that isnt blacked out falls under Obamas name and states, Any evidence of collaboration between Trump campaign & Russia.

Last week, Ratcliffe released a letter (pdf) summarizing the details about the alleged Clinton plot. The DNI wrote that Clinton approved the plan on July 26, 2016, and that Brennan briefed Obama about the intelligence in late July. In the days leading up to July 26, Clinton campaign officials publicly insinuated that a link existed between the Trump campaign and Russia.

If, in fact, what the Russians were alleging that Hillary was trying to highlight the reported connections between Trump and the Russians, if, in fact, that was accurateand thats a big ifthere is nothing at all illegal about that, Brennan said.

John Ratcliffe and others are trying to portray this as potentially unlawful activity that deserves follow-up investigation by the FBI. No. It was a campaign activity.

The former CIA director said that on Sept. 7, 2016, the CIA referral to the FBI declassified by Ratcliffe was one of many counterintelligence operational leads (CIOL) forwarded to the bureau by the agency.

There are a lot of other CIOLs that talk about the contacts that were taking place between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russians, Brennan said. So [Ratcliffe] might want to think about trying to balance some of these releases by providing information to the American public about what the intelligence community had unearthed during this period of time about Russias interactions with those involved in the Trump campaign.

The CIOL was addressed to Comey and FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, Comey claimed to not remember receiving the lead.

In broad strokes, the alleged plan that Clinton approved on July 26, 2016, matches the allegations lodged in the July 31, 2016, memo that formally opened the investigation of the Trump campaign. The memo, authored by Strzok, describes a lead the FBI received from London about a meeting between Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. During the meeting, Papadopoulos allegedly told Downer that the Russians had dirt on Clinton.

Despite being dated, Downers tip was only given to U.S. authorities the day that Clinton allegedly approved the plan to dirty up the Trump campaign. Also on the same day, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele drafted a memo claiming an extensive Russian government hacking operation. Steele drafted another memo on the day before Strzok opened the investigation of the Trump campaign, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane.

The Steele memos would later be part of the infamous Steele dossier, which the FBI used, without due verification, to obtain a warrant to spy on former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The Department of Justice Office of Inspector General found that the applications for the warrant and subsequent renewals were riddled with major errors and omissions which implicated every official involved in the process. Former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty last month to a false statement charge related to an email he forged as part of the warrant application process.

Clinesmith served as the main FBI attorney assigned to the special counsel investigation by Robert Mueller. After a 22-month inquiry, Mueller found no evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.
New restaurants are coming to a pair of small retail developments in the works across the Charleston region.

On James Island, a south-of-the border venue under the name Azul Mexicana Restaurante II LLC will open by the end of the year at 1989 Maybank Highway, according to Elyse Welch with the commercial real estate firm Lee & Associates, which is handling leases for the development.

The 13,000-square-foot structure will include four retail spaces and two restaurants. A two-story restaurant with an outdoor patio will sit next to Woodland Shores Road. Azul Mexicana  "azul" translates into blue  will occupy about 3,000 square feet on the opposite end closest to Charleston Pour House.

Construction is set to be completed by the end of October on the retail center.

In Goose Creek, a smaller development called Shannon Park at 214 St. James Ave. will house three or four new retail tenants, Welch said.

One of those is Chipotle Mexican Grill, which will occupy about 2,200 square feet. On the opposite end, a 3,000-square-foot restaurant space will be available. One or two small retail tenants will sit between them.

Construction should be completed by October 2021.

What's cooking?

Toast All Day restaurant will celebrate the grand opening of its new location at 835 Coleman Blvd. on Friday.

Open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, it's in the former Granary space.

Toast has another Mount Pleasant venue at 1135 Hungryneck Blvd. as well as locations in downtown Charleston, West Ashley and Summerville.

Designing women

A Charlotte-based interior design shop is coming to downtown Charleston. House of Nomad will open Friday at 214 King St. Globally sourced, the new home goods shop offers "clients to get a taste of wonderlust without leaving their homes," according to owners Kelley Lentini and Berkeley Minkhorst.

Hours of operation are 10 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays and noon to 5 p.m. weekends.

Their other shop is in the Myers Park neighborhood of the Queen City.

Now open

A new martial arts and yoga studio is now operating in Mount Pleasant.

Joshua Randorf recently opened True North Martial Arts at 423 Coleman Blvd.

Class times at the 1,300-square-foot studio vary. Go to tnma-charleston.com for more information.

Getting a lift

A Florida-based home elevator firm has added an office in Charleston to meet growing demand in the area.

Home Elevators Direct recently moved into a 2,200-square-foot office at 1070 Jenkins Road, off Sam Rittenberg Boulevard in West Ashley.

"The office expansion enabled us to offer better capabilities, service and support for our Lowcountry customers," said Home Elevators Direct Charleston owner Brad McQueen. "With continued growth and profitability in the area, we can now install and service home elevators at a very affordable price."

The company focuses on installation, maintenance and repair of residential elevators. Twenty-four hour service also is available.

Driving in

A new recreational vehicle vendor is setting up shop in the Charleston area.

RV One Superstores, owned by RV Retailers LLC of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., plans to build a new location on Treeland Drive in Ladson near the College Park Road exit at Interstate 26.

An affiliate of the company bought the nearly 16-acre site next to American Biker in late August for $2.95 million, according to Berkeley County land records.

Under plans filed with state environmental regulators, the retailer is applying for a stormwater permit for 13.3 acres. The wooded site abuts a creek, but the applicant says no wetlands will be disturbed. Part of the property to the east where wetlands are located is not included in the development, according to the company's site plan.

The company doesn't have a target date for construction to begin, but the store is expected to open sometime in 2021, according to RV Retailers CEO Jon Ferrando.

"Charleston is an excellent, growing market, and we look forward to creating new jobs in the area and selling and servicing RVs for customers living in and traveling through Charleston," Ferrando said.

The size of the sales and service center has not been determined, but a store that recently broke ground in Tyler, Texas, is about 24,000 square feet. The number of employees can range between 25 and 60.

RV One offers 11 locations in the U.S., including another one in South Carolina in Myrtle Beach, which opened in July 2019. Others are in Florida, New York and Iowa.

RV Retailers LLC is the parent of seven other recreational vehicle companies: Camper Clinic, CCRV, Cousins RV, Explorer USA, Motor Home Specialists, Sunny's RV and Tom's Camperland.

In South Carolina the company also owns Sunny's RV in Duncan near Spartanburg.

Altogether, RV Retailers operates 34 dealerships offering more than 35 brands in eight states, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New York, North Carolina and Texas.
Syracuse, N.Y.  Mayors from 10 cities and villages across New York gathered in Syracuse Wednesday morning to renew a familiar call to Washington: Make a deal on financial aid and make it now.

Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh, a political independent, urged federal lawmakers to approve some kind of relief for local governments, which are being forced to furlough or lay off workers to make ends meet as revenue losses mount.

While the positions of various federal officials continues to change, the need does not, he said. In fact, it grows.

Facing $41 million in losses stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, Walsh has already cut $18 million from the citys budget by cutting some services and furloughing more than 400 employees.

Joining Walsh in his call for aid Wednesday were Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, Binghamton Mayor Rich David, Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick and Fayetteville Mayor Mark Olson, among others. The event was hosted by the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials.

The mayors included Democrats, Republicans and Walsh, who is an independent.

Several mayors stressed that political affiliation shouldnt matter when helping local governments. Sen. Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders have claimed that local government aid would amount to bailing out blue cities and states that are poorly managed.

Sheehan, the Albany mayor, rejected that narrative outright. She said the idea that cities and villages are poorly managed is an insult to elected officials at the local level.

I would put the budget of Albany up against any business, anywhere, any time," she said.

Walsh reiterated that Syracuse was on track to end last year with a $1.5 million surplus until Covid-19 hit.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he was ending negotiations with Congress for a Covid relief deal until after the election.

Walsh said hes been frustrated at President Donald Trumps approach to the negotiations. He repeated criticism of McConnell as the primary obstacle to a deal. And he said hes told U.S. Rep. John Katko hes disappointed in the Congressmans vote against a relief bill that would have helped Syracuse earlier this year.

But he also said a deal will require both parties to compromise.

Unless everyone is willing to come to the table and compromise, everyone is to blame," he said.

Francis Murray, mayor of Rockville Center on Long Island, noted that New York sends more tax dollars to Washington than any other state.

Now were asking Washington for some of that money to come back to New York, he said.
Ive had the pleasure of knowing Margie MacDonald for many years. I have the utmost respect for her as an honest, hardworking individual and as someone who is willing to commit herself to helping improve the lives of her constituents. Ive supported her campaigns wholeheartedly in the past and am proud to do so again.

Voters in Senate District 26 have an outstanding senator in Margie MacDonald. Here are just a few reasons why she should be re-elected.

Margie MacDonald is a champion for Billings in our Montana Legislature. She stands up for our jobs and economy, earning a 94% voting record from the Chamber of Commerce. Margie supports our health care and the thousands of health care jobs that help strengthen our local economy.

Margie supports Billings infrastructure jobs, including funding for MSU Billings science building, new middle schools, and the city's share of the new beltway project. She is working for more fairness in the school funding formula for Montana's largest school district.

Margie is a champion for equality for all Montanans, and has carried important legislation to reign in human trafficking in Montana and reduce domestic violence fatalities.
Amazons long-awaited Prime Day begins next week after it was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The mega online shopping event is usually held in July and has become a staple of the industry. For two days, Amazon slashes prices on its most-popular products and devices, while offering flash sales throughout the day.

Prime Day is set to kick off at midnight on Tuesday, Oct. 13 and will run through Oct. 14. Its exclusive to Prime members, though, meaning if youre not a member, you will not get discounts.

Heres everything to know about Amazon Prime and how to sign up for an Amazon Prime membership.

How do I become an Amazon Prime member?

You can sign up for a 30-day free trial here, and then you wont miss out on Prime Day deals. After the 30-day free trial ends, a membership costs $12.99 per month or $119 per year.

You can cancel at any time, including before the free trial ends.

Amazon also offers a Prime Student membership that includes a six-month free trial. After the trial ends, it costs $6.49 per month or $59 per year, which is half the price of a regular membership.

What is Amazon Prime? What is included with a Prime membership?

Amazon Prime is a membership program that grants users access to services and perks unavailable to regular Amazon customers.

An Amazon Prime membership includes the following:

Are there early Amazon Prime Day 2020 deals?

Yes. Among Amazon products, a four-month subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited is just 99 cents, while you can get $50 off your first year of Audible.

Here are some other early Amazon Prime Day 2020 deals:

--Buy an Echo Show 5, get a Blink Mini Camera for $5

--Toshiba 55 4K Fire TV Edition for $300, instead of $450

--iRobot Roomba i7 for $799, instead of $1000

--Blink Mini Camera for $25, instead of $35

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
By JoNel Aleccia and Liz Szabo, Kaiser Health News

As trust in the Food and Drug Administration wavers, several states have vowed to conduct independent reviews of any COVID-19 vaccine the federal agency authorizes.

But top health experts say such vetting may be misguided, even if it reflects a well-founded lack of confidence in the Trump administration  especially now that the FDA has held firm with rules that make a risky pre-election vaccine release highly unlikely.

At least six states and the District of Columbia have indicated they intend to review the scientific data for any vaccine approved to fight COVID-19, with some citing concern over political interference by President Donald Trump and his appointees. Officials in New York and California said they are convening expert panels expressly for that purpose.

Frankly, Im not going to trust the federal governments opinion and I wouldnt recommend [vaccines] to New Yorkers based on the federal governments opinion, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said last month.

We want to make sure  despite the urge and interest in having a useful vaccine  that we do it with the utmost safety of Californians in mind, Dr. Mark Ghaly, Californias health and human services secretary, said at a recent news conference.

Oregon joins the District of Columbia, Colorado, Michigan, and West Virginia in saying theyll review vaccine data independently.

But scientists who study vaccine policy said such plans could backfire, confusing the public, eroding confidence in any eventual vaccine and undermining the best strategy to end the pandemic, which has sickened nearly 7.5 million Americans and killed more than 210,000.

Do you really want a situation where Texas, Alabama and Arkansas are making drastically different vaccine policies than New York, California and Massachusetts? asked Dr. Saad Omer, an epidemiologist who leads the Yale Institute for Global Health.

Separate state vaccine reviews would be unprecedented and disruptive, and a robust regulatory process already exists, said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

States should stay out of the vaccine review business, Osterholm said. I think the Food and Drug Administration is doing their job right now. Unless theres something that changes that, I do believe that they will be able to go ahead.

The administration has given reasons for states to worry. Trump has repeatedly signaled a desire for approval of a vaccine by the Nov. 3 election, arousing fears that he will steamroll the normal regulatory process.

The president wields considerable power over the FDA because its part of the executive branch of government, said Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law. The president nominates the FDA commissioner and can replace that official at any time.

Trump has already contradicted the advice of his own scientific advisers in order to promote unproven therapies to fight COVID-19. The FDA approved two treatments  hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma  without strong evidence of safety and efficacy after Trump pushed for the therapies to be widely available.

Late Monday, The New York Times reported that top White House officials planned to block FDA guidelines that would bolster requirements for emergency authorization of a COVID vaccine  because the new guidelines would almost certainly delay approval until after the election.

The White Houses actions undermine the agency, said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA advisory committee on vaccines.

Trump has perverted the FDA, Offit said. He has scared people into thinking that normal systems arent in place there anymore.

But the FDA seems to be maintaining plans that would make it virtually impossible for a vaccine to be approved by Election Day.

Dr. Peter Marks, who heads the FDA division responsible for vaccine approval, has repeatedly said career scientists at the agency are working to ensure that political pressure isnt a factor in any decision.

FDA reviewers are determined to keep our hands over our ears to the noise thats coming in from all sides and keep our eyes on the prize, Marks said Monday in a JAMA webinar.

On Tuesday, the FDA pushed back against White House interference by publishing stricter guidance for vaccine developers on its website. The document instructs vaccine companies to follow patients for two months after their last shot in order to give researchers more time to detect serious side effects and ensure the vaccine works.

For now, supporters of the normal regulatory process are pinning their hopes on two advisory groups of respected scientists who will evaluate vaccines for safety and efficacy and send their recommendations to federal agencies.

The FDAs advisory group, known as VRBPAC, will review data submitted by the pharmaceutical companies and the agency for any vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, will weigh in on its use. Their recommendations arent binding, but the federal government has rarely contravened them.

Before jumping to independent reviews, states should allow ACIP and VRBPAC to do their jobs, said Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Thats the best defense against any political pressure, he said, and individual states likely wouldnt have access to the data  or, perhaps, the expertise  to conduct their own reviews.

ACIP Chairman Dr. Jose Romero, who also is the chief medical officer for the Arkansas Department of Health, said the group has been meeting regularly since spring to discuss COVID vaccines and theyve been able to proceed in an unfettered fashion.

I have not felt pressured by the CDC, other government agencies or pharmaceutical companies to arrive at any particular recommendation, he said.

Other safeguards are in place as well. Trump cannot simply override the FDAs authority to approve drugs and vaccines, which comes from Congress.

The president can influence the FDA, but it must be consistent with the FDAs statutory mandate, Gostin said. The White House may not, for example, direct the agency to ignore science or use a lower scientific standard.

Congress could sue the FDA for failing to follow its own standards, and a judge could issue a temporary restraining order blocking release of a COVID vaccine, Gostin said. Courts would require the FDA commissioner or health and human services secretary to have valid, evidence-based reasons for any decision.

The commissioner or secretary may not act arbitrarily or according to political preferences alone, Gostin said.

Individual states could not overrule the FDAs authorization or approval of a vaccine, but they could wield their power in other ways. States distribute vaccines through contracts with the CDC, noted Dr. Kelly Moore, associate director of immunization education for the Immunization Action Coalition. They could say, 'We will not place any orders until were sure,' she said.

States probably could not prevent private companies, such as pharmacy chains, from distributing vaccines that are shipped directly to them. Pharmacies would likely sue any states that try to prevent them from distributing vaccines, Gostin said.

Although federal and state agencies play a crucial role in ensuring patient safety, theyre not the only entities looking out for patient interests, said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a former FDA deputy commissioner who is now a vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Doctors and other medical providers wont recommend a vaccine they dont trust, he said.

We have an entire health care system standing between politics and the patients, Sharfstein said. I think doctors are going to be very concerned if a vaccine is rushed.

Even pharmaceutical companies that stand to profit from vaccines have a huge stake in protecting the integrity of the approval process. Nine rival vaccine makers took the unusual step last month of pledging not to release a COVID vaccine until it has been thoroughly tested for safety.

The bigger consideration, however, is how state-by-state vetting would affect consumer trust in a COVID vaccine  or any vaccine in the future, Plescia said. A recent KFF poll found 54% of Americans would not submit to a COVID vaccine authorized before Election Day.

Are people going to mistrust the entire process? he said. We will get through COVID one way or another, but if we undermine confidence in public health, that would be a disaster.
The Apple Inc logo is seen hanging at the entrance to the Apple store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, on Oct. 16, 2019. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

Apple Announces Speed Event Next Week, New iPhones Expected

Apple Inc said on Tuesday it would hold a special event on Oct. 13, which most analysts believe will be used to unveil new iPhones with 5G capabilities.

Apple hinted at new, faster networking capabilities in the invitation for the event, which read: Hi, Speed.

In years past, Apple has announced new iPhones in mid-September and started shipping them to customers before the end of the month. Financial analysts use the number of weeks that Apple has iPhones on sale to help model their predictions for the companys financial results during the holiday shopping season in Western markets, typically Apples largest sales quarter.

A woman holds an iPhone 11 Pro Max while giving a live broadcast after it went on sale at the Apple Store in Beijing, China, on Sept. 20, 2019. (Jason Lee/Reuters)

This year, however, Apple executives had warned investors that new iPhones were not likely to ship until October. Apple held an event in September to introduce new Apple Watch and iPad models.

Analysts expect Apple to show a new version of the iPhone with 5G connectivity at the event. Analysts have also highlighted possible new AirPods over-ear wireless headphones and tags for finding lost items using wireless signals.

Apple shares have soared this year even as the coronavirus has crippled economies around the world, thanks in large part to booming sales of work-from-home items.

Even though Apple stock has fallen from a record high on Sept. 2, it remains near a $2 trillion stock market valuation.
Vaishali Vijaykumar By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Life as we know it has been put on hold. But, art, as many artists would agree, is free to chart its course  in utopian and dystopian times. History too tells us that the entire story of the Renaissance movement in art is sealed in 17th century Europe that was gripped by the plague.

After all, in art, we look for resonance, response and resilience. Helping us seek this connection are art galleries that have stood the dual tests of time and a novel coronavirus. With a bit of ideation and innovation, they have been reinventing ways to spark a new intimate relationship between art and its viewers.

Virtual tours, digital catalogues and archives, 3-D models and personalised online interactions from the confines of home  gallerists have seized the opportunity to tell us that even as the door remains closed, the window is now open; even if its a virtual one.

Taking the digital plunge

The initial months of the lockdown were nothing short of a litmus test for many like Preeti Garg, founder of Gallery Veda, who spent time revamping the gallerys website, besides collaborating with an art curator to collate a digital catalogue with different categories of their artwork for public viewing. Seemingly, it was well worth the precious effort for what the protocols warranted. The online space has gained momentum and people are comfortable with the newer mode of purchase.

Buying a piece of art involves several aspects, so, we offer them a multi-dimensional video of our artworks at the gallery for them to get a better idea. Then the shortlisted pieces are delivered to the buyers house so that they can try it on their walls and make a final decision. This was the closest we were able to achieve. If art enthusiasts are particular, then they can visit the gallery based on appointments, shares Preeti. Likewise, Sharan Apparao, founder of Apparao Galleries, used the first two months of the lockdown to set up TAP India  The Art Platform India along with 13 other galleries that was launched in the first week of August  to keep the art and buyer engagement alive.

Galleries have pooled in to create a common online platform to showcase exhibitions from across India that brings you new and exciting collections and events of modern and contemporary Indian art. This will be a treat to patrons and art lovers. Currently, artist A Balasubramanians exhibition as part of Apparao Galleries is on TAP. The gallery will not open anytime soon but we do have a few online exhibitions lined up, reveals Sharan. Besides catering to the connoisseurs appetite for art, gallerists like Preeti are also kindling creativity among pencil-pen-and-brush-wielding fine art students from India by inviting submissions of their artworks.

The works of the final 16 from the lot will be displayed on their website for sale. We wanted to encourage students by offering them a platform to showcase their creativity in these uncertain times. We received submissions from places like Jharkhand that we never expected, says Preeti, whose attempt is to cross every hurdle with practical ideas. Ive been in talks with a printing company to print original artworks of MF Hussain and SH Raza. A Mumbai- based friend is conducting a workshop on the appreciation of art and I plan to make a recorded version available on our gallery for patrons to educate themselves.

We are working on making art more tech-friendly to an extent where patrons can visualise it on the wall of their house, she details. But others like Forum Art Gallery re-opened their door to patrons in June, following all hygiene protocols. Natural ventilation, social distancing, sanitisation...we have all thats required to keep the show going. To ease the process, we ensure the patrons zero in on the final piece after browsing the artworks available in our digital catalogue. We also have a huge collection in our archive. This will reduce the time they spend at the gallery and make the purchase faster. That aside, we are virtually connected and facilitate client appointments through video-calls. So, it wasnt a drastic change, reveals Shalini Biswajit, owner.

A virtual adjustment

But the virtual switch has not been easy for many who maintain that the physical context enhances the aesthetic experience and it cannot be replaced by the online viewing room. Mayur Shah, founder of Focus Art Gallery, staunchly believes in the conventional consumption of art. But, as desperate times call for desperate measures, he has been working to turn digitally savvy. I never thought there would be a need for a digital space as its too distracting and the true purpose of art is lost.

The pandemic has been an eye-opener in many ways. A gallery has always been the catalyst between the buyer and seller, but now Im afraid that it might lose its meaning. Artists have gone tech-savvy and patrons are reaching out to them directly and negotiating a better price. Im working on other ways for this to be a win-win situation for all parties, notes Mayur. In these uncertain times, as intimidating as it may be to walk into a gallery, Ashvin E Rajagopalan, founder of Ashvitas in Chennai and Piramal Museums of Art in Mumbai, upholds that the art business has inherently never been a digital-friendly medium because, whether you see an art scene in a museum or gallery, it is the experience between a physical object and the observer. Of course, Ive had my share of concerns.

On the museum front, we have to worry about education, audience engagement, and the museums responsibility to provide a cultural outlet to the masses. On the gallery front, running the business like before seems to be challenging. If somebody surveys the success rate of artwork being bought mainly by digital images, you will be surprised to find it well under 10-15 per cent. If you decide to spend a couple of lakhs on a painting, youd at least go for the preview unless you know the business or the artist, asserts Ashvin. However, scepticism wont be the best way forward considering art galleries in Chennai are relatively conservative compared to other cities that are doing better business and reaching a wider audience, confirms Mayur.

Art galleries in other metros with their strong digital presence have been able to reach out to art lovers in Chennai than those in the city itself. You need to be associated with the right people having the right expertise to up your game in the market. The newer generation also prefers quirky and not old-school options. The purchasing power of youngsters has grown steadily, where they are ready to shell Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh for a painting. Though Im not for it, Im forced to go digital just to target this market, he explains. Echoing a similar thought  that change is crucial for the benefit of the community  is M Senathipathi, president of Cholamandal Artists Village.

The lockdown has given us time to re-strategise with newer works for exhibitions  online or physical. We recently inaugurated our page on Google Arts and Culture. Our famous bronze casting workshop that was to be held in April also got rescheduled. It is an annual affair where artists from different parts of the country participate. But, the nature of the craft is such that it cannot be conducted online and so, we are waiting for revised dates with lockdown relaxations. We are also in talks with a few artists for an online exhibition soon, he informs.

For others like the Progressive Painters Association, who had grand plans to celebrate their 75th year, the pause has been overwhelming. Its one of the oldest associations for established and aspiring artists. We planned for an art camp and an art show as part of the celebration in March, but now we will have to wait. Meanwhile, we have asked the artists to work on small size paintings and sculptures for a better price so that people from all strata can buy and they can also earn some money. Since there are many elderly artists in the community, it hasnt been easy to make a digital switch. We are planning for monthly online exhibitions, especially with young artists, on different themes, using different mediums of art, says S Saravanan, president of the association.

Painting new projects

Adjusting to this new virtual reality, a few gallerists are hosting competitions for art students, some others are raising funds through charity work, and a few others are sharing artist interviews on their social media pages. For instance, Artworld Saralas Art Centre raised funds for paramedical staff in the city through its Lockdown Series art show in March. We were one of the first to make our online presence felt with group art shows. In July, we did the Unlock Series with a few artists.

Patrons have been coming in since June, and thats a huge support. Even in September, we brought eight city-based artists together to paint at the gallery and displayed their artworks for the public viewing. This was also an opportunity for them to network and have a good time. I feel that theres been a surge in interest among patrons especially with the newer generation carrying forward the legacy of art collection, details Sarala Banerjee, founder.

Stable market

For Ashivtas, however, which has an active presence on social media, there was little to catch up during the lockdown, says Ashvin, who has now opened the gallery on appointmentbasis. We only engaged our patrons on Instagram with some modules that gave an educational experience. We also posted video footage of interviews with artists from Madras as its rare and invaluable. People have been experiencing digital fatigue and so we did not want to overdo.

This is a time for those players whove not tapped on their digital presence. Otherwise, theres nothing new happening in the market. If you did not sell artwork before COVID-19 then you will not after that just by moving online. Having said all this, the market has always been cyclical and Im confident that it will bounce back in time. There have been some great sales happening . The a r t market seems to be more stable than the stock market , he elaborates. Preeti concurs that the bargaining capacity for artwork has starkly increased. Theres a rise in the secondary art market.

A few patrons have been asking for discounts because of the prevailing circumstances. Considering art an expensive hobby, we thought the market would crash. But ardent art buyers dont seem to be bogged down. They are using the money they have been saving up by cutting down on luxury expenses to purchase paintings. We have to wait and watch as to how the trend is going to shape up, she offers. As curators, gallerists and artists turn to technology, only time will tell how art births a new cultural and social identity.
Le Drian did not make clear whether any Armenian and Azeri representatives would attend but Azerbaijan said its foreign minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, would visit Geneva on Thursday

France, the United States and Russia will step up efforts to end fighting between Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces in the South Caucasus by holding talks in Geneva on Thursday, as fears of a regional war grow.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Russian, French and US representatives would also meet in Moscow on Monday to look at ways to persuade the warring sides to negotiate a ceasefire.

"We want everyone to understand that it's in their interest to immediately stop hostilities without conditions and that we start a negotiation," he told the French parliament's foreign affairs committee.

Le Drian did not make clear whether any Armenian and Azeri representatives would attend but Azerbaijan said its foreign minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, would visit Geneva on Thursday.

The Armenian foreign ministry said Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan would visit Moscow on Monday but gave no details. It ruled out a meeting with Bayramov.

The warring sides have so far ignored ceasefire calls by Paris, Washington and Moscow, which have mediated for nearly three decades in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountain enclave which under international law belongs to Azerbaijan but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.

The Azeri and Armenian leaders have also been at odds over their conditions for halting fighting that began on Sept. 27.

More than 360 people have been killed, including 320 military personnel and 19 civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh, and 28 Azeri civilians. They are the deadliest clashes since a 1991-94 war over Nagorno-Karabakh that killed about 30,000.

Azerbaijan says Azeri cities outside the conflict zone have also been attacked. This has taken fighting closer to territory from which pipelines carry Azeri gas and oil to Europe, and prompted British oil company BP to look at tightening security at its facilities in Azerbaijan.

"We must be attentive that the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan does not become a regional war," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in televised remarks.

Iran, which borders both Armenia and Azerbaijan, has been talking to both the former Soviet republics as concern mounts that Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a defence pact with Armenia, could be sucked into the conflict.

CEASEFIRE CONDITIONS

France, the United States and Russia are co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk Group that mediates over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkey has accused the group of neglecting the conflict and said it should not be involved in mediation.

Le Drian hit back at Turkey, reiterating accusations - denied by Ankara - that it is involved militarily and saying this fuelled the "internationalisation" of the conflict.

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has said his country will hold talks with Armenia only after the acute phase of military conflict ends, and wants Turkey involved in mediation.

He also wants Armenia to set a timetable for a withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding Azeri territories.

Armenias ceasefire conditions are Turkey "discontinuing its engagement" and "the withdrawal of mercenaries and terrorists or their elimination", Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's press service quoted him as telling Time magazine.

In comments to Sky News, Pashinyan said Turkey and Azerbaijan were pursuing a policy of genocide and "reinstating the Turkish empire". Both have dismissed such accusations in the past.

Some 1.5 million Armenians were killed under Ottoman rule between 1915 and 1923. Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One, but contests the figures and denies the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.

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In the solidly Republican 36th Congressional District, three-term incumbent Brian Babin checks all the appropriate GOP boxes: unyielding support for President Donald Trump, the border wall and low taxes while steadfastly opposing abortion rights and gun restrictions.

The combination has helped him win re-election by 45 points in 2018 and 77 points in 2016.

Those margins are not expected to change much as Babin faces little-known Democrat Rashad Lewis, a former city council member in Jasper who works in the timber industry. His platform broadly aligns with that of the national Democratic Party.

SaysHou: Get smart opinions on big topics sent directly to your inbox

While we disagree with many of his policy positions, we recommend Babin, 72, based on his experience and his support for NASA as the ranking member of a key subcommittee of Science, Space and Technology. His platform no doubt reflects the priorities of the majority of voters in Texas 36.

In announcing his re-election bid in November, Babin said he wanted to continue rebuilding our communities better and stronger than ever from Harvey and Imelda and keep NASAs Johnson Space Center at the forefront of the next generation of space exploration.

He successfully sponsored legislation that authorizes NASA to provide medical monitoring of former astronauts to better understand the long-term health effects of human spaceflight. NASA had been pushing for such monitoring in recent years.

In addition to recognizing the importance of the space program to America and to Houston, Babin also showed leadership in proposing the Threat Assessment, Prevention, and Safety Act, a bipartisan bill designed to help identify and address potential acts of mass violence.

Like Texas and the rest of the nation, the district, which stretches from Lake Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend in East Texas to Galveston Bay, will be looking to strongly rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crash.

Babin is the best choice to speed that recovery.
The Dutch parliament on Tuesday passed a resolution by an overwhelming majority, calling on the government to take action against Azerbaijan and Turkey in order to immediately end the current Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) war.

As reported by Armenpress, the person behind this resolution is the humble Martijn van Helvert, speaker of the coalition Christian Democratic Appeal party.

With this resolution, the parliament of the Netherlands also calls on the government to insist at the forthcoming EU summit that its conclusions should include the need for an immediate ceasefire and the return of the conflicting parties to the negotiating table under the auspices of the OSCE.
Grand Hyatt Amman has announced the activation of the Mobile-Access Technology in collaboration with the Jordanian Electronic Systems Company (JDS), the exclusive agent of Assa Abloy Global Solutions  VingCard.

This service gives the hotel guests a sense of security when completing the check-in process at the hotel and entering their rooms with the least physical contact possible, reiterating through this process the hotel's commitment to guests' and employees' safety and security.

The Mobile-Access Technology concept is premised on enabling the guests to use their personal mobile phones to reach and access their rooms by downloading the World of Hyatt application.

Guests can easily book a room, set all of their room preferences, and access the room using the app instead of the traditional plastic cards to ensure that all procedures maintain the least amount of surface touchpoints. This service is scheduled for full deployment by the end of the year.

Ashwini Kumar, the hotels general manager, said: Grand Hyatt Amman continues to embrace the latest technological options available in the market to ensure the wellbeing of our guests and employees. Our purpose of care is the cornerstone of the actions we take in delivering a personalized guest experience.

Luay Mudanat, the general manager of Jordan Electronic Systems Company, expressed his thanks to the management of Grand Hyatt Amman Hotel for their confidence in the company, which is considered one of the largest leading companies in the field of technological solutions for the hospitality sector in Jordan.
On a quiet Monday night, students gathered in the dark on Rice Universitys academic quad as the words Willy Rice was Racist and Whites Only in quotations were projected onto the colleges Sallyport arch.

For Rice junior Shifa Rahman, the messages highlighted a controversial history at the center of campus and what many students have been fighting for in recent months: the permanent removal of the statue of William Marsh Rice.

Rice, also known as Willy Rice, founded and chartered the college in 1891 specifically for the white inhabitants of Houston, and the state of Texas and was known to own slaves. His statue has long been a focal point of campus tours and brochures, as well as a landing spot for Santa hats, flyers, traffic cones and student pranks.

The statue also sits atop the founders burial site, but Rahman said the concern isnt focused on Rices ashes, its on the statue and how it glorifies the ideals of the man that he was.

Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

The 20-year-old religion and French studies major is now working to compound previous efforts to address Rices segregationist history and the statue  not only with the visual projections, but with a daily sit-in at the statue for more than a month.

Since Aug. 31, Rahman has parked himself on the statues steps every evening at 6 p.m. for at least an hour, engaging with passersby and holding up a sign with an arrow pointing up that reads A racist that owned enslaved people.

The sit-in has gained some momentum, with participation ranging from 10 to 30 students and some tuning in remotely through Zoom.

The university said in a statement that students are entitled and welcome to make their views known through communication and peaceful action as long as they comply with campus policies, including those in place because of the pandemic.

The respectful exchange of views and ideas on difficult challenges is a vital aspect of how we as a university will move forward, university officials wrote.

Rice sophomore Eli Mendoza said attending the sit-in when time allows feels rewarding, allowing students to engage with people who pass by and educating them on the sit-ins purpose.

For me, its just nice to sit outside and know that Im trying to do something right in the process. It gets me out of my room, especially with COVID. Im getting out and Im doing something, Mendoza said.

Rahman, who calls the sit-in a slow-boiling process, remains the movements constant, starting it alone and vowing his continued presence at the statue daily until it is finally removed.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Rice, other Texas colleges face petitions, protests over reminders of racist roots

Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

This is going to be work. Its just going to take time. I knew that from the get-go, Rahman said, noting that students have been fighting for the removal since earlier this summer.

Following the killing of George Floyd, a former Third Ward resident who died in Minneapolis police custody in May, recent Rice graduate Gabrielle Falcon launched a petition in June, calling for removal of the statue. The petition has since received more than 2,700 signatures and was just a part of a broader movement happening around the globe, with thousands protesting police brutality and promoting anti-racism sentiments and education.

By leaving Rices statue in the center of the quad and using his imagery in PR, Rice continues to immortalize a racist enslaver who intentionally impeded the ability for Black students to earn an education at Rice, Falcon wrote. His statue remains a reminder every day to Black students of the barriers to their success that existed then and now.

Rahman said Rices response to the petition and call for the statues removal has been minimal. The university has since hosted a webinar called Movements, Monuments and Racism on Campus: A Conversation with Historians and has charged its Task Force on Slavery, Segregation and Racial Injustice, launched last year, with identifying specific suggestions for actions that will more fully realize our aspirations for a diverse and inclusive university.

In the statement, university officials said the colleges task force is broadly exploring the built environment of the Rice campus, which includes the statue.

The work produced by the task force will be an integral part of the decision-making, officials wrote. In the meantime, we continue to engage in conversation and listen to the wide range of views we are hearing from the Rice community.

Rahman, who hosted projections earlier this year on other buildings on campus, has launched another petition, as well as WillyHasGot2Go Instagram and Twitter accounts. His open letter to Rices board of trustees, published in the student newspaper the Rice Thresher on Sept. 29, asked them plainly, When are you taking the statue down?

This is not a conversation. This is not a constructive dialogue. This is not even a matter of opinion, Rahman wrote. This is a question about whether or not Rice University really believes that black lives matter.

As of Monday night, Rahman said he and the group participating in the sit-in had not heard directly from the administration.

Rahman said his sit-in will continue, with hopes to apply pressure to the administration and keep the movement going.

This does not seek to start the movement to take down the Willy statue, Rahman said. This is to finish it.

brittany.britto@chron.com
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Calibre Mining Corp. (TSX: CXB; OTCQX: CXBMF) ("Calibre" or the "Company") is pleased to announce summary results for the quarter ended September 30, 2020 (all amounts in United States dollars).



Q3 2020: Summary/Highlights

Gold pr oduction : 45, 341 ounces Libertad mill: 23,262 ounces Limon mill: 22,079 ounces

Gold s ales : 44,842 ounces

Cash on hand: $ 5 6 million Represents a $31 million increase from June 30, 2020

Received approvals and commenced development of the Pavon Norte open pit mine Initial ore deliveries to the Libertad mill expected in the first quarter of 2021 Utilizing Company's "Hub-and-Spoke" operating philosophy

Announced multi-year production and cost outlook Libertad 1 (2021-2023 average) Gold production: 120,000 ounces All-In Sustaining Costs ("AISC" 2 ): $906/ounce Limon (2021-2031) Gold production: 50,000 - 70,000 ounces AISC 2 : $900 - $1,100/ounce

Acquired remaining 70% interest in Eastern Borosi Project from IAMGOLD Inferred Resource 3 4.4 million tonnes averaging 4.93 g/t Au and 80 g/t Ag Containing 700,500 ounces of Au and 11.3 million ounces of Ag Located approximately 400 km by road from the Libertad Complex

High-grade drill results reported at Limon , including 149.4 g/t Au over 4.8 metres at Panteon underground 7.21 g/t Au over 7.6 metres at Limon open pit

Ongoing 80,000 metre drilling program Combination of infill, resource expansion and discovery drilling 14 drill rigs currently active





Russell Ball, Chief Executive Officer of Calibre, stated: "Production of 45,341 ounces clearly demonstrates the benefits of our 'Hub-and-Spoke' operating philosophy. The drilling program has ramped up to fourteen rigs with a focus on targets that could quickly translate into organic growth and free cash flow, given our surplus processing capacity at Libertad. With the consolidation of the Eastern Borosi Gold Project, which hosts 700,500 ounces of gold, the focus there has shifted from a stand-alone operation that had to carry in excess of $100 million in CAPEX, to considering the Eastern Borosi as the next satellite pit for the Libertad complex."

Operating Overview

On March 25, 2020, the Company temporarily suspended operations and withdrew its original 2020 guidance because of the COVID-19 pandemic. On June 10, 2020, Calibre announced a phased restart of operations and at that time provided revised 2020 guidance of between 110,000 and 125,000 ounces of gold production at Total Cash Costs2 of between $880 - $920 and AISC2 of between $1,070 - $1,100 an ounce, respectively.

Calibre completed the preliminary economic assessment (multi-year outlook) for Libertad during the quarter and filed the technical report on SEDAR on September 16, 20201. The Company continues to advance the pre-feasibility study for the Pavon project, which is expected to be completed and filed on SEDAR during the first quarter of 2021.

Consolidated Operating Results

Description Q3 2020 Q2 2020 Q1 2020 YTD 2020 Ore Milled (tonnes) 506,748 197,082 524,099 1,227,929 Ore Milled Grade (g/t Au) 3.02 2.13 2.54 2.67 Au Recovery (%) 91.6% 91.2% 91.8% 91.7% Gold Production (ounces) 45,341 6,009 42,085 93,435 Gold Sales (ounces) 44,842 9,426 38,755 93,023

Q3 2020 Operating Results

Description Limon Libertad Ore Milled (tonnes) 126,683 380,065 Ore Milled Grade (g/t Au) 5.73 2.11 Au Recovery (%) 90.1% 93.0% Gold Production (ounces) 22,079 23,262 Gold Sales (ounces) 21,855 22,987

Q3 2020 Financial Results and Conference Call Details

The third quarter 2020 financial results will be released after market close on November 4, 2020, and management will be hosting a conference call to discuss the results and outlook in more detail.

Date: Thursday, November 5, 2020 Time: 10:00 a.m. (EDT) Dial-in: +1 (866) 221-1882 or +1 (470) 495-9179 (International) Webcast Link: https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/ajrw4oq4 (https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/ajrw4oq4) Conference ID: 5724588

The live webcast can be accessed here (https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/ajrw4oq4) or at www.calibremining.com (http://www.calibremining.com) under the Events and Media section under the Investors tab. The live audio webcast will be archived and made available for replay at www.calibremining.com (http://www.calibremining.com). Presentation slides which will accompany the conference call will be made available in the Investors section of the Calibre website under Presentations, prior to the conference call.

Qualified Person

Darren Hall, MAusIMM, SVP & Chief Operating Officer, Calibre Mining Corp. is a "qualified person" as set out under NI 43-101 has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information in this press release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Russell Ball"

Russell Ball

Chief Executive Officer

For further information, please contact:

Ryan King

Vice President, Corporate Development & IR

T: 604.628.1010

E: calibre@calibremining.com (mailto:calibre@calibremining.com)

W: www.calibremining.com (http://www.calibremining.com)

About Calibre Mining Corp.

Calibre Mining is a Canadian-listed gold mining and exploration company with two 100%-owned operating gold mines in Nicaragua. The Company is focused on sustainable operating performance and a disciplined approach to growth.

Notes:

(1) NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Preliminary Economic Assessment of La Libertad Complex, Nicaragua dated September 4, 2020, prepared by Grant A. Malensek, M.Eng., P.Eng., Jose M. Texidor Carlsson, M.Sc., P. Geo., Todd McCracken, P.Geo, Hugo M. Miranda, M.Eng., MBA, ChMC(RM), Stephan R. Blaho, MBA, P.Eng., Edwin Gutierrez, M.Sc., SME(RM), Andrew P. Hampton, M.SC. P.Eng., and Luis Vasquez, M.Sc., P.Eng of Roscoe Postle Associates (now SLR Consulting Ltd.) and WSP Canada Inc.

(2)The Company believes that investors use certain non-IFRS measures as indicators to assess gold mining companies, specifically Total Cash Costs per Ounce and All-In Sustaining Costs per Ounce. In the gold mining industry, these are common performance measures but do not have any standardized meaning. The Company believes that, in addition to conventional measures prepared in accordance with IFRS, certain investors use this information to evaluate the Company's performance and ability to generate cash flow. Accordingly, it is intended to provide additional information and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS.

Total Cash Costs per Ounce of Gold : Total cash costs include mine site operating costs such as mining, processing and local administrative costs (including stock-based compensation related to mine operations), royalties, production taxes, mine standby costs and current inventory write downs, if any. Production costs are exclusive of depreciation and depletion, reclamation, capital, and exploration costs. Total cash costs per gold ounce are net of by-product silver sales and are divided by gold ounces sold to arrive at a per ounce figure.

All-In Sustaining Costs per Ounce of Gold : A performance measure that reflects all of the expenditures that are required to produce an ounce of gold from current operations. While there is no standardized meaning of the measure across the industry, the Company's definition is derived from the AISC definition as set out by the World Gold Council in its guidance dated June 27, 2013 and November 16, 2018. The World Gold Council is a non-regulatory, non-profit organization established in 1987 whose members include global senior mining companies. The Company believes that this measure will be useful to external users in assessing operating performance and the ability to generate free cash flow from current operations. The Company defines AISC as the sum of total cash costs (per above), sustaining capital (capital required to maintain current operations at existing levels), capital lease repayments, corporate general and administrative expenses, exploration expenditures designed to increase resource confidence at producing mines,amortization of asset retirement costs and rehabilitation accretion related to current operations. AISC excludes capital expenditures for significant improvements at existing operations deemed to be expansionary in nature, exploration and evaluation related to resource growth, rehabilitation accretion and amortization not related to current operations, financing costs, debt repayments, and taxes. Total all-in sustaining costs are divided by gold ounces sold to arrive at a per ounce figure.

(3)NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Eastern Borosi Project, Nicaragua dated May 11, 2018, prepared by Tudorel Ciuculescu, M.Sc., P.Geo. of Roscoe Postle Associates (now SLR Consulting Ltd.).

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Information

This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements in this news release that address events or developments that we expect to occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are identified by words such as "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "project", "target", "potential", "schedule", "forecast", "budget", "estimate", "intend" or "believe" and similar expressions or their negative connotations, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could", "should" or "might" occur. Forward-looking statements necessarily involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond Calibre's control. For a listing of risk factors applicable to the Company, please refer to Calibre's annual information form for the year ended December 31, 2019, available on www.sedar.com (http://www.sedar.com). This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect Calibre's forward-looking statements.

Calibre's forward-looking statements are based on the applicable assumptions and factors management considers reasonable as of the date hereof, based on the information available to management at such time. Calibre does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's beliefs, expectations or opinions should change other than as required by applicable securities laws. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements.
Police respond to reports of a stabbing that left two children and their father dead in Placentia, Calif., on Oct. 7, 2020. (Courtesy of the Placentia Police Department)

Father and Daughters Found Dead in Apparent Placentia Murder-Suicide

Two 9-year-old girls and their father were discovered dead on Oct. 7 in Placentia, California, in what police are calling a murder-suicide.

Police said they responded to reports of unknown trouble with two children stabbed in the 400 block of Swanson Avenue shortly after 12:38 a.m.

When officers arrived, they located a man lying on grass on a front yard of the 400 block of Swanson. The officers located two children bleeding inside a residence, Placentia Police Lt. Adam Gloe said in a statement.

The suspect was discovered across the street from the home with apparently self-inflicted stab wounds, according to police.

The suspect was reported to be the father of the children, Gloe said.

Placentia Fire and Life Safety Department paramedics arrived to attempt lifesaving measures on the injured, but the efforts were unsuccessful.

The two children were declared deceased inside the residence, Gloe stated. And the man who is possibly the father was declared deceased across the street.

Police told The Epoch Times that the case remains under investigation.

Our crime scene people and our detectives are still out at the scene right now, Placentia Police Lt. Brian Perry told The Epoch Times.

I just asked them when they should be clearing, so they can actually give us an update. And then well probably hold some type of press release this afternoon, Perry said.

Police added that two other people inside the residence at the time of the incident were unharmed. Fox 11 identified the two as the childrens mother and grandmother, who were asleep in the home when the attack occurred.

Gloe said there were no outstanding suspects at this time. However, it is very early in the investigation, he said.

Perry told The Epoch Times that the case remains under investigation.

My heart goes out to the family. This is just a tragic situation for this whole community, Placentia Police Sgt. Bryce Angel told reporters at the scene.

The childrens mother was awakened to this violence, and tried to intervene. However, the male had already completed the act, and ran out of the house. And it looks [like] he bled out, across the street, he told Fox11.

Angel said crisis counselors were made available to relatives of the victims.

It is extremely tragic for the family, Angel said. Its just one of those things that we hate to see happen. Were trying to get to the bottom of this, why it happened.

Anyone with information regarding the case is encouraged to contact Placentia Police at (714) 993-8164.

City News Service contributed to this report.
University students are throwing 'Covid positive' parties as they desperately try to salvage their social lives amid draconian lockdown measures on campuses.

Freshers at the University of Manchester and Northumbria University say undergraduates confined to their halls of residence are throwing 24-hour parties as they remain under stringent restrictions.

Meanwhile the University of Exeter today confirmed a number of students had been sent home for breaching Covid guidelines.

Undergraduates confined to their halls of residence are throwing 24-hour parties as they remain under stringent restrictions

University students are throwing 'Covid positive' parties as they try to salvage their social lives

One physics student at the University of Manchester told the Guardian that a party at their Fallowfield campus halls of residence was broken up by security on Saturday.

Students at the University of Manchester were last week filmed throwing an illegal party

The 18-year-old told the paper: 'There was a flat party a few days ago which had a policy that you could only get in if you were positive. It was like their health-and-safety measure.'

A student from Northumbria University also told the Guardian that parties were still rife in halls.

Just days ago, police were called to break up a fight between students at a 'house party' at a locked-down halls of residence.

A video showed police arriving at what appears to be a late-night gathering at the university's Birley Halls of residence - one of those under lockdown.

Residents said the youngsters were hosting a house party involving 'at least 20 students' when a fight broke out at 4.30am last Friday.

More than 80 universities in the UK have reported at least 5,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among students and staff.

Manchester University, where there have been more than 1,000 cases since September 21, and Manchester Metropolitan University have today shifted to virtual learning.

Manchester University (pictured), where there have been 382 coronavirus cases since September 21, joined with Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Sheffield in announcing a move to online learning to protect the health of students and staff

Which UK universities have the 4,000 Covid cases? Stirling: 14

Glasgow: 172

Salford: 56

Liverpool University: 177

Nottingham University: 425

Swansea: 32

Oxford Brookes: 47

Kent University: 11

De Montford: 9

Manchester University: 382

Newcastle/Northumbria: 850

Sheffield University: 500

Queen's University Belfast: 166 *Some universities have not disclosed figures Advertisement

The University of Sheffield, where more than 500 students and staff have tested positive since the start of term, will also move to online lectures from Friday.

This comes as more than 300 students and eight members of staff at the University of Birmingham have tested positive for Covid, it was revealed today.

More than 300 students and eight members of staff also tested positive for the virus between September 30 and October 6.

The Manchester universities said they had made the decision together in consultation with the area's director of public health, supported by Public Health England.

They added they would increase the level of online learning for most programmes from Wednesday until October 30, which would be reviewed on October 23, and face-to-face teaching would continue for some clinical or practice-based classes.

The University of Sheffield said face-to-face teaching would continue on Wednesday and Thursday before it is suspended from Friday, with in-person classes to resume on October 19.

The move to online learning is a drastic step to stop the spread of coronavirus among the student population.

But they will increase demands for students to receive refunds for tuition fees.

Outbreaks have been sweeping campuses and forcing students to isolate despite the new term only starting weeks ago

On Monday night the University of Nottingham revealed it had recorded 425 cases of the virus among staff and students.

Some 400 students and eight staff at the East Midlands institution are now self isolating.

Institutions in Northern Ireland are also bearing the brunt of the crisis, with Queen's University Belfast 'closely monitoring' an increase in coronavirus cases.

It has been reported that 166 students and staff at the south Belfast university have tested positive for Covid-19.

Liverpool University saw 177 staff and students have tested positive as of last week.

Bath University has had a spike of 18 cases in the last 24 hours, taking its total to 48 new cases in seven days.

More than 850 students at Northumbria and Newcastle universities were told to self-isolate after testing positive for coronavirus.

On October 2, Northumbria University confirmed 770 of its students have contracted Covid-19, with 78 of those displaying symptoms.

And a further 94 confirmed Covid-19 cases were also recorded among students at Newcastle University, bringing the city total to 864.
In increasingly uncertain times imposed by COVID-19, it is even more important for us to become as lean and as efficient as possible. Plataines solution will allow us the agility needed to adapt and thrive in times of unexpected crisis, such as the one we are living through today

Alestis Aerospace, a leading provider of aerostructures for the largest aerospace OEMs and suppliers, selected Plataines IIoT solution for manufacturing optimization at their composite part manufacturing facility in Brazil  Alestis do Brasil.

Plataines solution will automate the production workflow and optimize cut-planning processes, delivering significant time savings and improved material yield, especially crucial in challenging times of uncertain supply of raw materials and cost pressures. Automated and optimized dynamic cut plans result in improved quality and quality control, while production delays are reduced by removing the risk of inefficiencies and human errors. The entire evaluation process at Alestis do Brasil was done remotely thanks to Plataines cloud-based solution. Plataines deployment is being done remotely and was successfully concluded, within a short timeframe, considering the harsh implications imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Plataine was selected by Alestis do Brasil due to its strong technical reputation and track record for the deployment of IIoT solutions at various companies in the aerospace parts manufacturing sector. Alestis do Brasil will use Plataines technology to achieve a significant improvement in manufacturing cycles and material yield with a fully automated nesting and cut planning solution, automatically producing the optimal cutting and kitting plans, optimally assigning the right job to the right machine, at the right time. Process automation, reducing manual tasks, will also free up the time of skilled workers for other tasks, while further improving efficiency and avoiding quality defects affecting product delivery, reducing rework and scrap.

Automated record keeping and reporting eliminates manual paperwork, allowing complete traceability from raw material to end-product, with the Digital Thread. The Plataine solution was seamlessly integrated with Alestiss existing IT systems and will be able to take pending work orders and on-hand inventory into account, to dynamically adapt to the changing manufacturing constraints at the Brazilian facility. The deployment, that was carried out swiftly and completely remotely, caused zero downtime at Alestis do Brasil, and was in line with the new policy to minimize site visits to the factory.

Carlos Alberto Daluz, CEO of Alestis do Brasil, comments: In increasingly uncertain times imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is even more important for us to become as lean and as efficient as possible. I am confident that Plataines solution will help us maintain our position as a cutting-edge supplier to the global aerospace industry, and will allow us the agility needed to adapt and thrive in times of unexpected crisis, such as the one we are living through today.

Avner Ben-Bassat, President and CEO of Plataine, adds: The recent uncertainty in the global business landscape underlines the need for manufacturers to improve their competitive position. There is no doubt that Alestis do Brasil is a company at the top of its game, supplying the largest global aerospace organizations. We are proud to work with them to help them improve their position even further.

About Plataine

Plataine is the leading provider of Industrial IoT and AI-based optimization solutions for advanced manufacturing. Plataines solutions provide intelligent, connected Digital Assistants for production floor management and staff, empowering manufacturers to make optimized decisions in real-time, every time. Plataines patent-protected technologies are used by leading manufacturers worldwide, including Airbus, GE, Renault F1 Team, Stelia North America, Muskogee Technology, IAI, Triumph, General Atomics, TPI Composites, AAT Composites and MT Aerospace. Plataine partners with Siemens PLM, McKinsey & Company, VIRTEK, the AMRC with Boeing, and CTC GmbH (an Airbus Company), and is also a part of the National Composites Centre (NCC) membership network, to advance the Factory of the Future worldwide. For this work, Plataine has received a Leadership Award from Frost & Sullivan and Innovation Awards from the JEC and CompositesUK organizations, as well as the Shanghai Society of Aeronautics (SSA). For more information, visit: http://www.plataine.com

About Alestis Aerospace and Alestis do Brasil:

Alestis Aerospace is a major supplier of aerostructures and is a leader at aerospace engineering and at composite material manufacturing technologies. Customers include the largest aerospace companies and suppliers such as Airbus, Boeing, Embraer, Rolls Royce and General Electric. The core business of Alestis is the design, development, engineering, manufacturing and long-term support of complex composite aerostructures. Alestis do Brasil specialises in aerospace composite materials including ply cutting, assembly, and hand and manual lay-up, For more information, visit: http://www.alestis.aero/


Ashuwillticook Rail Trail To Fully Reopen Friday

ADAMS, Mass.  The northern section of the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail will reopen Friday Oct.9

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) announced that the northern section of the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail will be re-opened to the public at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, Oct 9.

This 11-mile section of the trail was temporarily closed to the public on June 29, 2020, to facilitate resurfacing operations.

The project's contractor J.H. Maxymillian of Pittsfield will be on site for the next two weeks to conduct minor clean-up operations.

The cost of this project is $3,241,235.

The southern portion of the trail was resurfaced and re-opened to the public on June 27, 2020.

The Ashuwillticook Rail Trail is an old railroad track converted into a 10-foot-wide trail. The trail runs 12.7 miles through the towns of Cheshire, Lanesborough and Adams.

Due to the State of Emergency declared at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Massachusetts, the trail's visitor center, restrooms and picnic areas are currently closed.
After a two-week hiatus, California has resumed initial applications for unemployment benefits, now with a new online identity verification system aimed at speeding up claims processing.The state Employment Development Department stopped taking new applications Sept. 19 to integrate the system from Virginia cybersecurity firm ID.me . It announced a soft launch of the new system last week, in advance of the official launch Monday. It sent email or text messages to about 136,000 people who had signed up to receive notifications during the pause, inviting them to submit a new application for benefits.Not everyone who was emailed and texted has returned yet to file a claim, EDD spokeswoman Loree Levy said. We will be assessing progress today and combining it with the results of our soft launch over the weekend and sharing that information.She said EDD  began using ID.me to verify identity with groups of applicants on the email waiting list, and the tool performed well in each of the last four days over the weekend. On Monday, the ID.me was among a group of consumer web applications that suffered delayed response times for a period of 30 minutes. At this time, we believe the issue was unrelated to the successful installation of the tool with EDD in California, which has otherwise been functioning well so far.The ID.me system is aimed at reducing EDDs burgeoning backlog of claims. As of Sept. 20, about 600,000 Californians had been waiting for more than three weeks to have their initial unemployment claim processed. An additional 1 million people had received payments but subsequently had them halted for eligibility certification or other issues, according to a report issued by a strike team appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to look into EDDs problems The team identified EDDs method of manually verifying identities as one of the key bottlenecks. About 40% of new claims were being flagged for manual processing, often because the applicants name did not exactly match what was listed for Social Security or in other databases. That delayed a benefit determination for at least three weeks. ID.me is expected to reduce the percentage of new claims being flagged for manual processing verification to 10% and increase the speed at which new claims are paid.All new applicants will have to first create or sign into an EDD UI Online account. Then, they will have to set up an account with ID.me. About one out of four users will already have an ID.me account from previous interactions with other government agencies or businesses, according to ID.me chief executive Blake Hall Next, they will have to secure the ID.me account by entering a passcode sent to their mobile phone or computer. Then, they will have to upload or take pictures of their drivers license or other government ID, or they can verify their identity by answering questions about their credit history. Once their identity is verified, they can continue with their claim.Most people will use a mobile phone equipped with a camera, or they can use a computer to have a video chat with an ID.me representative and hold up their documents for inspection. Those who cannot verify their identity through ID.me when applying online will have to file a claim by phone, fax or mail. More details are available online People who are unwilling or unable to provide personal information to a third-party company for identity verification and file by mail may not be able to use EDDs online portal to certify for continuing benefits every two weeks, as they could before ID.me was implemented, said Daniela Urban, executive director of the Center for Workers' Rights, a nonprofit in Sacramento.Levy said the EDD encourages claimants who apply via paper or phone to register in UI Online to help manage and monitor their claim, including certifying for benefits.California is the fifth and by far the largest state to use ID.me to verify the identity of unemployment applicants; most of the other states are using it in a more limited capacity, according to spokespeople for employment departments. In Florida, its for claimants who are locked out of their online accounts because of suspected fraud. In Arizona, its being used to confirm the identities of individuals in a specific subset of existing claims to ensure they were not filed fraudulently with information obtained from nationwide data breaches. In Nevada, its optional for filers. Georgias Labor Department did not return a request for comment.In those four states combined, ID.me has verified more than 41,000 people who had filed for unemployment. By comparison, during the week ending Sept. 19 alone, California received 137,016 claims for regular state unemployment or pandemic unemployment compensation.
Zurich Airport International AG,the bidder selected to develop the international airport at Jewar, will sign a concession agreement with the special purpose vehicle (SPV) Yamuna International Airport (YIAL) on Wednesday.

Officials from the Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL) said last month that the signing of this agreement is significant as Zurich Airport International cannot start work at the airport site without it.

The concession agreement with the Switzerland company Zurich AG will be signed in the second week of October. The company officials were waiting for the removal of ban imposed on international flights in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic. International flights are likely to resume operations from October 1. Therefore, the agreement will be signed before October 15 for sure, and date will be finalised once the flight tickets for Zurich top officials are booked, said Arun Vir Singh, chief executive officer, NIAL, a nodal agency to monitor the airport project.

Initially, the agreement was supposed to be signed on July 2, but the Uttar Pradesh government postponed the agreement signing date to August 17 in view of Covid-19 pandemic. On August 14, Zurich International was given time till October 15 for signing of the agreement in view of restrictions on air travel.

Once the agreement is signed, Zurich will start work at the site in the next six months as it needs time to mobilize the workforce and also rope in required agencies, said Singh.

The Gautam Budh Nagar administration has acquired 1,334 hectares of land under phase 1 out of the total 5,000 hectares required for the airport project.

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CNBC's Jim Cramer on Wednesday warned investors not to buy or sell stocks based on what President Donald Trump tweets.

The "Mad Money" host cites Tuesday afternoon's tweets from Trump ending broad stimulus talks, which sank stocks, and then Tuesday night's tweets supporting a piecemeal approach, which boosted stocks.

"This is what happens if you invest by tweet," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street," as most stocks in the S&P 500 opened higher Wednesday. "If you're just going to look at the president's tweet, you're just going to end up on the wrong side of the trade."

Cramer suggested that trading on a presidential tweet is a risk because there's no way to discern nuance in Twitter posts. "Can people be that ignorant? He's arbitrary and capricious on Twitter. So if he says 'sell' on Twitter, you buy," he advised.

On Tuesday night, hours after signaling the end to stimulus talks, Trump's tweets expressed an openness to providing U.S. airlines with billions of dollars in aid and extending the small business assistance effort known as the Paycheck Protection Program. He also said he was ready to sign a standalone bill to provide stimulus checks to Americans.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke on the phone Wednesday morning about a potential standalone relief bill for airlines, according to Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill. Pelosi asked Mnuchin to review a previously rejected bill and then continue the conversation, Hammill said on Twitter.
VIP investors could skip quarantine

THAILAND: The Centre for Economic Situation Administration (CESA) is today (Oct 7) expected to discuss a proposal to exempt key foreign investors from the mandatory COVID-19 quarantine, seen as a main hindrance to the governments bid to spur the economy.

CoronavirusCOVID-19tourism

By Bangkok Post

Wednesday 7 October 2020, 09:54AM

The quarantine exemption for VIP investors is thought to be part of the governments effort to lure foreign investors back to Thailand. Photo: Bangkok Post

Government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri said yesterday that several special measures would be proposed regarding these potential investors instead of requiring them to undergo the 14-day quarantine.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was assessing the wider picture in order to help the economy recover as fast as possible, said Mr Anucha. The quarantine exemption for VIP investors is thought to be part of the governments effort to lure foreign investors back to Thailand.

The exception would first have to be approved by the CESA before it could then be forwarded to the cabinet for endorsement, he said.

The spokesman said Gen Prayut had asked officials to speed up their work in relation to this key group of foreigners and to draft specific health requirements for them.

One proposal had been that a health officer be assigned to each of these key businesspeople throughout their stay in Thailand, said Mr Anucha, but this was not ideal given the need to protect the confidentiality related to their business dealings.

Another is that their Thai business partners take responsibility for the foreigners compliance with Thailands COVID-19 prevention regulations, he said.

Meanwhile, Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) governor Yuthasak Supasorn said yesterday the first group of tourists from China and Scandinavian countries would arrive in Thailand later this month under the Special Tourist Visa (STV) programme.

At most, 300 of such visitors per week will be allowed to enter Thailand under the programme, he said.

Thailand yesterday reported 10 new COVID-19 cases, including seven Thai nationals, raising the total number of infections to 3,600.
Ningo (BE/R) Oct. 8,- The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) is partnering with Social Audit Committee members and the Sene East District Assembly to provide some communities in the district their social needs.

The three organizations had identified some communities including the Ningo community their developmental needs through the implementation of the Accountability, Rule of Law, and Anti- Corruption Programme (ARAP).

At a social auditing, community needs assessment forum organized by the National Commission for Civic Education and funded by the European Union on Thursday at Ningo in the Sene East District of the Bono East Region, the organizations focused at rehabilitating some educational facilities and provision of potable drinking water for the people.

The social needs when met would benefit community members including family heads, opinion leaders and leaders of faith based organizations, women groups as well as youth groups, and the people living with disabilities.

Mr. Frank Dzakpasu, District Director for NCCE in the area noted that the NCCE was in partnership with the district Assembly and the committee members to find ways of providing the identified social needs ranking from their importance to the communities.

Mr. Dzakpasu said the three organizations were in consultation with the stakeholders such as opinion leaders, members of religious organizations youth and women groups and ensuring their needs were provided to improve the livelihood conditions in the area.

He noted that as part of effort to improve community member participation in the area the NCCE was aimed at promoting community ownership of development projects and policies and increase awareness of the operations of the local government among the citizenry.

This he stated, would empower citizens to demand accountability from duty bearers and service providers thereby influencing policy making and implementation in their localities, he encouraged the people in the area to initiate self-help projects and possibly solicit support from duty bearers and developmental agencies when the need arise.

Mr Abraham Mbanye, District Chief Executive for the area, mentioned that community members enumerated construction of feeder road from the community to the district capital Kajaji, provision of public toilet facility and fixing of broken-down borehole facilities as well as roofing of three-unit classroom block with two offices which has been partially roof off by rainstorm and that the Assembly was committed at ensuring it meets the needs of the community with the available resources.

Mr. Mbanye said the Assembly was providing the needs based on the communitys ability to provide support and in order of importance as it has been indicated that the Ningo community has the broken-down borehole, provision of public toilet facilities and roofing of a three-unit classroom block as its priority.

According to the DCE Assembly was committed at improving the livelihood conditions of the people as that was its core mandate, he urged the people to continue to support government policies such as the flagship programs to better their lives.

Mr Emmanuel Agboyebor, Chairman to the Social Audit Committee at Ningo assured of the communitys preparedness to owned the projects and provide the need support to expand their lifespan.

He assured to put pragmatic measures to provide security and safeguard the interest of the facilities so they could live to provide services to the people in the area since it would improve their livelihood condition.
By IANS

BARABANKI: The politics over the Hathras incident is getting murkier by the day. Ranjeet Bahadur Srivastava, a BJP leader from Barabanki, has claimed that the four upper caste men accused of brutally assaulting the 19-year-old Dalit girl in Hathras are 'innocent' and it is the victim who was 'awaara' (wayward).

The controversial Bharatiya Janata Party leader, who has over 44 criminal cases against him, made this shocking statement in an interview to a news channel on Tuesday night.

ALSO READ: Press Association, IWPC condemn arrest of Hathras-bound scribe by UP Police

He claimed that the teen was 'having an affair with the accused' and had called him to the millet field on September 14 (the day of the crime).

In the interview, Srivastava can be heard saying, "The victim must have called the boy to the field because they were having an affair. This news is already out on social media and news channels. She must have got caught after that."

However, the BJP leader did not stop there. He claimed that "such women are found dead in a few specific spots".

ALSO READ: Ex-BJP MLA, 100 others booked for organising crowd in support of Hathras gang rape accused

"Such girls are found dead in only some places. They will be found dead in sugarcane, corn and millet fields or in bushes, gutters or forests. Why are they never found dead in paddy or wheat fields?" he asked.

He implied that crops like sugarcane, corn and millet are taller in height and can conceal a person while wheat and paddy grow up to only three or four feet in height.

Then the BJP leader went on to claim that no one ever witnesses such crimes when they occur or sees the victim being dragged away from the crime spot.

ALSO READ: UP SIT gets 10 more days to submit probe report to Yogi Adityanath

Srivastava goes on to defend the four men accused of the crime, saying they should be released from prison till the CBI files a charge sheet in the case.

"I can say with guarantee these boys are innocent. If they are not released in time, they will keep facing mental harassment. Who will return their lost youth? Will the government give them compensation?" he demanded.

Taking note of Srivastava's statements, the National Commission for Women chief Rekha Sharma said, "He is not fit to be called the leader of any party. He is showing his primitive and sick mindset and I am going to send a notice to him."

The horrifying statements come days after BJP MLA from Ballia, Surendra Singh said that "sanskar (values) should be instilled in girls to prevent incidents of rape".
Sydney's renowned Ripples restaurant, which boasts views of the Harbour Bridge, has been put on alert after a coronavirus-infected person dined there.

The infected customer went to the upmarket venue in Milson's Point on Saturday October 3.

An urgent alert has been issued by NSW Health warning guests who dined at the restaurant between 8pm and 10.30pm to get tested and isolate for 14 days.

Officials instructed patrons to 'stay isolated for the entire period, even if a negative test result is received'.

Sydney's renowned Ripples restaurant (pictured), which boasts views of the Harbour Bridge, has been put on alert after a coronavirus-infected person dined there

The infected customer went to the upmarket venue (pictured) in Milson's Point on Saturday October 3

The infection is just one of three new cases reported on Wednesday following a 12-day stint with no community transmission.

The surprise new cases have dashed hopes that Queensland will reopen its border with NSW as planned on November 1.

Deputy premier Steven Miles has confirmed NSW contact tracers will have just 48 hours to track the source of all three infections to known clusters.

NSW Health have traced one new case to Fitness First in Carlingford where an infected person went to a class from 8.15am to 9.15am on Saturday.

One of the infected people attended a pilates class at Fitness First in Carlingford (pictured) from 8.15am to 9.15am on Saturday

All those who attended the pilates class are considered close contacts and must immediately get tested and isolate for 14 days from the day of the class.

Anyone else who went to Fitness First at the same time but didn't attend the Pilates class are still considered casual contacts and should still get tested.

Another infected person went to Kmart in Narellan in Sydney's south west from 6pm to 7pm on Friday.

Three businesses in Penrith in Sydney's west have also been put on alert.

Those who attended Penrith Homemaker Centre from 11am to 1pm on Sunday should get tested as well as those who went to Guzman y Gomez between 1:30pm and 2pm.

An infected person also went to the popular Westfield in Parramatta (pictured) in Sydney's west on Monday between 9.30am and 11am

Those who attended Guzman y Gomez in Penrith (pictured) between 1.30pm and 2pm are considered casual contacts to an infected person and should be tested

The final Penrith business is Home Co, where shoppers who visited between 2pm and 2:30pm on Sunday should be tested.

An infected person also went to the popular Westfield in Parramatta in Sydney's west on Monday between 9:30am and 11am.

The last location on alert is Castle Towers Shopping Centre in the city's north west, where an infected person shopped for an hour from 12pm to 1pm on Monday.

The state health department is 'concerned' that testing numbers have dropped and is encouraging increased testing across Sydney.

NSW Health said it is 'especially important for people across West and South West Sydney' to get tested since the new cases are located there.

The state ended its 12-day streak without a locally acquired case as it recorded three locally acquired cases on Wednesday.

There were another three were from overseas travellers in hotel quarantine, bringing the Wednesday's total to six.
Premier Oil is to merge with a private equity rival, creating the North Sea's biggest oil and gas producer but almost wiping out current shareholders.

The embattled British firm will effectively be taken over by Chrysaor in the rescue deal, which will eliminate its 2.3billion debt mountain and put new bosses in charge.

Premier will remain listed in London, however, with Chrysaor set to be reversed into it and given a stake of at least 77 per cent in the enlarged business.

Premier Oil will effectively be taken over by Chrysaor in the rescue deal, which will eliminate its 2.3bn debt mountain and put new bosses in charge

And while creditors stand to get 950million in cash and at least 10.6 per cent of the new business, current shareholders will be left with just 5 per cent.

But yesterday Roy Franklin, Premier's chairman, said the board was 'unanimously' recommending the deal despite the significant dilution.

It sent shares surging by as much as 24 per cent, as analysts said the takeover would at least put the troubled firm on a stable footing. They later closed 1.8 per cent, or 0.28p, higher at 15.47p and this morning were back down to 14.8p.

Premier chief executive Tony Durrant, who had tried to resist takeover approaches, said there was 'a logic in putting the two companies together' and insisted it would now be 'a much better vehicle for our shareholders'.

Queen of the North Sea Linda Cook's rise puts her in a very exclusive club. She will be one of only two female chief executives of a London-listed oil company  the other is Katherine Roe at Wentworth Resources. Cook, 62, was at Shell for 29 years, running its gas and power division. She was tipped to be chief executive but was beaten to the role by Peter Voser. She was awarded 5million severance and 16million pension. Cook was named the 11th most powerful businesswoman in the world by Fortune magazine in 2002.

The tie-up will create the largest independent oil and gas company listed on the London Stock Exchange, producing upwards of 250,000 barrels of oil and gas per day  more than one eighth of the UK's output.

Linda Cook, the boss of Chrysaor backer Harbour Energy and a former Shell executive, will be parachuted in to become the first woman chief executive of a major listed UK energy company.

Chrysaor said the merger would significantly improve its position in the North Sea and that Premier's assets in Asia and Latin America would also provide opportunities for growth.

'We are excited by the Premier assets in these regions and view them as the foundations upon which to build material portfolios and further diversify the company,' Cook said.

Premier has been struggling since oil prices fell in 2014, taking a big chunk of income away just as it took on huge borrowings.

In a bid to tackle the problem, bosses proposed raising 410million with new shares and using the cash to buy some of BP's North Sea assets and pay down debts.

But that move was blocked by creditors, including Honk Kong-based hedge fund ARCM, which instead decided to back Chrysaor's proposals.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said this meant the deal became 'more of a rescue mission than a merger of equals'.

He added: 'Premier Oil has effectively been put out of its misery. The deal may create the largest independent UK oil company but existing shareholders will only own a very modest slice.'

The tie-up also comes as the oil industry is suffering from a major downturn because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has hammered demand and sent prices plummeting.

Concerns that the growing popularity of electric cars could prompt oil use to peak soon, as well as pressure from environmental campaigners, have also prompted major producers including BP and Royal Dutch Shell to outline plans to shift to greener sources of energy. Both are axing thousands of jobs.

Chrysaor, backed by private equity firms Harbour and EIG, has become a major North Sea producer by buying British fields from Shell and Conoco Phillips, and spending over 4billion since 2017.
Hurricane Delta made landfall on Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula early Wednesday morning as a Category 2 hurricane with 110 mph winds.

Its much weaker as of Wednesday night, but its in the Gulf of Mexico and headed for the Gulf Coast, and hurricane and storm surge warnings are now in effect for several states.

Delta is expected to make landfall, likely in Louisiana, on Friday, but its first landfall came early this morning. The National Hurricane Center said Delta came ashore around 5:30 a.m. CDT on the northeastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula near Puerto Morelosis while lashing the area with destructive winds, storm surge and heavy rain.

Hurricane #Delta makes landfall along the coast of northeastern Mexico near Puerto Morelos around 5:30 AM CDT with estimated maximum winds of 110 mph. Latest information at: https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb pic.twitter.com/cWKYybKCMi  National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) October 7, 2020

Delta has now moved into the Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane center said, and had winds of 90 mph.

It is expected to strengthen and become a Category 3 hurricane again while on a path northward toward the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Hurricane and storm surge warning were issued for part of the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts late Wednesday, but a storm surge watch was dropped for the Alabama coastline as well as Mobile Bay.

Delta is forecast to weaken some as it nears Louisiana, forecasters said, because of increasing wind shear and cooler water near the coast.

However, it could grow into a larger storm and spread bad weather over a larger area.

I should also note that all of the guidance show Delta becoming considerably larger than it is now by the time it reaches the northern Gulf coast, so even if weakening occurs there, the hurricane will likely bring a sizable area of hazardous conditions to the coast, hurricane center forecaster Eric Blake wrote in a forecast discussion early Wednesday.

The forecast path shifted westward earlier Wednesday, and the much narrower cone of uncertainty now stretches from extreme eastern Texas to central Louisiana as of Wednesday night.

Still areas outside of the cone, including Alabama, could experience wind, surge, heavy rain and the threat of tornadoes from Delta.

It is looking increasingly likely that landfall will be over Louisiana; however, we must remain vigilant as the forecast cone still covers portions of the local area and impacts are often felt outside of the cone, the National Weather Service in Mobile said in its morning forecast discussion. Even if landfall is to our west, storm surge, dangerous surf/rip currents, heavy rain, strong winds, and a few tornadoes will all be threats (especially for southeast Mississippi and southwest Alabama).

Delta is forecast to make landfall in Louisiana and then move to the northeast. The weakening storm could track through part of western Alabama on Saturday, bringing the potential for heavy rain, gusty winds and tornadoes to the rest of the state.

As of 10 p.m. CDT Wednesday, the center of Hurricane Delta was located about 525 miles south-southeast of Cameron, La., and was moving west-northwest at 17 mph, according to the hurricane center.

Delta had winds of 90 mph, which is Category 1 intensity. Delta peaked on Tuesday afternoon as a Category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds, but wind shear helped to disrupt the storm.

Here are the warnings in effect on Wednesday night:

* A storm surge warning is in effect from Sabine Pass to Ocean Springs, Miss., including Calcasieu Lake, Vermilion Bay, Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas and Lake Borgne.

* A storm surge watch is in effect from High Island, Texas, to Sabine Pass and from east of Ocean Springs, Miss., to the Mississippi/Alabama border.

* A hurricane warning is in effect from east of Sabine Pass to Morgan City, La.

* A tropical storm warning is in effect from San Luis Pass, Texas, to Sabine Pass, from east of Morgan City, La., to the mouth of the Pearl River, including New Orleans, Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas.

* A tropical storm watch is in effect from east of the mouth of the Pearl River to Bay St. Louis, Miss.

The highest surge is expected to be from Pecan Island, La., to Port Fourchon, La., where 7 to 11 feet will be possible. Other areas are forecast to see less surge, including the Alabama coastline, which is forecast to possibly get 1 to 3 feet of surge, which is a decrease from earlier Wednesday.

Delta is forecast to bring 4 to 8 inches of rain to areas along the U.S. Gulf Coast, with some spots getting as much as a foot of rain from Friday through Saturday, which will raise the risk of flash flooding.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 7)  Filipinos workers from various fields, not just healthcare, are still highly requested abroad despite the high number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines, an official said.

In a press briefing on Wednesday, Bernard Olalia, administrator of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, said the high incidence of coronavirus infection has not hinder other countries from employing Filipinos.

Olalia added that countries such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia prefer employing Filipinos in various industries. Bahrain last month reopened its doors to Filipino household workers after suspending recruitment for six months, the Labor Department said.

Olalia added that Japan also recently reopened its doors to OFWs.

Bagamat mataas ang incidence sa atin, mayroon tayong health protocols na ino-obserbahan sa mga destination countries. Tayo naman po ay tumutugon at nag co-comply, he added.

[Translation: Despite the high incidence, we observe health protocols in the destination countries. We are complying.]

The Philippines is now 19th among countries in the world with the most number of COVID-19 infections and tops the list in Southeast Asia, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard.

Olalia said during the press briefing that the overall deployment rate dropped early into the pandemic due to lockdowns enforced by countries. He did not say by how much.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday (October 7) said that public places and roads cannot be occupied indefinitely and agitations should be permitted in designated areas only. The SC made the observation while hearing petitions on road blockade during anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protest at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh.

"There cannot be ban on public meetings but they have to be in designated areas. Right to commute should not be indefinitely curtailed," a three-judge bench headed by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul observed, adding that right to protest has to be balanced with right to commute.

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"Social media channels often fraught with danger lead to highly polarising environment and this is what was witnessed in shaheen bagh. Started out as a protest and caused inconvenience to commuters," said Justice Kaul.

"In what manner the administration should act is their responsibility and should not hide behind court orders to carry out administrative functions. Administration ought to take action to keep area clear of encroachments and obstructions.," added Justice Kaul.

Shaheen Bagh grabbed headlines after it emerged as a protest venue for people opposed to the CAA and the National Register of Citizens since December 15 last year.

The CAA amended Section 2 of the Citizenship Act, 1955, making any person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan eligible to apply for Indian citizenship by naturalisation. The amendment, however, excluded Muslim illegal migrants from availing the opportunity to apply for Indian citizenship, which sparked massive protests across the country.
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Three months into my intern year, I was asked, Tell us your name, where you went to medical school, and one thing you have learned about yourself during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For an icebreaker, the question caught me off guard.

Moments later, the answer emerged almost as if I had summoned it myself  unassuming and unapologetic.

I learned where the light is.

This answer was also far more poetic and esoteric than the I learned how to bake banana bread or the I learned how much I like yoga the facilitator of this teaching session was obviously looking for. I constructed a more appropriate answer about my renewed love of jigsaw puzzles, but the real answer lingered with me.

I learned where the light is.

At the start of 2020, I wrote a poem to myself, which included the line the light only exists because you wrote it yourself.

I did not know the significance of those words when I wrote them, but I have relied on them immeasurably over the past six months.

The months leading to the start of my pediatrics residency left me feeling broken and afraid. I watched helplessly as COVID-19 ravaged my home state. As the end of my medical school trajectory was completely obliterated. I sheltered with my family, unable to process my fractured relationships, canceled celebrations, and overwhelming isolation. And finally, three weeks before I started residency, I found myself in a life-threatening car accident, upside down in a shattered vehicle, crawling out of the window onto the cold asphalt, feeling defeated and completely alone.

The darkness was consuming and unrelenting.

When I arrived at the hospital for my first day of work as a new doctor, I was terrified. Partly I was afraid because I was a brand new intern in a brand new hospital and desperately wanted to do the right thing for my patients, but on a deeper level, I was afraid that my new job was going to consist of more darkness.

What I found instead is that even in the face of unparalleled adversity and tragedy, pediatrics remains the ardent light that drew me to the field in the first place. As the frontline clinician for my patients, I have had the privilege of caring for them more directly than I was able to as a medical student, spending crucial moments smiling, crying, and comforting at the bedside. I have learned that this is where the light is.

The light was present when the mother of the first patient I took care of as an intern told me, It doesnt matter to me who else takes care of him  you will always be his doctor. I felt it again when I played Mario Kart at 2 a.m. with my 16-year-old patient awaiting placement in the foster system, as he turned to me and said when youre in a place like this, you have to make the most of these moments. I felt it again when my 17-year-old patient and I broke down in tears as I told her she could leave the hospital and see her grandmother before she passed away. I felt it again when the mother of the first patient I took care of in clinic handed me her 2-month-old baby and exclaimed, Look Dr. Chatty, look how much hes grown! Were so happy to see you.

Pediatrics has always been this light. Yet, perhaps it is the experience of being confronted with such profound darkness that has allowed me to feel this light more deeply and more completely. It has become clear to me how much of my medical training I have spent focusing on darkness  the inadequacy I feel as a medical professional, the tragic stories I see in the hospital, the flaws I observe in the medical training process. The immense loss and grief I have borne witness to in the past six months have somewhat paradoxically provided me with renewed gratitude and love for my profession. I have learned that while light does not negate darkness or render it less significant, it gives us meaning even in the most challenging of circumstances. These vital moments I have spent with patients, families, and those that take care of them have shown me the power to be found in the core of the medical profession  in the words of my mentor, simply the commitment of one group of human beings to take care of another.

I am acutely aware of how much more I have to learn as I move through my medical training. However, I am most grateful that I have already learned not only where the light is, but also that the light we create ourselves is the brightest.

Prerana Chatty is a pediatric resident and can be reached on Twitter @preranachatty.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
In the hours after President Trump torpedoed the first presidential debate with a disgraceful display of lying and hectoring, the internet rang with calls to cancel future installments. Networks could fill the time with fact-checked primers on the issues, or crucial information on how to exercise our voting rights, or reruns of Scandal, Times Judy Berman suggested, representatively. Just about anything would be more helpful in preserving our democracy than what we just witnessed. Now, one impossibly long week on, calls to cancel the debates have redoublednot for the sake of democracy, but on health grounds, after Trump and a growing list of his aides tested positive for COVID-19. After the first debate, it looked as if the big question looming over the next one would be whether anyone could do anything to keep Trump from constantly interrupting Biden, James Poniewozik, TV critic at the New York Times, wrote yesterday. Now were wondering if its possible to hold a debate without creating a biohazard.

This grim reality doesnt just apply to Trumps second and third debates with Biden (which are scheduled for October 15, in Miami, and 22, in Nashville), but to the sole vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, whichas of this morning, at leastwas slated to take place tonight, in Salt Lake City. After Trumps diagnosis became public knowledge early Friday, extra safety precautions were put in place for the v-p debate: Pence and Harris will be seated twelve feet apart, rather than seven, and the Commission on Presidential Debates agreed to expel maskless audience members and to allow for the erection of Plexiglas screens between the candidates. The latter measure irked Pences camp, which indicated that Pence did not want a screen on his side of the stage. If Sen. Harris wants to use a fortress around herself, Katie Miller, an aide who has been with Pence in Salt Lake City, said, have at it.

Related: The logical endpoint of debates in America

Yesterday, Millers husband, the Trump adviser Stephen Miller, tested positive for COVID-19. Katie Miller already had COVID earlier in the year; still, she left Pences camp after she learned of her husbands diagnosis. Pence has reportedly now dropped his Plexiglas objection; according to his physician, Pence is being tested daily, and has so far returned only negative results. The physician has also repeatedly said that Pence is not considered to have been in close contact with Trump, an assessment that Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has personally endorsed.

Still, as I wrote recently, the CDCs word is not as trusted as it once wasand if recent days have taught us anything, its that we should treat the claims of administration officialsand their physicianswith due skepticism. According to the Washington Post, Pence sat directly in front of Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who since tested positive, at an event eleven days ago, and was, at the same time, in close-ish proximity to Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, and Sen. Thom Tillis, both of whom have also since been confirmed as COVID carriers. In light of all this, holding an in-person v-p debate tonight hardly seems COVID-safea verdict underscored by the fact that we dont yet know what COVID-safe actually entails. We do know that the virus can get around Plexiglas; we also know that the ventilation system in the debate hall could be important, and yet we havent heard much about that in the buildup. As many other observers have argued, the risks just dont seem worth it.

As both Poniewozik and the Times editorial board wrote yesterday, making the remaining debates safe neednt involve canceling them outright (sorry, Judy Berman)they could be held remotely instead. Members of the debate commission are reportedly open to a virtual format for the second Trump-Biden debate next week. Given Trumps behavior at the first debate, they would be wise to follow through. Trumpwho may very well have been exposed to COVID alreadyturned up too late to be tested, violating what the moderator, Chris Wallace, described as an honor system between the campaigns. Its not clear if Trump was tested prior to the debate at all, since the White House has declined to make his testing history public; during the debate, meanwhile, aides and members of his family sat maskless in the audience, another violation of debate protocols. Trump has said that he plans to attend next weeks debate, and Biden says that hell be there, too, as long as Trump is betterbut it seems likely, at this point, that any determination on Trumps condition will be made by Trump himself. The debate commission shouldnt put Biden in the politically-fraught position of having to pull outit should insist the second debate takes place remotely or not at all. And it should do likewise for tonights v-p debate. Pence isnt as chaotic a figure as Trump, but he is reliably complicit in Trumpian recklessness. He doesnt merit the benefit of the doubt.

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If, as seems likely, the v-p debate does go ahead as an in-person affair, the media will have to grapple with how best to handle an event that shouldnt be happening at all. The networks could, of course, boycott it on a point of principle; given that they wont, they, and other outlets, will at the very least need to cover it in a way that puts public health front and center, and doesnt frame it as a matter of partisan dispute. Some of the initial coverage of the v-p debate has not been promising. Pundits have asked whether Harris will/should pull punches tonight given Trumps ill health, which is entirely the wrong question to ask. It channels the same misplaced concern as when NBCs Lester Holt asked Biden, at a town hall Monday, whether he regretted calling Trump a clown during the first debate. (Biden said he ought instead to have called the first debate a clownish undertaking; in reality, calling Trump a clown is offensive only to clowns.) When it comes to Harris, the stakes are even higher. Given familiar tropes around women candidates and candidates of color, we should be doubly careful not to police her tone.

Other advance coverage, meanwhile, has cast Pences unilateral Plexiglas objection in both sides terms; the Post referred to it as part of both a long day of posturing between the Trump and Biden campaigns and a larger clash of messages. This sort of phrasing muddies accountability, and plays into the perennial problem of the press casting debates as fights. If Pence tries to use the presence of the Plexiglas as a prop tonightto paint Harris as weak or scared, for instancethe press should slap him down, rather than relishing the brawl.

I and others at CJR have argued repeatedly that debate moderators should fact check candidates in real time in the name of fighting the spread of misinformation. Whether that should be a moderators job is at least a matter of legitimate contention; stating that debate organizers should protect candidates, staffers, and guests from the spread of a deadly virus should not be. The two imperatives are not entirely distinct: projecting sound public-health principles is a good thing to do informationally, as well as epidemiologically; taking the debates virtual, meanwhile, could minimize distracting theatrics, and make it easier to cut bullying candidates mics off. Not that any of this is paramount. Helping to contain the virus is simply the humane thing to do.

Below more on tonights debate and the virus:



Other notable stories:

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Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop.
Srinagar, Oct 7 : A wreath-laying ceremony was held here on Wednesday, wherein family members and colleagues remembered and paid tributes to Constable Altaf Hussain of Jammu and Kashmir Police who was killed by terrorists in Ganderbal district last night.

Personal Security Officer Hussain was killed in action after terrorists fired on BJP leader Ghulam Qadir in central Kashmir's Ganderbal district.

The BJP leader escaped unhurt, but Hussain was injured in the firing. He later succumbed to his injuries at SKIMS.

During the attack, Hussain had retaliated even though he was injured, and killed a terrorist on the spot.

Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday condemned the terror attack and paid tributes to the PSO.

The Lt Governor said the attack was an "act of cowardice" and those involved would be brought to justice.

"I extend my solidarity with the family of the deceased PSO. All possible help will be extended to his family," he added.

Speaking to reporters, Director General of Police Dilbagh Singh said: "Terrorists had targetted Qadir at Nunner, during which Altaf Hussain retaliated and killed one militant. Unfortunately, the brave cop lost his life while saving the protectee." He said the slain terrorist was a close aide of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo who was killed in an encounter by security forces in May.

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  The number of homeless people living in Santa Fe and seeking services is on the rise  something advocates say could be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Its still unknown how much the homeless population has increased, but Joe Jordan-Berenis, executive director of the Interfaith Community Shelter at Petes Place, said the shelter saw 144 new people seeking services over the past three months.

When I drive around the city, I see a lot of people I dont recognize who have never been at the shelter, Jordan-Berenis said. And Im not sure where theyre coming from.

Shelter staff is currently interviewing new people to figure out where theyre from, he said, with some coming from out-of-state and Albuquerque.

Historically, though, the majority of homeless people in the area hail from the local area. Jordan-Berenis estimated about 87% of those at the shelter are from Santa Fe.

There are more than 300 homeless people living in Santa Fe, according to the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness, but city Community Services Director Kyra Ochoa said thats certainly an undercount of the actual total, which could be as high as 1,000.

Weve been working intensively with (the Coalition) to get better data, Ochoa said.

She said all providers in their network say theres an increase, although without more concrete data its difficult to say how much it is or whats the cause.

That increase is not lost on those at the center of the discussion.

John Dalancy, 22, said he grew up in Santa Fe and has struggled with homelessness for seven years. He said since the COVID-19 pandemic first hit New Mexico in March, hes seen the number of unhoused people in the area double, especially in the citys busiest areas.

Everybody just lost their house, their job, everything, he said. Especially down Cerrillos (Road), theres a lot more homeless people down there.

COVID-19 has ravaged much of the states economy, as people stay home longer and businesses face various occupancy restrictions, which advocates say can force those in fragile living situations onto the streets.

Hank Hughes, the Coalitions executive director, said the citys previous homeless peak came soon after the Great Recession in 2008, as many people lost their jobs and subsequently their homes.

I suspect that its going to be just as bad as what we had in around 2009, he said. People who used to be able to hold things together  some of them are falling into homelessness.

The city is now prepping to shelter its unhoused population before temperatures begin to fall. Petes Places 123-bed occupancy will be reduced to 36 to keep residents socially distanced.

Thirty others are currently sheltered at a local motel and the city is also housing people at the Midtown Campus. Mayor Alan Webber has also said the city plans on purchasing a motel to be used for transitional housing and that those discussions are already under way.

But Dalancy said hes also noticed a change in how the general public perceives those who are homeless, with many others facing dire economic straits.

People are more polite and respectful, he said. Everybodys thought, Well, that could be me tomorrow. 
Hitachi's abandonment of nuclear investment at Wylfa in Anglesey together with Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab's harder line on human rights in China may do Britain's struggling engineering warrior Rolls-Royce a favour.

For the last several years, the group's researchers have been championing British-designed and manufactured small modular reactors (SMRs) to provide a solution to energy needs.

The Government has kept the project alive with modest R&D support, but way below that necessary to bring the it to fruition.

Rolls on the rocks: Rolls-Royce has been badly damaged by airport quarantines and plunging flying hours, the company's most critical source of cash flow

As it looks at options ahead of the Treasury's upcoming one-year spending review and an energy White Paper, SMRs are right up there in the nuclear mix.

The Government is looking at choices for financing next-generation nuclear to provide a low-carbon power base load as the current fleet is taken offline.

This includes direct government investment in a new super-reactor at Sizewell, the possibility of Chinese investment if national security safeguards can be met and, maybe, consumer involvement.

But it also recognises that SMRs could be an important part of the mix and may be ready to put in as much as 2billion if heavily constrained budgets  with health and education big priorities  can be stretched.

The benefits of SMRs are considerable. It would preserve jobs and engineering skills at Rolls-Royce which has been badly damaged by airport quarantines and plunging flying hours, its most critical source of cash flow.

It would help to keep Britain's lights on and factories working when the wind fails to blow, and, excitingly, could open an industrial technology export market for the UK.

It shouldn't be forgotten that Britain was a pioneer in atomic power with the opening of Calder Hall at Sellafield in 1956.

What began in the UK was aped around the world, with France becoming a dominant player in Europe, with EDF the lead investor at Hinkley in Somerset.

As welcome as French inward investment has proven, how much better it would be if the UK took control of its own destiny with SMRs. It is a forward-looking project which even Luddites in the trades union movement could get behind.

Murphy's law

Tesco has had a good pandemic. It has ratcheted up staff, supercharged online sales and demonstrated it can compete with the no-frills rivals Lidl and Aldi.

In a year when dividends have been the first thing to go, the payout, partly funded by the break on business rates, has been lifted by 21 per cent. Nevertheless, the share price performance has been vapid.

Former chief executive Dave Lewis earned superstar status for bringing the group back from the pits after the audit scandal.

But at a time when other global retailers, notably Walmart, have identified Asia for expansion, Lewis pulled up anchor.

Proceeds from Thailand and Malaysia will enable successor Ken Murphy to reward investors and bolster the pension fund but will leave it much more exposed to Britain and underwhelming eastern European markets.

The Tesco Bank, once seen as a big challenger to the High Street players, lost 155million in the first half.

With so many new players who have wizard technology, ranging from Monzo to Apple Pay, it is starting to look a lost cause.

Tech is Tesco's biggest problem. Online sales may be up 16 per cent but we have little idea how profitable this is.

It is up against the robotics of Ocado, Amazon Fresh and a revitalised Waitrose  all with advanced IT.

Wrestling with Asda and no-frills, expanding German chains is not going to put much pizzazz into performance.

Eating in

When Sainsbury's was making the case for its abortive merger with Asda, which was blocked last year, it made much of the fact that it was facing competition from ready-food home delivery.

Shares in Amsterdam-quoted Just Eat Takeaway (which has just absorbed Grubhub in a 5.4billion deal) are up 16 per cent this year and Delivery Hero has advanced 42 per cent.

All of this ought to be encouraging for UK rival Deliveroo, valued at 1.6billion at the start of the year and now heading for a 4billion London float in 2021.

That is roughly the value of Sainsbury's.

Maybe former boss Mike Coupe, now the Covid testing czar, was on to something.
Despite incessant attacks on his convoy by Boko Haram terrorists during his resettlement exercise recently, the Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum, is still going ahead with his resettlement plan in six towns of the state, which were deserted by residents at the peak of the ongoing security crisis in the state.

A statement issued by the spokesman of the governor, Mallam Isa Gusau, yesterday, said the governor has inaugurated two committees to complete ongoing reconstruction works and facilitate the full restoration of civil authority comprising policemen, Civilian JTF, local government officials, and magistrate courts in six towns located in Marte and Gwoza Local Government Areas of the state.

The statement said the two committees, which have security officials among the members, are to undertake resettlement at Marte in Borno North as well as Ngoshe, Kirawa, Hambagda, Ashigashiya and Warabe in Gwoza LGA of Borno South, but after all safety measures and essential public services are put in place.

The committee on Marte is chaired by the state Commissioner for Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RRR), Mustapha Gubio, while the committee on Gwoza is chaired by the Commissioner for Housing and Energy, Saleh Vungas. Members of the two committees also include representatives of communities and humanitarian actors.

According to the statement, Zulum stated at the Government House, venue of the inauguration, that "the committees are to continue with the rehabilitation and reconstruction works in Marte and Kirawa/Ngoshe to undertake palliative repairs of Marte and Ngoshe/Kirawa roads in collaboration with the soldiers of the Nigerian Army, in order to put in place all requirements that will ensure safety of lives and property of returnees; facilitate the establishment of civil authorities on ground; identify IDPs willing to return home, and address any other matter that is incidental to the smooth return and safety of lives and property of the returnees."

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The governor was said to have explained that the state resettlement drive is aimed at helping citizens pick up the pieces of their lives and move on, after many years of displacement.

He promised that the government would help the returnees to engage in agricultural and other economic activities that will make them self-reliant and be meaningful members of the state.

Zulum also decried the high level of poverty in the state, particularly within the IDPs, which he said the insurgents took advantage of to recruit a lot of able bodied youths in the state.

Zulum, who said he was very mindful of the security situation in the state, however, asked the committees to carry out their duties with all sense of responsibility.

He said: "We should not be in haste. We should not force anyone to return. Although there is an increasing demand from the IDPs to return home, don't force anyone."

Responding on behalf of both committees, Gubio, the RRR Commissioner, assured them that they would all put in their best in discharging the assignment.

In a similar development, Zulum has commended Baga committee for setting a good precedent. He also commended the Nigerian military for supporting the resettlement drive.
Premier Doug Ford says hes worried the coming long weekend could dramatically increase the spread of COVID-19 and compound a September surge unless Ontarians hunker down in their own homes for traditional turkey dinners.

I just want to make it through Thanksgiving and see how the numbers are, Ford said Wednesday as the province reported 583 new cases, an increase of almost seven per cent from the day before. There was one additional death.

After sending a conflicting message Tuesday about keeping Thanksgiving celebrations to no more than 10 people when his own public health experts had advised not to invite guests, the premier clarified that he should have said spend the holiday with just your household and noted he wont be inviting his daughters who dont live with him and his wife.

Were all going to make sacrifices ... I know this will be very, very tough, Ford added, pointing to the rapid increase in infections that followed Labour Day weekend and set Ontario on a path that has included record highs.

Ford continued to argue against a push from Toronto Public Health and others for new restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19, saying more evidence is needed to justify any moves that could harm the economy and the livelihoods of business owners, such as banning indoor dining and drinking at bars and restaurants.

Instead, Ford said Ministry of Labour inspectors will focus on bad actors breaking rules, such as the limit of six patrons per table.

Meanwhile, Ontario continued to struggle with identification of new COVID-19 cases.

The backlog of tests awaiting lab processing fell by just 70 to 55,413 as assessment centres came back into full operations on an appointment-only basis Tuesday, two days after walk-in testing was halted to allow labs to catch up. Labs processed 43,277 tests Tuesday, the most since setting a record of more than 46,000 on Oct. 3.

Some Ontarians have been awaiting test results for a week or longer when the target is to get word to them within 24 to 48 hours. Health Minister Christine Elliott said specimens are being shipped to a private California lab temporarily to speed things up.

Green Leader Mike Schreiner said the delays are completely unacceptable and the result of not having built up enough lab capacity.

It just shows the government didnt use the time over the summer to prepare for the second wave, he told reporters. People are starting to lose trust in the system at a time when we need the publics trust.

Torontos new infections fell to 173 from 201 the previous day, but Ottawa soared to 121 new cases from 62. The health unit in the nations capital said infections there are doubling every 10 days, forcing staff to scale back on contact tracing, as has already happened in Toronto.

There were 75 new cases in York, 70 in Peel, 25 in Hamilton, 15 in Halton and 12 in Durham.

Fully 84 per cent of the new infections were in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area and Ottawa, while nine of the 34 public health units across Ontario reported no new cases. Thats down from about 18 daily in August, showing the virus is back in areas where activity had subsided.

Hospitalizations increased by three patients to 195, while the number in intensive care units increased by two to 43  the highest level since late June. There were 28 patients on ventilators, an increase of two and triple the level of a month ago.

Two more outbreaks in nursing homes raised that total to 53 with another 23 residents and nine staff members infected.

There were an additional 111 cases in schools, with 379 now reporting students and staff with infections, an increase of 32 schools from 347 the previous day. Two schools are closed because of outbreaks.

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Emirates Group Security has hosted a meeting with Deputy British Ambassador to the UAE, Sophia Brecknell and The British Consul General to Dubai, Andrew Jackson. Image: Emirates Group

The visit highlighted the strong relationship and long history of cooperation between Emirates Group Security and the UK Government and its law enforcement agencies, emphasising the important role that aviation security plays in supporting the air transport eco-system.

The UK delegation also included Dubai based representatives of HM Revenue and Customs, Immigration Enforcement, the National Crime Agency, Metropolitan Police and the Department of Transport.

The meeting explored opportunities for closer cooperation within the realm of aviation security, particularly in cybersecurity. The discussions highlighted the need for deeper collaboration across the aviation value chain, taking into account a range of stakeholders such as policy makers, regulators, security and border control, airline and airport operators, amongst others to strengthen cybersecurity capabilities and drive meaningful engagement across the aviation community to identify vulnerabilities and manage additional risks.

Dr Abdulla Al Hashimi, divisional senior vice president Emirates Group Security, hosted the delegation and reiterated the importance of the working relationship forged between Emirates Group Security and the UK government. As the aviation industry navigates an increasingly complex landscape, with a steep rise in transnational crime, smuggling of contraband, syndicated theft, modern day slavery, and greater public demand for safety, there is an even greater need for continuous improvement through partnerships, training and investments in technology. Emirates Group Security is meeting these challenges by leveraging technology, investing in human capital, and living the maxim: security is everybodys business. Dr Abdulla added that strong relationships between the aviation industry and governments allow for the development of a greater integrated approach to general crime prevention. Emirates Group Securitys role in crime prevention, general security services and aviation security is increasingly becoming important in todays world.

Andrew Jackson, consul general, welcomed the existing wide collaboration between Emirates Group Security and the UK across a number of areas including crime prevention and aviation security, and discussed opportunities to grow cooperation for the future, especially in new areas such as cyber security.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered 20th consecutive year as the democratically elected head of a government, without a break, on Wednesday. The journey of the Prime Minister in public office began on October 7, 2001, as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

Crossing another milestone, Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered 20th consecutive year as the democratically elected head of a government, without a break, on Wednesday. The journey of the Prime Minister in public office began on October 7, 2001, as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. This was followed by three terms as the Gujarat CM in 2002, 2007 and 2012, respectively.

During the third term as the Gujarat CM, however, Modi fought the 2014 general elections. His popularity, which was going through the roof both inside and outside the State, led to the BJP declaring him as its prime ministerial candidate in 2013. He had been projected as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate for the PM post. Defeating the Congress-led government which held sway at the Centre, CM Modi left Gujarat to take over the reins at the Centre. Since then, he has solidified his position with the NDA coalition retaining its position in the Centre with an even bigger margin in the 2019 general elections.

Meanwhile, the Prime Ministers journey to the head of an elected government started in 2001 in the backdrop of relief work for the devastating Bhuj earthquake. The following years saw him rolling out several pro-people policies and actively reaching out to the people directly, leading to the formation of his image as a leader of the masses. Further, upon becoming the Prime Minister, he continued the pro-people approach, which was further reflected in the various schemes such as Jan Dhan Yojana, the Mudra Yojana, the Jan Suraksha Yojana, the Ujjwala Yojana, the Saubhagya Yojana, Ayushman Bharat, the Pradhan Mantri Aawaas Yojana, the PM-Kisan Yojana, among others.

Also Read: Wouldve thrown out China in less than 15 minutes if Congress was in power: Rahul Gandhi

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the latter entered 20th consecutive year as the democratically elected head of a government. PM Modi had taken over as the Chief Minister of Gujarat on October 7, 2001. October 7 is a very important day in the countrys history. In 2001, on this very same day, PM Narendra Modi had taken oath as the Gujarat Chief Minister. 20th year of Namo, Shahs tweet read (roughly translated from Hindi).

Moreover, during the COVID-19 pandemic phase too the pro-poor schemes continued, under which arrangements were made to provide foodgrains, jobs, financial help to migrant workers, farmers, among others during the lockdown phase. As PM Modi enters the 20th consecutive year in public office, the mantra of development for all continues to steer India ahead towards the goal of making an Atmanirbhar Bharat.

Also Read: Bihar elections 2020: BJPs Usha Vidyarthi joins LJP in Chirag Paswans presence
Minister of Veterans Affairs Seamus O'Regan rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018.(The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

Government Spends $213,500 to Avoid Paying $25,000 for Defamation

A veterans advocate won a small victory against the legal team for former Veteran Affairs minister Seamus ORegan, who government lawyers defended at a cost of $213,500, according to documents tabled in the Senate.

On May 11, 2018 Sean Bruyea, a veterans advocate, filed a lawsuit against the then-Minister of Veterans Affairs over an op-ed the minister wrote that was published in The Hill Times.

The plaintiff sought damages of $25,000 for defamation.

Government lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case and won. Bruyea appealed that decision and the two sides argued for five hours on August 24, 2018, about whether the Deputy Judge should accept the governments motion to dismiss.

The government argued that having the suit proceed would limit the Ministers freedom of expression.

Bruyea argued that the case had merit and won.

The suit originated from an op-ed Bruyea wrote in early 2018 and had published in The Hill Times, a parliament-focused newspaper.

Bruyeas article compared the old veterans pension plan under the Conservative government with the one put in place by the Liberals, calling it grossly unfair.

The ministers rebuttal was published two weeks later claiming people like Bruyea who were stating mistruths about Pension for Life and are leaving out parts of our programs, are doing so to suit their own agenda.

After opposing the motion to dismiss, Bruyea said Im saddened that this is what the system does to people, that big guys can ruin credibility and not suffer any consequences, or at least use a huge legal machine to go after the little guy.

On July 12 , 2019, the Court of Appeals ordered the case to go back to the small claims court for trial.

Erin OToole sided with Bruyea on a Twitter post back on July 12, saying Sean Bruyea is a Veteran who knew the facts & figures about Veterans benefits better than the Minister yet he was subjected to an unfair attack from the Liberals for daring to hold them to their word @SeamusORegan should apologize & settle this case.

Sean Bruyea is seen during an interview in Ottawa, Tuesday Sept. 14, 2010. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

The government ended up settling the lawsuit with Bruyea. The $213,500 price tag on a $25,000 suit has raised new criticisms, though experts acknowledge the government has other considerations than cost when facing legal challenges.

What? Really? Bruyea said, according to CBC News upon hearing the governments legal costs. Bruyea said he was astonished at the lengths the government will go to, with other Canadians money, to avoid saying Im sorry, I was wrong.

The amount of the final settlement paid to Bruyea last week, which is not a part of the $213,500 figure, hasnt been released.
By PTI

DUBAI: An Indian woman in the UAE gave birth to a baby after having contracted COVID-19 in the final trimester of her pregnancy that resulted in a near-death experience.

Asfia Samreen delivered the baby boy in September, after she contracted coronavirus in May, Gulf News reported on Tuesday.

"Congratulations to Asfia Samreen, who after a long and difficult battle with COVID-19 in the final trimester of her pregnancy, delivered a healthy baby boy," the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA) announced on its social media platforms on Wednesday.

It was a miraculous escape for the Indian homemaker from a series of troubles started with her expired medical insurance, the much-needed protection during the pregnancy.

Her husband, an electrical engineer, could not get his family's medical insurance renewed as his employer was going through a crisis, reported WAM, the official news agency of the UAE.

"This was all possible thanks to Mrs Samreen's perseverance, and the hard work, dedication and care of the medical teams at both Corniche Hospital and Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City (SSMC)," SEHA said.

Samreen, who is from Hyderabad, was in the 24th week of her pregnancy when she tested positive on May 6.

She was admitted to Cornich Hospital, the capital's premier public maternity hospital, on May 7.

"At one point, the doctors had thought of inducing an early delivery of the baby as they were not sure of saving my life, Samreen said.

"They told me that I was about to die so they wanted to save the baby, although I didn't know anything," she said, adding that her husband also tested positive for COVID-19.

On 7th May, Samreen was suffering from multiple ailments and got admitted at the Corniche Hospital in Abu Dhabi.

Although she did not have a medical insurance, the hospital under SEHA offered her all necessary treatments.

After seven days, as her condition worsened, she was moved to the UAE's largest hospital for serious and complex care, under SEHA.

She was unconscious for the next five days (13th to 17th May) as her respiratory system and kidneys were dysfunctional.
Almost nothing about Holdfast Dining was equipped to handle COVID-19.

Even by the standards of Portlands already-decimated restaurant industry, the intimate chefs counter from Will Preisch and Joel Stocks had it bad. Their intricate food  tweezers and all  didnt lend itself well to delivery. Outdoor seats were hard to come by. And the space itself, designed as it was around the signature piece of fine-dining furniture of the 2010s, a chefs counter, not only made social distancing difficult, its counter seats arent even allowed under Oregons phased reopening plan.
The Gulf Downstream Association (GDA) recently launched its 10th Technical Committee on Digitalisation based on a key Board objective to capitalise on and support members in the adoption of fast-evolving technologies.

The Committee aims to ensure that members have the necessary support and resources to adapt to the emerging IR4.0 technologies (e.g. Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analysis, Augmented Reality, Machine Learning, Drones, 3D Printing, etc.) effectively and efficiently, a statement said.

This Committee is focusing initially on bridging the knowledge gap between members by reviewing progress and plans being undertaken by various member organisations on Digitalisation. The Committee will also monitor the continuous development in technologies relevant to the downstream industry and deliberate on those specific technologies most suitable to adding significant value collaboratively and collectively to the businesses of GDA members and allowing them to better optimise efforts and costs, it added.

Specifically, the Committee will focus on the following areas in the context of Digitalisation:

 People (Accountability, Expectations, Governance, and reporting)

 Processes (Strategy, Framework, Methodologies, Metrics, and Training)

 Functional Support (OT, IT, Security, Audit, Compliance, and Procurement)

 Business Engagement (Leadership, Business Continuity, Change Management, and Value)

 Culture (Communications, Campaign, Champion, and Immersion)

According to the statement, the kick-off meeting of this new Committee was held virtually on September 15 with the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) nominated from GDA founding member companies. GDA Secretary General Eng. Audah Al Ahmadi welcomed the members of this new committee and wished everyone a great success in creating a unique alliance among the GCC players on the common issues of Digitalisation, while enriching the combined pool of knowledge benefitting all.

GDA Technical Manager Raj Jhajharia presented a comprehensive overview of GDA since its inception and provided a detailed update on the GDA website focusing on the unique Knowledge Hub. He also briefed the committee members with salient aspects of their Charter and future Roadmap.

During the meeting, Bassam Jayed Alshammari from KNPC was elected the Chairperson and Khurram Haleem from Saudi Aramco as Deputy Chair. The Committee Charter was discussed, and it was agreed that more SMEs from amongst the GDA membership would be added based on their potential to add value in this committee.

Under the current situation of COVID-19 pandemic, the Committee decided to schedule regular virtual meetings to progress on their charter and knowledge-sharing initiatives, like all other GDA Technical Committees.--TradeArabia News Service
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Representative to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Yeghishe Kirakosyan says the ECHRs interim measure against Turkey per Armenias application was based on sufficient evidence presented solely by Armenia.

In fact the Court stated the fact of Turkeys involvement based on the evidence we provided, he said.

He said this is an important step within the logic of the overall further case.

We can talk about the judgment when the main complaint will be submitted. We havent yet submitted a main complaint against neither Azerbaijan nor Turkey.

Kirakosyan said they are submitting evidence of Azerbaijani gross violations of humanitarian laws and conventions on a daily basis to the court.

He says the ECHRs decision could become a tool for other member states of the Council of Europe for presenting demands to Turkey by citing this decision.

It now calls on all States directly or indirectly involved in the conflict, including Turkey, to refrain from actions that contribute to breaches of the Convention rights of civilians, and to respect their obligations under the Convention, the ECHR said in the October 6 decision.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
A childrens song became an instrument of cruelty at an Oklahoma County jail, according to reports.

A report by The Oklahoman, said that on Monday, two former Oklahoma County jail guards and their supervisor were charged with several crimes for forcing inmates to stand for hours while listening to the popular childrens song Baby Shark, at loud volumes.

BuzzFeed News reported that according to probable cause affidavits provided to them, in November and December last year, guards Christian Miles and Greg Butler Jr., both 21, forced four inmates to listen to the song on repeat, while standing alone, handcuffed to a wall in rooms at the Oklahoma County Detention Center. According to the report, there were at least two inmates who were forced to stand for two hours, the report cited.

Investigators wrote that the song was put on a loop to play repetitively aloud...thus putting undue emotional stress on the inmates who were most likely already suffering from physical stressors, the report cited.

According to the investigators, The playing of the music was said to be a joke between the guards, the report cited, and its purpose was to try to discipline the inmates and teach them a lesson.

The BuzzFeed News report noted that this type of activity is a form of psychological torture. During the George W. Bush administration, music played on repeat for hours was used by CIA agents, according to a 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report.

The guards' shift commander failed to respond to complaints.

According to the affidavit, although the guards shift commander, Christopher Hendershott, 50, was reportedly aware of the guards practice, as well as many inmate complaints against them, he failed to discipline the pair or conduct any investigation, the report cited.

Hendershott, Miles and Butler have been charged with the misdemeanor offenses of cruelty to prisoners, corporal punishment to an inmate, and conspiracy, the report said.

According to the report, online court records revealed no attorneys were listed for the trio.

What action was taken by the Oklahoma County Sheriffs Office?

According to an Oklahoma County Sheriffs Office spokesperson, when officials learned of the allegations last December, the guards' contact with inmates was revoked, the report cited.

During the investigation, the report said all three guards voluntarily left the department.

The Oklahoman newspaper, which was first to report the charges, quoted Sheriff P.D. Taylor, who told them, We dont tolerate it, he said. We always did an excellent job policing ourselves."

READ MORE:
In association with Times OOH, The Max & PHD Media, SKODA Auto unveils all new Superb & Karoq at the Mumbai Airport. By opting for the most premium promotional space at Terminal 2, the brand took a first mover approach in the category post reinstatement of the market to target the growing premium and business air travellers at T2, Mumbai Airport. PHD Media & The MAX (Tribes & Mudra Group Venture) worked closely with the brand to conceptualize the campaign.

In the Automobile category, much of the buying choice is driven by the technology, precision and features that one has to offer. Hence, the brand chose a promotional space and a versatile location located in the high dwell retail zone - just after the security check catering to 100% departing traffic. Mumbai airport has witnessed high passenger traffic growth with the overall increase in the confidence of passengers along with the rise of premium and business travellers.

Simply Clever - Stunningly created in brands colour, the promo zone floor is crafted in a unique way by using largest floor LED installation ever used before for an experiential display in Indian airport. This LED floor can withstand a weight of 4 tons showcasing a bespoke content specially designed to add visual brilliance and give a grandeur effect to the cars kept on display. With this, the entire space looks mesmerising making it eye catching and allures the passengers to experience it.

Tarun Jha, Head of Marketing - SKODA Auto India says, Since the Mumbai airport is one of the largest airports in the country in terms of footfalls, it was a no-brainer and a significant choice for us. Another important factor was that Mumbai has always been one of the top markets for brand SKODA and capitalizing on this was an obvious decision. As we are launching a series of new cars in 2020 and 2021, airport displays are a great way to showcase the new cars to the prospects and generate enquiries. With Unlock 5.0 and the increase in the number of passengers following the reinstatement of premium and business travellers at Mumbai airport, it was a strategic call for us to have our presence at the Mumbai airport to showcase our products. Like always, we wanted our promo display to stand out, capture the attention, showcase the grandeur and wow factor of brand SKODA. We have always been a Simply Clever brand when it comes to our marketing activities. We believe in extracting the most out of a specific idea rather than being all over the place. It cannot be a better time for us to do this activity leading to the launch of our new cars in the next year.

Gour Gupta, MD  Tribes Group says, The task was one that we took head on during a time when everything was at a standstill. A unique opportunity was presented to us and we challenged the status quo, by creating an innovative and immersive experience for SKODA in association with PHD at T2, Mumbai Airport.

We are happy to be associated with SKODA Auto and The Max & PHD in creating this unique and one of its kind promo experience for the targeted audience at T2, Mumbai Airport. We always believe in bringing world-class airport media advertising opportunities to our brand partners in the most effective yet creative way. said Sumit Chadha, Business Head, Mumbai Airport - Times OOH.

Monaz Todywalla, CEO PHD India  Post the unlock in phases, air travel has picked up and customers are slowly back into the shopping arena. Making the most of this, SKODA has very cleverly captured the sentiment of providing a holistic experience to the customers. PHD firmly believes in disruptive innovation that showcases the complete potential of what the brand stands for. Making a leap into the futuristic world of automobile displays for this next chapter in SKODAs history, we created a visually engaging display at the T2, Mumbai airport that allured the customers from the very first moment that they laid their eyes on it. Securing a prime display location, we are glad that we could innovatively give the customers a taste of SKODAs futuristic designs, and simultaneously, effectively ensure that adhering to the current social norms, every bit of precaution was undertaken during the execution.

Times OOH offers comprehensive media solutions across Airports, Metro and Street furniture in India and Mauritius.
Ithaca is well known for many reasons. Not only is it home to Cornell University (any Andrew Bernard/"The Office" fans out there?), but it is more than a college town. Ithaca Commons, a main shopping thoroughfare, is full of adorable shops and varied restaurants. With plenty to do and see, Ithaca is Gorges is the main catchphrase of the area for a reason: The nature surrounding the area is a huge pull for avid hikers and waterfall chasers.

Checking into Firelight Camps

There are regular hotels in the area, but I recommend trying glamping; we did so at Firelight Camps (1150 Danby Road). One of the main reasons to visit the Finger Lakes region is to immerse yourself in nature with a quiet lakeside vacation. Camping is a viable option, but when you can enjoy all of the activities of camping like a big bonfire, smores, hiking and more while being able to use a shower and sleep in a big comfy bed, why not have it all? I recommend one of the Firelight Camps' electric tents, especially if youre not used to camping. It gets dark fast and its nice to have light, heat, and outlets to charge your devices. If you want a more authentic experience while still having the big bed, they do have rooms without electricity, with outlets available in a common area. You can also hang out by the firepits or in the lodge for quite a while. Bars are fully stocked with local beers, wines, and more along with some snacks available for purchase. Each guest receives a scratch-made s'mores kit, and you can really tell that everything is homemade, down to the graham crackers. Breakfast in the morning is packed in a personalized cooler and filled with goodies like local fresh pressed juices, locally made yogurts, fresh fruit, farm-fresh brown eggs and more. Complimentary coffee and hot spiced cider is always available. Ive never been so rested while camping.

Things to Do

Hiking is a must while in Ithaca, especially while chasing waterfalls. Regardless of the time of year that youre there, the waterfalls are stunning. Ithaca Falls, Buttermilk Falls State Park, and Taughannock Falls State Park should all be on your radar while in the city. In the warmer months, you can swim next to waterfalls Robert H. Treman State Park and Buttermilk Falls while in the cooler months, the falls freeze over, creating stunning natural icy landscapes.

Take a stroll around the Ithaca Commons (171 E. M.L.K. Jr. St.) to buy yourself a Cornell mug or sweatshirt. Pop in and out of some local shops or bookstores before grabbing a cup of coffee and a pizza bagel at College Town Bagels (Three locations at 329 Pine Tree Road, 301 E State St., and 420 College Ave.). Try the Hawaiian pizza bagels smothered in stretchy mozzarella cheese with a coating of marinara, salty ham, and chunks of sweet pineapple.

Explore TreeTops -- just a short stroll down a short path behind the Cayuga Nature Center (1420 Taughannock Blvd.) -- a six-story treehouse built to explore and provide visitors with stunning views of the Finger Lakes.

Where to Eat and Drink

I love the variety of hole-in-the-wall bars where you can have a couple pints and play darts, but the area also has some upscale places, including Bar Argos (408 E State St.). Bartenders there are not afraid to use some unusual ingredients like activated charcoal or mushroom bitters.

Check out Just A Taste (116 N Aurora St.), a Spanish tapas bar with some delicious dishes and a fantastic wine selection. Their menu is full of tasty options like braised duck with apricots and fresh herbs, or fresh squash and zucchini doused in brown butter with salty romano cheese, pecans, and garlic.

The Ithaca Ale House (111 N Aurora St.) has a wide variety of local beers and some of the best burgers Ive had. I can always respect a restaurant with the diversity to have a selection of options that appeal to a wide audience. If youre looking for healthy options, they have sesame seared tuna with an Asian slaw along with a variety of delicious salads, some healthy some not, like the Maryland crab cakes salad. But back to the burgers. Juicy plump patties and crispy rolls loaded with quality ingredients... it doesnt get much better. That is, until you find out about their brunch burgers like the Savory Waffle Burger with a breakfast sausage patty topped with melted American and cheddar cheeses, sweet maple syrup, and crisp pork belly, served between Belgian waffle halves instead of a bun.

Jessica Kelly is a food and travel writer from Buffalo. @adventures.are.waiting
Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is meeting top German officials on Wednesday, a day after sitting down with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin

She's been trying to lobby support for the Belarus opposition movement and is set to meet with Norbert Roettgen, a top lawmaker in Merkels conservative party.

The opposition leader of the ex-Soviet republic is the main opponent of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko Tsikhanouskaya went into exile in Lithuania after the Aug. 9 presidential election in Belarus, which election officials claimed that Lukashenko won in a landslide. Opposition figures and some poll workers say the results were fraudulent and tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest.

Late last month, Tsikhanouskaya met with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been pushing for European mediation in the Belarus political crisis. The European Union said last month it does not recognize Lukashenko as president of Belarus.

Lukashenko, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1994, has sought to crack down on protesters.
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Moore, who most recently served as President, assumes his new role effective immediately. Moore's promotion marks the first transition to CEO since the founding. In this role, Moore will oversee all co-founded sister companies, including 98 Ventures, UST, UST Select, Equip Fulfillment, and Insight Tech Co.

Regarding his promotion, Moore stated, "My vision is in alignment with our founder. We will build on our solid foundation with our people as the cornerstone. We will embrace a culture of curiosity as we seek to discover unconventional solutions to our industry's longstanding challenges."

As a part of this transition, Steve O'Brien has been named President, and Scott Aikenhead has been named Chief Operations Officer (COO), effective immediately.

Steve O'Brien joined the team in 2015 and most recently served as COO. Scott Aikenhead joined the team in 2014 and most recently served as Executive Vice President.

In a statement to the company, Ramsey stated, "I have never failed to give our company all I have to offer... The only thing left for me to do is step aside so that the next generation of leaders throughout the organization have an opportunity to demonstrate what I know you are all capable of." He continued, "I am forever grateful for all you have given me through the years, never more proud of who we have become and never more eager to see where you take us next."

ABOUT 98 VENTURES

98 Ventures is an executive management services company specializing in human resources, accounting, risk management, communications, application development, information technology, recruiting, legal, data analysis, operations support, and training and development. We support multiple companies across various industries including logistics, fulfillment services, and technology.

CONTACT:

Murray Dorn

[email protected]

864-235-8330

SOURCE 98 Ventures
French lawmakers on Tuesday unanimously voted to return prized artefacts to Benin and Senegal more than a century after they were looted by colonial forces and hauled back to Paris to be displayed in museums.

The pieces include a royal throne and statues taken by the French army during a war in Benin -- then the wealthy African kingdom of Dahomey -- as well a sabre once wielded by a 19th-century Muslim sheik in what is today Senegal.

After 49 MPs in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, voted Tuesday night in favour of the bill -- with none voting against -- it will now head to the Senate.

If approved, France will officially restore to Benin 26 items from the Treasure of Behanzin, looted during the 1892 pillaging of the palace of Abomey.

They include the throne of King Glele -- a centrepiece of the 70,000-odd African objects held at the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum in Paris.

Senegal will get back a sword and scabbard said to have belonged to Omar Saidou Tall, an important 19th century military and religious figure in West Africa.

The pieces are officially held by the Army Museum in Paris, but are on long-term loan to Dakar, where they have been exhibited since last November.

Former culture minister Franck Riester said the return of the artefacts was part of a "strengthened desire for cooperation" with the two francophone West African countries.

He spoke to the assembly because current Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot was isolating after coming into contact with a positive coronavirus case.

Ahead of the vote, Bachelot insisted the bill was "not an act of repentance or reparation, nor a condemnation of the French cultural model".

- 'Strictly the minimum' -

President Emmanuel Macron pledged shortly after his election in 2017 to look into the restitution of African cultural treasures.

Benin's President Patrice Talon has previously said he was "not satisfied" even while welcoming "small steps" being taken by France.

Story continues

"To approve a specific law to hand back 26 artefacts is strictly the minimum," he told the magazine Young Africa, arguing for a law that gave "global restitution based on a precise inventory".

Last month five activists went on trial in Paris for trying to seize an African funeral staff from the Quai Branly, France's pre-eminent indigenous art museum, in a bid to put new pressure on Macron to return more items.

An expert report commissioned by Macron in 2018 counted some 90,000 African works in French museums, most of them at the Quai Branly.

Britain has also faced calls to return artefacts, notably the Elgin Marbles to Greece and the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, while museums in Belgium and Austria house tens of thousands of African pieces.

cr/fjb/dl/gle
Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has expressed profound appreciation to members of his press corps for their thoughtfulness.



Receiving a portrait from the group ahead of his 57th birthday on Wednesday, October 7, Dr Bawumia said, "This is the most touching gift I have received on my birthday, it's beautiful, it's fantastic, I will keep it in my office".



Mr Charles Takyi Boadu, Dean of the Vice President's Press Corps, made the presentation on behalf of the group and expressed gratitude to the Vice President for his cordial relations with them.



"We thought it wise as a group of journalists who have been following and providing coverage for the Vice President's public engagements for almost four years that on his birthday, we should give him a surprise.



"So knowing his love for people who suffer leprosy or lepers, we decided to present a portrait of the Vice President depicting his sense of humanity and love for the vulnerable," Mr Boadu said.



"And you could see from his face and comments that he was very happy with the gift we presented to him," he added.

Vice President Bawumia will turn 57 years on, Wednesday, October 7,2020.



He is a patron of the Lepers Aid Ghana and an advocate of cured lepers and has been supporting them with donations over the years.



Dr Bawumia sponsored the construction of a two bedroom house for an 82-year old cured leper, Madam Daari Pogo, who was abandoned by her family and was sheltering in a mud house in Motori in the Wa West District of the Upper West Region.



Dr Bawumia was born on October 7, 1963 to Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia and Hajia Mariama Bawumia in Tamale.



He was born into a large family and is 12th of his father's 18 children and the second of his mother's five children.



He is married to Samira Ramadan Bawumia and the union is blessed with four Children.

Source: GNA









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FILE PHOTO: The corporate logo of the state oil company PDVSA is seen at a gas station in Caracas

By Marianna Parraga

(Reuters) - Two Venezuela-owned oil tankers are crossing the Atlantic Ocean jointly carrying about 1.2 million barrels of heavy crude, vessel tracking data from Refinitiv Eikon showed on Tuesday, as the South American nation turns to its own fleet in the face of U.S. sanctions.

Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA is resorting to using its own tankers to deliver exports as tightening sanctions by Washington deter shipowners and managers from visiting the South American nation's oil ports.

The tankers Colon - previously known as Arita - and Parnaso set sail in September from PDVSA's terminals, but had not turned their location transponders on until this week, the data showed.

They are now following the route of another Venezuela-owned vessel, the Maximo Gorki, which departed in early September carrying about 2 million barrels of crude bound for Asia.

The Colon was signaling its destination as Asia, the data showed.

PDVSA in August began offering to deliver oil to some of its customers in its own tankers, factoring in freight costs in supply deals, to help buyers struggling to hire vessels to carry Venezuelan oil due to U.S. sanctions.

Since June, the United States has blacklisted vessel owners and threatened to sanction any tanker facilitating the export of Venezuelan oil as a way to increase pressure on President Nicolas Maduro, whose 2018 re-election was branded a sham by most Western countries.

Even though most of PDVSA's aging tanker fleet is not in any condition to navigate international waters, the firm is using a handful of vessels that have up-to-date insurance and certifications, as well as tankers under time-charter contracts, according to company sources and internal documents seen by Reuters.

As part of the move, the state-run company has recently changed some of its vessels' names and flags, according to Eikon and other shipping databases.

PDVSA did not respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Mexico City; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Marguerita Choy)
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Linkedin HUGUES HONORE/FIACHRA GIBBONS (Agence France-Presse) Paris, France  Wed, October 7, 2020 17:04 472 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49ac8d8 2 Books Simone-de-Beauvoir,France,books,homosexuality Free

A tragic love story that Simone de Beauvoir thought "too intimate" to publish during her lifetime will finally see the light of day Wednesday, 34 years after her death.

The great feminist writer recounts her teenage crush for another girl in Les Inseparables, the story of a "passionate and tragic friendship between two rebellious young girls".

But de Beauvoir put the deeply autobiographical novel into a bottom drawer after her partner Jean-Paul Sartre "held his nose" when he read it.

The author of The Second Sex wrote how she became "instantly charmed by her new classmate", Elisabeth "Zaza" Lacoin, who died of encephalitis at the age of 21.

"From the day I met you," she wrote, "you were everything for me."

In the novel, the de Beauvoir character does "her all in order to make Andree (a thinly-disguised Zaza) love her back," said the 2Seas literary agency, who handled the foreign rights for the book.

Described as "moving, gripping coming-of-age novel" that "outlines Simone de Beauvoir's personal battle against the conventional expectations", de Beauvoir finished it in 1954, five years after her feminist masterpiece was published.

It's theme of "the friendship between two young women struggling against conventional ideas of what a woman should be in early 20th-century Paris" echoed The Second Sex.

The book's English publishers, Vintage, said the two girls were expected to be "devout, obedient and obliged from a young age to set aside her own interests and passions" for the men in their lives.

Read also: Letter shows 'unsatisfied' de Beauvoir's passion for younger man

Unrequited passion

The writer went on to have several other relationships with women, some of whom were also Sartre's lovers.

De Beauvoir first evoked her relationship with Zaza in her Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter.

The two were so close during World War I and the 1920s that fellow students and teachers at their school called them the "inseparables".

Zaza's relationship with the communist philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, whom she had met through de Beauvoir, scandalized her traditionalist Catholic family.

He appears as a charismatic student in the story, and one of his classmates was none other than Sartre.

The pair quarreled and then permanently fell out over Soviet communism around the time the novel was written.

By then the object of de Beauvoir's unrequited love was long dead.

Some have questioned whether Sartre's rift with Merleau-Ponty may have also played a part in de Beauvoir putting the book to one side.

"It is said that it was Jean-Paul Sartre himself who advised De Beauvoir not to publish the novel, considering it of little interest," the philosopher Paul B. Preciado wrote in the French daily Liberation.

But Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, the writer's adopted daughter, thinks that it was she herself who finally renounced it despite several rewrites.

In the preface to the book -- which will be published in English next year -- she argued that de Beauvoir found "the final fictional transcription of [her love for Zaza] unsatisfying".
Free workshops to help small businesses

Two free workshops for small business owners will be held tomorrow.

The workshops will help small business owners, specifically to discuss the challenges small businesses face in being able to develop and grow now, in 6 months and beyond.

Each workshop will start with Tim Cowsill, Head of Business Isle of Man, providing attendees with an overview and update on the work coming from the Isle of Man Governments Economic Recovery Group.



Representatives from the Department for Enterprise will also be present at both sessions to answer questions about their wide variety of support schemes available.



Taking place on Thursday at Eagle Labs, there will be a choice of two times: a breakfast workshop between 8:00  9:30 and a lunch workshop between 12:00  13:30. Light refreshments will be provided at both sessions.



For more information and to register for the free event, please visit: www.businessisleofman.com/events
The secretary of defense this week detailed an aggressive new plan to significantly boost the Navy fleet to more than 500 vessels, with an emphasis on attack submarines, unmanned ships and "light carriers."

Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Tuesday unveiled the long-awaited results of a Navy review to determine the size of the future fleet. Coined Battle Force 2045, Esper said the future fleet will eventually include more than 500 manned and unmanned ships, making it a "more lethal, survivable, adaptable, sustainable, modern and larger force than we have seen in many years."

"If we can assemble the collective will and determination to see it through, I'm confident Battle Force 2045 will maintain our maritime superiority far into the future and ensure the United States Navy remains the greatest in the world for generations to come," he said.

Read Next: Gen. Milley Apologizes After Joke About Rep. Adam Schiff Falls Flat

The new plan, which matched a document Defense News first obtained and reported on last month, marks a significant increase in the 355-ship fleet the Navy has been working toward. Esper acknowledged the U.S. will face challenges in building a 500-plus ship fleet under tightening budgets. But he stressed the buildup is necessary, citing China's troubling and "brazen destabilizing" actions in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as Beijing's plans to modernize its force in the next 15 years and field "a world-class military by 2049."

"The Navy, for generations, has been absolutely critical to the national security, and also the economic security, of our country and will remain so in the future," Esper said at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "The challenge before us is to maintain the greatest Navy in the world."

Battle Force 2045 includes seven big changes to the future Navy fleet. Here's a look at what the military wants.

1. A Bigger Sub Force

A top priority must be building a larger and more capable submarine force, Esper said.

"The study reached a clear consensus on the need to rapidly increase attack submarines -- the most survivable strike platform in future great power conflicts -- to the range of 70 to 80 in the fleet," he said. "If we do nothing else, the Navy must begin building three Virginia-class submarines a year as soon as possible."

Plans also call for refueling the seventh Los Angeles-class submarine, Esper added, and continuing to invest in the future attack submarine known as SSN(X).

2. Conventional and 'Light' Carriers

Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers will remain the country's "most visible deterrent," Esper said. But the Navy will also examine options for light carriers that support short-takeoff and vertical-landing aircraft.

"One model we're considering is the [amphibious assault ship] America, that is equipped with more than a dozen F-35Bs," he said. "Light carriers provide additional presence and capacity to carry out day-to-day missions and free up supercarriers for more critical, high-end fights."

The Navy still needs to study the right mix it'll need, but Esper estimated the force will require between eight and 11 nuclear-powered flattops and six light carriers.

3. Up to 240 Drone Ships

The Navy will be investing big in unmanned or optionally manned platforms, Esper said, making up between 140 and 240 of the future fleet's ship count.

The ghost fleet, as it has been called, will carry out a variety of missions -- from resupply and surveillance to minelaying and missile strikes. According to Esper, they add "significant offensive and defensive capabilities to the fleet at an affordable cost in terms of both sailors and dollars."

"Earlier this month, the [unmanned surface vehicle] Sea Hunter prototype completed operations with the [destroyer] Russell, demonstrating that unmanned surface vehicles are technologically feasible and operationally valuable," he added.

4. More Small-Surface Combatants

The Navy wants to add between 60 and 70 more small-surface combatants to the fleet.

As a preview of what's to come, Esper pointed to the Navy's April $795 million contract award to a Wisconsin-based shipbuilder to design and build the first of the new guided-missile frigates.

"This is the first new major shipbuilding program the Navy has sought in more than a decade and will support the full range of military options," he said.

5. Dozens of Combat Logistics Ships

Navy and Marine Corps leaders have stressed that deterring China will mean distributed operations in the Asia-Pacific region, in which ships are operating far apart from one another while sending small teams of Marines ashore.

Esper said that, to carry out those missions successfully, the Navy will likely need between 70 and 90 combat logistics ships.

Aside from sustaining the force, Esper said the department's shipbuilding report will also address plans to get ground troops ashore "on time and with sufficient combat power." Adversaries have made it tougher for ships to stay close to shore, leaving the Marine Corps challenged to get its forces onto land in contested environments.

6. Unmanned Aircraft at Sea

Future flight decks are going to be packed with drones.

"The Navy must develop and deploy carrier-based unmanned aircraft of all types," Esper said. "This includes fighters, refuelers, early-warning and electronic-attack aircraft."

While the ship-count plan didn't analyze in detail the mix of manned and unmanned aircraft Navy vessels should deploy with in the future, Esper said the issue will continue to be studied.

7. More Amphibs

The Marine Corps wants to spend more time at sea, and Esper said he supports the service's top general's push to do so.

That's going to result in a bigger gator Navy as the service invests in more amphibious ships to transport Marines around the world.

"We see a need for more amphibious warfare ships than previously planned, in the 50- to 60-range," the defense secretary said.

To cover the costs of the changes, Esper said he has agreed to shift other Defense Department funds to the Navy's shipbuilding account, a big signal that the secretary supports the sea services' plans. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said earlier this year that the Navy would need a bigger slice of the overall Pentagon budget to meet its future requirements.

"These additional funding streams will increase the shipbuilding account up to 13% within the Navy's top line, matching the average percentage spent for new ships during President Reagan's buildup in the 1980s," Esper said of the planned shifts.

He stressed that the Navy must not sacrifice shipbuilding for maintenance. Esper acknowledged the challenges the Navy has faced in terms of shipyard capacity and maintenance delays, which he referred to as the service's Achilles heel.

He also said Congress must get back to passing budgets on time for Battle Force 2045 to work, adding that the Navy Department must be allowed to ditch legacy systems and low-priority activities to redirect funding toward higher priorities. Esper said he'll ask Congress to give the Defense Department the authority to pour unused end-of-year Navy funds directly into the shipbuilding accounts "instead of watching [them] expire."

"The objective is to have as many ships continuously at sea as possible to maintain a high level of readiness," he said.

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

Related: The Navy Is Preparing for a Major Unmanned Battle Test in the Pacific
(Newser)  Pope Francis is back giving out kisses without a mask as coronavirus cases rise across Italy. The 83-year-oldwho lost part of a lung during a childhood illnesswas seen kissing the hands of newly-ordained priests during a general audience in Vatican City on Wednesday, reports the Daily Beast. He did not wear a mask, and only some of the priests around him did. Photos show him speaking closely with one maskless priest inside Paul VI Hall and kissing the hand of a priest whose mask did not cover his nose. Vatican commentator Robert Mickens shared several other images he says are "very disturbing." One shows the pope speaking to an attendee who had pulled his mask down. Mickens says several attendees did the same thing when speaking with the pope.

story continues below

It's unclear why the pontiff was taking such "extraordinary risks," per the Daily Beast. Only a month ago, the pope wore a face mask while arriving to greet a crowd at the Apostolic Palace, though he removed it to speak, and was also seen using hand sanitizer. "A healthy society is one that takes care of everyone's health," he told the crowd on Sept. 9, per the AP. A Philippine cardinal tested positive for the virus a day later, some 10 days after meeting with the pope. Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin afterward explained the pontiff was being "constantly monitored" for a possible infection, per AFP. Wednesday's service came a day after face coverings were made mandatory in all outdoor settings in Vatican City and in workplaces where maintaining distance isn't possible, reports the Catholic News Agency. (Read more Pope Francis stories.)
Democracy did not die in Hungary in 2015 when Prime Minister Viktor Orban decided he needed an expensive border wall to see off a nonexistent "invasion" of asylum seekers.

When Poland's government that same year started stripping power from the country's courts by filling large swaths of the judiciary with apparatchiks loyal above all else to the incumbent right-wing populist party, the rule of law still applied.

Turkey's leader was once seen as a potential model democrat in the Islamic world. Today, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the world's biggest jailer of journalists.

Experts agree that democracy is fragile, not preordained and that a country's descent into the type of illiberal politics that has emerged in recent years in parts of Europe, in Brazil, in India and elsewhere, has been nothing if not gradual. It creeps up on you.

'The countrys lost its mind': Polls warning of civil war, violence shows deep partisan chasm over election

"Little by little there's a tiny change in regulations in, say, the justice system one day. Then, later, appointments to high courts and ministries here and there. It may seem insignificant. You may not even hear about it," said Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran, author of "How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship."

"Fascism does not walk toward political power in goose steps," she added, referring to the straight-legged, stiff-kneed marching steps of soldiers usually performed during military parades and ceremonies and often associated with Nazi Germany.

Korean People's Army soldiers goose step during a mass rally on Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang on Sept. 9, 2018. North Korea, a dictatorship, held the military parade to mark its 70th birthday.

Temelkuran said her anecdotal impression is that many Americans tend to believe authoritarianism and other forms of threats to democratic freedoms "can't happen here," because of the strength of U.S. democratic institutions. "There's also some arrogance in it. They think somewhere like Turkey is a crazy country," she said.

What kind of president is Trump?

Story continues

It may not help that there is massive divisiveness over a basic point: What is the most appropriate term to describe President Donald Trump's leadership style?

Trump's supporters cheer an unconventional and gladiatorial figure who they claim defends their conception of American values and interests.

A supporter of President Donald Trump waits for the start of a Trump campaign rally at Harrisburg International Airport, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020, in Middletown, Pa.

His critics often use alarming if imprecise words like autocratic (ruler who has absolute power), tyrannical (exercises power in a cruel or arbitrary manner), despotic (rules by brute force), demagogic (exploits emotions and prejudice) and xenophobic (hatred of the foreign or strange).

"This is fascism at the door," Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said of Trump after he chose not to immediately disavow white supremacy groups such as Proud Boys. Trump was directly asked to do so during the first presidential debate with his Democratic rival Joe Biden. The FBI considers Proud Boys, which only admits men, "to be an extremist group with ties to white nationalism."

Who are the Proud Boys?: Far-right group has concerned experts for years

After Trump appeared on a White House balcony on Monday night following his release from the hospital where he was being treated for coronavirus and said "I led" in regard to COVID-19, historian Anne Applebaum wrote an analysis in The Atlantic magazine in which she drew some parallels to historical scenes involving Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who loved photo ops.

"Those staged pictures are what a lot of people want to see, and that false reassurance is what a lot of people want to hear. Dont underestimate their power," wrote Applebaum, the author of "Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism."

History offers advice but not necessarily a guide.

"Some were recalcitrant; some tried not to show how much his favor meant to them; some were openly servile. In a short time, he was surrounded by a court of yes-men who frowned when he frowned or guffawed loudly whenever he deigned to tell a joke," the Polish-American poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote in 1951 in his book "The Captive Mind."

Milosz's words were written shortly after he defected from Stalinist-controlled Poland.

They formed part of Milosz's attempt to explain the rise of totalitarianism (where people are completely subservient to the state) under would-be authoritarians (generally evoked as someone who exerts close and precise control over a repressive and centralized state authority). The latter is a phrase that Trump's detractors have deployed to characterize a president who has refused to rule out staying beyond his legal term, sent unidentifiable federal forces to quell protests, described dissent as foreign interference and who routinely disseminates false and prejudicial information.

(Studies have shown that Trump is the single largest spreader of disinformation related to coronavirus and election topics.)

In his choice of William Barr as America's top legal officer, Trump appointed an Attorney General who has been prepared to reduce the prison sentence of the president's close ally (Roger Stone) against the objections of U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors, while he has also sought to drop the prosecution of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Who's going to derail the U.S. election?: The culprit may be close to home

Trump has described Kim Jong Un, a bonafide dictator whose regime has for years presided over gruesome state-sponsored killings and a nationwide famine, as a "friend." Tapes from the journalist Bob Woodward's book "Rage" reveal that Trump said he gets along better with foreign autocrats the "meaner and tougher" they are.

Ways the U.S. is different

Still, it's important to note that the U.S. does not  yet  have a totalitarian system, an authoritarian leader or some other highly abusive and domineering form of government.

The U.S. has meaningful political participation by citizens. There is freedom of press, speech and religion. A robust political opposition and civil society provide a check on legislation, corruption and government decisions. Power is not so brazenly concentrated that state or federal authorities can demand blind submission. Trump's domestic opponents are not customarily subject to government surveillance or arbitrary detention, notwithstanding protesters in Portland who described being held by federal agents while demonstrating against police violence and racial injustice.

Federal agencies from the CIA to the Environmental Protection Agency regularly challenge Trump. There is a growing cottage industry of former White House staffers who have been free to publish books and articles arguing that Trump's handling of everything from the coronavirus epidemic to his name-calling feuds with allies resembles a curious, chaotic and irrational mix of nihilism and temper tantrums.

None of these things are wholly true in places such as China, Russia or the Philippines, where strongman leaders exert tight control over political systems.

China's President Xi Jinping, for example, has defended detaining millions of Muslim minority Uighurs in what many call concentration camps by insisting they are being re-educated with the "correct" outlook on China. High-profile critics and rivals of Russian President Vladimir Putin have a tendency to die from poison. President Rodrigo Duterte openly admits  brags, even  about authorizing extrajudicial killings as part of his "war on drugs" in the Philippines.

Maria Ressa: Why her fight for free speech and free press should be U.S.'s fight, too

Critics may describe the Trump administration as dysfunctional and even open to abuse by bad actors. But the overall system isn't  as far as we know  maliciously rigged, according to Leonard Benardo, vice president of the Open Society Foundations, an organization that promotes democracy and human rights.

In the U.S. there are still, Benardo added, "fundamental democratic institutions that have been able to present those kinds of excesses from happening. We don't have people in the U.S. being 'disappeared' by the state" or other unrestrained strong-arm tactics.

Case in point: After Trump cast doubt on the transition, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell vowed that there would be an "orderly" transfer of U.S. presidential power in January as there has been since 1792.

"The U.S. is not on the brink of authoritarianism," said Ian Bremmer, the founder of the global political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, in a recent tweet.

In fact, according to Salvatore Babones, an American-born expert on authoritarianism at Australia's University of Sydney, Trump is, if anything, anti-authoritarian.

"It's probably more reasonable to call him dictatorial," he said. "You can't be an authoritarian when you disrespect all major bases of traditional authority," Babones said, referring to Trump's unconventional and unpredictable leadership approach on issues ranging from national security to campaigning.

However, Babones noted that Trump is dictatorial only in the sense that he appears to "simply dictate his policies," usually via Twitter, rather than arriving at them through discussion. He does not have absolute power without any constitutional limitations.

"I would not say he is a dictator. A dictator does not have to satisfy a Congress."

Babones added that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president to serve more than two terms, was also dictatorial in his governance style.

"He refused to step down. He threatened to pack the courts. The difference is that the American establishment liked his policies. So for many, he's not viewed that way."

Ways the U.S. is not so different

Jason Stanley, a Yale University philosophy professor and author of "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them," published in 2018, goes one step farther.

"Trump believes only in himself as an authority. It's called the 'Fuhrer principle,'" he said, a reference to the machinery of state that oversaw Hitler's Third Reich  commonly understood as an ironclad belief in the infallibility of the leader's words and deeds. It led to the most extreme and calculated extermination campaign against a people in history.

"Fascists target racial minorities and immigrants. They use the police in political ways. We are seeing all this with Trump," Stanley said. "We need to focus less on what the right word is to describe him and more on the consequences of his actions."

In addition to Trump's refusal to commit to providing a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election, the president has also encouraged his supporters to monitor Election Day polling places for instances of fraud  a federal crime if they are not there in an official capacity  raising fears of potential voter intimidation, violence and disorder more generally.

The number of Americans who feel they would be justified in using violence to achieve their political goals has increased sharply from 8% in 2017 to 33% today, and three-in-four Americans believe there will be violence following the results of the 2020 presidential election, according to YouGov, an online market research firm.

Although Trump subsequently said his words during the debate with Biden were misinterpreted when he told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," and he later also said he condemned all white supremacists, the group itself took his original remarks to be a tacit endorsement of their violent tactics if the election doesn't go his way, according to messages on the group's messaging channel.

International evidence that the U.S. should not be content to rest on its democratic laurels, that it too could be susceptible to the slow erosion of personal and democratic freedoms, is not difficult to find, according Benardo, of the Open Society Foundations, an organization founded by the Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros.

Hungary: Hitting media, judicial system and immigrants

A decade ago, when Orban came to power in Hungary the country was still grappling with the aftermath of the economic crisis and relatively recent ascension to European Union membership. Since then Orban has slowly but aggressively consolidated his executive power and critics say the country is now a democracy in name only.

During this time Orban has gutted the country's civil service, redrawn electoral maps, appointed friendly judges, installed party loyalists to key watchdog posts in the media and promoted a version of Hungarian ethnic identity that is white, Christian and vehemently opposed to taking in refugees who, he claims, threaten "our way of life."

The impact has been widespread but also specific.

"I was cornered and cut off from everything," said Bela Lakatos, a former member of Orban's party and mayor of a small town who specialized in minority issues.

Bela Lakatos.

Lakatos, who is ethnically Roma, a minority group long discriminated against in Hungary, said he quit his position in disgust over the Hungarian government's immigration and Roma policies and was instantly targeted by online trolls and government-controlled media who accused him of beating up children and other crimes.

He also believes that he was effectively blacklisted from finding work as a school teacher, his profession before he worked for the government.

"(Orban) has been peddling the same stories in the countryside since 2015: Brown and Black people will come and steal your chicken and rape your wife," he said, noting that the government has created a culture of fear where lying has become routine and where many are afraid to speak out over concerns for their careers and reputations.

Open Society Foundations shut its office in Hungary in 2018, leaving behind what it called "an increasingly repressive political and legal environment." Soros, who is Jewish, has become a bogeyman for unfounded conspiracy theories, anti-semitic tropes and attacks by U.S. right-wing groups. Trump himself has pushed claims that Soros funds antifa, the radical left-wing political movement. Orban rejects accusations of Hungary's authoritarianism as "fake news" spread by his political opponents, including Soros.

Trump isn't the only one who wants to built a wall. These nations already did

Poland: 'Horrible intolerances ... now articulated freely'

In nearby Poland, President Andrzej Duda and the powerful leader of his ruling Law and Justice party, Jarosaw Kaczynski, have slowly dismantled many democratic checks and balances by filling the ranks of the nation's courts with loyal judges.

The Law and Justice Party has tightened the government's grip on state institutions and companies including the media, increased its powers to spy on its citizens and imposed new taxes on those who oppose socially conservative measures such as keeping gay marriage illegal, strict immigration laws and a proposed near-total ban on abortion in a country that already has some of Europe's most restrictive reproductive laws.

"Poland has become a place where horrible intolerances, whether anti-semitism or racism, are now articulated freely in the street," said Mateusz Klinowski, a law professor and former mayor of Wadowice, the birthplace of Pope John Paul II.

In 2019, Pawe Adamowicz , a friend of Klinowski's and the mayor of the Polish city of Gdansk who espoused liberal causes including giving refuge to asylum seekers at odds with Poland's conservative nationalist government, was assassinated by a former convict during an annual charity event. Klinowski has been stalked.

Turkey: Jailing journalists

Temelkuran, the writer from Turkey, left her country in 2016 after a failed military coup attempt against Erdogan that led to tens of thousands of soldiers, police and civil servants being dismissed or suspended from their jobs, and thousands jailed.

A little over a decade ago, Turkey was in serious talks to join the EU. Today, political opposition in Turkey has been so severely curtailed that it is too dangerous for Temelkuran and other outspoken journalists to return and Erdogan has transformed his presidential power into an unassailable force that allows him to make law by decree.

Temelkuran noted that Trump started questioning the perceived sacrosanctity of U.S. institutions and norms from the FBI to the courts right after he was elected. She said she was keeping an open mind about what this relatively quickened trajectory could eventually mean for American political culture compared to that of Turkey's and others', where tangible declines in democracy took several years to materialize.

Turkey coup: One year later, country bitterly divided as crackdown continues

Brazil: Undermining educated experts

In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro was elected on a platform to reduce crime and corruption and strengthen the economy. He's spent the last few years trying to roll back the nation's democratic order established after its military dictatorship ended in 1985.

Bolsonaro has tried to appoint military leaders to important civilian posts, undermined Brazil's Supreme Court, accused environmental groups of deliberately starting wildfires in the Amazon and downplayed the gravity of coronavirus infections to deadly effect. He tried, but failed, to get his son nominated to be Brazil's ambassador to the U.S.

Brazils leader fired his minister of health for advocating social-distancing measures.

Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro followed Trump coronavirus blueprint. Cases are surging

India: Attacking a minority Muslim population

Six years of rule by Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narenda Modi has relentlessly marginalized India's Muslims.

"Sometimes they ignored you, sometimes they might criticize you. Post-2014, social media now questions me and my religious identity before they question my work," said Arfa Khanam Sherwani, a senior editor at The Wire, an Indian news and opinion website.

In addition to violence in Kashmir, a religion-based citizenship law was introduced that fast-tracks citizenship for religious minorities from three neighboring nations but excludes Muslims.

"First, I am discredited for being a Muslim, then for being a woman and only then as someone who criticizes the government," Sherwani said.

Back to U.S.

Still, in the U.S. context, Michael Ignatieff, a U.S.-educated, Canadian-born former politician, historian and president of the Soros-founded Central European University, said he sees an "alarmist rhetoric about fascism and authoritarianism" and connecting it to Trump that is not only counterproductive but leading to increased hysteria. Last year Central European University was forced to move all of its U.S. degree courses from Budapest to Vienna because of Orban's crackdown on academic freedoms in Hungary.

"The problem in America is extreme polarization. I don't see it as incipient fascism. And I don't see it as a collapse of countervailing institutions," he said. "Fascism is not just any politics you don't like. Fascism is the explicit use of political violence, hitting people, killing people, knocking people over, invading an assembly with armed thugs."

Ignatieff added: "What matters is that the 2020 results are respected."

Contributing: Szabolcs Panyi in Budapest, Hungary

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What authoritarian countries can tell us about democracy and Trump
Patna, Oct 7 : Bihar's former DGP Gupteshwar Pandey, who was tipped to contest the October-November Assembly election on a Janata Dal-United ticket, does not figure in the list of 115 candidates released by the state's ruling party on Wednesday.

It was being speculated that Pandey, who hails from Buxar, could be fielded from there. However, the seat has been allotted to the Bharatiya Janata Party, who has fielded Parsuram Chaturvedi.

According to JD-U insiders, the party wanted to give a clear message that no one could use a government post for political gain.

Pandey, who came under huge criticism for his comments on actor Sushant Singh Rajput's mysterious death, faced more flak from opposition parties, especially Maharashtra's Shiv Sena, after he took voluntary retirement from the Indian Police Service on September 22 and joined the JD-U three days later.

Even the top JD-U leadership was feeling the heat over his inclusion in the party.

Another theory doing the rounds is that the BJP did not want to give up the Buxar seat, where it enjoys strong influence, especially among the upper castes. Besides, Union Minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey is the sitting BJP MP from Buxar.

Pandey had earlier claimed that he has potential to contest election from more than 25 constituencies in Bihar.
(L-R) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Donald Trump, Bahrain Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani, and UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan pose from the Truman Balcony at the White House after they participated in the signing of the Abraham Accords where the countries of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recognize Israel, in Washington on Sept. 15, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

US-Led Middle East Peace Accords an Opportunity for Australian Business

Arthur Tane, president of the Canberra-based Council on Middle East Relations, said the normalisation of relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain could open up greater commercial opportunities for Australian trade and businesses.

Tane told The Epoch Times that the new Abraham Accords that secured peace between the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain provided several opportunities for Australia.

For Australia, the Middle East is a natural strategic land bridge connecting the continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe, Tane said. The perception that both the UAE and Bahrain are normal countries and this normality will allow for greater opportunities, be it economic, trade, and diplomatic, cultural, or security relationships, he said.

(L-R): Treasure Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald Trump, and Advisor Jared Kushner, speak in the Oval Office to announce that Bahrain will establish diplomatic relations with Israel, at the White House in Washington, on Sept. 11, 2020. (Anna Moneymaker-Pool/Getty Images)

The UAE and Bahrain both signed the American-instigated peace agreements with Israel in September. At the signing, Abdulla bin Touq Al Mari, the UAEs economy minister, noted that the accords would lead to a new economic potential for the region.

This agreement will pave the way for greater trade and investmenta peace dividendand as more trade is conducted, this relationship will strengthen. More business means more people-to-people connections, more understanding, and more shared interests, said Al Mari.

Tane agreed with this and noted that the Accords now create a more stable and secure environment for the gulf states which in turn provides greater opportunities for Australian companies who may have not thought of partnering with Emirati and Bahraini firms.

In particular, Tane sees potential for trade growth in the areas of defence, technology development, land and water management, and food security.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on Sept. 15 that Australia welcomed the normalisation of relations between the UAE, Bahrain, and Israel and she noted that it paves the way for enduring peace, greater dialogue, cooperation, and economic opportunities.

Australia strongly supports these initiatives. Australia welcomes the role played by all parties, including the United States, and their determination to take steps towards a more stable and secure region. Australia is committed to Israels right to live in peace and security with its neighbours, Payne said.

Australias leading trade and investment agency, Austrade, states that the UAE is a launching pad for exports to the Middle East region. Currently, Austrade highlights aerospace and aviation as a key niche area where billions of dollars are being invested.

Australian companies have strong capabilities in niche areas across aerospace and are viewed favourably as a nation that delivers consistently and with high standards.

The UAE is Australias largest Middle East trading partner and the regions second-largest economy after Saudi Arabia. In 2019, Australias trade with UAE was worth $9.8 billion and had grown 22.2 percent from the 2018 financial year.

An aerial view shows Burj Dubai, the worlds tallest tower built by Emaar property developer, in the Gulf emirate of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Dec. 17, 2009. (Marwan Naamani/AFP/Getty Images)

Australia and Bahrain have had a commercial relationship for many years. In the 2018-19 financial year, merchandise exports were worth $1.43 billion, mainly comprising alumina, meat, motor vehicles, dairy products, and wheat.

The accords are the latest move in a rapprochement between Israel, America, and the Gulf states. In May, America signed a deal to expand its military presence and capabilities in the UAE, and Israel, Jordan, and UAE are currently discussing the creation of a train line to allow them to bypass the Suez Canal.

The line will bring about greater supply chain security for Israel, after Chinas recent establishment of a military base at the port of Djibouti which is at the entrance of the canal. UAE and Bahrain are also said to view the accords as a pathway to gain access to better defence capabilities from around the world.
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UCook, together with Ellerman House and Rain, will be holding an online fundraising concert on 30 October 2020. Music for Meals is aimed at raising funds for crisis relief and food-aid initiatives as well as the support of the development of longer-term, sustainable solutions to improving the overall livelihoods of South Africans.

The two-hour-long concert will feature 13 top acts, including USA-based musicians. The lineup includes Dave Matthews, Tom Morello, Ard Matthews, Karen Zoid, Lira, Majozi, Ndlovu Youth Choir, The Parlotones, Prime Circle, Springbok Nude Girls, Vusi Mahlasela, Watershed and Zolani Mahola.UCook CEO, David Torr, describes the concert as a celebration of the two things that bring everyone in the world together  music and food  while raising funds for those in need. Following the success of the UCook Food Fund, launched during the lockdown, its important for us to continue supporting our community and those feeling the effects of Covid-19, as well as raising awareness around hunger, Torr says.Arguably, the most impressive aspect of Music for Meals is that UCook and Ellerman House will be leveraging their existing network to ensure that all capital raised from the concert will go towards making a real, long-term difference. Torr says that UCook is committed to working with the selected organisations to benefit the people who are most in need of help. We are utilising our resources and our relationships with other businesses and individuals to make sure we adequately support our community in this time of crisis.South Africas unlimited data network, Rain, has got behind the initiative to join those lending their voices to the biggest concert, from your couch. Were glad to be partnering on a project thats meeting an important need at a crucial moment, says rain CMO Khaya Dlanga.Tickets are priced at just R80 each from Computicket for the event at 7pm on 30 October. Proceeds collected through ticket purchases and donations will go towards The Click Foundations Disaster Relief Fund and the support of several short-term hunger relief initiatives being run by the Be The Difference Foundation and the One Bag Full Charity. Funds will also support longer-term hunger and educational initiatives such as the UCook Food Fund, Casterbridge Music Development Academy and The Click Foundations Online Literacy Programmes.For more information and to book your ticket, visit urbansessions.computicket.com
After interviewing guests remotely for seven months, Jimmy Kimmel finally welcomed his first in-studio guest since March, Armie Hammer.

The 34-year-old actor left nothing to chance, rocking a full astronaut space suit as he spoke with Kimmel in a socially-distanced interview in the studio.

The actor was promoting his new film Rebecca, which arrives in theaters October 16 and then on Netflix October 21, as he walked out in the astronaut suit, to applause from Kimmel's crew, including Guillermo.

First guest: After interviewing guests remotely for seven months, Jimmy Kimmel finally welcomed his first in-studio guest since March, Armie Hammer

When Kimmel asked where he got this suit, Hammer joked, 'OK, the thing is, I know where I've been. I don't know where you've been.'

He added, 'This feels a little irresponsible,' while joking that they were out of the 'Outbreak costume' so he settled on the astronaut.

Kimmel said he's been, 'tested on a daily basis' as Hammer joked that maybe he should be wearing the suit then.

Suit: When Kimmel asked where he got this suit, Hammer joked, 'OK, the thing is, I know where I've been. I don't know where you've been'

Tested: Kimmel said he's been, 'tested on a daily basis' as Hammer joked that maybe he should be wearing the suit then

The actor added that he has actually been quite productive during the pandemic, adding his friend Ashton bought a run-down hotel in TweyntyNine Palms, and asked him to, 'live in this abandoned motel and do construction.

During his time there, he met a crazy character named Motor Mike, who had somehow trained road runners to come to him.

'He cocks his head back like this and goes "Pretty bird, pretty bird, I love you." And then he just pauses and looks at me. And I was like -- do I say something now? Like I'm not familiar with this interaction. And then all of a sudden I s**t you not, a road runner comes running up and stops right at Mike's feet,' Hammer added.

Productive: The actor added that he has actually been quite productive during the pandemic, adding his friend Ashton bought a run-down hotel in TweyntyNine Palms, and asked him to, 'live in this abandoned motel and do construction

A week later Motor Mike had somehow been able to train three of these road runners, the key to he explained was feeding spicy Cheetos.

Hammer also spoke about his new film Rebecca, based on the Daphne du Maurier novel of the same name, where he stars alongside Lily James.

'Rebecca" it's a psychological thriller. It's about a young woman played by the amazing Lily James, who meets a guy played by the amazing Armie Hammer,' he joked.

Cheetos: A week later Motor Mike had somehow been able to train three of these road runners, the key to he explained was feeding spicy Cheetos

He added that the couple meet and fall in love and go back to his home, which he previously shared with his late wife.

Rebecca, feels like the house is haunted by his first wife's ghost,' with Hammer adding the film is, 'kind of like a psychological thriller.

Hammer also stars in Death on the Nile alongside Kenneth Branagh, which is currently set for release on December 18 though it remains unclear if that date will still remain in place with COVID-19.

Couple: He added that the couple meet and fall in love and go back to his home, which he previously shared with his late wife
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso - The United Nations refugee agency says 25 men were killed on Sunday when gunmen ambushed a convoy near their village in Burkina Fasos Center-North region.

A statement Wednesday said the men were separated from the group and killed while women and children were released. The gunmen then fled.

Three of the women told The Associated Press the gunmen identified themselves as jihadists and said they were attacking in retaliation for having volunteer defence fighters in the village.

They said people from our town had recruited volunteers to fight them and today, weve got you, Wendpengda Ouedraogo said by phone from Pissila town near the location of the attack.

The government was not able to confirm the killings, but several officials in towns in the Center-North region told the AP they were aware of the situation and said it was being investigated. But they put the number of deaths at between 15 or 20 people.

Violence has wracked the once peaceful West African country, killing almost 2,000 people this year, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. The Center-North region is one of the hardest hit areas.

In an attempt to bolster the struggling armys fight against the jihadists, the government passed a law in January to arm civilians. However, the program has been hastily rolled out and some volunteers have become perpetrators of abuses. They also have become targets for collaborating with the army.

From the outset, there were major concerns that the volunteer program risked aggravating tensions along ethnic fault lines, a prophecy that clearly has been fulfilled given the continuous vicious cycle of attacks and reprisal killings between jihadi militant groups, communal self-defence groups and ethnic-based militias, said Heni Nsaibia, a Sahel researcher.

The women who were returning to their village on Sunday told the AP it was the first time theyd gone back since being displaced a year and a half ago.

I thought it was safe to return, said one, Haoua Korgo.

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Before certain events of last Friday, this year's first and only vice presidential debate might have been politely described as the least anticipated event of 2020, notwithstanding the release of a new Bright Eyes album.

There are good reasons for this, which are worth discussing, as a nation now prepares to turn its lonely eyes to Michael Pence.

The vice president is, surprisingly, one would think, given his ostensibly straight-shooting style, among the least understood figures in American politics. This is true not least of all among liberals, many of whom appear to be under the impression that Pence would have a better chance at the top of the GOP ticket than his boss. The argument, if I understand it correctly, is that the Republican product  lower taxes, repealing the Affordable Care Act  would sell better with different packaging.

This is totally wrong. It is the same absurd logic that led feckless cable news journalists to give Donald Trump the billions of dollars in free air time that ultimately won him his party's nomination in 2016, on the assumption that he was certain to lose the general election. So far from being the least likely candidate to beat Hillary Clinton, Trump is probably the only Republican who could have done it.

Which of the other roughly 224 participants in the 2016 GOP primary could have won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania? It is difficult now to remember that as recently as 2015, defending the Iraq war was a mainstream position in Republican circles; with the lone exception of Rick Santorum, who had been out of the Senate for a decade, not a single other candidate in that primary was critical of NAFTA or the broader thrust of American trade policy. Trump's insistence upon leaving Social Security and Medicare intact separated him from his opponents, who favored either means testing and increased age thresholds for these programs or their outright elimination. These are not positions that would have won over the small  tens of thousands in a handful of Midwestern states  but crucial number of reliable Democratic voters who broke for Trump.

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Nor was Trump's appeal simply a question of policy. It is his crude antagonistic style that endears him to his supporters, many of whom do not share any of the Republican Party's traditional commitments and stand to benefit little if at all from the enactment of its economic agenda. Like Barack Obama before him, Trump managed to convince millions of Americans that voting for him was some kind of life-affirming existential gesture.

It is just about possible to believe that in 2016, Trump needed Pence, who gave him credibility with congressional Republicans and in the wider world of conservative think tanks and media outlets. If the governor of Indiana, for utterly inexplicable reasons then considered something of a rising star in right-wing politics, was on board with this guy, then Tea Party congressmen could hold their noses. But now? I am surprised the president did not dump Pence unceremoniously in favor of someone like Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who briefly served as Trump's ambassador to the United Nations. As things stand, the best that can be hoped for from Pence in Wednesday's debate is that his sheer tediousness will convince viewers to turn off their televisions and watch old Trump clips on YouTube.

Pence is an impossible old fossil, a crude survival of Homo republicanthalensis as the species existed during the Bush administration. His vision of conservatism failed decisively in two successive presidential elections. It has as much of a chance of meeting with a revival in the next one as Perry Como has of reaching the top of the Spotify charts.

This is why fantasies of replacing Trump at the top of the Republican ticket with Pence are absurd regardless of any lingering concerns about the former's health. It is also why in 2024 it is impossible to imagine him winning the nomination, much less the White House.

Regardless of what happens at the beginning of November, Pence has no political future, at least outside of his home state, in which it is possible to imagine him lording over undergraduates and hapless administrators as the chancellor of, say, Purdue University.

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State roads agency Ukravtodor commits to anti-corruption reform

Focus on procurement, internal controls and staff development

Good governance in road sector is litmus test for broader anti-corruption programme

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the government of Ukraine are launching a joint initiative to improve the corporate governance of state-owned enterprises, starting with a pilot programme to transform Ukravtodor, the state roads agency.

In a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed at the sidelines of the EBRD 2020 Annual Meeting today both parties commit to supporting efforts to enhance Ukravtodors procurement system and to strengthen its internal controls, policies and procedures that aim to prevent bribery and corruption.

Denys Shmyhal, Ukraines Prime Minister, said: The partnership between Ukravtodor and the EBRD on corporate governance and anti-corruption practices is another indication that Ukraine has the political will to remove opportunities for any corruption. In addition, such cooperation with our partners will increase the efficiency of public investments in infrastructure projects. The government is continuing its corporate governance reform in line with OECD best practices and is considering the application of this reform in 15 state-owned enterprises in the near future.

Matteo Patrone, EBRD Managing Director for Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, signed the agreement on behalf of the Bank and said: This cooperation to strengthen anti-corruption measures in the road sector will serve as a pilot  and a litmus test  for a broader anti-corruption and good-governance programme backed by the EBRD and targeting all Ukrainian state-owned enterprises and public sector entities.

As part of the MoU, Ukraine is committing to implementing the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises and to adopting an overarching state ownership policy.

Work to promote good corporate governance in state enterprises and state agencies will include an overhaul of risk management systems, compliance and internal audit systems, and the replacement of existing structures with independent and qualified professionals. Staff will be trained to act ethically and with integrity. In the future, third parties such as contractors and suppliers will also have to commit to the same anti-corruption principles.

In addition, the government of Ukraine and the EBRD will work to align the procurement systems of state-owned enterprises and agencies with the Global Standard for Procurement and Supply of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply and to help them receive internationally recognised procurement certification. The reform will include staff development programmes and the introduction of comprehensive e-procurement systems covering the investment cycle from start to finish.

The EBRD is a key supporter of reforms in Ukraine. Its financing for state-owned enterprises is conditional on improvements in corporate governance. To date, the Bank has worked with the state-run oil and gas company Naftogaz, national energy firm Ukrenergo, the postal service UkrPoshta, national nuclear power company EnergoAtom and Ukrzaliznytsia, the Ukrainian railways firm. The Banks investments, coupled with work to improve corporate governance, have helped to strengthen the rules, practices and processes by which these companies are directed and controlled, enhancing their performance and accountability.

As a leading institutional investor, the EBRD has invested more than 14.4 billion across 479 projects in Ukraine to date. The Bank is focusing on energy efficiency and energy security, unlocking Ukraines agricultural and industrial potential, providing quality infrastructure and strengthening the financial sector.
Former FBI Director James Comey appears via video remote at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington on Sept. 30, 2020. (Ken Cedeno-Pool/Getty Images)

DNI Declassifies CIA Memo That Comey Claimed to Have No Memory of Receiving

The head of the U.S. intelligence community on Oct. 6 declassified a referral sent from the CIA to FBI Director James Comey in 2016, which Comey last week claimed to have no memory of receiving.

The three-page referral, released by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to members of Congress in partly redacted form, apprised Comey and FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok that intelligence suggested that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had approved a plan concerning the Trump campaign and Russias alleged hack of the Democratic National Committee.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Comey claimed not to remember ever receiving the referral.

Ratcliffe sent copies of the partly redacted, three-page referral (pdf) to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, alongside written notes (pdf) taken by CIA Director John Brennan.

Last week, Ratcliffe released a summary (pdf) of the contents of the documents, in which he alleged that Clinton approved the plan on July 26, 2016, and that Brennans handwritten notes concern a briefing he provided to President Barack Obama in late July. The information about the plan came from a Russian intelligence analysis obtained by U.S. authorities, according to Ratcliffe.

The Clinton plan was meant to distract the publics attention from the Clinton email scandal, the CIA referral to Comey and Strzok states.

Brennans notes describe an alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on 26 July of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russia security services.

Brennans notes then show three bullet points from POTUSan acronym for President of the United Statesthe only unclassified one of which states, Any evidence of collaboration between Trump campaign + Russians.

The notes also include a lengthier classified list of bullet points under the heading of JC, an apparent reference to the acronym for James Comey, suggesting that Brennan either briefed or was instructed to brief Comey.

In the summary letter last week, Ratcliffe noted that since the information came from Russian intelligence, it should be treated carefully with the potential that its either exaggerated or intentionally misleading. The timing and the content of the intelligence are nevertheless significant considering the context of the events that unfolded shortly before and after July 26, 2016.

On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee. Just over a month earlier, the DNC alleged that its network had been hacked by the Russians.

On July 25, 2016, Clinton campaign senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan publicly discussed potential links between the Trump campaign and Russia and insinuated that the Republican candidate may be compromised. On the same day, the FBI confirmed that it had opened an investigation into the hacking of the DNC.

On July 26, 2016, allegedly approved a plan to dirty up the Trump campaign. On the same day, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele drafted a memo for his infamous dossier claiming an extensive Russian government hacking operation. Also on the same day and across a continent, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer informed the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in London about a conversation he had with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, in which Papadopoulos mentioned that Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton.

On July 27, 2016, Trump said in a news conference, Russia, if youre listening, I hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

On July 28, 2016, FBI attorney Lisa Page wrote to Strzok, Have we opened on him yet? Page included a link to an article titled Trump and Putin. Yes, Its Really a Thing. Strzok replied: Opened on Trump? If Hillary did, you know 5 field offices would. Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on the same night.

On July 29, 2016, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and senior FBI leadership, including Comey, discussed the Downer tip, as well information on two other Trump campaign associates, Carter Page and Paul Manafort, during a morning meeting. McCabe would later tell the Justice Department inspector general that he didnt recall the discussion.

On July 30, 2016, Steele drafted a memo alleging an eight-year-long Russian effort to cultivate Trump and worries within the Kremlin about the political fallout from the DNC email hack.

On July 31, 2016, Strzok drafted an electronic communication memorializing the official opening of a full investigation into a potential conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, titled Crossfire Hurricane. Strzok presented Papadopouloss conversation with Downer as the central pretext for the investigation.

While a full accounting of the events is yet to be made public, the timing of the events suggests that the FBI may have pivoted its investigation of the DNC email hack into an investigation of the Trump campaign and Russia around the time Clinton allegedly approved the plan to stir up scandal around Trump and Russia.

Special counsel Robert Mueller, who took over the Crossfire Hurricane investigation in May 2017, eventually indicted Russian intelligence officers for allegedly hacking the DNC. The indictment suggests that the DNC email hack was part of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Jeff Carlson contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this article gave an incorrect date for when Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic presidential nomination. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
Drug dealers intent on recovering 110lbs of cocaine have been accused of kidnapping an associates grandparents from their home in Upstate New York, ferrying them across the Canadian border through a tribal reservation, and holding them hostage for two nights until police rescued them.

Five men from Quebec and one from Plattsburgh, New York, face charges of kidnapping, forcible confinement and extortion for the abduction of James Helm, 76, and Sandra Helm, 70, of Moira, a town of 3,000 residents about 15 miles from the Canadian border, officials said.

In the criminal complaint against Graigory Brown, 50, of Plattsburgh, an FBI agent describes a harrowing series of events aimed at recovering a drug cache that, it turns out, had already been seized by the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

James and Sandra Helm, in their 70s, were kidnapped last month from their home in Moira, New York, by a group of drug dealers, transported to Canada and held captive for two nights

Suspects seeking to recover a cache of cocaine from the Helms' grandson broke into the couple's home on September 27 and took them away by force

The abduction came to light when James Helm, 76, failed to show up for work as town highway superintendent on September 28.

One of the couples sons went to their house to check on them, found the front door jimmied open and called state police. Troopers noted the bed was unmade, a jar of dog treats had been overturned in the master bedroom and the Helms were gone.

Surveillance video near the home showed a pickup truck, later identified as Browns, arriving there late Sunday. A trace of Helms cellphone showed it in a neighboring town around 11pm, then on the Akwesasne Mohawk reservation straddling the border, then out of the country.

This map shows the location of the Helm couple's home in Moira, New York, and the place where they were rescued two days into their captivity in Magog, Quebec

Sandra Helm told FBI agents she and her husband had been taken over roads and water with pillowcases or hoods over their heads

The son who reported the couple missing got a phone call later Monday morning from a man police call 'Co-Conspirator A,' who said he and his associates had the Helms and wanted to exchange them for 110lbs of cocaine they believed 'Individual-1' had stolen. As an alternative, they would accept $3.5million, the cocaines value.

The court document doesnt identify 'Individual-1' or specify his relationship to the Helms. But the couples grandson, Macenzie Helm, 28, and his mother, Michelle Helm, had been arrested by DEA agents in South Burlington, Vermont, a week earlier.

Court documents say the mother and son duo were transporting a duffel bag of cocaine for a larger organization. The bust wasnt publicized, so the traffickers didnt know the DEA had seized the cocaine.

Both suspects pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, reported NBC5. Michelle Helms lawyer, Richard Bothfeld, said she was released pending trial.

The couples son received a series of additional calls and text messages, as well as a proof-of-life photo of his elderly mother sitting in a chair with her husband standing beside her, authorities said.

By tracing the location of cellphones involved in the kidnapping, the Quebec provincial police found the house in Magog where the Helms were being held and arrested four Canadian men between the ages of 36 and 75 on September 29.

At the house, investigators recognized the chair and some trees seen in the photo sent to the Helms' son.

Sandra Helm told FBI agents she and her husband had been taken over roads and water with pillowcases or hoods over their heads.

Officials in Canada rescued the Helms from this residence in Magog, Quebec, on September 29

'According to the complaint, Brown and his co-conspirators put an elderly couple through a terrifying ordeal,' Acting US Attorney Antoinette Bacon said in announcing Browns arrest.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Brown on October 15 in US District Court in Plattsburgh.

The five Canadian suspects appeared in provincial court in Montreal on Tuesday. They were identified by NNY360 as father and son George and Kosmas Dritsas, ages 75 and 49, respectively; Taylor Martin, 36; Franco D'Onofrio, 55, and Gary Arnold, 45.

All five are due back in court for bail hearings set for October 20-22.

Reached by phone Tuesday, James Helm said he has been advised not to talk about the case. 'Were doing all right,' he added.

'They seem to be doing fairly well,' Moira Town Supervisor Justus Martin said. 'Theyre just trying to lay low and recover.'

If convicted as charged, Brown could face up to a life in prison.
By AFP

GENEVA: The UN refugee chief said Wednesday that he had tested positive for COVID-19 after leading the first day of the agency's main annual meeting in person. Filippo Grandi, who kicked off UNHCR's week-long Executive Committee meeting in Geneva on Monday, told participants via video-link that he would need to continue following the event from home.

"I am engaging with UNHCR's Executive Committee from home as I have to isolate after testing positive to #COVID19," he said in a tweet. "I only have mild symptoms and hope to recover soon," he said, stressing with the help of emojis the importance of "washing hands", "keeping distances" and "wearing masks".

I am engaging with UNHCRs Executive Committee from home as I have to isolate after testing positive to #COVID19.



I only have mild symptoms and hope to recover soon.



A reminder of the importance of washing hands keeping distances and wearing masks ! pic.twitter.com/LtUMD7ti64  Filippo Grandi (@FilippoGrandi) October 7, 2020

Grandi had addressed delegates from the podium in the UN Assembly Hall in Geneva on the first day of the event, but participated remotely on Tuesday. Spokesman Andrej Mahecic told AFP that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had tested positive Tuesday evening.

"He felt mild flu-like symptoms in the morning and, according to protocol he got tested in the morning and continued to work online, so virtually from home as he was chairing ... the 71st session of the UNHCR Executive Committee," he said.

Mahecic said that as soon as he received his test result, Grandi had "immediately" informed the seven people he had been in close proximity to -- defined as closer than 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) -- during Monday's session. "All of them are now self-isolating in quarantine for 14 days, and obviously they are monitoring their symptoms," he said, adding that "so far, none of them have developed any symptoms".

Well-wishes

Grandi's tweet was met with numerous well-wishes for a speedy recovery, including from the ambassadors of Norway, the Netherlands and Cyprus, and the president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

UNHCR's executive committee is for the first time being held as a hybrid event this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Only limited numbers of delegates are allowed to attend physically, and distancing restrictions and mask requirements are in place.

The sickening of one of the UN's top officials comes as a number of diplomats are pushing the world body to speed up resumption of activities, in person or at least through hybrid set-ups, amid fears its decision-making processes risk "paralysis".

Some diplomats have also warned that certain countries are using the pandemic as an excuse to slow down discussions of sensitive topics.

Another concern is that virtual meetings cost far more for the UN to organise than physical events, causing an additional cash-drain for the severely underfunded organisation even as demands for its services are skyrocketing.
Universities say their pleas have been answered after the federal budget contained a $1 billion research bailout package to help plug the hole caused by the collapse of the international student market.

The funding lifeline comes amid a horror year for the sector as many universities were forced to slash hundreds of jobs in response to a sudden decline in international student enrolments due to border closures.

Vicki Thomson, Group of Eight chief executive, says the $1 billion funding lifeline for research in the federal budget will help drive Australia's economic recovery from COVID-19. Credit:Attila Csaszar

The Group of Eight - which represents the eight institutions that account for 70 per cent of Australia's university research - said the funding would "reverberate positively" through industry and security sectors, which rely heavily on research advancements in technology and science.

"We have been quite desperate in past months as researchers were being stood down and research programs faltered or halted all because we were missing the international student fees, which previously paid for Australias research" chief executive Vicki Thomson said.
Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan gave an interview to Sky News.

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan declares that the conflict with Azerbaijan has, in essence, is turning into a fight against international terrorism for Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.

Clashing with an unresolvable problem that emerged years before his term of office and citing the news about Syrian mercenaries, Mr. Pashinyan considers the recent escalation of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan a civilizational issue.

First, Turkey has become directly and completely involved in the conflict, inciting and inflaming it. Turkey has transferred mercenaries and terrorists from Syria to the conflict zone, changing the whole context of the conflict. In essence, this is nothing but the fight of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia against international terrorism, he said.

Mr. Pashinyan also blames Turkey for supporting Azerbaijan, for leading a genocidal policy against the Armenians and increasing the expansionary ambitions of the country.

The Prime Minister reiterated his stance on the negotiations, that is, any peaceful settlement needs to be acceptable for the peoples of Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, even though the authorities of Azerbaijan have refused to lead negotiations with the authorities of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkeys current stance is moving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to a new level. Nevertheless, the conflict remains a territorial dispute that hasnt been settled by Armenias former governments and the dynasty of father and son Aliyevs.

Despite the international calls for ceasefire, we are witnessing growing violence, which has already caused several casualties of civilians, Pashinyan said.

Judging from Mr. Pashinyans comments, it is safe to assume that he is inclined to restart the peace process as soon as possible.
Swiss-based AI company Vestun opens its market agnostic hedge fund strategy to new outside investors.

Vestun

Swiss-based AI company Vestun opens its market agnostic hedge fund strategy to new outside investors.

Swiss-based AI company Vestun opens its market agnostic hedge fund strategy to new outside investors.

Zurich, Switzerland, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vestun, a Swiss-based financial and technology company has now opened the launch of its hedge fund to new outside investors. The firm which until now has been only managing its own capital announced that its investment vehicle will open to institutional investments including banks, multi-family offices and asset managers within certain jurisdiction.



The company flagship strategy trades liquid US equities systematically. The strategy is designed to autonomously adapts its portfolio and risk exposure dynamically to the prevailing market conditions. In contrast to traditional systematic strategies, Vestuns approach does not rely on statistical rules and historical events to generate signals. Instead, the strategy aggregate domain specific intelligence with datasets that individually perform in their own economics while remaining uncorrelated against each other.



Chayan Asli, the founder and CEO of the company commented: Nowadays, everyone has access to the same financial datasets and machine learning models. If everyone uses the same smart systems with the same recipe for success, it will undermine the competitive advantage obtained by using computer-driven models to invest. In our belief, relying on signals generated from statistical rigid rules and backtesting history are not sustainable for delivering consistent long-term market outperformance.

Over the past decade, there has been an increasing number of funds involving data scientists or so-called quants using machines to build large statistical models. While they are usually more disciplined than their discretionary counterpart, the problem is that they tend to remain static. These models are usually not able to perform sustainably because the market is constantly changing and shifting. As the market evolves and uncertainty increases, they often not perform as well as they did in the past.

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Vestun challenges this with a system free of rigid-rules and over-fitting. The companys chief scientist, Stephen Varey is a pioneer in artificial intelligence with over twenty year spent on developing intelligent and risk engine systems for banks and hedge funds including HSBC, JP Morgan and UBS. Before joining vestun, he served at Cognizant as a lead AI architect, where under his supervision, it won the prestigious AI breakthrough in 2019.

He commented Most commercially available AI applications only focuses on Machine Learning, a subfield of AI which is best suited to recognizing patterns but not understanding them. As there is no understanding, Machine Learning do not explain its thinking so cannot be given autonomy in non-stationary situations. The intelligence of these applications can be boosted by modeling human expertise.

While the company wish to keep its performance confidential, the management mentioned that the recent turbulence was a good stress test to reinforce the validation of their investment process. Their strategy performed sustainably during the pandemic with limited volatility in comparison to benchmarks.

According to Vestun CEO The crisis is a good mean for revealing the relevancy of a successful investment strategy. Being able to keep consistency throughout reversing times is an important factor when considering the reliability of a given diversified investment process.





About Vestun

Vestun is a technology company that applies AI in asset management and organizational intelligence acquisition. Based in Zurich, Switzerland, the company was established with the vision to enable new breakthrough in AI by combining the power of shared machine intelligence with human-networked cognition. Vestuns AI platform "Hawkrel" amplifies enterprise intelligence with significantly more accurate and deeper insights to address complex situations which standard analytical systems cannot solve.

Hawkrel is currently used to produce predictive and market agnostic investment strategies by Vestun. It also runs pilots for financial institutions with use-cases such as transactions frauds, credit scoring and risk management. The team comprises a highly experienced board and leadership in asset management, AI and data-science. Vestuns financial solutions are only offered to qualified and institutional clients. Vestun is authorized and regulated in Switzerland as a financial intermediary and is a member or the industry organization for asset managers.

Contact: Robert Cristobal / +41 43 210 97 36

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(TNS)  Heartland Community College in Normal, Ill., is working with outside consultants to address a security breach in its computer system.The colleges online operations, including classes, remained shut down on Tuesday morning as a safety measure after the college detected an outside source had compromised some of its systems on Monday, college officials said.The college said the shutdown was part of an effort to investigate and contain the security breach."The college is not aware of any student or personnel data compromised by this action," the college said in a statement Tuesday. "Even so, anyone concerned about their personal information security should deal with the matter as they deem appropriate."Most of Heartlands courses are being taught online because of the pandemic.Spokesman Steve Fast said instructors would work with students after the situation was resolved to reschedule classes and assignments that couldnt be turned in.We hope to get it resolved today, said Fast, adding, Nothing will be officially back (in operation) today.Fast said the colleges internal information technology security caught the attack. We have a full protocol that goes into place  to ensure data remains secure, he said.There are often malicious attempts to break into the computer network, said Fast, but this is a little bit more involved.Fast there has been an uptick in email phishing during the pandemic.In email phishing, the sender often uses a false identity and attempts to get the recipient to click on a link that can activate malware that damages or gives hackers access to data.Colleges, universities and even K-12 educational systems are increasingly being targeted for ransomware attacks , according to numerous media reports. In a ransomware attack, hackers encrypt some data, denying access until a ransom is paid.Asked whether Heartlands situation involved a ransomware attack, Fast said, I couldnt speak to that right now.Many College online systems will remain down on Tuesday (10/6) as we work to resolve tech issues. Once systems resume, instructors will work with students regarding any lost class time or assignments due during the disruption. pic.twitter.com/FxjtpLJYcM Heartland first reported a problem via Twitter late Monday morning, posting: Were experiencing technical issues with the heartland.edu website this morning. If you need to reach the college call our helpline at 309-268-8000. Were standing by to help.The college later tweeted that its online systems would be down for the remainder of the day as we work to resolve tech issues. That shutdown continued into Tuesday.College IT staff and outside consultants are conducting a thorough investigation of the nature and extent of the breach," Heartland said in its statement Tuesday. "We will be taking all necessary steps to minimize any risk and prevent any future disruptions to our service.Heartland said it would provide updated information when it is available and normal online operations will resume as quickly as possible.
Renewable propane possesses lower carbon intensity than traditional propane, with no change in performance and handling. When compared to gasoline and diesel, propane and renewable propane can significantly reduce the harmful contributors to greenhouse gases. This arrangement with U-Haul is aligned with Suburban Propane's " Go Green with Suburban Propane " initiative, which focuses on the company's commitment to advocating for the clean burning attributes of propane in the transition to a sustainable energy future and to investing in innovative solutions to pave the way to zero-carbon emissions.

"We are very excited to align with U-Haul to supply renewable propane in support of our collective efforts to lower carbon emissions in the state of California. This arrangement, along with our recent investment in Oberon Fuels, are part of our continued commitment to developing innovative solutions to reduce the nation's carbon footprint, particularly at a time when so many states have established aggressive carbon reduction targets over the next few decades," said Nandini Sankara, Spokesperson, Suburban Propane.

"The introduction of renewable propane is a welcome next step in the transportation-energy industry," said John Barnett, U-Haul propane program manager. "U-Haul continues to be a leader in pursuing sustainable solutions, and by partnering with Suburban Propane, we're able to serve a large portion of California's propane users with this green initiative."

"Carbon-neutral fuels are in demand," Barnett added. "It's all about sustainability. As California works toward zero net emissions, this is an initiative that residents can feel good about in the growing Autogas sector."

About Suburban Propane

Suburban Propane Partners, L.P., is a nationwide distributor of propane, fuel oil and related products and services, as well as a marketer of natural gas and electricity, servicing over 1 million customers through its 700 locations across 41 states. The company proudly celebrated 90 years of innovation, growth and quality service in 2018. The brand is currently focused on three core elements including Suburban Commitment - showcasing the company's 90+ year legacy of flexibility, reliability and dependability, Suburban Cares - highlighting dedication to serving local communities across the nation and Go Green with Suburban Propane - promoting the affordable, clean burning and versatile nature of propane as a bridge to a green energy future. Suburban Propane is a New York Stock Exchange listed limited partnership headquartered in Whippany, NJ. For additional information on Suburban Propane, please visit http://www.suburbanpropane.com/.

About U-HAUL

Since 1945, U-Haul has been the No. 1 choice of do-it-yourself movers, with a network of 22,000 locations across all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. U-Haul Truck Share 24/7 offers secure access to U-Haul trucks every hour of every day through the customer dispatch option on their smartphones and our proprietary Live Verify technology. Our customers' patronage has enabled the U-Haul fleet to grow to approximately 176,000 trucks, 127,000 trailers and 41,000 towing devices. U-Haul offers nearly 774,000 rentable storage units and 66.7 million square feet of self-storage space at owned and managed facilities throughout North America. U-Haul is the largest installer of permanent trailer hitches in the automotive aftermarket industry, and is the largest retailer of propane in the U.S. uhaul.com

Visit uhaul.com/propane/autogas for a full list of U-Haul Alternative Fuel Refill Stations.

SOURCE Suburban Propane Partners, L.P.

Related Links

http://suburbanpropane.com


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.




A race in North Carolina critical to control of the U.S. Senate has been thrown into turmoil over allegations of personal misconduct by Democrat Cal Cunningham a married man who had an extramarital relationship with a consultant.

Previously undisclosed text messages obtained by The Associated Press and additional interviews show that the relationship extended beyond suggestive texts to an intimate encounter as recently as July.

Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and the contest between Cunningham and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis has been among the most watched in the country, with polls showing a tight race and both parties investing heavily in the outcome.

Cunningham's personal indiscretion offers a fresh test of whether voters will punish candidates for their private, consensual activity, and the answer they deliver could determine which party wields power in the Senate. The chamber has been a bulwark for Republicans under President Donald Trump, with Democrats in control of the House.

An Army Reserve lieutenant colonel with a wholesome appeal, Cunningham was widely viewed as the kind of recruit Democrats needed to make inroads in conservative-leaning Southern states like North Carolina.

Yet the text messages and interviews offer a glimpse that is at odds with the image of a devoted family man. A week ago, a conservative website, NationalFile.com, published text messages between Cunningham and Arlene Guzman Todd, a public relations strategist from California, that suggested a personal relationship.

The newly obtained texts provide both a more specific timeline about their relationship, which shows it was recent, as well as details that describe intimate encounters  not simply a digital exchange.

The text messages were not obtained from Guzman Todd. But the AP contacted her to confirm their authenticity. In a series of interviews late Monday as well as in the text messages, Guzman Todd described two in-person encounters with Cunningham, one in March in Los Angeles that she said did not include intimate contact and a second in July in North Carolina, where she said they were intimate.

In the text messages to her friend, Guzman Todd told her she was intimate with Cunningham in his home, which she later characterized as weird.

In another exchange, Guzman Todd indicated that she was frustrated by the limited attention that he showed her.

Im just going to send to his opponent his naked photos, Guzman Todd wrote. That will teach him.

You dont deserve me Cal, she said in a separate text message. She added in another, He knows (that I) can tank his campaign.

In a statement, Guzman Todd apologized for the pain and embarrassment, and disrespect Ive caused to my immediate family, loved ones, and everyone affected by this situation.

A few months back, I displayed a lapse in judgment by engaging in a relationship with Cal Cunningham during a period of marital separation, Guzman Todd said. The relationship spanned several months and consisted primarily of a series of text exchanges and an in-person encounter." She did not elaborate, but her text messages described the intimacy.

Cunningham's campaign declined to comment on the newly disclosed texts or on Guzman's statement.

The campaign instead pointed to a statement issued on Friday and confirmed the authenticity of those texts at the time.

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. I ask that my familys privacy be respected in this personal matter," Cunningham, who has two teenage children and has been married for two decades, said at the time.

Democratic control of the Senate will be vital if Democrat Joe Biden wins the presidency. Without it, he can be assured that the Republican majority will reject his plans to expand health care access, make significant investment in green energy and rewrite the tax code so that wealthy Americans shoulder more of the burden.

But it's also unclear whether the revelation of an affair between two consenting adults is something North Carolina voters will care about, particularly after the state swung in 2016 for Trump, who has been married three times and paid hush money to a porn star to keep silent about an extramarital tryst.

Cunningham, 47, was a star recruit for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. He's been a fundraising powerhouse. He also checks important boxes: Hes a veteran, a father, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, a lawyer and a former state senator.

In recent years, he worked for the environmental services company WasteZero. And hes had an aw-shucks style that matched effectively against Tillis and could be compelling to critical independent voters.

He had this clean-cut image with a great story, a great background, an impeccable record of service, said Brad Crone, a longtime state Democratic consultant. He was straight out of central casting.

Tillis has seized on the revelations, arguing that Cunningham owes the people of North Carolina a full explanation for his extramarital activity. But he may be ill positioned to force the issue after disclosing hours before the text messages were made public that he has contracted the coronavirus.

On the debate stage last week Cal said its about integrity -- and I agree, Tillis said on Fox & Friends."

Both candidates are now on the sidelines. Tillis is self-isolating at his home, and his Charlotte campaign office is closed for the rest of the week. Cunningham pulled out of a previously planned online forum on Monday with the Libertarian candidate in the race. His campaign gave no reason for his decision.

Despite the developments, some state Democrats sought to keep supporting Cunningham for the seat, saying hes still right on the issues important to the party faithful and the country.

Cunningham had a critical lapse in judgement and morality. My prayers go out to his family as they work through healing, tweeted North Carolina state Sen. Erica Smith, who lost to Cunningham in the March Democratic primary. I ask our supporters to unite around our platform and stand with Cal for NC.

But Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, said Trumps history isnt already baked into how people feel about Cunningham. Cooper said how much the revelations will damage Cunninghams campaign depends on whether additional details surfaced beyond the texts.

It was a character-first campaign, and it was as much about who Cal Cunningham is than what Cal Cunningham stands for  and thats a harder sell today than it was last week, Cooper said Tuesday.

___

Slodysko reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Laurie Kellman in Washington contributed to this report.
The U.S. Supreme Court plans to hear Floridas long-running water rights case against Georgia in the months ahead after the two states were unable to reach a compromise despite years of mediation.

A 7-year-old suit filed by Florida was included in a 67-page order justices released Monday, the first day of their 2020-2021 term. The court did not set a date for oral arguments but said they would occur in due course.

That it would be left to the high court to resolve the dispute seemed inevitable.

Georgia and Florida  as well as Alabama, which is not a party to this suit but has sided with Florida  have been fighting over water rights for three decades.

The Supreme Court conducted an initial round of oral arguments in January 2018, and, in a 5-4 ruling several months later, directed an expert judge to reexamine the case and determine whether water in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin could be equitably apportioned between the two states.

The judge recommended in December that justices dismiss Floridas suit. Instead, the court decided to hear the case for a second time.

Florida alleges that Georgia farmers upstream along the Flint River used too much of its water for irrigation during a 2012 drought, tanking the Apalachicola Bays once-flourishing oyster industry. It asked the court to impose strict new consumption limits on Georgia.

Apalachicola once supplied 90% of Floridas oysters and 10% of the countrys oysters before the industry collapsed in 2013. The mollusks require a delicate mixture of freshwater from the Apalachicola River and saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico to survive. Florida said Georgias overconsumption of riverwater led to an overly saline Bay, which created thriving conditions for oysters' natural predators.

Florida has since approved an oyster harvesting ban to help the Bays population recover.

Georgia argues that its water usage has been reasonable and blamed Florida for allowing overharvesting of oysters. It said Floridas proposed caps on water usage would be draconian and that equitably apportioning water is impossible because of the complicated way the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers runs the basins locks and dams.

In December, the court-appointed judge, who is based in New Mexico, sided with Georgia, concluding the state was a responsible water steward and that equitable apportionment wasnt achievable without involvement from the Corps. The federal agency is not a party to the case.

The evidence has not shown that the benefits of apportionment would substantially outweigh the potential harms, Judge Paul Kelly wrote in his recommendation to the court.

The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin originates near Lake Lanier, cuts southwest and flows along the Alabama border into the Panhandle. It serves as the main source of drinking water to more than 4 million people, including roughly 70% of metro Atlanta, and irrigates farmland in southwest Georgia, a cornerstone of the states $13.8 billion agriculture industry.

The cases first expert judge, who died in 2019, implored Georgia, Florida and Alabama for years to strike an accord to prevent an expensive and potentially unfavorable court decision. The states' governors met several times but failed to reach such an agreement. So far, Georgia has spent roughly $50 million in taxpayer money defending itself.

Kellys recent recommendation has Georgias lawyers feeling optimistic about whats to come. Florida must prove that the benefits of any legal remedy outweigh the costs to Georgia.

But recent changes at the Supreme Court inject a bit of uncertainty into how justices might approach the suit a second time.

Two of the justices who opted to reexamine the case, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy, are no longer on the court. Ginsburg died last month, and Kennedy retired in summer 2018.



2020 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, Ga.)

Visit The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, Ga.) at www.ajc.com

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Roman villa found under luxury apartment complex opens to visitors with tours of the 'Archaeological Box on the Aventine Hill.'

The remains of a magnificent Roman villa, or domus, buried for almost 2,000 years at the foot of Rome's Aventine Hill, will open to visitors for the first time from 7 May.

The visits - on the first and third Friday of the month - are enhanced by video projections, lights, sounds and historical narration by the celebrated duo of scientific presenters Piero Angela and Paco Lanciano, bringing the ancient villa to life once more.

The spectacular discovery was made in 2014 during works to earthquake-proof the foundations of the 1950s-era building in Piazza Albania, not far from the Circus Maximus.

Scatola Archeologica all'Aventino

Described as "unique," the 'Scatola Archeologica' project encompasses archaeology, architecture and technology, creating Rome's first museum site within a residential complex.

Archaeologists found a series of large rooms decorated with sumptuous mosaics and traces of frescoes as well as objects from everyday Roman life such as fragments of bowls and amphorae, a hammer, kitchen ladles, sewing needles and oil lamps, as well as the remains of a stone tower dating from the sixth century BC.

After several years of excavations below ground, and construction work above to convert the development into 180 luxury apartments, the residential complex now boasts its own underground museum.

The Archaeological Box on the Aventine Hill

The 3 million dig, overseen by the special superintendency of Rome, was funded by the property's owners, BNP Paribas Real Estate, in what has been hailed as a virtuous example of public and private collaboration.

Daniela Porro, the capitals chief archaeologist, described the new museum as an "archaeological box" of treasure and, based on the richness of decoration, it is believed that the domus belonged to a "person of power."

How to visit the 'Archaeological Box on the Aventine Hill'

Guided tours of the underground museum at the Domus Aventino will last about one hour and will be conducted - in Italian - on the first and third Friday every month.

Tours must be reserved exclusively online, via the Scatola Archeologica website, with the tours carried out in line with Italy's covid-19 protocols.

The visits will cater to groups of six people at a time. If booking for a group of six people it will be possible to organise a tour in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese or Japanese.

Tickets cost 11 for adults, 8 for visitors aged 12 to 17, and for EU citizens aged 18 to 25. Access is free for children under 12 and for disabled visitors with a companion. For full details see website.

Photos courtesy Ufficio Stampa Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma
Daniel Andrews has backed down on his bid to get sweeping new powers to let any government official arrest innocent Victorians.

A proposed new law would have allowed the state government to give anyone it chooses - such as Worksafe officials - the power to enforce coronavirus restrictions and make arrests.

The unprecedented plan would also have allowed officials to detain people they suspect may spread coronavirus even if they have done nothing wrong.

Daniel Andrews has backed down on his bid to get sweeping new powers to let any government official arrest Victorians

What did Daniel Andrews want to do? Allow any person the government considered appropriate to be authorised to exercise emergency powers including make arrests. There would be no requirement for them to be police officers, or even public servants. Allow an authorised officer to detain any person they believe is likely to fail to comply with an emergency direction and is a close contact or a Covid-19 patient not given clearance from self-isolation. The suspect can be detained for so long as the authorised officer reasonably believes the person in detention is likely to fail to comply with an emergency direction. Read the bill here Advertisement

The COVID-19 Omnibus (Emergency Measures) and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2020 passed the lower house but will be amended after objections from upper house MPs, reported The Age.

The amendments will include specifying which government officials will be given the power to make arrests and removing the plan to let them make preventive arrests.

It comes after eighteen esteemed former judges and lawyers wrote an open letter warning that the proposed law was 'unprecedented, excessive and open to abuse'.

Allowing citizens to make arrests 'on the basis of a belief that the detained person is unlikely to comply with emergency directions' is 'unprecedented, excessive and open to abuse,' the lawyers said.

One of those lawyers, Ross Gillies QC, told Daily Mail Australia he feared power-hungry officials who enjoy exerting authority may abuse the powers given to them.

'I don't trust someone who is nominated by a public servant with the power to make arrests. I have real abiding concern that power is a very dangerous thing,' he said.

'Some people are excited by power and the ability to exert authority over someone else. There is the potential for enormous injustice.'

'Someone might grab someone and say "I have reason to believe you are a Covid carrier or know someone who has Covid and I apprehend you".

'There would be no remedy in that situation. That may be the worst-case scenario but we know that can happen.'

Gideon Rozner, Director of Policy at free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs told Daily Mail Australia the legislation was 'extremely dangerous' and would create the 'Daniel Andrews Stasi'.

Victoria's state of emergency and disaster powers already give police the power to detain someone 'for the period reasonably necessary to eliminate or reduce a serious risk to public health'. Pictured: Police at a protest in Melbourne on Sunday

Critics said Mr Andrews wants to create his own version of the Stasi, the secret police force tasked with stopping East Germans from jumping the Berlin Wall (pictured) and escaping communism

'It will allow Dan Andrews to effectively appoint anyone he wants as an authorised officer, with extraordinarily broad discretion to enforce Victoria's emergency powers,' he said.

'Union leaders could be appointed to unleash retribution on small business owners who speak out against lockdowns.

'Labor Party officials could be appointed to intimidate political opponents. 'I Stand With Dan' types could be appointed to spy on their friends and neighbours.

'Not since East Germany have we seen such a monstrous web of government surveillance. The Victorian Parliament must vote down this bill and say no to the Dan Andrews Stasi.'

Mr Andrews said he did not agree the proposed legislation was excessive or open to abuse.

'In terms of recruitment, process, oversight - all that can be managed,' Mr Andrews said in response to the lawyers' letter.

'In terms of the first point, though, the notion it is unprecedented, yes, it is. Because we're in a one-in-100-year event. This is not in any way business as usual.'

Attorney-General Jill Hennessy said the bill would be amended.

'Whilst we think the concerns raised in the original bill didn't have a legal basis, we are keen to address the majority of the concerns,' she said.
(CNN)  There's no solution to the climate crisis without China. President Xi Jinping just gave hope it might deliver one.

But his pledge to make his country carbon neutral within 40 years  delivered late last month at the United Nations  will require nothing short of a revolution for the world's biggest polluter.

The problem is that China's vast economy just isn't built for a dramatic pivot to green policy. It spent decades staking its ascent on massive infrastructure projects and manufacturing, building an economic engine that is now heavily reliant on dirty energy.

The country burns billions of tons of coal each year and uses hundreds of millions of barrels of oil  and analysts say that economic pressures caused by Covid-19 and tensions with the West are pushing China to spend more on those energy sources, not less. And while the Chinese government has enacted policies meant to curb emissions, research has shown that they haven't really moved the needle.

While carbon emissions fell after China's unprecedented coronavirus lockdown earlier this year, pollution had already rebounded by late spring, according to an analysis from Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), an environmental organization.

China remains the largest car market on the planet and the industry still leans heavily on gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles. Beijing has set lofty targets to promote the development and use of electric cars, but their market share remains scant.

"China's announcement to strive for carbon free within the next four decades is an unprecedented move," said Li Shuo, a climate and energy policy adviser for Greenpeace East Asia. "To achieve the vision would imply massive re-arrangement of the Chinese economy."

An economy reliant on coal and oil

Coal is still China's primary energy source by a long shot, accounting for 58% of the country's energy demand, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. China burned about four billion tons of coal last year, making it the largest consumer in the world.

Add crude oil into the mix  China produces or imports hundreds of millions of barrels each year  and the two fuel sources account for a combined 77% of China's energy use. Natural gas, wind, nuclear and hydro power made up the rest.

China has promised repeatedly to kick its coal habit, and the government has for years touted policies intended to clean up its act. It has, for example, required that methane from coal mining be captured or converted into carbon dioxide, which is less potent.

But the reality doesn't match the rhetoric. A study released in the journal Nature last year showed a steady growth in China's methane emissions. And energy-related carbon emissions in China last year were 80% higher than they were in 2005, according to the International Energy Agency.

There's also plenty of evidence that China has continued to invest in coal and oil, particularly as the coronavirus pandemic and tensions with the United States threaten economic growth. While research has shown that building and investing in renewable energy can be cheaper than coal, the latter remains heavily subsidized by the Chinese government and is a big employer in the country.

This year alone, eight provinces using the most energy in China, including Guangdong and Jiangsu, have directed 600 billion yuan ($90 billion) toward projects that use coal for chemical production, according to CREA, the environmental organization.

CREA also noted the eight provinces are planning to spend a combined 420 billion yuan ($62 billion) on oil refinery projects this year as China tries to reduce its reliance on foreign oil. Some 70% of the country's crude oil supply is imported.

The spending on clean energy is small by comparison. All told, CREA said that the provinces are directing more than $300 billion toward projects that involve fossil fuels  about three times as much money as they are putting toward initiatives to promote electric vehicles and low-carbon energy projects.

The average amount that local governments are spending on clean energy "is so small that they are dwarfed by the spending plans for a few oil refineries alone," Myllyvirta, the CREA analyst, wrote in a report released last month. He added that while China has said it would invest more in new infrastructure such as 5G and blockchain projects, that emphasis is "is not evident in the spending priorities we identified."

Myllyvirta told CNN Business that phasing out fossil fuels will be China's main challenge, adding that the industry is largely state-owned and "politically powerful."

The largest car market

China has been the world's largest car market for more than a decade. But cars are notorious for their contributions to environmental damage, and auto emissions are a major source of air pollution in Chinese cities, according to China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

Beijing has been trying for years to boost the popularity of electric cars, which are considered key to meeting any target to reduce carbon emissions. Xi's government wants new energy vehicles, such as electric or plug-in hybrid cars, to make up a quarter of its auto sales by 2025.

The government has imposed strict emission standards on vehicles that are sold in the country, and offered tax breaks and cash incentives to manufacturers and customers as a way to encourage them to make and purchase more electric cars.

There has been some progress. Electric vehicles now comprise 5% of the market, compared to just over 1% five years ago, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. But that still means more than 20 million new polluting vehicles hit China's streets last year.

Myllyvirta said there's reason to be optimistic about China hitting its sales targets, though. He pointed out that even after the country slashed subsidies for electric cars last year, market share for the vehicles isn't slipping  a sign of progress.

But the government still "needs to go little faster" in expanding how much of the market electric cars can capture, according to Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a UK-based climate activism and advisory organization.

"It won't happen by itself," Black said. "The government will need to continue with the many measures it has to stimulate both supply and demand."

Future climate goals

Beijing has aggressively defended its climate policies. Last month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs blasted a recent report from the US State Department accusing China of environmental abuse. Washington argued that Beijing's greenhouse emissions are still rising at a quicker pace than global emissions.

"This is another anti-China farce staged by the US for political purposes," spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters. "China's achievements in tackling climate change are obvious to all." He said the country's carbon dioxide emissions as a unit of GDP have fallen nearly 50% since 2005, and that non-fossil fuel energy now makes up 15% of what the country uses  exceeding its targets for 2020.

It's true that China is promoting some positive climate policies, according to the Climate Action Tracker (CAT), a Berlin-based organization that tracks government action. The group lauded China for remaining committed to renewable energy and electric cars, for example.

But CAT warned that the activities fueling China's economic recovery are still largely carbon intensive. And investment in the country's dirtiest energy projects doesn't appear to be fading anytime soon.

"Most worryingly, China remains committed to supporting the coal industry while the rest of the world experiences a decline," CAT said, adding that the country "is now home to half of the world's coal capacity."

After lifting a ban on constructing new coal plants in 2018, the group said, China continued to ease restrictions on coal. CAT added that by the middle of 2020, the country had allowed more new coal plant capacity than in the last two years combined.

Xi's carbon neutral announcement last week was light on detail, offering little clarity on just how aggressive  or not  China is planning to be if it hopes to reach its targets.

But Myllyvirta noted that even just the tone from the top could help, as long as there is follow-through.

"The significance of the [Xi] announcement is precisely in the potential for shifting the energy, emissions and investment trends that have been shifting in a concerning direction in the past few years," Myllyvirta said, adding that a "major new policy target" introduced by Xi "can and should prompt reassessment of policies and investment priorities."

-- Helen Regan contributed to this report.

This story was first published on CNN.com "China needs an economic revolution to deliver Xi's ambitious climate agenda."
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the events taking place in Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) are of a tragic nature, expressing his concern over the ongoing developments.

People living in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh are not strangers to us. Its enough to state that nearly 2 million Azerbaijanis and, according to our calculations, more than 2 million Armenians live in Russia. Many Russian citizens have close, friendly and even kinship ties in both republics, the Russian President said in an interview on Russia-1 TV channel.

Putin expressed hope that the conflict will end soon. Apparently, this is still a long way off, but we and I want to say this again, we urge ceasefire. This must be done as quickly as possible, he added.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
CAMDEN, Ark., Oct. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aerojet Rocketdynes new large solid rocket motor manufacturing facility is officially open for operations, highlighting the companys significant investments in the modernization and innovation of its solid rocket motor production capabilities, and continuing the companys expansion in southern Arkansas.



The Engineering, Manufacturing and Development facility is the newest, state-of-the-art large solid rocket motor manufacturing facility in the nation, and we look forward to expanding our decades-long solid rocket motor production capability in Camden, said Eileen P. Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and president. Thanks in large part to Governor Asa Hutchinson and our partners in the great state of Arkansas, Camden is poised to become a major center of large solid rocket motor production.

The ability to produce large solid rocket motors at the Engineering, Manufacturing Development (EMD) facility positions the company to deliver on some of the nations most important next generation national security programs, including strategic deterrence, hypersonics and missile defense. Aerojet Rocketdyne was recently selected by Northrop Grumman to provide a large solid rocket motor system and a post-boost propulsion system as part of its nationwide GBSD team.

The aerospace and defense industry has a significant impact on Arkansas economy, and Aerojet Rocketdyne has been a vital part of that success for many years, Governor Asa Hutchinson said. The company has demonstrated unwavering dedication to both the workforce and community in Calhoun County, and I am delighted to see our partnership continue as the company expands operations in Camden. It is my pleasure to welcome Eileen Drake back to Arkansas to officially open the companys new large solid rocket motor manufacturing facility.

"Arkansas is playing an increasingly important role in the production of advanced national defense technologies and tools, Senator John Boozman said. This facility represents the next step in that evolution, and our state is proud to partner with Aerojet Rocketdyne so that its operations in Camden are equipped to meet the companys needs for a business-friendly environment and skilled workforce capable of helping ensure the readiness, effectiveness and safety of our troops. Arkansas rich military history and tradition is only further enhanced with this expansion, and were excited for whats to come.

Representative Bruce Westerman said, Aerojet Rocketdynes investment in Camden is solidifying the area as a major player in the defense industry, not to mention bringing dozens more jobs to the community. Im glad to support their work in the Fourth District and look forward to seeing this new rocket motor facility begin operating.

Construction of the 17,000 square-foot EMD facility began last spring as part of Aerojet Rocketdynes ongoing expansion in Camden, where the company has long had a presence and currently produces more than 75,000 solid rocket motors per year. It was made possible with support from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, Calhoun County and the Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development (OPED).

We are proud to partner with Aerojet Rocketdyne as the company continues to grow in Camden and invest in technology that plays an integral role in our nations security efforts, Arkansas Secretary of Commerce Mike Preston said. Not only does Aerojet Rocketdyne serve as an international leader in the aerospace and defense industry, but it also serves as a leader in the South Arkansas community. This announcement is great news for the state.

Executive Director for OPED James Lee Silliman said, Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development is proud to have been a partner in Aerojet Rocketdynes EMD facility project by providing both job creation and workforce training incentives for this milestone expansion for the Camden operations. It required coordination and teamwork with Aerojet Rocketdyne, Governor Hutchinson's office, AEDC and Calhoun County to make this project possible. South Arkansas will reap dividends for years to come due to this investment.

Aerojet Rocketdynes growth in Camden was driven by a company-wide consolidation and modernization initiative that began in 2015. Aimed at reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency, the company has demonstrated the ability to successfully transfer programs and proficiencies to other sites. Now substantially complete, Aerojet Rocketdyne surpassed its goal of reducing costs across the enterprise by $230 million annually. The company is now well-positioned to deliver innovative, affordable solutions for some of the nations most challenging national security requirements.

About Aerojet Rocketdyne: Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AJRD), is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader that provides propulsion systems and energetics to the space, missile defense and strategic systems, and tactical systems areas, in support of domestic and international customers. For more information, visit www.Rocket.com and www.AerojetRocketdyne.com . Follow Aerojet Rocketdyne and CEO Eileen Drake on Twitter at @AerojetRdyne and @DrakeEileen .

Media Contact:

Eileen Lainez, Aerojet Rocketdyne, 571-239-7839

eileen.lainez@rocket.com

Sonya Archer, Aerojet Rocketdyne, 870-574-3443

sonya.archer@rocket.com
Michael Keller and Jose Jijon go to the movies so often that they purchase a monthly pass at Regal Dickson City and IMAX.

With Mondays announcement from the theaters parent company, Cineworld Group Plc, that it will temporarily close 536 Regal cinemas in the U.S. starting Thursday, they will need to go somewhere else to get their movie fix.

The temporarily closures will affect about 45,000 employees, including those at Regal Cinema at the Laurel Mall.

Rocco Arruzzo, business operations manager for the mall, says they have heard nothing official about when the complex might be closing.

Im kind of sad because weve been coming here so long that we made friends with a lot of the workers, Keller said.

Keller and Jijon, both of Lake Ariel, have a Regal Unlimited movie subscription pass. For $18 a month, they can watch as many movies as they want.

Weve been coming at least once a week since it reopened (Aug. 21), but there havent been many new movies coming out, Keller said. Prior to COVID-19, we would sometimes come two or three times a week.

While disappointed in the decision to close, Keller recognizes the challenges movies theaters are facing during the pandemic.

Were diehards but sometimes when we come, were the only two customers in the whole building, he said.

Efforts to slow the spread of the virus resulted in closure of most cinemas for nearly six months.

In the past few days, the already-decimated 2020 release calendar lost another big film, James Bond pic No Time to Die. Partly because of that news, one of the countrys biggest markets, New York, has not committed to a plan or a date for reopening cinemas in the state.

Cineworld has high debts and is, like the wider industry, struggling with the effects of the pandemic. The absence of the biggest North American markets and a consistent, solid release schedule from Hollywood studios have been devastating to their business.

We never argued the fact that we needed to be closed until we saw that similar activities to us started to open, Cineworld CEO Mooky Greidinger said, citing indoor dining. We cannot be in a situation where we lose more cash when we are open than we lose when we are closed.

Greidinger doesnt regret reopening in August  at the time there was a solid release schedule. He said the business needs a set blockbuster calendar extending six to eight weeks in the future in order to reopen.

Keller sympathizes with the employees over another closure and is optimistic the movie industry will bounce back.

Im sad to see it close again because theyre going to be out of work again, he said. Hopefully, it will reopen and we can get back to whatever the new normal is going to be.

Greidinger hopes that that might be settled before Christmas, in time for Wonder Woman 1984.

I will be the happiest man to open the cinemas for Wonder Woman, he said. But we will also need to look beyond Wonder Woman to January and February.
An empty Terminal 1 Departures Hall at Dublin Airport at the end of July. Photo: Steve Humphreys

NPHET believes arriving air travellers are giving false addresses on passenger locator forms, the Taoiseach has suggested.

They fear that investigators trying to make sure of quarantine compliance by people arriving from Red List countries would end up pursuing multiple false trails.

The public health authorities have also been consistently negative about Covid testing at airports, the Taoiseach told the Dail.

Apparently referring to Nphet, Mr Martin repeated: The public health authorities have been very reluctant to embrace antigen testing, rapid testing of the kind used at airports to deliver a result within twenty minutes for air travellers.

Read More

They (public health authorities) have had a view that having testing in airports would be not the wisest use of resources, Mr Martin told Deputies.

It wouldn't be the wisest use of resources in terms of isolating and contact tracing.

They have fears about that, and that it could lead to multiple false trails driving huge numbers.

The Government was engaged with the European authorities, but the public health authorities here have been consistently negative about checks and testing at airport, Mr Martin told Roisin Shortall, co-leader of the Social Democrats.

Of the proposed new European 'traffic light' system for travel between members, Ms Shortall said: I support the framework, but it is a framework, it's not a strategy and that's the point.

What we need is a strategy which will hunt down the virus, and a high area of risk is in terms of travel without any safeguards. We know people come in here from lots of Red List countries. And there are no safeguards whatsoever there.

The policy had changed, and there was now no monitoring at all of air travellers, she said, adding: It exposes the country to the importation of the virus.

If the European traffic light system came in now, Ireland would be in the red zone, she said, being completely unprepared for likely European requirements our standards for testing at airports, or a functional quarantine system.

At the moment there is no system in place. There are no plans underway to address this. And that's why I'm saying we need a strategy to minimise the virus, Ms Shortall continued.

If you dont have some kind of safeguards or ports and airports, you know, you're just wasting your time really.
It is widely accepted that increased youth entrepreneurship is imperative when it comes to alleviating Africa's unemployment challenges, as well as driving the continent's over-arching socio-economic goals.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

The economic goals of a country, and the role that youth entrepreneurship can play in helping achieve these. As stated by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at a General Assembly event in his discussion on transformation, young people are in the driving seat of this change





Entrepreneurship is not an isolated business activity sector, but a valuable component of forward-driven economic systems. Therefore, entrepreneurial growth should be built into national strategies instead of being viewed as a stand-alone business sector





Increased youth participation in parliament and policy-related decision-making. Concerning statistics by the World Economic Forum (WEF) show that although under 30s make up more than half the global population, youth representation in parliament is only 2%.





The involvement of both public and private sector working together to develop solutions. Again, the youth themselves need to be given a seat at the table





The building of institutional capacity in terms of education and skills development that encourages youth entrepreneurship





Government-based business incubators with a specific focus on youth entrepreneurial ventures  both in terms of startup needs and the scaling of businesses

Future of Work trends and digitisation have already led to a discernible shift towards more entrepreneurial ventures by youth, and the current global pandemic is further catalysing this process. While it is true that the youth themselves recognise the need to consider and actively pursue an entrepreneurial path, their success, however, relies heavily on the regulatory environment they operate within.Governmental policies, business regulations and other infrastructural concerns play an immensely influential role when it comes to youth entrepreneurship, both in positive and negative terms. For example, complicated or expensive business registration processes are barriers to entry, while incentives to private companies, on the other hand, help boost partnership opportunities for young entrepreneurs.With the global crisis having a detrimental effect on the already fragile economic climate in Africa, governments can no longer take lackadaisical approach to entrepreneurship. African leaders and policy-makers need to take swift and result-driven steps to review current rules and regulations, and begin driving robust policy reform.As stressed by the United Nations (UN), as a key driver of change, the worlds youth population must be bolstered by national policies and innovative solutions to the challenges they face.When developing national policies and regulations, and building supportive youth entrepreneurship ecosystems, the following points (among others) need to be taken into account:Its not just about creating policies but also having actionable and practical mechanisms in place for young African entrepreneurs. Organisations and initiatives, both private and governmental, dedicated to policy reform and support of youth entrepreneurship are fundamental to shifting the needle forward.The Youth Employment Service (YES) is a business initiative, in partnership with the South African government, striving to overcome the countrys youth unemployment crisis by creating enterprise development opportunities for youth residing in densely populated and peri-urban communities.The Youth Enterprise with Innovation In Nigeria (YouWin!) is a collaborative effort from the countrys Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Communication Technology (CT) and Ministry of Youth Development aimed at job creation. The programmes goal is to reduce unemployment by supporting young Nigerian entrepreneurs through funding, mentorship and as a platform for aspiring young innovators and visionaries to showcase their ideas to a network of investors and businesses.Taking a pan-African approach to leadership development, The Anzisha Prize movement seeks to transform the continents socio-economic landscape by fundamentally and significantly increasing the number of job generative entrepreneurs in Africa. The programme focuses on identifying and mentoring high potential very young entrepreneurs (between 15 and 22 years old), and supporting them within a network that includes investors, policy-makers, educators and parents.In a report released by the organisation, titled The Very Young Entrepreneur Scenario for Africa, The Anzisha Prize lists infrastructural challenges, regulatory restrictions, lack of an enterprise culture and access to funding as some of the major factors impeding youth entrepreneurial growth in Africa.The Scenario Report also references Anzishas Policies and Strategies that Support Very Young Entrepreneurs which goes into great depth in discussing the practical policy issues affecting youth entrepreneurship on the continent.For instance, African countries vary when it comes to the definition of youth: in Rwanda, the youth age bracket is between 16 and 30 years old, while in Malawi, it is between 10 and 35 years old. This leads to a lack of consistency in matters such as the eligibility to register a business, apply for finance, qualify for youth business grants and so forth. ( Download the full report ).It is clear that African and global bodies are actively working towards revolutionising the African youth entrepreneurship sector.However, such efforts will require the support and commitment of decision-makers and leaders at national levels in order for aspirational goals to become reality. Timing is of the essence, particularly due to the extreme economic difficulties caused by the COVID-19 crisis. African leaders are urged to take action and tap into the potential that lies with very young entrepreneurs as a means to overcome socio-economic struggles and stimulate future growth.
Warnings about the impact of COVID-19 on nursing homes were relayed to the Ontario government in late January as executives watched carnage unfold abroad, but Premier Doug Fords action plan didnt come until mid-April when at least 144 residents had already died in 100 outbreaks, a commission investigating the heavy toll has been told.

We certainly knew just from the media about the vulnerability of our residents, Donna Duncan, chief executive of the Ontario Long-Term Care Association, said in an online appearance before the commission appointed by Fords government in July.

Complicating the response to the virus that swept through nursing homes  killing more than 1,953 residents and eight staff members  were government cuts to pharmacy services for long-term care, long-standing staff shortages, a lack of personal protective equipment, and government insistence on inspections for compliance with pre-pandemic regulations instead of preparing homes for the viruss relentless onslaught, Duncan added.

She said the association, which represents 70 per cent of Ontarios more than 600 long-term-care facilities, asked the government in late January to free up inspectors to point out shortcomings that the highly contagious virus could exploit in nursing homes, many of them older with rooms holding three or four residents that fuelled the spread.

We were concerned about our state of readiness after seeing hospitals in China swamped with patients and were seeking guidance on preparations for what turned out to be even worse than imagined, Duncan stated in a 102-page transcript of a presentation to the commission last Wednesday and released this week.

It was a different beast when COVID came into our homes, Ruth McFarlane, a member of the associations board and chief executive of Durham Christian Homes, noted grimly.

Commission chair Frank Marrocco, an associate chief justice in Ontarios Superior Court of Justice, expressed surprise that the suggested redeployment of inspectors was not authorized at the time, when the virus was spreading toward Europe.

It just strikes me as odd, he replied to Duncan. There are lots of times to do inspections ... presumably (when) everybodys focused on the immediate crisis that you have to deal with may be not the best time for an inspection.

The three-member commission has been tasked with looking into the deadly effects of COVID-19 in long-term care. Marrocco said he is contemplating an interim report with initial recommendations to help nursing homes weather a second wave.

Were doing everything we can to make sure that we correct any issues that are brought forward and that the commission is going to bring forward, Ford said when asked about the associations testimony.

We know its broken. Its been broken for decades, he added of the long-term-care system. His April 15 action plan prohibited staff from working at more than one nursing home to limit the spread of the virus and increased testing to better track outbreaks as part of a promised iron ring of protection.

Ford is under pressure from opposition parties and advocacy groups to guarantee Ontarios 78,000 nursing home residents four hours of hands-on care every day from nurses, personal support workers and others. Long-Term Care Minister Merrilee Fullerton said Tuesday there is not yet enough staff available to do that, with 2.75 hours the current average.

We need to do more, Fullerton told reporters, noting the government has recently poured more than $500 million into long-term care to help with staff shortages, finances and $3 hourly wage top-ups for personal support workers until the end of March to encourage them to stay in their jobs.

Ford is also fast-tracking construction of nursing homes with modern layouts and features that make it easier to stop the rapid spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19, with some expected to open next year.

Appearing on the same day as the long-term-care association, a group of doctors working in nursing homes said more staff is the key to better care in a pandemic, avoiding situations like the ones in which military medical teams and hospital teams had to go into homes desperately short of workers to help residents.

You can look after a number of dying patients but you cannot look after a whole lot of dying patients at once with the staffing and resources they have, said Dr. Evelyn Williams, past president of the Ontario Long-Term Care Clinicians.

Williams, who is a family doctor with 30 years experience at the Sunnybrook Veterans Centre, added that more mobile X-rays and other diagnostics including rapid COVID-19 testing are essential.

Six days to get a test back, so were waiting six days to know if weve got an outbreak. Thats unacceptable, she said.

Williams joined the long-term-care association in calling on the Ford government to rescind last Decembers cuts to oversight of residents prescriptions by pharmacists to guard against drug interactions and other problems.

They were partners in the care team. They freed up the time of the nurses who now face an extra burden, said Duncan.

She fears a second wave of COVID-19, with case numbers already topping highs reached last April, could leave nursing homes on their own if the number of infections leaves more Ontarians needing medical attention than was the case last winter and spring.

Thats when hospitals had space to take in nursing-home residents, as well as the resources to send managers, doctors, nurses and infection control specialists into long-term care to help stabilize homes with major outbreaks and staff shortages.

Where were concerned in this wave is that we may have hospital surges, Duncan said.

In the first wave, 84 per cent of long-term-care homes had no deaths and 55 per cent had outbreaks. Half the deaths were in 23 homes with the worst staff shortages, Duncan said.

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Three terrorists were killed in an encounter between militants and security forces in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, police said.

Security forces launched a search operation in Sugan village in Zainapora area of Shopian district following a tip-off about presence of terrorists, a police spokesperson said.

Kashmir Police initially tweeted, Two unidentified terrorists were killed. The Operation is going on. Later, they said that one more unidentified terrorist was killed, taking the count to three. Search going on. Further details shall follow,  they said.

The operation turned into an encounter after terrorists opened fire and security forces retaliated, he added.

Further details are awaited.

(with PTI inputs)
I am honored to receive this award for my work in the exciting field of cellular therapies and look forward to continuing to contribute in any way I can to this rapidly growing field and to supporting companies who are developing new cell therapy and regenerative medicine products.

NDA Partners Chief Executive Officer Earle Martin announced today that Ellen Areman, one of the firms prominent Expert Consultants, was recently honored by AABB, formerly the American Association of Blood Banks, with the 2020 Emily Cooley Memorial Award and Lectureship. The award recognizes an individual who has demonstrated teaching ability and has made a major contribution to the field of transfusion medicine or cellular therapies. Ms. Areman was recognized for her pioneering work spanning more than 30 years in the field of cellular therapies and for serving as a role model and teacher to several generations of technologists, clinicians, and researchers.

Throughout her career, Ms. Aremans contributions to cellular therapies have been numerous including her career at the US Food and Drug Administrations Office of Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapy as an Expert Biologist and Product Reviewer, co-chair of the Cord Blood Standards subgroup of the Center for Biologics Research and Evaluations Hematopoietic Stem Cell Task Group, and the FDA- CBER/NIH-NHLBI Cell Therapy Working Group. She was also the coordinator of the cell processing section of the National Institutes of Healths Clinical Center Department of Transfusion Medicine, and has worked as the Laboratory Manager for both the Georgetown University/ NHLBI (COBLT) Cord Blood Bank and Pediatric Cancer and Stem Cell Research Program, as well as Technical Director of Georgetowns Cellular Engineering/Molecular and Cellular Hematotherapy Laboratory. She joined NDA Partners as an Expert Consultant in 2015 and provides regulatory strategy and CMC support to companies developing biological products including hematopoietic, immunologic, and stem cell therapies.

I am honored to receive this award for my work in the exciting field of cellular therapies and look forward to continuing to contribute in any way I can to this rapidly growing field and to supporting companies who are developing new cell therapy and regenerative medicine products, said Ms. Areman.

Ms. Areman earned her masters degree in pathology from Georgetown University, bachelors degree from The State University of New York at Albany, and specialist certification in blood banking from the National Institutes of Health. She is a member of AABB and a founding member of the International Society for Cell Therapies. She has also published extensively on biological products including serving as editor of Cellular Therapy: Principles, Methods and Regulations.

About NDA Partners

NDA Partners is a life sciences management consulting and contract development organization (CDO) focused on providing product development and regulatory services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries worldwide. The highly experienced Principals and Expert Consultants in NDA Partners include three former FDA Center Directors; the former Chief Executive Officer and Chief Science Officer at the United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP); an international team of more than 100 former pharmaceutical industry and regulatory agency senior executives; and an extensive roster of highly proficient experts in specialized areas including nonclinical development, toxicology, pharmacokinetics, CMC, medical device design control and quality systems, clinical development, regulatory submissions, and development program management. Services include product development and regulatory strategy, expert consulting, high-impact project teams, and contract management of client product development programs.

Contact

Earle Martin, Chief Executive Officer

Office: 540-738-2550

MartinEarle@ndapartners.com
T esco today reported a 6.4% surge in UK supermarket profits in the first half of the year as shoppers flocked to buy groceries online during the Covid-19 pandemic and stayed away from restaurants.

Despite Chancellor Rishi Sunak's Eat Out To Help Out scheme, the vast majority of British households reined in their eating out habits and cooked at home, boosting Tesco's underlying UK retail profits for the period to 1.19 billion.

Food sales shot up 9.2% although clothes fell 17%.

Overall group international sales gained 6.6% at 26.7 billion.

The supermarket giant also announced it had hired a new finance director, Imran Nawaz, the Tate & Lyle FD. He is the first hire of new Tesco chief executive Ken Murphy, who took over as CEO last week.

Tesco is hiring around 16,000 new staff to service the recent shift in shopping habits as households have shifted to buying their groceries online.

Shoppers have been making fewer but bigger shops at Tesco's big stores. Average basket sizes increased 56% but the number of transactions fell 31%. Similarly, online shops were tending to be bigger, helping boost its online profitability.

The group is seen as benefiting from having larger stores than most rivals, making it easier to keep shoppers socially distanced. However, shoppers were also increasingly topping up in smaller local stores, where sales gained 7.6%.

Online sales leaped 69% as the group ramped up its online delivery slots to 1.5 million a week

Before the pandemic, around 9% of its sales were online but that has almost doubled in little over six months.

During the period, Tesco sold its lossmaking Polish business for 181 million, easing a drag on its profitability although its margins have continued to feel the pressure from cut price rivals Aldi and Lidl.

However, today it was able to report strong UK margins at 4.2% despite spending heavily on recruiting new staff and boosting its online operations.

Tesco Bank is expected to lose 175 million to 200 million this year as the group set aside big provisions for probable bad debts as customers are unable to service their loans.

In the half year, the bank made a profit of 400 million but that was down 31% on the previous year.

Including that, and a poor performance in its central European operations, overall group operating profit fell 15% to 1.04 billion.

Murphy said: "The first half of this year has tested our business in ways we had never imagined, and our colleagues have risen brilliantly to every challenge."

He praised the turnaround of the group under his predecessor Dave Lewis, saying the company could not have coped with Covid-19 as well without it.

The group will pay an interim dividend of 3.2p, 35% of last year's full year dividend. The group had come under fire earlier in the year for continuing to pay shareholders dividends at a time that it was also taking government Covid aid in the form of emergency business rates cuts.
Kate Mosss daughter Lila Grace Moss has made her first appearance in a runway show, modelling Miu Mius Spring/Summer 2021 collection.

Opening the catwalk in Milan on 6 October 2020, the young models fashion debut came just days after she turned 18 on 29 September.

Miu Miu, a subsidiary of Prada, held its show behind closed doors in an empty stadium, with high-profile figures including Gabrielle Union, Elle Fanning, Suki Waterhouse and Milla Jovovich tuning in to watch, their faces visible on television screens during the show.

Mosss first look in the show featured a black embellished mini skirt, a blue shirt and oversized blazer, her hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail.

Recommended Chanel celebrates cinema industry to cap Paris Fashion Week

She later changed into a baby blue and diamante mini dress, complete with a lemon yellow bow on the front.

Her final look featured contrasting shades of hot pink and honey orange, combining a halterneck top with a mini skirt and sparkly heels.

Moss expressed her excitement on Instagram over starring in her first catwalk.

@miumiu SS21 THANK YOU for allowing me to debut at the dreamiest show, she wrote, adding that she was obsessed with her hairstyle and make-up.

Speaking to British Vogue, Moss explained that her make-up was purposely made to look very natural.

The 18-year-old said that her look came with extra attention to detail, with an added eyebrow slit.

Moss is represented by her mothers talent agency, Kate Moss Agency, which was founded in 2016.

In November 2018, the young model was featured on her first solo magazine cover for the winter issue of Dazed magazine.

Mosss father is Jefferson Hack, co-founder and creative director of Dazed Media.
MARINA DEL REY, Calif., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- LeaseLock , the leading insurtech platform that totally eliminates security deposits, surety bonds and guarantors in rental housing, today announced Laura Snyder has joined the company as Regional Sales Director. She will oversee sales in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Snyder brings nearly two decades of apartment operations experience to her new role, and has a detailed understanding of the pain points facing today's multifamily property managers. Prior to joining LeaseLock, Snyder was a Regional Sales Executive for Valet Living, a full-service amenities provider to the multifamily housing industry. Previously, she served as a Regional Property Manager for Greystar, the largest apartment management company in the U.S. according to the National Multifamily Housing Council. She has also been a Regional Property Manager for ROSS Management Services and Kettler Management.

"Laura's background is an extremely powerful combination. She has worked for one of the industry's most highly regarded supplier partners, and she has extensive experience in multifamily property management," said Ed Wolff, Chief Revenue Officer of LeaseLock. "She understands today's operators, and she is a strong believer in LeaseLock's ability to change the landscape of apartment leasing by replacing deposits with lease insurance. The addition of Laura is a tremendous development for us as we cement our position as the category leader in deposit replacement."

LeaseLock powers a modern lease experience. Instead of paying a deposit, renters pay a small monthly deposit waiver fee and the property receives $5,000 in rent loss and damage coverage on the standard plan. Renters save thousands of dollars at move-in, while apartment communities drive more traffic, convert more leases, significantly reduce bad debt and eliminate deposit administration and liability.

"I love the apartment industry, and I am extremely passionate about how LeaseLock Zero Deposit is transforming multifamily," Snyder said. "I understand the immense challenges operators face in trying to strike the right balance in creating an affordable move-in while also protecting themselves against unpaid rent and unit damage. I could not be more excited about the opportunity to work with a company that is finally addressing both residents' and operators' needs in this area."

LeaseLock integrates with all major property management systems, including Yardi, RealPage, Entrata and MRI. The integrated lease experience is seamless and completely nativerequiring no out-of-workflow processing while also automating claims for onsite teams.

NMHC Top 50 operator clients include Greystar, Pinnacle, Alliance, FPI, Avenue5, Bell Partners, Harbor Group, The Bainbridge Companies and LMC. Top ownership clients include UBS, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, ColRich, Olive Tree, PGIM, TruAmerica, Eaton Vance, and Goodman Real Estate.

About LeaseLock

LeaseLock helps the world find home. Powered by insurance technology, LeaseLock fully eliminates deposits to deliver a modern lease experience in rental housingfaster, simpler, and more affordable.

Headquartered in Marina Del Rey, Calif., LeaseLock has insured over $500 million in leases and is backed by insurance rated A (Excellent) by A.M. Best. LeaseLock has secured $25 million from leading insurance, technology, and real estate venture funds including Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, American Family Ventures, Wildcat Venture Partners, and Moderne Ventures. For more information, please visit www.leaselock.com .

Contact:

Marlena DeFalco

(303) 682-3943

[email protected]

SOURCE LeaseLock

Related Links

http://www.leaselock.com


Opposition leaders have demanded an inquiry against district information officer of the UP government in Meerut, Ashutosh Chandola and accused him of violating service rules after he forwarded a message about the Bharatiya Janata Party farmers cells tractor pujan programme to reporters on Tuesday.

Opposition leaders also said he was resorting to publicity for the BJP.

The message that Chandola forwarded to journalists said BJPs kisan prakosth (farmers cell) would organise a tractor pujan programme in support of the farm reform bills near the Saket crossing at 1pm.

Chandola remained unfazed by the oppositions outcry. I forwarded the message, he acknowledged and said that he did so after being requested.

When asked whether he would forward similar messages of opposition parties on their request, he replied, BJP is the ruling party, thats why I forwarded (the message). How can I do it for the others?

District magistrate K Balaji said he was unaware of the issue and would look into it.

Samajwadi Party district president Rajpal Singh demanded Chandolas suspension. There are many officials who have been working as workers of the BJP, he said.

He also said Chandolas act was against service rules and that senior officers must take cognizance of the matter. The party will stage a protest, he added.

Rashtriya Lok Dals organisational general secretary Rajkumar Sangwan said officials like Chandola seemed to have forgotten their actual responsibility and started acting like a dedicated worker of the BJP.

He said such acts of officials were against their service rules and democratic norms. He suggested senior officials look into the matter and initiate action.

BJPs Lok Sabha MP from Meerut Rajendra Aggarwal also said it was a gross mistake by the information officer. It was the responsibility of the partys media cell to circulate party programmes in the media, he said.

Gajendra Sharma, the BJPs media in-charge in the district, supported the MPs views. While it was the responsibility of the partys media cell to publicise the activities and programmes of the organisation in the media, it was the information departments duty to do the same for the government and its ministers, he said.
The Chinese economic growth miracle is disrupting the global balance of power. President Trumps trade war with China was the latest manifestation of Washingtons effort to pivot to the east, a strategy that began under former President Obama. Now, another pivot is progressing steadily while the rest of the world grapples with Covid-19. Russia is increasingly focusing its attention to the east and its relationship with China. To highlight this pivot, the worlds largest energy producer, Gazprom, has started a feasibility study for the companys next massive pipeline, the Power of Siberia-2 pipeline.

The first decade of this century was a promising one for Russia, with its international trade booming and a growing number of oil and gas buyers both to the east and west. Moscows fallout with the West, however, has strengthened the necessity for a Pivot to the East. The most obvious and short term result has been the Power of Siberia gas pipeline.

The agreement was struck during the height of tensions between Moscow and the West, when Russia was desperate to show its geopolitical independence in the face of western obstruction. The gas pipeline started operating this year and is expected to transport 38 bcm annually to China, earning Russia $400 billion over three decades.

The importance of China to the Russian economy and the ruling elites political future cannot be underestimated. At the same time, while Chinas growing technological prowess is bringing it into the western sphere, it will remain heavily reliant on Russia's energy and mineral wealth for decades to power its industries.

Related: Libyas Oil Production Jumps To 300,000 Bpd As Exports Rise Relations between these two global superpowers have primarily been focused on energy, where existing infrastructure and industries have facilitated trade. In 2013, Russia and China signed an agreement worth $270 billion to double Rosnefts production and export of oil to the Asian giant. Natural gas exports have also been on the agenda. Fixed infrastructure, such as pipelines, significantly reduce transportation costs and increase dependence between exporter and importer. This is another catalyst for closer political relations.

While the Power of Siberia-2 project has been on the table for many years, it was only recently that the decision to have Mongolia as the transit country was made. Moscow would have preferred a direct link with China via existing infrastructure in southern Russia through the Altai region, but Beijing pushed for the longer option through Mongolia towards its northeast. It seems that the Chinese preference came out on top.

The Russian energy giant Gazprom has ordered a feasibility study for the Power of Siberia-2 pipeline. This would increase gas exports to China by 50 bcm annually, making it the companys single largest customer. According to Alexei Miller, Gazprom's CEO, "a preliminary feasibility analysis has been carried out. It has shown that the project is feasible and cost-effective. We are ready to continue this work accordingly."

When finished, the pipeline will further strengthen Russian-Chinese cooperation. While both countries have seen their relations with the West sour of late, they are finding support in their bilateral relations. Russias massive energy resources and proximity to Asian markets make it a useful partner for China. From a security point of view, pacifying its northern border is essential for China in order to alleviate pressure and focus on its soft belly in the South China Sea and, to a lesser extent, the Himalayas and its border with India.

Related: The Worlds Most Controversial Oil Frontier Falls Out Of Favor With Big Banks

Whether President Trump wins or loses the election, U.S.-China relations have been significantly damaged to the benefit of Russia. After President Nixons visit and the opening of China in 1972, Washington was more-or-less able to contain Soviet power and influence. Now, however, the world's number two and three in terms of military and political power are finding a balance vis-a-vis the U.S.

Although disagreements between Russia and China remain, they have managed them effectively so far. For example, Moscow regards Central Asia as its back yard where it enjoys significant political influence. Chinas growing economic interests in the region could change the delicate balance of power. However, increasing gas imports from Russia is part of Beijings strategy.

Currently, the majority of Chinese gas imports originate from Central Asia. To reduce dependence on the region and push for more favorable prices, competition from Russia is necessary. Therefore, it is in the interest of both countries to strengthen energy ties which will lead to political and economic interdependence.

By Vanand Meliksetian for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
BISHKEK -- Thousands have headed back onto the streets in Kyrgyzstan as rival opposition factions look to gain power after violent mass protests forced the annulment of weekend election results over alleged vote buying and prompted the prime minister and other senior officials to step down.



Demonstrators began their protest in front of the government building in the capital, Bishkek, on October 7, as well as at the central Ala-Too Square, demanding a "clean" generation of politicians to form the Central Asian nation's next government.



Among their demands is that businessman Tilek Toktogaziev be named as the new prime minister, rejecting a move by parliament late on October 6 to nominate opposition politician Sadyr Japarov -- freed from prison by protesters just hours earlier -- as prime minister.

That decision spurred an angry mob to break into the hotel where the meeting had been convened, forcing Japarov to flee through a back door, according to Kyrgyz media.



The self-proclaimed People's Coordination Council, set up by several opposition parties, said on October 7 that it would not recognize Japarov's interim cabinet and was assuming all state powers itself and dissolving parliament.

Left isolated by the resignation of Prime Minister Kubatbek Boronov's government late on October 6, President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, in his second statement since the unrest erupted, called for all-party talks, reiterating his willingness to mediate.



While the speed of events has surprised many, Kyrgyzstan is no stranger to political turmoil.

Two presidents have been overthrown in the past 15 years, and longtime ally Russia expressed concern as protests spread across the country, which also borders China. The former Soviet republic hosts a Russian military air base.

The upheaval began soon after officials announced on October 4 results from parliamentary elections that handed victories to several pro-government parties.



Thousands streamed onto the streets of Bishkek and other towns and cities insisting that the results were rigged, with votes being bought -- which international observers also said they had concerns about -- and must be canceled.



A 19-year-old protester died during the clashes between police and protesters and many were injured during the demonstrations.



The protesters on October 7 said they represent youth organizations and demanded that "old corrupt politicians" stay away from the government.



"The old ones must go," they chanted as they tried to breach the government building.



Tensions ratcheted up further as supporters of Japarov moved in front of the building to block the entrance in a standoff that RFE/RL correspondents described as intense.

Toktogaziev told RFE/RL at the site that he was "nominated by young members of several political parties to the post of leader of the interim government."



"Our main goal is to ensure that all politicians undergo lustration." he said, referring to a vetting process to ensure the removal of all elements of the previous regime. "The old authorities led by [President] Sooronbai Jeenbekov are fully responsible for this political and economic crisis we are facing now. We will establish a new government of young professionals. We will call on all the Kyrgyz youth residing abroad to return home.

"The main problem we are having is the situation in which revolutions in Kyrgyzstan are carried out by young people, who sacrifice their lives for change, while old corrupted politicians remain in power," Toktogaziev said.



The protesters then managed to force their way inside the building and Toktogaziev joined other politicians representing opposition parties to discuss the composition of the new government and possible new nominations for the post of prime minister.



A leading member of the Reforma party, Klara Sooronkulova, proposed two other individuals as prime minister: Jumadyl Egemberdiev and Ali Toktakunov, an RFE/RL correspondent.



After Sooronkulova's proposal was not supported by others, she left the gathering.

"The idea of nominating me for prime minister today was not discussed with me in advance," Toktakunov said. "I declined the offer. I'm not interested in any official post or career."

The group of some 20 lawmakers that put forward Japarov also proposed opposition Bir Bol (Stay United) party member Myktybek Abdyldaev to lead parliament.

A leader of the opposition Ata-Meken party, Janar Akaev, told RFE/RL on October 7 that lawmakers in the late-night session in the hotel were close to Jeenbekov, whose whereabouts are unknown, and that their real goal was to help keep the president in power.



The Coordination Council rejected the nominations of Abdyldaev and Japarov, who was serving a lengthy prison term on hostage-taking charges before being released during the turmoil.



"We, the majority of lawmakers, are planning to propose other candidates [to the posts of the parliament speaker and prime minister.] We will propose the government consisting of young, honest men and women supported by the ordinary people," Akaev said.



Across the country, the heads of departments are being removed by force or voluntary resignation, while the mayors of Bishkek and the second-largest city in the country's south, Osh, were also replaced. At the same time, opposition parties are struggling to agree who will govern at the national and local level.



In many cases, it was unclear under what legal authority self-proclaimed mayors and government officials are taking power.



Melis Myrzakmatov, the former mayor of Osh, returned to the city on October 7 and immediately addressed supporters, telling them Kyrgyzstan is in a very dangerous situation and that "thieves and crooks are preparing to sow confusion, but we will not allow this and will fight for the country's integrity and its development."

Myrzakmatov urged them "to preserve national unity and resist forces interested in organizing a civil war and dividing the country."



He also said that the parliamentary elections were "very dirty" and that only worthy people should be elected to the Kyrgyz assembly.

However, Osh Mayor Taalaibek Sarybashov said on October 7 that he will continue to carry out his duties despite the ongoing rallies by both his supporters and opponents in the city.



On the same day, Jeenbekov called on all politicians to have their supporters stop the rallies across the country as officials look for a way forward.



"Dear compatriots, those who wanted to get posts, got them. Now I again call all political leaders, who are organizing rallies of their supporters in the streets, to return to legal boundaries," Jeenbekov said in a statement, adding that he believed "we will find a solution to this crisis together."

On October 7, the deputy secretary of the Security Council, Omurbek Suvanaliev, confirmed to RFE/RL that a brother of wealthy and influential tycoon and former top customs official Raiymbek Matraimov, whom protesters accused of buying votes for the pro-government Mekenim Kyrgyzstan party, had been arrested recently by Uzbek border guards.

Suvanaliev said Tilek Matraimov, his son, nephews, and a bodyguard had been apprehended while trying to illegally cross the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border at the start of the protest rallies. He did not specify the exact date of the detainments, adding that the detained Kyrgyz nationals' extradition to Kyrgyzstan is under discussion with the Uzbek side.

SPECIAL REPORT: The Matraimov Kingdom

Raiymbek Matraimov along with his powerful clan was the target of large protests in November and December 2019, with demonstrators demanding a probe into allegations of corruption and massive outflows of cash from the country.

The powerful tycoon, whom many in Kyrgyzstan consider as Jeenbekovs associate, has been at the center of a high-profile corruption scandal exposed by a joint investigation by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Radio Azattyk, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP,) and the Kyrgyz news site Kloop.



Deputy Interior Minister Almaz Orozaliev said on October 7 that Bishkek police were in control of the situation in the city and acting Interior Minister Kursan Asanov is also serving as the city's commandant responsible for preserving law and order in the capital.



Meanwhile, media reports say that dozens of unidentified people tried to break into the office of the Canadian-owned Kumtor Gold Company in Bishkek on October 7.



A day earlier, several miners reported attacks on their offices and facilities amid the rallies and unrest.



Kumtor, Kyrgyzstans major gold-producing entity, is owned by the Canadian firm Centerra Gold.

With reporting by 24.kg, Interfax, and Reuters
At a time of transformation and slow reconstruction of the Middle East we have known for the last seven decades, a great Arab statesman left us. On Tuesday, 29 September, Sheikh Al-Sabah Jaber Al-Sabah, the former ruler of Kuwait from January 2006, passed away. With his death, the wise man among Arab rulers left the scene at a time when his policies of inter-Arab reconciliation are so badly needed.

The late ruler of Kuwait belonged to an era in Arab politics that was shaped by strong nationalist sentiments across the Arab world. It was a period of liberation from more than a century of foreign domination, either by the British or by the French. This period saw the wax and wane of Arab solidarity and a political consensus on the way forward for Arab nations. It is true that during the Iraq-Iran War, that lasted eight years from 1980 till 1988, Gulf countries decided to get together in a Gulf subsystem called the Gulf Cooperation Council. It came into being as a counterweight to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and to benefit from the financial windfall that came from oil proceeds that had skyrocketed after the 1973 October War. Still, Kuwait remained greatly involved in Arab affairs  not out of expediency but rather out of firm conviction.

The late Sheikh Sabah was the architect of this strategy. He was appointed foreign minister in the 1960s and occupied the post of deputy prime minister and foreign minister for more than three decades  30 years that saw turmoil, wars, threats to Kuwaiti independence and terrorist attacks by pro-Iranian groups.

Aside from the threats posed by Iran of the Ayatollahs, and the stark choices that the Iraq-Iran War imposed on Kuwait, the most serious threat to the very existence of Kuwait as a state came on 2 August 1990, when Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait overnight, and the Iraqi government announced the annexation of Kuwait as the 19th governorate of Iraq.

In exile, the late Sheikh Sabah campaigned and travelled the world over in search of a diplomatic solution whereby the Iraqi forces could withdraw from Kuwait. He found in Egypt, under the late president Hosni Mubarak, a true ally among Arab countries, some of which had sided with Iraq in indirect ways. Among the latter, surprisingly enough, figured the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) of the late Yasser Arafat.

Despite more than 60 public appeals from Mubarak for Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait, Iraq rejected all diplomatic solutions. The Kuwaitis had preferred a political way out, particularly after the destruction brought about by Iraqi forces on their soil. However, war became inevitable through Desert Storm  a coalition of American, foreign and Arab armies under the command of the United States Military.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait had been a serious setback for Arab solidarity and the willingness of Arab countries to work together. Another consequence of the invasion was its adverse impact on Gulf-Arab relations.

However, the late Kuwaiti ruler remained committed to working diplomatically with other Arab countries in order to meet the challenges that had faced the Arab world after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the former Soviet Union. This period coincided with the Madrid Peace Conference of October 1991, a conference that had aimed to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict as well as the Palestinian question. Kuwait welcomed the convening of the conference, but adopted a reserved position.

Kuwait has been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian people, and Kuwaiti diplomacy under Sheikh Sabah never tried to link Palestinian policies to its own interests; nor have the Kuwaitis interfered in Palestinian domestic politics, even though it has been a major benefactor of the Palestinian people. Before the Iraqi invasion, there were 400,000 Palestinians working in Kuwait, and their monthly remittance transfers to the West Bank and Gaza were tremendous, and this besides the generous financial aid that the Kuwaiti government earmarked for Palestinian institutions and the PLO. Because of the pro-Iraqi position of the PLO, in support of Saddam Hussein after the Iraqi invasion, things changed and a major source of hard currency for Palestinians in the occupied territories and the Gaza Strip dried up. However, and under his watch as the Emir of Kuwait, Kuwaiti diplomacy opened up to the Palestinians, particularly after the passing of Yasser Arafat at the end of 2004. But the largess of bygone days is history.

One of the main features of this diplomacy has been the non-intervention policies of Sheikh Sabah in both Arab and Gulf differences. And this has been quite apparent during the last decade. Unlike other Gulf countries, Kuwait did not interfere, one way or another, in the domestic affairs of Arab countries that saw the popular uprisings of the so-called Arab Spring. And this was manifested quite clearly in Syria. Whereas three Gulf countries directly and publicly lent support to what is wrongly called the Syrian Revolution, in mid-March 2011, and their backing for bringing down a legitimate Arab government, Kuwait stood out as a country that chose not to destabilise an established government. Such a position is empowering in Arab politics if and when the times come to find political solutions to intractable Arab differences.

In this context, the late Sheikh Sabah tried to mediate between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, on the one hand, and Qatar on the other after the former four cut off diplomatic relations with the latter in June 2017. His failing health, however, plus the economic and financial challenges that faced his country in the last year because of the fall in oil revenues, drove Kuwaiti mediation to a near standstill.

Another major feature of the diplomacy of the late emir was the non-use of force in settling inter-Arab differences  an opposite policy to the gung-ho diplomacy of other Gulf countries. And Yemen is a case in point. Similarly, Kuwait never tried to intervene in Libyan affairs by choosing sides.

Last, but not least, Kuwait, while other Gulf countries chose to disregard the Arab Peace Initiative, with its built-in sequencing of establishing diplomatic relations with the Hebrew state, to its credit stood out as the last Gulf and Arab country that would have forsaken the common Arab strategy of establishing an independent Palestinian state before making any moves to normalise with Israel.

The late emir of Kuwait was the last Arab statesman of a generation of leaders who sincerely translated popular aspirations into official positions vis-a-vis issues that have been, and still are, of utmost importance to Arab countries.

While we mourn his passing, we are certain that his legacy will be an example for whoever comes next to take the reins of power across the Arab world. His diplomacy will remain an inspiration for those who seriously aspire to ensure security, stability and genuine peace in the Arab world.

May you rest in peace, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

*The writer is former assistant foreign minister.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Dr Yaw Adu-Ampomah, third Prosecution witness in the trial involving Dr Stephen Opuni, former Chief Executive Officer, COCOBOD, and two others, has told an Accra High Court that he gave his evidence in court as a civic responsibility.

My Lord, my evidence in court is coloured by me being a Ghanaian and it is my sole responsibility as a patriotic citizen, he said.

Dr Adu-Ampomah was answering questions in a further cross-examination by Mr Nutifafa Nutsukpui, Counsel for Seidu Agongo, the CEO of Agricult Ghana Limited, the second accused in the trial in Accra on Wednesday.

He said as a Ghanaian and as part of his civic responsibility he needs to speak against any ills in society.

Mr Nutsukpui pointed to the witness that the evidence he gave before the court was completely coloured by his political persuasion but the witness disagreed.

Asked, whether he was a card bearing member of the New Patriotic Party, the witness answered in the negative.

The Counsel asked the witness, whether COCOBOD pre-financed the contracts to supply fertilizers with Agricult Ghana Limited and the witness said no, explaining that he was not aware.

Mr Nutsukpui pointed to the witness that per the contract, Agricult Ghana Limited would have to deliver the products before COCOBOD reimburses Agricult and Dr Adu-Ampomah agreed.

He again pointed to Dr Adu-Ampomah, whether he knew Agricult delivered the fertilizers to COCOBOD and the witness said he was aware.

COCOBOD distributed the fertilizers to the Cocoa farmer, the Counsel indicated and the witness agreed.

Asked, whether COCOBOD has any outstanding fertilizer with Agricult Ghana Limited for which the Board had paid and the witness answered in the negative.

The Counsel asked the witness, whether he was aware of any role played by Agricult in the testing process in respect of the fertilizer for which they were in court, the witness answered in the negative.

Are you aware that the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) raised an invoice, demanding the sum of GH1,025 from Agricult as the cost of renewal of certification for lithovit liquid fertilizer for the year, 2015, Mr Nutsukpui asked but the witness said he would not know.

The counsel further asked the witness whether he was aware that CRIG received payment for the said amount and issued receipt but the witness said he was not aware but it was possible.

He requested from the witness, whether he was aware that CRIG wrote a letter dated July 7, 2017 inviting Agricult Ghana Limited to pay a sum of GH3,000 for the renewal of certificate for the year, 2018 in respect to lithovit liquid fertilizer, the witness said he was not aware but it could be possible.

Dr Opuni and Mr Seidu Agongo are facing 27 charges, including defrauding by false pretences, wilfully causing financial loss to the state, money laundering, corruption by public officer and contravention of the Public Procurement Act.

They have both pleaded not guilty to the charges and are on a GH300,000.00 self-recognisance bail each.

The defence has, therefore, ended its cross-examination of the third prosecution witness. The Prosecution will produce its next witness at the next adjourned date.

The case was adjourned to October 8, 2020.

---GNA
Sharon Kleyne, Founder of Bio Logic Aqua Research

Air Date: 5th October 2020

Guests: Nancy Masiello, educator with 30 years experience in special needs of children & behavioral education for young children; Kevin Kearns, founder & CEO of Burn with Kearns & Kids Growing Up Strong.

https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/126115/common-sense-lessons-for-parents-and-children-getting-through-covid

Students returning safely to classrooms despite the COVID-19 pandemic is a major priority for Boston special educator, Nancy Masiello and Kids Growing Up Strong and Burn with Kearns CEO Kevin Kearns.

Sharon Kleyne, host of the internationally syndicated The Power of Water & Your Health sponsored by Nature's Tears EyeMist, 100% FDA approved, naturally pH balanced water technology for acid mantle protection on VoiceAmerica World Talk Radio & Apple iTunes, focuses with guests, international researchers, scientists, physicians, scholars sharing research.

Masiello agrees, pointing out that the first thing a child needs to learn is the social skill of empathy. The first thing to teach is social skills, says Masiello. Even when kids are learning in a virtual situation, says Masiello, they should be given some time to play interactive games on Zoom with their friends. This should be incorporated with the teaching. But also let them go out together for bike rides. They need to get out there and build up their immune systems.

Masiello also suggests that there are many ways to organize a classroom safely. Put four desks together, but seal them off with plexiglass; there are so many ways to organize a classroom safely, says Masiello, who also insists that students take regular hydration breaks throughout the day.

In her Commentary, Kleyne also emphasizes the importance of drinking water for optimum immunity strength protection against the virus and other pathogens. The Power of Water and Water Life Science, says Kleyne, has been my research focus for more than 40 years. I founded a research center more than 30 years ago to study how water vapor in the atmosphere keeps us alive. In the womb for nine months, one is being prepared with a percentage of life-giving water per organ. When a person is born, she is electrically charged with that life-giving water in the atmosphere. Water vapor in the atmosphere depends on healthy soil. Now, with COVID-19, we have to wear a mask in public to protect ourselves and others from the virus carrierspit. Sanitizing the hands is important. Protecting the organ of the eye is essential.

Students worldwide must continue to develop social and emotional skills in a socially distanced world that will require parents and educators to develop new strategies and approaches during this pandemic and others that may follow.

Dr. David T. W. Wong of UCLA shares a major breakthrough in the testing and rapid identification of pathogens such as COVID-19 on Sharon Kleynes, internationally syndicated The Power of Water & Your Health sponsored by Nature's Tears EyeMist, naturally pH balanced water technology for acid mantle protection, on VoiceAmerica World Talk Radio & Apple iTunes.

LISTEN to the internationally syndicated The Power of Water & Your Health sponsored by Nature's Tears EyeMist, naturally pH balanced water technology for acid mantel protection, on VoiceAmerica World Talk Radio & Apple iTunes, focuses with guests, international researchers, scientists, physicians, scholars sharing research. Producer and host Sharon Kleyne. Program Director Rose Hong of Global Dragon TV. This program features Nancy Masiello & Kevin Kearns.

Follow this link:

https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/126115/common-sense-lessons-for-parents-and-children-getting-through-covid

Some recent Sharon Kleyne talk radio programs feature:

Dr. David T.W. Wong, DMD, DMSC https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/125933/saliva-diagnostics

Nancy Yonally Coleman & James Derick https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/125837/be-safe-strategies-for-you-and-your-families-to-go-back-to-school-and-work-safely-during-covid

Dr. David Clarke https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/125671/hidden-stresses-and-your-health

Philip Paden, M.D. https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/125579/encore-immunity-protector-with-natures-tears-eyemist

If you would like to watch a brief, entertaining educational film that demonstrates the application of the new Dry Eye Solution technology Natures Tears EyeMist, sponsor of Sharon Kleynes talk radio program, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0gOr8TB45U
EBRD shareholders agree to Iraq becoming a member of the Bank

Request for membership made in 2018

Iraq could make an application to change its status to recipient country

Iraq has taken the first step to become a member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The 71 existing shareholders of the multilateral financial institution approved a request by the country during the Banks Annual Meeting today.

The EBRD promotes private sector development and sustainable and inclusive growth through a combination of investments, policy engagement and technical assistance. Last year, the EBRD financed 452 individual projects in Europe, Asia and Africa and financing exceeded 10 billion for the first time in the Banks history, rising to 10.1 billion from 9.5 billion in 2018.

Iraq submitted a request for membership in April 2018. The Banks Board of Governors has now agreed to the first stage in this process. Iraq will have to meet some pre-membership requirements before the membership process concludes with the acquisition of shares.

Jurgen Rigterink, the EBRDs Acting President, welcomed the decision: We are very proud and happy that we will soon be able to welcome Iraq as our latest member. Today we have taken the first step on what we hope will be a long and successful joint journey. We are looking forward to building closer ties with Iraq.

Mohammad Jaafar Al-Sadr, the Ambassor of Iraq to the United Kindom, said:  We welcome the outcome of the EBRDs Annual Meeting and the support EBRDs Governors for Iraqs request to become a member of the Bank. We appreciate the Bank's shareholders attention to our application and the work of the EBRD Secretary General and his team dedicated to processing this request specifically during this challenging time of Covid-19 pandemic.

As a shareholder, Iraq could subsequently make an application to change its status to recipient country, benefiting from the EBRDs finance and policy support. This request would be addressed by shareholders in a separate process.

The current geographical remit of the EBRDs southern and eastern Mediterranean region does not include Iraq. The resolution adopted by the Banks Board of Governors today confirms the EBRDs interest in a limited and incremental expansion to sub-Saharan Africa and Iraq during the next strategy period 2021-2025. Governors will consider an update in 2022, reflecting guidance to be provided at the 2021 Annual Meeting.
Christopher Wray. Win McNamee/Getty Images

Four top US officials released a video Tuesday reassuring US voters about the integrity of the election process and countering many of the claims President Donald Trump has made about foreign interference, voter fraud, and mail-in ballots.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said that regardless of how voters cast their ballots, "rest assured that the security of the election  and safeguarding your vote  is and will continue to be one of our highest priorities."

Trump has said the election will be "rigged" against him and that increased voting by mail will lead to a fraudulent result. He also suggested foreign powers could manipulate mail ballots and spark widespread voter fraud.

William Evanina, the top counterintelligence official in the US, contradicted Trump's claim about foreign interference with mail ballots, saying, "It would be very difficult for adversaries to interfere with, or manipulate, voting results at scale."

Evanina also said foreign actors were trying to hack into election infrastructure.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The US's top intelligence and law-enforcement officials released a video on Tuesday defending the integrity of the election and countering many of the allegations President Donald Trump has amplified in regard to voter fraud and issues with mail-in ballots.

"Next month, we will exercise one of our most cherished rights and a foundation of our democracy  the right to vote in a free and fair election," FBI Director Christopher Wray said. "Some Americans will go to the polls on November 3 to cast their votes, while others will be voting by mail; in fact, some have already begun to return their ballots."

Christopher Krebs, the director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, added: "I'm here to tell you that my confidence in the security of your vote has never been higher. That's because of an all-of-nation unprecedented election-security effort over the last several years."

Story continues

William Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in the video that foreign actors were working hard to sway the election by spreading disinformation. They're trying to "collect derogatory personal information from candidates, campaigns, and prominent Americans" and hack into election infrastructure, he said.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security had denied for weeks that hostile foreign powers were trying to gain access to election infrastructure, and Evanina's statement was the first acknowledgement by the US government of such activity, NBC News' Ken Dilanian said.

Trump was not explicitly mentioned in the video, but US officials made several statements directly contradicting his claims that the election will be "rigged," increased voting by mail would lead to a fraudulent result, and foreign actors could manipulate mail ballots.

"No matter which method you choose, your voice is important," Wray said. "Rest assured that the security of the election  and safeguarding your vote  is and will continue to be one of our highest priorities."

Trump and his allies, including Attorney General William Barr, have also suggested that foreign powers could interfere in the election by mass-producing counterfeit mail ballots and sending them to US voters.

Evanina appeared to contradict that in the video, saying, "To be clear, it would be very difficult for adversaries to interfere with, or manipulate, voting results at scale."

As Insider previously reported, there are several reasons that foreign countries interfering with the mail-in voting process is very unlikely.

Election administration in the US is not centralized, meaning there is no single national ballot that a foreign state could replicate and send to voters. Moreover, most ballots and the envelopes they're mailed in are difficult to mimic because they contain specific information about bar codes, precincts, and voter ID numbers.

Senior government officials also said last month that the US intelligence community found no evidence of foreign interference with mail ballots.

"We have no information or intelligence that any nation or state actor is engaging in any kind of activity to undermine any part of the mail-in vote or ballots," a senior federal official who asked to remain anonymous told reporters, according to The Washington Post.

US officials also appeared to counter Trump's claim that the results of the election will be fraudulent unless they're announced on election night or shortly thereafter.

"Elections are going to look a little different this year," Krebs said. "While this will change the way Americans vote, Americans will vote. And Americans will decide American elections. And you, as the American voter, are the last line of defense."

He also said voters should "be patient because of the changes due to COVID, on November 3, we might not know the outcome of our election."

"And that's OK, but we're going to need your patience until official results are announced," Krebs added. "So get out there and vote with confidence, and be a part of protecting 2020."

Tuesday's video will likely enrage the president and those around him. Both Wray and Evanina have already drawn significant ire from Trumpworld over their public statements about Russia's interference in the electoral process.

Just last week, The Daily Beast reported that Trump had trained his sights on replacing Wray as FBI director after the general election.

Some Trump allies have publicly mocked Wray, with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows saying in a CBS News interview that the FBI director "has a hard time finding emails in his own FBI let alone figuring out whether there is any kind of voter fraud." And Georgia Rep. Doug Collins said Wray was "complicit" in what Republicans say was a Democratic-led plot to sink Trump's 2016 candidacy by tying his campaign to Russia's campaign to interfere in the election.

The US intelligence community assessed with high confidence in 2017 that the Russian government meddled in the race to denigrate then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and elevate Trump to the Oval Office. Those findings were later confirmed by the special counsel Robert Mueller and a bipartisan Senate report on the matter.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Iran said shelling from the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict landing in Iranian territory is unacceptable today.

Iranian police said on Wednesday that shells and rockets have landed in its northwestern East Azerbaijan province. The country Azerbaijan and Armenia are currently fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region north of Iran. Iranian border guards have warned both countries over the inadvertent spillover and Azerbaijan has apologized, the state-run Press TV reported.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also condemned the shelling on Wednesday at a cabinet meeting.

That a number of artillery shells and mortars hit Iranian soil is unacceptable to us, he said, according to Press TV.

Renewed fighting broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh late last month. Armenian-backed forces control the disputed region, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. The two countries have been at odds over the area since the final years of the Soviet Union.

Iran has historic ties to both countries. Azerbaijan is a majority Shiite Muslim country like Iran, and millions of Iranians, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini, are ethnic Azerbaijanis. There are some tensions between the two states, one being Azerbaijans relationship with Israel. Iran and Armenia also have a long history of relations and cooperate on energy issues in particular.

The Islamic Republic does not support either side in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but it has recently criticized Turkey, which heavily backs Azerbaijan. One of the Khameinis advisers said Turkey is adding fuel to the fire this week.

Tehran is also concerned about reports of Turkey using Syrian rebel fighters to help Azerbaijan.

It is unacceptable if certain people want to take terrorists from Syria and other places to areas near the Iranian borders under different pretexts, said Rouhani on Wednesday, according to the state-run Tasnim News Agency.
DOVER, Del., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Chesapeake Utilities Corporation (NYSE: CPK) will host a conference call on Thursday, November 5, 2020, at 4:00 p.m. ET to discuss the Company's financial results for the third quarter of 2020. The earnings press release will be issued on Wednesday, November 4, 2020, after the market closes.

To participate in this call, dial toll-free 877.224.1468 and reference Chesapeake Utilities Corporation's 2020 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference Call.

To access the replay recording of this call, please visit the Company's website at CPK - Conference Call Audio Replay.

Chesapeake Utilities Corporation is a diversified energy delivery company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which is engaged in natural gas transmission and distribution; electricity generation and distribution; propane gas distribution; mobile CNG utility services and solutions; and other businesses. Information about Chesapeake Utilities Corporation's businesses is available at www.chpk.com, through the Company's Investor Relations App and on the Annual Report Microsite at cpkannualreport.com

Please note that Chesapeake Utilities Corporation has no affiliation with Chesapeake Energy, an oil and natural gas exploration company headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

For more information, contact:

Heidi W. Watkins

Shareholder Services Manager

302.734.6716

SOURCE Chesapeake Utilities Corporation

Related Links

http://www.chpk.com


By PTI

ISLAMABAD: British-born al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and his three aides - the main accused in the abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl, will remain in jail for another three months, according to an order issued by Pakistan's Sindh government on Wednesday.

The announcement of extending their detention was made by prosecutors during a hearing of the Supreme Court, which was to decide on Sheikh's release.

The apex court last week barred the government from releasing them.

Faisal Siddiqi, the lawyer representing Pearl's family, told the media that the government prosecutor, Fiaz Shah, told the judges he needed more time for paperwork to prepare for the case.

The court accepted his argument and adjourned the hearing till October 21.

In April, a two-judge Sindh High Court bench commuted the death sentence of 46-year-old Sheikh, who was convicted in the abduction and murder of Pearl in 2002, to seven years.

The court also acquitted his three aides who were serving life terms in the case, almost two decades after they were found guilty and jailed.

Two days after the Sindh High Court overturned Sheikh's conviction, the Sindh government invoked the Maintenance of Public Order to keep the four convicts in jail.

The Sindh government filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the high court verdict.

Pearl's parents also filed an appeal to the Supreme Court against the judgment of the high court to release the accused.

Pearl, the 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was abducted and beheaded while he was in Pakistan investigating a story in 2002 on the alleged links between the country's powerful spy agency ISI and al-Qaeda.
Many outside observers had portrayed the trial as an example of a democratic country grappling with its most hardcore political faction. Greece is now governed by a center-right party, and far-right sentiment has receded to the margins. But the trial was a chance to look back on what happened during a decade of severe tumult, when the economy was collapsing and migrants were arriving in historic numbers, creating resentments that Golden Dawn saw as an opportunity.
It is quite strange that suddenly, after a video of maltreatment of Ghanaian passengers, including children, at Ghanas Kotoka International Airport, Accra, going viral, Ghana Airports Company Limited would come out and defend what is patently indefensible. It would be recalled that this writer went on a two-day trip to Abuja, Nigeria on 22nd September 2020, travelled on African World Air Flight number AW 260 from Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana, to Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, Nigeria. This writer followed all the protocols as per the executive instrument of the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo.

This writer had in his possession a valid PCR Test Certificate from Lancet Medical Laboratory, East Legon, less than 24 hours before travelling.

On the return trip to Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana, on 24th September 2020, this writer who, again, followed all the laid down protocols and thus was exempted for a test at Kotoka International Airport for COVID19, was stopped and HARRASSED by the COVID19 Test Team at Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana. There were a team of 2 sets of 5 personnel lined up along the COVID19 section of the airport before one goes through to Immigration control, stopped this writer to demand payment of $150 USD, despite all the evidence this writer provided to these so-called COVID19 Test team, including the YOUTUBE BROADCAST OF THE PRESIDENT OF GHANA to lift the lockdown of Kotoka International Airport and all the measures put in place to protect the citizens of Ghana.

This writer went to the extent of showing these so-called COVID19 TEST TEAM evidence of the exemption, as was announced by Nana Akufo Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana as stated above, yet these officers were adamant that this writer pays the $150 USD. This writer who is a dual national through birth and parentage stood on his grounds and refused to pay. The sheer unrelenting harassment of passengers, who perhaps do not have the money to pay the $150 USD COVID19, can be very upsetting and could even distress some of the passengers as the video vividly shows.

Thus, for the management of Ghana Airports Company to threatened these poor passengers with National Security and of 14 days quarantine by folks who could not pay $150 USD for the cost of a COVID19 test in the first place, is not only cruel and barbaric but an infringement of their human rights!

The question this writer would like to ask Ghana Airports Company Limited and to a degree the Ghana Government is, when did it become a crime to detain individuals who due to lack of funds to pay for a COVID19 Test, a world health pandemic, and therefore warrant their detention and handed over to NATIONAL SECURITY? This is not only absurd but a scandal that must be investigated by the Government of Ghana and the Ghana Health Service!

In the case of this writers harassment by the COVID19 TEST TEAM at the Kotoka International Airport, this writer was fortunate to get the telephone numbers of the passengers on the return flight on 24th September 2020, Africa World Air Flight number AW 251 from Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, Nigeria to Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana. This writer wrote to selected media houses in Ghana, United Kingdom and United States plus copied the Ministry of Information and Ministry of Health in Accra, Ghana. Apart from the media houses, none of the ministries bothered to reply to this writer with an explanation of the harassment being perpetuated in the name of the Government of Ghana.

This writer is still considering filing a lawsuit against those who harassed him at Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana after all the evidence is gathered. This is an infringement of the Human Rights of fellow Ghanaians and must stop as a matter of urgency! When did it become a CRIME THAT IF ONE DOES NOT HAVE MONEY TO PAY FOR COVID19 TEST IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY OF BIRTH, IT BECOMES A NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE? WHEN? We live in a very interesting time indeed!
By Associated Press

CANCUN: Hurricane Delta made landfall in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday as an extremely dangerous Category 2 storm, roaring ashore between Cancun and the resorts of Playa del Carmen and Cozumel.

The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said satellite imagery, radar data from Cuba and surface observations in Mexico indicate that the center of Delta struck land near Puerto Morelos around 5:30 a.m. local time, sustaining top winds of 110 mph (175 kmh).

Quintana Roo Gov. Carlos Joaquin warned residents and tourists that, it is a strong, powerful hurricane.

He considered it a good sign that Delta had weakened a bit late Tuesday, but said the area hadn't seen a storm like it since Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

Delta had increased in strength by 80 mph in just 24 hours, and its top winds peaked at 145 mph (230 kph) before it weakened as it neared the shore.

Forecasters warned it was still an extremely dangerous storm nevertheless, with a life-threatening storm surge that could raise water levels 9 to 13 feet (2.7 to 4 metres), along with large and dangerous waves and flash flooding inland.

Thousands of Quintana Roo residents and tourists were hunkering down in government shelters.

Everyone had been ordered off the streets by 7 p.m.

While top winds weakened slightly over land, Delta was expected to carve a path of destruction across the peninsula before moving into the Gulf of Mexico later in the day.

By 7 a.m. local time, it was centered about 35 miles (55 kilometers) inland, due west of Cancun.

Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 30 miles (45 kilometers) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds reached 140 miles (220 kilometers) from the center.

The evacuations of low lying areas, islands and the coastline expanded as Delta exploded over the warm Caribbean waters offshore.

Much of Cancun's hotel zone was cleared out as guests were bused to inland shelters.

In Cancun alone, the government opened 160 shelters.

Some 300 guests and nearly 200 staff from the Fiesta Americana Condesa hotel were taken to the Technological Institute of Cancun campus.

All wearing masks, they spread out on thin mattresses in a classroom building and tried to get comfortable as workers boarded up the building's windows in a light rain.

Some played cards or watched videos on their phones, while others called relatives.

"The hotel has done a good job of making sure that we were provided for and that we're going to be safe here in this place, so we don't have any concerns at all," said Shawn Sims, a tourist from Dallas sheltering with his wife, Rashonda Cooper, and their sons, 7-year-old Liam and 4-year-old Easton.

"This is my first (hurricane) experience, but I see that these guys have a plan and they know what they're doing," Sims said.

State tourism officials said more than 40,000 tourists were in Quintana Roo, a fraction of what would normally be there.

Delta's damage comes on top of months of pandemic-induced lockdown that has devastated the state's tourism industry.

At the Cancun Convention Center, 400 tourists from hotels and rental properties bunked for the night.

"We hope that in this place we are surely much safer," Quintana Roo Tourism Secretary Marisol Vanegas said.

"This is a structure that has withstood other hurricanes."

Delta was forecast to spend several hours lashing the Yucatan Peninsula before moving into the Gulf of Mexico and growing into a "considerably larger" storm before striking the U.S. Gulf coast.

People in Louisiana or Mississippi should prepare now for hurricane-force winds to begin hitting their coastlines on Friday, the hurricane center advised.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Delta was expected to make landfall there Friday night or Saturday morning and the entire state is in the storm's possible path.

State and local officials in coastal areas were shoring up levees, sandbagging and taking other protections measures, he said.

Louisiana is still recovering from Hurricane Laura, which ravaged the southwestern region as it roared ashore as a Category 4 storm in August.

More than 6,600 Laura evacuees remain in hotels around the state, mainly in New Orleans, because their homes are too heavily damaged to return.

Mexico put the commander of its navy in charge of the federal response.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday that 5,000 federal troops and emergency personnel were being made available in Quintana Roo to aid in storm efforts.

Juan Carlos Avila arrived at the Technological Institute of Cancun shelter with his seven-months pregnant wife, Joselyn, and their 3-year-old-son, Alexander.

He said the staff had made them comfortable and seemed well prepared.

The family, which lives in Miami, had been in Cancun a week and already went through Tropical Storm Gamma, which soaked the area over the weekend.

"We've practically lived in storms during our stay here in Cancun," Avila said.
SpeechLogix and CounterPath Team Up for Better Agent Performance in the Call Center

Improving agent performance and boosting efficiency has long been the goal of call center managers. When agents work more productively and help callers feel comfortable and pleased with their interactions, the better the business outcome.

Getting to this goal requires tools baked into the solution that support their needs. Things like intelligent routing, call recording, and other features can ease and improve how agents perform.

To make this possible for enterprises and services providers in Saudi Arabia, CounterPath (News - Alert) Corporation and SpeechLogix recently partnered up for an application called XLogix Platform.

Both companies said the goal is to reach further into the contact center market, which is expected to reach $72.3 billion by 2027.

Available for Mac Windows, Android (News - Alert), and iOS, the XLogix Platform is built on open standards and is a stand-alone solution. It makes seamless communications possible by using intelligent routing, so call center agents always have local numbers when calling out to more than 65 countries. It also provides additional UC solutions and localization services for operators and enterprises.

"The XLogix Platform is a clear example of what our Bria for Call Center solution can do for contact centers," said Todd Carothers, Chief Revenue Officer at CounterPath. "SpeechLogix was able to create the platform by customizing our call features and collaboration tools. It simplifies the user experience for agents and allows contact centers and enterprises to scale cost-effectively."

The company needed a vendor that was already familiar with the Middle East region, and CounterPath works with SMEs in Saudi Arabia. They needed an offering that was both interoperable and could be provisioned from a centralized location.

Service providers in the region are already customizing the platform to include features they require.

The Cloud Telephony and Contact Center solution leverages the Google (News - Alert) Cloud Platform (GCP) and artificial intelligence capabilities to simplify and improve the needs of businesses of all sizes.

Additional benefits provided by the XLogix Platform include automatically recording and analyzing all calls, monitoring and controlling budgets using an artificially controlled billing system, and using screen pop-ups to make day-to-day duties easier for help desks.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
Crossing another milestone, Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered 20th consecutive year as the democratically elected head of a government, without a break, on Wednesday.

Modi, who turned 70 last month, started as a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh volunteer and then served in the BJP's organisation for many years before the party leadership sent him to Gujarat, his home state, as its chief minister in 2001.

Since then, he has never tasted electoral defeat and led the BJP to power in the state three straight times before steering the party to its biggest, until then, Lok Sabha poll win in 2014 and then scripting an even bigger win in the 2019 general elections.

The journey of the prime minister in public office began on October 7, 2001, as the chief minister of Gujarat.

This was followed by three terms as the Gujarat CM in 2002, 2007 and 2012, respectively.

During the third term as the Gujarat CM, however, Modi fought the 2014 general elections.

His popularity, which was going through the roof both inside and outside the state, led to the Bharatiya Janata Party declaring him as its prime ministerial candidate in 2013.

He had been projected as the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance candidate for the PM post.

Defeating the Congress-led government which held sway at the Centre, CM Modi left Gujarat to take over the reins at the Centre.

"If the first term was fulfilling the needs of people then since 2019, PM Modi has set his sights on fulfilling the aspirations of 130 crore Indians. Jammu and Kashmir has finally been fully integrated in India and Article 370 is history. The Ram Mandir is now a reality with construction starting for a grand Ram Temple at the birth place of Prabhu Ram," an article shared on the official website of PM Modi on the day read.

"Our farmers have finally been freed from artificially imposed chains on them and far-reaching, historic agriculture reforms are now a reality. A host of other reforms such as Labour Reforms, Coal Reforms, allowing private enterprise in the space sector, FDI reforms across the board and tax reforms have put in place a foundation for sustained years of economic growth," the added..

Bharatiya Janata Party leaders heaped praise on Modi and his leadership as he entered his 20th year without a break as the head of an elected government, including close to 13 years as chief minister of Gujarat.

Party president J P Nadda said October 7, 2001, when Modi was sworn in as Gujarat chief minister for the first time, is a "milestone" in India's political history.

Modi has since been notching up bigger victories and his popularity has only gone up, Nadda said on Twitter.

The party also tweeted details of many of Modi's key schemes during his 19 years as the head of a government.

Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri lauded Modi for "20 years in service of humanity & Maa Bharati with dedication, vision & selflessness".

"Heartiest congratulations to PM @narendramodi Ji for becoming the only democratically elected world leader to serve the people continuously for 20 years since 2001," Puri said.

Be it as chief minister of Gujarat or as prime minister of the world's largest democracy, Modi has always been a crusader for people's welfare, the party said.

"PM Sri @narendramodi Ji has completed 6941 successful days in total as CM of Gujarat & PM of India. One of the unblemished tenures ever seen. Kept public welfare as a priority and never worried about himself. Always kept sovereignty & pride of India intact," its spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi tweeted.

With inputs from PTI
Based on the results of decryption of the An-26 plane recorders that crashed near Chuhuiv (Kharkiv region), the plane's flight, which ended in a fatal accident, was fully restored, and the content of talks was established, both between the crew members and with the flight management.

Head of the government commission Oleh Urusky said it after hearing the report of the heads of the three subcommittees on the investigation of the plane crash, namely, aviation, flight and technical.

"The technical reason for the abnormal operation of the left engine and the triggering of the pressure drop sensor according to the orque-measuring device has been established. This happened as a result of a failure of one of the engine control system units," Urusky wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday.

He also said that the investigation showed gross violations, both in the performance of flight missions and in the organization of flights in general.

Now the government commission continues to investigate the crash.

According to Urusky, the Defense Ministry of Ukraine should finish its own internal investigation on October 12. After that, the materials will be transferred to military commissariats and, tentatively, after October 15, it is planned to start paying compensation to the families of the victims.

As reported, at about 20:50 on September 25, on the Kyiv-Kharkiv-Dovzhansky highway, a plane crash occurred. During planned training flights, an An-26 military aircraft fell and caught fire, which was landing at the airfield of a military unit in the town of Chuhuiv, Kharkiv region. There were 27 people (20 cadets and seven officers of the Kharkiv University of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine named after Kozhedub) on board. Some 25 people died on the spot, two cadets were hospitalized. On the morning of September 26, one of the hospitalized died in the hospital. According to the State Bureau of Investigation, the investigation is checking four versions: a catastrophe due to a technical malfunction of the aircraft; catastrophe due to improper performance of their duties by the crew; improper performance of official duties by persons who were responsible for flight control; inadequate maintenance of the aircraft and its preparation for flight.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge hosted an audience at Buckingham Palace. (Kensington Palace)

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have become the first royal couple to carry out an engagement at Buckingham Palace since the Queen left for Windsor in March.

The couple were pictured without masks, but were socially distanced, as they met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine and First Lady Olena Zelenska at the London palace.

The meeting took place as the Queen returned to Windsor Castle following her shorter summer break in Balmoral.

She and Prince Philip also had a short break in Sandringham together, where he has remained.

The Queen, 94, will travel to Buckingham Palace for engagements when she needs to, but will otherwise stay in Windsor Castle.

The Berkshire residence is where Her Majesty considers home, because she grew up there with her sister during the war, and is where she usually spends weekends.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge meet the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and his wife, Olena, during an audience at Buckingham Palace, London. (PA)

The couples did not wear masks but did maintain a social distance. (PA)

Read more: Duchess of Cambridge encourages students to play sport to support their mental health during campus visit

A palace spokeswoman said: The duke and duchess received the president and first lady of Ukraine during their visit to the UK on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen.

The president and his wife are on a two day working visit, and will meet Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The UK is giving Ukraine 5m in humanitarian aid.

Neither of the couples wore masks during the visit, but they also avoided shaking hands, and stood at a suitable social distance.

William and Kate greeted the couple, and sat on opposite sofas in the palaces Throne Room.

Kate wore a cornflower blue belted dress and Prince William donned a suit and tie.

Kate wore a blue dress with nude heels for the brief meeting. (PA)

Read more: Prince William says George and Charlotte are 'as cheeky as each other'

Its the first time Buckingham Palace has been used for a visit since the lockdown began in March, but William and Kate, as well as Prince Charles and his wife Camilla have carried out in-person engagements for several weeks.

Charles used his London home of Clarence House when he met French President Emmanuel Macron.

Story continues

However he and Camilla are living in Highgrove House. William and Kate are now back in Kensington Palace, as their two oldest children are back in school in London.

All large scale events have been postponed at Buckingham Palace, meaning there will not be any investitures until at least next year.

It's the first time Buckingham Palace has been used in seven months. (PA)

Read more: Princess Charlotte reveals she likes spiders as Cambridge siblings quiz Sir David Attenborough

Current UK government guidelines are for masks or coverings to be worn in public enclosed spaces like pubs, restaurants, supermarkets and on public transport.

If the palace is considered an office, as its a place of work for the Royal Family, government guidelines suggest the royals should wear coverings.

Government advice is also to reduce face-to-face meetings wherever possible.

WATCH: Duchess of Cambridge meets students at the University of Derby
South Africa: SARS employee to appear in court

A South African Revenue Service (SARS) employee is to appear in court today after allegedly soliciting a bribe from a taxpayer.

The official was arrested in a Hawks sting operation on Monday.

The employee allegedly offered to write off a taxpayers tax debt in return for the payment of R20 000.

In a statement on Tuesday, the revenue service said it would cooperate fully with the Hawks in the investigation.

Commissioner Edward Kieswetter said that while SARS will not pre-empt the ongoing investigation, the organisation would not tolerate any of its officials engaging in any collusion with taxpayers neither any act of criminal malfeasance.

Employees of SARS hold positions of privilege and trust, and are expected to display the highest levels of professionalism, act with utmost honesty and integrity, and apply the tax and customs laws competently, without any fear, favour and prejudice. We cannot stand by a fallow the hard work of many honest SARS employees to be undermined and compromised, he said.

He said employees should keep their conduct beyond reproach in the service of the country and its people.

Any actions that distracts from achieving this vision has no place in SARS, said the Commissioner.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-10-07. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
New Zealand's news service Newshub Nation reports in July on a Korean diplomat accused of sexually assaulting a local staff member in the embassy in 2017. The disciplinary action against the diplomat was taken more than 15 months after the allegations were made, and it was a mere one-month pay cut. / Captured from Newshub Nation



By Park Han-sol



There has been a series of incidences of sexual harassment and assault committed by government officials dispatched to overseas diplomatic missions, according to data from the foreign affairs ministry, Wednesday.



Lawmakers expressed discontent with the disciplinary measures faced by those who commit such crimes, arguing that the punishments are too lenient and that the process is far too slow.



According to the data, there were 25 cases of sexual harassment or assault committed by foreign ministry officials from 2013 to the first half of this year, 20 of which took place at diplomatic missions abroad.



In more than one third of these cases, it took over a year for the ministry to take any disciplinary action and in three cases it took as long as 30 months for the ministry to punish the offenders.



As to the penalties, 11 officials received light punishments such as reprimands and pay cuts, while 10 were suspended from duty or demoted. Only four were dismissed.



In the case of a Korean diplomat's alleged sexual harassment of a local embassy staff member in New Zealand in 2017, a scandal that has recently heated up in both countries, it took over 15 months from the time the allegations were made for the diplomat to get a mere one-month pay cut as a form of punishment.



Crimes of a similar nature have also been committed by public officials not from the foreign affairs ministry but from other government agencies dispatched to overseas diplomatic missions.



In June, a National Intelligence Service (NIS) official dispatched to the Korean Consulate General in Los Angeles allegedly sexually harassed a female contract worker. The foreign ministry ordered his return to Korea in July after a police investigation began, and the case was sent to the prosecution, according to Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP).



When a public servant working abroad commits a criminal offense, the foreign ministry is in charge of organizing their return to Korea, while the investigation and disciplinary action must be carried out by the agency to which the official belongs. However, since the official returned to the NIS, no particular measures have been taken aside from suspension from duty.



In late August, a Korean staff member at the Korean embassy in Nigeria allegedly sexually harassed a local cleaner, according to Rep. Lee Tae-kyu of the PPP.



Even though the cleaner notified an embassy official of the incident, the embassy failed to take disciplinary action and did not report it to the foreign ministry in Seoul. The case simply closed with the Korean staff member in question resigning the following month.



"These cases of sexual harassment largely occur in embassies with a small number of members, which become closed organizations far from the headquarters' surveillance, and resulting in delayed disciplinary action," independent Rep. Kim Hong-gul said.


What should have been a purely scientific response aimed at control and cure of a disease quickly evolved into the political-religious cult of Covidism. Objective scientific analysis of and responses to what is the contagious pathogen COVID-19 were almost immediately suffocated by a plethora of arbitrary pseudo-religious rituals.

The capitulation of the churches to rituals radically modifying and even antagonistic to Christian rites may be because the Church, continually rent by internal crises and scandals, did not recognize the rival religion when it appeared.

It may be that the budding religious cult prevailed rapidly because Covidism was purported to be based on science. But it is actually an offshoot of the religion of scientism, which elevates speculative metaphysics and mystery rituals on the basis of scientific-sounding but untested suppositions.

The result of the surprise appearance of Covidism has been that core doctrines of the Christian Church  Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant  have been severely compromised or even replaced by the enforcement of COVID-19 ritual cleansings coupled with liturgies and doctrines of the radical left.

Without much resistance or thought, most institutions, including the American Church, voluntarily capitulated to the cult's ritualistic regulatory minutiae.

The result is that in America, the land of the free, the land whose constitution guarantees freedom of religion and speech, the hollowness of much of the American Church has been revealed. With few exceptions, the leaders of the institution that claims allegiance to the Lion of Judah barely mewed, much less roared. Leaders of denominations that once defended the infallibility of the Bible as the Word of God began to take Bibles out of the pew racks out of fear that touching the book would infect the body of Christ.

As hand-sanitizer replaced holy water as a symbolic means of purifying potentially diseased worshippers, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was sidelined or trivialized to the point of meaninglessness. Accession to fear of the god Invisible Virus found the sacrament discarded voluntarily  or, as has been the case in San Francisco, forbidden.

In many churches, the belief that the sacrament was essential to spiritual health was weakened or jettisoned altogether. Communion became a ritual radically changed by state laws regarding sanitization. Takeout communion was substituted, with the body and blood of Christ packaged much as fast food restaurants dispense ketchup. Revelatory of churches' capitulation to Prohibition, individual packets containing a crumb of unleavened bread also dispensed Concord grape juice rather than wine.

Christians past and present sometimes have followed strict regimens as a spiritual discipline. But those regimens were and still are almost always chosen. Few acolytes have observed such restrictions and rituals as have been foisted on worshipers in the name of "health" and "science."

But worse, Covidism's rituals of purification have been forcibly applied to the entirety of society.

Churched or unchurched, innocent or guilty, everyone is regarded as potentially diseased, the virus now considered as systemic and as lethal as sin was once assumed to be. Innocence and guilt have been redefined according to COVID-19. Everyman is now potentially infected or infector. Indeed, all society is guilty and must follow religious rituals designed to ward off contamination.

Christians or not, all are now forced to be materialists: for progressives, nothing is more presently meaningful than the material virus and its effects. Christians who once believed in the realities of the invisible spiritual world and who coveted the salutary effects of the invisible Holy Spirit on the soul must now repent by ritualistically exorcising the virus rather than the world, the flesh and the Devil.

California, always the canary in the coal mine when it comes to the religion of radical progressivism, has led in establishing the rituals of the new faith. Hymn books, communion, offering containers, pew Bibles, singing, hugging, and shaking hands are forbidden. Assembly of the faithful has been drastically limited and social distancing enforced.

Why has the Church capitulated so easily?

In the modern world, where emotion and passion are the authenticating virtues of political and religious movements, the priests of Covidism, allied with leaders of the radicalized left, are more committed to erasing rituals and icons of culture, dissolving authorities and riotous processions of faith than the Church is committed to preserving its sacred assemblies, hallowed rituals, essential symbols, holy scriptures, and pilgrimages.

The religious mania of the left knows no restrictions as the Church now puts on itself. Radicals have strutted their stuff almost unchecked, wallowing in orgies of destruction, all in the name of righteously purifying a terminally diseased society.

No one should be surprised that violence arises when the institution that is called to be the spiritual guide of the nation becomes paralyzed. When the Church's most holy practices are surrendered to the whims of Covidism, it is clear the Church no longer believes in its reasons for being the Church  hence the ease with which the Church is being overcome.

Those who do not mind or perhaps even cheer the paralysis or even the gutting of the Church should be aware that the devitalization of the Church is a mere prelude to further tyrannous actions. Enforced obedience to the doctrines and rituals of Covidism extends well beyond the Church to encompass all institutions.

Covidism is merely the spearpoint being utilized for total war. Coaxing or forcing capitulation to the new rituals supported by and enforced by state and city governments amounts to forced surrender, as surely as the Terror forced the French churches to capitulate to radical secularism.

Resistance to the new religion of Covidism will provide the left with excuses to tax American churches, hijack their pulpits in the name of political correctness, and take over parachurch entities such as hospitals and educational institutions  all in the name of collective health.

To re-word Adam Smith's warning concerning nations, there is great ruin in the Church. There has been and continues great ruin in other institutions who have wished to retain their foundational beliefs and integrity. There is much wealth in America's institutions, and radicalized governments utilizing Covidism as the initial weapon of control will prove to be omnivores not particularly picky about whom or what they eat. Much as the shrew paralyzes prey for future feasting, the paralysis of American institutions brought on by governors and mayors, coupled with the timorous obedience of most churches, invites the insurgents and the cooperating governments to the equivalent of Trimalchio's banquet.

In sum, Covidism is bolstered by emotional believe-ism unattached to real science and commonsense rationality. It is based on an ever fluctuating scientism requiring blind faith and obedience. As the new scientism issues conflicting messages and former paradigms of actual science are discarded; the COVID-19 religion stokes indeterminacy  an indeterminacy that cannot long stand, as no society can remain permanently ambivalent or in a state of continual upheaval.

The new cult of Covidism establishes rituals aimed at usurping the authoritative spirituality of the Church. The Church seems almost oblivious to the reality of the drastic changes in its very nature because it has allowed the fluctuating auguries of the shamans of scientism credibility and authority.

Resistance will require spiritual renewal. The Church must defend its symbols, rituals, and sacraments. It must desert the continually hovering and vacillation it has exhibited as it waits breathlessly for the latest word of the prophets of scientism.

As the Church repents of its capitulation, it needs to rededicate itself to the essentials of the faith it has maintained over 2,000 years.

It should renew its commitments to provide for its congregations, disciple its members, provide the rituals of the sacraments, reverentially bury its dead, and console the disconsolate and the penitent  without interference from any other entity.

Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, where she was awarded the prize for excellence in systematic theology. Her thoughts have appeared as essays and quotes in many online magazines, including the Christian Post, Christianity Today, CBN, National Review, Russian Insider and American Thinker. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 17:15:34|Editor: huaxia

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SEOUL, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- South Korean households' excess funds grew in the second quarter amid worry about the economic fallout from the COVID-19 outbreak, central bank data showed Wednesday.

Net financial funds, held by households and nonprofit organizations, reached 64 trillion won (55.3 billion U.S. dollars) during the April-June quarter, up from 24 trillion won (20.7 billion U.S. dollars) a year earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The net financial funds refer to the value of financial assets minus financial liabilities.

Households increased deposits and investments with excess funds during the quarter due to economic uncertainty from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The households-held financial assets reached a new high of 110.1 trillion won (95.2 billion U.S. dollars) in the second quarter, while financial liabilities amounted to 46.1 trillion won (39.9 billion U.S. dollars).

Non-financial companies borrowed a net 29.1 trillion won (25.2 billion U.S. dollars) worth of funds during the second quarter, up 13.8 trillion won (11.9 billion U.S. dollars) from a year earlier.

The companies-held financial liabilities reached 90.4 trillion won (78.1 billion U.S. dollars), while the financial assets amounted to 61.3 trillion won (52.9 billion U.S. dollars). Enditem
The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has rewritten its workplace safety guidelines regarding reporting of COVID-19 infections to give employers a blank check to allow the spread of coronavirus throughout their workforces.

While the deadly virus has ripped through food processing plants, Amazon facilities, auto factories and nursing homes, OSHA has done little or nothing. Since the start of the pandemic the federal agency responsible for workplace safety has only issued citations to 30 employers even though it has received 9,000 complaints and 1,200 referrals from other agencies relating to the handling of COVID-19. OSHAs highest proposed fine to date is just $40,482.

According to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, OHSA recently withdrew its first coronavirus citation after issuing a new legal interpretation. The withdrawn citation concerned Winder Health Care, a nursing home outside Athens, Georgia.

Workers at Ford Dearborn Truck Plant (Source: Ford Media)

The citation of Winder came after OSHA found that the nursing facility failed to report within 24 hours that six employees had been hospitalized with COVID-19. Instead, the nursing home reportedly waited more than two weeks. Initially, the fine proposed by OSHA was a token $6,506 for an other-than-serious violation. That was later reduced to just $3,904.

In revoking the fine against Winder, OSHA posted revised wording on its website stating that employers must only report a hospitalization if it occurs within 24-hours of a worker being exposed to the virus on the job. Since the incubation period of the virus after initial exposure is days, if not weeks, this will virtually never happen. The change, in effect, abolishes any requirement that companies notify OSHA of employee COVID-related hospitalizations.

Colin Smith, a clinical assistant professor at Georgia State Universitys School of Public Health, told the Journal-Constitution, The burden of proof has been set so high, that this appears to be another pro-business endeavor to excuse non-reporting.

Further, the governor of Georgia signed legislation earlier this year shielding businesses and health care providers from liability lawsuits as long as they follow basic health protocols.

As of Sept. 4, OSHA had conducted just 199 inspections in response to complaints and closed more than 8,000 cases without taking any action.

Meatpackers face particularly dire conditions. At least 41,000 workers at 49 plants have tested positive for COVID and at least 193 have died. However as of early September OSHA had issued just 2 COVID-related citations.

Food processor Smithfield Foods was slapped with one of OSHAs token fines, a $13,494 penalty for failing to provide a safe environment. At least 1,294 Smithfield employees have been infected and four have died.

This is in fact the biggest fine that OSHA can levy for a single serious violation, even if it involves the death of a worker. This amount is so insignificant that for most big businesses it can be easily absorbed as a minor overhead cost.

OSHA has not set any guidelines for workplace safety in relation to COVID. It has merely called on employers to follow guidelines set by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which themselves are the product of political interference by the Trump administration. It has made clear however, that these are only recommendations, and not enforceable rules.

The news site FairWarning reported on a case where workers at Pennsylvania meat processor Maid-Rite filed a lawsuit against OSHA over its refusal to respond to their complaints. Workers said management offered incentives for workers to come in sick and refused to report when someone tested positive. They also alleged that there were not enough masks and that they were forced to work shoulder to shoulder. Half the workers said they had contracted COVID-19.

OSHA brushed aside the workers concerns, essentially declaring that since no one had yet died, the situation did not merit serious attention.

Commenting on OSHAs indifference to COVID-19 safety, a Fiat Chrysler worker in Detroit told the World Socialist Web Site: This is a blatant attempt to say we dont care about your safety. The government and the corporations are making it clear that their priority is getting labor out of us, not providing safe conditions. They want to keep us from knowing what we need to know to protect ourselves. It worries me that there could be countless outbreaks and workers will not know unless we inform each other.

Inside my factory, 8 out of 10 times we learn about infections on Facebook groups used by plant workers. The UAW (United Auto Workers) is saying nothing and doing nothing about the fact that we dont have testing. The factories are a breeding ground for the virus.

Weve set up a rank-and-file safety committee because we have to take our rights and safety into our own hands. Workers have to insure and enforce our own safety. But OSHA and other institutions are stripping away our rights and making the factories more like concentration camps.

If a worker gets sick and dies, they say, Oh well, there are 10 other people to take their spot. Allowing the employers not to report cases is criminal.

Trumps saying anyone can get over Covid. But not everybody has a private helicopter to take them to the hospital, a private suite and doctors giving them the best medical treatment available.

In another blatant attack on workers health and safety, a Wisconsin judge blocked the release of state health department data reporting the location of COVID-19 outbreaks and the companies involved, depriving workers of vital information needed to protect themselves.

The judges Oct. 1 ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by the business lobbying group Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), which sought to block the release of data on the health department website. The WMC claimed that release of the date would amount to blacklisting of businesses.

American workplaces are being turned into COVID-19 free-fire zones, where workers are being left to fend for themselves against a virus that is spreading unchecked as the government and big business abandon any attempt at containment. Workers are learning the bitter truth that as far as corporations are concerned their lives are expendable, valued even less by employers than their machinery.

This takes place in the context of rising COVID-19 infections around the US and internationally. Schools and universities are resuming in-person instruction and even limited safety restraints on businesses are being lifted in open defiance of the recommendations of health experts. Both Democrats and Republicans are enforcing this return-to-work policy, which will result in the preventable deaths of tens of thousands. However, the death toll is deemed necessary by Wall Street, which demands workers return to the factories to crank out profits.

The way forward is a united struggle of teachers, autoworkers, meatpacking workers and all sections of the working class against the homicidal back-to-work campaign. The Socialist Equality Party is helping workers build a network of rank-and-file safety committees at schools, auto plants and other industries to lead these struggles, in opposition to the conspiracy of management, the government and their lackeys in the trade unions. For help building a committee at your own workplace, contact us today for more information.
EST rozpoczAcie wyceny nieruchomoLci

The ENEFI Asset Management Plc. (the Company) informs its Dear Investors that the

Company initiated the valuation of its property in Budapest, with topographical number 25910/2/A/198, 25910/2/A/199 and 25910/2/A/200, coutyard situated at 1138 Budapest, Meder street 8. B. ep. fszt., in the course of which the real estate expert established that the market value of the property is HUF 625.920.000, (that is higher compared to the purchase value thereof paid by the Company). The ENEFI Asset Management Plc. (the Company) informs its Dear Investors that the Company initiated the valuation of its property in Meder street (Budapest, with topographical number 25910/2/A/128, coutyard situated at 1138 Budapest, Meder utca 8. - 1, (14 garage)), in the course of which the real estate expert established that the market value of the property is HUF 41.888.000 (that is higher compared to the purchase value thereof paid by the Company).
(CNN)  All eyes may be on coronavirus test results in Washington, but Mike Pompeo is staying focused on China.

The US Secretary of State was in Tokyo Tuesday for a meeting of the Quad, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which includes the United States, Japan, Australia, and India.

Ahead of the summit, Pompeo rallied(https://www.state.gov/secretary-michael-r-pompeo-opening-remarks-at-quad-ministerial/) Washington's regional allies against Beijing, criticizing the "Chinese Communist Party's coverup" in the initial stages of the coronavirus pandemic, and saying "it is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the CCP's exploitation, corruption, and coercion."

His language was not necessarily matched by other Quad members, though both Australia's Marise Payne and Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar spoke of the need for a "free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific," a phrase which is often used to reference pushing back against China's territorial claims to much of the region.

Pompeo is one of the fiercest China hawks in the Trump administration, and has remained concentrated on Beijing even as Washington has been largely plunged into chaos by the President's coronavirus infection and that of many other top administration officials.

This has included a renewed focus on the Quad, an informal strategic forum that has been talked of in the past as something akin to an Asian NATO, but has never reached that level, due in part to concern from some members about Chinese backlash.

As early as 2007, when the first Quad meetings were proposed, China issued formal diplomatic protests to all parties involved, and later that year Australia pulled out over fears of offending Beijing, and the alliance was put on hold until 2017, when meetings resumed, in large part due to growing concerns over Chinese advances in the South China Sea.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting Tuesday, a senior state department official said that "there's no avoiding the fact that it's China and its actions in the region that make the Quad actually matter and function this time around."

The official said a "sudden turn toward gross aggression by the Chinese Government in its entire periphery" had alarmed Beijing's regional neighbors, and pointed in particular to ongoing tensions between India and China over their shared border in the Himalayas.

The official dismissed any suggestion that other Quad members are less willing to tackle Beijing head on.

"Let me give you an example. Australia, like five years ago actually, stood up and took action and identified United Front Work activity in its own country, identified penetration of its democratic and educational processes and all that," said the official, referencing the Communist Party agency responsible for coordinating influence operations.

"Japan is doing the same thing, and India is doing the same thing as well," the official added. "Everybody likeminded is looking at erosion of democracy, of free market economy and all that, and they're taking action."

'Relentless China-bashing'

For its part, China has attempted to paint the Quad meetings as a sop to Washington that do not indicate any wider regional shift against Beijing. Pompeo's visit to Tokyo has been greeted by a barrage of Chinese state media reports minimizing the effect of his campaign and arguing that there is little appetite for anti-Beijing rhetoric in either Asia or the wider world.

In a piece in the nationalist tabloid Global Times, analyst Xin Qiang wrote that despite the US being the worst hit country by the coronavirus pandemic, with numerous top officials infected, "many are confused why the US still spares no effort in wooing China's neighboring countries to check and balance China."

Meanwhile, Xinhua, China's official state news agency, dedicated nearly 1,200 words Tuesday to attacking point-by-point Pompeo's statements last week during a trip to Europe, saying his "relentless China-bashing rhetoric was met with criticism from senior officials in these countries and solemn condemnations from the Chinese embassy."

But while few politicians, either among Washington's allies or even in the US, are as vocally anti-China as Pompeo, there is reason to believe he's getting a sympathetic audience in closed-door meetings around the world.

As well as the Quad nations, many European countries have taken an increasingly hard line on China in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, criticizing Beijing's actions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and calling for rival Taiwan to play a greater role in international affairs.

Speaking on behalf of 39 other governments at the United Nations Tuesday, including the US, German ambassador Christoph Heusgen voiced "grave concerns" about China's human rights record and called on Beijing "to allow immediate, meaningful and unfettered access to Xinjiang for independent observers" as well as to protect "autonomy, rights and freedoms in Hong Kong."

Such action may be greeted by voters in many western nations: according to a new survey released by Pew Research on Tuesday, global perceptions of China have plunged in recent months, with only one country of 14 polled having a net positive view of Beijing.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Pompeo keeps up anti-China campaign overseas as Washington plunged into COVID-19 chaos."
OTTAWAThe federal government expects to start receiving newly approved rapid tests for COVID-19 next week, but still needs to hammer out a distribution deal with the provinces and territories before they are available across the country.

The promise of rapid testing relief comes as Ontario continues to struggle with a second-wave testing backlog amid rising infections of the deadly virus.

On Tuesday, federal Public Services and Procurement Minister Anita Anand announced Ottawa inked a deal for 8.5 million rapid COVID-19 tests from Germany-based Abbott Rapid Diagnostics. These tests, which Anand said could provide a diagnosis on the spot within 20 minutes, are expected to arrive in Canada by the end of the year, and the government has the option to receive another 12 million tests after that.

Anands office also confirmed to the Star that another rapid test order from Abbotts operations in the United States  the ID NOW test, which was approved and ordered Oct. 1  is on track to start arriving next week. The federal government expects to get 2.5 million of these tests by years end, with the option to get another 5.4 million in 2021.

We know that cases are on the rise, making testing and tracing more important than ever, Anand told reporters at the daily federal health briefing Tuesday.

These point-of-care tests are crucial to expanding testing capacity, she said, adding that her department is engaged with a number of suppliers to quickly execute secure future orders if they are approved for use by Health Canada.

The government now has procurement deals with three of the four rapid, point-of-care tests for COVID-19 that have been approved for public use by Health Canada since the start of the pandemic. Critics like Conservative Leader Erin OToole have charged that Ottawa has been too slow to approve such tests, pointing to massive lineups at testing centres as the second wave of infections grew in recent weeks.

The World Health Organization says rapid tests are those that can return a diagnosis within between 10 minutes and two hours.

Canada approved its first rapid test, the Cepheid Xpert Xpress, on March 24. Anands office said Tuesday that the government has ordered 1.2 million of these tests and has been receiving them regularly for use in northern and Indigenous communities. The government also approved a rapid test by Ottawa-based Spartan Bioscience, but approval was revoked over concerns about accuracy and the test is now allowed for research use only, according to Health Canada.

Last week, the federal government announced its deal to purchase millions of ID NOW tests, one day after it was approved by Health Canada. Then Tuesday, Anand and other federal ministers announced it approved and ordered millions of Panbio rapid tests.

These latest antigen tests are less accurate than the ID NOW tests, but the government believes they will be useful in settings like certain workplaces, where people without symptoms need to be tested more regularly to screen for COVID, said Dr. Howard Njoo, Canadas Deputy Chief Public Health Officer.

Health Minister Patty Hajdu said the arrival of rapid tests will also alleviate stress on the main system of lab testing, which is experiencing sustained backlogs in Ontario, as well as on contact tracing efforts. The Star reported the provinces backlog  samples that havent been tested yet  stood at 68,000 on Monday, down from more than 90,000 a few days earlier.

We expedite reviews of tests that look like they have promise, Hajdu told reporters Tuesday, pointing to a 40-day standard for rapid tests identified as good candidates.

Obviously, speed is of the essence here, in terms of getting product out into Canada and into communities, she said.

Hajdu said the federal government also needs to strike a deal to distribute the new rapid tests to the provinces and territories, similar to what happened with personal protective equipment purchased by the federal government.

That agreement is being worked out right now and will ensure tests ordered by Ottawa will be distributed to provinces and territories free of charge, Hajdu said.

Premier Doug Fords office told the Star the province expects the tests to be doled out according to population.

We are working with the federal government to determine what Ontarios allotment might be, said Fords spokesperson, Ivana Yelich, by email Tuesday.

We expect that Ontario will get a proportional share that will amount to millions of tests and increase our ability to screen the population for COVID-19, she said.

Officials noted Tuesday that almost 169,000 Canadians have contracted COVID-19 so far, and more than 9,500 have died. An average of 1,951 people have been infected every day over the past week across Canada.

The government reported a seven day national average of 1,058 new cases on Sept. 22 and 380 in mid-August.

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Shes having yet another cup of tea from yet another cup as he wonders how many clean cups are left in the cupboard. Hes on the phone, again. An argument may be brewing.

He may not be the "lets circle back guy" made famous in a lockdown meme, but Maggie Stiebels husband, Jonathan, is showing a different side to his personality while they both work from home.

Maggie and Jonathon Stiebel have learnt a lot about each other while working from home. Credit:Eddie Jim

The Melbourne pair has been on an edge along with many couples forced to glare at each others previously undisclosed habits during lockdown.

"It kills me the way she has to have a new cup every time she makes a cup of tea and she has about 100 a day," Mr Stiebel says.
A trendy Sydney suburb has been crowned the tenth 'coolest' neighbourhood in the world.

Marrickville, in the city's inner-west, took the tenth spot from 40 suburbs voted the most livable around the globe during an annual survey by Time Out magazine.

The survey took the answers of 38,000 people and asked them to rate the suburbs on community spirit as well as food, drink, nightlife and culture.

With a population of just over 26,000, the trendy suburb has quickly become one of the most sought after areas in Sydney due to its multicultural eateries and vibrant lifestyle.

Packs of young Australians are now flocking to the area that's also known for its range of eclectic bars as well as the suburb's annual street festival.

Marrickville has been crowned the tenth coolest suburb in the world in a Time Out magazine survey (pictured woman shopping at a food market in Marrickville)

The trendy town is known for its eclectic culture and street art as well as a wide range of multicultural eateries (pictured, street art in the suburb)

Inner west councillor Victor Macri told Daily Mail Australia he 'wasn't surprised' Marrickville had rated so highly on the list.

'If you talk to any of the young, hip people they want to live in Marrickville,' he said.

'I've got friends that live in the eastern suburbs and their kids want to live in Marrickville.'

The councillor, who has lived in the area for nearly all of his life, said it had rapidly gentrified over the years.

'It's a creative lifestyle, the best thing about it is the people. From years of being multicultural we don't see race, everyone's the same, we have no labels,' Mr Macri said.

'It's just a great place, there are things to do here.

An unusual sculpture is seen outside a home in Marrickville in Sydney's inner west (pictured)

The suburb has just over 26,000 residents with most aged between 20 to 39-years-olds (pictured, a man at the area's popular market)

The suburb also draws in thousands to its annual street festival (pictured) with a range of different local stallholders

'You can go to a bar, we've got great parks. It's good for families as well as the hipsters.'

The trendy suburb has come a long way since European settlement when runaway convicts would hide from the law into the Gumbramorra swamp which was eventually drained in the 1890s so the suburb could be industrialised.

The average price for a three-bedroom home in Marrickville is around $1.46 million.

The town (pictured) has recently become extremely popular with young people due to its various bars and restaurants

A woman is seen visiting a bar in Marrickville. The suburb has become a hipster hot spot in recent years

A Marrickville salvation army training college seen in 1921 (pictured) long before the area became gentrified

Time Out's annual lists asks residents to vote on their favourite suburb taking into consideration the people and liveability of each area.

Topping the list was Barcelona's Esquerra de l'Eixample while Melbourne's Yarraville came in at an impressive fifth.

Other suburbs in the top 40 included Soho in London (30th), Dennistoun in Glasgow (eighth) and Hannam-dong in Seoul (13th).
Chinese authorities in the northern region of Inner Mongolia have arrested a human rights lawyer after he refused to send his child to school amid regionwide protests against plans to end Mongolian-medium education.



Police in Inner Mongolia's Tongliao city are have formally arrested Hu Baolong on charges of "leaking state secrets overseas," ethnic Mongolian scholar Khubis, who currently lives in Japan, told RFA on .



He said he last had contact with Hu on Sept. 4.



"Hu Baolong protested because his kid was starting primary school this year," Khubis said. "As a father, he was protesting against [the ruling Chinese Communist Party's] 'bilingual education' policy."



"I was told that he was arrested for giving information to foreigners," he said. "But all his messages were on WeChat and were about regular stuff that most people know about."



Khubis said that, last time they spoke, he and Hu had avoided talking about the massive political resistance to plans to end Mongolian-medium education in the region's schools.



"We talked about everyday life; there was nothing secret or sensitive," Khubis said. "I think they are targeting him for taking part in the resistance movement among parents in Tongliao."



Class boycotts and street protests

Nomin, an ethnic Mongolian and former colleague of Hu's now living in the U.S., said she had tried to contact Hu's sister.



"I asked [his sister] if he had been detained and she said yes, he had," she said.



"The Tongliao authorities told some local parents that they detained [Hu] to encourage the local parents to settle down," Nomin said. "This was a couple of weeks ago."



"I learned via a group chat that Hu is being prosecuted and has been formally arrested."



Plans to end the use of the Mongolian language in the region's ethnic Mongolian schools have sparked weeks of class boycotts, street protests, and a region-wide crackdown by riot squads and state security police in the region, in a process described by ethnic Mongolians as "cultural genocide."



Since the start of the new semester, schools that previously offered Mongolian-medium teaching will start using Mandarin Chinese instead, phasing out any Mongolian-language teaching materials, according to local residents and overseas activists who spoke to RFA.



As well as Hu, the authorities have detained a further eight people on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," in connection with the schools protests.



Nine deaths so far

According to the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC), at least nine people have died and thousands have been detained as the authorities launched a region-wide crackdown on the protest movement, which organized region-wide class boycotts and street protests in response to the policy change.



An estimated 300,000 students have boycotted class across Inner Mongolia since the end of August, with the authorities claiming the policy is a move towards "bilingual education."



Ethnic Mongolians in the region say it is a form of cultural genocide aimed at cutting off their remaining connection to their culture and heritage.



In several areas, the authorities dispatched SWAT teams, plainclothes state security police, and volunteers to strong-arm families into sending their children back to school, SMHRIC reported.



Parents who failed to enroll their children in school were threatened with having them expelled, while hundreds of ethnic Mongolians were forced to resign from public office after they resisted the changes to the curriculum, which were kept under wraps until the start of the new semester at the end of August.



Hu Baolong is the the founder of Tongliao's Menggali law firm, which mostly provides legal services for ethnic Mongolians, especially members of traditional herding communities.



The authorities had earlier imposed a travel ban on him after he represented a client in a politically sensitive legal case, and Hu was prevented from crossing the border into the neighboring country of Mongolia by border guards at Erenhot in 2010, on the grounds that his leaving would "endanger national security."



According to ethnic Mongolian Tara, Hu was also a veteran of the 1989 pro-democracy movement in China.



"He took part in the student movement in 1989, then went on to found his own law firm in Tongliao," Tara said. "He is a dissident, and advocate for freedom, and has been targeted all along; this time he explained the bilingual education policy to everyone in a WeChat group."



Reported by Qiao Long and Lau Siu-fung for RFA's Mandarin and Cantonese Services. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
NSC Survey Reports Low Percentage of Drivers Following Cell Phone Use Laws

Just 62% of drivers surveyed reported that they are very willing to follow state cell phone laws while driving.

A survey by the National Safety Council released on October 6 reports that drivers are not able to remain disconnected from their phones while behind the wheel.

The survey, which was conducted with TRUCE software as a sponsor, questioned 2,002 registered drivers ages 25 and older. Of those surveyed, 76% said that they are very willing to wear a mask in public, but only 62% said that they are very willing to obey state law preventing cell phone use.

The results of this survey come during NSCs Distracted Driver Awareness Month, which encourages employers to enact distracted driving policies to make up for the low percentage of employees who are willing to follow state laws. The survey also revealed that 46% of people look at their phones to read or send work emails while driving.

As we mark the 10 year anniversary of Distracted Driving Awareness Month, we must commit to improvement  particularly with a national pandemic compounding traffic safety even further, Lorraine M. Martin, president and CEO of the National Safety Council. Saving lives will mean disconnecting behind the wheel once and for all so everyone can arrive at their destination safely.

More information about Distracted Driving Awareness Month can be found at nsc.org.
Moved by the condition of weavers in the country, three NIT Warangal graduates have launched an e-commerce platform-- Pickmycloth--for the weavers to directly sell their products to the customers and thus bridging the gap between them and eradicating middlemen.

On Pickmycloth platform, as soon as the order is placed, the weaver gets the notification. He then packs the product, labels it and then the product is delivered to the customer.

While talking to ANI, Ram Kalyan, Co-founder of Pickmycloth said 700 weavers have been listed at the platform from several locations of the country, out of which 400 weavers are active.

While studying at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Warangal, we made few friends who came from the weaving background. While speaking to them we came to know about the problems being faced by the weavers. That is when I along with two other of my friends Dinesh and Abhishek have started Pickmycloth, Ram Kalyan said.

After finishing college studies, we travelled and met many weavers from various clusters, discussing with them their problems and searching for a solution. Generally, weavers get minimal profit as middlemen take away all the profit. So we decided to bridge the gap between the weaver and the customer. Our solution aims at ending the role of middlemen to bridge the gap between weavers and consumers, he added.

Kalyan said that through the Pickmycloth platform, weavers can earn the desired price for their products and even the customers can get the handloom at a bit less price.

Handloom products are unique and limited, once the stock gets over, we can not get them again. So, for these products to be sold, there must not be any middlemen and the profit must be enjoyed by weavers only he said.

We have a team designated for every handloom cluster who visits the clusters and explain to them about the platform and assist them with weaving tools. This is how we build the trust, he added.

The CEO said that though the organization is more focused on major clusters, he is willing to expand this to all the clusters in India.

He said, We would like to expand this to all the handloom clusters across India. There are about 130 to 140 clusters in India with each state containing about 5 to 6 clusters. We would like to bring together all the clusters through this platform.
New Delhi: A delegation of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) met Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy on Wednesday and demanded the creation of a separate state of Gorkhaland comprising Darjeeling and its adjoining areas in West Bengal. The GJM team came to the national capital to participate in a tripartite meeting convened by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to discuss "issues related to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA)", officials said.

However, no representative of the West Bengal government attended the meeting, they added. GJM working president Lopsang Lama said they did not discuss the GTA, but submitted a memorandum demanding the creation of a separate state of Gorkhaland.

"We have not discussed anything about the GTA. We have submitted a memorandum on how and why the GTA has failed. The GTA is not working. Our only demand is a Gorkhaland state and we have raised that," Lama told reporters after the meeting. He also said the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had promised in its poll manifesto that it would find a political solution to the Gorkhaland issue.

GJM leader Kalyan Dewan said the Union minister gave them a patient hearing and assured them that the dialogue on their demands would continue. Later, in a statement, Lama said the seven-member delegation raised the demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland and grant of ST status to 11 Gorkha sub-communities.

"When the issue of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration was raised, the GJM delegation submitted that the delegation was there to discuss the statehood demand and grant of Scheduled Tribe status and not the GTA since the Memorandum of Agreement signed between the Union of India, government of West Bengal and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in 2011 was not honoured by the State of West Bengal," the statement said. The memorandum submitted by the GJM delegation mentioned about the alleged "irregularities, interferences and obstacles committed by the state government, thereby rendering the GTA defunct".

The GJM said, moreover, all the elected members of the GTA had resigned en masse in 2017, rejecting the said body. The delegation further submitted on the issue of Gorkhaland being the oldest statehood demand in the country and presented various materials supporting it, the statement said.

"The hon'ble minister, after giving a patient audience, assured the delegation that the government would consider all the materials presented before it and announce the next meeting after speaking with the Hon'ble Union Home Minister Amit Shah and briefing him about the contents of today's meeting," it added. Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla and other senior officials attended the meeting.
BuzzFeed News has pulled a political correspondent from the White House press pool, citing concerns that the area has become a coronavirus hot zone after President Trump, many of his top aides  including the press secretary Kayleigh McEnany  and several journalists have tested positive for the virus.

A BuzzFeed News spokesman, Matt Mittenthal, confirmed that the company on Tuesday had withdrawn the correspondent, Kadia Goba, from her Wednesday shift out of concern for her safety. The spokesman added that BuzzFeed News was awaiting further guidance from the White House Correspondents Association.

Reporters rotate into the White House press pool, a group of journalists that represents the wider corps to share coverage of the president and the days events. The pool includes representatives of wire news services, newspapers and news sites, as well as television and radio outlets.

Anyone that knows me understands Id rather be at the White House working today, Ms. Goba said, but at the same time, there are obvious concerns about working indoors during an outbreak.
Washington:

Foreign travellers visiting the US may have to hand over their social media passwords for back ground check, a move which could come as part of the effort to toughen vetting of visitors, US Homeland Security Secretary has said.

Were looking at some enhanced or some additional screening, John Kelly told a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee.

We may want to get on their social media, with passwords, he said.

Its very hard to truly vet these people in these countries, the seven countries... But if they come in, we want to say, what websites do they visit, and give us your passwords. So we can see what they do on the internet, Kelly said on Tuesday.

If they dont want to cooperate, then they dont come in to the United States, he said.

Kelly told Congress that the measure was one of several being considered to vet refugees and visa applicants from seven Muslim-majority countries, the NBC News reported.

His comments came the same day judges heard arguments over President Donald Trumps executive order temporarily barring entry to most refugees and travelers from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Yemen.

Kelly, President Donald Trump appointee, stressed that asking for peoples passwords was just one of the things that were thinking about and that none of the suggestions were concrete.

Under the existing vetting process, according to Kelly, officials dont have a lot to work with, relying on the applicants documentation and asking them questions about their background.

When someone says, Im from this town and this was my occupation, [officials] essentially have to take the word of the individual, he said.

I frankly dont think thats enough, certainly President Trump doesnt think thats enough. So weve got to maybe add some additional layers. As well as asking people for their passwords, Kelly said he was looking at trying to obtain peoples financial records.

We can follow the money, so to speak. How are you living, whos sending you money? he said.

It applies under certain circumstances, to individuals who may be involved in on the payroll of terrorist organisations, Kelly said.

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Eight people were injured in a major fire that broke out at an Indian Oil Corporation petrol pump near Raj Bhavan here on Wednesday, police said.

Two of the injured are critical and have been shifted to SCB Medical College and hospital in Cuttack, said L D Sahu, director of Capital Hospital, where the rest are being treated.

Our priority is to ensure that the fire does not spread to the two other tanks containing petrol and diesel, Commissioner of Police S S Sarangi said.

Three fire tenders have been pressed into service to douse the flames, Sarangi said.

The cause of the blaze is yet to be ascertained, he added.
Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu has been tested positive for coronavirus. Balbir had shared a stage with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during a tractor rally in Sangrur on October 5, Monday.

Balbir was also seen along with Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, AICC general secretary in-charge of Punjab Harish Rawat, Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar, Vijay Inder Singla, Rana Gurmit Sodhi and Rajya Sabha and MP Deepender Hooda in three public rallies organised at Barnala Chowk of Sangrur city.

According to Punjab's nodal officer Dr Rajesh Bhaskar, Balbir was feeling tired since the night of October 5. He had a mild fever, body ache, and throat pain. Thereafter, Balbir's samples were taken to a hospital and yesterday his test came positive. Balbir did not attend any function on Tuesday.

"The minister is stable and in isolation at home. People who have come in contact with him will also be tested," the doctor said.

Gandhi led a series of tractor rallies in the state for three days against the new laws. On Tuesday afternoon, he entered neighbouring Haryana to continue with the protests.

Also read: At Rs 3.75 lakh crore, states borrow 55% more in FY21

Also read: Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to invest Rs 5,512.50 crore in Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail
(Newser)  French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier and American Jennifer A. Doudna have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a method of genome editing likened to "molecular scissors" that offer the promise of one day curing genetic diseases. The recipients were announced Wednesday in Stockholm by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, per the AP. "There is enormous power in this genetic tool, which affects us all," Claes Gustafsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said of the CRISPR/Cas9 scissors the women discovered in 2012, per a release. "It has not only revolutionized basic science, but also resulted in innovative crops and will lead to groundbreaking new medical treatments." The CRISPR scissors can be used to change the DNA of animals, plants, and microorganisms with great precision.

story continues below

Gustafsson said that as a result, any genome can now be edited "to fix genetic damage," though he cautioned that the "enormous power of this technology means we have to use it with great care." Still, it "is equally clear that this is a technology, a method that will provide humankind with great opportunities." "I was very emotional," Charpentier told reporters by phone from Berlin after hearing of the award, adding: "My wish is that this will provide a positive message to the young girls who would like to follow the path of science, and to show them that women in science can also have an impact through the research that they are performing." The two scientists will split the $1.1 million chemistry prize. Coming up later this week: the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. (Read more Nobel Prize in Chemistry stories.)
Bengaluru, Oct 7 : The All India Congress Committee (AICC) on Wednesday cleared the names of former minister T.B. Jayachandra and H. Kusuma, the wife of late IAS officer D.K. Ravi, to contest the November 3 bypolls in Sira and Rajarajeshwari Nagara Assembly constituencies, respectively.

The Sira constituency in Tumkaru district is going for polls following the death of the incumbent JD(S) legislator, B. Satyanarayana, due to multiple organ failure.

In RR Nagara, incumbent legislator Muniratna Naidu had crossed over to the ruling BJP after resigning from the Congress about a year-and-a-half ago.

The last date for filing nomination is October 16, while the votes will be counted on November 10.

Kusuma had joined the Congress recently. Her husband D.K. Ravi was found dead at his residence in March 2015.

The then Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had ordered a CBI probe into the matter after allegations of harassment were levelled against some Congress MLAs. However, the CBI enquiry concluded that Ravi had ended his own life.

Jayachandra had previously represented the Sira constituency twice in 2008 and 2013, defeating A.B. Sathyanarayana of JD(S), who turned the cards and defeated him in the 2018 Assembly polls.

The JD(S) has decided to field the widow of late MLA Ammajamma from Sira.

The Congress and JD(S) have so far been the two strong opponents while the BJP is yet to make a mark in the constituency.

The BJP is yet to announce its candidates for both the constituencies, while the JD(S) has conspicuously remained silent on announcing its candidate for the RR Nagara seat.
Former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director and former governor of Nagaland Ashwani Kumar died by suicide, the police said on Wednesday. Kumar served the government for more than 37 years.

A former Director-General of Police (DGP) of Himachal Pradesh Kumar on Wednesday allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself at his residence in Brockhorst in Shimla, said Mohit Chawla, SP Shimla. The police officials are present at the spot and are investigating the matter.

Born on November 15, 1950, he belonged to Nahan, Sirmour district of Himachal Pradesh. He started his early education in Government Primary School, village Kothi near Rekong Peo, located in the tribal district of Kinnaur. He later studied at Rashtriya Indian Military College, Dehra Dun and carried on further education from Government College, Bilaspur and ultimately graduated from Government College, Nahan, Himachal Pradesh in 1971.

Apart from a distinguished public service career, Professor (Dr.) Ashwani Kumar had an excellent academic record. He did a PhD in Management from Himachal Pradesh University. He had a Masters degree in Business Administration (MBA) with a specialization in Human Resources Management. He was a graduate of the National Defence College, Ministry of Defence, Government of India, New Delhi.

Dr Ashwani Kumar was a visiting faculty to many Universities, colleges and Institutions. He taught Human Resources Management, Organizational Behavior and Leadership at the Jindal Global Business School to MBA students. He also provided guidance to the Research Centre for Penology, Criminal Justice and Police Studies in the Jindal Global Law School and the Research Centre for Leadership and Change in the Jindal Global Business School.

Kumar was closely associated with the training of IGs and DIGs of Police at the National Police Academy, Hyderabad in a project that was implemented by the Cambridge University, the United Kingdom under the supervision of Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.

Kumar joined the Indian Police Service in 1973 and was allotted to the Himachal Pradesh cadre. He served as Assistant Superintendent of Police in the districts of Mandi and Kangra from 1975 to 1977. On promotion as Superintendent of Police, he was posted in the tribal districts of Kinnaur and Lahaul & Spiti and later at Solan and Shimla. In these districts, he enjoyed an excellent reputation for service to the community, especially the poor.

While working as district Superintendent of Police at Shimla in 1985, he was selected for induction in the newly created Special Protection Group (SPG) responsible for the security of the Prime Minister of India. He worked in the SPG from 1985 to 1990 in various capacities including that of Assistant Director in the Prime Ministers Office. Kumar widely travelled and had the unique opportunity of interacting with various police, security and intelligence agencies of almost all the States and Union Territories of India and several countries of the World.

Kumar held many important and sensitive assignments in Himachal Pradesh Police, SPG and CBI. He has worked as Inspector General of Police in the State Human Rights Commission at Shimla with great distinction. He enjoyed an excellent reputation for enforcing rule of law and upholding human rights of weaker sections of society. He had the distinction of working in close collaboration with INTERPOL for several years. During his service, he has earned appreciation from the Prime Minister of India and the Union Home Minister. He was awarded the Indian Police Medal for Meritorious Services in 1989 and also the Presidents Police Medal for Distinguished Services in 1999.

In August 2006 he took over the reins of the office of the Director-General of Police of the State of Himachal Pradesh. While serving as the DGP, he strived to streamline the functioning of the police administration in the State. He brought about systemic changes in the department to instil professionalism and serve the common people in a better manner. He is credited with the introduction of Community Policing at the grass-root level. This program achieved considerable success and has the potential for permanent bonding between the police and the public. Realizing the importance of IT and Computerization, he introduced computerization at the Police Station level in Himachal Police as well as the lodging of public complaints on-line.

In July 2008, after serving as DGP (Himachal Pradesh) for two years, Ashwani Kumar was appointed by the Government of India to the sensitive post of Director CBI. It was indeed a proud moment for the State of Himachal Pradesh when Kumar became the first police officer from the state to head the CBI. He served as Director CBI for more than two years with distinction and was credited with solving a number of high profile cases and also cracking the whip against corruption and crime. He retired from the post of Director CBI in November 2010 and immediately started teaching Human Resources Management and Leadership to MBA students. Dr Ashwani Kumar was sworn-in as the Governor of Nagaland on March 21, 2013, at Kohima. He also held additional charge of the Governor of Manipur from July 29.
Allentown, PA (18103)

Today

Not as cold with limited sunshine. A flurry or snow shower late in the day can't entirely be ruled out, mainly north and west of the Lehigh Valley..

Tonight

A passing snow shower or flurry possible early; otherwise, clouds initially will give way to clearing late.
London, Oct 7 : Two former British Islamic State (IS) prisoners are travelling to the US to appear in court later over the killing of Western hostages.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh are accused of belonging to an IS cell dubbed "The Beatles" involved in kidnappings in Iraq and Syria, the BBC reported.

CBS, the BBC's US news partner, cited a source saying the pair are on their way to the US to appear in a federal court.

The men, previously in US military custody in Iraq, deny the charges.

It comes after the UK sent evidence to the US following assurances the two men will not face the death penalty.

They are alleged to have been members of an IS gang responsible for the death of hostages in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

The men were previously stripped of their UK nationality.

The victims - who included American journalists and UK and US aid workers - were beheaded and their deaths filmed and broadcast on social media.

Hostages nicknamed three men - Kotey, Elsheikh and Mohammed Emwazi, known as "Jihadi John" and who died in a drone strike - after the 1960s pop group due to their British accents.

The US sought the UK's help in the case but until recently a legal fight over the use of the death penalty hampered co-operation.

Last month, the US made clear Kotey and Elsheikh would not be executed if found guilty.

IS once controlled 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) of territory stretching from western Syria to eastern Iraq and imposed its brutal rule on almost eight million people.
PORTLAND  The group studying options for the riverfront property off Brownstone Avenue has suggested more than a dozen possible uses, ranging from a hotel to a variety of restaurants.

The Brownfield Community Focus Group, however, is not close to making a decision about which options to pursue. Much of that will depend on the findings of a study of the contaminants that pollute various portions of the 5.5-acre property the town bought last year.

A portion of the property had served as home of the Connecticut Tar & Asphalt Co.

The engineering firm of Tighe & Bond is completing an analysis of the contaminants. Some will have to be removed from the site, Economic Development Planner Mary D. Dickerson said Tuesday.

Other contaminants can remain in the soil but will need to be capped.

State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection officials were scheduled to visit the property Monday, but that has been rescheduled to Thursday, Dickerson said.

The state Department of Economic and Community Development is funding rehabilitation of the site, with the goal of restoring the property to the tax rolls.

In a memo to the group members, Dickerson said, Our goal is to create a guide for the redevelopment of three parcels that make up the property that facilitates the limitations of the land (including contamination and flood zone designation), adheres to CT DEEP requirements, and fosters economic development.

The towns existing zoning regulations provide for 16 different business uses on the site, Dickerson said.

Group members who had suggested the range of potential uses were asked to rate those options from most to least appropriate.

The first choice was for a fishing pier, followed by a promenade/river walk, transient dock space, casual/family dining, public boat launch facility, several variations of restaurants, boat holding tank,food truck patio, brew pub, outdoor recreation, multi-tenant retail and hotel.

Dickerson said she is interested in development that would serve both the land-based and water portions of the property, while also respecting the landscape.

Once the DEEP has reviewed and approved the Tighe & Bond engineering report, the door will be opened to more in-depth discussion of possible development.

That approval could come by months end. DEEP approval also would enable the town to seek bids from contractors to remove the contaminants, Dickerson said.

jmill@middletownpress.com
UPDATE: Man wanted on charges he shot 2 in Bethlehem is in custody

Bethlehem police are looking for a man accused of opening fire last week during an argument, wounding two men and leaving one victim shot in the eye.

Luis Daniel Ortiz Montoza, known as Luis Ortiz, 21, is wanted on two counts of attempted homicide, four counts of aggravated assault, and related charges in connection with the Sept. 30 shooting on Dover Lane.

Police said the gun used in the shootings has not been recovered and Ortiz Montoza may still have it.

Ortiz Montoza, who lives in the 100 block of West Frankford Street in Bethlehem, is described as about 5 feet 5 inches tall and is said to have a medium to muscular build.

Anyone with any information about his whereabouts should call 911, police said.

Witnesses or anyone with information and/or surveillance video are strongly urged to call Det. Sgt. Moses Miller at 610-997-7674 or call the departments tip line at 610-691-6660.

Police previously said the two victims were sitting in a car in the 1200 block of Dover Lane, a block off Pembroke Road, and at least one of the victims was an intended target.

In court paperwork, police said on the night of the shooting a man was sitting in a car while arguing with Ortiz Montoza, who was standing outside of the vehicle.

The 26-year-old victim reportedly asked, You want to fight this out or shoot this out?

Ortiz Montoza pulled out a handgun and fired multiple times into the vehicle, according to a witness.

Surveillance video from a home on the other side of the housing development, less than a mile away, recorded the sound of 18 rapid fired shots at the time.

Police called for the shooting at 6:50 p.m. found the first victim on Pembroke Road with gunshot wounds to his eye and body. The man was taken to a local hospital for treatment, and was rushed into surgery for gunshot wounds to his right eye, chest and both arms, police said.

Emergency room staff reported a second man came to the hospital with a gunshot wound to his shoulder.

The second man reportedly told investigators he was in the Pembroke housing development at the time of the shooting and was struck by gunfire.

Luis Daniel Ortiz MontozaPhoto courtesy the Bethlehem Police Department | For lehighvalleylive.com

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Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com.
Digital experience company Acquia is proud to be recognised as one of several organisations on the 2020 UK's Best Workplaces in Tech list, launched this morning by Great Place to Work UK. This comes on the heels of the Acquia India office being named a Great Place to Work for exemplifying a "People First" culture. Both lists are directly based on employee feedback quantifying their work experience at Acquia.

"It is an honour to be recognised as a Great Place to Work, particularly across multiple global locations," said Julia Birkett, senior director of people, Acquia. "We're continuously focused on supporting our staff's growth and success, particularly in this challenging year. We're working remotely, but know we're stronger together, so have looked for creative new ways to continue to make our workplace welcoming and empowering for all."

Open communication is the basis for engagement, productivity, and a collaborative work environment at Acquia. The company has stepped up its focus and investments in supporting the health and wellness of all employees in a year when creating work-life balance is a struggle for many. Acquia also continues to give back to local communities in ways that support employees' interests and priorities.

In addition, Acquia supports professional growth through initiatives such as the Compass Program, which helps employees with fewer than three years of work experience develop core skills. Other programs for Acquians at every stage of their career and across locations support their continued development.

"Especially during these times of crisis and uncertainty, it's incredible to see the number of organisations within UK's tech space that have prioritised building a positive employee experience," says Ben Gautrey, Managing Director of Great Place to Work UK. "In this, our 3rd year of recognising UK's Best Workplaces in Tech, we've seen many organisations find innovative and creative solutions in continuing to drive their great workplace culture remotely. We hope that by highlighting our Tech list recipients, other employers will be encouraged to put their people strategy at the heart of their business and continue to implement policies, practices and programmes that sustain an impactful and consistently great employee experience for all."

About Acquia

Acquia is the open digital experience platform that enables organizations to build, host, analyze and communicate with their customers at scale through websites and digital applications. As the trusted open source leader, we use adaptive intelligence to produce better business outcomes for CX leaders. To learn more, visit acquia.com.

About Great Place to Work

Great Place to Work UK is the global authority on workplace culture, helping organisations to create exceptional, high performing workplaces where employees feel trusted and valued. We help employers improve recruitment, retention and productivity by putting employees at the heart of the organisation, analysing what they think and feel, and identifying the real issues that need to be addressed. Part of a global organisation, we apply data and insights from over 100 million employees across the world to benchmark individual performance and advise employers on how to continuously improve employee engagement and wellbeing to help build and sustain business performance. We run the UK's Best Workplaces in Tech awards to enable the organisations we work with to celebrate their achievements, build their employer brand and inspire others to take action.

All logos, company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005054/en/

Contacts:

Kaitlyn Ethier

Acquia

pr@acquia.com

+1 978 578 0480
The media persons in Tripura have sought the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah and the Press Council of India (PCI) regarding chief minister Biplab Kumar Debs controversial statements about the press fraternity.

Deb, who had attended a programme at Sabroom in the states South district on September 11, had said that some overexcited newspapers are trying to confuse the public over the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic situation and he would not forgive them.

Also read: Tripura scribes wear black badges to protest against CMs threat over reporting of Covid-19 situation

Tripura Assembly of Journalists (TAJ), an apex organisation of the media persons in the state, drew the attention of the PM, Shah and the PCI authorities that at least six journalists were assaulted across Tripura since Debs controversial remarks.

Though complaints were lodged, there has been no progress in investigation of any of the cases, the media persons said.

...even during the Emergency in the 70s, the media didnt face such a demoralising situation. The media is an independent body of newspapers, electronic channels and news portals, which follow their own in-house policy and guidelines ...The attack on journalists and creation of undue pressure on the media are undemocratic, stated the TAJs letter.

Subal Kumar Dey and Sekhar Datta, chairman and convener of TAJ, respectively, signed the letter.

Earlier, the media persons had given a three-day deadline to CM Deb to withdraw his controversial remarks. The CM said he did not want to hurt anyone in his September 11 speech after the deadline expired.

I didnt hurt anyone in my speech. I am dedicated to work for the interests of Tripura people, keep them healthy and safe and also prevent them falling into conspiracies. The people should know the truth and I have tried to present the truth before them, Deb said later.

The media persons also met Tripura Governor RK Bais regarding the issue and had protested wearing black ribbons on the 151st birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2.

Chief Ministers Office (CMO) didnt comment on the complaint letter written to the PM, though earlier it had claimed that Debs comments were taken out of context.
Hyderabad, Oct 7 : Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Wednesday claimed that his state is number one in the country in maintaining law and order and congratulated the state police for this.

At a meeting with senior police and forest officers, he noted that Telangana is swiftly moving forward on the development path and is now number one state in the country as far as maintenance of law and order is concerned.

Stating that the Telangana government is laying more emphasis on women protection, he asked the state police to put an extra effort in this regard.

Terming it unfortunate that incidents of atrocities against the Dalits are being reported from various parts of the country, he stressed the need for the state police to take precautionary measures to prevent any untoward incidents against Dalits.

Seeking the police focus more on preventive measures and be alert, he said the responsibility to prevent any attack on the weaker sections of the society by the stronger sections lies with the state police.

The Chief Minister also said that the police should behave with humanitarian values when the weak and meek approach them for help and protection.

He also said there was a need to control and eradicate the sale and supply of banned substances like ganja, which were harming society, especially the young generation.

He pointed out that after achieving Telangana, one of the many great victories of the new state is total eradication of manufacture and sale of illicit liquor. However, he noted that due to coronavirus spread, there were some reports suggesting that illicit liquor manufacturing is taking place in a few places in the state and called for stopping this forthwith.

"The police and excise Officials, who made Telangana an illicit liquor-free state, should work with the same zeal to stop illicit liquor at a few places in the state. The police and excise officials should also work in coordination," he said.

He also asked the police to be on high alert about various social evils such as gambling and curb them.

KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, asked Director General of Police M. Mahender Reddy to speed up the process of installing 10 lakh CCTV cameras in Hyderabad. He also wanted the Police Department to increase the use of Information Technology to control criminal activities and offences.

He said that the world-class, state-of-the-art command control system in Hyderabad would become operational very soon.

The Chief Minister also instructed the senior police officers to deal more firmly on the menace of fake certificates, saying that if people produce fake certificates instead of getting the real ones after studying hard, it will send a wrong signal to society.

He asked them to nab the gangs that are preparing the fake certificates and take stern action against the culprits.
The Bombay high court has directed the Centre and the state to ensure that train services under Central and Western Railways are increased to 700 per day. It said though the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions have been relaxed, trains services have not increased.

The court asked the state about the measures taken to ensure social distancing norms are followed on trains.

Also read: Covid-19 pandemic isnt ground to relocate abroad child involved in custody battle, says HC

It was hearing a bunch of petitions filed of lawyer groups and the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa seeking inclusion of lawyers as essential service providers to allow them to travel on local trains. It was informed that there a large number of lawyers wanting to attend lower courts were unable to do so. The court directed the bar associations to provide a list of lawyers who want to travel by local trains to attend courts.

Dr Milind Sathe, who appeared for the lawyers, submitted out of the 25,000 registered lawyers with the Bar council, only 1000 lawyers require to travel by local trains on a daily basis. He said the apprehension of the state that allowing them to travel by local trains would increase over-crowding is invalid.

Sathe said there were no video conferencing facilities in lower courts, and lawyers had no option but to attend court hearings physically.
A 24-year-old man who made a threat on Twitter against South Brunswick High School that police say was intended as a joke on Sunday was arrested the following day, officials said.

Rohan Sinha was charged with creating false public alarm and making a terroristic threat, South Brunswick police said in a statement.

Sinha sent a direct message on Twitter to a friend at about 10:30 p.m. Sunday that was meant to be a joke, warning about problems at the high school this Friday, according to police. The friend shared the message with several other people, one of whom notified police.

Sinha was arrested at a home in South Brunswick about 6 p.m. Monday after police and the Middlesex County Prosecutors Office worked to find him.

It took only seconds for the tweet to set off alarms with so many people who saw it," Chief Raymond Hayducka said in a statement. We were able to alleviate a lot of fears by solving this case in under 24 hours.

Police released Sinha after issuing him a summons with a court date.

Schools in South Brunswick are operating under a hybrid model during the coronavirus pandemic.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JGoldmanNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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Sunny Olabode, Vice President of Finance for UNCLE Credit Union

UNCLE Credit Union welcomes Sunny Olabode as Vice President of Finance

UNCLE Credit Union welcomes Sunny Olabode as Vice President of Finance

LIVERMORE, Calif., Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UNCLE Credit Union, serving four counties in the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Valley, is pleased to announce that Sunny Olabode has joined the organization as Vice President of Finance. In this role, Olabode directs and administers the organizations financial planning objectives, oversees budget management and provides strategic direction in measuring financial and operational performance. Reporting to UNCLE Credit Union Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Gina Bloomfield, Olabode also leads the daily operations of the finance and accounting teams, including the hiring and supervision of staff.



Sunny brings an outstanding business acumen along with extensive expertise in finance, business operations, and risk management to our executive team, which are critical for a financial institutions success in these challenging times, said Gina Bloomfield. Her ability to lead positive change and translate organizational goals into effective strategy and decisions that bolster financial strength and growth will contribute to enhanced value and opportunities for our members.

A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA), Olabode has nearly two decades of experience in the financial services industry. She comes to UNCLE after having most recently served as Vice President, Controller for a $1.5 billion credit union headquartered in San Francisco. Prior to this, Olabode served as Assistant Controller, Senior Accounting Analyst for a $1.2 billion financial institution based in Concord, California. In this post, she focused on budget analysis, tax reporting and compliance, regulatory reporting, external audits and project management. Her background also includes auditor and accounting management positions at companies including Western Union (formerly Paymap, Inc.).

Story continues

About UNCLE Credit Union

Established in 1957, UNCLE Credit Union is a $541+ million, full-service financial institution serving approximately 29,000 members. The organization offers the benefits of credit union membership with a full array of financial services to anyone who lives, works, worships, or attends school in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties. UNCLE has six financial centers located in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Valley, along with an additional 5,600 branches and more than 30,000 surcharge-free ATMs available through participation in the CO-OP Shared Branching Network. Members also have access to a wide spectrum of online and mobile banking services. UNCLE Credit Union is renowned for its community involvement, professional and personalized service and unwavering commitment to helping members achieve their financial goals. To learn more, visit www.unclecu.org.

CONTACT:

Jennifer Hall

408.406.6251

jh@stonemediaconsulting.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/523d2151-893e-4ac5-9360-f5023be08eca




The world over, education is widely regarded as a public good. Its provision, therefore, has largely remained the realm of government institutions or private philanthropy. The notion of generating a profit from education is often looked down upon, and for several reasons. The primary criticism of for-profit institutions is that with the goal of maximizing profits, they focus on increasing enrolment, often overlooking quality learning outcomes in the process.

In India, schools and colleges by law cannot be run for profit. Nonetheless, a number of private colleges of questionable quality have over the decades enriched their promoters" through inventive schemes such as exorbitant capitation fees charged, often informally, at the time of admission. They focus on generating a good return on investment rather than learning outcomes. It is no wonder that studies such as those published by Aspiring Minds reveal that 80% of Indian engineers are unemployable.

By curious contrast, healthcare, which is no less regarded as a public good, is rife with quality hospitals that are run legitimately as for-profit enterprises. Moreover, big pharma, which invests in research to discover new drugs and facilities to manufacture them at scale, is made up of large for-profit companies. Allegations that they prioritize revenues over health outcomes are less commonit is accepted they must make a fair profit in order that they continue to invest in talent, infrastructure and research.

Why is this not the case with colleges? The reason is that there is no return on investment (RoI) in providing university education of high quality. Even the best universities globally incur up to $1.50 in expenses for every $1 they collect as student fees. This large deficit is often made up by contributions from their large endowments, or through philanthropic contributions from alumni and well-wishers. Beyond these operational deficits, universities also need to find ways to fund capital expenditure to build and maintain large campuses. As a result, we need private philanthropy or government spending to bridge the gap.

Unlike colleges, it is relatively easy for schools to self-sustain through fees and other student charges; they can also generate surpluses to service debt. The reality is that the private sector plays a vital role in school education in India120 million children (nearly half of Indias school-children) attend private schools. There are about 450,000 privately-managed schools in India. Nearly 40% of the children studying in private unaided schools come from the aspiring" or deprived" segments.

The recent success of education-technology companies, especially during the pandemic, is proof that with the use of technology, it is possible to deliver quality learning while focusing on the bottom line. Ed-tech offerings have helped millions of students continue their learning from home. Given the market-driven forces at play, these companies need to consistently deliver quality learning outcomes to attract new learners, retain existing ones and have them willing to pay. While online platforms cannot substitute good school or university education, they can supplement it.

Due to their inherent scalability, these platforms are able to reach millions of students and address the issue of accessibility. Further, these companies are often built by entrepreneurs who are passionate about pursuing their stated purpose rather than purely chasing profits. They are backed by similar purpose-driven impact investors or reputed venture capital funds that have helped build some of the worlds most impactful companies.

There are examples like Bridge International Academies, which runs or supports nursery and primary schools for lower income segments in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, India and Liberia. It deploys in-depth teacher training and support, advanced lesson plans and wireless technology to provide a meaningful education. It runs or supports over 1,500 schools and has educated 750,000 children over the last decade. Similarly, the US company 2U enables colleges to provide online degree and certification courses. It works with 75 university partners and has enrolled 245,000 students over its lifetime.

Innovative devices such as social impact bonds present an interesting alternative by which purpose-driven investors can focus on impact delivery, even if it generates lower returns than a purely commercial investment would. In 2015, Educate Girls issued a $270,000 Development Impact Bond. In this payment-by-results model, Childrens Investment Fund Foundation (as an outcome payer) promised to pay back the investor, UBS Optimus Fund, the original investment amount plus returns if the agreed targets were delivered by Educate Girls (the service provider). The initiative covered 7,300 students in 166 schools across 140 villages in Bhilwara, Rajasthan. The targets were increased enrolment of marginalized girls as well as progress in childrens literacy and numeracy outcomes. Both were surpassed over the 3-year bonds tenure.

Indias new National Education Policy lays down a framework for cooperation between public spending, private philanthropy and impact investing, with its light but tight" regulatory approach. In a country like ours where the scale of requirements is this large, such partnerships can support purpose-driven institutions and help transform the education system.

These are the authors personal views.

Kapil Viswanathan and Roopa Kudva are respectively, chairman of the executive committee of Krea University, and managing partner of Omidyar Network India.

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Former first lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday urged voters to reject Donald Trump and elect Joe Biden, who she lauded as the candidate who can lead the country out of the coronavirus crisis and address racism.

In a 24-minute video, former first lady Michelle Obama made an impassioned plea to voters to vote for Joe Biden "like your lives depend on it."

"We have the chance to elect a president who can meet this moment, a leader who has the character and the experience to put an end to this chaos," Obama said, referring to what she described as Donald Trump's "wilful mismanagement" of the coronavirus crisis.

"Seven months later, he still doesn't have a plan for this virus. Seven months later, he still won't wear a mask consistently and encourage others to do the same  even when those simple actions could save countless lives," Obama added.

The US president was diagnosed with Covid-19 last Friday and several of his close aides, including his wife Melania, have also tested positive.

Trump however has continued to downplay the threat, projecting himself as a resilient patient who easily beat the virus, although his doctors insist he is not out of the woods yet.

"If you were a parent like me, you're feeling the consequences of this president's failure to take this pandemic seriously. From his constant downplaying of the importance of masks and social distancing," Obama continued.

Trump fueling racism

The message from the former first lady in support of Joe Biden came less than a month before the November 3 presidential election and before Wednesday's vice presidential debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic vice presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris.

"If we want to make a change, we have to make sure that every eligible voter is engaged. (...) We don't have the luxury to assume that things are going to turn out ok, or waste them on a protest candidate," she insisted, appealing to a wide range of voters, irrespective of partisan lines.

Her remarks took a personal turn.

As a black woman, like the majority of those in the country, having "done everything in my power to live a life of dignity and service and honesty, the knowledge that any of my fellow Americans is more afraid of me than the chaos that we are living through right now, well that hurts," said the 56-year-old wife of Barack Obama, the nation's first black president.

Obama criticised Trump and his Republican allies as unfairly "stoking fears" about African Americans and for "lying about how minorities will ruin US suburbs."

Future at stake

But she warned that such tactics have the potential to work, particularly because Americans lack the time and energy to fact-check everything being spread online or in US media.

"The one thing this president is really, really good at is using fear and confusion, spreading likes to win," she said.

Obama, one of the most popular and well-known Democrats has made no secret of her aversion to politics, shunning calls to contest Trump in the 2020 election race. In the past, her attacks against the US president have been veiled through statements such as "When they go low, we go high".

But the stakes this time are much higher, she warned.

"I want to ask every single American, no matter what party you regularly vote for, to please take a moment to pause, click off the news, think about how you felt over these last four years, how quickly things have turned, and then think about what these next four years can mean for our country's future."

Obama closed by asking Americans to "search your hearts and your conscience" and vote for Biden in November.

"I know Joe. He understands the struggle of everyday folks (...) and always willing to see the humanity in us all."
A few years ago, a viral picture of a blue-eyed tea maker from Pakistan stormed the internet, after a photographer captured the picture and shared it on social media. The tea maker, whose real name is Arshad Khan, became the talk of the town for his good looks and kept the internet entertained for several months. However, four years later, Arshad Khan is once again on the trend list, as he recently opened his own cafe in Islamabad, Pakistan. Take a look:

Also Read | Kangana Ranaut Receives 'delightful Picture' Of Her Mother While Filming For 'Thalaivi'

Pakistan's chaiwala is now a cafe owner

Also Read | Unseen Pic Of The Day: Nagarjuna Akkineni Looks Unrecognisable In A Still From 'Shiva'

See how fans reacted:

Sending in my warmest wishes and Love to him, From India!  Staysafe (@hullare1234) October 6, 2020

Amazing how far he has come, he looks groomed not only in his looks but the way he speaks. May Allah bless him.  Syed Zeshan Ahmed (@syedzeshanahmed) October 4, 2020

Remember #chaiwala , with his striking features, who made a music video & did several modelling contracts, yes, Arshad Khan. He's back with Cafe Chaiwala Roof top at Buland Markaz, Jinnah Avenue, #Islamabad #ChaiwalaRooftop pic.twitter.com/rVNQzd6Jvs  Islamabad Observer (@IslamabadObserv) October 5, 2020

Arshad Khan a "chai wala", who went viral in Pakistan a few years ago opened his own tea cafe in Islamabad. He has named his modern cafe "Chai Wala" to remind him of his roots.#chaiwala pic.twitter.com/g5aqNq8yee  Amna Gul (@AmnaGulSudozai) October 4, 2020

Remember that# blue-eyed Pakistani# 'chaiwala' who, four years ago, had set the #internet on fire with his #'killer' looks? People on #socialmediamedia had gone crazy after photographer Jiah Ali clicked and shared a picture of Arshad Khan in 2016.#### pic.twitter.com/9iWmAPkada  Just Now (@justnowofficial) October 6, 2020

Also Read | Kangana Ranaut Receives 'delightful Picture' Of Her Mother While Filming For 'Thalaivi'

All about Arshad Khan

In 2016, Arshad Khan shot to prominence after professional photographer Jiah Khan took to her social media handle and shared his picture. More so, Arshad Khan also made a music video & did several modelling contracts after his newfound fame. He currently owns a cafe in Islamabad, named Cafe Chaiwala Roof Top.

Speaking to Urdu News, Arshad Khan mentioned that he used truck artwork to design the cafe and also placed tables and chairs, inspired by the local architecture. Arshad revealed that many people had asked him to name his cafe as 'Arshad Khan'. However, Khan added that he refused the offers, as he considers Chaiwala as his identity.

Also Read | Unseen Pic Of The Day: Nagarjuna Akkineni Looks Unrecognisable In A Still From 'Shiva'

(Image credits: Kay2 TV Twitter)
Actis, an emerging markets investment firm based in London, UK, is eyeing finance worth $4 billion to $4.5 billion for launching its new international fund Actis 5, which aims to invest in renewable energy and infrastructure projects in the Middle East and North Africa, said a report.

The new Actis fund will concentrate its work on combined cycle power projects; wind power generation projects with build, own, operate (BOO) systems; and solar energy projects, reported Hapi Journal , citing a senior official.

Actis is also targeting investment in water desalination and treatment projects with its $1.2 billion infrastructure fund, stated Partner and Head of Mena Sherif El Kholy.

The fund will be limited so that sovereign funds, major international pension funds, and major financial institutions will be the only organizations able to participate in the fund, said the official.

Actis, he stated, was open for the Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) to join their new fund, noting that both parties have previously signed a MoU for cooperation in multiple sectors.

The fund is likely to be up and running by the year-end, stated El Kholy, adding that they are currently completing the funds subscription.

Subscription will only be available for sovereign funds, international pension funds, and large financial institutions, he added.
MINNEAPOLIS, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Target Corporation (" Target ") (NYSE: TGT) today announced the pricing terms of its previouslyannounced cash tender offers (collectively, the " Offers ") for an aggregate purchase price sufficient to allow Target to accept for purchase all of the debt securities identified in the table below (collectively referred to as the " Securities " and each referred to as a " series " of Securities) validly tendered and not validly withdrawn on or before the Early Tender Deadline referenced below (excluding accrued and unpaid interest to, but not including, the settlement date and excluding fees and expenses related to the Offers) (the " Amended Maximum Tender Amount ") from each registered holder of Securities (individually, a " Holder ," and collectively, the " Holders "). Subject to the Amended Maximum Tender Amount, the Offers and order of priority (the " Acceptance Priority Levels ") set forth in the table below are as described in the Offer to Purchase, dated September 23, 2020, as amended or supplemented (the " Offer to Purchase ").

The " Total Consideration " for each series per $1,000 principal amount of Securities validly tendered and accepted for purchase pursuant to the Offers was determined by reference to the applicable fixed spread over the yield to maturity based on the bid side price of the applicable U.S. Treasury Security, in each case as set forth in the table below, and is payable to Holders of the Securities who validly tendered and did not validly withdraw their Securities on or before 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on October 6, 2020 (the " Early Tender Deadline ") and whose Securities are accepted for purchase by Target. The Reference Yields (as determined pursuant to the Offer to Purchase) listed in the table were determined at 10:00 a.m., New York City time, today, October 7, 2020, by the lead dealer managers (identified below). The Total Consideration for each series of Securities includes an early tender premium of $30 per $1,000 principal amount of Securities validly tendered and not validly withdrawn by such Holders and accepted for purchase by Target.

As announced yesterday, Target has amended the Offers by increasing the Maximum Tender Amount disclosed in the Offer to Purchase to the Amended Maximum Tender Amount, which has now been established as $2.246 billion.

The following table sets forth certain information regarding the Securities and the Offers:

Title of Security CUSIP

Number Acceptance

Priority Level Reference U.S. Treasury Security Reference

Yield Fixed

Spread

(basis

points)(1) Total Consideration(2) Aggregate Principal

Amount Tendered(3) Aggregate Principal

Amount Expected to

be Accepted for

Purchase 7.000% Notes due 2038 87612EAU0 1 1.25% UST due May 15, 2050 1.589% +70 $1,668.85 $69,896,000 $69,896,000 6.500% Notes due 2037 87612EAR7 2 1.25% UST due May 15, 2050 1.589% +70 $1,590.81 $104,747,000 $104,747,000 4.000% Notes due 2042 87612EBA3 3 1.25% UST due May 15, 2050 1.589% +70 $1,291.62 $391,670,000 $391,670,000 3.625% Notes due 2046 87612EBF2 4 1.25% UST due May 15, 2050 1.589% +78 $1,239.50 $394,017,000 $394,017,000 3.900% Notes due 2047 87612EBG0 5 1.25% UST due May 15, 2050 1.589% +78 $1,300.85 $224,291,000 $224,291,000 6.35% Debentures due 2032 87612EAK2 6 0.625% UST due August 15, 2030 0.780% +90 $1,508.02 $48,155,000 $48,155,000 7.00% Debentures due 2031 87612EAF3 7 0.625% UST due August 15, 2030 0.780% +85 $1,528.40 $5,546,000 $5,546,000 6.65% Debentures due 2028 239753DL7 8 0.625% UST due August 15, 2030 0.780% +55 $1,393.56 $2,331,000 $2,331,000 6.75% Debentures due 2028 239753DJ2 9 0.625% UST due August 15, 2030 0.780% +50 $1,376.58 $7,645,000 $7,645,000 2.650% Notes due 2030 87612EBK1 10 0.625% UST due August 15, 2030 0.780% +55 $1,119.60 $519,791,000 $519,791,000

(1) Includes the Early Tender Premium.

(2) Per $1,000 principal amount of the Securities that are tendered and accepted for purchase.

(3) As of the Early Tender Deadline.

All payments for Securities purchased in connection with the Early Tender Deadline will also include accrued and unpaid interest on the principal amount of Securities purchased from the last interest payment date applicable to the relevant series of Securities up to, but not including, the early settlement date, which is expected to occur on October 8, 2020.

Target expects to accept for purchase on the early settlement date the aggregate principal amount of each series of the Securities set forth in the column titled, "Aggregate Principal Amount Expected to be Accepted for Purchase," in the table above.

As described in the Offer to Purchase, Securities validly tendered and not validly withdrawn on or prior to the Early Tender Deadline will be accepted for purchase in priority to other Securities validly tendered following the Early Tender Deadline even if such Securities validly tendered following the Early Tender Deadline have a higher Acceptance Priority Level than Securities validly tendered on or prior to the Early Tender Deadline. Although the Offers are scheduled to expire at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on October 21, 2020, because the Amended Maximum Tender Amount equals the aggregate purchase price required to accept all Securities validly tendered and not validly withdrawn by the Early Tender Deadline, Target does not expect to accept for purchase any tenders of Securities after the Early Tender Deadline. Any Securities tendered after the Early Tender Deadline will be promptly credited to the account of the Holder of such Securities maintained at The Depository Trust Company and otherwise returned in accordance with the Offer to Purchase.

In accordance with the terms of the Offers, the withdrawal deadline was 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on October 6, 2020. As a result, tendered Securities may not be withdrawn, except in certain limited circumstances where additional withdrawal rights are required by law (as determined by Target).

Target reserves the absolute right, subject to applicable law, to: (i) waive any and all conditions to the Offers; (ii) extend or terminate the Offers; (iii) increase or decrease the Maximum Tender Amount without extending the Early Tender Deadline or the Withdrawal Deadline; or (iv) otherwise amend the Offers in any respect.

Information Relating to the Offers

Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC are acting as the lead dealer managers for the Offers and Barclays Capital Inc., BofA Securities, Inc. and U.S. Bancorp Investments, Inc. are acting as dealer managers (collectively, the " Dealer Managers "). The information agent and tender agent for the Offers is Global Bondholder Services Corporation. Copies of the Offer to Purchase and related offering materials are available by contacting Global Bondholder Services Corporation by telephone at (866) 924-2200 (toll-free) or (212) 4303774 (banks and brokers) or by email at [email protected]. Questions regarding the Offers should be directed to Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Liability Management Group, at (212) 723-6106 (collect) or (800) 558-3745 (toll-free), Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Liability Management Group, at (212) 250-2955 (collect) or (866) 627-0391 (toll-free) or Goldman, Sachs & Co. LLC, Liability Management Group, at (212) 902-6351 (collect) and (800) 828-3182 (toll-free).

This press release is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to buy or the solicitation of an offer to sell with respect to any securities. The solicitation of offers to sell the Securities is only being made pursuant to the terms of the Offer to Purchase. The offer is not being made in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities, blue sky or other laws of such jurisdiction. None of Target or its affiliates, their respective board of directors, the Dealer Managers, the information and tender agent or the applicable trustee is making any recommendation as to whether or not Holders should tender their Securities in connection with the Offers, and neither Target nor any other person has authorized any person to make any such recommendation.

About Target

Minneapolisbased Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) serves guests at nearly 1,900 stores and at Target.com. Since 1946, Target has given 5% of its profit to communities, which today equals millions of dollars a week. For the latest store count or for more information, visit Target.com/Pressroom. For a behind-the-scenes look at Target, visit Target.com/abullseyeview or follow @TargetNews on Twitter.

SOURCE Target Corporation
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Krishna: Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a brief visit to a farm in Jakkula Nekkalam village in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh while on her way to Vijayawada and interacted with the local farmers, on Oct 7, 20 Image Source: IANS News

Krishna: Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a brief visit to a farm in Jakkula Nekkalam village in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh while on her way to Vijayawada and interacted with the local farmers, on Oct 7, 20 Image Source: IANS News

Krishna: Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a brief visit to a farm in Jakkula Nekkalam village in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh while on her way to Vijayawada and interacted with the local farmers, on Oct 7, 20 Image Source: IANS News

Krishna: Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a brief visit to a farm in Jakkula Nekkalam village in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh while on her way to Vijayawada and interacted with the local farmers, on Oct 7, 20 Image Source: IANS News

Krishna: Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a brief visit to a farm in Jakkula Nekkalam village in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh while on her way to Vijayawada and interacted with the local farmers, on Oct 7, 20 Image Source: IANS News

Krishna: Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a brief visit to a farm in Jakkula Nekkalam village in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh while on her way to Vijayawada and interacted with the local farmers, on Oct 7, 20 Image Source: IANS News

Krishna: Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a brief visit to a farm in Jakkula Nekkalam village in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh while on her way to Vijayawada and interacted with the local farmers, on Oct 7, 20 Image Source: IANS News

Krishna: Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a brief visit to a farm in Jakkula Nekkalam village in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh while on her way to Vijayawada and interacted with the local farmers, on Oct 7, 20 Image Source: IANS News

Amaravati, Oct 7 : Enroute to Vijayawada, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday made an impromptu visit to a paddy field in Jakkula Nekkalam village and interacted with a few farmers.

"The farmers welcomed the three farm bills passed by the Parliament and reckoned that the agri reforms will open new markets for their produce," said Sitharaman.

Jakkula Nekkalam is 20 km north of Vijayawada, on the east side of Krishna river.

Wearing a mask, the Finance Minister spoke to farmers who gave her a sheaf of paddy and a few sugarcanes.

Later in Vijayawada, Narsaraopeta Member of Parliament Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu met Sitharaman.
While solar power is a leading form of renewable energy, new research suggests that changes to regional climates brought on by global warming could make areas currently considered ideal for solar power production less viable in the future.

Princeton-based researchers recently published in the journal Nature Communications the first study to assess the day-to-day reliability of solar energy under climate change. The team used satellite data and climate models to project how sunlight reaching the ground would be affected as warmer global temperatures alter the dynamics and consistency of Earth's atmosphere.

Their study found that higher surface temperatures -- and the resulting increase in the amount of moisture, aerosols and particulates in the atmosphere -- may result in an overall decrease in solar radiation and an uptick in the number of cloudy days. Hot, arid regions such as the Middle East and the American Southwest -- considered among the highest potential producers of solar energy -- were most susceptible to greater fluctuations in sunlight, the researchers found.

"Our results could help in designing better solar power plants and optimizing storage while also avoiding the expansion of solar power capacity in areas where sunlight intermittency under future climate conditions may be too high to make solar reliable," said corresponding author Amilcare Porporato, Princeton's Thomas J. Wu '94 Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI). The research was supported by the Carbon Mitigation Initiative based in PEI.

"To use an academic metaphor, in terms of solar power, semiarid places are now like students who get an A nearly every day," Porporato said. "Now, climate change is disturbing the usual dynamics of the atmosphere and the regularity of the solar radiation reaching the planet's surface. We tried to quantify how much more often those A's could become B's, or even C's, as a result."

Existing research on how solar energy will fare in this irregular future has largely focused on average levels of sunlight, said first author Jun Yin, a researcher at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology who worked on the paper at Princeton as a postdoctoral research associate with Porporato.

"The novelty of our approach was to point out that in some places there is going to be more uncertainty in day-to-day variability," Yin said. He and Porporato previously reported that climate models underestimate the cooling effect of the daily cloud cycle. They worked on the most recent paper with co-author Annalisa Molini, an associate professor of civil infrastructure and environmental engineering at Khalifa University in the United Arab Emirates.

The researchers' findings were based on probabilistic calculations similar to those used to determine the risk of flooding or drought. The reduced reliability of solar energy is related to the increased variability of atmospheric moisture and aerosols in some arid regions. Higher temperatures hold more moisture and are more turbulent, which favors the formation of clouds and keeps particles in suspension longer, Porporato said.

"Then there is the issue of soils drying, which may be even more important," Porporato said. As temperatures and atmospheric turbulence increase in arid regions such as the Middle East, dry soils potentially lead to greater amounts of dust and atmospheric aerosols that would diminish solar radiation. These trends are in fact already detectable in observations from climate-observation networks, Porporato said.

For the American Southwest, the researchers' findings were less consistent. Some models showed more solar radiation and lower intermittency in the future, while others showed less solar radiation and higher intermittency. These results illustrate the challenge of trying to predict the reliability of solar energy in an uncertain future, Yin said.

"We hope that policymakers and people in the energy industry can take advantage of this information to more efficiently design and manage photovoltaic facilities," Yin said.

"Our paper helps identify efficient solutions for different locations where intermittency could occur, but at an acceptable level," he said. "A variety of technologies such as power storage, or power-operation policies such as smart curtailment, load shaping or geographical dispersion, are promising solutions."

To follow up on their work, the researchers plan to examine climate persistency -- specifically, the number of consecutive sunny or cloudy days -- which is important for solar power. They also are exploring how clouds could affect the effectiveness of tree planting as a climate mitigation strategy. Trees absorb not only carbon dioxide but also solar energy, which would raise surface temperatures. A resulting increase in cloud coverage could change current estimates of how effective trees would be in reducing atmospheric carbon.

###

The paper, "Impacts of solar intermittency on future photovoltaic reliability," was published Sept. 22 by Nature Communications. The work was supported by the USDA Agricultural Research Service (grant no. 58-6408-3-027); the National Science Foundation (grant nos. EAR-1331846, EAR-1316258 and FESD EAR-1338694); the PEI Carbon Mitigation Initiative; the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 41877158 and 51739009); Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (grant no. 1441052001003); the Jiangsu distinguished faculty program; and the Khalifa University Competitive Internal Research Award (grant no. CIRA-2018-102).
The state's 12-day streak of no recent local transmission of coronavirus has ended after three new cases were confirmed on Wednesday.

In the 24 hours to 8pm on Tuesday, three cases were recorded in overseas travellers. But three cases were subsequently confirmed in people from west and south-west Sydney and remain under "urgent" investigation.

NSW has ended its streak of days without community transmission, with three local cases confirmed. Credit:Jessica Hromas

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said she expects to see more local cases in coming days.

"We would expect to see some close contacts [get COVID-19]," she said on Wednesday.
The Batman has started filming in Liverpool after the cinema release date was delayed until 2022 due to fears over the coronavirus pandemic.

Warner Brothers vans were spotted in the city centre on Wednesday afternoon as workmen hauled props into St George's Hall, which appears to be the set for one of the scenes in the upcoming blockbuster.

A vintage cream and red car with a wedding ribbon tied across the bonnet was parked outside the historical building, possibly teasing a romance for Batman - played by newcomer Robert Pattinson - in the film.

Batman begins filming! The Batman has started filming in Liverpool after the cinema release date was delayed until 2022 due to fears over the coronavirus pandemic

The building was cordoned off with railings to stop the public getting too close to filming, as workmen set up the location before the cameras rolled again.

None of the cast, including Robert, were seen on set but it is likely that they will be filming in the area in the coming days.

Dozens of vans could be seen parked outside the hall as member of the crew lifted plastic-covered items into the building - including what appeared to be a security body scanner.

Filming for the 100million movie is expected to last around a week with roughly 100 actors and crew sticking to strict quarantining rules.

On location: Warner Bros. vans were spotted in the city centre on Wednesday afternoon as workmen hauled props into St George's Hall

Is love in the air? A vintage cream and red car with a wedding ribbon tied across the bonnet was parked outside the historical building, possibly teasing a romance for Batman - played by newcomer Robert Pattinson - in the film

Before relocating to Liverpool to shoot for the blockbuster, production workers were working in the relatively low risk Covid area of Leavesden in Hertfordshire.

One insider told MailOnline: 'Quite a few of us are surprised to say the least that around 100 people based in a film studio in Hertfordshire are being asked to go to a high risk area in the North West.

'However to be fair to the production company they do test for coronavirus.

'We have been told it is strictly work, eat and sleep. We even have to eat meals alone in our hotels rooms. Despite it being a Hollywood film, it is not exactly glamorous.'

Cast: Robert and the rest of the cast were absent from the filming location on Wednesday

Exciting things to come! None of the cast, including Robert, were seen on set but it is likely that they will be filming in the area in the coming days

On Wednesday, studio workers were seen erecting the set at St George's Hall which will double as Gotham City Hall.

A sign which read 'City Hall' could be seen in the entrance to St George's and an old fashioned red and white car was parked nearby.

However there was no sign of Twilight star Pattinson or the Batmobile. One worker said: 'It's just prep work at the moment. We certainly haven't seen Robert Pattinson or anyone else yet but it will start very soon'

The Batman is the latest blockbuster to be delayed because of coronavirus, raising fresh doubts over the future of hundreds of UK cinemas.

On Monday, Warner Brothers said it would push back the release of the superhero epic, starring Twilight actor Robert Pattinson, from October 2021 until spring 2022.

Disappointing: The Batman is the latest blockbuster to be delayed because of coronavirus, raising fresh doubts over the future of hundreds of UK cinemas

It also revealed that sci-fi film Dune, has been postponed from December to October next year. Cinemas now face an existential threat from a drought of big releases.

On Monday Cineworld shut all its 128 UK cinemas, putting 5,500 jobs at risk, until the spring after the release of the latest James Bond movie, No Time to Die, was postponed.

Odeon has said it will only open 30 of 120 sites at weekends. Social distancing coupled with peoples fears of catching the virus mean most viewers are staying at home.

Tenet, directed by Christopher Nolan, took $300million (228million)  much less than his previous film Dunkirk, which took 400million.

The subdued response spooked executives and sparked a rash of postponements.

On hold: On Monday, Warner Brothers said it would push back the release of the superhero epic, starring Twilight actor Robert Pattinson, from October 2021 until spring 2022

Stay back: The building was cordoned off with railings to stop the public getting too close to filming, as workmen set up the location before the cameras rolled again

Arrivals: Dozens of vans could be seen parked outside the hall as member of the crew lifted plastic-covered items into the building - including what appeared to be a security body scanner

The Batman was forced to delay filming last month when its lead star contracted coronavirus, parts of which were due to be shot in the Liverpool location.

An insider told MailOnline: 'Today is the first day the main production unit has returned to filming and there seem to be no other hiccups at the moment.'

While a Warner Bros. Pictures spokesperson confirmed: 'Following a hiatus for COVID 19 quarantine precautions, filming has now resumed on The Batman in the U.K.'

Concerns: It also revealed that sci-fi film Dune, has been postponed from December to October next year. Cinemas now face an existential threat from a drought of big releases

The source added that a significant part of the film was supposed to be shot in Liverpool but due to coronavirus the shoot had been cancelled and re-arranged several times, shifting the completion date for the project back even further.

Liverpool will play an important role in The Batman as American filmmaker Matt Reeves, who is directing the upcoming superhero film, revealed recently at DC FanDome, a virtual convention held by DC Comics and Warner Bros.

During an interview, he confirmed Liverpool would be the backbone for Gotham City as they shoot the remaining 75 per cent of the film.

Under fire: On Monday Cineworld shut all its 128 UK cinemas, putting 5,500 jobs at risk, until the spring after the release of the latest James Bond movie, No Time to Die, was postponed

In September, MailOnline revealed that production crew were 'working round the clock' to try and film scenes without Robert after he contracted Covid-19 and was forced to self-isolate for two weeks.

The Hollywood actor, who was understood to have turned up on set with a temperature, had to stay away from filming for 14 days while he recovered.

It came amid fears that halting production could cost as much as 5 million with the film's director Reeves trying to film as much as he could at the Warner Bros. Studio in Leavesden, Hertfordshire, without the leading man.

Any of the 130-strong crew who did not have direct contact with Pattinson were asked to return to work and sets that had been prepared were moved from studio G to another studio.

New restrictions: Odeon has said it will only open 30 of 120 sites at weekends. Social distancing coupled with peoples fears of catching the virus mean most viewers are staying at home

'Anything that can be shot and does not involved Pattinson will now go ahead,' a set insider told MailOnline at the time.

'That includes scenes with his body double. The aim is to get as much done as possible before he returns and the hope is that none of the other actors get the virus.

'Crew can be replaced as most are freelance and hired for the duration of the shoot but it would be disastrous if another major actor gets the virus.

'Production staff are working round the clock to get things moving and allow some filming to take place.'

MailOnline revealed how The Batman was thrown into chaos after Pattinson tested positive for Covid 19.

He had arrived at the studio and told the on-set nurse he had an 'elevated temperature.'

A subsequent electronic temperature test meant he was sent home and told to undergo a test for the virus.
Metis folks with an historical curiosity can now visit two Manitoba national historic sites free of charge.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 7/10/2020 (472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Metis folks with an historical curiosity can now visit two Manitoba national historic sites free of charge.

Lower Fort Garry and Riel House are now a part of the Indigenous Peoples Open Doors program thanks to an agreement signed between the Manitoba Metis Federation and Parks Canada.

"Free entry into Lower Fort Garry National Historic Site and Riel House National Historic Site creates an exciting opportunity for our Manitoba Metis citizens to visit and reconnect with two of Canadas spectacular national historic sites," stated the federations natural resources minister, Leah LaPlante.

"This program will provide visitors the opportunity to learn about the history behind the creation of the Metis Nation, the founding of Manitoba and the role of Louis Riel and the provisional government."

According to the Parks Canada website, the department is proud of its Indigenous Peoples Open Doors program, "which seeks to enhance relationships with Indigenous peoples by providing free access to national parks or national historic sites with which they feel a connection without undue requirements for purchasing passes or permits."

The federation joins the more than 300 other Indigenous groups across Canada in partnering with the federal government to conserve natural and cultural heritage spaces.

"The Manitoba Metis Federation shares in the traditional connection that Metis people of Manitoba have with the lands and waters comprising Lower Fort Garry and Riel House national historic sites," the department stated.

Manitoba Metis are asked to present their federation citizenship or harvester card to gain entry.

This new agreement does not expire, according to the release.

"These agreements represent tangible components of Parks Canadas ongoing commitment to reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the Government of Canada," stated Jonathan Wilkinson, the federal minister responsible for Parks Canada.

Federation president David Chartrand also weighed in.

"The Manitoba Metis were Canadas negotiating partner in Confederation and the founders of the Province of Manitoba. The Metis government recognizes the historical significance and connection these sites have to the creation of the Metis Nation, Manitoba and Canada, and the MMF contributes to the staffing and programming of Riel House National Historic Site," he said.

 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.
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A 25-year-old Nigerian girl, Damilola Falodun, who was trafficked to Oman in search of greener pastures, tells the story of how she was sexually harassed by her boss in the Middle Eastern country. On her return to Nigeria after over a year working as a house-help in Oman, Damilola, who presently studies Entrepreneurship and Business Management at the Abeokuta (Ogun State) campus of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), tells PREMIUM TIMES how she has commenced an enlightenment campaign against girl-child trafficking in Lagos and Osun states and the moves to extend the campaign to Benin City, Edo State

PT: How did you become an orphan?

Damilola Falodun: My mum and dad were separated. My dad (Emmanuel Falodun) was in Abia State, while my mum (Adetoro Falodun) was based in Abeokuta, Ogun State. My father was in Abia State for over seven years and we only talked once in a while. He called on May 23, 2014, to inform me that he was coming to see me on June 5, I was glad to hear that. But not quite three days later (May 27), I received another call that he had died.

He was asthmatic, they said he had an attack. They said they tried to reach my mum but could not that was why they called to inform me. He saved my name on his phone as my daughter. He (my dad) was an indigene of Aiyede in Ekiti State. About three months after my dad passed on, my mum fell sick briefly and also died. It happened on September 8, 2014.

PT: So, how did you carry on with your life after they died?

Damilola Falodun: I was a student of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta campus, department of business administration, when my father died. I was about writing my first semester examinations in ND2 when he died. I managed to write the examination because his death did not affect me that much. After all, we were not close, I only felt pained because of the conversations we had when he called to inform me that he was coming to see me.

But the big blow was when my mum died, I was also going for my second semester examination when the news filtered in that she was dead. I could not think straight anymore and that was where my education came to a halt. I stopped going to school and I missed my examinations. That was how I started another life entirely.

PT: What happened after she (your mum) died?

Damilola Falodun: I have three siblings. One from the same father and the other two from a step-father. There was no help from any relation when my parents died. To survive became difficult. I had to look for a job instantly as a teenager with a letter from my former school permitting me to do my industrial training before the results were out. I already had that letter before the examinations.

So, I got an offer to work as a waitress in a hotel in Lagos. In course of my job, I met two friends and we had the idea of travelling to Canada for greener pastures. As an orphan, I was naive to a lot of things and open to any advice. They (my friends) took me to their pastor for prayers and that was how I was introduced to a travel agent, and from then on I started giving all my N20,000 salary to the agent monthly and survived with the tips I get. I was determined to leave the country, so, I was ready to starve to achieve that aspiration.

After some time, the hotel we were working in the island area of Lagos sacked my friends and I became the only one left behind. After some months, I received a call from the pastor that my visa was out, and without confirming, I resigned from the hotel immediately and came back to the mainland, only to discover that it was not out. I waited for another three months and the pastor opened up to inform me that he got the wrong information from the agent. Then hard times set in and I developed an ulcer because of lack of regular food. At that point, we realised that we were defrauded by the agent. It was a scam. The three of us jointly gave over N1 million to the agent to process our Canadian visas.

PT: When you people realised it was a fraud, did you attempt to report that matter to the police?

Damilola Falodun: Some members in the pastors church prevailed on us not to because the pastor would be involved as an accomplice. He (pastor), however, introduced us to another agent named Yomi, who promised to get us papers to travel to Oman to work as waitresses or house helps. He (Yomi) said if we get there, we could recover all we have lost in terms of money, within a few months. At that point, we did not have money on us, so I sold my phone to raise cash and within one week my visa was out.

PT: So, what happened after then?

Damilola Falodun: After the visa was out, we did medical checks and proceeded to Oman. We were many girls that left Nigeria on that day, and the way we got passes at the different checks indicated that the agent had connections at the airport. That again made us have confidence in him. The agent also had a link with another agent in Oman, and when we got to Oman, there was already a driver waiting to pick us up at the airport. The driver, an Oman citizen, requested our passports immediately because he was the one carrying us and would be able to explain better to the police who we are. So, we obliged him our passports. We later got to know that the passports had been seized by the foreign agent, because when we got to the office, we were made to sign a document written in Arabic.

We tried to make someone explain the meaning of what we were signing but could not get a direct explanation. It was after we signed the document that we knew there was something fishy about the whole thing. We were made to understand that we would be house cleaners for individual families. The first job agreement was that I was going to be remitting my salary to the foreign agent for the first seven months, I think the Nigerian agent (Yomi) has a link with this too. So, I started work.

PT: What kind of work were you doing?

Damilola Falodun: I was doing the job of a housemaid, but in Oman it is translated to mean slave, especially for those of us from Nigeria. I worked with a family for four months but had to leave when I was sexually harassed several times by the head of the family. They had 12 children and the mother was always too busy to notice anything. I had no privacy in my room because I was not allowed to lock the door. So, it was always open and he could come in at any time. So, he comes most times in the day time.

I tried to complain to the mother of the house but she didnt understand what I was saying. I now decided to be going outside the house immediately the madam leaves the building and whenever she comes back, it is trouble and she beats me for not working while she was away. The sexual harassment continued. The salary they were paying me was being sent to the agent, who in turn shared it with the Nigerian agent.

PT: Did you complain to the agent that you were being sexually harassed?

Damilola Falodun: I did but the foreign agent, a woman, told me to be patient with them. She said I will have my freedom as soon as I finished paying the agreed seven months salary. The job was not easy because I scrubbed the walls of the building almost daily, no time for rest. The employers made you understand that they have bought your freedom, so you are not free till at least the next year.

PT: Do you think the Oman government is aware of all these inhuman treatments metted to Nigerians in their country?

Damilola Falodun: I think they are aware. I met a fellow Nigerian in the agents office, who said she went to the police authority to complain of the situation. She too was facing the kind of stress I was going through. But instead of taking action, the police called the agent to come and pick her. That gave me the feeling that they are aware and not ready to act on the complaints.

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A lot of Nigerians have died in Oman without records being sent back home of their whereabouts. Somehow, after four months in my place of work, I got money to buy a phone which I used in making a video of my boss when he came to my room to sexually harass me, because I thought it would be the best way to return to Nigeria. I was already fed up with the whole arrangement. I managed to make a 35 seconds video of the man naked in my room while trying to sexually harass me. After that, I went to madam and showed her the video, she took me back immediately to the agents office, and the contract was terminated.

The agents in Oman subjected me to further torture. The name of the agency is Almaahed in Oman Nizwa. I was beaten for exposing the man. I was locked up in a cell within the agents office and that was where I met other Nigerian girls in a similar situation. I witnessed torture in the cell. A lady was beaten in that cell until she became mentally unstable. Some ladies in the cell urged me to beg them (the agents) because they were also being sexually harassed. They told me to go and continue with my work, advising that it was better out there than in the cell.

I started begging them every day, that I would be of good behaviour that they should allow me to work again. Somehow they listened to my pleas and I was released and I started working again, but this time I was made to return to the agents office every five days to ensure compliance. I worked for five different families after then.

PT: How did you come back to Nigeria?

Damilola Falodun: When I was in Nigeria, I did not appreciate what was called freedom until I went to Oman. We are very free in Nigeria, because you can raise little money to buy food. I discovered that it was better to go back home instead of living a slave life in Oman. My dream about going to work abroad was to gather money and come back to invest in Nigeria, but I got to Oman I realised it was a different ball game entirely. When you have a family member abroad, you do not know what they are going through.

It was by Gods grace that I found my way back to Nigeria. I used the money I earned to fly myself back to Nigeria. I stayed in Oman for over one year and after fulfilling the agreement, with the money I earned, I got my passports back and came back to Nigeria. All along, I did not contact my family members because I did not want them to know what I was going through. I travelled in 2016 and returned in 2017.

PT: So, how did you start life when you came back to Nigeria?

Damilola Falodun: I did not return to Nigeria with any money. There was this lady, my mothers friend, that helped me secure my international passport before she travelled to the United States. When I got back, I got a call from her and she was astonished to hear that I went to Oman. We lost contact at some point.

I explained to her that life became difficult at some point. Somehow, I was encouraged to go back to school and I made some moves and got admitted into the National Open University of Nigeria in Abeokuta, studying entrepreneurship and business management.

PT: Are you battling with any psychological effects as a result of your experiences in Oman?

Damilola Falodun: Yes, I have now had a chronic ulcer, which was also a result of the starvation I also encountered in Oman. I also have other women-related challenges that I am battling with. I now use medicated eyeglasses to correct my sight.

PT: What do you think the federal government can do to reduce the migration to such countries where Nigerians are used as slaves?

Damilola Falodun: There was an Ethiopian lady that passed through what we went through in Oman and when she went back to her country she began a sensitisation process that has drawn the governments attention to ladies travelling to Oman. There is serious scrutiny against trafficking to the Middle East in that country. The federal government can do the same in Nigeria.

In Nigeria, some of the trafficking at the airport is aided by officials, it can be checked. The travel agents into this business work in collaboration with our immigration officials, that was why (we had) the seamless passage when we were leaving Nigeria. When I returned to Nigeria there was this beauty pageantry that was ongoing, I keyed into their programme.

Since I came back, I have been carrying out some form of enlightenment campaign against girls trafficking. I have carried out some campaigns in Lagos and Ile-Ife. I hope to extend the same to Benin City in Edo State. It is geared towards giving those that are trapped abroad the hope to return home because I discovered that most people who are trapped do not want to come back home because of shame.
A crowd watches as Working Wardrobes CEO Jerri Rosen (L) and Board Chair Justin Frame cut the ribbon in front of a new career center in Santa Ana, Calif., on Sept. 30, 2020. (Jack Bradley/The Epoch Times)

Irvines Working Wardrobes Career Center Rises From the Ashes

SANTA ANA, Calif.Working Wardrobes, a nonprofit organization that helps the needy get jobs in Orange County, California, has opened a new career center in Santa Ana after its previous headquarters burned down in a February fire.

Founder and CEO Jerri Rosen appeared delighted at the Sept. 30 ribbon-cutting ceremony, which was attended by county officials, clients, and well-wishers.

Rosen and Working Wardrobes Board Chair Justin Frame together cut the symbolic ribbon with a large pair of scissors shortly after 9 a.m. to signify the centers rebirth at 2000 E. McFadden Ave.

Now we are opening our doors and saying to our communitythe entire Southern California communitywere here to help people get back on their feet and back to work, Rosen said at the ceremony.

Working Wardrobes helps veterans, homeless, and other underprivileged individuals get jobs by providing professional attire and on-site skills training to help get them back into the workforce.

More than anything we want to have people feel like they can actually get back on their feet, and provide for themselves and their family, Rosen said.

She said the organization has continued its mission to help clients throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and despite the fire that destroyed its 22,000-square-foot Irvine headquarters in February.

The blaze wiped out the organizations donation center, career center, and corporate offices. It caused an estimated $10 million in damage to the building, and more than $2 million in lost contents.

Working Wardrobes founder and CEO Jerri Rosen speaks at a ceremony prior to opening a new center in Santa Ana, Calif., on Sept. 30, 2020. (Jack Bradley/The Epoch Times)

Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do speaks at a ceremony honoring the reopening of the Working Wardrobes career center in Santa Ana, Calif., on Sept. 30, 2020. (Jack Bradley/The Epoch Times)

Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do, who also spoke at the ribbon-cutting, said he and Rosen go back 30 years.

Do said that during his first year as a public defender, Rosen approached us in the public defenders office and said, Hey, I have this idea.  What if we can help people remake their lives?  We can start with you attorneys.

Rosen told him that the attorneys have suits that you can donate, that can be repurposed, according to Do.

In addition to providing working wardrobesthe nameclothing for people to restart their life and be able to be presentable in going to job interviews and remake their professional careers, they provide career assessment, skill training, career development services, job placement, and then re-entry into the workforce, Do said.

The comprehensive assistance allows people in need to gain the power to earn money on their own, he added.

And I think thats what were doing here.  We are giving people that self-confidence, that sense of identity, and you cant put a value on that kind of work, Do said.

Santa Ana City Councilman Vicente Sarmiento said dealing with the fire, followed by COVID-19, was analogous to the people that rely on the organization.

Because those who come to you, those who come to receive support and help, have had a difficult path themselves, Sarmiento said.

He told Rosen that Working Wardrobes will be better able to show empathy to people because youve actually lived as an organization, having some difficulties, having some different twists and turns that you didnt expect, but you continue moving on.

Weve had some of the highest cases of COVIDwe have four ZIP codes that are the highest in the county, he said. So we are especially proud to have you here, because we know so many folks wont be able to go back to the job that they once had.

Working Wardrobes will help them rescale themselves and upskill themselves, Sarmiento said. And we know that this is going to be so critically important.

A crowd lingers at the reopening of Working Wardrobes, a center that provides clothing and training to the needy, in Santa Ana, Calif., on Sept. 30, 2020. (Jack Bradley/The Epoch Times)

Donated suits and shirts line the racks inside the new Working Wardrobes location in Santa Ana, Calif., on Sept. 30, 2020. (Jack Bradley/The Epoch Times)

A Veterans Testimonial

Formerly homeless veteran Khang Phi spoke about how Working Wardrobes changed his life.

My story began with me, homeless, sitting in my car, parked in a 24 Hour Fitness parking lot, said Khang.

Khang was disappointed with the programs offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs; he felt like hed been burned before and wasted his time. Then he discovered Working Wardrobes.

They work together with me from the first moment I stepped through the door, and even until now, Khang said. The center linked him with resources, including financial assistance, housing, career development, and job placement.

They have this series of working workshops that were created for veterans to improve their ability to find gainful employment. It helped them with new skills and [to] develop that knowledge for the job market, he said.

Khang said college-level power courses taught by volunteers also taught him a great dealand made him want to give back by helping other veterans like they helped me.

After assistance from Working Wardrobes, Khang found himself in the same parking lot where he first beganonly now his situation was different.

Fast forward. It was about, I think, a month or so after Working Wardrobe. Im in the parking lot again, but this time the element of the story is a little bit different. Im in the process of securing stable housing. Im parked in front of the office building, waiting for a job interview. Im in my new suit that was picked out by a wardrobe specialist.

And with the help of the veteran team, and all the folks that are Working Wardrobe, I was given a chance to rise up, and I took it.

Khang told the crowd that the clothes he was wearing were the last suit given to him by Working Wardrobes. He wears it, he said, as a symbol of enduring dedication.

After today, Im going to hang the suit up like a superhero hanging up his cape, Khang said.

Its time to move forward. Im going to shadow box this gift and display it as a treasure for myself, to remember the hardship Ive endured and how I have risen up against it.

It will be a beacon in those dark times that I have endured. I shall let it hang up from my workspace and remind me of the success and the perseveranceand to never give up, and to always show compassion to others.

Every time Rosen hears a success story like Khangs, she is reminded of the great responsibility that Working Wardrobes has to the needy in California.

Weve all experienced that at some time in our lives, a sense of just being lost because we didnt have that identity that a job brings us, the dignity that a job brings us, Rosen said.

And so for us to be able to offer that as graciously and as gratefully as we can, Ill never ever ever get tired of that.

Working Wardrobes has helped more than 105,000 people since it began in 1990, according to its website.
The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress Johnson Asiedu Nketia will this morning lead a delegation to the Electoral Commission headquarters to file the nomination of former President John Mahama for the 2020 polls.



Mr Mahama on Tuesday stated on Facebook that he has already endorsed the relevant portions of the forms to be submitted on his behalf.



Meanwhile, President Akufo-Addo has submitted his nomination to contest on the ticket of the ruling New Patriotic Party.



Submitting the forms, the President urged the EC to conduct free and fair polls.



I am not interested in any crooked results. I dont want to be President elected by deceit. I look forward to a contest that will be fairly conducted. So that if indeed by the grace of the Almighty, I am again the choice of the Ghanaian people, it will be one that was freely and openly demonstrated.



He also praised the EC for the work done so far.



Unless you have some kind of hidden agenda, I dont think anybody can doubt the fairness of the processes that have so far been exhibited. We are all witnesses to the process and I think that all serious-minded Ghanaians are clear in their minds that they are witnessing a clear process. There are some who are investing in trying to discredit the process for their own sectarian ends, but I am not one of them, he said.



















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Gov. Phil Murphy will sign a bill that will release early thousands of New Jersey prisoners the day after the presidential election due to the danger posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, NJ Advance Media has learned.

Murphy plans to sign the proposal (S2519) on Oct. 19, so it takes effect Nov. 4, according to four sources briefed by administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

A sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Nellie Pou, D-Passaic, confirmed that timeline Wednesday

Im just happy that there appears to be progress, Pou told NJ Advance Media.

About 2,000 people should be released Nov. 4, and about another 1,000 will be released during the following weeks through January, according to three of the sources.

Murphy officials privately announced the timeline Tuesday during calls with stakeholders.

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The bill barely passed the state Legislature late last month.

The proposal knocks up to eight months off sentences, and people convicted of murder, aggravated sexual assault and repetitive, compulsive sex offenders are not eligible. The reductions will continue on a rolling basis as long as the public health emergency is in effect.

Advocates have argued the early releases are necessary to save lives from a prison system with the highest coronavirus death rate in the nation, and families have been anxious to know when relatives might step outside.

"New Jersey has failed its prison population throughout the pandemic, Pou said in a statement last month. We heard heartbreaking testimony from family members of inmates who died from COVID-19 while in our custody because health needs were denied and social distancing was not possible.

Representatives for the corrections department did not immediately respond to questions about which prisons would be releasing people and what steps were being taken to prepare for the early releases.

The prison system denied an NJ Advance Media records request for a list of eligible inmates.

One of the principle objections to the bill was that former prisoners might not have enough help finding jobs and housing amid a pandemic.

The goal of the legislation is commendable," said Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora, whose city will likely host some of the early releases. However, unless the state invests in support services like job training, substance abuse treatment, and housing for returning citizens, then this effort will disproportionally effect underserved communities like Trenton.

He added that a new local reentry program should help, and other similar organizations have been scrambling to prepare for a surge in cases.

The New Jersey Reentry Corporation is launching a donation drive Thursday in Newark to collect clothes and toiletries for the newly freed.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Sue Livio contributed to this report.

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Blake Nelson can be reached at bnelson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BCunninghamN.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 22:16:36|Editor: huaxia

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TAIPEI, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Four people had tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after leaving Taiwan, the island's epidemic monitoring agency said on Wednesday.

According to the agency, it has launched an investigation after receiving notices from Japan and France about the cases.

Two Japanese and one Taiwan resident tested positive for the virus when arriving in Japan from Taiwan on Oct. 2 and 3.

The last one, a French citizen, had returned to France on Oct. 1 after being in Taiwan since February and tested positive on Oct. 2.

The agency also announced that two people tested positive for COVID-19 in Taiwan on Wednesday. The new cases were a Taiwan woman returning from Ireland and an Indian man traveling to Taiwan on business.

Taiwan reported a total of 523 COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday, with seven deaths, according to the agency. Enditem
She celebrated her 37th birthday on Monday.

And on Tuesday, Nicky Hilton was seen running some errands solo in New York City.

The hotel heiress and socialite donned a lavender colored cloth face mask for her outing in line with COVID-19 regulations in the Big Apple.

Out and about: Nicky Hilton donned a lavender colored cloth face mask to run some solo errands in New York City on Tuesday, one day after celebrating her 37th birthday

Nicky wore a stripy top and skinny jeans under a camel coat which she left unbuttoned.

She stepped out in pair of flats that matched the color of her coat and carried a black purse.

Her blonde hair was loose and she sported sunglasses.

Stylish: The hotel heiress and socialite wore a stripy top and skinny jeans under a camel coat which she left unbuttoned. She stepped out in pair of flats and carried a black purse

Nicky has been married to banker James Rothschild since 2015 and the couple shares daughters Teddy, two, and Lily-Grace, four.

Over the weekend, she shared a photo to Instagram of her daughters posing in front of their very large playhouse which had been decorated with pumpkins and witches.

'Halloween starts early in this house,' she wrote in the accompanying caption.

Mom of two: Nicky has been married to banker James Rothschild since 2015 and the couple shares daughters Teddy, two, and Lily-Grace, four

Her girls: Over the weekend, she shared a photo to Instagram of her daughters posing in front of their very large playhouse which had been decorated with pumpkins and witches

Nicky's older sister Paris Hilton has made headlines lately with the release of her highly hyped YouTube documentary This Is Paris.

In the movie, the former Simple Life star revealed her trauma at being sent to a boarding school for troubled youth in Utah at the age of 16 because her parents couldn't control her.

Nicky recently told E! News about the first time she watched the documentary, in the company of her sister.

'It was very, very emotional,' she recounted. 'She didn't even want to show my mother the movie. So we snuck downstairs and we were watching it together.

'She said, 'I don't want mom to see it.' I was like, 'Well she's going to see it in a few weeks when it's on YouTube for the whole world to see.''

Nicky continued: 'We laughed. We cried. I'm just so proud of her, because going through so much trauma and reliving it with the whole world watching is very brave.'

Paris, 39, revealed a never-before-seen side of herself in the documentary, stripping away the shallow socialite character she's been pigeonholed into portraying.

She told Variety of her portrayal in the film: 'I feel that I've grown up so much, especially in the past year. Doing this film, I just had so many realizations and realized who I truly am and why I am the way I am.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 20:13:26|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Iran's health ministry reported 4,019 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, raising the total confirmed number in the country to 483,844.

The pandemic has so far taken 27,658 lives in Iran, up by 239 in the past 24 hours, said Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, during her daily briefing.

A total of 397,109 people have recovered from the disease and been discharged from hospitals, while 4,274 remain in intensive care units.

The spokeswoman added that 4,207,631 laboratory tests for the virus have so far been carried out in Iran.

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
Moon Chung-in, left, special security adviser to President Moon Jae-in, speaks at the East Asia Foundation in Seoul during a webinar, co-hosted by the Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament and the foundation, Wednesday. / Courtesy of East Asia Foundation



'Washington missed golden opportunity to denuclearize Pyongyang'



By Kang Seung-woo



Although Bob Woodward's latest book, "Rage," disclosed last month that the Donald Trump administration had reviewed firing scores of nuclear weapons at North Korea in 2017, experts said Wednesday that such an attack would not be an easy option to implement due to various reasons including possible escalation involving other countries.



In the book, based on interviews with Trump, the writer said the United States studied "OPLAN 5027" for regime change in North Korea  the U.S. response to an attack that could include the use of 80 nuclear weapons. OPLAN 5027 refers to a joint South Korea-U.S. military operation plan to respond to a North Korean invasion.



Experts on Korean Peninsula issues saw a low chance of the plan ever being carried out, because of concerns that a U.S. nuclear strike against Pyongyang could lead to accidental escalation in the region.



"The option to use nuclear weapons against North Korea is highly constrained. When land-based (intercontinental ballistic) missiles would have to fly over Russia, I actually find it inconceivable that American presidents get on the phone to the Kremlin and say don't worry about these missiles," Peter Hayes, co-director of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, said during a webinar co-hosted by the Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament and the East Asia Foundation.



"The United States might use a submarine-launched missile in the Pacific and that has a similar problem. You will be aiming missiles pretty much directly at Beijing."



Moon Chung-in, the special security adviser to President Moon Jae-in, also said the use of strategic bombers was not simple either because of the difficulties involving either a pre-emptive strike or a counter-strike due to the transportation of nuclear weapons from Hawaii to Guam and the evacuation of family members of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and American citizens living in South Korea.



"If so, the North would find out what was happening," he said.



Moon also said the North does not have the capability to pre-emptively deliver intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) to the U.S. mainland yet.



"When tensions between the North and the U.S. were escalating between May and July of 2017, the former was not capable of deploying ICBMs. In addition, the Hwasong-15 was test-fired only once (in November 2017)."



The USFK believes that ICBM is capable of reaching most of the U.S. mainland, but Moon dismissed that assessment as "hype."



Meanwhile, Siegfried Hecker, a U.S. nuclear scientist who has been to the North's Yongbyon nuclear facility on four occasions, told the virtual seminar that Washington missed a "golden opportunity" to denuclearize the reclusive state at the Hanoi summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump in February 2019. Their second meeting ended without a deal and bilateral denuclearization talks have stalled ever since.



"From Woodward's book, much more important to me than the 80 nuclear weapons comment is 26 letter exchanges between Kim and President Trump. Kim Jong-un actually not only said he was willing to get rid of Yongbyon but he actually said the Nuclear Weapons Institute. He actually specifically mentions in the letter, the Nuclear Weapons Institute," Hacker said.



Even though Hacker was not completely sure of the institute's role, he likened it to the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory that designs nuclear weapons.



"You still have bombs out there, but the bombs are no good without the scientists that designed them," he said. "That was an incredible offer. You combine that with Hanoi, and all I can say is we missed a golden opportunity."


- Multiple health benefits related to yoga and celebrity endorsements & promotion of yogic practices drive the growth of the global yoga market

PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Yoga Market by Type (Online Yoga Course, Offline Yoga Course, and Yoga Accreditation Training Programs): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2027." According to the report, the yoga industry generated $37.46 billion in 2019, and is expected to generate $66.22 billion by 2027, witnessing a CAGR of 9.6% from 2021 to 2027.

Prime determinants of growth

Multiple health benefits related to yoga, celebrity endorsement & promotion of yogic practices, and initiation of international yoga day and other supportive government initiatives drive the growth of the global yoga market. However, presence of other alternatives including fitness centers, multi-specialty gym, and therapy classes and surge in number of yoga accidents hinder the market growth. On the other hand, mental benefits to deal with a hectic lifestyle and increase in stress present new opportunities for the market across the world.

Request Sample Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/7332

Covid-19 Scenario

The demand for yoga exercises increased with the outbreak of Covid-19 as governments of many countries enforced lockdown to curb the spread and people needed to stay fit by exercising at home. As yoga can be practiced in confined spaces, it was one of the most preferred exercises during the lockdown.

Online yoga courses surged significantly as yoga studios were closed and people needed guidance and expertise of trainers and experts to carry out yogic exercises and meditation techniques.

During the post-lockdown period, many studios have been reopened and yoga practice has been taking place by maintaining proper hygiene and social distancing. The demand for offline course has increased to stay fit and boost immunity.

The offline yoga course segment to maintain its lead position during the forecast period

Based on type, the offline yoga course segment contributed to the largest market share in 2019, holing more than three-fourths of the global yoga market share, and is projected to maintain its lead position during the forecast period. This is attributed to availability of private sessions for practicing yoga and meditation, attention to details given by instructors, and well-maintained ambiance. However, the online yoga course segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 12.3% from 2021 to 2027, owing to convenience provided by online courses and the outbreak of pandemics such as Covid-19, enforcing people to stay home and carry out exercises.

North America to continue its dominant share in terms of revenue by 2027

Based on region, North America accounted for the highest market share, accounting for nearly two-fifths of the global yoga market in 2019, and is expected to continue its dominant share in terms of revenue throughout the forecast period. This is due to increase in popularity of yoga practices, rise in number of yoga studios in the U.S., and rise in sales of yoga gear at different studios. However, Asia-Pacific is estimated to register the highest CAGR of 10.8% during the forecast period, owing to rich yogic culture in countries such as India, authentic knowledge across the Indian subcontinent, and huge number of yoga schools across the region.

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Leading market players

Flyogi LLC.

Gaia, Inc.

Alo Moves, Inc.

Omstars LLC.

Momo Studio B.V. (Momoyoga)

Yoga International

One Yoga London

Yoga Today LLC

Yogaglo, Inc.

Yogiapproved LLC.

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We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.

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You go down rural highways that have fall foliage and country lanes and charming main streets, Howell said. In Goshen, you can stop at the Old Bag Factory. Or you can go to Kerchers Sunrise Orchard and pick your own apples or grab a pumpkin. Shipshewana is considered part of that. You have all the Blue Gate properties  the theater and all the shops with the handcrafted items and the baked goods (like) the cinnamon rolls and the homemade noodles. Take the buggy ride and (see) the restored carousel. Its a 90-minute driving tour.
BRISTOL, Va.  The city of Bristol, Virginia will distribute free public health resources through a program with the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.

The city has been allocated 3,000 masks and 3,000 bottles of hand sanitizer through the Health Equity Pilot Program, according to a news release.

The Bristol Virginia Fire Department will work with the Bristol Redevelopment and Housing Authority and representatives from local faith-based organizations to handle distribution. These supplies will also be available for pickup outside all three city fire stations from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., starting today. Fire stations are located at 211 Lee St., 1603 Euclid Ave. and 105 Suncrest Drive.

VDEM is proud to partner with the city of Bristol to equitably distribute lifesaving resources to communities historically disproportionately impacted by disasters, including under-resourced communities and communities of color, said Curtis Brown, VDEM state coordinator. Equity centered programs, like the Health Equity Pilot Program, are important during this critical time in our COVID-19 response and recovery efforts.

The program is a state-local partnership designed to increase access to personal protective equipment and public health information in underserved and historically disadvantaged communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, according to the statement.

More than 70 Virginia localities have been identified for participation in the program and will receive up to 20,000 cloth masks, bottles of hand sanitizer and appropriate translated public health materials. To date, the commonwealth has partnered with more than 60 localities, according to the statement.

City officials in over 30 localities have completed health equity and public safety training and begun distributing much-needed resources within their communities, while the others are in the planning phase of the pilot program and set to begin distribution in the upcoming weeks, the release states.

The communities were identified using indicators including chronic diseases, household income, age, disability status and other health factors. Over 700,000 cloth masks and over 580,000 bottles of hand sanitizer have been delivered to localities across the state.
The Criminal Court of Appeal of Armenia today denied the appeal of the attorneys of leader of Prosperous Armenia Party Gagik Tsarukyan to release him from custody.

The attorneys had appealed the decision of the first instance court to arrest Tsarukyan.

The risk of obstructing the course of the criminal case had served as a basis for Judge Mnatsakan Mnatsakanyan to announce this decision.

Gagik Tsarukyan has been under arrest since September 25.

The defense attorneys had submitted a crime report on Tsarukyan's case to the Prosecutor General and the Special Investigation Service. They stated that they had evidence that, as a result of the illegal interference of some officials, it had been "decided" that the Court of Cassation shall deny the appeals as soon as possible so that the court case could be assigned to the Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevan as soon as possible, be considered as speedily as possible, and Tsarukyan be remanded in custody.

Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan had submitted a petition to the National Assembly to strip Tsarukyan of parliamentary immunity, and the petition was granted, but the Yerevan court of general jurisdiction had rejected the motion of an investigator of the National Security Service to arrest Tsarukyan.

According to the decision of the first instance court, there was a substantiated suspicion in the case. Both sides had appealed the decision to the Court of Appeal. The attorneys had filed a few appeals, and one of them stated that the case had to be investigated by the Special Investigation Service.

The Court of Appeal had rejected the attorneys appeal and partially granted the appeal of the Prosecutor Generals Office.

Later, Tsarukyans attorneys and the Prosecutor Generals Office had filed appeals to the Court of Cassation, which didnt accept the appeals for proceedings.

Tsarukyan has been charged with orchestrating vote buying. But he does not accept the charge and says it as illegal.

A few former deputies of the National Assembly of Armenia are also accused under this case, including Abraham Manukyan, Vanik Asatryan and Sedrak Arustamyan.
- Sukari Presbyterian sent messages to parents whose children did not enrol for online classes and asked them to transfer their children

- When the parents appeared in the school with the media, the school cowed and instead asked parents to newly register the children

- CS Magoha had said all students will pick up their studies from where they left in March 2020

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Sukari Presbyterian Academy has said children who did not enrol for online studies will not be accepted back to school.

Sukari Presbyterian told parents not to take their children to the school.

Source: UGC

Shem Maingi, one of the parents whose child did not do the online learning for the past five months said he received a message from the school informing him about the development.

Speaking to Citizen TV, Maingi said the message indicated he was to pick a letter showing his child was no longer a pupil in the institution.

However, the school cowed when Maingi and other parents who received similar messages showed up with the media in tow.

Magoha ordered for the reopening of schools. Photo: Daily Nation.

Source: Facebook

"I came here to pick a letter but I was not issued with it," Maingi said.

The school demanded the parents to newly-register their children and prove they can pay all the school fees asked by the private institution.

This is despite Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha stating learners will pick up their studies from where they left it in March when schools were closed.

Phased reopening

In a statement, Magoha said the reopening of Class Eight, Grade Four and Form Four learners on Monday, October 12, learners will be used a guideline to see how the situation will play out.

If things go well, he said meticulous consultation will be made to provide directions on the resumption of learning for other students and pupils.

Magoha also clarified that the government will buy face masks for needy learners and urged parents to buy the protective gear for their children.

The Kenya Certificate of Primary Examinations (KCPE) examinations will start on March 22, 2021, and end on March 24, 2021.

The Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams will kick off on March 25, 2021, and end on April 16, 2021.

"All teachers are encouraged to continuously provide psychological and spiritual support to learners and school support staff during the duration of the current pandemic," read a statement from the Ministry of Education on Tuesday.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration told coronavirus vaccine developers on Tuesday it wants at least two months of safety data before authorizing emergency use, a requirement that would likely push any U.S. vaccine availability past the Nov. 3 presidential election.

A senior administration official confirmed the White House had approved the plan, which undercuts President Donald Trump's hopes of getting a vaccine before voters go to polls. Trump voiced his displeasure in a Twitter post late on Tuesday: "New FDA Rules make it more difficult for them to speed up vaccines for approval before Election Day. Just another political hit job!"

The FDA released the guidance laying out more stringent recommendations for drugmakers hoping to apply for an emergency use authorization (EUA) for their experimental vaccines. The New York Times reported on Monday that the guidelines had been blocked by the White House. The senior administration official said there he had been no holdup of the guidance, which underwent normal regulatory review.

The move is the latest effort by U.S. officials to play down politics around the vaccine and assure public safety. "Being open and clear about the circumstances under which the issuance of an emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine would be appropriate and is critical to building public confidence and ensuring the use of COVID-19 vaccines once available," Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA division responsible for approving vaccines, said in a statement.

The White House could still force authorization of a vaccine without that additional safety data. Doing so would put it in open disagreement with the FDA and its career scientists, and add to the perception that politics was playing a role in pushing out a vaccine.

If the agency follows its own guidelines, it is unlikely to authorize a vaccine before sometime in late November. It wants two months of data from half of a trial's volunteers. Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech are expected to be the first to announce results from a late-stage U.S. clinical trial.

About half the volunteers in the 44,000-subject Phase III trial had received the second dose of the two-shot vaccine by late September. Pfizer had previously said it expected to release efficacy data as early as this month and provide FDA with safety data, including the median of two months' safety data after the second dose, on a rolling basis.

The head of the U.S. government's Operation Warp Speed vaccine development program said on Tuesday efficacy data on one or two vaccines will be available within the next month or two, and that there should be enough supply to immunize 30 million people during November and December.

Moderna Inc appears likely to be the second company after Pfizer that will have U.S. trial data available for an EUA review. Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla tweeted on Tuesday that the company had not discussed the FDA's standards with the White House, saying that could compromise the agency's independence.

The FDA's "public servants are known for their high integrity and scientific expertise and we have full faith in their ability to set appropriate standards for the approval of a COVID vaccine or treatment," Bourla said. The FDA expects to hold separate meetings of its vaccine advisory committee before issuing an emergency use authorization for any experimental shot.

Also read: SJM urges PM Modi to cancel Gilead's patent on COVID-19 drug Remdesivir

Also read: COVID-19 pandemic: Chinese experimental vaccine appears safe in early stage trials

Also read: COVID-19 vaccine likely to be ready by 2020-end: WHO chief
A school matron who gave her life to help protect Jewish pupils during the Holocaust must never be forgotten, the Princess Royal has said.

Jane Haining was matron of the Scottish Mission girls boarding school in Budapest, Hungary, from 1932-1944 and refused to abandon the Jewish girls in her care, many of whom were orphans.

She sheltered them for more than four years until she was arrested and eventually taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, where she died at the age of 47 six months before it was liberated in 1945.

Miss Haining will be the subject of an online lecture hosted by St Columbas Church in London on Wednesday evening, delivered by Mary Miller who has written a book about her.

Jane Haining with girls from the Scottish Mission School in Budapest, Hungary (Church of Scotland/PA)

Anne, patron of the Scots in London Association, said: Jane Haining is an inspirational subject whose devotion to duty is a lesson to us all.

Janes determination and resolution in looking after her young charges at the Scottish Mission School in Budapest, at the eventual cost of her own life, is an example of service over self that deserves to be told and remembered.

The lecture by Mary Miller, who herself has looked after deprived children in Glasgow, will be poignant but we can take heart from the knowledge that Janes life will be honoured.

The lecture, entitled An Inspiring Tale of Quiet Heroism, has been organised in partnership with the Scots in London Association and will feature music performed by violinists Adam Romer and Kirsty Lovie.

They are Hungarian and Scottish respectively and members of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Miss Haining, who grew up in Dunscore near Dumfries, was posthumously awarded a Heroine of the Holocaust medal and named Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

She is the first solo woman to be the subject of the Caledonian Lecture.

The Princess Royal is patron of the Scots in London Association (Steve Parsons/PA)

Reverend Angus MacLeod, minister of St Columbas Church, said: The story of Jane Haining, an ordinary yet extraordinary Christian woman, is incredibly moving and inspiring.

Story continues

It was decided that it would be fitting that the Caledonian Lecture this year focused on her because 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

I am very pleased that, despite the restrictions of the Covid-19 lockdown, we are able to host it at St Columbas with Mary Miller speaking to us from her home in Scotland.

The tunes that the Scottish and Hungarian musicians will perform are so poignant, vibrant and joyful, I think they are an appropriate expression of Janes story.

Speaking after the launch of her book  Jane Haining: A Life Of Love And Courage  last year, Mrs Miller said: She did not compromise, and in our own difficult times there is a challenge there for all ordinary people tempted to look away from evil and find reasons to say there is nothing we can do.

Jane Haining reminds us that there is always something we can do.
The World Bank, together with the European Commission, will facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience between the coal regions of Ukraine and Poland.

"The exchange is part of the program that assists countries in developing and implementing inclusive strategies for transitioning to low-carbon energy systems," the World Bank said in a press release.

"Representatives from Ukraine's public and private sectors will visit numerous Polish cities, including several in Silesia  Poland's main coal region. During these visits, they will meet with counterparts to share their experiences addressing the transformation challenges specific to the coal mining regions, including regulatory, organizational, economic, social, spatial, and environmental issues," the report says.

"Our new cooperation with the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management in the area of 'just transition' is a reflection of two basic objectives of the World Bank's current program in Poland - supporting green growth and generating knowledge for the benefit of other countries, Marcus Heinz, Resident Representative of the World Bank for Poland and the Baltic States, said.

As reported, the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine is at the final stage of developing the concept of reforming the coal industry and an action plan, and is also involved in the development of the national program for the transformation of the coal industry until 2030. In particular, a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of coal enterprises is being formed, the economic situation in the areas that are subject to transformation is analyzed.
WASHINGTON  Two notorious Islamic State detainees from Britain were brought to the United States on Wednesday to face federal charges over accusations that they jailed and tortured Western hostages, some of whom were beheaded, Justice Department officials said.

The transfer is a milestone in the saga of the two men, El Shafee Elsheikh, 32, and Alexanda Kotey, 36, who are half of an ISIS cell of four Britons called the Beatles  a nickname bestowed by their victims because of their accents  and known for their extreme brutality.

The American government has linked the group to the kidnapping and abuse of more than two dozen hostages, some of whom were ultimately beheaded for propaganda videos, including the journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

The British extremists repeatedly beat the hostages they kept imprisoned in Raqqa, Syria, formerly the Islamic States self-declared capital, according to prosecutors. They subjected their hostages to abuses including waterboarding, mock executions, painful stress positions, food deprivation, beatings with sticks lasting 20 minutes or longer, chokeholds causing blackouts and electric shocks. They also forced their hostages to fight each other and to witness murders, court papers said.
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A severely mentally ill woman who was raped while isolating for coronavirus in an Italian psychiatric clinic has fallen pregnant.

The young woman, whose condition means she is physically disabled, was attacked in the Sicilian town of Troina in April at the height of the region's 'red zone' lockdown.

Police have been questioning doctors, nurses and other staff at the Oasi Maria SS, a specialist clinic and research institute in the province of Enna, to discover what happened.

It has not yet been ruled out that an 'outsider' assaulted the woman, despite the clinic being closed to visitors during the lockdown.

Police have been questioning doctors, nurses and other staff at the Oasi Maria SS (pictured), a specialist clinic and research institute in the province of Enna to discover what happened

It is not clear why the attack had not been reported before now.

The prosecutor's office in Enna has opened a case on suspicion of sexual violence, ANSA reported.

It comes after dire figures were released on the levels of violence perpetrated against women during the world's lockdowns.

A joint investigation by Panorama and Women's Aid in the United Kingdom published in August, found that two-thirds of victims in abusive relationships suffered more during the pandemic.

In the first seven weeks of lockdown there was one domestic abuse call every 30 seconds and 75% of victims have also said the restrictions made it harder for them to get away from their attackers.

The figures were obtained from police forces under the Freedom of Information act.
Temenos, the banking software company, today announced that Saudi Arabian digital wallet, STCPay, has selected cloud-native, cloud-agnostic Temenos Payments and Temenos Transact running on a private cloud to achieve exponential growth and expand its digital payments capabilities.

Real-time, API-first Temenos Transact and Temenos Payments will provide a single, digital platform on which STCPay can rapidly create and update innovative digital services for retail customers. Using Temenos cloud and microservices-based technology to power innovation and transform customer journeys, STCPay aims to double its customer base by 2021. Longer-term, the business aims to establish itself as the leading digital challenger in the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

STCPay, a subsidiary of STC Group, is Saudi Arabias largest and leading mobile wallet app. Launched in late 2018 by STC, the digital challenger aims to provide new, innovative technologies and digital payment experiences to customers and facilitate transactions that are quick, easy, and secure.

Temenos Payments provides Straight-Through Processing (STP) rates over 99% and will underpin STCPays digital customer experiences. Temenos Payments will be integrated with Temenos Transact, the next-generation core banking product, and deployed on private cloud to provide unparalleled resilience and scalability to support skyrocketing volumes of digital payments. This will provide STCPay with timely benefits in light of regional trends towards cashless banking as a result of COVID-19. According to the recent Economist Intelligence Unit report (https://bit.ly/34rH6JB) released by Temenos, 60% of banking executives in MEA think cash will dip below 5% of retail transactions in the next five years.

The new platform will drive significant cost efficiency gains and enable sustainable business growth. According to the Temenos Value Benchmark, a strategic, survey-based program providing an in-depth analysis of how software capabilities impact a banks profitability, banks with STP rates over 90% can achieve up to 8x higher revenues per customer, compared with banks with lower STP rates.

Temenos Saudi model bank will deliver pre-configured, country-specific capabilities and regulatory compliance to support STCPay to roll out its new platform in the shortest possible timeframe and at minimum cost. With model bank capabilities for more than 150 countries, Temenos software will support the seamless onboarding of new geographies across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and scale as STCPays business grows.

Temenos is collaborating closely with Red Hat to create a standardized cloud operating model for STCPay based on a collection of enterprise-grade, open-source technologies, including Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat Quay, Red Hat AMQ Streams, and Red Hat Storage. The collaboration will provide STCPay with the combined strengths of market-leading cloud-native and open source technologies.

Ahmed Alenazi, Chief Executive Officer, STCPay, commented: We are excited to partner with Temenos and unlock the vast opportunities of digital payments in the Middle East. Temenos brings to this partnership 20 years experience deploying advanced banking software and delivering next-generation digital experiences in Saudi Arabia. With Temenos market-leading technology and rich banking functionality, we aim to redefine payments, offering outstanding digital experiences that integrate into our customers lifestyles.

Abdulrahman Tawfiq Almutairi, CIO, STCPay, added: Temenos cutting-edge cloud and microservices-based architecture perfectly aligns to STCPays growth and innovation strategies. Temenos unique architecture will power DevOps and support continuous innovation by facilitating faster deployments that reduce time to market for new products and services. This agile technology will enable us to remain at the forefront of digital payments innovation by helping us to quickly respond to the evolving market landscape and needs of our customers.

Jean-Paul Mergeai, Managing Director, Middle-East & Africa Temenos, said: It is a true privilege to embark on this exciting partnership with STCPay. We are seeing a significant increase in demand for digital payments across the Middle East and Africa region  the COVID-19 pandemic is only accelerating this trend. Our cloud-native, AI-driven software supports the exceptional digital experiences that customers want, but it also provides the business resilience and security that banks need now more than ever. As the only technology provider offering cloud-native banking software in this market, we are excited to deliver Temenos Transact and Temenos Payments and witness another use case for powerful and transformative cloud technology.

Kelly Switt, Global Director, FSI strategy, Ecosystem and Strategic Partnerships, Red Hat, said: Red Hat is thrilled to be a part of this collaboration with Temenos and STCPay. We believe that the next evolution of financial services will be based on open source development principles and technologies. We are grateful for the opportunity to enable both Temenos and STCPay on this evolutionary journey and look forward to being an enabler of continuous innovation.

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he participation of US Department of Energys Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy and the US Development Finance Corporations Chief Development Officer in AOW Virtual highlights the importance that the United States places on fostering relationships with the continent.

When the US government launched its Prosper Africa initiative in December 2018, it did so with a vision to open markets for American businesses, grow Africas middle class and promote youth employment opportunities. Securing the continents energy future  either with its own resources or imported ones  and facilitating electrification for those Africans not yet connected to the grid have been crucial to the initiative since its inception.

Notably, the US Export-Import Bank recently approved a direct loan of up to $5 billion to support the development and construction of an integrated LNG project in northern Mozambique, demonstrating American appetite for developing natural gas as a key bridging fuel.

The question of what will power Africas energy transition will be top of the agenda at AOW Virtual, as the online conference hosts the The Energy Debate: Natural Gas Vs Renewables on October 7th (16:30 GMT+1). Among the eight participant  who hail from organisations including EDF, BP and Nigeria LNG  will be US Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy, Steven Winberg and the US Development Finance Corporations (DFC) Chief Development Officer, Andrew M. Herscowitz.

Both participants have a wealth of experience to offer. Preceding his current role, Herscowitz was Coordinator of the US Governments Power Africa program, where he grew the initiative to become the worlds largest partnership for development, with 170 partners and $56 billion in commitments. Winberg meanwhile has built extensive experience in numerous energy technologies during his 39 years in the industry, including advanced fossil energy combustion, coal-to-liquids, fluidized bed combustion, emulsified fuels, fuel cells, alternative fuel vehicles, and carbon utilisation.

What position are they likely to adopt in the debate? According to Assistant Secretary Winberg, it is a mistake to view fossil energy and natural gas as opposing forces. He recently commented, Africa is home to immense unconventional gas reserves, and they also have abundant renewable resources. Its not about using one or the other; its about using both to expand energy opportunity and security across the continent. We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with our African partners to develop and use resources across the energy spectrum.

Herscowitz too is likely to emphasise the importance of driving a sustainable energy mix, telling AOW Virtual organisers that ultimately, what we must do is help Africans take advantage of their own resources using as many technologies as possible. In the same conversation, he mentioned the importance of ensuring flexibility for the use of resources, citing floating storage and regasification units as projects for which the DFC may be interested in providing support.

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Arunachal Pradesh's COVID-19



tally rose to 11,007 on Wednesday as 222 more people, including three Army jawans, tested positive for the infection, while one fresh fatality pushed the northeastern state's death toll to 20, a health official said.

A 47-year-old junior engineer suffering from hypertension died at a COVID-19 hospital at Chimpu near Itanagar, he said.

The patient, who hailed from Kanubari in Longding district, had tested positive for the infection on September 25, State Surveillance Officer Dr Lobsang Jampa said.

The Capital Complex region reported 90 new cases, followed by Changlang (28) and West Siang (23), he said.

Three Army jawans and an official of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are among the new patients, the official said.

As many as 189 more people have been cured of the disease, taking the total number of recoveries to 7,965, Jampa said.

The recovery rate among the COVID-19 patients in the state stands at 72.36 per cent, he said.

now has 3,022 active cases.

The Capital Complex region, comprising Itanagar, Naharlagun, Nirjuli and Banderdewa areas, has the highest number of active cases at 1,584, followed by West Siang (243), Papumpare (161) and Changlang (155), Jampa said.

A total of 2,63,242 samples have been tested for COVID-19 so far, including 2,213 on Tuesday, he added.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Workers in protective gear spray disinfectant to help curb the spread of the coronavirus in Seoul, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. AP



South Korea's daily new infections of the novel coronavirus bounced back to over 100 cases Wednesday after rising by double digits for six consecutive days as health authorities strive to curb sporadic clusters across the nation after a long holiday.



The country added 114 more COVID-19 cases, including 94 local infections, raising the total caseload to 24,353, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).



The figure marks a sharp rise from 75 posted Tuesday and 73 cases reported Monday. It is also the first time since last Wednesday that the country's daily virus tally increased by triple digits.



Health authorities have been warning that the country could see an uptick in COVID-19 cases after the five-day Chuseok holiday that ran through Sunday.



The government urged people to stay home during the extended fall harvest holiday, but around 30 million people are estimated to have traveled across the nation to visit their family members and relatives during the holiday.



Health authorities are especially concerned that there could have been a number of asymptomatic patients who spread the virus during the Chuseok holiday.



The country is set to have a three-day break from Friday to Sunday when Hangeul Day, which celebrates the Korean alphabet, is combined with the weekend. The country earlier designated a special two-week period for toughened virus curbs until Sunday to prevent outbreaks.



Of the newly identified local infections, 29 cases were reported in Seoul and 49 cases in Gyeonggi Province that surrounds the capital. Incheon, west of Seoul, reported five more cases.



The southern port city of Busan added two cases, and North Jeolla Province reported six more patients.



The number of newly identified imported cases came to 20, up 11 from a day earlier. Of them, six cases were from Uzbekistan and three cases were from Kazakhstan. The country's total number of imported cases is now at 3,325.



There were three additional deaths from COVID-19, raising the death toll to 425. The fatality rate was 1.75 percent.



The number of seriously or critically ill COVID-19 patients came to 102 as of midnight, down three from a day earlier.



The total number of people released from quarantine after making full recoveries stood at 22,334, up 251 from the previous day, with 1,594 people isolated for COVID-19 treatment, down 140 from a day ago.



The country has carried out 2,378,073 coronavirus tests since Jan. 3. (Yonhap)


By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state government has vehemently opposed the move to grant anticipatory bail to dubbing artist Bhagyalakshmi and activists Diya Sana and Sreelakshmi Arackal for the assault on controversial YouTuber Vijay P Nair in the additional sessions court here on Wednesday. The court will pronounce the judgement on the bail petition on Friday.

The prosecution argued that if the court grants bail to them it will send a wrong message to the public. It will also inspire the public to take the law into their hands and more such offences could be reported in the future, the prosecution lawyer stated in the court. The additional sessions court - II considered the anticipatory bail moved by them.

Earlier, they had approached the court seeking a bail to challenge the case charged against them. Bhagyalakshmi and activists Diya Sana and Sreelakshmi Arackal were charged of non-bailable offences , Sections 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation), 294b (sings, recites or utters any obscene song, ballad or words, in or near any public place,), 452 (House-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) and 392 (Punishment for robbery) of the Indian Penal Code. The Thampanoor police are investigating this case.

On September 26, Bhagyalakshmi and Diya Sana assaulted Vijay for making derogatory and sleazy remarks against women on his YouTube channel. According to Bhagyalakshmi, they had to confront the man due to the lack of response and action from the police and the Women's Commission on the matter.

The incident went viral on social media after Diya Sana, who rose to fame through the reality show Bigg Boss, shot the incident on her mobile phone and posted it live on Facebook. The incident took place at the lodge room of Vijay at Gandhari Amman Kovil road in Thiruvananthapuram. Later, Vijay was arrested and his channel 'Vtrix scene' was also removed by YouTube based on the state government's request.

Earlier, activist Sreelakshmi Arackal had approached the Kerala Women's Commission, Cyber Cell as well as Social Justice Department, seeking action against him. However, no action was taken by any of the officials so far. This prompted them to take law on their hands.
Its rare to receive a front row seat to the inner workings of a publicly listed company and the inquiry into Crown has uncovered a riveting - if not terrifying - show of corporate dysfunction.

The picture painted so far shows standard corporate risk and compliance functions taking a back seat at Crown. Indeed evidence heard during the inquiry suggests a governance structure more akin to a fiefdom. And James Packer, Crown's largest shareholder and the man who admits to large holes in his memory and shameful/disgraceful conduct (both due to mental ill health), as the king.

James Packer giving evidence on Wednesday.

As uncovered by the inquiry, Crown's ownership structure had been the subject of various Packer-devised plans over the past five years - all of which were ultimately aborted.

Packer had spoken with private equity firms, TPG and Hellman & Friedman on separate occasions about privatisation plans for all or part of Crown. He had looked to engineer a takeover by US casino operator, Wynn Resorts and had spoken to Lawrence Hos Melco about a full takeover of Crown before settling on a transaction to sell Ho a 19.9 per cent shareholding.
A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed that could potentially change the living conditions for several Indigenous communities in northern Ontario and then possibly in other provinces as well.

Besides drastically improving the affordability of living in remote communities, the initiative is also expected to provide numerous jobs for community members.

The Wah-Ka-Ih-Kun Mamo Anokiwin initiative, which translates into Working Together to Build a House, was signed this past week in Thunder Bay between representatives from the Kiikenomaga Kikenjigewen Employement and Training Services (KKETS) and Discovery House.

The project will see Indigenous people ages 16 to 30 from the nine Matawa communities in northern Ontario take part in a three-year training program.

These trained individuals will then help build Discovery House units.

Discovery House units, which have been in the design phase for the past decade, are much more than places to live.

They are self-sufficient, net-zero living spaces that will include solar power, geothermal heating and water filtration technology, and a greenhouse where fresh food can be grown for community members.

They can go in and pop these units into a community and leave, said Dave Neegan, KKETSs executive director, of the units. But they want to address the issue of capacity building.

All of the complexes will be energy efficient (in many cases replacing the use of diesel) and be environmentally responsible.

The whole house is what the government is pushing out, a net zero approach, Neegan said. These will leave no carbon footprint whatsoever.

So far 75 individuals, female and male, have signed up to participate in the construction training program, which is scheduled to begin Nov. 1.

They will be able to attend Smart Classrooms that are being installed in Matawa communities to take part in their online learning. High-speed satellite internet is being provided in these classrooms as are large screens and new tablets, which will allow for interactive learning.

A huge plus is that program participants can remain in their communities throughout the training process instead of relocating for their program education.

Part of the training program, however, will involve heading to CFB Borden near Barrie, Ont. to help build a single prototype unit.

The plan is to start building that prototype next spring. But like most other things these days, it depends on the COVID-19 pandemic and health and safety regulations at the time.

Then, in a couple of years, the goal is to start building a 64-unit facility in Eabametoong First Nation, located about 350 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.

In future years, plans are to build 32 units each in Marten Falls First Nation, Neskantaga First Nation, Nibinamik First Nation and Webequie First Nation.

The top priority is pushing everything we have with these Matawa communities, said Patrick Casey, the executive director of Discovery House. The objective is to do two more phases (in Indigenous communities) in Ontario after that.

Casey said the long-term plan, however, is to expand and have Discovery House units in Alberta, Quebec and Labrador.

We want to be in 25, 30 communities in the next 10, 15 years, he said.

Casey said Discovery House, a company that has its head office in Toronto, spent six years overcoming the technical obstacles that it envisioned would arise with the construction of units. And for the past four years, company representatives have been working on training solutions to make the projects work.

Each unit is expected to provide about 1,700 square feet of living space. But because each facility will also be providing food and be environmentally responsible, Casey said so much more will be gained.

We do have community support for the project, he said. And its designed to address critically rampant issues in Indigenous communities like diabetes and cancer.

Casey also said there is still plenty of education that needs to be done to get people in communities more aware of the benefits of eating fresh products.

Its designed to meet the nutritional needs of the community, he said.

Another plus is community members will not have to pay exorbitant prices in order to have fresh food shipped to them.

Each Discovery House complex is expected to employ 30 people. And each one will be structured as a community-owned, agricultural co-op.

Jobs available at each facility will include ones in construction, maintenance, horticultural and food processing, sales and community outreach.

A manager for each site will also be provided.

The construction program is being funded primarily by the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada.

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Abu Dhabi-based tower cranes, passengers and materials hoists specialist NFT said it has

deployed the radio frequency identification device (RFID) solution to track its large fleet of tower cranes.

NFT had in December concluded a deal with a UK-based company and its UAE local representative for RFID solution deployment, said a statement from the company.

Under this system, all tower cranes, construction hoists and their respective parts and accessories are tagged and then linked to an asset tracking and management software.

This in turn is then integrated with NFTs software solution for Inventory Management and Asset Evaluation, it stated.

If the Covid-19 pandemic has done anything, its accelerated the need for businesses to embrace digital transformation, said a senior official.

"Having the worlds leading fleet of tower cranes spread across 300,000 sq m calls for an automated way of tracking our asset," remarked Plant Manager Amer Sneij.

"Relying on a manual/offline solution was fine 20 something years ago when we had just a few hundred cranes spread across three medium-sized yards, but today with 2,500 tower cranes, 500 hoists, 10,000 plus accessory types and a warehouse filled with spare parts, the old way has become a challenge," stated Sneij.

With an average turnover of one crane delivered per day and catering to multiple destinations worldwide, technology has become a necessity for NFT, he added.

Deputy General Manager Nagham Al Zahlawi pointed out that the objective was to minimise human error and wastage while optimising inventory managing, strategic planning and real time decision making.

According to her, the IoT, RFID, Asset Tracking have become standard in the construction, logistics and oil and gas industries.

"We believe that NFTs strategy for modernisation and compliance with international standards of trading, allows it to be in the perfect position to adopt this technology and benefit from its operational efficiencies and cost saving," observed Al Zahlawi.

NFT said a customised cloud-based system had been developed from scratch to match its process of fleet tracking, storing, loading, inspecting, assembling, mobilizing and re-stocking.

"For example, and to avoid loading tower crane parts on trucks or containers without any missing piece, an automated gate barrier at the workshop only opens when the reader scans all parts on board and signals that its good to go," explained Sneij.

"This is an important feature to add because the worse thing that could happen on site during installation was for us to deliver a crane part with a piece missing, like a pin. It can holt the entire installation, delaying the project for the client," he added.

Explaining the process, Sneij said: "Once the workflow was developed, two tagging teams were assigned to complete the job on the ground. The teams comprised a logistics manager, two logistics supervisors, two welders and four logistics helpers."

"The teams have successfully tagged 200 tower cranes from July to September and aim to complete the Phase One by Q1 2021. The next phase will be to track all construction hoists," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Spike Lee says he would have handled his collaboration with Chadwick Boseman differently if hed known the actor was ill while filming Da 5 Bloods.

Lees movie, which was released on Netflix in June, was one of Bosemans last projects. The actor died in August of colon cancer at the age of 43.

Boseman had chosen to keep his cancer diagnosis private. Like many others, Lee did not know about Bosemans health issues when they worked together.

I didnt know Chad was sick, the director told Variety in a recent interview. He did not look well, but my mind never took that he had cancer."

Lee called the shoot, which took place in Vietnam and Thailand, very strenuous, adding: "It was 100 degrees every day. It was also at that time the worst air pollution in the world.

I understand why Chadwick didnt tell me because he didnt want me to take it easy. If I had known, I wouldnt have made him do the stuff. And I respect him for that.

Boseman also stars in George C Wolfe 's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which will be released posthumously in December in the US and in the UK.

The movie, an adaptation of August Wilsons play of the same name, also features Viola Davis, Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo, Michael Potts, and more.
At a time when the coronavirus pandemic has shifted most of the studies to online platforms, teachers and students are grappling the technology, internet services and other technical glitches that come with it.

Showing a new path in these complex times is a visually-challenged teacher of Koraput, Odisha, who is putting technology to best use.

A recent report by The New Indian Express mentions how the 56-year-old History professor Kamakhi Das is utilising the quarantine days to record audio lectures for his students. The report says that Das has prepared a set of 10,000 questions and their answers on Indian history.

The teacher is assisted by his wife who helps him record the questions and lectures on other topics in the form of audio files. Apart from audio recordings, the History professor also shoots his lecture sessions at home using a smartphone for the students.

Head of the History Department at Koraput Government College, Das has a humble recording studio at his residence where he is putting in his passion to teach his students into use. In the tough times of the coronavirus pandemic, Das realises the value of education and what it means for his students. After recording the lectures, he sends the audio files to his students which includes the visually-challenged ones via WhatsApp.

Talking to The New Indian Express, Das said that the questions and answers which he records are based on the syllabus of UGC-sponsored Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) course. The professor says that the recordings will also help the students to prepare for various State and national-level competitive exams.

With the help of WhatsApp video class, Das also takes online classes for his students. His efforts have helped visually-challenged students a great deal in these unusual times.

For the visually-impaired students who do not have access to braille or audio books, Dass initiative has proven really beneficial. Das had been awarded the Indian Red Cross State Award in 1999 and has urged the state government to take initiatives to start online classes or provide audio books to the visually-challenged students.
John Ratcliffe. Doug Mills/The New York Times via Associated Press

The director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, released a number of declassified intelligence documents on Tuesday that national security veterans said could be part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

The documents included handwritten notes from former CIA Director John Brennan in 2016, shortly after he briefed then-President Barack Obama about US intelligence reporting on what Russian security services were saying.

Specifically, according to Brennan's notes, Russian intelligence operatives were claiming Hillary Clinton concocted a plan "to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference" by Russia during the 2016 election.

The president and his allies immediately latched on to the declassified notes as evidence of an Obama-era plot to undermine Trump's campaign.

But former US officials said Ratcliffe compromised national security and US sources and methods by selectively declassifying the documents to boost Trump's narratives about the Russia probe.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe released a slew of documents Tuesday that former US officials and national security veterans said were likely part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

Included in the documents that Ratcliffe released Tuesday were handwritten notes from 2016 by then-CIA Director John Brennan after he briefed then-President Barack Obama on a US intelligence assessment of narratives that Russian security services were pushing at the time.

"We're getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED]," Brennan wrote, according to the notes, which were first reported on by Fox News. They also detailed an allegation that a foreign-policy advisor to then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton cooked up a plan "to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service."

The US intelligence community assessed with high confidence in 2017 that the Russian government waged an unprecedented and elaborate campaign to interfere in the 2016 election to hurt Clinton and propel Trump to the Oval Office. That conclusion has been corroborated by a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report, as well as the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's meddling.

Story continues

But Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials maintain the Kremlin did not interfere in the 2016 election in favor of Trump and that the Clinton campaign engineered the theory to distract from her own controversies. Putin also suggested that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for meddling in the election as part of an effort to get Clinton elected president.

Ratcliffe first revealed the existence of the information contained in Brennan's notes in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham last month, in which he described a "Russian intelligence analysis" about the claim. Ratcliffe declassified the information despite the fact that the US intelligence community "does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication," according to his letter.

According to another document Ratcliffe released Tuesday summarizing the CIA's intelligence to transmit to the FBI, the alleged plan was meant to link Trump and Russia "as a means of distracting the public from [Clinton's] use of a private email server."

Still, the president and his allies seized on the declassified documents as evidence that the Obama administration masterminded the "Russia hoax" to denigrate then-Republican candidate Trump and, later, to undermine his presidency.

After Ratcliffe's release, the president ordered the declassification of all documents pertaining to Russian interference in the 2016 election and the FBI's investigation into the matter, which included looking at whether members of Trump's campaign conspired with the Russian government to tilt the race in his favor.

The president and his allies have long referred to the politically charged investigation as a "hoax," language that he echoed in a tweet Tuesday evening.

"I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!" the tweet said.

Trump went on a Twitter spree all evening following Ratcliffe's release, at one point retweeting a meme calling for Attorney General William Barr to arrest officials involved with investigating Russia's election interference and the Trump campaign.

Brennan, meanwhile, told CNN's Jake Tapper that Ratcliffe's "selective declassification of information" was "appalling."

"It is designed to advance the political interests of Donald Trump and Republicans who are aligned with him," the former CIA chief said.

Ned Price, a former senior director on Obama's National Security Council, expressed similar sentiments, writing, "Trump installed Ratcliffe to do his political bidding, and that's precisely what he's been up to. But this is particularly egregious bc it explicitly pits source protection (and our national security) against Trump's political agenda. Ratcliffe chose Trump."

Andrew Weiss, a Russia specialist who is the James Family chair and vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment, described Ratcliffe's decision as "total national security malpractice," adding that the information he released was "unenlightening/unconvincing cherrypicked snippets of CIA docs to hype false claim that Russian interference in 2016" was a "hoax" perpetrated by Clinton, Brennan, and other Obama-era officials.

Michael Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, excoriated Ratcliffe's decision as a "blatant political move by the DNI designed to sway the election." He added it "also puts sources and methods at risk" and that it was "hard to imagine worse behavior from any intelligence officer, let alone the DNI. Congress should demand his removal from office."

Ratcliffe and his predecessor, former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, "badly abused their oath of office and responsibilities to this country," Brennan told Business Insider in an interview Monday. Ratcliffe's decision to send the letter was "a very selective release of information that was designed to promote the interests, objectives, and goals of Donald Trump. So it was very disappointing."

He also pointed out Ratcliffe's reputation as one of Trump's biggest attack dogs on Capitol Hill before he took over as head of the intelligence community. Indeed, Trump nominated the former Texas congressman for director of national intelligence after Ratcliffe berated and attacked Mueller last year over his findings in the FBI's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

"He was a very partisan supporter of Donald Trump when he was in Congress," Brennan said of Ratcliffe. "And he's just continuing to play that role as director of national intelligence."

Read the original article on Business Insider
The conviction rate in cases related to caste-based violence has been falling consistently for the past three years, according to the latest data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The question of caste-based violence has emerged recently in a big way after the gang-rape and murder of a 20-year-old Dalit woman in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras district allegedly by some upper caste men.

However, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has accused certain individuals and outfits of hatching a conspiracy to instigate communal and caste violence in the state.

According to the NCRB data, the conviction rate in caste-based riots in 2019 was 18.1 per cent. In 2018, the conviction rate for it was 19.3 per cent and in the previous year, it was registered at 30.7 per cent.

Conviction rate is calculated by dividing the total number of convictions by total cases, where courts ordered convictions, discharge and acquittal of the accused.

In the same period, a fluctuation in the charge sheet ratio for caste-based riots was also observed. In 2019, the charge sheet rate for such crimes was 66.7 per cent, in 2018, it saw a dip at 35.7 per cent and in 2017, it was 65.7 per cent. The charge sheet ratio is calculated by dividing cases in which charge sheets were filed divided by total cases disposed of by the police.

Another notable trend was an increase in pendency rate, from 86.5 per cent in 2017 to 88 per cent in 2018, to 88.9% per cent in 2019. An increase in the pendency of cases means that the number of new cases is outpacing the number of disposed cases.

In the context of charge sheet rates, an analysis shows that of all the 19 metropolitan cities in the country, Delhi has the poorest charge sheet rate i.e. 16.2 per cent, while Mumbai has the worst pendency rate of 64 per cent. Of all the states, Bihar showed the greatest pendency rate of 98 per cent. It also registered the second worst conviction rate of 13.1 per cent. Assam registered the worst conviction rate of 6.7 per cent for 2019.

Another notable national trend that emerged from analysis of the NCRB data was a marginal improvement in national conviction rate from 48.6 per cent in 2017 to 49.9 per cent in 2018 to 50.2 per cent in 2019.
Geneva, Oct 7 : Roughly 10 per cent of the world's population may have been infected with the Coronavirus, leaving the vast majority vulnerable to the Covid-19 disease, the World Health Organization has said.

"Our current best estimates tell us about 10% of the global population may have been infected by this virus. It varies depending on the country, it varies from urban to rural, it varies depending on groups. But what it does mean is that the vast majority of the world remains at risk," Mike Ryan, the WHO's top emergency expert said on Monday.

The world, he said, is now heading into a difficult period as the disease continues to spread.

He noted the surge of cases in parts of Southern Asia, and a rise of deaths across Europe, and the eastern Mediterranean region is cause for concern, a report of the World Economic Forum said.

Ryan was addressing WHO's executive board, where the United States took a dig at China for its "failure" to provide accurate and timely information on the outbreak.

The WHO has submitted a list of experts to take part in an international mission to China to investigate the origin, for consideration by Chinese authorities, Ryan said, without giving details.

U.S. assistant health secretary Brett Giroir said that it was critical that WHO's 194 member states receive "regular and timely updates, including the terms of reference for this panel or for any field missions, so that we can all engage with the process and be confident in the outcomes".

Germany, speaking for the EU, said the expert mission should be deployed soon, with Australia also supporting a swift investigation.

Meanwhile, Alexandra Dronova, Russia's deputy health minister, called for an evaluation of the legal and financial repercussions of the Trump administration announcing the US withdrawal from the WHO next July, the WEF reported.The United States has decided to not pay around $80 million it owes the WHO, the WEF said.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Troopers made a traffic stop about 12:40 a.m. in Harvey when a male passenger attempted to get into the sport utility vehicles drivers side and a trooper saw a gun in his waistband, police said.
The Centre on Wednesday announced that the Indian Railways will run five pairs of daily special trains in Maharashtra from October 9. The step is being taken to enhance ease of movement in the state.

Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, Union Minister Piyush Goyal advised passengers to strictly follow all the health protocols while travelling.

"Railways to run five pairs of daily special trains in Maharashtra from 9th October to enhance ease of movement in the state. Passengers are advised to strictly follow all the health protocols while travelling," he tweeted.

An official letter read, "Central Railway will run daily special trains between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus and Nagpur / Pune / Gondia / Solapur from 9.10.2020 till further advice. These specials run as fully reserved trains."

The details are as under.

1) Mumbai-Nagpur Duronto special daily: 02189 Duronto Special train will leave Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus from 10.10.2020 till further advice and arrive Nagpur next day. 02190 Duronto Special train will leave Nagpur from 9.10.2020 till further advice and arrive Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus next day.

Timings and Halts: Same as the regular train No. 12289/12290 except lgatpuri

Composition: 8 Sleeper Class, Nine AC-3 Tier, Three AC-2 Tier and One First AC Class

2) Mumbai-Pune Superfast Special Daily: 02123 Superfast special train will leave Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus from 9.10.2020 till further advice and arrive Pune same day. 02124 superfast special will leave Pune from 10.10.2020 till further advice and arrive Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus same day.

Halts and Timings: Same as the regular train No. 12123/12124

Composition: 10 Sleeper seating, four AC chair car and two second class seating.

3) Mumbai-Pune Superfast Special Daily: 02015 Superfast special train will leave Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus from 9.10.2020 till further advise and arrive Pune same day. 02016 superfast special will leave Pune from 9.10.2020 till further advise and arrive Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus same day.

Halts and Timings: Same as the regular train No. 22105/22106

Composition: Two AC Chair Car, 12 Second Class seating

4) Mumbai-Gondia Superfast Special Daily: 02105 Superfast special train will leave Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus from 9.10.2020 till further advise and arrive Gondia next day. 02106 Superfast special will leave Gondia from 10.10.2020 till further advise and arrive Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus next day.

Halts and Timings: Same as the regular train No. 12105/12106 except lgatpuri

Composition: 10 sleeper class, Five AC-3 Tier, Three AC-2 Tier, One First AC Class and 5 second class seating

5) Mumbai-Solapur Superfast Special Daily: 02115 Superfast special train will leave Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus from 9.10.2020 till further advise and arrive Solapur next day. 02116 special will leave Solapur from 9.10.2020 till further advise and arrive Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus next day.

Timings and Halts: Same as the regular train No. 12115/12116 except Karjat, Khandala, Lonavala, Madha, Mohol and Bhigwan

Composition: 10 Sleeper Class, One First AC, Three AC-3 Tier, Three AC-2 Tier and 3 second class seating.

Reservation: Bookings for 02189 Duronto special and 02123/02124, 02015/02016, 02115/02116 and 02105 Superfast special trains will commence from 08.10.2020 at all Reservation Centres and on the website: www.irctc.co.in

The letter added, "Only passengers having confirmed tickets will be permitted to board these special trains. Passengers are advised to adhere to all norms, SOPS related to COVID19 during the boarding, travel and at the destination."
Paul Jones

Raytheon Technologies has hired Paul Jones, a US foreign service veteran, for the VP international government relations slot.

He joins RTX from the National War College in Bethesda, where he was deputy commandant and international affairs advisor.

Jones served as US ambassador to both Poland and Malaysia. He also held posts in Macedonia, Bosnia and Russia.

Tim McBride, senior VP of global government relations, said RTX will benefit from Jones deep experience in international relations and extensive knowledge of global dynamics.

RTX, which has annual revenues in the $75B range, was formed in April with the merger of Raytheon and United Technologies,

UT spun off its Carrier air conditioner and Otis elevator operations prior to its merger of equals with Raytheon.
The Spanish government has approved an unprecedented increase of over 50% in the spending ceiling, which will be set at 196 billion. The decision made on Tuesday by the Cabinet paves the way for drafting a new national budget, which Spain has not had since 2018.

The limitation on non-financial expenditure is a barrier setting the maximum amount that ministries may spend. In February, before the coronavirus crisis hit, the ceiling had been set at 127.6 billion for 2020, a 3.8% rise from the previous years.

But the upper limit has just been raised more than ever before, thanks to financial assistance from the European Union. The Spanish government is expecting to receive 140 billion in the coming years from an EU recovery fund, of which more than 20 billion will be available in 2021.

Impact on GDP

Also on Tuesday, the government offered a revised estimate of the effects of the coronavirus crisis on the economy. The new forecast is for an 11.2% fall in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020, down from the governments previous estimate of 9.2%. Madrid also expects to see growth of 7.2% in 2021, compared with its previous prediction of 6.8%.

The revised numbers are more in line with those published by major national and international institutions. The Bank of Spain last month announced that it expects the economy to shrink between 10.5% and 12.6% this year, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expecting it to contract by 12,8%, and to rebound by as much as 7.2% next year.

Fresh coronavirus outbreaks and new restrictions on mobility are the main reasons behind these revised figures, caused by a slowdown in economic activity despite a partial rebound in the summer, when a three-month lockdown was lifted.

Spains economy minister, Nadia Calvino, said on Tuesday that the current scenario is still marked by significant uncertainty, but that high-frequency indicators, which provide a recent, short-term picture of the economy, suggest that GDP bounced back vigorously in the third quarter of the year, around 13%. We are still seeing a recovery scenario shaped like an asymmetrical V, she said at a news conference following the Tuesday Cabinet meeting.

Deficit goals

Another anomaly is the fact that the EUs fiscal policy rules have been placed on hold this year and the next due to the exceptional situation caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Under the EUs Growth and Stability Pact, government deficit should not be more than 3% of GDP, and total government debt should not exceed 60% of GDP.

This means that the Spanish government no longer needs to get its debt and deficit goals approved by Congress this year, in what would have been a difficult vote sure to further delay the drafting of the new budget. Spain is currently under a minority center-left administration made up of the Socialist Party (PSOE) and junior partner Unidas Podemos that lacks the power to get legislation passed without support from other parties.

The suspension of the fiscal rules affects not just central but also regional and local authorities. On Monday, the Finance Ministry gave regional governments a new reference rate for 2021: where the agreed deficit before the pandemic had been 0.1% of GDP, now the limit has been raised to 2.2%. Half of this amount, said Finance Minister Maria Jesus Montero, could be funded by the central government with a transfer of over 13.4 billion.

Montero also said that the bulk of this years national deficit, estimated at 11.2% of GDP, will be covered by the central government. Before the crisis, the government had been expecting to see a deficit of 1.8%. But updated estimates by all the relevant organizations now talk about two-digit figures.

English version by Susana Urra.
A man stands in front of a house damaged by shelling during the ongoing fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, in the village of Alkhanly in Azerbaijan's Fuzuli district on Oct. 7, 2020. (Tofik Babayev/AFP via Getty Images)

EU Lawmakers Urge Action to Stop Turkeys Involvement in AzerbaijanArmenia Conflict

BRUSSELSEuropean Union lawmakers have called on leaders of the bloc to hit Turkey with sanctions for what they call Ankaras destabilizing role in the escalating war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Members lined up to condemn Ankaras actions, calling for the EU to follow Canadas lead by applying an arms embargo on Turkey, and they said accession talks with the country about joining the bloc should be suspended. Ottawa said this week its suspending military export permits to Turkey, while investigating allegations that Canadian technology is used in drones Turkey supplies to Azerbaijan.

European politicians also accused Turkey of sending fighters into the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone and called for an investigation into the flow of militants who are said to be traveling to the region from Syria via Turkey.

The European Commission, the blocs executive body, expressed concern that disinformation put out by both sides in the war could drag in major players from across the region, sparking wider tensions.

In a joint communique issued last week, the leaders of the 27 EU countries called for an immediate ceasefire and warned against all external interference in the conflict.

However, on Oct. 6, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu expressed open support for Azerbaijan as he visited the countrys capital, Baku, for talks with its strongman leader Ilham Aliyev.

Josep Borrell, the EUs foreign affairs minister, said he was really concerned by the development and vowed to continue putting pressure on Turkey to not continue to intervene.

We will keep working, also with Turkey, in order to build a constructive contribution to the conflict settlement and help the efforts to stop the hostilities, he said.

Borrell ruled out any military action on the part of Europe, saying it is completely out of the question, but EU leaders could opt for sanctions when they discuss relations with Ankara at their December summit.

During a heated debate at the EU Parliament in Brussels on Oct. 7, Borrell was questioned by 65 deputies over what further action the bloc can take, with many pressing for harsher measures against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans government.

It seems that many if not most of our foreign policy challenges at external borders have Turkey as a common denominator and cause, said Tonino Picula, a Croatian member of the European Parliament who sits on the foreign affairs committee.

Its latest actions are yet another clear sign of Ankaras departure from EU values and international law standards.

Geoffroy Didier, a French delegate, said: It is unacceptable Europe has not put an end to Turkeys accession procedure. Europe is not a toy. Our values, our principles, the heart of our civilization is not negotiable.

Turkeys role in the war has sparked tensions with fellow NATO members, and comes on top of other disputes with European nations over its actions in Syria, Libya, and Cyprus.

Frances Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told his countrys Parliament on Oct. 7 that Ankaras approach risks an internationalization of the conflict, and he accused Azerbaijan of being the aggressor.

Clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces have displaced half of the population of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region and left its main city, Stepanakert, a ghost town.

Turkey has sent 1,200 fighters into the area, and at least 64 have died, according to the UK-based nongovernmental organization the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The law is expiring on December 31, 2020.

Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, Dmytro Razumkov says lawmakers may consider the extension of the law on a special procedure for local self-government in Russia-occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions late this year.

He announced this on TV Channel 112 Ukraine, answering a question about the expiration of this law in December, and whether the parliament plans to extend the law or amend it.

"Alternative bills that would settle this issue have not been considered by the Verkhovna Rada as of today. As was the case last year, a decision is most likely to be made, if necessary, to extend this law if no additional meetings are held until now, or work on other options seeking a solution to this situation fails, or no other legislative initiatives are offered by lawmakers, the President of Ukraine ... to regulate the aspects of managing that part of Luhansk and Donetsk regions," Razumkov said.

In his opinion, "out of necessity, this will happen towards the end of the year," he said.

Read alsoFM Kuleba reminds Russia of its direct role in Donbas war

The law on Donbas special status: In brief
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - In a brief submitted to the US Department of Energy (USDOE) in Washington, the First Nations of Pessamit (Innu), Wemotaci (Atikamekw), Pikogan, Lac Simon and Kitcisakik (Anishnabeg), have once again expressed their opposition to the development of an electricity transmission line from Quebec to southern Maine to supply Massachusetts.

Claiming that 36% of the total hydroelectric power installed by Hydro-Quebec has been stolen from us since it is produced in our respective ancestral territories from reservoirs, dams, power plants and various other installations , without prior consultation, without our consent and without compensation , our five communities together are denouncing the export project known in the United States as the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) project.

Our American Allies

We have presented our brief to the USDOE which is responsible for issuing the presidential permit needed for construction of the line in the United States. Our brief is supported by a broad coalition of environmental organizations, Indigenous communities, and New England citizen groups, who also oppose this project. Several media outlets, as well as various regulatory and American political authorities, have also taken note of our action.

Just like 2018, again!

The leaders of our five communities stated that they want to seize this opportunity to force the settlement that has always been denied to us and to obtain justice for what is morally, legally and constitutionally indefensible. In 2018, the Pessamit First Nation helped derail the Northern Pass transmission line project that would have cut through the state of New Hampshire from north to south to bring electricity to Massachusetts. Faced with the inaction of the Quebec and Canadian governments, and in the face of this new attempt by Hydro-Quebec to send 9.45 TWh per year to the northeast of the United States, our leaders recall that history could be repeated, again:

"If governments turn a deaf ear to our rights, Pessamit, Wemotaci, Pikogan, Lac Simon and Kitcisakik will do their utmost to derail the NECEC project in return!"

We Refuse to Continue to be Robbed!

Speaking on behalf of his elected Counselor Guy Laloche of Wemotaci declared the following: "Hydroelectric infrastructures are still being operated by Hydro-Quebec on our ancestral territories against the rights recognized by the Constitution Act of 1982 and jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada. Yet the Innu, Atikamekw and Anishnabeg Nations were never conquered. We have never surrendered our rights or accepted their extinction. But we are still deprived of these rights by Quebec and its crown corporation, Hydro-Quebec. Our approach is therefore to oppose the sale in the United States of what belongs to us, without our having a say. We refuse to continue to be robbed! "

Quebec Is Getting Richer at Our Expense

The Chief of Kitcisakik, Mr. Regis Penosway, added the following: "Our community is located at the foot of a dam which inundated a large area of our ancestral territory equal in size to the island of Manhattan (59.1 mi2). Although surrounded by Hydro-Quebec installations, our homes have no electricity or running water and have no wastewater management infrastructure. Our First Nations have enabled Quebec to industrialize and the majority of its citizens to access a better quality of life, but the health and well-being indicators for our communities continue to be comparable to those in third-world countries."

The Campaign in Full Swing

As our campaign to oppose the NECEC project is in full swing and is arousing more and more interest in the USA, other Indigenous communities in Quebec are joining us and several First Nations of New England have announced their support. For our leaders, it is no longer a question of whether the governments of Quebec and Canada owe us reparation and compensation, but rather WHEN and HOW they intend to take restorative action. (For more information, see: http://quebechydroclash.com/)

SOURCE Innu First Nation of Pessamit
An off-duty Bergen County firefighter sprang into action Tuesday afternoon and helped revive a man who stopped breathing after being involved in a car crash, officials said.

While driving on Route 80 in Elmwood Park Tuesday, Hackensack Deputy Fire Chief John Taylor noticed a car crash in the left lane of the other side of the highway and had his friend who was driving pull over their truck. Taylor said he looked into the pickup involved in the crash and could see a man slumped over in his seat, motionless.

After seeing a man with a ratchet furiously pounding on one of the windows of the truck, Taylor took the tool, mounted the barrier and shattered one of the truck windows, he said. Taylor was able to reach inside to the victim and saw the mans face had turned blue, he said.

With the help of two other people, Taylor pulled the victim out of the car, said Fire Capt. Justin Derevyanik. Then, Taylor and a woman began CPR on the man, not stopping until the New Jersey State Police arrived, said Derevyanik. After the state police used a defibrillator on the victim, Taylor, a state trooper and the unidentified woman continued CPR for 15 minutes until the EMS arrived and took over, said Derevyanik.

The victim was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center and as of Wednesday morning was in critical condition, said Derevyanik.

When youre trained and its been long enough, it just becomes second nature, said Taylor, a Hackensack firefighter for 22 years.

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

Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon.
Seoul, Oct 7 : Military tensions have been continuing between the two Koreas over killing of a South Korean fisheries' official by North Korea, as Pyongyang issued threats over Seoul's search operations without responding to calls for a joint investigation, Seoul's Defence Minister Suh Wook said on Wednesday.

On September 22, the 47-year-old fisheries official was fatally shot by the North Korean military while being adrift in North Korean waters, according to the South Korean military.

He went missing the previous day while on duty near the Yellow Sea border island of Yeonpyeong, Yonhap news agency reported.

"Regarding the incident, North Korea expressed an apology and vowed to take steps to prevent recurrences, but it has not responded to our call for a joint investigation and made threats against our normal search operations under way in our waters," Wook said during a parliamentary audit of the ministry.

The communist country warned the South on September 27 not to intrude into its waters in the search for the body of the official. Pyongyang has long disputed the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto inter-Korean maritime boundary, turning the front-line waters into a major flashpoint of the peninsula.

Wook made it clear that all responsibilities regarding the incident lie with North Korea, stressing the need for a joint probe, as the North's explanations differ from Seoul's assessment in key parts.

The South Korean military said the North is presumed to have incinerated the official's body, but the North claimed that what it set on fire was not his body but a floating material he used.

As for concerns raised by a lawmaker over the disclosure of classified military information acquired by South Korean and US assets regarding the incident, Minister Suh said that US Forces Korea (USFK) Commander Gen. Robert Abrams "voiced some concerns" about the excessive exposure.
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Anger last night erupted over Nicola Sturgeon's plans to impose a two-week alcohol ban inside pubs and restaurants across Scotland, while closing bars entirely in coronavirus hotspot areas - a move industry chiefs called a 'death sentence' for hundreds of Scottish venues.

The Scottish First Minister yesterday warned cases have started to surge among the older generation as she banned pubs and restaurants from serving alcohol indoors in Scotland for at least 16 days from Friday.

She told MSPs at Holyrood that the situation was 'better than March', but admitted she needed to take a 'backward step' as she unveiled a dramatic 'circuit breaker' squeeze to coincide with the school half-term north of the border.

As well as a ban on serving alcohol, hospitality venues will only be allowed to open from 6am to 6pm as Ms Sturgeon said without the crackdown the virus could be 'out of control by the end of this month'.

But in five 'hotspot' areas in Scotland's central belt, which includes Edinburgh and Glasgow and is home to approximately 70 per cent of the population, pubs will be closed altogether apart from takeaways until October 26 and people will be advised against using public transport.

Hospitality bosses last night described the decision as a 'total catastrophe' that will be the 'final straw,' for hundreds of venues.

Sector chiefs said Ms Sturgeon had 'effectively signed a death sentence for many businesses' and said the 'real problem' was socialising at home.

The Scottish Licensed Trade Association told The Telegraph that more than two-thirds of pubs, bars and restaurants 'could be mothballed or go under', along with more than half the sectors jobs.

Meanwhile, Mr Hancock appeared to pave the way for a similar localised crackdown on pubs in England as he said that 'outside your household and socialising between households, the highest place in incidence of likely transmission, measured by where people have contacts, is unfortunately hospitality'.

However, a targeted shutdown of hospitality venues in hotspot areas appears more likely than a nationwide approach, with Downing Street still committed to its strategy of local lockdowns in specific areas where the virus has spiked.

Imposing some of the toughest restrictions in Europe, Ms Sturgeon said that if it was 'a purely one dimensional decision' about tackling the disease there would be even harsher action, but she was considering the wider economy and wellbeing.

But it provoked howls of protest from the hospitality industry, who branded the clampdown a 'total catastrophe' and warned a swathe of business will go under permanently.

The extraordinary step - which Ms Sturgeon said would be accompanied with 40million of new compensation for stricken firms - came as Scotland reported more than 1,000 new infections in a day.

In another drastic move that could pre-empt policy in England, national exams in Scotland are also being abandoned for next year and replaced with teacher assessments. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson is currently only expected to delay the exam season south of the border by three weeks.

Ms Sturgeon's announcements will heap pressure on Boris Johnson, who was confronted this afternoon with damning figures showing local restrictions in England are failing to curb cases, with ministers and advisers at war over what to do next.

At a stormy PMQs session, Mr Johnson stressed the impact of the surge was being felt worst in the North, saying that showed that the Government's mix of tough local lockdowns and national restrictions like the Rule of Six and 10pm pubs curfew was the right one.

The backing for 'differentiated' measures in England indicates that the premier is still resisting calls from scientists for a blanket crackdown - in an apparent boost for Cabinet ministers alarmed over the threat to millions of jobs and civil liberties.

But Labour leader Keir Starmer launched a furious attack on Mr Johnson in the Commons, saying 19 out of 20 areas subjected to local curbs over the past two months have actually seen infections rise. He insisted that the measures were 'not working', and singled out the controversial 10pm curfew on pubs saying the government had failed to provide any 'scientific basis'.

As chaotic infighting threatened to engulf the government, allies of Chancellor Rishi Sunak, regarded as the leading 'hawk' on the need to protect the economy, today denied claims he has been trying to shut 'dove' Michael Gove out of decisions on what areas will be subject to the most draconian restrictions.

The wrangling is believed to be holding up the announcement of a new three-tier 'traffic light' system, intended to clear up confusion about what rules apply where in England.

The tensions between ministers was underlined this morning with Mr Hancock telling business leaders that hospitalisation rates have risen 'really quite sharply' and the Government has a 'very serious problem on our hands'.

But Trade Secretary Liz Truss suggested that the current balance of restrictions was 'right' in a round of interviews.

Meanwhile, leaders from four Covid-hit northern cities, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle have written to Mr Johnson begging him not to ramp up coronavirus curbs again - which could mean pubs and restaurants being shut altogether.

Nicola Sturgeon (pictured today) has unveiled a dramatic 'circuit breaker' squeeze to coincide with the school half-term north of the border

The number of daily cases in Scotland has risen from under 300 two weeks ago  when a ban on households mixing indoors was introduced  to see 1,054 reported today

The Scottish government's latest slides show the growing coronavirus case rate north of the border

Figures tracking the crucial R number for the virus also show an alarming increase since September

In other twists and turns in the coronavirus crisis today:

The UK recorded 14,162 more coronavirus cases, with the number of people testing positive for the disease every day doubling in a fortnight;

NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens told the NHS Providers conference that there were 'disturbing' signs coronavirus was surging and the health service will have to be 'agile' to manage the disease alongside normal winter pressures;

Sir Keir hinted that Labour will join Tory rebels in opposing the controversial 10pm curfew for pubs in a crucial vote next week, raising the prospect that the government could lose;

Scientists from the world's top universities have penned an open letter calling for the UK and US to build herd immunity to Covid-19 by letting it spread in young people;

Concerns have been raised over the supply of vital testing materials for a range of conditions, including Covid-19 , following a supply chain problem with pharmaceutical giant Roche;

The number of Covid-19 hospital admissions in England has soared by 25 per cent in a day, government data has revealed.

Sturgeon calls time: Scotland's new Covid regulations in full All pubs, restaurants and cafes barred from selling alcohol indoors for 16 days.

They will additionally face a curfew forcing them to close by 6pm each evening.

Outdoor bars, restaurants and cafes will be allowed to remain open up until 10pm and will be allowed to sell alcohol up to that time.

In five areas of Scotland's Central Belt - which includes Edinburgh and Glasgow - there will be additional restrictions on opening.

Pubs, restaurants and licenced cafes in the 'hotspots' of Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire & Arran, Lothian, and Forth Valley, will be forced to close to all but takeaway customers.

The measures come into force at 6pm on Friday for 16 days until October 25.

Residents of these areas have also been urged to avoid public transport unless absolutely necessary in the next two weeks. They should only use it to get to work, school or for other unavoidable journeys.

Outdoor live events will be banned in the five areas for the next two weeks.

Snooker and pool halls, indoor bowling alleys, casinos and bingo halls will close in these areas for two weeks from October 10.

Contact sports and indoor group exercise for those aged 18 and over is suspended for the same period.

Face coverings will become mandatory in indoor communal settings.

An additional 40 million in funding will be made available to businesses impacted by the new restrictions.

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Ms Sturgeon said that indoor hospitality venues will only be allowed to operate between 6am and 6pm daily, selling food and non-alcoholic drinks only.

Outdoor bars, restaurants and cafes will be allowed to remain open up until 10pm and will be allowed to sell alcohol up to that time.

The restrictions will come into force at 6pm on Friday and are intended to end after October 25.

However, all licensed premises in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Arran, Lothian and Forth Valley health board areas will be closed for both indoor and outdoor operations.

Cafes without a licence to sell alcohol will be allowed to open until 6pm, the First Minister said, to counter social isolation.

People in the central belt of Scotland have been asked to avoid public transport unless absolutely necessary in the next two weeks.

While a travel restriction is not being enforced on people in those five areas, Ms Sturgeon urged those living in these areas not to travel beyond their own health boards.

Ms Sturgeon insisted it was her 'firm intention' that the clampdown will end after two weeks.

'It is our firm intention these measures will be lefted at the end of two weeks... but obviously it stands to reason we will moitor the virus between now and then.'

She said: 'Let me be clear. We are not going back into lockdown today.

'We are not closing schools, colleges or universities.

'We are not halting the remobilisation of the NHS for non-Covid care. And we are not asking people to stay at home.

'So while the measures I announce today will feel like a backward step, they are in the interests of protecting our progress overall.

'It is by taking the tough but necessary action now, that we hope to avoid even tougher action in future.'

Scottish government modelling released today suggested that without 'further intervention' the daily number of coronavirus cases could reach 35,000 by Christmas.

The number of daily cases has risen from under 300 two weeks ago  when a ban on households mixing indoors was introduced  to see 1,054 reported today.

UKHospitality Executive Director for Scotland Willie Macleod said: 'This is a total catastrophe. Scottish hospitality is already on the brink and is unable to look ahead with any degree of confidence.

'Forced closures will spell the end for many, many venues which have no cash flow and will have exhausted their reserves. Severe restrictions to those businesses not forced to close will amount to a closure for many. It is likely to be the final straw for many that were only just hanging on. We are going to see businesses fold and many jobs lost.

He added: 'It looks as though the 40m announced by the First Minister will not nearly be sufficient to support the sector. Any support to underwrite furlough will have to go far beyond the Job Support Scheme, which seems unlikely to be taken up by many hospitality businesses.'

In bruising clashes with Sir Keir in the Commons, Mr Johnson seemed to close off the possibility of an imminent national clampdown.

'Although the cases in the country are considerably up across the country this week on last week, the seven-day statistics show that there are now 497 cases per 100,000 in Liverpool, 522 cases per 100,000 in Manchester, 422 in Newcastle,' he said.

Fears over shortage of Covid and cancer tests after 'warehouse' failure Concerns have been raised over the supply of vital testing materials for a range of conditions, including Covid-19, following a supply chain problem with pharmaceutical giant Roche. On Tuesday, Roche said it had experienced a 'very significant drop' in its processing capacity due to a problem with its Sussex distribution centre in Newhaven, the only one in the UK. It has been reported that the shortage includes vital reagents, screening kits and swabs. In addition to providing these chemicals and parts used in Covid-19 tests, Roche also provides materials for a wide range of procedures including blood and urine tests, as well as diabetic care. It comes days after the Government confirmed a technical glitch meant 16,000 positive test results had been missed, leaving contract tracers chasing thousands of contacts who needed to self-isolate. The Government is facing mounting pressure to increase coronavirus testing capacity as cases continue to rise, with 14,542 new cases recorded yesterday - meaning the number of people testing positive for Covid-19 every day has tripled in a fortnight. Advertisement

'The key point there is the local regional approach combined with the national approach remains correct because two-thirds of those admitted into hospital on Sunday were in the North West, North East and Yorkshire.'

But Sir Keir unleashed a tirade, pointing out that the government's local lockdown were clearly 'not working'.

'On care homes, protective equipment, exams, testing. The Prime Minister ignores the warning signs, hurtles towards a car crash, then looks in the rear mirror, says 'what's all that about?' he said.

'It's quite literally government in hindsight.'

Sir Keir added: 'All the Prime Minister has to say is it is too early to say if restrictions are working but it's obvious that something's gone wrong here, so what's the Prime Minister going to do about it?'

The Labour leader pointed out that in Mr Johnson's own local authority, Hillingdon, there were currently 62 cases per 100,000, and no local restrictions.

'But in 20 local areas across England, restrictions were imposed when infection rates were much lower. In Kirklees it was just 29 per 100,000,' he said.

'Local communities, Prime Minister, genuinely don't understand these differences. Can he please explain for them?'

Mr Johnson replied: 'I wish I could pretend that everything was going to be rosy in the Midlands or indeed in London where, alas, we are also seeing infections rise.

'That is why we need a concerted national effort, we need to follow the guidance, we need hands, face, space, get a test if you have symptoms and obey the Rule of Six.'

Sir Keir insisted that he does support the Government's Rule of Six.

But he struck a starkly different tone on whether Labour will support the England-wide 10pm curfew on bars and restaurants, which critics say is causing more harm than good as revellers merely spill out on to the streets.

'The Prime Minister can't explain why an area goes into restriction, he can't explain what the different restrictions are, he can't explain how restrictions end  this is getting ridiculous,' Sir Keir said.

Labour listed 21 areas where the case rate had increased since local lockdowns. However, the party accepted that in Leicester cases had been higher shortly before the restrictions were imposed than after, and so did not include it in the overall tally. Leicester and Oadby & Wigston were counted as one in the final total because they were originally treated as one area when the government brought in the restrictions

Boris Johnson (pictured left at PMQs today) is desperately trying to balance fears over a surge in infections and hospitalisations, particularly in the North. But Labour leader Keir Starmer (right) said 19 out of 20 areas subjected to local curbs over the past two months have actually seen infections rise

The Scottish government slides suggest that daily cases could hit 35,000 by Christmas without further intervention - compared to around 1,000 now - and highlight the rise in hospitalisations

The Scottish government's comparison of the outbreaks across Europe show that the UK surge is sharper than many others

National exams in Scotland being abandoned for next year National exams in Scotland are being abandoned for next year and replaced with teacher assessments, in another drastic move that could pre-empt policy in England,. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson is currently only expected to delay the exam season south of the border by three weeks. Next year's National 5 exams have been cancelled and will be replaced by grades reached through alternative assessment and teacher judgment, Scotland's Education Secretary has announced. In a statement to the Scottish Parliament, John Swinney said: 'Due to the level of disruption already caused by Covid, and due to the likely disruption faced by some or all pupils and students this academic year, a full exam diet is simply too big a risk. It would not be fair.' Higher and Advanced Higher exams will be pushed back by two weeks in 2021 until May 13, he added. Advertisement

'Next week, this House will vote on whether to approve the 10pm rule. The Prime Minister knows that there are deeply-held views across the country in different ways on this. One question is now screaming out: is there a scientific basis for the 10pm rule?'

Mr Johnson shot back: 'The basis on which we set out the curtailment of hospitality was the basis on which he accepted it two weeks ago  that is to reduce the spread of the virus and that is our objective.'

The UK government's scientific experts have been publicly calling for 'urgent and drastic action' to curb spiralling infection figures and growing hospital admission.

SAGE member John Edmunds said there needed to be a nationwide clampdown swiftly, saying the current package of local lockdowns, the Rule of Six and 10pm pubs curfew were obviously not working.

Mr Edmunds told the BBC's Newsnight: 'These local restrictions that are being put into place in the north really haven't been very effective, we can see rates still going up, we need to take much more stringent measures, not just in the north of England  we need to do it countrywide.

'We have to do a whole package across the country  I would include circuit break lockdowns to bring the cases right down.'

He was particularly scathing about the 10pm curfew, which has been criticised for making matters worse by fueling partying on the streets and in homes.

'I really don't think it does anything,' he said.

Professor Calum Semple, who specialises in disease outbreaks, urged a 'circuit breaker' of perhaps two weeks of harsh restrictions.

Prof Semple said 'a circuit breaker a couple of weeks ago would have been a really good idea'.

He added: 'It's always easier to reduce an outbreak at the earlier stage than to let it run and then try to reduce it at a later stage.

'So, yes, circuit breakers are certainly something we should be thinking about on a national basis.'

Stephen Reicher, professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews and another SAGE member, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there was a 'window of opportunity' to stop the outbreak getting back to March levels by the end of the month.

'I do think it's important to do something because if you look at the figures at the moment, the level of infections is about 10 per cent of what it was at the peak in March, but, at the rate of doubling, it would probably be at the same as the peak in March by the end of October,' he said.

'So the good news is we have a window of opportunity to do something.

'If we squander that window of opportunity, then we really are in trouble, then we really would be talking about going back to March in terms of lockdown measures. But we're not talking about that now. We've got time.'

First casualty of 10pm curfew: 200-year-old brewer Greene King will close 79 pubs and restaurants Hundreds of jobs are on the line as scores of pubs are set to be shut by Greene King after the 10pm coronavirus curfew and lockdown decimated custom The company - which has more than 3,000 pubs across the country - today started a consultation process with 800 employees about a redundancy process. Bosses at the firm, which has nearly 1,700 managed pubs and 1,000 tenanted venues, wants to redeploy affected staff wherever possible. It wants to close 79 pubs and restaurants and are understood to believe one-third of them will be permanent. A spokesman said: 'The continued tightening of the trading restrictions for pubs, which may last another six months, along with the changes to government support was always going to make it a challenge to reopen some of our pubs. 'Therefore, we have made the difficult decision not to reopen 79 sites, including the 11 Loch Fyne restaurants we announced last week. 'Around one-third will be closed permanently and we hope to be able to reopen the others in the future.' Advertisement

At a CBI webinar this morning, Mr Hancock warned that the government has a 'very serious problem on our hands'.

'It is a challenge, and everybody will have seen, from the rising case rates and unfortunately the rising hospitalisation rates which have risen really quite sharply in the last week or so, that we have got a very serious problem on our hands,' he said.

'The challenge is how to deal with this second peak in a way that has as little damage as possible. Thankfully we know far more about it than first time around.'

He dropped a hint that hotspots in the North face tougher restrictions on pubs, likely to mean closures.

'Outside your household and socialising between households, the highest place in incidence of likely transmission, measured by where people have contacts, is unfortunately hospitality,' he said.

'Now obviously that finding is not good news in terms of the policy action we have to take for that sector.'

But Ms Truss suggested the current balance of restrictions was 'right'.

'We're hearing voices on one side of the debate saying do more and we are hearing voices on the other side of the debate (saying) do less,' she told Sky News.

'We are trying to keep the balance. I think we have got the balance right. Of course we have got to be constantly reviewing it as time goes on, making sure that the policies are right for each local part of the country.'

Ms Truss told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I think we are striking the right balance between allowing people to go about their daily lives, allowing them to continue with their jobs, making sure children are at school, which is absolutely vital for the future, while trying to deal with this terrible disease.'

Downing Street also played down suggestions of new national measures but said the Government would not hesitate to act on a 'local basis' if necessary.

'We keep all of the measures we have under review. But we have recently set out a package of measures with the specific intention of reducing the R rate and limiting the spread of the virus,' the spokesman said.

'We are looking at a wide range of data in terms of the number of positive cases per 100,000, also the number of hospitalisations and people who are moved into intensive care units and also, sadly, the number of deaths.

'We have set out that if there is a need to go further on a local basis then we won't hesitate to do what is required to protect the NHS and protect lives.'

The Telegraph claimed that in a bid for tighter control over any new lockdown measures, Mr Sunak wants to create a new committee of himself, Mr Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock, to decide which towns are placed into the highest alert level.

Such a committee would exclude Mr Gove, believed to be an advocate of restrictions, from the decision-making process.

However, allies of the Chancellor told MailOnline he 'is not dictating who should be on what committee' and did not want the 'red' areas decided by just three people.

It comes amid growing discontent on the Tory benches over the government's 10pm curfew on hospitality businesses - with a rebellion expected on a vote next week.

Speculation about further government action intensified yesterday as the UK reported 14,542 new coronavirus cases, an increase of almost 2,000 on the previous 24 hours.

The increase has continued after ironing out an artificial spike cased by a 'computer glitch' which saw 16,000 cases missed off the government's reporting system.

Test and Trace are still scrambling to contact 6,000 positive cases find out who they might potentially have infected - thought to be around 50,000 people.

Along with growing infection data, yesterday's figures also showed a rise in hospitalisations to the highest daily total in four months.

In another blow to hopes the virus is being brought under control, official NHS data shows there were 478 new hospital admissions in England on Sunday - the most recent day figures are available for.

The figure is 25 per cent increase on Saturday's data, when 386 people were admitted the hospital with Covid-19. It also represents a four-month high, the likes of which have not been seen since June 3, when the figure was 491.

Data also shows the number of people on ventilators is on the rise, from 259 a week ago to 349 on Sunday.

The figures from Scotland estimate that its R number is likely to be higher than in either England or Wales

UK government data show that coronavirus cases have been rising among the older generation recently

Coronavirus cases are starting to rise among older people Coronavirus cases are starting to rise among older people once again, government data shows. Whitehall sources say the trend has sent 'alarm bells ringing', warning that tougher action could be needed to keep the crisis under control. Public Health England data shows 30.1 Covid-19 cases were diagnosed among every 100,000 people over the age of 80 last week. The rate has tripled since the last week of August, when it stood at just 8.9 and has risen consistently since. It was 27.5 the week before. Covid-19 preys on the elderly, with top scientists estimating it kills around one in five of people over 75. For comparison, experts believe the mortality rate is less than 0.1 per cent for anyone under 45  and even lower for children. PHE data, which takes into account cases diagnosed between September 21 and 27, shows a similar spike has been seen for people in their sixties and seventies. The infection rate among people aged 70 to 79 currently stands at 20.6, up from 17.4 the week before and 4.6 at the end of August. For people aged 60-69 it is now 34.2, an increase on the 27.5 last week. It has more than quadrupled since the figure of 7.5 a month ago. Cases have risen since last week for every age group except under-10s, where rates appear to have stabilised. Twenty-somethings are still driving the outbreak (95.0 up from 81.2), followed by 10-19 year olds (76.7 up from 53.7). Covid-19 infection data for last week will be published by PHE this Friday, when the government-run agency updates its national surveillance report. Advertisement

But while hospital admissions have increased, the number of people dying in hospital of the virus remains considerably lower than at the start of the pandemic.

On top of that, figures show hospital admission figures are still low in some areas, such as the south of England.

The latest surge in cases has been particularly acute across major cities in the North and Midlands, with Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle and Nottingham all recording big increases  driven in part by the return of university students.

Plans are being finalised for a new three-tier system to tackle local outbreaks that could see pubs, restaurants and cinemas shut in parts of England.

These were expected to be unveiled next week but could be brought forward to the end of this week if current trends continue.

Officials have also refused to rule out further national measures.

In a sign of an imminent clampdown, Mr Sunak was last night reported to be drawing up plans for new Treasury support for businesses affected by new local lockdown restrictions.

This could be a new support package for those forced to close.

However, yesterday the leaders of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle issued a last-minute plea for ministers to think carefully about new lockdown measures.

In a letter to Mr Hancock, the four said they were 'extremely concerned about the sharp increase' in new coronavirus cases in their areas.

But they warned that they did not support further economic lockdowns and urged him to hand over powers to regional leaders rather than imposing restrictions from Whitehall.

Leeds City Council leader Judith Blake, Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson, Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese and Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes wrote: 'The existing restrictions are not working, confusing for the public and some, like the 10pm rule, are counterproductive.

'Instead, local measures, developed jointly across police, council enforcement and public health services, should be deployed to address rising infection rates based on local knowledge.'

Mr Anderson told ITV's GMB this morning: 'We're seeing 2,500 new cases in the last week in Liverpool and yet we're seeing restrictions that were imposed on Manchester and Newcastle not working and the increasing infection rate going up.

'It's about common sense, it's about getting the balance right and about what we can do, what we should do and how local lockdowns work, working with local leaders to get it right.

'There's a lack of consistency, a lack of clarity, but most of all a lack of communication and collaboration.'

Officials are also expecting Nottingham to be placed in lockdown after a surge in cases.

The city's infection rate has soared, with 1,273 new cases recorded in the seven days to October 2  the equivalent of 382 cases per 100,000. This is up from 59 per 100,000 in the seven days to September 25.

The director of public health for Nottingham, Alison Challenger, said current restrictions 'are no longer enough to stop the spread of the virus'.

Other areas with high rates are Knowsley and Liverpool, while Newcastle upon Tyne, Sheffield and Leeds have recorded large jumps in their infection rate over the past seven days.

MPs back Rule of Six in Commons vote with just 17 politicians opposing it despite widespread Tory fury at coronavirus law they fear will 'do more harm than good' MPs overwhelmingly backed the controversial Rule of Six in a Commons vote last night - but Boris Johnson was left in no doubt about the anger on the Tory backbenches. The Covid-19 regulations which enforce the rules on gatherings in England was passed by 287 votes to 17 - a majority of 270 - in Westminster. The regulations are already in force, with the motion simply offering a retrospective vote on it. But a slew of Tories indicated they would abstain rather than support it, using the debate beforehand to attack Government ministers over the scope of the rules. Steve Baker, a former Brexit minister, said he had 'real concerns' about the 'appalling' cost of the measures, while Sir Graham Brady, the leader of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, descrbied the measures as a 'massive intrusion into the private lives of the British people'. And fellow MP Huw Merriman, who is chair of the transport select committee, said he feared the measures would do 'more harm than good.' However, there was little prospect of the measures failing to pass the Commons vote after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told reporters on Tuesday that his party would back the measures. Setting out his opposition ahead of the vote, Mr Baker said: 'I have real concerns about the very high cost of these measures. '[It is an] absolutely appalling set of costs which people are bearing and the anecdotes now [are] increasingly rising of poor compliance, indeed people seem to have a gap between their intentions to comply versus what they actually do.' He added: 'It's not clear now that the benefit outweighs the costs of lockdown. We have to ask whether this set of circumstances is really what we want. 'We're hearing about people who are being destroyed by this lockdown, strong, confident people, outgoing people, gregarious people who are being destroyed and reduced to repeated episodes of tears on the phone. 'This is a devastating social impact on our society and I believe that people would make different choices were they the ones able to take responsibility for themselves.' Mr Brady, who voted against the Rule of Six, said: 'These rules are a massive intrusion into the liberty and private lives of the whole British people and they are having a devastating economic effect as well which will result in big job losses and masses of business failures.' Last week, Boris Johnson hinted the Rule of Six could be suspended on Christmas Day to ensure a family of five can have both grandparents round for festive lunch. He had stressed the Government would do 'everything we can to make sure Christmas for everybody is as normal as possible'. At the end of September, a desperate PM pleaded for Britons to 'save Christmas' by obeying his Rule of Six. But in Tuesday's debate, Mr Baker was joined by other Tory MPs who were opposed to the measure entirely. Bexhill Tory MP Huw Merriman warned the measure was doing 'more harm than good'. He said: 'Now I look for that evidence, but I still don't see it. 'On that basis, I am afraid that I am unable to vote for the rule of six because I just do not believe it is proportionate and that it will actually do what the Government hopes it will do, and I hope and fear that it will actually do more harm than good.' Advertisement

Yesterday, some experts called for tougher restrictions.

Chris Hopson, head of the hospitals' group NHS Providers, urged Boris Johnson to be willing to 'adopt appropriately tough local lockdown measures wherever the virus is spreading in a way that could jeopardise the NHS's ability to cope'.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, tweeted: 'Community transmission increasing. Number of people needing hospitalisation increasing.

'Tragically, more people dying. Options for interventions might be debated but data is clear.'

Yesterday MPs overwhelmingly backed the controversial Rule of Six in a Commons vote tonight - but Boris Johnson was left in no doubt about the anger on the Tory backbenches.

The Covid-19 regulations which enforce the rules on gatherings in England was passed by 287 votes to 17 - a majority of 270 - in Westminster.

The regulations are already in force, with the motion simply offering a retrospective vote on it.

But a slew of Tories indicated they would abstain rather than support it, using the debate beforehand to attack Government ministers over the scope of the rules.

Steve Baker, a former Brexit minister, said he had 'real concerns' about the 'appalling' cost of the measures, while Sir Graham Brady, the leader of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, descrbied the measures as a 'massive intrusion into the private lives of the British people'.

And fellow MP Huw Merriman, who is chair of the transport select committee, said he feared the measures would do 'more harm than good.'

However, there was little prospect of the measures failing to pass the Commons vote after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told reporters on Tuesday that his party would back the measures.

Setting out his opposition ahead of the vote, Mr Baker said: 'I have real concerns about the very high cost of these measures.

'[It is an] absolutely appalling set of costs which people are bearing and the anecdotes now [are] increasingly rising of poor compliance, indeed people seem to have a gap between their intentions to comply versus what they actually do.'

He added: 'It's not clear now that the benefit outweighs the costs of lockdown. We have to ask whether this set of circumstances is really what we want.

'We're hearing about people who are being destroyed by this lockdown, strong, confident people, outgoing people, gregarious people who are being destroyed and reduced to repeated episodes of tears on the phone.

'This is a devastating social impact on our society and I believe that people would make different choices were they the ones able to take responsibility for themselves.'

Mr Brady, who voted against the Rule of Six, said: 'These rules are a massive intrusion into the liberty and private lives of the whole British people and they are having a devastating economic effect as well which will result in big job losses and masses of business failures.'

Last week, Boris Johnson hinted the Rule of Six could be suspended on Christmas Day to ensure a family of five can have both grandparents round for festive lunch.

He had stressed the Government would do 'everything we can to make sure Christmas for everybody is as normal as possible'.

At the end of September, a desperate PM pleaded for Britons to 'save Christmas' by obeying his Rule of Six.

But in last night's debate, Mr Baker was joined by other Tory MPs who were opposed to the measure entirely.

Bexhill Tory MP Huw Merriman warned the measure was doing 'more harm than good'.

He said: 'I do not see the evidence in terms of how this will reduce the rates of Covid.

'My biggest concern is we are ruling by consent, we need people to come with us.

'When people look at these rules, people I speak to who have been absolutely religious devotees of lockdown, they now say I'm just not going to do this any more.

'And the concern is that they won't follow some of the other rules that do make sense that we should have in place.'

He added: 'Now I look for that evidence, but I still don't see it.

'On that basis, I am afraid that I am unable to vote for the rule of six because I just do not believe it is proportionate and that it will actually do what the Government hopes it will do, and I hope and fear that it will actually do more harm than good

Scottish hospitality bosses label Nicola Sturgeons pubs closure and booze ban a 'catastrophe' that will be the 'final straw' for hundreds of venues

By Luke May for MailOnline

Hospitality bosses have described a decision to stop Scottish pubs and restaurants selling alcohol and closing them at 6pm each day as a 'total catastrophe' that will be the 'final straw,' for hundreds of venues.

Nicola Sturgeon set out new measures today that she hopes will curb the spread of coronavirus around Scotland.

But experts in the pub industry fear many businesses face closure under the new measures.

Ms Sturgeon said 40million would be made available for for stricken firms, but the Scottish hospitality industry fears many businesses will go under.

UKHospitality Executive Director for Scotland Willie Macleod said: 'This is a total catastrophe. Scottish hospitality is already on the brink and is unable to look ahead with any degree of confidence.

'Forced closures will spell the end for many, many venues which have no cash flow and will have exhausted their reserves.

Nicola Sturgeon has banned the sale of alcohol in Scottish pubs and restaurants for 16 days under new Covid-19 regulations

From Friday, there will be no alcohol for sale at pubs, and a new 6pm closing time will come into effect

The SNP leader warned politicians in Holyrood today that Covid-19 cases had started to surge among the older population, as she introduced the alcohol ban, which will last for at least 16 days from Friday.

In five 'hotspot' areas pubs will be closed altogether apart from takeaways until October 26 and people will be advised against using public transport.

Mr Mcleod added: 'Severe restrictions to those businesses not forced to close will amount to a closure for many.

'It is likely to be the final straw for many that were only just hanging on. We are going to see businesses fold and many jobs lost.

'The First Minister stated that hospitality was by far the most impacted of sectors and we now need urgent confirmation of the details of the support package and how it will be applied.

'Without detail, it looks as though the 40m announced by the First Minister will not nearly be sufficient to support the sector.

'Any support to underwrite furlough will have to go far beyond the Job Support Scheme, which seems unlikely to be taken up by many hospitality businesses.

Willie MacLeod fears the new measures announced by Nicola Sturgeon could spell the end for pubs and restaurants already struggling due to Covid-19 restrictions

The number of daily cases in Scotland has risen from under 300 two weeks ago  when a ban on households mixing indoors was introduced  to see 1,054 reported today

'We also need a route map for those businesses in the five health board areas across the central belt forced to close.

'We must have a clear plan for their reopening. We cannot afford to be left in limbo. It will just mean businesses unable to plan, employees worried for their jobs, consumer confidence shattered and businesses all the more likely to fail.

'The Government has to move quickly to save businesses and keep jobs alive.'

Ms Sturgeon said that indoor hospitality venues will only be allowed to operate between 6am and 6pm daily, selling food and non-alcoholic drinks only.

Outdoor bars, restaurants and cafes will be allowed to remain open up until 10pm and will be allowed to sell alcohol up to that time.

The restrictions will come into force at 6pm on Friday and are intended to end after October 25.

However, all licensed premises in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Arran, Lothian and Forth Valley health board areas will be closed for both indoor and outdoor operations.

The Scottish government's latest slides show the growing coronavirus case rate north of the border

Cafes without a licence to sell alcohol will be allowed to open until 6pm, the First Minister said, to counter social isolation.

People in the central belt of Scotland have been asked to avoid public transport unless absolutely necessary in the next two weeks.

While a travel restriction is not being enforced on people in those five areas, Ms Sturgeon urged those living in these areas not to travel beyond their own health boards.

Ms Sturgeon insisted it was her 'firm intention' that the clampdown will end after two weeks.

'It is our firm intention these measures will be lefted at the end of two weeks... but obviously it stands to reason we will moitor the virus between now and then.'

She said: 'Let me be clear. We are not going back into lockdown today.

'We are not closing schools, colleges or universities.

'We are not halting the remobilisation of the NHS for non-Covid care. And we are not asking people to stay at home.

Figures tracking the crucial R number for the virus also show an alarming increase since September

'So while the measures I announce today will feel like a backward step, they are in the interests of protecting our progress overall.

'It is by taking the tough but necessary action now, that we hope to avoid even tougher action in future.'

Scottish government modelling released today suggested that without 'further intervention' the daily number of coronavirus cases could reach 35,000 by Christmas.

The number of daily cases has risen from under 300 two weeks ago  when a ban on households mixing indoors was introduced  to see 1,054 reported today.
A fired van driver for the Orleans Parish coroners office has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for conspiring to sell heroin from his agency vehicle for a drug ring with ties to South America.

Rodney "Sugar Man" Robinson received his 40-month prison term Oct. 1 from U.S. District Judge Barry Ashe, whom President Donald Trump appointed to the bench. Robinson had pleaded guilty almost two years ago to conspiracy to distribute heroin. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors on Tuesday dismissed a pending charge of distributing heroin.

Man admits to dealing heroin while he drove New Orleans coroner's van A 60-year-old former morgue van driver for the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office admitted in federal court Thursday that he plotted to sell hero

A broader federal investigation into a Colombian drug-trafficking group ensnared Robinson in April 2018. Investigators used telephone wiretaps and confidential informants to suss out a group moving drugs from South America to Houston to New Orleans, prosecutors said.

In March 2018, federal grand jurors charged several people with conspiring to run drugs from Houston to New Orleans. They added Robinsons name to the case in an amended indictment a month later.

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A summary of the case signed by Robinson recounted how he received heroin from Juan Carlos Mosquera Amari, a New Orleans resident who accepted drug shipments from Houston. Robinson acknowledged he resold the heroin to others in New Orleans.

Unfortunately for Robinson, one of his customers turned out to be an informant cooperating with federal authorities. They arrested him in April 2018 after he showed up in Algiers to collect the body of an overdose victim with his publicly owned coroners office van. The agent who arrested Robinson later testified that he confessed that he sold heroin in street-level quantities from the agency van.

Robinsons arrest not only set the stage for his Oct. 18, 2018, guilty plea. It also led to his immediate firing from the coroners office, where he had been working since 2008.

He has been in jail without bond since shortly after his arrest, and the time he has already spent in custody counts toward the completion of his sentence.
Heathrow bosses today told the Supreme Court they want to press on with controversial plans to build a third runway that environmental campaigners insist would be 'a major threat to our environment and to life on Earth'.

Lawyers for Heathrow Airport Ltd told five justices today that the firm, which owns and operates the London airport, still wishes to go ahead with the project.

However, they said construction could not be completed until 2030 at the earliest, even if work begins in the near future.

The firm is challenging a Court of Appeal ruling given in February, which cast doubt on the future of the proposed 14billion expansion.

The Government gave Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport before the coronavirus pandemic, the green light to expand in 2018, with building of the third runway given a 2022 start date.

But campaigners blocked the expansion at the Court of Appeal in February, after three judges ruled that the Government's failure to take into account its own climate change commitments had been 'legally fatal'.

At a virtual Supreme Court hearing today, Heathrow said that the Court of Appeal made various errors of law when reaching its decision.

The airport said it had always been the case that planning permission would depend on its compliance with carbon reduction obligations.

Should Heathrow win the case, it will delay construction by at least two years, with the airport blaming the move on the legal challenges and pandemic.

Demonstrators in favour of a third Heathrow runway gather outside the Royal Courts of Justice, London, where a panel of five Supreme Court justices are due to determine whether the decision to support the expansion of Heathrow Airport was unlawful

Members of ecological protest group Friends of the Earth demonstrate outside the Supreme Court in London today against the expansion of Heathrow Airport

Addressing the court at the outset of the hearing, Lord Anderson QC, representing Heathrow, said: 'My instructions are very clear on this  Heathrow Airport Ltd does still wish to construct the north-west runway.'

In February, three leading judges concluded that former transport secretary Chris Grayling failed to take account of the Government's commitments to tackling climate change when setting out support for the project in an Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS).

How this is the latest development in 17 years of wrangling over Heathrow Airport December 2003: Labour ministers publish plans for a third runway at Heathrow, saying it is needed to keep pace with other European hubs. January 2009: Gordon Brown green lights plans despite opposition from residents, environmental activists and many of his own MPs. October 2009: As Opposition leader, David Cameron publicly states he will block Heathrow expansion. May 2010: The Tory-Lib Dem Coalition emerges after the election, and rules out the west London plans. September 2012: The idea is revived as an independent commission is set up to look at expansion of Heathrow and Gatwick, and a new airport in the Thames Estuary. July 2015: The Airports Commission recommends Heathrow should get a new runway. July 2016: David Cameron resigns as PM in the wake of the EU referendum, and is replaced by Theresa May - with no decision taken on Heathrow. July 2017: Heathrow scales back proposals for a new terminal to reduce project costs. June 2018: Revised plans with a 14billion price tag are approved by Cabinet, with the proviso that taxpayers will not face any cost. June 25, 2018: Greg Hands resigns from government to vote against the National Policy Statement (NPS) - effectively outline planning permission. But Boris Johnson, who previously vowed to 'lie down in front of bulldozers', is abroad in Afghanistan when MPs vote in favour by a majority of 296. December 2019: As PM, Boris Johnson does not change official policy on Heathrow but says he will 'find a way' of honouring his bulldozer pledge. February 2020: The Court of Appeal rules that the NPS was unlawful as government had not considered its obligations under the Paris Climate Change Agreement. The Government says it does not support appealing the case, but Heathrow says it will go to the Supreme Court. April 2020: The airport says all expansion plans will be pushed back by at least two years due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus. May 2020: Heathrow admits it could be 10 to 15 years before the airport needs a third runway due to the crisis. Advertisement

The Court of Appeal considered the case following a challenge by a group of councils in London affected by the expansion, environmental charities including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Plan B Earth, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Following the ruling, campaigners hailed it as a victory, saying it had 'killed off' plans for a third runway for good and that the project is now 'politically unacceptable'.

The effect of the ruling, which overturned a previous High Court decision made in May last year, was that current Transport Secretary Grant Shapps would have to review the ANPS to ensure it accords with the commitments on climate change.

The Government did not oppose the court's declaration that the ANPS was unlawful and did not seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Lord Anderson today argued that the Court of Appeal erred in concluding that the Paris Agreement constituted Government policy and that the ANPS was unlawful.

The airport said it had always been the case that planning permission would depend on its compliance with carbon reduction obligations.

Should Heathrow win the case, it will delay construction by at least two years, with the airport blaming the move on the legal challenges and pandemic.

The airport's appeal is being opposed by environmental charities Friends of the Earth and Plan B Earth  both of which argue that the appeal should be dismissed.

In written submissions to the court, Friends of the Earth's lawyer, David Wolfe QC, said the construction of a third runway would 'lead to many additional flights over a period of up to 80 years which, by generating additional carbon dioxide (CO2) and through non-CO2 effects could  unusually for a single project  contribute significantly to climate change, a major threat to our environment and to life on Earth'.

The Supreme Court hearing will conclude tomorrow and the justices are expected to reserve their ruling.

A spokesman said: 'Heathrow will ensure the expansion project is compliant with the UK's climate-change obligations, including under the Paris Climate Agreement, as part of our plans to reach net-zero carbon.

'We fully expect to be held to account by government through the planning process.'

Ahead of the hearing, demonstrators from Friends of the Earth and from Back Heathrow, a group which supports the airport expansion, gathered outside the court.

Parmjit Dhanda, executive director of Back Heathrow, said: 'Although this appeal is a technical one about whether the Government took the Paris Agreement into account when agreeing its national policy on airports, the need to create jobs for the future is more important than ever.'

In a statement ahead of the Supreme Court hearing, Will Rundle, head of legal at Friends of the Earth, said: 'Without the Government in the picture, this case has become one about business interests versus the wellbeing of people everywhere facing the impact of the climate crisis.

'The Court of Appeal rightly ruled against the expansion of Heathrow, and we're now here to defend our historic win for the planet.'

A computer generated image released by Heathrow Airport on June 18, 2019 shows what the airport will look like in 2050 following the completion of a third runway and new terminals

He added: 'We are pleased that the Supreme Court will now make an authoritative ruling and remain confident the court will re-affirm that the Paris Agreement cannot be ignored, and all the damaging climate impacts of Heathrow expansion must be fully considered in any decision.'

Tim Crosland, director of Plan B Earth, said: 'The Government has distanced itself from the sacked minister Chris Grayling's position that the Paris Agreement was 'not relevant' to the decision to expand Heathrow Airport.

'That's not because the Government is genuinely committed to the Paris Agreement.

'Its actions tell a different story. But it can at least see a problem in admitting it's not taking the Paris Agreement seriously, given that maintaining the Paris temperature limit is vital to our collective future and given that it is chairing the next round of UN talks at (climate change conference) COP26.

'Heathrow Airport Limited, however, has no such concerns.'

Since the ruling against the runway in February, the aviation sector has been hit by its worst ever downturn, meaning Heathrow now has plenty of spare capacity.

But Heathrow, which is owned by Spain's Ferrovial, the Qatar Investment Authority and China Investment Corp among others, continues to want to expand.

'My instructions are very clear on this: Heathrow Airport Limited does still wish to construct the Northwest runway,' said lawyer David Anderson at the hearing.

By 2030, when the runway could be completed, he said the pandemic would be a 'distant memory'.

A judgment is expected in early 2021.
Numerous beef producers have reacted angrily to proposals to re-define the age of prime cattle as a measure to reduce the sector's carbon footprint.

The National Beef Association (NBA) has proposed that the definition of prime cattle should be restricted to those slaughtered below 28 months old.

Currently, the majority of UK cattle slaughtered between the ages of 12-30 months are classified as prime cattle.

The industry body added that a 'carbon tax' should be introduced for animals slaughtered above that age.

Responding to the proposals, the Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW) said it had received 'many calls from angry members'.

FUW president Glyn Roberts said: "Many highlighted the particular impact the proposal would have for traditional breeds and certain farming systems which are of particular importance to the environment.

Mr Roberts, who runs a beef and sheep farm in North Wales, agreed that the carbon benefits of finishing animals more quickly were well known for certain farming systems.

However, for more traditional systems where animals are finished over a longer period, such a 'black and white proposal' did not make sense from an environmental perspective, including in relation to carbon.

He added: These concerns will no doubt be raised at a joint meeting of our Livestock, Wool and Marts and Hill Farming and Marginal Land Committees later this month.

"While I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of that meeting, I can guarantee that there will be some very angry reactions to the NBAs proposals in line with those already expressed by the Scottish Beef Association."
Doctors said her unborn son likely wouldnt survive, but his now-viral story has inspired millions

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Lacey Buchanan was devastated when doctors said her unborn son, Christian, would have congenital birth defects and might not survive.

But despite these dire warnings, she felt deep inside that her baby would be OK.

At the time, Buchanan was a 22-year-old studying to be a lawyer amid navigating her first pregnancy. And as she balanced her chaotic life circumstances, the prognosis worsened.

LISTEN: DOWNLOAD THE EDIFI PODCAST APP TO HEAR THOUSANDS OF THE BEST CHRISTIAN PODCASTS

As the pregnancy progressed and Christian got bigger  doctors began saying, This is much more serious than we thought. We dont really know whats wrong, Buchanan said on a recent episode of Politely Rude With Abby Johnson.

She continued, They said, Hes probably not compatible with life. He probably wont survive birth.

Listen to Buchanan tell Christians harrowing story to Abby Johnson:

But Buchanan welcomed Christian into the world in February 2011.

He came out screaming. It was just a beautiful moment, she said. He had surgery at 4 days old to put a feeding tube in.

While doctors were wrong that Christian wouldnt survive birth and might not be compatible with life, the circumstances were anything but easy. He was born with Tessier Cleft Lip and Palate, a severe condition with pervasive clefts that can profoundly impact a persons facial structures.

In Christians case, his eyes didnt fully develop and he was born blind, with some noticeable differences in his facial appearance  differences that often spark questions from strangers.

He has a facial difference, Buchanan told Johnson. People would come up and they would ask questions that were just really invasive, really intrusive.

Some have even been quite callous. One person Buchanan knew personally delivered a truly tragic comment when Christian was still a newborn.

She had messaged me when Christian was about 3 months  just saying, I cant believe that you didnt abort him. Look at this miserable life hes going to have, Buchanan recalled.

Over time, Buchanan got tired of these questions, comments and looks, so she decided to put together a video, post it online and print business cards she could hand out with the link for anyone with invasive curiosities about Christian and his condition.

The video features Buchanan cradling Christian as she holds up cards with text telling her childs story  and of the difficulties they have faced along the way.

It seemed like a simple way to divert and answer peoples questions. But Buchanan was absolutely shocked when she posted the video online in 2012 and it immediately went viral.

I woke up the next morning and I had hundreds of notifications on my phone, she said. All of these news outlets started picking the video up  it had millions and millions of views. And it was just really incredible.

Buchanan said the video offered a powerful reminder of Christians inherent value as a human and his worth, adding that his disability didnt mean he was going to have this miserable, pathetic life.

The clip landed Buchanan and Christian in the headlines across the globe. Watch it:

Today, Buchanan said Christian is living life to the fullest and enjoying the typical activities of other kids his age.

Hes 9, he reads Braille, hes taking swimming lessons right now, he plays violin, she said. He has a great sense of humor.  He loves when I share his pictures and videos and stuff that he says.

And she also offered a powerful message for anyone who might be struggling with the complexities or difficulties they face in life.

It doesnt mean God makes mistakes, she said of Christians struggles. He formed Christian fearfully and wonderfully just like every other human who doesnt have his facial difference  Christian is made in the image of God just as every other person.

And she also offered a plea to parents out there  one that will make her life, Christians life and others lives easier to navigate: Teach your kids to be nice.
SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MagnaChip Semiconductor Corporation ("MagnaChip") (NYSE: MX) announced today it will report its results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2020 on Thursday, October 29, 2020 after the close of market. The Company will host a corresponding conference call at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET to discuss its financial results.

The conference call will be webcast live and also is available by dialing toll-free at 1-844-536-5472 in US/Canada. International call-in participants can dial 1-614-999-9318 . The conference ID number is 7584769. Participants are encouraged to initiate their calls at least 10 minutes in advance of the start time to ensure a timely connection. The webcast and earnings release will be accessible at www.magnachip.com.

A replay of the conference call will be available the same day and will run for 72 hours. The replay dial-in numbers are 1-404-537-3406 or toll-free at 1-855-859-2056. The access code is 7584769.

About MagnaChip Semiconductor

MagnaChip is a designer and manufacturer of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor platform solutions for communications, IoT, consumer, industrial and automotive applications. The Company provides a broad range of standard products to customers worldwide. With more than 40 years of operating history, MagnaChip owns a portfolio of approximately 1,200 registered patents and pending applications, and has extensive engineering, design and manufacturing process expertise. Please visit www.magnachip.com for more information. Information on or accessible from MagnaChip's website is not a part of, and is not incorporated into, this release.

CONTACTS :

United States (Investor Relations): So-Yeon Jeong Head of Investor Relations Tel. +1-408-712-6151 [email protected] Korea / Asia media: Chankeun Park Director of Public Relations Tel. +82-2-6903-5223 [email protected]

SOURCE MagnaChip Semiconductor Corporation

Related Links

http://www.magnachip.com


Updated 2pm

Fines for people who leave their county for non-essential reasons are being considered by the Government, according to the Taoiseach.

Micheal Martin said a group of high level officials met this morning and the issue is under consideration: "The oversight group met this morning, were looking at the whole area of fines for example in terms of traffic and so on like that.

It comes amid reports that Tanaiste Leo Varadkar proposed a system of graduated fines - which could include 50 penalties for not wearing face masks and 200 penalties for leaving your county - to his party last night according to the Irish Times.

Sources present at the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting said Mr Varadkar told TDs and Senators that the previous system of 2,500 fines for those who break Covid-19 regulations was seen as draconian, and that a system of graduated fines should be considered instead.

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However, earlier today a Government spokesperson said the Government has no immediate plan for a new system of fines for breaching public health guidelines though "all options are under review."

The spokesperson added that fines are already in place for breaches of public health regulations such as organising a public gathering: The law already provides for fines of 2,500 for breach of some laws like organising a gathering or not wearing a mask on public transport."

Garda powers

It comes as gardai have recommenced Operation Fanacht to support compliance with new Level 3 restrictions around the country to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Some of the restrictions in the Governments Living with Covid-19 plan carry fines or prison sentences while others rely on the public's willingness to adhere to the measures.

Gardai do not currently have enforcement powers to ensure people do not travel outside their county aside from essential purposes, however, new powers will be requested if compliance becomes a problem.

Former Assistant Commissioner Pat Leahy has said it should not be solely down to gardai to control the spread of the virus.

I dont think that its something that should be left to the guards alone anyway, I think if you look at the Resilience and Recovery plan, it talks about rapid and targeted outbreak management, he said.

It also talks about the mid-emergency management framework to be implemented in phases 3 to 5, which really is about a collaborative approach to this, a coordinated collaborative approach by the principal response agencies, the Garda Siochana being one.
Congress workers on Wednesday demanded the government to register a First Information Report (FIR) against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Surender Shourie who despite being tested positive for coronavirus attended the inauguration function of the Atal Tunnel on Saturday.

First-time legislator from Banjar, Shourie had tested positive for Covid-19 on October 2 and had accompanied dignitaries including chief minister Jai Ram Thakur and attended the inaugural function.

Shourie was also amongst those VIPs who had gone to welcome defence minister Rajnath Singh at the SASE helipad. Shourie, on his Facebook post, said that he was asymptomatic and had got himself tested on the directions of the Special Protection Group (SPG), and as soon as he came to know about the status of his Covid-19 test report he along with his staff went into isolation.

Himachal Pradesh Congress Committees general secretary Rajneesh Kimta on Wednesday accused the state government of openly defying Covid safety protocol and said that the way rules were violated during the Prime Ministers programme in Manali proves that Covid norms are only for the opposition parties and public and not for the BJP.

Kimta said that the incident of Banjar BJP MLA meeting people at the function is a serious issue and an FIR should be lodged against him for violating Covid protocol as he has intentionally tried to spread the infection amongst the people

A stern action should also be taken against officials of the health department who did not place Shourie under isolation, he said.

The state government had claimed that everyone who will be the part of this ceremony will have to undergo the Covid-19 test, but no tests were conducted.
After 28 days in jail, late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajputs live-in partner Rhea Chakraborty is free after the Bombay High Court granted bail to her. She walked out of the jail on Wednesday evening.

An actor and model, Rhea (28), who was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), has been accused of sourcing and procuring drugs for Sushant, who had died by suicide on June 14.

However, the bail plea of Rheas brother Showik (28) has been rejected for alleged links with drug peddlers.

Justice Sarang V Kotwal of the Bombay High Court, who conducted the hearings last week, allowed bail to her.

She is not part of a chain of drug dealers and has not forwarded the drugs, allegedly procured by her, to somebody else to earn monetary or other benefitsSince she has no criminal antecedents, there are reasonable grounds for believing that she is not likely to commit any offence while on bail," the order states.

Earlier, the Magistrates Court and the Special NDPS Court had rejected her bail application.

She was placed under arrest after the drug angle surfaced in the case during the investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) as the probe was handed over to the apex agencies from the Mumbai Police following an order of the Supreme Court.

Sushants father Krishna Kishore Singh and his sisters have alleged that Rhea and her family members and her team was responsible for the death of the actor and they also swindled Rs 14 crore from his accounts. Later, they also alleged that their son was murdered.

In the 70-page order, Justice Kotwal said: I am unable to agree with the submission that giving money to another for consuming drug would mean encouraging such habit and would mean financing or harbouring as envisaged under Section 27A of the NDPS Act.

The court went on to add: The allegations and material against the present applicant are that on some occasions she had used her own money in procuring drugs. She facilitated procuring of drugs through her brother. For that purpose employees of Sushant Singh Rajput were also used. As discussed earlier, her acts would not fall under Section 27A of the NDPS Act.

Raising some questions over the probe, it said: The main Section which could be attracted in her case is violation of Section 8(c) of the NDPS Act, which is made punishable under Section 20 or Section 22. In that case, it is necessary for the investigating agency to show that her activities or contravention involved commercial quantity of a narcotic drug or psychotropic substance. The investigation did not reveal any recovery either from the applicant or from the house of Sushant Singh Rajput. It is their own case that the drugs were already consumed and hence, there was no recovery.

Rhea's counsel Satish Maneshinde said that truth and justice have prevailed. "The arrest and custody of Rhea was totally unwarranted and beyond the reach of law....the hounding and witchhunt of three central agencies CBI, ED and NCB should come to an end," he said.
Over 4 in 10 American Christians say Bible is ambiguous on abortion

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Over four in 10 American Christians believe the Bible is ambiguous on abortion, according to the Cultural Research Center of Arizona Christian University.

The findings, released Tuesday, are part of the CRC's American Worldview Inventory 2020 survey.

Conducted by CRC Director of Research George Barna, a noted evangelical pollster, the report found that 44% of respondents said they believe the Bible is ambiguous in its teaching about abortion, while 34% said abortion is morally acceptable if it spares the mother from financial or emotional discomfort or hardship.

Barna said in a statement that the findings on opinions about abortion were part of a broader departure from biblical truth by self-identified American Christians.

The irony of the reshaping of the spiritual landscape in America is that it represents a post-Christian reformation driven by people seeking to retain a Christian identity, said Barna.

Unfortunately, the theology of this reformation is being driven by American culture rather than biblical truth.

The report also found that 34% of self-identified Christians reject the idea that marriage is defined as being between one man and one woman and that 40% accept lying as morally acceptable if it advances personal interests or protect ones reputation.

Data for the CRC report drew from a survey of 2,000 U.S. adults conducted in January, with an approximate margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

There has been much debate over whether the Bible prohibits abortion.

The apologetics website Got Questions explains that there are numerous teachings in Scripture that make it abundantly clear what Gods view of abortion is.

Jeremiah 1:5 tells us that God knows us before He forms us in the womb. Psalm 139:13-16 speaks of Gods active role in our creation and formation in the womb, stated the site.

Exodus 21:22-25 prescribes the same penaltydeathfor someone who causes the death of a baby in the womb as for someone who commits murder. This clearly indicates that God considers a baby in the womb to be just as much of a human being as a full-grown adult.

Pro-abortion advocates, such as Joyce Arthur of the Pro-Choice Action Network, have argued that the Bible clearly states that life and personhood begins with breath. This argument has appeared on abortion clinic websites and promotional materials in response to religious objections to abortion.

The Hebrew word for human being or living soul is nephesh, which is also the word for breathing. Nephesh occurs over 700 times in the Bible as the identifying factor in human life, Arthur wrote in a piece first published in 1989.

Obviously, fetuses do not [breathe] and therefore cannot be considered as human beings according to the Bible.

Since March, the CRC has been releasing reports from the American Worldview Inventory 2020, focusing on different worldview topics and how self-identified Christians perceive them.

For example, a report released on Aug. 19 found that 98% of respondents said they prefer socialism over capitalism and did not subscribe to a biblical worldview.

By contrast, 83% of those who hold a biblical worldview responded that they supported capitalism over socialism and also a limited view of the size and scope of government.

Another report, released in June, found that 39% said they agreed with the statement human life is sacred, while 69% of respondents said people were basically good. The researchers noted that it was a decline of "14 percentage points from 83% of Americans in the past 30 years." They hailed it as a "possible bright spot" in the study, showing that fewer people were believing a non-biblical view of humanity.

The findings also revealed that 56% of Americans believe that "human beings are created by God, and made in His image, but are fallen and in need of redemption."
A single mother who is showered with gifts and given a 2,000 monthly allowance by toyboys has opened up about her life as a sugar baby after ditching conventional romance.

Mother-of-two Stella Smith, 44, was furloughed in March from her job as an events planner and decided to find some companionship on Seeking Arrangement, a network that connects ambitious women with wealthy suitors.

Within a few days of having joined Stella, who lives in Brent, north-west London, was flooded with more than 100 messages.

She has since arranged 58 dates and been on 20, saying she was surprised by how young some of the sugar daddies have been.

Within a few days of having signed up to the dating site seekingarrangement.com, Stella Smith, 44, from London received more than 100 messages from potential suitors

After thinking about where past relationships went wrong, Stella realised she wanted to try dating men who were more established and successful

Stella said: 'Previously, if I thought of a sugar daddy, I'd picture a rich old man surrounded by beautiful young girls.

'But it's surprised me that most of the men I've met through the site have been younger than me  some by up to 10 years.

'They are established, handsome guys, who want a drama-free life and are willing to pay any money for that. They don't want demands or pressures, but they are willing to support me and share what they have.'

Stella was originally born in Hungary and split from her husband when her children were younger.

Despite being given cash gifts by some of her dates, she wants to make it clear that she is not being paid in exchange for sex and that she makes her boundaries very clear with her dates

Mother-of-two Stella Smith, 44, (pictured) has opened up about her life as a sugar baby after ditching conventional romance

She has lived all across the globe in places such as New York before settling in London six years ago.

Her busy lifestyle meant that Stella, who doesn't have a 'type', didn't have much time to seriously date people.

She said: 'I only ever had relationships lasting around a year or so and I've never had a one night stand in my life.

'I didn't have a type, either. Whenever I had a break-up, I'd want to go for somebody totally different the next time. I kept trying to find that perfect match.

Stella also said that she's always kept her life as a mother separate from her dating life so that her children didn't think she was trying to replace their father.

The events planner was furloughed in March, giving her plenty of time to think about her love life. This led her to sign up for Seeking Arrangement

Due to the coronavirus lockdown, Stella was forced to meet people on video calls to begin with, but when measures were eased by the Government, she met up with some of her suitors at pubs and restaurants

To date, Stella estimates she has received around 2,000 in cash gifts from her dates, as well as being given a 2,000 monthly allowance from one sugar daddy

She has lived all across the globe in places such as New York before settling in London six years ago.

Her busy lifestyle meant that Stella, who doesn't have a 'type', didn't have much time to seriously date people.

She said: 'I only ever had relationships lasting around a year or so and I've never had a one night stand in my life.

'I didn't have a type, either. Whenever I had a break-up, I'd want to go for somebody totally different the next time. I kept trying to find that perfect match.

Stella also said that she's always kept her life as a mother separate from her dating life so that her children didn't think she was trying to replace their father.

After moving to London in 2014 Stella threw herself into her career as well as teaching dance and gymnastics on the side, but after being furloughed she had more time to think about her love life.

Stella, who is originally from Hungary, split with her husband when her two children were small and now tries to keep her life as a mother separate from her dating life so that her children don't think she is trying to replace their father

'I thought over my past relationships, what had been missing and how I could have made them better,' she said.

'It wasn't necessarily about money. I realised I wanted to be with someone more successful. I thought a more established man may be more relaxed and fun to be around.'

She realised that there was no harm in trying out Seeking Arrangement and trying a different style of relationship.

In early April, Stella set up a profile explaining who she was and what she was looking for in a man.

She added: 'I didn't name an exact amount of money I wanted or anything like that. I just said connection was a must, but that I was also looking for financial support.

Unlike on other dating sites, Stella says that the men she has come across have all been courteous to her, even when rejected

'It was quite embarrassing to put all my cards on the table like that.'

Having been on other dating sites before, Stella was worried that she would discover horror stories as she searched for love.

Luckily for her, the potential suitors on Seeking Arrangement were all courteous and treated her with respect, even if she rejected their advances.

Due to the coronavirus lockdown, Stella was not immediately able to meet any of her matches in person and so started conducting dates on video calls.

'Not being able to meet in real life meant we had no choice but to take it slow and get to know one another on a deeper level,' she said.

'It was really nice to have that company and connection during lockdown.'

Once lockdown restrictions were eased by the Government, allowing for people from two households to meet, Stella arranged dates with 58 of her matches, though she has only gone through with 20 so far.

The dates started off with socially-distanced walks in the park before moving to restaurant and pub meets when venues re-opened in July.

She said the beauty of Seeking Arrangement is that she was able to make it very clear to potential suitors early on exactly what she was looking for

The men she was dating would both pay for the dinner and offer her cash gifts for her time.

Although not used to receiving cash in exchange for a date, Stella soon realised it came from a place of love.

She said: 'They would give me 100 as a thank you for dinner or 150 to make sure I got home safe. One man just slipped a bundle of cash into my pocket when I wasn't looking.

'Because I wasn't used to that sort of thing, I had to force myself to take it. It did feel loving, though, not transactional.

'Just like traditional dating, some men that I met weren't as tempting in real life and I had no connection with them, but others, I got on great with and continued to see.'

Though a couple of her dates have been in their 60s, the majority of the men she has met with have been her age or younger, with the youngest aged 10 years younger than her.

'I never considered younger men as an option, but 80 per cent of those I've spoken to and met have been younger than me,' she said.

'I'm more attracted to them than I thought I'd be. They're all extremely handsome, but also mature. You'd never know they were younger than me and I find myself asking them for advice.

'That's what life is all about though  changes and surprises.'

Although not used to being given money for going on dates, Stella soon realised the men were paying her out of love and that it wasn't transactional

Although a couple of the men she has dated from the site were aged in their 60s, Stella said that the majority of her dates have been her age or younger - with the youngest being 10 years her junior

To date, Stella believes she has received around 2,000 in cash gifts from dates, with one sugar daddy giving her a 2,000 monthly allowance.

However, she is keen to stress that she is not exchanging sex for money and that what she does is different from being an escort because she is simply looking for companionship.

She said: 'I've never felt pressure to sleep with the men I've met. They don't expect it, either  they don't even expect a kiss.

'I'm a very friendly and warm person, but I've also been careful to make my boundaries very clear.'

The mother-of-two likes to refer to her potential suitors as 'arrangements' rather than 'relationships' but stresses that what she does is very different to being an escort

Stella hopes that by sharing her own experience that other people will be less quick to be judgemental about non-conventional dating

Stella describes her new love life as a series of 'arrangements' rather than 'relationships' and she hopes that by sharing her own experience it will encourage other people not to be so judgemental of non-conventional dating.

She said: 'I've met exceptional men that I wouldn't otherwise have crossed paths with.

'The good thing about Seeking Arrangement is that you put all your cards on the table and talk about exactly what you want from a relationship early on. There are couples who've been married for years and haven't had that conversation.

'I found traditional dating almost like a big shopping mall, with so much on offer that you don't know where to look. This is much more exclusive.'
Dr. Sean Conley, physician to President Trump, briefs reporters at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 3. (Associated Press)

To the editor: President Trump's "cagey doctors" have an attitude problem that has permeated our government over the last three and a half years. What would happen if this arrogance was turned back on these physicians if the president had a sudden relapse? ("The president's COVID-19 cover-up continues," editorial, Oct. 6)

The stage is set for the deadly inflammatory phase that is still possible in the next week. The use of the steroid dexamethasone when it is not essential can have unintended consequences: activation of other viral and bacterial infections, demineralization of bone and, curiously, promoting abnormal behavior, including psychosis. Remdesivir is also not an innocuous drug.

The president appeared to respond quickly to the treatment rendered. Caution is still the order of the day as he is not quite out of danger.

That President Trump is now back in the White House requires continued standards of quarantine. His physicians should make that crystal clear.

Jerome P. Helman, MD, Venice

..

To the editor: Trump is being treated with systemic corticosteroids and is therefore unfit in my opinion to govern and retain the power to order a nuclear attack.

Steroids can induce significant psychological side effects that include mania, psychotic or mixed affective states, cognitive deficits and minor psychiatric disturbances such as irritability, anxiety and euphoria. They can impair judgment.

Trump's reckless joy ride in a sport utility vehicle outside the hospital this weekend illustrated poor judgement that may have been caused by the medications he is receiving. The prudent thing for him to do is transfer his powers to Vice President Mike Pence while the steroids are affecting him.

Itzhak Brook, MD, Washington

The writer is a professor of pediatric medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine.

..

To the editor: Trump left the hospital while he was quarantined. This type of action is reckless and irresponsible. By doing so, he had exposed his entourage to the virus, even if they were using protective equipment.

Story continues

Furthermore, his physicians broke protocol by allowing a highly contagious patient to leave the hospital.

In a condition like this, we physicians typically demand that patients sign an affidavit stating they are leaving the premises against medical advice. This emphasizes the risk to the patient and relieves us of responsibility.

A hospital could lose its accreditation for violating such a sacred tenet of medical practice.

David S. Cantor, MD, Los Angeles

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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JUNO BEACH, Fla., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NEE) today announced that it plans to report third-quarter 2020 financial results before the opening of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020, in a news release to be posted on the company's website at www.NextEraEnergy.com/FinancialResults. The company will issue an advisory news release over PR Newswire the morning of Oct. 21, with a link to the financial results news release on the company's website. As previously communicated, the company will make available its financial results only on its website.

Jim Robo, chairman and chief executive officer of NextEra Energy, Rebecca Kujawa, executive vice president, finance and chief financial officer of NextEra Energy, and other members of the company's senior management team will discuss the company's third-quarter 2020 financial results during an investor presentation to be webcast live, beginning at 9 a.m. ET on Oct. 21. Results for NextEra Energy Partners, LP (NYSE: NEP) also will be discussed during the same investor presentation.

The listen-only webcast will be available on NextEra Energy's website by accessing the following link: www.NextEraEnergy.com/FinancialResults. The financial results news release and the slides accompanying the presentation may be downloaded at www.NextEraEnergy.com/FinancialResults, beginning at 7:30 a.m. ET on the day of the webcast. A replay will be available for 90 days by accessing the same link as listed above.

NextEra Energy, Inc.

NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NEE) is a leading clean energy company headquartered in Juno Beach, Florida. NextEra Energy owns two electric companies in Florida: Florida Power & Light Company, which serves more than 5 million customer accounts in Florida and is the largest rate-regulated electric utility in the United States as measured by retail electricity produced and sold; and Gulf Power Company, which serves approximately 470,000 customers in eight counties throughout northwest Florida. NextEra Energy also owns a competitive clean energy business, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, which, together with its affiliated entities, is the world's largest generator of renewable energy from the wind and sun and a world leader in battery storage. Through its subsidiaries, NextEra Energy generates clean, emissions-free electricity from eight commercial nuclear power units in Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa and Wisconsin. A Fortune 200 company and included in the S&P 100 index, NextEra Energy has been recognized often by third parties for its efforts in sustainability, corporate responsibility, ethics and compliance, and diversity. NextEra Energy is ranked No. 1 in the electric and gas utilities industry on Fortune's 2020 list of "World's Most Admired Companies" and ranked among the top 25 on Fortune's 2018 list of companies that "Change the World." For more information about NextEra Energy companies, visit these websites: www.NextEraEnergy.com, www.FPL.com, www.GulfPower.com, www.NextEraEnergyResources.com.

SOURCE NextEra Energy, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.nexteraenergy.com


JERUSALEM  In a surprising televised monologue, a senior member of the Saudi royal family and former ambassador to Washington accused Palestinian leaders of betraying their people, signaling an erosion of Saudi support for an issue long considered sacrosanct.

The Palestinian cause is a just cause but its advocates are failures, and the Israeli cause is unjust but its advocates have proven to be successful, the royal, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz, said in the first episode of a three-part program, which aired Monday on the Saudi-controlled Al Arabiya satellite channel.

That sums up the events of the last 70 or 75 years, the prince said.

Prince Bandars 40-minute program on Monday and a sequel that aired Tuesday appeared to be a way for the kingdom to shift its narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without having to put it in the mouths of any current officials.

Prince Bandar, 71, holds no current government position, but he served as the Saudi ambassador to Washington from 1983 to 2005, when he grew so close to the Bush family that he was jokingly called Bandar Bush.
- Italian Exhibition Group has presented SIGEP EXP, the highly innovative project for the Artisan Gelato, Pastry, Bakery and Coffee Trade Show: a new format and new dates to meet the needs of the sweet Foodservice and Out of Home relaunch.

- Live at Rimini Expo Centre from 15th to 17th March and on 18th and 19th with the Digital Agenda

RIMINI, Italy, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- IEG Italian Exhibition Group is ready and waiting on the starting blocks with SIGEP 2021, the Artisan Gelato, Pastry, Bakery and Coffee Trade Show which it will be relaunching with a special edition: SIGEP EXP - The expanded edition" scheduled to last a whole week with considerable physical attendance and a strategic digital offer.

SIGEP EXP will be a live event - an irreplaceable and decisive moment of encounter among traders - at Rimini Expo Centre on 15th, 16th and 17th March with a new time slot purposefully devised to favour the global situation. The following 18th and 19th will feature a two-day Digital Agenda that will leverage IEG's technical know-how through a formidable platform that will make matching between companies and international buyers much easier.

A collective project that comes from listening to the market and the desire to help associations and companies to better meet the challenge of the sweet foodservice recovery.

The companies that were informed of the project yesterday in Rimini will find a light and smart trade show that will focus on business and meetings. Exhibitors will be provided with essential and elegant fittings, defined modules (although supplementary kits will be available) and packages that include digital services, all in perfect balance between physical display and matching, a modality that was experimented and appreciated by the customers at the IEG's more recent trade show events such as VOICE in Vicenza and ENADA in Rimini.

The attending professional public will be able to strategically organize their trade show experience by selecting and saving, according to specific interests, companies and events, take advantage of matchmaking, an agenda modality for fixing appointments, take part in conferences and extend their networking activities. The digital visitor will have highly performing instruments at his disposal to activate chats and videochats, participate remotely in all the events available on the calendar and arrange virtual appointments.

The exhibition area layout will include five event areas and seven special areas, some of which will be authentic new entries, such as the Innovation Gallery, a selection of the very latest products, technologies and services for the Out of Home world, and a Meeting Zone where specifically outfitted "lounge areas" will be available to all exhibitors to hold business encounters.

Vision Plaza, where top experts from the sector will be presenting their visions of the sweet business future, will also be back in 2021.

SIGEP EXP will take place in respect of governmental provisions regarding health safety, regulated by the AEFI Protocol, by the Safebusiness by IEG project and by the GBAC STAR international certification program.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1308853/IEG_SIGEP_EXP_2021.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/723307/Italian_Exhibition_Group_Logo.jpg

Italian Exhibition Group Press Contacts

Press Office Manager:

Marco Forcellini,

marco.forcellini@iegexpo.it,



International Press Office Coordinator:

Silvia Giorgi,

silvia.giorgi@iegexpo.it,

P. +39-0541-744814
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has called on airlines and shipping companies involved in the transportation of exports from Nigeria, to henceforth adhere strictly to laid down regulations.

This was contained in a warning circular by Ozoemena Nnaji, the regulatory bodys Director, Trade and Exchange Department made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday.

Mr Nnaji advised that strict compliance with these regulations have become mandatory, to improve the Nigerian export sector.

The CBN has observed with dismay, the noncompliance by shipping and airline companies to the provisions of the circular referenced: TED/FEM/FPC/GEN/01/009 dated June 6, 2017.

It requires that Bills of Lading or Airway Bills in respect of exports from Nigeria carry the form NXP number in respect of underlying cargoes.

Furthermore, the circular referenced: TED/FEM/FPC/GEN/O1/003 dated Oct. 28, 2019 which mandated electronic processing of NXP on the Trade Monitoring System (TRMS) has not been complied with.

Shipping and airline companies are required to access the TRMS platform, www.tradesystem.gov.ng to generate form NXP numbers for capture on the Bill of Lading for export cargoes, he said.

Mr Nnaji warned that any airline or shipping company that failed to adhere to the regulations would face severe sanctions.

Consequently, all shipments of export cargoes from Nigeria shall be in accordance with aforementioned procedures.

Failure to comply will attract severe sanctions, which shall include refund of the Foreign Exchange (Forex) value of goods illegally exported, as well as Post-No-Debits on all bank accounts nationwide, he said.

(NAN)
Meet the unlikeliest oppressed black woman...ever.

If being black is such a disadvantage in a "systemically racist" America, why are so many white people  particularly professors  getting caught posing as African-Americans? Back in the day when white racism was real and open, African-Americans with light skin were known to try to "pass" as white, a heartbreaking situation that revealed the existence of genuine systemic racism. The 1949 movie Pinky, directed by directorial giants Elia Kazan and (uncredited) John Ford, is a tragedy that illustrates the human toll of the racism of that bygone era.

Today, I cannot think of any cases of black people exposed as posing as Caucasian, but in recent times, there has been a parade of fake blacks, starting with an NAACP chapter president named Rachel Dolezal.

But the latest example is outright hilarious, in part because the professorial perp is as polar opposite of the pose adopted as could be imagined. Meet the "woman of color" who posted on Twitter as "The Science Femme" according to his university's student newspaper:



Photo from University of New Hampshire via Breitbart.

Assistant professor Craig Chapman must have been suffering from indignation envy, pumping out oppression porn, for, unlike some other fake blacks, there was no career advantage in his race fraud. It was purely for the benefit of adopting persecution by proxy. And what a story of poverty and discrimination was fabricated! Via Breitbart:

With his fake account, the professor's "woman of color" character tweeted "I was successful in killing my dept's woke statement on recent social unrest," adding, "it is a toxic ideology that cannot be given an inch," among other statements. The account also referred to itself as a "WOC" (woman of color), and a "POC" (person of color). Chapman's fake Twitter account appears to have since been deleted or removed from the social media platform. An archived version of the account's page shows a sample of the account's tweets. Looks like people were right about @piney_the aka the Science Femme a woman in STEM, aka Craig Chapman from @UNH_Chemistry . I posted some retweets of a description where they detail derailing DEI statements from their dept but they went private. Good thing I took screenshots pic.twitter.com/xqwYKLoU1a  Joel Walsh (@ThankUBayesGod) September 29, 2020

Chapman is now suspended by his employer pending investigation:

University of New Hampshire suspends professor amid investigation into whether he trolled people online, pretending to be The Science Femme, Woman in STEM. https://t.co/yI9Zrax6Wb pic.twitter.com/fMq6SDEprm  Rachel Joy Larris (@RachelLarris) October 6, 2020

In a statement to the media, UNH said that it was "recently made aware of allegations on social media about a member of its faculty." "We are deeply troubled by what we've learned so far and immediately launched an investigation," the spokesperson added. "The employee at the center of allegations on social media is on leave and not in the classroom. In order to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation the university is unable to comment further."

There's just not enough racial oppression to go around.
PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research recently published a report, titled, "Digital Therapeutics Market by Application (Diabetes, Obesity, Cardiovascular Disease (CVD), Central Nervous System (CNS) Disease, Respiratory Disease, Smoking Cessation, Gastrointestinal Disorder (GID), and Others), Product Type (Software and Device), and Sales Channel (Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Consumer (B2C)): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202027". As per the report, the global digital therapeutics industry was pegged at $2.88 billion in 2019, and is projected to reach $13.80 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 20.5% from 2020 to 2027.

Download Detailed COVID-19 Impact Sample Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/2117?reqfor=covid

Drivers, restraints, and opportunities

Rise in adoption of smartphones and tablets along with healthcare apps, surge in incidences of chronic diseases, and growth in need to control healthcare costs drive the growth of the global digital therapeutics market. However, lack of awareness regarding digital therapeutics in emerging economies and concerns regarding data privacy hamper the market growth. On the contrary, emerging markets across developing countries are expected to create lucrative opportunities in the future.

Covid-19 scenario:

The pandemic disrupted the healthcare system across the globe, which increased the demand for apps and services that could help in lifestyle enhancements and medical intervention.

Since the outbreak of novel coronavirus, there has been a significant increase in awareness regarding the importance of digital health.

As people are facing unprecedented circumstances, prevalence of mental illness and rate of drug abuse has increased. This has increased demand for digital therapeutics apps and services.

The obesity segment to portray the highest CAGR through 2027

By application, the obesity segment is expected to manifest the highest CAGR of 23.2% during the forecast period, owing to increase in overweight population, thereby increasing the number of chronic diseases due to obesity. However, the diabetes segment dominated the market in 2019, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the global digital therapeutics market, due to high prevalence of diabetes in North America, the Middle East, and North Africa.

For Purchase Enquiry at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/2117

The business to consumers segment dominated the market

By sales channel, the business to consumers segment held the largest share in 2019, contributing to nearly three-fifths of the global digital therapeutics market. In addition, the segment is estimated to register the highest CAGR of 21.3% during the forecast period, owing to the easier accessibility and availability of software applications and smart devices and rise in demand for digital therapeutics (DTx) products among patients and caregivers. The report includes the study of the business to business segment.

North America held the lion's share

By region, the market across North America held the largest share in 2019, accounting for nearly half of the total revenue. This is owing to increase in the geriatric population, rise in incidence of chronic diseases, surge in demand for wireless & portable systems, and availability of sophisticated reimbursement structure that aims in reducing expenditure. However, the global digital therapeutics market across Asia-Pacific is projected to manifest the highest CAGR of 22.2% during the forecast period, due to increase in smartphone penetration, rise in need to curb healthcare costs, and increase in prevalence of chronic diseases.

Major market players

2MORROW, Inc.

Click Therapeutics, Inc.

Akili Interactive Labs, Inc.

Happify, Inc.

Fitbit, Inc. (Twine Health, Inc.)

Livongo Health, Inc.

Kaia Health

Omada Health, Inc.

Medtronic Plc.

Proteus Digital Health, Inc.

Pear Therapeutics, Inc.

Voluntis, Inc.

Resmed, Inc. (Propeller Health)

Welldoc, Inc.

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(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 7 - NAS health and safety police on Wednesday seized 33,000 facemasks and 440,000 gloves that did not meet anti-COVID safety standards.

The personal protection equipment (PPE) was seized across Italy.

Operations took place in Catania, Lecce and Milan.

Two schoolrooms and one care home were cordoned off.

The NAS said the PPE was potentially dangerous.

The items did not carry an EU standards certificate.

NAS said it would continue its sweeps to protect the Italian population.

Separately, the finance guard tax police seized 1.6 million masks on the Swiss border near Como.

The products, which came from the Netherlands, did not have proper certificates showing they came from China, police said.

(ANSA).


Nana Owusu-Yeboa, the Oti Regional Minister, has warned secessionists groups not to extend their activities into the Oti Region.



He said the security agencies, with support from the Chiefs and the youth, were ready to quell any disturbances.



Nana Owusu-Yeboa, also Chair of the Regional Security Council (REGSEC), disclosed these in an interaction with the media at Dambai.



He said RESEC had mapped out strategies to ensure that such irresponsible criminal activities did not extend to the Region.



He said REGSEC would be swift in dealing with individuals or groups found propagating such divisive agenda in the region.



The Minister said, "We are fully prepared to defend the sovereignty state of Ghana and will not sit down for those members of a secessionist group known as Western Togoland Restoration Front to make an entry.



The Regional Minister said secessionists agenda was a deliberate attempt to destabilise the country based on ethnicity, adding that the

region needed development.



The Western Togolanders on September 25 erected roadblocks on major entry zones into the Volta region, attacked two police stations, shot three Policemen and stole weapons and ammunition.



The state security responded to quell the disturbances and made some arrests and retrieved some of the weapons.



Currently, some of the people are being prosecuted for their roles in the disturbances.

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 guilty verdict in Texas could lead to a prison term, although analysts said a fine and Netflix being forced to pull the film would be a more likely outcome

Netflix has been indicted in the conservative southern US state of Texas for screening the French film Cuties, which has been accused of hyper sexualising young girls and depicting children in a lewd manner.

Statements by Republican lawmakers and an online campaign against the film have tapped into concern over child sexual molestation, making the movie political leverage in the battle to re-elect Republican President Donald Trump.

The streaming service became the subject of a grand jury hearing in Tyler County, east of Houston, in the middle of September, and a local elected official revealed Tuesday that the same jury issued an indictment.

Cuties, directed by French-Senegalese director Maimouna Doucoure and released online in early September, follows the story of a rebellious 11-year-old Parisian girl called Amy.

Amy, also of French-Senegalese descent, joins a dance group started by three other girls from her neighbourhood that sometimes performs provocative moves.

The Texas grand jury indicted Netflix under a law that forbids the lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of an unclothed, partially clothed, or clothed child."

A guilty verdict in Texas could lead to a prison term, although analysts said a fine and being forced to pull the film would be a more likely outcome.

The jury decided the film had "no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

Netflix defended the film. A spokesperson told AFP the movie is a "social commentary against the sexualisation of young girls," adding that the charge is "without merit."

In September, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who had not seen the film, called on the Justice Department to investigate whether it had broken any laws banning child pornography.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined two other state attorney generals in a letter asking Netflix to withdraw the film from its hugely popular streaming platform.

The controversy around Cuties has mobilised the conservative American right in Texas and beyond in the run-up to the 3 November election. The Trump campaign has tried to play it up as a sign of two contrasting visions of society, the traditional Christian values of the Republicans and the more iconoclastic, liberal approach of the Democrats.

Cuties, called Mignonnes in French, earned director Doucoure an award at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Doucoure said her film was about the objectification of women and children, and the pressure pre-teen girls feel to be pretty and sexy.
Myth 3: Everyone who has a mental illness needs medication to manage symptoms | Bulthuis says no two patients are the same. While medicines can help manage symptoms, there are some people with mental illness who do not require medication. For others, medicine is essential for recovery. (Representative image)

Sales of anti-infective medicines rose 1.4 percent year-on-year in September after declining for five months in a row, giving a push to overall sales of drugs.

The recovery could indicate an increase in visits to doctors' clinics and out-patient departments of hospitals, according to a Mint report.

Overall medicine sales during the month increased 4.5 percent to Rs 13,170 crore, the report said citing data from market research firm AIOCD-AWACS. The spike was helped by higher sales of ant-infective and anti-diabetic drugs.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the story.

The therapeutics segment saw a decline of 21 percent in May since elective surgeries were postponed during the lockdown, Mint reported. People were also reluctant to visit doctors due to fears of contracting COVID-19.

India's 10 largest drugmakers reported sales growth of 3-16 percent, except Sun Pharmaceutical Industries which saw sales fall by 2 percent to Rs 619 crore.

Sale of anti-diabetic and cardiac care drugs rose 7.1 percent and 6.5 percent in September, the report said. Sales in these segments have grown during the past five months.

Some categories continued to record a drop in volumes. Sales of medicines in the pain and analgesics segment declined 5.5 percent and gastrointestinal drugs fell 4.3 percent. Respiratory medicines, too, saw volumes lower by 10.5 percent.
The Chief Scientific Advisor has said Northern Ireland will reach or surpass the number of patients who were admitted to hospital during the first wave of Covid-19 in just two or three weeks.

Professor Ian Young was speaking at Wednesday afternoons Covid-19 briefing alongside Health Minister Robin Swann and Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael McBride.

Mr Swann commented that those people purposely ignoring the coronavirus guidelines are giving a two fingered salute to those adhering to the regulations.

The Department of Health confirmed earlier that one further person in Northern Ireland has died after testing positive for the virus, while 828 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours.

The death toll now stands at 586 and the total number of cases diagnosed since the outbreak is 16,187.

Professor Young revealed that the R rate is currently standing at 1.5 and said that the health service is seeing a significant increase on bed pressures and hospital admissions.

The increase in hospital admissions began to take off around the middle of September and the seven day total of Covid admission with the first positive test acquired in the community is currently running at close to 80 patients per week, he explained.

Numbers of hospital inpatients are also rising. Its well above 100 today and the seven day rolling average is sitting above 75.

The numbers of hospital inpatients are currently doubling at around every seven to eight days.

Again we can look back to the beginning of the pandemic and compare the number of hospital inpatients with Covid now versus the number in wave one.

Currently, were sitting at around one third of the total in wave one and at the current rate of increase we would reach or surpass the number of hospital inpatients in wave one within around two to three weeks.

Professor Young also addressed the belief that symptoms of the virus are akin to the flu among young people.

Among patients who have been admitted to hospital with Covid when they are surveyed and assessed three months after their discharge, around 70% of them continue to have significant symptoms, he continued.

For milder cases of Covid, patients who dont require hospital patents, many of them young people, 10% will continue to have long term symptoms.

Particularly important among those are fatigue but also something that we describe as brain fog where people have difficulty concentrating and thinking clearly - something that would have a particularly serious impact on students who are currently taking on university courses.

Expand Close Health Minister Robin Swann pictured at a Covid-19 Department of Health press conference in Parliament Buildings, Stormont. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Health Minister Robin Swann pictured at a Covid-19 Department of Health press conference in Parliament Buildings, Stormont. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Ahead of Thursday's Executive announcement, Minister Swann added that it has the toughest of calls to make and said it beggars belief that some people are refusing to wear a face mask in shops.

Our job is to make the least challenging decision for everyone but all the regulations and advice in the world will come to nothing if people dont stay on board, work with us, work with our health service and follow the guidance that we ask, stated Mr Swann.
Amid renewed appeal by Kremlin to end the armed conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian foreign intelligence chief said that the mountain enclave of South Caucasus could become the launchpad for Islamist militants to enter Russia. Sergei Naryshkin, the director of Russias foreign intelligence service (SVR), said in a statement that the current escalation in the disputed territory is not only a matter of concern for its scale but also for the external influence.

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.

Transcaucasia is capable of becoming a new springboard for international terrorist organizations, from where militants may subsequently infiltrate into states adjacent to Azerbaijan and Armenia, including Russia, said Naryshkin.

Read: Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Russia, France, US Call For Immediate Ceasefire

Read: Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Four Explosions Heard Outside Stepanakert Amid Tensions

Citing information available to SVR, the foreign intelligence chief claimed that mercenaries from international terrorist organizations fighting in the Middle East as well as extremist Kurdish groups are "actively entering into the conflict zone." He added that thousands of radicals are hoping to make money through the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh war.

We have no doubt that, with the assistance of the international community, the parties to the conflict will eventually stop using force and come to the negotiating table, he stated.

Putin-Pashinyan talks

Russian President Vladimir Lukashenko and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held several telephonic conversations over the last week to discuss the situation. 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.

The leaders continued their discussion of the escalating armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which has grown in scale and has seen serious losses on both sides, including among civilians, Kremlin said in a statement on October 5.

Read: Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Azerbaijan Says No End To Fight Until Armenia Withdraws Troops

Read: Armenia Calls On Media Outlets To Stop Broadcasting Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Live
Hundreds of Kilmore residents have come forward for COVID-19 testing as the government trials a new tactic of asking "third ring" contacts to isolate, in an attempt to contain outbreaks before they spread.

The town has two active cases of coronavirus after a visiting Melbourne resident connected to The Butcher Club-Chadstone outbreak went to the Oddfellows Cafe there. The Chadstone outbreak has grown to 31 cases, with linked cases stretching from regional Victoria to Frankston.

The trial comes as the manager of The Butcher Club was rushed to intensive care with COVID-19 after his condition deteriorated on Tuesday.

Peter Robinson, co-owner of the business, said the manager, aged in his early 50s, was receiving oxygen and was expected to be in the ICU for the next two days. Five of the business' nine staff had tested positive to the virus, although two were asymptomatic.
SACRAMENTO  A dispute between for-profit kidney dialysis clinics and a health care workers union has again spilled onto the ballot for California voters  and the health of roughly 80,000 patients could be at stake.

Proposition 23 on the Nov. 3 ballot would create new safety regulations for clinics that treat patients with kidney failure, including a requirement that a clinic always have a doctor on site during treatment.

The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, which represents medical workers, proposed the initiative after the union said it learned many clinics lack appropriate staffing and other safeguards.

But large dialysis corporations, including DaVita Inc. and Fresenius Medical Care, say the measure would hurt patient care because higher costs could lead the companies to close many clinics.

Prop. 23 is a follow-up of a union-backed 2018 ballot measure that would have capped profits for the dialysis companies. The initiative lost by a wide margin, but state lawmakers passed a similar cap, which the dialysis industry is now fighting in court.

Much of the debate around Prop. 23 has focused on the proposed requirement that every clinic have an on-site doctor, and whether it would improve safety.

The initiative would also require clinics to report their infection rates to the California Department of Public Health. They now report them only to the federal government.

Clinics also would be required to get permission from the department before closing. State officials would have discretion to deny a clinics requested closure after evaluating its financial resources and plans to ensure patients can receive uninterrupted access to care.

A clinic could request a hearing if its request is denied. Opponents of Prop. 23 said they doubt whether the state has the legal authority to require private clinics to remain open.

California has about 600 chronic dialysis clinics where patients typically go three times per week. They sit for about four hours while their blood is drained and filtered using a machine that removes waste and fluids.

Those treatments imitate kidney function to prolong the life of a person with late-stage kidney disease. The industry has grown rapidly, to about $3 billion per year in the state, as the number of patients surges.

Federal regulations already require that each clinic employ a medical director who is a doctor. Patients have a nephrologist, a kidney specialist, who directs their treatment plan.

But dialysis sessions are often primarily overseen by technicians and nurses, with less-frequent doctor visits. Supporters of Prop. 23 say a doctor or a highly trained nurse should be present in case something goes wrong.

The initiative would require that a doctor be in a clinic at all times, though clinics could be granted an exception by the Department of Public Health to have a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant if theres a doctor shortage.

Tony Armstrong of Alameda, 57, was on dialysis for 14 years before he had a kidney transplant three months ago. He said he supports Prop. 23 because he suffered four heart attacks on dialysis and found clinic staffers were unprepared to handle such emergencies.

Every day that I went to dialysis, I hoped that there was a doctor there, Armstrong said. If something goes wrong with a person  the techs, they dont know what to do.

Opponents of Prop. 23 said the requirement is unnecessary and could drive some clinics out of business by increasing their annual operating costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Kathy Fairbanks, a spokeswoman for the No on Prop. 23 campaign, said every potential clinic closure would increase travel time for patients and could cause some to miss sessions. Each missed treatment increases the risk of death, she said.

It just ratchets up the pressure and the stress a hundred times for the patients, Fairbanks said.

Opponents of the initiative, primarily DaVita and Fresenius, have poured more than $93.4 million into the ballot fight. Supporters of Prop. 23 have spent about $8.8 million, with most of the money coming from the union.

The measure is opposed by many groups representing medical professionals, including the California Medical Association, American Nurses Association California and the Renal Physicians Association.

Dr. John Mouratoff, a nephrologist who operates a clinic in Oakland, said there arent enough kidney doctors in the state to staff clinics full time. Prop. 23 doesnt specify that the on-site doctor would need to have any particular specialty.

That makes very little sense, he said.

Some patients also oppose the initiative. Jeanne Younessi Haole, a 73-year-old patient in San Jose, said technicians and nurses handle her sessions without issue.

Theres nothing for that doctor to do, Younessi Haole said. Hes going to be filling out papers for somebody or filling out crossword puzzles.

Mouratoff said he thinks the fight is really about the union trying to assert its power.

The union just wants to get in to capture the salary of these employees, he said.

Service Employees International Union has tried to unionize dialysis clinic workers, without success. Prop. 23 is also endorsed by the California Democratic Party and the California Labor Federation.

Steve Trossman, a spokesman for Service Employees International, said the union proposed the initiative because it learned about safety problems in dialysis clinics as it tried to organize workers, including a lack of highly trained staff and poor sanitation practices.

Trossman said dialysis companies are profitable and are threatening clinic closures to scare voters. He said requiring a doctor or highly skilled nurse to be present is a common sense safeguard.

This is an industry that is rolling in money, Trossman said. We got a peek inside this industry. Its not a pretty picture, and we think it needs to change.

Editors note: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of Prop. 23 opponent Jeanne Younessi Haole.

Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: The investigations being conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into apparently a well-planned plot to create unrest and caste violence in Hathras over the rape and murder of a Dalit girl have pointed towards the foreign funding of Rs 100 crore for the purpose.

As per the highly-placed sources, the ED has allegedly found that of Rs 100 crore to have come in accounts allegedly related to Popular Front of India (PFI). Of this, Rs 50 crore came from Mauritius. Now the directorate is further probing the actual sources of these funds and the real purpose behind them.

ALSO READ | Hathras case: 'International plot' to incite caste violence, defame Yogi govt busted

The ED has claimed that the entire funding was more than Rs 100 crore. The police and the cyber cell team investigating the case have found important clues. The ED can register a case in this connection and conduct raids besides interrogating the accused already arrested.

Meanwhile, the Delhi-based Kerala journalist and three other persons allegedly linked to PFI were booked for sedition on Wednesday. The four were arrested in Mathura on Monday while on their way to Hathras from Delhi and have been sent to judicial custody for 14 days.

"Four persons who were apprehended from Mathura on October 5 and had links with PFI were going to Hathras to disrupt peace as part of a larger conspiracy," says the FIR registered against them.

ALSO READ | Hathras case: ED may file money laundering case to probe use of 'illegal funds' to trigger caste-based protests

Police had said the four were taken into custody at Mathuras Math toll plaza where the police were checking vehicles after receiving a tip-off that some suspicious people were on their way to Hathras from Delhi.

The four were in a car and identified themselves as Atiq-ur Rehman of Muzaffarnagar, Siddique of Malappuram, Masood Ahmed of Bahraich, and Alam of Rampur, the police said, adding their mobile phones, laptop, and some literature, which could have an impact on peace and order, were seized.

ALSO READ | UP police book Bhim Army chief, 500 others after Hathras visit

During interrogation, it came to light that they had links with the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its associate organisation Campus Front of India (CFI), the police said, adding further their interrogation was underway.

The Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), however, claimed that Siddique was their member and the secretary of the journalists' union. The members are now mulling to move the Supreme Court against UP Police action.
SMP is currently participated by 68 countries globally. In Vietnam, Vinamilk, inspired by the program's vision, was the first Vietnamese dairy company that adopted and commissioned the program's inaugural implementation in province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau in 2007.

Since 2016, endorsed by the Vietnamese government's official approval, the program has scaled up nationwide. In turn, Vinamilk expanded its wholehearted participation in the project, extending its contribution to 23 cities and provinces.

With effective coordination throughout the implementation process, the number of children registered to drink milk at school continues to exceed expectations. Hanoi, in particular, has enabled more than 1 million students aged 3-10 years old participating in the program, marking of 91% penetration rate after 2 years of implementation. Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Bac Ninh provinces, the first two provinces participated in the program, have reached optimal rates of 100% and 99.3% respectively.

With educational activities, Vinamilk wishes to work towards building better awareness among students and parents on proper nutritional practices and environmental protection.

"Pioneering the implementation of SMP in Vietnam, Vinamilk always recognizes this program as one of our top priorities. We have been collaborating with government agencies to actively promote SMP across Vietnam. This is a highly valued program that will benefit Vietnamese children nutritionally, and provide them with the solid foundation for their long-term physical and intellectual development," said Ms. Mai Kieu Lien -- Vinamilk's CEO.

Over the years, SMP has considerably contributed to the physical improvement of kindergarten and primary school students in Vietnam. In Bac Ninh province, the rate of stunting has decreased from 26.9% in 2013 to 23.6% in 2020. More impressively, the malnutrition rate in Ba Ria-Vung Tau has dropped from 28.40% in 2007 to 18.90% this year.

Reported by Unicef, more than 350 million children might not have access to regular school feeding and nutrition services during the pandemic. In Vietnam, COVID-19 has made negative impact on 31.8 million workers that can further effect on nutrition care for schoolchildren.

Vinamilk has been actively working with the Vietnamese government and municipal authorities to reduce the cost of milk consumption in SMP, working towards the ultimate goal of ensuring Vietnamese children's health and nutrition. This practice has leverage SMP benefit in the critical time.

Over 160 million children worldwide currently receive milk at schools, with dairy's well-known natural nutrient-richness providing an abundant supply of high-quality protein, vitamins, and minerals, such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium, iodine, and vitamins B2 and B12 -International Dairy Federation press release for World School Milk Day 2020.

Contact:

Ms. Le Thanh Lan Anh

+84-28-54-155-555

l[email protected]

SOURCE Vinamilk
United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered 'total declassification' of all the documents related to the alleged interference of Russia in the 2016 presidential elections, which he described as a hoax.

IMAGE: US President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up towards reporters and photographers as he departs Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after a fourth day of treatment for the coronavirus disease to return to the White House. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

"I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions" Trump said in a tweet Tuesday night.

The announcement came hours after the Director of National Intelligence declassified some of the documents.

The handwritten documents revealed former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Barack Obama on the purported plan of Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, to tie Trump to Russia as "a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server", Fox News said.

Tim Murtaugh, Trump 2020 communications director, in a statement said now it is known that Hillary Clinton hatched a plan to divert attention away from her use of a private email server by falsely tying then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia.

"We also know that former CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on that plot. It is imperative that the American people now learn what then-Vice President Joe Biden knew about this conspiracy and when he knew it," Murtaugh said.

"What did Biden know about Clinton's plan to use the Russia hoax to try to smear her political opponent? Did Biden condone the plan? Did he express any misgivings about it or remain silent? Biden must give a full accounting of his knowledge and his conversations about Clinton's scheme, which was known to the highest reaches of his administration," he said.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe in a statement to Fox News said the declassified documents were transmitted to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees Tuesday afternoon.

These documents explained that Brennan's handwritten notes were taken after briefing Obama on the matter, the news channel said.

"We're getting additional insight into Russian activities from (REDACTED)," Brennan notes read.

"CITE (summarizing) alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service," Brennan's notes read Fox News said.
President Donald Trump holds up his facemask during the first presidential debate. Julio Cortez/AP Photo

Days after being hospitalized with COVID-19, President Trump told Americans not to be afraid of the virus or let it dominate their lives.

Trump received experimental treatments and top-tier care likely unlike anyone else in the world.

Some survivors of the illness and family members of those who've suffered or died found the messages insulting, dangerous, and out of touch with how the virus affects everyday Americans.

Others interpreted the messages more positively, saying they needed words of encouragement.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Before leaving Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday, President Trump told Americans not to be afraid of COVID-19 or to let the illness "dominate your life."

Trump was admitted to the hospital Friday, where he received two experimental treatments and a steroid that can have serious health consequences and is typically reserved for the sickest patients.

He may be the only person in the world to receive that exact mix of medications.

While some of Trump's supporters praised his message, other Americans who've experienced the devastating effects of COVID-19 said the tweet was "a slap in the face," "insulting," and "disrespectful."

Some Americans 'do not have a choice if COVID-19 dominates your life'

Katie Dean, 51, was rushed to the hospital at 3 am one morning in May. She'd been recovering from pneumonia that agitated her asthma, and her oxygen levels had dropped to 80 after a week of coronavirus symptoms.

Dean was the last person in the Orange County region, where she lives, to receive Remdesivir through a clinical trial, her daughter, Kayla, told Insider.

Had Dean arrived at the hospital five minutes later, the spot would have been given to someone else and she likely would have been intubated and dead within days, the head of viral infection told the family.

Story continues

"As we sit here nearly six months later, COVID-19 continues to 'dominate' her life," Kayla told Insider. "She is walking with a cane, only has the strength to do a few small activities, and is experiencing neurological issues such as trouble with her memory and motor skills."

The crisis has dominated Kayla and her boyfriend's life, too, prompting them to move from Boston to Southern California to help. Her father, an essential worker, continued working to provide for the couple's kids still at home and receive health insurance.

Trump's message, Kayla told Insider, "is not only deeply insulting, but for some middle-class Americans who do not get VIP treatment, you do not have a choice if COVID-19 dominates your life."

Amanda Kloots, a fitness trainer and now-widow of Broadway actor Nick Cordero, posted a similar message to her Instagram account. Cordero died in July after a 95-day battle with the coronavirus.

"To all the over 208,000 Americans who lost loved ones to this virus - I stand by you, with you, holding your hand," she wrote. "Unfortunately it did dominate our lives didn't it? It dominated Nick's family's lives and my family's lives."

'This virus is no joke'

Christine Salmon was diagnosed with COVID-19 in April and has yet to recover. "I still feel its effects in my lungs and with deep fatigue," she told Insider. "This virus is no joke. My family has lost two extended family members to COVID already."

While the self-proclaimed eternal optimist prefers to see Trump's messages as encouragement not to live your life in fear, she said it's "unfortunate that he doesn't acknowledge that there are tens of thousands of people who weren't afraid, but who took precautions and still got sick."

Now, she said, they have no choice but to have the virus dominate their lives.

If she could amend Trump's message, she'd say: "Have respect for yourself and others during this pandemic and make decisions that will help the greater good." Or, more simply, "Please wear a mask."

'It's a callous and dangerous remark'

Liza Billings, a New York City nurse whose brother died from COVID-19, told GMA Trump's comments were a "slap in the face to all of those who lost a loved one to COVID-19, as well as all of us who put our lives on the line to save others."

"It's a callous and dangerous remark that will do nothing to stop this horrifying pandemic, and may even make it worse," she said.

Dr. Dara Kass, an ER physician, also took issue with the president's message linking "strength" with defeating COVID-19.

"I am strong. I gave birth to 3 kids and work in the damn ER," she wrote on Twitter in response to CNN correspondent Jake Tapper. "I had COVID. It kicked my butt and I still feel it."

'Trump is not out of the woods yet'

Danielle Theriault, a former teacher and fitness instructor, has been battling coronavirus symptoms for more than six months. Her treatments, or lack thereof, have been far inferior to Trump's.

"Many of us were turned away and were told that it was anxiety or our oxygen wasn't low enough to get help," she told Insider.

"People need to know it that Trump's case is not reality," she added. "Common folk like myself, so to speak, do not receive care like this."

Theriault added that "Trump is not out of the woods yet," as her worst symptoms came on two months after she first got sick. "We have to wait and see."

'It is welcomed as so many of us need words of encouragement and strength'

Not everyone who's survived a devastating experience with coronavirus took offense at Trump's comments.

Elana Goldsmith had the virus and her husband, Michael, she said "miraculously survived" the illness after a 22-day coma and a contentious battle with the maker of Remdesivir to receive the treatment, which Michael was ultimately not given.

Like CNN anchor and COVID survivor Chris Cuomo, Goldsmith said, Trump was "trying to give people strength through their experiences with the virus,"something he's in the position to do. "In fact," she added, "it is welcomed as so many of us need words of encouragement and strength right now."

She encouraged people offended by Trump's messaging to reframe it as a way to look at the positive  something that helped her get through her husband's terrifying battle.

"I found my strength through people who chose to see the positive, look towards hope and find solutions," she said. " I hope that people take the president's message as a message of hope and resilience.

Read the original article on Business Insider
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Nature is a wellspring of inspiration; the mountains and trees abound with such beauty that only a painting could ever put on full display, as words wouldn't ever do it any justice. Michelle Larsen is an artist that can fully channel all of that beauty with her mixed media artwork. The sheer dynamism of her works often evoke a sense of movement that traditional media could never capture, and that's what makes her art feel so special.

Above: Artwork "Beautiful" by artist Michelle Larsen who was awarded ARTYA (Artivist of the Year) by Arttour International Magazine in September 2020.

Michelle Larsen graduated from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Denver, Colorado. She graduated in 1980 and specialized in outdoor advertising, lettering, and sign painting. As one of the greatest artists in Denver, Colorado, she went and painted billboards and signs in the area, earning her renowned acclaim.

In 2009, Michelle Larsen began her fine arts career, and in 2011 she began sculpting canvases with paper to create a three-dimensional painting. Her experimentation with mixed media sparked the inner creativity within her, which allowed her to develop the style further and further, pushing it to its boundaries. Eventually, she honed her skills and developed the technique, which is exclusively her own.

In 2019, she moved to Prescott, Arizona, and established her own art gallery called The Parlor Art Gallery, LLC. She exclusively displays her work at her own gallery to the sheer delight of her audiences. Nowadays, she has become a celebrated mixed media artist that uses paper to create a sculpted canvas. She utilizes oil paint with bold colors, which she applies to the sculpture creating a three-dimensional painting that protrudes from the surface.

Michelle Larsen's art style is heavily inspired by the land dwellers who have experienced the human struggle. She also heavily draws her inspiration from the Western lifestyle, mountain life, and nature itself. Most of her artworks capture the essence of passing time, which evokes a calming yet powerful emotion from her audience.

Michelle Larsen looks at the obvious, observes it closely, engages with the subject, then amplifies it with three-dimensional textures and bold colors. She pushes the boundaries of art and innovates how the audiences experience art in its entirety. She baffles her audiences into thinking about whether her artworks are sculptures or paintings, but she expresses that her works are definitely a mix of both.

The vibrancy and movement of each of Michelle Larsen's pieces add a layer of depth to her artistic expression. The three-dimensional nature of her artwork adds a sense of life as it vibrates as if having a pulse. She pours out all the energies that pulsate within herself in her artwork. It is clear to see that Larsen is extremely passionate about all of her works. She sees beyond this dimension and is naturally drawn to an animated representation of her subjects.

Michelle Larsen follows the breath and fortitude of what moves her, and she hopes that her audience can follow along. Larsen continues to break the norms in the art scene, and such is a fine testament of her sheer artistry. As her distinct style lines the walls of her own gallery, audiences are equally captivated by the movement of her artworks and the natural world around them.

Most recently, Michelle Larsen was awarded the ARTYA Award by ArtTour International Magazine.

To know more about Michelle Larsen and her fascinating art, make sure to check out her website.

Company Name: Michelle Larsen Fine Art

Website: https://www.poetrypainting.com/

Facebook: @michellelarsenArtist

Instagram: @michellelarsenfineart

SOURCE: Michelle Larsen Fine Art

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609514/Master-Artist-Michelle-Larsen-Deftly-Combines-Nature-and-Movement-to-Create-Captivating-Works-of-Art
A Christian school secretary has lost her employment tribunal claim that she was unlawfully sacked because of her religious beliefs after she shared Facebook posts slamming LGBT lessons.

Kristie Higgs, 44, was dismissed for gross misconduct by Farmor's School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, last year over Facebook posts criticising plans to teach LGBT relationships in primary schools.

The mother-of-two shared and commented on posts which raised concerns about relationship education at her son's Church of England school.

Students were to learn about the No Outsiders in Our School programme, which is a series of books teaching the Equality Act in primary schools.

Kristie Higgs, 44, pictured left outside the Civil Justice Centre in Bristol on September 21 and right, in a handout photo from the Christian Legal Centre, lost her employment tribunal claim

Ms Higgs, who was posting on Facebook under her maiden name, shared two posts in October 2018 to around 100 friends.

One of the posts referred to 'brainwashing our children' and added: 'Children will be taught that all relationships are equally valid and 'normal', so that same sex marriage is exactly the same as traditional marriage, and gender is a matter of choice, not biology, so that it's up to them what sex they are.

'We say again this is a vicious form of totalitarianism aimed at suppressing Christianity and removing it from the public arena.'

An anonymous complaint was made to the school and Mrs Higgs was suspended and later dismissed for gross misconduct following a disciplinary hearing.

Ms Higgs, supported by the Christian Legal Centre, took the school to an employment tribunal arguing she had been unlawfully discriminated against because of her Christian beliefs.

The tribunal said that her religion was a 'protected characteristic' as defined by the Equality Act.

Employment Judge Derek Reed said: 'The belief that sex and gender are "set at birth" may be upsetting to certain people, but if freedom of speech and the rights within articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights only extended to expressions of belief that could upset no one they would be worthless.

'Essentially, to find as the tribunals did in the cases to which we were referred would amount to a declaration that it is "open season" on people that hold and express the beliefs in question - that they do not deserve protection.

The secretary was dismissed from Farmor's School, pictured, last year after sharing Facebook posts criticising plans to teach LGBT relationships in primary schools (file photo)

'That seemed to us to be a strange and somewhat disturbing conclusion.'

The school had denied dismissing Ms Higgs because of her religious beliefs and said she was sacked because of the language used in the posts.

In its ruling, the tribunal concluded that her dismissal was not related to her Christian beliefs.

The judge said: 'We concluded that not only the dismissal but the entire proceedings taken against Mrs Higgs were motivated by a concern on the part of the school that, by reason of her posts, she would be perceived as holding unacceptable views in relation to gay and trans people - views which in fact she vehemently denied that she did hold.'

Speaking afterwards, Ms Higgs said she was 'disappointed' with the judgement and planned to appeal.

Ms Higgs urged people to sign a petition titled: 'Uphold the right of parents to have children education in line with their religious beliefs. Stop supporting LGBT indoctrination'

An article shared by Ms Higgs, who was posting on Facebook under her maiden name, in another social media post. She shared two posts in October 2018 to around 100 friends

'I strongly maintain that I lost my job because of my Christian beliefs, beliefs which our society does not appear to tolerate or even understand any more,' she said.

'It's hard to believe that the school would take one anonymous complaint and escalate it to all this.

'I shared these posts as a mother who was deeply concerned about the compulsory sex education being forced on my nine-year-old son at a Church of England primary school.

'These views were compared to that of a 'pro-Nazi right-wing extremist', which is highly offensive to me and millions of Christians across the world.

'I want parents to have the freedom to bring their children up in line with their Christian beliefs, I want young children to be protected from this harmful ideology.'

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: 'This judgement should concern all of us who care about the freedom to be a Christian believer in the UK.

'Even though no one actually thinks or claimed that Kristie holds hateful views, she is being fired because one anonymous 'friend' said they were and because others might think the same.'
Hyderabad, Oct 7 : More than two million customers visited IKEA`s first India store here during the financial year 2019-20 (Sep to Aug), said the Swedish home furnishing multinational on Wednesday. The Group counts a financial year from September 1 to August 31.

The footfall is much lower than the seven million the company was expecting when it opened the store in 2018. The Covid-19 pandemic has apparently affected the numbers.

IKEA India, part of the Ingka Group, opened its first retail store at Hyderabad in August 2018. The company officials had said in February last year that the footfall was five million a year against seven million they were originally looking at. They, however, added that they sold more despite the lower than anticipated footfall.

Peter Betzel, CEO and CSO, IKEA India said in a statement on Wednesday that they are lowering prices for many articles to become even more affordable for consumers.

"During the year two million plus customers visited our Hyderabad store and 25 million plus people visited us online. As more people have been forced to stay home, the interest in home furnishing has increased and online shopping grew significantly," he added.

IKEA India opened online stores in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune in 2019.

Mumbai is the first IKEA market to launch online without physical stores.

"We look forward to a strong and positive FY-2021 with our new IKEA store and also smaller formats coming up in Mumbai and continue establishing a strong omnichannel presence in our markets," Peter said.

The Ingka Group announced strong global retail sales of 35.2 billion euros for the financial year 2020, despite the economic and public health challenges posed by Covid-19. It had reported sales of 36.7 billion euros in FY-19.

For many weeks during the year, Ingka Group had to close 75 per cent of the IKEA stores it operates across the world due to lockdowns.

The company also announced a series of wide-ranging commitments to help and protect the health and livelihood of those affected by the pandemic. It included a 26-million euro emergency relief of in-kind donations to support communities as well as providing support to IKEA co-workers by securing income stability, extending parental leave and offering flexible work arrangements.

The company has decided to return the government stimulus support it received for co-worker's wages in the beginning of the pandemic as the business recovered faster than expected.

"During the last six months we managed to quickly adapt to the new needs of our customers and even if our values have been put to test it's clear that our purpose is what unites us. We are determined to create a better life for the people in a time when home has never been more important," said Jesper Brodin, CEO Ingka Group.

IKEA's emergency community support in India during Covid-19 included providing four million meals, 20,000 products and 1.1 million face masks/PPE with UNICEF.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani court on Wednesday ordered that advertisements be issued in newspapers to summon former premier Nawaz Sharif after his representative in London refused to receive the arrest warrant against him in corruption cases.

The Islamabad High Court was irked by the attitude of Sharif's representatives at his residence in London and ordered that the advertisements be posted in Dawn and Jang newspapers. The court directed the federal government to bear the cost of the advertisements and the additional attorney general Tariq Khokhar was asked to pay the fees within two days.

The order followed after an official posted at the Pakistani High Commission in London informed the IHC that a representative of Sharif had initially agreed to receive the arrest warrants but later changed his mind.

First Secretary of the High Commission Dildar Ali Abro deposed in a written reply that some Waqar Ahmed, identified as a secretary to Sharif's son, called him and informed him that he will receive the warrants at their Park Lane residence in London.

"It was agreed with Waqar that he would receive the warrants on September 23 at 11 am," Abro told the court, adding that "At 10:20am Waqar called me to apologise and declined to receive the warrants". Abro said that the mission's Consular Attache Rao Abdul Hanan was tasked to serve the arrest warrant and Ahmed was also informed about it.

Hanan, in his statement, said that he had initially gone to the residence of Sharif on September 17 at 6:35 pm to serve the warrants but a domestic employee of Sharif declined to receive the warrant. The IHC in its last hearing had directed Hanan to record a statement in the next hearing of the case via a video link.

The court last month issued non-bailable arrest warrants against Sharif during a hearing of his petition requesting exemption from appearing before the court. The three-time premier, his daughter Maryam and son-in-law Muhammad Safdar were convicted in the Avenfield properties case on July 6, 2018.

Sharif was also sentenced to seven years in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case in December 2018. But Sharif was bailed out in both cases and also allowed to go to London for medical treatment in November last year.
The covid-19 pandemic is said to have altered consumer behaviour drastically. For a consumer lender such as Bajaj Finance Ltd, the implications of this are already visible.

In a performance update on the exchanges, the non-banking financial company said that it added 3.6 million new loans during the September quarter. That is not even half of what it did in the year-ago period. Bajaj Finances assets under management growth was a measly 1.3% year-on-year. What this shows is that Indians are unwilling to resume borrowing for discretionary consumption. As such, discretionary consumption such as travel and leisure are extremely curtailed even today. The lenders business is to encourage it by giving Indians the option to pay easy equated monthly instalments (EMI). But with the outlook on employment dim, Indians are not likely to take on future payouts for todays consumption. They dont want to buy today and pay tomorrow.

View Full Image Frail recovery

To be sure, Bajaj Finances metrics are a big improvement from the June quarter. As the adjoining chart shows, new customer accretion has shown a marked improvement from the April-June quarter. Recall that the quarter was largely under complete lockdown with little to no economic activity.

With the government now allowing large parts of economic activity to resume, consumption has improved.

But it is still a long way for Indians to resume EMI-led purchases. Lenders, including Bajaj Finance, are hoping the festival season will inspire some buying. However, it is unclear how much of a lift in AUM growth would this bring. Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd analysts cut their estimate for AUM growth in FY21. The sharp decline in disbursement volumes has come as a bit of a disappointment (in the context of healthy trends witnessed by peers such as HDFC).." a note from the brokerage firm said. Hence, we now cut our FY21 AUM growth estimate to 6% from 12% earlier," the note added.

Whats more is that its shares have grossly underperformed a bunch of companies that thrive on discretionary consumption. The S&P BSE consumer discretionary index is down just 1% since January, against Bajaj Finances 18% drop. This suggests that even though consumption demand may be improving, Indians at best may be dipping into their savings to spend rather than take on fresh debt.

Bajaj Finance faces additional trouble from increased competition. HDFC Bank has been pushing retail loans aggressively. Part of Bajaj Finances business deceleration can be attributed to market share loss, too. Besides, investors must also wait and see how much of its book Bajaj Finance ends up restructuring, given that moratorium has ended.

The company stock has indeed lost its premium valuation with growth prospects dwindling. For now, its recovery seems to be long-drawn.

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World Trump Eager to Debate Biden, Claims to Be Free of COVID Symptoms

US President Donald Trump removes his mask upon returning to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington on Monday. / Getty / Kyodo
Jacob Blake has been discharged from a Milwaukee hospital where he had been recovering for more than a month after being shot seven times in the back by police during a domestic disturbance call in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Blakes release was announced by one of his attorneys, Patrick Cafferty, who told CNN the 29-year-old father-of-three has since been transferred to a spinal rehabilitation center in Chicago to continue with his recovery.

Cafferty declined to provide further details when pressed by the network, refusing to reveal specifically when Blake left hospital and how long hes expected to remain in rehab for.

Blake was critically wounded on August 23 when he was shot by police at point-blank range in front of his three children as he attempted to get into his car, following an altercation with officers.

After the incident, his family initially stated Blake was paralyzed from the waist down, however it was unclear if the condition was permanent. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump later said it would take a miracle for Blake to walk again.

Scroll down for video

Jacob Blake has been discharged from the hospital, more than a month after police shot him seven times in the back at point-blank range during a domestic disturbance call in Kenosha, Wisconsin

Blake was critically wounded on August 23 after being by police as he attempted to get into his car with his three children, following an altercation with officers

Last week, the Kenosha cop who shot Blake, Officer Rusten Sheskey, said he opened fire because he thought Blake was attempting to abduct one of his own children.

His attorney, Brendan Matthews claimed that when Sheskey arrived at the scene in response to a call from a woman who said Blake was at her home and shouldn't be there, he heard a woman say: 'He's got my kid. He's got my keys.'

Sheskey saw Blake put a child in the SUV as he arrived, but he didn't know that two other children were also in the back seat, Matthews said.

He said Sheskey told investigators he opened fire because Blake 'held a knife in his hand and twisted his body toward' the officer, and that he didn't stop shooting until he determined Blake 'no longer posed an imminent threat'.

If Sheskey had allowed Blake to leave and something happened to the child, Matthews said: 'The question would have been: "Why didn't you do something?"'

Cellphone video captured by a bystander and posted online showed Sheskey and another officer following Blake with their guns drawn as he walked around the front of his parked SUV and opened the driver's side door.

Moments earlier, the Kenosha Professional Police Association alleges Blake fought with officers, put one officer in a headlock and carried a knife he refused to drop.

As Blake tried to step into his vehicle, Sheskey pulled on Blake's shirt and then opened fire. Three of Blake's children  three, five, and eight, were in the backseat.

Blake, who was wanted on a warrant for those charges when police arrived at the scene August 23, pleaded not guilty to the charges last month via video from his hospital bed. A trial date was set for November 9

Last week, the Kenosha cop who shot Blake, Officer Rusten Sheskey (right), said he opened fire because he thought Blake was attempting to abduct one of his own children

The shooting sparked outrage and led to several nights of protests and unrest, including a night in which authorities say Illinois 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two protesters and wounded a third.

Crump previously said Blake was only trying to break up a domestic dispute that day and that he did nothing to provoke police, adding that witnesses didn't see him with a knife.

Blake's uncle, Justin Blake, said Saturday that the allegation that Blake was attempting to kidnap his own child was false, the Kenosha News reported.

'That's ridiculous,' Justin Blake said. 'It's gaslighting. Outright lies.'

Another of the Blake family attorneys, Patrick Salvi Jr., has refuted the polices defense, saying officers had ample time to make the right decision.

At no point in time was Jacob's momentum toward the officers, and what you see is that the officer is pulling on his shirt and then fires those seven bullets into Jacob's back. If he was concerned that Jacob had a knife, why wouldn't he back away? the lawyer asked.

The bystander who recorded the shooting, 22-year-old Raysean White, said he saw Blake scuffling with three officers and heard them yell: 'Drop the knife! Drop the knife!' before gunfire erupted. White said he didn't see a knife in Blake's hands.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice, which is leading the investigation, previously said in a news release that a knife was found in the vehicle, but it didn't say whether Blake had been holding it at any point during the confrontation or whether police knew it was there before Sheskey shot him.

Blake's three children were in the back seat of his car when he was shot by police, it was revealed

The shooting sparked outrage and led to several nights of protests and unrest, including a night in which authorities say Illinois 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two protesters and wounded a third

In a statement previously released by Matthews on behalf of the police union, Matthews said Blake was armed with a knife but that officers didn't see it until Blake reached the passenger side of the vehicle.

The mother of the three children, who called police that day, filed a complaint against Blake that had led to felony charges being filed in July accusing him of sexually assaulting a woman in May.

Blake, who was wanted on a warrant for those charges when police arrived at the scene August 23, pleaded not guilty to the charges last month via video from his hospital bed. A trial date was set for November 9.

Sheskey and the other two officers who were at the scene were placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

In late August, Blake delivered a message from his hospital bed telling his supporters that life can change in an instant.

Your life and not only just your life, your legs -- something that you need to move around, to move forward in life -- can be taken like this, man, Blake said, clicking his fingers.

Blake had staples placed in his back and stomach after the shooting. He said his pain was constant and it hurts to breathe.

It hurts to move side to side. It hurts to eat, he continued. You do not want to have to deal with this.
'OPS did not back off.'

'He wanted transparency and he got it.'

IMAGE: AIADMK Coordinator O Panneerselvam, centre, and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, right, during the announcement of the pars chief ministerial candidate for the 2021 Tamil Nadu assembly election in Chennai, October 7, 2020. Photograph: R Senthil Kumar/PTI Photo

The rumblings in the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Tamil Nadu's ruling party -- with Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam (OPS) challenging Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami's (EPS) right to be the party's CM candidate for the 2021 assembly election -- turned out to be the proverbial storm in a tea cup on Wednesday morning.

It was OPS who proposed the name of Chief Minister Palaniswami as the AIADMK's chief ministerial candidate at the party headquarters in Chennai.

A steering committee of 11 members was also announced, of who six were identified as EPS camp followers and five as OPS supporters.

While naysayers had predicted a split in the party, not many were prepared for such a tame ending to the drama that has been playing out for the last few months.

AIADMK Spokesperson Satyan Rajan aka Kovai Satyan speaks to A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com about how the party achieved an internal truce, and how it will fight next year's election.

You must be happy with the announcement of EPS as the CM candidate, it ends the tension over your leadership for 2021. It was a good move to have OPS make the CM announcement, but how did that happen?

The party coordinator O Paneerselvam has always spoken for the welfare of the party and the welfare of the cadre. He wanted to have a steering committee to guide the party. Once that was formed he announced the CM candidate.

But even in the steering committee that has been announced, six of 11 members will be from the EPS group so he has control over the steering committee, too.

You have to understand that we haven't decided what powers the steering committee will have. You cannot make inferences about that.

People were expecting OPS to be made the general secretary of the party, that also has not happened.

That is a very generic statement. It is an agenda planted by the Opposition. Our party is led by a coordinator and a joint coordinator.

OPS said that before choosing a CM candidate we need a steering committee to provide expertise to the party and the government. No topic of a general secretary came up.

Tell us about the behind the doors deliberations that led to OPS backing off. How was this accomplished? And what exactly has OPS got for backing EPS?

OPS did not back off. He is a leader of the party. He is open to discussion. He wanted transparency and he got it. He never said he wanted to be chief minister. He said party affairs must be conducted democratically and that has happened.

Will OPS raise a banner of revolt at a later date, closer to the election?

If given powers to the steering committee for selection, the controversy shall be put to rest.

How will the selection of candidates happen for next year's assembly election? What is the process that will be followed? Who will sign the B form submitted to the Election Commission by candidates, for instance?

The party hierarchy remains the same. The coordinator and the joint coordinator will both sign the B form.

Will Sasikala's release, which is expected before the election, have any impact on your party? Will she be readmitted into the AIADMK?

Absolutely not! She is not a member of the AIADMK. A certain section of the media doesn't want to believe this. Legally. she is not in the AIADMK.

What about her nephew T T V Dhinakaran's Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam, are you open for a merger with it?

(Laughs) Where is their identity? After the (October 2019) bye-elections and the parliamentary elections where is their identity?

Even if you don't think so, the Opposition parties are going to mention the fissures in your party in their election campaign. How will you tackle it?

The agenda taken up by the Opposition is that all is not well in the AIADMK. They are not going to talk about the performance of the government. Tamil Nadu is among the best governed states.

They will insist that there are fissures in the government. They will continue to plant stories with their fake agendas, in media houses friendly to them and run by them.

What are the positives that you are going to fight the elections on?

Positives are the truth. What we have promised and what we have achieved. People in Tamil Nadu have realised that whatever the DMK has said has never been proved.

We have protected the Cauvery basin, it is an agricultural protected zone now. We stuck to the two-language formula. We have allocated 7.5% seats to students from government schools in medical colleges.

They accused us of scams, but they haven't been able to prove even one scam.

They change their stance when they are in power and when they are in the Opposition. When they are in the Opposition they are against their own welfare schemes. People clearly understand their double standards.

People also clearly know that M K Stalin (of the DMK) is not leadership material. With so much of opportunities in front of him, nothing worked in his favour, putting pressure on his leadership qualities.

What about the cases that are pending against a few ministers in your government?

Our ministers never shied away from cooperating with the officials when they have been called for any enquiry or clarifications.

They have extended the fullest cooperation and will come out clean.

What about your alliances? Specifically, will the AIADMK tie up with the Bharatiya Janata Party? If not, why not?

The coordinator announced that EPS will be the CM candidate. We have an alliance now. Our high command will take an appropriate decision at an appropriate time.

EPS has been critical of the BJP. Do you fear the loss of minority votes if you tie up with the BJP, as happened in the 2019 Lok Sabha election? /strong>

There is a perception of the minority people that whatever laws were passed by the central government are detrimental to them. The Opposition was successful in propagating these kinds of false narratives.

The belief of the people of Tamil Nadu that encompasses all caste, creed and religion is that the AIADMK is a true secular party.

In the Opposition the DMK indulges in pleasing the minorities and they don't hesitate to hurt the beliefs and sentiments of the majority whenever possible.

The best example is the Kanda Sashti controversy orchestrated by the Dravida Kazhagam and the DMK played second fiddle to the same.

What about Rajinikanth? Kamal Hassan? Will the AIADMK tie up with them?

The alliances will be decided by the high command. The doors are always open for anyone who believes in the AIADMK leadership and its ideology.,
Actor Ali Fazal, who made his Bollywood debut with a special appearance in 3 Idiots, has now become a household name after featuring in various popular movies and series. During an interview with DT Next, the actor revealed a few things about his initial days in cinema. He also shared his views on colour-blind casting and his upcoming series Mirzapur 2. Here is everything you need to know:

ALSO READ: Gal Gadot-Ali Fazal Starrer 'Death On The Nile' has Moved Up Its Release Date To Dec 2020

Ali Fazal talks about colour-blind casting

Ali Fazal, who will be seen playing the British character named Andrew Katchadourian in the film Death On The Nile, said that colour-blind casting is defined as the casting of such minority actors in roles where race, ethnicity, or gender is not germane. Fazal further said that this form of casting is "necessary" which can include people of all races, colours and genders in the filmmaking process.

For the unversed, Death On The Nile is now slated to be released in the year 2021 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Late American actor George Kennedy played the same role in 1978 released original movie. However, for the upcoming flick, Fazal has joined hands with Indian-origin British actor Dev Patel, who played the title role in The Personal History of David Copperfield.

About the film Death On The Nile

Death on the Nile is an upcoming mystery thriller film helmed by Kenneth Branagh. The movie is a follow-up to 2017's Murder on the Orient Express and features Branagh, Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, and Letitia Wright. The film is the third screen adaptation of Christie's novel.

ALSO READ: Ali Fazal Poses With Vikrant Massey, Shriya Pilgaonkar And Mirzapur Fam, See Photo

Ali Fazal's upcoming projects

Fazal will be next seen in Mirzapur 2 which is a crime thriller series. The plot of the series revolves around the criminal activities and lawlessness that is carried out in Mirzapur. The trailer of the show is already out and is been loved by many fans and critics. The show features Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal, Shweta Tripathi, Divyendu Sharma, Rasika Dugal, among others, in pivotal roles.

Besides them, the show will also star Kulbushan Kharbanda, Harshita Gaur, Vijay Varma, Priyanshu Painyuli, and Isha Talwar. The crime-thriller show has been created by Puneet Krishna and is helmed by Gurmeet Singh and Mihir Desai. Mirzapur 2 will be released on Amazon Prime Video on October 23, 2020.

ALSO READ: Ali Fazal, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer's 'Death On The Nile' New Images Out, Check Out

ALSO READ: Ali Fazal Shares Aesthetic Pic Of Him With Poetic Note, Richa Goes All Hearts

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.
Sumi Sukanya Dutta By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: A case of four healthcare workers having developed severe Covid-19 requiring hospitalisation, weeks after being recovered from the disease with mild symptoms, has been documented in India.

The findings of the study have dashed expectations that the second infection with coronavirus should be milder.

The study was conducted by researchers associated with two hospitals in Mumbai, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology and CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in Delhi.

So far, while it has almost been established that re-infection with SARS CoV 2 in people is possible, there have been very few instances where the repeat infections have been found to be worse than the first episodes, despite the presence of neutralising antibodies.

ALSO READ | Can I get the coronavirus twice?

The researchers associated with Kasturba Hospital for Infectious Disease and P D Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai, apart from the two scientific institutions found that for all four HCWs, the second episode was accompanied by worse symptoms, constitutional manifestations, and illness that lasted longer than the first episode.

Also, all required hospitalisation and treatment with one patient undergoing plasma therapy while another was unable to return to routine activities and work for three weeks, said the study which is under peer-review for publication in The Lancet.

All of these patients had the first infection in May and June but they again developed symptoms in July. The researchers established the presence of the virus in the two episodes of infection through the detailed genome sequencing

While the evidence of people developing severe episodes of re-infection is rare, our work has clearly manifested that doctors and people need to be very careful even after they recover from the disease once, said Dr. Anurag Agarwal, a scientist with the CSIR-IGIB who is a co-author of the study.

He added that there were three key takeaways from the study- that immunity is not guaranteed despite infection, protection against the virus may be short-lived and bad disease the next time, though rare, is a possibility.

In the paper, the authors have noted that while none of the HCWs developed lower respiratory tract manifestations or breathlessness, this may be explained by their young age.

Older HCWs may experience more severe respiratory involvement, they said, adding that as for those who recover from mild Covid-19 have short term immunity, reinfections may become more common in the future.

Incidentally, the paper has come out weeks after two cases of reinfection were reported in the countryboth of which were found without any symptoms in the later episodes.

Some independent scientists meanwhile raised concerns saying that since the only laboratory evidence of the first infection in such cases has been a single pharyngeal PCR swab, it could also be a case of contamination rather than an actual case of infection the first time.

As per my knowledge, reinfections are very few to be true possibilities, said a senior immunologist who did not want to be named. This can be clearly resolved if the researchers have DNA samples from the first swab which can then be used to ascertain the patients identity, he said.
During his monologue on Tuesdays episode of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert laid into the ridiculous spectacle that was Donald Trumps attempt to pretend COVID-19 is no big deal (by among other things, leaving the hospital after just three days and cutting a video about his return to the White House). Among other things, Colbert mocked Trump for telling people COVID-19 isnt that big of a deal, and as evidence citing a level of medical care available pretty much only to the most powerful person in the world.

Trump was discharged  or discharged himself, a point no one has actually clarified  on Monday night and upon returning home, he walked up a short flight of stairs in front of the White House for a photo-op in which he visibly appeared to struggle for breath. Afterward, he released a pair of videos. The first was a deceptively edited clip set to generic swelling music of Trump walking from Marine One to the White House.

Colbert played an excerpt from that clip and then joked not only was that campaign propaganda, it was also the trailer for the upcoming movie Triumph of the Ill.' That, of course, was a reference to the famous 1935 propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl that glorified Nazi Germany.

Also Read: Tucker Carlson: It's 'Politically Motivated Hysteria' to Worry About Trump Spreading COVID (Video)

Trump also took his mask off immediately after leaving the hospital, something Colbert said sends a bad message. In fact, the only thing worse than the message this sent is the actual message he sent. Thats when he played a clip from the second video Trump released, in which he claimed COVID-19 isnt very dangerous, urged people not to let it dominate their lives and then bragged about a bunch of experimental medications that are not available to the vast majority of people who have suffered COVID-19. We have the best medicines, Trump said in the clip, all developed recently.

We have the best medicines, we all have experimental treatments that nobody else has gotten, Colbert said in response. We all have the best helicopter to fly us to and from our publicly subsidized mansion that contains an in-home intensive care unit itself. Were definitely gonna beat this virus. Thats what we all have, not sure about you all, though we all have that.

Theres a lot more about Trump, and as you can guess Colbert doesnt have a lot of nice things to say. Watch the whole thing above.

Read original story Colbert Points Out How Most People With COVID-19 Dont Get Trumps Level of Care (Video) At TheWrap
A journalist and three others on way to Hathras and arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police earlier this week have been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and sedition, according to an FIR registered in Mathura on Wednesday.

The four, who had been arrested in Mathura on Monday, had been placed under preventive detention but an FIR was registered against them in the Mant police station of Mathura today and subsequently they were presented before a court.

These four include Atiq-ur- Rehman from Muzaffar Nagar, Siddiq from Malappuram (Kerala), Masood from Bahraich and Alam from Rampur. Siddiq is a journalist. They were arrested on Monday night after a laptop and some objectionable literature relating to Justice for Hathras Victim was allegedly recovered from their possession while they were en route to Hathras.

They are allegedly linked with Popular Front of Indias (PFI) student wing Campus Front of India (CFI) and were coming from Delhi and moving towards Hathras in a car and were stopped, said police.

The UP government has maintained that there is a conspiracy to whip up caste and communal violence in the state and the Hathras police are now investigating a conspiracy angle in the case, which has created a political storm.

The Superintendent of Police (SP) for Mathura Rural Sheerish Chand confirmed that these four are now booked for sedition and other charges. He informed that all four were presented before Court on Wednesday and sent to judicial custody for 14 days.

The FIR has been registered under section 153-A of IPC (promoting enmity between two groups), 295A of IPC (deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage feelings) 124 (A) (Sedition) beside section 17 and 14 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 and Sections 65, 72 and 76 of Information Technology Act.

The FIR blames them for attempting to incite riots in Hathras and fuelling caste violence for which they were collecting donations through those working for website Carrd.co.

It further said that money transfer was not through lawful method and the money so gathered from international sources was to cause riots. It was alleged that pamphlets Am I Not Indias Daughter were to serve these unlawful purposes.

The men are accused of attempting to incite a riot, spread rumours, gather people and wage a hate campaign against India through its website. The website, said police, was teaching ways to cause riots and to move out safely after achieving the objective. All four arrested were blamed to be involved in all these activities through the website, alleged Prabal Pratap Singh, the sub inspector and complainant in the case, according to whom, these unlawful acts make all four liable for sedition charges.
This article will be updated throughout the week with coronavirus case counts and other need-to-know information about the pandemic in San Antonio.

COVID-19 numbers update: The San Antonio Metropolitan Heath District recorded no new deaths and 90 new cases on Sunday, but it added 27 deaths that were from backlogged investigations.

October 10

COVID-19 numbers update: The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District reported 80 new coronavirus cases Saturday  81 fewer than the day previously  bringing the areas seven-day average to 147 cases.

Metro Health also reported three new deaths. Since the pandemic started in March, 1,174 residents have died from the virus.

October 9

Asymptomatic testing expansion: Beginning Tuesday, the city of San Antonio will expand the hours of testing asymptomatic persons for the coronavirus at its free testing sites.

No appointments are required since the tests will be given on a first come, first served basis.

Free testing for those without symptoms will be done from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday at two sites  Cuellar Community Center at 5626 San Fernando St. and Ramirez Community Center at 1011 Gillette Blvd.

On Friday, city and county officials reported 191 new coronavirus cases and no new deaths.

October 8

COVID-19 updates: The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District reported 170 new coronavirus cases Thursday and three deaths. With the newly reported infections, Bexar Countys total case count since the start of the pandemic climbed to 59,323. The new deaths bring the county's toll to 1,171.

October 7

S.A. COVID -19 case total reaches 59,000: Hours after Gov. Greg Abbott announced a plan that would allow bars to partially reopen for the first time since June, San Antonio reported 214 new coronavirus cases, tipping the total since the start of the pandemic above 59,000. No new deaths were reported.

Bars reopening: On Wednesday, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that county judges can start working with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission to allow bars to operate in-person once again.

Metro Health shakeup: A new day-to-day director of public health has been named in San Antonio and Assistant City Manager Colleen Bridger will become the city's coronavirus czar.

October 6

COVID-19 updates: With key metrics showing steady progress in the fight against the coronavirus, the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District has lowered its risk rating for schools from moderate to low, giving districts latitude to bring more students back to classrooms.

COVID-19 updates: San Antonios Metropolitan Health District reported 193 new coronavirus cases Tuesday  nearly three times as many as on Monday. Officials are also investigating an additional 165 deaths.

October 5

COVID-19 updates: San Antonios positivity rate for coronavirus infections dipped below 5 percent for the first time since a surge of cases slammed the city over the summer, as officials reached a milestone they have been chasing for months.

Texas bars could be opening soon: Gov. Greg Abbott said on Monday that he will soon allow more business to open amid the coronavirus pandemic, though he did not provide a timeline or any other details.

October 4

COVID-19 updates: The coronavirus pandemic continued to show signs of abating Sunday as city officials said no new deaths were recorded. Still, the total number of cases was up substantially from Saturday, when Metro Health said 58,184 had been tallied.

Prominent San Antonio diagnosed with COVID-19: San Antonios Cornerstone Church said Sunday that its 80-year-old founding pastor, John Hagee, has tested positive for the coronavirus.
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
Cavanaugh Bell is only in the second grade, but he's already doing his part to make the world a kinder place.

The Maryland resident started a nonprofit called Cool & Dope after being told by several organizations that he was too young to be a volunteer. Earlier this year, he used his $600 life savings to make care packages for more than 125 senior citizens in his neighborhood, so they didn't have to risk catching coronavirus at the grocery store. This summer, Bell raised money and held drives to get essentials like hygiene and cleaning products, clothes, diapers, and nonperishable food to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Bell told People he saw Pine Ridge while on a road trip in 2018, after his family drove for "miles and miles and there was straight-up nothing. I was like, 'Well, maybe we should do something for them since they're in the middle of nowhere.'" He dropped off his first load of supplies in July, and is preparing to make another delivery before winter. "I'm just trying to make them have a big fat smile on their faces," Bell said.

Bell aims to spread positivity, and Alice Phelps, a member of the Pine Ridge community, told People he's doing exactly that. The 7-year-old "believes he can save the world, and I believe him," she said. "He just carries that, 'Well, no problem, let's do it,' and he doesn't see anything as a challenge, so I love that innocence about him." Bell said he wants people to know that they can "have an impact no matter their age  no matter if you're 8, 10, or even my grandma's age, 74  you can do anything."

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CANCUN, Mexico (AP)  Hurricane Delta made landfall in Mexico Wednesday as an extremely dangerous Category 2 storm, coming ashore near Puerto Morelos along the northeastern coast of Yucatan Peninsula.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said satellite imagery, radar data from Cuba and surface observations in Mexico indicate that the center of Delta came ashore around 5:30 a.m. local time sustaining top winds of 110 mph (175 kmh).

Quintana Roo Gov. Carlos Joaquin warned residents and tourists that it is a strong, powerful hurricane. He considered it a good sign that Delta had weakened a bit late Tuesday, but said the area hadnt seen a storm like it since Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

Delta had increased in strength by 80 mph in just 24 hours, and its top winds peaked at 145 mph (230 kph) before it weakened as it neared the shore. Forecasters warned it was still an extremely dangerous storm nevertheless, with a life-threatening storm surge that could raise water levels 9 to 13 feet (2.7 to 4 meters), along with large and dangerous waves and flash flooding inland.

Thousands of Quintana Roo residents and tourists were hunkering down in government shelters. Everyone had been ordered off the streets by 7 p.m.

The evacuations of low lying areas, islands and the coastline expanded as Delta exploded over the warm Caribbean waters offshore. Much of Cancuns hotel zone was cleared out as guests were bused to inland shelters. In Cancun alone, the government opened 160 shelters.

Some 300 guests and nearly 200 staff from the Fiesta Americana Condesa hotel were taken to the Technological Institute of Cancun campus. All wearing masks, they spread out on thin mattresses in a classroom building and tried to get comfortable as workers boarded up the buildings windows in a light rain. Some played cards or watched videos on their phones, while others called relatives.

The hotel has done a good job of making sure that we were provided for and that were going to be safe here in this place, so we dont have any concerns at all, said Shawn Sims, a tourist from Dallas sheltering with his wife, Rashonda Cooper, and their sons, 7-year-old Liam and 4-year-old Easton.

This is my first (hurricane) experience, but I see that these guys have a plan and they know what theyre doing, Sims said.

State tourism officials said more than 40,000 tourists were in Quintana Roo, a fraction of what would normally be there. Deltas damage comes on top of months of pandemic-induced lockdown that has devastated the states tourism industry.

At the Cancun Convention Center, 400 tourists from hotels and rental properties bunked for the night.

We hope that in this place we are surely much safer, Quintana Roo Tourism Secretary Marisol Vanegas said. This is a structure that has withstood other hurricanes.

Delta was forecast to spend several hours lashing the Yucatan Peninsula before moving into the Gulf of Mexico and growing into a considerably larger storm before striking the U.S. Gulf coast. People in Louisiana or Mississippi should prepare now for hurricane-force winds to begin hitting their coastlines on Friday, the hurricane center advised.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Delta was expected to make landfall there Friday night or Saturday morning and the entire state is in the storms possible path. State and local officials in coastal areas were shoring up levees, sandbagging and taking other protections measures, he said.

Louisiana is still recovering from Hurricane Laura, which ravaged the southwestern region as it roared ashore as a Category 4 storm in August. More than 6,600 Laura evacuees remain in hotels around the state, mainly in New Orleans, because their homes are too heavily damaged to return.

Mexico put the commander of its navy in charge of the federal response. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday that 5,000 federal troops and emergency personnel were being made available in Quintana Roo to aid in storm efforts.

Juan Carlos Avila arrived at the Technological Institute of Cancun shelter with his seven-months pregnant wife, Joselyn, and their 3-year-old-son, Alexander. He said the staff had made them comfortable and seemed well prepared.

The family, which lives in Miami, had been in Cancun a week and already went through Tropical Storm Gamma, which soaked the area over the weekend.

Weve practically lived in storms during our stay here in Cancun, Avila said.

Future cone for Hurricane Delta indicates Ohio could see some rain from the storm's remnants next week.

___

Associated Press writers Gabriel Alcocer in Cancun and Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, La. contributed to this report.
NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Royce Global Value Trust, Inc. (NYSE: RGT) (the "Fund") today announced that the Special Meeting of Stockholders (the "Meeting") previously scheduled for Thursday, October 8, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time has been postponed to Friday, October 30, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time in order to solicit additional stockholder votes. As previously announced, due to the continuing public health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and to support the health and safety of the Fund's stockholders, the Meeting will be held in a virtual meeting format and will be accessible solely by means of remote communication.

The record date of September 8, 2020 remains unchanged. Previously submitted proxies are revocable. The previous submission of proxies also will not affect your right to vote in the event that you attend the Meeting. Please note, however, that attendance alone at the Meeting without voting will not be sufficient to revoke a previously authorized proxy.

The Fund recently filed a supplement (the "Supplement") to its definitive proxy statement, dated May 11, 2020 (as supplemented, the "Proxy Statement") with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). The Supplement contains, among other things, a new notice with an updated record date. The Supplement was distributed to all stockholders entitled to vote at the Meeting. Stockholders are advised to read the Proxy Statement and the Supplement in full because they contain important information about the proposal. The Proxy Statement and the Supplement are available on the Internet at http://www.ReadOurMaterials.com/rgt. The Proxy Statement, the Supplement, and other documents filed by the Fund are also available for free on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov.

The WHITE proxy card included with the proxy materials that were distributed to stockholders as of the original record date (i.e., May 1, 2020) has not been updated to reflect the changes in location, date, or time for the Meeting. The WHITE proxy card included with the proxy materials that were distributed to stockholders as of the new record date (i.e., September 8, 2020) has not been updated to reflect the date change for the Meeting. Both WHITE proxy cards may, however, continue to be used by stockholders entitled to vote at the Meeting.

The Meeting is being held to approve a new investment advisory agreement with Royce Investment Partners ("Royce")1, the Fund's investment manager. The Board recommends stockholders vote "FOR" the approval of the new investment advisory agreement. Approval of the new agreement will enable Royce to continue to manage the Fund and execute the strategy that has delivered impressive relative performance for stockholders. The two leading proxy advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and Glass Lewis & Co., have also recognized the Fund's outperformance relative to its peers and the benefits of approving the new investment advisory agreement, and have therefore recommended stockholders vote "FOR" the approval of the new investment advisory agreement. Each vote is important, regardless of the number of shares owned, and not voting has the same effect as voting against the new investment advisory agreement.

The Meeting will be held at the following website: http://www.meetingcenter.io/249551845. To participate in the Meeting, Fund stockholders must enter the following password: RGVT2020. Fund stockholders must also enter the control number that appears on the WHITE proxy card that they previously received from the Fund.

The website for the Meeting will become accessible to stockholders beginning at approximately 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time on October 29, 2020. Stockholders are encouraged to access the website beginning at this time and prior to the start of the Meeting to allow ample time to log into the Meeting webcast and test the computer system, and, if planning to vote at the Meeting, to vote using the stockholder ballot accessible on the Meeting website. Such ballot will contain instructions on how to submit votes during the Meeting, including the email address to which the completed ballot and any legal proxies should be sent. For questions relating to participation at the Meeting by remote communication, please call Computershare Fund Services ("Computershare") toll-free at (800) 426-5523.

Stockholders who hold shares through an intermediary, such as a bank or broker, must register in advance to attend the Meeting. To register, stockholders must submit proof of their proxy power (legal proxy) reflecting their Fund holdings, along with their name and email address to Computershare. Stockholders may forward an email from their intermediary or send an image of their legal proxy to [email protected]. Requests for registration must be received no later than 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time on October 27, 2020. Stockholders will receive a confirmation email from Computershare of the stockholder's registration and a control number that will allow the stockholder to vote at the Meeting.

Stockholders are not required to attend the Meeting to vote on the proposal. Whether or not stockholders plan to attend the Meeting, the Fund urges stockholders to authorize a proxy to vote their shares in advance of the Meeting by one of the methods described in the Proxy Statement.

Stockholders who need assistance voting may contact the Fund's proxy solicitor, Innisfree M&A Incorporated, by calling (877) 825-8906 (toll-free in North America). Banks and brokers may call collect at (212) 750-5833.

About Royce Global Value Trust, Inc.

Royce Global Value Trust, Inc. is a closed-end diversified management investment company whose shares of Common Stock are listed and traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The Fund invests in both U.S. and non-U.S. common stocks (generally market caps up to $10 billion).

For further information on The Royce Funds, please visit our web site at: www.royceinvest.com.

Forward Looking Statement

This press release is not an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell shares of the Fund. This letter may contain statements regarding plans and expectations for the future that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking and can sometimes be identified by the use of words such as "plan," "expect," "will," "should," "could," "anticipate," "intend," "project," "estimate," "guidance," "possible," "continue" and other similar terms and phrases, although not all forward-looking statements include these words. Such forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of the Fund, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance and events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Additionally, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Additional information concerning such risks and uncertainties are or will be contained in the Fund's filings with the SEC, including the Fund's Annual Report to Stockholders on Form N-CSR for the year ended December 31, 2019, the Fund's Semiannual Report to Stockholders on Form N-CSRS for the six-month period ended June 30, 2020, and subsequent filings with the SEC. These factors should be considered carefully and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The Fund does not undertake any responsibility to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statement.

Media Contact

Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher: Lucas Pers 212-355-4449

Important Disclosure Information

1Royce & Associates, LP is a Delaware limited partnership that primarily conducts its business under the name Royce Investment Partners.

SOURCE Royce Global Value Trust, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.royceinvest.com


One lucky Australian has become a multimillionaire overnight after securing the winning number's in Tuesday's night's Lotto, but the fortune still hasn't been claimed.

The mystery ticket-holder will take home $11.2million as the sole winner of the division one prize pool.

The winner has yet to claim their prize and officials have no way of contacting them because the ticket was unregistered.

The winning numbers were 12, 26, 22, 13, 10, 43 and 25, and the supplementary numbers were 34 and 2

'Imagine waking up this morning and going about your usual Wednesday chores with no idea you've won $11million,' The Lott spokesperson Lauren Cooney said.

'Maybe they've shown up to work this morning when they could be resigning and planning an early retirement.'

The winning ticket was purchased at Charnwood Newsagency in Canberra.

The mystery ticket-holder will take home $11.2million as the sole winner of the Division one prize pool of Tuesday night's draw

Owner Stephen Dowling said he is excited to meet the lucky winner when they discover the incredible news.

'We will greet our winner with open arms. I can't wait to see the smile on their face,' Mr Dowling said.

'We're asking everyone to check their tickets.'

The winning numbers were 12, 26, 22, 13, 10, 43 and 25, and the supplementary numbers were 34 and 2.
New book examines how Mexican migrants and longstanding residents in an American town adapted to rapid migration across two decades

Chestnut Hill, Mass. - The result of 11 years of field research, Migration Narratives: Diverging Stories in Schools, Churches, and Civic Institutions, explores a Mexican migrant community's two decades of growth in one American town and the complex relationships among the new arrivals and existing residents, tracing diverse, dynamic interactions within a changing community.

Published this month by Bloomsbury, the book presents the voices and views of three groups of residents --Irish- and Italian-American, African American, and Mexican immigrant--through a broad range of personal stories about how migrants are perceived, the actions and reactions among diverse residents, and the weight of stereotypes and past experiences, said the book's lead author Stanton E.F. Wortham, the Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Dean of the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College.

The book shows how Mexicans' experiences were shaped by stories about the town's earlier cycles of migration. Many Irish, Italian and African American residents narrated an idealized but partly accurate history in which their ancestors came as migrants and worked hard to succeed, finding jobs, establishing families, and moving "up and out" of the less desirable downtown neighborhoods.

"We trace how these stories were often inaccurate, but nonetheless influenced the realities of migrant life," said Wortham. "We all have ways of discussing the complexities in our lives, and we usually oversimplify. What we do is document the complexities that migrants and hosts actually experience in towns like this. We think that is the best place to start if we hope to respond intelligently to the politically-motivated stories that oversimplify migration across the contemporary world."

Migration Narratives offers a compelling study of a community adapting to changing demographics and culture during an election year, when immigration and immigrant communities are among the contested topics discussed by politicians at all levels of government, Wortham said.

Wortham, a linguistic anthropologist and educational ethnographer with a particular expertise in social identification and human interaction, led a team of researchers who spent years speaking to residents in the northeast American town, which became home to thousands of Mexican migrants between 1995-2016, such that the Mexican population grew by more than 1,000 percent and ended up comprising almost a third of the town.

"We spent many years in this community, and we wrote this book to document the complexities that migrants and hosts experience and to suggest ways in which policy-makers, researchers, educators and communities can respond intelligently to politically motivated stories that oversimplify migration across the contemporary world," said Wortham.

Wortham, and co-authors Briana Nichols, Katherine Clonan-Roy, and Catherine Rhodes, explore how the descendants of earlier migrants interacted with Mexican newcomers, describing how experiences of and stories about migration unfolded across institutional spaces--residential neighborhoods, politics, businesses, public spaces, churches, schools, and community organizations.

The marriage of a local tradesman to a Mexican woman led to the first immigrants from western Mexico in the 1970s, Wortham said. By 1990, that initial cluster had grown to about 100 people, according to the U.S. Census. Between 1995 and 2016, the Mexican population - now drawing immigrants from central Mexico - would grow to make up one-third of the city's population, he said.

Among the consequences of this change: after an initial reluctance, Mexican parishioners were welcomed into a Catholic church congregation, helping to revive the shrinking parish. Wortham said the opening of several Mexican restaurants in the city's downtown helped to overcome existing, inaccurate assumptions that the area was unsafe. The arrival of Mexican immigrants sometimes led to tensions with the Black community, at a time when Black residents had become a substantial part of the population and held many government and community leadership roles.

The researchers observed ongoing changes in prior migrant communities, and the interactions these groups had with Mexicans, showing how interethnic relations played a central role in the pathways newcomers traveled upon arrival, said Wortham, who throughout his career has conducted research spanning education, anthropology, linguistics, psychology, sociology, and philosophy.

The book richly represents the voices of Irish, Italian, African American and Mexican residents, who collectively tell a story of American immigration and resettlement that allows readers to see beyond the oversimplified claims made about immigration - on both the left and the right - that emerge during political debate.

"People often break immigration down into simple explanations: It's people working hard and hoping their kids succeed and building America, as in the classic immigrant story," said Wortham. "Or it's about immigrants moving in and taking all the jobs. Or it's about racial injustice and how immigrants are discriminated against. What the book tries to do is show that actually all of those things are true, but not one of them describes everything. As in many towns, there is a complex, layered history of immigration and interethnic relations."

Central to the study are the accounts of Black, White and Mexican residents that tell divergent stories about migration, and how these stories help shape the migrants' experiences in this American town and similar ones throughout the country and around the world, said Wortham.

###
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The next time you order hotel room service, you may receive a buzz on your phone rather than a knock on your door.

As the hospitality industry struggles to adapt to changing consumer behavior during the coronavirus pandemic, many hotels are turning to room service robots to help wary travelers feel more at ease.

Guests now think of it as a perk to not have a person come to their room, said David Wang, director of sales and marketing at the Crowne Plaza San Jose - Silicon Valley hotel, in Milpitas. So the less human interaction we have, the better.

Such service bots have been around for years, helping hotels slim down on room service delivery time. But with the pandemic twisting norms across the spectrum of human interaction, more businesses have expressed interest in leasing them. In the last six months, inquiries have quadrupled at Savioke, the San Jose company that manufactures the bots, according to Bill Booth, the companys head of sales and marketing.

The robots dont sneeze, as we say, Booth said.

Savioke leases out about 100 bots to more than 80 hotels, several of which are in the Bay Area, and has clocked upwards of 700,000 deliveries across its fleet since it launched 7 years ago. Hotels in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and elsewhere have recently put in robot orders, Booth says. Hospitals, high-rise office and apartment building managers have also been calling.

The company is the brainchild of Steve Cousins, former CEO of the Willow Garage robotics incubator in Menlo Park, which closed in 2014. Savioke starting shipping bots to hotels the same year.

We had a sense that the service industry broadly was not well served by robotics and automation, said Cousins, founder and CEO of Savioke. One thing thats cool about putting robots in hotels is lots of people see them.

The 304-room Crowne Plaza ordered its first room service bot, which it calls Dash, in 2015. Standing about 3 feet tall and outfitted with a bow-tie sticker, the bot comes with a touchscreen face and locking compartment at its head, and scoots around like an autonomous vacuum. It is integrated into the hotels elevator system, greets guests with beeps and boops, and knows to steer clear of open stairwells.

Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

Almost immediately, Dash cut the average room delivery time in the 12-floor hotel from 10 minutes to three for amenities ranging from coffee to towels to chicken sandwiches. Thats a deep time-saver, Wang said. Plus, it served as an amusing novelty for guests to gawk at and mention in Trip Advisor reviews.

Now, though, Dash and its brethren fit neatly into the touchless experience that businesses dependent on high volumes of people are trying to cultivate  alongside plexiglass partitions and plastic-wrapped disposable toothbrushes.

In health care facilities, the bots have been used to shuttle blood samples to and from hospital labs and prescription medications around commercial pharmacies, Booth says.

With meal delivery gaining ground, offices are looking into bots as go-betweens for workers leery of cafeteria lines and front-door handoffs. Savioke is working on a pilot program at a local office complex, Booth says.

Were in somewhat of an unprecedented time, said Steve Cousins, founder and CEO of Savioke. Were hearing from people who run services in office buildings who have to rethink what the world will be like as COVID comes to an end. Nows a good time to try new things for 2021 and beyond.

Hotel managers interviewed for this article said the robots arent replacing human workers. Bots like Dash are often most active during the graveyard shift when staffs are thin, and during peak check-in times when desk agents are too busy to quickly deliver a bar of soap to the 10th floor.

The focus is not to replace people but to use the technology as an advantage in providing efficiency, said Brian Bolf, senior vice president of revenue management at Sightline Hospitality, which operates Hotel Axiom in San Francisco and leases a Savioke bot there. In the realm of COVID, it brings another layer of necessity to guests that dont want the contact.

Another added benefit of the bot, Wang says, is that they eliminate the awkward moment guests often face when opening their door to a staffer bringing them a tube of toothpaste: Should I tip? Or just close the door?

The robot doesnt get tips, Wang said.

Even so, some of Saviokes bots have developed personas. A bot at the Hotel Trio in Healdsburg is named Rose, a cute nod to the wine type. Another at a hotel in Germany has its own Instagram account, featuring photos of the bot in various holiday costumes.

Based on reports from hotels, Savioke is looking to expand its bots functionalities. Can the bots carry more cargo? Make multiple stops? Patrol like hallway monitors?

Thats the type of feedback were getting now, Booth says. What else can the robot do?

Gregory Thomas is the Chronicle's editor of lifestyle & outdoors. Email: gthomas@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @GregRThomas
A few months back social media was abuzz with the resurfacing of a controversial kissing scene between co-actors Kamal Haasan and Rekha Harris in the 1986 Tamil film Punnagai Mannan. The scene in question showed the two actors, who played lovers in the film, attempting to commit suicide as they were forced to separate due to the pressure from society. Before jumping off from the cliff in that iconic scene, Kamal Haasan kissed Rekha. The kiss was allegedly unplanned and hence the controversy.

When the video started doing rounds on social media in February, many people criticized Haasan and demanded him to apologise to the actress. However, Rekha did not want to react to the issue and wondered why the scene was gaining popularity years later. Months later, Rekha now enters the reality show Bigg Boss Tamil 4 that is hosted by Kamal Haasan. She was welcomed by the broadcaster Vijay TV that runs the show. Check out the tweet:

RELATED NEWS Bigg Boss Tamil 4 Fame Gabriella Charlton To Make TV Debut With Eeramana Rojave

The actress has several times in the past said she was not aware about the kiss before it happened. I have said this a hundred times. They shot the scene without me knowing about it. People ask me the same question and I am fed up of answering it, Rekha was quoted as saying by The News Minute. (https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/fact-remains-i-didn-t-consent-it-rekha-punnagai-mannan-kiss-kamal-118872)

The kiss didnt look ugly or aggressive on screen. There was a need for it, but I was a very young girl and I didnt know about it, she added. She realised that the scene had a huge impact when she watched it in theatres.

On being asked if the actor or the filmmakers apologized to her after the scene, she said, Why would they apologise, the film was a superhit! I got many films after that too.

Rekha has also said that she does not wish to talk about the incident now to gain popularity out of it. It will now be interesting to watch her encounter with Haasan on Bigg Boss Tamil 4 which kicked off recently.
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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan  Wed, October 7, 2020 12:48 473 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49a04f3 1 National not-guilty,debt,Medan-District-Court,Medan,North-Sumatra,defamation-case Free

Febi Nur Amelia, a 29-year-old resident of North Sumatra, has been acquitted of all defamation charges after the Medan District Court found that her disputed Instagram post was simply an attempt to ask for her money back from an acquaintance who had yet to repay a Rp 70 million (US$4,710) debt.

Presiding judge Sri Wahyuni Batubara, said the defendant had not been proven guilty of having defamed Fitriani Manurung, her former friend and the wife of a police officer, who accused Febi of insulting her by writing a post about the debt on social media.

Sri said the defendant had resorted to publicly posting about the debt on Instagram because there was no other way of contacting Fitriani regarding the matter.

We hereby rule that Febi Nur Amelia has not been legally proven guilty of any charges, Sri said during the ruling on Tuesday.

Fitriani was found to have borrowed the funds from the defendant in 2016 through her husbands bank account, the court said.

The defendant had tried to amicably discuss Fitriani's debt through WhatsApp, only to be blocked by the latter, Sri added.

Febi expressed relief about the ruling, saying it was a just decision.

I thank the panel of judges. Theres still justice in this court after all, she told The Jakarta Post following the ruling.

Read also: Facebook, Instagram ban QAnon conspiracy-linked accounts

She said she had been anxious about the ruling because the prosecutors were seeking a two-year prison term for her, even though Febi believed that she was a victim in the case.

I was the one who was owed [money], yet I was also the one being charged. Its odd, she said.

Febi had been charged under articles 27 and 45 on defamation of the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law for attempting to ask for her money back from Fitriani through Instagram.

In December 2016, Fitriani reportedly borrowed about Rp 70 million from Febi. In 2017, the latter tried to collect the debt but to no avail. Fitriani blocked Febis phone number in response.

Febi sent a direct message to Fitrianis Instagram account sometime in 2019 to ask for the money, but Fitriani said she did not recognize her. She blocked Febis account for a second time.

She then posted on Instagram saying Ive suddenly remembered the wife of a police officer who has yet to repay my money, amounting to Rp 70 million, [which she has owed] for years @Fitri_Bakhtiar. I would easily let the money go if the borrower was poor, but its different in this case because the borrower is rich, so I have to reclaim the money.

During a previous hearing, prosecutor Randi Tambunan argued that Febi had no right to slander Fitriani in her attempt to collect the debt on social media. Fitriani has also denied having a debt to Febi and said the Instagram post had harmed her. (rfa)
The 2020 general elections is about the destiny and future of the Country, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, the running mate of the Presidential aspirant of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has said.



The electorate should, therefore, come out in their numbers to vote for Mr John Dramani Mahama to save the country and to ensure socio-economic development.



Prof Opoku-Agyemang was addressing separate durbars at Gomoa Ankamu, Apam, Gomoa Aseibu, Mongoase, Nyakrom, Agona Asafo, Awutu Bereku, Buduburam, and Kasoa during her recent tour of the Central Region.



As part of the visit, Prof Opoku-Agyemang and her entourage paid courtesy calls on Traditional Leaders and Zongo communities before addressing Party supporters at respective rallies.



She indicated that the NDC was the only Party that could rescue Ghanaians from economic hardship.



Our flagbearer is a man who promises and delivers and should be voted back to continue with the developmental projects and programmes he started and also to add more to improve the lives of all, she added.



Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, National Chairman of the NDC, asked Ghanaians to disregard fabricated stories alleging that the party would abolish the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy when voted into power.



The NDC led by our flagbearer, Mr John Dramani Mahama has not made this statement on any platform, what we are saying is that we will pursue quality education when voted into power, for the current and unborn generations to benefit, as stated in our peoples manifesto, he said.



Mr Ofosu-Ampofo noted that the NDC running mate was knowledgeable and had the qualities to bring decency to the body politic of the country.



The NDC National Chairman gave the assurance that the next NDC government would bring development to the doorsteps of the people through its BIG PUSH and urged Ghanaians to vote for the Party on December 7, for a better future.

Source: GNA









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Moments after Rhea Chakraborty got bail, her lawyer Satish Manshinde said she was a Bengali tigress who knows how to fight back. Interestingly, while all Bihar politicians played the Bihar ka beta card in support of Sushant Singh Rajput, West Bengal seemed to have disowned the Bangali may" or Bengali girl.

Till Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury saw this factor. On the day Chakraborty got bail, he said, I welcome the move. Its sad how she was targeted. But whats worse is that a woman and that too a Bengali woman was left all alone and vilified."

Chowdhury has been Mamata Banerjees most biter critic. And his appointment as state chief ahead of state polls has irked Banerjee because this is being seen as an open Congress hit at her while the BJP has been breathing down her back. Now the same Chowdhury is using the Rhea factor to hit back at Banerjee.

It saddens me that a woman chief minister has not felt for another woman and has ignored a Bengali woman who has been left to fight for herself," he told News18.

Back in Kolkata, the ruling TMC took potshots at Chowdhury on fighting on non-issues. Some even said he was needlessly supporting someone involved in drugs.

Will the Bengali woman Rhea be used as a poll plank? Sources say the Congress wants to steer clear of this but then Chowdhury is a shrewd politician who has managed to hold on to his turf in Murshidabad. And sources say he could make the point that Banerjee chose to remain quiet on the issue. For Chowdhury, obviously not the BJP but the TMC is the main opponent and few feel the way to counter Banerjees Bengal for Bengalis pitch can be countered through Rhea.

Sources say some are even thinking of using Rheas pictures close to polls and if she gets a clean chit, the possibility of approaching her to contest may not be completely ruled out. Till then Rheas Bengali surname has captured Chowdhurys and Congresss attention.

Read all the Latest News and Breaking News here
President Donald Trumps accountant must turn over his tax records to a New York state prosecutor an appeals court ruled Wednesday in a decision that likely sets up a second trip to the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said in a written decision that a stay of a lower-court decision will remain in effect so Trumps lawyers can appeal the ruling to the high court.

A district court judge had rejected their renewed efforts to invalidate a subpoena that the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. issued to Trumps accounting firm.

Part of Vance's probe pertains to an investigation related to payoffs to two women  porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal  to keep them quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign about alleged extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.

Vance, Jr. is seeking eight years of the Republican presidents personal and corporate tax records, but has disclosed little about what prompted him to request the records. In one recent court filing, Vance's lawyers have said he was justified in demanding them because of public reports of extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department was reviewing the ruling.

The Supreme Court in July ruled 7-2 against the president, rejecting Trumps arguments that he cant even be investigated, let alone charged with any crime, while he is in office. But the court said Trump can challenge the subpoena on other grounds like anyone else who receives a subpoena.

The likelihood that the taxes would be released was unlikely to be resolved before the November election, especially since the high court is down to eight justices after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Through his lawyers, Trump argued that the subpoena was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and amounted to harassment of him, especially since the wording copied the language in congressional subpoenas.

In its decision, the 2nd Circuit rejected all of those arguments.

"We hold that none of the Presidents allegations, taken together or separately, are sufficient to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued out of malice or an intent to harass,' the appeals court said.

___

Associated Press Writer Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.
Imagine being able to distribute all your hardcopy forms to your team or customers via dedicated mobile and web apps. And having all the received data automatically collated into easy to understand downloadable reports. Array makes this happen.

Cortado Ventures funded Array, an Oklahoma City and Austin-based app for operations and workflow automation processes. The investment closed as part of Arrays seed funding round.

Array is an innovative tech company that concentrates on data gathering, collating and reporting solutions, automating client data functions to improve their efficiency and productivity. The app can be used in a variety of use cases and industries. Users can create customized automated forms to generate data and results in real time. Array empowers distributed workflows with centralized transparency and control.

Array CEO Matt Doyle said: Imagine being able to distribute all your hardcopy forms to your team or customers via dedicated mobile and web apps. And having all the received data automatically collated into easy to understand downloadable reports. Array makes this happen.

In the mere four months since its inception, Cortado Ventures has closed its inaugural fund, surpassed its $10 million goal in the first ten weeks since creation and funded five transformative companies while maintaining its locked focus on strengthening Oklahoma business.

Nathaniel Harding, Managing Partner of Cortado Ventures, said: Arrays team has developed a revolutionary platform that equips teams to streamline tasks and processes while providing integrated reporting, compliance and cloud capabilities.

Doyle added: It is our distinct pleasure to partner with Cortado Ventures and other top-tier venture capital firms. Their network multiplies our access to customers in this period of significant growth.

The seed investment from Cortado will enable Array to scale its platform to additional clients and service lines, including operations and risk management. Arrays current customer base includes Walmart and Insurica; the company has plans to continue scaling in the near future.

Cortado Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm investing in ambitious, growth-driven companies to define a new generation of economic prosperity for Oklahoma and the immediate region.

###

To learn more about Cortado Ventures, click here.

To learn more about Array, visit the about page here.

If you would like more information about this topic, please call Nathaniel Harding at (405) 698-1748, or email nharding@cortado.ventures.
Kilkennys all-important food and hospitality industry has been dealt a body blow by the Governments decision to move the entire country to Level 3 of restrictions.

Many are facing a minimum three week closure, with thousands of staff to be once again sent home despite wide-scale compliance with restrictions that have been in place.

For many establishments, the indoor dining ban and limit to 15 outside mean it is simply not viable to open. Places which have only recently reopened are now closing doors again.

While most in the industry agree that public health must be prioritised, some have questioned the overall impact of the nationwide Level 3 decision, including for areas which appeared to be faring well.

Pat Crotty, owner of National Pub of the Year, Paris Texas, says its hard to argue with medical advice. However, he says that senior civil servants and experts drew up a roadmap to deal with regions and on a county-by-county basis, which now seemed to have been thrown in the bin.

Mr Crotty noted that significant measures and protocols had been put in place in bars and eateries to comply with restrictions and keep people safe. At Paris Texas, with a large number of staff, and thousands of people coming through the doors since it reopened in the summer, there had not been one confirmed Covid case arising there.

If we were doing something wrong, someone would have got sick, he says.

Now, those members of staff who had returned to work, must now go back on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment  along with many others around the county.

Mr Crotty says it is up to everyone  the public, people in the trade, customers. to all do their best: It isnt going away in a hurry, he says.

Lets say the numbers are good in three or four weeks, and we ease off again. What happens then? What are we going to do then in ten weeks when we are back in the same situation?

What have we learned? What are we going to do differently?

Mr Crotty says that even with the majority complying, there will always be a minority who dont comply with the laws.

You deal with them, you give the gardai the powers to enforce them, he says.

You dont say please stop going over sixty miles an hour  you fine them. There are very simple things we do in every aspect of society that causes the system to work.

While hotels may remain open under the new restrictions, its understood some local hotels are also questioning the viability of doing so. The heavy impact on tourism numbers, and now a ban on travelling outside home counties except under specific circumstances means bookings have fallen off.

Temporary closure

At the weekend, the Newpark Hotel, Kilkenny confirmed that four members of staff had tested positive for Covid-19 and as a result the hotel closed from Monday, October 5. It is scheduled to re-open on Friday, October 9.
Sydneysiders longing for a European summer could soon be sipping cocktails from private cabanas set up on a section of sand at popular Bondi Beach under a proposal being considered by staff at Waverley Council.

The Amalfi Beach Club company lodged an event proposal with the council earlier this year seeking permission to operate a European-style club on the world-famous beach in Sydney's east from November to February.

Part of Bondi Beach would be fenced off for an exclusive beach club under a proposal being considered by Waverley Council. Credit:Edwina Pickles

Council staff rejected that proposal on grounds it was unsuitable before it reached councillors. However, the staff are now considering a revised bid from the company to run the beach club between February and May next year.

Bondi resident Janek Gazecki, who runs the Urban Polo events company and is behind the proposal, said it would allow 100 people at a time to pay $80 to secure a spot at the club for two-hours, with four sessions across a day.
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

An unexpected victim of the pandemic? The Bay Area's food tour scene, which lost out on a "Willy Wonka-esque" experience after COVID's spread necessitated a shelter-in-place order.

Torani, the company that makes those aesthetically pleasing bottles of flavored syrups, had plans to unveil a massive new factory tour in March, CNN reports. Once the company moved from South San Francisco to San Leandro, the new facility would host tours, tastings of its 150 flavors and even "a speakeasy that could be accessed via a secret passageway behind a bookshelf."
LONDON (AP) - The Scottish government ordered pubs in Scotland's two biggest cities to close and restricted food and drink business in the rest of the country as Britain seeks to control a surge in coronavirus cases. The U.K. government is mulling whether to follow suit and tighten restrictions for England.

Like other European countries, Britain has seen a second wave of coronavirus infections since pubs and restaurants reopened, children went back to school and students returned to university.

Most of the U.K. is under national restrictions on socializing, including a 10 p.m. curfew for bars and restaurants, and groups limited to six, with areas of high infection facing stricter local measures.

Scotland went even further on Wednesday, saying pubs, cafes and restaurants can only open between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. to sell food and non-alcoholic drinks. Drinking alcohol is only allowed outdoors.

Five areas with high infection rates, including the biggest cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, face further measures including a takeaway-only rule for bars and a recommendation to avoid public transport.

Sturgeon said the measures were "a short, sharp action" and will last for 16 days starting Friday.

A woman wears a face mask as she sits on a bus, in London, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020. Like other countries in Europe, the U.K. has seen rising coronavirus infections over the past few weeks, which has prompted the government to announce a series of restrictions, both nationally and locally, to keep a lid on infections. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

"Without them, there is a risk the virus will be out of control by the end of this month," she said in the Scottish Parliament.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's U.K. government is also considering whether to impose new restrictions. But he's also facing a backlash from many lawmakers who say measures such as the 10 p.m. bar curfew are hurting businesses without reducing infections.

"This curfew has led to vast numbers of people being asked to leave pubs at 10 p.m. and pour onto the streets, many of whom then find their way to the nearest shop, buying cans and bottles to go back to gather in someones home," Conservative lawmaker Matt Vickers said.

Pub chain Greene King said Wednesday that it planned to close dozens of bars across the country, blaming the "continued tightening of trading restrictions."

Controlling a rising case count is being hindered by persistent problems with Britains test-and-trace program that seeks to find the contacts of infected people and get them to isolate.

Last week, the government announced that nearly 16,000 new coronavirus infections had gone unreported as a result of a technical glitch, leading to delays in tracking down contacts.

This week Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche said problems at a U.K. warehouse are delaying shipments of testing products to clinics and hospitals, triggering concerns that COVID-19 testing may be further disrupted as infection rates rise across Britain.

Roche said the problem arose after it moved to a new automatic warehouse in September.

In a letter, it advised customers to "prioritize essential services only."

The company said that it was "prioritizing the dispatch of COVID-19 PCR and antibody tests and doing everything we can to ensure there is no impact on the supply of these" to the National Health Service.

The glitch affects materials needed to conduct blood tests and screening for diseases including diabetes and cancer. Roche said it could take two weeks to fix the problem.

British doctors have already raised concerns about the number of procedures, tests and screening programs that were put on hold as the health service focused on battling COVID-19 earlier this year.

While normal service has begun to resume, there is still a backlog, and long waiting lists for non-emergency operations.

Britain, has the highest virus death toll in Europe at over 42,500. A total of 3,145 coronavirus patients were in U.K. hospitals on Tuesday, up from 2,390 a week earlier. A further 70 deaths of people with COVID-19 were recorded Wednesday, compared to 41 a week earlier.

Both figures are well below the peaks seen at the height of the U.K. outbreak in the spring.

___

Follow APs pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

People wearing face masks walk across Westminster Bridge, in London, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020. Like other countries in Europe, the U.K. has seen rising coronavirus infections over the past few weeks, which has prompted the government to announce a series of restrictions, both nationally and locally, to keep a lid on infections. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Call Center Operations Complicated by Robocalls

Ever wonder why the volume of automated outbound calls (a/k/a robocalls) has escalated so fiercely in recent years? One reason is that the technology to place hundreds of simultaneous calls has become widely available to just about anyone.

Once upon a time, auto-dialers were serious hardware. Some companies who deemed it a good investment installed auto-dialer technology for the purposes of marketing. Nowadays, the hardware is gone, and using robocall technology is as easy as signing up for a cloud-based application. In some cases, it appears ordinary citizens are putting the technology to use.

Hawaii, like many U.S. states, is having trouble keeping up with the escalated volume of calls to its unemployment centers. The state announced the launch of a new call center on October 1 to help handle the backlog of jobless claims, but the center  which isnt yet fully staffed  is struggling to catch up. One reason is that some jobless benefits claimants are using robocall technology in an attempt to break through the busy signals.

We are having problems with robo dialers, Hawaii Unemployment Director Anne Perreira-Eustaquio told local news station KHNON2. We have individuals out there who have robo-dialing systems that they either got from online or purchased somewhere. And so, Id ask everyone to stop using their robo-dialers. It doesnt just make it difficult for them, because there are some technicalities that work against them with those robo dialing, but it makes it difficult for every claimant whos trying to get in.

The DLIR says it hopes to be fully staffed by the middle of the month.

We have 100 agents coming on by the end by the mid-month of October and those agents are actually going to work on these much more difficult adjudication issues, Perreira-Eustaquio told KHON2. Theyre going to be able to call both parties the employer and the claimant obtain fact finding and make decisions on claims.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
DOHC

Several years ago, Federico Cerda founded Absolut Motorcraft in the gorgeous city of Barcelona, Spain. His firm deals with just about anything from exceptional customization projects, to distributing state-of-the-art aftermarket components and gadgets. Long story short, these folks are no strangers to the magnificent realm of two-wheeled entities.As you browse their breathtaking portfolio, youll run into a groovy Triumph Bonneville 865 Steve McQueen Edition thatll fill your moto-loving soul with sheer joy. For a clear demonstration of Motorcrafts remarkable craftsmanship, well be proceeding with a quick examination of this outstanding venture.One things for sure, the McQueen Edition Bonneville isnt playing around. It is put in motion by a fierce air-cooledparallel-twin mill that boasts a healthy displacement of 865cc. The four-stroke powerplant has a compression ratio of 9.2:1 and four valves per cylinder.At 7,500 rpm, this bad boy is fully capable of producing up to 67 hp, along with 51 pound-feet (69 Nm) of ominous twisting force at approximately 5,800 rpm. The engines ferocious power is transmitted to a chain final drive via a five-speed gearbox.Now, Cerdas aftermarket wizards kicked things off by envisioning Triumphs special edition Bonnie as a rugged, yet stylish scrambler that pays tribute to the King of Cools passion for intense off-road action. Thus, the bike was stripped naked of any stock bodywork and its subframe was removed altogether.In its stead, youll find Absoluts very own Bonneville 865 custom subframe kit, which incorporates a license plate holder and an LED taillight unit from Bates inventory, as well as a fiberglass rear fender and an elegant leather saddle that keeps things looking retro.Additionally, we notice an array of tasty items, which complement the desired scrambler aesthetic. These include multi-purpose E-09 tires from Mitas, Burly Co. foot pegs ad a set of fresh handlebars that wear Biltwell Renegade grips.The finishing touches consisted of installing discrete turn signals and a Motogadet speedometer, while Bonnies 865cc leviathan received a hand-crafted Tamarit two-into-one exhaust system and K&N air filters for optimized performance.If youre digging Absolut Motorcrafts masterpiece as much as I am, then you may want to consider paying these pros a visit to their Facebook and Instagram profiles. This Triumph Bonneville Steve McQueen Edition scrambler is just one of many fascinating exploits!
As Sarah Covington prepared to compete with hundreds of professionals from around the world in an attempt to solve some of healthcares biggest challenges, she kept coming back to something that had been talked about in her law school classes that week.

Professor VanZandt kept driving home the importance of being direct and succinct, Sarah says. So I was channeling that.

The advice helped Sarah and her team win one of the top awards at this years MIT Grand Hack, an event that brought together more than 950 people with job titles ranging from doctor to designer. At the Grand Hack, those experts are split into teams of 5-7 people and given the task of coming up with innovative solutions to major problems in healthcare.

Sarahs team included a doctor from Australia, an A.I. expert from India, medical students from the U.S. and England and others. Along with being a student in the University of Dayton School of Laws Hybrid J.D. program, Sarahs experience includes having an M.B.A. and being Chief Operating Officer for a health technology startup company.

I really enjoy the collaboration, Sarah says. Its awesome to see the synergy and byproduct of cooperating with people from around the globe. One plus one doesnt equal two at these events, it equals a million.

Since Sarah had taken part in other MIT events earlier in the year, she acted as the groups leader.

My role was keeping everybody together and making sure we didnt go down rabbit holes, Sarah says.

The group had from Friday night to Sunday afternoon to work out its idea before giving a three-minute presentation to the judges.

Sarahs group was assigned the cancer track. Together those in the group came up with an idea to leverage third party technology which uses a smartphone camera as a way of keeping track of a patients vitals as the basis for an algorithm to suggest real-time, individualized treatment plans for providers and alerts to patients of applicable clinical trials based upon their individual biomarkers identified in the treatment plan algorithm.

Sarahs law school lesson of making sure the groups presentation to the judges was clear and succinct paid off when they were awarded second place.

For Sarah the competition was a reminder of how her J.D. will help her improve her efforts to find solutions to problems in healthcare.

There are so many incredible ideas that come out of these weekends, Sarah says. It re-energizes you to stay the course.
BOSTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Use of open source software is expected to increase during the pandemic as businesses look to save time and money, while increasing efficiency, according to the third annual Managed Open Source Survey released today by Tidelift , the largest provider of commercial support and maintenance for the community-led open source behind modern applications.

More than 600 technologists shared how they use open source software today, what holds them back, and what tools and strategies would help them use it even more effectively.

"As the long-term move towards open source continues, our data shows that the recent economic downturn may be an accelerant," said Tidelift CEO Donald Fischer. "This finding continues a trend that began after the recession of the early 2000s and continued after the financial crisis of 2008. Organizations turn to open source in tough economic times because it helps them reduce costs and improves their ability to innovate."

Key Findings

Organizations are turning to open source during the COVID-19 recession to do more with less.

Forty-two percent of organizations report their application development budgets were cut, and 44% of organizations state they are likely to use more open source.

More than two-thirds say saving time and money is the top reason to use more open source for application development during the downturn (68%), while increasing efficiency of application development and maintenance was cited by almost half of respondents (48%).

Yet using open source presents new challenges, which differ depending on company size.

Large companies are often burdened by cumbersome open source approval processes, while also struggling to make good decisions about what components to use and how to identify and resolve security vulnerabilities.

Confidence in an organization's open source practices declines as company size grows. Only a small fraction (18%) of organizations are extremely confident that their open source components are secure, up-to-date, and well maintained.

Formal processes around open source management are on the rise, but it is still a free for allonly 17% of organizations have a formal process for managing open source.

Organizations take different approaches to contributing to open source.

More than four-fifths (83%) of respondents say their organization contributes to open source using at least one of six common methods.

Almost half (49%) of organizations have policies governing employee contributions to open source.

The most popular way that organizations contribute to open source is through allocating employee time for contributions.

The study also found the top three programming languages organizations rely on most are JavaScript, Python, and Java. JavaScript is used by over three-fourths of organizations (78%) while Python is used by just over half (52%). Java is used in applications far more often at larger organizations (66% vs. only 32% for the full sample).

As organizations continue to accelerate their use of open source and grapple with how to best choose, upgrade, and maintain this influx of new open source components, Tidelift simplifies the process. The Tidelift Subscription makes it easier for organizations to create and manage catalogs of known-good properly maintained open source components, while paying the maintainers who created them to keep them enterprise ready.

To receive a copy of the survey, go here . This marks the third year Tidelift has conducted a survey to answer the most pressing questions for technologists using open source to develop applications. This year's survey was conducted from May 28 through July 4, 2020. Participants were contacted via Tidelift and Changelog email lists and social media. Tidelift screened respondents to make sure they use open source to build applications at work, and the full survey sample was 638 respondents.

About Tidelift

Tidelift is the largest provider of commercial support and maintenance for the community-led open source behind modern applications. The company partners with independent project maintainers to make it safer, easier, and more cost-effective for application development teams to build with open source, so they can create even more incredible software, even faster. The Tidelift managed open source solution delivers customizable catalogs of components that are actively maintained, secure, and accurately licensed, enabling development teams to build and deploy with confidence. Tidelift makes open source work betterfor everyone. https://tidelift.com/

SOURCE Tidelift

Related Links

http://www.tidelift.com


At a time when Egypt is desperately looking for ways to boost its tourism industry, a stunning discovery has been made in the land of pharaohs. It is learnt that some mummies believed to be almost 2,600 years old have been found in Egypt.

A cache of 59 coffins containing the mummies was discovered from a sealed well in the vast Saqqara necropolis, south of Cairo. The coffins contain the mummies of priests and clerks from Egypt's 26th ruling dynasty.

"I'm very proud that this discovery of today with 59 wooden coffins in perfect condition of preservation was done by an Egyptian mission and Egyptian hands. This discovery, the entire 59 wooden coffins, will be displayed in the Grand Egyptian Museum," said Mostafa al-Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The first batch of these new coffins was discovered in September and are part of a series of major finds located in Saqqara in the recent past.

Saqqara is part of the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Notably, the condition of these coffins is also good.

Egyptian antiquity minister expressed hope that more coffins will be found in the future. "Today is not the end of the discovery. I consider that it's the beginning of a big discovery," said Khaled El-Enany, Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquity.

These coffins would be placed for public display in a grand museum in Giza, which has been under construction for a long time now. It is expected that the museum will open in 2021.
Mumbai:

The Shiv Sena on Friday hailed the development works done by successive Congress governments at the Centre and again targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he is not ready to admit the chaos created by the note ban exercise.



About Modis raincoat remark against former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it said being in power with the corrupt is also corruption.



But for the work done by the Congress governments, Modi would be governing a backward nation in Africa, an editorial in Sena mouthpiece Saamana said.



Modi is not ready to accept the chaos demonetisation has caused. His personal advertisement machinery tries to hide every wrong policy of his government and leaves no stone unturned to attack the Congress. Modi should come out of this negative perception now, it said.



Even if one believes the Congress governed while indulging in corruption, it transformed the nation, which could not even produce a needle during Independence, to one that is at the forefront of economic and industrial development. The previous rulers have made India what it is today, it said.



Referring to Modis raincoat remark, it said being in power with the corrupt is also corruption. Therefore, even if one wears a raincoat and bathes, the body is bound to get wet.



Today, if you do not believe with closed eyes that the previous government only indulged in corruption, you will be termed as an anti-national and killed, the ruling alliance partner said sarcastically.



Referring to Indira Gandhi, the Sena said the former Prime Minister taught Pakistan a lesson in the 1971 war, never displayed a hypocritical stand on anti-nationals, did not trouble the poor by demonetising currency notes and was thus nicknamed Durga by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.



Her strong will was the nations shield. She nationalised banks, made better the nations economy, gunned down Khalistani terrorists and gave the message that India will not bend before terrorists. She sacrificed her life for the nation, it said.



Eulogising Rajiv Gandhi, the Sena said, He had the will to govern by clean means. He may have got the taint of Bofors, but he has to be credited with bringing computers to India. The development of technology today is only because he laid a strong foundation.



Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh were successful in saving the nation from economic imbalance. Had all this not happened in the last 60 years, Modi would today be governing a nation like Somalia or Burundi, it said.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Australia Wants Google & Facebook To Pay For News

Australia is the first country to compel Google and Facebook to pay for news content provided by media publishers. This will be law by the end of 2020 Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said. It's about a fair go for Australian news media businesses. Its about ensuring that we have increased competition, increased consumer protection, and a sustainable media landscape, Frydenberg told reporters in Melbourne.

The move comes as the tech giants fend off calls around the world for greater regulation, and a day after Google and Facebook took a battering for alleged abuse of market power from US lawmakers in a congressional hearing.

Following an inquiry into the state of the media market and the power of the US platforms, the Australian government late last year told Facebook and Google to negotiate a voluntary deal with media companies to use their content. This legislation will be required companies to negotiate with media outlets over using their news content, and will have three months to come to an agreement.

If the tech firms are found to be breaching the code, they could face fines of up to A$10m (5.4m) per breach or 10% of yearly local turnover, depending on which is biggest.

Google said the regulation ignores billions of clicks that it sends to Australian news publishers each year. It sends a concerning message to businesses and investors that the Australian government will intervene instead of letting the market work... It does nothing to solve the fundamental challenges of creating a business model fit for the digital age Mel Silva, the Google chief in Australia and New Zealand, said in a statement.

Some countries have previously attempted this type of legislation without success. Publishers in France, Germany and Spain have all attempted to pass national copyright laws that would require Google to pay fees when it publishes pieces of their news articles. In 2019, Google stopped showing news snippets from European publishers on search results for its French users, while Germanys biggest news publisher, Axel Springer, allowed the search engine to run snippets of its articles after the traffic to its sites considerably reduced.

SlashDot: Reuters: Telegraph: Financial Post:

You Might Also Read:

Breaking Up Big Tech:
ALBANY  Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday reiterated that it's the federal government's responsibility to help the state climb out of a multi-billion dollar deficit, proclaiming that if President Donald Trump is re-elected and the GOP-controlled Senate remains in control the state may face "irreversible damage" to its economy.

Cuomo said the state's projected budget deficit  upwards of $13 billion  is the responsibility of the federal government because of what he cast as its negligence in dealing with COVID-19. The deficit is so large, Cuomo said, that cutting the budget alone wouldn't be enough to meet fix it. Some combination of raising taxes, cutting the budget and borrowing money would be needed, he said, and those measures could be highly damaging.

"Life is options, and we don't have any good ones," Cuomo said. "I'm not going to do any damage to the states economy until you tell me that is the last resort.

The governor criticized Trump for cutting off negotiations Monday afternoon on a wide-ranging COVID-19 stimulus bill that has been in the works in Congress for months, describing the move as "the height of unreasonableness."

Democrats want more than $2 trillion in the bill, including relief funding for states and localities, including New York. Republicans want less money, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has opposed relief funding for states, saying it would be used to fix financial problems that are unrelated to COVID-19.

"Nancy Pelosi is asking for $2.4 Trillion Dollars to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States, money that is in no way related to COVID-19," Trump wrote in a tweet. "As usual, she is not negotiating in good faith. I am rejecting their request, and looking to the future of our Country. I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business."

Cuomo desribed that decision as an abdication of the president's duty.

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.

What do you mean you wont talk about it? Youre talking about the national economy. Youre talking about billions of dollars. Youre talking about providing assistance to states and localities that were hurt by COVID," Cuomo said. "

This is no time to get petulant," and walk away from the negotiating table, Cuomo added. Talking about it " is your job. Thats your oath.

The prospects for a large COVID-19 stimulus bill that contains relief funding for states and localities are much better under a potential future Joe Biden presidency and a Senate led by Sen. Charles E. Schumer as majority leader, Cuomo said.
Ranger Stacey is a familiar face to many Australians who grew up in the 1990s.

The TV host, whose real name is Stacey Thomson, introduced a generation of children to native wildlife during her appearances on Agro's Cartoon Connection from 1990 to 1997.

And while she doesn't work with Agro the puppet anymore, Stacey, 56, still presents segments on long-running children's program Totally Wild.

What happened to '90s favourite Ranger Stacey? TV presenter Stacey Thomson has resurfaced years later - and she still looks great at 56. Pictured with puppet Agro in the 1990s

Totally Wild has been in production for the last 25 years, and Stacey has fronted its animal segments since 1992.

The show now airs on Channel 10's new, youth-focused multichannel 10 Shake.

In addition to Totally Wild, Stacey is a public speaker who specialises in educating women about the environment and sustainability.

Professional: While she doesn't work with Agro the puppet anymore, Stacey, 56, still presents segments on long-running children's program Totally Wild, which now airs on 10 Shake

Stacey also hasn't lost her sense of humour, despite parting ways with outspoken Agro years ago.

Earlier this year, she took to Instagram to share a series of '90s throwback photos of herself, Agro and co-host Ranger Tim.

'The way we were! Found these during a COVID clean-out!' she wrote in the caption.

Remember this? Ranger Stacey appeared on Agro's Cartoon Connection from 1990 to 1997

Totally Wild, one of the longest-running children's programs in Australia, won seven consecutive Logie Awards from 1991 to 1997.

Stacey starred alongside Jamie Dunn as Agro and presenter Ann-Maree Biggar, who was later replaced by Terasa Livingstone.

She was brought in after producers were impressed by her work as a ranger and education officer at the heritage-listed St Helena Island National Park in Queensland.

All-star cast: Stacey starred alongside Jamie Dunn as Agro and presenter Ann-Maree Biggar (right), who was later replaced by Terasa Livingstone

'I was kind of on loan and I would go record a whole week of animal segments for Agro on Saturdays,' she told the Courier Mail in 2017.

Stacey used to drive to the studio for the pre-recorded segments with her 'van full of animals', but often these trips were hazardous.

'I remember one time I took a dingo up there and I'd picked it up from Lone Pine [Koala Sanctuary],' she recalled.

Passionate: In addition to Totally Wild, Stacey is a public speaker who specialises in educating women about the environment and sustainability

'On the way, I'm driving along and I look in the rear-view mirror because I can hear all this noise in the back and this dingo is ripping the rubber off from around all the windows and I can't do anything about it.'

As her career went from strength to strength, Stacey ended up marrying freelance cameraman Rob McCall.

The couple share two teenage daughters, Bridget and Madi.

Family: Stacey ended up marrying freelance cameraman Rob McCall (pictured). The couple share two teenage daughters, Bridget and Madi

In the same interview, she said the best thing about being 'Ranger Stacey' was mentoring young people in the TV industry.

'We have a lot of young, new presenters coming through and I like mentoring them because it's their first job in TV,' she said.

'I remember how it was a big learning curve,' she added. 'I give any advice I can.'
Local TD, Fergus ODowd, has welcomed news that 760k has been awarded to DKIT to support their progression towards Technological University status.

ODowd said: Very positive news this morning from Minister Harris, following the announcement over the weekend that a three year development plan was agreed between DkIT and the Higher Education Authority, we now have the first significant funding boost to support the campaign.

The monies today have been allocated under the 2020 Higher Education Authority (HEA) call to assist the development and progression of technological universities.

DKIT sits in the middle of the Dublin-Belfast economic corridor and if TU status is achieved it will greatly benefit our regional development in line with the national development plan.

We have a wealth of highly skilled third level students in the North East and this campaign will inevitably allow more local students study and progress their 3rd level qualifications closer to home.

If TU status is achieved it will have far reaching consequences in terms of social and economic impact and will also improve the quality of life for many of our constituents.
Michael Gove said sufficient safety nets were in place for the UK to leave without a deal - Reuters

The UK stands a two in three chance of forging a Brexit deal, Michael Gove has claimed, despite warning that Britain will not be "held hostage" in negotiations.

The Cabinet Office minister told the Lords' Brexit Committee it was "emphatically not our preference" to leave the transition period without a deal but sufficient preparations had been concluded that the UK could walk away if necessary.

Mr Gove said the Internal Market Bill was one of several steps taken "to ensure this country is not held hostage in a negotiation process, but that we honour the vote people made in 2016 and again in 2019 to ensure we are properly independent".

He added: "No one will be happier than me if we can conclude an agreement but we have an absolute obligation to ensure the country is ready in the event that we don't."

However, he later struck a more optimistic tone when he agreed that the chance of striking a deal was at 66 per cent.

It comes as chief negotiator David Frost warned the two sides were still "some way from a deal" with just eight days left until the deadline.

Informal talks are taking place in London this week, and Boris Johnson is due to call the European Council president Charles Michel later today.

However Lord Frost said he was "uncertain" if a deal could be reached by the nominal deadline of October 15, not ruling out the possibility that talks could carry on thereafter.

The UK's chief negotiator suggested that any agreement would be "the outline of a deal" with the details filled in subsequently.

Story continues

Read the latest updates below

05:29 PM

That's all for today...

It's been a day dominated by Brexit in Westminster, but north of the border Scotland's new restrictions are making waves.

Michael Gove has put the chances of a deal between the UK and EU at 66 per cent, and also urged people to blame him if there is chaos at the Kent border in January.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster also warned that Britain will not be "held hostage" in negotiations, with fisheries thought to be the main stumbling block.

There's been some tough talk from the backbenches on the Government's coronavirus restrictions, with even loyal allies of the Prime Minister expressing their concern.

It seems the vast majority of you agree with them, with 71 per cent of you saying the Government has gone too far.

And in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has announced that indoor hospitality venues will be allowed to operate only between 6am and 6pm daily, selling food and non-alcoholic drinks only.

However, all licensed premises in some areas, including the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, will be closed.

That's it for today - I'll leave you with the latest offering from Matt.

'Tobleronella' 



My latest cartoon for tomorrow's @Telegraph



Subscribe to my weekly newsletter to receive my unseen cartoons: https://t.co/JNDhrYJMFH pic.twitter.com/a2s6oXcF0P  Matt Cartoons (@MattCartoonist) October 7, 2020

05:04 PM

Neither side has negotiated in bad faith, Lord Frost insists

The UK's leading negotiator insists that neither side in Brexit talks has been negotiating in bad faith, saying both teams are "trying to get an agreement".

Lord Frost admits that "some forceful things have been said" but claims there is generally a "good rapport" between UK and EU teams.

04:51 PM

Peter Bone asks for a Brexit deal as a 'really wonderful birthday present'

The Tory MP tells the key Brexit figures that October 19 is his birthday and asks if the Government could sign the agreement on that day.

Michael Gove tells him negotiators are doing "everything we can" to try to secure a deal.

04:41 PM

66% chance of trade deal, Michael Gove says

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster puts chances of striking a trade deal with the EU at around two thirds.

Asked if the probability is 66 per cent, Mr Gove says: "That's about right."

"I think that a deal is eminently achievable," Lord Frost adds, without giving a figure.

04:37 PM

There could be a 'glide path' to fishing resolution, Lord Frost suggests

Lord Frost notes that the EU fishes close to half of the stock in our waters and says there needs to be a "huge change in that situation in the future".

He says that is "obviously" going to effect EU fishing communities but says there could be a "glide path" to finding a resolution.

"We are trying to find a way of dealing with what's politically realistic and possible," he adds.

04:27 PM

Michael Gove says 'put the blame on me' if there is chaos in Kent

The Cabinet Officer Minister is asked if he is in touch with Kent authorities, who have expressed concerns about the preparedness for the end of the transition period.

Mr Gove says that the Government has been working with local authorities and Kent County Council.

"If things do go wrong, then to paraphrase Rag N Bone Man, put the blame on me," he adds.

04:22 PM

Michael Gove admits EU has expressed opposition to Internal Market Bill

"It is certainly the case that actors in the EU have expressed opposition to the Internal Market Bill," the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster admits.

Lord Frost adds that there is "determination on both sides" to keep moving forward.

04:16 PM

Deal 'eminently achievable', Lord Frost says

The Brexit chief negotiator says a trade deal is "eminently achievable" but says it is also possible both sides will not resolve their differences.

He tells the Future Relationship with the European Union Committee that "we'll have to see what the next few weeks brings".

04:11 PM

Ministers move to reduce quarantine

Grant Shapps announces the creation of a Global Travel Taskforce to develop a testing regime that would allow the UK to reduce the quarantine period for incoming travellers.

The taskforce will implement a testing regime to reduce the self-isolation period, along with a wide range of other measures to enable travel whilst keeping #coronavirus rates down #travelsafe [2/2]  Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) October 7, 2020

03:58 PM

Remove the 'manacles of state control', PM ally urges

Rossendale and Darwen MP Jake Berry says his constituents want to "remove the manacles of state control" when discussing northern restrictions.

He says Downing Street has fallen into the fatal trap of making national decisions on a London-centric view with London-centric data and claims that people have been left confused by the array of measures.

The Tory MP adds: "As a nation the liberties and freedoms we take for granted havent been given to us by a benevolent government. They have been hard-fought and hard-won, and in fact on many occasions they have had to be torn form the hands of the powerful.

"Day by day we see those liberties and freedoms being given away back to the Government in the name of Covid. Im afraid that has to stop because once we give those up, they will not come back to us. The Government will not return them to us.

03:41 PM

'Prison for pension pot pinchers'

Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey told the Commons that the Government will "strengthen protections for savers" as part of the Pension Schemes Bill.

Introducing the second reading of the Bill, Ms Coffey told MPs: "This Bill delivers on our manifesto commitments to legislate for a new style of pensions scheme, establish pensions dashboards and tackle those who try to plunder the pension pots of hard-working employees.

"It creates a new style of pension scheme that has the potential to increase future returns for millions of working people while being more sustainable for employees and employers alike.

"The Bill has consumer interests at its heart. It strengthens protections for savers by extending the pension regulator's sanctions regime.

"Prison for pension pot pinchers will, I hope, deter reckless bosses from running schemes into the ground."

03:27 PM

UK records 14,162 new coronavirus cases

Wednesday's figure is a slight fall compared with the 14,542 new infections announced yesterday.

The Department for Health confirmed a further 70 people had died within 28 days of testing for Covid-19 as of Wednesday, bringing the UK's total to 42,515.

03:22 PM

President of the European Council says it's 'cards on the table' time

Charles Michel confirms that he has spoken to Boris Johnson and warns the EU will not make a deal "at any cost".

"Time for the UK to put its cards on the table," he says.

Just talked to @BorisJohnson



The EU prefers a deal, but not at any cost.



Time for the UK to put its cards on the table. #EUCO #15-16October  Charles Michel (@eucopresident) October 7, 2020

03:18 PM

UK close to Brexit deal tying it to European Court of Human Rights

British negotiators are close to clinching a deal that commits the UK to remaining subject to rulings by the European Court of Human Rights after Brexit, James Crisp reports.

The UK would sacrifice a new extradition treaty and access to EU criminal databases if it quit the international agreement, under the terms of the potential deal, Brussels sources told the Telegraph.

The EU insists that respect for the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and its Strasbourg court, is a condition for cooperation in law enforcement after the end of the transition period on December 31.

Either party can trigger a guillotine clause suspending or terminating the judicial cooperation agreement if they had serious concerns about the protection of human rights and the rule of law, under a British proposal put to the EU.

David Frost, the UKs chief negotiator, told peers in the Lords EU Committee on Wednesday: I think I can see a way forward on that that satisfies all sides needs. We arent there yet but I think I can see it."

Read more here:

03:07 PM

Pubs would shut if it weren't for test and trace, Health Minister suggests

Hospitality venues such as pubs and restaurants would be forced to shut were it not for the Government's new contact tracing measures, Lord Bethell has claimed.

During a Lords debate, former Tory minister Lord Robathan was among the peers to criticise the rules which require establishments to gather personal details, saying they were "destroying the hospitality industry".

Responding for the Government, Lord Bethell said the alternative to the regulations would be to close the hospitality sector again, as happened in March.

He said: "There would be a grave danger that hospitality would once again be closed altogether because hospitality is a vector of infection and the specific purpose of these regulations is to try and keep our pubs, clubs and hospitality sector open.

"And there is a binary alternative if we don't seek to protect these industries and these venues by measures like these contact-tracing arrangements then they are vulnerable to being perceived - and to be identified - as places where the disease spreads and where in order to break the chain of transmission we are simply obliged to close them down."

02:51 PM

Watch: How the Queen's conduct during the Covid-19 pandemic restored faith in the monarchy

With Brexit talks coming to the drama of their inevitable (we hope) conclusion while the pace of the second wave builds, you would be forgiven for seeking a stabilising force.

Under strict lockdown rules, the Queen - just like many of us - faced an unprecedented challenge.

In the video below, Camilla Tominey explains how the monarch managed to remain ever-present and restore faith amid a sense of widespread uncertainty.

02:28 PM

Health secretary hints pubs could be forced to shut, as No 10 mulls traffic-light lockdowns

Pubs and restaurants could be closed in local lockdown areas under a new 'traffic light' system being finalised by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, as Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned that infection data is not good news for the hospitality industry.

Different options for the three-tiered model of low, medium and high-risk areas have been sent to the Prime Minister and could be announced later this week.

The most extreme measures under consideration would involve the closure of pubs and restaurants, a ban on households mixing, and possibly even the closure of non-essential retailers.

My colleagues Gordon Rayner and Harry Yorke have the full story here.

02:17 PM

Nicola Sturgeon thanks hospitality firms as she pledges 40m support

Nicola Sturgeon said she was "grateful" for the work done by hospitality businesses to stop the spread of coronavirus, pledging 40m to those firms affected by the latest restrictions.

Speaking in Scottish Parliament, the First Minister said: "However, the evidence paper published today sets out why these settings present a particular risk.

"The R number seems to have risen above 1 approximately three weeks after the hospitality sector opened up.

"We know that more than one fifth of people contacted by test and trace, report having visited a hospitality setting."

She added: "All of these reasons, significantly restricting licensed premises for 16 days temporarily removes one of the key opportunities the virus has to jump from household to household.

"It is an essential part of our efforts to get the R number significantly below 1."

02:13 PM

Scots urged to avoid public transport for next two weeks under circuit breaker restrictions

Further to the new restrictions on Scottish hospitality, people in the central belt of Scotland have been asked to avoid public transport unless absolutely necessary in the next two weeks.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that those in the five health board areas should only use public transport when travelling to work, school or other unavoidable reasons.

While a travel restriction is not being enforced on people in the central belt, Ms Sturgeon urged those living in these areas not to travel beyond their own health boards.

For those, like me, who are no au fait with the "central belt":

The "central belt", for the purposes of these restrictions, is the health boards covering Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Arran, Lothian, and Forth Valley  Philip Sim (@BBCPhilipSim) October 7, 2020

02:12 PM

Nicola Sturgeon confirms Scottish circuit breaker for hospitality

I am just turning away from the Brexit Committee - which is winding down - as Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed the new circuit breaker-style restrictions being brought in across Scotland.

Indoor hospitality venues will only be allowed to operate between 6am and 6pm daily, selling food and non-alcoholic drinks, the First Minister has just confirmed. Outdoor bars, restaurants and cafes will be allowed to remain open up until 10pm and will be allowed to sell alcohol up to that time.

The restrictions will come into force at 6pm on Friday and are intended to end after October 25.

You can read the latest updates on our coronavirus blog here.

02:04 PM

UK will not be 'held hostage' to the EU's 'intransigent' approach, says Michael Gove

The UK will be "ready" if the EU does not back away from its "intransigent" approach, because planning has ensured we are not being "held hostage", Michael Gove has said.

The Cabinet Office minister told the Lords' Brexit Committee it was "emphatically not our preference" to leave the transition period without a deal.

"But one of the reasons work is going on is that we can, if we conclude there is no good deal on offer" accept that and walk away, he said.

Pointing to the Internal Market Bill as an example of the no deal planning he has been undertaking, Mr Gove said he had been taking "steps to ensure this country is not held hostage in a negotiation process, but that we honour the vote people made in 2016 and again in 2019 to ensure we are properly independent".

He added: "No one will be happier than me if we can conclude an agreement but we have an absolute obligation to ensure the country is ready in the event that we don't."

01:58 PM

Lorries with Kent-access permit will 'whiz through' Brexit border, says Michael Gove

Back at the Brexit Committee, Michael Gove has promised that lorries will be able to "whiz through" the de facto Brexit border in Kent.

The 'Kent-access permit' is intended to prevent queues of 7000 lorries through the county after Brexit, however it has provoked concerns that it will effectively border off Kent.

Michael Gove told peers that those who had not filled out forms might find themselves subject to a fine, although he stressed there will be exemptions for those who live in Kent and others. The idea is just to ensure that those who are not allowed to clear the border at Calais don't make the journey, blocking those who are allowed to travel on.

"If businesses have done their preparation beforehand it will be easy," he adds. After filling out a form once, subsequent visits to the website are easy, and as a result "lorries will be able to whiz through".

01:53 PM

Lobby latest: Downing Street rejects herd immunity recommendations

Number 10 has rejected a suggestion that young and less vulnerable people should be able to live more freely while those at greater risk are protected.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "We have considered the full range of scientific opinion throughout the course of this pandemic and we will continue to do so.

"But what I would also say is that it is not possible to rely on an unproven assumption that it is possible for people who are at lower risk, should they contract the virus to avoid subsequently transmitting it, to those who are at a higher risk and who would therefore subsequently face a greater chance of ending up in hospital or worse in an intensive care unit."

01:53 PM

Lobby latest: Government will not hesitate to take further action... but not now

The Government "will not hesitate" to take further action to stem the "concerning" rise in coronavirus cases, Downing Street said.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman told a Westminster briefing: "We are seeing coronavirus cases rising across the country but they are rising faster in the North East and the North West and that is concerning.

"We will not hesitate to take further action in the areas where cases and hospitalisations are rising significantly in order to protect communities, protect the NHS and to save lives."

Asked why the Government was not already taking more action, the spokesman said: "We keep the data under constant review and we continue to receive advice from scientific and medical experts, and should we feel that it is necessary to make further interventions then we will do so."

01:52 PM

Lobby latest: Downing Street plays down seriousness of Roche supply disruption

Downing Street has played down the impact of the Roche problems on the coronavirus testing systems.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "Roche alerted DHSC yesterday to an issue with their supply chain and they are working to resolve this urgently.

"It is expected to have little to no impact on Covid testing and Roche are already prioritising the dispatch of tests to ensure uninterrupted supplies.

"Measures are also being put in place to ensure that other NHS supplies can continue and Roche have extended their working hours and recruited extra staff so they can return to normal as quickly as possible."

01:51 PM

Lobby latest: 70pc of missing cases have now been contacted

Around 70 per cent of almost 16,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus but whose cases were unreported had now been contacted, Downing Street has said.

A technical problem using Excel by staff at Public Health England (PHE) meant the details of thousands of people were not passed to NHS Test and Trace.

The Government has not yet given figures or estimates for how many contacts these people had, or how many have been successfully traced.

01:40 PM

Boris Johnson to speak with European Council president today

Boris Johnson will speak with European Council president Charles Michel later today in relation to the Brexit negotiations, Downing Street said.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said Mr Johnson would tell Mr Michel that the UK wants to "work constructively and at pace to secure a deal".

"But (the PM) will also underline that time is in short supply and... we remain focused on the date of October 15 and the meeting of the European Council," the spokesman added.

However, Number 10 said Mr Johnson is not expected to attend the Council meeting in Brussels next week.

The spokesman said talks focusing on the "key areas of difference that remain" were taking place in London this week between the EU and UK.

"The EU's negotiating team is in London today and talks are taking place and they will continue until Friday," they said.

"It is not classed as a formal negotiating round so there is not a published agenda, but they are focusing on some of the key areas of difference that remain between us."

01:38 PM

Negotiators still 'some way from a deal', Lord Frost warns

The UK and EU negotiators are "some way from a deal but we are at least having a decent discussion" about outstanding issues such as state aid, Lord Frost has said.

Speaking to the Lords' Brexit Committee, the UK's chief negotiator noted that "historically the French and German have subsidised very much more" than Britain has.

"I still find it a bit strange that this issue has loomed quite so large given the track records on both sides, but there we are. We will be in new situation after transition and the EU must come to conclusions about what it wants.

"Whether we can satisfy that I don't know yet," he added. "It is quite difficult to agree the level of detail they want to see."

01:27 PM

Have your say on: the Government's approach to lockdowns

Ministers are treading the tightrope on responding to the second wave, fearful of allowing coronavirus to rip through the population on the one side, while being equally concerned about the economic and wider health consequences of a second lockdown.

Yet leaders in the North of England argue that restrictions such as the pub curfew aren't working, with many zones under restrictions for weeks with no sign that transmission is abating.

On the other side, a "declaration" by medics around the world have called for a relaxation of restrictions in favour of a herd immunity strategy.

So which should it be? Have your say in the poll below.

01:25 PM

EU not taking 'constructive approach' on third party listing, says Michael Gove

Returning to the Brexit Committee, where Michael Gove has been asked to be "more precise" about claims that the EU was going to "blockade" exports between Britain and Northern Ireland.

The Cabinet Office minister points to the EU's refusal to give the UK third country listing.

Lord Kerr interrupts to ask for specific evidence for the blockade. Mr Gove says there would be "no opportunity" for Britain to export food to Northern Ireland without the third party listing.

"It should have been the case, we would have thought, that third party listing would have been granted by June of this year," he says. "It struck several fair minded observers as curious the EU would not grant that, and the courtesy they granted to Mongolia they would not extend to their partner the UK at that point."

He suggests it was "not the most constructive approach".

01:20 PM

Snap PMQs poll results: Nearly two-thirds back Sir Keir Starmer

Just breaking away from the Brexit Committee briefly as I'm closing the snap poll - and Downing Street won't be happy.

Some 62 per cent of you think Sir Keir Starmer defeated Boris Johnson in today's PMQs, while just 38 per cent think the Prime Minister had the better showing.

This is the first time the Labour leader has won since we started this series a month ago - and suggests our readers are getting fed up with being fobbed off.

Perhaps it was the pub curfew questions that won it.

01:16 PM

Michael Gove dodges question about whether EU is negotiating in good faith

Michael Gove and Lord Frost are asked if the Government believes the EU breached good faith, the reason given for the Internal Market Bill.

Mr Gove says this bill is a safety net "to ensure the integrity of the UK is protected if no agreement is reached".

He says the UK Government received the EU's legal letter last week and understand the reasons why. They believe progress can still be made in the Joint Committee.

On the question of good faith, Mr Gove says he "wouldn't want to pronounce definitively" on that point.

Pressed on this, and whether there is evidence for it, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster says he "wouldn't want to prejudice" the negotiations. He says he has laid out the reasons before in the Commons, but is hopeful since the bill was introduced that talks are moving forward.

Asked why the Government didn't opt to use the dispute mechanism, Mr Gove says the necessary safety net has been prepared in the event that an agreement was reached and protecting the integrity of the UK is something "all governments" have to take seriously.

01:10 PM

'Outline' of Brexit deal could be reached before deadline with 'clarity' added afterwards, says Lord Frost

Asked about the progress made so far, Lord Frost says he is pleased with what has happened so far.

Clarity is required on the FTA because there are "one or two bits that aren't clear" and there is "a huge amount of textual work" that needs to be carried out, which will come after October 15 "if we can get the outline agreed" before that point.

Lord Frost says there will have to be "clarity on the precise text" after the deadline, he adds.

Asked when decision will be made on equivalence for financial markets, Lord Frost is not particularly forthcoming.

"We await decisions from the EU on most areas," he says.

UK's chief Brexit negotiator, Lord David Frost - PA

01:08 PM

Brexit talks deadline 'uncertain' because of number of stakeholders involved, says Lord Frost

Michael Gove and Lord Frost have just started giving evidence to the Lords' Brexit Committee. But because it's being done virtually it's virtually impossible to hear.

Asked when the negotiations are likely to conclude, Lord Frost said the teams are "working very hard to get there" although would be "content" to trade on Australian terms (ie no deal).

He points to the PM's words on the timeframe, which set October 15 as a deadline, but says it is "uncertain" because of the number of stakeholders involved.

Asked if this was a hard deadline, Lord Frost says "both sides need to take [the Prime Minister's statement] fully into account".

But Lord Frost will advise the PM closer to the deadline whether talks could carry on.

01:00 PM

Further 54 people die with coronavirus in English hospitals

A further 54 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 30,280.

Patients were aged between 43 and 93 years old. All but one had known underlying health conditions.

Date of death ranges from 28 September to 6 October 2020 with the majority being on or after 2 October.

The North West was the worst-affected region with 22 deaths recorded, followed by the North East and Yorkshire, where there were 16. The Midlands registered seven deaths while London and the South East registered four apiece.

Just one coronavirus death was registered in the East of England, while the South West continued to remain free of Covid fatalities.

12:50 PM

Is Labour set to break with Unite?

Labour appears to be breaking with the country's biggest union, Unite, threatened to pull its multimillion-pound funding if the new leader shifts the party away from the left.

The union is understood to be reducing affiliation by about 10 per cent after a vote of its executive on Tuesday.

Len McCluskey told Newsnight that while he did not think there would be "any dramatic move to disaffiliate from the Labour Party", the "funding arrangements is undoubtedly an issue that may come up">

Speaking today Sir Keir Starmer's spokesman said: "Unite have taken their decision. We have seen Len's remarks and we acknowledge that. But Labour will continue to take the decisions that are in the best interests of the country.

"Keir's focus and the entire Labour movement's focus is restoring trust in the Labour Party and winning in 2024."

Asked if it could benefit Sir Keir to appear to have distance from Unite, his spokesman said: "Len has taken his decision, Unite has taken its decision; it is for others to speculate and analyse that decision."

He added: "The whole Labour Party needs to take responsibility for the fact that we have lost four elections in a row."

12:33 PM

Boris Johnson has a serious party management problem on his hands

An online speech delivered in an almost empty room to a virtual party conference did not exactly play to the Prime Ministers rhetorical strengths. But there was enough of the old Johnsonian optimism on show to remind his party why they elected him leader and the country returned the Tories to office last December.

Many of the themes - from levelling up to the UK's future as a wind power giant - had been rehearsed long before the pandemic changed every equation.

But for those whose bars and restaurants have been shut for good, whose artistic careers have been wrecked because theatres and concert halls are closed, or whose jobs working in cinemas or firms running events have been lost, the promise of jam tomorrow offers little consolation for the misery now.

12:21 PM

Leaked documents reveal plan for Scotland's 'brake' on hospitality

Leaked documents have emerged that purport to show what Nicola Sturgeon will announce this afternoon in her latest lockdown restrictions for Scotland.

They were published by Donald Macleod, a Glasgow businessman and nightlife supremo who has criticised curbs on hospitality. While he could not prove they were genuine, he said they read as if they were government guidance.

According to the documents, entitled "The hard decisions we are taking", Scotland's pubs and bars will be forced to close for 16 days from Saturday, October 10 to Sunday, October 25 under a "brake to the virus".

This could continue after that date in the Central Belt, which includes Glasgow and Edinburgh, where the second wave has been worst.

Cafes and holiday accommodation will remain open, although they will not be able to serve alcohol. Some "financial compensation" is being prepared for the holiday sector.

12:16 PM

MPs told to mask-up on parliamentary estate

MPs and other parliamentary passholders have been told to mask-up when they are walking between buildings or queuing for food and drink in catering outlets from now on.

The Speaker lead his procession into the Chamber today wearing a face covering for the first time ever  to encourage everyone in Parliament to keep themselves safe from Covid-19.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle said the best way to encourage MPs and staff to wear face coverings when moving around the parliamentary estate was to lead by example.

Just as we have all had to wear them in supermarkets and on public transport, it makes sense that we all wear face coverings to protect each other on the estate, he said.

Staff and MPs are not expected to wear face coverings in meetings or when working in their offices. While Members are not expected to wear face coverings in the Chamber, they have been advised to wear them in the lobbies during a division.

Last week one (Conservative) MP told me that "only the lefties" wear them when walking around the estate - it will be interesting to see if that changes now.

Boris Johnson wears a mask as he leaves 10 Downing Street to attend PMQs - AP

11:58 AM

Sir Lindsay Hoyle attacks Matt Hancock over 'totally unacceptable' delays in responding to MPs

Sir Lindsay Hoyle has said it is "totally unacceptable" for ministers to fail to respond to MPs' requests for information, calling on the Department of Health to hire more staff if necessary.

Sarah Owen, Labour MP for Luton North, said getting an answer out of the Health Secretary was "almost as hard as getting a test at the moment".

She also accused Matt Hancock of claiming they were using "divisive language when we just raise our constituents concerns".

Replying, the Speaker said MPs around the House were getting "frustrated" by this repeated behaviour. "We are the representatives of the electorate. We must get this message through to the Government. This is not an isolated case."

He suggested MPs raise it with the Procedure Committee, noting: "In the end it is all members, not one particular side. The people we represent want the answers.

"The responsibility lies with the Department of Health and Social Care... [Mr Hancock] may have a lot of questions placed to him. In the end, bring the extra staff in, but they must be answered."

11:45 AM

Northern mayors are involved in local lockdown plans, insists minister

Northern mayors are involved in local lockdown plans, a Cabinet minister has insisted today, as she defends the "delicate balance" of protecting lives and livelihoods.

This morning Liz Truss, the International Trade Secretary, defended the Government's approach to local lockdowns, saying ministers were in constant contact with the likes of Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and other regional leaders.

She said the strategy was "evolving" as more was learned about the disease, but argued they were getting the balance right, with some calling for lighter restrictions and the return of the so-called herd immunity strategy. Conservative rebels last night spoke against the "rule of six" during a heated debate in the Commons, in a sign of further agitation to come.

Others meanwhile are calling for tighter restrictions, following several weeks of local lockdowns with relatively minimal impact on transmission rates.

"We are hearing voices on side of debate saying do more and the other say do less," Ms Truss told Sky News. "We are trying to keep the balance and I do think we have got the balance right.

She added: "If we end up locking down further or having a national lockdown that would set us back hugely... We are putting our shoulder to the wheel to restrict the flow of coronavirus while keeping the economy going."

11:43 AM

Snap poll: Who won today's PMQs?

Sir Keir Starmer got visibly annoyed with Boris Johnson today, twice telling him off for not listening and not answering the question.

But was he any good - and did he move the dial?

Today the Labour leader grilled the Prime Minister about the impact of the lost 16,000 tests and flipped an oft-made criticism that he is 'Captain Hindsight', turning it against the Government instead.

However it was arguably his questions about local lockdowns and the pub curfew that will have done most damage, with more than a handful of Tory rebels quietly agreeing with him.

So who won today's PMQs? Have your say in our snap poll below - you have an hour to vote.

11:39 AM

PMQs: There is 'abundant' space for new homes, says Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson is then asked where "precisely" he expects the new housing to be built under plans announced recently

He tells Taiwo Owatemi, Labour's MP for Coventry North West there are "abundant brown field space across the whole of the UK".

But restrictions are caused by "cumbersome planning procedures" and the inability of young people to get onto the housing ladder, which is why the Government will introduce the new scheme with fixed rate mortgages of 95 per cent of the property.

"We are going to turn Generation Rent into Generation Buy," he adds.

And that is it, PMQs is over.

11:36 AM

PMQs: Boris Johnson dodges Universal Credit question (again)

Stephen Timms, Labour's MP for East Ham, raises the 20 Universal Credit uplift again, following a similar question by Ian Blackford.

Boris Johnson says "we keep all these things under review", but offers no commitment to making it permanent.

The Prime Minister is then asked about social mobility by Tory David Johnston, which he says is "exactly what this Government was elected to do".

11:34 AM

PMQs: Boris Johnson tells Labour to accept 'consequences' of lockdown

Liz Twist, Labour's MP for Blaydon, asks for assurance that Boris Johnson will provide support to retain those employed in hospitality.

The Prime Minister says she is "entirely right to raise support for hospitality" and says he will do "whatever we can".

But he argues that Labour needs to decide whether they are in favour of restrictions or not, because if they are "they must recognise there will be consequences to that".

11:32 AM

PMQs: Boris Johnson bemoans 'wretched' loss of jobs

Maria Eagle, Labour's MP for Garston and Halewood, asks Boris Johnson about the ending furlough scheme in the face of tighter local lockdown.

She asks what can be done to "prevent this economic carnage worsening".

The Prime Minister says he shares her feeling about the "wretched" loss of jobs.

He points to existing support for the North West, adding; "We will continue to provide support across the country... as we have done throughout the pandemic."

11:29 AM

PMQs: Boris Johnson hits back against suggestion Chancellor told musicians to retrain

Chris Elmore, Labour's MP for Ogmore, claims the Chancellor Rishi Sunak yesterday told musicians to retrain and asks where the opportunities are.

This is not quite what he said but it is certainly what was being said on Twitter yesterday afternoon.

Boris Johnson says is it "simply not what the Chancellor said". He points to the "massive economic value" of those industries, which is why they are being supported "through these tough times".

11:27 AM

PMQs: Boris Johnson shrugs off question about student testing gaps

Matt Western, Labour's MP for Warwick and Leamington, asks about the spread of coronavirus in universities, saying students need immediate access to testing.

He says Deloitte will only make their testing facility available at the end of this month. He asks if the Government was not expecting students to return to university.

Boris Johnson says it is important that students do return to universities. He says there are "particular problems" in some parts of the country authorities are doing what they can to resolve them.

"We will be pursuing measures we have outlined to bring them down and I hope he will support them," he adds.

11:24 AM

PMQs: Internal Market Bill will protect UK from 'barriers', says Boris Johnson

Sir Jeffrey M Donaldson, DUP MP for Lagan Valley, asks Boris Johnson to "hold firm and commit to protecting Northern Ireland's place within the UK" when it comes to unfettered trade.

The Prime Minister says he is "entirely right" and his words "will have been heard loud and clear by our friends in Brussels".

But if they haven't "we have the excellent Internal Market Bill to prevent against such barriers being erected," he adds.

11:22 AM

PMQs: Boris Johnson tells Ian Blackford he can 'ask again next week'

Ian Blackford has another go, urging the Prime Minister to consider this "lifeline" to prevent poverty. He asks him to "answer the question".

Boris Johnson replies saying he won't "underestimate the importance" of what Mr Blackford is saying.

He says another 1.7bn is being put into UC by 2023/24 "and if that doesn't give him the answer he wants he can ask again next week," he says.

11:21 AM

PMQs: Boris Johnson challenged over Universal Credit uplift

Ian Blackford, SNP's Westminster leader, asks the Prime Minister to commit to making the 20 uplift to Universal Credit permanent.

Boris Johnson says he welcomes his support for Universal Credit, and "we will continue to support people across the country".

He says so far UC has meant 200,000 fewer people in absolute poverty. But he doesn't respond to the question itself.

11:19 AM

PMQs: Sir Keir Starmer challenges Boris Johnson over pub curfew

Sir Keir Starmer has called on the Government to publish the evidence behind the pub curfew.

"He can't explain why area goes into restriction, he can't explain what the different restrictions are, how restrictions end. This is getting ridiculous," the Labour leader says.

"The Prime Minister knows there are deeply held views across the country about this.

"Is there a scientific basis for the 10pm rule? If there is, why doesnt the Government do itself a favour and publish it before the vote next Monday," he adds.

Boris Johnson says it is the same basis as Sir Keir supported two weeks ago.

11:16 AM

PMQs: Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson clash over local lockdowns

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer claims 19 of the 20 areas subjected to local measures for two months had seen infection rates increase.

He asks why constituencies such as Boris Johnson's were spared extra curbs while northern seats with similar levels of coronavirus were hit with restrictions.

Mr Johnson says "alas" the disease continues to spread. The Government is using a combination of local and national measures, he says.

The Prime Minister repeats his claim that Sir Keir Starmer "cannot be bothered" to organise his MPs and asks if he supports the rule of six.

The Labour leader responds simply: "yes" - but adds; "If the Prime Minister can't see when communities tell him the infection rate has gone up ten-fold under restrictions, and he doesn't realise that is a problem, then that is the problem."

He adds: "Prime Minister if you actually listened to the question we might get on better".

11:13 AM

PMQs: Labour's duty to "point out" where Government is "messing it up", Sir Keir Starmer says

Sir Keir Starmer then lists the instances were cases are going up in local lockdown areas, saying "something has gone wrong here".

Boris Johnson says the Government is "continuing to provide support" for areas that have extra restrictions, and will do so "for all parts of the country that have to go under" local lockdowns, he says.

The Prime Minister then challenges him, saying last night the Labour party abstained on the rule of six having previously backed them.

The Labour leader says "let me take this slowly for him", saying they want measures to work but "the Government is messing it up and it is our duty to point it out".

These are "not trick questions", he adds.

11:08 AM

PMQs: Sir Keir Starmer accuses Boris Johnson of running 'Government of hindsight'

Sir Keir Starmer says Boris Johnson's excuse "just doesn't wash", noting that because it has taken so long, for many the self isolation period has already been expired.

The Labour leader says 12bn has been invested in the system , but a basic error brings it down. He asks why it took so long to discover what had gone wrong.

The Prime Minister says the "crucial thing is yes of course there has been an error" but it doesn't change "the distribution of the disease".

The regional lockdown approach "remains correct I think", he adds.

SIr Keir says it "patently" has an effect on the disease because thousands of people have been walking around when they should have been self-isolating.

He claims it is "a Government of hindsight", flipping Mr Johnson's description of him as Captain Hindsight.

11:04 AM

PMQs: Sir Keir Starmer hammers Boris Johnson over 'basic mistake' of missing 16,000 tests

Sir David Ames asks the first question of Boris Johnson - plugging his book launch before asking if the Prime Minister agrees the last election was "categorically" about ensuring the Brexit referendum was "implemented in full".

The Prime Minister assures him "that this country has not only left the EU but on January 1 we will take back control of our money, borders and laws".

I suspect the rest of the questions won't be so easy.

Sir Keir Starmer kicks off with the 16,000 missing tests and asks if he accepts that very "basic mistake" has cost lives.

Mr Johnson says the "computer glitch has been addressed". All 16,000 have got their test results and a further 800 people were brought in to chase their contacts.

"It will be for the reassurance of the house and the country that the missing data points do not change in any way our assessment... of the spread of the disease," he adds.

10:54 AM

Jeremy Warner: As a nation we thought we were good at stuff. It turns out we arent

We thought that, as a nation, we were good at stuff, even world beating. So, apparently, did everyone else.

As recently as a year ago Britain was assessed by the Global Health Security Index to be second only to the United States both in its overall preparedness for an epidemic and in its rapid response and mitigation strategies.

That was then. The latest fiasco in test and trace, with 16,000 positive tests going missing, has heaped further ridicule on a growing catalogue of failings in the Governments pandemic response. This is particularly apparent in test and trace, which from the start has been dogged by wrong turns, shortages, laboratory and test centre inadequacies, technical difficulties, and poorly trained contact tracers.

Yet, argues Jeremy Warner, these shortcomings are just a proxy for much wider failings in the Governments Covid response, resulting in the worst per capita death rate of any major advanced economy, the worst hit to the economy, and the deepest impact on the public finances.

10:45 AM

Scottish Labour launches petition to force Margaret Ferrier to quit

Scottish Labour has launched an online petition calling for Margaret Ferrier to quit as an MP.

Demands for Ms Ferrier's resignation have intensified in recent days after she admitted travelling from Glasgow to Westminster while awaiting a Covid-19 test result, and making the return trip when she knew she had the virus.

She is also reported to have attended a church service before receiving the result of her test.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford are among those calling on the Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP to stand down.

The MP has not made any public statement since announcing her test results last Thursday.

Scotland's First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has told Margaret Ferrier to quit as an MP - AFP

10:38 AM

Boris goes jogging as Dominic Cummings arrives ahead of PMQs

Behind the scenes preparation is underway for PMQs today, as Boris Johnson goes head to head with Sir Keir Starmer from 12pm.

The pair are likely to cross swords over the testing fiasco earlier this week, in which nearly 16,000 cases were not added to the Test and Trace system, with ministers unable to say how many people who should have been self-isolating were not contacted.

Dominic Cummings and co have been helping the boss get ready for the weekly joust.

Dominic Cummings, special advisor to Boris Johnson, arrives at Downing Street in London - Reuters

Dominic Cummings this morning - Reuters

As we have seen already, Mr Johnson's preparation included a swift morning jog. Of course, it's not just the Labour leader who gets to ask questions of the Prime Minister. The full list is here.

Boris Johnson goes for a morning run with his trainer Harry Jameson in Westminster - London News Pictures

10:25 AM

Don't pack your bags yet: Airport testing announcement expected to just be a taskforce

The UK Government had been expected this week to unveil plans for airport testing which could enable UK arrivals to reduce their 14-day quarantine by up to six days.

However, despite Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and chief secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay both saying an announcement was due imminently, it now seems likely that ministers will be merely announcing a taskforce to develop the plans.

What's more, a final decision on how the UK plans to implement Covid-19 testing for international arrivals will not be made until at least November.

Read the latest travel updates here.

10:21 AM

Camilla Tominey: Boris Johnson gave us his vision of the future  but was anyone actually listening?

Ordinarily, the Westminster bubble would briefly burst for the Prime Minister's party conference speech.

Beamed on televisions across the land, the keynote Conservative address is normally guaranteed to transcend Toryville and touch down in the offices and living rooms of Great Britain.

Yet, asks Camilla Tominey, as Boris Johnson spelled out his long-term vision for the nation to an empty room on Tuesday was anyone actually listening?

10:12 AM

Local leaders 'offering to help' as Government 'clearly struggling', says Newcastle Council boss

Local leaders are "coming forward with an offer of help" rather than just criticism, the leader of Newcastle City Council has said.

Nick Forbes, the Labour leader of the council, said the local measures had "clearly dampened down" transmission but they were "not enough in their own right". Regions needed support for businesses and an "effective" Test and Trace regime, he said.

"The Government is clearly struggling here... we are coming forward with an offer of help," he said. "We are offering our assistance to try to get things moving forward."

Ministers "just tried to shut it down" whenever concerns were raised about the pub curfew, he added, noting a review was overdue.

"We have tried it, we have seen it has had some limited success but we need to think more broadly about what we need to do to beat Covid," he said. "We are not going to beat Covid through regulations and restrictions but through people power."

That means "reminding people why social distancing is important" and "rebuilding trust", he told Sky News.

09:57 AM

Significant rise of no confidence in Governments handling of Covid-19, study finds

Researchers at UCL have found a significant rise in people saying they have no confidence in the Government's handling of the pandemic, up from six per cent at the start of lockdown in March to 27 per cent now.

Less than five per cent of respondents in England report having full confidence in Boris Johnson and co.

However the devolved administrations are enjoying higher ratings, with 17 per cent of Scots having full confidence in Nicola Sturgeon - an increase on the 10 per cent in March. In Wales, 15 per cent said they have full confidence.

Lead author Dr Daisy Fancourt said: Confidence levels in the government have decreased markedly in England since the beginning of lockdown.

This loss of confidence could be down to perceived government mismanagement of the pandemic coupled with a high number of Covid-19 cases in England. Early easing of lockdown in England and scandals such as government adviser Dominic Cummings journey to Barnard Castle appear to have contributed to the fall."

She added: This loss of confidence is deeply concerning as it is related to peoples willingness to follow guidelines and rules. So it is vital that the government listens to peoples concerns and tries to rebuild peoples trust.

09:43 AM

Public consultation launched for proposed HS2 design changes

A public consultation has been launched by HS2 Ltd on proposed design changes to phase 2b of the high-speed railway.

The proposals include expanding the number of HS2 platforms at Manchester's Piccadilly and Airport stations, and adding an extra northbound HS2 service from Crewe.

HS2 Minister Andrew Stephenson said: "HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail are an integral part of this country's future rail network, vital for improving connections between our biggest cities and regions, boosting jobs and kickstarting economic growth as we build back better.

"This consultation will ensure passengers and business have their say in delivering a rail network that meets their needs, providing better journeys across the Midlands and the North as quickly as possible."

09:32 AM

What's on the agenda today?

Several MPs are currently debating the rapid expansion of China's labour programme in Tibet, with reference to the ongoing situation in XinJiang province.

There has been some suggestion that the Magnitsky amendment be used to bring sanctions against those involved in the "cultural genocide" currently happening in parts of the country. It makes for bleak listening, but there is cross-party agreement that something should be done now the UK has an independent sanctions regime.

The tone will be somewhat different for the rest of the day - here is what to expect:

12pm: Boris Johnson faces Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs.

12.15pm: The Welsh government holds its coronavirus briefing.

1.30pm: Downing Street lobby briefing.

2pm: Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, and David Frost, the UKs chief EU negotiator, give evidence to the Lords' Brexit Committee

2.30pm: Richard Hughes, the new chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, and other economists give evidence to Mel Stride and the rest of the Treasury committee about tax policy after coronavirus.

From 2.50pm: Nicola Sturgeon gives a statement to Holyrood about new coronavirus restrictions.

5pm: Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, and David Frost, the UKs chief EU negotiator, give evidence to Hilary Benn and the rest of the Commons' Brexit committee.

Later this afternoon: MPs debate the regulations imposing the latest restrictions in the north of England.

09:27 AM

Ministers warned not to 'squander window of opportunity' to get virus under control

Ministers must not "squander the window of opportunity" they have to get coronavirus under control or the country will have to go under another March-style lockdown, a Sage scientist has said.

Prof Stephen Reicher, professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews, who advises the Scottish government as well as sitting on Sage, told the Today programme this morning that ministers still had some time to stem the spread of the virus.

"I do think its important to do something because if you look at the figures at the moment, the level of infections is about 10 per cent of what it was at the peak in March, but, at the rate of doubling, it would probably be at the same as the peak in March by the end of October," he said. "So the good news is we have a window of opportunity to do something.

"If we squander that window of opportunity, then we really are in trouble, then we really would be talking about going back to March in terms of lockdown measures. But were not talking about that now. Weve got time."

09:14 AM

Have your say on: the Government's approach to lockdowns

Ministers are treading the tightrope on responding to the second wave, fearful of allowing coronavirus to rip through the population on the one side, while being equally concerned about the economic and wider health consequences of a second lockdown.

Yet leaders in the North of England argue that restrictions such as the pub curfew aren't working, with many zones under restrictions for weeks with no sign that transmission is abating.

On the other side, a "declaration" by medics around the world have called for a relaxation of restrictions in favour of a herd immunity strategy.

So which should it be? Have your say in the poll below.

I'll let you know the results at the end of the day.

08:53 AM

Tories spent nearly 16.5m on 2019 election, says watchdog

The Conservatives spent nearly 16.5m on the last General Election campaign, which saw Boris Johnson return as Prime Minister with an 80-seat majority, the watchdog has said.

The Electoral Commission stated that the party spent 16,486,871 across the country in order to gain its 80-seat Commons majority in December 2019.

The biggest chunk of the money, 5,818,998 went on "unsolicited material to electors", the commission said.

Marketing and canvassing cost 4,471,937, and advertising came in at 3,011,665.

Some 1,689,000 went to campaign guru Lynton Crosbys firm CTF Partners and another 700,000 with the strategic advisory firm Hanbury Strategy.

Rallies and other such events cost the party 529,650.

08:33 AM

Scotland's pubs and bars braced for closure in Nicola Sturgeon crackdown

Nicola Sturgeon has warned she will target Scotland's pubs and bars in a fresh crackdown being unveiled on Wednesday that could see them being forced to shut their doors later this week.

The First Minister will deliver a statement to Holyrood detailing new national restrictions to tackle the Covid-19 second wave, after local lockdowns and a ban on indoor visits failed to reduce case numbers.

Although the original 'circuit breaker' lockdown plan was supposed to provide a short shock to aggressively reduce the spread of the virus, she refused to give any indication of how long they would be in place.

However as we have so often seen during this pandemic, where Scotland leads the rest of the UK tends to follow, so it is a useful indicator of the future direction of travel.

She is expected to update Holyrood at around 2:50pm today.

08:24 AM

Pub curfew 'having the wrong effect', says Liverpool Mayor

The Government's pub curfew is having "the wrong effect" and local leaders should be able to set restrictions on their own areas, the Mayor of Liverpool has said.

Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Joe Anderson said the city had seen 2,500 new cases in the last week, but restrictions imposed in Manchester and Newcastle were "not working and the increasing infection rate going up".

He added: "It's about common sense, it's about getting the balance right and about what we can do, what we should do and how local lockdowns work, working with local leaders to get it right.

"There's a lack of consistency, a lack of clarity, but most of all a lack of communication and collaboration."

He described the 10pm curfew as having "the wrong effect" and said it should be down to local authorities to work with businesses in the area.

08:15 AM

Ministers must act on Roche disruption, Lib Dems say

Ministers have been urged to act quickly to ensure people have access to tests for Covid-19 and other illnesses, following a supply chain problem with Roche.

The pharmaceutical giant has experienced a "very significant drop" in its processing capacity due to a problem with its Sussex distribution centre, the only one in the UK. Roche warned the issues with the supply chain may not be resolved for two to three weeks, but is prioritising the dispatch of Covid-19 and antibody tests.

Munira Wilson, MP for Twickenham and health spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, said: "These reports will leave many people incredibly anxious, and rightly so.

"This does not only have serious consequences for our ability to test for Covid-19, but others with potentially incredibly serious illnesses will also be unable to get the blood tests or screening they need."

She added: "Our NHS must be able to treat everyone, whatever their illness, and ministers must do everything in their power to resolve this issue with the supply chain as quickly as possible.

"We cannot allow this virus to get further out of control, as well as further risking the health of thousands of individuals whose diagnosis of serious illness could either be delayed or go undetected."

08:05 AM

Primary school children could be removed from rule of six, Sage scientist suggests

Primary school children do not play a major role in spreading coronavirus and health experts are now considering whether they should be removed from the rule of six, a Sage scientist has said.

Professor Calum Semple, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said there was "growing evidence that primary school children are not amplifying this disease".

"We're quite confident now that primary school children are probably a quarter to half as likely to become infected and are also much less likely to pass the infection on," the professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Secondary school age children had less of an impact than adults, although there was a "gradient of effects" with six-formers akin to adults, Prof Semple added.

Asked about the rule of six, he said some countries have taken primary school-aged children out of the rule "and I certainly think it's something that many scientists and public health doctors are considering".

This is something that many backbenchers, including 1922 Committee chair Sir Graham Brady, have called for since the rule of six was devised.

07:58 AM

Government should 'certainly' be considering national circuit breaker, says Sage scientist

Another Sage scientist has called on the Government to consider a "circuit breaker" lockdown at a national level, to help control the spread of coronavirus as we enter a second wave.

Calum Semple, professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that "perhaps a circuit breaker a couple of weeks ago would have been really good idea".

He added: "It's always easier to reduce an outbreak at the earlier stage than to let it run and then try to reduce it at a later stage.

"So, yes, circuit breakers are certainly something we should be thinking about on a national basis."

07:47 AM

Scientists urge 'return to normal' now to avoid future health crises

Liz Truss was pretty insistent throughout her broadcast round this morning that the Government is striking the "delicate balance" right when it comes to lockdown measures.

Her argument was that one group of critics say they are not going far enough, while others say they go too far.

That second group has been bolstered by a declaration signed by almost 2,500 medics and scientists from around the world, calling for societies to be allowed to reopen, with efforts focused on protecting the most vulnerable.

Dr Sunetra Gupta, an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor of theoretical epidemiology at the University of Oxford, is among those to have signed.

You can read more about that here or listen to her speak to Planet Normal's Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan about those very concerns just a couple of weeks ago.

07:34 AM

Liz Truss hits back at lockdown critics claiming no alternatives are being proposed

Liz Truss has hit back at critics of the Government's approach, claiming none of them "are proposing alternative measures".

She claimed the local lockdowns were "the best way we have dealing with it now" until a vaccine is developed.

But she was challenged on this assumption, after an international group of scientists has called on governments to overturn their coronavirus strategies and allow young and healthy people to return to normal life while protecting the most vulnerable.

Described as the Great Barrington declaration, the plan calls for herd immunity to be reconsidered as restrictions are having devastating effects on public health by disrupting routine care and harming mental health, with the underprivileged bearing the greatest burden.

Ms Truss said teaching was going ahead and people were able to work because of the Government's approach, adding "there is no easy solution", pointing to the fact it was a global problem.

"Of course we will listen to new thoughts, new ideas... the way we are experiencing the second wave is much more different to the first wave."

07:28 AM

Country should be braced for 'tough winter', says Liz Truss

It will be a "tough winter", Liz Truss has said as she failed to rule out a second lockdown this year.

The International Trade Secretary told the BBC's Today programme that ministers were "constantly" meeting to discuss and review the measures, playing down suggestion that those meetings had been stepped up in light of rising cases.

She added: "What we don't want is to have to have a further lockdown, because it will have a huge impact on the economy. That is why we have local measures, local restrictions and we keep them under review as we see what happens."

The current approach meant it could "allow the economy to keep going, schools to keep going" through what is going to be a "tough winter," she added.

07:23 AM

Pubs and restaurants could close to keep schools open, Liz Truss suggests

Liz Truss has not ruled out shutting pubs and restaurants down if scientific advisers suggested it was necessary to stop the spread of coronavirus.

Nicola Sturgeon is discussing further restrictions for Scotland with her Cabinet this morning, and will update Holyrood later today.

Asked if the UK Government would take similar steps, the International Trade Secretary told the BBC: "If we were given new advice I am sure the Covid committee would indeed take that on board."

It was "no doubt what Nicola Sturgeon is doing in Scotland," she added.

"The important point is keeping schools open and keep the economy going," Ms Truss said.

07:19 AM

Country must 'trust our scientific experts', says Liz Truss

Liz Truss has said the country must "trust our scientific experts" who are helping to shape the restrictions, despite local lockdowns having limited impact.

The International Trade Secretary said "absolutely the restrictions are right", she told the BBC, stressing that Prof Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Adviser, understand the virus best.

They had "consistently" helped to shape policy throughout the crisis, she added.

Ms Truss added: "This is a moving situation. As you mentioned, we have seen a rise in cases in some of those areas so of course our advisers will be looking at that and telling us what to do.

"This is not a perfect science, we are learning all the time. I am not pretending the Government is all knowing and all seeing."

07:15 AM

Liz Truss plays down suggestions of Cabinet rift

Liz Truss has tried to play down suggestions that there is a rift in the Cabinet, claiming ministers are fully behind the current approach.

The International Trade Secretary said the Cabinet was "completely united behind the Prime Minister", adding she personally was "fully in support of the measures we are taking across the country".

Ms Truss added: "We don't want to have to take these measures, it is very difficult... but it very important we keep that balance between protecting lives and livelihoods."

Yesterday, Rishi Sunak said the Cabinet was not composed of "robots" who agreed on everything.

Read more: Cabinet split over tougher Covid lockdown measures

07:12 AM

Liz Truss does not rule out second lockdown as cases grow

Liz Truss has not ruled out the chances of a second lockdown, saying everything is kept "under review".

The International Trade Secretary told the BBC the Government was "trying to steer a path" of protecting lives and livelihoods, adding: "We are working very carefully across the country to make sure we have the right measures in place to restrict the virus.

"We don't want to go back to a second lockdown where we end up having to close the economy [but] we have always said we will keep everythig under review.

"We absolutely want to avoid another lockdown. The right approach is to have local restrictions in place, to restrict spread of the virus."

07:07 AM

Local leaders write to Matt Hancock over 'couter-productive' local lockdowns

Senior politicians from four major northern councils have warned the government that existing coronavirus restrictions are "not working", describing some as confusing and others as counter-productive.

Leeds City Council leader Judith Blake, Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese, Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes, and Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson have all written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, saying they were "extremely concerned" about the sharp increase and the "national responses".

The four centres are among the worst-affected areas as the pandemic worsens - the UK reported 14,542 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, almost 2,000 more than the previous day. Hospital admissions in England also hit a four-month high.

"The existing restrictions are not working, confusing for the public and some, like the 10pm (curfew) rule, are counter-productive," they said.

06:51 AM

Cabinet split over tougher Covid lockdown measures

A Cabinet row has thrown a major overhaul of local lockdown rules into disarray as the leaders of the worst-affected cities warned that the current measures are "not working".

A "traffic light" system of different levels of restrictions was due to be announced on Wednesday  but an intervention by Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, is threatening to delay the plans.

The row erupted as Boris Johnson faces a growing Conservative backlash over his handling of the coronavirus crisis, with critics arguing that lockdown measures such as the 10pm curfew for pubs and restaurants are damaging the economy and could even be increasing infections.

A Parliamentary vote on the curfew  which had been expected by MPs on Wednesday  has been delayed until next week after dozens of Conservatives threatened to rebel and Labour refused to publicly back the measure.

Now Mr Sunak is understood to be insisting that decisions about which towns should be put in the "red" zone of the "traffic light" system should be made by a new committee of himself, Mr Johnson and Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary.
As fears spread in March that African countries risked losing out in the scramble for scarce Covid-19 supplies, Kenya's spy agency mysteriously managed to secure 100 ventilators and other health equipment, a parliamentary report now reveals.

The report by the National Assembly's Health committee, which investigated the spending of funds allocated to the Ministry of Health to fight the pandemic, in particular by the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa), did not establish how the NIS acquired the consignment.

"The committee observed that Kemsa received a consignment of Covid-19 Health Products and Technologies (HPTs) from the National Intelligence Service. This included 100 ventilators. However, it is unclear how the NIS obtained and acquired this consignment," reads a draft report by the committee chaired by Murang'a Woman Representative Sabina Chege.

But it has since emerged from global media reports that, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to wreak havoc in March, desperate governments turned to their respective intelligence services for help to secure scarce medical equipment like ventilators, test kits and surgical masks.

Different operation

The deadly pandemic has redirected spooks, usually preoccupied with securing national security, fighting terrorism and international crime, into a new kind of covert operation that has dragged on for six months and is now centred on "stealing" vaccine development formulae.

Based on reported accounts by some intelligence officers who played a role in the global race for the Covid-19 items, as the global shortage peaked, underhand dealings and out-bidding rivals peaked. The agencies also resorted to covert ops and outright dirty tactics to secure medical products and technologies for their countries.

One of the most publicised operations by a security service to mobilise Covid-19 medical supplies involved Israel's powerful spy agency, Mossad.

In March, Israel reportedly acquired 27 ventilators and had targeted at least another 160 in the next few days.

For the entire operation, however, the Israeli had projected to lay their hands on 7,000 ventilators.

The world is selling [ventilators] through cracks.

Typical of the underworld, there were no details on where the equipment was coming from, just as the Kenyan lawmakers realised about the consignment brought in by NIS.

Mossad initially flew into Israel a consignment of 100,000 coronavirus test kits on March 19 and some four million more kits from a number of countries were expected.

The agency also helped obtain 25,000 N95 respiratory masks and 10 million surgical masks from unspecified countries.

On April 1, The Times of Israel quoted a senior Mossad officer detailing the intricacies of the aggressive covert battle to secure ventilators "at all costs".

"I have overseen many operations in my life and I've never dealt with such a complex operation," the Mossad officer, identified only by the Hebrew initial "Het", was quoted as saying.

"The world is selling [ventilators] through cracks. We need to find the cracks," Het was quoted telling Channel 12's "Uvda" investigative news program.

Kenya too

It would appear Kenya's intelligence agency was, too, looking out for such "cracks", given the disclosure that it brought into the country 100 ventilators.

Het went on: "We are world champions in operations and we know how to manage complex operations. We are utilising our special connections to win the race and perhaps do what the whole world is doing - lay our hands on stocks ordered by others".

According to the report, Het said his office was receiving more than 2,000 leads every day.

Some checked out, in others Israel was beaten to the consignments by more suave countries and yet others were false.

"We had a country in Europe where our trucks arrived at the factory's doors but another European country was ahead of us and loaded it up," Het recollected.

"We also had a situation where we had equipment we purchased on a plane but it had to be unloaded because the plane didn't get permission [to take off] due to the embargo," Het disclosed.

Obtain technology

Apparently the Israeli government had tasked the Mossad with obtaining more than 130,000 objects, including gas masks, virus test kits, medicine, protective gear and ventilators.

And it wasn't about importing commodities alone - Mossad reportedly helped Israel obtain technology that enabled many of the country's laboratories to conduct coronavirus tests as well as produce ventilators.

The operation was quite necessary, not least because Mossad director Yossi Cohen was among officials who were quarantined.

Mr Cohen had been in close contact with the then Israeli health minister, who tested positive for the coronavirus in April.

The intelligence agencies had forewarned the world about the possibility of a pandemic that "could lead to massive rates of death".

That was last year in January, when the United States intelligence community gave a briefing on "worldwide threat assessment of the US intelligence community, which had a section on global Health".

Ill-prepared world

"We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources and increase calls on the United States for support," read the report dated January 29, 2019.

It warned the world was ill-prepared to confront infectious diseases, which would partly be fuelled by expansion of international travel.

"Although the international community has made tenuous improvements to global health security, these gains may be inadequate to address the challenge of what we anticipate will be more frequent outbreaks of infectious diseases because of rapid unplanned urbanisation, prolonged humanitarian crises, human incursion into previously unsettled land, expansion of international travel and trade, and regional climate change," the report concluded.

One year

A year after the report, which also noted the increase in the number of outbreaks was partly because pathogens originally found in animals had spread to human beings, the world was hit by Covid-19, which originated from Wuhan, China.

And even the timing of the declaration by the World Health Organization (WHO) labelling the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic - a disease that spreads in multiple countries around the world at the same time - has been shrouded in spy mystery.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had to fight off reports by German media outlet Der Spiegel that Germany's federal intelligence service had information that Chinese President Xi Jinping had on January 21 personally called the WHO director-general seeking to delay issuing of a global warning on the coronavirus.

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In a statement on May 9, Dr Ghebreyesus termed the reports of the January 21, 2020, telephone conversation "unfounded and untrue".

"Dr Tedros and President Xi did not speak on January 21 and they have never spoken by telephone. Such inaccurate reports distract and detract from WHO's and the world's efforts to end the Covid-19 pandemic," read the WHO statement.

The WHO rebuttal noted that China had confirmed human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus on January 20.

But Newsweek had too reported that a US Central Intelligence Agency report had claimed, "China threatened the WHO that the country would stop cooperating with the agency's coronavirus investigation if the organisation declared a global health emergency" over coronavirus.

It was not until January 28, 2020 that Dr Tedros met President Xi Jinping to share the latest information on the novel coronavirus 2019 outbreak and reiterate their commitment to bring it under control, according to an official WHO statement.

Newsweek in May reported that the CIA believes China tried to prevent the World Health Organization from sounding the alarm on the coronavirus outbreak in January - a time when Beijing was stockpiling medical supplies from around the world.

A CIA report, the contents of which were confirmed to Newsweek by two US intelligence officials, said China threatened the WHO that the country would stop cooperating with the agency's coronavirus investigation if the organisation declared a global health emergency.

On April 9, Reuters reported Swedish Getinge, one of the world's biggest makers of medical ventilators, said earlier this week it was ramping up ventilator production capacity this year by 160 percent to 26,000 units to meet demand fuelled by the pandemic.
Jaipur, Oct 7: The average time taken to probe rape and POCSO Act cases has come down from 278 days to 113 in Rajasthan as a result of setting up of special investigation units for crime against women in every police districts, according to an official release. Also, there is a decline in the registration of First Information Reports (FIRs) on the basis of Istgasa (complaint filed on directions of a court) from 31 per cent to 13 per cent after the FIR registration was made mandatory in the state last year, the release said.

The points were highlighted in a review meeting of law and order chaired by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday night. The chief minister said his government ensured that every complainant is heard by police and therefore registration of every FIR was made mandatory.

In the meeting which lasted for over two hours, Gehlot reviewed various issues and matters related to law and order, crime against women, organised crime etc. He gave necessary directions to senior police officials in the meeting. Principal secretary (Home) Abhay Kumar informed that Home Secretary NL Meena has been appointed for carrying out inquiry on all aspects related to a recent violence that erupted in Dungarpur.

The chief minister also appreciated police officers for speedy investigation in Thanagazi gang-rape case. A special court in Rajasthans Alwar district on Tuesday convicted four men and awarded them rigorous life imprisonment until natural death for the gangrape of a woman in 2019.

Chief secretary Rajeeva Swarup, DG Bhupendra Singh, DG crime ML Lather, ADG Intelligence Umesh Mishra and other senior officials were present in the Wednesdays meeting.

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

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Line of Duty fans have claimed to have pointed out a 'huge spoiler' after show creator Jed Mercurio shared a snap from filming on Monday.

The writer, 54, took to Twitter to share a collection of photos of DS Steve Arnott, played by Martin Compston, Ted Hastings, played by Adrian Dunbar, and DI Kate Fleming, played by Vicky McClure, as they playfully posed on set.

Yet eagle-eyed fans were quick to point out that DS Steve Arnott had lost his 'sergeant stripes' from his uniform as they questioned whether he had been demoted or was going undercover.

Spoiler? Line Of Duty fans have claimed to have pointed out a 'huge spoiler' after show creator Jed Mercurio shared a snap from filming on Monday

One person said: 'No Sgt stripes on @martin_compston uniform.Has he been demoted???'

A different fan put: 'Exactly what I was wondering. Undercover as a PC? Demoted, or a big omission!'

Another viewer commented: 'Steve's not got his sgt stripes!?'

A different account noted: 'Steve been demoted? Where's his stripes?'

Back to it: The writer, 54, took to Twitter to share a collection of photos of DS Steve Arnott, played by Martin Compston, Ted Hastings, played by Adrian Dunbar, and DI Kate Fleming, played by Vicky McClure, as they playfully posed on set

Eagle-eyed: Yet eagle-eyed fans were quick to point out that DS Steve Arnott had lost his 'sergeant stripes' from his uniform as they questioned whether he had been demoted or was going undercover

While another fan added: 'Stevie boy demoted to PC?'

Elsewhere other fans came up with another bizarre theory as they noted Ted Hastings was stood in front of a piece of graffiti which had the letter H.

Posting a zoomed in picture with a red ring around it, a Line Of Duty fan commented: 'Massive spoilers on wall.'

In the most recent series five finale, creator Jed dropped the bombshell there was not just one super villain H but four caddies.

Theory: One person said: 'No Sgt stripes on @martin_compston uniform.Has he been demoted???'

Another plot twist? Elsewhere other fans came up with another bizarre theory as they noted Ted Hastings was stood in front of a piece of graffiti which had the letter H

Steve discovered the vital clue when a clip of DI Matthew 'Dot' Cottan's dying declaration was played during AC-12 boss Ted Hasting's interrogation with Patricia Carmichael (Anna Maxwell-Martin).

Line Of Duty resumed filming in September after a five-month hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The BBC police drama suspended shooting for series six back in March, but leading actor Martin Compston - who plays DS Steve Arnott - returned to set to shoot socially-distanced scenes last month.

Show creator Jed thanked fans for their 'patience' and assured that the cast and crew are aiming to have the sixth season back on air 'as soon as possible'.

Explosive: In the most recent series five finale, creator Jed dropped the bombshell there was not just one super villain H but four caddies (show cast pictured in the show)

In one of the photos from the set, Martin posed as his character DS Steve Arnott while sitting behind a glass wall, which appeared to be in a prison.

The cast surrounding him are all wearing face masks and remain at a social distance on the other side of the screen.

Martin also posted the picture to his own Instagram where he captioned it with: 'Officially back in business #waistcoatup #lineofduty6.'

The actor also posted a fun snap of himself getting his longer locks, which he grew during lockdown, cut by hair stylist Cat Coogan.

It's back! Line Of Duty resumed filming in September after a five-month hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic

The hairdresser made sure she took social-distancing measures as she wore a face mask, visor and plastic apron.

Martin shared a before and after snap, which he captioned: 'This woman's surgical with scissors.'

The star also posted up a picture of himself in police uniform teasing fans: 'In The civvies, must be Line of Duty 6.'

Vicky McClure took to Instagram to post a picture of herself with Martin at a distance, which she captioned: 'Hello mate'

Reunited: Vicky McClure also took to Instagram to post a picture of herself with Martin at a distance, which she captioned: 'Hello mate' last month

Talking about the highly-anticipated return to filming, creator Jed said: 'We know Line of Duty fans are desperate for Series 6 and we hope we can get it on air as soon as possible. Thanks so much for your patience in these difficult times.'

Series regulars, Martin, Vicky McClure (DI Kate Fleming) and Adrian Dunbar (Superintendent Ted Hastings), also issued statements about their return to filming.

Martin, 36, said: 'It's been a long few months and it will be a different way of working from when we stopped, but I'm delighted to be back on the case with the Line of Duty team!'

Vicky, 37, added: 'Been sitting on these incredible scripts for some time now, so I'm really looking forward to getting back to it and seeing the Line of Duty family.'

Before and after! Martin also posted the picture to his own Instagram and shared a fun snap of himself getting his longer locks, which he grew during lockdown, cut by hair stylist Cat Coogan ahead of filming

Back to it! The star also posted up a picture of himself in police uniform teasing fans: 'In The civvies, must be Line of Duty 6.'

While Adrian, 62, commented: 'Even with the imposition of Covid restrictions I can't hide my excitement at getting the team back together. So many people wonderingwhat happens next?'

Line Of Duty insisted that they have worked with health and safety consultants in accordance to government guidelines to ensure the safety of cast and crew.

Executive Producer for World Productions, Simon Heath, said: 'It's been almost six months since we stopped shooting.

'But following our implementation of all the industry Covid protocols, we're delighted to be able to resume filming series six safely.'

Statement: Talking about the highly-anticipated return to filming, creator Jed said: 'We know Line of Duty fans are desperate for Series 6 and we hope we can get it on air as soon as possible. Thanks so much for your patience in these difficult times.' (pictured in 2019)

The hit BBC One police drama suspended its filming in Belfast for season six in March to adhere to the COVID-19 regulations.

A BBC spokesperson said at the time: 'In light of the spread of Covid-19, after much consideration, the producers Caryn Mandabach Productions and Tiger Aspect Productions of Peaky Blinders Series 6 have postponed filming, and World Productions on Line of Duty Series 6 have suspended filming, both in consultation with and supported by the BBC.

'We will continue to review all productions on a case-by-case basis and will continue to follow the latest news and advice from the Foreign Office, World Health Organisation and Public Health England.'

The sixth series is rumoured to air sometime in 2021 - although no date has been confirmed. Series five aired from March-May 2019.

Hit show: Series regulars, Martin, Vicky McClure (DI Kate Fleming) and Adrian Dunbar (Superintendent Ted Hastings), also issued statements about their return to filming (above Mercurio with the lead stars)

The show, which stars Martin as DS Steve Arnott, Vicky as DI Kate Fleming and Adrian as Superintendent Ted Hastings - following anti-corruptions officers as they root out bent coppers in the AC-12 division.

In August, Martin explained the cast are hoping to have the forthcoming sixth season shot before Christmas.

Appearing on The One Show, he also teased storylines for the upcoming series as he insisted that 'the scripts are so good!'

He said: 'In terms of the changes we really wouldn't want to compromise the scripts, the scripts are so good, and people are so loyal to the show, there would be no point coming back if we're going to compromise quality.'

The show's writers are notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to storylines, and so when quizzed about whether there is, as rumoured, a 'massive bombshell' at the end of episode four, Martin teased: 'Well there's a few before that as well...

'But just because I don't have script five, there's a big, big question at the end of [episode] four.'
The expectation is that the government will not abuse its authority and that a political party not misuse the State.

What we are seeing today is the clear evidence that this is not enough, argues Aakar Patel.

IMAGE: A protest against the alleged gang-rape of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, October 2, 2020. Photograph: Ravi Choudhary/PTI Photo

The Indian State, meaning the government in all its forms, but especially the Union government, is a slightly strange creature.

It is in name and form a democracy and even a liberal one.

A liberal democracy is defined as 'a democratic system of government in which individual rights and freedoms are officially recognised and protected, and the exercise of political power is limited by the rule of law.'

This is both true and not true of the Indian State.

It is democratic in the sense that it is controlled by political parties which are elected to office for fixed terms.

Individual rights and freedoms exist in theory but in large measure do not exist in reality.

Political power is not limited by rule of law, but by how much authority the individuals in power are willing to assert.

When the individuals in office are modest and conscious of their position within the Constitutional framework, the State will appear to be both democratic and liberal.

However, if individuals are authoritarian (meaning willing to enforce strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedoms), like the prime minister and the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, then the same State appears undemocratic.

Rule of law exists in States where there is no space for authority to exercise arbitrary power.

By that definition India is not a rule of law State. There is actually very little restriction on the arbitrary exercise of authority.

Parliament can be denied the right to vote.

People can be denied the right to freedom of peaceful assembly (guaranteed under Article 19) by declaring Section 144 at India Gate.

An entire village can be denied the right to liberty (guaranteed under Article 21) by simply locking it up and not allowing anyone to either go in or out.

This is not how democratic States function, but it is happening in India.

There is no limiting element to how much arbitrary authority can be exercised.

The Constitution does not change and nor are any laws required to be altered here.

The State just doesn't have the internal capacity to resist misuse.

This is not a rule of law State.

For it to become one, it must have stronger institutional capacity than it does.

And it must have more participation from the citizenry than it does.

Indians pride themselves on having one of the highest voting rates in the democratic world and that is something to be justifiably proud of.

In the United States, for example, vote turnout in the 2016 election that brought Donald Trump to power, 55% of America voted.

This was 12% less than the turnout in India's 2019 election, when 67% of the electorate voted.

That is a substantial difference.

But Americans participate in the democracy outside of the electoral process also.

Protests against the arbitrary use of authority, as seen in the Black Lives Matter movement, in which millions of people dissented against the use of force against African Americans, have brought changes to law and policy.

In India such protest is restricted severely by the State, but it appears also to be the case that there is less interest at the level of the Indian citizen in standing up for Constitutional rights.

This is particularly so in issues where there is no individual or selfish interest.

Standing up for others is something that is the bedrock of rule of law and democratic States.

In India the authority assumes, perhaps rightly, that protest is localised and limited to those immediately concerned with the issue and will die down in time.

How do we move from this place to becoming a rule of law nation (something that presumably most of us want)? The answer is not easy and it is not even clear.

For instance, it cannot just be the defeat of one party and the election of another.

Because there is no limit to the supply of strong-willed authoritarians and the problem will recur in future.

Something deeper needs to be change and it is not clear whether this change can be produced by external forces or by a single event.

The ownership of India as a rule of law democracy must be ultimately with the citizenry.

At the moment it is not.

The expectation is that the government will not abuse its authority and that a political party not misuse the State.

What we are seeing today is the clear evidence that this is not enough.

Aakar Patel is a columnist and writer.

You can read Aakar's columns here.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
As part of checking the spread



of COVID-19, Health Minister B Sriramulu said on Wednesday there is a general view that the Dasara festival should be confined to the Mysuru Palace and Chamundi Hills this year.

"We have discussed the safety measures that should be taken to prevent the spread of infection during the Dasara festival in Mysuru.

There is a general view in the meeting that the Dasara should be confined to the Mysuru Palace and the Chamundi Hills," Sriramulu tweeted after a meeting with the Mysuru district authorities.

According to him, a panel of technical experts will formulate the action plan on behalf of the district administration for the 'State festival'.

The action plan will be finalised after discussing with Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, he said.

Every year thousands of people throng Mysuru from all over the globe to witness the 10-day Dasara festival during Navaratri, marked with regality when the ritualistic private military along with the caparisoned elephants march before the titular Maharaja and gives him gun salute.

However, the abnormal situation caused by the has cast its shadow on the festivities as well.

Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar too had maintained that the Dasara this year will be a low-key affair.

After chairing a meeting with the district authorities a couple of days ago, Sudhakar had said will not commit the mistake Kerala did during the Onam festival by easing all restrictions, which resulted in the spurt in cases there.

(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 charged with deliberately transmitting HIV to her friend's baby by breast-feeding him in Zimbabwe.

The 23-year-old woman, from Harare, infected the 10-month-old boy when she was given the child to babysit by her friend in August.

The baby started crying while playing with other youngsters and the suspect started breast-feeding him in front of the other children, local media reported.

The woman, who has not been identified, allegedly knew that she was HIV positive at the time, and it is unclear why she ignored the risk.

The 23-year-old woman, who has not been identified, infected the 10-month-old boy in the capital Harare (stock image)

One of the children who witnessed the incident told the boy's mother who subsequently reported it to the police, according to state media.

The woman appeared at Harare Magistrates' Court at the end of last month and was initially charged with ill-treatment of a minor under the Children's Act.

The 23-year-old has since been charged with deliberate transmission of HIV and was granted Z$500 (1) bail ahead of her trial on October 19.

HIV-positive women are discouraged from breast-feeding their babies as it poses a risk of transmission.

However, the issue is controversial among medics as several recent studies have shown that there is a negligible risk of transmission if the mother and baby are undergoing antiretroviral therapy.

The woman appeared at Harare Magistrates' Court (pictured) at the end of last month and was initially charged with ill-treatment of a minor under the Children's Act

The British HIV Association says: 'Only breastfeed if your HIV is undetectable AND both you and your baby are free from tummy problems AND your breasts and nipples are healthy with no signs of infection.'

The NHS, on the other hand, advises against it.

'Do not breastfeed your baby if you have HIV, as the virus can be transmitted through breast milk.' The NHS website says.

In Zimbabwe, HIV-positive women with access to formula and clean water are encouraged to use powdered baby milk.
NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Nuxeo , the leading cloud-native Content Services Platform (CSP), today announced the company has successfully completed an eleven billion (11B) object benchmark test on Amazon Web Services (AWS). In partnership with data platform MongoDB, Nuxeo exhibited the extreme scalability and flexibility of its Nuxeo Cloud service, demonstrating how its cloud offering can effectively manage a repository with more than 10B objects while maintaining the highest levels of performance.

"This test illustrates the enormous flexibility and scalability  but certainly not the limit  of the Nuxeo Platform. Our technology can scale almost endlessly and very efficiently with MongoDB Atlas and AWS," said Eric Barroca, CEO of Nuxeo. "Nuxeo is rapidly becoming the content backbone for large organizations around the globe as digital transformation accelerates and companies move more and more content to the cloud. Our 11-billion-object benchmark is really intended as a blueprint for our largest customers to help guide them as they scale their own repositories to 10B objects and beyond."

This 11B-object benchmark was conducted as part of a two-phase benchmarking effort. In the first phase, the Nuxeo team scaled up a single-repository instance of their Nuxeo Cloud service to 3B objects, demonstrating the power and scalability of the Nuxeo Platform and its underlying NoSQL database, MongoDB. In the second phase, the team then adopted a multi-repository approach which is much more reflective of the architectures that its largest customers will employ.

During each phase of the project, the Nuxeo team continuously loaded a large volume and variety of digital content (e.g. documents, PDFs, high-resolution photos and videos) into the system at a high rate of ingestion, complete with metadata and indexing. As the volume of content grew, at specified points throughout the project, the Nuxeo team then tested response times and throughput to ensure the application was running at the highest levels of performance. Throughout the project, the MongoDB team worked alongside Nuxeo, monitoring data access patterns to identify tipping points and suggest ways to improve the environment before moving to the next level. The Nuxeo team also categorized its learnings to deliver a two-phase guide to enable its customers to likewise scale their Nuxeo repositories and deliver high-performance content applications.

"This was not a highly orchestrated lab exercise," said Nuxeo CTO, Thierry Delprat. "We wanted to push the limits and test in a real-world environment to show how the Nuxeo Platform can handle enormous volumes of content in modern applications. More importantly, we wanted to provide customers with concrete guidance and best practices for scaling the Nuxeo Platform along with other key cloud services."

Nuxeo has operated its Cloud service on AWS for more than three years now. As a result, the Nuxeo Cloud is a proven offering which takes full advantage of AWS' unparalleled flexibility and performance. Nuxeo also utilizes the managed database service, MongoDB Atlas. Atlas is capable of managing hundreds of metadata tags across literally billions of Nuxeo objects, storing them securely and making them easily digestible and queryable in JSON-like documents. Taken together, AWS and MongoDB Atlas are powerful complements to the Nuxeo Cloud service.

For more on methodology and results of Nuxeo's 11-billion-object benchmark, download our whitepaper.

Tweet this: @Nuxeo just completed an 11-billion object benchmark test  demonstrating its cloud-based Content Services Platform can scale almost endlessly with @MongoDB and @AWScloud. Read more here: https://bit.ly/2I48dmz #DigitalTransformation #CSP

About Nuxeo

Nuxeo , developer of the leading Content Services Platform, is reinventing enterprise content management (ECM) and digital asset management (DAM). Nuxeo makes it easy to build smart content applications that enhance customer experiences, improve decision making, and accelerate products to market. Its cloud-native, low-code platform has been deployed by large enterprises worldwide. Customers like Electronic Arts, TBWA, ABN AMRO, and CVS have used Nuxeo's technology to transform the way they do business. Founded in 2000, the company is based in New York with offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Learn more at www.nuxeo.com .

SOURCE Nuxeo Corporation

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On Tuesday, October 6th 2020, President Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo launched 'For Better Business Together (4BBT)' to inspire business-worthy behaviour, discuss and critically analyse specific local issues, and serve as a convergence point for the youth of the world.

The move, according to business and industry stakeholders will go a long way to further boost business interest in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

It also comes with innovative ideas to connect entrepreneurs who have the solutions, and investors with SDG perspectives.

The programme which was organised by Ghana's Ministry of Business Development (MoBD) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), and the Business for Peace Foundation(BfP) of Norway was on the theme "Post COVID-19 - Rebuilding Global Businesses Together".

Speaking at the event, the president noted that the "For Better Business Together(4BBT) programme is a new global partnership to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and strengthen businesses in the world following the novel COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to have a devastating effect on the economies of the world, especially on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

He said the programme is aimed at addressing some of the local sustainability challenges and mobilize local entrepreneurs and businesses to find a longterm solution.

Ghana with about 65% of its 30 million population below 30 years, was chosen for the global launch of the 4BBT programme.

On his part, the Prime Minister of Norway Erna Solberg said Ghana's high Democratic credentials, political stability, visionary leadership and a vibrant entrepreneurial and start-up ecosystem made her the obvious choice for the global launch of the 4BBT programme.

"The president's excellent management of the COVID-19 pandemic has gained global recognition. Hence the outcome of the 4BBT programme is expected to be the facilitation of SDGs aligned investments with potential partnerships in local start-ups / scale-ups and established businesses, to address relevant development challenges," he said.

Also speaking on Post-COVID-19 era and useful lessons, Mr Charles Abani, UN Resident Coordinator - Ghana, said, the devastating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic inflicting, unprecedented health, economic and social crisis on the globe, threatening lives and livelihoods, making the achievement of the SDGs more challenging and erasing the modest progress made in recent years.

According to Mr Charles Abani, Africa needs an estimated US$114 billion to address the COVID-19 induced crises this year alone and with an estimated financing gap of US$44 billion.

He noted that it has a system-wide response approach with a focus on building a more inclusive and sustainable world.

"Business leaders need to strike out in new directions to embrace more sustainable and inclusive economic models. We need more partnerships and collaboration, especially with the private sector and IFIs and DFIs, bringing the whole-of-society approach to respond to the SDGs through concrete partnerships as well as innovative financing mechanism and instruments," he emphasised.

He continued... "Strengthening our partnerships For Better Business Together we should be committed to building sustainable and inclusive efforts that is not devoid of the 5Ps underpinning our sustainable development goals  focusing on People to end poverty and hunger in all its forms; protecting our Planets natural resources and climate for future generations; fostering Peaceful, just and inclusive societies; ensuring Prosperity and fulfilling lives in harmony with nature; and most importantly, implementing the 2030 agenda through a solid global Partnership".

In a remark, Silke Hollander, the Deputy UNDP Resident Representative - Ghana, aims at enabling businesses to build back better from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as build forward better to allow for transformational change demands a key component of SDG Investor Maps, which are meant to catalyse investments towards the achievement of the SDGs.

She said these Investor Maps are prepared across all 16 regions in Ghana and will connect investment opportunities with businesses.

She concluded that a transformative initiative of the COVID-19 Private Sector Facility, which was launched a few weeks ago during this years UN General Assembly; in partnership between UNDP, UN Global Compact and the International Chamber of Commerce, Ghana is one of 4 countries, and the only one in Africa selected to benefit from the facilitys services.
Rep. Attica Scott still faces misdemeanor charges of unlawful assembly and failure to disperse.

The felony rioting charges against Kentucky state Rep. Attica Scott and other protesters have been dropped as of Tuesday.

Scott confirmed the news to CNN in a text message: Felony charges have been dropped against all of us! Misdemeanor charges are still pending.

Demonstrators gather around Rep. Attica Scott and other members of the Black Womens Collective during a march Saturday to the Breonna Taylor memorial at Jefferson Square Park in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

Scott, her 19-year-old daughter, Ashanti, and 16 other demonstrators were arrested on Sept. 24. All were charged with felony rioting, unlawful assembly and failure to disperse. The latter two charges are both misdemeanors and are still pending.

Scott was participating in protests one day after the announcement by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron that no Louisville Metro Police officers would face charges in the slaying of Breonna Taylor. One, former detective Brett Hankison, was charged with three charges of wanton endangerment for bullets fired that entered a nearby apartment.

Read More: Grand jury audio details raid that killed Breonna Taylor

Scott is the author of legislation known as Breonnas Law, which would ensure that officers executing search warrants in the state would have to physically knock and verbally announce themselves.

She is Kentuckys only Black female legislator.

Scott was arrested after the group she was in allegedly caused damage to city buses and the main library in Louisville. However, in their hearing Tuesday, Jefferson County Attorney Mike OConnell said, We would need clear-cut evidence that these individuals before you today were working with those who committed that property damage. The evidence we have reviewed thus far does not support that.

Read More: Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron responds to repugnant critics, defends his handling of the Breonna Taylor case

Scott has pledged to continue to fight to see that the misdemeanor charges are dropped as well. They are still under review.

According to a report from the Louisville Journal-Courier, Scotts arrest motivated another Democratic lawmaker to write a law that would narrow the scope of Kentuckys rioting statute. This new legislation from Rep. Lisa Wilner would protect people from being charged with first-degree rioting if theyre present but dont engage in destructive or violent actions.

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The post Kentuckys only Black lawmaker has felony rioting charge dropped appeared first on TheGrio.
Dawn French has said that she has put on weight again after her staggering seven and a half stone loss in 2014.

Speaking on her podcast French and Saunders: T**ting About, the actress, 62, said she is 'back to being an entire barrel' but 'doesn't give a f**k'.

The Vicar Of Dibley star didn't disclose how much weight she has put on, but said she refuses to 'dislike herself' and is happy as long as she can keep walking.

The comedian dramatically starting losing weight in 2011 following her split from Lenny Henry and in 2014, she revealed that it was so she could have keyhole surgery for a secret hysterectomy after a cancer scare.

Pictured: Dawn French has said that she has put weight on following her staggering seven and a half stone loss in 2014 (pictured last month in London)

Speaking on the podcast alongside Jennifer Saunders, Dawn said: 'I've gone back to being an entire barrel but do you know what, I'm going to be 63 this year, I don't give a f**k, I really don't, so long as I can walk.

'I'm not going to be stingy to myself anymore. I never did dislike anything about my body, even when I was very, very fat. I refuse to be forced to dislike myself.

'I used to get really angry when I did lose weight, people going, ''You look so well,'' as if you looked awful before - rewarding you for managing it, which is not easy, I accept that.

'But I didn't want people to give me approval. It's so patronising.'

'I don't give a f**k!' The actress, 62, said she is 'back to being an entire barrel' but 'doesn't give a f**k' (pictured, left, after her weight loss in 2015 and, right, and before in 2005)

Confidence: Dawn insisted she refuses to 'dislike herself' and said she is happy as long as she can keep walking (pictured last month)

Dawn looked happy and healthy when she reprised her role of Geraldine Granger in The Vicar Of Dibley for BBC's Big Night In earlier this year during the height of lockdown.

The star also looked slim when she stepped out in London last month for a two-minute Silent Stand to demand help for theatres amid the coronavirus crisis.

The comedian started losing weight in 2011 amid speculation she'd had a gastric band fitted or was suffering from stress after her split from Lenny Henry.

In 2014, Dawn revealed the real reason behind her weight loss and said she needed to have a hysterectomy following a cancer scare.

Before: The comedian dramatically starting losing weight in 2011 following her split from Lenny Henry (pictured in 2007)

Candid: In 2014, Dawn revealed her weight-loss was so she could have keyhole surgery for a hysterectomy (pictured, left, post weight-loss in 2017, and, right, pre weight-loss in 2010)

She said at the time her doctor was convinced she had uterine cancer and although the results of a first biopsy came back clear he ordered a second one which prompted her to make the decision to have surgery to remove her womb.

Dawn was given the choice to have an invasive operation but opted for keyhole surgery instead and was told she would need to lose weight to help ensure it was a success.

She eventually lost 7.5st in total from her 19st frame.

She told the audience at her 30 Million Minutes tour at the time: 'When I was due to have my hysterectomy the doc told me that if I could lose some weight before the op, they would be able to do it via keyhole, and I would recover in three weeks or so.

Happy and healthy: Dawn looked happy and healthy when she reprised her role of Geraldine Granger in The Vicar Of Dibley for BBC's Big Night In earlier this year during lockdown

'Otherwise it would be big open surgery, and three months to recover. So, I set about dropping a few stone.

'No magic wand, just tiny, joyless low-cal eating and lots more walking for weeks and weeks. It was grim. I lost seven-and-a-half stone. I could have the keyhole surgery. Great. That's all it was, practical.'

The weight loss came around 14 months after her split from Lenny Henry, 62. At the time there was speculation it had been caused by the stress of the divorce.

Dawn, who has since got remarried to Mark Bignell, has previously spoken about her weight loss over the years.

Split: The comedian starting losing weight in 2011 amid speculation she'd had a gastric band fitted or was suffering from stress after her split from Lenny Henry (pictured in 2009)

In 2017, she told Loose Women: 'I shed the weight a long time ago, I go up a bit, down a bit, feel no different.

'I'm still Dawn, I liked the old Dawn, I may go there again, depends how many doughnuts I decide to eat.'

While she also told an Australian magazine: 'My being fat kind of made it okay for others to be fat. But then what happened was that I slightly betrayed the fat club by losing a lot of weight.

'And then when I put 3st back on, it was as if I had swung back towards the fat club and everyone stopped freaking out.'
Lesley Miller - Deputy representative, UNICEF Vietnam Developing the education sector is crucial in helping Vietnam achieve mid- and long-term growth targets because it will create a high-quality workforce for the country. We cant wait until tertiary education  we need to start when theyre very young, to teach them new skills, new mindsets, and new approaches from the time they are very young. Investing for digital connectivity in education is also important. During social isolation, many children in the world didnt have access to the internet or other digital devices to continue their studies. However, Vietnam has the capability to solve this problem. Every school in the country should be connected to the internet and every child should learn digital skills. UNICEF is already working with the Ministry of Education and Training on that. In the medium or even shorter term, that can be a solution to lift everyones digital skills up. Pierre-Jean Malgouyres - General director, Archetype Group Vietnam is truly a remarkable country, achieving what it sets its mind to. Despite the pandemic, Vietnam has managed to control the situation to ensure the safety of its people. As in the past, the Vietnamese people are determined to act together in face of adversity. The Vietnamese economy grew rapidly in recent years and is poised for strong growth despite the pandemic. But as we saw how the pandemic hit all sectors, we all need to contribute to a steady rebuilding so that we will provide continuity and stability for the country. The construction industry has grown alongside Vietnams success, but all stakeholders should commit to infrastructure development plans that are sound and responsible. We should create structures by processes which are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient, focusing on sustainable green building designs. Marcel Reymond - Head of Cooperation, Swiss Embassy in Vietnam COVID-19 has been a real test of economic resilience. Vietnam stands out not only by containing the outbreak successfully but also by becoming one of the handful of privileged economies achieving GDP growth in 2020. To sustain long-term economic growth, solidifying fundamentals is central. The financial sector and public finance management must be strengthened. Accelerating key reforms is equally important. Reforms should be geared towards incentives to motivate innovations and digitalisation as they are the drivers of corporate productivity and competitiveness. The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs has been providing holistic technical assistance to Vietnam to grow sustainably, and Switzerland will continue supporting Vietnam to create a conducive climate for the private sector. David Harrison - Partner, Mayer Brown Vietnam Portfolio company preservation is now the top short-term priority for international private equity investors. This goes beyond basic survival as private equity investors want to ensure that their portfolio companies are competitively positioned when normalcy resumes. Investors will look to government economic stimulus packages to support private businesses in the four key areas of wage subsidies and employment, tax relief, industry-specific relief, and liquidity. Vietnam should consider incorporating programmes similar to those in Japan into its COVID-19 response, along with its other strategies. The quality of the Vietnamese governments response to the crisis in the eyes of international investors will leave an imprint beyond the pandemic, influencing confidence levels in Vietnams leadership and the countrys ability to attract investment. Adam Sitkoff - Executive director, American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi Vietnams early and government action, and widespread public compliance has helped to mitigate the damage from this terrible virus. This success enabled a fast start on the path to economic recovery and as companies continue adjusting global supply chains, the governments effective response to the pandemic will further boost Vietnams status as an attractive destination for investment. Vietnam can accelerate economic recovery by continuing infrastructure development, approving and expediting long-awaited investment projects. Improving waste management, reducing carbon emissions in Vietnam by accelerating the use of clean energy, clean vehicles, clean agriculture, and reducing the inefficiency and waste of energy will help build a stronger circular economy and will spur job creation. Alexander Gold - Chairman, Bankograph Financial Group The Vietnamese government has chosen the right path to support the financial ecosystem and digital transformation in banking and fintech to widen financial inclusion and credit availability for micro- to medium-sized businesses. Modern technology has enabled customer assessment processes to include large amounts of non-financial data points into the predictive modelling of customer behaviour. This will accelerate financial inclusivity and reduce cost of finance, in turn boosting economic growth and promoting an inclusive, sustainable recovery. Implementing government financial support in the form of handouts is a costly exercise and may not be the right path. Micro- to medium-sized businesses form the economic backbone of the Vietnamese economy and should be supported in mounting their own recovery via access to low-cost funding, instead of one-off support payments. Alain Cany - Country chairman, Jardine Matheson Vietnam Vietnam is achieving excellent results against the pandemic and should benefit with a V-shaped economic recovery as soon as the crisis is over, which should boost new foreign investments. One of the biggest challenges in the coming years for sustainable development remains in developing renewable energy at a fast pace and avoiding dependence on coal. In 2019 Vietnam put nearly 5,000MW of new power generation sources into operation  all generated from renewable clean and locally available energy sources. Vietnam achieved this in less than two years in less-developed provinces such as Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan, and Tay Ninh. Resolution No.55-NQ/TW made it clear that Vietnam should prioritise renewable energies in the development of its energy plan for the coming years. Vu Minh Anh - Managing director, Terraverde Travel The impact of COVID-19 on tourism enterprises has been immediate and significant compared to other industries. Most workers in these industries have been laid off or work on a salary that is too low to survive. Immediate financial support by the government or at least facilitated access to government-backed zero per cent interest rate credit is needed to help the industry survive. It would be wise to spend money now rather later when the economic impact of unemployment and rising social insurance costs has become more severe as the multiplication effect of the tourism industry also works in reverse. The pandemic is also an opportunity to rigorously reconsider development strategies and business models. Swift recovery of the worlds largest industry requires timely, bold and, in particular, coordinated policy efforts. Marek E. Forysiak - Chairman, SmartPay As the Vietnamese economy continues to recover, the short-term opportunities will be significant and that will largely be driven by two factors. Firstly, the initial disruption has been caused by COVID-19 and not from an over-heated market, and the country took deliberate steps to protect its people, who also played a crucial role. This also means that the market demand has only continued to build during this period of uncertainty. As the potential threat of a second and third wave passes, there will be an extremely rapid recovery and even further acceleration. Secondly, this pandemic has demonstrated how efficient everyone can become from the usage of technology and, in particular, technology that improves both safety and security while also enabling more access to financial services. Vo Son - Deputy general director, F.L.D Vietnam Co., Ltd. Our company has been able to operate despite the pandemic. That is because we have often ensured sufficient stock of materials from six months to a year, although the health crisis has resulted in late arrival of input materials. Due to a reduction in export order intake, the company has shifted into producing items serving the domestic market and making face masks with competitive pricing to support customers. Our company has properly adhered to instructions from the government for pandemic prevention, especially with the current growing complications, such as having a specific desk for health declarations and informing labourers on the latest instructions of authorities from central to grassroots levels to ensure accomplishment of the dual tasks of pandemic containment and pushing up production growth.
Two persons who stole GH 1,020,500 in a bullion van in 2017, have been jailed four years imprisonment each by an Accra Circuit Court.

Bismark Abem, a Cash in Transit (CIT) Officer, and Eric Larbi, a driver were found guilty at the end of the trial on the charges of conspiracy to commit crime to wit stealing and stealing.

The court presided over by Mrs. Justice Jane Harriet Akweley Quaye, a High Court judge, sitting with additional responsibility as Circuit Court judge, sentenced them to two years imprisonment each on the charge of conspiracy to commit crime, to wit stealing.

On the charge of stealing, the court sentenced them to four years imprisonment each. The sentences are to run concurrently.

The convicts were to evacuate cash in the sum of GH1,020,500 on behalf of Standard Chartered Bank at Tema Main Harbour branch to its head office at High Street in Accra. They however diverted at Airport Hills and shared the money.

Sampson Atuah a dispatch rider was however discharged by the court.

Out of the GH 1,020,500 stolen, GH 889,500 was retrieved from the two convicts. Police say the difference of GH 131,000 was to be recovered.

The case of Prosecuting Chief Inspector Emmanuel Haligah is that the complainant, Jonathan Otuei is the Security Coordinator of Gocrest Services in Accra.

On February 7, 2017, Prosecution said Abem and Larbi were detailed by the Gocrest Services to evacuate cash in the sum of GH 1,020,500 on behalf of Standard Chartered Bank at Tema Main harbour branch to its head office at High Street in Accra.

Prosecution said Abem and Larbi used a Toyota Hilux Van with registration number GE 2745-13 in the evacuation of the money.

According to prosecution, Abem and Larbi after collecting the money decided to steal it and therefore drove to Accra Airport Hill Area and shared the money.

Prosecution said Abem and Larbi abandoned the bullion van and kept their booties in Ghana Must Go Bags to their respective destinations.

Prosecution said the complainant who was expecting Abem and Larbi to deliver the money at about 1500 hours on the same day, became worried when at 1630 hours they did not show up.

Prosecution said Abem's cellphone was called by the complainant to know where they were but the phone was off.

The complainant however spoke with Abem on Larbi's Phone and asked him where they had reached.

According to prosecution, Abem told him they were heading towards Accra High Court Area, but Abem and Larbi never got to the bank's head office.

Prosecution said a complaint was lodged at the Accra Central Police Station. Abem on the same day took his booty to Accra Central Police Barracks where his sister lived with her husband, an Inspector of Police and showed the money to them.

Prosecution said the Inspector quickly took the money and Abem to the Accra Central Police Station and handed Abem and the money to the Police.

When the money was counted, the prosecution said it was totalled GHS480,500.00. Larbi on the other hand called his brother Atuah, from Teshie to his house at Israel and showed him his share of the money.

Prosecution said Larbi and Atuah decided to keep part of the money and presented GHS285,000.00 to the Police.

The Police, which doubted the amount in the custody, went with Larbi and Atuah to Larbi's house.

When Larbi's room was searched GH124,000.00 was recovered. Thus making a total sum of GH 409,000 retrieved from Larbi.

Prosecution said a total of GH 889,500 out of the GH 1,020,500.00 was recovered from Abem and Larbi, leaving a difference of GH 131,000.00 to be recovered.

Abem and Larbi admitted the offences in their caution statements. Atuah denied the offence in his caution statement.

 citinewsroom
New Delhi, Oct 7 : Online videos play a significant role in the purchase journey of an automobile shopper with nine out of the 10 buyers doing one follow up action triggered by the video, said a new report by Google India and Kantar.

With online video growth in the country, YouTube has emerged as a critical platform for buyers to find independent and credible videos that solve their queries, showed the findings of the "Auto Gear Shift India 2020" report released on Wednesday.

The report calls out the digital transformation that is underway in the auto industry, as the consumer purchase journey is changing across the country.

The results showed that over 90 per cent of the buyers across new cars, used cars, and new two-wheelers buyers research online.

Over 90 per cent of new and used car buyers and 81 per cent two wheeler buyers rely on search engines to read vehicle reviews and get access to information on aggregators websites.

"The auto industry is undergoing a digital transformation and many leading brands have already digitised their consumer touch points. With the consumer preferences shifting to digital across categories, we will see more brands find new ways to engage consumers on digital platforms," Nikhil Bansal, Head of Industry - Auto, Google India, said in a statement.

As digital becomes the primary touch point for prospective buyers, automobile brands and dealerships have heightened their online presence to be a part of the consumer's car-purchasing journey.

The report stated that 72 per cent of the new car buyers, 70 per cent of the used car buyers, 70 per cent of the used car sellers and 54 per cent of two-wheeler buyers searched for dealership online.

The report also showed that the duration between research and final-decision making has become short with easy access to information online.

While 85 per cent of new car and 92 per cent used car buyers decide within two months, about 91 per cent of Tier-2 buyers took almost two months.

Similarly, 95 per cent of two-wheeler buyers decide within two months.

"This makes it even more important for auto brands to create richer experiences and content that allows buyers to not just get information but also get an immersive brand experience to engage and influence their decision," Bansal said.

The research was based on a survey of 2,000 respondents covering 17 cities from Tier-1, 2, 3 areas.
Houston Ballet's Lauren Anderson dances with Daniel Tiger for Be My Neighbor Week at Discovery Green. Photo: Discovery Green Photo: Discovery Green

Mister Rogers showed the world how to be more neighborly.

Through Oct. 13, Discovery Green is celebrating what it means to be a good neighbor with its Be My Neighbor Day. It's a celebration of community, giving back and being kind to neighbors.

Each day, Discovery Green is premiering a video featuring Daniel Tiger of the hit PBS Kids series "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" and noted Houstonians, like Houston Ballet's Lauren Anderson with a team of Houston Ballet dancers, Barry Mandel of Discovery Green, children's performer Uncle Jumbo, Sara Brook of the Dessert Gallery, Houston Fire Department Captain Rodolfo Perez, chefs Chris Shepherd and Robert Del Grande and more.

Parents can find activities, book suggestions and more for the virtual Be My Neighbor Day.

The event is produced in partnership with Houston Public Media and Fred Rogers Productions. Be My Neighbor Day presented by PNC Grow Up Great.

Rogers, who died in 2003, was a beloved TV personality, puppeteer and minister who created and hosted "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" on PBS from 1968 to 2001. Each episode he sang, "Won't You Be My Neighbor."
A Florida family has reached out to government officials in Mexico in hopes of finding a missing U.S. Army soldier who was last seen more than two months ago.

Pvt. Richard Halliday, has been missing since July 24 when he was last seen by soldiers at the Fort Bliss base in El Paso, Texas.

According to Stars and Stripes, the 21-year-old soldier had been reprimanded for violation by his unit, the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command.

Missing U.S. Army soldier Pvt. Richard Halliday reportedly was seen in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, asking for money to buy food, according to his mother Patricia Halliday

Halliday started to run into problems with the Army following his return from Qatar, which included driving under the influence of alcohol despite being under the legal drinking age of 21.

'During the two days after Pvt. Halliday fled from his escorts on July 24, his unit actively searched on post, notified all access points to Fort Bliss, contacted emergency rooms at local hospitals, notified on-post and community law enforcement, and called phone numbers on file for him,' said Lt. Col. Allie Payne, a spokeswoman for the 1st Armored Division and Fort Bliss.

Robert and Patricia Halliday became aware of her son's disappearance August 28 after they were informed by Richard Halliday's commander in order that he had reportedly deserted the military.

'We fear that there may have been foul play in his disappearance,' the family said in a statement that was provided to DailyMail.com.

'We request that the FBI and other appropriate law enforcement agencies [El Paso Police, Texas Rangers, etc.] conduct an independent, third-party investigation. We would also welcome their collaboration with the Armys Criminal Investigation Command (CID) process for a more balanced approach. '

The concerned mother appeared in a recent social media video revealing she had learned her soldier son had been seen in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez 'looking pretty bad, even asking for money for food.'

There have been five occasions over the last two weeks that the worried parents have been approached by individuals claiming to have seen Richard Halliday.

The soldier's family filed a missing person's report with the Chihuahua State Attorney General's Office, which have published announcements on behalf of the family.

Pvt. Richard Halliday with his mother Patricia. Halliday, a 21-year-old U.S. Army soldier was last seen July 24 at the Fort Bliss base in El Paso, Texas

The father Army Pvt. Richard Halliday visited the Chihuahua State Attorney General's Office in Mexico to file a missing person's report

KTSM-TV reported Tuesday that the Interpol and the U.S. Consulate in Mexico have joined in on the search for Richard Halliday.

Halliday's parents have also been in contact with Veronica Escobar, a U.S. Representative for Texas's 16th congressional district.

'Our goal is to ask for her personal involvement and intervention on our behalf, to cut through the red tape that is standing between the involvement or FBI and other civilian agencies,' Robert and Patricia Halliday said. 'We aim to build efficiencies between agencies to include the Army CID through this process.'

Patricia Halliday took to Facebook on Monday and informed family, friends and well wishers that the family had provided DNA samples to a local morgue in Ciudad Juarez, expressing they wanted to rule out that her son was among any of the corpses that had recently gone unidentified.

The Halliday family has raised $12,613 through a GoFundMe page, with money being directed towards a reward for information that can help the family find Richard Halliday.

The U.S. Army has offered a $25,000 reward.
A lost elephant seal the size of a small car brought mayhem to a Chilean town on Monday as it shuffled through the streets before locals guided it back to sea.

The huge animal managed to lumber down ten blocks of a residential area of Puerto Cisnes, in the country's southern Patagonian region, before returning to its natural habitat with a little bit of help from the locals.

Police and Chilean Navy officials joined local residents as they sealed off streets leading further inland with cars and plastic sheeting before using the same tarpaulin to guide it back to the ocean.

This giant elephant seal made it around ten block into the the Chilean town of Puerto Cisnes before locals blocked its path further inland and guided it back to the ocean

Using tarpaulin, the locals were able to block the seal from going further inland and also guide it back through the streets towards the ocean

Other Good Samaritans threw buckets of water over the confused animal to keep it hydrated.

It made it back to the water shortly before a coronavirus curfew imposed on the town's 2,500 inhabitants.

The astonishing scene unfolded late on Monday.

Manuel Novoa, a presenter at local radio station Radio Autentica FM who shot footage of the incident and offered a live commentary of the rescue, said: 'Look at all the people who are helping and are using tarpaulin to circle it.

'It's just a few feet from the sea now. The work neighbours have done has been incredible. They're giving it time to rest because it's covered around 10 blocks and must be very tired.'

A dog was even seen joining in at one point, wagging its tail as it ran up to the army of helpers running behind the elephant seal as it sped up its belly flops along the tarmac after realising the water was within touching distance.

In one video, a local is seen squirting water over the seal to keep it hydrated as it appears helpless and stranded on the street of the town

Applause rang out as the animal made it to the ocean between fishing boats anchored by the water's edge and disappeared into the darkness.

A Navy official told Mr Novoa as volunteers packed up their plastic sheeting and returned home: 'I want to thank the local community in the name of the Chilean Navy.

'It was a great effort. The seal is safe now and out of danger from humans and dogs that could do it damage.

The seal had shuffled around ten block into the town before locals blocked its path and turned it back in the right direction

Local poured buckets of water over the seal to keep it hydrated and stopped to give it regular breaks to make sure it did not get exhausted

'We're very happy and we'll be carrying out constant patrols to make sure it doesn't return to dry land and suffer an accident.

Navy Captain Christian Reyes Jofre said in a subsequent statement: 'We ask people when they see these animals not to approach them or take their pets to see them.

'A safe distance should be maintained to give them the peace and calm they need so they don't become disorientated or stressed.'

A dog was even seen joining in at one point, wagging its tail as it ran up to the army of helpers running behind the elephant seal

The bizarre episode has been linked to the fact the normally busy town is on coronavirus lockdown and its streets are silent at night-time because of a Covid-19 curfew.

A witness named only as Antonia told local press: 'It was moving very quickly. My son spotted it first and initially he was frightened.

'I had never seen an elephant seal so close up, and certainly never in a populated area. You usually see them in the sea and a long distance from land.'

Once it saw the ocean, it sped up its belly-flops and to its relief and that of the locals, successfully returned to its natural habitat just in time for the coronavirus curfew

Southern elephant seals, the type found in southern Chile, were hunted to the brink of extinction by the end of the 19th century, but their numbers have since recovered.

They spend up to 80 per cent of their lives in the ocean and can hold their breath for more than 100 minutes, longer than any other non cetacean mammal.

They take their names from the large nose of the adult males which resemble an elephant's trunk.

The seals typically reach a length of 16ft and a weight around three tonnes.
After several days of falls, the number of new coronavirus cases reported by the central Health Ministry in its daily report on the epidemic shot up on Tuesday. Of the 11,988 new infections diagnosed, 5,187 of them (43%) correspond to Madrid. In Mondays report, this percentage was 28% and on Friday it was 22%. The new cases in the region represent the highest figure so far in this second wave of the health crisis.

That was not the only record figure to be seen in Tuesdays data. The number of Covid-19-related fatalities to be added to the total came in at 261, which is the highest figure since the first wave of the virus was brought under control between March and May thanks to Spains national lockdown, one of the strictest in the world. Of these, 120 were from the Madrid region, also a new high in this second wave.

The Health Ministrys official Covid-19 death toll stands at 32,486, but this does not include the thousands of undiagnosed fatalities from the first wave. According to data from Spains civil registries, there have been 53,000 excess deaths in the country between March and September. The official number of confirmed cases in the country stands at 825,410.

A health worker performs temperature checks in the Madrid district of Vallecas. Olmo Calvo

Tuesdays report arrived a day after Health Minister Salvador Illa and Fernando Simon, the director of the Health Ministrys Coordination Center for Health Alerts (CCAES), cast doubts about the data being reported by the Madrid regional government, suggesting that the lower infection numbers could be due to reporting delays and problems with properly incorporating new rapid antigen test results into its figures. Speaking at a press conference on Monday to discuss the latest figures, the pair said that time was needed to determine whether there was an issue. Right now I wouldnt venture to say whether the city of Madrid is getting better or worse, said Simon.

On Friday, the Madrid regional government reluctantly implemented perimetral lockdowns in 10 of its cities, including the Spanish capital, as well as introducing other restrictions that have been forced on it by the central administration, run by the Socialist Party (PSOE) in coalition with junior partner Unidas Podemos. The two governments have been locked in a battle in recent weeks, with the central Health Ministry insisting on introducing stricter measures to get the epidemiological situation in Madrid under control, and the regional government reluctant to do so given the damage such measures will cause to the economy. Madrid has already filed an appeal against the restrictions in the Spanish High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, on the basis that they are an encroachment of its powers.

Whats more, the Madrid government on Tuesday called the central administration irresponsible for throwing into doubt its data on the epidemic, accusing it of encouraging a message of fear. When the data for Madrid was good in July, it was suspect, wrote regional premier Isabel Diaz Ayuso of the conservative Popular Party (PP) on Twitter yesterday. It got worse and it was credible until it got better again. And instead of responsibility, they opt for a message of fear with Madrid.

An antigen test in a seniors center in the Madrid district of Vallecas. Olmo Calvo (EL PAIS)

But the figures released on Tuesday indicate that the improvements seen in Mondays report have not continued. The 14-day cumulative number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 inhabitants  the principal indicator used to compare the epidemiological situation between regions, and the main parameter established by the central government and regional administrations for the implementation of restrictions  has risen sharply in Madrid. According to Tuesdays report, it went from 587 to 710 in a single day, way above the national average of 273. As such, the region has returned to levels similar to those seen in the last two weeks.

The second region with the highest 14-day cumulative number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 inhabitants is Navarre, with 673, although this figure has improved slightly compared to previous days. The next most-affected regions are La Rioja (386), Castilla y Leon (383) and Castilla-La Mancha (376). Those with the best situation are the Canary Islands (99), Valencia (104) and Galicia (108).

The Health Ministry also reported 883 new coronavirus patients in Spains hospitals, with 71 requiring intensive care unit (ICU) treatment. The number of ICU beds occupied by coronavirus patients has fallen slightly, from 18.3% across Spain to 17.7% from Monday to Tuesday. Madrid continues to be the region with the highest ICU bed occupation, at 40.5%. This is a slight fall compared to Mondays figure. La Rioja has managed to get this percentage down, from 42% on September 22 to 25% on Tuesday.

English version by Simon Hunter.
- The increasing urgency of producing drugs and vaccines for diseases with high caseload is bringing good growth opportunities for the global biosimulation market

- Considering the increased demand for utilization in drug development and the overall current scenario, the global biosimulation market may expand at a high CAGR through the forecast period of 2020-2030

ALBANY, N.Y., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The use of biosimulation has increased lately in drug and discovery applications such as lead identification and optimization, pre-clinical testing of novel drugs, and target identification and validation. This factor may boost the growth prospects of the global biosimulation market greatly during the assessment period.

The researchers at Transparency Market Research (TMR), after a scrutinized and detailed study on every growth factor prognosticate the global biosimulation market to record a high CAGR across the forecast period of 2020-2030. The global biosimulation market was valued at US$ 1.8 bn in 2019.

Researchers need upgraded and efficient tools for good research. Therefore, a large chunk of researchers prefers biosimulation for enabling accurate findings of the studies being conducted. In addition, the growing burden of various infections, diseases, and disorders is further heating up the urgency for biosimulation, thus increasing the growth rate.

Request for Analysis of COVID-19 Impact on Biosimulation Market - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/covid19.php

Biosimulation Market: Transparency Expert Diagnosis

Heightening attention on enhancing drug development and discovery, increasing emphasis on improving model engineering factors, and escalating adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) are the factors that may bring good growth for the biosimulation market during the forecast period according to the analysts at Transparency Market Research (TMR).

The analysts also highlight the factors like the magnifying influence of large-scale investments and increasing research and development activities as prominent growth generators.

Request Brochure of Biosimulation Market Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/brochure.php

Biosimulation Market: Key Revelations

Based on offering type, the software segment is extrapolated to acquire a massive share of the global biosimulation market between 2020 and 2030

North America emerged as a notable growth contributor in 2019 and is expected to continue the same run during the forecast period of 2020-2030

emerged as a notable growth contributor in 2019 and is expected to continue the same run during the forecast period of 2020-2030 Asia Pacific may expand at a higher CAGR through the assessment period

may expand at a higher CAGR through the assessment period China and India may bring substantial growth for the biosimulation market in Asia Pacific from 2020 to 2030

Explore 213 pages of superlative research, current market scenario, and extensive geographical projections. Gain insights into the Biosimulation Market (Offering Type: Software and Services; Application: Drug Discovery, Drug Development, and Others; and End User: Contract Research Organization, Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Companies, Research Institutes, Regulatory Institutes, and Others) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2020-2030 at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/703

Biosimulation Market: Growth Propellers

The rising adoption of biosimulation in pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics is bringing great growth opportunities for the global biosimulation market.

Pharmaceutical and biological companies are also bringing expansive growth prospects for the biosimulation market

The increase in spending on healthcare expenditure by governments of various countries is boosting the growth prospects of the biosimulation market

State-of-the-art technological developments in the biosimulation sector may serve as robust pillars of growth

Mergers and acquisitions also play an important role in boosting the growth of the biosimulation market

Purchase the Biosimulation Market Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php

How is Biosimulation Market Faring during COVID-19 Pandemic?

The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has caused immense loss to every sector and individual worldwide. The race for a vaccine to prevent and treat COVID-19 is in full throttle. Various pharma companies and vaccine manufacturers are using biosimulation to make informed decisions regarding vaccine candidates for multiple patient populations. Therefore, this factor may bring promising growth opportunities for the global biosimulation market during the forecast period of 2020-2030.

Biosimulation Market: Key Players

Some well-established players in the biosimulation market are Genedata AG, Certara, Insilico Biotechnology AG, Dassault Systemes S.A., Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc., Schrodinger, Inc., Rosa & Co. LLC, Rhenovia Pharma, and Genedata AG.

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Global Biosimulation Market: Segmentation

By Offering Type

Software

PK/PD Modeling & Simulation



PBPK Modeling & Simulation



Trial Simulators



Molecular Modeling



Others

Services

By Application

Drug Discovery

Target Identification & Validation



Identification & Optimization

Drug Development

Pre-clinical Testing



Clinical Trial

Others

By End User

Contract Research Organization

Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Companies

Research Institutes

Regulatory Institutes

Others

By Region

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Latin America

Middle East & Africa

Explore Transparency Market Research's award-winning coverage of the global Healthcare Industry:

Cell Culture Market: The global cell culture market was worth a US$ 13.0 Bn in 2016 and is presumed to expand at a 10.0% CAGR within the forecast period of 2017 to 2025. Companies managing the global cell culture market are more focused on increasing strategic collaborations and expanding product development worldwide

Drug Discovery Services Market: North America and Europe are expected to continue to dominate the drug discovery services market due to advanced health care infrastructure. Traditional drug development and testing and greater scrutiny of the approval process are present significant problems, both for the drug industry and for patients who are desperately waiting for new drugs to treat their illnesses

Autologous Cell Therapy Market: According to the report, the global autologous cell therapy market was valued at US$ 7.5 Bn in 2018 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 18.1% from 2019 to 2027, rise in prevalence of autoimmune disorders, cancer, blood related disorders, are projected to drive the market

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Our reports are single-point solutions for businesses to grow, evolve, and mature. Our real-time data collection methods along with ability to track more than one million high growth niche products are aligned with your aims. The detailed and proprietary statistical models used by our analysts offer insights for making right decision in the shortest span of time. For organizations that require specific but comprehensive information we offer customized solutions through adhoc reports. These requests are delivered with the perfect combination of right sense of fact-oriented problem solving methodologies and leveraging existing data repositories.

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The whole thing started earlier this year, when Sean Carroll from Province, Rhode Island, had already been driving his Tesla Model 3 with the FKGAS vanity plate for almost 5 months. After an anonymous complaint was filed with the DMV, he was notified that the license plate had been deemed offensive and, as such, would have to be revoked.Except that Carroll chose to fight the decision in court, with help from the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island. They took the DMV to court, arguing that not allowing Carroll to keep the license plate infringed on his free speech and amounted, more or less, to political censorship and discrimination.Now, Carroll has won an injunction against the DMV, with U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy siding with him in saying the revocation of the license plate, which would prohibit Mr. Carroll from expressing his views on fossil fuel propulsion of motor vehicles, would stifle him in an irreparable way. The judge also pointed out that the very idea behind vanity plates is to allow personal expression, while arguing against the DMVs ability to decide what is offensive and what not.Granted, this is just one battle won, not the war, but its a right step in the right direction.In a statement to The Providence Journal , which has followed Carrolls case closely, the Model 3 owner says that he didnt even get the plate to cause a stir. He wanted to make more people aware of the possibility of driving anthrough a humorous approach and, as per his attorney, to convey, through the license plate, a personal philosophical and political message concerning his views about gasoline-powered automobiles and the environment.The idea for the FKGAS plate was an innocent one, too. Contrary to what you might think. As hes said before , Carroll actively tries to reduce his carbon footprint, and that includes driving an EV and using solar panels for his home. His daughter calls batteries that power up the car and all the appliances fake gas, so FK stands for fake and not another, way more famous F-word. But Carroll is down with that one, too, when it comes to gas-guzzlers, he says for the publication.
Model Rhian Sugden was showing off four ways to where a black bikini top on Instagram on Wednesday.

The 34-year-old put on a busty display in the black strapless Wrapsody bikini by @curvykate which specialises in D-L cup sizes.

The versatile piece has lightweight mesh wrap panels that can be styled in multiple ways and was perfect for Rhian's trip to Turkey.

Mix and match: Rhian Sugden looked incredible in a busty black strapless bikini top as she showed off four ways to wear the look on holiday in Turkey

Rhian wore it without the mesh panel, a crossover halter top, a one-shoulder top and as a straight-forward crop top with a knot at the front.

She wrote: 'Four play. Bikini is Wrapsody by @curvykate How will you wear yours?'

Rhian is currently away in Turkey with her husband, former Corrie actor Oliver Mellor.

Wow: Rhianhas been sharing lots of swimsuit snaps from her sun-soaked autumn getaway to Antalya, Turkey

The couple, who wed in 2018, revealed earlier this year they have endured gruelling IVF for 18 months.

The couple recently bought a puppy and Rhian said: 'So many people told me that getting a puppy after failed IVF is a godsend and a good distraction.

'After two failed rounds I tell you what, I've not been this happy in months. My heart could burst.'

Announcing the news of his arrival last month when he was just eight weeks old she said on Instagram: 'My family has grown by four little feet.'

After discovering that she wouldn't be able to conceive naturally, she and her actor husband went through two rounds of IVF.

They were given the devastating news just before Christmas that their second round of treatment in November had failed.
Sheila Harrison is awaiting her monthly beauty treatment at Hair Fairy Boutique in Fallowfield, Manchester, when The Independent tells the 76-year-old that this, her home neighbourhood, is now Englands coronavirus capital.

Bloody students! exclaims the grandmother-of-two. Send em home. Bringing us a pandemic. They should never have been allowed to bloody come. Its a disaster from start to finish.

She considers for a moment.

I warned you, love, the retired cleaner smiles. I warned you if you got me talking about this Id turn the air blue.

On Tuesday afternoon, here in this south Manchester suburb  home to a sprawling 4,000-student University of Manchester campus  she was not alone in her exasperation.

News that this city is now, in spite of two months of enhanced restrictions, suffering the worst Covid-19 infection rates in the UK  551.9 cases per 100,000 people as of Tuesday evening  has caused no small amount of frustration here.

Recommended Northern leaders reject harsher lockdowns and demand to be in control

The fact that much of this contagion is centred around the relatively small neighbourhood of Fallowfield  population 15,000  has, meanwhile, led to the paradox of residents being both shocked but not really surprised.

No-one here blames students - not even Mrs Harrison when we get down to it - but there is much chagrin that the government and universities seem to have been so ill-prepared for the potential consequences of what is essentially a mass migration during a deadly pandemic.

What did they expect? asks Clare Taylor, owner of said boutique. You get thousands of people from across the country coming to live in one place in shared flats? Im no scientist but that sounds like just the way youd spread a virus to me.

That the arrival of some 80,000 students appears to have caused Manchesters  and Fallowfields  sudden Covid surge, there is no doubt.

Fifty-five per cent of all cases identified here over the last seven days have been people aged 17-21. I havent got the exact calculations for [the infection rate of] that age group, David Regan, the citys director of public health, tells The Independent, but its now somewhere above 3,000 per 100,000. Its a lot.

At least 1,041 University of Manchester students have tested positive. Those figures themselves follow an outbreak at Manchester Metropolitan Uni where 531 positive cases were identified in the first two weeks of term alone

So bad is the situation that both centres announced on Tuesday afternoon that they were suspending almost all face to face teaching in favour of online lectures and seminars until at least the end of the month.

It is not an issue unique to Manchester, either. University towns across the country  including Sheffield, Durham, Liverpool and Newcastle  have seen similar infection surges since the new academic year began.

Yet, here in Fallowfield that only adds to that sense of chagrin.

Howard Gardner (Independent)

This challenge was entirely predictable and predicted, says Afzal Khan, MP for Manchester Gorton which includes this patch. It was an act of shocking complacency that the government failed to ensure test and trace was fully operational before encouraging students to travel the country and start adult lives.

The silver lining, he points out, is that, as yet, the spread does not appear to have crossed over into the local community or into older age groups. Manchesters hospitals remain relatively untroubled at present.

But students dont live in isolation, the Labour politician points out. They go to the same shops and use the same public transport as the rest of us.

The concerns are particularly acute because Fallowfield, with a non-English population of almost 30 per cent, is just the sort of ethnically diverse area that coronavirus hit especially hard in the spring. Eighteen people here died up to June  the worst such figures in Manchester.

Mohammed Chaudhry feared he, or his loved ones, were going to be among them. The 64-year-old taxi driver caught the bug in March and spent 10 days gasping for breath. Two of his four adult children were hospitalised.

It was chaos there, he says. This was April. The wards were full. The doctors and nurses were doing their best but they were too busy. Ive never been so scared. You know, we thought we might lose them.

He mentions a second lockdown. Would he support one? It shouldnt have got to this, he says. But Ive seen what this virus does. Yes, I would.

Recommended Trouble ahead for Boris Johnson as MPs chafe against coronavirus rules

Whats striking, however, is that he may be in the minority. Few people who The Independent speaks to this week want more restrictions.

My feeling is theres no appetite for that, agrees Jade Mary Doswell, a Manchester City Council member for the ward. People have had to live without proper contact with loved ones for too long. They understand the risks but they want to get back to some normality.

Can that be done with a vast student campus bang on the door step, one wonders? Yes, she says. The transmission is not yet in the wider community: All our efforts must now be focused on keeping it that way.

At Fallowfield Campus itself  the epicentre of the epicentre as one student puts it  a gallows humour pervades.

I thought I might catch it at some point when I moved up here, notes 18-year-old nursing student Katie Brameld. I didnt think it would be in the first week, though.

Her flatmate Izzy Bye comes from Dorset. I went from knowing literally no one whod had it to not being able to speak to someone without finding out theyve tested positive.

But neither regret not deferring a year as a result of what is happening. Got to crack on with it, havent you? says Izzy.

In the windows of flats here, the age-old freshers tradition of writing signs in windows has taken on a coronavirus-twist.

Flat self-isolating, it says in several of them, followed by a countdown of how many days they have left until freedom. Others are simpler: send food, reads one. Send cock, adds another. Well, whatever takes your fancy.

Sign at Fallowfield Campus, University of Manchester (Emma Bate)

Obviously, its not exactly the first year anyone dreamed of, says Drew Thornley, a fresher studying cell biology. But I think most people are just trying to make the most of it.

His own flat has just finished two weeks in isolation. It was fine, the 19-year-old from Glossop says. Only one of us caught it and they were okay. We all get on really well so we did a lot of drinking, getting to know each other. If you didnt get on with your flatmates, I can imagine that would be pretty difficult but I quite enjoyed it. Story to tell.

Perhaps, he adds, it is better that the virus is ripping through the campus: At least its all young people here  no one is taking it back home to parents or grandparents.

Drew Thornley (The Independent)

His friend Emma Bate, a psychology student from Cornwall, mentions the governments 10pm curfew. Awful, she says. When you went to a club, they make you sit down so youre naturally socially distancing but now, people get back to halls early and have massive parties. And Ive got to say there isnt much social distancing going on there.

A quick disclaimer: I havent been to any, obviously.

There is some annoyance here that classes have now been made online only but even that seems to come with some acceptance that such temporary measures will probably be needed for a period of time.

Ultimately, if there is exasperation in the wider community, optimism appears to reign on campus. Yet both have one thing in common: a sense of uncertainty hanging in the air.

Somehow Ms Harrisons words in that beauty salon once again seem fitting: I dont know whats going to happen, she noted, the trouble is, I dont think neither do them in charge.
The office of Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer released hundreds of pages from the Police Department's public integrity unit file on the investigation into the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor.
NEW YORK, Oct. 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- IntSights , the threat intelligence company focused on enabling enterprises to Defend Forward, announced today the availability of the new certified IntSights Application for Splunk. This partnership between the market's only all-in-one External Threat Protection Suite, IntSights, and Splunk, provider of the Data-to-Everything Platform, empowers joint customers to seamlessly access enterprise-specific threat intelligence from IntSights directly within existing Splunk deployments.

Effective cyber defense extends beyond the corporate perimeter. Understanding how, when, and where attacks are likely to strike is critical. When organizations augment SIEM solutions with integrated threat intelligence, they can proactively defend and neutralize threats at the source.

The new IntSights App for Splunk introduces a revolutionary approach for connecting threat intelligence from multiple sources across the clear, deep, and dark web with a customer's Splunk environment. The IntSights app is a unique bidirectional integration that correlates, enriches, and manages organization-specific vulnerabilities, and offers the ability to easily conduct comprehensive IntSights-driven investigations all within Splunk.

"With this robust app, security teams can directly access IntSights-enriched IOCs from within their Splunk environment. This gives those on the front line vital real-time context for informed and prioritized risk management," noted Yaron Paryanty, VP of Product Management at IntSights.

IntSights for Splunk enables SOC teams to:

Expand real-time visibility of threat actors and malware targeting the enterprise's digital assets

Generate automatic alerts for relevant active indicators in an organization's network environment

Seamlessly conduct advanced IntSights investigations from within the app

Accelerate informed decision-making and automate incident response

Instantly identify and rapidly remediate critical threats before business impact

Download the IntSights App for Splunk , which can be installed either in the cloud or on-prem for both Splunk Enterprise and Splunk Enterprise Security (ES). For additional information, watch the IntSights for Splunk demo .

Stay tuned for additional enhancements to the IntSights App for Splunk. In the near future, mutual customers will be able to continuously access IntSights organization-specific threat alerts and risk-scored CVEs from within their Splunk environments.

About IntSights

IntSights is revolutionizing cybersecurity operations with the industry's only all-in-one external threat protection platform designed to neutralize cyberattacks outside the wire. Our unique cyber reconnaissance capabilities enable continuous monitoring of an enterprise's external digital profile across the clear, deep, and dark web to identify emerging threats and orchestrate proactive response. Tailored threat intelligence that seamlessly integrates with security infrastructure for dynamic defense has made IntSights one of the fastest-growing cybersecurity companies in the world. IntSights has offices in Amsterdam, Boston, Dallas, New York, Singapore, Tel Aviv, and Tokyo. To learn more, visit: intsights.com or connect with us on LinkedIn , Twitter , and Facebook .

Media Contact:

Jonathan Beaton

IntSights

+1-727-902-8412

[email protected]

SOURCE IntSights

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Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 3a, Pixel 3a XL, Pixel 4, and Pixel 4 XL get call notifications and undetected overview swipe gesture features.

Google has finally rolled out its October 2020 Android security update that not just bumps up the security level but also brings a couple of features for the new-launched Pixel 4a. These include auto-brightness and touch sensitivity functionalities. Specifically, the improvement is said to be for the under-display ambient light sensor of the handset, as mentioned by 9to5Google. Whats more is that the update improves touch sensitivity while using screen protectors along with missing auto-rotate icon in certain orientations.

Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 3a, Pixel 3a XL, Pixel 4, and Pixel 4 XL get call notifications and undetected overview swipe gesture features. Majorly, the update fixes an issue where the devices were stuck during boot. The Pixel 3, Pixel 3a, and Pixel 4 series users also get some minor improvements including improvement for auto-rotation. Besides this, the October 2020 security update also brings along some fixes for bugs and vulnerabilities.

Also read: Google Pixel 4a listed on Amazon India, Flipkart

Google is all set to release its Pixel 4a smartphone in India. The handset has been listed on Amazon India already for 55,169. The price however, has not been confirmed by Google India yet. Amazon is offering a bunch of offers on the purchase of Googles budget smartphone. This includes a no-cost option on select orders, 5% back with Amazon Pay ICICI Bank Credit card for Prime-members, 10% cashback on payments with Amazon Pay UPI and 5% Instant discount with HSBC Cashback Card.

Also read: Google optimises Assistant for more people with disabilities

On Flipkart, Pixel 4a is listed with all its top features on e-retail platform. Additionally, the listing shows that the phone will be available as a part of the special offers during the upcoming Big Billion Days sale.

The company, more recently introduced Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G handsets. However, none of these are coming to India.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : The Delhi High Court has issued notice on a petition filed by the Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) challenging the classification of the offices of the lawyers under the commercial property ambit for the assessment of property tax.

A division bench of the High Court presided by Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan sought a response from all the respondents including East, South and North Delhi Municipal Corporation over the petition filed by DHCBA through its president and senior advocate Mohit Mathur and Secretary Abhijat.

The plea has sought quashing of the order of November 29, 2018 passed by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation relating to self-assessment of property tax returns of lawyers offices under Sections 123-A and 123-B of the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Act.

The petition filed by advocate Nikhil Mehta said that the order was illegal and arbitrary and added that treating the legal profession as part of commercial activity is illegal, arbitrary and contrary to the law.

The court will next hear the matter on November 20.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modis remarkable run as the head of government, whether in a state or at the Centre, for 19 years on the trot.

Information and Broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar said Modi as the head of Gujarat or the Indian government had worked to raise the standard of living of the common citizen.

The Cabinet congratulated the Prime Minister for entering the 20th year as a government head, uninterrupted, and by democratic means. He has brought reforms in governance, in major sectors, and he has given a corruption-free government. And he has completed many projects which were pending and languishing for years together are his achievements, Javadekar said.

The Cabinet lauded him for these years as head of governance, whether in Gujarat or for the country, he added.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which emerged as an opposition force and remained so for decades, also celebrated the achievement of its electorally most successful leader.

Party chief JP Nadda tweeted that October 7 is an important date in Indian history because it was on this day in 2001 that Narendra Modi had taken oath as the chief minister of Gujarat for the first time.

Ever since, he has scored a bigger victory, got greater support and achieved more popularity, said Nadda. The party also projected graphic images showing Modis record in elected office as compared to legendary figures like Franklin Roosevelt, Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterrand, leaders who made important contributions to their nations.

Be it as a Chief Minister for Gujarat or as the Prime Minister of the worlds largest democracy, Narendra Modi has always been a crusader for peoples welfare, the party said on social media. Several ministers in the Modi government also lauded Modis record as the head of government.

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Raipur:

A Naxalite was gunned down on Friday in an exchange of fire with security personnel in a dense forest of Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district, police said.

The skirmish took place in the wee hours between a team of security men and the ultras in the forest under Basaguda police station limits of the district, Bijapur's Additional Superintendent of Police Mohit Garg said.

A joint team of Central Reserve Police Force's (CRPF) 168th battalion and district force had launched the operation in the forest of Basaguda, located around 450 kms from Raipur, last night.

While the security personnel were cordoning-off a restive pocket, they came under fire from a group of armed Naxals leading to a heavy gun battle.

However, the rebels soon escaped into the core forest after finding the security men zeroing-in on them, he said.

During a search, police recovered the body of a male Maoist along with weapon, grenades and Naxal-related material from the spot, the ASP said adding that the identity of the deceased was being ascertained.Further details were awaited as the police were yet to reach back to their camp, he said.

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Stung by the protests by farmers and criticism on the agriculture legislations and the way they were passed in Parliament, the Narendra Modi government has started a massive outreach and messaging initiative.

These include meetings with farmer bodies, local representatives, agriculture experts, and media briefings in various towns and cities. The government is rolling out the big guns including Defence Minister and the Bharatiya Janata Partys farmer face Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, informed sources told Moneycontrol.

In fact, Sitharaman met farmer leaders and agriculture experts, and held a media briefing in Chennai on Monday, and is scheduled to hold similar meetings in Vijaywada today. Tomar and Singh have also held meetings in the northern states.

While details are being worked out, over the coming weeks, many meetings will be held in towns and cities and will be headlined by ministers and senior party functionaries.

There is a recognition of the need to talk more about how the recent farm sector legislation will help farmers in selling as per their choice, getting the price they want, and improve their incomes. That message needs to be spread throughout the country, said a senior official.

In the Monsoon session of Parliament, the Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, and amendments to the Essential Commodities Act were passed, amid charges by the Opposition and critics that Parliamentary procedures and rules were violated.

As the opposition parties threatened to protest, the government tried to assuage concerns of farmers by announcing the minimum support price (MSP) for the upcoming Rabi season earlier than usual.

Even as one of the governments allies, Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the cabinet, opposition states have passed their own notifications or amended their Mandi Acts to blunt the centres farm laws, and continue the practice of procuring through mandis.

Protests have now intensified, especially in producing states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, with senior opposition figures attending rallies and protests by farmers.
Netflix is facing criminal prosecution over the controversial French film 'Cuties,' after a Texas grand jury indicted the entertainment streaming service for lewd depiction of children.

The indictment was filed on September 23 in Tyler County but was shared on Tuesday on Twitter by Republican state Representative Matt Schaefer. It accuses Netflix of knowingly promoting visual material that depicts "lewd exhibition" of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was under 18 when the content was created. Further, the prosecution alleges that the material "appeals to the prurient interest in sex and has no serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."

Netflix, Inc. indicted by grand jury in Tyler Co., Tx for promoting material in Cuties film which depicts lewd exhibition of pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 yrs of age which appeals to the prurient interest in sex #Cuties#txlegepic.twitter.com/UJ1hY8XJ2l  Matt Schaefer (@RepMattSchaefer) October 6, 2020

Netflix received a storm of criticism for streaming 'Cuties' last month. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) called the film "child porn" that would "whet the appetite of pedophiles and fuel the child sex-trafficking trade."

Also on rt.com Tulsi Gabbard branded QAnon conspiracy theorist for speaking out against Netflix's 'Cuties' as 'child porn'

While Netflix likely expected some public backlash over the movie  a boycott campaign to cancel subscriptions wiped out $8 billion of the firm's market value as a publicly traded company in two days  it probably wasn't counting on criminal prosecution.

Also on rt.com Stelter asks Netflix CEO ZERO questions about Cuties as CNN gives pass on film, accused of showing child porn, for 2nd time

"I didn't think anyone would have the balls to do it," journalist Cassandra Fairbanks said of the indictment. "We don't take kindly to that sort of foolishness here in Texas," said one Twitter user. "Almost like their DA hasn't been bought off by Soros yet," tweeted another.

We dont take kindly to that sort of foolishness here in Texas !  Hal Board (@HalBoard) October 6, 2020

Among the reactions on Twitter was a suggestion that Netflix's assets should be seized as a penalty, or that some of its executives should be indicted and sent to prison. Some observers said the indictment should be dismissed for violating free-speech rights, however, while others smelled hypocrisy, arguing that "actual child pageants" deserve the same scrutiny.

Why no individuals indicted?People need to be in prison for this  IronBarrister    (@IronBarrister) October 6, 2020
MOGADISHU, Somalia: The al-Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab has released two Cuban doctors who were kidnapped in Kenya and held for a year and a half in neighboring Somalia, officials say.

A senior Somali intelligence official told The Associated Press that the doctors were released over the weekend after months of negotiations with their captors. He declined to give further details. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Several sources told the AP that Somali intelligence, acting at the request of the Cuban government, negotiated for the doctors release after it obtained a video showing them a few months ago.

Bruno Rodrguez, Cubas foreign minister, in a social media post confirmed their release and thanked the Somali government for its help. He said he had spoken with Somalias foreign minister, Ahmed Isse Awad.

It was not immediately clear where the doctors were Wednesday.

Suspected Islamic extremists kidnapped the doctors in Kenyas Mandera County as they were going to work in April 2019, killing one of their police bodyguards. The orthopedic surgeon and physician had been deployed in 2018.

At the time, the Somalia-based al-Shabab was suspected of the kidnapping. The extremist group has vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia to fight the extremists.

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
Combines industry-tailored functionality and robust organizational realignment strengthening key vertical solutions today and into the future.

MONTREAL, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Tecsys Inc. (TSX: TCS), an industry-leading supply chain management software company, is pleased to announce a major realignment of its go-to-market solution portfolio reflecting the industry verticalized cloud-first strategy fueling its unprecedented growth over the past 18 months. The new solution portfolio builds on the strength of Tecsys' existing software and technology stack, with value-added solution roadmaps and resources tailored to the specific end-to-end workflows that exist in key industry verticals.

Built on the world-class Itopia platform, Tecsys offers state-of-the-art software that streamlines supply chain functions across an organization's distributed operations. Leveraging this platform-based architecture, Tecsys' industry solutions have been crafted to afford the ultimate in industry-tailored feature robustness, adaptability and competitive advantage. The industry verticals within this framework include:

"Tecsys has an enviable reputation for solutioning across specialty use cases with deep vertical expertise," explains Glenn Spriggs, director of Product Management. "We are doubling down on that reputation by designing strategic roadmaps for each industry and allocating resources against those roadmaps so that our customers stay ahead of the curve in their respective industries. Whether you're in a highly regulated industry like pharmacy, or run highly complex operations like distributed order management or healthcare consolidated services, Tecsys' industry solutions framework is built to deliver end-to-end top tier functionality with extraordinary precision."

As a global organization equipping businesses across multiple industries operating in over 55 countries, Tecsys has the resources, insights and vision to drive transformative supply chain performance. Designed to unify disjointed logistics, Tecsys provides an exceptionally elastic supply chain control center engineered for borderless operational excellence, accommodating fluctuating demand and disruption. Common across industry solutions, Tecsys software lets users visualize, personalize and organize their supply chain execution processes through a single pane of visibility.

Laurie McGrath, chief marketing officer at Tecsys, explains, "Our goal is to continually decipher the complexities of supply chain with a market offering that is well-defined and has clear value. While our software is robust and multidimensional, by focusing on solutions and outcomes for the industries in which our customers operate, we believe we are able to crystallize the value we deliver and delight our customers."

About Tecsys

Tecsys is a global provider of supply chain solutions that equip the borderless enterprise for growth. Organizations thrive when they have the software, technology and expertise to drive operational greatness and deliver on their brand promise. Spanning healthcare, retail, service parts, third-party logistics, and general wholesale high-volume distribution industries, Tecsys delivers dynamic and powerful solutions for warehouse management, distribution and transportation management, supply management at point of use, retail order management, as well as complete financial management and analytics solutions. Tecsys' shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TCS. For more information on Tecsys, visit www.tecsys.com.

SOURCE Tecsys Inc.

Related Links

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PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Philadelphia D&M (PDM) was named ENR MidAtlantic magazine's Specialty Contractor of the Year. The firm will be recognized at ENR MidAtlantic's virtual Best Project's event in October and featured in the December issue.

"We are very proud to be recognized in this way," said Craig Melograno, Owner of PDM. "We're fortunate to have enjoyed success throughout our 20 years in business, particularly in the current environment. It's a testament to our commitment to excellence and innovation and our dedication to expanding our capabilities in the industry." For more information visit our web site www.pdmconstructors.com

PDM began as a drywall contractor and over two decades has grown to include prefabricated framing and drywall assemblies, spray fireproofing, millwork, window shades and firestopping as part of their core services. They're also focused on growth in the prefab market.

PDM enjoys a respected reputation in the specialty contracting segment and has worked on numerous award-winning construction projects in the greater Philadelphia area, including: Comcast Innovation Center, Four Seasons, Hard Rock Casino, Inspira Medical Center and the King of Prussia Mall Expansion.

PDM's most recent project is Penn Medicine's Patient Pavilion, an innovative hospital facility that will support Penn's world-renowned researchers, clinicians, and faculty. PDM manufactured more than 500 prefabricated bathroom pods for the project, which inspired Melograno to launch DuraPODS, PDM's brand of modular bathrooms.

By offering superior design and cost efficiencies versus traditional bathroom construction, DuraPODS will position PDM as a leader in the prefabricated bathroom market.

About PDM

Established in 1999, PDM Constructors has significantly grown in size and scope over their 20-year history. PDM's proven experience, service, technological innovation, and range of offerings provide customers with cost efficient and practical solutions to meet most any building challenge. For more information visit www.philadm.com

About DuraPODS

DuraPODS are powered by PDM Constructors, one of the country's largest carpentry contractors and a leader in traditional, specialty, and prefab construction. PDM's diverse expertise and rapid prototyping capabilities make DuraPODS a better modular bathroom. Visit www.durapods.com to learn more.

SOURCE PDM Constructors

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http://philadm.com/


Photo: The Canadian Press Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan is seen during a news conference, Thursday May 7, 2020 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Canada's defence minister described Chinas continued detention of two Canadians as "hostage diplomacy" on Wednesday and urged the NATO military alliance to keep tabs on the increasingly assertive Asian giant.

Harjit Sajjan made the comments during a wide-ranging panel discussion hosted by Slovakian think tank Globsec, nearly two years after Chinese authorities first detained former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor.

The two were arrested separately shortly after Canadian authorities in Vancouver detained Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, who is wanted in the United States on fraud charges.

Meng, who has denied any wrongdoing, is now facing possible extradition to the U.S. while Chinese authorities have indicted the detained Canadians on what many observers believe are trumped-up spying charges.

Sajjan raised the cases of Kovrig and Spavor, whose access to Canadian consular officials has been limited and who are reportedly being kept in cells where the lights are never turned off, in response to a question about the security threat posed by China.

I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to talk about our two Canadians who have both been arbitrarily detained in China, he said during a panel discussion that also included his counterparts from Slovakia and Latvia.

This type of hostage diplomacy is not what good rules-based-order nations do. So if you want to be part of the global rules-based order, we need to have greater predictability. And these are the types of things that go against the norm.

The minister went on to thank NATO allies for supporting Ottawas calls for Beijing to release the two Canadians. Their cases, along with the detention of Meng in Vancouver since December 2018, has become the focal point for relations between Canada and China.

While Sajjan suggested Canada and China continue to enjoy a strong relationship when it comes to some aspects of our trade, he cited Beijings actions in the South China Sea as one example where it poses a security challenge.

China has been greatly expanding its military presence and claims of territory in the South China Sea despite opposition from of its neighbours as well as international rulings against some of its claims.

"These are some of the things that we will continue to monitor, and we need to monitor in NATO," Sajjan said.

"That's why we always talk about NATO needs to look 360. This is not just about being reactionary to a problem. It's about making sure any nation out there sees the collective will of what NATO brings to the table and that's that strong message of defence and deterrence.
General Harrison lived but a short time after he was installed in office, one letter declared, and General Taylor lived but a short time after he took his seat. It continued, You, sir, be careful at the kings table what meat and drink you take. Another reported that I have often heard it stated by physicians, that it was an undoubted fact, that our two last Whig presidents, Generals Harrison and Taylor, came to their sudden and lamentable ends by subtle poisons.

Those purported plots featured prominently in John Smith Dyes The Adders Den, an 1864 conspiracy tract that treated both deaths  and the assault on Jackson, too  as parts of a Parallax View -style series of covert ops by Southern slaveholders. This wasnt seen as a fringe position: The book was excerpted in The Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times ran a respectful notice that told curious readers they should get this pamphlet and read it for themselves.

Nor did such notions disappear after the Civil War. During the effort to impeach President Andrew Johnson, Representative James Mitchell Ashley, an Ohio Republican, declared that both Harrison and Taylor had been poisoned for the express purpose of putting the vice presidents in the presidential office.

By that time America had another dead president. Lincolns death immediately set off talk of conspiracies larger than that of John Wilkes Booth and his confederates, and Dye produced a new edition of his book blaming the same vast Southern conspiracy for Booths bullets. Over the years, more Lincoln theories would emerge, attributing the murder to everyone from the vice president to the Vatican.

The next president killed in office was James Garfield, shot in 1881 by a disgruntled job-seeker named Charles Guiteau. The rumor mill quickly claimed the deed had been arranged by the Republican Partys Stalwart faction, whose members included Vice President Chester Alan Arthur. (One newspaper, The Baltimore American, was agnostic about whether Guiteau had acted alone, but it called the killing a coup whether the assassin had accomplices or not.)
Legislation to provide immunity from civil liability and criminal prosecution for church officials holding services during public health emergencies advanced from a Louisiana House committee on 6-3 vote.

The Rev. Tony Spell, who was charged with a half-dozen misdemeanor offenses for violating coronavirus-gathering restrictions, called Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards "godless" during his testimony in favor of the legislation. Spell also said eight members of his congregation were fired from their jobs because they didnt go along with the coronavirus restrictions.

Members of his Life Tabernacle Church in Central recounted for the House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee instances when they were reprimanded by employers for not taking COVID tests because they had attended services at the church. Hardly anyone attending the hearing wore a mask.

House Bill 9, by Rep. Danny McCormick, would provide immunity for those arrested for assembling in church. The proposal also would be retroactive back to March 11, which coincides with directives to stay at home and limit public gatherings to 10 people in order to mitigate the spread of the highly infectious and often deadly COVID-19.

Spell defied those rules saying the directives violated his religious rights.

The East Baton Rouge District Attorneys office filed a bill of information charging Spell with the misdemeanor infractions that carry a $500 fine and up to 90 days in jail. Spell said hes not guilty.

+2 Judge rejects Central pastor's lawsuit against governor; he is released from house arrest A federal judge has rejected Central pastor Tony Spells lawsuit claiming that the stay-at-home order Gov. John Bel Edwards implemented to sto

Some people didnt attend church just out of the fear of being arrested and humiliated, McCormick said. We need to send a clear message to Louisiana that our religious freedoms are alive and well.

McCormick, an Oil City Republican, organized a protest in May outside the Governors Mansion that featured a number of officials with Spells church  the pastor couldnt attend because he was under house arrest  and those in attendance at the protest were fed by Life Tabernacle.

As an American, it makes me sad that this bill is necessary, said state Rep, Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport.

+2 Watch: Protesters rally to end Louisiana stay-at-home order in gathering outside Governor's Mansion About 250 protesters showed up at the Governors Mansion on Saturday demanding Louisiana immediately drop the restrictions put in place to slo

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It places the responsibility of ones health on that individual, state Rep. Tony Bacala, a Prairieville Republican, said of HB9.

Jeffrey S. Wittenbrink, a Baton Rouge lawyer who is representing Spell in federal and state court actions, said Edwards overstepped his authority in issuing declarations that diminished the constitutional protections for freedom of religion by limiting the size of in-person church services. Though the courts generally frown upon passing laws that can go back in time and disrupt what had been legal, HB9 is clarifying existing law that was applied incorrectly so would overcome that reluctance, Wittenbrink said.

At one point the legislative hearing turned into a debate over the meaning of the Biblical book of Romans.

Criminal Justice Committee Chair Ted James, D-Baton Rouge said Romans 13:8 clearly tells believers that they should obey civil laws. But other interpretations of Romans postulates that its writer, the Apostle Paul, dealt with the governance of the church and not of civil government, Spell countered. The meaning of Romans has been a difference of opinion among theological scholars for centuries.

Spell said his reading means, I owe no man anything, especially a godless governor who denies that I have been prosecuted for my faith.

James interrupted to admonish Spell for questioning the governor's faith. The governor frequently links his Roman Catholic beliefs to how he looks at policies.

Why have I been arrested and why was an ankle bracelet put on me for 21 days and did not allow me to leave the front door of my home? Spell said.

You broke the law, James replied. But were not going to question the religious faith of the governor.

Bacala, a retired deputy, noted that Romans is a guiding authority for police officers and his personal interpretation is that the Biblical passage allows the Legislature to correct what he called an oversight in Edwards health emergency declarations. My vote needs to be a vote for what I think God wants me to do, which is open the churches, he said.

How the House Criminal Justice committee voted on sending HB9 to the full House for consideration

Voting for immunity (6): Vice Chair Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville; Reps Jonathan Goudeu, R-Lafayette; C. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge; Nicholas Muscarello, R-Hammond; Richard Nelson, R-Mandeville; and Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport.

Voting against HB9 (3): Chair Ted James, D-Baton Rouge; Reps Marcus Anthony Bryant, D-New Iberia; and Fredrick Jones, D-Bastrop.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo Tuesday said that it would be callous and irresponsible if those elected into office do not come together to sort out the grave life-threatening problems confronting Nigerians on daily basis.

The Vice President said the country has millions of extremely poor people and that the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has worsened employment and poverty.

This is as the two-day Executive/Legislative retreat presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari has recommended that the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, should exercise more control on its members to enable it to resolve crises that may arise.

Professor Osinbajo, in his remarks to close the retreat at the State House Conference Centre, Presidential Villa, Abuja, said: "we have no choice if we are not to fail the Nigerian people who have given us this incredible opportunity amongst millions of our compatriots to serve at this high leadership levels we occupy today."

He further said, "Let me say that every generation of leadership must understand the context. Law itself must be interpreted and implemented in context.

"What is the reality of the context that we operate in today? We all know our nation has millions of extremely poor people; the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened employment and poverty. We have huge deficits in infrastructure; many children are out of school. If that is our context we will be callous and irresponsible if we don't come together, work together to sort out these grave life-threatening problems our people have to confront every day.

"The dogmatic emphasis on procedural niceties is a luxury we cannot afford. In any event, there is no pure practice of the doctrine of separation of powers. The Anglo American traditions that we hold on to in support of the separation of powers are not pure... so, for example, the US Vice President serves as the president of the Senate and presides over the Senate's daily proceedings.

"In the absence of the vice president, the Senate's president pro tempore (and others designated by him) presides. As one of the Senate's constitutional officers, only the Vice President has the authority to cast a tie-breaking vote. So even in the country that has the most advanced jurisprudence on separation of powers, they are wise enough to provide for a concrete bridge between the executive and the legislature.

"In the UK, the convention is that every Minister must be a member of the House of Commons or the House of Lords and every minister must be a legislator. So if that were in Nigeria all the Ministers would be either Senators or members of the House of Representatives. So these countries we look up to, recognize that any strict separation of powers will impede development, impede governance and shortchange the people.

"So, it is time to focus on what we have been elected or appointed to do. This is the welfare of our people. The law and practice as between parliament and executive is a means to an end not an end to itself. The means must not jeopardize the end.

"Our people just want food on their table, shelter over their heads, clothing on their bodies, healthcare and education for their children and themselves.

"So the good legislature or good minister is not the one who is waving the law, and procedure, and doctrines, it is the one who says the spirit of our Constitution is that we secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and equality of status and opportunity.

"The good legislator and minister is the one who will do all in his or her power to serve the needs of our people, even if it means walking the fine lines, as Hon Wudil said between the law and reality."

In a 10-point recommendation read by Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Mohammed Bello, at the end of the retreat, it was resolved that there should be respect for party leadership by its membership.

According to the recommendation, "The ruling political party should be encouraged to take ownership of its members to be able to reconcile them whenever conflict arises, and, members in both arms of government should show regard for the party and its leadership."

It called for a concrete understanding and working knowledge between both the Executive and Legislature just as it noted that an effective confidence-building measure should be put in place in the governance process to ensure mutual respect and cordial relationship between the Executive and Legislature.

The parley further recommended the creation of effective conflict management and resolution mechanism in resolving areas of disagreement between the Executive and Legislature in the overall national interest.

Other recommendations are that there should be modalities for better access, interfacing and engagement between the leaderships of both arms of government, the National Assembly Committees and Ministries, Department and Agencies, MDAs should be worked out by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF and National Assembly -Executive Liaison.

It was also recommended that "There should be regular pre-budget consultations between the Executive and Legislature particularly between the MDAs and NASS Committees, Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning and the appropriate Committee in NASS.

"There is need for effective communication and collaborative engagement to enhance and strengthen the relationship between the arms of government for the benefit of Nigerians.

"The relationship should not be adversarial but complementary, thus, more interpersonal and informal relationship between heads of MDAs and NASS members should be encouraged.

"Operators in the arms of government should act with moderation and limit their sense of entitlement by placing public interest over and above personal and parochial interest.

"The Presidency should strengthen the capacity of the Executive Liaison Offices in the National Assembly.

"There is need for an organic budget law which will optimize the budgetary process so as to deliver effective and efficient service to the citizens."

The summation from the retreat highlighted what it referred to as weak mechanism for conflict management and dispute resolution between both arms of government and limited consultation between them on critical governance issues such as policy initiation, programme implementation, planning, and legislative processes.

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Other issues that arose from the parley include lack of clarity in communication and poor feedback mechanism leading to different and subjective interpretation of intent and purpose of the message.

The retreat also pointed at limited understanding of the workings and internal processes of each arm of government by government operatives; lack of mutual respect between the Executive and the Legislature in the conduct of governmental business; and lack of and/or absence of pre-budget consultations and briefings between the Executive and Legislative branches of government making the budgetary process acrimonious.

Other observed issues according to Bello are "the pursuit of personal interest as against national interest; ill-equipped and poorly resourced offices of Presidential Liaison Offices in the National Assembly; poorly defined channels of communication between the executive and legislative arms and weak utilisation of the Offices of the SSA-Ps to the President in managing communication between Committees of the National Assembly and MDAs.

"Limited participation of MDAs at public hearings organised by the National Assembly on critical bills to influence the process but choose to raise objections when the bill is transmitted for Presidential assent.

"The current operational budgetary process is sub-optimal, and political parties have not really played the fatherly role that is expected of it in managing the relationship between the Executive and the Legislature."

Vanguard News Nigeria
Donald Trump has claimed that Democrats want to permanently close all churches in the US, just a few days after his son Eric Trump said that the president literally saved Christianity.

On Wednesday morning, president Trump responded on Twitter to a video that showed church-goers being arrested for holding a large outdoor service without wearing face masks or abiding by social distancing measures.

The video was captioned by Cliff Maloney, the president of student activism organisation Young Americans for Liberty, who wrote: If you would have told me in 2019 that we were just 1 year away from Americans being ARRESTED for holding outdoor church services, I would have thought you to be insane.

This is one of the most heartbreaking things Ive ever seen. Pray for America.

In response to the video, Mr Trump falsely tweeted without providing any evidence: DEMS WANT TO SHUT YOUR CHURCHES DOWN, PERMANENTLY. HOPE YOU SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING. VOTE NOW!

At the event in Moscow City, Idaho, which attracted at least 150 people, three Christians were arrested by the local police, as others were issued citations for breaching coronavirus guidelines, according to the Christian Post.

Mr Trump has repeatedly praised conservative Christians in speeches and interviews over the last four years, and has attempted to position Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as being against Christianity.

During a rally for evangelicals earlier this year, Mr Trump said that his administration will never stop fighting for Americans of faith, while at an event in Ohio in August, Mr Trump said that Mr Biden, who is catholic, is against God.

During a radio show interview in North Dakota last week, the presidents son Eric Trump echoed his comments, and said that his father has literally saved Christianity in the US, as he falsely claimed that Democrats want to attack the faith.

When giving a list of achievements he attributes to his father, he said: He literally saved Christianity, there's a war on faith in this country by the other side.

I mean, the Democratic Party, the far left, has become the party of the quote-unquote atheist, they want to attack Christianity, they want to close churches, they want to - they're totally fine keeping liquor stores open, but they want to close churches all over the country.

Eric Trumps issue appeared to be rooted in the closing of churches across the US during the coronavirus pandemic, in order for large gatherings to be kept to levels deemed safe.

Although places of worship have been re-opened in several states across the US, that decision was not made by the president, but by local and state officials.

His reference to liquor stores appears to be about the decision in numerous states earlier in the year to re-open them, while keeping places of worship shut.

However, church services often occur for at least an hour and encourage community engagement, while liquor store purchases often take very little time and require minimal interaction.

Additionally, new research by Scientific American has found that an overwhelming amount of coronavirus infections are driven by super spreader events, where a disproportionate number of infected people spread the virus to a much larger number of individuals.

A recent article in the magazine read: Scientists have identified factors that catalyse such events, including large crowd sizes, close contact between people and confined spaces with poor ventilation.

Current evidence suggests that it is mostly circumstances such as these, rather than the biology of specific individuals, that sets the stage for extreme spreading of the novel coronavirus.

Christianity also does not appear to be in danger in the country, as every president in US history has identified as such, and nearly 70 per cent of Americans still call themselves Christian.

The president took 80 per cent of the white, evangelical Christian vote in 2016, and is aiming to recreate similar numbers on 3 Novembers presidential election.
As Republican candidates everywhere stumble in the polls, President Trump is playing the role of the Pied Piper, leading his unthinking followers to oblivion as he doubles down on his lunacy over the virus.

That lunacy has metastasized over the last week into something even darker -- our presidents open willingness to risk other peoples lives for no good reason.

Trump came to Bedminster for a fundraiser Thursday, knowing he was at risk after his advisor Hope Hicks fell ill the night before, and was forced to sit away from the president aboard Air Force One. At the fundraiser, Trump sat in a room with about 20 unsuspecting people, with windows closed, and no face masks. Why?

When he returned from the hospital, he threw off his mask and walked into the hobbled White House, exposing his own staffers, as he exposed Secret Service agents the day before. The White Houses secrecy over the timing of his infection tells us that he was likely spewing the virus even earlier. Why else hide the facts? Why else break the rules at last weeks debate by refusing to be tested?

This is monstrous behavior even by Trump standards, a moral crime. And yet the president, struck down because he is a reckless fool, had the nerve to present himself as a hero, to encourage Americans to take more risks, and to tell them that a virus that has killed 209,000 people is less dangerous than the common flu.

Dont be afraid of Covid, Trump tweeted, as public health experts across the country cringed. Dont let it dominate your life.

Sadly, this macho swagger has infected the Republican Party more broadly, even in blue states. City Journal, based in Manhattan, published an article Monday by Heather McDonald with this insane headline: Against Fear: President Trumps handling of his coronavirus diagnosis models positive masculinity  rational and unbowed.

In New Jersey, many Republicans are joining the long line of fools dancing with this Pied Piper. David Richter, a wealthy GOP businessman challenging Democrat Rep. Andy Kim in the 3rd district, says all restrictions should be lifted, even on movie theaters. Sen. Tom Kean Jr., who is challenging Democrat Rep. Tom Malinowski, attends events regularly with no mask, and no social distancing, as does GOP Chairman Doug Steinhardt.

Kean, timid and mousy as always, would not discuss it. Steinhardt tried diversion: Phil Murphy put Covid positive patients into nursing homes and 7,100+ seniors died, he texted.

Give him this much: Murphy did make serious mistakes on nursing homes, especially the veterans' home run by the state itself. But does it help to spread the virus at political rallies?

As the White House has come to resemble a sick ward, with the virus having its way, you would think that Republicans might catch on to the need for masks. But they are charging in the other direction, as if this is a political game, not a public health crisis.

The core appeal of Joe Biden in this race is that he will stop this nonsense and bring back some normalcy. He wears a mask because it keeps people safe. He expresses sympathy for the families of those who died because its the decent thing to do. He listens to scientists because they know more than he does. He doesnt push quack remedies. He acts like a president.

If there is any solace in these troubled times, it is the spate of recent polls showing that Americans are increasingly exhausted by Trump and turned off by Republicans who enable him. In a fresh national poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC news, Bidens lead reached 14 points, a new high.

Kean is losing his race, according to the respected Cook Political Report, and so is Richter. In South Jersey, Democrat challenger Amy Kennedy has taken a lead over GOP Rep. Jeff Van Drew. And Democrats have a clean shot at taking back control of the U.S. Senate, with Sen. Cory Booker crushing his opponent by over 20 points.

Yes, Trump is an evil genius when it comes to elections, and with a month to go, only a fool would rest. But his behavior has become more bizarre and unsettling each week. And voters have noticed, in New Jersey and across the land.

More: Tom Moran columns

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the Ukrainian delegation presented a vision for renewing the Association Agreement in the field of trade and sectoral cooperation.

He said this during the 22nd EU-Ukraine Summit in Brussels on Tuesday, the presidents press service reports.

"During the Summit, we paid considerable attention to the implementation of the Association Agreement. We have agreed to make the most of its mechanisms in order to further develop our trade relations and deepen economic integration between Ukraine and the European Union. At the same time, our delegation presented its vision for the renewal of the Association Agreement in the field of trade and sectoral cooperation. The free trade area must correspond to the realities of today - both the Ukrainian economy and the economy and the legislative field of the European Union," Zelensky said.

According to him, one of the key results of the Summit, he said, was the agreement to begin in 2021 a joint assessment of the achievements of the goals of the Association Agreement, which will be the driving force for its further renewal.

"We have discussed the deepening of sectoral integration. Our discussions focused on the integration into the EU Digital Single Market, integration of energy markets of Ukraine and the European Union, cooperation in the implementation of the European green course," Zelensky said.

The Ukrainian president announced the intention to move towards an agreement on "industrial visa-free regime".

"An EU expert mission has already begun work to assess Ukraine's readiness to conclude an Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products," he said.

In addition, according to Zelensky, the parties discussed terms of signing the Agreement on the Common Aviation Area, which has been on our agenda for many years.

"We have been assured that all technical issues will be resolved by all means, and this Agreement will be signed as soon as possible," the Ukrainian president said.

In turn, President of the European Council Charles Michel noted that the Association Agreement aimed to create conditions for Ukraine to gradually integrate into the European internal market.

"This is the most ambitious agreement that the European Union has with any country," he said, stressing that the EU intends to deepen cooperation with Ukraine in the field of IT and "green" energy.

As reported by Ukrinform, the 22nd EU-Ukraine Summit took place in Brussels on October 6, during which representatives of Ukraine and the European Union signed six financial agreements worth almost EUR 400 million.
Dubai Executive Council has approved the new Dubai Building Code that outlines a revised set of construction rules and standards for the emirate.

The Dubai Building Code creates a unified set of standards for construction that promotes sustainable development and innovation in building design.

It will enhance Dubais international investment attractiveness and promote diversification of projects in the emirates construction sector.

The new code, which seeks to reduce construction costs by streamlining building rules, has been developed according to the highest international standards, said Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council while chairing the council meeting.

By creating a one-stop-shop for obtaining approval from Dubais licensing agencies and departments, the code will ease procedures for consultants, contractors, developers, investors and owners.

By standardising building requirements, the code will also speed up the completion of the design phase of construction projects. Investors can ensure compliance with all design requirements without checking with various departments individually, he stated.

The Dubai Executive Council meeting was attended by Dubai Deputy Ruler and First Deputy Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai HH Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and other senior officials.-TradeArabia News Service
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President Trump was released from Walter Reed Medical Center yesterday evening. Global stocks rose earlier in the day on the announcement that he would be discharged to return to the White House.

First Lady Melania Trump has been isolated after testing positive for COVID-19 as well and tweeted, I am feeling good & will continue to rest at home. Earlier that day, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany revealed that she had contracted the illness and would work from quarantine. She joined three Republican senators who said they have the virus, along with several members of the presidents team.

A jetpack for paramedics

Abraham Joshua Heschel was right: no one can write their autobiography in advance.

A week ago, who predicted that the president would spend the weekend in a hospital? Four years ago, how many were predicting that Donald Trump would win the election? A year ago, how many were predicting the coronavirus pandemic? A month ago, how many were predicting the imminent death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett?

Paramedics in the U.K. are testing a jetpack that could enable them to fly up a mountain to provide first aid. Singapore Airlines will turn its grounded A380 double-decker aircraft into an exclusive restaurant.

And a team of scientists at Cornell University has developed a robot so small you could fit 10 of them inside a single period. Researchers hope their invention will some day crawl around inside a human body to hunt for disease.

Which of these stories would you have predicted yesterday?

Two forms of biblical judgment

While the future is unknowable, there is a crucial way we can choose it today.

In light of the pandemic and other crises, I am often asked if our country is experiencing Gods judgment. I always respond by explaining that judgment in the Bible takes two forms: permissive and proactive.

If people reject the word and will of God, he often withdraws his favor and permits them to experience the consequences of their rebellion. In Romans 1, for instance, we read that people exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (v. 25). Does this sound familiar?

As a consequence, God gave them up to dishonorable passions of homosexual immorality (vv. 2627). In addition, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless (vv. 2831). Whats more, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (v. 32).

Does this list describe American culture today?

Why God waits

Gods purpose in responding to our sin is to bring us to repentance. If we respond to his permissive judgment by turning to him with contrite and repentant hearts, his word assures us that he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

If we refuse, his judgment escalates from permissive to proactive. We see this on a national scale with the plagues in Egypt (Exodus 712) and on a personal level with the idolatry of Herod (Acts 12:2023) and the unrepented sin of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:111).

The reason God delays proactive judgment is not because he is less holy, diligent, or sovereign. It is because he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

The pattern of Scripture is clear: God deals with us as gently as he can or as harshly as he must. As a result, we have a hand in predicting our national and personal future.

Reaching the world by next month

If you were the only believer in the world, but you led me to Christ today, there would be two of us. If each of us led someone to Christ tomorrow, there would be four of us. If all four of us won someone to Christ the next day, there would be eight of us.

Multiplying in this way, how long would it take to reach the entire world? Thirty-three days. In that time, 8,589,934,592 people would follow Christ, exceeding our population by nearly one billion people.

In other words, by a week after the election, the entire world would have elected to make Jesus their Lord.

In light of Romans 1, I am convinced that America is experiencing Gods permissive judgment. Will his judgment continue and even escalate, or will our nation turn to his forgiving grace and experience his transforming hope?

What if the answer were up to you and me?

Originally published at the Denison Forum
Nearly all of Oregons major wildfires have surpassed 50% containment, with only the states largest blaze hovering beneath the halfway mark.

Three fires, meanwhile, are over 90% contained. And only three blazes grew from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Here are updates on Oregons largest wildfires, listed from least to most contained, according to figures from the National Interagency Coordination Center.

Lionshead

Location: West of Warm Springs

Size: 204,435 acres

Growth from Tuesday to Wednesday: 8 acres

Containment: 46%

Cause: Lightning

More information: InciWeb

As new sections of fire line are secured each day, more firefighters are focusing on removing hazard trees and slash, suppression repair work and removing equipment from the fire line, fire officials said Wednesday.

***

Riverside

Location: Near Estacada

Size: 138,004 acres

Growth: 0 acres

Containment: 57%

Cause: Human

More information: InciWeb

Firefighters on Tuesday responded to a pair of 911 calls about smoke on the north end of the blaze, according to fire officials.

***

Beachie Creek

Location: Santiam Canyon east of Salem; southern Clackamas County

Size: 193,453 acres

Growth: 77 acres

Containment: 62%

Cause: Unknown

More information: InciWeb

Most fire activity has been reported on the eastern perimeter of the fire  around Deadhorse Mountain near Bull of the Woods Wilderness.

***

Slater

Location: Northern California; Josephine County

Size: 155,287 acres

Growth: 191 acres

Containment: 67%

Cause: Under investigation

More information: InciWeb

Minimal fire growth is expected on the eastern flank of the blaze, according to fire officials. Their strategy is to strengthen containment lines where they can and monitor unlined parts of the fire for movement.

View all currently active wildfires in the U.S. on The Oregonian/OregonLives interactive wildfire map.

***

Thielsen

Location: Diamond Lake area

Size: 9,975 acres

Growth: 0 acres

Containment: 71%

Cause: Unknown

More information: InciWeb

Crews will continue mop up and suppression repair work along containment lines, cut hazard trees and keep improving a shaded fuel break along a forest road.

***

Holiday Farm

Location: East of the Eugene-Springfield area

Size: 173,094 acres

Growth: 0 acres

Containment: 80%

Cause: Unknown

More information: InciWeb

***

White River

Location: 20 miles west of Wamic

Size: 17,383 acres

Growth: 0

Containment: 89%

Cause: Lightning/natural

More information: InciWeb

***

Archie Creek

Location: Northeast of Roseburg

Size: 131,542 acres

Growth: 0 acres

Containment: 94%

Cause: Unknown

More information: InciWeb

***

Two Four Two

Location: Chiloquin area

Size: 14,473 acres

Growth: 0

Containment: 97%

Cause: Unknown

More information: InciWeb

***

Brattain

Location: Lake County

Size: 50,951 acres

Growth: 0 acres

Containment: 98%

Cause: Human

More information: InciWeb

-- Jim Ryan

jryan@oregonian.com; 503-221-8005; @Jimryan015
Investigators narrow focus in zoos chiefs murder case

SONGKHLA: Police investigating the fatal shooting at Songkhla Zoo are focusing on five issues to establish a motive for the murder of the head of the Zoological Parks Organisation of Thailand (ZPOT).



By Bangkok Post

Wednesday 7 October 2020, 09:45AM

ZPOT director-general Suriya Saengpong (centre), seen here on an inspection tour of Ubon Ratchathani zoo six days ago, was gunned down in Songkhla on Saturday morning. Photo: ZPOT / Facebook

Investigators from Provincial Police Region 1, Songkhla police, the Crime Suppression Division and the National Resources and Environmental Crime Division are all involved in the case, reports the Bangkok Post.

Suriya Saengpong, director of the zoological parks organisation, was shot dead at Songkhla Zoo on Saturday by Phuwadol Suwanna, a senior veterinarian in charge of animal health research and conservation at the zoo.

Suriya was investigating the disappearance of two albino barking deer from the zoo - the first in February last year and the second in September.

Phuwadol and three other officials at the zoo were transferred pending the outcome of the investigation. Phuwadol killed himself in his living quarters inside the zoo grounds shortly after shooting Suriya.

Investigators have focused on five issues  the administration of Songkhla Zoo, a missing Macaw, a missing white rhino horn, the missing barking deer, and possible links with the illegal wildlife trade.

A member of the team said that regardless of the outcome of the zoo parks boards own inquiry, the police investigation would continue, to find out if the shooting had any link with the wildlife trade.

Investigators have learned there was bad blood between Suriya and Phuwadol. The veterinarian had filed a complaint against the zoos chief in 2018 over construction of an ocean park. Suriya had allegedly tried to transfer Mr Phuwadol on several occasions.

This was one possible motive, an investigation source said.

The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation was also reported to be sending wildlife experts to investigate the disappearance of the two barking deer.
Her portrayal of Ricky Sharpe on Home and Away made Bonnie Sveen a household name.

And on Tuesday, the actress, 31, gave fans a glimpse into her personal life when she shared a rare photo of her identical twin daughters, Myrtle Mae and Emerald Lois.

Bonnie posted a photo of her two girls to Instagram as they celebrated their second birthdays.

Personal life: Former Home and Away star Bonnie Sveen (pictured with partner Nathan Gooley) shared a rare photo of her twin daughters as they celebrated turning two on Tuesday

She also shared a photo alongside her partner Nathan Gooley and wrote: 'Our faeries turned two last week. 2nd year of parenting, wow.'

Bonnie continued: 'Thank you to all our family and our chosen family who made their birthday season special... and complete our lives in general.'

The actress played Ricky Sharpe on Home and Away from 2013 to 2016.

After leaving the show, she went on to appear in the TV series, The Secret Daughter, before taking time off to to start her family.

Family: She gave fans a glimpse into her personal life when she shared a rare photo with her identical twin daughters, Myrtle Mae and Emerald Lois

Bonnie's daughters, Myrtle and Emerald, were born in September 2018.

The babies were almost one month premature and spent two weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

The family-of-four have since settled in rural Tasmania after relocating from Sydney.

Picture perfect! Bonnie's daughters, Myrtle and Emerald, were born in September 2018

Bonnie described welcoming her bundles of joy as nothing short of magical.

'How could I have possibly earned this double miracle in my life?' she gushed to New Idea magazine at the time.

Speaking of motherhood, she added: 'It's the best. It's definitely far from perfect, but it's the most heart-opening, profound experience I've ever undergone.'
Top Russian officials were met with an unexpected sight of LGBT+ flags as they arrived at their workplaces on Wednesday, the day of Vladimir Putins birthday.

The pride symbols, planted courtesy of activist art collective Pussy Riot, appeared shortly after 10am at the headquarters of Russias security agency, the presidential administration, Supreme Court, Culture Ministry and central police station.

Claiming responsibility on social media, Pussy Riot said the rainbow flags were birthday presents for the president. They were gifted as symbols of the lack of love and freedom in Russia, they added.

In a series of birthday demands, the group called on Mr Putin to begin an investigation into the murder of and abduction of gay people in Chechnya, legalise same-sex partnerships and end discriminatory legislation. They also stipulated that 7 October, Vladimir Putins birthday, be marked on the Russian calendar as a day of LGBT+ visibility.

Pussy Riots Maria Alyokhina told The Independent how the group was able to evade high-level security by dressing in clothing of maintenance workers and claiming they were in charge of birthday decorations.

It was wildly comic, but the message is serious. You cant win by banning love. If you are the person who is smashing the hands of lovers as they walk hand in hand, youve already lost.

Police were later issued new orders to impede flag flying on government buildings, according to unconfirmed reports carried by a local journalist for state news.

Vladimir Putins 20-year reign has been associated with the growth of official homophobia and violence against LGBT+ people.

In 2013 a much-derided law on gay propaganda was introduced  the equivalent of Britains long-ditched Section 28. Other anti-gay bills have followed since, including this year a rewrite of the constitution to promote family values and ban same-sex marriage. Last week, unnamed sources at the Investigative Committee of Russia hinted at a new war on gay couples having children via surrogacy.

Authorities are also yet to begin an investigation into the disappearance, murder and torture of hundreds of gay men in the largely Muslim republic of Chechnya.

At the same time, the rise in official homophobia has been accompanied by a growing acceptance of LGBT+ people among some urban constituencies, and especially the young.

Ms Alyokhina said the idea for Wednesdays action came about after watching a group of students in St Petersburg plant pride flags on the roof of their school.

The head teacher called it an act of sabotage, she said. Alexander Sofiyev, a member of our collective, suggested it was time to show them what sabotage really meant.

Rainbow flag flies next to a Russian flag at a St Petersburg school (vk.com/unreleased_dtp)

Pussy Riot, a loose activist collective sometimes described as a punk band, came to prominence in 2012 after performing an anti-Putin punk prayer inside Russias main Orthodox cathedral.

Ms Alyokhina was one of two members who spent nearly two years in a high-security prison for her efforts.
London, Oct 7 : A British GCSE religious studies workbook has been scrapped from a schools website and withdrawn by the publisher after it sparked outrage among the British Indians who said it linked Hinduism to terrorism.

The book bearing the AQA logo (the examination board which sets and awards GSCES and A levels), had been downloadable from the curriculum section of the website of Langley School, a comprehensive secondary school in Solihull, West Midlands -- until Monday.

A description of Hinduism on page four of the book states: "Holy books teach that it is necessary to be able to morally justify war in order to preserve dharma. Arjuna, as a Kshatriya, is reminded of his duty to uphold a righteous cause and that in fact there is nothing better than a righteous war.

"If the cause is just, Hindus will take up arms. Self-defence is justifiable; hence India has nuclear weapons to protect from aggressors. Some Hindus have turned to terrorism to protect Hindu beliefs.

"The Arthashastra scriptures state that governments must act with a suitable moral approach, which implies a just one." Trupti Patel, president of the Hindu Forum of Britain (HFB), an umbrella body for British Hindus, said: "This is a political move to discredit Hindus and India. I am sure whoever wrote this did it deliberately." Patel and HFB vice-president Ramesh Pattni, chair of HFB's religious education committee, sent a letter to AQA and qualifications regulator 'Ofqual' describing the text as "vexatious, inaccurate and meant to teach wrong beliefs about Hindus to impressionable children".

The letter states: "You have completely misinterpreted the meaning of dharma and linked it to what you describe as terrorism... even the interpretation about Arjuna is totally misinterpreted... We suspect that there may be a political agenda behind how Hindu beliefs and practices have been portrayed." "We have had a holding reply saying AQA will investigate," Patel told one of the Indian media.

An AQA spokesperson said: "We didn't produce the workbook that's been shared on social media and our logo was used on it without our permission. Some of the material in it seems to have come from a textbook -- we've spoken to the publisher, which has withdrawn the book from sale while it addresses the issue." Langley School confirmed it had removed the book from its website "as soon as it was alerted" via emails on Monday. The school said it did not know why the workbook carried the AQA logo and the book "was not used for teaching".

"A member of our staff purchased the resource from the Times Educational Supplement website some years ago. We are unaware of the author of the document. We are devastated that this oversight in our administration has caused this offence," the school said in a statement.

"We can assure you it is not used in school."

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
President Trump isn't the picture of health he's making himself out to be, White House aides tell The New York Times.

After returning from Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday after his COVID-19 diagnosis and three-day stay, Trump removed his face mask defiantly before entering the White House. Aides say it was supposed to be Trump's display of strength after his hospital visit, even though it put everyone around him at risk because he was still contagious with the virus. "But they also wondered if the face covering was making it harder for the president to breathe," the Times reports. The next day, aides said Trump's voice was stronger than it had been the night before, "but at times he still sounded as if he was trying to catch air," the Times writes.

Aides, including White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah, publicly said they were "comfortable working here" as more and more White House workers tested positive for the virus. They brought in masks, gloves, and eye protection for anyone planning to work closely with Trump, including in the Oval Office. "But many saw the situation as spiraling out of control" as the pandemic Trump brushed off "seemed to have locked its grip on the White House," the Times writes. And as polls continued to show Democratic nominee Joe Biden triumphing over Trump, aides were reportedly "worried that they were living through the final days of the Trump administration."

More stories from theweek.com

Mike Pence was the unlikely winner of the vice presidential debate

The myth of Mike Pence's appeal

Trump is shockingly bad at this


Bellagraph Nova Group, founded by two Singaporean entrepreneurs and a Chinese business partner, announced in August it was in "advanced talks" to buy Newcastle United

A top executive at a Singapore firm seeking to buy Newcastle United has quit after police launched a probe into his activities, the company said Wednesday, the latest turmoil for the bid.

Bellagraph Nova Group, founded by two Singaporean entrepreneurs and a Chinese business partner, announced in August it was in "advanced talks" to buy the English Premier League team.

But the bid became mired in controversy over allegations that photos had been doctored to show the trio meeting with former US president Barack Obama, and other inconsistent claims.

Police then began investigating a company linked to Singaporean co-founders Terence and Nelson Loh, after an accounting firm lodged a report over unauthorised signatures on the group's financial statements.

BN Group said in a statement that Terence Loh has now quit the firm to try and resolve the issues related to the police probe into Novena Global Healthcare.

Singapore's Straits Times newspaper previously reported that he denied wrongdoing.

The statement also stressed that BN Group is not "linked to Novena Global Healthcare and its forged financial statements".

Despite growing doubts about the bid, the firm's Chinese co-founder Evangeline Shen insisted last week BN Group was still serious about the plan.

She said the company's team recently met a representative of Newcastle's owner to discuss the bid, reported to be worth 280 million pounds ($360 million).

BN Group's bid came after a Saudi-backed consortium withdrew its offer to buy Newcastle in late July, following a months-long wait for Premier League approval.

The company has said it oversees 31 business "entities" worldwide, with a group revenue of $12 billion last year and 23,000 employees.

Regulators have also announced investigations into several firms linked to the Lohs, who are cousins.

mba/sr/dh
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Progressive Corp. could soon expand its horizons into life insurance.

We actually are considering that, Chief Executive Officer Tricia Griffith said when asked about a possible move. We have a life-insurance company filed in Ohio. More to come on that. She spoke on The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations on Bloomberg Television.

A life business would be a new frontier for the third-largest U.S. car insurer. Progressive already has a great relationship with a partner in which it receives a commission for life-insurance sales, Griffith said. It refers potential customers to eFinancial LLC, which places the policies with another insurer, according to Progressives website.

Griffiths company is among auto insurers that returned some funds to customers when the pandemic hit and the amount of traffic on roads decreased as more people worked from home. While driving still remains below earlier levels, people are venturing out more often, she said.

As states have reopened, it continues to go up, she said. Were still not pre-Covid levels of driving. Were about 8% to 10% down.

Top Photo: The Progressive Corp. headquarters is seen in Mayfield Village, Ohio. Photographer: John Quinn/Bloomberg.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 22:43:11|Editor: huaxia

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People wearing face mask walk at a market in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Oct. 7, 2020. With new infections reported in last 24 hours, the total COVID-19 cases in the country have reached 94,253, said Jageshwor Gautam, spokesperson of Nepal's Ministry of Health and Population, at a regular press briefing on Wednesday. (Photo by Sulav Shrestha/Xinhua)



KATHMANDU, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 situation in Nepal is worsening as the government reported Wednesday a record single day spike of 3,439 cases.

It is the first time that COVID-19 cases in Nepal surpassed 3,000 in a single day.

The last record high daily infections were reported on Oct. 2 when the country registered 2,722 cases.

With new infections reported in last 24 hours, the total COVID-19 cases in the country had reached 94,253, said Jageshwor Gautam, spokesperson of Nepal's Ministry of Health and Population, at a regular press briefing on Wednesday.

It is also one of the deadliest days for the country with the government reporting 15 deaths from the virus in a single day, according to the health ministry.

"Along with the rapidly increasing infections, it has been difficult for COVID-19 patients to get hospital beds for admission in their accessible locations," said Gautam.

Kathmandu Valley has emerged as the new hotspot of the pandemic in the country. On Wednesday, 1,684 cases out of 3,439 were reported from there.

"Due to the rapid rise in cases in Kathmandu Valley, challenge has grown to provide treatment facilities in Kathmandu's hospitals," said Gautam. "If the current trend of infection in the valley continues, hospitals here cannot sustain this rising burden of new patients."

The COVID-19 dedicated hospitals have already discontinued taking mild cases of the COVID-19. Shanta Kumar Das, coordinator of COVID-19 Management Committee at the Kathmandu-based Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital told Xinhua on Tuesday that his hospital had been turning down several requests from the health ministry to admit COVID-19 patients due to the lack of the beds in the Intensive Care Units (ICUs).

Earlier, the Nepal's Health Ministry had concluded that the country may no longer provide required health facilities for the COVID-19 patients provided the number of active COVID-19 cases reaches 25,000.

On Wednesday, the number of COVID-19 cases in Nepal reached 25,007, according to the health ministry.

Dr. Roshan Pokharel, chief specialist at the health ministry, told Xinhua last week that existing infrastructure and human resources, particularly assigned in COVID-19 dedicated hospitals, would not be enough to handle active cases over 25,000. Enditem
A greedy eel ended up biting off more than it could chew after trying to swallow a puffer fish that inflated in its mouth, causing it to suffocate.

Tim Mayer, a German-born scuba diving instructor, happened upon the unusual sight on the island of Titikaveka, part of the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean, last month

Tim, 39, initially thought the 4ft moray eel was a piece of driftwood, but as he walked closer alongside three-year-old daughter Charlie, he realised what he had found.

Tim Mayer, a German-born scuba diving instructor, found a dead eel with a puffer fish in its mouth on the beach of Titikaveka island, part of the Cook Islands, last month

Marine biologist Kirby Morejohn said the eel likely suffocated after the puffer fish blocked its throat, because eels have to be able to suck water through their throats to breathe, unlike fish

Tim summoned wife Lucile and son Yann from their nearby villa to witness the scene, before the family contacted local marine biologist Kirby Morejohn to confirm what had happened.

Kirby explained that the eel likely tried to feed on the porcupine puffer fish, which then inflated as a defence mechanism.

While most fish breathe using gills that are located behind their heads, Kirby said, eels suck water in through their mouths, much the same way as humans breathe air.

Having the pufferfish lodged in its throat likely caused the eel to suffocate, Kirby concluded.

The biologist, originally from San Diego in California, said he had never seen anything like it before.

'I was blown away when I saw it,' he said. 'I couldn't believe that this type of interaction existed and that I'd never heard about it.

'One of the reasons eels are perceived as scary is due to their open, gaping, toothy mouths, but it turns out this is how they breathe.

'After the eel's dinner inflated and lodged in its mouth, the eel would not have been able to draw in water and likely died from suffocation.

'Nature usually seems to have sorted out the kinks. If porcupine fish are normally on an eel's menu, I'd expect eels to target sizes that can be swallowed. But clearly, this isn't the case.'

Yann Mayer, Tim's son, poses next to the 4ft eel after he discovered it during a morning walk along the beach

Tim was so astonished by the find that he summoned wife Lucile (left), son Yann and daughter Charlie (left) to examine it

Tim, from Nordenham, Germany, said: 'Our first thought was it was some driftwood, but we don't get that here on this side of the island.

'As we got closer I realised it was an eel, so I rushed back to the villa to get my phone. I was breathless and excited but didn't tell Lucile or Yann what we'd found.

'We all ran down to the beach and it was such a spectacle. The eel would have been about 1.3metre long.

'It looks like the porcupine fish got the better of the eel but they both paid the ultimate price. And right behind them a rainbow was plunging into the horizon. It was surreal.

'The kids couldn't really grasp what was happening, but they were amazed that both animals had died in the fight. They just wanted to touch it.

'They really wanted to show their friend the discovery even though it meant they were late for school, so we had to message the photos to their teachers to explain.

'When they got in they were excited to tell their friends about it, and it even resulted in a science enquiry where the teacher showed the photos to the whole class.'

Tim and his 34-year-old wife Lucile Mayer, from Grasse, France, have lived in the Cook Islands for seven and a half years and work as scuba diving instructors.

The pair, who run a family blog called Azure Coconut, met pal and marine biologist Kirby on a diving course and called him to shed some light on their discovery.
CLEVELAND -- Over the last several months, cities across the country have been part of a national conversation related to racial justice. As a Black man who grew up in Cleveland, I understand and share the concerns of so many in our community who have experienced the effects of systemic racism. As a senior executive with our regions leading construction association, I know part of the solution to the injustices that exist as a result of that systemic racism lies in being intentional about removing barriers to education, meaningful career paths and economic success for people of color.

The 2015 Community Benefits and Inclusion agreement with the city of Cleveland, led by Mayor Frank Jackson, was a promising effort to encourage economic growth by creating a more equitable and inclusive local economy. It promoted diversity goals, efforts to build mentor-protege relationships, and contract opportunities for minority- and female-owned businesses and small business enterprise contractors. It outlined engagement efforts with unions, contractors and owners to meet or exceed workforce goals for minorities and females.

It was an important step in the right direction.

Our local construction industry is not immune to the effects of structural racism and systemic inequality embedded throughout our society. Intentionally or otherwise, we have normalized barriers to fair, equitable chances to compete for people of color and women.

These structural disadvantages are relics of an era whose time has passed. What must we do to build an inclusive construction ecosystem in Northeast Ohio that would make us the standard-bearer for a more equitable construction industry?

First, we must acknowledge we have a major problem. We cannot fix what we deny. The system as it has been built limits the potential of our economy, our society, and our country. For the good of us all, Northeast Ohio property owners and construction executives must intentionally lead organizations to think and act differently when it comes to diversity and inclusion.

To create this change, constructive conversations must address racial inequities, and how business decisions inadvertently sustain them.

Change requires listening, commitment and action starting at the top of companies and organizations and extending throughout until it becomes embedded throughout industry culture.

As Brad Whitehead, former head of the Fund for Our Economic Future, noted, We are all falling short of our potential as a region in part because we are not allowing sufficient space for generational leadership. We will benefit from fresh perspectives, fresh ideas, fresh culture.

For corporations and governments, this responsibility to create a more equitable environment means using power to remove barriers that limit advancement for minority and female contractors and workers.

Many public institutions, including Cuyahoga County, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, and the city of Akron, have conducted disparity studies outlining gaps in purchasing and contracting for minority- and female-owned businesses and small business enterprises. These have resulted in race- and gender-conscious recommendations to improve inequities based on documented findings.

Owners, including public and private institutions and developers, must set clear diversity and inclusion goals, and hold themselves accountable for meeting them. General contractors, construction managers, and prime contractors must ensure that best practices for contracting, procurement and construction are developed, published and adhered to. Minority- and female-owned companies must be ready and able to perform quality work with a skilled workforce. Public officials, community and civic leaders, and organizations must assist in enhancing construction workforce and contracting readiness and accountability.

Finally, we must improve accountability through transparency. Mechanisms must be developed to ensure reports are publicly available on a regular basis measuring the accountability of each industry sector.

Our region has demonstrated capacity to build any project to the highest standards. It is time to commit to those same standards in making equity a top priority in our industry.

Glen Shumate is executive vice president of Construction Employers Association.

Have something to say about this topic?

* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.

* Email general questions, comments or corrections on this opinion column to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com.
This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices.
Turning 40 meant getting a first mammogram for Heather Harrington, so she was surprised when her doctor told her not to worry about it until a few years down the road.

Harrington decided to follow the advice and wait. But when her 41st birthday approached this year, she felt uneasy. Her grandmother was 42 when her breast cancer was discovered so late in the course of the disease that it had spread all over her body.

Harrington kept thinking about that mammogram.

For some odd reason this year, I was like man, I just feel like I want to go get one, Harrington, who lives in Denver, Colorado, told TODAY.

Honestly, I feel like maybe it was like a tap on my shoulder from (my grandmother).

The diagnosis: stage 3 breast cancer that will require a bilateral mastectomy.

Harrington had no symptoms and felt nothing out of the ordinary in her body. She leads a healthy lifestyle that includes plenty of exercise as a fitness instructor and gym owner.

Sitting in shock after hearing the news at her doctors office in August, she was convinced the clinic must have had the wrong persons chart, she recalled thinking.

I've always done the right thing. I work out every day, I eat right, I try to take as good care of my body as I can, and cancer just doesn't care, she said. It just doesn't discriminate.

Harrington owns two gyms in Denver and teaches classes. (Courtesy Teddy Sitorek)

She urged other women to get checked out even as the guidance on mammograms can be confusing, with different guidelines from different agencies.

The screening can find breast cancer early, but it can also show a spot that looks like cancer but is not, leading to unnecessary anxiety and invasive tests, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted.

Another worry is overdiagnosis, or finding cancer that wouldnt have gone on to cause any symptoms or problems.

Related:

The American Cancer Society recommends women with average breast cancer risk have an annual mammogram starting at 45; while the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force advises they can wait until 50 and have the test every other year.

Story continues

Both agencies say women can choose to start annual breast cancer screening at 40 if they wish to do so.

Something about waiting until 45 just sat with me wrong, Harrington said, noting she had no pushback when she requested her first mammogram at 41. The clinic had minimal scheduling options because of the epidemic and she almost cancelled amid the busyness of her life, but decided to just check it off the list.

After getting the screening at the beginning of August, she was asked to come back for a second look. Her family and friends reassured her it was normal for the radiologist to want to get a different picture, but she knew it was serious when it turned out shed also been scheduled for a breast ultrasound and a biopsy.

Related:

After more tests, doctors told her they saw multiple spots throughout her breast  with the problem area spanning the size of an egg  and were concerned more spots may be found, Harrington said.

She decided on a treatment plan that will start with a bilateral mastectomy followed by chemotherapy to target her type of fast-growing breast cancer, which is being fueled by estrogen.

Heather Harrington was diagnosed with breast cancer. (Courtesy Corrina Lander)

The diagnosis is adding to the stress of life in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. Harrington owns two gyms  an industry thats struggling as people are wary of COVID-19 risk in health clubs and other indoor spaces.

Shes also been worrying about how her 5-year-old daughter will go through kindergarten during the outbreak.

The goal now is to stay positive: Harrington believes she has good doctors and a good shot at recovery.

My worry is not going to change my cancer, she said.

I feel like there are just so many things in the air to worry about that maybe if I just put positive energy into healing rather than worrying about my health that's going to be the better route.
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Linkedin Alya Nurbaiti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7, 2020 20:35 472 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49b1f6a 1 National Omnibus-Law-on-Job-Creation,omnibus-law,omnibus,Amnesty-International,Amnesty-International-Indonesia,labor-union,AMAN,indigenous-people,environment,labor-policy,AMDAL Free

Labor, environmental and human rights activists have spoken out against the recently passed omnibus law on job creation, saying it rolls back social protection and may violate international human rights agreements.

Amnesty International Indonesia deputy director Ary Hermawan said the omnibus law was very regressive and breached non-retrogression principle of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

The government must not allow the protection of existing economic, social and cultural rights to deteriorate, but the prevailing laws are even more progressive than the Job Creation Law, Ary said in a public discussion on Tuesday.

Ary said the provisions on working hours in the omnibus law meant that companies could force employees in certain sectors to work beyond the reasonable maximum working hours, while overtime might not be paid as there was no longer any obligation to do so.

All-Indonesia United Workers Confederation (KPBI) deputy head Jumisih said the law dehumanized workers by extending the maximum overtime to 18 hours from 14 hours a week in Article 78 and scrapping the mandatory two-day weekend in Article 79.

The omnibus law also relaxes outsourcing requirements, while removing protection for outsourced employees, Jumisih said.

Ary also said public participation in the deliberation of the bill had been inadequate, which violated Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Right guaranteeing every citizen the right to take part in public affairs, either directly or through representatives.

The House holding the last meeting on the weekend and passing the bill into law earlier [on Monday] than scheduled [on Thursday] is a betrayal of public trust, he said.

Roy Jinto of the West Java All-Indonesian Workers Confederation Union (KSPIS) and secretary-general of the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN) Rukka Sombolinggi echoed Arys comments, claiming that, from the beginning, labor organizations and the indigenous peoples had not been included in the deliberation process.

We learned about the draft only after it was submitted to the House in February. They later invited [labor unions] for discussions, but that was no more than a formality; we could not change the substance, Roy said. Rukka, meanwhile, said the government had never consulted indigenous people on the matter.

Rukka also pointed out controversial articles of the law related to environmental issues. According to the omnibus laws amendments to Article 26 of Law 32/2009, for example, environmental experts will no longer be involved in environmental impact analyses.

Rukka said such provisions would exacerbate the threats indigenous communities face in trying to safeguard their land.

Even without the omnibus law, many violations have occurred. Now, with the increased threat of land-grabbing, other threats will follow, such as the criminalization of indigenous people and indigenous people losing their livelihoods in the forests, which is ironic, considering that it is called the Job Creation Law, she said.

Ary called on the government and the House of Representatives to revise the problematic articles in the omnibus law, while Trade Union Rights Center (TURC) executive director Andriko Otang said labor unions were ready to petition the Constitutional Court to revoke the law.

Labor unions have made a commitment that, if the job creation bill is passed, we will request a judicial review together, he said. The fight is not over.
The Hathras gangrape and murder case has once again turned the attention of the country towards the socially relevant issues.

The case not only shook the collective conscience of the country but also exposed the inefficiency of the state government, the police and the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh.

Now that the case has been handed over to the CBI and the outcry continues, the case was initially brushed aside as fake news and the case was never on the right trajectory where justice could be delivered.

While the outcry continues, the Uttar Pradesh police have been accused of sabotaging the case. Allegations have been raised by the family of the victim that police had initially tried to brush aside the case as fake news.

Rape charges filed late

The woman, a day after she was assaulted, gave a police statement and initially the case was investigated as an attempt to murder over old enmity.

Rape charges added only in FIR on September 22, eight days after crime.

On September 22, after the girl's statement, rape charges were added to the FIR and three more people were booked, while one accused, Sandeep was arrested.

The woman told the police in a statement on September 22 that the four men raped her on September 14 when she had gone to collect firewood.

Claims of no proof of rape and tongue slashed

The Uttar Pradesh Police also said that the deceased was not a victim of sexual assault.

AFP

The police, however, claims that the woman was attacked and allegedly strangled by four accused which caused damage to her nervous system and left her paralysed.

Speaking to media, Hathras SP Vikrant Vir said that no signs of sexual assault were found on the victim's body by doctors and reports of her tongue being cut were also false.

"No signs of sexual assault was confirmed by doctors in either Hathras or Aligarh. The matter will be probed by doctors through forensic help. No signs of abrasion were found on the victim's private parts," the Hathras SP said.

Later, the forensic report also concluded that there was no sign of rape, However, it is noteworthy that the forensic exam must be conducted within 96 hours of the crime and and forensic evidence must be collected within 72 hours. In this case, the forensic exam was done 11 days after the alleged sexual assault had taken place.

Burning of victim's body at night

The case took another tragic turn when the victim's body was burnt by policemen allegedly as her family and relatives were locked up in their homes.

A disturbing sequence of events was captured in visuals wherein the victims family was seen arguing with the cops, female relatives throwing themselves on the hood of the ambulance carrying the body and the mother crying her eyes out as she begged to take a last look at her daughter.

The woman's family said that they wanted to perform the funeral as per Hindu traditions and despite their protest, the cremation was done by policemen.

"We couldn't see our daughter's face for the last time," the family said.

Irresponsible statements by ministers

Many ministers have made extremely insensitive statements ever since the matter came to light.

Ranjeet Bahadur Srivastava, a BJP leader from Barabanki, has claimed that the four upper caste men accused of brutally assaulting the 19-year-old Dalit girl in Hathras are 'innocent' and it is the victim who was 'awaara' (wayward).

File Photo

The controversial Bharatiya Janata Party leader, who has over 44 criminal cases against him, made this shocking statement in an interview to a news channel.

He claimed that the teen was 'having an affair with the accused' and had called him to the millet field on September 14 (the day of the crime).

In the interview, Srivastava can be heard saying, "The victim must have called the boy to the field because they were having an affair. This news is already out on social media and news channels. She must have got caught after that."

However, the BJP leader did not stop there. He claimed that "such women are found dead in a few specific spots".

"Such girls are found dead in only some places. They will be found dead in sugarcane, corn and millet fields or in bushes, gutters or forests. Why are they never found dead in paddy or wheat fields?" he asked.

He implied that crops like sugarcane, corn and millet are taller in height and can conceal a person while wheat and paddy grow up to only three or four feet in height.

Support for upper caste accused

The case also drew massive criticism when members of the upper caste community demanded justice for the four upper caste accused.

The Rashtriya Savarna Parishad, an upper-caste Hindu group, in a flagrant attempt to protect the rapists, came out in protest, according to a newspaper clipping.

The four rapists were apparently a part of the Rashtriya Savarna Parishad. The group attempted to protect the caste interests based on which the crime was committed.

A meeting was also held outside the house of a former BJP MLA by upper caste groups supporting the accused in the case.
Proactive and decisive policy measures like shuttering schools and restaurants have been key for countries that have successfully combated the spread of COVID-19.

And, while Canada as a whole gets good ratings from an Oxford University team thats been monitoring government policies throughout the pandemic, Ontario is lagging behind on clearly communicating their policies, experts say.

The province has been reactive, rather than proactive in its approach to combating the second wave, said Dr. Nitin Mohan, assistant professor at Western Universitys Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Meanwhile, daily public health messages, which some say are as important as the policies themselves, have been criticized as unclear and sending mixed signals.

Ontario needs to be aggressive when we look at places like bars and restaurants and gyms (as) the highest trend places of transmission, Mohan said, and act accordingly to limit exposure in those environments. Doubly important, he said, is offering economic support for individuals and businesses in these high-risk areas.

Communication around risk has been clear from the medical officers of health and public health units in Ontario, Mohan said. However, the messaging from the province has been confusing, which can make policy difficult to understand.

I think what happens is, in some ways, theres a lot of information out there, he said. And were counting on the general population to understand the nuances.

Messaging from the province needs to mirror messages from public health units, Mohan said. On Friday, Torontos medical officer of health Dr. Eileen De Villa called for more stringent measures to be implemented in the city to curb spread. On Monday, the Ontario government declined to do so.

The province, meanwhile, argues Ontarians have a clear understanding of measures that exist.

Ivana Yelich, a spokesperson for Ontario Premier Doug Ford, told the Star our experience with the first wave makes clear that Ontarians had no trouble understanding what everyday actions were necessary: practising physical distancing, wearing a mask when doing so was a challenge and washing hands often and thoroughly.

Entering the second wave, we will do what we have from the start: rely on all Ontarians to do whats necessary to stop the spread of COVID-19, and implement the governments fall preparedness plan, Yelich said.

A stringency index developed by Oxford University rates countries on a scale of 0 to 100 over 17 government policy indicators, like school closures, gathering limits, economic support and testing and tracing, said Toby Phillips, a researcher with the Blavatnik School of Government who helped develop the index.

While there is no one policy that can combat the virus on its own, governments that acted quickly and decisively had better outcomes during the first wave and benefitted from a lower death rate, he said.

Phillips noted that federated countries such as Canada and the United States can have different measures between regions. In those cases, the stringency index reflects the strictest response within a country.

Canadas stringency rating is 60.65 out of 100 as of Oct. 4, the most recent day for which data is available. During April, in the midst of a national lockdown, the rating rose above 70 and stayed there until June, when provinces began rolling back some measures.

In Australia, where the state of Victoria re-entered a lockdown to combat rising case numbers, the stringency index has clearly followed the ebb of the virus, with measures becoming stricter as cases and deaths rose.

South Korea, a country that has had an aggressive response and has kept spread to a minimum, was able to alleviate some measures while keeping deaths low.

Canadas current rating is comparable to many other countries, but policy alone cant eradicate the virus, Phillips said.

At the end of the day, its not the policy that spreads the virus  its the peoples behaviour, and you try to influence their behaviour with the policy, he said.

Mohan, the Western University professor, points to the Ontario governments continued messaging around COVID-19 among young adults as an example of where things are coming up short. Its unfair to criticize them for their actions when policies can be confusing, he said.

Anyone whos under the age of 25 may have limited life experience and perspective, he said, continuing that some may look at the policies and say, Well, if banquet halls are allowed to be open, and schools are open, theoretically, I can go into (a bar).

If some demographics feel that theyre not part of the solution and are instead the problem then were sort of ... creating this environment that may not be the healthiest, and instead disenfranchising those the government needs to reach, he added.

Developing policies that can positively influence peoples behaviour can be tricky, as each country and their population is different, Phillips said. The things that are going to encourage that behaviour change in one place might not be the same things that work in a different country.

A costly policy is to yo-yo between completely open and completely shut down, he said, meaning that a better long-term strategy is to encourage behaviours that can be sustained over the next 12 to 18 months with the virus.

Theres room for nuance and variation between the different things that we measure, Phillips said. I think its actually in those levels of nuance and variation that a lot of the messaging and the behaviour change can happen.

Jenna Moon is a breaking news reporter for the Star and is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @_jennamoon
This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 1754 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.

747 soars past the competition as Katmais new Fat Bear Week champion Anchorage Daily News

Grapefruit Is One of the Weirdest Fruits on the Planet Atlas Obscura (Furzy Mouse).

Covid-19 downturn not as bad as feared; crisis not over: IMF chief Agence France Presse

Infighting, Busywork, Missed Warnings: How Uber Wasted $2.5 Billion on Self-Driving Cars The Information. NC early and right here as well.

Coronavirus: World leaders must urgently phase out factory farming to cut future pandemics risk, says report Independent

Memories of the Killing Floor  The Magic of East Texas BBQ David Metcalfe

#COVID19

China?

Southeast Asia Isnt Interested In Joining A New Cold War The American Conservative

Pandemic prompts drive-through pet blessing in Philippines Reuters

India

Syraqistan

The war in Artsakh Yasha Levine, Immigrants as a Weapon Kyrgyzstan on edge of chaos after opposition storms government buildings Reuters. Perhaps pertinent: London-listed miner Kaz Minerals KAZ.L said it had suspended production at its Bozymchak copper and gold mine and protesters showed up at smaller mines developed by Chinese and Turkish companies and demanded they halt operations, according to local news website Akipress. State-owned gold miner Kyrgyzaltyn said it had repelled an attempted attack on its office. Another group appeared to have broken into its gold refinery. Canadas Centerra Gold CG.TO, which operates the countrys biggest gold deposit, said its operations were continuing uninterrupted. Oh.

The Campaign to Kill the BDS Movement Against Israel Extends Far and Wide Jacobin

Brexit

UK/EU

What a Hancock-up: Excel spreadsheet blunder blamed after England under-reports 16,000 COVID-19 cases The Register. Giving me the opportunity to present Malcolm Tucker in classic form:

RussiaGate

Venezuela gold: Maduro government wins in UK appeals court BBC

Trump Transition

2020

On the Rule of Capital, Climate Crisis & the Rise of Fascism in the Pig Empire Nina Illingworth

Health Care

Assange

The Unprecedented and Illegal Campaign to Eliminate Julian Assange The Intercept

Our Famously Free Press

Facebook bans QAnon across its platforms NBC

Police State Watch

Gang-like deputy clique exerts undue influence at East L.A. station, report says Los Angeles Times. LA Confidential was a documentary?

Imperial Collapse Watch

Guillotine Watch

Class Warfare

How to Potty Train Your Cat: A Handy Manual by Charles Mingus Open Culture. From 2011, still germane.

Black Hole Scientists Win Nobel Prize in Physics Scientific American. Very on-brand for 2020.

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
It is incredibly shameful that the EU continues to negotiate EU membership with Turkey, former MEP Frank Engel wrote on his Facebook page.

Turkey is again actively fighting the Armenians. As if it was not enough that the country still refuses to recognize the genocide that its ancestors perpetrated against the Armenian people a century ago, Turkey now intends to repeat it, he said.

According to him, it is incredibly shameful that the EU continues to negotiate EU membership with Turkey and that Turkey remains a member of the Council of Europe.

We will have to continue to call Turkey a partner, because it remains a NATO member, he noted adding. However, the MEP added that it is impossible to partner with a country that threatens all of its neighbors, occupies a significant part of two of them - Cyprus and Syria - and exports jihadist mercenaries for the war that it will unleash.
Australian heartthrob Chris Hemsworth makes thousands across the world swoon.

And American actress Jurnee Smollett, 34, has explained that things were no different for her mother, Janet, who took a shining to the hunk when their paths crossed on The Ellen Degeneres Show four years ago.

In her second interview with the talk show host on Tuesday, the Lovecraft Country star recalled: 'I remember meeting him [Chris] because my mum was flirting with him'.

Scroll down for video

'She was flirting with him': American actress Jurnee Smollett, 34, has explained that her mother Janet took a shining to Chris Hemsworth when their paths crossed on The Ellen Degeneres Show four years ago

The Underground actress' outrage was evident as she continued: 'My mum was telling him that he's a tall drink of water!'

Ellen replied: 'Who doesn't flirt with Chris Hemwsorth? I flirt with Chris Hemsworth!'

The conversation about the attractive 37-year-old began when Jurnee explained she would soon be heading to Queensland, Australia, to film her new movie with Chris and Miles Teller.

The movie is called Spiderhead, a sci-fi drama about criminals undergoing emotion-altering drug testing.

Hunk status: Australian heartthrob Chris makes thousands across the world swoon

She's a fan! In her second interview with the talk show host on Tuesday, the Lovecraft Country star recalled that things were no different for her mother. She said: 'I remember meeting him [Chris] because my mum was flirting with him'

Flirtations: The Underground actress' outrage was evident as she continued: 'My mum was telling him that he's a tall drink of water!'

Spiderhead is believed to be part of Chris' four-movie deal with streaming service, Netflix, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Chris has already enjoyed massive success with his previous Netflix film, Extraction.

The 2020 blockbuster is one of Netflix's most-watched feature films, with more than 99million views on the streaming platform in the first four weeks.

Movie stars: The conversation about the attractive 37-year-old began when Jurnee explained she would soon be heading to Queensland, Australia, to film her new movie with Chris [pictured] and Miles Teller

Meanwhile, Jurnee also revealed that she was not looking forward to having to quarantine for two weeks when arriving in Australia.

She said: 'Australia does not play. When we land the army, the local police and I think another group of people will be greeting all of us, and taking us to a hotel that no one knows whether it's a good hotel or bad.

'Me and my son will be in one room for 14 days together unable to leave, they're gonna take our keys, and I need you to pray for me, because if I can survive this, there's nothing I can't do,' she added.
President Donald Trump's now-disbarred onetime lawyer is pledging to aid former Air Force language analyst and contractor Reality Winner with her case.

Winner's mother, Billie Winner-Davis, told Business Insider on Tuesday that Michael Cohen is attempting to get additional legal representation for her daughter, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to leaking classified National Security Agency information on Russia's alleged efforts to undermine the 2016 election to The Intercept website.

Read Next: Gen. Milley Apologizes After Joke About Rep. Adam Schiff Falls Flat

Winner, 28, was found guilty of violating the U.S. Espionage Act and sentenced to more than five years in prison. She is currently serving her sentence at the Federal Medical Center-Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.

Winner tested positive for COVID-19 over the summer, according to her family, and made an emergency appeal for compassionate release to serve her sentence at home amid an outbreak at the facility. The appeal was denied.

"I intend to do more than just speak out," Cohen wrote on Twitter in response to Winner-Davis' tweets regarding the story. "I have asked a world class attorney to visit me tomorrow so we might deep dive into the case and help the current team with the upcoming hearing."

Cohen, who himself pleaded guilty to numerous campaign violations and tax fraud, among other crimes, in 2018, began serving his sentence in May 2019 at the federal penitentiary in Otisville, New York. He has been under house arrest since July over coronavirus concerns, but was recently seen strolling through Central Park.

Cohen added, "I certainly know what that feels like. Working to do what I can to #FreeRealityWinner."

Jeffrey Levine, Cohen's attorney, exchanged emails with Military.com and said he would review the original Business Insider story. He did not return another email by press time.

Winner-Davis told Military.com via Twitter message that Cohen has asked another attorney to look at the case and for opportunities to help.

"His attorney was successful at arguing for compassionate release for [Cohen] and others and he wants to make sure every possible avenue is researched," she said. "He is also willing (and has already shown) to help spread awareness by speaking out in support of her in media and social media.

Winner, a cryptologic language analyst with the 94th Intelligence Squadron at Fort Meade, Maryland, separated from active duty in 2016 after serving for six years. In that time, the former senior airman received the Air Force Commendation Medal.

Following her separation, she was hired by Pluribus International Corporation under an NSA contract to work out of Fort Gordon, Georgia.

While working for the security firm, she printed a classified report detailing how Russian hackers allegedly "executed cyber espionage operations" on local election systems, according to ABC News. She mailed the documents to The Intercept and was arrested on June 3, 2017 -- two days ahead of the news outlet's publication of the information.

Prosecutors have said Winner's sentence is one of the longest ever imposed for a federal crime involving leaks to the media, according to The Associated Press.

Editor's Note: This story was updated to include comment from Billie Winner-Davis.

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

Related: Former Airman Reality Winner, Imprisoned for Leaking Government Secrets, Tests Positive for COVID-19
In a matter of hours Tuesday, President Donald Trump publicly announced an end to negotiations with House and Senate leaders on direct payments to help Americans hit by the economic impact of COVID-19 before publicly reopening negotiations with Democratic leaders again.

I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business, Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon.

He accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of not negotiating in good faith and asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to focus on confirming his Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

Then, Tuesday evening, the president took to Twitter again. He called for Congress to send him a bill featuring solely the stimulus checks, which Trump said he would support.

If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy? Trump tweeted, tagging McConnell, Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy? @MarkMeadows @senatemajldr @kevinomccarthy @SpeakerPelosi @SenSchumer  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020

In the first round of stimulus checks, individuals who made up to $75,000 received $1,200, with amounts reduced for Americans who earn up to $99,000. Married couples who file jointly and earn up to $150,000 received $2,400, with amounts reduced for those who earn up to $198,000. Adults with children under the age of 17 received $500 per child.

The majority of Americans qualified for the direct payments, the first round of which were distributed to Americans starting in the spring.

Approximately 130 million individuals received payments totaling more than $200 billion by mid-May, the IRS said.

The checks were part of the $2.2 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act hammered out by Republican and Democratic leaders and signed by Trump in late March. The bill was the third economic boost amid the crisis.

House Democrats unveiled a massive coronavirus stimulus package in May offering another round of direct payments to millions of Americans.

The Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act, or the ''HEROES Act," includes more than $3 trillion in aid for local and state government, hazard pay for health care workers, in addition to direct payments.

People across our nation are hurting, and Congress must take extraordinary, immediate action to provide them with relief, said Congressman Richard E. Neal in May. Families are feeling the pain of a terrible one-two punch  a national public health emergency coupled with a historic economic downturn. The gravity of our new reality demands substantial solutions, and thats what Ways and Means Democrats offer in this latest response package.

The HEROES Act passed in the House but failed to advance in the Republican-led Senate. Democratic lawmakers revised the stimulus bill this month, which now reflects $1.2 million in cuts to the initial measure.

The new bill includes $1,200 direct payments to the majority of Americans - with a notable difference. In addition to $1,200 payments to Americans who earn up to $75,000 and $2,400 for married couples who earn up to $150,000, who is considered a dependent has been expanded. Not only do taxpayers receive $500 per child 17 or younger, they also receive payments for adult dependents, in recognition of families with college students who rely on their parents for financial support.

The bill would also restore the $600 in federal unemployment benefits which ended during the summer.

Related Content:
More than half of U.S. states are using Cloudflare's election website security service, CEO Matthew Prince told CNBC's Jim Cramer on Tuesday.

Athenian Project offers local and state governments free enterprise products to defend election infrastructures, including voter data and election return information, from cyberattacks, a critical component in a fraught political environment.

The San Francisco-based cloud cybersecurity provider launched the initiative in the wake of the divisive 2016 election cycle.

"We've been able to thwart a number of attacks, but we see everything is going very smoothly," Prince said in a "Mad Money" interview. "Registrations are happening and we're doing everything we can to ensure that the election, which is coming up, will be free and fair and ... that cyber attacks will not be the lead story at the end of the day."

Cloudflare in January expanded free access to its online security tools to political campaigns, both domestic and foreign, to help fend off hackers looking to breach online election systems. The firm says its goals are to protect voter data and election integrity, keep websites running during peak traffic and preempt website defacement.

Two notable clients include the Trump and Biden campaigns. The November contest between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden is four weeks away, though some voters have already mailed in ballots or voted in person, as early voting programs in multiple states are underway.

"We provide services for both of the campaigns," said Prince, founder of Cloudflare. "We're not picking sides here at all, and we brief the campaigns as well as other government officials on what we're seeing in terms of cyberattacks."

The Department of Homeland Security found that nearly half of U.S. states had been targeted for cyberattacks during the 2016 election cycle, which was clouded by concerns of voter influence and misinformation campaigns on social media sites, designed to sow doubt about the U.S. election process. Many state and local governments are limited by what they can do, given tight resources and budgets.

Businesses use Cloudflare for its applications to fight distributed denial of service, or DDos, attacks that attempt to throw websites offline by sending malicious traffic their way. Hackers have reportedly doubled down on their efforts to breach Trump campaign and business sites.

"We have seen cyberattacks that are targeting the campaigns, but part of what we think is important is delivering our services ... inexpensively or, in some cases, free," Prince said.

Shares of Cloudflare slipped 1.47% in Tuesday's session to a $42.23 close. The stock is up 148% year to date.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will attend an administrative meeting in Jhargram district on Wednesday to review the ground reality ahead of the 2021 assembly polls.

There are 44 assembly seats in Jangalmahal including 12 seats in Bankura, nine in Purulia, 19 in West Midnapore and four in Jhargram including Gopiballavpur, Jhargram, Binpur and Nayagram.

Since the Covid-19 outbreak in March, this will be the Chief Ministers first crucial visit to Jangalmahal ahead of the polls. Apart from the administrative meetings, CM will also meet tribal leaders of Santhal and Kurmi in the districts to take stock of ground reality. Even though TMC has managed to tackle the Maoist problem in Jangalmahal, yet it has never been a favourable zone for the party.

Before her scheduled visit to Jhargram  which saw a huge saffron surge in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Mamata instructed her administrative officials at Kharagpur on Tuesday to ensure no one should be left out of government schemes.

Every year a lot of people die in elephant attacks in Bengal. The victims family members suffer a lot due to such incidents. We already have a compensation package of Rs 2.5 lakhs but today I would like to announce a job for one family member as a home-guard in the police department, Mamata said.

Not only this, but CM Mamata has also announced promotion of nearly 4,284 junior constables who fought the Maoists in Jangalmahal and completed five years of their job. We have also announced a compensation of Rs 4 lakhs and a job for one family member of those who are still missing and killed by the Maoists, she added.

Further alleging that the Centre is not giving any development funds, Mamata added, the Centre is not giving GST but still we are doing our best for the welfare of tribal people in Jangalmahal.

Meanwhile, the administrative officials have been asked to give special attention towards the Lodha and Sabar tribe to save them from the pandemic due to nutritional deficiencies among them.

Once a Maoist stronghold, Jangalmahals substantial vote bank of the Left Front has pushed the saffron brigade ahead of the ruling TMC in recent years. This helped the BJP to create history by securing 18 Lok Sabha seats (out of 42) in Bengal in 2019 general elections.

According to Election Commission statistics, even though BJP lost to TMC in 2014 Lok Sabha, the vote percentage of the saffron brigade has increased significantly to 20 per cent in the Jangalmahal districts. Similarly, in the 2018 Panchayat election, the BJP increased its vote share by 27 per cent in Jangalmahal districts as TMC suffered massive setbacks at Jhargram, Purulia and in Bankura.

However, in the last few months, TMC aggressively managed to regain its lost ground in refugee and tribal-dominated areas in Jangalmahal, while BJP is struggling in Bengal with Muslim votes and Centres decision to implement NRC.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 20:37:33|Editor: huaxia

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JERUSALEM, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Israel is finally moving through the last step of banning the fur trade inside the country, despite more than a decade of obstruction from the global fur industry against such unprecedented legislation.

The punishment for breaking the law will be a fine of up to 75,000 new shekels (22,047 U.S. dollars) or a year in prison.

On Sunday, Minister of Environmental Protection Gila Gamliel called on "all countries to join" Israel to "show benevolence and act kindly toward animals."

"The global fur industry causes the murder of hundreds of millions of animals worldwide, and involves indescribable cruelty and suffering. Utilizing the skin and fur of wildlife for the fashion industry is immoral," she said.

The Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection (MoEP) has said the proposed amendment to the government legislation is open until Oct. 25 for public comments, which will be reviewed before the implementation of the ban on the fur trade.

"Nowadays, there are many alternatives that are less harmful to animals and more environmentally friendly. We believe those alternatives should be chosen," said Gali Davidson, director of animal welfare department at MoEP.

Over the years, there has been intense international pressure to prevent Israel from passing the bill, Davidson noted.

Jane Halevy, founder of the International Anti-Fur Coalition (IAFC), told Xinhua that IAFC, in collaboration with members of the Israeli parliament (Knesset), began in 2009 to promote the idea of enacting a bill that will ban the sale of fur.

Ronit Tirosh, a former member of Knesset, favored Halevy's idea and made the first attempt to pass a bill against the fur trade, but all the efforts from 2009 until 2012 failed despite public support for banning fur trade in Israel.

"When we first introduced the bill to ban the fur trade in Israel, trappers of the fur industry from countries such as the United States threatened me, saying if IAFC did not stop promoting the bill, they would skin me alive as they do to animals," Halevy said.

After Tirosh's party lost the elections in 2013, Halevy continued to promote her idea of the anti-fur bill along with several other politicians. None of them had succeeded in passing the bill until the sudden announcement of Gamliel and MoEP on Sunday.

It is worth noting that several main cities in Ireland, Britain, the United States, Australia and Brazil also managed to pass similar laws banning the sale of fur with the help of IAFC.

"The goal is to continue the global ripple effect momentum of banning blood fashion from city to city, country to country and from the horrible fur farms to the luxury shops and everything in between too, and make the fur industry a shameful chapter in the history of humankind," said Mitzi Ocean, global coordinator of IAFC. Enditem
UK arrivals could complete self-isolate before coming to Britain or undergo a shortened quarantine and then be released if they pass a Covid test under plans being examined to try to spark life back into international travel.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said tonight that a 'Global Travel Taskforce' would build on work already underway to develop a practical alternative to the economically damaging 14-day isolation regime currently in place.

Among ideas it will look as are a shorter quarantine followed by a coronavirus test paid for privately by the passenger, which would end their isolation if it comes back negative.

But the Department for Transport said it would also look at 'alternative testing models, including pilots with partner countries to ascertain whether self-isolation could be undertaken pre-departure.'

However it did not give details of how this would work or how it would guard against people contracting the virus on their flight to Britain.

Airlines and airports welcomed the announcement this afternoon, but urged ministers to move swiftly to help an industry facing decimation by Covid-19 international movement restrictions.

In a statement, the chief executives of Easyjet, Heathrow, Manchester Airport and Virgin Atlantic, said: 'Today's announcement is a step in the right direction by the UK Government to restart the economy and protect thousands of jobs across the country.

'We support the decision to opt for a single test, private sector-led, passenger-funded approach, that does not impact on the NHS in any way.

'But travellers need a firm commitment that a comprehensive testing regime will be implemented in early November.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said tonight that a 'Global Travel Taskforce' would build on work already underway to develop a practical alternative to the economically damaging 14-day isolation regime currently in place

The Department for Transport said it would also look at 'alternative testing models, including pilots with partner countries to ascertain whether self-isolation could be undertaken pre-departure.'

World's first Covid passport technology trial on flights from Heathrow this week Coronavirus passport trials are taking place at Heathrow this week to test technology to let people travel the globe without risk of being quarantined. Passengers on United Airlines and Cathay Pacific are trying out an app called the CommonPass. The phone software is a digital health pass which can hold a certified COVID-19 test status or show someone has been vaccinated in future in a way designed to satisfy various governments' different regulations. It has been launched by non-profit trust Commons Project Foundation, part of the World Economic Forum, in the hope of it will end the days of flyers producing bits of paper, often in different languages. The tech is very much at the trial stage using volunteers on flights between London, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore under government observation. But it is seen as a longer-term measure to allow air travel to return to something like pre-coronavirus levels. However, it is reliant on Governments around the world accepting test results from 'certified' laboratories in other countries and allowing those with negative results to enter freely on their say-so. Dr Bradley Perkins, chief medical officer of The Commons Project, said: 'Without the ability to trust COVID-19 tests  and eventually vaccine records  across international borders, many countries will feel compelled to retain full travel bans and mandatory quarantines for as long as the pandemic persists. 'With trusted individual health data, countries can implement more nuanced health screening requirements for entry.' Advertisement

'A test on day five, which the Government's own conservative evidence said would be ''highly effective'' and which they're already doing in Germany, should be the starting point.

'We encourage the Government to take a lead in moving to pre-departure testing, as well as the approval of new testing technologies, as soon as possible.

'Without a rapid move to testing, the UK will fall even further behind our competitors and the economic recovery will fail to get off the ground.'

The aviation industry had hoped trials of new systems designed to cut travel quarantine times could begin as soon as tomorrow.

Boris Johnson is understood to have asked ministers and officials to conduct a 'rapid review' into the feasibility of using testing to ease restrictions on travellers.

Mr Shapps this afternoon said: 'The current measures at the border have saved lives. Our understanding of the science now means we can intensify efforts to develop options for a testing regime and help reinvigorate our world-leading travel sector.

'This new taskforce will not only help us move towards safer, smoother international travel as we continue to battle this virus but will also support global connectivity  helping facilitate more Covid-secure travel whilst protecting the population from imported cases.'

But shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon said: 'The Government is again incompetently slow to react. They've had months to set up a taskforce, months to look into airport testing and months to sort out the flaws of their quarantine proposals. Tory Ministers are in a mess and need to get their act together.

'It will take a long time to recover from the impact of the virus. The Government must come up with a comprehensive financial support package for the aviation sector and its supply chain which supports almost a quarter of a million jobs and protects the environment.'

Industry leaders are pushing for travellers to be tested at the airport and then re-tested a few days later in order to cut the current 14-day quarantine time which is crippling the sector and wrecking families' travel plans.

But a Government source said pressure on testing capacity meant ministers were likely to focus on a single-test solution, with travellers asked to quarantine for five or eight days before being tested.

They defended the controversial quarantine regime, saying as many as 10 per cent of new cases in the UK over the summer are thought to have been brought in from abroad.

The decision to launch a review will dismay the aviation industry, which has been campaigning for the change for months, and which has offered to trial its own systems.

Hopes for an airport testing breakthrough this week look set to be dashed after ministers decided to launch another review of the issue. The coronavirus testing facility at Heathrow is pictured above

Chaos as just 63 per cent of 16,000 virus carriers are traced The search for nearly 16,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus but were missed due to a computer glitch yesterday remained mired in confusion. Test and trace staff are still battling to catch up with the enormous backlog caused by officials opting to use an inadequate computer programme. Downing Street said 63 per cent of the positive cases had been contacted by 9.30am yesterday. But staff said there were still major problems with the system. One source added that a single household had been contacted 75 times over the weekend. Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted in the Commons he was unable to confirm how many people had been affected by the blunder. Labour asked how many of the estimated 48,000 contacts had now been traced, but Mr Hancock said the number would not be known until all those missed had been contacted. Meanwhile, charity boss Mark Adams told MPs and peers care home testing is stuck in the 'Dark Ages' with residents and staff waiting up to ten days for results. The All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus heard the testing system has 'gone backwards' since summer, putting thousands of residents at risk. Advertisement

It also comes as a blow to the Mail's Get Britain Flying campaign, launched last month to encourage the Prime Minister to lift the 'closed' sign hanging over the UK.

But a Government source last night insisted that the launch of the taskforce was a sign that ministers were finally taking the issue seriously.

'Everyone gets the importance of international travel to the economy and business, and to people's lives  that is why it is being looked at,' the source said.

'But we also have to recognise the constraints on testing capacity and come up with the most effective solution. That will take a little time.'

A Department for Transport spokesman insisted there was no delay over plans for airport testing, adding: 'As we've been clear, work is ongoing with clinicians and health experts on the practicalities of using testing to reduce the self-isolation period for international arrivals.'

The move comes amid growing Tory disquiet over the tough travel policy which requires people to quarantine for 14 days if arriving from a 'hotspot' country.

Italy, Sweden and Greece face possible restrictions later this week.

Meanwhile, a new study yesterday suggested that fewer than 1 per cent of air passengers test positive after seven days in quarantine.

Research commissioned by Air Canada and carried out by McMaster Health Labs and the University of Toronto, suggests a two-test regime could be a safe alternative.

Some 13,000 travellers arriving into Toronto Pearson International Airport were tested on arrival, and had a second swab after seven days in quarantine.

Fewer than 130 tested positive, with 80 per cent of cases picked up on arrival  suggesting a single-test could detect most cases.

The rest  a mere handful  were picked up seven days later.
Facebook said Tuesday that it will take down any pages linked to the QAnon movement, in a further bid to remove disinformation from its platform just weeks before the election.

Facebook updated a post it originally authored in August, when it said it would remove Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts tied to offline anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests, US-based militia organizations and QAnon. That came just days after Facebook declared it would not fact-check disinformation.

Now, Facebook says it will remove any and all pages representing the QAnon movement. (The update was noted earlier by Buzzfeed.) Its not clear whether posts from individuals not formally tied to the group will be affected.

Starting today, we will remove any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content, Facebook said. This is an update from the initial policy in August that removed Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts associated with QAnon when they discussed potential violence while imposing a series of restrictions to limit the reach of other Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts associated with the movement. Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts that represent an identified Militarized Social Movement are already prohibited. And we will continue to disable the profiles of admins who manage Pages and Groups removed for violating this policy, as we began doing in August.

Facebook said that it would begin enforcing the new policy immediately, but it would take time and would need to continue in the coming days and weeks.

Facebook said it now recognized that QAnons influence extended beyond just the potential for violence, and into different forms of real-world harm. Those included recent claims that the west coast wildfires were started by certain groups, which diverted attention of local officials from fighting the fires and protecting the public, Facebook added.

A report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) found that the number of users engaging in discussion of QAnon on Twitter and Facebook have surged this year, according to Reuters, with QAnon membership on Facebook growing by 120 percent in March. Reuters also reported that Etsy has blocked the sale of all QAnon-related merchandise on Etsy.
Purdue Pharma LP is nearing an agreement to plead guilty to criminal charges as part of a broader deal to resolve Justice Department probes into its alleged role in fueling the nation's opioid crisis, according to reports.

Lawyers for the OxyContin maker, which is controlled by members of the wealthy Sackler family, and federal prosecutors are brokering a plea deal that could be unveiled as soon as within the next two weeks.

It could include billions of dollars of financial penalties, sources told Reuters. They stressed that talks are fluid and that some of the terms could change as discussions continue.

Members of the Sackler family, many of whom previously served on Purdue's board and also face lawsuits, will avoid criminal charges in the looming settlement, the two people said. The current settlement under discussion does not resolve any future criminal liability the Sacklers or other individuals may face.

In addition to the criminal case, prosecutors are negotiating a settlement of civil claims also carrying a financial penalty that allege unlawful conduct in Purdue's handling of prescription painkillers, the sources told Reuters.

The Stamford, Connecticut-based company is expected to face penalties exceeding $8 billion. They consist of a roughly $3.54 billion criminal fine, $2 billion criminal forfeiture and $2.8 billion civil penalty, some of the people familiar with the negotiations said.

According to Reuters, they are unlikely to be paid in the near term as the criminal fine and civil penalty are expected to be considered alongside other claims in Purdue's bankruptcy proceedings and the company lacks necessary funds to fully repay all creditors.

At least 430,000 deaths in the U.S. since 2000 have been connected to overdoses from opioids, a category of drug that includes prescription pills such as Oxycontin and Vicodin along with illicit drugs such as heroin and illegally made fentanyl.

Lawsuits said the company, and in some cases the Sacklers, used deceptive marketing and took other improper steps to flood communities with prescription opioids. Oxycodone is the main ingredient in OxyContin, made by Purdue Pharma

Sackler family are prepared to pay out $3 billion to opioid crisis victims - but only if they face no criminal liability Purdue Pharma's wealthy Sackler family are set to keep their billions under a settlement with the Trump administration, according to reports. The company entered bankruptcy protection last year in an effort to settle thousands of lawsuits accusing it of helping spark an opioid addiction and overdose epidemic that has contributed to more than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. The lawsuits said the company, and in some cases the Sacklers, used deceptive marketing and took other improper steps to flood communities with prescription opioids. Oxycodone is the main ingredient in OxyContin, made by Purdue Pharma. Now The New Yorker reports the Sacklers, who own Purdue Pharma, are prepared to pay out $3 billion to opioid crisis victims - but only if they face no criminal liability. In court papers the family say they will make the payout if released from 'all potential federal liability arising from or related to opioid-related activities'. Bankruptcy judge Robert Drain has also suggested a release should bar other authorities from bringing suits against the Sacklers in the future, according to The New Yorker. He told the court in February the 'only way to get true peace, if the parties are prepared to support it and not fight it in a meaningful way, is to have a third-party release'. One attorney told The New Yorker: 'Criminal liability is not something that should be sold. It should not depend on how rich they are. It's not right.' Advertisement

The three brothers who founded the pharmaceutical empire  Arthur, Mortimer and Raymond  are all dead, but some of their descendants remain actively involved in the company.

Certain family members are also in discussions to pay a roughly $225 million civil penalty for allegedly causing false claims regarding Purdue's prescription painkillers to be filed with government healthcare programs, three people said. That would be on top of $3 billion the Sacklers have offered to settle other lawsuits.

The Justice Department is continuing a criminal probe of some Sackler family members and other individuals associated with Purdue, though it remains unclear whether charges will materialize, one person told Reuters.

The tentative agreement would draw a line under Purdue's criminal exposure for what prosecutors and state attorneys general have described as aggressive marketing of a highly-addictive painkiller that minimized the drug's potential for abuse and overdosing.

Over the years, Purdue reaped billions of dollars in profits from its opioids, enriching Sackler family members and funneling illegal kickbacks to doctors and pharmacies, federal prosecutors and state attorneys general have alleged. The company now faces thousands of lawsuits seeking damages to address a public health crisis that has ravaged U.S. communities.

Purdue said it is cooperating with the investigations and in discussions to resolve them, but declined further comment. Representatives of Sackler family members controlling Purdue had no immediate comment or did not immediately respond to a request for comment. They have denied allegations that they contributed to the opioid crisis.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said it does not generally comment on investigations or settlement discussions, but added that Reuters understanding of the situation 'contains inaccuracies and is highly misleading' without elaborating further.

The Justice Department is prepared to waive a large portion of its $2 billion forfeiture claim as long as Purdue meets certain conditions. The first is that Purdue steer significant financial sums for combating the opioid epidemic to U.S. communities suing it over the crisis, two people said. The other is that it receive court approval for a reorganization plan transforming it into a 'public benefit company' run on behalf of those communities and no longer controlled by the Sacklers.

The Purude Pharma headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut is pictured

Numbers of opioid overdose deaths have soared since OxyContin hit the market in 1996, from just 3,442 in 1999 to 17,029 in 2017, official figures show

Purdue, which filed for bankruptcy protection last year facing an onslaught of litigation, is in discussions to plead guilty to charges that include conspiracy, violations of an anti-kickback law and misbranding under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, two of the people said.

A plea agreement would require approval of Purdue's bankruptcy judge. One of the negotiated terms of Purdue's proposal to settle thousands of other opioid lawsuits is that it resolve the Justice Department probes.

Details of the Justice Department settlement, including when it will be unveiled and the financial penalties, also remain in flux.

They hinge in part on the outcome of separate negotiations among Purdue, the Sacklers, state attorneys general and others to resolve widespread litigation as part of mediation in the companys bankruptcy proceedings, individuals familiar with the talks said.

The middle Sackler brother Mortimer is pictured. After Arthur Sackler died in 1987, Mortimer and his younger brother Raymond bought his option of Purdue Pharma for $22.4 million

The youngest Sackler brother, Raymond, is pictured with his wife Beverly. Raymond was in control of Purdue Pharma after Arthur died, and in 1999, passed the reigns to his son Richard. The father-son duo were working at Purdue when the company began manufacturing OxyContin and using questionable advertising practices to promote it

Arthur Sackler, the eldest of the three brothers, held an option to purchase a portion of stock in Purdue Frederick while his younger brothers were active players in the new venture. When he died in 1987, the option was sold to Mortimer and Raymond

HOW IS OXYCONTIN IMPLICATED IN THE US OPIOID CRISIS? OxyContin is a prescription painkiller produced and sold by Purdue Pharma. The drug is strong, addictive and was linked to thousands of overdose deaths in 2017. Since OxyContin, a time-released opioid, was introduced in 1996, addiction and overdoses have surged. In both 2017 and 2018, opioids were involved in more than 47,000 deaths, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1999, by comparison, there were fewer than 4,000 opioid overdose deaths. Purdue's drugs are just a slice of the opioids prescribed, but critics assign a lot of the blame to the company because it developed both the drug and an aggressive marketing strategy. Advertisement

Some state attorneys general, including those in Massachusetts and New York, have demanded the Sacklers disclose additional details of their finances and pay more than the $3 billion they offered to settle lawsuits.

They are likely to scrutinize the size of the family's Justice Department penalty. The Sacklers are poised to receive a legal release should a bankruptcy judge approve a broader settlement, shielding them from future civil, though not criminal, claims.

Purdue's bankruptcy has shielded, through an injunction, the company and Sackler family members until at least March 2021 from thousands of lawsuits brought by states, cities, counties and others seeking to hold them responsible for allegedly flooding communities with opioid painkillers that contributed to widespread addiction and fatal overdoses. The company and family deny the allegations.

The Sacklers controlling Purdue themselves have not filed for bankruptcy.

That has drawn criticism from states arguing litigation against family members should proceed to hold them accountable for the opioid crisis.

The outcome of settlement talks among Purdue, its owners and litigants will help determine how much money U.S. communities receive to address the toll from opioids.

In earlier filings made as part of Purdue's bankruptcy case, federal prosecutors alleged the company at times paid doctors and pharmacies illegal kickbacks between 2010 and 2018 to encourage medically unnecessary opioid prescriptions, resulting in fraudulent claims to government healthcare programs, such as Medicare.

Purdue has offered to settle widespread litigation in a deal it values at more than $10 billion, much of it linked to drugs under development to treat addiction and combat overdoses.

One contentious aspect of the proposal is that some of the funds would come from continued OxyContin sales.
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"Mr Baldwin remains a fugitive. However, this will not prevent us from pursuing a confiscation order to recover the benefit a person has obtained from their criminality."

The confiscation order was made in Baldwins absence after he absconded from justice during his trial and conviction for money laundering in 2017. He was previously sentenced to a total of five years and eight months imprisonment for the offence as well as separate contempts of court which he admitted in 2015.

Operation Tabernula, one of the FCAs largest and most complex insider dealing investigations, found that Baldwin helped launder the proceeds of insider dealing through offshore companies and bank accounts.

Baldwin was a business partner of Andrew Hind who, along with Martyn Dodgson, was convicted of conspiracy to insider deal between November 2006 and March 2010. Dodgson sourced inside information from within the investment banks at which he worked and passed on this inside information to Hind who acted as a middle man.

To receive some of the proceeds from the conspiracy, Baldwin set up a company in Panama and opened a company bank account in Zurich in which he deposited 1.5 million from insider dealing in Scottish & Newcastle plc.

Baldwin later fled to Geneva, withdrawing the sterling equivalent of 114,000 in cash and liquidated assets worth more than 82,500.

An arrest warrant has been issued for Baldwin, who remains at large, to be brought before the Court.

Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said: "Money-launderers compound the harm caused by crime by helping to cover up the offence and the proceeds from it. Mr Baldwin remains a fugitive. However, this will not prevent us from pursuing a confiscation order to recover the benefit a person has obtained from their criminality."
A doctor in Limerick has lost his position as the chairperson of Shannondoc after he delivered a speech at an anti-lockdown rally, where he accused health officials of spreading fear.

Dr Pat Morrissey, who operates a clinic in Adare, said the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) is completely out of touch and should be scrapped.

He also described the body as megalomaniac bureaucrats".

The Limerick GP spoke at a protest organised by the Yellow Vest movement in Dublin last week, where he told protestors that Covid-19 is, for many, a mild illness.

He did, however, admit that for some people it can be quite serious.

Dr Morrissey also stated that he defied HSE guidelines by prescribing certain medications to patients.

In defiance of guidelines from the HSE, I use hydroxychloroquine, zinc, azithromycin, and vitamin D in combination in high-risk patients with Covid. HCQ [hydroxychloroquine] has been used for 70 years in treatment of malaria and autoimmune diseases," he said.

With the arrival of Covid, we were told all of a sudden that it was a dangerous drug.

"I didnt believe this, and did my own research. There is plenty of evidence for its effectiveness.

The doctor also admitted taking HCQ himself.

In his speech, Dr Morrissey said: Nphet believe your health is determined by a stupid swab result. This is meaningless data being used to subdue the people.

The lockdowns must stop. People miss the camaraderie of sport and the arts and music.

Its time to stop existing and to start living again. Ireland under Nphets fear-mongering propaganda is getting sicker by the day.

A spokesperson for Shannondoc confirmed that Dr Pat Morrissey is no longer its chairperson or a member of the board.

As a frontline healthcare service provider, Shannondoc fully supports and follows public health guidance," the spokesperson said.

"Shannondoc has put in place best-practice procedures and protocols in order to protect both patients and our staff from the coronavirus.

We wish to assure our patients that we will continue to uphold and implement these practices and the directives as issued by public health authorities.

"These directives have, and continue to offer the best protective environment for both patients and medical staff."

In a statement last night, the HSE said: "Hydroxychloroquine is not used as a treatment for Covid-19. It has been removed from clinical recommendations due to evidence indicating a lack of benefit in patients hospitalised with Covid-19.

"The most important action we can take is to protect ourselves and others from Covid-19.

"You can do this through regular hand-washing; practising good respiratory hygiene; keeping 2m between yourself and other people; avoiding touching your eyes, nose, or mouth; and by wearing a mask in indoor public spaces where indicated."
Proposed CMPD Reform

Diverting noise complaints and non-urgent 911 calls that report abandoned cars, illegal parking, larceny or property damage to non-law enforcement personnel. City officials did not specify which agency would begin to handle these calls instead of CMPD and officials have not said whether the work would continue to fall under the police departments organization.

Recruiting officers that reflect the demographics of the city and offering incentives to officers who live in the areas they patrol.

Partnering with a university or independent organization to evaluate the effectiveness of CMPDs youth programs.

Using a external consultant to analyze CMPDs civilian interactions and calls.

Spending $1 million from the citys budget to help Charlotte non-profits that address community violence.

(TNS)  Some 911 calls in Charlotte, N.C., would be diverted away from the police department under a broad plan for public safety reform approved Monday by City Council.The plan to shift certain responsibilities from police to mental health clinicians or non-law enforcement professionals comes as city leaders and many activists say they want to re-imagine the role of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police. Still others have said they want the police department defunded in light of police violence cases nationally.CMPD Police Chief Johnny Jennings said on Monday that transitioning more mental health calls to the crisis response team would address long-term problems in the community better than isolated officer interactions.911 calls that are deemed lower risk for violence  such as for treating individuals who are homeless or experiencing mental health crises  can be redirected to clinicians or social workers working alongside people with medical training. A specialized crisis response team from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department would still respond to higher-risk 911 calls, such as if a person has a weapon.During a Monday City Council meeting, members also agreed to a change that would allow trained civilians to respond to low priority 911 calls. These calls may include noise complaints or reports of property damage or illegal parking or reports of crimes where the caller says the suspect has already left the scene.City Manager Marcus Jones proposed the new model within a broader slate of recommendations to redistribute some resources throughout Charlotte. The Councils Budget and Effectiveness Committee is also considering equipping officers with iPads as they interact with residents in emotional distress. Proponents of that change say it would help police officers connect people with trained mental health clinicians and social services while also reducing the frequency of officers taking people to emergency rooms for mental or emotional health crisis.Public safety discussions gained traction in July, following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd and a protest incident in uptown Charlotte where officers deployed chemical agents after cornering largely peaceful demonstrators.At an Oct. 26 meeting, the City Council will vote on a more comprehensive plan to reimagine CMPD, based on feedback from elected officials, a community input group and CMPD. Residents can comment on the plan that night, though Council member Larken Egleston said it would be helpful to launch a survey so the community understands the changes were implementing.Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles thanked the community input group for bringing reality to new CMPD policies and changes.They were very thoughtful. It was very informative, but not only that, influential, Lyles said.Mondays meeting also laid out reform items that will require legislative change from the North Carolina General Assembly, including giving the Citizen Review Board subpoena power, which Jennings said he supports.Council members also signaled support for new strategies to recruit officers who reflect diversity in Charlottes population and for evaluating and support existing youth programs and non-profits which target violence.The changes to policing and emergency service calls discussed Monday include:Jennings said that while officers have have isolated interactions with people who need help, the crisis response team can have continual interactions with people who call 911 for mental health issues.It means there will be a group or entity that can handle it in long-term so we dont have the same issue recurring, Jennings said.The plans to outsource calls to trained civilians could save Charlotte money. CMPD officers spent around 66,000 hours or $3.4 million a year on these low priority calls, according to city data released last week. It would take around 59 civilians to cover these calls, according to city documents. And the plan would slightly reduce the number of future CMPD hires.And while an officer makes almost $107,000 on average with benefits, a county clinician earns $80,000 and a community service technician earns $57,000, city documents show.Charlotte is also poised to launch two violence interrupter pilot programs this fall, Jones said.The hospital-based interrupter model with Atrium Health, designed to help victims seeks professional counseling and support, is moments away from being finalized, Jones said.A street outreach program  already implemented in cities across the country, including Durham, Greensboro, Milwaukee, Chicago and New York  is still being studied here. Thats in coordination with Cure Violence, which trains and pays trusted members of a community to help deescalate situations and prevent retaliation.Individuals interested in providing a public comment on the recommendations at the Oct. 26 City Council meeting can sign up at the clerks office to speak.
Television | TV Channels

Uday Shankar steps down from Disney Star India This is big in the world of media and entertainment. The professional who helmed Star India for the past 11 years and saw it through with its merger with Disney  Uday Shankar- has decided to step down. Read More...

iWorld | Gaming

The world of Indian e-sports, according to Nodwin Gaming's Akshat Rathee Perhaps because people have been stuck in their homes due to the Covid2019 pandemic, the e-sports industry is bigger and bolder than ever before. For many gaming platforms, user engagement was at an all-time high during the lockdown and even now, the revenues are continuing to pour in. Read More...

iWorld | Gaming

Game on: Finding balance between user experience and security A few years ago, online gaming was regarded as a mere recreational activity in India. With the digital ecosystem reaching a new pinnacle, the gaming industry has observed rapid expansion in terms of users as well as investment. Read More...

iWorld | Gaming

GEMS | Monetisation, improved experiences required to level-up e-gaming in India: Dhaval Ponda Gaming and e-sports is swiftly going mainstream in India and for the industry, it's only onward and upwards from here. PUBG ban not withstanding, the sector is giving stiff competition to major sporting events while simultaneously attracting broadcasters, aggregators, players, and viewers  all the markers of a robust ecosystem of growth and success. Read More...
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted bail to actress Rhea Chakraborty but rejected the bail plea of her brother Showik in connection with a drug case related to the death of actor

A single-judge bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal also rejected the bail pleas of alleged drug peddler Abdul Basit Parihar and granted bail to Rhea's associate Samuel Miranda and Rajput's personal staff Dipesh Sawant. They were all arrested by the (NCB) in the case.

The bench granted bail to Rhea on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh.

"Rhea should mark her presence for 10 days in the police station after release, deposit her passport, not travel abroad without court permission and inform the investigating officer if she has to leave Greater Mumbai," the bench said.

Notably, a special (Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances) court in Mumbai had yesterday extended till October 20 the judicial custody of Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik and others.

The NCB had launched an investigation after it received official communication from Enforcement Directorate (ED), in which there were various chats related to drug consumption, procurement, usage and transportation in connection with Rajput's death case.

The ED had on July 31 registered an Enforcement Case Information Report in the late actor's death case after a First Information Report was filed by Rajput's father KK Singh against Rhea Chakraborty in Bihar on July 28.

Rajput was found dead at his Mumbai residence on June 14.

(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.)
Thousands of revellers have shown up in droves to dance at Darwin's Rebound Festival.

Saturday's event at Darwin Ski Club was one of the first post-coronavirus festivals held since the pandemic took hold in March.

About 3,500 people were seen moshing with no social distancing to a host of Australia's biggest artists playing their first show in months including Lime Cordiale, Illy and Hermitude.

Thousands of revellers flocked to the Rebound Festival on Saturday in Darwin. Pictured: four girls pose in the crowd

The festival date was rescheduled from July amid COVID, which forced the lineup to change and sent event organisers on the hard task of co-ordinating travel plans for artists.

Melbourne based hip hop star Illy was forced to spend two weeks in quarantine to be able to play at the festival.

'I got to do this for the first time in seven months, which is the longest time apart in 800 or so shows,' he posted on Instagram. 'It was a dream, I'm still buzzing.

'Last night was just the best because live shows really cut through the s**t.

Artists on the bill including hip hop star Illy (pictured) played their first live show in months at the festival

Sydney's northern beaches band Lime Cordiale took to Instagram (pictured) to rave about their experience at Rebound

'I wish all my friends in music were on the bill and the festival ran for 50 days, so we all got a set.'

His sentiment was backed by alt-rockers Lime Cordiale, who took to Instagram to rave about their experience.

'A little surreal escape to a land, free of corona where people hug, kiss, mosh, drink from the same beer, crowd kebab shops and love to chat about crocs,' the band posted.

Numerous large scale events across the country have been cancelled or forced to reschedule amid restrictions on large gatherings from coronavirus.

Interstate revellers from South Australia and West Australia travelled to Darwin to join the party for a full festival experience.

Event organisers encouraged hand hygiene, but there were no restrictions on crowds and dancing. Pictured: three girls enjoy a drink at Rebound

The event was one of the first large scale festivals held in Australia since COVID-19 pandemic

Event organisers encouraged punters to practice hand hygiene, but there were no restrictions on crowds and dancing.

Pop artist Bec Sandridge travelled to the event from the NSW south coast and said the gig gave her hope for festivals and events moving into the future.

'My drummer and I flew up from Thirroul, which is super quiet as it is, so seeing 3,5000 people, not socially distanced and at a gig was pretty bonkers and intense. I guess I somewhat felt hopeful and nostalgic simultaneously,' she told ABC.

ABC Darwin's Mikaela Simpson said the event proved live music events will be able to return at the same sweaty standards as before coronavirus took hold.

'It was absolutely epic, just to have so many punters all together in one space; not just there for the music, but for the social aspect of being around other people,' she said.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has admitted she's 'concerned' that some New South Wales trains may be linked to Uyghur slave labour at the direction of the Chinese government.

The state contracted ASX-listed company Downer and the Chinese state-owned enterprise China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation to manufacture and deliver NSW's double-deck Waratah trains.

But a report recently found the CRRC Group are among 82 companies benefiting from the use of Uyghur labour - China's repressed Muslim minority who are imprisoned in 're-education camps' and forced to work.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian (picture with Transport Minister Andrew Constance in 2018) has admitted she's 'concerned' that some trains may have been built by Uyghur slave labour

China's brutal 're-education camps' are being used to repress the ethnic minority (pictured, detainees in a Xinjiang camp are pictured)

'Obviously we're concerned with that and if there's anything further we need to do I'm sure Transport for NSW will take that action,' Ms Berejiklian said on Wednesday.

The original contract for the Waratah trains was signed back in 2006 for $3.6billion under a Labor government.

But the order did not go entirely to plan as the first locomotive, due in 2009, didn't show up until 2011, and $550million over budget.

Despite the blunder, the Baird government snapped up an option to buy an additional 24 trains at a cost of $1.7billion in 2016.

'Sensitive' documents uncovered by the Sydney Morning Herald under freedom of information laws revealed two senior executives from Transport for NSW travelled to the CRRC plant in Changchun in China at 'regular intervals' on June 2017, October-November 2017 and February 2018.

Officials have not returned to China since the final trip in 2018.

But NSW are not the only state caught up in the Uyghur scandal.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and NSW Minister for Transport Andrew Constance are pictured riding a new Waratah Series 2 train in Sydney in 2018 (pictured)

The Baird government snapped up an option to buy an additional 24 trains at a cost of $1.7 billion in 2016 (pictured, the Chinese-built Waratah train)

Victoria enlisted Changchun Railway Vehicles - another one of the CRRC Group's more than 40 subsidiaries - to build 65 new high-capacity metro trains in 2016, just a week before Premier Daniel Andrews travelled to China.

Mr Andrews then went on to strike a deal with the communist country under the Belt and Road Initiative, which allows China to invest in huge infrastructure projects around the world.

The US Defence Department has identified the CRRC Group as a potential cyber-security and blacklisted it from having any involvement in America critical infrastructure.

Victoria's train program is more than 18 months behind schedule after CRRC was chosen ahead of local manufacturers.

Mr Andrews is pictured with Chinese Ambassador Cheng Jingye (pictured). He has been criticised for signing up to the country's Belt and Road Initiative

But Mr Andrews denied China's Muslim minority are being used to work on the project.

'We don't agree with everything that is done in every country around the world but ultimately we are about getting things done,' Mr Andrews told The Age.

'We have sought assurances that it is not an accurate statement in relation to the work we have contracted them to do and have received those assurances.

'We have made our views and preferences and what we want to see happen well-known and have received assurances to that end.'

Daniel Andrews (pictured in China's Tiananmen Square) signed a deal with China under the country's controversial Belt and Road Initiative in October 2018

NSW contractor Downer said had carried out their own investigation earlier this year and found there was no evidence to support the claims Uyghur labour was being used.

'Downer is unaware of any evidence that substantiates the allegations,' a spokesman said.

'Downer continues to work with CRRC to ensure appropriate measures are in place and ongoing to ensure the integrity of CRRC's supply chain.'

Last month, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute identified more than 380 sites in the restive north-western province of Xinjiang which are being used to detain hundreds of thousands of Western China's Uyghur population.

Among the most disturbing aspects of the vast prison network is that factories are located alongside the camps, suggesting detainees are being used as forced labour.

This email obtained by ASPI appears to show the Chinese government brokering a deal for forced labor

'Available evidence suggests that many extrajudicial detainees in Xinjiang's vast re-education network are now being formally charged and locked up in higher security facilities, including newly built or expanded prisons, or sent to walled factory compounds for forced labour assignments,' ASPI states in its Xinjiang Data Project.

The report also uncovered that the Chinese government had facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities from the vast far west region to factories across the country.

'Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen,' the report said.

A crackdown on the authoritarian regime's Muslim population significantly expanded since 2017, following a series of terror attacks in the Special Administrative Region.

China's communist party first denied the existence of re-education camps being used to repress the ethnic minority and stamp out their religious view.

But in the face of growing evidence that Uyghurs are being subjected to mass surveillance, arbitrary detention, forced indoctrination, unfair trials and torture, the Chinese government has been forced to admit their existence.

The picture taken on June 18 shows Uyghur workers at a garment factory in Xinjiang's Aketao county
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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to give an urgent hearing on a plea seeking direction for framing of a policy to promote and propagate the national anthem, national flag and national song.

A bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar declined the prayer for urgent hearing.

Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, who mentioned the matter before the bench, urged that the plea be tagged with the matter pending with the apex court and scheduled for hearing on February 14.

The apex court had on November 30 last year ordered cinema halls across the nation to mandatorily play the National Anthem before screening of a movie and the audience must stand and show respect.

A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy had observed that the time has come when citizens must realise they live in a nation and are duty-bound to show respect to National Anthem which is a symbol of constitutional patriotism and inherent national quality.

It had said that love and respect for the motherland is reflected when one shows respect to the National Anthem as well as to the National Flag.

The court had barred printing of the anthem or part of it on any object and displaying it in such a manner at places which may be disgraceful to its status and tantamount to disrespect. It had also barred playing or displaying an abridged version of the anthem.

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The Supreme Court (SC) has qualified the right to protest, and said that while dissent and democracy go hand-in-hand, protests in public places for an indefinite period of time are unacceptable. A three-judge bench has also said that authorities must ensure the removal of the occupation of public places, and that they must not hide behind court orders. The order comes in response to a petition on the Shaheen Bagh protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA. The SC was, in effect, dealing with the tension between the right to protest of a set of citizens and the right to mobility and convenience of other citizens and has come up with a formulation which respects protests, but within limits.

This newspaper was critical of CAA, and recognised the symbolic importance of Shaheen Bagh  of peaceful dissenters, primarily Muslim women, who had the support and solidarity of a range of other groups, critiquing a law with the language of constitutionalism and secularism. But it was also critical of the blocking of roads, for the Shaheen Bagh protests  and a range of similar protests elsewhere  caused disruption and inconvenience for citizens. This also ended up deepening the communal divide. And what some saw as an effort to replicate Shaheen Bagh became the immediate trigger for the Delhi riots. All of this suggests that Indian democracy is best served when citizens freely express their views, mobilise and protest, but do so without undermining the rights of fellow-citizens. This will help keep the trust between differing constituencies and enhance the legitimacy of dissent.
The Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD, Mr. Joseph Boahen Aidoo has directed the Flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama to apply for the cocoa road audit reports if he needs it.



According to him, the report of the audit conducted on the construction of cocoa roads in some parts of the country cannot be made public as it is meant to assist the management of the projects.



Mr. Joseph Boahen Aidoo stressed that individuals including the former President who has an interest in the cocoa roads audit reports must go through the required application process to access the reports.



Nobody is hiding anything from anybody with respect to this report, why do we have to publish it? This was COCOBODs operation, it was intended for an administrative purpose, If you need it, you just have to apply for it, he said.



Speaking in an interview with JoyNews, he maintained that the Mahama administration did not give Ghanaians value for money in awarding of those contracts as the cost of the road projects was inflated.



He, however, indicated that through the cocoa roads audit that was done, COCOBOD has been able to save hundreds of millions.



Former President John Mahama challenged the government to publish the audit report of cocoa roads which accused him of awarding over 229 road contracts to the tune of 3.5 billion under the cocoa roads project to the detriment of COCOBODs finances.



The New Patriotic Party (NPP), therefore, halted the construction of the cocoa roads across the country in 2017 over allegation of inflated cost among other wrongdoings.



The flagbearer of the NDC, John Mahama has dared the government to produce the said report adding that the government deliberately started reconstructing the roads a few months to the election for political gains.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Express News Service

HYDERABAD: The Central government on Tuesday firmed up its stand on issues of irrigation concerning the sibling States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Even though there was no consensus at the Apex Council meeting, the Centre decided to notify the jurisdiction of the projects, which will ultimately invest Godavari River Management Board (GRMB) and Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) with power to take control over the irrigation projects. The Centre also made it clear that the projects for which water has not been allocated by the Tribunals would be treated as new projects.

Thus, the Rayalaseema LIS in AP and Palamuru- Rangareddy LIS in Telangana on Krishna and also Kaleshwaram LIS in TS will be construed as new projects. Meanwhile, the Telangana government agreed to withdraw the case in Supreme Court on Krishna waters, enabling the Centre to move forward on referring the water sharing issues either to a new Tribunal or the existing Brijesh Kumar Tribunal under Inter- State River Water Disputes Act (ISRWD), 1956. However, the Centre felt that it is possible to make more new projects functional once the Krishna water is reallocated among projects. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao participated in the meeting through video- conference from Hyderabad and his Andhra Pradesh counterpart YS Jagan Mohan Reddy participated from Delhi.

The Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who chaired the Apex Council meeting, later briefed the media in Delhi that though the Telangana CM requested for inclusion of the contents of his letter to the Jal Shakti Minister in the agenda of the Apex Council, the meeting deliberated only four agenda points, which were decided earlier.

Jurisdiction

The Apex Council discussed the jurisdiction of both GRMB and KRMB. While Telangana CM wanted to wait till the existing Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT) decides on Krishna water allocations between AP and TS, the AP CM said it was okay to notify the jurisdiction of the projects. As there was no consensus in the meeting, we have decided to notify the jurisdiction so that Boards can regulate water releases, Shekhawat said.

Submission of DPRs

The Jal Shakti Minister wanted both the States to submit detailed project reports (DPRs) of new projects taken up by them. However, both AP and TS claimed that the projects taken up by them were not new. Yet, they agreed to submit the reports. As there were claims and counter claims by both AP and TS on new projects, the Centre finally took the lead and decided that all the projects that have water allocation from KWDT-1 can be deemed as old projects. Also, those projects mentioned in the Schedule IX of the AP Reorganisation Act (APRA), 2014 also to be considered as old projects, but any of them if they do not have water allocations by Tribunals, then States need to get water allocated to these by KWDT-2, which is presently hearing the matter.

For all the above old projects, which do not have water allocations from the Tribunals or have changed in some scope after the bifurcation of the State, both the States should submit their DPRs to the Boards for technical clearance. Rest of the projects not coming under the above two categories are to be deemed as new projects and their DPRs have to be submitted to the Boards, the meeting decided.

We have made our stand clear that unless the DPRs of these new projects get technically cleared from the respective Boards, both the States cannot take up these projects, the Union Minister said. He, however, did not name the new projects.

Mechanism for sharing

The Apex Council also deliberated on establishing a mechanism for determining the share of Krishna and Godavari waters between the two States. The Union Minister proposed that both the States as well as the Centre have limited role in this as the water allocations are done by the Tribunals. In the case of Krishna waters, allocations done by KWDT-1 are in force today. KWDT-2 is presently hearing the matter of water allocations between both the States and once its award is published that will come into force. In case of Godavari waters, GWDT has not given any en bloc allocations of Godavari river waters to the States. The en bloc and project-wise allocation of waters is needed for appraisal of DPRs of the projects, according to the Centre. Since both the States complained against each other, the Centre proposed to either decided Godavari water sharing between AP and TS by mutual agreement or to constitute a new Tribunal for the same.

Centres view

Though, it was not in the agenda, the Centre expressed its views on Krishna waters. Krishna basin has many projects but has limited water. We have to really work on improving the efficiency of the existing projects, so water reallocation is possible to make more new projects functional. In Godavari basin, we need to ensure that all the available water is properly utilised with completing all approved projects first before planning on new projects, the Centre proposed. The Centre also felt that there was an option of interlinking Godavari with Krishna (up to Cauvery), so that the areas which are deficit in water resources could also be taken care of.

KRMB office to be shifted

The Union Minister said that the Apex Council meeting also decided to shift the KRMB office from Hyderabad to Andhra Pradesh.

Telangana to withdraw case

With regard to Telanganas request of referring the water allocation issue to a new Tribunal or to KWDT-2, the Union Minister said that they cannot do it now as there was a case in the Supreme Court and it would become sub judice. Then, Telangana CM agreed to withdraw the case in the Supreme Court against Krishna water sharing, enabling the Centre to take a decision, the Union Minister said.

CMs of Both Telugu States cheating people: Bandi Sanjay

BJP State president and Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar alleged that the Apex Council meeting has proved that both Telugu State Chief Ministers K Chandrasekhar Rao and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy have a secret understanding and their only agenda is to hoodwink the general public. Addressing a press conference through video conference on Tuesday, Sanjay Kumar said that Telangana should be getting 575 tmc water form Krishna, but the CM KCR accepted the proposal for 299 tmc water share. He criticised Rao saying that the CM failed to present strong arguments on behalf of the people of Telangana in the Apex Council meeting. Sanjay alleged that both the CMs have once again proved that they were looting the people in the name of irrigation projects. He found fault with both the CMs for not submitting the DPRs about ongoing projects in their respective States.
DEPUTY Chief Magistrate Mrs Bianca Makwande yesterday expressed concern over the States delays in providing former Mines and Mining Development Secretary Francis Gudyanga with a trial date, more than two years after his arrest on criminal abuse of office charges involving $1 629 500.

Mrs Makwande noted that Gudyanga has been attending court since August 2018 and remanding him without bringing him to trial was not in the interest of justice. This is a matter which has been coming to court since August 2018, she said.

Today you are telling us of an outstanding statement. Do you think this is still in the interest of justice?

State counsel Mr Taddy Kamuriwo had asked for deferment of the matter to November 13, saying there was a crucial witness statement that the prosecution wanted to obtain.

Mr Kamuriwo said progress was being stalled by the complexity of the process to be followed in obtaining the statement.

We hope to obtain the statement and furnish the accused with the trial on November 13, he said.

This is considering the complexity of the protocol to be followed in getting the statement. The process has already started and we hope by the 13th of November it would have been completed.

Mr Kamuriwo told the court that the docket was now with the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission after the Special Anti-Corruption Unit had dealt with it.

Mrs Makwande urged the State to speed up the process before remanding Gudyanga to November 13 for him to be furnished with a trial date.

The State alleges that from September 2014 to December 2015, Gudyanga, who was acting permanent secretary, ordered Minerals and Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe to pay US$1 629 500 to Glammer (Private) Limited through a company called Pedstock Investments, as Glammer was a foreign company.

He also allegedly lied that the money was to be accounted for as part of the dividends due to Government as the shareholder.

MMCZ released the money to Pedstock Investments, but it was allegedly later discovered that the money had nothing to do with MMCZ and it was not being paid to the Government, but instead was used in a fraudulent arrangement Gudyanga had allegedly made. Herald
Steam rises from the cooling towers of the Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant at night near Grafenrheinfeld, Germany, on June 11, 2015. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

US, Russia Sign Agreement to Cut Americas Reliance on Russian Uranium

The U.S. Department of Commerce and Russias state atomic agency have signed an amendment extending a 1992 agreement that will reduce Americas reliance on Russian uranium.

The Commerce Department announced in an Oct. 6 press release that the two sides have sealed the deal.

This landmark agreement will contribute to the revitalization of American nuclear industry, while promoting Americas long-term strategic interests, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in a statement. It represents yet another success for the Trump Administrations America First approach to international trade agreements.

The amendment extends the Agreement Suspending the Antidumping Investigation on Uranium from the Russian Federation to 2040 and so reduces U.S. reliance on uranium from Russia for the next 20 years.

Earlier in September, the Commerce Department announced that the amendment had been initialed by the two sides and released for public comment. In the Oct. 6 release, it noted that the final version of the amendment is unchanged from the draft.

Under the 1992 agreement, which saw a series of amendments added over the years, with the latest in 2008, the amount of Russian uranium entering the American market is restricted by quotas. The most recently agreed upon limits were due to lapse this year, prompting moves to renew the deal via an amendment.

The agreement would see Russian uranium exports to the United States drop from the current approximately 20 percent of U.S. enrichment demand to an average of around 17 percent over the next two decades, before falling to a target of 15 percent starting in 2028.

By extending and reducing the Agreements export limits, the draft amendment would enable the U.S. commercial enrichment industry to compete on fair terms, the Commerce Department stated.

Then-Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency Director Sergey Kiriyenko (L) and then-U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez (R) confer during the signing of a uranium export agreement near Washington on Feb. 1, 2008. (Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images)

The amendment also establishes more protections for U.S. uranium miners and the U.S. uranium converter. Currently, Russia can use all of its export quota to sell not just the enrichment portion of low-enriched uranium, but also natural uranium concentrates and conversion components. The amendment caps the uranium components at around 7 percent of U.S. enrichment demand until 2026, at which point it would drop to just 5 percent.

Another measure includes preventing so-called returned feed uranium to be traded outside the current export quotas. This is natural uranium delivered by U.S. customers to Russian exporters, which is enriched in Western Europe and exported to the United States outside the agreements current export limits. The amendment subjects this type of returned feed uranium to export restrictions.

In May, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators urged the Commerce Department to extend the uranium agreement, calling for the agency to to reduce imports of Russian uranium, protect Americas energy and national security interests, and to limit Russias ability to manipulate Americas uranium markets.

In a letter (pdf), the senators called for a reduction of imports of Russian uranium to below existing limits, which they said would protect Americas natural uranium fuel supply chain from aggressive and illegal trade practices of nuclear state-owned enterprises of foreign adversaries.

In 2019, President Donald Trump created the Nuclear Fuel Working Group (NFWG) to recommend actions to strengthen Americas nuclear fuel supply chain. On April 23, the Department of Energy published a report (pdf) that documents Russias approach to the U.S. nuclear sector and concludes that Russia has weaponized its energy supplies and that its efforts to dominate Americas nuclear fuel cycle pose a serious threat to national security.
ANNVILLE, Pa.  Entering Teds Bar and Grill on Monday, Tim Girvin briefly slid on a Trump 2020" face mask before whisking it off to join friends for lunch.

He said those few seconds were the only time he wore a mask all day.

I have my own business and I dont have anybody wear a mask in my business, Mr. Girvin, a used-car dealer, said. I dont buy into it.

On the day that President Trump left the hospital and returned to a White House that is Washingtons most contagious hot spot, ripping off his own mask for the cameras, backers of the president in rural Pennsylvania showed signs of following his lead in questioning, and defying, advice from public health experts.

Mr. Trumps failure to protect his family and inner circle from the virus was not seen as a reflection of his inability to protect Americans, as the death toll passed 210,000, the most of any country.
A businessman linked to notorious criminals has handed over almost 10m in assets in a landmark McMafia case.

Mansoor Mahmood Hussain surrendered 9,802,828 in property, land, cash and other assets in a legal first at the conclusion of an unexplained wealth order probe.

The 40-year-old was pursued by the National Crime Agency (NCA) after he cropped up on their radar during an investigation into organised crime in Leeds.

He initially appeared to be a successful businessman with no previous convictions, who shared images of his luxury lifestyle on social media, including photos of himself posing with Meghan Markle, Beyonce, Sir Philip Green and Simon Cowell.

But investigators soon began to suspect he could be a money launderer with links to people in the drugs trade.

The NCA claimed Mr Hussain, who also goes by the nickname Manni, was associated with convicted murderer Mohammed Nisar Khan, who is currently serving 26 years in jail.

He also allegedly allowed convicted armed robber Dennis Slade to stay rent free in his seven-bedroom house in Sandmoor Drive, Leeds, as well as his city centre penthouse apartment following his release from prison.

Convicted fraudster Stephen Farman has also managed Mr Hussains accounts for the last 15 years, according to investigators.

The NCA decided to pursue Mr Hussain in the civil courts, rather than the criminal courts, due to the difficulty of tracing his "seed funding" for the purchase of his properties, which date back to 2002.

While the agency suspects Mr Hussain of money laundering, this has not been proven.

Investigators instead obtained an unexplained wealth order from the High Court in July 2019, requiring Mr Hussain to provide evidence about where the money came from for eight of his properties.

He submitted 127 lever arch folders and a 76-page statement as evidence  but inadvertently gave NCA investigators clues to make a bigger case against him.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures 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 UK news in pictures 2 December 2021 Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum Getty

A settlement between Mr Hussain and the NCA was agreed, and he gave up the "vast majority" of his assets, including properties in London, Leeds and Cheshire, 583,950 in cash and four parcels of land.

The businessman is now left with four properties, which are said to be "highly mortgaged", and the settlement does not prevent further criminal action against him if other offences are discovered, according to Andy Lewis, the NCAs head of civil recovery.

He said: "Mansoor Hussain thought he had hidden the criminality associated with the source of his property empire, but he didn't count on our tenacity.

"Far from taking his UWO response at face value, we studied what he had and hadn't divulged. We could then use that information to look far enough back to uncover the hidden skeletons in his financial closet.

"We showed him the evidence and he decided to come to a settlement with us. He has agreed those assets were acquired through unlawful conduct."

Mr Lewis added: "Clearly, with High Court trials we can't be certain of the results, and it would save an awful lot of taxpayers money if we could settle early, rather than having to continue through a large investigation that was likely to take several years to come to fruition.

UWOs allow investigators to look into the source of wealth of public figures at risk of bribery, or those suspected of links to serious organised crime.

The new power came into force in January 2018 under so-called McMafia laws, named after the BBC organised crime drama and the book which inspired it.

There is no suggestion any of the celebrities he was pictured with had knowledge of his alleged associations.

Additional reporting by PA
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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 15:50:34|Editor: huaxia

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A Chinese charity is lending a helping hand to vulnerable households in Ethiopia, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. African leaders, policymakers and scholars said the continent is leveraging on robust cooperation with China to acquire capital, skills, technology and best practices required to back the war against deprivation. According to the African Union, the COVID-19 crisis has increased poverty with the African Development Bank estimating that COVID-19 pandemic will push between 28.2 million and 49.2 million more Africans into extreme poverty.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has broken down in a coughing fit while hitting the circuit of morning television interviews to sell the new Federal Budget.

During his live interview on Sky News on Wednesday he was forced to repeatedly cough into his elbow and take sips of water.

The prime minister began noticeably wheezing while discussing the budget with Sky News anchor Kieran Gilbert.

'This important plan for our recovery and for rebuilding the economy,' he said, coughing.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison (pictured right with Sky News anchor Kieran Gilbert left) broke down in a coughing fit while discussing the new Federal Budget on live television

Mr Morrison (pictured with treasurer Josh Frydenberg) was selling the new budget on Wednesday when he began to stifle coughs and was forced to sip from a water bottle

'There are swings and roundabouts on the assumptions and we'll see how they live out in time,' Mr Morrison explained before coughing again.

Mr Gilbert came to the prime minister's aid and offered him some water to quell the coughing fit.

'Let me get a bottle of water for you because you've had a busy 24 hours and I know what it's like,' Mr Gilbert said.

'Bit of talking,' Mr Morrison replied.

'Exactly, when you get a frog in your throat,' the Sky News host said.

Mr Morrison continued to become teary-eyed as he attempted to hold in the coughing fit.

'That's why the stimulus measures and other measures are so important,' he began before coughing again.

Mr Gilbert also tried to steer the conversation towards state border closures before the prime minister was forced to interrupt.

The new Federal Budget, unveiled on Tuesday night, promised a series of income and business tax cuts amid Australia's coronavirus recession (Pitt Street in Sydney pictured)

Mr Morrison asked him to 'hold on' before reaching down and grabbing the water bottle.

He emitted a few more forceful coughs into his elbow and continued to discuss the border restrictions with a red face.

'I'm very sorry,' Mr Morrison apologised.

'It should only be based on health advice, that's the only reason we should have any of these border restrictions.'

Mr Gilbert thanked Mr Morrison for 'battling through the frog' at the end of the interview and the PM responded 'thanks for that, Im fine now'.

The new Federal Budget, unveiled on Thursday night, promised a series of income and business tax cuts amid Australia's worst recession since the 1930s.

A wage subsidy scheme to get young Australians back to work and two welfare cash handouts were also announced.
The race for Fort Bend County sheriff pits a retired Houston police officer against a county constable who hopes to succeed the incumbent sheriff  his twin brother.

Republican Trever Nehls, the Precinct 4 constable, is facing Democrat Eric Fagan, who spent 31 years in the Houston Police Department in various roles including on Mayor Sylvester Turners security detail. Nehls is seeking to succeed his brother Troy, the two-term sheriff who is running for Congress.

Fagan, 60, who would be the countys first Black sheriff since Reconstruction, could be carried into office by the same political headwinds that saw Democrats capture top county offices in 2018, when the county experienced a blue wave. During the 2018 election, the increasingly diverse county elected its first African American district attorney, Brian Middleton, and first Indian American county judge, KP George. Both are Democrats.

The candidates have laid out similar goals in some areas.

Nehls, 52, said he wants to obtain body cameras for the sheriffs office; continue to strengthen its mental health unit and crisis intervention team; and provide more education and training opportunities to jail inmates to help reduce recidivism.

If I am privileged to serve as your next Fort Bend County sheriff, we will continue to build upon many of the current policies and practices of the current administration, Nehls said by phone. But there is always room to improve in any organization, and the Fort Bend County sheriffs office is no different.

Fagan also wants to obtain body cameras for deputies and improve how the sheriffs office deals with the mentally ill.

The fatal friendly-fire shooting in May of Deputy Constable Caleb Rule by a deputy sheriff while both were responding to a call put more focus on the lack of body cameras in the county. Rule apparently was wearing a body camera, but the deputy sheriffs who responded, including one who shot and was subsequently fired and charged in the death, were not.

Candidates stress unity

Fagan has also said he would like to boost department morale. The Democrat said he has heard of deputies leaving the office by the handful because they dont feel appreciated or respected.

Deputies at the sheriffs department need to know, regardless of where they work at  in patrol, the court or the jail  that theyre the backbone of the sheriffs department and should be respected and treated as such, Fagan said.

He said theres room to build more trust between law enforcement and the community. Fagan would like to invite people of various political, ethnic and religious backgrounds to be part of a citizens review board. The board would review controversial or widely reported incidents that may involve the sheriffs office. He also favors using mediation to address complaints about police conduct, noting that he handled more than 200 cases before retiring from the Houston Police Department.

Nehls said he would also strive to unify a very diverse county. If elected, Nehls said, he will build upon existing relationships with those from different backgrounds. Nehls has attended events at various temples, churches and mosques in the community.

The diversity of Fort Bend County did not happen overnight, said Nehls, who is white. Its been here for decades. So I feel that weve done a great job in being proactive in reaching out to the various communities to open that two-way communication.

911 policy debated

One issue on which the candidates disagree is whether the countys 911 system requires changes.

Last year, the dispatch policy was changed to have county-funded sheriffs deputies dispatched initially for 911 calls. Before the change, available law enforcement in the general area of a call  including contract officers  were initially dispatched.

Fagan said he wants the closest law enforcement unit to be dispatched. You want the nearest unit to you to get the help, he said.

Nehls said there isnt a problem with the current 911 dispatch system.

Constables are on the same radio frequency as the sheriffs deputies, and they can respond to a 911 call at any time, Nehls said. There is no lack of service as a result of the current practice of dispatching the sheriffs deputies because the constables are on the same radio frequency.

Nehls has served in law enforcement for 27 years in Fort Bend, working for the Sugar Land Police Department prior to his two terms as Precinct 4 constable. Nehls holds masters degrees in public administration from Central Michigan University and strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College. An Army Reserve colonel, Nehls has served 32 years in the military, including deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait. He plans to retire from the military by the end of the year. He and his wife, Kerri, live in Richmond with their three children.

As an HPD patrol officer, Fagan handled a wide range of cases including sexual assault, family violence, burglaries and homicides. He was named Officer of the Year three times. Fagan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice and a Master of Science in juvenile forensic psychology from Prairie View A&M University. He and his wife, Jacqueline, live in Pearland and have a grown daughter; a son, Patrick, died in a car accident when he was 18.

Here are some of the other county races that voters will decide Nov. 3:

County commissioner. In Precinct 1, Republican incumbent Vincent Morales faces a challenge from Democrat Jennifer Cantu, a community activist. In Precinct 3, Republican Andy Meyers hopes to stave off a challenge from Hope Martin, an Air Force veteran.

County attorney. Democrat Bridgette Smith-Lawson, a managing attorney for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Office of General Counsel, is taking on Republican Steve Rogers, a business owner who has served as general counsel for a charter air service in Sugar Land.

County tax assessor-collector. Republican James Pressler, a real estate broker, is squaring off against Democrat Carmen Turner, a business owner with residential and commercial real estate experience.

Precinct 4 Constable. With Nehls stepping down to run for sheriff, the contest to succeed him is between Democrat Nabil Shike, who has worked for the Harris County Precinct 4 Constables Office, and Republican John Hermann, who is currently the chief deputy in Nehls office.

brooke.lewis@chron.com
Russia has evacuated more than 1,600 people from villages near a munitions depot that exploded in the western Ryazan region.

The Ministry of Defense said on October 7 that the explosion was sparked by a grass wildfire.

No casualties have been reported.

According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, helicopters and special fire crews have been deployed to battle the fire.

Social-media users posted videos of black smoke rising from the fire and continuous explosions.

Villages within a 5-kilometer radius were evacuated and traffic on the R-22 highway was blocked.

The walls are trembling even in neighboring villages, an eyewitness told RZN.info.
Acting US Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf unveiled the results of the department's first annual homeland threat assessment, revealing that right-wing white supremacist groups remain the most dangerous threat to domestic security.

"As Secretary, I am concerned about any form of violent extremism," Mr Wolf wrote in the report. "However, I am particularly concerned about white supremacist violent extremists who have been exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent, targeted attacks in recent years."

In 2017, Jeremy Joseph Christian fatally stabbed two men and injured another after they stepped in to stop him from harassing two teenage black girls and shouting anti-Muslim slurs at a Portland train station. That same year, James Alex Fields, Jr, rammed his car into a crowd at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing protester Heather Heyer.

The next year, Robert Gregory Bowers killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the year after that a white supremacist shooter killed 23 people at a Wal Mart in El Paso.

Since 2001, at least 110 people have been killed in right-wing domestic terror incidents, most of which are tied to white supremacist ideology.

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The report comes on the heels of a whistleblower report from within the DHS that alleged the department was attempting to modify intelligence reports to suit the political agenda of Donald Trump by downplaying white supremacist violence and Russian attempts at election meddling.

Brian Murphy, the whistleblower, told CBS News that he was directed to modify a section of the report mentioning white supremacy in a way "that made the threat appear less severe, as well as include information on the prominence of violent 'left-wing' groups."

Mr Wolf denied the allegations.

"I think if you look at the document, Russia is mentioned somewhere in the document between 30 and 40 different times, so if we were trying to downplay Russia, we didn't do a very good job, I would say," he said.

White supremacist groups became the focus of national attention after Mr Trump failed to condemn the Proud Boys, an SPLC-designated hate group, during the first presidential debate.

Mr Trump told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," a slogan the group quickly internalised as marching orders directly from the president. After refusing to condemn the Proud Boys, Mr Trump attempted to shift the attention of the debate towards Antifa and Black Lives Matter, left wing groups he treats as violent boogeymen in order to rally his base.

The Proud Boys are a thinly-veiled white supremacist group that travels to left-wing activist events to incite street fights.

Backlash to Mr Trump's inability to condemn the Proud Boys was quick and came from both his usual critics as well as many individuals who tend to be sympathetic to the president. Days later, Mr Trump went on Sean Hannity's show to condemn "all White supremacists" including the KKK and the Proud Boys.

Mr Wolf's report was not solely focused on white supremacy. It also examined foreign threats to domestic security, naming Russia as the most "likely primary covert influence actor and purveyor" of disinformation.

The DHS report suggests that Russia is once again using online disinformation campaigns to influence American voters and promote destablisation within the US. Russian disinformation most often targets Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Recommended Federal judge rules that Chad Wolf was appointed as DHS head illegally

Despite stating that Russia is the most likely to engage in disinformation campaigns, Mr Wolf believes that China is the US's greatest threat.

"The most long term strategic threat to Americans, the Homeland, and our way of life is the threat from China," Mr Wolf tweeted on Tuesday.

Since the US landfall of the coronavirus, Mr Trump has been antagonistic toward the country, calling the virus the "Chinese" or "China" virus, and frequently pointing to the nation as the source of the US's suffering under the pandemic.
New Delhi:

Congress and BJP were on Thursday locked in fiery exchanges inside and outside Parliament over Prime Minister Narendra Modis raincoat jibe at his predecessor Manmohan Singh with the main opposition party joined by others pressing him to apologise for the insulting remark.

BJP on its part said Congress had no moral right to preach or give sermons to others and instead demanded it apologise to Parliament and the prime minister for calling him names. BJP President Amit Shah also reminded Rahul Gandhi of the kind of term his mother had used against Modi, an apparent reference to Maut ke saudagar(merchant of death) remark made by Sonia Gandhi when he was Gujarat Chief Minister.

Congress and other opposition parties forced adjournment of Rajya Sabha twice demanding an apology from Modi over his remarks insulting his precedessors even as its Vice-President Rahul Gandhi told a poll rally that the prime minister had lowered the dignity of his office.

Congress, CPI(M) and JD(U) raised the remarks made by Modi in his speech in the Rajya Sabha during the debate on the Motion of Thanks to Presidents address yesterday, saying the prime minister was abusive and used insulting language.

Modi had said that one should learn the art of bathing with a raincoat on from Manmohan Singh as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams having taken place during his regime.

He has dragged political debate to new low... he was abusive... we will oppose him, Anand Sharma(Congress) said.

Deputy Chairman P J Kurien said the issue regarding Modis remarks was a closed chapter as far as the Chair is concerned. I cannot reopen a discussion which is concluded... there are so many other ways of raising (your concerns), he said.

Digvijay Singh (Congress) raised strong objections to Modis remarks against Manmohan Singh and another former prime minister Indira Gandhi and demanded they be expunged. Congress members were seen protesting in the aisle, raising shame, shame slogans.

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram while initiating the discussion on the 2017-18 General Budget in Rajya Sabha criticised Modi over the words he chose to attack his predecessor, saying he should remember that the Chair he sat on was used by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and even Atal Bihari Vajpayee and hence he should use right language.

The Prime Ministers office is not an ordinary one. Great honour is associated with it. So by targeting his predecessor in that manner the prime minister has lowered the dignity of his office, Rahul said addressing an election rally in Almora in poll-bound Uttarakhand.

Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu hit out at Congress for obstructing proceedings in both Houses, and said the opposition party had no moral right to preach or give sermons to others and demanded that it apologise to Parliament and the prime minister for calling him names.

Naidu told reporters that the opposition, particularly Congress, should tender an apology for obstructing Parliament and for making uncharitable remarks against the prime minister, not only now, but also earlier.

He said the Congress leaders called Modi names umpteen number of times, using all absurd and cheap words.

Let them not teach or preach pravachan (sermons) to others, he said.

They (Opposition) called him (the PM) Hitler, Mussolini, Gaddafi. They made all sort of meaningless remarks against the Prime Minister. It is a shame. They are not able to understand the reality, creating issue out of non issues, why should the Prime Minister apologise? Naidu asked.

BJP also fielded Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to launch a sharp attack on Congress, especially its top leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, saying it is no longer a conventional political party representing certain ideology but a conglomeration believing in divinity and devotion to a family.

Defending Modis dig, Prasad said fun, pun and repartee are part of parliamentary debate and suggested that Congress was using Singh as an useful expendable outsider like many top leaders outside the Gandhi family.

We are very very disappointed by what the PM said yesterday. I do not think in the history of Indian parliamentary democracy, we have ever heard the PM insulting his predecessor in such a manner using bathroom analogy. This is simply not heard of (before), Congress MP Sashi Tharoor said outside Parliament.

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Sadiq Khan has warned Londoners' will die if the capital continues to be hit with coronavirus testing shortages

Sadiq Khan has warned Londoners' will die if the capital continues to be hit with coronavirus testing shortages amid fears a lack of swabs could be masking the true scale of the city's outbreak.

The London Mayor's sobering warning came as the number of swabs carried out in the capital dipped below the national average, despite being the most densely populated city in the country.

Testing in London was slashed from 90,000 per week in mid-August to 65,000 last month, after capacity was stripped out of the capital and reallocated to hotspots in the North of England. Testing is thought to have risen slightly in the last week, but Mr Khan argues it is still not enough to cope with the rising cases in the city.

Londoners suspected of having the disease have for weeks been unable to access swabs, with reports of some being told to travel hundreds of miles or even cross borders into the devolved nations to get checked.

The Government is struggling to cope with 200,000 swabs being processed each day and has had to start rationing who an get a test to deal with the growing demand as the virus continues to re-surge.

The volume of people needing tests is expected to surge significantly moving into winter as the flu and colds start to plague the population and cause Covid-19-like symptoms, such as a fever and continuous cough . Testing is the only tool health officials have to tell whether someone actually has the viral disease.

Mr Khan warned the capital could now be hurtling towards catastrophe as cases of coronavirus continue to spike but testing continues to plummet, potentially allowing infections to slip under the radar. He said any further decrease in testing 'risks lives with winter approaching'.

It comes amid fears London could be hit with a local lockdown, with Mr Khan warning tighter measures 'couldn't be ruled out' if the rising wave was not curbed. Public Health England has put every borough of the city on its watchlist as an area of 'concern', meaning it will be monitored closely in the coming days and weeks.

London so far seems to have been spared the worst of Britain's second wave of Covid-19, with northern cities like Manchester and Liverpool bearing the brunt of the second wave of the pandemic. London's infection rate stands at 33.6 per 100,000, on average  a figure which has risen 28 per cent in a week but pales in comparison to Manchester's 530 or Liverpool's 300.

But statistics signal the capital city  home to around 9million people  is trending in the wrong direction, with infections doubling in a fortnight and cases soaring in all but one borough. However, hospital admission data is looking less bleak. There are just 34 admissions per day on average  down from an average 39 on September 25 and just 4.5 per cent of the level seen at the peak of the crisis in April.

Coronavirus cases rose in all boroughs of London except Camden in the last week of September, according to Public Health England data, but none have a rate higher than the England average (56.9 positive tests per 100,000 people)

Public Health England data shows how the weekly infection rate  the amount of Covid-19 cases diagnosed per 100,000 people in a week  is rising quickest in Richmond upon Thames, rising by 153.6 per cent in a week. It has dropped in Camden by around 70 per cent

Mr Khan told The Evening Standard: 'Testing capacity was taken away from London last month and is currently below the England average of 150 people tested per 100,000 per day.

'Given London's size, population and complexity there is a strong argument for testing to be significantly above national levels to control the virus effectively.

'It beggars belief that six months into this crisis, the Government still does not have a grip on one of the fundamental ways to control the spread.'

In a clear warning shot at officials, he added: 'Any further failure to increase testing across the capital risks lives with winter approaching.'

Signs are emerging that the virus is rebounding in London, with some boroughs seeing the ratio of positive tests per 100,000 people more than double in seven days.

Covid outbreak at St Helier Hospital: Visits are restricted and ambulances diverted to nearby A&Es after six patients test positive over weekend A London hospital went into partial lockdown yesterday while staff battled an Covid-19 outbreak that has infected seriously-ill patients in its intensive care unit and on a renal ward. Bosses have placed St Helier Hospital in south London in partial lockdown, restricting visitors and yesterday diverting ambulances from its A&E unit. The infections were found over the weekend and a major investigation has been launched into how the infection got into patients being treated for other illnesses. It is believed six patients were infected but there is concern the virus got into the intensive care unit which houses the most sick patients. A hospital source said: 'Infection control in intensive care is very strict. It's very concerning that people fighting for their life already have become infected.' The Government has been under pressure for months to introduce routine weekly testing of hospital staff for coronavirus. Last week the House of Commons Health Committee added its weight to the call for regular testing to protect patients. Covid infections have hit several other hospitals in recent weeks with the finger being pointed at staff spreading the virus. It is believed hundreds of patients have died during the pandemic from hospital acquired Covid passed on by staff. A spokesman for Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust said: 'A small number of patients have tested positive for COVID-19 during admission to the Renal Department and Intensive Care Unit at St Helier Hospital. 'The safety and wellbeing of our patients and staff is our priority and those who tested positive have been isolated from other patients, with arrangements in place to maintain safe and high-quality care.' They added: 'We continue to follow all relevant infection prevention and control guidelines. 'Visiting has been restricted for some areas, as soon as clinicians are confident that the measures can be lifted in a way that is safe for patients and staff, they will be.' Advertisement

The biggest surge was seen in the leafy suburb of Richmond upon Thames, where cases rose by 154 per cent between September 20 and 27. This happened despite the numbers of tests going down, suggesting it represents a genuine increase.

Although, PHE statistics show not a single borough has a rate higher than England's average weekly infection rate of 59 cases per 100,000 people.

Meanwhile, Camden was the only part of the city to see cases decline in the latter half of September, with the infection rate dropping by 70 per cent. This happened despite more tests being done  the opposite situation to Richmond's.

London, which was the beating heart of the first wave of the epidemic in spring, is believed to have a higher level of immunity to Covid-19 to the rest of the country  at least one in seven people there are thought to have recovered from the disease already.

It is not clear whether this means the coronavirus will be slower to spread in the city because scientists still aren't entirely sure whether people can get infected twice  reports suggest reinfection is possible but usually less serious.

Concerns about Covid-19 spreading out of control in the capital again were discussed in a meeting earlier this week, as health bosses contemplate how a city-wide lockdown could work if one is needed.

Following the meeting on September 22, Mr Khan warned the city is at a dangerous 'tipping point' with the virus and warned tighter social distancing rules could be on the way.

The city currently abides only by national restrictions, which include the 'rule of six' and 10pm curfew on bars and restaurants.

PHE's weekly update, published on Friday, showed infection rates more than doubled in four boroughs of the city  Richmond, Greenwich, Hounslow and Ealing.

And eight more areas saw cases surge by more than 80 per cent from a week earlier  Sutton, Croydon, Merton, Kingston upon Thames, Barnet, Hammersmith & Fulham, Brent and Hillingdon.

The data counts the number of people who test positive for every 100,000 people to create a standardised rate of cases per person that is used all over the country. In its most recent report, test data accounts for the week leading up to September 27.

This means the tests should only be slightly affected by last night's revelation that 16,000 coronavirus cases were not counted between September 25 and October 2 because of a computer error at Public Health England.

The average infection rate for England as of September 27 was 58.5 cases per 100,000 people.

The highest individual rate in the country was in Newcastle, which had an infection rate of 250.5, while the highest rate in London was in Redbridge, with 56.6.

PHE's computer error means infection rates may be higher in reality, with analysis suggesting that Manchester actually has the highest rate at 530 per 100,000.

Liverpool and Knowsley in Merseyside both also have rates higher than 300 cases per 100,000.

It is unknown how significantly London's rates will be affected by recalculation including missed cases  PHE puts out the only official report once a week on a Friday.

Although no part of the city has a higher-than-average number of cases, Mr Khan is concerned that the spread of the disease is speeding up.

He held a phone call with the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in late September and has said he is considering tighter social distancing rules like those in the north.

In much of the north of England people are banned from mixing with other households indoors and from leaving the areas where they live except for work or school.

It comes after a London hospital went into partial lockdown yesterday while staff battled an Covid-19 outbreak that has infected seriously-ill patients in its intensive care unit and on a renal ward.

Bosses have placed St Helier Hospital in south London in partial lockdown, restricting visitors and yesterday diverting ambulances from its A&E unit.

The infections were found over the weekend and a major investigation has been launched into how the infection got into patients being treated for other illnesses.

It is believed six patients were infected but there is concern the virus got into the intensive care unit which houses the most sick patients.

A hospital source said: 'Infection control in intensive care is very strict. It's very concerning that people fighting for their life already have become infected.'

The Government has been under pressure for months to introduce routine weekly testing of hospital staff for coronavirus.

Last week the House of Commons Health Committee added its weight to the call for regular testing to protect patients. Covid infections have hit several other hospitals in recent weeks with the finger being pointed at staff spreading the virus.

It is believed hundreds of patients have died during the pandemic from hospital acquired Covid passed on by staff. A spokesman for Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust said: 'A small number of patients have tested positive for COVID-19 during admission to the Renal Department and Intensive Care Unit at St Helier Hospital.

'The safety and wellbeing of our patients and staff is our priority and those who tested positive have been isolated from other patients, with arrangements in place to maintain safe and high-quality care.'

They added: 'We continue to follow all relevant infection prevention and control guidelines.

'Visiting has been restricted for some areas, as soon as clinicians are confident that the measures can be lifted in a way that is safe for patients and staff, they will be.'
BREIL-SUR-ROYA, France  The grim job of searching for flood victims in Alpine villages and on the nearby French and Italian coasts has grown even more gruesome: Along with storm casualties, authorities say corpses from cemeteries have also been found around the Mediterranean shore, apparently swept down the mountain by violent rains.

A total of 12 deaths have been reported since the storm pounded Frances Alpes-Maritimes region and Italys northwestern regions of Liguria and Piedmont starting Friday  four on the French side, eight on the Italian side.

Prime Minister Jean Castex said French rescuers were still searching Tuesday for 21 people missing.

My thoughts go to grieving families, those who are waiting to hear from their relatives or who have lost everything, he said at the National Assembly.

Castex said more than 900 rescuers, 500 police officers and some troops were involved in the emergency operation in the mountainous region, which is home to 12,000 residents.

He added that about 700 people were staying in hotels or other accommodation sites after being evacuated from their homes.

French President Emmanuel Macron will visit the area Wednesday, he said.

Corpses unearthed from cemeteries have washed up on the Italian side, a spokeswoman for the Alpes-Maritimes regional administration told The Associated Press. She could not say how many or where they came from, and it was unclear whether the bodies were among the eight reported dead in Italy from the storm. Italian local authorities could not immediately be reached for comment.

The cemetery corpses were in such an advanced state of decomposition that they were clearly distinguishable from recent storm victims, the French spokeswoman said.

Local authorities have said cemeteries in the French towns of Saint-Martin-de-Vesubie and Tende were partially washed out by the floods. Tende Mayor Jean-Pierre Vassallo told Le Parisien newspaper that the village cemetery was cut in two and bodies were unearthed.

Forensic police working to identify the dead are among the security forces, firefighters, rescue divers and others helping Tuesday in the continuing search and cleanup effort, according to a spokesman for Frances national gendarme service.

Police are going door-to-door to check on people reported as missing in hamlets where roads, electricity, communications and water supplies were cut off by the storm, the spokesman said.

Neither spokesperson was authorized to be publicly named according to official policy.

In Breil-sur-Roya, the river that runs through the village of 2,000 residents, usually known for trout fishing, has turned during the storm into a torrent of mud, rocks and debris.

Longtime residents describe the damage in biblical terms, saying theyd never seen anything like it.

Some have started to clean up, spending their whole day shoveling mud out of shops and homes while trucks hauled away felled trees to clear streets and roads. Cars coated in caked mud were piled on top of each other.

Some roads were still blocked by debris Tuesday, so helicopters were delivering supplies to stranded populations.

Its a catastrophic situation, said Georges Pomarede, a retired police officer clearing out his home in Breil-sur-Roya. All of that is gone, no more campground, no stadium, no more swimming pool, no more shops, a hotel is gone  entire houses swallowed by the floods. Its a phenomenal disaster.

About the photo: A damaged hotel is pictured after the floods in Breil-sur-Roya, near the border with Italy, Monday, Oct.5, 2020. Flooding has devastated mountainous areas in Frances southeastern region of Alpes-Maritimes and Italys northwestern regions of Liguria and Piedmont, after a storm swept through the two countries on Friday and Saturday. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Police and forensic officers at the scene in Essex (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

A lorry container became a tomb when 39 desperate men, women and children suffocated as they were smuggled across the English Channel, a court has heard.

Temperatures in the pitch-black refrigerated unit reached an unbearable 38.5C (101F)as the Vietnamese nationals were sealed inside for at least 12 hours, jurors were told.

Unable to raise the alarm, one of them  a 28-year-old woman  wrote a text message that was never sent, saying: Maybe going to die in the container, cant breathe any more dear.

Jurors were told the cost of being smuggled across the English Channel in the back of a lorry was some 10,000 per person.

Expand Close Gheorghe Nica, left, and Eamonn Harrison (Court artist sketch/Elizabeth Cook/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Gheorghe Nica, left, and Eamonn Harrison (Court artist sketch/Elizabeth Cook/PA)

Lorry driver Eamonn Harrison and Gheorghe Nica are on trial at the Old Bailey accused of the manslaughter of the 39 migrants who were found dead after the lorry arrived in Purfleet, Essex, in October last year.

The pair are also accused of being part of a people-smuggling conspiracy with another lorry driver, Christopher Kennedy, and Valentin Calota.

Opening their Old Bailey trial, Bill Emlyn Jones told jurors that it was a sad and unavoidable truth that some people were prepared to go to great lengths to come to the UK for a better life.

Their desperation made them vulnerable to exploitation by those who did not care about immigration law and saw them as an opportunity to make money, the prosecutor said.

Mr Emlyn Jones said the people-smuggling team had operated successful runs before the one in October last year that went dreadfully wrong.

He told jurors: Obviously, any time you fill an airtight container with a large number of people, where they will be left for hours and hours, with no means of escape and no means of communication with the outside world  well, it is fraught with danger.

On October 22 2019, 39 Vietnamese nationals  men and women, aged between 15 and 44, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters  were loaded into the back of a lorry in northern Europe, he said.

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Harrison drove them to Zeebrugge in Belgium, and unhooked his trailer where it was loaded onto a cargo ship bound for Purfleet, in Essex, jurors heard.

Another lorry driver, Maurice Robinson, then collected the trailer from Purfleet when it arrived just after midnight on October 23.

Mr Emlyn Jones said that by then it had been some 12 hours at least since any meaningful amount of fresh air had been let into the sealed container.

Robinson knew he had to check on the occupants, having been sent a message from his boss to give them air quickly, but dont let them out, the court heard.

The prosecutor said: Robinson drove out of Purfleet port and almost immediately stopped and opened the doors at the back.

What he found must haunt him still. For the 39 men and women inside, that lorry had become their tomb.

The refrigerator had not been turned on during the journey, meaning the temperature inside the trailer rose to 38.5C, Mr Emlyn Jones said.

What it must have been like inside that lorry does not bear thinking about. They had no signal inside the container, so could not call for help or alert the outside world to their plight Bill Emlyn Jones

When Kennedy learned of the deaths, he told a friend it must have been too many and run out of air, the court heard.

Mr Emlyn Jones said: What it must have been like inside that lorry does not bear thinking about. In fact, we do have some direct evidence of what the victims were going through, recovered from some of their mobile phones.

They had no signal inside the container, so could not call for help or alert the outside world to their plight. But naturally, in desperation, they tried.

Nica, 43, of Basildon, Essex, and Harrison, 23, of Mayobridge, Co Down, Northern Ireland, deny 39 counts of manslaughter.

Nica has admitted conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration between May 1 2018 and October 24 2019.

Expand Close Christopher Kennedy, left, and Valentin Calota (Court artist sketch/Elizabeth Cook/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Christopher Kennedy, left, and Valentin Calota (Court artist sketch/Elizabeth Cook/PA)

Harrison, Calota, 37, of Birmingham, and Kennedy, 24, of Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, deny the conspiracy charge.

Nica was said by the prosecution to be a key player in the smuggling operation.

On October 23 last year, he was in the area of Purfleet primed to meet the human cargo and was the second person Robinson called within seconds of the discovery of the bodies, jurors heard.

Previously, Kennedy had collected smuggled migrants at Purfleet and Calota had met them at a pick-up point nearby for onward transportation, it was alleged.

The court heard Robinson and haulage boss Ronan Hughes had pleaded guilty to the manslaughters and the people-smuggling plot.

Hughes, 41, who had a haulage company based in Co Monaghan, in Northern Ireland, played a significant role in organising the movement of his drivers, jurors were told.

Two other defendants have also admitted their part in the wider people-smuggling operation.

The victims were: Dinh Dinh Binh, 15, Nguyen Minh Quang, 20, Nguyen Huy Phong, 35, Le Van Ha, 30, Nguyen Van Hiep, 24, Bui Phan Thang, 37, Nguyen Van Hung, 33, Nguyen Huy Hung, 15, Nguyen Tien Dung, 33, Pham Thi Tra My, 26, Tran Khanh Tho, 18, Nguyen Van Nhan, 33, Vo Ngoc Nam, 28, Vo Van Linh, 25, Nguyen Ba Vu Hung, 34, Vo Nhan Du, 19. Tran Hai Loc, 35, Tran Manh Hung, 37, Nguyen Thi Van, 35, Bui Thi Nhung, 19, Hoang Van Tiep, 18, Tran Thi Ngoc, 19, Phan Thi Thanh, 41, Tran Thi Tho, 21, Duong Minh Tuan, 27, Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh, 28, Tran Thi Mai Nhung, 18, Le Trong Thanh, 44, Nguyen Ngoc Ha, 32, Hoang Van Hoi, 24, Tran Ngoc Hieu, 17, Cao Tien Dung, 37, Dinh Dinh Thai Quyen, 18, Dong Huu Tuyen, 22, Nguyen Dinh Luong, 20, Cao Huy Thanh, 37, Nguyen Trong Thai, 26, Nguyen Tho Tuan, 25, and Nguyen Dinh Tu, 26.

The trial before Mr Justice Sweeney is expected to go on for up to six weeks.
Challenging the verdict is ra deterrent to future peace and harmony and a socially irresponsible act, argues Vivek Gumaste.

IMAGE: Bharatiya Janata Party activists celebrate after the verdict on the Babri Masjid demolition case by a special CBI court, outside the BJP office in Mumbai, September 30, 2020. Photograph: PTI Photo

After a protracted 28 year-long trial and after several full stops and U-turns (the proceedings against Lal Kishenchand Advani and other accused were dropped in 2001 and later reinstated), Judge Surendra Kumar Yadav of the Central Bureau of Investigation's special court deemed on September 30 that there was no credible evidence to implicate a conspiracy in the Babri Masjid demolition case; accordingly, all the 32 accused including veteran BJP leaders like Advani, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti were acquitted of any wrongdoing.

Will this verdict bring final closure to one of the most contentious controversies of modern India or will it re-ignite another endless court battle, perpetuate social discord and drag us back willy-nilly into the same quagmire of distrust and disharmony that we have been subjected to over the last three decades?

To allay such a pessimistic consequence, it is vital that we objectively analyse the merits of the current verdict to instill a sense of confidence in all Indians.

The tendency to calm rather than incite, the urge to resolve rather than exploit, must be the driving motive in this exercise.

However, negativists in our midst are out in full force, crying foul and casting aspersions on the veracity of the pronouncement. Editorials and op-eds have excoriated the judgment; but they fail to convince.

In fact, the arguments in these opinion articles come across as frivolous tattle; the line of reasoning is embarrassingly pedestrian and intellectually mediocre to be taken seriously.

For one, the claim that the current verdict is at odds with the findings of the Liberhan Commission and therefore unacceptable is not a valid riposte.

One editorial The Demolition, in The Indian Express states: 'More than 10 years ago, the Justice Liberhan Commission had concluded that the evidence underlined that the mobilisation of the kar sevaks was "neither spontaneous and voluntary", was orchestrated and planned'.

Divergence from the Liberhan report does not automatically make the present verdict suspect. The Liberhan Commission was instituted by then prime minister P V Narsaimha Rao in 1992, had a tenure of 16 years and finally submitted its report to then prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh in 2009.

The report itself is far from impeccable and in places sounds like a partisan document intent on political vendetta: It even implicates Atal Bihari Vajpayee, even though he was not present at the site.

Additionally, there is a difference between a commission and a court of law. A commission has no legal binding and answers to a burden of proof that is less stringent than that of a court.

Pieces of evidence found admissible by the Liberhan commission failed to pass the test in court, leading Judge Surendra Kumar Yadav to conclude that there was no credible evidence to support a case for conspiracy.

Countering the verdict, another editorial in Hindustan Times argues: The demolition of the mosque was preceded by months of political mobilisation across the country that whipped up sentiment.'

'Multiple eyewitnesses and journalists have reported how mobs swelled around the disputed structure for days before the demolition, with the authorities doing little to disperse the crowd.'

'Reports also underlined how the police stood by while groups of young men with pickaxes, shovels and ropes, scaled the domes of the fragile structure, with the intent of bringing it down.'

True, the Babri Masjid was demolished and that young men with pick axes were found at the site and it is also true that Advani led a pan-Indian BJP movement that preceded the demolition of the mosque.

But none of these pieces of information categorically confirm a conspiracy by the persons named. These are assumption still subject to verification in a court of law.

Incontrovertible proof is required to link the movement to the demolition -- which was not forthcoming; hence the verdict.

The presence of two separate FIRs also raises serious doubts. The first FIR lists unnamed kar sevaks as the culprits while the second filed later names the veteran BJP leaders mentioned above, suggesting that it was an afterthought and presumably had a political motive.

Faizan Mustafa, an expert on Constitutional law, and Aymen Mohammad, a doctoral student at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, in an op-ed in The Indian Express indulge in a lot of legalese to criticise the verdict but are unable to come up with a cogent argument or a plausible conclusion.

They claim:'The accused were charged with various sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to incitement to violence (Sections 153A and 153B), conspiracy to commit a crime (Section 120B), and unlawful assembly (Section 149). The overarching import of these charges was that there was a joint agreement on the part of the accused to demolish the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.'

'For criminal conspiracy, mere agreement is punishable and for unlawful assembly, mere presence is enough to make one liable. There can be no two opinions on whether L K Advani and others were members of an unlawful assembly.'

If this was such a straightforward case, how is it that the learned judge did not find an iota of proof against the accused?

Finally, the authors end up castigating the CBI for a weak performance and accuse the central body of being politically swayed.

To blame the CBI for the verdict is to look for excuses where none exist. The CBI presented countless videotapes. 351 witnesses and over 600 documents -- an impressive array of evidence.

It cannot be faulted. It only proves the point that when there is no conspiracy it is hard to find proof of one despite presenting mountains of so-called evidence.

In conclusion, this was a sound judgment that fulfilled the caveats of the judicial process. The terms of reference to the court was clear: To find evidence of a conspiracy in the destruction of the Babri Masjid. Its response was unequivocal: There was none.

We need to respect the verdict despite being tempted by our ideological convictions to do otherwise. The quintessential condition for the success of a democracy is that we accept a court verdict even if it is inimical to us with grace and good sense.

Much water has flowed under the bridge since the destruction of the Babri Masjid. The Supreme Court has accepted the presence of an ancient Hindu temple at that site and awarded Hindus the right to build a grand Ram temple there; concomitantly giving Muslims an alternative place to construct a mosque.

Ayodhya has moved on and so has India. There is no need to look back.

Challenging the verdict is redundant, retrogressive and unnecessarily disruptive; it is a deterrent to future peace and harmony and a socially irresponsible act.

The CBI must not appeal the verdict.

Academic Vivek Gumaste, who is based in the United States, is the author of My India: Musings of a Patriot. You can e-mail the author at gumastev@yahoo.com.
H eavy downpours are set to sweep across the UK with a risk of localised flooding as temperatures plummet this weekend.

The Met Office has issued yellow warning for rain in Wales, parts of the Midlands and the Manchester area from 9pm on Wednesday until 9am on Thursday.

A band of wind and rain has started to move across the country, putting a temporary end to the glorious sunshine which has lit up autumn landscapes across the country.

Forecasters said the rain which hit the far south-west of England on Wednesday afternoon will move north.

UK weather - In pictures 1 /9 UK weather - In pictures Ice covers a pond on a green in Kew, west London, after overnight temperatures in the capital dipped below freezing PA A person looks out as waves crash against rocks at Portland Bill in Dorset PA People look out to sea as waves crash against Chesil beach in Dorset PA Waves crash against Chesil beach in Dorset PA Flooding between Carlisle and Lockerbie from water running off a field onto the rail tracks PA/Network Rail Scotland Waves crash against rocks at Portland Bill in Dorset PA Tourists battle against wind and rain at Pier Head in Liverpoo PA

It will spread across Wales and central England from the evening and leading to showers across many areas on Thursday morning.

London will also see rain returning on Wednesday night with sporadic showers hitting the capital throughout Thursday and Friday.

Forecaster Craig Snell explained that exceptional rainfall totals were not expected but, as this band of heavy rain followed shortly after the deluges at the weekend, there was a chance of localised flooding in places.

Up to 60mm of rain could fall on higher ground in Wales with 20-30mm expected more widely.

Mr Snell said: The rain amounts will not be huge but, coming after quite a wet weekend there could be some surface water and there also might be localised flooding as well.

He said Wednesday does appear to have been the best day of the week, although he said the worst of the rain showers should be over by Thursday afternoon, bringing sunny spells in places.

And he said the unsettled weather should settle down at the weekend with more sun expected on Sunday  albeit with temperatures dropping from the seasonal averages being enjoyed across much of the country mid-week.

Met Office spokesman Tom Morgan also said that temperatures are set to plummet later this week, with the mercury struggling to rise into double digits and dropping to near freezing overnight.

The Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for the Welsh coast on Friday / PA

He said London would also see some rainfall over the next few days and the heavy showers in the west are posing a risk of localised flooding.

Mr Morgan said: "After quite a nice, dry day today with temperatures reaching 21C, London will see rain arriving at around 10pm and winds of up to 30-40mph will sweep in overnight.

"Thursday will be dry for the start of the day but rain will return in the middle of the morning. It is an improving situation picture tomorrow afternoon.

"On Friday, it looks quite reasonably in the morning but London will see a band of heavy showers in the afternoon so it is definitely a day for coats and umbrellas."

Mr Morgan said from Friday night onwards temperatures will fall to below average this weekend, with the first widespread frost of the season.

He said temperatures will struggle to rise into double digits and overnight they will drop close to freezing.

There is a risk of localised flooding in Wales and the northwest on Thursday but it is not as severe as last week, Mr Morgan added.
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Rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous, Mansoor Hussain proudly posed with celebrities including Meghan Markle, Beyonce and Simon Cowell.

But the millionaire businessman, who loved to boast of his A-list connections on social media, was not all he seemed.

Investigators believe the 40-year-old Poundworld owner laundered vast sums for criminal networks linked to a convicted murderer, drug dealing and arms trafficking.

Now the National Crime Agency has seized almost 10million from the property developer.

In the first successful use of a 'McMafia' order  so called after the BBC TV drama series starring James Norton  Hussain has had to hand over 45 properties, including million-pound mansions and apartment blocks in London, Cheshire and Leeds.

Mansoor Hussain, who boasted of his A-list connections including Meghan Markle in 2013 (pictured), laundered vast sums for criminal networks, investigators say

Hussain was the director of a set production company which ran shows for Beyonce (pictured), Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, the Spice Girls and Take That

Among 45 properties Hussain had to hand back was this gated seven-bedroom family home in Leeds worth 1.25million

Another view of the 1.25million property at Sandmoor Drive in Leeds, which Hussain was forced to hand back

Among Hussain's property empire confiscated by the NCA is this home in Knightsbridge at 101 Walton Street, a street with an average house value of 1.5million

As part of the settlement, the NCA has left him with four small properties that are still mortgaged, and cash in a bank account that was not part of the original investigation.

The NCA used an unexplained wealth order (UWO) to target the alleged criminal, who has spent years flaunting his money.

Hussain's Twitter and Instagram pages are filled with pictures of him posing with stars, politicians and royalty in locations such as Barbados, New York, Monaco and Saint-Tropez.

In one photograph, which he repeatedly posted on social media, he can be seen hugging Meghan Markle at the Global Gift Gala in London in 2013, three years before she met Prince Harry.

After the royal marriage, Hussain republished the image to his 134,000 Instagram followers, captioned: 'Great night with the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle.'

As the director of a set production company which ran shows for Beyonce, Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, the Spice Girls and Take That, Hussain  who calls himself Manni Boss  never missed a photo opportunity.

The biggest property seizure was a block of 36 apartments and offices called Cubic, on the outskirts of Leeds, which was owned by Mr Hussain

Another view of the apartment block in Leeds, which had a project value of 1.3million when it was built

Princes Court in Knightsbridge, London, the location of Flat M, one of the properties of Mansoor Mahmood Hussain. He owns a tiny studio inside worth 230,000

He has been pictured with Topshop tycoon Sir Philip Green, Cherie Blair, Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan and entrepreneur Michelle Mone.

Hussain has links to Mohammed Nisar Khan, a murderer serving a 26-year sentence

There is no suggestion that any of the celebrities he met were involved in any wrongdoing.

Hussain, who started his first business at 18, boasts of travelling by private jet and owning a fleet of luxury vehicles including Rolls Royces and Range Rovers.

But the NCA believes his jet-set lifestyle was financed by money laundering for notorious gangs.

According to investigators, Hussain has links to Mohammed Nisar Khan, a convicted murderer serving a 26-year sentence. He also used a convicted fraudster as his accountant and allegedly allowed an armed robber to stay at his seven-bedroom mansion and penthouse, the NCA says.

It believes he used threats of violence and blackmail to buy his properties.

Investigators realised the scale of his assets only when he submitted 127 lever arch folders and a 76-page statement to explain where his money came from, inadvertently giving officers clues to make a bigger case against him.

UWOs were introduced in 2018 to give the authorities the power to look into the source of wealth of suspected criminals and politically exposed persons.

The one against Hussain last year was the first to be solely based on alleged links to organised crime.

A fleet of luxury cars including a Rolls Royce with personalised plates that belonged to Hussain

It believes Hussain (pictured) used threats of violence and blackmail to buy his properties

Hussain met the former Manchester United footballer Rio Ferdinand (left) and lingerie entrepreneur Michelle Mone (right) at various parties and social events

Hussain's Twitter and Instagram pages are filled with pictures of him posing with stars including Simon Cowell (pictured)

The NCA pursued the case in the civil courts, rather than the criminal courts, due to the difficulty in assembling financial evidence capable of securing a conviction.

Andy Lewis, head of civil recovery at the NCA, said while Hussain initially appeared to be a successful businessman with no convictions, there was a 'compelling case' he was an alleged money launderer and had links to those involved in the drugs trade.

'We showed him the evidence and he decided to come to a settlement with us,' Mr Lewis said. 'He took the view that was the best action for him, rather than go to court and potentially lose all those assets.'

The biggest single property handed over to the NCA is a high-specification apartment and office development, Cubic, on the outskirts of Leeds, which Mr Hussain wholly owned through one of his many companies.

The other properties include a home on one of the city's most expensive roads, an apartment opposite Harrods in London and terraced housing in Leeds and Bradford.

In High Court legal papers, the NCA said it believed the seed money for Cubic's development and other property purchases must have come from Mr Hussain's criminal associates because they could find no legitimate source for his wealth.

He had paid virtually no income tax in some years and many of his 77 companies were dormant.

The court was told Mr Hussain was thought to be a 'clean skin' - a businessman free of convictions, acting as a professional money-launderer.

A settlement between Hussain and the NCA was agreed on August 24, with the High Court sealing the asset recovery order on October 2.

Graeme Biggar, head of economic crime at the NCA, said: 'This case is a milestone, demonstrating the power of Unexplained Wealth Orders, with significant implications for how we pursue illicit finance in the UK.

'This ground-breaking investigation has recovered millions of pounds worth of criminally-obtained property.

'It is crucial for the economic health of local communities such as Leeds, and for the country as a whole, that we ensure property and other assets are held legitimately.'
As the UKs rate of new coronavirus infections soars to six times the governments high-risk threshold, the last remaining Mediterranean holiday spots look under threat of being added to the no-go list.

The Independent has calculated that when the latest European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) figures are released later on Wednesday, the UK may leapfrog France.

After several days of recording very high numbers of Covid-19 cases, including thousands of temporarily lost positive tests due to a spreadsheet problem, the UKs rate of new infections per 100,000 people is now 125.

The threshold the Department for Transport (DfT) and Foreign Office use to signify locations of unacceptably high risk is 20.

Other factors considered by ministers and health officials include the reliability of data, the proportion of tests that yield positive results and action taken by governments to limit the spread of the virus.

The DfT says of quarantine-exempt nations: "We will keep the conditions in these countries, territories and regions under review. If they worsen we will reintroduce self-isolation requirements.

Last weekend, both Poland and Turkey were placed on the no-go list. Although Turkeys figures are well below the threshold, the government expressed concerns about inconsistencies with international norms.

Italy is currently at 27, though there is hope that it might escape what has been described as a travel ban in all but name because of low positivity rates in the tests taking place.

Greece, which is at 23, is already regarded as too dangerous by Scotland, with the other UK nations imposing quarantine from a scattering of islands. They include Crete, where cases of coronavirus have dwindled to almost nothing.

But increasing infection on the mainland have increased concerns that the whole country could be placed on the no-go list by England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

 Fight breaks out on flight after man refuses to wear masks

Sweden, at 32, is also a likely candidate for quarantine to be re-imposed.

Meanwhile anger is growing among travel businesses specialising in Africa about the UK governments continuing refusal to countenance tourism to any country on the continent.

Nations such as Rwanda and Tunisia have been singled out by European government as low risk, but the UK has so far rejected appeals to reconsider its blanket ban.

Paul Goldstein, co-owner of the Kicheche safari camps in Kenya, said: The double whammy of unjustified Foreign Office advice and quarantine is crippling millions of people.

"It is not based on geography, maths or certainly science. People want to travel and cannot. There should be testing for arrivals at Heathrow like there is in other countries.
IFA president, Tim Cullinan, has sent his congratulations to Mairead McGuinness on the confirmation of her appointment to the EU Commission, with the Financial Services portfolio.

Todays overwhelming endorsement from the Parliament, by 583 votes to 75, underlines the stature of Ms McGuinness on the European stage. I want to wish her well in the role and we look forward to working with her, he said.

We are at a very sensitive point in the Brexit negotiations. There was never a greater need for a strong and authoritative Irish nominee at the Commission table, he said.

Ms McGuinness will bring a credible and experienced voice on agriculture to the discussions, which will be crucial in defending our position as the talks head towards a conclusion, he said.

We welcome the comments from Ms McGuinness during her hearing last Friday that sustainability is not only green, but social too. Farmers incomes must be supported to deliver a viable income as production costs continue to rise.

"IFA will also be looking to the Commissioner to maintain her work on unfair trading practices as a key priority. Farmers must be protected and we fully endorse her commitment that no case is too small for us to know about in the Commission.

"In her time as an MEP, Ms McGuinness has developed a very strong network across the EU institutions, which will also be helpful in building alliances to secure outcomes that work for Ireland."
Even if omicron peak nears, Long Beach cases and hospitalizations will still be up for weeks, official says
Bengaluru, Oct 8 : World's leading e-tailer Amazon would help Karnataka's self-help groups (SHGs), mostly run by women, to sell their products on its platform, Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan said on Wednesday.

"Amazon is willing to help our SHGs sell their diverse products on its digital platform to customers across the country," said Narayan in a statement after meeting Amazon India's vice-president Chetan Krishnaswamy in this tech hub.

According to officials, about 1.5 lakh SHGs are engaged in making a variety of products and offering diverse services to the people in cities, towns and villages across the southern state.

"If the products and services of the SHGs are promoted and sold online across the country, their promoters will benefit immensely," Narayan said.

The minister also asked the e-commerce behemoth to provide opportunities to the state's youth who are being skilled for ready-to-be-absorbed jobs.

On Amazon's expansion plans in the state, Krishnaswamy said the company is building an ecosystem to foster innovation, create jobs and help domestic businesses go global.

"We are committed to digitising 10 million MSMEs, enabling 1 million jobs and drive $10 billion (Rs 75,000 crore) in e-commerce exports by 2025," Krishnaswamy said.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A man accused of attacking two women within minutes of each other Saturday in Clevelands Tremont neighborhood is now accused of sexually assaulting a woman the same day at Target in on the citys West Side.

Kevin Ballard, 27, is charged with rape and aggravated burglary. He is not in police custody and warrants were issued Saturday and Tuesday for his arrest. Ballard was released from prison on Sept. 25.

The first incident happened about 10:30 a.m. Saturday on Tremont Avenue near Jefferson Avenue. A 27-year-old woman told police she left Civilization Coffee a few blocks away and noticed someone following her, according to police reports.

The woman said she felt unsafe and tried to call a family member on the phone but no answered. She slowed down and hoped the man, later identified as Ballard, would walk by her, according to police reports and court records. He grabbed her by the waist, groped her and tried to pull her away, according to police reports and court records.

The woman threw coffee on his face and screamed for help. Ballard let go and ran away, court records say.

The woman told police the man appeared as if he suffered from some kind of mental illness and that he had a distant look in his eyes.

Minutes later, Ballard ran into a womans home on Starkweather Avenue, about a half-block away, police reports say.

A 32-year-old woman told police she went outside to pick up a package off her front porch when she saw Ballard running at her, according to police. The woman said she tried to slam the door shut, but Ballard kicked it open.

He pushed her back inside and choked her, according to police. The woman said she repeatedly kicked and punched him. She fought him off, but he tried to grab her purse off her shoulder as he ran from the house, according to police. He left empty-handed.

Ballard drove away in a maroon Cadillac, according to police. Investigators found his cellphone and a Cleveland Browns facemask at the womans home.

The third attack happened at the Target on West 117th Street. Court records do not say what time the incident happened and officials have not yet released the police report of the incident.

Court records say Ballard walked up behind a woman shopping inside the store and grabbed her. The woman told police he seemed to come out of nowhere. Ballard groped her, then jammed his hand between the womans legs over her clothes, according to court records.

He made a vulgar comment to the woman and walked away, court records say.

Ballard release from prison happened eight days prior to the attacks. He served a three-year sentence for fleeing from police with a gun in his car. In that case, an officer pulled him over and saw Ballard had a gun inside the car. Ballard refused to get out and sped away, nearly hitting an officer.

Ballard also served a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to three crimes in 2013, including one for following a woman off an RTA bus, grabbing her from behind and robbing her in the parking lot behind a stretch of business on Euclid Avenue in the citys University Circle neighborhood.

He was also sentenced in 2011 to one year in prison for robbery.

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Man stabbed to death in Clevelands Cudell neighborhood, police say

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Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  New Mexico voters eagerly seized their first chance to cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election, showing up even before polls opened Tuesday  the first day of absentee and in-person voting.

In Albuquerque, about 100 people stood in line  socially distanced, of course  before 8 a.m. at the Bernalillo County Clerks Annex near 15th and Lomas.

It was clear down the block, Bernalillo County Clerk Linda Stover said in an interview. We have had a steady stream.

She and other election officials throughout the state reported heavy turnout Tuesday, when counties opened their first in-person voting sites and absentee ballots went into the mail for the first time.

A broader set of early voting locations will be available Oct. 17.

Dona Ana County Clerk Amanda Lopez Askin said longtime election workers in Las Cruces described Tuesdays turnout as the heaviest theyve seen for the first day of voting.

The line has been wrapped around our very large building since we opened at 8 oclock this morning, Lopez Askin said just before noon.

Lea County Clerk Keith Manes said about 300 people voted in person through late Tuesday afternoon, or 10 times more than usual for past elections. Voters showed up prepared, he said, having done their research ahead of time for the long ballot.

Its going to be the best turnout Lea County has ever had, Manes said. The interest is really good.

The presidential contest is at the top of the ballot, but voters will also decide an open U.S. Senate race, pick three members for the House, fill every seat in the Legislature, and choose winners for a host of state, judicial and county offices. Two constitutional amendments  including a proposal to turn the Public Regulation Commission into an appointed body  and bond issues are also on the ballot.

Absentee balloting is off to a strong start. More than 321,000 voters in New Mexico have already requested absentee ballots  about 24% of registered voters.

Democrats make up a disproportionate share of the requests. They comprise about 62% of the requests so far, followed by Republicans at 21%. Libertarians, independents and others make up the rest.

Democrats make up 45% of all registered voters in New Mexico. About 31% of the states registered voters are Republican.

Only people who have requested an absentee ballot will get one in the mail. The deadline to apply is Oct. 20.

Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said this week that she and other election officials are preparing for an unprecedented influx of absentee ballots as voters opt for the safety of their homes during the coronavirus pandemic.

Her office has established a voter information portal  nmvote.org  where voters should be able to track their absentee ballot the way they do an Amazon package, with notations on whether their application has been accepted and when the ballot is mailed.

The Secretary of State Offices website, which includes the online voter registration portal, was down for part of the day Tuesday.

A spokesman for the office said the cause of the outage, which was quickly fixed, was still being investigated.

Absentee ballots helped push turnout in New Mexicos primary election to historic levels. The raw number of ballots cast in the June 2 election  about 418,000  was a record, and the percentage of registered voters who participated  about 42%  was the most in at least 20 years.

Elections this year have been in the spotlight probably in a way they never have before, Toulouse Oliver said.

Lopez Askin  whose county lies in the 2nd Congressional District, one of the most closely watched House races in the country  said her staff has seen an explosion of interest in absentee voting for the general election.

Four years ago, just 3,456 voters cast absentee ballots in Dona Ana County. But more than 26,000 voters had already requested absentee ballots through Tuesday morning.

Manes, in Lea County, and Stover, in Bernalillo County, reported similar increases.

Voters who have requested an absentee ballot  but not received it  can still vote in person. But they will have to sign an affidavit pledging not to vote absentee if the ballot arrives.

Lopez Askin said county clerks can track anyone who tries to vote absentee after casting a ballot in person. Such cases will be referred to the district attorney, she said.

Journal Capitol Bureau Chief Dan Boyd contributed to this report.
The first wave of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) appears to be receding for the first time across the country, with cases seeing a steady drop for three consecutive weeks now. Experts warn that with the festive season coming up, the curve may rise again if people let their guard down during the celebrations.

The seven-day average of daily cases in India touched 93,617 on September 16, the highest till date. In the three weeks since, this number (also referred to as the daily case trajectory) has dropped every single day and stands at 74,623 on Wednesday  down around 20% from the peak.

This has meant that Indias doubling rate  the number of days it takes for the number of infections to double  has seen a drastic improvement in the past month. On Wednesday, it stood at 60 days, as against 32.6 days on September 7.

This drop is also mirrored in the death trajectory. The seven-day average of daily deaths in the country was at its highest on September 15, when it touched 1,169. This number has dropped near consistently since then, and as on Wednesday, it stands at 977  a drop of 16% from the peak.

This is the first time a drop of this magnitude and consistency has been recorded in the Covid-19 case and death trajectories in India. Across the world, there have been fluctuations and waves in the case (and death) trajectories  the US, for instance, is on its third wave currently  but Indias trajectory has been climbing throughout till mid-September.

This reversal in trajectory has been led by the some of the states that have so far caused the national spike in cases  Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi. Together, these four states have been responsible for 46% of all infections in the country.

In Maharashtra, Indias worst-hit state responsible for a little under a quarter of all infections in the country, daily cases peaked at 22,149 on September 17, a day after the peak in the national trajectory. The trajectory in Delhi also peaked the same day, although Delhi is the only major region in the country that has seen a distinct second wave of infections. Cases in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, meanwhile, have been dropping since the start of September  their respective peaks were on September 2 and 1 respectively.

A handful of states, particularly Kerala and Karnataka, however, appear to be defying the larger trend and cases there remain currently at peak levels and appear to be rising .

Even though cases have started dropping, we are nowhere close to the end of the first wave. We are still reporting close to 75,000 cases a day, which is by no means a small number. However, it is still a significant drop, especially if it is not artificially influenced by a change in testing strategy. But if our testing strategy is the same as it was in August and early September, then this is a very good sign, said Dr Shahid Jameel, virologist and director of Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University.

The threat of a festive resurgence, however, is very real, as Indias own experience shows.

In Kerala, festivities for Onam (celebrated between August 22 and September 2) appear to have caused a spike in cases. While the trajectory in the state was largely in control through much of the pandemic, it has seen a huge spike from the start of September  average daily cases have increased from around 2,000 in the start of September to nearly 8,000 in the last week of the month.

Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan identified Onam as the key factor that caused the spike in the state. The highest increase in active cases in the country has been seen in Kerala and the surge is possibly due to the Onam festivities, he said in Tuesdays health briefing.

Dr VK Paul, member of Niti Aayog, stressed last Tuesday that the coming festive season will be all about masks  mask wali Chhath, mask wali Eid, mask wala Dussehra aur mask wali Diwali. Dussehra will be celebrated on October 25, Eid Milad-un-Nabi on October 28-29, while Diwali will be on November 14 and Chhath on November 20.

This is all for our own good; and needs to be promoted big time. Community heads should ensure and appeal that festivals should be celebrated with caution; not in large groups but smaller groups. Large gatherings, especially in marketplaces, could be detrimental, so we have to be careful, he said, during the governments weekly Covid-19 media briefing.

On Tuesday, the Union health ministry issued standard operating procedures (SOPs) ahead of the festive season to curtail the spread of the infection. These included a cap on the number of people at events and gatherings, staggered timings and restricted entry during fairs, Puja pandals, Ramlila pandals or concerts and plays.

The next few weeks will be extremely crucial because quite a few factors will be at play that can cause a rise in cases. With the festive season here, people need to develop a sense of individual responsibility when they visit temples, pandals or family gatherings. Add to this the fact that in winter people tend to stay indoor with shut windows, creating ideal conditions for viruses to thrive. Wearing masks, observing hand hygiene and social distancing become even more important now, and I hope people dont forget this, Dr Jameel said.

During the festive season people will be visiting relatives, and since it will be cold, they may gather indoors with windows shut. All of this ends up creating ideal conditions for the spread of infections. In the festive spirit, people also tend to talk louder or they end up singing  studies have also shown that viral particles tend to travel larger distances in such circumstances. All of this increases the chances of infections rising, said Dr Lalit Kant, former head of the department of epidemiology at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

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The restrictions imposed by the government in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic will result in the layoff of about 100,000 HoReCa workers by the end of the year, and in a 3 billion-euro loss for the industry, president of the Romanian Hotel Industry Federation Calin Ile told AGERPRES on Wednesday.

He said the Tuesday decision of the Bucharest City Committee for Emergency Situations to shut down again restaurants and cafes was taken in absence of any evidence that this sector has contributed to the spread of the infection.

"After this decision to close the restaurants, with no communication and with no logically presented arguments, we will again be compelled to put on unemployment people whom we struggled to keep on the job during this difficult period. Until now we were talking about 40 percent of HoReCa workers being made redundant by the end of the year, but this decision adds another 10 percent to this figure. Up until now we were estimating that about 80,000 of the 230,000 people employed in Romania's hotels and restaurants will be laid off by the end of the year, but now I think we'll reach 90 - 100,000. Which is a lot," Ile said.

According to him, the sector has survived so far due to the government's decisions on ensuring furlough payment and compensating 41.5 percent of the salary after the return of the people to work.

"We estimate that our industry's turnover will slump by about 60 percent this year. The turnover of the HoReCa industry last year was of five billion euros, 60 percent means a loss of about three billion euros," the industry representative continued.

The direct contribution of the HoReCa industry to GDP is 2.79 percent, and its total contribution is 5.4 percent.

"Many restaurants will never open again, and the businesses most at risk are those that pay rent for spaces such as those in malls or other shopping centres," Ile explained.

Sector officials will ask the government to provide a compensation plan in the near future. The first meeting is scheduled for Friday, at the headquarters of the Labor Ministry, and a discussion with Prime Minister Ludovic Orban might take place next week.
Local councillors are calling for the men of the 35th Battalion of the Irish Army who fought at the Siege of Jadotville to be awarded the medals they deserve, while they are still alive.

It follows a notice of motion brought at a recent council meeting by Cllr Joe Malone to ask the Minister for Defence to immediately award all medals to them.

Cllr Malone, who is himself a former member of the Defence Forces, said it was important the men be given full recognition in their lifetime where possible. He said a specially commissioned 'Jadotville medal' had been awarded in 2019, but not a bravery medal.

Only eight of the 32 men are still alive, he said.

The battle, which took place in Katanga in 1961, saw lightly armed and heavily outnumbered Irish troops hold their position for several days and inflict heavy casualties on their attackers.

Cllr Malone said he had recently spoken by phone with one of the surviving soldiers who had been taken prisoner after the siege. He also confirmed the 2016 film, The Siege of Jadotville, which brought the incident back into the public spotlight, was an accurate depiction.

They were returning from Mass when they were attacked. They held out for five days and didnt suffer a single death, he said.

The Fianna Fail councillor said Kilkenny was a garrison town with 600 troops in its local barracks, and the members owed it to the eight surviving members to get behind them and contact the minister on the matter.

He received support from Cllr Tomas Breathnach, who seconded the notice of motion and spoke of the history of the Congo and Irish/UN involvement there. He noted the siege had taken place in September 1961, which was 59 years just gone.

It is unfinished business and I think we owe it to them, said Cllr Breathnach.

Cllr Eugene McGuinness also said he supported the motion and that successive governments had effectively turned a blind eye to what had happened at Katanga.

The motion was carried.
The West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Wednesday arrested Muhammad Nasir Khan, an alleged criminal, from Barrackpore in North 24 Parganas district in connection with the murder of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manish Shukla at Titagarh in the same district on Sunday night.

This is the third arrest since the early hours of Tuesday. It is suspected that Khan knows the motorcycle-borne shooters who opened fire on Shukla in front of several people on a crowded BT Road around 8.27 pm on Sunday.

Forensic experts visited the spot on Wednesday afternoon. They collected some soil samples and calculated the possible trajectory paths of the bullets fired.

The shooters carried out the entire operation in 78 seconds, CID officers have found from security camera footage. During this short time they fired 18 rounds, of which more than seven hit Shukla in the head and torso. One round did not fire and the ammunition was found near Shuklas body.

He was fired at even after he had fallen. This indicates that the shooters wanted to ensure his death. They were professionals, an officer told HT on condition of anonymity.

CID teams have conducted raids at several places in South 24 Parganas and Kolkata in search of the shooters and the murder weapons. A team has gone to Jharkhand as well.

Shukla, 39, was an outgoing councilor of the Titagarh municipality and also a lawyer at Barrackpore court.

Officials involved in the investigation said that Nasir Khan has several criminal cases pending against him. He was involved in running gambling operations and was accused in at least two murder cases in the past.

Khan was released on bail from judicial custody a few months ago. It is being probed whether he is an Indian national or an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh who procured documents to prove his citizenship, an officer said on condition of anonymity.

The father of Muhammad Khurram, one of the men arrested earlier, was murdered 10 years ago, said BJP leaders and the police. Shukla was one of the accused in the murder case registered in April 2010. The charges against him were later dropped.

It is suspected that Khurram tried to take revenge. He was earlier charged for carrying out attacks on Shukla. There have been four attempts on Shuklas life between 2009 and 2018.

Sheikh Gulab, the second man arrested by CID, is suspected to have followed Shuklas movements and passed on the information to the hitmen.
DUBLIN, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "The African Data Center Gold Rush: African Colocation Markets & Models in the Age of the Cloud" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The African cloud has arrived. While the cloud services sector is in its early stages of development, the impact of cloud services is already far-reaching. African banks are making investments in machine learning and artificial intelligence tools to improve the customer experience and credit risk; new digital banks are emerging, that are, at least in part, cloud-based. Governments are using cloud and virtualized infrastructure to enhance public service delivery. Large retail firms are using compute capabilities and AWS databases to transform how they reach a predominantly mobile and digital customer base. And scores of African cloud-native startups are leveraging the cloud to disrupt entire industry sectors.



The report provides an unprecedented view into the dynamics underpinning the SSA data center market - from the expansion of global cloud and CDN providers to the COVID-19-boosted transformation of enterprise IT architectures. The market is evolving, from a smattering of small, substandard facilities to what is now, in effect, one of the fastest-growing colo markets in the world, and the fourth enabling infrastructure pillar of Africa's digital transformation.



The African cloud may be small, but it is already here indeed, and it is growing fast. For African markets, cloud, virtualization, and the broader evolution towards serverless computing are the most disruptive technological developments since the advent of the mobile payment revolution. Few other segments in the African ICT space are as likely to generate an incremental $2bn in top-line revenue over the next five years, and at least as much in adjacent enabling ecosystem revenue.



This report is about the near term economic, commercial and investor value opportunity offered by the rise of the African cloud. Building on the established analysis of African enterprise and digital infrastructure markets, 18 months of research, and 100+ interviews and conversations.



The Rise of the African Cloud explores the readiness of African markets for thriving private and public cloud services; it analyzes cloud demand and use case patterns, at the segment level, from financial services to the public sector and startups; it estimates and projects cloud services market size; it details the competitive strengths of global hyper-scale cloud providers and how their battle is translating in the African context; it outlines the impact of cloud services on Africa's managed service provider ecosystem and telcos' evolving enterprise businesses; and it breaks down the investment case within the African cloud value chain, from enterprise connectivity to data centers and SaaS.

Key Topics Covered:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: THE AFRICAN DATA CENTER GOLD RUSH - KEY TAKEAWAYS



PART I: STATE OF THE MARKET

1.1 Breaking Down the African Multi-Tenant Data Center

Tracking African MTDC facilities (1)

An acceleration in new data center construction

African DCs are getting more powerful

African data center facilities - a summary map

1.2 State of the Colo Enablers: Connectivity, Power and Data Sovereignty

Connectivity - Solid growth, and a COVID-19 wake-up call

Wholesale fiber - Excellent international depth, terrestrial a bottleneck in spots

Power - African power supply is still constrained

1.3 The State of SSA Colo Supply

A snapshot view of SSA available data center colocation capacity

African colo growth: racing towards digital equilibrium

African colo snapshot charts

SSA colocation - best viewed as three different markets

SSA Colocation: the KNG and the Rest of Africa

Africa's Top colo 10 Markets: From South Africa to Tanzania

Top colo 10 Markets: From South Africa to Johannesburg and Cape Town still the largest metros - but others are rising

1.4 State of the Providers: The Rise of Colo Specialists

SSA colo: the rise of specialists

A highly varied market structure

SSA's top 15 colo providers - from Teraco to PAIX

The leaders: Teraco and Africa Data Centres

The challengers: from Dimension Data to MDX-i and iColo

The next wave: from Raxio to IXAfrica

The next wave: ongoing projects

PART II: STATE OF DEMAND FOR AFRICAN COLOCATION

A summary view of the demand for African data center colocation

Hyperscale cloud demand - the hunt for low latency intensifies

The hyper-scale in Africa - a summary view

- a summary view Who is next? GCP, Alibaba

Where the hyper-scale go next: Filling the West Africa gap

gap CDN and Internet content providers - Need to move further north of the Limpopo

Enterprise demand - a complicated path to colocation

Enterprise case study - Finding stability in colocation - the Stanbic IBTC Nigeria case

Enterprise demand - Finding opportunities in power, COVID-19-induced crises

PART III: ADDRESSING KEY COLO BUSINESS MODEL QUESTIONS

3.1 Will African markets (and SA in particular) be oversupplied?

Assessing the SSA oversupply risk

South Africa oversupply risk - it depends on your preferred benchmark

oversupply risk - it depends on your preferred benchmark Other SSA markets: considerably under-supplied

SSA colo demand analysis - Sample charts

Growing utilization - and a top-heavy market

Our verdict: not oversupplied quite yet - but the cloud tide will not lift all the boats

The oversupply case: key charts

3.2 What is the case for the African edge, and for secondary city data centers?

Getting to the edge of the edge - and fixing Africa's cloud divide

cloud divide Africa's edge computing - a solution in search of a problem, and the case for leveraging cell towers

3.3 Is there a credible data center opportunity outside of South Africa and the KNG markets?

Africa's next data center wave: current supply belies potential

next data center wave: current supply belies potential The case for Africa's next data center wave

next data center wave Country summary attractiveness analysis: few markets make the cut

Identifying the next wave: retail demand vs. wholesale demand

Africa's next wave: From Uganda and DRC to Tanzania

3.4 Our Africa colo market outlook: winning in a COVID-19 world

African colo growth has hit an inflection point

SSA colo outlook: A rare winner in Africa's pandemic-boosted digital world

pandemic-boosted digital world SSA colo outlook: double-digit growth as demand rushes to data center safety

SSA colo outlook: summary Charts

3.5 Sample Africa colo business model questions: pricing, CapEx and pan-African platforms

SSA colocation: on pricing and MRR

SSA colocation: on data center CapEx

The increasingly pivotal African colo provider: From space + power to pan-African platforms

African colo positioning: still evolving towards the pan-African data center platform

3.6 Can African colocation grow on diesel - or renewables?

Power - Adapting to a challenging power environment

The path out of diesel: from self-generation to renewables

PART IV: COUNTRY ANALYSIS

4.1 South Africa

South Africa Market Snapshot

South Africa in context: a summary view

in context: a summary view The South Africa colocation case

colocation case South Africa DC Mapping and IXPs

The South Africa colocation case - a summary view

colocation case - a summary view SA power - Making the most out of an electricity crisis

SA power: over the long run, a potentially strong positive for colo

A remarkable colo performance

South African demand assessment

Breaking down demand for South African data center colocation (bottom-up analysis)

South Africa data center competition - market structure

data center competition - market structure South Africa data center - an increasingly top-end market

data center - an increasingly top-end market South Africa market outlook: thriving amidst the gloom

market outlook: thriving amidst the gloom South Africa market outlook

market outlook South Africa outlook: more growth ahead, despite (or thanks to) a terrible operating environment

4.2 Kenya

4.3 Nigeria

4.4 Ghana

Companies Mentioned

21st Century Technologies

Africa Data Centres

Akamai

Amazon Web Services

BCX

CloudExchange Nigeria

Djibouti Data Center

Google/GCP

Huawei

iColo

IS/Dimension Data

IXAfrica

Liquid Telecom

MainOne/MDX-i

Medallion Communications

Microsoft

MTN Business

Ngoya Etix

NSIA Technologies

Orange Business

PAIX

Rack Africa

Rack Centre

Raxio

Safaricom

Telkom Kenya

Teraco

Vodacom Business

Xneelo

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/ib8t7o

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.



Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



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SOURCE Research and Markets

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Iran, a predominantly Muslim Country just took away a Christian married couple's adopted baby.

By following Jesus, Christians in Iran such as Sam and Maryam face hardship due to the consequences that come from being a believer in the land. The judge in Iran stated there will be 'zero chance' she would be adopted by a new family as he mentioned Lydia would face an 'uncertain future' with a good chance that she will spend the rest of her life in the care of the Iranian state. The decision was handed down in July, and the appeal was finalized last week.

Throughout the court's ruling, the judge still rejected the reasoning of the couples' situation even as One Grand Ayatollah stated Lydia should have the right to choose her own beliefs. According to Open Door, The couple was arrested earlier this year along with other believers. With no additional help, the couple is trying their best to fight the case themselves.

According to Article 18, Sam was sentenced to a year in prison, followed by two year's internal exile, for 'propaganda against the state'. Both Sam and Maryam were also banned from employment within their specialist professions. Maryam will no longer be permitted to work for any national institution including the hospital she has served for 20 years. Open Door reaches out for a prayer request upon Sam and Maryam's family including the admirable baby Lydia. (Please join your brother and sister in prayer, along with the entire church in Iran.)

Pray for: -Pray Lydia can stay with her parents. Pray God would do a miracle to keep this family together. -Pray God would comfort Sam and Maryam. We imagine they are devastated after the ruling, pray he would be their peace and their sustaining comfort. -Lift up your sisters and brother in Iran as they seek to live out the gospel in a place that often regards them with suspicion and hate. -Pray God would be at work among His people in Iran. Ask Him to protect Christians, to provide for them, and to equip them to do the good work He has given them to do. -Pray for the leaders of Iran, that their hearts would be softened and that they would see the love and hope of Jesus.


A woman who was sexually exploited by a doctor involved in the Ebola response is pictured in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo, August 20, 2020.

London  Failure to tackle sexual abuse by aid staff should result in tougher action including funding cuts, aid experts told UK parliament

Aid organisations and humanitarian agencies should face tougher action including funding cuts if they do not tackle sexual abuse by staff, aid experts told UK parliamentarians on Tuesday amid a sex-for-jobs scandal during an Ebola crisis in the Congo.

There is a "culture of impunity" for abusers and organisations believe they "are above the law", typically seeking to protect their own reputations ahead of offering support and justice for victims, experts said.

The hearing came after an investigation last week by the Thomson Reuters Foundation and The New Humanitarian revealed 51 women accusing mainly foreign aid workers of forcing them into sex during an Ebola outbreak in the Congo between 2018-2020.

"The U.N., the NGOs believe they are above the law," Professor Andrew MacLeod of Hear Their Cries, a charity fighting sex abuse in the aid sector, told the International Development Committee investigating sex abuse and exploitation in aid.

"Predators now target the aid industry to join because they know they get away with it."

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for the allegations of sex abuse in Congo to be "investigated fully".

Five of seven U.N. agencies and humanitarian groups named in the nearly year-long investigation have announced inquiries, including the World Health Organization, UNICEF, International Organization for Migration, World Vision and medical NGO ALIMA.

Guterres promised, when appointed in 2017, to make tackling the decades-old scourge of sexual abuse and exploitation in the aid sector a top priority after a string of controversies.

But Paula Donovan, co-director of AIDS-Free World's Code Blue Campaign against sex abuse by U.N. personnel, said Guterres seemed "to have forgotten about his top priority entirely".

She said claims of "zero tolerance" for abuse rang hollow in the light of the recent expose in which women said numerous men had either propositioned them, forced them to have sex in exchange for a job or ended contracts when they refused.

"Stop saying it. Nobody believes it, it's a ridiculous empty phrase," she told the hearing, adding it was critical to let impartial, objective teams conduct investigations.

No one from the U.N. was immediately available to comment.

The Congo scandal highlights how investigation systems set up by agencies are typically done so to protect organisational reputation ahead of justice for abuse victims, said MacLeod.

Human rights lawyer Sienna Merope-Synge, based at NYU School of Law, said many survivors don't report abuse because they have "no faith in the systems and they are afraid", while there was a "culture of impunity" in humanitarian organisations.

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The U.N. also faced particular criticism over its handling of legal immunity for personnel - a mechanism designed to protect the organisation from politically-motivated attacks.

"Despite the U.N.'s repeated claims they will lift the immunity it's a case-by-case basis and they just don't do it very often, if at all," said Edward Flaherty, a lawyer at the Geneva-based firm Schwab, Flaherty & Associes.

VICTIMS FACE 'BLACK HOLE' OVER CASES

Those who do report incidents to the U.N. face a "black hole" of information over their case, said Merope-Synge, who has represented women in Haiti who had children fathered by U.N. peacekeepers.

While U.N. support was "piecemeal" and inadequate, in the humanitarian sector it appeared even more inconsistent and lacking transparency, she added.

The hearing was told aid agencies should face tougher consequences for failing to take action on abuse.

One possible avenue was a U.S. government scheme in which international organisations failing to meet best practices to protect whistleblowers lost 15% of state funding, said Flaherty.

But Merope-Synge warned stripping funding could create a "perverse incentive" to hide abuse by staff for fear of the consequences.

MacLeod, however, called for funders to go further, saying all cash should be withheld from organisations facing claims of sex abuse by staff until they have been satisfactorily resolved.

"At the end of the day, you have got to cut their funding or send people to jail or nothing will change," he said.
LONDON: The Scottish government ordered pubs in Scotlands two biggest cities to close and restricted food and drink business in the rest of the country as Britain seeks to control a surge in coronavirus cases. The U.K. government is mulling whether to follow suit and tighten restrictions for England.

Like other European countries, Britain has seen a second wave of coronavirus infections since pubs and restaurants reopened, children went back to school and students returned to university.

Most of the U.K. is under national restrictions on socializing, including a 10 p.m. curfew for bars and restaurants, and groups limited to six, with areas of high infection facing stricter local measures.

Scotland went even further on Wednesday, saying pubs, cafes and restaurants can only open between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. to sell food and non-alcoholic drinks. Drinking alcohol is only allowed outdoors.

Five areas with high infection rates, including the biggest cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, face further measures including a takeaway-only rule for bars and a recommendation to avoid public transport.

Sturgeon said the measures were a short, sharp action and will last for 16 days starting Friday.

Without them, there is a risk the virus will be out of control by the end of this month," she said in the Scottish Parliament.

Prime Minister Boris Johnsons U.K. government is also considering whether to impose new restrictions. But hes also facing a backlash from many lawmakers who say measures such as the 10 p.m. bar curfew are hurting businesses without reducing infections.

This curfew has led to vast numbers of people being asked to leave pubs at 10 p.m. and pour onto the streets, many of whom then find their way to the nearest shop, buying cans and bottles to go back to gather in someones home, Conservative lawmaker Matt Vickers said.

Pub chain Greene King said Wednesday that it planned to close dozens of bars across the country, blaming the continued tightening of trading restrictions.

Controlling a rising case count is being hindered by persistent problems with Britains test-and-trace program that seeks to find the contacts of infected people and get them to isolate.

Last week, the government announced that nearly 16,000 new coronavirus infections had gone unreported as a result of a technical glitch, leading to delays in tracking down contacts.

This week Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche said problems at a U.K. warehouse are delaying shipments of testing products to clinics and hospitals, triggering concerns that COVID-19 testing may be further disrupted as infection rates rise across Britain.

Roche said the problem arose after it moved to a new automatic warehouse in September.

In a letter, it advised customers to prioritize essential services only.

The company said that it was prioritizing the dispatch of COVID-19 PCR and antibody tests and doing everything we can to ensure there is no impact on the supply of these to the National Health Service.

The glitch affects materials needed to conduct blood tests and screening for diseases including diabetes and cancer. Roche said it could take two weeks to fix the problem.

British doctors have already raised concerns about the number of procedures, tests and screening programs that were put on hold as the health service focused on battling COVID-19 earlier this year.

While normal service has begun to resume, there is still a backlog, and long waiting lists for non-emergency operations.

Britain, has the highest virus death toll in Europe at over 42,500. A total of 3,145 coronavirus patients were in U.K. hospitals on Tuesday, up from 2,390 a week earlier. A further 70 deaths of people with COVID-19 were recorded Wednesday, compared to 41 a week earlier.

Both figures are well below the peaks seen at the height of the U.K. outbreak in the spring.

___

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Protesters clashed with police during a mass rally against fascism in Athens Wednesday, after a Greek court ruled that the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn partyone of Europes most extreme political movementsis a criminal organization. Photo: Aristidis Vafeiadakis/Zuma Press
- Kim Chiu revealed on social media that a friend of her sister Lakam informed her that she saw something weird in her recent photo

- Her sisters friend claimed that she could see a paranormal being behind Kim and outside the window in the said photo

- The actress admitted that she got scared and freaked out by what Lakam told her

- Furthermore, Kim shared a video of their interaction and uploaded screenshots of the conversation between Lakam and her friend about the viral image

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Kim Chiu (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Source: UGC

Kim Chiu has once again gone viral due to her trending photo on her social media account.

The Kapamilya actress revealed that a friend of her sister Lakam informed her that she saw something weird in her picture.

Lakam's friend claimed that she could see a paranormal being called a"Tikbalang" behind Kim and outside the window in the said photo.

For this reason, Kim admitted that she got scared and freaked out by what Lakam told her. She also shared a video of their interaction and uploaded screenshots of the conversation between Lakam and her friend about the viral image.

However, some netizens commented that Lakam's friend might have just been confused by an optical illusion in the picture.

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Watch this video to see Lakam's clip and screenshots of her conversation with Kim Chiu:

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Kim Chiu is one of the most acclaimed and prominent female showbiz personalities in the Philippines. She is currently in a relationship with Xian Lim. Amid the ABS-CBN franchise crisis, Kim has been one of the most vocal supporters of the network.

The actress impressed a lot of people when she promised not to leave the network despite its franchise renewal issues. Kim revealed that she already has a new project lined up on ABS-CBN after her teleserye ends

Aside from her showbiz career, Kim Chiu has also caught the attention of people with her comments on current issues. Months ago, the star expressed her disappointment over the governments way of handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

Please like and share our amazing Facebook posts to support the KAMI team! Dont hesitate to comment and share your opinions about our stories either. We love reading about your thoughts and views on different matters!

Source: KAMI.com.gh
In this March 30, 2019 photo, Alexanda Amon Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were allegedly among four British jihadis who made up a brutal Islamic State cell dubbed "The Beatles," speak during an interview with The Associated Press at a security center in Kobani, Syria. Read more

WASHINGTON  Two Islamic State militants from Britain were brought to the United States on Wednesday to face charges in a gruesome campaign of torture, beheadings and other acts of violence against four Americans and others captured and held hostage in Syria, the Justice Department said.

El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are two of four men who were called the Beatles by the hostages because of the captors' British accents. The two men were expected to make their first appearance Wednesday afternoon in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, where a federal grand jury issued an eight-count indictment that accuses them of being leading participants in a brutal hostage-taking scheme that resulted in the deaths of Western hostages, including American journalist James Foley.

The charges are a milestone in a yearslong effort by U.S. authorities to bring to justice members of the group known for beheadings and barbaric treatment of aid workers, journalists and other hostages in Syria. Startling for their unflinching depictions of cruelty and violence, recordings of the murders were released online in the form of propaganda for a group that at its peak controlled vast swaths of Syria and Iraq.

The case underscores the Justice Departments commitment to prosecuting in American civilian court militants captured overseas, said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, who vowed that other extremists will be pursued to the ends of the earth. The defendants' arrival in the U.S. sets the stage for arguably the most sensational terrorism trial since the 2014 criminal case against the suspected ringleader of a deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

If you have American blood in your veins or American blood on your hands, you will face American justice, said Demers, the departments top national security official.

The men are charged in connection with the deaths of four American hostages  Foley, journalist Steven Sotloff and aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller  as well as British and Japanese nationals who were also held captive.

The pair face charges of hostage-taking resulting in death and other terrorism-related counts. Because of a recent concession by the Justice Department, prosecutors will not be seeking the death penalty.

The indictment describes Kotey and Elsheikh, both of whom prosecutors say radicalized in London and left for Syria in 2012, as leading participants in a brutal hostage-taking scheme that targeted American and European citizens and that involved murders, mock executions, shocks with electric tasers, physical restraints and other brutal acts.

Prosecutors say the men worked closely with a chief spokesman for IS who reported to the groups leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in a U.S. military operation last year. They were joined in the Beatles by Mohamed Emwazi, who was killed in a 2015 drone strike and was also known as Jihadi John after appearing and speaking in the videos of multiple executions, including Foleys. A fourth member, Aine Lesley Davis, is serving a prison sentence in Turkey.

The indictment accuses Kotey and Elsheikh of participating in Foleys 2012 kidnapping and of supervising detention facilities for hostages, in addition to engaging in a long pattern of physical and psychological violence.

It also alleges that they coordinated ransom negotiations over email with hostage families. In interviews while in detention, the two men admitted they helped collect email addresses from Mueller that could be used to send out ransom demands. Mueller was killed in 2015 after 18 months in IS captivity. The indictment says Muellers family received an email demanding a cash payment of 5 million euros for Muellers release.

In July 2014, according to the indictment, Elsheikh described to a family member his participation in an IS attack on the Syrian Army. He sent the family member photos of decapitated heads and said in a voice message, Theres many heads, this is just a couple that I took a photo of.

The indictment describes the execution of a Syrian prisoner in 2014 that the two forced their Western hostages to watch. Kotey instructed the hostages to kneel while watching the execution and holding signs pleading for their release. Emwazi shot the prisoner in the back of the head while Elsheikh videotaped the execution. Elsheikh told one of the hostages, youre next, prosecutors say.

The 24-page indictment accuses Kotey and Elsheikh of conspiring to murder the hostages and of helping cause their deaths by detaining them. It does not spell out any specific roles for them in the executions. But G. Zachary Terwilliger, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, whose office will prosecute the case, said under U.S. law Elsheikh and Kotey can be held liable for the foreseeable acts of their co-conspirators.

Relatives of the four slain Americans praised the Justice Department for transferring the men to the U.S. for trial, calling it the first step in the pursuit of justice for the alleged horrific human rights crimes against these four young Americans.

We are hopeful that the U.S. government will finally be able to send the important message that if you harm Americans, you will never escape justice. And when you are caught, you will face the full power of American law, their statement said.

Elsheikh and Kotey have been held since October 2019 in American military custody after being captured in Syria one year earlier by the U.S.-based Syrian Democratic Forces while trying to escape Syria for Turkey. The Justice Department has long wanted to put them on trial, but those efforts were complicated by wrangling over whether Britain, which does not have the death penalty, would share evidence that could be used in a death penalty prosecution.

Attorney General William Barr broke the diplomatic standoff this year when he promised the men would not face the death penalty. That prompted British authorities to share evidence that U.S. prosecutors deemed crucial for obtaining convictions.
The employees who lost their jobs  and a fifth counselor who said she quit because she believed she was about to be fired  said their departures left 40 children without a licensed psychologist or social worker. Most are elementary-school-age youngsters who have experienced sexual abuse, often by a family member or someone they know. Some are in the foster-care system, the former employees said. Others remain with their families, most of whom are struggling financially and some of whom are immigrants. About 39 percent of the children served by the center are Latino, 34 percent are Black and 16 percent are White, according to the annual report.
We are extremely happy that our own certified security integrator was able to implement our access control solution seamlessly and efficiently to help secure their new facility, states Jonathan Mooney, ISONAS sales leader

ISONAS Inc., a leading IP access control and hardware solution provider and part of the Allegion family of brands, today announced that the ISONAS Pure IP access control solution has been installed at a new 8,000-square-foot facility in Rockford, IL. Engel Electric Company, a leading full-service electrical contracting company in the Midwest, is also a certified independent ISONAS security integrator who sells and installs the ISONAS hardware and software to its customer base. Engel Electric Co. believes in the power of the ISONAS Pure IP solution not only for their own customers, but for themselves. The time had come to implement this powerful solution at their very own facility.

With two offices located in Sterling and Rockford, Illinois, Engel Electric Co. was looking to implement an access control system in the spring of 2019 to help secure their new 8,000-square-foot facility in Rockford. After working with ISONAS on another access control project in Illinois, Engel Electric Co. was convinced that out of all the access control systems available in the market, that ISONAS was the best choice of them all, states Craig Thompson, technology project manager at Engel Electric Co.

Safety has always been Engel Electric Companys top concern, as well as protecting their inventory of expensive equipment. A huge challenge facing the company was not having the ability to change access on a per-job basis. Typically, there would be different crews working on various projects off hours, and Engel Electric Co. did not have a way to control the levels of accessibility at different times of the day. In addition, with over 50 employees on staff and various work crews coming in and out daily, there was no way to control unauthorized access at either location. Engel Electric Co. was also looking for an access control system that was able to integrate with their existing iPhone video door entry system and wanted seamless entry control across both office locations.

The project consisted of two ISONAS RC-04 Pure IP reader-controllers installed at Engel Electric Companys new facility in Rockford within a weeks timeframe in May 2019. The deployment included one mullion reader on the front door and one keypad reader on the employee entrance. In addition to the ISONAS hardware, the ISONAS Pure Access software was used to give Engel Electric Companys management team the ability to control access remotely. Pure Access, ISONASs industry-leading software, is a cloud-based access control application that provides users the ability to manage their access control from anywhere at any time, on any device. Partnering with ISONAS was one of the first and best decisions we made when opening our Rockford office and our low voltage division, says Thompson.

We are extremely happy that our own certified security integrator was able to implement our access control solution seamlessly and efficiently to help secure their new facility, states Jonathan Mooney, ISONAS sales leader. With so many customization options available, the ISONAS solution will continue to grow and expand alongside Engel Electric Co. in the years to come, just like the relationship. ISONAS will continue to deliver true value to its customers now and well into the future.

With 10-15 users at the new Rockford facility, it was important for Engel Electric to get everyone trained and up to speed quickly. The ISONAS Pure Access software was very user-friendly, which made us able to almost plug and play, says Thompson. Recently, two ISONAS RC-04 keypads were installed at the Sterling location to allow for seamless access between both facilities without having to issue keys.

To learn more about ISONAS, visit http://www.isonas.com or email sales@isonas.com.

About Allegion:

Allegion (NYSE: ALLE) is a global pioneer in seamless access, with leading brands like CISA, Interflex, LCN, Schlage, SimonsVoss and Von Duprin. Focusing on security around the door and adjacent areas, Allegion secures people and assets with a range of solutions for homes, businesses, schools and other institutions. Allegion had $2.9 billion in revenue in 2019 and sells products in almost 130 countries. For more, visit http://www.allegion.com.

ISONAS Contact:

Jonathan Mooney, ISONAS Sales Leader

ISONAS Inc.

Phone: 800-581-0083

Email: Jonathan.mooney@allegion.com

PR Contact:

Monique Merhige, President

Infusion Direct Marketing Inc

Phone: 772-236-0233

Email: monique@infusiondirect.com
Anna Naghdalyan, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, has responded to the question regarding the statement of the Prosecutor Generals office of Azerbaijan.

Question: The Prosecutor Generals Office issued a statement that on October 6 the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in the section of Yevlakh district was allegedly attacked. How will you comment on this statement?

Answer: First, I would like to mention that my colleague, Spokesperson of the Ministry of Defense Shushan Stepanyan has already denied this information. This is another lie of the Azerbaijani side primarily aimed at justifying its continuous shelling of the peaceful settlements of Artsakh and Armenia.

Such behaviour of the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan is deplorable. Its ridiculous that imaginary terrorism concerns are voiced by a country which has done its utmost to import foreign terrorist fighters into this region, which has an important role from the perspective of Europe's energy security.
In this April 23, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump's name is seen on a stimulus check issued by the IRS to help combat the adverse economic effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, in San Antonio, Texas. AP Photo/Eric Gay

President Trump's decision to call off negotiations on a COVID-19 stimulus package means Americans likely won't receive $1,200 checks until at least after the election.

House Democrats had passed two measures that would have provided $1,200 to each adult and another $1,200 for each dependant child.

Senate Republicans rejected those proposals, proposing a scaled-back stimulus plan that eliminated the $1,200 payments.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Americans will likely not receive any additional economic relief  neither stimulus checks nor expanded unemployment benefits  until at least after the November election, US President Donald Trump announced in a social media post on Tuesday.

Insisting that Democrats only want to "bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat states," Trump said on Twitter that he would no longer negotiate with them over another stimulus package. Indeed, he insisted that the economy is "doing very well," despite there being 10.7 million fewer jobs today than there were six months ago, and said he would pivot instead to confirming his nominee Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

On October 1, the Democrat-led House of Representatives passed a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package that included a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks for every American, with parents eligible to receive another $1,200 for each dependent child. The bill also proposed an additional $600 in federal unemployment benefits and $436 billion in aid for state and local governments to help cover the cost of providing assistance to out-of-work Americans.

The Democrats' plan would have also revived the Paycheck Protection Program, providing cash infusions to small businesses to help keep employees on the payroll.

Democrats had passed a $3 trillion stimulus bill in May, but Senate Republicans and White House negotiators balked at the price tag, and the two sides were unable to reach a deal.

Story continues

A $700 million proposal unveiled by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell eliminated the $1,200 stimulus checks and cut expanded unemployment benefits in half, providing an additional $300 a week through the end of the year. It would also have revived the Paycheck Protection Program, with about half the measure's funding coming from the first stimulus package enacted into law this spring.

Democrats, for their part, disparaged the GOP proposal as entirely too meager.

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, in negotiations with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, had backed the idea of another round of $1,200 stimulus checks, and the White House said it would back a deal of up to $1.6 trillion. But those talks have now been called off, a decision criticized by Democrats and some vulnerable Republicans.

"Waiting until after the election to reach an agreement on the next COVID-19 relief package is a huge mistake," Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican up for reelection in November, said Tuesday.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, in a statement, said the president's tweets were indicative of his lack of concern for average Americans.

"Make no mistake: if you are out of work, if your business is closed, if your child's school is shut down, if you are seeing layoffs in your community, Donald Trump decided today that none of that  none of it  matters to him," Biden said. "There will be no help from Washington for the foreseeable future."

In a series of late-night tweets, Trump appeared to reverse course, issuing ultimatums in lieu of negotiations.

In one, the president said Congress should pass an airline bailout and approve additional money for small businesses, using money already approriated for the first stimulus package. Some 20 minutes later, he also declared that he would sign a "Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks."

Democrats have consistently rejected such piecemeal stimulus efforts.

"Let's not have a skinny bill when we have a massive problem," Pelosi said last month.

Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com

Read the original article on Business Insider
James Packer has told a public inquiry he did not consider the NSW governments ban on Macau casino kingpin Stanley Ho when he sold $1.7 billion worth of Crown Resorts shares to a company connected to the controversial billionaire.

During his second day of evidence at the NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authoritys probity inquiry Mr Packer also blamed former Crown executives for the disastrous failure that led to the casino giant's employees being jailed in China, and revealed fears Macau's casino authority may have banned Crown from the territory after that incident.

James Packer giving evidence on Wednesday.

The inquiry was launched to investigate the group's dealings with figures tied to organised crime and Mr Packer's sale of a 19.9 per cent stake in Crown to Melco Resorts in May last year.

Mr Packer told the inquiry on Wednesday he was at one time aware that Melco was partially owned by a family trust called Great Respect, which included Stanley Ho as a beneficiary until his death in May 2020.
MILFORD  A proposed change in the zoning regulations to allow a 300-unit apartment building at the Connecticut Post Mall was rejected by the Milford Planning and Zoning Board .

The board voted 5-3 against the measure.

Prior to the vote, Steven Levin, founder and chief executive officer of Centennial Real Estate of Dallas, Texas, made an impassioned plea to the board, asking its members to approve the zone change, saying the residential component was only the first step in a long-range plan to save the mall.

Levin said the mall generates $200 million annually in gross sales and that 2,000 people work there.

The meeting Tuesday consisted mainly of Levin responding to comments from Julie Nash, director of economic and community development for the city, who criticized the proposal at the Sept. 15 public hearing.

Nash had said that the proposal lacked a long-term cohesive plan and should encompass other uses, such as university extensions, workforce development, corporate headquarters, and co-working spaces, as is being done at other malls across the country.

Levin said he once had a store at the Highland Mall in Austin, Texas, a mall that he said was closed for 10 years before the city floated $300 million in bonds. The bonds allowed Austin Community College to locate its campus there, along with 1,300 residential units. He said that the Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles was also a failed mall, which Google changed into a 500,000-square-foot facility.

The Short Hills Mall in New Jersey is a stable mall with $500 million in annual sales, which added a 30,000-square-foot co-working space, he said. Finally, Levin said Westfield Corp. brought an incubator business into its successful Westfield San Francisco Centre.

We dont want the Connecticut Post to die to re-envision the mall, said Levin. Our vision is to re-imagine this mall, this property, while it continues to be a vibrant, relevant, amenity for the community of Milford. This mall doesnt have to die.

Levin said Westfield bought the Meriden mall for $120 million five years ago and recently sold it for $10 million. He said that Centennial is an unusual owner because it has a long-term vision and is passionate about building places where people want to live.

Levin said the residential is only the first phase and said the second phase would include a $25 million glass office building that would require tearing down a wing of the mall to construct it, with a demolition cost of $4 million. He said that building could be used for an office, a medical building, or an academic campus. Funding would be provided by USAA.

We dont have a biotech company today, said Levin. What is showing up is a demand for residential.

Levin said that the Trumbull Planning and Zoning Commission just approved a 260-unit apartment building at the Westfield Trumbull Mall, commenting, That mall doesnt have the vision we have.

In response to questions from the public about potential future apartments on the other two properties in the Shopping Center Design District, namely, the Walmart and Stop & Shop properties, Centennial Attorney John Knuff said this proposal would not create a precedent because the board has considerable discretion with regard to zone changes.

The board did not have a discussion on the application before the vote; only two board members commented on the request. Board member John Mortimer, who voted in favor of the zone change, said he thought the visuals for the future phases with the office building and other amenities look great.

Board Chairman Jim Quish said he did like that Centennial came forward with a version of a master plan, but said he was voting against the zone change, commenting, I personally would like to see an application with a completed master plan and a timeline, with potentially developers for the residential.

Quish said the risk was that if the board approved the zone change and there was a change in the economy, the city would be stuck with apartments in a zone that was clearly meant to be a commercial property.

In response, Knuff said the master plan would come after the regulation change. Without this change, he said it would be difficult, if not impossible, to move forward on the project.

Levin said, Nobody will come with that vision until the mall is gone.

The public hearing started at the boards Sept. 15 meeting. The proposal drew mixed reviews from business leaders, city officials, and residents.

At the Sept. 15 meeting, Levin said Centennial spent $200 million to purchase the mall from Westfield in 2015, only to see the retail climate start to deteriorate much faster than expected, including the loss of JC Penney.

The application filed by Knuff was only for the regulation change, which he said was necessary to bring the regulations into alignment with other uses in the zone. This zone change would have affected the three properties in the SCD district: the mall, the 47.5-acre Milford Crossing property at 1357 Boston Post Road, and the 10-acre Stop & Shop property at 1360 East Town Road.
I read recently how a UK-based non-profit Christian organisation which supports men and women with homosexual issues who voluntarily seek change in their lives was jettisoned by their bank because of what an LGBT organisation said about them.

The Core Issues Trust has been targeted by LGBT activists because they offer one-to-one counselling and support services for those who experience unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion.

It respects the rights of individuals who identify as 'gay' who do not seek change and supports dignity for LGBT persons. It does not support gay marriage - usually considered an equality issue, premised on the belief being gay is "biological" and is therefore unchangeable.

Conversion Therapy (Not!)

Activists have therefore smeared Core Issues Trust as providing conversion therapy, a term which is often weaponized against any Christian organization wishing to help, accompany and support those who want to live according to traditional Christian values.

The LGBT organisation known as Stonewall, an influential LGBT activist group, tweeted Barclays Bank, demanding they withdraw their services and made false claims about the Core Issues Trust.

While Barclays hasnt officially given a reason for their decision to close the bank accounts of the Core Issues Trust, their letter to the organisation came just two weeks after this tweet.

In addition to having had their bank accounts withdrawn, the Core Issues Trust has also had their Paypal facility removed, affecting supporters ability to make donations and Mailchimp have removed their services, meaning they cannot contact subscribers

It may not surprise you then to learn Barclays is currently listed at number 30 on a list of Top 100 employers published by Stonewall.

An assault on religious freedom.

Normally, when a bank decides to foreclose on a customer, it is because they have breached the terms and conditions of their contract, they owe too much money or have been involved in some kind of illegal activity.

Not so in the case of Core Issues Trust.

What activists cannot stand is organizations such as the Core Issues Trust refuse to validate their own personal choices and lifestyle and help others to explore how to live differently and according to Gospel values.

The CEO of the Core Issues Trust has been explicitly clear there is no compulsion or coercion, physical or emotional abuse involved in their ministry and has condemned abhorrent practices such as electroshock therapy and corrective rape.

They simply offer one-to-one counselling, but what particularly bugs the LGBT lobby is they are helping people who wish to see if they can move away from their attractions.

Such discrimination by Barclays is not only unjust, but it is also, arguably, illegal.

Barclays have kowtowed to these activists and thus given support to a campaign of harassment being waged against this Christian organisation.

Harassment

Thanks to these activists, this Christian ministry has faced a campaign of on and offline harassment, using identical tactics to the one waged against CitizenGo and its chairman, Caleb Stephen by transgender-rights activists last year and familiar to anyone who has ever dared to disagree with LGBT ideology in the public square.

The CEO of the Core Issues Trust has received text messages containing death threats, expressing a hope his wife and family are raped and killed, and has been signed up to pornographic LGBT websites and accounts.

Theyve also received nuisance phone calls and had their emails spammed so they are blacklisted and social media platforms have removed their ability to block trolls and have removed content and posts, even though they were previously allowed to stand for the past two years.

This might not be the fault of Barclays Bank but no doubt the people responsible for these crimes will see their actions as a validation of their criminal conduct.

Aim

We need to send a message to the bank telling them to reject the irrational demands of social media mobs and not to remove the religious rights and freedoms of their customers.

My aim in this article is to inform readers of the continual and growing discrimination against Christians and Christian organisations world-wide.

My thanks to Caleb Stephen and the team at CitizenGO for much of the information contained in this article
Number 10 today insisted it would not be swayed by mounting calls from scientists to stop using lockdowns and let the coronavirus spread among young and healthy people.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said calls for the UK to aim for herd immunity against Covid-19 would not be heeded by policy-makers.

It comes after a petition named the Great Barrington Declaration was published this week calling for young people to be allowed to return to life as normal while the elderly and most vulnerable are given 'focused protection'.

The open letter, written by experts at Oxford, Harvard and Stanford universities has since been signed by more than 8,000 scientists and medical workers, as well as 76,000 members of the public.

But Mr Johnson's spokesman said today that there is no proof it would be possible to protect only vulnerable people, nor that herd immunity would ever develop.

Top scientists have also poured scorn on the plan, saying it is based on unproven science and thin on important details. One Oxford University professor today branded the declaration 'a libertarian agenda packaged as science' and 'a manifesto for selfishness'.

The Great Barrington Declaration has been signed by more than 8,000 scientists and medics and 72,000 members of the public since it was published on Monday

The concept of herd immunity emerged briefly as a possible plan for Government action before March's lockdown but was quickly shot down by critics.

Allowing the virus to spread enough for most people to get immunity and prevent a second outbreak  if it is even possible  would have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, scientists warned at the time.

WHO CREATED THE GREAT BARRINGTON DECLARATION? The declaration was written by Dr Martin Kulldorff (Harvard University), Dr Sunetra Gupta (Oxford) and Dr Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford). It has since been signed by 1,500 scientists, 1,700 medical workers and 26,000 members of the public. The co-signers, who added their names to the report before it was published, were: Professor Sucharit Bhakdi (University of Mainz)

Dr Rajiv Bhatia (Physician, USA)

Professor Stephen Bremner (University of Sussex)

Professor Anthony J Brookes (University of Leicester)

Dr Helen Colhoun (University of Edinburgh)

Professor Angus Dalgleish (St. Georges, University of London)

Dr Sylvia Fogel (Harvard)

Dr Eitan Friedman (Tel Aviv University)

Dr Uri Gavish (Biomedical consultant)

Professor Motti Gerlic (Tel Aviv University)

Dr Gabriela Gomes (University of Strathclyde)

Professor Mike Hulme (University of Cambridge)

Dr Michael Jackson (University of Canterbury, New Zealand)

Dr David Katz (Yale University)

Dr Andrius Kavaliunas (Karolinska Institute)

Dr Laura Lazzeroni (Stanford)

Dr Michael Levitt (Stanford)

Professor David Livermore (University of East Anglia)

Dr Jonas Ludvigsson (Orebro University Hospital, Sweden)

Dr Paul McKeigue (University of Edinburgh)

Dr Cody Meissner (Tufts University)

Professor Ariel Munitz (Tel Aviv University)

Professor Yaz Gulnur Muradoglu (Queen Mary University of London)

Professor Partha P. Majumder (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata)

Professor Udi Qimron (Tel Aviv University)

Professor Matthew Ratcliffe (University of York)

Dr Mario Recker (University of Exeter)

Dr Eyal Shahar (University of Arizona)

Professor Karol Sikora (Rutherford Health)

Dr Rodney Sturdivant (Baylor University)

Dr Simon Thornley (University of Auckland)

Professor Ellen Townsend (University of Nottingham)

Professor Lisa White (Oxford University)

Professor Simon Wood (University of Edinburgh) Advertisement

Now, the Barrington Declaration calls for only people at most risk of dying to be protected while the rest of society returns to life as normal.

But in a briefing with journalists this afternoon the Prime Minister's spokesman said: 'We have considered the full range of scientific opinion throughout the course of this pandemic and we will continue to do so,' the Independent reported.

'But what I would also say is that it is not possible to rely on an unproven assumption that it is possible for people who are at lower risk, should they contract the virus, to avoid subsequently transmitting it to those who are at a higher risk and would face a higher risks of ending up in hospital, or worse in an intensive care unit.'

The declaration's concept of 'focused protection' suggests looking after the vulnerable by using care home staff who are already immune, for example, by delivering groceries to elderly people so they don't have to go shopping, or by families meeting outdoors instead of inside.

'Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal,' the petition said.

Better hygiene such as hand-washing and self-isolation for people who are ill should carry on for everyone, it said, but social distancing could be done away with.

As the virus spread through people at a low risk of dying, the population would gradually build immunity which would slow down the spread of Covid-19 in the future, they claimed  known as herd immunity.

But researchers have hit out at the plan, saying it is 'not evidence-based'.

Oxford University medical professor Dr Trisha Greenhalgh said on Sky News today: 'I don't think it's desirable, I don't think it's achievable and I don't think it's evidence-based.

'I think the Barrington Declaration seems to be a manifesto for selfishness and, I quote directly from it, those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal.

'I think this is a libertarian agenda packaged as science because it completely ignores the role of the so-called not vulnerable in passing the virus onto the rest of us.'

She added 'nobody has ever done locking people away as an effective measure to achieve control of the virus  there isn't a single country where it's happened'.

The petition, which appears to be aimed at both the US and the UK, has been set up in a bid to try and prevent the drastic lockdown measures that were used in March from returning.

Many of the actions it calls for are already happening in much of the UK, although altered by social distancing.

'Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching,' it said. 'Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed.

'Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open.

'Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.'

The herd immunity focus of the declaration has irked many researchers. Scientists still cannot prove whether people develop any immunity to Covid-19 after catching it the first time.

If it turns out that people regularly get the illness twice or more it may mean that turn the concept of herd immunity on its head.

There have been sporadic reports from around the world of reinfection, but the circumstances that allow it to happen are unclear.

For many of the people who are alleged to have caught it twice, scientists suspect their original illness never cleared up or their test results were wrong somewhere along the line.

Dr Rupert Beale, an infection biologist at the Francis Crick Institute in London, said: 'This declaration prioritises just one aspect of a sensible strategy  protecting the vulnerable  and suggests we can safely build up "herd immunity" in the rest of the population. This is wishful thinking.

'It is not possible to fully identify vulnerable individuals, and it is not possible to fully isolate them.

'Furthermore, we know that immunity to coronaviruses wanes over time, and re-infection is possible  so lasting protection of vulnerable individuals by establishing "herd immunity" is very unlikely to be achieved in the absence of a vaccine.'

And University of Southampton public health expert, Dr Richard Head, added: 'The Barrington Declaration is based upon a false premise  that governments and the scientific community wish for extensive lockdowns to continue until a vaccine is available.

'Lockdowns are only ever used when transmission is high, and now that we have some knowledge about how best to handle new outbreaks, most national and subnational interventions are much "lighter" than the full suppressions we have seen for example in the UK across the spring of 2020.

'Those behind the Barrington Declaration are advocates of herd immunity within a population. They state that those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal", with the idea being that somehow the vulnerable of society will be protected from ensuing transmission of a dangerous virus.

'It is a very bad idea. We saw that even with intensive lockdowns in place, there was a huge excess death toll, with the elderly bearing the brunt of that, and 20-30 per cent of the UK population would be classed as vulnerable to a severe Covid-19 infection.'
Police have arrested three people in a crackdown on illicit drug supply on Sydney's lower north shore on Wednesday morning.

Strike Force Callide was established in August by detectives to investigate heroin and ice supply.

A heavy police presence, including riot police, attended a unit in Milner Cresent, in Wollstonecraft about 7am. Credit:Nick Moir

As part of the investigations, detectives executed warrants at six properties - in Wollstonecraft, Epping and Kempsey - from about 7.20am on Wednesday and seized prohibited drugs and cash.

During a search of four units on Milner Crescent, Wollstonecraft, police allegedly seized prohibited drugs including cannabis. Officers also allegedly seized drug supply paraphernalia for further forensic examination.
Figure 2:

East Niv Main Target

East Niv Main Target

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Serengeti Resources Inc. (SIR: TSX-V) ("Serengeti" or "the Company") is pleased to report results from mapping, sampling and induced polarization (IP) geophysics completed at the wholly-owned East Niv property. East Niv is located in an under-explored region of the eastern Stikine Terrane, approximately 15km west of the Sustut Copper deposit and 40km south-southwest of the Kemess mine complex in the Omineca Region of British Columbia. Serengeti initially staked East Niv in 2018 and has subsequently expanded the property to over 20,000 hectares. Analysis and compilation of geology, IP chargeability, aeromagnetics and soil/rock geochemistry has resulted in the identification of a number of compelling porphyry Cu-Au targets. The Company has been awarded a 5-year exploration drilling permit, and the property is now considered drill-ready.

East Niv Composite Rock Sample Results by Showing* Showing # Samples

(n) Avg. Cu

(%) Max. Cu

(%) Avg. Au

(g/t) Max. Au

(g/t) Description Main  West 19 0.35 0.82 0.30 1.14 Monzodiorite; pervasive K-spar  bt  mt alteration; disseminated  blebby cpy Main  East 10 0.30 0.76 0.14 0.35 Monzodiorite; K-spar  bt  mt, and qtz-carb-ep alteration; disseminated cpy KC 13 0.23 0.42 0.67 1.49 Monzodiorite; K-spar-bt-mt  qtz alteration; disseminated  vein hosted cpy South Nub 5 1.01 1.70 9.38 37.4 Monzodiorite; strong qtz-mt-ep alteration; disseminated  blebby vein cpy-pybn-mo West Flank 1 1.80 154.5 g/t Au

581 g/t Ag Massive py-mt float sample

* Showing areas are defined as spatially continuous outcroppings of the same host lithology bearing similar alteration and mineralization characteristics;

Number of samples (n) column represents all composite grab samples collected within the showing area;

Average Au and Cu grades represent the average grade of all the samples collected within the showing area;

Maximum Au and Cu grades represent the maximum grade of all the samples collected within the showing area;

Grab sample grades are by nature selective and may not necessarily be an indication of the overall grade of a mineralized area.

Story continues

David Moore, President and CEO of Serengeti commented, When the geology, newly discovered copper-gold showings, IP chargeability, aeromagnetics and soil geochemistry are viewed together the results provide a compelling case for a subcropping porphyry system at East Niv, and it is one of the best targets Ive seen in a long while. Futhermore there are early indications of additional target areas on this large property, giving it district-scale potential.

Quinn Harper, Chief Geologist, added East Niv hosts the most compelling porphyry target I have ever seen at the pre-drilling stage. All the classical indicators of a strong porphyry copper-gold system have coalesced over the last three years field work, and considering the property lies within a segment of the Stikine Terrane that hasnt seen meaningful exploration since the 70s, the potential is wide open here.

Figure 1: East Niv Overview  https://serengetiresources.com/site/assets/files/2922/east-niv-overview.jpg

Figure 2: East Niv Main Target - https://serengetiresources.com/site/assets/files/2919/east-niv-main-target.jpg

Figure 3: East Niv Main IP - https://serengetiresources.com/site/assets/files/2920/east-niv-main-ip.jpg

Figure 4: East Niv Main Synthesis - https://serengetiresources.com/site/assets/files/2921/east-niv-main-synthesis.jpg

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/aeb1ccae-8a22-4e39-b777-060a942c2b4c

The Stikine Terrane is the largest intra-oceanic volcanic arc terrane in British Columbia and host to numerous porphyry deposits and complexes including Kemess (Centerra Gold), Red Chris (Newcrest Mining/Imperial Metals), Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (Seabridge Gold) and Galore Creek (Newmont/Teck Resources). East Niv lies within an under-explored limb of the eastern Stikine Terrane which has not undergone systematic exploration since Falconbridge discovered the Sustut Copper deposit in 1973.

During July 2020, Serengeti completed a mapping and sampling program aimed at determining the nature of mineralized intrusive outcrops first discovered by Serengeti in 2019 (see press releases dated August 14, 2019 and July 27, 2020 ). Following the mapping program, Serengeti completed over 17.5 line-km of induced-polarization (IP) surveying in 7 wide-spaced lines through the central target area.

The Main and KC Showings both display strong-intense K-feldspar-biotite+/-magnetite+/-quartz potassic alteration hosting disseminated and vein/stringer-hosted chalcopyrite. The Showings are overlain upslope by a quartz-sericite-pyrite (QSP) phyllic alteration halo, represented in the IP as chargeability >20 mV/V response. Downslope and in the valley bottom, a strong coincident Cu-MoAu-Ag Ah-horizon soil anomaly measuring 1000 by 1500m forms two lobes around a central chargeability embayment with elevated Bi-Te. Based on analysis of geochemical results, it is believed that Cu, Au, Mo, Ag and other anomalous elements in Ah-horizon soil samples represent bedrock metal sources, and is interpreted to signify the core of a porphyry Cu-Au-Mo system measuring more than 2 sq km in extent in the valley bottom.

The South Nub Showing is represented by an altered monzodiorite outcropping, locally displaying strong quartz-magnetite-epidote alteration and disseminated to vein and blebby chalcopyrite-pyrite  bornite-molybdenite mineralization. The average grade of three monzodiorite samples from South Nub, excluding outliers, is 3.1 g/t Au and 1.50% Cu. Two soil samples from disaggregated bedrock at the showing, best seen in a 5 meter wide exposure in a stream cut-bank, average 5,673 ppm Cu, 2,000 ppb Au and 200 ppm Mo. South Nub is in faulted contact with younger volcanosedimentary rocks of the Takla Group, and mineralized intrusive units may continue under valley cover toward the interpreted system core in the valley bottom.

The Main and KC Showings are encompassed by a pronounced magnetic high signature approximately 1500 x 300m in extent, now seen to be coincident with a 1.5 x 1.5 km composite IP chargeability anomaly. IP surveying further indicates open-ended extensions to the NW and SE. Additional anomalous polymetallic soil anomalies further to southeast, corresponding with discreet magnetic anomalies, and outside of the area surveyed by IP, suggest the overall target zone may be up to 5 km long.

Serengeti is continuing with data analysis and targeting with the goal of completing a substantial initial drilling program in 2021.

Kwanika Project Drilling Update

The Company is also pleased to report that the 4300m drilling program at Kwanika is progressing well and is expected to be completed within a week. The 2020 drill program is fully funded and designed to expand the known resource which is open in several directions and to provide a deep test for the potential of a gold enriched target first identified from drilling in 2016 as well as testing several other concepts. Drill core logging and sampling are well advanced and results will be released in batches as they become available. The company will provide a more detailed update once the program is completed.

Qualified person

The field and analytical programs described herein were supervised by Serengeti Resources staff and the technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements as set out in National Instrument 43-101, and reviewed by the company's qualified person, Quinn Harper, P.Geo., Chief Geologist of Serengeti Resources, who has supervised the preparation of, and approved, the scientific and technical information in the news release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

David W. Moore, P. Geo.

President, CEO and Director

About Serengeti Resources Inc.

Serengeti is a mineral exploration company managed by an experienced team of professionals with a solid track record of exploration success. The Company is currently advancing its majority-owned, advanced Kwanika copper-gold project and exploring its extensive portfolio of properties in north-central British Columbia. A number of these other projects are available for option or joint venture and additional information can be found on the Companys website at www.serengetiresources.com .

Cautionary Statement

This document contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities regulations. All statements other than statements of historical fact herein, including, without limitation, statements regarding exploration plans and other future plans and objectives, are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and future events and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations as well as a comprehensive list of risk factors are disclosed in the Companys documents filed from time to time via SEDAR with the Canadian regulatory agencies to whose policies we are bound. Forward-looking statements are based on the estimates and opinions of management on the date the statements are made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements should conditions or our estimates change, other than as required by law and readers are further advised not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information, please contact:

Serengeti Resources Inc. Suite 520  800 West Pender St., Vancouver, BC, V6C 2V6

Tel: 604-605-1300 / Email: info@serengetiresources.com / Website: www.serengetiresources.com








Europe's oldest specialist in agricultural toys has announced its latest launch - Farm in a Box - as the brand prepares to celebrate its 100-year milestone.

Farm toy brand Britains' has launched a new product, which includes a cardboard box that is able to unfold into a farmyard scene.

Included inside is an authentic 1:32 scale model John Deere tractor, a trailer, loader, hay bales, fencing and livestock.

A first of its kind for the brand, Farm in a Box is able fold out to double up as a trailer attachment, milking parlour, animal pens and stables.

Claire Ridley, Head of EU Brands at TOMY, which owns Britains, said it was an exciting time as the brand approached its 100th year anniversary in 2021.

The brand launched its first toy Britains Model Home Farm in 1921, which consisted of 30 farm figures and animals, along with the first vehicle the 4F Tumbrel Cart.

Ms Ridley said: "The brand has gone from strength to strength throughout its reign as a leading agricultural toy brand, constantly adapting to resonate with all generations, old and new.

Britians is lucky to have such a core fan base, many of which are farming enthusiasts and were seeing the fun of the farmyard becoming more and more popular with a range of families.

"Farm in a Box is a fantastic edition to our everyday play portfolio as it can introduce new audiences into the world of farming fun, while giving existing fans a new platform to enhance playtime."

The toy is suitable for young farmers ages 3 years and up, and is priced at RRP 24.99.
A case has been registered against Delhi AAP MLA Kuldeep Kumar, who had tested positive for Covid-19 on September 29 and had gone to meet the Hathras victims family on October 4, under the Epidemic Act, said the Hathras Superintendent of Police (SP) on Wednesday.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Delhis Kondli constituency had earlier taken to Twitter to announce that due to my mild fever for the last two days, today I got Covid-19 test done, the report of which has come out to be positive, due to which I will be at home in isolation. Whoever has met me in the last 2-3 days should also get his test done.

Although Kumar went to meet the victims family six days after being tested positive, it is not known whether he has tested negative for Covid-19.

On October 5, he had posted a video after meeting the family of the Hathras victim and wrote: I have just returned after meeting the family of the Hathras victim. An atmosphere of fear is being created in the family. This is a murder of democracy and the Constitution. There is no law in Yogi Raj in Uttar Pradesh, Jungle Raj is going on!

Meanwhile, following the directions of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the time given to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to submit their report on the Hathras incident to the CM has been extended by 10 days, said a government official.The SIT probe in the Hathras incident was ordered by the Chief Minister.

The 19-year-old Hathras woman died at Delhis Safdarjung hospital on September 29. All four accused in the incident have been arrested.
COVID-19 has made it more obvious that the public school system cannot fulfill its mission without families. This pandemicalong with the many overlapping pandemics our nation now faces, including racial, economic, political, and environmental injusticeshas also heightened existing barriers between families and schools.

For the past few years, we at the Family-School Collaboration Design Research Projectthe community research partnership facilitated by the University of Utah of which all the authors of this essay are a parthave been working with teachers, administrators, and culturally diverse families in Salt Lake City to design new ways of increasing family voice in schools. When we recognized the increased disconnection between families and educators during COVID-19, we asked them to share experiences, hopes, frustrations, and needs in recorded Zoom videos . In those videos, families and educators taught us how COVID-19 is straining their relationships. This reality challenged us to think creatively about school and family engagement.

The coronavirus pandemic has magnified deep-rooted racial and social injustices and perpetuated educational inequities. With the shift to online teaching, the digital divide has become a chasm , separating those who have access to school learning and those who dont. Families in our project, like so many other Americans, described struggling to figure out new technology in a new language with only one computer for multiple children and unreliable or nonexistent internet access. Meanwhile, the pandemic has left many families with multiple crisesfood and home insecurities, loss of work, illness which compete for time and resources with school. These crises are disproportionately harming historically marginalized groups, including families of Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and refugee backgrounds like those in our project.

We know from decades of research that genuine, reciprocal, trusting relationships are the foundation on which educators and families can overcome educational obstacles.

And it is clear that educators and families want to be more connected. As Evelia, a parent, said in her Zoom video message to schools: Include me in my childs education. [We need] parents, students, and teachers working together to establish routines, communication, and discipline. Victoria, a teacher explained, I am looking to my school and my district to come out with a consistent plan that helps support students, families, and educators and allows us to build those meaningful relationships that are going to create good learning opportunities that will support our students through this school year.

Historically, family involvement has been defined narrowly, judged mainly by the physical presence of families in schools."

Historically, family involvement has been defined narrowly, judged mainly by the physical presence of families in schoolswhich is impossible during a shutdown. The education profession has rarely asked families how they define engagement (or family) and consistently devalues many less visible ways that families support education at home and in the community, such as passing along cultural norms and building educational passion through real-world experiences. Overall, engagement has been marred by broken trust, racial bias, and educators cultural assumptions about what a good family does.

Re-envisioning this dynamic requires centering the families traditionally left out by those cultural assumptions. COVID-19 can be a catalyst for us to jettison old, school-centered ways of doing things that havent worked well. Below are some recommendations based on what we learned through our project and through decades working with families and schools.

We are mindful that COVID-19 has brought many uncertainties, including budget cuts that have resulted in the loss of nearly 500,000 public education jobs in April of this year alone. However, we encourage districts to prioritize genuine relationships with all families whenever possible. Heres what that looks like:

 Support paid time to connect with families. While budget cuts may make paying overtime infeasible, districts should work to carve out paid time for teachers to call, text, Zoom, and (when necessary) meet with families to check in. The most important goal is to keep communication with families open and for educators to understand the realities families are facing.

 Have staff dedicated to leading schoolwide family engagement. Family engagement is everyones responsibility, not just an expectation of individual teachers. When possible, hire and support people who can connect across racial, cultural, and linguistic divides, such as bilingual individuals with roots in local communities.

 Construct family leadership and decisionmaking roles. We are not going to figure out COVID-19-era education without the knowledge and expertise of the families most impacted. Learn about the assets your families have and welcome their contributions to this joint effort.

 Look for new spaces to engage families. With schools closed, this is a perfect time to get away from the school building and into community spaces for parent-teacher meetings or even classroom instruction, while still addressing the reality of the pandemic. As Rebecca, a teacher, put it, A classroom can be a play area in an apartment complex, it can be in a parking lot of a library.

 Invest in family members as coeducators. Many families do not feel ready to take on the added teaching responsibilities they have been given. Umu, a parent, explained, I think to home school a kid, you have to equip the parents first before coming to the child. Offer materials, workshops, or one-on-one support to families so they can build confidence in this new role.

 Work with community partners. Rebecca explained that, I, alone, as a teacher do not have the skills and the strengths to go ahead and diminish all of these barriers that students face. Addressing the racial and social inequities heightened by the pandemic requires working closely with local community organizations, agencies, businesses, and community leaderssome of whom will be family members in the school.

 Offer professional development. Teachers, staff, and administrators need more training on anti-racism and how to build authentic, equitable relationships with multilingual families of all backgrounds.

These commitments will create the foundation we need for families and educators to confront the new challenges of distance learning in a time of pandemic. It is imperative that we as a nation make education a priority and support the educational success of our children by investing in these essential commitments. When this particular crisis has passed, we cannot return to normal. The inequities magnified by COVID-19 will persist and must be addressed.
Ooredoo Maldives has inaugurated a Digital Kiosk, especially for tourists at Velana International Airport in Male.

The 24-hour self-service kiosk enables contactless registration, payments and instant dispatching of tourist SIMs. The company believes that providing contactless and fast services is crucial under the current circumstances to ensure safety for its customers as well as its employees.

Ooredoo Digital Kiosk for tourists was officially inaugurated by Minister of Tourism, Dr Abdulla Mausoom, at a special event launch event held at the Velana International Airport. The event was also attended by CEO & MD of MACL, Gordon Andrew; MD of MMPRC Thoyyib Mohamed; Chief Executive of CAM, Ilyas Ahmed; and Ooredoo Maldives Board Director Uza Dheena Hussain.

Ooredoo, being a community focused company, we have always thrived to boost the economy and enrich the lives of the people of our communities through digital, said Chief Commercial Officer of Ooredoo Maldives, Hussain Niyaz.

As we continue the fight against the ongoing global pandemic, Maldives has been able to establish a Safe Haven and welcome travellers from around the globe to enjoy the sunny side of life. As service providers, we believe that it is our duty to use our strengths to contribute to the nationwide efforts in restoring the Maldives tourism industry and ensuring the safety of our travellers in every way possible. Today we have established our Digital Kiosk for tourists at Velana International Airport enabling contactless services to travellers to help them stay connected with their friends and family during their stay, on the best network in the Maldives. -TradeArabia News Service
During the Ukraine-EU Summit in Brussels, agreements totaling EUR 390 million were signed, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal has said.

"Over the past year, Ukraine has made great strides in the implementation of the Association Agreement. This was said by President of the European Council Charles Michel yesterday during the 22nd Ukraine-EU Summit. With the participation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and government representatives in Brussels, new agreements were reached and important agreements totaling EUR 390 million were signed," Shmyhal wrote on his Facebook page.

Among them, three agreements have been signed with the European Union, namely: for EUR10 million within the framework of the Climate package for a sustainable economy: (CASE) in Ukraine, which will be aimed at various actions to develop a resource-efficient, clean and competitive economy, in particular by supporting local energy efficiency, small and medium-sized businesses, supporting local communities and creating a joint resource center for climate innovation between Ukraine and the EU.

Also, EUR 30 million, which are provided for by the agreement under the EU4ResilientRegions programme, will go to help the eastern regions of Ukraine to overcome the negative consequences of the pandemic and Russian aggression, and EUR 20 million under the Civil Society Facility, which will be aimed at developing a favorable environment for the work of civil society and attracting it to political processes.

Two more agreements were signed with the European Investment Bank (EIB), namely: for EUR 300 million under the agreement on financing the Ukraine Public Buildings Energy Efficiency project, which will be involved in the implementation of measures aimed at improving the process of thermal modernization of public buildings in Ukraine.

Also a EUR 30 million loan provided for by the guarantee agreement Logistic Network (Ukrposhta modernization and digitalization) will be used to buy sorting equipment and create three sorting facilities (in particular, the construction of a hub in Lviv) and 22 sorting depots in general, and the introduction of automatic tracking of goods.

"In addition, further steps of active cooperation and interaction between Ukraine and the EU were outlined. Among them are the early signing of the Common Aviation Area (CAA) Agreement, and the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA), and a comprehensive assessment of Ukraine's achievements of the goals of the Association Agreement in 2021, which is the starting point to its next update," Shmyhal said.
The editorial criticizing the peaceable protest of gun owners who support the Second Amendment and are against the dictatorial actions of Gov. Andrew Cuomo was uncalled for. The gun owners' actions were much different than the ones that are usually conducted by leftist liberal Democrats.

The police estimated that there were about 800 people attending who supported the politicians, candidates and patriots who believe that, as the Constitution says, The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A synonym for infringed is violated.

The rally was held to be a protest against Cuomo, who has always tried to violate that amendment and has had success with his dictatorial methods. He succeeds by persuading the Democratic Party to pass laws infringing on the rights of gun-owning citizens. The News should have congratulated the protesters for their conduct and demeanor with the protest.

Unlike the protests we are used to seeing on the news, this rally was truly peaceful. The rally was loud with applause and agreements with the speakers. The protesters should be praised for being truly, lawfully peaceable.

Budd Schroeder

Lancaster
Israeli police have clashed with hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews overnight as they sought to enforce restrictions on public gatherings during a nationwide coronavirus lockdown, the police said on Wednesday.

Footage released by police showed huge crowds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem chanting and hurling stones and metal bars at police officers.

The video appeared to show religious men setting fire to bins and throwing stones at police as well as fireworks being set off in the direction of officers.

The latest clash comes just days after thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews defied lockdown rules to attend the funeral of a revered rabbi in the port city of Ashdod.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem are seen chanting and hurling stones and metal bars at police who had ordered people to leave a synagogue on Tuesday in order to comply with Israel's lockdown restrictions

Some 24 people were arrested in clashes in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, Israeli police said on Wednesday, adding that four police offers had been wounded as a result

The police said 17 people were arrested in relation to Wednesday's incident in Jerusalem.

Clashes also erupted in Modiin Ilit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Police said they ordered people to leave a synagogue before being attacked with stones and fireworks.

Four police officers were wounded and seven people were arrested, police said.

Segments of Israel's ultra-Orthodox community have defied restrictions on religious gatherings intended to contain the country's coronavirus outbreak, even as the insular community has seen its own cases soar.

Israeli PM's wife 'breaks lockdown for a haircut' Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife Sara reportedly violated lockdown restrictions last week by having her hairdresser come to her home. Under Israel's lockdown rules people are not allowed to visit each other's homes or go within 1,000 meters of their own homes for anything other than essential services like buying food or medicine. Sara Netanyahu's hairdresser visited her at her official residence before the prime minister's wife filmed a public safety video [File photo] Sara Netanyahu believed she was entitled to the visit because she was filming a public safety video about the need to wear a mask, Ynet news reported. As a public figure, the prime minister is entitled to such visits, but his wife is not. Sara Netanyahu is the latest high-profile Israeli accused of skirting lockdown measures. A minister who later tested positive for coronavirus and the head of the Shin Bet security service are also reported to have broken the rules. Advertisement

Israel went into a second nationwide lockdown last month after developing one of the worst outbreaks in the world on a per capita basis.

The country currently has around 60,000 active cases, including 855 people hospitalised in serious condition.

Israel, with a population of just 9 million, has reported a total of more than 270,000 cases and more than 1,800 deaths since the pandemic began earlier this year.

Late on Tuesday, the government decided to extend a state of emergency for another week, until October 13.

The emergency measures require that people stay within 1,000 meters of their homes except for essential services and restrict both protests and religious gatherings.

The defiance displayed this week by members of the ultra-Orthodox community has confounded public health experts, tested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's longstanding political alliance with religious leaders and triggered a new wave of resentment from secular Israelis who fear for their health and livelihoods.

'We've been asked to go into this lockdown, with its insane economic cost, that is causing people to go insane, because of the increase in coronavirus which is mostly occurring in the ultra-Orthodox sector and in large part because of criminal negligence,' wrote media personality Judy Shalom Nir Mozes on the Ynet news site.

'There are two sets of laws here. One for us and one for them.'

For their part, the ultra-Orthodox claim they are being unfairly targeted by the authorities, pointing to large weekly protests, mainly by secular Israelis, against Netanyahu's handling of the pandemic that have continued throughout the summer.

Only last week, the government finally placed limits on the size of the protests, citing violations of public health guidelines.

'We are at the closest point to an explosion in terms of the mistrust,' said Israel Cohen, a commentator with the ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Barama.

A deep chasm has long divided religious and secular Israelis, wrought by years of seemingly preferential treatment for the ultra-Orthodox who are granted government stipends to study full-time.

Ultra-Orthodox support is the lifeblood of Netanyahu's coalition and has helped secure his position as Israel's longest-serving leader.

Protesters have been holding regular demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for months, calling on him to resign over his trial on corruption charges and criticising his government's handling of the pandemic.

Netanyahu and his supporters say new restrictions on protests are needed to prevent virus transmission, while critics accuse him of trying to muzzle dissent.

Protesters held dozens of demonstrations around the country on Tuesday night while apparently adhering the requirements to stay close to home

Protesters held dozens of small demonstrations across the country late onTuesday, apparently while complying with requirements to stay close to home.

Demonstrators scuffled with police during a larger rally in Tel Aviv when they tried to stage a march through the city.

Israel's second nationwide lockdown came ahead of the Jewish New Year last month, when authorities feared large gatherings could accelerate the spread of the virus.

Many Israeli's have been angered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government's handling of the pandemic, as well as the ongoing corruption trial involving the PM, who is now the country's longest-serving leader

Israeli border guards block anti-government protesters during a demonstration against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the coastal city of Tel Aviv

But parts of the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, community have defied those limits, holding massive holiday events, moving back and forth between cities and keeping some schools and synagogues open despite orders to close down.

Despite appeals by some lawmakers and community leaders for compliance, the current harvest holiday of Sukkot has presented another obstacle to enforcing lockdown measures.

After the weeklong holiday began on Friday, Israeli news outlets aired images of packed synagogues.

'It disturbs us,' Israel's coronavirus czar Ronni Gamzu said last week of the high morbidity, after revealing the ultra-Orthodox made up 40% of the country's total cases.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the port city of Ashdod defied coronavirus restrictions on Monday to attend the funeral of a revered rabbi who had himself died from Covid-19

The funeral of Rabbi Mordechai Liefer had been given special permission under Israel's lockdown rules for hundreds of people to attend. Instead, thousands showed up, leading to a clash with the police

The ultra-Orthodox have been at the centre of the outbreak since it began in the spring.

They tend to live in poor, crowded neighbourhoods where sickness can quickly spread.

Synagogues, the centrepiece of social life, bring men together to pray and socialise in small spaces.

Large parts of the community are adhering to rules. But some ultra-Orthodox view the restrictions as a greater threat than the virus, fearing the lockdown measures will undermine their way of life.

The cloistered community has accused Israeli authorities of unfairly targeting it while initially allowing mass protests to continue unchecked. Social and religious gatherings, like the blessing shown above, are integral to the ultra-Orthodox way of life

The cloistered community has long been separate from mainstream Israeli life, with children studying scripture but very little maths and English.

Men are granted exemptions from military service, which is compulsory for other Jews, and some avoid the workforce while collecting welfare stipends to continue to study full time.

Experts say any gains made in recent years at integrating the ultra-Orthodox into Israeli society - a crucial step to ensure the sustainable growth of Israel's economy - could be wiped out by the renewed bitterness wrought by the virus.

'The coronavirus will disappear at some point,' said Yedidia Stern, an expert on religion and state at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank. 'But what kind of society will we be after it?'
Chase Carey has confirmed that Rio de Janeiro is on course to join the Formula 1 calendar.

There have been rumours for some time that a new permanent circuit in Deodoro, a neighbourhood in Rio's west zone, could replace Sao Paulo as F1's Brazilian GP host.

Now, O Diario Motorsport, a specialist Brazilian publication, claims F1 CEO Chase Carey has sent a letter to acting Rio governor Claudio Castro.

The letter confirms that Liberty Media has reached an agreement with the new race promoter Rio Motorsports.

"I am writing to update you that we have now finalised the agreements for a race with Rio Motorsports LLC, which will host, organise and promote Formula 1 events in Rio de Janeiro," Carey reportedly wrote.

"These agreements are ready for execution and announcement by Formula 1 once all necessary licenses have been issued by the relevant authorities," he added.

Both authorities mentioned by Carey - INEA and CECA - relate to environmental approval for the F1 venue, amid concerns about the potential impact on the nearby Comboata forest ecosystem.

(GMM)
Of course, this broadened sense of Black wasnt exactly a novelty. Malcolm X, in a speech from 1964, heralded Black revolutionaries around the world and explained: When I say Black, I mean nonwhite. Black, brown, red, or yellow. Anyone who had been colonized or exploited by the Europeans qualified. And Malcolm X, in turn, was drawing on an internationalist tradition captured six decades earlier by W.E.B. Du Bois. The problem of the 20th century, he wrote, is the problem of the color line; the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.

In Britain, this capacious usage of Black scanted the enormous differences among the nations nonwhite minorities. But that was exactly its point, and its power. The great cultural theorist Stuart Hall  you could see this elegant figure on British television in those days, with his close-cropped beard and well-fitted blazers, lecturing for the Open University  was always warning against the way race presented itself as a natural fact about human beings. Using Black as an umbrella term, he felt, would weaken such illusions: It would helpfully emphasize the immense diversity and differentiation of the historical and cultural experience of black subjects.

In an influential 1988 essay on black cultural politics, for example, Mr. Hall celebrated a film by John Akomfrah, whose father (like mine) had been a Ghanaian politician. Yet he also cited the writer Hanif Kureishis two collaborations with the director Stephen Frears, My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, as significant contributions to Black cinema. That neither Mr. Kureishi nor Mr. Frears was of African descent didnt make the work less Black.

Only such an inclusive conception of Blackness, proponents maintained, could effectively counter an exclusive conception of Britishness. Ambalavaner Sivanandan, a political thinker and the longtime director of the London-based Institute of Race Relations, saw strategic benefits in the forging of black as a common color of colonial and racist exploitation. As a young man in the late 1950s, Siva, as he was known to his friends, left behind the ethnic strife of Sri Lanka and went to London, only to witness attacks by white youth on West Indians in the Notting Hill neighborhood. I knew then I was black, he would write.

Opponents of political Blackness tended to suspect that Asians were being forced into a template set by Afro-Caribbeans. In the early 1990s, the sociologist Tariq Modood cited a survey that suggested only a third of British Asians identified as Black, and argued that Asians suffered more from racial prejudice in British society than people of African descent did. White working-class youth were drawn to Afro-Caribbean culture, he said, while turning against Asians. It galled him, too, to see anti-racist programs focused on Afro-Caribbeans when most non-white British people were Asian.
The hunt for legendary feral big cats roaming through Australian bushland has been given a helping hand by one of the world's largest car manufacturers.

Big Cats Victoria researchers Simon Townsend and John Turner have for decades tracked thousands of witness reports nationwide from those claiming to have spotted panthers in the wild.

Ford Australia has announced it will provide cameras and other monitoring equipment to the research group to help their pursuit of the puma in Australia.

Pumas are only usually found in the wild in the Americas but the researchers think they could be prowling through Victoria's Otway regions.

Ford's collaboration is timed with the launch of the Ford Puma SUV and due partly to the proximity between one of their testing grounds and the researchers' base in Geelong.

Scroll down for video

A large jet-black cat that looks suspiciously like a black panther photographed in Mount Sabine in Victoria's Otway Ranges in June. Big cat hunters have teamed up with Ford Australia to track down a puma in the region

Pictured: Some of the high-tech camera equipment Ford have given to the Puma hunters to help them in their search for the elusive big cats

A reported sighting of a black panther. Black panthers are black variants of either jaguars or leopards, both subspecies of Panthera

Ford's collaboration is timed with the launch of the Ford Puma SUV and the researchers' proximity to one of the manufacturer's testing grounds

Mr Townsend and Mr Turner recently appeared in a Discovery Channel documentary, in which they claimed there are up to seven sightings of big cats a year in the area.

Mr Townsend said the partnership with Ford and its launch of the Puma will allow them to track the movements of the animals in finer detail.

'The addition of new cameras and equipment will greatly aid our search for the puma and other big cats,' he told the Geelong Advertiser.

'The pursuit of the puma and other big cats in the region has been part of our work since 1973.'

In June, Apollo Bay photographer Amber Noseda was taking pictures of birds when she spotted a large jet-black feline in Mount Sabine in the Otway Ranges.

'It had a square jawline and a very thick tail, thicker than your normal feral cat. I've never seen anything like it before,' she told Daily Mail Australia at the time.

Ms Noseda, who runs Great Ocean Photography, was heading home after her photography session when she caught sight of the cat.

'I was taking pictures of birds and as I was leaving the car park, I saw it in my rear view mirror, so I quickly got out and snapped a photo,' she said.

Amber Noseda, who runs Great Ocean Photography, was heading home after her photo session when she sighted a feral feline

'I'm a local in the area and I'm aware of pretty big feral cats but I've never seen anything like this before.

'At first, I thought it was a wallaby and then a dog but it turned out to be a large cat.'

She consulted experts from Big Cats Victoria and Strange Creatures Victoria, who agreed the cat's tail was much thicker than normal.

Despite the repeated claims of a black panther roaming the area, Ms Noseda said she was convinced it was just a feral cat.

'I didn't think it was a black panther. I looked back at the photos and I just think it's a very large feral cat,' she said.

'They've become extremely resilient to their environment, so they've become bigger. The only thing that hunts them is humans, so they're mostly at the top of their food chain.'

Hundreds of sightings of the legendary 'Otway Panther' have been reported since the 1960s.

In the Otways, feral cats hunt koalas, platypuses, possums, swamp wallabies, spot-tailed quolls and native bush rats.

Feral and domestic cats kill more than three million mammals, two million reptiles and one million birds in Australia each year, according to wildlife researcher Professor Sarah Legge from the Australian National University.

The photographer consulted experts from Big Cats Victoria and Strange Creatures Victoria, who agreed that the cat's tail was much thicker than normal

A reported black panther sighting in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. There have also been reported sightings in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, the Otways, the Grampians and in Gippsland in Victoria, the Sunshine Coast and Gympie in Queensland and south-western WA

Ms Noseda's sighting in the Otway Ranges came after twin brothers claimed to have spotted a panther while walking in the region in May.

Royce and Ben Chaffey, 43, said they also saw a large number of carcasses of various animals throughout the area, which is well known for large cat sightings.

'It was not mistaken for something else, it was a large predator cat,' Royce Chaffey told the Geelong Advertiser at the time.

Mysterious wounds consistent with a big cat claw attack on the throat of a cow, found by a documentary team as they searched for clues as to the existence of the big cats

The twins said the panther was around 1.5 metres in length and jet black in colour.

They claimed to have spotted it as they were standing in the middle of a walking track and tried to capture it on film.

The supposed panther disappeared into the bush a few seconds later.
The Kangra District Congress Committee (DCC) on Wednesday held a protest against the new farm bills enacted by the Centre. Led by state Congress chief Kuldeep Singh Rathore, protesters took out a march on tractors and foot from Industrial Training Institute to the sub-divisional magistrates office.

Kangra DCC president Ajay Mahajan, former minister Sudhir Sharma, former MP Chaudhary Chandra Kumar, Kangra MLA Pawan Kajal, former MLAs Sanjay Ratna, Jagjivan Pal, Rajvindra Goma, Kishori Lal, District Congress treasurer Karn Pathania and Dharamshala mayor Devendra Jaggi participated in the demonstration.

Addressing the protesters, Rathore termed the bills passed by the Centre as anti-farmer.

He alleged that the new laws were meant to benefit the corporate.

The state government is also implementing anti-people decisions on the lines of the Centre, said Rathore adding that people of will give a befitting reply to the BJP in the elections.

He said that in 2022, Congress would free the state from BJPs misrule.

Speaking on the occasion, Ajay Mahajan said that the Centre has brought black laws against farmers.

He said that anger was brewing up against the Centre among the farmer community. He also raked up the Hathras incident to hit at the central government.

All India Congress Committee secretary Sudhir Sharma said that farmers will be hit adversely hit by the new farm laws.

It is feared that this may eventually lead to the end of the minimum support price (MSP)-based procurement system and lead to increased exploitation by private companies, he said.

Sharma said that its negative results were already visible as the prices of maize and rice have fallen after the laws came into effect.

State Congress general secretary Kewal Singh Pathania said that the bills were passed in haste that too amid the Covid-19 pandemic and were intended to benefit the corporate houses.
The former president of Latinos for Trump has slammed the president's reelection campaign after its lawyers sent his group threatening 'cease and desist' letters.

Marco Gutierrez, who went viral in 2016 when he said the spread of Latin American culture could lead to 'taco trucks on every corner', founded the unofficial grassroots organization that amassed tens of thousands of members.

But in an exclusive interview this week, Gutierrez told DailyMail.com he is now questioning if he will vote for Trump in November, and confessed to asking himself whether the president 'doesn't really like Mexicans.'

The 46-year-old Mexican-American said he lost faith in the Trump campaign when it set up a new group last year to woo Latino voters  but gave it the same name as his nonprofit political group he set up three years earlier.

Marco Gutierrez is the former president of Latinos for Trump who founded the unofficial grassroots organization that amassed tens of thousands of membersz. Last year Trump's reelection campaign sent his group threatening cease and desist letters, only to then started their own group with the same name

The 46-year-old Mexican-American said he lost faith in the Trump campaign when it set up a new group last year to woo Latino voters

Attorneys for the Trump campaign then sent Gutierrez 'cease and desist' letters accusing his group of copyright infringement and threatening them with legal action.

The first letter to the group, obtained by DailyMail.com and dated April 26 last year, warned them not to infringe on the campaign's copyrighted trademarks 'Make America Great Again' and 'MAGA'.

Gutierrez said the legal spat tore apart his organization, and he quit the national group to continue his own California chapter

The letter told the group to 'include prominent disclaimers on each page of its website, on all social media accounts, and on all marketing and promotional materials' saying that Latinos for Trump was not affiliated with Trump's campaign.

Gutierrez and the group's current president, Bianca Gracia, wrote back telling the lawyers they 'have been collaborating efforts with the Public Liaison Office in the White House for the past two years' and had already filed as a non-profit in California and Texas.

But a month later the attorneys at LaRocca Hornik Rosen & Greenberg shot back, accusing Latinos for Trump (LFT) of taking an 'obstructionist path' by 'falsely asserting intellectual property rights' over the group's name and 'misappropriating and trading off of President Trump's name.'

'The Campaign hereby formally disavows all of LFT's activities and demands the LFT immediately cease and desist all activities suggesting that it is affiliated, authorized, endorsed, and/or sponsored by the Campaign,' the letter said.

The attorneys demanded that Latinos for Trump 'cleanse all content representing that LFT has any affiliation with the Campaign from all websites and social media pages' and ended with the threat of legal action.

Last year lawyers for Trump's reelection campaign sent his group threatening cease and desist letters. The first letter to the group, obtained by DailyMail.com and dated April 26 last year, warned them not to infringe on the campaign's copyrighted trademarks 'Make America Great Again' and 'MAGA'

Gutierrez and the group's current president, Bianca Gracia, wrote back telling the lawyers they 'have been collaborating efforts with the Public Liaison Office in the White House for the past two years' and had already filed as a non-profit in California and Texas

'If you ignore this letter or fail to provide us with written assurances by July 9, 2019 that LFT has complied with our demands set forth herein, the Campaign will proceed with the necessary measures to protect its rights,' the lawyers wrote.

Gutierrez said he was left stunned and disappointed.

'I wasn't intimidated by it. But I was puzzled why they would use so many resources, and use the same attorneys they used for [the porn star who sued the president] Stormy Daniels, to write this when I'm just a Trump supporter,' he told DailyMail.com.

'They hadn't told us they were going to be launching their own version of Latinos for Trump.

'In November they unrolled their version and none of our Latinos for Trump were part of it.'

'I don't know how I feel about the president any more. I think he's allowed people around him to hijack his vision,' he said.

Gutierrez told DailyMail.com he is now questioning if he will vote for Trump.. 'I don't know how I feel about the president any more. I think he's allowed people around him to hijack his vision,' he said

'I was asked, ''has Trump earned his vote?'' I have to think about it. Trump represents the values I'd like to vote for. But seeing this last debate, seeing the way Trump responded He is the president, he needs to be less triggered by things. He needs to be more calm.'

Gutierrez said the experience left him feeling used.

'I took the punches in 2016. I lost business because of it,' he said. 'We worked really hard, we went all over the country, flying the flag for Trump.

'After all we did, they're not giving us credit. I want to trust the system. Maybe I'm too toxic for them, because of when I went viral.

'Or maybe Trump doesn't really like Mexicans. I'm a Mexican-American. Maybe having somebody like me isn't good for their campaign. There must be a good reason.'

The disillusioned Trump activist said the legal spat tore apart his organization, and he quit the national group to continue his own California chapter  but has since taken a step back from campaigning and is now even thinking twice about marking the president on his ballot in November.

In July 2019, attorneys shot back, accusing Latinos for Trump (LFT) of taking an 'obstructionist path' by 'falsely asserting intellectual property rights' over the group's name and 'misappropriating and trading off of President Trump's name'

Tuesday's presidential debate sparked controversy when Trump was asked denounce the alleged 'white supremacist' group The Proud Boys and instead told them to 'stand back and stand by'.

The far-right group, whose leaders deny it is racist or neo-Nazi, celebrated the comments, tweeting Trump's phrase and even printing it on t-shirts.

Facing a backlash the next day the president told reporters he had never heard of the group but said they should 'stand down' and 'let law enforcement do their work.'

DailyMail.com revealed on Wednesday that Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio is a Florida director of Gutierrez's Latinos for Trump, had ties to Republicans including the president's son Don Jr., Senator Ted Cruz and Roger Stone, and even briefly ran for Congress as a Republican this year.
3 1 of 3 Photo provided by Community Foundation of West Texas Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Photo provided by Community Foundation of West Texas Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Three area teachers were among the 49 in the South Plains area to receiving Mini-Grants for Teachers through the Community Foundation of West Texas.

The grants are awarded to elementary and secondary school teachers for the implementation of innovative classroom projects during the 2020-2021 school year. Mini-Grants for Teachers is a program that recognizes the commitment of great teachers and awards grants up to $1,500 for classroom projects that will enrich their curriculum.
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Belagavi, Oct 7 : Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa said on Wednesday that a memorial honouring late Union Minister of State for Railways Suresh Angadi, who died of Covid-19, will be built in New Delhi.

Angadi, a Lok Sabha member from the Belagavi constituency, succumbed to Covid-19 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi on September 23.

As per the Covid protocol, his last rites were performed in Delhi itself.

Almost a fortnight after his demise, Yediyurappa visited Belagavi and called on Angadi's family members and paid homage to the departed BJP leader.

Speaking to reporters, Yediyurappa said a memorial dedicated to Angadi will be built in New Delhi.

Jagadish Shettar, state Minister for Large and Medium Industries, who also happened to be Angadi's relative, recalled the late Union minister's contribution to several projects, which were pending for many years.

Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Water Resource Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi were among those who accompanied Yediyurappa.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Dan Levy in the final season of "Schitt's Creek." (PopTV)

Dan Levy is done with Comedy Central India after the TV station removed a kiss between his character, David Rose, and Dustin Milligan's Ted Mullens from a "Schitt's Creek" clip.

In March 2019, Comedy Central India tweeted a scene from the show, which sees David, Ted, Stevie (Emily Hampshire), Patrick (Noah Reid) and Alexis (Annie Murphy) play spin the bottle. The promo includes kisses between Alexis and Stevie and Alexis and Ted, but cuts David and Ted's smooch.

"You showed the kiss between two women, you showed the kiss between a woman and a man, then removed the kiss between two men?" Levy tweeted on Tuesday in belated response. "This is a show about the power of inclusivity. The censorship of gay intimacy is making a harmful statement against that message.

"I thought I made this pretty clear but for those who are confused, this is about a channel in India," the "Schitt's Creek" star and cocreator added in a follow-up tweet. "@ComedyCentral in America is not censoring the show. They have been lovely and respectful. Thank you for your time."

I thought I made this pretty clear but for those who are confused, this is about a channel in India. @ComedyCentral in America is not censoring the show. They have been lovely and respectful. Thank you for your time.   dan levy (@danjlevy) October 6, 2020

A spokesperson for Comedy Central International told the Los Angeles Times Wednesday that the episode aired in its entirety on Comedy Central India, but the promo was edited for other Indian networks because of a code in the country that requires broadcasters to censor daytime content deemed inappropriate for children.

The rep added that David and Ted's kiss was removed from the promo because it lasted longer, was more intimate and was filmed in closeup, as opposed to the other two, which were lighter pecks  and not because it was between two men. The rep said the same treatment would have been given to a similar kiss between a man and a woman.

Story continues

During its six-season run, fans and critics alike have hailed the Canadian sitcom for its inclusivity and LGBTQ storylines. And this year, "Schitt's Creek" won the GLAAD Media Award for comedy series after wrapping its final season, which saw David marry Patrick in a sweet series finale.

On Wednesday, GLAAD responded to Comedy Central India's controversial tweet as well, writing, "Schitt's Creek was designed by @danjlevy to be a place free from homophobia, so removing this kiss flies in the face of the show's intent and what makes Schitt's Creek so extraordinary."

Schitt's Creek was designed by @danjlevy to be a place free from homophobia, so removing this kiss flies in the face of the show's intent and what makes Schitts Creek so extraordinary. https://t.co/M0oHKtxkrl  GLAAD (@glaad) October 7, 2020

The hit PopTV program took home the coveted comedy series prize at last month's virtual Emmy Awards, where "Schitt's Creek" made history by sweeping the comedy bracket with additional wins for lead actress ( Catherine OHara ), lead actor (Eugene Levy), supporting actor (Dan Levy), supporting actress (Murphy), writing (Dan Levy) and directing (Dan Levy and Andrew Cividino).

Our show at its core is about the transformational effects of love and acceptance  and that is something that we need more of now than weve ever needed before," Dan Levy said while accepting the Emmy for comedy series.

"I just wanted to say for any of you who have not registered to vote, please do so, and then go out and vote because that is the only way that we are going to have some love and acceptance out there. Please do that. Im so sorry for making this political, but I had to.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Enterprise's novel TMEM16A potentiator portfolio includes ETD002, a first in class compound which is currently in Phase 1

TMEM16A potentiation is a novel therapeutic approach applicable to all cystic fibrosis patients, independent of CFTR genotype, and may provide benefit in other respiratory diseases

Enterprise's shareholders received an upfront payment of 75 million

Enterprise Therapeutics Ltd (Enterprise), a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery and development of novel therapies to improve the lives of patients suffering with respiratory disease, today announced its novel TMEM16A potentiator portfolio has been fully acquired by Roche and will be developed by Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. The portfolio includes ETD002 which recently entered Phase 1 trials.

Enterprise's shareholders received an upfront payment of 75 million and are eligible to receive additional contingent payments, to be made based on the achievement of certain predetermined milestones.

The TMEM16A portfolio is focused toward treating all people with cystic fibrosis (CF), with potential to benefit people with other severe respiratory diseases characterised by excessive mucus congestion.

Dr John Ford, CEO, Enterprise Therapeutics, said: "Roche and Genentech have a proven track record of bringing new medicines to people with respiratory diseases, and have recognised the opportunity that our TMEM16A potentiator portfolio presents. I am very proud of the team at Enterprise for identifying and developing this innovative approach to treat patients, with ETD002 the first of our compounds to reach clinical stage. TMEM16A potentiation has the potential to significantly increase the quality of life for people living with cystic fibrosis, for many of whom existing therapies are not effective."

Dr James Sabry, MD, PhD, Global Head of Pharma Partnering, Roche, commented: "We are excited to add Enterprise's TMEM16A potentiator program to our existing respiratory portfolio. We have deep capabilities in this area and look forward to a robust program focused on helping cystic fibrosis patients and patients suffering from other muco-obstructive disorders as quickly as possible."

CF is estimated to affect 75,000 people globally. One of the main causes of difficulty in breathing and increased risk of infection is mucus congestion in the lungs. The ETD002 compound targets the underlying mechanisms of mucus congestion, and is expected to restore lung function, reduce the frequency of lung infections and improve patient quality of life. CF is caused by loss of function mutations in the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane conductance Regulator (CFTR) gene, that normally produces an anion channel highly expressed by the airway epithelium. Increasing anion conductance via CFTR modulation is a clinically validated approach for treating CF, however it is not currently available or effective for all people with CF.

In pre-clinical models, Enterprise has demonstrated that ETD002 enhances the activity of TMEM16A, an alternative anion channel present in airway epithelial cells, and by doing so increases anion and fluid flow into the airways, thinning the mucus and increasing its clearance. As TMEM16A potentiation is independent of the mutational status of CFTR, this makes the approach potentially applicable to all people with CF, and perhaps patients with non-CF muco-obstructive lung disease.

Moelis acted as financial advisor and Goodwin Procter acted as legal counsel to Enterprise Therapeutics.

ENDS

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201006006161/en/

Contacts:

Katie Odgaard,Zyme Communications

Tel: +44 (0)7787 502 947

Email: katie.odgaard@zymecommunications.com
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the Sushant Singh Rajput death case has begun its second phase of investigation in the case. A team of six top officials including SP Nupur Prasad have returned to Mumbai and they will be operating out of the CBI Headquarters in BKC and DRDO Guest House in Santa Cruz. In its second phase, the CBI will be investigating all the angles including the murder angle, as it had stated earlier.

The investigating agency will go through all the statements which it had recorded in the first phase of the investigation. It had spotted inconsistencies in those statements which will be looked into, sources said. They are also likely to re-examine Dipesh Sawant, Sidharth Pithani, and all of Sushant's staff that was present in the house when the actor was found dead in his apartment in Bandra, Mumbai.

Neighbour exposes Rhea-Sushant 'June 13 meeting'

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, hours after Republic Media Network brought out explosive testimony of Rhea Chakraborty's Primrose Apartments neighbour claiming that Rhea and Sushant Singh Rajput had indeed met on the evening of June 13 - a day before he died, top sources informed that the CBI will summon the June 13 eyewitness.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday had issued a statement confirming that the probe into actor Sushant Singh Rajput is still ongoing and that all aspects of the investigation are being looked into meticulously, including the homicide angle. This statement indicated that the CBI has not ruled out the homicide angle inspite of the AIIMS panel's chief Dr Sudhir Gupta's alleged leak claiming that murder had been ruled out.

The CBI statement came after Republic TV aired a conversation of Dr Sudhir Gupta from August 22 wherein he had expressed doubts over the Mumbai police's investigation and the Cooper Hospital autopsy report in the case.

Rhea Chakraborty granted bail

The CBI returns at a time when the Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted bail to actor Rhea Chakraborty, arrested over drug-related charges in actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death case. A bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal also granted bail to Rajput's aides Dipesh Sawant and Samuel Miranda but rejected the bail plea of Rhea Chakraborty's brother Showik Chakraborty, who is also an accused in the case. Rhea Chakraborty and her brother were arrested last month by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with its drugs probe related to the case of Rajput's death.

READ | Sushant's family to ask CBI for new AIIMS panel

READ | Sushant death probe LIVE updates: SSR's family seeks new panel, CBI back in Mumbai

Sushant Singh Rajput's death probe

Rajput was found hanging in his Bandra apartment on June 14. 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 July 25 lodged a complaint with the Bihar police against actor Rhea Chakraborty and her family members accusing them of abetting his suicide.

Since then, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) have started the investigation into an alleged money laundering and drug angle in connection to the actor's death. Numerous angles that have come forward in the case are yet to be investigated and persons who ostensibly should be questioned haven't. The alleged link to the death of Disha Salian has also not been investigated.

READ | Sushant's family's lawyer officially seeks new forensic panel; letter to CBI accessed

READ | Shweta Singh Kirti says 'won't breakdown', shares glimpses of #SushantEarthDay
Tito Vazquez Jr. likes to say that perfect political candidates are like perfect churches: They do not exist. Sometimes, he said, you just have to find one that meets most of your needs and make peace with the gaps. So in November, he will cast a ballot to reelect President Donald Trump.

Many of his fellow evangelical worshipers at a large Latino church in Central Florida will probably vote for Trump, too.

"When I think about politics overall, I'm always looking at things through my religious upbringing," said Vazquez, 51, who lives in a suburb of Orlando, Fla. "And when I compare Trump to Biden, Trump is just closer to what I believe."

"Trump has his flaws," he added. "There are things he does that I do not agree with. But that's politics."

Vazquez is one of millions of evangelical Christian Latinos in the United States whose political calculations could carry outsize influence in the 2020 election, especially in Florida. Although he may defy expectations for voters of Puerto Rican descent, who like a majority of Latinos nationally lean Democratic, Vazquez said Republicans have simply made a stronger case to him.

While the GOP's traditional strength among Cuban Americans is well understood, the party's appeal to born-again religious voters of Caribbean and Latin American descent in recent years has received far less attention. Now, Republicans hope these voters will further chip away at the margins of Joe Biden's support in Florida among Latinos. Despite the administration's hard-line immigration policies and much-criticized response after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, some recent polls have shown the president narrowly beating Biden among Latinos overall in Florida.

"Evangelicals value life, freedom, and limited government - values President Trump is fighting to protect," Ali Pardo, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement. "While Joe Biden's campaign tries to hide his nearly half-century record of failure that focused on winning over American socialists and appeasing Latin American dictators, our campaign is on the ground in Florida connecting directly with Latino and Evangelical Communities."

That message has resonated with some voters, even though Biden is a moderate Democrat who has rejected many ideas from his party's left flank, such as defunding the police and the "Green New Deal." In a tight race, even a small number of voters could make a difference.

And the Trump campaign's efforts to win over more Latino voters run through churches such as the one Vazquez belongs to, which is Pentecostal.

The political courtship has transpired pew by pew, said several evangelical faith leaders and Florida political strategists, who describe how the Trump campaign has carefully targeted evangelical Latinos with political recognition, high-profile surrogates and digital ads. Throughout this year, amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump campaign has hosted dozens of virtual events with Latino evangelical worshipers.

The Biden campaign launched a Latino-focused faith outreach program more recently, in mid-September.

It is a missed opportunity for Democrats, said the Rev. Luis Cortes Jr., an evangelical leader in Philadelphia. Cortes said Latino evangelicals are less conservative than White evangelicals and are open to Democratic priorities such as racial justice and a strong social safety net, especially now that the pandemic is disproportionately hurting Latino communities.

"Hispanic evangelicals are not a monolith," Cortes said. "They are not all straight-line culture-issue voters. Some people will vote on the basis of schools, others on the basis of jobs."

He added: "And there's a bigger group that is starting to . . . ask what it means to be pro-life. Is pro-life a person who fights for a child to be born and then abandons the child from a moment of birth?"

"My opinion is that [Democrats] don't know how to speak to us," he said. "And as a result, they lose votes."

There is limited public polling of these voters, and the campaigns declined to share internal polling data. A recent analysis by the Public Religion Research Institute showed that Trump's personal favorability rating among Hispanic protestants nationally grew by double digits between 2019 and 2020, from 37% to 50%.

An estimated 3.1 million Latinos are eligible to vote in Florida, where they make up about 20% of the electorate, according to the Pew Research Center, out of an overall Latino population of 5.7 million. About 1 in 5 Florida Latinos identified as Protestant in 2019, according to numbers published by PRRI's American Values Atlas, about half as many as identified as Catholic.

The Republican efforts to appeal to Latino evangelicals are designed to build on their success at organizing among White religious voters, dating to the alignment of conservative politics with Christian organizations such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr.'s Moral Majority.

Growing up in evangelical churches, Vazquez said, he felt seen and respected. He was even given opportunities as a child to help lead worship services and to occasionally deliver short sermons. Church was foundational not only in terms of providing a sense of community but also in creating opportunities for leadership.

Today, Vazquez has nuanced political views that reflect various facets of his life, including his Puerto Rican ancestry and New York roots, but his primary views are informed by church fellowship.

Vazquez said he supports strong border enforcement because allowing people to live in the country illegally leaves them open to being exploited for their labor. He would like to see an immigration overhaul that includes a pathway to citizenship for those who are already in the country. Asked whether he is bothered by Trump's dark rhetoric about immigrants, Vazquez said politicians on the left also use illegal immigration to rile up political passions without doing anything to help those migrants.

While he personally opposes abortion, he said he is wary of the Supreme Court becoming overly political and believes in a separation between church and state.

"If everything went according to our biblical point of you, yes, we would be happy," he said. "But the United States was not based only on a biblical point of view. Our country is based on the Constitution."

In any case, his mind is made up. Vazquez will vote for Trump, as he did in 2016.

These days, he barely skims the mountains of political mailers he receives. Trump's recent coronavirus diagnosis, for all the attention it has received, did not change his mind. "I appreciated his comment about not letting fear rule our lives," Vazquez said of Trump. "For me, it demonstrates courage to move forward."

The Biden campaign has expanded its outreach to religious Latino voters in recent weeks, said Josh Dickson, who joined the campaign as faith engagement director in August. The campaign also recently announced a seven-figure advertising campaign in several battleground states, including Florida, to target religious voters.

"We're taught to seek to serve and not to be served," Dickson said. "And that's the exact opposite of what we see from this administration."

But some say the Democrats are years behind.

Fernand Amandi, a veteran Democratic campaign strategist in Florida, recalled the aggressive play for religious Hispanic voters George W. Bush made during his presidential campaign 20 years ago. By 2004, Bush was able to get about 40% of the Hispanic vote, according to national exit polls. Amandi said Bush accomplished that in part by tapping into the organizing power of evangelical Latino churches.

"The Republicans out-hustle and outfox the Democrats," he said, "so that rather than losing by what they typically should be losing the Hispanic vote by - 30 points or more - they only lose by 20 or 15 or five points."

Amandi said Obama's reelection campaign in 2012, which he advised, was successful in part because of in-depth research and early outreach to Latinos.

Pablo Jimenez, an instructor of pastoral theology in Charlotte, lamented that Democratic political candidates have not done more outreach to religious voters outside Black churches. Jimenez, a political independent who dislikes Trump, said that could be accomplished by framing "pro-life" policies to religious voters beyond the fight over abortion rights to include positions on welfare for the poor, education and health care, to name a few.

"If you ask me why so many Latinos are moving to a more conservative camp politically, it is very, very, very simple - because Republicans ask for their vote," said Jimenez, associate dean of Hispanic ministries at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Jimenez said he has also seen evangelicals bombarded by anti-Biden falsehoods being spread on the Internet, some targeting the former vice president for his Catholic faith.

A pastor who Jimenez said "is like a mother to me" recently sent him a list of baseless claims, including one that insisted Biden would bring the entire world under a single global currency as part of an insidious power play. Another warned non-Catholic religious voters that Biden would bring their faiths under the rule of the pope.

"I have had friends telling me that they've been marginalized in their church because they're not peddling right-wing stuff or conspiracy theories," Jimenez said.

These trends have collided in Orlando, seen as a crucial battleground for Democrats seeking to counterbalance the GOP's strength among Cuban Americans in South Florida. Among the influx of Puerto Rican voters who have arrived since Hurricane Maria struck the island in 2017, many have conservative religious and political leanings.

While many Puerto Ricans are angry at the Trump administration's response to Hurricane Maria, factors such as religious affiliation can influence their vote as well in ways that are not always understood by political strategists.

"The Puerto Rican community in Orlando differs from those in New York or Philly or Chicago, because you have a very large number of people coming from the island as well as other parts of the United States, and that's where you will find a larger number of people sympathizing with the Republican Party," said Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute in Miami.

Many of them identify as White, he added, which may also diminish the strength of the Democrats' messaging on racial justice.

"It would be a mistake to take us for granted, to say, 'Oh, they're Latino, so they'll vote Democrat,' or, 'Oh they're evangelical so they'll vote Republican.' What happens when you live in both identities?" said the Rev. Gabriel Salguero, who is president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition and delivered the opening prayer of the Democratic National Convention in August.

And their strength could extend beyond the 2020 election.

Latino evangelicals are the fastest-growing group of evangelicals in the United States, he said, "and many live in Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada."

Meanwhile, with this year's election underway, Vazquez knows that liberals are apt to criticize Latinos who vote for Trump.

But he wishes voters like him could be seen with more complexity.

"I have not always voted Republican. And even in the most recent elections, some of my statewide elected preferences were not all Republicans," he said. "People just want to hear opinions they agree with. And if you don't agree, they feel free to bash you."
Rose Petsinis isn't optimistic about her employment prospects.

"Who is going to hire me when they could hire a 16- to 35-year-old and get up to a $200 weekly bonus?" the 47-year-old said.

Rose Petsinis with daughters Alexia, 10, and Lisha, 14, on Wednesday. Credit:Jason South

It's been a tough year for Ms Petsinis and the single mother of two was hoping for some respite in Tuesdays federal budget.

But the Wollert resident, who lost her job at a school canteen when the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, said the federal governments $4 billion budget initiative to reverse youth unemployment would make it harder for older Australians to find work.
The government has declared popular nicotine pouches LYFT illegal.

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has declared that the pouches were registered illegally, and wants them deregistered.

In a letter to the Pharmacy and Poisons Board CEO Fred Siyoi, the CS writes that registration was done contrary to the provisions of Section 25 of the Pharmacy and Poisons Act CAP 224.

The nicotine pouches neither meet the descriptions of Part I Poison nor Part II poison as prescribed in the Act, the letter reads in part.

Further, the manner in which the product is sold to the public does not meet the provisions of Section 23 of CAP 244 as required.

In view of the above, therefore, you are required to furnish the ministry with a comprehensive report on the criteria used and circumstances leading to the registration and licensing of the product under the Pharmacy and Poisons Act.

LYFT was introduced into the market late last year, and has seen a rapid growth in popularity particularly during the Covid pandemic period when night clubs were shut down.

The product is marketed by British American Tobacco (BAT), and there were reports that the company had been granted permission to construct a manufacturing facility for the product in the country.

Currently, LYFT is imported from Sweden.

Following the rise in its usage, different groups have been calling on the government to ban its use. These include: Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance, National Taxpayers Association, the Non-Communicable Diseases Alliance of Kenya, the International Institute for Legislative Affairs and the Kenya Network of Cancer Organisations.

It remains unclear whether this latest move means that the product will be pulled from shelves, and how soon that will happen.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris (L) delivers a campaign speech in Washington on Aug. 27, 2020. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters); Vice President Mike Pence (R) speaks at a campaign event in Exeter, Pa., on Sept. 1, 2020. (John Minchillo/AP Photo)

Trumps Virus Diagnosis Places More Focus on Pence, Harris During VP Debate

CDC says Pence is cleared to attend debate on Wednesday night

Vice President Mike Pence was cleared by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to partake in Wednesday nights vice-presidential debate with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), an event that is shaping up to draw more attention due to President Donald Trumps CCP virus diagnosis.

A memo from the CDC was released by Pences office this week, coming after President Trump and several White House officials tested positive for the virus. CDC Director Robert Redfield signed off on a memo saying that Pence doesnt pose a public health risk to partake in the debate in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The CDC had a consultation with White House physician, Dr. Jesse Shonau, regarding the Vice Presidents possible exposure to persons with COVID-19. Based on the description of the movements of the Vice President from Dr. Shonau, the Vice President is not a close contact of any known persons with COVID-19, including the President, Redfield wrote, referring to the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

With Trump working from the White House while under quarantine after contracting the virus, the debate between Pence and Harris is taking on an outsized role as compared with previous vice-presidential debates.

Pence and Harris are scheduled to take the stage at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City separated by plastic barriers for a 90-minute debate. Both Pence, 61, or Harris, 55, would be a heartbeat away from assuming the presidency, depending on the elections outcome. How they handle themselves might be under scrutiny even more because of Trumps health and Democratic nominee Joe Bidens advanced age.

President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden participate in the first presidential debate at the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sept. 29, 2020. (Win McNamee-Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Republicans have frequently pointed out that should anything happen to Biden, who will be 78 if he takes office in January, Harris would assume the presidency.

Trump, 74, is the oldest president to seek reelection. Some medical experts have noted that due to his age and other health issues, he is in a particularly high-risk group for COVID-19.

Harris is a senator from California picked by Biden in August as his running mate. Pence is a former U.S. congressman and Indiana governor who has steadfastly defended Trump during his tumultuous presidency.

Pence, who was named as the head of Trumps CCP virus task force earlier this year, is sure to highlight some of the administrations successes in handling the pandemic, including therapeutics and work on a potential vaccine. Meanwhile, Harris, like Biden in the first presidential debate last month, will attempt to criticize the Trump administrations handling of the virus.

The vice president will also try to highlight Harriss comments that were made about Black Lives Matter-related riots and protests earlier this year, while saying that she and Biden have both capitulated to the far-left wing of the Democratic Party.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Scientists have identified three killer whale culprits behind a spate of attacks on yachts off the coast of Spain and Portugal.

In the last two months, the orcas have ripped the rudders off fishing vessels and rammed pleasure yachts in more than 20 separate incidents off the Spanish region of Galicia alone.

By studying footage, the investigating experts have implicated Black Gladis, White Gladis and Grey Gladis in 61 percent of all the attacks along the Spanish and Portuguese coast.

The colossal beasts were identified in part by the scars across their bodies which are believed to have been caused by their clashes with boats.

Scroll down for video.

White Gladis (left) and Black Gladis (right) have been implicated - along with Grey Gladis - in 61 percent of the attacks on vessels on the Portuguese and Spanish coast in the last two months

The distinct dorsal fin of the aggressive killer whale known as Grey Gladis

Killer whales are usually seen off Galicia at this time of year as they hunt tuna from the Gulf of Cadiz and into the Bay of Biscay

A diagram showing the various scars and markings on the killer whales dubbed White Gladis (Gladis Blanca), left, and Black Gladis (Gladis Negra) by the Spanish and Portuguese researchers

The distinguishable dorsal fin of the orca known to scientists as Black Gladis

Wounds to two of the whales are recent, dated between June and August.

Killer whales are known to be curious about the sterns of boats because of their noise and movement, but the researchers say that the recent aggression recorded against vessels is unheard of.

A killer whale breaks through the surface of the water near A Coruna in northern Spain before attacking a yacht last month

Last month, a couple from Scotland were subjected to a 45-minute hounding by orcas near Cape Finisterre, Galicia.

Graeme Walker and his wife Moira first noticed the mammals when one of them rammed into their yacht during an ordeal in which a 1.5 sq ft bite was taken out of their rudder.

A few weeks earlier, a 40ft Spanish naval vessel was encircled by a pod of whales before one of them clipped off a section of the ship's rudder.

And in July, a sailor suffered a dislocated shoulder when a delivery yacht entering Cape Trafalgar was so violently rocked by a whale that the man fell onto the deck.

It was shocking incidents such as these which prompted Spanish maritime officials to ban yachts of less than 50ft from a stretch of the Galician coast for a week at the end of September.

Researchers told The Guardian: 'The trigger for this strange and novel behaviour could have been an aversive incident that the orcas had with a boat, and in which the speed of the boat could have been a critical factor.

'For the moment, we have no clear evidence of when it happened, nor can we say for sure what kind of boat may have been involved, nor whether the incident was accidental or deliberate.'

The experts said that the killer whales may have learned that they could slow down a boat and that they were now in the habit of toying with others 'out of curiosity'.

Graeme Walker and his wife Moira were sailing on their yacht with their friend Stephen Robinson when a trio of killer whales targeted them off the coast of Cape Finisterre

Graeme, from Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute, only noticed the killer whales when one of them rammed his 45ft yacht

During the 45-minute attack a 1.5sq ft bite had been taken out of the yacht's rudder

The marine biologists added that although the orcas had shaken up crews, they had not yet posed a significant danger.

'Rough movements of the wheel and sharp movements have upset crews unfamiliar with orcas and their behaviour,' the experts told the paper.

'[But] in no instance has anyone been harmed by the direct activity of the orcas  although there has been some risk in some of the situations involving long-lasting or nocturnal activity.'

Killer whales are usually seen off Galicia at this time of year as they hunt tuna from the Gulf of Cadiz and into the Bay of Biscay.

Orcas weigh as much as six tonnes  about three times heavier than a car - and can live up to 80 years.

The Spanish and Portuguese organisation studying the whales, CEMMA, hopes to reveal its findings in the next two weeks.
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A stunning seven-bedroom former church in the heart of London that boasts its own swimming pool and leisure facilities is currently on sale for 44million.

The Grade II listed St Saviours House in Knightsbridge, London, also boasts parking for up to three cars, a vaulted ceiling, original stone pillars and period wooden beams.

The incredible 19th century semi-detached property is currently listed on Right Move with Knight Frank.

At around 12,102 sq ft, the former church has plenty of room for 'spectacular entertaining unlike any other home in London'.

St Saviours House (pictured), a Grade II listed converted church in Knightsbridge, is currently on sale for 44million

The seven-bedroom former church, which was built in the 19th century, boasts a vaulted ceiling, original stone pillars and a glass elevator (left) to help travel between floors

The ground floor boasts an impressive entrance hall which leads into a large, open-plan reception and dining room (pictured)

Located in the heart of Knightsbridge, St Saviours House is within walking distance of three underground tube stations and the department store Harrods can be found at the end of the road. Pictured, the living room

In addition to the impressive period features, the property boasts an entire floor dedicated to leisure, including the likes of a swimming pool, gym, treatment room, sauna, steam room and even a media room with bar.

Located in the heart of Knightsbridge, the extravagant building is within walking distance of three underground tube stations.

It is also ideally positioned to allow easy access to the multitude of shops and restaurants in the area, with Harrods department store being found at the end of the road.

With the property spread across five floors, a spiral staircase helps navigate the house as it winds its way round a glass elevator.

The converted 19th century church features seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms and even enough private parking space for three vehicles. Pictured, one of the bedrooms

At around 12,102 square feet the brochure for St Saviours says the former church has plenty of room for 'spectacular entertaining unlike any other home in London.' Pictured, the stylish bathroom

The house has a number of dressing rooms and en-suite bathrooms, as well as plenty of storage space in the loft

The ground floor of the property is also home to an office, a study, a utility room, a main kitchen and a chef's kitchen, as well as two bathrooms

The ground floor of the property features an entrance hall which leads into a large reception room, a study, an office, two bathrooms, two kitchens and a utility room.

An annex to the property also boasts a bedroom with an ensuite.

A master bedroom with an ensuite and a second bedroom which also features an ensuite bathroom and its own dressing room can be found on the first floor of the property.

Additionally, the first floor features a large reception room and another, smaller bathroom, as well as the spiral staircase and glass elevator access.

One entire floor of the converted church is dedicated to leisure activities, with one room having been renovated into a home cinema room (pictured)

An annex on the first floor houses another bedroom and a bathroom and a staircase leading to the second floor.

A bedroom and bathroom are also located on the second floor of the annex, while the third floor plays host to yet another bedroom with an ensuite, which benefits from a terrace and eaves storage space.

There is further storage space available in the property's loft as well as in the mezzanine over the third floor bedroom, which also has its own dressing room.

There is plenty of space inside the house for cooking with both a main and a chef's kitchen featuring in the property description.

The leisure floor is home to the swimming pool, gym, treatment room, sauna, steam room (pictured) and even a media room with bar
press release

Nairobi  President Uhuru Kenyatta has urged Kenyans working in different sectors of the economy to emulate the efficiency exhibited by the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), saying that would ensure effective and timely delivery of services.

The President, at the same time, commended KDF for its professionalism that has seen it serve the country with great distinction.

"If all of us in Kenya operated and behaved; and loved and served their country in the manner in which our Kenya Defence Forces does, Kenya would today be a great country. And we all have a big lesson to learn," President Kenyatta said.

The Head of State spoke today at the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) garage in industrial area when he flagged off 83 vehicles that were rehabilitated by the state agency.

NMS restored the vehicles, which had been lying at the facility as scrap metal for years, at a cost of Kshs 22 million in a span of two months following the handover of the running of the garage to NMS by the Nairobi City County.

The automobiles included 21 tipper trucks, 24 fire engines, six ambulances, three hydraulic street lighting platforms, two scrub street sweepers and two graders among other equipment that had been grounded for eight years.

President Kenyatta expressed optimism that the remaining 80 grounded vehicles at the garage will be repaired in the next two months and be ready to serve Nairobi residents.

At the same time, the President dismissed claims that deploying KDF in service delivery was militarising the country.

"I have no such intention (militarising the nation). But it is only a fool who would not use those who can perform to help him achieve his intended goals.

"I am not militarising anything. I am using reliable Kenyan citizens to fulfil my agenda for this Republic. And the KDF are part of us and are also part of our citizens," the President said.

The Head of State cited several infrastructure projects including rehabilitation of railway lines, the port of Kisumu and restoration of ships as some of KDF's recent achievements.

Chief of Defence Forces Gen Robert Kibochi and NMS Director General Major General Mohamed Badi also spoke at the event and assured the President of KDF's commitment to continue serving the nation.
Behaviour support worker 'going out of her comfort zone'

A THATCHAM woman will be going out of her comfort zone to raise money for Kennet School.

April Goddard will scramble up 757m-high fell Ill Bell in the Lake District, and take the plunge, jump and squeeze through and around waterfalls on a ghyll scramble.

Accompanied by husband Aaron, Mrs Goddard will finish the fundraiser hiking either the 803m Old Man of Coniston or the 950m mountain Helvellyn over the weekend of October 9.

Mrs Goddard, a behaviour support worker at Kennet School, said she would going out of her comfort zone and said: I am petrified to do the challenges.

I think the only thing Im excited about is seeing the amazing views.

I am scared of heights, so rock climbing with no safety harness is scary for me.

Secondly I absolute hate cold water, so when I jump in that cold water off the mountain Ill probably cry.

But in aid of a good cause, Mrs Goddard said she chose the Kennet Parent Teacher Association (PTA) as she had attended Kennet and said she loved seeing the school get updated with new equipment which helps support the children.

She spoke with headteacher Gemma Piper and was told that some of the money raised would go towards new laptops in the SEN (special education needs) department.

Being a mum to a child who has ADHD and autism myself the SEN unit is something I feel really passionate about as one day my child will be in that exact SEN unit needing that exact same equipment, Mrs Goddard said.

The challenges also follow Mrs Goddard deciding to change her life, losing weight and starting a new job at Kennet.

The 27-year-old said: One year ago I started a journey.

I was morbidly obese and this had a huge impact on my physical and mental health.

One year ago I decided enough was enough and I decided to make changes for the better.

In this last year I have lost almost seven stone and I now want to do things that I would of never been able to do, such as fitness activities.

I spoke to my husband and we looked at different ideas that we could do and I thought go big or go home.

Every single day the children and staff members at Kennet School inspire me and now I want to inspire them.

I want to show people that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

Mrs Goddard has raised 255 of her 500 target so far and donations can be made at https://gf.me/u/yzqpin

Kennet PTA chairwoman Kelly Hood said: I would like to say a huge thank you to April for fundraising on behalf of the PTA.

I would encourage anyone to get in touch if you would like to set yourself a challenge whilst raising sponsorship on Kennet Schools behalf.

Wed also love to hear from anyone with creative fundraising ideas and as always I want to thank everyone for the help we get as a PTA.

We are really fortunate to have such fantastic support.
Industry Update

Appointment

7 October 2020

Vassilis Themelidis

Appointed Regional Director for Europe South & East

At Wyndham Hotels & Resorts in Greece in Athens

Taking charge of the South and East Region of Europe is Vassilis Themelidis, who worked at RCI for over 20 years, serving various roles from key account manager to regional director for various markets. He is based in Athens, Greece.

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: WH) is the worlds largest hotel franchising company by the number of properties, with over 9,000 hotels across approximately 90 countries on six continents. Through its network of 813,000 rooms appealing to the everyday traveler, Wyndham commands a leading presence in the economy and midscale segments of the lodging industry. more information

Recent Appointments at Wyndham Adnan Ali Khan - General Manager 17 January 2022  Adnan Ali Khan has been promoted to general manager of Ramada by Wyndham Dubai Barsha Heights. Previously hotel manager in charge at the hotel since 2020, he has proved himself as a "true leader" over the pandemic. read more

Philip Blain - General Manager 27 October 2021  Wyndham Destinations Asia Pacific is pleased to announce the appointment of Philip Blain to the role of General Manager at Club Wyndham Ballarat. Mr Blain has held several hotel leadership positions, most recently at the five-star The Como Melbourne MGallery by Sofitel Hotel. read more
Why Mewalal Choudhary, Bihars new education minister is in the eye of a storm

Bihar Elections 2020: Another BJP leader Usha Vidyarthi joins LJP in presence of Chirag Paswan

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Oct 07: Former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Dr Usha Vidyarthi joined Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), in presence of LJP chief Chirag Paswan ahead of Bihar Elections 2020. She is the second BJP leader to get LJP ticket.

Usha Vidyarthi has been an MLA from Paliganj seat. Last time in the Mahagathbandhan, BJP replaced Ramjanam Sharma as a candidate in place of Usha Vidyarthi. Usha Vidyarthi was still in a mood of rebellion but after getting the status of Member of Bihar State Commission for Women, she calmed down.

No doubt Nitish is our leader in Bihar, LJP is our ally at Centre: BJP

Earlier, Former Bihar BJP vice president Rajendra Singh joined the LJP in presence Chirag Paswan. In 2015, Rajendra Singh was said to be the chief ministerial candidate of the BJP. He had been working for the RSS and sister organisations for 36 years.

The LJP on Sunday announced that it will not contest the elections under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as the leader of the coalition.

On Monday, another BJP leader Barun Paswan switched sides and is likely to contest for the LJP against HAM from Kutumba. These moves triggered talk within the JD(U) that the BJP was using the LJP "as its dummy" in case of an anti-incumbency vote.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

The LJP's decision to quit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on the eve of the polls has turned the Bihar Assembly elections into an open contest.

The tension between the JD(U) and the BJP had started simmering when the LJP declared that it had persuaded the BJP's state vice president Rajendra Singh to switch sides and stand as its candidate from Dinara.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 12:28 [IST]
Ukraine and the European Union have agreed on further economic integration and regulatory convergence in a number of areas.

A joint statement by the leaders of Ukraine and the EU, adopted at the end of the summit in Brussels on Tuesday, says.

"We looked forward to further enhancing economic integration and regulatory approximation within the framework of the Association Agreement in the following fields: on digital, we took note of the on-site assessment of the implementation of Ukraine's commitments in the AA/DCFTA. We also discussed the EU's engagement in further supporting Ukraine and its institutions in approximation with and gradual implementation of the EU Digital Single Market acquis and institutional capacities, to fully benefit from the Association Agreement. We agreed to prepare by the end of 2020 a joint working plan for co-operation between EU and Ukraine on electronic trust services with a view to a possible agreement which must be based on approximation to the EU legislation and standards," the statement reads.

The leaders welcomed progress on the update of the Annexes on telecommunication, environment, climate and financial cooperation of the Association Agreement. "Welcoming Ukraine's ambition to approximate its policies and legislation with the European Green Deal, we stressed the importance of progress in Ukraine's commitments in the areas of climate change, environment, marine ecosystem, education, energy, transport and agriculture, building on existing established sectoral dialogues, and agreed on a focused dialogue on the necessary steps in these areas," the statements says.

In addition, they acknowledged the importance of fully complying with DCFTA commitments, notably in the areas of intellectual property rights, public procurement, trade defence, and sanitary and phytosanitary standards with a view to building an open and predictable business and investment climate in Ukraine. "We agreed to further discuss and review the ways to improve DCFTA implementation in order to further develop and facilitate bilateral trade," the leaders said.

They also welcomed the launch of the pre-assessment on Ukraine's preparedness on an Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products.

The EU also welcomed Ukraine's willingness to associate to the incoming EU's Research and Innovation Framework Programme Horizon Europe and EU4Health Programme, which will be a significant enabler for green and digital post-COVID recovery.

"We recalled the importance and reaffirmed our commitment to concluding the Common Aviation Area Agreement at the earliest possible date," the statement notes.

What is more, the EU reaffirmed Ukraine's role as a strategic transit country for gas and welcomed the agreement on gas transit to the EU after 2019. "We underlined the importance of pursuing the modernization of the Ukrainian national gas transmission system and further cooperation on strengthening European energy security. We stressed the importance of Ukraine's cooperation with the EU, with a view to its integration with the EU energy market based on effective implementation of the updated Annex XXVII of the Association Agreement as well as coordination of further steps for the integration of gas and electricity markets," it says.

The parties also agreed to improve connectivity between Ukraine, the EU and other countries of the Eastern Partnership with a view to facilitating trade, further developing safe and sustainable transport links and supporting people-to-people contacts.

"We welcomed the participation of Ukraine in EU programmes and underlined the importance of Erasmus+ for education, training, youth and sport and Creative Europe for culture. We looked forward to intensifying the relevant cooperation in the framework of current and future programmes," the leaders said.
Bennington, VT (05201)

Today

Cloudy skies early. A few snow showers developing later in the day. High 28F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 30%..

Tonight

Bitterly cold. Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. Low 6F. Winds light and variable.
FILE PHOTO: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks at a news conference on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York

(Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday there was a danger that fighting between Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces could turn into a regional war.

Rouhani also told a cabinet meeting that it was "totally unacceptable" for any mortar bomb or missile to land on Iranian soil after Iranian media said stray shells from fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave had fallen on villages near Iran's northwestern border, wounding a child and damaging buildings.

Iran lodged a formal protest to Azerbaijan and Armenia on Wednesday over violations of Iran's "territorial integrity," Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a statement carried by local media.

"We must be attentive that the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan does not become a regional war. Peace is the basis of our work and we hope to restore stability to the region in a peaceful way," Rouhani said.

"Our priority is the security of our cities and villages, he said in remarks carried by state television.

He also said Iran, which borders Armenia and Azerbaijan, would not allow states to "send terrorists to our borders under various pretexts".

His comments followed accusations, first levelled by French President Emmanuel Macron, that Turkey has sent Syrian jihadists to the region. Ankara, which is a close ally of Azerbaijan and backs rebels fighting Syrian government forces, has denied this.

Fighting broke out on Sept. 27 in Nagorno-Karabakh, which under international law belongs to Azerbaijan but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.

(Editing by Alison Williams and Timothy Heritage)
HANOVER (dpa-AFX) - TUI AG (TUIFF.PK) said Birgit Conix, a member of the Executive Board and Chief Financial Officer, will leave TUI AG as of 31 December 2020. The company has appointed Sebastian Ebel, already a member of the Executive Board, as Chief Financial Officer, effective 1 January 2021. TUI AG also announced the appointment of Peter Krueger as a new member of the Executive Board with effect from 1 January 2021. He will be responsible for M&A, Group Strategy, Hotel Joint Ventures, Cruise and Airlines. 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.
New Delhi: Delhi's Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot has directed manufacturers and dealers of the high security registration plates (HSRP) to take no new bookings till further notice. Gahlot convened the meeting to address the public grievances in relation to the HSRP and colour-coded stickers.

He instructed them not to book any new appointment for the HSRP fitment until a proper system is in place and also instructed the Transport Department to delay enforcement until further orders.

The Minister also ordered HSRP, OEM manufacturers and dealers to put a system in place addressing the grievances of the vehicle owners.

He directed the Transport Department to restrain from taking coercive measures in order to enforce rules pertaining to HSRP.

Convened a meeting today to address issues coming in HSRP & Colour Coded stickers installation. OEMs have been directed to remove shortcomings in the web portal to make it more user friendly.

People will get sufficient time to install HSRP & sticker on vehicles. No need to panic. pic.twitter.com/hBo9FYzpTr  Kailash Gahlot (@kgahlot) October 6, 2020

"Our objective is public convenience. It was misinterpreted by a section of people that we are immediately enforcing the HSRP rule. This created a panic among vehicle owners," Gahlot was quoted as saying by PTI news agency.

Also read | How to apply for high security number plate, colour coded stickers? Explained in 10 easy steps

The government will give sufficient time to vehicle owners to get the HSRP and colour-coded stickers installed before enforcing the HSRP rules.

"We are clear on our part that we will give sufficient time to vehicle owners to get the HSRP and colour-coded stickers installed before enforcing the HSRP rules," he said.

The meeting was reportedly attended by senior officers from the Transport Department, National Informatics Centre (NIC) and other stakeholders such as Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) and HSRP manufacturers.

This is to be noted that as per the Motor Vehicles Act and the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, the HSRP and colour-coded stickers are mandatory for all the vehicles. As per a few reports, around 30 lakh vehicles in the national capital registered prior to April 1, 2019, don't have these.

New vehicles registered after April 2019 come equipped with HSRP and colour-coded stickers.

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About a month after authorities in Abuja, Nigerias capital, shut two COVID-19 centres for lack of patients, health workers deployed to the facilities are lamenting that they have not been paid their accrued allowance of about three months.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how COVID-19 isolation centres located inside Karu and Asokoro general hospitals were closed following the reduction in the number of patients.

Our reporters who visited the Karu isolation centre last Friday saw it under lock and key. The same scenario was seen at the isolation centre in Asokoro.

Authorities said they decided to close down both centres, leaving the ones in Idu and THISDAY Dome, since there are now fewer patients infected from the COVID-19 virus.

The acting secretary, health and human services secretariat, Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), Mohammed Kawu, said the centres were not purposely built as COVID-19 treatment centres, hence the need to convert them to their initial purpose.

We officially converted both centres to conventional hospitals on August 24, 2020, because the number of COVID-19 patients is tremendously low, Kawu told PREMIUM TIMES on the phone.

Health workers ordeal

Meanwhile, Aliyu Saidu, who worked as a hygienist at the Karu isolation centre, said they are yet to be given any official reason as to why they have not received their pay for June, July, and August, weeks after the centres were shut.

His stance was reechoed by several isolation workers in both facilities who spoke to this newspaper. Some of them said they could not make much fuss about it for fear of being victimised as they are also working under the Abuja health authorities as professionals.

I started work on May 7, 2020. I received salary for May but after then no salary has been paid. I even contracted COVID-19 while working at the centre, said Mr Saidu, a contract staff.

I left my family in Nasarawa because of this job.

A nurse at the centre, who did not want his name on print for fear of victimisation as he is a government staff, gave a more detailed explanation.

We are agitating about our inducement allowance. At the onset of COVID-19, we were asked to serve as volunteers at the isolation centres, which we agreed to for the interest of Nigerians. We were trained and deployed to various COVID-19 treatment centres in Abuja, under the FCT. One of which is Karu where we served.

When we started, the government said they will give inducement allowance to all the volunteers because of the risk involved in the job. They said they will give N50,000 daily inducements for doctors, N30,000 for nurses, pharmacists and scientists and N20,000 for hygienist.

For the first month it went well and we were fully paid. But we are yet to be paid for June, July, and August and we were worried. Nobody has officially communicated to us as to why we are yet to receive payment.

Eventually, we were told that the treatment centre will be closed because of the number of COVID-19 patients have decreased. We have been patient because we didnt want to raise any issues and we expect the government to fulfil their promises. But until date, we are yet to receive a dime from the three months outstanding inducement allowances.

The nurse also shared how the situation is negatively affecting his life.

I left my family for four months just to be at the treatment centre. I have not been able to engage myself in other activities that can give me income. I have been separated from friends and other social activities. Many of us contacted this virus during this period. Some people were hospitalised at this time.

On measures taken to demand their pay from the authorities, the nurse said, nurses, doctors, and scientists belong to different unions which they expected to talk to the government on their behalf. So far we dont know what step they have taken because there is no communication but on our own part, we cant do much.

Claim and Counter-claims

Responding, Mr Mohammed, the acting secretary, health and human services of the FCTA denied claims that workers at the two centres have not been paid for three months.

There are two categories of health workers. Those working at the treatment centres have been paid till August, so if anybody said they havent been paid, that is not correct, the official said.

The COVID-19 response did not start at the same time. The Asokoro isolation centre started operation in April while Karu and Idu started operations between May and June. The workers in these centres are paid based on when they joined the COVID19 response.

All public health workers across the country were paid for the first three months as directed by the federal government.

FCTA paid doctors N50,000 per day; nurses, pharmacists received N30,000 per day while hygienists, drivers, and cleaners were paid N20,000 per day.

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When presented with the response from the FCT authorities, the health workers stuck to their claims. The only salary I received is for April and May, said Solomon Isah, who worked as a hygienist at the Asokoko centre.

They just told us to go and promised they will pay but up till now, we have not heard anything, he added.

Daily inducement allowance

Health workers treating COVID-19 patients are classified as frontline workers because of the risk involved in the job. It is voluntary and those that chose to be enrolled were given proper training on the handling, care and protection of patients.

Being the first respondents to patients, these health workers have continued to be at risk of exposure to COVID-19 virus.

Many of them contracted the highly contagious disease, which has infected closely 60,000 people in Nigeria, killing over a thousand.

Considering the enormous risks involved in the job, the government decided to pay them a daily inducement allowance, which is separate from the regular monthly salaries and other allowances of professionals, such as doctors and nurses.

Breakdown

The health workforce inside the isolation centres is broken down into four main categories, that are further divided into different units working under a single head.

The professionals are the doctors and nurses, while the non-professionals are drivers and cleaners (hygienists).

Mr Saidu, a hygienist, said he earns N20,000 daily pay. He receives N620,000 per month.

His job mainly is to clean the holding areas; serve patients their food and drugs; clean surfaces that they touch and do laundry.

Nurses earn N30,000 daily, which means they receive N930,000 every month, while doctors earn 50,000 daily, taking their monthly pay to over N1.5 million.

The drivers receive N300,000 monthly.

There are also scientists and pharmacists who also received the same pay as nurses.

Asides this COVID-19 daily inducement, professionals such as doctors and nurses, also receive their normal salaries and other allowances, such as the contentious hazard allowance.

The Nigerian government increased the normal hazard pay of N5,000 to a special COVID-19 hazard and inducement allowance of 50 per cent of consolidated basic salary to health workers at the advent of the pandemic.

Hazard pay, a wage supplement paid to workers who do dangerous jobs, has been a major grouse of Nigerian health workers since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The failure and disparity in payment have resulted in pockets of strikes which had threatened Nigerias COVID-19 response.

Health workers pay raises sustainability concerns

Meanwhile, some experts who weighed in on the matter raised concerns on whether the government had plans of sustaining the daily inducements before agreeing to it.

Michael Okoro, a health finance analyst, said the back and forth between FCT authorities and health workers fuels concerns on whether the government can maintain the standard it is using now in an unfortunate event of a second or third wave.

For Ikemesit Effiong, a forensic expert, it is not about whether the amount is big or small, it is whether it can be sustained.

There are people that will say based on a global standard, that the 20,000 per day, which about $70 dollars is okay since McDonald waiters can get such wages, but we have to look at it from the Nigerian perspective, he said.

Nobody knows if we have reached the apex of our curve. The government should be able to look into the future and say if this goes into the second and third quarter of 2021, will we be able to maintain isolation centres, staff, and run them with the same amount we are using now?

Can we be able to open new centres of the standard they are currently being run now, with the same remuneration packages and inducements?

This is a conversation worth having at the highest level of governance. Sustainable raises important questions, said Mr Effiong, head of research at SBM Intelligence.
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted bail to actor Rhea Chakraborty, arrested over drugs-related charges in actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death case, and directed her to deposit a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh.

A bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal also granted bail to Rajputs aides Dipesh Sawant and Samuel Miranda, but rejected the bail plea of Rhea Chakrabortys brother Showik Chakraborty, who is also an accused in the case.

Mumbai: Actor Rhea Chakraborty released from Byculla jail after a month.



She was granted bail by Bombay High Court in a drug-related case filed against her by Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) pic.twitter.com/FlfP1re1cQ  ANI (@ANI) October 7, 2020

Photographer clicked her leaving the jail. The media have been warned by the police not to chase after Rhea and her vehicle.

Rheas lawyer Satish Manshinde outside the jail.

DCP Sangramsinh Nishandar said, I would like to clarify that any person who is chasing/obstructing vehicle of any other person is liable to be booked under relevant sections of IPC/MV Act and not only the person who is chasing but also the one who is instigating will be booked accordingly.

Rhea Chakraborty, her brother and the other accused were arrested last month by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with its probe into the drugs angle related to the case of Rajputs death. The HC directed her not to leave Mumbai without the NCBs permission and to not tamper with evidence while out on bail.

All those who have been granted bail, including Rhea, will also have to seek permission of the NCBs investigating officer to go out of Mumbai, the court said.

Rhea Chakrabortys lawyer Satish Maneshinde said they were are delighted by the high court order. Truth and justice have prevailed and ultimately the submissions on facts and law have been accepted by Justice Sarang V Kotwal, he said. The arrest and custody of Rhea was totally unwarranted and beyond the reach of law, Maneshinde said.

Sushant, 34, was found dead at his apartment in suburban Bandra on June 14 this year.Following extensive hearings last week, the HC had closed all arguments and reserved its verdict on the pleas.

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A 62-year-old patient of breast cancer and obesity, who had contracted Covid-19, was able to combat the infection despite a host of comorbidities. She spent 34 days in hospital and says her recovery is a miracle.

Bandra resident Mahnaaz Lokhandwala, who is a first-stage breast cancer patient, underwent a mandatory test for Covid-19 in end-August, before a scheduled surgery as part of her cancer treatment. On August 26, she tested positive for Covid-19. Initially, Lokhandwala was asymptomatic but had to be admitted to Bombay Hospital on August 28 when she developed breathlessness.

Her doctor, Dr Gautam Bhansali, consultant general physician at Bombay Hospital, said that in addition to being a cancer patient and weighing 172 kilograms, Lokhandwalas comorbidities include asthma, diabetes, hypertension and severe sleep apnoea. She had all the underlying health issues that make an individual most vulnerable to Covid-19. It was a really tricky case for us, said Dr Bhansali. Lokhandwalas oxygen saturation had also fallen below 70%. Considering her health condition, we didnt want to put her on a ventilator. Plus, due to her acute obesity, her neck was extremely short. So we kept her on non-invasive ventilation, said Dr Bhansali. Other doctors in the team treating Lokhandwala were intensivist Dr Sanjay Wagle and chest physician Dr Sujit Rajan.

Dr Shashank Shah, bariatric surgeon with Hinduja Hospital said that a patient with obesity along with cancer has suppressed immunity which makes them the easy target of Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Obesity is a low grade inflammatory disorder. It also leads to respiratory disorders just like Covid-19. Often, they have other underlying health issues like diabetes and hypertension which make them more susceptible. Their health condition may worsen if they develop diseases like cancer, he said. But with timely inversion, they can be cured, he added.

Lokhandwala tested negative for Covid-19 after 16 days, but due to her underlying health issues, her condition remained critical. On October 2, she was finally discharged from hospital. I am still on one litre of oxygen support daily. It is a miracle that I survived. My movement is still restricted so I am undergoing physiotherapy, said Lokhandwala. She said her message for the public was to be cautious but not scared of Covid-19. If I can survive, you can survive too with timely intervention. Trust your doctors and take all required precautions, she said.
President Trump has been "symptom-free" from the coronavirus for over 24 hours, White House physician Sean Conley said in a Wednesday update.

The state of play: Conley's letter also says that Trump has not received or needed supplemental oxygen since his initial hospitalization and that lab tests on Monday showed the president has signs of coronavirus antibodies in his blood that were not present last Thursday.

Worth noting: The memo does not address some of the outstanding questions about Trump's health that Conley has avoided answering at press briefings.

It includes no information on what medications Trump is still taking. Some of the treatments Conley said the president had been prescribed require multiday courses.

It also includes no information about the timing of Trump's last negative test, which Conley refused to provide at a Monday briefing. Trump publicly announced that he tested positive early Friday morning.

The big picture: The CDC states that a person can be contagious for up to 10 days after coronavirus symptoms resolve. It also notes that it can take anywhere from one to three weeks after an infection for the body to create antibodies.

One of the experimental treatments given to the president was an antibody cocktail from Regeneron.

Preliminary data show that the patients most likely to benefit from the experimental cocktail had undetectable antibodies and were early in the course of the disease  a similar profile to Trump, a Regeneron spokesperson told NBC's Peter Alexander.

It "is likely that the second test is detecting REGN-COV2 antibodies," the spokesperson said, referencing signs of coronavirus antibodies in the president's blood.

Read the update:
Rajnish Kumars three-year term as State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman was a roller-coaster ride from Day 1. A pandemic, a private bank bailout and a deep economic slowdown  all happened during his term. Kumar played a key role in bailing out Yes Bank. During his tenure, SBI has substantially cut down the chunk of toxic assets and successfully completed the amalgamation process of its associates.

In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol, Kumar opened up about the challenges he faced.

Edited excerpts:

Kumar: There were many challenges in the last three years. When I took charge, the merger process (with associates) was on, and then AQR (asset quality review) happened. There was significant stress on the books. And, of course, IBC (insolvency and bankruptcy code) also happened during that period. Having said that, I feel one can get tested only when there are challenges. If you are only doing your routine job, there is no excitement. Thats how I have managed this time. Challenging, but exciting.

Kumar: The first and biggest was to put the balance sheet in order. There was some hesitance in the bank about declaring a loss as part of cleaning up the book. This is SBI, how can we declare a loss, this will be bad, they asked. I had to convince them it is not like that. But, it doesnt mean that the entire organisation was fixated on one problem  NPAs (non-performing assets).

Kumar: The challenge was to get a handle on the NPA resolution by strengthening the stressed assets resolution. So, all NPAs that were spread across were brought into one group and very competent people were posted in that group to handle NPAs. This has shown results. At the start itself, that was the biggest challenge.

Kumar: It has always been corporate NPAs. Corporate NPAs are what causes the biggest problem. Now, of course, net corporate NPAs are just Rs 10,500 crore, which is virtually nothing. What Im saying is that the bank doesnt get impacted by retail as much as by corporate NPAs. At one point, it constituted 25 percent of the corporate book in NPAs and that was the whole cause of the problem. Now, it has been brought down. But, you have to be very careful. Retail is manageable.

Kumar: AUCA is essentially an accounting entry. The on-balance sheet NPAs, which are already fully provided for and where net asset value is almost close to zero, can be taken off the balance sheet. But it doesnt mean that that account will not be followed up and there will be no recovery efforts. So, the first thing was to put the balance sheet in order. We ensured that not everybody should be spending time on NPA management and should focus on other functions as well.

Kumar: The attempts to recover money from Mallya continue. His properties were attached and pledged to the bank by the Enforcement Directorate. The extradition matter is between the government of India and Vijay Mallya. Whatever security the bank had to enforce and realise money have been done. The bank has been able to recover about 25-30 percent (from the Vijay Mallya-Kingfisher account).

Kumar: The first, of course, will be COVID-19. The bank needs to be very watchful on this, although the major stress is already addressed. Second is maintaining the competitive edge of the bank in a tight competitive environment and continuing the leadership position. The third is keeping an eye on the earnings profile, and keeping a handle on NPAs. The institution should keep NPAs under strict control. Dont lose the leadership position.

Kumar: Well, he (Dinesh Kumar Khara) has been part of the team. My advice to him will be to adhere to the core values of the bank. If somebody adheres to the core values of the bank, there will be no problem in managing State Bank.

Kumar: The (valuation) debate was in a different context. When I was having a conversation in one of the webinars, the point was about startup valuations. What I said is when I look at the valuation of other startups, YONOs valuation should be $40 billion. I said it should be. The comments that followed showed that Im not off the mark.

(YONO is an integrated digital banking platform offered by State Bank of India to enable users to access a variety of financial and other services such as flights, trains, buses and taxi bookings, online shopping, or medical bill payments.)

Kumar: It is under serious discussion. First, we need to have an agreement with the technology partner on how to carve it out.

Kumar: The situation developed in such a way that without SBI, it (the rescue) looked difficult. Without SBI, Yes Bank would not have been saved. The implications could have been serious to the stability of the banking system of the country. Only SBI had the balance-sheet size and capability to handle its revival. And in the process, of course, Im happy that many private-sector banks participated to make a collective effort.

Kumar: Its not a question of force. Its a call State Bank had to take. In the given circumstances, it was very difficult for State Bank to say that we dont want to do it. But we did it in a manner that didnt harm our shareholders interests. We didnt agree for a merger. SBI provided the leadership and comfort to other investors and depositors. The role which the bank played was a constructive one. The structure at which SBI is holding, we have about 30 per cent in the bank. It will do well. No doubt about it.

Kumar: The price at which we have invested, we are not going to lose money. They are going to gain from this investment. To that extent, it benefits the shareholders of SBI.

Kumar: Not at all. Merger is not about the balance sheet. Merger is about culture integration, which is impossible between State Bank and Yes Bank.

Kumar: That has been very smooth. Within six months, the process got over. It has been smooth from an employee and customer perspective.

Kumar: SBI Chairman is a prestigious position in the industry and its importance can be gauged from the fact that the first chairman was a former finance minister. The dignity of that position needs to be maintained.

Kumar: The comment was probably made without understanding the context. My comment was never about the SBI Chairmans compensation, but about other people.

Kumar: One needs to be watchful but the situation is not as bad for the financial system as some people have made it out. Im saying this as a banker, and from whatever I see on State Banks books. The recovery, I mean the full recovery, will happen only when how soon you are able to find a vaccine. Otherwise, the recovery has been fairly okay across sectors.

Kumar: The moratorium is over and as far as one-time restructuring is concerned, there are sufficient safeguards as prescribed by the RBI.

Kumar: Our estimate is what many people dont agree. But, I think not more than Rs 20,000 crore will go for restructuring  retail and corporate put together.

Kumar: That is a worst-case scenario. I dont think we are heading to that situation. In State Bank of India, our NPA figure will not be higher than what it was during the previous year.

Kumar: The government has an agenda about social banking, which is the very purpose with which State Bank was created, although today we do everything  corporate banking and commercial banking. We are a listed entity and we have to perform. Other than that, I havent seen any pressure from the government.

From the perspective of market valuation, the value will go up if government ownership goes below 50 per cent. But I think SBI will be the last if this happens. The government has to look at PSU banks first.

Kumar: It is all about governance, not really about ownership. Not all private sector banks are properly managed. We have seen that in the past. Ultimately, regardless of the ownership, governance structure needs to be strong.

Kumar: In my view, this is the best time to create a bad bank (A bad bank is a bank set up to buy the bad loans and other illiquid holdings of another financial institution).

A bad bank was not created years ago because the net book value of NPAs was very high. Today, the net book value of NPAs is very lowhardly 15 per cent in many cases. The point is if there are people specialising on resolution, and if all NPAs are brought to one place, bank managements can focus on the rest of the business.

Resolution can be faster. Right now, if there is a large corporate NPA, one needs to go to 10-15 banks for resolution. Whether you are making a bad bank or not, the resolution process is very slow. It needs to be faster.

The Indian Banks Association (IBA) had recommended that the government should fund it. The model suggested was that banks, in the first stage, should transfer NPAs at net book value, and, later on, price discovery should happen through a transparent process, say within six months.

Now, PSBs own 60 percent of the banking system. We cant transfer to any other entity other than a government-owned company. This is the logic. This is not understood properly and everybody started commenting on it.

Kumar: The RBI has been doing a fantastic job. A regulator is a regulator. As a regulated entity, we have to follow certain discipline and decorum. If you have a view, you can write to the regulator but taking on the regulator isnt good.

RBI has been pushing for better monetary policy transmission

If you see the governors recent speeches, that complaint is no longer there.

Kumar: To keep myself physically and mentally fit.

Will you be looking at other professional assignments?

: Why not? But whatever I do, that will be befitting the stature of the post I held as SBI chairman. Nobody, including me, should do anything that lowers the stature of that position.
By AFP

UNITED NATIONS: The US, Japan and many EU nations joined a call on Tuesday urging China to respect the human rights of minority Uighurs, and also expressing concern about the situation in Hong Kong.

"We call on China to respect human rights, particularly the rights of persons belonging to religious and ethnic minorities, especially in Xinjiang and Tibet," said German UN ambassador Christoph Heusgen, who led the initiative during of a meeting on human rights.

Among the 39 signatory countries were the United States, most of the EU member states including Albania and Bosnia, as well as Canada, Haiti, Honduras, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

"We are gravely concerned about the human rights situation in Xinjiang and the recent developments in Hong Kong," the declaration said.

"We call on China to allow immediate, meaningful and unfettered access to Xinjiang for independent observers including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights," it added.

Immediately afterward, the envoy for Pakistan stood up and read out a statement signed by 55 countries, including China, denouncing any use of the situation in Hong Kong as an excuse for interference in China's internal affairs.

Addressing Germany, the United States and Britain, Chinese ambassador Zhang Jun criticized what he called their "hypocritical" attitude and demanded that the three countries "put away your arrogance and prejudice, and pull back from the brink, now."

The organization Human Rights Watch praised the fact that so many countries had signed on to the declaration "despite China's persistent threats and intimidation tactics against those who speak out."

In 2019, a similar text drafted by Britain only garnered 23 signatures.

Western diplomats have said that China is piling on more pressure each year to dissuade UN member states from signing such statements, threatening to block the renewal of peacekeeping missions for some countries or preventing others from building new embassy facilities in China.

On Monday, China led a group of 26 countries in a joint declaration calling for an end to US sanctions which they said violate human rights during the struggle to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

Last month, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said it had identified more than 380 "suspected detention facilities" in the Xinjiang region, where China is believed to have held more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking residents.

In the United States, the House of Representatives passed a bill at the end of September that aims to ban imports from Xinjiang, contending that abuses of the Uighur people are so widespread that all goods from the region should be considered made with slave labor.
Two police officers in Maine were fired and are facing animal cruelty charges after using their batons to beat porcupines to death, authorities said.

Former Rockland Officers Addison Cox, 27, of Warren, and Michael Rolerson, 30, of Searsmont, also face charges of hunting at night, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Rockland Police Chief Chris Young confirmed the firing of two officers but declined to divulge details, asking members of the community to trust that he handled the situation appropriately.

Michael Rolerson (left), 30, and Addison Cox, 27, (right) were fired from the Rockland [Maine] Police Department for allegedly beating porcupines to death with retractable batons while on duty. They face felony animal cruelty charges

His former police department called Addison Cox 'our resident Raccoon Whisperer' in 2017 for helping this baby raccoon, which seemed to be separated from its mother

'A tremendous amount of power is given to those who wear a badge and are tasked with protecting their communities; it's a power that I do not take lightly,' he posted on social media.

Police say the animal cruelty charges stem from the officers using retractable batons to kill porcupines while on duty, The Courier-Gazette newspaper reported.

A third officer, Kenneth Smith, videotaped the killings and shared them to Snapchat groups, the newspaper reported. He was placed on administrative leave.

A report by a Maine game warden investigator recounts interviews with the two former cops about the incidents, at least one of which happened in June, according to The Courier-Gazette.

Officer Anne Griffith heard about the incidents on August 28 from a fellow officer and urged him to report them. Both did, according to the report.

'Not only are these acts in violation of law and policy, they are also a disturbing representation of his character made known to his fellow officers, especially those who witnessed the events. Several of the officers, if not all, were lower in rank than Officer Rolerson,' wrote Griffith on August 29 to her supervisor.

'This was not dispatching a deer that was hit by a car, this was not dispatching a pest animal that may be a threat to humans or domesticated animals. These porcupines were in their natural habitat and causing no harm. Officer Rolerson not only chased the animal into the woods to kill it, but returned with a smile on his face and appeared as though he enjoyed it.'

The two former Rockland cops admitted to a game warden investigator to beating to death approximately 11 porcupines - about eight by Michael Rolerson (left) and three by Addison Cox (right)

One video posted to a Snapchat group shows Rolerson swinging his baton at something on the ground. He then returns to his police vehicle and says 'I got him.'

A photo depicting a dead porcupine was then posted.

An unnamed officer told the investigator he heard of one of these incidents and found a porcupine alive and twitching at the side of the road, seven hours after the beating.

In interviews, Rolerson said he killed about eight porcupines, and Cox said he killed three. Both officers said they regretted the beatings.

Rolerson told the investigator he didn't particularly dislike porcupines but found them to be a nuisance.

A prosecutor didn't return a message from The Associated Press seeking details.

Both former police officers are working with the union that represents them to appeal their dismissals.

Cox [left] was also lauded by his former police department for helping a skunk get its head unstuck from a jar of peanut butter - only a week after being nicknamed 'Raccoon Whisperer' for his kindness to a baby raccoon in 2017

The Rockland Police Department lauded Cox in a 2017 Facebook post for his kindness to a baby raccoon, calling him its 'resident Raccoon Whisperer' for helping the critter as it 'appeared to be looking for his mother.'

Cox is shown in a photo holding the raccoon by the scruff of its neck.

Only a week later the department's Facebook page again hailed Cox as a friend to animals for helping a skunk remove its head from a jar of peanut butter.

Rolerson and Cox were both U.S. Marines who were deployed to Afghanistan, according to the Penobscot Bay Pilot.

Paperwork filed in court in Rockland didn't indicate whether either officer had an attorney. The AP was unable to locate phone numbers for either of the officers.
Research News

Human rights, popular uprisings, regime change focus of Des Forges symposium

By ELLEN DUSSOURD

In the past year, popular uprisings have led to changes in governments in Algeria, Sudan and Puerto Rico. At the same time, the United States has used various methods to encourage or force regime change in Iran, Syria and Venezuela. Internal popular uprisings are often undertaken on pretexts of defending or extending human rights, but they can sometimes result in abuses of human rights. And calls for regime change in the name of democracy and human rights are often used to justify imperial intervention resulting in additional domestic repression.

To enhance understanding of the human rights dimensions of popular uprisings and regime change, experts from universities and non-governmental organizations will come together for a virtual symposium on Oct. 15.

Presenters will range from Suzanne Mettler, The John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions, Cornell University, to Jehanne Henry, associate director, Africa Division, Human Rights Watch.

The free, public event will take place from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.  lunch break from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Registration is required; email dussourd@buffalo.edu to sign up.

The symposium honors the memory of Alison L. Des Forges, a member of the UB community who fought to call the worlds attention to another great humanitarian crisis: the genocide in Rwanda.

Des Forges, an internationally known historian and Buffalo native, was an adjunct member of the UB history faculty during the 1990s and received an honorary doctorate from SUNY during UBs 155th general commencement ceremony in 2001.

She was one of the worlds leading experts on Rwanda, serving as an expert witness in 11 trials at the United Nations International Criminal Court for Rwanda. Her award-winning book, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, was a landmark account of the 1994 genocide, and her tireless efforts to awaken the international community to the horrors that occurred earned her a MacArthur Fellowship in 1999.

The symposium will open at 9 a.m. with welcoming remarks, followed by panels focusing on Collective Action and Human Rights on Three Continents and Political Change and Human Rights in Sudan.

The Collective Action and Human Rights panel, which runs from 9-11:30 a.m., includes the following presentations:

Four Threats: What U.S. History Reveals about American Democracy Today, Suzanne Mettler, The John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions, Cornell University.

Is American democracy in danger of backsliding today? Many assume that it is safe, given the nations long-standing Constitution and progress over time in granting more inclusive and extensive rights. Yet American history reveals that democracy has often been fragile: the nation has lurched through numerous periods wracked by uncertainty about whether war or secession was imminent, dictatorship might arise, or rights might be imperiled. Four threats have caused disruption: political polarization; conflict over who belongs, particularly along lines of race; economic inequality; and executive aggrandizement. Now, for the first time ever, Americans face the dangerous confluence of all four threats. Mettler will discuss what earlier crises and the settlements that emerged from them indicate about our circumstances today.

African Protestors: Troublemakers or Heroes? Lisa Mueller, assistant professor of political science, Macalester College.

Africa has experienced a historic surge of protest in recent years. Some outsider observers fear that the unrest will destabilize African governments, amplify economic uncertainty and derail counterterrorism efforts. Others see encouraging possibilities for Africans to advance democracy, development and peace from below by pressuring incumbents for reforms. Policymakers from Western governments and development agencies are often ambivalent about whether to discourage protesters or support them with diplomatic and material aid. This presentation will offer policy-relevant analysis of the potential for African protesters to be reckless troublemakers or agents of positive change. It will also assess the practical and ethical risks of foreign intervention in domestic contentious politics.

Anti-Government Protests in Hong Kong: Diverse Challenges to Human Rights, Ji Yeon Hong, assistant professor, Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

This presentation will revisit Hong Kongs anti-government protest from diverse political and economic perspectives. It will also compare how this protest was different from the previous movement, what made those differences, and how Hong Kongs public perceives the movement.

The Political Change and Human Rights in Sudan panel, which runs from 12:30-2:30 p.m., includes the following presentations:

From Revolution to Revolution: The Promises and Risks of Ending 30 Years of Military-Islamist Rule in Sudan, Harry Verhoeven, associate member, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford.

In June 1989, a secretive movement of Islamists allied itself to a military cabal to violently take power in Africas biggest country and launch a revolution meant to fundamentally overhaul the Sudanese state and the ways in which it engaged with the outside world. Sudans revolutionary regime was built on four pillars  a new politics, economic liberalization, an Islamic revival in society and a U-turn in foreign relations  and mixed militant conservatism with social engineering, a vision of authoritarian modernization. Over the three decades that the Al-Ingaz (Salvation) regime was in power, most outside attention focused on the many wars it fought in regions like Darfur, on the military-Islamist governments relationship with Al-Qaeda and on its standoff with the U.S. and the West more broadly. But what such a focus has occluded has been the central importance of Sudans political economy and the ways in which the Al-Ingaz regime restructured state-society-market relations to entrench itself in power and organize new forms of social mobility while blocking others. This presentation focuses on socio-economic rights and the violence of development in Sudan  an exercise at once both retrospective and prospective, as Sudans post-April 2019 transitional institutions wrestle with the devastating economic legacies of three decades of Salvation rule.

Popular Change in (Revolutionary) Sudan and (Evolutionary) Ethiopia: An Early Comparative Analysis, Aly Verjee, fellow, Rift Valley Institute.

Historic political changes are occurring in neighbors Ethiopia and Sudan, the Horn of Africas two largest countries. In both countries, mass popular uprisings precipitated these changes, although the processes of reform were different: Ethiopias 2018 shift occurred in the context of a leadership transition within the ruling political party, while Sudan saw an overthrow of most of the structures of the previous regime. Yet both countries remain vulnerable to the reversal of reforms, while continuing to provide each other with both models to potentially emulate as well as cautionary tales. This presentation will explore some of the key similarities and differences in contemporary Ethiopia and Sudan, discuss the implications and prospects for continuing reforms, and the future trajectory for the protection and enhancement of human rights.

The Human Rights Drivers and Consequences of Sudans 2018-19 Peoples Revolution, Suliman Baldo, senior policy adviser, The Sentry.

Sudans 2018-19 peoples revolution was organized and led predominantly by youth and womens groups from throughout the country, and represented a generational phenomenon of unprecedented breadth and depth. The upheaval it created, and its discipline and unwavering commitment to nonviolence shook the repressive regime of deposed President Omer al-Bashir, but it also took the traditional political and trade union opposition completely by surprise. Baldos presentation will focus on the mobilizing factors and demands of the youth and womens groups behind the uprising. The presentation will in particular highlight the human rights and gender justice demands, and will assess the performance of the transitional authorities in realizing these demands of Sudans rising generations.

Human Rights Priorities during Sudans Transition, Jehanne Henry, associate director, Africa Division, Human Rights Watch.

This presentation will focus on the protest movement, the violent and bloody crackdowns, the transitional government, and the struggle for justice by victims of the bloody crackdowns and other violations during al-Bashirs regime in the year since the protests erupted. Henry will also discuss how Human Rights Watch researchers documented violations against protesters during the months leading up to al-Bashirs ouster and following his ouster, as the Sudanese street kept up pressure on the transitional military council to hand power to civilians.

Symposium sponsors include the Alison Des Forges Memorial Committee; Jack Walsh; and the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, Confucius Institute, Department of Political Science, Gender Institute, Humanities Institute, James Agee Chair in American Culture and the Office of the Vice Provost for International Education, all from UB.
07.10.2020 LISTEN

The Electoral Commission (EC) says it will open the voter transfer window from Tuesday, October 2 to Sunday, October 25.

But unlike in past elections, the EC says this opportunity would be availed to only students who registered while in school and some security personnel.

The Director of Electoral Services at the EC, Dr. Serebour Quarcoe said this in an interview with Citi News.

By law, not less than 42 days to the elections, we should allow for transfers. With the new C.I. 127, it is only students and security services outside their jurisdiction who can transfer. This will be done from 20th to the 25th of this month. Once we finish with that, we have over two weeks to work on the final register.

He indicated the exercise will allow the commission to compile the final register which will be made available to all political parties by November 11.

All those who qualify to apply for special voting, that is the media, security services, and EC officials are to apply on the 25th of this month. We will put these ones on the absent voter's list so that we will have the actual polling station register for each of them. Then the Electoral Commission will hand over the final register to political parties on November 11.

---citinewsroom
The foreign reserves had witnessed a significant decline since March when it stood at $45 billion due to coronavirus economic repercussions

Egypt's net international reserves (NIR) upped from $38.3 billion in the end of August to $38.4 in the end of September, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced on Wednesday.

Foreign currencies, which accounts for 88 percent of Egypts NIR, increased by $221 million in September to reach $39.6 billion, up from $33.8 billion by the end of August, according to the CBE.

On the other hand, gold reserves saw a decline in September by about $159 million to reach $4.3 billion, down from $4.5 billion recorded by the end of August, according to CBE.

In September 2019, Egypts NIR recorded an all-time high of $45.117 billion; before witnessing a significant drop in March 2020, reaching $40 billion, driven by the unprecedented blow to global financial markets arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has caused the sharpest portfolio flow reversal on record from emerging markets, including the Egyptian market, according to the CBE.

As of the end of June, Egypts NIR started to bounce back for the first time since March, increasing to $38.2 billion, up from $36 billion in May.

CBE Governor Tarek Amer said in previous statements that mid-June witnessed a strong return of foreign investors to the Egyptian financial market, in light of the global market recovery and the successful efforts done by the Egyptian government to contain the pandemic and its repercussions.

He also said that treasury bill auctions have managed to attract 10 percent of foreign investments since June, adding that the Egyptian pound's performance against the US dollar has improved since the beginning of 2020 by 0.66 percent, unlike other currencies in the emerging markets.

Around $10 billion, out of $20 billion, returned to the Egyptian market after exiting it, from March through June, amid the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Goldman Sachs said in a recent report.

The report predicted Egyptian expat remittances would see an improvement that will enhance the countrys NIR.

Egypts NIR is expected to stand at $38.5 billion by the end of the current quarter, ending in September, but will bounce back to $43 billion in 12 months time, according to Trading Economics (TE).

In the long-term, TE expects Egypts NIR to trend around $45 billion in 2021 and about $46 billion in 2022.

Egypt is expected to receive the second tranche of the stand-by agreement (SBA) loan approved by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the summer of 2021.

In June, Egypt was handed the first tranche, worth $2 billion out of $5.2 billion, while it is expected to receive $3.2 billion after reviews that are anticipated to be carried out in December 2020 and June 2021.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 21:09:21|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The restart of Britain's education sector has been dealt a severe blow after three of the country's largest universities halted face-to-face teaching and shifted to online classes due to coronavirus outbreaks, local media reported Wednesday.

The University of Manchester, where more than 1,000 students and 20 staff members had reportedly tested positive for the virus, have joined with Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Sheffield in announcing the move to online learning to protect the health of students and staff, said the Belfast Telegraph.

The Manchester universities said in a joint statement that they would increase the level of online learning for most programs from Wednesday until the end of October, while the University of Sheffield, where nearly 500 students and staff have tested positive since the start of the autumn term, said face-to-face teaching would be suspended from Friday till Oct. 19.

In Manchester Metropolitan University, about 1,700 students were told to self-isolate since September.

The University and College Union (UCU), a British trade union in further and higher education representing more than 120,000 academics and support staff, welcomed the move toward virtual learning but said the outbreaks "could have been prevented had the decision been taken earlier".

"Hundreds of students that did not have to move into student accommodation are now self-isolating without their familiar support network," said UCU regional official Martyn Moss.

More than 80 universities in Britain have reported at least 5,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among students and staff, according The Guardian newspaper.

It came as 14,542 new cases were confirmed across Britain Tuesday, up nearly 2,000 in the previous day.

To bring life back to normal, countries, such as Britain, China, Russia and the United States, are racing against time to develop coronavirus vaccines.

The British government's Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance has said that it is possible that some vaccine could be available in small amounts later this year, but it is more likely that a vaccine will be available early next year, although that is not guaranteed. Enditem
Universities and colleges started phased reopening on Monday, with some ill-prepared to adhere to the Ministry of Health guidelines for the prevention of Covid-19.

Senior Ministry of Education officials led by the CS George Magoha monitored the event. The CS was in Nyeri County while Vocational and Technical Training Principal Secretary Julius Jwan toured institutions in the North Rift.

"From our assessment, most of the institutions have made all the requirements, which points to good progress towards complete re-opening of schools. What remains is for them to engage learners on what is required of them to ensure their safety in school," said Dr Jwan at Eldoret National Polytechnic.

The University of Eldoret postponed the opening of the final year students until next Monday. Virtual learning for the 3,000 first year students started last week. Moi University recalled its staff to work on Monday.

However, confusion marred the reporting of students after it emerged that only the School of Agriculture had finalists in session by the time learning was suspended and others are now waiting for more communication.

Washing hands

At Kibabii University in Bungoma County, Chancellor Ipar Odeo said the university had set up water points for washing hands and had ensured social distancing will be observed.

At Sang'alo Agricultural Training College and Matili Technical Training Institute, very minimal measures have been put in place for learning to resume.

In Baringo County, Baringo Moi Teachers College in Seretunin and Baringo Technical College are all set.

Turkana University College deputy principal in charge of administration, planning and finance, Stephen Odebero, said there are enough thermometer guns and an isolation centre.

In Trans Nzoia, Kitale National Polytechnic Principal Fanuel Onyango confirmed that 255 candidates who had missed theory papers in July reported yesterday.

In Nandi County, University of Eastern Africa, Baraton, vice chancellor Phillip Maiyo said the university expects about 1,000 new students on Wednesday.

At Kaiboi Technical Institute, Principal Charles Koech said 250 students who were supposed to sit for exams in March reported back yesterday.

In Nyeri County, more than 2,000 final year students at Karatina University were writing their examinations. At Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, final year students reported back yesterday with several groups sitting the examinations.

Final year students

In Tharaka-Nithi County, final year students at Chuka University and Tharaka University College started reporting back yesterday. In Meru County, the Meru University of Science and Technology also opened its doors to final year students. But final year students from Kirinyaga University did not report back to the institution as they have completed their studies. In Nakuru County, students at Egerton University's Njoro Campus will report back next week.

At Kabarak University, only fourth year students who are doing their final exams reported back while final year students at Maasai Mara University went on with their studies yesterday after the lecture halls were fumigated.

In Coast region, Pwani University students will come back in phases according to academic registrar Nicholas Malau, beginning this week with the School of Health, Human Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences.

Education Chief Administrative Secretary Mumina Bonaya lauded Pwani University and Shanzu Teachers Training College in Kilifi for having fulfilled most of the requirements for resumption.

"Pwani has done excellent, they are ready and we are happy. But for Shanzu we have told the principal to do a few things and he will work on it before students resume tomorrow. We are having nationwide resumption of higher education learning and this is done in a logical way where we expect those who are in the final year and those who have got courses that are science based or practical's to resume first," she said.

At the Technical University of Mombasa, final year students reported just to sit their examinations.

The VC, Prof Laila Abubakar, said the 300-bed capacity Mombasa County Covid-19 isolation centre, which the institution hosted, has been shut down and is being fumigated. Taita Taveta University expects more than 1,000 final year students today.

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Cleared for reopening

"Ministry of Education together with Ministry of Health officials have inspected our institution to ensure compliance and we have been cleared for reopening," said a dean who cannot be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

At the Coast Institute of Technology, the principal, Patrick King'oina, said more than 210 candidates who will sit their examinations in March next year are expected to resume learning this week.

"We are expecting a team from the ministries of Education and Health to inspect the institution. We have, however, complied with all regulations," he said.

Reporting by Florah Koech, Gerald Bwisa, Brian Ojamaa, Tom Matoke, Onyango K'Onyango Sammy Lutta, Stanley Kimuge, Barnabas Bii, Reginah Kinogu, George Munene, Alex Njeru, Gitonga Marete, Mwangi Muiruri, Francis Mureithi, George Sayagie, Winnie Atieno, Lucy Mkanyika and Wycliff Kipsang
Vaughan, Ontario, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Empire Communities, one of North Americas largest privately-owned builder-developers, has entered into a strategic partnership with Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC). Their work helps to support families struggling with food insecurity and programs that help to promote resources for accessing healthy food, the development of food skills and education promoting health and well-being. The sponsorship names Empire as the Community Partner in their innovative program, The Big Social, the CFCCs second annual national fundraising event raising money for food programs.

With COVID-19 affecting so many families across southern Ontario and the communities in which we build we felt that a partnership with CFCC was a cause that could directly impact and help the local families in Empire communities, specifically in Southwestern Ontario where Empire has a strong presence, says Sue MacKay, Vice President of Marketing at Empire Communities. Empire has long been a supporter of causes and organizations assisting with the promotion of health, education, sport and well-being, and with the uncertainties brought on by the pandemic this type of support is needed now more than ever.

This years Big Social event will be completely virtual, bringing thousands of Canadians together from October 9 to 25 to host a small meal or virtual dinner party with friends and family to fundraise and raise awareness. Money raised will support community members to get access to the supplies they need to eat well and cook healthy.

"Food is an incredible tool for bringing people together. That's what our community partners do each and every day," says Nick Saul, CEO of Community Food Centres Canada. "Food insecurity and isolation are at an all-time high, and The Big Social provides a safe and valuable way to give back during COVID-19."

COMMUNITY FOOD CENTRES CANADA

Community Food Centres Canada (cfccanada.ca) builds dynamic and responsive Community Food Centres and food programs that support people to eat well, connect with their neighbours and contribute, through advocacy and mutual support, to a more just and inclusive Canada. With our 200+ partners, we work to eradicate poverty, food insecurity and improve the health and well-being of low-income Canadians.

Story continues

EMPIRE COMMUNITIES

Empire Communities (empirecommunities.com) is a residential builder/developer involved in all sectors of the new home building industry, including both lowrise and highrise built forms. Celebrating over 25 years of building inspiring new places to live, Empire has an established tradition of creating prestigious award-winning new homes, communities and amenities and has earned a reputation for outstanding attention to detail and customer service. Since its inception in 1993, Empire has built over 20,000 new homes and condos. Today, Empire is one of the largest privately held homebuilders in North America with current communities in Toronto, Southwestern Ontario and the Southern U.S. States.

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CONTACT: Daniela Tirone Empire Communities 416-627-3896 dtirone@empirecommunities.com




Texas A&M University will have in-person graduations starting this fall with at least 15 ceremonies slated for December, the university announced Wednesday.

Provost and Executive Vice President Carol A. Fierke said in a letter to the university community the college will host multiple ceremonies in December and through the spring in the hope of giving the full graduation experience to students and to accommodate May and August 2020 graduates who had their commencements postponed due to COVID-19.

Every graduate deserves an in-person opportunity to celebrate their achievement, Fierke said in the letter. While we will continue to monitor the status of COVID-19 locally, we remain hopeful in the dates to follow and are excited to provide this information.

About 4,200 students slated to graduate this fall at the flagship in College station will attend one of 15 ceremonies hosted over five days in December in in A&Ms Reed Arena. The ceremonies will be staggered each day at 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. with no more than 324 graduates at each graduation.

Face coverings will be required at the ticketed events. Each graduate is allotted six tickets for family and friends. Although diplomas will be mailed, graduates will get to experience walking across the stage to receive a diploma tube for a photo opportunity to commemorate their achievement, Fierke wrote.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas colleges plan virtual celebrations in lieu of postponed spring commencements

A&M students who were scheduled to graduate in May and August are now scheduled to graduate at one of 18 ceremonies held in February and March at Kyle Field. Just over 950 students will participate in each of the scheduled ceremonies, which will are scheduled for 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on February 11-13 and 17-19, and March 11-13, 2021. Capacity for Kyle Field is limited to 25 percent, so tickets will also be required.

At A&Ms Galveston campus, three ceremonies will take place at the Aggie Special Events Center in December for both fall graduates and those who graduated earlier this year. At the A&M Qatar campus in the Middle East, the rescheduled dates for spring and summer 2020 graduates will be announced later in the year.

Fierke cemented the letter reminding students that local conditions can change rapidly and the university will keep students and their families updated with any changes.

Because preparation for in-person commencement at one of the largest universities in the nation requires significant advance planning, we are excited to be moving forward in assembling this very special day for our graduates, Fierke wrote.

Schedules and updates for the upcoming graduation ceremonies will be posted on the A&M website.

brittany.britto@chron.com
On Thursday, October 8, at 11.00, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency will host a press conference entitled "Are Banks Playing Against Ukrainian Business?" during which businessman Dmytro Nikiforov will appeal to the National Bank management with an initiative to influence one of commercial banks, which is trying to illegally affect the activities of the Ukrainian manufacturer. Participants include owner of the group of companies for extraction and production of local waters, namely, Voda Ua, "Karpatska Dzherelna Vysokohirna," "Horianka" Dmytro Nikiforov (8/5a Reitarska Street). The broadcast of the press conference will be available on the Youtube channel of the Interfax-Ukraine agency. Admission of journalists requires registration on the spot.
Singapore will offer a one-time payment to support parents planning to have a baby amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The move is taken to encourage people to have babies as several citizens are putting-off parenthood because they are concerned about job loss and financial stress.

Singapore has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. According to data released by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, Singapore's fertility rate was at 1.14 in 2018. At that time, only 39,039 babies were born in Singapore.

Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said the payment will help parents with expenses.

The additional payment support will come on top of the existing government's baby bonus. At present, Singapore's current baby bonus system provides eligible parents up to $7,330 (Rs 53,74,02) in benefits.

In a stark contrast, Singapore's neighbouring countries like Indonesia and Malysia have witnessed a spike in pregnancies during the coronavirus pandemic.

In the Philippines, unintended pregnancies are expected to spike by almost half to 2.6 million if COVID-19-related restrictions remain until year-end.

Like many developed countries, Singapore's key population challenges are our low fertility and an ageing population. The government has struggled to reverse the trend since 1980 despite organising public awareness campaigns and providing financial and tax incentives.

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Two more Worcester firefighters have tested positive for coronavirus, city officials announced Tuesday, saying that the spread of the virus is affecting 30 firefighters at two stations.

One firefighter tested positive on Sunday and went into quarantine. Another 21 members of the department who were in contact with that firefighter went into a precautionary quarantine.

Since then, two more have tested positive and another member is symptomatic and awaiting test results, City Manager Edward Augustus Jr. told reporters on the steps of City Hall Tuesday afternoon.

Other firefighters will be tested at the end of the week or sooner if they become symptomatic, the manager said.

While losing 30 firefighters from the active roster is impactful, it is not in any way impacting our ability to cover the city with the full complement of firefighters, Augustus said, adding that the city has almost 400 firefighters and the ability to make necessary adjustments.

The city has put in place a policy not allowing firefighters to be transferred from one station to another, something the department did earlier on in the pandemic as a safety measure to keep units together and prevent the spread of the virus between stations.

It is not yet clear how the virus may have spread, Augustus said, adding that contact tracing is happening.

Augustus declined to say which fire stations have been affected. The three positive individuals and one symptomatic firefighter are from one station.

To fill gaps for firefighters who are on quarantine, other department members are in on overtime, Fire Chief Michael Lavoie said.

Lavoie said firefighters are required to wear personal protective equipment like masks and gloves while on the job.

Mayor Joseph Petty noted that coronavirus can affect any age group, even young, healthy firefighters.

Related Content:
Large livestock companies hold the key to the entire market, photo Le Toan

The DHN Dak Lak Agricultural High Technology complex, funded by Dutch animal feed giant De Heus and local Hung Nhon Group, last week commenced construction in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak. The project is expected to form a disease-free zone and provide high productivity pig and chicken breeds to the market.

The $66-million venture is expected to feed 2,500 grandparent and great-grandparent pigs, as well as 25,000 parent and gilt pigs to the market when it is launched. Moreover, in the next 5-10 years, the two companies will develop similar projects in provinces such as Dak Nong, Kon Tum, and Lam Dong.

The Dak Lak initiative raises total capacity of the chain to 10,000-15,000 great-grandparent pigs, and 100,000-200,000 grandparent breeds. The chain aims to enable the highlands to become a leading hub in supplying breeding stock to the whole country, as well as Southeast Asia and beyond.

The African swine fever (ASF) epidemic  which has killed around a quarter of pigs worldwide, around half in China, and nearly a quarter in Vietnam  has revealed many troubles for Vietnams low-quality and low-productivity husbandry industry.

The epidemic has also pushed up the price of pigs due to scant supply. The price of live hogs is hovering around VND80,000 ($3.50) per kg at present, hitting a peak of about VND100,000 ($4.30) in summer.

This has significantly enhanced the value of breeding stock. From nearly VND1 million ($43.50) per animal, costs have increased to VND3 million ($130) since the epidemic. In this context, big husbandry companies are strengthening the imports of grandparent and great-grandparent pigs to fill the shortage, as well as seize opportunities to control the market of breeding animals in the country.

In addition to De Heus and its Dak Lak project, movements are mostly being carried out by foreign-invested companies. Japfa Comfeed Vietnam, managed by JapfaComfeed Indonesia TBK, has imported 1,300 great-grandparent and grandparent pigs from Canada for a farm in the northern province of Yen Bai. A similar amount of pigs were also imported by Chinese investor New Hope for the north-central province of Thanh Hoa.

Previously, the countrys largest husbandry company C.P. Vietnam did its utmost to promote and support the government to import live hogs from Thailand, where its parent company is based, to stabilise prices in the country. Accordingly, tens of thousands of breeding animals have been imported or registered to be imported here over the first nine months of the year.

According to husbandry expert Duong Anh Chu, a handful of foreign-invested companies are dominating the breeding market in the same vein as they control the market for pigs, chickens, and animal feed.

The breeding animals of companies are better than those of household farmers thanks to stronger genes and good vaccines. That is why household farmers have to buy breeding piglets from these companies. The bigger a company, the stronger hold they have on the breeding market, Chu said.

In fact, the pig breeding market is dominated by husbandry companies, which captured 40 per cent of before the ASF outbreak and now hold as much as 60 per cent. Some 70-80 per cent of these companies are foreign-invested husbandry companies.

Having control over breeding equals to dominance in the whole market because it is the most important factor in husbandry. In the future, if all husbandry companies like C.P, Japfa, CJ, Emivest, Greenfeed, and De Heus stopped selling their breeding stock and concentrated on closed production chains, farmers would have no breeding animals to get, Chu asserted.

Therefore, Chu said, investing and expanding factories and projects in Vietnam are necessary to develop a high-tech agricultural sector. However, he advised against increasing dependence on foreign-invested companies in all aspects should not be promoted because it could be liable to kill off domestic production and husbandry at any time.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that public spaces and public places cannot be occupied indefinitely and that dissent and democracy must go hand in hand.

A bench headed by Justice S K Kaul passed the verdict on batch of petitions against the anti-CAA protests in the national capital's Shaheen Bagh.

It said protests should be at a designated place and any occupation of public places or roads by demonstrators, which cause inconvenience to a large number of people and violate their rights, is not permissible under law.

The apex court also said that the authorities concerned should not hide behind courts and act on their own in such situations.

The bench also said that the balance has to be struck between the right to protest and other public rights like the right to movement.

Dissent and democracy must go hand in hand but protests should be confined to designated areas, said Justice SK Kaul.

It does not mean that the agitating people should adopt means and modes of protest that were used against colonial rulers, it said, adding that public places cannot be occupied "indefinitely" for protests like in the Shaheen Bagh case.

There cannot be ban on public meetings but they have to be in designated areas. Right to commute should not be indefinitely curtailed, the bench ruled adding that right to protest has to be balanced with right to commute.

Pulling up the Police for not removing the protestors, the bench said, It is the duty of the administration to remove such blockades of roads, and failure to do so, warranted court's intervention.

The top court further said occupation of public places or roads by demonstrators, which cause inconvenience to a large number of people and violate their rights, is not permissible under law.

Right to peaceful protest is a constitutional right and it has to be respected. But that does not mean agitating people should adopt means and modes of protest that was used against colonial rulers during struggle for independence, the bench ruled adding, We live in a technological age in which we see parallel conversations on social media without any constructive outcomes.

The verdict came on a plea against the anti-CAA protests which had led to the blocking of a road in Shaheen Bagh here last December.

Pronouncing the verdict via video conferencing, the bench said the authorities like Delhi Police ought to have taken action to clear Shaheen Bagh area from the protesters.

The authorities have to act on their own and cannot hide behind courts in dealing with such a situation, it added.

The verdict came on a plea of lawyer Amit Sahni against the blockade of a road in Shaheen Bagh area by persons protesting against the CAA which aimed to provide Indian citizenship to persecuted minorities of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

The top court had reserved its verdict in the case on September 21 by observing that there cannot be a "universal policy" on right to protest and possible curbs as also balancing it with acts like blocking of roads are needed because the situation may "vary" from case-to-case.

Sahni had initially approached the Delhi High Court seeking directions to Delhi Police to ensure smooth traffic flow on the Kalindi Kunj-Shaheen Bagh stretch, which was blocked by anti-CAA protesters on December 15.

The high court had urged local authorities to deal with the situation keeping in mind law and order.

Sahni then filed a special leave petition in the apex court against the high court's order.

The plea had sought directions to the police to ensure smooth traffic flow on Kalindi Kunj-Shaheen Bagh stretch.

It had sought supervision of the situation in Shaheen Bagh, where several women are sitting on protest, by a retired Supreme Court judge or a sitting judge of the Delhi High Court in order to circumvent any violence.

Restrictions were imposed on the Kaindi Kunj-Shaheen Bagh stretch and the Okhla underpass, which were closed on December 15 last year due to the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA)and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

However, later due to the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent protocol to deal with it, the protest area got cleared.

(With PTI Inputs)
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- After a 16-month long, bipartisan investigation, the House Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law Subcommittee released a report today on the anti-competitive practices of Big Tech companies.

As part of the investigation, the committee held multiple hearings and briefings with experts to ensure they heard a range of viewpoints on how the dominance of Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook impacts innovation, privacy, small businesses, and other aspects of the digital marketplace.

In the report, the committee members found that the companies leveraged their dominant positions in their respective spheres to drive out competing companies  or by buying them up to consolidate their market share. Comparing them to the monopolies of the "era of oil barons and railroad tycoons" the report recommends remedies to restore free and fair competition.

The recommendations include:

Requiring structural separations to prohibit platforms from operating in lines of business that depend on or interoperate with the platform;

Prohibiting platforms from engaging in self-preferencing;

Requiring platforms to make its services compatible with competing networks to allow for interoperability and data portability;

Mandating that platforms provide due process before taking action against market participants;

Establishing a standard to proscribe strategic acquisitions that reduce competition;

Making improvements to the Clayton Act, the Sherman Act, and the Federal Trade Commission Act, to bring these laws into line with the challenges of the digital economy;

Eliminating anticompetitive forced arbitration clauses;

Strengthening the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice;

Promoting greater transparency and democratization of the antitrust agencies.

"Our nation has a long and proud history of fighting monopolies," said Mike Lux, President of American Family Voices. "There's no question that an open internet has benefited society in many ways, but it is evident that a select few companies have monopolized the industry, allowing them to control huge parts of the economy. This stifles innovation, hurts small businesses, and results in lower wages for workers."

Today people's jobs, shopping and communications are largely online  a trend that was accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, when in-person activities were limited. With this increased dependence on digital platforms comes outsized power and influence in the hands of a few companies. It also comes at the expense of small, brick-and-mortar businesses, many of which have been forced to close or reduce services during the pandemic. Once Covid-19 subsides, consumers may not return to their former in-person habits, which would be devastating to many businesses and local economies.

"Congress needs to rein in the dominance of the big tech companies," commented Lux. "I urge our representatives to adopt the recommendations in the House report and level the competitive playing field in the digital marketplace.

The serious and potentially dangerous implications of the unchecked dominance of these companies include the proliferation of misleading and harmful content and the security of users' personal information. To date, the major digital platforms have not shown a willingness to better regulate themselves, leading lawmakers and advocates to call for reform.

The full report can be found here.

SOURCE American Family Voices
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Occupied El Aaiun (Saharawi Republic) 07 October 2020 (SPS)- The Executive Bueau of the Sahrawi Organ against the Moroccan Occupation held its second meeting via videoconference, on Tuesday, in the occupied city of El-Aaiun, to review the harassment and police siege that the members of the Commission have been subjected to since the establishment of the ISACOM, calling on the United Nations to decolonize Western Sahara .

The Bureau recalled in a Press Release after the meeting that Western Sahara is an occupied country included in the UN decolonization list since 1963, and that the Moroccan state, no matter how much it tries to cover facts with disinformation and colonial propaganda, remains a military force of occupation that has no sovereignty or legitimacy on the territory, and therefore, the United Nations bears full responsibility for this occupied territory until the exercise by the Sahrawi people of their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.

The following is the complete text of the Press Release, of which Sahara Press Service received a copy:



The Moroccan occupation continues putting the homes of the members of the Sahrawi Organ against Moroccan Occupation and persists with daily attacks on them

Press Release

The members of the Executive Bureau of the Sahrawi Organ against the Moroccan Occupation (ISACOM- in its Spanish abbreviation) met via videoconference on October 5, 2020, after they could not hold their meeting normally because of the illegal police siege put on their homes and the close surveillance of the members of the Organ.

The meeting discussed the intimidation campaign the members of the Organ are exposed to under the command of the Moroccan authorities of occupation in El-Aain and other occupied Saharawi cities, backed by Moroccan media that tries to justify the campaign through websites and newspapers, and all this sparked by the statement by the Justice of the Moroccan occupation issued on September 29, 2020, on behalf of The kings Prosecutor in the occupied city of El Aaiun, in which he called for an investigation of what he attributed to the members of the Organ under the charge of compromising the territorial integrity of Morocco in reference to the establishment of ISACOM.

The members of the Executive Bureau note with condemnation the presence of cars with civilian plate-numbers and cars of Moroccan police carrying plain-clothed agents, and service cars of men and women from the local authority in the occupied El Aaiun, who have been laying siege to the homes of ISACOM members since last Wednesday, September 30, 2020.

In fact, the authorities of the Moroccan occupation maintain a siege to the homes of the following members of ISACOM, and continue to daily harass them: Ms. Aminatou Haidar, President of the Organ, and the members of the Executive Bureau: Ms. El-Ghalia Djimi, Ms. Mina Baali and Mr. Lahcen Dalil. The siege is also maintained on the houses of the members of ISACOMGeneral Assembly: Ms. Fatima Ayach and Mr. Dafa Ahmed Babu . The besiegers make sure to close the entrances to the homes of the members of the Organ around the clock, preventing those coming to visit from approaching them. To do that groups of agents get out of their cars, while others roam around the houses in a constant movement, and others rush on motorcycles patrolling the surroundings of the houses, and Signal to their colleagues to prevent any visitor from approaching the houses. When anyone gets out of the house, the besiegers rush to follow them closely to any destination they head to.

These arbitrary measures, which violate the international laws and even the laws of the Moroccan occupation state itself, created an atmosphere of exasperation among families and neighbours, while the psychological safety of many children is under threat of trauma and complication. A constant state of depression seemed to raise the concerns of the family of human rights defender Hasana Edouihi about the condition of his 12-year-old son, Saad Edouihi, who cannot comprehend what his parents are exposed to. His mother, Mina Baali, a member of the commissions Executive Bureau, lives daily with insults, offensive speech, and ill-treatment by Moroccan security personnel, amid an enforced siege of the house, while his father Hasana Edouihi is still prevented by the authorities of occupation from leaving the occupied city of Bojador, inhumanly and shamefully deprived of his legal, natural and human right to join his home and family.

All this takes place with the presence on the ground of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), which we see nothing reassuring about its presence in the region. This UN Mission has always kept absolute silence, ignoring the blatant and obvious oppression and cruelties by the Moroccan authorities against Sahrawi civilians, while it rushes in unparalleled speed whenever the regime of occupation asks it to witness so-called Saharawi violations in the Guerguerat region, for example, or to observe peaceful demonstrations of Sahrawi citizens in the liberated territories in front of some points of the Moroccan military wall of shame. Consequently, the mission's modus operandi, behavior, and its apathy or inability to monitor and report on Moroccan violations is in fact a direct encouragement and support to the occupation. It is also a constant blow to the Missions credibility among Sahrawi people and international public opinion, and a flagrant violation of the most basic conditions of humanitarian protection, especially in relation to the protection of civilians in a region that is still classified as a matter of decolonization of a territory that must be subject to the requirements of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to the various UN resolutions related to decolonization, and to the relevant international and African agreements and covenants that should be applied to this militarily occupied country.

The Executive Bureau of ISACOM, while taking note of the state of siege imposed on the members of the Organ, the accompanying media campaigns promoting racism and fuelling hate, the psychological effects it has on children, in addition to insults and harassment that spares none, and the atmosphere of bitterness among the Saharawi public opinion:

- Reminds all the institutions of the United Nations, the International Red Cross, and all relevant international organizations and bodies, that Western Sahara is an occupied country included in the UN decolonization list since 1963, and that the Moroccan state, no matter how much it tries to cover facts with disinformation and colonial propaganda, remains a military force of occupation that has no sovereignty or legitimacy on the territory, and therefore, the United Nations bears full responsibility for this occupied territory until the exercise by the Sahrawi people of their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.

- Reminds Morocco and the United Nations also that the right of peoples to self-determination is an inherent right in all international charters and treaties, especially with regard to colonized or occupied peoples, a right that cannot be forfeited, ignored, or manipulated by anyone.

- Condemns the repressive measures that violate the international law committed by the Moroccan authorities of occupation against the members of the ISACOM, and against dozens of innocent Saharawi citizens, and condemns all forms of violence, harassment, and ill-treatment and insults to human dignity that affects many family members and visitors of the members of the Organ under siege in their homes.

- Calls upon free people everywhere, international human rights bodies and organizations and democratic forces to support ISACOM in its struggle for freedom and for the lifting of the siege imposed on its members, and to help raising awareness of the crimes and atrocities the Moroccan occupation is committing against them and against the Sahrawi citizens in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and southern Morocco.

- Reaffirms its determination to continue its human rights work, aimed at defending all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Sahrawi people, especially in the occupied part of the Sahrawi Republic, by all legitimate peaceful means, and in all international and continental forums that it can reach, and to continue struggling against the Moroccan occupation until the evacuation of the occupation and liberation of all occupied territories of the Saharawi Republic.

ISACOM Executive Bureau

Occupied El Aaiun/Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic

06 October 2020. (SPS)

090/500/60 (SPS)
People living in a city or major urban area are no less friendly or helpful to strangers than those living in the country or more rural areas, according to a new study.

Researchers from University College London carried out social experiments in 12 cities and 12 towns across the UK to measure how friendliness among residents.

Experiments carried out by the research team looked at whether people would post a lost letter, return a dropped item and stop to let someone cross the road.

They found city-dwellers were just as helpful as people in smaller towns - the difference depended more on the wealth of any given area - not how built up it was.

People from more deprived areas were less likely to help than those from better off communities, according to the British research team.

They found city-dwellers were just as helpful as people in smaller towns - the difference depended more on the wealth of any given area - not how built up it was

Researchers visited a range of towns and cities including Edinburgh (pictured) to challenge residents on whether they'd stop to help a stranger with a dropped card or to cross the road

The researchers visited cities like Bristol, Plymouth, Edinburgh and Birmingham and smaller communities such as Redruth in Cornwall and St Andrews in Fife.

RESEARCHERS VISITED 12 TOWNS AND 12 CITIES IN THE UK Abercynon

Birmingham

Bristol

Camborne

Cardiff

Edinburgh

Glasgow

Hawick

Helensburgh

Jaywick

Leeds

Liverpool

Manchester

Middlewich

Newcastle

Nottingham

Plymouth

Polesworth

Radstock

Redruth

Saffron Walden

Sheffield

St Andrews

Wombourne Advertisement

People in 24 neighbourhoods over 12 different cities helped 55 per cent of the time when asked and 45 per cent of the time without having to be asked first.

In comparison, those living in towns and villages helped 49 per cent of the time when requested and 39 per cent without being prompted.

Those in wealthier areas were more likely to help a stranger than people in poorer areas, but the team couldn't say if this was due to the people or the environment.

Nichola Raihani, senior author, told MailOnline it was 'worth remembering that we are talking about helping a stranger and not helping friends and family.

'We might expect no effect of neighbourhood wealth on the latter, or even the inverse effect.'

Raihani said some people think people in cities can be 'rude and unhelpful' and aren't as likely to stop and help as those in the country.

These results suggest that people in cities are just as likely to be kind to strangers as people in towns,' adding people should 'think again about the stereotype'.

'The hustle and bustle - and anonymity - of city life did not seem to make a difference in whether people stepped up to help a stranger in need,' Raihani said.

Urbanisation is one of the most significant and rapid causes of demographic changes in human society - more than half the world now lives in cities.

Before this study there was a stereotype that people living in a city weren't as helpful, as nice or as friendly as those in less densely populated areas.

This comes in part from the fact there is evidence urban lifestyles are associated with higher mental health risks, greater stress and lower levels of trust in others.

To test the truth of this, researchers pretended to accidentally drop a set of 20 cards almost 400 times in villages, towns and cities across the country.

As someone was coming the other way the researchers slowly picked the cards up 'one by one' and measured whether people stopped to help - either when nothing was said or when the researcher specifically asked them for help.

It has been suggested that people in cities may be less helpful because there are so many people around that they assume someone else will step in.

Indeed, people were far more likely to help when they were directly asked - but there was no difference in the rate of 'help' between city and smaller area.

People in cities like Birmingham are just as likely to help a stranger as those in towns and villages, according to the researchers

Redruth was one of the towns visited by the researchers. Experiments carried out by the research team looked at whether people would post a lost letter, return a dropped item and stop to let someone cross the road

Researchers also abandoned 879 lost letters, either leaving them dropped on a pavement or on car windscreens with a note asking for them to be posted.

JUST UNDER HALF OF EXPERIMENTS RESULTED IN SOMEONE HELPING In total, the team recorded 1,367 instances where a member of the public decided whether or not to help the experimenter. Help was offered on 643 - 47 per cent - of all occasions across all of the experiments carried out nationally. Abandoned letters: across all areas 55 per cent of letters were posted

Dropped items: Nationally 33 per cent of people helped the experimenter to pick up some cards from the floor

Crossing the road: In all areas 31.1 per cent of cars stopped or slowed down to let a pedestrian cross the road The main variable influencing whether help was offered across all experimental conditions was neighbourhood wealth. There was no evidence to suggest that how urban an area is or population density affected the chance of receiving help. Advertisement

The letters, which had an address written on the envelope, were posted in 55 per cent of cases, even though they were left in places without a postbox in sight.

City-dwellers were more likely to post the letters than those in smaller areas, doing so in almost 59 per cent of cases.

The final experiment saw a researcher attempt to cross the road in front of a slow moving car - they did that 90 times in 26 neighbourhoods.

People in the car stopped or slowed to let her cross almost a third of the time.

It has been suggested that people in cities are less helpful because, unlike in small rural areas, someone they know is unlikely to be watching.

But drivers on their own were no less likely to stop for the pedestrian than those who had someone else with them, suggesting people are just as kind when alone.

The study found that the tendency to help a stranger was lower in neighbourhoods with more deprived populations, and that was the case in both cities and towns.

'There are several plausible routes by which deprivation might lead to reduced tendency to help a stranger,' the authors wrote in the paper.

'One of the most plausible routes might be through the effects that environmental harshness or unpredictability has on the tendency to invest to achieve larger rewards in the future, rather than taking immediately available, smaller payoffs now.

'Investing to help a stranger has this incentive structure, where any downstream benefits of the helpful action are typically delayed and/or uncertain.'

This plays into the suggestion by lead author Raihani that the disparity in wealth may have been reversed if the people knew the person wanting help.

The findings have been published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
A Deptford Township police lieutenant who recently earned a national honor for saving residents during an apartment fire was charged last month with assault and resisting arrest during an off-duty incident at the Jersey Shore.

David P. Grogan, 34, was arrested Sept. 26 in North Wildwood near the Exit 6 bar on West Walnut Avenue, according to authorities.

A police officer on foot patrol in the area spotted Grogan jumping the fence at Exit 6 bar and grabbing the victim by the arm and throwing the victim to the ground, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed in the case. The victim suffered a minor cut to the hand, the report states.

Grogan was charged with simple assault and resisting arrest. He allegedly pulled away from an officer while being placed in handcuffs.

He was released on a summons and is scheduled to appear in municipal court Nov. 17.

Apart from confirming that Grogan was arrested, Deptford police officials did not respond to questions about his current employment status with the department. Efforts to contact Grogan for comment were unsuccessful.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund named him its August Officer of the Month for his work to rescue residents during a fire at Inverness Apartments in Deptford on May 16. Grogan, who was treated for smoke inhalation after the incident, was praised for his bravery.

The Deptford native has been with the police department for 13 years.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 23:09:26|Editor: huaxia

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PARIS, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- No.7 seed Petra Kvitova moved through to the semifinals at Roland Garros for the first time since 2012 thanks to a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Laura Siegemund in 78 minutes.

"I think I'm still same clay player as I was before, but I just think that I kind of find those conditions here and I'm still mentally tough," said Kvitova. "I played indoor, outdoor, sun, wind, whatever. But everything I was there, I think eight years ago, kind of same."

"Definitely eight years ago I was young, I was already won my Wimbledon title, and I was kind of favorite and played and I lost to Maria, which she won the tournament. So for me, that time was a lot of pressure on me, and even I didn't play like the best on clay," the two-time Grand Slam winner added.

The Czech is yet to drop a set and will face fourth-seeded Sofia Kenin of the United States for a place in the final. The reigning Australian Open champion survived a fight-back from Danielle Collins in the second set and dominated the deciding one to reach the semis 6-4, 4-6, 6-0.

Kvitova arrived for the match against the world No. 66 Siegemund as statistically the best server of this year's French Open remaining women's players, both in terms of ace struck and percentage of service games won.

She continued to post her powerful serving skills on the court as the world No.11 fired six aces and won 77 per cent of her first serves to clinch the victory.

"She started really well right away, and had really good length, and was serving great. So I struggled at the beginning. I felt like I'm also not playing too bad, but just so many easy points going away with serve and return situations," said Siegemund.

The other semifinal of women's singles will see Poland's history-maker Iga Swiatek face Argentine qualifier Nadia Podoroska. Enditem
BRISTOL, Va.  The city School Board on Monday approved spending some federal CARES Act funding to expand outreach to students struggling in the virtual learning environment.

About 30% of the citys 2,100 students  more than 600  remain at home in a virtual classroom, rather than attending classes in person in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The new focus will be on about 200 who arent engaging and completing assignments online.

Some of those 30% are thriving and doing well; some of them are making adequate progress, Superintendent Keith Perrigan said after the meeting. We also have a group that is really struggling, and the reasons vary, including who is supervising them that day, it could be access to technology and disengagement. Some of our families just arent engaging with us at all.

The board approved using federal monies to hire three part-time employees to assist teachers with remote learning students and serve as a liaison between the student, family and school. Each position will work 5.5 hours daily at a rate of $20 per hour, following Mondays board vote.

Well give each of those three people a caseload. Well pair them with Communities in Schools, Highlands Community Services and our administrative team, and we hope to get everybody back on track, Perrigan said.

The remote learning employees will likely either visit homes or make phone calls to remain in regular contact with families, Assistant Superintendent Gary Ritchie said.

Well probably hire somebody that will go directly into the home and help them do a few lessons to jump-start them, Ritchie said. The challenge is, the parents made a decision they dont want to send anybody into the school, and they dont want anybody coming into the house either  for the same reason. It is complex.

A majority of those students who are struggling or not participating are enrolled in high school and middle school.

Were trying to get as many resources as we can to bring those folks back in. Weve seen being out from March the summer slide [lost learning] has been exacerbated, and these students who continue to be remote and arent engaging with us are going to continue to have that downward trend, Perrigan said. We want to continue to offer remote learning to families who want to take advantage of it, but weve got to make sure those families are engaging with us.

Since schools reopened Aug. 20, the number of students attending in person continues rising. At the same time, only two students attending schools have tested positive for COVID-19 compared to six enrolled remotely, Perrigan said.

He credited that to the extensive measures schools are using to keep people safe, including daily temperature checks, enforced social distancing, mask wearing, students remaining in the same classrooms, eating at desks rather than in cafeterias and other steps to limit exposure.

The board also approved using CARES funding to hire one full-time employee to answer phones and manage visitor entry at the central office. With COVID, there is a strong need to minimize the number of employees who have access to the front desk and related equipment, the superintendent said.

The board also gave Perrigan the green light to develop plans to offer virtual learning when winter weather is forecast, rather than miss class due to snow. The board is expected to hear details of that plan at its November meeting.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, four people again called for board Chair Steve Fletcher to resign for comments he made on Facebook in late August. They termed his remarks disrespectful and racist for criticizing a post showing two white police officers shooting a black man in the back. All challenged other board members to act.

There is no reason for all of you to sit on this School Board and not take action. You either step up or step down, speaker Travon Brown said.

We have a question that I dont think will be answered about why Mr. Fletcher is staying is unacceptable. At some point, the people stop asking, and we act, speaker Misty Russell said. Either you act appropriately, or we will act appropriately, and I think its time people start acting and demonstrate the need for your removal.

One speaker defended Fletcher for supporting law enforcement.

Neither Fletcher nor other board members responded, which is their policy during public comment.
NEW DELHI  A rising young movie star meets a tragic end. His family blames his death on his glamorous girlfriend. As she sits in jail, her friends proclaiming her innocence, the police hint at a shadowy network of money laundering and illegal drugs deep within the world of show business.

India has been captivated by the story of Sushant Singh Rajput, a 34-year-old actor whose death has been ruled a suicide by the police in Mumbai. News outlets have focused on every twist in a tale that for many encapsulates Bollywoods hypocrisy and elitism.

Three federal agencies are investigating whether his girlfriend, the actress Rhea Chakraborty, gave him marijuana and was involved in Bollywood drug dealing and money laundering. The police are interviewing other Bollywood actresses. Ms. Chakrabortys attorney said the police had found no evidence to support their allegations.

The scandal has puzzled and infuriated social critics. With hard proof lacking, they say, the investigation and coverage appear to be fueled by institutional misogyny, a taboo against discussion of mental health issues and an increasingly partisan news media.
The U.S. Selfies book awards, which recognize self-published authors, has added a childrens prize to go along with its adult fiction award. The childrens prize is open to any self-published author who has written a childrens book in any format or age group.

Presented by PW and the U.K.s BookBrunch, each Selfie award carries a cash prize of $1,000 and a $5,000 advertising package from PW and selected sponsors. To be eligible, books must have been published during the calendar year 2020 and demonstrate solid sales via sustained marketing and publicity efforts.

The 2021 awards submission period opens on January 1, 2021, and closes on the night of March 1, 2021. Two juried shortlists, one for each category, will be announced during the week of May 24, 2021. The U.S. Selfies awards will be presented at the American Library Association annual conference on June 26, 2021.

BookBrunch are thrilled to work with Publishers Weekly and BookLife again on an expanded U.S. Selfies book awards to include childrens books as well as adult fiction, as we seek to discover the best self-published books in the country, said Jo Henry, managing director of BookBrunch, which administers the Selfies in the U.K, where the childrens book category was added in 2019.

With the mission to discover new talent and reward the best self-published titles each year, BookBrunch launched the Selfies Awards in the U.K. in 2018. In 2020, BookBrunch teamed up with PW and its self-publishing arm, BookLife, to launch the awards initiative in the U.S.

Cevin Bryerman, executive v-p and publisher of PW, said: The launch of the U.S. Selfies was an overwhelming success, supporting self-published authors and helping their books gain even more traction in the library and general book market.

Tim Westover took top prize in 2020 for The Winter Sisters, a novel of science and superstition that takes place in antebellum small-town Georgia. Westover donated the entire proceeds of his book sales, more than $50,000, to the Atlanta Childrens Hospital.

More info in how to participate in the awards is available here.
Kristen Stewart has been famous for 20 years with over 40 films to her name, and feels that only now does she have a mature perspective on her life in the limelight.

The Twilight actress shared with the November issue of InStyle that as a 30-year-old she can comprehend the pressure she felt at being labeled a 'lesbian' at age 21; she now calls herself queer.

And the movie star from Los Angeles also told her Happiest Season director Clea DuVall that there was a reason she was so careful with her Robert Pattinson romance: 'We did everything we could to not be photographed doing thingsthings that would become not ours.'

Hard to do in the spotlight: Kristen Stewart shared with the November issue of InStyle that as a 30-year-old she can comprehend the pressure she felt at being labeled a 'lesbian' at age 21; she now calls herself queer

The star also announced she quit drinking and smoking the day she turned 30.

Kristin was seen in a black bra top under a sheer black top as well as a red outfit as she modeled fall fashions for photographer Olivia Malone.

Stewart, who has been dating Dylan Meyer for one year, did not hold back when discussing her early days of romancing women.

'The first time I ever dated a girl, I was immediately being asked if I was a lesbian,' said the Panic Room star.

The first girl she was linked to was Alicia Cargile; they were together from 2014 until 2016.

'And its like, "God, Im 21 years old." I felt like maybe there were things that have hurt people Ive been with. Not because I felt ashamed of being openly gay but because I didnt like giving myself to the public, in a way. It felt like such thievery.'

Her ex: And the movie star from Los Angeles also told her Happiest Season director Clea DuVall that there was a reason she was so careful about her relationship with Robert Pattinson: 'We did everything we could to not be photographed doing thingsthings that would become not ours'

They dated: The star in gold with Pattinson during the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 film premiere in Berlin in 2012

Her early men: She also dated Michael Angarano (2005 - 2009), left, and the late Anton Yelchin (2004), right

She added that she was aware she was not being open.

The November issue of InStyle is available on newsstands, on Amazon, and for digital download October 23

'This was a period of time when I was sort of cagey,' admitted the Chanel model. After Alicia, she was linked to Soko (2016), St Vincent (2016), Stella Maxwell (2016 to 2019) then Sara Dinkin (2018 to 2019).

'Even in my previous relationships, which were straight, we did everything we could to not be photographed doing thingsthings that would become not ours,' offered the cover girl.

Her straight relationships were with David and Pattinson (2009 to 2013), Michael Angarano (2005 - 2009) and the late Anton Yelchin (2004).

'So I think the added pressure of representing a group of people, of representing queerness, wasnt something I understood then. Only now can I see it.'

The former child star also talked playing queer characters on screen; her most famous one was in Charlie's Angels.

Girl talk: Stewart did not hold back when discussing her early days of romancing women. 'The first time I ever dated a girl, I was immediately being asked if I was a lesbian,' said the Panic Room star

Early love: With her girlfriend at the time Alicia Cargile in Los Feliz, Los Angeles in 2015

It's love: Her current girlfriend is Dylan Meyer; they have been together for one year

'The first couple of times I played queer characters, I was not [openly] queer yet. Im drawn to stories and people for a reason, and I think, by default, I represent what I stand for.

'I do think its important that we step into different roles and into other peoples shoes in order to really expand ourselves, albeit not ever taking up space for people who should be telling their own stories.'

And Kristen also shared she is happy with her latest film, Happiest Season: 'It deals with very poignant things that, for me, are extremely affecting and triggeringeven though now the word triggering triggers me more than anything in the whole world. [laughs].

'But the movie is so funny and cute, and I loved the couple. Theyre both people I really felt protective of in different ways, because Ive been on both sides of that dynamic where someone is having a hard time acknowledging who they are and the other person is more self-accepting.

Listening to her fans: In a video clip from InStyle, Stewart answered questions from her fans

A good one: Stewart was asked who would play her if there was a movie of her life

'I [personally] came into the more complex aspects of myself a little bit later. I never felt an immense shame, but I also dont feel far away from that story, so I must have it in a latent sense.

As far as working on the Twilight franchise when she was so young, she shares: 'I was a kid. I definitely was never like, OK, Ive got this franchise on my back. If anything, that is an outsiders perspective, which is one that I can share with you only now. Then, I had no idea.'

The siren added that life under lockdown includes walking her dogs.

'I feel horrible about the state of the world, so Im donating moneybut Im not marching, and Im feeling weird about it. Im a frustrated optimist. Im always thinking, It cant be as bad as this.'

She also said she was drinking too much in the early says of COVID but she changed on her 30th birthday: 'I woke up that day [April 9] and was like, "You need to get your ass in gear." I was drinking too much in the beginning [of the pandemic], so I stopped drinking and smoking. I'm embarrassed because it sounds really cliche, but, whatever, it's true.'

The November issue of InStyle, available on newsstands, on Amazon, and for digital download October 23.
Pakistan: A new constitutional controversy between Federation and Sindh

by M Alam Brohi

October 07,2020 | Source: Daily Times

The Pakistan Coastal Development Authority issued by the President recently has sparked a controversy between the Federation and the province of Sindh over the ownership of Bundal (Bhandar) and Dingy Islands situated at a small distance from Karachi. The Sindh claims the ownership of the Islands on the basis of the Constitutional Article 172, while the Federation lays claim over them as part of the Bin Qasim Seaport and wants to develop a new skyscraper city over the Islands sprawling over 12000 acres of land.



The Article 172 in all its three sections is quite clear in determining the ownership of land, oil, gas and minerals between the Federation and the concerned province. It states in section (1) any property which has no rightful owner shall, if located in a Province, vest in the Government of that Province, and in every other case, in the Federal Government; the section (2) says all lands, minerals and other things of value within the Continental Shelf or underlying the ocean (beyond) the territorial waters of Pakistan shall vest in the Federal Government; while the section (3) says subject to the existing commitments and obligations, minerals, oil and natural gas within the Province or the territorial waters adjacent thereto shall vest jointly and equally in that Province and the Federal Government.



The word (beyond) in Section (2) inserted as part of the 18th Amendment is very important to determine the ownership of the above Islands. The Federation can claim the ownership of lands, minerals and other things of value within the Continental Shelf or underlying the ocean beyond the territorial waters. That means these assets underlying the ocean within the territorial waters belong to Province where these are located. According to the UN Convention on Law of Sea, the territorial waters stretch from the shore up to 12 nautical miles or 22 kilometers.



The Constitutional experts of Sindh are unanimous in their comments that the Presidential ordinance establishing Pakistan Coastal Development Authority is in violation of the relevant Articles of the Constitution of Pakistan. The land surrounding the Bin Qasim Seaport was leased to the Federal Government by the Province to facilitate import of raw material for  and export of the products of  the Pakistan Steel Mills and the construction of roads from the Mills to the Seaport, Steel Mills colony and Health facilities etc. In no way, this land leased to Bin Qasim Port includes the Islands. This land will also return to Sindh if the Steel Mills stop functioning for any reason.



The land of the Islands belongs to the people of Sindh. The Government of Sindh is just custodian of the public assetsof the Province. It has no power to dispose of the public assets without the consent of the people of Sindh to be expressed through their elected representatives. These Islands and creeks from Karachi to Thatta, being part of the Sindh Delta and fishing grounds, have been sustaining the livelihood of fishermen of Sindh for centuries whose population has grown to over 0.8 million, and are surrounded by many hectares of mangrove forests providing natural nurseries for breeding of shrimps and other valuable breeds of fish.



The Islands serve multi purposes for the fishermen. They use the Islands waiting and resting for days for their catches or take shelter in their thatched huts if the ocean becomes intemperate with hide tides. They also repair their fishing nets and boats and dry fish there. The Islands are host to migratory birds, wild and marine life and a large number of fisher folk and Kharai (salt) camels which catch the sight of visitors by their big size and black colour. One of the Islands has a saints shrine which attracts thousands of pilgrims from fisher folk and the coastal population every year. This culture developed over centuries has strengthened bonds of over two million coastal people with the ocean and these Islands and Creeks.



Pakistan has a long coastal belt of over 1000 miles. There are some 300 small and big Islands situated in the coastal belt of the province of Sindh only which, the fisher folk fear, would be taken over by the Federal Government after the constitution of the Pakistan Coastal Development Authority and the passage of the Presidential ordinance by the Parliament. This is what has created apprehensions in the fishing community, civil society and human rights organizations and unrest in the people of Sindh. This has already triggered protesting marches by the nationalist political parties supported by the civil society and human rights organizations.



We may recall the Musharraf regime had made two attempts in 2000 and 2006 to develop the twin Islands for a high rise city but the project was shelved due mainly to the protests of the people of Sindh. Following General Musharrafs footprints, the Zardari Government attempted in 2012-2013 to lease out the Islands to the estate tycoon, Malik Riaz. However, the project was abandoned because of an adverse verdict of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Maybe, the Zardari regime did not have time to implement his project as his PPP was rooted out in the general elections of 2013. His provincial government along with Malik Riaz conceived the Bahria Town project- another night raid on the precious lands of Sindh.



The Constitutional experts of Sindh are unanimous in their comments that the Presidential ordinance establishing Pakistan Coastal Development Authority is in violation of the relevant Articles of the Constitution of Pakistan, and also is against the International Conventions which provide social, economic and cultural sovereignty to the indigenous people. The development of the Islands, apparently a very catchy phrase, and the construction of a modern city there, will upend the fishing grounds and pathways of 800,000 fishermen depriving them of their livelihood apart from destroying the ecological environment. They say the Government of Sindh has many options to resist the Federal Government from taking over the Islands of Sindh. It can pass a resolution in the Sindh Assembly rejecting the Presidential ordinance; can raise the issue in the Council of Common Interests; challenge the ordinance in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
"Achieving our sustainability commitments and optimizing our capital allocation are key components to our business strategy and are important to our employees and customers around the world," said Dan Anninos, Iron Mountain's VP of Global Facility Management. "Redaptive has played a fundamental role in helping us achieve broad emission and energy reductions, through our energy efficiency programs, while all along preserving internal capital for our core business in North America and across Europe."

These strong partnerships have been pivotal to the company's continued growth and demand. Redaptive's guaranteed energy and cost savings, risk management, and program funding have resulted in reduced energy emissions for scores of customers, as sustainable infrastructure rises as a global imperative. Thus far, Redaptive has enabled over $380 million in sustainability projects and a total energy reduction of 1.1 billion kilowatt-hours, which is equivalent to approximately 778,000 metric tons of CO 2 or 1.8 million barrels of oil consumed.

"More companies are seeing the benefit of running their operations smarter, more efficiently, and more sustainably," said Jerry Keefe, a Principal at CarVal Investors. "Providing companies with a way to reduce their energy and carbon footprint and save on costs without having to spend any capital is the perfect innovation for times like these and we see a bright and bankable future for Redaptive and their model."

Redaptive's ability to lower facility maintenance costs, reduce grid reliance and perform data-driven energy efficiency retrofits is accelerating their customers' ability to exceed their sustainability goals while maintaining their bottom line. Current offerings include energy-efficient lighting and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, including boilers, chillers and rooftop units. With this funding, the company will be able to expand its offerings and deploy over $1 billion in new projects.

"We've achieved record sales this year, despite the global pandemic. By reducing costs for our customers we're seeing an increase in commitments from companies to make their facilities more efficient, resilient and sustainable," said Redaptive CEO Arvin Vohra.

Redaptive's Executive Chairman, John Rhow, added, "We thank CarVal, and our existing investors, for their support as we expand our offerings to meet the broader global need."

About Redaptive

Redaptive enables large-scale rapid deployment of building efficiency technologies that reduce operational expenses and deliver immediate returns and long-term value across our customers' real estate portfolios. Our Efficiency-as-a-Service solution provides turnkey efficiency upgrades that include materials, installation and maintenance. Customers realize immediate utility bill savings and actual kWh savings verified through Redaptive's metering and building intelligence platform. Redaptive manages a global portfolio of efficiency programs for commercial and industrial customers, including Iron Mountain , Swedish Health Services , Sutter Home , Bentley Mills , SRS Distribution , New Senior , Avantor , Saint-Gobain , Aramark , McKesson , and more. Redaptive has headquarters in San Francisco and offices in Denver and Pune, India. For more information, please visit http://www.redaptiveinc.com .

About CarVal Investors

CarVal Investors is a leading global alternative investment fund manager focused on credit-intensive assets and market inefficiencies. Over the past four years, CarVal has invested more than $1.5 billion in assets and companies within clean energy and sustainability. Since 1987, CarVal's experienced team has navigated through ever-changing credit market cycles, opportunistically investing $123 billion in 5,480 transactions across 82 countries. Today, CarVal Investors has approximately $9 billion in assets under management in corporate securities, loan portfolios, structured credit and hard assets. For more information, visit http://www.carvalinvestors.com/ .

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NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In a historic partnership, peermusic, Premier Muzik, All Right Music and Global Master Rights announced today that the companies are joining forces to form the global independent leader in neighbouring rights.

Following originating discussions between Ralph Peer, II, Chair and CEO, peermusic and Christophe Piot, All Right Music, the blockbuster deal was spearheaded by peermusic Deputy CEO Mary Megan Peer and will combine the staff and services of all four companies, instantly vaulting the newly formed peermusic neighbouring rights into one of the leading independent neighbouring rights companies in the world.

peermusic's neighbouring rights client roster will be made up of the clients of the combined companies, encompassing over 300+ record labels and 2500+ performers. Among those clients are major artists including Rihanna, Billie Eilish, Imagine Dragons, DJ Snake, Metallica, Jacques Brel, Jean-Michel Jarre, Leonard Bernstein, Megan Thee Stallion, Finneas, Lady A, Lang Lang, Lizzo, Panic! At The Disco, Migos, and David Guetta, to name a few. Clients from All Right Music, Premier Muzik, and Global Master Rights represented performers in 24% of Billboard's 2019 Year-End Hot 100 songs and 40% of the 2019 Year-End Top 20 songs.

The three companies add significant leadership and expertise in the neighbouring rights space to peermusic. Christophe Piot started his career in publishing in 1990 and founded All Right Music in 2004. Gino Olivieri started his career as a DJ in 1977, then music production and as an A&R in the late 80s before founding Premier Muzik in 1989. Gino Crescenza, Olivieri's colleague at Premier, has over 35 years' experience in music and has been with Premier since 2000. Erik Veerman and Paul Smelt spent years working together in key positions at neighbouring rights organization SENA before co-founding Global Master Rights in 2014.

"Given the challenging market artists and songwriters currently face, I'm happy to be able to offer our clients new revenue opportunities through neighbouring rights services. Premier Muzik, All Right Music and Global Master Rights are first-class organizations and we're very fortunate that peermusic can draw on the knowledge, experience, and leadership of Christophe, Gino, Gino, Erik and Paul," said Mary Megan Peer.

"Neighbouring rights are something we've been interested in for a long time, but we wanted to be sure that when we expanded our business into that space we could offer the same high level of service and technology that peermusic is known for. This remarkable series of deals that Mary Megan put together accomplishes that, and I'm excited for the value it will bring our clients," said Ralph Peer, II.

"I have known peermusic for quite a long time and have been able to connect with their colleagues around the world. They all share the same model of transparency and integrity we offer to our clients, so we are thrilled to make use of their global platform to offer more extensive services to our worldwide clients," said Christophe Piot.

The deals were brokered by Gowling WLG (Canada), Gowling WLG (France) and Dikhoff Van Dongen Advocaten (Holland). All Right Music was advised by Maximilien Jazani (Manswell Law Firm). Premier Muzik was advised by Ciro Cucciniello (Cucciniello Calandriello Attorneys Inc.). Global Master Rights was advised by Richard Goemans (Venture Lawyers).

ABOUT PEERMUSIC:

Founded by Ralph S. Peer in 1928, peermusic is the world's largest global independent publishing company, operating 35 offices in 30 countries and with well over a half a million titles in the company's catalogue. www.peermusic.com

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The Ontario government saw a problem: people were lining up for hours to get a COVID-19 test. So it abolished the lines.

Toronto Public Health saw another problem: its contact tracers couldnt keep up with demand as the number of cases mounted. So over the weekend it suspended contact tracing for most people.

Problems solved? Hardly.

The hours-long lineups were a sign that the provinces testing system couldnt meet the demand in the long-predicted second wave of COVID-19 and its message about who should get tested was plain wrong.

And the inability of contact tracers to keep up in badly hit Toronto showed that the system put in place to do that job wasnt up to the task when the wave hit.

Test and trace, test and trace: that was the mantra for months from health officials. Once wed flattened the curve by shutting down virtually everything, wed put in place a sophisticated system to test and trace so public health could jump on fresh outbreaks.

This was sold as the surgical approach to dealing with a second wave, and hundreds of millions of dollars, no, billions of dollars were announced to fund this vital effort.

Yet here we are and instead of wielding the proverbial scalpel of testing and tracing were back talking about bringing out the sledgehammer of further lockdowns.

In Ontario, where on Tuesday the number of new cases actually dipped slightly in a sign that the upward trend might possibly be stemmed, the City of Toronto is pressing for stricter measures including banning indoor dining. And public health officials are urging everyone to stay at home as much as possible, a voluntary lockdown of a sort just as Thanksgiving approaches, with its temptation to gather with family and friends.

In Quebec, its worse. The pandemic there appears to be raging out of control, with 1,364 new cases on Tuesday alone. The number of hospitalizations and deaths is also starting to rise, indicating that complacency about the second wave being more benign than the first could well be very much mistaken.

Amid all this, the Ontario government boasts about having the most robust, most comprehensive testing strategy in the entire country, in the words of Premier Doug Ford. More than 40,000 tests are being done every day, he says, with a cumulative total of four million since the pandemic struck  more than all other provinces combined.

Impressive numbers, but the hard reality is that many people still cant get a test. Those embarrassing lineups are gone, but many cant get through on the phones or online under the new system of appointment-only testing. Some 77 pharmacies are offering tests now, too, but that was set up only days ago.

Its no surprise, then, that some are turning to private clinics, which are reportedly charging as much as $250 for a test. Its tempting to say they should be shut down; no one likes the idea of people paying to jump the queue.

But the reality is theyre just a symptom of the failure to provide an adequate public testing system, not the real problem. If tests were quickly available on the public dime, demand for private ones would evaporate.

No doubt public health officials are working flat out and are overwhelmed by the rise in new COVID cases. No one questions how hard theyre trying and how much they care. And there are real problems, such as a shortage of lab technicians to process test results.

But this isnt at all how it was supposed to be. The federal government pledged billions over the summer to help provinces through its Safe Restart Agreement, including $4.28 billion for testing and contact tracing. Of that, $1.16 billion was billion was earmarked for Ontario alone.

Thats a lot of money, even in these days when government deficits are measured in the hundreds of billions. But it hasnt bought the results that Ottawa, indeed all of us, were looking for. And were repeatedly promised.

Governments are back to urging us to do our part by going back to the basics: washing hands, wearing a mask, maintaining physical distance, downloading the COVID Alert app.

Certainly we should do all those things. But governments, for their part, need to do a lot better at the basics they pledged to do: test and trace.
Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris will face each other in Salt Lake City for the 2020 US election vice presidential debate.

In the wake of Donald Trump interrupting and derailing his way through the hectic first presidential debate, it's likely Americans will be looking to the vice presidential candidates to deliver not just some normalcy, but also their vision for the country.

With both Mr Trump and his Democratic challenger former vice president Joe Biden both well into their 70s - and Mr Trump fresh off a days-long hospital stay due to a coronavirus infection - it is practical, if not a bit morbid, to assume that one of the participants in the vice presidential debate will ascend to the Oval Office before 2024.

Wednesday night's debate will be historic not only because of the events preceding it, but because of its participants; Ms Harris, the first woman of color vice presidential candidate, and Mr Pence, who holds the office during a time of social unrest and pandemic-born weariness in the American populace.

While vice presidential debates aren't usually the history-defining events that general election debates tend to be - who remembers a single line from Tim Kaine's faceoff with Mr Pence in 2016? - there have been a few well-remembered moments.

Vice presidential debates as we know them began in 1976, when Democrat Walter Mondale took on Gerald Ford's "hatchetman" Republican Bob Dole.

While Gen X-ers and Millennials may have a perspective of Bob Dole as the sleepy, utterly un-cool challenger to incumbent President Bill Clinton in 1996, his reputation for the bulk of his political career was as a compassionate but biting and hardline political operative.

During the debate, Mr Dole took an anti-war stance and tried to pin 1.6m American war deaths on the Democrats.

"I figured it up the other day: If we added up the killed and wounded in Democrat wars in this century, it would be about 1.5 million Americans - enough to fill the city of Detroit," he said.

Those wars would have included both World Wars, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

"I think Senator Dole has richly earned his reputation as a hatchet man tonight," Mr Mondale said, cementing Mr Dole's nickname for the rest of his political career. "Does he really mean that there was a partisan difference over our involvement in the fight against Nazi Germany?"

A little more than a decade later, another pair of vice presidential hopefuls made debate history. Then Republican Senator Dan Quayle, running alongside George H W Bush faced Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen, running with Michael Dukakis, during the vice presidential debates in 1988.

Mr Quayle was only 41 when he became Mr Bush's running mate, and his experience was frequently challenged. During the debate, moderators Tom Brokaw and Judge Woodruff asked Mr Quayle how he would lead the nation if he had to take over the presidency if Mr Bush were to be incapacitated.

"Three times that I've had this questionand I will try to answer it again for you, as clearly as I can, because the question you're asking is, 'What kind of qualifications does Dan Quayle have to be president,' 'What kind of qualifications do I have,' and 'What would I do in this kind of a situation?' And what would I do in this situation?" Mr Quayle said. "I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration, if that unfortunate event would ever occur."

Mr Bentsen, whose team had prepared him for Mr Quayle to compare himself to former President John Kennedy, fired off a line in response that earned him shouts and applause from the crowd.

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy," he said.

"That was really uncalled for, Senator," Mr Quayle said, prompting its own crowd reaction.

"You are the one that was making the comparison, Senatorand I'm one who knew him well. And frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken," Mr Bentsen said.

Eventually Mr Bush and Mr Quayle would go on to defeat Mr Dukakis and Mr Bentsen, but Mr Quayle's reputation never managed to shake that debate moment. It was so well known that Democrat Al Gore referenced it in 1992 when he debated Mr Quayle, saying "I'll make you a deal this evening. If you don't try to compare George Bush to Harry Truman, I won't compare you to Jack Kennedy."

Geraldine Ferraro made history in 1984 when she debated George H W Bush by becoming the first woman to participate in the vice presidential debates, and probably the first to call out an instance of man-splaining on a national debate stage.

During the debate, rather than disagreeing with Ms Ferraro on a national security matter, he attacked her intellect, saying "Let me help you with the difference, Mrs Ferraro, between Iran and the embassy in Lebanon."

She fired back "Let me say first of all that I almost resent, Vice President Bush, your patronising attitude that you have to teach me about foreign policy," she said.

Years later, the second woman to participate in the debates, Republican Governor Sarah Palin, squared off with then Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Though there were a few memorable moments from the debate - Ms Palin asking Mr Biden "Can I call you Joe?", and her response to Mr Biden invoking Ronald Reagan in an answer, saying "Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again" - the legacy of Ms Palin's debate didn't actually happen during the debate.

The debate - along with several disastrous interviews she participated in before and after - served to cement the caricature of Ms Palin as a folksy kook who occasionally struggled with facts that would be immortalised by Saturday Night Live actor Tina Fey's impression of her.

In 2012, Mr Biden had his own memorable moment that would go on to birth his short-lived 2020 campaign slogan.

During his debate with Republican Paul Ryan, Mr Ryan made an eloquent argument that US actions under Barack Obama's first term made the country look weak to our allies and enemies. Midway through his lecture, Mr Biden cut him off.

"With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey," the vice president said, invoking the old timey word that would come to be associated with him during his presidential campaign.

At one point Mr Biden's tour buses were emblazoned with the phrase "No Malarkey" across the side, though the word proved a little too antiquated for most voters and the campaign abandoned the slogan.
MattGush/iStockBy KARMA ALLEN, ABC News



(NEW YORK) -- A case involving a Georgia teenager who was fatally shot by police has been classified as a homicide, concluding a months-long investigation by a local medical examiner's office.



Vincent Truitt, 17, was killed on July 13 when police attempted to stop him and two other teens who allegedly were riding in a stolen vehicle, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations. The driver led officers on a chase before pulling over, when two of the teens allegedly broke away on foot, investigators said.



One of the them allegedly brandished a firearm, and an officer fired his gun, striking Truitt, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.



"It is my opinion that Vincent Truitt died as a result of multiple (2) gunshot wounds to the torso. Based on the information available at this time, the manner of death is classified as Homicide," the Cobb County Medical Examiner's Office said in a statement Monday.



Gerald Griggs, an attorney for the slain teen's family, said Truitt got out of the vehicle and ran away from the officers, but he never brandished a weapon. Griggs is calling for the release of any body camera footage and/or audio related to the shooting.



"This quest for Justice for #VincentTruitt is about making sure his family gets answers. Vince was a 17-year-old son, brother, grandson, nephew and cousin. His family deserves to know the truth about his death at the hands of Cobb police," Griggs tweeted after the medical examiner's announcement.



In a separate tweet he added: "The Family of #VincentTruitt demand the real facts about what happened to Vince. Help the family and follow @justiceforvince for updates on the case and how to help. #JusticeforVince. #justicefighter."



Griggs also shared an image of Truitt and his mother, Venethia Cook-Lewis, along with images of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and other Black men killed by police.



"My child died alone," Cook-Lewis told protesters at a rally over the weekend. "No parent should have to go through what I'm going through. No parent should have to bury their son, their teenage son, due to something that could have been avoided."



Cobb County police did not respond to ABC News' phone and e-mail requests for comment, and the department has not shared any details about whether it will release bodycam footage.



Speaking in a phone interview with Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV, Cobb County Police Chief Tim Cox said he hopes to have the case turned over to the local district attorney.



"I think what needs to be done is let the independent investigation be completed and turned over to the DA's office," Cox said.



Griggs say Truitt's family is shaken up over the ruling. They plan to meet with the Cobb County District Attorney this week about possible criminal charges in light of the homicide ruling.



The officer who fired his weapon was still on the police force as of Monday afternoon, according to WSB. The GBI said its investigation is ongoing.



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
There will be a contested race for the next Geneva Township treasurer in November, featuring Joseph Grabowski, a Coleman Democrat, and Nancy Robison, a Coleman Republican.

The candidates returned the following Q&As, which will be featured in Saturday's Midland Daily News, along with the League of Women Voters' voter's guide.

Joseph Grabowski, 74, of Geneva Township, is retired Coleman Community School teacher, and is the incumbent Geneva Township treasurer.

1. What would you say are the main jobs and duties of the Geneva Township treasurer?

The Geneva Township treasurer is responsible for maintaining accurate records of all financial transactions that takes place in Geneva Township. Monthly financial reports for township board members to question review and understand funds available for township services is very important. The township treasurer also collects taxes during the summer and winter tax season and distributes monthly funds collected during the tax season. Funds collected are distributed to Midland County, Intermediate school district, Delta College, Coleman Community schools and Coleman Area Library. The township treasurer also mails a newsletter at the start of each tax season giving tax payers information that they can use in regards to methods of payment such as paying at the Township Hall or at Coleman Branch of Chemical Bank. The township treasurer also receives requests by mail or phone by financial institutions or real estate agents with concerns or questions in regard to properties in Geneva Township. Prompt replies to their requests for information is very important.

The Geneva Township treasurer is also a voting member of the Geneva Township Board and as such attends the monthly meetings of the board and hears concerns of citizens and reviews the monthly minutes of the boards agenda each month.

The Geneva Township treasurer has been selected by the Geneva Township Board to represent Geneva Township on the Coleman Fire Board and Coleman Library Board.

2. As Geneva Township treasurer, how would you accomplish the above duties?

I believe the office of the Geneva Township Treasurer has achieved the duties mentioned above by providing monthly financial reports to Geneva Township Board members.

The Geneva Township treasurer is responsible for maintaining accurate financial records of all financial transactions that takes place in Geneva Township. Monthly financial reports for township board members to question and review and understand funds available for township services is very important. The township treasurer also collects taxes during the summer and winter tax season and distributes monthly funds collected during the tax season to Midland County, Intermediate School District, Delta College, Coleman Community Schools and Coleman Area Library. The township treasurer also mails a newsletter at the start of each tax season giving information that tax payers can use.

3. What, if any, changes would you make as the Geneva Township treasurer?

At the present time, due to COVID-19, Geneva Township is looking into making changes in the treasurers office area so that if citizens need services at the Geneva Township Hall, they can be provided in such a way that will protect citizens and Geneva Township treasurer officials alike.

4. What challenges do you anticipate the Geneva Township treasurer will encounter?

The COVID-19 virus will pose a serious challenge, as the Geneva Township depends on state revenue sharing for its yearly budget. As it appears state revenue is declining during the COVID-19, revenue sharing for the township could also be reduced in the future. As revenue sharing is reduced, it will be the duty of the Geneva Township treasurer to alert the township board members about the possibility of reduced state funding impacting the township budget.

The Census 2020 is also very important as state revenue sharing is determined by the number of people counted. COVID-19 could reduce the number of Geneva Township residents who reply to the census. That would result in a cut in state revenue sharing funds and other services. The Geneva Township treasurer will attempt to encourage Geneva Township residents to take part in the 2020 Census.

Nancy Robison, of Coleman (Geneva Township), is a math and English teacher at Coleman Jr/Sr High School.

1. What would you say are the main jobs and duties of the Geneva Township treasurer?

The main job of the Geneva Township Treasurer is to collect all real and personal property taxes and maintain accurate records. Further duties also include attending monthly township board meetings and serving on committees within Midland County in which Geneva Township needs representation.

2. As Geneva Township treasurer, how would you accomplish the above duties?

There are set times to collect taxes from the residence of Geneva Township. The board also has monthly meetings that the treasurer will attend. I believe it is essential that Geneva Township is represented at the county level, and I will do what I can to make sure we are represented.

3. What, if any, changes would you make as Geneva Township treasurer?

As with any job, there is always room for improvement. I am sure there are ways to make the job more efficient, and I will determine ways to improve efficiency if elected.

4. What challenges do you anticipate the Geneva Township treasurer will encounter?

As with all new opportunities, there will be a learning curve. I am ready for the challenge and I am excited to take on the position of Geneva Township treasurer.
The Indian Air Force will celebrate its 88th anniversary on Thursday with a ceremonial parade and flypast involving a variety of aircraft at the Hindon airbase. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and border tensions with China in the Ladakh sector where the air force is on high alert, the scale of the IAF Day parade will be bigger than last year with more aircraft taking part in the ceremonial flypast.

Here are five highlights of the parade

1. Compared to the 51 aircraft that took part in the IAF Day parade last year, this years flypast will feature 56 aircraft, including fighters, transport planes and helicopters. The Rafale fighter jets will take part in the IAF Day flypast for the first time. This will mark their second public appearance after the planes were formally inducted at the Ambala airbase on September 10.

Also Read: Air Force conducts full dress rehearsal ahead of 88th IAF Day

2. The Rafale will be flying in two different formations during the flypast. They will first fly with Jaguars and Mirage 2000 in the Arrowhead formation, followed by another formation involving the Sukhoi-30 and the Tejas light combat aircraft.

3. The number of aircraft in different formations has also been increased this year from three to five. The parade will feature 19 fighter jets, seven transport planes, 19 helicopters, two vintage aircraft and nine planes belonging to the Surya Kiran Aerobatic Team.

4. Apart from Rafale, the fighter jets taking part in the parade include the Su-30, Jaguar, Mirage 2000, MiG-29, MiG-21 Bison and Tejas. The Rafales, Su-30s and MiG-29s are among the aircraft deployed in the Ladakh theatre to deal with any provocation by the Chinese military.

5. Transport aircraft that will be flying in different formations during the flypast include C-17 heavy lifters and C-130 special operations aircraft. Both aircraft are being used extensively in the Ladakh sector to transport soldiers and equipment. The flypast will also feature Chinook multi-mission choppers, Apache attack helicopters and Mi-35 gunships.
Kudelski Security and TUV Rheinland Announce Collaboration on Managed Security Services

October 2020 by Marc Jacob

TUV Rheinland, a specialize in product and system security audits, and Kudelski Security, the cybersecurity division within the Kudelski Group, announced their collaboration to reinforce and extend the security of TUV Rheinlands assets and data.

TUV Rheinland requires a level of cybersecurity commensurate to the demands of a global leader in testing, inspection, certification, consulting, and training. The company selected Kudelski Security for its ability to provide rapid, accurate threat detection, effective incident response, and to reduce the impact of a breach. In addition, Kudelski Security, an award-winning MSSP, is one of few service providers with expertise in threat detection and response across all environments, spanning IT, cloud, operational technology (OT) / industrial control systems (ICS).

The Managed Security Services (MSS) offered by Kudelski Security will extend the capabilities of TUV Rheinlands existing Security Operations Center, through round-the-clock security threat monitoring and hunting and an incident response service. Further, partnership with TUV Rheinland will generate a three-way collaboration that aligns the companys IT and security objectives, enabling them to stay in sync and drive efficiencies as the business expands and evolves. A special focus in the future will be on the protection of industrial plants.

TUV Rheinland is confident that the cybersecurity standard it has maintained to date and the protection afforded their client data will be strengthened further with Kudelski Securitys engagement. We always place our customer needs first, said Rudiger Hoppen, Global Officer IT Infrastructure of TUV Rheinland, and have extremely high demands regarding the safeguarding of client data. Kudelski Security is highly successful in minimizing threat detection time and protecting companies from the serious consequences of an Information Security Incident".

Commenting on the new relationship, Kudelski Securitys CEO, Andrew Howard said: Kudelski Security brings the power of advanced threat detection and response to some of the worlds largest organizations. TUV Rheinland is synonymous with notions of security, excellence, and trust delivered on a huge scale and we are confident that we can support them to drive growth with confidence.

TUV Rheinland stands for safety and quality in virtually all areas of business and life. Founded almost 150 years ago, the company is one of the worlds leading testing service providers with more than 20,000 employees and annual revenues of 2 billion euros. TUV Rheinlands highly qualified experts test technical systems and products around the world, support innovations in technology and business, train people in numerous professions and certify management systems according to international standards. In doing so, the independent experts generate trust in products as well as processes across global value-adding chains and the flow of commodities.
A woman who was pulled from a burning building in a rescue effort that injured three firefighters on Wednesday in Cambridge has died.

Fire officials said the woman died of injuries after arriving at a local hospital, NBC Boston reports. Three Cambridge firefighters were hospitalized Wednesday morning after the three-alarm blaze on Buckingham Street, Fire Chief Gerard Mahoney told reporters.

Firefighters responded to a structure fire at 5:22 a.m. on Buckingham Street in Cambridge, the department said. By 6 a.m. the blaze grew to a three-alarm fire.

While battling the fire, crews found a woman in her 60s or 70s on the second floor suffering from cardiac arrest, according to WCVB.
India will await the Chinese response at the 7th military commanders meeting on October 12 in Ladakh after formally rejecting Beijings unilaterally defined 1959 claim on its perception of Line of Actual Control (LAC) at the diplomatic level talks on September 30. The Indian stand was firmly conveyed by joint secretary (East Asia) to his Chinese counterpart at the 19th round of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on India-China border affairs.

While the Chinese side had dug out the 1959 LAC maximalist claim on the eve of the WMCC meeting, the Indian side made it clear that it had rejected the cartographic claim immediately after it was made by then Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai to then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru through a letter on November 7, 1959.

The Indian diplomat firmly made the point that China was already in occupation of over 33,000 km of land in Aksai Chin area and another 5,180 square km of Shaksgam Valley was illegally handed over by Pakistan in 1963. The Chinese side had no cogent reply to the Indian rejection.

Also Read: Chinas PLA complicates troop disengagement over Ladakh. It has a condition

At the military commanders meeting next week, India expects the Chinese to come up with their position on the LAC perception that is central to resolving the current stand-off at six friction points along the 1,597 km border line in Ladakh.

ALSO WATCH | Cornering China: India, USA, Japan, Australia hold Quad meet amid LAC tension

The Indian side will be represented by outgoing XIV Corps Commander Lt Gen Harinder Singh who demits office on October 14, incoming commander Lt Gen PGK Menon and the foreign ministrys joint secretary Naveen Srivastava. The Chinese side will be represented by the South Xinjiang military commander.

There is no sign that the Western Theatre Commander of Peoples Liberation Army, General Zhao Zongqi, will also demit office. He has already crossed the retirement age of 65 years this April. Gen Zhaos tenure has seen PLA aggression at Doklam in 2017 and in Ladakh this year.

Also Read: 4-nation Quad gets cemented at Tokyo meet, sends stern message to China

According to top military commanders, there is no change in ground situation in Ladakh with both armies facing each other at the contested points and no pull-back from the depth positions.

The PLA psychological warfare, however, is in full-swing with articles about armoured personnel carriers and artillery guns being paradropped near the LAC. This begets a question as to why did the PLA build roads to their last posts on the perceived LAC if they still have to paradrop military hardware, said a former Indian Army chief.

China watchers believe that the continuing psy-ops are part of a plan to pressurise the Indian Army to withdraw from the Chinese perception of the LAC in the south bank of Pangong Tso. While the Indian Army is calmly holding its positions, it is also alert to any PLA pre-emption on the LAC before the snows take over at the end of this month.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Shishir Gupta Author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (2011, Hachette) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (2014, Hachette). Awarded K Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 by Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) and the 2011 Ben Gurion Prize by Israel. ...view detail
BOSTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / The Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association, along with NEMBC (New England Mortgage Bankers Conference) Gives Back, is partnering with Birchwood Credit Services, Inc. and Homes For Our Troops in order to raise money in support of Veterans this Fall.

This year, all funds go to help Army Sargent Brandon Korona, of Dracut, MA, with a new adaptable home. Korona was severely injured during a tour in Afghanistan, resulting in the loss of his leg and TBI. A new home will allow him to lead an easier life with complete wheelchair access, as well as the safety to help care for him and the rest of his family.

For a third year in a row, Birchwood will generously match all donations up to a combined $20,000. Money will be raised from now through Veteran's Day on November 11. Let's work together to build Brandon the home he deserves!

Learn more about Brandon's story and donate here, right now.

About Birchwood Credit Services: Birchwood Credit Services, Inc., is a nationwide Credit Reporting Agency that has been providing financial credit services to mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers, including accurate mortgage online credit reports, tax return verifications, flood reports, collateral and property reports, credit re-scoring, and other related services for over 20 years.

Founded in 1992, Birchwood has distinguished itself in the marketplace with its unwavering commitment to quality, compliance and customer service. Headquartered in North Conway, New Hampshire, Birchwood remains dedicated to providing its customers with personalized service by the most knowledgeable professionals in the credit reporting industry.

About Birchwood Homes For Our Troops: Homes For Our Troops (HFOT) is a publicly funded 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization that builds and donates specially adapted, custom homes nationwide for severely injured post-9/11 Veterans, to enable them to rebuild their lives. Most of these Veterans have sustained injuries including multiple limb amputations, partial or full paralysis, and/or severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). These homes restore some of the freedom and independence our Veterans sacrificed while defending our country, and enable them to focus on their family, recovery and rebuilding their lives. Since its inception in 2004, nearly 90 cents out of every dollar spent has gone directly to our program services for Veterans. HFOT builds these homes where the Veteran chooses to live and continues its relationship with the Veterans after home delivery to assist them with rebuilding their lives.

About Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association: Founded in 1976, the MMBA is the largest mortgage association in New England and is recognized as one of the most successful in the country. We offer the most comprehensive member services to over 225 corporate members throughout the region. Today, our membership includes depository institutions, mortgage companies and wholesalers, as well as companies for title, credit, appraisal, insurance, technology, legal, accounting and consulting and more.

The MMBA leads the mortgage industry through the continued business development, which supports homeownership. The MMBA achieves its mission through supplying information, providing representation, serving as a trusted commentator on public policy, providing and supporting educational training, advocating for the highest ethical standards and networking opportunities.

Contact:

Amanda Methot

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Rhea Chakraborty has been asked to furnish bond amounting to Rs 1 lakh, and to appear at her nearest police station for 10 days after she is released on bail.

Bombay High Court has granted bail to Rhea Chakraborty, Samuel Miranda, and Dipesh Sawant in the case registered by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with the death of Sushant Singh Rajput, reports Live Law.

She has been asked to furnish a bond amounting to Rs 1 lakh, among other conditions. Miranda and Sawant have been asked to furnish bonds of Rs 50,000 each.

However, the bail application of Chakraborty's brother Showik has been rejected.

[Breaking] Bombay HC Grants Bail To Rhea Chakraborty To NDPS Case In Connection With Sushant Singh Rajput Death Case. @Tweet2Rheahttps://t.co/gzKhv1Ejh3  Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) October 7, 2020

The bench also allows the bail applications of Sushant Singh Rajput's domestic helps Samuel Miranda and Dipesh Sawant. However, the bench rejects the bail applications of Rhea's brother Showik Chakraborty and Abdel Basith Parihar.#RheaChakroborty #SushantSingRajput  Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) October 7, 2020

The high court has further directed the actress to appear at her nearest police station every day for 10 days after she is released on bail. She has been restricted from leaving the country. Further, Chakraborty needs to inform the investigating officer if she has to leave Greater Mumbai, the high court ruled. The passports of Miranda and Sawant have been confiscated as well.

Bombay High Court has directed Rhea Chakraborty to appear in her nearest police station every day for 10 days after she is released on bail. She has been restricted from leaving the country. This was added in the final order after ASG Anil Singh requested for stay in her bail.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) October 7, 2020

The court rejected the request of ASG Anil Singh, who was representing the NCB, for a stay on the order.

On 6 October, a Mumbai court extended the judicial custody of actress Chakraborty and Showik till 20 October. The special court had earlier rejected the bail pleas of the actress and her brother. They then moved Bombay High Court to seek bail.

Arrested last month, Chakraborty and the others were accused of having facilitated the procurement of drugs for consumption by Rajput.
WASHINGTON - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Wednesday that its officers made 128 arrests in three California cities during a recent five-day campaign targeting so-called "sanctuary" jurisdictions, an operation with a publicity effort crafted to match President Donald Trump's campaign attacks on Democratic mayors.

The arrests during "Operation Rise" were made in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco between Sept. 28 and Friday in what acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said was "Phase 1" of a wider operation expanding to other cities.

Privately, ICE and Homeland Security officials acknowledged that the number of suspects taken into custody so far by the "sanctuary op" did not amount to a major increase in arrests. The agency makes about 40,000 arrests per year at homes, work sites and public locations, or what ICE refers to as "at large" arrests.

Wolf said those arrested in California included immigrants convicted of homicide, sexual assault and other serious crimes, without offering a breakdown of how many of those arrested were violent offenders. The agency would continue to target criminals, he said, "with or without the help of local political leaders."

"The job of President Trump, DHS and ICE is to fully enforce the law as it was written, not as certain politicians wish it were," he said.

During his reelection bid, Trump has portrayed himself as a "law and order" candidate who will dominate protesters and deal firmly with a rise in crime that has occurred during his presidency. His campaign has singled out cities with Democratic mayors for blame, especially those who have restricted cooperation between their police departments and ICE.

"All they need to do is call us before they release individuals," said Tony Pham, the senior official performing the duties of the director at ICE, which does not have a Senate-confirmed leader or nominee. "Just a phone call, so we can help."

While ICE officials have criticized sanctuary policies since the Obama administration, the messaging effort behind this month's campaign has left critics warning a new line has been crossed in the deepening politicization of immigration enforcement during the Trump era.

ICE last week said it was paying for billboards in the Philadelphia area including the mug shots of immigrants with criminal records who are wanted for deportation. The billboards are going up only in Pennsylvania, a swing state crucial to Trump's reelection chances.

"This now reeks of federal dollars wasted for purely political gain," said John Amaya, who was ICE deputy chief of staff during the Obama administration.

Amaya also said the results of the arrests were another sign that they have been more of a publicity campaign than an meaningful enforcement surge.

"While 100 arrests are horribly life-changing for the targets and their families, this is statistically insignificant as it relates to what ICE is capable of with 'all hands on deck' operations," he said.

Trump has repeatedly promoted ICE operations during his presidency, while falling far short of his promise to summarily deport between 2 million and 3 million immigrants. The president has been so eager to show action on the issue that he tipped off a major ICE operation last year targeting Central American families who arrived during a record wave of migration by parents with children in 2019.

That effort was intended to take thousands of immigrant parents and children into custody, but it ended up falling far short of the goal.

Cities that have adopted sanctuary policies generally restrict or prohibit cooperation with ICE, a firewall that city officials argue is necessary to protect immigrants in their communities and dispel the fear that Trump's rhetoric creates. While ICE officers retain the authority to arrest suspected immigration violators anywhere, the lack of cooperation makes officers' work much more difficult and time consuming.

DHS and ICE officials say those policies place the public at risk, because immigrants with criminal records who complete their jail sentences can be released instead of deported.

In his remarks to reporters, Wolf echoed a warning ICE officials have made to sanctuary jurisdictions for years, insisting that their decision to eschew cooperation on immigration enforcement brings more federal officers to their cities, not fewer.

"Any local jurisdiction thinking refusing to cooperate with ICE will result in a decrease in local immigration enforcement is mistaken," he said. "ICE has no choice but to conduct more at-large arrests in local neighborhoods and worksites, which inevitably result in additional collateral arrests, instead of targeted arrests where enforcement is safer for everyone involved."

ICE generally takes immigrants into custody by placing "detainer" requests with jails and local police departments who hold suspects until immigration officers come pick them up. When the detainers are not recognized, ICE officers have to find out when an immigrant will be released and await the suspect outside the jail or police station.
It is lighting a candle in the dark," says Fawzi al-Ghoudi in Yemens rebel-held capital Sanaa, of his initiative to reignite peoples interest in books, as an escape from the grimness of war.

The idea for the Yemen Reads" campaign is simple - to establish mini-libraries across the city where people can borrow books for free, the 30-year-old told AFP.

The initiative dates back to 2013, a year before the Iran-backed Huthi rebels seized control of Sanaa, igniting an all-out war with the government which is supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.

Many of the projects volunteers escaped at the time, fearing for their lives, but Ghoudi and four other companions revived it in 2019 after obtaining permission from the Huthi authorities.

They have so far set up five small booths with shelves full of books in public places in Sanaa, including a shopping mall.

By establishing these booths, you make people feel there is still life in Yemen," Ghoudi told AFP, adding that war-weary citizens were tired of the noise of boots on the ground, and endless news of killings and deprivation.

Yemens conflict, which has triggered what the United Nations has described as the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, is in its sixth year, with tens of thousands killed and the majority of the population reliant on aid for survival.

Sanaa was once one of the most vibrant commercial and cultural hubs in the region, but its heyday is now just a memory.

The Huthis impose a strict moral code, including shutting down cafes that do not observe rules on segregating men and women, and enforcing modest dress.

The country smells of gunpowder and these small libraries are reminders that reading is still important even if it is no longer a priority," said Mohammed Mahdi, 32, one of the regular readers.

He said he came across one of the booths by chance" last year and has since then not stopped borrowing books or encouraging others to do the same.

Ghoudi said that through donations, they have been able to gather about 5,000 books and hope to open 10 more libraries. But in a country with many pressing needs, gathering the funds they need is difficult.

People tell you that they prefer to make donations to provide aid to people affected by the war, and avert the threat of famine," he said.

Still, Ghoudi and his companions continue to try to build the project as best they can, and have set up collection boxes for books in their humble kiosks.

However they avoid accepting books about politics and religion  contentious topics in the troubled country.

Fatima al-Kathiri, 24, a university student, is delighted to take part in the initiative.

This is one of my best experiences," she said. Reading in general helps to clarify ideas and to think better."
House lawmakers released a scathing report on four of the worlds largest tech companies, accusing them of abusing their market power. The report, which was released on Tuesday and concludes a 16-month investigation into Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, recommended breaking up the companies and passing the most sweeping reforms to antitrust laws in decades.

Here is a summary of the accusations against each company in the report, which was endorsed only by Democratic lawmakers.

Amazon

The company uses its market power as both the largest online retailer and the leading e-commerce marketplace to its advantage and to hobble potential competitors. Amazon sets the rules for digital commerce. About 2.3 million third-party sellers do business on the Amazon marketplace worldwide, the report said, and 37 percent of them rely on Amazon as their sole source of income  essentially making them hostage to Amazons shifting tactics.

Amazon harvests the sales and product data from its marketplace to spot hot-selling items, copy them and offer its own competing products, typically at lower prices. One former Amazon employee told the House investigators, Amazon is first and foremost a data company, they just happen to use it to sell stuff.

In cloud computing, where Amazon Web Services is the market leader, the company has dealt unfairly with some open source developers, whose software is often freely shared. One open-source engineer said, We develop all this work and then some large company comes and monetizes that.

Apple

Apple has a monopoly on the app marketplace on iPhones and iPads, enabling the company to take an excessive cut of app developers sales and generate supra-normal profits. Apple has charged a 30 percent commission on many app sales since it introduced the fee more than a decade ago, forcing many developers to raise prices for consumers or reduce investment in their apps.

Apple has used its control over the App Store to punish rivals, including by ranking them lower in search results, restricting how they communicate with customers, and removing them outright from the store. Apple is the sole enforcer of sometimes opaque App Store rules, leaving developers few options to complain.

Apple favors its own apps and services on its devices by pre-installing them and making them the default options for a variety of actions. For instance, when iPhone users click a link to a webpage, a song or an address, their devices will typically open Apple apps. Such an advantage, combined with the services deep integration into Apples software, makes it difficult for third-party apps and services to compete.

Facebook

Facebooks monopoly power in social networking is firmly entrenched, and the company has snuffed out competitors through strategic acquisitions and copying products. Services like Onavo, a data analytics firm Facebook acquired, helped the company to spot early bird warning signals on would-be competitors rising quickly in the app store.

The company has grown so overwhelmingly powerful that internal findings suggest its greatest competition exists within itself. Services like Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, grew so quickly that it threatened to overtake the popularity of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg shifted his strategy quickly, in what one employee called collusion, but within an internal monopoly.

Because of the absence of competition, user privacy has been eroded while misinformation and toxic content have proliferated across all of the companys services, which are used regularly by more than three billion people.

Google
Long ago, in lands that were always warm, people got ice from the heavens.

At sunset, they poured water into shallow earthen pits or ceramic trays insulated with reeds. All through the night the water would radiate its heat into the chilly void of space. By morning, it turned to ice - even though the air temperature never dropped below freezing.

This wasn't magic; it was science.

For centuries, desert dwellers in North Africa, India and Iran tapped into a law of physics called radiative cooling. All objects - people, plants, buildings, planets - give off heat in waves of invisible light. On a clear, starry night, that radiation can rise through the atmosphere until it escapes Earth entirely. Coldness, which is really the absence of heat, is created through this invisible connection to the cosmos.

The world now cools off with the help of more than 3.5 billion refrigerators and air conditioners, a number that is quickly growing. But those appliances are also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. In seeking relief from the heat, humans are making the globe even hotter, compounding the demand for cooling.

To break that cycle, University of California at Los Angeles materials scientist Aaswath Raman wants to turn ancient technology into a 21st-century tool.

Working with colleagues, he has developed a thin, mirror-like film engineered to maximize radiative cooling on a molecular level. The film sends heat into to space while absorbing almost no radiation, lowering the temperature of objects by more than 10 degrees, even in the midday sun. It can help cool pipes and panels - like a booster rocket for refrigerators and cooling systems. Incorporated into buildings, it may even replace air conditioning. And it requires no electricity, no special fuel - just a clear day and a view of the sky.

"It sounds improbable," Raman acknowledged. "But the science is real."

3 1 of 3 photo for The Washington Post by Sarahbeth Maney. Show More Show Less 2 of 3 photo for The Washington Post by Sarahbeth Maney. Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Generations after people learned to make ice in the desert, he hopes that same science can help us survive in a rapidly warming world.

Growing up in Alberta, Canada, where his father worked in the oil industry, Raman had an up-close view of the problem confronting the planet. Though the burning of fossil fuels is driving dangerous changes in the global climate, it also powers most of modern society.

"I had no illusions about being able to solve it immediately," Raman said. "I understood how huge the energy industry is, and if you want to really displace it, anything that came after it would have to be just as big."

He went college to study astronomy, but an interest in solar panels led him to photonics, the study of light. Much like astronomy, photonics allowed him to explore the fundamental workings of the universe. At the same time, he hoped it might lead to discoveries that improved conditions on Earth.

In 2012, as he neared the end of his doctoral studies at Stanford University, he stumbled upon a reference to radiative cooling in an academic journal. Intrigued, he dug up whatever research on the phenomenon he could find.

Examples of radiative cooling after dark, also called night sky cooling, were everywhere. Raman uncovered century-old descriptions of the ancient ice-making practice and case studies from the 1970s describing efforts to cool buildings with rooftop pools (most efforts were abandoned when the pools became too difficult to maintain). He witnessed the phenomenon in his own life; it's the reason frost can form on clear nights when the temperature stays above 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

And in climate change, he saw evidence of what happens when radiative cooling is disrupted. Earth also sends heat into space - that's how it balances incoming energy from the sun. But the greenhouse gases created by human activities block infrared radiation, trapping it in the atmosphere. The planet is more than 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than in the preindustrial era, a shift that has worsened wildfires, intensified hurricanes and altered ecosystems across the world. United Nations scientists say humanity must reduce emissions by 7 percent a year to avoid still more catastrophic effects.

Yet radiative cooling has rarely been discussed as a potential tool for climate action, Raman said. Most researchers saw the phenomenon as an interesting physical fact with few practical applications. The reason: It is only measurable at night, when objects are emitting heat but not receiving any in return. Come morning, energy from the sun cancels out any cooling effect.

"Every paper made some kind of statement to the effect of, 'Well, it's usefulness is kind of limited because . . . you most need cooling during the day,' " Raman said. "Then I thought, well, why can't we make this work during the day?"

The trick was to develop a material so perfectly reflective it absorbed almost no energy, even when exposed to full sunlight. On top of that, Raman wanted to maximize the amount of radiation the film sent into space.

So he found a loophole in the greenhouse effect.

A brief physics lesson: Though we often think of them as separate phenomena, the light that we see and the radiant heat we feel are just different kinds of electromagnetic wave. Visible light comes in an array of wavelengths, from short violet to long red. Thermal radiation typically spans a range of longer wavelengths in the infrared part of the spectrum.

Earth's atmosphere blocks some outgoing infrared radiation - and it's blocking even more now that it's chock full of carbon. But there are "windows" that electromagnetic waves of just the right length can slip through. Somehow, Raman would have to find a way to get objects to emit only radiation that fit through those windows.

With colleagues in Stanford's engineering department, led by professor Shanhui Fan, he began crafting a film from many microscopic layers. The thickness and composition of these layers were designed to interfere with the way different wavelengths of light travel. Incoming solar radiation would rebound right back into space. Outgoing thermal radiation would bounce around between the layers, like a pinball in a machine; only the desired infrared wavelengths would be able to escape.

Chris Atkinson was program director for Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy, a division within the U.S. Energy Department, which funded Raman's early work. When he first heard about the experiment, "my initial response was, if this was so good, why hadn't it been done before?" he recalled.

But Raman and his colleagues had something their predecessors lacked: modern nanotechnology. They could manipulate their materials, molecule by molecule, until it behaved exactly how they wanted.

"I was struck by the elegance and simplicity of it," said Atkinson, now a professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State University. "The fact that you can get something for nothing is remarkable, especially in the energy realm."

In a few years the Stanford group had its first prototype. Placed outside in the hot California sun, it felt cold to the touch. It was a giddy, counterintuitive sensation, even to Raman.

Yet even after he convinced himself that daytime radiative cooling was possible, it wasn't until a trip to visit his grandmother in Mumbai that Raman started to see how it could also be useful.

A growing number of homes in Mumbai had air conditioners in their windows, something he rarely saw during childhood visits. That's an unqualified victory for people's health, Raman said; exposure to extreme heat can lead to a range of illnesses, from respiratory illness to psychological distress.

But as demand for air conditioning grows, so too will its environmental impact. The hydrofluorocarbons used as coolants and the fossil fuels burned to power the appliances are major contributors to global climate change, associated with about 7 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. By 2050, when the demand for air conditioning is expected to triple, cooling could become one of world's top sources of planet-warming gases.

"We kind of realized there was a huge problem and a huge opportunity," Raman said, "and that this technology, if we developed it correctly, could be a really meaningful solution."

That realization gave him more parameters for his cooling material. It had to be cheap, so it would be accessible to people of all income levels. It had to be able to integrate into existing air-conditioning systems. As they continued to tinker with the technology, Raman and his collaborators set up a company, SkyCool Systems, to help bring it into the world.

The company produces SkyCool panels that can be incorporated into existing cooling systems. Water running through the panels is chilled by the film, then transported into the air-conditioning system, where it lowers the temperature of the refrigerant. This reduces the amount of electricity needed to turn hot air into cold.

It wasn't difficult to convince Jesus Valenzuela, store manager at the Stockton, Calif., Grocery Outlet, to test the technology. Between the deli case, the dairy aisle, the freezer section and all the backroom storage, cooling alone cost him more than $100,000 a year. On top of that, the California native was worried by the disasters climate change had already wrought on his state.

An offer from Lime, the electric-scooter company, to pay the installation fee sealed the deal. If the film worked, Valenzuela would only owe SkyCool Systems the savings from his electricity bill for the first two years.

The panels were installed this spring. Though Eli Goldstein, SkyCool's co-founder and CEO, explained the technology to him, he didn't quite get how the coldness of space could help chill chicken cutlets and freezer pizza.

"There's a lot of technical things I don't know about," he said. But that didn't matter: The SkyCool panels had lowered his electric bill by about $3,000 over the course of the summer, he said.

"All I know," Valenzuela said, "is that it's saving me money."

The SkyCool technology still needs to be refined, Atkinson said, and it must become significantly cheaper before it can be deployed widely. But the big scientific hurdle has been surmounted, he said. The rest is mostly business.

Meanwhile, Goldstein, Raman and their colleagues are working on further applications of the film. With a grant from the California Energy Commission, they have contracted with the California State University System to replace all the air conditioners in a school building - hoping to cool the entire structure with just the sky. In May, Raman published a journal article on the possibility of modifying off-the-shelf paints to enhance radiative cooling; if it works, building owners could simply paint their roofs to make the structures significantly cooler.

Raman has even researched the possibility of using radiative cooling to create light. In a study last year in the journal Joule, he demonstrated how cooling one side of a thermoelectric generator while keeping the other at air temperature could create a temperature gradient that, when converted into electricity, could power a lightbulb.

Each demonstration of radiative cooling's power fosters in Raman a sense of kinship with the ice makers of long ago. He imagines them experimenting night after night, using trial and error to perfect their technique - the same scientific process Raman uses today.

In a rapidly changing world, it's a reminder of what remains the same, he said: The laws of physics. The needs of people. The power of science to explain the workings of the planet and improve the lives of everyone who lives on it.
(Photo : Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) The Tesla logo is displayed on the hood of a Tesla car on May 20, 2019 in Corte Madera, California. Stock for electric car maker Tesla fell to a 2-1/2 year low after Wall Street analysts questioned the company's growth prospects. (Photo : Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) A sign is posted at a Tesla showroom on November 5, 2013 in Palo Alto, California. Tesla will report third quarter earnings today after the closing bell.

Tesla has finally launched two-factor authentication on its app. This is important news since the TFA is a crucial security feature that faced many delays.

Also Read: Ford to Supply Cameras To Help Find Puma in Australia--In Time for Ford Puma SUV Launch

Elon Musk, the company's CEO, said in April that the feature was coming "soon," but he didn't provide a specific date. And now, Electrek reported that TFA is now available for Tesla owners.

The website also provided a guide on how to activate the new security feature. To do this, the users must go to their Tesla accounts and activate the "Multi-factor Authentication" feature. After that, they need to set up a third-party authenticator app of their choice.

Fred Lambert, an editor-in-chief at Electrek, posted the app's security feature screenshots on Twitter.

Breaking: Tesla is currently having a complete network outage. Internal systems are down according to sources. On the customer side, I can't connect to any of my cars and website is not working. What about you? pic.twitter.com/fbj3s4SJC8  Fred Lambert (@FredericLambert) September 23, 2020

Also Read: Tesla Fires Employee Caught Attempting to Sabotage and Plant Ransomware: Charges Will be Filed

"Tesla is currently having a complete network outage. Internal systems are down according to sources. On the customer side, I can't connect to any of my cars and website is not working. What about you?" he captioned.

In August, Musk said that TFA is "embarrassingly late." He also added that the security feature was going through the final validation.

Why is TFA important?

The TFA security feature protects Tesla accounts with additional info aside for the users' passwords. Tesla owners can use the two-factor authentication to add an authenticator code, a face scan, or an SMS code.

This feature prevents people from accessing your Tesla account, even if they could acquire your password. Without knowing the additional piece of information, they wouldn't be able to log in.



TFA is also a useful protective feature since passwords are often hacked and sold on the dark web and other websites. It is not to rely solely on a password as your verification.



On the other hand, if ever you decide to ask Tesla for more details about TFA, it probably wouldn't work since the company's PR department was eliminated. For now, it seems that Musk could be the one answering Tesla owners' queries on Twitter.

For more news updates about Tesla and Elon Musk, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Also Read: Tesla Rolls Out Software Update to Let Cars Automatically Hit Drive in Straight Green Lights

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PALM BEACH, FLA.Its located in one of the most envied and desirable towns in the world, and yet a seemingly well-priced 14,000-square-foot mansion for sale here is languishing, despite its six bedrooms, seven baths, a large swimming pool and frontage along the Intracoastal Waterway.

That mansion in Palm Beach belonged to the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, and although its been for sale since early July there are apparently no takers so far. The price for the mansion with southern exposure and water views remains fixed at just a hair under $22 million U.S.

It is one of at least three homes the Epstein estate is selling as part of the liquidation of his assets, including one on a private island in the Virgin Islands and one in Manhattan.

The Corcoran Group was tapped to offer the Palm Beach mansion for sale. Large homes in exotic locales can be a plum assignment, but this homes sordid past would overshadow any curb appeal. Its Palm Beach listing agent, Kerry Warwick, declined a request to allow McClatchy and the Miami Herald to accompany her on a future showing. She also declined to discuss why the luxury property, just a mile from President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort, where Epstein used to visit, is not selling.

You can call our New York office, she said.

At New York headquarters of the Corcoran Group there was also little desire to discuss sale of the mansion now infamous as one of the multiple places Epsteins accusers say the mysterious, high-flying businessman with friends in high places abused them when they were minors. A Corcoran representative said there was nothing to add beyond what Warwick shared with The Wall Street Journal in July.

Epsteins home is certainly not the first notorious South Florida mansion to hit the market. Gianni Versaces Miami home on South Beach was sold after his headline-grabbing murder in 1997 and remains a curiosity for tourists to this day.

But that mansion is smack in the middle of a bustling hot spot for nightlife. Epsteins Palm Beach home, associated with ghoulish events, sits at the end of a sedate tree-lined street where many occupants of nearby gated mansions are only there for the winter months.

One factor weighing against sale of the gated Epstein mansion may be that its older and boxy, lacking the eccentricities of other homes on the block. It was designed by John Volk, a prominent architect in the 1950s whose name is synonymous with the development of Palm Beach.

With its westerly views of Tarpon and Everglades islands, the Epstein home has land value but lacks pizzazz. It has a different feel than most of the Venetian and Mediterranean style mansions in the Estate Section of Palm Beach. Those European looks were the hallmark of Addison Mizner, among the most sought-after architects in Americas Gilded Era of the 1920s, whose thumbprint remains across South Florida.

In fact, Murray Gell-Mann, a Nobel-winning scientist befriended by Epstein, once described the Palm Beach residence to a friend as ugly and unremarkable, lacking any charm.

Epstein bought the Palm Beach mansion in September 1990 for $2.5 million, according to Palm Beach property records. The Palm Beach mansion is being offered at nearly $20 million more than the original purchase price. And its still at a discount compared to similar homes in the area.

One of the few neighbours who was around in mid-September was in the middle of reconstruction of his entrance way that sits across from the Epstein mansion. said he didnt know what sort of traffic the Epstein home was drawing because he had been away for much of the summer.

Not long after Epsteins reported death by hanging in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019, the gate outside of Epsteins Palm Beach mansion was vandalized with red spray paint. Neighbour Eduard de Guardiola, a retired Atlanta real estate executive, said he did not expect the notoriety of the home to stall its eventual sale.

Proceeds of the eventual Palm Beach sale are expected to flow in part to the Epstein Victims Compensation Fund, which began operating in late June, independent of the Epstein estate. It is already receiving dozens of claims from victims using the nonjudicial process to stay out of the headlines while seeking compensation and closure for being sexually abused by Epstein, often when they were minors.
A furloughed British Airways customer service worker rolled off his sofa and died of alcohol intoxication and a fatty liver after having a drink with a meal the night before, an inquest was told today.

Dharmindera Kalyan, known as Darsi, was furloughed from his position at the start of lockdown.

After four months away from work he was offered his old job for less pay.

He fell into a state of distress, bought a bottle of alcohol and died at his home in Maidenhead, Berkshire, on July 16, a coroner was told.

Alison McCormick, assistant Berkshire coroner, offered no indication of how much alcohol he consumed. She said: 'On July 15, he bought a bottle of alcohol from a local shop, had a drink with his dinner and went to bed at 9.00 that evening.'

Dharmindera Kalyan, known as Darsi, had been furloughed from British Airways at the start of lockdown. Pictured, with his wife Ella in 2015

The next day his pregnant wife of six years, Ella Kalyan, found him dead on the living room floor after he had fallen off the sofa.

Assistant Berkshire coroner, Alison McCormick, described the circumstances of Mr Kalyan's death at the opening of his inquest in Reading today.

Darsi fell into a state of distress, bought a bottle of alcohol and died at home on July 16

She said: 'He had been bereaved in December 2019 and in the early parts of 2020 he was furloughed from his employment for the pandemic.

'This caused him significant stress. He did not seek any medical attention for the stress he was suffering from.

'In July this year, there was an incident in respect of which he was asked to re-apply for his job at a reduced pay rate, adding to his stress.'

She said the morning after he had the drink he slept until 9.45am and didn't want to go outside. Instead, he 'spent time asleep on the living room sofa'.

'At one point he rolled off the sofa and was observed to be on the floor and soon after that Ella, his wife, noticed that some features didn't look right about him and, unfortunately, he had passed away,' Ms McCormick added.

His pregnant wife of six years, Ella Kalyan, found him dead on the living room floor after he fell off the sofa as he slept through a hangover. Pictured on their wedding day in March 2014

'The cause of death offered by the pathologist is alcohol intoxication and a fatty liver.'

Ella's father, who sat in the inquest opening, told the coroner his daughter had just lost her dog in recent weeks too.

'A new life is a blessing,' Ms McCormick said in an attempt to reassure him.

The hearing was adjourned for a full inquest to take place at a later date.
Off-licence hours may be slashed to clamp down on house parties. Stock picture

TANAISTE Leo Varadkar has suggested a new penalty regime for breaching Covid restrictions could be considered where members of the public are fined 50 for not wearing a mask or 200 for leaving a county under lockdown.

Mr Varadkar raised the idea at the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday where he also noted that the public health laws as they currently stand are very strong and that Gardai are satisfied with their existing powers which allow them police by consent.

He also said there will be increased levels of policing on the roads under level three restrictions.

While signalling there are no immediate plans to change the laws, the Fine Gael leader said one of the questions that could be considered was whether the Government should bring in a fines regime, including 50 for not wearing a mask or 200 for leaving your county when restrictions are in place.

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Level 3 restrictions, which are now in place nationwide, prevent people from leaving their counties unless for essential reasons although there are no powers of enforcement for gardai.

Mr Varadkars spokesperson said: The law already provides for fines of 2,500 for breaches of some laws like organising a gathering or not wearing a mask on public transport.

All options are under review but there are no plans at present for a new system of fines.

The Department of Health proposed a system of new fines a number of weeks ago but the idea has been resisted by the Department of Justice. Justice officials believe a graduated fine system will not work because people will ignore smaller financial penalties. There are also concerns over what happens if someone refuses to pay a fine. Gardai have also continually told department officials they do not believe a new system of fines is necessary.

Meanwhile, off-licence opening hours would be significantly reduced under Government plans aimed at clamping down on house parties and large social gatherings.

The proposal to curb opening hours is intended to further limit social gatherings with alcohol, which have been linked to the spread of Covid.

Three ministers raised the prospect of reducing off- licence opening hours.

Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys was the first to raise the issue and was supported by Justice Minister Helen McEntee and Minister of State for Roads Hildegarde Naughton.

Ms Humphreys' Monaghan constituency has seen a recent spike in Covid-19 and on Monday had the second highest number of new cases per 100,000 people in the country.

Ms Naughton is a Galway minister where a large gathering of students drinking in the city recently gained national headlines.

The minister was furious about the street party in the Spanish Arch and said something should be done about the role off-licences play in such events.

It was noted at the meeting that reducing off-licence opening hours may also help pubs and restaurants as people may be more likely to go to regulated premises rather than house parties.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris yesterday suggested gardai may arrive to an area where there is a house party.

"There is a constitutional protection of the home," he said.

"Having gardai positioned outside your home during a house party will really dampen the mood."

Gardai are today manning 132 checkpoints on main arterial routes across the country to ensure people are complying with Level 3 lockdown guidelines to remain in their counties.

Mr Harris warned of traffic jams and reduced flow on motorways as he announced Operation Fanacht. More than 2,000 officers will be on Covid-19 related duty, working a 12-hour roster introduced at the beginning of the pandemic, with the cost estimated to hit 15m in overtime if the operation continues to the end of the year.

However, the Government has not given the force any extra powers to enforce the guidelines.

Instead, gardai are operating a policing by consent model, with people urged to adhere to the guidelines to protect themselves and those around them from Covid-19.

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"Policing is an extension of good citizenship," the commissioner said at Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park, Dublin.

Officers at the stops will be focusing on "the three Es" - engage, educate and encourage.

While the commissioner admitted that a motorist will be able to continue on, even if stopped and asked to turn back by officers, he said it would be "a foolish choice".

Mr Harris said often the sort of people who do this "have made poor choices elsewhere" and could be dealt with using other powers.

He said the focus will also continue to be on community policing, as well as dealing with organised crime during the period of Level Three across the country.

The commissioner suggested extra powers were not needed for now.
Appointment

7 October 2020

Hotel Ranga, an iconic destination in Iceland for seeing the Northern Lights, welcomes Emil Orn Valgarsson as Head Chef of the property's acclaimed Ranga Restaurant. Overlooking one of Iceland's finest salmon rivers, the restaurant is known for featuring fresh, local, and seasonal ingredients and a menu showcasing the country's most notable Nordic delicacies with a modern twist.

Hailing from the town of Hverageri, Iceland, Emil started cooking at the age of 14 and completed his chef training at Lkjarbrekka, a historic Icelandic restaurant in Reykjavik. He also gained valuable experience abroad, cooking in Michelin-starred restaurants in both France and Norway. By the age of 22, Emil opened his first restaurant, and later served as a private chef for the Finnish, French and Norwegian embassies in Reykjavik. His work as a private chef allowed him the opportunity to cook for many presidents and visiting dignitaries and he now applies that same level of distinguished service at Ranga Restaurant.
ST. MARYS  Though publicly tagged to receive a multi-thousand-dollar donation from Atlantic Gold, St. Marys District Food Bank had no idea it was in line until The Journal left a message to that effect in its voice mail last week, says the charitys spokesperson.

The Halifax-based subsidiary of Australian mineral conglomerate St. Barbara Limited announced on Tuesday it was donating over $20,000 of food  largely nonperishable, packaged staples  to the Musquodoboit Valley Food Bank Society, the Gerald Hardy Memorial Society in Sheet Harbour, and the Sherbrooke-based St. Marys District Food Bank.

But while the companys film crews and camera operators were already assembling to document its giveaway in Sheet Harbour on Friday, St. Marys Food Bank representative and United Church Minister Derek Ellsworth said in an interview, Our board met yesterday, and nobody had heard anything regarding a donation. Im just talking [to you] about it now.

Pointedly, when interviewed just after the announcement, Atlantic Golds Communications Manager Dustin OLeary confirmed, as Sherbrooke and Sheet Harbour are close to those spots where we are permitting to operate in the future, we want to make sure that the donations are helping those who need it in those communities.

In fact, Atlantic Gold hopes to excavate open pit mines at Beaver Dam, 23 kilometres northwest of Sheet Harbour, and Cochrane Hill, 13 kilometres northeast of Sherbrooke. The proposals, which are under federal environmental review, promise to create hundreds of local jobs. The Cochrane Hill project, however, has drawn fire from many area residents for the environmental dangers it could pose to the St. Marys River Valley and district.

When asked whether he thought it odd that he and other members of his district board were in the dark about last weeks gift, Ellsworth laughed, Well, we discussed a donation from them [Atlantic Gold] several months ago. At that time, we said yes. . .but one of the other things we said to them was that we dont do promotional things for corporations. So, if they donate, they donate. If they dont, they dont. If they are going to do things like a video, we said we probably wouldnt [participate]. . .In an email, they said they understood.

Perhaps, he speculated, the company wanted to keep the recent St. Marys news low-key, adding Maybe they thought we wouldnt have agreed to the [publicity].

OLeary, meanwhile, noted that Atlantic Gold has donated to the St. Marys food bank in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Surely, Sherbrooke is not opposed to receiving food, he added.

Down the road in Sheet Harbour, the donation and publicity was welcomed. Were absolutely delighted, said Karen MacNeil, spokesperson the Gerald Hardy Memorial Society. There was a film crew from Atlantic Gold doing a photo shoot on how the company is involved in the community and [with] different organizations.

As for the actual donation, she said the bulk order of cans and sacks, which weighed about 300 lbs., had to be transported to her organizations site by pickup truck. Its lovely working with them, she said, adding that not long ago the company contributed $1,000 to the organizations Rainbow Food Bank. Developing a partnership with Atlantic Gold can only be positive. . .benefitting from this generosity.

In the announcement press release, General Manager of St Barbaras Atlantic Operations Laird Brownlie explained: When we planned around the possible impacts of COVID-19, our company purchased a variety of high-quality food in the event of the need to house our staff for an extended period of time. Through diligent measures to ensure the pandemic did not impact our worksite, we were fortunate to not need the food for our own staff.

Not surprisingly, OLeary said, the companys generosity is in no danger of running low anytime soon: We have maybe four or five half-ton trucks loaded up for the first wave. Were probably looking at four or five more waves after that.

As for the St. Marys Food Bank situation, it remains unclear where, how, or even if wires got crossed. OLeary says Atlantic Gold has always been committed to distributing its largess equally and evenly to food banks along Nova Scotias Eastern Shore. Ellsworth insists that, as of Friday afternoon, he still hadnt received official notification of the gift. Of course, he added, we appreciate whatever donations come in from any source: individual, government or organization.

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The candidates for two open seats for a four-year term include incumbent Lynn Baker, John Hatfield, Kurt Yockey and Betsy Diegel.

The candidates returned the following Q&As, which will be in Saturday's Midland Daily News, along with the League of Women Voters' local voter's guide.

Lynn Baker, 66, of Midland, is retired.

1. What would you say are the main jobs and duties of this position?

The main duty is setting policy for the school district. Most importantly, this includes setting a vision with long and short term goals for the district and holding the district accountable for achieving them. Areas include budget, curriculum, selecting and evaluating the superintendent, facilities, setting salaries and benefits, and being a champion for the school district and community. It is important to have trust, mutual respect, understanding and a shared vision among the board members and superintendent to be able to accomplish the set goals. The vision and goals are revisited and adjusted as necessary over time. In addition to attending board meetings, board members are assigned to one or more study committees which include curriculum, administrative, human resources, finance, facilities, and operations. The committees meet periodically and gather information from various sources and engage in discussion then take the findings to the full board. Another important role is visibility and communication in and with the schools and Midland community. For me it is the best opportunity to hear, see, and understand the successes, challenges and concerns students, staff and community members may have. It would be a privilege to continue in my role as a board member for Midland Public Schools.

2. If elected to this role, how would you accomplish the above duties?

I would accomplish these duties by being a dedicated and effective board member. This includes attending all scheduled board and study committee meetings, reviewing background documents and asking clarifying questions prior to meetings. To be a knowledgeable and effective board member it is extremely important to attend the Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB) classes and conferences. These courses are full of valuable information on many school topics and therefore, I consider it a necessary professional development. I would continue to be actively involved in the schools and community as a volunteer and participant, I volunteer with DIBELS, fifth grade PYP projects, reading as well as attending school performances and games. Knowing and meeting people by being active in the community helps me communicate and understand the needs, desires, accolades, and concerns of our schools.

3. What, if any, changes would you make in this position?

Changes are always necessary in order to evolve as a district; I would like to see increased participation in board professional development and community relations such as in MASB trainings, attending a variety of school activities across the district, and continued communication. It is the best way to become a better board member and know who you are serving.

4. What challenges do you anticipate you will encounter in this role, if elected?

There are several challenges I see our district facing, immediately COVID-19 is our biggest. Responding to the constant changes that it presents requires the board to be at the forefront of the educational, health, and safety response. Facing increased expense for safety protocols, professional development, and instructional technology have had to be incorporated into our yearly budget. Additionally, our district is working on responding to diversity, equity, and inclusion in every aspect of our district. Presently there have been conversations with community members, staff, and the board resulting in a new vision statement and resolution that incorporates into the core values of our district.

Betsy Diegel, 42, of Midland is a college professor and STEM coordinator at Saginaw Valley State University.

1. What would you say are the main jobs and duties of this position?

If elected, my No. 1 job is to be a champion for the district. My family and I love MPS and are entirely committed to providing positive impact within this wonderful community.

More specifically, I will work to accomplish the above by providing strategic leadership and oversight to the district, being fiscally conscientious, communicating and meeting regularly as a board to make collective decisions about policy, enforcing policy, building and maintaining a relationship of trust and respect with the superintendent, and performing a continual assessment of the needs and resources of the district (personnel, buildings, grounds, technology, professional development, buses, food services, etc.).

There has never been a time like the present to commit to the duty of accountability. I will work tirelessly to empower people to be courageous, to step up and have a voice to extinguish racial injustice and intolerable acts and know they are supported.

2. If elected to this role, how would you accomplish the above duties?

Everything I commit to, I put my entire heart and soul into as a parent and educator. My duties to accomplish the above include being visible, accessible, and relatable to MPS teachers, staff, and students by spending time within the district, valuing and respecting every MPS employee and Board member, spending the general fund budget cautiously, and accepting change as quickly as it arises and acting with the best interest of MPS students and families at the forefront. In addition, I will listen, show respect and kindness to everyone, and continually asking questions to ensure clarity to the MPS mission and vision. All decisions made will be student and safety focused. Lastly, I am committed to creating and enacting policy that has consequences when the MPS diversity, equity, and inclusion statements are violated.

3. What, if any, changes would you make in this position?

MPS does things very well. We have exceptional teachers, curriculum choices, and a phenomenal commitment to student achievement. However, we are a school system and community who always strives for more. This is very appealing to me and why I would like to give back to this school district and community upon being elected.

Being an active contributor in the district is essential to this role. It is important for parents to know who MPS Board members are. I enjoy volunteering in the district (curriculum committees, in the classroom, meal distribution during out of school time) and being visible at MPS sporting events and STEM partnerships with SVSU. I would encourage more visibility within the district of the superintendent and administration. I feel it levels the playing field so to speak and promotes a community of engagement and school spirit.

In addition, I would like to work intricately on the creation of a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) dashboard on the MPS website for parents and community members to view key information regarding the district diversity data to enhance intentionality and transparency as a district. Next, look for creative funding sources within our community and beyond to increase resources and professional development opportunities for safety, anti-racism, and cultural inclusion trainings for students and staff. Finally, offer innovative insights through curriculum development work to infuse real life learning experiences into the classroom so students can see themselves being successful beyond graduation (college, technical, trades). I believe this is one measure of focus to closing the achievement gap.

4. What challenges do you anticipate you will encounter in this role, if elected?

We are at such a pivotal point in our educational system as a result of COVID-19 and the social unrest occurring across our country. MPS has done a remarkable job in handling the rapid influx of changes to open our schools again regarding educational delivery and PPE requirements for a safe return to school. I predict it will be challenging, and the board will need a laser point focus on navigating the new normal to ensure our schools remain safe, a continual review of resources such as technology for teaching and learning, counselors and services available for student emotional wellbeing, and cultural awareness training embedded in the curriculum that promotes relevancy, intentionality, and accountability for all. I am confident my skill set, passion, and 16 years of experience working in education can provide immediate contributions to navigating any challenges ahead.

John D. Hatfield, 48, of Midland, is director of marketing communications for The Axia Institute  Michigan State University (Midland).

1. What would you say are the main jobs and duties of this position?

The role of a school board member is to provide guidance on the direction of the Midland Public School district. In addition to helping establish and reinforce the districts mission and vision, a school board members job is to provide guidance and oversight of the superintendent and administrators while overseeing curriculum and regularly interacting with our educators. Members of the school board should also serve as trusted advisors to the schools administration to ensure they are always making decisions in the best interests of our communitys students.

2. If elected to this role, how would you accomplish the above duties?

If elected, I would start by asking questions of incumbent school board members to gain a better understanding of the role to get up-to-speed as quickly as possible. I would also spend time with Superintendent Sharrow and members of the administration to understand their current challenges and where improvement opportunities exist. Finally, Id want to spend time with educators and families to understand their perspectives on MPS.

3. What, if any, changes would you make in this position?

I am very interested in engaging our community in a discussion on educational excellence in our community at MPS. An excellent educational experience must span the entire experience provided by MPS to all students of the district. In my view, an excellent educational experience includes the following:

 Access to world-class teachers and staff.

 Consistency of high quality facilities across the district.

 A safe environment that provides ample support resources for all students.

 Diversity of curriculum including access to robust extracurricular programs.

 A student body who sees no barriers to achieving academic success.

These are important components of educational excellence and I would recommend we begin surveying MPS Stakeholders on their experiences with our school district.

Surveying parents, educators, and students about the MPS experience would provide stakeholders with some important insights into the experience MPS is providing. This data would be valuable, especially when comparing it to the performance of MPS students and would be a good complement to data provided by the state on our Districts performance.

4. What challenges do you anticipate you will encounter in this role, if elected?

There are always challenges when taking on a new role, but if elected to serve on the school board, I look forward to collaborating with other board members, administrators, teachers and families to get up-to-speed so that I can be as effective as possible in this role. Ultimately, I am passionate about education and opportunities for our children. I believe that if elected, I will be able to make positive contributions in our school district.

Kurt D. Yockey, 65, of Midland, is an attorney.

1. What would you say are the main jobs and duties of this position?

 Set policy for the district.

 Assure best possible academic and vocational training.

 Assure actual honesty from the administration.

 Provide novel alternatives for issues.

2. If elected to this role, how would you accomplish the above duties?

Assure all meetings are recorded as important issues have not been broadcast or recorded, for example the meeting where a vote was taken tabling the decision on the Arches proposed for the community stadium. Months later, the superintendent suggested the minutes of the secret meeting should be changed in response to a clear governance problem (administration spent money not specifically approved by the board). Hiding administrative errors and governance errors should be the basis for a review of leadership. It wasnt. See MidlandSchools.com.

Employ a development officer to promote alternate sources of funds for continuous improvement of programs and facilities, surprisingly, there is no such program, only complaining about how much money the state sends to the district. Set up endowment funds through long term fund raising providing positions that are paid through the interest on the donated funds. For example, collect funds to endow a chemistry teachers salary at each high school so the district would have the teachers but would not need to use the general fund to pay those teachers. When was the last time a board member brought an original idea to the board?

3. What, if any, changes would you make in this position?

Assure there are no secret meetings of the board. The superintendent publishes communique each week. I would propose each member of the board should have the opportunity to issue a similar statement each week.

Establish a district committee of residents, students and interested board members to assess the districts physical assets, list needed repairs and suggestions for improvements and request an action plan to address the findings. Such assessments and analysis is clearly missing when one visits the district facilities in spite of the $121 million extra tax the citizens voted upon themselves which resulted in half measures, missed promises and redirected funds outside of what was promised in the run up to the vote on the extra millage.

4. What challenges do you anticipate you will encounter in this role, if elected?

Extensive resistance to these suggestions above from the Administration as they prefer tight fisted rule versus an open and honest administration of the district.

The list of COVID-19 related challenges may not diminish in the near term and heightened attention to cross-contamination issues will require daily focus, hopefully from those with expertise. It is common for our district to rely upon others (see comments about benchmarking) which is administration speak for follow others lead.

Having someone within the district with an actual financial background would be beneficial (see academic backgrounds of district leaders). A business that is given $81 million a year for operations requires greater expertise. The administration has an insufficient background in areas such as insurance which resulted in a partially uninsured loss when the press box burned. Such mistakes are unforced errors that cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars when it should not have.

Board members that ask no questions, offer no solutions, and simply attend meetings to vote yes when asked are not fulfilling the role of an effective, credible, and responsible board. Why be a board member if all you do is rubber stamp administration requests. As a long-term board member recently stated publicly, much of the work is done behind the scenes, in committees. Exactly my point, public education in Midland is no longer public.
BAKU/YEREVAN -- The Prosecutor-General's Office of Azerbaijan said on October 6 that a pipeline has been targeted in fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, an accusation immediately rejected by Armenia.



Rockets were fired at the part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline passing through the Yevlakh region, the prosecutor-general's office said, according to RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service.



The attempt to damage the pipeline, an important component of Europe's energy security, occurred at about 9 p.m. local time on October 6, the office said. It was prevented as a result of measures taken by the Azerbaijani Army, it said, adding that a civilian was killed.



Armenia's Defense Ministry rejected the accusations.



"Azerbaijan's reports of Armenian troops' attempt to strike the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline are outright lies," Armenian Defense Ministry press secretary Shushan Stepanian wrote on her Facebook page. "We have repeatedly said that we do not view oil and gas infrastructure as our target."



Earlier on October 6 there was a barrage of rocket fire on Nagorno-Karabakhs capital, Stepanakert, and a "large-scale attack" by Azerbaijani forces along the southern front, Stepanian said.



Azerbaijan said Armenian forces targeted several of its regions.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev spoke by phone October 6 with Iranian President Hassan Rohani, the president's press service said in a statement. Aliyev told Rohani that 27 Azerbaijani civilians had been killed, more than 170 injured, and more than 900 houses damaged or destroyed in recent fighting.



Rohani expressed his country's concern over the conflict across the entire line of contact separating Armenian and Azerbaijani forces and expressed hope that the conflict would be resolved peacefully as soon as possible.



Aliyev also noted during the call that part of the territory along the Iranian-Azerbaijani border has come under the control of Azerbaijan, and there are plans to deploy Azerbaijani border troops and border infrastructure in the area.



Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on October 6 in an interview with the French AFP news agency that Turkey's "full support" had motivated its ally Azerbaijan to reignite the fighting.



"While it is true that the leadership of Azerbaijan has been actively promoting bellicose rhetoric for the last 15 years, now the decision to unleash a war was motivated by Turkey's full support," Pashinian said.



"Without Turkey's active engagement this war would not have begun," he added, speaking to AFP in the Government House in the heart of Yerevan.



Pashinian, who became prime minister in 2018 after leading protests against the ruling party, condemned Azerbaijan for waging a "terrorist war against a people struggling for their freedom."



He said the current conflict has seen the "active engagement of terrorist groups from the Middle East in the conflict zone," describing the role of Armenian forces as a "counterterrorism operation."

Since fighting erupted on September 27, the two sides have reported at least 240 deaths including dozens of civilians. The actual toll is believed to be much higher as both sides claim to have inflicted heavy military casualties. Each side has accused the other of targeting civilians.



The hostilities have increased concern that a wider conflict could drag in regional power Turkey, which is Azerbaijan's closest ally, and Russia, which has a defense pact with Armenia.



On October 5, Russia, France, and the United States -- the co-chairs of the so-called Minsk Group from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has spearheaded peace efforts over Nagorno-Karabakh since the early 1990s -- reiterated their call for an immediate cease-fire in and around Nagorno-Karabakh.



Brushing off calls for a cease-fire, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met with Aliyev in Baku on October 6, vowing to deepen the country's involvement as it criticized the Minsk Group.



"There should be no doubt that, when needed, we will act like one state. Turkey is Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan is Turkey, Cavusoglu tweeted on October 6.



Cavusoglu said in Baku that any cease-fire proposal was "no different" from previous ones and would not address what he described as violations of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity.



Azerbaijan has demanded that Armenian forces withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding Azerbaijani territories, saying that it would not end military action until its demands are met. Those conditions would be nearly impossible for Armenia to accept.

With reporting by Milliyet, AFP, dpa, Interfax, and Reuters
Firefighters battled a large blaze at an egg factory in Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh on Wednesday.

Footage of large plumes of thick black smoke emerging from the Ready Egg's Factory on Crom Road were posted on social media.

A NIFRS spokesperson said firefighters attended a fire at a large derelict shed at an industrial food factory on Crom Road in Lisnaksea.

Firefighters were called to the scene at 10.58am.

A total of 10 fire appliances attended the scene, including a high volume pumping appliance, two aerial appliances and a water tanker.

Firefighters used three jets to extinguish the fire and the incident was dealt with by 7.35pm.

"The cause of the fire is accidental ignition," the spokesperson confirmed.

First Minister Arlene Foster said the fire was a massive shock to the company and its employees.

"Thankfully there have been no reports of injury and my thoughts are with the company owners, who will clearly be distressed at this incident," the Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA said.

"Furthermore, I pay tribute to the emergency services tackling this blaze."

On Wednesday afternoon, a Ready Egg Products spokesperson said: "Today there was a fire in our empty henhouses on our Lisnaskea site. All staff were evacuated swiftly to safety.

" Due to the efforts of the NIFRS the main production facility was not affected, and production has now recommenced.

"We would like to take this opportunity to thank the NIFRS and the British Red Cross.

" We would also like to thank two local businesses - the Cherrytree Bakery for providing lunch for 100 people on short notice, and to Courtneys Mace who delivered drinks to us, and for all messages of support we have received from the local community, we really appreciate it."
- Ghana has successfully launched its version of the National Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2020

- The initiative was supported by the United States of America as the collaboration between Ghana & the US has yielded some great successes in the cyberspace in recent times

- It is hoped that this initiative will offer protection against malicious actors seeking to exploit vulnerabilities in Ghana

Trending topics on the go: How we write news at YEN.com.gh

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2020 has been duly launched in Ghana under the theme, "Cybersecurity in the era of COVID-19".

Information obtained directly by YEN.com.gh indicates that the intent of the cybersecurity awareness month is to enlist all digital technology users including children, educators, business leaders, government officials and other entities in the collective effort of cybersecurity.

The initiative was a collaborative effort between Ghana and the United States of America, as was confirmed at the event by Mr Christopher Lamora, a representative of the Ambassador of the US to Ghana.

Watch the full session below:

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month launched in Ghana to ensure protection online Source: YEN.com.gh

Source: UGC

According to Mr Lamora, the cooperation between the US and Ghana on cybersecurity and cybercrime has already yielded some high successes including the arrest of the operators of empress leak website and the disruption of a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme.

The Minister for Gender and Social Protection and MP for Agona West, Hon Cynthia Mamle Morrison, the Deputy Minister for Communications, Alexander KK Abban, among other prominent individuals, threw their weights behind the grand launch.

Businesses, governments and private citizens around the world have come to depend on an internet that is open, interoperable, secure and reliable, and it is hoped that this initiative will offer protection against malicious actors seeking to exploit vulnerabilities in Ghana.

Watch a snippet of the event in the video below:

In a separate report by YEN.com.gh, a Ghanaian professional named Joel E. Nettey has been appointed as the world president and chairman of the renowned International Advertising Association (IAA).

According to reports sighted by YEN.com.gh on myjoyonline.com and 3news.com, Joel Nettey has become the very first African to hold the highly coveted position.

Srinivasan Swamy, the former world president, handed over the baton to Joel at a world board meeting of the IAA held virtually on October 5, 2020.

Enjoy reading our stories? Download YEN's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Ghana news!

"Life has been better for me since I exited the Shatta Movement Camp" Addi Self | #Yencomgh

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Source: YEN.com.gh
(Natural News) Waves of garbage have washed up on the shores of a small Honduran town, affecting wildlife and the local economy thats mostly dependent on the towns pristine beaches to draw up tourists.

Officials said enormous islands of trash appeared on the coast of Omoa in northern Honduras on Sept. 19. According to the Voice of America, the trash consisted mostly of plastic and came from the Motagua River in neighboring Guatemala, a major waterway perennially emptying refuse in the Caribbean Sea.

The local government immediately organized a clean-up drive, but trash kept washing ashore, reported EuroNews. Meanwhile, environmental officials called on to the countrys capital, Tegucigalpa, to take action.

We are committed to cleaning our beaches and keeping them clean, said environmental official Lilian Rivera, but today we are demanding that authorities in Tegucigalpa take strong actions, actions to find a permanent solution to this problem.

According to the Voice of America, the Honduran government already sent a complaint to Guatemala to stem the tide of plastic.

Motagua waste pollutes the Caribbean

Footage taken by journalist Orlin Martinez shows garbage bobbing up and down right where seawater meets the sand. He said that the trash could not have come worse as the local community already took a bad hit from the pandemic. Volunteers and members of the Honduran armed forces quickly went to work cleaning up the garbage and cleared the beach by the evening of Sept. 20. But Martinez said that trash kept drifting ashore.

Earlier this month, Guatemala warned Honduras that waste protection facilities on the Motagua stopped working properly due to heavy rainfall and would not be able to hedge garbage from the Caribbean. But the problem dates way back. The Intercept reported in 2019 that the refuse flowing from the Motagua is an ongoing problem for the Caribbean coasts. The river is fed daily by refuse that is not handled well, as Guatemalas disposal sites are not properly managed while public water treatment plants are virtually lacking. As a result, industrial waste, domestic refuse and agricultural runoff are all flushed and fed into an ever-present island of ocean trash at the rivers mouth, opening into the sea and washing onto the Mesoamerican reef, home to diverse species of marine animals.

In 2017, Honduras threatened Guatemala with a lawsuit over the latters poor handling of the Motagua. The move led to the installation of a bio-fence, an artificial barrier made of plastic bottles stacked on top of each other and held together by a plastic net. It was overseen by locals living near the area.

When its full, you can practically walk on it, Marco Dubon told the Intercept. Dubon leads a group of residents tasked to clear the makeshift barrier when it has caught enough trash.

4ocean, an apparel company dedicated to making bracelets out of recycled materials, announced earlier this year that it would be expanding its cleanup operations to Guatemala. The company recently set up a base in the coastal city of Puerto Barrios, a prime location near some of the countrys most polluted rivers and bays. Besides cleaning up trash, it will also build modern containment barriers and use the plastic it collected to create products.

These efforts could go a long way toward minimizing plastic pollution, especially as plastic is one of the worlds major water pollutants. A recent study found that around 11 million metric tons of plastic enter marine environments every year. That number may increase to 29 million metric tons by 2040 if no action is taken, warned the researchers. (Related: Mystery: Scientists find plastic garbage at 88% of ocean sites, but only 1% of the trash is accounted for.)

OceanHealthNews.com has more on the top rivers polluting the worlds oceans.

Sources include:

EcoWatch.com

EuroNews.com

RT.com

TheIntercept.com

OceanographicMagazine.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-08 00:25:12|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Another 14,162 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 544,275, according to official figures released Wednesday.

The coronavirus-related deaths rose by 70 to 42,515, the latest data showed.

Pressure is mounting on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to consider tighter restriction measures as the country continues to see a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases, local media reported Wednesday.

At Prime Minister's Questions at the House of Commons (lower house of parliament) on Wednesday, Johnson hinted that tougher measures could be needed in London and the Midlands as the main opposition Labour party leader Keir Starmer suggested 19 of the 20 areas subjected to local measures for two months had seen infection rates increase.

"I wish I could pretend that everything was going to be rosy in the Midlands or indeed in London where, alas, we are also seeing infections rise," Johnson said, adding that a "concerted national effort" is needed to tackle the pandemic.

Also on Wednesday, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced to further strengthen the restriction measures to fight the rising coronavirus cases in the region.

Under the new measures, all pubs and restaurants across central Scotland are to be closed from 6:00 p.m. BST (1700 GMT) on Friday until Oct. 25.

The restrictions for the central belt cover about 3.4 million people living in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Forth Valley, Lothian and Ayrshire and Arran health board areas.

In these areas, all licensed premises -- with the exception of hotels for residents -- will be required to close indoors and outdoors, although takeaways will be permitted.

The latest move came as Scotland recorded more than 1,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases in a single day for the first time, although the enhanced testing capacity means more cases could be detected than at the height of the pandemic earlier in the year.

Johnson has previously warned that Britain's fight against coronavirus pandemic may be "bumpy through to Christmas" as the country continues to see a sharp rise in infections.

To bring life back to normal, countries, such as Britain, China, Russia and the United States, are racing against time to develop coronavirus vaccines.

The British government's Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance has said that it is possible that some vaccine could be available in small amounts later this year, but it is more likely that a vaccine will be available early next year, although that is not guaranteed. Enditem
Red dresses lined the trail in Millennium Park in Peterborough on Oct. 4 to honour and remember Missing Murdered Women and Girls (MMIWG) in the province and country.

Sponsored by Lovesick Lake Native Womens Association and Kawartha Lakes Sexual Assault Centre, about 15 people stood in the rain to hear womens hand drummers dedicated songs to MMIWG.

We love you Cileana was written on large art canvas dedicated to MMIWG.

Cileana Taylor, a 20 year old Indigenous woman from Curve Lake First Nation, is in hospital fighting for her life after suffering a head injury allegedly caused by her boyfriend.

There are 231 calls to justice in governments, institutions, social services providers, industries, according to the final report on MMIWG, which was released in 2019. So far, zero calls of justice have been implemented according to the final report that consists of stories from more than 2,300 family members from across country.

The report also found persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind Canadas staggering rates of violence against Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people.

Nicole Mascherin, president of Lovesick Lake Native Womens Association, says holding a vigil is an important cause and MMIWG cannot be forgotten.

The dresses lined up along the trail is a beautiful tribute.
If past is prologue, a proposal from U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell seeking 34 states to force a Constitutional Convention to consider congressional term limits may be as unlikely as the partners who put out the call for it Tuesday.

Just one day after Toomey, a soft spoken, patrician Republican conservative, announced he would not seek a third term in the Senate or run for governor in 2022, he and Ed Rendell, an outspoken Democrat and former big city mayor, who served two terms in the governors office, issued a joint statement supporting a constitutional amendment to establish congressional terms limits.

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey Sarah Cassi | For lehighvalleylive.com/fileSarah Cassi | For lehighvalleylive.com

Then, in an opinion piece first published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, they went one step farther and described a pathway to force consideration of a measure that they conceded would never get through Congress on its own.

Their suggestion: that Pennsylvania and 33 other states file resolutions seeking a limited Constitutional Convention to consider congressional term limits.

Although the Constitution has been amended repeatedly through Congress, it has never been changed through the alternative state method outlined in the Constitution.

Toomey, who will be leaving after three terms in the U.S. House and two in the Senate, has long supported term limits. He previously co-sponsored an unsuccessful bill in 2015 to limit congressional service to three terms in the House and two in the Senate.

Former Gov. Ed Rendell (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, 2019) AP

Rendell and Toomey said they share many of the same frustrations with an entrenched Congress and seek to solve problems through government.

To that end, we believe the time has come for big, structural change in how Washington, D.C. does business. Congressional term limits, more than any other change, would do a world of good to restore the trust many people have lost in our leaders, they wrote.

We arent alone in feeling this way, Toomey and Rendell continued. "A 2020 poll showed that four in every five Pennsylvania voters  regardless of party affiliation  favor term limits on members of Congress.

Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat who served 2009-2015, offered similar sentiments when he he penned a column for The Hill in August endorsing Congressional term limits.

Quinn said term limits would deliver a more balance and accessible Congress and end the huge fundraising advantages that help incumbents return to Washington time after time.

They stop incumbents from growing too unbeatable and keep Congress from becoming an aristocracy, Quinn wrote, in his call for Congressional term limits.

Joseph DiSarro, chairman of the political science department at Washington & Jefferson College, said the only time any measure came close to forcing a Constitutional Convention through the state pathway was when Sen. Everett Dirksen, a powerful Illinois Republican, encouraged an effort in 1964 to consider the so-called Dirksen Amendment to overturn a Supreme Court decision that forced states to adhere to the one man-one vote standard when reapportioning all state legislative districts. The campaign eventually landed support from 33 states, one state short of the 34 needed to force a convention, DiSarro said.

DiSarro agreed with the call for term limits. He said it could well improve Congress and return the legislative branch to the kind of citizen legislators the framers imagined.

But he said its unlikely the Toomey-Rendell proposal carries the kind of weight that would be necessary to push their plan to fruition.

By Deb Erdley, Tribune-Review, Greensburg, Pa. (TNS)

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The Bombay high court on Wednesday granted bail to actor Rhea Chakraborty in a drugs case related to her boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput's death.

IMAGE: Rhea Chakraborty leaves after she was granted bail by Bombay high court in a drug case linked to late actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death, in Mumbai. Photograph: Mitesh Bhuvad/PTI Photo

The court rejected the argument that celebrities deserve specially harsh treatment in such cases so as to 'send out a message'.

After spending 28 days in jail, Rhea stepped out of the Byculla women's prison around 5.30 pm amid a scrum of mediapersons.

While granting her bail on a personal bond of Rs one lakh, the court asked the actor to appear before the Mumbai police for 10 days and before the Narcotics Control Bureau (which had arrested her) once a month for the next six months.

Justice Sarang Kotwal of the HC also granted bail to Rajput's domestic aides Dipesh Sawant and Samuel Miranda, but rejected the bail plea of Rhea' brother Showik Chakraborty.

The court also rejected the bail plea of alleged drug peddler Abdel Basit Parihar.

The HC observed in its order that Rhea did not have any criminal antecedents, and it was unlikely that she would tamper with evidence or affect the probe while out on bail.



Rhea, however, can't leave Mumbai without the NCB's permission and for traveling outside the country, she will need permission from the special NDPS court here, the HC said.

SEE: Rhea released from Byculla jail
Guinean President Alpha Conde, whose controversial plan to seek a third term in October 18 polls has sparked deadly protests, said Tuesday he would honour the outcome of the vote in the poor West African state.

"It's extraordinary that I should be seen as an anti-democratic dictator," Conde said in an interview with French news outlets France 24 and RFI.

"I fought for 45 years, I was in the opposition," said the 82-year-old, who pushed through a constitutional referendum this year which reset the two-term presidential limit to zero.

"My adversaries are civil servants who became prime ministers after bringing the country to its knees," he said, brushing away suggestions that he wants to become "president for life".

Asked whether he would accept the result, he replied: "I am a democrat."

A former opposition activist, Conde became Guinea's first democratically elected president in 2010 after decades of authoritarian rule in the former French colony. He won re-election five years later.

Today, rights groups accuse him of veering towards authoritarianism.

Protests against Conde's suspected ambition to stay in power that began in October 2019 have been severely repressed in the country of some 13 million people.

Last week, Amnesty International said in a report that at least 50 people were killed in the crackdown through July this year and criticised the government for failing to hold the security forces accountable.

"I don't take Amnesty International seriously," Conde told the French media. "They do biased investigations, one-sided reports."

Conde also brushed aside accusations of fomenting ethnic divides and of having referred to the presidential campaign as a "war".

Guinea's politics are mostly drawn along ethnic lines, Conde's party largely backed by the Malinke people and main challenger Cellou Dalein Diallo's UFDG by the Fulani -- although both insist they are pluralist.

"I have always said that the political fight is a competition, and that people should choose according to (the candidates') platforms," he said.
Cleaning sensation Mrs Hinch has headed straight to the top spot in UK official book charts, selling 91,389 copies of her new title on its first week on sale.

This is Me has become the biggest single-week seller of any title this year to date.

It comes after the Essex-based influencer's first book, Hinch Yourself Happy, became the second fastest selling non-fiction book of all time.

Unlike her earlier books, which are self-help guides, the latest offering from the Essex-based 30-year-old is said to be a 'heart-wrenching' memoir.

Cleaning sensation Mrs Hinch has swept her competition away by heading straight to the top spot in UK Official book charts. The Essex-based influencer, real name Sophie Hinchcliffe sold 91,389 copies of her new book This is Me, on it's first week on sale

Earlier this year, the influencer whose real name is Sophie Hinchcliffe, saw her second book Mrs Hinch: Little Books of Lists also go straight to the top of the charts.

While her first self-help guide hit the charts in April 2019, with 160,302 copies sold in its launch week.

Her new memoir released on October 1, is said to be an 'extraordinarily candid memoir' in which fans can discover the true story of the real Sophie Hinchliffe for the very first time

Also in the Basildon-born influencer's roster is Mrs Hinch: The Activity Journal.

Her new memoir released on October 1, is said to be an 'extraordinarily candid ' in which fans can discover the true story of the real Sophie Hinchliffe for the very first time.

Sophie started posting about her cleaning routines on social media after discovering that cleaning with a mop and bucket or cloths and disinfectant helped to calm her anxiety, and she now boasts 3.8 million followers.

Taking to her Instagram ahead of the release last week Sophie wrote: 'My followers deserve a bit of what you're asking for, which is me as Sophie and the life behind Mrs Hinch, so I've been working on my very own memoir to be able to put everything: the amazing highs but also the lows that have come with becoming Mrs Hinch.

'I don't address much on my stories purely because I don't want to burden you with it, but it seems like now is the best time.'

She continued: 'My very own memoir! Thank you Penguin for allowing me the opportunity to put everything into one place: the good, the bad, the amazingness and some of the dark lows which have come with this journey. But most of all I hope it answers everything that you have been asking me for This is me!'

Unsurprisingly, the news of her upcoming memoir was met with much delight by fans. This included Stacey Solomon, who congratulated her close friend on her own Instagram Story by writing: 'Finally the news is out! Congratulations bubs, it's going to be amazing!'

Speaking recently to You Magazine about the new book, Sophie said: 'This book isnt about dust-busting, its myth-busting'.

Writing it, with the help of a ghostwriter, was, she says, like therapy. It was so good to open up, even though it was difficult. Often my life seems like a dream thats happening to someone else, so to tell the truth on my terms was amazing.

The book is also top of the Amazon charts, beating out The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse, Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club and Jamie Oliver's 7 Ways: Easy Ideas for Every Day of the Week.
Shipments made to seven distribution partners in Germany

German operations and growing sales by Focus Medical create inflection point to positive adjusted EBITDA profitability beginning in September 2020

IMC Netherlands has submitted its application to the Dutch government's controlled cannabis supply chain experiment

* Currency is in CAD$ unless specified otherwise

TORONTO, ON and GLIL YAM, ISRAEL and BAD OLDESLOE, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / IM Cannabis Corp. (the "Company" or "IMC") (CSE:IMCC), a multi-country operator in the medical cannabis sector with operations in Israel and across Europe, is pleased to provide an update on its international operations.

"Our pace of execution gained significant momentum in the third quarter. Our distribution platforms in both Israel and Germany are fully established. In Israel, we are seeing rapid growth in deliveries of IMC-branded products by Focus Medical under its pharmacy sales agreements. In Germany, we have begun delivering under our binding distribution agreements and are seeing IMC-branded medical cannabis in pharmacies across the country. Now that we have made the necessary investments in our infrastructure, we expect shareholders will see the financial results of our long-term value creation strategy having reached adjusted EBITDA profitability in September 2020," said Oren Shuster, CEO of IMC.

Growing German Platform with IMC Brand Launch

Adjupharm GmbH ("Adjupharm") made significant progress building its German distribution channels during the third quarter of 2020. Adjupharm added seven distribution partners to distribute and sell IMC-branded products to German pharmacies. In order to fulfill demand from its distribution partners, Adjupharm has begun importing medical cannabis from its EU-GMP supply partner.

Adjupharm delivered its first shipment of IMC-branded medical cannabis to a distribution partner in September. To date, Adjupharm has now made shipments to seven of its ten distribution partners. IMC-branded products are available across Germany to pharmacies licensed to sell narcotics, and the Adjupharm sales team and call center are rapidly developing a physician education program.

Through Adjupharm, IMC currently has binding commitments for the sale and delivery of a total of 1,615kg of medical cannabis in Germany under the IMC brand to its ten distribution partners.

IMC Netherlands Established to Expand International Operation

IMC recently established with a local Dutch partner, IMC- Holland B.V. ("IMC Netherlands") and submitted its application to participate in the Dutch government's controlled cannabis supply chain experiment. IMC Netherlands is 60%-owned by IMC, with the remaining 40% owned by a group of four individuals with expertise in the Dutch cannabis market.

Between July 1, 2020 and July 28, 2020, the Dutch government accepted applications from cannabis growers to participate in a controlled supply chain experiment. Between five to ten growers will be selected by the Dutch Minister of Healthcare and the Minister of Justice and Security. Successful applicants will become the exclusive cannabis suppliers to all the coffee shops in the ten Dutch municipalities participating in the experiment. The first phase of the experiment will last four years.

IMC has submitted its application through IMC Netherlands and has received confirmation that its application has been properly submitted. The application proposes a facility that will produce 4,500kg of cannabis annually, with final products including flower, hash and pre-rolls. Successful applicants are expected to be announced within six months.

Executing in Israel

In the third quarter of 2020, Focus Medical Herbs Ltd. ("Focus Medical") signed a supply agreement with Ever Green Solomon Pharma Ltd ("Ever Green") to purchase all of the medical cannabis produced by Ever Green for a period of five years with an option for Focus Medical to extend the term an additional five years, for a total potential term of up to ten years. With this agreement, Focus Medical has secured the supply necessary to fulfill its delivery obligations under its pharmacy sales agreements.

The Israeli market continues to grow rapidly. Data recently published by the Israeli Medical Cannabis Association indicates that there are currently over 71,000 medical cannabis patients in Israel, which represents over 100% growth in the last two years. The Israeli market is unique in that black market prices are higher than medical cannabis prices with a prescription, driving demand for medical use of cannabis.

Financial Trajectory Rising Rapidly

With the launch of sales and an expected acceleration in Adjupharm's shipments to distribution partners in Germany, as well as increased shipments by Focus Medical to its pharmacy customers, IMC reached an inflection point to adjusted EBITDA profitability in September 2020. Investments into the operating infrastructure in Germany, including sales, marketing, and personnel, were the primary drivers of the adjusted EBITDA loss. With Germany now generating contribution margin and rising revenue in Israel, the Company has achieved profitability as measured by adjusted EBITDA, in line with Company targets.

As of September 30, 2020, IMC had a cash balance of approximately $10.0 million, and no debt.

About IM Cannabis Corp.

IMC (CSE: IMCC) is a multi-country operator (MCO) in the medical cannabis sector headquartered in Israel and with operations across Europe. Over the past decade, IMC has built its brand as a provider of premium medical cannabis products in the Israeli market. The Company has also expanded its business to offer intellectual property related services to the medical cannabis industry based on proprietary processes and technologies it developed for the production of medical cannabis.

In Europe, IMC operates through a German-based subsidiary and EU-GMP certified medical cannabis distributor - Adjupharm. IMC's European presence is also augmented by strategic alliances with various pan-European EU-GMP cultivators and distributors with the objective of capitalizing on the increased demand for medical cannabis products and bringing the IMC brand and its product portfolio to European patients.

As one of the world's medical cannabis pioneers, IMC partners with renowned academic institutions and scientists as well as allocates resources and investments for the development of innovative technologies to improve the lives and medical cannabis therapies outcomes of patients around the world.

Forward-Looking Information and Non-IFRS Measures

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "likely" and "intend" and statements that an event or result "may", "will", "should", "could" or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions. Forward-looking information in this press release includes statements relating to the expected delivery volumes under all previously announced pharmacy sales and distributions agreements in Germany and Israel, the expected timing of the application process for the Dutch government's controlled cannabis supply chain experiment and the expectation of reaching profitability as measured by adjusted EBITDA.

Forward-looking information is based on assumptions that may prove to be incorrect, including but not limited to the ability of the Company to execute its business plan, the continued growth of the medical cannabis market in the countries in which the Company operates or intends to operate, the Company maintaining "de facto" control over Focus Medical Herbs Ltd. ("Focus Medical") in accordance with IFRS 10, Focus Medical maintaining its existing Israeli cultivation license and the expected decriminalization of cannabis in Israel. The Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable in the circumstances. However, forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Such risks include, without limitation: the ability of the Company to comply with applicable government regulations in a highly regulated industry; unexpected changes in governmental policies and regulations affecting the production, distribution, manufacture or use of medical cannabis in Israel, Germany, Portugal, Greece or any other foreign jurisdictions in which the Company operates or intends to operate; any failure of the Company to maintain "de facto" control over Focus Medical in accordance with IFRS 10; the Company and Focus Medical having to rely on third party cannabis producers to supply the Company and Focus Medical with product to successfully fulfill previously announced sales agreements and purchase commitments; the risk that regulatory authorities in Israel may view the Company as the deemed owner of more than 5% of Focus Medical in contravention to Israeli rules restricting the ownership of Israeli cannabis cultivators and thereby jeopardizing Focus Medical's cannabis cultivation license; unexpected disruptions to the operations and businesses of the Company and/or Focus Medical as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic or other disease outbreaks including in the event that Focus Medical were to lose its designation as an essential service in the State of Israel during the current COVID-19 outbreak; any unexpected failure of Focus Medical to renew its cultivation license with the Israeli Ministry of Health; reliance on management; inconsistent public opinion and perception regarding the use of cannabis; engaging in activities considered illegal under US federal law; political instability and conflict in the Middle East; adverse market conditions; the inherent uncertainty of production and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses; currency fluctuations; competition; and loss of key management and/or employees.

This news release includes reference to "gross margin" and "adjusted EBITDA", which are non-International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS") financial measures. Non-IFRS measures are not recognized measures under IFRS, do not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS and are therefore unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. The Company defines gross margin as the difference between revenue and cost of goods sold divided by revenue (expressed as a percentage), prior to the effect of a fair value adjustment for inventory and biological assets. The most directly comparable IFRS measure presented by the Company in its financial statements would be gross profit before fair value adjustments divided by revenue. The Company defines EBITDA as income earned or lost from its consolidated operations including Adjupharm, as reported, before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA is defined as EBITDA adjusted by removing other non-recurring or non-cash items, including the unrealized change in fair value of biological assets, realized fair value adjustments on inventory sold in the period, share-based compensation expenses, revaluation adjustments of financial assets and liabilities measured on a fair value basis. EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA have no direct comparable IFRS financial measures. The Company has used or included these non-IFRS measures solely to provide investors with added insight into IMC's financial performance. Readers are cautioned that such non-IFRS measure may not be appropriate for any other purpose. Non-IFRS measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS.

The forward-looking information contained herein are current as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, the Company does not have any obligation to advise any person if it becomes aware of any inaccuracy in or omission from any forward-looking information, nor does it intend, or assume any obligation, to update or revise such forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances. Any and all forward-looking information included in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement, and except as otherwise indicated, are made as of the date of this press release.

For more information:

Oren Shuster

Chief Executive Officer

+972-77-3603504

info@imcannabis.com

Marc Charbin

Investor Relations

+1 416-467-5229

investors@imcannabis.com

Gal Wilder

Media Relations

+1 647-259-3261

gal.wilder@cohnwolfe.ca

SOURCE: IM Cannabis Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609544/IM-Cannabis-Accelerates-Sales-in-Germany-Reaching-Adjusted-EBITDA-Profitability
Grade Four pupils in class at Nyamachaki Primary School in Nyeri on October 12, 2020.

There will be no mandatory testing for teachers and learners before the reopening of schools despite the rise in Covid-19 cases in rural counties.

As teachers' unions yesterday urged the government to release the school calendar, Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang said reopening plans were progressing well but the ministry would not supply testing kits because it would be too expensive.

"We need over 17 million testing kits. We have over 15 million pupils in primary Schools, 160,000 in teachers training colleges and technical institutions, and over 400,000 teachers. It will be impossible to take all of them through physical testing, but normal screening using a thermo-gun will be done daily," said Dr Kipsang in Narok.

He said most teacher training colleges had put in place crucial Covid-19 infrastructure before resumption of classes. "I have been in Narok TTC three times in one month and I am happy to see that the administrators have ensured there is a steady supply of water in all buildings," said Dr Kipsang. "They must also pair with a medical institution in their locality in case of any emergency for speedy containment measures."

School calendar

In Nairobi, though the two rival unions staged parallel meetings to mark the World Teachers' Day, their leaders roundly condemned the government for mistreating tutors and poor handling of the return-to-class plans.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) asked the ministry to release the school calendar while the Kenya Post Primary Teachers Union (Kuppet) said children should be back in class as soon as possible.

Knut Secretary-General Wilson Sossion blamed his union's financial woes on the government. "Knut is financially crippled as it has been deprived of resources and cannot meet most of its financial obligations," he said.

Due to the bad relationship between the union and the Teachers' Service Commission (TSC), Knut saw its membership drop from 187, 471 in June last year to 45,217 in September. The drop also saw the union deductions drop from Sh144 million in June to Sh32.9 million.

Mr Sossion also urged the TSC to stop dividing teachers and instead promote those who had obtained higher qualifications. "We cannot achieve our goals if the employer is not supporting us; teachers who have obtained degrees and diplomas should be rewarded for their effort.

International treaty

"The commission is obligated to strictly observe and respect the teaching profession and fundamental labour principles and rights of teachers as enshrined in the Code of regulations for teachers, CBA, TSC act 2012, labour relations Act 2007, the constitution and the international treaty," said Mr Sossion

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Knut chairman Wycliffe Etole Omucheyi added: "The employer should support us. We are concerned with the attitude and behaviour of the TSC."

Kuppet urged the TSC to allocate more funds for recruitment of tutors to deal with the acute shortage in the country. "The government should allocate more funds for recruitment of teachers to cater for the increased number of classes and workload," said Kuppet Secretary-General Akelo Misori in Nairobi.

To cope with the new normal, schools need at least 150,000 new teachers, he said. The country needs 103,481 teachers, according to TSC chief executive Nancy Macharia. Kuppet chairman Omboko Milemba said the union is ready to start negotiations on the 2021-2025 CBA with TSC.

Google country director Agnes Gathaiya said the tech giant is developing digital platforms which tutors could use to teach across the world. "Through Google digital platforms, teachers will be able to come up with various innovations," she said.

Education CAS Zack Kinuthia lauded teachers for their vital contribution to the society. "Our teachers are now earning better salaries alongside promotions based on merit which was not the case," he said.
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The life of an actor isn't always glamorous. But that may be especially true during a pandemic.

The new NBC sitcom Connecting... was shot remotely at the actors' homes across Los Angeles, with cast members serving as their own crew. That let them start shooting earlier than other productions, filming in August and September.

Among the stars are 30 Rock's Keith Powell and his wife Jill Knox.

"Jill and I have to do so much work before we even begin acting," Powell told LAist, referencing the work that goes into setting up the shots (and pretty much everything else) themselves.

They've even created their own alter egos, which have earned a place on the call sheet: Keith is also Francois, the person who sets up the camera, the lights, and the sound. And Jill is Colette, who manages the production design, art direction, props, and location scouting.

Wait, what is location scouting when you're remote shooting from home? Picking the right room in your own house, of course.

Jill Knox as Michelle in Connecting. (Keith Powell for NBC)

"We have probably the biggest home of the cast, and they really use every inch of it," Knox told LAist.

The show, built around a group of friends staying connected through video calls, has what could be considered a gimmick at its center. But it also goes beyond that, tackling some of the real issues that have plagued all of us since COVID-19 first led to stay-at-home orders.

And filming your own scenes yourself, at home, can be just as isolating -- no sets, no trailers, no chatting over craft services.

Powell and Knox, being married, are the only two actors who get to film their scenes in the same room with one another, which Knox said made a huge difference.

The unique filming setup means none of the actors can actually look at each other while they film; they're only hearing each other's voices.

"We have a Zoom camera, and we have a shooting camera, and we can hear what they're saying, but we have to act and focus into the camera lens," Knox said. "So we're doing all of these incredibly emotional scenes looking at a black dot."

THEIR FICTIONAL DOPPLEGANGERS

In Connecting, Powell and Knox play married couple Garrett and Michelle. The role was close enough to their real lives that Knox said she felt like the parts were written for them. One part of their lives that matches the new characters: Powell is the chef in the family, constantly cooking meals for the two of them.

"He cooks for me, he cooks for my girlfriends," Knox said. "We have Sunday night dinners at our house, where everyone comes."

Along with acting, Knox is also a visual artist who recently finished working on a fundraiser for charities that benefit Black lives.

"Then when I read the script, it was talking about how Garrett is this phenomenal cook, and how I was selling masks for essential workers," Knox said. "Does the showrunner follow us on Instagram?" Knox joked.

The show also features the friends longing for the return of the family dinners Garrett and Michelle once hosted, watching them eat their delicious meals sadly over Zoom.

THEIR PROTOTYPE

Keith Broke His Leg / BALLER from Keith Powell on Vimeo.

Powell previously created web series Keith Powell Directs a Play and Keith Broke His Leg, which he wrote, produced, and directed. He's also directed an episode of Superstore and several short films.

That producing and directing experience came in handy here, helping the technical side of the job go faster. Powell and Knox's first time acting together as a fictionalized version of their real selves -- they did the same thing in Keith Broke His Leg.

"I feel like there would be no Michelle and Garrett on Connecting without Keith and Jill, the characters on Keith Broke His Leg," Powell said. "We learned how to work from home and how to work with each other during that process, and it actually made us fall in love with the process of working together."

Powell had previously been developing Keith Broke His Leg as a TV series, and the line producer of Connecting thought of them for the new show because of her familiarity with that project.

"Most actor couples don't have the opportunity to act together very often," Knox said. "And so the fact that we did that, it feels like riding a bike doing Connecting."

Like his previous work, Connecting tackles serious issues. The new show's topics range from strained domestic life under quarantine to Black Lives Matter protests.

"I'm thrilled that we've been able to address [these issues] in ways that I didn't think we would be able to on network television," Knox said. "If somebody feels like this could be worded better to really reflect my experience as this person, as this body, as this black female body, this trans body, they're so open to those conversations." (Their co-star Shakina Nayfack is trans.)

"I feel heard, and I feel seen," Powell said. "I've been a professional actor for 21 years, and this industry has not always been kind to smart, young Black men. And there is so much stereotyping, and so much people wanting to put you into a box of their own making, because it feels easier for them. And it's safer for them."

Powell said that while he's considered a "successful" actor, there were years of unemployment because he wasn't being seen or heard for who he is as a human being.

"As a performer, I was being put into a box that someone else made for me," Powell said. "And it's been really frustrating, and hard, and discouraging. And finally to get a role where I am seen, has made me look at the industry, and humanity, in a different way."

"I get to actually be a Black person on this show, instead of having directors [deciding] maybe I look Latino today," Knox said. "When I got out of grad school I just always got that, 'Hmmm, you're just not Black enough' face. And in this [show], there's no question of whether I'm Black or not. And it's f---ing liberating."

WHAT THE 2020 VERSION OF FRIENDS LOOKS LIKE

While the cast is diverse, the characters' storylines aren't centered around their diversity. Powell said that for that reason, it makes the show feel like a modern version of an NBC classic.

"This show is Friends, the 2020 version. But it's now the way that friends really have always been, which are a diverse body of people, all coming together and having a commonality of the human experience," Powell said. "I'm happy that at 8 p.m., America can watch a show that has primarily minorities on it be human and relatable," Powell said.

One of the first episodes closes with the group watching the George Floyd video together (virtually), its impact reflected differently based on their own backgrounds -- including the way the video hits Garrett and Michelle as a Black couple..

Powell also appeared on Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom, which tried to tackle current issues in a whole different way.

"What I feel like The Newsroom was trying to achieve was trying to re-litigate matters that had already been settled, and what I feel like is so beautiful about this show is it speaks very much to the now," Powell said. "What I love about the show is that it deals with all of these tough things that we are all going through in this country so beautifully, and so gently, and with humor, and heart, and accessibility, that it's a show that can only happen now."

WORKING FROM HOME

Powell expressed mixed feelings about the coronavirus realities that created the situation for this show, including sadness about those who've lost their jobs and the many Americans suffering right now.

"I do want to be back out into the world, I do want to travel for work, I do want to go to sets and not have tons of very expensive equipment taking up all of the space in my dining room," Powell said. "But there is something really quite wonderful about working from home, when we have a one-and-a-half-year-old toddler. So being able to work here, with her in the background basically, is kind of a blessing that I didn't ever think we'd be able to do."

Knox is also happy staying home, for now.

"I am not someone at this present time who is champing at the bit to go back to any sort of in-person anything," Knox said. "We're not hosting anybody in the dining room, so let that be the storage area."

She's on the faculty of Pomona College, where she teaches acting -- but had told the school that if they wanted to go back to in-person teaching this fall, she wouldn't do it.

Powell said he wishes there was a way for the economy to bounce back and people to go back to work, but where they could still have that opportunity to work from home.

"Grey's Anatomy, they can't perform surgery on the kitchen counter? Come on!" Knox joked.

And if all goes well, Knox hopes they'll be doing more episodes -- maybe about what happens after the election.

Connecting... premieres Thursday night at 8 p.m. on NBC.
In April, almost every Philadelphia hospital set up portable medical tents to help screen and test the flood of coronavirus patients. These tents were outside the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) emergency room. Area hospitals are now largely back to normal, but are seeing an uptick in admissions for COVID-19. (Elizabeth Robertson/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS) Read more

It cant be called a spike, or a surge, or even a resurgence, but hospitals in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware are starting to see an uptick in COVID-19 admissions, a delayed ripple effect of increases in daily cases in the region.

Data from the states show that neither cases nor hospitalizations are anywhere near the levels reached in the spring, when the region was reeling from the first devastating wave of the pandemic. Currently, hospitals still have plenty of capacity.

But since the end of August, the average number of new coronavirus cases reported each day nearly doubled in Pennsylvania and almost tripled in New Jersey. Compared with a month ago, average new cases a day have jumped by more than 400 in Pennsylvania, surpassing 1,000 per day last week, and increased by nearly 340 in New Jersey to more than 650, according to an Inquirer analysis of New York Times case data.

This new wave of cases is driven largely by young people, particularly college students, an age group that generally does not get sick enough to need hospitalization.

Even so, the impact is being felt at hospitals, based on state data. Pennsylvania currently has an average of about 600 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, about 200 more than two weeks ago. New Jersey, which has had a steady decline for months, currently has almost 600 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, up from about 450 in late September. Delaware has about 90 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, up from about 70 in late September.

Philadelphia hospitals have not seen an uptick in hospitalizations  at least, not yet, city health department data show.


SEATTLE (dpa-AFX) - Amazon.com has rolled out the eero hardware and software tools for internet service providers (ISPs) that will help to improve customer retention for ISPs and enhance the customer home Wi-Fi experience. Until now, eero solutions were sold directly to consumers.



eero will be available for initial release in the U.S. and Canada beginning this November, with additional feature releases in December and throughout 2021. eero is already partnering ISPs across North America, Latin America, Europe and Australia.



eero, an Amazon company, has introduced eero for Service Providers to deliver faster speeds, increase the home users internet efficiency, and reduce network congestion. Amazon acquired eero in March 2019. eero is the provider of first mesh home Wi-Fi system, which blankets any home in secure Wi-Fi.



eero uses multiple access points that work together as a mesh system to blanket a home in Wi-Fi. Customers can customize an eero system to meet the needs of their home, delivering the bandwidth all connected devices need. eero also communicates with the cloud to receive instructions and updates.



The eero hardware and software offerings is aimed to help the ISP to provide high-performing Wi-Fi throughout the whole home to meet the evolving needs of their customers.



eero is offering ISPs three components - eero Insight, eero Secure, and the eero 6 series mesh Wi-Fi systems. eero Insight is a tool that helps collect usage data to enable ISPs to foresee and resolve Wi-Fi issues early. The tool is expected to help in reducing the time spent to resolve Wi-Fi issues by 30 percent.



It is also offering a subscription service called eero Secure that can be deployed with mesh Wi-Fi systems to offer advanced security and privacy features and parental controls. The security subscription service blocks malware, spyware, phishing and other malicious threats from customers' devices. This tool is claimed to have helped ISPs to increase customer retention by up to 40 percent.



Further, the company is offering the all-new eero 6 Mesh Wi-Fi systems to ISPs that supports the faster Wi-Fi 6 technology and includes a built-in Zigbee smart home hub. This enables users to manage their internet experience with an ISP co-branded mobile app, which allows them to pause the internet, and share their network with friends or guests.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-08 00:05:21|Editor: huaxia

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Demonstrators clash with riot police in Athens, Greece, on Oct. 7, 2020. A Greek court ruled on Wednesday that the leadership and members of ultra-right party Golden Dawn (GD-Chryssi Avghi in Greek), the third largest political party in the parliament until last year, are guilty of operating as a criminal organization, Greek national broadcaster ERT reported. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)



ATHENS, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- A Greek court ruled on Wednesday that the country's far-right Golden Dawn party (GD, Chryssi Avghi in Greek) was operating as a criminal organization.

The verdict was welcomed as a victory of democracy and justice by political leaders, associations of judges, university professors, trade unions, the media and ordinary citizens.

In a unanimous ruling, the Athens Criminal Appeals Court said that the GD, which was the third-largest political party in parliament until last year, was a criminal organization "wearing the cloak of a political party," the Greek national news agency AMNA reported.

GD leader Nikos Michaloliakos and six other former GD members of parliament (MPs) were found guilty of establishing and running a criminal organization, while 11 other former MPs were among dozens found guilty of participating in this criminal organization. Altogether 68 defendants stood trial (one person died during the court procedure).

Sentencing could last several days as appeals for reduced terms will be made.

Michaloliakos and the other former lawmakers face between five and 15 years in prison, and the other members face similar sentences on charges ranging from murder to extortion and illegal possession of weapons.

GD's leaders and members have been linked to dozens of assaults against migrants and political opponents over the past years.

The fatal stabbing of Pavlos Fyssas, a 34-year-old Greek musician and anti-fascist activist, by Yorgos Roupakias, a GD supporter, in a Piraeus suburb in autumn 2013 sent shockwaves across the country and triggered a judicial crackdown on Golden Dawn.

Roupakias and the other 15 defendants were found guilty of murder or guilty as accessories. Only 11 defendants were present in the courtroom and none from Golden Dawn's leadership.

The long-awaited verdict in the trial that started in the spring of 2015 closes a painful chapter in the country's history, Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and other political party leaders commented after Wednesday's ruling.

"In our country's long democratic tradition, phenomena of extreme political violence have always been foreign. Today's decision is a confirmation that democracy and its institutions always have the capability to foil any attempt to undermine them," Sakellaropoulou stated, according to an e-mailed press release.

"A traumatic cycle of the country's public life is closing today... Democracy won today. It is up to us that it wins every day," Mitsotakis said in a statement.

Wednesday's verdict is expected to be the final blow for the political party that was elected to the Greek and European Parliaments many times since 2012, riding on the wave of discontent over harsh austerity measures imposed to address a severe debt crisis, which brought Greece to the brink of bankruptcy.

Following Greece's exit from the harsh bailout period in 2018, the party, which was founded as a marginal group in the 1980s, failed to enter parliament in the 2019 general elections and has been crumbling since then.

"The trial is one of the largest in Greece's recent history. It is of great importance. It revealed to Greek society how this neo-Nazi group was operating using systematically raw violence behind the facade of a political party," Xenophon Contiades, professor of public and social law at the University of Peloponnese, commented on Greek national broadcaster ERT on Wednesday.

"One of the most emblematic trials in Greece's recent history is over. Independent justice has been and remains a pillar of democracy," Greece's Association of Judges and Prosecutors added in a press release.

"We were vindicated. My son, you did it. We have won a battle and we owe it to all of you. Nothing is over," Magda Fyssa, mother of Pavlos Fyssas, a woman who has become a symbol of the battle against the far-right in recent years, told a cheering crowd outside the courthouse after the ruling was announced.

According to the police, an estimated 20,000 protestors joined a gathering organized by leftist parties, migrants' associations and trade unions in front of the courthouse.

"We achieved a historic victory inside and outside the courthouse," Kostas Papadakis, the civil attorney representing four Egyptian fishermen who were assaulted by a group of some 20 people inside their home in a Piraeus port suburb in 2012, told the press on Wednesday.

One of the victims, a 28-year-old father of three children, was severely injured and still faces serious health problems. All the defendants accused in connection with the attack were found guilty.

As the first cheers outside the courthouse on Wednesday faded, politicians, sociologists, media commentators and ordinary Greeks stressed that a decisive step was made, but the war against far-right ideology, xenophobia and racism continues until "all neo-Nazi killers are imprisoned," as one of the banners read.

In the coming days, the GD's leaders are expected to be arrested. So far, they have claimed to be victims of a political witch hunt. Enditem
Taoiseach Micheal Martin has paid personal tribute to the selfless Chief Medical Officer  48 hours after rejecting his advice.

I pay tribute to his commitment to the country, Mr Martin said after a face-to-face meeting with the CMO this morning.

It was the first encounter since the Head of Government consulted with Dr Tony Holohan on Monday, along with Green Party leader Eamon Ryan and Fine Gael leader and Tanaiste Leo Varadkar.

The Government subsequently decided not to accept Dr Holohans recommendation that the whole country move to a Level 5 lockdown.

And later that night Leo Varadkar stated on Claire Byre Live that NPHET officials, led by Dr Holohan, had not been able to answer questions and their proposal had not been thought through.

Expand Close Pointing the finger: Leo Varadkar, with chief medical officer Tony Holohan Photo: Gerry Mooney / Facebook

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Whatsapp Pointing the finger: Leo Varadkar, with chief medical officer Tony Holohan Photo: Gerry Mooney

Micheal Martin told the Dail today: I met with the Chief Medical Officer this morning. We had a very good discussion again.

I pay tribute to his commitment to the country, and the selfless way he has come back to help the country in relation to the pandemic.

We both share a clear determination to get the country through Covid-19, and with the help of everybody in this House.

Read More

Mr Martin also revealed that 17,000 new Pandemic Unemployment Payment claims had already come in since the move at midnight to Level 3 controls.

He said that contrasted to the normal level of 1,000 fresh PUP claims per day, while others had been signing off the support.

He added: 40-50,000 extra claims could emerge this week as a result of moving to Level 3. That is how serious Level 3 is, he said.

He did not make reference to how many more would arrive in Level 5, but both the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste have already said that hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost in such a scenario.

Mr Varadkar put the figure at 400,000 in his interview on Claire Byrne Live, with Opposition figures criticising his demeanour and comments as aggressive and cruel.
Popular Kikuyu benga musician Samuel Muchoki alias Samidoh has been forced to address claims that he is dating former Nairobi Woman Representative aspirant Karen Nyamu.

This comes after a local publication reported that the two are an item, with Samidoh said to have sired Nyamus second child and even attended her baby shower in Nairobi over the weekend.

However, Samidoh has rubbished the story as fake saying hes just good friends with the director at the Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company.

I have a wife with children and I do not intend to get another one with the current economy, he said, adding: I have not been dating her, she has just been my big fan for a long time.

Check Out  Puff, Puff, Pass! Bae wa Nai Karen Nyamu Smokes Weed in Public  PHOTOS

The Mumbi hitmaker also denied attending Nyamus baby shower saying he wasnt in Nairobi at the time.

I am surprised by the whole story, they claim I even attended her baby shower na sikua ata Nairobi.

I have not even met her for over three months after I cut ties with her since I realised our friendship would affect my family, he said.

Asked about his wifes reaction, Samidoh said they talked about the rumors and she is okay.

I was worried about my wife but we have talked and she is okay. She knows I am not in a relationship with Karen since the allegations have gotten her again sometimes back.

Karen Nyamu on her part said: I do not know who gave that blog that information but I dont want to talk about it. Samido was not present for my baby shower.
A British father-of-three who killed a 66-year-old man he thought was a sex pest has escaped a prison term in Spain after agreeing to pay 167,000 in 'blood money,' to his victim's family.

Mark Turner, 47, punched Mario Sauco once outside a bar after he was wrongly told Mr Sauco had pestered his daughter.

The punch floored the Mr Sauco, causing him to hit his head against the pavement and fracture his skull outside the Churchill Bar in Fuengirola.

He died ten days later.

Mark Turner punched Mario Sauco to the floor outside Churchills bar in Fuengirola. Mr Sauco, 66, fractured his skull on the pavement and died in hospital 10 days later

Turner, from Dagenham, East London, fled the country in August 2018, but returned to Spain after a picture was released by police.

A court in Malaga convicted him of manslaughter, The Sun reports.

But he avoided prison, instead receiving a suspended jail term, by agreeing to pay compensation in a plea deal with Mr Sauco's family.

The father-of-three has been ordered to make 60 monthly payments of 725, then a 120,000-plus lump sum.

If he fails to pay, or reoffends, he will serve two years in prison.

According to The Sun, Judge Carlos Peinado Dominguez released a statement yesterday saying Mr Sauco has been a 'bit of a pain,' with one of Turner's daughter, but there was no evidence he insinuated anything sexual.

The report read that Turner followed Mr Sauco out of the bar and hit him, before he could explain what happened.

Paying tribute, Mr Sauco's family said: 'Our only comfort is knowing that you're in a better place.'
There are new calls for Western Australia to 'WAxit' from the rest of the country and become an independent nation.

WA businessmen Russell Sewell and Peter McLernon were both candidates for Clive Palmer's United Australia Party at the 2019 Federal Election but left to form the new WARepublic Party in August.

While Mr Palmer is challenging WA's hard border in the High Court, Mr Sewell and Mr McLernon want to take the border even further by creating an independent country.

The WARepublic party plans to gain seats at next year's state election, lobby for a secession referendum and break away from the Federation to form a new country called 'Western Australia' that adopts the state flag featuring a black swan.

A recent poll carried out by market research group, Utting Research, found 28 per cent of 3,500 Western Australians surveyed want WA become its own country.

WA businessmen Russell Sewell (left) and Peter McLernon (right) were both United Australia Party candidates at the 2019 Federal election but have left to form the WARepublic Party

Mr Sewell said WA has been 'disadvantaged by Federation'.

'Never has there been a better time for discussion of secession than there is now, given that Mark McGowan's closed border is pretty much the test for it,' Mr Sewell told the West Australian.

'We closed our border off, we are running our own show and most people are in favour of it. We believe if you work here, you live here and you spend here.'

'Like the FIFO positions, where people have been able to come here from over East, take their money and fly back home and spend it somewhere else. That's the sort of thing that really irks me, because that sort of thing hurts our economy.'

The WARepublic party plans to gain seats at next year's state election, lobby for a secession referendum and break away from the Federation to form a new country called 'Western Australia'

The WARepublic party wants to adopt the state flag featuring a black swan (pictured) as their national flag for a new country

Mr Sewell said his party has half of the 500 members required to register with the WA Electoral Commission.

He expects to reach the 500 target by late November and recruit six candidates for Upper House seats to run in the state election on March 13.

Meanwhile, his former party United Australia could be deregistered for failing to comply with the minimum 500-member requirement.

The budding politicians also started a WARepublic Facebook page in August but currently only have 179 likes as of publishing.

Mr Sewell said his party has half of the 500 members required to register with the WA Electoral Commission and expects to reach the target by November

News of the WARepublic Party comes after it was revealed one-in-four West Australians want their state to become a republic.

But the Utting Research survey also found some 55 per cent wanted the state to remain in the Federation and 17 per cent didn't know.

WA slammed its borders shut in April as the coronavirus pandemic took hold and has remained closed off ever since.

Perth Labor MP, Patrick Gorman, said the results were 'deeply concerning'.

Aerial view of Point Peron and Shoalwater Bay in WA. The idyllic state has a growing 'WAxit' movement with 28 per cent wanting to leave the Federation

'This poll shows those in the eastern States need to understand the secessionist undertones which have always existed in WA,' he told The West Australian.

'The tyranny of distance between Perth and Canberra often leaves West Australians feeling isolated and ignored by our east coast allies, fuelling the discussion.'

Those who voted in the poll were from five different state electorates.

About 35 per cent of men and 21 per cent of women wanted WA to secede Australia.

Those most supportive of WAxit were aged between 40 and 59 and were not voters of any of the major political parties.

Men and those aged between 40-59 were more in favour for a possible WAxit (pictured Perth's skyline)

Norman Moore, a former politician in WA who has often spoken out about his secessionist views, said he wasn't shocked by the results.

But he said that while he thought the state would thrive on its own, Western Australians felt they were a part of the country more than ever.

'I don't think people see themselves so much as Western Australians anymore, as opposed to being Australians. As the world's got smaller I think a lot of Western Australians now think, 'We're now part of Australia',' he said.

WA Premier Mark McGowan said reopening the borders to states with few cases would provide no economic benefit

Premier Mark McGowan last week remained adamant he would not open his state's borders anytime soon despite coronavirus infection levels reaching a negligible level outside Victoria

The state has not recorded a case of coronavirus in the community for 180 days, but still refuses to open up - even to other safe states

'There is no benefit,' Mr McGowan said on Thursday.

'All we'll do is lose jobs were we to open to those [jurisdictions].

'The other states want us to open the border so that West Australian tourists will flood east, not so that people from the east will come here.

'They're only saying all this for very self-interested reasons because we have higher incomes, we have people that are more used to travelling and therefore we'll have more tourists go from Western Australia to the east.'

Mr McGowan said the borders won't come down until the eastern states go 28 days with no community transmissions.
Eddie Van Halen, the co-founder of the iconic rock band Van Halen, died on Tuesday morning after battling with throat cancer for more than 10 years. The legendary guitarist was 65.

Van Halen had a rapid decline in health in three days, a source close to him told PEOPLE. The insider said the guitar hero's health decline because the cancer cells had "spread to all his organs."

Van Halen's wife Janie Liszewski, ex-wife Valerie Bertinelli, and son Wolf were with him at the hospital during his death. Wolf confirmed the sad news on Twitter.

"I can't believe I'm having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning. He was the best father I could ask for. Every moment I've shared with him on and off stage was a gift," Wolf tweeted.

The emotional tweet continued, and Wolf added: "My heart is broken, and I don't think I'll ever recover from this loss. I love you so much, Pop."

Bertinelli, Wolf's mother, replied to his son's tweet with several broken heart emojis. Van Halen was married to Bertinelli for 20 years.

Van Halen's former bandmate David Lee Roth told the Las Vegas-Review Journal earlier this year that the guitar god was not doing well as he battles with cancer.

As per the TMZ, Van Halen died at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica.

The guitar hero has defeated tongue cancer after a two-year battle in 2002. In 2019, he was admitted to a hospital due to intestinal problems after a lousy cancer treatment reaction.

Van Halen had an interview with The Hard Times last month amid his cancer battle. The talk delved into his close relationship with his now 29-year-old son.

The iconic guitarist said there were some early signs about his son becoming a bassist. Van Halen shared that when Wolf was about nine months old, he put a little guitar in front of him, and Wolf strum the strings one at a time using his index and middle fingers instead of his thumb like a pick.

"I almost cried seeing my boy touch his first guitar. He looked so lame," he added.

Born in the Netherlands in 1955, Van Halen was raised in Pasadena, California, where he founded the band with his brother Alex in 1972.

Since then, the band has released 12 studio albums, including their latest "A Different Kind of Truth" in 2012.

Van Halen, the band, is one of the top 20 best-selling artists of all time, as per PEOPLE. It was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.

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A group of youths engaged in activities in Machinga, Malawi, to prevent and help in fighting trafficking of children from the area to Mozambique.

Blantyre, Malawi  In August, police intercepted the trafficking of 31 people to Mozambique. The victims, all Malawians, included 17 children and 6 women. Their two traffickers, also Malawians, had coerced them from their rural village in Lilongwe district with a promise of jobs in estates in neighbouring Mozambique. But they were saved in large part thanks to their own community.

According to Malawian police, they incepted the trafficking after a tip-off from members of the community. This, the police say, is one of the fruits of using community policing to fight crime in Malawi. National spokesperson for the Malawi Police Service, Assistant Superintendent James Kadadzera, says the police owe many of their crackdowns on trafficking to the community policing system.

In Malawi, community policing is not vigilantism. It is a system where the police organise voluntary members of the community to form groups to detect crime and alert police for action.

"They are our eyes in places we are not present. They complement the efforts of our detectives. They sensitise fellow community members on safety and security issues," Kadadzera tells IPS.

The Trafficking in Persons Act of 2015 provides for increased participation of individuals, institutions and communities in preventing human trafficking.

Involving communities in anti-human trafficking efforts means the crime can be tackled at its source and that trafficking transit routes are shut down.

However, after years of campaigning and a raft of frameworks and initiatives such as community policing, Malawi still ranks high as a source, destination and transit country for human trafficking.

A 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report for Malawi by the United States' Department of State recognises Malawi's "significant efforts" to combat human trafficking. But it says Malawi "does not fully meet the minimum standards for elimination of trafficking".

The report highlights the case of Nepali women who were trafficked into Malawi last year, which illustrates the fraudulent white-collar practices that are aiding trafficking here.

According to the report, there are credible reports of official complicity by police and immigration officials in the trafficking of the women into Malawi.

Even worse, the government transferred the whistleblower in the case, reportedly to prevent him from further investigating the crime and exposing the officials involved.

"In two sensitive cases," says the report, "judges granted traffickers bail, and, in one case, there were credible reports that the trafficker continued to recruit women for labour trafficking in the Middle East while awaiting trial."

McBain Mkandawire is executive director for Youth Net and Counselling (YONECO), which works with youth who are prime targets for traffickers for labour and prostitution purposes.

He says Malawi is struggling to combat human trafficking because of "a combination of the complicity of government officials and the rich at the top and high poverty levels at the bottom".

Human trafficking is a lucrative business for the rich and the powerful, Mkandawire says.

"This is a big money industry. High profile people facilitate it in one way or another. They finance it and frustrate justice because they profit from the misery of the poor," Mkandawire tells IPS.

For example, he says, the estates where these people are trafficked to are not owned by poor people.

"Those estates are owned by the rich and the powerful. They know how their labourers are recruited. They facilitate the crime because they are profiting from the poor through cheap labour and poor working conditions. And they will do anything to frustrate efforts to eradicate human trafficking," Mkandawire says.

He adds that through his organisation's work on youth programmes around the country, apart from the public ignorance on how human trafficking works, high levels of poverty make Malawians easy prey for traffickers who lure them with false promises of better lives elsewhere.

In Machinga district in southern Malawi, child trafficking is one of major concerns for the community-based Youth Response for Social Change (YRSC). The youth organisation is located in a rural town in Machinga district on the border between Malawi and Mozambique. The remote town is the exit point out of Malawi via the main railway line to Nacala Port in Mozambique.

Here, together with traditional leaders and the police, YRSC battles the trafficking of Malawian children to work in tobacco estates in Mozambique. Executive director for YRSC Lamecks Kiyare tells IPS the problem worsens during the months of August to November when the farming season begins in Mozambique.

He admits they face daunting challenges.

"It's not easy. We face a barrage of challenges such as poor stakeholder coordination, lack of political will among community leaders and no financial resources to support the repatriated children," Kiyare tells IPS.

According to Maxwell Matewere, the national project officer in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) in Malawi, combating trafficking remains a pipe dream as long as Malawi does not address the underlying causes.

"The problem continues due to lack of strategies to deal with the root causes of trafficking in persons. We cannot successfully fight trafficking in persons unless the country deals with poverty, unemployment and public ignorance on human trafficking," Matewere tells IPS.

Matewere says while the police have demonstrated some positive responses in arresting offenders of human trafficking and taking them to court for prosecution, the courts themselves are not swift and bold in handling trafficking cases.

"The lower courts continue to apply the law with kindness and favour on the offenders. We are registering increasing number of cases whose convicts have received suspended sentences other than imprisonment. No one can learn anything," he says.

YONECO has its own experience with the courts. It has been pursuing the trafficking of a young woman to a hospitality facility within Malawi.

The suspects first appeared court in February 2019 but to date the magistrate is yet to set a date for trial.

"We are not told the reasons for this lack of progress. Meanwhile, the trafficker is on bail, roaming around, perhaps trafficking more people in his freedom," says Mkandawire of YONECO.

The Registrar of the High Court and Supreme Court of Appeal, Agness Patemba, did not respond to IPS' questions regarding complaints about the courts' handling of human trafficking cases.

However, issues of frustration over the delivery of justice in general by Malawi's court system are well known. The Judiciary itself admits this in its Strategic Plan (2019-2024). It highlights poor work ethics among judicial officers and members of staff, corruption and delayed judgements among the threats to justice delivery.

But perhaps a more stirring and direct expose of the malpractices in the fraternity has come from the judiciary's own senior judge, Esmie Chombo. In January 2018, the High Court Judge and Judge President for the Lilongwe Registry wrote a strong letter to the Malawi Law Society, outlining abuses of court processes by lawyers.

Chombo accused lawyers of "judge shopping" and frequenting court premises at night to execute corruption schemes.

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She further accused them of bribing court clerks to prioritise their work and remove from court files documents from opposing parties in order to mislead the court. There were also accused of bribing clerks to misplace or destroy case files in order to frustrate court proceedings.

She therefore called on judges and the lawyers' body to swiftly uproot "these obnoxious practices before they take deep roots".

Mkandawire says challenges of this kind are endemic and entrenched in the levels that hold the key to ending injustices in Malawi.

He says communities and other low-level groups can do their part. But official collusion makes Malawi's fight against human trafficking a complex task.

"Until we get rid of corruption at every level and in every place, until we comprehensively tackle the root causes of human trafficking, this crime will remain a serious problem for us for a long time," he tells IPS.

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which 'takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms'.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together "to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking" and so forth.
Australia, the United States, Japan and India will deepen their co-operation on countering cyber attacks and disinformation, after a high-level meeting of foreign ministers in Tokyo where China's growing assertiveness dominated the agenda.

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne also agreed with her counterparts to work better together on protecting critical technology and minerals, and to uphold maritime security in the region, as an alternative to relying on China.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne pose for a photo prior to their bilateral meeting in Tokyo. Credit:AP

Speaking before the meeting on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hit out at the Chinese Communist Party's initial "cover-up" of the coronavirus, which he said made the pandemic worse than it would otherwise have been.

Mr Pompeo said the "Quad" alliance between the four countries, which has angered Beijing, was a testament to the "enduring power of democracy to bring free peoples together".
Trumps lawyers had argued Vance was on a fishing expedition and out to harass the president, saying the grand jury subpoena to Trumps accounting firm, Mazars USA, was issued in bad faith. But the district attorneys office had indicated recently that its probe also includes dealings at the Trump Organization, the presidents family business that oversees hundreds of subsidiaries. If the company deceived lenders or insurance companies by manipulating the value of its assets, fraud charges would potentially apply, officials have said.
Greene King called on the government to provide support to prevent further pub closures and job losses. Photo: PA

Pub company Greene King has announced plans to axe around 800 jobs and shut 79 of its pubs after business declined due to the introduction of 10pm hospitality curfew.

A spokeswoman for Greene King said: The continued tightening of the trading restrictions for pubs, which may last another six months, along with the changes to government support was always going to make it a challenge to reopen some of our pubs.

Therefore, we have made the difficult decision not to reopen 79 sites, including the 11 Loch Fyne restaurants we announced last week.

Around one-third will be closed permanently and we hope to be able to reopen the others in the future.

WATCH: What are the new COVID-19 measures for pubs?

The UK's largest pub retailer and brewer runs about 1,700 managed pubs and 1,000 tenanted venues across the UK. The company said they are working hard with our teams to try and find them a role in another of our pubs wherever possible.

Greene King called on the government to step in and provide tailored support to help the sector get through to the spring and prevent further pub closures and job losses.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson faced a barrage of warnings over the threat to firms and jobs after he unveiled fresh COVID-19 measures for England including a 10pm shutdown for hospitality venues.

UK pub owners expressed their anger with the government, as more than 1,000 publicans signed an open letter to chancellor Rishi Sunak pleading for more support and urging the government to rethink the 10pm curfew.

READ MORE: Pubs and city centre firms warn new coronavirus rules could be a 'fatal blow'

In the letter organised by grassroots organisation Campaign for Pubs, pub owners accused Sunak of scapegoating pubs and ignoring the needs of pubs, publicans, staff and their families in his Winter Economy Plan.

Business leaders have called for more support for hospitality firms facing fresh restrictions and dashed expectations of recovery on top of months of unprecedented disruption.

Story continues

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of the UKHospitality trade body, warned: These restrictions are a further, potentially fatal, blow for many hospitality businesses. In isolation, they may appear moderate, but the cumulative effect is going to be hugely damaging.

Tom Stainer, chief executive of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), dubbed the pub curfew arbitrary, saying it punished firms complying with guidelines.

Make no mistake about this  without a proper financial support package, communities will lose their local forever, people will lose their jobs, and publicans their livelihoods.

WATCH: Pubs bosses insist early shutdown won't help reduce infection rates
New Delhi:

The political turmoil in Tamil Nadu entered the fourth day on Friday as new developments kept political leaders, police officials and the mediapersons on their toes in the last three days in Chennai.



The power struggle followed the December 5 death of Jayalalithaa after almost two months of hospitalisation.



After Ms Jayalalithaa's death, the AIADMK said that Sasikala will be Amma's natural replacement as leader of the party. Later, the party decided decided that Sasikala would take over from Mr Panneerselvam as chief minister of Tamil Nadu.



For two days, Mr Panneerlsevam seemed to have no problem. Then, on Tuesday night, he appeared dramatically at Jayalalithaa's grave to declare that he had been forced to resign and now willing to keep his job.



Panneerselvam had an explanation behind his decision change in 48 hours saying Jayalalithaa's "spirit had appeared before me and urged me to fight."

Also Read | Panel will be set up to probe Jayalalithaas death; wasnt allowed to meet her in hospital, says Panneerselvam



Sasikala, who is trying to become Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, had declared in writing to Jayalalithaa a few years ago that she had "no interest in politics," as claimed by Panneerselvam.



Sasikala is awaiting a Supreme Court verdict on a case of disproportionate assets.



Later, the political battle began in the party and attacks and counterattacks from both sides started coming in media from both faction of the party.



The power struggle reached at new peak on Thursday when governor Vidyasagar Rao returned to Chennai and met both claimants to the legacy of late chief minister Jayalalithaa.



Now, the ball is in the court of the governor, who has sent a report on the political situation in the state to the Centre after hearing out Sasikala and Panneerselvam.



Rao gave no hint of the course of action after accepting Sasikalas claim in writing, with the names of lawmakers supporting her.



After meeting the governor, Panneerselvam briefed him about the present situation in the state and said that he was forced to uit as chief minister.



He told media after meeting with the Governor: "Im confident justice will prevail."



The AIADMK has 135 members in the 234-member Tamil Nadu assembly. The Sasikala faction claims to have the support of at least 130 MLAs.



With AIADMK party set for a vertical split, here are few options before Governor Rao now-



1. Pannerselvam has said he will withdraw his resignation, but if he realises he doesnt have the majority, he can recommend to the Governor to dissolve the assembly.



But, why would the MLAs go for fresh election with almost four years of their term remaining?



2. The Governor may ask Panneerselvam to prove his majority in the state assembly.

If the Governor gives more time to OPS, he would emerge stronger in case the SC ends up convicting Sasikala in the disproportionate assets case next week.



3. The Governor can also put the House in suspended animation if neither Sasikala nor Panneerselvam are able to prove their majority.

Also Read | V K Sasikala unacceptable to most people of Tamil Nadu: Chidambaram



4. If Panneerselvam proves his majority, Governor Rao may refer to provisions of Anti-Defection Law to check if the expelled leader enjoys support of two-third of AIADMK MLAs.



5. If Sasikala, in case the Governor asks her to take oath, proves majority in House but gets convicted in the disproportionate assets case next week, the state will become leaderless. In that scenario, the Governor may impose Presidents rule in the state.



6. The Governor may revoke Panneerselvam's resignation letter and reinstate him as a caretaker CM till a new leader is elected. But, then Panneerselvam will have to prove his the majority on the floor of the house.

Also Read | Don't break Tamil Nadu into a country, I promise, all India will fight for TN in a civil war of Ahinsa: Kamal Haasan



A week ago Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a meeting with Panneerselvam and the PM, at the end of the meeting, is said to have had a conversation with OPS alone for a short while.



According to reports, Union minister Venkaiah Naidu has said that the Centre will back OPS as "he was chosen by Jayalalithaa." It is also being said that not just the BJP, the PM himself has been monitoring the situation in Tamil Nadu.



The Governor has the discretion to appoint as chief minister anyone who, in his opinion, is in a position to command a majority in the legislature.



However, in the light of conflicting claims, he may wait for the suggestions coming from the Union Home Ministry on the report he sent after his meeting with both Sasikala and Panneerselvam on Thursday.



Also Read | Panneerselvam-Sasikala battle brings back the memories of Jayalalithaa-Janki split after MGR demise



Also Read | Profile: Who is Sasikala



Also Read | Profile: Who is Panneerselvam



(With inputs from Agencies, PTI)

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
As coronavirus cases continue to soar across the UK and warnings pile up over the impact of a second wave on the NHS, it is likely that the government will implement stricter regulations nationwide.

Professor Neil Ferguson, who helped shape the initial March lockdown, warned on Tuesday that further restrictions may be necessary to stem the spread as cases are likely doubling every fortnight and even as quickly as every seven days in some areas. In order to curb the spike, Downing Street is reportedly considering circuit-breaker measures, similar to those already in place across Scotland.

Boris Johnson has been reluctant to implement a full-blown second lockdown due to fears of an economic disaster, it is more likely that Downing Street will implement shorter periods of tighter rules and restrictions sporadically and nationwide over the next six months in order to allow breathing space.

If implemented, a circuit breaker lockdown could last a fortnight and might see the closing or regulating of pubs, bars, restaurants and leisure facilities with socialising between households banned. It is thought that movements will be limited nationwide to all but essential travel.

Schools and all but essential workplaces could remain open  the PM has said it is a national priority to keep children in the classroom. It is thought that the circuit breaker could be timed for the half-term period at the end of October to avoid any further disruption to schools, a government source told the Financial Times.

Professor Calum Semple, a member of the government's scientific advisory panel who specialises in disease outbreaks, recommended a "circuit breaker" short national lockdown should be considered to slow the virus.Speaking in a personal capacity, Prof Semple - a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) - told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It's always easier to reduce an outbreak at the earlier stage than to let it run and then try to reduce it at a later stage."So, yes, circuit breakers are certainly something we should be thinking about on a national basis."

Scotland has already moved to implement new, tighter measures that will attempt to reduce the spread of the virus across the country.

On Wednesday, first minister Nicola Sturgeon announced pubs, restaurants and cafes in most of Scotland are being barred from selling alcohol indoors for more than two weeks.

Five health board areas - Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire & Arran, Lothian, and Forth Valley - face stricter restrictions, with pubs and licensed cafes to shut to all but takeaway customers for the same period.

In other areas, pubs and restaurants will only be able to open indoor spaces between 6am and 6pm and will be barred from serving alcohol there - though they can sell drinks outside until 10pm.

The measures will be in force until 25 October.

Downing Street is meanwhile planning to unveil a new traffic light system of three alert levels that could be implemented at local or national level if cases are not brought under control.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, told MPs on Monday the government will outline a more simplified and consistent approach to local measures.

The prime minister earlier said he wanted to keep local lockdowns as simple as possible though he did not confirm whether the three-tier system would be introduced.

The proposed approach of pre-packaged measures has been welcomed for being simpler, which Dr Nilu Ahmed, a behavioural psychologist at Bristol University, says will make compliance more likely.

Dr Ahmed said: "Clear guidance offers more than just rules to follow, it provides reassurance during stressful times.

"The more direct and simple rules are, the greater the likelihood of compliance as they are easier to remember."

Circuit breaker measures were first introduced by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in April to restrict movement in the country. The temporary measures saw schools and all but essential workplaces closed with restrictions on restaurants and household mingling.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The International Air Transport Association (IATA) in a fresh report has estimated that the airline industry will burn through $77 billion in cash during the second half of 2020 (almost $13 billion/month or $300,000 per minute), despite the restart of operations.

The slow recovery in air travel will see the airline industry continuing to burn through cash at an average rate of $5 to $6 billion per month in 2021, IATA said. IATA called on governments to support the industry during the coming winter season with additional relief measures, including financial aid that does not add more debt to the industrys already-highly-indebted balance sheet. To date, governments around the world have provided $160 billion in support.

If these support programs are not replaced or extended, the consequences for an already hobbled industry will be dire, said Alexandre de Juniac, IATAs Director General and CEO. IATA estimates that despite cutting costs just over 50 per cent during the second quarter, the industry went through $51 billion in cash as revenues fell almost 80 per cent.

The industry is not expected to turn cash positive until 2022. As for Indias aviation industry, the situation is no better. Except two airlines, all other payers continue to struggle hard to remain operational and have their net worth in negative territory.
South Africa: SA's COVID-19 cases jump to 683 242

South Africa now has 683 242 COVID-19 cases after 1 027 people were confirmed to have contracted the virus on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the death toll has increased by 87 pushing the tally to 17 103.

Of the latest fatalities, 35 are from KwaZulu-Natal, 28 from Gauteng, 15 from the Western Cape, five from the North West and four from the Eastern Cape.

Gauteng remains the epicentre with 221 320 confirmed cases since the outbreak, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 119 769, Western Cape 111 596 and the Eastern Cape with 89 991.

Free State has 48 865 cases, North West 30 103, Mpumalanga 27 718, Northern Cape 18 000 and Limpopo 15 880.

The data is based on the 4 294 931 tests of which 14 591 were performed in the last 24 hours.

Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, once again expressed his gratitude towards health professionals for the work they have done throughout the pandemic. The Minister said this during a South African Medical Association webinar.

Thank you for patiently going out there to give the services to our people. We salute you all for the good work that has been done, he said.

Mkhize reiterated that the numbers of deaths have slowed down.

Second wave

We moved to level 1 with less explosion. Its possible the second surge can still come. You have played an important part in us achieving a recovery rate of 90%.

He warned that the issue of the second wave of infections cannot be ruled out.

The World Health Organisations (WHO) surge team is still working in the different provinces.

It will continue to assist in surveillance for government to respond much quicker should the number of increased infections strike again.

About vaccines, we should work together as a global effort to make vaccines more accessible and affordable to everyone. There is a whole global awareness for the need to work together for a vaccine, said the Minister.

Globally, there have been 35 347 404 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 1 039 406 deaths reported to the WHO.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-10-07. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
What I see in some of the opponents' commercials is that its older people saying this is going to give the opportunity for politicians to tax older people and retirement income. Thats not true. They can do it now if they want to, Johnson said.
Hathras : , Oct 7 (IANS) As days roll by, the narrative in the 'horrific' Hathras incident has started changing and accused are now getting increasing support from BJP leaders.

The revelation of call detail records (CDR) of victim's family that show that they had spoken 104 times in five months to the main accused, Sandeep Singh, has given a new angle the case.

Police sources said that the CDR proves that both the families were on good terms.

Call records show that 62 calls outgoing and 42 incoming calls totalling 104 -- were made between the two phone numbers.

According to the police, the call records show that the victim and the main accused were in touch.

"The victim's family has concealed this information from us all along. The matter will have to be investigated and we will be interrogating the girl's brothers on this issue," said a senior police officer on condition of anonymity.

The girl's brother admits that the number belongs to him but vehemently denies having spoken to any member of the accused family.

The victim's family's refusal to undergo a narco-test has also put them under the cloud of suspicion.

Thakur Somesh Singh, a local resident, said, "It is a case of honour killing. The government has confirmed that there was no rape. Medical reports also have found that rape did not take place. So why would some other boys strangulate her." Rakesh Kumar, father of accused Ram Kumar, said that at the time of the alleged incident, his son was on duty at a local milk plant where he works.

"You can check CCTV footage and also the attendance register to confirm his presence at the milk plant," he said.

Guddu, father of the accused Sandeep said that his son was giving water to their cows when some people came and said that the girl was lying unconscious. We even gave them water and a few hours later, my son was picked up by the police," he said.

Munni Devi, mother of another accused Luvkush, said that she was working in a nearby field when there was some commotion. "I went across and saw the girl lying unconscious. I gave her water but later my son was taken away the police," she said.

Upper caste panchayats are now being held in several villages around the Bulghari village where the incident took place and the local Thakurs and Brahmins are unanimously demanding the release of the four accused.

The government affidavit submitted in the Supreme Court on Tuesday which rules out rape, has further strengthened the campaign in favour of the accused.

The Hathras incident took place on September 14, when the victim was working in a field and was allegedly dragged by the accused to a nearby field and assaulted. The family has alleged she was gang raped and strangulated.

She was admitted to a hospital in Aligarh with serious injuries on neck bones and spinal cord. She was later shifted to a Delhi hospital where she died on September 29 evoking outrage throughout the country.

The voices seeking justice for the victim got louder after the Uttar Pradesh Police cremated the body of the victim in the dead of the night. The family said the police did not take their consent before cremating the body.
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A Democrat-led House panel found that Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google have monopoly power and recommended a number of measures to reign the companies in, according to a long-awaited report released on Tuesday.

The Democratic report details the House Judiciary panel on antitrusts 16-month investigation into the tech giants, which included the review of more than one million documents and testimony in and out of hearings as well as interviews with hundreds in the industry.

In the report, Democrats recommend a number of measures to decrease the dominating hold of the four companies, which were worth a combined $5 trillion in September, including revising existing antitrust laws and bolstering the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice antitrust team.

While the investigation had been billed as a bipartisan effort, Republicans and Democrats have clashed on policy recommendations coming out of the investigation.

Representative Ken Buck (R., Colo.), the key swing vote on the committee and an advocate of antitrust reform, wrote in a draft memo earlier this week that some of the reports recommendations are non-starters for conservatives, though he outlined areas of common ground between the parties. He said he is supportive of the investigation and its findings and will continue to push for bipartisan antitrust reform.

Democrats recommended structural separation, which would require large companies to pursue a single line of business; nondiscrimination requirements; regulations preventing platforms from self-preferencing; and a freeze on mergers and acquisitions by companies that already dominate an industry.

In his own report, signed by three other Republicans, Buck rejected a number of Democrats recommendations, including structural separation as well as the elimination of arbitration clauses and opening up companies to class action lawsuits.

He adds that Democrats failed to address how Big Tech has used its monopolistic position in the marketplace to censor speech. Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), a ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, issued his own response as well in which he accused the platforms of holding a bias against conservatives.

Story continues

The panels report details Amazons hold on the market for online shopping and found that the online retail giant has monopoly power over many small- and medium-sized businesses, pointing to acquisitions of several competitors as well as the collection of customer data as a main source of the companys growth.

It focused on the companys position as both the operator of the online marketplace and a seller in the marketplace with its private-label products as an inherent conflict of interest that incentivizes Amazon to improperly make use of its access to third-party seller data.

The report also claims that Apple uses its app store to favor its own products over those of competitors and charged that Facebooks social media acquisitions had maintained the companys monopoly power.

The report focuses on Facebooks acquisition of Instagram and included emails from 2012 in which senior employees, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, reference the acquisition as a way to squash competition. An internal memo from October 2018 detailed in the report also said that Facebooks main source of competition was from its own products rather than externally, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.

Finally, the report accused Google of having a monopoly in online search and advertising, created by acquiring DoubleClick and AdMob and exerting its dominance to hurt vertical search competitors.

The companies pushed back against the reports findings, with Amazon saying in a blog post on Tuesday that large companies are not dominant by definition.

[T]he presumption that success can only be the result of anti-competitive behavior is simply wrong, the post added. And yet, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, those fallacies are at the core of this regulatory spit-balling on antitrust.

A Google spokesperson told The Hill that the goal of antitrust law is to protect consumers, not help commercial rivals.

Many of the proposals bandied about in todays reports  whether breaking up companies or undercutting Section 230  would cause real harm to consumers, Americas technology leadership and the U.S. economy  all for no clear gain, the spokesperson said.

More from National Review
HALIFAX, NS, Oct. 7, 2020 /CNW/ - Plastic is polluting our rivers, lakes, and oceans and harming the wildlife that calls those places home. Of the 3 million tonnes of plastic waste Canadians throw away each year, only 9 percent is recycled, representing about $8 billion in lost revenue. The Government of Canada is working to keep plastics in our economy and out of the environment, which will protect wildlife and our waters, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save money, and create jobs.

Today, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson announced the next steps of the Government of Canada's plan to achieve zero plastic waste by 2030.

A key part of the plan is a ban on harmful single-use plastic items where there is evidence that they are found in the environment, are often not recycled, and have readily available alternatives. Based on those criteria, the six items the Government proposes to ban are checkout plastic bags, straws, stir sticks, six-pack rings, cutlery, and food ware made from hard-to-recycle plastics.

The list of items was published today in the discussion paper  A Proposed Integrated Management Approach to Plastic Products to Prevent Waste and Pollution. The approach also proposes improvements to recover and recycle plastic, to keep it in our economy and out of the environment.

The Government of Canada is committed to working with provinces, territories, and organizations that are working to reduce plastic pollution in communities across the country. That is why the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, the Honourable Bernadette Jordan, also announced Canada's investment of over $270,000 to support four new projects in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador through the Zero Plastic Waste Initiative.

This funding will support the development of new innovative solutions that prevent, capture and remove plastic pollution and inform sustainable consumer actions. The organizations receiving funding include:

The Cape Breton Atlantic Coastal Action Program will explore environmentally responsible and cost-effective alternatives for local food packaging

will explore environmentally responsible and cost-effective alternatives for local food packaging International Fund for Animal Welfare Inc. will develop best practices and remove marine plastic litter in Newfoundland harbours

will develop best practices and remove marine plastic litter in harbours Municipality of the County of Victoria will identify innovative and customized solutions to target local plastic waste and pollution

will identify innovative and customized solutions to target local plastic waste and pollution TGM Tours Inc. will identify and trial approaches to reduce plastic waste and pollution and advance a circular economy in the Gros Morne Region

Through the Zero Plastic Waste Initiative, Environment and Climate Change Canada is investing about $2 million in support of new projects to implement innovative community solutions across Canada.

These projects will lead to a measurable reduction of plastic pollution in Canada and support a circular economy. By improving how we manage plastic waste and investing in innovative solutions, we can reduce 1.8 million tonnes of carbon pollution per year, create jobs and leave a better, healthier planet for future generations.

Quotes

"Canadians right here in Atlantic Canada are stepping up with innovative solutions to tackle plastic pollution and keep our oceans clean. Our government is proud to support these initiatives that will help protect our coastal environment and fight plastic pollution."

 The Honourable Bernadette Jordan, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard

Quick facts

Since 2018, Canada has invested an additional $3 million in mobilizing actions to raise awareness by Canadians and improve the understanding, mitigation, and remediation of plastic waste and pollution in Canada .

has invested an additional in mobilizing actions to raise awareness by Canadians and improve the understanding, mitigation, and remediation of plastic waste and pollution in . In Canada , 29,000 tonnes of plastic entered the environment as pollution in 2016 alone. Without action to prevent plastic pollution, this amount could rise to 40,000 tonnes by 2030.

, 29,000 tonnes of plastic entered the environment as pollution in 2016 alone. Without action to prevent plastic pollution, this amount could rise to 40,000 tonnes by 2030. Canadians throw away over 3 million tonnes of plastic waste every yearthat's as heavy as 25,000 blue whales!

Only 9 percent of Canada's plastic waste is recycled while the rest ends up in landfills, waste-to-energy facilities, or the environment.

Related products

Associated links

Environment and Climate Change Canada's Twitter page

Environment and Climate Change Canada's Facebook page

SOURCE Environment and Climate Change Canada

For further information: Moira Kelly, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, 819-271-6218, [email protected]; Media Relations, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 819-938-3338 or 1-844-836-7799 (toll-free), [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.ec.gc.ca


Does the October share price for CVS Group plc (LON:CVSG) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to today's value. Our analysis will employ the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Before you think you won't be able to understand it, just read on! It's actually much less complex than you'd imagine.

We generally believe that a company's value is the present value of all of the cash it will generate in the future. However, a DCF is just one valuation metric among many, and it is not without flaws. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model.

View our latest analysis for CVS Group

Is CVS Group fairly valued?

We use what is known as a 2-stage model, which simply means we have two different periods of growth rates for the company's cash flows. Generally the first stage is higher growth, and the second stage is a lower growth phase. To start off with, we need to estimate the next ten years of cash flows. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years.

A DCF is all about the idea that a dollar in the future is less valuable than a dollar today, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast

2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 Levered FCF (, Millions) UK42.9m UK50.0m UK60.8m UK65.6m UK69.9m UK73.0m UK75.6m UK77.7m UK79.5m UK81.1m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x2 Analyst x4 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ 4.46% Est @ 3.49% Est @ 2.81% Est @ 2.33% Est @ 2% Present Value (, Millions) Discounted @ 6.8% UK40.1 UK43.8 UK49.9 UK50.4 UK50.2 UK49.1 UK47.6 UK45.8 UK43.8 UK41.9

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK462m

Story continues

After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the initial 10-year period, we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all future cash flows beyond the first stage. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (1.2%) to estimate future growth. In the same way as with the 10-year 'growth' period, we discount future cash flows to today's value, using a cost of equity of 6.8%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2030  (1 + g)  (r  g) = UK81m (1 + 1.2%)  (6.8% 1.2%) = UK1.5b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= UK1.5b ( 1 + 6.8%)10= UK755m

The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is UK1.2b. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of UK12.0, the company appears quite good value at a 30% discount to where the stock price trades currently. Remember though, that this is just an approximate valuation, and like any complex formula - garbage in, garbage out.

dcf

The assumptions

The calculation above is very dependent on two assumptions. The first is the discount rate and the other is the cash flows. If you don't agree with these result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at CVS Group as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 6.8%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.811. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business.

Looking Ahead:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. It's not possible to obtain a foolproof valuation with a DCF model. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. If a company grows at a different rate, or if its cost of equity or risk free rate changes sharply, the output can look very different. What is the reason for the share price sitting below the intrinsic value? For CVS Group, we've compiled three pertinent elements you should further examine:

Risks: For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for CVS Group (1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) that you should be aware of before investing here. Future Earnings: How does CVSG's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other High Quality Alternatives: Do you like a good all-rounder? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

PS. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow valuation for every stock on the AIM every day. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Two woman scientists have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of one of gene technology's sharpest tools.



Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna have discovered the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. Using these, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision. 'This technology has had a revolutionary impact on the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases come true', The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on Wednesday.



In 2011, Charpentier initiated a collaboration with Doudna, an experienced biochemist with vast knowledge of RNA. Together, they succeeded in recreating the bacteria's genetic scissors in a test tube and simplifying the scissors' molecular components so they were easier to use.



In an epoch-making experiment, they then reprogrammed the genetic scissors. In their natural form, the scissors recognise DNA from viruses, but Charpentier and Doudna proved that they could be controlled so that they can cut any DNA molecule at a predetermined site. Where the DNA is cut it is then easy to rewrite the code of life.



The discovery of genetic scissors in 2012 has contributed to many important discoveries in basic life science research. plant researchers have been able to develop crops that withstand mould, pests and drought. In medicine, clinical trials of new cancer therapies are underway, giving hope to cure inherited diseases.



Researchers need to modify genes in cells if they are to find out about life's inner workings. This used to be time-consuming, difficult and sometimes impossible work. Using the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors, it is now possible to change the code of life over the course of a few weeks.



'There is enormous power in this genetic tool, which affects us all. It has not only revolutionized basic science, but also resulted in innovative crops and will lead to ground-breaking new medical treatments,' said Claes Gustafsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.



Born in France, Emmanuelle Charpentier (52) is Director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin, Germany.



Jennifer Doudna is a 56 year old American professor at the University of California, Berkeley, USA and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.



The Royal Swedish Academy said the prize amount of 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.12 million) will be shared equally between the Laureates.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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ABS to Class another four Very Large Ethane Carriers for Zhejiang Satellite Petrochemical

Four new 98,000 cbm Very Large Ethane Carriers (VLECs) ordered by Zhejiang Satellite Petrochemical (STL) are to be built to ABS Class.

These ethane-fueled VLECs are part of a Phase-2 order from STL and construction will be equally split between Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries. ABS is the leader in provision of classification services to VLEC owners. ABS was the classification society of choice for the very first order of the six dedicated VLECs by Reliance Industries in 2014. The 87,000 cbm VLECs have been successfully trading and laid the foundation for the next generation of larger VLECs. The Phase-1 order of six VLECs by STL not only had more cargo capacity, 98,000 cbm, but included additional technological advancements such as ethane-fueled engines and the ABS LNG Cargo Ready notation. ABS is a world leader in the classification of gas carriers and classes the vast majority of the large ethane carriers built to date, so we are delighted that STL has recognized our experience in this fast growing sector, said Patrick Janssens, ABS Vice President, Global Gas Solutions. ABS has a proud track record of supporting some of the most innovative gas carrier projects. These latest orders are the next step in continuing that trend. STL is delighted to be working with ABS, drawing on its experience and legacy of leadership in the VLEC sector that will support our Lianyungang petrochemical project by safely transporting ethane from the U.S. to China said an executive for STL. The rapid expansion of our operations requires close partnerships with companies that reflect our own focus on technology innovation and the engineering excellence that supports projects that push the boundaries of complexity and improve the safety of our operations. ABS provides industry leadership, offering guidance in LNG floating structures and systems, gas fuel systems and equipment, gas carriers, and regulatory and statutory requirements. ABS has extensive experience with the full scope of gas-related assets and has been the classification society of choice for some of the most advanced gas carriers in service.




Three local school districts have reported additional cases of COVID-19. Two of them involve elementary schools.

A fifth-grade teacher for Shepherd Schools has tested positive for COVID-19, Interim Superintended Greg McMillan informed district parents Tuesday night.

I apologize for interrupting your family time, but we have had a significant change in our districts Covid 19 status, McMillan said in an email. We have had our first, on campus, confirmed Covid 19 case. One of our fifth grade teachers has tested positive for the Covid 19 virus.

Shepherd School District has two elementaries, Shepherd Elementary School and Winn Elementary School. While the subject line of the email identified Shepherd Elementary School, the body copy just says a fifth grade teacher.

The district reported it to Central Michigan District Health Department, which McMillan said began the process of contact tracing to identify who might have been exposed. Anyone determined to be a close contact will be quarantined at home. Any students who are quarantined at home will move to virtual learning.

CMDHD has traditionally defined people as close contacts whove spent 15 minutes or more within six feet of someone infected. Anyone who develops symptoms and isnt tested is classified as a probably positive case.

The case is the first confirmed case of COVID-19 involving a public school district in Isabella County.

Shortly after the Shepherd announcement, Breckenridge Community Schools announced on social media a confirmed case involving Breckenridge Elementary School. The district didnt identify the grade, or whether it involved a student or staff member.

The notice did say that all close contacts have been identified by Mid-Michigan District Health Department.

It is the second Gratiot County elementary school with at least one confirmed case of COVID-19.

Luce Road Early Childhood Learning Center, part of the Alma School District, had an outbreak that involved 31 confirmed cases involving both students and staff last month.

No additional cases were reported there in Mondays school outbreak update from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, suggesting that the outbreak has been contained.

Gratiot Countys cumulative confirmed cases increased by two Wednesday to 274, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The county has had 40 probably positive cases  people who had close contact with a COVID-positive person and developed symptoms  and 16 deaths. Isabella County has had a cumulative total of 93 probable cases since March.

Also on Tuesday, Mt. Pleasant Public Schools Superintendent Jennifer Verleger announced that a second probable case involving at the districts middle school.

The first probable case, a student who developed symptoms last Thursday, prompted all teachers in one of its teaching teams into quarantine until Oct. 15, returning to class on Oct. 19. That timetable was not changed by the second case.

There are also hundreds of cases associated with Central Michigan University.

Isabella Countys cases increased by 16 to 693, according to the MDHHS website. With a population of 70,000, once the countys cumulative total number of cases reaches 700, 1 percent of the countys population will have had a confirmed case of COVID-19. Fifteen people have died from COVID-19.

Cases in Clare County increased by 10 Wednesday to a cumulative total of 115, with five deaths. Five more cases were reported in Montcalm County for a cumulative total of 348, with seven deaths. Eight more cases were reported in Mecosta County, for a cumulative total of 245, with three deaths. Eleven more cases were reported in Midland County, for a cumulative total of 574, with 12 deaths.

Gladwin County, with 103 cases and two deaths, remained unchanged.

Statewide, another 1,016 cases were announced for a cumulative total of 130,842. Another nine deaths were announced for a total of 6,847.

READ MORE:
On Saturday, Gov. Chris Christie tweeted that he had tested positive for COVID-19, and on his doctors advice, had checked himself into Morristown Medical Center, a hospital close to his home in Mendham.

Christie, 58, who likely contracted the virus after days of mask-less, prolonged contact President Trump and his inner circle during the previous week, wrote that he had only minor symptoms and was feeling good."

But soon after he tweeted, people started asking questions on social media. When should people infected with the virus seek hospital care? Can anyone check into a hospital like he said he did?

A spokesman from Morristown Medical Center would not comment on the governors condition Tuesday. Christies twitter account has been quiet since Saturday night. Although he called Star-Ledger columnist Tom Moran Monday morning, Christie declined to discuss his prognosis.

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.  Governor Christie (@GovChristie) October 3, 2020

To answer these questions, NJ Advance Media spoke to Daniel W. Varga, chief physician executive for Hackensack Meridian Health, and Michael Cascarina, president-elect of the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians. Neither doctor is involved with the governors treatment.

Q: Can people check themselves into a hospital? Dont they need permission from their doctor first?

A: No, people dont check in to a hospital like a hotel. But doctors make direct admissions to the hospital all the time, Varga and Cascarina said. It not only spares the patient a wait in the emergency room, it expedites the care a doctor feels is necessary.

Its likely "Gov. Christies physician just said, I am going to call over and arrange an admission. Go and present yourself to the admitting area and Ill get you in,  Varga said.

Q: Why would someone be admitted to the hospital so soon after diagnosis?

A: The most serious symptom of COVID-19 is shortness of breath, both doctors agreed.

If the patient has other risk factors, the urgency of hospital care increases.

Age is probably the biggest risk factor -- people over 50 and especially over 65, Cascarina said. People would be considered high risk if they had a history of heart disease, obesity, diabetes and a chronic lung disease, such as asthma, he said.

Christie checks at least three of those boxes -- he is 58 years old and has long struggled with weight issues. The governor underwent lap band surgery in 2013. Christie was hospitalized in 2011 - less than two years into his first term as governor - at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville after suffering an asthma attack on a particularly humid day.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says those with moderate to severe asthma or a body mass index above 30 may have an increased risk of COVID-19 complications. Those between 50 and 64-years-old are the fourth-highest age group hospitalized for the virus, the CDC says.

One of the biggest issues that we identified in the first wave of the pandemic was that individuals with underlying lung disease could have very, very dangerous levels of blood oxygen -- meaning low -- but not really demonstrating much in the way of symptoms, Varga said.

A healthy persons blood oxygen level is 95% to 100%, he said.

COVID-19 patients can rapidly decline, going from mild fatigue and a cough to turning blue in under 24 hours, Varga said.

That is one of the reason why, particularly with Gov Christies history of asthma, you would particularly want to monitor him in the hospital, Varga said.

Some patients wear an oxygen saturation monitor and are monitored at home, he said. With someone with underlying lung disease, and knowing that deterioration could happen rapidly, you probably want that individual in a place where you could intervene rapidly if that was the case, he said.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Q: Early on in the pandemic, people were discouraged from going to the ER and encouraged to stay at home unless they felt shortness of breath. Has that changed?

A: Early on, testing was scarce. People with symptoms like fever or cough flooded the ER to find out if they even had the virus, Varga said.

Now, he said, the recommendations are different because things have changed and people can be tested elsewhere. So if you have tested positive and feel you need medical help you should come to the emergency room, he said.

There really isnt much to do about a coronavirus infection unless there is shortness of breath or cognitive issues, like confusion," Cascarina said.

Q: How sick do you have to be to go to the hospital?

Varga said it depends on the continuum of risk.

If you are somebody who has emphysema, or asthma, or congestive heart failure and you are minimally short of breath, you should go to the emergency department, he said. If you are a healthy 20 year-old and whose got a hacking cough and gets a little shortness of breath when you climb the stairs, you are probably okay.

Cascarina, who is 55, has asthma and contracted the virus, said he recovered without needing hospital care. If patients do not have shortness of breath, they should try to stay home and get better on their own, he said.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.



NJ Advance Media Staff Writer Rebecca Panico contributed to this story.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio.
Emily in Paris, which dropped Friday, follows a Chicago marketing executive (played by Lily Collins) as she moves to Paris to teach her international colleagues about social media and Gen Z branding. The 10 half-hour episodes  from Sex and the City creator Darren Star  feature a few Chicago scenes, which were shot here nearly a year ago. The series was written and filmed well before the coronavirus pandemic devastated the restaurant industry.
Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson have imposed different national COVID-19 restrictions on Scotland and England respectively. (Getty Images)

Nicola Sturgeon has announced temporary new measures aimed at restricting the spread of the coronavirus in Scotland.

These include pubs, restaurants and cafes being banned from selling alcohol indoors for more than two weeks.

Its yet another example of the Scottish government choosing its own path in the pandemic, and imposing different rules to those of the Westminster government in England.

Watch: Sturgeon bans pubs and restaurants from selling alcohol indoors for two weeks

It means there are a number of key differences in how peoples freedoms are being restricted in Scotland and England.

Here, Yahoo News UK takes you through them...

1. Visiting peoples homes

In Scotland, people are not allowed to visit the homes of people they dont live with. In England, people are still allowed to gather in another persons home in groups of up to six.

2. Rule of six differences

In both Scotland and England, there is a rule of six, meaning groups of up to six people are allowed to meet outdoors, or in a pub, restaurant or cafe.

The difference is how many households can make up a group. In Scotland, the group must only consist of a maximum two households. In England, there can be six different households.

In addition, children under 12 are not counted towards this six-person limit in Scotland. In England, children do count: something that has been a major point of contention among Conservative backbench MPs.

3. Weddings and funerals

In Scotland, the maximum number of people allowed to attend weddings and funerals is 20. The limits are different in England: 15 for weddings and 30 for funerals.

4. Opening hours and alcohol at indoor venues

On Wednesday, Sturgeon announced indoor hospitality venues will only be allowed to operate between 6am and 6pm between 9 and 25 October, selling food and non-alcoholic drinks only.

In England, indoor hospitality venues face a 10pm curfew and are still allowed to sell alcohol.

Pubs must close at 10pm in England. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)

Note on local lockdowns

The differences listed above refer to national restrictions. However, both Scotland and England have been imposing tougher local restrictions.

Story continues

For example, after Sturgeon announced the 6am to 6pm opening hours for indoor hospitality venues nationwide, she added pubs and licensed cafes in five areas  Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Arran, Lothian, and Forth Valley  are not allowed to open at all during the 16-day period. They must shut to all but takeaway customers.

In England, meanwhile, there is no national ban on, for example, visiting someone elses home. However, this is not allowed in numerous areas in the North East and North West, where local lockdowns have been enforced.

Coronavirus: what happened today

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Polls in the Pandemic: What Every California Voter Should Know Before Election Day

This Novembers general election is set to be historic, not just because of the presidential race at a time when the American electorate is unusually polarized.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous changes have been made to the voting process. Mail-in ballots are available for all California voters for the first time in history, and the state has also pledged to make safe in-person voting available.

In a press conference earlier this month with Ethnic Media Services, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla spoke about the states new voting procedures, and how his office is working to ensure that all communities are able to vote safely.

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In my role as Secretary of State, I also serve as Californias Chief Elections Officer. We work in partnership with all 58 counties in California to administer elections. Usually, we want to make sure elections are accessible and secure. Considering the COVID-19 pandemic, we also need to make sure that the voting experience is one that is safe and protects health both the voters and election workers, Padilla said.

Eligible Californians can register to vote online up until the deadline of Oct. 19. After that date, the only option is same-day voter registration in person, either during early voting or on election day. Voters who use same-day voter registration receive provisional ballots so they can still vote in the election.

Padilla urged voters to verify their voter registration before the Oct. 19 cutoff to ensure that ballots are delivered to the right address.

He also addressed that some previously registered voters may have inactive voter status and need to re-register. Voters are classified as inactive when a county elections official receives information that a voter has moved out of state, or if two general elections have passed and the voter has not voted or confirmed their address, according to the California Elections Code. Inactive voters usually dont receive voter information guides, and their names wont show up on the voter rolls when they go to vote in person.

If an inactive voter goes to vote in person, theyll still be allowed to vote a provisional ballot, their registration will be re-activated, and their ballot will be counted. So, it doesnt mean that theyve been taken off the rolls completely. Its one of the reasons were asking people who think theyre registered to verify their registration status. The simple act of verifying your registration status will ensure that you are an active registered voter and will receive your ballot this November.

This year every registered voter will be sent a vote-by-mail ballot, and all ballots postmarked by Election Day  and received within 17 days following Election Day  will be counted. The ballots will be sent out starting the first week of October. Voters who want to drop off their ballot in-person can do so at any ballot drop box or polling location.

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Padillas office also has an online ballot tracking tool called Wheres My Ballot, where voters in every county can sign up to receive automatic email, text message or voice call notifications about their ballot. For those who sign up, the tracker will send notifications when their county sends them their ballot, when the returned ballot has been received and when their vote has been counted.

For in-person voting, each county received guidance from the Secretary of States office to keep polling locations safe from COVID-19. The guidance asks voters to wear a face mask, bring a pen to avoid touching high-contact surfaces, use hand sanitizer after touching doors or voting equipment, and keep a distance of two- arms length from other people.

Though the state is encouraging voters to vote by mail, Padilla acknowledged that some voters will prefer to go in person, possibly to receive help voting or to use accessible voting machines. Padillas recommendation is to vote as early as possible, in order to avoid any delays.

We encourage people to go the first day that in-person voting is available. Yes, you have until Tuesday, November 3, but the more people that we can encourage to vote early, whether its by mail or in person, we hope helps keep the lines shorter on Election Day, making that a safer experience for voters and poll workers alike, Padilla said.

The official websites for checking voter status, registering to vote and tracking ballots are VoterStatus.sos.ca.gov and WheresMyBallot.sos.ca.gov
Veronica Hossain registered to vote for the first time during the 2008 presidential election because she wanted to vote for Barack Obama. As an Indo-Carribean American, she didnt want to miss the opportunity to vote for a Black man for president whose values she aligned with.

Ahead of the 2020 Democratic primaries, Hossain supported Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.  who is half-Indian and half-Jamaican  and was excited when Harris was chosen as Joe Bidens vice presidential nominee. She said it motivated her even more to vote for the Democratic ticket in November.

Hossain, 37, told NBC Asian America that having Harris on the ticket was a huge win for the South Asian community, specifically for South Asian women.

It helps me engage politically because earlier I didnt comprehend that we can not only vote but also hold these positions in the government, said Hossain, a board member for the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group South Asian American Voice, which promotes the rights of South Asian and Indo-Caribbean Americans.

Like Hossain, many Indian Americans are more likely to show up at the polls when an Indian American is running. According to a new study, the group is more than 16 percent more likely to vote when a candidate of Indian descent is on the ballot.

The study, by Sara Sadhwani, a professor of politics at Pomona College, showed that overall Asian American turnout is boosted when another Asian American is on the ballot, regardless of political party. She said Indians had the highest mobilization rate of any ethnic group she examined  Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Filipino.

Sadhwani said she expects this trend to continue in November.

My research does suggest there will be a higher voter turnout from Asian Americans and specifically Indian Americans for the election, especially if they see Kamala as someone with their shared identity, she said, noting that other factors such as the pandemic will also play a role.

Story continues

Image: Sara Sadhwani, PhD (California Lutheran University)

One of the reasons Sadhwani said she conducted this research was the lack of data on voting patterns among Asian Americans, even though the number of eligible voters in the community grew by 139 percent in the last two decades, according to Pew Research Center. Asian Americans are also the least likely to be contacted by either political party.

She examined six years of vote returns in California state assembly elections and identified a voters race or ethnicity based on their last name. Based on this information, she calculated how much pan-ethnic turnout was affected when an Asian American candidate was on the ballot.

This trend has also been noted with Harris herself. While most Asian American voters in California were undecided on whom to vote for in the 2016 senate race between Harris and fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez, 56 percent of Indian Americans supported Harris  more than any other subgroup.

The research firm AAPI Data also found that when Asian American voters in California were told ahead of the primary that Harris is half Asian American, support for her candidacy went up 11 percent.

Indian Americans have historically identified as Democrats and have a more solidified partisan identity, Sadhwani said. They have a longer history of making financial contributions and engaging in politics, so even if there hasnt been a huge presence on a national scale before, Indian Americans have been part of the process as shown in their voting behavior.

Teddy Kapur, who is campaigning for Los Angeles city attorney and is the son of Indian immigrants, said that having shared immigrant experiences and backgrounds can help persuade constituents to support a candidate.

Her Indian background was not the only deciding factor, but it did appeal to me and got me excited about her candidacy, he said of Harris 2016 senate bid.

Teddy Kapur. (Courtesy Bill Devlin)

Kapur, who grew up in Houston, said it helps when he talks to South Asian voters about the experiences hes had during his own run for office. I have tried to identify and reach out to groups I am part of, including South Asians, and there are affinities in shared experiences and values that donors and voters are interested in, he said.

But like Asian Americans, people of Indian descent arent a monolith.

While most Indian Americans tend to lean left, according to the exit poll data from the 2016 elections and a recent voter survey from AAPI Data, political perspectives may vary depending on where voters live, their age and their socio-economic status.

Sadhwani said she hopes her findings can shed light on Asian American voters outside California as well.

The idea is that from this study, we can begin to think about how Asian Americans are possibly voting elsewhere, she said.
Former NSW Labor leader Michael Daley has warned that a government-issued gambling card for poker machines would devastate pubs and clubs fighting for their survival.

In the first comments from Labor about the Berejiklian government's plans to move to cashless poker machines and a gambling card, Mr Daley said the focus should be on saving jobs.

NSW Labor Opposition Leader Michael Daley. Credit:James Alcock

The changes would mean gamblers will be forced to register and pre-load money to the card, which would operate in a similar way to the state's cashless Opal cards for public transport.

It would be linked to the state's register of self-excluded gamblers. It would be designed and overseen by the Privacy Commissioner.
Activists gather in front of the National Assembly in Seoul, Wednesday, to demand lawmakers "completely abolish" the law banning abortion. Yonhap



The government made public its plan Wednesday to revise laws to allow abortion until the 14th week of pregnancy.



The revisions also conditionally allow abortion until the 24th week of pregnancy based on social, economic and health concerns.



The government said the changes to the Criminal Act and the Mother and Child Health Act were made in close consultation with medical and legal experts and as a follow-up to a Constitutional Court ruling in April last year.



The court ruled that two provisions of the Criminal Act that ban all abortion, at any stage of pregnancy, are unconstitutional as they severely violate women's right to choose, and it gave the National Assembly until the end of this year to revise the law.



Currently, abortion is a crime punishable by up to three years in prison and is only legally allowed in case of rape or when carrying out the pregnancy is likely to put the expectant mother's health at great risk.



The Justice Ministry said in a joint release by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety that no criminal charges should be filed for abortion until the 14th week of pregnancy under the revisions.



Until the 24th week into pregnancy, abortion is still possible under extenuating circumstances, such as rape, as well as for social and economic reasons. In the latter cases, a woman should go through mandatory counseling and a 24-hour "consideration period." The clause of getting consent from a partner for abortion was deleted out of concern that it violates a woman's right to choose.



The public will have around 40 days to submit their opinions about the revisions before the revisions are sent to the National Assembly for approval.



Revising, not abolishing, the anti-abortion law, however, is likely to invite strong protest from women's rights advocacy groups.



In August, the Committee of Gender Equality under the Ministry of Justice recommended that the ministry recognize women's right to choose as a basic human right and repeal the decades-old laws.



"Women's voices and experiences should be actively considered (in policymaking)," the committee said in a press release. It added that the right to choose is guaranteed "by the Constitution, the Framework Act of Gender Equality and the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women."



According to the two articles of the country's Criminal Act, which was made into law in 1953, a woman who "procures her own miscarriage through the use of drugs or other means" shall be punished by imprisonment of up to one year or by a fine of up to 2 million won (US$1,685). Also a doctor who performs an abortion with a patient's consent can be slapped with imprisonment of up to two years and up to three years if performed without permission.



Women's rights activists have been arduously calling for the abolishment of the act, arguing that making it a criminal offense only worsens situations in which a medical procedure to terminate a pregnancy takes place anyway and that many women face greater health risks during the illegal process.



In April, a coalition of women's groups held a press conference in front of the National Assembly in commemoration of the first anniversary of the court's ruling, calling for swift action to repeal the law. (Yonhap)


The government recently approved the induction and deployment of the 700-km range surface-to-surface supersonic Shaurya strategic missile even as there has been progress in the development of the 5,000-km range K-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile, people familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity. They added that the 800-km range subsonic (below the speed of sound) Nirbhay cruise missile will be tested in the next couple of weeks and be inducted into both Indian Army and Navy shortly after.

HT learns that a limited number of Nirbhay missiles have already been deployed in response to the Chinese build-up in Tibet and Xinjiang.

Also Read: India tests missile-assisted system to target submarines at long ranges

The tests and the deployments need to be seen in the context of the ongoing impasse between Indian and Chinese troops at the Line of Actual Control.

In the past month, the government has tested the Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV), the pre-cursor to building missiles that can travel at a minimum of five times the speed of sound (September 7), the extended range version of the supersonic cruise missile BrahMos (on September 30; with a range of 400 km, up from the existing 290 km); the nuclear-capable Shaurya supersonic missiles that can travel at twice to thrice the speed of sound (October 3); and the supersonic missile assisted release of torpedo that targets submarines (October 5). BrahMos is also a supersonic missile.

The Shaurya missile is the land version of submarine launched BA-05 missile and has been developed by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The land version was discreetly tested for the final time before induction and as part of user trials from Balasore on October 3. It will be soon deployed at locations identified by the Indian Strategic Forces Command under guidance from National Security Council. The missile has a warhead weighing around 160 kilograms

According to top missile experts, Shaurya is a delivery system stored in a composite canister for rapid deployment and minimum interaction with the elements. The strategic missile flies within the atmosphere at a height of 50 kilometres. The experts added that the governments decision to go for land version is significant as the missile can be launched by a single vehicle.

Also Read: India conducts successful flight test of SMART; Game-changer, says DRDO chief

DRDO is also making rapid strides in the development of 5,000 km version of the submarine launched ballistic missile of SLBM. With a range equivalent to Agni-5 land based ballistic missile, the K-5 will be deployed on-board the Arihant class of nuclear submarines. While the missile scientists are tight-lipped about the K-5 SLBM, the weapon system is expected to be tested in the next 15 months and subsequently deployed on the INS Arihant and the INS Arighat a new class of heavier submarine which is under harbor trials. INS Arighat is expected to be commissioned within the next six months and INS Arihant is already deployed in forward positions.

Analysts said that coming at a time when India is engaged with a belligerent Chinese Army in the Ladakh sector, the testing and deployment of short-range delivery platforms clearly conveys the Modi Governments intention of not backing down to any aggression or cartographical expansion plan of any adversary in the neighbourhood.

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Over the next 20 years, airline traffic growth in the Middle East is projected to increase by an average of 4.3% per year. Image: Boeing (Boeing 737MAX)



The 2020 Boeing Market Outlook (BMO) projects that the commercial aviation and services markets will continue to face significant challenges due to the pandemic, while global defense and government services markets remain more stable.

While this year has been unprecedented in terms of its disruption to our industry, we believe that aerospace and defence will overcome these near-term challenges, return to stability and emerge with strength, said Boeing chief strategy officer Marc Allen.

The BMO forecasts a total market value of $8.5 trillion over the next decade including demand for aerospace products and services. The forecast is down from $8.7 trillion a year ago due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Airlines globally have begun to recover from a greater than 90% decline in passenger traffic and revenue early this year, but a full recovery will take years, according to the outlook.

The 2020 Boeing Market Outlook includes projected demand for 18,350 commercial airplanes in the next decade  11% lower than the comparable 2019 forecast  valued at about $2.9 trillion. In the longer term, with key industry drivers expected to remain stable, the commercial fleet is forecasted to return to its growth trend, generating demand for more than 43,000 new airplanes in the 20-year forecast time period.

The BMO also projects a $2.6 trillion market opportunity for defence and space during the next decade. This spending projection reflects the ongoing importance of military aircraft, autonomous systems, satellites, spacecraft and other products to national and international defence.



While near-term commercial services demand is lower, the BMO forecasts a $3 trillion market opportunity for commercial and government services through 2029, with digital solutions emerging as a critical enabler as customers focus on leaner operations to adjust to future market demand. Lifecycle services and support will help customers scale their operations to meet efficiency and cost objectives aligned to market recovery trends.

As the impact of the pandemic continues, Boeing is taking action to reshape its business operations to adapt to the new market reality and become more resilient for the long term. This business transformation includes every element of Boeings enterprise, including infrastructure, overhead and organisation, portfolio and investments, supply chain health and operational excellence.

Middle East highlights for Boeings Commercial Market Outlook

 Over the next 20 years, airline traffic growth in the Middle East is projected to increase by an average of 4.3% per year (in comparison to the global growth of 4% per year)

 The regions commercial airplanes fleet is expected to reach 3,500 by 2039 up from 1,510 airplanes today including an estimated 2,945 new deliveries

 In the widebody segment, Boeing forecasts a regional demand for 1,280 new passenger airplanes by 2039. Widebody demand will be affected by a slower recovery in long-haul markets  typical after air-travel shocks  as well as uncertainties from COVID-19s impact on international travel.

 Single-aisle airplanes will continue to be the largest market segment with regional operators projected to need 1,540 new airplanes in the next 20 years.

 Air cargos importance to world trade is illustrated by the fact that, although freighters carry just 1% of all commodities by weight, the value of those commodities comprises 35% of total trade

 Air cargo demand is expected to grow 4% annually globally. The Middle East freighter fleet is expected to reach 150 aircraft of which 95 will be new deliveries

 The global airplane fleet will continue to generate demand for aviation services, including parts and supply chain; engineering, modifications and maintenance; training and professional services; and digital solutions and analytics.

 The aviation services market in the Middle East is estimated to be valued at $725 billion by 2039

 Boeings 2020 Pilot and Technician Outlook forecasts that the region is estimated to require a total of 223,000 new aviation personnel between now and 2039  about 58,000 pilots, 59,000 technicians and 106,000 cabin crew members.
A standoff in a Grimsby residential neighbourhood ended peacefully Wednesday night, more than eight hours after police were called in over reports of a male in distress.

The incident occurred on Murray Street near Olive Street, starting at about 10 a.m.

The man barricaded himself inside a residence, which was adjacent to Lakeview Public School and a daycare which were put in lockdown as a safety measure.

Niagara Regional Police reported its emergency task unit, as well as crisis negotiators and its canine unit were on scene.

Early on, two officers who responded were assaulted, police said, but were not injured. At least two of the homes front windows were broken at some point.

Via Twitter, at about 6:30 p.m. police reported the situation  has come to a peaceful end.

The male has been arrested for criminal offences. We are clearing the area.

Its not known if the man, who was not identified, was armed throughout the incident. More information was expected to be released later.
(Natural News) The New England Journal of Medicine is getting behind Bill Gates nefarious plan to claim ownership over every human being and force vaccinate them indefinitely. The totalitarian plan, released in the prestigious medical journal, reveals strategies to force covid-19 vaccine compliance onto individuals and families through manipulation, coercion, lost income and social ostracizing.

Clinical studies have already been conducted to determine the best way to force the population to comply with upcoming experimental RNA-modifying injections. This paper warns that noncompliance should incur a penalty which includes isolation and lost income. The paper calls for penalties to be relatively substantial including employment suspension or stay-at-home orders. The authors of the NEJM paper come from Yale, Stanford University and Indiana University  institutions that are financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the mandatory vaccine zealots who are interested in population control and eugenics.

Bill Gates releases his game plan to weaken people into compliance

Event 201, hosted by Bill Gates in 2019, laid out the foundation to vaccinate 7 billion people on the planet using pandemic messaging. The upcoming vaccine technology is a new RNA and cell modifying platform that reprograms ribosomes of human cells to produce properties of virus spike proteins, augmenting experimental immune responses. Mandatory vaccination is not only overt control over peoples bodies and minds (human slavery), but the science itself is a form of physiological slavery, reprogramming human immune systems to be dependent on the perpetual use of RNA therapy injections and their experimental modifications of human cells.

Bill Gates and his eugenicist friends want human compliance, and that starts by weakening the population with threats to their livelihood, as seen in the totalitarian public health responses carried out in 2020. Healthy people are threatened with home arrest, isolation from their family and friends, oxygen reduction shaming through mandatory mask threats, among other abusive negative reinforcements that coerce compliance to a medical police state and a forced vaccination new-world-order. Human beings have been forced to believe they will get their freedom back as soon as a vaccine is available, and its this kind of coercion that is the antithesis of what freedom is really all about. (Related: Clinical trials reveal that more people might get symptoms and be hospitalized from Modernas mRNA covid-19 vaccine than from a theoretical infection.)

Employers will be threatened with shutdown and lawsuit until they force employees to get vaccinated

Because people have generally complied in 2020 with other useless medical edicts, the central vaccine planners acknowledge that voluntary measures will work at first. The paper remands that six substantive criteria must be met before the state can force people to vaccinate through punishment. Initially, people will let their guard down because the plan at first is to encourage voluntary uptakeusing means such as public education campaigns and free vaccination.

For those who dont initially comply, they will be blamed for future outbreaks of respiratory illness and future artificial outbreaks created by oversensitive, false positive PCR testing that continues to detect non-infectious viral debris that only perpetuates pandemic messaging. Once these dissenters are socially ostracized, they will comply. Others will ultimately be convinced to submit because its for the good of all. They wont want to be labeled anti-science and be the outcast among their peers.

If these plans do not work, then employers will be threatened with putting the public health at risk if they do not force their employees, vendors and/or customers to submit to the vaccine protocol. Employers, afraid of being shut down or sued for not implementing the CDC rules, will ultimately push people into home arrest or termination from employment. This abusive coercion is already being carried out with social distancing and mask mandate protocols, which were intended to gauge human compliance before the vaccine was made available. This financial and livelihood pressure will ultimately force wide scale vaccine compliance, unless the people rebel and demand an end to medical tyranny.

Sources include:

RT.com

NEJM.org

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com
Seen is a concept model of Hyundai Mobis. / Courtesy of Hyundai Mobis



By Baek Byung-yeul





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The leadership of the Association of Greater Accra Okada Riders has met the National Organizer of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Sammi Awuku and the Greater Accra Regional Youth Organizer, Moses Abor to discuss future plans of the NPP government for okada riders.



According to the President of the Association, Gambila Mohammed, the meeting with Sammi Awuku afforded them the opportunity to broach the proposed comprehensive policy of the government regarding the leasing of cars as announced by His Excellency, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia to support okada riders to better their lives.



Gambila Mohammed also clearly reminded the NPP National Organizer of their commitment to create job opportunities for okada riders and making education much more accessible to enable us and our households acquire some appreciable degree of skills and knowledge to pursue any ambition of our choices.



That okada business is not a sustainable job; that okada business is very risky or deadly, that joblessness compelled them to undertake okada business as a source of sustaining their livelihoods.



They are of the greatest conviction that Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia's option to support them to secure sustainable jobs is the suitable way.



They reposed confidence in President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for his credibility and incorruptible character.



This credibility is borne out of the fact that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has fulfilled almost every promise within the three and half years mandate entrusted to him by Ghanaians.

Source: Josephine Acheampomaa/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A medical staffer takes a swab sample from a Myanmar government employee to test for COVID-19 at a quarantine facility at Hlaing University in Yangon, July 16, 2020.

UPDATED at 12:25 P.M. ET on 2020-10-07

Myanmars second wave of coronavirus may have been triggered by returnees from neighboring Bangladesh, who brought the illness back with them when they illegally entered Rakhine state, which is now a COVID-19 hotspot, according to a senior government health official.

But other experts say the evidence remains inconclusive, and the quest to find out the source of infections is hampered by limited contact tracing, poor compliance with coronavirus countermeasures and porous borders not with only Bangladesh, but also with Thailand, China, and India.

Like continental Southeast Asian neighbors Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, Myanmar largely avoided widespread COVID-19 infections that spread around the globe through the first half of the year. But the country of 54 million people has seen a deadly return of the virus since mid-August.

It is possible that the second wave started from Rakhine, Dr. Khin Khin Gyi, director of the Central Contagious Disease Prevention and Eradication Department at the Ministry of Health and Sports, told RFAs Myanmar Service in a telephone interview. Rakhine has become a hotspot for the virus, along with the Yangon region.

The percentage of likely infections from those who had come in illegally from Bangladesh is high, she said. The infections spread from there into Rakhine, and then went to Yangon and various other places in Myanmar by plane.

Khin Khin Gyi, like other government officials, uses the term returnees when referring to Rohingya from Rakhine state, because officially the Muslim ethnic minority doesnt exist. Mention of the term is so widely avoided that national leader Aung San Suu Kyis speech defending her countrys military against allegations of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last year did not contain the word Rohingya.

The hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who live in Rakhine are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and are denied Myanmar citizenship.

Three years ago, Myanmar forces led a brutal crackdown on Rohingya communities in the states northern townships, leaving thousands dead and driving more than 740,000 others to flee to Bangladesh, where they live in sprawling refugee camps.

Though most Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh say that they do not want to return to Myanmar absent policy changes to address rampant discrimination and persecution, a few dozen have trickled back over the border without going through official repatriation procedures.

Myanmar has the fourth-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases among the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), behind the Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore.

As of Tuesday, Myanmar registered 20,033 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 1,252 new ones  the highest daily increase since the first case was detected on March 23. There have been 471 related fatalities and 5,782 recoveries.

Bangladesh, which has the 16th-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, recorded 371,631 confirmed infections on Tuesday, more than 5,000 deaths, and over 284,800 recoveries.

When the number of infections began to rise in Bangladesh earlier this year, residents on Myanmars side of the border in Rakhine state requested that officials stop illegal returnees and cross-border trade between the Teknaf area of Coxs Bazar district and Maungdaw township.

Dr. Khin Khin Gyi from Myanmar's Ministry of Health and Sports speaks to reporters at a COVID-19 news conference in Naypyidaw, Jan. 24, 2020. Credit: RFA Trips to Bangladesh, domestic flights

On Oct. 1, Maungdaw township administrator Aung Soe told RFA that trade had remained open until mid-year out of economic necessity, and that about 150 Rohingyas from the refugee camps returned on their own between April and June.

Eight of them were found to be infected with the coronavirus, he said. Three other Rohingyas involved in the border trade with Teknaf also tested positive.

Myanmars Health Ministry reported that 14 people who traveled to Bangladesh during the months of June, July, and August all later tested positive for the virus.

Dr. Sai Win Zaw Hlaing, director of Rakhine states Public Health Department, said it was difficult to verify whether the second wave of COVID-19 came from Bangladesh and spread from Rakhine state to other parts of Myanmar.

We cannot say definitely that theres a connection between those who were found to be infected in Maungdaw and those here [in Sittwe], he said. There are flights from Yangon [to Rakhine state], and there are those who come from various regions by car [to Rakhines capital] as well.

There are also those who have returned from Bangladesh on boats that operate illegally, he added. The government has cut off boat traffic as a COVID-19 containment measure.

In mid-July, infections were detected in the Maungdaw-Buthidaung area at the same time that COVID-19 case numbers were growing in the Yangon region. As of Monday, the Yangon region recorded nearly 14, 600 confirmed coronavirus cases.

One COVID-19 patient at Waibargi Hospital, a specialist infectious disease hospital in Yangon, had a history of travel to Bangladesh. On July 1, four people in Yangon, who all had traveled to Middle Eastern countries, were found to be COVID-positive. Others who had returned from other countries tested positive for the virus as well.

During the second week of August, a woman who worked at a bank in Sittwe came down with the virus, though she reported having no contact with infected people. She then passed on the virus on to another person.

According to a Health Ministry announcement on Aug. 26, approximately 20 people caught the virus from a COVID patient in Sittwe. Those figures did not include the number of people who later were infected by the group of 20.

Sai Win Zaw Hlaing said the bank employees infection period had been long, so that it was difficult to determine the origin of the illness, though she took a plane to Kyaukphyu in Rakhine state on July 30 and returned to Sittwe on Aug. 2.

The woman began showing symptoms on Aug. 14, and she was confirmed as having COVID-19 two days later, he said.

Its possible that it was brought from Kyaukphyu or it could have been that the infection was transmitted from those who had returned from Yangon on the flight, he said. The person went to work in the bank on Aug. 4, so it also could have been from a person who came into the bank.

Volunteers wearing personal protective equipment check a list of individuals suspected of having the COVID-19 virus at a quarantine center in Myanmar's commercial city Yangon, Oct. 1, 2020. Credit: AFP Tracing troubles

Rights activist Nickey Diamond from Southeast Asia-based Fortify Rights told RFA that health officials should present evidence if they are certain that the virus was spread by Rohingyas who returned from Bangladesh.

If you want to talk about the concept that the infection spread because someone has returned from Bangladesh, then the main thing is the evidence, he said. If you are certain about it, do you have any evidence of research on the spread of the infection? If you do, then you need to make an official announcement.

In mid-August, the Health Ministry asked about 5,000 people who had traveled to Rakhine by plane to get tested for the virus. About 2,000 of them did not respond to the request.

In September, the number of confirmed COVID cases across Myanmar grew to 500-800 daily, with the majority of cases in Yangon. About 70 percent of those infected did not experience virus symptoms, the Health Ministry said.

In the interview with RFA, Khin Khin Gyi blamed the rapid spread of the coronavirus on the carelessness of the public on account of incomplete and fake news.

But Diamond said such carelessness reflected the behavior of Myanmars leaders.

Actually, what we noticed was that our country did not suffer badly during the first wave, he said. The countrys leader Daw [honorific] Aung San Suu Kyi herself would wear a mask, and then not wear a mask, at many public rallies.

Because she did that, people became very careless, he said.

With the coronavirus spreading to more than 90 percent of Myanmar, including all regions and states, except for Kayah state on the border with Thailand, there are now more than 10,000 patients under observation and over 100,000 residing temporarily in monitoring centers, Khin Khin Gyi said.

People who have symptoms of COVID-19 are avoiding hospital and clinic visits and treating themselves at home, she added.

The lack of contact tracing has been a key factor that has facilitated the spread of the virus, said Dr. Saw Naing, a volunteer physician at a fever clinic in South Okkalapa township in Yangon. The government has set up fever clinics to treat those with the COVID-19 virus and people suspected of contracting it.

Saw Naing cited the case of a betel nut shop owner in Yangon who contracted COVID-19.

There was no way for us to know how many people came to the betel nut shop, so there was no way to trace the virus, he said. Since nothing could be done, we could only close the shop.

People walk towards a barrier blocking access to minor roads with a sign urging residents to stay at home due to a surge in the number of cases of the coronavirus in Myanmar's commercial city Yangon, Sept. 11, 2020. Credit: AFP Follow the rules

In response to the surge, officials in the hardest-hit regions and states have imposed lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, and travel restrictions, and have set up additional COVID-19 testing and treatment centers and quarantine facilities.

Medical workers were mobilized and sent to hospitals and clinics in Yangon and Rakhine state, and the central government has allocated more than 1 trillion kyats (U.S. $747.5 million) to fight the spread of the virus.

Government officials in Yangon now have extended stay-at-home orders until the end of October because infection rates there have not yet dropped.

Some doctors, including Khin Khin Gyi, believe that if people remain at home, infection rates will drop at the end of the month.

Peoples cooperation and the rate of the spread of the disease are inversely proportionate, said Khin Khin Gyi. If you follow the rules, the rate of the disease will decrease, and if you dont, the current momentum will still remain.

But Aung Thu Nyein, communications director at the Institute for Strategic Policy-Myanmar, a Yangon-based independent think tank that promotes democracy and good governance, said the rising infection rates could be attributed to many factors.

Weve got more migrant workers than other country in the region, he said. The border is porous. Many people are returning from Thailand and China.

Lately, there have been assumptions that the outbreak in the western part of the country is responsible for the second wave of infections, he added. Because of the nature of the country [with so many returning migrants], it is almost impossible to contain this pandemic.

Khin Khin Gyi dismissed the possibility that responsibility for the coronavirus resurgence that began on Aug. 16 could lie with the tens of thousands of Myanmar migrant workers who returned home after losing their farm and factory jobs in China, Thailand, and India. Most of those workers returned in the months following the pandemics outbreak early this year.

If it was from them that the disease had spread, then there would not be any infections from them by now, she said. There is not much chance of people having gotten it from them.

Reported by Moe Myint and Nay Myo Htun for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Than Than Win and Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that there were nearly 1,500 COVID-related deaths in Bangladesh.


Coronavirus may lead to infertility in men  even if they only suffer a mild form of the disease, a doctor has claimed.

Sperm counts of infected men halved 30 days after they were diagnosed with Covid-19, according to an Israeli study.

And Dr Dan Aderka, from the Sheba Medical Centre in Tel Aviv, also alleged sperm motility  or its ability to move by itself  was also hampered.

But scientists insist the truth on whether Covid-19 permanently damages fertility is still murky, and that even flu causes a temporary drop in sperm counts.

Coronavirus may cause infertility in men even if they suffer mild forms of the disease, it has been claimed. (stock image)

Does coronavirus really affect fertility? Several studies have previously suggested that an infection with the virus could impact fertility, but there is yet to be any firm proof to back up the claim. Some blame fever for a drop in sperm production - as the cells require 34C (93.2F) for their production - although it is thought their numbers can bounce back post-infection. Several large studies are currently underway to identify whether the virus impacts fertility. One, backed by the National Institute of Health (NIH), will examine the medical records of more than 20,000 pregnant women to determine differences between them and 1,500 women who were pregnant and had coronavirus. Their aim is to understand how the virus affects maternal health and how changes in access to healthcare due to the pandemic are impacting pregnant women. An ASPIRE study is also underway, which will look at pregnancies during the first trimester - when the baby's organ systems form and the placenta develops. It hopes to understand the impact of Covid-19 on this critical early stage of development. Advertisement

The Jerusalem Post, which reported the research claimed it was published in the journal of Fertility and Sterility, and it claimed the changes were seen in men with mild cases but did not address how many people were involved.

However, the journal today hit back and said it had no record of Dr Aderka submitting the elusive paper.

Because no journal has yet to publicly release the study it means scientists from around the world have yet to be able to point out obvious flaws in its method.

Scientists studying the effect of coronavirus on fertility have, however, made similar claims in the past.

But doctors insist reports of men having lower sperm counts are likely down to them having had a fever  a tell-tale symptom of coronavirus.

This, scientists say, makes it harder for the body to produce sperm. They also argue that production can bounce back after an infection has passed.

Professor Allan Pacey, an andrologist at the University of Sheffield and former chair of the British Fertility Society, told MailOnline he wouldn't be surprised if coronavirus caused a temporary drop in sperm production.

But the jury is still out on whether or not the effect could be long-lasting, harming the fertility of men.

'People who get coronavirus are probably quite unwell, even influenza will cause a decline in sperm count temporarily,' he said.

'The question is whether it is permanent and whether it is recoverable.'

Research is yet to reveal whether long-term damage can be caused to testicles by coronavirus, and it could take several years before scientists have the answer.

Previous research has indicated, however, that any damage caused to the testes by an infection is not long-term.

Professor Pacey cautioned against the finding in the new Israeli research that coronavirus can damage cells in the testicles responsible for making semen and the male hormone testosterone.

The doctors claimed that was the case after examining 12 men who had died from the virus. The Jerusalem Post did not expand on this observation in any greater clarity.

But Professor Pacey pointed out deceased patients would have been much sicker than the average infected man, and are likely to have been older, which would also cause a drop in the amount of sperm they produce.

'There's a bit of caution there because if you're in ICU and you die you're very sick, so we shouldn't be surprised if there are changes in the testicles,' he said. 'Also, men who get very sick and are in ICU tend to be older.'

He also poured cold water on the finding that 13 per cent of sperm samples taken of infected men contained the virus, as reported by the Jerusalem Post.

'I think that's very difficult to prove and I'd like to read the paper,' he said.

'We've done work on other viruses, for example chlamydia, a bacteria that behaves like a virus, and it's really difficult to prove if the virus is inside the sperm.'

It is unclear whether the virus could be transmitted through this route, but there is no evidence that it can be passed via semen or vaginal fluids.

The virus, scientifically called SARS-CoV-2, could be passed through kissing during sex, however.

Dr Aderka, from the Sheba Medical Center, who carried out the study, claimed that coronavirus could harm the testicles by binding to the ACE2 receptors on their cells.

These receptors, which act as a gateway for the virus to enter cells, are the same as those on the lungs, heart and intestines.

But scientists have previously pointed out that to do this the coronavirus would need to enter the bloodstream, and there's no 'clear mechanism' for it to do this.

Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading, told MailOnline in April that coronaviruses do not generally travel in the blood.

'The main site of virus replication is the respiratory tract,' he said. '(Travel in the bloodstream) has been reported for the virus but it is not generally what coronaviruses do.'

Professor Pacey said he can't see a mechanism whereby coronavirus would become blood-borne. 'I may be wrong, this is a new virus, we're learning all the time,' he said.
WASHINGTON - The Latest on the 2020 presidential election (all times local):

10:35 p.m.

Vice-President Mike Pence says Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is a brilliant woman who will bring a lifetime of experience and a sizable American family to the nations highest court.

During Wednesdays vice-presidential debate, Pence and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris were asked how their respective states of Indiana and California should handle abortion if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Pence, a former Indiana governor and abortion opponent, warned against attacks on Barretts Roman Catholic faith and mentioned her large family of seven children.

Pence says he wouldnt presume to say how Barrett would vote on Roe. But as a candidate in 2016, Pence often told conservative crowds that President Donald Trump would appoint justices who would send Roe to the dustbin of history.

Harris said it was insulting to suggest that she and running mate Joe Biden would knock anyone for their faith. She noted that Biden is Catholic, and she criticized Republicans for rushing to confirm Barrett.

Harris said she will always fight for a womans right to make a decision about her own body.

___

HERES WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WHATS HAPPENING IN THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE:

President Donald Trump is recovering from the coronavirus at the White House. Democrat Joe Biden is holding two virtual fundraisers. The candidates running mates, meanwhile, met in a vice-presidential debate Wednesday night in Salt Lake City.

Read more:

 Pence-Harris debate to unfold as Trump recovers from virus

 Viewers Guide: Virus response on stage with Pence, Harris

 Trump, out of sight, tweets up storm, says he feels great

___

HERES WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

10:30 p.m.

There was briefly another participant swooping into Wednesday nights vice-presidential debate.

For several minutes, a fly landed in Vice-President Mike Pences hair, not moving as he answered questions about racial injustice and whether justice has been done in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Conversation about the fly briefly dominated corners of Twitter, where debate watchers discussed their distraction and inability to focus on Pence and California Sen. Kamala Harris answers. Some joked about the need to test the fly for the coronavirus, as it had skirted the plexiglass partitions separating the candidates and moderator.

Wednesday nights intruder wasnt the first to take centre stage at an election year debate. In 2016, a fly briefly landed between Democratic nominee Hillary Clintons eyes during a town hall-style debate with now-President Donald Trump.

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10:30 p.m.

Vice-President Mike Pence is accusing Joe Biden of planning to add members to the U.S. Supreme Court if the Democrats somehow win this election.

Pence said at Wednesdays vice-presidential debate: I tell you people across this country, if you cherish your Supreme Court, if you cherish the separation of powers, you need to reject the Biden-Harris ticket come November.

Pence promised to keep the court a nine-member panel if Trump is reelected.

Biden has not said he would increase the number of justices to outweigh what would become a solid conservative-majority court with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett.

Sen. Kamala Harris didnt directly answer Pences accusation. But she countered that the Trump administration has stacked federal courts nationwide with white conservatives, accusing Pence of participating in a different version of court packing.

This is what theyve been doing. You want to talk about packing the court. Lets have that discussion, she says. Lets go on and talk about the issue of racial justice.

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10:25 p.m.

President Donald Trump is apparently watching the vice-presidential debate and thinks Mike Pence is doing GREAT, but hes not so hot about the Democratic nominee or the moderators performance.

Trump, who is quarantining at the White House as he convalesces from COVID-19, took to Twitter to praise Pence and slam the Democratic vice-presidential nominee less than an hour into Wednesdays debate in Salt Lake City.

Mike Pence is doing GREAT! She is a gaffe machine, Trump chimed in on Twitter.

A few minutes later, he huffed that the moderator, USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page, cut Pence off as he was trying to make a point about Harris questioning a judicial nominee about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic social organization.

The president offered a link to a National Review article critical of Harris questioning to highlight the point he said Pence was trying to make.

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10:10 p.m.

Vice-President Mike Pence says hesitation on behalf of the Obama administration is to blame for the death of a humanitarian worker killed and abused by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Relatives of Kayla Mueller were among Pences guests at Wednesday nights debate with California Sen. Kamala Harris in Salt Lake City.

During the debate, Pence said that, when Joe Biden was vice-president, the Obama administration hesitated in moving on al-Baghdadi, and when forces finally went in, Mueller had been moved to another location.

Mueller was kidnapped and held for 18 months before her death was announced in early 2015.

Pence said Muellers family believes that, if President Donald Trump had been in office, Kayla would be alive today. Al-Baghdadi was killed during a special forces raid in Syria in 2019.

Speaking to Muellers family, Harris said, What happened to her was awful and it should have never happened.

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9:55 p.m.

The vice-presidential debate is much more cordial than last weeks raucous presidential debate with frequent interruptions and outbursts.

Democrat Kamala Harris acknowledged Vice-President Mike Pences phone call to her the day she accepted the Democratic vice-presidential nomination, while Pence acknowledged the well wishes from his Democratic rivals toward President Donald Trump after the president was diagnosed with COVID-19 last week.

Harris is the first Black woman on a major party ticket. Pence congratulated her Wednesday night on her historic nomination.

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9:50 p.m.

California Sen. Kamala Harris is hammering Vice-President Mike Pence over health care, saying that the Trump administration is coming for you if you have a preexisting condition.

Citing the Trump administrations support for a challenge to the Affordable Care Act before the Supreme Court, Harris says during Wednesday nights vice-presidential debate that the Trump administration is coming for you if you have a preexisting condition, if you love someone who has a preexisting condition or if you are younger than 26 years old and covered by their parents health care plan.

In response, Pence says that Obamacare was a disaster and that he and Trump have a plan to cover people with preexisting conditions, though the Trump administration hasnt yet released such a plan.

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9:45 p.m.

California Sen. Kamala Harris says a lack of information on President Donald Trumps outstanding debts raises concerns about possible motives for his decisions in the nations top office.

The Democratic vice-presidential nominee said Wednesday during a candidate debate in Salt Lake City that itd be really good to know who the president of the United States, the commander and chief, owes money to.

Harris referenced reporting by The New York Times showing Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 and is carrying a total of $421 million in loans and debt. Vice-President Mike Pence shook his head as she spoke.

Trump has fiercely guarded his tax filings and is the only president in modern times not to make them public.

Harris pivoted to taxes during a question on whether the American people deserved to have information on their presidents health, to which she and Pence both answered in the affirmative.

___

9:40 p.m.

Neither Vice-President Mike Pence nor Sen. Kamala Harris is acknowledging whether they have had a conversation with their partys presidential nominee about safeguards or procedures should either man become disabled.

President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden would be the oldest president ever, if elected.

Pence instead used his two minutes to attack Harris doubt in Trumps timeframe for a coronavirus vaccine. His answer came in part off Trumps recent coronavirus diagnosis.

For her part, Harris used her time to discuss her late mothers status as an immigrant and her unlikely path to the Democratic ticket.

Though neither seem to suggest its important to discuss conversations with their running mates, both seem to agree its important for the American people to have details of the presidents health.

___

9:35 p.m.

Sen. Kamala Harris is leaving it as an open question whether she would take a COVID-19 vaccine if one is approved while President Donald Trump is in office.

The topic came up early in Wednesdays vice-presidential debate.

Harris was asked if Americans should take the vaccine and if she would. Harris says that if doctors tells us that we should take it, Ill be the first in line to take it, absolutely. But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it, Im not taking it.

Vice-President Mike Pence says there will be a vaccine produced in record time. He says, I just ask you, stop playing politics with peoples lives.

He says that undermining confidence in a vaccine is unacceptable.

Former Food and Drug Administration officials have warned that public perception that a vaccine being rushed out for political reasons could derail efforts to vaccinate millions of Americans.

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9:20 p.m.

The coronavirus pandemic was the first topic at the vice-presidential debate.

In Salt Lake City on Wednesday, separated from Vice-President Mike Pence by plexiglass barriers, California Sen. Kamala Harris called the Trump administrations response to the growing pandemic the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.

Speaking directly to the camera, as Democratic nominee Joe Biden did in his first debate with President Donald Trump, Harris said, They knew what was happening, and they didnt tell you.

In response, Vice-President Mike Pence commended Trumps decision to shut off travel from China, saying the decision bought us invaluable time to co-ordinate the countrys response to the pandemic. But Trumps move only cut off some travel from China, and tens of thousands were still allowed to pour into the country.

More than 210,000 Americans have died during the pandemic. Trump is recovering at the White House from his own infection.

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9 p.m.

Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Kamala Harris are facing off in their only vice-presidential debate.

The candidates are separated by plexiglass barriers in an auditorium where any guest who refuses to wear a face mask will be removed.

Wednesdays prime-time meeting is a chance for voters to decide whether Pence or Harris is ready to assume the duties of the presidency. Its hardly a theoretical question: President Donald Trump is 74 and recovering from the coronavirus, and Joe Biden is 77.

Harris is the first Black woman to stand on a vice-presidential debate stage. The night offers her a prime opportunity to energize would-be voters who have shown only modest excitement about Biden.

Pence is looking to boost the Republican ticket, which is trailing in polls.

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7:10 p.m.

Republican Mike Pence will press the Trump campaigns law and order message at the vice-presidential debate against Democrat Kamala Harris.

Pences guests in the debate hall Wednesday night will include Ann Marie Dorn, the widow of retired St. Louis police captain David Dorn, who was shot to death on June 2 after a violent night of protests.

President Donald Trump and his campaign have seized on the scattered violence that has broken out amid otherwise largely peaceful protests demanding racial justice. Trump has wrongly claimed that such violence has been condoned by his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, and has warned it will continue if Biden wins in November.

Ann Marie Dorn also spoke at the Republican National Convention.

Pence will also be joined by the parents of Kayla Mueller, a humanitarian aid worker who was taken captive and killed by Islamic State militants.

___

7 p.m.

Two Utah women will attend Wednesdays vice-presidential debate in Salt Lake City as guests of Democrat Kamala Harris.

Angela Romero is a state representative who also works in local government in Salt Lake City, overseeing the Division for Youth and Family programs. The campaign says Romero is focused on supporting families and local businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Deborah Gatrell is a veteran and teacher who is running for a seat on the Salt Lake County Council. She is a Blackhawk pilot who served in the Utah National Guard and was deployed to the Middle East.

The campaign says the two women represent the hard-working Americans that a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration would fight for.

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5:50 p.m.

President Donald Trumps campaign is dialing back on advertising in Midwestern states that secured his first term in office.

Data from the ad tracking firm Kantar/CMAG shows Trumps campaign has cancelled about $3.3 million in advertising planned for Iowa and Ohio this week. But details provided from Democratic advertising trackers reveal the phenomenon is more widespread.

The data shows Trump is running $1.3 million in advertising this week in Michigan, where Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is spending $2.9 million. In Wisconsin, Trump is spending $229,000 compared to Bidens $2.5 million. And in Minnesota, a longtime Democratic stronghold where Trump hoped to make inroads, Biden is outspending him $1 million to Trumps $289,000 this week.

The ad decisions by Trumps campaign are puzzling.

He amassed a massive campaign bank account after his election, but Biden has outraised him in recent months. Many Republican donors have been alarmed by the campaigns exorbitant spending on things unrelated to winning, including lavish payments to campaign consultants and surrogates.

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3:45 p.m.

President Donald Trump has returned to the Oval Office for the first time since he was diagnosed and hospitalized with COVID-19.

Spokesperson Brian Morgenstern confirmed that the president returned to the Oval Office on Wednesday. He has been convalescing in the White House residence since he returned from a three-night hospital stay on Monday evening.

Trump is likely still contagious with the virus.

A Marine was posted outside the West Wing, signifying the president was in the Oval Office.

White House officials say they have put additional safeguards in place to protect staff who may interact with the president, including requiring full personal protective equipment.

Morgenstern says Trump is being briefed on stimulus talks and a potentially devastating hurricane heading toward the Gulf Coast.

___

2:30 p.m.

Vice-President Mike Pence will be joined in the debate hall by several special guests, including the parents of Kayla Mueller, the humanitarian aid worker who was killed by Islamic State militants.

Their presence Wednesday night is intended to highlight action taken by President Donald Trump, including the killing of the groups leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in contrast to the approach taken by the Obama administration, which Muellers parents have criticized.

Carl and Marsha Mueller were featured in Trumps State of the Union address earlier this year and spoke at the Republican National convention. In their speech, they asserted that, had Trump been president when Kayla was captured, she would be here today.

The 26-year-old Mueller was taken captive in August 2013 after leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, Syria.

The debate comes the same day that two Islamic State militants  dubbed part of the the Beatles because of their British accents - were brought from Britain to the U.S. to face charges in connection with the deaths of American hostages, including Kayla Mueller.

___

10:45 a.m.

Kamala Harris has again tested negative for the coronavirus.

The campaign reported her results on Wednesday, less than 12 hours before she is scheduled to debate Vice-President Mike Pence. She took the test Tuesday.

Pence also tested negative on Tuesday, according to the White House.

Harris and Pence will appear on stage at the University of Utah for a 90-minute debate. Both candidates will have plexiglass around them as an additional precaution. That was requested by the Biden-Harris campaign, and Pences team objected.

Harris also tested negative for the virus on Monday.
Trump-Putin-Election

President Donald J. Trump, at a rally in Phoenix, Ariz., on Feb. 19, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, delivering a speech in Jerusalem on Jan. 23. Talks in Geneva on Oct. 2, 2020 involving U.S. and Russian security officials covered Kremlin election meddling, suggesting a shift in Russian tactics in the run-up to the U.S. vote. Credit - Jim Watson and Emmanuel DunandAFP/Getty Images

On Oct. 2, just a few hours after President Trump announced on Twitter that he was infected with COVID-19, his national security adviser sat down in Geneva with a group of Russian officials. At the top of their stated agenda was the Kremlins effort to influence the U.S. elections, an issue that Russia had shown a sudden eagerness to discuss with the Trump Administration barely a month before the vote.

The talks in Geneva  between National Security Adviser Robert OBrien and his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev  were the latest sign of how Russia has shifted tactics since 2016. The risks of launching another full-scale campaign of cyber interference have come to outweigh the foreseeable rewards, sources in Moscows security and foreign policy establishment tell TIME. Given how badly President Trump is doing in the polls, the Kremlin appears to be hedging its bets, pursuing a less aggressive influence campaign in these elections while also offering the Americans a half-hearted truce.

From our side, its a pre-emptive step, says a former senior intelligence officer in Moscow who maintains close ties with the security establishment. If Joe Biden defeats Trump at the polls, says the former officer, We need a way to start the process of normalizing relations. He adds: We dont want to be accused of interfering again. Weve had enough of that.

Russias actions in recent weeks have reflected those concerns. By this point in the 2016 election cycle, Russian operatives had launched an attack on two fronts: spreading disinformation through social media and, at the same time, using cyberattacks to hack U.S. election infrastructure and the Democratic Party. We have not seen that second part yet this year, or this cycle, Christopher Wray, the FBI director, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Sept. 17.

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Russia has focused instead on less invasive forms of interference, which Wray described as a very active Russian effort to influence the elections through social networks and state-run media, both to sow divisiveness and discord and  primarily to denigrate Vice President Biden.

These efforts also appear to be weaker this time than they were in 2016, says Bret Schafer, who tracks foreign disinformation campaigns at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan advocacy group founded in 2017 to study election interference. To date, they dont seem to be particularly successful, Schafer wrote in an email to TIME on Tuesday.

The reason, he says, comes down to two factors. Facebook and other social networks have begun actively shutting down the kinds of fake accounts that Russia used in 2016 to spread disinformation among U.S. voters. The other reason Russian propaganda might seem less visible online, says Schafer, is that our own discourse on social media is so toxic, polarized, and filled with wild conspiracy theories, that it is somewhat unnecessary for Russia to do too much more than amplify whats already out there.

With several weeks to go before Election Day, the Kremlin still has plenty of time to launch a more aggressive influence operation or hacking attack. Michael Carpenter, a former Pentagon official, says Russias cyber operatives may also have become much better at covering their tracks. While it appears that they have perhaps not been as aggressive in the cyber domain as they were in 2016, he says, Ill want to see the after-action report in, say, January 2021, before making any definitive pronouncements.

"Our own discourse on social media is so toxic, polarized, and filled with wild conspiracy theories, that it is somewhat unnecessary for Russia to do much more than amplify what's already out there."

Even in contemplating an attack on these elections, Russia risks a greater backlash from the U.S. than it did in 2016, while the potential payoff from another Trump term feels almost negligible from Moscows perspective, says Fyodor Lukyanov, a foreign policy expert who advises the Russian government on international affairs. During his first four years in office, Trump has not delivered on his promise to improve U.S. relations with Russia. If we look at the situation in our relationship at the end of Trumps term, its a real disaster, he says. It doesnt matter what kind of ideas he had initially. He failed, or he disregarded them.

That doesnt mean Russia is taking a neutral stance in these elections. Even a cursory look at the coverage on Russia state TV is enough to understand that Trump is the Kremlins favored candidate. After Trump was hospitalized over the weekend with symptoms of Covid-19, the main news and analysis show on Kremlin-owned Channel One aired a lengthy segment extolling the Presidents virility. Both to his friends and enemies, he answered like the Terminator: Ill be back, the voiceover intoned.

A few days earlier, President Vladimir Putin had paid Trump similar compliments in a get-well message. I am sure that your inherent vitality, vigour and optimism will help you overcome the dangerous virus, Putin wrote in a statement on the Kremlin website.

But his apparent preference for Trump has mostly to do with his aversion toward Biden, says Lukyanov. Moscow has surmised that many of Bidens advisers still hold a grudge over the Russian campaign of interference in 2016, he says. And if Biden wins, They would love to take some kind of revenge.

At the very least, Biden has said he would exact a high price for any interference in this years election. In a statement issued in July, the candidate said he was putting the Kremlin and other foreign governments on notice. If elected president, he added, his administration would retaliate against any election meddling through sanctions, asset freezes, cyber responses, and the exposure of corruption.

Russia is in no position to take such warnings lightly. The recent collapse in the price of oil and gas, Russias most important exports, has strained the national economy, as have the lockdowns imposed to curb the pandemic. The value of Russias national currency plummeted at the end of September to its lowest levels since April, driven down in part by fears of U.S. sanctions against the Russian economy, according to a report in Bloomberg. When one side imposes sanctions, the other side likes to say, We dont care, the former Russian intelligence officer tells TIME by phone from Moscow. But in reality, we do care.

The same goes for the potential blowback Russia could see in cyberspace. In response to Russias hacking offensive in 2016, the U.S. military has reportedly installed malware in Russias power grid, the digital equivalent of planting remote-controlled bombs. If the U.S. deploys such weapons to retaliate against a Russian hacking operation, it could escalate into a full-blown cyber war, says the former Russian intelligence officer.

Yes, all these other campaigns are unpleasant  the disinformation campaigns, the influence on mass perception, he says. But the bigger problem is with military applications of information technology, like the hijacking of critical infrastructure. That is worrying. The rest is secondary.

A woman wearing a face mask to protect against the coronavirus disease walks in downtown Moscow, with the Kremlin seen in the background, on Sept. 15, 2020. Natalia KolesnikovaAFP/Getty Images

That seemed clear from the unsolicited peace offer Putin made last month. In a statement published Sept. 25 on the Kremlin website, he warned the U.S. about the risk of a large-scale confrontation in the digital field. To help avert that risk, he said, the U.S. and Russia should exchange guarantees of non-intervention into internal affairs of each other, including into electoral processes.

Putin has made similar appeals to the Trump Administration before. During their summit in Helsinki in July 2018, the Russian President even suggested creating a joint working group on cyber security to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 elections. Trump initially supported the idea. But he backed away after it was widely ridiculed, even within his own party.

This time around, the Trump Administration took Putin seriously enough for OBrien to discuss the offer with Patrushev, a hardline veteran of the KGB who has served as Putins right hand on defense and security issues for two decades. The two sides came out of the talks Friday with diverging messages. In an interview with Face the Nation, Trumps envoy said he had delivered a stern message to the Russians: There would be absolutely no tolerance for any interference with our Election Day. His Russian counterpart put a different spin on the outcome: Both sides confirmed a lack of intentions to interfere in each others internal affairs.

Oh. Thats very good then. No problem at all then Thank you Mr. Putin https://t.co/Z1jzpg4e74  Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) October 4, 2020

Coming on the day of Trumps hospitalization with Covid-19, the meeting in Geneva made barely any headlines, though it did attract some sarcastic remarks about Putins supposed promise not to interfere this time. No problem at all then, Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA, wrote on Twitter. Thank you Mr. Putin.
Under pressure from a judge and federal regulators, Berkeley will not require cell phone retailers to warn customers about the possible radiation dangers of holding phones close to their bodies, says a lawyer for the city.

Berkeleys ordinance took effect in 2016 and had survived years of legal challenges by the cell phone industry. But after the Federal Communications Commission, controlled by appointees of President Trump, found that the warnings were unnecessary and would hurt business, a federal judge ruled last month that the city was interfering with federal oversight of the industry.

Berkeley could have appealed the ruling but instead settled the case this week by agreeing not to enforce the ordinance, in exchange for an agreement by the industry group, CTIA, not to seek attorneys fees, said Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor and a lawyer for the city.

Lessig said the arrangement was not necessarily permanent.

The ordinance remains on the books awaiting a better FCC, he said in an email to others on Berkeleys legal team. We should get through this crisis (the election) and then see what makes the most sense.

Lessig was apparently suggesting that federal commissioners under a new administration could re-evaluate the ordinance, assess it more favorably and enable the city to reopen the case.

In the meantime, this is a devastating blow, said Ellen Marks of the California Brain Tumor Association, which supported the Berkeley ordinance.

The FCC is looking the other way and defending an industry it is supposed to regulate, she said.

A UC Berkeley health teacher who worked on the ordinance said the city should have appealed the ruling rather than settling the case.

I believe we can prove fraudulent behavior on the part of the FCC, said Joel Moskowitz, director of the universitys Center for Family and Community Health.

CTIA representatives could not be reached for comment.

The ordinance would require dealers to notify their customers that the FCC sets radiation standards for cell phones and that exposure may exceed the federal guidelines if users carry their phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra while they are connected to a wireless network.

Retailers would have to display the warning on a poster or in a handout flyer, attributed to the city of Berkeley.

Cell phone companies argued that the ordinance violated their free-speech rights by requiring them to deliver a message with which they disagreed. They made that argument earlier in a successful challenge to a San Francisco ordinance, the first of its kind in the nation, which would have required retailers to give buyers a fact sheet saying the World Health Organization considered cell phones emissions a possible carcinogen, and showing human silhouettes absorbing radiation.

But Berkeleys more modest measure would use the same warning that the FCC requires retailers to include in the manual of every cell phone they sell. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected CTIAs free-speech claim last year, and the Supreme Court denied review of the industry groups appeal.

However, the FCC, which had not previously opposed the ordinance, said in a court filing this June that the information in its manuals was enough to inform consumers about potential radiation risks from cell phones. Further warnings required at the time of sale may create an erroneous perception that (radio-frequency) emissions from FCC-certified phones are unsafe, the commission said.

In a Sept. 16 ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco deferred to the commissions conclusion that the ordinance would promote unwarranted fears about cell phone radiation.

The FCC is tasked with balancing the competing objectives of ensuring public health and safety and promoting the development and growth of the telecommunications network and related services, Chen said. He said the commission could properly conclude that the ordinance over warns consumers.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
Burma Myanmars Military and Arakan Army Suffer Casualties in Heavy Clashes

A map showing where AA troops are deployed. / Tatmadaw

Sittwe, Rakhine State  Fresh clashes broke out in Rakhine States Rathedaung Township between Myanmars military (the Tatmadaw) and the Arakan Army (AA) on Saturday, with both sides reportedly suffering heavy casualties.

Clashes took place near the villages of Kyauktan and Aungtharzi in Rathedaung Township and continued until Monday, according to residents and lawmakers.

The clashes were fierce, probably the fiercest so far in Rathedaung. On Monday, [the military] bombed with fighter jets and there has been shelling every day, Rathedaungs Upper House lawmaker U Khin Maung Latt told The Irrawaddy.

According to residents, the two sides are fighting to gain control of a hill near Aungtharzi between Kyauktan and Hteeswe villages.

A Kyauktan villager said: The village has been long abandoned. Only a few have gone back to the village due to the difficulties at IDP [internally displaced] camps. I think they are stuck in the village in the fighting. I heard heavy guns and fighter jets. I dont know about the situation in the village.

Myanmars military spokesman, Major General Zaw Min Tun, said clashes happened because the AA blocked water and road transport to Sittwe, Rathedaung and Buthidaung townships.

As they have blocked off water and road transport, the Tatmadaw is taking measures for the safety of vessels and vehicles, Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun told The Irrawaddy.

Myanmars military on Monday said the fighting took place because AA troops on the hill near Hteeswe were blocking the Ponnagyun-Rathedaung-Buthidaung road and the Sittwe-Buthidaung-Rathedaung waterway.

The AA attacked naval vessels six times in September, the militarys statement said, adding that its troops seized the hill on Sunday. It said both sides suffered casualties.

Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun said on Tuesday: The AA has deployed troops to block transport and we carried out large-scale attacks on AA deployments. We suffered some casualties and some weapons were damaged. The AA was taking steps to regain control of the hill. I dont know the detailed situation today.

The AA said on Facebook that it was able to reoccupy the hill from the military on Monday. Thirty Tatmadaw soldiers were killed in the fighting, the AA claimed.

As the government has declared the AA a terrorist organization, The Irrawaddy was not able to contact the armed group for a comment.

The Rakhine Ethnic Congress (REC) said on Oct. 1 that more than 36,000 people have been displaced by fighting since August in Rakhine State, with the number exceeding 22,000 in late September in northern Rakhine.

Though there was no reported fighting on Tuesday, three villagers, aged 53, 84 and eight, were injured in Kanpyin and Pyinwun villages as naval vessels shelled from the Mayu River, according to residents. A 60-year-old man at an IDP camp in Kanpyin was also injured by shelling, according to the REC.

Myanmars military says it has extended a unilateral ceasefire several times but exempted Rakhine State, saying it is fighting terrorists in the state.

The government issued stay-at-home orders across Rakhine State in response to a spike in COVID-19 cases but ongoing fighting is forcing people from their homes on a daily basis,

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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ROUND ROCK, Texas, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In celebration of 50 years in business, Don Quick & Associates, Inc.  the largest commercial real estate company in Williamson County  launched an ambitious campaign to give back to their community by serving 50 charitable organizations in 2020. With the holiday season just around the corner, the company is set to finish the campaign with a strong focus on ensuring a pleasant end of year for as many people as possible. "We believe the best way to celebrate 50 years in Central Texas is to give back to the people who empower our community every day. These charitable organizations are the heart and soul of this area, and we want to show our appreciation." says Darren Quick, President of Don Quick & Associates, Inc. "The upcoming holiday season presents an opportunity for us to connect with local non-profits who already do such a great job providing for those in need, especially during this time of year."

Although the year-long celebration was met with some unpredictable hurdles that the Coronavirus pandemic brought along, the commercial agents and staff members of Don Quick were able to adapt their volunteer efforts and continue to safely serve the community. A few of the most notable efforts included a $10,000 donation to RRISD, multiple environmental cleanup projects including participating in Austin Parks Foundation's It's My Park Day, various supply drives, and the formation of a scholarship fund which awarded four scholarships to local graduating high school seniors this past April.

The opportunity to nominate your favorite charities to be included in the campaign is still open to the public to round out the final remaining spots on the list of 50. The company wants to hear from those affected by COVID-19 or those in need this holiday season so they can work together to provide help in any way possible.

For more information or to nominate an organization, visit donquick.com/50

You can view the recap or follow along with all the remaining events celebrating the company's monumental anniversary by visiting donquick.com/50.

Contact: Joshua Brito, 512-255-3000, [email protected]

SOURCE Don Quick & Associates, Inc.

Related Links

www.donquick.com


The annual fall salmon spawning run up Lake Ontario tributaries is underway big-time from the Salmon River to the Lower Niagara River.

The following are some eye-opening catches by anglers .

In addition to rod-bending Chinook and coho salmon, the run also brings in an appreciable number of brown trout (which many say are running bigger this year than usual), Atlantic salmon and steelhead.

Gary Lewis of Wilson, N.Y. with a Lower Niagara River salmon, caught while fishing with Capt. Frank Campbell.

Migell Wedderburn, of Pennellville, N.Y. is all smiles after landing this nice Chinook salmon while fishing the Oswego River Sunday morning. "I had to test my new Sage Igniter Spey rod over the weekend," he said. He added that he used an orange and chartreuse yarn fly. "For some reason this combination works well on that river."

Send us your photos from The Run.

Fish photos should be sent to outdoors writer David Figura at dfigura@NYup.com. Angler who caught the fish must be in the photo. In include the anglers full name, where he or she lives, where and when the fish was caught  and on what.

Branden Scheltz, of Ithaca, N.Y. with a nice Salmon River Chinook salmon. Shane Muckey photo.

Photos will be added to this photo gallery as they received.

Joe Danforth, of Fitchburg, Mass. with a nice Chinook salmon he caught in the downtown pool in Pulaski on the Salmon River using a wooly bugger streamer.

Jim Sollecito, of Baldwinsville wrote: "Had a great day at the Douglaston Salmon Run on the Salmon River. The kings were large, as was this 32-pound boar, and hungry. They ate any color fly you had as long as it was chartreuse. I fought over 25 and landed more than my own body weight in kings. The Steelhead are also behind the kings, saw 4 landed. Right now is prime time even with just 185 flow. I would classify today as epic."

Gene Lundfelt, of Lakeside, N.Y. landed this Chinook salmon on the Oak Orchard River using a gold Cleo lure. He said it measured 41.5 inches and weighed 33.14 pounds on his personal digital scale.

John Cruz, of Mt. Morris, N.Y. caught this nice Chinook salmon recently on the Oak Orchard River in Albion in Orleans County.

George Zervos, a guide with Jay Peck Guides and Lost Rivers Fishing, holds up an impressive 18-pound steelhead he caught on the Douglaston Salmon Run on the Salmon River. He caught it "on the swing with a size 4 egg sucking leech." At the time, he was filming for the Jay Peck Guides & Lost Rivers Fishing Youtube Channel.

Eric Lynch of Trumansburg, N.Y. with a nice Chinook salmon he caught on the Salmon River on a pink egg.

Jason Poole of Hanford, Ohio with a lower Niagara River Chinook salmon caught while fishing Devil's Hole with Capt. Steve Drabczyk.

Sisters Tacie, 15, and Sydney, 12, Telesky of Milton, Pa. had good time recently fishing on the Salmon River in a drift boat with their father, Nick and guide Capt. Eric Geary of S.W.A.T. Fishing.

Mark Remington, of Watertown, landed this impressive Atlantic salmon this week in the Salmon River while fishing in downtown Pulaski. Photo courtesy of Shane Muckey of Altmar Outfitters.

Mike Ziehm of Niagara Falls, landed this impressive Chinook salmon in the Devil's Hole area on the Lower Niagara River.

George "Chumley" Deats, of Texas, N.Y. caught this pair of Chinook salmon on the Salmon River in downtown Pulaski.

Jacqueline McManus, of Mexico, N.Y., with a nice coho salmon she caught on the Salmon River in Pulaski on a pink estaz fly.

Troy Ray McMullen, of Auburn, landed this nice Chinook salmon this week on the Oswego River. He caught it fly fishing on a red estaz fly.

Patrick Slammon, of Buffalo, holds up a 20-pound, 37-inch Chinook salmon he caught Sept.10 on a Moonshine Spoon while fishing on the Olcott fishing pier.

Joann Mure of Bethel, N.Y., holds up a nice, Lake Ontario Chinook salmon she landed fishing off one of the Olcott piers.

Scott Hillman, of Wrights Corners, N.Y., caught this nice, Lake Ontario Chinook salmon recently casting off the Olcott Pier. He said he used a two-piece, spinning rod; a Abu Gria Orra S 40 spinning reel; Stren 10lb monofilament line and a Firetiger Rapala J-13 lure.

Steve Schneider. of Downingtown, Pa. with a limit of Salmon River Chinook salmon. Shane Muckey photo.

Jon Newman, of Pennellville NY., caught this nice brown trout in the Oswego River. He said he used a Death Roe Natural Roe Egg.

Anglers at fish cleaning station of Shane Muckey of Altmar Outfitters on the Salmon River. Photo courtesy of Shane Muckey.

Joe Marino, of Lockport, N.Y. with a nice Chinook salmon he landed on Sandy Creek in Orleans County. He said he used a Rapala j17 lure.

Jim Miller, of McGraw, N.Y., caught and released this Chinook salmon just below the town pool on the Salmon River in Pulaski in the rapids drifting pink egg sacs.

Aaron Trimble, of Pittsford, NY. caught this 36- inch, Chinook salmon in Irondequoit Creek in Linear Park using an artificial egg sac on a bobber.

MORE:

Two Salmon River guides offer advice about catching salmon during the fall run (video)

Oswego County billboards, signs ask salmon anglers to social distance, wear masks

DEC: Due to low water, Salmon River fishing area closed until further notice

Examples of that guy who infuriates others during the fall salmon run
Genrobotics, a Trivandrum  based robotics company has raised Rs 2.5 crore in Pre Series A round from existing investors Unicorn India Ventures. Anand Mahindra, who has invested in his personal capacity, has also joined as a new investor in this round along with SEA Fund. The round has been led by Unicorn India Ventures.

Genrobotics has already been working along with the Central Ministry as well as with State Governments in the mission of eradicating manual scavenging from the entire country. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs & Smart City Mission India has recognized the Automated Manhole cleaning robot Bandicoot 2.0, within a short span of time, they have deployed Bandicoot robots across 11 States in the country and hundreds of sanitation workers went through the rehabilitation process. Soon after the implementation at Coimbatore smart city, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has suggested and quoted Bandicoot 2.0, as an excellent example for enabling Zero Human-Intervention in the sewerage cleaning process.

The Young startup professionals at Genrobotic got a shot in the arm when one of Indias biggest industrialist Mr. Anand Mahindra, praised their innovation and expressed interest to help them scale up. Mr. Mahindra has always been truly one of the motivators to youth who share a deep passion for philanthropic activities, after seeing this aspiring teams work and thoughtful intentions on reaching services to the unreached ones, and he tweeted Theres a lot of nervousness about the role of robots & AI in the future. But frankly, if robots can liberate people from this most degrading job in the universe, then I promise I will discard any doubts & always pray at the shrine of technology & robotics and Mr.Mahindra has offered his full support on ending manual scavenging through robotic scavenging.

Vimal Govind, Co-founder CEO, Genrobotics, said, we are so happy that Bandicoot is bringing smiles to those innocent ones and we believe that our efforts brought light into the stinking realities of Manual scavenging in India. It was a great moment for us when Mr. Anand Mahindra took a personal interest in favor of robotic solutions for the real crisis hidden in. Mr.Mahindra has offered his full support on implementing Bandicoots in each and every corner of India for putting an end to this dehumanizing activity completely and it has accelerated the process of transforming the Manual scavenging to Robotic scavenging.

The funds raised will be used for further scaling up production of Bandicoot to meet the growing demand in light of eradicating manual scavenging and to develop new products and R&D to leverage the technology for the health care segment.

Anil Joshi, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures, said, We are happy that we went against our rules of not investing in just an idea in the case of Genrobotics. When we met them 2 years back in Kerala, the prototype was ready and they needed funding for a commercial-ready product. We decided to back them as we saw the potential robotics can bring to certain socially important issues especially if the team backing the business is as passionate as we have seen in Genrobotics. We believe that they have developed a globally relevant product and are already in talks with some international Governing bodies for its deployment. To facilitate their expansion plans, we have decided to back them up with additional funds.
On Tuesday, Doug Ford couldnt tell you how many people to have over for Thanksgiving. You shouldnt have to rely on the premier of Ontario for this advice, but the current chief medical officer of health could confuse a house plant, so Ford is the default voice for public health advice in the province. Its not ideal.

And with the holiday this weekend, Fords answer was like watching a truckload of pumpkins tumble into a busy street. He said stick with 10 people, indicated he would do the same, denied he said it, said stick to your household without specifying what the household was, tweeted to clarify afterwards, deleted the tweet, and tried again. It still didnt specify that his immediate household is two people, not 10.

It was not encouraging. But as bad as it was, it wasnt the worst part of a very worrying day. Neither was the part where the premier boasted about an extremely robust testing system, which just had to almost completely shut down for two days to clear a crippling backlog and then rationing tests, all due to mismanagement in the summer. Or when he again failed to grasp that shutting bars or restaurants now is designed to spare worse economic pain later.

No, the most worrisome part of Fords press conference Tuesday came when he was asked about mounting confusion and worry in Ontario as case counts rise, hospital capacity is straining, testing almost broke, and contact tracing has been pulled back in our two biggest cities.

Ill be very frank. Im hearing the total opposite. Were flattening the curve, Ford began.

What?

Were putting the protocols in, he continued. And Im just gonna compare restaurants to going over and seeing your loved ones. And this is gonna be about as clear as I can be for Thanksgiving. You know what were asking? Try to stay within the family.

If youre going over, and I understand theres a lot of single people out there. If they have a family theyre close to please wear a mask, keep social distance. And regarding restaurants, thats like apples and bananas. When you go into a restaurant, theyre taking everyones name.

Uh, did he hear Toronto and Ottawa are limiting contact tracing to congregate groups like schools and hospitals and long-term care? Restaurants may not be high on that list.

Please, this is very simple, continued the premier. Theres rules and theres guidelines. The rules are very clear. Ten indoors, 25 outdoors. I would really, really discourage people from having 25 people, even if its outdoors. Stick within 10 people. And folks, we went through so much together. And we can get through this.

This is gonna make or break this Thanksgiving. We see the numbers slowly flattening. They still are high. But Ive seen a decline yesterday. The testing is up to 42,000, a record.

He had to backtrack on 10 people. But, a one-day decline is flattening? Were six months in, and everyone knows its not how it works. It was the most disconcerting thing Ford has said in six months, and that includes telling families leaving for spring break to have a good time.

Look, anybody who speaks every day for this long can step in it. Raw case counts have dropped since Friday, when 73 extra cases from the spring were added to the count. The last five days, without those old cases in the first number, are 659, 653, 566, 615, 548.

But the seven-day average, with old cases excluded, is 601. Two weeks ago it was 386. The lineups and testing backlog muddy the waters. There is no way to look at the state of Ontarios epidemic and say the curve is flattening. Not yet.

There is no indication that we are flattening the curve, and indeed hospitalizations are up sharply over the past two weeks, as the premier should know, said epidemiologist Dr. David Fisman of the University of Toronto.

Theres nothing I can point to, said epidemiologist Dr. Nitin Mohan, who teaches public and global health at Western University, and cofounded ETIO, a public health consulting firm. Weve pulled back on contact tracing now, so that could lull people into thinking were doing better than we are, when in fact were doing worse.

While there is a lot of nuance, its pretty simple. Our case counts are jumping up, and we need to act more aggressively to drop them. One of those ways was contact tracing, and it doesnt make any sense anymore, and thats really troublesome.

So who is giving him advice? CMOH Dr. David Williams, whose advice has often seemed wayward? Associate medical officer of health Dr. Barbara Yaffe, who said she hadnt seen the worrisome Toronto neighbourhood positive test data reported by the Star until she read it in the paper, and which the federal health minister is now concerned about?

These are your vital signs, said Dr. Andrew Boozary, executive director of social medicine at University Health Network.

By almost every measure, Ontario is in trouble. Interventions have been minor, and cases arent going to magically stop going up. Meanwhile, testing is now a pinch point, contact tracing is limited in Toronto and Ottawa, and hospital capacity is quietly spiking.

Were not alone among major hospitals, certainly, but we have a 99 per cent occupancy level, said Kevin Smith, the president and CEO of the University Health Network, which includes the biggest hospitals in the country. The challenges to tracing, because of the testing backlog, are one of the things I worry most about, because there is no outstanding management of this disease internationally that I know of that did not involve rapid tracing.

Were on the precipice of demand, and supply.

Toronto is asking to be put back in Stage 2, and the hospitals are blaring the alarms, and the fundamental detection systems in this province are being limited. But if the premier really thinks we are flattening the curve, why would he intervene? Thanksgiving is a few days away, and the correct answer is that you should stick to your immediate household if youre in Ottawa, Toronto or Peel.

But the bigger question is whether we should ask, six months into the pandemic, if the man in charge knows whats going on.

Read more about:
IKEA is opening a record 50 new stores worldwide this year after demand surged during lockdown.

The Swedish flat-pack shop will capitalise on the growing market by opening the stores in city centres, including in the UK, within the next financial year.

The new shops will be smaller than its traditional out-of-town warehouses and comes despite the growth in online sales.

IKEA is opening 50 new stores worldwide this year after demand surged during lockdown. Pictured: shoppers in Wembley queueing outside a shop as it reopened after lockdown

The new shops will be smaller than its traditional out-of-town warehouses and comes despite the growth in online sales

The announcement is an increase on the previous financial year when 30 stores were opened.

It is not known how many of the new stores will be in the UK, but one will be in Hammersmith, London.

There are currently 445 stores run by the brand and its biggest franchisee says demand is rising after lockdown as homeowners look to make improvements.

IKEA's sales fell by four per cent in the year to August, but bosses said the 36billion figure is a lot higher than they had expected.

Online sales also boomed, rising by 50 per cent as customers were forced to head online for their shopping.

Keen shoppers were seen queueing from 5am on June 1 to get inside after being locked out for months

The chain was one of the first to reopen on June 1 after the government ordered shops closed during lockdown.

Keen shoppers were seen queueing from 5am to get inside after being locked out for months.

Jesper Brodin, boss of Ingka Group, a franchise company that operates the majority of Ikea stores, told the BBC: 'We were expecting a gradual ramp-up in our business, but we like many others were absolutely wrong.

'From day one of opening we have had a tremendous interest in coming back to our stores.'

The chain was one of the first to reopen on June 1 after the government ordered shops closed during lockdown

IKEA said in June it would repay money it received from state aid as their stores were forced to close.

Despite being back workers in the US and Ireland, the chain did not include the UK, where 10,000 employees were furloughed.

Jon Abrahamsson Ring, an IKEA veteran who became CEO of brand owner and franchisor Inter IKEA in March, said demand for IKEA's lowest-priced ranges had grown during the crisis to make up 60 per cent of sales in May-August, against around 45 per cent usually.

He said: 'Low prices has become super relevant in this period with the uncertainty.'

IKEA's sales fell by four per cent in the year to August, but bosses said the 36billion figure is a lot higher than they had expected

E-commerce jumped 45 per cent to account for 15 per cent of total retail sales. Inter IKEA said online sales remained high even after stores, most of which closed temporarily for an average of four weeks early in the pandemic, re-opened.

Jesper Brodin told Reuters that in recent weeks, the retailer's sales were up 7-8 per cent year-on-year.

'Corona has without doubt impacted the interest in life at home. But it's to a degree that we hadn't really expected,' he said.

He said early in the crisis demand was focused on primarily on office and cooking products but now demand was now up across the range.

'We don't think the strength of the interest in life at home was a pent-up need. Had that been the case we'd have seen a slowdown many weeks ago.'
STAMFORD  Michelle Troconis will remain on GPS monitoring as she faces charges in the death and disappearance of Jennifer Dulos, the state Appellate Court ruled this week.

The Appellate Court denied the request after Senior Assistant States Attorney Ronald Weller filed an 11-page brief opposing the removal of the GPS monitor. In his filing, Weller cited Superior Court Judge John Blawie denying the same request during an Aug. 28 hearing.

However, Blawie did loosen other restrictions, including taking Troconis off house arrest and removing her curfew, Weller said.

In sum, the trial courts ruling was not only well within its discretion, but was thoughtful and crafted to legitimate concerns, Weller said. The reasonableness of the courts ruling is particularly evident given that the petitioner is not incarcerated, and now is no longer subject to house arrest, curfew, intensive pretrial supervision, and the requirement that she report to a probation officer.

Defense attorney Jon Schoenhorn has argued that his client should no longer have non-financial conditions attached to her release on $2.1 million bond. Schoenhorn argued his client has not had any issues while under supervision since she was first arrested in the case in June 2019.

Schoenhorn also contended the GPS unit hampered his clients ability to participate in her own defense by revealing her locations to probation officers who were monitoring the device.

"The main concerns were these other restrictions which were removed," Schoenhorn said Wednesday. "I personally feel the GPS monitoring was unwarranted at this point and each time we go to court I'll keep raising it."

After the Aug. 28 court hearing, Troconis received permission to travel to Florida to see her father who was recovering from COVID-19, Schoenhorn said. She has since returned to Connecticut, he said.

Schoenhorn filed a series of motions, most of them related to bond restrictions, since he was hired to represent Troconis in February. However, the motions were not heard until Aug. 28 due to court closures related to the coronavirus pandemic. Schoenhorn tried twice to get the Appellate Court to hear the motions and order the Judicial Branch to schedule a court date for his client.

Schoenhorn was successful in getting the Appellate Court to order the Judicial Branch to schedule a hearing for Aug. 28. But after Blawie denied removing Troconis GPS device, Schoenhorn again turned to the Appellate Court to review the judges ruling.

Troconis is accused of helping her former boyfriend Fotis Dulos dispose of bloody items that contained the DNA of his estranged wife the night she vanished.

Fotis Dulos faced murder, kidnapping and other charges when he died from an apparent suicide on Jan. 30.

Attorney Kent Mawhinney, a longtime friend of Fotis Dulos, was also charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the case. He is being held on $2 million bond.

Troconis has a court date on Nov. 13, while Mahwinney is scheduled to appear on Dec. 24. Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Jacob Huck, Sr. Production Engineer at Jetta Operating said, "With the ability to work with multiple lift types and monitor our wells 24x7, OspreyData's Unified Monitoring has made it easier for our agile team to lower lease operating costs in the Permian. I have stopped relying on the separate well monitoring systems that come with the pumps. It's helped our Production Operations run smoothly."

Jon Snyder, Customer Engagement Manager and experienced Production Engineer adds, "Oil & Gas Producers are in a more challenging position than ever before brought on by market shifts and are looking at ways to do more with less. We want to make it easier for engineers and operators to increase their operational efficiencies by enabling their Digital Field. Our Quickstart package offering brings capabilities our clients need to manage production easily and efficiently. They can focus on the wells that need attention, mitigate downtime and increase production across all lift types they manage."

The Digital Field Quickstart Program is cost effective, has a proven ROI and goes live in 6 weeks depending on the lift types and configuration. This Q4 2020 offering includes:

UNIFIED MONITORING: ALL WELLS IN ONE SYSTEM

Digital Field Quickstart provides OspreyData's Production Unified Monitoring to bring operators' well data into one system. Unified Monitoring provides a wealth of tools to achieve centralized lift management: detailed well views, lift-specific tools such as Dynacards and Pump Performance Curves, customizable dashboards, and OspreyData's Rapid Event Highlighter, an innovative data labeling and collaboration tool.

Production & Operations engineers can learn more about the use of these proven Digital Oilfield tools on Ospreydata's October 14th & 21st webcasts . These will feature Petroleum Engineers and noted Artificial Lift Experts with backgrounds in the Permian, Eagle Ford, DJ Basin and SCOOP Shale Plays.

ANALYTICS TO OPTIMIZE ESPs, ROD PUMPS & GAS LIFT

The Quickstart solution also includes OspreyData's Analytics tools that help wells operate more smoothly. These include diagnostic event detection & visualization tools for Rod Pumps, ESPs and Gas Lift that serve as a "check engine light" to make teams aware of problems faster. Using these tools is the first step on the path to using OspreyData's full Production Analytics advanced solution.

WORKFLOWS & NOTIFICATIONS THAT HELP MITIGATE PROBLEMS FASTER

The Quickstart solution's Intelligent Workflows & Notifications help teams take action on evolving problems quickly. The flexible and intuitive system directs notifications to engineers and operators according to the wells they own. Events trigger tasks that prompt teams to investigate well issues and contact the right techs to take action.

Find out more about the Q4 2020 Digital Field Quickstart program now, or get a demo at: https://www.ospreydata.com/quickstart/

Global oil producers and independent oil companies alike are seeing more value in the OspreyData AI-enabled Production Intelligence Platform. New clients are using OspreyData's cloud-based software across the Permian Basin and other shale plays to scale growth, lower Lease Operating Expense, and increase production. As Oil & Gas prices fluctuate, OspreyData helps E&P companies win in this merger and acquisition market on Wall Street. They are now helping companies go live faster to avoid change management issues that other monitoring solutions create and deliver value faster.

OspreyData is the only Oilfield Operations software platform with a unified intelligent monitor that serves all Lift Types and Manufacturers and offers full Machine Learning anomaly detection. Their predictive models identify problem states in Artificial Lift and Production that lead to downtime and suboptimal production, allowing operators to take early action to prevent failure and increase production and safety. OspreyData is based in Orange County, CA and Houston, TX.

For more info visit www.ospreydata.com or contact Richard Wuest, VP of Sales, to schedule a full briefing at (844) OSPREY-NOW or [email protected] .

SOURCE OspreyData

Related Links

https://www.ospreydata.com/


Axiom, the global leader in high-caliber, on-demand legal talent, today released its 2020 Diversity Report, which reaffirms the companys commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. This years report revealed that Axioms lawyer bench continues to be more diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender than industry standards. The report further acknowledges Axioms commitment to diversity among its broader corporate employee and executive populations, recognizing it as a critical mandate for performance, problem-solving, innovation, transformation, productivity, and resilience.

Critically, this years report introduces Diversity by Design, Axioms programmatic framework for addressing systemic representation, retention, and advancement inequities. Diversity by Design represents both a core internal objective and a more far-reaching goal to amplify change throughout the legal ecosystem.

By most measures, Axiom is considered a model of diversity, said Catherine Kemnitz, Global Head of Legal and member of the Executive Leadership Team, Axiom. But being better than an unacceptably low bar doesnt feel like something to celebrate. Twenty years ago, we recognized that the legal industry paradigm was broken and set out to replace it. Twenty years later, its time to admit something else is broken. Its time to acknowledge the inadequacy of corporate diversity  even among those organizations we celebrate as its leaders  and the inability of traditional diversity programs to drive meaningful change. The Diversity by Design program we have started to build represents an important step toward creating that change and sustaining its progress.

Key Report Statistics:

As the report indicates, Diversity by Design is rooted in an initial benchmarking analysis that identifies Axioms diversity relative to both industry peers and the broader business universe.

Gender

Axiom lawyers have significantly greater gender diversity than all lawyers and lawyers at law firms, including Big Law. Lawyers who identify as women represent:



52% of Axiom lawyers

37% of all US lawyers

36% of lawyers at all US law firms

37% of lawyers at the largest 350 law firms

Axioms percentage of corporate employees who identify as women is also substantially higher than most organizations, including many companies that have received Best Places to Work recognitions. Employees who identify as women represent:



57% of Axioms corporate employees (and 37% of Axioms senior executives)

46% of the US workforce (and 29% of senior managers/executives across that workforce)

Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Axiom lawyers are significantly more racially and ethnically diverse than the total population of lawyers and lawyers at law firms, including Big Law. Lawyers who identify as racial/ethnic minorities represent:



29% of Axiom lawyers

14% of all US lawyers

17% of lawyers at all US law firms

18% of lawyers at the largest 250 law firms

Beyond lawyers, the percentage of Axiom corporate employees/executives who identify as minorities is on par with broader business statistics, but not quite equal to notable diversity leaders. Employees who are racially/ethnically diverse represent:



20% of Axiom corporate employees (and 19% of Axioms senior executives)

22% of the US workforce (and 19% of senior managers/executives across that workforce)

This data, while informative, does not tell the full story of minority retention and advancement, said LaMonte McGraw, Global Head of IT and member of the Executive Leadership Team, Axiom. It doesnt tell the almost universal story of diversitys decline up the leadership ladder. To understand that story, to identify the root of those issues, we need to uncover more insightful statistics, like data on seniority, tenure, and pay/equity. And, we must be specific  rejecting diversity soup by resisting the temptation to treat diversity as though theres a one-size-fits-all approach for every underrepresented group.

Diversity by Design:

Diversity by Design is a meaningful step toward conducting more insightful data dives, reviewing each step of Axioms processes, finding the hidden hurdles and biases, and addressing them. The goal is to rewire the company  embedding diversity within Axioms operating model, business practices, and, ambitiously, the broader legal industry.

As a first step in that approach, Axiom will prioritize the increased retention, recruitment, and advancement of Black professionals. Black lawyers represent 12% of Axiom lawyers (compared to 5% of all US lawyers). This prioritization is an acknowledgement that Black professionals have been acutely underrepresented in the law and marginalized in business, and an admission that Axiom has not yet done enough to advocate for the Black community.

Over the next year, Axioms Diversity by Design model will also meaningfully invest in examining what good looks like  identifying the right peer groups to measure against (within the legal industry and outside of it) and understanding how to assess progress beyond typical diversity yardsticks.

We believe diversity efforts dont add up, they compound, said David McVeigh, CEO, Axiom. Diversity by Design is an approach that is fundamentally internal to Axiom, but also one that we hope projects externally, amplifying the efforts of our clients and other leading organizations who are breaking down their processes and rewiring their operations. Its a meaningful step toward overdue, enduring change  one we will continue to build, ruthlessly assess, improve upon, measure, and report against.

About Axiom

Axiom, the global leader in high-caliber, on-demand legal talent, is innovating the way legal teams and lawyers work. Axiom enables clients to access over 2,400 talented lawyers through a curated platform and build more dynamic teams to drive better business outcomes. Axiom empowers lawyers across industries and practice areas to thrive while pursuing more of the work they love. The company is deeply committed to gender equality and diversity and prides itself on having one of the most diverse employee populations in the industry. Axiom works with over half of the Fortune 100 companies, and currently operates in North America, the U.K., Continental Europe, and Asia Pacific. http://www.axiomlaw.com
A Tibetan worker is watched by Chinese police in Tibet's capital Lhasa in a file photo.

Chinese authorities in Tibets capital Lhasa have increased police presence by opening several so-called Security Centers, with the aim of controlling Tibetans, sources in Tibet told RFA.

The Security Centers, also known as convenience police stations, serve to facilitate a stronger centralized state by subverting local indigenous populations through surveillance.

According to a 2019 New York Times report, about 700 of these small police outposts double as community centers throughout Tibet and the Xinjang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

A source in Tibet told RFAs Tibetan Service that the Security Centers are popping up all over Lhasa and other Tibetan cities, bringing with them increased numbers of police officers.

So far there are more than 130 such Security Centers in Lhasa alone. The CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is recruiting many police officers in Tibet these days, and if you are a graduate eligible to become an officer, then finding a job in Lhasa has become much easier, said the source, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Another source said that the CCP is stationing more and more police in the city to defend the integrity of the state.

Under [Chinese Leader] Xi Jinpings policy where he said, To protect once country one must protect its border and in order to protect the border one must main maintain harmony in Tibet, the CCP has stationed more police and military units in Lhasa. Though in reality, such high numbers of police and military units have been deployed to prevent protests against the Chinese government by Tibetans, the second source told RFA.

Chinese state media reported recently that Lhasa opened the First Youth Police School in Lhasa on Sept. 23.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it was very concerned about the proliferation of the Security Centers all over Tibet.

These activities will further control the basic freedom of mobility and human rights of Tibetans inside Tibet, Sophie Richardson, HRWs China director told RFA.

Reported by Lobsang Gelek for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Writen in English by Eugene Whong.
Srinagar, Oct 7 : A wreath laying ceremony was held on Wednesday in Srinagar, where family members and colleagues remembered and paid tributes to constable Altaf Hussain of Jammu and Kashmir Police.

Hussain was killed in action after terrorists fired upon a BJP leader in Central Kashmir's Ganderbal district on Tuesday night.

He was the Personal Security Officer (PSO) of BJP leader Ghulam Qadir, who was attacked by the terrorists in Kashmir's Ganderbal.

The BJP leader was unhurt, but Hussain was injured in the firing. He later succumbed to his injuries. During the attack, Hussain while protecting the BJP worker, had retaliated even as he was injured, and killed one unidentified terrorist on the spot.

Speaking to reporters, Director General of Police (J&K) Dilbagh Singh said, "Last evening terrorists targetted the BJP leader Ghulam Qadir at Nunner in Ganderbal.

"One of his PSO Altaf Hussain retaliated and killed one militant.

"Unfortunately, the brave cop lost his life while saving the protected person," the DGP said.

He said the slain terrorist killed in retaliation by Altaf Hussain was a close aide of slain Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo. Naikoo was killed in an encounter by the security forces in May.
Harvard Business School changed Ashwin Dameras life in more ways than one. It introduced him to professors who would open up his mind, founders who gave him the entrepreneurship bug, a business idea for a college project which became his first startup. Even his first investors were batchmates from Harvard!

But for Damera, the real transformation came about when he realised that Harvard could change the lives of only a precious few. What about the rest?

Damera is the co-founder and CEO of Eruditus, an online education startup which makes courses from Ivy League universities accessible and consumable. Eruditus is valued at $800 million today, and has raised over $100 million from investors such as Prosus Ventures (Naspers), Sequoia Capital and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative - a non-profit firm headed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan.

At a time when the online education space is booming and valuations doubling and tripling in the blink of an eye, it's tempting to assume that this is all there is to it. But for a large part of Damera and Eruditus journey, it wasnt even about the growth at all costs, which they and all startups preach today. It was slow, steady, under the radar -- and it is what defines Eruditus even today.

In 2010, Damera was wondering what to do next. A year earlier, he had sold his first startup - a hotel listing platform called Travelguru, to Travelocity, which was later acquired by Yatra - one of Indias preeminent online travel aggregators today.

His lessons from the travel industry - the power of the internet, the perils of a small and competitive space, and the risk in maximising valuation (more on that later) led him to education, in addition to his HBS credentials. His co-founder Chaitanya Kalipatnapu is also an alumnus of France-based INSEAD, one of the worlds top business schools.

See, universities have built an amazing business model around rejecting people. This education changed our lives, but how can we change others lives? Damera says.

He has a point. The Ivy Leagues - Columbia, Harvard and Yale among others - accept less than 10% of the students who apply. Most students take a loan to study there, some pay it off, many dont - with the result that the student debt crisis is one of Americas biggest issues today.

Eruditus Executive Education started in 2010, with faculty from INSEAD and the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) teaching a 10 day-classroom program in a 5-star hotel for 10-15 people. No internet, no tech, no venture capital. From the beginning, Eruditus has focused on executive education - short to long courses for experienced professionals - say with 5 to 10 years of experience - in fields such as management, leadership, banking and finance. It can either help you break a glass ceiling in your own field and take you to the next level, or help you pivot to a new field itself, depending on what you study.

From 2010 to 2015 this is all they did. They launched partnerships with Harvard, Wharton, INSEAD, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and others, persuading each of them, one by one. They also launched classes in Southeast Asia and Dubai.

But the model had inherent limitations. They were teaching 50-55 students, but it was expensive and could be done only during off-season for universities, when these professors would fly down for lectures. It was a gruelling schedule too. The professor would land at about 2 am, take 8 am lectures stretching through the evening for three days straight, and fly back on the third night.

But despite the challenges - of a random Indian startup tying up with the worlds top B-Schools, of crunched timings and seasonal classes - it was working. Students were showing up every time, professors were showing up every time and the feedback was good.

They (professors) also stuck to that gruelling schedule because they liked us, and they saw value. That made us wonder whether we should look at online (classes) seriously, Damera says.

It took Damera six years, till 2016, to get Eruditus to an annual revenue of $10 million. Growing slowly, steadily, without fuss or hype. The plan to go online changed everything, and made it the tech company you see today. But the decision was not easy.

How do you make sure teaching online has the same quality? That you don't compromise on learning outcomes for scale?

There was a lot of scepticism initially. But I think the world is moving from credentials to skills, and building online is our chance to utilise this global opportunity, he says.

To this effect, Eruditus also raised its first ever funding round. Six years after inception, about $2 million from Bertelsmann India Investments - the investment arm of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.

Today, at a time when many startups raise millions before they even have a product, sometimes purely on an idea or the founders reputation, raising money six years in stands out.

You can almost see Eruditus as two different companies. Pre-online and post-online. Pre-funding or post-funding. While it took six years to get $10 million in revenue, in four more years, it has zoomed to $100 million revenues in FY20 - a figure Damera wants to double next year, while staying profitable. Eruditus is currently profitable on an Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) basis, a metric of operating profits. Damera says 100,000 students will learn on Eruditus this year, compared to 50,000 last fiscal.

Had we raised money in 2010-11 it would have been problematic. Raising money much later gave us time to build our product, understand the market, and honestly, stay under the radar, he adds.

And staying under the radar was important, perhaps even essential. What makes Eruditus unique? What stops anyone else from tying up with the same colleges and offering the same courses? What is their moat?

Damera laughs. Common question. Question that every investor asks. We built these relationships silently. These relationships and our monetization are our strength. If a university can build an online vertical by themselves or with someone else, I say that we can help you market this globally, not just in your country. We can grow your pie 3-5x, and we can both share in the upside,

The decision to go online intertwined with online education opening up globally. Between 2012 and 2015, Coursera and EdX, both of which offer free and paid courses from top institutions, blew up. But both of these focus on short-term and more specific courses. To offer an MBA online, as Eruditus offers, requires a whole different approach from a company.

Eruditus decided on a cohort-based approach. Unlike a Coursera where students can learn at their own pace, Eruditus sets deadlines and has live classes. Everybody is part of the same course.

And the results are interesting. Damera says two-thirds of students make a career change one year after completing their Eruditus program, and before the pandemic, a person starting a new job after a full program with Eruditus was earning 33% more than he did in his/her previous role.

Currently, students from the US account for 33% of the companys revenue, followed by India (16%), Latin America and Europe (15% each), with China, Southeast Asia and the Middle East making up the rest.

Like others in the sector, the Covid-19 pandemic has taken Eruditus from being on the fringes of a large sector, to the next big thing, virtually overnight, as millions of students are learning from home, unable to go to schools or colleges.

In 2020 alone, online learning firm Byjus valuation has gone from $5 billion to $11 billion. Unacademys valuation has gone from $500 million to $1.45 billion. Eruditus then, from about $400 million in early 2019 to $800 million today, almost looks tame.

Negotiating a $100 million fundraise over the last few months, he could have pushed for Eruditus to become a unicorn- startups valued at over a billion dollars. But the Damera of 2008 may have thought that way. Not so the man in 2020.

In 2008, Dameras Travelguru was nearly acquired by a large travel aggregator for $75 million, already higher than its valuation from just a few months ago. Travelguru had two months of cash runway. An agreement was signed, and the money was nearly wired, when Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. The American financial services giants closure was the domino that triggered the global financial crisis of 2008 and a period of recession. So Travelgurus deal fell through, and its internal investors - Sequoia Capital and Battery Ventures came to fund a bridge round, but at a lower valuation of $60 million. Damera said no. Still coming to terms with a deal falling through and an economic battering at large, he wanted the original $75 million valuation.

A year later, Travelocity acquired Travelguru for a much smaller sum, and in 2012, Yatra bought Travelguru for about Rs 100 crore.

While the sale took Damera to his next venture - Eruditus - and things eventually worked out, he hasnt forgotten the incident or its learnings when Eruditus closed its funding at an $800 million valuation.

Today I dont care about maximising that extra valuation. Theres a larger purpose. Im not saying I dont want to be a unicorn. It is great to be one but it doesnt make a difference whether that happens next year or the year after that, as long as Im doing the right thing for the company, he says.

Today, after seeing the highs and lows of multiple industries, building quietly and then raising money from marquee investors, some still doubt the companys eventual size, or the sectors true potential.

I dont think universities are too happy sharing revenue with them, and there is always a doubt of whether this can be a multi-billion dollar company, says an investment banker working on the education space, who did not want to be named.

But does Damera doubt himself, or the companys potential?

If any entrepreneur tells you they dont have self doubt, they're bloody well lying! he says.

I have zero doubt about the market size. But the challenge is to see how fast we can grow today without compromising on learning outcomes. Can we grow from $200 million (revenue) to 400 and then to 800 year-on-year? The category is big enough so I am pushing for that, he adds.

But Damera then zooms out, because while it is easy to look linearly at a companys growth and attribute its success to a series of masterstrokes from its founders, investors and employees, which is never the case.

Forty percent of all success for any company, in any industry, is timing.

Timing and luck are a big part of why these things work out, and nobody does anything by themselves. This is my last startup so I just want to make it big, he concludes.
The United Kingdom will be providing $6.4 Million as a form of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. According to the reports by ANI, a formal announcement, regarding the same, will be made during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's two-day visit to London. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in a statement, As part of the visit, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will meet Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to reaffirm the UK's support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity... Dominic Raab will also announce 5m of humanitarian aid to support communities in eastern Ukraine who have been affected by the conflict and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

EU offers support to Ukraine

According to the reports by AP, on October 6, President Volodymyr reached the EU's headquarters in Brussels and was welcomed by European Council President Charles Michel. Few agendas of their talks involve- Ukrainian judicial and financial reforms, the EU's role in helping the Ukrainian leader, the EU's part in maintaining sanctions on Russia over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and developing stronger economic ties with Kyiv. On the same day, the EU pledged to go forward with the free trade agreement with Ukraine and urged Russia to respect the peace agreement.

Read: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky Assures Impartial Probe Into Military Plane Crash

Charles Michel after holding talks with President Volodymyr said, the EU is and will remain Ukraines biggest and most reliable partner. He added, We want to deepen our cooperation with Ukraine even further. Since the year 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, the EU has provided a sum of $17.7 billion to Ukraine. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said, We are not acting just (out of) charity. We are acting because it is in our own interest to help Ukraine to develop and to be a free, prosperous and secure country. This is the purpose of our help; it is conditional to reforms.

Read: UK Might Have Lost Nearly 16k COVID-19 Test Results Due To Lack Of Excel Columns: Report

In a joint statement, the EU and Ukraine called on Russia to immediately stop fueling the conflict by providing financial and military support to the armed formations it backs. They also urged Russia to respect the agreement which aims at spreading peace. According to the reports by AP, the conflict which was triggered by Russias annexation of Crimea and its support for the separatists has since killed more than 14,000 till date.

Read: UK PM Warns Of A bumpy Coronavirus Situation Until Christmas

Also Read: This New UK App Lets Public Record And Save Footages Of Police Encounters, Counter Racism

(Image Credits: AP)
Swaraj India party president and nearly 100 farmers were taken into preventive custody in Haryana's Sirsa on Wednesday after a group of agriculturists agitating against the Centre's new farm laws were evicted by the police from their dharna site on a busy road.

Besides Yadav, Kisan Manch chief Prahalad Singh was also taken into preventive custody and detained, Sirsa DSP Kuldeep Singh said.

Singh said that farmers were holding dharna on a busy highway in Sirsa where the administration had not given them the permission.

"The farmers had been allowed to hold their dharna on Dussehra grounds and we had asked them to move there and also had given them a choice to go to another site near Deputy Commissioner's office. However, they did not agree after which we took them into preventive custody," Singh said.

He said commuters were facing difficulty as the peasants were holding dharna in the middle of a busy road.

The farmers were put on buses and other vehicles arranged by the administration and taken to a nearby police station.

"Along with protesting farmers, I have been detained from farmers' protest site in Sirsa Been taken to Police Thana Sadar, Sirsa," Yadav, who lent support to the peasants' agitation against the new farm bills, posted on Twitter.

Yadav claimed that the government is rattled by farmers' questions and is bent upon using "brutal force to prevent dissent".

"I have been detained by Police for joining a peaceful dharna at Sirsa. Dharna site demolished. About 100 farmers and leaders arrested. Clearly, Haryana govt is rattled by farmers' questions, bent upon using brutal force to prevent dissent," Yadav said in another tweet.

He said the farmers' fight will only get bigger from here.

Police had on Tuesday used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the agitating farmers who tried to cross barricades and proceed towards the residences of Dushyant Chautala and his grand uncle and Power Minister Ranjit Singh Chautala in Sirsa, barely 200 metres away from their protest site.

The farmers were seeking resignations of Dushyant, a JJP leader, and Ranjit, an independent legislator, from the Manohar Lal Khatar government over the recently enacted three farm legislations.

While farmers belonging to 17 different organisations were part of the protest held on Tuesday, only a few continued to hold dharna near the residences of the Chautalas a day later.

The protest site lies on Sirsa-Barnala highway on the busy Baba Bhumman Shah Chowk.

The farmers said they will carry on with their dharna for an indefinite period and force the Centre to roll back the new farm legislations, which they dubbed "anti-farmers".

The police or administration cannot suppress the voice of farmers. They may ask us to clear this protest site, but our agitation against the farm legislations will continue and we will not rest the till we force the government to revoke these laws, said a farmer, who was at the protest site.

Sirsa police officials this morning made announcements over loudspeaker asking farmers to clear the protest site.

Sirsa Police DSP, Kuldeep Singh told reporters at the protest site that farmers were holding dharna on a busy road where the administration had not given them the permission.

"The farmers had been allowed to hold their dharna in Dussehra ground and we asked them to move there" he said.

The agitating farmers, however, remained adamant after which they were evicted from the site by the police.

Earlier, Haryana Bhartiya Kisan Union chief Gurnam Singh had lamented that while late Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal always fought for farmers, both Ranjit Chautala and Dushyant Chautala were busy "enjoying pleasures of power", "ignoring" farmers' interests.

"Both Dushyant and Ranjit Chautala are bringing disrespect to the name of farmers messiahDevi Lal by misusing his name in the garb of the peasantry," Haryana Kisan Manch president Prahalad Singh said earlier.

Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala and INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala had condemned the use of tear gas shells and water cannons on protesting farmers by the police.

(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 former Fort Drum soldier was sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison for burglarizing gun shops and stealing 10 guns, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of New York.

Devin Diggs, 21, admitted in February to stealing five long guns from a dealer in Gouverneur on Sept. 14, 2019, and to stealing five handguns from a dealer in De Kalb Junction on Sept. 29, 2019, federal prosecutors said. All of the guns were later recovered, prosecutors said.

Diggs was the third former Fort Drum soldier sentenced in connection with the case.

Rian Patterson was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison just more than a week ago.

Tyrease Kimmons earlier admitted to getting three rifles from Patterson and Diggs after the burglaries.

Feds: 3 Fort Drum soldiers found with guns stolen from licensed shops

Kimmons was sentenced in March to 10 months in federal prison with three years of supervised release, according to federal court records.

Diggs and Patterson were charged in October 2019. Investigators traced the two after they were captured on the stores surveillance cameras.

The men were both stationed at Fort Drum when the two licensed firearms dealers were burglarized in September last year.

Investigators used surveillance footage, witnesses and New York states license plate readers to track down the suspects, according to court records. Fort Drum officials also found two guns during a separate search conducted due to drug activity in a unit there.

Some of the firearms, five in total, were located in a duffel bag under Kimmons' bed, court records said. The guns were loaded at the time they were recovered, according the court records.

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Several thousand people took to the streets of Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek on Wednesday to protest against the designation of a candidate for prime minister and parliamentary speaker.

Kyrgystan's Prime Minister Kubatbek Boronov resigned following mass protests against the country's parliamentary election results on Sunday, which were later nullified to "prevent tension".

The country's parliament announced an emergency session to discuss the crisis on Tuesday.

Local media reported that lawmakers failed to get a quorum, but a few dozen of them gathered anyway and, with proxy votes from other lawmakers, approved new appointments to some top government posts.

The lawmakers announced the resignation of Prime Minister Kubatbek Boronov and gave preliminary approval to Sadyr Zhaparov, a former lawmaker released from prison overnight, as his replacement, although it was unclear whether the moves were legal under the constitution.

This story has not been edited by www.republicworld.com and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.
Photo of Althea Bernstien, posted on Twitter.

MADISON, Wis.  Federal investigators and Madison police are closing an investigation into an alleged hate crime against an 18-year-old biracial Madison woman after being unable to prove the attack occurred.

Althea Bernstein, an emergency medical technician in Madison, told police on June 24 she had been attacked by four white men about 1 a.m. while she was stopped at a red light in downtown Madison.

Bernstein said someone yelled a racial epithet at her, threw lighter fluid on her skin through her open car window and ignited it with a lighter, according to police reports. Bernstein eventually went to a hospital for treatment.

Images provided to Madison365.com at the time showed dark marks on Bernstein's neck, cheek and under one of her eyes.

Hate crimes: Black Americans report hate crimes, violence in wake of George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter gains

The United States Attorneys Office, the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice and the FBI announced Friday that its three-month investigation into the report found insufficient evidence to pursue federal criminal civil rights charges.

The investigation included "extensive interviews, exhaustive review of traffic and surveillance video, and expert review of digital and forensic evidence," a news release from U.S. Attorney Scott Blader said.

"Federal investigators determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove that a violation of any federal criminal statute occurred," the release said. "Further, after reviewing all available evidence, authorities could not establish that the attack, as alleged by the complainant, had occurred."

Althea Bernstein shows the burns on her neck after she said four white men sprayed her with lighter fluid and threw a lighter at her while she was in her car in downtown Madison, Wis.

Bernstein said she was attacked just hours after rioting protesters smashed windows and tore down two iconic statues at the Wisconsin State Capitol. The same night, Democratic state Sen. Tim Carpenter was assaulted after filming the protesters.

Police at the time did not say whether the attack on Bernstein was linked to the protests or outside agitators, but Bernstein told Madison365 that two of the men involved were wearing "jeans and a floral shirt."

Story continues

Members of the far-right movement known as the Boogaloo are known for wearing Hawaiian shirts. The group's intentions are unclear, with some members seemingly determined to protect protesters and others hoping to provoke violence.

From June: Wisconsin woman sprayed with lighter fluid, burned by lighter in suspected hate crime, police say

Police records released on Friday show screenshots of security camera feeds of the night Bernstein said she was attacked. The photos show Bernstein's car traveling through downtown Madison where she said the attack occurred, but cameras did not capture any interactions with pedestrians or other vehicles.

Video footage showed it was unlikely Bernstein was stopped at any red lights as she traveled that night through the isthmus, police said.

The records also show Bernstein told police officers UW Hospital staff took a sweatshirt she was wearing that night that was contaminated by lighter fluid and threw it away. But hospital officials told police they had no such record of the disposal.

A search of the car Bernstein was driving also did not reveal burn marks, unusual smells or smoke-related damage, according to police.

Police also were unable to find suspects matching the alleged attackers' description in footage on 17 cameras around the area where Bernstein said the incident took place.

A Madison resident who wanted to remain anonymous also supplied police with surveillance video of what looked like Bernstein's vehicle traveling through the intersection Bernstein where the attack took place but in the video, Bernstein did not stop and no pedestrians are visible in the video.

Wisconsin Crime Lab results showed a shirt Bernstein was wearing the night of the incident was contaminated with a substance that could be a charcoal lighter fluid or paint thinner, according to the records.

The records also show messages Bernstein sent a male friend, describing the attack.

"Someone on state street just tried to set me on fire," she wrote to her friend.

Another friend told police she FaceTimed with Bernstein the night of the incident and that Bernstein looked "terrified."

Snapchat messages also revealed Bernstein was consistent in how she described the incident to friends. She also received treatment for her injuries and follow-up care, according to hospital records obtained by police.

Follow Molly Beck on Twitter at @MollyBeck.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Hate crime investigation into Wisconsin lighter fluid attack dropped
WASHINGTON  On March 6, as the pace of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. appeared to be accelerating, President Trump toured the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta. While there, he promised that anybody that needs a test gets a test. The assertion was flatly untrue. To a degree, it remains untrue to this day.

Later that same day, Vice President Mike Pence, who was helming the coronavirus task force, took to the podium at the White House. Without contradicting Trump directly, he made clear that the assertion had been wrong in Atlanta. Tests would be broadly available, he said, but only in a matter of weeks.

Pences navigation of the complex White House crosscurrents will face intense scrutiny when he debates Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Wednesday night. Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, have endlessly assailed Trumps pandemic response. Pence, however, could prove an elusive target, because although he is associated with the administrations much-criticized response to the pandemic, he ultimately answers to a domineering micromanager of a boss who offers subordinates little independence.

Americans have generally trusted Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force, to deliver sound public health advice. Trust in Trump, meanwhile, has remained low. Pence has been in the middle of the pack when it comes to pandemic trustworthiness: Though he may be tainted by the unending stream of Trumps deceptions and obfuscations, he has also tried  as he did on the day of Trumps visit to the CDC  to offer necessary correctives to the presidents relentless and often delusive optimism.

Pence often attempted to curb the president, says Olivia Troye, a former top aide to the vice president on the coronavirus task force. The task could be frustrating, says Troye, who has become a critic of Trump since leaving the White House, because the president is impossible to keep on message.

Story continues

Troye says that Pence sought to make sure he never purveyed false information himself. There were times when I worried he would get sick from just plain exhaustion, she says of helping to prepare the vice president for task force briefings.

A current Pence aide says that the vice president and the president are in lockstep when it comes to the pandemic. Yet Pence has carefully kept his distance. He has never advocated for drinking bleach or exposing internal organs to ultraviolet light, two of Trumps more controversial assertions about treatment for the coronavirus. He has also sometimes tried to blunt some of Trumps personal attacks, a perilous exercise for those who attempt it. Pence is among the rare officials who succeeded.

Vice President Mike Pence and members of the coronavirus task force hold a press briefing at the White House in March. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

When, for example, Trump feuded with Democratic governors of Michigan and Washington state throughout the spring over supplies provided by the federal government, it was Pence who worked behind the scenes to contain any fallout from the spat.

Trump mocked his conciliatory role. Mike, dont call the governor of Washington, youre wasting your time with him; dont call the woman in Michigan  it doesnt make any difference what happens, he said at one coronavirus task force briefing. But he also praised Pence, if just a little grudgingly.

Hes a different type of person, the president said. Hell call quietly anyway.

Harris will likely argue that he is, in fact, not all that different.

It was Pence, after all, who authored the now notorious Wall Street Journal op-ed There Isnt a Coronavirus Second Wave that seemed to mock the very scientists the vice president had been working with and praising. The op-ed was published on June 16, just as the nation was heading for a devastating summer of illness, death and persistent unemployment.

Over the summer, Pence shifted away from the prior months more careful messaging to a deeper embrace of Trumps tone and approach. The same Pence who was helping Democrats in March was criticizing them in August, warning them that no blank check was coming from the federal government.

As someone who has consistently praised Trumps leadership, Pence will have to explain how more than 200,000 Americans have died and millions are unemployed.

We protected our most vulnerable citizens, insists the vice presidents aide, who says the coronavirus task force continues to meet once a week.

Harris may lambaste Pence for the tone of his boss, but it is a tone that Pence himself has never adopted. At the same time, as the leader of the White House coronavirus task force, he never broke with the president, even if doing so would have perhaps helped him with his own political future.

Sen. Kamala Harris at a drive-in campaign event in Las Vegas on Oct. 2. (John Locher/AP)

Trying to make the best of Trumps confusions and contradictions has always been a thankless, difficult task for Pence, something that Harris will almost certainly try to expose and exploit. Troye, the former Pence aide, says the vice president could only do so much when confronted with a mercurial boss suspicious of science.

How do you counter that narrative, she wonders, when its coming from the very top?

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean lawmakers and officials raised concerns on Wednesday about the safety of the teenage daughter of a former senior North Korean diplomat in Italy after news reports that he has settled in South Korea while she was sent back to the North.

Jo Song Gil, who was North Korea's acting ambassador to Italy, disappeared with his wife after leaving the embassy without notice in November 2018.

His whereabouts had been unknown since, but a member of South Korea's parliamentary intelligence committee on Tuesday confirmed news reports that Jo arrived in South Korea in July 2019 under the protection of the government.

The reports triggered concerns among some lawmakers about Jo's daughter, who according to Italy's foreign ministry, was repatriated to the North at her request after her parents went missing. She is a teenager, but no other details about her were immediately known.

Thae Yong-ho, Pyongyang's former deputy ambassador to Britain who defected to South Korea in 2016, had publicly asked Jo to come to the South but urged restraint in media coverage of him.

"Where a defected diplomat lives determines the levels of treatment or punishment to be given to his relatives left in the North," said Thae, who is now a lawmaker.

"If he takes asylum in South Korea, he is defined as a traitor, apostate. ... And no one knows what penalties would be imposed on the family members of a traitor."

Cho Tae-yong, another opposition lawmaker and former deputy national security advisor, accused the government of leaking the information even though Jo had not wanted his defection to be publicly known because of his daughter.

"It was impossible to know without help from intelligence authorities and the government effectively confirmed it, which was an act that completely lacked humanitarian considerations regarding his daughter," Cho told a parliamentary session.

The National Intelligence Service declined comment.

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said at the session she was "surprised" to see the news and shared the lawmakers' concerns about the safety of Jo's daughter.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
The number of Covid-19 patients currently hospitalized in intensive care in France increased slightly on Tuesday, to 1,417, or 8 patients more than the previous day. The proportion of positive tests has now reached 9 %, according to official figures

Over the past 24 hours, 168 new patients with the most severe form of the disease had to be admitted to intensive care units, according to the daily report from the French public health agency, ARS.

The current national capacity of resuscitation beds is estimated at around 5,000.

A total of 7,377 patients are currently hospitalized for Covid-19, including 829 who were admitted in the last 24 hours.

Hospital indicators are important for monitoring the evolution of the epidemic, since the main issue is to prevent hospitals, particularly intensive care units, from being overwhelmed by a massive influx of patients.

Fears of ICU overload

At the peak of the epidemic, at the beginning of April, more than 7,000 patients were hospitalized in shifts, sometimes with 400 admissions per day.

In addition, 65 people have died from Covid in the past 24 hours, bringing the total of deaths since the start of the epidemic to 32,364.

Meanwhile, the positivity rate (proportion of positive tests compared to the total tests carried out) continues to increase rapidly, to 9%, compared to 8.6% the day before and 8.2% on Sunday.

New restriction measures

The Ile-de-France Regional Health Agency also indicated on Tuesday that the occupancy rate of beds in intensive care units by patients with Covid-19 continued to increase to over 40% against 37% on Monday.

This represents 449 people admitted to intensive care units, out of 2,393 Covid-19 patients hospitalized in the most populous region of France (12 million inhabitants).

Faced with the progression of the epidemic in the Paris region, new restriction measures came into force on Tuesday in the French capital and in three departments of the inner suburbs (Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de- Marne), including the closing of bars.

Restaurants can remain open but must respect reinforced health protocols. It applies in all high alert zones, including Aix-Marseille where restaurants had to shut down a week ago.

(With Wires)
Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited in collaboration with Challenges WorldWide has launched the Youth to Work programme to position, equip and provide young people with relevant skills and economic opportunities for sustainable and measurable impact.



Launched virtually in a webinar attended by stakeholders and partners, Youth to Work is the flagship employability programme under Futuremarkers by Standard Chartered, the Banks new initiative to tackle inequality and promote greater economic inclusion for young people.



The programme, supported by the Standard Chartered Foundation, seeks to recruit approximately 800 young people from universities across Ghana, train and assess them then shortlist 45 for work placements with Small and Growing Businesses (SGBs) in Ghana as Junior Associates where they will be expected to provide consultancy services in Business Management.



Speaking during the webinar, Sheikh Jobe, Chief Operating Officer, Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited expressed excitement about the programme. As a brand that is Here for good Standard Chartered is committed to position and equip our young people with skills and opportunities to create sustainable and measurable socio-economic impact in Ghana. We hope the Youth to Work programme will have significant impact on the lives of the participants and the businesses they will be placed into



With this programme, we are directly investing in equipping the youth with the requisite skills needed for business, employment and entrepreneurship and we are excited about partnering with Challenges Worldwide to realize the objectives of the programme, added Mr. Sheikh Jobe.



The Youth to Work programme is designed around an enterprise placement-based model that incorporates youth skill development. Participants will be enrolled into intensive training on key business consultancy skills using accredited training from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) before being placed into Small and Growing Businesses where they will develop their training in real-world environments, supporting the enterprises and being supported by Challenges Worldwide.



Through the programme, participants will get the opportunity to develop their current skill set with the view to improving their employability after the programme and will gain valuable insight into all areas of managing an enterprise.



Neil Fleming, Director, Challenges Worldwide said the launch of the Youth to Work programme is very timely in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.



This is a huge platform for Ghanaian youth and I urge qualified persons to take advantage of the programme to gain practical resources. By participating in the Youth to Work programme you will be viewed more as implementers of change as well as get an opportunity to thrive in the business world.



The programme is eligible to young people between 21-30 years (or 21-35 for persons with disability) from diverse backgrounds including but not limited to Finance, Accounting, Computing & IT, Applied & Social Sciences, Management, Communications and Marketing who can commit to a 4-month full time placement and 2 weeks training.



We are optimistic that the platform will endow Ghanaian youth with practical skills and entrepreneurial spirit where they can fulfill their potential and also contribute to developing the economy at large, added Neil Fleming.



The 2020 Youth to Work programme is open for applications from 6th - 30th October 2020 and details can be found at: [email protected]

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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ODM has framed the Msambweni parliamentary by-election as a contest between Deputy President William Ruto and the party's deputy leader Hassan Joho.

ODM officials yesterday tried to downplay suggestions by their rivals that the December 15 vote will be a showdown between the DP and their party leader Raila Odinga.

Instead, ODM Secretary-General Edwin Sifuna and Director of Elections Junet Mohamed fronted the Mombasa governor as the leader of their campaigns for the poll that they termed a battle of the deputies.

"It will be deputy versus deputy. We have a total of three by-elections at the Coast and we're working to bag all the seats," Mr Sifuna said, referring to civic by-elections in Dabaso Ward, Kilifi and Wundanyi/Mbale Ward in Taita.

"Joho is his match. We're planning to reduce the contest to one between him [Ruto] and Joho and not between him and Raila," Mr Mohamed said.

Withdraw from race

DP Ruto is also the deputy party leader of Jubilee, which declined to field a candidate in the Msambweni by-election, citing President Kenyatta's handshake with Mr Odinga.

The DP grudgingly accepted his party's decision to withdraw from the race, but a day later, he paraded independent candidate Feisal Bader at his official residence in Karen.

ODM is fronting former Gombato/Bongwe MCA Omar Boga to recapture the seat that fell vacant following the death of the party's Suleiman Dori.

The Ruto camp has insisted they are up against the ODM party leader. "We must defeat Raila in Msambweni. We can redefine our political future with victory. We, as Coast people, do not need Raila to negotiate our destiny," former Mombasa Senator Hassan Omar said last week.

Coast MPs Aisha Jumwa (Malindi), Athman Shariff (Lamu East), Owen Baya (Kilifi North), Khatib Mwashetani (Lungalunga) and Mohammed Ali (Nyali) were present at the DP's residence when he presented Mr Bader.

Mr Bader has fought off the tag that he is the DP's project.

"Running for the seat as an independent candidate should not be seen as though I'm Ruto's project. I read malice in ODM and opted out. I urge my competitors to conduct peaceful campaigns. I'm confident that I will carry the day," Mr Bader said last week.

Successful party primaries

But Mr Boga said: "We will win this seat even if the Tangatanga team camps here."

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Other candidates in the race are Wiper's Shee Abdulrahman and United Green Movement party's Liganje Mwakaonje.

Yesterday, Mr Sifuna claimed the DP's camp had panicked following ODM's successful party primaries.

Mr Mohamed told the DP to prepare for another loss like in the Kibra parliamentary by-election in November last year.

At the time, the Deputy President campaigned for Jubilee's McDonald Mariga, who lost to ODM's Imran Okoth. A faction of Jubilee allied to President Kenyatta that was led by nominated MP Maina Kamanda campaigned for the ODM candidate.

Support the 'Handshake'

Yesterday, Jubilee Vice-Chairman David Murathe said the party will back the ODM candidate, who he dubbed the 'Handshake' candidate. "For us, we will support the 'Handshake' candidate. Let them continue with their defiance against the party leader and the party's position," he said. Mr Bader got Dr Ruto's endorsement on September 24, a day after Jubilee Secretary-General Raphael Tuju announced that the ruling party had bowed out of the race.
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Millennium Tower Association, the homeowners' association for Millennium Tower, announced today that litigation over the building's settlement has been fully resolved and that an engineered upgrade to prevent any significant future settlement of the skyscraper will begin next month.

The announcement officially concludes a legal dispute that began after the building at 301 Mission Street began settling at an unexpected rate. After many years of complex litigation, the Association is being fully compensated for retrofitting the building and homeowners are being compensated individually.

The construction project, scheduled to begin by mid-November, involves the installation of 52 concrete piles that will anchor the building to bedrock 250 feet below ground. Known as the Perimeter Pile Upgrade, the project will relieve stress on soils that have compressed beneath the building, contributing to its unanticipated movement.

"This has been a long journey for our Association and Millennium Tower homeowners, and we appreciate the efforts of everyone who helped bring this difficult chapter to a close," said Association President Howard Dickstein. "We are pleased with the settlement terms and confident that the upgrade will restore our building's reputation and the value of condominiums while putting to rest any lingering questions about the Tower's stability."

Dickstein also acknowledged the efforts of the private mediators, led by retired Judge Daniel Weinstein, Judge Ronald Sabraw, and mediator Gerald Kurland, who assisted the parties in resolving all claims. In addition, Dickstein praised the invaluable contribution of the Association's lawyers, Roger Grant and Charles Litt of the law firm Fenton Grant Mayfield Kaneda & Litt, LLP.

Millennium Tower's original developer, Mission Street Development, an affiliate of Millennium Partners, provided invaluable support in the development of the Perimeter Pile Upgrade, and founding partner Phil Lovett worked tirelessly to help secure approval of the retrofit with city agencies.

"We also wish to recognize the City of San Francisco for working cooperatively and efficiently with the Association to permit the retrofit," Dickstein said.

Under the agreement, the settlement funds will fully fund the building upgrade as well as other community needs, including title to space that houses two commercial establishments on the Tower's ground floor. The two spaces are currently leased to Michael Mina and Ayesha Curry's International Smoke restaurant and the Bank of the West.

The Engineering Upgrade

During the past two years, after excavations and construction activities at adjacent properties ceased, Millennium Tower's movement has virtually halted, with settlement during that period measuring less than one-half of one inch. That rate is consistent with the normal and long-term compression of soils that occurs beneath nearly all buildings in San Francisco's Financial District. The engineering retrofit will provide long-term assurance of the Tower's performance in the event of any future construction nearby and will potentially reverse a significant portion of its tilt.

The upgrade involves installing new concrete piles into bedrock beneath the compressible soils that caused the settlement, and structurally connecting the new piles to the Tower's existing foundation. That connection will transfer a portion of the Tower's weight to bedrock, ensuring that there is no substantial future settlement.

The plan was designed by internationally recognized engineer Ronald Hamburger of Simpson Gumpertz & Heger. Hamburger has more than 45 years of experience in civil and structural engineering and is an internationally recognized expert in earthquake-resistant design and structural performance evaluation.

The project is expected to cost nearly $100 million and will be funded by the multiple parties who settled the homeowner claims and their insurance companies. Construction is expected to last about two years. All significant components of the government permitting process have been completed.

"This plan halts settlement along Fremont and Mission Streets while allowing the building to level itself over time," said Hamburger. "As an independent team of engineering experts concluded after reviewing the plan over a period of seven months, it is an effective and practical approach to the settlement and tilting issues, and it preserves and enhances the building's safety."

Despite the Tower's unexpected settlement, an independent panel of experts convened by the City and County of San Francisco concluded in 2017 that Millennium Tower is seismically safe under the City Building Code. The same panel also concluded that settlement had not changed Millennium Tower's capability of resisting major earthquakes and the upgrade will increase that capability.

Contact: Doug Elmets

(916) 329-9180

[email protected]

SOURCE Millennium Tower Association
As noted here recently, Detroit has been the unlikely exception to Democrat-run cities being torn up by BLM and Antifa violence. President Trump has noticed it, too, and he knows who gets the credit. "You have a great police chief," Trump told Detroit reporter Roop Raj not long ago in an interview for Fox-affiliated stations.

"I watch him," Trump said about Craig. "I really like him a lot. Say hello to him. I think he's terrific. I think he's just an incredible representative; he speaks so well about a very important subject, which is crime and rioting, and all the things you see in certain cities."

Trump's no doubt seen Chief Craig in TV interviews, where the Chief airs his unfashionable ideas about dealing with mostly not peaceful protesters by simply making it clear he's not going to stand for it.

But when you're the top cop in a one-party state like Detroit (one-party municipality, actually), being praised by a president whom Democrats will compare to Mussolini just for standing on a balcony is going to raise a few eyebrows.

When asked about what Trump said about him, Craig said, '"I'm humbled that the president of the United States would give me credit for wanting to keep law and order, but it's not about me; it's about the men and women of this police department who have done a phenomenal job during a pandemic and up through these protests of more than 100 days.'"

Craig knows that getting a shout-out from Trump has people wondering if he's Democrat or Republican. He brings it up himself.

"I'm an American," Craig said. "Why is everything left or right? I get support from all sides  except the anarchists who want to undermine our government. I'm an American police officer who claims no party but relies on doing what is right and common sense. I align with both conservatives and liberals, depending on the issues."

Because Craig won't be bullied, a lawsuit was filed against the city and Craig by Detroit Will Breathe, the local Black Lives Matter franchise, claiming that Detroit police used excessive force while breaking up DWB's violent demonstrations. William Goodman, the group's lawyer, didn't care for Craig accurately characterizing his clients as anarchists and Marxists. "[T]rying to label them by political ideology is just a way of tarnishing people who don't agree with how he's running the police department," Goodman said. He then immediately set about trying to tarnish Craig by saying the chief's opinion of violent protesters just proves '"he's voting for Donald Trump."'

Craig never said he's voting for Trump. I've never heard of Chief Craig getting involved in any partisan issue. He says his feelings about violent protesters are apolitical, and why not? Not so many years ago, anyone expressing the same opinions could do so without being automatically associated with one party or the other.

And you don't have to be a Republican to knock BLM for its openly Marxist ideology and violent methods, but these days you can't say those things without putting yourself at odds with Biden's and Harris's Democrat Party. It's hardly proof you wear a MAGA in secret just because you sum up your political identity with "I'm an American." After all, aren't Democrats constantly going on about "us Americans"?

It's just that, when Chief Craig says it, it's because he's proud of it.

T.R. Clancy looks at the world from Dearborn, Michigan. You can email him at trclancy@yahoo.com.

Image: Click On Detroit | Local 4 | WDIV via YouTube.
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San Francisco, 7 Oct 2020: The Report Structural Health Monitoring Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Solution, By Application (Bridges & Dams, Buildings & Stadiums, Vessels & Platforms), By Technology (Wired, Wireless), And Segment Forecasts, 2018 - 2025

The global structural health monitoring market size is estimated to reach USD 4.34 billion by 2025, according to a study conducted by Grand View Research, Inc., rising at a CAGR of 17.3% during the forecast period. Growing investments in infrastructural development and government regulations mandating implementation of sensors and data acquisition systems to monitor structure health are expected to augment the market. Increasing age of existing bridges and dams and rising focus on infrastructural advancements including construction of new bridges, dams, buildings, and stadiums are also providing a push to the market.

Superior infrastructure is essential for regional development and it helps to increase productivity of the private as well as public sectors. Therefore, rapid infrastructural development across the globe is one of the primary growth stimulants for the market. These systems help in reducing cost by removing need for inspection staff and maintenance. Additionally, with ongoing advancements in technology, these systems are being used in applications such as diagnosing vessels and platforms in marine industries, aircraft frames in aerospace and defense, and inspection of large machines.

North America is projected to dominate the market throughout the forecast horizon owing to surging demand from applications such as bridges & dams and buildings & stadiums. However, Asia Pacific is poised to post the highest CAGR of 18.9% during the same period. This is owing to increasing investments in the civil infrastructure sector, along with industries such as aerospace, defense, marine, and manufacturing. Moreover, in 2014, the Chinese government laid down new regulations mandating use of SHM systems while building new architectural structures and bridges. They have restricted replacement time period for an embedded sensor to 20 years and three to five years for a sensor placed on the surface of the bridge. Furthermore, expanding production of oil sands and shale gas in regions such as Africa and Asia are anticipated to stir up the demand for structural health monitoring systems.

Access Research Report of Structural Health Monitoring Market @ https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/structural-health-monitoring-shm-market

Further key findings from the study suggest:

The hardware segment is likely to dominate the structural health monitoring market throughout the forecast period owing to higher cost of sensors and data acquisition systems as compared to that of software and services

In terms of application, the market for structural health monitoring is dominated by bridges & dams and the trend is estimated to continue until 2025. This is due to increasing investments in order to check for health of structures, thus ensuring public safety

Prominent industry participants include National Instruments Corporation; Structural Monitoring Systems; Digitexx Data Systems, Inc.; and Pure Technologies.

Browse more reports of this category by Grand View Research at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry/communications-infrastructure-systems-and-software

Grand View Research has segmented the global structural health monitoring market based on solution, application, technology, and region:

Structural Health Monitoring Solution Type (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2025)

Hardware Sensors Data Acquisition Systems Others

Software & Services

Structural Health Monitoring Application Type (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2025)

Bridges & Dams

Building & Stadiums

Vessels & Platforms

Airframes & Wind Turbines

Large Machines & Equipment

Structural Health Monitoring Technology Type (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2025)

Wired

Wireless

Structural Health Monitoring Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2015 - 2025)

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

South America

Middle East & Africa

Access Press Release of Structural Health Monitoring Market @ https://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-structural-health-monitoring-shm-market

About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare.

For More Information:www.grandviewresearch.com
Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr., the older of two surviving grandsons of the 10th president of the United States, John Tyler, and part of a genealogical marvel that in just three generations spanned almost the entire history of the United States, died on Sept. 26 in Franklin, Tenn. He was 95.

His daughter, Susan Selina Pope Tyler, said his death, at Williamson Medical Center, was caused by Alzheimers disease. He lived in Franklin.

Mr. Tyler, a lawyer and historian, and his 91-year-old brother, Harrison Ruffin Tyler, were the last surviving sons of Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr. (1853-1935), a longtime president of the College of William & Mary in Virginia.

Lyon Tyler Sr.s father, who was born just after George Washington became president 231 years ago and who served in the White House from 1841 to 1845, worked to make Texas the 28th state as America expanded west. But he may be better known for the Whig Partys catchy 1840 presidential campaign slogan, Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.
Police are seeking the publics assistance in identifying the individual suspected in four robberies  including one Monday afternoon at the Stop & Shop in Shelton  throughout Fairfield County in the past week.

Shelton Police Lt. Robert Kozlowsky said a man walked to the service counter in the grocery store about 1:15 p.m. Monday and handed the person working the counter a note claiming he was there to rob the establishment.

Kozlowsky said the employee handed the man an undisclosed amount of money, then the individual left the store.

No weapon was displayed, Kozlowsky said.

One of the robberies was at a bank in Fairfield; police in that town are offering $1,500 for information leading to the arrest of the suspect.

Fairfield Police Lt. Antonio Granata said three of the robberies have been at banks in Fairfield, Westport and Norwalk.

Kozlowsky said it appears the same person is responsible for all four incidents.

Most recently, the man is believed to have robbed a Peoples United Bank branch at a Stop and Shop in Westport on Monday.

Westport Police are also offering a $1,500 reward for information that leads to the suspects arrest and conviction.

During each of the bank incidents, the suspect has walked up to the teller window and handed over a hand-written note confirming it was a robbery, Granata said. No weapons have been shown and there has been no evidence of a weapon being present.

Police declined to say how much the suspect is believed to have taken.

Granata said the suspect appears to wear similar clothing in the robberies, has distinct mannerisms and eyes in each surveillance video he was captured on. He has been described as possibly a white or Asian man about 5 foot 7 inches tall.

In addition, the suspect is seen operating the same vehicle during each incident, Granata said  what appears to be a blue Hyundai Elantra Sport made between 2016 and 2019.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Fairfield Police Department Quality of Life Unit at 203-254-4606.

Anonymous tips may be sent by texting FPD plus your tip information to CRIMES (274637) with the FPD keyword in the text message. Tips can also be made online at www.fpdct.com/tips.

brian.gioiele@

hearstmediact.com
After Saul Sanchez tested positive for the coronavirus at a hospital in Greeley, Colorado, he spoke to his daughter on the phone and asked her to relay a message to his supervisors at work.

Please call JBS and let them know Im in the hospital, his daughter Beatriz Rangel remembered him as saying. Let them know I will be back.

The meat-processing company JBS had employed Sanchez, 78, at its plant in Greeley for three decades. He was one of at least 291 people there who tested positive for the coronavirus, according to data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

On April 7, Sanchez became one of at least six employees at the plant to die of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. My dad was a very hardworking, happy-go-lucky, selfless person, Rangel said. Its a great loss.

Now Rangel, 53, is in the middle of a new struggle. Hers is one of several families of JBS employees in Greeley seeking compensation for a death caused by COVID-19. The company has denied her familys claim, as well as at least two others, according to lawyers representing the families who are now taking those claims to court.

Those denials, first reported by Reuters, offered a view of the difficulties faced by families of essential workers who have fallen ill or died because of the coronavirus, many of whom are struggling to cover medical or funeral costs.

We just have a stack of bills, and I think its really taken a toll on my mom, because my dad used to be the one handling all the finances, Rangel said.

Across the United States, more than 100 meat-processing plants operated by different companies, including Smithfield and Tyson, have had outbreaks of COVID-19, in part because of crowded working conditions. So far, more than 44,000 meatpacking workers have tested positive for the coronavirus, and more than 200 have died, according to the Food & Environment Report Network, which has been tracking the outbreak.

Workers compensation has traditionally been used to address on-the-job injuries  not fatalities tied to a pandemic that has disrupted millions of lives and killed more than 200,000 people in the United States. Tracing the exact origins of individual infections can be difficult, which appears to have given JBS an avenue to deny compensation claims on the grounds that the illnesses were not necessarily work related.

It is my understanding that JBS was stating that the workers didnt contract COVID at the plant, said Kim Cordova, the president of the local chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers, a union that represents many JBS employees.

I think that its just further proof that these companies put profit over people, and that they have treated these poor essential workers as disposable or sacrificial human beings for the sake of production or profit, she added.

Nikki Richardson, a spokeswoman for JBS USA, said in an email that the workers compensation claim denials were issued by our third-party claims administrator consistent with the Colorado Workers Compensation Act.

State data shows that the Greeley plant was suffering from a COVID-19 outbreak in early April. The U.S. Department of Labors Occupational Safety and Health Administration said in September that it had cited the plant for failing to protect employees from exposure to the coronavirus.

Richardson said the citation was entirely without merit, and the company has contested it.

It attempts to impose a standard that did not exist in March as we fought the pandemic with no guidance, she said, adding that JBS had spent more than $182 million (U.S.) to improve safety, invested $160 million to increase workers compensation, and was in full compliance with health and safety recommendations.

JBS, which is based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, is the worlds largest meat processor and reported more than $36 billion in net revenue last year. About 6,000 people work at the plant in Greeley.

Several lawyers who are familiar with the Greeley workers compensation claims said that the paperwork associated with filing them  as well as the denials  presented extra hurdles for workers at the plant, many of whom do not speak English as a first language.

Its a game of attrition, said Mack Babcock, a lawyer representing the family of Daniel Avila Loma, a JBS employee who died of COVID-19 in April, at age 65, and whose request for compensation was tentatively denied in June. I think its immoral, and I think its nauseating.

Rosario Hernandez, 58, said her husband, Alfredo Hernandez, 55, had been unable to return to his custodial job at the Greeley plant after falling ill and being hospitalized in March.

She said he was now at home, still on oxygen, and struggling with symptoms like insomnia and a strange sensation that makes him feel as if mosquitoes were buzzing around his head.

I feel bad because theres nothing I can do for him, Rosario Hernandez said.

So far, her attempt to claim compensation from JBS has not succeeded.

They need to come forward and approve the workers comp so it takes care of our bills, she said. Because if were going to have to pay all of those bills, Im not going to have anything left at all.

Some states have issued executive orders or passed legislation to extend workers compensation coverage for COVID-19, or to place a higher burden of proof on employers who deny that a coronavirus infection was work related. But in Colorado, a bill to this effect stalled this summer.

According to the Colorado Division of Workers Compensation, at least 20 reports of COVID-19 deaths had been filed with the agency as of Sept. 26. Only one had been approved for compensation.

Dozens of plants across the country have shut down temporarily  including the JBS plant in Greeley, which closed its doors for about two weeks before reopening on April 24 with new safety protocols.

On April 28, President Donald Trump said in an executive order that meat-processing facilities should stay open so as not to disrupt food supply chains. As plants reopened, many companies were reluctant to disclose detailed coronavirus case counts. That has left many workers and their families in the dark, unsure of how  or whether  they can get relief after a coronavirus infection.

So many people are affected by whats happened, and so little is being done, said Rangel, Sanchezs daughter. She added that some employees might not know how to file for compensation or avoid filing for fear of retaliation.

It would probably be easier if we walked away and just mourned my dad, Rangel said, but I dont think we would be honouring his life if we werent there to defend or speak for those people who cant speak for themselves.
On Tuesday, the number of daily coronavirus cases found in Nigeria was 118, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 59,583.

As it was in the previous two days, no new deaths were recorded from the virus in the past 24 hours meaning that the total death toll remains 1,113.

This is according to the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

The latest figure was recorded in the following 14 states: Lagos (41), Rivers (19), Osun (17), Nasarawa (13), Kaduna (5), Anambra (5), Edo (3), Ogun (3), Kwara (3), Ondo (3), Katsina (2), Niger (2), Plateau (1), Akwa Ibom (1).

Lagos had the highest tally on Tuesday with 41 new cases to extend its lead on the region most impacted.

On Monday, no new infections were found in the commercial city of over 20 million for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.

Nigeria has been on a plateau in its COVID-19 epidemiological curve with the recurrent decline in the daily number of cases and fatalities.

For about two months, daily cases have been stuck below 300 while death toll has been hovering around 15 and 20 per week for more than a month.

Meanwhile, there has been a sharp increase in the number of patients who recovered.

Of the nearly 60,000 cases reported thus far, about 51,308 have recovered.

A little over 7,000 infections are still active across the nation.

Testing has also improved a bit with almost 540,000 of Nigerias 200 million already tested.

This has boosted the countrys reopening plans with schools and other social activities set for full resumption.
Higher Values in Higher Education - Western Illinois University Strategic Plan

In June 2004, Western Illinois University completed an 18-month long effort to develop a strategic plan which focused on the institution's core values of Academic Excellence, Educational Opportunity, Social Responsibility, and Personal Growth. In refocusing Western's vision, this inaugural Higher Values in Higher Education document captured the collective wisdom of both the Macomb and Quad Cities campuses and communities in articulating the university's goals.

The plan has been updated three times and reflects Western Illinois University's commitment to continuous process improvement. This is also reflected in a Strategic Plan accountability reporting process described below.

Higher Values in Higher Education

Strategic Plan Supplements

Accountability Reports - Vice Presidents and Areas that Report to the President Presentations

Each spring the vice presidents and areas that report to the president make annual presentations on strategic plan priorities, accomplishments, and budget requests.

Spring 2019 | Prior Year Presentations & Reports

Annual Strategic Plan Updates

These updates summarize the information presented in the annual accountability reports by the vice presidents and areas reporting to the president, as well as the monthly strategic planning updates to determine the annual number of strategic plan priorities with accomplishments and plans.

FY19, Part 2 | Prior Annual Strategic Plan Updates
Thank you for inviting me to speak at the launch of the World Bank Reports on Islamic Fintech and Islamic Finance for Inclusion in Malaysia. As countries continue to battle the Coronavirus pandemic, the publication of these two important reports is a stark reminder that risk events such as the pandemic can significantly impact global growth and disproportionately affect those who are most vulnerable. The virus has claimed more than one million lives and infected more than 34 million people in more than 200 countries just within a span of nine months . The World Bank Group estimated global economic activity to contract by 5.2% this year with a triple hit on health, education and income. This has serious ramifications to developments. The gathering today is therefore timely for us to exchange views and perspectives on concrete ways to build more equitable financial systems, and the specific role that Islamic finance can play to catalyse inclusive economic recovery.

COVID-19 has further exacerbated existing vulnerabilities

Over the past decade, the global financial community has seen commendable progress in advancing financial inclusion. The 2017 Global Findex database shows that 69 percent of adults have an account compared to 51 percent in 2011 . Yet, about 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked with persistent inequality in account ownership between the rich and the poor . In recent months, new and unprecedented challenges to sustainability and effectiveness of financial inclusion initiatives worldwide have surfaced. Workers, especially in the informal sector and low income segment, have experienced sudden loss of employment and income. Job replacement and reskilling programmes require time to complete before these workers are able to gain new employment opportunities. The limited employment prospects and labour mobility, especially for low-skilled, low income workers, may impede effective usage of financial services going forward. Containment measures, while necessary to contain the spread of the virus, have also reduced accessibility to financial services. This is especially so in areas with poor digital connectivity, and among communities with low digital financial literacy. From a human development standpoint, a United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) report estimated that the combined impact of income, health and education shocks arising from the pandemic could signify the largest reversal in human development on record, equivalent to erasing all the progress in human development of the past six years . The risk of reversing progress in achieving financial inclusion is accentuating why financial inclusion matters now more than ever.

Optimising Islamic finance for inclusive economic recovery

Policy and regulatory responses across the globe, and likewise in Malaysia, have been focused on safeguarding economic resilience, managing risks to financial stability and minimising repercussions to society. This is done in tandem with the different stages of the pandemic - namely, containment, stabilisation and recovery.

At the onset of the crisis, governments along with financial regulators have deployed sizeable stimulus packages and various assistance programmes in order to contain the crisis and stabilise the economy. This includes addressing demand and supply disruptions, maintaining cash flows and keeping workers employed. In Malaysia, the total stimulus package amounted to USD 73.5 billion (RM305 billion) with an additional fiscal injection by the government totalling RM45 billion. As at September 2020, a total of 2.63 million workers and 321,000 employers had benefitted from the Wage Subsidy Programme, involving an expenditure of RM10.4 billion. To provide further stimulus to the economy, the Bank has reduced the overnight policy rate (OPR) by a cumulative 125 basis points (from 3.00% to 1.75%) this year, alongside reduction in the statutory reserve requirement by 100 basis points (from 3.00% to 2.00%). The reduction in the OPR is intended to provide additional policy stimulus to accelerate the pace of economic recovery.

The financial industry, including Islamic financial institutions, also lent support to their borrowers and customers. In the first half of 2020, a total of RM120 billion was disbursed in lending/ financing to SMEs, with more accounts being approved in aggregate in 2020 compared to the same period in previous years. Islamic financial institutions and related associations have been actively educating and reaching out to affected borrowers about the financial assistance programmes available in response to the pandemic. The takaful and insurance industry also facilitated affected certificate holders by offering temporary deferment of contribution and premium to promote continuity of takaful protection coverage. More than 1.1 million certificate and policyholders have benefited from this relief measure.

While the pandemic has yet to peak in some countries, others including Malaysia are heading towards periods of recovery while continuously managing the risk of virus resurgence. As this phase commences, Islamic finance has significant potential and role to play. Three attributes, at least, come to mind on how Islamic finance can respond and contribute meaningfully towards sustainable and inclusive growth:

First, Islamic finance must be value-driven and impact-focused to deliver Maqasid Shariah (the objectives of Shariah). The intrinsic values of Islamic principles are aligned with a vision of economic growth that is balanced, sustainable and inclusive. Shariah advocates for balance between wealth creation and wealth circulation. This in turn promotes fairness and ihsan in promoting the attainment of benefits as well as preventing harm. This crisis has indeed created a wealth of opportunities for Islamic finance. Shariah contracts can deploy a diverse range of capital that is risk-absorbent, patient and philanthropic in nature using instruments such as risk sharing, waqf and sadaqah to support inclusive finance. The flexible nature of such capital encourages allocation of resources towards entrepreneurial ventures and social impact projects that can improve and rebuild well-being of society. It can also to some extent help smoothen structural adjustments in the economy.

Globally, we have seen a silver lining in the response to the pandemic. In Malaysia, the nation has rallied closer together to become more socially conscious not just in aspects of public health and welfare, but also in supporting the local economy. The Islamic financial institutions in Malaysia, in particular, have risen to the call to generate more positive impact through the "Value-based Intermediation" (VBI) agenda. Participating Islamic financial institutions have endeavoured to refine their products and services offerings in response to the need of their customers. Eight Islamic banking institutions (half the total number of Islamic banks in Malaysia) are offering microfinancing facility, utilising the Micro Enterprise Facility established by the Bank to increase access to finance for microenterprises with viable business. In terms of financial protection, more than 50,000 participants have benefitted from various microtakaful products that provide affordable or free protection for the hard core poor and individuals with special needs. Islamic financial institutions also continue to steward efforts towards building a greener financial system. In August 2020, the VBI Community of Practitioners in collaboration with the Bank issued three Sectoral Guides on energy efficiency, renewable energy and palm oil for public consultation. The documents are intended to provide detailed guidance to the industry in embedding environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk considerations in their financing and investment decision making process. Aligning corporate values with the objectives of promoting shared prosperity and sustainable growth is a critical first step to elevate the role of finance towards achieving inclusive growth.

The second is being technologically adept. Across the globe, the "digital divide" remains a major roadblock in effective usage of financial services, especially in rural areas with poor connectivity. While awareness of digital financial services has gradually increased, actual usage among low income groups in Malaysia remains low. Among the key drivers to encourage greater adoption of digitally-enabled financial services is simplicity and user friendliness. A well-designed solution which provides positive user experience can reduce mindset and technological barriers to the adoption and usage of digital financial services. For financial services providers, digital solutions have the benefit of reducing operational costs that may allow for more affordable products and wider access to the highly connected (mobile phone and internet usage) Malaysian population.

Islamic finance can accelerate digital innovation through value-adding partnerships with the fintech community. During the pandemic, consumers and businesses alike have increased their use of mobile and digital platforms. Malaysia has a wide take up of mobile banking technology representing nearly 60% penetration rate to the total adult population (as at July 2020). With increasing awareness of e-commerce amongst Malaysians, businesses have shifted their platforms or increased their presence on online market places and utilisation of e-payments. Several financial institutions have also even enhanced their internet and mobile banking channels to help market SME businesses amongst their customers. Takaful operators and insurance companies have also increased digitalisation of their operations such as claims processing and customer servive to minimise face-to-face interaction during the movement control order period. In August 2020, the Bank collaborated with the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to launch the Fintech Booster programme. Fintech companies and their partners will gain access to tools and business development support such as business model, legal and compliance advisory to develop meaningful solutions. This programme is expected to spur a more dynamic fintech ecosystem that can contribute to a thriving digital economy in Malaysia. Efforts to accelerate digital financial innovation can transform the way finance is delivered to society and expand its reach beyond traditional frontiers.

The third is being socially responsible in empowering the community. The infusion of social finance in Islamic financial services offers significant potential for Islamic finance to more effectively mobilise capital towards building social resilience. Provision of funds and financial protection can be made more affordable and accessible to a wider community by integrating social finance instruments such as endowment (waqf), donation (sadaqah) and alms-giving (zakat). Countries such as Indonesia and Turkey have successfully integrated social finance within the broader financial ecosystem.

To date, Islamic financial institutions in Malaysia have raised almost USD9.72 million (RM40 million) through waqf and sadaqah platforms to fund projects related to health care, education and entrepreneurship. Social finance initiatives are implemented by leveraging on existing infrastructure, expertise and accountability mechanisms within the Islamic financial sector. More than 10 different channels are available to enable collection and distribution of social finance funds including via digital means of payment. Most recently, a pilot "blended financing" programme has been introduced to enable micro-entrepreneurs in the low income group generate more sustainable income from viable business activities. The provision of zakat funds as initial capital is complemented by affordable microfinancing arrangement for working capital and a customised training programme to enhance business productivity. Participants of the programme also receive 12 months of business mentoring with impact-based monitoring implemented to monitor the effectiveness of the programme.

The pandemic has been a test of resilience for nations around the world. This test also presents many opportunities for the global Islamic finance community to accelerate the progress of sustainable and inclusive finance towards achieving shared prosperity, sustainability and inclusive growth. The launch of the two reports on Islamic fintech and Islamic finance for financial inclusions should be seen as a call for collective action - each one of us has a part to play in creating a more sustainable and equitable financial system. I look forward to the discussion on this important topic over the course of today. On this note, I wish to thank the World Bank Group for this invitation and I wish all of you a productive week.
By PTI

MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena on Wednesday slammed the Centre for telling the Supreme Court that it is unaware of 'secret' ongoing proceedings in the UK which are delaying fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya's extradition to India.

Liquor baron Mallya, promoter of the defunct Kingfisher Airlines, is wanted in India over alleged fraud and money laundering charges amounting to around Rs 9,000 crore and is presently in the UK.

The Centre on Monday told the court that Mallya cannot be extradited till a separate legal process in the UK, which is 'judicial and confidential in nature' is resolved.

It also said it is not aware of the secret ongoing proceedings against Mallya as the Indian government is not party to the process.

"The government says no data is available when the Opposition demands any information. Government lawyers say not aware when the court demands details. How many times and in how many cases is the government going to say 'don't know'," an editorial in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana said.

"The government machinery claims to know each and every details of an actor's suicide, Bollywood's drugs connection and the alleged conspiracy behind the Hathras case, but claims it is not aware of action in case of Mallya, who has swindled India of thousands of crores of rupees," it said.
It is already the second day that the units of the Azerbaijani armed forces, not having sufficient capabilities to conduct effective offensive operations, have started to resort to obvious provocations. Artsrun Hovhannisyan, a representative of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia, wrote this on Facebook Wednesday morning.

"In particular, in the southern direction of the Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)]-Azerbaijani hostilities, the Azerbaijani [army] units are gathering in large groups directly along the Artsakh-Iranian border (along the Araks River), and, in fact, taking refuge in that border, they try to move forward.

With this tactic, the Azerbaijani side is trying to provoke the Artsakh side to open fire, or to strike along the border; in fact, in the direction of Iran.

It is also not ruled out that as a result of hostilities, the Azerbaijani units, having no alternative, will retreat or flee to Iranian territory.

In order to avoid all this, we believe that the Iranian side, which certainly sees all this, should prevent or force [the Azerbaijani side] to refrain from such buildups," Hovhannisyan added.
The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing leaders of all political stripes to work together to tackle the daunting challenges facing Ontario, Canada and the rest of the world, says Premier Doug Ford.

In a wide-ranging 45-minute discussion Tuesday at the Ryerson Democracy Forum hosted by Star columnist Martin Regg Cohn, Ford acknowledged the outbreak has changed his outlook on politics.

This is the way Im going to be. Im going to be this way moving forward. Im not going to roll back, the premier said, pointing to his close working relationship with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland as well as other premiers and municipal leaders.

Were like a tag team. I like this type of governing. I like the collaboration, working together, and, again, putting politics aside, he said via Zoom to some 500 students and to thousands more watching on thestar.com.

The premier talks to Regg Cohn at Ryerson University about recovery in the time of COVID-19.

In contrast to his previous reputation as a my-way-or-the-highway Toronto city councillor  when his late brother, Rob Ford, was mayor from 2010 to 2014  the premier emphasized he now seeks the counsel of many.

I can tell you, Martin, I never make a decision by myself, said Ford.

I bounce it off (others). Im a consensus-builder. Im going to bounce it off 50 people before we make a decision  (in) all different areas and of all different political stripes to make sure we make the best possible decision that we feel we can make. Especially with this pandemic.

That decentralized approach, he added, is why Queens Park has not always dictated coronavirus orders to the various regions of the province.

I just believe in letting each area make their decision. Thats the way weve kind of governed on this pandemic with collaboration from everyone as long as it makes sense, said Ford.

So far, everything seems to be going fairly well.

In a comment that may surprise his political rivals, Ford insisted hes never been big on partisanship.

Dont get me wrong, Martin, Ive always said Im very proud to be the leader of the PC Party, but our family has never been elected by PC members 100 per cent. We get elected by traditional NDP voters or traditional members of the Liberal party, he said.

Ford said he was happy to meet with Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca, Green Leader Mike Schreiner, and NDP deputy leader John Vanthof, who pinch hit for Leader Andrea Horwath, in his office last week to discuss the COVID-19 response.

I want to continue on speaking with them, collaborating with them, coming up with ideas. I understand what they have to do. Theyre in opposition, they have to go after me. Thats politics, he said.

Steven Del Duca has reached out to me with some ideas and it doesnt hurt. I think its good if we can collaborate and to hold me accountable.

Cohn asked him about a respectful exchange he had with his Liberal predecessor, Kathleen Wynne, in the legislature last week that made headlines for its civility.

The other day when she asked me a question, I couldnt get upset with Kathleen, said Ford

Shes the only person in that whole chamber thats walked a mile in my shoes. Fortunately, it wasnt through a pandemic, he said.

Even during the campaign, Kathleen Wynne was never mean. She was never rude. Shes a very, very nice person.

Listen to Ed Tubb and Joanna Chiu discuss the second wave and mental health

Ford emphasized that Wynne is one of a handful of people in Ontario who understands the pressures that the premier faces and the decisions that come across the desk every single day  tough, tough decisions.

The premier was far less charitable about U.S. President Donald Trump, who threatened earlier this year to withhold critical pandemic supplies, like respirator masks from Canada.

I still cant get over it. Yes, hes not on my Christmas card list. Im ticked off at him, he said, pointing out how Canadians rallied to help Americans after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

When a Ryerson student likened Ford to Trump, the premier chortled, Boy, that was a real slap calling me Donald Trump. Im anything but Donald Trump.

The premier added he was taken aback by Trumps disgusting attack in last weeks raucous presidential debate on Democratic nominee Joe Bidens son, Hunter, who has battled drug addiction.

Robert Benzie is the Stars Queens Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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TDT | Manama

Cultural diplomacy is an indispensable empowerment tool for new generations to achieve peace and harmony worldwide. This was emphasized by King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Co-existence Board of Trustees chairman Dr Shaikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, who participated, through the Visual Communication Technology (VCT), in the Cultural Diplomacy Forum (CDF 2020).

It was held on the sidelines of a high-level part of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly. The forum seeks to show cultural diplomacy as an efficient means to establish friendly and peaceful regional and international relations by benefiting from diverse cultural means like music, fine arts, drawing and theatre.

The forum shed light this year on the concept of cultural diplomacy and the nature of tools that enable it to play a bigger role in promoting common understanding and building bridges of trust, credibility and transparency. Speaking on behalf of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Dr Khalid stressed that cultural diplomacy has a very important peculiarity for the youth in the region in order to enhance security and stability bonds.

He indicated that the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence seeks to promote the values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence and believes in the strength of cultural diversity and its positive impact on various peoples and societies. He noted that the Kingdom of Bahrain has for a long time been playing a pivotal role in linking the cultures of the East and West and creating common bridges between them which yielded a multicultural society consisting of many religions and ethnicities.

Shaikh Khalid stated that peaceful coexistence has been a characteristic feature of the Bahraini community for thousands of years. He added this rich mosaic of cultural diversity contributed to Bahrains development as a modern, thriving and peaceful country under the wise leadership of HM King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

Dr Khalid also voiced keenness of the King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Co-existence to cooperate with the Cultural Diplomacy Forum in implementing a joint project in the near future. He called on the forums representatives and founders to visit Bahrain when the travel situation improves after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The Cultural Diplomacy Forum was set up as an initiative by the European Alliance for Israel to provide a platform for boosting integration of the State of Israel and the Jewish people in the international community.
Ukraine and Saudi Arabia resume the practice of holding political consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs after more than a decade-long break.

The consultations held in the format of a video conference were co-chaired by Mr. Dmytro Senik, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (CDTO), and Dr. Adel bin Siraj Mirdad, Deputy Foreign Minister of Political and Economic Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine informs.

As noted, the sides discussed issues of political, trade, economic and investment cooperation as well as the ways of interaction within international organizations.

Ukraine is ready to offer Saudi Arabia a number of projects in investment, military and technical and agricultural spheres, Dmytro Senik said, emphasizing the interest of domestic exporters in entering the Kingdoms market.

The sides also agreed to continue preparations for the Seventh Session of the Intergovernmental Ukrainian-Saudi Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, which is planned to be held in Riyadh in the first half of 2021.

As a reminder, the first round of political consultations between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia took place in 2009 in Kyiv with the participation of deputies foreign ministers, during which the Memorandum on political consultations between Foreign Ministries was signed.

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The flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr John Dramani Mahama, has advised Ghanaians against voting for NPP for another four years.

He said Ghana is doomed if the citizens retained the governing New Patriotic Party to keep painting a rosy picture that all is well when in reality the country is sinking.

The NDC flagbearer was speaking at the launch of the partys campaign ahead of the December polls on Wednesday, 7 October 2020 at Sefwi-Wiaso in the Western-North Region.

Mr Mahama noted that it is the duty of the party to win the polls in order to bring true change to Ghanaians. The battle to transform our dear country starts now. The change starts now. It is our sacred duty to win this battle to deliver true change, not for ourselves but for all Ghanaians who deserve to live a better and dignified life.

Mr Mahama further cautioned that with the high levels of unemployment and underdevelopment, the country will be doomed if the governing NPPs term of office is extended.

Ghana will be doomed if we stay four more years trapped within the fake reality where the NPP propaganda machine paints a rosy picture that everything is perfect while in reality, it is rampant corruption, collapsing businesses and never-before-seen levels of unemployment and underdevelopment, he stated.
DUBLIN, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Commentary: Politics Cloud Huawei's Future" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Huawei held its global industry analyst summit (GAS 2020) in late May, just days after the U.S. Commerce Department expanded its Entity List restrictions on the company. The new rules don't take effect formally until May 2021, and there is a public comment period in the interim, but the restrictions will upend Huawei's near-term goal to dominate global 5G markets.



Much of the vendor's network infrastructure product line relies upon chips manufactured by foundries like TSMC, based upon Huawei's specifications but using U.S.-origin capital equipment for production and testing. Once the new rules take effect, if unchanged, the company could no longer rely upon these foundries for production. Huawei is exploring various workarounds, including the possible use of Samsung, but a seamless solution is unlikely to be found quickly.



Current inventory is rumored to last through March 2021. Chinese chip foundry SMIC is not ready for prime time. And the U.S. government will almost certainly have a response planned, as there is a bipartisan consensus across the U.S. government that Huawei is not to be trusted in networks.

To be clear, that doesn't mean individual employees of Huawei are untrustworthy. It means that the U.S. government, and many key allies (including most of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance), recognize that Huawei's growth has relied heavily on Chinese government support, and it will always be a Chinese company and, hence, subject to manipulation and influence by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Tone-deaf statements from CCP officials over the last two years have seemed designed to confirm this suspicion.



Huawei continues to have an impressive technology portfolio, loads of talented engineers, and vast reach around the world, but it won't get out of its current mess by just finding another source for chips. The Entity List rules and earlier arrest of Huawei CFO in Canada have coaxed CCP officials to show their hand too blatantly.



Huawei's prospects for the next few years have noticeably dimmed, and we will see a much different competitive landscape in the telecom network infrastructure space by next year. The only question is whether Huawei can apply another of its strengths to its currently stark situation: the ability to learn from its mistakes and implement change rapidly.

Key Topics Covered:

Summary

Road to dominance

Live by the sword, die by the sword

Who's ahead in 5G?

Huawei's Global Analyst Summit: A brief snapshot

What happens next

Appendix

List of Figures

Figure 1: Huawei's annualized market share in Telco NI since 2013

Figure 2: Telco NI revenues, annualized ($B) - Huawei, Ericsson, and Nokia/ALU*

Figure 3: Huawei's business structure

Figure 4: 5G Digital Construction tool demo

Figure 5: Huawei's IoT business - Cloud, NB-IoT, and chips/modules

Companies Mentioned

Alcatel-Lucent

Altiostar

Amdocs

BT

DISH

Ericsson

Fujitsu

HiSilicon

Huawei

Marconi

Microsoft

NEC

Nokia

NTT

Oracle

Orange

Parallel Wireless

Radisys

Rakuten

Rancore

Reliance Jio

Samsung

SMIC

Telecom Italia

Telefonica

TSMC

US Commerce Department

Verizon

ZTE

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/3ojkt4

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



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This is an article from World Review: The State of Democracy, a special section that examines global policy and affairs through the perspectives of thought leaders and commentators, and is published in conjunction with the annual Athens Democracy Forum.

For a movement without publicly identifiable leaders or clearly articulated goals, Frances Yellow Vests have proved remarkably durable. Since late 2018, their protests have surged periodically through the streets of Paris and other French cities, representing a grab bag of character types and social categories, a shifting list of demands and tactics that have ranged from peaceable marches to arson and vandalism.

The Yellow Vests were back on Sept. 12, with a modest demonstration that gathered 8,500 protesters across the nation, including 2,500 in Paris, according to official figures. There were the usual mixed messages, mostly reflecting fear of economic insecurity, and mix of participants, including about 50 discotheque owners and independent chauffeurs seeking to draw attention to their particular struggles during the coronavirus pandemic.

The amorphous Yellow Vest movement fits a pattern seen around the world in recent years  from the anti-government demonstrations during the Arab Spring of 2011 to those now recurring in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, and the Russian city of Khabarovsk; from the continuing Black Lives Matter movement in the United States to the London-based Extinction Rebellion, with its do-it-yourself campaign against climate change.
Manchester United had reportedly lined up Chelsea outcast Emerson Palmieri as a Plan B option in case they missed out on their first-choice target Alex Telles.

The Red Devils left it to the last minute to conduct the majority of the transfer business, with Telles one of the big names they eventually did get over line, after they agreed to pay Porto 15.4million for the defender.

However, according to Fabrizio Romano's Here We Go podcast, if that deal for the Brazilian fell through, United were ready to make Chelsea an offer for left back Palmieri as they sought much-needed cover for Luke Shaw.

Manchester United were reportedly lining up a move for Chelsea outcast Emerson Palmieri

Chelsea left-back was reportedly considered as a 'Plan B option' behind Alex Telles (pictured)

Emerson has struggled to live up to expectations at Stamford Bridge having shone at Roma previously.

The Italian full back had been linked with moves back to Italy with Napoli and Juventus both linked with the 26-year-old while West Ham registered their interest.

United fans may be breathing a sigh of relief having got their man, however, with Telles claiming that he is a 'very intelligent player' and a 'set-piece specialist'.

'I like to think of myself as a very intelligent player, a set-piece specialist and I'm always looking for opportunities to create passes to score goals,' he told the club's official website.

Ed Woodward left it to the last minute to conduct the majority of United's transfer business

'I'm in the best moment of my life in terms of being a versatile player, and obviously coming to play in the Premier League and playing against the opponents I have done already, and playing in a league as strong as the Premier League. I hope to be able to bring my best to the club.

'I look at being a defender in a different way with my goals. I'm looking to create more openings wherever possible but during training I also pay particular attention to set-piece training. Apart from the key basics of being a defender, which is obviously about defending well, I want to have extra aspects to my game so I'm a versatile player.

'I have great beliefs in my defensive capabilities but also in my attacking ability. I'm in the best moment of my career and I believe I've grown a lot, and hopefully I can continue to do so.'

Having completed his 15.4m move, Telles has opened up on what he aims to bring to the club

The Brazil star said he is a 'very intelligent player' and a 'set-piece specialist' following transfer

Telles was United's second signing of the summer after acquiring midfielder Donny van de Beek from Ajax in a 40m deal.

Youngsters Amad Diallo and Facundo Pellistri followed Telles through the door as well as former Paris Saint-Germain striker Edinson Cavani.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had been keen to add to his defensive ranks before the club's humiliating 6-1 defeat by Tottenham last Sunday.

With 13 goals and 12 assists in all competitions last season, Telles' attacking prowess makes him an attractive signing for United and the defender also helped his side keep 20 clean sheets in the Primeira Liga in the 2019-20 campaign.
Shillong, Oct 7 : Union DoNER (Development of North Eastern Region) Minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday praised the northeastern states for better Covid management, which has earned the respective state governments as well as the civil society groups appreciation from all quarters, an official release said.

"The northeast has emerged as a model of development in the last six years, and it has emerged as a model for effective corona management in the last six months," the release said.

The DoNER Minister made these observations when Meghalaya Health Minister A.L. Hek called on him in Delhi on Wednesday to discuss various Covid related issues.

"The countrywide surveys conducted by impartial agencies have also testified this," the official release said quoting Singh, who also holds the PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space portfolios.

He also appreciated the Meghalaya government and other state governments in the region for having taken proactive steps from the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic to break the transmission chain and strengthen the existing health systems to meet any surge in cases.

He said it is not a small achievement that during the lockdown period, almost five out of eight states in the northeast remained Covid-free and positive cases began to surface only after the movement of people started.

Singh said while the DoNER Ministry provided an initial support of Rs 25 crore to the northeastern states as a pre-emptive move even before the lockdown, the NE state governments were also prompt in initiating early effective measures.

In this regard, the Union minister referred to the proposals from at least three northeastern states to set up infectious disease hospitals as a futuristic step to meet any such epidemic in the future.

On the directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Singh disclosed that sufficient supply of oxygen has been made available well in advance in all the peripheral territories, including NE states, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

"However, the effective arrangement and operation of ventilators ensured that there was not a single complaint from the northeast of any patient having suffered on account of lack of non-availability of oxygen," Singh said.

The DoNER minister also lauded the role of the civil society groups, particularly the women's self-help groups, who worked day and night in the early phase of the lockdown to ensure that face masks were not only available in sufficient numbers, but also available in different varieties and designs.

Meanwhile, Meghalaya Health Minister Hek placed on record the state government's appreciation of the services rendered by the ASHA workers and Anganwadi workers.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
DALLAS, Oct. 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Through the leadership of Dr. Lloyd Verstuyft, Superintendent of Southwest Independent School District, the district has jump-started its digital credentials strategy by giving students access to the GreenLight Credentials Locker. Using this Locker, students can control and send their learning records and academic credential to colleges, scholarship providers, and employers. This will provide a state-of-the-art pathway to greater educational and career opportunities.

Southwest Independent School District serves one of the fastest-growing areas of Bexar County, the 16th most populous county in the nation and the fourth most populated in Texas.

"We're honored to have been chosen to increase opportunities for students. Southwest ISD is now part of the largest distributed ledger storing verified academic records," said Eric Reeves, General Counsel and Chief Data Trust Officer at GreenLight Credentials. "Dr. Verstuyft's leadership will bring together educational institutions and employers to build a vibrant ecosystem that will bring rise to new opportunities across San Antonio and Texas."

In addition to the Locker, GreenLight has brought its Virtual College & Career Platform to San Antonio. This is becoming the most important way to connect education, careers, and employers, to digitize previously hard-to-understand workflows, and provide leading edge data and analytics.

This platform helped hundreds of internship seekers in San Antonio connect with over 30 employers, providing them the ability to share their resumes and records instantly and securely with employers. This unique career fair unlocked opportunities for hundreds of people using a fast, simple, and secure platform.

"Academic institutions can invite select employers at various times in the calendar year to participate in offering internships, apprenticeships, and full-time positions," said Shrikant Jannu, Chief Platform Officer of GreenLight Credentials. "Analytics and reporting that allows academic institutions to monitor where their students are applying, which employers are hiring, in what industries, at what times allow them to help give their students a leg up in a competitive job market.

GreenLight and its partners' goal is to help job seekers achieve their career aspirations by connecting them to leading employers in an easy-to-use digital platform. Employers can easily access a complete, verified understanding of candidate capabilities and experiences while simplifying and improving the hiring.

About GreenLight

GreenLight connects students, educators, and businesses by providing users ownership and control of their lifelong learning achievements, which can be instantly and securely shared between educational institutions, students, and employers.

SOURCE GreenLight Credentials

Related Links

https://glcredentials.com/


Nearly a third of hospitalised Covid-19 patients experienced some type of altered mental function  ranging from confusion to delirium to unresponsiveness  in the largest study to date of neurological symptoms among coronavirus patients in a US hospital system.

And patients with altered mental function had significantly worse medical outcomes, according to the study, published Monday in Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology. The study looked at the records of the first 509 coronavirus patients hospitalized, from March 5 to April 6, at 10 hospitals in the Northwestern Medicine health system in the Chicago area.

These patients stayed three times as long in the hospital as patients without altered mental function.

After they were discharged, only 32% of the patients with altered mental function were able to handle routine daily activities like cooking and paying bills, said Dr Igor Koralnik, senior author of the study and chief of neuro-infectious disease and global neurology at Northwestern Medicine. In contrast, 89% of patients without altered mental function were able to manage such activities without assistance.

Patients with altered mental function  the medical term is encephalopathy  were also nearly seven times as likely to die as those who did not have that type of problem.

For latest updates on Coronavirus outbreak, click here

Encephalopathy is a generic term meaning somethings wrong with the brain, Koralnik said. The description can include problems with attention and concentration, loss of short-term memory, disorientation, stupor and profound unresponsiveness, or a comalike level of consciousness.

Encephalopathy was associated with the worst clinical outcomes in terms of ability to take care of their own affairs after leaving the hospital, and we also see its associated with higher mortality, independent of the severity of their respiratory disease, he said.

The researchers did not identify a cause for the encephalopathy, which can occur with other diseases, especially in older patients, and can be triggered by several different factors including inflammation and effects on blood circulation, said Koralnik, who also oversees the Neuro Covid-19 Clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. There is very little evidence so far that the virus directly attacks brain cells, and most experts say neurological effects are probably triggered by inflammatory and immune system responses that often affect other organs, as well as the brain.

This paper indicates, importantly, that in-hospital encephalopathy may be a predictor for poorer outcomes, said Dr Serena Spudich, chief of neurological infections and global neurology at Yale School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. That finding would also suggest that patients with altered mental function in the hospital might benefit from closer post-discharge monitoring or rehabilitation, she added.

In the study, the 162 patients with encephalopathy were more likely to be older and male. They were also more likely to have underlying medical conditions, including a history of any neurological disorder, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart failure, hypertension or smoking.

Some experts said that President Donald Trump, currently hospitalized with the coronavirus, is of the age and gender of the patients in the study who were more likely to develop altered mental function and therefore could be at higher risk for such symptoms. He also has a history of high cholesterol, one of the preexisting conditions that appear to increase risk. But the presidents doctors have given no indication that he has had any neurological symptoms; the White House has released videos of him talking to the public about how well he is doing. And Trump announced Monday that he would be discharged from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in the evening.

Koralnik urged caution in drawing inferences from the study to Trumps condition. I think we should be careful trying to ascribe a risk to an individual, based on this retrospective study, he said. We need to know more about that individuals health records, which are not public.

Coronavirus Worldometer | 15 countries with the highest number of cases, deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic

Altered mental function was not the only neurological complication the Northwestern study found. Overall, 82% of the hospitalized patients had neurological symptoms at some point in the course of the disease from symptom onset through hospitalization, the study found. That is a higher rate than what has been reported in studies from China and Spain, but the researchers say that may be because of genetic factors or that the Northwestern hospitals may have had more time to identify neurological issues because they were not as overwhelmed with patients as the other hospitals.

This is an important study, since the neurological complications of the infection seem to be frequent and in many cases long-lasting, but yet have not received much attention, said Dr Avindra Nath, chief of the section on infections of the nervous system at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, who was not involved in the study.

Among the neurological symptoms, muscle pain occurred in about 45% of patients and headaches in about 38%. About 30% had dizziness. Smaller percentages had disorders of taste or smell.

Younger patients were more likely to develop neurological symptoms overall, except for encephalopathy, which was more common in older people, the study said. The researchers speculated that the younger people might have been more likely to seek hospital care for symptoms like muscle pain, headache or disease, or that doctors paid more attention to those symptoms in younger people because they were less worried about their risk of respiratory failure.

About a quarter of the patients had severe enough respiratory problems to require ventilators, while the rest were considered moderately ill and were treated either in intensive care or in a Covid ward.

The study found that Black and Latino patients were not more likely than other groups to develop neurological symptoms. It found that patients at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, an academic medical center in Chicago that is the health systems flagship hospital, were younger, more often Black residents and had more preexisting medical conditions than patients in the suburban hospitals in the network.

The patients at Northwestern Memorial were more likely to have overall neurological symptoms but were not more likely to have encephalopathy. They also had lower mortality rates and were functioning better when they were discharged, even though patients at the non-academic suburban hospitals werent more likely to be sick enough to need ventilators. That suggests patients may have received more specialized care or better resources at the academic hospital, the study said.

It is also interesting but concerning that they found differences in the outcome of patients between the various hospitals, which they attribute to differences in the quality of care provided, Nath said. This means that the hospitalised patients require a high level of care, which is not readily available in most places.
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In-Room VDO
Even diehard socialists know that its foolish to pay more taxes than you owe.

During Tuesday nights debate, moderator Chris Wallace asked President Trump about his taxes based on a story in the Sunday New York Times that claimed that President Trump paid no taxes in 10 of the 15 years ending in 2015 and paid nominal amounts in 2016 and 2017 despite millions in gross revenue. The President responded that he paid millions in taxes in some years but has long admitted there were years when he paid no taxes  because he owed no taxes  as noted in a 2016 Times article titled Donald Trump Acknowledges Not Paying Federal Income Taxes for Years.

But the real question isnt whether the President paid a lot, a little or no taxes. Its whether he paid what he owed. Even Bernie Sanders has admitted thats the standard to which one should be held.

In recent years, Sanders income from book sales put him in the highest tax bracket. As most people do, he took full advantage of both deductions to reduce his taxable income and the lower tax rates available under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which he voted against. Asked about his tax liability in an April Fox News town hall, Sanders said Cmon, I pay the taxes that I owe.

Thats really all we have a right to expect.

In one of my favorite New Testament stories, Jesus stops the stoning of a woman accused of adultery by telling the accusing crowd, Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. There were no takers. While throwing stones at the President for not paying more in taxes, I suspect the authors of the New York Times article, their bosses and the papers owners pay only what they owe in taxes -- and not a penny more.

Seriously, who pays more than they owe? Do the Clintons, the Obamas or the Bidens? How about Chris Wallace? The only person I know who pays more than he owes is President Trump who donates his $400,000 government salary back to the U.S. government each year.

So, has the President paid what he owes? According to Trumps attorney, the IRS is auditing him for tax years going back to 2009. But that doesnt mean he has underpaid his taxes.

IRS audits for high net worth individuals are hardly unusual. Any disputes are routinely settled. That is very likely what will happen with the Presidents audits. If there were obvious wrongdoing, surely the highly politicized Obama IRS would have asserted as much sometime prior to 2017.

The real problem stems from our tax code which is overly complex because the government uses it to incentivize certain conduct (such as mortgage interest deductions to encourage home ownership) or to discourage other conduct (such as taxes on alcohol and tobacco) rather than simply to raise revenue. If you invest in commercial real estate, as the President did prior to taking office, the tax code provides a number of deductions designed to encourage investment by reducing the taxable income that results from such investments.

For example, the deduction for depreciation allows taxpayers to deduct a percentage of the costs of a commercial property or improvements from the propertys income each year. Because depreciation is a non-cash deduction (the taxpayer doesnt actually pay anything in the year they take the deduction), a property that produces positive cash flow can nonetheless show a tax loss. So, if youre just looking at tax return data, as the Times apparently did, it could appear that a profitable business is actually losing money. Such is the reality of our current tax code.

Claiming tax losses is both legitimate and common-place assuming those claims are consistent with the applicable tax laws. If the IRS disagrees with any deductions Trump claimed, he will either come to a settlement with the IRS or contest the finding in court. However, if the deductions he claims were legitimate, as is likely the case, then to paraphrase Senator Sanders -- Cmon, he paid the taxes that he owed.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is to blame for the deadliest round of fighting in decades between Armenian and Azerbaijan.

Hundreds are dead following recent clashes between the two former Soviet republics in the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, a contested territory officially part of Azerbaijan but run by ethnic Armenians backed by Yerevan. The fighting is the deadliest since a yearslong war that killed 30,000 people ended in a Russian-brokered truce in 1994.

NATO member Turkey, which also backs the Syrian opposition seeking to overthrow Assad, has offered Azerbaijan its support at both the negotiating table and on the battlefield.

In an interview with the Russian news agency Sputnik, the Syrian president said Erdogan was the main instigator and initiator of the recent conflict that has been going on in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia. So, I would sum up his behavior as dangerous, for different reasons."

In response to allegations that Turkey had sent Syrian mercenaries to fight in the South Caucasus conflict, Assad said, We definitely can confirm it.

Not because we have evidence, but sometimes if you don't have evidence you have indicators, Assad added.

Syrias main ally Russia, which has a military pact with Armenia, has warned that thousands of foreign militants from terrorist organizations are participating in the Nagorno-Karabakh clashes. Turkey has denied deploying any mercenaries to assist the Azerbaijani military.

In what he condemned as a red line, French President Emmanuel Macron said last week that intelligence reports indicated some 300 Turkish-allied Syrian fighters had traveled to Nagorno-Karabakh through Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey. Separately, the Pentagon has accused Ankara of sending thousands of Syrian fighters to fight on behalf of the internationally recognized, Turkey-backed government in Libya.

Turkey has dismissed calls from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Minsk Group, which is co-chaired by Russia, France and the United States, for an immediate cease-fire. The last round of Minsk Group-mediated peace talks broke down in 2010.
Gina Ortiz Jones and Tony Gonzales have remarkably similar biographies.

Both Jones, the Democratic nominee in U.S. District 23, and Gonzales, her Republican opponent, grew up in San Antonio in the 1990s and subsequently enlisted in the military, with Jones serving as an Air Force intelligence officer and Gonzales as a Navy cryptologist.

Both of them deployed to Iraq and spent most of the past two decades traveling from one part of the world to another.

Both of them worked government jobs in Washington, D.C., and returned to San Antonio within the past three and a half years, with the thought of running for Congress.

But Gonzales, in his effort to define Jones as someone who doesnt represent Texas values, repeatedly has perpetrated the false allegation that Jones doesnt live in this state.

In a recent TV ad, Gonzales warned voters: My opponent, Gina Jones, lives over there, in Washington D.C.

In an Aug. 26 tweet, Gonzales wrote: I am eager to tell my life story and present my vision and ideas to the voters of this district, while Jones hides at home in DC.

Gonzales has offered an endless series of variations on this theme, including a Sept. 29 tweet in which he alleged Jones recently flew into the state for a short campaign trip before returning to her home in Washington.

In a Sept. 18 tweet, Gonzales posted a screenshot from Jones virtual town hall on rural issues.

Its insulting for my opponent to claim to be fighting for rural Texas as she broadcast from the comforts of her DC condo, Gonzales tweeted.

Gonzales had absolutely no evidence to back up his assertion that Jones hosted the virtual event from D.C.

Jones has held 27 weekly virtual town halls during this campaign cycle, and its clear all of them have been done from the same room, with two posters by San Antonio artist Cruz Ortiz adorning the ivory-colored wall behind her.

During last Fridays town hall, Jones apologized to viewers for the construction sounds, saying: Its literally Google Fiber thats being installed right outside my house.

Google Fiber has not been introduced in Washington D.C., but is being offered in San Antonio.

Gonzaless residency allegation is rooted in the fact that Jones owns a condominium in the District of Columbia, where she worked from 2013 to 2017 in the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

In June 2017, Jones relocated to San Antonio. She lists her place of residence as her childhood home, one of two houses owned by her mother, Victorina, on the far West Side. (Jones says her mother lives in the other house.)

After moving back to San Antonio, Jones initially neglected to remove the homestead exemption on her D.C. condo, a mistake that surfaced during her close-but-unsuccessful congressional bid in 2018. She subsequently corrected that error.

While Gonzales has insisted the D.C. condo is Joness true residence, the San Antonio Express-News obtained a lease agreement between Jones and the tenant who rents the condo from her.

The lease agreement stipulates the tenant should mail monthly rent payments of $2,350 to the same San Antonio address Jones currently claims as her residence.

All of this suggests that there is no merit to Gonzaless argument that Jones secretly resides in the Beltway.

Sure enough, during a Tuesday interview, Gonzales could offer no evidence to back up his allegations.

Instead, he changed the subject and pivoted to other attack lines against Jones: Shes not getting out to meet voters, shes too liberal for the district, shes raising money outside the state.

Her fundraisers, they arent Texas barbecue fundraisers, Gonzales said. She doesnt go to H-E-B, even Democrats dont even see her or talk to her.

But Gonzales could never provide anything to back up his contention that his opponent lives in Washington D.C.

When asked how he concluded her virtual town halls were not emanating from San Antonio, Gonzales offered this nonanswer: This district deserves more than a virtual congressman.

If owning a property outside the state was considered disqualifying, Gonzales would face the same problem.

He is currently listed as the owner of a home in Pensacola, Fla., where he was stationed from 2013 to 2016.

When asked if he owned property outside Texas, Gonzales ducked the question.

I have property inside Texas, he said.

Its a little weird for Gonzales to trash Jones for not doing more in-person campaign events, given our current public-health concerns about the pandemic. But if he wants to make the argument that Jones is not sufficiently engaged, he has a right to do it.

Throwing out spurious allegations about her residency, however, is beyond the pale. Gonzales entered the race as someone eager to rise above dirty politics. Instead, hes become a practitioner of 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
In April, 19,200 orphans across Kenya went home. Their orphanages had closed because of the coronavirus outbreak.

In the Ukraine, 42,000 children in institutions were returned to their families in the same time frame, according to the International Leadership and Development Center, a child welfare charity in Kiev. Similar mass movements of orphans back to their families have been reported in Uganda and India.

Many will be surprised that orphans have homes and families to go to. But of the approximately 5.4 million children in orphanages around the world, the vast majority have a living parent and all of them have extended family, according to data from Save the Children and UNICEF.

Research indicates that institutions are not the best place for children to flourish and that the bonds of family are as important as access to education, food, and clothing for children to thrive. One study found that children lose approximately one month of development for every three months they spend in institutional care. Another study found that 1 in 3 children exiting residential care become homeless, 1 in 5 gain a criminal record, and as many as 1 in 10 die by suicide.

Institutions can cause or exacerbate attachment disorders and mental health challenges and can involve a greater risk of abuse, neglect, and maltreatment. Experts believe residential care should only be used as a last resort because, no matter how well-run an orphanage may be, it is still severely detrimental to a childs well-being and development.

In December 2019, 198 nations signed a United Nations Resolution on the Rights of the Child which, for the first time, recognized the harm caused by institutionalizing children. However, the sudden pandemic, not the signed resolution, provided the most effective impetus to close down orphanages.

For decades, the existence of orphanages has been justified by the assertion that the children had no homes to go to or that it was not possible to trace their families. But the mass movement of children from orphanages back to their homes during lockdown demonstrates that this was a misguided or overly pessimistic view about the possibility of family reunification, even if it stemmed from a well-meaning desire to help.

At one level, this seems to be great news for children in orphanages, as so many have now gone home. But the sudden closure of orphanages is not necessarily good news. Suddenly moving in with relatives after being separated for extended lengths of time can be a challenging transition both for children and their caregivers. Some returned to unsafe situations due to the lack of assessment and monitoring.

This rapid reintegration of children back to their birth families or extended family has many challenges, said Christopher Muwanguzi, CEO of Childs i Foundation. We have been advised that at least 6,000 children have been returned home in just one district of Uganda, and we are concerned about the pressures this will put families under during lockdown.

Now that COVID-19 has proved that it is possible for children in orphanages to return home, it is vital to ensure that the right support is in place to protect those children both in the short term and long term. The provision of safe, family-based care requires ongoing practical commitment from governments around the world, as well as from those who have been involved in supporting or managing orphanages in the past.

This is a critical moment. Vulnerable children around the world have gone home in huge numbers and should now have access to the essential nurture and protection that only a family can offer. However, the possibility remains that when lockdowns end, those children may be summarily returned to the orphanages, childrens villages, and residential educational establishments.

In many parts of the world, the pandemic has prompted a new imagination when it comes to dealing with some of our societies previously intractable problems. In London, a thousand homeless people were found accommodation in hostels or even hotelswithin days. Large hospitals were built in a few weeks. Things we thought were impossible have suddenly proved possible. We need that same ambition when it comes to children from orphanages around the world.

Christians have a pivotal role in making sure things dont go back to business as usual. It is widely acknowledged that churchgoers and those with faith have historically been the most generous donors and the most frequent visitors to orphanages, driven by a desire to help children and make a difference in the world. This generosity needs to be harnessed and channeled now to ensure that the best possible outcomes are achieved for our worlds most vulnerable children at this critical juncture.

During lockdown, I have spoken with Christian care reform leaders in Brazil, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Moldova, Paraguay, Romania, Sri Lanka, and other places, who are working with their governments to develop and improve family-based care. Many are finding ways to offer family-based care using fostering and domestic adoption routes for those genuinely unable to live with relatives.

In Uganda, Childs i Foundation is working to transform orphanages into child support hubs. An institution that used to house a couple hundred children has been repurposed and the staff have been retrained to care for thousands of children by supporting them with their families.

Christians supporting these kinds of repurposing initiatives, where more children can be supported in more effective and sustainable ways, could be leading the way into a future without the need for orphanages anywhere in the world.

Krish Kandiah is a UK-based speaker and author and founder of Home for Good, a fostering and adoption charity.

Speaking Out is Christianity Todays guest opinion column and (unlike an editorial) does not necessarily represent the opinion of the magazine.

Correction: The above photo was previously mislabeled as depicting an orphanage. It depicts a foster family.
Samsung Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra in the US now also getting One UI 3.0 beta

Just a day after the One UI 3.0 beta for the original Galaxy S20 trio went public in South Korea, Samsung started rolling it out to users in the US as well. Soon, the update should also reach Europe (Germany, Poland, the UK), India and China.

Going back to the US, only T-Mobile users seem to be getting the update right now, but that's likely due to the staged nature of the rollout. You can use the Samsung Members app to subscribe to the beta channel and get this update. You will be trying out Android 11 + One UI 3.0 ahead of other users, the changelog is pretty extensive so there is a lot to see.

Note that the beta is not free of bugs, but you have the option to roll back if the issues prove too bothersome. Just make sure to back up your data first.

Heres a screenshot from one Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G user that lists the changelog in full. This update weighs almost 3 GB and also includes the October 1 security patch. Galaxy S20 5G and Galaxy S20+ 5G users can join the beta testing as well.

Source | Via
On Sept. 22, President Donald Trump told the United Nations that China could not be trusted and that they were responsible for the horrible COVID-19 pandemic.

Where is his responsibility for more than 202,800 U.S. deaths? In February Trump said he had it under control. I have former Ph.D. students in China, and they indicated Wuhan has reopened schools and universities with few cases now.

Trump did not listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci to mandate mask wearing and social distancing. Gov. Pete Rickets did not, and Rep. Jeff Fortenberry has been silent. But Fortenberrys political advertisements state that we should not trust China or Kate Bolz for going to China to help support Nebraska agricultural trade. Yet two years before, Fortenberry went to China for the same purpose.

Should we hate China, Chinese people and their productivity? Or should we see what they are doing and try to keep up with them? Should Trump tell other countries to promote their special interests and ignore global warming, health and environmental risks? Or we should realize that we are all citizens of the world and work together not as enemies but as human being with diverse rights and perspectives.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: The Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee on Wednesday turned down the Central government's request for a meeting on October 8 to resolve their concerns regarding the farm laws.

"We got a telephone call from Union Agriculture Minister yesterday. He also sent a mail asking us to come to Delhi for a meeting on Oct 8. We have decided that we will not participate in any meeting as the government is not serious," Sarvan Singh Pandher, State Secretary of Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee told ANI.

The organisation also continued with its 'Rail Roko Andolan' for the 14th day on Wednesday as a symbol of protest against the laws.

The 'Rail Roko' agitation was initiated by the KMSC in Punjab on September 24 and was scheduled to conclude on September 26, but now it has been extended by several days.

The protesters under the banner of the KMSC have blocked the railway tracks by putting up a tent on the railway lines. They are raising anti-government slogans at Devidaspura, a village on the city outskirts and demanded rollback of all the farm laws.

The KMSC had received an invite to discuss their issues related to the farm laws by the Agriculture Ministry.

The three laws - Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Service Act, 2020, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 - were passed in the monsoon session of parliament.

Earlier, Secretary, Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare in a letter to General Secretary, Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, said: "Your committee has expressed concerns over the farm bills. I would like to invite you to a meeting on October 8 at Krishi Bhawan, Delhi. We would like to address your concerns."

Amid protests over the recently enacted farm laws in different parts of the country, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had termed them as long-waiting reforms in the agriculture sector.

ALSO READ | Agitating farmers tear-gassed on way to Haryana Deputy CM's residence, pressure builds up on JJP

While interacting with farmer leaders and agricultural experts in Chennai on farmers' issues and the recently enacted farm laws on Tuesday, Sitharaman had said that the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops will be continued.

"The reforms brought out by the Modi government were waiting for a long time. Now, agricultural produce in India can be sold anywhere at a price suitable for them with profit. Now, farmers can decide where and whom they should sell and where. A farmer can sell his products anywhere and no confusion in it. There is a free hand to them," Sitharaman said.

The three laws - Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance 2020; Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020; and Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act - were passed recently by Parliament.
Expanding routine newborn screening to include a metabolic vulnerability profile could lead to earlier detection of life-threatening complications in babies born preterm, according to a study. The study led by researchers at the UC San Francisco researchers was published online in Nature Pediatric Research. The new method, which was developed at UCSF, offers valuable and time-sensitive insights into which infants are at greatest risk during their most vulnerable time, immediately after birth.

The study, published in Nature Pediatric Research by scientists at the UCSF California Preterm Birth Initiative (PTBI-CA), assessed the records of 9,639 preterm infants who experienced mortality or at least one complication or mortality. Using the results of standard newborn profiles and blood tests, they identified a combination of six newborn characteristics and 19 metabolites that, together, created a vulnerability profile that reliably identified preterm babies at substantially increased risk for death and severe illness.

Our results point to a number of potential biological pathways that may play a key role in the development of negative outcomes in babies born preterm, said the studys lead author Scott Oltman, MS, epidemiologist, UCSF PTBI-CA. If we can better understand these pathways, new treatments or preventative measures may be possible.

Metabolites are molecules such as glucose or thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) that are naturally produced by our cells as we break down food or medications. In a newborn, these molecules may originate from the mothers bloodstream or be generated by the infant and can be used to assess whether the body is functioning normally. Of particular note are the investigative teams findings that Black babies were 35 per cent more likely than white babies to die or experience major complications, including serious breathing and digestive conditions known as respiratory distress syndrome and necrotizing enterocolitis.

We are particularly excited about the potential for these metabolic models to help us address critical inequities in outcomes in Black infants, said senior author Laura Jelliffe-Pawlowski, PhD, MS, professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the UCSF School of Medicine, and director of Discovery and Precision Health with PTBI-CA. Going forward, we should be able to create personalized care plans for each baby born too early, which will help us reduce race/ethnic disparities in outcomes. Advances in science have enabled even the most fragile preterm babies to survive in greater numbers and at younger gestational ages. In the United States, approximately 1 in 10 live infants is delivered preterm. However, preterm birth and related comorbidities are the leading cause of death for U.S. children under five years of age, with neonatal (newborn) deaths accounting for 46 per cent of mortality in this age group.

Previous models attempting to predict complications after preterm birth has relied only upon the infants gestational age, birth weight and other clinical characteristics. This study expanded the characteristics to include maternal factors, such as race, maternal age and education. It also identified 19 molecules such as TSH and glycine that also contributed to prediction. These metabolites are routinely tested in newborn screens but are not assessed as a composite. These metabolites play important roles in many biological pathways including indigestion, respiration and temperature regulation. Some of the pathways we have identified may offer inroads for intervention and could eventually lead to fewer deaths and lessened short- and long-term disability in babies born too early, Jelliffe-Pawlowski said.

This study is paving the way for continued research on how these models could help preterm newborn babies. The next phase of this study is funded by the National Institutes of Health and begins this fall through 2025. It will enroll 100 very preterm babies in California and Iowa to test how well the newly identified metabolic models work in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) settings. As part of this work, PTBI-CA researchers will collaborate with the Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine to look at the microbiomes of babies in the new study to identify additional drivers of short- and long-term of outcomes.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

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Former Reserve Bank governor Raghuram Rajan on Wednesday said the Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign of the government should not result in protectionism, adding that such policies had not worked in the past. Observing that it is not yet clear to him what the government means by Atmanirbhar Bharat, Rajan said if it is about creating an environment for production, then it is a re-branding of the Make in India initiative.

If it is about protectionism, unfortunately India has raised tariffs recently, (then) it does not make any sense to my mind to go that way because we tried that before.

We had a licence permit raj earlierthat protectionism was problematic, it enriched a few corporations but basically was a source of poverty for many of us," he said. Rajan was addressing a virtual event organised by economic think tank ICRIER.

When we talk about Atmanirbhar Bharat, I am not quite sure which side is being emphasised. If it is, lets create an environment for production, I think that makes a lot of sense and it basically reiterates Make in India and rebrandsMake in India," he said. Rajan, currently a professor at the University of Chicago, further said India needs world-class manufacturing and that means the countrys manufacturers have access to cheap imports, which form the basis for strong exports.

So, by all means, we need to create infrastructural support, logistic support etc for being part of the global supply chain. But let us not create a tariff war because we know that does not work, many countries have tried it," the eminent economist noted.

He also stressed that India needs to work very hard on its education sector. We can provide education across the borders," he added.

Replying to a question, Rajan said India may require a different institutional mechanism for reviving firms hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. I think each country has to figure out for itself whether the existing structures are right," he pointed out.

Rajan said countries like India should also see if the current institutional mechanisms for restructuring are the right ones for the problems created by the pandemic.

As I said before, typically you reach distress when you have mismanaged. In the pandemic, you may reach distress either because you started with the wrong capital structure or because your business was locked down for four months and you had no option, but you may be a viable good business, and to let you go out of business may be a bad thing at this point," he said.

To a query on monetisation of deficit by the RBI, he said there is a magical belief that somehow central banks can finance when the government does not have access to financing.

What central banks can do is in the very short run use their balance sheet to intermediate between banks, and the government. So if the government needs to place a lot of government paper in the short run, the central bank can absorb it on its balance sheet," he said.

Rajan further said what really matters is the quality of countrys finances. In Indias case it would be, for example, adopt a debt target and put in place legislation which shows that you will move towards the debt target.

Appoint that independent fiscal commission which will look at the budgets and talk about where there is a lack of transparency and perhaps youre actually hiding the true fiscal position," the former RBI governor said.

Monetisation of deficit happens when the central bank directly buys government securities from the primary market and in turn prints more money, thereby helping bridge the fiscal deficit.
WEST SPRINGFIELD  Classroom doors will open this month for pupils from pre-kindergarten to Grade 2, following a School Committee vote on Tuesday.

The board voted, 6-to-1, to phase the towns public schools into a hybrid model in which students can attend in-person classes two days a week. The first in-person classes will start Oct. 26 for the youngest students, with a rollout to upper grades planned for November. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, West Springfield has been conducting all classes remotely since the school year began Sept. 16.

School Committee Member Nancy Farrell, one of the yes votes, said she believes the all-remote system has been working well, but children need the social interaction that only in-person classes can provide.

Im struggling with this, but yet I feel that we do need to begin to bring some of our students back into the buildings for learning, Farrell said. Even though they are (required to be) six feet apart in the building, they are still with other students. Thats a big part of what kids need to do.

Under the plan adopted Oct. 6, pupils will attend in-person classes two days a week, and continue to learn remotely on the other three days of the week. Each class will be split into two cohorts, with one group at school Mondays and Tuesdays, and the other on Thursdays and Fridays. Parents would have the option to keep their children in remote learning every day.

The plan calls for Grades 3-5 to adopt the hybrid model starting Nov. 5, and for Grades 6-12 to do so on Nov. 19. Connor said the transition date for high schoolers was chosen because it coincides with the start of a new term.

School Committee member William Garvey, the sole no vote, said he wanted more time before voting on return dates. He said hed like to see all the details of the hybrid learning plan presented at a school board meeting, allowing parents to get their facts from an official source and communicate with their elected officials before the vote is taken.

He also said hes wary of rushing the decision and swapping a largely successful remote learning model for an untested hybrid plan. Any change means students will have to take time out of their academic lessons to learn a new set of classroom rules and procedures, and if student infection rates spike, the schools may have to endure another painful change, back to remote learning, he said.

We have a good thing going now, and Im very fearful of messing that up, he said. Parents, for the most part, are happy with it.

School board members chose the phased approach from a list of four options prepared by the superintendents office. Also considered were staying full-remote at all grade levels with no target for reopening; an aggressive schedule that would have pushed many grades' return dates forward by about a week; and skipping the hybrid model by committing to a fully in-person return starting in November. Though Connor described all four options, the School Committee discussion focused on the adopted plan only.

Connor said Oct. 26 would be the earliest date for a smooth transition from all-remote to hybrid learning. He said the district needs time to present this plan to the teachers' union for ratification, and to communicate the new procedures to parents.

Well try to get as close to perfection as possible, but when you change to hybrid,  its messy, Connor said. Theres a lot of moving parts when you have some kids here and some kids there.

Busing will be a challenge, he said. Another question is how teachers of specials  such as art, music and physical education  will deliver their lessons. At the elementary level, one art teacher might visit every classroom in a school, or two schools, in the course of a week. The district may choose to minimize that travel by continuing to use remote learning for some classes, Connor said. Even in homerooms, school will look very different from what children remember last year, and remote learning in a hybrid model wont be exactly the same as it is now, as teachers divide their attention between in-person and virtual classrooms.

Im not going to sugar-coat anything and say that its going to be identical to the amount of contact time we currently have in full-remote, Connor said. When we start bringing kids back in, that adds a whole other element. This is a book were writing as we go.

In accordance with state law, wearing face masks will be required for second grade and above, and encouraged for kindergarten and first grade, Connor said. Face masks will be required while riding school buses for kindergarten and above. He said expecting pre-kindergartners to wear masks all day is unrealistic.

Connor said school principals and administrators are still working on some of the details of how classes would be conducted in a hybrid model. He said the schools conducted a successful test of teleconferencing headsets that will allow teachers to share their lessons with in-person and remote cohorts simultaneously, and to answer questions from online learners while teaching in their classrooms. Enough equipment for all the districts teachers is expected to arrive this month.

The Oct. 26 wave wont be the first set of West Springfield students back in the classroom, Connor noted. About 60 students with special needs began in-person lessons in mid-September, and another group, including English-learner students, is set to return in the coming week. Responding to a question from Garvey, Connor said in the past few weeks with 60 students learning in person, 10 students and seven teachers have had to be sent home because they showed symptoms that might be associated with COVID-19.

Though the plan adopted this week sets target dates for Grades 3-12 to adopt the hybrid model, Connor warned that none of the plans are set in stone.

Mayor William Reichelt, who serves as chairman of the School Committee, said he expects the committee to continue to discuss modifying the schedule, based on the latest public health data, throughout October and November.
The Bombay high court (HC) on Wednesday held that all offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985 are non-bailable, while granting bail to two house staffers of the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput  Samuel Miranda and Dipesh Sawant  in connection with the drug link that emerged through WhatsApp chats while investigating his death.

Rajput was found dead in his Bandra home on June 14. Justice Sarang Kotwal rejected the argument advanced on behalf of the two Rajput staffers and another accused Abdel Basit Parihar, all arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), that all offences involving small quantity of contraband material were bailable and such accused are entitled to bail as a matter of right.

The counsels for the accused, advocate Taraq Sayed and advocate Subodh Desai, had relied on a June 2010 decision of a single judge bench of the HC in Stephen Muellers case, in support of their contention. Justice Kotwal, however, refused to accept the argument.

The judge relied on a 1999 judgment of the Constitution bench of Supreme Court, holding that all offences under the NDPS Act were cognisable and non-bailable. The judge also rejected the argument that the observation of the Constitution bench was merely a passing reference and not a binding decision. Justice Kotwal said the observation has been subsequently referred by the other Apex court benches as a binding precedent and no other court can take any other view on the issue.

The HC said the NDPS Act has undergone a change in 1989, owing to which the second part of the schedule to the Criminal Procedure Code, which declares that offences punishable with imprisonment of up to three years under non-IPC Acts shall be bailable, was not applicable to the NDPS Act. Even offences involving small quantity of drugs (which attract lesser punishments) were made non-bailable, the court said.

If the accused claims bail as a matter of right in case of possession of small quantity, no investigation can be carried out to find the source and trade of the contraband, said justice Kotwal.

This defeats the object of the Act. One cannot overlook the prevailing situation in todays society. Offenders involving smaller quantity or lesser punishment expose themselves to immediate arrest. They cannot claim bail as of right. The Act needs to have this deterrent effect to curb the spread of drug abuse, the judge added.

The single judge bench, however, granted bail to Miranda and Sawant on furnishing personal bond of 50,000 each, along with one or two sureties in the same amount. The HC granted them bail primarily in view of the fact that they were employees of Rajput and purportedly accepted deliveries of contraband material on instructions of the late actor or his girlfriend, Rhea. HC said there was no material to show that they were part of any chain or had sold drugs to earn profit. They acted only at the behest of their employer, the court added.

Like actor Rhea Chakraborty, the HC has also given them time to furnish sureties, paving way for their immediate release from prison. Both of them are ordered to surrender their passports and also restrained from leaving India.

The HC, however, rejected the bail plea of Parihar, a student of architecture, Chakrabortys brother Showik and other alleged peddlers and suppliers arrested in connection with the case.
Tackling the Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad region will dominate discussions at the upcoming 47th Session of the Organisation of Islamic Corporation (OIC).

The Boko Haram insurgency, which began in Nigeria in 2009, has spread to neighbouring countries of Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

A statement Tuesday by Lama Hammami Director, Information Department at the OIC headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, said the meeting is to take place in Niamey, the capital of Niger.

The agenda, according to the statement, was disclosed by the OIC Secretary-General, Yousef Al-Othaimeen, at a meeting with the Permanent Representatives of the OIC Member States at the General Secretariat headquarters in Jeddah.

"During the Meeting, the Secretary-General highlighted the ongoing preparations for the 47th session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM), which will be hosted by the Republic of Niger in the capital Niamey, to discuss key issues on the OIC files especially supporting Member States in tackling Boko Haram, ISIS and other extremist groups in the Sahel and Lake Chad region."

The meeting also discussed the ongoing preparations for the Science and Technology Summit to be hosted by the United Arab Emirates, as well as the latest political, humanitarian and human rights developments of the Rohingya Muslim minorities in Myanmar.

The secretary-general also reviewed the efforts of the OIC secretariat and organs in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday held bilateral talks with his Australian counterpart Marise Payne in Tokyo, covering a range of bilateral, regional and global issues. Jaishankar and Payne travelled to Tokyo to attend a ministerial meeting of the Quad or Quadrilateral coalition comprising India, the US, Australia and Japan. The Quad foreign ministers meeting took place on Tuesday.

After his meeting with Payne, Jaishankar tweeted that the progress in bilateral ties following the virtual summit between prime ministers of the two countries was reviewed. Warm meeting with my good friend FM @MarisePayne of Australia. Reviewed the progress in our bilateral ties after the Virtual Summit between our PMs. Discussed expanding our cooperation in global affairs & regional issues. Will work together more closely in multilateral forums," he said. The meeting took place in the backdrop of frosty relations of India and Australia with China.

While Indias ties with China nosedived over the five-month border standoff in eastern Ladakh, the relationship between Beijing and Canberra came under stress over trade related issues. It is understood that Jaishankar and Payne discussed key regional security challenges.

The defence and security ties between India and Australia have been on an upswing in the last few years and both the countries even vowed to work together in the Indo-Pacific, a region that witnessed growing Chinese assertiveness. At an online summit on June 4 between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison, the two countries elevated their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership and inked a landmark deal for reciprocal access to military bases for logistics support.

The Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA) allows militaries of the two countries to use each others bases for repair and replenishment of supplies besides facilitating scaling up of overall defence cooperation.
A vulnerable young man with a rare brain disease who fatally stabbed his older brother in self-defence in Western Australia's south has been jailed for five years.

Sonny Poutu, then aged 18, was convicted of killing 24-year-old Tamaheri Tumai during an altercation at a home in Jerramungup, near Albany, on Easter Saturday last year.

A Supreme Court jury found him not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

Sonny Poutu, then aged 18, was convicted of killing 24-year-old Tamaheri Tumai (pictured) during an altercation at a home in Jerramungup, near Albany, on Easter Saturday last year

The trial heard Poutu had been diagnosed in 2016 with Moyamoya disease, a rare and life-threatening brain condition which had caused him to suffer several strokes and meant any blows to the head could cause fatal harm.

He and his brother had been drinking heavily throughout the day and when Poutu refused to let Mr Tumai drive, he was choked, gouged and punched in the face by his older, stronger and more than 30kg heavier sibling.

Chief Justice Peter Quinlan said the attack had left Poutu 'angry and frightened' but he had done the right thing by leaving the scene and returning to a friend's house.

Mr Tumai arrived a short time later in search of Poutu, who armed himself with a knife.

The pair argued and Poutu stabbed his approaching older brother in the chest and abdomen before attempting to apply first aid.

Chief Justice Quinlan said he was satisfied Poutu had reasonably believed it was necessary to defend himself against a further attack and that his vulnerability because of his brain disorder had been a factor in that.

But his response was not proportionate to the threat he was facing.

'By stabbing Mr Tumai in what were likely to be lethal blows, you went too far and went further than the law allows,' the judge said.

'You do understand that, in all of the violence and confusion of that day, you went too far.

'That is why you are so genuinely remorseful and ashamed for having killed your brother, because you know that, even though he had been violent towards you, he was your precious brother who you loved.'

He accepted that Poutu had only been intending to scare his brother when he picked up the knife.

'Until the last moment, I accept that Mr Tumai was the main aggressor in the altercation between you,' he said.

Chief Justice Quinlan found that Poutu, now aged 20, was a person of good character and his mother, a church pastor, had spoken of her unwavering love for both men.

He sentenced Poutu to five years in prison, backdated to April 2019.

Poutu will be eligible for parole after serving three years.
DENVER  Republican Sen. Cory Gardner and his Democratic challenger, former Gov. John Hickenlooper, faced off in a Spanish-language debate on Tuesday, tussling over immigration, health care and the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The debate was taped in English on Sunday and aired with Spanish translations on Tuesday, so neither candidate could address recent events like President Donald Trump ending negotiations over additional coronavirus relief. Instead, the two candidates both trod familiar ground, with Gardner both attacking Hickenlooper and trying to sell himself as a bipartisan problem-solver, and Hickenlooper trying to tie the incumbent to Washington and Trump.

Nothings going to change if we arent able to send new people to Washington, Hickenlooper, 68, said.

Gardner rattled off a list of bills, from a national suicide prevention hotline to a sprawling measure to fund national park maintenance. In these last years, Ive shown the attitude of voting 100% for Colorado, said Gardner, 46.

Gardner is considered one of the most endangered Republican senators in the country, partly because Colorado has shifted toward Democrats since he was elected to his first Senate term in 2014.

The two mens most notable clash was on immigration. Gardner was a member of the Republican House majority that in 2013 refused to consider a bipartisan Senate immigration bill that would have provided a path to citizenship for 11 million people in the country illegally, including those brought illegally as children who qualified for the Obama administration program known as DACA.

Since Trumps election, though, Gardner has co-written a bill with Colorados Democratic senator. Michael Bennet, to legalize DACA recipients. At the debate, he attacked Hickenlooper for a statement the Democrat made as governor suggesting that Democrats should give up on pushing for a pathway for citizenship in the face of Republican resistance and focus on narrower protections from deportation.

Its an attack and a distortion, Hickenlooper said.

Its not an attack, its your own words, Gardner replied, also noting that Hickenlooper, as mayor of Denver, had touted referring 8,000 immigrants to the federal government during a debate with former Rep. Tom Tancredo, a notorious immigration hardliner against whom he was running for governor.

Gardner said he wanted to protect immigrants because theyre my neighbors, they go to school with my children.

The two men also argued about energy, with Gardner renewing accusations that Hickenlooper, a former petroleum geologist, would end 230,000 jobs in the fossil fuel industry because of fears of climate change. Hickenlooper called climate change an existential threat and argued an investment in green energy would create a record number of new jobs.

And Hickenlooper kept returning to health care, Democrats favorite subject. He slammed Trump for mishandling the coronavirus outbreak and argued Gardner wanted to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

The two men will meet for their next debate Friday evening.

___

The story has been corrected to say the next debate, not the final one, is set for Friday.
A man wearing a face mask is pictured among a crowd in Oxford Street, London. (Reuters)

Several medical experts have criticised a group of British scientists who have argued for a herd immunity approach to tackling COVID-19.

Academics from the universities of Oxford, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Cambridge, Sussex, York, Strathclyde, Leicester and East Anglia, as well as St Georges and Queen Mary universities in London, are among experts from around the world who have signed a declaration that calls for less vulnerable people to be allowed to return to normal.

However, one medical expert said the scientists who have signed the so-called Great Barrington declaration are totally lacking in humanity.

Dr Gabriel Scally, a director at the World Health Organization (WHO) who is also a member of the Independent Sage committee, said the scientists who signed it advocate survival for the fittest and virtual imprisonment for the vulnerable and older people.

Watch: What is herd immunity?

He added: They also ignore long COVID, and the risk of long-term effects of infection which seems harmless now.

His comments were echoed by Stephen Reicher, another member of the Independent Sage, who said the herd immunity proposition was an outrageous position that had been rejected by all scientific organisations.

How to undermine a scientific consensus that gets in the way of profits:

1. Get a few individuals to take an outrageous position rejected by all scientific organisations

2. Boost them through a media obsessed with controversy

3. Claim scientists are divided

4. Ignore science https://t.co/2cOmoSJVSX  Stephen Reicher (@ReicherStephen) October 7, 2020

Top German scientists:

1. Herd immunity not possible bc immunity too short.

2. Not feasible to go 'shield vulnerable' approach bc impossible to fully identify & isolate them.

3. Potential serious, long-term damage to young/healthy also from this virus. https://t.co/ETW50WYHAK  Prof. Devi Sridhar (@devisridhar) October 7, 2020

Devi Sridhar, who advises the Scottish government on COVID-19, cited German scientists who said there was a potential serious, long-term damage to people who are deemed less vulnerable to the disease.

Story continues

The leader of the NHS in England, Sir Simon Stevens, recently said that asking all over-65s to shield to slow the transmission of the second wave of coronavirus would be age-based apartheid.

Professor Jeremy Rossman pointed out that research suggests there have been cases of re-infection of the virus, adding that Sweden, which adopted a herd immunity approach, was not able to successfully protect the vulnerable population.

The declaration calls for what it calls Focused Protection, saying its signatories have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.

It adds: As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all  including the vulnerable  falls.

People walk along the main pedestrian shopping street in Stockholm, Sweden, where a "herd immunity" approach has been adopted. (AP)

We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity  i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable  and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine.

Our goal should therefore be to minimise mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.

Prof James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, and of the University of Oxford, said: The declaration risks the same error we have seen with the UKs track, trace and isolate scheme  one can promise a scheme that is very easy to describe but is hard to deliver.

A COVID-19 information sign in Manchester. (Getty)

Sweden is one of just a few countries that did not impose a compulsory lockdown to deal with coronavirus.

Restrictions in the country were voluntary, and authorities argued that the chances of finding a cure were slim and that allowing the population to develop herd immunity was a better strategy.

Following an initial spike in cases and deaths at the start of the pandemic, both have lowered and remained stable  although there has been a recent uptick in cases.

Watch: How is coronavirus treated?

Coronavirus: what happened today

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Activist investor Dan Loeb is asking Disney Chief Executive Officer Bob Chapek to end the company's annual $3 billion dividend to divert more capital to new Disney+ content.

Loeb sent his proposal to Chapek on Wednesday in a letter, which CNBC has seen. Loeb's Third Point Capital is one of Disney's largest shareholders and bought more shares earlier this year in support of Disney's repositioning around Disney+, its flagship subscription streaming service.

Calling for companies to suspend a dividend in favor of capital expenditure is unusual for activist investors, who typically push for corporations to do the reverse -- give money back to shareholders. But Loeb argues that Disney shares can trade more similarly to Netflix if it can demonstrate its best-in-class status in streaming and bust out of the pack of traditional U.S. media companies.

"By reallocating a dividend of a few dollars per share, Disney could more than double its Disney+ original content budget," Loeb wrote. "The ability to drive subscriber growth, reduce churn, and increase pricing present the opportunity to create tens of billions of dollars in incremental value for Disney shareholders in short order, and hundreds of billions once the platform reaches larger scale."

Disney shares were up about 1.8 percent in mid-day trading on Wednesday. Shares have fallen about 6 percent in the past year as theme park and movie theater closures have hurt Disney's operations. Netflix shares are up almost 95 percent over the same period.
Billionaire inventor Sir James Dyson today said British workers should get back to their offices as he predicted 'entrepreneurship and wealth creation' are central to the UK's post-coronavirus economic recovery.

The 73-year-old businessman also took a swipe at Government threats to impose a second national lockdown amid rising coronavirus infections, as he cautioned against moves which would wreck the economy again.

Sir James, best known as the inventor of the Dyson bagless vacuum cleaner, suggested talking 'less about pubs' and 'more about how we get people back to work'. He conceded it would be 'hard work' but said 'that's what we've got to do'.

Britain's richest man, who is worth an estimated 16.2billion according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2020, announced 900 job cuts worldwide in July amid the pandemic. It is understood that he did not take furlough money.

The vacuum cleaner tycoon, who has been vocal in support of Britain's decision to leave the EU, announced in October that Dyson would use Singapore as its base for its ventures into the electric car market.

Sir James has denied that his move is linked to Brexit, and has insisted it instead 'reflects the increasing importance of Asia' to the firm's business.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said: 'I think we've got to recover our economy. We've got to encourage entrepreneurship and wealth creation.

'That's the way out of this, and it will be hard work, but that's what we've got to do.

'I think we should talk less about pubs and more about how we get people back to work and get entrepreneurs and businesses active again.'

It comes as Nicola Sturgeon banned pubs and restaurants in most of Scotland from serving alcohol indoors for at least 16 days from Friday.

The First Minister told MSPs in Edinburgh that the situation was 'better than March', but admitted she needed to take a 'backward step' as she unveiled a dramatic 'circuit breaker' squeeze to coincide with the school half-term north of the border.

As well as a ban on serving alcohol, hospitality venues will only be allowed to open from 6am to 6pm. In five 'hotspot' areas pubs will be closed altogether until October 26 and people will be advised against using public transport.

It will heap pressure on Boris Johnson, who was confronted this afternoon with damning figures showing local restrictions in England are failing to curb cases, with ministers and advisers at war over what to do next.

In other coronavirus developments today:

Sir Keir Starmer hinted that Labour will join Tory rebels in opposing the controversial 10pm curfew for pubs in a crucial vote next week;

Scientists from the world's top universities have penned an open letter calling for an end to lockdown and allowing young people to build herd immunity;

Publican Greene King will axe 800 jobs and close 79 pubs after the 10pm coronavirus curfew and lockdown decimated customer demand;

Two Manchester universities and Sheffield University will move to online classes as more than 80 universities report 5,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19;

Concerns have been raised over the supply of testing materials for a range of conditions including Covid, following a supply chain problem;

The number of Covid-19 hospital admissions in England has soared by 25 per cent in a day, government data has revealed.

Sir James Dyson said British workers should get back to their offices as he predicted 'entrepreneurship and wealth creation' are central to the UK's economic recovery

Sir James, best known as the inventor of the Dyson bagless vacuum cleaner, suggested talking 'less about pubs' and 'more about how we get people back to work'. He conceded it would be 'hard work' but insisted 'that's what we've got to do' (pictured with his wife Deirdre)

Labour leader Keir Starmer launched a furious attack on Boris Johnson in the Commons, saying 19 out of 20 areas subjected to local curbs have actually seen infections rise

'No regrets': How Sir James Dyson became a vacuum cleaner tycoon and vocal Brexiteer Sir James had the idea of cyclonic separation to create a vacuum cleaner that would not lose suction as it picked up dirt in the late 1970s. He became frustrated with his Hoover Junior's diminishing performance: the dust bag pores kept becoming clogged with dust thus reducing suction. The cyclone idea came from a sawmill that used cyclone technology. Partly supported by his wife's salary as an art teacher, and after fifteen years and about 5,127 prototypes, he launched the 'G-Force' cleaner in 1983. However, no manufacturer or distributor would handle his product in the UK, as it would have disturbed the valuable market for replacement dust bags, so Sir James launched it in Japan through catalogue sales. Manufactured in bright pink, the G-Force sold for the equivalent of 2,000. It won the 1991 International Design Fair Prize in Japan. He filed a series of patents for his dual cyclone vacuum cleaner EP0037674 in 1980. After his invention was rejected by the major manufacturers, Sir James set up his own manufacturing company, Dyson Ltd. In June 1993, he opened a research centre and factory in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. Dyson's breakthrough in the UK market came more than ten years after the initial idea, through a TV advertising campaign in which it was emphasised that, unlike most of its rivals, the Dyson vacuum did not require the continuing purchase of replacement bags. At that time, the UK market for disposable cleaner bags was 100million. The slogan 'say goodbye to the bag' proved more attractive to the buying public than a previous emphasis on the suction efficiency that its technology delivers. Ironically, the previous step change in domestic vacuum cleaner design had been the introduction of the disposable bag  users being prepared to pay extra for the convenience. The Dyson Dual Cyclone became the fastest-selling vacuum cleaner ever made in the UK, and outsold those of some of the companies that rejected his idea, becoming one of the most popular brands in the UK. In early 2005, it was reported that Dyson cleaners had become the market leaders in the United States by value (though not by number of units sold). Dyson licensed the technology in North America from 1986 to 2001 to Fantom Technologies, after which Dyson entered the market directly. Following his success, other major manufacturers began to market their own cyclonic vacuum cleaners. In 1999, Dyson sued Hoover (UK) for patent infringement. The High Court ruled that Hoover had deliberately copied a fundamental part of his patented designs in making its Triple Vortex bagless vacuum cleaner range. Hoover agreed to pay damages of 4million. Sir James has been one of Britain's most prominent business leaders to publicly support Brexit before the 2016 referendum. Since the referendum, he has stated that Britain should leave the EU Single Market and that this would 'liberate' the economy and allow Britain to strike its own trade deals around the world. During 2016, 19 per cent of Dyson Ltd exports went to EU countries (at WTO tariffs), compared with 81 per cent to non-EU countries. In 2017, Sir James suggested that the UK should leave the EU without an interim deal and that 'uncertainty is an opportunity'. In 2014, he had said he would be voting to leave the European Union to avoid being 'dominated and bullied by the Germans'. In November 2017, Sir James was critical of the UK government Brexit negotiations and said 'we should just walk away and they will come to us'. After it became public in January 2019, that Dyson was to move its headquarters from Malmesbury to Singapore, he was accused of hypocrisy regarding his campaign for Brexit. In a recent interview with The Times, Sir James he had 'no regrets' about voting for Britain's exit from the EU. Sir James has said that Britain's workers need to get back to their offices in a bid to reverse the worst effects of the coronavirus recession. The Dyson founder told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that there should be 'less' talk about reopening pubs and 'more about how we get people back to work'. He conceded it would be 'hard work' but insisted 'that's what we've got to do'. 'I think we've got to recover our economy,' he said. 'We've got to encourage entrepreneurship and wealth creation. 'That's the way out of this, and it will be hard work, but that's what we've got to do. 'I think we should talk less about pubs and more about how we get people back to work and get entrepreneurs and businesses active again.' Advertisement

Asked by presenter Nick Robinson how to achieve economic growth, Sir James curtly responded: 'Getting people back to work is a good start.'

He added: 'You need the interaction of other people to make progress, and  above all  you can't train people if they're at home.

'I'm 73, when I come into work every day I'm learning all the time, we're all learning from each other. And you can't train people and learn if you're sitting at home.'

Sir James explained that the outbreak of coronavirus in the winter forced a revolution in Dyson's business model as they closed factories and shops closed.

'What we recognised right at the beginning, in late January and early February, was that the shops were going to shut, our factories would close, and we had to do something about it,' he told the Today programme.

'So we took a decision to sell direct, rather than sell through shops which were shut, and that meant that we changed how we do things, how we do our business.

'Unfortunately quite a number of jobs were therefore made redundant, we didn't need people to sell to shops.'

The renowned inventor also urged 'caution' against government attempts to impose a second national lockdown in a hint that the panic measure wrecked the UK economy.

It comes as reports suggest a Cabinet split over the Government's handling of the coronavirus crisis between the so-called economy 'hawks' and lockdown 'doves'.

At a stormy PMQs session, Mr Johnson stressed the impact of the surge was being felt worst in the North, saying that showed that the government's mix of tough local lockdowns and national restrictions like the Rule of Six and 10pm pubs curfew was the right one.

The backing for 'differentiated' measures in England suggests that the premier is still resisting pressure from scientists for a blanket crackdown - in an apparent boost for Cabinet ministers alarmed over the threat to millions of jobs and civil liberties.

But Labour leader Keir Starmer launched a furious attack on Mr Johnson in the Commons, saying 19 out of 20 areas subjected to local curbs over the past two months have actually seen infections rise.

He insisted that the measures were 'not working', and singled out the controversial 10pm curfew on pubs saying the government had failed to provide any 'scientific basis'.

Allies of Chancellor Rishi Sunak, including Home Secretary Priti Patel, are understood to be trying to restrain the Prime Minister's desire to shut the country for a second time. The wrangling is believed to be holding up the announcement of a new three-tier 'traffic light' system, intended to clear up confusion about what rules apply where in England.

Mr Johnson, together with Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Cabinet Office chief Michael Gove, is said to be under the influence of his chief medical and scientific advisers, Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance.

Whitty and Valance presented a sensational chart at a Downing Street press conference last month which suggested there would be 50,000 daily cases of coronavirus by mid-October  next week.

Their tendency to encourage the toughest anti-Covid restrictions has been criticised by Conservative backbenchers who seek to prevent a second national lockdown.

Tory shop steward Sir Graham Brady and arch-Brexiteer Steven Baker have criticised the Government's 'rule by decree' and the dire economic consequences of the March lockdown  which include a 20 per cent fall in GDP, a significant recession, an anticipated jobs bloodbath and the death of the High Street.

Meanwhile, Ms Sturgeon said that indoor hospitality venues will only be allowed to operate between 6am and 6pm daily, selling food and non-alcoholic drinks only.

Outdoor bars, restaurants and cafes will be allowed to remain open up until 10pm and will be allowed to sell alcohol up to that time.

The restrictions will come into force at 6pm on Friday and are intended to end after October 25.

However, all licensed premises in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Arran, Lothian and Forth Valley health board areas will be closed for both indoor and outdoor operations.

Cafes without a licence to sell alcohol will be allowed to open until 6pm, the First Minister said, to counter social isolation.

People in the central belt of Scotland have been asked to avoid public transport unless absolutely necessary in the next two weeks.

While a travel restriction is not being enforced on people in those five areas, Ms Sturgeon urged those living in these areas not to travel beyond their own health boards.

Ms Sturgeon said: 'Let me be clear. We are not going back into lockdown today.

'We are not closing schools, colleges or universities.

'We are not halting the remobilisation of the NHS for non-Covid care. And we are not asking people to stay at home.

'So while the measures I announce today will feel like a backward step, they are in the interests of protecting our progress overall.

'It is by taking the tough but necessary action now, that we hope to avoid even tougher action in future.'

The hospitality sector has voiced alarm at the idea of a crackdown. Emma McClarkin, of the Scottish Beer & Pub Association, said: 'If the Scottish Government is to implement further harsh restrictive measures to our sector, it must include a dedicated package of support alongside it. Without it, the Scottish Government will leave our pubs and thousands of jobs doomed to failure.'

Professor Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, said a targeted approach would work better than bringing in 'more draconian rules'.

'At the moment we do not need to bring in any more rules that will hammer the hospitality sector, or the economy at large. There needs to be a razor-sharp focus on getting the current systems running smoothly and effectively,' he wrote in The Sun.

'We need to hold our nerve, rather than hitting the panic button.'
Olin Corp. has moved into a new office that serves as the base of the chemical maker's Texas operations following the conversion of the former Randalls grocery store in Lake Jackson. The company's new 62,500-square-foot Technology and Administration Center is at 604 Highway 332.

The office, which is designed to accommodate 200 employees with room for growth, is not yet operating at full capacity in order to comply with safety protocols in place due to the pandemic, according to Olin. The company did not specify how many people are working on site.
Ghaziabad:

Around 15,000 paramilitary, police and home guard personnel have been deployed in the district to ensure free, fair and peaceful voting in the first phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections on February 11, a senior police official said on Thursday.

District Police chief held a meeting with other senior officials and chalked out a detailed plan at police lines today, Assistant Superintendent of Police Aashish Srivastav said.

Addressing the officials, the Senior Superintendent of Police Deepak Kumar said 36 companies (100 personnel in each company) of central military forces, 800 sub-inspectors, 3,000 constables and 5,000 home guards jawans from different districts of Uttar Pradesh have reached in Ghaziabad.

A total of around 15,000 personnel will be deployed at polling stations and booths in the district.

10,000 constables, allocated from other districts, and 5,000, posted in the district, will maintain law and order under the guidance of senior police officials, the SSP said.

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Linkedin Humeyra Pamuk and Sakura Murakami (Reuters) Tokyo, Japan  Wed, October 7, 2020 10:00 473 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c4999527 2 World Mike-Pompeo,Foreign-Ministry,State-Secretariat,Japan,Australia,India,China Free

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Japan on Tuesday to rally support from Washington's closest allies in Asia, calling for deeper collaboration with Japan, India and Australia as a bulwark against China's growing regional influence.

The East Asia visit, Pompeo's first in more than a year, coincides with worsening tensions with China. Yet the call for a united front against Beijing is a sensitive subject for Washington's allies, which are reliant on China for trade.

In comments before the start of a meeting of the Quad grouping of the four nations' foreign ministers, Pompeo spoke in typically unsparing terms against Beijing's ruling Chinese Communist Party. That was in contrast to his three counterparts, all of whom avoided calling out China directly.

"As partners in this Quad, it is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the CCP's exploitation, corruption and coercion," Pompeo said, referring to the ruling party.

"We see it in the South and East China Seas, the Mekong, the Himalayas, the Taiwan Strait."

China has denounced the Quad as an attempt to contain its development.

The four nations in the grouping stated their support for a free and open Indo-Pacific. In an interview with Japan's Nikkei newspaper, Pompeo spoke of formalizing and potentially broadening the Quad grouping.

"Once we've institutionalized what we're doing - the four of us together - we can begin to build out a true security framework," Pompeo told the Nikkei, suggesting other countries could be added to that "fabric" at "the appropriate time."

Pompeo told the Japanese public broadcaster NHK it was important that the "shared picture" of the challenge was shared with Southeast Asian countries.

Analysts say such a formalized grouping referred to by Pompeo may never take shape, given the need for countries in the region to balance their relationships with China. But they say such remarks serve as a warning to China and play to its fears that the Quad might one day take shape as NATO did in Europe to contain the Soviet Union.

Pompeo's visit was supposed to include trips to Mongolia and South Korea but was cut back to one day after President Donald Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19.

A State Department statement said Pompeo spoke on Tuesday to Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga and discussed working together to strengthen security in Asia, "as well as the of rescheduling the Secretarys visit to Ulaanbaatar in the near future."

In his earlier remarks, Pompeo reiterated the Trump administration's criticism of China's handling of COVID-19 after it first broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

"When we met, now, last year, the landscape was very different. We couldn't have imagined a pandemic that came from Wuhan. That crisis was made infinitely worse by the Chinese Communist Party's cover-up," he said.

The United States and China, the world's top two economies, are at loggerheads over a wide range of issues from Beijing's handling of the coronavirus to its imposition of a new security law in Hong Kong and ambitions in the South China Sea.

Most Asian allies have been pleased with Washington's toughness toward their regional rival China but have not so eagerly welcomed the highly charged recent rhetoric from Trump and Pompeo and remain wary of going too far in antagonising China.
Kamala Harris and Mike Pence Reuters

Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris will lock horns in Salt Lake City on Wednesday night in their first and only debate of the 2020 campaign. But the coronavirus will cast a shadow over the show. With less than four weeks until Election Day, the pandemic's presence looms larger than ever over the nation, and the political fortunes of incumbent President Donald Trump and his rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. More than 211,000 people in the U.S. have died from Covid-19 this year, and millions more have lost their livelihoods amid pandemic shutdowns and economic stagnation. Those infected include Trump, 74, who revealed on Friday that he and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for coronavirus after he spent months downplaying the severity of the deadly virus. Trump was hospitalized the next three days at Walter Reed medical center undergoing aggressive treatment. During that same 72 hours, more than a dozen White House aides and Republican lawmakers announced they, too, had tested positive for the virus. Pence and Harris will take the stage just two days after Trump was discharged from the hospital and into the care of White House physicians. Pence has tested negative for the virus, but as a precaution, he and Harris will be more than 12 feet apart and separated by plexiglass. The 90-minute debate will be held in Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah, starting at 9 p.m. ET. The event will be livestreamed on CNBC.com and will air on White House pool networks. Here's what Pence and Harris each need to do:

Pence has to shine in the spotlight

The president's hospitalization has drastically changed the dynamic of the debate, said Mitchell McKinney, director of the Political Communication Institute at the University of Missouri and an expert on presidential debating. "Like many people, I initially thought most of the attention Wednesday would be focused on Harris, but in the past week so much has changed with the president in the hospital," McKinney told CNBC on Tuesday. "Voters are looking at Mike Pence now with a new sense of urgency." Biden's age  77  had been a frequent target of the Trump campaign, which has been openly been making claims about his mental acuity and health. But Trump's diagnosis, and the urgent questions about his condition, have put more pressure on Pence to display his readiness to lead. "Both of the presidential candidates are old, and they have health issues," said Aaron Kall, director of the University of Michigan's debate program. "So are these [vice presidential] nominees ready to step in at a moment's notice? Are they experienced? Do they have a good temperament?" Kall said. "Voters at the debate are really going to be asking those questions, given the health of the two people at the top."

Harris needs to tie Pence to Trump's worst excesses

Harris may be debating Pence, but she should train her sights on Trump, as well, McKinney said. "Harris has to call into question the entire Trump operation, all the chaos. She'll take it to Mike Pence, but the case she's prosecuting is the case against Trump," he said. Pence has been among Trump's most loyal and outspoken defenders throughout his tumultuous first term. As a longtime public figure and a former talk-radio host, he's good at the sort of verbal jousting required in a debate. Pence scored a clear victory over then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, in their debate in 2016, polls showed. But he may be forced to play defense against Harris, a former prosecutor, who showed in the Democratic primary that she was willing to go on the attack. "There's a gendered element here. It's typically the female candidate who will bring the most aggression to the stage to show she's up for it," McKinney said. "The expectation is on her to pick apart this rosy picture Pence wants us all to imagine."

Pence can take advantage of the format

With Trump away from the campaign trail, Pence is being forced to pick up the slack -- an enormous task given recent polls showing Biden's lead over the president creeping into the double digits in nationwide polls. The format of Wednesday night's debate is likely to work in Pence's favor, however. "The vice presidential debate has always been more of a discussion and less of a podium battle than the top of the ticket debates," McKinney said. "This works in Pence's favor, because that's his style." Hewing to VP debate tradition, Pence and Harris will be seated at tables on Wednesday night. The Commission on Presidential Debates, as part of its slate of virus-related adjustments, will seat the two contenders more than 12 feet apart. There will be no handshake between the candidates, or with the moderator, USA Today's Susan Page. The commission also announced this week that there will be a plexiglass wall between them -- a decision that reportedly prompted Pence's team to raise objections. On Wednesday night, Pence needs to reassure voters that the chaos engulfing the White House is temporary, McKinney said.

Harris doesn't need to defend her record

In the Democratic primary debates last year, Harris was tripped up by Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who zeroed in on Harris' record as a former prosecutor. Pence might take a similar tack, by contrasting the California senator's record with the Biden campaign platform she now supports. Harris should keep herself out of that position, Kall said. "She really doesn't have to defend her record," Kall said. As Biden's running mate, her job "is to support the person at the top of the ticket. So her position is the position of Joe Biden."

Pence should deliver the 'Trojan Horse'
She's been enjoying a sun-drenched holiday in Byron Bay ahead of filming Marvel's new movie, Thor: Love and Thunder.

And Natalie Portman, 39, looked thoroughly relaxed as she hit the local shops for a day of retail therapy with husband Benjamin Millepied, 43, and daughter Amalia, three, on Tuesday,

Looking breezy in an embroidered black maxi dress and matching wedge sandals, the Hollywood actress could easily have been mistaken for a Byron Bay local as she browsed the racks of a clothing store.

Retail therapy: Natalie Portman, 39, stepped out in Byron Bay, New South Wales, for a day of shopping with her husband Benjamin Millepied, 43, and daughter Amalia, three, on Tuesday

Natalie showcased her age-defying complexion by going without makeup, and threw her chestnut locks back into a simple ponytail.

Her dancer husband also dressed casually, wearing a black T-shirt, grey track-pants and blue sneakers.

Natalie, who no doubt already boasts an impressive designer wardrobe, appeared determined to find a new summer outfit for Amalia.

Laid-back outing: Looking breezy in an embroidered black maxi dress and matching wedge sandals, the Hollywood actress could easily have been mistaken for a Byron Bay local as she browsed the racks of a clothing store

Lucky girl! Natalie, who no doubt already boasts an impressive designer wardrobe, appeared determined to find a new summer outfit for Amalia

The doting mother pored over the colourful array of garments on offer, while keeping her youngster satiated by allowing her to snack from a large packet of crisps.

The adorable youngster even tried on a long-sleeved blue dress, which featured a colourful print that perfectly matched her hot pink sun cap and Nike trainers.

Natalie also managed to find something for herself - a sheer white beach dress with embroidery detailing.

Perfect for the beach! Natalie also managed to find something for herself - a sheer white beach dress with embroidery detailing

Job well done: The shopping trip was a success, as Natalie and her family were later seen leaving the boutique with shopping bags in hand

Mummy and me! Once outside the store, Natalie was spotted holding hands with Amalia as they further explored Byron Bay's Industrial Estate shopping precinct

The shopping trip was a success, as Natalie and her family were later seen leaving the boutique with shopping bags in hand.

Once outside the store, Natalie was spotted holding hands with Amalia as they further explored Byron Bay's Industrial Estate shopping precinct.

The Black Swan actress has been making the most of her time in Byron Bay, having hit the local beach with her family on Monday.

Always chic: Natalie showcased her age-defying complexion by going without makeup, and threw her chestnut locks back into a simple ponytail

Soaking up the sun! The Black Swan actress has been making the most of her time in Byron Bay, having hit the local beach with her family on Monday

Natalie is slated to begin filming Thor: Love and Thunder later this month.

The Daily Telegraph recently reported that the film, which was meant to be filmed in Sydney, could be relocating to Queensland as NSW battles the COVID-19 pandemic.

The publication claimed that the film's cast, including Natalie and her co-star Chris Hemsworth, 37, are awaiting news of whether a relocation will happen.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 14:33:09|Editor: huaxia

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CANBERRA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government is set to legislate the most significant overhaul of university fees in a decade after winning support in Parliament for the proposal.

The federal government has struck a deal with minor party Centre Alliance to support its controversial changes to university course funding, giving the government the numbers to pass the legislation through the Senate.

Under the changes, which were announced in June, tuition costs for "job-ready" courses including teaching, nursing, languages, maths and agriculture will fall 46 to 62 percent per year from 2021, so students can expect to pay between 3,700 and 7,700 AUD (2,634 to 5,482 U.S. dollars) per year.

Conversely, the cost of a year of full-time study in humanities and communications courses will rise 113 percent to 14,500 AUD (10,323 U.S. dollars).

Fees for law and commerce courses will rise 28 percent.

Dan Tehan, the Minister for Education, said on Tuesday that the reforms would go a long way to helping Australia meet the "biggest employment challenge since the Great Depression" in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

"(The) legislation will provide more university places for Australian students, make it cheaper to study in areas of expected job growth and provide more funding and support to regional students and universities," he said.

The government previously announced that students who fail more than half their subjects would lose access to government loans and fee subsidies under the plan but the Centre Alliance said it would only support the reforms on the condition of those students being protected.

"You can be going through university qualification and can have some unexpected events in your life -- bushfire, death of a spouse, death of a parent," Member of Parliament (MP) Rebekha Sharkie said on Tuesday.

"We're saying to the government that needs to be in the legislation so that those protections are there and it's not at the discretion of a university so that students have a legislative framework that they can see as protection should they be in those circumstances -- and government agreed to that."

The likely passage of the bill sparked backlash from universities. The Group of Eight, which represents Australia's most prestigious universities, said that the bill was flawed.

"We would implore the Senate to consider the amendments that the majority of the university sector has advocated," chief executive Vicki Thomson said.

"The only certainty delivered by Centre Alliance is that the bill which will potentially pass the Senate will still mean our universities will be funded less to teach more students -- many of whom will pay more for their degree at a time when they can least afford to."

They were joined in criticizing the changes by the Opposition Labor Party.

Tanya Plibersek, Labor's education spokesperson, said that support for the reforms from Centre Alliance and fellow minor party One Nation was "absolutely cruel."

"Thousands of South Australian students will pay more than double for their university degree. That's what Centre Alliance have delivered," she said.

"So an ordinary four-year degree will now cost around 58,000 AUD (41,199 USD) for many disciplines. Think about those kids. They've had the year from hell. It's absolutely cruel and it is inexplicable that Centre Alliance and One Nation would join the government in this bill." Enditem
The police department in Madison, Wisconsin, and federal prosecutors said they were closing a monthslong investigation due to lack of evidence into an alleged hate crime against a biracial woman who said she was set on fire by a group of white men.

The Madison Police Department began investigating after Althea Bernstein, 18, told police in June that four white men yelled a racial slur at her through her rolled-down car window while she was stopped at a traffic light around 1 a.m.

She said one of the men then used a spray bottle to douse her with a liquid and threw a flaming lighter at her, according to a police department incident report. Bernstein said the liquid ignited, burning parts of her face and neck.

The U.S. attorneys office in Madison said Friday that after a "thorough investigation" into the incident, it was closing the case without charges filed.

Image: Althea Bernstein (WMTV)

"Federal investigators determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove that a violation of any federal criminal statute occurred," the office said in a statement. "Further, after reviewing all available evidence, authorities could not establish that the attack, as alleged by the complainant, had occurred."

Madison Acting Police Chief Vic Wahl also issued a statement saying that "detectives were unable to corroborate or locate evidence consistent with what was reported."

"Detectives conducted numerous interviews, reviewed extensive video, and analyzed physical/digital evidence during the course of the investigation," Wahl said.

A spokesman for the Bernstein family told NBC News in June that the teen was driving to a friend's house when the men started yelling the N-word and then set her on fire. She was able to pat out the flames, the spokesman said.

Photos released at the time showed injuries to Bernstein's face and neck.

Madison police released nearly 160 pages of reports detailing its investigation into the incident. Surveillance video from traffic and surveillance cameras shows that Bernstein's car only stopped once and that no other vehicle or person was around the car.

Story continues

Investigators could not find a group of white men on the cameras, according to the reports.

The documents released by police also showed that the car Bernstein was driving had not been damaged during the alleged incident and that an arson dog found no trace of a lighter or other device used to ignite a fire. Medical records, however, showed that she was treated for burns on the day she said the attack happened.

Bernstein was told in August that investigators could not find evidence to corroborate her account, the reports show. The teen told a detective that she didn't understand why there was no evidence and said she was "100% confident of what happened."

During a meeting last week with Bernstein's attorney, Andrea Sumpter, an investigator said that there were no plans to charge Bernstein. The reports stated that investigators "found no evidence that Bernstein had colluded with anyone to make a false report or that there was any mal-intent or pre-planning that occurred in regards to Bernstein's statement to police."

"I acknowledged to Attorney Sumpter that clearly Bernstein had injuries to her face. I explained to Attorney Sumpter that our interests at this point were identifying if there was someone else responsible for causing these injuries to Bernstein," the documents state. "If so, our goal was to hold this person responsible."

Sumpter could not immediately be reached by NBC News on Tuesday. Bernstein's family issued a statement through the police department thanking the detectives and investigators for their work.

"Althea's injuries are healing and the support of our community has been invaluable in that regard. We continue to maintain our family privacy and will not be granting interviews at this time," the family said.
Camper fire claims the life of two people in Marshall County
Federal Department of Foreign Affairs

Bern, 07.10.2020 - The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva closed its 45th regular session on 7 October 2020 after almost four weeks of work. It adopted two resolutions presented by Switzerland and partner States. The first seeks to strengthen the HRC's role in the prevention of human rights violations. The second resolution extends the mandate of the Special Rapporteur in the field of transitional justice.

Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, the HRC successfully continued its operations. It adapted its working methods to enable a combination of in-person and virtual meetings. The HRC has thus maintained its capacity to act and respond to current human rights situations around the world.

The two Swiss-led initiatives proved successful. First, together with Norway, Sierra Leone and Uruguay, Switzerland tabled a resolution on strengthening the HRC's contribution to the prevention of human rights violations. This resolution calls for an increase in the early warning capabilities of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to enable it to timely inform the HRC in cases of human rights violations. Particular emphasis was placed on coordination between the HRC and the other two UN pillars (peace/security and development).

Switzerland supports initiatives for dealing with the past

The second resolution, presented by Switzerland together with Argentina and Morocco, extends the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence for a period of three years. Switzerland has thereby reaffirmed its conviction that these four dimensions  truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence  are necessary in contexts of serious human rights violations in order to combat impunity and prevent the recurrence of future violations and crises. In a statement on this subject, Switzerland further encouraged States to implement transitional justice processes in accordance with international best practices and the relevant standards, in cooperation with victims' groups and civil society.

Switzerland adds its voice to the call for dialogue between the Belarus government and the opposition

This 45th session also featured an urgent debate on the situation of human rights in Belarus, initiated by the EU. In this context, Switzerland expressed its concern about the violent repression of peaceful protests in the country in connection with the presidential elections on 9 August. Switzerland also supported the resolution presented by the EU calling on the Belarus government to end the excessive use of force and to enter into a dialogue with the political opposition and civil society. The holding of this urgent debate once again illustrated the HRC's ability to respond swiftly to a country's deteriorating human rights situation.

Switzerland supports the documentation of human rights violations

Regarding the human rights situation in other countries, Switzerland continued to support efforts to document and independently investigate all alleged violations of international law so that perpetrators can ultimately be held criminally accountable. It thus supported the resolutions extending the mandates of the Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela and the Group of Experts on Yemen. Switzerland also commented on reports presented by recently established mechanisms, such as the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya and the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. Furthermore, Switzerland supported two separate joint statements expressing the signatory States' concern over the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia and in Iran. These statements reflect the same positions expressed by Switzerland in its bilateral discussions with these countries, specifically on the situation of women human rights defenders and the use of the death penalty. The statement on Saudi Arabia, initiated by Denmark, was endorsed by 33 States, and the statement, initiated by Germany, on Iran by 47 States.

With its partners, Switzerland defended the universal nature of human rights in light of attempts to undermine the established international framework designed to ensure human rights for all. Finally, in the run-up to various elections around the world, Switzerland called on all sSates to place respect for human rights at the center of their actions in order to prevent all forms of electoral violence.

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From migraines to fatigue, coronavirus patients say they are continuing to suffer debilitating symptoms months after first becoming infected, in what has become known as "long Covid." Claire Twomey, 33, a social worker in County Meath, Ireland, told CNBC via telephone that it was in her first week back at work, around six weeks after she first became ill with the coronavirus, that her symptoms re-emerged. She initially thought she had become re-infected with the virus when the headaches came back, followed by a fever, coughing and shortness of breath. But hospital tests found no underlying issues, she said. Twomey said she felt "absolutely floored" when the symptoms re-emerged. "I was back in bed, I couldn't even read a book or watch TV for longer than half an hour." More "insane, weird (and) strange" symptoms appeared in this relapse with the illness, including gastrointestinal issues, hair loss and skin rashes. Twomey said she felt "frustrated" as the illness lingered, and worried about the future after being out of work for so long. "I've been on pause for six months," she said. By mid-September, Twomey found she was having fewer "bad days" but knew that she still couldn't return to working as she had before. Twomey applied for another part-time position in social care, but spent the eight days prior to the job interview bedridden with migraines. "I thought I was going to have to cancel the interview." Fortunately, she was able to do the interview and got the job, which she is set to start in a few weeks.

Claire Twomey, 33, a social worker from Ireland has suffered with "long Covid" for six months. Claire Twomey

'A bigger public health problem'

Three health care bodies in the U.K. announced Monday that they were working on a formal definition of "long Covid" and how to identify symptoms, so that the National Health Service can officially recognize the illness. The "long Covid" guidelines are expected to be published by the end of the year. In a paper published Monday by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change on "long Covid," Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London, warned so-called "long haulers  could turn out to be a bigger public-health problem than excess deaths from Covid-19." The paper also highlighted new findings from the Covid Symptom Study, led by Spector, indicating that around 10% of people surveyed in the U.K. had suffered with "long Covid" symptoms for a month, while up to 2% were still experiencing them after three months. With nearly 4.3 million downloading the study's app to record coronavirus symptoms, it is said to be the largest public science project of its kind in the world. There have been 532,779 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the U.K. and 42,535 related deaths, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. Based on extrapolated data, the researchers estimated that of those affected by the first wave of the virus in the U.K., 300,000 people would have experienced Covid-19 symptoms for a month, while 60,000 people would have suffered symptoms for three months or more. And it isn't just people considered to be more vulnerable to catching the virus, such as those over the age of 70, that have been affected. The paper also cited another study in the U.S. that found one in five people aged 18-34, who didn't already have chronic medical conditions, said they had suffered from "long Covid" after initially becoming infected.

Breathlessness and brain fog

For Evie Connell, 23, a marketing and business student at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland, prolonged illness meant she was unable to finish a summer internship. She's also been signed off from her part-time job at a convenience store. Connell first started showing coronavirus symptoms in March but said that the initial period of the illness "wasn't that bad," as she mainly experienced fatigue and some breathlessness. By week 15, Connell went to her doctor complaining of all-day chest pains. She was referred to a local Covid-19 rehabilitation team and was signed off work. In addition to chest pain, Connell continues to suffer from an erratic heart rate, breathlessness, as well as brain fog and chronic fatigue. She only managed to do a few weeks of her digital marketing internship with a local business before finding that she no longer had the attention span to carry on. Connell has since returned to college for her third year but worries about her ability to concentrate on her studies. "I could defer but then that's going to push me back another year of studying which I don't want to do," she told CNBC over the phone.



Connell said it had been "quite hard to come to terms" with just how much the virus had affected her, having been someone who went to the gym around four times a week to now finding herself breathless after climbing four flights of stairs.

Paul Garner, a professor of infectious diseases at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, has struggled with fatigue and slower cognition due to "long Covid." The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

'Kindness and understanding'
New Delhi, Oct 7 : Global premium smartphone brand TECNO is gearing up to intensify competition in the mid-budget segment by introducing Eye Autofocus camera technology in its latest device in the CAMON series which is set to be launched on October 10 in India.

Set to be available on Flipkart, the new smartphone, CAMON 16, will feature a 64MP quad camera setup at the rear, according to the company's social media posts.

This new device could be India's first mid-budget smartphone with the Eye Autofocus technology which can vastly improve the photography experience.

The introduction of CAMON 16 in the mid-budget segment is expected to give stiff competition to Realme 7i launched on Wednesday.

As per the teasers, the phone could be equipped with a Super Night Shot powered by the company's exclusive TAIVOS technology that will enable consumers to capture brighter and clear pictures even in very low light environments.

The anticipation for the selfie camera is a well-equipped dot-in selfie camera supported by eyefocus technology, AI Video Beauty with 2K QHD (Quad High Definition) recording and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Video Portrait.

CAMON 16 is likely to house a 6.8-inch HD+ dot-in display and a powerful 5,000mAh battery with 18w fast charge.

Likely to be powered by a Helio processor, the new CAMON 16 appears to have set its eye on disrupting India's mid-budget segment to help TECNO consolidate its position as one of the leading brands in the sub-Rs 15,000 segment.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Former governor and CBI chief Ashwani Kumar was found dead in his Shimla house on Wednesday, Shimla superintendent of police Mohit Chawla said. He was 69. Police suspect death by suicide but have made no formal statement.

Himachal Pradesh police chief Sanjay Kundu, who rushed to the spot, said that investigation in the case was on and a team of forensic experts has reached the crime scene and collecting evidences.

Police said a note, ostensibly written by Kumar, had been found.

Retired police officer AP Singh, who succeeded Kumar at the CBI, described Kumars death absolutely shocking.

I have worked closely with him as a special director. He was a gentleman. Never lost his temper. I always found him very pleasant, soft spoken; he never ever said a word to anybody in a raised voice, AP Singh said about his mild-mannered predecessor at the CBI.

Kumar, a 1973 batch officer of the Indian Police Service, headed the Central Bureau of Investigation from August 2008 to November 2010.

Three years later, the Manmohan Singh government appointed him as Nagaland governor in March 2013, provoking howls of protest from the Bharatiya Janata Party. Kumar was the first CBI chief to be appointed to a gubernatorial office. A few months later, he was also appointed Manipur till December 2013.

Ashwani Kumar, however, had to step down from the Nagaland Raj Bhavan weeks after the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in the 2014 general elections and started pushing out governors appointed by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. Kumar was one of the first to go.

It was during his tenure as the CBI chief that the investigation agency arrested Union home minister Amit Shah in July 2010 in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. Shah was then the BJP general secretary and minister in the Gujarat government led by chief minister Narendra Modi. Veteran Congress leader P Chidambaram was then the Union home minister.

The 22 accused who faced trial in this case were acquitted in December 2018. In its verdict, the judge called it a politically-motivated case designed to implicate political leaders such as Shah.

Ashwani Kumar had started out as a young IPS officer in Himachal Pradesh where he was, back in 1985, the superintendent of police of Shimla district. It was during this assignment that he was selected in the newly-created Special Protection Group responsible for the security of then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

He was in the SPG from 1985 to 1990 in various capacities including that of Assistant Director in the Prime Ministers Office. It was during this tenure that he came in close contact with the Gandhi family.

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Rwanda is waiting to see what courts in Belgium decide after the arrest of three Rwandan Genocide fugitives there last week, an official has told The New Times. They are Pierre Basabose, Seraphin Twahirwa and Christophe Ndangali.

According to the National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) spokesperson, Faustin Nkusi, the trio was arrested based on indictments sent by Kigali more than a decade ago and the Prosecutor's office is following developments in Brussels though it is too early to tell which direction the wind blows.

"After they got arrested, everything must now follow the courts' procedures in Belgium. They will decide on what next; be it extradition to Rwanda, or trial in Brussels. These are the things we are waiting for. And it is the courts to determine," Nkusi told The New Times.

"It is important to note that these suspects were arrested based on Rwanda's past requests. We have been working with the Belgian judiciary authorities. They came here to investigate."

The three suspects were arrested in Belgium last week on Tuesday and Wednesday and they are wanted for Genocide, and extermination after their involvement in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Prof Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, president of the Genocide survivors umbrella group, Ibuka, told The New Times that as has happened with similar cases in Belgium, in the past, he expects no extradition. Nonetheless, he said, there must be justice.

Dusingizemungu said: "They have always said that they have the competence to handle these cases. But for us we always prefer they be brought here for trial."

Delayed justice hampering survivors' reconstruction

Ibuka welcomes any such arrests in Belgium. Moreover, Dusingizemungu stressed, the delays are "a big concern" since authorities in the European country know where these mass murderers are but take long to act.

"We ask: why wait for 26 years to arrest them, and only three? They (Belgian authorities) knew, for long, the charges against them, their locations, and all information," Dusingizemungu said.

"Our appeal consistently has been that there should be no delay in delivering justice in these cases. And especially not to just pick out one or two of these killers after a decade while many roam free. The authorities in Belgium can do better; they should stop dragging their feet especially as regards known genocidaires on their territory."

Emphasising the need to stop delaying justice, Dusingizemungu noted that the latter behaviour by European countries is actually delaying the process of psycho-social reconstruction for genocide survivors.

"Delaying justice by protecting the mass killers in this manner is delaying survivors' reconstruction. It doesn't help because a survivor's psycho-social reconstruction journey involves justice."

Number two on RTLM contributing list

According to Kigali, Basabose was indicted in June 2015 for the crimes of Genocide and extermination.

He is a former soldier who left the military and started business.

He owned a foreign exchange bureau in Kigali. He is, according to Prosecution in Kigali, known to have given guns and money to Interahamwe militia so they kill the Tutsi in the Gatenga area of Kicukiro, Kigali and in Gikondo.

Basabose is a former member of President Juvenal Habyarimana's protection unit and former driver Col Elie Sagatwa, left the army and became a prominent businessman.

Col. Sagatwa was one of the leading masterminds of the Genocide and brother to former First Lady, Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana. The latter, who is in France, is also a top wanted Genocidaire.

Also now known is that Basabose is number two on the extremist Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) contributing list as he contributed Rwf600,000.

Number one is Juvenal Habyarimana with Rwf1,000,000 while businessman Felicien Kabuga, now also under detention in France, is third with Rwf500,000.

Basabose is known as a genocidaire of the first category. He was first spotted in Belgium in 1997.

Twahirwa on the other hand worked in the Ministry of public service (Minitrape). He was indicted in June 2014.

He is accused of Genocide, conspiracy and extermination.

He formed an Interahamwe millitia group - Operation CDR Suicide Kimya - that comprised 600 murderers that killed the Tutsi in Karambo/Gatenga and in Gikondo.

Prosecution also says he worked in the Interahamwe headquarters. Ngangali worked in the Ministry of primary and secondary education (Minipresec).

He was indicted by Rwanda in November 2012 for Genocide, conspiracy and extermination.

According to Prosecution, he was in charge of patrolling and inspecting roadblocks in Kacyiru and Giti Cy'Inyoni areas of Kigali.

He is also known to have presided over meetings that planned killings in Gisenyi (now Rubavu) and Rugengeri (Musanze) areas.

Last December, a Belgium court sentenced Genocide suspect Fabien Neretse, 71, to 25 years in jail after being found guilty of Genocide, murder, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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This was not the first Genocide trial in the Kingdom of Belgium.

But it was the first time that a criminal prosecution and conviction was based on a law punishing genocide, introduced there in 2017.

Neretse's was the fifth trial held in Brussels in connection with the 1994 Genocide.

Previous trials including that of two catholic nuns, found guilty, in 2001, of participating in the massacre of more than 7,600 people at the Sovu convent in Butare, were based on a universal jurisdiction punishing people for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Initially, three trials; the one of Neretse, Emmanuel Nkunduwimye and Ernest Gakwaya were to happen at the same time.

On October 9, 2019, a court decided to first hear Neretse's case separately. The rationale was that the other two's charges were over killings committed in Kigali alone yet Neretse's crimes were also committed in his home region, formerly Ruhengeri, now Musanze.

The two other suspects - arrested in 2011 in Brussels - Nkunduwimye and Gakwaya are, among others, suspected of having been active members of the Interahamwe militia, something they deny.

Formed around 1990, the Interahamwe was the youth wing of the MRND, the then-ruling party which spearheaded the 1994 Genocide
As Christine S. Maiwald, executive director of Unify Against Bullying, prepares to retire at the end of October, she will be able to see the organizations student fashion show celebrating true diversity.

On Oct. 26, high school students of all shapes, sizes, styles, ethnicity and physical abilities from schools in Western Massachusetts and Northern Connecticut will present the show they created as well as emotional, thought-provoking performances.

The streamed event will be free, but donations will be accepted.

The event this year is especially poignant for all as Christine Maiwald, one of the founding board members and the executive director for the past three years, will be retiring on Oct. 30, said Sarah Goff, president of the organization.

The hybrid fashion show will present models via video and highlight clothing sponsors. It will be broadcast live from the Log Cabin in Holyoke with only Susanna Zemba and Michael Sakey on stage introducing the models and performers' videos.

Viewers can access the event through Facebook Live.

Between 20 and 30 students who volunteered will participate in the event; they are high school sophomores, juniors and seniors.

Original performances will highlight bullying trends that the students have raised, centering around social media and cyberbullying.

An online auction will online auction will offer such items as a studio photography session with 16 x 24 wall canvas portrait ($1,210 value), power washing house, driveway ($750 value) and an airplane ride ($450 value).

Delaneys Market is offering a Unify meal package that can be picked up curbside at four locations.

Unify Against Bullying seeks to bring an end to bullying through the celebration of true diversity.

I am honored to have been asked to be one of the founding board members and to serve as executive director for the organization, Maiwald said. Most people talk about wanting to make a change, however the Zemba family of Robert Charles Photography in East Longmeadow stepped up and made it happen. Their vision to help young people know that they have value and that they should treat one another with kindness and acceptance. Their message to celebrate our differences has helped many young people since its (Unify Against Bullying) inception in 2016.

She said she has been part of an awesome Unify team consisting of students, families, board of directors, educators, the business community and volunteers who are proud of what we have accomplished in four short years.

These accomplishments include: high school students presenting anti-bullying education to students in local schools, summer camps and youth programs; creating and implementing a Unify club pilot program in a high school in Springfield; partnering with community organizations such as Shriners Hospital, Jewish Community Center, The Chicopee Boys and Girls Club and The Hampden County Sheriffs Department; and raising funds through community events to award 48 micro-grants to individuals and organizations, especially school-age youth, who understand the bullying epidemic and who have committed to making Unifys mission a part of their initiative.

In addition, Unify Against Bullying had a selfie challenge, leveraging social media to bring awareness to its mission. Since its inception, the selfie challenge has made its way around the world. The 2016 goal was to reach 50 states, 50 countries in 50 days. Not only did we successfully reach all 50 states, we also had participants in 56 countries in that 50-day period, Maiwald said. This exposure helped bring national and international awareness to the silence associated with bullying.

For information, visit UnifyAgainstBullying.org, or call 413-304-0668.
EU member states have thrown their weight behind two women candidates to lead the World Trade Organization, one from Nigeria and the other from South Korea, diplomats said on Monday.

European envoys gave their support to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria's former finance minister, and Yoo Myung-hee, South Korea's trade chief, at a meeting in Brussels.

The long-expected endorsement was blocked until the last minute by Hungary, which had lent its support to Britain's former trade minister Liam Fox and Amina Mohamed of Kenya.

The EU's backing gives the two candidates a big boost, coming a day before an initial pool of eight candidates to replace Roberto Azevedo, who stepped down as the WTO director-general last month, is whittled down to two.

The choice of Okonjo-Iweala comes amid calls for an African to finally get a shot at running the organisation, which has counted three director-generals from Europe, and one each from Oceania, Asia and South America since its creation in 1995.

The WTO aims to select a winner in November, but some have expressed concern that political bickering could draw out the process.

The global trade body has faced relentless attacks from Washington, which has crippled the WTO dispute settlement appeal system and threatened to leave the organisation altogether.
The powers that be in the state think they are doing us a favor by making it 14 days but they have made it a hardship for a lot of families with the seven-day testing requirement, Orgek said.

She pointed out that if a person does get tested and makes an appointment for a visit, it could all be for nothing if a resident or staff member in the nursing home tests positive for the virus.

Then you have to wait 14 days and the process starts all over again, Orgek said.

Michelle Layer has not taken a Covid-19 test yet, and said she is relying on window visits and videoconferencing with her father. She questioned how long it takes to get test results and whether they would be available in time for a scheduled visit.

I was told that the county testing site in Amherst could take up to five days for results, and when I called the state, they told me five to seven days on average for the results, said Layer.

Hammond, however, said state test results come back a lot quicker. According to recent data, more than 40% of test results are available within 24 hours and statewide the average wait was about two days, he said.
ORLANDO, Fla.  As the Rev. Terence Gary stepped onto the stage at The Experience Christian Center to give a guest sermon last Sunday, about one-third of the 250 chairs in front of him were covered in black cloth so that attendees would sit socially distanced from each other.

About 60 masked people watched him. Three women in white lab coats  church members who are also medical professionals  were tasked with checking the temperatures of every person who walked inside, asking a series of questions to make sure no one had a cough, a fever or a sore throat.

Gray opened with the upcoming election.

Brothers and sisters  your mind needs to be attuned to the varied challenges and strategies that are going to be devised to deter persons from being able to cast their vote, he said to the predominately Black Pine Hills congregation.

Even as many religious houses remain closed, Central Floridas Black pastors have become a beacon of hope for church members looking for more one-on-one guidance when the future seems uncertain.

This has been an unprecedented year marked by a pandemic that has been disproportionately deadly in Black communities, a months-long wave of nationwide protests against police killings of Black people and what is being seen as one of the most pivotal presidential elections of this generation. As the nation has had to cope, Black church leaders say they are busier than they have ever been.

They have become advisors to law enforcement leaders looking to repair relationships with the communities their officers patrol. They are facilitators for young activists who led massive demonstrations this summer and have created a list of demands for change.

They are providers for the neighborhoods surrounding their churches when thousands of workers are laid off or furloughed and are now struggling to buy food for their families. They are guides for white pastors who feel led to preach to their predominately white congregations about the perils of racism and inequality.

Story continues

And as the needs of the community shift, the church keeps shifting.

The real pastors are showing up, said Gray, who leads St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church, which is offering only online services. I work harder now than I did before COVID.

The Sunday that Gray was invited to preach was The Experience Christian Centers third back to in-person services, said Derrick McRae, bishop-elect at the church.

Despite the church closures, McRae said he, too, has been busier than ever. As each new crisis has emerged throughout this year, McRae and other church leaders have had to find ways to respond.

In a normal year, the church organizes several food giveaways, usually tied to major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

In March, when the economy shut down, leaving thousands without money to buy food, Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida along with other food banks nationwide reported a massive spike in need.

McRaes church quickly stepped in to help feed the community. For nearly 40 days straight, the church held daily food giveaways.

We were getting food from all over the state and we were loading it up and going to different communities and just having food giveaways, said Marlin Daniels, chief development officer for The Experience Christian Center. People that didnt even know the church existed started showing up.  It was supposed to last for 200 to 250 families and we were going through it within an hour.

More recently, the church partnered with Foot Locker to provide shoes for families in Parramore as its leadership readies for larger food giveaways ahead of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

They still need to know there is hope in the community, Daniels said of the residents benefiting from the work of the church. Thats what the church is for. The church is a place not only for the spirituality but also for the physical being as well. We cant preach the gospel and talk about the love of God and not reach them tangibly with food and clothes.

Pastor: Advocacy can produce change

After protests sparked by the May death of George Floyd, who pleaded for air for nearly 9 minutes while since-fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee to Floyds neck, pastors all over the Central Florida region met with city leaders, sheriffs and police chiefs. They called for community peace and joined activists in the streets.

As the time came to start considering what change activists wanted to see come from the protests, Pastor Roderick Zak, who leads Rejoice in the Lord Ministries, a 3,000 member predominately Black church in Apopka, offered to help.

In the 1990s, Zak, as then-president of the Orlando chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, organized local marches calling for accountability and equity after Los Angeles Police Department officers were caught on camera beating Rodney King. Kings beating, like Floyds killing, launched a nationwide outcry.

The efforts of Zak and his fellow activists helped launched an alliance that increased public contracts for women- and minority-owned businesses in the mid-1990s. The alliance lasted about 10 years.

Nearly thirty years later, Zak opened his church for a meeting with activists and the Stono Institute for Freedom, Justice and Security, a human rights institution and think tank. It wasnt about projecting his own concerns onto the new movement, but rather making sure the new generation of activists would be able to clearly voice their own demands to those in power.

I know what its like to be out there trying to march and protest and let your voice be heard and negotiate with public and private entities for substantive change to take place, he said. Advocacy, I know, can produce something if approached properly.

The demands presented so far by local activists have called for the declaration of racism as a public health crisis, the reallocation of some funding for the Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriffs Office to combat that crisis, and deputizing citizens trained in deescalation techniques to embed with law enforcement officers.

Vanessa Keverenge, an organizer with activist group The People 407, was part of the meeting to formalize the demands.

The meeting became a catalyst for the protest groups coming together to cement more solid demands, Keverenge said, adding that it also taught the activists how messy the process can be when attempting to find solutions that satisfy everyone when some simply want to reform the existing policing system and others want to abolish it and start fresh.

As calls for police reform continue, both Zak and Gray said they are also getting more regular calls from OPD and OCSO officials who want to share more insight about their community policing tactics.

Now, as the November presidential election nears, the pastors have stretched their focus to consider how they can help ensure that every member of the congregations and the surrounding community will vote.

Zak said his congregants want different management in the White House, and he is confident his church members will go to the polls.

Theres a sense of urgency but not excitement, Zak said. I anticipate 100% of the people voting from this church.  I believe everybodys going to vote and thats in spite of COVID. Im hoping that other congregations have had that same spirit of tenacity to get out and vote as well. Its an important election.

McRae said his church members are in a similar place.

I think they are frustrated with the process, McRae said, adding that it will be a sense of duty, not excitement, that brings voters from Pine Hills to the polls. They dont believe in the election like they used to anymore.

While some will surely choose to mail their ballots and others will vote independently early or on Election Day, McRae said he is encouraging those who would rather vote in person to do so early at the Amway Center during a Souls to the Polls event reimagined for the COVID-19 era.

Souls to the Polls, traditionally held on the last Sunday of early voting, is usually marked by Black church leaders organizing buses to take their congregations to vote together after service. Those voters have the power to sway elections. In the 2018 primary, a surge of votes via Souls to the Polls helped Andrew Gillum win the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

This year, to encourage social distancing, there likely wont be any buses. Instead, individual cars or smaller carpools will be encouraged to take voters to the Amway Center, a space large enough to maintain space even if voting lines are long. McRae said the church has also chosen to partner with Black sororities and fraternities, the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and other groups to have an even greater impact on the number of Black voters.

Were all souls and we all need to go to the polls.



2020 The Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Fla.)

Visit The Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Fla.) at www.OrlandoSentinel.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
PEDRO PARDO/AFP via Getty Hurricane Delta in Cancun

Hurricane Delta made landfall in Mexico early Wednesday as a Category 2 storm, knocking out power and prompting evacuations from hotels hosting tourists.

Delta touched down around 5:30 a.m. local time along the northeastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula near Puerto Morelos with maximum winds of 110 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The storm is expected to grow in size as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico, increasing the threat for life-threatening surge, the NHC said.

In Cancun, an area popular with tourists, the winds hovered around 84 mph, and half of customers in Cancun, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen lost power, Quintana Roo Gov. Carlos Joaquin told the Associated Press.

Here are the latest storm surge forecast values for the area of the Gulf Coast expected to be affected by Hurricane #Delta. The storm is expected to grow in size as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico, increasing the threat for life-threatening surge. pic.twitter.com/xOn8QA3zrl  National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) October 7, 2020

The outlet reported that the storm toppled 95 trees and prompted the evacuations of 39,000 people in the states of Quintana Roo and Yucatan, with about 2,700 of those people taking refuge in storm shelters.

Among those was Ana Karen Rodriguez, who arrived at the Fiesta Americana Condesa hotel in Cancun on Tuesday afternoon, only to be shuttled to a hurricane shelters just hours later.

Jacky Muniello/picture alliance via Getty Hurricane Delta in Yucatan

Rodriguez told the AP that she and the friend with whom she was traveling were taken to the campus of the Technological Institute of Cancun to hunker down.

Its been good, she said, praising the hotels planning. I feel comfortable actually.

Story continues

RELATED: Beta Makes Landfall in Texas, Tying Century-Old Record for Named Storms in a Year

Kristyn Owens of Los Angeles was also taking refuge in a school being used as a hurricane shelter, she told CNN.

Owens said she was staying in an Airbnb in Cancun to celebrate her 30th birthday, but was evacuated to the school, which boarded up its windows and laid cots on the floor.

RELATED VIDEO: Large Alligator Wanders Outside Home in Gulf Shores, Alabama During Hurricane Sally

Large Alligator Wanders Outside Home in Gulf Shores, Alabama During Hurricane Sally

Large Alligator Wanders Outside Home in Gulf Shores, Alabama During Hurricane Sally

RELATED: Louisiana Veteran Reunited with Beloved Dog Lost During Hurricane Laura

All of the hotel occupants are spread between these classrooms. They gave us a sandwich, juice and water, and pillow and sheets, she told the outlet. It was very well executed. [But] its not ideal. This is not the Westin, by any means.

Hurricane Delta is expected to continue heading north, with flash, urban, small stream and minor river flooding likely from Friday through Saturday from portions of the central Gulf Coast northward into portions of the Lower to Middle Mississippi Valley, the NHC said.

There were no immediate reports of death or injuries, according to the AP.
After months of recording daily highs in cases, Indias covid-19 infections seem to be dropping. More than 72,000 new cases were recorded on Wednesday, taking the total to 6.7 million. Since India hit a single-day high of 97,894 new cases on 17 September, the country has reported a downward trend, with 75,909 daily cases on an average, according to a Reuters tally. India leads in the average number of new infections and is expected to overtake the US in the next few weeks as the country with the worlds largest number of cases. For more updates, heres Mint Lite.

India has hit a jackpot of rice

View Full Image Indias rice exports in 2020 may rise by 42% from a year ago to record highs because of reduced shipments from rival exporters and a depreciating rupee

Indias rice exports in 2020 may rise by 42% from a year ago to record highs because of reduced shipments from rival exporters and a depreciating rupee, Reuters reports. Higher shipments from India, the worlds biggest rice exporter, could cap global prices, reduce the countrys bulging inventories and limit government purchases from farmers. Its rice exports could jump to 14 million tonnes in 2020, up from last years 9.9 million tonnes, which was the lowest in eight years. Thailands shipments are falling due to drought, and Vietnam is struggling with a poor harvest, and their share of exports is coming to India. Thailand, the second largest rice exporter, suffered a drought earlier this year. Its shipments in 2020 could fall to 6.5 million tonnes, the lowest in 20 years. Vietnam, the third biggest exporter, is struggling with low water levels. China has also cut exports to Africa after floods hit its local crops.

A long walk that led to a Nobel win

View Full Image In 2011, French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier and US biochemist Jennifer Doudna met at a conference in Puerto Rico and went on a long walk around the town

In 2011, French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier and US biochemist Jennifer Doudna met at a conference in Puerto Rico and went on a long walk around the town. A year later, they published a paper that showed a bacterial enzyme Cas-9 could be paired with CRISPR segments of DNA to create a gene-editing tool. On Wednesday, they became the first two women to share the Nobel Prize for chemistry. While they proved the genetic scissors" could be used to edit DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms, US Harvard and Broad Institute did it on human cells. Doudna, who is with the University of California, Berkeley, and Charpentier of Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, are now in a patent battle with Broad Institutes Feng Zhang for US rights of the discovery. In the run-up to the virtual ceremony on 10 December, the Nobel foundation announced the medicine and the physics prizes earlier this week.

Giving gets more targeted

View Full Image The huge boost to the fortunes of technology and healthcare billionaires during the pandemic may be a good thing

The huge boost to the fortunes of technology and healthcare billionaires during the pandemic may be a good thing. These individuals may just be the ones who will lead economic recovery by focusing on digitization and philanthropy, says UBS and PwCs 2020 Billionaires Insights" report. Covid-19 may have made the worlds billionaires richerdespite the global economic shock, the worlds 500 richest people are a combined $813 billion richer now than they were at the beginning of 2020, but theyve also been giving more, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The worlds richest donated $7.2 billion publicly from March to June (see chart). They are focusing on tangible results like lowering incidents of a particular disease, instead of just the amount of cash donated.

A covid-detecting app for air travel

View Full Image To speed up the resumption of long-haul flights, an app that shows that travellers are free of covid-19 will begin trials this month

To speed up the resumption of long-haul flights, an app that shows that travellers are free of covid-19 will begin trials this month. CommonPass will be tested on United Airlines services between Newark and London, and Cathay Pacifics trips from Hong Kong to Singapore, said the World Economic Forum, which backs the plan. Volunteers must take a covid-19 test at a certified lab and upload results on to their phones, with the app generating a barcode to show that theyre disease-free, reports Bloomberg. The process will be observed by authorities like the US Customs and Border Protection and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Travel has barely revived as national restrictions continue to limit services and put people off flying. The app could help form the basis of a standardized system to overcome those curbs, according to the World Economic Forum, after slow progress with airport testing.

Bitcoins 12.3mn digit code in art

View Full Image British artist Benjamin Gentilli has given a physical form to bitcoin by hand painting the cryptocurrencys 12.3= million-digit founding code across 40 paintings

British artist Benjamin Gentilli has given a physical form to bitcoin by hand painting the cryptocurrencys 12.3= million-digit founding code across 40 paintings. Working under the project name Robert Alice, Gentilli, who also trades in the cryptocurrency, spent close to three years working on the canvases. The first 20 paintings were sold privately to collectors from the art and technology worlds; the rest are part of an auction at Christies in New York. The artist used specialist machinery to engrave each painting with over 300,000 digits of the complex code underpinning the virtual currency. Each digit was then hand-painted, reports CNN. The decision to split the work across 40 canvases was inspired by the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, issued and traded without the oversight of central banks. The idea behind the project, the artist says on his website, is to promote blockchain culture within the visual arts.

Curated by Shalini Umachandran and Pooja Singh. Have something to share with us? Write to us at businessoflife@livemint.com or tweet to @shalinimb

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Two former jail employees and their supervisor face cruelty charges after they forced inmates to listen to Baby Shark for hours on repeat, a court has heard.

Investigators found they forced at least four inmates to stand handcuffed for hours and listen to the childrens song, a prosecutor in the US said on Monday.

The inmates were secured to a wall with their hands cuffed behind them while the song played on a loop at a loud volume for hours, The Oklahoman reported.

The separate incidents occurred in November and December, according to court records.

Misdemeanour charges were filed on Monday against former Oklahoma County jail employees Gregory Cornell Butler Jr and Christian Charles Miles, both 21, and their supervisor, Christopher Raymond Hendershott, 50.

Prisoners were allegedly subjected to the hit song on repeat for hours. Source: Getty, file / Getty

It was unfortunate that I could not find a felony statute to fit this fact scenario, Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said.

I would have preferred filing a felony on this behaviour.

Butler and Miles are accused of imposing the discipline and Hendershott is accused of knowing about it but not stopping it, the newspaper reported.

Sheriff PD Taylor said Monday that Butler and Miles resigned during an internal investigation and that Hendershott retired.

We dont tolerate it, Taylor said of the mistreatment.

We always did an excellent job policing ourselves.

The Baby Shark song gained huge popularity two years ago after the company Pinkfong released its first video online.

The video has since been viewed more than 6.5 billion times on YouTube and has led to live shows and a wave of merchandise available for fans.

Canadian radio host Mike Stafford branded the song the most annoying earworm in musical history in an opinion piece for Global News.

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.
She failed to find love with Locky Gilbert on this year's season of The Bachelor.

But on Tuesday, Juliette Herrera showed no signs of heartbreak as she enjoyed lunch with her co-star Bec Cvilikas in Sydney's Rose Bay.

The 34-year-old stylist kept things cool and casual in a white Champion sweater and a matching pair of shorts.

Cool and casual: The Bachelor's Juliette Herrera (right) dressed casually in a jumper and shorts as she went for lunch with Bec Cvilikas (left) in Sydney's Rose Bay on Tuesday

Comfort: The 34-year-old wore a white Champion sweater and a matching pair of shorts

Juliette paired her ensemble with white sneakers and carried a blue handbag.

The Sydney-based stylist wore a full face of makeup, which included light foundation, maroon lip gloss and blush.

Meanwhile, Bec opted for black leggings, a matching crop top and a denim jacket.

The 25-year-old beauty consultant completed her outfit with white trainers and wore a neutral palette of makeup.

Beauty: The Sydney-based stylist wore a full face of makeup, which included light foundation, maroon lip gloss and blush

Accessories: Juliette paired her ensemble with white sneakers and carried a blue handbag

The sighting comes after Juliette claimed her Instagram inbox was full of direct messages (DMs) from several high-profile suitors.

She told news.com.au last month that she'd been chatting to a rising rapper from the U.S., who has been signed to Young Thug and Machine Gun Kelly's record label.

Juliette also alleged she was in touch with The Chainsmokers' producer and a 'businessman with a nice car.'

Chic: Bec looked stylish in a pair of black leggings, a matching crop top and a denim jacket

She then went on to claim she had received several messages from 24-year-old Spanish TikTok star Javi Luna.

'I probably shouldn't have said his name, but there we go, it's out there now,' she said of the social media sensation, who has 9.2 million followers.

'I can't be in LA right now so it's a bit of a tease for me,' the brunette added.

Moving on: The sighting comes after Juliette claimed her Instagram inbox was full of direct messages (DMs) from several high-profile suitors

Popular: She told news.com.au last month that she'd been chatting to a rising rapper from the U.S., who has been signed to Young Thug and Machine Gun Kelly's record label

Juliette also recently revealed she had originally auditioned to appear on Matt Agnew's season of The Bachelor.

During a Q&A session on Instagram Stories, Juliette revealed she had to turn down Channel 10's first offer because she had already booked and paid for a trip to the U.S.

'On Christmas producers called me again and were like, "Do you want to audition?"... I wasn't sure if I wanted to do but but was persuaded by my sister,' she explained.

Catching up: The friends also appeared to be deep in conversation as they sat down at a table
More than four months after the mid-Michigan dam failures on May 19, local and statewide organizations are still hard at work to fix damaged infrastructure.

Since June, the Four Lakes Task Force  a "delegated authority" working on behalf of Midland and Gladwin counties to oversee the maintenance and operations of the four lakes and their dams  has been working obtain ownership of the Secord, Smallwood, Edenville and Sanford dams from owner Boyce Hydro.

On July 16, FLTF announced its intention to use condemnation procedures to acquire the dams. Resolutions passed in Midland and Gladwin counties on June 9 authorized FLTF to execute and record a "declaration of taking" and declare the taking of the dam property by eminent domain under the applicable statutes of the State of Michigan.

FLTF spokesperson Stacey Trapani said the group is currently in "waiting mode" while the condemnation process is underway.

"Right now we're just waiting for something to happen, but we're very hopeful that sometime this fall we will be able to get access to the (dam) properties," Trapani said.

Once the FLTF gains access to the properties, Trapani said the first thing to do will be to more thoroughly examine the properties so they can accurately determine what measures will need to be taken to bring the dams back.

Currently, FLTF is focusing on erosion control efforts near the lakes, along with working with the Natural Resources Conservation Service on debris removal at the Sanford Dam.

During a Sept. 10 webinar, FLTF detailed an updated action plan regarding the recovery and restoration of the lake system and its dams. According to the action plan, the FLTF is working with the GEI Consultants agency to conduct preliminary engineering studies to determine the degree of damage to the dams.

According the findings, the probable cost to reconstruct and rehabilitate all four dams is currently estimated to be about $338 million. This plan specifies that all the predicted timelines and cost estimates are dependent on the timing of FLTF gaining control of the dams, as well as the results of the investigation and collaboration on the community, state and federal government levels. The numbers are expected to be refined over the next five months.

Dam construction predicted to begin in 2023

Construction on the Edenville Dam is predicted to occur between mid-2023 and mid-2025, with Wixom Lake potentially returning by 2026. Reconstruction of Sanford Dam is predicted to occur between mid-2023 and mid-2025, with the lake potentially returning in mid-2025.

While FLTF has not had direct access to the dams or all the inspection reports since June, GEI conducted preliminary engineering studies to determine the degree of damage, according to the action plan.

On Sept. 17, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) issued an emergency order to Boyce Hydro Power to perform critical repairs at the Edenville Dam. According to an EGLE press release, the dams remaining earthen embankment sustained significant damage during Mays flooding at both the Tobacco and Tittabawassee Rivers, requiring urgent action to increase public safety.

Road work ahead

While FLTF and EGLE have been attempting to restore local lakes and dams, the Michigan Department of Transportation has been working non-stop since the flooding to repair and reopen local roadways.

On Sept. 24, MDOT received an award of $25,363,228 in federal grants to fund reconstruction efforts on roads damaged by the flooding.

"This is the first installment of federal aid to help cover these repairs that have been ongoing," said Jocelyn Hall, MDOT Bay Region communications representative. "Our best estimate is that we have nearly $100 million in repairs due to the flooding and dam breach."

In Midland and Clare counties, westbound U.S.-10 from M-30 to North West River Road, along with eastbound U.S.-10 from U.S.-127 to North West River Road, were damaged by floodwaters and repaired by MDOT.

M-30 between Saginaw Road and M-20 in Midland County is also seeing repair work. Local roads in Midland County to see repair work soon include Curtis Road and Saginaw Street in Sanford. Cody Estey Road in Gladwin County will also be repaired.

In Gladwin County, MDOT is currently performing repair work on north and southbound M-30 (North Meridian Road) between Curtis Road and Dale Road.

M-30 over Tittabawassee River was opened to traffic on Sept. 17. The bridge opening allows access to the residents that were located on Mayfly Drive. Hall predicts that M-30 over the Tobacco River, a section of bridge located near Strykers Lakeside Marina in Beaverton, could be reopened by 2021.

Saginaw County roads to be repaired include M-47  from the divided highway to M-46  and M-52 over South Bad River in St. Charles.
(Natural News) Though its been trending in this direction for some time now, its practically official: The Democratic Party has become nothing more than a criminal enterprise whose objective is the capture of power, at any cost, and by any means, legal or illegal.

Were seeing more and more of that behavior this year than weve ever seen, mostly in regards to planning by the Democrat anarchy left to literally steal state races for national candidates as well as swing states for the hapless, clueless Joe Biden.

To us, that means the party really believes that President Trump has a much stronger chance of being reelected than the garbage polling  so wrong in 2016 as well  indicates. Otherwise, why bother trying to steal races?

The latest outrage involves the Colorado secretary of state, Jena Griswold: She is sending postcards to non-citizens and those who have died in order to get more registrations so more ballots can be cast in this vital swing state in November.

Breitbart News reports:

Griswold sent a mailer to several people who are not eligible to votein a swing state that has a U.S. Senate seat on the ballot this year and could prove pivotal in the presidential race.

Right now, incumbent U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner is a Republican clinging to his seat; to help his chances, Gardner came out in support of President Trumps latest Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whom the GOP-controlled Senate will attempt to vet and vote to appoint either before the Nov. 3 election or shortly thereafter, before a new Congress is seated (presuming the party loses control of the chamber).

But regardless of the resources the GOP is putting in the state to preserve Gardners seat, Colorados top elections official is putting her filthy, corrupt fingers on the scale to tip it in favor of a party that has to cheat to obtain power.

One Colorado resident, Karen Anderson, told local media she got a registration postcard in the mail that was addressed to her late mother.

Which sounds really nice except my mother has been dead four years and she hasnt lived, voted, owned property, worked, or done anything other than visit Colorado since 1967, Anderson told CBS4 (Note: The story link to the original CBS4 post is no longer valid).

I dont know where theyre harvesting names from but (theyre) doing it without obviously doing any kind of check, Anderson said, according to a separate report on the same story by the Washington Examiner. You hear about them trying to register dead people, but I never really thought Id see it.

The local CBS affiliate said it discovered a dozen cases where postcards were sent to people who cannot vote. They included a British citizen, six migrant workers, and a man from Lebanon, as well as Andersons late mother.

How many went out that nobody called in about it? Anderson wanted to know.

Thats a great question. And the local affiliate, after deleting its original story, asked Griswold to explain.

I think the key is that the mailing to encourage potentially unregistered people to register is not the same mailing as our ballot mailing. Those are two separate universes, she said.

When we send you a ballot or the county clerk sends out a ballot, those are to people who are registered. This postcard, encouraging people to register, goes to people who are potentially eligible but unregistered and, you know, the mailings arent always 100% correct, she added.

Thats incredibly lame because do you know what would fix all of this? Requiring people to vote in person and with an ID. Those who were infirm or who are shut-ins can request an absentee ballot, which are entirely different and far more secure (because they have to be validated).

Democrats are working overtime in states and jurisdictions they control to tilt elections in their favor  all the while claiming that President Trump is the one trying to suppress the vote. Its maddening.

Its also dangerous because if they succeed, or if they refuse to accept a Trump victory, then theres going to be trouble.

Sources include:

denver.CBSLocal.com

WashingtonExaminer.com

Breitbart.com
Leveraging all of Corvas extensive technology base and domain expertise, were creating a space on which developers, engineering, geo techs, and data junkies can endlessly imagine and make their software ideas a reality, all in a single solution

Corva, the leader in real-time drilling and completion analytics, announces the release of its latest product lineup that introduces five new and expanded solutions, including a new software development framework designed to allow energy companies and other third parties to build, host, and even monetize apps on the Corva Cloud. The product release also delivers a wide range of drilling apps for rapidly creating well designs, analyzing formations, improving directional drilling accuracy, and preventing catastrophic well events. Corvas latest round of product additions builds on the companys strategy to expand and enhance its category-leading drilling and completions platform through continuous product releases.

Corva Dev Center is poised to revolutionize how the oil & gas industry builds and consumes applications in the same way the iPhone changed how we think about consumer apps, said Ryan Dawson, CEO and Founder of Corva. Leveraging all of Corvas extensive technology base and domain expertise, were creating a space on which developers, engineering, geo techs, and data junkies can endlessly imagine and make their software ideas a reality, all in a single solution that renders data wrangling, hardcoding, and unsustainable solutions ancient history, Dawson said. He added, in addition to Dev Center, I am excited about the rest of our product release, which starts us on an exciting journey toward a 5-minute well pad program with the launch of Corva Well Design and introduces an arsenal of new apps for Formation Evaluation, Directional Drilling, and Well Control.

Energy companies have myriad needs to gather, process, analyze, and visualize business data, from pre-drill assessments, subsurface analysis, and planning to drilling, completions, and asset monitoring. Traditional software solutions require highly specialized programming knowledge to develop and rely on a fragmented array of development tools that create data silos and redundancies. As a result, these solutions are time-consuming to build, require code to be written from scratch, and expensive to maintain over time.

Corva Dev Center provides oil & gas teams and freelance developers a unified application delivery solution that offers a complete set of oil & gas specific building blocks, including live rig data streams, out of the box templates, rich user interface components, and more. As a result, teams eliminate the need to create code from scratch and host their own software while accelerating the deployment of purpose-built solutions on Corvas industry-leading cloud platform. This enables energy companies to maintain ownership of their intellectual property (IP), rapidly create solutions that match their needs and gain competitive advantage.

In addition to Corva Dev Center, the following product lines have been announced or expanded:



Well Design  A suite of engineering apps focused on minimizing the time required to create complex drilling programs. Includes Corvas Composite Well and Well Schematic apps.

Formation Evaluation  Next-generation well log visualization and analysis that enables cross-functional collaboration between engineering and geoscience teams via out of the box log views as well as custom templates that can be shared and reused.

Directional Drilling  Introduces Corvas Directional Guidance for analyzing bit divergence and automatically generating optimal drilling steps back to plan that balance cost and drilling performance. Plus, Bit Projection to visualize rotary and slide trends.

Well Control  A suite of apps designed to prevent dangerous kicks and lost circulation events. Enables drilling teams to compare flowback signatures on connections with Corvas Fingerprinting app and anticipate well control events using the automated Trip Sheet app.

With its latest product release, Corva continues to execute on its roadmap of solutions that target specific business challenges, workflows, and pain points from the rig to real-time operations centers. By incorporating well design into its platform, Corva now offers the industrys only unified well delivery platform built on the cloud for creating and implementing designs that help operators optimize costs and production returns.

About Corva

Corva is a Houston-based technology startup focused on helping oil & gas companies to optimize drilling and completions through real-time data insights and analytics. The company built a first-of-its-kind software platform for delivering a suite of nearly 100 mobile and web apps to monitor drilling and completions, identify hazardous conditions, and give users recommendations based on current and historical subsurface data. As a result, Corva increases rate of penetration, improves frac performance, and reduces costly rig downtime. Corvas software products support oil & gas drilling operations across North America with hundreds of users, including drilling engineers, superintendents, rig crews, and management. For more information, please visit http://www.corva.ai.
Maldives: Ex-pres did not wish to implement China-Maldives FTA, claims Nasheed

October 07,2020 | Source: AVAS

Former President of the Maldives, and Speaker of the Parliament Mohamed Nasheed has stated that former president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayyoom did not want to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Maldives and China. The Free Trade Agreement with China was approved by the Parliament in 2017 in under ten minutes during former president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayyoom's tenure. The contentious agreement was signed off after official talks between the then Maldives president and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during the former's first state visit to the global super power in 2017.



Kaashidhoo MP Abdulla Jabir has alleged that the current government is holding off on benefits that are to be given to local fishermen under the FTA. Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer was questioned on the matter during Wednesdays Parliament sitting. Responding to the MPs inquiry, Minister Ameer said the FTA can be implemented only after the relevant laws are formed and established, and that the responsibility of making the laws is on the parliament. However, the FTA does not bring a significant benefit to local fishermen, said the minister.



Supporting Minister Ameers statement, Speaker of the parliament, Mohamed Nasheed said according to Clause 165 of the FTA, the agreement will be implemented only after relevant laws are forumalated by both countries and after other relevant agreements are exchanged between both countries within 30 days of signing the FTA. Therefore, the FTA between both countries does not exist, said Nasheed. After Nasheeds comments prompted MP Jabir to question if Nasheed has the power to declare an official agreement as void, Nasheed responded by stating that he claimed the FTA did not exist due to incomplete procedures. While the administration of former president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayyoom had the opportunity to formulate the necesary laws, the work was not completed by Yameen as he himself did not wish to move forward with the FTA, claimed Nasheed.
When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the Caribbean Sea on Oct. 7, it gathered water vapor data on Hurricane Delta as Mexico's Yucatan continues to feel its effects.

Water vapor analysis of tropical cyclones tells forecasters how much potential a storm has to develop. Water vapor releases latent heat as it condenses into liquid. That liquid becomes clouds and thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone. Temperature is important when trying to understand how strong storms can be. The higher the cloud tops, the colder and stronger the storms.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Delta on Oct. 7 at 2:50 a.m. EDT (0650 UTC), and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument gathered water vapor content and temperature information. NASA's Aqua satellite is one in a fleet of NASA satellites that provide data for hurricane research.

The MODIS image showed highest concentrations of water vapor and coldest cloud top temperatures were around the center of circulation and east of the center. Strongest storms were over the northern Caribbean Sea, between Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and western Cuba. MODIS data also showed coldest cloud top temperatures were as cold as or colder than minus 90 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 67.7 degrees Celsius) in those storms. Storms with cloud top temperatures that cold have the capability to produce heavy rainfall.

At 5 a.m. EDT, NHC Senior Hurricane Specialist Eric Blake said, "Satellite images show very deep convection associated with Delta, with extremely cold cloud-top temperatures to minus 97 degrees Celsius noted southwest of the center overnight. However, this structure has not resulted in a stronger cyclone, and the full NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft mission actually indicated that Delta has significantly weakened since earlier today."

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted, "Through early Thursday, Delta is expected to produce 4 to 6 inches of rain, with isolated maximum totals of 10 inches, across portions of the northern Yucatan Peninsula. This rainfall may result in areas of significant flash flooding. In addition, 2 to 4 inches of rain, with isolated higher amounts, are expected across portions of western Cuba. This rainfall may result in areas of flash flooding and mudslides."

Warnings and Watches on Oct. 7

NHC issued a Hurricane Warning from Tulum to Dzilam, Mexico and for Cozumel. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the Cuban province of Pinar del Rio; from Punta Herrero to Tulum, Mexico; and from Dzilam to Progreso, Mexico.

Delta's Status on Oct. 7

At 8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC), the NHC said the center of Hurricane Delta was located by satellite images and surface observation inland over northeastern Mexico near latitude 21.1 degrees north and longitude 87.4 degrees west. Delta was centered just 35 miles (55 km) west of Cancun, Mexico.

Delta was moving toward the northwest near 17 mph (28 kph). A west northwestward-to-northwestward motion is expected over the next day or so. A slower northwestward to north-northwestward motion is forecast to begin on Thursday, and a northward motion is likely Thursday night and Friday. Maximum sustained winds are near 105 mph (165 kph) with higher gusts. The estimated minimum central pressure based on surface observations is 974 millibars.

Delta's Forecast Track

NHC forecasters said, "Although some additional weakening is likely when Delta moves over the Yucatan peninsula this morning, re-strengthening is forecast when the hurricane moves over the southern Gulf of Mexico Wednesday night and Thursday, and Delta could become a category 4 hurricane again by late Thursday. Weakening is expected as Delta approaches the northern Gulf coast on Friday.

On the forecast track, Delta is expected to move over the southern Gulf of Mexico during the afternoon of Oct. 7 and be over the southern or central Gulf of Mexico through Thursday. Delta is expected to approach the northern Gulf coast on Friday, Oct. 9."

NASA Researches Tropical Cyclones

Hurricanes/tropical cyclones are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

For more than five decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. Advancing knowledge of our home planet contributes directly to America's leadership in space and scientific exploration.

For NHC's Key Messages, visit: http://www.hurricanes.gov

By Rob Gutro NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

###
Fintech unicorn Paytm on Wednesday accused Google of double standards with respect to its policies around fantasy games on the Play Store. In a blog post announcing the return of Paytm First Games on the Play Store, Paytm said that the tech giant doesnt allow its real money app to be promoted on Google Play, but it can be promoted via YouTube by paying a hefty fee to Google".

While Paytm First Games is back on the store, the version you can download is a free app and doesnt allow real money fantasy gaming, the company said. To put it simply, the Play Store will ban the Paytm app or the Paytm First Games app if we promote our pro app. But it will freely allow YouTube to promote our free app, for a fee," the post said.

If Paytm promoted Paytm First Games, then Paytm app would also be violating their policies. But when YouTube promotes the same Paytm First pro app (for a hefty advertising fee), then it is not a violation of such policies and suddenly does not create a risk to the customers," the company added.

First reported by Mint, the Paytm First Games returned to the Play Store yesterday. The app currently lists many of the real money games that users can play on Paytm First, but doesnt allow them to actually make transactions, since cash in and cash-out transactions for fantasy games are banned as per the Play Store policies.

For real money games, one has to head to the Paytm First Games website to download the Pro version of the app. You can scroll down on the free app to find free games, which do not require real money transactions to be played. Games like rummy and ludo will be eventually added to the app, a person aware of the matter told Mint.

The fintech platform has been in a tussle with Google after the tech giant temporarily banned it from the Play Store on 18 September. While the company has been able to get both Paytm and Paytm First Games onto the Play Store again, it has led a vocal movement from startups in India against Googles policies.

The issue gained even more steam last week after Google gave a deadline to the Indian startups to comply with its Play Billing policies. The deadline was later extended to 30 September 2021. As per the billing policy, Indian companies are required to pay a 30% commission to Google on sales through the Play Store, which has been opposed by many.

The company has also started arranging meetings with developers to understand their concerns" and will be doing policy workshops with them to answer their questions.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.
SALT LAKE CITY - Trading barbs through plexiglass shields, Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Kamala Harris turned the only vice-presidential debate of 2020 into a dissection of the Trump administrations handling of the coronavirus pandemic, with Harris labeling it the greatest failure of any presidential administration.

Pence, who leads the presidents coronavirus task force, acknowledged that our nations gone through a very challenging time this year, yet vigorously defended the administrations overall response to a pandemic that has killed 210,000 Americans.

The meeting, which was far more civil than last weeks chaotic faceoff between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, unfolded against an outbreak of coronavirus now hitting the highest levels of the U.S. government. Trump spent three days at the hospital before returning to the White House on Monday, and more than a dozen White House and Pentagon officials are also infected, forcing even more into quarantine.

With less than four weeks before Election Day, the debate was one of the final opportunities for Trump and Pence to reset a contest that could be slipping away. Theyre hoping to move the campaigns focus away from the virus, but the presidents infection  and his downplaying of the consequences  are making that challenging.

Trump and Biden are scheduled to debate again on Oct. 15, though the status of that meeting is unclear. The president has said he wants to attend, but Biden says it shouldnt move forward if Trump still has coronavirus.

Republicans desperately want to cast the race as a choice between two candidates fighting to move the country in vastly different directions. Biden and Harris, they say, would pursue a far-left agenda bordering on socialism; the Democrats say Trumps administration will stoke racial and other divides, torpedo health care for people who arent wealthy and otherwise undercut national strength.

Harris, 55, made history by becoming the first Black woman to stand on a vice-presidential debate stage. She condemned the police killings of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and George Floyd in Minnesota and spoke about the protests against racial injustice in policing that followed, which Trump has portrayed as riots as he calls for law-and-order.

We are never going to condone violence but we must always fight for the values that we hold dear, Harris said. Im a former career prosecutor. I know what Im talking about. Bad cops are bad for good cops.

Pence, 61, said his heart breaks for Taylors family but he trusts the U.S. justice system. He called it remarkable that Harris, as a former attorney general and prosecutor, would question the grand jurys decision in the case not to charge an officer with killing her.

He also pushed back against the existence of systemic racism in police departments and rejected the idea that law enforcement officers have a bias against minorities.

I want everyone to know who puts on the uniform of law enforcement every day, President Trump and I stand with you, Pence said. We dont have to choose between supporting law enforcement, proving public safety and supporting our African American neighbours.

The candidates also clashed on taxes -- or specifically, Trumps refusal to release his tax returns four years after repeatedly promising to do so. The New York Times reported last month that the president pays very little personal income tax but owes hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

Itd be really good to know who the president owes money to, Harris said.

The one thing we know about Joe, he puts it all out there. He is honest, he is forthright, she added. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been about covering up everything.

Pence defended Trump as a job creator who has paid more than his fair share of taxes and shifted toward Biden: On Day One, Joe Bidens going to raise your taxes.

Both candidates sidestepped difficult questions at times.

Pence refused to say whether climate change was an existential threat or whether Trump would accept the election results should he lose, while Harris declined to say whether Biden would push to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court.

But so long as the coronavirus is ravaging the White House and killing several hundred Americans each day, the campaign will almost certainly be a referendum on the Trump administrations inability to control the pandemic, which Republicans have sought to downplay or ignore altogether for several months.

Pences effort to focus on other topics was undercut by the mere fact that the candidates and moderator were separated by plexiglass shields, seated more than 12 feet apart and facing a crowd of masked audience members who faced expulsion if they removed their face coverings. The candidates on stage revealed test results earlier in the day proving they were not infected.

While the audience was forced to wear face masks throughout, second lady Karen Pence removed her mask as she joined her husband on stage at the end of the debate.

Though the night was about Pence and Harris, the men at the top of the ticket also made their presence known.

Trump released a video just three hours before the debate calling his diagnosis a blessing in disguise because it shed light on an experimental antibody combination that he credited for his improved condition  though neither he nor his doctors have a way of knowing whether the drug had that effect.

He tweeted several times during the debate, offering this assessment at one point: Mike Pence is doing GREAT! She is a gaffe machine.

Biden too kept a stream of tweets going; he posted his plans for confronting the virus, shared clips from the debate exchanges and praised Harris, who he said is showing the American people why I chose her as my running mate.

___

Peoples reported from New York. Colvin reported from Washington.
(REUTERS)

Members of the Louisville Metro Police Department's SWAT unit who responded to the raid on Breonna Taylors home have criticised the police, including one member calling the raid an egregious act.

Lieutenant Dale Massey and other members of the SWAT team were interviewed by the Profession Integrity Unit following the 13 March raid.

During the interviews, members of the SWAT team said the three police officers violated their basic rule of policing: identify the target and whats in the background before shooting.

Sergeant Brandon Hogan called this rule basic academy stuff in interview transcripts obtained by the Louisville Journal-Courier.

The members of the SWAT team who responded to the fatal shooting at Ms Taylors apartment also told investigations they didnt know about the search of her residence, even though police debriefed them about other simultaneous warrants that night.

They actually didnt know about the police officers search of Ms Taylors home until they overheard an officer was wounded over police radios, the four team members said.

Were like, What are you talkin' about?'" Mr Massey recalled in an interview reported by WDRB. "You know, again, back to the point that we had no idea they were doin' a warrant."

When Mr Massey arrived on the scene, he observed multiple officers with their guns pointed at the apartment building. He told them to stand down.

"I mean, the target identification, there's  there's nothin' to point at because there's cars and everything else, you're just pointin' a gun to point a gun, he said.

Mr Massey added he told investigators that serving multiple warrants at once was bad business and dangerous. Also, according to Mr Massey, the search of Ms Taylors residence was never mentioned during briefing about a larger narcotics investigation in Louisville.

The Louisville Metro Police Department has declined to comment amid an ongoing investigation.

Story continues

Ms Taylor was shot and killed when Sergeant Jonathan Matitngly and detectives Myles Cosgrove and Brett Hankison fired more than 30 rounds after her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired what he described as a warning shot.

Mr Walker told investigators he did not know the police were at his door, despite claims from police they announced themselves multiple times. Instead, Mr Walker said he thought someone was breaking in.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Camerons office ruled Mr Mattingly and Mr Cosgrove were acting in self-defense during the fatal shooting.

A grand jury only indicted Mr Hankinson, who was already fired from the police department, on three counts of wanton endangerment after he fired multiple shots into an occupied apartment in Ms Taylors building.

No police officer involved in the fatal shooting of Ms Taylor have been charged for her death.

Read more

Disgusting: Kentucky AG responds to Megan Thee Stallions criticism

Audio released from grand jury hearings in Breonna Taylor case

Kentucky AG asks to delay release of Breonna Taylor grand jury tapes
United States Vice President Mike Pence and his Democratic challenger Senator Kamala Harris are all set for a crucial debate, which comes as Donald Trump is ill with coronavirus that has claimed over 200,000 American lives and battered the country's economy.

Harris, whose mother was from India and father from Jamaica, scripted history in August when she was picked up by the Democratic Party as its vice presidential nominee. She is the first Black woman and the first Asian-American woman to be selected as the vice presidential nominee of a major political party in the United States.

It will be for the first time in the American history that an Indian-origin person will be taking up the podium for a vice presidential debate in Salt Lake City, Utah on Wednesday night.

Political analysts believe that an aggressive Harris, 55, who aspires to be the first woman vice-president in history, will easily prevail over Pence, 61, during the only vice-presidential debate and help Biden, 77, to widen his lead over Trump, 74.

The debate comes nearly a week after the first of the three presidential debates in Cleveland on September 29 wherein Biden termed Trump a "liar" and a "clown" as the two candidates fiercely clashed over a number of issues, including racism, economy and climate.

Following the first presidential debate, Trump was tested COVID-19 positive and admitted to a military hospital, a development that upended his hectic campaign just weeks before the presidential elections on November 3. He returned to the White House on Monday night after spending four days at the hospital, but his doctors say the president may not entirely be out of the woods.

Biden, in the last few days, has widened his lead over Trump by double digit. However, the Trump campaign believes that Pence could come out with a stellar performance during the debate.

The debate gains added significance, given the COVID-19 infecting Trump, triggering speculation that Pence may be taking over the reigns of the country temporarily.

Also, many believe that Harris will be the real force in a Biden administration.

Both Pence and Harris have said that they are well prepared for the debate, which would be moderated by journalist Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief, USA Today. While the debate will likely cover a range of topics, the COVID-19 pandemic will be at the forefront.

According to reports, plexiglass will be installed between Pence and Harris who will stand 12.25 feet apart on the debate stage.

"The debates are a crucial part of making our democracy work and I am honoured to participate," Page said in a statement.

The debate will be divided into nine segments of approximately 10 minutes each, said the Commission on Presidential Debate. The moderator will ask an opening question after which each candidate will have two minutes to respond.

The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a deeper discussion of the topic, it said.

"We're looking very much forward to the vice-presidential debate," Pence told reporters at the Andrews Joint Air Force Base.

"The stakes in this election have never been higher, the choice has never been clearer, and I look forward to the opportunity to take our case to the American people for four more years for President Trump in the White House," he said.

Pence spoke over the phone with Trump before boarding Air Force Two. "I spoke to the President a little while back and he sounded great. As the American people learned just a little while ago, President Trump is going home tonight. So, we're headed to Utah for the vice presidential debate," he said.

According to his aides, Pence has some debate preparations. On Sunday Harris toured This Is The Place Monument, the location marking the end of the 1,300-mile trek to Utah by the early Mormons.

Harris was led by former Utah State Senator Scott Howell on the tour of the monument, which was erected in 1847 and also honours the Native Americans, Mountain Men and Spanish Catholic priests who explored the land before the settlement was established.

Former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said it would be a real mistake to underestimate the skills of Pence. Buttigieg is apparently helping Harris in debate preparations.

"He was very effective in 2016. And also in his debates, if you look in 2012, when he was running for governor, it would be a real mistake to underestimate. Largely because he doesn't seem to have any qualms about defending what many of us would consider indefensible, even if it flies in the face of his own professed values," he told Indianapolis Monthly in an interview.

Ajay Jain Bhutoria, member, national finance committee, Biden Campaign, said it will be an "unprecedented debate" in an unprecedented year.

This will be historic because Harris is the first Black woman and person of the Indian descent nominated for vice president by a major party and because of the circumstances facing the country, he said.

Harris maintained an ability to excite Democratic voters across the country and for all age groups, especially Among African Americans, Latinos, and Indian Americans, her spirited interrogations of Trump appointees as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he said.

She is tough on law and order stance and how she has fought inequality all her adult life, he said, adding that along with Biden, Harris will grow the Indo-US relations more stronger than ever.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 17:56:54|Editor: huaxia

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SEOUL, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Global rating company Fitch on Wednesday affirmed South Korea's long-term sovereign rating at "AA-" with a "stable" outlook.

Fitch said in a statement that the COVID-19 pandemic weighed on economic growth and public finances of South Korea.

However, the company noted that domestic control of the virus accompanied by a robust policy response limited the severity of the deterioration.

Fitch expected the South Korean economy to contract by a modest 1.1 percent in 2020, citing an effective COVID-19 containment strategy without the need to resort to strict lockdown measures.

The sharp global economic downturn hit the country's export and weighed on domestic investment in the first half, but domestic consumption held up well, the company noted.

South Korea's export rebounded in recent months, benefiting from surging demand for electronic products and a particularly strong recovery in China, Fitch said.

Fitch added that a gradual recovery is underway in the second half due to a broader recovery in the global economy. Enditem
A vaccine against COVID-19 may be ready by year-end, the head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for solidarity and political commitment by all leaders to ensure equal distribution of vaccines when they become available.

"We will need vaccines and there is hope that by the end of this year we may have a vaccine. There is hope," Tedros said in final remarks to the WHO 's Executive Board, without elaborating. Nine experimental vaccines are in the pipeline of the WHO's COVAX global vaccine facility that aims to distribute 2 billion doses by the end of 2021.

The two-day board meeting, which examined the global response to the pandemic, heard calls from countries including Germany, Britain and Australia for reforms to strengthen the U.N. agency. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has strongly criticised the WHO's role in the crisis, accusing it of being too close to China and not doing enough to question Beijing's actions late last year when the virus first emerged in Wuhan.

Tedros has dismissed the suggestions and said his agency has kept the world informed. Three independent panels reviewing WHO performance including its 2005 International Health Regulations - which set guidelines on trade and travel restrictions imposed during health emergencies - gave updates on their work.

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, met for the first time last month. "We hope to get the real lessons that we can implement and prevent the same thing from happening," Tedros said. "But I would like to assure you that WHO is ready to learn from this and change this organisation.

"During our transformation we promised this, we promised to keep change as a constant," he said, referring to his programme since taking the helm in 2017.
Listowel-based detectives arrested a man in his late 20s in the town on Monday in connection with Friday's dramatic CAB raid targeting a suspected crime gang involved in the sale and supply of illegal drugs.

Up to 60 CAB officers and local gardai, accompanied by members of the Garda Southern Region Armed Support Unit (ASU), swooped on four properties in a cavalcade of multiple cars and jeeps in the ordinarily peaceful North Kerry town shortly after dawn on Friday.

The massive search operation was initially reported to have seized 12,600 in cash, a Mercedes car, two Rolex watches, a caravan suspected to have been stolen, electronic devices and documents, as well as suspected cocaine to an estimate street value of 2,000.

However, The Kerryman can reveal that up to a further 10,000-worth of cocaine and 2,060 in cash was seized as the investigation continued.

Meanwhile, Interpol confirmed to the investigation that the caravan seized in the raid was listed on an EU-wide database of stolen goods.

The caravan was seized by Listowel gardai on Friday, rather than by CAB officers, as it was not strictly deemed an 'asset' - but rather a suspected stolen item at the time of the raid. Stolen goods can often end up with innocent consumers.

Detectives in Listowel moved on Monday to arrest one man, in his late 20s, in connection with the raids.

He was taken to Tralee Garda Station, where he was questioned over several hours in relation to the seizure of cocaine and of the 2,060 in cash.

The man was released on Monday night without charge, with a file now being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to the matters on which he was questioned.

A professional service was also involved in the operation, but only as it was believed to have held some documents of interest to the investigation. The service was entirely law-abiding and only fell under the ambit of the probe over documents relating to properties searched.
Texans have been abundantly patient with Ken Paxton since he was elected Texas attorney general in 2014.

Consider the evidence: Paxton was indicted within months of being sworn in as the states top law enforcement official, charged with securities fraud and failure to register with the state securities board, both felonies. He declared himself the victim in that situation and sought reelection while still under indictment. And, along the way, hes proved himself to be a pugilistic political partisan, leading  among other things  the lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act that will reach the Supreme Court next month.

Granted, many Texans took a dim view of all this; Paxton won re-election in a squeaker, edging the little-known yet well-regarded Democratic candidate, attorney Justin Nelson, by less than 4 points that year. And yet Paxton has soldiered on, routinely filing lawsuits dealing with hot-button social issues or challenging the authority of local officials who want to encourage more voter participation, all the while under his own legal cloud.

Clearly, that should change.

In fact, Paxton should have resigned already in the wake of a bombshell report from the Austin American-Statesman last week laying out seven former and current top aides have accused him of abuse of office and bribery, among other potential crimes.

The fact that he hasnt resigned tells you pretty much all you need to know about Paxton. (He has maintained he is innocent of the criminal charges).

And the fact that Paxton isnt expected to resign reflects terribly on the Republican Party of Texas, whose leaders are reluctant, even now, to come out and condemn his questionable conduct.

The scandal currently surrounding Paxton is a doozy. On Friday, seven of Paxtons top aides sent a letter to the agencys human resources department, explaining that they had already contacted appropriate law enforcement to call for an investigation of Paxton.

We have a good faith belief that the attorney general is violating federal and/or state law including prohibitions related to improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses, they wrote in the letter, which noted that they had also informed Paxton of their concerns via text message.

In that text message, which was obtained by Hearst Newspapers, Paxton first assistant, Jeff Mateer, explained that he and the other six aides had made a good faith report of violations by you to an appropriate law enforcement authority concerning your relationship and activities with Nate Paul  an Austin-based real estate investor who donated $25,000 to Paxtons 2018 re-election bid.

Paul, according to the Houston Chronicles reporting, came under scrutiny himself and found Paxton willing to give him a sympathetic hearing: the attorney general appointed Houston lawyer Brandon Cammock as a special prosecutor, and Cammock last week issued grand jury subpoenas targeting Pauls adversaries, according to a senior official at the agency.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Austin investor Nate Paul at center of allegations against Texas AG Ken Paxton

Mateer resigned on Friday. The other six aides  Mateers deputy Ryan Bangert, as well as deputy attorneys general James Blake Brickman, Lacey Mase, Darren McCarty, Mark Penley and Ryan Vassar  remain at the agency.

Paxton has responded to all of this defiantly, dismissing the aides  again, his own top aides and all of them political appointees affiliated with the conservative wing of the GOP  as dishonest actors.

Despite the effort by rogue employees and their false allegations I will continue to seek justice in Texas and will not be resigning, he said, in a statement.

Some Texans might find that persuasive.

Most wouldnt.

Paxton, to be clear, has not been convicted of any crimes. As noted, however, he has been under indictment since 2015.

He has also been accused of a variety of petty yet revealing misdeeds over the years. In 2014, he was forced to return a Montblanc pen worth $1,000 to a fellow attorney who had left it in the security bins at the entrance to the Collin County courthouse. Paxton, then a state representative, was identified on security footage as the person who pocketed the refined pen. (He has long maintained that it was an innocent error.)

Paxtons fellow Republicans have mostly turned a blind eye to such shenanigans. According to Mark P. Jones of Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy, that may have given the attorney general a false sense of security.

Since Paxton has been successful in avoiding consequences for his alleged security fraud for a half dozen years, I suspect in the back of his mind he may think he can also dodge the bullet this time around, Jones told me. Also, he may hope to use his resignation, perhaps the only leverage he still has, to try and negotiate some type of benefits, although I doubt Governor Abbott, Lt. Gov. Patrick or anyone else are much in the mood to negotiate.

Jones added that Paxton could also be impeached by the Texas Legislature, which convenes for its next regular session in January.

Abbott and Patrick do seem to be tired of defending Paxton, .

These allegations raise serious concerns, said the governor, a fellow Republican, in a statement. I will withhold further comment until the results of any investigation are complete.

But such expressions of concern arent going to cut it. Even if Paxton is innocent of these new allegations  and of the charges filed against him five years ago, which have yet to be addressed in court amid squabbling over legal fees and whether the case should be sent to his home county of Collin County  he is no longer capable of credibly running the agency.

Some Republican lawmakers have had the courage to say so.

Although innocent until proven guilty, AG Paxton has been under indictment for the past five years. With these new allegations of bribery and abuse of office, Paxton needs to quickly address these allegations or resign so he can devote his time to his own personal legal matters, said state Rep. Sarah Davis, a Houston Republican.

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, who represents the 21st Congressional District in central Texas and previously served as Paxtons first assistant, issued a statement calling on Paxton to resign, saying that his attacks on his own aides are unwarranted and preclude the possibility of any other resolution.

The work of the Office of the Attorney General of Texas is too critical to the state and her people to leave in chaos and to risk the work of over 700 lawyers managing almost 30,000 legal cases at any given moment, including major cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as processing over $4 Billion in Child Support, Roy said.

The Attorney General deserves his days in court, but the people of Texas deserve a fully functioning AGs office, he added.

Davis and Roy are right. That the states chief legal officer clings to power five years after he was first indicted and amid a mutiny from his top aides is absurd.

Paxton should resign, for the good of his party, his state and the agency he leads.

Texans frankly deserve better.

erica.grieder@chron.com
PINCONNING, MI  A weekend fire heavily damaged a pickle manufacturer and major employer in northern Bay County. An official with the company said Wednesday they are working to keep up with the demands of production and planning their next steps.

Wed like to rebuild. Were looking at it right now and weve got to see how devastating it is, said Joseph Janicke, president of Bay View Foods and Mr. Chips Inc., located in Bay Countys Fraser Township, just south of Pinconning. Weve got to see what the economics of it is."

Formed in 2000, Mr. Chips Inc. is a subsidiary of Bay View Foods and processes and packages pickle, pepper, and relish products, according to the companys website. Joseph Janickes late father, Francis Janicke, founded the company in 1946.

With approximately 175 employees in the Pinconning area, about 150 of whom work for Mr. Chips, Bay View Foods is one of communitys largest employers. The city of Pinconning has a population of about 1,230.

Josh Klee, president of the Pinconning Linwood Area Chamber of Commerce, said in addition to being a major area employer, Bay View Foods/Mr. Chips is a longtime chamber member.

In fact, they were the 2010 recipient of our Economic Development Award, for their diligent work in helping our community through the recession. They did so by expanding and bringing on more employees at a time when it was difficult for many business and people in our region," Klee said. Our community is deeply saddened by the fire. Our hearts go out to everyone impacted by this situation. We will continue to support this wonderful business in anyway possible during this challenging time.

Firefighters responded to the structure fire at the facility, located at 2606 N. Huron Road (M-13), Saturday afternoon, Oct. 3. Joseph Janicke said the cause of the fire has yet to be determined, but flames were first spotted coming from an empty brine tank. The manufacturing facility is a total loss, but the companys grading and brining operation was undamaged, he said.

I think it was spray foam insulation in the roofline and once the flames hit that it just took right off, you couldnt put it out, he said.

It took more than 60 firefighters and 400,000 gallons of water to stop the blaze. Some nearby residents were evacuated for approximately two hours because of deteriorating air quality in the area.

We are so thankful for all of our fire departments and volunteers that worked so hard to extinguish the fire and save this business. These men and women work tirelessly to protect our community and we are very grateful," Klee said.

No one was injured as a result of the fire.

That was the only good thing about the whole deal, Janicke said.

For now, the company is shifting some of its production to its plant in Macon, Georgia, about 84 miles southeast of Atlanta, where theyre adding shifts in an effort to keep the companys existing accounts, Janicke said.

Its just a matter of running that stronger than what we ran Michigan, he said of the plant down South.

Vice President Sharon Janicke said some Mr. Chips employees are being temporarily relocated to Georgia.

Theyre going to start running extra lines down there to at least help do some packaging for some of our customers that we have, she said. In fact, some left at 4:30 this morning to drive down, weve got more going this weekend. You know, were going to try our best to supply what we can. And other companies have reached out to co-pack for us as well, but we havent even crossed that path yet."

Joseph Janicke said when it comes to the future of the site and next steps, theres still a lot to learn and figure out. A Servpro crew was there Wednesday, Oct. 7, working on cleanup.

The actual production facility is pretty well wiped right out, so its pretty bad, he said of the damage. After they get through there, we can evaluate if theres much we can keep or not keep, and were looking at putting a temporary building up to maybe do a little of the manufacturing here so everythings up in the air yet.

Joseph and Sharon Janicke wished to thank the community for its support during this difficult time.

Weve got a great foundation with our employees and theyre just really digging in," Sharon Janicke said. Our hearts break for the families...look at the 175 families up there, you know, that count on us. So were going to work as quickly and efficiently as we can to get this resolved.

Her husband added, Ive had a lot of support from a lot of people around and I appreciate all of them, thank you."

Read more on MLive:

More than 60 firefighters, 400K gallons of water used fighting fire at Mr. Chips near Pinconning

Mr. Chips company on fire in northern Bay County, M-13 closed
It would be indefensible to expect the drinks and hospitality industry to continue to pay exorbitantly high excise taxes in light of the ongoing restrictions, the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) said.

A new report from the group shows Ireland has the highest excise tax on wine in the EU, the second-highest on beer and the third highest on spirits.

In Ireland, 80 cents of excise tax is paid on every glass of wine served, 60 cents of excise on each glass of whiskey and 54 cents of excise on every pint of stout.

In comparison, in Germany just five cents is levied on a pint of lager, while one cent of excise is levied on a glass of wine in France.

The research, which was undertaken by economist Anthony Foley found that Irelands overall composite alcohol excise level is 130.8% higher than the fifth-ranked country of Estonia and is substantially higher than all other EU economies which have lower excise levels than Estonia.

Liam Reid, Chair of Drinks Industry Group of Ireland.

Liam Reid, Chair of DIGI said it would be indefensible to continue to expect pubs, bars restaurants and hotels, many of which have had to close or partially close under new Level restrictions, to continue to pay exorbitantly high rates of tax when they are allowed re-open.

Were in a situation where the hospitality industry is unfairly and disproportionately impacted as a result of Covid-19. Wet pubs in Dublin have yet to reopen  seven months later  and the Level 3 ban on indoor seating for every other licensed premises mean many will shut their doors.

Mr Reid said the combination of the current restrictions on the hospitality in place and this level of taxation immediately pushes most hard-pressed businesses into a loss-making situation.

The Minister for Finance himself last week recognised the emergence of a dual economy in Ireland, whereby multinational companies continue to perform well despite the pandemic and lockdown, but domestic industries, like drinks and hospitality, face a far more uncertain future.

In the interest of a fair and rapid economic recovery that will benefit thousands of businesses, rural Ireland, and young people, we strongly urge the government to reduce excise tax on drinks products by 15% minimum in Budget 2021. This can be done overnight, requiring no new legislation.

This is a highly targeted measure that would have an immediate effect on the drinks and hospitality industry, putting more money back in the pockets of hoteliers, publicans, restauranteurs, brewers, and distillers, allowing them to quickly re-hire staff, service debt, offset reduced capacity penalties, and prepare for a challenging economic period.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 14:53:56|Editor: huaxia

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WUHAN, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Thirty key tourist attractions in central China's Hubei Province, once hard hit by COVID-19, have received over 1.77 million tourists as of Tuesday during the National Day holiday, according to local tourism authorities.

The data from the provincial department of culture and tourism showed the comprehensive income of the tourist attractions exceeded 174.5 million yuan (about 25.7 million U.S. dollars) as of Tuesday during the holiday.

Some hot tourist attractions in the province such as the Yellow Crane Tower, a landmark in the provincial capital of Wuhan, reached the maximum carrying capacity limit for the number of tourists, the department said.

Since a tourism promotion event for the province was launched, over 380 tourist attractions in Hubei have received over 24.2 million tourists from Aug. 8 to Sept. 30, with the comprehensive income exceeding 2.09 billion yuan.

The province has organized 1,348 volunteers to provide tourism consultation and other services for the tourists.

China celebrates its National Day on Oct. 1, which coincided with the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival this year, thus extending the weeklong National Day holiday to eight days until Oct. 8. Enditem
[Follow our live vice presidential debate updates between Harris and Pence.]

There usually isnt much drama about the seating arrangements at vice-presidential debates.

But what would 2020 be without a little back-and-forth over how much of the same air is shared by Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris of California?

This week, as the scope of the White House coronavirus outbreak became clear  with positive tests now for President Trump, Melania Trump and at least eight aides, along with his campaign manager, the Republican National Committee chairwoman and three Republican senators  Mr. Pences aides have publicly mocked Ms. Harris for seeking protection from the air breathed out by the vice president during Wednesdays debate at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

The Commission on Presidential Debates will allow Ms. Harris and the debates moderator, Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief for USA Today, to surround themselves with plexiglass shields. Mr. Pences aides at first suggested he would not use one but on Tuesday night told the commission he would.
HEATHERTON, N.L. - A fire that raged in Heatherton, N.L., this morning and affected several buildings has been extinguished.

RCMP say the fire broke out in a vacant two-storey home at around 8:40 a.m. Wednesday.

It spread to an empty store nearby, and the heat from the flames damaged three other houses.

Muriel Brown, who works at the local Home Hardware store, said the air in the town was thick with smoke and the flames were visible.

Police say the house where the fire began burned to the ground and is a complete loss, and their investigation into the cause of the fire is continuing.

Heatherton is on the west coast of Newfoundland, about 120 kilometres south of Corner Brook.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 7, 2020.
CHENNAI: The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) on Wednesday announced that incumbent Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami will be the partys chief ministerial candidate for the Tamil Nadu assembly election in 2021.

The announcement was made by Deputy Chief Minister & AIADMK leader O Panneerselvam after weeks of negotiation and speculation.

The AIADMK has constituted a steering committee of 11 members for 2021 Assembly elections in the state, said Chief Minister Palaniswami.

AIADMK party has constituted a steering committee of 11 members for 2021 assembly elections in the state: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister & AIADMK leader Edappadi K Palaniswami https://t.co/190CyEiW1Q pic.twitter.com/JC5Ubw7g3j  ANI (@ANI) October 7, 2020

In 2017, when two factions of the party merged, the formation of a steering committee was one of the key demands put forth by the camp led by O Panneerselvam, who is deputy chief minister now.

A large number of party workers had gathered at the AIADMK office in Chennai this morning in anticipation of the announcement.

Live TV

On October 1, Tamil Nadu Minister D Jayakumar had sought to play down reports of differences between Chief Minister E Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, saying that there are no differences between the two.

On reports that Panneerselvam earlier skipped the meeting called by the Chief Minister and met party members, he said, "He is our party organisation coordinator, so what is the problem if he meets party members. There could be many reasons for not attending the Chief Minister`s meeting, like meeting medical experts etc. But please don`t link it to politics."

Earlier, sources said that during the AIADMK`s executive party meet on September 28, the discussions for party`s Chief Ministerial face was debated for more than five hours with Palaniswami and Panneerselvam in the race.

During the meeting, it was also felt that in case the current Chief Minister was not named as the candidate for the next year`s Assembly elections it would make the party and its government in the state a subject of ridicule for the Opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).

Palaniswami got backing from senior leaders S Semmalai, P Thangamani, CV Shanmugam and Natham R Viswanathan in the meeting.

A top source in the party, who himself was earlier backing Panneerselvam before the merger, said that the debate around the Chief Minister post candidate should be considered settled now with most of the leaders agreeing with the final outcome "as of now" to Palaniswami as a candidate for 2021 elections.

After the death of former AIADMK chief and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in December 2016, the party faced a major crisis as two opposing camps, led by Palaniswami and Panneerselvam, fought for the top post. This happened after Panneerselvam had rebelled against former AIADMK General Secretary VK Sasikala. However, the two factions merged later in 2017, and Palaniswami took oath as the chief minister, with Paneerselvam becoming his deputy.
Contributed /Getty Images

New York State Police said a 24-year-old New Haven woman was injured during a skydiving accident in the south central part of the state.

Police were called to Skydive the Ranch in the town of Gardiner, about 80 miles northeast of New York City, around 2:25 p.m. Monday after the accident was reported.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister



Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Wednesday expressed confidence that district in the state will overtake capital and in future in terms of development.

He made the statement while virtually dedicating a super-speciality hospital built here at an estimated cost of Rs 150 crore.

Chouhan assured the people on the occasion that will not face any problems in development.

" will even go ahead of and in future in terms of development," he said.

"In the last 15 years, Rewa has got many projects like Bansagar Dam, Solar power plant, Mukundpur White Tiger safari and now the super-speciality hospital," Chouhan added.

Turning emotional on the occasion, the chief minister said, "I am grateful to the people of Vindhya region as they have given me a special gift in the state. I will not just greet you with folded hands, but through a 'sashtang dandvat' (prostration) to express my gratitude."



He then walked in front of the dais, bowed down and touched his forehead to the ground.

Party sources said the BJP had won 24 seats from the Vindhya region in the 2018 assembly elections, while the Congress had won six.

On the occasion, the chief minister also laid the foundation stone for several developmental projects worth Rs 399 crore.

He announced that Rewa's Kushabhau Thakre district hospital will be upgraded and turned into a 200-bed facility.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, who attended the event from Delhi, described Chouhan as a "true servant of people".

He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would soon launch an awareness campaign against coronavirus, wherein people of Madhya Pradesh will play a key role.

(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.)
An anti-masker in Kansas spoke out about the discrimination she faces for her decision not to wear a mask during a recent vote on whether the states face covering mandate should be extended in her county.

Nicole Atwood was among dozens of Johnson County residents who addressed the board of commissioners during a public meeting on September 17 ahead of their vote on the mandate.

She claimed she is discriminated against every single day in my county now, sometimes multiple times a day, as she urged to board to get rid of masks and stop her from being treated like a second-class citizen.

Atwood added that she loves my fellow Americans but that masks were dividing the community and causing people to treat her like Im some sort of diseased leper because she chooses not to wear one.

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Anti-masker Nicole Atwood was among dozens of Johnson County residents who addressed the board of commissioners during a public meeting on September 17 about a mask mandate

I just wanted to share my experience with you, what its been like being and unmasked individual in Johnson County this summer, Atwood said, as she began her plea to the board.

I could say a lot about my time in Johnson County this summer not wearing a mask, which is my choice as a free individual but Ill boil it down to one point, which is discrimination.

It has nothing to do with the virus and has everything to do with how we treat one another. I am discriminated against every single day in my county now, sometimes multiple times a day.

'Im told stand back, stand back; you dont care about other people; you cant come in here; maam, maam, excuse me, maam, you have to wear a mask". The best one, leave, she continued.

Im treated, we are treated, worse than second-class citizens. We are treated like were not even human, never mind someones fellow American.

Atwood continued with a story which she said was an example of the ways she is now being discriminated against on a day-to-day basis because of masks.

Yesterday, I went to mail a package at my local FedEx, walk in, set the package down on the counter, politely ask for a scan and a receipt, Atwood said.

Stand back, get back, no right there, move, move back, stand on the purple dot on the ground, the purple dot. OK, so I did. He ran the package and the receipt, didnt put the receipt on the same counter that I put the package on but put it over to the side. I had to walk around the counter as to avoid him and he retreated from his register as I approached like Im some sort of diseased leper.

'This is our community now. This is the division that has been created by you guys allowing these mandates to continue, she accused the board.

Atwood was speaking on September 17 during a public meeting of the Johnson County Board of Commissioners over a decision to extend the mandate on wearing masks indoors

Atwood spoke for two minutes about the 'discrimination' she faces for not wearing a mask

Atwood acted out how she says she has been treated for not wearing a mask

I love my fellow Americans and I love my fellow Johnson Countians and you guys are dividing us every day more and more. Please stop. This has to stop now.

If we are to regain our sense of community, it has to happen now before its too late so please, please, no more masks, Atwood concluded.

Despite her pleas, the Johnson County Board of Commissioners voted to extend Governor Laura Kellys executive order requiring masks or other face coverings in indoor spaces.

The county first voted to pass the mandate on July 2 after a long debate. Last months debate was even longer, lasting over three hours, with around 60 residents speaking for and against the mandate before a decision was made.

Many residents not wearing masks also crowded outside the room to express their opposition to the mandate.

The mandate reaffirmed through to October 15 by a vote of 4-3.

The debate at times became heated as pro- and anti-maskers each addressed the board for several minutes and some even became teary in their speeches. Many told personal stories, while others quoted Christian scripture, Shawnee Mission Post reported.

'You had doctors, and you have the information from other genealogists, and you have the information from the state of Kansas, which, thank God for Laura Kelly, she's using science,' Cassie Woolworth said during the public comments.

'Please, dear God, Johnson County. Johnson County, Kansas, in the United States of America, could we please tell the world we believe in science?

'Now, I know your constituents out there that are whining. My kids don't want to wear shoes in stores. My kids have seat belts. I mean, we do it for their own good.'

Johnson County, highlighted top right in darker blue, accounts for 12,071 cases

Coronavirus cases in Kansas have remained high throughout September and October

'If there is no case to be made, or the evidence is so meager, that mandates really have no bearing whatsoever, and it's really kind of a form of oppression, you're managing something that has nothing to back it up just because some people are upset,' argued another resident Paul Bertrand.

'I guess Im not anti-masks or pro-masks. I'm arguing anti-mandate because that it's against our freedom.'

Others vowed that they would not comply with the mandate even if it was passed.

'Your mandate only has power if people listen to it,' said Britney Valas. 'I have never worn a mask, not once. Your mandate has not affected me personally at all. It will not affect me personally for the rest of my life.

'I dont care about your mandate. Im throwing my mask away.'

The vote to keep the masks was taken after six public school districts in the county sent a letter to the board of commissioners asking for the mask mandate to continue, according to KMBC.

'We collectively represent almost 100,000 public school students in the county, and we strongly believe that a public face mask requirement is critical to helping decrease the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community, in order to help students, staff and families remain safe,' the letter said.

'Our communities are desperate to have schools open, and students safely back in class. Unfortunately, the county has struggled to control the spread of COVID-19 virus in the community, and the spread has made it difficult to make progress toward getting all students back in school.'

Gov. Kelly extended the states mandate last month but counties have the power to enforce less stringent restrictions.

On Monday, Kansas health officials report a new pandemic record for average daily hospitalizations.

The state had an average of 26.29 new coronavirus hospitalizations per day for the seven days ending Monday. The previous high was 23.86 for the seven days ending Friday.

The rate of tests coming back positive in Kansas now sits at 7.2 percent.

Kansas has had 62,708 coronavirus cases and 706 deaths.

Johnson County accounts for 12,071 of those cases and is the states major hotspot.
With the All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) panel ruling Sushant Singh Rajputs death a suicide, Huma Qureshi feels that Rhea Chakraborty deserves an apology. Huma also lashed out at people who started the murder conspiracy theories.

Everyone owes #RheaChakraborty an apology .. And there must be an investigation into people who started these murder conspiracy theories .. Shame on you for destroying a girl and her familys life for your agendas @Tweet2Rhea, Huma wrote on Twitter.

Sushant was found dead in his Mumbai home on June 14. In July, his father KK Singh filed an FIR against Rhea in Patna, alleging abetment to suicide and misappropriation of funds, among other things.

Rhea is being investigated by three agencies - the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). She was arrested by the NCB last month for allegedly procuring drugs for Sushant.

After being remanded to judicial custody for nearly a month, Rhea was granted bail by the Bombay High Court on Wednesday. She was released from the Byculla jail on Wednesday evening.

Also read: Emilia Clarke had issues with sexual assault scene in Game of Thrones, George RR Martin slams change made to plot

Dr Sudhir Gupta, who was leading the AIIMS panel, told ANI that there was no evidence to suggest that Sushants death was a murder. 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, he said.

Vikas Singh, the lawyer representing Sushants family, dismissed the AIIMS report and called the conduct of Dr Sudhir Gupta unethical. In a letter addressed to the CBI director, the senior advocate accused the doctor of selectively (leaking) the report to a few media houses and irresponsibly commenting that Sushants death was a suicide. Clearly the said leak is aimed at creating doubts in the mind of people, bailing out agencies who have not done their job as per rules and standard protocols, benefitting the culprits and derailing the course of ongoing investigation, he wrote.

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


By Park Yoon-bae







The results of the prosecution's investigation into a scandal involving Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae and her son are raising more questions than they answer. The reason is clear: Many people believe her son received special treatment during his military service at the behest of the then chairwoman of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK).



On Sept. 28, the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office cleared Choo of suspicions that she exercised her influence to help her son illicitly extend his sick leave in 2017. Her exoneration, however, is unlikely to clean up the mess regarding the scandal. Instead, it is arousing more suspicions not only about the case but also the prosecution's investigation.



Minister Choo might think she and her son are lucky to avoid any criminal charges. But she faces a strong backlash from the public, not to mention severe criticism by the opposition parties, because she lied about what she had done for her child.



Nevertheless, Choo is categorically denying that she was dishonest. But her denial is complete and utter nonsense. She has kept claiming that she had never asked her aide to call a Korean Army captain to extend her son's sick leave after he underwent knee surgery at Samsung Medical Center.



During an interpellation session at the National Assembly, she stated that she had no reason to tell her aide to make such a phone call to discuss personal favors for her son. But it was later found that she sent the aide a cellphone message containing the captain's name and phone number.



She only admitted the transmission of the message. However, she has refused to explain why the message was sent. It makes no sense for her to argue that her aide voluntarily called the captain to make an "inquiry" about whether it was possible to have her son's leave extended without returning to his unit.



In every respect, her message must be interpreted as a direct request for her aide to call the captain to ask for a favor regarding her son's leave extension. No one knows this better than Choo, a judge-turned-politician who was a four-term lawmaker. She seems to be second to none at taking advantage of legal loopholes not to incriminate herself. How smart she is!



Some people say that if one tells a lie repeatedly, they may start to believe that such a lie is true. Choo could be a typical example of just that tendency. Now the question is if she believes she can deceive the people forever.



Furthermore, can Choo deceive herself forever? Probably she can if she has no qualms of conscience. She cannot and should not serve as justice minister anymore if she continues to betray her conscience.



The justice minister's top priority is to ensure the rule of law, one of the key pillars of democracy. However, Choo has come under fire for doing the opposite since she took the helm of the justice ministry in January.



The first thing she did as minister was to prevent Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, an anticorruption crusader, from investigating the inner circle of President Moon Jae-in for suspected corruption, election rigging, power abuse and influence peddling. One of the core members is Choo's predecessor, Cho Kuk, who is standing trial on charges of corruption and admissions fraud involving his daughter.



Choo cannot avoid criticism for trying to save Cho by weakening Yoon's power as the top prosecutor in the name of prosecutorial reform. She has become the second justice minister to invoke their authority to directly command the prosecution over its investigation of a specific criminal case. That's why she has been called out for interfering with investigations.



More than anything else, reform of the prosecution  one of President Moon's key campaign promises  should focus on guaranteeing independence and political neutrality of the law enforcement agency. But she has gone all-out to tame the prosecution by undermining its independence and neutrality.



Choo has not hesitated in abusing her power to appoint, transfer and promote prosecutors. She has appointed loyalists of herself and President Moon to key posts at the prosecution. This certainly makes it possible for her to evade any charges from her own scandal.



What she has done so far is far from fair and just. It runs counter to President Moon's pledge to promote equality, fairness and justice. Her scandal has only proved that the country cannot usher in a fair society by shouting what turn out to be empty slogans.



It is inevitable to launch an independent investigation to lay bare the truth behind the favors scandal. Minister Choo should cooperate to get to the bottom of the case against her, instead of covering up any wrongdoings. This could be a small, but first step toward restoring the values of fairness and justice.





The writer (byb@koreatimes.co.kr) is the chief editorial writer of The Korea Times.


Blake and Miskin are recognized among entrepreneurial leaders excelling in innovation, talent management, financial performance and commitment to building a values-based company

EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2020 Utah Region Award Winner

EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2020 Utah Region Award Winner

Brock Blake and Trent Miskin, co-founders of Lendio

Brock Blake and Trent Miskin, co-founders of Lendio

Lehi, Utah, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lendio, the nations leading marketplace for small business loans, today announced that its CEO and co-founder Brock Blake and CGO and co-founder Trent Miskin received the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020 Utah Region Award (Utah, Idaho, Wyoming), which was presented at a special virtual event.

Now in its 34th year, the Entrepreneur Of The Year program honors successful business leaders whose ambitions deliver innovation, growth and prosperity as they build and sustain groundbreaking companies that transform our world. These business leaders were selected as finalists by a panel of independent judges comprised of former winners and other leaders of the business community.

I am incredibly honored and humbled to be named along with Trent Miskin as an EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020 Utah Region Award winner, said Blake. We started Lendio because we truly believe that small businesses are the backbone of the American economy and of the communities in which they reside. Yet, banks reject 80% of small business loan applicants, meaning many entrepreneurs cant even get their businesses off the ground. Weve created a new reality for them and are proud to say weve helped 216,000 small business owners get a little closer to their dreams.

Blake and Miskin founded Lendio in 2011 with the idea that access to capital should be simpler and quicker for the 30 million Main Street businesses across the U.S. As CEO, Blake leads a team that has facilitated over $2B in loans to small businesses, as well as processed more than 100,000 PPP loan approvals for a total of $8 billion in relief funding. An Inc. 500 CEO, national keynote speaker and Forbes columnist, Blake grew Lendio to become #34 in Inc.'s 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies. He has been recognized by Utah Business magazine as one of the Top 40 Under 40 business executives in Utah and in 2006, the Utah Technology Council named him Utah's Emerging Executive of the Year.

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Miskin's knack for taking complex business problems and creating elegant technology solutions for small business owners positively impacts Lendio every day. As a founder and the architect of the Lendio platform, Trent's rare mix of technical, business and problem-solving skills empowers him to find a creative solution to any technology problem. Trent's focus on implementing development best practices enables Lendio to consistently deliver value to its customers.

EYs recognition of Lendio, particularly on the heels of the Paycheck Protection Program earlier this year, is a validation of the hard work the entire Lendio team has done to help small business owners navigate the complicated lending process, said Miskin. The loans we helped process have enabled small business owners to hire staff, buy equipment or simply keep their doors open during hard times. We are thrilled to be recognized by our peers in the business community and look forward to continuing to help more small business owners stay in business and thrive.

Under Blake and Miskins dedicated leadership, Lendio has built a company culture that is passionate about driving results and giving back. For every new marketplace loan facilitated on Lendios platform, Lendio Gives, an employee-contribution and employer-matching program, provides a microloan to a low-income entrepreneur through Kiva.

Entrepreneur Of The Year is one of the preeminent competitive business awards for entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies. Finalists were evaluated based on six criteria, including overcoming adversity; financial performance; societal impact and commitment to building a values-based company; innovation; and talent management. Since its launch, the program has expanded to recognize business leaders in more than 145 cities in over 60 countries throughout the world.

Regional award winners are eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards, to be announced in November during a virtual awards gala. The Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner will then move on to compete for the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in June 2021.

For more information about Lendio, visit www.lendio.com.

For more information about EY, visit www.ey.com.

About Lendio

Lendio is the nations leading small business loan marketplace. With its diverse network of lenders, Lendio enables small business owners to apply for multiple loan products with a single application. To date, Lendio has facilitated over 200,000 small business loans for $10 billion in total funding, including $8 billion in PPP loan approvals as part of government COVID-19 relief. Lendio is a values-driven organization striving to provide equal access to capital to underserved communities and Americas smallest businesses. For every new marketplace loan Lendio facilitates, Lendio Givesan employee-contribution and employer-matching fundprovides a microloan to a low-income entrepreneur around the world.

About Entrepreneur Of The Year

Entrepreneur Of The Year is the worlds most prestigious business awards program for unstoppable entrepreneurs. These visionary leaders deliver innovation, growth and prosperity that transform our world. The program engages entrepreneurs with insights and experiences that foster growth. It connects them with their peers to strengthen entrepreneurship around the world. Entrepreneur Of The Year is the first and only truly global awards program of its kind. It celebrates entrepreneurs through regional and national awards programs in more than 145 cities in over 60 countries. Winners go on to compete for the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year title.

Attachments

CONTACT: Melanie King Lendio 801-748-4782 melanie.king@lendio.com




Conditions in some schools are deplorable, particularly on the South and West sides, said Sabrina Woods, a clerk at Foreman College and Career Academy. This is a risk that CPS is asking us to take. Why does CPS feel that our lives are not important? Where is the respect for hundreds of dedicated, hardworking school clerks? Where is the planning for real safety for our students and their families once we do return to buildings?
Charges under the stringent UAPA and the IT Act have also been filed against the four, who were accused by the state police of having links with the alleged radical group Popular Front of India and its affiliates

Lucknow/Mathura: Uttar Pradesh police on Wednesday booked four persons including Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan on sedition and other charges at Maant police station in Mathura, two days after they were held while on their way to Hathras.

According to the FIR, charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the IT Act have also been filed against the four, who were accused by the state police of having links with the alleged radical group Popular Front of India and its affiliates.

The four were identified as Kappan, a journalist of Malapuram in Kerala, Atiq-ur-Rehman of Muzaffarnagar, Masood Ahmad of Bahraich and Alam of Rampur.

They were on Wednesday booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including 124A (sedition), 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 295A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belie), according to the FIR.

The PFI has been accused of funding protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act across the country earlier this year and the UP police had sought a ban on the outfit.

The four were held when, according to the police, they were on their way to Hathras where a Dalit woman had died after allegedly being gang-raped.
Ukraine and the United Kingdom will elaborate a joint plan for countering Russias hybrid warfare.

This was discussed during a meeting between Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov and UK Prime Minister's International Affairs Adviser David Quarrey, the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine informs.

"The plan for cooperation and exchange of information to counter Russias hybrid warfare was discussed with Prime Minister's International Affairs Adviser David Quarrey. We cooperate as close partners to combat common threats," Avakov said.

The parties also discussed cooperation in migration issues and the implementation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs project on psychological rehabilitation of veterans. The terrorist acts in eastern Ukraine and the information warfare were also touched upon.

The talks were held within the framework of the visit of President Volodymyr Zelensky to London.

October 7-8, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska make a state visit to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

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Richard Hodgson, Shaun Puckrin, and Jerome Gudgeon bring a wealth of experience to GPS as it cements its place as the European payments processing powerhouse and furthers its global expansion plans

Leading payments issuer processor, Global Processing Services (GPS), today announces its appointment of three C-level executives: Richard Hodgson as Chief Financial Officer, Shaun Puckrin as Chief Product Officer, and Jerome Gudgeon as Chief Technology Officer.

The new hires bolster the executive leadership team of GPS, the payments processing partner for some of the most well-known and successful fintechs on the market, including Revolut, Starling Bank and Curve, as the business drives its global expansion plans forward beyond Europe and APAC.

Richard Hodgson, Chief Financial Officer

As Chief Financial Officer, Richard Hodgson is responsible for scaling the GPS Finance function as it expands geographically, bringing more customers onto the GPS platform. A qualified accountant, Richard brings with him over 25 years of experience in Financial Services, Pharmaceuticals, and FMCG. Prior to joining GPS, Richard held senior positions at XE.com, HiFX, Travelex, and GlaxoSmithKline.

Shaun Puckrin, Chief Product Officer

Shaun Puckrin is responsible for setting the product strategy and roadmap at GPS in his role as Chief Product Officer, ensuring that these align with the company's overall commercial strategy of providing the most reliable and feature-rich platform to GPS customers worldwide. With more than 20 years' experience in payments, mobile and fintech, Shaun has a track record of developing award-winning B2B and B2C products whilst in senior product and technology positions at Worldpay, Nested, Monitise, and Symbian.

Jerome Gudgeon, Chief Technology Officer

In his capacity as Chief Technology Officer, Jerome Gudgeon spearheads the technology strategy and delivery for the business, which includes overall responsibility for the development and day-to-day technology operations of the GPS Apex platform. Having held senior technology and leadership positions at American Express, TD Bank, Fidelity and a Swiss Private Bank, Jerome brings more than 25 years' experience in payments, investments and banking technology. Alongside this, he also founded two fintech start-ups in payments and investments.

Commenting on the new appointments, GPS Chief Executive Officer, Joanne Dewar, said: "We are thrilled to welcome Richard, Shaun and Jerome to the leadership team at GPS. Their collective wealth of experience stands to enrich the team and propel us forward into the next stage of our evolution, which will see GPS deploying our payments processing technology into new territories and advancing the next generation of fintechs, digital banks and e-wallet providers in the rapidly evolving ecosystem.

"The payments and fintech space is growing by leaps and bounds around the world, so it is fundamental that GPS hires the right people and expertise in order to continue leading the charge in the payments processing space," she concluded.

To find out more about GPS, visit: https://www.globalprocessing.com/

ENDS

About Global Processing Services (GPS)

Global Processing Services (GPS) is the trusted and proven go-to payments processing partner for today's leading challenger brands, including Revolut, Starling Bank and Curve.

Founded in 2007, GPS's highly flexible and configurable platform places the control firmly in the hands of global fintechs, digital banks and e-wallets, enabling them to deliver rich functionality to the cardholder.

GPS is certified by Mastercard and Visa to process and manage any credit, debit or prepaid card transaction globally, with offices in London, Newcastle, Singapore and Sydney. It is equipped to meet the stringent standards required by Tier 1 banks and has integrated with more than 40 issuing banks and operates programmes for 180+ clients in 60 countries, using over 150 currencies.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201006005926/en/

Contacts:

Media contact

Becky Sales

becky@skyparlour.com gps@skyparlour.com
The Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard police blotter of arrests from police agencies around Central New York has been updated today.

Most of the new arrests are from the last couple weeks.
By Associated Press

DUBAI: Kuwait's deputy chief of the National Guard, who spent years in the oil-rich country's security services, was nominated as crown prince on Wednesday, the Kuwaiti state news agency reported.

The nomination makes Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah the possible heir apparent to the new emir, 83-year-old Sheikh Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah, who was propelled to power a week ago, following the death of his half-brother.

Before Sheikh Meshal can be officially named crown prince, lawmakers must approve the choice during their final session on Thursday, ahead of the formation of a new government, a rare vote for the region's Arab monarchies in which the question of succession is typically decided behind palace doors.

Following the session, Kuwait's parliament will dissolve itself ahead of elections tentatively set for late November.

ALSO READ | Kuwait's new emir Sheikh Nawab asks Cabinet to stay on, despite custom

At age 80, Sheikh Meshal, half-brother of the late Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah and the fourth sibling to ascend from the same branch of the royal family, is widely seen as a conventional and safe choice.

Given his career in the interior ministry, very little is known about his policy preferences.

Unlike other top contenders for the post, he has steered clear of the country's tumultuous politics and the royal family's public feuds over corruption allegations.

His selection delays any generational change in Kuwait, reinforcing the contrast with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, now in effect led by powerful young princes.

Under the late Sheikh Sabah, who commanded great respect as a seasoned diplomat in a region divided along political and sectarian lines, Kuwait managed to pursue independent foreign policies despite the pressures of more belligerent regional heavyweights.

A worsening coronavirus outbreak and plunging oil prices have sharpened attention on Kuwait's domestic grievances.

Gridlock in parliament has blocked the passage of a public debt law needed to raise $65 billion and mitigate the country's looming liquidity crisis, and calls are growing for political reform.
It emerged on Sunday night that the experts advising the Irish government during the pandemic wanted the country to move to Level 5 of Covid-19 restrictions.

The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), chaired by Ireland's chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan, receives advice from public health experts, including the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. It then makes recommendations to the Irish Government on the best strategy to quell the spread of Covid-19.

On Sunday night, it emerged that NPHET was recommending that Ireland move to Level Five - which would have taken the country to as close to a lockdown as it experienced in March, April and early May when the pandemic was its worst.

It would mean no household visits, only six people would be permitted at weddings, bars, cafes and restaurants would only be open for takeaway or delivery and the public would only be allowed to leave their homes to exercise, with a 5km restriction on travel distance.

The news that the top scientific advisors wanted a Level 5 lockdown was met with shock but it came after the five-day average of cases over the last month went from 99 a day to 463 a day.

Ultimately, the government rejected the advice - instead deciding that the entire country should join Dublin and Donegal in Level 3 from last night.

There is now great debate and analysis over whether the correct decision has been made and the statistics in the coming weeks will show whether the politicians were right.

Of course, Ireland isn't the only place where there has been friction over the Covid-19 response.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come under fire for some of the measures he has introduced. The split between Health Secretary Matt Hancock and cabinet colleagues Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove are well documented, while Mr Johnson has also been accused of being over cautious after his own battle with Covid-19.

On Tuesday, as he delivered his keynote speech at the virtual Tory conference, he gave a nod to rising Conservative anger about infringement of civil liberties and lockdown strangling the economy. While he said he "deeply regretted" the restrictions the government has imposed, he warned there was "simply no reasonable alternative".

Here in Northern Ireland, there have also been tensions over the official Covid-19 response. Setting aside the well-publicised fall-out over the Bobby Storey funeral and the less than helpful comments by DUP MP Sammy Wilson on the use of face coverings, health minister Robin Swann has been walking a tight line throughout the pandemic.

There have been claims that there were disagreements within the Executive over the lifting of lockdown.

Now, as positive cases surge, with thousands of cases confirmed and the number of Covid-19 inpatients rising by 20 in a matter of days, Ms Swann is coming under increasing pressure from the medical profession to act.

A range of doctors who specialise in infectious diseases have written an open letter expressing concern over the rapid rise in Covid-19 cases.

At the same time, our politicians are being lobbied by industry bodies concerned about the financial implications of further restrictions.

And there are also growing concerns from a range of charities over the suffering of non-Covid patients as a result of the lockdown.

The Executive is to meet on Thursday to discuss the next step in their strategy and no doubt they will be briefed by the likes of the chief medical officer and chief scientific advisor.

Ultimately, our politicians will have to decide what we do next, but if they choose to ignore the advice they receive from the experts, then they alone must shoulder the blame if they get it wrong.
Australia released its annual budget for 2020-21 on October 6 with a strong focus on growth, openness and stability in the Indo-Pacific, said Australias High Commissioner to India Barry OFarrell. The Australian envoy said that the budget includes Rs 327 crore in funding to take forward the Australia-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

The Australian Government's budget was released today with a strong focus on growth, openness and stability in the #IndoPacific. Central to this is AU $62.2million (327crore) in funding to take forward the Australia-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. #Dosti  pic.twitter.com/k1Km7GHUMq  Barry OFarrell AO (@AusHCIndia) October 6, 2020

Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne, who is currently in Japan for Quad dialogue, said in a statement that COVID-19 is having a profound impact on the region. The ministry said that the budget continues the governments commitment to delivering for all Australians in response to the health and economic crisis created by COVID-19.

The growth, openness and stability of the Indo-Pacific, which has underpinned Australias prosperity and security for decades, is challenged by these impacts, said Payne.

The Australian government is providing $80 million to support the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) COVAX Facility Advance Market Commitment to improve vaccine access for Pacific and Southeast Asian countries. It has also announced the establishment $304.7 million COVID-19 Recovery Fund over two years as part of its Pacific Step-up.

Facilitating early access to safe, effective and affordable vaccines will save lives and underpin Australias security by promoting regional stability and economic recovery, Payne added.

Read: Japan PM Suga Receives Courtesy Call From Visiting Ministers Ahead Of Quad Talks

Read: QUAD 2020: Pompeo Meets EAM Jaishankar; Says 'advancing US-India Relations' Together

Investment for security upgrades

Australias diplomatic network will receive a further investment of $55.5 million for security upgrades. The foreign ministry further said that the embassies and high commissions around the world would continue to provide support to Australians overseas who are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions and to help Australians return home.

Meanwhile, Payne met Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and the foreign ministers of other three countries ahead of the Quad dialogue. Suga received the courtesy call and told the ministers that the challenges arising out of the coronavirus pandemic further necessitates the deepening of ties with all those countries which share the vision of Free and Open Indo-Pacific.

Read: Quad Meeting 2020: Jaishankar Says India Committed To A Rules-based World Order

Read: QUAD 2020: Mike Pompeo Meets Suga; Calls US-Japan Alliance 'cornerstone Of Peace'

(Image: Twitter / @AusHCIndia)
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and state BJP chief C R Paatil on Wednesday addressed a virtual rally to celebrate the start of Prime Minister Narendra Modis 20th year in public office without a break.

Though Modi is now a resident of the national capital, Gujarat is his soul, Rupani said.

Modi took oath as Gujarat chief minister on this day in 2001 and continued in that office till he became prime minister in 2014.

In his speech, broadcast live on Facebook, Rupani termed Modi as a prime minister with a 56-inch chest.

Terrorist attacks have become a thing of the past under Modis rule. Earlier, bomb blasts used to happen frequently. But Modi took firm action against terrorists and eliminated them, he said.

For the first time, India has seen a PM with56-inch chest, he added.

Rupani also listed several big-ticket projects completed during Modis tenure as chief minister and later as prime minister, such as Sabarmati Riverfront, 24-hour electricity supply in Gujarat villages, RoRo Ferry service and the Statue Of Unity.

It was Modi who finished the Narmada project by giving permission to install gates on Sardar Sarovar Dam on the 17th day of assuming the office of PM.

Gujarat is PM Modis soul. Even today, while sitting in Delhi, he remains concerned about Gujarat to ensure that the state does not lag behind, said Rupani.

He also referred to the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, saying that Modi followed Raj Dharma (rulers duty).

After post-Godhra riots, Gujarat became riot-free.

Riots were rampant under the Congress rule. But Modi stopped riots completely, said Rupani.

After the Godhra incident, opponents used all kinds of derogatory words for Modi. But he remained unfazed.

Instead he used the stones thrown at him to build a staircase to climb up, the chief minister said.

State BJP chief Paatil praised the prime minister, claiming that his decision to impose a nation-wide lockdown to fight coronavirus significantly reduced thedeath toll.

Referring to the ongoing tensions at the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, Paatil said, India under Modi sent a strong message to China by starting preparations for a potential war. The world has now realised that India has the ability to tackle China singlehandedly.
Minister of National Defense Nicolae Ciuca will pay on an official visit to the U.S. Wednesday through Sunday, at the invitation of the U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper, the Ministry of National Defense informs, accordin to Agerpres.ro.

Ciuca is set to meet with senior officials of the U.S. Department of Defense and will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Military Cemetery.

"We will have several meetings in Washington, D.C. with senior U.S. officials to discuss our concerns about security developments in the Black Sea region and the need for a consistent and substantive approach to the defense and deterrence posture on the eastern flank of the North Atlantic Alliance," said the Romanian Defense Minister, as cited in the release.

He also points out that "Romania's commitment to continue towards the development of its defense capacity through programs of training and endowment with high-performance weapons systems and equipment" will be reaffirmed on this occasion and "ways to strengthen the Strategic Partnership with the U.S." will be discussed.

Nicolae Ciuca is accompanied on his official visit to the U.S. by the Chief of the Defense Staff, Lieutenant General Daniel Petrescu, and by Simona Cojocaru, Secretary of State and head of the Department for Defense Policy, Planning and International Relations.
Captain Lee Rosbach is weighing in on Hannah Ferrier's shocking exit from Below Deck Mediterranean.

During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, the Below Deck star gave his opinion on Captain Sandy Yawn's decision to dismiss Ferrier from The Wellington crew after it was discovered that the chief stewardess had unregistered Valium and a vape pen in her possession.

Rosbach recalled a similar situation from a previous Below Deck season when he discovered that stewardess Kat Held had anxiety medication on board.

"With Kat, it was pretty simple. She said she was prescribed the meds and I said, 'Show me the prescription, that's what I want to see,' " he said. "If it's legally prescribed meds by a licensed physician, we are not doctors as captains. God forbid we should deny somebody their prescriptions meds and something bad should happen. It would really get ugly."

Jim Spellman/Getty; Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

RELATED: Below Deck Meds Hannah Ferrier Speaks Out After Being Accused of Having Drugs On-Board

As fans recall, when Yawn asked Ferrier to present her prescription, the stewardess did not have it with her. Maritime law stipulates that crew members must check medications in with the captain prior to departure.

Ferrier previously opened up about the incident, admitting that while she knows she made a "mistake," she was disappointed with how Yawn handled the situation.

Virginia Sherwood/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Hannah Ferrier

"It's not something I was hiding," she said. "It wasn't like I went on and I was like, 'Ooh, I have this Valium. I can't let anyone see it.' To me, it's just anti-anxiety medication. I made the mistake of not clearing it when I brought it on the boat. Because I've always had it, every year. It just wasn't really a process that went through my mind. That was my mistake. But yeah, it certainly wasn't something I was trying to hide."

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Ferrier said the vape pen was CBD, and that she also uses it for anxiety relief.

"When I travel, I check whether CBD is legal in the country that I'm going into," she said. "So yeah, I had checked that CBD was legal in Spain, and it is. Once again, I genuinely didn't think that there was anything. I didn't know I was doing something wrong."

Earlier this summer, Ferrier, who is expecting her first child, announced that the current season of Below Deck Mediterranean will be her last.
Wealth-X, the worlds leading provider of data and insight on the wealthy, released the 8th edition of its annual World Ultra Wealth Report today. The report, which analyzes the state of the worlds ultra high net worth (UHNW) population (those with $30m or more in net worth), reveals that this segment grew by 9.5% in 2019, to 290,720 individuals worldwide. This was a sharp acceleration from the flat growth seen in 2018. In addition, the combined net worth of the UHNW population mirrored this growth, increasing by 9.7% to $35.4 trillion.

On the heels of this 2019 growth, the World Ultra Wealth Report 2020 also reveals a significant decline in wealth from this population in early 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, by the end of August the UHNW population and their collective wealth had shown significant recovery, rebounding toward end-2019 levels.

Key insights from the 8th edition of the World Ultra Wealth Report include:



Buoyant wealth expansion in North America: In 2019, the strongest regional returns were recorded in North America, the worlds largest wealth hub, where the number of ultra wealthy individuals increased by 14.5% to 105,080, equivalent to a 36% share of the global UHNW class. There was an almost identical rise in collective net worth, up 14.4% to $12.4 trillion.

Double-digit UHNW growth in Asia in 2019, despite emerging challenges: Asia consolidated its position ahead of Europe as the second-largest UHNW region, with its population rising by 10.2% to 83,310 individuals. This was a strong turnaround from a decline in 2018, driven by double-digit population growth in the regions largest wealth markets of Mainland China, Japan, Hong Kong, and India. Cumulative net worth in Asia expanded by 10%, to $10.4trn, equivalent to 29% of global UHNW wealth.

The top 10 countries accounted for almost three-quarters of the global UHNW population (73%) and their combined wealth (72%): The US remains far and away the largest wealth market in the world, while Mainland China continues to cement the second-placed position it assumed over Japan in 2014. That said, Japan recorded its highest level of UHNW growth in a decade in 2019. Also notably, India entered the top 10 country ranking for the first time.

The top 10 cities accounted for 19.7% of the global UHNW population in 2019: This was a slight increase from an 18.6% share in 2018 as all ten cities saw their ultra wealthy populations and their combined wealth increase substantially in 2019. New York and Hong Kong were far and away the two leading UHNW cities (with the US being home to 6 of the top 10) and Paris eclipsed London to take fifth place in the rankings.

Ultra wealth has been significantly affected by the fallout from COVID-19: Most of the ultra wealthy have experienced overall declines in their fortunes. Global ultra wealth was down 28% on 2019 levels by the end of March 2020; however, by the end of August the UHNW population had recovered somewhat and stood at 3% below its end-2019 level, with wealth down by 9%.

North America recorded a much sharper fall in its UHNW population than Asia, in early 2020: The number of ultra wealthy individuals slumped by almost 24,000 from its end-2019 level in the region, in contrast with a 13% decline in the UHNW population in Asia over the same period. However, Asia suffered the largest decline in combined UHNW wealth of all regions, at 31%.

The ultra wealthy fared best in Denmark and China, and worst in the UK, up to August 2020: Chinas ultra wealthy population and their combined wealth increased by around 4% on end-2019, with Denmarks by slightly more. Western European nations dominate the list of worst performing UHNW countries; with the UK at the bottom, having experienced a 17% fall in its UHNW population and a 20% slump in collective net worth.

In addition to revealing a global view of the status and trends of the ultra wealthy, the World Ultra Wealth Report 2020 also examines the population based on their asset holdings, gender, industry focus, wealth source, and age.

Download the full report at http://www.worldultrawealthreport.com

Wealth-X leverages its proprietary Global Database of records on wealthy individuals, the largest of its kind in the world, alongside its Wealth and Investible Assets Model to compile the report. This model produces statistically significant estimates for total private wealth and estimates the size of the population by level of wealth and investable assets for the world and each of the top 75 economies, which account for 98% of world GDP.

About Wealth-X

The global leader in wealth information and insight, Wealth-X partners with prestige brands across the financial services, luxury, nonprofit and higher-education industries to fuel strategic decision-making in sales, marketing and compliance. Wealth-X has developed the worlds largest collection of records on wealthy individuals and produces unparalleled data analysis to help organizations uncover, understand, and engage their target audience, as well as mitigate risk. Founded in 2010, with staff across North America, Europe and Asia, Wealth-X provides unique data, analysis, and counsel to a growing roster of over 500 clients, worldwide.
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

The Belgian capital took a step towards restoring its coronavirus lockdown Wednesday, when Brussels ordered cafes and bars to close for a month.

Restaurants serving meals at table will remain open, but bars and drinking alcohol in public places will be banned until November 8, the regional government said.

This is the second time Brussels has imposed such a measure since the coronavirus outbreak, after a previous lockdown helped bring cases down.

But new infectionsas well as serious cases involving hospital admissionsare rising again, and regional authorities are tightening rules.

Already, Belgium's new national government had ordered bars and cafes should close from 11pm, but regional president Rudi Vervoort decided this was not enough.

The Brussels capital region is home to a densely packed 1.2 million people and is the seat of the Belgian government and of both NATO and the European Union.

In the past week, Belgium as a whole has recorded an average of 2,500 new coronavirus infections per day, up by 57 percent over the previous seven days.

Hospital admissions are also up 25.7 percent over the week, and more than 11 people are dying every day.

With 10,092 deaths from a population of 11.2 million, Belgium is one of the worst hit countries.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP
A man has been charged with contaminating goods after he allegedly inserted a used needle into a loaf of bread on the shelves of a Woolworths supermarket in Roxburgh Park.

Court documents allege that Fue Yang, 33, poked the bread with a "soiled hypodermic needle".

A police summary of the incident alleged Mr Yang, who sat quietly in court during a short filing hearing on Wednesday, approached the store about 4pm on Tuesday, where he was observed by a security guard holding several needles with blood on them and a blood-stained tissue.

Mr Yang is accused of poking the bread with a soiled needle.

The security guard refused him entry and Mr Yang walked away. He returned five minutes later, still holding the needles and tissue, the documents tendered by police state.
(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 7 - Premier Giuseppe Conte's cabinet met on Wednesday to extend Italy's COVID-19 state of emergency until January 31 and approve a decree with new measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus, sources said The state of emergency, among other things, gives special powers to governors and other public bodies, making it possible, for example, to create 'red zones' sealing off areas where a coronavirus outbreak has occurred.

The obligation to respect coronavirus-prevention measures, such as social distancing of at least one metre with people you do not live with, the use of facemasks and frequent hand washing and the obligation to stay at home if you have fever of 37.5 or more, remains too for the time being.

The new measures, include the obligation to wear facemasks outside, rather than only in enclosed public spaces, if you are in an area where you will come close to people you do not live with. Furthermore, it is now obligatory to wear a facemask in all enclosed spaces, except for the home, sources said.

Carrying a mask with you at all times becomes mandatory.

Several regions, such as Lazio, the region around Rome, and Campania, have already made facemasks obligatory outside after an upswing in coronavirus cases in recent weeks.

The government is also extending the obligation for people arriving in Italy from Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium to have a swab for the coronavirus.

This obligation was already in force for arrivals from Croatia, Greece, Malta, Spain and from Paris and seven French regions.

(ANSA).


Joan Martin has a phone call coming through on the other line. Its him, she says, referring to her son Osime Brown. I need to answer.

About a minute later, Joan is back and she sounds teary. He said hes having a shower and was asking whether he should wash his hair, she says. Thats how vulnerable he is. He always calls me to ask me whether he should wash his hair.

Brown, 21, is a severely autistic Jamaican-born UK resident who is currently in prison a two-and-a-half-hour drive from his mothers home in Dudley. He is nearing the end of a five-year prison sentence, and faces removal to a country he hasnt set foot in since he came to the UK aged four.

The Home Office issued Brown with a removal notice in August 2018 on the basis of a series of criminal offences he committed as a teenager, notably the theft of a mobile phone. His lawyers have expressed concern over the role of the controversial joint enterprise law in the case. He has been in jail since, and is currently at HMP Stocken in Rutland, where he has self-harmed on a routine basis  sometimes to the point where hes had hundreds of scars on his arms and body.

A clinical psychologist said Browns deportation marked a culmination of failings by statutory agencies over the years to acknowledge his learning disability (Joan Martin)

Brown was set to be transferred directly from prison to a removal centre at the end of his sentence this week, but his lawyers intervened days before arguing that this would be unlawful because of his autism and recent heart problems he has been experiencing  at which point the Home Office said he could be released to his home.

However, Brown is still facing removal. A court hearing is set to take place in the coming weeks where his immigration solicitor will argue that deporting him to Jamaica will place him at risk.

Martin, 54, a former mental health nurse, is becoming increasingly alarmed about the prospect of her son being deported. He said to me out of the blue when I was last visiting: If they drop me off with the plane in Jamaica, I will just take a plane to Spain, and then come back to England. I couldnt lie to him. I explained this wouldnt be possible.

He just sunk into himself and went silent. It was like when you turn off the light and you see a bulb going down. He doesnt understand the full concept of what is going on. Its not good.

More than 100,000 people have signed a petition to calling for Browns deportation to be stopped. During a protest outside the Home Office in London last month calling for the same thing, Labour MP Nadia Whittome told demonstrators the UK had failed him, as it fails many thousands of black men and disabled people whose lives are seen as expendable.

Browns family, along with a clinical psychologist and many who know him, believe his deportation marks a culmination of failings by statutory agencies over the years to acknowledge his learning disability, and subsequent failure to provide him with adequate support to cope with the challenges that come with it.

As a young child, he learnt to talk and walk late and developed a stutter. He received speech and language therapy at school, but he never had statutory assessment regarding his learning difficulties and special educational needs.

They didnt take much notice of what was behind his behaviour, says Martin, talking about Browns experience in school. They used to say he was disruptive and rude. They put that down to being unruly. I had to fight and fight and fight to get him assessed.

It wasnt until after he was permanently excluded at the age of 16, following years of difficulties to do with social interaction at school, that his autism was diagnosed.

He said to me out of the blue when I was last visiting: If they drop me off with the plane in Jamaica, I will just take a plane to Spain, and then come back to England. I couldnt lie to him. I explained this wouldnt be possible Joan Martin, Osime Browns mother

Shortly after this, Brown is said to have left home and moved into local authority care after telling social services that his mother was too strict. Martin says this move was taken without her permission and that it caused great distress to the family, and was ultimately detrimental to her sons wellbeing.

It was while he was in the various care placements that Brown was arrested for stealing the phone from another young person along with a group of friends. The case took two years to come to trial, but he was eventually sentenced to five years in prison.

Brown received speech and language therapy at school, but he never had statutory assessment regarding his learning difficulties and special educational needs (Joan Martin)

A psychological assessment of Brown by chartered psychologist John Hall, carried out in October 2019, states the way in which his life was managed when he was in care was wholly misguided and extremely damaging, and that had he not been placed in care he may not have found his way into a life of criminality  which his mother puts partly down to poor legal advice.

There is every reason to believe that, had [Martin] been listened to and instead of removing Brown from his family when he was barely 16, it would have been possible to support his mother to manage him in a situation where people loved him and were prepared to impose a structure on his life, states Hall.

On entering jail, the prisons healthcare service assessed Brown and found that he was suffering from an underlying anxiety disorder and emotionally unstable personality disorder, and post-traumatic distress disorder (PTSD).

Yet Martin claims the prison has failed to assist him with his autism or his mental health conditions. They put nothing in place for him in the prison, she says. They write things down, but in practice dont do it. They just lock him up. They dont take into account his autism. Hes quicker to get upset now. His patience is shorter than it was before.

Thats what all the agencies have done, from school, to social services to the prison. They just did tick box exercises on him. He got nothing but punishment and isolation. Even when he cut his arms, they punished him for that.

Browns solicitors are preparing to bring a civil claim in relation to the unlawful and discriminatory treatment he has received while in prison, and are investigating the possibility of bringing a claim in relation to the historic failings of the education authorities and social services in relation to his autism and other learning disabilities.

The mother says she can tell her son is worried about being deported. I know hes frustrated. Thats why he keeps calling me, but he doesnt know how to articulate it, she says. He will say: Am I going to die? He knows that something isnt right. Hes worried about how hes going to cope.

A Home Office spokesperson said: It would be inappropriate to comment while legal proceedings are ongoing.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: We do not recognise these allegations and all prisoners have access to healthcare.
Nigerias Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, has opposed the calls to scrap the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).

This, he said, was because there are good personnel in the police unit who could be denied the chance of performing better should the unit be scrapped.

He made this comment during plenary on Wednesday as lawmakers deliberated a motion on the recent extrajudicial killings carried out by the security personnel.

I think that this is the situation that should be properly investigated. Those in involved in recent incident should be arrested and prosecuted. The law should take its due course. This is not acceptable. Nigerians need to know what happened by those who have killed Nigerians.

There are good people and bad people in SARS. Scrapping of agencies when you have mistakes may not be the best position. Rule of law should be put in place.

If you scrap SARS, you lose the chance of getting those doing well to continue to do well, he said.

His statement comes amidst calls for the scrapping of the police unit. It also comes three days after the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, banned personnel of the squad and other tactical units from operating on Nigerian roads, in response to calls for the scrapping.

Earlier, Oluremi Tinubu, who sponsored the motion, described the injustices as a flagrant disregard of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which in addition to prescribing powers to these various agencies, provides for the right of every Nigeria.

Referring to Chapter Four of the Constitution , which provides for life to right, right to freedom of movement, among others, she said that Nigeria subscribes to the African charter of human and peoples right and the convention against torture.

In spite of this, the culture of brutality of security operatives towards Nigerians have continued unabated.

While the Nigerian army is doing good job in securing the territory against insurgents, allegations of human rights abuses by its officers cannot be overlooked.

Nigerian youths can no longer move freely for fear that they will profiled and accused of being yahoo boys or fraudsters merely because they look good, own laptops, iPhones, nice looking cars or profiled as having dreads, she said.

The lawmaker further expressed concern that with more Nigerian youth involved in software development, Fintech and doing more remote jobs in the ICT, profiling by policemen is the major problem.

A militarised police will only make the people the enemy of the state.

On his part, the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, complained that personnel of the squad look no different from armed robbers.

We are beginning to wonder because you cant tell when you see a SARS and armed robbers, even the way they are dressed.

We have the constitution which has guaranteed privacy to our citizens but this people have become more like extortionists looking for way to force people to part with money.

Resolutions

The Senate, thereafter, mandated its committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters to investigate human right abuses by Nigerian security agencies.

It urged security agencies to establish hotlines to enable Nigerians to report abuses by their agents and a Special Bureau Unit that monitors the conduct of its officers, arrests and charges erring ones

The Senate also mandated its committees on Police Affairs and Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters to investigate allegations of extra judicial executions and make recommendations for reparation.

It also mandated the committee on Police Affairs to organise a stakeholders meeting to investigate implementation of the Nigeria Police Trust Fund Act.
Since Donald Trump selected Mike Pence as his running mate in 2016, Pence has played his part loyally and unreservedly. Much like Joe Biden, he has treated the No. 2 job as a kind of hype-man position for the boss. In his major addresses, Pence is fond of declaring that he brings greetings from a friend of mine before going on to identify that man as the president and laying it on a bit thick. At an August speech in Florida, Pence described his friend as a man who loves the state of Florida and a man who is the most pro-life president in American history. At a 2019 Venezuela solidarity event, Pence called him a great champion of liberty in Venezuela and across this hemisphere of freedom. At the 2019 American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference, Trump was a friend of mine and someone history has already proven to be the greatest friend of the Jewish people and the state of Israel ever to sit in the Oval Office.

Its a somewhat amusing ritual, and a telling one as well. Pence knows that, for better or worse, he has hitched his wagon to the president. For it to have been worth it when Pence runs for president in 2024, hell need to be able to point to an unquestionably loyal track record. So far, so good.

On Wednesday night, Pence will once again go to bat for Trump in a debate with the woman vying for Pences job, California senator Kamala Harris. As of Tuesday morning, the Trump campaigns prognosis is bleak. The RealClearPolitics average has Biden up by a little more than nine points. FiveThirtyEights pegs it at just under nine. The latter has him up in Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, and Ohio, and up by six or more points in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Trump won all seven of those states in 2016; he won Ohio by more than eight. Moreover, there exists a gap in favorability between Biden and Trump that will make it much more difficult for the president to play catch-up the way he did with Hillary Clinton. At the moment, Biden is at +3.3 while Trump sits at -13.2.

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Because of the long odds Trump-Pence 2020 faces, Pence may be approaching the vice-presidential debate more worried about laying the groundwork for Pence 2024. Its no secret that Pence harbors ambitions of occupying the Oval Office one day, and typically the VP debates effects on the larger campaign are negligible. If theres a comeback to be made, it will depend on the strength of a much better and more disciplined effort from Trump, as well as a devastating series of miscalculations from the Biden campaign. On the other hand, how Pence performs could be extremely important for his own prospects four years from now. In 2016, 37 million Americans tuned in to watch Pence and Virginia senator Tim Kaines bout. That number should be higher this year, given the age and health concerns at the top of both tickets.

2024 speculation commenced long ago  four Republicans are eyeing a run in Florida alone  and Pence doesnt fit as cleanly into a lane as many of the other candidates do. Josh Hawley, Ron DeSantis, Tom Cotton, and Marco Rubio will all likely be running in what could be called the refined-populist lane. Ted Cruz, Ben Sasse, and Nikki Haley, as well as Rick Scott and Tim Scott will probably run more traditional, fusionist campaigns. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will throw his hat in the ring as well as a potential Trump heir. Tucker Carlson, should he run, will do the same. If, God forbid, Donald Trump Jr. wants to give it a go, his name alone will make for a strong claim to that title as well.

As Trumps vice president, Pence would seemingly fall into the last category, but he is the least Trumpy in affect of any of them. His politics prior to his association with Trump would suggest that Pence would join those running as fusionists. But thats the group most prone to seeing association with Trump as a drawback. Pence finds himself straddling a solid yellow line between two very different lanes. Wednesday may give us a clue as to which he plans on merging in to.

Make no mistake, Pence will be effusive in his praise for Trump  the man and the administration  at the debate. He may even carry greetings or a message from his friend at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But there will be more subtle ways by which Pence could show his hand. Will the message he delivers be focused chiefly on the president or the accomplishments of his administration? How much will we hear about Trumps stamina, courage, and convictions? Will Pence speak of Trumps broad-shoulders and big heart, as he has in the past? Or will it be a results-oriented presentation, and if so, what results will Pence highlight: the more Trump-centric ones such as the USMCA and declining crossings at the border, or typical GOP fare such as tax cuts and the appointment of originalists to the federal judiciary?

How well Pence performs under the lights will of course also be important. If he does become a lame duck on November 3, this will have been his final chance to showcase his abilities prior to the 2024 primaries. Should Pence embarrass Kamala Harris in front of tens of millions of people, GOP voters might be much more likely to embrace Pence  he may even enter the race as the front-runner. If he cant soundly defeat the mistake-prone Harris, what is the case for Pence, a capable campaigner who nevertheless lacks the star power of a Haley, Rubio, Carlson, or Tim Scott, and who will begin his campaign without an obvious lane?

Wednesdays debate is not without stakes for 2020, but it likely matters even more for 2024. In a December 2019 poll measuring support for potential GOP candidates, Mike Pence came out on top with 40 percent of respondents indicating that he would be their first choice. Thats certainly welcome news for the VP, who benefits from his accumulated Trump-world cred and from evangelical support. But he assuredly loses sleep remembering that Jeb Bush led the Republican pack as late as June 2015 before dropping out after the South Carolina primary with no top-three finishes. Pences blandness and lack of solid footing in any one lane no doubt worry him further. To establish himself as the clear front-runner and to attract the early attention of voters and donors, Pence needs a solid, if not a dominant performance. Without one, his most treasured friendship may not have been worth it all.

More from National Review
Around 2,100 Los Angeles voters received mail-in ballots that did not have any way to vote for a presidential candidate.

The "faulty" mail-in ballots were confirmed by the county's Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's office on late Monday. It is believed these ballots were sent to Los Angeles voters in the Woodland Hills area.

According to LA Mag, the botched mail-in ballots featured a twice-printed list of state propositions. However, it did not offer the affected Los Angeles voters ways to vote for President Donald Trump, Joe Biden, or any other presidential hopeful.

Since the state had fewer in-person polling places, California is under a lot of pressure of making mail-in voting a success.

The state is hoping to keep its residents at home, so they made an effort to provide mail-in ballots to every one of California's 21 million registered voters, reported FOX 11.

LA County voters make up 5.6 million of this group. The incorrect ballots were part of this effort.

County Clerk Apologizes for Error

According to California state law, absentee ballots have to be mailed out 29 days ahead of Election Day. If this effort does not take effect, the state will have to witness many frustrated voters.

Safety protocols amid the pandemic could result in slower voting times and longer waiting times for people who will vote on November 3.

The county clerk's spokesman Michael Sanchez apologized for the error. He knew there were only a small number of Los Angeles voters affected by the slip-up, but he still extended apologies on behalf of the office.

He told voters to discard the ballots and send only the accurate ones. If a voter had already filled out and mailed in their original ballot, their votes can still be canceled once the county clerks get the new one.

A Complicated Election

Attorney Christy Gargalis told Los Angeles Times she was surprised to see that her mail-in ballot was POTUS-less. She received her ballot along with her husband and sister. Gargalis said she has always been an in-person voter.

"I wasn't even planning on looking at the ballot until the day I was going to vote," she said. But she felt like there would be something "different" about this coming election, and she had to take a look.

Later on, she found out she was not the only one who had a faulty ballot. Her neighbors also had the same problem.

With the county clerk meaning to smooth out the error, the county clerk promised to soon send out the correct ballots.

"Tomorrow morning we will be mailing out new, corrected ballots with a letter describing the error," said Sanchez.

If this ripple does get resolved, mail-in voting will still prove a challenge and can be rather complicated. Election researchers found that, in the last decade, 1.7 percent of California mail-in ballots were rejected for various reasons.

If the voter turnout in the previous presidential election is followed, there will be about 250,000 ballots that won't be counted this year.

Check these out!

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Florida Voter Registration Site Crash Not Connected to Malicious Activity, State Official Says
Journalist Yoav Etiel reported Oct. 4 on the Walla! News website that the Israel Defense Forces' Home Front Command is recruiting experienced former Shin Bet operatives who specialized in the Arab-Israeli community, to participate in an information campaign planned to combat the coronavirus in the Arab community. According to the official announcement, The campaign will be charged with formulating a status report for each of the different sectors of the population in order to help the relevant divisions in the Home Front Command develop appropriate courses of action and formulate messages targeting these specific communities."

This remarkable statement certainly raises some questions. For example, why would the Home Front Command not approach actual Arab citizens in its search for candidates with the requisite skills, as well as familiarity with the Arab community? Why would it prefer, instead, to turn to former members of the Shin Bet, an organization that has nothing to do with civil affairs in the Arab society  an organization whose very mention evokes negative connotations among the Arab population? After all, the Shin Bet is an internal security agency that closely identifies with the tracking and tailing of Arab citizens, whom it sees as posing a potential threat to the country. On a more mundane level, it is responsible for the humiliation that Arab citizens undergo at Ben Gurion airport, as reported in an earlier article. Why, then, would the Home Front Command insist on relegating responsibility to former members of the Shin Bet? Is this some covert attempt by Israel to exploit the coronavirus to collect intelligence about its Arab citizens?

An IDF spokesperson told Al-Monitor, The IDF and the Home Front Command consider the fight to prevent the spread of the coronavirus to be a national mission of the highest priority, and are therefore doing whatever is necessary to help. The IDF does not engage in tracking Arab citizens, nor does it infringe on their privacy. So far, it has recruited approximately 200 people, including analysts, media figures, creative talents and speakers of various languages to engage in this information campaign.

A more comprehensive picture was provided by a source in the Home Front Command in a conversation with Al-Monitor. The source said on condition of anonymity, The underlying goal in the recruitment of former members of the Shin Bet is to find analysts to process data. So far we have eight such analysts, of whom only four are former Shin Bet agents. Furthermore, our analysts work on data from other sectors of the population, and not just the Arab sector. When asked whether the Shin Bet is the only group capable of analyzing and processing the relevant data, he responded, It is a well-known fact that the Shin Bet has the highest quality individuals engaged in this. The purpose here is to help. It is not to keep tabs on citizens.

Of course, it is a given that every high-tech company employs analysts, and plenty of high-tech staffers come from the Arab community. Why, then, didnt the Home Front Command turn to them as well, preferring instead to use former members of the Shin Bet exclusively? Only the IDF knows the answer to that.

What does Ayman Saif, head of the coronavirus general staff for the Arab community, have to say about this? In a conversation with Al-Monitor he was unequivocal, saying, Of course I am opposed to it. There are enough public relations firms and advertising agencies in the Arab community that can provide professional services to get information out.

Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, head of the Arab Joint List party Knesset faction, told Al-Monitor, Its scandalous. It is now 2020. The military government ended ages ago. Anyone who makes a decision like that is stupid, arrogant and racist. It is a decision based on the stereotype that Arabs always constitute a security threat to the country. I appealed to Defense Minister [Benny] Gantz to put an immediate end to it.

In addition to this letter by Tibi to the minister of defense, Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, State Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and the Chief of Home Front Command Uri Gordon, demanding that they put an immediate halt to the recruitment of former members of the Shin Bet by the Home Front Command, with the goal of collecting intelligence about Palestinian citizens of Israel as part of its efforts to fight the spread of COVID-19.

The idea of recruiting former Shin Bet agents to collect and process information and develop information strategies to fight the coronavirus shows how blind and insensitive the IDF and Home Front Command really are in dealing with this crisis. Even if their intentions are good, it must be remembered that the very term Shin Bet evokes feelings of revulsion among the Arab population. As such, engaging the Shin Bet could do more harm than good, if only because Arab citizens could stop cooperating with the Home Front Command entirely. This would result from fear that there is a hidden agenda behind the help that they are offering, and that they are collecting intelligence about the population, instead of just focusing on the virus.

In a conversation with Al-Monitor, Attorney Malek Bader, former chairman of the Association of Druze Local Authorities, said, It would be best if this stopped immediately. I am not a big fan of conspiracy theories, and I dont want to believe that there is some hidden agenda behind this. On the other hand, this is an anti-democratic move that verges on racism. The recruitment of former Shin Bet agents to collect information about citizens is very disconcerting. Most of all, it testifies to the current governments attitude toward the Israeli-Arab population."

What do former members of the security forces have to say about all this? The former deputy head of the Mossad, Knesset member Ram Ben-Barak of Yesh Atid-Telem told Al-Monitor, Anyone who starts collecting intelligence about citizens of a certain religion will transition quickly to collecting intelligence on left-wing demonstrators, and from there on everyone else. When will the countrys leadership realize that Israeli citizens have the same rights, no matter who they are, and that they are subject to the same laws? Stop now, before it is too late!

This could be the Home Front Commands biggest missed opportunity. Sure, they can spend a week explaining that they are recruiting Shin Bet agents to process information and develop an information campaign. The fact is that no one is buying it. Maybe they should focus first on explaining these steps, before attempting to improve COVID-19 information measures within the Arab community.
Former New York mayor has criticised Joe Biden for wearing a mask (Getty Images)

Rudy Giuliani, president Donald Trumps personal lawyer, was on Tuesday night apparently spotted maskless at a GOP fundraising event in New York - a day after coughing his way through a Fox News interview.

The former New York mayor appears to have been pictured addressing a crowd of at least 30 people in Manhattan, some of whom were elderly and also not wearing masks.

Mr Giuliani, 76, was part of a team of key aides that helped Mr Trump prepare for his first debate with Mr Biden last Tuesday.

The president was diagnosed with coronavirus two days later. Several other aides that attended the debate prep - including Kellyanne Conway, Hope Hicks and Stephen Miller - have since tested positive for coronavirus.

Earlier this week, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced a tightening of coronavirus restrictions in a number of the states boroughs following a rise in cases.

Rudy Giuliani spotted at a Manhattan fundraiser tonight. See any problems? pic.twitter.com/KSBziRiYOT  Mike Madrid (@madrid_mike) October 6, 2020

From Wednesday, indoor and outdoor gatherings of more than 25 people will be banned in a number of areas in New York City.

While Mr Giulianis maskless appearance at Tuesday nights gathering does not appear to have flouted coronavirus guidelines, it is likely to raise fresh questions about how seriously key members of the Trump administration are taking the highly contagious infection, which has claimed some 211,00 US lives.

During Monday nights Fox News interview, Mr Giuliani - while waiting for the results of a coronavirus test - criticised Mr Trumps presidential challenger, Joe Biden, for being cautious during the pandemic.

It isnt science to be wearing that mask, Joe, when you are giving a speech and people are 30-40 feet away from you, he said.

The only thing you can infect is the teleprompter thats near you. So, I see through you. Thats a political statement to scare people, wearing that mask. You do not need that mask when you are standing at a podium.

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Following the interview, Mr Giuliani said in a tweet that he had tested negative for coronavirus.

Like his boss, Mr Giuliani has repeatedly downplayed the risks associated with coronavirus, which hits the elderly, the overweight and those with underlying health conditions hardest.

Mr Trump returned to the White House on Monday having spent the weekend at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre for coronavirus treatment.
New Delhi: Popular Malayalam actor Tovino Thomas was rushed to the hospital after suffering a critical injury on the sets of movie 'Kala'. According to a report in TOI.com, the actor has been kept under observation in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

The report quotes his manager as saying that the shoot was taking place in Piravom and it was during an action sequence that Tovino got badly hurt. He was injured around the stomach area some days back and rushed to hospital after he complained of excruciating pain.

The manager of Tovino told TOI, "Initially we all thought that it was a small injury, but yesterday Tovino felt the pain that got worsened today. The doctors said that he has an internal injury and thus requires more care."

Tovino Thomas, 31, made his debut in 2012 with the Malayalam film Prabhuvinte Makkal. He bagged the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Ennu Ninte Moideen in 2015. He also won the Kerala Film Critics Association Award for his performance in Mayaanadhi which released in 2017.

Meanwhile, 'Kala' is helmed by Rohith VS. It is written by Yadhu Pushpakaran, Rohith VS. The film features Tovino Thomas, Lal, Divya Pillai in lead roles and it slated to hit the screens next year.
A couple years after being elected attorney general of California a decade ago, Kamala Harris was sitting in San Francisco with a handful of aides when one speculated about her becoming president someday.

The room fell silent, and the half-dozen staffers turned to the Democratic up-and-comer to see how she would react. Harris was already being discussed for bigger roles on the national stage.

I would never want to be president, Harris said, according to a person in the room, who recalled that she dismissed the highest office in the land as a terrible job.

And then, with impeccable timing, Harris delivered the punchline.

Now, she said, pausing briefly. Vice president? That doesnt sound so bad.

After Harris primary bid last year  a grueling and mostly joyless exercise carried out by the self-described joyful warrior  campaigning to be the No. 2 has suited Harris just fine. On Wednesday night, she'll square off against Vice President Mike Pence in perhaps the biggest moment of the campaign for her.

Joe Bidens selection of Harris has excited Democrats. She's helped him raise money at a record clip. She is Bidens highest-profile surrogate to swing-state cities like Milwaukee, Detroit and Philadelphia, with a particular focus on courting voters of color, including African Americans and Latinos.

Harris appears solo and alongside Biden in TV ads, a rarity for a VP contender, and stars in digital videos pumped out by the campaign. Shes become the 77-year-old nominee's emissary to pop culture, making appearances with musical icons, sitting for podcasts geared toward non-political audiences and drawing millions of views for brief videos of her stepping off the plane in Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers.

The verdict: Harris, with a few exceptions, has hit her marks.

But circumstances so far  namely, Biden's avoid-the spotlight campaign strategy coupled with the coronavirus  have conspired to make Harris the least visible vice-presidential contender in recent memory. That has frustrated some fans and allies who want to see more of her and believe it would help the ticket.

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In another year, in another campaign, Harris would be headlining rallies covered by a horde of news reporters. Instead, she is often beamed in to supporters and donors from a makeshift TV studio the campaign built at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington.

When she does venture out on the road, hitting restaurants, florists and barber shops, the events are limited to local reporters and the traveling pool of journalists who must fly commercial to catch up with the vice-presidential nominee.

Some of her diminished profile is inherent in the role of No. 2. And to be certain, she isnt alone on the ticket in laying low. Biden himself has kept a limited public schedule, in part because of the coronavirus, but also because he wants voters to render a judgment on Trump's performance, not his own conduct on the trail.

And if Biden is keeping his head down, Harris has to duck even lower.

But in interviews, Democrats and people close to Harris said there are opportunities to leverage her appeals as a trailblazing candidate and skillset as a hard-driving prosecutor to round out the picture.

I know the traditional thinking around vice-presidential picks is you want someone who can excite folks and you want someone whos not going to cause harm. And I think Sen. Harris has demonstrated that she is not one of these people that you have to worry about  forgive the reference to Sarah Palin  going rogue, said Kim Foxx, the state's attorney for Cook County, Ill., who stressed that she recognizes the challenges of campaigning amid the virus.

But it is all upside with her," Foxx added. "So, my hope certainly will be, in these closing days of the campaign, that they maximize what she brings to this ticket. And not just what her apparel choices are for the day, but really getting deep into the issues in articulating the vision for the country.

Harris biggest opportunity comes in Utah in the debate with Pence.

Harris aides have long viewed the debate as the biggest stage to showcase her slashing style. And Trumps return to the White House after spending the weekend in the hospital with the virus is seen as a boon to her. Shed planned to make his record the focus of her attacks, aides said, but with the president touting his improved condition, those strikes can be delivered with less hesitation.

She can be tough on Trump without worrying about it, said a person close to the campaign. I believe shes going to treat Pence as a witness in the prosecution of Donald Trump.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris poses for a portrait June 18, 2004.

Harris, for her part, joined with some of those around her in trying to lower what they view as artificially high expectations for her.

Let me just say something. He's a good debater. So, I'm so concerned, like I can only disappoint, she told donors last month.

She might have another turn in the spotlight later this month, at Senate hearings for Amy Coney Barrett, Trumps nominee to the Supreme Court. Harris is on the Judiciary Committee, and her questioning of Barrett is the most anticipated moment of the hearings.

The desire for more Harris is a sign of how far shes come in a few months. By the time she dropped out of the primary late last year, her favorability rating hovered in the low-to-mid 30s. She helped set the tone for her political comeback before Biden picked her to be his VP. Over the summer, Harris bounced back by becoming one of the most prominent politicians to back police reform in Washington, carrying legislation and appearing at protests as the nation confronted a reckoning on race.

Though she was the early frontrunner for the VP post, some Biden allies and Democrats in her home state warned the campaign that she would struggle to be a team player, even as her advisers argued it would go against her interests not to.

Harris has worked hard to overcome those perceptions, and Biden's campaign has labored to stamp out any signs of drama around the candidate.

Once back on the campaign trail, Harris has been careful about discussing her role, even in private conversations. But before her travel schedule picked up, she shared impressions with friends and donors about the lighter road schedule than she had in the primary, expressing relief and suggesting it's given her more time to prepare.

In recent weeks, her average favorability has climbed into the mid-40s, topping out at 50 percent in a CNN poll released Tuesday.

While Harris has largely avoided the scrutiny she faced in her own campaign, particularly around her own record, she hasnt entirely avoided hiccups. Shes been criticized for prioritizing local interviews and non-political outlets over questions from traveling press.

Her refusal to say whether she would take an approved Covid-19 vaccine ahead of the election  pointing to her distrust in Trump and the need for assurances from health experts  exposed the ticket to criticism that they were rooting against a potential treatment for the virus.

"Well, I think that's going to be an issue for all of us," Harris told CNN when she was asked whether she would receive a vaccine before the election.

Biden later stepped in to clean up Harris' remarks.

In another exchange, Harris was tripped up by questions that came after she and Biden announced support for a national mask mandate. She said they merely supported a standard. Biden later came back and said the presidents authority to impose a mask mandate was unclear and also used the standard language himself.

And Harris equivocated when asked about expanding the Supreme Court, an idea she previously was open to. Biden said during the primary he opposed adding justices to the court, but now refuses to give an answer on it, contending anything he says will serve as a distraction.

But by all accounts, Harris has managed so far to allay the concerns of naysayers when she emerged as a favorite for Bidens second-in-command: that she would overshadow Biden.

"Biden is leading," said one donor to the campaign, "and shes enforcing the message."
Bengaluru, Oct 7 : Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Wednesday assured the Union government that the state government would make the best possible preparations and also take precautions to conduct the 13th edition of Aero India show in February 2021.

Participating in the Ambassador's Round Table virtual summit regarding the 13th edition of the Aero India 2021, Yediyurappa conceded that it was indeed a unique challenge to both Karnataka and the Ministry of Defence to host this event at a time when the entire world is reeling under the global Covid-19 pandemic.

He quickly added that Karnataka had been the host state for the last 12 editions of Aero India and it was a proud moment for having been chosen again as the venue to host the 13th edition of Aero India 2021.

The biennial Aero India show is scheduled to be held from February 3 to 7, 2021.

The CM added that the standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been formulated such as strict adherence to the norms of thermal screening, sanitisation and social distancing to be observed at all locations inside and outside the venue in order to ensure the safety of international delegates, participating dignitaries and general public.

He claimed that Karnataka has adopted various proactive measures for containing the pandemic and was also ensuring a pandemic-free environment to host the Aero India 2021.

Yediyurappa observed that there has been a tremendous response from various players with almost 90 per cent of the space being provisionally booked or blocked for this event.

"Karnataka has already achieved a distinction in the Aerospace and Defence map of the country by catering to nearly 25 per cent of the aircraft and space industry in the country," he said.

According to him, Karnataka also contributes nearly 65 per cent of the country's aerospace related exports. "More than 67 per cent of the helicopter and aircraft manufacturing for the defence sector is carried out in the state. This is besides being the first state in the country to formulate a dedicated aerospace policy," he explained.

Aero India is a biennial air show and aviation exhibition held at the Yelahanka Air Force Station in Bengaluru.

The biennial event is jointly organised under the aegis of the Defence Ministry and Indian Air Force. Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Department of Space, the Union Civil Aviation Ministry and other organisations join hands to organise the Aero India show making it the largest air show in Asia.

The first edition of Aero India was held in 1996. Since then, the event has gradually earned international recognition, and has seen increased participation from exhibitors.

The 12th edition of Aero India that was held from February 20 to 24, 2019 in Bengaluru, was launched with the theme of the event - Runway to a Billion Opportunities.

The logo of the exhibition was inspired by the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). In this edition, for the first time, the defence and civil aviation segments have been combined into a holistic event with the co-involvement of the defence and civil aviation ministries. More than 600 local companies and 200 overseas companies will participate in the air show.
Susan Collins generally keeps an even keel. But shes had it with Sara Gideon.

She will say or do anything to try to win, Collins said when asked of her opponent during a wide-ranging 30-minute interview in her Capitol quarters last week. This race is built on a foundation of falsehoods. And trying to convince the people of Maine that somehow I am no longer the same person.

Collins wasnt done as she accused Gideon of defaming my reputation and attacking my integrity in their increasingly nasty race. For good measure, the Maine Republican added that Gideons campaign was being run as an arm of Chuck Schumers Washington operation, scolded Gideon, the statehouse speaker, for not reconvening the legislature amid the pandemic and challenged Gideons handling of a sexual misconduct scandal.

Perhaps most pointedly, she suggested that Gideon is from away  a serious charge in a state that can turn its nose up at outsiders.

I grew up in Caribou, Ive lived in Bangor for 26 years. My familys been in Maine for generations. Shes been in Maine for about 15 years and lives in Freeport, Collins said acidly of Gideon, who was born and raised in Rhode Island. That's a big difference in our knowledge of the state.

The fusillade of charges comes in response to a barrage of anti-Collins ads that portray her as in the pocket of big business, timid in the face of President Donald Trump and worst of all, losing the support of the states famously independent voters. The race has featured nearly $90 million in TV ads and will see another $25 million or more over the home stretch, according to an analysis of media buys, making it easily the most expensive race in Maine history.

Collins 24 years in the Senate, where she carefully cultivated the image of a pragmatic centrist, is now in serious danger of being washed away under a flood of ads and rising anti-Trump fervor. And if she goes down, the Senate Republican majority may go with her.

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Collins has not led a public poll since July and is increasingly viewed by handicappers as an underdog after crushing her competition in her last three election campaigns. Poll averages show Gideon leading by 6 points, though a Bangor Daily News poll on Tuesday showed her trailing by just one point. The state uses ranked-choice voting, adding to the complexities in the race.

Collins would not concede anything, only offering that the race is essentially tied.

Its very frustrating because its backed by so much money. And it's been going on for two years now: Non-stop negative ads. That eventually it pulls you down, Collins said of the campaign against her. What's amazing is that Im still going to win.

Gideons campaign declined to respond to Collins in an interview, asserting her schedule was too packed. Typically, challengers to high-profile senators will do any media they can get to boost their message, but Gideon seems happy not to make waves.

House Speaker Sara Gideon, D- Freeport, a candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at a

Senator Collins votes for 181 of Trumps far-right judicial nominees, for the corporate tax giveaway that put Mainers health care in jeopardy and her continued refusal to stand up to Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump show just how much she's changed after 24 years in Washington, said Maeve Coyle, a Gideon spokeswoman, in a statement. Her desperate, misleading attacks on Sara make clear that shes willing to do anything to stay there.

Collins built her brand to withstand the political winds no matter which way they blew, with a focus on deal-cutting, accessibility and delivering for her state. She will be the Senate Appropriations chairman if her party can keep the Senate. And Collins almost surely must win for there to be any hoping of preventing a Democratic takeover.

Republicans describe Collins as wounded but still in it. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said Democrats have have hit Susan so hard theyre working now on scar tissue.

She can survive the onslaught. But its a challenge, said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), an ally.

Collins precarious position reflects how its become borderline impossible to carry on as a middle-of-the-road Republican in the Trump era. Her appeals to the dwindling center incite mockery on the left, particularly when she gently chides the president. On the right, conservatives are upset about her opposition to filling the vacant Supreme Court seat, though former Gov. Paul LePage (R), never a robust Collins fan, said people should still pinch your nose and vote for her.

Collins had been pushing hard for another relief package to combat the coronavirus and deliver aid to millions of jobless Americans, but Trump killed negotiations with Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a tweet Tuesday  a huge mistake, Collins said. From immigration reform to background checks on gun sales, it was just the latest example of Trump and Collins working at cross purposes.

Bipartisan work has become harder. I dont think this president has helped make things any easier, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Murkowski herself is struggling with whether to support Trump and said she would be very lonely if Collins lost. The two make up the sum of moderate Republicans currently serving in the Senate.

A significant factor in Collins race is also the one she is most reluctant to address: Trumps reelection campaign. She refuses to reveal whether she will vote for Trump  a tactic that vulnerable Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) used successfully four years ago, albeit when Trump wasnt yet president.

Collins did not support Trump in 2016. But she dismissed the issue in an interview, saying that nobody asked her about it on a recent swing through the state.

I wish the president would not tweet insults. Theres a lot about his style that is completely opposite of mine. But that doesnt mean that he isnt right on some issues, she said, listing his aggressive trade policies toward China and his focus on tax cuts.

My personal presidential preference, I do not believe is an important factor in this race. Im not saying that the left is not trying to tie me to Donald Trump  they clearly are, Collins said. But with her votes to save the Affordable Care Act and against some of Trumps more controversial nominees like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, my independence is the same as its always been.

Betsy Sweet, who ran against Gideon in the Senate Democratic primary from the left, said both candidates are running incessant attack ads and talking very little about what they are for.

Gideons ahead, and I think there definitely is caution there in terms of talking to people and being involved in public debates, Sweet said of the campaign. Theres a little bit of: Lets keep our head down.

Thats not a luxury Collins has as she fights her own party on a Supreme Court vacancy and pushes for a deal on a new coronavirus package. And every time Trump finds himself mired in controversy, shes asked to opine.

Stuck in Washington last week when she was supposed to be touring Maine, Collins wants to make the race a side-by-side comparison between a four-term senator and a statehouse speaker. She said Gideon is not doing her job in Maine as speaker by adjourning the legislature and not doing more to address the pandemic, though Democrats say the blame lies with state Republicans for declining to participate in reconvening.

And she suggested Gideon has explaining to do on Dillon Bates, a former state legislator accused of having sexual relationships with students as a teacher. Senate Republicans campaign arm launched an ad Tuesday accusing Gideon of a cover up.

Saras own spokesperson conceded that Sara had known about this for a long time. And actually said that Sara told Dillon Bates that, should [the scandal] become public, he would have to go. Now, why, whether or not it became public would be the triggering event, and why she didnt ask for an investigation, are legitimate issues, Collins said.

Gideon had been aware of the rumors before they became public and was the first legislator to call on Bates to resign, but did not call for an investigation, according to local news outlet WCSH.

In their last debate, Gideon accused Collins of pushing the courts far to the right by supporting most of Trumps judges. And Collins' vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court provided a huge jolt in the push to defeat her. Now Collins finds herself standing with Murkowski against the efforts of 51 GOP colleagues trying to fill the vacancy filled by the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Collins keeps a photo of her and other female senators alongside Ginsburg and former Justice Sandra Day OConnor in her Senate hideaway. Collins quickly came out against filling Ginsburgs Supreme Court seat before election, but her position was ignored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is moving quickly to confirm Amy Coney Barrett.

The episode shows Collins willingness to break with her party  and the limits of a lonely moderates influence in an increasingly conservative GOP.

I was saddened by [Ginsburgs] death to start with. And disappointed that there was a rush to fill the vacancy, Collins said. Confirming conservative [and] moderate to conservative judges is Mitch McConnells top priority. So, our goals are very different.

John Bresnahan and Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.
New Delhi: Even as Congress ruled the nation for over five decades and faced Sino-India wars in 1962 and 1967, its leader Rahul Gandhi forgets this fact and dares Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clear his stand on Indias border standoff with China. He also said that had the UPA been in power, China would not have dared to look at India with an evil eye.

The former Congress president also claimed that China dared to enter India and kill our soldiers as PM Modi has weakened the country. During the led UPAs rule, Rahul said, China would not dare to take a step inside our territory, adding we would have evicted and thrown out China and it would not have taken 15 minutes to do so if the UPA had been in power.

Rahul made these remarks while addressing his final public gathering as part of his Kheti Bachao Yatra in Haryana's Kurukshetra. There is only one nation in the entire world whose land has been usurped and that is India and they call themselves patriots. The Prime Minister calls himself desh bhakt (patriot) and the whole country knows that Chinas forces are inside our territory, what kind of patriot he is? Rahul Gandhi added.

In the light of Rahul Gandhi's comments, we should not forget that when China invaded India in the year 1962, the PLA occupied a large area of India, and the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru failed to do anything. His grandson Rahul Gandhi, however, stated that had his party been in power it would have not only driven the Chinese army in just 15 minutes but would have also pushed them back by 100 kilometers.

Rahul Gandhi has been making such statements even before, but his remarks hold a significance because he is an MP and his party considers him to be the future Prime Minister. The DNA report, therefore, delved deep into his statements to make you understand how the issue related to national security are being politicised.

The Zee News would like to remind Rahul Gandhi of the era when his party was in power, and the then Defence Minister AK Antony told Parliament (on September 6, 2013) that the policy of Congress governments has been not to develop infrastructure in the border areas. Antony further added that this policy, however, failed to bear fruit and China infiltrated India, taking advantage of it.

In 1962, the Chinese army took over the entire Aksai Chin area of India, occupying about 38,000 square kilometers. In terms of area, it is equal to countries like South Korea and the UAE. A year later in 1963, Pakistan gifted approximately 5180 square meters of POK land to China. Both of these incidents took place when Jawaharlal Nehru, Rahul Gandhi's maternal grandfather, was the Prime Minister of India.

Prior to 1962, China has been expressing its claim over about 90,000 square kilometers of land in Arunachal Pradesh, but the Indian Army is now vigilant against the Chinese army's misadventure.

China has been making small incursions in Ladakh from time to time but failed to occupy any tract. Between 2010 and 2013, the Chinese army once again intensified infiltration. The National Security Advisory Board prepared a report in 2013, claiming that the Chinese army occupied 640 square kilometers of eastern Ladakh. An uproar was witnessed over this report but it was rejected by the UPA government.

This was the time when Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi, the mother of Rahul Gandhi, was termed as the Super-Prime Minister. Rahul Gandhi himself was an MP in 2013. He had a chance to push back China by 100 km, but Rahul failed to take such action.

Live TV

Jawaharlal Nehru, who died in 1964, served as the Prime Minister of the country for nearly 16 years. He always supported good relations with China but was betrayed in return.

Rahul Gandhi's grandmother Indira Gandhi was also Prime Minister for about 16 years. Her first term was about 11 years, and the second term was also about 5 years. In 1975, when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister, there was tension on the border between India and China, but she did not make any attempt to push China back.

Rahul Gandhi's father Rajiv Gandhi also served as Prime Minister of the country for 5 years, but during his entire tenure, he not even once tried to ask China to withdraw from Aksai Chin.

Notably, the soft attitude of the Congress governments towards China encouraged the Chinese army to infiltrate into Indian territory. The Central government, for the first time in the year 2017, disclosed under the Right to Information that China has illegally occupied a total of 43,180 square kilometers of Indian land.

Due to the Chinese occupation of Aksai Chin, the border between India and China has now been reduced to about 2000 km, while it should have been 4056 kilometers long as per the actual map.
PITTSBURGH  The recruiters strode to the front of the room, wearing neon-yellow vests and resolute expressions. But to the handful of tenants overwhelmed by unemployment and gang violence in Northview Heights, the pitch verged on the ludicrous.

Would you like to volunteer for a clinical trial to test a coronavirus vaccine?

On this swampy-hot afternoon, the temperature of the room was wintry. I wont be used as a guinea pig for white people, one tenant in the predominantly Black public housing complex declared. Another said she knew of five people who had died from the flu shot. Make Trump look good? a man scoffed  forget it. Its safer to keep washing your hands, stay away from people and drink orange juice, a woman insisted, until the Devils coronavirus work passed over.

Then an older woman turned the question back on Carla Arnold, a recruiter from a local outreach group, who is well-known to people in the Heights:

Miss Carla, would you feel comfortable allowing them to inject you?

Ms. Arnold, 62, adjusted her seat to face them down, her eyes no-nonsense above a medical mask.

They already did, she replied.

The room stilled.

Recruiting Black volunteers for vaccine trials during a period of severe mistrust of the federal government and heightened awareness of racial injustice is a formidable task. So far, only about 3 percent of the people who have signed up nationally are Black.
A snake specialist has begged Australians to stop killing native animals after a harmless python was intentionally mowed down by a driver in an act of cruelty.

Reptile catcher Jordan Sparrow wrote the heartbreaking post on Facebook after he was called to save a snake in Buderim near Queensland's Sunshine Coast on Tuesday.

Mr Sparrow, who operates All Coast Reptile Relocations, said a reckless motorist had accelerated towards the snake and ran it over.

After using the last of its energy to slither to a nearby front door, it curled up and died.

Mr Sparrow, who runs All Coast Reptile Relocations, said a reckless motorist had intentionally accelerated towards the snake and ran over it (pictured)

The horrified snake catcher said that if the python had been a koala, its life would have been spared.

'I would put all I own on the fact that if it were a koala crossing the road, the driver would have stopped and helped it cross the road.'

'Again this is a call to everyone to please spare these poor animals, just because you don't understand them or you fear them doesn't mean you have to do them harm.'

He pointed out that killing wildlife is not only unnecessary, it's illegal.

Carpet pythons are not venomous to humans and will usually only strike if provoked.

The horrified snake catcher (pictured) said that if the snake had been a koala, its life would have been spared

Attempting to catch or kill protected wildlife, such as a python, carries a penalty of at least five years in jail or a $77,000 fine in Queensland.

Mr Sparrow added that animals have lost a significant portion of their habitat due to infrastructure around the Sunshine Coast.

'The malicious actions of ignorant people is the tip of the ice berg,' he said.

'One day we will only have story's to tell our grandchildren about the amazing wildlife Australia HAD to offer and that used to live alongside us.'

Mr Sparrow (pictured) added that animals have lost a significant portion of their habitat due to infrastructure around the Sunshine Coast

Readers flocked to the comments section to support the snake catcher's heartfelt words.

'Im the first to say, snakes scare me. Like, REALLY scare me. But to kill the poor thing. Such a waste,' one man wrote.

'I'm so sorry to read this. Can't understand this deliberate cruelty. Our wildlife don't deserve this,' another shared.

'Who are these scumbags in our communities. Who speeds up to harm any animal? We should all be driving slower if anything to give our wildlife a chance,' someone else added.
Clise files demo plan for Pink Elephant



Real Estate Editor By BRIAN MILLER Real Estate Editor

Photo by Brian Miller [enlarge] There are no landmark protections for the famous pachyderm overlooking Denny.





Another beloved Seattle icon appears bound for the wrecking ball and redevelopment. Longtime landowner Clise Properties has filed an early plan with the city to demolish the Elephant Car Wash, at 616 Battery St. in the Denny Triangle.

Clise has owned the triangle, immediately south of Denny Way, for decades. The property isn't publicly listed for sale, though securing a demolition permit is often a precondition for prospective buyers. No new building plans have been filed for the property, which totals 18,965 square feet. It's zoned up to 240 feet, and is also bounded by Seventh Avenue and the new Borealis Avenue (formerly Aurora).

The demo plan also includes the triangular parking lot Clise owns at 601 Wall St., west of Borealis. That triangle has 13,003 square feet, with the same zoning. It's now being used for construction staging.

No contractor is attached to the plan. Bush Roed & Hitchings prepared the land survey for Clise.

The downtown Elephant location has been closed for several months, owing to the pandemic. It's now fenced, covered with graffiti, and surrounded with trash and tent encampments.

The famous rotating neon sign at Denny isn't landmarked or protected, though it could presumably be moved, like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's neon globe. The original sign and building date to 1956. (There's also a smaller, newer replica sign on the south corner of the property.)

The Elephant business dates to 1951; it was founded by the Anderson family, and has since 1982 been owned by the Haney family. It now lists 15 locations around Puget Sound. The business owns the sign, not Clise. It was designed by Bea Haverfield of Campbell Neon.

The DJC was unable to reach the Auburn-based Elephant Car Wash for comment. Clise didn't respond to a DJC query.

Among its extensive holdings in the Denny Triangle, Clise has gradually redeveloped or sold properties, with Amazon and Onni Group being prominent past buyers. Downtown, Clise has also put the Securities Building block on the market, with NKF as its broker. Who's brokering the two triangles is unknown.

Given their odd shapes, a residential developer would seem more likely than an office developer. Just to the west, at 600 Wall St., the 41-story Spire condominium tower recently topped out on a triangle that totals only 10,700 square feet.





Brian Miller can be reached by email at brian.miller@djc.com or by phone at (206) 219-6517.




Shining Tree Project, Caswell Prospect

Shining Tree Project, Caswell Prospect

Shining Tree Project, Caswell Prospect

TORONTO, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Platinex Inc. (CSE: PTX) (the "Company" or "Platinex") is pleased to provide an update on the active exploration program of the Caswell prospect at Shining Tree property in the Abitibi greenstone belt of Northern Ontario, (see press release of September 16, 2020 Platinex Inc. Announces Initiation of Exploration on Its Shining Tree Property). The Shining Tree property is the largest holding in the Shining Tree gold district at 20,750 hectares (51,274 acres) situated along the Ridout-Tyrrell trend between the Juby deposit owned by Caldas Gold to the east and the mine development-stage Cote gold deposit to the west owned by Iamgold.

Current Exploration Program

The current exploration program will focus on the underexplored 21 kilometres of the Ridout-Tyrrell deformation zone and associated syenite intrusives. This major deformation zone trends as far west as Borden Lake, through the area of the Cote gold deposit, directly through the Platinex Shining Tree property and on to the Juby deposit. A key initial target for Platinex along this trend will be the Caswell prospect, which hosts a 700 m wide east-west corridor of shear zones and quartz veining.

A mechanical stripping and channel sampling program is currently in progress on the property to further assess the extent and gold mineralization within an approximately 700m wide corridor of veining, shearing and alteration. Figure 1 includes areas of stripping and sampling program.

Results from the stripping and channel sampling work will provide input to a diamond drilling program to follow which will test strike extensions of the vein systems beneath deeper overburden areas and test the width of the zone.

In 2010, Platinex conducted a surface stripping and channel sampling program traversing much of the width of the structure. A total 370 channel samples, and four grab samples were taken and analysed for gold by ALS Chemex of Vancouver by fire assay. Sample material included both the veins and enclosing altered shear zones. This work which is described as part of the Historical Work below and the proposed coverage this year are depicted on the attached Figure 1.

Story continues

In March and April, 2011 Platinex completed a seven hole 1,070 m drilling program on the Caswell area. The first hole, WP11-01, returned a gold assay of 18.75 g/t over 0.5m within a broader zone of visible gold bearing quartz-tourmaline veining assaying 4.52 g/t over 2.52 m believed to be within vein 108 and immediately south of trench 4.

James R. Trusler, Chairman and CEO of Platinex stated, The Caswell Prospect is situated on the east side of a 3km diameter circle of gold deposits and former producers where the Ridout-Tyrrell deformation zone intersects the major north-south trending Michiwakenda fault. From the sampling done on Caswell to date the mineralization appears to be systematic. In addition to the chances for a discovery here we should be able to apply what we learn here to other nearby prospects.

An expanded till sampling program on the property is also progressing well.

Summary of Historical Exploration Program at Caswell.

From 1916 to 2002 previous exploration has been recorded by ten different companies that have identified 24 different veins on the east side of Caswell Creek and 17 on the west side over a 700 m wide ENE trending corridor of shearing and alteration. On the east side of the creek the known strike extent is 300m before being obscured by overburden. Many of the veins have been indicated in the past to contain significant gold mineralization with silver and tellurium, but no systematic exploration of the entire zone has been conducted.

Early work on Caswell includes sinking one shaft to 170 m with a total of 330m lateral development on 4 levels and another shaft to 28m with 53m of lateral development. Much of the early work recorded very high gold assays in some veins. Platinex has taken the approach of caution with historical reporting, but reliance on the more analytical and critical approaches taken by Chesbar Resources Inc (Chesbar) in 1987-1988 and Practical Exploration & Development Corporation (Practical) in 2001 is very valuable information to incorporate into the active exploration today at Caswell.

Work by Chesbar included a random collection of 106 grab samples from veins on the east side of the property. Of the 106 samples, 8 returned grades greater than 6.0 g/t Au, 5 samples returned values greater than 16 g/t Au, 11 returned grades greater than 3.0g/t Au and 26 returned grades greater than 0.06 g/t Au . Practical also collected 18 random samples of vein material 3 of which returned greater than 3g/t Au.

Platinexs 2010 sampling (370 channels and four grab samples) compare favourably returning numerous highly anomalous gold values including 10.55 g/t Au over/ 0.69m, 9.1 g/t over 1.0m, 4.69 g/t over 0.69m, 4.1 g/t over 0.44m, 4.41 g/t over 0.47m, 3.37 over 1.03m, 3.57 over 0.54m in channel samples and up to 27.7g/t Au in grab samples. In addition to these samples, 22 channel samples returned gold values greater than 0.7 g/t, three of which were greater than 2 g/t. The success rate of good values within the actual vein material is similar to results reported by Chesbar and Practical.

The information presented in this news release has been reviewed and approved by James R. Trusler, P.Eng., Chairman and CEO of the Company and the Qualified Person for exploration at the Shining Tree property, as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards for Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Lori Paradis, Assistant Secretary

Tel: (416) 268-2682

Email: lparadis@platinex.com

Web: www.platinex.com

About Platinex Inc.  Advancing a District Scale Project in an Abitibi Gold Camp

Platinex is focusing its efforts on the exploration of its property in the Shining Tree District. Platinex has created the largest combined gold focused property package in the Shining Tree District, northern Ontario, which has received little modern exploration compared to other gold camps in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt. The Company is also utilizing its proprietary data to seek financial backing to secure and advance major Platinum Group Element properties in North America. Shares of Platinex are listed for trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol "PTX".

To receive Company press releases, please email lparadis@platinex.com and mention Platinex press release on the subject line.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:

This news release may contain forward-looking statements and information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Such statements include use proprietary data to seek financial backing to advance its platinum group properties, submission of the relevant documentation within the required timeframe and to the satisfaction of the relevant regulators, completing the acquisition of applicable assets and raising sufficient financing to complete the Company's business strategy. There is no certainty that any of these events will occur. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be correct. We assume no responsibility to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by applicable securities laws.

Investing into early stage companies, inherently carries a high degree of risk and investment into securities of the Company shall be considered highly speculative.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any province in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities issued, or to be issued, under the Private Placement have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration requirements.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not passed upon the merits of the Private Placement and has not approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1f7c4007-ebc7-463f-9e91-3b796113d6d2




Huawei Consumer Business Group (CBG) has launched the Huawei MateBook X, the latest addition to the Huawei MateBook lineup, transforming how consumers can work in this new era of mobile productivity.

Featuring the series signature aesthetics, the Huawei MateBook X comes with significant enhancements to portability due to its Ultra-light and thin body that weight just 1kg, innovations for an immersive experience like the 3K Infinite FullView display with full touch screen and latest 10th generation processors and an overall smart experience with Multi-Screen Collaboration as a part of Huawei Share.

The ultra-portable experience is redefined by the compact laptop, which packs everything in a lightweight body that is as light as 1kg and measures just 13.6mm at the thickest part. The latest Huawei laptops slim form factor comes at no expense to durability. Featuring a lightweight aluminium unibody, it is built with robustness in mind. Inspired by the iridescent mother-of-pearl and glitter powder, Huawei MateBook X elevates CMF design to an artform with glitter-infused colourway: Silver Frost.

The new Huawei MateBook X is the first laptop to feature the Infinite FullView Display, realised with a borderless design that offers a 90% screen-to-body ratio. The unobstructed screen delivers an immersive experience whether the user is working, creating content or binging on movies.

The display is also multitouch-enabled with gesture support, such as Fingers Gesture Screenshot, which lets users quickly take a screenshot by swiping downwards on the screen with three fingers, as easy as it is on a smartphone. Huawei also offers two eye care features on the Huawei MateBook X: Eye Comfort mode effectively filters out blue light emissions to provide eye strain relief during long sessions of use, and Brightness adjustment algorithms ensure a consistent viewing experience no matter the device is used indoors or under direct sunlight.

CROSS-DEVICE EXPERIENCE

The Multi Screen Collaboration feature in Huawei Share enables seamless collaboration between smartphones and PCs. Once a smartphone is connected to Huawei MateBook X, the smartphone screen is integrated into the laptop with a picture-in-picture window. In addition to easy drag-and-drop file transfer, this feature allows the PC to directly open and edit files on the smartphone.

Instant Hotspot provides one-step access to Internet via tethering. And during break-time at work, users can catch up with family and friends by video or audio calling them conveniently from the laptop.

To facilitate a smarter mobile office experience, Huawei introduced new upgrades to Multi-Screen Collaboration, which not only allows one to mirror ones smartphone screen to ones laptopss display, but also lets one open up to three mobile apps at the same time. The Huawei MateBook X also features a clickpad with Huawei Free Touch, which offers a more expansive space for navigation and creative expressions.

CREATIVE AND PRODUCTIVE

Featuring a 10th Generation Intel Core i5 processor and up to 16GB RAM, it provides the essential performance to support a smooth experience across typical productivity and multimedia use cases.

Wi-Fi 6 support ensures Internet connection stays fast and stable even in crowded locations, with speeds up to three times of Wi-Fi 5. While staying incredibly compact, the Huawei MateBook X still offers incredible battery life with its 42Wh (rated capacity) battery working together with Huaweis smart battery management solution to support up to 9 hours of local media playback or typical productivity scenarios.

Transform any location into a personal cinema with the powerful quad-speaker system with split-frequency setup delivering rich 3D audio directly from under the keyboard.

The sound system synergises with advanced audio algorithms to virtualise surround sound, delivering an immersive experience with any music, movie or game. In addition, user privacy is protected by the Fingerprint Power Button.

The Huawei MateBook X is also joined by the Huawei MateBook X Pro, which boasts an Ultra FullView Display in a sleek and elegant unibody design, as well as the Huawei MateBook 13, featuring a highly portable design and powerful performance. The Huawei MateBook X Pro comes in elegant colours of Space Gray and Mystic Silver, and packs innovative features like Multi-screen collaboration as a part of Huawei Share.

Starting October 8, 2020, both the Huawei MateBook X and Huawei MateBook 13 will be available for pre-order from the Huawei website https://bit.ly/2GuGyur . The Huawei MateBook X will be selling for BD574.900 ($1,525) and Huawei MateBook 13 for BD326.900. -- Tradearabia News Service
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) offering his condolences on October 7, 2020 in Kuwait to the Gulf emirate's Crown Prince, Sheikh Mishaal al-Ahmad al-Jabaer al-Sabah, following the death of the emir of Kuwait last week. (AFP)

Kuwait: Kuwaits new ruler on Wednesday named veteran security chief Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad as crown prince, retaining power firmly within the ruling familys oldest ranks and signalling the OPEC member state is unlikely to pursue disruptive change.

The selection of the octogenarian Sheikh Meshal, deputy head of the countrys National Guard and the eldest of several rumoured candidates for the job, must be approved by the Gulf Arab states parliament.

It was blessed by the Al Sabah family, state news agency KUNA cited a statement from the emirs office as saying.

The new emir, Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah, assumed power following the death of his brother Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad last week, at a time of tension between Kuwaits larger neighbours Saudi Arabia and Iran and as the government tries to shore up finances strained by low oil prices and COVID-19.

Diplomats and analysts say that due to his low-key style and age, Sheikh Nawaf, 83, may delegate a larger portion of responsibilities to his heir apparent, who would have to act swiftly to tackle domestic issues.

The parliament speaker had said that if the emir announced a crown prince on Wednesday, then lawmakers would vote on his choice on Thursday, the last day of parliaments term.

Sheikh Meshal, also a brother of the late emir, became deputy head of the National Guard in 2004 and previously served as head of State Security for 13 years. Kuwait experts said he had in the past declined offers of senior positions, steering clear of political battles and public-facing roles.

He had accompanied Sheikh Sabah to the United States in July where the late ruler was hospitalised until his death aged 91.

YOUNGER PRINCES

The new emir is expected to uphold oil policy and a foreign policy shaped by Sheikh Sabah that strove for Arab detente and balanced ties between Saudi Arabia, Iran and former occupier Iraq.

Sheikh Meshals rise stands in contrast to some other Gulf states, most notably neighbour Saudi Arabia, where ruling families are starting to give top jobs to younger princes.

Sheikh Nawaf was shown on state television on Wednesday meeting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who arrived in Kuwait from Qatar to offer condolences on Sheikh Sabahs death.

Turkey has sided with Doha in a Gulf row that has seen Saudi Arabia and its allies impose a boycott on Qatar since mid-2017, a bitter rift which Sheikh Sabah tried in vain to resolve.

Kuwaits emir and crown prince are expected to focus on domestic issues with parliamentary elections due this year and at a time the government is trying to tackle a liquidity crunch.

A pressing matter, diplomats and analysts say, is debt legislation that had met resistance in parliament and which would allow Kuwait to tap international debt markets to help it finance the budget deficit.

Frequent clashes between cabinet and parliament, the Gulfs oldest and most powerful legislature, have led to successive government reshuffles and dissolution of parliament, hindering investment and reform efforts.
Through the technology and capabilities of TCN, these new employees with vision loss can work from multiple locations, including home, enabling Beyond Vision to pull this program off.

TCN, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based call center technology for enterprises, contact centers, BPOs, and collection agencies worldwide, celebrates the success of its ongoing partnership with Beyond Vision. Beyond Vision is a 501(c)(3) self-funded, not-for-profit company with the mission of enriching the lives of people with vision loss through the dignity of work. The organization selected TCN's optimized VocalVision solution to work with Job Access With Speech (JAWS) and has made it accessible to agents both on-premise and at home. JAWS is the world's most popular screen reader, developed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse.

"As a result of COVID, and thanks to TCN, we were able to obtain a 40-seat contract with the State of Wisconsin," says Rob Buettner, VP of Human Resources & Business Services at Beyond Vision. "However, we didn't have enough staff to execute on our own, so we partnered with five other non-profit agencies from throughout the country to employ mostly legally blind workers for this contract. Through the technology and capabilities of TCN, these new employees with vision loss can work from multiple locations, including home, enabling Beyond Vision to pull this program off."

Buettner, who is legally blind, has benefited first-hand from TCN and Beyond Vision's inspirational partnership. 70% of legally-blind individuals who are of working age are not employed, and Beyond Vision is working hard to do something about that. "TCN is excited about the work Beyond Vision is doing," says Terrel Bird, CEO & Co-founder of TCN. "Our continued commitment to providing innovative technology that provides opportunities for all is a high priority."

Approximately 12 million people 40 years and over in the United States have vision impairment, including 1 million who are blind. "They're either unemployed, or they've given up on looking for a job. Our overall mission is to create employment and upward mobility for Americans who are blind or visually impaired," explains Buettner. "We believe that there is a lot of dignity that goes along with having a job."

Every October, Blindness Awareness Month brings a heightened focus on the blind and visually impaired community and the realities of living without sight. TCN's VocalVision is a cloud-based call center software solution that allows for varying customization levels to meet customers' accessibility needs. TCNs creative and innovative telephony solution helped Beyond Vision increase the number of blind and visually impaired job opportunities they could offer by over 400%.

To learn more about TCN's software, visit: http://www.tcn.com

About TCN:

TCN is a leading provider of cloud-based call center technology for enterprises, contact centers, BPOs, and collection agencies worldwide. Founded in 1999, TCN combines a deep understanding of call center users' needs with a highly affordable delivery model, ensuring immediate access to robust call center technology, such as predictive dialer, IVR, call recording, and business analytics required to optimize operations and adhere to TCPA regulations. Its "always-on" cloud-based delivery model provides customers with immediate access to the latest version of the TCN solution, as well as the ability to quickly and easily scale and adjust to evolving business needs. TCN serves various Fortune 500 companies and enterprises in multiple industries, including newspaper, collection, education, healthcare, automotive, political, customer service, and marketing. For more information, visit https://www.tcn.com/ or follow on Twitter @tcn.

About Beyond Vision:

Beyond Vision has offered manufacturing services to customers since 1903 and has been ISO 9001 certified since 2002. Over the past 100 years, Beyond Vision has expanded to offer fulfillment, assembly, packaging and customer care services.

Contact them for tours to learn how the use of 3D printing technology, screen readers, lean manufacturing philosophies and poka-yoke techniques make all of these services possible with employees who are blind. Beyond Vision serves customers that include Briggs & Stratton, Harley-Davidson, GenMet, Caterpillar, Oshkosh Defense, R&B Wagner, GE and the Federal Government. Schedule a tour to learn what these customers already know about Beyond Visions capabilities and how you can help to support our mission.

To learn more, visit https://www.beyondvision.com/
OMAHA  The Nebraska prosecutor who declined to file charges after a white bar owner fatally shot a Black man during protests last spring has switched political parties after Democrats criticized his handling of the case.

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine planned to register as a Republican on Wednesday, according to the state GOP. The Nebraska Democratic Party passed a resolution last month that said Kleine, who is white, perpetuated white supremacy with his comments about 22-year-old James Scurlock, who was shot and killed by Jake Gardner following a scuffle outside Gardners bar after the bars windows were shattered.

The longtime Democrat, who has been elected as the top prosecutor in Omaha four times, declined to file charges against Gardner because he said Gardner acted in self-defense. But a grand jury that Kleine requested after his initial decision was criticized reviewed the case and decided to charge Gardner with manslaughter, making terroristic threats and two other charges. The case ended when Gardner killed himself in Oregon last month.
Profile: Brooke Thorley, VP of Customer Success at Instaclustr

Women are underrepresented in the tech sector myth or reality? Three years ago, we launched a diversity series aimed at bringing the most inspirational and powerful women in the tech scene to your attention. Today, wed like you to meet Brooke Thorley, VP of Customer Success at Instaclustr.

A research study by The National Center for Women & Information Technology showed that gender diversity has specific benefits in technology settings, which could explain why tech companies have started to invest in initiatives that aim to boost the number of female applicants, recruit them in a more effective way, retain them for longer, and give them the opportunity to advance. But is it enough?

Three years ago, we launched a diversity series aimed at bringing the most inspirational and powerful women in the tech scene to your attention. Today, wed like you to meet Brooke Thorley, VP of Customer Success at Instaclustr.

Todays Woman in Tech: Brooke Thorley, VP of Customer Success at Instaclustr

Brooke Thorley is the VP of Customer Success at Instaclustr, a global company that provides a managed platform of open source data-layer technologies including Apache Cassandra, Apache Kafka, and Elasticsearch, among other solutions. Instaclustr specializes in delivering these open source technologies in their 100% open source form  without proprietary versions, avoiding lock-in. Thorley joined Instaclustr in 2014 as one of the companys very first employees. Prior to her current role, shes served Instaclustr as a Senior Software Engineer and then as VP of Technical Operations. A graduate of The Australian National University with a degree in software engineering, she and her family live in Canberra, Australia.

When did you become interested in technology?

The first experience I remember piquing my interest with technology was when I was 10 years old  I got my first computer. I was instantly and irrevocably fascinated by it. Right away I started investing a lot of time learning how to use DOS commands.

How did you end up in your career path?

In addition to my early interest in computers and subjects like math and physics in high school, I was also very drawn to language and writing. At the time, I wanted to go into a career related to those concentrations. But that all changed when a high school teacher of mine suggested that I attend a Women in IT Career Day being held at a local university. That event gave me a great opportunity to find out more about IT, and the (many) types of careers within the field. From that event on I was hooked, there was no turning back. I went to The Australian National University, and originally majored in telecom engineering and physics. Two years in, I found that I was enjoying the software engineering component of IT a lot more. I reoriented my studies to focus on engineering midway through, leading to my career today.

As for obstacles, in my early years in the industry, I would say I had to work to build up my self-confidence. But Im in an area where seeing the occasional woman around isnt such a surprise, at least speaking from here in Australia. Ive learned how to credential myself when meeting new people, and make my confidence clear. I think my love for this industry comes across loud and clear as well  its absolutely the only thing I could imagine myself doing. The truth is, when a lot of people first meet me theyre surprised to learn what I do for a living. But they arent at all once I start talking about it and they hear my passion for it.

Did you receive support from your family and friends?

Ive always felt strongly supported by my family and friends. I come from a family where hard work and dedication are deeply appreciated and always encouraged. My parents dont have backgrounds in technical fields, but were certainly my role models and demonstrated the value of hard work. Theyre also the type of parents who know how to roll with whatever happens. So they fully supported and encouraged my career choice, and are responsible for helping me grow into an adaptable and resilient person as well.

Did someone ever try to stop you from learning and advancing in your professional life?

No. Ive been very fortunate in that respect.

A day in Brookes life

Im the VP of Customer Success at Instaclustr. Were a global company and Im based in our Australia office. Most of my typical workday is spent on the phone interacting with our customers, troubleshooting technical questions, and helping them understand how to get the most from the data-layer technologies their businesses rely upon. In short, my job is making sure that customers around the world receive everything they need from us, both on the technical and service sides of things. Im often involved in nurturing our customer relationships from pre-sales on, working to understand each customers unique data needs and how we can apply our solutions to meet them. As our customer relationships mature, Im looking at how their requirements are evolving and how we can continue to best support them as they scale up. Really, my job is to make sure were exceeding expectations and earning each customers business by paying continuous attention to how they are leveraging the open source data-layer technologies we support.

I come from a family where hard work and dedication are deeply appreciated and always encouraged.

What are you most proud of in your career?

Im proud that Ive worked hard to become successful and respected in my career while following my own path. As a woman, I dont fit the traditional mold of a worker in the IT industry  particularly so in software engineering  and Im proud of that.

Why arent there more women in tech? Whats your take on that?

First of all, I think it is changing. I went to university 15 years ago. Today, Im seeing more young women coming up through our company and others like us, and Im absolutely crossing paths with more and more women across the industry. Within our engineering teams, theres also definitely a noticeable rise in the numbers of newly-degreed women coming through.

STEM is now taught in schools from such a young age. I have a young daughter who understands that computing is everything; its now part of the foundational required knowledge for young people. I was probably part of the last generation where we didnt always have a computer  hence why it was such a transformational moment when I was 10.

Whether or not IT will ever get to a 50/50 male-female balanceI dont know. For me, if one teacher hadnt point it out as an option, I wouldnt have considered it. Today, though, its thought of as a clear option available for women. And there are so many career routes within the field  not just in the area of hands-on-the-computer-programming. But reaching more of a balance will take time.

Could you name a few challenges (or obstacles) women in tech face?

In my experience, at companies that have only been around for the last 10 years or less, I never detect discrimination. Generally, with engineers, people are judged and rewarded based on their technical proficiency  and rightfully so.

From my perspective, many of the challenges that women in technology face are those outside of work. Many women get to the point where they want to have a family, and need to figure out how to juggle those work and family demands, and whether that means taking time off. That isnt to say that men dont have responsibilities and decisions to make through that period of life as well, of course. But speaking as a woman with a young family, its one of (if not the) biggest career challenge myself and my female peers will encounter.

Would our world be different if more women worked in STEM?

My short answer: yes. How exactly would it make our world differentI dont know! I do think the impacts will be positive and beneficial if the world sees more women reach success in STEM fields, particularly across cultures where the technology-industry workforce is still particularly male-dominated.

Achieving institutional change in any field requires that change to come from the next generation.

Discussion about more diversity in tech is gaining momentum. How long will it take to see results from the current conversation?

I dont agree with using quotas to achieve more diversity in tech. I think that everyone needs to get into the industry on their own merit and by their own choosing. How long is it going to take for us to see a greater balance in IT? Achieving institutional change in any field requires that change to come from the next generation. Todays boys and girls are exposed to STEM from the earliest ages, so the change were talking about might take another 20-30 years. And it might not be a 50/50 balance. But it will likely be significantly closer.

What advice (and tips) would you give to women who want a tech career?

My advice is: work hard. Be smart. Dont let yourself be discriminated against. If you feel like you are, leave. And dont think that doing so is a sign of weakness, its not. If a company or person within a company isnt treating you fairly, theres someone else out there that does deserve your expertise. Be confident in your abilities. Celebrate your wins, big and little.

Heres what women should know about the IT industry: its not as scary as what you may think. Its broad, and includes so, so many roles. If you have the abilities, theres a place for you here.

More Women in Tech:

For even more Women in Tech, click here
Fauci also maintains a nonpartisan stance, yet he is clearly concerned about the politicization of science here and abroad. A federal government science award sends a signal that we feel that science prevails as being very important and really trumps everything else, he said. When you think about the truth and the evidence that you need when youre dealing with a pandemic, its the science that counts, not anything else.
Los Angeles, Oct 7 : Actor and co-creator Dan Levy of the Emmy Award-winning show 'Schitt's Creek' has slammed Comedy Central India for taking out a scene of a same sex kiss between his character David and Dustin Milligan's character, Ted.

Levy posted a promo clip on his Twitter account, claiming the channel cut out his kissing scene.

The scene shows characters from the show play 'spin the bottle' at a party, and same sex kisses.

Calling out the channel for editing out the kissing scene between the two male characters, he tweeted: "You showed the kiss between two women, you showed the kiss between a woman and a man, then removed the kiss between two men? This is a show about the power of inclusivity. The censorship of gay intimacy is making a harmful statement against that message. #loveislove." "For those who are confused, this is about a channel in India. @ComedyCentral in America is not censoring the show. They have been lovely and respectful," he added.

Fans, too, expressed their disappointment over the matter.

"Thank you for making a show that truly meant the world to so many. This kind of censorship is not okay," a user commented.

"This is appalling," another wrote.

The Canadian family comedy, 'Schitts Creek', recently made history at the 72nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards as it took home the majority of the awards at the ceremony, which was held virtually amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Ceated by father-son duo Eugene and Dan Levy, the show follows the wealthy Rose family, who are forced to move to a small motel after losing their fortune.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Students in the Judson Independent School District will receive free breakfasts and lunches through the end of the year, according to a school spokesperson.

Judson ISD has extended the free meal program, the student meal initiative it ran over the summer months, until the end of 2020, said Nicole Taguinod, Judson interim communications director. This means that regardless of whether a student is learning through virtual instruction or in-person, they will be provided a breakfast and a lunch at no cost through the end of 2020.

Since the return of face-to-face instruction on Sept. 28, the district is averaging 5,900 onsite breakfasts and 7,600 onsite lunches, as well as continuing curbside service for as many as 675 students who are still at home via virtual instruction.

Taguinod said the districts Child Nutrition Department has remained in constant communication with the districts campuses to ensure each school receives the necessary meals to serve at curbside or in-school.

Because of this continuous communication, the department has always had a fairly accurate projection for the number of students expected to be onsite, she said. We track and document meal services at all of our sites and plan meal projection based on prior participation. All of this gave us a good idea of how many students to expect on campus.

This extension has been made possible by an unprecedented move to continue funding the program by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Normally a summer-based food program, the meal service program provides meals to children when many parents are not at home and helps families with household food budgeting during summer months.

The program, through a permission waiver from the Texas Department of Agriculture, will continue through December.

Judson food service department employees report to work as early as 4:30 a.m. to its central kitchen. Most kitchen staff throughout the district is in place by 6 and 7 a.m. each day.

Because of COVID-19 restrictions, the Judson meal service no longer serves food on trays and through food lines.

Our meals are now served in a grab-n-go style, Taguinod said. Meal components are packaged individually by our (food services) staff, then presented to students in a carry-out bag.

Adapting a new normal requires more handling and packaging than the traditional process of placing food in trays and containers that students picked up as they filed through school cafeteria serving lines.

The process of packaging individual meals is labor-intensive and ongoing. We are serving fewer students, but ironically, it is far more challenging, she said. Our new normal routine means adapting daily to ensure the students are getting safe, nutritious meals in the most efficient and compliant manner.

As has been the case since Judson launched its curbside service in early June, students do not have to be present to pick up a curbside meal. However, if family members are picking up curbside meals for them, then they must provide identification such as a student ID, a student report card, birth certificate, or attendance record from the districts parent portal.

jflinn@express-news.net
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ohio's Connectivity Champions, one of three components of Ohio's RemotEDx initiative, are available for live support starting at 8:00am today. Connectivity Champions , powered by the Management Council, provide additional support to Ohio's K-12 students and families for remote learning.

RemotEDx is a new $15 million suite of remote education supports for schools funded by the Ohio Department of Education CARES Act state activity funds. Many organizations are working together to make each component of RemotEDx a reality: the Ohio Department of Education, Philanthropy Ohio, the Ohio Distance Learning Association, Ohio's Educational Service Centers, INFOhio, Ohio's Information Technology Centers, and the Management Council. The Connectivity Champions will help schools and families implement the connectivity funded by the $50M BroadbandOhio Connectivity Grant that was recently distributed to over 900 districts and schools in Ohio.

Connectivity Champions will provide all Ohio school districts, community schools, JVSD, STEM, and non-public schools with support to get students connected to the internet from home. They collaborate closely with Information Technology Centers to help support students and their families with household connectivity to enable remote learning. Students or parents who are struggling with a home internet connection can get help from the Connectivity Champions.

"The ability for students to reliably connect to internet from home is imperative as we continue to navigate the educational challenges presented by COVID-19," said Geoff Andrews, Management Council Chief Executive Officer. "Ohio's Connectivity Champions will support our learners with remote connectivity solutions to enable learning to continue remotely and thereby make a difference in the lives of every learner, teacher, and leader."

District administrators and parents can reach Ohio's Connectivity Champions directly by webform at https://www.ohio-k12.help/remotedx/ , by email or text at [email protected] , and by phone at (844) K12-OHIO [(844) 512-6446].

Ohio's Information Technology Centers (ITCs) work together through a statewide network known as the Ohio Education Computer Network (OECN). The Management Council coordinates and supports the collaborative efforts of the OECN, which implements a broad spectrum of academic and administrative technologies across Ohio's PreK-12 education system.

Contact: Jessica Madison, The Management Council

Phone: 614.840.9810

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE The Management Council

Related Links

www.mcoecn.org


This article will reflect on the compensation paid to Warwick Davies who has served as CEO of Resource Mining Corporation Limited (ASX:RMI) since 2010. This analysis will also evaluate the appropriateness of CEO compensation when taking into account the earnings and shareholder returns of the company.

See our latest analysis for Resource Mining

How Does Total Compensation For Warwick Davies Compare With Other Companies In The Industry?

According to our data, Resource Mining Corporation Limited has a market capitalization of AU$4.1m, and paid its CEO total annual compensation worth AU$89k over the year to June 2020. We note that's an increase of 8.7% above last year. Notably, the salary of AU$89k is the entirety of the CEO compensation.

On comparing similar-sized companies in the industry with market capitalizations below AU$278m, we found that the median total CEO compensation was AU$309k. This suggests that Warwick Davies is paid below the industry median.

Component 2020 2019 Proportion (2020) Salary AU$89k AU$82k 100% Other - - - Total Compensation AU$89k AU$82k 100%

Talking in terms of the industry, salary represented approximately 70% of total compensation out of all the companies we analyzed, while other remuneration made up 30% of the pie. Speaking on a company level, Resource Mining prefers to tread along a traditional path, disbursing all compensation through a salary. If salary is the major component in total compensation, it suggests that the CEO receives a higher fixed proportion of the total compensation, regardless of performance.

A Look at Resource Mining Corporation Limited's Growth Numbers

Resource Mining Corporation Limited has seen its earnings per share (EPS) increase by 13% a year over the past three years. Its revenue is up 3.0% over the last year.

Shareholders would be glad to know that the company has improved itself over the last few years. It's nice to see revenue heading northwards, as this is consistent with healthy business conditions. While we don't have analyst forecasts for the company, shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow.

Story continues

Has Resource Mining Corporation Limited Been A Good Investment?

We think that the total shareholder return of 100%, over three years, would leave most Resource Mining Corporation Limited shareholders smiling. This strong performance might mean some shareholders don't mind if the CEO were to be paid more than is normal for a company of its size.

In Summary...

Resource Mining pays CEO compensation exclusively through a salary, with non-salary compensation completely ignored. As we noted earlier, Resource Mining pays its CEO lower than the norm for similar-sized companies belonging to the same industry. Considering robust EPS growth, we believe Warwick to be modestly paid. Plus, we can't ignore the impressive shareholder returns, and won't be surprised if some shareholders were to reward such excellent all-around performance with a raise.

We can learn a lot about a company by studying its CEO compensation trends, along with looking at other aspects of the business. That's why we did our research, and identified 4 warning signs for Resource Mining (of which 3 don't sit too well with us!) that you should know about in order to have a holistic understanding of the stock.

Important note: Resource Mining is an exciting stock, but we understand investors may be looking for an unencumbered balance sheet and blockbuster returns. You might find something better in this list of interesting companies with high ROE 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.
Election workers sort vote-by-mail ballots for the presidential primary at King County Elections in Renton, Wash., on March 10, 2020. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)

More Than 2,000 LA County Voters Received Mail-In Ballots With No Way to Vote for President

About 2,100 Los Angeles County voters received mail-in ballots without a way to vote for president as the ballots omitted the presidential race.

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder office confirmed the erroneous ballots were sent out, saying it was a printing error that affected the more than 2,000 documents. The ballots did not include President Donald Trump, Democratic nominee Joe Biden, Kanye West, or the other choices for president.

Registrar Dean Logan said in a statement, We are now in the process of alerting all affected voters in this precinct of the error by robocall and email, and tomorrow morning we will be mailing out new, corrected ballots with a letter describing the error.

A spokesperson for the county clerks office, Michael Sanchez, told KTLA that while this has impacted a very small number of Los Angeles County voters  we nevertheless apologize to those affected by the mistake.

The office called on voters to discard the faulty ballot and fill-out and return the accurate one.

If they have already filled out and mailed their original ballot, we will cancel their original ballot once their new ballot is received, Logan said.

Attorney Christy Gargalis, who lives in Woodland Hills, told the Los Angeles Times that she noticed the faulty ballot when it was delivered to her.

Ive always been an in-person voter, so I wasnt even planning on looking at the ballot until the day I was going to vote, Gargalis said. Something told me that this was a different election, a different year, and I just had to check my ballot, and Im glad I did, added Gargalis.

Adding further, she said that her neighbors also received the faulty ballots.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier was arrested for allegedly dumping mail, including election ballots.

Nicholas Beauchene, 26, of Kearny, New Jersey, was charged with one count of delay, secretion, or detention of mail and one count of obstruction of mail, authorities said.

The issue was noted by President Donald Trump on Twitter, who wrote that 2,000 Los Angeles County voters got the ballots with NO WAY TO VOTE FOR PRESIDENT.

Many others throughout USA. Here we go. This will be the most corrupt Election in American History! he continued.

Over the past several months, Trump has frequently noted that due to the significant amount of ballots being mailed out because of the pandemic, there is a heightened risk for election rigging or delayed vote counts. Democrats like Biden or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California have alleged Trumps assertions on the election are an attempt to engage in voter suppression.
New Delhi: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted bail to actress Rhea Chakraborty in a drugs case related to actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death. Her brother Showik Chakraborty's bail plea has, however, been rejected. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had arrested them in September in connection with the drugs case.

Rhea got bail on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh. The court said, "Rhea should mark her presence for 10 days in the police station after release, deposit her passport, not travel abroad without court permission and inform the investigating officer if she has to leave Greater Mumbai."

A special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) court in Mumbai had extended the judicial custody of Rhea Chakraborty and others in the case till October 20. According to officials, as many as 14 persons arrested in the case were produced before the special court here through video conferencing for the grant of judicial custody.

The special court had earlier also rejected the bail pleas of the brother-sister duo. They then moved the Bombay High Court to seek bail. The HC has reserved its order on their pleas.

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had launched an investigation after it received official communication from Enforcement Directorate (ED), in which there were various chats related to drug consumption, procurement, usage and transportation in connection with Sushant's case.

The NCB had launched an investigation after it received official communication from Enforcement Directorate (ED), in which there were various chats related to drug consumption, procurement, usage and transportation in connection with the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.

Sushant was found dead at his apartment in Mumbai on June 14. His death case was initially probed by the Mumbai Police. The CBI had later 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 Sushant's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family.

(With agency inputs)
A map of the DPP's office could be put to "extraordinarily destructive use" if it ended up in the wrong hands, according to a judge who upheld a senior garda's claim of privilege over the DPP office's floor-plans on Wednesday.

Jonathan Lennon (36), from Clonee, Dublin 15, began working in the DPPs office on January 3, 2017, as a service officer who collected, delivered and circulated files.

He admitted having a nosey in the Peter Butterly murder file but denied breaking the Official Secrets Act that applies to civil servants since 1963.

Mr Butterly (35) was shot dead in the car park of the Huntsman Inn, at Gormanston Co Meath on March 6th, 2013 as part of an internal feud in the dissident republican movement. Four men are serving life sentences for his murder while others are serving sentences for related offences.

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Mr Lennon denied four counts of disclosing information without authorisation to three individuals about the arrest of a named suspect in the Butterly case on September 7th and 8th, 2017, but was found guilty following a non-jury District Court trial.

Judge John Hughes sentenced him to 11 months in prison last year, but Lennon immediately lodged an appeal, which opened in the Circuit Court in July and resumed this week.

Mr Lennons lawyers have sought sight of certain information, including CCTV footage and a limited floor-plan of the DPPs office which, they argued, would enable them to piece together Mr Lennon's movements at relevant times.

His barrister, Mark Mulholland QC, instructed by solicitor Ciaran Mulholland, told the Circuit Court on Wednesday that there was no evidence Mr Lennon actually entered the office in question, collected the file or returned it.

Public interest

However, Detective Superintendent Michael Gibbons said he was claiming privilege over the information to protect life and as a matter of public interest.

He said officials in the DPPs office dealt with "very serious" cases and make decisions on whether people should be charged with terrorism offences and other serious crimes.

Those people needed to be kept safe in their office, Det Supt Gibbons said. To disclose the information sought by Mr Lennon's lawyers could compromise the integrity of the office and reduce the effectiveness of how the office works, he added.

Det Supt Gibbons said there was clear evidence of alleged contact between Mr Lennon and suspected IRA members who were subsequently convicted in the courts.

"I have a serious concern that floor plans of the DPP's office could be going in that direction, Det Supt Gibbons said alleging that the floor plans could end up in the hands of the IRA.

Sensitive work

Under cross examination from Mr Mulholland, Det Supt Gibbons accepted that the defence were only seeking sight of relevant portions of the floor plan. However, Det Supt Gibbons said he was making an overall claim of privilege over the entire floor plan.

Upholding the Detective Superintendent's privilege claim, Judge Melanie Greally said it was important that people who carry out such sensitive work on behalf of the State feel comfortable.

She said every element of the case concerning the DPP's office contained a risk. A map, for example, could be put to "extraordinarily destructive use".

Prosecuting counsel, Michael Delaney SC, said there was an "acute sensitivity" in the DPPs office about the floor plan.

The appeal continues before Judge Greally.
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Linkedin Veeramalla Anjaiah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7 2020

He was not even a president or prime minister of a country. When he was killed in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly paid tribute to him. In 2007, the UN declared his birthday, Oct. 2, as the International Day of Non-Violence.

He was the Father of the Nation in India. He was none other than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, affectionately known as Mahatma Gandhi or simply Gandhi. He was born on Oct. 2, 1869.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said recently that Gandhi did not belong to India alone. He belonged to the world. His teachings about non-violence, truth, peace, love, compassion, Satyagraha, harmony, tolerance unity in diversity have inspired many leaders, including the greatest leaders of the 20th century like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, across the globe.

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Google is changing the way it tests experimental YouTube features among users. Going forward, only Premium subscribers will be able to test out upcoming YouTube features before they roll out to everyone. Google previously picked random users to beta test new YouTube features.

For a limited time, Premium members can try out new features that were working on. Share your feedback to help us build a better YouTube, YouTubes updated experimental page reads. Youll be prompted to sign up for YouTube Premium if you try to join these experiments from a non-Premium account. It appears all Premium subscribers can now get early access to upcoming YouTube features.

Of course, people wont be signing up for YouTube Premium just to take part in experiments. However, with more features on offer for paying users, it would likely tempt some users to pay for the service.

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YouTube Premium costs $11.99 per month and offers an ad-free video experience, the ability to download videos, and background play, including when the screen is locked. It also bundles YouTube Music Premium.

YouTube makes experimental features exclusive to Premium subscribers

Google is currently testing three new YouTube features that would be rolling out to users in the coming months. One of those is voice search support on desktop. This is currently available only on mobile devices but is coming to Chrome soon.

Google is also adding an ability to watch a video right from the YouTube home screen. This is an iOS-only feature that allows users to watch the full video with sound controls and seeking ability. These two features are available for testing until October 20th, 2020.

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Lastly, YouTube is adding support for Spanish, French, and Portuguese languages for filtered topics. This experimental feature is available until October 27th, 2020. However, as you just read, youll need a YouTube Premium subscription to test it out.

Its unclear why Google is making this change in its beta testing policy, though. Perhaps picking beta testers at random wasnt fruitful enough for the company. Or the company perhaps believes Premium users are more likely to provide feedback on new features as they are already paying for the service and would want to gain new features earlier than non-paying users.

Also, you probably already know that Google is replacing Play Music with YouTube Music on Android smartphones. The transition is already underway and Googles latest move could be a way to entice people to sign up for YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium.
Le Drian told French lawmakers that the talks will take place in Geneva on Thursday and Moscow on Monday.

France, Russia and the United States will organize them in an attempt to start an unconditional dialogue between the warring sides, the Reuters news agency quoted him as saying. No other details were reported.

Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry announced later in the day that Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov will meet with the French, Russian and U.S. co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group in Geneva on Thursday. It said Bayramov will present Azerbaijans position on the conflicts resolution.

For his part, Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian will travel to Moscow on Monday. Anna Naghdalian, the Armenian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said preparations for the visit have been underway for some time.

Naghdalian stressed that no talks between the two ministers are due to take place in Geneva on Thursday.

Armenias principled position is that there cannot be a situation where they hold negotiations with one hand and conduct military operations against Armenia and Artsakh (Karabakh) with the other, she said. An end to Azerbaijans large-scale military aggression against Artsakh is imperative now.

The U.S., Russian and French mediators have persistently called on the parties to restore a ceasefire regime since the outbreak of large-scale fighting in in the Karabakh conflict zone on September 27. Baku has said until now that this is conditional on international guarantees of Armenian withdrawal from Karabakh. Yerevan rejects this precondition.

Le Drian on Wednesday also denounced Turkey "military involvement" on the side of Azerbaijan in the conflict. He said it risks fuelling the internationalization of the conflict.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Three early October trends involving the coronavirus have been developing in Ohio - increases in cases, hospitalizations and testing.

Heres a look at those numbers, plus others, and some of what can be taken away from data.

Increasing cases
Halton police are reporting that a missing Oakville mans boat has been located, but unoccupied.

Officers took to social media at around 3:30 p.m., on Wednesday, Oct. 7 to announce that Eric Quimbys 30-foot sailboat had been discovered near Rochester, N.Y.

Quimby himself, however, was not aboard the vessel.

The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre, which is operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force in Trenton, is continuing to coordinate search efforts in U.S. waters, police said.

That coordination centre confirmed Quimbys boat was located by the U.S. Coast Guard about three kilometres off Rochester.

They said poor weather and high waves are making for a challenging search.

They noted multiple air and marine units from the Toronto Police Service, the Canadian Coast Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Air Force are involved in the search.

Quimby, 65, is believed to have left the Oakville Club Marina at approximately 10:40 a.m., on Tuesday, Oct. 6 for a short sail west towards Stoney Creek.

Halton police said they were contacted Tuesday evening when Quimby did not return.

Online some are expressing their hopes for a positive outcome.

Thinking of the sailboaters family and friends at this difficult time, tweeted Samantha Norris.

I really hope this search ends in a happy way with them being found alive.

Quimby is white, five-foot-ten, 220-pounds with a medium build, short blonde hair and blue eyes.

He was wearing a white t-shirt, a dark sweater and red shorts.

Read more about:
- John Mahama has announced that he will not submit his filing forms

- According to him, Asiedu Nketia will do it on his behalf

- Asiedu Nketiah is expected to fie the nominations o Wednesday,

Our manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

Install our latest app for Android and read the best news about Ghana

Former President and flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress(NDC), John Dramani Mahama has announced that he will not submitting his filing forms in person.

In a Facebook post sighted by YEN.com.gh, John Mahama mentioned that he has reviewed his nomination forms and signed the relevant portions for filing.

He further noted that on his behalf, the General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia will on Wednesday, October 7, 2020 be filing the nomination papers at the electoral commission.

Mahama will not file nominations to be president; some one else will Source: Facebook

Source: Original

In a post also shared on Mahama's Facebook, it is clear that his inability to submit the forms is because he would be out of the campaign in the Western North Region.

The former president was expected to submit his forms at the head office of the Electoral Commission in Accra after President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo submitted his on Tuesday, October 6, 2020.

Reactions from Ghanaians to his decision was varied.

Joe Tsifodze wished him well.

Great leader,Good luck and all the best your Excellency Mr. President DrJohn Dramani Mahama. May the Angels of God mount up your road to victory, more grace, jobs and prosperity.much love Honourable. God bless our homeland Ghana.

Otumfuo Kofi Owusu-Ansah said he should stop wasting his money.

Mahama, in case you are given Ghana to rule again for just one year, do you even have the likes of Ibn Chambas and Kwabena Peprah and those big men your NDC had those days to help you rule the country? Masa stop wasting your cash pls.

Ashangbo Gh wished him luck.

Good luck Mr. President. Im happy to inform you that at 11:00am today at the Krachi Nchumuru Electoral Commission Office, Hon. Solomon Kuyon successfully filed his nomination as the parliamenrary candidate of the NDC for Krachi Nchumuru.

Amenyaglo Patrick believes Mahama will definitely be president.

You will surely be on the throne come 2021. Just be focused and ignore any destruction.

YEN.com.gh reported that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has finally filed his nominations at the Electoral Commission.

He was accompanied by his running mate and vice president, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

The president in a post shared on Facebook wrote said the forms were received by the EC chair, Mrs Hean Adukwei Mensa.

YEN is building a platform where Ghanaians can share local news and own experiences with each other. Witnessing an incident?

Want to tell about a local problem? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition?

Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via Instagram or on YENs official Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
Rotunda Rumblings

Thinking outside the box: A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a voter-rights groups' lawsuit that pushed for extra ballot drop boxes, ruling that Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose had rendered the issue moot by permitting counties to offer staffed, off-site ballot drop-off sites. But as Andrew Tobias writes, LaRoses office says thats not actually the case, leaving the implications unclear for counties as early voting begins. Officials in Cuyahoga County, which LaRose blocked from implementing a plan setting up ballot drop-off sites in county libraries, say they think the judges ruling means they can move forward with their plan, but said theyre waiting on guidance from the state.

Early voting begins: Voters lined up at county boards of election around Ohio on Tuesday as early, in-person voting began. About 1,600 votes were cast in Cuyahoga County, and more than 1,300 votes were cast in Summit County, Courtney Astolfi reports. Have questions about early voting? Peter Krouse wrote a Q&A.

Not all is well: An unknown number of Franklin County voters were sent the incorrect ballots on Tuesday in what elections officials are chalking up to an error in their mail-sorting machine. Some voters got ballots meant for voters in other communities, Tobias reports. Elections officials are working on identifying who was affected and figuring out how to mail them a new ballot. Meanwhile, theyre saying people who believe they got a faulty ballot can cast an early-in person vote.

Whos the boss? The Ohio Business Roundtable, which advocates for a business-friendly climate in the state, requested its member CEOs to send seven emails to employees in September and October, asking them to vote to keep the Ohio Supreme Court conservative, Laura Hancock reports. In the emails, which show how important the court races have become before the Nov. 3 election, workers are told that stability on the court will help them keep their jobs.

Not my problem: After a week of criticism over its role as health security adviser for the first presidential debate, the Cleveland Clinic on Tuesday said it was not responsible for lapses in coronavirus protocols, Seth Richardson reports. The Clinic said any questions about enforcement of safety measures  such as President Donald Trumps family not being allowed to go without masks or using a type of honor system for the candidates and testing  was handled by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Off air: Trumps campaign is once again canceling his planned flight of advertising in Ohio this week, as hes done every week since Labor Day. Thats despite polling consistently showing a close race, including one from CBS News released Sunday that showed a tie race. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden went up on the air Tuesday in the six largest markets and is making a push on radio stations in rural, traditionally Republican areas, the Associated Press' Julie Carr Smyth and Tom Beaumont report.

Printing press: Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee is also making a bit of a play in Ohio, with a GOTV ad campaign targeted at Black voters. Per a DNC release, the ads will be on radio stations WENZ-FM, WCKX-FM, and WIZF-FM and in print in the Call and Post, Dayton Defender, Sojourners Truth, ColumbusBlack, and Communicator.

Nuclear option: The Ohio Republican Party is campaigning against the Republican-backed House Bill 6  also known as the nuclear energy bailout  in vulnerable state Rep. Dave Greenspans district, Richardson writes. While the ad is accurate in depicting Greenspan as a representative who voted against HB6 twice  not to mention assisting the FBI  it leaves out quite a bit of context about who backed the bill and the arrest of GOP former House Speaker Larry Householder.

Close contact: Ohio will gather information on how the coronavirus spreads in schools to help decide whether to alter quarantine procedures based on the CDC definition of close contact. Emily Bamforth reports theres no announced start date for the project, but the state will seek guidance from Ohio State University and use rapid tests.

IP Promise: Ohios IP Promise, a program that seeks to make research commercialization at universities easier, is moving into its second year. Bamforth reports some of the next goals for the initiative are to set up agreements between universities that are collaborating on commercialization and to create a library of resources.

Bellwether: In a column for the New York Times, elections guru Dave Wasserman included Ohios Wood as one of the 10 Trump-Obama counties that could serve as a national bellwether. Wasserman, of the Cook Political Report, calls Wood County a toss up, given its strong agricultural character, suburban residents who work in Toledo and presence of Bowling Green State University.

Suppressing the vote? Warrensville Heights Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge on Tuesday accused Trump and others of trying to suppress the votes of those with whom they disagree, Sabrina Eaton reports. During a hearing of the House Administration elections subcommittee, which she chairs, Fudge declared that Americans deserve an election free from the real fraud of false information and voter suppression. The subcommittees sole Republican member, Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois, did not participate in the online hearing.

Cheering outside the stadium: It doesnt look like many fans are going to get into FirstEnergy Stadium this year to watch the Browns. Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday he probably wont increase beyond 12,000 the number of spectators allowed in the Browns or Cincinnati Bengals stadiums this season, Hancock reports.

Going up: Tuesdays 1,335 new coronavirus cases pushed Ohio past the 160,000 mark. DeWine said Ohioans who are age 60 and older now account for about 70% of COVID-19 hospital admissions, up from 50% in July, Hancock reports.

Hitting the road: A Women for Trump bus made stops in suburban Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton on Monday. Ohio Republican Party Chairman Jane Timken said among those who took a ride were Democratic State Rep. Bernadine Kent, who recently endorsed Trump, and Madison Gesiotto, a Stark County resident and former Miss Ohio USA and pro-Trump figure whos considered a possible future candidate for office.

Full Disclosure

Five things we learned from the Feb. 28, 2020 financial disclosure of Adam Bird, a Republican running for Ohios 66th House District. The seat is being vacated by state Rep. Doug Green, who is term limited. The district is heavily Republican, and Bird is expected to win.

1. Bird disclosed income from three sources: from his job as superintendent for the New Richmond Exempted School District, his job as assistant principal for Batavia Local Schools and from a pension with the State Teachers Retirement System. Candidates who dont currently hold office dont have to disclose how much they make.

2. He is a volunteer trustee for the Clermont County Public Library.

3. He owed at least $1,000 in 2019 to Visa, Superior Credit Union and the Regional Acceptance Corporation, an auto-financing company.

4. He reported no debts.

5. He holds a license to teach 7th through 12th grade chemistry and biology.

Birthdays

Andrew Johnson, communications coordinator for the County Commissioners Association of Ohio.

Straight from the Source

I made no secret of this: I wish the president would wear the mask more. I wish he would wear it all the time he was in public.

- Gov. Mike DeWine, speaking during Tuesdays briefing about President Donald Trump removing his mask when he returned to the White House on Monday after three days in the hospital for coronavirus treatment.

Capitol Letter is a daily briefing providing succinct, timely information for those who care deeply about the decisions made by state government. If you do not already subscribe, you can sign up here to get Capitol Letter in your email box each weekday for free.
Even from the hospital, as his doctors were administering a mixture of drugs to battle the coronavirus, President Donald Trump couldnt quite help himself.

STOCK MARKET UP BIG, he blared in one tweet. The Stock Market is getting ready to break its all time high, came another. NEXT YEAR WILL BE THE BEST EVER.

Trumps relentless cheerleading for the stock market taking full credit for its gains, has been a hallmark of his presidency, through more than 150 tweets and exuberant rhetoric at his rallies. Yet behind the bluster is a simple fact of which most voters are unaware:

Trump barely has any of his own money in the stock market.

Its like Trump Vodka  he wants everyone to drink it, but he doesnt drink it himself, said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer of Cresset Wealth Advisors. To have so much wealth and so little invested, he added, is completely out of balance and extremely unusual.

Deep in The New York Times recent report on Trumps tax returns is the fact that he sold more than $200 million in stocks and bonds in the three years leading up to his inauguration. And an Associated Press analysis of his financial disclosures since then shows as much as $8 million more was sold in his first three years in office, even with his investments now in a trust, beyond his direct control.

Significantly, those disclosures  which give figures in ranges, not exact amounts  show no substantial buying to make up for it. That left him a stock portfolio last year that ranged between $693,000  less than what many Americans have in their 401(k)s  and $2.2 million. Even that top figure is less than one-tenth of 1% of his fortune, estimated by Forbes at $2.5 billion.

Why would you talk up the stock market and not own stocks at the same time? said David Rosenberg, former chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch.

Whats behind Trumps sell-off and lack of buying is not entirely clear, though in a debate during the 2016 campaign, he took a bleak view of the stock market, saying, Were in a bubble right now.

Also, after a large sale of individual stocks before the last election, Trump told NBC that he wanted to avoid conflicts of interest while making deals for this country that maybe will affect one company positively and one company negatively. (He has continued to hold on to his diversified stock funds, which contain shares from a variety of companies.)

Others, though, have cast doubt on the conflict-of-interest explanation and speculated instead that he sold off stock to raise money quickly and quietly to cover his debts. Trump poured $47 million into his last campaign for president and still owes a sizable amount.

The White House referred queries about Trumps stock holdings to the Trump Organization, which declined to comment, leaving financial and political watchers only to speculate.

Whatever the reason for selling, Trumps lack of a substantial stake has not stopped him from vigorously touting the run-up in the stock market. Polls consistently show Trumps handling of the economy is his strongest issue with voters, and the stock market has withstood the coronavirus crisis better than the economy as a whole. The Standard and Poors 500 index has jumped 59 percent since the last presidential election, recovering all the ground lost during a March plunge.

American families now have an average of 15 percent of their assets riding on the market, according to Federal Reserve data, and the richest 1 percent even more: 40 percent.

Several voters interviewed this week said that they were surprised Trump wasn't more heavily invested but that it wouldn't change their vote.

He isnt interested in the people; hes interested in the stock market, 79-year-old Ruth Johnson said as she shopped at a Walmart in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Johnson, who voted for Trump four years ago but didnt again this year, thought about it some more and added: I think hes more interested in Donald Trump than anything else.

Kenton E. Moore said that he doesnt support the president but that it makes sense for Trump to avoid stocks, given all the money he has made in real estate.

The stock market is not a safe thing, Moore, 70, said as he fished in the Missouri River in Council Bluffs. Why play in the stock market if you dont have to?

Trump supporter Cindi Holland, who worked in the transportation industry in Michigan, said she doesnt know much about what Trump does with his money but theres one thing she does know: I have a 401(k) and its doing awesome.

Some financial analysts warn that ordinary investors could be particularly vulnerable at a time when stocks are overvalued in relation to long-term earnings. They note individual investors and day traders are flooding into the market the way they did before previous market highs, driving the fastest-rising stocks ever higher.

Momentum investing has run amok here, said James Abate, managing director of Centre Asset Management. Were in a very dangerous time.

Some have speculated Trump has sold stocks in recent years because he needs cash to pay his debts or to prop up golf properties that have reportedly lost hundreds in millions of dollars. While selling one of his properties could raise alarm bells, unloading some stock might not.

Trumps 2016 sell-off leading up to the election involved shares of more than 100 companies, including manufacturers such as Boeing and General Electric, tech giants Amazon and Ebay, and food makers Kellogg and J.M. Smucker. He also dumped oil drillers and refiners and a pair companies that were involved in the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline that Trump backed once he took office.

What he has left now are just stocks in funds. Those include funds that are betting stocks go down as well as up, ones targeting Japan and Canada, and several that are pegged to the S&P 500.

The full extent of Trumps holdings and sales is impossible to determine from his annual disclosure reports. The holdings are given in ranges, not precise figures, and some disclosures list just capital gains realized from sales, not the much larger cash total.

Also, when Trump took office he put his business in a trust managed by his two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr., and his stock funds now reside in three other trusts overseen by JP Morgan.

There are no federal ethics laws barring a president from buying and selling as much stock as he wants.

Trump has been openly disdainful of some of the rules and norms that have held sway in Washington. His Washington hotel, for example, has become a magnet for foreign diplomats and lobbyists, triggering allegations that Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

It would be out of character for President Trump to take action to avoid a conflict of interest, said Kathleen Clark, a government ethics lawyer at Washington University in St. Louis. It would be great if he acted that way, but it would out of character.



AP writers Josh Funk in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Sharon Cohen in Chicago contributed to this report.
Vice President George H.W. Bush appeared "buoyant," The Washington Post reported. It was the day after the 1984 vice-presidential debate, and most political strategists thought he had won it.

Now he was back on the campaign trail, meeting with longshoremen in New Jersey. He told one he had tried to "kick a little ass" at the debate.

A few hours later, a reporter who had caught his boast on a hot mic had a question.

"Did you say you kicked Geraldine Ferraro's ass last night?"

As Walter Mondale's running mate, New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman to debate while seeking national office. And Bush became the first incumbent vice president to learn that a little casual sexism, or even the appearance of it, wasn't a great look on debate stage. Now, California Sen. Kamala Harris will face off against Vice President Pence - only the third time a woman has done so as a vice-presidential candidate.

Vice-presidential debates were not standard back then. In fact, it had only happened once before in 1976. On one of her first days campaigning with running mate Walter Mondale, she publicly challenged Bush to two debates. Eventually his office agreed to one, in Philadelphia.

Bush was one of the most experienced men ever to be vice president and, later, president. He was a decorated World War II veteran, a former congressman, ambassador and director of the CIA.

By contrast, Ferraro had only been a member of Congress for six years. But, like Harris, before Capitol Hill she had been a prosecutor.

Ferraro used those prosecutorial skills on the debate stage, taking notes and speaking slowly and calmly while challenging Bush on the Reagan administration's domestic record. Bush seemed irritated, raising his voice when challenged and repeatedly calling her "Mrs." Ferraro instead of "Congresswoman Ferraro." (Like Harris, Ferraro was married but had kept her surname.)

Then the debate turned to foreign affairs, Bush's area of expertise. When asked about the CIA, Ferraro was critical of some of the agency's covert actions.

"I think I just heard Mrs. Ferraro say she would do away with all covert action," Bush claimed, incorrectly. "And, if so, that has very serious ramifications, as the intelligence community knows. This is serious business. . . . But let me help you, Mrs. Ferraro, with the difference between Iran and the embassy in Lebanon."

As Bush lectured, Ferraro took notes. Then she was asked for her rebuttal. Calmly, with a slight smile, she fixed her gaze on Bush and began.

"Let me just say, first of all, that I almost resent, Vice President Bush, your patronizing attitude that you have to 'teach me' about foreign policy." The audience began to applaud before she had finished the sentence. "I've been a member of Congress for six years, I was there when the embassy was held hostage in Iran. I have been there, and I have seen what has happened in the past several months, 17 months with your administration.

"Secondly, please don't categorize my answers either," she continued, gesturing to the camera. "Leave the interpretation of my answers to the American people who are watching this debate."

When recalling the debate in 2016, broadcasting veteran Lynn Sherr told PBS: "I think that George Herbert Walker Bush felt it was beneath him to be debating this woman."

Later, when journalist Robert Boyd asked if Ferraro had any questions for Bush, she challenged him on nuclear disarmament. But when Boyd put the same request to Bush he waved if off, "I have none I'd like to ask her, but I'd sure like to use the time." After an awkward silence, he went for a joke: "Talk about the World Series or something of that nature."

Only Bush laughed.

In snap polling that night, there was a wide gender gap; men thought Bush won the debate, women thought Ferraro had. During debate prep, a group of outside experts had warned Bush: Do not patronize, and do not gloat.

Which brings us back to the reporter's question to him on Oct. 12: "Did you say you kicked Geraldine Ferraro's ass last night?"

Bush denied it at first, then when pressed, said, "I leaned over to a guy who gave me his assessment of the debate, and I will have to confess I whispered in his ear, I used an old Texas football expression. . . . And I don't want to repeat it here."

Years later, The Post's Robert Hoffman reported Bush thought the 1984 campaign was the worst time in career, and its lowest moment was the debate.
The popular Chinese whistleblower virologist known as Dr. Li-Meng Yan has recently created a second account on Twitter after previously being banned from the social media platform back on September 15 for sharing a specific scientific study about the origins of the alleged CCP virus, otherwise known as the coronavirus. The study that Dr. Li-Meng Yan published has actually been downloaded over 620,000 times through the use of Zenodo.

Dr. Li-Meng Yan's popularity as the Chinese virologist whistleblower

Dr. Li-Meng Yan is more popularly known as the Chinese virologist who previously claimed that the original coronavirus was actually cooked up in a particular military laboratory. It was also recently revealed that the Chinese authorities have actually arrested her own mother.

Li-Meng Yan also claims to have actually been a former researcher at the known Hong Kong School of Public Health. Her famous statements include the known coronavirus actually coming from the merging of generic materials of two different bat coronaviruses.

The allegations against the Chinese Communist Party

The news was actually first announced by a particular Guo Wengui, a certain fugitive Chinese tycoon who is popularly known for his own criticism against the strong Communist Party, during a certain radio show that was aired earlier this week.

Ms Yan then confirmed that her very own mother was reportedly arrested to a particular US-based website known as The Epoch Times some time yesterday but actually did not provide any further detail regarding the arrest.

Yan previously fled China to the United States back in April after the whole bombshell exploded with her claims that the COVID-19 was actually man-made and did not come from nature. Her personal Twitter account was actually taken down back in mid-September right after she directly accused China itself of intentionally manufacturing as well as releasing the whole COVID-19.

Read Also: Whistleblower Li-Meng Yan Alleges There are NOT Only 27 COVID-19 Cases as Early as Dec. 31, 2019 as China 'Falsely' Reported

Her suspension from social media

In a particular with Fox News' very own Tucker Carlson, Yan then claimed that she was actually suspended because they allegedly did not want people to actually know this truth. She then stated that she has evidence that can show just why they are capable of doing something like that, what they actually did, and also how they were able to do this.

She stated that the scientific world has also been keeping silent and that they have been "working" along with the known Chinese Communist Party to all hide this truth. That was what she stated was the alleged reason why she actually got suspended, suppressed, and is also currently a target that the Chinese Communist Party wants to disappear.

A certain video of the whole interview segment that was posted on the known Tucker Carlson Tonight's show's page currently comes along with a particular warning that labels it as "false information". This post then repeats the given information about the known COVID-19 that certain independent fact-checkers claim to be false.

Read Also: COVID-19 Whistleblower Li-Meng Yan Alleges China Uses Fake Twitter and Facebook Accounts of Her to Try to Cover Up the Story

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Urian Buenconsejo

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Migori County Assembly on Tuesday elected a substantive deputy speaker to replace Mr George Omamba who was barred from office by the Labour court.

In a two-hour afternoon session chaired by assembly speaker Boaz Okoth, the MCAs unanimously voted in Bukira East MCA Mathews Chacha, bringing a new twist in the plans to impeach embattled Governor Okoth Obado.

Mr Chacha, who formerly served as the head of committee chairpersons in the assembly had replaced Mr Omamba whose reinstatement had been set aside by court.

Mr Omamba withdrew from the race citing "emerging dynamics" after he tried in vain to reclaim the seat following his reinstatement.

In a highly heated session, a section of MCAs led by Mr Omamba criticised the election terming it procedural.

Mr Chacha garnered 41 votes while 11 members abstained from the election. His immediate challenger Leo Ogwada got zero votes.

The push and pull witnessed at the assembly culminated in the swearing in of the deputy speaker by Migori Chief Magistrate Dickson Odhiambo.

Migori MCAs have been embroiled in bitter exchanges after Mr Obado's impeachment motion was mooted by the ODM party.

The assembly speaker, while addressing the press after the Tuesday session, faulted those opposed to the election claiming they are attention seekers who have been seeking favours from the ODM party leader Raila Odinga.

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"We know our mandate as elected members, this notion of some people coming to the assembly with directions purported to be from the party leader is a fallacy that will not be tolerated going forward," Mr Okoth said.

The speaker, who apparently had been away from office for treatment after he fell sick, resurfaced after the impeachment motion against Mr Obado was mooted by ODM.

He called on the new deputy speaker to work towards restoring peace in the assembly that has experienced violent confrontations following an impeachment wave.

Nyamosense Komosoko Ward Representative Suzanne Mohave called on the MCAs to remain steadfast on their quest to deliver service to the electorates.

"There are a lot of issues that need our attention and the infighting adds no value to the electorate," she said.
Conspiracies rocket New Zealand bluesman into politics During the turmoil of the pandemic, Billy TK has turned from an obscure blues guitarist into prominent New Zealand conspiracy theorist

During the turmoil of the pandemic, Billy TK has turned from an obscure blues guitarist into New Zealand's leading conspiracy theorist, using viral social media posts to propel an anti-establishment run at parliament.

Wearing a smart suit on the campaign trail, Billy Te Kahika Jr offers an image of sober consideration, even joking that his detractors are surprised to find him without a tin-foil hat.

But those critics say the 48-year-old, who recently led a maskless anti-lockdown demonstration in Auckland, is dividing society while spreading pandemic misinformation that could cost lives.

His posts and stump speeches are peppered with conspiracy theories that have flourished online globally throughout the pandemic.

They typically focus on the "deep state" and claim the health crisis has been manufactured to allow governments to enslave people.

Part of this a United Nations plot to round up rural dwellers into "super cities" so they can seize control of their land, according to Te Kahika.

Te Kahika names Bill and Melinda Gates, Hillary Clinton and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as some of those behind the scheme.

Governments are also intending to abduct children, according to Te Kahika, a conspiracy theory amplified by followers of the QAnon movement, who believe a satanist paedophile cabal is behind it.

At a recent meeting of his Advance NZ Party in Mangawhai, a remote seaside village, Te Kahika told AFP he was running in this month's national election to counter government over-reach in fighting the pandemic.

"I believe that Jacinda Ardern, the socialist-groomed prime minister that she is, is leading us down a road where she is going to eliminate all of the middle-class people, take away our rights and freedoms," Te Kahika said.

- Online power -

Until recently Te Kahika saw his calling as a musician, following in the footsteps of his father, Billy Te Kahika Sr, an influential guitarist known as "the Hendrix of the Pacific".

Story continues

Between gigs, Billy TK, led a quiet life on a remote farm, where he and his wife home-schooled their children.

His social media profile until the pandemic reflected his lifestyle, with posts mostly promoting his music career while celebrating God and life on the farm.

Then, on June 23 this year, came a message on his Facebook page: "Hi guys! Dropping the guitar for a while to work on saving our beautiful country and our freedoms!!"

The Facebook page for his new Advance NZ party was created about the same time.

Since then, videos on the Advance NZ Facebook page have amassed more than 5.3 million views, according to data from social media tracker CrowdTangle.

They are stunning figures for a new political entrant in a nation of just five million people.

They exceed the 2.8 million views for New Zealand's main opposition National Party and 5.2 million for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party.

Advance NZ's Facebook posts have also generated far more activity than those of the two mainstream parties.

Advance NZ's posts have been shared 148,000 times, compared with fewer than 110,000 combined for the mainstream parties, according to the CrowdTangle data.

AFP fact checkers have debunked two of his party's most popular claims: that the government was authorising the military to enter private residences and planning forced vaccinations.

The latter claim was made in a campaign video that selectively edited statements from lawmakers, resulting in parliament's privileges committee condemning "blatant doctoring" of footage and demanding it be taken down.

However, the video has remained online, attracting more than 200,000 views on Facebook.

- 'Man of the moment' -

At the rally in Mangawhai, the roughly 100 people who had packed into a library hall gasped when Te Kahika told them they would be rounded up into skyscraper apartments as part of the global plot.

"We're all here to see this amazing person that everyone's talking about," said an elderly woman supporter.

"I was all for Jacinda before this Covid-19 stuff, not now," said another.

Te Kahika's conversion to conspiracy theorist appears to have come suddenly during the pandemic.

He told AFP he had initially been a backer of the government's virus-battle plans, which saw a three-month national lockdown that began in March.

New Zealand has recorded just 25 Covid-19 deaths in a population of five million.

But Te Kahika said he began to understand while going online during the lockdown that there was a global plot co-led by Ardern.

Te Kahika believes he can muster 15 percent of the vote on October 17.

"I think I'm the man of the moment, for the moment," he said.

Polling does not show his support anywhere near 15 percent.

But New Zealand's proportional voting system favours minor parties and the populist Winston Peters ended up as kingmaker in the 2017 election after polling just 7.2 percent, so Te Kahika's potential cannot be dismissed.

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Japan on Tuesday to rally support from Washington's closest allies in Asia, calling for deeper collaboration with Japan, India and Australia as a bulwark against China's growing regional influence. The East Asia visit, Pompeo's first in more than a year, coincides with worsening tensions with China. Yet the call for a united front against Beijing is a sensitive subject for Washington's allies, which are reliant on China for trade.

In comments before the start of a meeting of the Quad grouping of the four nations' foreign ministers, Pompeo spoke in typically unsparing terms against Beijing's ruling Chinese Communist Party. That was in contrast to his three counterparts, all of whom avoided calling out China directly.

"As partners in this Quad, it is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the CCP's exploitation, corruption and coercion," Pompeo said, referring to the ruling party. "We see it in the South and East China Seas, the Mekong, the Himalayas, the Taiwan Strait."

China has denounced the Quad as an attempt to contain its development. The four nations in the grouping stated their support for a free and open Indo-Pacific. In an interview with Japan's Nikkei newspaper, Pompeo spoke of formalising and potentially broadening the Quad grouping.

"Once we've institutionalized what we're doing - the four of us together - we can begin to build out a true security framework," Pompeo told the Nikkei, suggesting other countries could be added to that "fabric" at "the appropriate time." Pompeo told the Japanese public broadcaster NHK it was important that the "shared picture" of the challenge was shared with Southeast Asian countries.

Analysts say such a formalised grouping referred to by Pompeo may never take shape, given the need for countries in the region to balance their relationships with China. But they say such remarks serve as a warning to China and play to its fears that the Quad might one day take shape as NATO did in Europe to contain the Soviet Union.

Pompeo's visit was supposed to include trips to Mongolia and South Korea but was cut back to one day after President Donald Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19. A State Department statement said Pompeo spoke on Tuesday to Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga and discussed working together to strengthen security in Asia, "as well as the of rescheduling the Secretary's visit to Ulaanbaatar in the near future."

In his earlier remarks, Pompeo reiterated the Trump administration's criticism of China's handling of COVID-19 after it first broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan. "When we met, now, last year, the landscape was very different. We couldn't have imagined a pandemic that came from Wuhan. That crisis was made infinitely worse by the Chinese Communist Party's cover-up," he said.

REGIONAL RIVAL

The United States and China, the world's top two economies, are at loggerheads over a wide range of issues from Beijing's handling of the coronavirus to its imposition of a new security law in Hong Kong and ambitions in the South China Sea. Most Asian allies have been pleased with Washington's toughness toward their regional rival China but have not so eagerly welcomed the highly charged recent rhetoric from Trump and Pompeo and remain wary of going too far in antagonising China.

Part of the problem for Washington's Asian allies is their dependence on China for trade. China was the top destination for Australian exports in 2019, the No. 2 destination for Japanese exports and the No. 3 destination for Indian exports, according to International Monetary Fund direction of trade statistics compiled by Refinitiv.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said after the talks the nations had confirmed they would advance with practical talks on infrastructure, cybersecurity and other areas. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific was becoming more complex, and pressure on the rules underpinning regional stability could undermine recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We emphasised that, especially during a pandemic, it was vital that states work to ease tensions and avoid exacerbating long-standing disputes, work to counter disinformation and refrain from malicious cyberspace activity," Payne said. "Ministers reiterated that states cannot assert maritime claims that are inconsistent with international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)," she added, in comments that appeared to refer to China's actions in the South China Sea.

The meeting had agreed to strengthen cooperation with regional partners, including in the Mekong, and convene Quad ministerial meetings on a regular basis, she said.

As expected, there was no joint statement from the members.
The government has asked Chiefs to lead the Community Engagement and Risk Education strategy to deepen awareness on COVID-19 and sustain the observance of the protocols.



Mr Pius Enam Hadzide, the Deputy Minister for Information, who made the call, said government appreciated the role of traditional authorities in the national development agenda hence the need to let them lead the Community Engagement and Risk Education strategy.



The Minister was speaking during a sensitization workshop on COVID-19 and Peaceful Election 2020 for the Upper West Regional House of Chiefs in Wa.



The workshop was to update the traditional authorities on the COVID-19 pandemic and also report on Ghanas effort at managing the disease.



He said the governments quest was to leave no one behind in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).



Mr Hadzide noted that as of Friday, October 2, 2020, confirmed cases in the country as indicated on the Ghana Health Service COVID-19 Tracker was 46,694 with 45,945 full recoveries and 301 deaths and 448 active cases.



The statistics, especially with the rate of recovery look very encouraging. The initial fear that gripped the country when the first case was reported seems to have been replaced with a growing sense of hope that the country is ahead of the rate of spread of the virus, he said.



Sadly, it appears people are gradually relaxing the observance of the safety protocols. The number of citizens who wear the nose masks is reducing by day, social distancing is not being strictly adhered to, and frequency of hand washing has also decreased significantly, the Deputy Minister for Information said.



Mr Hadzide noted that the country could not afford a reverse of the remarkable gains chalked, hence the need to continue to strengthen the response to the COVID-19 pandemic to minimize the risk and impact of the disease.



Dr DaCosta Aboagye, Leader of the Risk Communication and Community Engagement for COVID-19 National Taskforce, noted that the aim was for communities to own and adhere to the safety protocols which formed part of the strategy to limit the importations and community spread.



Dr Aboagye, who is also the Director, Health Promotion Division of the Ghana Health Service, said the Service was worried of the poor adherence to the safety protocols by some Ghanaians.



He said the sensitization and education was to avert the possibility of the country suffering a second wave of the pandemic.



Kuoro Richard Babini Kanton VI, President of the Upper West Regional House of Chiefs, commended President Akufo Addo on his commitment to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the citizenry.



He noted that through the Presidents relentless effort, the country had recorded some of the lowest cases and deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic.



Kuoro Kanton applauded Togbe Afede XIV, the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State and President of the National House of Chiefs for single-handedly donating an amount of GH50,000.00 towards the fight against both COVID-19 and the Cerebral Spinal Meningitis in the region.



The President of the Upper West Regional House of Chiefs pledged the commitment of the chiefs to carry on with the education in their various communities to ensure compliance with the protocols and reduce both the risk and the impact.

Source: GNA









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"The Matrix 4" release date has been moved to an earlier schedule, which should certainly excite all Keanu Reeves fans.

After facing several postponements due to the coronavirus pandemic, "The Matrix 4" set their cameras rolling again.

Reeves himself confirmed that they resumed the filming through an exclusive video for Associated Press in August.

"Everyone loves the project and if you're ever going to get in a situation that needs to be figured out...show business people are the best," Reeves said. "We're scrappy, we know how to get stuff done, we're inventive, we think on our feet. It's a great honor and I'm grateful to be working."

The resumption came after Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow decided to delay the film's production due to the alarming number of COVID-19 cases.

After delivering the good news, Warner Bros. released more updates about the flick, which are undoubtedly thrilling to hear!

"The Matrix 4" Release Date

In 2019, Warner Bros. decided to release the reboot of "Matrix" at the same date as Lionsgate's "The Continental" -- which will also feature Keanu.

However, due to the health crisis, they moved "The Matrix 4" release date to April 2022. But then again, it is a Keanu Reeves' flick, and it should always be the top priority no matter what.

Earlier this week, Warner Bros. moved up its release after making another calendar overhaul.

Since the reboot's filming finished earlier than expected, it is now set to debut on December 22, 2021.

Meanwhile, the motion pictures company delayed most of its films' releases until 2022, including "The Batman," "The Flash" and "Shazam 2."

"The Matrix 4" Cast

Carrie-Anne Moss and Jada Pinkett Smith joined Reeves as they return to the big screen through the 'Matrix" franchise.

Meanwhile, some newcomers also joined the original cast.

The film added Ellen Hollman, Brian J. Smith, Erendira Ibarra, Jessica Henwick, Neil Patrick Harris, Toby Onwumere, Andrew Caldwell, Priyanka Chopra and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as the newest members of the team.

"The Matrix 4" Updates

The new "Matrix" flick will finally come 17 years after the release of the third installment. Currently, the franchise has three successful and award-winning installments: "The Matrix" in 1999, "The Matrix Reloaded" in 2003, and "The Matrix Revolutions," also in 2003.

While Warner Bros. never spoke whether this will be a direct sequel, Keanu talked about what the film will cover.

Per the 56-year-old actor, there is no going back in the past. It clearly means that "The Matrix 4" is a sequel, not a prequel, to the trilogy.

However, fans can expect that the film will be different, as director Lana Wachowski reportedly made sure to differentiate it to its predecessors and give it a fresh take.

"She has written a beautiful script that is a love story, it's inspiring," Keanu hinted. "It's another version, a call to wake up and it has some great action. All will be revealed."

READ MORE: The Witches: Anne Hathaway Scores Important Role in Classic Film Remake
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Anti-Israel groups have spent years trying to end programs which take American police leaders to Israel to interact with counterparts there. But that effort, with disturbing anti-Semitic elements, took new root this summer during protests following George Floyd's killing by a Minneapolis police officer. Speakers at protests throughout the country claimed that the programs directly lead to the deaths of Black people in America. The claims were blindly accepted by many, despite a lack of any evidence.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism's two-part video investigation, "House of Lies  the Baseless Campaign to Smear Israeli Police Exchanges," shows that these conspiratorial allegations are demonstrably false. Our series shows that one of the main groups promoting this false narrative, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), publicly acknowledged in June that blaming Israel for "American police violence or racism ... furthers an antisemitic ideology."

But JVP never admitted it did exactly that  blamed Israel for American police violence  for three years. Until the eve of its June statement, JVP's "Deadly Exchange" website claimed that American police return from Israel more violent, leading to "extrajudicial executions, shoot-to-kill policies, police murders ..."

"JVP tried to sweep its own words  that it now admits fuel anti-Semitism  under the rug," said IPT Executive Editor Steven Emerson. "But we'll show viewers exactly what was said. Unfortunately, the false, hateful rhetoric has been repeated often enough to be accepted as true."

The IPT interviewed four American police chiefs  two active and two now retired  who participated in such trips and say their experiences couldn't be more different from the anti-Israel narrative. There was no tactical training. Rather than discussing ways to oppress people, the chiefs all said they learned about the value of community policing and building relationships among diverse constituencies. They also learned how to best minimize the terrorist threat and to investigate in the aftermath of an attack.

No critic has ever produced a whistleblower who says otherwise. Organizers of two police exchange programs blame a deep seated anti-Israel bias, combined with an "intersectional" campaign to equate the Palestinian cause with the struggle for civil rights in America.

Part 1 of the series can be seen here. Part 2 will be published Wednesday at the Investigative Project on Terrorism website.

SOURCE Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT)
The Tripoli-based interior ministry said in a statement it had arrested the three suspects in the case, adding that they had used petrol to set the victim on fire at a factory

Three Libyans killed a Nigerian man by setting him on fire in Tripoli, the interior ministry said on Wednesday, in what a UN agency described as "another senseless crime against migrants in the country".

The Tripoli-based interior ministry said in a statement it had arrested the three suspects in the case, adding that they had used petrol to set the victim on fire at a factory.

Federico Soda, Libya country chief for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a UN migration agency, said those responsible must be held accountable.

There are half a million migrants in Libya according to IOM, some of them having worked in the oil producing country before it descended into chaos and warfare, others attempting to travel through it to Europe.

The IOM and the UN refugee agency UNHCR have both repeatedly said that Libya should not be classified as a safe port for migrants.

Thousands have attempted the perilous sea crossing to Europe this year, with hundreds drowned in ship wrecks.

In July, three migrants from Sudan were shot dead by Libyan authorities while trying to flee detention after they were disembarked in Khums.

In May, some 30 mostly Bangladeshi migrants were shot dead in a southern desert town after being abducted by a local gang, Bangladesh and the Libyan interior ministry said at the time.

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FIVE more people have died from Covid-19 across Ireland, with the number of confirmed cases across Ireland rising by more than 600 overnight.

There are 611 new cases of coronavirus across the Republic of Ireland this Wednesday teatime, it's been announced, with Prof Philip Nolan, chair of of Nphet's Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, describing the situation as "precarious".

Of the new cases, 218 were reported in Dublin, 63 in Cork, 60 in Donegal, 35 in Galway, 31 in Kildare.

It's not yet clear how many, or indeed if there are any new cases in Limerick overnight, with the Department of Health reporting the remaining 204 of the new cases being located across 21 other counties.

As of last night, there were 1,097 confirmed Covid-19 cases reported in Limerick - up from 1,080 the day before.

In response to questions, Dr Ronan Glynn, the deputy chief medical officer said there had been 210 cases confirmed in Limerick over the last 14 days.

There's now been a total of 1,816 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland, with a total of 39,584 confirmed cases of the condition across the country.

Of today's cases, 303 are men and 305 are women, with 59% under the age of 45.

Half are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case, while 83 cases have been identified as community transmission.

The Limerick educated Dr Tony Holohan, who chaired his first press briefing since returning to his role as chief medical officer this week, said: "All key indicators of the disease have deteriorated further in the three days since the last meeting of Nphet on Sunday 4th October. Covid-19 is spreading in our community in a very worrying manner. We have to break these chains of transmission."

"80 Covid-19 cases were hospitalised in August, 206 in September and 77 so far in October. In August, 4 Covid-19 related deaths in total were reported, 34 in September and today on the 7th of October we report 8 COVID-19 related deaths this month," he added.

Dr Glynn added: "Trends in case numbers and incidence are now being reflected in indicators of disease severity. The number of people in hospital has increased from 122 last Thursday to 156 this afternoon. There are currently 25 people in critical care compared to 20 one week ago."

Professor Nolan said "Case numbers and hospitalisations are growing exponentially. The Reproductive number is now estimated at 1.2. If we fail to reduce viral transmission nationwide immediately, we could see 1,100  1,500 cases per day and 300-450 people in hospital by November 7.

Dr Siobhan Ni Bhriain, consultant psychiatrist and HSE integrated care lead urged people to remind themselves of what they can do to suppress the virus and prevent a surge on hospital demands.

"Intensive care is the last stop in the care pathway for any illness. Focus on prevention and follow public health advice to ensure care pathways are available to as many people and treatments as possible," she said.
The Federation of Resident Doctors Association has shot a letter to Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and Commissioner of North Delhi Municipal Corporation over the non-payment of salaries to doctors and staffers of the Hindu Rao Hospital from the last three months.

Irked over non-payment of salaries, doctors and staff members of the hospital are on an indefinite agitation since October 5. The emergency services are, however, operating smoothly. They have not been paid since June.

"Being a COVID Hospital, doctors of the Hospital are risking their lives at workplace in this epidemic but are not being paid and it has become paid the necessary emoluments difficult for them to meet their daily expenditures and to support their families," FORD wrote in the letter on Tuesday undersigned by President Shivaji Dev Barman.

It added, "These Frontline warriors have not received their salaries since the last 3.5 months which is totally demotivating them. Doctors of Hindu Rao Hospital have regularly faced delay in receiving salaries or stipends and this is a long-standing issue."

The association rued that despite the directions of Delhi High Court as well as the Supreme Court for timely disbursement of salaries, nothing has been done. "We would hereby urge you to kindly intervene and to take up the issue with the concerned authorities so that necessary measures are taken for addressing the same on an urgent basis."

Last week, the Resident Doctor Association of the hospital wrote to the administration stating, "The letter written by the Resident Doctor Association to the hospital administration stated, "We apologise to announce that we are forced to go for an indefinite agitation w.e.f. October 5, 2020 considering strictly 'No pay, No work, while operating the emergency services smoothly."

They added, "The chronic sufferings of the staff have been too agonizing and intractable where it is distressing to one's mental and physical well-being, We strongly plea to you for releasing 3 months' pay and giving us an immediate permanent solution. We also demand a formal notice regarding the same."
[October 07, 2020] Accenture to Acquire Avenai, Ottawa-Based Business and Technology Consultancy Accenture (News - Alert) (NYSE: ACN) has agreed to acquire Avenai, an Ottawa-based provider of consulting and technology services. Financial terms were not disclosed. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005280/en/ Accenture to acquire Avenai (Photo: Business Wire) With Avenai's significant focus on the public sector market, the acquisition will enhance Accenture's capacity to drive the technology transformation taking place across the public sector in Canada. "COVID-19 is leading many Canadian organizations to accelerate their technology transformations to ensure they come out ahead in this new reality, and that's why we are adding significantly to our team of experts in Ottawa," said Jeffrey Russell, president of Accenture in Canada. "We look forward to working with the Avenai team to help our clients transform to meet the challenges of today and the future." Mark Lambert, managing director and federal public service practice lead in Canada, said, "Government organizations are at a digital transformation tipping point, with many departments and agencies rapidly moving to the cloud and embracing new ways to modernize and improve delivery models and services for Canadians. Avenai brings a stellar consulting team that will be amplified by Accenture's global reach to support our clients' broad ambitions." Since its establishment in 2012, Avenai has built a strong reputation with government and commercial clients in the Ottawa and Toronto regions, growing from four to more than 70 employees. Avenai supports key aspects of business change, including strategy development, process improvement, IT-enabled business transformation, and organization culture transformation. Avenai founders Chris Brennan, Mike Scotten and Brendan Timmins will join Accenture as managing directors in its Strategy & Consulting practice. They will continue to lead the team they helped build at Avenai and will also work with Accenture leadership across other practices to shape and pursue new business opportunities. Avenai's employees will also join Accenture's Strategy & Consulting practice. "Accenture and Avenai share values of delivery excellence, collaboration and community," said Chris Brennan, Avenai's CEO and co-founder. "Our team is excited about the opportunity to bring our expertise together with Accenture's to provide the best outcomes for our clients and new opportunities for our people." The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions. About Accenture Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services in strategy and consulting, interactive, technology and operations, with digital capabilities across all of these services. We combine unmatched experience and specialized capabilities across more tha 40 industries - powered by the world's largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. With 506,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture brings continuous innovation to help clients improve their performance and create lasting value across their enterprises. Visit us at www.accenture.com. Forward-Looking Statements Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements in this news release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "may," "will," "should," "likely," "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects," "believes," "estimates," "positioned," "outlook" and similar expressions are used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. For a discussion of risks and actions taken in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, see "Our results of operations have been significantly adversely affected and could in the future be materially adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic" under Item 1A, "Risk Factors" in Accenture plc's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended May 31, 2020. Many of the following risks, uncertainties and other factors identified below are, and will be, amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. These risks include, without limitation, risks that: Accenture and Avenai will not be able to close the transaction in the time period anticipated, or at all, which is dependent on the parties' ability to satisfy certain closing conditions; the transaction might not achieve the anticipated benefits for Accenture; Accenture's results of operations have been significantly adversely affected and could in the future be materially adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic; Accenture's results of operations could be adversely affected by volatile, negative or uncertain economic and political conditions and the effects of these conditions on the company's clients' businesses and levels of business activity; Accenture's business depends on generating and maintaining ongoing, profitable client demand for the company's services and solutions including through the adaptation and expansion of its services and solutions in response to ongoing changes in technology and offerings, and a significant reduction in such demand or an inability to respond to the evolving technological environment could materially affect the company's results of operations; if Accenture is unable to keep its supply of skills and resources in balance with client demand around the world and attract and retain professionals with strong leadership skills, the company's business, the utilization rate of the company's professionals and the company's results of operations may be materially adversely affected; Accenture could face legal, reputational and financial risks if the company fails to protect client and/or company data from security breaches or cyberattacks; the markets in which Accenture operates are highly competitive, and Accenture might not be able to compete effectively; changes in Accenture's level of taxes, as well as audits, investigations and tax proceedings, or changes in tax laws or in their interpretation or enforcement, could have a material adverse effect on the company's effective tax rate, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition; Accenture's profitability could materially suffer if the company is unable to obtain favorable pricing for its services and solutions, if the company is unable to remain competitive, if its cost-management strategies are unsuccessful or if it experiences delivery inefficiencies; Accenture's results of operations could be materially adversely affected by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; as a result of Accenture's geographically diverse operations and its growth strategy to continue to expand in its key markets around the world, the company is more susceptible to certain risks; Accenture's business could be materially adversely affected if the company incurs legal liability; Accenture's work with government clients exposes the company to additional risks inherent in the government contracting environment; if Accenture is unable to manage the organizational challenges associated with its size, the company might be unable to achieve its business objectives; Accenture's ability to attract and retain business and employees may depend on its reputation in the marketplace; if Accenture does not successfully manage and develop its relationships with key alliance partners or fails to anticipate and establish new alliances in new technologies, the company's results of operations could be adversely affected; Accenture might not be successful at acquiring, investing in or integrating businesses, entering into joint ventures or divesting businesses; if Accenture is unable to protect or enforce its intellectual property rights or if Accenture's services or solutions infringe upon the intellectual property rights of others or the company loses its ability to utilize the intellectual property of others, its business could be adversely affected; Accenture's results of operations and share price could be adversely affected if it is unable to maintain effective internal controls; changes to accounting standards or in the estimates and assumptions Accenture makes in connection with the preparation of its consolidated financial statements could adversely affect its financial results; many of Accenture's contracts include fees subject to the attainment of targets or specific service levels, which could increase the variability of the company's revenues and impact its margins; Accenture might be unable to access additional capital on favorable terms or at all and if the company raises equity capital, it may dilute its shareholders' ownership interest in the company; Accenture may be subject to criticism and negative publicity related to its incorporation in Ireland; as well as the risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed under the "Risk Factors" heading in Accenture plc's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and other documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Statements in this news release speak only as of the date they were made, and Accenture undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements made in this news release or to conform such statements to actual results or changes in Accenture's expectations. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005280/en/

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Picciolini: I help people disengage from hate groups. What I always try to explain to people is we have to understand the motivations of why they are gravitating to hate. I say that it is a search for identity, community and purpose, which is a search that every single person goes through, especially young people. Theyre trying to figure out who they are, where they belong, and what theyre supposed to do with their lives. Whether young or old, they have potholes in their lifes journey that have detoured them to the fringes. And potholes are things like trauma, job loss, loss of a parent, grief, mental illness, abuse, poverty, even privilege. And on the fringes, there are all sorts of people with all kinds of really bad messages to try and attract you. Whether its sex trafficking, or drugs, or gangs, or white supremacy, they know that those people are vulnerable to that message because they are offering a sense of identity, community and purpose. I felt like I knew who I was, when I was a white supremacist ... I had this family and a purpose: to save the white race. I was intoxicated by it and that kept drawing me further in until the reward was greater than the risk.
A 33-year-old Georgia woman has become at least the 31st transgender or gender-nonconforming person to die by violence in the U.S. this year, according to LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.

Felycya Harris was shot and killed Saturday in Meadowbrook Park in Augusta, Georgia. On Monday, the Richmond County coroner classified her death as a homicide.

Human Rights Campaign, which has been tracking transgender deaths since2013, said it has never seen such a high number of deaths at this point in the year, with more additional deaths likely unreported or misreported.

More accurate reporting may be a factor in the high number of deaths that we have tracked, Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for HRCs Transgender Justice Initiative, told NBC News. But we are also at an extremely vitriolic period, where hate is fueled even from our nations highest office.

The figure is all the more disturbing given the global lockdowns during the pandemic. Trans and gender-nonconforming people experience higher levels of violence from people they know, Cooper added, and may not be able to find refuge.

These are especially dangerous times and resources for help are limited at best, she said. We need to ensure that transgender and gender non-conforming people have equal and safe access to any resources they may need to thrive -- at all times, but especially during this pandemic.

Everybodys going to remember Felycya

Harris, an interior decorator, worked in a furniture store and taught dance.

To know Felycya is to love her smile, her giving spirit, said friend Sandra Taylor, who launched an online fundraiser to help cover funeral expenses.

Everybodys going to remember Felycya, another friend, Ricola Collier, told local NBC affiliate WRDW-TV. That laugh. The smile  the smiles. The talks. The arguments. The attitudes. Everybody is going to remember who Felycya Harris is. Nobody would ever forget who that is.

On Tuesday, HRC President Alphonso David said Harris passing marked a grim milestone in a year already full of tragedy. It put 2020 on par with 2017s count for the highest number of transgender killings, with nearly three months still left to go.

Story continues

Six transgender women were killed in July alone, as was nonbinary activist Summer Taylor, making it the deadliest month to date.

This epidemic of violence, which is particularly impacting transgender women of color, must and can be stopped, David said in a statement. We must work to address the factors that underpin this culture of violence and openly discuss how the intersection of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia work to deprive transgender and gender-nonconforming people of equal access to opportunity and necessities like employment, housing and health care.

Collier said she just wants justice for Harris death. Georgia passed a hate-crime law in June, but it does not expressly include gender identity.

The only thing we got left now is just the memories and the pictures, and the videos, she told WRDW-TV, which reported that police are still searching for a suspect. Since the day I found out what happened, I go back and watch the videos every day,

Related: The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and fresh criticism of the 2015 gay marriage ruling by two justices has renewed advocates concerns.

Harris is the fourth trans person to die by violence in the U.S. in just the past three weeks, according to HRC. Her murder comes just four days after the shooting death of Michelle Michellyn Ramos Vargas, a transgender woman in Puerto Rico.

Ramos, a nursing school student, was found the morning of Sept. 30 along an isolated road near a farm in San German, a town of about 35,000 on the southwestern part of the island.

She had been shot several times in the head, The Associated Press reported. Police are not ruling out that the killing was a hate crime.

Transgender women in Puerto Rico are very scared

Ramos death was the latest in a string of brutal killings of transgender people in Puerto Rico. So far, six have been reported this year, though there may be more.

Transgender women in Puerto Rico are very scared, said Arianna Lint, CEO of Ariannas Center, which works to uplift trans women of color on the island. Weve never seen so many deaths happen so fast.

On April 11, Penelope Diaz Ramirez, a 31-year-old transgender woman, was beaten and hanged at a mens prison in Bayamon.

A little more than a week later, on April 22, the charred bodies of two other trans women  Layla Pelaez, 21, and Serena Angelique Velazquez, 32  were found in Humacao inside the remains of a car that had been set on fire.

Related: Police say they arrested the suspects in eastern Puerto Rico a week after two trans women were found there fatally shot in a burnt-out car.

After seeing images of them with the victims on social media, the U.S. Justice Department arrested two men, Juan Carlos Pagan Bonilla, 21, and Sean Diaz de Leon, 19. Bonilla confessed to the killings, El Nuevo Dia reported, and the two men have become the first people in Puerto Rico to face federal hate crime charges.

In February, Neulisa Luciano Ruiz, also known as Alexa, was fatally shot after using the womens restroom in a McDonalds in Toa Alta. Her assailants reportedly posted video of the shooting on social media.

In March, Yampi Mendez Arocho, a 19-year-old transgender man, was shot and killed in Moca, just hours after being assaulted by an unknown woman. Arochos mother reportedly called the police about the assault, but its not clear if there was an investigation.

Transgender people in Puerto Rico have become more visible in the past year or two, making them more of a target, according to Lint. Trans women tend to avoid the police, she added, going to each other for help instead. She said the government isnt particularly supportive and neither are gay groups.

They created an LGBT committee to advise the government, but theres no one transgender on it. The life of a lesbian in Puerto Rico is very different of a transgender woman of color, Lint explained.

Related: The brutal death of Rita Hester in 1998 inspired a movement. But while her legacy is cemented, her name has been largely forgotten.

Pedro Julio Serrano, an LGBTQ activist in Puerto Rico, said not enough is being done to stop anti-transgender violence on the island.

A state of emergency for gender violence has not been decreed  there is nothing, he said in a statement on his website.

Puerto Ricans are voting for a new governor on Nov. 3, but Serrano said most of the candidates just use LGBTQ people as a political ball to get votes from people who hate us. Only one candidate, Alexandra Lugaro, has said she would support LGBTQ individuals if elected, according to Serrano.

Shes also been the only one to speak about sex workers, which is very important, Lint says. Because, in Puerto Rico, one of the primary financial outlets for transgender women is sex work.

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Pilibhit : , Oct 7 (IANS) A young farmer was mauled to death by a tiger in Mala forest range of the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR), officials said on Wednesday.

Sukhveer Singh, 36, resident of Piparia Karam village, under Gajraula police station, was on his way home near the Mala forest range on Tuesday evening when he was attacked.

The farmer's blood-stained body was later spotted by passers-by who informed his family.

The farmer's family took the body and placed it in the agricultural field, demanding a compensation of Rs 4 lakh.

However, the Forest Department was not convinced and said that the spot where the farmer was actually attacked was about a kilometre inside the forest.

Naveen Khandelwal, Deputy Director of PTR, said the spot where the farmer was killed was duly verified by the forest team.

"However, we have deployed the field force for installing camera traps in the area to monitor the tiger's movement. We have appealed to the villagers not to enter the forest area for their own safety," he said.
Industry Update

Appointment

7 October 2020

Jackie Brown

Appointed Regional Director for North & West Europe

At Wyndham Hotels & Resorts in London, United Kingdom

Based in London, Jackie Brown is the new Regional Director for North & West Europe, overseeing a growing portfolio of 120 Wyndham branded properties in the region, with almost 70 hotels in the UK alone. Jackie brings a varied industry experience across sales, revenue management and events, having worked for several independent hotels and major hospitality chains. She recently served as Executive Director for Freeman, a multi-national events business where she was responsible for commercial strategy, exhibition delivery and sales development in EMEA.

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: WH) is the worlds largest hotel franchising company by the number of properties, with over 9,000 hotels across approximately 90 countries on six continents. Through its network of 813,000 rooms appealing to the everyday traveler, Wyndham commands a leading presence in the economy and midscale segments of the lodging industry. more information

Recent Appointments at Wyndham Adnan Ali Khan - General Manager 17 January 2022  Adnan Ali Khan has been promoted to general manager of Ramada by Wyndham Dubai Barsha Heights. Previously hotel manager in charge at the hotel since 2020, he has proved himself as a "true leader" over the pandemic. read more

Philip Blain - General Manager 27 October 2021  Wyndham Destinations Asia Pacific is pleased to announce the appointment of Philip Blain to the role of General Manager at Club Wyndham Ballarat. Mr Blain has held several hotel leadership positions, most recently at the five-star The Como Melbourne MGallery by Sofitel Hotel. read more
The Agona Swedru Magistrates Court has thrown out a case filed to challenge the eligibility of Mrs Cynthia Mamle Morrison, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection over her voters Identification card (ID.



She used a house at Wawase, a suburb of Agona Swedru to register in the recent ECs mass voter registration exercise.



Mr Eric Yankey, Wawase Ward Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and polling agent for recent EC voters Registration exercise filed the case against the MP.



He claimed the MP breached the Constitutional Instrument (CI) 91, passed by Parliament this year which required that a person stayed in a community for at least four years or more before she or he could register to cast his or her ballot there.



According to the statement of claim made by the NDC Ward Chairman among others, the house of the MP was too bushy for habitation and alleged that it had been sold by the MP.



He also stated that the MP did not participate in communal labour in the area.



The four Defense Counsels of the MP led by Mr Alexander Kojo Kom Abban who is also the Deputy of Minister Communication and MP for Gomoa West argued that the case filed against MP had no merit and prayed the court to throw it.



The Defense counsel further argued that the statement made by the applicant that the house owned by the MP was too bushy had no justification.



Mr Abban told the court that the argument raised by the NDC Ward Chairman that the MP used a different house to register in 2016 registration was untenable and should not be accepted by the Court.



The Defense Counsel also put up a strong argument, saying the MP had about two houses at Agona Swedru and could choose to sleep in any of them for security reasons.



Mr Abban further stated that the claim by the applicant that the house had been sold by the MP was not supported by any documents.



He said Mrs Morrison did a lot of work in the community and prayed the Court to dismiss the claim that she dif not participate in communal labour.



The NDC Ward Chairmans Counsels led by Mr Patrick Asamoah earlier argued among others that the house did not belong to the MP because she was not staying there.



The Court presided over by Mr Isaac Appiatu, said the applicant could not prove any strong case against Mrs Morrison who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Agona West, that the house used to register her name was not hers as claimed.



The Court ruled that the counsels for the applicant could not provide documents which showed that the house was sold by the MP and threw out the case.

It therefore urged the EC to allow Mrs Morrison, to go ahead and use her voters ID card to vote on December7, 2020.



Speaking to the Media after the Court ruling, Mrs Morrison said she bought the house more than five years ago and wondered why the NDC was spreading lies about her to the people.

Source: GNA









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The Noi Bai Aviation Security Center has sent six staff members to quarantine as they had had direct contact with a passenger who tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

On Monday, the northern international airport received information about P.C.M., who had tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving at Narita Airport in Japan from Vietnam a day earlier.

M. was on seat No. 53D of flight JL752, departing from Noi Bai for Narita at 11:50 pm on October 4.

The first test at Narita showed that M. was positive for the disease.

Having received the news, the Noi Bai Aviation Security Center collected information from all check-in and boarding gates of the airport on that day and detected six people  who are airport security and customs officers  with direct contact with the suspected case.

These airport staffers were instructed to enter a quarantine area while waiting for the result of M.s second test.

M.s residency address in Vietnam has not yet been identified.

Since August, this is the 12th case departing from Noi Bai for Japan, South Korea, and France that has had a positive result for the first quick test.

However, ten out of the 12 cases later showed a negative result with a real-time PCR test, a highly accurate testing method now widely used to confirm COVID-19 infections.

Hoang Duc Hanh, deputy head of Hanois Department of Health, said health experts at Narita Airport applied the antigen testing method for the passenger, which has high sensitivity but low accuracy.

Some false positive cases have been reported recently. However, to ensure safety, health experts are still monitoring all people who came into direct contact with suspected cases, Hanh said.

Before this case, a young Vietnamese man had also tested positive for COVID-19 after departing for Japan from Hanoi on September 30.

Vietnamese health workers have started monitoring nine of D.s family members, taking samples from them and disinfecting the neighborhood in accordance with safety guidelines.

Vietnam has recorded 1,098 COVID-19 patients as of Wednesday morning, with 1,023 recoveries and 35 virus-related deaths, the health ministry said.

A new wave of infections battered the country on July 25, when touristy Da Nang logged the first community transmission after 99 days of zero domestic cases nationwide.

A total of 551 local cases were then recorded across Vietnam in the following weeks, the majority linked to Da Nang.

The nation spent over a month tracing contacts and managing to suppress the outbreak afterward.

Sor far, it has gone over one month without any new case of community spread.

Domestic air carriers have officially resumed commercial flights from Vietnam to several international destinations, including Thailand, South Korea, China, and Taiwan.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Ranchi: Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has split from JMM splits from Mahagathbandhan and decided to go solo in the upcoming Bihar assembly election 2020. JMM general secretary Suprio Bhattacharya confirmed this late on Tuesday.

While speaking to the reporters, Bhattacharya said that JMM has identified seven Assembly constituencies to contest the polls.

"We were waiting in the hope that Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) will give us seats to contest in Bihar elections. But today we were forced to take decisions against RJD`s `Makkari` (cunningness). We have identified 7 seats on which we will fight and win," he said.

Live TV

When asked whether the coalition of RJD-JMM will continue in Jharkhand, Bhattacharya said, "Here (Jharkhand) we have a different situation. We have given them more respect than they deserve. We gave them seats more than they deserve. In Bihar, they did not follow etiquettes."

Bihar Assembly poll is considered as the biggest challenge for both the alliances in the state. In the NDA alliance, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) will not contest seats where BJP will be contesting, however, it will fight against Janata Dal (United).

Both JDU and LJP are in a pre-poll alliance with the BJP. Kushwaha`s RLSP has quit Mahagathbandhan and forged an alliance with BSP.

Hindustan Avam Morcha (HAM) chief Jitan Ram Manjhi has joined NDA. The huge setback has been given by Mukesh Sahni from Vikasheel Insan Party (VIP) who announced his disassociation from Mahagathbandhan in a live Press Conference in Patna on Sunday.

Congress, CPI, CPM are now part of this alliance under the leadership of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).Congress leader Avinash Pandey has already made the announcement about Tejashwi Yadav being the face of the alliance which is seeking to oust the ruling NDA from power in the state.

Bihar with 243 assembly seats will go to polls in three phases: October 28, November 3 and November 7. The results will be declared on November 10.
By Mark Gokavi

Two Hanley Sustainability Institute graduate assistants are leading the University of Daytons resilience assessment as part of UDs Second Nature climate commitment to plan for climate resilience.

The assessment is a key component of the commitment signed in 2019 by UD President Eric F. Spina to focus on climate adaptation and community-building to address a changing climate and resulting extremes.

Lauren Wolford and Meg Maloney originally planned to speak with UD leaders first, but when the pandemic interrupted university life, the pair instead engaged between 50 and 60 community stakeholders.

We kind of created our own framework for how we were going to do a resilience assessment, Wolford said. We spoke with (Dayton) city management, the environmental advisory board, the water department, different non-profits in the area that serve a variety of different social needs, disaster recovery, emergency management and police, among others.

We asked them questions about what resilience means to them, Wolford added. As part of our research, we have to establish what the definition of resilience is for Dayton, because it can vary so much depending on what you do.

To determine where Dayton and the region are, Wolford and Maloney looked at seven types of the areas capital - namely human, social, political, financial, built, cultural and natural.

Because of the tornado outbreak, the Oregon District mass shooting, water issues and COVID-19, emergency planning was top of mind.

Because of what were all currently living in, it was really easy to have these conversations specifically around the pandemic, Wolford said. It was inspiring to hear from different organizations.

Maloney said so many people are so good at what they do and already had thoughts and/or plans about what to do when tornadoes, high heat, flooding or droughts hit.

With climate change, were going to see more severe storms in the Dayton region, Maloney said. You cant stop a tornado from coming through Dayton or stop a really bad flood from happening, but what you can do is you can address the needs of the community that might be impacted, she said. For instance, the Memorial Day (2019) tornadoes hit north Dayton  a large immigrant community  and a lot of people didnt have health or medical insurance, so what you can do is provide ways for people to get more affordable insurance.

According to Wolford and Maloney, the Second Nature commitment process began with conversations with the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission and included Leah Ceperley with UDs facilities management division, UD assistant professor of sustainability Felix Fernando and others.

Ben McCall, HSIs executive director, said the resilience assessment is impressively in-depth and systematic, especially considering that it is taking place during a time that included pandemic interruptions.

I think we are really fortunate as an institution to have a faculty member like Felix and two very talented graduate students like Lauren and Meg to undertake this work, he said. The progress that has been made really showcases the power of faculty and student engagement, and Im proud that HSI has helped to facilitate this important work.

Wolford and Maloneys other steps include studying various cities resilience plans and interviewing neighborhood partners, some of whom have personal stakes in the commitment.

Our campus is not a bubble, Wolford said. UD has a variety of partnerships with different non-profits and different organizations throughout the city and throughout the community. A lot of UD employees live in the bordering neighborhoods around campus or nearby.

Maloney called the neighborhood interview process a vision quest. We ask what people want to see and what the neighborhoods could be in the next 20-30 years, she said. Then well tie in leadership around the campus.

Before their May 2021 graduations, Wolford and Maloney will produce a report to be used by UDs Climate Action, Resilience, and Environmental Sustainability (CARES) Council to inform the next steps in meeting the universitys resilience commitment.

For more sustainability news and information, visit HSIs news blog, the Hanley Sustainability Institute website and the sustainability program website.
NEW YORK: Oil prices fell nearly 2% on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump dashed hopes for another stimulus package to boost the coronavirus-hit economy and after U.S. crude inventories rose in the most recent week.

Brent crude futures fell 66 cents, or 1.6%, to settle at $41.99 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 72 cents, or 1.8%, to settle at $39.95 a barrel.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said he was not optimistic that a comprehensive deal could be reached on further COVID-19 financial aid and that the Trump administration backed a more piecemeal approach.

Trump pulling out of relief negotiations generates a lot of uncertainty about the economy," said Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodities research at BNP Paribas.

Oil prices were also hit by a slightly larger-than-expected build in U.S. crude inventories. Crude inventories rose 501,000 barrels last week, government data showed, compared with analysts expectations in a Reuters poll for a 294,000-barrel rise.

Meanwhile, gasoline stocks fell by 1.4 million barrels in the week to 226.8 million barrels, their lowest since November, compared with expectations for a 471,000-barrel drop.? Distillate stockpiles fell by 962,000 barrels, in line with expectations.

We are seeing solid improvement in the refined product demand front," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.

Energy companies secured offshore platforms and evacuated workers on Tuesday, some for the sixth time this year, as Hurricane Delta threatened U.S. oil output in the Gulf of Mexico.

The storm has shut 29% of offshore oil production in the Gulf, which accounts for 17% of total U.S. crude output.

In Norway, the Lederne labour union said on Tuesday that it will expand oil strike from Oct. 10 unless a wage deal can be reached. Six offshore oil and gas fields shut down on Monday because of the strike, cutting Norways output capacity by 8%.

Norways Johan Sverdrup oilfield, the North Seas largest with an output capacity of up to 470,000 barrels of oil per day, will likely have to shut production unless the strike ends by Oct. 14, operator Equinor said on Wednesday.

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

Read all the Latest News and Breaking News here
Hurricane Delta weakened to a Category 3 storm just hours before hitting the coast of Mexico, but remains life threatening.

Maximum sustained winds are near 115 miles per hour (185 kilometers per hour) and the storm surge will raise water levels by as much as 8-12 feet along the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, the National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday. The hurricane is predicted to strengthen again to Category 4 as it moves over the Gulf of Mexico toward the U.S. in the coming days.

Little change in strength is expected before the center reaches the coast of the Yucatan peninsula during the next few hours, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Although some weakening is likely when Delta moves over the Yucatan peninsula, re-strengthening is forecast when the hurricane moves over the southern Gulf of Mexico Wednesday night and Thursday.

The hurricane is forecast to churn through the energy-producing region of the Gulf before likely hitting Louisiana, which has been struck twice already this year, on Saturday.

Deltas winds can snap trees, flatten houses and cause power outages lasting weeks.

Extremely dangerous storm surge and hurricane conditions are expected within portions of the northern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, said Dan Brown, a meteorologist with the center.

Delta threatens to become the latest in a string of deadly natural disasters in 2020, a year that has been marked by a hyperactive hurricane season, devastating wildfires and a derecho that wreaked havoc across the U.S. Midwest. It will be the record 10th tropical storm or hurricane to hit the U.S. in a year. So many have formed that the hurricane center has used up all the names on its official list and has resorted to the Greek alphabet to designate systems.

Deltas winds grew from 70 mph to 110 mph in 24 hours, which is the fastest intensification for an October storm since Hurricane Wilma in 2005, Colorado State Universitys Klotzbach said in a Tweet.

Cancun and the nearby island of Cozumel are poised to get hit hard, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research. Delta could cause $12 billion to $16 billion in damage and losses to Mexico and another $2 billion to the U.S. coast later this week, depending on its exact path, he said.

Mexico has started to evacuate the hotel zone in Cancun and the island of Holbox as the Yucatan readies for the impact of Delta, Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquin said in a tweet. Meanwhile, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday hes sending 5,000 members of Mexicos armed forces to the Yucatan for prevention efforts.

Hurricane Wilma forced 70,000 people to flee and left 300,000 homeless after it struck the Yucatan in October 2005, according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information. The storm came ashore with winds of 130 mph near Playa del Carmen on Oct. 22.

Oil and gas producers including Enbridge Inc., BHP Group and Royal Dutch Shell Plc were evacuating or preparing to evacuate workers from Gulf platforms ahead of Delta. Operators had shut about 29% of crude production and 8.6% of gas output, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said. The hurricane is poised to clip the Cameron liquefied natural gas plant, which had just resumed exports after being shut in late-August.

After Delta loses power over the Yucatan, its expected to return briefly to Category 4 strength in the Gulf as it moves toward Louisiana, which was struck by Hurricane Laura in August. Cool water and wind shear in the northern Gulf could weaken Delta, but it will likely make landfall again as a hurricane, said Rob Miller, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.

There is an increasing likelihood of life-threatening storm surge and dangerous hurricane-force winds, especially along the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi, beginning on Friday, the hurricane centers Brown said in an advisory.

New Orleans urged residents to gather food, water & medication for at least three days in a text via its emergency alert system on Tuesday.

Miller said he expects the storm to strike somewhere west of New Orleans, but storm surge, heavy rains and winds could reach as far east as the Florida Panhandle.This region of the county is the magnet for hurricanes this year, Miller said.

The Atlantic has spawned 25 storms this year, the second most on record after 2005, when deadly Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans.

(Updates with category downgrade.)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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Washington:

President Donald Trump told airline and airport executives that he is interested in privatising Americas air traffic control system and improving the nations airports and roads, which he called obsolete.

Trump also promised to roll back government regulations and said he will announce a plan in the next three weeks to reduce taxes on businesses. But he sounded skeptical about raising fees that airline passengers pay to fund airport improvements.

One issue was notably absent during the White House meeting  Trumps executive order to temporarily ban travel to the US from seven mostly-Muslim countries.

Airline leaders had criticized the order, which is on hold while it is reviewed by a federal appeals court.

Airline and airport executives who emerged from the White House meeting called it a positive session.

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly told Trump the best way to help airlines would be to modernize the air traffic control system. He complained that money spent on the system has not improved it.

I hear were spending billions and billions of dollars, its a system thats totally out of whack, Trump said.

Some airline executives and Republicans in Congress have proposed privatising air traffic control because they say the Federal Aviation Administration has moved too slowly on modernisation and would benefit by being removed from the uncertain congressional budget process. Other lawmakers oppose reducing Congress oversight of aviation, and business and private aircraft owners worry their costs will go up.

Nick Calio, president of Airlines for America, the trade group that represents most major airlines but not Delta, said Trump was extraordinarily positive when airline executives urged him to spin off air traffic control operations from the Federal Aviation Administration and place them under the control of a private, nonprofit corporation.

While Trump supported modernizing the air traffic system, he did not explicitly endorse privatization, said another participant, Kevin Burke, president of Airports Council International-North America.

Unlike the US, most countries separate air traffic control duties from their aviation-safety agencies. But it is unusual to actually privatise air traffic operations. Canada is an exception.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Napa Countys quest to jump from red to orange on the states color-coded COVID-19 rating system  and ease restrictions on local businesses  is in a holding pattern.

The county remains entrenched in the red category, where it has been ever since the state debuted the system more than a month ago. It must further reduce the number of COVID-19 cases to move into a less-restrictive category.

California announced Tuesday that Napa County has a state-adjusted rate of 5.1 new cases per 100,000 residents averaged over seven days. This needs to drop below four cases for two consecutive weeks before the county can enter the orange category.

An orange rating would allow restaurants, fitness centers and houses of worship to have more people inside. It would allow winery tasting rooms to open indoors, instead of being outdoors only.

I think right now we need to focus on going to orange as quickly as possible, Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza said.

California places its 58 counties into four categories for its COVID-19 ratings. Purple is the most restrictive, followed by red, orange and the least-restrictive yellow.

Counties can go backward, as happened on Tuesday when Tehama County went from red back to purple. Napa County is in no immediate danger of sliding to purple, given its 5.1 figure would have to rise to over seven.

Of course, the ultimate will be the day when Californians can forget about color rating systems, burn their face coverings and crowd together again for sporting events and concerts. Pedroza said some frustrated residents fear things will never return to normal.

Dr. Karen Relucio, county public health officer, addressed that fear Tuesday during her regular COVID-19 update to the county Board of Supervisors. She found reason for optimism from the belief of many health officials that a coronavirus vaccine could soon be successfully developed.

A small amount of a coronavirus vaccine could be available by years end, she said. That amount would go up in time. If enough people are vaccinated or have the disease, the community immunity would increase, even though coronavirus could still be present.

I think well get there, Relucio said. Its going to take some time, though.I dont see this as being a forever thing. I think this is temporary until vaccinations are more widely available.

Pedroza said the county needs to give people hope.

I think were all tired, right? he said. Weve been at this a long time. But we need to double down on our prevention efforts, to try to move the (state rating) tiers  I do understand the frustration our community is feeling, our businesses being impacted, our (students) having to do distance learning, teachers being concerned.

The message to the community is we are all in this together, he said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said masking and social distancing will likely be needed even after a vaccine is initially available. He told Business Insider recently that spring 2022 is a good bet for planning such large gatherings as weddings.

Relucio gave supervisors demographic data on local COVID-19 cases.

The Hispanic/Latinx population accounts for 56.9% of Napa County cases, even though this demographic is 34% of the population. Non-Hispanic whites account for 19.4 % of the cases and 53% of the population. Other races account for 12.3% of the cases and 13% of the population. Demographics for 11.4 % of the cases are unknown.

California is launching steps to keep coronavirus positive testing rates from being significantly higher in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. Indicators for disadvantaged neighborhoods include economics, education and housing.

Napa County and other counties must by Oct. 13 submit a plan to the state to address the issue. Steps can include augmented testing, disease investigation and outreach efforts.

The county has had COVID-19 outbreaks recently at eight congregate living facilities, with five of the outbreaks ongoing. One skilled nursing facility had six staff members and 10 residents testing positive. Another had 35 staff members and five residents testing positive. Relucio did not reveal the names of the facilities.

One of the countys correctional facilities has three staff and five residents testing positive. Another has one resident testing positive.







Watch now: Dr. Faucis flu season tips

You can reach Barry Eberling at 256-2253 or beberling@napanews.com.

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- A Burkina Faso national is in police grips for allegedly killing his German partner and daughter

- Boigouna Aloys is believed to have buried their remains secretly in a nearby bush in their house at Kokrobite

- Residents lodged a complaint at the Kokrobite police station after they realised a stench in the area after the sudden disappearance of the German and her child

Our manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

News reaching YEN.com.gh indicates a Burkina Faso national has been apprehended by the Ghana police for taking the life of his partner.

The 43-year-old man is reported to have allegedly murdered his German partner and her 13-year-old daughter.

According to a news report filed by Citinewsroom.com, the suspect, Boigouna Aloys, is believed to have buried their remains secretly in a nearby bush in their house at Kokrobite.

Burkinabe arrested for murdering his German partner & daughter in Kokrobite Source: primenews.com

Source: UGC

Residents who lived close to the deceased said both the Burkinabe national and German woman had been living together with the daughter of the deceased since January 2020.

According to them, a strong stench in the neighborhood raised suspicions about the possible murder of the two by the suspect since they suddenly disappeared.

A complaint was however, lodged with the Kokrobite police for further investigation.

Police have since visited the scene where the two deceased persons were suspected to have been buried.

The police have begun investigations into the incident and plan to obtain an exhumation order from the court to exhume the suspected dead bodies as investigations continue.

In other news, a police sergeant from the Motor Transport and Traffic Directorate unit of Accra Central, Sgt. Ibrahim Yakubu, is becoming a beacon of hope for professionalism in the police force.

In a post sighted by YEN.com.gh on Facebook, the integrity of Sgt. Ibrahim Yakubu has been highlighted and many have asked that his example be emulated by his colleagues.

Sgt Ibrahim Yakubu is believed to direct traffic at the GIMPA-Christian village junction and according to Bhakta Lawson, the law enforcement individual is very punctual.

YEN is building a platform where Ghanaians can share local news and own experiences with each other. Witnessing an incident?

Want to tell about a local problem? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition?

Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via Instagram or on YENs official Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
Gov. Ralph Northam is cautioning General Assembly leaders not to go too far in trying to rewrite the proposed state budget in a special session that he called primarily to deal with a projected $2.8 billion revenue shortfall because of a public health emergency with no sign of abating that has crippled the economy.

Northam, who is recovering from a COVID-19 infection with his wife, Pam, laid out his concerns about the budgets the House of Delegates and Senate adopted last week in a conference call with assembly leaders on Sunday evening before the two chambers move toward negotiating a final spending plan.

His concerns include legislative proposals that would spend much of the nearly $500 million cash balance that the governor proposed to leave at the end of the two-year budget. Northam saw it as a hedge against a further downturn in Virginias economy and state revenues until the coronavirus pandemic is brought under control.

Both chambers proposed hundreds of millions in contingency spending if state revenues dont decline sharply before Northam proposes a new revenue forecast and budget on Dec. 15, although the Senate didnt count its potential spending against the balance.

The bottom line

The overarching concern the governor has is the cash left on the bottom line in the budget, Clark Mercer, Northams chief of staff, said in an interview on Tuesday. We didnt leave that cash on the bottom line to be spent and certainly not on things unrelated to helping citizens and small businesses get through the health crisis.

House Appropriations Vice Chairman Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax, participated in the conference call with the governor, as well as a meeting on Monday between the staffs of the assembly budget committees and administration officials on how to spend more than $1 billion in uncommitted federal funds under the CARES Act.

Its the role of the legislature to set spending priorities, Sickles said in an interview. Of course, he can veto any item not to his liking.

Neither chamber proposed to dip into the states reserve funds for new spending, but the House budget would reduce the $490.5 million unappropriated balance the governor proposed by $186 million. The Senate plan would reduce the balance by almost $9 million, but that doesnt reflect proposed contingency spending

How much of the unappropriated balance  which is an historic amount  to use is the question, Sickles said.

Northam has not yet sent a formal letter to assembly budget negotiators because the two chambers have yet to act on each others budget proposals or name members of the conference committee that will resolve their differences. The Senate Finance & Appropriations Committee is preparing to act on the House budget bill on Wednesday as the first step to setting up negotiations.

Northams concerns

However, the governor has outlined his biggest concerns about producing a budget that he is willing to sign without vetoes or amendments, both in direct comments to legislative leaders on Sunday and through Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne, who sent a letter to the chairs of the assembly budget committees last week.

Without formally prejudicing the governors formal written communication to you, you may expect concerns relating to the reinstatement of some unallotted items [that Northam had proposed to cut], language regarding the use of [the] Coronavirus Relief Fund and contingency funding, Layne told Senate Finance Chair Janet Howell, D-Fairfax, and House Appropriations Chair Luke Torian, D-Prince William.

Layne also noted that administration officials were not given an advance review of what adjustments were made in each chambers budget, even though he said the governor had given legislative leaders that courtesy in the revised two-year spending plan that he proposed on Aug. 18, the day the special session began seven weeks ago.

Mercer elaborated during the interview on Tuesday. For us to be on the same page, weve got to have a two-way street in terms of communications, he said. We need all parties to have the same goal of getting the budget to the governor ready to sign, [so] as to avoid amendments and vetoes that will extend the budget process further.

Howell and Torian did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

49 days

The special session already has lasted 49 days  three more than the regular assembly session scheduled to begin in March  as the two chambers work without a procedural agreement on operating rules and under unprecedented circumstances because of the threat of COVID-19. The coronavirus already has infected four legislators, including two during the special session. After the first day, the House has met entirely online, while the Senate has met in person for floor sessions and some committee meetings.

Most of the work has focused on legislation to reform the states criminal justice and policing laws, prompted by a summer of public unrest and protests that began after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis at the end of May. The two chambers are expected to soon begin conference committee negotiations to resolve their differences in bills adopted with similar goals.

The session also has focused on broader equity issues that have been magnified by the coronavirus pandemic, such as the terms of proposed moratoriums on housing evictions and utility disconnections during an economic crisis that has hit lower-income Virginians and racial minorities hardest.

Key differences

All of those issues also are central to the debate over the different versions of the budget. For example, the House budgeted $28.4 million to pay for its criminal justice and police reforms, while the Senate proposed to spend $11.2 million.

Budget negotiators also will have to reconcile the terms of the proposed eviction and utility disconnection moratoriums with legislation both chambers have adopted, as well as spending to support them.

When the session began, the governor and the assembly also hoped for help from Congress with additional aid or at least more flexibility in how the state could use $3.1 billion it received in June under the CARES Act to help pay for state and local response to COVID-19. However, President Donald Trump on Tuesday scuttled efforts to revive stalled negotiations over a new emergency stimulus package. He made the announcement on Twitter the day after he returned from hospital treatment for his own coronavirus infection.

Virginia has distributed $1.3 billion in CARES Act funding to local governments to help them through the crisis. The administration has spent more than $700 million but has about $1.1 billion left in uncommitted federal funds. It must spend them by the end of December under strict guidelines that forbid using the money to fill revenue shortfalls.

Mercer, Northams chief of staff, said the administration has consulted extensively with assembly budget leaders about proposed uses of the money, so he was taken aback by attempts, especially in the House budget, to curtail the governors authority to allocate CARES Act money or future federal funds without General Assembly approval.

We were a little surprised at how prescriptive some of the budget language is, he said.

Sickles said the state has 84 days to spend the CARES Act money and plenty of needs to address with it.

We need to have a plan to ensure we have effectively used it, he said.

Mercer said he expects the governor to accelerate his allocation of the funds.

We remain committed to working with the General Assembly to get the money out of the door, he said. The bottom line is we need to get Virginians the relief theyve been waiting for.
With the passing away of Jaswant Singh, India and the BJP have lost a great scholar, statesman and soldier

by Ashok K Mehta

The only photograph I have of Jaswant Singh and me together was the one he gave me a year before he was admitted to the hospital in August 2014, never to regain consciousness. It was taken on December 10, 1957, when we were on stage enacting a play, Choice of Arms, at the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, during the silver jubilee of the academy and our passing out parade celebrations. Portraying the hallmark cavalry officer, Jaswant reflected its mirror image: suave, stylish and snobbish. I played the rough and ready infanteer, his poorer cousin, crew cut et al. As Jaswant Major Saab bade farewell to arms in 1966, complaining about excessive employment of Yes Sir, his sputnik political rise saw him become Defence, Finance and Foreign Minister. In those heady days, he would tell Jeeves, Pep Singh: General Sahab ko man-pasand whisky pilao. During these convivial encounters, he would recount in fits of laughter, incidents in the academy  of lost patrols, enemy ambush and one dereliction that nearly delayed graduation. His passion for Western classical music, literature and history never deserted him. Bach, Beethoven and Mozart played softly even at 35,000 feet on Air India or in his offices in South Block and 16 Teen Murti Lane.

Jaswant Singh ( File Photo)



A conspiracy hatched by Army Chief, General SF Rodrigues, marked my parting from the Army. I sought Jaswants help which came unflinchingly. As a member of the Lok Sabha and a rising star in BJP, one evening over sundowners, he invited two of the countrys best legal minds  Ram Jethmalani and Arun Jaitley  both from his party but with their mutual dislike never camouflaged. Only Jaswant could have brought them together and along with Jaitleys junior, Arvind Nigam, they managed, 20 years later, to defeat the Government for the first time in Indias independent history over its imposition of Army Act Section 18 and the Pleasure Doctrine. All three legal eagles became good friends.

Jaswant also introduced me to his tailor in Khan Market, Mukhtar Ahmad, who patterned his black mazri bush shirts in the Armys Walking Out style. The trademark epaulette bush shirt  Jaswants copyright  is now worn by all and sundry.

Jaswants mastery of the English language and his gorgeous handwriting were legendary. He wrote a dozen seminal books, three focussed on defence and national security: A Call to Honour, Defending India and his last before he was hospitalised, India at Risk. In 2013, he invited me to Mumbai on a whistle-stop tour to promote his book and quiz him on the risks facing India. I recall vividly an earlier evening at his home that was rudely interrupted by Defence Minister Sharad Pawars call announcing that he was on his way. I was urged to knock back my drink and leave. Then Army Chief Rodrigues, in an interview to this newspaper, had indiscreetly called neighbouring countries as bandicoots and counselled for good governance. This created a furore in Parliament which forced Pawar into administering a warning to Rodrigues. It was the draft of this admonition that Pawar wanted Jaswant to edit and embellish that led to my retreat. With his Sheaffer pen, Jaswant corrected the parliamentary reprimand which Pawar read out the next day in Parliament, pacifying the Opposition ranks of which he was one.

Perhaps Jaswants most anxious moments were during the Kandahar hijack of IC 814. He told me that relatives of passengers made good copy for television and that IB was reporting that the incident could trigger communal disturbances. During the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting, he volunteered, since no one else did, to accompany the three Jaish terrorists to Kandahar for release of Indian hostages. The stigma of this enduring ignominy he parried bravely.

During the Kargil skirmish, on the day Tololing heights were captured (June 11, 1999), I accompanied Jaswant to Beijing as part of the press delegation in my post-Army avatar. India had carried out nuclear tests the previous year and attributed them to the threat from China. His mission to China was to restore bilateral relations gone in deep freeze since the tests. The frosty meeting with Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan began with Tang insisting that China was never a threat to India, adding that we have a saying in Chinese that those who tie the knot must untie it first to which Jaswant recalled a Rajasthani aphorism from his village Jasol: you need two hands to untie a knot. The strategic difference was not allowed to become a dispute.

Jaswant was full of witty repartees. After the nuclear tests, which stunned and annoyed the Americans, he met Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who remarked with dripping sarcasm that India had dug itself into a hole. Madam Secretary of State, India is a civilisational state, it does not dig holes, he replied with exceptional grace. The two developed healthy respect and affection for each other. Through the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership Jaswant discussed with Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott, and over 16 meetings in different parts of the globe, they sketched the path towards the landmark India-US nuclear deal.

In the last of his nine stints as a parliamentarian, Jaswant represented the Gorkhas from Darjeeling. Since I was from the fifth Gorkha regiment, had widely trekked in Nepal, was fluent in Gorkhali and familiar with the problems of India-domiciled Gorkhas and their demand for Gorkhaland, I became his occasional advisor in his constituency. I once accompanied him to Darjeeling, meeting Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leaders Bimal Gurung, Roshan Giri and Ramesh Ale, who was from my regiment. Jaswant would park himself in a quaint 19th century English hotel  below Kalimati temple  which was then under American ownership but would annually fly in English actors to stage plays like that year Oscar Wildes Importance of Being Earnest.

As convenor of India-Pakistan Track Two dialogue, which ran for nearly 15 years till the ruling dispensation forced it to stop, I tried to invite Jaswant to participate when he was not in Government. I suggested you could meet your Kargil counterpart Sartaj Aziz, with whom you refused to shake hands but he steadfastly refused.

Jaswant was a prolific rider and played horse polo and cycle polo for the academy. He continued riding for several years and owned ponies till a back problem forced him to stop. While I have lost a true friend from whom I learnt a lot, India and the BJP have lost a great scholar, statesman and soldier.

(The writer, a retired Major General, was Commander IPKF South, Sri Lanka and founder member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the Integrated Defence Staff.)
(TNS)  Davenport, Iowa, aldermen are considering a measure that would give Davenport police as well as other local law enforcement a new tool for tracking stolen vehicles, as well as vehicles on the run, Amber alerts and much more.During Wednesdays Committee of the Whole meeting, aldermen will vote on a resolution to approve a contract for the License Plate Reader project to Vigilant Solutions of Livermore, California.Cory Smith, Davenports IT Director, said the system would not only read a license plate. It can capture a partial license number and extrapolate the different numbers and letters for police so they can find the exact plate number and match it to the make, model and color of the vehicle the camera tagged.The system not only can track a car, but if the car doesnt have a license plate the system can also tag and grab the make, model and color of the car, even at night if the lighting is correct, Smith added.And the system will have all the information available to send to police a signal when a stolen vehicle or license plate is tagged.Smith added that system will be put in place to capture southbound traffic on Harrison Street and east-west traffic on Locust Street at Harrison Street. There also will be a high-definition camera at the intersection that will catch if a driver turned and possibly identify the number of occupants in the vehicle.The camera systems we have in the downtown parking ramps have an LPR system built into it so as the vehicles come into the parking ramp we grab their license plate, and thats how we do registration, Smith said.Davenport currently is using an older system from Vigilant Solutions in two squad cars, but that system has limitations.It doesnt work as great and its not very user friendly, Smith said.But as the technology has slowly evolved we feel that now is a good opportunity to reinvestigate and see how well it works, Smith said.Its going to be a very useful tool for the investigators, he said. We can put in stolen vehicles, amber alerts and time-sensitive critical information.All of the data can be shared with other agencies that are on the same system, and if those other agencies are looking for someone, We can plug that into our system and the other agencies can plug into our system. Its a very useful tool.The technology has been proven by the Scott County Sheriffs office, which started off with a trial unit in early 2019 and moved to an individual unit in mid-2019, Sheriff Tim Lane said.We have another reader on order, he added, saying that the technology has worked extremely well.The Sheriffs Department was able to locate in short order vehicles that were stolen from Scott County and taken elsewhere. Recently, stolen vehicles were located in Cedar Rapids, the south side of Chicago and in Florida.The nice thing about this system is other law enforcement users, and even private users, all send information into the same database, and we are able to find some of the things we and other people are looking for, Lane said. Its a nice integrated system thats user friendly, he added.Everyday new information on stolen vehicles is put into the system, Lane said. The machine operates in the background reading everything and checking the database. When the system gets a hit it alerts the officer.Were driving around serving civil papers and the machine is doing the search for us, he said.Lane has put the license plates of registered sex offenders into the system because there are areas that are restricted where registered sex offenders cannot go.We dont have any reason to suspect them of anything because theyre driving down the street, but it logs where and when we saw their vehicle, and if somebody is in an area thats restricted to them, we can check the logs, he said.The system gives local law enforcement a great tool by which to not only find stolen vehicles but track many forms of information that could be crucial to investigators, Lane added.The cost for the cameras, software and company support for five years will cost $168,029, which Smith said is an excellent price.The Committee of the Whole meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. at Davenport City Hall.
The roles of scientists change as research teams become more interdisciplinary and larger, finds new research from ESMT Berlin. Contemporary scientific challenges increasingly require large teams and interdisciplinary perspectives. However, it is not fully understood how these trends affect the division of labor among team members. In other words, how do team members divide the work and how do teams assure that individuals' contributions are brought back together to solve a scientific problem?

Henry Sauermann, Professor of Strategy at ESMT Berlin, and Prof. Carolin Haeussler from the University of Passau, conducted a study on the impact of increased team size and interdisciplinarity on the division of labor. They analyzed author contribution statements from 12,964 published articles in a range of fields and compared the extent to which team members engaged in various research activities such as conceptualizing the project, collecting data, and writing the paper.

They found that division of labor increased with the size of the team, meaning a higher proportion of team members specialized in fewer tasks, sometimes only contributing to one activity. However, generalist members, which are less specialized and contribute to multiple activities, did not disappear completely. The share of specialist members stopped increasing at around 30% in teams with 15 members, while the share of generalist members decreased before stabilizing at around 18% in groups of 10 members. Therefore, although the proportion of specialists increased and generalists decreased, even larger teams were composed of a mix.

Interestingly, these trends towards specialization differ depending on the particular research activity. Prof. Sauermann says, "Conceptual activities such as designing the study tend to be shared more than empirical activities in small teams. However, in larger teams it is the reverse, with empirical activities being shared more widely than conceptual activities."

The authors also find that interdisciplinary teams use greater division of labor - team members tend to specialize in fewer research activities. But there is an interesting twist, says Prof. Haeussler: "Some teams gain interdisciplinary perspectives by bringing together field specialists such as an engineer and a biologist. Other teams are composed of individuals who are themselves interdisciplinary in their backgrounds - think bio-engineers. We see that different approaches to interdisciplinarity have very different implications for how labor is divided between team members".

The authors also find important differences in task allocation depending on scientists' individual characteristics, with women more likely to be involved in performing experiments than conceptual activities. Moreover, Haeussler and Sauermann note that many teams seem to violate common authorship guidelines, which require authors to be involved in both empirical and conceptual activities. As such, authorship guidelines may need to be revised to accommodate increasing specialization in scientific work.

###

These findings were published in the journal Research Policy: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2020.103987
When deciding for whom to vote in November, is there anything more important than supporting a candidate who will defend the right to life?

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe has been endorsed for reelection by National Right to Life. He has had a 100% pro-life voting record throughout his distinguished career of public service in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

Inhofe doesnt just pay lip service to defending the right to life; he acts on his convictions. His consistent, courageous and inspiring pro-life voting record illustrates that, but so do other things which are less well known.

Adoption is a life-affirming alternative to abortion, and Inhofe leads the Congressional Caucus on Adoption to promote policies that help children and families in the adoption and foster care process.

Because of his personal involvement, he united dozens of families in 2017 who had international adoptions in limbo.

He goes out of his way to encourage, visit with and support young Oklahomans who attend the March for Life in Washington each January.
POSCO Technical Research Laboratories head Lee Duk-lak, left, poses with ExxonMobil Research Engineering Vice President Vijay Swarup, on screen, during an online ceremony for the two sides' partnership, Wednesday. Courtesy of POSCO



By Nam Hyun-woo



POSCO said Wednesday it has formed a partnership with ExxonMobil, applying its high-manganese steel to LNG storage tanks that will be used for global LNG projects ordered by the oil and gas giant.



According to the steelmaker, it signed the partnership with ExxonMobil's Research Engineering Company (RE) and Upstream Research Company (URC) during an online ceremony. In the ceremony, they agreed to make joint efforts in expanding high-manganese steel's applications to global LNG projects and other energy-related industries.



ExxonMobil RE is in charge of basic research for materials and ExxonMobil URC is responsible for new materials' applications to actual facilities.



Manganese steel refers to steel alloy containing 10 percent to 27 percent manganese to improve durability, strength and cryogenic toughness. Due to its strength, the material is designed to be applied to cryogenic LNG and fuel tanks.



In 2013, POSCO developed its high-manganese steel that contains 22.5 percent to 25.5 percent of manganese and withstands temperatures as low as minus 196 degrees Celsius. POSCO claims it is the world's first company to develop high-manganese steel for commercial use.



Last year, POSCO won a government approval for using high-manganese steel for land LNG tanks and applied the material to LNG tank 5 at POSCO Energy's LNG terminal in Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province. In 2018, the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) Maritime Safety Committee approved interim guidelines on applying POSCO's high-manganese steel in cryogenic LNG storage and fuel tanks.



"This cooperation and commitment to long-term, strategic technology development combines ExxonMobil's expertise in metallurgy application with POSCO's expertise in world-class, high-quality steel manufacturing," ExxonMobil URC President Tristan Aspray said.



"Along with steel alloy and its related technologies, we hope POSCO and ExxonMobil enhance cooperation in reducing CO2 emissions and other eco-friendly technologies," POSCO Technical Research Laboratories head Lee Duk-lak said.



This is not the first time that POSCO and ExxonMobil have teamed up for new materials. In 2017, the two sides jointly developed high-manganese steel for pipelines carrying oil sand slurry. With this technology, the two entities won the Deals of Distinction Award at the 2017 annual meeting of the Licensing Executives Society.



"The energy dual challenge, supplying energy for modern life while minimizing the impact on the environment, is one of the most important issues facing the society," ExxonMobil RE Vice President Vijay Swarup said. "Technology innovation and collaboration are critical today, and we believe that the partnership with POSCO will provide novel technology solutions to address the dual challenge."


Workers make adjustments to newly installed plexiglass barriers on the stage ahead of the vice presidential debate in Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

After a last-minute fight over safety precautions, Vice President Mike Pence and California Sen. Kamala Harris will share a rare place at center stage Wednesday night  a socially distanced, plexiglassed debate stage designed to protect them from the pandemic that has inflicted President Trump and swept the White House.

The two will have a chance to argue up close, but not too close, the case each side has made from afar: Democrats assailing the administration's handling of the deadly virus, Republicans portraying Harris as a radical leftist bent on seizing power from running mate Joe Biden.

It could make for lively viewing and may prove more informative than last's week maelstrom, given the odds it will be a lower-key discussion than the presidential debate. But it's likely to have little, if any, lasting impact on the race.



No vice presidential debate has ever mattered enough to decide a presidential contest, and Wednesday's will probably be no exception.

California Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence will debate each other Wednesday at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Vice presidential matchups have never been very consequential, but 2020 is a strange year. (Associated Press)

Still, the 90-minute session at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City could be more noteworthy than most because at age 77 and 74, Joe Biden and President Trump, respectively, are the two oldest major party presidential candidates in history.

"The actuarial tables have not been abolished," said Michael Nelson, a Rhodes College presidential scholar who has written a book on the vice presidency. "There is a greater than normal chance we may be looking at a debate in which one of the candidates is the next president."

Pence is 61, Harris, 55. Both candidates tested negative for COVID-19 as recently as Tuesday.

The debate comes amid rare movement in a presidential contest that, polls suggest, has been stagnant for months.

Surveys taken after the Sept. 29 debate, in which Trump repeatedly talked over Biden and hectored moderator Chris Wallace, showed the Democratic nominee widening his lead nationally and in several battleground states that will be key to deciding the election. Polls completed after Trump was hospitalized Friday with COVID-19 have not shown any movement back in his direction.

Story continues

Given questions surrounding Trump's health  he has returned to the White House and said he feels fine, but his underlying condition is unclear  the two remaining presidential debates are not certain to come off. That could leave Wednesday night's session as the final political marquee event before the Nov. 3 election.

With concerns heightened after Trump's post-debate diagnosis, added steps were taken to protect the health of Harris and Pence. The two will be seated 12 feet apart, as opposed to the originally planned seven. Members of the socially distanced audience must wear masks or risk expulsion.

Another precaution, the use of plexiglass barriers between Harris, Pence and the moderator, USA Today's Susan Page, was thrown into question Tuesday when Pence balked at the arrangement. He subsequently agreed to comply if the barrier made the senator more comfortable.

There is no doubt COVID-19 and the health and economic ramifications of the pandemic will be a significant part of Wednesday night's discussion.

Since February, Pence has been charged with leading the White House Coronavirus Task Force. While some praise his work  "Mike did a superb job... to incorporate various viewpoints from different disciplines," said Tomas J. Philipson, a former senior Trump administration economist  he will have to defend the president's downplaying of a virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans and cost millions their jobs.

"The government has not responded well," said Joel Goldstein, a professor emeritus and expert on the vice presidency at St. Louis University School of Law. "Vice President Pence has some explaining to do."

A former radio talk show host and a skilled debater, Pence will likely be more measured in his performance than the president, but no less aggressive in attacking Harris. By many accounts, he got the better of a seemingly overcaffeinated Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's 2016 running mate, when the two squared off.

Still, Harris faces the higher expectations, owing to her breakout performance during the first Democrat primary debate and filleting of Trump officials in multiple Senate hearings. The anticipation obscures the fact that Harris has also had less-than-sterling debates, especially when aggressively challenged on her record.

Harris also stumbled over policy questions, a shortcoming that helped drive her from the Democratic presidential race, though she will have to do less parsing than she did navigating the tensions between her party's factions.

Its a lot easier to draw a contrast between where [the Democrats] stand on issues versus where Donald Trump and Mike Pence stand, said Brian Brokaw, who ran Harris' two successful races for California attorney general.

The question of how aggressively to attack Trump has been made easier by his return to Twitter and political skirmishing. He has regularly invoked Harris' name, painting her as a left-wing puppet master who will yank the more centrist Biden toward radicalism.

"If somebody's in the hospital, you might be reluctant to be too critical of them," Goldstein said. "But if he's out operating in a way that seems ordinary, or close to ordinarily what he's been doing, then I think there'll be much less reluctance to criticize him."

If history is a guide, attention will quickly turn away from Wednesday's night debate.

The best either side can probably hope for, said Stuart Rothenberg, a longtime nonpartisan election handicapper, is a positive headline or viral sound bite. "At least," he said, "that will give them something to talk about for two or three days."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Hamiltons health-care leaders have been bracing for a second wave of COVID-19.

These next four to six weeks  were hearing from public health  are going to be extremely critical, said Paul Johnson, the director of the citys Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) that has been managing Hamiltons pandemic response.

As of Wednesday, Hamilton has had 1,244 cases of the virus  an increase of 16 from the previous day. So far, 155 people have been hospitalized. Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) is currently caring for less than five COVID-19 patients, and St. Joes has none.

The EOC has been operating for nearly seven months and continues to monitor case numbers in the city, working closely with public health.

We meet regularly and we review the latest situation and are making decisions on city services based on whatever is happening, Johnson said.

The City of Hamilton is hiring an additional 75 staff to support Public Health for the second wave and COVID activities generally, a city spokesperson said in an email.

As Hamilton sees a rise in cases, Johnson said to expect increased communication to help people understand the rules they should be following in their day-to-day activities.

Physically distance yourself, that is the safest way, he said. That is what stops the spread.

Heres how Hamilton is preparing for a second wave of COVID-19:

New downtown health-care facility

Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and St. Josephs Healthcare Hamilton have partnered to open a new, temporary health facility to increase capacity amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Satellite Health Facility (SHF) at 150 King St. E.  in Effort Square  has been set up to care for patients who do not require hospital care, and are awaiting transfer to a community-based location, an Oct. 1 statement says.

The SHF will be staffed by interprofessional clinical teams and primary-care physicians.

This month, we will start to transition patients who are waiting in hospital for care elsewhere in the community to this space, HHS president Rob MacIsaac told The Spectator. This will allow us to further protect hospital resources for those who need them most.

Patients may begin to move in as early as the week of Oct. 19.

On Sept. 25, the provincial government announced $741 million in funding to help reduce backlogs in health-care facilities amid the pandemic.

Expanding access to care to help reduce health service backlogs is part of our plan to ensure that we are ready for future waves of COVID-19, said Health Minister Christine Elliott in a statement on Sept. 25.

New testing centre on the Mountain

A new testing centre at Mohawk College is set to open Oct. 23, accommodating between 400 and 500 appointments daily.

The new site, which will be staffed by St. Joes, will take over for the St. Joes West 5th campus testing centre and the Dave Andreychuk Mountain Arena drive-thru assessment centre that is set to close Oct. 11.

St. Joes president Melissa Farrell said the hospital is working with public health and other partners to ensure our assessment centres can expand to meet the current high demand for testing.

Beginning Oct. 13, the existing St. Josephs Mountain COVID-19 testing centre at the hospitals West 5th campus will temporarily extend its hours from 4:30 to 10 p.m.  doubling its current appointment capacity  until the Mohawk College testing centre opens.

The West 5th testing centre was opened mid-September amid an increase in demand for testing coinciding with students returning to school.

The West 5th centre will close after the Mohawk College centre opens later this month.

How HHS is preparing

HHS said it has reactivated its crisis command centre, in order to act swiftly to care for patients, monitor and procure equipment such as personal protective equipment (PPE), and increase capacity of surgeries and procedures, among other things.

We are focused on maintaining scheduled, regional and community care across the region, and the ability to make available 10 per cent of acute-care capacity for COVID-19 as per provincial direction, MacIsaac said.

HHS is currently recruiting for a range of roles across our hospital, satellite health-care facility and assessment centre, MacIsaac said.

The hospital currently has 148 active job postings.

How St. Joes is preparing

St. Joes has also reconvened its COVID task force in order to monitor and respond to priority needs during this rapidly evolving crisis.

This includes bed movement plans to allow the hospital to quickly establish COVID-positive locations, a COVID-response visitor policy, regionwide systems to secure PPE and continued screening of staff, patients and visitors.

While we are currently caring for no COVID-19 patients, we have worked with our community, regional and provincial partners to ensure capacity should there be a surge in cases requiring hospitalization, Farrell said in an email to The Spectator.

St. Joes is currently recruiting nurses, psychologist and lab technicians, among other positions, across hospital departments, including the satellite health-care facility and assessment centres.

There are currently 135 active job postings.

We are better prepared for a second wave of the virus in the hospital, Farrell said.

Partnerships with hospitals in the region

Four hospitals in southwestern Ontario are partnering to deliver what has been dubbed the Regional COVID-19 Model of Care Strategy.

Hamilton General, St. Joes Charlton campus, Joseph Brant Hospital in Burlington and Niagara Health in St. Catharines will work together to provide consolidated acute care for COVID-19 patients.

The goal is to accommodate fluctuations in demand for COVID-19 care while minimizing any potential disruption to scheduled, regional and community care across the region, a statement from Sept. 15 reads.

This collaboration demonstrates the strong partnerships among our hospitals and will serve as a foundation to address possible future health-care crises in our region, MacIsaac said. As always, the safety of patients, staff and physicians is our main priority.

Joseph Brant Hospitals pandemic response unit

In Burlington, Joseph Brant Hospitals pandemic response unit has been designated as the unit that will care for stable COVID-19 patients with mild-to-moderate symptoms, but who cannot be cared for at home.

This could include COVID-positive patients who require longer-term care, including oxygen therapy, medication and monitoring of their symptoms, as well as personal support.

The unit is a temporary external, all-season field hospital established to support emergency rooms during the pandemic.

***CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed a comment about St. Josephs Healthcare Hamiltons West 5th COVID-19 assessment centre. It has been updated with the correct attribution.
From left, physicists A.A. Michelson and Albert Einstein and former Caltech President Robert A. Millikan meet on the Caltech campus in 1931. (Smithsonian Archives)

At first blush, the California Institute of Technology seemed to respond promptly and well to the uproar sparked this summer over its apparent complicity with the racist eugenics movement of a century ago.

Caltech, one of the nation's leading scientific research institutions, took steps to increase diversity in its undergraduate and graduate programs, publish data on diversity at all levels from faculty appointments to undergrads, and improve its institutional response to discriminatory behavior.

The Pasadena university also established a task force to examine its policies on naming campus buildings.

The membership of this committee neither has the background nor is willing to address institutional racism at Caltech.

Caltech student Sarah Sam, upon resigning from its Naming Task Force

This was aimed directly at the disclosure that its venerated former president, Robert A. Millikan, had been an officer of the pro-eugenics Human Betterment Foundation, which promoted forced sterilization and racial segregation.

A petition seeking to remove the name of Millikan and others associated with the foundation from campus buildings and programs has been signed by 1,083 members of the Caltech community, according to its organizer, Michael Chwe, a UCLA faculty member and Caltech alumnus.

But Caltech's effort to come to terms with racism in its past has run into a snag.

The so-called Naming Task Force has been rattled by the resignation of one of its members, Sarah Sam. A doctoral student in neurobiology who is president of Black Scientists and Engineers of Caltech, Sam was the only Black student on the 15-member task force, which comprises faculty, alumni, students and administrators.

Sam announced her resignation on Sept. 28 with a broadside in which she asserted that "the membership of this committee neither has the background nor is willing to address institutional racism at Caltech."

She suggested that some committee members seemed intent on minimizing the impact of eugenics and the Human Betterment Foundation on the victims of sterilization.

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Some even tried to rationalize eugenics as standard intellectual thinking in Millikan's era and compulsory sterilization as "an artifact of limited scientific understanding during the early 20th century," she said.

Sam alleged that "several committee members are eugenics apologists," though she didn't identify them. "Many of our meetings have centered around the question, 'To what extent is eugenics wrong/racist?'"  a question that one would think had long been settled by the eugenics movement's role in racial policies of the Nazi regime in Germany.

A few days after Sam's resignation, Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum responded with a statement that seemed to intensify her disillusionment. Rosenbaum acknowledged that Millikan had been "associated with the morally reprehensible eugenics movement."

But without mentioning Sam by name, Rosenbaum wrote that "a number of members of our community have expressed impatience with the process of canvassing disparate opinions and debating their merit. ... We grow stronger as a community when we use the tools of learning to move beyond the incapacitating polarization so prevalent today."

Rosenbaum's statement glossed over Sam's point that the committee members had been ignoring the perspective of the victims of forced sterilization in which Caltech was complicit. "I thought it was wildly insensitive," she told me.

Shown is an excerpt from "Human Sterilization Today," a 1938 pamphlet issued by the pro-eugenics Human Betterment Foundation while Caltech President Robert A. Millikan was on the foundation's board of trustees. (Caltech archives)

On Tuesday, task force Chair Benjamin Rosen, an alumnus and veteran venture capital investor, responded more directly to Sam with a statement expressing "regret ... that the process disillusioned her."

Rosen observed that the task force has been at work for only two months, that its responsibility is "multifaceted and complex," and that "one cannot infer any conclusions at this point."

Task force members I reached out to either didn't respond or begged off commenting because the panel is still at work, with its deliberations conducted behind closed doors. It's expected to issue its recommendations by the end of this year.

All this points to the complexities inherent in Caltech's efforts to confront its past. On the one hand, the efforts may have resulted in a broader awareness of the institution's history of exclusion of women and people of color from its faculty and student body.

That history arguably ties in with Caltech's association with eugenics to the extent they "share some underlying belief in the hierarchy of humanity," says Peter Collopy, Caltech's university archivist.

Caltech's effort at reckoning with its past is part of a trend underway at many institutions, including The Times. Here's the context.

Few figures have as towering a reputation at their academic institutions as Robert A. Millikan does at Caltech. Millikan, who died in 1953, served as Caltech's president for 24 years, longer than anyone else.

A Nobel laureate in physics, Millikan helped establish the school's worldwide reputation. During his lifetime, he was also a leading public intellectual; his name still adorns schools and streets around the Southland.

Millikan's involvement with the Human Betterment Foundation is less well-known. The foundation was the creation of Ezra S. Gosney, who had settled in Pasadena with a fortune from farming and real estate and established the organization in 1929.

A few years after Gosney's death in 1942, his family bequeathed its assets, which included real estate holdings and a document archive, to Caltech.

The foundation was an unabashed promoter of compulsory sterilization of women it deemed "feebleminded" or prone to criminality, citing the pseudo-science of eugenics to justify the practice as a "practical, humane, and necessary step to prevent race deterioration," to quote one of its pamphlets.

In part due to the foundation's efforts, California became a leader in the American sterilization movement. By 1938, its forced sterilization law resulted in more than 12,000 involuntary sterilizations, nearly half of all those nationwide. By 1979, when the state law was repealed, some 20,000 sterilizations had been performed.

Millikan was not a charter member of the Human Betterment Foundation, but became a trustee in 1937. He joined a board that included Rufus von KleinSmid, then the president of USC; Lewis Terman, a Stanford psychologist who pioneered the study of IQ; and Harry Chandler, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times.

Some of Millikan's defenders, according to Sam, have suggested that he didn't fully buy into its programs but may have joined the foundation as a favor to Gosney. Some have pointed to the dearth of overt statements of support for sterilization in Millikan's papers.

But archival research, much of it associated with the renaming issue, points to overt racism on Millikan's part.

In a speech he delivered in 1924, four years into his tenure as Caltech's president, he stated that "California is today ... the westernmost outpost of Nordic civilization. The problem of the relations of our race to the Asiatic races is the big race problem of the future. California must inevitably contribute largely to the solution of that problem."

In a 1951 letter written during a visit to Mississippi, he told his wife, Greta: "More than half of the population in this state is made up of negroes  a very serious situation. For it means that under universal suffrage they could control the state now  an unthinkable disaster in view of the sort of people they now are."

Both documents were displayed Oct. 2, launching a series of public events aimed at helping members of the Caltech community grasp the broader issues in its history.

"Tackling the historical legacy and the political dimensions of something like eugenics can't possibly be done in a committee setting," says Maura D. Dykstra of Caltech's history department, the organizer of the Oct. 2 event.

"An institution that prides itself as much as Caltech does on reasonable and open discourse ought to have a conversation about the legacy of eugenics from which all of us can learn," alongside the narrow issue of whether to rename buildings on campus, Dykstra told me.

Among the archival materials displayed at the Oct. 2 event were several documents tracing Caltech's battle with federal officials in 1970 and 1971 over discrimination against women and minorities in its faculty appointment and student admission practices.

The Department of Health, Education and Welfare upbraided Caltech for its lack of affirmative action. On a faculty of 487, the agency noted, only 35 were women and only eight of those had the seniority of "voting" members of the faculty. None had tenure.

Caltech agreed, begrudgingly, to step up its recruitment. As one administrator acknowledged in an internal memo displayed in the recent event: "Clearly, science will not be irreparably damaged by the inclusion of more women."

He also advised against challenging HEW's conclusions. "We may lay ourselves open to trouble if we maintain that discrimination has never occurred," he wrote. "It would be all too easy to prove the contrary." But he maintained that discrimination against women had been "partly unconscious."

Caltech hasn't progressed far enough from its history of discrimination, the Black Scientists and Engineers asserted in a June 25 statement that helped to prompt the institution's stock-taking; of 1,299 graduate students, only 11 were Black, the organization stated.

Caltech, moreover, has lagged well behind other institutions in ending their memorialization of eugenics promoters. USC has removed KleinSmids name and bust from a central building on its downtown Los Angeles campus. Just Tuesday, Pomona College announced that it has renamed its Robert A. Millikan Laboratory building to honor the Seaver family, the structure's original benefactors.

The Palo Alto school district has voted to take Termans name off a middle school. Pasadenas Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church, which Millikan co-founded, last year removed his name from a room in its building.

At Caltech, Sam says that while she was on the renaming committee, it was still grappling with such fundamental questions as, "How do we separate the scientist from the man?"

She says her conviction that one could not distinguish a person's career from his or her character "was not shared by my fellow members." Some would ask, "Are we going to rename a building every time we disagree with their politics?" she says. "The implication there was that eugenics ideology and committing crimes against humanity was simply a matter of politics, not ethical standards."

It's not hard to understand the quandary Caltech faces in making a clean break with Millikan. "There's a mythology about Millikan on campus," Chwe observes. "I was part of that mythology. We were taught that he was a great man, so when I first heard that he was a eugenicist, I felt a little betrayed.

"But you can't teach students that people are worthy of respect when they're not. Then you're just implicating them in your mythology."

Chwe notes that when some 70% of Californian children are people of color and nearly 50% are Latino, the costs of alienating potential future scientists are great.

"Science is about the future," he says. "It's much more important to encourage people to go into science and become the next great scientist than to hold on to our little personality cult of Millikan."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Nathan Apodaca in the viral TikTok video of him sipping juice and singing along to Fleetwood Mac. (Nathan Apodaca / TikTok)

Nathan Apodaca is a man of many talents.

Most notably, those include skateboarding down an Idaho highway, sipping Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice right out of the bottle and lip syncing to Fleetwood Macs 1977 hit Dreams. All at the same time.

But the TikTok star can also bag and stack potatoes, fight fires and embroider beanies with the best of them.

After his aforementioned Dreams video went viral on Sept. 25  it now has 19 million views and 3.7 million likes (and counting)  Apodaca's internet fame even spiked interest in Fleetwood Mac. Streams for "Dreams" have more than doubled, while sales have nearly tripled since his video became a sensation.

So thanks for the love and support an here it is my original video same as all going around but yes thanks for the love n donations its very appreciated an much needed  vibe on world pic.twitter.com/gkCgc1U9As  *BLAZIN*4*1*NATION* (@doggface208) September 27, 2020

When Apodaca, 37, isnt introducing old-school jams to a younger audience on the popular social video app TikTok, he works as a laborer at a potato warehouse in his native Idaho. (He was born and raised there, though his dad is of Mexican descent and his mom hails from the Northern Arapaho tribe in Wyoming.)

We've been working ever since the pandemic, getting potatoes out to whoever needs them, Apodaca told the Los Angeles Times Thursday via Zoom.

As his viral fame ballooned, Apodaca realized he needed to talk to the big boss at the potato warehouse, where his father also works.

I was like, 'So, I don't know what's going on. I have some things going on where I have a couple interviews. I just need to get this taken care of,' he said.

Well, we're proud of you, his boss responded. We're excited for you.

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Within a few days, Apodaca had an L.A.-based manager fielding interview requests.

On the side, Apodaca started to work to suppress wildland fires in 2013 as part of a camp crew (although hes not currently fighting the West Coasts wildfires, which have reached Idaho .)

The newly minted social media star also casually drops the word  bobbin  in conversation: He knows the ins and outs of embroidery machines well by now, after recently purchasing one of his own.

I went and bought myself an embroidery machine with my taxes," he said. "And I started making beanies, and I made like, $1,000 off those beanies, man. And it was crazy. After my machine paid for itself, I was rolling for a minute.

Those beanies feature Apodacas nickname, Doggface  in honor of hip-hop legend Nate Dogg  as well as an assortment of his catchphrases, including DOWN FOO! and 420 SOULJAZ.

I was like, 'Man, I'mma buy this machine, I'm gonna push this button and it's gonna go to town. I'm not gonna have to do nothing, Apodaca thought to himself. And then I'm sitting there and I bought it and I went to my lady, and she's like, 'Do you even know how to do this?' And I was like, 'No, can you show me real quick?'

The Doggface design is also a nod to Apodacas TikTok handle, @420doggface208.

420's what I do, he said, referring to cannabis culture. Doggface is the name. And 208's where I stay. (208 is the area code for Idaho Falls, where Apodaca lives and works.)

Nathan Apodaca poses for a selfie. (Nathan Apodaca / Gitoni Productions)

Back when TikTok was still known as Musical.ly, Apodaca simply went by @doggface208. His two daughters, Makyla and Angelia, persuaded their dad to give the app a try.

His youngest, Makyla, was engrossed in the app when she came to visit from Montana, where the girls live with their mom.

I seen her doing some of the dances, and I was like, 'Wow, that looks pretty cool,' Apodaca said. And I was like, 'I know I could do that.' And then she's like, 'Yeah, right.'

And I was like, 'Well, watch me.' And then she filmed me, and me and her started doing it. Then she's like, 'Whoa.' She's like, 'Yeah, that's pretty cool. We actually did it; we made a video.'

Apodaca was hooked. His carefree, goofy nature translates well for the app and its dance challenges.

Eventually, his daughter Makyla caved and helped him set up an account of his own  just as Musical.ly was rebranded as TikTok around November 2017.

Under the @doggface208 handle, Apodaca tried his hand at The Git Up, a dance trend coined by TikTok user Harvey Bass to a song by the same name.

Makyla hopped on her dad's skateboard and rolled backward, filming him as he grooved along to the country song .

In less than 24 hours, Apodaca racked up 700,000 views and 100,000 likes.

And I just hear the bling, bling, bling: the likes, the hearts, he said. And I'm just like, 'What's goin' on?' Sittin' there gettin' on cloud nine.

After his first brush with internet fame, Apodaca almost stopped posting.

Because I was like, satisfied, happy, he said. And then my oldest daughter is the one that told me, 'No, you got followers. You're dumb if you just stop now.' I was like, Well, what am I gonna do?'

She's like, 'Well, duh, you always dancing. Just dance!'

Gradually, Apodaca built up 132,000 followers on that account  until TikTok banned him for a video promoting his merchandise and beanies toward the end of last year.

Not to fear. A self-proclaimed stoner, he switched over to the @420doggface208 account in January, slowly building up a fan base for his throwback tracks and happy-go-lucky perspective on life.

Everybody always says 'do more skating videos.'  I just do me, basically," he said. "And it puts smiles on faces. And that's what makes me happy about it.

In the Dreams clip, it turns out, he was longboarding to work after his car battery died.

I use my penny board when I want to go somewhere real quick, real fast, Apodaca clarified. I use my skateboard when I'm messing around and want to try to break my ankle. And then I use my longboard when I wanna go coast.

Nathan Apodaca in a TikTok video performing to "The Hustle" by Van McCoy. (Nathan Apodaca / TikTok)

Although hes now famous as a Fleetwood Mac fan (his mom loves Stevie Nicks, he said), the TikToker listens to just about anything and everything. He couldnt come up with a genre he didnt like.

I honestly listen to everything: I've listened to country, being in Idaho, obviously, Apodaca said. I love reggae. I listen to freakin' EDM. I like anything that gots a beat. And that's why my daughters, they always laugh at me. Because it don't matter where we're at: If I hear a song, and it's moving, my body just does what it does.

That bottle of Ocean Spray he gulps in his "Dreams" video? He buys the big jugs to save money and estimates he goes through about one a day. The colder, the better.

As for that feather tattoo on the side of his head, it represents his moms Native side of the family, and contains the Northern Arapaho flag.

I'm Native-Mexican, Apodaca said. I've always embraced both sides of my dad's heritage, my mom's heritage. Cholo all the way. I live it. I love it. It don't matter. They can label me, whatever they want, but I'll live it.

Not even a week into his viral success, Apodaca is taking the newfound attention in stride. Since Saturday, he has received $10,000 in donations from fans via Venmo, Cash App and PayPal. He's "feeling blessed," he says, and plans to spend that money on his parents, car repairs and a new RV.

And his "Dreams" video even made fans out of Fleetwood Mac members. The band's official Twitter account shared the clip not long after he posted it, with the caption, "We love this!"

I obviously ain't asking nothing [from] them, Apodaca said, because they put out that genius, so big ups to them. I'm just happy the world can vibe with me on it. And I've been blessed by the fans. They've been blessing me.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
This is the incredible moment a daredevil performs somersaults while flyboarding over a lake in Russia.

Footage shows Kristina Isaeva shoot up into the air before swooping back down and skimming the surface of the lake in Moscow.

The flyboarder then completes three backward somersaults as she is propelled in the air once again by the board which is powered by powerful jets of water.

Kristina Isaeva performs three backward somersaults on her flyboard over a lake in Moscow, Russia

The daredevil, who has been flyboarding for three years, shoots up into the air using her jet-powered device

During the clip, which was filmed on September 26, Ms Isaeva makes her acrobatics look effortless as she soars into the air on her device.

In 2019, Ms Isaeva, who has been flyboarding for three years, came in at second place during the international competition FlyFest 2019 in Moscow.

She said: 'Flyboarding is my life. I have been doing this for three years and I know in the world there aren't many girls who can do this.

'In Russia, I'm the only one who can do tricks like this and I got second place in the international competition FlyFest 2019 in Moscow. It was in the Pro Category and I was competing with 13 boys.'

The flyboard was created in 2012 by French water sport enthusiast Frank Zapta- founder and CEO of Zapata Racing in France.

The board, which is mounted to a user's feet, is connected by a 55ft hose to a personal watercraft.

Ms Isaeva effortlessly soars into the air on her device before executing three backward somersaults above the lake (left and right)

After completing the daring trick, the flyboarder returns back down to the water

Water is then redirected through the hose that splits into two nozzles beneath your feet and allows the rider to be thrust into the air.

Last year, Mr Zapta became the first person to cross the English Channel on a kerosene-powered board.

The inventor set off towards the White Cliffs of Dover from Sangatte beach, in Calais, at a speed of some 87mph, staying at least 49 feet above the water during his journey.
Exposure to an infected person should be reason enough to quarantine for 14 days, according to the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A negative test result might simply be failing to pick up on low amounts of the coronavirus as the pathogen slowly accumulates in the body. Symptoms can take up to two weeks after an exposure to appear, if symptoms appear at all. And levels of the virus, which might correlate with contagiousness, can often be at their highest right before an infected person starts feeling ill.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 14:26:30|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Australian researchers said on Tuesday that they have developed a technology that can extract genetic material crucial for accurate COVID-19 diagnosis in just 30 seconds.

The technology used a palm-sized portable machine and a low cost "dipstick" that can be made in bulk with a household pasta maker.

The dipstick technology, developed by Professor Jimmy Botella and Dr. Michael Mason from the University of Queensland in Australia, was able to do purification of DNA and RNA nucleic acids from patient samples -- a critical step in COVID-19 diagnosis and generate a full molecular diagnosis in 40 minutes, without the need of building a large lab.

"That process is currently achieved using large and expensive commercial set-ups that require multistep procedures and specialized laboratory equipment," Botella said.

"In contrast, our dipstick tech is incredibly cheap and can be used virtually anywhere, without the need for specialized equipment or a laboratory."

The diagnosis process involved only two main components: a highly portable diagnostic machine that can be powered by a cigarette lighter connection and a dipstick that was made using a pasta maker, wax and filter paper.

As both of two components were low cost and workable virtually anywhere without a lab environment, the researchers were hopeful the implementation of the technology could help developing countries better contain the virus. Enditem
The team of Professor Jinyang Liang, a specialist in ultrafast imaging at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), in collaboration with an international team of researchers, has developed the fastest camera in the world capable of recording photons in the ultraviolet (UV) range in real time. This original research is featured on the front cover of the 10th issue of the journal Laser & Photonics Reviews.

Compressed ultrafast photography (CUP) captures the entire process in real time and unparalleled resolution with just one click. The spatial and temporal information is first compressed into an image and then, using a reconstruction algorithm, it is converted into a video.

Developing a Compact Instrument for UV

Until now, this technique was limited to visible and near-infrared wavelengths, and thus to a specific category of physical events. "Many phenomena that occur on very short time scales also take place on a very small spatial scale. To see them, you need to sense shorter wavelengths. Doing this in the UV or even X-ray ranges is a remarkable step toward this goal," says Jinyang Liang, who led the study.

To record in this new range of wavelengths and to develop the technique into a user-friendly product, researchers designed a compact UV-CUP system with Christian?Yves Cote of Axis Photonique Inc. via an academia-industry collaboration. The new system features a patterned photocathode, which is used to simultaneously detect and encode "black light". "Like a standard camera, our technology is passive. It does not produce light; it receives it. Therefore, our photocathode had to be sensitive to the photons emitted as UV light. This design makes our technique a stand-alone system that can be easily integrated into various experimental platforms," says Jinyang Liang, who has been contributing to the development of CUP since his postdoctorate.

Liang worked with Francois Legare, also an INRS professor, to generate and take images of UV pulses at the Advanced Laser Light Source (ALLS) laboratory. "The outstanding research environment at the Energie Materiaux Telecommunications Research Centre of INRS is very helpful. It is so much more efficient when all necessary design, manufacturing, and characterization capabilities are available in the same building."

Dividing up the Reconstruction Problem

"Taking the picture is only the first half of the job," says Jinyang Liang. "It also has to be reconstructed." To do this, the researchers developed a new algorithm, more efficient than standard algorithms, via their collaboration with Boston University. Its strength comes from a division of tasks. "Rather than solve the reconstruction problem as a lump, the algorithm divides the reconstruction into smaller problems that it tackles individually," explains Professor Liang.

With the innovations in both hardware and software, UV-CUP has an imaging speed of 0.5 trillion frames per second. It produces videos with 1500 frames in large format. As a light-speed imager, UV-CUP sees flying UV photons in real time. "It always fascinates me when you can watch the fastest object in the universe in such great detail," says Yingming Lai, a Master's student at INRS and the first author of the article.

The device developed through this international collaboration will be sent to the research laboratory SOLEIL Synchrotron in France to visualize physical phenomena. It could capture laser-plasma generation, a phenomenon that is essential for deducing certain properties of materials, and UV fluorescence, which is important in medical imaging to identify biomarkers linked to diseases.

###

About the Study

Researchers received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Fonds de recherche du Quebec - Nature et technologies (FRQNT), the Fonds de recherche du Quebec - Sante (FRQS), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

About INRS

INRS is a university dedicated exclusively to graduate level research and training. Since its creation in 1969, INRS has played an active role in Quebec's economic, social, and cultural development and is ranked first for research intensity in Quebec and second in Canada. INRS is made up of four interdisciplinary research and training centres in Quebec City, Montreal, Laval, and Varennes, with expertise in strategic sectors: Eau Terre Environnement, Energie Materiaux Telecommunications, Urbanisation Culture Societe, and Armand-Frappier Sante Biotechnologie. The INRS community includes more than 1,400 students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty members, and staff.

Contact :

Audrey-Maude Vezina

Service des communications de l'INRS

418 254-2156

audrey-maude.vezina@inrs.ca
Wednesday night's vice presidential debate probably shouldn't be happening. With coronavirus spreading quickly through the Trump administration, Mike Pence may pose a legitimate health risk to Kamala Harris and the debate's moderator, USA Today's Susan Page. Given those real dangers, the Commission on Presidential Debates has decided to move the candidates from standing seven to now 13 feet apart and has approved the installation of a plexiglass barrier between Harris and Pence. Pence's team, as Politico reported on Monday, opposed the barrier. "If Sen. Harris wants to use a fortress around herself, have at it," Pence's spokeswoman, Katie Miller, mockingly responded to the decision.

That response is completely in keeping with how dangerously this administration, especially Trump, has downplayed the pandemic, even at its own peril. Trump's taunting of Biden at last week's presidential debate for his mask wearing, we now know, came just hours before the president tested positive for the virus.

Pence is unlikely to show such bluster on Wednesday night. While most of Trump world has used the president's COVID-19 diagnosis to extravagantly extol his superhuman status and aggressively attack reporters asking legitimate questions about his condition, the sanctimonious Pence will likely take a different tack, piously praising Trump's medical team and thanking the American people for their prayers. In an administration full of crooks and con men, Pence has always dutifully played the part of innocent choir boy.

That's been his role from the start. Back in 2016, Trump picked Pence, a failing governor of a small state, as his running mate for the sole purpose of bolstering his standing with white evangelicals. If religious conservatives felt unsure about voting for the thrice-married casino magnate and serial adulterer, Pence's presence on the ticket convinced many  or at least provided them with a handy excuse  to vote for Trump. We may never know if Trump really needed Pence to capture the 81 percent of white evangelicals who voted for him in 2016. But their continued fervent enthusiasm for the president  they remain Trump's strongest base of support  suggests Pence has never been the difference maker.

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Still, the overly-ambitious Pence knows what works with the base. "I'm a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order," Pence often likes to dramatically say, a line that is as unctuous as it is untrue. But even if he doesn't use those gimmicky words tonight, Harris, the former prosecutor, should hold them up as a damning indictment against Pence. Nearly four years into the administration, Pence has shown that more than anything, he's a Trumper through and through, a willing accomplice to the president's worst habits and actions rather than a consistent voice for any real principles, Christian or otherwise.

With more than 200,000 Americans dead from coronavirus, Pence's exaggerated religiosity may strike many Americans as particularly galling. The cruel indifference the Trump administration has shown to the suffering of ordinary Americans, not only in this pandemic but especially so, is a deep moral failing as much as it is a political one. While Pence is likely to seize on topics like abortion rights or "religious liberty" as moments to speak about his personal faith, as he did in his 2016 debate with Tim Kaine, Harris should steer the conversation about 2020's most urgent issue to make Pence account for the administration's botched handling of coronavirus on the Christian grounds he claims to hold so fiercely. How does a self-described pro-life, pro-family presidency, she might ask, preside so poorly over a pandemic that has destroyed thousands of American lives and families?

Beyond coronavirus, Harris might ask how an administration that has separated children from their families and caged them at the border, has ignored the perilous plight of persons of color while coddling white nationalists, and has closed the nation's doors to those seeking asylum and refuge, including religious minorities, fulfills the Scripture's command to care for "the least of these"? Does Pence's religious charity extend to those who aren't white evangelicals?

None of this questioning would amount to religious ridicule of Pence, it should be said. Quite the opposite. Rather, should Harris cross-examine Pence on how his Christian faith squares with what the Trump administration has been doing, she might present it as indicative of her own sincere respect for his expressed values as much as a shrewd debate tactic. Rather than reflexively conceding the moral high ground to a performatively devout Republican politician as Democrats have so often done, Harris could question Pence on the very religious terms that he promotes himself.

If Pence, as expected, presents a Trump presidency as the last defense against godless secularism that a Democratic win would bring about  a strange charge against the churchgoing Biden  Harris should hold Pence responsible for the absolute hell on earth that Trump's presidency has brought to bear.

More stories from theweek.com

The myth of Mike Pence's appeal

Trump is shockingly bad at this

Is Joe Biden the Konrad Adenauer of the U.S.?


Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday came down heavily on those doing politics over the dead bodies of the poor" and said they are out to disturb social harmony.

The faces of those doing politics on the dead bodies of the poor are getting exposed and the government will identify each one of them and deal with them with a heavy hand as per the law of the land," he said at a virtual meeting with the BJP office-bearers of the Bangarmau (Unnao) Assembly constituency, which goes to bypolls on November 3.

The remarks assume significance in the wake of the opposition hue and cry over the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman, after she was allegedly gang-raped in Hathras.

These are the ones for whom the poor have just been a vote bank and poverty alleviation is just another rhetorical political slogan with no heart for their uplift," the chief minister said.

He said for the opposition, politics is just a business and they can stoop to any low to run their business.

They (opposition) view everything through the prism of caste, religion and regionalism. These disruptive elements may resort to any misdeed and disintegrate the social structure in order to keep their vote banks intact.

We should assure people that we will not allow their evil designs to succeed," Adityanath said.

He also said under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the last six-and-a-half years, Uttar Pradesh has achieved unprecedented development in fields like infrastructure, health, education, connectivity and investment.
With large gatherings a no-no this year, the traditional Germanfest in Caras Park had to be canceled, as did big Oktoberfest celebrations elsewhere.

But if youre in the mood for a beer and brat to make your own fete this fall, consider the Edelweiss Bistro in Missoula, where German food and drink are the year-round stars of the menu.

The bistro just celebrated its fifth anniversary: It opened Sept. 21, 2015, inside Bayern Brewing at 1507 Montana St. The brewing company itself has been around since 1987, so it went a long time without a full-fledged eatery. The opening of the Edelweiss was a big change, said Shawna Chandler, marketing and events manager at Bayern.

We went from having just the brat in a bun and soft pretzels made by the servers to a full menu and bigger staff, she said.

The inspiration behind it was Jurgen's idea to have Bavarian-style food to go along with his beer. He designed the menu himself and chose things from his hometown that are true German dishes.

Jurgen, of course, is Jurgen Knoller, Bayerns owner and brewmaster. He hails from Bavaria, the German state whose main cities are Munich, Nuremberg and Augsburg. Bayerns beers are brewed according to strict rules set out by the 1516 German Law of Purity. That means no berries, adjuncts, artificial carbonation, or other strange ingredients are used in the process, Bayerns website says. All you will find in a Bayern beer is malted barley, yeast, hops, and water.

Need a quick vocabulary lesson for German food to go with German beer? At the Edelweiss Bistro youll find:

Gurkensalat  a cucumber salad made with yogurt, fresh chives and a hint of garlic.

Obatzda  a creamy, soft spread made with Camembert cheese, Bayerns Dragons Breath beer, onions and paprika. Its served with a pretzel.

Leberkase  This is a popular Bavarian meatloaf thats also found in Southern Germany, Austria and parts of Switzerland. The bistros is made with corned beef, pork and bacon that is finely ground and baked as a loaf until it gets a crunchy brown crust. New on the menu is Bayerns Leberkase sandwich; make it a Royal and youll get it served with a fried egg, pepperoncini peppers and fried onions.

Landjager  A semi-dry sausage traditionally made in Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland. According to Chandler, it was popular as a soldiers food because it keeps well without refrigeration and comes in single servings.

Kasespatzle  Bayerns take on German macaroni and cheese. It is made with Gouda and Swiss cheeses and caramelized onions.

Schnitzel  Who doesnt like schnitzel? It is tenderized pork loin (or chicken) that is lightly breaded and pan fried. Schnitzels are available as sandwiches or meals or, for lovers of greens, the bistro has a chicken schnitzel served on a bed of mixed greens, red onion, dried cranberries, green apple slices and a lime-basil dressing.

Frikadelle  This is a meatloaf patty made with seasonings and both pork and beef.

The bistro gets it beef and pork from Montana producers and tenderizes its own pork loins every day by hand. Its brats and sausages  available as meals or sandwiches  come from two of the best-known purveyors of German specialties, Ulis Famous Sausage, an artisanal sausage maker based in Seattle, and Bavaria Sausage of Wisconsin.

Edelweiss makes its own potato salad and brines its own sauerkraut. The potato salad is served warm and is made with vinegar and butter, giving it a different flavor than American versions made at home. The sauerkraut has a special twist: pineapple.

And of course, the house-made pretzels are particularly popular. Chandler said theyre made about three times a week, 64 pretzels at a time. Diners can try them with the obatzda cheese spread, with butter and fresh chives, or with a lineup of mustards  sweet and hot, stone ground, Maui onion, classic yellow or a crowd favorite, cranberry. Pretzel bread for sandwiches is also made in the bistros pretzel palace kitchen.

On a cool day, a bowl ($6) or cup ($4) of Udos Dragon Soup might hit the spot. Its a Hungarian-style stew with beef, bacon and vegetables simmered in a slightly spicy broth. Its named after Udo, who was a chef and is a regular patron and good friend of Bayern, Chandler said. The reference to a dragon comes from Bayerns Dragons Breath beer, a dark hefeweizen used in the stew.

Yes, Oktoberfest is different this year, Chandler said. Bayern usually taps its wooden barrels at celebrations in Missoula, Helena, Bozeman, Great Falls and elsewhere, but this year wanted to follow all recommended health guidelines.

We want to keep everyone safe, she said. It wouldn't be the same as what people expect in years past.

Still, Bayerns seasonal Oktoberfest beer is available and goes well with any dish at the Edelweiss Bistro, which has an outdoor seating area and a fire pit that can take the chill off a fall evening. Next, the brewery will have its winter beers, including Groomer, Doppelbock and Face Plant.

To that, we say Prost!

Mea Andrews is a retired Missoulian reporter and editor whose foods column appears twice a month in the paper. Reach her at meaandrews406@gmail.com.

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Palace Cafe offers fall menu

Chef James Shrader has readied his new menu for fall at The Palace Cafe, 1301 E. 15th St., which Shrader said has an Old World feel, featuring a few dishes inspired by my classic French training at Culinary Institute of America.

These dishes include such entrees as a grilled duck breast served with an apple and sage polenta and a tart cherry sauce, and seared scallops topped with crispy pancetta, fennel broth and Masala butter alongside a spicy carrot puree.

Duck is also one of the new starters on the fall menu, done pastrami-style (wet-cured, smoked and seared), served with rye crackers and pickled fennel.

Other new choices include a country terrine, made with house-made pork sausage stuffed with cherries and pistachios, wrapped in prosciutto and served on brioche toast; and a kale salad tossed in preserved lemon and topped with feta, pomegranate and apple-fennel slaw.

The Palace Cafe is also continuing to offer its Take-and-Bake meals for those wanting to support local restaurants but are not yet comfortable with dining indoors.
Photo: (Photo : Pixabay on Pexels)

A 9-year-old student from Louisiana was suspended after his teacher reported seeing him with a BB gun during an online class; his parents are now suing the school district.

According to an NBC News report, Ka'Mauri Harrison, who is a fourth-grader at Woodmere Elementary School, was taking a test in his bedroom last September 11. He shares his room with his two younger siblings. Speaking to CNN, family attorney Chelsea Cusimano said the boy muted his computer so he could focus on his test.

Then, one of his brothers came into the room and tripped on a BB gun that happened to be laying on the floor. Ka'Mauri picked up the BB gun and placed the gun next to him. The lawsuit filed by the family states that the boy never pointed the BB gun at the computer screen. He also did not say anything to the teacher or the class and was not aware that the gun had been seen.

It was unintentional

The lawsuit that was filed against the school district, including some of its staff, furthered that Ka'Mauri did not intend for his BB gun to show on the screen and believed that he was just doing the right thing. The NBC News report noted that the teacher told the boy's mother that she thought she saw him with a rifle.

The teacher tried to get the boy's attention and called his name but because the computer was muted, they did not get a response. The screen went black after that and lost connection "due to internet issues." According to a CNN report, the school tried to contact the boy's parents but was unsuccessful. They then called his emergency contact, Ka'Mauri's grandfather, to inform him about the incident.

From expulsion to six days suspension

The school initially recommended expulsion for violating weapons in the classroom setting and violation of internet usage policy. However, after the September 22 hearing, the boy was determined guilty of showing a facsimile weapon during a virtual class - a hearing officer determined that it was a BB gun. It was then decided to suspend Ka'Mauri instead for six days.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry told NBC News that it was appalling that Ka'Mauri was recommended for expulsion, then received a suspension, but was not given the chance to appeal the decision. Family attorney Chelsea Cusimano told WWLTV that the Jefferson Parish School system needs to reconsider its decision considering that the incident happened at the boy's home. However, the school system said that their on-campus policies are in-effect even for distance learning.

Also, Jefferson Parrish Schools told CNN that they do not comment on individual student records. However, for discipline, their policy allows teachers and administrators to employ reasonable disciplinary and corrective measures so that order is maintained.

The family is now seeking damages of at least $50,000 and they are also asking that the boy be given the chance to make up for the work that he missed while on suspension.

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He Learned Sign Language Before He Could Speak, Gifted Boy Now Begins Sophomore Year in College at 12
China said on Wednesday that the United States should stop its unprovoked attacks and accusations against China, accusing U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of maliciously creating political confrontation and smearing Beijing. Pompeo on Tuesday visited Japan and called for deeper cooperation with Australia, India and Japan to counter China's growing regional influence.

"Pompeo has repeatedly fabricated lies about China and maliciously created political confrontation," the Chinese embassy in Japan said in a statement. "We once again urge the U.S. to abandon its Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice, stop unprovoked accusations and attacks against China and treat relations with China in a constructive manner," the embassy said.

Pompeo's East Asia visit, his first in more than a year, coincides with worsening tensions with China. The United States and China, the world's top two economies, are at loggerheads over a wide range of issues from Beijing's handling of the coronavirus to its imposition of a new security law in Hong Kong and ambitions in the South China Sea.

Pompeo's call for the Quad nations of the United States, Japan, India and Australia to form a united front against China's growing influence is a sensitive subject for its regional allies, which are reliant on China for trade.

Also read: Mike Pompeo utilises Tokyo visit to seek Asian allies' support against China
S adiq Khan has warned homeless people may have to choose between sleeping rough during the winter or the risk of catching Covid-19 in a communal shelter.

In a letter to Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick, the London mayor called on the Government to provide funding and guidance for those working with homeless people to protect them from cold temperatures and coronavirus.

In a typical year, winter night shelters start to open in November as temperatures fall, often providing communal sleeping spaces in church halls or community buildings.

These night shelters - run by charities, voluntary organisations and faith groups - hosted around 700 people in the capital last year.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan speaks to members of the media (file photo) / POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Mr Khan said that while there is an exception to the rule of six for voluntary and charitable services, opening these communal shelters as normal would expose service users and staff to a substantial risk of infection.

He added it would also be contrary to the advice given to hotels and hostels during the pandemic, which were ordered to close dormitory rooms, and that homeless people need to be given the same protection as other sectors of society.

In a statement, Mr Khan said: "It would simply be callous and inhumane to tell rough sleepers that the price of staying off the streets this winter could be catching Covid-19.

"Homeless people deserve safety and protection from Covid as much as anyone - this is particularly the case given they often have underlying health conditions."

The mayor said he was increasingly concerned at the Government's "complacency and inaction" as it has not published any guidance on communal sleeping or provided funding for Covid-safe alternatives.

Recent figures show more than 900 people are sleeping rough on the streets of the capital.

Mr Khan called for the Government to fully fund safe accommodation and provide guidance to local authorities and voluntary groups on making shelters Covid-secure.

In the letter to Mr Jenrick, he said: "It is vital that the Government fully funds self-contained accommodation like hotels which we know is the safest way to protect those who would otherwise be sleeping rough during this period.

"In addition, to ensure the safe operation of winter shelters, it is imperative that the Government publishes guidance on making these Covid-secure without further delay, and that the rules which are put in place ensure that vulnerable Londoners who have been sleeping rough are afforded the same protections as the rest of society."

The mayor also warned that without a robust plan, the Government risks undermining the work done earlier in the pandemic when nearly 1,700 homeless people were housed.

He continued: "As we see escalating prevalence in London, there would appear to be no justification for accommodating rough sleepers in the high-risk accommodation which is far from Covid-secure that we closed in March.

"We also know there is a viable alternative, with hotels readily available, that will protect this vulnerable group.

"It is therefore incumbent on the Government to fully fund local authorities and the (Greater London Authority) to make this accommodation available, so we can save lives this winter.

"If such funding is not forthcoming, the Government will be knowingly exposing rough sleepers and support staff to much greater risk of infection than other sectors of the population."
This is a tragedy, Putin said in his first televised comments on the large-scale hostilities that broke out on September 27.

People are dying, there are numerous casualties on both sides, and we hope that this conflict will end in the very near future, he told Russian state television.

Putin also stressed that Russia remains committed to its defense pact with Armenia but has no plans yet to directly intervene in the fighting taking place along the Karabakh line of contact.

Armenia is a member of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization), he said. We have certain obligations within the framework of that [CSTO membership] treaty. But the hostilities which, to our great regret, continue to this day are not being carried out on the territory of Armenia.

As for Russias fulfillment of its treaty obligations ... we have always fulfilled, are fulfilling and will fulfill our obligations. As you know, I am in constant, working contact with the prime minister of Armenia. But Armenias leadership has no questions about the quality of Russias fulfillment of its defense obligations.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained separately that Russia is obliged to defend Armenia against foreign aggression. But he said these CSTO obligations do not extend to Karabakh.

Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian spoke on Monday by phone for the fourth time since the outbreak of the Karabakh war. Pashinian expressed confidence afterwards that Moscow will provide necessary assistance in case of a threat to Armenias security.

Many in Armenia feel that Russian military support is critical now that neighboring Turkey supports Azerbaijan diplomatically and militarily. Russia has a military base in Armenia.

Moscow last week implicitly accused Ankara of sending terrorists and mercenaries from Syria and Libya to fight in Karabakh on the Azerbaijani side. The Russian foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, warned on Tuesday that the region could become a launch pad for Islamist militants to enter Russia.

Peskov told journalists that the reported presence of foreign fighters in the conflict zone is a cause for deep concern. Asked whether it could prompt Moscow to launch an anti-terrorist operation in Karabakh, he said: I am not aware of that at the moment.

Turkey has denied recruiting Turkish-backed Syrian rebels for the Azerbaijani army. Baku also denies their presence in its army ranks.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev spoke with Putin on Wednesday for the first time since the start of the war. Putins 68th birthday anniversary was the main official reason for the phone call. Aliyevs office said the two leaders also discussed the Karabakh conflict.

Peskov also gave no details of the conversation. According to Russian news agencies, the Kremlin official said only that Aliyev and Putin agreed to continue the dialogue.

Pashinian also called Putin to congratulate him on his birthday anniversary. His office said the two men also agreed on the need for a quick end to the hostilities.
The Nella NuSpec Reusable Vaginal Speculum was honored in Fast Companys Innovation by Design Awards for 2020 in the Health category.

The awards, which can be found in the October/November 2020 issue of Fast Company, recognize people, teams, and companies solving problems through design. One of the most sought-after design awards in the industry, Innovation by Design is the only competition to honor creative work at the intersection of design, business, and innovation.

The Nella NuSpec is the first major redesign of the reusable vaginal speculum that takes into account both the patient experience and unmet provider needs. Designed for ultimate patient comfort, the NuSpec utilizes a narrow billabout the size of a regular tamponwith hidden sidewall retractors. Speculum insertion can be painful, but the NuSpecs narrow size and smooth material allow it to glide in with ease. When the provider opens the device, lateral retractors retain vaginal sidewalls so providers have adequate visibility and access to conduct an exam or procedure.

For the provider, a unique toggle locking mechanism allows quiet opening and locking of the device with one-handunlike the metal speculum, which can make clanking, anxiety-inducing noise and requires two hands to secure. The NuSpecs handle form and increased angle also provide improved ergonomics for clinicians, crucial for a device used constantly throughout the day.

The NuSpec can improve the exam experience for any patient, but it can make a dramatic difference for patients with increased sensitivity, such as first-time patients, post-menopausal women and cancer survivors.

At Ceek Womens Health, we believe in bringing both patient and clinician perspectives to the table as we work to improve medical devices used in gynecological care, says Fahti Khosrowshahi, CEO and founder. This honor is a testament to the extensive five-year design and development process for the Nella NuSpec, where we worked in partnership with OBGYN providers and patients, taking into consideration the needs of both parties for the first time.

We need innovative design more than ever, and the 2020 honorees have brought creativity, inventiveness, and humanity to address some of the worlds most pressing problems, including the global pandemic, racial injustice, and economic inequality. Together these entries offer a glimpse into a future that is more inclusive, more accessible, and more just, said Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company.

The judges include renowned designers from a variety of disciplines, business leaders from some of the most innovative companies in the world, and Fast Companys own writers and editors. Entries are judged on the key ingredients of innovation: functionality, originality, beauty, sustainability, user insight, cultural impact, and business impact.

Winners, finalists, and honorable mentions are featured online and in the October/November issue of Fast Company magazine, on newsstands October 20.

To see the complete list, go to: https://www.fastcompany.com/innovation-by-design/2020

ABOUT CEEK

Ceek Womens Health is a women-led medical device company focused on creating products for a better pelvic exam. The company was born out of founder and CEO Fahti Khosrowshahi's personal experience going through three years of infertility treatment. Ceeks process is to understand the user experience from both the patient and clinician perspective and uncover opportunities often overlooked by standard medical device companies.

ABOUT FAST COMPANY

Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication, Inc., and can be found online at fastcompany.com.
The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) witnessed a dip in Covid-19 case positivity rate from 21.59% between September 21 and 27 to 15.90% between September 28 and October 4.

The reduced positivity rate has brought respite to the civic administration though officials say they are cautious given that restaurants and bars are resuming operations and residents are eagerly awaiting the Navratri festival. Positivity rate reflects the proportion of people who test positive among those who are tested. The dip in ratio was noticed since mid-September while August saw the massive rise in positive cases with daily figures crossing 1,000 on numerous occasions.

Everywhere around the state, the positivity rate has been declining. Currently every week we are conducting 26,000 tests. Prior to last week, the number was 26,500 per week and before that it was 28,000 per week, explained Santosh Patil, additional commissioner PCMC.

On Tuesday, 444 fresh positive cases were added to the tally while four deaths were reported, which takes the total number of positive cases so far to 78,588 and death toll to 1,086.

Post Ganesh festival, PCMC saw a huge rise in the positivity rate, however, it continued to fall as September ended.

Positive rate dipping down has no relation with testing. All over Maharashtra, Pune, even in rural areas, the cases are decreasing which is a good sign. We have not put our guard down and tests are conducted on priority. Focus is on reducing the positivity rate and also mortality rate, added Patil.

With the upcoming Navratri festival, PCMC is making sure cases do not increase like it happened after Ganesh festival, added officials. We are taking stringent action against people not wearing masks and are also conducting mass awareness programmes among people to celebrate festivals at home and avoid coming out of their homes, added Patil.

Dr Vijay Natarajan, chief executive officer, Symbiosis Hospital, said, I am cautiously optimistic about the situation. It is a good sign, but people should not think that the pandemic is over. They need to maintain social distancing and follow all the norms. We have seen the surge during the Ganesh festival and with hotel and bars now open, during Navratra festival, I hope people follow all the regulations.

September 28-October 4: 4,135 total cases

Tests per week: 26,000

Positivity rate: 15.90 per cent

September 21-27: 5,722 total cases

Tests per week: 26,500

Positivity rate: 21.59 per cent

Day-wise data showing decline in Covid numbers

Date: Daily positive cases

October 5: 421

October 4: 496

October 3: 592

October 2: 599

October 1: 603

September 30: 712

September 29: 628

September 28: 505

September 27: 763

September 26: 1,138

September 25: 806

September 24: 745

September 23: 835

September 22: 780

September 21: 655
(by Daniela Giammusso)

ROME - Via Condotti in the shopping district of Rome surreally empty is portrayed in one of the photos on display as part of the show ''Lockdown Italia visto dalla Stampa Estera'' at the Foreign Press Association in Rome.



Another photo shows Carabinieri police checking whether a driver has the certification required to leave the house during the lockdown imposed in Italy to contain the spread of coronavirus.



Another picture shoes a sunbed on a terrace - the only place where residents can take a breath of fresh air. One of the most powerful images on display shows Pope Francis in a deserted St Peter's Square, under the rain, who imparts the Urbi et Orbi blessing.



The photos were shot by foreign correspondents in Italy for media outlets from around the world and will be on display for the exhibit ''Lockdown Italia visto dalla Stampa Estera'' (Lockdown Italy seen by the foreign press) organized under the patronage of the culture ministry and promoted by Rome's municipality. The show runs through November 1 at the Musei Capitolini in Palazzo dei Conservatori.



Overall, the exhibit includes 70 photos shot in several Italian cities by 30 photographers from 10 countries, including the Italian correspondents of news agencies Reuters, AP and AFP.



The reporters, Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi said, are also ''citizens who understood and shared with Italians the feelings of pain and anguish and the difficulties they were experiencing.



The photos, along with documenting a page of our history through the communicative force of images, will give a precious contribution for the preservation of the memory of a tragedy that has upset our existence''. Back in March Italy made the headlines of international media outlets, said Trisha Thomas, the president of the Foreign Press Association in Italy. ''We as correspondents have described how Italians dealt with this unprecedented crisis with courage, discipline and solidarity. These images pay homage to a country that has set the example for the rest of the world with its efforts''.



Featuring pictures taken from March to June, the exhibit curated by the Foreign Press Association starts with the first phase of the pandemic when stores closed, ICUs were full, coffins needed to be kept in churches and medical personnel were overwhelmed by the situation. When the lockdown ends, people find a different world: there is grass in Rome's Piazza Navona, which is so empty that a little girl can ride her scooter.



People chat outside in Amalfi while a few tourists return to Pompeii. Pilgrims pray in the Vatican with protective gloves while Swiss Guards are wearing masks.



The closing section is dedicated to journalists who kept reporting during the pandemic, risking their health. It shows how correspondents had to work in unprecedented conditions by broadcasting live from their homes, reporting from deserted cities or covering online press conferences or interviews. The Foreign Press Association in Italy transferred many of its activities online during the three-month-long lockdown, organizing over 80 meetings on the pandemic, as well as on the food industry and cinema.
Washington: The Trump administration has announced new restrictions on H-1B non immigrant visa programme which it said is aimed at protecting American workers, restoring integrity and to better guarantee that H-1B petitions are approved only for qualified beneficiaries and petitioners, a move which is likely to affect thousands of Indian IT professionals.

The interim final rule announced by the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday, less than four weeks ahead of the US presidential election, will narrow the definition of specialty occupation" as Congress intended by closing the overbroad definition that allowed companies to game the system.

It will also require companies to make real" offers to real employees," by closing loopholes and preventing the displacement of the American workers. And finally, the new rules would enhance the departments ability to enforce compliance through worksite inspections and monitor compliance before, during and after an H1-B petition is approved.

The H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

Such a decision by the Trump administration is likely to have an adverse impact on thousands of Indian IT professionals. Already a large number of Indians on the H-1B visas have lost their jobs and are headed back home during the coronavirus pandemic that has severely hit the US economy.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the interim final rule to be published in Federal Register will be effective in 60 days.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services is forgoing the regular notice and comment period to immediately ensure that employing H-1B workers will not worsen the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 and adversely affect wages and working conditions of similarly employed US workers, it said.

The pandemics economic impact is an obvious and compelling fact" that justifies good cause to issue this interim final rule.

We have entered an era in which economic security is an integral part of homeland security. Put simply, economic security is homeland security. In response, we must do everything we can within the bounds of the law to make sure the American worker is put first," said Acting Secretary Chad Wolf.

US Secretary of Labour Eugene Scalia said that these changes will strengthen foreign worker programmes and secure American workers opportunities for stable, good-paying jobs.

The US Department of Labour is strengthening wage protections, addressing abuses in these visa programmes and ensuring American workers are not undercut by cheaper foreign labour," she said.

In a conference call with reporters, Deputy Labour Secretary Patrick Pizzella said that these changes were long overdue and it had become imperative in light of the current conditions in the US labour market.

We're making good on the president's promise to protect Americans from those who seek to exploit the system for their gain," he said, adding that the rule would "ensure that Americans are first in line for American jobs as we continue our recovery".

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the H-1B programme was intended to allow employers to fill gaps in their workforce and remain competitive in the global economy, however, it has now expanded far beyond that, often to the detriment of US workers.

Data shows that more than half-a-million H-1B nonimmigrants in the United States have been used to displace US workers, which has led to reduced wages in a number of industries in the US labour market and the stagnation of wages in certain occupations, said the Department of Homeland Security.

This is part of a larger Trump administration goal in coordination with the Department of Labour to protect American workers," it said.

The Department of Labour said that the prevailing wage rates in these programmes play an integral role in protecting US workers from unfair competition posed by the entry of lower cost foreign labour into the US labour market.

It is essential that the methodology used by the Department in calculating the prevailing wage rates accurately reflect what US workers performing the same kinds of jobs and with similar qualifications make to ensure employers cannot use foreign workers in place of US workers, it said.

The Interim Final rule, it said, will improve the accuracy of prevailing wages paid to foreign workers by bringing them in line with the wages paid to similarly employed US workers.

This will ensure that the Department more effectively protects the job opportunities and wages of American workers by removing the economic incentive to hire foreign workers on a permanent or temporary basis in the US over American workers, it said.

Trump, a Republican, is seeking another term in the White House. He is being challenged by former Vice President Joe Biden of the Democratic Party in the November 3 presidential election.

In June, the Trump administration suspended the H-1B visas along with other types of foreign work visas until the end of 2020 to protect American workers.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has announced that he will not allow deployment of terrorists near the borders of Iran.

During todays Cabinet meeting President Rouhani said the security of the Iranian cities and villages is highly important.

During the telephone conversations with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan I have raised the issue of the security of Irans territories and borders, he said, adding that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict cannot be solved through war and blood.

The Iranian President further stated that Tehran is ready to assist in the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
TOPEKA, Kan.: When police in Kansas capital city used force the last couple of years, Black residents were on the receiving end 35% of the time, though they make up less than 11% of Topekas population. A city auditor who reviewed more than 100 cases said the force applied was appropriate every time.

Both statistics disturb activists in the city of about 125,000 people, and the City Council is under fire after not quickly taking up dozens of proposals from the citys own advisory Human Relations Commission. Yet the councils decision to set up a special committee on policing instead has riled residents who predict new restraints on police will make Topeka dangerous, even lawless.

The discord illustrates how wrenching the discussion over policing can be in U.S. communities. Topekas debate also is shadowed by its history: NAACP leaders and parents here launched one of the lawsuits that led to the U.S. Supreme Courts historic Brown v. Board decision in 1954 declaring segregated schools unconstitutional.

I want to be able to tell my grandchildren that its OK, its safe, for you to walk down the street you dont have to take off running when you see police coming, said the Rev. Ben Scott, whos Black, a longtime NAACP leader who has served in the Legislature and on the local school board.

Almost half of the 100 largest U.S. cities have enacted new restraints on police since George Floyds death in May after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee against the handcuffed Black mans neck for nearly eight minutes. Among them is Kansas largest city, Wichita, according to Project Zero, a nonprofit group advocating policing changes.

Proposals from Topekas Human Relations Commission are similar to those circulating elsewhere. They include banning chokeholds, prohibiting officers from firing at fleeing suspects and creating independent citizen panels to investigate police misconduct allegations. The local Black Lives Matter chapter last month demanded than an inspector general oversee the police and a special state prosecutor investigate misconduct.

Topeka police used force 409 times, or during 3.9% of their arrests, in 2018 and 2019, according to a department report. In 104 cases reviewed by the city auditor from November to July, officers drew weapons in 24, fired guns twice and, he concluded, followed police policies and state law every time.

Some Topeka residents and officials argue that advocates are framing their proposals around incidents and problems in larger cities, including Floyds death, which sparked widespread protests against racial injustice and led to charges against four Minneapolis officers.

The local police union has argued that greater limits on officers use of force and an outside oversight board are moves toward defunding the police that would keep officers from protecting themselves and others.

Retired Police Lt. Ron Gish, who formed Blue Shield to show support for law enforcement, said the group, which has a Facebook page claiming several thousand members, was successful in slowing down the push for changes so local officials can see the pitfalls of various proposals and that Topeka doesnt fit a larger national narrative.

I dont think they realize how dangerous what theyre doing could be to law enforcement and to our community, Gish, who is white, said of the activists.

The city already has made some moves, including the November hiring of the auditor, who reports to the city manager. Police Chief Bill Cochran, who is white, decried Floyds death as indefensible. Then, in July, the City Council banned no-knock warrants in raids.

Cochran also said his department will solidify a commitment it already had in which officers intervene with fellow officers to prevent mistakes and misconduct. It will participate in a Georgetown University initiative that seeks to change departments cultures.

Mayor Michelle De La Isla, the first Hispanic woman elected to the job, sees the special City Council committee as the vehicle for reviewing all proposals. De La Isla, who is running for Congress, said in an email that across the U.S., We have two sides talking at each other, not with each other. But in Topeka, she said, We have brought all sides to the table.

But City Council member Christina Valdivia-Alcala, who also is Hispanic, is working on a plan for an independent citizens review board and hopes to bring it to a vote this month. She said voices of accountability and equality are being drowned out by angry, pro-police emails.

Some advocates say concerns about the citys policing predate Floyds death by years.

The most visible incident was the September 2017 fatal shooting of Dominique White, a 30-year-old Black man, by two white police officers as White tried to flee. Investigators said he had a gun in his pocket, and the local prosecutor ruled that the officers use of force was justified. His family filed a federal lawsuit that is pending.

Ariane Davis, a Black mother of seven who organized a Statehouse rally after Floyds death, acknowledges being frustrated because with what she sees in the community, I always think time is of the essence.

LaRonna Lassiter Saunders, a Kansas City-area attorney representing two Topeka residents injured in use-of-force cases, said without change, the citys leaders will be on the wrong side of history again.

Hopefully, they think, right side of history, said Saunders, who is Black.

___

Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna

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
Property consultants CBRE Ireland have today released figures for the volume of office leasing activity recorded in Dublin in the first nine months of 2020.

According to CBRE, following one of the worst quarters on record in the second quarter, when less than 10,000 square metres of office leasing transactions signed in the Dublin market, there has been an increase in transactions in the last three-month period.

However, despite a pick-up in activity quarter-on-quarter, take-up was considerably lower than what it normally would be in the third quarter and full year figures for 2020 will be down on the record volumes recorded in the capital in recent years.

The property consultants say that it is encouraging that at the end of the third quarter 2020, there was almost 33,000 square metres of office accommodation reserved in the capital which will translate into leasing activity over the coming quarters.

The CBRE research shows that there were 29 office leasing transactions signed in Dublin in the third quarter 2020 compared with 37 in the same period last year. This brings the total number of office leasing deals completed in the first three quarters of this year to 75, compared to 136 in the same period last year.

Significantly, most of the transactions signed in the last six-month period have been relatively small with no transactions extending to more than 4,645m2 (50,000 sq ft) signed in either second quarter or third quarter, compared to 7 such transactions signed during the first three months of the year.

The figures show that 18 of the 29 office transactions signed in Dublin during the third quarter were to Irish companies with 5 to US companies. However, in terms of the total volume of space leased, 47% of letting activity in the third quarter emanated from US companies with 43% to Irish companies. Six of the ten largest transactions signed in the third quarter were relocations while the remaining 4 were expansions of existing occupiers.

Another decline was noted in terms of active requirements quarter-on-quarter with overall demand standing at approximately 237,500m2 at the end of the third quarter - down 13% on the previous quarter and down from a record 430,000m2 at the beginning of the year. Most of this decline is a result of companies putting expansion and relocation plans on hold due to current uncertainty.

The current level of demand is however still higher than the long-term average for the city which CBRE says is encouraging. Seventy four percent of requirements at the end of the third quarter 2020 were specifically focussed on Dublin city centre.

The overall rate of vacancy rose quarter-on-quarter from 6.65% at the end of the second quarter to 8.64% at the end of the third quarter 2020, driven to some degree by The Sorting Office building moving from reserved status back to available, some new buildings reaching practical completion during the quarter and companies putting surplus accommodation onto the market.

At the end of the third quarter, there were 35 office schemes under construction in Dublin city centre extending to more than 490,000m2 between them, of which 57% has already been pre-let.

Prime headline quoting rents in the city centre declined by 4% quarter-on-quarter to stand at 673 per square metre (62.50 per sq. ft.) at the end of September.

Lettings to computers and technology tenants accounted for 33% of take-up in Dublin in the third quarter. The public sector accounted for 26% of leasing activity in Dublin in the quarter while the manufacturing, industrial and energy sector accounted for a further 22% of take-up in the Irish capital during the third quarter.

Commenting on the future of office leasing, Executive Director at CBRE, Marie Hunt said, "The consensus view at this juncture is that a blended approach is the most likely scenario longer term with workers opting to work remotely part of the time but still basing themselves for the most part in an office environment - albeit one that is configured differently to allow for appropriate social distancing."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Jill Duggar had admitted that she's 'not on the best terms' with her whole family these days, after previously revealing that they're 'not always' supportive of her decisions.

The 29-year-old former reality TV star has been sharing some surprisingly candid details of her life in a series of YouTube Q&As with her husband Derick Dillard, 31  and in a new one uploaded today, Jill opened up more about strained relationships with members of her family.

'There's been some distancing there,' she said. 'Were not on the best terms with some of my family. Weve had some disagreements and stuff, but were working towards healing, definitely, and restoration, but were having to kind of just take some time and heal.'

Distance: Jill Duggar had admitted that she's 'not on the best terms' with her whole family these days

Since Jill and Derick stopped appearing on TLC's Counting On  and Jill has started the process of departing from some of her family's stricter beliefs  things have become strained between the Dillards and some of Jill's family, including her parents.

Fans have noticed that they are frequently absent from family gatherings, and Derick has acknowledged a rift on Instagram, sharing that Jim Bob restricts their access to the house and accusing him of being more concerned with money than his children's well-being.

Jill looked a bit sad but firm in her convictions as she touched upon family drama in their new YouTube video.

'[Were] doing whats best for our family right now and just working through it, I guess,' she said.

'It's difficult, but we are praying and trusting God that the timeline is his, and what that looks like and everything. So we definitely appreciate your prayers, but we dont want to go into detail too much.'

In a previous video, Jill admitted that her family is 'not always' supportive of what she does, but while she wants to have 'deference' toward them, she refuses to be 'led by fear'' and 'controlled by what somebody else is gonna think.'

'[Were] doing whats best for our family right now and just working through it, I guess,' Jill said (pictured with parents Jim Bob and Michelle)

She previously revealed that her family is 'not always' supportive of her choices, adding: 'Some of my siblings are probably more likely to have something to say about it than others'

'Are they supportive? Not always,' she admitted. 'Everyone's gonna have their opinion about different things. Some of my siblings are probably more likely to have something to say about it than others. Some are more like, "Hey, I'm happy for whatever y'all are deciding."

'Not all of them are cool with it but some of them are more cool with it than others,' she added.

Though she said it's still important to listen to the advice of people close to you, she also insisted that 'you don't want to be overly fearful and be led by fear.'

'You want to have deference but you also don't want to be controlled by what somebody else is gonna think,' Jill explained.

While the family drama has meant that Jill and Derick have been excluded from some family get-togethers  Derick griped this summer that it would have been nice if they'd been invited to a big family Zoom party that was held during the pandemic  they aren't left out of everything.

'We've been at weddings and funerals, and I guess if we're not shown [on the show] it's because we're edited out,' said Derick.

No problem with this one, we guess! After Jill spoke about family issues, her sister Jessa stopped by with coffee

Can't even virtually hang? Jill and Derick have been excluded from some family gatherings, including this one on Zoom

Awkward? Even sex pest Josh's family was invited, though Josh was edited out when the clip appeared on TLC

The presence of TLC's cameras hasn't stopped sex pest Josh from getting invitations to smaller family events, though he, too, is edited out.

While Josh was booted from the show after his cheating and molestation scandals in 2015, Derick and Jill chose to leave  and shed new light on why in their latest video.

'We left the show three years ago because basically our family goals that we had for ourselves didnt align with what we found out,' Jill said.

'We ended up finding out that we didnt have as much control over our lives as it related to the show and stuff as we felt like we needed. So, we had to make a decision at that time to kind of put the show aside just to pursue our own goals.

'It was just, like, a good decision for us. Nothing against our film crew or anything. They're great, we love them,' she added. 'It was a really difficult decision but something that we really needed to do for our family.'

Derick added that they learned some 'information' just before they quit and were 'put between a rock and a hard place' where they had to choose between their 'family goals' and filming.

Healthy habits: In the new Q&A, Jill also said that therapy has been 'so good and so healthy and I think we recommend it for everybody'

'We will not go back on the show under the circumstances we were under at the time that we left, meaning, just as a family we have to be able to make decisions that allow us to navigate our lives and have the information and control so that we know whether or not we can even plan anything for our lives,' he said.

The pair agreed that they had no regrets about leaving, and are grateful to get more family time and control over their time.

'We have our lives back now,' Jill said.

Jill also returned to the revelation that she and Derick are in therapy, telling fans that she's seen 'good changes' in herself since she started and that it's 'helping us process things.'

'It's so good and so healthy and I think we recommend it for everybody. I think it's just good, helpful. Especially, like, even right now with COVID and everything, when the stress levels are high as it is, I feel like therapy is so helpful,' she said.

Jill and Derick's Q&As have included quite a few revelations, including that they use birth control.

Derick had commented on social media in the past that he is not against birth control, admitting that his own parents used it  but this was the first time that he and Jill confirmed outright that they use it, too.

Surprise! Jill  one of 19 children born to parents who have said they left family planning up to God  previously confirmed that she and Derick use birth control

No glove, no love! The 29-year-old revealed in a Q&A video on YouTube that she and Derick use non-hormonal birth control methods to prevent pregnancy

'Yes, we use birth control,' Jill said, 'but we prefer to use non-hormonal birth control methods, just because we don't want to use anything that could potentially cause an abortion.'

It is a myth that the Pill can cause abortion, since it works to prevent an egg from being fertilized in the first place. In cases where women do become unintentionally pregnant while on the Pill, the fetus can be exposed to high levels of progestin and/or estrogen, but neither causes abortion  and research indicates that it won't negatively impact the fetus, either.

However, this myth is one that has been promoted by members of Jill's family, including her parents, Jim Bob and Michelle.

The couple initially used hormonal birth control after welcoming their first child, Josh, and Michelle miscarried while taking it. They saw the miscarriage as a sign from God and gave up birth control thereafter.

Though Jill hasn't adopted their anti-birth-control stance, she does seem to have taken on their scientifically-unsound belief that the Pill can cause abortion.

'There are probably uses for hormonal methods of birth control for, like, regulating things, and stuff like that. But for us, we just want to be careful about that, and we're just, like, more natural-minded,' she said.

Jill and Derick have two kids, Israel and Samuel, and said they would like more: 'I don't know that we have a number. Probably not 20 kids, but again, we're not gonna rule anything out'

'I know that sometimes there can be more longer-lasting effects from hormonal birth controls and stuff like that. So we just steer clear of those... Eventually, we want to have more kids and stuff. We're willing. So we don't want to mess too much with all that,' she said.

Derick added that they also want to be able to easily stop birth control whenever they want to get pregnant and have more siblings for five-year-old Israel and three-year-old Samuel.

The couple also answered a viewer question about whether they have non-Christian friends and are 'accepting' of the LGBTQ+ community.

'Yes, we have lots of non-Christian friends,' Derick said. 'We have friends that are part of the LGBTQ+ community.

'I think it's a misconception that just because you disagree with someone that you can't be friends. And in light of the recent passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I think Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg's relationship in the legal profession was a good example of that. From what I hear, they had a great relationship despite having sharp disagreements at times.'

Jill chimed in: 'You can disagree with someone and still be respectful, and still be friends.

Healthy attitude: Though she said it's still important to listen to the advice of people close to you, she also insisted that 'you don't want to be overly fearful and be led by fear'

'As Christians, we believe that there are certain things that are sinful, like adultery  so, cheating on your spouse or something  or sex before marriage, [or] homosexuality. Those are things that we believe are sinful.

'But there's a lot of things [that are sinful], too, so it doesn't mean that we might not be friends with people, because ultimately, we're all sinners.

'If I'm around somebody, they might know what I believe, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna just rub it in their face all the time either. So, I have friends who I hand out with, and we do not agree on everything.'

Derick also noted that, hypothetically, if a transgender friend invited them over, he would respect that friend's chose pronouns.

'I'm gonna use whatever pronoun they want me to,' he said.

However, he added, their faith is 'very important' to them, and 'generally people talk about what's important to them'  so being friends with a gay person or trans person isn't going to stop them from talking about their beliefs. But they do recognize that there is a time and a place for every discussion.

'I think it's healthy to have discussions and even debates, for those of you who like to debate, in the right space,' Jill said. 'But you want to be respectful, self-controlled. Oftentimes, I see people who are not and that's disheartening.'

Flashback: Derick came under fire in 2017 for calling being transgender a 'myth' and saying he 'pitied' fellow TLC star Jazz Jennings (pictured)

Belief system: Yet Jill and Derick both still said they believed homosexuality is a sin

Derick added that the mark of a good friendship is when you can discuss a hotly debated topic and then 'go have a beer afterwards.'

His remarks about using a trans person's preferred pronouns may be a shock to Duggar followers given Derick's past comments about trans TLC star Jazz Jennings.

In 2017, Derick went on a Twitter rant against Jazz when her show was promoted by the network, writing: 'What an oxymoron... a "reality" show which follows a non-reality. "Transgender" is a myth. Gender is not fluid; it's ordained by God.'

'I pity Jazz, 4 those who take advantage of him in order 2 promote their agenda, including the parents who allow these kinds of decisions 2 be made by a child. It's sad that ppl would use a juvenile this way. Again, nothing against him, unfortunate what's on TV these days.'

At the time, Derick did not use Jazzs preferred pronouns  she/her  though his opinion and behavior may have evolved in the past three years.

Finally, the couple opened up about finances, reiterating the claim that they were not paid by TLC for appearing on Counting On.

'Up until the time we left the show, we hadn't been paid for anything,' Jill said.

Rule makers: Jill's parents, Jim Bob and Michelle, are incredibly strict

'Of course, there were perks that came along with filming, you know, if we were traveling or whatever they might have covered those expenses. And we were grateful for those.

'But we hadn't been paid until we were really pressing about it and ended up getting an attorney involved and stuff,' she said.

'Basically, once we got an attorney involved, we were able to recover a portion at least of what Jill should have been paid,' Derick added, but said that it only amounted to a bit more than minimum wage.

Derick has slammed TLC and Jill's father Jim Bob in the past with similar accusations, insisting on more than one occasion that Jim Bob controlled the contracts  and the purse strings  when it came to the show.

In a previous Q&A video, Jill admitted that some of her views, which are still guided by her faith, have changed a little bit now that she has been able to do more research.

Several of the changes she's made have been to her appearance. She and her sisters were all raised with very long, curly hair, but recently Jill chopped off quite a few inches.

Modesty: Jill started wearing pants and shorts as a married adult after growing up in only skirts and dresses

Makeover time: Derick added that 'not being closely associated with the show anymore has allowed that decision to happen more organically' (the Duggars pictured in 2002)

'My hair was so heavy and it was giving me headaches,' she said. Because it was a 'decent amount,' she was also able to donate it.

She also got her nose pierced a few years ago after discussing it with Derick.

'I liked it, we talked about it. I kind of always thought they were cute, nose piercings. But ... even if I liked something before, I wouldn't have done it because of maybe some of the backlash that I would get from people close to me, or something. I just hate confrontation so I would have avoided it,' she said.

'I think growing as a person, growing closer together as a couple is helpful. So when Derick told me he was cool with me getting my nose pierced... we decided that it was cool.

'Because of the journey that we've made as a couple, I was more comfortable with decisions that we make as a family. Like basically having healthy boundaries and everything, and being OK sometimes with other people not being OK is a hard thing but as long as we knew that the decisions were not wrong, they were just ones that other people might not make for themselves, then that's, like, good for us,' she said.

Transparency: The couple has been candid in several Q&A videos on YouTube

He approves: Jill said she always thought nose piercings were 'cute,' and when Derick said he was OK with it, she got one for herself

Derick added that 'not being closely associated with the show anymore has allowed that decision to happen more organically.'

As for wearing pants, Jill said it wasn't 'a reactionary thing,' but she did follow the bible's words to 'leave and cleave' and that led her to 'reevaluate things.'

'I felt like I could be modest and wear pants,' she said.

She and Derick aren't even anti-tattoo, though neither has one just yet.

'We're not against tattoos,' said Jill. 'Biblically, I don't think there's something wrong with it.

'I'm a very sentimental person, so I could see myself getting a tattoo... except for that I hate needles,' she added.

Finally, the couple talked about the possibility of growing their family, revealing that they would like more kids but don't know how many.

Off they go! The couple's oldest son, Israel, recently started attending kindergarten at a public school

'Yes, we would love more kids if God chooses to give us more,' said Jill.

'How many? I don't know that we have a number. Probably not 20 kids, but again, we're not gonna rule anything out. If God wants us to run an orphanage or something...' she went on.

'Derick's mom was adopted, so adoption has always had a special place in our heart.'

In their first candid Q&A video, the pair talked alcohol.

'We try and practice what the bible says about anything, and as far as alcohol, the scripture is pretty clear that drunkenness is absolutely sinful,' Derick said.

'Neither one of us has ever drank to drunkenness and don't ever plan to. But that doesn't mean that Jill wouldn't have a pina colada at dinner or something.'

'We also just want to be careful and sensitive to other people, too. You just have to know yourself and your boundaries,' added Jill.

Freedom! Jill was pictured enjoying a pina colada while out for a date night with her husband Derick Dillard this summer, and she confirmed she drinks alcohol but doesn't get drunk

'Even with our kids and stuff, eventually  obviously, they're really young right now  but eventually, I think it's good... for them to see, like, a healthy balance in our lives,' she went on.

She also admitted to People that her attitudes are a departure from how she was raised.

'Growing up, the whole idea of drinking was not encouraged,' she said.

'I know my parents would not be happy with it, and I know that my siblings, some more than others, would probably have an issue with it. Other ones would probably be like, "Whatever's good for yall, that's fine. Live your life."

'So far nobody's said anything to us about it,' she added.

'We have boundaries,' she went on. 'In our faith, we believe like we're not supposed to get drunk.

'So, with drinking, it's not like we're just like going crazy. Its more socially here and there, or at home, for a date or something. Our kids are pretty young right now, but I think it's good for them to see a healthy balance.'
Jaipur, Oct 7 : A day after a special court awarded life sentence to four persons convicted in the Thanagaazi gang-rape case and sent the fifth accused, who made the rape video go viral on social media, to five years' rigorous imprisonment, the family members of the victim expressed their dissatisfaction over the verdict and demanded death penalty for the covicts.

Speaking to the media here, the victim's father, mother-in-law and brother-in-law said that the convicts should be hanged to death so that such heinous crimes are not repeated.

"We will appeal in the Supreme Court against the decision of the special court and demand death penalty for the convicts," they said in unison.

While pronouncing the verdict on Tuesday, special court judge Brijesh Kumar had compared the crime to Drapudi's 'cheerharan', saying the heinous act has shamed humanity.

The Thanagaazi gang-rape in Rajasthan was first reported on April 26, 2019 and it grabbed nationwide attention as the accused had raped the woman in front of her husband, filmed the act and made the video viral on social media.

A case was registered after the video went viral on May 2, six days after the crime. When the couple had earlier gone to lodge an FIR, the police had reportedly sent them back citing the busy schedule of the police due to the Lok Sabha polls.

The Rajasthan government drew flak from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati during the Lok Sabha election campaign over the delay in lodging an FIR in the case. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had also visited Thanagaazi and met the family of the rape victim.

The four men sentenced to life are Indraj, Ashok, Chhotalal and Hansraj. The court has also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on them.

The fifth convicted person is Mukesh, who made the video viral, and has been sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment.

The accused had also demanded Rs 10,000 from the victim for not making the rape video viral on social media.
Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vazquez Garced speaks during a press conference to announce the strict new rules for all passengers flying into Puerto Rico to curb CCP virus cases in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on June 30, 2020. (Ricardo Arduengo/AFP via Getty Images)

Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vazquez Garced Endorses Trump for Reelection

Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vazquez Garced announced Tuesday that she endorses President Donald Trumps reelection bid, saying that he is the candidate who is thinking about the needs of Puerto Ricans at this difficult time.

The governor encouraged Puerto Ricans to vote for Trump in the Nov. 3 presidential election as she expressed her support for the presidents second term bid during an interview Tuesday.

I ask all Puerto Ricans who are listening to go vote, she told Telemundo Puerto Rico. They have to go to vote, exercise their right to vote and evaluate who has represented being a person who thinks about Puerto Ricans and their needs at the most difficult moment. It is Donald Trump.

Her announcement came just weeks after an aid package for the island was announced by the White House. The nearly $13 billion package aims to support the rebuilding of Puerto Ricos electrical and education infrastructure following Hurricane Maria, which devastated the territory in September 2017.

The White House said last month that the aid exceeds the total public assistance funding in any single federally-declared disaster other than Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, the destructive 2005 storms. According to the National Hurricane Center, Maria is the third costliest hurricane in U.S. history behind Katrina and 2017s Hurricane Harvey.

Both Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden have been working to woo Hispanic voters. Their support is considered critical in the perennial swing state of Florida, where many Puerto Ricans relocated after Maria.

(L) President Donald Trump speaking during a news conference in the Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, on Sept. 27, 2020, and (R) Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden delivering a speech at a local theater in Wilmington, Del., on Sept. 27, 2020. (Joshua Roberts and Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

Puerto Rico was already struggling financially before Maria struck, and filed a form of municipal bankruptcy in 2017 to restructure about $120 billion of debt and obligations. A large portion of its financial distress was linked to the power utility.

Since then, it has weathered more hurricanes, earthquakes, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic and political upheaval, as well as increased federal scrutiny into its use of U.S. aid.

Vazquez Garced and Trump were reportedly set to meet at a campaign event in Florida on Oct. 2, before it was canceled due to the presidents COVID-19 diagnosis, according to the Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Dia.

In a statement Tuesday, the Republican National Committee welcomed news of Vazquez Garceds endorsement, saying that it is further proof of the enthusiasm the president is generating among the Hispanic community.

Bidens campaign responded by calling her endorsement a desperate, political stunt to win over Puerto Rican supporters.

Reuters contributed to this report.
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NABP congratulates KloudScript, Inc. on achieving this important recognition, says NABP Executive Director/Secretary Lemrey Al Carter, PharmD, MS, RPh. By earning Specialty Pharmacy Accreditation, they demonstrate their commitment to quality health care and patient safety, that improve overall health outcomes.

About KloudScript, Inc.

Headquartered in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, KloudScript, Inc is a digital health network focused on providing technology and support services for specialty medications. KloudScript partners with community pharmacies, prescribers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and payors to make specialty medications available locally for patients through a simplified care experience from their pharmacist. KloudScripts innovative technology platforms KETU and ProntoRx offer pharmacies and prescribers an efficient patient care management workflow solution and simplify patient care. Learn more about KloudScripts growing network at http://www.kloudscript.com or call (855) 202-7036.

About the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy

The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) is the impartial professional organization that supports its member regulatory state boards of pharmacy in creating uniform regulations to protect public health. Founded in 1904, NABP aims to ensure the publics health and safety through its pharmacist competence assessment programs, license transfer and verification services, as well as through pharmacy inspection and accreditation programs. For more information, please visit http://www.nabp.pharmacy.
The Arab Development Action Shield is an award that is given annually by the Arab League to Arab figures that led the development process in their countries

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi received on Wednesday the Arab Development Action Shield award for the year 2020, a statement by the presidency said.

President El-Sisi was handed the award by the Arab League (AL) Secretary-General Ahmed Abu El-Gheit during Wednesday's meeting, which was attended by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, and Arab League Assistant Secretary-General Hossam Zaki.

The Arab Development Action Shield is an award that is given annually by the AL to Arab figures that led the development process in their countries.

Abu El-Gheit hailed the comprehensive development approach led by El-Sisi in Egypt, which formed a model to be emulated throughout the rest of the Arab world, the statement said.

According to Egypt's Presidential Spokesperson Bassam Rady, El-Sisi expressed his gratitude to the AL for this great honour.

El-Sisi said, according to the statement, that this shield is dedicated to all Egyptians who have contributed, with their awareness and patriotism, to the success of the economic reform and the process of comprehensive development that is being carried out with Egyptian efforts and resources.

The president also affirmed Egypt's support for the efforts of the AL to enhance cooperation between Arab countries, and its concerted efforts to support the development process in the Arab world in a way that meets the aspirations of their peoples and strengthens the spirit of joint solidarity.

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BOSTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today empow announced a 100% renewal rate for 2020, meaning all of the company's customers renewed their i-SIEM licenses in 2020, with a number expanding their licenses. The renewing customers include leading organizations from North America and Europe in a variety of industries from manufacturing to higher education, consulting to utilities, financial services and others.

"This accomplishment is the ultimate proof of the high value customers derive from i-SIEM," said empow Founder & CEO Avi Chesla. "Many organizations feel that they are working for their SIEM, instead of the other way around. While practically all SIEMs claim to lower the rate of false positives, in reality they flood SOC teams with noise and require a huge investment of manpower to manage. That's when organizations come to us, and we're happy to help them dramatically lower the noise in their network."

The strength of empow's performance is based on intellectual property. Fifteen patents (nine granted, six pending) in defense strategies and workflows, automation correlation, behavioral analytics, Natural Language Processing (NLP) data classification and more enable i-SIEM to offer noise reduction at a level unprecedented in the security arena.

These capabilities are supported by an easy to use dashboard and backed by a dedicated and highly skilled customer support team that makes sure that every customer need is met quickly and professionally.

Dannie Combs, CISO of Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN), a leading regulatory and financial technology company protecting thousands of employees at 62 locations in 13 countries, chose to renew and expand their empow license. The reasons were many, and include improved performance, simple architecture, significant cost savings and strong customer support.

"The alert fatigue and false positive rates have just plummeted, which is really exciting," said Combs. "The correlation rules themselves require effectively little to no maintenance from a client perspective, which is tremendous, and leaps forward from other SIEMs."

empow recently announced the launch of its Extended Detection and Response solution: i-XDR. This offering brings empow's automation advantage to organizations who already have a SIEM in place which they do not want to replace, for whatever reason. i-XDR lowers the data volume that needs to be digested by SIEM, SOAR and the organization's other security tools by 90%, dramatically lowering total ownership costs, and helping organizations make more of the security tools they already have. The improved performance and noise reduction i-XDR brings to the table effectively improves the organization's security posture.

About empow

empow is a leader in innovative technologies that detect cyberattacks and automatically orchestrate adaptive investigation and mitigation actions in real-time, without the need for manually writing rules. Global organizations rely on empow's innovative use of AI, including natural language processing (NLP), machine learning and cause-and-effect analytics, which automatically understands the fundamental nature or intent of threats, finds the actual attacks hidden in the "noise," and connects existing security tools to respond and predictively prevent attacks before they occur.

empow is headquartered in Boston, with an R&D office in Tel Aviv, and both direct and channel distribution to customers across the globe.

https://empow.co/

SOURCE empow

Related Links

https://empow.co


Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden participates in the first presidential debate against President Donald Trump at the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sept. 29, 2020. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

NBC Miami Town Hall Features Undecided Voters Who Were Reportedly Biden Supporters

Two undecided voters who showed up Monday on an NBC News town hall with Joe Biden appear to have explained why they support the Democratic presidential nominee in August on MSNBC, according to a report.

Peter Gonzalez and Ismael Llano posed questions to the former vice president at the outdoor town hall event, which was held in Miami, Florida, and aired on both NBC and MSNBC. According to NBC Nightly News host Lester Holt, all of the attendees were undecided Florida voters.

Both Gonzalez and Llano were featured on MSNBC in August and showed their support for Biden, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Tuesday.

If we get four more years of Trump, good luck, and good luck with the future attracting younger voters, Gonzalez, who was identified as voting for Biden, said on MSNBC two months ago. Llano, who was also identified as a Biden voter, expressed similar support at that time, saying Bidens speech resonated with him.

The very same pair also appeared at the Miami town hall. Holt, who moderated the event, introduced Llano as a lawyer who voted for Hillary Clinton four years ago but has voted Republican in the past, and Gonzales as a moderate voter worrying that Biden is beholden to the radical left.

Cuban American and Venezuelan voters here in South Florida are being targeted with messages by the Trump campaign claiming that a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for the radical left and socialism, and even communism, Gonzalez asked. What can you tell people in my family, my friendswho are understandably concerned with that issuethat would make them feel comfortable voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris?

Do I look like a socialist? Biden replied, reminding Gonzalez that he beat Bernie Sanders, a high-profile socialist, and that some Democrats complained about him being too centrist, too moderate, too straightforward.

Other town hall participants are also curiously pro-Biden for an audience of undecided voters, according to Marc Caputo, Politicos senior writer. In fact, none of the attendees who spoke one-on-one with Biden was described as leaning towards Donald Trump or in favor of the incumbent presidents reelection.

This was a Biden-leaning crowd, if not a Biden crowd, Caputo wrote, adding that the closest thing to a tough question for Biden came from a woman identifying as undecided but leaning toward Biden. She told Biden she was worrying that he might quit the presidential race because of Trumps bullying behavior.

NBC did not respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.
(Natural News) Another violent scuffle between anti-fascists and pro-police demonstrators was caught on tape in Portland the other day, this one involving an Antifa mob that attacked a young black woman who was carrying around an American flag.

Independent journalist Andy Ngo, who a little more than a year ago was violently assaulted by Antifa as well, reported that one of the Antifa militants in this latest incident grabbed the black woman by her hair and forced her to the ground after she refused to let go of her American flag.

An apparently female  it is really hard to tell these days  Antifa was seen assaulting the black woman and forcing her down to the sidewalk, where the black woman remained for only a few moments before jumping back up to her feet and fleeing the scene.

Amid all the chaos, the female Antifa was confronted by a large man holding a Thin Blue Line flag who appeared to have been trying to intervene on behalf of the black woman. The black woman, however, did not need any help after all, as she was able to spring back up following her assault, American flag in hand, and proceed on her way.

After the victim walked away, a man from the pro-American group faced off and argued with an Antifa militant who hollered astoundingly that the fight was woman on woman as his voice repeatedly cracked, reports explain about the incident.

More of the latest news about anti-fascist violence against people who are literally Hitler can be found at CivilWar.news.

How can Antifa claim to be anti-fascist when its behavior is 100% fascist?

The man who intervened, by the way, was wearing a Justice for Jay shirt in honor of Aaron Jay Danielson, the police officer and Patriot Prayer supporter who was fatally shot in the streets of Portland by 48-year-old Michael Forest Reinoehl.

Reinoehl, who is now dead himself after being fatally shot by police, was after the fact determined by local law enforcement to be 100% Antifa. His death, and the fact that the pro-American demonstrator was wearing a Justice for Jay shirt, more than likely fueled the rage of the Antifa mob that took down the black woman.

Local media also reported that the scuffle began after the man and other supporters of Danielson gathered in downtown Portland to pay their homage to Danielson right on the spot where he was murdered.

KOIN-TV, as relayed by NewsPunch, explained that it appeared as if people with left-leaning and right-leaning ideologies got in some heated discussions in the streets. It added that [s]ome people reported being maced or hit with pepper spray.

Sgt. Kevin Allen told the station that police were on the scene to monitor the situation, but that no arrests were made. The protests continued, however, and at least six people ended up being arrested later on that evening.

Responding to the incident, internet commenters were enraged that Antifa would stoop so low as to assault and pummel a woman, and a black one at that. Somehow it is okay for anti-fascists to commit violence against black people, just so long as they identify politically as conservatives.

Yeah, thats respecting a womans right to have an opinion and treating her like an equal, joked one NewsPunch commenter pointing out the hypocrisy of these so-called anti-fascists and their deplorable behavior. The left is good at telling everyone how to live, and then not living it themselves!

Where are the white knights that jump in to help a lady in distress? asked another. No such thing as a white knight in Portland, Oregon.

Sources for this article include:

NewsPunch.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

People with atrial fibrillation have a reduced risk of dementia if they undergo a procedure called catheter ablation to restore the normal rhythm of their heart, according to a new study published today (Wednesday) in the European Heart Journal.

Previous work, published last year in the EHJ, by the same group of researchers showed that atrial fibrillation was linked to an increased risk of dementia, even in people who had not suffered a stroke. It is also known that catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation allows the heart to return to its normal rhythm for a longer period after the procedure compared to anti-arrhythmic drugs, and this improves quality of life.

The new findings published today show that catheter ablation reduced the incidence of dementia by nearly a third (27%) in atrial fibrillation patients compared to those who tried to control their condition with medication alone during the follow-up period. The patients were followed for up to twelve years, with at least 50% of them being followed for 52 months.

Atrial fibrillation (an irregular and often abnormally fast heartbeat) is the most common heart rhythm problem among elderly people and more than half of patients with atrial fibrillation are aged 80 or older. It increases the risk of stroke, other medical problems and death. As populations age, the incidence of atrial fibrillation is expected to increase, and there is mounting evidence that it may contribute to the development of thinking problems and dementia. Treatments include medications such as digoxin and beta-blockers, cardioversion (a controlled electric shock to restore the normal rhythm) or catheter ablation. Catheter ablation involves inserting a tube through a blood vessel to the heart to identify where the arrhythmia originates. Radiofrequency energy is then used to inactivate or cordon off the affected area. So far, there has been conflicting evidence as to the effect of ablation on the incidence of dementia.

Researchers led by Boyoung Joung, professor of cardiology and internal medicine at Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea, and Gregory Lip, professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Liverpool, UK, and an adjunct professor at Yonsei University College of Medicine, analysed data from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) of Korea on 834,735 adults newly diagnosed with atrial fibrillation from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2015. They identified 9,119 patients who had ablation and 17,978 who received medical therapies.

During the follow-up period, there were 164 cases of dementia in the group of people who had ablation, and 308 cases in the medical therapy group. This gave an incidence rate per 1000 person-years (the number of years of follow-up multiplied by the number of people in the study) of 5.6 and 8.1 for the ablation and medical therapy groups respectively.

Prof. Joung said: "The proportion of people who developed dementia during the follow-up period was 6.1% in the ablation group and 9.1% in the medical therapy group. This suggests that three people per 100 of the atrial fibrillation population avoid dementia if they undergo catheter ablation, and 34 patients would need to be treated to prevent one case of dementia during the follow-up period."

When they looked at different types of dementia, they found that ablation was linked to a 23% lower incidence of Alzheimer's disease compared to medical therapies (4.1 versus 5 per 1000 person-years respectively) and a 50% decrease in vascular dementia (1.2 versus 2.2 per 1000 person-years respectively). After removing patients who suffered a stroke during follow-up from the analysis, ablation was still signficantly associated with a reduced risk of overall dementia and of vascular dementia, but a statistically non-significant reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease.

The researchers also looked at 5863 matched patients who underwent ablation to see if there was a positive relationship with the observed low dementia rate and the ablation procedure itself or the success of ablation.

Prof. Lip said: "If we defined ablation failure as requiring repeat ablations, cardioversion or medical therapies, then we found that the procedure failed in 45.3%: 2661 patients. We found that successful ablation was significantly associated with a 44% reduced risk of dementia compared with medical therapy but if ablation failed, we did not see a significant reduction in risk. This suggests that it is maintaining the regular rhythm of the heart with successful ablation, and not ablation itself, that may contribute to a lower risk of dementia in patients with atrial fibrillation."

The link between ablation and lower risk of dementia was consistent regardless of sex, residential area, use of health care, heart failure, history of stroke, blood thinning medications and scores for predicting stroke (CHA2DS2-VASc score).

First author of the study, Dr. Daehoon Kim, a fellow of cardiology at Yonsei University College of Medicine, said: "Due to the observational nature of the study, our findings show only an association between ablation and dementia. To answer the question whether ablation for atrial fibrillation reduces the incidence of dementia, a randomised controlled trial investigating cognitive outcomes is needed. However, we believe the finding that only successful ablation is associated with lower dementia risk is important because it suggests there might be a dose-response relationship between ablation maintaining a regular heart rhythm and a lower risk. We are going to investigate whether a rhythm control strategy for atrial fibrillation is associated with a lower risk of dementia, compared with a strategy to control the rate of the heartbeat."

The researchers believe their findings from the Korean population can apply to other populations as well. Limitations of the study include the fact that the researchers were unable to determine the reason for undergoing ablation or medical therapy and this might be a source of bias; although they adjusted for factors that could confound the results, unidentified confounding factors might remain; and milder cases of dementia may have been undetected.

Explore further Catheter ablation reduces dementia risk in A-Fib, heart disease patients more than medications

More information: Daehoon Kim et al, Less dementia after catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation: a nationwide cohort study, European Heart Journal (2020). Journal information: European Heart Journal Daehoon Kim et al, Less dementia after catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation: a nationwide cohort study,(2020). DOI: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehaa726
LONDON, Oct. 7 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today marks the launch of the Technology Executive Roundtable US (TERUS), a forum established to support technology and life science senior executives whose growth strategy involves expansion into the United States.

TERUS will host roundtable forums featuring guests sharing experiences regarding US expansion. The forum will be open only to technology and life sciences executives nominated by one of the founding partner organisations. Programming begins with virtual sessions in October.

TERUS was created through the joint efforts of several organisations. Founding partners include UK's Department for International Trade, law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, accounting and advisory firm Frazier & Deeter, trans-Atlantic business consulting firm International Marketing Partners Ltd., specialist transatlantic insurance broker La Playa, immigration specialists Samartin & Friends, and Silicon Valley Bank.

"The US offers the promise of massive commercial opportunities and plentiful venture and growth capital. However, doing business and raising money in an unfamiliar, highly-competitive environment requires thoughtful advance planning and clinical execution," noted Daniel Glazer, a partner with Wilson Sonsini who leads the law firm's US expansion practice. "TERUS will provide practical US guidance based on the experiences of those who have already tackled these challenges."

"Today's launch of TERUS highlights the opportunities for the UK's technology and life sciences sectors to expand into the United States. With 15 UK tech unicorns and almost 1,500 UK tech companies already active in the US, I look forward to seeing even more businesses expand across the pond. TERUS will offer opportunities to share good practice and to hear from experts who have already achieved success through international expansion," said Frances Moffett-Kouadio, Director of Exports USA for the UK's Department for International Trade.

"Software and digital companies, in particular, see the enormous opportunity of US expansion," noted Malcolm Joy, Lead Partner of Frazier & Deeter UK. "This forum will enable them to learn from other entrepreneurial companies and experienced advisors to understand some areas where planning can help prevent unfortunate surprises."

More information about TERUS and its founding partners can be found at www.TERUS.org.

SOURCE Frazier & Deeter; WSGR

Related Links

https://www.frazierdeeter.com/


A Razer Visa Card is one of those things thats so over the top that you just have to embrace it. And its now a thing, glowing green logo included. Dont worry about battery life, it apparently only lights up when you make a payment. So, not to doubt your liquidity but the novelty factor will probably wear off after a couple of afternoons spent showing off at Starbucks.

Called simply the Razer Card, this curious thing is only available in Singapore for the time being. Which may seem like a kind of random place for a beta launch of well, anything. At least from our biased Western perspective. But it really isnt. Its just easy to forget Razer has a somewhat uncommon company structure and is dual-headquartered in both California and Singapore.

Looking at a slightly bigger picture, the Razer Card is something between a marketing tool and a celebration of consumerism. Also known as the thing that gave rise to luxury gaming hardware manufacturers such as Razer. So, its newly realized existence isnt that surprising. Not compared to the fact we havent anticipated this exact scenario beforehand. But that just goes to show how incredibly confident Razer is, as both a manufacturer and a brand. This thing just screams look at me, daring you to so much as consider pulling it off. In other words: its quintessential Razer.

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This is not a joke: a Razer Visa Card is meant to underline the firms fintech ambitions

That is why one can seriously acknowledge a Razer Visa Card as anything beyond a blunt marketing stunt. Not that Razer would ever agree with that assessment. As starting just over a month ago, it started legitimately signaling intent to reinvent itself as a fintech company. Not just diversify  restructure in a way that would make fintech front and center of its operations. Doable? Sure, theoretically. Realistic? No, not really. But since when was that a requirement for anything Razer does?

Its unapologetic approach to gaming gadgets is actually something youd expect from a modern fintech startup. The arrogance to claim that you can do something better for long enough to make the most entrenched industry ever feel at least a graze from the invisible hand of the market.

You dont really hear about new banks cropping up on the regular, aiming to compete with a handful of superpowers holding the majority of everyones money and debt. Because its a pointless endeavor, unless its happening simultaneously with an emergence of a new country. The difference here being is that Singapore is a pretty small pond. One with a remarkable standard of living relative to the majority of the world, but pretty small population-wise.

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So, Razer may have gotten signficant enough that its allowed to play capitalism with the big boys in a country with a population of Denmark, but its chances of not being eaten alive by the fintech sector in the West arent great. For that to become feasible, it needs tech thats way more meaningful, disruptive, and accessible than what looks like an LED-infused version of Revoluts own Metal card. The beta version does
With the completion of its latest series of milestone tests, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has now survived all of the harsh conditions associated with a rocket launch to space.

Webb's recent tests have validated that the fully assembled observatory will endure the deafening noise, and the jarring shakes, rattles and vibrations that the observatory will experience during liftoff. Known as "acoustic" and "sine-vibration" testing, NASA has worked carefully with its international partners to match Webb's testing environment precisely to what Webb will experience both on launch day, and when operating in orbit.

Though each component of the telescope has been rigorously tested during development, demonstrating that the assembled flight hardware is able to safely pass through a simulated launch environment is a significant achievement for the mission. Completed in two separate facilities within Northrop Grumman's Space Park in Redondo Beach, California, these tests represent Webb's final two, in a long series of environmental tests before Webb is shipped to French Guiana for launch.

The next environment Webb will experience is space.

To safely move the James Webb Space Telescope between testing facilities, engineers enclose it within a special mobile clean room often referred to as a clamshell. The crawl between buildings can take hours and requires the raising of telephone lines to allow Webb to pass underneath. Webb's recent tests have validated that the fully assembled observatory will endure the deafening noise, and the jarring shakes, rattles and vibrations that the observatory will endure during liftoff. Known as "acoustic" and "sine-vibration" testing, NASA has worked carefully with its international partners to match Webb's testing environment precisely to what Webb will experience both on launch day, and when operating in orbit.

Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

"The successful completion of our observatory environmental tests represent a monumental milestone in the march to launch. Environmental testing demonstrates Webb's ability to survive the rocket ride to space, which is the most violent portion of its trip to orbit approximately a million miles from earth. The multinational group of individuals responsible for the execution of the acoustic and vibration test is composed of an outstanding and dedicated group of folks who are typical of the entire Webb team," said Bill Ochs, Webb project manager for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Testing began by first encapsulating the entire telescope in a mobile clean room built to shield it from the outside world. Technicians then carefully guided it to a nearby acoustic testing chamber where it was intentionally blasted by sound pressure levels above 140 decibels, with a spectrum tuned to the specific signature of the Ariane 5 rocket it will ride to space. During the tests nearly 600 individual channels of motion data were carefully observed and recorded. Typical acoustic and vibration tests measure approximately 100 channels of data, but the complex size and shape of the observatory required considerably more measurement to ensure success. The data was then thoroughly analyzed and marked as a complete success.

Upon successful completion of its final acoustics tests, Webb was again packed and transported to a separate facility to simulate the low frequency vibrations that occur during liftoff. While inside Webb was placed on a specialized shaker table capable of precise vertical and horizontal acceleration. Where acoustic testing simulates the high-frequency dynamics of launch, vibration testing covers the lower frequencies experienced. With the combination of the two the entire mechanical environment Webb will experience during launch is accounted for.

"The testing team is an international consortium of structural dynamics experts who are the lead engineers for each piece of hardware on the observatory. The team members are located throughout the USA and Europe, spanning across 9 time zones! They are extremely dedicated to support testing at all hours and days to provide their expertise," said Sandra Irish, Webb Mechanical Systems Structures Engineer Lead for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Through the team's dedication, hard work, and just pure excitement in being a part of this complex test, it was a complete success! I have known these individuals for many years and it's been an honor to work with each one of them."

Webb is now scheduled to move forward into the last full extension of its iconic primary mirror and sunshield followed by a full systems evaluation before being encapsulated in a specialized shipping container for transport to South America. Deploying the observatory after experiencing a simulated launch environment is the best way to replicate the true series of events the observatory will experience during launch, and when performing its complex deployment sequence in space. Initial analysis suggests the observatory passed through observatory level acoustic and vibration testing successfully, but the full verification of flight worthiness will occur after Webb has successfully completed final deployment tests.

Engineers and technicians continue to follow augmented personal safety procedures due to the COVID-19 situation, which is causing significant impact and disruption globally. The team has resumed near-full operations and are now preparing for the final phase of testing prior to shipment to the launch site.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's largest, most powerful, and complex space science telescope ever built. In addition to the groundbreaking science expected from it after launch, Webb has required an improvement in the testing infrastructure and processes involved in validating large complex spacecraft for a life in space. Various facilities around the country had to be enlarged and upgraded to confidently test and prepare a machine as large as Webb for liftoff. Lessons learned from previous space telescope development were invested into Webb, and future space telescopes will be built upon the same collective knowledge. Thousands of scientists, engineers, and technicians contributed to build, test, and integrate Webb. In total, 258 companies, agencies, and universities participated - 142 from the United States, 104 from 12 European nations, and 12 from Canada.

Webb is NASA's next great space science observatory, which will help in solving the mysteries of our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mystifying structures and origins of our universe. Webb is an international program led by NASA, along with its partners ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

For more information about Webb, go to: https://www.nasa.gov/webb

Additional video resources can be found here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/Gallery/JWST.html



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Christian Deciga

Everipedia

Everipedia

Santa Monica, California, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Since his entrepreneurial journey began in December of 2015, Christian Deciga, a co-founder of Everipedia, helped build it from a Web 2.0 startup to a promising leading blockchain company in the emerging Web3 industry. Today, Deciga and his colleagues at Everipedia are not only experiencing the industrys current renaissance coined DeFi short for decentralized finance, they are a part of it. After becoming the best wiki and knowledge base hosted on the blockchain, the team is now working on bringing different products such as knowledge oracles within the DeFi space onto the Everipedia platform as part of its knowledge vision.

This is his journey of how we went from a college dropout, surviving cryptos bear market after the 2017 ICO boom, appearing in a music video with rapper Juicy J, to riding atop the DeFi wave.

First Generation Mexican-American



Deciga was born in Lakeland, Florida to an immigrant mother from Mexico and raised by a stepfather who took him in as his own. His real father left him before birth. Growing up as a first generation Mexican-American, his stepfather would often move to different cities for work building pallets. He moved around the country with his younger siblings and parents having lived in places such as Dothan, Alabama, Marietta, Georgia, Dallas, Texas and Illinois.



Supporting his family with McDonalds pay; Branching out into EDM



At the age of 16, while attending North Garland High School, Deciga was also employed as a McDonalds cashier often working a full time shift after school to support his family at the time. His mother was unable to work and his stepfather had been deported when they lived in Atlanta, Georgia. Adopting a stoic philosophy, keeping calm, never complaining, and always keeping an ambitious mindset, helped him face such external hardships in his life. CZ, the founder of Binance, and Deciga, both share similar stories as teenagers, as they both worked at McDonalds to support their families. He went on to graduate from North Garland High School in the Class of 2010, with another classmate he now collaborates with, Johnathon Nguyen, known by his stage name Juyen Sebulba. Nguyen is an established electronic dance music artist signed with Yellow Claws Barong Family Label. Nguyens collaboration with Yellow Claw Do You Like Bass? has been played at festivals around the world. Using his new skills learned at Everipedia, Deciga is collaborating with Nguyen to help his music project Psycho Boys Club be the next big musical act in electronic dance music.



Story continues

Creating His Own Path



In October 2015, as an undergrad student pursuing a bachelors degree in computer science at California State University, San Bernardino, Deciga met Mahbod Moghadam (his former mentor), and Sam Kazemian, after they gave a presentation about Everipedia at Cal Poly Pomona. After the presentation, Deciga became an early contributor to the site, starting the entries for notable technology entrepreneurs Balaji Srinivasan and Luis Ivan Cuende (both still do not have entries on Wikipedia almost 5 years later). In December 2015, Deciga withdrew from his classes at CSUSB and moved into Everipedias first headquarters, a penthouse apartment (PH2 at 972 Hilgard Ave.) located on UCLA campus to work on the project full time alongside co-founders Sam Kazemian, Mahbod Mogahdam, Travis Moore, and Theodor Forselius. While working on a prototype of the iOS application for Everipedia, Deciga learned the tactic of social media optimization helping bring in millions of pageviews to the site in the process. Many of the early Everipedia entries Deciga created would be shared widely across social media sites Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit. Blogs and news sources would also use his entries in their publications. The New York Times cited his entry on Natasha Stoynoff during the 2016 Presidential campaign of Donald Trump. During this time, the Everipedia team began to grow, and grab the attention of notable people in the tech industry as well as critiques.



One of the co-founders of YouTube, Jawed Karim, emailed the Everipedia team interested in investing, but pulled out right before their announcement of building on the EOS blockchain in late 2017. Also near the end of 2017, Dr. Larry Sanger, a co-founder of Wikipedia, joined the young thriving company as Chief Information Officer (he resigned in 2019).



During his time working on Everipedia in Westwood, Deciga lived as if he was a college student living on campus. He would go to the John Wooden Center to workout, shop for groceries at Ralphs, and even attended wild frat parties on campus. In early 2016, he saw President Obama leaving The W in Westwood surrounded by his security detail. Deciga also met and mingled with tech millionaires and CEOs at award ceremonies and parties in Los Angeles. The Everipedia team eventually grew out of the PH2 penthouse apartment in Westwood, and now has offices in Sweden and Santa Monica, California.



Entry into Cryptocurrency and Web3



In late 2017, Deciga was thrust into the lucrative world of cryptocurrencies when the team announced that they would be building their native cryptocurrency IQ token on the EOS blockchain. In early 2018, Everipedia made headlines when they raised $30 million in funding from Galaxy Digital, an EOS VC ecosystem fund.



Everipedia is currently one of the biggest projects on the EOS blockchain. It has become the largest decentralized application for learning and launched a prediction market called PredIQt in 2019. Thiel Fellow William LeGate leads PredIQT as its CEO. In June 2020, the IQ token was listed on Binance, the worlds largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. Everipedia has growing community editors from around the world including Nigeria, Venezuela, China, and Korea. Editors are rewarded with the IQ token for contributing to the platform, whereas on Wikipedia, an editor is not rewarded for their contributions to the site. This is the future of the internet known as Web3, where anyone can contribute value to the internet and be rewarded for it. The team saw huge success in tokenizing the idea of Wikipedia, putting knowledge onto the blockchain, decentralizing it, utilizing IPFS technology to host and store information. By using IPFS technology, Everipedia is a true decentralized application, meaning that it doesnt run on central servers like current Web 2 applications run. This makes it almost impossible to censor content as certain outlets like Wikipedia face in countries such as China, Turkey, Russia, etc.



Everipedia and EOS in Popular Culture



In February 2019, Deciga alongside co-founder Sam Kazemian and former co-founder Mahbod Moghadam made cameo appearances in Juicy Js music video for Let Me See, featuring Kevin Gates and Lil Skies. In the music video, EOS code written on a chalkboard written by Kazemian appears in the video. Kazemian, Deciga, and Moghadam sporting black tees with the Everipedia logo appear behind rapper Kevin Gates as he is being pitched how the internet is going to be the next big thing. The video made headlines in the EOS blockchain community at the time.



The New DeFi Kings



Two years after the IQ token was deployed on the EOS blockchain, Deciga and his current colleagues at Everipedia are now on the ground floor of cutting edge technology. They plan to introduce DeFi primitives such as synthetic assets (IQ smart assets), lending+money markets, and leverage onto the Everipedia platform. They are also working to deploy the IQ token on other blockchains including Ethereum, Binance Chain, and Polkadot. This is all part of the teams mission to become THE knowledge and DeFi platform that has a presence on every reputable blockchain network.



Email : christian@everipedia.com

Phone: 310-905-4952

Follow Christian Deciga on Twitter & Instagram

https://twitter.com/ChristianDeciga

https://www.instagram.com/christiandeciga/



Media Details

Company: Everipedia

Name: Christian Deciga

Email: christian@everipedia.com

Website: https://prediqt.everipedia.org/





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Supplier News

7 October 2020

Hotel Tech Report has launched the 'Official 2021 Guide to Guest Room Tablets' and the guide is now available free of charge to the entire hotel community thanks to sponsor SuitePad.

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This is a critical time for buyers to be adopting Guest Room Tablets. Guests traveling during the pandemic are hesitant to place in room phones next to their face yet they're ordering more room service than ever. Tablets are the key to increasing total RevPAR and guest satisfaction at the same time.

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Two Supreme Court justices' renewed attack on the court's same-sex marriage ruling -- arguing that it falsely brands religious opponents as bigots -- might suggest that the 2015 decision is in jeopardy. But several legal commentators say the ruling is less likely to be overturned than to be narrowed, along with other decisions on LGBT rights, to exempt public officials and private citizens with religious objections.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, among the dissenters in the 5-4 ruling in Obergefell vs. Hodges in June 2015 that declared a constitutional right to marry ones same-sex partner, renewed their attack Monday as the court denied an appeal by a former Kentucky county clerk who refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The clerk, Kim Davis, said issuing the licenses after the 2015 ruling would violate her religious beliefs. She was found in contempt of court and jailed for five days before agreeing to let others in her office provide the licenses.

The Supreme Court on Monday, in a brief order, allowed same-sex couples to proceed with damage suits against Davis, who was defeated for re-election in 2018. The only written opinion came from Thomas, joined by Alito, who said this wasnt the right case to reconsider the marriage ruling but it must be reversed in the future.

As a result of this Courts alteration of the Constitution, Davis found herself faced with a choice between her religious beliefs and her job, Thomas wrote. Davis may have been one of the first victims of this Courts cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last.

The author of the 2015 ruling, now-retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, is a lifelong Catholic who also wrote the courts 2018 decision allowing a Colorado baker to refuse, for religious reasons, to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. But Thomas said the marriage ruling suggested that religious opponents of same-sex weddings held a bigoted worldview.

Obergefell enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, Thomas said. The court has created a problem that only it can fix.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who also dissented from the marriage ruling, did not join Thomas opinion. Nor did President Trumps two appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Gorsuch, joined by Roberts and the four more liberal justices, wrote a 6-3 ruling in June saying federal law prohibited employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, though he left the door open to possible exemptions on religious grounds.

Amy Coney Barrett, the federal appeals court judge nominated by Trump to succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is a former law clerk and continuing admirer of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who called the marriage ruling a judicial Putsch in his dissenting opinion. But commentators appear skeptical that Thomas and Alito could recruit three colleagues to reconsider same-sex marriage any time soon.

The fight over gay rights is now moving into a different realm  a set of questions regarding when anti-gay discrimination can be justified by religious conviction, said Nate Persily, a Stanford constitutional law professor. He said neither Roberts nor Kavanaugh, in particular, seemed eager to overturn the 2015 ruling. Both have said the court should normally follow its own precedents.

I think it likely that over the next few years, the court will combine a reaffirmation of same-sex marriage with accommodations of some sort for dissenters -- which is probably the result we would have reached through the legislative process, said Michael McConnell, a Stanford law professor and former federal appeals court judge.

That might mean, for example, that county clerks could refuse to issue marriage licenses or that employers could refuse to grant spousal benefits to members of same-sex couples. The day after the Nov. 3 election, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on whether Philadelphia can deny funding to a Catholic foster care agency that refuses to place children with same-sex parents.

The court has granted some accommodations outside the marriage context. In addition to Kennedys 2018 ruling, which found that the Colorado baker had faced religious hostility from a state civil rights commission, the court ruled in the Hobby Lobby case in 2014 that companies could deny contraceptive coverage to female employees for religious reasons.

Erwin Chemerinsky, the UC Berkeley law school dean, called Thomas latest opinion very troubling and said it was possible that a newly composed court, with the addition of Barrett, would reconsider the marriage ruling.

But the most likely short-term result, he said, is that there will be five justices (and maybe six) to allow discrimination against gays and lesbians by business owners who have religious objections to same-sex weddings and by employers.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
Queen Letizia and King Felipe VI of Spain attended an annual board meeting for the trustees of the Instituto Cervantes in Madrid today.

The mother-of-two, 48, put on a stylish display in a white blouse and black skirt as she joined her husband, 52, for the discussions at El Pardo Palace.

The royal couple expressed their views on the impact of Spanish culture around the world and reflected on the nation's rich history.

They were seen practicing strict social distancing and wearing face coverings amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and were joined by key figures of the board - including president of the Government Pedro Sanchez and president of the Board of Directors of the Instituto Cervantes, Angeles Moreno Bau.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia (pictured) attended a board meeting for the trustees of the Instituto Cervantes in Madrid today

Letizia, 48, (pictured) looked stylish in a white blouse and black skirt, which she teamed with a matching monochrome clutch bag

Queen Letizia opted for an understated style by wearing her hair in its signature slightly off-centre parting, and loose waves.

She tied the look together with minimal makeup and made a statement with her clutch handbag, which complemented her ensemble.

Meanwhile, King Felipe VI opted for a pinstripe black suit, which he paired with a check tie and pastel blue shirt.

The President of the Government, the ministers and the director of the Cervantes Institute greeted the royals in the Barcelo Hall on her arrival.

Eva Ortega-Paino, who is the scientific director of the Biobank of the National Center for Cancer Research and general secretary of RAICEX, began the meeting with a presentation on Spanish as a scientific language.

King Felipe VI told the board Spain shares the same values as many other continents around the world and has a rich history.

King Felipe (pictured right) VI donned a pinstripe suit with a clashing tie and pastel shirt, with the addition of a face mask for safety

Honorary president of the board King Felipe VI, described Spanish as an 'undoubted cultural and economic engine' that goes beyond its potential as a global language.

Other patrons at the meeting included the director of the Royal Spanish Academy Santiago Munoz Machado, the director of the president of the Institute of Spain Carmen Iglesias and the president of the Film Academy Mariano Barroso.

Given the restrictions in place because of the pandemic, other members of the board of trustees participated in the meeting virtually.

The director of the Institute Luis Garcia Montero, and the general secretary Carmen Noguero, expressed how objectives had to be adapted because of the coronavirus crisis.

They also addressed plans for the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the institution next year.

Created by Spain in 1991, The Instituto Cervantes promotes the teaching of the Spanish language along with Spanish and Latin American culture.
The IRS is under investigation by the US Treasury's Inspector General for reportedly buying Americans' smartphone location data in order to track them.

Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren called for the investigation last month after IRS agents told the senators that the agency bought people's smartphone location data from a company called Venntel.

Venntel sells location data scraped from people's smartphones that are gathered from normal apps like games, exercise apps, and weather apps.

While government agencies typically need to obtain a search warrant before gathering personal information from people's phones, buying location data directly from private companies like Venntel lets them sidestep that requirement.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The IRS is under investigation by the US Treasury's Inspector General over its practice of buying people's smartphone data from private surveillance companies, according to a letter from the Inspector General obtained by Business Insider.

In the letter, first reported by Motherboard, Inspector General J. Russel George writes that his office will investigate the IRS' data collection practices after Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren voiced concerns that the agency could have violated the Constitution. Wyden's office provided Business Insider with a copy of the letter Tuesday.

Wyden and Warren first raised concerns about the IRS' collection of Americans' personal data after IRS agents disclosed that the agency purchased smartphone location data in bulk from a private firm called Venntel.

Venntel aggregates location data mined by normal weather apps and games that people download, then sells it in bulk to its clients. Because this location data is collected through apps and then sold by a middleman, there's no way for individual users to check whether their location data has been collected.

Typically, government agencies need a court-issued search warrant before they can request personal data stored on people's devices. But by buying the location data directly from a private company, agencies are able to side-step that requirement.

Story continues

Venntel is already the subject of a separate probe by House Democrats over similar contracts with the Department of Homeland Security. DHS used data from Venntel to track people unlawfully crossing the US-Mexico border, The Wall Street Journal revealed earlier this year.

A Treasury spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Inspector General's letter.

Read the original article on Business Insider
French lawmakers on Tuesday unanimously voted to return prized artefacts to Benin and Senegal more than a century after they were looted by colonial forces and hauled back to Paris to be displayed in museums.

The pieces include a royal throne and statues taken by the French army during a war in Beninthen the wealthy African kingdom of Dahomeyas well a sabre once wielded by a 19th-century Muslim sheik in what is today Senegal.

After 49 MPs in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, voted Tuesday night in favour of the billwith none voting againstit will now head to the Senate.

If approved, France will officially restore to Benin 26 items from the Treasure of Behanzin, looted during the 1892 pillaging of the palace of Abomey.

They include the throne of King Glelea centrepiece of the 70,000-odd African objects held at the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum in Paris.

Senegal will get back a sword and scabbard said to have belonged to Omar Saidou Tall, an important 19th century military and religious figure in West Africa.

The pieces are officially held by the Army Museum in Paris, but are on long-term loan to Dakar, where they have been exhibited since last November.

Former culture minister Franck Riester said the return of the artefacts was part of a strengthened desire for cooperation with the two francophone West African countries.

He spoke to the assembly because current Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot was isolating after coming into contact with a positive coronavirus case.

Ahead of the vote, Bachelot insisted the bill was not an act of repentance or reparation, nor a condemnation of the French cultural model.

Strictly the minimum

President Emmanuel Macron pledged shortly after his election in 2017 to look into the restitution of African cultural treasures.

Benins President Patrice Talon has previously said he was not satisfied even while welcoming small steps being taken by France.

To approve a specific law to hand back 26 artefacts is strictly the minimum, he told the magazine Young Africa, arguing for a law that gave global restitution based on a precise inventory.

Story continues

Last month five activists went on trial in Paris for trying to seize an African funeral staff from the Quai Branly, Frances pre-eminent indigenous art museum, in a bid to put new pressure on Macron to return more items.

An expert report commissioned by Macron in 2018 counted some 90,000 African works in French museums, most of them at the Quai Branly.

Britain has also faced calls to return artefacts, notably the Elgin Marbles to Greece and the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, while museums in Belgium and Austria house tens of thousands of African pieces.

(AFP)
Skincare and make-up products, introduced on livestreams as branded goods, priced at just several thousand or tens of thousand dong, have trapped many people.

Super-cheap cosmetics are flooding the social network market. Facebook has been used as a large market, where people offer to sell products introduced by them as imports from Thailand, Japan, South Korea and European countries.

The sellers explain that the products are cheap because they dont bear import tax as they are carried to Vietnam across border gates by individuals.

Some others say they sell products at a loss to clear stock, or say the products were seized and then returned by customs agencies.

On an website, eyeliner with MAC brand is offered at VND9,000, and Kone skincare is VND39,000 per product and VND100,000 for one combo of three boxes.

The products are undoubtedly counterfeit. Understanding that many customers like branded goods but cannot afford them, scammers counterfeit well-known make-up products and sell them at low prices.

The prices of the counterfeits are just 1/10 or 1/30 of that of genuine products.

The beautiful sellers appearing on livestreams say they are selling products at surprisingly low prices in order to increase interactions with customers. They attract hundreds of buyers during every livestream show.

The General Department of Market Management, the police and border guards recently joined forces to attack a fake goods supply source in Mong Cai City in Quang Ninh province.

They seized two containers of counterfeit goods, including handbags, glasses, watches and cosmetics bearing famous foreign and Vietnamese brands.

Participating in the stocktaking and inspection of these seized products, a representative of LOreal Vietnam confirmed that all the thousands of cosmetic and perfume products bearing the brands of Lancome, Yves Saint Laurent, Kielhs, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Laurent and 3CE in the containers were counterfeit.

Many products have been found on online sale websites and cosmetics shops throughout the country. The huge amounts of goods were managed and distributed by two shops in Quang Ninh province.

Dr Le Thai Van Thanh from the HCM City University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital said it is difficult to control the cosmetics market. Users can't tell the difference between original and counterfeit products.

To enhance the effects of low-quality cosmetics, producers may use toxic substances such as corticosteroids, lead, mercury and formaldehyde, which may cause serious diseases, including skin cancer.

Trong Dat

Livestream marks launch of first COVID-19 fashion collection Local designer Chung Thanh Phong unveiled a fresh fashion line to the public via a Facebook livestream on May 18 with the theme of Save Yourself to promote efforts to combat the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
Gen. Gilbert Gapay prepares to receive his fourth star as commanding general of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, in Manila, Oct. 7, 2020.

The Philippine military chief vowed to protect the country from threats including Islamic State militants in the south as he was elevated to the rank of full general Wednesday, making him the countrys highest-ranking military officer.

Gen. Gilbert Gapays promotion to four-star general during a ceremony in Manila was expected after he was appointed to head the 125,000-strong Armed Forces of the Philippines in August. The elevation to the rank of general from lieutenant general is standard for anyone who occupies the countrys top military post. Before his appointment, Gapay had served as army chief since December 2019.

We remain dedicated to the performance of our mandate. This achievement is a realization of not only the sacrifices which we have already made, but also of the obligations we have yet to fulfill for our country and its people, he said Wednesday.

I am hopeful that the military will continue working collectively to provide a secure and peaceful environment for every Filipino, said Gapay, who graduated at the top of the 1986 class from the elite Philippine Military Academy.

Gapay also said that his top priority as military chief would be to crush Islamic State-linked Abu Sayyaf militants and other terror groups operating in the country.

He said that 55 Abu Sayyaf members were killed from January to September this year  15 of them in clashes in September  while 17 had surrendered. In the same period, at least 28 Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) fighters were killed, 134 surrendered and 20 were captured, he said.

The armed forces will sustain their momentum against the terror group ASG [Abu Sayyaf] and other local terrorist groups, Gapay said.

We will not tolerate any attempt to sow violent ideologies and will make use of all available technologies to put an end to the spread of violent extremism.

Apart from the Abu Sayyaf Group, Gapay said the military was also targeting other extremist groups linked with Islamic State (IS) such as BIFF and surviving militants from the Maute Group who took over the southern city of Marawi for five months in 2017. The takeover by pro-IS militants unleashed a five-month battle with government forces that left more than 1,200 combatants and civilians dead.

These local terrorists who operate in the south continue to embrace the Daesh narrative and assimilate its barbarism in the guise of religion, Gapay said, using another name for IS.

But the peace-loving Filipinos already reject this Daesh violence and have extended their full support to the government and the AFP in its fight against terrorists.

Gapay, 55, took over as armed forces chief at a time when the country is facing numerous challenges from extremist groups.

In August, two female suicide bombers deployed by the Abu Sayyaf left 15 people dead in the southern Jolo Island, more than a year after an Indonesian couple blew themselves in the same area, killing 23.

Abu Sayyaf militants last week killed one of five Indonesian fishermen they had abducted in January, and security forces have begun a manhunt in the far south to retrieve the four others.

Security forces are also on the hunt for Abu Sayyaf militants in the south, including a faction loyal to the IS led by Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, who is believed to be working with foreign suicide bombers.
Without ethical culture, there is no salvation for humanity.  Albert Einstein

This is not in the strictest sense, a science column. Here, I also share personal perspectives based on a scientific view of our world and to the best of my ability, on the facts.

To be sure, science is a messy process, and that can be frustrating. Answers to questions, big and small, can take forever if they come at all. A bit like life itself.

When you get right down to it, the universe looks pretty messy too. Take a glance at the stars at night: they may as well have been scattered about like a handful of pebbles.

But what we see is not chaos, a lesson weve increasingly learned since the start of the scientific revolution, marked by the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.

The observations and thought experiments of Galileo followed, which along with the many contributions of Isaac Newton and others, brought us the Age of Enlightenment with the laws of motion and universal gravitation that form the basis of our view of the universe today.

These laws and mathematical formulas, which describe so well what we see, are also strongly predictive. Through observation and experimentation, new truths are found, and added to the growing body of scientific facts.

That said, allow me to dispel the common notion that science is simply a collection of facts. It is not. Science is a process  sometimes long and messy  by which we tease out realities.

Through its methodology, science has alerted us to many truths  such as the Earth orbiting the sun and not vice-versa  that were not readily apparent to even the most observant individuals.

Without lessons like these and their more down to Earth applications, our species would still be bands of hunter-gatherers roaming the world in search of new territories to conquer and dominate.

Civilization is the rejection of that old way of life, favoring cooperation over competition. It relegates hunter-gatherer behaviors to the ancient, primal relics they are. Individual scientists make contributions, but the benefits to society come from the combined work of the many.

Since science is a human endeavor, it comes with all the messiness that personal bias and ego bring to it. But this is precisely where the scientific process rises above the fray. Over time, it rejects the false starts and dead ends, and simple truths emerge that can be tested and accepted by all scientists and citizens of the world.

What we are left with are not opinions, but demonstrable facts forming the foundation our global civilization depends on for survival.

But now a funny thing is happening: The very tools that make our planet-wide society possible are being misunderstood in the most basic ways. That itself is nothing new, but the rejection of science by people in positions of power is. Their influence over significant portions of our vast population, threatens to quickly reverse the gains weve made over centuries.

This is new. COVID-19 and climate change present just two of many challenges we face, so now is precisely not the time to stand back.

In January 2017, I wrote about the looming political threat to civilization in a thinly disguised column dealing with the so-called Fermi Paradox which asks why we have not found evidence of alien civilizations.

To find it online, just google Can narcissism explain the Fermi Paradox? by yours truly, or search it at MassLive.com. (https://www.masslive.com/living/2017/01/can_narcissism_explain_the_fermi_paradox.html)

My implication was that without citizen involvement, our civilization might not be around long enough for others to detect. This was not hyperbole.

Given the potential consequences to us all, a vigorous defense of science is not only warranted, but mandated even if that involves naming political leaders. This departure from tradition by institutions like Scientific American -- who recently took the unprecedented step of endorsing Joe Biden -- is not knee-jerk.

In our current situation, calling out leaders is no more partisan than warning about poisonous mushrooms is simply personal taste. It is a matter of health, science, prosperity, and our very survival. If astronomers determined that an asteroid headed our way was a threat to civilization, but a leader said, No, you are wrong, would I be accused of playing politics to point this out?

Politics usually has no place in discussions of science, but these are not usual times. Science is so widely misunderstood that many now see it as a partisan issue, rather than the best tool we have to help us understand our world.

This has serious consequences for each and every one of us. Humans are a passionately opinionated bunch, historically ready to violently enforce one point of view over another -- whether or not supported by the facts.

Because science is synonymous with truth-seeking, it offers a bridge across cultures. As a process in which evidence dictates conclusions, it is the best hope for our global civilization.

Donald Trump contradicts health and science experts, telling them that they dont know what they are talking about. On fundamental issues of public health policy, he dismissed his own experts (Fauci, the CDC, and others), but praised a doctor who, among other things, claimed that being intimate with spirits causes physical ailments all because she promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine against coronavirus, as he had.

But enough about him. Do you care about yourself, your family and friends? The rest of the world? Do you think the chaos of anti science will provide a better future?

In their song 1984 the band Spirit sang the following lines in reference to our possibly Orwellian future:

Someone will be waiting for you at your door

When you get home tonight

Ah yes, hes gonna tell you darkness gives you much more

Than you get from the light

Speak of light, recent scientific discoveries have raised hopes for finding life on each of the two planets closest to Earth, which are both currently shining brightly in our skies.

Mars spends the night crossing the sky, glowing campfire red in the east in early evening, passing highest in the south in the middle of night, and lowering to the west at dawn. It is closest to us around opposition (most directly opposite the sun in our sky) which happens next Tuesday, October 13, so it is brightest this month.

Venus beams in the east in the final hours before the sun comes up. As the third brightest celestial object, only the sun and moon outshine it. You can even follow it right into daylight as the sun comes up if you have the patience.

Last months announcement that the chemical compound phosphine was detected high in Venuss thick atmosphere is the latest and most intriguing hint yet that life may have found a way to survive in the layer where the temperature and pressures are most Earth-like. A closer look at data from probes 40 years ago has now also uncovered evidence suggesting the presence of phosphine there.

Late last month, it was announced that three possible new bodies of water have been detected on Mars around a larger one discovered just two years back, indicating a surprisingly complex water system on the Red Planet. And where theres water, life has a chance.

Keeping these fantastic discoveries in mind, look at Mars and Venus for yourself. Also, with last quarter moon leaving evenings dark for the next few weeks, take in some views of the beautiful fall Milky Way.

Do you wonder Are we alone?

Find rise and set times for the sun and moon, and follow ever-changing celestial highlights in the Skywatch section of the Weather Almanac in The Republican and Sunday Republican.

Patrick Rowan has written Skywatch for The Republican since 1987 and has been a Weather Almanac contributor since the mid 1990s. A native of Long Island, Rowan graduated from Northampton High School, studied astronomy at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in the 70s and was a research assistant for the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory. From 1981 to 1994, Rowan worked at the Springfield Science Museums Seymour Planetarium, most of that time as planetarium manager. Rowan lives in the Florence section of Northampton with his wife, Clara
The Philips Affiniti ultrasound system

The Philips Affiniti ultrasound system in use

LeQuest logo

October 7, 2020

E-training enables users to master the Philips Ultrasound Affiniti system, gain confidence by practicing with realistic simulation scenarios and learn anytime, anywhere

Amsterdam, the Netherlands  Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, and LeQuest, a leading provider of online interactive simulation-based training for the use of medical devices [1], today announced a partnership to provide online interactive training for the Philips Ultrasound Affiniti system. As a result, medical staff can train individually at their own convenience without the need for equipment, avoiding the resulting loss of operational time on the system, as well as supporting faster onboarding and increasing confidence through practice with realistic simulation scenarios. Healthcare providers benefit from improved workflow, operational efficiencies and better-trained staff.

The Affiniti system offers healthcare professionals a powerful combination of performance and workflow for quick and efficient diagnosis with low operating cost, providing exceptional image quality across applications such as radiology, obstetrics & gynecology, and cardiology. By providing a flexible training solution to healthcare providers, the partnership supports them to achieve key parts of the quadruple aim: an improved experience for staff and patients, better health outcomes and a lower cost of care.

Partnering with LeQuest enables us to further expand our offering of solutions that aid in optimizing the healthcare ecosystem, said Bich Le, Senior Vice President and General Manager Ultrasound at Philips. As the role of ultrasound continues to expand, new capabilities, such as remote clinical collaboration and virtual training, have been particularly valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling providers to reduce in-person contact and reduce infection risk.

Story continues

At LeQuest our goal is to improve the quality of care by unlocking the potential of both medical technology as well as the competence of medical staff to use devices to the limit of their possibilities, said Hicham Shatou, founder and CEO of LeQuest. Our partnership with Philips is an important step on our path to achieving that ambition, extending the global reach of our capabilities and providing Philips ultrasound users with a hands-on experience of its Affiniti system in a virtual environment.

With the LeQuest training modules, users can master the system in an effective way, gain confidence by practicing with realistic simulation scenarios and learn and practice anytime, anywhere. Training modules are available for all models of the Affiniti system (Affiniti 30, 50, 70) with specific versions for each clinical segment (general imaging, obstetrics/gynecology, and cardiology). The LeQuest training modules for the Philips Ultrasound Affiniti system are currently available in LATAM, France, Benelux and Nordics and more countries will follow soon. For more information visit www.lequest.com/en/philips-affiniti .

The partnership with LeQuest adds to Philips strong portfolio of Clinical Education Services in ultrasound. Helping to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the company is also providing detailed, practical guidance to support clinicians using its ultrasound systems and software for patients affected by COVID-19. Through its Reacts collaborative platform , Philips is expanding its remote clinical collaboration and virtual training offerings across its portfolio.

[1] Since 2017, Philips has owned a minority interest in LeQuest through its Philips Health Technology Venture Fund. For more information, please visit www.ventures.philips.com .

For further information, please contact:

Mark Groves

Philips Global Press Office

Tel: +31 631 639 916

Email: mark.groves@philips.com

Twitter: mark_groves

Peter Rutjes

CCO LeQuest

Tel: +31 630 698 307

Email: prutjes@lequest.com

About Royal Philips

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips generated 2019 sales of EUR 19.5 billion and employs approximately 81,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter.

About LeQuest

LeQuest, founded in 2011 is a leading technology company focused on improving the quality of care by unlocking the potential of both medical technology as well as the competence of medical staff to use devices to the limit of their possibilities. We are developing online interactive simulation-based e- training for the use of medical devices. The LeQuest e-trainings accelerate the implementation of new medical equipment, close the consumption gap, and make users quickly gain confidence, knowledge and competence within a safe environment including certifying and re-certifying of the medical staff. LeQuest is a fast growing company. LeQuest was recently recognized as one of the 250 fastest-growing companies in the Netherlands for 2020. More news about LeQuest can be found at www.lequest.com





Attachments




A New Jersey business owner who stole nearly $150,000 from a tribal casino in North Dakota by taking money for lawn maintenance equipment he never provided has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison, authorities said.

Mark A. Johnson, 60, of the Mays Landing section of Hamilton in Atlantic County, will have to serve three years of supervised release after his 41-month prison term, the U.S. Attorneys Office in South Dakota said in a statement Tuesday. Johnson will also have to pay $149,600 in restitution to Dakota Nations Gaming Enterprise.

Johnson, who owned Atlantic Power & Equipment, struck a deal in March 2014 to have the refurbished equipment shipped to the Dakota Magic Casino within six weeks after receiving a check from the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribal Council.

He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced on Friday.

Dakota Magic Casino is an hour south of Fargo, North Dakota, straddling the North Dakota-South Dakota border.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JGoldmanNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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Civil rights organizations and activists sued San Francisco on Wednesday, alleging police illegally tapped into a network of more than 400 surveillance cameras to keep track of police-brutality protesters this spring.

The suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, centered on the demonstrations that immediately followed the Memorial Day police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, when thousands in San Francisco and elsewhere took to the streets to protest police violence against Black and brown people.

Plaintiffs attorneys claim that from May 31 to June 7, San Francisco police accessed real-time surveillance footage from private cameras in the Union Square area without first obtaining necessary approval from the Board of Supervisors.

A 2019 San Francisco ordinance bans city agencies from using, borrowing or acquiring surveillance technology without prior approval from supervisors in all but emergency circumstances. The cameras tied to the suit are owned and operated by a private entity, the Union Square Business Improvement District.

Hope Williams, an activist who organized a June 2 protest in San Francisco and who serves as the cases lead plaintiff, said tapping the surveillance cameras was a tactic to keep people from speaking out.

Williams and two other activists suing the city are represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation  a San Francisco-based nonprofit that focuses on privacy protections  and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

Saira Hussain, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said such dragnet police monitoring could cause a chilling effect on future demonstrations.

It makes it so that people think twice before they venture out to these protests, she said. It makes the job harder for organizers like Hope, who try to bring people out and get them to participate and speak up to try to end police violence against Black communities.

The plaintiffs are not seeking monetary damages, but rather a court order that would compel police to follow the city ban on surveillance technologies.

San Francisco police declined to comment on the lawsuit, deferring instead to the City Attorneys Office. A spokesman for the office provided two letters in which San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott addresses the incident to members of the Board of Supervisors.

In the letters, Scott stated that the looting and civil unrest following some of the early protests warranted an exigent circumstance that would allow police to bypass supervisor approval.

While Scott acknowledged that the departments Homeland Security Unit requested a live-feed link to the camera network on May 31, he said it was not ultimately used.

The remote link was requested ... to access only if the arson, violence and looting continued, Scott wrote in a Sept. 9 response to inquiries by Supervisor Aaron Peskin. The criminal activity did not continue in the (camera networks) service area, subsequently HSU did not monitor any activity, including first amendment activities, through the remote live access link.

Hussain said the city ordinance allows police to receive a tip, including a piece of surveillance footage from a non-city actor, without previous board approval. Such is often the case when police receive security camera footage of a specific crime or suspect.

But this case isnt about a tip or even a targeted investigation, Hussain said. Its about SFPD harvesting a private camera network for an entire week of dragnet, real-time surveillance, in blatant violation of the law.

Plaintiffs attorneys argue that there was no exigent circumstance that exempted the department from obtaining approval to tap the camera feeds. San Francisco code defines exigent circumstances as emergencies involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person.

The suit comes just weeks after police were accused of potentially violating another surveillance-related ordinance by circumventing a ban on facial-recognition technology. Police said another agency proactively provided its own facial-recognition results after San Francisco police sent out a crime alert bulletin with a photo of a gun suspect.

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The results were later used by San Francisco police to build a case against the suspect, who was charged with assault with a semiautomatic firearm, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence and other gun charges. Prosecutors are now reviewing whether the case can be supported by other, independent evidence.

Emails obtained and released by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in July show how San Francisco police requested and were granted access to the Union Square Business Improvement Districts web of cameras, which include remote zoom and focus capabilities. The network covers blocks from Bush and Market streets to the north and south, and from Taylor and Mason streets to Kearny Street going west to east.

Business improvement districts, also called community benefit districts, are run by clusters of property owners who tax themselves to pay for services beyond what the city provides, like extra street cleaning or homelessness outreach.

The suit states that on the morning of May 31, an officer from San Francisco Police Departments Homeland Security Unit emailed the Union Square Business Improvement District to request real-time access to its cameras on Market Street to monitor the potential violence today for situational awareness and enhanced response.

An email response that same morning shows the district allowed police 48-hour access to remote use of the cameras, according to the suit.

A follow-up email from police on June 2 requested a five-day extension of the access, stating, We have several planned (demonstrations) all week and we anticipate several more over the weekend. This request was also granted, according to the lawsuit.

On June 10, the suit states, an officer sent another email to the district thanking it for the use of your cameras. The cameras, the officer stated, were extremely helpful in giving us situational awareness and ensuring public safety during the multiple demos that came through the area.

It is unclear from the suit exactly what police obtained, but the cameras would have likely captured at least one of the plaintiffs protests during the dates police had apparent access. That demonstration began at City Hall and marched east on Market Street, including past areas where USBIDs cameras are located, the suit states.

Representatives from the business improvement district did not respond to requests for comment.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
WATERLOO REGION  The Region of Waterloo is providing a new accessibility option by launching virtual interpretation services.

Due to COVID-19, many of our services are now offered virtually, said Regional Chair Karen Redman. Enhancing our existing interpretation services will improve accessibility for people with language barriers or hearing disabilities.

Telephone access to interpreters in more than 240 languages is already available. With virtual interpretation, the region can offer additional languages including American and British sign language.

Many clients we serve feel isolated due to language barriers. Interpretation is crucial to gaining access to the programs and services they need, including financial help, said the regions chief administrative officer, Bruce Lauckner. Going virtual will enable the use of important visual cues, such as body language.
Following his arraignment over unsavoury remarks against the First Family, Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi now claims his security detail has been withdrawn and that his life is in danger.

The lawmaker on Tuesday sought orders compelling the National Police Service to reinstate his security.

He filed an application before Nakuru Senior Resident Magistrate K. I. Orege through his lawyer, Kipkoech Ng'etich.

Mr Ng'etich told the court that his client's bodyguard was recalled on September 14 after he pleaded to the charges of hate speech and offensive conduct.

He said there was no notice from the Inspector-General of Police or the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and that the action left his client exposed to danger.

"The withdrawal of my client's security detail, without notice or a hearing, was in violation of the right to fair administrative action. Considering his regular interaction with members of the public and his oversight role as a Member of Parliament, the action is likely to put his life in danger," said Mr Ng'etich.

The lawyer urged the court to order immediate reinstatement of the security or issue summons for the IG to appear in court and explain why he withdrew Mr Sudi's bodyguard.

Prosecution's arguments

The prosecution, led by Mr Daniel Karuri, downplayed the application and sought to have it dismissed for having no relation with the ongoing criminal matter.

Mr Karuri said the prosecution cannot respond to the application since security matters are not within its mandate.

Mr Sudi is accused of using abusive and threatening words against the First Family, which were likely to cause a breach of peace and stir ethnic hatred.

Mr Sudi was arrested on September 12 after presenting himself at Langas Police Station in Kapseret.

He denied the charges and was released on a Sh1 million bond or Sh500,000 cash bail.

The court will deliver a ruling on his application on Wednesday.
Joe Biden, a native of Scranton, led Donald Trump by 13 points in Pennsylvania, a state crucial to his re-election hopes, according to a poll released Wednesday.

Biden was ahead, 54% to 41% in the Quinnipiac University Poll among likely voters in the commonwealth, which narrowly went for Trump four years ago. It came a day after the Monmouth University Poll gave Biden an 11-point lead, 54% to 43%, among likely voters with a high level of turnout.

Other recent polls also made Biden the favorite to carry this battleground state. Biden led Trump, 49%-42% in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, and 54%-45% in an ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Biden had an advantage of 7.1 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics polling average. Both the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections gave Democrats a slight edge.

The presidents hopes for re-election are growing dimmer by the day, Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy said.

Both Trumps debate performance and his bout with the coronavirus appeared to have hurt his standing with likely Pennsylvania voters, according to the poll.

More than 4 in 10 likely voters, 46%, said they thought less favorably of Trump after the debate, with 7% sating they thought more favorably of the president. Another 44% said it had no impact.

Who came out less battered and bruised after the debate debacle?" Malloy said. "The numbers suggest if it wasnt a knockout, it was certainly a TKO for Biden.

In addition, 58% of likely voters disapproved of the way Trump was handling the coronavirus, with 40% approving. Last month, 55% disapproved and 43% approved.

President Trump comes under further pressure in Pennsylvania where voters give him low marks on decency, empathy and honesty," Quinnipiac polling analyst Mary Snow said. "On issues, the pandemic is overshadowing all others right now and voters express more confidence in former Vice President Joe Biden to handle the coronavirus response.

The poll of 1,211 likely voters was conducted Oct. 1-5 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

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Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com.
Cadence Group is proud to present at the virtual ARMA InfoCon 2020, occurring this year October 26-30. Cadence Group speakers have 6 approved time slots, detailed below. Go to the ARMA Infocon Site for the full schedule at https://www.arma.org/page/ARMAInfoCon2020Schedule. You register for this virtual event at https://www.arma.org/general/register_member_type.asp?.

Tina Teree Baker, IGP, Cadence Group CEO and President and Scott Wandstrat, Esq., Chief Litigation Officer at Kindred at Home are presenting Privacy and Risk Mitigation Lessons Learned From COVID-19 on October 29th from 11:10am  12pm. In the session, Tina and Scott will discuss strategies for effectively protect PII when working remotely. Participants should walk away able to redefine remote workforce policies to protect data privacy and identify topics a comprehensive privacy awareness program should cover.

Michael P. Allen, MBA, CRM, IGP is presenting Building the Foundation of a Disaster-Resistant IG Program on October 27th from 11:10am  12pm. In the session, Mike will discuss how the pandemic exposed a stark divide in disaster preparedness, and how information governance leaders must take action to ensure the survivability of their organizations. Attendants of his presentation will augment their disaster recovery toolkit by recognizing the IG program elements that impact business sustainability, apply lessons learned from the pandemic to bridge key gaps in their IG programs, and identify metrics needed to persuade organizational leaders to invest in a strong IG foundation.

Cadence Group speakers will record 3 on-Demand presentations that will be available to conference registrants.

Mary Beth Weaver, CRM, MLS, PMP, is recording two On-Demand Rapid Fire presentations, which are fast-paced (no more than 15 minutes!) talks on key aspects of the profession. The first presentation, Privacy & RIM: Were All in it Together, will demonstrate how key privacy and Records & Information Management (RIM) statutes fit within the Information Governance (IG) framework, the challenges and values of those programs, and how they can work together to better meet their goals.

Mary Beths second On-Demand presentation, The Case for RIM  Even as AI Increases, will explore ways Artificial Intelligence (AI) will change  but not replace  RIM. She will identify advantages and challenges associated with using AI to manage records, distinguish truth from the hype, and anticipate how properly leveraging AI may change the RIM profession for the better  hard to do in 15 minutes!

Mike Allen will also be recording a longer (50 minute) On-Demand session  Need Records Cleanup ROI? Then Lets Get Physical!,  where he will provide clear evidence that ROT (Redundant, Outdated, Transitory information) removal and retention schedule management bring real benefits to organizations. Participants will gain awareness of the risks and costs of a bloated physical records inventory, easy-to-use physical cleanup ROI formulas to compel management into action, and will be able demonstrate how physical records cleanup can help fund electronic records cleanup.

Cadence Groups Kiji Burston, MBA, IGP will be a part of a panel session with Mark Buchanan. This will be a part of the Creating Structure and Improving Process track. The topics for the panel will be announced closer to the opening date. Keep an eye on the schedule which you can view on the ARMA website - https://www.arma.org/page/ARMAInfoCon2020Schedule!

Cadence Group has over 25 years of government prime contract experience. The company, with offices in Atlanta and Washington DC, provides support to government and commercial sector clients. Services include health IT, information governance, software evaluation and integration, records and information management, knowledge management, information architecture, web graphics and design, business process improvement, and project and program management. For more information, please visit our website - https://cadence-group.com/.
New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE), the government agency charged with helping New Zealand businesses to grow internationally, is bringing Taste New Zealand Week to Al Jazira supermarkets Zinj branch in Bahrain next week.

Consumers will be able to sample some of the island nations top food brands at the supermarket from October 15 to 21.

Part of the Made with Care government campaign, Taste New Zealand Week will showcase the produce of over 20 brands from dairy, meat, seafood and health & wellness categories.

The event aims to highlight the special connection New Zealand producers have to the land and sea; a relationship founded on care and respect, and an inherent understanding that when nature thrives, we all thrive. Visitors will be able to sample the brands on offer throughout the week-long event.

A world leader in food safety and product traceability, New Zealand is a trusted supplier of quality products and ingredients to more than 140 countries, a statement said.

New Zealands nutrient-rich soil, lush pastures, temperate climate and unspoiled coastlines, combined with the care, attention and expertise of its producers delivers delicious, world-class food and drink, bursting with incredible flavour.

Ahmad Zakkout, Trade Commissioner for Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait & Oman at New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, said: New Zealand is blessed with exceptional natural resources and an environment perfect for producing food and beverages. Bringing Taste New Zealand Week to Bahrain, in partnership with leading supermarket Al Jazira, is a great opportunity to showcase our premium products to local consumers. It is the care inspired by the unique connection our people have with the land and sea that enables us to turn our natural advantage into truly outstanding food and beverages. Care is what drives us to produce tasty, premium quality, safe, nutritious and ethical food.

Al Jazira has been providing a unique and exclusive selection of products from across the globe to the citizens of Bahrain since 1965. Commenting on the opportunity to showcase premium New Zealand products to their customers, Ujjal Mukherjee, Group General Manager at Al Jazira, said: New Zealands reputation for high quality natural produce and environmental sustainability is undeniable. We want to offer our customers a great variety of products, but most importantly, products of the highest quality from a place you can trust. New Zealand food and drink is consistently award-winning and is a great addition to our offering - we are excited to see what our consumers think.

New Zealand exports more than half the food it produces, delivering premium-quality food and beverage products to millions of people across the world. Generations of knowledge and experience means the people know how to get the very best from nature, which might explain why they are the worlds biggest dairy exporter and known around the globe for their lamb, beef, apples, kiwifruit, honey, rock lobster, and processed foods.

New Zealands highly transparent and rigorous food safety system, overseen by the New Zealand Government, includes clear food safety laws that apply across the food production supply chain. It ensures food is safe to eat, risks are identified and managed, and that New Zealands reputation for stringent food safety is upheld. Any food exported from New Zealand must also meet strict export laws, the statement said. -TradeArabia News Service
Meggitt Training Systems (the Company), the global leader in integrated live-fire and virtual weapons training solutions for military and law enforcement clients, today announced its new name, InVeris Training Solutions, effective immediately. InVeris connotes insight and truth. The rebranding reflects the Companys pride in standing behind the bravest, best-trained men and women around the world and to providing comprehensive training solutions that prepare them to act at a moments notice to protect the communities and countries they serve. The Company remains headquartered in Suwanee, GA and partners with clients in the US and around the world from facilities on five continents.

Over the past few months, we have undertaken a very thorough and thoughtful exercise to more closely align our name and brand with our values in service of safety, said Andrea Czop, Vice President of Strategy, Sales and Marketing. InVeris means trust and integrity  values that are core to our clients and that we live every day. Our clients give their all, and were honored and proud to serve those who keep us safe with excellence. Because we know that when our clients are prepared, and their people are safe, we all stay safe.

As part of the rebranding, InVeris Training Solutions has also introduced a new logo, corporate colors, and website, InVerisTraining.com. The Company retains its ownership of its legacy brands, FATS and Caswell technologies, the industry pioneers in the virtual and live fire training arenas, respectively.

Czop continued: As we enter a new phase of growth in US and international markets, our commitment to our employees, clients, and partners remains our top priority. Weve always backed our clients with quality products, proven innovations and dedicated support. Well continue to do that as we move ahead.

InVeris Training Solutions combines an agile approach with an unmatched expertise in training technology to design and deliver customized, cutting-edge training solutions that keep military, law enforcement, and private and commercial range clients safe, prepared and ready to serve  Because Seconds Matter. The Company has fielded over 15,000 live-fire ranges and 5,100 virtual training systems globally in its 90-year history, and it is the Simulation Training Program of Record for Domestic and International military forces. The Companys advanced training solutions prepare clients in more than 55 countries to safely protect the communities they serve.

More information can be found at InVerisTraining.com.

About InVeris Training Solutions

InVeris Training Solutions combines an agile approach with an unmatched expertise in training technology to design and deliver customized, cutting-edge, first-rate training solutions that keep military, law enforcement, private and commercial range clients safe, prepared and ready to serve  Because Seconds Matter. With a portfolio of technology-enabled training solutions, and a team of more than 400 employees driven to innovate, InVeris Training Solutions is the global leader in integrated live-fire and virtual weapons training solutions. With its legacy companies, FATS and Caswell, InVeris Training Solutions has fielded over 15,000 live-fire ranges and 5,100 virtual systems globally during its 90-year history. The Company is headquartered in Suwanee, Georgia and partners with clients in the US and around the world from facilities on five continents.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005137/en/
The Pacific island territory of New Caledonia held a second referendum on independence from France on Sunday, following a previous plebiscite in 2018.

Just over 53 percent opted for the status quo, down on the 56 percent majority in the first referendum. Turnout was above 85 percent of the 180,000 enrolled, exceeding the 81 percent return in 2018. That referendum was marked by a surge in support by pro-independence indigenous Kanaks, defying polls that had forecast a 70-30 percent split.

A Yes vote would have initiated a limited transition period to transfer the remaining sovereign powers, relating to justice, defence, policing, monetary policy and foreign affairs.

The Southern Province, encompassing the capital Noumea, which is the most populous and richest, overwhelmingly voted against independence while the mainly Kanak Northern Province and the Loyalty Islands emphatically voted for independence. The Parti Travailliste and USTKE trade union confederation, which had called for non-participation in the 2018 referendum, campaigned for a Yes vote this time.

People attend a referendum in Noumea, New Caledonia, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Mathurin Derel)

New Caledonia has been on the United Nations so-called decolonisation list since 1986, but this is resisted by the French ruling elite. With a major French military presence, it is strategically significant. As the US-led build-up against China has intensified, French influence is being boosted. The Pacific Islands Forum, which includes Australia and New Zealand, agreed in 2016 to admit New Caledonia and French Polynesia as members. France had been pushing for membership for its territories since 2003.

Frances ruling En Marche party called for a vote against independence, as did the Union des Democrates Independants (UDI) and Marine Le Pens far-right National Rally. Le Pen warned that a victory for independence would lead to uncertainty, danger and tears. In a statement on the outcome, President Emmanuel Macron said that as head of state, he saluted the show of confidence in the Republic with a profound feeling of gratitude.

Under agreements signed as part of the Matignon Accord (1988) and Noumea Accord (1998), three referenda on independence were provided for. A third of legislators in the Congress are required to request the final plebiscite, which would be held in two years. Following elections in 2019, a grouping of anti-independence parties, with a minority of the popular vote, controls 28 Congress seats while pro-independence parties hold 26.

Voting for the referenda is restricted to indigenous Kanaks and residents who have lived in New Caledonia continuously since 1994. Another 40,000 adults can only vote in French and local council elections.

Sundays result will further entrench the deep social divisions between the largely impoverished Kanaks and the more privileged, mainly European, layers. Anti-independence proponents are already calling for New Caledonias formal re-integration into France under a new statute while Kanak leaders insist that independence is inevitable.

Roch Wamytan, a leading member of the largest independence party, Union Caledonienne, told the Guardian the independence campaign would continue to the next referendum, and beyond. If the no wins again in two years, well get together, well talk, and well figure something out, he said.

New Caledonia was established as a French colonial possession in 1853, and used as a penal colony. The indigenous Kanaks make up nearly 40 percent of the 271,000 population. The Kanaks were removed from their land, forced onto reservations and subject to the Indignat, a code of native regulations, which gave them inferior legal status. Uprisings occurred in 1878 and 1917.

Today Kanaks make up 95 percent of the unemployed and many low-paid workers live in slum conditions. Police clashes with Kanak youth have erupted with increasing violence, prompting demands by local politicians for harsher law and order measures.

Meanwhile, descendants of the original European settlers known as Caldoches, French public servants, military personnel and business employees occupy expensive residences overlooking the tourist beaches and yacht harbours.

A virtual civil war simmered throughout much of the 1980s. Tensions came to a head in 1988 when a group of Kanaks captured the gendarmerie on the island of Ouvea, killed four gendarmes and took 27 hostages. Some 300 troops were flown in under the command of the head of the French elite anti-terrorist squad. The military stormed the cave where the Kanaks were holed up, killing 21 Kanaks and 2 policemen. The French troops reportedly tortured and beat civilians during the massacre.

The then minority Socialist Party government in Paris moved to bring the crisis under control. Prime Minister Rocard brokered the Matignon Accord, which was billed as a compromise between the independence movement, led by Jean-Marie Tjibaou of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste-FLNKS), and anti-independence leader Jacques Lafleur.

The accord, which set out the long-term process for independence, was ratified by an 81 percent majority in a plebiscite in which, however, only 37 percent of the electorate voted. The result failed to quell the aspirations of the pro-independence Kanak nationalists.

Fearing a possible flare-up of the troubles, the independence issue was buried by adopting the Noumea Accord which is the current framework defining the territorys governance. When it was signed in 1998, it was a tripartite deal involving the French state, the anti-independence Rally for Caledonia in the Republic (RPCR) and the FLNKS.

New Caledonias economy is underpinned by annual subsidies from France of 1.3 billion ($US1.48 billion), while French companies retain significant economic interests. The main island, Grande Terre, has the worlds largest nickel deposits, about a quarter of all known reserves. It is also the second largest cobalt producer. Nickel is critically important in the defence industry, and has been designated a strategic material to ensure the French state can maintain a close watch over its production and distribution.

The global coronavirus pandemic has escalated uncertainty. With just 28 cases of COVID-19, the government has set up strict quarantine measures for international travellers. The global recession has heavily impacted tourism, transport and the export of nickel.

An economic crisis is unfolding. The Brazilian owner of the huge Vale nickel plant put its 95 percent stake up for sale in December after losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars as the world nickel price has plummeted.

Last month an Australian buyer, New Century Resources, withdrew its bid triggering fears of the sites closure. The offer was opposed by pro-independence parties and Kanak chiefs because it included plans to export nickel ore rather than have it processed locally.

Vale has threatened to stop its operation by the end of October if no new buyer is found. The sites possible closure and loss of 3,000 jobs threaten a meltdown of New Caledonias economy and social security systems. Two local bidders have come forward but there has been no word if Vale will accept any of the offers.

New Caledonias main trade union umbrella group, LUnion des syndicats des ouvriers et employes de Nouvelle-Caledonie (USOENC), last month called a toothless rally in Noumea to divert growing anger into a demand for the sale to be extended by six months. USOENC has not acted on a threat of a general strike.
When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled The Double Helix on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama, filled with colorful characters, about ambition and competition in the pursuit of natures wonders. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didnt become scientists, she decided she would.

She would help to make what the books author, James Watson, later told her was the most important biological advance since he and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA. She worked with a brilliant Parisian biologist named Emmanuelle Charpentier to turn a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as Crispr, it ushered in a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.

For this accomplishment, on Wednesday they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. It is a recognition that the development of Crispr will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, the computer and the internet. Now we are entering a life-science era. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study the code of life. It will be a revolution that will someday allow us to cure diseases, fend off virus pandemics and (if we decide its wise) to design babies with the genetic features we want for them.

Crispr is especially relevant in this year of the coronavirus. The gene-editing tool that Dr. Doudna and Dr. Charpentier developed is based on a virus-fighting trick used by bacteria, which have been battling viruses for billions of years. In their DNA, bacteria develop clustered repeated sequences, known as Crisprs, that can remember and then destroy viruses that attack them. In other words, its an immune system that can adapt itself to fight each new wave of viruses  just what we humans need in an era that has been plagued by repeated viral epidemics.
Perhaps it takes pure passion to imagine building a company in the semiconductor and wireless technologies space dominated by the likes of Intel, Qualcomm, Huawei. But it takes sheer madness to imagine building it in India. But then again, it's pure passion, grit and a little bit of crazy that serve to whip up a cocktail of success in the startup world.

Meet Saankhya Labs, a startup based in India's tech hub, which builds software-defined radio access networks.

Started in 2007 by hardcore engineering professionals Parag Naik, Vishwakumara Kayargadde and Hemant Mallapur, the startup boasts a list of 65 international patents. To compare, San Diego-based Qualcomm, which is valued around $135 billion and is the leader in chipset technologies world over, has more than a lakh patents. So it's been a long journey for this Bengaluru-based company, but the basic foundation is already getting built.

Saankhya manufactures components which - in laymans terms - can convert radio signals into electronic signals for smart device processors to read. These can be used in telecom equipment, communication systems and even satellite-based communications.

The 5G Opportunity

With 5G technology coming in, the world is at the cusp of a telecom revolution. This will enable players like Saankhya Labs which has massive capabilities in software-defined radio technology to benefit in terms of business. The company is working on open and virtualised radio access network solutions that will enable telecom operators to optimise spectrum use and reduce cost of ownership.

Earlier the industry only had vendor-specific hardware, now a lot of open frameworks are creating fresh business opportunities, said Naik.

With 3G and 4G telecom systems, the core hardware and software components were integrated. But now with 5G, Naik said, telecom systems will also be managed, deployed and provisioned like IT infrastructure. This will open up new business avenues for companies like Saankhya Labs.

The beginning of the journey

We were a bunch of crazy guys to even imagine building something like this, but we did, said Naik, co-founder, Saankhya Labs.

Saankhya Labs is the second venture for the team that first started Smart Yantra Technologies back in 1999, during the dot com boom. Naik said that they had built technology related to screen casting, which was too early at that point in time. The company was acquired by American company Genesis Microchip in 2004, and eventually in 2007 the same team got together to start Saankhya Labs.

A bunch of angels had gotten good returns from our previous acquisition, hence they supported us this time too and we got Saankhya Labs up and running, Naik said.

Even if VC money has been hard to come by, the company has managed to start making money in the business. As per latest financials sourced from business intelligence platform Tacxn, in FY18-19 Saankhya Labs made a net profit of Rs 19 crore on an overall revenue of Rs 76 crore. In FY17-18, it had a revenue of Rs 51 crore and reported a net profit of Rs 5 crore.

Capital Hungry

Building a deep tech startup needs tons of capital, something that has not been easy to come by for Saankhya Labs. The startup did get investors like Intel and General Motors, but they have exited now, making way for American company Sinclair Broadcasting Group. The last funding round was in March 2019, when the company raised $13 million.

It is very difficult to explain our business model to venture capitalists, so much so that I do not even talk to Indian investor circles, we have to look outside for capital, Naik said.

Naik understands the conundrum of local VCs who may be reluctant to invest in such a venture. First, most of the investors, Naik believes, are from business backgrounds and hence do not understand core engineering products. Second, VCs need to make money in a short time and deep tech startups are never built in a few years. Players like these need patient capital which can only give returns after 10 to 15 years. Such capital is difficult to come by.

Mostly VCs prefer to put money in me too startups, he said.

Customer Profile

Typically, for a startup like Saankhya, a telecom company could be a customer, and they are in talks with multiple operators for deployment of their solution across the United States and the European Union.

This is where the current geo-political tensions have played in its favour. Given China-based Huawei is facing a lot of heat from the United States, many other startups are seeing a glimmer of hope in grabbing market share in the US. Even in India, local telecom companies are looking at indigenous solutions to promote the Atmanirbhar scheme.

The current technology upgradation tender for 4G services from BSNL is on the radar of the company.

Saankhya Labs has also participated in a programme with the Indian Railways where trains are being tracked using satellite data. Its systems have helped power tracking of trains within an interval of 15 seconds, monitoring their movement and ensuring they run on time.

It was started with around 3,000 trains, now they are looking to fit these trackers on another 6,000 trains. If every train comes fitted with these devices, it can help increase safety of train travel as well, Naik said.

The company is also working with defence equipment manufacturers to build wireless receivers and help overhaul the communication systems of the defence forces.

As the Make in India theme gets pushed further, the defence forces are looking at Indian entities for advanced technology. Saankhya Labs with its capabilities to deploy end-to-end indigenous SDR chipsets has grabbed that opportunity.

Going Forward

Naik and his team understand that massive business opportunities lie in the western world where technology is more advanced and procurement systems are much more organised. While they will continue looking for business opportunities in India, they will double down on their plans in the US and Europe. While their research and development centres are in India, Saankhya Labs has an American subsidiary and wants to scale up its presence there.

We are also looking for growth funding, talking to multiple strategic partners in the United States, said Naik. The company is looking for $15 to 20 million of growth funds to secure a business runway over the next four to five years.

Now, given the aversion towards using Chinese technology in India and the US, the homegrown company believes their time has finally come. They say Make hay while the sun shines and perhaps the next few years is going to be their time under the sun.
A mobile-phone app that shows travelers to be Covid-free will begin trials this month, a potential step toward speeding the resumption of long-haul flights.

The CommonPass application will be tested on United Airlines services between Newark and London and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. trips from Hong Kong to Singapore, the World Economic Forum, which backs the plan, said Wednesday.

Volunteers must take a coronavirus test at a certified lab and upload results onto their phones, with the app generating a barcode to show that theyre disease-free. Authorities including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will observe the process.

International travel has barely revived from a total lockdown as national restrictions and quarantines continue to limit services and put people off flying. The CommonPass app could help form the basis of a standardized system to overcome those curbs, according to the WEF, after slow progress with airport testing and so-called travel corridors aimed at restarting flights.

The WEF said it developed the app alongside the Commons Project Foundation, a non-profit public trust.

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NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger met with NCUA Board Member Todd Harper Monday to discuss several top credit union priorities, including the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF), field of membership (FOM), credit unions capitalization of interest, and more. NAFCU Executive Vice President of Government Affairs and General Counsel Carrie Hunt and Director of Regulatory Affairs Ann Kossachev also attended the meeting.

On the NCUSIF, Berger discussed the associations advocacy related to the NCUAs management of the NCUSIF and credit union investment authority. Recently, NAFCU Vice President of Research and Chief Economist Curt Long advised the NCUA Board to consider measures to allow credit unions additional investments  even on a temporary basis  rather than assess a premium to lower the ratio.

In addition, members of NAFCUs Share Insurance Fund (SIF) Committee heard directly from NCUA Chief Financial Officer Eugene Schied on this topic during the committees October meeting.

The group went on to discuss credit unions capitalization of interest under Appendix B to Part 741. In September, NAFCU Board of Directors Chair Debra Schwartz, president and CEO of Mission Federal Credit Union (San Diego, Calif.), and NAFCUs Regulatory Committee called on the NCUA to act quickly to issue an interim final rule [IFR] permitting credit unions to capitalize interest when it comes to troubled debt restructurings (TDRs) and loan modifications.
The Nobel Prize 2020 in chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna "for development of method for genome editing". The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in a statement, said Charpentier and Doudna have discovered one of gene technology's sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. Emmanuelle Charpentier works at Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, Berlin, Germany, and Jennifer A Doudna at University of California, Berkeley, USA.

"Using these, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision. This technology has had a revolutionary impact on the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases come true," the academy statement said.

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said researchers need to modify genes in cells if they are to find out about life's inner workings. This used to be time-consuming, difficult and sometimes impossible work. "Using the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors, it is now possible to change the code of life over the course of a few weeks," it added.

Charpentier published her discovery in 2011. The same year, she initiated a collaboration with Jennifer Doudna, an experienced biochemist with vast knowledge of RNA. Together, they succeeded in recreating the bacteria's genetic scissors in a test tube and simplifying the scissors' molecular components so they were easier to use, the statement added.

Since Charpentier and Doudna discovered the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors in 2012, their use has exploded. This tool has contributed to many important discoveries in basic research, and plant researchers have been able to develop crops that withstand mold, pests and drought.

In medicine, clinical trials of new cancer therapies are underway, and the dream of being able to cure inherited diseases is about to come true. These genetic scissors have taken the life sciences into a new epoch and, in many ways, are bringing the greatest benefit to humankind. Yesterday, the academy had announced the Nobel Prize in physics to Briton Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for black hole-related discoveries.

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Also read: 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics awarded to Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / VanGold Mining Corp (the "Company" or "VanGold") (TSXV:VGLD) reports assays from channel sampling of an underground vein exposure encountered at its El Pinguico silver and gold project, located 7km south of Guanajuato, Mexico.

Sampling of Exposed Underground Vein:

The Company reports assays of channel samples taken from safely accessible pillars and stope walls within an ore shoot of the El Pinguico vein system between the 4th and 6th levels (from approximately 130m to 185m below surface), covering an area approximately 55 meters in height, by 60 meters in width and where the stopped out area, plus remaining vein material, ranges from 1.5 meters to 5.5 meters wide. This exposure is adjacent to the El Pinguico shaft where crews continue to remove material blocking access to the #7 adit level.

Sample number Sample Length Gold - gpt Silver - gpt AuEq - gpt* AgEq - gpt* Q96141 1.6m 1.72 629.6 9.59 767.2 Q96230 1.8m 0.80 273.7 4.22 337.7 Q96231 1.3m 0.84 146.3 2.67 213.3 Q96232 1.3m 4.00 403.6 9.05 723.6 Q96233 0.9m 3.22 480.5 9.23 738.1 Q96235 1.0m 1.68 280.0 5.18 414.4 Q96236 1.0m 4.11 430.7 9.49 759.5 Q96237 1.2m 2.15 304.0 5.95 476.0 Q96238 1.6m 0.80 157.0 2.77 221.3 Q96239 1.2m 4.59 465.9 10.41 833.1 Q96240 0.4m 2.43 599.4 9.92 793.8 Weighted Average Grades 2.50 363.0 6.71 536.8 gpt Au gpt Ag gpt AuEq gpt AgEq

*Gold equivalent and silver equivalent numbers are calculated at 80:1 silver to gold price ratio.

This underground vein material was not extracted when the mine was operational from the late 1890's until 1913, despite it being immediately adjacent to the El Pinguico shaft, presumably because the material would not have exceeded the mine's extraordinary cut-off grade at that time of approximately 15 grams of gold equivalent per tonne. The results of this sampling have given the Company added confidence that significant amounts of good grade material, left when mining ceased over a century ago, remain to be identified within and adjacent to the El Pinguico historic workings.

Said VanGold Mining director William Gehlen, geologist and epithermal system expert: "There are a lot of things to like about these results, and chief among them is the uniformity of good grades from what was historically considered waste rock. Historical geologic reports that discuss the El Pinguico vein system comment on the consistency of high-grade distribution within the veins. If VanGold continues to find these sorts of grades in the wall rocks left behind by previous mining, the residual material could represent a significant resource and the potential to find additional and wider vein zones of potentially economic grades in unexplored parts of the system seems possible".

VanGold County Manager Gerardo Dorado Cantu commented: "We have always known that El Pinguico was a silver mine accompanied by high gold values, however in this particular portion of the vein system, the silver to gold ratio is approximately 145:1, easily making silver the most important potentially economic component. When drilling commences in late November, we will be able to develop a better understanding of the grade distribution of both gold and silver within different parts of the El Pinguico vein, and within different vein systems that are present on the property."

Carlos Cham, VanGold consulting geologist, stated: "The sampled material was principally an oxidized, brecciated quartz vein composed of vuggy, open-space filling of quartz and calcite with a strong manganese overprint and locally disseminated pyrite."

As noted in the Company's News Release of Sept. 24, 2020 VanGold has purchased an underground drill rig which is scheduled for delivery in the third week of November. The planned initial underground drill program will consist of approximately 14 drill holes, totalling approximately 2230m of HQ and /or NQ diamond drilling. Drilling will initially focus on the Don Ricardo target area, shown on page 8 of this presentation, immediately south of the area sampled and reported on in this news release.

Clearing of the El Pinguico Shaft:

The Company continues to focus on clearing the remaining 15m of material blocking access from the El Pinguico shaft to the #7 adit level. The pace of clearing of this material has now accelerated, as we have added a second shift to do this work. The Company plans to sample the bottom of its underground stockpile once access is achieved (see "Underground Stockpile" below). As noted in a prior news release, on September 19, 2020, the Company's winch system failed to operate properly due to a worn drive shaft. This malfunction has now been rectified and good progress is again being made on this undertaking.

The El Pinguico Project:

El Pinguico is a high-grade gold and silver deposit that was mined from the early 1890s until 1913. Toward the end of that period it was mined exclusively by The Pinguico Mines Company of New York City, whose shares traded on the Boston and New York Stock Exchanges. The mining was done principally from the El Pinguico and El Carmen veins, which are thought to be splays off the Mother Vein, or 'Veta Madre'.

The Veta Madre is associated with a mega fault that outcrops for 25 kilometres and is the most important source of precious metal mineralization in the region. Current geologic interpretation, based on regional mapping and projections from the Veta Madre developed at adjacent historic mine operations, suggest that the Veta Madre vein system may cross VanGold's property at depth, underneath the high grade El Pinguico and El Carmen veins. Very limited drilling has been done on the property and no drilling has yet attempted to encounter the Veta Madre at depth. The intersection of these major vein structures are excellent exploration targets and may result in zones of significant size and grades.

Methodology and quality assurance/quality control:

The analytical work reported on herein was performed by SGS Mexico, S.A de C.V, Durango, Mexico. SGS is an ISO/IEC (International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission) geo-analytical laboratory and is independent of VanGold and its "qualified person". Channel samples were subject to crushing at a minimum of 70 per cent passing two millimetres, followed by pulverizing of a 250-gram split to 85 per cent passing 75 microns. Gold determination was via standard atomic absorption (AA) finish 30-gram fire assay (FA) analysis, in addition to Silver and 34-element using fire assay and gravimetry termination. VanGold follows industry-standard procedures for the work carried out on the El Pinguico silver-gold project, with a quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) program. Blank, duplicate and standard samples were inserted into the sample sequence sent to the laboratory for analysis. Data verification of the analytical results included a statistical analysis of the standards and blanks that must pass certain parameters for acceptance to ensure accurate and verifiable results. VanGold detected no significant QA/QC issues during review of the data and is not aware of any sampling, recovery or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy or reliability of the data referred to herein.

Hernan Dorado Smith, a director of VanGold and a "qualified person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has verified the data and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this news release.

Underground Stockpile:

Sampling the bottom of the underground stockpile: The underground (UG) stockpile consists of material that in 2012 the Mexican Geological Survey agency determined to be 148,966 tonnes in size.1 In 2017, VanGold conducted a trenching program at the top of the UG stockpile. This program resulted in a weighted average of all of the trench samples of 1.75 g/t Au and 183 g/t silver.2

About VanGold Mining Corp.

VanGold Mining is an exploration and development company engaged in reactivating high-grade past producing silver and gold mines near the city of Guanajuato, Mexico. The Company's El Pinguico project is a significant past producer of both silver and gold located just 7km south of the city. The Company remains focused on the near-term potential for development and monetization of its surface and underground stockpiles of mineralized material at El Pinguico, and in delineating silver and gold resources through underground and surface drilling on projects located in this historic mining camp.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

"James Anderson"

Chairman and CEO

For further information regarding VanGold Mining Corp, please contact:

James Anderson, Director, +1 (778) 989-5346

Email: james@vangoldmining.com

Continue to watch our progress at: www.vangoldmining.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance (including, but not limited to, the proposed work program at the Company's El Pinquico project and the potential for near term monetization of existing stockpiles of mineralized material thereon and the potential intersection at depth of the "Veta Madre" with the Company's El Pinguico and El Carmen viens) and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected including, but not limited to, market conditions, availability of financing, currency rate fluctuations, actual results of exploration and development activities, unanticipated geological formations and characteristics, environmental risks, future prices of gold, silver and other metals, operating risks, accidents, labor issues, delays in obtaining governmental or regulatory approvals and permits, and other risks in the mining industry. In addition, there is uncertainty about the spread of COVID-19 and the impact it will have on the Company's operations, supply chains, ability to access El Pinguico or procure equipment, contractors and other personnel on a timely basis or at all and economic activity in general. All the forward-looking statements made in this news release are qualified by these cautionary statements and those in our continuous disclosure filings available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required by law.

1In 2012, "Servicio Geologico Mexicano" (the Mexican Geological Survey agency) calculated the top five meters of material as 25,600 tonnes and extrapolated the material below using topographical surveys and historic mine plans. The estimated tonnage of the UG stockpile is historic in nature, has not been verified and should not be relied upon. Additional work is required to verify the tonnage of the UG stockpile.

2 Based on 57 samples taken by VanGold in 2017 from 20 trenches (mostly historic with a few new trenches) within the UG stockpile. All samples were collected, recorded, bagged and sent by VanGold's consulting geologist to ALS Laboratory in Guadalajara, Mexico for sample preparation. Gold, silver and multi-element ICP analysis was completed at the ALS laboratory in North Vancouver, Canada. Rock samples were fine crushed (70% passing a 2mm screen), pulverized (85% passing a 75 micron screen) and a pulp split separated for assaying by a riffle splitter. 30 gram portion of each sample was assayed for gold by standard fire assay and a 10 gram split was analysed for 35 elements by ICP method. Standard reference material and blank samples were inserted into the sample stream at a 5% insertion rate with pulped samples from the underground stockpile for quality control purposes. The results of the standards and blank samples were satisfactory. All data was collected with industry standard practices and assay results were verified by Vangold's consulting geologist.

SOURCE: Vangold Mining Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609493/VanGold-Assays-5368-gpt-AgEq-or-671-gpt-AuEq-over-55m-of-Vertical-Extent-Drilling-to-Commence-in-November
Kevin J. Patel, a Loyola Marymount University sophomore, is a climate activist who has had to adjust during the pandemic. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

It was just a year ago when Kevin Patel stood before a cheering climate change rally in New York and proclaimed that his generation would be the one to change the fate of the planet.

The 20-year-old South Los Angeles local was one of millions who had taken to the streets in a primarily youth-led effort to demand action against climate change during a week of global climate strikes.

It was just quite, quite amazing, Patel recalled recently.

Today, however, as that watershed moment for a generation of young climate change activists recedes into history, Patel and others are facing a very different organizing landscape due to a global pandemic and national upheaval over police killings of Black men and women.

In the midst of stay-at-home orders brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, youth climate leaders across the country are juggling online school and Zoom fatigue, while still attempting to take action against the climate crisis and raise awareness about the inequities it amplifies. Many youth climate activists have also shifted focus toward showing up in solidarity for Black Lives Matter protests, while putting a pause on in-person organizing of their own.

"We're still here and we're not backing down," said activist Kevin Patel. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Its been hard, but they havent stopped working.

Were still here and were not backing down, said Patel, who is now living at home with his parents while Zooming into virtual classes at Loyola Marymount University.

The Global Climate Strike effort grew out of Fridays for Future, an organization started by Greta Thunberg, the 17-year-old Swedish climate activist.

This year, Fridays for Future held a global day of climate action on Sept. 25, with "online and offline" actions in 154 countries, following respective COVID-19 limitations.

Chandini Agarwal, 16, communications director of Youth Climate Strike L.A., said that since the pandemic began, their group has been striking online and embracing a different goal: The online protest is more about getting the people who are involved enthusiastic and energized about the cause. But it doesnt actually disrupt the status quo of everyday life of civilians.

Story continues

Agarwal thinks that level of disruption must be sustained in the Black Lives Matter movement. Shes showing up every Wednesday she can to the weekly protests outside the Hall of Justice in Los Angeles.

Patel is also showing up to Black Lives Matter protests.

I know if I dont go and I dont show my solidarity, then these injustices are just going to keep happening, he said. Patel protests with an extra eye toward safety, given that he has heart arrhythmias, making him more vulnerable to COVID-19. He developed this condition at age 12 and his doctors believe it may be linked to the high level of air pollution in his community in South L.A.

When were looking at the climate crisis, were not only looking at warming of the planet, were looking at how BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities are being most affected right now, Patel said. We love to separate the issues of climate justice and social justice, but thats just wrong.

In this age of coronavirus restrictions, teen activists with the international organization Extinction Rebellion have embraced street art as a new way to show up, posting fliers and stickers across Los Angeles in an act of socially distant civil disobedience, according to Kori Malia, 22, a national outreach coordinator for their L.A. chapter.

Posters put up by Extinction Rebellion youth members in Los Angeles. (Kevin Finnerty / Extinction Rebellion)

Online events have also been a success, organizers say. In April, for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, a coalition of L.A.-based climate justice organizations came together under the name MVMT-LA and led a four-day action. Even online, it felt meaningful and connective. We wanted to make sure this would not be just another rally or another virtual event, no, this was going to be how we pray, said Lex Saenz, founder of the L.A. chapter of the International Indigenous Youth Council.

Many current youth climate activists got their start, or newfound momentum, at one of last falls protests.

Malia said that being there made her realize that people could be powerful in a way that was not just in the history textbooks, but something I was living in real time.

Ozzy Simpson, 19, organized a walkout at his high school in Pasadena as part of the effort. It was his first time organizing for climate action and, unexpectedly, about 500 people showed up. Turning the corner and seeing that many people was really surprising and kind of humbling.

Now, Simpson is taking a gap year and working full time as a founding member of the Sunrise Movements L.A. Youth hub. Most of their activism happens online, through Twitter storms and long Zoom planning meetings, but they do occasionally escalate to in-person, socially distant actions. Most recently, some members of Sunrise L.A. Youth protested outside CNNs Los Angeles office to demand that they connect the climate crisis with the wildfires, with the hurricanes.

Members of Sunrise L.A. Youth strike at CNN on Sept. 17. (Sophia Herzog / Sunrise Movement)

The August-September heatwave and the ongoing, historic wildfires are generating urgency as well.

Saenz said the fires should be seen as a cry for help. Mother Earth needs help.

"In moments like these, we really must rethink the way we live on the land and set our priorities straight," said Yulu Wek, 22, member of the International Indigenous Youth Council.

When the Bay Area woke up to orange skies last month, Lizbeth Ibarra, 15, said the first thing she did was reach out to fellow members of Youth vs. Apocalypse, an Oakland-based, youth-led climate justice organization.

They group-texted about how crazy it was, then quickly sprang to action. Within a few hours, they released a video. In it, lead members of the organization filmed themselves on selfie-view, in front of windows that are orange frame-to-frame: Three years ago, when we decided our name would be Youth vs. Apocalypse, people literally laughed in our faces. As you can probably tell, the literal apocalypse is outside my window.

To do this work, youth climate activists stay busy  really busy. Patel squeezes in appearances on virtual panels and Instagram Lives between his online classes.

Sarah Goody, 16, has found new possibilities in multitasking: I can kind of do my activism during class, which I know Im probably not supposed to do. Goody is Zooming into sophomore year at her high school in Marin County and running the organizations she founded, Climate NOW and Broadway Speaks Up. Youve got the Zoom call in one tab and then on the other tab Im responding to emails, putting together graphics, sending out different newsletters.

Joe Hobbes, 17, an organizer for Fridays for Future, is taking both high school and community college classes online, organizing for the movement, and working as a barista. "It's a tricky day schedule," he said.

Its not easy, said Ibarra. I mean, were all teenagers. We have our own lives too. We have school, we have a lot to juggle. But, you know, were still in a global climate crisis."

For the record:

11:02 AM, Oct. 07, 2020: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of Lex Saenz.



This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
New York, NY, Oct. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Beyond Good, a pioneer in dark chocolate and at-origin production, today announced it has embarked upon a second phase of research with Bristol Zoological Society to study the effects of sustainable cocoa agroforestry on lemur conservation in Madagascar.

World Lemur Day is celebrated on October 30 around the world. Lemurs are mammals of the order Primates, and native only to Madagascar. Due to Madagascars highly seasonal climate, lemur evolution has produced a level of species diversity rivaling that of any other primate group. According to the IUCN Red List, 98% of lemur species are threatened with extinction while 31% are categorized as Critically Endangered, meaning they are at extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.

In working with cocoa farmers in Madagascar, we learned cocoa farms play a big role in lemur conservation, said Tim McCollum, founder and CEO, Beyond Good. We initially wanted to learn if lemurs could potentially live in cocoa forests. We were surprised to learn that not only were the lemurs already living in cocoa forests, but also they were in fact thriving.

The findings are exciting as they suggest that these highly threatened animals can live in human-dominated areas and cacao could be an example of a crop that, when grown sustainably, has the potential to benefit wildlife and people, said Dr. Amanda Webber, lecturer in conservation science, Bristol Zoological Society.

In 2016, conservation scientists embarked on phase one of the research. They spent six months working with cocoa farmers, conducting lemur surveys and monitoring plantations using night cameras and acoustic units. The research identified five species of lemurs, including three categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, living in the plantations. All 3,263 share trees in the plantations were also surveyed to understand which trees the lemurs were using.

In phase two, researchers will assess and increase connectivity between cocoa plantations and forest fragments to begin active development of habitat corridors and bolster biodiversity. Additionally, researchers will work with farmers to make agroforestry decisions that impact sustainable livelihoods and conservation.

In June 2020, a local field team on the ground in Madagascar began agroforestry and biodiversity framework to prepare for when Malagasy researchers from Bristol Zoological Society can travel to the research site. The research is expected to conclude in 2024.

The environmental stakes in Madagascar are high. Approximately 90% of plants and animal species found in Madagascar are endemic. However, because of Madagascars extreme rate of poverty, 90% of its original forest has been lost.

According to the World Cocoa Foundation, 70% of the worlds cocoa is grown in Africa; however, less than 1% of the worlds chocolate is produced there. Supply chain fragmentation drives poverty, exploitation, and environmental degradation in cocoa-producing countries. Most farmers earn less than $1USD a day. The traditional African cocoa supply chain involves three to five layers of intermediaries and requires up to 120 days in transit from farm to factory.

In contrast, there are zero layers of intermediaries in Beyond Goods supply chain in Madagascar. It takes only ten days for cocoa to become a Beyond Good chocolate bar. Farmers harvest cocoa and transport cocoa beans to the chocolate factory down the road, where the chocolate-making process continues. This model allows farmers to add value and earn six times the industry standard in wages.

The broken supply chain in the cocoa industry not only keeps farmers living in poverty but also depletes the environment. Fair wages and at-origin production sustain people and the planet. When farmers make a living wage, they can look to the future and do things like plant more trees on their farms. Addressing poverty opens the door to ecological impact, continued McCollum.

Beyond Good is the only brand in the U.S. making chocolate at source in Africa. Beyond Good currently has 375 hectares under sustainable land management to further crop diversity and 170,000 cocoa trees.





# # #

About Beyond Good

Beyond Good, a pioneer in dark chocolate and at-origin production, is the only brand in the U.S. market producing bean-to-bar chocolate at source in Africa. From an organic certified chocolate factory in Madagascar, Beyond Good produces the finest heirloom chocolate bars and employs 42 full-time employees, while providing a stable pay price for cocoa farmers. By making finished product in Africa, Beyond Good is redefining high-quality chocolate and sustainability in the chocolate industry. Its not just good, its Beyond Good. For more information, visit www.beyondgood.com and follow @eatbeyondgood on Facebook and Instagram.

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Virtual METALEX Vietnam 2020 and Supporting Industry Show 2020 adapts to the new normal with digital transformation

Vietnam has proven an attractive investment destination for foreign enterprises thanks to its relatively developed infrastructure along with improvements in living standards. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnam is expected to quickly become an attractive market for businesses.

Vu Trong Tai, general manager of Reed Tradex Vietnam, the organiser of METALEX Vietnam 2020 said that, This is due to the constantly moving economy, various strategic investment promotion policies, along with the trade agreements signed recently. According to the newly published Global Economic Outlook report by Oxford Economics, the recovery prospects look brightest for Vietnam and the country is expected to be the only Southeast Asian economy to record positive growth this year.

On the same note, Hirai Shinji, chief representative of Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) in Ho Chi Minh City cited a JETRO survey about the overseas operations of Japanese companies from November 5 to December 23, 2019. Regarding the countries and regions where firms aim to expand business overseas, among firms that answered "currently have an overseas base and are planning to further expand operations", the ratio of firms citing China was 48.1 per cent.

This result, being below 50 per cent for the first time in two years, is a significant drop from the previous year (55.4 per cent). Vietnam ranked second at 41.0 per cent, exceeding 40 per cent for the first time. The difference between Vietnam and China narrowed to 7.1 percentage points from 19.9 percentage points in the previous year. This means that in terms of expanding business operations internationally of Japanese firms, the position of China is declining, meanwhile, Vietnam is catching up with China.

In order to seize opportunities from global supply chain diversification, Vietnamese industrialists should enhance their competitiveness by upgrading machineries and technologies contributing to productivity improvement and consumption reduction, as well as developing human resources.

In the manufacturing industry, since 2010, Vietnam's rate of domestic procurement has gradually increased. However, compared to other countries such as China, Thailand, and Indonesia, the gap has not been shortened yet.

In order to arm Vietnamese manufacturers with advanced technologies and solutions and business connections, Reed Tradex Vietnam would hold the virtual METALEX Vietnam 2020. Additionally, JETRO in Ho Chi Minh City, Investment & Trade Promotion Centre (ITPC), Ho Chi Minh City Centre of Supporting Industries Development (CSID), and Reed Tradex Vietnam will introduce the Supporting Industry Show 2020 within the virtual METALEX Vietnam 2020 to strengthen the long-term relationship between the Vietnam-Japan supporting industries.

With the combination of METALEX Vietnam and Supporting Industry Show 2020, the joint events will be a comprehensive destination for the manufacturing, metalworking, and supporting industry community. In addition, a Vietnamese-Japanese matchmaking event will be happening at Hotel Nikko Saigon during two show days with various activities such as tailor-made business matchmaking programmes, technology showcases, seminars, business consultancy, and many more.
If you really want to honour him, implement his inclusive ideology: SC Bose's grandnephew

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At DMs meets, PM calls for direct, emotional connect between administration and public for good governance

Union Cabinet congratulates PM Modi for completing over 19 years in public life

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Oct 07: The Union Cabinet today congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for completing more than 19 years in public life.

Earlier, BJP leaders heaped praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his leadership as he entered his 20th year without a break as the head of an elected government, including close to 13 years as chief minister of Gujarat.

Party president J P Nadda said October 7, 2001, when Modi was sworn in as Gujarat chief minister for the first time, is a "milestone" in India's political history.

From CM to PM: Modi enters 20th year in public office without a break

Modi has since been notching up bigger victories and his popularity has only gone up, Nadda said on Twitter.

The party also tweeted details of many of Modi's key schemes during his 19 years as the head of a government.

Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri lauded Modi for "20 years in service of humanity & Maa Bharati with dedication, vision & selflessness".

"Heartiest congratulations to PM @narendramodi Ji for becoming the only democratically elected world leader to serve the people continuously for 20 years since 2001," Puri said.

Be it as chief minister of Gujarat or as prime minister of the world's largest democracy, Modi has always been a crusader for people's welfare, the party said.

"PM Sri @narendramodi Ji has completed 6941 successful days in total as CM of Gujarat & PM of India. One of the unblemished tenures ever seen. Kept public welfare as a priority and never worried about himself. Always kept sovereignty & pride of India intact," its spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi tweeted.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

Modi, who turned 70 last month, started as an RSS volunteer and then served in the BJP's organisation for many years before the party leadership sent him to Gujarat, his home state, as its chief minister in 2001.

Since then, he has never tasted electoral defeat and led the BJP to power in the state three straight times before steering the party to its biggest, until then, Lok Sabha poll win in 2014 and then scripting an even bigger win in the 2019 general elections.

(With agency inputs)

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 16:33 [IST]
A painter, remanded into police custody for allegedly assaulting a cripple in an attempt to snatch his mobile phone, maybe slapped with fresh charges as the victim has died at the Police Hospital whiles on treatment.

The victim, whose name was given as Old Soldier, died on Friday, October 3, at the Police Hospital, where he had been in comma since September 27 when he was assaulted, the Ghana News Agency has learnt.

Alfred Kwabena Bediako Amgba was put before an Accra Circuit Court on Thursday, October 1, and charged with causing harm.

The accused and the victim had both visited the same drinking bar at Nungua, where the attack took place.

Amgba had pleaded guilty with explanation but with the turn of events, police sources say Amgba could be held for murder.

The Court, presided over by Ms Evelyn Asamoah, did not hear his explanation and remanded him into Police custody due to the condition of the victim.

The accused is expected to reappear on October 14.

Chief Inspector Emmanuel Haligah, at the first hearing, told the Court that Ebenezer Donkor, the complainant, worked at a washing bay at Spintex and resided at Nungua Ravico.

He said Amgba resided at Nungua C5 while 'Old Soldier' resided at Nungua Old Barrier.

The victim always visited a drinking bar at Nungua Ravico and on September 27, this year, at about 0100 hours he was at the bar and got drunk.

The Prosecution said Amgba was also at the drinking bar that night and in an attempt to snatch the victim's phone, he allegedly took his crutches and hit him at the head and right jaw, with the victim screaming for help.

The shout for help attracted an indomie seller nearby, who rushed to the scene and saw old Soldier' lying in a pool of blood, prosecution said.

It said the accused was apprehended after he flagged a taxi in an attempt to escape.

Prosecution said Amgba was escorted to the Police Station and during a search, four ID cards, an earpiece and a jack knife were found on him.

He denied ownership of the items but the complainant identified the victim's picture on one of the ID cards.

---GNA
OTTAWA - Canadas defence minister described Chinas continued detention of two Canadians as hostage diplomacy on Wednesday and urged the NATO military alliance to keep tabs on the increasingly assertive Asian giant.

Harjit Sajjan made the comments during a wide-ranging panel discussion hosted by Slovakian think tank Globsec, nearly two years after Chinese authorities first detained former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor.

The two were arrested separately shortly after Canadian authorities in Vancouver detained Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, who is wanted in the United States on fraud charges.

Meng, who has denied any wrongdoing, is now facing possible extradition to the U.S. while Chinese authorities have indicted the detained Canadians on what many observers believe are trumped-up spying charges.

Sajjan raised the cases of Kovrig and Spavor, whose access to Canadian consular officials has been limited and who are reportedly being kept in cells where the lights are never turned off, in response to a question about the security threat posed by China.

I would be remiss if I didnt take this opportunity to talk about our two Canadians who have both been arbitrarily detained in China, he said during a panel discussion that also included his counterparts from Slovakia and Latvia.

This type of hostage diplomacy is not what good rules-based-order nations do. So if you want to be part of the global rules-based order, we need to have greater predictability. And these are the types of things that go against the norm.

The minister went on to thank NATO allies for supporting Ottawas calls for Beijing to release the two Canadians. Their cases, along with the detention of Meng in Vancouver since December 2018, has become the focal point for relations between Canada and China.

While Sajjan suggested Canada and China continue to enjoy a strong relationship when it comes to some aspects of our trade, he cited Beijings actions in the South China Sea as one example where it poses a security challenge.

China has been greatly expanding its military presence and claims of territory in the South China Sea despite opposition from of its neighbours as well as international rulings against some of its claims.

These are some of the things that we will continue to monitor, and we need to monitor in NATO, Sajjan said.

Thats why we always talk about NATO needs to look 360. This is not just about being reactionary to a problem. Its about making sure any nation out there sees the collective will of what NATO brings to the table and thats that strong message of defence and deterrence.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 7, 2020.

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Boris Johnson was confronted with damning figures showing local restrictions are failing to curb coronavirus cases today as ministers and advisers go to war over what to do next.

At a stormy PMQs session, Mr Johnson stressed the impact of the surge was being felt worst in the North, saying that showed that the government's mix of tough local lockdowns and national restrictions like the Rule of Six and 10pm pubs curfew was the right one.

The backing for 'differentiated' measures in England suggests that the premier is still resisting pressure from scientists for a blanket crackdown - in an apparent boost for Cabinet ministers alarmed over the threat to millions of jobs and civil liberties.

But Labour leader Keir Starmer launched a furious attack on Mr Johnson in the Commons, saying 19 out of 20 areas subjected to local curbs over the past two months have actually seen infections rise. He insisted that the measures were 'not working', and singled out the controversial 10pm curfew on pubs saying the government had failed to provide any 'scientific basis'.

As chaotic infighting threatened to engulf the government, allies of Chancellor Rishi Sunak, regarded as the leading 'hawk' on the need to protect the economy, today denied claims he has been trying to shut 'dove' Michael Gove out of decisions on what areas will be subject to the most draconian restrictions.

The wrangling is believed to be holding up the announcement of a new three-tier 'traffic light' system, intended to clear up confusion about what rules apply where in England.

Meanwhile, leaders from four Covid-hit northern cities, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle have written to Mr Johnson begging him not to ramp up coronavirus curbs again - which could mean pubs and restaurants being shut altogether.

The tensions between ministers was underlined this morning with Matt Hancock telling business leaders that hospitalisation rates have risen 'really quite sharply' and the government has a 'very serious problem on our hands'. But Trade Secretary Liz Truss suggested that the current balance of restrictions was 'right' in a round of interviews.

The situation is also moving fast in Scotland, where Nicola Sturgeon unveiled a dramatic new squeeze on the hospitality sector and local travel this afternoon.

As well as a ban on serving alcohol, hospitality venues will only be allowed to open from 6am to 6pm.

In five 'hotspot' areas pubs will be closed altogether apart from takeaways until October 26 and people will be advised against using public transport.

Ms Sturgeon said that if it was 'a purely one dimensional decision' about public health there would be an even tougher lockdown, but she was considering the wider economy and wellbeing.

In other twists and turns in the coronavirus crisis today:

Sir Keir hinted that Labour will join Tory rebels in opposing the controversial 10pm curfew for pubs in a crucial vote next week, raising the prospect that the government could lose;

Scientists from the world's top universities have penned an open letter calling for the UK and US to build herd immunity to Covid-19 by letting it spread in young people;

Concerns have been raised over the supply of vital testing materials for a range of conditions, including Covid-19 , following a supply chain problem with pharmaceutical giant Roche;

The number of Covid-19 hospital admissions in England has soared by 25 per cent in a day, government data has revealed.

Boris Johnson (pictured left at PMQs today) is desperately trying to balance fears over a surge in infections and hospitalisations, particularly in the North. But Labour leader Keir Starmer (right) said 19 out of 20 areas subjected to local curbs over the past two months have actually seen infections rise

Leaders from four Covid-hit northern cities, Manchester (pictured), Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle have written to Mr Johnson begging him not to ramp-up coronavirus restrictions.

Nicola Sturgeon BANS drinking inside pubs and restaurants, imposes 6pm closing time and shuts them completely in large part of the country for at least 16 days - heaping pressure on Boris to follow suit after COVID surge Nicola Sturgeon warned that coronavirus cases have started to surge among the older generation today as she banned pubs and restaurants from serving alcohol indoors in Scotland for at least 16 days from Friday. The First Minister told MSPs at Holyrood that the situation was 'better than March', but admitted she needed to take a 'backward step' as she unveiled a dramatic 'circuit breaker' squeeze to coincide with the school half-term north of the border. As well as a ban on serving alcohol, hospitality venues will only be allowed to open from 6am to 6pm. In five 'hotspot' areas pubs will be closed altogether apart from takeaways until October 26 and people will be advised against using public transport. Ms Sturgeon said that if it was 'a purely one dimensional decision' about public health there would be an even tougher lockdown, but she was considering the wider economy and wellbeing. The extraordinary step - which Ms Sturgeon said would be accompanied with 40million of new compensation for stricken businesses - comes after Scotland reported more than 1,000 new infections in a day. It will heap pressure on Boris Johnson, who was confronted this afternoon with damning figures showing local restrictions in England are failing to curb cases, with ministers and advisers at war over what to do next. Advertisement

In bruising clashes with Sir Keir, Mr Johnson seemed to close off the possibility of an imminent national clampdown.

'Although the cases in the country are considerably up across the country this week on last week, the seven-day statistics show that there are now 497 cases per 100,000 in Liverpool, 522 cases per 100,000 in Manchester, 422 in Newcastle,' he said.

'The key point there is the local regional approach combined with the national approach remains correct because two-thirds of those admitted into hospital on Sunday were in the North West, North East and Yorkshire.'

But Sir Keir unleashed a tirade, pointing out that the government's local lockdown were clearly 'not working'.

'On care homes, protective equipment, exams, testing. The Prime Minister ignores the warning signs, hurtles towards a car crash, then looks in the rear mirror, says 'what's all that about?' he said.

'It's quite literally government in hindsight.'

Sir Keir added: 'All the Prime Minister has to say is it is too early to say if restrictions are working but it's obvious that something's gone wrong here, so what's the Prime Minister going to do about it?'

The Labour leader pointed out that in Mr Johnson's own local authority, Hillingdon, there were currently 62 cases per 100,000, and no local restrictions.

'But in 20 local areas across England, restrictions were imposed when infection rates were much lower. In Kirklees it was just 29 per 100,000,' he said.

'Local communities, Prime Minister, genuinely don't understand these differences. Can he please explain for them?'

Mr Johnson replied: 'I wish I could pretend that everything was going to be rosy in the Midlands or indeed in London where, alas, we are also seeing infections rise.

'That is why we need a concerted national effort, we need to follow the guidance, we need hands, face, space, get a test if you have symptoms and obey the Rule of Six.'

Sir Keir insisted that he does support the Government's Rule of Six.

But he struck a starkly different tone on whether Labour will support the England-wide 10pm curfew on bars and restaurants, which critics say is causing more harm than good as revellers merely spill out on to the streets.

'The Prime Minister can't explain why an area goes into restriction, he can't explain what the different restrictions are, he can't explain how restrictions end  this is getting ridiculous,' Sir Keir said.

'Next week, this House will vote on whether to approve the 10pm rule. The Prime Minister knows that there are deeply-held views across the country in different ways on this. One question is now screaming out: is there a scientific basis for the 10pm rule?'

Fears over shortage of Covid and cancer tests after 'warehouse' failure Concerns have been raised over the supply of vital testing materials for a range of conditions, including Covid-19, following a supply chain problem with pharmaceutical giant Roche. On Tuesday, Roche said it had experienced a 'very significant drop' in its processing capacity due to a problem with its Sussex distribution centre in Newhaven, the only one in the UK. It has been reported that the shortage includes vital reagents, screening kits and swabs. In addition to providing these chemicals and parts used in Covid-19 tests, Roche also provides materials for a wide range of procedures including blood and urine tests, as well as diabetic care. It comes days after the Government confirmed a technical glitch meant 16,000 positive test results had been missed, leaving contract tracers chasing thousands of contacts who needed to self-isolate. The Government is facing mounting pressure to increase coronavirus testing capacity as cases continue to rise, with 14,542 new cases recorded yesterday - meaning the number of people testing positive for Covid-19 every day has tripled in a fortnight. Advertisement

Mr Johnson shot back: 'The basis on which we set out the curtailment of hospitality was the basis on which he accepted it two weeks ago  that is to reduce the spread of the virus and that is our objective.'

The UK government's scientific experts have been publicly calling for 'urgent and drastic action' to curb spiralling infection figures and growing hospital admission.

SAGE member John Edmunds said there needed to be a nationwide clampdown swiftly, saying the current package of local lockdowns, the Rule of Six and 10pm pubs curfew were obviously not working.

Mr Edmunds told the BBC's Newsnight: 'These local restrictions that are being put into place in the north really haven't been very effective, we can see rates still going up, we need to take much more stringent measures, not just in the north of England  we need to do it countrywide.

'We have to do a whole package across the country  I would include circuit break lockdowns to bring the cases right down.'

He was particularly scathing about the 10pm curfew, which has been criticised for making matters worse by fueling partying on the streets and in homes.

'I really don't think it does anything,' he said.

Professor Calum Semple, who specialises in disease outbreaks, urged a 'circuit breaker' of perhaps two weeks of harsh restrictions.

Prof Semple said 'a circuit breaker a couple of weeks ago would have been a really good idea'.

He added: 'It's always easier to reduce an outbreak at the earlier stage than to let it run and then try to reduce it at a later stage.

'So, yes, circuit breakers are certainly something we should be thinking about on a national basis.'

Stephen Reicher, professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews and another SAGE member, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there was a 'window of opportunity' to stop the outbreak getting back to March levels by the end of the month.

'I do think it's important to do something because if you look at the figures at the moment, the level of infections is about 10 per cent of what it was at the peak in March, but, at the rate of doubling, it would probably be at the same as the peak in March by the end of October,' he said.

'So the good news is we have a window of opportunity to do something.

'If we squander that window of opportunity, then we really are in trouble, then we really would be talking about going back to March in terms of lockdown measures. But we're not talking about that now. We've got time.'

First casualty of 10pm curfew: 200-year-old brewer Greene King will close 79 pubs and restaurants Hundreds of jobs are on the line as scores of pubs are set to be shut by Greene King after the 10pm coronavirus curfew and lockdown decimated custom The company - which has more than 3,000 pubs across the country - today started a consultation process with 800 employees about a redundancy process. Bosses at the firm, which has nearly 1,700 managed pubs and 1,000 tenanted venues, wants to redeploy affected staff wherever possible. It wants to close 79 pubs and restaurants and are understood to believe one-third of them will be permanent. A spokesman said: 'The continued tightening of the trading restrictions for pubs, which may last another six months, along with the changes to government support was always going to make it a challenge to reopen some of our pubs. 'Therefore, we have made the difficult decision not to reopen 79 sites, including the 11 Loch Fyne restaurants we announced last week. 'Around one-third will be closed permanently and we hope to be able to reopen the others in the future.' Advertisement

The Telegraph claimed that in a bid for tighter control over any new lockdown measures, Mr Sunak wants to create a new committee of himself, Mr Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock, to decide which towns are placed into the highest alert level.

Such a committee would exclude Mr Gove, believed to be an advocate of restrictions, from the decision-making process.

However, allies of the Chancellor told MailOnline he 'is not dictating who should be on what committee' and did not want the 'red' areas decided by just three people.

It comes amid growing discontent on the Tory benches over the government's 10pm curfew on hospitality businesses - with a rebellion expected on a vote next week.

Speculation about further government action intensified yesterday as the UK reported 14,542 new coronavirus cases, an increase of almost 2,000 on the previous 24 hours.

The increase has continued after ironing out an artificial spike cased by a 'computer glitch' which saw 16,000 cases missed off the government's reporting system.

Test and Trace are still scrambling to contact 6,000 positive cases find out who they might potentially have infected - thought to be around 50,000 people.

Along with growing infection data, yesterday's figures also showed a rise in hospitalisations to the highest daily total in four months.

In another blow to hopes the virus is being brought under control, official NHS data shows there were 478 new hospital admissions in England on Sunday - the most recent day figures are available for.

The figure is 25 per cent increase on Saturday's data, when 386 people were admitted the hospital with Covid-19. It also represents a four-month high, the likes of which have not been seen since June 3, when the figure was 491.

Data also shows the number of people on ventilators is on the rise, from 259 a week ago to 349 on Sunday.

Government data show that coronavirus cases have been rising among the older generation recently

Coronavirus cases are starting to rise among older people Coronavirus cases are starting to rise among older people once again, government data shows. Whitehall sources say the trend has sent 'alarm bells ringing', warning that tougher action could be needed to keep the crisis under control. Public Health England data shows 30.1 Covid-19 cases were diagnosed among every 100,000 people over the age of 80 last week. The rate has tripled since the last week of August, when it stood at just 8.9 and has risen consistently since. It was 27.5 the week before. Covid-19 preys on the elderly, with top scientists estimating it kills around one in five of people over 75. For comparison, experts believe the mortality rate is less than 0.1 per cent for anyone under 45  and even lower for children. PHE data, which takes into account cases diagnosed between September 21 and 27, shows a similar spike has been seen for people in their sixties and seventies. The infection rate among people aged 70 to 79 currently stands at 20.6, up from 17.4 the week before and 4.6 at the end of August. For people aged 60-69 it is now 34.2, an increase on the 27.5 last week. It has more than quadrupled since the figure of 7.5 a month ago. Cases have risen since last week for every age group except under-10s, where rates appear to have stabilised. Twenty-somethings are still driving the outbreak (95.0 up from 81.2), followed by 10-19 year olds (76.7 up from 53.7). Covid-19 infection data for last week will be published by PHE this Friday, when the government-run agency updates its national surveillance report. Advertisement

But while hospital admissions have increased, the number of people dying in hospital of the virus remains considerably lower than at the start of the pandemic.

On top of that, figures show hospital admission figures are still low in some areas, such as the south of England.

The latest surge in cases has been particularly acute across major cities in the North and Midlands, with Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle and Nottingham all recording big increases  driven in part by the return of university students.

Plans are being finalised for a new three-tier system to tackle local outbreaks that could see pubs, restaurants and cinemas shut in parts of England.

These were expected to be unveiled next week but could be brought forward to the end of this week if current trends continue.

Officials have also refused to rule out further national measures.

In a sign of an imminent clampdown, Mr Sunak was last night reported to be drawing up plans for new Treasury support for businesses affected by new local lockdown restrictions.

This could be a new support package for those forced to close.

However, yesterday the leaders of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle issued a last-minute plea for ministers to think carefully about new lockdown measures.

In a letter to Mr Hancock, the four said they were 'extremely concerned about the sharp increase' in new coronavirus cases in their areas.

But they warned that they did not support further economic lockdowns and urged him to hand over powers to regional leaders rather than imposing restrictions from Whitehall.

Leeds City Council leader Judith Blake, Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson, Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese and Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes wrote: 'The existing restrictions are not working, confusing for the public and some, like the 10pm rule, are counterproductive.

'Instead, local measures, developed jointly across police, council enforcement and public health services, should be deployed to address rising infection rates based on local knowledge.'

Mr Anderson told ITV's GMB this morning: 'We're seeing 2,500 new cases in the last week in Liverpool and yet we're seeing restrictions that were imposed on Manchester and Newcastle not working and the increasing infection rate going up.

'It's about common sense, it's about getting the balance right and about what we can do, what we should do and how local lockdowns work, working with local leaders to get it right.

'There's a lack of consistency, a lack of clarity, but most of all a lack of communication and collaboration.'

Officials are also expecting Nottingham to be placed in lockdown after a surge in cases.

The city's infection rate has soared, with 1,273 new cases recorded in the seven days to October 2  the equivalent of 382 cases per 100,000. This is up from 59 per 100,000 in the seven days to September 25.

The director of public health for Nottingham, Alison Challenger, said current restrictions 'are no longer enough to stop the spread of the virus'.

Other areas with high rates are Knowsley and Liverpool, while Newcastle upon Tyne, Sheffield and Leeds have recorded large jumps in their infection rate over the past seven days.

MPs back Rule of Six in Commons vote with just 17 politicians opposing it despite widespread Tory fury at coronavirus law they fear will 'do more harm than good' MPs overwhelmingly backed the controversial Rule of Six in a Commons vote last night - but Boris Johnson was left in no doubt about the anger on the Tory backbenches. The Covid-19 regulations which enforce the rules on gatherings in England was passed by 287 votes to 17 - a majority of 270 - in Westminster. The regulations are already in force, with the motion simply offering a retrospective vote on it. But a slew of Tories indicated they would abstain rather than support it, using the debate beforehand to attack Government ministers over the scope of the rules. Steve Baker, a former Brexit minister, said he had 'real concerns' about the 'appalling' cost of the measures, while Sir Graham Brady, the leader of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, descrbied the measures as a 'massive intrusion into the private lives of the British people'. And fellow MP Huw Merriman, who is chair of the transport select committee, said he feared the measures would do 'more harm than good.' However, there was little prospect of the measures failing to pass the Commons vote after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told reporters on Tuesday that his party would back the measures. Setting out his opposition ahead of the vote, Mr Baker said: 'I have real concerns about the very high cost of these measures. '[It is an] absolutely appalling set of costs which people are bearing and the anecdotes now [are] increasingly rising of poor compliance, indeed people seem to have a gap between their intentions to comply versus what they actually do.' He added: 'It's not clear now that the benefit outweighs the costs of lockdown. We have to ask whether this set of circumstances is really what we want. 'We're hearing about people who are being destroyed by this lockdown, strong, confident people, outgoing people, gregarious people who are being destroyed and reduced to repeated episodes of tears on the phone. 'This is a devastating social impact on our society and I believe that people would make different choices were they the ones able to take responsibility for themselves.' Mr Brady, who voted against the Rule of Six, said: 'These rules are a massive intrusion into the liberty and private lives of the whole British people and they are having a devastating economic effect as well which will result in big job losses and masses of business failures.' Last week, Boris Johnson hinted the Rule of Six could be suspended on Christmas Day to ensure a family of five can have both grandparents round for festive lunch. He had stressed the Government would do 'everything we can to make sure Christmas for everybody is as normal as possible'. At the end of September, a desperate PM pleaded for Britons to 'save Christmas' by obeying his Rule of Six. But in Tuesday's debate, Mr Baker was joined by other Tory MPs who were opposed to the measure entirely. Bexhill Tory MP Huw Merriman warned the measure was doing 'more harm than good'. He said: 'Now I look for that evidence, but I still don't see it. 'On that basis, I am afraid that I am unable to vote for the rule of six because I just do not believe it is proportionate and that it will actually do what the Government hopes it will do, and I hope and fear that it will actually do more harm than good.' Advertisement

Yesterday, some experts called for tougher restrictions.

Chris Hopson, head of the hospitals' group NHS Providers, urged Boris Johnson to be willing to 'adopt appropriately tough local lockdown measures wherever the virus is spreading in a way that could jeopardise the NHS's ability to cope'.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, tweeted: 'Community transmission increasing. Number of people needing hospitalisation increasing.

'Tragically, more people dying. Options for interventions might be debated but data is clear.'

Yesterday MPs overwhelmingly backed the controversial Rule of Six in a Commons vote tonight - but Boris Johnson was left in no doubt about the anger on the Tory backbenches.

The Covid-19 regulations which enforce the rules on gatherings in England was passed by 287 votes to 17 - a majority of 270 - in Westminster.

The regulations are already in force, with the motion simply offering a retrospective vote on it.

But a slew of Tories indicated they would abstain rather than support it, using the debate beforehand to attack Government ministers over the scope of the rules.

Steve Baker, a former Brexit minister, said he had 'real concerns' about the 'appalling' cost of the measures, while Sir Graham Brady, the leader of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, descrbied the measures as a 'massive intrusion into the private lives of the British people'.

And fellow MP Huw Merriman, who is chair of the transport select committee, said he feared the measures would do 'more harm than good.'

However, there was little prospect of the measures failing to pass the Commons vote after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told reporters on Tuesday that his party would back the measures.

Setting out his opposition ahead of the vote, Mr Baker said: 'I have real concerns about the very high cost of these measures.

'[It is an] absolutely appalling set of costs which people are bearing and the anecdotes now [are] increasingly rising of poor compliance, indeed people seem to have a gap between their intentions to comply versus what they actually do.'

He added: 'It's not clear now that the benefit outweighs the costs of lockdown. We have to ask whether this set of circumstances is really what we want.

'We're hearing about people who are being destroyed by this lockdown, strong, confident people, outgoing people, gregarious people who are being destroyed and reduced to repeated episodes of tears on the phone.

'This is a devastating social impact on our society and I believe that people would make different choices were they the ones able to take responsibility for themselves.'

Mr Brady, who voted against the Rule of Six, said: 'These rules are a massive intrusion into the liberty and private lives of the whole British people and they are having a devastating economic effect as well which will result in big job losses and masses of business failures.'

Last week, Boris Johnson hinted the Rule of Six could be suspended on Christmas Day to ensure a family of five can have both grandparents round for festive lunch.

He had stressed the Government would do 'everything we can to make sure Christmas for everybody is as normal as possible'.

At the end of September, a desperate PM pleaded for Britons to 'save Christmas' by obeying his Rule of Six.

But in last night's debate, Mr Baker was joined by other Tory MPs who were opposed to the measure entirely.

Bexhill Tory MP Huw Merriman warned the measure was doing 'more harm than good'.

He said: 'I do not see the evidence in terms of how this will reduce the rates of Covid.

'My biggest concern is we are ruling by consent, we need people to come with us.

'When people look at these rules, people I speak to who have been absolutely religious devotees of lockdown, they now say I'm just not going to do this any more.

'And the concern is that they won't follow some of the other rules that do make sense that we should have in place.'

He added: 'Now I look for that evidence, but I still don't see it.

'On that basis, I am afraid that I am unable to vote for the rule of six because I just do not believe it is proportionate and that it will actually do what the Government hopes it will do, and I hope and fear that it will actually do more harm than good.
Protestors voiced their opposition to the import of chlorinated chicken during US president Donald Trump's controversial three-day state visit to the UK in June 2019. Photo: Getty.

Consumer champion Which? is calling on MPs to strengthen the ban on chlorinated chicken and hormone-boosted beef imports.

On Monday (12 October) a crunch vote will take place on whether to amend the Agriculture Bill to ensure future food imports comply with UK standards.

The amendments put forward by the House of Lords come as the government races to secure post-Brexit trade deals with the United States and other countries.

To date the UK government has resisted calls for legislation to protect food standards, due to pre-existing law banning the import of food produced to a lower standard.

But the government has yet to respond to Which?s cross-party letter asking for assurance that the ban will not be removed through secondary legislation without a vote in parliament.

In the latest Which? survey, 94% of UK consumers said it was important existing standards were maintained, while three-quarters said it was very important.

Around three quarters said they would be uncomfortable eating chlorinated chicken, while eight in 10 said they would be uncomfortable eating beef and consuming milk where cows had been given growth hormones used to increase production.

READ MORE: Pound falls on report UK government could quit Brexit trade talks next week

The consumer champion also surveyed more than 6,000 members of the general public about their views on maintaining food standards. More than 75% said they were concerned that the UK had not ruled out lifting the bans on chlorinated chicken or hormone-treated beef and were worried these bans could be removed without proper scrutiny in parliament.

Sue Davies, head of consumer protection and food policy at Which?, said: Our research shows food standards are a deal breaker for consumers in trade deals  and many people are concerned by the governments failure to guarantee that the ban on products like chlorine-washed and hormone-treated beef will stay in place.

Consumers have signalled that iron-clad legislation is needed to ensure two decades of progress on food standards is not sacrificed to secure a trade deal  and they now expect their MPs to make it happen.

Story continues

More than 200,000 people have already joined Which?s Save Our Food Standards campaign signing a petition calling on the government to uphold food standards.

WATCH: Profits jump at the UKs biggest supermarket Tesco
An inquest into the death of Keroche Breweries' heiress Tecra Muigai has failed to start due to simmering differences between the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions.

The inquest was scheduled to start before Milimani Chief Magistrate Martha Mutuku but the session aborted after the DPP said the matter should be transferred to Lamu where Tecra's alleged murder occurred in April this year.

State Counsel Joseph Riungu said DPP Noordin Haji had directed the inquest to be transferred from Milimani, adding that the decision of the DCI to have the inquest at Milimani was inadvertent.

"The decision lies with the DPP on his mandate under article 157. Guided by the provisions of the law, the DPP took a determination on where the inquest is supposed to be heard," said Mr Riungu.

He urged the magistrate not to entertain any submissions from the parties because the Milimani court was not the proper court to hear them.

"The inquest ought to be in Lamu before a magistrate in that jurisdiction. If there is any concern, the Lamu magistrate's court is the appropriate place to determine and hear the concerns," said Mr Riungu.

The court heard that DCI detectives had on September 17 lodged the inquest file at the Milimani Law Courts and they had notified Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi about the matter. However, Mr Riungu said the police decision was a mistake.

Tecra's family opposed the transfer of the inquest from Nairobi saying most witnesses are based at the capital city.

Witnesses include medical experts, the deceased's relatives and homicide detectives from the DCI headquarters.

"A significant amount of evidence on the death of Tecra comprises scientific, medical and post-mortem reports carried out by experienced doctors all of whom are based in Nairobi," said Tecra's mother Tabitha Karanja in an affidavit filed in court yesterday.

She said Tecra died at the Nairobi Hospital, and the nearest magistrate's court to the location of the death is Milimani.

Mrs Karanja expressed fear of the family's safety while travelling to and from Lamu for the inquest.

"The key suspect in this matter is an influential person among boat owners and operators and beach boys around Lamu Island, yet boat transport is the single most reliable form of transport for accessing Lamu Islands," said Mrs Karanja.

She expressed fear that the family may not travel to and from Lamu Islands to attend and participate in the inquest proceedings without a significant threat to their lives and safety.

Mrs Karanja accused the DPP of making flip-flopping decisions that have frustrated the family's desire to know the truth about the death of their kin.

"The things that have happened and the request by the DPP to withdraw the matter and transfer it to Lamu have triggered extreme and well-founded suspicions in me and the entire family of the deceased. The conduct of the DPP is inconsistent with the constitutional and statutory principles that ought to guide him in handling this matter," said Mrs Karanja.

She said the post-mortem on Tecra's body revealed scientific evidence that raised serious questions and doubts regarding the explanation proffered by the suspect, Mr Omar Lali.

While accusing the DPP of frustrating the family, Mrs Karanja told the court that the DPP had earlier decided to charge Mr Lali with murder but he later changed his mind and directed an inquest be carried out.

The family wrote a letter to the ODPP requesting that rather than going the inquest route, the DPP consider determining the particular loose evidentiary ends which the office regarded as requiring investigatory sealing.

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Mrs Karanja said the family was of the view that the DPP should have directed the DCI to fill the same to avoid the need for an inquest. However, the DPP did not respond to the letter.

"The family of the deceased no longer has confidence in the DPP handling this matter in strict compliance with the dictates of the constitution and the law," said Mrs Karanja.

According to her, the DPP is responding to instructions or pressure from elsewhere.

She suggested that the DPP should appoint an independent prosecutor to handle the prosecution of the case owing to the family's loss of confidence.

The hearing of the DPP's application will be on October 14.
The Chicago-based appeals court on Tuesday upheld a judges ruling in August that state officials had discretion in how to allow mail voting and that voters not wanting to cast ballots on Election Day had the option of going to early voting sites for nearly a month before then.
Kelly Dodd was seen out for the first time since sparking controversy over her surprise bridal shower on Sunday in which she and guests flouted social distancing and mask mandates as well as saw her wearing a 'Drunk Lives Matter' shirt.

The 45-year-old Real Housewives Of Orange County star did not seem too concerned with the criticism thrown her way as she was seen offloading purchases from an errand trip at her California home on Tuesday.

She donned a sleeveless top which said 'cuckoo' and had bananas emblazioned on it along with a white mini skirt and white Adidas sneakers.

Moving on: Kelly Dodd did not seem too concerned with the criticism thrown her way as she was seen offloading purchases from an errand trip at her California home on Tuesday

Cool joke:The 45-year-old star of Real Housewives Of Orange County sparked controversy over her surprise bridal shower on Sunday in which she and guests flouted social distancing and mask mandates

Once again she opted not to wear a mask as her bandana hung from her neck but she did protect her eyes by wearing gold-rimmed aviator Ray-Ban shades.

Her precious pooch followed her as she carried several items including a cheese plate, serving tray, and grocery bags.

The outing came after fans bashed her for flouting social distancing and mask mandates amid the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, which has already claimed the lives of more than one million people globally.

Kelly  who is set to marry Fox News correspondent Rick Leventhal on Saturday, Oct. 10  posted photos from the packed soiree after sharing a 'Drunk Wives Matter' hat gifted by a friend.

Relaxed: Once again she opted not to wear a mask as her bandana hung from her neck but she did protect her eyes by wearing gold-rimmed aviator Ray-Ban shades

Many users were concerned with the lack of face masks and social distancing during the day where RHOC co-stars Emily Simpson, Gina Kirschenheiter and Elizabeth Vargas were in attendance.

Kelly tried to quell gossip with a photo of all of the women wearing disposable face coverings, but it seemed the masks were just a photo opportunity and were not seen during the rest of the event.

'Yeah well it doesn't count when you post a picture before with everyone NOT wearing them,' one user wrote. 'So disrespectful to all the healthcare workers, essential works, people who have lost loved ones bc of COVID. Your carefree sprit is not safe at this time.'

Governor Gavin Newsom issued a mask mandate last month for the state of California in efforts to prevent the spread of the deadly virus which, to date, has taken the lives of nearly 210,000 Americans.

This is fine: Masks weren't an accessory while the ladies sat outside in the sun

What mandate? None of the women wore masks while posing together at the event

'People were asking where are the masks??' Kelly captioned an Instagram collage after the controversy began. 'Well here they are !!'

Back in April, Dodd was criticized for traveling on an airplane and not taking the virus seriously.

'If it's dangerous why are the airlines still flying? You think I want to fly? I had to get back, how is that elitist?' she responded. 'Do you know how many people died from the H1N1, the swine flu or SARS?. It's 25% get your facts straight you only hearing numbers not the reality! It's God's way of thinning the herd!'

Shortly after her comments, she took to Instagram to apologize for the big misunderstanding.

'I want to give a public apology,' she said during an apology on Instagram Stories. 'When I wrote "this is God's way of thinning the herd," that's not what I meant.

Yike: The 45-year-old reality star  who is set to marry Fox News correspondent Rick Leventhal on Saturday  shared photos from the packed soiree, which also left many fans confused as to how she was practicing any social distancing

Hands on: Kelly is set to marry Rick on Saturday, Oct. 10 after getting engaged in November

Smoking: In a since-deleted video, Kelly defended the hat and said: 'You know what, all lives matter. People that can't get a joke, go f**k yourselves'

Statement piece: Kelly Dodd was back in the spotlight for sporting a Drunk Wives Matter hat at her surprise bridal shower in Orange County on Sunday afternoon

'Im not insensitive. I feel bad for all the families that lost loved ones, and I do think that we should all stay home and protect everybody. Thats not what I meant, and I want to apologize to anyone who got offended, OK? Im sorry.'

In addition to her mask-less frenzy, The Real Housewives of Orange County figure posted a picture wearing a Drunk Wives Matter hat, which Page Six reported was a gift from a friend and played on the Black Lives Matter movement.

Dodd's followers have previously pressed her for not supporting BLM on her platform after Kelly listed out major moments in a roundup of events that had happened in the first six months of 2020.

In a since-deleted video, Kelly defended the hat and said: 'You know what, all lives matter. People that can't get a joke, go f**k yourselves.'

There were at least some fun and games during the day to celebrate the upcoming nuptials, as Kelly unwrapped a jock strap which her fiance attempted to try on.

'I don't know if Fox News is going to approve of this,' Emily said while watching the couple play with the underwear.

Friends: While some users focused on the questionable apparel, others were more concerned with the lack of face masks and social distancing during the day where RHOC co-stars Emily Simpson, Gina Kirschenheiter and Elizabeth Vargas were in attendance

Joy: There were at least some fun and games during the day to celebrate the upcoming nuptials, as Kelly unwrapped a jock strap which her fiance attempted to try on
Marinela Tepus, manager of the Nottara Theater, stated that the decision announced by the Bucharest's Prefect to close down theaters and event halls is hard to accomplish, because "a theater is very hard to close at a whim", according to Agerpres.

"A theater is very hard to close at a whim, because there are shows sold out and spectators that await to come this week to theater and are even harder to open if we are not announced two weeks beforehand, because we can't say 'tomorrow or this afternoon we open', because we can't announce those spectators that bought tickets that they can return to theater," said Marinela Tepus, for AGERPRES.

"It's an uncertainty that we are all going through and it does us no good. Besides fears, we have these types of uncertainties. The next question is what will we do, as an institution, going forward, what type of activities, because those Zoom activities of March I don't believe will have that much success as at the beginning of the pandemic, when all would hope that we would overcome this period as fast as possible," the manager also showed.

She stated that the authorities should think of the specifics of each profession when they are taking certain decisions.

"When they draw up an order, whatever it may be, it would be ideal to think of the specifics of each profession, and the specifics of our profession is just as the September 1 moment. They opened [removed the restrictions - e.n.] on September 1 for naught, because we couldn't open in earnest until September 20," said the manager.

Tepus said that in the country "there are very few, to none, actors sick of COVID."

"They got sick where safety measures were not respected. Of what I know, very many actors did not get sick, nor spectators," the manager of the Nottara Theater also said.
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - October 7, 2020) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today voted to propose a new limited, conditional exemption from broker registration requirements for "finders" who assist issuers with raising capital in private markets from accredited investors. If adopted, the proposed exemption would permit natural persons to engage in certain limited activities involving accredited investors without registering with the Commission as brokers. The proposed exemption seeks to assist small businesses to raise capital and to provide regulatory clarity to investors, issuers, and the finders who assist them.

The proposal would create two classes of finders, Tier I Finders and Tier II Finders, that would be subject to conditions tailored to the scope of their respective activities. The proposed exemption would establish clear lanes for both registered broker activity and limited activity by finders that would be exempt from registration.

"Many small businesses face difficulties raising the capital that they need to grow and thrive, particularly when they are located in places that lack established, robust capital raising networks," said Chairman, Jay Clayton. "Particularly in these ecosystems, finders may play an important role in facilitating capital formation for smaller issuers. There has been significant uncertainty for years, however, about finders' regulatory status, leading to many calls for Commission action, including from small business advocates, SEC advisory committees and the Department of the Treasury. If adopted, the proposed relief will bring clarity to finders' regulatory status in a tailored manner that addresses the capital formation needs of certain smaller issuers while preserving investor protections."

***

FACT SHEET

Proposed Exemption from Broker-Dealer Registration for Finders

October 7, 2020

The Commission is proposing to grant a conditional exemption from the broker registration requirements of Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act to permit natural persons to engage in certain limited capital raising activities involving accredited investors. The proposed exemption would create two classes of exempt Finders, Tier I Finders and Tier II Finders, that would be subject to conditions tailored to the scope of their respective activities. Tier I and Tier II Finders would both be permitted to accept transaction-based compensation under the terms of the proposed exemption.

Tier I Finders

A Tier I Finder would be limited to providing contact information of potential investors in connection with only a single capital raising transaction by a single issuer in a 12 month period. A Tier I Finder could not have any contact with a potential investor about the issuer.

Tier II Finders

A Tier II Finder could solicit investors on behalf of an issuer, but the solicitation-related activities would be limited to: (i) identifying, screening, and contacting potential investors; (ii) distributing issuer offering materials to investors; (iii) discussing issuer information included in any offering materials, provided that the Tier II Finder does not provide advice as to the valuation or advisability of the investment; and (iv) arranging or participating in meetings with the issuer and investor.

Conditions for Both Tier I and Tier II Finders

Both Tier I and Tier II Finders would be subject to certain conditions. The proposed exemption for Tier I and Tier II Finders would be available only where:

the issuer is not required to file reports under Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Exchange Act;

the issuer is seeking to conduct the securities offering in reliance on an applicable exemption from registration under the Securities Act;

the Finder does not engage in general solicitation;

the potential investor is an "accredited investor" as defined in Rule 501 of Regulation D or the Finder has a reasonable belief that the potential investor is an "accredited investor";

the Finder provides services pursuant to a written agreement with the issuer that includes a description of the services provided and associated compensation;

the Finder is not an associated person of a broker-dealer; and

the Finder is not subject to statutory disqualification, as that term is defined in Section 3(a)(39) of the Exchange Act, at the time of his or her participation.

A Finder could not rely on this proposed exemption to engage in broker activity beyond the scope of the proposed exemption. Among other things, a Finder could not rely on this proposed exemption to facilitate a registered offering, a resale of securities, or the sale of securities to investors that are not accredited investors or that the Finder does not have a reasonable belief are accredited investors.

Further, a Finder could not (i) be involved in structuring the transaction or negotiating the terms of the offering; (ii) handle customer funds or securities or bind the issuer or investor; (iii) participate in the preparation of any sales materials; (iv) perform any independent analysis of the sale; (v) engage in any "due diligence" activities; (vi) assist or provide financing for such purchases; or (vii) provide advice as to the valuation or financial advisability of the investment.

Additional Conditions for Tier II Finders

Because Tier II Finders could participate in a wider range of activity and have the potential to engage in more offerings with issuers and investors, the Commission has proposed additional, heightened requirements. A Tier II Finder wishing to rely on the proposed exemption would need to satisfy certain disclosure requirements and other conditions. These disclosure requirements, which include a requirement that the Tier II Finder provide appropriate disclosures of the Tier II Finder's role and compensation, must be made prior to or at the time of the solicitation. Further, the Tier II Finder must obtain from the investor, prior to or at the time of any investment in the issuer's securities, a dated written acknowledgment of receipt of the required disclosures.

For More Information

The Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation has prepared a video and a chart showing a comparison of some of the permissible activities, requirements and limitations for Tier I Finders, Tier II Finders, and registered brokers.

What's Next?

There will be a 30-day comment period for the proposed exemption following publication in the Federal Register.
LONDON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Last week, the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) hosted a virtual launch. The meeting discussed a 15-month project to develop a regional dialogue to address human mobility and climate change in the region. Francine Baron, the interim CEO of the Climate Resilience Execution Agency for Dominica (CREAD), gave a feature address on behalf of Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, on the island's strategy for recovery and resilience.

Established shortly after Hurricane Maria, CREAD aims to streamline procedures regarding the government's commitment to incorporating resilience in various sectors of Dominican society. This aligns with Prime Minister Skerrit's vision of becoming the "world's first climate-resilient nation", as pledged at the United Nations. According to Baron, the approach aims to socially, environmentally and economically transform Dominica by 2030 and is entrenched in the country's National Resilience Development Strategy.

"With the assistance of our Climate Resilience Execution Agency CREAD, Dominica has rolled out a plan to effect our strategy, that contains among other things, 20 resilience targets, which we aim to achieve by 2030, to deliver a climate-resilient Dominica. The government has already embarked on a series of initiatives that are designed to minimise the impact of a disaster on our population. And so, reduce the need for people to migrate after a disaster or in response to other ill-effects of climate change. In Dominica for example, the government committed after Maria in 2017, to building five thousand climate-resilient homes," Baron said.

One of the key supporters of this vision is Dominica's Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme. After Hurricane Maria, the Programme was instrumental in the nation's swift recovery and has gone on to fund significant resilience projects on the island. The Programme entirely finances the construction of thousands of climate-resilient homes, supports the ongoing construction of a geothermal plant and endorses the country's ecotourism sector.

Introduced in 1993, Dominica's CBI Programme provides high net worth individuals and their families a route to second citizenship after they invest in the Economic Diversification Fund or buying into selected real estate options. After undergoing meticulous security checks, successful applicants gain access to increased global mobility to approximately 140 countries and territories, alternative business routes and the chance to pass down citizenship for generations to come.

[email protected]

www.csglobalpartners.com

SOURCE CS Global Partners
NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- BetterCloud , the leading SaaSOps platform for managing and securing the digital workplace, today released its first SaaSOps report: "2020 State of SaaSOps." Among its many significant findings, the report found that a rise in SaaS adoption is prompting concerns over operational complexity and risk.

Since 2015, the number of IT-sanctioned SaaS apps has increased tenfold, and it's expected that by 2025, 85 percent of business apps will be SaaS-based. With SaaS on the rise, nearly half (49 percent) of respondents are confident in their ability to identify and monitor unsanctioned SaaS usage on company networksyet more than three-quarters (76 percent) see unsanctioned apps as a security risk. And when asked what SaaS applications are likely to hold the most sensitive data across an organization, respondents believe it's all apps including cloud storage, email, devices, chat apps, password managers, etc.

Respondents also highlighted slow, manual management tasks as a prime concern when managing SaaS environments. IT organizations spend over 7 hours offboarding a single employee from a company's SaaS apps, which takes time and energy from more strategic projects.

"In the earlier part of the year, organizations around the world were faced with powering their entire workforces from home and turned to SaaS to make the shift with as little disruption to productivity as possible," said David Politis, CEO, BetterCloud. "Up until this point, most companies were adopting a cloud-first approach for their IT infrastructure  that strategy has now shifted to cloud only. But SaaS growth at this scale has also brought about challenges as our 2020 State of SaaSOps report clearly outlines. The findings also show increased confidence and reliance on SaaSOps as the path forward to reigning in SaaS management and security."

Click here to download the report.

Among the key findings:

On average, organizations use 80 SaaS apps today. This is a 5x increase in just three years and a 10x increase since 2015.

The top two motivators for using more SaaS apps are increasing productivity and reducing costs.

Only 49 percent of IT professionals inspire confidence in their ability to identify and monitor unsanctioned SaaS usage on company networksyet more than three-quarters (76 percent) see unsanctioned apps as a security risk.

The top five places where sensitive data lives are: 1. Files stored in cloud storage, 2. Email, 3. Devices, 4. Chat apps, and 5. Password managers. But because SaaS apps have become the system of record, sensitive data inevitably lives everywhere in your SaaS environment.

The top two security concerns are sensitive files shared publicly and former employees retaining data access.

IT teams spend an average of 7.12 hours offboarding a single employee from a company's SaaS apps.

Thirty percent of respondents already use the term "SaaSOps" in their job title or plan to include it soon.

For the report, BetterCloud surveyed nearly 700 IT leaders and security professionals from the world's leading enterprise organizations. These individuals ranged in seniority from C-level executives to front-line practitioners and included both IT and security department roles. The respondents' companies represented a wide range of company sizes and industriesmost were established businesses with significant experience using SaaS apps. Almost all of those surveyed use either G Suite or Office 365 as their primary cloud productivity suite.

To learn more about the growing SaaSOps market and how to prepare, download the full report from the BetterCloud website.

About BetterCloud

BetterCloud is the leading SaaSOps platform that enables IT professionals to discover, manage and secure the growing stack of SaaS applications in the digital workplace. Thousands of forward-thinking organizations like Zoom, Walmart, and Square now rely on BetterCloud to automate processes and policies across their cloud application portfolio. A pioneer of the SaaSOps movement, BetterCloud has built a community of more than 45K IT professionals who are embracing the new role of SaaSOps within IT organizations.

BetterCloud is headquartered in New York City with offices in San Francisco, CA and Atlanta, GA. The company's total amount raised to date is $187 million. Investors include Warburg Pincus, Accel, Bain Capital Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Greycroft Partners. For more information, please visit www.bettercloud.com.

SOURCE BetterCloud

Related Links

www.bettercloud.com


152 F1 contacts linked to possible Japanese COVID-19 case

Local authorities of Hai Phong city announced on October 6 that they have successfully tracked down 152 F1 cases who had come into close contact with a suspected Japanese novel coronavirus patient.



Each of the individuals has now had samples taken for testing and will undergo a period of quarantine at their own homes while they wait for their results.

Relevant forces are now tracking and identifying people who came into close contact with F1 cases.

Medical workers isolated and disinfected the Japanese experts residence, a hotel located in Le Chan district, along with his workplace based in the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP).

The Japanese expert, working at the VSIP Hai Phong, had undergone a PCR test for COVID-19 at Osaka airport upon his return to Japan, with the results coming back positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Learning about the case, the VSIP company immediately scrambled to review the mans travel history throughout Hai Phong.

The expert was sent to work in Vietnam on January 26, 2018, and eventually returned to Osaka (Japan) on October 5, 2020. During this period, he never left the northern port city.

Before his departure from Hai Phong for Japan, he held a farewell party with many of his colleagues in attendance.

Nine test negative after contact with COVID-19 case in Japan

The Hanoi Centre for Disease Control and Prevent (CDC Hanoi) has announced all nine individuals who came into close contact with a Hanoian man suspected of being positive for COVID-19 in Japan have tested negative for the virus.



Despite receiving the haul of negative test results, each of the nine people will still be required to remain under quarantine at home for a further 14 days, with CDC Hanoi moving to swiftly sanitise the surrounding areas.

This comes after a 23-year-old Vietnamese national who had flown from Hanoi to Japan on flight NH898 had tested positive for COVID-19 after undergoing a quick test upon arrival at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo on September 30.

The man will be tested for real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) over the course of the next six days.

According to CDC Hanoi, the Vietnamese patient had not come into contact with any COVID-19 patients and had not been to any infected areas before flying to Japan.

Ths is the 10th positive case detected abroad after flying from Vietnam. Nine other cases were later confirmed to be negative after undergoing RT-PCR tests.

Vietnam reports no new COVID-19 cases on October 7 morning

No new COVID-19 infections were recorded in Vietnam over the past 12 hours from 6pm on October 6 to 6am on October 7, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

Taking COVID-19 testing sample (Source: VNA)

The tally stayed unchanged at 1,098, of whom 407 are imported cases and quarantined upon arrival.

With the figures, Vietnam entered the 35th day in a row without infections in the community.

To date, 1,023 patients have been given the all-clear. Among patients still under treatment, two have tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 once, two negative twice and five negative thrice. The number of fatalities remains at 35.

A total of 14,550 people are being quarantined nationwide, with 261 at hospitals, 11,817 at designated facilities and 2,472 at home or accommodations.

Vietnam earlier recorded one new imported case of COVID-19 on October 6.

The new patient was a student returning from London on flight VN0054 which landed at Van Don airport in the northern province of Quang Ninh. She tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 while staying in quarantine in Hai Duong province.

On October 6, one patient was given the all clear, raising the total number of recoveries to 1,023. The number of fatalities remains at 35.

Among patients still under treatment, two have tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 once, two negative twice and five negative thrice.

Central province issues criteria to assess COVID-19 prevention

The Peoples Committee of central Thua Thien-Hue province has issued a set of 10 criteria to assess COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control in karaoke parlours, bars, discos and movie theatres.

Specifically, restaurants must provide disinfection hygiene products, arrange a convenient hand-washing place with clean water and soap for guests and have measures to monitor and remind users to wash their hands.

Customers and restaurant employees must wear face masks and check body temperatures before entering restaurants.

They should also have a monitoring book for service users to record their name, address, phone number, accommodation, health status and updated daily information.

If reaching from 80 points or more, the establishment is certified as ensuring COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control safety and can operate. From 65 points to less than 80 points means they relatively ensure COVID-19 pandemic prevention and can operate but must immediately overcome the failed criteria.

If reaching from 50 points to under 65 points, the establishment is relatively safe for COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control can operate but must fix the failed criteria within seven days of the assessment results. Then they will be re-checked periodically.

When the score is below 50 points, the establishment does not ensure COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control, must temporarily suspend its operation and must correct the flaws immediately.

Over 220 Vietnamese citizens brought home from Japan

More than 220 Vietnamese citizens were brought home from Japan on October 6 on a flight arranged by Vietnamese authorities, the Vietnamese Embassy in Japan, Vietjet Air and Japanese competent agencies.

The passengers included children aged under 18; pregnant women; the elderly; the illnesses; guest workers whose contracts expired; students whose dormitories closed and other people in extremely difficult circumstances.

The Vietnamese Embassy sent staff to the airport to assist them with boarding procedures.

Vietjet strictly implemented in-flight security and disease prevention measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

Upon landing at the Cam Ranh international airport in the south central province of Khanh Hoa, 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./.

COVID-19 cases in Philippines on downward trend: WHO official

The number of new cases of COVID-19 in the Philippines is on a downward trend, said the WHO representative in the country Rabindra Abeyasinghe.

The country recorded 2,093 new cases on October 6, raising the total number to 326,833. The day also saw 25 new deaths from the coronavirus disease, pushing the total fatalities to 5,865.

The Philippine Health Ministry said over 3.71 million people in the country had taken tests for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Indonesia has approved the emergency use of two antiviral drugs to treat COVID-19 patients.

The Food and Drug Monitoring Agency has issued emergency use authorization (EUA) for Favipiravir and Remdesivir.

According to the Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister, Indonesia expects to secure 670,000 vials of Remdesivir by the end of this year while expecting the drug to be manufactured domestically since November./.

Thailand, Cambodia cooperate in mitigating COVID-19 impacts

Thailand and Cambodia have reaffirmed their commitment to working closely to mitigate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through various bilateral cooperation projects, such as those concerning public health along their border areas.

Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai, and his Cambodian counterpart Prak Sokhonn, recently held a video conference on ways to strengthen cooperation between the two countries amidst challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

According to a report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, the two countries will further enhance economic cooperation by ensuring smooth transportation of goods across borders, while effectively managing the cross-border movement of people under the current travel restrictions.

They also discussed the possibility of expediting land and rail connectivity projects between Sa Kaeo and Banteay Meanchey provinces to promote border development and facilitate the recovery efforts in the post-COVID-19.

The Thai official expressed his full support for Cambodia as host of the 13th ASEM Summit to be held in 2021.

Thailand and Cambodia will mark the 70th anniversary of their diplomatic relations on December 19, 2020 and will hold activities to celebrate the occasion throughout the following year./.

Malaysia says no to national lockdown for fear of economic collapse

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has affirmed that his Government will not impose a total lockdown despite the latest surge in COVID-19 cases.

If the Government was to reintroduce a national lockdown, it would have a huge impact that could affect the social and economic system of the country, he said in his special televised address on October 6.

Instead, the Government will implement targeted enhanced movement control orders at identified areas with high numbers of cases.

On the day, Malaysia reported 691 new infections  the highest number recorded in a single day. Of the total, 688 cases were transmitted in the community, mainly in Kedah and Sabah states./.
Mavason Limited, a subsidiary of the Abris CEE Mid-Market III LP fund, managed by Abris Capital Partners Ltd., has signed an agreement with the fund 21 Concordia and its founders to purchase the majority of shares in R2G Polska Sp. z o. o., operating under the Apaczka brand  an e-commerce delivery solutions provider in Poland.

The transaction is subject to the standard approval procedure of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK).

Headquartered in Warsaw, Apaczka functions as a technology platform and an integrator, offering comprehensive shipment services for e-commerce stores, SMEs and SOHO (small office / home office) clients. It supports companies in the development of their business, providing professional tools to facilitate daily logistics, and over the past decade has made close to 30 million shipments for more than 160,000 customers.

The company has achieved increased revenues over recent years, exceeding 30m in 2019.

FinSMEs

07/10/2020
Closing the Ashram-Nizamuddin section of the Mathura Road for 10 days is the only way to address the chaos at the intersection with Ring Road, Delhi minister Satyender Jain said on Wednesday during a visit to the area after HT reported how the project to decongest one of the busiest junctions of the national capital has instead turned it into a traffic and pollution hot spot.

The governments view was supported by experts, who said there was no other option, but opposed by Delhi Traffic Police, which is the final authority on road closures, on the grounds that the road in question is one of the citys principal arteries.

Along with officials from the public works department (PWD) and the Delhi Jal Board, Jain on Wednesday reviewed the state of the area where traffic has been slowed to a crawl at all times of the day, the road surface cratered, and the air filled with dust from open construction material and the crumbling tarmac.

Both the functional carriageways on the Bhogal side of the Ashram intersection are in a dilapidated state because there are water pipelines right under them. Delhi Jal Board (DJB) officials have said that every time they repair the water pipelines during the night time, it breaks due to the heavy traffic that starts from the morning. The constant digging and repairing have damaged the road, Jain said.

To carry out necessary repairs, the stretch of the road between Ashram and Bhogal will have to be entirely shut, he said. We will request the traffic police to give permission to the PWD to shut both the carriageways on the Nizamuddin side for 10 days. In 10 days, the water pipelines will be totally replaced and a completely even and paved road will be built. Even the ramp for the proposed underpass will be ready by then. We hope the traffic police cooperate.

Taj Hassan, special commissioner of police (traffic), however, said it will be practically impossible to close both the carriageways for 10 days. This is a main arterial road. Closing it fully in the day time will cause a lot of public inconvenience. We had permitted them to close the road for night hours, and we stand by that only, said Hassan, adding that no letter making this request was received till Wednesday evening.

According to traffic department estimates, about 20% of the 400,000 vehicles that use the Ashram intersection come from or head towards Bhogal. The stretch is also used by people accessing the Nizamuddin railway station from the southern part of the city.

Experts said there is little option but to close the stretch entirely, especially because of the scale of repairs required to address the problems with the water pipelines. They warned that if the road was not shut temporarily, the problem would not be solved.

Water is the biggest enemy of bitumen. The pipelines, in this case, were not at much depth so the top layer of the road will keep breaking if it is not fixed for once and for all, said Dr S Velmurugan, chief scientist, traffic engineering and safety division, CSIR-CRRI.

What is being done right now is merely a stop-gap arrangement. Allowing heavy and light commercial vehicles and buses on the stretch is worsening the situation. The road should be closed and the people should be asked to take Barapullah instead, he said.

Velmurugan added that such problems would not have emerged in the first place had the PWD conducted a feasibility study for traffic management during the construction of the underpass.

The underpass cuts beneath Ashram Chowk and will allow traffic on the Mathura Road to proceed freely once built. But for its construction, a 175-m access ramp is being built on either side of the crossing. This portion is roughly 20m wide, which in the Bhogal direction accounts for two-thirds of the existing road width.

PWD chief engineer PK Parmar said a 10-day closure will allow the department to finish work on the access ramps and pull back barricades by 1-1.15 metre (about the width of a car). The intervening night between Tuesday and Wednesday was the first of the three days given to us when the DJB started repairing the pipeline. But, by today afternoon the line broke again and the road was back to square one. Because of such less time given, PWD also cannot do filling and carpeting of the operational carriageways because it takes at least 10 hours for the carpeting to set, Parmar said.

He added that if permission to close the road completely is not given, the situation is likely to remain the same.

For now, some of the mitigating measures include the rerouting of Delhi Transport Commission (DTC) buses, which could help reduce surface wear. Jain directed DTC to divert all its buses on the stretch, following which the transporter issued an order.

Bus route number 460 operating between Badarpur Border and Minto Road terminal has been diverted to Lajpat Nagar flyover across Modi Mill flyover to connect to Mathura road. Buses on route number 413, operating between Nizamuddin Railway station and Mehrauli have been diverted from Sunder Nagar where they will have to turn right from Subj Bhurj Circle onto Lodhi road and then taking the Lala Lajpat Rai road the order said.

The order also covers the privately run buses under the cluster bus service. In all, 10 bus routes use the stretch.

A senior official of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), which built the underground Ashram Metro station at the same congested area without hampering the traffic much, said the agency always carries out trials before beginning work. We always get a study done by an expert consultant and plan based on that during the construction phase. We carry out trials and hold public consultation, the official said on condition of anonymity.

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Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath slammed the opposition parties leading protests against the alleged gang-rape and murder case in Hathras district. The chief minister accused the Opposition of hatching conspiracies against the state and said that they are doing politics on the basis of caste, religion and region, news agency ANI reported.

People who have been dividing the society on the basis of caste, religion and region, are still doing it, news agency ANI quoted Adityanath as saying. They cant see development, and so theyre hatching new conspiracies, he added.

One must recognise those who are doing politics on the death of a person, ANI further quoted Adityanath as saying.

The state chief ministers comments come as several opposition leaders have been visiting the Hathras district to meet the womans family.

Also Read: Yogi alleges opposition propaganda against UP govt, gives cadres a task

On Saturday, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and partys general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra met the family of the woman. The visit which followed a dramatic standoff with the police at the Delhi-UP border was the Congress leaders second attempt.

After Gandhi siblings, many other leaders from Aam Aadmi Party, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi party also visited the district.

A Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped and brutally assaulted in Hathras on September 14. She succumbed to her injuries in Delhis Safdarjung Hospital on September 29.

Nationwide outrage was triggered after the police cremated the woman in the dead of the night. The family has accused the authorities of cremating the woman forcefully. However, the authorities have denied the allegations and said that it was done with the consent of the family.
Hundreds of members of the Borough Park Orthodox community filled the streets Tuesday night to protest new restrictions imposed on neighborhoods with a surge in COVID-19 cases, which include a limit on synagogue attendance and the closure of schools and non-essential businesses.

The demonstrations, held into early Wednesday morning, grew more chaotic as the night wore on and protesters resisted orders to disperse: one person was injured from a physical confrontation with other congregant(s), protesters set a fire in the middle of a crosswalk and threw cardboard boxes and masks into the flames, according to NBC New York.

A significant part of Borough Park faces the new tightened restrictions which limits houses of worship to 10 people or 25 percent capacity and completely closes schools and non-essential businesses. The area is subject to the most restrictive of three color-coded categories which are assigned by coronavirus case data.

The neighborhood is among nine in New York Citys red zone where the coronavirus positivity rate has held above 3 percent for seven straight days. Some members of the Orthodox community say they feel they have been unfairly blamed for the rise in cases.

Community activist Heshy Tischler spoke to a large crowd that gathered on the corner of 50th Street and 15th Avenue around 9 p.m., blasting New York governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio over the restrictions which must be enforced no later than Friday, the New York Post reported.

Its called civil disobedience, we can fight back, Tischler said after tearing up his face mask. Do not allow them to torture you or scare you, he said, referring to elected officials.

At another protest on 13th Avenue, councilman Kalman Yeger told the crowd: We are not going to be deprived of the right that we have in America, like everybody else in America, the right to observe our religion, according to Boro Park News.

As demonstrations continued late into the night, the number of protesters grew, with a group shutting down 13th Avenue to vehicular traffic at one point.

Story continues

According to the New York Post, after two city sheriffs deputies responded to a rubbish fire at the intersection of 46th Street and 13th Avenue after midnight, protesters chased them away and chanted Jewish lives matter as they held their ground.

The fire was later extinguished around 1:30 am by FDNY firefighters and police. Police say no arrests or summonses were issued, according to NBC.

Yeger and three other Jewish lawmakers  State Senator Simcha Felder, Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein and Councilman Chaim Deutsch  released a joint statement earlier on Tuesday sharply criticizing the governor for the restrictions and the Cuomo administrations lack of coordination and communication with local officials.

We are appalled by Governor Cuomos words and actions today. He has chosen to pursue a scientifically and constitutionally questionable shutdown of our communities, the statement read.

His administrations utter lack of coordination and communication with local officials has been an ongoing issue since the start of the pandemic, and particularly recently as we face this uptick, the lawmakers continued.

The group said though they represent areas where COVID-19 has spiked, Cuomos administration had not kept them in the loop leading up to Tuesdays decision to shut down the hot spots.

They also slammed Cuomos use of images of large gatherings of New Yorks Jewish community  one of which was a 14-year-old photo  in a PowerPoint during his Monday press briefing.

Governor Cuomos choice to single out a particular religious group, complete with a slideshow of photos to highlight his point, was outrageous, the lawmakers wrote. His language was dangerous and divisive, and left the implication that Orthodox Jews alone are responsible for rising COVID cases in New York State.

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IPSWICH, Mass., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Donald G. Comb the founder of New England Biolabs, Inc. (NEB).

Don's commitment to science led to the establishment of NEB in 1974, and his scientific vision shaped the company as the leader in the discovery and production of recombinant enzymes for molecular biology applications.

Prior to taking a position at Harvard Medical School, Don attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry. During these years, Don developed a passion for marine ecosystems. He spent many summers at the Bermuda Biological Research Station studying the development of sea urchins. He was inspired by the beauty and diversity of marine organisms and, as a result, protecting biodiversity became an important priority.

After leaving a faculty position at Harvard, Don established New England Biolabs as a cooperative of scientists dedicated to providing research tools for molecular biologists. NEB was one of the first companies to commercialize restriction enzymes which cleave DNA at specific sequences and are essential tools for recombinant DNA technology. NEB's ability to manufacture these enzymes in large quantities with increased purity and characterization helped advance the field of molecular biology.

Furthermore, Don's vision of a company that used commercial revenue to fund its own basic research was unprecedented at the time. Basic and applied research functions were established to support and complement one another, and to this day, NEB maintains an active research program that has published over 1,300 scientific publications.

A brilliant scientist, mentor to many and an insightful businessman, Don's aspiration for NEB was to remain a small, private business that focused on steady, sustainable growth. His devotion to the advancement of science, stewardship of the environment and altruistic philanthropy has been a priority for over 45 years and is reflected in NEB's three core values: passion, humility and being genuine.

Don's passion for science, art and the environment led to the creation of the New England Biolabs Foundation which supports and helps foster indigenous and community-based conservation in areas of high biodiversity. He also helped establish the Ocean Genome Legacy, a non-profit marine research facility dedicated to exploring and preserving the threatened biological diversity of the sea. His commitment to the environment is evident across the NEB campusfrom the LEED certified laboratory that was designed to minimize its impact on the surrounding landscape, to the Solar Aquatics System that treats the campus' wastewater using solar energy, plants and microbes. Don's beliefs are deeply woven into our corporate philosophy, and, as a result, New England Biolabs has been the recipient of numerous awards for environmental stewardship, employee satisfaction and customer experience.

In 2005, Don stepped down from his position as CEO, but continued to serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors. He also maintained an active research laboratory at NEB where he could be found working at the bench, reading scientific journals or chatting about his latest research interests with employees.

"Don's provocative curiosity, boundless enthusiasm and commitment to the environment will continue to serve as inspiration to all of us. His vision for how a company could be run was unconventional but highly effectivepeople and passion over process and profit, the supply of high quality reagents at a fair price, the co-mingling of basic and applied research, and the prioritization of protecting the planet and advancing science," stated Jim Ellard, CEO of NEB. "His generosity and the faith he had in each of us resulted in a family-like culture where everyone has a voice and all employees feel valued. We are all honored and humbled to have been a part of his life and look forward to continuing his legacy."

About New England Biolabs

Established in the mid 1970's, New England Biolabs, Inc. (NEB) is the industry leader in the discovery and production of enzymes for molecular biology applications and now offers the largest selection of recombinant and native enzymes for genomic research. NEB continues to expand its product offerings into areas related to PCR, gene expression, sample preparation for next generation sequencing, synthetic biology, glycobiology, epigenetics and RNA analysis. Additionally, NEB is focused on strengthening alliances that enable new technologies to reach key market sectors, including molecular diagnostics development. New England Biolabs is a privately held company, headquartered in Ipswich, MA, and has extensive worldwide distribution through a network of exclusive distributors, agents and eight subsidiaries located in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore and the UK. For more information about New England Biolabs visit www.neb.com.

NEW ENGLAND BIOLABS, and NEB are registered trademarks of New England Biolabs, Inc. LEED is a registered trademark of U.S. Green Building Council, Co. SOLAR AQUATICS SYSTEM is a trademark of Ecological Engineering Associates, Co.

SOURCE New England Biolabs

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http://www.neb.com


BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Shipt today announced that it will add an additional 100,000 shoppers this holiday season, bringing the company's personal shopper base to over 300,000. Shipt is actively seeking shoppers in all markets where the company operates. In particular, the company is looking for shoppers in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Mich., Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston and Chicago. By adding 100,000 shoppers to its platform, Shipt will be prepared to successfully deliver millions of holiday orders, allowing customers to save time and skip the lines.

"We're embarking on a holiday season like none before, and taking proactive steps to ensure we can help American families get everything on their holiday list -- groceries, essentials, gifts, home decor and apparel -- in a safe, affordable, convenient way," said Shipt CEO Kelly Caruso. "We know that one of Shipt's true differentiators is that we have shoppers who not only know how to shop really well, but also care about their work and their customers. And we know that families across America need a little bit of holiday help this season. We look forward to welcoming thousands of new shoppers to the Shipt platform this holiday season."

Earlier this year, the company announced that it had made shopping through Shipt more accessible than ever by rolling out the ability to pay per order. Thousands of new customers are now shopping through Shipt using this affordable, easy option. In addition, the Shipt $99 annual membership continues to be offered.

In addition, Shipt continues its investments in shopper safety and support, including providing ongoing access to complimentary PPE (masks, gloves and hand sanitizer), and COVID-19 financial relief support for Shipt Shoppers who are temporarily unable to work due to being diagnosed with COVID-19, having a member of their household diagnosed, or are under a mandatory quarantine order.

Over the past six months, Shipt has experienced fast-paced growth, doubling its shopper base, expanding its retailer footprint and growing its membership and customer base. The continued growth of its shopper community will not only help Shipt fulfill the anticipated spike in orders during the holiday season, but will also support growth into new markets and retailers. Today, Shipt shops for nearly 120 retailers across the United States. Recently announced partners in Shipt's multi-vertical offerings include Party City, Bed, Bath & Beyond and buybuy Baby.

"Whether customers are motivated by safety, convenience or the desire for a more personalized experience, the common thread is that they all want some extra help" added Caruso. "To do so, we will invest in our growing shopper community and retail partners to ensure that we, as always, over-deliver on delivery."

To learn more about how to apply to be a Shipt Shopper, please visit Shipt.com .

About Shipt

Shipt brings the store to your door. Through a community of Shipt Shoppers and a convenient app, Shipt provides personal shopping and delivery and is available to 80% of households in more than 5,000 U.S. cities. Shipt Shoppers go above and beyond, communicating in real time about preferences and substitutions. A curated marketplace of retailers, Shipt offers access to a variety of stores and product categories including fresh foods, household essentials, wellness products, office and pet supplies. Shipt is an independently operated, wholly owned subsidiary of Target Corp. Founded and headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, Shipt also maintains an office in San Francisco. For more information, visit Shipt.com .

Shipt Media Contact:

[email protected]

312-464-9553

SOURCE Shipt
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 21:18:55|Editor: huaxia

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MEHTARLAM, Afghanistan, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Four people, including a district chief, were killed and seven others wounded in a spate of targeted attacks in Afghanistan, authorities said on Wednesday.

In eastern Laghman province, Sayyed Sharif Pacha, chief of Dawlat Shah district, and two security force members were killed and two people wounded after a Taliban militants' improvised bomb explosion hit Sharif Pacha's motorcade.

"The explosion which occurred in Andakori locality of Dawalt Shah at midday on Wednesday also destroyed the vehicle of the district chief and damaged several other vehicles of the convoy," local government spokesman Asadullah Dawaltzai told Xinhua.

On Tuesday, Attiqullah Abdulrahimzai, chairman of Laghman's provincial council, and four of his security guards were wounded in a similar incident in Qarghayi district.

In southern Kandahar province, unknown armed men killed Quddos Aqa, a religious figure of Zharay district council early on Wednesday morning in Fasel area of the district, Mohammad Hashem, district police chief, told Xinhua.

Militants affiliated with the Taliban group and Islamic State (IS) conducted scores of targeted attacks killing civilians and military officials in recent years.

In the meantime, personnel of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the country's national intelligence agency, arrested 15 suspected Taliban members allegedly responsible for targeted attacks in the country's capital, Kabul, the NDS said in a statement reaching Xinhua early on Wednesday. Enditem
Britain and the EU are closer to agreement on reciprocal social security rights for their citizens after Brexit, two diplomatic sources said, with one describing talks last week on an elusive trade deal as one of the most positive so far.

The European Union diplomats said Brussels was now gearing up to negotiate until as late as mid-November  rather than cutting talks off at the start of next month  to avoid a damaging no-deal scenario when Britains standstill transition with the bloc ends on Dec. 31.

There was no breakthrough in last weeks negotiations on the three most contentious issues  fisheries, fair competition guarantees and ways to settle future disputes  but the prospects of an overall accord looked brighter.

We seem to be getting closer and closer to a deal, even though the no-deal rhetoric in public might suggest the opposite, said one of the two sources, both of whom were briefed by the executive European Commission, which is negotiating with Britain on behalf of the 27-nation EU.

Sterling cut losses vs the euro on Tuesday after the report, holding near to $1.30.

The sources spoke ahead of further talks on Wednesday-Friday in London with Britain, which left the EU in January after nearly half a century of membership.

At stake is an estimated trillion euros worth of bilateral trade. Investors and businesses are increasingly anxious about a split with no agreement to ensure the continuation of trade without tariffs or quotas.

Speaking separately this week, a senior EU official dealing with Brexit said the talks were in a decisive period and not far away from the endgame.

I still hope and think that we can find an agreement, the person said, but stressed that EU industries must be ready for the most damaging economic split as well.

A deputy head at the Commission said separately on Tuesday the EU wanted a deal with Britain, but that time was running out and the sides risked failing to get one by the end of the year.

TUNNEL TALKS?

Prime Minister Boris Johnsons spokesman also said on Tuesday Britain needed to know by Oct.15 if there was going to be a deal because businesses need to prepare.

The 27 national leaders are due to assess progress when they meet in Brussels on Oct.15-16. If they decide a deal is in the making, they would authorize a final stretch of extremely secretive, make-or-break negotiations known as the tunnel.

The EU has so far said a deal must be finalized by the end of October to leave time for ratification by the European Parliament and some national parliaments in the bloc.

A new, mid-November target suggests hectic weeks ahead would rattle financial markets if an eleventh-hour-deal is to be reached.

Brussels insists, however, it will not implement any new deal without Britain rowing back on proposed new domestic legislation that would violate Londons earlier divorce settlement with the EU.

Asked to comment on the EU sources assessment on Tuesday, a UK official said: A deal is possible but not certain We remain fully committed to seeking to reach an agreement by 15 October.

The two EU diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Britain had made welcome proposals on nine out of 10 areas of protecting social security rights for people moving between EU member states and the United Kingdom.

These proposals, which included benefits for accidents at work and death grants, were a basis to very easily agree a joint text on social security coordination, they said.

These protections could be critical for as many as 5 million people, whether it be a Briton in retirement in southern France or a German employed in London.

However, there was no agreement on family benefits. London wants EU citizens to pay a surcharge over five years for healthcare access for family members, while the bloc says Britain should reciprocate the open access it offers.

The UK official said good progress had been made on social benefits but that outstanding issues were also significant, adding that London would not change its stance on the health surcharge or on access to family benefits.

(Reporting and writing by Gabriela Baczynska, Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke in Berlin, Editing by John Chalmers and Gareth Jones)

Topics Europe London
Government has appointed Commissioner of Police for the Northern Region, Hannings Mlotha, as the new Director-General for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services.

Mlotha replaces Masauko Medi who has been redeployed to the Ministry of Homeland Security where he is going to take up the post of Principal Secretary (PS).

According to a government communication Nyasa Times has seen, the appointment is effective October 2, 2020.

Apart from serving as commissioner of police for the Northern Region, Mlotha was also overseeing research and planning at the Malawi Police Service.
Ralph Lauren has left fans baffled by advertising a pair of 620 overalls that are covered in fake paint stains.

The blue cotton boiler suit has white and red splatters all over it and worn marks on the knees.

It is kept together by gold zip and looks like something that could be worn by a painter-decorator.

Ralph Lauren has left fans baffled by advertising a pair of 620 overalls covered that are covered in fake paint stains. The blue cotton boiler suit has white and red splatters all over it and worn marks on the knees.

On its website, the US designer boasts about the 'Paint-Splatter Coveralls'.

'Made from Japanese cotton satin with the reverse side facing out.

'Utility pockets. Allover paint splatters,' the description reads.

Dozens of customers has taken to Facebook to share their dismay at the garment.

One customer joked about the painter and decorator chic garment.

She said: 'Pay to look like you work for a living.'

The blue cotton jeans are covered in splatters of white and orange paint confusing dozen of customers

The overalls cost a whopping 620 leaving customer completely baffled by the bizarre look

Another said: 'Laughing by f****** a*** off.'

'Someone will buy this as well,' said a third.

Ralph Lauren is offering a payment plan if shoppers can't afford to pay for the pricey overalls in one go.

They are available in small, medium, large and extra large sizes.

But they do come with free delivery because the order is over 70.

It comes after fellow high end retailer Gucci left fans baffled by selling a pair of 525 slippers that resembled those worn by Catherine Tate's character Nan.

It comes after fellow high end retailer Gucci left fans baffled by selling a pair of 525 slippers that resembled those worn by Catherine Tate's character Nan

High fashion fans have been swapping their heels for cosy slippers in lockdown, but a certain very expensive new pair bores a striking similarity to the pair worn by Catherine Tate's character Nan

Tate played Nan - also known as Joannie Taylor - from 2004 to 2015, as part of her popular Catherine Tate show and in a number of spin offs.

On its website, the fashion house describes the unisex footwear by writing: 'The women's ankle boot is reinterpreted in textured fabrics, merino wool lining and a fabric covered midsoleelements that mimic slippers.

'One of Gucci's signature design details, the Horsebit is shown on the top of the toe.

'This wool is enhanced with the GG logofirst used in the 1970s, it's an evolution of the original Gucci rhombi design from the 1930s.'
Emma Chidi Ofoegbu commends the fence-mending style of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State in his novel approach to the welfare of Igbos in the state

Ohanaeze as a socio-cultural organization of the Igbos worldwide, stands as the biggest umbrella right from its inception as Igbo State Union, that protects the Igbo interests in diverse contexts.

In 1935, when Sir Francis Akanu-Ibiam, the first Igbo medical doctor, returned from Europe after his studies, He and a few energetic Igbo leaders initiated the effort to form a union that could bring all Igbos together, through the representative of villages and clans in the city of Lagos. A Pan-Igbo movement with the aim of advancing the cause of the people, especially in the field of education. The Igbo union was doing very well, giving scholarships to indigent students and helping members in their business interests.

At the inaugural meeting of the Igbo union in 1936, the leader of the movement stated: "Brethren, this is the day and the hour when the Igbo of Nigeria should come together and sink all differences - geographical, lingual, intellectual, moral and religious - and unite under the banner of our great objectives, which are unity, cooperation and progress of all Igbos".

When Chief Solomon Ogbonna Aguene indicated interest to lead the Igbos in Lagos State under the platform of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, some of us who are close to him, and have done one or two things with him in business and educational circles, came out convincingly to campaign for him. At one of the meetings we held at the time, one "Onye Eze" in one of the local governments in Lagos State told me he thought I was Solomon Ogbonna's Campaign Manager. I was not, but was so strategic in my campaign activities that will make one to think I was even the one contesting the leadership position, based on my experience as a former Ohanaeze Alimosho Local Government Area Chairman; and Lagos State Ohanaeze Chairmen Forum Secretary, among other responsibilities as a member and secretary of executive in Ohanaeze Lagos state.

I was doing that because having known him and had contacts and interactions with him, I saw in him a man that is humble, peaceful, considerate, has a lot of love in his heart, and willing to assist anyone he came in contact with, to move out of despondency into a better life. I saw in him natural intelligence, I observed in him ability to critically analyse issues in contexts that demonstrate he knew what he is talking about; bringing into perspectives his experiences- native , local and international, and vision of the future, and how to get there. I saw in him a good natured man, an interesting personality and one, somebody can joyfully work with; yes, a man that is willing to listen to advice and ready to correct himself. A man that is so appreciative and thankful for anything you do for him. A man anyone who understands what leadership is, can easily identify as a great leader and astute manager of men and their psychologies. A man of peace and love. Let it not, when his history will be read by generations and after his tenure, be mentioned or said that an Igbo man or woman was expelled from Ohanaeze during his time as President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Lagos State. His disagreement with Chief John Uche, Ohanaeze Lagos State first President, is an issue that does not require much time to settle and this article serves to announce that the issue has been resolved peacefully. We had a similar case after the election that threw up Barrister Fabian Onwughalu. At the chairmen forum, I was the one who initiated the idea of post election conflict resolution committee to look into all the grievances that wanted to tear Ohanaeze Lagos State apart. The chairmen accepted my proposal and appointed me secretary of the committee. We did a great work and all court cases were withdrawn. We did not recommend that anybody should be expelled. That statement is not the voice of Chief Solomon Ogbonna Aguene and will forever not be.

His relationship with the Lagos State Government under the leadership of Babajide Sanwo-Olu is not a mistake in every consideration.

The current Lagos State Governor, in the person of His Excellency Babajide, Sanwo-Olu seems to have undergone a tutorial on Igbo psychology, to understand that the Igbos in Lagos State should be respected and treated like stakeholders not strollers. A clear departure from the era of political blackmail, intimidation, arrogance and false claims in South-west ,particularly by members of APC in Lagos state; who thought they can intimidate the Igbos through sponsoring attacks against them, their shops, their properties, and propaganda that creates a situations where Igbos see them as continuing the Nigeria- Biafra war in Lagos State during elections, and as such do not have any other choice than to oppose them and defeat them at their various polling units, and be ready to fight back in the markets, at the bus stops and at polling units during elections. And hiring one or two Igbo sons, who Igbos do not recognize as leaders, to abuse us.

Because of this approach by the Governor and his relationship with the Ohanaeze president, his concern for the welfare of the Igbos particularly the widows in Lagos State, and his listening ear, those of us who worked in the past and have the ability to deliver our polling units, wards, and constituencies to PDP, will now transfer this political power, to support Babajide Sanwo-Olu APC platform ;and support everything he is doing in Lagos State - politically, socially and economically. We shall go back to tell those our members, that recognized us as their leaders, to vote for APC government under Babajide Sanwo-Olu. We will tell them we have found another friend in him ' and have accepted him as one of us. We will tell them the Governor has worked to become "Nwanne di na Mba" (A brother in Diaspora). We will tell them we have seen a man who has demonstrated through his numerous supports for the Igbos in Lagos state, that, he is respectful ,reliable, have high regards and consideration for the Igbos; and treat Igbos as friends and good neighbours not weeds.

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QUOTE

The current Lagos State Governor, in the person of His Excellency Babajide, Sanwo-Olu seems to have undergone a tutorial on Igbo psychology, to understand that the Igbos in Lagos State should be respected and treated like stakeholders not strollers. A clear departure from the era of political blackmail, intimidation, arrogance and false claims in South-west ,particularly by members of APC in Lagos state; who thought they can intimidate the Igbos through sponsoring attacks against them, their shops, their properties, and propaganda that creates a situations where Igbos see them as continuing the Nigeria- Biafra war in Lagos State during elections, and as such do not have any other choice than to oppose them and defeat them at their various polling units, and be ready to fight back in the markets, at the bus stops and at polling units during elections
Since the lockdown rules have lifted significantly, Im sure a lot of you are itching to go out on a road trip. If youre in the market looking for something that will help ferry the entire family, heres a list we think could make that choice easier.

Highways and infrastructure can spur the countrys economic growth, Union Minister VK Singh said on Wednesday.

The Minister of State for Road, Transport and Highways was addressing the annual session of PHDCCIs annual session Building Aatmanirbhar Bharat as the chief guest.

Roads and infrastructure can spur growth in the economy. The workforce is back at pre-COVID levels, which is a healthy sign, Singh said, adding good quality road network leads to ease of doing business, goods transportation and economic growth.

"We all need to think, walk and sleep on this theme, because as we prosper, the country prospers, the minister said. He said Aatmanirbhar Bharat is about self-reliance in not only about what to produce but also on delivering it effectively to the world market.

As per a statement from PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry Singh mentioned that Chinese market supply volumes are high and sold in entire global market yet the quality is not sustainable.

This is something he highlighted as an opportunity for India needs to tap. He said that Self-reliance is not isolation, but about plugging into the global market and economy and realising and working on our domain of excellence.

He also stressed on the need to focus on technology, saying it can become the countrys strength. DK Aggarwal, President, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in his presidential address for the 115th Annual Session, said that Aatmanirbhar Bharat is about self-reliance, self-sufficiency and self-sustenance.

He said that at this juncture, the country needs to strengthen the manufacturing sector, increasing the competitiveness in domestic manufacturing, focus on supply chains, among others.
Theres an inconspicuous shop on Schombergs Main Street. Artistic and intriguing. The door is wide open and behind the heavy, theatre style burgundy curtain is an eclectic office. At first glance, its part museum, part design studio. Unlike other shops, this one also houses a modern replica of Leonardo da Vincis flying machine. G2Net, a court-ordered non-profit dedicated to delivering aid to developing countries, is part of one mans multi-faceted passion, or perhaps obsession. Its also home to UNICORN Aerospace  Universal Cartographic Orbital Rotational Navigation. This is a strategic multi-dimensional geo-spacial mapping technology. The company develops advanced aerospace technologies for private industry and the military. Pretty cool stuff. The quaint Schomberg storefront has an air of mystery, a feeling of something much bigger. Andre Milne is a pilot, former military man, artist and aeronautical designer. His passion hovers in the sky but hes a logical man, driven by a search for the truth. Hes also an admitted skeptic, believing only what he can see and prove. Hes also a trained flight data analyst, whos uncovered evidence surrounding some of the most mysterious air crashes in recent history. Milne is unassuming, intelligent and quite personal. His laid-back nature belies his skills, covert military experience and investigative abilities. These same skills, and his tenacity, have drawn the attention of government officials and military personnel alike. Milne formed G2 Net in 1994, with support from the Toronto Police. The goal was to collect and deliver humanitarian donations to refugees in the Caucasus area of the former Soviet Union, something not quite fashionable at the time. The idea was to have Canadian police offers on the ground in the region, giving the project legitimacy and a certain amount of might. He saw G2Net as a vehicle to accelerate aid in real time. In the process, he identified inefficiencies and red tape hurdles among top international aid organizations. Delivering aid to Muslim countries in the Middle East proved challenging. The name used in those countries for the Red Cross is Red Crescent, a moniker adopted by the Ottoman Empire in 1906. Red Crescent provides disaster and conflict relief in those regions. When he tried to launch an aid program to Somalia, the idea was simple enough  Canadians bringing humanitarian aid to Somalians. It was an attempt, he said, to open relations with that part of the world. A lot of challenges and regulatory issues forced Milne to put G2Net in mothballs for a time. The time is now. His philanthropic side, and ultimate goals, have never waned. Hes adamant that any and all donations, particularly monetary donations, get to those in need. Hes eliminated a bloated administration that plagues many NGOs and non-profits. Instead, his efforts are self-funded. Some exciting future fundraising plans, and a fantastic aerial project, are in the offing. He hopes to launch everything soon. To raise funds, Milne has created the Stealth Aerial History Tour, a world-wide trip via a unique biomechanical aircraft, the Stealth. Modelled after da Vincis flying machine, the pedal-propelled light aircraft with hang-glider like wings is aiming to set some records. Its also designed to generate funds for those who desperately need it. Milne is planning a tour with the Stealth, live-streaming sights and sounds of some of the worlds wonders and marvels. Using a pay per view per flight method, viewers will log in and watch as the craft and pilot navigate over such places as the Great Wall of China or the Pyramids of Giza. Enlisting the support of various countries and their own athletes or celebrities, each leg of the journey will have nationalistic flare. It may just help bring some countries and cultures together, in a time of uncertainty and conflict. He hopes to raise money and then simply give it all away. Milne sees human-powered flight as the holy grail of flight. Its pure and simple, almost an extension of the human form. Through his craft, and this project, he hopes to inspire the hearts and minds of people who literally shoot for the stars. Milne shares some amazing, albeit redacted stories, ranging from UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) and black ops to government cover-ups. Milne uses hard data to prove his case. Hes turned his attention to investigating some major airline crashes, and has uncovered some interesting evidence. His interest was piqued when he began doing a forensic analysis of EgyptAir 990. The jet airliner that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean roughly 100 kilometres south of Nantucket, Massachusetts, in the early morning hours of Oct. 31, 1999. All 217 people on board died. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) stated that the actions of the copilot caused the crash, but Egyptian authorities blamed mechanical failure. Using various radar sources, satellite readings and his own expertise, Milne believes the pilots used evasive action to avoid two objects that were posing a threat. Whether these were missiles or UAPs remains unknown. Milne was so adamant about his findings that he lobbied MPs, Canadian government officials and even the PMO in 2003 to look at his data and share the information with Egyptian officials. He received letters of support from well known MPs at the time. His efforts became stalled, Milne speculates, by other government agencies. Fast-forward to 2014 and Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared March 8 on its way from Kuala Lampur to Beijing. All 227 passengers and 12 crew were presumed lost. Investigators relied largely on Insmarsat satellite data to believe it crashed somewhere in the South China and Andaman Seas. Searches have failed to find the wreckage. Milnes colleague Danny Boyer, a U.S. air force member, located a satellite image believed to be the crash site in a remote part of Cambodia. Milne is now working with Boyer to get a team through the jungle to examine the site he found. The black box and the wreckage will be key to uncovering the truth. But Milne doesnt believe it was deliberate pilot action. It remains as one of the biggest mysteries in air history. The downing of Ukrainian Flight 752 on Jan. 8, 2020 caught the worlds attention. An anti-aircraft missile fired by Iranian military personnel destroyed the plane, killing all 176 passengers, including 57 Canadians. Investigators are still waiting to recover data from the black box. While the facts in this incident seem indisputable, Milne believes theres much more to it than meets the eye. He said hes been asked by the Ukraine government to continue looking into the incident and hes been corresponding with officials from that country. That, he said, prompted a visit recently from RCMP agents with the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team. This further piqued Milnes curiosity but he refused to relay any details of his investigation. Such is a glimpse into the goings-on behind the curtain at G2Net on Schombergs quiet Main Street. The Pandoras Box of discoveries aside, Milnes desire to help those in need is undeniable. Help support his efforts, when he and his Stealth take to the skies.

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Mumbai :

An apex body of chemists and druggists today demanded that the proposed amendments to Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1940 and permission to online sell of medicines be put on hold till the Government draft is changed.

All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD) has submitted a memorandum to the Union Health Ministry in this regard.

"We have submitted a memorandum to Secretary of Health Ministry demanding that the proposed amendments to Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1940 and permission to online sell of drugs be withhold till the draft is amended and objections raised are addressed by the Government," AIOCD President Jagannath Shinde said in a statement here.

He said decisions related to the health of citizens should be taken with care.

Online sell of drugs should not be looked from the perspective of the discount as long term and unrecoverable rights and security of customers should also be taken into consideration. In reality, the Centre has fixed profit of drug sellers and selling medicines at further discount raise doubts about their quality, he said.

Shinde said this competition with online pharmacies is unreasonable and puts a question mark over the existence of 8 lakh drug sellers.

A new authority has been proposed for online drug sell in the draft of the Central Government which is against the principles of decentralisation of the body, AIOCD said.

Rural areas don't have adequate health facilities and lack qualified doctors. Thus, the Centre needs to focus on strengthening regulatory mechanism which is currently weak, it said.

Shinde said the draft needs to include issues like the entry of drug mafia, the interest of customers and social interest of HIV patients.

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Diplomats from Israel and the United Arab Emirates met in Germany today for their first meeting since normalizing ties last month.

Germanys top diplomat said the historic agreement between the two countries has the potential to advance stalled peace efforts.

The courageous peace agreement is an opportunity for movement in dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a tweet.

Maas hosted UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi in Berlin. Nahyan and Ashkenazi referred to each other as friend in a news conference following a closed meeting, The Associated Press reported.

They also visited a Holocaust memorial in Berlin, according to the AP. Nahyan wrote Never again in the visitor book at the memorial, Reuters reported.

The UAE and Israel agreed to establish full diplomatic and economic relations in August and officially signed the agreement in September during a White House ceremony. Following the UAEs lead, Bahrain also agreed to normalize ties with the Jewish state and likewise signed a deal in Washington.

The UAE was the first country in the Gulf to establish ties with Israel, though Israel had quietly grown closer to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in recent years due to concerns over Iran.

Jordan and Egypt were the only Arab countries to have recognized Israel before the Emirati and Bahraini decisions.

Following the accord, businesses in the UAE and Israel have signed a series of agreements pledging to further economic ties.

Germany is a close ally of Israel, in part due to the legacy of the Holocaust. In April, Germany designated the entirety of the Lebanese group Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Previously, Germany only considered Hezbollahs military wing as such. Israel, which has clashed with Hezbollah for years, delighted at the move.

The European power is also not afraid to voice its disagreements with Israel, however. In July, Germany warned Israel against its plans to annex parts of the West Bank. Israel agreed to suspend plans in exchange for normalization with the UAE.
OTTAWA - Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole promised free votes for his MPs Wednesday on two pieces of legislation that are a source of tension within the party.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 7/10/2020 (472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA - Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole promised free votes for his MPs Wednesday on two pieces of legislation that are a source of tension within the party.

Both have been put on the agenda early by Justice Minister David Lametti: one bill would ban coercive conversion therapy for LGBTQ people and the other would expand access to medical aid in dying.

Leader of the Opposition Erin O'Toole rises during Question Period in the House of Commons Monday, Oct. 5, 2020 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

The Liberals have not said whether they will force their caucus to vote in favour of either or both. The NDP suggested Wednesday that while they back the conversion therapy bill, they've not decided on the expansion of medical assistance in dying.

Leader Jagmeet Singh cautioned that he wants to make sure the bill doesn't fall short of providing necessary access.

"We don't know, in terms of the legislation, if it will go where it needs to go, but the principle is we believe everyone should have access to this important right," he said.

For O'Toole, however, figuring out where his caucus will go is also a matter of balancing political priorities.

The strength of the party's socially conservative wing was evident in the recent leadership race.

Two of the four candidates on the ballot  current MP Derek Sloan and Toronto lawyer Leslyn Lewis  ran with the backing of well-organized and -funded anti-abortion groups.

O'Toole, while saying he supports a woman's right to choose to end a pregnancy, also courted their support. He won on the third ballot after both Sloan's and Lewis's supporters largely came to him.

Keeping his pledge that he'd allow social conservatives' voices to be heard, along with one that he'd allow free votes on conscience issues, is crucial for caucus unity.

When asked Wednesday if the votes on the two bills would be free, O'Toole's answer was simple: "Yes, they will."

But O'Toole must also find a way to fight the Liberals' allegations  repeated again in the Commons Wednesday  that social conservatives are driving his party's agenda.During the leadership race, Sloan and Lewis were critical of the ban on coerced conversion therapy, a widely condemned and discredited practice aimed at forcing someone to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.

They've alleged it would criminalize mere conversations between parents and children.

The Liberals say the bill does no such thing. But even O'Toole has picked up on that thread, making the same allegation in his response to the bill last week.

"Conversion therapy should be banned to protect young people who identify as LGBTQ+. I want everyone to feel accepted in our society," he said.

"Let us do this in the right way and make sure their support networks are not jeopardized in the process. We will be seeking reasonable amendments to try to get to yes on this."

The Tories also appear to be stuck on how fast they'll get to a yes on a bill that's coming from one of their own.

Last week, the Liberals also reintroduced a bill that would mandate training for judges to improve their handling of sexual assault cases.

The legislation was first put forward by Rona Ambrose, when she was interim leader of the Conservative party in 2017.

It passed the Commons then but was held up in the Senate and failed to pass before the 2019 election.

When it was brought back last week, the Conservatives denied unanimous consent to send the bill directly to the stage of legislative process it was at before. Some also appeared to raise concerns that not enough consultation had been done.

On Wednesday, Conservative House leader Gerard Deltell said the bill on expanding access to medical aid in dying deserves a full airing in the Commons.

"It's because of the seriousness of this bill that we want to let our people express themselves," he said.

Neither Deltell nor O'Toole supported the first piece of legislation allowing assisted dying in 2016, which was a free vote for all MPs.

The new one cannot and should not be dealt with in a partisan way, Deltell said.

"There is no good or bad position," he said.

"We have to address it seriously, correctly and with respect."

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are beginning to plot their own parliamentary strategy in earnest. The threat of an immediate election vaporized when the minority Liberals' throne speech was supported in a vote by the NDP, so all the parties are focused on what they can achieve in the House of Commons.

The next agenda item for the Tories: how to push forward on the WE Charity scandal with parliamentary committees set to reconvene beginning later this week.

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Several had been digging into the affair but their work halted when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament in August.

The New Democrats want a new stand-alone committee to start probing a decision to have WE Charity run a COVID-19-related student grant program, as well as other big ticket COVID-19 policies.

Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett said Wednesday his party will study the New Democrats' idea, but certainly do not intend to let the matter go.

"We fully expect to pick up our investigations where we left off," he said.

"The coverup prorogation is not going to be where we leave this issue."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 7, 2020.
Sheena Watt has spent the past 15 years breaking down barriers that prevented Aboriginal people from fully participating in the Labor Party.

Next week, she will break the glass ceiling and make history by becoming Labor's first female Aboriginal MP in the Victorian Parliament.

Sheena Watt has broken glass ceilings, becoming Labor's first female Aboriginal MP in the Victorian Parliament. Credit:Justin McManus

"I've spent my entire time focusing on breaking down barriers inside the party ... and having the voices of Aboriginal people heard," Ms Watt said.

"This work needs to continue. It's something that will continue to be a priority for me as an MP. I think about the Aboriginal activists in the Labor Party who've reached out to me over the past few days and showed me so much support."
Tata Sons Ltd is considering various options on the future of its airline venture AirAsia India against the backdrop of its Malaysian partner planning to exit it, two people in the know said.

This comes at a time when the Tatas are facing the uphill task of gathering funds to buy out the 18.4% stake that Shapoorji Pallonji Group owns in the Tata group holding firm.

The Tata group, which has the first right of refusal for the 49% stake held by Tony Fernandes-owned AirAsia Bhd in the Indian airline, is weighing at least three alternatives, said the people cited above.

These are the Mumbai-based conglomerate purchasing AirAsia Bhds entire stake in the Indian venture or ushering in a strong new investor such as a private equity firm or a sovereign wealth fund to purchase AirAsia Bhds stake, they said. There is also the option of bringing in a strategic player that would acquire the entire stake of Tata group and AirAsia Bhd in the loss-making Indian airline, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity.

Other options like a merger of the businesses of AirAsia and Vistara (a 51:49 joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines) have also been considered. However, this may be tricky because Vistara is well-capitalized and merging AirAsia Indias business during a downturn may suddenly weaken the merged entitys financials, and cause more funding requirements, increase fixed costs and so on. This may not be desirable to Singapore Airlines," one of the two people said.

The second person said Tata group is reluctant to deploy funds to buy out AirAsia Bhds stake as it is facing the mammoth task of arranging capital to buy out Shapoorji Pallonji Group in Tata Sons, estimated at about 1.6 trillion.

AirAsia India, which is owned 51% by the Tata group, has never recorded a net profit since its inception in 2014. Meanwhile, AirAsia Bhd, which is facing headwinds due to the disruptions to the global air travel market from covid, had in June approached Tata group to sell its stake, as mandated by the terms of the joint venture pact under which Tata Sons has the right of first refusal, Mint reported earlier.

AirAsia India also ran into other turbulence over the years. In 2018, the Central Bureau of Investigation began probing allegations of bribery and corruption against AirAsia India, and some of its top executives, including Fernandes, over key changes in Indias civil aviation policy that were allegedly aimed at benefiting the airline.

AirAsia Bhds reluctance to add fresh equity into AirAsia India has further set the tone for the future.

Business Standard on Tuesday stated Tata group and AirAsia Bhd are discussing the latters exit from AirAsia India on the backdrop of the Malaysian airline getting a $54 million firm offer for its stake from a foreign fund.

A Tata group spokesperson declined to comment. AirAsia Bhd didnt respond to emailed queries.

It will be difficult to get someone, be it airlines, funds or other corporates, to pick up AirAsia Bhds stake in AirAsia India as the current environment is not very conducive," said Nripendra Singh, industry principal, aerospace, defence and security practice at Frost and Sullivan. Nobody would want to wait for a few years for air passenger traffic to return to 2019 levels. So, debt restructuring will probably be a good way to stabilize the airline.

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President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky believes that a free trade area between Ukraine and the EU should correspond to the current economic realities of Ukraine and the EU.

"We agreed to make maximum use of its [Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU] mechanisms to further develop our trade relations and deepen economic integration between Ukraine and the European Union. Meanwhile, our delegation presented its vision of updating the Association Agreement in the field of trade and sectoral interaction. The free trade area has to meet the realities of today, both the Ukrainian economy and the economy and legislative field of the EU," he said at the final press conference after the end of the Ukraine-EU summit in Brussels on Tuesday.

Zelensky said that the focus of the discussions was the integration of Ukraine into the single digital market of the EU, the integration of the energy markets of Ukraine and the EU, interaction in the implementation of the European Green Deal.

The President of Ukraine said that the parties will also move towards the Agreement on industrial "visa-free." He said that the EU expert commission has recently started its work, which will assess Ukraine's readiness to conclude an Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products.
Visitors to the Desert Centre in Osoyoos are catching a very rare sight as an endangered badger has taken up residence  the first spotted near the centre in 15 years.

On Sept. 11 guests mentioned they had spotted a badger to Leor Oren, manager of the Desert Centre in Osoyoos.

I assumed they were just making it up or saw something else. So I really drilled them hard and questioned them to see if it was actually a badger and the description they gave was bang on, Oren said.

The search was on. Two days later, Oren noticed a burrow near the spot of the first sighting. He set up motion detecting wildlife cameras near the burrow which captured a lot of visiting critters, but no badger.

I didnt get a photo of the badger. I did get photos of so many other species that use the burrow, Oren said.

A bobcat, skunks and cottontail rabbits popped by to use the burrow, but still no badger until Oct. 1 when visitors on the walking loop at the Desert Centre captured a photo of it.

Now we are at 100 per cent confirmed badger sighting and it has been around for three weeks which is amazing, amazing news, Oren said.

Badgers are endangered, red-listed in B.C., with approximately 300 individuals across the province and only an estimated 30 in the Okanagan area.

So its quite the sighting because there are not a lot of them and because they are nocturnal and during the day they will be hiding in their burrows. So seeing one is quite the rare event, Oren said.

Oren himself has yet to see the Desert Centres newest resident with his own eyes.

Every time someone else sees it I go and check and its gone. So, it shows you that even if it is around its still very hard to see, Oren said.

Badgers play an important role in the ecosystem, building burrows which play host to many other species, as Orens wildlife cameras captured.

Burrowing owls highly depend on badgers to dig their burrows for them. Burrowing owls give birth and have nests inside the burrows of the badger. The burrowing owls do not dig by themselves. So, the burrowing owls depend on the badger, so many other species depend on the badgers burrows for shelter, Oren said. Just having the badger here adds so much biodiversity for the Desert Centre.

With low numbers of badgers in the province, Oren noted their biggest threat is road mortality. Being nocturnal, short and on the move a lot, the species crosses roads often in the middle of the night.

In areas where there are high populations of badgers you will see signs of them. So it is very important to drive slower and really pay attention, Oren said. The best thing we can do to help badgers is protect grasslands. Grasslands is their favourite habitat. So if British Columbia can provide habitat for badgers, protected habitat, protected grasslands, then we will hopefully see badgers thriving and increasing in numbers again.

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As clashes continue to rage between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, Armenians living abroad have headed back to their homeland to fight. FRANCE 24 met with Vardan, an Armenian builder living in western France, as he flew back to his native country.

Vardan, an Armenian builder living in western France, flew back to his native country to fight in the conflict with Azerbaijan over the breakaway, ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh. We are very proud of him, one of his sons said, seeing him off at Pariss Charles de Gaulle airport.

A veteran of the first war over Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s, the 45-year-old plans to return to his native town Yeghvard, form a group of volunteers, and go to the front. By the time he arrived, two men from Yeghvard had already been killed in the fighting. Its our homeland, were going out there to avenge our brothers, we must get out there and win, said another volunteer.

Vardan is still waiting for authorisation to join the armed forces.

Click on the video player above to watch FRANCE 24's report.
Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages, the bottling partner of the American soft drink giant and one of India's top FMCG companies, has offered the option of permanent work-from-home for its employees that are not involved in production or sales and need not be physically present at work location. The company is also offering monetary support to employees to enable this process.

As a first step, the company has started delivering ergonomically designed chairs from its office to the eligible employees, to their homes, on request. Those working in other cities will have the option to purchase work chairs. For uninterrupted internet connectivity, HCCB will provide monetary support for employees to install UPS for power back-up including monthly WI-FI expenses. Employees can also avail of monetary support to purchase tables, headphones, lamps, webcam, external microphone, even a coffee mug or flower arrangement.

Further, to deal with physical and emotional challenges, the company has provisioned for telemedicine facility and wellness counselling through the organisation 1To1 HELP. An app available for download, managed by a chatbot, will continue to be used by employees to update the company on their health and wellness. The company has also modified its health insurance policy with provisions to include parents and in-laws and 'top-up' cover for the immediate dependents.

"This policy is led by empathy and flexibility, ensuring employees and their dependents to feel safe and be at ease, regardless of their work location. The idea is to provide a seamless experience that is meaningful both for the company as well as the employees," said Indrajeet Sengupta, CHRO at HCCB. "The unique feature of the policy is that it has been co-created by our colleagues who we feel know their problems the best. The situation is evolving and hence we remain open and flexible to any modifications that the policy may need."

The company said the policy has been designed by a cross-functional team with extensive inputs from a large swathe of the organisation. The policy makes available training programs and support materials to help employees effectively navigate their day, be productive, minimise digital fatigue and adapt to the new way of working. The company has also made available LinkedIn Learning and Harvard ManageMentor training programs.

Also Read: Surprise! Mukesh Ambani didn't bail out Anil in Ericsson case; RCom leased Rs 460 cr assets

Also Read: Google faces antitrust case in India for abuse of position in smart TV market

Also Read: Work-from-home triggers high burn-out rates among Indians, especially women
YEREVAN, Armenia, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Armenia's tech community leaders have come together to form Global Awareness, an initiative to spread awareness in the international community and stop disinformation surrounding the current conflict with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Global Awareness

As the conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh continues to escalate, more awareness is now being spread by both international media outlets and world leaders. Azerbaijan continues to violate human rights by actively bombing Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh's capital. This has resulted in many civilian casualties and extensive damage to infrastructure, garnering the attention of the international community.

Further updates on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as of Oct. 6, 2020:

While Aliyev in his interview with Al Jazeera announces that Azerbaijan welcomes Armenians living in Artsakh to live together, Azerbaijani "Smerch" rocket explodes near the Red Cross in Stepanakert after a series of explosions in Artsakh on Oct. 6 , reported by RT reporter Murad Gazdiev and Komsomolskaya Pravda reporter Aleksandr Kots .



welcomes Armenians living in Artsakh to live together, Azerbaijani "Smerch" rocket explodes near the Red Cross in Stepanakert after a series of explosions in Artsakh on , reported by RT reporter Murad Gazdiev and Komsomolskaya Pravda reporter . Canada has suspended all military export permits to Turkey due to concerns centered around human rights violations. Foreign affairs minister Francois-Philippe Champagne has stated: " Canada continues to be concerned by the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting in shelling of communities and civilian casualties."



has suspended all military export permits to due to concerns centered around human rights violations. Foreign affairs minister has stated: " continues to be concerned by the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting in shelling of communities and civilian casualties." RT correspondent Murad Gadziev reports that Syrian al Nusra jihadists are now being deployed to Karabakh to fight for Azerbaijan - head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Agency informed. Nusra, also known as Al Qaeda in Syria , is the dominant rebel faction in Idlib, and second only to ISIS in infamy.



jihadists are now being deployed to Karabakh to fight for - head of Foreign Intelligence Agency informed. Nusra, also known as Al Qaeda in , is the dominant rebel faction in Idlib, and second only to ISIS in infamy. Mayor of Los Angeles , Eric Garcetti says LA is proud to be home to the largest Armenian diaspora and condemns the violence visited upon Artsakh and Armenia by Azerbaijan .



, says LA is proud to be home to the largest Armenian diaspora and condemns the violence visited upon Artsakh and by . On Oct. 6 , the Armenian Ministry of Defense made an official announcement that no fire was launched at Azerbaijan from the territory of the Republic of Armenia . The MoD has also stated that all allegations stating otherwise, especially from the side of Azerbaijan , are intentional lies.

More from today:

See the complete press release here

Press kit

CONTACT:

Mary Baboyan

PR manager at globalawareness.am

[email protected]

www.globalawareness.am

Related Images

capital-stepanakert-is-under.jpg

Capital Stepanakert is under serious missile attack, again.

Related Links

website

Related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_3S5rCoEjw

SOURCE Global Awareness
(Newser)  Boston is pushing back its plan to reopen schools by two weeks, citingwhat else?the coronavirus pandemic. Mayor Marty Walsh announced a delay in the citys school reopening plan on Wednesday, noting the coronavirus positivity rate had gone above 4%, reports CBS Boston. Remote learning began on Sept. 21. But families were also given the option of "hybrid" learning, an alternating mix of remote and in-class instruction. Homeless students, students with special needs, and English language learners began their first full week of hybrid learning on Monday, while preschoolers and kindergartners were to report to school beginning Oct. 15, per the AP and WCVB.

story continues below

Preschoolers and kindergartners will now report to school on Oct. 22 at the earliest. Grades 4 through 8 are to transition to a hybrid model in the week of Nov. 5, followed by grades 9 through 12 in the week of Nov. 16. "We will reevaluate where we are based on the data that we see between now and then," Walsh said. The 1,300 students already attending in-person classes will remain in school. "With the protocols we have in place, public health guidance says we can provide the vital in-person learning and services for all the highest needs students who have opted in," Walsh said. He said this would be an option "as long as the public health guidance supports it." (Read more Boston stories.)
U.S. President Donald Trump gestures on the Truman Balcony after returning to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Oct. 5, 2020.

Trump, who had returned to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center just two days earlier, was briefed in the Oval Office on stimulus talks and Hurricane Delta, a press aide told reporters.

President Donald Trump was briefed in the Oval Office on Wednesday after one of the doctors treating him for the coronavirus said the president has been "symptom-free" for more than 24 hours.

NBC News, citing a senior administration official, reported that chief of staff Mark Meadows and social media aide Dan Scavino were present in the room with the president during the briefing.

Earlier Wednesday, White House physician Dr. Sean Conley said in a memo that Trump had been "symptom-free" for more than 24 hours and "fever-free for more than 4 days."

The president has not required supplemental oxygen since leaving the hospital on Monday, Conley said.

"Of note today, the President's labs demonstrated detectable levels of SARS-CoV-2-IgG antibodies from labs drawn Monday," the White House physician added.

Later in the afternoon, Trump's account posted a nearly five-minute video of the president speaking from outside the Oval Office about his health and his administration's response to the pandemic.

He said he had "pushed" the Food and Drug Administration to make virus-related approvals, and suggested that a vaccine would not come before the election due to "politics."

"I think we should have it before the election, but frankly the politics gets involved, and that's OK, they want to play their games, it's going to be right after the election," Trump said.

Conley's brief memo did not include any specific updates on the president's drug regimen. Trump, since testing positive for the coronavirus last week, has taken numerous treatments, including the steroid dexamethasone, the antiviral therapy remdesivir and an antibody cocktail from Regeneron.

The memo did include remarks from Trump himself. "The President this morning says 'I feel great!'" Conley wrote.

After the briefing, Trump tweeted that he "was just briefed on Hurricane Delta, and spoke with [Gov. Greg Abbot] of Texas and [Louisiana Gov.] John Bel Edwards."

Trump was hospitalized Friday evening, hours after he announced on Twitter that he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for Covid-19.

He was discharged three days later and flown back to the White House on Marine One. The president, who is possibly still contagious, raised eyebrows and drew criticism when he took off his mask upon returning to the White House on Monday night.

Larry Kudlow, Trump's top economic advisor, refused to tell CNBC if Trump has been wearing a mask as he returns to work. Kudlow, who appeared on CNBC "Squawk Box" on Wednesday morning, also said Trump had been in the Oval Office a day earlier  but other White House officials quickly contradicted him.

The White House confirmed later Wednesday, however, that Trump was being briefed in the Oval Office.

In the wake of Trump's diagnosis, a growing number of people who work at the White House have also tested positive for Covid-19. The list includes top domestic aide Stephen Miller and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and some of her deputies, as well as multiple members of the press corps.

Some Republican lawmakers who recently attended an event on the White House South Lawn  which defied some of the recommended social-distancing guidelines issued by health experts in the Trump administration  have also tested positive.

After returning from the hospital, Trump revived his active Twitter presence. On Tuesday, the president tweeted that he had ordered his aides to cease negotiations with Democrats on a deal for additional coronavirus stimulus money until after the Nov. 3 election. The move baffled Wall Street investors and political pundits alike. He later prodded Capitol Hill to approve additional coronavirus relief in separate bills. On Wednesday, he tweeted or retweeted more than a dozen times as of early afternoon.
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Allan P. Gold, Ph.D. is being recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Top District Psychologist in the field of Psychology for his professional excellence with the Reed Union School District.

Having garnered more than 44 years of professional excellence in his field, Dr. Gold has served as a district psychologist within the Reed Union School District in Tiburon, CA since 1976. He currently works at two of the three schools in his district, the grade 3-5 school and the grade 6-8 school. Utilizing his vast repertoire of expertise in psychology, he assesses students for academic, emotional, and behavioral challenges. He also provides individual and group counseling, including social skills groups, groups for children of divorce, and groups for children with special needs siblings, and facilitates a lot of social issue conversations among students. Moreover, he provides consultation for parents, teachers, and administrators, as well as teaches classes on child abuse protection, sex education, and social skills. Because of his background in and love of math and working with gifted students, Dr. Gold has run challenging math clubs for the past 35 years. Additionally, he co-facilitates two middle school clubs, Teach Equity and Acceptance (TEA) and Gender Sexuality Alliance for any student who wants to participate.

Throughout Dr. Gold's distinguished career, he has flourished in various school districts. He excelled as a School Psychologist within the Kentfield School District from 1978 to 1980. In addition to working with the Reed Union School District, Dr. Gold served as an adjunct professor at the University of California Berkeley in the School of Education from 1980 to 1987.

To prepare for his career, Dr. Gold graduated from the University at California, Berkeley in 1967 where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, in addition to his Master's degree in Statistics in 1969. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology since 1973. During his graduate program in statistics, he joined the United States Army Reserves, serving in a medical unit, where he was introduced to psychology. He found that he had a knack for it and decided to make it his career once he was honorably discharged; he soon entered the School Psychology graduate program at the University of California, Berkeley, and received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology in 1978.

Remaining abreast of the latest developments in his field, Dr. Gold has been a longtime member of professional organizations including the California Association of School Psychologists and the National Association of School Psychologists. As an active member of his community, he is the Chair of the Board of Being Adept, a non-profit organization that provides evidence-based curriculum for middle school students to delay and prevent drug and alcohol abuse.

In acknowledgment of his contributions to the field, he has received numerous awards and accolades including being the recipient of the Rotary Club Award for Community service from the town where he works. Additionally, the California Association of School Psychologists twice named him an Outstanding School Psychologist, and he was given the First Educator Award for Outstanding Educators by Reed Union School District.

For those starting in the industry, Dr. Gold advises new school psychologists to "take good care of themselves, not to expect themselves to be perfect, to continue to learn from every new experience." Devoting time to engage in activities that spark your interest is important and necessary to teach or share with students. Dr. Gold also recommends school psychologists to humanize him/herself and "interact in positive, engaging ways with students, to help demystify and destigmatize mental health." Dr. Gold is proud to be open about his identity and experiences and is hopeful that he can be a good role model and safe confidant for students who are seeking to understand their own sexual and gender identity.

In his spare time, Dr. Gold collects stamps and has done so since he was eight years old when he was recovering from polio for months in 1954. He also paints and draws, and devotes his time attending a weekly art class since 1976. From time to time, he also enjoys theater, symphony, and museums to enhance his cultural experience.

Dr. Gold is happily married to his husband, Alan Ferrara, who is a retired nurse. They have been married for 21 years.

To learn more, please visit https://www.reedschools.org/.

Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected]

SOURCE Continental Who's Who

Related Links

http://www.continentalwhoswho.com


YEREVAN, Armenia  The intense shelling in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh is taking its toll on the civilian population as fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces showed no signs of abating Wednesday, with one resident hunkered down in a shelter exclaiming How can one stand it? How long will it last?

Clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in the region since Sept. 27 have killed hundreds in the worst escalation of hostilities since 1994 when a truce ended a war that raged for several years. Nagorno-Karabakh lies inside Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia for more than a quarter-century.

Stepanakert, the territorys capital, has been under intense artillery barrage in recent days. Flashes of explosions could be seen from the city center on Tuesday night.

Local residents have been gathering in shelters to escape the violence, distraught over continued strikes on the city.

Bombing  buildings and houses are destroyed. We are so afraid of it. How can one stand it? How long will it last? Sida, one fearful resident who stayed in a shelter on Tuesday night, told The Associated Press without providing her full name.

Armenian Defense Ministry spokesman Artsrun Ovannisian said Wednesday that Stepanakert was being targeted once again by Azerbaijan along with other settlements. Nagorno-Karabakh officials said that civilian infrastructure and a few residential buildings in Stepanakert have been hit with missiles and drones.

Azerbaijan has rejected claims of targeting civilian infrastructure in Stepanakert. Hikmet Hajiyev, an Azerbaijani presidential aide, said in an interview earlier this week that Azerbaijani forces only targeted military objects in and around Stepanakert, acknowledging, however, that some collateral damage was possible.

The fighting in the region  involving heavy artillery, warplanes and drones  has continued despite numerous international calls for a cease-fire. Both sides have traded accusations of expanding the hostilities beyond Nagorno-Karabakh and of targeting civilians.

The Nagorno-Karabakhs military said Wednesday that 320 of its soldiers have been killed in fighting since Sept. 27, while Azerbaijan hasnt publicized its losses. Scores of civilians on both sides have also died.

The EU expressed concern Wednesday about the fighting.

We have seen extremely worrying reports of attacks on populated areas which is taking a deadly toll on civilians. We strongly urge the sides to fully observe their international obligations to protect civilian populations, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told members of the European Parliament.

He voiced concern about Azerbaijans determination to continue the fight until Armenias withdrawal from the region and a strong expression of support for Azerbaijan from Turkey.

Borrell said that he had discussed the conflict with the foreign ministers of both countries, and with those of Russia and Turkey, the main regional players closest to the conflict. Turkey has publicly backed Azerbaijan in the conflict and said it was ready to provide military assistance, should Azerbaijan request it.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hailed Turkish weapons in an interview with CNN-Turk broadcast Wednesday, noting that Turkish drones have created a huge difference.

The Turkish defense industry has developed at such a speed that, I hope in the future, with the Turkish arms our military equipment will reach a higher level, he added.

While praising his main ally Turkey, Aliyev also had warm words for Russia, which has a military base in Armenia but has sought to cultivate warm ties with both rivals.

We have long historic relations with Russia, Aliyev said. Today, Russia has developed relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is an important factor

Russia, the United States and France are co-chairs of the so-called Minsk Group under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, set up to mediate the conflict.

Azerbaijans foreign minister is set to attend a meeting of the Minsk group in Geneva on Thursday to present Bakus position on the conflict.

___

Associated Press writers Daria Litvinova and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Aida Sultanova in Baku, Azerbaijan, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Lorne Cook in Brussels, contributed to this report.
HOOKAH has come into the market in Winnipeg and has been shown to be appealing to youth and new users. The temporary ban on serving hookah in public places is an opportunity to close an existing loophole in legislation and put a permanent ban in place, consistent with all forms of smoking.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 7/10/2020 (472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

HOOKAH has come into the market in Winnipeg and has been shown to be appealing to youth and new users. The temporary ban on serving hookah in public places is an opportunity to close an existing loophole in legislation and put a permanent ban in place, consistent with all forms of smoking.

While tobacco-control measures have successfully reduced the incidence rates of smoking over the past few decades, there are new unregulated smoking-type products undermining our progress. We would like to bring to the attention of Manitobans that, COVID-19 transmission risk notwithstanding, the health effects of hookah smoking are significant.

For those unfamiliar with hookah use, it is also referred to as shisha, narghile, waterpipe, or hubbly-bubbly. It is a form of smoking via a common instrument used for smoking tobacco or other substances. The smoked material is often called shisha and can be flavoured. The shisha is burned by applying a lit charcoal or a briquet. The resulting smoke passes through a water reservoir and is inhaled through a tube and mouthpiece. There are usually several tubes per hookah, so a number of people can use the hookah at the same time and socialize.

Thirty-eight percent of students in Grades 9 to 12 consider hookah use to be less harmful than cigarette smoking, even though hookah use, as a study shows, is linked to many of the same adverse health effects, such as lung and cardiovascular disease. Use of hookah is gaining broader popularity in the younger generation due to the variety of flavours, affordability, social nature and accessibility of the product.

As with smoking cigarettes and vaping, exposure to hookah smoke can cause serious health effects, whether tobacco is in the shisha or not. According to the WHO 2005 Study Group on Tobacco Product Regulation, "Shisha smokers in comparison to cigarette smokers would inhale an equivalent of 100 or more cigarettes in one session."

Studies have shown that some shisha is incorrectly and deceivingly labeled tobacco free. Evidence indicates even so-called tobacco free "herbal" shisha can be harmful, regardless of the presence of nicotine. A study in Alberta found high levels of lead, chromium, nickel, arsenic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in herbal shisha.

These toxic trace metals and carcinogens were found in equivalent or greater concentrations than in tobacco shisha. Acute carbon monoxide toxicity from the burning charcoal can result in nausea, dizziness and difficulty breathing, and extended exposure can cause heart attack, cerebral edema, coma or death.

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Furthermore, the air quality in hookah lounges has been shown to have high levels of fine particulate air pollution. Customers and employees are exposed to second-hand hookah smoke, even bringing the smoke home on their clothes and skin, contributing to "third hand" exposure to family.

Five Canadian provinces  Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador  currently prohibit smoking of all hookah products, including herbal non-tobacco shisha, in all places where smoking is banned. At the municipal level, major Canadian cities  Toronto, Vancouver, and Edmonton  have all amended their indoor smoking bans to include hookah smoke.

In Winnipeg and in Manitoba, neither the provincial smoking ban nor the City of Winnipeg By-law No. 62/2011 encompass shisha smoking in public places. Restrictions on hookah use, combined with public education to accompany the regulatory change, are needed to protect public health and hospitality worker health.

In Winnipeg and provincially, hookah smoking in public establishments can occur due to loopholes in our legislation. We need to amend the definition of smoking within the regulations to include hookah to protect the health of the public and hospitality workers.

Maryam Al-Azazi concludes, "As an immigrant myself, I grew up in an environment that normalized the behaviour of hookah use. I have a deep understanding and I sympathize with the complexity of the culture intertwining with this practice. I have purposefully undertaken research on this topic as I am worried about the short- and long-term effect of smoking hookah. Understanding the cultural history of hookah and the medical science outlining the significant health risks of hookah use, I ask myself, Is this risk worthwhile?"

Maryam Al-Azazi and Neil Johnston are registered respiratory therapists and are associated with theThe Lung Association, Manitoba. Contributors and signatories to this article include: John McDonald, executive director of the Manitoba Tobacco Reduction Alliance; Brittany Curtis, policy specialist with Action on Smoking and Health; and Amanda Nash, health promotion manager with the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
A close-up of the FIT Seat technology embedded in a common toilet seat to generate data regarding a patients vital signs. A. Sue Weisler/RIT

Toilet seats with high-tech sensors might be the non-invasive technology of the future that could help reduce hospital return rates of individuals with heart disease.

A joint project by researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) will determine if in-home monitoring can successfully record vital signs and reduce risk and costly re-hospitalization rates for people with heart failure. The five-year, $2.9 million venture is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The new Fully-Integrated Toilet Seat, or FIT Seat monitoring system, will incorporate artificial intelligence and improved user interfaces to provide physicians with up-to-date patient data over time and in a format that is easily readable. Artificial intelligence technology will be added as part of an early-alert system to help physicians identify possible deterioration sooner, said David Borkholder, the Bausch and Lomb Professor in RITs Kate Gleason College of Engineering. He and Wojciech Zareba, M.D., professor of Medicine, Cardiology, at the University of Rochester Medical Center, will lead a multi-disciplinary research team to further develop the technological functionality of the FIT Seat.

Heart failure is one of the leading causes of adults admitted to hospitals, and more than 6 million adults in the United States have heart disease, according to the American Heart Association. Re-hospitalizations occur in some instances within 30 days to six months of initial treatment. Having a way to intercept these rehospitalizations might afford patients improved care and decrease costs.

The cost of readmission usually exceeds the cost of the original hospitalization when individuals have a diagnosis of heart failure, said Borkholder. We are using machine learning and AI to develop an early alert system so that we can identify when a patients health begins to subtly deteriorate and hopefully see it much sooner than the patient would detect it themselves.

Zareba agreed. There are a number of factors that can be evaluated in these patients. It is like having a patient on bedside monitoring in an intensive care unit. At home, people dont usually have these monitoring tools. This seat is serving as a good monitoring tool. Even if it is not continuous, it will be used by patients several times per day, and each time, it will record data and send it to be processed.

New connections to improve foundational technology

In 2014, Borkholder and Nicholas Conn, a postdoctoral fellow at RIT, developed the original FIT Seat technology, in collaboration with URMC cardiologist Karl Schwarz, M.D. The system provided a robust collection of patient information through what might be considered a non-descript, unassuming instrument. The toilet seat had high-tech sensors embedded on its surfaces that detected heart rates, blood flow, and oxygenation, with the potential to provide near real-time information to physicians about patient status. The seat is now being developed by Heart Health Intelligence.

The goal is to deploy a system where people with heart failure receive daily medication dosing and other guidance based on FIT measurements of their cardiovascular health, much as people with diabetes use a glucometer to manage their blood sugar, said Schwarz, who also serves as professor of Medicine and Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the medical center. He was a key member of the FIT seat development team early on, and notes that the system is a means to help guarantee patient compliance through regular usage.

Using that non-invasive technology as the foundation, the new project launched in summer 2020 with both teams doing the necessary preparations to build the test system, including the data management and user-interface, and to begin recruitment of study-patients.

Sensors in the FIT Seat will measure blood pressure, weight, and heart rate and other key indicators of heart health. The data points will also be unique to each individual involved in the study.

Individuals have unique featuresfrom distinct eye and hair color to biological characteristics such as an electrocardiogram (ECG), said Zareba. The sensor algorithm in the FIT Seat is smart in that it can be trained to recognize patterns and characteristics that will be distinct to each person, even taking into account the communal nature of the toilet seat in an individuals home. Looking at ECG from two people, physicians can see differentiations, so the data on a given patient will not be mixed up.

A key advance in the FIT monitoring system is the combination of an unobtrusive home monitor with AI technologies and innovative user interfaces for both patients and physicians that will eventually allow for the semi-automated day-to-day management of heart failure and other cardiac diseases. The ability to gather and synthesize data can help physicians identify or predict changes and potentially modify treatment to prevent another hospitalization. Use of AI technologies and the advances in machine learning can speed up the recognition of trends and allow for predictive analysis. Ultimately the overall goal is to demonstrate that the technology is reliable enough to be well-integrated with the health care system.

One of the key challenges with any technology like this is effective integration into the health care system, said Borkholder. Part of what we integrated into the design of the systemand this is where the University of Rochester team is importantwe have panel of physicians and advanced practice providers that are going to help us refine the way we present the information so that it is easily digestible. That is key.

Research expertise

The collaborative effort between RIT and URMC is supported by the NIHs Multiple Principle Investigators Grants and Funding Program, a research model that is led by more than one principle investigator, often from different organizations, and recognizes the different, necessary areas of expertise. The NIH obligates year-by-year funding and the initial outlay will be $597, 754.

Borkholder will work with Hye Jin Nae, assistant professor in the School of Design in RITs College of Art and Design. Her role will be to create user interfaces for both the physicians and the patients. Linwei Wang, professor of computing in RITs Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, will lead the artificial intelligence aspect of the project. She has an extensive background in the development of algorithms for biomedicine.

Zarebas URMC team includes cardiologists and research-faculty members: Schwarz; Leway Chen, medical director of the Advanced Heart Failure Program; and Robert Strawderman, chair and Distinguished Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology.

Medicine today is oriented toward prevention; if you have good tools which will allow you to catch certain signs and symptoms that could be worsening, it will be easier to do it. This is the future of medicine, said Zareba.
We had the very ambitious Future at Lloyds that launched last September. It was six strong initiatives we were going to roll out across the world, but then COVID-19 hit, he said. We, like everybody in the industry, have done our absolute best to respond to the challenges that have faced us and were doing our best to support customers, businesses, and governments across the world.

Read more: Lloyds of London underwriters hit by lawsuit from pandemic-covered cinema chain

Lloyds results through the first half of 2020 have unsurprisingly been impacted by COVID-19 and the related economic challenges it has caused. The marketplace saw about 2.4 billion-worth of losses through June 30, which led to a 400 million loss in H1 2020, though there are silver linings as well.

By and large, those of you out there who have wrestled with finding the types of Lloyds capacity that youve been used to in the past  have realized that the priority in the marketplace has been performance, profit, etc. over the past couple of years, said Watkins. Were very proud to say that traction has definitely taken place this year, despite COVID-19s challenges to us, and itll continue going into 2021 and beyond, because that has to be the place we end up  is under 100% combined ratio. Thats the ultimate aim. Weve been there before, as recently as 2016, and well get back there again.

Pricing in both the standard lines and E&S space has nonetheless been accelerating, he added. Lloyds has had 11 consecutive quarters of price increases and experienced an average price increase of 8% across the market through the first half of 2020, noted Watkins.

A similar tale was told during the WSIA panel focusing on the 2020 Market Segment Report on US Surplus Lines, produced by A.M. Best with a grant from the WSIA Education Foundation.

Prior to the onset of the pandemic, A.M. Best maintained a stable outlook for the surplus lines market sector, citing dynamic market conditions that would nonetheless remain supportive of premium growth, favorable underwriting performance, and the maintenance of strong risk adjusted capitalization for the surplus lines segments as a whole, explained David Blades, associate director, industry research and analytics at A.M. Best. The ratings firm likewise noted that the long-term commitment of surplus lines companies to core competencies and successful business practices have allowed them to flourish.

However, after COVID-19 hit, There was a subsequent decision made in early April to revise the outlook for the surplus lines industry  along with pretty much all our other outlooks from a commercial lines perspective  from stable to negative, so the current outlook for the surplus lines market is negative, he explained. That decision directly reflected the economic disruption in the US stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and the effect that we expected that contraction rate in the US economy to have on the surplus lines market.

Read more: New AM Best stress test will assess impact of COVID-19 on insurers

Its not all bad news, though. The report on surplus lines from A.M. Best highlighted the 11.2% growth in surplus lines direct premium written in 2019, with surplus lines premium reaching $55.5 billion and setting a new record for the segment. Other takeaways included the fact that there had been no financial impairments in the surplus lines segment, in comparison to 13 admitted property and casualty company impairments in 2019, and that surplus lines insurers market share has more than doubled in size over the last two decades, from 3.6% of total P&C direct premiums written in 2000 to 7.8% at the end of 2019.

Read more: Surplus lines insurers record 19.3% premium increase for 2019

Overall, the successes of the surplus lines market have continued, despite the pandemic, noted Blades: A.M. Best has been somewhat surprised at just how resilient the surplus lines market segment has proven to be through these headwinds brought forth by COVID-19, in terms of how the surplus lines companies have fared through the second quarter based on the results that weve looked at so far. Our plan is to see how things play out through the rest of 2020, and to update market segment outlook during the first quarter of 2021.
The young priest was supposed to be Davids savior.

A charismatic man of God, he vowed to protect the boy after years of sexual abuse at the hands of a well-respected Bayonne pastor.
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.
By PTI

GUWAHATI: Retired Assam DIG P K Dutta, a prime accused in the police recruitment examination paper leak, was arrested on Wednesday and remanded to police custody for six days.

Dutta, who was absconding since the paper was leaked, was detained at the Kakarbhita International Indo-Nepal border and handed over to Assam police on Tuesday, a police spokesman said.

He was brought to Guwahati Wednesday morning and arrested in connection with the CID police station case against him and booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the IT Act.

The retired DIG was taken for a medical examination and COVID-19 test.

His antigen test was negative, the spokesman said.

He was later produced at the court of the chief judicial magistrate, where the police appealed for seven days custody.

The court granted six days police remand and Dutta was handed over to CID custody.

The police has so far arrested 34 persons in connection with the scam.

The CID arrested 14 of them and the rest were by the crime branch and Nalbari police.

Dutta, his son and son-in-law were detained at the Indo-Nepal border on the strength of the 'Look Out Circular' issued by Assam CID.

He was absconding along with another accused, the expelled BJP leader Dibon Deka who was arrested on October 1.

The state police had announced of Rs one lakh for information leading to their arrest.

Deka was remanded to five days' custody with the Crime Branch and again to six days in CID custody.

The question paper of the written examination for 597 posts of unarmed sub-inspectors in Assam Police was leaked on September 20 and the State Level Police Recruitment Board cancelled the test minutes after it had commenced across the state on that day.

The Board chairman Pradeep Kumar subsequently resigned on September 27 taking "moral responsibility" for the question paper leak.

The re-examination for the recruitment test has been scheduled for November 22.
The opposition NDC is set to hold its Town Hall meeting in Cape Coast.

The event which is part of efforts by the party to take its message of hope to the doorsteps of every Ghanaian is scheduled on Tuesday, October 13.

In a statement issued by the party's National Communications Officer Sammy Gyamfi, the event will be streamed live on major television and radio stations across the country.

He noted that the meeting would be addressed by the party's flagbearer John Dramani Mahama, his running mate Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang and other speakers.

Read full statement below:

NDC TO HOLD TOWN HALL MEETING ON THE PEOPLES MANIFESTO IN CAPE COAST.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC), will be holding a Town-Hall Meeting in Cape Coast on Tuesday, 13th October, 2020.

The event which is part of efforts by the party to take its message of hope to the doorsteps of every Ghanaian, is scheduled for 2PM and will be streamed live on major television and radio stations across the country.

The programme will be addressed by the Flag-bearer of the NDC, H.E John Dramani Mahama, his able Running Mate, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang and other speakers who will take time to breakdown and explain the transformational policies contained in the partys 2020 Peoples Manifesto.

Issued in Accra on this 7th day of October, 2020.

Signed:

Cde. SAMMY GYAMFI ESQ.

(National Communication Officer)
The secretary of the Department of Agriculture has announced more details as to what the Pennsylvania Farm Show will be like next year under COVID-19 conditions.

The update expanded upon a previous announcement made in August, which declared that the 2021 Farm Show would be a virtual one.

While a virtual show will be very different from what we all know and love about the Pennsylvania Farm Show, weve been given an opportunity to think outside the box, said Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding in a press release. Were looking forward to celebrating the industry that has kept us fed through a global pandemic and will continue to feed us tomorrow. Well be bringing stories of agriculture into the homes of families across the commonwealth and exploring with industry innovators how we can cultivate a brighter tomorrow together, for Pennsylvanias leading industry.

Many of the features and events from previous years will still take place, including the annual butter sculpture, video feeds from live duckling and beehive cams available 24/7, daily live food

and cooking demonstrations and events such as tractor pulls, and evening bedtime stories for young audiences.

For the cooking demonstrations, menu and recipe items will be available beforehand, so viewers at home can follow along with the presenters in their own kitchens. There will also be non-animal competitive events in categories including Christmas trees and wine, with a full list of competitions to be announced once COVID-19 guidelines are finalized.

The online offerings of both live and pre-recorded events, as well as an online resource library, will be available to viewers starting on Saturday, January 9, 2021. Access to the online content will be free, and available through the Pennsylvania Farm Shows Facebook or Instagram pages, or through the Farm Show website. The online programming will be in addition to full-length events broadcast through the Pennsylvania Cable Network.

The dates for the virtual 2021 Pennsylvania Farm Show will be from January 9 through January 16. For more info, visit the Pennsylvania Farm Show website.
By Priyanka Sharma

New Delhi [India], October 6 (ANI): In the latest development, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) expert panel has directed the pharma giant Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL) to submit a revised protocol for performing phase 2,3 clinical trials of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine (Sputnik V) in India, a government official said.

Also Read | Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Elections: Voting Via Ballot Papers Due to COVID-19.

Recently, Dr Reddy's lab had submitted an application to the top drug regulator seeking their approval to conduct clinical trials for the Russian COVID-19 vaccine in India.

"The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) had a thorough evaluation of the application submitted by Dr Reddy's lab. The SEC has sought revised protocol from Dr Reddy's lab along with more information and now Dr Reddy's lab has to furnish a fresh protocol to the DCGI," a Government official said.

Also Read | Karnataka Bans Strike by Officials, Doctors as COVID-19 Cases Surge.

The Indian Drugmaker (Dr Reddy's Lab) has joined hands with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to conduct clinical trials of the Sputnik V vaccine as well as its distribution.

As per RDIF, it will supply 100 million doses of its potential COVID-19 vaccine to Indian drug company Dr Reddy's Lab. "Before giving permission, the drug regulator will conduct a technical evaluation of the application submitted by Dr Reddy's lab to conduct phase 2, 3 clinical trials in India of Russian covid19 vaccine," said the official.

Last month, Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the RDIF informed that Russia is in close dialogue with the Indian government and drug manufacturers of India regarding the localization of production of its Sputnik V vaccine in India.

Also, a prestigious medical journal 'The Lancet' has published the results of clinical trials of Phase I-II of the Russian vaccine demonstrating its safety and efficacy.

On August 11, the Sputnik V vaccine developed jointly by RDIF and the Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology was registered by the Ministry of Health of Russia and became the world's first registered vaccine against COVID-19.

According to Russian researchers, Sputnik V is a human adenoviral vector vaccine that fights against coronavirus disease. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says shes concerned over revelations a Chinese-state owned company manufacturing Sydney trains has been linked to Uighur labour and says her government will take action if needed.

China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC), which was identified by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute as a beneficiary of the labour of potentially exploited minority workers, was also blacklisted by the US this year over national security concerns.

Transport Minister Andrew Constance and Premier Gladys Berejiklian aboard a new Waratah train in Sydney in 2018. Credit:James Alcock

A consortium of CRRC and ASX-listed company Downer has a multibillion-dollar government contract to build and maintain Sydneys Waratah trains, some of which arrived in the city this year.

A "sensitive" government document obtained by the Herald has also revealed senior bureaucrats from Transport for NSW made multiple trips to the primary train manufacturing plant in 2017 and 2018.
Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Mher Grigoryan today met with Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Mikhail Myasnikovich and members (ministers) of the Board.

At the outset, the Deputy Prime Minister presented the situation created in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone following the Azerbaijani aggression and the latest developments and underscored the importance of immediate cessation of hostilities.

Grigoryan highly appreciated the activities of the EEU from the perspective of the expansion of cooperation and trade and economic relations between the member states within the scope of the Eurasian Economic Union.

Myasnikovich expressed gratitude to Armenia, namely Deputy Prime Minister Grigoryan for hosting the session of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Yerevan. The participants of the meeting also touched upon the preparations for the Councils session.
In this combination image of two photos showing both President Donald Trump, left, and former Vice President Joe Biden during the first presidential debate Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)AP
The CHL's maternity ward is celebrating its fifth anniversary.

The Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg (CHL) inaugurated its new maternity ward in 2015. In a statement, the hospital wrote that the aim of the maternity ward is "to offer the best possible care for women, families and children, in a new and unique location, adjoining the KannerKlinik and the other buildings of the CHL"

The CHL's maternity ward is Luxembourg's only facility to possess a Maternity Intensive Care unit, specialising in successfully carrying out high-risk pregnancies.

The CHL considers its maternity ward five years after its inauguration "a real success".

A training programme in robotic surgery

Recently, the CHL also shared insights into its training programme in robotic surgery under the tutelage of Dr. Juan Santiago Azagra MD PhD(Hon), Chief of General, Digestive, Vascular and Endocrine Surgery.

The hospitals surgical robot, called the "Da Vinci Xi", is equipped with a double control console, and an integrated simulator. The CHL considers the Da Vinci Xi "a real asset for training young surgeons", stating that it would reinforce the appeal of the CHL as a training hospital.

According to the CHL, more than 200 medical students and around a hundred doctors in the process of specialisation are trained at the hospital every year.
YPSILANTI, MI  More than 1,300 of Washtenaw Countys 3,412 COVID-19 cases as of Oct. 1 have come from two ZIP codes  48197 and 48198  which cover Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Township and portions of Superior, Augusta, York and Pittsfield townships.

Two Eastern Michigan University professors have sought out why that disparity exists and suggest remedies for eliminating it if control over the spread of COVID-19 can be gained.

Grigoris Argeros, associate professor of sociology, and Natalie Dove, associate professor of psychology, said the two ZIP codes vary by race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status relative to the rest of Washtenaw County. Nearly 70% of Blacks in the county reside in these two ZIP codes, compared to 23% of whites, 13% of Asians and 37% of Hispanics, according to the professors' written report.

These ZIP codes also reveal differences in education and household income that vary by race, the report states, More than one-third of those classified as poor reside in the 48197 and 48198 ZIP codes, according to Argeros and Dove.

Lower education achievement, the professors wrote, may be related to several variables which explain the higher amounts of COVID-19 cases.

For example, lower levels of education are often correlated with poorer nutrition, lower quality housing, more crowded living conditions, and reduced access to medical care, Argeros and Dove wrote. In sum, these variables can be summarized as conditions of poverty and all are important considerations when striving to reduce COVID-19 cases in the aforementioned ZIP codes.

Argeros began looking at the race and ethnicity of COVID-19 cases on the Washtenaw County Health Department website in April, and reached out to Dove because he said her expertise in psychology would complement the socioeconomic and racial differences he was seeing. After seeing the data, Dove looked for a common denominator that might amount to the disparity in cases.

A lot of it is due to race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, but those variables are sort of the ground level for what might occur next, Dove said.

For Argeros, his educated guess, based on the data available, is that the racial and ethnic differences in the two ZIP codes are consequences of the structural inequities present in society in general.

If you look at the data, even in Washtenaw County and in Michigan as a whole, there are more whites with COVID-19 cases than any other group, which makes sense because there are more whites not only in Washtenaw County but in the state as a whole, Argeros said. But when we take into consideration population size, then the numbers reverse.

Knowing there are disparities in just two Washtenaw County ZIP codes, Argeros and Dove said they now seek how it can be fixed. Their report mentions learned helplessness to describe how a person, after a prolonged negative state in which efforts to escape are fruitless, doesnt recognize or utilize resources helpful for escape when they become available.

Because of this, Argeros and Dove suggest resources designed to aid the reduction of COVID-19 might not be enough of a virus-reduction strategy. Their report suggests community leaders consider both structural and psychological variables when considering intervention approaches in those ZIP codes.

I think we have to do more than just say, Free testing in the parking lot of Kroger from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., because there are so many hurdles to overcome to even get people in a better place because of all these kinds of psychological things that have become ingrained when youre a member of a minority group, Dove said.

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UP: Elections not won on exit polls basis, results will be surprising: Kamal Nath

FIR registered against Hathras-bound Kerala scribe, three others over claims of PFI links

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Lucknow, Oct 07: The Uttar Pradesh Police has arrested a journalist and three other people in Mathura while they were on their way to Hathras, home to a Dalit woman who died after being allegedly gang-raped.

The Uttar Pradesh police had on Monday said it has arrested four people having links with the Popular Front of India and its affiliate in Mathura.

The PFI had been accused of funding protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act across the country earlier this year and the UP police had sought a ban on the outfit.

Hathras gangrape case: 4 men with PFI links arrested in Mathura for plotting to create unrest

The police had identified the arrested persons as Siddique from Malappuram, Atiq-ur Rehman from Muzaffarnagar, Masood Ahmed from Bahraich and Alam from Rampur.

Hours after the arrest, a prominent journalist body of Kerala identified Malappuram native Siddique by his full name as Siddique Kappan, saying he is "a senior Delhi-based journalist, working for several Malayalam media houses, including azhimukham.com".

Reacting to Kappan's arrest, the Delhi unit of Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath seeking his release, saying he was going to Hathras only to perform his duty as a reporter.

Terming Kappan's arrest as "illegal and unconstitutional", the KUWJ also filed a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking his immediate production before the court and release from the "illegal detention".

Kappan is also the KUWJ''s secretary and was proceeding to Hathras only to do his duty as a reporter, KUWJ''s Delhi unit president Miji Jose told the chief minister in his letter, urging him to order his release.

"We understand that he was taken into custody by Uttar Pradesh police from Hathras toll plaza. Our efforts and the efforts by some advocates based in Delhi to contact him were not successful," KUWJ said. The Hathras police station and the state police have not provided any information so far on Kappan''s arrest, it added.

"Mr Kappan was trying to do his duty as a reporter. We urge you to get him released at the earliest," KUWJ urged the UP chief minister.

The Uttar Pradesh police, meanwhile, said it has also seized from the arrested people their mobile phones, laptops and some literature, which could have an impact on peace and law and order.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

Hathras case: AAP demands removal of Uttar Pradesh women's commission chief over her 'silence'

During interrogation, it came to light that the four arrested people had links with the PFI and its associate organisation Campus Front of India, the UP police had claimed.

Hathras has been in the news following the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman who was allegedly gang-raped on September 14 in a village in the district. And her cremation at night, allegedly without the parents'' consent, has triggered widespread outrage.

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 13:57 [IST]
Battered by coronavirus lockdowns and the fear of economic headwinds to come, young Melbourne workers and students appear wary of raising their hopes over job opportunities promised in this weeks federal budget.

Just 46 per cent of Victorians aged between 18 and 24 were in work in September, according to the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.

Carina Mammone is among those facing intense competition in the job market.

Carina Mammone faces a race to secure work before her welfare payments are cut. Credit:Eddie Jim

Before the pandemic struck she was working two jobs and studying full-time. She managed to hang on to a couple of hours a fortnight of mentoring work through Deakin University, but restaurant work dried up and now Ms Mammone finds herself in the target demographic for the governments new JobMaker Hiring Credit.
Highlights Facebook will take down QAnon, groups, themes, and accounts.

This will also apply to Instagram accounts whose name or description supports the conspiracy theory group.

Facebooks first attempt to restrict such accounts came in August but was not sufficient.

Facebook is cracking down on groups, themes, and accounts that represent the QAnon movement. If a group's description or name suggests that it supports QAnon, Facebook will take it down. This applies to Instagram accounts as well.

It will not apply to individual content, nor to individual Instagram users who post frequently about QAnon but do not explicitly identify themselves as representing the QAnon movement.

QAnon refers to a conspiracy theory group that propagates the idea that US President Donald Trump is fighting a group of elites in the US government who run a child trafficking ring. The movement has gained recognition in the recent months from Eric Trump, support from some Republican congressional candidates, as well as retweets from the President itself, as per reports.

Facebook's first attempt to restrict such accounts came in August when it removed around 1500 QAnon accounts and groups for showing potential violence. The previous attempts were, however, insufficient as the spread of the movement has been termed as a potential domestic terror threat by the FBI.

"We've been vigilant in enforcing our policy and studying its impact on the platform but we've seen several issues that led to today's update," Facebook said in a blog post. "For example, while we've removed QAnon content that celebrates and supports violence, we've seen other QAnon content tied to different forms of real world harm, including recent claims that the west coast wildfires were started by certain groups, which diverted attention of local officials from fighting the fires and protecting the public."

The new rules will be enforced by Facebook's Dangerous Organizations Operations team, the group that also enforces ban on terror and hate groups. The new policy does not restrict the individual accounts who promote QAnon under their identities, which is a loophole in the crackdown. Many Facebook groups have started using codes like 17 as a substitute for Q right from April, The Guardian reported.

"QAnon messaging changes very quickly and we see networks of supporters build an audience with one message and then quickly pivot to another," Facebook said. "We expect renewed attempts to evade our detection, both in behavior and content shared on our platform, so we will continue to study the impact of our efforts and be ready to update our policy and enforcement as necessary."
Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan has said the Government will seek to support and implement new European measures to introduce green and amber zones for safe travel within the EU.

But he was criticised by airline chiefs when he could not provide a timeline for their introduction.

Mr Ryan told the Oireachtas Transport Committee the Government wants to work with European countries where we can say Yes, we are recommending that its safe to travel again.

He added: There has been a conflict or a difficulty within Government because theres also an imperative towards public health and avoiding the risk of the virus coming in from international travel.

EU leaders will meet on October 13th to decide whether to adopt a so-called traffic light system, where countries would be designated green, amber or red  depending on their safety based on levels of the virus.

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The Transport Minister said he anticipates that EU member states will agree to the measures  which include testing at airports  but said they will not be rolled out immediately.

He said: There will be a period of time that it will take to put the enforcements in place, we have to be clear about that.

Aer Lingus CEO Sean Doyle said: I am concerned that what we will get on the 13th will be nowhere near full adoption, based on what we just heard.

Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson has criticised the Governments response as catastrophic and said every other European country has returned to flying.

He said Ireland has effectively said were closed for business as he urged the Government to urgently adopt the EU traffic light system.



The Government seems to think it's going to bounce back. It isn't

He told the committee Ryanair would have to take drastic decisions including shutting its Cork and Shannon operations.

He said Irish airlines were being left behind by European rivals, and needed clarity to make decisions on their summer 2021 schedule.

He said: If we dont make those decisions now, next summer that traffic will migrate elsewhere in Europe.

Its not going to bounce back. The Government seems to think its going to bounce back. It isnt.

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The DAA chief executive Dalton Philips also warned that it was dangerous to assume that routes withdrawn in the last six months will simply re-emerge overnight.

He said the DAAs airports were running on empty with passenger numbers returning to levels not seen since 1995.

Weve lost 25 years of growth, he said. Our sector has been demonised since this pandemic began. Other key sectors have been allowed to reopen with the understanding and acceptance that there is an element of risk involved.

He cited losses of 150 million euro since the pandemic began and said industry sources had suggested it would be 2024 or beyond before they see a recovery in the sector.

Mr Ryan earlier told the committee the issue was a priority for Government, saying Cabinet was discussing it at every single meeting and there was no lack of will in terms of resolving the issue.

Junior transport minister Hildegarde Naughton said: Now were in a situation where the outlook going out to 2023, 2024 its looking at that point in relation to recovering passenger numbers.

You can be assured that we as a Government are looking at everything we can to support this industry.

Under the traffic light system, passengers arriving from green and amber countries would not have to quarantine or restrict their movements.

A testing regime will be introduced for passengers from red countries, who would also have to quarantine.

But airline bosses say that restrictions on green and amber countries could be lifted right away.

We just need Government will to unblock this Mr Doyle said. The biggest single enabler will be the adoption of the simple protocols for green and amber, which dont require testing.
Senator Martha McSally, Republican of Arizona, and her Democratic challenger, Mark Kelly, attempted to shed their party labels Tuesday night and reach out to independent voters in their only debate for the seat Ms. McSally was appointed to in 2018.

Ms. McSally, a former fighter pilot who has consistently trailed Mr. Kelly in the polls, refused to say whether she was proud of her support for President Trump and whether she would want to serve under him in the Air Force. Mr. Kelly, a former astronaut, refused to say whether he would support Senator Chuck Schumer as the Senate majority leader.

The special election is being watched closely, not just because it is for one of a handful of seats Democrats hope to flip in their bid to gain control of the Senate, but because if Mr. Kelly wins, he could conceivably be seated in time to vote on President Trumps nominee for Supreme Court, Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

The candidates sparred over the coronavirus as Mr. Kelly attempted to make the debate a referendum on the president and health care, arguing that Ms. McSally voted to undermine or eliminate protection for pre-existing conditions while the president has bungled the nations response to the virus.
"I'm so honored to have been nominated and selected as an Executive of the Year during what continues to be a trying year for our entire nation, particularly within the healthcare sector," Muniz said. "I must thank my entire team at Parker Health Group for their dedication to the health and safety of our residents, patients and the community at-large."

Over the past two decades, Muniz has grown the non-profit organization from two nursing homes that served approximately 100 people a day to comprehensive health organization that cares for nearly 1,000 people each day in a multitude of programs and services.

Muniz charts Parker's vision, to "Make Aging Part of Life" for all, as he continues to ensure that Parker remains a centerpiece where people can receive quality services at home and also have the opportunity, when needed, to age in a comfortable, caring, home-like setting.

Parker's many services include nursing and memory care, post-acute rehabilitation services and an assisted living community with various campuses in Middlesex and Somerset counties. Home and community-based services include two adult day centers with medical and social programs, a third adult day program under construction, a child development center that promotes intergenerational programming and health and wellness services, which include outpatient rehabilitation along with aquatic therapy and Rehab at Homes services

Muniz's dedication to the future of aging services in New Jersey goes far beyond his leadership at Parker.

Muniz was recently appointed as a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Aging Network, an organization that connects and supports care and service providers worldwide to enhance quality of life for aging. He also serves on the Bergen County Advisory Council of the county's Division of Senior Services. Muniz is a member of the board of New Brunswick Tomorrow, where he most recently served as the Chairman, and just last month was appointed by the NJ Commissioner of Health, as a member of the Nursing Home Administrators Licensing Board. He is also a fellow and former board member of the American College of Health Care Administrators; a past Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the New Jersey Foundation for Aging; a past board member for both LeadingAge New Jersey and LeadingAge National.

Muniz has been teaching at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers for the past eight years. He has been an instructor of Health Care Administration, Aging and Public Policy and Long-Term Care Management courses.

At the start of the pandemic, Parker was quick to prioritize the social, mental and emotional well-being of residents and staff. Parker also invested in additional technology to determine the best approach in reducing the spread of infections. Under Muniz's leadership the organization continues to explore every piece of new technology available that can help communities be more effective with prevention and infection control.

"At a time when nursing homes are negatively highlighted because of how they have been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, Roberto's leadership has continued to be a beacon of hope to leaders in this field and in the healthcare industry throughout the state," said Parker's Chief Strategy Officer Donna Silbert. "His leadership has always been, and is now more than ever, admired by his team, his employees, his peers and, most importantly, the people Parker serves."

NJBIA's Executive of the Year Award honors individuals who demonstrate leadership and passion while achieving business success. Muniz was one of four selected and the only leader in the healthcare industry honored this year.

To learn more about Parker, visit parkerlife.org.

Media Contact:

Danielle Woodruffe

732.565.2425

[email protected]

SOURCE Parker Health Group, Inc.
BOSTON - The next phase of the Boston Public Schools reopening plan was delayed Wednesday because the citys coronavirus positivity rate has climbed higher than 4%, Mayor Marty Walsh said.

We believe it is prudent at this time to pause the school reopening plan, Walsh said at a news conference.

Preschoolers and kindergartners who were scheduled to report to school the week of Oct. 15 instead will now start Oct. 22, Walsh said, although he added that the date is dependent on how the virus data develops between now and then.

He called it a difficult decision, given the benefits of in-person instruction.

I understand the importance of having school for our young people, he said.

Remote learning began on Sept. 21 and families were allowed to opt for hybrid learning scheduled to start this month.

Some students, including those with special needs, English learners, those experiencing homelessness, and those who are in state care have already been allowed to return to in-person classes. They will continue to be taught in person, the mayor said.

For many of these students, not being in school presents a risk that cannot be mitigated the way that the risk of COVID can be, Walsh said. The risk of moving backwards, that is very difficult to recover from.

Grades 4 through 8 are now scheduled to transition to a hybrid model the week of Nov. 5, and grades 9 through 12 the week of Nov. 16. The district has about 54,000 students in 125 schools.

Massachusetts is among the hardest-hit states, with at least 9,323 COVID-19 deaths and more than 133,300 confirmed cases.

There have been more than 17,700 cases and 764 deaths in Boston alone as of Tuesday, according to Marty Martinez, the citys chief of health and human services.

The average positivity rate for the seven days ending Saturday reached 4.1%, the highest its been since early June, Martinez said.

The Boston Teachers Union welcomed Walshs decision, but called for the city to do more to ensure that city schools are safe.

In light of the positivity rate exceeding 4%, consistent with and in part resulting from troubling statewide and national trends in COVID-19 spread, we support the postponement of broadening in-person learning within the Boston Public Schools that the Mayor announced today, union President Jessica Tang said in a statement.

She called on the city to release the results of school air-quality tests, and asked for independent facility inspections to ensure the safety of students, staff and parents.

The citys schools are safe and ready for students, Superintendent Brenda Cassellius said at Wednesdays news conference.
We reaffirmed our continued commitment to strengthening Ukraine's political association and economic integration with the European Union

Brussels, 6 October 2020

Charles Michel, President of the European Council, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, and Josep Borrell, Vice-President of the European Commission on behalf of Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, met in Brussels today for the 22nd EU-Ukraine Summit and issued the following statement.

1. We gathered today to reaffirm our continued commitment to strengthening the political association and economic integration of Ukraine with the European Union, on the basis of the Association Agreement and its Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area. We share common values of democracy, rule of law, respect for international law and human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities, as well as gender equality. The EU reiterated its unwavering support and commitment to Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders.

2. The strength of our relations has been evidenced by the unity, solidarity and mutual commitment demonstrated in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The EU and Ukraine are together fighting the coronavirus and its effects, which are an unprecedented challenge for the healthcare systems and economies of both Member States and Ukraine. We emphasised the importance of strengthening our preparedness and response capacities, of sharing information in a free, transparent and prompt manner, and of improving the international response including through relevant international organisations, such as the WHO, drawing on lessons learned from the current global responses. We expressed readiness to cooperate on making access to the future COVID-19 vaccine a global common good at affordable prices. We recognised that global solidarity, cooperation and effective multilateralism are required more than ever to defeat the virus as well as to ensure a sustainable economic recovery. The EUR 190 million support package and a EUR 1.2 billion macro-financial assistance programme that the EU had mobilised for Ukraine to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-economic impact goes far beyond what any other partner has provided. We noted the appreciation by Ukrainian leadership and citizens for the assistance provided.

3. We reaffirmed our commitment to strengthening the political association and economic integration of Ukraine with the European Union, including through continued close cooperation to strengthen the rule of law, advance reforms, foster sustainable economic growth, support the green and digital transitions and increase resilience. We discussed the implementation of the Association Agreement following its entry into force in September 2017, after the December 2016 decision by the EU Heads of State or Government.

4. In this context, we acknowledged the European aspirations of Ukraine and welcomed its European choice, as stated in the Association Agreement. We agreed to exploit fully the potential of the Agreement and stressed the importance of Ukraine continuing to implement its commitments to that end. We welcomed the results already achieved in the implementation of the Association Agreement and the success of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, which has supported the increase of bilateral trade flows by about 65% following its application since January 2016, with the EU now Ukraines largest trading partner.

5. We reaffirmed the emphasis on maintaining Ukraines macro-economic stability, keeping the IMF commitments on track and implementing all medium-term structural policies agreed within the EU macrofinancial assistance programme, as well as a strong and independent National Bank of Ukraine.

6. We recognised the substantial progress made by Ukraine in its reform process and agreed on the need to further accelerate these efforts. We welcomed the launch of the land reform, the adoption of the banking resolution law and progress made with regard to decentralisation. We welcomed the launch of the work of the High Anti-Corruption Court. We agreed on the importance of accelerating and reinforcing reform efforts, in particular on the judiciary (including reforming the High Council of Justice and the independent recruitment of judges with integrity) and in the fight against corruption, ensuring strong and independent anti-corruption institutions. We welcomed the renewed commitment of Ukraine to fight the influence of vested interests (de-oligarchisation). In this regard, we underlined the need to further strengthen media pluralism in Ukraine.

7. The EU reaffirmed its continued substantial support for Ukraine, and its link to the effective implementation of reforms and policy measures. Building on successful Ukrainian reforms and international support since the Revolution of Dignity, the EU announced new programmes to support agriculture, local micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) notably through local currency lending, civil society, transport, infrastructure, environment and climate action, as well as specific support for the east of Ukraine. The EU also continues to support Ukraine on decentralisation and strengthening local self-governance, and on enhancing the fight against corruption. We welcomed the signature of the Eastern Neighbourhood Instrument financial agreements on the East, Civil Society and Climate.

8. The EU will continue to support Ukraine in countering hybrid threats and tackling disinformation, including through strengthening of independent media, media literacy strategic communications, in order to strengthen Ukraines resilience. We underlined the important role played by civil society, youth and independent media in all areas of public and political life, also in the context of disinformation campaigns against the EU and Ukraine, including by Russia. The EU and Ukraine agreed to launch a cyber-dialogue. We also noted the importance of enhancing cooperation in the area of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and alignment with CFSP, welcoming in this regard Ukraines participation in EUFOR Althea. Furthermore, we acknowledged the important roles played by the European Commission Support Group for Ukraine (SGUA) the EU Advisory Mission for civilian security sector reform (EUAM), including through its regional presence across Ukraine and the new Field Office in Mariupol.

9. We welcomed the continued successful implementation of the visa-free regime for the citizens of Ukraine. We underlined the importance of continuing to fulfil the visa liberalisation benchmarks and accelerating related reform efforts. We looked forward to the resumption of the normal travel opportunities for our citizens, once epidemiological conditions allow.

10. We looked forward to further enhancing economic integration and regulatory approximation within the framework of the Association Agreement in the following fields:

On digital, we took note of the on-site assessment of the implementation of Ukraines commitments in the AA/DCFTA. We also discussed the EUs engagement in further supporting Ukraine and its institutions in approximation with and gradual implementation of the EU Digital Single Market acquis and institutional capacities, to fully benefit from the Association Agreement. We agreed to prepare by the end of 2020 a joint working plan for co-operation between EU and Ukraine on electronic trust services with a view to a possible agreement which must be based on approximation to the EU legislation and standards.

We welcomed progress on the update of the Annexes on telecommunication, environment, climate and financial cooperation of the Association Agreement. Welcoming Ukraines ambition to approximate its policies and legislation with the European Green Deal, we stressed the importance of progress in Ukraines commitments in the areas of climate change, environment, marine ecosystem, education, energy, transport and agriculture, building on existing established sectoral dialogues, and agreed on a focused dialogue on the necessary steps in these areas.

We acknowledged the importance of fully complying with DCFTA commitments, notably in the areas of intellectual property rights, public procurement, trade defence, and sanitary and phytosanitary standards with a view to building an open and predictable business and investment climate in Ukraine. We agreed to further discuss and review the ways to improve DCFTA implementation in order to further develop and facilitate bilateral trade.

We welcomed the launch of the pre-assessment on Ukraine's preparedness on an Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products.

The EU also welcomed Ukraines willingness to associate to the incoming EUs Research and Innovation Framework Programme Horizon Europe and EU4Health Programme, which will be a significant enabler for green and digital post-COVID recovery.

We recalled the importance and reaffirmed our commitment to concluding the Common Aviation Area Agreement at the earliest possible date.

We reaffirmed Ukraine's role as a strategic transit country for gas and welcomed the agreement on gas transit to the EU after 2019. We underlined the importance of pursuing the modernization of the Ukrainian national gas transmission system and further cooperation on strengthening European energy security. We stressed the importance of Ukraines cooperation with the EU, with a view to its integration with the EU energy market based on effective implementation of the updated Annex XXVII of the Association Agreement as well as coordination of further steps for the integration of gas and electricity markets.

We agreed to improve connectivity between Ukraine, the EU and other countries of the Eastern Partnership with a view to facilitating trade, further developing safe and sustainable transport links and supporting people-to-people contacts.

We welcomed the participation of Ukraine in EU programmes and underlined the importance of Erasmus+ for education, training, youth and sport and Creative Europe for culture. We looked forward to intensifying the relevant cooperation in the framework of current and future programmes.

11. We agreed to proceed in 2021 with the comprehensive review of the achievement of the Agreement's objectives, as the Agreement stipulates.

12. We reiterated our strong condemnation of the clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity by acts of aggression by the Russian armed forces since February 2014. We continue to condemn the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia, the militarisation of the peninsula, the severe deterioration of the human rights situation there as well as restrictions of the freedom of movement for Ukrainian citizens to and from the Crimean Peninsula. We condemned the voting procedures on constitutional amendments of the Russian Federation concluded on 1 July 2020 that took place in the Crimean Peninsula, as well as the election of the so-called governor of Sevastopol on 13 September 2020, in violation of international law. We called on Russia to allow unhindered access of international organisations and human rights actors to the areas currently not under the control of Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula, and to respect international humanitarian law. We called for the immediate release of all illegally detained and imprisoned Ukrainian citizens in the Crimean Peninsula and in Russia, including Crimean Tatar activists. We continue to call on Russia to ensure unhindered and free passage to and from the Sea of Azov, in accordance with international law. We remain fully committed to implementing and keeping our respective non-recognition policies updated, including through restrictive measures and cooperation in international fora. In this context, we welcomed the diplomatic efforts aimed at restoring Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders.

13. We reaffirmed our full support to the endeavours of the Normandy format, the OSCE, the Trilateral Contact Group and the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine. We welcomed the renewed engagement by the parties at the Normandy Summit in Paris last December, and stressed the importance of implementing the measures agreed on that occasion in view of the full implementation of the Minsk agreements by all sides, underlining Russias responsibility in this regard. We praised the constructive approach of Ukraine in the Normandy format and the Trilateral Contact Group and called on Russia to reciprocate. The comprehensive and unlimited ceasefire is an achievement that should be preserved. We called on Russia to fully assume its responsibility in this regard and to use its considerable influence over the armed formations it backs to meet the Minsk commitments in full and to ensure free and unhindered access of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to the non-government-controlled areas of Ukraine, including the areas along the Ukrainian-Russian State border, in accordance with its mandate. We again called on Russia to immediately stop fuelling the conflict by providing financial and military support to the armed formations it backs, and we remain deeply concerned about the presence of Russian military equipment and personnel in the non-government-controlled areas of Ukraine. We reiterated our condemnation of the Russian continuing measures entitling Ukrainian citizens of the areas currently not under the control of the Government to apply for Russian citizenship in a simplified manner, in contradiction to the Minsk agreements. The EU recently renewed its economic sanctions on Russia, whose duration remains clearly linked to the full implementation of the Minsk agreements.

14. We agreed to continue cooperating to address the socio-economic and humanitarian consequences of the conflict, highlighting the necessity to ensure the supply of water, electricity and gas across the contact line, to facilitate the movement of people and goods, and to ensure that the people living in areas not under Government's control fully benefit from their rights as citizens of Ukraine, in full respect of international humanitarian law. In the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is even more essential that humanitarian aid continues to be delivered and that the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, UN agencies, non-governmental organisations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have unimpeded access to the non-government controlled areas. We underlined the importance of pursuing demining activities also in new areas to be agreed. We also agreed on the need for Ukraine to establish a national mine action centre in order to effectively address the contamination by mines and unexploded ordnances in the conflict affected region. The EU stands ready to further support Ukraine's inclusive approach towards its citizens in the affected areas and to play a leading role in reconstruction efforts of the country, including in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, once the Minsk agreements have been implemented.

15. We underlined our support to all efforts to establish the truth, justice and accountability for the 298 victims and the next of kin and called on the Russian Federation to accept its responsibility and to cooperate fully with all efforts to establish accountability on the downing of flight MH17.

16. We welcomed the Eastern Partnership Leaders video tele-conference meeting of 18 June 2020. Taking into account the results and orientations from this meeting and building on the March 2020 Joint Communication, we reaffirmed the strategic importance of the partnership, and looked forward to the 6th Eastern Partnership Summit in 2021, which is expected to endorse long-term policy objectives and the next generation of post-2020 deliverables on the basis of these objectives and input of Member States and partner countries.

Photo: President's Office
North Korean defectors to reveal harrowing detail of escape at Night of Freedom event

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North Korean defectors who risked everything for freedom will speak Wednesday night at Liberty in North Koreas annual Night of Freedom, which will be held online this year.

The hourlong event will be held at 7 p.m. Eastern time and will include three stories from defectors who escaped one of the worlds most repressive regimes, along with appearances by celebrities, raffles, and never-before-released short film.

Liberty in North Korea plans to broadcast the event from its headquarters in Long Beach, California. It will host a similar event on Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. Pacific time.

Anyone interested in participating can sign up for free on Liberty in North Koreas website. So far, over 2,000 people worldwide have done so. Liberty in North Korea CEO Hannah Song said it will be the groups first large online event.

What are we willing to give up for freedom? Song said in an interview with The Christian Post. When I hear the risks our North Korean friends take, these are things I cant even begin to fathom deciding. Ive had to think about that very deeply every time Ive heard their stories. What is my freedom to me?

Along the 3,000-mile trek from North Korea to South Korea, defectors must cross the North Korean border, dodge human traffickers and the Chinese police, and brave mountains and jungles. The defectors speaking at the event each fled North Korea in search of different kinds of freedom, Song said.

I just wanted to go to South Korea to worship God to my hearts content. To praise without any restrictions. To freely believe without having to risk my life, said Kyung in a video on the organization's website.

Often, Americans dont understand how cruel the North Korean regime is, Song told CP. One of the event highlights will be a short film depicting the North Korean communist regime's continued oppression of its people.

The never before seen footage were showing tonight is a video focused around the repression of the Korean government and the extreme brutality of the North Korean government, she said. North Korea is a difficult place to understand because its very extreme. This piece is an alternative to help us to understand what repression and brutality is like for North Korean people.

Song advised parents not to show the 3-minute clip to children younger than 13.

Thus far, the online event has raised over $400,000 to help North Korean defectors make the journey. Song said she hopes the event can raise up to $1 million. Liberty in North Korea will use the money to help North Koreans travel secret routes. It costs about $3,000 to help one North Korean defector make it from northern China to safety in Southeast Asia. Defectors within the group never have to pay back the money when they start new lives in South Korea.

We have such an incredible global fundraising movement that weve invited people to open their own fundraising pages, Song said.

People can donate on Liberty in North Koreas website, on the event page or to individual or group fundraisers.

We hope to do a big virtual event like this every year, said Song.

Although dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic can be challenging, Song said working with North Korean defectors keeps her grateful.

Doing this work is a constant reminder to be grateful for my freedom, for doing this work, that we live where we do and that its such a different experience than what many people around the world experience.
Britain's finance minister has charmed the public with his easy manner and empathy since the pandemic plunged the country into crisis in March. Over coffee and croissants in his rooms at No. 11 Downing Street, Rishi Sunak is now winning over his party-and a growing number of his colleagues want him to move next door to take over as prime minister.

That the governing Conservatives are even contemplating their next leader is an extraordinary demonstration of how Boris Johnson's fortunes have tumbled. It's barely 10 months since he steered them to their biggest parliamentary majority since the 1980s and this week's party conference ordinarily would have been a time for back-slapping.

Sliding in the polls, with a coronavirus strategy in disarray, Johnson has presided over the highest death toll in Europe and the deepest recession in more than a century. He muddled his own pandemic rules and the covid testing system he promised would be "world beating" failed to count 16,000 new positive cases. Talks on a trade deal with the European Union are deadlocked.

The party is now losing patience. Members of Parliament sense that he can be pushed around. A succession of threatened rebellions in the House of Commons have shown that his majority of 80 now counts for little.

Johnson's team are taking care to avoid pushing MPs to vote-for fear, as one of his supporters said, of destroying the illusion that he retains authority. "There is no discipline," the person said. "It's out of control."

A senior government official said relations between Johnson and his Tories are better than they were earlier in the pandemic and dismissed the notion of a breakdown in party discipline as "rubbish." The person also pointed out the prime minister had won a recent parliamentary vote on a controversial bill linked to Brexit.

As the chancellor of the exchequer, Sunak also isn't unscathed. He's been forced to defend his summer subsidy program for diners to support the hospitality industry after suggestions it helped spread infections. His commitment to keeping businesses open also looks riskier heading into winter, when the virus is likely to get more dangerous. Then there's the question of how to fix the U.K.'s finances.

But Sunak offers what many of his colleagues regard as a true blue brand of Toryism: a coherent vision of a small-state government that helps people to help themselves.

Last month, Sunak followed up on his warnings from March that he could not "save every job" in the aftermath of the first lockdown, which shuttered vast swathes of the economy. He confirmed he would be winding up the government's 50 billion-pound ($65 billion) wage support programs and replacing them with a far less generous policy that economists said would unleash a wave of job losses in the months ahead.

To those who work with him, the 40-year-old Sunak looks like a prime minister-and is doing a good job of preparing the ground for a potential campaign for the top job. Key to this, as Johnson knew when he was running for the leadership, is meeting the MPs who will eventually vote for the next leader.

Sunak has taken to entertaining small groups of Conservative MPs-around seven or 10 at a time-for breakfasts in his rooms next door to Johnson's headquarters at No. 10 Downing Street. Over coffee, pastries, and fruit, the chancellor asks them about their local constituencies, is briefed well on much of the detail, and candid about the errors the government has been making.

"He walks the walk of a prime minister," said one Tory who had been to a breakfast gathering. "People look at him and he's smart, he's pleasant, he's polite. What's not to like?" Another said the discussions showed Sunak to be "very engaging, brilliant, totally across the detail and very relaxed."

Sunak was doing the usual outreach to colleagues that any chancellor would ahead of a planned spending review, according to one of his allies. Yet he's charming a vital group. It's Tory MPs who will decide the timing of the next leadership election and pick the final two candidates who will run off against each other in a national party ballot.

Sunak paid attention to the group of Tories who were newly elected to parliament in 2019, some of whom have complained of being ignored by Johnson. His slick personal branding is also higher profile than any other cabinet minister bar Johnson. A signed photo of himself accompanies his key policy messages on Twitter. His methods have also been tailored to suit parliamentary colleagues.

"I keep getting Rishi branded emails with a big picture of him called 'News from Number 11,'" one MP said. "No one else does this. We don't get emails with 'News from Number 10.'"

Nor do many Tories detect the old Johnson vim on display much these days. Gone is his boosterism and joviality, he says, because such an approach would be inappropriate in the grave circumstances the country is facing.

Some Conservatives who are looking for a reason why Johnson has lost his zest for the job privately comment that his health is still a worry. He contracted coronavirus in March and spent several nights in intensive care, before taking a month off to recover.

Johnson, 56, insists he is as "fit as a butcher's dog" and on Tuesday said it's "self-evident drivel" to say Covid had robbed him of his mojo. But one loyal minister said people underestimate what Johnson has been through.

"He was close to death just a few months ago," the minister said. "When people ask where is the real Boris, well the real Boris was the man who referenced the mayor in 'Jaws' saying we've got to keep the beaches open. Events have changed him."

Yet it's more than just the image of a competent and composed leader where Sunak's colleagues prefer him to Johnson. There is the substance of his politics, too. Johnson's skeptics fear he is in thrall to a small number of advisers and is slavishly following the instructions of scientists and medics who are urging ever more punishing restrictions on businesses and citizens.

More than 100 Tories were said to be ready to vote against Johnson last week in protest at what they saw as his rule by decree-imposing new laws on the country to combat Covid-19 without putting them to Parliament for a vote first.

By contrast, Sunak in recent weeks has freely declared himself frustrated with the restrictions, such as the new 10 p.m. curfew for pubs, and told Parliament that the country must learn to "live without fear." It was a line that went down well with Tories who fear that the economic damage will blight the country long after the virus fades.

While Johnson gave his party cause to doubt his Tory credentials, Sunak proudly declared in his conference speech on Monday that Conservatives have "a sacred responsibility to future generations to leave the public finances strong."

According to one person familiar with the matter, Johnson's team have noticed how tensions have grown with Sunak in recent months. While the chancellor is arguing fiercely against any short, sharp "circuit breaker" national lockdown, Johnson's public comments are more cautious.

The prime minister appointed Sunak to mend ties at the top of the leadership after falling out with his previous chancellor, Sajid Javid, and Sunak spent Monday and Tuesday reiterating the bond he has with Johnson. At a party conference event, he said the two men are "personally close" and that he "definitely" did not want the top job.

But the divisions are only likely to deepen as winter approaches. The public has been warned of six months of potentially tightening restrictions ahead. That will coincide with the scheduled end of Sunak's wage support program. The surge in unemployment that's likely to follow will be a sore test of his-and Johnson's-popularity.

On Monday, Sunak even suggested some of the election pledges that Johnson campaigned on may become casualties of the crisis, with more expensive policies likely to be cut. That may yet give his Conservative fans pause for thought.

But as Sunak put it in his conference speech, balancing the books is a mission that goes to the heart of his vision for the party: "If instead we argue there is no limit on what we can spend, that we can simply borrow our way out of any hole, what is the point in us?"
Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has urged the people of Atobiase not to forget the frustrating hardship former President Mahama plunged the country into during his reign as President a few years ago and reject him at the 7 December 2020 polls.

Speaking at a durbar of chiefs in Atobiase in the Wassa East Constituency of the Western Region, Dr Bawumia said the overwhelming victory of President Akufo-Addo in 2016 saved Ghana from the doldrums as a result of the mismanagement of the country by Mr Mahama, and that the upcoming election is about protecting the country from going back to the dark days under Mahama, as well as protecting the overwhelming turnaround of the country under President Akufo-Addo.

The 2020 election is about protecting the future of our country, Dr Bawumia told the chiefs and people of Atobiase.

Under former President Mahama, we saw the mismanagement of our economy, which plunged the country into many problems including dumsor, collapse of the NHIS, massive unemployment, failure to pay basic allowances for teachers and nurses, etc, collapsing agriculture, among others.

Ghanaians intervened and voted massively for Nana Akufo-Addo and in nearly four years, there has been tremendous turnaround and the evidence is there for all to see.

That is why I say Decembers election is about protecting the country from going back to the dark days under Mahama.

It is also about protecting the many gains under President Akufo-Addo such economic stability, Free SHS, One Village-One Dam, One Constituency-One Ambulance, One Village-One Dam, Planting for Food and Jobs.

This country is making progress and we cannot go back to hardships under Mahama, the President said.

We are delivering Free SHS, which Mahama said was a hoax, and we cannot go back to somebody who is capable of cancelling it just as he cancelled teacher and nurse trainees allowance.

Mahama sent this country into dumsor for almost 5 years because they didnt have the money to pay and Akufo-Addo has solved it. We cannot go back to dumsor, Dr Bawumia noted.

From the national level, Dr Bawumia narrowed down to local issues and lamented how the NDC neglected Atobiase and its surrounding villages for eight years.

He said, on the contrary, the Akufo-Addo government has demonstrated its commitment to inclusive development in less than four years by extending development to communities in and around Atobiase, and all parts of the country.

As Atobiase Hene said, there is evidence of what Nana Akufo-Addos government has done for the people of Atobiase in just three-and-a-half years.

The question is: what did the NDC do in this area in eight years? The MP for this area was a Deputy Minister of Roads but the roads here are in bad shape. He and his government didnt do anything about it.

Dr Bawumia urged the people to reject former President Mahama and the NDC because they have nothing good to offer the area and Ghanaians, and throw their weight behind Nana Akufo-Addo so that he can continue the good works he has started for them and the country.

Dr Bawumia is in the Western Region for a two-day tour of the region.

---Classfm
Berlin: France and Germany will propose sanctions on individuals they deem responsible for the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, their governments said on Wednesday, local time, reiterating that they suspect a Kremlin involvement.

Proposals forwarded to European Union partners will also target an entity involved in the Novichok program, a joint statement from the French and German foreign ministries said. Navalny has been recovering in Berlin after falling ill from the nerve agent in Russia on August 20, spending weeks in a coma.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been discharged from hospital after treatment for poisoning. Credit:Instagram/AP

The statement did not give further specifics on the possible targets for sanctions.

Moscow has dismissed claims of its involvement as "baseless" and has declined to investigate the incident, citing a lack of evidence.
A Kuwaiti physician has started a year-long fellowship hosted by the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) to learn a unique type of prostate laser surgery that significantly improves the care and recovery time for patients. The training will take place at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC).

Dr. Abdulrahman Ahmad of Kuwait is learning under the guidance of Dr. Hazem Elmansy, NOSM Assistant Professor and Faculty Lead of Urology and a Urologist at TBRHSC said a news release from NOSM. Elmansy was described as one of few doctors in the world who performs holmium laser enucleation of the prostate (HoLEP), a specialized form of prostate surgery. The procedure is used to treat men with urinary outflow obstruction caused by an enlarged prostate.

NOSM said Ahmad is the first of a list of 40 potential candidate urologists who will take the post-residency training through NOSM and the Thunder Bay hospital. Ahmad said he was pleased to be accepted.

Dr. Elmansy is known world-wide as one of the few experts in the HoLEP method, and I had read his international publications. It was very exciting to meet him in person and to work in a supportive and friendly environment. I think its the best decision Ive made, said Ahmad.

Elmansy, who has been performing the specialty HoLEP laser surgery for roughly six years, said the procedure is less invasive, more precise and allows patients to recover more quickly.

It benefits patients of Northern Ontario and were looking at expanding our care to patients in Dryden, Kenora and Fort Frances, said Elmansy. He added there is a three-year waiting list of patients, including some from out of province, who want to have the procedure.

NOSM Dean and CEO Dr. Sarita Verma said the international fellowship was the result of leadership from both the hospital and the medical school.

NOSM helps to develop clinical expertise in other countries as part of our global social accountability, said Verma.

The program was also endorsed by Dr. Robert Anderson, NOSM associate dean, postgraduate medical education and health sciences, who said it was an exciting first for NOSM and would inspire more clinical fellowships.

Creating more fellowships that are led by dynamic faculty leaders like Dr. Elmansy is a next step in NOSMs growth as a medical school integrated with academic health science centres. Advancing patient care, research, and faculty engagement through clinical fellowships is part of our strategic plan for NOSMs residency programs moving forward, said Anderson.
On Friday, October 9, at 10.30 the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency will host a press conference entitled "Return of Ukrainian Women from Refugee Camp in Syria." At least 25 Ukrainian women, together with at least 35 of their children, are being held in Syria in the closed refugee camps Al-Hawl and al-Roj from one and a half to three and a half years; photo, audio and video evidence of the conditions in which the citizens of Ukraine are held will be presented. Participants include mothers of Ukrainian women who are held captive in refugee camps in Syria, Angelica Dobrovolska, Gulfire Yunusova, Fatyma Boiko, as well as Tetiana Kobeleva; moderators - journalists Taras Ibrahimov and Olena Savchuk (8/5a Reitarska Street). The broadcast of the press conference will be available on the Youtube channel of the Interfax-Ukraine agency. Admission of journalists requires registration on the spot. Additional info by phone: (098) 618 8989 (Taras Ibrahimov).
The largest real-world connected and automated mobility (CAM) testbed in the UK  consisting of over 300 miles of West Midlands roads overseen by Midlands Future Mobility  is to get new 5G macro coverage and a deeper level of simulation.

Thanks to the new partnership with mobile network provider Vodafone and Wireless Infrastructure Group, 80% of the Midlands Future Mobility route will have 5G connectivity  making the West Midlands one of the best connected environments in the country.

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The Midlands Future Mobility project has also announced a new partnership with simulation firm Immense to provide large-scale simulations, bridging the gap between operational use cases (i.e the local performance of individual vehicles) and strategic use cases (i.e the global performance of the transportation system). This will leverage the learnings from other work packages to create a fully capable simulation environment that appeals to a range of testbed users.

5G can deliver faster data speeds than previous generations of mobile technology. It can also offer extremely low latency (the time it takes for data to complete its journey). This is crucial when it comes to avoiding collisions, where every millisecond counts. Increased bandwidth will also allow the sharing of high definition images between infrastructure and vehicles, which will help an autonomous vehicle make sense of its environment and operate without human involvement.

This summer, Vodafone and the Transport for West Midlands and West Midlands 5G committed to work in partnership to share information and expertise and develop cutting-edge transport systems and technology using the regions growing 5G mobile network. Joining Midlands Future Mobility is the next step in this commitment.

Its increasingly clear that 5G has a huge role to play in CAM, in addition to more established comms methods which weve already deployed in Midlands Future Mobility, says John Fox, programme director of Midlands Future Mobility. Bringing 5G to a much larger area than first planned with a leading mobile operator in Vodafone, means Midlands Future Mobility will reach and remain at the forefront of 5G development in the UK for years to come. Im also delighted to welcome Immense on board. Their advanced multi-actor simulation methods and capability perfectly complement the areas of simulation support for CAM creators that Midlands Future Mobility is already developing.

Midlands Future Mobility is funded by business partners and the UK Government as part of the wider Zenzic CAM Testbed UK initiative that facilitates and promotes the development of connected and self- driving cars. Midlands Future Mobility is backed by a consortium of organisations, including WMG at the University of Warwick, Horiba Mira, AVL, Transport for West Midlands, Costain, Amey, Wireless Infrastructure Group, Coventry University and Highways England.

Having industry leaders such as Vodafone join Midlands Future Mobility is a perfect example of the kind of collaboration that is needed for the UK to remain a world leader in the development of 5G for the CAM industry, says Zenzic CEO Daniel Ruiz. Zenzic is continuing to encourage this kind of cutting edge collaboration to make Connected and Automated Mobility a reality on UK roads by 2030 and this is a great step in the right direction.

The Midlands Future Mobility route offers a combination of campus (mini-city), urban, rural and highways roads on which CAM trials can be supported. The route encompasses major city centres (Coventry and Birmingham) and key interchanges (rail, HS2 and Birmingham International Airport). The wide range of route types provides businesses with opportunities to trial different technologies, from low speed shared space vehicles through to next generation Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicle technologies.
The Pakistan Navy will add more than 50 vessels, including 20 major ships, to its fleet as part of an ambitious modernisation plan to improve its capabilities, the country's outgoing Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) said on Wednesday.

Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi said in his farewell address that the Navy will induct four Chinese frigates in the next few years and as many Turkish medium-class ships between 2023 and 2025. He said the Hangor submarine project, which is being carried out in collaboration with China, was progressing according to the plan, and four submarines were being ...
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 17:41:42|Editor: huaxia

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A mountainous city in Yunnan, China has managed to lift nearly 1.7 million residents out of poverty in 6 years. Find out how this feat was achieved in Zhaotong, a city that once had the largest share of poverty-stricken residents across the country. #BeatingPoverty
The European Union says that it is unshakable in its support and devotion to the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

The relevant joint statement following the Ukraine-EU summit, which took place in Brussels on Tuesday, was made by the leaders of the EU and Ukraine.

"The EU reiterated its unwavering support and commitment to Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders," the EU leaders said in the statement.

The leaders said that they have gathered today to reaffirm "continued commitment to strengthening the political association and economic integration of Ukraine with the European Union, on the basis of the Association Agreement and its Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area."

"We share common values of democracy, rule of law, respect for international law and human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities, as well as gender equality," they said.
Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were stripped of their British citizenship ( )

Two alleged members of the Isis Beatles cell involved in a series of hostage beheadings in Syria are being flown to the US.

The Department of Justice is expected to announce charges against Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh at a press conference later on Wednesday.

A source told the Associated Press they would appear at a court in Alexandria, Virginia.

The pair were captured in Syria in 2018 as Isis lost its last territory and were held abroad in US military custody.

Last month, Elsheikhs mother lost a court battle against the British governments decision to share evidence with American authorities. The ruling cleared the way for the pair to be transferred to the US and put on trial.

Kotey and Elsheikh became the subject of a legal dispute after the UK refused to prosecute them, having removed their British citizenship, despite pressure from Donald Trumps administration.

Ministers said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the pair in Britain and so the government decided to hand its information to the US.

The Supreme Court heard that American authorities refused to provide the normal assurance that it would not be used in a prosecution that could lead to the death penalty.

After many exchanges, the home secretary - then Sajid Javid - agreed to comply with the request without any assurances in June 2018.

He authorised the sharing of 600 witness statements gathered by the Metropolitan Police in a letter to then US attorney general Jeff Sessions.

When the case was first heard in the High Court lawyers representing Elsheikhs mother said Mr Javids actions were influenced by the anticipated outrage of members of the Trump administration if the mutual legal assistance request was refused.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh were stripped of their British citizenship

They had also pushed for the CPS to review claims that there was insufficient evidence for the men to be charged and tried in the UK.

Elsheikh and Kotey were transferred into US military custody last October, following Turkeys invasion of the region of northern Syria where they were being held by Kurdish-led forces.

Story continues

Originally from London, he and Kotey were declared specially designated global terrorists by the US State Department ahead of their capture, with official documents naming them as members of The Beatles and saying the cell had beheaded more than 27 hostages and tortured many more.

The cell was dubbed the Beatles by victims because of their British accents.

Surviving captives have told of their brutality, which included waterboarding, electric shocks, mock executions and crucifixions.

Executioner Mohammed Emwazi, who became known as Jihadi John, was killed in a drone strike, while the remaining Beatle, Aine Davis, was imprisoned in Turkey.

Read more

Isis Beatles can stand trial in US after High Court ruling

US won't seek death penalty for 'Isis Beatles'

Isis 'Beatles' claim contact with killed US hostage Kayla Mueller

High Court rejects challenge over UK sharing Isis Beatles evidence
CHICAGO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- October 7, 2020 - Visibly, Inc., the world's first virtual vision test technology company, announced today that college students can get their eyes checked free of charge through Visibly's online vision test, providing a quick and easy way for students to stay healthy while attending school.

"We are excited to offer Visibly's anywhere, anytime virtual testing technology to all college students free of charge as a convenient way to maintain eye health while away from home," said Brent Rasmussen, CEO of Visibly. "Whether in a dorm room or at the library, students can easily get their vision checked, allowing them to connect to a licensed doctor to make sure they are seeing at their optimal level. We understand that there are thousands of college students that are in a unique situation on campus right now and with the increase in online classes there is a significant strain on the eyes."

Visibly is the world's first advanced eye care telehealth technology that allows consumers to get their eyes checked virtually. Within 24 hours of completing the test, a licensed eye care professional will deliver a valid prescription that can be used to purchase contacts or glasses from any retailer.

Arjun Reddigari, a student at the University of Illinois, shared his recent experience of using Visibly's technology: "I recently took Visibly's eye test and was very impressed by the technology. This test can easily be done from the comforts of your dorm room or apartment! This convenience is perfect for the busy schedules of college students like me, as I can spend more time with my friends and family both on campus and at home."

If you are a college student looking to take advantage of this offer, please visit our website govisibly.com/students for more information.

About Visibly

Visibly, a Chicago-based healthcare technology company founded in 2012, creates digital eye care technologies that enable patient choice and convenience while providing doctors the ability to create awesome user experiences. Visibly was founded with the belief that glasses and contact lens prescriptions should be accessible and affordable to everyone. Online vision testing is just the start; Visibly envisions a world where technology enables patients and doctors to connect easily to make all aspects of vision care convenient and accessible for all.

Currently, Visibly operates under the Enforcement Policy for Remote Ophthalmic Assessment and Monitoring Devices during the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Public Health Emergency issued by the FDA in April 2020.

Media Contact

Taylor Smith

[email protected]

216.906.2880

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NEW YORK  Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. can subpoena President Donald Trumps tax returns, an appeals court ruled Wednesday, making it likely the fight over the documents will return to the Supreme Court.

The three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that Trumps challenges to subpoenas served on his longtime accounting firm did not pass legal muster. Vances demand on the firm, Mazars, for eight years of Trumps returns was not overly broad or issued in bad faith, the court wrote.

Even if the subpoena is broad, the complaint does not adequately allege that it is overbroad. Complex financial and corporate investigations are broad by default, the court wrote.

We hold that none of the presidents allegations, taken together or separately, are sufficient to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued out of malice or an intent to harass.

Vance has agreed to hold off on enforcement of the subpoenas  which he first served on Mazars more than a year ago  while the president appeals to the Supreme Court. The high court rejected Trumps arguments in July that he was entitled to immunity from criminal investigation while in the Oval Office but left an opening for Trump to pursue other legal challenges to the demand.

The DAs investigation was initially believed to be focused on how the Trump Organization accounted for hush money payments to women before the 2016 presidential election. The women claim to have had affairs with Trump. Vances office has revealed in court filings that the probe expanded to include an examination of possible insurance and tax fraud.

The 2nd Circuit panel consisted of two judges appointed by President Bill Clinton, Pierre Leval and Robert Katzman, and Judge Raymond Lohier, who was appointed by President Barack Obama. They signaled their skepticism of Trumps arguments last month.

Trumps claim the investigation was limited to the hush money payments was nothing more than implausible speculation, the court ruled. Without evidence to back up that claim, Trumps entire legal challenge fell apart. Vance is simply using a grand jury to follow every available clue, as a prosecutor routinely does in investigations, the court found.

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There is nothing to suggest that these are anything but run-of-the-mill documents typically relevant to a grand jury investigation into possible financial or corporate misconduct, the Appeals Court wrote.

The decision was the fifth court defeat for Trump over the subpoenas.

A bombshell New York Times report revealed last month that Trump paid just $750 in federal income in 2016 and again in 2017. In 10 of the past 15 years he paid zero income taxes, according to the report.



2020 New York Daily News

Visit New York Daily News at www.nydailynews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
UNK Student Body President Max Beal, who watched the building take shape during the past two-plus years, called Mondays grand-opening celebration an exciting day for Lopers.

I dont believe a campus is defined by brick and mortar alone, but make no mistake, projects like this really do impact students, Beal said. Discovery Hall will be an asset in recruiting talent to our campus, just as it will be an asset in enhancing the way we go about learning.

Describing the building as nothing less than top-notch, Beal said Discovery Hall is an investment in education that will pay dividends for decades to come.

Theres no doubt this building will be an asset to the state of Nebraska that enables UNK to better train our student body  the future of Nebraskas workforce who will stay here and continue to create value in our state, he said.

Discovery Hall was constructed as part of a $30 million project replacing Otto C. Olsen, a 65-year-old industrial arts building that was on the states capital construction replacement list for more than two decades. The new STEM building was paid for by renewal bonds and through a state bill that directed deferred maintenance funding to NU facility replacement projects.
Gov. Cuomo threatens to close churches, synagogues if they don't 'agree to follow the rules'

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened to shut down churches and synagogues in New York City if they don't "agree to follow the rules" regarding social distancing and mask use as part of the state's response to COVID-19.

At a press conference on Monday, Cuomo spoke about his plans to close schools designated as being in New York City "hot spots" and issued a warning to churches and synagogues in those same areas.

We know religious institutions have been a problem, he argued, pointing to a screen showing pictures of Christian and Jewish gatherings. You dont see masks. And you see clear violations of social distancing."

If you do not agree to follow the rules, then we will close the institutions down. I am prepared to do that, Cuomo said.

The Twitter account for Satmar Headquarters, a Hasidic Jewish community based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, explained that one of the pictures shown on the screen was not from recent weeks, as Cuomo had insinuated, but was more than a decade old. This Picture is from the 2006 Funeral of the previous Satmar Grand Rebbe, 14 years ago!

Joseph Esposito, a parishioner of St. Athanasius Church, Bensonhurst, also raised concerns that Cuomo was unfairly targeting houses of worship.

Its ridiculous. It absolutely makes no sense, Esposito told The Tablet. We go out of our way to make sure it is safe. The churches have been doing the right thing. We are being punished for our hard work. And why this is being done by ZIP code makes no sense. What if you live in one neighborhood and go to church in another?

Cuomo listed his requirements for churches, adding: If were going to keep religious institutions open, it can only be with two conditions. One, the community must agree, whether its the Jewish community, whether were talking about black churches, whether were talking about Roman Catholic churches, the religious community has to agree to the rules and they have to agree that they are going to follow the rules. And they have to agree that they are going to be a full partner in the enforcement of the rules.

If you do not agree to enforce the rules, then well close the institutions down, he warned. Cuomo said that the second condition for keeping religious institutions open required strict enforcement of social distancing rules and capacity limits: If the rule is no more than 50% of the people in a black church, I want someone at the door when 50% enter the church, a person there who says to the pastor, you agree to follow the rules. Thats 50%. Thats it or we close it down.

Toward the end of the press conference, Cuomo said he would be meeting with the Orthodox community on Tuesday to see if they will agree to live and abide by the rules and advocate compliance. He vowed to take action if Orthodox Jewish leaders did not agree to his demands.

On March 27, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio first warned that churches and synagogues would be permanently shut down if they did not adhere to the city's lockdown orders.

In response, religious liberty advocates said de Blasio's threat was "unconstitutional."

This type of religious hostility is what fuels non-compliance because it reveals a motive beyond public safety, Tony Perkins, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and president of the Family Research Council, said at the time.

De Blasio did not relent, however, and on April 28 he lodged a similar threat against the Orthodox Jewish community, informing them on Twitter: I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping the disease and saving lives. Period.

Fox News opinion host Tucker Carlson played a clip of Cuomos comments from Monday's press conference on his show Monday night, where he said of Cuomo: Who do you think you are, God? Youre not, youre some stupid governor of a declining state.

Carlson, who has been a critic of the ongoing lockdowns and restrictions on businesses imposed by state and local governments in response to the novel coronavirus, said: In the country we lived in, in January, we had a First Amendment that said the government will not get in the way of your exercise of your religion.
We were over the moon when we found out we were going to the UK  but now it feels like its the end of the world, says Basil, 35, from the room he lives in with his wife and three young children in Lebanon. We just want to start our lives, the Syrian father-of-three adds dejectedly.

Basil fled his home country with his wife, Atifa, in 2011 after their baby daughter was killed at nine months old when a bomb struck their home. The couple  devastated  decided they had to get out.

They headed to Lebanon and started trying to build a new life there. Finding work and housing was difficult, and they found themselves having to move house and jobs frequently. The couple started a family nonetheless, in a bid to have the family life that had been stopped short by the war, giving birth to three children  now aged six, five and one.

Basil, his wife and three children are living in a small flat with no furniture because they sold their belongings in March in the belief that they were going to Britain (Supplied)

Life remained difficult, particularly due to the discrimination they faced as refugees in a country that took in a large number of people displaced by the war. The family was thrilled when they were told in May 2019 that they had been selected for resettlement in Britain.

But nearly a year and a half later, they are still waiting. The family is one of hundreds who were due to be transferred to the UK under the countrys resettlement programme in March, but whose flights were cancelled after it was temporarily closed due to coronavirus.

They expected to be waiting a few additional months to be resettled, but more than half a year later, the scheme  the only safe and legal way to Britain for most refugees  remains closed. No refugees have been resettled in the UK under the scheme since 12 March.

The Independent understands that when resettlement was paused in March, there had been plans for more than 600 refugees to arrive who were subsequently blocked, meaning they remained in host countries where the pandemic has exacerbated already poor living conditions. To make things worse, many had already sold possessions and left employment in preparation to leave for the UK, leaving them with very little.

The financial situation is very difficult now. We sold everything. We told the landlord we were moving, so weve had to move into a tiny flat where we all share a room, says Basil, who used to be a construction worker. He adds that his youngest son is sick and they arent able to access medication for him. Life is not stable like this. We had a good life in Syria. It was like paradise compared to the hell were living in now.

Other developed countries including Italy, France and Spain have resumed their refugee resettlement schemes after pausing them during the lockdown. According to the UNHCR, at least 11 out of 23 resettlement countries have started receiving refugees again. Between March and August, 4,543 refugees were resettled in other countries.

Campaigners have accused the UK government of prioritising holiday travel and deportation flights over refugees, and warned that the rise in dangerous small boat crossings could be linked to the lack of safe routes to the UK. Around 7,000 people have completed the perilous journey from northern France so far in 2020.

Naseem, 39, another Syrian refugee in Lebanon who had been due to come to Britain, is also struggling, along with his wife Celina, to cope with the delay. The couple left Syria together in 2011, and had been due to fly to the UK on 19 March to be resettled in Dundee, but they were informed days before that the transfer could not take place because the scheme had been stalled.

At this point, they had already signed a form for the authorities agreeing to quit their right to stay in Lebanon from 20 March, which Naseem says means they could face removal back to Syria if the authorities discover they are still living there. They are now rarely leaving their small flat.

Naseem and Celina have been trying to avoid leaving the house due to fear of arrest and deportation (Supplied)

If we are caught in Lebanon, we will be deported to Syria, says Naseem, who is a carpenter by trade and was hoping to find this kind of work in Britain. We were also told to self-isolate before coming to the UK, so weve been trying to isolate for months, not knowing when were going to be making the journey.

He adds that since the explosion in Beirut in August, their lives have worsened further, with food production and access to medication affected by the tragic incident. It became very difficult. My blood pressure increased and I cant get the medication I need. Im living without it, he says. We were very happy when we found out we were going to the UK. But we would rather die than have to wait like this.

Celina, 36, who is trained in graphic design, echoes her husbands concerns, saying: Our dream is vanished. We are staying at home. Its killing us. Theres no comparison between our lives in Syria before the war and our lives now. We are dying slowly here.

Louise Calvey, head of resettlement at Refugee Action, said the failure to restart resettlement flights was taking a terrible toll on people who should have safely arrived in the UK in March, instead forcing them to live in immediate danger of detention and deportation to Syria through no fault of their own.

She added: The home secretary pledged this week to create a fair and compassionate asylum system, including more safe and legal routes for people to reach safety. She must honour her own words and immediately restart the UKs resettlement programmes, which have not supported a single refugee since March.

Ali, 32, is currently living with his wife and three children  aged six, five and one  in a small, unfurnished and undecorated flat after the family ended their tenancy in March in the belief that they would be leaving the country then to start a new life in Britain. They have been forced to move home numerous times in the last seven months.

Ali (left) and his family are living in a small flat and have had to move numerous times since March (Supplied)

Its the worst nightmare for every father, says Ali, a former metalsmith. We have no house, no jobs, no money, only suitcases with some clothes. We had to rent this room, but its not suitable for humans to live in.

I feel so sad and sorry and helpless being unable to provide a suitable adequate life for my kids. When they remember how they used to live and how theyre living now, you can see the sadness in their eyes.

The father-of-three says the family was over the moon when they found out they had been selected to go to Britain. His son has autism and he hoped this would be better understood in the UK. They were told they would be going to Cambridge.

The family has been forced to get by without any proper furniture (Supplied)

I was looking forward to finding work, providing for my family, and most of all being safe, he explains. But now we are suffering more every day. It feels like we were made promises, but now nobody is taking care of us.

Matthew Saltmarsh, spokesperson for the UNHCR, said the organisation hoped that resettlement to the UK would restart very soon, adding: The pandemic has presented new, acute hardships and uncertainties for refugees. Many of those with jobs  mostly in the casual sector  have lost them.

Access to services in countries of asylum has become harder since the move by their support partners to shift to remote working. The situation is especially worrying for refugees who had already made preparations to depart on resettlement and are in limbo, with no clarity on when they will be able to leave.

A Home Office spokesperson said it remained in regular contact with the International Organisation of Migration and UNHCR to ensure that those accepted for resettlement to the UK are able to access any additional support they may need.

They added: The UK has always provided sanctuary those fleeing persecution, oppression or tyranny and the Home Secretary has been clear that the UK will introduce a new asylum system that will welcome people through safe and legal routes."

Muhanned says he has sold everything and he is fearful of leaving their small flat in case he is arrested by the authorities for still being in Lebanon (Supplied)

Muhanned, 36, who says he left Syria with his wife in 2014 after he had been imprisoned four times by the authorities and forced to work for the military, is also waiting to be transferred to the UK with his family. They had been due to start a new life in Edinburgh.

Like Naseem, Muhanned had already signed a document saying he was leaving Lebanon, and he now fears being arrested each time he leaves the house. He is also struggling to feed his family due to having left his job nine months ago.

We are just hoping, waiting for the phone call, he says. We dont mind being in quarantine. We can do that for two, three weeks. The important thing is that we move as soon as possible.

"Other countries who have selected people to travel there, like France, have sent a plane to collect those families. Weve sold everything and were just waiting to move."

Names have been changed to protect identities
Militants killed

Srinagar: Two unidentified militants were killed in an overnight encounter with security forces in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

Militants killed

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Security forces launched a search operation at Sugan village in Zainapora area of Shopian on Tuesday evening following information about presence of militants there, a police spokesman said.

He said the search operation turned into an encounter after militants opened fire on the security forces.

Militants KilledTwo militants were killed in the encounter that lasted more than 12 hours, a police official said.

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He said the identity and group affiliation of the slain militants was being ascertained.
Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and several of the Pentagons most senior uniformed leaders are quarantining after being exposed to the coronavirus, a Defense Department official said on Tuesday.

The official said almost the entirety of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including Gen. James C. McConville, the Army chief of staff, are quarantining after Adm. Charles Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, tested positive for coronavirus.

We are aware that Vice Commandant Ray has tested positive for Covid-19 and that he was at the Pentagon last week for meetings with other senior military leaders, Jonathan Hoffman, the Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement released by his office.

Out of an abundance of caution, all potential close contacts from these meetings are self-quarantining and have been tested this morning, he added. No Pentagon contacts have exhibited symptoms and we have no additional positive tests to report at this time.
Flowe, the environmentally-friendly Italian challenger bank, went live in just 5 months with Temenos Transact, core banking and AI-powered Financial Crime Mitigation, delivered as SaaS

With Temenos SaaS technology, Flowe has created a hyper-efficient cost structure that enables the bank to deliver more value to its customers.

Temenos SaaS technology enabled Flowe to onboard over 15,000 customers in its first week

Temenos implemented the solution remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced that Banca Mediolanum Group's digital bank, Flowe, has gone live with Temenos Transact and Financial Crime Mitigation (FCM) delivered as SaaS. Temenos Transact core banking technology enabled Flowe to launch in just five months as Italy's newest challenger bank aiming to disrupt the market with sustainable and ethical financial services. Flowe launched in record time on Temenos SaaS after a remote implementation during the coronavirus pandemic.

Flowe launched in June 2020 to meet the needs of younger retail banking customers who desire ethical and innovative digital banking. The digital bank provides user-friendly mobile banking experiences and aims to be more eco-friendly than traditional banks. With Temenos SaaS technology, Flowe has the agility required to bring new products to market faster and offer the personalized experiences that customers need. Temenos SaaS combined with the unique ability of the underlying technologies of Temenos Transact will enable Flowe to launch new products at a fraction of the time and differentiate the customer experience.

Flowe provides an account with an Italian IBAN without monthly fees, with the Fun account; ATM withdrawals in the Eurozone are free and the maximum account balance is 10,000. The Flowe card is made from wood that comes from certified forests and it supports reforestation in Guatemala, reduces and offsets CO2 emissions and supports local families. The bank encourages social wellbeing and builds community by enabling users to share expenses. The challenger offers 100% facial recognition onboarding and it is naturally paperless in its operations. Temenos' API-first technology allows Flowe to cut down deployment time and costs as well as easily connect to third parties. This means that the bank can continuously innovate and update its product lines to meet the changing needs of its audience of young banking consumers.

Temenos SaaS technology enabled the bank to rapidly launch, it offers elastic scalability to support Flowe's client growth and it dramatically reduces IT costs. Flowe has created a hyper-efficient business model based on Temenos SaaS technology, which enables Flowe to pass on the benefits to its customers.

Temenos' AI-driven FCM offers the most complete protection against financial crime to improve resiliency and customer experience despite rising cybercrime rates due to coronavirus. Flowe will implement Temenos Payments later this year to provide instant payments in response to heightened demand. Temenos Payments will be integrated with Temenos Transact to provide seamless user experiences and market-leading cost-income ratios.

Temenos worked closely with Flowe to support a remote implementation during the coronavirus pandemic. Temenos' SaaS technology on Microsoft Azure accelerated the project timelines so that Flowe could launch in five months and address the surge in demand for digital banking. Temenos' Italy Model Bank provided highly localized, pre-configured banking functionality so Flowe could deploy the technology as is, without customization.

Ivan Mazzoleni, Chief Executive Officer, Flowe, commented: "We are excited to announce this strategic partnership with Temenos. Its cutting-edge technology powered our launch and now fuels our purpose to bring a new standard of sustainable banking to the European market. Temenos' focus and unparalleled investment in innovation means Flowe will continue to benefit from the most advanced banking technology. Temenos' SaaS technology helped us to rapidly onboard a significant number of users in a matter of days. It will continue to support our growth as we expand our customer-base and reach new markets but mainly, it will help us in our scope that is empowering people to live a meaningful, sustainable and happy life. Temenos' open and API-first architecture will help us to continuously innovate and bring to market greener banking products and services as we build our reputation as Italy's most sustainable digital bank."

Max Chuard, Chief Executive Officer, Temenos, added: "Congratulations to Flowe for making this inspirational vision for a sustainable financial lifestyle a reality we are proud to support them. Our partnership with Flowe shows the power of cloud technology and the benefits of SaaS. Temenos Transact and Temenos Financial Crime Mitigation products were remotely delivered as SaaS allowing Flowe to reap the benefits of scalability, efficiency and an elastic cost structure. Temenos is proud to support global digital banks like Flowe as they challenge the status quo and digitalize banking at pace. Temenos market-leading technology and rich expertise means that new digital banks and larger incumbents can gain the agility to innovate and grow, without the restrictions of legacy technology."

According the recent research from The Economist Intelligence Unit, building a greenfield digital bank remains a top innovation strategy according to 35% of global bank executives.

Ends

About Flowe

Flowe is a newly created Benefit, pending BCorp and Carbon Neutral company of Mediolanum Group, which aims to educate young people on the issues of innovation and economic, social and environmental sustainability. In this era of infinite possibilities, where younger generations often feel uncertain about their future and unable to choose a direction, Flowe wants to give young people all the methods and tools to develop their potential and live better. Through its mobile app and the growing ecosystem of partners, Flowe aims to build a BetterBeing Economy to help young people live a more meaningful, sustainable and happy life.

About Temenos

Temenos AG (SIX: TEMN) is the world's leader in banking software. Over 3,000 banks across the globe, including 41 of the top 50 banks, rely on Temenos to process both the daily transactions and client interactions of more than 500 million banking customers. Temenos offers cloud-native, cloud-agnostic and AI-driven front office, core banking, payments and fund administration software enabling banks to deliver frictionless, omnichannel customer experiences and gain operational excellence.

Temenos software is proven to enable its top-performing clients to achieve cost-income ratios of 26.8% half the industry average and returns on equity of 29%, three times the industry average. These clients also invest 51% of their IT budget on growth and innovation versus maintenance, which is double the industry average, proving the banks' IT investment is adding tangible value to their business.

For more information, please visit www.temenos.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005045/en/

Contacts:

Jessica Wolfe Scott Rowe

Temenos Global Public Relations

Tel: +1 610 232 2793 +44 20 7423 3857

Email: press@temenos.com



Annachiara Haerens

Flowe Public Relations

Tel: 39 3494794125

Email: annachiara.haerens@flowe.com



Alistair Kellie Andrew Adie

Newgate Communications on behalf of Temenos

Tel: +44 20 7680 6550

Email: allnewgatetemenos@newgatecomms.com
JERSEYVILLE  Jersey County 4-H has received a $5,000 grant courtesy of Jersey State Bank to promote youth development in Jersey County. The grant will be used to fund 4-H in the Classroom kits available to 3rd-5th grade classrooms in the both Jersey Community School District and Southwestern School District.

The 4-H in the Classroom program will sponsor classrooms as individual clubs. Each classroom will be enrolled in Jersey County 4-H for the 2020-2021 year allowing students to take part in other 4-H programs including the 4-H shows during the summer. The program has four kits available for Fall semester and two planned for Spring semester with more to come.
California Sunday is ceasing publications and was hit with layoffs, as was Pop-Up Magazine, according to the union that represents them both. Both are run by Pop-Up Magazine Productions, which was acquired by Laurene Powell Jobs Emerson Collective in 2018. A representative for the collective did not immediately return a request for comment. On social media, the Pop-Up/California Sunday Guild issued a statement calling Monday an incredibly sad day for all of us. In total, it said, 11 people were laid off after the collective decided to sever ties with the company. Also Read: Pop-Up Magazine Winter Issue to Feature Jordan Klepper, Catherine Cohen and More (Exclusive) In a letter to co-founder and editor in chief Douglas McGray and co-founder and president Chas Edwards, the union representatives wrote, We dont underestimate the stress yesterday caused you two, either  we understand that you were in a very difficult position. But we believe your actions violated legal and moral obligations, and were sending this note to be clear about the implications of those violations on the team you care about. Elsewhere on social media, journalists reacted to the layoffs. Pop-Up staffers wrote of their inclusion in the cuts and were supported...

Read original story California Sunday Magazine to Cease Publication After Laurene Powell Jobs Emerson Collective Pulls Funding At TheWrap
Medicare's fall enrollment period, Oct. 15 through Dec. 7, is a time to make any necessary changes to your coverage for 2021. We've got your most common questions answered here. Read more

Medicares fall open enrollment, which runs from Oct. 15 through Dec. 7, is an opportunity to review your benefits and make changes in time for 2021.

Signing up or changing plans can seem daunting, but its important to take time to review your plan to make sure it offers the right coverage for your medical needs.

Over the last several years, The Inquirer has curated a primer on Medicare, based on questions sent in by our readers, to help make the process a little easier. For 2021, weve updated it with details you should know to make sure your Medicare plan is the best fit for you.

Whats the difference between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage?

Traditional Medicare is managed by the federal government and offers coverage for hospital services (Part A) and outpatient services, such as primary-care doctors, specialists, and routine care (Part B). Medicare Advantage plans are run by private insurance companies approved by the federal government. These managed-care plans must cover all the same benefits as traditional Medicare (though youll be limited to their provider networks) but may offer extras, such as dental, vision, or hearing services. Medicare Advantage plans also typically include prescription medication coverage. People who opt for traditional Medicare can buy supplemental plans to help cover more health-care costs or a Part D drug plan for medications.

I like my plan and in 2020, it covered the medications I needed  do I need to do anything during the fall enrollment period?

Open enrollment is a time when any current or new Medicare beneficiary can sign up for a plan or switch plans. You can switch from traditional Medicare to Medicare Advantage or vice versa, change your prescription drug plan, or pick a different Medicare Advantage plan. (A supplement plan that begins after age 65 might be more expensive, however, because of underwriting practices.) People with Original Medicare may buy a standalone Part D prescription plan, while Medicare Advantage plans typically include prescription drug coverage.

Beginning in 2021, standalone Part D plans can cap monthly copay costs for insulin at $35. The program is voluntary, which means not all drug plans will participate. If you use insulin to manage diabetes, enrolling in a plan that is participating in the copay cap could save you money, so long as the plan also covers any other medications you take. Consider, too, whether the savings from insulin copays are greater than any increase in the drug plans premium. Plans allowed to participate in the insulin copay program are enhanced plans, which offer more generous benefits, but also typically have more costly monthly premiums.

 READ MORE: Medicare fall enrollment opens Oct. 15. Heres what is new this year.

Regardless of whether you use insulin, the drug formulary, or the list of covered medications, varies by plan and will change every year, so it is important to make sure the plan you have is still the best fit for the upcoming year. Formularies rank medications into tiers, with lower-tier drugs the preferred and least-expensive options. Higher-tier versions of the same medication will cost more. Health plans frequently switch their preferred choices, and may even drop medications from the formulary. Even if your drugs are still on the formulary, the plan may have changed how theyre covered. They might limit the amount you can order, or require prior authorization before filling the prescription  which is not guaranteed to be granted.

How do I know which plan is right for me?

Which plan you choose depends on your needs and your financial position.

Traditional Medicare is accepted by most doctors, which could be important if you need care while traveling out of state. Similar to many employer-based insurance plans, Medicare Advantage plans have provider networks. If you go to an out-of-network doctor or hospital, the visit may not be covered or may cost more. Medicare Advantage may also include prescription drug coverage, whereas traditional Medicare does not. People who do not have other prescription coverage will need to buy a separate drug plan (Part D).

Use Medicares online Plan Finder tool, or talk to a volunteer counselor (more details on where to get help below) to decide which plan best meets your needs.

If cost is my biggest concern, should I choose Medicare Advantage or traditional Medicare?

Theres no clear-cut answer. Your total out-of-pocket expense will depend on how the plan you choose covers the services you use most. Both types of plans have a premium for Part B (doctors services), $144.60 a month for most people in 2020, and a deductible, which is $198 in 2020. Rates for 2021 have not yet been publicly shared. Traditional Medicare beneficiaries pay 20% of the Medicare-approved rate for most doctor services after meeting their deductible. Supplemental plans can help cover some of these extra expenses for traditional Medicare members. Medicare Advantage may charge additional premiums for its prescription drug coverage and extra services. Copays, coinsurance, and deductibles will vary for Medicare Advantage plans.

Whats the difference between a premium, a deductible, a copay, and coinsurance?

The annual premium is the number that most often catches peoples attention, as this is the price of the policy, paid monthly. A deductible is the amount members must spend out of pocket before the plan begins paying a larger share of your medical expenses. You will still be responsible for part of the bill even after meeting your deductible  this is called coinsurance. Traditional Medicare has a $198 deductible for Part B in 2020 and 20% coinsurance after the deductible is met. So you will be billed for the first $198 in medical services, and after that, you will be responsible for 20% of the Medicare rate. For Medicare Advantage, cost-sharing varies from one plan to the next. A copay is a fee your plan may require you to pay when going to a doctor or picking up a prescription. It is important to consider all of these potential sources of out-of-pocket expenses  not just the premium  when deciding which plan is right for you.

How do I choose supplemental coverage?

Supplemental coverage is for people with traditional Medicare; it cannot be used to cover out-of-pocket expenses associated with Medicare Advantage plans. Supplemental coverage is known as medigap plans because they cover gaps in traditional Medicare plans, such as health expenses while traveling abroad, excess medication charges, or copays. They are sold by private insurance companies and are categorized by a letter system; plans with the same letter offer the same coverage. Choose the one that fills the gaps you are most concerned about. And be aware that prices can vary widely between companies, even for the same coverage, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Does Medicare restrict which doctors I can see? Can I change doctors?

Most doctors accept traditional Medicare but always ask before making an appointment. Medicare Advantage has in-network doctors, so call your doctors office to see which plans they accept, and double-check with your plan. You can switch doctors at any time, but to avoid unexpected bills, make sure your new doctor is covered by your plan.

How do I figure out which prescription plan will be the lowest cost to me?

Look beyond the premium. Check that your medications are included in the plans formulary; the list of medications covered, which will vary by plan, can change annually, so it is wise to check every year. Formularies rank drugs into tiers, with lower-tier medications the preferred and least-expensive options. Higher-tier versions of the same medication will cost more and may be available only after youve tried a lower-tier option. Also, look at cost-sharing  how much you will pay vs. how much the plan will pay  and whether you will be required to fill prescriptions at certain preferred pharmacies. Medicares Plan Finder allows you to search based on the medications you want covered.

Where can I go for help?

First, dont be surprised if you need advice. The options can get complicated and scams abound during enrollment season. Pennsylvania and New Jersey both provide free counseling. These programs do not offer legal advice, endorse plans, or sell insurance, which makes them an impartial resource. Pennsylvanias APPRISE program has a phone helpline and locations across the state, where people can go for one-on-one assistance. Learn more online at aging.pa.gov, or call 800-783-7067. New Jerseys State Health Insurance Assistance Program similarly staffs offices with volunteer counselors in addition to its helpline. Find locations online at state.nj.us/humanservices, or call 800-792-8820.

Nonprofit organizations such as CARIE (Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly) also provide assistance. Independent brokers  those who are not bound to sell just one insurers products  can also be a good source for help.

How do I find a reputable independent broker? How do I know their fees arent adding to my premium cost?

Independent brokers must be licensed by the state and could lose their licenses if they dont follow strict rules about selling private Medicare plans (medigap, drug, and Advantage plans). Brokers typically get an initial payment in the first year of the policy they sell and half that fee in the following years the individual remains in the plan. These fees are paid by the insurer, not the consumer, and must be reported to federal regulators and are available online.

Are there any programs to help people pay for Medicare?

Yes, people who meet income and asset qualifications may be eligible for one of several financial assistance programs. The Qualified Medicare Beneficiary program offers the highest level of assistance, helping pay for Part A and B premiums, deductibles, coinsurance, and copays for individuals with a monthly income of no more than $1,084 and assets of no more than $7,860 in 2020. Income and assets requirements may vary by state and are higher for couples. The Specified Low-Income Medicare Beneficiary program is available to people who earn too much to be eligible for the QMB program and helps pay Part B premiums. The Qualifying Individual program, which helps cover Part B premiums, has an even higher income threshold and is available on a first come, first served basis.

People younger than 65 with a disability who are currently working may be eligible for the Qualified Disabled and Working Individuals program, which helps cover Part A premiums. Medicare beneficiaries in New Jersey may also be eligible for a state-run assistance program that helps pay for prescription drugs for seniors and people with disabilities.

The National Council on Aging has developed a website, called BenefitsCheckup, to help people find benefit programs and determine their eligibility.

Ive seen advertisements for zero-dollar premium Medicare Advantage plans. Are they really free?

Everyone pays a monthly premium for Part B, regardless of whether you have traditional Medicare or Medicare Advantage. The premium in 2020 is $144.60 a month for most people. Medicare Advantage plans often include extra services, such as prescription drugs, vision, or dental  for an extra charge. When a plan advertises a zero-dollar premium, it is referring to these additional plan-specific benefits  you will still pay the Part B premium. Its important to keep in mind that premiums are only one source of out-of-pocket costs. Plans with low premiums may have high deductibles, copays, and coinsurance. You should also consider how much your medications will cost under the plan and whether the doctors you see will be in-network, as these factors will also affect how much you spend on health care in a year. Medicares online plan finder, www.medicare.gov/find-a-plan, can help you compare options.

How do I sign up for Silver Sneakers?

Silver Sneakers is a fitness program offered by some Medicare Advantage plans that gives members access to free gym memberships, fitness classes, and health education resources. It is not part of traditional Medicare. Plans that dont offer Silver Sneakers may have a similar fitness program  ask your plan administrator. While the program can be a valuable benefit, also consider whether the plan will meet your health-care needs, how it covers the medications you take, and whether you can continue seeing the same doctors. And, as with any fitness membership, make sure that the facility fits your physical needs, schedule, and location so you will use it enough to make it worthwhile.

What happens if I dont sign up during my new to Medicare period? What if I plan on working past 65 and want to keep my employer-sponsored health plan?

People become age-eligible for Medicare at 65 and have a seven-month period to sign up  their birth month plus three months before and after. Sign up early if you want coverage to start when you turn 65. Missing this enrollment period could lead to penalties that remain with you for the duration of your Medicare coverage. The penalty for signing up late to Plan B is 10% of the premium for every 12 months you were not enrolled. Part D prescription coverage has a penalty of 1% of the premium for every month missed. If you miss your new to Medicare enrollment period, you will most likely have to wait until the annual open enrollment, which could leave you temporarily uninsured.

People who have health insurance through an employer with more than 20 people on its health plan and are actively working can keep their plan and delay signing up for Part B until they retire without penalty. If you have coverage through a company with fewer than 20 people, youll have to move to Medicare when you become eligible. If youre in any doubt, talk to your human resources department. If you keep your employer-sponsored health plan beyond age 65, when you do decide to retire, your employer will need to fill out a form verifying you have had continuous coverage.

How do I decide whether I should stick with my employer-sponsored health plan or transition to Medicare?

If you have the option, youll need to crunch the numbers, as its an individual decision. Consider the premium, deductible, and other cost-sharing expenses of each plan, how prescriptions will be covered by each, and how the doctor networks compare. If you are covered under a spouses plan, look at how the employer handles dependent coverage. Often companies pay for a large share of the employees health insurance but require employees to pay the full cost or at least a larger share of the cost of insuring spouses and children. In this case, it may be more cost-effective for an over-65 spouse to move to Medicare.

 READ MORE: Should you keep your employer-sponsored health insurance or switch to Medicare? The choice can be daunting.

I have Medicare, but my wife has an employer-sponsored health plan with a health savings account. Can we use the HSA to pay for my out-of-pocket medical expenses?

Yes  with limits. An employees HSA can be used to pay eligible medical bills for a spouse who is covered by Medicare. Eligible medical expenses include copays for prescriptions and services applied to your plans deductible, as well as Part A and Part B premiums. An HSA cannot be used to pay for supplemental policy premiums. Once you sign up for Medicare, however, you will no longer be allowed to contribute pretax funds to an HSA.

 READ MORE: Your health savings account balance carries over and other things to know about HSAs

I have an individual health plan through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. What do I need to know about transitioning to Medicare?

People with ACA marketplace health plans almost always transition to Medicare when they turn 65. You may be able to keep your individual health plan, but you wont be eligible for a tax subsidy after 65 and could face penalties if you dont sign up right away, so most people find it is better to switch to Medicare. The cost and coverage could be very different from what youre used to in an individual plan. The premium for Medicare Part B is $144.60 a month in 2020, which may be a lot less than what many people in their 60s pay for individual coverage. But people who have been receiving an income-based tax subsidy to offset the cost of a marketplace health plan may find that their Medicare costs are greater, though Medicare also offers income-based financial assistance. Consider meeting with an enrollment adviser to talk about plan options, or visit the National Council on Agings BenefitCheckup website to find out if youre eligible for financial assistance.
Students have today been dealt another blow as more universities shift to online classes in a desperate move to curb Covid outbreaks.

More than 80 universities in the UK have reported at least 5,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 as the virus spreads at an alarming rate among students and staff.

Five of the country's biggest institutions have now announced they will move towards a virtual learning model.

The University of Manchester, where there have been more than 1,000 cases since September 21, and Manchester Metropolitan University have today shifted to online classes.

The University of Sheffield, where more than 500 students and staff have tested positive since the start of term, will also move to online lectures from Friday.

And all programmes at Northumbria and Newcastle universities will be delivered virtually unless face-to-face teaching is an essential part of the course. The temporary changes will come into effect from tomorrow for three weeks.

This comes as more than 300 students and eight members of staff at the University of Birmingham have tested positive for Covid, it was revealed today.

And the University area of Exeter last night leapt into the top ten of areas in England with positive cases with a rise from 127 to 223.

The university today confirmed a number of students had been sent home for 'breaching Covid guidelines.'

Deputy vice chancellor Prof Tim Quine said: 'We never exclude anyone lightly, it is always with regret.'

As the infection rate continues to spike at an alarming rate among students, it has emerged:

The University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, Sheffield, Northumbria and Newcastle universities will all shift to virtual tutorials;

More than 300 students and eight members of staff at the University of Birmingham have tested positive for Covid;

Newcastle's universities have about 850 students positive and they are all now self-isolating;

Nearly 500 people were revealed to have tested positive for coronavirus at Sheffield University;

More than 400 students and eight staff members have Covid at the University of Nottingham;

Queen's University Belfast is 'closely monitoring' 166 students and staff who have the disease;

And 177 University of Liverpool staff and students have tested positive as of last week.

Outbreaks have been sweeping campuses and forcing students to isolate despite the new term only starting weeks ago

Undergraduates confined to their halls of residence are throwing 24-hour parties as they remain under stringent restrictions

Which UK universities have the 5,000 Covid cases? Stirling: 14

Glasgow: 172

Salford: 56

Liverpool University: 177

Nottingham University: 425

Swansea: 32

Oxford Brookes: 47

Kent University: 11

De Montford: 9

Manchester University: 382

Newcastle/Northumbria: 850

Sheffield University: 500

Queen's University Belfast: 166

Birmingham: 300+ *Some universities have not disclosed figures Advertisement

More than 300 students and eight members of staff also tested positive for the virus between September 30 and October 6.

A spokesperson for the University of Exeter said: 'Students are required to abide by our 'Safe Community Charter' and the vast majority of students have behaved impeccably but where students break the rules we will take action.

'This action will start with cautions and fines, but for repeat or serious breaches, we will consider sanctions such as suspension and expulsion.

'We have suspended a small number of students for breaches of the Covid-19 rules.'

The Manchester universities said they had made the decision together in consultation with the area's director of public health, supported by Public Health England.

They added they would increase the level of online learning for most programmes from Wednesday until October 30, which would be reviewed on October 23, and face-to-face teaching would continue for some clinical or practice-based classes.

The University of Sheffield said face-to-face teaching would continue on Wednesday and Thursday before it is suspended from Friday, with in-person classes to resume on October 19.

The move to online learning is a drastic step to stop the spread of coronavirus among the student population.

But they will increase demands for students to receive refunds for tuition fees.

On Monday night the University of Nottingham revealed it had recorded 425 cases of the virus among staff and students.

Some 400 students and eight staff at the East Midlands institution are now self isolating.

Institutions in Northern Ireland are also bearing the brunt of the crisis, with Queen's University Belfast 'closely monitoring' an increase in coronavirus cases.

It has been reported that 166 students and staff at the south Belfast university have tested positive for Covid-19.

More than 400 students and eight staff members have Covid at the University of Nottingham (pictured above)

As of last week, 177 University of Liverpool staff and students have tested positive for Covid

Newcastle universities including Northumbria (pictured) will shift all classes to virtual tutorials

Liverpool University saw 177 staff and students have tested positive as of last week.

Bath University has had a spike of 18 cases in the last 24 hours, taking its total to 48 new cases in seven days.

More than 850 students at Northumbria and Newcastle universities were told to self-isolate after testing positive for coronavirus.

On October 2, Northumbria University confirmed 770 of its students have contracted Covid-19, with 78 of those displaying symptoms.

And a further 94 confirmed Covid-19 cases were also recorded among students at Newcastle University, bringing the city total to 864.

Principal of Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford, Alan Rusbridger, has taken his classes outside. He tweeted: 'Didn't feel right to be greeting 230-odd freshers to  through individual Zoom meetings. So here I am in my field office in my thermals seeing them all one-on-one in a bracing fresh air fresher experience. And lovely they are'

Manchester University (pictured), where there have been 382 coronavirus cases since September 21, joined with Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Sheffield in announcing a move to online learning to protect the health of students and staff

Queen's University Belfast (pictured) is 'closely monitoring' 166 students and staff who have tested positive for the disease

Universities vow to ensure students can access essentials during self-isolation Vice-chancellors have pledged to support students who have to self-isolate in university halls when campus outbreaks occur. Universities UK (UUK), which represents 139 institutions, has published a checklist to help universities support student wellbeing in the autumn term as they face a variety of challenges amid the coronavirus pandemic. Universities should ensure that students have access to basic necessities during self-isolation, including food, laundry services, cleaning materials, bin bags, tissues and toilet rolls, the guide says. It comes after students have hung signs out their windows claiming they did not have food. A surge in cases has led to thousands of students having to self-isolate in their halls, including Manchester Metropolitan and Glasgow University. But UUK president Professor Julia Buckingham, vice-chancellor of Brunel University, said that the vast majority of students are being 'looked after extremely well' by universities during lockdown measures. The checklist suggests that universities should encourage students to disclose any pre-existing or current mental health issues, and encourage them to use student wellbeing and mental health support services. Institutions could provide a Covid-19 contact, where affected students can report symptoms and seek support, and offer online activities to help maintain social interactions during self-isolation. Advertisement

The University and College Union (UCU) has welcomed the move by the Manchester universities but said virus outbreaks could have been prevented had the decision been made earlier.

Meanwhile, staff at the coronavirus-hit Northumbria University have called on vice-chancellor Andrew Wathey to resign as UCU members agreed to ballot for industrial action over health and safety concerns.

The university announced on Friday that 770 students had tested positive to Covid-19, including 78 who were symptomatic, with those testing positive now self-isolating in their accommodation.

Newcastle is among the worst affected cities in the UK, with its council leader Nick Forbes joining the leaders of Leeds and Manchester to write to the Health Secretary on Tuesday calling for new national restrictions to slow the spread of the virus.

Earlier, the universities minister said students could call a new helpline if they had concerns about coronavirus.

Michelle Donelan announced the Department for Education (DfE) is launching a hotline this week - in conjunction with Public Health England (PHE) - dedicated to university staff and students.

The minister said it would be 'unacceptable' for students to pay high tuition fees if an institution failed to provide support or high quality provision.

Ms Donelan added universities had the power to lower tuition fees if they did not believe they were providing a quality learning experience.

The universities minister said the DfE was working with institutions to bring forward the end of term to ensure students who needed to quarantine could still return safely to their families in time for Christmas.

Her comments come after education unions met with schools minister Nick Gibb and Ofqual chief Glenys Stacey about the timetable of the 2021 exams.

This comes as university students are throwing 'Covid positive' parties as they desperately try to salvage their social lives amid draconian lockdown measures on campuses.

Freshers at the University of Manchester and Northumbria University say undergraduates confined to their halls of residence are throwing 24-hour parties as they remain under stringent restrictions.

One physics student at the University of Manchester told the Guardian that a party at their Fallowfield campus halls of residence was broken up by security on Saturday.

The 18-year-old told the paper: 'There was a flat party a few days ago which had a policy that you could only get in if you were positive. It was like their health-and-safety measure.'

A student from Northumbria University also told the Guardian that parties were still rife in halls.
Chocolate City residents waited in line over an hour for tests in case theyd crossed paths with infected staffers.

Washington D.C. residents are rushing to get coronavirus tests since news dropped of the growing number of cases at the White House.

There is no direct correlation between the surge of positive COVID-19 tests at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the surge of Chocolate City dwellers seeking their own testing, but some in the latter group cant help but worry if their paths have crossed with those of any ailing staffers.

White House press aide Jalen Drummond, shown here in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump, tested positive for COVID-19 Tuesday. He is the third aide under White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany to test positive for COVID-19. Both Trump and McEnany have also positive tests for the disease. (The White House)

I think its put the issue of testing back on peoples radar, said Jason Qu, who was standing in line at Judiciary Square on Tuesday waiting to get tested, per NPR.

Judiciary Square is the largest testing site in the district, and most observers agree that since news dropped about the President Donald Trump and several members of his inner circle contracting the virus, the lines and waiting times to get tested there are longer.

Read More: Trump valet, aide, test positive for coronavirus: report

While we do not have data on what compelled people to get tested today, it would be hard to imagine that the recent news did not drive more people to do so, John Falcicchio, chief of staff for Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, told NPR in an emailed statement. We will continue to monitor the demand this week and urge residents if they need a test to get a test.

He confirms the site completed 3,962 tests on Monday and has seen an 81 percent increase since the previous Monday.

Read More: Oscar-winning filmmaker documented Trumps coronavirus response

Some D.C. residents say they were extremely disappointed with the way the government is handling the string of coronavirus cases at the White House.

I think about all the people who do have to go there for their job, the people who service the White House, said Lauren Drew, another person standing in line to take a COVID-19 test, and I am so worried for all of them and so angry that theyve let this get so out of hand.

Story continues

Read More: Cuomo orders lockdown for parts of NYC after COVID-19 uptick

A Capitol Hill staffer echoed a similar sentiment. Andrei refused to give his last name in fear that it could impact his employment.

Said Andrei to NPR: I work in Congress, and I have friends who I know are rightfully concerned about the lack of information about who was infected and whether their bosses might have been.

Have you subscribed to theGrios podcast Dear Culture? Download our newest episodes now! TheGrio is now on Apple TV, Amazon Fire and Roku. Download theGrio today!

The post Coronavirus testing surges in D.C. after White House outbreak appeared first on TheGrio.
BAY CITY, MI - Bay Citys South End is one step closer to becoming the new home of a state-of-the-art marijuana growing facility that promises to bring about 100 jobs to the area.

On Monday, Oct. 5, the Bay City Commission approved an Industrial Facilities Tax Exemption Certificate application for Shango Park Bay City Inc. to allow the company to rehabilitate a vacant 24,800-square-foot building located at 1601 Garfield. The approved IFT is for the total amount of $7 million for 12 years.
CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Jornaya, the leading behavioral data intelligence company with a proprietary view of more than 400 million consumer journeys every month, is proud to join forces with HousingWire as a Presenting Sponsor for HW Annual 2020

On October 8, HousingWire Annual will address the rapidly evolving opportunities for the housing industry, bringing together the most important stakeholders in government and business for a one-day virtual summit that will shape the housing conversation for this year and beyond.

The agenda includes housing policy, the economic forecast, business strategy during social upheaval, the future of regulation, paths to homeownership for underserved communities, solving the housing inventory shortage, the shape of the recovery, and more.

Jornaya's Chief of Marketing Rich Smith and VP of Consumer Finance Mike Eshelman will join speakers such as Doug Duncan, Chief Economist at Fannie Mae, and Donnell Williams, Vice President of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers.

The Jornaya session, which runs from 12:00-12:30 pm ET, will include never before seen research on consumer shopping behavior pre- and post-COVID. The session, The Pandemic's Impact on Consumer Shopping Behavior in Mortgage & Real Estate , digs into consumer shopping trends and the impacts on the housing industry.

Learn more about the agenda and register here .

About Jornaya:

Jornaya has proprietary access to data in markets where customers invest significant time researching, analyzing, and comparing options on major purchases, including real estate and mortgage, banking automotive, insurance, loans, and higher education. Working with a network of over 1,000 partners who operate more than 35,000 comparison shopping and lead generation sites, Jornaya provides companies access to early behavioral buying signals for customers and prospects. Monthly, we witness over 400 million consumer purchase journeys in a privacy friendly manner to help companies retain current customers, grow relationships with existing customers, and establish new relationships. For more information visit jornaya.com .

CONTACT: Rich Smith, [email protected]

SOURCE Jornaya

Related Links

https://www.jornaya.com


A furious student has revealed how she and hundreds of others self-isolating at Lancaster University are being charged an 'extortionate' 17.95 a day for food worth just 2.70.

Bhavreet Dulku, 18, a first year studying Politics, International Relations and management, tweeted: 'My uni charging 17 a day for food if you have to isolate is an absolute shambles. How can they expect everyone on budgets to be able to afford that?'.

The university, which is also charging students 7 to do their washing, has been accused of 'profiting' from the charges to those locked down in halls of residence.

Bhavreet Dulku, 18, a first year studying Politics, International Relations and management, said: 'My uni charging 17 a day for food if you have to isolate is an absolute shambles'

On this week's menu, shared on the Lancaster University website, isolating students analysed the ingredients of one day's menu and claimed the real cost from ASDA would be just 2.70

Which UK universities have the 4,000 Covid cases? Stirling: 14

Glasgow: 172

Salford: 56

Liverpool University: 177

Nottingham University: 425

Swansea: 32

Oxford Brookes: 47

Kent University: 11

De Montford: 9

Manchester University: 382

Newcastle/Northumbria: 850

Sheffield University: 500

Queen's University Belfast: 166 *Some universities have not disclosed figures Advertisement

Ms Dulku's plea has provoked an angry reaction on Twitter with an online petition calling for a reduction in the food fees attracting nearly 1,000 signatures.

It comes as figures emerged showing more than 80 universities in the UK have reported at least 5,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 as the virus spreads at an alarming rate among students and staff.

The increase in cases means more universities, including five of the country's biggest institutions, are shifting to online classes in a desperate move to curb the outbreaks.

The University of Nottingham, The University of Manchester, The University of Sheffield, Manchester Metropolitan University and Northumbria and Newcastle universities announced they will all move towards a virtual learning model.

On this week's menu, calculated by The Tab, isolating students analysed the ingredients of one day's menu and claimed the real cost from ASDA would be just 2.70.

Adding the cost of distribution, they brought the total to only 4.00.

Others pointed out that the weekly total of 125.65 was beyond most students' means.

The meals menu from last week appeared less than nutritious for the price, with only one hot meal each day.

Breakfast last Monday was Pain au chocolate with a granola bar, a piece of fresh fruit and some fruit juice.

Lunch was a cheese and pickle sandwich, a packet of crisps, a piece of fresh fruit and a bottle of water.

The evening meal was 'Jerk chicken with salsa OR spicy aubergine and lemon casserole with new potatoes and peas, a sweet treat and soft drink.'

Ms Dulku, from Derby said: 'Normally you'd spend about 17 a week on food. To charge that amount a day is stunning.

'They say they care about our well-being, but they're charging students this much when so many people don't get support from their parents.

Outbreaks have been sweeping campuses and forcing students to isolate despite the new term only starting weeks ago

'Delivery slots aren't always available from supermarkets, so what are people supposed to do if they don't have friends to drop off food for them?

'It seems like they're doing it to make a profit. If you break it down you can probably get the items on Monday's menu last week from Asda for less than 4.'

Ms Dulku's plea has provoked an angry reaction on Twitter with an online petition calling for a reduction in the food fees attracting nearly 1,000 signatures

Universities vow to ensure students can access essentials during self-isolation Vice-chancellors have pledged to support students who have to self-isolate in university halls when campus outbreaks occur. Universities UK (UUK), which represents 139 institutions, has published a checklist to help universities support student wellbeing in the autumn term as they face a variety of challenges amid the coronavirus pandemic. Universities should ensure that students have access to basic necessities during self-isolation, including food, laundry services, cleaning materials, bin bags, tissues and toilet rolls, the guide says. It comes after students have hung signs out their windows claiming they did not have food. More than 80 universities in the UK have confirmed cases of coronavirus as students return to campus. A surge in cases has led to thousands of students having to self-isolate in their halls, including Manchester Metropolitan and Glasgow University. But UUK president Professor Julia Buckingham, vice-chancellor of Brunel University, said that the vast majority of students are being 'looked after extremely well' by universities during lockdown measures. The checklist suggests that universities should encourage students to disclose any pre-existing or current mental health issues, and encourage them to use student wellbeing and mental health support services. Institutions could provide a Covid-19 contact, where affected students can report symptoms and seek support, and offer online activities to help maintain social interactions during self-isolation. Advertisement

Ms Dulku said she was already angry after arriving at the university on September 23 and discovering the 'blending learning' she was promised only contains one contact hour a week.

She also described the university 7 washing service as 'ridiculous' when doing laundry usually costs around 2.40.

The Change.org petition, set up by Kyle Westrip, added: 'Charging unacceptably high rates for food delivery will exacerbate the health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, making those with symptoms less likely to isolate, and more likely to break the rules.'

Replies on Twitter shared the outrage. 'Shop Steward' tweeted: 'Are you under their care and not allowed to leave? I'd argue that they now have a duty of care for you ...by that I mean feed you.'

Andy Haigh, said: 'That reeks of disaster capitalism, a captive market in extraordinary circumstances being extorted. That's 119 on food for a week. If you were working 20 hours a week at a minimum wage of 6.45 (aged 18-20) that would leave you 10.'

The University told MailOnline that the self-isolating students had 'many other options' and details other providers had been shared with students.

A spokesperson added: 'To make life a little easier we have provided an opt-in meal delivery service for any self-isolating students wishing to have fresh food prepared and cooked for them and delivered to their door.

'We are charging less than we would for our normal dining-in restaurant and cafe offer, despite additional costs of delivery and disposable containers.

'Students are not obliged to use this service and still have access to their own kitchens, alternative shopping and takeout food delivery services.

'The package consists of three meals per day that are prepared daily by chefs using fresh ingredients in our own kitchens. We have kept prices as low as we can without compromising on quality.'

NUS President Larissa Kennedy said: 'It is scandalous that, on top of their enormous fees and extortionate rents, students are now being asked to fork out huge amounts of money for basic amenities during lockdowns.

'Despite universities and government knowing lockdowns like these would be likely, students were simply not told this may occur. Universities shouldn't be profiteering from this crisis.

'Students Deserve Better! All universities and government need to commit to providing rent reimbursement for lockdown periods and free internet access, free care packages with food, household products, wellbeing materials and general necessities, and targeted educational & mental health support, with facilitation of social activity.'

This comes as students were today been dealt another blow after three of the country's largest universities shifted to online classes in a desperate move to curb Covid outbreaks.

More than 80 universities in the UK have reported at least 5,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among students and staff.

Manchester University, where there have been more than 1,000 cases since September 21, and Manchester Metropolitan University have today shifted to virtual learning.

The University of Sheffield, where more than 500 students and staff have tested positive since the start of term, will also move to online lectures from Friday.

And more than 300 students and eight members of staff at the University of Birmingham have tested positive for Covid, it was revealed today.

The University area of Exeter last night leapt into the top ten of areas in England with positive cases with a rise from 127 to 223.

The university today confirmed a number of students had been sent home for 'breaching Covid guidelines.'
A three-year-old girl was killed as heavy downpours hit the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai on Monday night.

In Bat Xat District, rains damaged two houses and swept away P.T.N.V., a three-year-old native of Ban Vai Village, according to a quick report of the provincial Steering Committee for Disaster Prevention and Control, and Search and Rescue.

Lao Cai City, which is the provincial capital, and Bat Xat District suffered the most from the downpours, which marked a record in 63 years with rainfall topping 400 millimeters in nine hours.

A large area of crops, paddy fields, and farming ponds in Ban Vai Village, Ban Qua Commune and in several nearby areas was submerged in water.

Four residential groups in Bat Xat Town were inundated with water levels at some places nearing one meter.

Further, landslides hit some sections on provincial roads 156A and 156B, causing serious traffic congestion.

Earlier, Bat Xat Districts authorities had urged residents to prepare solutions to deal with bad weather conditions.

Torrential rains cause water levels to rise in Bat Xat District, Lao Cai Province. Photo: T.A. / Tuoi Tre

However, heavy rains hit the province at night and lasted for many hours, making it difficult to cope, said Si Trung Kien, head of the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development of Bat Xat District.

Authorities were immediately sent to affected localities to assist local residents in fixing consequences.

"According to data between 1957 and now, this is the biggest rain in October that the district has witnessed over the last 63 years with a record rainfall of over 400 millimeters within nine hours, said Luu Minh Hai, director of the Lao Cai Meteorological and Hydrometeorological Station.

A national highway section in Lao Cai City was flooded by water from the Coc San stream, preventing vehicles from reaching the hilly resort township of Sa Pa.

According to initial statistics, floods damaged 28 houses in the city.

Relevant forces in the locality are joining hands to compile damage data and figure out solutions for fixing the flooding consequences.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
The name John McAfee is now as synonymous with cryptocurrency failure and tax evasion as it is with anti-virus protection, and most recently the name was used by criminals impersonating the embattled billionaire in a scheme to trick Twitter users into sending them crypto.



While he wasnt behind that latest scheme, McAfee doesnt come out clean in all of this except in tax anarchy circles. Fresh charges have just been laid against him by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A controversial businessman and anti-virus creator, McAfee was arrested by Spanish authorities over the weekend and currently is pending extradition to the United States.

According to the indictment, McAfee hid millions in income from the IRS earned from consulting work, speaking engagements, and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary. As a result, it is alleged, he failed to file any tax returns from 2014 to 2018. The charges also include concealing assets, such as real estate and yachts.

McAfee has never been shy about his tax issues. Indeed, only last year, he Tweeted that he hadn't filed tax returns for eight years.

I have not filed a tax return for 8 years. Why? 1: taxation is illegal. 2: I paid tens of millions already and received Jack Shit in services. 3. I'm done making money. I live off of cash from McAfee Inc. My net income is negative. But i am a prime target for the IRS. Here I am, he wrote.

According to the SEC charges, McAfee made over $23 million by "leveraging his fame and recommending seven cryptocurrency ICOs between 2017 and 2018, which allegedly turned out to be essentially worthless.

None of the income is connected with his anti-virus software firm.

McAfee is surely not the first (nor will he be the last) celebrity to hide money from the IRS, or to promote cryptocurrency, for that matter.

From Katy Perry showing off her crypto manicure to Snoops Blockchain Week performances, celebrity interest in digital currencies had in some ways been construed as a sign of growing acceptance.

At least two dozen celebrities such as actors Jamie Foxx and William Shatner, boxer Floyd Mayweather and hotel heiress Paris Hilton, among others, have publicly endorsed several projects ahead of their respective token sales.

But even with celebrity backing, plenty have failed.

In 2018, Steven Seagal endorsed the Bitcoin ICO that claimed to be a better version of bitcoin. They reportedly raised $75 million and then bailed.

DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather Jr. also found themselves attached to the Centra Tech ICO that raised over $32 million. The project was targeted by the SEC and its founders were charged and indicted for fraud.

Also in 2018, Federal authorities arrested the CEO of a cryptocurrency operator based in Dallas for allegedly defrauding investors out of $4 million in a digital coin scheme that legendary boxer Evander Holyfield had endorsed.

I am really excited about this. The more I can do, the better. Cryptocurrency seems to be a good way to help the causes that I care about, Holyfield was quoted as saying one month right before the SEC shut Arise down.



Jared Rice, Sr., CEO of AriseBank, was arrested on charges of securities and wire fraud.



According to the charges, Rice scammed investors out of $4.2 million by selling AriseCoin tokens and promising that customers would receive Visa credit cards and accounts insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Neither the cards nor the FDIC accounts existed

According to his plea agreement from last year, the U.S. government and Rice have agreed that the defendant should spend 60 months in prison, but the sentence is still pending.

By Fred Dunkley for Safehaven.com

More Top Reads From Safehaven.com:
Facebook Inc and Twitter took action on posts from U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday for violating their rules against coronavirus misinformation by suggesting that COVID-19 was just like the flu. Facebook took the post down but not before it was shared about 26,000 times, data from the company's metric tool CrowdTangle showed.

"We remove incorrect information about the severity of COVID-19," a company spokesman told Reuters. The world's largest social media company, which exempts politicians from its third-party fact-checking program, has rarely taken action against posts from the Republican U.S. president.

Twitter disabled retweets on a similar tweet from Trump on Tuesday and added a warning label that said it broke its rules on "spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19" but that it might be in the public interest for it to remain accessible.

During the 2019-2020 influenza season, the flu was associated with 22,000 deaths in the United States, according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since the first case of the novel coronavirus was recorded in the United States at the beginning of this year, more than 210,000 people in the country have died of the disease caused by the virus, the world's highest death toll.

On Monday, Trump told Americans "to get out there" and not fear COVID-19 as he returned to the White House after a three-night stay in a military hospital outside Washington where he was treated for COVID-19. "Silicon Valley and the mainstream media have consistently used their platforms to fearmonger and censor President Trump to serve their own agenda, even now during this critical moment in the fight against coronavirus," Trump campaign spokeswoman Courtney Parella said.

Twitter, which has been using labels to flag tweets with misinformation - including from the president - told Reuters it is currently trying to respond more quickly and more overtly. Facebook removed a Trump post for coronavirus misinformation for the first time in August. The post included a video in which the president falsely claimed that children were "almost immune" to COVID-19.

Also read: Tweets wishing for death of hospitalised Trump are not allowed, says Twitter
Deficit for Swedish central government in September 2020

Swedish central government payments resulted in a deficit of SEK 13.1 billion in September. The Debt Office's forecast was a deficit of SEK 37.6 billion. The difference is due to, among other things, tax income being higher than forecasted and the fact that the reorientation support for companies has not been used as expected.

The primary balance was SEK 24.6 billion higher than forecasted. Tax income were approximately SEK 7 billion higher than estimated. Tax income from companies and wages were higher than expected in September.

The Debt Office had calculated that the payments for the reorientation support for companies would amount to SEK 13 billion in September. The outcome was significantly lower, just over SEK 1 billion. Payments for short-term work allowance were SEK 3 billion lower than calculated and payments of local government grants SEK 5 billion lower in September than forecasted. However, the extra grants to local governments were paid out already in July, which means that it is a redistribution between months.

The Debt Office's net lending to government agencies etc. were in line with the forecast.

Interest payments on central government debt were in line with the forecast.

For the twelve-month period up to the end of September 2020, central government payments resulted in a deficit of SEK 140.4 billion.

Central government debt amounted to SEK 1 210 billion at the end of September.

New forecasts on central government finances and borrowing 2020-2022 will be published on October 21, at 09.30.

The outcome for October 2020 will be published on 6 November at 9.30 a.m.

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Budget balance and central government net borrowing requirement1 (SEK million) Outcome September Forecast September Deviation September Acc. Dev2 Outcome 12-month Budget balance -13 058 -37 598 24 540 136 882 -140 419 Net borrowing requirement1 13 058 37 598 -24 540 -136 882 140 419 Primary balance3 15 647 40 261 -24 614 -129 503 136 029 Net lending to agencies etc.4 -1 249 -1 298 49 -5 498 -7 160 Interest payments on central government debt -1 340 -1 365 25 -1 880 11 550 - Interest on loans in SEK -1 465 -1 581 117 200 8 160 - Interest on loans in foreign currency -55 94 -149 -187 -683 - Realised currency gains and losses 180 123 58 -1 893 4 073 1 The net borrowing requirement corresponds to the budget balance with opposite sign. 2 Sum of monthly forecast deviations since last forecast (May 2020). 3 Net of the state's primary expenditure and income. 4 The net of government agencies etc. deposits and loans in the state's internal bank. The net lending includes both current government operations and temporary occurrences which can be decided on short notice. The net lending affects the net borrowing requirement and central government debt, but are not covered by the Central government expenditure ceiling.

More data on the borrowing requirement and government debt:

https://www.riksgalden.se/en/statistics/statistics-on-central-government-borrowing/

The monthly outcome of the central government net borrowing requirement is included in the official statistics of Sweden.

The Debt Office published their latest prognosis on the Swedish economy and central government borrowing on 19 May: Central Government borrowing 2020:2 .

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WASHINGTON (AP)  The FBI and the Department of Homeland Securitys cybersecurity agency have issued a series of advisories in recent weeks aimed at warning voters about problems that could surface in the election  as well as steps Americans can take to counter the foreign interference threat.

The issues identified in the public service announcements run the gamut from the spread of online disinformation about the electoral process to cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure. Taken together, the advisories make clear that American agencies are tracking a broad range of potential threats that they believe voters should know about  not just for transparencys sake but also so voters can be prepared.

The warnings come even though U.S. officials as recently as Tuesday expressed confidence in the integrity of the vote despite repeated efforts by President Donald Trump to denigrate it.

Some of the announcements from the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency:

DISINFORMATION THROUGH BOGUS INTERNET DOMAINS AND EMAIL ACCOUNTS

Its not hard to set up a fake, or spoofed, email account or website to closely resemble a legitimate one. Thats precisely what the FBI and CISA are warning may take place to trick Americans during the election.

Cyber criminals routinely forge websites with slight misspellings or other barely perceptively alterations to dupe internet users.

In the context of an election, for instance, a bogus website ending in .com versus .gov that purports to have legitimate voting information or results could trick people who visit the page into thinking that what theyre reading is an authentic, trustworthy government source.

Besides spreading false information, officials say, such spoofed websites and email accounts can gather personally identifiable information and spread malicious software.

One precaution voters can take is to verify the spelling of websites and email addresses that may look legitimate but are actually not.

More: Pa. elections officials rebuff claims that election will be marred by fraud

DISINFORMATION THROUGH ONLINE JOURNALS

Foreign intelligence services could use websites like pseudo-academic online journals to cause confusion around the election and undermine confidence in the legitimacy of its results.

That could include promoting claims of voter suppression and ballot fraud, denigrating individual political candidates, disseminating information about cyberattacks  both real and alleged  and spreading otherwise misleading or unsubstantiated assertions to manipulate public opinion and discredit the election process.

U.S. officials are encouraging voters to rely on trustworthy sources of information, including state and local election officials, and to verify through credible channels reports about problems with voting before recirculating them online.

More: Find your polling place for the 2020 general election

FALSE CLAIMS OF HACKED VOTER INFORMATION

How someone voted is private. But information about who is eligible to vote, how often a person votes and for which party is publicly available through a variety of sources.

Thats why authorities said there was nothing to be concerned about last month when Russian media reported that some U.S. voter registration information was available on a hackers forum.

The FBI and CISA issued a reminder not long after that unnamed foreign actors and cyber criminals are spreading false information intended to discredit the American electoral process, including by falsely claiming to have hacked and leaked voter information.

Even if those foreign actors or cyber criminals had such information, it wouldnt do anything to stop an American from casting a ballot or provide a way to manipulate the vote. The U.S. agencies say they have no information that any attack targeting election infrastructure has compromised the integrity of election results or the accuracy of voter registration information, or prevented an election from occurring.

In this June 13, 2019 file photo, an Investigator with the Office of the City Commissioners, demonstrates the ExpressVote XL voting machine at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)AP

CYBER THREATS TO VOTING SYSTEMS

The advisories describe possible threats to election infrastructure that they say may slow voting, or impede access to voting information, but that should not compromise the integrity of the results.

One concern relates to so-called distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks in which a server gets knocked at least temporarily offline by a flood requests, which could leave election-related websites inaccessible or slow access to voting information or results.

Even in such attacks, though, the underlying voting data should not be affected, according to federal officials who say theyve been working with their local election counterparts to make sure they can minimize the impact and recover quickly from such a disruption.

The FBI and CISA say in another of the recently issued warnings that cyber actors are continuing to try to break into voter registration and vote reporting systems. But the agencies say they havent identified any incidents that could prevent Americans from voting or that could change vote tallies.

In 2016, Russia searched for vulnerabilities in state elections systems across the U.S. and also breached the Illinois voter registration system, probing for access to voting machines, internal networks, voter registration systems, electronic pollbooks and vote reporting websites. But there is no evidence that any votes were changed, or that the Russian activity affected the outcome.

This year, the agencies say they believe it would be difficult to manipulate votes in a way that could affect the election, and that election officials have developed safeguards like provisional ballots, paper backups and backup pollbooks.

By ERIC TUCKER and BEN FOX, The Associated Press

More:

You have questions about where to take your Pennsylvania mail-in ballot? We have answers.

Pa. Democrats notch key court wins on election; mail-in ballots can be counted for 3 days after Election Day
Prosecutors did not call the payments bribes; they were gifts, they said, that Mr. Bruno was required to report to the state. By not doing so, they charged, he was depriving the people of his honest services under a federal law used to prosecute politicians and business executives. Mr. Bruno resigned his Senate seat in 2008 as the investigation closed in.

In December 2009, he was convicted in Albany federal court of two counts of fraud for concealing $280,000 in payments from Jared E. Abbruzzese, a capital-area entrepreneur who had sought his help for various ventures, including a nanotechnology company.

Mr. Bruno was acquitted on five other counts, and the jury could not reach a verdict on a sixth. Mr. Bruno, who did not testify but insisted that he had done nothing wrong, was sentenced to two years in prison. Pending an appeal, he remained free.

A month later, the United States Supreme Court, in an unrelated case, whittled down the law under which he was convicted, saying it could not be used to prosecute defendants for hiding conflicts of interest, although the court left open the possibility of cases based on kickbacks or bribery. Prosecutors conceded that Mr. Brunos conviction might not stand, but insisted that a retrial was justified, citing evidence that he took kickbacks.

Mr. Brunos lawyers appealed to overturn the conviction and bar any retrial. They said the original case had focused squarely on nondisclosure, as opposed to kickbacks or bribery. In November 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York overturned Mr. Brunos conviction but rejected his request to bar a retrial.
Watch: This September was the hottest on record, scientists find

Weve just had the hottest September on record, caused by unusually high temperatures across the world, according to an EU climate organisation.

Globally, September was 0.05 degrees warmer than the same month in 2019 and 0.08C warmer than in 2016, previously the warmest and second warmest Septembers on record, the Copernicus Climate Change Service reported.

The organisation said on Wednesday that 2020s hot weather has played a major role in disasters including fires in California, melting sea ice in the Arctic and floods in Asia.

As we go into an even warmer world, certain extremes are likely to happen more often and be more intense, Copernicus senior scientist Freja Vamborg said, pointing to heatwaves and periods of intense rain as examples.

It was the hottest September on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (Picture: Copernicus Climate Change Service)

The higher temperatures have contributed to ongoing wildfires in California. (Getty)

The September record was driven mainly by spikes in temperature in areas of Siberia, the Middle East, South America and Australia due to an extension of a long-term warming trend caused by emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Over the final three months of 2020, climate events such as the La Nina phenomenon and projected low levels of autumn Arctic sea ice will influence whether the year as a whole will become the warmest on record, the Copernicus service added.

Wildfires in California have burned more than 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares) this year, over twice the previous record for any year and an area larger than Connecticut, the states fire agency reported on Sunday.

California has suffered five of its six largest wildfires in history in 2020 as heatwaves and dry-lightning sieges coincided with drier conditions that climate scientists blamed on global warming.

At least 31 people have died in this years fires and over 8,454 homes and other structures have been destroyed.

Californias previous record burn area was nearly 2 million acres in 2018, when the state had a deadly and destructive wildfire that killed at least 85 civilians and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures in and around the mountain town of Paradise.

Story continues

People walk through floodwater after heavy rain in Jakarta, Indonesia. (Getty)

Meltwater rushes down from the shrinking Longyearbreen glacier during a summer heatwave on the Svalbard archipelago. (Getty)

Under the 2015 Paris climate accord, countries to attempt to cap warming at 1.5C since pre-industrial times, which scientists say would avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.

But even though large emitters, including China and the EU, have pledged to slash their emissions in the coming decades, overall, current policies would see temperatures rise far beyond the 1.5C level.

That is the key point, Vamborg said. The Earth has warmed a lot, and it will carry on warming if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the rate they are at the moment.

The last five calendar years were the worlds warmest on record.

Average global temperatures have already climbed to roughly 1C above pre-industrial times.

Watch: How is coronavirus treated?
Doubts were expressed last night about Boris Johnson's ability to deliver his promise to power every home with offshore wind by 2030.

The Prime Minister pledged 160million to help upgrade ports and factories to ensure that 40 gigawatts of electricity comes from turbines in the sea by the end of the decade.

But industry leaders said much more Government action was required to make the target a reality. And Labour said the target was less than half the capacity needed for homes by the end of the decade.

The Prime Minister pledged 160million to help upgrade ports and factories to ensure that 40 gigawatts of electricity comes from turbines in the sea by the end of the decade

The Green Party also questioned how the 3,000 new turbines would be funded, suggesting the true cost could be 48billion.

Mr Johnson announced his plans in his Tory conference speech yesterday  and criticised his past comments attacking wind farms.

He said: 'I remember how some people used to sneer at wind power, 20 years ago, and say that it wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.

'They forgot the history of this country. It was offshore wind that puffed the sails of Drake and Raleigh and Nelson, and propelled this country to commercial greatness.'

The rice pudding comment was made by Mr Johnson himself seven years ago when he said: 'Labour put in a load of wind farms that failed to pull the skin off a rice pudding.'

There is currently just under 10.5GW of wind in the seas around the UK, generating around 10 per cent of our electricity, and the Government has a manifesto pledge to boost its previous 30GW target to 40GW by 2030.

There is currently just under 10.5GW of wind in the seas around the UK, generating around 10 per cent of our electricity

That could be expected to generate the amount of electricity needed for all the homes in the UK on current levels of use, though it does not include power for businesses, industry and public buildings.

And if homes switch to heat pumps for heating to replace gas boilers, as well as more electric cars, domestic demand for power will increase.

Melanie Onn of industry body RenewableUK said: 'To reach the Prime Minister's target of 40GW of offshore wind by 2030, which will power all the homes in the UK, we need to step up the pace and scale at which we build new projects.'

She welcomed an increase in the amount of renewable capacity that will be delivered in the next auction  where companies bid to secure contracts for payments for the power they will generate from new wind farms they build. That pace will have to continue for the rest of the 2020s, she said.

Measures will also be needed to support the development of new technology, particularly floating wind turbines, which can be deployed in deeper waters where wind speeds are higher, generating more power.

Boris Johnson today pledged to use wind farms to power every home in the UK within a decade

Experts warn switching all homes from gas boilers to heat pumps or boilers powered by hydrogen on a 2030 timescale requires new infrastructure and new technology to be installed in homes by a trained workforce.

Jim Watson, professor of energy policy at UCL's Institute of Sustainable Resources, said the shift to powering UK homes from offshore wind is possible by 2030 and will bring other benefits due to the fall in wind power costs.

But he said: 'On heating, it is much more difficult to decarbonise all heating systems in UK homes  and it would be very challenging indeed to do so as soon as 2030.'

Bikash Pal, power systems professor at Imperial College London, said: 'Eventually UK homes will be heated through electricity from offshore wind, but to be able to build that infrastructure through a Covid-ruined economy by 2030  in just nine years' time  is a massive target.'

Shadow energy minister Alan Whitehead said much more investment was needed for other renewable sources to fill in at times when the wind was not providing enough power.

He warned the 40GW target is less than half that needed by the early 2030s to heat and power every home.

Green Party co-leader Jonathan Bartley said last night: 'The level of investment proposed by the Prime Minister is nowhere near matching his rhetoric. The 160million for wind power falls far short of the 48billion that analysts say is necessary.'

Philip Dunne, chairman of the Commons environmental audit committee, said: 'Reaching 40GW is no easy feat and the Government must work closely with industry to overcome challenges that are limiting progress.'

Hot air doesn't add up, says former spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, ZION LIGHTS

Whatever his faults, no one can accuse Boris Johnson of a lack of enthusiasm when it comes to eye-catching projects and targets.

'We believe that in ten years' time, offshore wind will be powering every home in the country, with our target rising from 30 gigawatts to 40 gigawatts,' the Prime Minister cried to the (virtual) Tory party conference yesterday.

Speaking as a committed environmentalist, I applaud in principle the shift away from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources. But the wholly unrealistic pledge to power every home in Britain with wind energy within a decade was, quite frankly, entirely typical of this Government's muddled thinking when it comes to future-proofing our energy supplies.

Wind power is widely viewed as the safest, cleanest energy option  and it's certainly safer and cleaner than gas, coal or oil

Even if Britain cranked up its wind power provision to the level the Prime Minister proposes, this amount would power only about half the homes in Britain  or 7 per cent of the total national energy demand. And that would only be when the turbines are turning.

Data company Aurora Energy Research has calculated that to reach 40 gigawatts by 2030, one new wind turbine will have to be installed around Britain every weekday for the entire 2020s  at a cost of some 50billion in capital investment.

I do not oppose wind power altogether: it has an important part to play in meeting some of the world's energy demands.

Yet over time, like many environmentalists, I have come to realise that while renewable energy can and should be part of the mix, the idea that offshore windfarms can power huge parts of Britain's national grid is simply not realistic.

Wind power is widely viewed as the safest, cleanest energy option  and it's certainly safer and cleaner than gas, coal or oil. The problem is that it is nowhere near as reliable as they are.

In this year's summer heatwave, for example, the UK went from sourcing 20 per cent of its energy from wind to sourcing just 4 per cent, a gap we plugged with imported, polluting coal.

On one especially windless day in October 2015, Britain's wind turbines produced almost no electricity at all. The Government was forced to resort to using diesel generators to provide back-up power: hardly the 'green industrial revolution' of which Boris now speaks.

Anyone can understand that a piece of coal is stored energy. Wind power must be harnessed by a turbine and fed into the grid  or lost forever.

Batteries are an option to store the electricity generated from wind turbines  but they are hugely expensive (one big enough to store Britain's electricity for a single day would cost an estimated 300billion) and themselves rely on polluting mining processes, rare minerals and must eventually be disposed of safely, so are hardly 'green'.

Many experts believe that a big shift to wind power would see Britain's energy bills soar.

We only need to look to the continent to see that a shift to wind power, whatever the fine intentions, can cause new problems.

Germany has spent billions of euros building more than 30,000 wind turbines but frequently on windless days, it has had to turn to high-emissions fossil fuels to make up shortfalls.

Meanwhile, a modern wind turbine is unlikely to last much longer than 20 years.

Though much of its components can be resold or recycled, the blades are a challenge: Most end up buried in giant landfill sites. Altogether: Not quite the cheap, clean, green answer to our problems that Boris seems to think it is.

So, given that it is paramount that we wean ourselves off polluting fossil fuels, what should the Government be doing? The truth is that we have only one hope of safeguarding our future energy supply.

Only this summer the Government announced that it was investing 40million to develop the next generation of nuclear energy technology in Britain. Yet the plans have stalled.

In Britain, reliable energy stands on a precipice. Seventies-style energy caps and rations, something none of us want, are inevitable unless ministers urgently prioritise this vital issue.

Everyone wants a safer, cleaner world for their children  and, for that, Government needs to make bold decisions. The shift to wind might look like that  but to me it all too closely seems like hot air.
AUSTIN, Texas - Maria Valentine says she was just months into her training at Fort Hood, a U.S. Army base in Texas, in 2006 when a sergeant with a history of alleged harassment toward other soldiers wrote her up after she complained that she didnt want him touching her during body mass measurements.

She said authorities promised the disciplinary report would be wiped from her record if she didnt make a formal complaint. Valentines decision not to file one would haunt her years later when she learned another woman had accused the same sergeant of rape.

Valentine is one of five women  two active duty soldiers, two veterans and one civilian  who spoke to The Associated Press about experiencing harassment, assault or rape by soldiers at Fort Hood, the other four since 2014.

Current and former soldiers have taken to social media with their own accounts of sexual assault and harassment at the base following the disappearance and slaying this year of Spc. Vanessa Guillen, whose family members say was sexually harassed by the soldier who eventually killed her.

I wasnt surprised, Valentine said after learning about Guillens story. That was the environment. I live with the regret that I did not go through with the complaint.

Maj. Gabriela Thompson, a Fort Hood spokeswoman, told the AP she had no information about Valentines allegation.

Members of Congress launched an investigation of Fort Hood in September after Sgt. Elder Fernandes was found dead on Aug. 25 hanging from a tree in Temple, Texas, months after reporting sexual harassment.

Guillen and Fernandes are among 28 soldiers at the base to have died this year, including five homicides and six suicides, according to Army data. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy says that based on Fort Hoods average of 129 violent crimes between 2015 and 2019, it has one of the highest violent crime rates among Army installations.

The Associated Press typically doesnt publish the names of sex abuse victims, but two women who said they were sexually assaulted by soldiers at Fort Hood decided to speak on the record to describe what they say is a disturbing culture at the base. Many victims have become connected by sharing their experiences using the hashtag #IAMVANESSAGUILLEN.

Among them is Deborah Urquidez, who told the AP she was raped by the same sergeant, Staff Sgt. Roberto Jimenez, Valentine said harassed her more than a decade earlier.

Urquidez said her relationship with Jimenez in 2014 began consensually, but that later he raped her while a friend desperately tried to break into the room to stop him. Then came months of stalking, threatening messages and a lengthy battle in military court in which he was found not guilty, according to court documents obtained by the AP. Urquidez was given a temporary military protective order against the sergeant for an alleged sexual assault.

The Department of Veterans Affairs considers her permanently disabled after she reported the rape and the trauma, which included multiple suicide attempts, according to documents obtained by the AP.

There was never justice for me, Urquidez said. In any other world, what more evidence do you need?

Jimenez later filed for a protective order against Urquidez. A Fort Hood spokesperson said the Armys Criminal Investigation Command investigated and the accused was acquitted of all charges following a military court martial in 2017. He remains on active duty at Fort Bliss. Officials from Fort Bliss did not provide comment from Jimenez.

But Fort Bliss said the base holds the same standards against sexual harassment and sexual assault as the U.S. Army and takes all reports seriously and investigates them quickly.

Kaitlyn Buxton, a civilian, said her partner, Brandon Espindola, then stationed at Fort Hood beat her numerous times and raped her in 2018 at their off-base apartment in Killeen. On one occasion at the barracks, he pinned her down and repeatedly punched her in the face while she screamed for help, Buxton said.

A Fort Hood officer went with his wife to their apartment during one altercation after Buxton called for help. Buxton said members of Espindolas chain of command saw her body bruised on more than one occasion.

The Killeen Police Department eventually granted Buxton a protective order and charged Espindola with assault with bodily injury and assault by strangulation, but records show he bonded out and the case was closed.

Buxton said military police have taken no action on a separate case she filed in 2018, which was briefly closed and then reopened this past August. Espindola has since been discharged from the Army on unrelated matters.

The whole process has been a constant victimization, Buxton said. No matter what I do, my voice is not being heard.

Sean Timmons, Espindolas attorney, said his client maintains his innocence to all allegations and charges and believes they are fabricated. The Killeen Police Department did not respond to a request for comment. A Fort Hood spokesperson said they had no information on this allegation.

According to a federal complaint, the soldier who killed Guillen, Aaron Robinson, died by suicide in July when confronted by police. Natalie Khawam, who represents the Guillen family, told the AP that Guillen shared with family members that a soldier of superior rank walked in and watched her when she was showering. Khawam said Guillen was too scared to file a report.

McCarthy said though it is believed Guillen faced other kinds of harassment at Fort Hood, officials have found no report or evidence that she was sexually harassed. Since then, an independent inquiry of command climate has been ordered at the Texas base, in addition to the ongoing investigation into the command response to Guillens disappearance and death.

In a press conference the morning after Fernandes body was found, Lupe Guillen, the younger sister of Vanessa Guillen, said Fernandes was an example of why her sister did not report the harassment she experienced.

How many more must die at Fort Hood for them to be held accountable? Lupe Guillen said. How many more have to be sexually harassed?

Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who is among the members of Congress investigating Fort Hood, coauthored the I Am Vanessa Guillen Act. It aims to expand measures aimed at preventing sexual assault and harassment involving U.S. military personnel, including codifying sexual harassment as a crime in military law and removing decisions on whether to prosecute sexual assault and harassment out of the chain of command.

The voices of those survivors have never been louder or more clear, Speier said. This is the militarys #MeToo moment.

___

This story has been corrected to show the military title of the soldier accused of killing Vanessa Guillen. Aaron Robinson was a soldier, not an officer.

___

Acacia Coronado is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
The Serbian government and the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) concluded on Tuesday a commercial agreement for the design and construction of a new fast road in the northern part of the country.

The agreement on the construction of the so-called "Fruska Gora Corridor" was signed by the Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Zorana Mihajlovic and Zhang Xiaoyuan, director of CRBC Serbia in presence of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Chinese Ambassador to Serbia Chen Bo.

The project, worth 606 million euros (714.94 million U.S. dollars), envisages the construction of a 47.7-km multi-lane road between the city of Novi Sad (capital of Serbia's northern autonomous province of Vojvodina, and the country's second-biggest city) and the municipality of Ruma.

The section will include a 3.5-km tunnel, as well as a 1.8-km-long bridge across the Danube River.

After the agreement was signed, President Vucic stressed the importance of the road. "What we are doing with CRBC...and what makes this day important is -- that we can today discuss an overall accelerated development and modernization of Serbia."

The president recalled many projects which are already in realization or in plan with CRBC, stressing their importance for the country's five-year development project titled "Serbia 2020-2025."

Recalling the more than one and half years of preparation for the project by a team of Chinese and Serbian experts, Zhang pledged completion on time.

"CRBC will strive, as always, to finish this project within the agreed deadline," he said.

Ambassador Chen said that the cooperation between China and Serbia keeps developing despite the outbreak of the COVID-19, and has delivered a significant contribution to the economic recovery of both countries.
Dinesh Kumar Khara, the newly appointed Chairman of State Bank of India (SBI), on Wednesday said the bank has so far not seen many corporates reaching out for availing the one-time loan restructuring facility. The numbers, overall, has been manageable, Khara said.

We are closely observing the interest about restructuring. Whatever numbers we see till now is manageable, Khara said at a press conference.

When it comes to corporate restructuring we have not seen many corporates reaching out, Khara said.

The RBI announced a one-time loan recast to assist the stressed companies that are hit by the Covid-19. The RBI appointed an expert panel under K V Kamath to suggest the financial parameters to implement the scheme. The committee has identified 26 sectors which can qualify for the restructuring scheme.

Under the loan recast, companies can get relaxed repayment terms including an extension of loan moratorium for up to two years.

With respect to the capital requirement, Khara said the banks current capital adequacy position is comfortable.

Further, talking on SBIs market share, Khara said SBI has been gaining market share for the last one-year. In an economy like ours, we have a decent market share,Khara said. Protecting the quality of loan book will be key, Khara said.

To a question on interest-on-interest on moratorium loans, Khara refused to comment saying the matter is currently in the Supreme Court.

Khara said the bank will continue regular annual hiring We are not letting down our guard. There is a clear focus on building up the skill, Khara said.

He added that the bank has made provisions for all corporate accounts to address the legacy problems and corporate PCR (provision coverage ratio) is about 85 percent.

Khara, who was serving as one of the Managing Directors of the bank, took charge as the new chairman on 7 October, succeeding Rajnish Kumar.

Khara is a seasoned banker who joined SBI as a probationary officer in 1984. Within SBI circles, Khara is known as a general banking specialist. He also had a foreign stint during his three-decade-long career in SBI at the banks Chicago office and was associated with the overseas acquisition of Indian Ocean International Bank Mauritius during his stint in overseas expansion wing.

Over the last three decades, Khara has handled departments like associates and subsidiaries, global banking in SBI, Corporate Accounts Group and International Banking Group.

Khara holds a Masters in Business Administration from FMS New Delhi and is a post-graduate in Commerce. He is also a Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB). Prior to being appointed as SBI MD, Khara was the MD and CEO of SBI Funds Management Pvt. Ltd.
The BJP on Wednesday allocated 11 seats to associate partner Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) fromits quota of 121 seats in Bihar assembly polls. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had announced at a joint press conference Tuesday that while JD(U) will spare some seats to Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) of former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi from its share of 122 seats and the BJP will accommodate VIP from its quota of 121 seats in the 243-memberassembly.

JD(U) has provided seven seats to HAM. The seat distribution to VIP was announced at a press conference addressed by Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, Bihar unit president Sanjay Jaiswal and VIP chief Mukesh Sahni.

Jaiswal told reporters that VIP will also be provided one seat in Bihar legislative council in future. VIP floated a couple of years ago by former Bollywood set designer Mukesh Sahni, was with the opposition Grand Alliance till last week.

Sahni had on Friday last announced an abrupt exit fromthe opposition coalition in protest against "back-stabbing" by RJD, which helms the anti-NDA grouping, and its de facto leader Tejashwi Yadav. Sahni expressed happiness over return to the BJP-led NDA with which he had started his political innings in 2014 general election with an aim to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister of the country.

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The involvement of aviation units of the Interior Ministry's system is provided for a prompt response to changes in the situation during the local elections in Ukraine.

"Based on the calculations, almost 140,000 law enforcement officers will be involved to ensure public security during the local elections. It is planned to involve the aviation units of the Interior Ministry's system for prompt response to changes in the situation," First Deputy Interior Minister Serhiy Yarovy said at the meeting.

He said that, given the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic amid which the electoral process is holding, the personnel are provided with protective equipment.

"We will involve reserve groups of law enforcement officers from the central office of the National Police, university cadets and police officers from regional departments," Yarovy said.

According to Deputy Minister Serhiy Honcharov, operational reserves have been created in the regions to respond to challenges and threats that may arise during the elections.

"In order to increase the efficiency of the formation of reserves and direct response, it is planned to involve our aviation within the election campaign. We plan to involve all the available forces and means of aviation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, namely, aircraft and helicopters. The presence of helicopters will allow respond to illegal activities in the most remote points where there is no landing strips," Honcharov said.

Head of the State Emergency Service Mykola Chechotkin said that in order to ensure an adequate level of fire safety and prevent emergencies during the preparation and conduct of local elections, the specialists of the service in the country are inspecting the facilities where the polling stations will be located.

Local elections in Ukraine are scheduled for October 25.
A 57-year-old Hartford man is facing 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal robbery offense connected with a 2018 carjacking.

Arno Smith pleaded guilty Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Michael P. Shea in Hartford.

According the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut, Smith approached a woman who was sitting in her 2006 Honda in a Hartford parking lot and pressed what the woman believed to be a gun against her neck around 11 p.m. on July 26, 2018.

Smith then grabbed the victims purse and the woman got out of the car, authorities said. Smith pointed the weapon at the victim, told her to walk away, and then drove away in the car, federal officials said.

After the robbery, Smith attempted to use the victims credit card at two locations in Bristol, authorities said.

Authorities said the investigation also revealed that in 2018 Smith robbed the Price Chopper supermarket located at 121 Farmington Ave. in Bristol on July 27; the Price Chopper supermarket located at 410 Queen St. in Southington on Sept. 4; and the U-Haul Moving and Storage located at 755 Capitol Ave. in Hartford on Sept. 5

Authorities said he was also connected with the 2018 robberies at the Home Depot located at 55 Granby St. in Bloomfield on Sept. 15; the Lowes Home Improvement located at 31 Buckland Hills Drive in South Windsor on Sept. 16; the Days Inn located at 185 Ella Grasso Turnpike in Windsor Locks on Sept. 18, and the U-Haul Moving and Storage located at 3197 Main St. in Hartford on Sept. 19.

Smith was arrested on state charges on Sept. 20, 2018. He was sitting in the victims car at the time of his arrest.

Smith pleaded guilty to one count of Hobbs Act robbery, an offense that carries up to 20 years in prison. A sentencing date is not scheduled.

Smith has been detained since his arrest.
As classes moved online and Kuetgaje moved home, the distance only grew. Cell service comes in sporadically, which means she sometimes studies under the stars while everyone else is asleep. Last semester she had so much trouble logging in that she missed two important tests and nearly failed.
A majority of those who do not have access are members of our Black and brown communities, Preckwinkle said at the Richard Flowers Apartments in south suburban Robbins. This is inequity, needless to say, and this doesnt give our residents, especially our children, the tools they need to learn, grow and succeed. It relegates them to second-class citizenship. And that to me is not acceptable.
Samsung has announced the public beta of OneUI 3.0 based on Android 11 shortly after starting the developer beta program for the software. However, it is only available to a limited number of users for now, with only the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy S20 FE getting support for it now.

For now, reports suggest the update is only rolling out to interested users in South Korea, with users in other regions still not getting it. While there is no confirmation, the public beta could also be made available for the Galaxy Note 20, Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.

The update, for now, can be sideloaded by interested users that want to try the latest Android 11 based One UI 3.0 on their supported Samsung phones. Eligible users can sign up for the beta update by heading over to the "Sign Up for One UI Beta Program" section in the Samsung Members app. With the One UI 3.0, Samsung is making several enhancements that are separate from the new features of Android 11.

In terms of the features, the update will bring major improvement in the widgets for the lock screen and always-on display. There will also be the addition of more categories to the Dynamic lock screen feature. Apart from these, there will be a number of other features too. However, there is no guarantee that they will be found in a publicly released version of the software. To find out this though we'll have to wait for a few more weeks at least for the rollout of the update in India.

To remind our readers, Android 11 was released by Google a few weeks ago and since then has slowly started to make way on phones across the board. Android 11 brings a number of new features including Bubbles. This feature helps users in multi-tasking. Bubbles float over the apps that you are using and if you get an important message you will not have to leave your app to respond to the message. You can simply tap on the bubble and reply there.

Another interesting feature that Android 11 brings with itself is the built-in screen recorder. This lets users capture and share with their friends whatever they are watching or doing on their phones. Users will be able to record whatever you wish to without needing an extra app for screen recording.
Kroger employees from across Southeast Texas gathered in front of the Dowlen Road store in Beaumont on Tuesday afternoon to urge public support for its contract negotiations with the company. The union seeks a return of pandemic hazard pay and a halt to potential changes to health care plans.

United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 455, which represents 28,000 members in parts of Houston, all of Southeast Texas and parts of Louisiana, has been organizing demonstrations at stores in its coverage region since late September as negotiations with Kroger have become more heated.

Labor groups have been calling for the return of hazard benefits that Kroger awarded employees in March, such as a $2 pay bump, since the company ended its hero bonus in June. Focus has now shifted to a proposed increase in hours before employees could qualify for health insurance.

The company has also proposed a change to the structure of the trustee system for its insurance plan that would remove union representatives, according to UFCW leadership.

Rosalie Lowe, a lead at the floral department at the Kroger store in Orange, said the end of hazard pay and fear about changes to health plans have not been good for the moral of workers interacting with the public every day during the pandemic.

We feel kind of betrayed, she said. I used to love to go to work. Now, I cant look forward to it knowing what we mean to the company.

After Kroger reported in June that it had a 19.1% growth in sales in the first fiscal quarter of the year, due in part to a more than 90% increase in digital sales, Lowe said employees can only assume that the company is going forward with changes for additional profit.

The company has reported that it is using some of that windfall to support employees, including more than $830 million for safety and cleaning equipment and several rounds of bonuses. It also has credited the implementation of emergency paid leave since March as tool for reducing risk of infection among employees.

Representatives for Kroger could not immediately be reached.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases. It is caused by a malfunction in brain cells and is usually treated with medicines that control or counteract the seizures.

Scientists from the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen and Rigshospitalet have now identified the exact neurons that are most affected by epilepsy. Some of which have never been linked to epilepsy before. The newfound neurons might contribute to epileptogenesisthe process by which a normal brain develops epilepsyand could therefore be ideal treatment targets.

"Our findings potentially allows for the development of entirely new therapeutic approaches tailored towards specific neurons, which are malfunctioning in cases of epilepsy. This could be a breakthrough in personalized medicine-based treatment of patients suffering from epileptic seizures," says Associate Professor Konstantin Khodosevich from Biotech Research & Innovation Center (BRIC), Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.

A major step towards more effective drugs

It is the first time a study investigates how every single neuron in the epileptic zone of the human brain is affected by epilepsy. The researchers have analyzed more than 117,000 neurons, which makes it the largest single cell dataset for a brain disorder published so far.

Neurons have been isolated from tissue resected from patients being operated as part of the Danish Epilepsy Surgery Programme at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen.

"These patients continue to have seizures despite the best possible combination of anti-seizure drugs. Unfortunately, this is the case for 30-40% of epilepsy patients. Active epilepsy imposes serious physical, cognitive, psychiatric and social consequences on patients and families. A more precise understanding of the cellular mechanism behind epilepsy could be a major step forward for developing drugs specifically directed against the epileptogenic process compared to the current mode of action reducing neuronal excitability in general throughout the brain' says associate professor Lars Pinborg, head of the Danish Epilepsy Surgery Program at Rigshospitalet.

From 'neuronal soup' to single cell analysis

The study from the Khodosevich Group differs from previous work by using single cell analysis. Earlier studies on neuronal behavior in regards to epilepsy have taken a piece of the human brain and investigated all the neurons together as a group or a 'neuronal soup." When using this approach, diseased cells and healthy cells are mixed together, which makes it impossible to identify potential treatment targets.

"By splitting the neurons into many thousands of single cells, we can analyze each of them separately. From this huge number of single cells, we can pinpoint exactly what neurons are affected by epilepsy. We can even make a scale from least to most affected, which means that we can identify the molecules with the most promising potential to be effective therapeutic targets," says Khodosevich.

Next step is to study the identified neurons and how their functional changes contribute to epileptic seizures. The hope is to then find molecules that can restore epilepsy related neuronal function back to normal and inhibit seizure generation.

Expanding knowledge on underlying mechanisms of epilepsy

The study confirms expression from key genes known from a number of previous studies, but is also a dramatic expansion of knowledge on the subject. Previously, gene expression studies have identified a couple of hundred genes that changes in epilepsy.

"We show that the complexity of gene expression in epilepsy is much larger than previously known. It is not a matter of a handful or a few hundred genes changing. Our study proves that thousands of genes in different neurons change their expression in epilepsy. From these thousands of gene expression changes, we identified those that most likely contribute to epileptogenesis. Now it is time to prove it functionally," says Konstantin Khodosevich.

Explore further Microglia might lessen seizure severity in epilepsy

More information: Ulrich Pfisterer et al, Identification of epilepsy-associated neuronal subtypes and gene expression underlying epileptogenesis, Nature Communications (2020). Journal information: Nature Communications Ulrich Pfisterer et al, Identification of epilepsy-associated neuronal subtypes and gene expression underlying epileptogenesis,(2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18752-7
The daughters of Zelophehad are found not once, but five times in the Bible. Its a curious thing that their story isnt more well-known because these five women were responsible for changing the Old Testament law.

First Mentioned

The first time we hear about the daughters of Zelophehad is in the Book of Numbers. This is when Moses and Eleazar performed a census following a plague that killed twenty-four thousand people.

God directed them to count all the males 20 years of age and older. We find the daughters listed within the clan of Manasseh,

The descendants of Manasseh: through Makir, the Makirite clan (Makir was the father of Gilead); through Gilead, the Gileadite clan. These were the descendants of Gilead: through Iezer, the Iezerite clan; through Helek, the Helekite clan; through Asriel, the Asrielite clan; through Shechem, the Shechemite clan; through Shemida, the Shemidaite clan; through Hepher, the Hepherite clan. (Zelophehad son of Hepher had no sons; he had only daughters, whose names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah.) These were the clans of Manasseh; those numbered were 52,700 (Numbers 26:29-34).

Take note that the verse doesnt simply say daughters of Zelophehad, but records each of them by name.

What These Women Did

These women lived during a time when sons inherited everything, and women were treated as property.

As Israel was preparing to enter the promised land, Moses had been instructed by God on how to divvy up the land. According to the law, only men would be given property, meaning the daughters of Zelophehad would receive nothing and be left destitute.

However, they didnt sit idly by, allowing the status quo to determine their destiny. Neither did they grumble and complain, which was the behavior that caused the prior generation to perish.

Instead, these five women armed themselves with courage, humility, and faith in the character of God who is good to all, The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made (Psalm 145:9).

Then drew near the daughters of Zelophehad the son of Hepher, son of Gilead, son of Machir, son of Manasseh, from the clans of Manasseh the son of Joseph. The names of his daughters were: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. And they stood before Moses and before Eleazar the priest and before the chiefs and all the congregation, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, saying, Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah, but died for his own sin. And he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our fathers brothers (Numbers 27: 1-4).

The five women stood together in solidarity presenting their case before those who had the power to change things. According to The Schechter Institute, the women didnt choose a single spokesperson, but each of them presented a part of the argument. As they stood up for themselves, they were standing up for the rights of women.

How They Were Answered

The five daughters had a unique situation, a compelling argument, and presented it honorably. Moses realized that he didnt have the answer and sought the Lord.

Moses brought their case before the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses, The daughters of Zelophehad are right. You shall give them possession of an inheritance among their fathers brothers and transfer the inheritance of their father to them (Numbers 27:5-7).

Their faith in God was met with honor. 1 Samuel 2:30 says those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained.

Change for Generations

The daughters of Zelophehad not only received what they requested for themselves, but the law was changed permanently for all. The Lord went on to instruct Moses in Numbers 27: 8-11,

And you shall speak to the people of Israel, saying, If a man dies and has no son, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter. And if he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. And if he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his fathers brothers. And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest kinsman of his clan, and he shall possess it. And it shall be for the people of Israel a statute and rule, as the Lord commanded Moses.

These women not only caused a law to be changed for generations to come but modeled how to pursue change. They didnt victimize themselves with despair and attempt to manipulate the situation. No, the daughters of Zelophehad were women of courage, faith, and honorable action who received justice for their faith.

Photo Credit: iStock/Getty Images Plus/CalypsoArt

Danielle Bernock is an international, award-winning author, coach, and speaker who helps people embrace their value and heal their souls through the power of the love of God. Shes written Emerging With Wings, A Bird Named Payn, Loves Manifesto, Because You Matter, and hosts the Victorious Souls Podcast. A long-time follower of Christ, Danielle lives with her husband in Michigan near her adult children and grandchildren. For more information or to connect with Danielle https://www.daniellebernock.com/
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 21:44:05|Editor: huaxia

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MOSCOW, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and Russia will continue to honor its commitments under the treaty, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.

Putin made the remarks when commenting on the continuous conflicts in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, during an interview with Rossiya-1 television channel.

"I maintain regular contact with the Prime Minister of Armenia, and the Armenian leadership has not voiced any questions about the fulfillment of Russia's allied commitments," he said.

Putin called the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan "a huge tragedy," saying that Russia is "extremely concerned."

"We hope that the conflict will stop very soon. Even if it is not settled definitively, and it seems that this is a long way off, in any case, we are calling for a ceasefire, and I want to say this once again. This must be done as soon as possible," he added.

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.

A new round of armed conflict broke out on Sept. 27 along the contact line of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The clashes, which are still going on, have reportedly caused heavy casualties and equipment loss. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 12:02:04|Editor: huaxia

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JAKARTA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- A ship carrying 12 people has lost contact in the water off Bali resort island of Indonesia, with the search and rescue operation being underway, a top rescuer said on Wednesday.

The fishing ship, KM Tanjung Permai, operated by a fishing company, PT Liniati Abadi, last communicated with the firm at 9:00 p.m. local time Monday, Head of Operational Unit of Search and Rescue Office in Bali Anak Agung Ketut Alif Supartana said.

"According to the company, during the communication, a crew reported that the sea water has entered into the ship," the rescuer told Xinhua via phone.

Still, it was not certain whether the ship was leaked or huge waves hit the vessel, said Supartana.

The fishing ship had fished in the southern Badung Strait of Southern Bali island before losing contact, Supartana said.

He said that the weather condition has been unfavorable in the area since days ago, with huge waves occurring in the territory. "All the sailors here have been informally warned by the weather agency. They are urged to delay fishing."

A helicopter, two ships, personnel from the local search and rescue office, the navy and police, have been deployed in the search and rescue mission, he said.

At the sea, Captain of Rescuing Ship Arief Yulianto along with other rescuers, navy personnel and policemen were also carrying the rescue around and in the southern Badung Strait.

"It is still nil. We have asked all the vessels sailing around and in this territory, they have not seen the presence of the missing vessel," he told Xinhua.

The Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency has warned of intensified La Nina rains in some parts of the vast-archipelagic nation since days ago. Enditem
Russia has issued an arrest warrant for Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, even as she says Moscow can play a role to mediate the political crisis in her country.

The Russian Interior Ministry database shows that Tsikhanouskaya is on its list of wanted persons.

An Interior Ministry source told Interfax on August 7 that the arrest warrant is a technicality, because one issued by Belarus also extends to Russia due to bilateral agreements between the two nations.

Tsikhanouskaya fled to neighboring Lithuania soon after protests erupted across Belarus against the results of the August 9 election, which extended strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenkas 26-year rule. She left Belarus for Lithuania after the election amid reports that she and her family were threatened by authorities.

Protests against Lukashenka have continued unabated for eight weeks despite a brutal crackdown, with several killed, hundreds injured, and more than 10,000 detained.

Tsikhanouskaya, who the Belarus opposition says won the presidential election, has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his support for Lukashenka and warned against Moscow interfering in Belarus's affairs.

But she has also suggested that world leaders, including Putin, could help mediate talks with Lukashenka, a close yet often difficult ally of the Russian president.

Lukashenka has rejected repeated calls for dialogue with the opposition.

The Kremlin said on October 7 that Putin had no plans to meet with the opposition leader and dismissed her importance.

"No contacts are being planned," spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, casting doubt on Tsikhanouskaya's role in her country's political life.

"Madame Tsikhanouskaya is not in Belarus. One can hardly say that she is somehow involved in Belarus's life," Peskov said. "She is meeting with various heads of state and government who consider Belarus's sitting president illegitimate."

Speaking in Berlin as part of a two-day trip to the German capital to drum up international pressure on the Minsk regime, Tsikhanouskaya reiterated on October 7 that she viewed Russia as a potential partner to moderate dialogue with Lukashenka.

A day after meeting behind closed doors with Angela Merkel, Tsikhanouskaya said the chancellor would be an ideal person to mediate the political crisis in her country.

Tsikhanouskaya said that Merkel is "aware of whats going on there and would be really helpful in solving this problem.

She laid out her aspiration following talks with Norbert Roettgen, a top lawmaker in Merkels Christian Democratic Union and chairman of the parliaments foreign affairs committee.

So, our main ask for [Merkel] was to be a leader in this mediation, to call for other countries to participate in mediation for starting these negotiations, Tsikhanouskaya said.

Merkel has not indicated whether she would be willing to take on such a role, but Roettgen expressed Germanys readiness to join international dialogue to resolve the crisis.

Merkel and Putin have a working relationship cultivated during countless discussions and negotiations on a wide range of global issues. During Merkels 15 years as chancellor, Putin is known to have spoken by phone with her more than any other world leader.

In earlier comments to German media, Tsikhanouskaya requested that Germany, the current holder of the European Union's rotating presidency, support expanded EU sanctions on Belarus, including putting Lukashenka on its blacklist.

Last week, the 27-nation bloc overcame a weeks-long political stalemate and agreed to impose visa bans and asset freezes on 40 Belarusian officials deemed responsible for electoral fraud and a brutal crackdown on protesters and opposition members.

Lukashenka is not on the sanctions list, but EU diplomats have said he may be added at a later date.

The European Union does not recognize the election results.

With reporting by AFP
AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- By offering a guide for how to tackle the challenge of building a business without negatively impacting their physical and mental health, the recently released book Limitless Expansion Secrets aims to help entrepreneurs achieve the success they seek while maintaining quality of life. Written by Trey Carmichael, founder of Virtually Limitless and CEO of Carmichael Business Solutions and LimitlessWare, along with other contributing authors, Limitless Expansion Secrets offers practical business advice based on the experiences of thriving entrepreneurs. The book also provides a step-by-step guide on how to implement the simple foundations necessary to grow both professionally and personally. Limitless Expansion Secrets is available for purchase as an eBook, paperback and hardcover on Amazon as of October 14, 2020. The eBook is 99 cents while the paperback and hardcover is starting at $12.99.

Limitless Expansion Secrets Book Cover

"In today's business landscape, there's the idea that success takes hustle, long hours, and eventually burnout. But following this misguided path can lead to high levels of stress and anxiety that affects an entrepreneur's performance. The ripples of this effect could negatively impact your company's ability to grow, your own ability to lead, and your overall quality of life," said Carmichael. "Limitless Expansion Secrets aims to help entrepreneurs break out of this cycle to effectively achieve success in their professional lives, without having to sacrifice their health and personal lives while doing so."

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And finally what you need to be focusing on in order to scale to seven figures

The contributing authors for Limitless Expansion Secrets are Justine Mader, Andrea Adams Miller, Ariel Szilagyi, Ashley Gunther, Robert Segelquist, Richard Kahanek, Bryce Vance, Andrew Napier, and Kyle Gese.

About Virtually Limitless

Founded by Trey Carmichael, Virtually Limitless is both a resource and a community for entrepreneurs. It combines the Virtually Limitless Podcast, which features interviews with thriving entrepreneurs and experts in their fields, and the Virtually Limitless Entrpreneur Community, a private Facebook group for entrepreneurs and professionals to network and grow together. For more information on Virtually Limitless, please visit TreyCarmichael.us .

If your looking to take your experience to the next level, email [email protected] for a guided walk through of the One Funnel to Rule Them All, and grab your access to Limitless Pursuit for your digital access and walk through of implementing these teachings.

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Media Contact

Bryce Vance

[email protected]

(208) 629-9216

SOURCE Virtually Limitless

Related Links

http://www.TreyCarmichael.us


Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 7)  No violations were committed during Tuesday's events at the House plenary, despite the ongoing speakership tussle that led to the termination of budget debates and session earlier than usual, a House deputy speaker claimed.

Deputy Speaker Neptali Gonzales, an ally of House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, said Wednesday that the motion of the Speaker to end the interpellations of the 2021 General Appropriations BIll was "unprecedented," but still "in accordance with the Rules of the House."

"Any member can really move to terminate the period of interpellations to go to the period of amendments," Gonzales said in a statement.

"We have been deliberating on the GAB for more than a week and several members have spoken in favor of it and more than two members have spoken against it. Thus, procedurally, Section 55 can be invoked, as in fact, it came into play."

Gonzales was referring to Section 55 of the House rules, which states that a motion to close the debates on a bill will be allowed if three speeches in favor and two against, or after one speech in favor or none against, have been conducted.

He said that it is also the prerogative of the House to suspend sessions earlier than usual since no priority bills are in the calendar of business.

"Plenary cannot be guilty of violating its own Rules. When plenary decides something, that automatically becomes the rule."

Cayetano's motion to terminate the debates and approve the 4.5 trillion budget on second reading was approved via voice vote, even if interpellations for more than 20 government agencies have yet to be finished until October 9.

READ: House approves on second reading the proposed 2021 budget

Meanwhile, some of the congressmen who were present via the teleconferencing platform Zoom raised that they were put on "mute" during the voting. For one, Buhay Party-list Rep. Lito Atienza said that the host of the virtual meeting could not allow the participating congressmen to "unmute themselves" while Cayetano was speaking.

Gonzales reasoned that the House secretariat has to mute everyone "for technical reasons" and that virtual rules governing hearings and plenary sessions had to be adopted in order for the lower chamber to do its legislative tasks.

"If all are unmuted at the same time, imagine the noise that it will generate and will fully disrupt the proceedings."

He added: "I think the better question is that  do we then stop these virtual sessions and wait for the pandemic to be over so that we can all be physically present to do sessions and resume our legislative work?"

Sessions are suspended until November 16 and a small committee will be formed to tackle amendments to the money measure.

Malacanang expressed optimism that there would be no delays in the passage of the national budget.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. House of Representatives of Netherlands (lower house of the parliament) has adopted two resolutions, recording the deployment of terrorists from Syria to Azerbaijan by Turkey, calling on the Government to take practical steps to launch an investigation in the sidelines of the OSCE.

By another resolution the House of Representatives to demand answers from Turkey in the sidelines of the NATO for its intervention in Karabakh conflict and urge it to stop intervention.

The resolution is authored by MP representing the Christian Union party Joel Voordewind.

Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey , unleashed war against Artsakh on September 27. Turkey, in addition to various types of assistance to Azerbaijan, including using Turkish air force against Artsakh and Armenia, has also deployed thousands of mercenaries and terrorists from Syria in Azerbaijan to fight against Artsakh.

So far the Armenian side has reported 320 casualties among the military and 21 civilians, Azerbaijans manpower losses are nearly 4000, which includes both servicemen from the regular Azerbaijani army and terrorists.

President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan called for an new coalition against international terrorism on October 6.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
One of Australias leading epidemiologists has again warned against complacency, citing outbreaks around the world a cautionary tale.

Raina MacIntyre is an epidemiologist and professor of global biosecurity at the UNSWs Kirby Institute.

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In an interview with the Australian Academy of Science, Professor MacIntyre warned people against getting ahead of themselves, despite the progress being made.

"We're still in the middle of a pandemic and it's actually worse today around the world than it was back in March or April," she said.

"So there's always a risk that infection can be reintroduced, and set off community transmission in Australia."

Professor MacIntyre said that the precautions people take in the immediate future will determine how severely an epidemic could grow.

"If people are being cautious, keeping their distance, wearing masks and generally being careful, then even if infection is introduced into the community, hopefully it won't take off as badly."

She said that a vaccine was probably likely in the first half of next year  but that supply and efficacy could be issues.

"You need a vaccine that's at least 70 to 80 per cent protective to be able to achieve herd immunity  However, if you've got a vaccine that's low efficacy, you can still achieve a good outcome if the vaccine reduces the severity of the disease."

She said that the drug Remdesivir was the "most promising" drug that scientists have looked into so far.

"The drug Remdesivir does have phase 3 clinical trials, which is the sort of ultimate evidence that we look for, which is showing protection in people, in human beings, from the effects of the disease  and that does show a modest benefit in terms of making the time to recovery faster," she said.
In this recent video from Vanity Fair, Lily Collins schools us in British slang. From tinkle on the blower to lurgy, Lily will leave you saying why aye after this episode of Slang School.

Catch Lily in her new show Emily in Paris now on Netflix.

See the full video here.
After methodically working to bring about political change with more than eight weeks of nonviolent protests, Belarusians woke up to find their fellow postelection demonstrators in Kyrgyzstan got what they wanted in just a few hours.

Kyrgyz outraged by the official parliamentary election results were quick to the draw in using a measure of force to get across the message that they believed the October 4 vote was rigged against the opposition, storming the parliament building and headquarters, ransacking the presidential office, and freeing figures they consider political prisoners within hours of the start of protests. Before long, electoral officials had annulled the results of the vote and announced plans for a repeat election, and the country's leadership was in hiding.

Contrast that to Belarus, where people took to the streets en masse on August 9 after it became apparent that Alyaksandr Lukashenka would be named the winner of yet another presidential election despite clear signs that the opposition had strong popular support. Two months later, in the face of unrelenting but peaceful protests, Lukashenka has vowed not to stand down, has secretly sworn himself back into office, and has used extreme force against demonstrators.

"In one day, they managed to change the political leadership in Kyrgyzstan," Paval Latushka, a member of the Belarusian opposition Coordination Council that is tasked with paving the way for a smooth transition from Lukashenka, told Current Time. "I think that many Belarusians look at this -- they are probably surprised by this and are thinking about it."

'60 Days, And What Do We Have?'

Many Belarusians have shown that they are indeed thinking about it, but while some may envy the Kyrgyz protesters' achievement, others are pointing to stark differences between the situation in the two countries and calling for a continuation on their current path of nonviolent resistance.

Writing on Telegram-based "courtyard chat" channels that have emerged as a means for people to anonymously discuss ongoing demonstrations against Lukashenka, some were clearly reconsidering the merits of their long-game approach.

One contributor on the "Minsk: What kind of people, what kind of town" group addressed the elephant in the room.

"Revolution in Belarus: CC [Coordination Council], [opposition leader Svyatlana] Tsikhanouskaya, the support of the West, Nexta, strikes, marches, flowers, cakes, and 'clever' intrigues. The result? [Government forces] continue to kill people, endless arguments, and 60 days have passed," the contributor wrote.

"The revolution in Kyrgyzstan?: the people came out and from the first day they beat the shit out of everyone," the contributor continued. "The result? six hours, the police don't understand what hit them, and the president hopes to hold out until morning."

'We Are Not Kyrgyzstan'

But others on the thread were undeterred. Some noted that presidents were driven from power in Kyrgyzstan by protests in 2005 and 2010.

"To anyone who harbors bright illusions about Kyrgyzstan. They have had their third revolution in 15 years. Experience teaches them nothing. We have a more ambitious process," wrote a contributor identified as VP, who said the Belarusian protests followed the course of tolerance and discourse set out by the liberal English philosopher John Locke. "We are on our way with Locke. Guys -- they'll write textbooks about us later. Long live Belarus!"

Nexta, the Poland-based opposition media outlet referred to in the chat, tweeted that there was "a small but crucial difference between the situation in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan." In Kyrgyzstan, Nexta wrote, President Sooronbai Jeenbekov "ordered the security forces not to open fire and not to shed blood."

There are other notable differences between the two former Soviet republics, including that ousting leaders in Kyrgyzstan is not exactly new; the Central Asian state features multiple opposition alternatives, whereas Belarus has been under Lukashenka's rule for nearly three decades; and the influence of ethnic tensions in Kyrgyzstan.

Latushka, a former diplomat and culture minister who has joined the opposition, addressed what he described as the two countries' unique characteristics in his video interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

He said he had seen social-media posts that said that "we, the Kyrgyz, are quick people." While stressing that he was not characterizing Kyrgyz as violent, he said that he would alter that phrase for his country to "we, the Belarusians, are peaceful people."

"We say to the authorities again and again: we will never get tired of this [peaceful protests]," Latushka said. "It is necessary to negotiate peacefully. The authorities have no legitimacy either in Belarus or outside of Belarus. It's a road to nowhere, a dead end."

With additional reporting by Current Time
A prayer vigil was held on Sunday evening for President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump by the Indian American community to wish them a speedy recovery. His supporters not only gathered outside the hospital but also showed support virtually from cities across the United States.

I would like to thank the people of our community who are there at the Walter Reed hospital, praying for our President Trump and the First Lady. Despite being diagnosed with COVID-19, our President and his supporters have done more than what Biden has done in 47 years, said Nisha Sharma, Congressional candidate from California District 11.

Also Read: Donald Trump learned a lot about Covid-19 by going to real school

The community members chanted mantras and echoed the sound of the conch shell or Shankha for the speedy recovery of President Trump and the First Lady.

Sentinels of Dharma, a Hindu American organization hosted the event. During the prayer meeting, Indian Americans also endorsed President Trump in his re-election bid and reached out to other community members all over the country to campaign in his favour.

President Trump could be released from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as soon as Monday, his medical team said in an update on Sunday to members of the White House press pool, as the president continues his treatment on dexamethasone and Remdesivir to fight coronavirus.

Dr. Sean Conley said Trump has experienced two episodes of transient drops in oxygen levels. From Thursday into Friday morning, Conley said Trump was doing well with mild symptoms and oxygen levels in the high 90s. By later Friday morning, the president had a high fever and his oxygen levels began dipping below 94 per cent.

President Trump was admitted to Walter Reed on Friday after he announced that he and the First Lady had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Dozens of people stood outside the hospital waving Trump 2020 flags and holding signs since President Trump was admitted. American flags and flowers were piling up on the sign outside the hospital facility. Trump thanked his supporters Sunday morning on Twitter.
Northern Ireland's Chief Medical Officer Michael McBride is not going to fall into the trap of open confrontation with the Executive

The decision of the coalition government in Dublin to go against the advice of its public health advisers and refuse to implement a Stage 5 level of restrictions across the Republic to suppress the rising tide of positive coronavirus cases throws into stark relief the different priorities of politicians and medical and scientific experts.

From a purely public health point of view, the advice given to the Irish Government was probably correct. The surge in cases across the island needs to be arrested as we enter the autumn/winter seasons, when Covid-19 would be joined by the normal hazards of flu and other respiratory conditions.

But politicians have to take a more holistic view of the health of the nation, which cannot be measured purely by a thermometer.

They must weigh up the impact of restrictions on the economy and on education. Will more restrictions mean more businesses going to the wall? No work or income is also injurious to health. Children have already lost valuable time in the classroom and no one wants to be responsible for creating a lost generation leaving school with few qualifications, if any, and missing out on acquiring the knowledge and skills they need for gainful employment.

Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkhar made it clear to Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan that health, while a priority, was not the only consideration that government had to examine.

But the tone of his deconstruction of the CMO's argument set what could be a dangerous precedent. As is already evident, a significant number of people are openly questioning not only the medical advice being given, but their politicians' wider decisions. The spat between the Irish Government and its medical advisers could leave the public even more confused. The longer we listen to advice from various sources the longer we - from the ill-informed to the best-educated - will be able to find holes, no matter how small.

Northern Ireland's Chief Medical Officer Michael McBride is not going to fall into the trap of open confrontation with the Executive.

He publicly stated yesterday that his role is to give advice. It is then up to ministers to feed that advice into the melting pot of other demands and come up with policies which, ideally, would protect the health of the population and also create some sort of normality in other sectors.

Ultimately, politicians know that if they get things badly wrong the electorate will have the final sanction on them at the polls.
A second set of human remains has been found by a crew recovering the body of a man who fell to his death while taking pictures at an Arizona park.

Orlando Serrano-Arzola, 25, from Phoenix, fell at around 9am on Sunday morning near an overlook at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona, according to NBC.

Jon Paxton, public information officer for the Coconino County Sheriffs Office, said that on Sunday morning, Mr Serrano-Arzola climbed on top of rocks near to the overlook in order to get a better view while taking photographs of the area.

Mr Paxton said that when he tried to climb back out, evidently he lost his footing or rock hold.

In a statement, the National Park Service (NPS) added that witnesses reported the victim was on top of the rim overlooking the Colorado River taking pictures when he fell approximately 100 feet and then slid approximately 150 feet further.

The victim suffered severe trauma and showed no signs of life after the fall.

The Glen Canyon National Recreation Area is part of both Utah and Arizona, and covers more than 1.25 million acres in the two states combined.

The 25-year-old fell at the overlook in Page, Arizona, which is more than 700 feet high at points, according to the New York Post.

The Coconino County Sheriffs Office also announced that a crew responding to the incident found another set of human remains at the base of the overlook, while recovering Mr Serrano-Arzolas body.

The authorities did not release any other information about the discovery, but confirmed that it is under investigation.
AIRTEL Tanzania in collaboration with WorldRemit, the global payments company have come together to enable Airtel Money customers send and receive money directly into their mobile money wallets from abroad.

This will contribute to deepening financial inclusion and further boost the economic and industrial agenda.

The Airtel Tanzania Director of Airtel Money services, Isack Nchuda said the partnership with WorldRemit will widen access to money transfer for recipients in urban and rural areas, as they can now receive international money transfers directly to their mobile wallets without the need for a bank account or internet connection.

"Our work with WorldRemit will hugely contribute to accomplish the telecom company's vision of providing unique, convenient and affordable products and services to our customers. The launch of this service between WorldRemit and Airtel Money is a testimony of our commitment to support the ongoing agenda of financial inclusion initiatives and breaking the divide between rural and urban communities," he said.

WorldRemit makes it easy to send money to Airtel accounts in Tanzania from more than 50 countries around the world.

Customers can download the app or create an account to start transferring money to family and friends in Tanzania today.

Airtel Money customers can receive money from over 50 countries worldwide, including a number of countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, Canada, Germany, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium.

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"Airtel Money is increasingly becoming an attractive and more inclusive operator in offering faster, convenient and safe cross border remittances. The service is affordable with the most competitive fees compared to other international money transfer corridors. Recipients in Tanzania from over 50 countries will receive their money instantly once the transaction is confirmed," he said.

Mobile money has already helped to reduce transaction costs, increase convenience and improve accessibility for individuals and businesses.

"We are delighted to be working with Airtel Tanzania to ensure that Tanzanians can have access to financial support from their family and friends abroad. The connection allows us to give customers even more remittance options whilst continuing to provide a convenient, safe and secure service," said Cynthia Ponera, Country Manager for Tanzania at WorldRemit.

Airtel Money Tanzania is currently connected to over 1000 companies, including utility service providers and is also integrated with over 40 financial institutions.
NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed House Bill 641, which has increased the limit on the number of postsecondary credit hours that a high school student may earn through Cambridge International's Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE) program. Previously, students could earn no more than 30 semester credit hours through the program. Now, students can earn up to 45 credit hours at Florida universities and colleges.

"The signing of House Bill 641 increases opportunities for Florida students to excel in college and career by earning more college credits while still in high school," said John Barnhill, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management. "The Cambridge curriculum challenges students with rigorous learning activities that allow students to develop critical thinking, research, and problem solving skills."

Cambridge International is part of the University of Cambridge, one of the world's top three universities. The Cambridge AICE Diploma is an international curriculum and examination system that emphasizes the value of broad and balanced study. Alongside in-depth understanding of a variety of subjects, students master a broader range of critical skills that will equip them for a world that is changing, both technologically and economically, at an unprecedented pace. The curriculum is designed to develop learners who are confident in working with information and ideas, equipped for new and future challenges, and engaged intellectually and socially.

"Providing our students with access to rigorous, internationally benchmarked coursework is of critical importance to the district," said Elena Cabrera, Executive Director of Secondary English Language Arts in Miami-Dade County Public Schools. "We applaud state policymakers for their continued efforts to increase opportunities for our students to get a jump start on earning college credit while still in high school."

The Cambridge AICE Diploma, an internationally recognized diploma comprising of Cambridge AS & A Level courses in four areas (math and science, languages, arts and humanities, and interdisciplinary subjects) was first awarded in 1999. Since then, the diploma program has become popular with schools across the world. It encompasses the 'gold standard' Cambridge International AS and A Level courses and examinations, and offers students the opportunity to tailor their studies to their individual interests, abilities and future plans within an international curriculum framework.

Each year, nearly 1 million students participate in Cambridge programs worldwide, making more than 1.75 million exam entries. Colleges and universities all over the U.S. and the world, including all members of the Ivy League, all Florida public higher education institutions, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Duke University, New York University, University of Washington, and University of Virginia accept Cambridge exams recognize Cambridge coursework and assessments, and provide credit and placement opportunities for students. Outside the U.S., Cambridge programs are offered at more than 10,000 schools in over 160 countries.

In Florida, students who take Cambridge courses are further eligible for the Bright Futures Scholarship. Students need to meet a minimum requirement on the SAT and for GPA of 3.5 to be eligible to earn the highest level of the Bright Futures Scholarship. Cambridge International's AICE Diploma is an alternative pathway to the full Bright Futures Scholarship without the SAT or GPA requirement.

About Cambridge Assessment International Education

Cambridge Assessment International Education prepares school students for life, helping them develop an informed curiosity and a lasting passion for learning. We are part of the University of Cambridge. Our Cambridge Pathway gives students a clear path for educational success from age 5 to 19. Schools can shape the curriculum around how they want students to learn  with a wide range of subjects and flexible ways to offer them. It helps students discover new abilities and a wider world, and gives them the skills they need for life, so they can achieve at school, university and work.

SOURCE Cambridge International
SANTA CLARA, Calif. and PARIS, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- 6WIND, a Leading high-performance networking software company, today announced that Marlink, the world's leading provider of Smart Network Solutions for remote locations, deployed 6WIND Turbo Router software as vRouters (virtual routers) to connect and route traffic across its global satellite network for their maritime and enterprise markets. The live deployment includes 6WIND's vRouters deployed in High Availability configurations across multiple Point of Presence (POP) locations.

High Performance vRouter Software Enables Network Virtualization

Marlink selected server and software router infrastructure to roll out a large scale data center virtualization solution. Its white box architecture includes HPE ProLiant servers with Intel Xeon CPUs and VMware ESXi hypervisors for virtual machines (VMs). For security, Marlink's servers handle more than 100k Access Control Lists (ACLs) that can be configured by their customers to allow traffic based on IP addresses and ports. These requirements pushed Marlink's servers to their limits, requiring additional hardware, or a more scalable software solution.

6WIND solved Marlink's performance challenge by dramatically increasing the routing performance with the same number of ACLs configured, all in software. Instead of adding additional hardware, Marlink deployed 6WIND's scalable vRouters in VMs on its existing servers while keeping its infrastructure and management in place. 6WIND's Turbo Router software scales from 1G to over 100G on Intel Xeon-based servers, giving Marlink the flexibility to manage and expand its POP locations according to traffic requirements using virtualization instead of expensive hardware.

"With 6WIND vRouter solution we can increase the performance and scalability of our Smart Network solutions, with limited impact on existing applications and infrastructure, and continuing to maintain transparency towards Marlink customers," commented Alain Bertrand, Chief Technology Officer, Marlink, "6WIND and vRouter are a good example of how Marlink is leveraging a large network of technology partners that deliver innovative advanced solutions that enable Marlink to go above and beyond for their customers"

"Marlink is a leader in providing Smart Network Solutions through large scale virtualized infrastructure," said Julien Dahan, CEO at 6WIND. "We are proud that 6WIND's vRouters software solutions helps Marlink to deliver mission-critical satellite connectivity through virtualization around the world."

6WIND's vRouter solutions include Turbo Router, Turbo IPsec and Turbo CG-NAT software package with license options according to capacity, tunnels and speed connection requirements.

About 6WIND

6WIND is a leading high-performance networking software company and the worldwide market leader for vRouter solutions. 6WIND software is deployed globally by Service Providers, Systems Integrators and Tier-1 OEMs, allowing customers to replace expensive hardware with software and virtualization for routing and security use cases. 6WIND has a global presence with Headquarters based in Paris, France and in Santa Clara, California. For more information visit: http://www.6wind.com

Company Contact:

Neelam Bahal

VP, Global Marketing for 6WIND

Phone: +44 7805090701

[email protected]

SOURCE 6WIND

Related Links

http://www.6wind.com


BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, has thrown its support behind a push for Australian energy giant AGL to bring forward the closure dates of its remaining coal-fired power stations.

AGL faced an investor revolt on Wednesday, as more than 20 per cent of the company's shareholders backed a resolution for the board to align the retirement of the Loy Yang A power plant in Victoria and its Bayswater station in New South Wales with a strategy to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

This would mean shutting Loy Yang A, the largest brown coal fired power plant in Victoria, at least 12 years before AGL's planned 2048 closure.

AGL plans to Victoria's Loy Yang A coal-fired power station until 2048. Credit:Justin McManus

While prominent local superannuation funds including Aware Super declined to support the motion, the $10 trillion BlackRock, which ranks as one of AGL's top shareholders, voted in favour of it.
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...
DES PLAINES, Ill., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), the insurance industry's association dedicated to predicting, preventing, and prosecuting insurance crime, and the AARP Fraud Watch Network are joining forces to combat insurance crime.

In a recent meeting, NICB President and CEO David Glawe and Director of AARP Fraud Watch Network Kathy Stokes discussed the need for a strong, collaborative relationship between the two organizations. Ultimately, it is the goal of both NICB and the AARP Fraud Watch Network to help protect people, and in particular the 50+ from insurance scams and fraud.

"We are working proactively to identify vulnerabilities and leverage opportunities to work with organizations like the AARP Fraud Watch Network," said NICB's President and CEO David Glawe. "We believe that by bolstering our intelligence and analysis capabilities and sharing information with our partners, we will be able to make significant progress in our fight to protect insurers and their policyholders from fraud and other insurance crime," added Glawe.

"Scammers steal billions of dollars every year from unsuspecting targets," said Kathy Stokes, AARP Director of Fraud Prevention Programs. "By joining forces, the AARP Fraud Watch Network will have the opportunity to leverage the deep expertise of NICB to fine tune our educational efforts on insurance scams and fraud."

Glawe joined NICB in June as its new President and CEO and has focused on ensuring the organization can better address the changing threats insurers and policyholders face from insurance crime, cyber threats, and emerging issues such as COVID-19. A key element to that effort is a laser-like focus on predictive analysis, which uses cutting-edge data analysis along with varied intelligence sources to identify large scale insurance fraud and crime rings before they become fully operational.

"NICB has pledged its full support and intelligence capabilities to the AARP Fraud Watch Network, and we appreciated the opportunity to further strengthen our relationship and look forward to working on campaigns to combat insurance fraud schemes and protect the American public," added Glawe.

REPORT FRAUD: Anyone with information concerning insurance fraud or vehicle theft can report it anonymously by calling toll-free 800.TEL.NICB (800.835.6422) or submitting a form on our website.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL INSURANCE CRIME BUREAU: Headquartered in Des Plaines, Ill., the NICB is the nation's leading not-for-profit organization exclusively dedicated to preventing, detecting and defeating insurance fraud and vehicle theft through data analytics, investigations, learning and development, government affairs and public affairs. The NICB is supported by more than 1,400 property and casualty insurance companies and self-insured organizations. NICB member companies wrote more than $526 billion in insurance premiums in 2019, or more than 82% of the nation's property-casualty insurance. That includes more than 95% ($241 billion) of the nation's personal auto insurance. To learn more visit www.nicb.org.

About AARP

AARP is the nation's largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering people 50 and older to choose how they live as they age. With a nationwide presence and nearly 38 million members, AARP strengthens communities and advocates for what matters most to families: health security, financial stability and personal fulfillment. AARP also produces the nation's largest circulation publications: AARP The Magazine and AARP Bulletin. To learn more, visit http://www.aarp.org or follow @AARP and @AARPadvocates on social media.

About AARP Fraud Watch Network

The AARP Fraud Watch Network launched in 2013 as a free resource for people of all ages. Consumers may sign up for "Watchdog Alert" emails that deliver information about scams, or call a free helpline at 877-908-3360 to report scams or get help from trained volunteers in the event someone falls victim to scammers' tactics. The Fraud Watch Network website provides information about fraud and scams, prevention tips from experts, an interactive scam-tracking map and access to AARP's hit podcast series, The Perfect Scam.

SOURCE National Insurance Crime Bureau

Related Links

https://www.nicb.org/


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Feeding America, the nations largest food-relief organization, is warning of a six billion to eight billion meal shortage over the next 12 months, which could leave millions of Americans hungry amid the pandemic.

The dire shortage comes as tens of millions of Americans have turned to local food banks for help amid the pandemic-triggered surge in unemployment and food insecurity.

Feeding America, which has a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks, said it faces a deficit of up to ten billion pounds of food between now and June 2021.

The organization estimates that the total need for charitable food over the next year will reach 17billion pounds - more than three times last years distribution.

Adding to the strain, not all food banks are seeing federal assistance and the number of donations and volunteers have dwindled.

Feeding America, the nations largest food-relief organization, warns of a six billion to eight billion meal shortage over the next 12 months. People line up to receive food at a food bank in Anaheim, California on July 14 above

Earlier this year the organization estimated as many as 54million people in the US could experience food insecurity due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thats a major jump from the 35.2million people who faced hunger last year.

The increased need for food aid is partly due to the surge in unemployment.

Seven months into the coronavirus crisis 2.4million people have reported being out of work for two weeks or more and nearly five million are approaching long-term joblessness, according to Labor Department statistics released Friday.

In September the nations unemployment rate hit 7.9 percent from 14.7 percent in April.

The US Census Bureaus most recent Household Pulse Survey between August 19 to August 31 found that about 10 percent of American adults, or 22.3millon people, reported they didnt have enough food to eat the past week.

Thats up from 18million recorded before March 13.

Food banks across the country have seen increased demand and long lines due to the pandemic as unemployment and food insecurity surged. A long line at a food bank in Muhlenberg Township, Pennsylvania pictured above

Greater Boston Food Bank president Catherine DAmato says things are getting dire.

'It used to be one million pounds out the door a week, now its two to 2.5 million pounds a week. Were doing more in a month that we did in a year 20 years ago. Food insecurity has gone from one in 13 people to one in eight in Eastern Massachusetts, even higher for families with children, DAmato said to the Washington Post.

The pandemic has also changed how food banks run.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, customers would walk into food banks and pick out their own items.

Now due to social distancing requirements the food bank switched to contactless handoffs of prefilled boxes.

The number of volunteers has also slumped due to the threat of the contagious virus.

DAmato says in a normal year the Great Boston Food Bank has 24,000 volunteers, about 460 a week. Now she gets between 100 to 150 volunteers a week.

Theres also been diminished donations from grocery stores as supermarkets cope with amped up demand and challenges in the supply chain.

Kate Fitzgerland, the chief operating officer of Feeding America, says the companys survey from September 15 to September 28 found that its food banks saw an average 56 percent spike in demand.

A Feeding America volunteer pictured unloading fruit onto trays on September 21

In August, Feeding America network food banks distributed an estimated 593 million meals, an increase of 64 percent from a typical pre-pandemic month.

Natural disasters including this summers hurricane season and wildfires have only increased the need for food.

'Many food banks are still experiencing lags because of Hurricane Laura or the California wildfires, which requires us to procure even more food to get resources to those particularly strained areas,' she said.

While there are some government aid programs to help hungry communities, some say it's not enough.

The Pandemic EBT program, a debit-card benefit for households with kids who have temporarily lost access to free or reduced-price school meals, was extended to the end of September 2021 under a resolution Donald Trump signed into law last week.

That program helps some five million schoolchildren who live in a household that cant afford enough food.

A Kelly Center for Hunger Relief volunteer sorts through food for distribution as residents in vehicles wait in line at a church in El Paso, Texas on July 17

SNAP, the food assistance program formerly known as food stamps, saw six million more participants in May and June compared to February, according to Joseph Llobrera, director of research for food assistance policy for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

The US Agriculture Department allowed states to issue emergency supplements to SNAP to allow all households up to the maximum benefit due to the pandemics economic turmoil through September 2021.

However, no extra help was given to the nearly 40 percent of households who already receive SNAPs maximum benefit.

In total 16million low income people, including 7million children, got no additional assistance, CBPP economists say.

Advocates including leaders at Feeding America have pushed for a 15 percent increase in SNAP benefits.

On Tuesday Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that more than 100million food boxes were distributed to food banks through the Farmers to Families Food Box Program

Megan Sandel, co-director of the Grow Clinic for Children at Boston Medical Center, said that shes seen low-income parents who usually make ends meet are running out of food by the middle of the month.

'Now they are running out of their food budget the second or third week of the month. Parents are going back into the kitchen at mealtime so kids wont notice that parents arent eating themselves,' Sandel said.

On Tuesday Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that more than 100million food boxes were distributed to food banks through the Farmers to Families Food Box Program.

However, some zip codes are seeing federal help and others no help at all.

'In the first phase, we saw areas that didnt get any. In the second phase, there was better coverage, but it still varied dramatically by region,' Fitzgerald said.
Alstom has appointed Mama Sougoufara as its new managing director for Middle East cluster. He was earlier the VP - System and Infrastructure - for Africa, Middle East and Central Asia (Ameca) as well as Managing Director of Near East Cluster.

Sougoufara joined Alstom in 2008 and held various management roles in Alstom Transport.

He worked in the Departments of Rolling Stock Engineering and served in several global sites such as La Rochelle and Reichshoffen in France, Savigliano in Italy, Lapa in Brazil, and TrTrans JV in Russia.

In 2015, after three years in Alstom Thermal Power as Sector Quality VP, Sougoufara returned to Alstom Transport in the AMECA region as the System and Infrastructure Engineering Director.

Welcoming the appointment, Muslum Yakisan, Senior VP for Ameca region, said: "With his extensive global expertise in engineering, innovation and management, Sougoufara will continue to be an invaluable addition to our team in the Ameca region, as we are expanding our geographical presence and industrial footprint in the region."

"He has played a pivotal role in the execution and delivery of many significant mobility projects in the Middle East including Dubai Metro Route 2020, Riyadh Metro among many others. I look forward to working closely with him to support the region's innovative and sustainable mobility needs," he added.

Alstom is a dedicated and long-standing partner of the regions transportation and mobility development. As well as delivering the Dubai tramway, the first fully integrated tramway system in the Middle East and the worlds first 100% catenary-free line, which was opened in November 2014, the company has been tasked with the maintenance of Dubai Tram for a period of 13 years.

The Alstom-led Consortium, ExpoLink, is also responsible for delivering the worlds fastest-built turnkey driverless metro project, Dubai Route 2020 Metro, which was inaugurated this June.

In Saudi Arabia, Alstom, as part of FAST consortium, is supplying a fully integrated metro system for lines 4, 5 and 6, which includes 69 Metropolis-based Riyadh Metro trains, Urbalis signalling system, Hesop energy recovery station and tracks.

On his new role, Sougoufara said: "This is an exciting time for innovative and smart mobility, and I am thrilled to lead the Alstom team in the Middle East towards further growth and innovation."

"With our expanding presence and footprint in the region, and the execution and delivery of our prestigious projects in the GCC, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, Alstom in the Middle East is well placed to accompany our customers in their transportation and mobility development," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Romania imported pork worth 292.2 million euro, in the first six months of this year, an increase of 17 pct over the similar period of 2019, according to data centralized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR), transmitted on AGERPRES' request.

The quantity of pork brought to Romania in the first quarter of this year - fresh, refrigerated or frozen - was by 5 pct smaller than that imported in the first quarter of last year, namely 122,961.12 tons.

In the January - June 2019 period pork imports stood at 129,393.87 tons, worth 249.71 million euro.

Pork is the most consumed in Romania, ahead of poultry or beef, yet the internal production covers only 30 pct of consumption, the rest coming from imports, especially from trade within the European community.

Since July 31, 2017, Romania is facing the African swine flu, a disease that dramatically affects pig populations, even if it is not transmissible to humans, up to now 600,000 heads being sacrificed due to disease.

In Romania, the per capita pork consumption holds a share of nearly 50 pct (38.3 kg) of the total, being the most consumed meat, while second place is taken by poultry, with 27 kg per capita, according to the National Institute for Statistics.
Here is a current list of how expensive other countries are in comparison to Sweden. For those of you who consider a budget holiday in Scandinavia, this is good news. Sweden is as it is now 26% cheaper than Norway and a whopping 28% cheaper than Denmark.

Price levels in Sweden is at about the same level as Germany, and on a similar level as the UK, France and Australia. List is in Swedish but you can Google translate it.

Hard liquor/spirits may be an exception to this though, however.
Theres still time to get your first stimulus payment, even as the future of any new coronavirus aid package is question now that President Trump halted negotiations with Congressional Democrats on Tuesday.

If you dont normally file a tax return, you can still use the IRS' Non-Filers: Enter Info Here tool to register to get a payment. The IRS has extended the deadline to Nov. 21, giving people an extra five weeks to sign up.

The original deadline was Oct. 15.

We took this step to provide more time for those who have not yet received a payment to register to get their money, including those in low-income and underserved communities, IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a statement.

Last month, the agency sent letters to some 9 million Americans, including 216,145 who live in New Jersey, to alert people that they might qualify for a payment and they should use the online tool to register.

When you use the tool, you can direct the agency to send your payment through direct deposit by entering your bank information. If you dont, you will receive a check.

You can track the status of your payment two weeks after you register by using the IRS Get My Payment tool.

Time is running out for those who dont normally file a tax return to get their payments, Rettig said. Registration is quick and easy, and we urge everyone to share this information to reach as many people before the deadline.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com.
One day after his return to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he received millions of dollars worth of medical care for his COVID-19 infection at taxpayer expense, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he was breaking off talks on a new stimulus bill until after the November election.

In a series of tweets, he wrote: Nancy Pelosi is asking for $2.4 Trillion Dollars to bail out poorly run, high crime, Democrat States, money that is in no way related to COVID-19. We made a very generous offer of $1.6 Trillion Dollars and, as usual, she is not negotiating in good faith.

I am rejecting their request, and looking to the future of our Country. I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business.

A man looks at signs of a closed store due to COVID-19 in Niles, Ill. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Trump went on say that he had asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to focus full time on confirming his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, the far-right judge whose pre-election confirmation will virtually ensure that an eventual ruling on the election outcome will be favorable to Trump. Senate Republicans plan to hold a confirmation hearing for Barrett next Monday.

Trumps announcement is a savage attack on the working class under conditions of a worsening pandemic, a rising tide of permanent layoffson top what were already near-Depression levels of unemploymentsoaring hunger and tens of millions of looming evictions and home foreclosures.

The move is consistent with Trumps escalation of plans to carry out an election coup detat, refusing to recognize the results of the election if, as seems increasingly likely, they go against him, mobilizing his fascistic supporters inside and outside the police and military, and turning to a stacked Supreme Court to validate a stolen election and a de facto presidential dictatorship.

He is not basing his strategy on election polls, but rather on the drive by the most right-wing sections of the corporate-financial oligarchy to authoritarian rule.

In this civil war conspiracy, he is relying above all on his supine and complicit political opposition, the Democratic Party. The Democrats, the presidential campaign of Joe Biden and the media aligned with them seized on Trumps COVID-19 illness to wish him a speedy recovery and rapid return to his duties, which center on prosecuting his homicidal herd immunity policy in the pandemic, stoking military confrontations around the world, and plotting a coup to overturn the Constitution and violently crush mounting social opposition at home.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has been holding sporadic and desultory talks with Trumps treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin on a new stimulus bill, issued a lame response on Twitter to Trumps announcement, writing: President Trump has shown his true colors: walking away from coronavirus relief negotiations and refusing to give real help to poor children, the unemployed, and Americas hard working families.

In fact, the Democrats colluded with Trump and the Republicans to allow the expiration of the $600-a-week federal unemployment supplement on July 31, reducing the income of millions of workers by two-thirds or more. This followed their near-unanimous support for the CARES Act passed in March, which has provided some $6 trillion in handouts and virtually free credit to the Wall Street banks and major corporations. Unlimited cash infusions by the Fed have fueled a massive rise on the stock market, which has boosted the wealth of Americas billionaires by $845 billion during the pandemic.

In August, Trump enacted a temporary, six-week $300 boost in jobless pay by executive order, but that is rapidly running out. Meanwhile, last weeks Labor Department employment report showed that nearly 700,000 workers dropped out of the workforce in September.

Non-farm payrolls rose by just 661,000 jobs, less than half of the number in August and the fourth monthly decline since June. The number of workers considered permanently unemployed because there are no jobs for them to return to rose to 3.8 million. This is an increase of 2.5 million since February.

The ranks of long-term unemployed out of work for 27 weeks or more increased by 781,000 to 2.4 million. These workers have exhausted their 26-week limit on state unemployment benefits, and another five million laid-off workers will reach this limit over the next two months.

Just over the past several days, US corporations have announced more than 100,000 new layoffs. These include at least 40,000 airline jobs, 45,000 cinema jobs, 28,000 Disney resort and theme park jobs, along with 280,000 education jobs.

What is unfolding in the United Statesand around the worldis a social catastrophe that promises to exceed even the devastation of the years of the Great Depression. In the US, 10 million people have already lost their health insurance as a result of being laid off.

Food banks have seen the volume of food distribution soar by nearly 80 percent. A survey taken by the US Census Bureau in August found that 10.5 percent of adults, or 22.3 million people, said they could not afford to adequately feed their families, up from 18 million in March.

Bloomberg recently published a report on hunger in the United States that found that 50 million Americans, about one-sixth of the entire population, will struggle to afford enough to eat this year. This is up by 45 percent year-on-year.

The Washington Post published an article on September 30 based on Labor Department data showing that since mid-March, the lowest 25 percent of income earners have seen their wages decrease by as much as 30 percent, while the top 25 percent have seen their earnings remain the same or slightly increase. Meanwhile, ultra-wealthy pandemic profiteers such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have seen their wealth increase by 65 and 50 percent respectively .

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) imposed a moratorium on evictions until January 1, 2021. The CDC warned that as many as 30 to 40 million people could be at risk of eviction and warned that A wave of evictions on that scale would be unprecedented in modern times.

However, the order does not reduce rent payments, or cancel fees, penalties or interest. During the moratorium, rent and fees will accrue as usual, leaving renters with a massive bill in the new year.

Diane Yentel, CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told National Public Radio, While an eviction moratorium is an essential step, it is a half-measure that extends a financial cliff for renters to fall off of when the moratorium expires and back rent is owed.

In addition, millions of homeowners are facing the prospect of foreclosure. According to mortgage analytics firm Black Knight, 3.9 million households were not paying their mortgages as of late August.

These conditions are not the unavoidable result of a biological disaster. Rather, they are the result of a deliberate class policy being carried out by the ruling corporate-financial oligarchy, which controls both major political parties. Trump, along with the Republicans and Democrats in Congress, having been briefed on the virulent and deadly nature of the coronavirus in January, concealed the danger of the pandemic from the public for fear of spooking the financial markets.

After passing the CARES Act bailout, they moved rapidly to reopen the economy by forcing workers back into unsafe factories and workplaces, using mass layoffs and looming poverty as a bludgeon. This homicidal policy, which has fueled a new upsurge of infections and deaths, has been expanded with the drive to reopen the schools and colleges. For the ruling class, compelling workers to resume producing profits for the capitalist owners is dictated by the need to back up the vast expansion of government and corporate debt with real surplus value pumped out of the working class.

This is a bipartisan policy, spearheaded by Trump but implemented on the state and local levels by Democratic as well as Republican officials. The bitter conflicts between the two parties center on questions of imperialist foreign policy, with the Democrats demanding a more aggressive stance towards Russia and the Middle East. On the war on the working class, they are in basic agreement.

In last weeks presidential debate, Biden did not even raise the issue of mass unemployment or the cutoff of federal aid for laid-off workers, and he has made clear his support for the back-to-work and back-to-school drives.
Lifesaving cancer screening tests have plummeted in Australia during the coronavirus pandemic, fuelling fears of a surge in delayed diagnoses and avoidable deaths.

A stark new report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on the impact of the pandemic on national screening tests found there had been a worrying decline in screening for breast, bowel and cervical cancers.

Kerri Besanko, 43, has been on the public waiting list for breast reconstruction surgery since she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in October last year. Credit: Simon Schluter

It found just 1100 mammograms were performed nationally in April, compared to 70,000 the month before  a drop of 98 per cent in one month  as COVID-19 infections soared and restrictions to contain the virus were enforced.

There was a 30 per cent drop in mammograms nationally from January to June, with about 344,000 tests conducted compared to around 489,000 in the same period two years prior.
A caretaker at one of the country's most prestigious public schools was today jailed for eight years after he was caught cutting tens of thousands of pounds worth of cocaine for an organised crime gang from his house inside the grounds.

Justin Terry, 45, mixed cocaine with chemicals before pressing it inside his on-site lodge at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, and was found by police with two kilo (2.2lb) blocks of the drug along with 37,000 cash hidden underneath his bed.

Officers also found a hydraulic press, a metal pressing plate and a mould, along with chemicals and cutting agents which he used to prepare batches of cocaine before passing it on to two fellow gangsters, who were also jailed today for a total of 17 years.

Justin Terry (above) - a caretaker at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, in Elstree, Herts, was today jailed for eight years after he was caught cutting tens of thousands of pounds worth of cocaine for an organised crime gang from his house inside the grounds

Terry pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply cocaine between August 2019 and November 1 last year. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply amphetamine between the same dates Martin Walsh (left), 54, of Watford, admitted identical charges. Phillip Blackburne (right), 38, of Hemel Hempstead pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply cocaine and ketamine

Justin Terry, 45, mixed cocaine with chemicals before pressing it inside his on-site lodge at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School (pictured)

Haberdashers' Aske's was named Sunday Times Independent School of the Year in 2017 and counts Matt Lucas, David Baddiel, Sacha Baron Cohen and businessman Sir Martin Sorrell among its alumni.

By day Terry was a respected and hardworking member of staff at the school in Elstree, Hertfordshire.

But the caretaker had a darker side and when back at his house would follow a recipe the gang had prepared for preparing the drugs for their onward journeys.

Judge Philip Grey told the court: 'Had a pupil sneaked into that outbuilding the consequences could have been horrific.'

Terry pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply cocaine between August 2019 and November 1 last year. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply amphetamine between the same dates.

Martin Walsh, 54, of Watford, admitted identical charges.

Phillip Blackburne, 38, of Hemel Hempstead pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply cocaine and ketamine.

Police began honing in on the trio in August last year, when they began 'Operation Distant' to target gang members and disrupt their supply network

On October 31 last year Walsh was seen by the police team to drive a van from Hertfordshire to Birkenhead.

There he was observed delivering packages to various people before checking into a Travel Lodge near Liverpool.

Haberdashers' Aske's was named Sunday Times Independent School of the Year in 2017 and counts Matt Lucas, David Baddiel, Sacha Baron Cohen and businessman Sir Martin Sorrell among its alumni

That evening police raided his room and found two kilo blocks of pressed cocaine and 37,000 in cash hidden under bead.

The van he had driven had a secret hide inside for the storage of drugs.

That same day police raided Terry's home in the grounds of the school where they found a large amount of cocaine, a hydraulic press and chemicals and cutting agents and mixed bowls along with amphetamine.

Blackburne who was higher in the chain of command than Walsh and Terry was arrested in February of this year.

The court was told today the conspiracy that Terry was part of involved taking a one kilo block of high purity cocaine and skimming off 250 grams from it.

The remaining 750 grams would then be adulterated using cutting agents and chemicals which would bulk it back up to its original weight and it would then be pressed back into a block.

Then a small amount of the skimmed cocaine would be used to cover the block so that it could be passed off as being of a higher purity than it actually was.

The court was told those involved in the cutting process and re-pressing of the cocaine involved Terry and Walsh who had visited him at his home in the school grounds to prepare the cocaine.

Passing sentence Judge Grey jailed Terry for eight years; Walsh was jailed for seven years and 8 months and Blackburne was sentenced to 10 years and two months.

A proceeds of crime hearing against the three men will take place next year.
A woman who fled barefoot into bushland while her fiance was murdered in their campervan has lashed out at his killer in court.

Sean McKinnon, 33, was shot to death while sleeping in a rented campervan on New Zealand's North Island's west coast near Raglan with his fiancee, Bianca Buckley, 32.

The pair were ambushed in the middle of their holiday on August 16, 2019.

Before Miss Buckley escaped from her fiance's killer on foot he threatened to kill her too.

Sean McKinnon (right) had been travelling New Zealand in a campervan with his Canadian fiancee Bianca Buckley (left) when they were randomly attacked on on August 16, 2019

Mark Ronald Garson, 24, pleaded guilty to Mr McKinnon's murder after appearing at Hamilton High Court via audiovisual link on Wednesday.

He also admitted to threatening to kill his fiancee Ms Buckley during the random attack, reported Stuff.

Ms Buckley said no prison sentence will be adequate punishment for her fiance's death.

'I don't think I need to spell out the magnitude of the impact that murdering my future husband before my eyes and then threatening to kill me has had on the life of myself and our loved ones...' Ms Buckley said in a statement through victim advocate Ruth Money.

Mark Ronald Garson, 24, (pictured) was due to stand trial in November after pleading not guilty to murder and threatening to kill

'No punishment he ever receives will balance out his wrongdoing.

'I'm just glad he has finally stopped wasting everyone's time by pleading guilty.'

The victim's family will be flying over to New Zealand to attend the sentencing.



Garson was arrested and charged by New Zealand police on August 16, 2019 but there were lengthy delays to proceedings due to mental health concerns.

He was only deemed mentally fit to enter a plea in December, when he claimed he was not guilty.

Since admitting culpability on Wednesday he has been remanded in custody until his sentencing on December 9.

Ms Buckley said no prison sentence will be adequate punishment for her fiance's death (pictured together)

A supporter's cries rang out through the courtroom as the accused killer was led out of: 'Love you my, bro,' he said.

Garson's admission of guilt makes him subject to New Zealand's three strikes law.

If he is convicted of any violent offences he will be sentenced to prison without parole or early release.

He was due to stand trial in November until he entered a guilty plea on Wednesday.

Sean McKinnon, 33, and his partner Bianca Buckley were holidaying in Raglan, on New Zealand's rugged west coast, Police later found the campervan in Gordonton, 75-minutes from the scene of the shooting. Mr McKinnon's body was inside the vehicle.

The couple had been sleeping inside the campervan, which was parked in a remote car park in the small town when Garson forced his way inside.

McKinnon was shot several times.

Ms Buckley, a Canadian midwife, managed to flee to safety, sparking a search for the shooter.

Police later found the campervan in Gordonton, 75 minutes from the scene of the shooting. Mr McKinnon's body was inside the vehicle.
IMAGE: Shree Saini is Miss Washington World. She was Miss World America 2019 where she won 6 awards including 'beauty with a purpose' and people's choice winner. Shree now plans to compete for Miss World 2021. Photographs: Kind courtesy Shree Saini/Instagram

In October 2019, when Punjab-born Shree Saini made it to Miss World America, she was just a few hours away from winning it and possibly qualifying for Miss World 2020.

But Shree, a graduate of the University of Washington, who had already won 5 out of 6 awards in the contest, collapsed backstage right before the final night of competition.

The 23 year old, who was dressed in a blue evening gown, had to be immediately rushed to hospital for treatment.

While Shree was out of the competition, what most people didn't know at the time was that she was a multiple-trauma survivor -- she had a pacemaker installed at the age of 12 and is also a burns survivor.

Giving up was never an option for this young girl who has been a motivational speaker and a visiting student at Harvard, Stanford and Yale Universities.

Shree has been invited to address audiences about her life experience and messages of resilience and kindness in more than 8 countries and 30 states in the United States.

In the last few years, ahead of appearing for Miss World America, Shree volunteered with various charitable foundations to spread the message of 'beauty with a purpose' -- also the theme for Miss World, one of the world's oldest running beauty pageants.

In e-mail interview with Rediff.com's Divya Nair, Shree Saini tells us why she is back in the competition this year and how she plans to use the opportunity to encourage more people across the world to dream big, take a stand, do good and inspire positive change.

What inspired you to participate in Miss World?

I didn't dream of being a beauty queen.

I dreamed of making a huge impact through serving as Miss World.

This dream began when I was just 5 years old, when I first watched Miss World in my living room.

The contestant's ability to uplift an entire community through service projects really inspired me to start creating change in my own community.

When and how did you start preparing?

'Beauty with a purpose' is at the heart of Miss World and raises millions every year for many humanitarian projects across the globe.

Serving others and inspiring others is a responsibility for me.

It is our duty that we shine with enthusiasm and serve others with love. That is 'beauty with a purpose' for me!

This year, I continued to reach out to new non-profits and create opportunities to serve.

Did you take any professional training?

I don't believe professional training is required to compete in pageants. You just need to have a heart to serve, to give and uplift others.

I am a dancer and have been training in dance since I was a little girl.

Dance is an optional round of the competition.

IMAGE: When she was 12, cardiologists told Shree that she won't be able to dance given her heart condition. A trained ballerina, she ended up winning 'Best Talent' round for her dance performance at the Global Beauty Awards 2020.

How do you stay fit? What do you avoid eating?

Miss World is more about living a healthy lifestyle and less about being 'skinny.'

As a heart patient, and heart health advocate, I encourage people to find activities they enjoy and be physically active.

For food, I continue to eat clean food, find a balance with the sweets and strive to drink a gallon of water each day.

IMAGE: Recuperating in the hospital in October 2019.

How did your parents react when you told them that you want to participate in the pageant?

My parents have known about my Miss World dream since I was a little girl and have been supportive since Day One.

They instilled in me the values of sincerity, generosity, hard work, and being endlessly kind to everyone and always.

They have shown their support by attending my speaking events around America and the world.

In the last few years, I have had the honour to be invited to speak in many countries including Malaysia, India, South Africa, Guyana, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and more.

Why do you think you stood apart?

Some of Miss World America's technical eligibility requirements include:

Being ages 18 to 26

Be a US citizen

Have never been married

Never have given birth

However, the main criteria is being a person who cares about the community and wants to use the crown to create the biggest positive impact!

I believe my deep passion for service, my consistent hard work and the years of dedicated community work.

You've survived so many traumas and emerged a winner. What motivates you?

My ability to create a difference even when I was down kept me motivated.

Focusing on my purpose to help others helped me realise I can be of value, when dealing with my physical traumas of suffering burns or undergoing heart surgery.

What are some of the social issues that you care deeply about?

Heart health, anti-human trafficking, kindness and anti-bullying. I also care about providing basic human needs and equal respect/opportunity to each human being.

How are you staying motivated in the lockdown?

My passion for service motivates me. I LOVE finding new ways to give and brighten someone's day.

To stay organised, I keep a planner, write to-do lists, take random dance breaks, stay in touch with friends.

IMAGE: During the lockdown, Shree donated 300 homemade masks and food to military families in the US.

What will winning the pageant mean for you? How do you plan to make the most of the opportunity?

It would mean that no matter where you come from, what obstacles you face, no matter how you get treated, as long as you stay true to values of kindness, hard work, you can achieve a purposeful life.

A beauty queen who inspires you.

Every beauty queen is an inspiration in her own way.m Vanessa Ponce De Leon is one great human being. She was Miss World from Mexico.

She inspires me because of her kind heart.

Instead of waiting for others to approach her, she reaches out, starts conversations, and makes everyone feel like a 'somebody'.

She visited me in the hospital last year when I had collapsed backstage at the pageant.

Your message to aspirants who dream to a beauty queen.

Focus on creating beauty around you.

Focus on being kind in every conversation.
Almost a year after the fall of Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, the German reunification on October 3, 1990, marked the launch of Destination Germany to millions of international tourists, who are searching for new a travel destination with diverse nature and culture experiences.

After the unification, considerable public and private funds were injected to the tourist infrastructure throughout Germany, in addition to the investment of the Federal Government with approximately 40 billion euros in roads and railway connections.

Furthermore, national and international hospitality companies as well as independent entrepreneurs established a competitive hospitality and catering sector. Today, Germany has more than 50,000 accommodation facilities inclusive of camping providing more than 3.7 million guest beds throughout the country.

Furthermore, the medium size travel and tourism companies in Germany contributed to the German economy with 105 billion Euros (4%) and provided around three million jobs. In 2019, Germany was named again the second most popular travel destination for Europeans, - after Spain and ahead of Italy and France with 60.8 million trips.

Thirty years of German reunification impressively demonstrate how closely economic growth and location development contribute to tourism attractiveness, Petra Hedorfer, Chief Executive Office, German National Tourist Board (GNTB), said.

The German National Tourist Board (GNTB) promoted Destination Germany worldwide through a combination of cities and culture with the highlight of nature and recreation.

Today, Germany is the preferred cultural and city travel destination in Europe on a year-round basis, with 30 years of investment in lavishly restored sites of historical and cultural significance in the new Federal States, as well as new tourist attractions in the cities of the old Federal States.

Key attractions include Germanys 46 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, where one third of these sites are situated in the new Federal states.

In addition, Germany continues to gain attention as a nature and activity travel destination through its vast network of hiking trails which total more than 200,000 kilometres, and 70,000 kilometres of long-distance bike trails. More than 30% of the nature landscape in Germany are considered nature reserves and protected areas.

Nature and landscape remain to be among the TOP 4 decision criteria for international tourists, when choosing to travel to Destination Germany. Therefore, Germany has reached the second place a nature travel destination among the worldwide travel destinations of Europeans. Furthermore, Germany is considered in international business travel tourism, as the worlds number 1 trade fair location and as Europes leading conference and congress destination.

Petra Hedorfer commented: We now have to maintain this competitive position in incoming tourism with a coronavirus recovery strategy that builds on the strengths of the brand of Destination Germany and invites with high-quality offers.

SUSTAINABILITY

In order to expand the ingredients in the core of the brand and to build up future opportunities for Germany as a travel destination, the German national Tourist Board (GNTB) builds on the countrys balance between economy, ecology and social responsibility, which are at the heart of the sustainability initiative for marketing Germany as a travel destination.

This is demonstrated by strong positions such as fifth place in the 2020 Sustainable Development Goals Index (SDG), which tracks the sustainability successes of more than 190 countries in an international comparison. Four major German cities are also listed among the top 20 in Arcadis Sustainable Cities Index. In the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum, Germany has maintained the top positions in environmental aspects for several years.

CHALLENGE CORONA

In the spring of 2020, the outbreak of the Corona pandemic brought global travel to an abrupt standstill. In the 30th anniversary of the German reunification, German incoming tourism is also facing an unprecedented challenge. Here, analyses by Tourism Economics show that international overnight stays will decline by at least 51% compared to 2019, which is translated to 44.1 million overnight stays by international travellers similar to the year 2004.

According to the Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index (NBI) 2020, Germany is one of the top 20 countries, where travellers revealed they would feel most comfortable visiting Germany during the next five years Germany. Furthermore, the survey has confirmed Germanys leading position in crisis management and health system. -- Tradearabia News Service
The future of thousands of businesses depends on the outcome of a legal action by four pubs against FBD Insurance over its refusal to pay out compensation to policyholders during the Covid pandemic, the Commercial Court heard yesterday.

Dublin pubs Sinnotts, Lemon & Duke and The Leopardstown Inn, and Athlone-based Sean's Bar have begun their case against the insurer.

FBD is arguing it should not have to pay out as, in its view, the policy only covered local outbreaks of a disease and not a pandemic.

The insurer also believes it should not have to cover all losses related to Covid-19. FBD's position is that the closure of bars was not due to an outbreak of Covid on the premises or within 25 miles, but because of the "national situation".

In his opening statement, Michael Cush, senior counsel for the three Dublin bars, described FBD's reasoning as "plainly wrong".

"It makes no sense," he said.

Mr Cush highlighted how 1,100 bars and restaurants were insured with FBD and have policies identical to those involved in the case.

He said the outcome will have a significant impact on the future of those businesses and may be the difference in them remaining open or shutting forever.

Mr Cush cited how the decision will also influence cases involving other businesses and insurers.

During the hearing he referred to documents issued by FBD which stated businesses would be covered for disease and said there was nothing in the exclusion section of the policy to suggest otherwise.

"Their own document therefore runs entirely counter to the argument they are advancing to you in this court," Mr Cush said.

FBD's stance was implying that the "more widespread the peril", the less the onus was on them to provide cover, he added.

The plaintiffs also claim that FBD is in breach of contract.

Mr Justice Denis McDonald was asked to rule on the admissibility of evidence which relates to post-contract discussions contained in the witness statement of Stephen Cooney, co-owner of The Leopardstown Inn.

Declan McGrath, a senior barrister representing FBD, said such evidence wasn't relevant and would only end up lengthening the trial, which is expected to last 20 days.

"The type of evidence Mr Cush wants to introduce is 'X rings up Y in FBD and says is there cover under the policy and Y says well I think that there is'.

"How is that relevant? It is simply not admissible at all and doesn't point to business efficacy," he said.

Mr Justice McDonald asked to privately review the statement of Mr Cooney overnight before deciding whether the evidence should be allowed.

Mr Cush alluded to a recent High Court decision in the UK where it was ruled that the pandemic should result in payouts to holders of business interruption policies.

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) brought the case on behalf of policyholders across the country.

Counsel for the pubs in the FBD case referred to a 'features and benefits' document which provided a summary of the cover provided under the insurer's public house policy.

Disease is also mentioned in the consequential loss section of that document, Mr Cush added.

The hearing continues.
A Laois social enterprise charity formed to support farm accident survivors, has won an award that will help it expand and grow into the future.

Embrace FARM was founded by Laois farmer Brian Rohan (below), after his father Liam died in a farming accident.

The network now holds with support group meetings as well as being an advocate for those facing varied injuries following a farm accident.

It has won a place on Rethink Irelands Genesis Programme.

The Genesis Programme is an intensive two-day residential workshop that will focus on building the skills and knowledge needed to develop a sustainable social enterprise and be successful in future funding opportunities.

Today Rethink Ireland announces the 40 Awardees of their Social Enterprise Development Fund; 16 enterprises will receive cash grants and business support. A further 24 enterprises including Embrace FARM, will receive strategic support to help expand their impact through a Genesis Programme.

The Social Enterprise Development Fund is a 3.2 million Fund being delivered from 2018  2022. The fund was created by Rethink Ireland in partnership with Local Authorities Ireland and funded by IPB Insurance and the Department of Rural and Community Development through the Dormant Accounts Fund.

Minister of State with responsibility for Community Development and Charities at the Department of Rural and Community Development is Joe OBrien TD

Embrace FARM and all the recipients of funding and support from Rethink Ireland are doing vital work in their communities to promote social and economic wellbeing, and I wish to congratulate them on their achievements. Now, more than ever, we need innovative leaders to re-think the way we live and work at an individual, local and national level to create a fairer, more inclusive and sustainable society for everyone. These Awardees are excellent examples of the importance of social enterprises to Irish society and the economy.

The CEO of Rethink Ireland is Deirdre Mortell.

Social enterprises like Embrace FARM are at the forefront of achieving positive social change for communities across Ireland, using business skills and clever thinking to drive their social mission. Rethink Ireland was founded to support these organisations, and our Social Enterprise Development Fund will enable the Awardees to go from strength to strength in enhancing the economic and social wellbeing of their communities.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic we have all been reminded about the value of strong community and supporting one another. Therefore, the role Rethink Ireland plays in promoting community and social enterprise is now even more important. I would like to congratulate Laois Counselling Services on their success today.

John Mulholland is Chief Executive of Laois County Council.

We would like to extend our congratulations to Embrace FARM on their success in receiving a Social Enterprise Development Fund Award from Rethink Ireland.

The Covid-19 crisis has highlighted many challenges and opportunities for our local communities in recent months  at both a social and economic level. Social Enterprises can contribute an enormous amount to creating strong communities and to agile responses as our context continually changes. Thanks to Rethink Ireland and the Social Enterprise Development Fund, innovative organisations like Embrace FARM will continue to bring about positive social change, while also boosting the local economy by creating jobs," Mr Mulholland said.

Speaking on the ongoing partnership, George Jones, Chairman of IPB Insurance, commented "Supporting communities to achieve resilient and sustainable solutions to the problems they face has been part of our company's DNA since our founding. That's why we believe so strongly in the investment we are making through this fund, when you invest in a social enterprise you know that it's a sustainable investment that will be used wisely to reach all those in society who need their help."

Deirdre Mortell added: I look forward to seeing the Awardees continue to make a positive social impact. The calibre of the Awardees is reflective of the strong social enterprise spirit that exists in Ireland. I would like to thank all our partners in creating this fund who enable Rethink Ireland to provide our financial and strategic support to enterprises delivering positive social change. I would encourage more enterprises to apply for the fund next year.
YEREVAN, Armenia - The fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh continued Wednesday morning, with Armenian officials saying the territorys capital came under attack again and the European Union calling for cessation of hostilities.

Clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in the region since Sept. 27 has killed hundreds in the worst escalation of hostilities since 1994 when a truce ended a war that raged for several years. Nagorno-Karabakh lies inside Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia for more than a quarter-century.

Armenian Defence Ministry spokesman Artsrun Ovannisian said Wednesday that Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabkh, was being targeted once again by Azerbaijan along with other settlements. Nagorno-Karabakh officials said that non-military facilities in Stepanakert have been hit with missiles and drones.

Russian state RIA Novosti news agency reported Wednesday that some of the overnight shelling has hit peoples houses, causing significant damage.

Stepanakert has been under intense attacks in recent days. Local residents have been gathering in shelters to escape the violence.

Azerbaijan has rejected claims of targeting civilian infrastructure in Stepanakert. Hikmet Hajiyev, aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, said in an interview earlier this week that Azerbaijani forces only targeted military objects in and around Stepanakert, acknowledging, however, that some collateral damage was possible.

The fighting in the region  involving heavy artillery, warplanes and drones  has continued despite numerous international calls for a cease-fire. Both sides have accused each other of expanding the hostilities beyond Nagorno-Karabakh and of targeting civilians.

The EU expressed concern Wednesday about the flare-up of violence.

We have seen extremely worrying reports of attacks on populated areas which is taking a deadly toll on civilians. We strongly urge the sides to fully observe their international obligations to protect civilian populations, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told members of the European Parliament.

Borrell told the lawmakers that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has no observers on the ground and so the EU cant rely on much of the information being spread about the way the conflict is developing.

What we observe is an increasing amount of disinformation which is aimed at mobilizing domestic audiences in both countries and could be used to pull regional actors into the conflict, he said. Media reports need therefore to be examined with great precaution.

Borrell said that he had discussed the conflict with the foreign ministers of both countries, and with those of Russia and Turkey, the main regional players closest to the conflict. Turkey has publicly backed Azerbaijan in the conflict and said it was ready to provide military assistance, should Azerbaijan request it.

Russia is Armenias main ally and sponsor and has a military base there. It also co-chairs the Minsk Group under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, set up to mediate the conflict. Moscow has repeatedly called for a cease-fire and peace talks.

It is important that regional actors refrain from any activity or rhetoric that could inflame things even further, Borrell said.

___

Associated Press writers Daria Litvinova in Moscow, and Lorne Cook in Brussels, contributed to this report.
Dr. Conley said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump was experiencing no symptoms of the disease and doing extremely well, though he himself cautioned on Monday that the president was not out of the woods and that we will all take that final deep sigh of relief if he still feels well next Monday.

Far from having vanquished Covid-19, the outside doctors said, Mr. Trump is most likely still struggling with it and entering a pivotal phase  seven to 10 days after the onset of symptoms  in which he could rapidly take a turn for the worse. Hes 74, male and moderately obese, factors that put him at risk for severe disease.

I dont need to get in the presidents business, said Dr. Talmadge E. King Jr., a specialist in pulmonary critical care and the dean of the UCSF School of Medicine. However, he said, if their goal is for us to understand more completely what is going on, they have left a lot of very useful information off the table.

Several medical experts said that based on the incomplete information Mr. Trumps medical team had provided, the president appeared to have at least at some point experienced a severe form of Covid-19, with impairment of the lungs and a blood oxygen level below 94 percent, which is a cutoff for severe disease.

But again, Dr. Conley has not been fully forthcoming about Mr. Trumps oxygen levels. He said that the presidents blood oxygen had dipped to 93 percent on Saturday. He was evasive about an earlier episode of low oxygen on Friday, though. When a reporter asked if Mr. Trump was ever below 90 percent, Dr. Conley said that his oxygen level had never dropped to the low 80s, leaving open the possibility that it had fallen into the high 80s, which experts said would be troublingly low and a sign of very serious illness.
IT Carlow and Waterford Institute of Technology have been granted an additional 5.1 million in funding to allow them further their efforts in establishing the Technological University of the South East, local TD and WIT graduate, John Paul Phelan has confirmed.

The announcement is to be made over lunchtime today by Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris, and is part of 34.3m to higher education institutions to help them in their progression towards Technological University status.

The 34.3m fund is being allocated under the 2020 Higher Education Authority (HEA) call to assist the development and progression of technological universities. The Technological University of the South East will be allocated 4.4 million in the coming weeks with the final payment drawn down early next year.

The creation of the Technological University of the South East is more important than ever in the current climate. It will ensure our brightest and best students can study and live in the region and find work here into the future. Far too many leave this area for a university education, never to return," said Deputy Phelan.

The establishment of the TUSE is a key commitment within the Programme for Government and will deliver significant advantages to local and national priorities in relation to Higher Education access, research-informed teaching and learning, as well as supporting enterprise and regional development.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill.  Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday announced proposals to end cash bail, change theft and drug-crime sentencing to give criminals opportunities to escape addiction and creating more rehabilitation options to reduce long sentences.

The ideas are among seven guiding principles the Democrat unveiled for negotiations with the General Assembly over criminal justice reform, an initiative announced in January and spearheaded by Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and pushed forward for decades by the Legislative Black Caucus.

We spend billions of dollars a year keeping too many people in an overcrowded prison system that has proven itself too expensive, too punitive and wholly ineffective at keeping Illinois families safe, Pritzker said in a statement.

Among the ideas:

 Eliminating the use of cash bail that often disrupts low-income families and limit detention to public-safety risks.

 Limit incarceration for non-violent drug-related offenses and offer offenders needed public health services and reduce recidivism by increasing access to housing and health care.

 Replace lengthy prison sentences by increase sentence credit and supervise release and limit penalty enhancements that trap low-income families and minorities in generational cycles of incarceration.

 Increase accountability for police agencies by such action as creating statewide standards and reducing red tape for civilians to lodge complaints; strengthen statewide standards for police use of force and ease interactions with police by decriminalizing some nonviolent offense, improving crowd control and more.

Many of the policies that Democrats believe need to be changed are racist because Black and brown people are the ones most affected.

We will only see true, meaningful change within our criminal justice system when we as state leaders work together to eliminate the racism that has plagued it for centuries, said Sen. Elgie Sims, a Chicago Democrat, who thanked Pritzker for supporting the Black Caucus in its efforts to bring justice and fairness to Black communities throughout the state.

The General Assembly is scheduled to return for its six-day fall session on Nov. 17.
The US Justice Department has announced that two alleged Islamic State militants could face a lifetime in prison after they were served an eight-count indictment over the torture and beheadings of four American citizens.

Former British citizens Alexanda Kotey, 36, and El Shafee Elsheikh, 32, were allegedly half of an Isis cell nicknamed the Beatles because of their British accents. The cell is accused of jailing western citizens and playing a role in their torture and beheading.

The Justice Department announced on Wednesday the transfer of Mr Kotey and Mr Elsheikh to the US so they could be prosecuted in an American court for their alleged abuse and murder of American citizens.

They are expected to appear in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, later on Wednesday.

An eight-count indictment against the pair includes charges of conspiracy to commit hostage-taking that resulted in death, four counts of hostage-taking resulting in death, and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists resulting in death.

Mr Kotey and Mr Elsheikh allegedly worked as guards and interpreters in the Isis cell, and their work included mentally and physically abusing four American citizens: James Foley, Kayla Mueller, Steven Sotloff, and Peter Kassig.

These men will now be brought before a United States court to face justice for the depraved acts alleged against them in the indictment, US assistant attorney general John Demers said during a press conference on Wednesday.

Mr Demers noted that the alleged ringleader of the Beatles, Mohammed Emwazi (known as Jihadi John), faced a different type of American resolve.

The US military killed Emwazi with a drone attack in Raqqa, Syria, in November 2015. His death was confirmed in January 2016.

Mr Demers said: If you harm an American, you will receive the same fate as these men  You will face American justice in an American courtroom with the prospect of many years in an American prison  You will be pursued until the end of the earth.

The fourth man allegedly in the Isis group is Aine Davis, who is currently imprisoned in Turkey on terrorism charges. His extradition to the US remains unlikely amid the deteriorating relationship between Turkey and the US.

Mr Kotey and Mr Elsheikh could face a lifetime in prison if found guilty.

These charges are the product of many years of hard work in pursuit of justice for our citizens slain by Isis, the US attorney general, William Barr, said in a statement. Although we cannot bring them back, we can and will seek justice for them, their families, and for all Americans.

The US confirmed that it would not pursue the death penalty for Mr Kotey and Mr Elsheikh, in an effort to work alongside the UK in prosecuting the two alleged terrorists.

The militants have been in US military custody since they were captured abroad in 2019. They grew up in Britain and had citizenship, but the British government withdrew their citizenship following the accusations against them.

The families of Foley, Mueller, Sotloff and Kassig welcomed the news of the charges against the two Beatles in a joint statement.

James, Peter, Kayla, and Steven were kidnapped, tortured, beaten, starved, and murdered by members of the Islamic State in Syria, the statement read. Now our families can pursue accountability for these crimes against our children in a US court.
The hypocrisy of Joe Biden's 2020 platform is sometimes even more infuriating than its substance.

He's chosen to run as an anti-police, empty-the-jails "social justice" warrior despite boasting for decades about how he wanted to "lock the SOBs up" and how he's been integral to "every major crime bill since 1976." He's also running as a "Made in America" nationalist despite having led the charge to flood America with cheap Chinese goods and admit the People's Republic into the World Trade Organization.

There are numerous other examples, but none is so galling as Biden promising to deny college students accused of sexual misconduct even the most basic due process rights. The kangaroo courts that he wants to mandate by law on college campuses would already have heard enough from his own sexual assault accuser, former staffer Tara Reade, to destroy his life. It's a good thing for Joe Biden that he's a 77-year-old politician  and therefore entitled to face his accusers and question their credibility  instead of a 19-year-old college student.

Earlier this year, Biden promised a "quick end" to a Title IX rule implemented by education secretary Betsy DeVos, claiming that it "gives colleges a green light to ignore sexual violence and strip survivors of their rights." In reality, it does no such thing. It does not provide college students accused of sexual harassment anywhere near the rights guaranteed to criminal defendants in the U.S. Constitution. It does not require alleged victims to come face-to-face with the people they accuse. It didn't even reach the standard that Democrats demanded for Biden when he himself was accused of sexual assault. It merely requires schools to set consistent standards, inform the accused of the evidence against them, and allow the accused to cross-examine the witnesses  through a third party if necessary  who are providing evidence against them.

In fact, the only reason Secretary DeVos had to issue those regulations affirming the barest minimum standard of due process rights  rights that still fall well short of what would be required in any criminal proceeding  is that the Obama-Biden administration wrote a letter in 2011 threatening colleges and universities with a total withdrawal of federal funding unless they deprived the accused of virtually all rights in sexual assault and harassment complaints.

Contrary to the pablum the Biden campaign has served up to appease campus feminists, Secretary DeVos was hardly the only person to notice that the Obama-Biden threat letter was outrageous and likely unconstitutional. Almost as soon as it went into effect, young men who had their reputations and academic careers destroyed in proceedings that wouldn't pass muster in traffic court started to sue.

In case after case, the federal courts tore so deeply into the policies the Obama-Biden administration demanded of colleges that they almost certainly could never be implemented legally in any public university, let alone serve as a prerequisite for funding by the Department of Education. In fact, one of the many decisions specifically citing the 2011 letter as possible evidence of unlawful discrimination was penned for a unanimous, all-woman panel by Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's latest nominee to serve on the Supreme Court.

Joe Biden himself should be glad about that. While he's no longer in college, he should be eager to see a woman on the Supreme Court who understands that, in America, everyone is entitled to know who is accusing him of what and to confront the evidence against him. Despite his intense need to pander to those who believe that a mere accusation should be enough to kick men out of colleges, take their scholarships, and make them unemployable, Joe Biden deserves the same due process as the rest of us.

Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) is a constitutional lawattorney and the senior legal adviser for the Trump 2020 campaign. She is the author of The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution.

Image: Kelly Kline via Flickr.
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The need for passage of the amendments is due to the fact that some beneficiaries of the social insurance packages have expressed the desire to participate in the fundraiser announced on September 27 for the needs of the country during martial law by transferring the funds provided for their social insurance packages. This is what Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia Ruben Sargsyan said during a discussion on the bill on making supplements to the Law on Fees for Public Servants Holding Public Service Positions and Persons in the second and final reading held as part of the special session of the National Assembly today.

Currently, the law clearly prescribes what those funds can be used for, but taking into consideration the situation that has been created, the deputy minister stated that these amendments will allow for expansion of the list and will allow citizens to gear funds from their social insurance packages towards funds and foundations, the activities of which are aimed at implementing projects for sustainable and harmonious development of Armenia.

According to the deputy minister, currently, the funds can only be donated to Hayastan All-Armenian Fund and the Servicemen Insurance Fund.
More than a year after the commissioning of three healthcare facilities in Gombe State, two of the centres are either unutilised, or lacking basic supplies.

In 2018, N300 million was budgeted by the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, (ATBU) under the supervision of the Ministry of Health for the construction of the facilities. The projects were nominated by Fatima Binta Bello, a former member of the House of Representatives for Kaltungo/Shongom Federal Constituency as her constituency projects.

A breakdown of the facilities, located at the Primary Health Care Centre (PHCC), Filiya, Shongom local government, shows that N100 million was budgeted for the construction of a modern mortuary, another N100 million for the construction of a tuberculosis unit, and another N100 million for the construction of a laboratory.

According to Mrs Bello, N210 million was released for the project, which is 70 per cent of the amount budgeted for the project.

But despite the funds released for the project, when PREMIUM TIMES visited the mortuary at the PHCC in Filiya, a predominantly Christian community, it was locked. A senior official of the hospital, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak with the media, said the mortuary was just an ordinary building, which lacked the basic equipment to function as a mortuary.

For the mortuary, fridges havent been provided yet. Therefore, the operation has not commenced. It is locked, the official said.

When this reporter asked to see inside the mortuary, the official said the keys were with a security guard who no longer works at the hospital.

The security man is with the key. And he is not around. He retired in May, so he returns in the evenings voluntarily. he added.

The district head of Filiya, Shuaibu Ibrahim, said the mortuary is needed in the community because of the large Christian population there.

Residents can keep their corpses at the mortuary before they prepare for burial. Even corpses that are on transit can be kept before being moved to Taraba. And for the corpses brought in, they can also be kept before burial, he said

He called on the contractors to supply the amenities yet to be provided at the centre.

Nobody was in sight at the tuberculosis unit when this reporter visited. The reporter was told that the staff of the unit had gone for a verification exercise. But this reporter also learnt that there was no patient on admission at the facility.

The head of the tuberculosis unit at the PHCC, Jemina Malum, in a telephone conversation, said the facility lacked basic amenities.

Well, there is an improvement. But there are no ceiling fans. We need ceiling fans and standing fans, she said.

Functioning Lab

When this reporter visited the laboratory, Hajara Ali, the official in charge of the laboratory, who took this reporter for an inspection, said there were four incubators, of which three are on standby, and two microscopes, with one on standby.

Before, if we want to do culture and sensitivity test, lab staff have to go to Kaltungo or Billiri to do it, he said.

There was no incubator. But now there are two. One on standby. A blood bank is also now in our laboratory.

Kish Ishaku, a senior official of the PHCC, told this reporter that the projects were commissioned in 2019 but some equipment were yet to be provided. He, however, said that some of the facilities were already being put to use.

Blaming the contractor for the state of the facility, he called on the government to trace the contractor and bring it back to complete the work.

Lawmaker reacts

When reached for comment, Mrs Bello referred this reporter to ATBU.

I think the best person to answer your questions is the contractor, right? Maybe you can talk to them or maybe you can get the contact of the ATBU CMD.

I dont have his contact and I never met him till that day (commissioning day). She said.

I asked the agency to award the project based on funds released to them by the federal government in order to avoid having uncompleted work from the contractor.

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However, she added that whatever happens, she is not aware.

This newspaper hand-delivered a letter requesting further details to the university but officials at the vice-chancellors office refused to collect it and requested that the letter be sent through the post. The letter was sent as they instructed but the university is yet to respond to our enquiries.

This investigation was done as part of the UDEME project.
Australian social media sensation Kurt Coleman has embraced his natural look in recent times.

And on Wednesday, the 22-year-old cringed as he looked back at old photos of himself, which he shared on Instagram Stories.

He posted a photo of himself from five years ago showing his taut and flawless visage, bold eyebrows and plump pout.

'I regret it heaps': Social media sensation Kurt Coleman cringed as he looked back at his 'fake' face after giving up fillers and embracing his natural look. Pictured left is Kurt five years ago, pictured right is Kurt in October 2020

In the caption, he wrote: '5 years ago I was fake as and full of filler,' along with a sad face emoticon.

The Instagram star shared a close-up of the same photo and lamented in the caption: 'I seriously can't believe my face was so fake. Wtf. I regret it heaps.'

Last week, Kurt shared a shirtless photo of himself proudly showing off his trim and toned physique and natural look.

What a difference five years makes! Kurt posted a photo of himself from five years ago showing his taut and flawless visage, bold eyebrows and plump pout. In the caption he wrote: '5 years ago I was fake as and full of fuller,' along with a sad face emoticon

He wrote in the caption: 'I love MY AMAZING body and face and who I am cause I DON'T care what anyone else thinks of it except how I feel about it.

'If you're a good person, then who cares what ANYONE thinks..?'

In September, Kurt also shared an Instagram post in which he declared he was 'glad' he 'got rid' of his 'duck lips'.

The Melbourne-based socialite wrote in the caption: 'I looked in the mirror one day and regretted it so much because I didn't even recognise myself.

Body positive: Last week, Kurt shared a shirtless photo of himself proudly showing off his trim and toned physique and natural look. He wrote in the caption: 'I love MY AMAZING body and face and who I am cause I DON'T care what anyone else thinks of it except how I feel about it'

'Something I learnt is what you look like naturally is the most unique thing ever.'

'It's crazy how the lip trend is still going and to everyone who does it, I think do what makes you happy - BUT I think everyone's natural lips and body look way more beautiful because no one can ever be you, just sayin',' he added.

Kurt first rose to fame in 2016 on social media as a teenager thanks to his very confident social media posts.

Claim to fame: Kurt first rose to fame in 2016 on social media as a teenager thanks to his very confident social media posts. He was also known for his over the top use of self-tanning product, lip fillers and Botox

He was also known for his over the top use of self-tanning product, lip fillers and Botox.

He made the move from his native Gold Coast to Melbourne in 2017, where he has dabbled in DJing at nightclubs.

He has since said goodbye to a dark complexion, and embraced a more natural look.
Whatever his faults, no one can accuse Boris Johnson of a lack of enthusiasm when it comes to eye-catching projects and targets.

We believe that in 10 years time, offshore wind will be powering every home in the country, with our target rising from 30 gigawatts to 40 gigawatts, the Prime Minister cried to the (virtual) Tory party conference yesterday (5 Oct).

Your kettle, your washing machine, your cooker, your heating, your plug-in electric vehicle: the whole lot of them will get their juice cleanly and without guilt from the breezes that blow around these islands.

It was certainly a seductive picture, even if I admit I was taken aback by Boriss triumphant declaration that Britain will become the Saudi Arabia of wind power. While I can understand the analogy, it seems odd to commit to renewable energy by invoking a country synonymous polluting fossil fuels (not to mention its appalling human rights record).

The Prime Minister pledged 160million to help upgrade ports and factories to ensure that 40 gigawatts of electricity comes from turbines in the sea by the end of the decade

Speaking as a committed environmentalist - who has spent time as the spokeswoman for the lobby group XR (also known as Extinction Rebellion), I applaud in principle the shift away from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources.

But yesterdays over-promised and unrealistic pledge to power every home in Britain with wind energy within a decade was, quite frankly, entirely typical of this Governments muddled thinking when it comes to futureproofing our energy supplies.

The sad truth is that Boriss crowd-pleasing soundbites cannot deliver what they promise.

For all the invocations of harnessing our gusty shores in some green revolution, the proclamations do not stand up to scrutiny.

Even if we cranked up wind power provision to the level the Prime Minister proposes (40 gigawatts), this amount would power only about half the homes in Britain - or 7 percent of the total national energy demand.

And that is only when the turbines are turning - a key point to which we will return shortly.

Data company Aurora Energy Research has calculated that to reach 40 gigawatts by 2030, one new wind turbine will have to be installed around Britain every weekday for the entirety of the 2020s - at a cost of some 50 billion in capital investment.

I do not oppose wind power altogether: it has an important part to play in meeting some of the worlds energy demands.

There is currently just under 10.5GW of wind in the seas around the UK, generating around 10 per cent of our electricity

Yet over time, like many environmentalists, I have come to realise that while renewable energy can and should be part of the mix, the idea that offshore windfarms can power huge parts of Britains national grid are simply not realistic.

Wind power is widely viewed as the safest, cleanest energy option - and its certainly safer and cleaner than gas, coal or oil.

The problem is that it nowhere near as reliable as they are. To put it in the crudest terms: for wind power to work, the wind needs to be blowing  and when that doesnt happen, as often occurs in Britain, you need to get your energy from elsewhere.

In this years summer heatwave, for example, the UK went from sourcing 20 per cent of its energy from wind to sourcing just four per cent, a gap we plugged with imported, polluting coal.

On one especially windless day in October 2015, Britains wind turbines produced almost no electricity at all. The Government was forced to resort to using diesel generators to provide back-up power to the national grid: hardly the green industrial revolution of which Boris now speaks in such boosterish terms.

Anyone can understand that a piece of coal is stored energy. Wind power must be harnessed by a turbine and fed into the grid - or lost forever.

Batteries, of course, are an option to store that electricity - but they are hugely expensive (one big enough to store Britains electricity for a single day would cost an estimated 300 billion) and themselves rely on polluting mining processes, rare minerals and, of course, they must eventually be disposed of safely, so are hardly green.

It is batteries, too, that make wind power increasingly expensive  unlike most technologies, which typically get cheaper over time. When building wind capacity into the grid its essential to include the cost of battery storage, which is currently multiples more expensive than the apparent cost of building wind turbines.

Many experts believe that a huge shift to wind power would see Britains energy bills soar.

We only need to look to the continent to see that a shift to wind power, whatever the fine intentions behind it, can cause new problems.

Germany has spent billions of euros building more than 30,000 wind turbines as part of its much-vaunted bid to cover 65 per cent of its electricity needs with wind by 2030.

All its nuclear power plants are to be closed by 2022 and its coal to be phased out entirely by 2038.

Frequently, however, on windless days, Germany has had to turn to high-emissions fossil fuels to make up shortfalls.

And there, as here, environmental campaigners are deeply concerned about on- and offshore turbines impact on wildlife, particularly bats and endangered birds.

Birds of prey - which look downwards as they hunt for food and often cant see directly in the front of them - are especially prone to be killed by turbines giant blades.

Wind power is widely viewed as the safest, cleanest energy option  and it's certainly safer and cleaner than gas, coal or oil

Meanwhile, a modern wind turbine is unlikely to last much longer than 20 years. Though much of its components can be re-sold or recycled, the blades are a challenge: most end up buried in giant landfill sites.

Altogether: not quite the cheap, clean, green answer to our problems that Boris seems to think it is.

So - given that it is paramount that we wean ourselves off polluting fossil fuels, what should the Government be doing?

The truth is that we have only one hope of safeguarding our future energy supply.

Only this summer the Government announced that it was investing 40 million to develop the next generation of nuclear energy technology in Britain.

Coupled with plans for two new nuclear power stations, Sizewell C in Suffolk and Hinkley Point in Somerset, this looked like positive news for pro-nuclear campaigners such as me.

Yet the plans have stalled - and were dealt another bitter blow last month with the news that Japanese company Hitachi has pulled out of its commitment to build new power stations on Anglesey and in South Gloucestershire, citing the impact of Covid-19. Thousands of new jobs will no longer be created as a result.

All this has severely hobbled the Governments famed target to hit net zero emissions by 2050.

In Britain, reliable energy stands on a precipice. Seventies-style energy caps and rations, something none of us want, are inevitable unless ministers urgently prioritise this vital issue.

Everyone wants a safer, cleaner world for their children  and, for that, Government needs to make bold decisions. The shift to wind might look like that - but to me it all too closely seems like hot air.
More than half a dozen people, including several doctors and a former nursing professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, have been charged by federal prosecutors with taking part in schemes that used overseas call centers, telemedicine companies and a network of physicians to submit fraudulent Medicare claims.

The new criminal charges stem from an earlier investigation into more than $1 billion in Medicare fraud, which the U.S. Attorney's Office in South Carolina dubbed "Operation Brace Yourself."

That previous probe looked into how medical equipment companies were partnering with overseas call centers to persuade Medicare recipients to order back, leg or wrist braces. They then used doctors and telemedicine companies to write prescriptions for those products without the physicians ever examining the patients or determining whether the braces were medically necessary.

More than 24 people were charged in that initial investigation, including Andrew Chmiel, a Mount Pleasant resident who owned several companies that prosecutors say profited off the scheme.

The newer cases, which were filed in federal court late last month, describe similar networks involving telemarketers, telemedicine companies and physicians, but this time the allegations went beyond medical braces. Some of the allegedly bogus prescriptions were for genetic testing.

Those who steal from federal health care programs are taking money from the pockets of taxpayers," Peter McCoy, the U.S. Attorney for South Carolina, said in a statement. "This is reprehensible."

Four of the defendants charged in South Carolina are or were medical providers in the state.

Three of them, Alyssa Degnan, Fatimah Jah and Jeffrey Hoffman, are licensed physicians. The other, Kathryn Van Ravenstein, is a licensed nurse practitioner with a doctorate who until recently was an assistant professor at MUSC's College of Nursing.

All four face similar charges. Prosecutors said they were paid to write prescriptions for Medicare recipients, often without "speaking to, examining, or following up with" those patients. The only information they went off of were documents provided by the telemedicine company they were doing business with, according to law enforcement authorities.

The prescriptions they signed contributed to more than $100 million in fraudulent charges to Medicare in South Carolina, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Hoffman and Van Ravenstein have signed plea agreements. The charges they intend to plead guilty to could carry up to five years in prison, another three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

A judge could also order them to pay restitution. Also, prosecutors could recommend lighter sentences as a result of them pleading guilty.

MUSC had no connection to the criminal allegations filed against Van Ravenstein. Heather Woolwine, a spokeswoman for MUSC, said the hospital and college "severed" their connections with her as a result of the charges and her guilty plea.

The Post and Courier attempted to contact Degnan, Jah, Hoffman and Van Ravenstein, either directly or through their attorneys.

Walt Cartin, who represents Degnan, said his client has fully cooperated with the prosecutors and assisted the government in their investigation into the telemedicine companies that took part in the alleged scheme.

Dr. Degnan approached the government and self-reported her conduct and her role in the charged offense before the government ever identified her as a target," Cartin said.

The others facing felony charges in South Carolina either owned or operated businesses that prosecutors said profited off the sales.

Prosecutors said David Tsui ran a company called Comfortland Medical Inc. that shipped wrist braces and other "durable medical equipment" that was eventually billed to Medicare.

Also, Jeff Charnock and Steve Lowell ran several other companies that operated in a similar fashion, billing Medicare for unnecessary prescriptions, the government alleged.

The Post and Courier also attempted to contact Tsui, Charnock and Lowell through their attorneys. Tsui and Lowell have already signed plea agreements, according to court records.

Bill Nettles, Lowell's defense attorney, said his client also cooperated.

"At a time when it seems passe to take accountability for your actions, Steve Lowell has taken responsibility and has done everything in his ability to make it right," said Nettles, who served as the U.S. Attorney in South Carolina from 2010 to 2015.
To the Editor,

Solar energy is critical to Illinois economic future and to fighting the climate crisis. But electric utility company Ameren Illinois, headquartered in Metro East, is trying to halt solar progress throughout its territory, which covers nearly all of central and southern Illinois.

Illinois communities need more solar and other clean energy, not less. Rooftop solar provides local jobs that cant be exported, and solar customers receive critical bill savings that help put clean energy within reach for more families and businesses.

But right now, Ameren is trying to end the program that allows for these bill savings. If there are no savings for going solar, solar energy and the energy freedom that comes with it will be out of reach for most Illinois families. And local solar jobs will receive an additional blow, on top of the harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As usual, low wealth families will be hardest hit. Illinois Solar for All, the state program that is meant to remove barriers to rooftop solar for low-income and Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) families, is in jeopardy if Ameren succeeds in ending this critical mechanism for monthly savings. If Ameren gets its way only ComEd customers in Chicago and Northern Illinois will get to benefit from this and other solar programs, and thats not fair.

The Illinois Commerce Commission needs to take immediate, decisive action to protect Illinois families and ensure that everyone has the opportunity to go solar. If Ameren wins the people lose.

Gregory Norris.

Alton
There's no question Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has guts.

But the uncompromising leader gave Melbourne's movers and shakers a real-time demonstration of his nerves of steel on Wednesday afternoon, when he arrived 17 minutes late for a high-powered Zoom briefing. It's unquestionable that the Premier has a lot on his plate, but it's not often that a room - sorry, Zoom call - full of billionaires and captains of industry, is left waiting.

A busy Premier departs his daily COVID-19 press briefing on Saturday. Credit:Simon Schluter

The Premier was scheduled to give a private briefing to more than 100 members of the Australian-Israel Chamber of Commerce, with a welcome delivered by Visy boss Anthony Pratt, Australias wealthiest man. The event was originally planned for July 1, but pandemic concerns got in the way. A make-up briefing for the group, which included Crown Resorts chief executive Ken Barton, media buyer Harold Mitchell, Seek chief executive Paul Bassatt, lawyer Mark Leibler and businessman Solomon Lew was then diarised for October 1. But was cancelled at an hours notice. Attendees were then told the Premier had set aside an hour for the briefing at 5pm on Wednesday. But at 5.16pm, they were still waiting.

At 5.17, the Premier made an appearance, warmly welcomed by Anthony Pratt. Others on the call included Amazon Australian chair Sir Gus Nossal, property investor Carol Schwartz, Mesoblast chief executive Silviu Itescu, Medibank chief executive Craig Drummond and La Trobe University vice-chancellor John Dewar.
Queen Maxima of the Netherlands cut a stylish figure as she attended the start of the Music Training Agreement in TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht, the Netherlands today.

The royal, 49, looked typically elegant in an all-rouge ensemble, which was comprised of a below-the-knee dress, floral embroidered coat and matching leather boots.

Proving her sartorial prowess, the mother-of-three, who donned a mask in keeping with guidelines put in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, accessorised with a complementary bag and statement snake-inspired earrings.

The Dutch Queen is an honorary president of More Music in the Classroom. In this agreement, the conservatories and teacher training colleges agree on a national collaboration for twelve years.

Queen Maxima of the Netherlands (pictured), 49, cut a stylish figure as she attended the start of the Music Training Agreement in TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht, the Netherlands today

The royal (pictured) looked typically elegant in an all-rouge ensemble, which was comprised of a below-the-knee dress, floral embroidered coat and matching leather boots

Following the event, the Queen unveiled a video projection on the facade of the building for the online campaign I AM FOR #moremusicintheclassroom.

The royal, who wore her blonde hair scraped back into a sleek ponytail, opted for a bold red lip to complement her outfit.

The royal's colourful appearance comes just days after she delighted fans with two bright outfits for several engagements in the Hague.

Queen Maxima first wore a hot pink dress to mark the start of Breast Cancer Awareness month at the World Forum.

The Dutch Queen (pictured), who put on a stylish display, is an honorary president of More Music in the Classroom

In this agreement, the conservatories and teacher training colleges agree on a national collaboration for twelve years. Pictured, Queen Maxima

Queen Maxima, who donned statement snake-inspired earrings, looked in high spirits as she arrived

Following the event, the Queen (pictured) unveiled a video projection on the facade of the building for the online campaign I AM FOR #moremusicintheclassroom

She then performed a quick outfit change into a stunning orange pleated gown with a matching head band, before heading to the anniversary of the Social and Economic Council.

It's been a busy few weeks for the royal, who delivered a speech at a UN General Assembly digital conference in late September.

The Dutch monarch delivered her speech from her office at Royal Palace Huis Ten Bosch in The Hague and donned a neutral but stylish ensemble as she addressed the members.

The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, and was set to take place in New York City.

But this year, on the historic 75th anniversary of the United Nations, the event took place online due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Madhya Pradesh by-polls: Police file FIR against Kamal Nath, 8 others for violating COVID-19 rules

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Bhopal, Oct 07: Madhya Pradesh Police has filed an FIR against former State Chief Minister Kamal Nath and eight others for violating coronavirus protocols during a public meeting in the state.

According to reports, the FIR has been registered under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code and Disaster Management Act.

Hathras case: Bengal's non-BJP leaders slam Uttar Pradesh MLA for his rape remark

The FIR was lodged on Tuesday at Bhander police station in Datia district of Madhya Pradesh. The FIR named Kamal Nath and eight others, based on a written complaint filed by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Arvind Mahor a day earlier.

A copy of the FIR said that district Congress chief Nahar Singh Yadav had earlier sought permission to hold a meeting at Mandi premises in Bhander on October 5. The permission was granted for a gathering of not more than 100 people while maintaining all COVID-19 protocols.

Hathras case: SIT gets 10 more days to submit investigation report

However, the FIR went on to say that footage from the poll meeting made it clear that the protocols were grossly violated.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

In the FIR copy it was mentioned that "it was evident that 2,000-2,500 persons were present as against permission of 100 persons allowed". The FIR added that it was in violation of COVID-19 safety guidelines and Section 144 of the CrPC.

It can be seen that the FIR comes ahead of the bypolls for 28 assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh. Voting will take place on November 3 and the results will be declared on November 10.

The by-polls for the seats will be held as they were vacant following the resignations of 24 Congress MLAs and the death of two legislators earlier. In March, 22 Congress MLAs resigned from the state assembly and made way for BJP's Shivraj Singh Chouhan to take over as chief minister.

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 10:04 [IST]
An agreement on EU4Resilient Regions is among the documents signed.

Ukraine and the European Union have signed a number of new agreements.

An official ceremony where the documents were signed as part of the Ukraine-EU summit was broadcast on the website of the European Commission's audiovisual service, according to an UNIAN correspondent.

Read alsoZelensky: European partners assure there's no threat to visa-free travel

In particular, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Olha Stefanishyna and EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi signed three agreements  on EU4Resilient Regions, on the mechanism for the development of civil society in Ukraine, as well as the Climate Package for a Sustainable Economy (CASE) in Ukraine.

Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Matti Maasikas said on Twitter that the EU4ResilientRegions program provides for the allocation of EUR 30 million, the Civil Society Facility for EUR 20 million, and the Climate Package for a Sustainable Economy for EUR 10 million.

In addition, three projects were signed between Ukraine and the European Investment Bank (EIB).

In particular, Minister of Development of Communities and Territories Oleksiy Chernyshov and Vice-President of the EIBTeresa Czerwinska signed a financial agreement under the Ukraine Public Buildings Energy Efficiency project.

Also, Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Vladyslav Kryklii and Vice-President of the EIB Lilyana Pavlova signed a guarantee agreement on the logistics networks, modernization and digitalization of the postal giant Ukrposhta.

Meanwhile, Ukrposhta CEO Ihor Smelyansky and Vice-President of the EIB Lilyana Pavlova signed a financial agreement on the logistics networks, modernization and digitalization of the postal giant Ukrposhta.

Read alsoBrussels hosting 22nd Ukraine-EU summit (Photos)

As UNIAN learnt from the press service of the President's Office, EU4Resilient Regions should help attract EU assistance to increase Ukraine's resilience, in particular to hybrid threats and destabilizing situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and Ukraine's capacity to establish peace.

In turn, the Civil Society Facility aims to help the EU to strengthen democracy in Ukraine.

The Climate Package for a Sustainable Economy (CASE) in Ukraine provides for the development and implementation of policies and measures that effectively support the transition to climate neutral, clean, resource efficient and safe energy supply and consumption; supporting climate change mitigation by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances; stimulating the transition to a clean and circular economy.

The goal of concluding the agreement on financing under the Ukraine Public Buildings Energy Efficiency project is to raise funds from the EIB to finance measures aimed at supporting the increased energy efficiency of public buildings in Ukraine. The total contribution of the EIB under the agreement is EUR 300 million.

The signing of the document "Logistics Network (Modernization and Digitalization of Ukrposhta)" is to ensure the purchase of sorting equipment (an automatic crossbelt sorting line with a capacity of 12,000 units per hour, a posisorter sorting line, two Oprisorter sorting lines, semi-automatic roller conveyors, gravity conveyors, IT servers and peripherals), the creation of three sorting facilities (in particular, the construction of a hub in Lviv), and 22 sorting depots in total (in particular, the construction of depots in six cities), introduction of automatic tracking of cargo movement. The total amount of funds for the implementation of the project, according to EIB experts, is EUR 30 million (excluding VAT).

A loan to be issued under the financial agreement entitled, "Logistics Network (Modernization and Digitization of Ukrposhta)" will let Ukrposhta modernize its logistics network by building three new sorting centers, 20 post offices, and the relevant IT infrastructure.
New York City Councilman Andy King was expelled from the council by a 48-2 vote over allegations of misconduct and harassment. (New York City Council)

New York City Councilman Andy King has been expelled from the council after a 48-2 vote.

It is likely the first time a city councilmember has ever been expelled from the New York City Council.

The council's Ethics Committee recommended Mr King's expulsion after holding a vote last week that required a two-thirds majority to approve.

Mr King was ousted on Monday over several allegations that he misbehaved in office and abused his position of power. Among the incidents at the heart of his removal are allegations that he harassed city council staff, that he skipped mandatory training and that he tried to arrange a $2,000 kickback for himself.

The council attempted to expel Mr King once before in 2019, but it lacked the votes.

Corey Johnson, the Council Speaker, said the vote was a "sad day for the New York City Council," and said that "drastic action is now our only option."

"This is not a decision to be made lightly, but Council Member King has given us no alternative," Mr Johnson said. "This is the third time this committee has had to discipline the Council Member, and yet he continues to show a blatant disregard for the rules and policies put in place to protect staff and the integrity of this body, including undermining the monitor who was imposed to try and correct his egregious behaviour."

Mr King claimed that he was targeted for political reasons and that his removal was unfair.

In his defence, he cited US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas  who was accused of misconduct by Anita Hill during his confirmation hearings  and called the vote to remove him a "high tech lynching orchestrated by my political enemies to satisfy their agenda".

"My heart is breaking right now. I went through the sensitivity training. I continue to fight for New Yorkers. I continue to fight for Bronxites," Mr King said. Its not fair what I have experienced right now. If no one has ever gotten expelled for not committing a crime, I ask us not to be the Council that does that."

Story continues

According to a 48-page report detailing Mr King's misconduct, the former city councilman maintained order in his office through fear and coercion. He allegedly retaliated against staff members who cooperated with investigators examining his conduct and made homophobic comments comparing gay people to paedophiles.

Mr King also was accused of organising a retreat in the Virgin Islands at the same time that his wife's daughter was having her wedding.

Read more

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Senator Kamala Harris; Vice President Mike Pence

Senator Kamala Harris; Vice President Mike Pence Credit - Stefani ReynoldsBloomberg/Getty Images; Al DragoBloomberg/Getty Images

Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris will take the stage tonight in a high-stakes debate that will be the first and only between them. Less than a month from Election Day, the face-off will unfold in the context of President Donald Trumps COVID-19 diagnosis, his experimental treatment, and his subsequent decisions to leave the hospital, risk the health of his staff, and play down the severity of a disease that has already left more than 210,000 Americans dead.

The debate is scheduled for 9 p.m. Eastern and will take place at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Pences presence on the debate stage has already been a source of controversy. The Vice President recently attended at least two events with people who were later diagnosed with COVID-19, then worked from home for a few days as more than a dozen White House associates tested positive. Pence has since tested negative at least twice, but even some members of his own party have argued that attending campaign events is an unnecessary risk, given Trumps uncertain health and the VPs status as next-in-command.

The Biden and Trump campaigns were reportedly arguing over stricter protocols as of Tuesday, the Washington Post reported. The two candidates are expected to stand several feet farther away from one another on the stage than originally planned, and were reportedly set to be separated by a wall of Plexiglass. But the Trump campaign was reportedly eschewing the need for such a screen. We dont have enough details on who is ill and who is not, says Colleen Kraft, associate chief medical officer at Emory University Hospital, in an email to TIME, but as long as the attendees are screened, or tested, and there is risk mitigation by spacing, this can proceed.

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Coronavirus is also likely to be a source of political conflict on stage. The Trump Administrations response to the pandemic has already been a political weak spot for the Presidents reelection effort. For months, a majority of Americans have disapproved of his Administrations handling of the pandemic, which Pence has played a major role in as head of the White Houses coronavirus task force. A series of recent scandals in the wake of the Presidents COVID-19 diagnosis  including the White Houses apparent lack of contact tracing and its dissembling over the Presidents heath  have kept the Administrations pandemic-related missteps in the news.

On the debate stage, Pence faces a series of uphill challenges. For one, he will likely be asked to portray the Administrations unpopular response to COVID-19 in the best possible light, while simultaneously deflecting blame for its many blunders. For another, he will be asked to project stability, seriousness, and continuity of leadership at a time when the sitting Presidents health is uncertain. Finally, audiences will be looking to the Vice President for both optimism and assurances that the Trump campaign, which has been trailing Biden by an average of about 9 points, remains viable.

The stakes for Pence are momentous, says Dan Eberhart, a Phoenix-based GOP donor, who framed the debate as the first presidential election debate of the 2024 cycle. Theres never been a vice presidential debate thats going to be as consequential as this one, with the Presidentjust released from the hospital suffering from COVID-19 while the sitting Vice President debates as his potential successor.

Eberhart says he was frustrated with Trumps debate performance last week because the President doubled down on appealing to his base, rather than attempting to reach out to persuadable voters. He says he hopes Pence will strike a more serious tone.

Meanwhile, the expectations are high for Harris, too. A former prosecutor, Harris has in the past excelled in high-pressure public-speaking settings. Perhaps her most memorable moment during the primary was in attacking former Vice President Joe Biden over his record on busing  questions that she later struggled to answer herself. In the Senate, her deft questioning of people like Attorney General Bill Barr and now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the Senate Judiciary Committee burnished her reputation in the chamber.

After Biden tapped her as his running mate in August, Harris has largely stayed out of the spotlight except for her speech at the Democratic National Convention. If the bar is for a running mate to do no harm, Harris just has to continue doing what she has been doing.

But as the first Black woman to be a vice presidential candidate, Harris is also more likely to face unfair standards because of her identity. One recent comparative media analysis commissioned by TIMES UP Now looked at coverage of Harris, Pence, and Senator Tim Kaine, the Democratic vice presidential pick in 2016, in the weeks surrounding the announcement of each of their additions to the presidential ticket. It found that about 25% of Harris coverage evoked racist or sexist tropes, and that coverage prioritized Harriss family background over her career. When sexist gender descriptors came up in coverage, the analysis found they were nearly exclusively derived from comments by President Trump. It also found that the Angry Black Woman trope was the most common racist trope employed, driven by Trumps characterizations of Harris.

As a result of these realities, experts suggest that Harris will have to perform more of a rhetorical balancing act than a white, male counterpart might. She is expected, for example, to have to maneuver more nimbly around the fact that Biden has cast himself as a transitional candidate, and may have to be careful in discussing the topic of the Presidents ongoing illness. It might make [Trump] a more sympathetic figure, but I think regardless of whether he had a COVID-19 diagnosis or not, there was likely to be some spin of her being too aggressive or that her questioning was problematic, said LaFleur Stephens-Dougan, assistant professor of politics at Princeton University. Damned if she does, damned if she doesnt.

Given the almost complete lack of substance in the first debate, some see an opportunity for Harris to refocus the conversation. Theres going to have to be some policy in this actual debate, whereas the presidential debate was truly just a nightmare, right? It didnt have rhyme or reason, says Jasmine Sessoms, CEO of She Can Win, an organization that focuses on electing women to positions of power. Sessoms says that Harris could bring up the pandemic response, health care and economic equality. Anytime youre on a national stage, debating the incumbent, the stakes are always higher, she says. I do believe that most people dont expect much from the debate.

Both campaigns are navigating quickly-shifting political ground. It wasnt so long ago that the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the leading story in American politics. Senate Republicans are planning to move forward with Judge Amy Coney Barrett as a replacement, which will soon make the Supreme Court the top story again.

Though voting is already underway in many places, there are about four weeks left until Nov. 3. Plenty of news cycles can squeeze onto that time frame.
Spains prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, on Wednesday presented a financial plan for the remainder of his term in office that goes beyond drafting a new budget. The Socialist Party (PSOE) set out a Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan for the Spanish Economy that will be sent to Brussels in two weeks.

The blueprint is a guide for the productive spending of the 140 billion that the European Unions coronavirus recovery fund is due to disburse to Spain. Sanchez, who heads a coalition government with junior partner Unidas Podemos, explained that investment will be focused in 2020, 2021 and 2022, which is precisely how long the government has in power before the next general election must be held, assuming polls arent called ahead of time.

The government has calculated that the enormous public investment that will be made, and the knock-on effect in the private sector, will create 800,000 jobs between now and 2022, and will also achieve a major modernization of the Spanish economy that will reduce the inequality gap with other European countries by two-thirds. Given the difficulties in negotiations with Brussels that could delay the arrival of the funds, Sanchez has announced that this years budget will include 27 billion of the 72 billion that is due to be spent from the fund between now and 2022. That will allow us to bring forward the plans, he said on Wednesday.

Before an audience of ambassadors, business figures and union representatives, but without members of the political opposition, Sanchez announced that the execution of the plan would be handled by the seat of power, La Moncloa, and will not  as the main opposition Popular Party (PP) had demanded  be managed by an independent office. But, he added, it will have co-governance mechanisms so that regional governments and local councils can participate, and execute a large number of the projects.

The prime minister took advantage of his appearance on Wednesday to convey a message of confidence in the country, and called on citizens to not get mired in the bitter political infighting that has characterized the handling of the coronavirus health crisis, but to instead embrace good politics.

Call for unity

Sanchez made a number of calls for political unity, but for now the plan has been put together in great secrecy within La Moncloa without it being conveyed to any opposition parties, regional governments or local councils.

This is the biggest challenge of our generation since the restoration of democracy, Sanchez said. We must tackle it with ambition and enthusiasm. We cannot afford any desertions, he added.

The major problem facing Spain right now is how to spend the funds quickly and efficiently so that the chosen projects can serve as productive investments to reactivate an economy that is in freefall due to the effects of the Covid-19 health crisis. The second wave of the pandemic is so far affecting Spain much worse than its European counterparts. In order to achieve this challenge, the prime minister announced that all of the necessary changes to the law will be made in order to streamline processes and avoid them being stalled by bureaucracy.

Based on four axes  environmental transition, social and territorial unity, digitalization and gender equality  the plan sets out a profound modernization of the country. The prime minister included some details of what it will involve, such as the rollout of 250,000 new electric vehicles over a year in order to reach five million by 2030. Whats more, 500,000 homes will be refurbished over a decade in order to make them more efficient. The 5G cellphone network will be developed so that it covers 75% of the population, while digital training will be offered to 2.5 million small and medium businesses (SMEs). And, the prime minister promised, 65,000 free daycare places will be created for children up to three years old in order to reduce the gender gap in the workplace.

There will be a commission that I will preside over myself and a working group in La Moncloa, Sanchez explained regarding the management of the plan. In the area of co-governance, the European Fund Conference will be reactivated and also the conference of [regional premiers]. There will be constant dialogue with companies. We need to drive private investment. And also there will be permanent dialogue with social agents, which has been so fruitful up to now. We will create high-level forums on science, digitalization, energy, water, mobility, industry, tourism, demographic challenges, culture and sports. And in terms of accountability, the Mixed Congressional and Senate Commission for the European Union will be used, he added.

The plan will be the greatest deployment of public funds in recent history, managed from La Moncloa but with the participation of the regions, local councils and the private sector. Its a huge task, one that has caused concerns in the government given the risk of not being able to disburse the funds in a timely and efficient manner. But it will constitute the major political program of the executive over the coming years, and as such, failure is not an option.

English version by Simon Hunter.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : The Congress on Wednesday released a list of 21 candidates for the first phase of the Assembly polls in Bihar. It is contesting the polls in alliance with the RJD and the Left parties including the CPI ML and the CPI.

The candidates in the first list include Subhanand Mukesh from Kahalgaon, Lalan Yadav from Sultanganj, Gajanand Shahi from Barabigha, Vishwanath Ram from Rajpur SC, Sumant Kumar from Tikari.

There is no minority candidate in the list while four scheduled caste candidates have been given tickets from Rajpur, Sikandra, Kutumba and Chenari.

Many leaders and workers have been upset with the process of ticket distribution and for the last two days workers have been protesting at the AICC office. Muslim leaders are also upset with less representation of the community.

The minority leaders are saying that in 2015 the party nominated 10 candidates in the 41 seats which it contested and now when it is contesting on 70 seats, minorities are being ignored.
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By STAN CHOE, DAMIAN J. TROISE and ALEX VEIGA

AP Business Writers

Stocks dropped on Wall Street Tuesday after President Donald Trump ordered a stop to negotiations with Democrats on a coronavirus economic stimulus bill until after the election.

The S&P 500 index slid 1.4% after having been up 0.7% prior to the president's announcement, which he made on twitter about an hour before the close of trading. The late-afternoon pullback erased most of the benchmark index's gains from a market rally a day earlier.





. . .
Ahead of Diwali, the festival of lights in India, the quality of light-emitting diodes (LED) lights imported from China will be under India's radar as the Centre has introduced new rules. In September, the Centre had made the random sampling of all imported LED and control gears for LED products mandatory.

According to a new notification issued by the Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), now all LED products being imported from other countries will be subjected to stringent quality tests.

India is the second-largest LED market globally by value, according to EESL, and the UJALA scheme may help avoid peak electricity demand of 9,428 megawatts.

As per the new import rules, the check on quality of products will be tightened and poor quality LEDs will be examined thoroughly. If the standards are not met, then the entire item will either be sent back or destroyed at the expense of the importer.

In this season of festivals, Chinese products are seen in every market but their quality is very poor. The cheaper products reach markets and then homes in equal abundance. But given the recent relations with China, this decision of the central government becomes very important. It will be impossible to authorize goods which do not meet the prescribed standards.

The government wants to discourage imports from China and the latest move is being seen as a step in that direction. Samples will be picked up for the specified items on a random basis from randomly selected consignments and will be sent to Bureau of Indian Standards-recognized laboratories for testing of defined safety parameters", under the Electronics and Information Technology Goods (Requirement of Compulsory Registration) Order, 2012, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a notification.

The Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS), which comes under the Ministry of Commerce, has ordered an inquiry into the LED products being imported from the country's major ports like Kandla, Paradip, Kochi, Mumbai.

The notification issued by the DGFT in this regard said--

-Any sample from the consignment or goods being imported will be selected in a random or irregular manner.

-Such samples will be sent to the Bureau of India Standards (BIS) Labs for testing, the investigation will be completed in 7 days

-It will be tested whether these LED products meet safety standards.

-Only the consignments of the samples which meet the criteria will get clearance from the Customs

-If the selected samples do not meet the criteria, they will be sent back or destroyed.

The governments latest move will make things difficult for China because rejection of its poor LED products will come as a big financial loss since India is a big market for electronic goods in Asia.

Modi Governments 'Commercial Strike' on China

1. To promote local manufacturing, in July, India banned the colour television being imported from China.

2. Sugar companies were also banned from participating in government procurement in view of national security concerns.

3. In April, India also changed the rules regarding its foreign direct investment (FDI)

4. The limits of India, which will require government approval before FDI investment.

5. India banned many Chinese apps including TikTok and PUBG
Councillors have rejected a development consortiums push for an urban-boundary expansion ahead of a citywide review of growth options.

The Upper West Side Landowner Group wanted to amend the citys official plan to allow for privately driven boundary expansion applications under recent provincial changes.

Im not on for pushing someone to the front of the line, Coun. Chad Collins said during Tuesdays planning committee meeting. They know theyre part of the review.

City planning staff expect to present a land-needs study in December. That work is related to a growth management study and municipal comprehensive review to wrap up in late 2021.

It will examine how and where to accommodate a spike in population to 820,000 people by 2051, including servicing and transportation demands.

Before provincial legislative changes in 2019, boundary expansions had to wait for municipal comprehensive reviews.

But the More Homes, More Choice Act allows developers to make pitches for boundary expansions of up to 40 hectares.

On Tuesday, John Corbett, an agent for the consortium aiming to build 2,500 residential units on Twenty Road West in Glanbrook, urged an update to the citys official plan to allow such applications.

He also asked for local changes to make his clients 158 hectares of mostly farmland just north of the airport employment district a candidate area for growth.

Its not sprawl, Corbett said, but rather infill with residential areas and the airport district hemming in the properties.

The goal is a shovel-ready project to help ease a housing supply crunch in Hamilton, he said, countering staffs position that theres enough land in the urban boundary to handle growth in coming years.

The long-planned project would also immediately generate $200 million in development charges and building permit fees, and a net gain of $35 million a year in tax revenue, he said.

This is a very significant economic benefit thats immediately available to the City of Hamilton.

The consortium includes Sullstar Twenty Limited (Starward Homes), Spallacci and Sons Limited, Oxford Road Developments, Lynmount Developments Inc., the Parente Group, Twenty Road Developments Inc. and Liv Communities.

Coun. Brenda Johnson, who represents Glanbrook, called the parcels in question a planning nightmare with development on all sides. But Johnson said she had to favour process over her opinion on the projects merits.

Councillors rejected the application but directed staff to confirm that the Twenty Road West lands and other eligible ones in Hamilton would be considered for future growth options under the review.

Joel Farber, a lawyer for the consortium, questioned whether his clients would receive equitable treatment since Elfrida, on Stoney Creek Mountain, is the citys preferred growth option.

It remains the subject of a municipal appeal before the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal after the province shot it down.

Land owners in Elfrida, meanwhile, urged councillors to dismiss the Twenty Road West consortiums request, calling it a piecemeal approach.

Premier Doug Fords government is to blame for actively and aggressively dismantling policies meant to curb urban sprawl, said Lynda Lukasik, executive director of Environment Hamilton.

But Lukasik also suggested the city hit the reset button on directing growth to Elfrida, the result of a flawed process that needs consideration through a climate lens.

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New Delhi, Oct 7 : It was a strenuous task for Delhi Police to track a cluster bus and arrest its driver who mowed down a man near Kashmiri Gate and fled from the spot on October 1. The deceased used to work as a clerk with a private company in Chandni Chowk.

The investigating team arrested the driver of the bus after scanning at least 200 CCTV footages and taking into account the statements of 350 commuters from the accident spot.

"Around 350 commuters were questioned; it became clear from the statements of a few commuters that the accident was committed by a cluster bus (Route No. 753). It was also disclosed that the bus driver fled from the spot with the bus by immediately taking a U-turn and sped up the wrong lane at around 11:15 pm on October 1," said DCP North, Anto Alphonse.

Based on the information, details of around 30 cluster buses which moved from Kashmere Gate on the night of October 1 were collected. GPS data and locations of all the connected buses were obtained and minutely examined by Delhi Police.

During analysis, it was found that one bus running on Route No. 753 was the only one which moved in the wrong direction. The driver of the bus was identified as Pardeep (45), a resident of Issapur village in the national capital.

"The team immediately conducted raids at the residence of the accused and apprehended him. On sustained interrogation, the accused admitted to his involvement in the accident. The offending bus has already been seized by the police," Alphonse said.

During interrogation, it was revealed that Pardeep has a long criminal record. He has been involved in 13 criminal cases, including for murder, attempt to murder, robbery, Arms Act, and fatal accidents registered at different police stations in Delhi and Haryana. These cases include three accident cases out of which two were fatal.
The Congress fielded Akhauri Onkar Nath from Gaya Town instead of Mohan Shrivastava, who is facing charges of rape. Sources said Shrivastava, after being cleared, was replaced following objections by some senior leaders

New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday released its first list of 21 candidates for the Bihar assembly elections.

The list was announced after the Congress Central Election Committee headed by party chief Sonia Gandhi cleared their names at a meeting held earlier this week.

The Congress has nominated Shubhanand Mukesh, the son of Congress Legislature Party leader in Bihar Sadanand Singh, for the Kahalgaon Assembly seat.

Congress party releases a list of 21 candidates for the first phase of upcoming #BiharElections2020. pic.twitter.com/Nk8vSsOFsB  ANI (@ANI) October 7, 2020

The Congress fielded Akhauri Onkar Nath from Gaya Town instead of Mohan Shrivastava, who is facing charges of rape.

Sources said Shrivastava's name was earlier cleared, but following objections by some senior leaders, he was dropped and replaced by another candidate.

Tomorrow is the last date for filing of nominations for the first phase of Bihar Assembly polls, which will be held on 28 October.

Bihar assembly elections will be held in three phases on 28 October, 3 and 7 November, while the results will be out on 10 November.

The Congress will be contesting on 70 seats as part of the RJD-led grand alliance in Bihar.
Hotel revenues have imploded across the country as a result of the Level 3 restrictions that have come into effect, limiting guests to staying within the county they live in over the next three weeks.

Over one million bednights will be lost as a result of Covid restrictions during this period compared to last year. This is having a disastrous impact on the ability of hotels to stay open, with many hotels now facing enormous uncertainty for the remainder of the year and having to decide on whether or not to close.

Hoteliers are calling for emergency intervention by the Government in the form of immediate additional supports directly targeting tourism and hospitality businesses.

Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) chief executive Tim Fenn states: There is very little difference between Levels 3 and 5 for hotels. Our industry is swimming against the tide and in desperate need of a life-line from the Government. From midnight, hotels and guesthouses will effectively be left with empty properties and next to no ability to generate revenues. This is nothing short of a disaster for our industry and the hundreds of thousands of jobs supported by tourism across the country. This must be recognised by the Government with substantial supports in the upcoming budget."

Mr Fenn says prior to Covid-19, tourism and hospitality supported the livelihoods of almost 270,000 people  one in ten jobs, with 70% of them located outside Dublin. "Some 100,000 of these jobs have been lost already and a further 100,000 are at risk. These jobs matter  not only to the people working within the industry but also to the wider economy, especially the many parts of regional Ireland where tourism is the only show in town," he says.

Mr Fenn says additional sector specific measures are urgently required around employment supports, local authority rates waivers, reduced tourism VAT and grants to help businesses survive until the industry can start up again. "The existing supports for the tourism industry are wholly inadequate given the restrictions. We call on the Government to adopt the Tourism Recovery Plan 2020-2023 prepared by the Tourism Recovery Taskforce, including their immediate priority recommendations," he says.

Tourism is proven to be an engine for economic recovery following the financial crisis and it can be again with the right Government supports. Hotels and guesthouses are a key component of its infrastructure. A failure to support the industry now will have ramifications for the future of Irelands tourism offering and for the economy that could take decades to remedy," Mr Fenn adds.
HALIFAX - Nova Scotias police watchdog has cleared two officers of wrongdoing following the arrest of a Black woman who was struck in the face by one officer and later alleged she was a victim of racial profiling.

The Serious Incident Response Team released a report Wednesday saying the arrest of Santina Rao in a Walmart on Jan. 15 did not involve the use of excessive force, even though she and one of the officers were injured.

Agency director Felix Cacchione issued a statement saying the watchdogs investigation found Rao was agitated when approached by a Halifax Regional Police officer, who was responding to a shoplifting complaint.

When Rao was questioned about the contents of her stroller, she became more upset, accused the officer of being racist and started yelling when a second officer arrived, the report says.

The teams investigation concluded both officers tried to de-escalate the situation before Rao was warned she could be arrested for causing a disturbance.

But the situation quickly deteriorated.

When Rao walked toward a store employee, the second officer grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the floor, the report says.

A cellphone video of the incident shows police wrestling Rao to the floor as she protests. She suffered a broken wrist and a concussion, which prompted the watchdogs investigation.

She resisted and scratched the officers face with her nails before being taken to the ground, Cacchiones statement says.

While on the ground, she scratched his face again, drawing blood and then struck him in the groin. The officer responded by striking her in the face.

The investigation concluded the officers actions were reasonable, given the aggressiveness of the suspect and the officers efforts to protect himself.

In July, the Crown dropped all charges against Rao, including disturbing the peace, resisting arrest and assaulting an officer.

At the time, Rao told a news conference she tried to show the officers receipts for products she had placed in the stroller, and she said she agreed to let them search her purse and the stroller.

Rao said she was in the toy aisle with her son  a toddler in a stroller  and her three-year-old daughter when she was approached by two officers, two Walmart employees and one mall security officer.

She said she was accused of shoplifting because she had placed $6.50 worth of produce in the bottom rack of the stroller, which she said is common for mothers who already have their hands full with excited children.

The 23-year-old mother of two said she planned to file a formal complaint against Halifax Regional Police and file civil actions against the police force and Walmart.

Raos lawyer, Gordon Allen, said the complaint under the Police Act and the lawsuits would look into broader issues, including bias and racial profiling.

Halifax Regional Police issued a statement Wednesday saying it was reviewing the watchdogs report. Police spokesman Const. John MacLeod confirmed the police force had started investigating Raos complaint.

We recognize that this incident has been the subject of significant public interest, but ... it is important to let due process unfold, MacLeod said. Building trust with communities we serve is a priority for HRP.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 7, 2020.

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The director of a new film about France's most famous brothel owner has claimed she was something of a feminist icon, despite being known for hating women and forcing 'her girls' to have plastic surgery before putting them to work.

Fernande Grudet, most commonly known as Madame Claude, was France's most prolific and high profile pimp in the 1960s and 1970s, connecting the rich and powerful with her prostitute.

Her extensive list of clients included President John F. Kennedy, Lord Mountbatten, Marlon Brando, former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, among countless others who would fork out a minimum of 10,000 franc a night (8,423).

French's newspaper Le Monde's weekend magazine M, Le Mag has published new portrait of the brothel owner ahead of a new film looking into the life of Madame Claude, who died in 2015 aged 92 in Nice.

French director Sylvie Verheyde, who is behind the films said that even her own mother looked to the famous brothel owner as an example of success, despite her reputation.

Fernande Grudet, pictured, most commonly known as Madame Claude, was France's most prolific and high profile pimp in the 1960s and 1970s. She would connect the rich and powerful with her prostitute

'My mother had left her hometown in Auvergne to go to Paris and for her, Madame Claude was a symbol of success,' she said.

'It's quite paradoxical to choose a pimp as an example, however there were not many women who were making it big time at the time.

'Madame climbed the social ladder in a stupefying manner, in a world that was ruled strictly by men,' she added.

The extensive dive into how the pimp found, hired and exploited her workers revealed that the Grudet 'despised' other women.

The pimp, who had undergo surgery herself, would force the women who wanted to work for her to go under the knife

She would force prostitutes to go through plastic surgeries before they started working for her to give the illusion that they were well-born women.

The women working for Madame Claude's network stood out from the others thanks to their luxurious wardrobe and beauty.

French journalist Elisabeth Antebi was one of two women who infiltrated the selection process to become one of Madame Claude's girls, called 'Claudettes' for an investigation in 1975.

She said : 'We were fit, rather clever, we were 5'5, slim, brunettes: it matched the criteria, we were accepted.'

The Claudettes all had to be tall, because it was Grudet's opinion that rich men preferred tall women, like they preferred mansions and big cars.

Madame Claude's Client List This is a non-exhaustive list of some of the famous clients Madame Claude claimed she procured women for during her career as a pimp Elie de Rothschild - Banking magnate Lord Mountbatten -Member of royal family John F. Kennedy - US President Marlon Brando - actor Muammar Gaddafi - Leader of Libya Moshe Dayan - Military Leader Rex Harrison - Actor Gianni Agnelli - Automobile magnate Aristotle Onassis - Shipping magnate Marc Chagall - Artist Sammy Davies Jr - musician Frank Sinatra - Singer She is believed to have procured women for countless French politics and other magnates throughout the 1960s and 1970s, until she was arrested in 1977 for tax fraud. Advertisement

It is also revealed that in order to work for Madame Claude, the girls had to go under the knife and tweak their appearance.

No girl escaped this requirement - it was the pimp's signature move, her way of 'marking' the women who worked for her, M le Mag explained.

Grudet herself changed her appearances, because she believed she was ugly.

French actress Francoise Fabian, who played Madame Claude in the 1975 eponymous movie about the pimp and met her several times described her as a 'cold' woman.

'She absolutely despised men and even more women. For her, the former were wallets and the latter were holes,' Fabian said.

The actress went on to say Madame Claude was 'terrifying,' and added she was 'proud and was an absolute mythomaniac.

Even Grudet's former lawyer, Francis Szpiner, described her as an antipathetic character.

'She was a rather cold person, who was all about sel-control and image, always dressed to the nines, he said.

'She had one a way to be independent and to hold power in a world ruled by men, but she was not a feminist at all, she was even very traditional,' he said.

He described her almost 'masculine character,' and added she had a very high opinion of herself, and that she treated the women who worked for her with 'severity'.

In the 1974 memoir, Grudet pretended to be part of the French aristocracy and to have been a member of the Resistance during WWII, but this was all disproved later.

In 1976, under President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who was not a fan of the service Grudet procured, she was pursue by French authorities for tax fraud.

This led her to flee to the US, where she continued to operate as a pimp and provided women for Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davies Jr.

She returned to France in 1986 and served a four-months jail sentence.

According to Le Mag, she died alone in 2015 in hospital in Nice and only six people attended her funeral.

Madame Claude procured women for JFK, Lord Mountbatten, Marlon Brando, Sinatro and Sammy Davies Jr. (undated picture)
UNHCR's Gillian Triggs warns COVID-19 severely testing refugee protection (UNHCR)

GENEVA  While the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly tested global commitment to protecting refugees and forcibly displaced people, it has also shown the value of including refugees in national responses and safety nets to the benefit of all, UNHCRs Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Gillian Triggs said today.

Many governments across the world closed their borders and restricted access to asylum in response to the spread of coronavirus, but the UN Refugee Agency has been clear throughout that it is possible to both protect against the pandemic and ensure access to fair and speedy asylum processes, Triggs told UNHCRs annual Executive Committee meeting in Geneva.

The pandemic has shown us the importance of working together, of shared responsibilities, and of the need to ensure that health and other social services meet the needs of us all, not just a few, Triggs said. The virus does not discriminate between legal status or nationality. Access to health services does not depend on citizenship or visa conditions.

These values of inclusion and solidarity with refugees and the forcibly displaced were enshrined in the Global Compact on Refugees, agreed by 181 governments in 2018. It was translated into concrete action in December last year at the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, where states, civil society, NGOs, refugees, businesses and other stakeholders came together and made 1,400 pledges to turn the Compacts vision into reality.

Just a few weeks laterthe spirit and optimism built upon the Compact and Forum were to be profoundly tested by the COVID-19 pandemic, Triggs said.

See also: UNHCR's Gillian Triggs warns COVID-19 severely testing refugee protection

The pandemic has thrown up a number of challenges and led to setbacks for refugee protection. At the height of the crisis, 168 countries fully or partially closed their borders, with around 90 making no exception for those seeking asylum. Some have pushed asylum seekers, including children, back to their countries of origin.

As the pandemic subsides  and it surely will in time  a priority continues to be to reinstate fully functioning asylum systems and access to territory for all asylum seekers. Measures restricting access to asylum must not be allowed to become entrenched under the guise of public health, the Assistant High Commissioner said.

Aside from the threats to health and access to asylum, the pandemic has also undermined the social and economic rights of refugees and the displaced. With the most vulnerable populations often depending on the informal economy, they were among the first to suffer the economic impacts of lockdown, losing their jobs and being evicted from their homes.

Meanwhile, Save the Children estimates that refugees  many of them girls  account for around 40 per cent of the 9.7 million children who may never return to school having dropped out during the pandemic, reversing years of progress in ensuring girls receive an education.

See also: Dont let COVID-19 pandemic derail refugee education

The pandemic has also drastically reduced the availability of lasting solutions to long-term displacement.

The number of vulnerable refugees being safely resettled to new countries has plummeted during the pandemic. For the first time ever, UNHCR together with the International Organization for Migration had to suspend departures, and overall resettlement numbers  which currently stand at less than 12,000 compared with 107,800 last year  are expected to be at a record low in 2020.

UNHCR colleagues are exploring every possibility to expand resettlement and other regular means of finding solutions, Triggs pledges.

The preferred option for most refugees is to return to their home country when conditions allow. For many protracted crises due to conflict  including Afghanistan, Syria and Myanmar  this has proved difficult as returns are still not safe. But the pandemic has also thrown up new barriers to voluntary repatriation.

In this time of COVID, some states have even been reluctant to receive back their own nationals despite the right of citizens to return to their country; a right that should be respected, Triggs said.

With fewer opportunities for resettlement and voluntary repatriation, there must be an increased focus on the inclusion of refugees in the life of their host countries, including their social services, education systems and employment markets.

"The future must be one of inclusion."

The inclusion of refugees in a host country, of course, means that they too  as hosts  must be supported by the international community, especially where returns of refugees are unsafe in protracted conflicts, she added.

Despite the many difficulties posed by the pandemic, aspects of the global response have offered evidence for optimism and revealed new tools and solutions in tackling future global challenges such as climate change.

COVID-19 has given us confidence in digital technologies. They have proved to be highly successful in promoting remote access to asylum systems and referral and counseling services, Triggs said. There will be no going back. At UNHCR we hope to develop these technologies, to scale them up and to provide wider coverage and more effective international protection.

Another lesson learned over these last few months is that we know the pandemic will affect all of us. We can no longer exclude people on the basis of their legal status, she concluded. The future must be one of inclusion and shared responsibility, where social and economic rightscan be enjoyed by all those forcibly displaced throughout the world.

To access a data visualization storymap showing the impact of the pandemic on refugees' rights, click here.
Donald Trump has signaled optimism after his return to the White House while dealing with an ongoing Covid-19 diagnosis. (Getty Images)

Donald Trump continues to do extremely well and reported no symptoms on Tuesday, his physician said in an internal White House memo shared with the press.

That report comes despite the president appearing breathless less than 24 hours earlier as he posed for photographs on his return to the White House on Monday after spending three nights at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

This morning the Presidents team of physicians met with him in the Residence, Sean Conley, the presidents personal physician from the US Navy, wrote in the memo.

He had a restful first night at home, and today he reports no symptoms. Vital signs and physical exam remain stable, with an ambulatory oxygen saturation level of 95-97%. Overall he continues to do extremely well. I will provide updates as we know more, Dr Conley wrote.

Dr Conley released the information about Mr Trumps condition with the express permission of the president, he wrote in the memo dated 6 October.

The physician has been circumspect about Mr Trumps illness since the announcement last week that he had caught Covid-19, much to the frustration of the White House press corps.

Dr Conley and the White House team have given a conflicting timeline of the presidents initial diagnosis, although they have said he began to feel unwell last Thursday. Mr Trump received his official diagnosis 72 hours ago, Dr Conley said on Saturday, meaning the president may have tested positive as early as Wednesday.

The presidents doctors and press shop has not said when Mr Trump last tested negative, leading observers to question whether they were really testing him as regularly and as diligently as they had been saying.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has criticised Mr Trumps decision to return to the White House on Monday after just three nights in hospital, condemning his maskless appearance on the Truman Balcony as macho and lacking in consideration of a virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans.

Story continues

Be patriotic, for God's sake, the the former vice president said during an NBC News town hall with Lester Holt, adding that anyone refusing to wear a mask was responsible for what happens to them.

Earlier on Monday, Mr Biden, a Roman Catholic, had said he was offering his continued prayers for Mr Trumps and First Lady Melania Trumps recoveries from their Covid-19 diagnoses.

But he also admonished the president to listen to the scientists and support masks to help stem the tide of coronavirus in the US.

I, like so many American families who are dealing with Covid-19, was glad to see the president speaking and recording videos over the weekend, Mr Biden said.

Now that he's busy tweeting campaign messages, I would ask him to do this: listen to the scientists. Support [wearing] masks. Support mandates nationwide. Require masks in every federal building facility and [in] interstate travel. Urge every governor to do the same. We know it saves lives, Mr Biden said.

Mr Trump, his campaign team, and several GOP lawmakers, however, have done largely the opposite, championing the president as an individual warrior for defeating a virus his own doctor has said is still in his system and could infect other people who are around him.

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! the president wrote on his Twitter account on Monday, despite the fact he was given multiple experimental treatments many Americans dont have access to and was being treated by a team of doctors in his own personal hospital wing.

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In an extraordinary move that will further intensify the political crisis swirling around President Rodrigo Dutertes government in Manila, the United States Congress will consider suspending funds for the Philippines police and armed forces.

The proposed Philippine Human Rights Act was introduced by Democratic Party congresswoman Susan Wild, co-sponsored by 25 other Democrats and backed by the AFL-CIO trade union bureaucracy. Wild introduced the bill on Wednesday, saying it was in response to the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, signed into law by the brutal regime of President Duterte in July. The law, she said, had been used to ramp up efforts targeting labor organizers, workers and political opponents. This law allows suspects to be detained by the police or military without charges for as long as 24 days and placed under surveillance for up to 90 days.

The US military presenting the Philippine Marine Corps with a weapons shipment in 2017 [Credit: US Embassy in the Philippines]

Coinciding with the introduction of the bill, Facebook announced on Wednesday that it was removing hundreds of pro-Duterte accounts based in China and the Philippines, some of them allegedly linked to the Philippine military and police.

Dutertes anti-terror law is extremely repressive and anti-democratic. It is part of the drive by governments around the world to strengthen the powers of the police, military and intelligence agencies in order to suppress rising working-class struggles against social inequality and war.

The Democrats, however, are indifferent to the many human rights abuses carried out by the Duterte regime. Wilds statement to Congress, which ended with the words, Let us make clear that the United States will not participate in the repression, let us stand with the people of the Philippines, was profoundly hypocritical.

John Kerry, former Democratic Secretary of State under President Barack Obama, met with Duterte following his election victory in 2016 and pledged $32 million in US funding for the Philippines police and death squads to carry out a murderous war on drugs. The Commission on Human Rights estimates that as many as 30,000 people, overwhelmingly poor and working class, have been killed in Dutertes reign of terror, which was also endorsed by President Trump.

Wilds proposal exploits the pretext of human rights in pursuit of the strategic aims of US imperialism. The Trump administration, with the bipartisan support of the Democrats, is ramping up its provocations and preparations for war against China, which is seen as the major obstacle to US domination over the Asia-Pacific region and the world economy. Washington can no longer tolerate the wavering of its former colony, the Philippines, which would be on the front lines of a war between the nuclear-armed powers.

The Duterte regime has engaged in an extremely fraught balancing act, seeking to maintain the US alliance while strengthening investment and trade relations with China, in particular to encourage the building of infrastructure in the countryside to benefit sections of Philippine industry.

Duterte has also withdrawn from some US military exercises and in February responded to US economic sanctions by threatening to pull out of the Visiting Forces Agreement which has allowed US troops to be stationed in the Philippines for the past two decades.

These moves raised the ire of sections of the Philippine elite who are intimately tied to Washington, including the top military brass. These forces are coalescing behind Vice President Leni Robredo in a growing movement to oust Duterte. Robredo, despite being part of Dutertes cabinet, is a political rival from the opposition Liberal Party.

From 2016 to 2019, the United States provided the Philippines with military assistance amounting to US$554 million, according to the Stratbase ADR Institute think tank. The US legislators threat to withdraw this money is calculated to either force Duterte to fully align against China or, failing that, to compel the military to oust him and install a more pliant pro-US regime led by Robredo.

Duterte, feeling the ground move from under him, sought to appease the US in his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. For the first time, he declared that the 2016 ruling by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) that the Philippines had sovereignty over areas of the South China Sea also claimed by China, was beyond compromise and beyond the reach of passing governments to dilute, diminish or abandon. We firmly reject attempts to undermine it.

The Obama administration had urged the Philippines to seek the PCA ruling as part of its efforts to justify US militarisation against so-called Chinese expansionism. Current US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly threatened to take firm action alongside other countries against Beijings unlawful claims in the South China Sea. For the past four years, however, Duterte had shelved the territorial dispute in the interests of securing investment and loans from China.

US and Philippines troops conduct a joint exercise [Source: Wikipedia]

Dutertes speech was denounced by pro-US opposition figures as four years too late. Senator Risa N. Hontiveros-Baraquel described it as lip service to the idea of sovereignty, telling a webinar: We must resume operations against the poaching in our Exclusive Economic Zone, escort and protect our fishing vessels, reinforce our presence and facilities on the features we occupy, join joint patrols with other nations in the West Philippine Sea.

Another opposition legislator, Manuel Cabochan III, a former Navy lieutenant, told the Manila Bulletin that Dutertes words had to be followed by action, including participation in naval exercises in the South China Sea. In a xenophobic tirade, Cabochan attacked illegal immigration and the employment of Chinese in our country and denounced Dutertes preference for Chinese-owned or -linked firms in government projects.

This elite opposition to Duterte is fully supported by the Stalinist Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). After enthusiastically backing Dutertes rise to power in 20152016, the CPP and its allied organisations are now playing a major role in channeling the widespread anger and hatred of workers and youth towards Duterte behind the rival, pro-US and anti-Chinese factions of the bourgeoisie, including the military.

In a statement yesterday the CPP applauded Wild and fellow Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for backing the legislative threat to withdraw military aid to the Philippines. They deserve the gratitude of the Filipinos who seek an end to the widespread killings, abductions, torture, village hamletting and other gross abuses, a CPP spokesperson declared.

Far from opposing the Philippines armed forces, however, CPP founder Jose Maria Sison has repeatedly stated that he has friends among the top military brass, and has called on these pro-US and patriotic elements to intervene against Duterte. The CPP has also declared that it is preparing to enter negotiations for an end to the New Peoples Armys armed conflict and a possible coalition with Robredo if she replaces Duterte.

The Stalinists advocate a regime change operation that will install a new government resting on the military and determined to join the US in a war against China. This does not represent a progressive alternative to Duterte. The working class must decisively break from the CPPs perspective and take up the fight for international socialism, which corresponds to workers own independent class interests, in opposition to every faction of the national bourgeoisie.
President Donald Trump boards Marine One at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after receiving treatment for COVID-19, in Bethesda, Md., Oct. 5, 2020. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

Trump Recovering Quite Rapidly as He Continues Working: White House Officials

President Donald Trumps health is improving from COVID-19 as he continues working following his discharge back to the White House, officials said Wednesday.

Trump is recovering quite rapidly, Larry Kudlow, director of the United States National Economic Council, said during a virtual appearance on CNBCs Squawk Box. Hes getting a lot better. Hes much stronger.

The president continues to work, hes in very good health. Were pleased with his progress, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows added to reporters in Washington.

Trump tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, on Oct. 1. The next day, he was flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.

Trump was discharged from the center on Monday after he met or exceeded all discharge criteria, according to his doctor, Sean Conley.

President Donald Trump stands on the Truman Balcony after returning to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Oct. 5, 2020. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Conleys last update, a written statement on Tuesday, said the president had a restful first night at home and was showing no symptoms of the new disease.

Meadows said he spoke with Conley late Tuesday and had another discussion with him planned for Wednesday morning.

Kudlow said the president spent some time in the Oval Office on Tuesday but Meadows told reporters that Kudlow misspoke.

He wanted to go to the Oval yesterday, Meadows said.

If he decides to go to the Oval, weve got safety protocols there that are, not only from a PPE standpoint, but from a ventilation standpoint, that we can work from that end as well.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows talks to reporters at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., Oct. 3, 2020. (Ken Cedeno/Reuters)

PPE stands for personal protective equipment. It refers to masks, gloves, and other related items.

Anyone who has direct interaction with Trump is wearing full PPE, according to Meadows.

The traffic in the Oval Office is limited and additional precautions are in place on top of wearing masks, Kudlow said.

A number of White House staffers are working from home because they tested positive for COVID-19 or were exposed to someone who has, including White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and senior adviser Stephen Miller.

But that doesnt mean the government is crippled, said Kudlow, who continues to test negative.

We can still get the job done, he said.
KALAMAZOO  Western Michigan University reported 23 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, Oct. 7, bringing the schools total number of cases to 527 since students returned in August.

The cases reported Tuesday stem from positive test results from Thursday, Oct. 1, and Friday, Oct. 2, as the school has been updating its COVID-19 dashboard with data each Tuesday and Friday evening. Sindecuse reports results from Thursday and Friday of the week prior on Tuesday, and reports results from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday the following Friday. The health center is closed on Saturday and Sunday.

The data released Tuesday marks the lowest number of cases reported since Sept. 4, when WMU was averaging just under seven new cases daily over a week-long period. The university averaged 31 new cases daily over a 7-day period on Sept. 23, during a stretch from Sept. 21-25 when 158 people had tested positive.

Currently, the school is averaging 18 new cases daily over a 7-day period, according to the COVID-19 Dashboard.

While cases jumped at WMU throughout September, the pace of testing in recent weeks never came close to the number of tests performed during the schools testing event at the Student Recreation Center, which ran from Aug. 27 through Aug. 31. At that event, a total of 1,128 people were tested.

Out of the 2,965 people tested in the month of September, 298 were administered the day after the testing event on Sept. 1 and 1,326 were given from Sept. 21-30. So far, about 12% of the 23,363 students enrolled at WMU have been tested for coronavirus.

The school has not made testing mandatory, but has recommended students living in residence halls across campus to be tested. Western has encouraged students living on-campus to seek testing, but students are not required to do so. Currently, students are required to take a daily online survey, which grants them access to enter buildings on campus.

At Grand Valley State in Allendale, the university is incentivizing its students with $200 in tuition funds to take a COVID-19 health screening test every day for the remainder of the fall semester, GVSU said in a Facebook post. GVSU has reported 879 coronavirus cases as of Monday, Oct. 5.

Across the state, coronavirus has been spreading throughout colleges and universities. As of Oct. 5, Michigan State University in East Lansing, has seen 1,420 students test positive. Another 535 students and staff at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor have tested positive, also as of Oct. 5.

In total, there are 87 new and ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks at K-12 schools and colleges in Michigan, which have affected 4,063 students and staff members  3,264 of those involve outbreaks on or around 24 college campuses.

On Monday, Oct. 5, members of WMUs COVID-19 response team sent an email to students and staff acknowledging the Michigan Supreme Court ruling Friday that declared Gov. Whitmer does not have authority to continue a state of emergency or to issue unilateral orders under them past April 30, when her initial declaration would have expired.

The email clarified the universitys stance on its COVID-19 safety rules, which it says will still be in effect under its independent authority granted by the state constitution.

WMU will maintain and enforce the Universitys COVID-19-related safety rules. These include our facial covering policy, as well as measures detailed on the Safe Return website and the COVID-19 response website, the university said.

The school said it will continue to work closely with the Kalamazoo County Health Department in its response to the pandemic.

Wearing a mask, physical distancing, washing ones hands frequently and restricting the size fo gatherings all help prevent exposure and spread of the virus, according to these public health officials, WMU said in the email.

Also on MLive:

Western Michigan University freshmen rolling with the punches as they move in during a pandemic

7 things to know about Western Michigan Universitys back-to-campus plans

Kalamazoo-area schools stay the course to prevent COVID-19 after court ruling

How the Supreme Court ruling on COVID-19 executive orders may affect Michigan schools

Coronavirus outbreaks reported at 58 Michigan K-12 schools, 24 colleges in Oct. 5 report
Nigeria, Africas largest crude oil producer and exporter, expects to end its crude-for-fuel swap deals by 2023 when its refining capacity is set to increase with state refineries revamped and a new refinery built, Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), said.

Nigerian refineries, which are in need of refurbishment, will be fully revamped and running by 2023, Nigerias ThisDay outlet reported, quoting Kyari as speaking at a virtual refiners conference this week. The private refinery of Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote is also expected to be operational by then, Kyari said.

I dont see an extension of that process in the near future as we progress and transit into more production locally. Our plan is to deliver all of them by 2023, NNPCs top executive said, referring to the crude-for-product swap deals.

Since 2016, Nigeria has been running the so-called Direct Sale of Crude Oil and Direct Purchase of Petroleum Products (DSDP) program with major oil traders and international oil companies, aimed at ensuring fuel which Africas biggest crude oil producer cannot process domestically.

At the same conference this week, NNPCs Kyari said that The outlook for Nigeria's downstream sector looks bright with attractive market conditions, large market, significant crude distillation capacity additions from various refinery projects, improvements of the distribution network & the use of natural gas.

Related: Oil Majors Hit Hard By Canada's Energy Stock Selloff

The rehabilitation exercise involves working with Globally Reputable Engineering Procurement and Construction Companies (EPCs) to revamp the existing refineries to operate at world-class capacity utilization levels, he said.

Last month, Kyari said that NNPC was in talks to hand over the majority stakes in Nigerias four refineries, which are all in dire need of an upgrade.

Nigeria has four refineries, two in Port Harcourt, and one each in Warri and Kaduna, but all refineries are very old and in need of refurbishment. Over the past five years, utilization rates at those refineries havent exceeded 30 percent.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
20th Century Week total surpasses $387 million, driven by new global auction format

Three-day October season of Impressionist, Modern and Post-War and Contemporary art sales achieves $387,242,500, with more than 280,000 people live-streaming the Evening Sale

Christies October 20th Century Season  an innovative addition to the global sales calendar this year  launched with the 20th Century Evening Sale, live-streamed from Rockefeller Center in New York. It realised $340,851,500 / 262,597,458 / 288,594,606 (including buyers premium), selling 96 per cent by value and 84 per cent by lot. Day sales of Post-War and Contemporary art and Impressionist and Modern art followed on 7 and 8 October, achieving $36,484,250 / 28,304,306 / 31,021,519 and $9,694,125 / 7,503,193 / 8,223,499 respectively (including buyers premium). Demonstrating continued demand for both masterpiece and core-level works of art, some 280,000 people tuned into the highly anticipated Evening Sale through Christies website and social media channels, including YouTube, Facebook and WeChat. The sale also registered bidders from across the world via Christies LIVE online bidding platform, with a broadening demographic of bidders under the age of 40. It was an auction like nothing before, enhanced by a pre-show conversation on Christies.com between Christies Chairman Marc Porter, art advisor Jeffrey Deitch and Melanie Gerlis of the Financial Times, followed with live commentary by Deputy Chairmen Bonnie Brennan and Richard Lloyd throughout. The sale of 59 works of exceptional quality, rarity and provenance, spanning the 20th and 21st centuries, also offered collectors a singular opportunity well ahead of the traditional autumn sale calendar. Innovating and breaking with tradition is our new normal, said Alex Rotter, Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art. In this changing world, we needed to brainstorm a sale concept that offers another way of experiencing an auction. It is with great pleasure that I can say that we had a very successful sale in a time that is not usual for us. Head of Evening Sale, Post-War and Contemporary Art, Ana-Maria Celis added: We saw bidding from Asia, London and from New York. We built this sale in a short period of time  essentially in August. In this very moment and in this year, the timing clearly resonated with people worldwide. To see extraordinary results in the masterpiece category was fantastic, most notably the Cy Twombly Untitled [Bolsena], our cover lot and a much-loved painting here at Christies.

Cy Twombly (1928-2011), Untitled [Bolsena], 1969. Oil-based house paint, wax crayon, graphite and felt-tip pen on canvas. 78 x 94 in (199.4 x 240 cm). Sold for $38,685,000 on 6 October 2020 at Christies in New York. Artwork:  Cy Twombly Foundation

The top lot of the Evening sale, Cy Twomblys Untitled [Bolsena] (1969), is one of a series of 14 paintings  known today as the Bolsena series  inspired by the Apollo 11 space mission. A rare example of Twombly responding to contemporary events, the monumental canvas features cool overlays of white paint interspersed with scorched black lines that evoke the upward thrust of the rockets journey as it arches its way into the unknown. The work was formerly part of the Saatchi Collection, and has been prominently exhibited throughout its lifetime. The 20th Century Evening Sale marked the first time that it had appeared at auction, selling for $38,685,000. Works by Mark Rothko and Pablo Picasso achieved the second- and third-highest prices of the night for paintings.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970), Untitled, 1967. Oil on canvas. 68 x 60 in (172.7 x 153 cm). Sold for $31,275,000 on 6 October 2020 at Christies in New York. Artwork:  1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko ARS, NY and DACS, London

One of the most dramatic paintings from the latter part of the artists career, Rothkos Untitled (1967) realised $31,275,000. With its duelling forces of rich, vibrant colour surrounding an ominous void, the artists complex masterwork is one of only four completed after finishing his suite of meditative canvases for the Rothko Chapel in 1967, and before the Black on Gray series that was to comprise the final works of his life. Picassos Femme dans un fauteuil (1941), depicting his then-muse and lover Dora Maar, sold for $29,557,500. The wartime painting was one of seven Picasso works offered in the sale.

The sale also saw a new world auction record for a watercolour by Paul Cezanne. Offered from the collection of Edsel & Eleanor Ford House  in which it has resided for more than 80 years  Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier realised $28,650,000. Painted between 1900 and the artists death six years later, the still life belongs to a group of watercolours that represent the culmination of his lifelong study of painting. Other notable results included Willem de Koonings Woman (Green), a powerful work from the artists important 1950s Woman series, which sold for $23,260,000; and Emil Noldes Herbstmeer XVI from 1911, which realised $7,344,500, setting a new world record for the artist at auction. With its rich palette and intense energy, Herbstmeer XVI is one of the greatest works of its kind to come to market, said Senior Specialist Jessica Fertig.

Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier, 1900-1906. Watercolour and gouache over pencil on paper. 18 x 24 in (47.7 x 62.3 cm). Sold for $28,650,000 on 6 October 2020 at Christies in New York

Later in the night, Tamara de Lempickas Les Deux Amies from 1930 achieved $9,405,500, well over its $6 million low estimate; while Vase danemones by Pierre-Auguste Renoir sold for $2,790,000  more than triple the low estimate.

A male Tyrannosaurs rex. From the Hell Creek Formation. Late Cretaceous (circa 67 million years ago). Approx. 190 bones surviving and mounted on custom frame with additional cast elements. A separate display for the original skull and teeth. Size: 37 x 13 x 6 ft (1128 x 396 x 183 cm). Sold for $31,847,500 in the 20th Century Evening Sale on 6 October at Christies in New York

In a Christies first, STAN, one of the most complete T-rexes ever found, closed the blockbuster Evening Sale. Described by James Hyslop, Head of Christies Science & Natural History department, as one of the best specimens ever discovered, the impressive fossil skeleton smashed the previous world auction record to realise $31,847,500  more than five times its low estimate. Established names as well as new talent saw exceptional results in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on 7 October, led by Matthew Wongs Shangri-La. The monumental 2017 canvas soared above its $500,000 low estimate to achieve $4,470,000, as bidders from around the globe battled for the landscape from Wongs tragically short career. The price set a new auction record for the artist.







The sale also saw strong results for Ruth Asawas lyrical wire sculpture from the early 1960s Untitled (S.753, Hanging Ten Interlocking Double Trumpets), which doubled its low estimate to realise $1,050,000, and Takashi Murakamis 2008 sculpture Oval Buddha Silver, selling for $1,830,000. A dazzling fusion of Japanese Buddhist aesthetics, manga and Western Pop culture forged in sterling silver, another example from the same edition was displayed at the Palace of Versailles in 2010.

Ruth Asawa (1926-2013), Untitled (S.753, Hanging Ten Interlocking Double Trumpets), circa early-1960s. Brass and copper wire. 23 x 24 x 14 in (58.4 x 61 x 36.8 cm). Sold for $1,050,000 on 7 October 2020 at Christies in New York. Artwork:  The Estate of Ruth Asawa / DACS, London

Confident bidding for works by Yoshitomo Nara, Barbara Kruger and auction newcomer Robert Alice contributed to a final Day Sale total of $36,484,250. The top lot of the following mornings Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale was Henri Matisses Jeune fille assise, robe jaune, which sold for $1,086,000. The delicate canvas was painted in 1921-22 at the artists newly acquired apartment on Place Charles Felix in Nice and portrays the model Henriette Darricarrere, who was instrumental in Matisses evolution into the Modernist heir to the Orientalist tradition.

A traditional still life painted at a radical juncture in Maurice de Vlamincks career, Nature morte au compotier, from 1906-07, sold for $687,500, alongside two later Fauvist landscapes, Pont de Nogent and Paysage de Bougival, both achieving $250,000.
Hundreds of protesters blocked streets near the Los Angeles Times headquarters on Tuesday evening, the latest in a series of demonstrations by Armenians over the deadly conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), the aforesaid daily reported.

Some were chanting, Shame on the L.A. Times.

One called out The Times for its lack of empathy toward the Armenian people and for publishing disinformation.

At issue is an article published by The Times on Monday about a weekend protest by American Armenians.

The article quoted Armenian activists at length, but also included a comment from Nasimi Aghayev, the consul general of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles, in which he accuses Armenia and its allies of racism and Islamophobia.

The quote outraged American Armenians. The tone of the conversation in that article was shocking and unacceptable, said protester Nshan Blikian, 19. He was also disappointed in the reporting by The Times in protest coverage over the weekend that described 500 participants at a Hollywood rally. He said the number was much higher.

The Times has received a protest letter from the Armenian National Association.

Aghayevs quote also raised concerns from Alex Galitsky, communications director for the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), Western Region. Galitsky said he understood that The Times would want to seek out Azerbaijani perspectives for stories. But the government has openly expressed anti-Armenian rhetoric and hatred against us time and again. He added activists are seeking justice.
New Delhi: The Centre has increased funding for road development in the Northeast by 95% from Rs 390 crore to Rs 760 crore, seeking to reinforce infrastructure in the strategic region, especially in border areas.

The is the second consecutive increase of funding for the region in the current fiscal year under the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in the North East (SARDP-NE). In August, the ministry of road transport and highways increased the allocation from Rs 290 crore to Rs 390 crore.

Until September this financial year, the Centre allocated Rs 6,780 crore for national highways in the Northeastern region, according to transport ministry data.

The government has been trying to reinforce infrastructure in areas considered strategic amid a tense standoff between the Indian and Chinese militaries along the Line of Actual Control in the eastern Ladakh sector since May. The government in August also increased funding for border road development projects and raised the allocation for maintenance of frontier roads, HT reported on August 28.

Funding for road development projects in border areas has been raised from Rs 340 crore to Rs 440 core in the current financial year. The budget for maintenance of border roads has gone up from Rs 120 crore to Rs 220 crore; in June, the ministry of road transport and highways raised the allocation for border road maintenance by four times to Rs 120 crore.

In addition, the transport ministry has also sanctioned Rs 850 crore to the National Highway & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) towards expenditure incurred on sanctioned SARDP-NE-related projects during the current financial year.

According to a transport ministry circular reviewed by HT on the revised allocation of funds for expenditure on sanctioned SARDP-NE-related works during the 2020-21 financial year, the allocation to the regional offices of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam has increased from Rs 200 crore and Rs 190 crore, respectively, to Rs 300 crore and Rs 460 crore, taking the total funding for SARDP-NE in the financial year 2020-21 to Rs 760 crore.

SARDP-NE is to be taken up in three parts; Under Phase A, about 4,099 km of roads (3,014 km of national highways and 1,085 km of state roads) are to be improved. The phase is expected to be completed by FY 2023-24, according to the ministry. Phase B covers 3,723 km (2,210 km of NHs and 1,513 km of state roads). The third is the Arunachal Pradesh package involving development of about 2,319 km length of roads (2,205 km of NHs and 114 km of state /general staff /strategic roads) has also been approved by the government. The entire Arunachal Pradesh package is targeted for completion by FY 2023-24.

The government has spent an amount of Rs. 30,315 crore on SARDP-NE including the Arunachal Pradesh Package, so far.

There is a continuous need for revising budgetary support for roads in the Northeast, said Jaijit Bhattacharya, president of the Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research (CDEP).

It is important to build the road infrastructure in the northeast from three perspectives; It is critical from a military perspective...road and rail linkages are critical to support war efforts, Bhattacharya said. It is our moral duty to provide proper connectivity to our citizens in the northeast. And from an economic perspective, it is roads that being prosperity in the region and building these roads also align us to the governments Act East policy. The roads will help the Northeast connect with the ASEAN markets of Myanmar, Thailand and beyond. However, we need to keep in mind that building roads in the toughest of hills in the world will be many times more expensive than building roads on plains. Hence the need for continuous re-evaluation of budgetary support for the roads.

New Delhis hectic infrastructure building activities in the northeastern states indicates a new awareness within the countrys decision-making elite that physical connectivity is instrumental in moving from Look East to Act East. While the China threat has clearly quickened the process of building border infrastructure in the northeast, , improved connectivity in the region will bring it closer to the national mainstream, and will dampen several of the regions local insurgencies, strategic expert Happymon Jacob, an associate professor of disarmament studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said.
Attempts by the British Government to push through plans to override parts of the Brexit divorce deal would be a monumental failure of politics and diplomacy, it has been claimed.

Irelands Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said that if the UK allowed the issue to end up in court it would be a folly.

The EU and the UK have clashed over the British Governments Internal Market Bill, which led Brussels to threaten legal action if it does not ditch the plan to break parts of the international agreement.

Mr Coveney, who appeared before the European Union Affairs Committee, said he does not believe it will reach that point.

Simon Coveney told the European Union Affairs Committee that it would be a "monumental failure of policy" and act of self-harm by the British Government if it refuses to ditch its plans to override parts of the withdrawal agreement and allowed the controversy to end up in court.  Cate McCurry (@CateMcCurry) October 7, 2020

I think the British Government would see the folly of that approach but having said that we have difficult issues to overcome, he told the Oireachtas committee.

He said there is no justification for the Bill and said it is a negotiating tactic that has backfired on the British Government.

Mr Coveney said it is clear from the ongoing negotiations between Brussels and the UK that the best-case scenario is getting a very basic trade deal that avoids tariffs and quotas.

He said there are two major obstacles to overcome to get that agreement.

When we signed off on a Withdrawal Agreement and in parallel with that a political declaration, the ambition from both sides was to have a very comprehensive partnership agreement that involved multiple things, including trade on a level playing field, Mr Coveney said.

Its quite clear that in many of those areas we are not getting a permanent and comprehensive agreement on a future relationship.

Its quite clear that in many of those areas we are not getting a permanent and comprehensive agreement on a future relationship Simon Coveney

The focus is on getting a core agreement on trade and what is required to do that, and then put in place contingency plans in a number of other areas that may not be permanent but will give us certainty in the medium term.

If, at the end of a transition, we dont have a trade deal then we have significant consequences because the default arrangement will be that the EU and the UK will have to trade on the basis of WTO (World Trade Organisation) rules and conditions which may involve tariffs and quotas.

He also warned that the second barrier is around fishing.

He said that a fisheries agreement was to be in place by mid-summer, however that has not happened.

The position on fishing has hardened on both sides, Mr Coveney added.

The gap between what the UK Government is promising on fishing and what the EU mandate is in terms of negotiation is really, really wide. I dont believe the EU will finalise a future agreement on trade without an agreement on fishing. These are two very real problems.

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

He told the committee that while he believes the outstanding issues can be resolved, a new reality will take effect from the end of the transition period.

New Brexit legislation is also due to come before the Oireachtas in the coming weeks.

The Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2020, which was published last month, consists of 21 parts under the remit of 11 ministers.

Mr Coveney told the committee that the number of Government ministers involved in the legislation shows the stark effect Brexit will have on Ireland.

He said some areas are technical and legal, while other parts of the legislation provide reassurance to communities.

Mr Coveney added that the legislation also requires co-operation from the British Government in areas including healthcare provision.
A casual worker has been convicted to three months in jail for assaulting a man over a woman in Kibera.

Appearing before Kibera chief magistrate Joyce Gandani, the accused Edwin Andole pleaded guilty to assaulting and injuring Hillary Owino on July 4 at Kibera Soweto area in Langata Sub County.

The court heard that Andole attacked Owino at a restaurant where the woman works as a waitress.

The prosecution told the court that Andole wanted to be left alone with the woman at the said hotel but Owino who was also a client at the hotel ordered the accused to leave.

The complainant told the accused that he was waiting for water to clean his hands before the waitress could serve him drinking water. However, Andole said he would do it instead but Owino insisted that he should be served by the waitress.

Andole allegedly started raining blows on Owino and pushed him out of the restaurant.

Owino sustained injuries to the mouth and lower abdomen and was rushed to a clinic by the police who visited the scene on time. He was later transferred to KNH.

In her ruling, Magistrate Joyce Gandani gave Andole an option to pay a fine of Sh10,000. He also has 14 days to appeal.
The exhibitions are running through the end of the month

Egypt's museums are displaying military artefacts in a special exhibition to celebrate the October War victory, said Moemen Othman, head of the Museums Sector at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

The exhibitions are running through the end of the month.

The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir is displaying Tharus stelae panel, depicting a military leader during the reign of King Ramses II, the Kom Oshim Museum in Fayoum is showcasing a ship and tools used in combat, and the Mallawi Museum in Minya is displaying the statue of the goddess Sekhmet, the goddess of power and war.

The Museum of Islamic Art has put on show a collection of daggers, and the Alexandria National Museum is exhibiting a statue depicting the King of War Thutmosis III in a sphinx shape.

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According to the Stanford project, populism is growing across the globe because of the failure of major political parties to address the thorny issues that people face in today's world: immigration, economic inequality and globalism, just to name a few.

But populism, the project finds, can cause more problems than it solves. The problems start with the idea of dividing people into good and bad. From "Global Populisms and Their Challenges," the white paper produced by the Stanford project:

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Populists redefine the people, often by excluding vulnerable ethnic or religious minorities, immigrants and marginalized economic groups. The result is majority rule without minority rights.

Once in power, populist leaders represent "a threat to liberal democracy" as we know it, according to the research, attacking not only the rights of individuals who don't fit into the majority, but the very foundations on which the country lies. That includes "the takeover and taming of courts and oversight institutions, and new laws that limit the freedom of the media and civil society."

We've seen it in the United States, with Trump calling the press the "enemy of the people," criticizing judges, resisting congressional oversight, claiming that elections are "rigged," flouting laws, and claiming that a "deep state" of bureaucratic actors is out to get him to deny the will of the people he represents. It happens with other populist leaders all over the world.

"'The opposition is the enemy of the people. Why would you listen to them? The media is the swamp. Why would you listen to them?'" Grzymala-Busse says. "Everything is fake. Everything is suspect. And no one is to be trusted except the populace."

And that populace, remember, does not include voices of the minorities or anyone who disagrees with the majority.

Populists, according to the report, damage democracies in other sinister, not readily apparent ways, too, by striking down or radically altering what has become accepted over years of building society; things like healthy debate, respect for opponents and civil discourse.

The Populist Leader

It's important to note that populists can come, it's generally agreed, from all parts of the political spectrum. There are leftist populists around the world who combine socialism with their populist message. There are those on the right who push anti-immigration and anti-LBGTQ platforms in their populism.

Perhaps strangely, populist leaders often do not spring from the working-class roots of what is thought of as "the people." Consider: Trump is a self-professed billionaire real estate investor; Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is a longtime congressman and military leader; France's Le Pen is the daughter of a career right-wing politician; the Philippines' Duterte spent decades as a mayor and lawyer; and India's Modi came from humble beginnings, but he has been in politics for more than 40 years.

Whatever their origins, populist leaders are identifiable by their claim to understand "the people," by their us versus them rhetoric, and by their assertions that they, alone, are the answer to the people's problems. They often speak in brash, common, "of-the-people" talk, too, despite their often high-brow educations. They are considered, by many, charismatic.

"There's almost an art to it," Grzymala-Busse says.

That illusion of "telling it like it is" draws in those looking for a change or, as Grzymala-Busse suggests, not wanting to lose their grip on their place in society. But a populist leader's popularity is not forever.

Populists who rise to power, the Stanford project found, often are punished more heavily by voters in trying to hang on to their power, simply because they do not fulfill the promises they made. That's precisely why populist leaders do what they do once they assume power.

By dividing people into good and bad, by chipping away at society's institutions (courts, the media, the legislature), and by weakening norms (healthy debate, fair elections, respect for one another), populists can hang on to power and become all-powerful. "The result," the Stanford authors write, "is a gradual slide into authoritarianism, each step justified by the need to better root out 'disloyal' elements and better serve the 'people' (read: the partisan interests of the incumbents)."

Populism, Grzymala-Busse says, doesn't help the people it purports to serve. In the end, it's just politics.

" " Despite having coronavirus, U.S. President Donald Trump removed his mask upon returning to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Oct. 5, 2020, potentially putting those he serves at risk. Win McNamee/Getty Images

NOW THAT'S INTERESTING Populism, and populist politicians, aren't all bad, Grzymala-Busse says. "I think populism in opposition, populists who don't enter government, play incredibly powerful roles in sort of shaking up the system," she says, "and, above all, in reminding the existing political parties and politicians that they shouldn't be complacent."
A man who met a 14-year-old girl while busking on the NSW mid north coast has been charged with sexually assaulting her.

Detectives arrested the 18-year-old man at a service station in Port Macquarie on September 23 and charged him with sexual intercourse with a child under 16 years, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and intimidation.

NSW Police will allege in court the man met the girl while busking in the Port Macquarie area before sexually assaulting her.

The man appeared at Port Macquarie Local Court on September 23 where he was refused bail to reappear at the same court on Wednesday.


COVID-19 cases bounce back to over 100



By Jun Ji-hye



The daily number of new COVID-19 infections in Korea has again spiked to over 100, raising fears of a potential mass outbreak following the five-day Chuseok holiday that ended Sunday, according to the health authorities Wednesday.



Ahead of Chuseok, the authorities raised concerns over the possibility that the long weekend could serve as a catalyst for outbreaks as many people were expected to travel across the country to spend time with family members, or take advantage of the five-day holiday for a vacation.



The authorities have already confirmed virus cases believed to be related to family gatherings during the holiday in Jeongeup, North Jeolla Province, in addition to several other sporadic clusters across the country.






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National carrier Vietnam Airline founded and returned over US$250,000 worth of cash and thousands of valuable items in the first three quarters, the company said in a report.

On flight VN125 from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City and flight VN7210 in the opposite direction on Monday, Vietnam Airlines flight attendants repeatedly found precious assets left by customers on the planes.

The cabin crew identified a black bag at the seat 7G of the business class section during their examination after the VN125 landed.

There were a Samsung mobile phone, an identity card, a boarding pass, and cash valued at VDN74,150,000 ($3,183) and $275 inside the bag, which is branded Louis Vuitton.

On the round-trip flight VN7210 to Hanoi, the crew again found an unattended purse containing an iPhone, headphones, a battery charger, some bank cards, and important documents.

All the belongings were handed over to the owner later.

Vietnam Airlines said it had founded and returned over VND6 billion ($257,558) in cash and nearly 6,700 valuable things to its passengers in January-September.

To avoid risky circumstances, such as forgetting properties and personal documents on an airplane, customers should check all things in the tray-tables and overhead lockers carefully before leaving, the carrier said.

Passengers are advised to contact the Lost & Found Department, airline representatives, and security forces for more support in case of any property loss.

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Now Open

7 October 2020

After a 10-year hiatus, the Crowne Plaza brand has returned to Sydney's CBD and Crowne Plaza Sydney Darling Harbour is now officially open.

Opened by The Hon. Gladys Berejiklian, Premier of New South Wales, the ribbon cutting ceremony was also attended by some of the industry's big names, including: CEO of Tourism Australia, Phillipa Harrison; CEO of The Accommodation Association of Australia, Dean Long; the CEO of Tourism & Transport Forum (TTF) Margy Osmond; and the General Manager of DNSW, Stephen Mahoney.

Standing an elegant 13-storeys tall, Crowne Plaza Sydney Darling Harbour offers guests a truly inviting sanctuary away from home, where feeling safe, inspired and connected has never been more appealing.

Located on the corner of Bathurst and Sussex Street and featuring 152 guestrooms which showcase the very best in contemporary design, there is a luxury of space that not only flows throughout the suites but across all levels of the new-build hotel which in the current climate is a welcomed feature and one that sets it apart.

With floor-to-ceiling windows a feature in all rooms, each of the guestrooms are divided into four distinct zones - a desk space for work, a sofa area to unwind, king size beds for a good night's sleep and well-lit, spacious bathrooms replete with Antipodes amenities.

From USB outlets and wireless charging stations throughout the hotel, to in-room Bluetooth speakers, unlimited high-speed wifi and Chromecast TVs, the generously sized guestrooms are brimming with technology-led features designed to blend the 9-to-5, 5-to-9 day. Accompanied by IHG's Sleep Advantage program, which includes plush bedding, pillow menus, aromatherapy spray, sustainably sourced amenities and a bedtime ritual guide, the guestrooms are there to restore, inspire and rejuvenate.

Other hotel facilities that encourage guests to relax, unwind and spread out include a rooftop heated infinity pool with city views, a 24-hour fitness centre with state-of-the-art equipment and three food and beverage venues.

Taking just three minutes to walk to Darling Harbour, five minutes to Pitt Street Mall and under 10 minutes to the International Convention Centre and Barangaroo, Crowne Plaza Sydney Darling Harbour is undoubtedly one of the most connected hotels in the city and is a hotel that consciously aims to connect with its guests on every level.

More on the new-look Crowne Plaza

The emphasis on connection and productivity are purposeful design hallmarks representing the new era of Crowne Plaza hotels globally. With a philosophy of building hotels for the future, the new look Crowne Plaza leans on design aspects that move guests seamlessly between work time and downtime, including the 'Plaza Workspace' - a new take on the traditional hotel lobby space, offering inspiring surroundings where hotel guests and locals can feel comfortable to do some work, enjoy a coffee over a business meeting or socialise with friends.

As part of IHG, guests will stay confident, assured and safe with the refined IHG Way of Clean using new, science-led protocols and service measures in partnership with industry leading experts Cleveland Clinic, Ecolab and Diversey - including the IHG Clean Promise to give guests greater confidence and hotel teams the protection needed.
In what is being termed as the crackdown on Ex-PMs, Presidents by the Imran Khan regime in Pakistan, an anti-corruption court charged former Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari in two graft cases, a week after he was indicted in a major money laundering case.

Zardari, 63, the co-chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and husband of the country's first woman prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was present in the Islamabad-based court and pleaded not guilty.

During the hearing, the accountability court indicted 19 others accused in the Park Lane case and 15 others in the Thatta water supply case. The court charged Zardari, his sister Faryal Talpur in a mega-money laundering case on September 28. In the Park Lane case, Zardari and his son Bilawal Ali Zardari are accused of purchasing 307 acres of prime property in Islamabad at very low rates using frontmen. In the Thatta water supply case, a private contractor was illegally awarded project contracts. In the money laundering case, it is alleged fake accounts were used by the former president and the other accused to park and launder ill-gotten wealth. The court also rejected Zardari's plea seeking acquittal in all three cases. He was arrested last year by the National Accountability Bureau and probed for months before being released in December on medical grounds.

READ | Video of Imran Khan exposing Pakistan Army surfaces; netizens say 'narrating his biopic'

Meanwhile on October 3, presiding over the first meeting of a committee recently formed to counter the Opposition, Imran Khan asked his party leaders to devise a legal strategy to bring back former premier Nawaz Sharif from the UK as in the absence of an extradition treaty between the two countries it would be difficult to get him extradited, according to a media report.

READ | Pakistan PM Imran Khan asks party leaders for legal strategy to bring back Sharif from UK

Shahbaz Sharif arrested

Pakistan's Leader of the Opposition and PML-N chief Shahbaz Sharif was arrested in Lahore on September 29, while an anti-corruption court in Islamabad indicted former president Asif Ali Zardari in a money laundering case, days before joint Opposition's planned protests to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Imran Khan. Shahbaz, the younger brother of three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, was taken into custody from the Lahore High Court's premises, where a large number of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) workers gathered ahead of the hearing in the Rs 700 crores (USD 41.9 million) money laundering case.

A two-member LHC bench headed by judge Sardar Ahmed Naeem rejected Shahbaz's bail plea after hearing the arguments from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) team and his lawyer. The NAB arrested Shahbaz and took him to its Lahore's detention centre. It will produce him to the accountability court for his physical remand.

The Imran Khan government filed the money laundering case against 69-year-old Shahbaz, who served as chief minister of Punjab province from 2008 to 2018, and his family. Before his arrest, Shahbaz told the media that Prime Minister Khan wanted to have him arrested. "It is the unholy alliance of Imran Khan and NAB that wanted to put me behind bars," Shahbaz had said.

READ | Zardari, Gilani Indicted; Nawaz A 'proclaimed Offender' As Pak Cracks Down On Ex-PMs, Prez

READ | Imran Khan turns to recommend books to Pakistan youth; suggests treatise on 'divine love'
Photo: (Photo : Facebook/San Miguel County Sheriff)

A newlywed Florida couple dies in a plane crash while they were documenting their honeymoon online. According to authorities, the bride and groom were riding a small plane four days after their wedding day. It said that they crashed in Colorado on Monday afternoon.

The San Miguel Sheriff's Office said that Costas John Sivyllis and his wife, Lindsey Vogelaar, were on their Beechcraft Bonanza when the accident happened. The couple's plane went down shortly after they took off from Telluride Airport.

The plane crashed ten to 15 minutes after its departure

Based on the Federal Aviation Administration and the sheriff's office, just ten to 15 minutes after departure, the plane went down. It crashed on the side of a mountain in Ingram Basin. The sheriff's office said that the couple had eloped for a small wedding at Telluride, Colorado, on October 1.

See also: 2 College Students Fell While Taking Selfie at Rooftop Party

It also said that the duo was taking a video of their adventure-filled honeymoon online. The husband and wife had wanted their friends and families to follow their trip. They could have possibly stopped in Oklahoma to refuel their plane as they were headed back to their hometown in Port Orange, Florida.

Search operations started at around 4:30 PM on Monday to recover the bodies of the deceased couple and finished at around 6:25 PM.

Both worked in the airline industries

The sheriff's office said that the 30-year-old husband worked for United Airlines as a flight instructor and pilot. On the other hand, his 33-year-old wife had also worked in the airline industry, said the same source.

See also: New Hampshire Man Allegedly Kills Wife's Lover, Asked Her to Behead Him

Apart from that, Sivyllis was also Air Line Pilots Association's National Education Committee chairman. He was an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University 2012 graduate in Daytona Beach, according to ALPA.

As written in his ALPA biography, Sivyllis' routes at United were mostly between the US and Europe. He detailed some flights in a blog post that chronicles a day in the life of a pilot. He shared what it was like to fly from Newark, New Jersey to Paris, France.

A lifelong dream of becoming a pilot

He shared what reminded him while he was flying over the Atlantic Ocean at night. It brought memories of his lifelong dream to become a pilot. Sivyllis wrote that it was a peaceful and calm annual journey that had made him fall in love with flying.

See also: Oklahoma Home Explosion Kills 14-Year-Old Teen and Hospitalized 3 Family Members

He said that it was a sight that he relished while traveling as a kid overseas to see his family. He took a moment to think about how he had dreamt of that travel for years. He added that he sat back as his dreams turn into reality.

Sivyllis shared that he observed the flight device as he chats casually about the schedule for next month with the other pilot with him. Besides the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating what happened with the plane crash.
As a former prosecutor, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., has revealed an ability to hold her own and make an argument with fire. It's a skill learned through countless cross examinations and that was on display with forceful questioning during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Ahead of Wednesday's debate with Vice President Mike Pence, many pundits think Harris will be a natural at pinning down her rival and defending herself with grace.
Stockholm: Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a method of genome editing likened to molecular scissors that offer the promise of one day curing inherited diseases and even cancer.

Emmanuelle Charpentier, from France, and American Jennifer Doudna on Wednesday became the sixth and seventh women to win a Nobel for chemistry, joining the likes of Marie Curie, who won in 1911, and more recently, Frances Arnold, in 2018.

Emmanuelle Charpentier, pictured in 2015, is one of two recipients of the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Credit:AP

The award comes with a gold medal and a monetary prize of 10 million Swedish krona ($A1.5 million).

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the scientists"discovered one of gene technology's sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors".
Technology Executive Roundtable US (TERUS) launches to help technology companies succeed in the US.

LONDON, Oct. 7 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today marks the launch of the Technology Executive Roundtable US (TERUS), a forum established to support technology and life science senior executives whose growth strategy involves expansion into the United States.

TERUS will host roundtable forums featuring guests sharing experiences regarding US expansion. The forum will be open only to technology and life sciences executives nominated by one of the founding partner organisations. Programming begins with virtual sessions in October.

TERUS was created through the joint efforts of several organisations. Founding partners include UK's Department for International Trade, law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, accounting and advisory firm Frazier & Deeter, trans-Atlantic business consulting firm International Marketing Partners Ltd., specialist transatlantic insurance broker La Playa, immigration specialists Samartin & Friends, and Silicon Valley Bank.

"The US offers the promise of massive commercial opportunities and plentiful venture and growth capital. However, doing business and raising money in an unfamiliar, highly-competitive environment requires thoughtful advance planning and clinical execution," noted Daniel Glazer, a partner with Wilson Sonsini who leads the law firm's US expansion practice. "TERUS will provide practical US guidance based on the experiences of those who have already tackled these challenges."

"Today's launch of TERUS highlights the opportunities for the UK's technology and life sciences sectors to expand into the United States. With 15 UK tech unicorns and almost 1,500 UK tech companies already active in the US, I look forward to seeing even more businesses expand across the pond. TERUS will offer opportunities to share good practice and to hear from experts who have already achieved success through international expansion," said Frances Moffett-Kouadio, Director of Exports USA for the UK's Department for International Trade.

"Software and digital companies, in particular, see the enormous opportunity of US expansion," noted Malcolm Joy, Lead Partner of Frazier & Deeter UK. "This forum will enable them to learn from other entrepreneurial companies and experienced advisors to understand some areas where planning can help prevent unfortunate surprises."

More information about TERUS and its founding partners can be found at www.TERUS.org.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. International media inform about the launch of negotiations over the normalization of situation in Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone. The negotiations will take place in Geneva on October 8 and Moscow on October 12. The international media cite French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian .

Press secretary of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Anna Naghdalyan said that there is no bilateral meeting planned between the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

DEVELOPED: We (the representatives of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries, France, Russia, the USA - edited) are in daily contact with each other. Tomorrow there will be a meeting in Geneva, afterwards, in Moscow, Jean-Yves Le Drian said, speaking at the parliament. He hoped that it will be possible to restore negotiations between the sides.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
In 2015, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump shooks hands with Jerry Flynn, executive director of the New England Police Benevolent Association, seen at right, after receiving their endorsement. Darren McCollester/Getty Images

The director of a police union in Massachusetts with ties to the Trump administration posted several misogynist and racist comments about Democratic leaders on his personal Facebook account.

In one such post, executive director Jerry Flynn described Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York as a "bar fly stripper."

Flynn's Facebook account and posts became restricted by Tuesday afternoon.

When reached for comment, Flynn said the Democratic leaders were "talking about racists all the time" and alleged "they're racist towards police officers."

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The director of a police union in Massachusetts with ties to the Trump administration posted several misogynist and racist comments about Democratic leaders on his personal social media account, such as referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York as a "bar fly stripper."

New England Police Benevolent Association (NEPBA) executive director Jerry Flynn posted several photoshopped memes of Democratic lawmakers, in addition to making offensive comments that echo some of President Donald Trump's talking points and personal attacks.

In a Facebook post in August, Flynn said former first lady Michelle Obama was perpetuating racism as evidenced by "'her people' ... killing each other by the dozens" in Chicago, her hometown. Gun violence has claimed 592 lives as of Oct. 5 and most of the victims are young Black men, according to the Chicago Tribune.

In a separate post the next month, Flynn described Sen. Kamala Harris of California  the Democratic vice presidential nominee and a former California attorney general  as a "racist pig" and "lunatic" who was "out of her ever living f------ mind."

In addition to the incendiary comments, Flynn, a retired police officer, casually joked about accepting sexual favors for law enforcement officers. After linking to a dubious blog about how some officers in New York could potentially receive "sexual gratuities" while on duty, Flynn commented, "Are they taking lateral transfers? Asking for a few dozen friends!"

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President Donald Trump with Jerry Flynn, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Facebook

Flynn's Facebook account and posts became restricted by Tuesday afternoon. When reached for comment, Flynn did not dispute he'd made these comments. He said these Democratic leaders were "talking about racists all the time" and alleged "they're racist towards police officers."

"People who are anti-police, anti-law enforcement  we don't just endorse people simply because they have a 'D' at the end of their name," Flynn told Insider, adding that NEPBA has endorsed Democratic state lawmakers in the past. "We endorse people because they're supportive of us and our initiatives."

But NEPBA has endorsed a slew of Republican candidates running for US Congress this year, including attorney Bryant "Corky" Messner, and former State Department advisor Matt Mowers  both of whom received endorsements from Trump.

Before characterizing Insider's questions as part of a "slanted one-sided piece" and ending the call, Flynn noted that all of NEPBA's endorsements are made after a vetting process in which a candidate had to meet with the executive board in person.

"Those who don't come, they don't get endorsed," Flynn said.

Indeed, NEPBA endorsed Trump's candidacy in 2015, shortly after the Republican candidate met with its leaders and promised to sign an executive order that would make killing a police officer a capital offense. Vice President Mike Pence also met with NEPBA's leaders this year and accepted the union's endorsement on Trump's behalf in February.

"Police lives, all lives matter as far as I'm concerned," Flynn said in 2015, according to Boston Magazine. "And I'm telling you right now what we endorsed a candidate who best serves our membership. He said tonight that he would be for the death penalty, the federal death penalty for the killing of a police officer, corrections officer in the line of duty, and that's what my members wanted to hear."

Nearly five years later, Trump has yet to sign such an executive order.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Harris have denounced violence but expressed solidarity with protests of police brutality, saying systemic racism is to blame.

A police officer takes a selfie with Donald Trump during a visit to the Manchester Police Department in Manchester, New Hampshire, February 4, 2016. Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

NEPBA's endorsement and credentials have been questioned by other police officials. Portsmouth Police Commission chairman Joe Onosko criticized the endorsement of Trump in an opinion column published in February, calling it "very disappointing" that the union "decided to again take sides in our highly divisive and potentially combustible national politics."

"As a police commissioner for our city since 2015, I've come to know many of the officers and I bet no more than half are Trump supporters," Onosko wrote to local news outlet Seacoastonline.com. "For the rest of the police unions in the country, please remain true to your oath and impartial with the public you've been hired to serve: do not endorse a candidate for president."

The endorsement has also split police unions, including NEPBA's own chapters, who urged its members to remain apolitical and refrain from endorsing any candidate. The University of Massachusetts Amherst Police Department's chapter of NEPBA previously told MassLive it was blindsided by the move.

"I was given the impression that there would be multiple candidates in attendance and was looking forward to hearing each of them speak," NEPBA Local-190 president Ted Bonnayer reportedly said after the union's meeting with Trump in 2015. "I was also led to believe that there would not be any vote to endorse any candidate at this event. As you well know Mr. Trump was the only one in attendance that night."

While outspoken police unions are not unusual, Trump's tendency to advertise their endorsements and wield it as a political weapon is striking. During the first presidential debate in September, Trump boasted he had the support of "almost every law enforcement group in the United States" and taunted Biden by alleging "he has no law enforcement support."

"Who do you have? Name one group that supports you," Trump asked Biden.

Although Trump has received the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union in the US, Biden has also obtained his own support from a handful of current and former police officials who allege "Trump failed to protect America."

"It's ironic that a lawless president claims to be the 'law and order' president," Noble Wray, the retired police chief of the Madison Police Department in Wisconsin, said in a statement, according to Fox News. "We are at a crossroads with this nation, and we need a president that has always prioritized the safety of Americans and their families."

Read the original article on Business Insider
The Italian Council of Ministers has decided to extend the country's disease-related state of emergency until January 31, 2021, sources in the government told reporters on Wednesday.

The decision has been taken as public health officials have noticed a surge in new COVID-19 cases after had begun to accept tourists for the end of the summer season. The state of emergency had initially been scheduled to expire on October 15.

Ministers took the decision at a meeting in Rome on Wednesday, upon consultation of a document published by the minister of health, Roberto Speranza, one day before.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said this past Thursday that he would ask parliament to extend the COVID-19 state of emergency until the end of January.

Since the start of the pandemic, has registered more than 330,000 positive tests for the disease, resulting in 36,030 deaths, according to data provided by the Ministry of Health.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health announced that 2,677 new cases had been registered in over the preceding 24 hours, a rise from the 2,257 positive tests confirmed one day prior.

(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.)
Sacramento, CA  32 counties, including those in the Mother Lode, are allowed to have in-person learning at schools. Locally, some have been operating now for multiple weeks, in either a hybrid, or full-time, learning model.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, the states public health officer, was asked about if there has been a link to new transmissions of COVID-19 since schools have reopened.

He responds, We are asking that question constantly, and looking at the information to see if there is a connection. So far, we have not found one. I would just remind people that it does sometimes take time for us to see the trends.

He adds Its encouraging to see the tremendous effort and planning that communities, and their schools, and their staff, have done to make sure it is lower risk for the students and staff alike.

Most of the schools still not allowed to resume in-person learning are around the greater Los Angeles region, the Central Valley and parts of the San Francisco Bay Area. They are in the purple tier.

Extracurricular activities, and things like sports, are still postponed, statewide.
For the first time in years, a baby was born at home on the north Island.

Not in a hospital, not down Island. On a cedar mat by the sea in her mothers Kwakiutl First Nation territory between Port Hardy and Port McNeill.

Jennifer Johnson, 35, was in her third trimester when the coronavirus hit Canada early this year. No one knew what the world would look like five to six weeks in the future. Giving birth in a hospital seemed like the most dangerous place to go amidst a contagious disease pandemic.

Home looked more attractive than ever.

For the last 20 years, since a bad outcome with a local birth, pregnant women on the north Island have been encouraged to travel down island to Campbell River, Nanaimo, Victoria or even Vancouver. At least two to three weeks before their due date, a woman is supposed to leave home and wait for labour to start. Only those with a very uncomplicated pregnancy are allowed to stay home and deliver at the Port McNeill hospital, but most dont qualify.

The Vancouver Island North is a 1A site, meaning theres no cesarean section back-up in case of emergency. The hospitals in Port Hardy and Port McNeill have no operating rooms, and no obstetricians. Over time, hospital support staff have become less experienced with maternal health since most babies are delivered elsewhere.

It makes sense that anyone at risk of complications needs to go to a larger medical centre. But birth isnt inherently a medical condition, and unless there are complications, babies can be safely born at home with qualified health care providers attending. Its just that there havent been any midwives on the north Island  at least none that stayed long enough to start a private practice.

Midwives have been around forever, but were only legalized in B.C. in 1998. With the rise in qualified care providers  there are 315 practising registered midwives in B.C.  has come an increase in home births and midwife-led hospital births. Midwives deliver nearly a quarter of babies born in B.C., and that number is increasing every year as more midwives graduate.

Marijke de Zwager moved to Port Hardy in 2018 after 10 years of midwifery in Vancouver. She got involved volunteering at a pregnancy outreach program where she learned about the gap in maternal health care.

So many people were going down island to have their babies who were low risk enough that they could deliver here. But none of the doctors in Port Hardy were really comfortable. They were just doing emergency deliveries for when someone showed up fully dilated at the hospital, de Zwager said. Port McNeill was offering planned deliveries, but only certain folks qualified.

So de Zwager started up a practice. She offered pre- and post-natal care until she got hospital privileges and started delivering babies in August 2019, supported by the two new doctors who had logged lots of hours in maternity wards. Since then, shes delivered 16 babies in hospital, assisted doctors with three, and caught four at home.

READ MORE: Pregnant in a pandemic: Expectant B.C. moms change birth plans due to COVID-19

Jennifer Johnsons daughter  named Teen, Johnsons grandmother Helen Hunts nickname  was the first baby de Zwager caught on Vancouver Island, the first baby delivered on the north Island by a registered midwife, and she just happened to come in the middle of a pandemic.

I still dont know what they look like, Johnson said of de Zwager, the other midwife and a physician, who were covered in PPE for every meeting.

We joke that we could pass each other on the street and not recognize each other.

Johnson had been living in Alert Bay on Cormorant Island, but came to the main island to avoid ferry complications in case she went into labour at night. Her nation, Kwakiutl, gave her permission to stay in a cabin at its Cluxuwe Resort  an oceanside camping resort between Fort Rupert and Port McNeill  though it was closed to the public at the time.

Johnson settled into Cabin 2 with her mom just before Alert Bay had a startling 30-person virus outbreak and lockdown.

I had waited so long to have a baby girl, and it really stuck with me that it felt like it could be taken away in a heartbeat. Something unknown, you dont see it, you dont hear it, you cant look at it, cant smell it. Its just this unknown virus and you dont know where it is, but its traveled the whole world. Cluxewe was a beautiful place because it brought safety back to me.

The first pangs of labour came early on a Thursday morning in April.

It was a foggy day, she recalls. She went for a walk along the ocean with her mom; the midwives arrived; Johnson had a nap and Teen was born mid-afternoon.

Fog, Johnson learned later, is sometimes seen as a gateway for the spiritual side that brings them closer.

It just felt like people had come to be there. I knew she was going to be born that day.

It meant a lot to deliver on her homeland, even if the normal bustling family celebration has been spliced into socially distanced, small group meetings.

I really thought of my grandpa, Tony Hunt, Sr. He passed in 2017. He just would have been so proud. I just know that he would have been so boastful and happy.

Do you have something to add to this story or something else we should report on? Email: zoe.ducklow@blackpress.ca

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The actual Oktoberfest in Munich has gotten das boot for 2020, but South Floridas bars, breweries and German-American clubs are still competing to fill your beer steins in October.

The heavy risk of COVID-19 infections under crowded public beer tents has forced event planners to morph their lager-soaked Oktoberfest parties into tamed-down, limited-capacity, socially distant affairs. But the authentic gatherings that make Oktoberfest feel like Oktoberfest  stein-lifting contests, dozens of food stands selling schnitzel and strudel  are taking a backseat this year.

Which means manage your expectations. Think of the following Oktoberfest celebrations as private, lowkey beer dinners with an occasional temperature check at the door. A note of caution: All events sell tickets online, so purchase them in advance to minimize in-person contact.

And remember, masked and soon-to-be-tipsy drinkers, that youve got a freund in Uber and Lyft.

NOBO Brewing Company

2901 NW Commerce Park Drive, Boynton Beach; 561-320-1522; NOBOBrewing.com

Because Oktoberfest is a wondrous time to use the metric system, start by drinking the half-liter, liter and boot-size pours (two liters) of NOBOs German-style brews. On tap, from noon to 11 p.m. Oct. 10, will be Old School Hefe hefeweizen, a seasonal called NOBOFest, and a black beer named My Schwartz is Bigger Than Yours. Bunnys Mobile Restaurant will supply the traditional German fare and live music. The brewerys taproom will stick to 50 percent capacity.

German-American Club of the Palm Beaches

5111 Lantana Road, Lake Worth; 561-967-6464; AmericanGermanClub.org

Forget about Miss Oktoberfest pageants and consecutive weekends of revelers shaking lederhosen on the dance floor. What should have been German-American Clubs 47th annual celebration (now postponed until 2021) will instead be rebranded Oktober Beerfest, a one-day event noon-5 p.m. Oct. 18 with all-you-can-drink Hofbr 1/4 u00e4u Munchen, domestic wine and a heaping plate of German food. Organizers will check visitors body temperatures at the door. Extra dishes will cost $10, and masks are required when not sitting and eating. Cost: $25 via Eventbrite.com.

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Funky Buddha Brewery

1201 NE 38th St., Oakland Park; 954-440-0046; FunkyBuddheBrewery.com

After years of partnering with Oakland Parks Oktoberfest at Jaco Pastorius Park, the Buddha is flying solo for 2020 1/4 u2032s festivities. The stripped-down event  no beer tents, no dachshund dog races  will be hosted in the taproom daily through Oct. 29 under the name Tap Room Oktoberfest. Buy any 32-ounce stein for $15 (or bring your Buddha-branded stein from previous years), and all German-style beers will cost $10 apiece. Beers include Buddhafest marzen, Floridian hefeweizen, Vibin' lager and Chant IPA.

Checkers Old Munchen

2209 E. Atlantic Blvd., Pompano Beach; 954-785-7565; CheckersOldMunchen.com

This Pompano Beach mainstay, where hundreds of ceramic beer steins sit on weathered wooden shelves, will host its celebration from 3 p.m. Oct. 17 until 9 p.m. Oct. 18. On the dance card is live music, beer, a best-dressed contest, more beer and an apple strudel-eating competition. If that sounds like the type of thing that invites wayward behavior, know that a Checkers bartender told us that the restaurant will stay at 50 percent capacity during the event.

Craft Carousel Beer Festival at Gulf Stream Brewing Company

1105 NE 13th St., Fort Lauderdale; Eventbrite.com

Craft Carousel  in the Before Times  was a brewery crawl hosted by a beer-loving meetup group named SFLHops. Now its more multicourse beer dinner than beer festival. At this event, from noon to 7 p.m. Oct. 24, six to eight breweries will come to patrons instead, serving beers paired with three Oktoberfest-themed food courses from chef Tom Magaddinos Pizzeria Magaddino, the pie shop tucked inside Gulf Streams taproom. There will also be lawn games, giveaways and shopping vendors. Ticketholders must sit underneath one of 20 private beer tents, which can hold up to six people, so try to convince five friends to go dutch. Cost: $130-$150 via Eventbrite.com.



2020 the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

Visit the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) at www.sun-sentinel.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Family farmers need fair prices for our goods. We need smart  and more stable  trade policy. We need a fair share of the food dollar, enforcement of antitrust regulations and a strong look at the consolidation in agriculture that is emptying the pockets of the family farmer, even as corporations pull in record profits. And we need leaders on the local, state and national ballot who will stand up on these issues.
RTJ founder and experienced team navigator Sergeant Major Rachael Ridenour, a 32-year U.S. Army combat veteran, will pair up with driver Master Sergeant Kristie Levy, a 25-year U.S. Army combat veteran and current federal law enforcement officer. Levy was selected by Ridenour, a multi-time Rebelle competitor and past winner, after a national search by the nonprofit for a female veteran with the heart, grit and tenacity to tackle the 10-day, 2,000 km navigational rally.

"Record the Journey stands for those who never stop challenging, never give up and never stop driving ambition. We are proud to support them with the quality, dependability and reliability built into every Mitsubishi vehicle, and are excited to enter the first ever PHEV in the Rebelle Rally," said MMNA Chief Operating Officer Mark Chaffin. "The Rebelle Rally is the ultimate test of teamwork, vehicle reliability, and the ability to overcome obstacles. Our continued partnership with Team Record the Journey proudly stands in support of everyone who says 'I can do that' in the face of adversity."

Described as "the ultimate road trip," the 2020 Rebelle Rally runs October 7-18, starting on the slopes of Lake Tahoe and ending in the Imperial Dunes of Glamis, east of San Diego. MMNA has produced a short film encouraging all to ride along with Team RTJ on the 2020 Rebelle.

Team RTJ is no stranger to making history. Last year, the team piloted a minimally modified Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross  affectionately named by the team as "Rosie the Riveter"  to second place in the Crossover class, with seven-year U.S. Air Force veteran Karah Behrend at the wheel. Behrend became the first adaptive athlete ever to complete the Rebelle, and the pair were honored with the 2019 Rebelle Rally Team Spirit Award. Taking inspiration from Rosie the Riveter and the 2019 team, Ridenour and Levy have dubbed their white, red and silver 2020 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV "Electra."

RTJ is dedicated to assisting military veterans with a successful transition back into civilian life. The nonprofit utilizes outdoor photography adventures to help veterans process their military experiences, including combat, injury and loss. Photography allows expression and engagement without words, making an often difficult process a little easier.

"The transition from a military deployment to arriving at home with your family can be abrupt and disorienting," said Ridenour. "Through my own process, I realized that when you're looking through the lens of a camera, you're forced to be in the present, not thinking about the past or the future. You can express yourself without having to use words, and it's an activity that you can easily share with others to reestablish human connection."

RTJ was the first nonprofit to receive a loan of a Community Utility Vehicle through MMNA's "Small Batch  Big Impact" corporate social responsibility initiative. For more information on the Small Batch  Big Impact initiative and MMNA's CUV program, visit www.mitsubishicars.com/community.

Additional partners supporting Team Record the Journey include Ally Financial, BFGoodrich Tires, DMOS Shovels, Off-Road Like a Girl, Productive Flourishing, Power Innovations, Road Race Engineering and Vision Wheel.

To follow the Rebelle action in real time, visit www.rebellerally.com/live for the webcasts, GPS tracking and scoring updates.

About Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc.

Through a network of approximately 350 dealer partners across the United States, Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc., (MMNA) is responsible for the sales, research and development, marketing and customer service of Mitsubishi Motors vehicles in the U.S. 2019 marked the brand's seventh consecutive year of sales growth, and MMNA was the top-ranked Japanese brand in the J.D. Power 2020 Initial Quality study, ranking sixth overall and experiencing the greatest year-over-year improvement of any brand.

Located in Franklin, Tennessee, MMNA is a part of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. Mitsubishi continues to lead the way in the development of highly efficient, affordably priced new gasoline-powered automobiles, while using its industry-leading knowledge in battery-electric vehicles to develop future EV and PHEV models.

For more information on Mitsubishi vehicles, please contact the Mitsubishi Motors News Bureau at (615) 257-2698 or visit media.mitsubishicars.com.

Contacts

Jeremy Barnes

Senior Director, Communications and Events

[email protected]

Mobile: 714-296-1402

Lauren Ryan

Manager, Communications and Events

[email protected]

Mobile: 404-862-8286

SOURCE Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc.

Related Links

www.mitsubishicars.com


Seating a federal jury during a pandemic and protests in Portland poses a challenge in more ways than one, particularly when its for a civil case against a Portland police sergeant accused of using pepper spray during a demonstration.

Anything about recent protests would cause you not to be neutral in this case? U.S. District Chief Judge Marco A. Hernandez asked a panel of 17 prospective jurors for the trial that began Tuesday.

'I dont like the way things have been handled in Portland," one man replied.

Another said her daughter had gotten tear-gassed in recent protests.

The trial isnt about the almost-nightly social justice protests that have roiled Portland since late May after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis under the knee of a police officer.

The case involves a Portland sergeants alleged use of pepper spray against a person who was pushed out of City Hall in October 2016 amid a chaotic protest after a closed-door City Council vote on the Portland police contract.

Allyson Drozd sued Sgt. Jeffrey McDaniel, alleging he blasted pepper spray that day at point-blank range. Once pushed out of City Hall, Drozd had been standing behind an opened Fifth Avenue exit door and contends the use of pepper spray amounted to excessive force and violated Drozds free speech and assembly rights.

But the case clearly cant escape the influence from what has happened since.

This is only the second trial to be held inside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in downtown Portland since the pandemics outbreak in March forced a halt to in-court hearings and trials. The first trial was a criminal case held last week.

The federal courthouse also had become a focal point of the summer unrest. For close to a month, teams of out-of-town federal officers were stationed inside. After a core group of protesters threw fireworks, rocks, bottles, cans and other objects over an exterior fence, the officers responded by firing tear gas or impact munitions into the crowds, seriously injuring some people.

To get inside Tuesday, each of the prospective jurors passed through a gate in the reinforced fence surrounding the building, walked past the heavy-duty pressure washers hosing down the front stone columns that had been covered with graffiti and through an opening in the plywood-covered entrance.

They were led into reconfigured courtroom No. 9A, one of the two courtrooms adapted with coronavirus safeguards for trials. Plexiglass panes were installed in the front and along the sides of each jurors chair, spaced six feet apart in three rows. Packs of sanitized wipes rested on the wooden rails separating the rows of seats. Plexiglass also surrounded the witness stand and the judges bench. All in the courtroom wore masks.

You are being asked to sit here three or four days with a bunch of strangers. Is sitting here for that long going to make you at all uncomfortable? asked Michael Rose, one of the lawyers for Drozd.

One woman raised her hand. "Im just coming off of being sick,'' she said. If I cough, I dont want people to glare at me like, Oh shes contagious.

Another man said his wife suffers from asthma and is overweight. I dont want to see her getting sick because Im sitting on a jury, he said.

Both were excused.

At times, the judge had to remind the pool of jurors to maintain the established COVID-19 safeguards.

I expect everybody in the back to stay six feet apart, Hernandez said.

The judge and the courtroom deputy also advised each juror to sanitize the handle of a microphone that was passed between them to answer questions.

Use your wipe and hand it to the next person, the judge directed.

At one point, he had to tell one prospective juror: Could you please pick your mask up over your nose.

The judge allowed the attorneys, the plaintiff and the defendant to drop their masks for a brief moment, so the prospective jurors could see their full faces to determine whether they recognized any of them.

With Drozds case stemming from a protest in Portland, all be it four years ago, the judge and lawyers from both sides asked prospective jurors: Anybody familiar with bear spray? Has anyone personally participated in protests? Anyone associated with any protest groups, like Dont Shoot Portland or, I dont know, Youth Liberation Front?

There were also the more typical jury selection questions, like what recent books theyve read.

How to be an anti-racist, said one woman.

Feeling enlightened? asked Rose, the plaintiffs attorney.

So much, so much, the woman replied.

Once six jurors were selected, Rose raised an issue outside the jurys presence.

He said he noticed a Blue Lives Matter heart decal on a glass partition facing the lobby of the courthouse from a glass behind the front security desk.

Thats a little bit troubling, Rose said, citing concerns about bias affecting jurors in the case if they saw it.

I will have that removed, the judge said. There were literally hundreds of those out. Well get that taken down.

Once the case started, attorneys who gave their opening statements at a lectern set up before the jury box were asked to cover the microphone with a black cloth and then wipe the lectern down before the next attorney used it.

The same went for witnesses who approached and sat in the witness stand. Each grabbed some wipes and sanitized their chair, the desk before them and placed a new black cloth over the microphone before them.

When each witness sat down, behind the plexiglass shields, the judge advised, You may remove your mask while you testify so the jury can see your face.  Youre the only one in the courtroom without a mask on.

When each witness was done testifying, the judge reminded, Please wipe down the area and throw the little booty (over the microphone) in the trash.

The first witness called was McDaniel, a 19-year officer who was then the leader of the Bravo squad of the Police Bureaus Rapid Response Team.

He testified that he only threatened Drozd with the pepper spray. He said he extended his arm with a 1.5-ounce pepper spray canister in his left hand toward Drozd and another woman but didnt actually spray anything. He was trying to get the doors to City Hall closed, he said.

The city played video of the encounter, arguing that no stream of spray was evident and Drozd was seen ducking down, then continuing to film the chaotic confrontation outside City Hall by cellphone.

Moments later, according to the video, Multnomah County Sheriffs Deputy Kyle Smith sprayed Drozd twice from behind with pepper spray as Drozd and others were pushed off the steps outside City Hall. The county paid Drozd $40,000 to settle the suit against it.

The case is expected to last through the end of the week.

Instead of deliberating in a small room, jurors will be allowed to remain in the courtroom alone to provide more space.

The jury selection and first day of trial was broadcast live on a video screen in an overflow courtroom. The public also can call in to listen to testimony, as only one bench of seating was left in the public gallery.

At one point, the audio didnt work and an attorneys microphone was off.

I got a note here to reboot the system, the judge said, in the midst of jury selection.

Were still working things out.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

Subscribe to Facebook page
SRPINGFIELD  The Pioneer Valley Transit Authority will receive $680,000 from the U.S. Department of Transportation to reduce travel times and create greater access to jobs for rural residents in Western Massachusetts.

The money will fund a transit review and improvement planning study, the Department of Transportation said Wednesday. That would include recommendations for improved transit services and facilities, new routes, modern fare collection systems and integrating low or no-emission buses.

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the PVTA was transporting more than 10 million passengers a year on a 2019 budget of $39 million. For several months this year it provided essential trips only, and has slowly returned to running portions of its former service.

PVTA operates in Hampden and Hampshire counties, with major hubs in Springfields Union Station, in Holyoke and in and around the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus.

The Department of Transportations Federal Transit Administration announced Wednesday 25 projects in 17 states sharing approximately $8.5 million in funding through the Helping Obtain Prosperity for Everyone (HOPE) program.

We are pleased to partner with these grant recipients to find new ways to help rural residents reach the jobs and critical services they need, particularly during the COVID-19 public health emergency, Federal Transit Administration Deputy Administrator K. Jane Williams said in a news release.

All 25 HOPE projects are in federally designated Opportunity Zones, which were created to revitalize low-income and economically distressed communities using private investment. Additionally, 19 of the projects are located in or benefit rural areas, consistent with the departments Rural Opportunities to Use Transportation for Economic Success (ROUTES) initiative.

The Federal Transit Administration received eligible applications from applicants in 17 states totaling $11 million and evaluated project proposals based on criteria outlined in the HOPE Notice of Funding Opportunity.

Related Content:
VIENNA, Va., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, MidHudson LLC announced that in the third quarter it funded over $14million in Working Capital and Initial Operating Deficit Reserves through its HUD Reserve Funding Product. Those Reserves supported multifamily development projects with an aggregate value of just under $200 million. The developments are located in Miami and Lakeland, FL as well as in Ft. Worth, TX and Omaha, NE. In addition to the investments closed in Q3, MidHudson executed letters of intent for an additional $35 million in Reserves for projects expected to be valued at $225 million.

MidHudson President Joseph Carroll stated, "It is gratifying to see the market acceptance of our product. Dan Ford, our Head of Origination, has done a great job building relationships with sponsors and HUD lenders. Through hard work and a commitment to integrity, we have leveraged those relationships to develop a reputation for certain and simple execution. We look forward to finishing the year strong and building on that for next year."

MidHudson satisfies reserves required for HUD financed developments without diluting the sponsor's ownership stake. The product reduces the amount of common equity required for a project and, as a result, raises equity returns. Further information on MidHudson is available at www.MidHudsonRE.com.

About MidHudson:

MidHudson is a specialty finance firm focused exclusively on projects and developers that use FHA senior debt. Its HUD Reserve Funding Product satisfies the reserve requirements for developers using HUD 221(d)(4) financing.

Media Contact:

Karen Widmayer

KW Communications, LLC

[email protected]

301.661.1448

SOURCE MidHudson LLC

Related Links

https://midhudsonre.com


A couple accused in the August death of a 2-year-old girl are believed to have dropped her body in a storm drain, from which she floated several miles down Brays Bayou, according to court records.

Police suspected foul play in the death of Maliyah Bass following the discovery of her body along the Brays Bayou Greenway Trail, about 15 miles from her mothers Alief-area apartment complex.

The mother, Sahara Ervin, and her boyfriend of at least four months, Travion Thompson, were arrested Tuesday on a pocket warrant in connection to the childs death.

Police said the two were questioned Monday after unspecified evidence was found. They have since been charged with injury to a child and tampering with evidence, records show.

Court documents list the injuring weapon as a blunt object. A manner of death, however, has not yet been determined, according to medical examiner records, and the cause of death is still pending.

Prosecutors, describing court documents Tuesday night, said Ervin, 20, and Thompson, 21, were accused of dumping Maliyahs body into a drain near their apartment in the 10600 Beechnut Street prior to an Amber Alert being issued in her Aug. 22 disappearance.

Thompson appeared before a magistrate, while Ervin was absent for her probable cause hearing because of medical reasons, according to court officials. Thompson was ordered to be held at the Harris County Jail on a combined bond of $150,000 and Ervin would be held on a combined $175,000 bond, the magistrate said.

Ervin received a higher bond because of worries that she would flee Texas. During the investigation, authorities learned that Ervin recently contacted her mother and asked to move to Arkansas to be with her.

The mother refused, officials said in court.

In court, Thompson offered few words other than to say, Yeah, in response to the magistrates questions.

At the time of the childs disappearance, Thompson was on deferred adjudication for aggravated robbery  a felony. A motion was filed Wednesday to null that agreement because of the latest arrest. Court records show Thompson also violated his probation by failing to hold a job in 2020 and not paying some fees.

Ervin has no known criminal history in Harris County.

Thompson addressed reporters in August after Maliyahs body was found near the 5200 block of Carrolton Street in the Gulfgate neighborhood.

Thompson sobbed and was held back by a friend as a medical examiners vehicle carrying Maliyahs body drove off. He and the childs mother stood by and listened as police Chief Art Acevedo outlined to reporters what investigators knew about the case.

Acevedo then expressed doubt as to whether the child could have fallen into the bayou near her home and floated to where she was found.

Thats not going to be probable, the chief said.

The childs mother had told police that Maliyah was at the park  and briefly unsupervised  at the time of her disappearance.

Thompson cried to reporters that he felt like a father to the missing girl. He claimed to have last seen Maliyah before she went to the park. The child, he said, had been upset because he had broken her toy box. He gave her the pillow case  which he described as blue and white  to carry her toys instead, Thompson continued.

He said Maliyah told him she loved him before going to the park.

Amid sobs, he said HPD had not done enough to find his girlfriends child in the hours after her disappearance. He also said he believed there to be a prostitution and human trafficking operation in their apartment complex and that he had seen baby foot prints and parts everywhere.

nicole.hensley@chron.com
At this week we are at 12% of what we were last year in terms of numbers. Not enough to make anything run properly at all - hence, for example, today was like a ghost town on the West Coast in regard to places to eat etc. Many people coming in are still not tourists as such. Flights are coming in half empty or more, because of the barriers placed (it matters not by whom, there are barriers which put people off to varying degrees).

An interesting point here about these barriers - an actual example: my clients are very varied. One couple comes here once a month to stay at their home on the West Coast for a week. Last month they were happily gung ho. But then along come the new rules and OK, it's a couple of days in quarantine but they can fix their home to be granted quarantine status - but they have thrown in the towel. I spoke to them tonight and said "Why? In some ways it's easier than it was for you". And they said "just too much hassle and if it gets worse we might find ourselves stuck inside all week if they can't get the tests right or on time".

You can make all the arguments in the world about "why do they come for a week, what a waste, they should this and they should that. All the kind of moralising that people do about the rich". But they, like me and you, make decisions based upon their circumstances and desires. They spend a lot of money as you can tell (first class flights etc). No point telling them what to do. They just stopped spending with us here. Until who knows when?
Hitting back at BJP for calling on-ground protests by and Vadra on issues like the Hathras case and new farm laws 'political tourism', senior leader Rajiv Shukla on Wednesday said the ruling party is getting rattled by the public support for the two leaders and their efforts are creating an atmosphere of unity in the Opposition.

The former union minister wondered if the BJP leaders, who are criticising the Hathras visit of Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, would also use the 'political tourism' tag for the agitations done by the veteran leaders of the saffron party like late Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani in the past.

"It is clear from the reaction of BJP leaders that the ruling party is upset," Shulka told PTI-Bhasha in an interview.

Amid a furore over the alleged gangrape and murder of a Dalit woman in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, the two leaders recently met the victim's family.

After returning from Hathras, also took out 'Kheti Bachao Yatra' in Punjab and Haryana on the issue of new farm laws, which the opposition parties have alleged are aimed at benefitting corporates at the cost of farmers. The government and the ruling party have, however, rejected these charges and have maintained these reforms will benefit the farmers.

Shukla, who was recently appointed as in-charge of Himachal Pradesh, also said that he is getting the support of all senior party leaders from the state, including Anand Sharma, and he will now unite all the leaders on one platform to work together to ensure the party's victory in assembly elections there after two years.

On the alleged rift between senior leaders in Himachal Pradesh, Shukla said, "The organisation is being activated in the state."



Everyone has to get united and come on one single platform. There is a strong possibility of forming a government there. We have to take our voice to the public," he said.

Shukla also said he is confident about striking a balance between all senior leaders in the state.

Asked about Anand Sharma, who was among the 23 leaders who had recently written a letter to Sonia Gandhi, Shukla said, "Anand Sharma is fully supporting the party and will continue to do so."



On Uttar Pradesh, he said the Congress is playing the role of Opposition there and is always active.

"If anyone is active in the state, it is the Congress," he said. He further said the Congress party is fighting for farmers in Punjab, Haryana and other states as well.

"This is the reason that other parties are also supporting Congress. An atmosphere is now emerging because of all these for the opposition unity," he said.

Referring to former Congress president Rahul Gandhi's Hathras and Punjab-Haryana tour, he said, " is fighting the entire battle and it is only his voice that is heard from the Opposition."



When asked if the two Congress leaders -- Rahul and -- would continue with their on-ground agitation, Shukla said it will definitely continue.

On whether Priyanka Gandhi will be the party's face in the UP assembly elections, he said, "There is nothing about having a face right now. She is continuing her fight.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ClouDhiti announces the launch of Safera , a Crime Analytics & Predictions Platform that law enforcement and public safety agencies around the world can rely on to detect, analyze, and predict crime. The various apps on the platform help in deterring crime by identifying trends and providing actionable insights that law enforcement officers can rely on on a daily basis.

Safera - Crime Analytics & Predictions Platform Safera - Predictive Analysis of Crime

Executing on ClouDhiti 's vision to operate at a global level, ClouDhiti and PBSTi of Cape Town, South Africa announced a Strategic Partnership today. Through this partnership, PBSTi will make available the Safera platform to South Africa to start with and then, as a next step, the whole of Africa. Law enforcement agencies can leverage the powers of the Safera platform, either on their own premise, hosted inside their firewall, or through the secured public cloud offering.

ClouDhiti Inc , a California based company founded by Aparajeeta Das , is a global powerhouse for bespoke Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions for various industries. Safera is one such offering for local/state/federal government agencies. Aparajeeta Das is excited about this partnership and comments, "This is a great opportunity for us to launch Safera on a worldwide platform. With the help of PSBTi, we will be able to expand the platform and its apps to many law enforcement agencies around the world, helping them to deter, manage, and control crime."

PBSTi, founded by Percy Sarjoo and Shane Jacobs is a subsidiary of a South African based stable, innovative company that provides technology solutions & services primarily in South Africa with a focus on the rest of Africa. As the founders says, "PBSTi has been looking for such a platform to launch in the African market as part of the plan to help transform Africa through technology. It is a great opportunity to develop a strategic partnership with ClouDhiti. We are looking forward to a strong partnership where Safera can grow bigger and better."

Both parties expect this partnership to bring in a revolutionary change in the world of crime analytics and predictions. Execution plans are well underway.

Continuing on its global expansion plans, ClouDhiti is looking for more such partnerships with local companies who truly understand the lay of the land to successfully conduct business in their respective part of the world.

PR Contact

Indrila Saha

4084625257

[email protected]

SOURCE ClouDhiti Inc.
BERWYN, Pa., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Triumph Group [NYSE: TGI] announced that it has signed a five-year agreement with Linmarr Associates, a Defense Logistics Agency distributor for the U.S. Air Force, to provide 30 new spare high-speed gearboxes for the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. The gearboxes are part of the landing gear door actuation system also provided by Triumph Group.

"Triumph is pleased to partner with Linmarr in the ongoing support of the high-speed gearboxes that compose the C-5 landing gear door actuation system," said Scott Ledbetter, President of the Triumph Systems & Support - Actuation and Geared Solutions operating company. "Triumph is focused on expanding our military business and supporting our products through the entire lifecycle of an aircraft. As the designer and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of the C-5 door actuation system, we are best positioned to provide reliable spare parts like the high-speed gearbox that will help optimize performance of the Air Force's heavy-lifting transport aircraft, which ultimately supports our commitment to protecting our warfighters."

About Linmarr Associates:

Linmarr Associates, Inc., headquartered in Irvine, California is a supply chain partner to the Defense Logistics Agency, Navy, and Tacom. Linmarr Associates provides value added services such as Government contract bidding, negotiation, contract management, mil-spec packaging, and WAWF logistics services in support of the U.S. warfighter. Linmarr Associates proven SMART Partnership program is focused on growth for their OEM partners in the U.S. Government contracting market.

About Triumph Group:

Triumph Group, Inc., headquartered in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, designs, engineers, manufactures, repairs and overhauls a broad portfolio of aerospace and defense systems, components and structures. The company serves the global aviation industry, including original equipment manufacturers and the full spectrum of military and commercial aircraft operators.

More information about Triumph can be found on the company's website at www.triumphgroup.com.

SOURCE Triumph Group
PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Rodda Paint company, the largest family-owned paint manufacturer in the Northwest, announces the 2021 Color of the Year, SIMPLE SERENITY, plus a carefully curated palette of 16 coordinating colors to round out the 2021 Trend Color Collection. SIMPLE SERENITY is a color of hope, comfort, and possibility in one heavenly hue. "Reassurance and calm are what we are all in need of right now," says Priya Bhagat, Marketing Program Manager for Rodda Paint Co. "With this in mind, we've come to view our homes and working spaces in a whole new way."

Rodda Paint announces the 2021 Color of the Year, SIMPLE SERENITY. SIMPLE SERENITY is a color of hope, comfort, and possibility in one heavenly hue. "Reassurance and calm are what we are all in need of right now," says Priya Bhagat, Marketing Program Manager for Rodda Paint Co. "With this in mind, we've come to view our homes and working spaces in a whole new way."

This year has seen consumers' lifestyles change dramatically, transforming homes into classrooms, offices, and family staycations. Rodda Paint hopes to inspire DIY consumers, architects and designers to color homes, workspaces and commercial spaces with these peaceful colors of 2021.

SIMPLE SERENITY both restores and uplifts. With a deep understanding of how color creates respite and reassurance, Rodda Paint's color of the year is paired with a carefully curated collection Off-Whites, Muted Natural hues and Soft Graphic complements to fit into existing interior decors and transform living areas into havens.

SIMPLE SERENITY + Fresh Linen, Dreaming of the Day, Pale Green Tea, and Hidden Cove:

Ideal for places of respite, this harmonious scheme is designed to restore and rejuvenate. Teamed with these muted neutrals, SIMPLE SERENITY gives living, working and dining spaces a light, airy mood. A perfect fit for family rooms and bathrooms.

SIMPLE SERENITY + Fire Dance, Deep Space, Nilla Vanilla and Chicago Skyline:

This livelier palette, combined with SIMPLE SERENITY evokes a clean and fresh feel. These colors are great for updating kitchens with a sunny mood, adding dramatic definition to stairs and banisters, or giving a subtle, yet effortlessly modern feel to any space.

SIMPLE SERENITY + Big Spender, Kingdom's Keys, Caramel Candy and Peace of Mind:

SIMPLE SERENITY paired with these earthy and sun-bleached hues brings a breath of fresh air into a room with a feeling of instant reassurance and comfort. This is an ideal palette for creating a cozy atmosphere in bedrooms and snug living rooms or for painted exterior doors and woodwork.

SIMPLE SERENITY + Day Spa, Luna Moon , Empower and Ice Flow:

Paired with these nautical inspired colors, SIMPLE SERENITY is truly timeless. Add a little extra impact or a bold look to sophisticated spaces and bathrooms when defined with these deep, dark, crisp, cooling and punchy hues. These contemporary color combinations work beautifully for both interior and exterior paint projects.

For its Color of The Year, Rodda Paint collaborates with Colour Guild and Colour Hive, the international trend forecasting company with a track record of accurate color trend information and successful forecasts for the interior and contract markets worldwide.

Rodda Paint's 2021 Color of the Year and coordinating Color Collection are currently available at all Rodda Paint stores, plus all independent Rodda Paint dealer locations. To learn more about Rodda Paint's 2021 Color of the Year and Color Collection, visit: https://www.roddapaint.com/for-your-home/color/color-trends

About Rodda Paint Company

Rodda Paint Co. is the largest family-owned paint manufacturer in the Northwest with offices and manufacturing facilities located in Portland, Oregon and is an independent subsidiary of the Cloverdale Group based in Surrey, BC, Canada. Rodda Paint Co. manufactures and distributes Quality Paints, High-Performance Industrial Coatings, and Professional Painting Supplies. Rodda has 99+ retail locations across the Northwest, including 59 full-service company stores. Rodda Paint Co. is a Service oriented company that has been building lasting relationships with customers, partners and vendors for more than 80 years.

Rodda Media Contact:

Jason Lawrence, Director of Marketing; [email protected]

Priya Bhagat, Marketing Program Manager; [email protected]

971-291-3179

SOURCE Rodda Paint
White House Outlines Safety Protocol for Executive Residences Staff

After a number of Trump administration officials at the White House tested positive for the CCP virus, including the president and first lady, the White House on Tuesday outlined steps being taken to protect residential staff.

The executive residence has hired independent health consultants to conduct additional testing and check on staff and their families. The first lady wrote that staffers can speak to consultants anonymously.

With the recent positive results of the president and first lady, staff wear full PPE and continue to take all necessary precautions, which include updated procedures to protect against cross-contamination, the first ladys office said in a news release.

Melania Trump said that since March, the residence has adopted hospital-grade disinfection policies, had White House Medical Unit lead coronavirus workshops so staff could have their concerns addressed, significantly reduced staff, and encouraged maximum teleworking.

In addition, those working in the White House have been required to wear masks since April.

The first ladys office also said that residential staff have had sanitization and filtration systems  provided to each residence employee to be used in their homes in the hopes of preventing infections.

There are 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, and six levels in the White House. There are close to 100 full-time staff and 250 part-time staff to maintain the residence, including five full-time chefs.

The first ladys office said that the safety of the staff is of the utmost importance to the first family. To protect staff, those who are in direct contact with the first family are tested for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus daily, and support staff are tested every other day.

Melania Trump has been under quarantine since last week after testing positive for the virus, and President Donald Trump returned to the White House Monday, after being admitted Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda Maryland out of what his doctors called an abundance of caution.

The president was treated for CCP virus infection and required supplemental oxygen on Friday and Saturday.

After returning to the White House, Trump told Americans not to be afraid of the disease and that there are many new medications and treatments coming.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 14:21:02|Editor: huaxia

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KABUL, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Nine people, including two suicide bombers, were killed and five others wounded in separate explosions in Afghanistan during Tuesday night and early Wednesday, authorities said Wednesday.

In eastern Kapisa province, three civilians, including one woman, were killed after a vehicle they were traveling touched off a Taliban militants' Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in Khisha Chena, an area in Tagab district at about 6:15 a.m. local time.

Provincial police spokesman Shayiq Shurish told Xinhua that the vehicle was destroyed in the explosion, and police would notify the victims' relative soon.

In southern Helmand province, four Afghan army soldiers and an assailant were killed after a Taliban suicide bomber attacked a security checkpoint with a car bomb in Yakhchal locality of Nahri Sarraj district roughly at 10:00 p.m. local time Tuesday, local government spokesman Omar Zwak told Xinhua.

Three soldiers were wounded in the blast.

In neighboring Kandahar province, a Taliban suicide bomber tried to assault an Afghan Border Force checkpoint in Maruf district, but soldiers manning the facility identified and fired on the vehicle, killing the attacker.

Two border force members were wounded after the explosive-laden car exploded following the shooting, according to an army source in the province.

Violence lingers in the war-torn country even as peace talks between the Afghan government delegation and Taliban representatives are being held in Doha, capital of Gulf state of Qatar.

The Taliban militants have been trying to overrun small towns or districts across Afghanistan and consolidate their position, launching hit-and-run ambushes against security forces. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 21:24:24|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on Oct. 7, 2020 shows the announcement of the two laureates of the 2020 Nobel Prize at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Chemistry in Stockholm, Sweden. The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to two scientists for their discovery on genome editing, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Wednesday. The prize went to Emmanuelle Charpentier with the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Germany and Jennifer A. Doudna from the University of California, Berkeley "for the development of a method for genome editing," according to a press release from the academy. (Photo by Wei Xuechao/Xinhua)

STOCKHOLM, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to two scientists for their discovery on genome editing, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Wednesday.

The prize went to Emmanuelle Charpentier with the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Germany and Jennifer A. Doudna from the University of California, Berkeley "for the development of a method for genome editing," according to a press release from the academy.

The two scientists have discovered one of gene technology's sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. Using these, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision, and moreover, it is now possible to change the code of life over the course of a few weeks, said the release.

"There is enormous power in this genetic tool, which affects us all. It has not only revolutionized basic science, but also resulted in innovative crops and will lead to ground-breaking new medical treatments," Claes Gustafsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, was quoted in the release as saying.

Since Charpentier and Doudna discovered the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors in 2012, the tool has contributed to many important discoveries in basic research, and plant researchers have been able to develop crops that withstand mold, pests and drought, said the release.

"In medicine, clinical trials of new cancer therapies are underway, and the dream of being able to cure inherited diseases is about to come true," said the release. "These genetic scissors have taken the life sciences into a new epoch and, in many ways, are bringing the greatest benefit to humankind."

"Very surprised!" said Charpentier in the on-site telephone interview, adding that the discovery, the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors, "have the opportunity to develop therapeutics to defeat bacteria."

She added that as a female scientist, she was very happy to get the prize and wanted to send a "strong message to young girls who would like to follow the path of science, and to show them that women in science can also be awarded (Nobel) prizes."

Charpentier, born in 1968 in France, got her Ph.D. in 1995 from Institut Pasteur, Paris. She is the director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin, Germany.

Doudna, born in 1964 in Washington, D.C., got her Ph.D. in 1989 from Harvard Medical School. She is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and an investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

This year's prize amount is 10 million Swedish kronor (about 1.12 million U.S. dollars), to be shared equally between the two laureates. Enditem
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez unveiled a 72 billion-euro ($85 billion) stimulus plan to help the economy rebound from one of Europe's deepest contractions and a resurgent outbreak of the coronavirus.

Sanchez said the government will spend that total between 2021 and 2023, a fiscal jolt that should boost gross domestic product by an additional 2.5% and make the economy more digital and greener. Around 80% of it will come from the European Union recovery fund and the rest from another of the bloc's financing vehicles.

"The world has changed, and we have to accelerate the transformation of our country," the Socialist premier said in a televised address on Wednesday. Sanchez explained that Spain will be able to tap additional EU funds, but that he was eager to provide details on a first-round stimulus plan to get the economic reconstruction under way as soon as possible.

The prime minister wants to be seen acting decisively amid growing criticism from voters and opposition lawmakers that he has let the crisis spiral out of control. Spain is enduring one of Europe's worst outbreaks of covid-19, and ministers have battled for weeks with regional leaders in Madrid to impose stricter lockdowns to contain mounting infections.

The fragile recovery is at risk, economists have warned, and investors are starting to take note of Spain's challenging outlook too. The country's bonds are lagging a European rally, and the gap between Spanish and Italian yields is the smallest in more than two years.

Sanchez said the stimulus he announced on Wednesday should create 800,000 jobs through 2023. The government will include nearly 40% of the total in its 2020 budget plan, which he still needs to present and then pass through a divided parliament.

A quick fiscal boost is sorely needed. The central bank sees the economy contracting as much as 12.6% in 2020. Unemployment -- a chronic Spanish problem exacerbated by the pandemic -- could hover around 20% for at least the next couple of years.

European governments have been racing to come up with plans for spending their portions of a landmark 750 billion-euro recovery fund that EU leaders agreed on in July. The unprecedented stimulus, financed by jointly issued debt, is aimed at spurring a post-pandemic economic rebound in the hardest-hit countries, and the region overall.

Spain is set to be among the three biggest beneficiaries of the recovery fund, with as much as 140 billion euros in grants and loans earmarked for the country over six years. Italy, which could receive the largest allocation of as much as 209 billion euros, is also hammering out the details of how it would spend that.

In France, the government has penciled in 40 billion euros of EU funds for a 100-billion euro stimulus plan that will run for two years.

There are still hurdles to a quick deployment of the EU funds, including disputes over governance. Economists and lawmakers have also warned that Spain and other countries will struggle to efficiently and effectively spend such massive amounts in a short period of time because of potential administrative and political snags.
The Bay Areas hopes for weekend rains to help snuff the Glass Fire and dampen the parched hills seem to be evaporating.

Rain could still fall, probably north of the Golden Gate, on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service, but a Friday storm will head far north and miss the Bay Area. Saturdays storm could deliver a tenth of an inch of precipitation, said Anna Schneider, a National Weather Service meteorologist, and still looks likely to hit the North Bay, including the areas where the Glass Fire is still burning.

Well get a little bit of rain, she said. But not a lot.

Forecasters never expected enough precipitation to extinguish the fire, which has burned more than more than 67,000 acres, pushed by hot dry winds, and is 58% contained. But the fading promises of rainfall are a disappointment for firefighters eager for some assistance from Mother Nature.

Our meteorologist said not to expect much so we werent planning on it, said Dave Lauchner, a spokesman for Cal Fire. Its definitely a disappointment. Rain really would have helped.

Forecasts last weekend held out the possibility of wet weather smashing through the high pressure ridge late this week and delivering perhaps as much of an inch of widespread rain over three or four days into the coming weekend. But those prognostications seemed increasingly less likely, with the amount of precipitation predicted gradually diminishing.

Brittany Hosea-Small / Special to The Chronicle

Still, the incoming weather fronts are expected to deliver a reprieve from the hot, dry offshore winds that increase fire danger and can whip wildfires out of control. Temperatures around the region, including the fire zone, are expected to plunge by about 10 degrees Wednesday, dropping a couple of degrees more on Thursday then rising slightly over the weekend.

Warmer temperatures are expected to return next week, along with fire danger.

Were hoping we get control of it before then, Lauchner said of the Glass Fire.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

High temperatures on Wednesday are expected to be in the 60s along the coast and in San Francisco, the 70s around the bay and the 80s inland. Air quality. A Spare the Air alert remains in effect through Thursday but air quality index readings were in the moderate range Thursday morning except in the northern Napa Valley, where the Glass Fire is burning.

The weather systems arriving Friday and Saturday could still deliver a quarter to half an inch of rain in the northern Sacramento Valley, where it could help snuff the deadly Zogg Fire outside Redding, which is 86% contained after burning through more than 56,000 acres, killing four people and destroying more than 200 structures.

Rain could also dampen the hills where the August Complex Fire, the largest in state history has burned through more than 1 million acres and is 60% contained.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan
Hopes for an airport testing breakthrough this week look set to be dashed after ministers decided to launch another review of the issue.

The aviation industry had hoped trials of new systems designed to cut travel quarantine times could begin as soon as tomorrow.

But Government sources said ministers were instead poised to launch a 'taskforce' to study the subject, delaying hopes of action for weeks.

Hopes for an airport testing breakthrough this week look set to be dashed after ministers decided to launch another review of the issue. The coronavirus testing facility at Heathrow is pictured above

Boris Johnson is understood to have asked ministers and officials to conduct a 'rapid review' into the feasibility of using testing to ease restrictions on travellers.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Health Secretary Matt Hancock are expected to lead the review, which will study the way other countries use testing to reduce quarantine times, and assess whether the UK has the capacity to follow suit.

Chaos as just 63 per cent of 16,000 virus carriers are traced The search for nearly 16,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus but were missed due to a computer glitch yesterday remained mired in confusion. Test and trace staff are still battling to catch up with the enormous backlog caused by officials opting to use an inadequate computer programme. Downing Street said 63 per cent of the positive cases had been contacted by 9.30am yesterday. But staff said there were still major problems with the system. One source added that a single household had been contacted 75 times over the weekend. Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted in the Commons he was unable to confirm how many people had been affected by the blunder. Labour asked how many of the estimated 48,000 contacts had now been traced, but Mr Hancock said the number would not be known until all those missed had been contacted. Meanwhile, charity boss Mark Adams told MPs and peers care home testing is stuck in the 'Dark Ages' with residents and staff waiting up to ten days for results. The All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus heard the testing system has 'gone backwards' since summer, putting thousands of residents at risk. Advertisement

The new body will also look at ways to breathe new life into the vital aviation sector.

Industry leaders are pushing for travellers to be tested at the airport and then re-tested a few days later in order to cut the current 14-day quarantine time which is crippling the sector and wrecking families' travel plans.

But a Government source said pressure on testing capacity meant ministers were likely to focus on a single-test solution, with travellers asked to quarantine for five or eight days before being tested.

They defended the controversial quarantine regime, saying as many as 10 per cent of new cases in the UK over the summer are thought to have been brought in from abroad.

The decision to launch a review will dismay the aviation industry, which has been campaigning for the change for months, and which has offered to trial its own systems.

It also comes as a blow to the Mail's Get Britain Flying campaign, launched last month to encourage the Prime Minister to lift the 'closed' sign hanging over the UK.

But a Government source last night insisted that the launch of the taskforce was a sign that ministers were finally taking the issue seriously.

'Everyone gets the importance of international travel to the economy and business, and to people's lives  that is why it is being looked at,' the source said.

'But we also have to recognise the constraints on testing capacity and come up with the most effective solution. That will take a little time.'

A Department for Transport spokesman insisted there was no delay over plans for airport testing, adding: 'As we've been clear, work is ongoing with clinicians and health experts on the practicalities of using testing to reduce the self-isolation period for international arrivals.'

The move comes amid growing Tory disquiet over the tough travel policy which requires people to quarantine for 14 days if arriving from a 'hotspot' country.

Italy, Sweden and Greece face possible restrictions later this week.

Meanwhile, a new study yesterday suggested that fewer than 1 per cent of air passengers test positive after seven days in quarantine.

Research commissioned by Air Canada and carried out by McMaster Health Labs and the University of Toronto, suggests a two-test regime could be a safe alternative.

Some 13,000 travellers arriving into Toronto Pearson International Airport were tested on arrival, and had a second swab after seven days in quarantine.

Fewer than 130 tested positive, with 80 per cent of cases picked up on arrival  suggesting a single-test could detect most cases.

The rest  a mere handful  were picked up seven days later.
Earlier this year, word got out that Tesla and the FBI, with help from a Tesla employee, had been able to prevent a $1 million ransomware attack. Today, internal memos obtained by Bloomberg say that another employee has been caught and ultimately fired for an attempted malicious act of sabotage.The memo comes from Al Prescott, the Tesla VP of legal and acting general counsel, and undoubtedly serves to let the other members of staff know what transpired with the firing of just one individual. The incident occurred recently at the Freemont facility, in California.Two weeks ago, our IT and InfoSec teams determined that an employee had maliciously sabotaged a part of the Factory. Their quick actions prevented further damage and production was running smoothly again a few hours later, Prescott writes.Prescott explains that the employee tried to cover up his tracks and even place the blame on someone else, which ultimately resulted in his destroying a company computer. Confronted with irrefutable evidence, the employee admitted to his guilt and employment was terminated. Prescott doesnt mention prosecution, which would be expected if this was really an act of sabotage in the legal sense.We place tremendous trust in our employees and value everyones contribution, Prescott adds. However, whatever the personal motivations of the attacker were, these are crimes, violations of our code of conduct, and are unfair to other employees.Bloomberg reached out to Tesla, CEO Elon Musk and Prescott for comment but, as you may have guessed, got none in response. Because Tesla no longer has a PR department and is not talking to the media anymore.
Top justice department officials including the attorney general Jeff Sessions and former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein were among those pushing president Donald Trumps zero-tolerance border policy which led to many migrant children getting separated from their families.

The revelation comes from an 86-page draft report following a two-year investigation by the US Justice Departments inspector general Michael E Horowitz, a version of which was reported by The New York Times on Tuesday.

According to the Times report, Horowitzs investigation cites documents, interviews and many other details that reveal how the family separation policy was developed, pushed and ultimately carried out with little concern for children.

One example highlighted in the report was when five US attorneys from areas along the border with Mexico, including three appointed by Mr Trump himself, expressed apprehension against the order to prosecute all undocumented immigrants. These attorneys told the Justice Department officials that the order could result in migrant children being separated from their parents, and that they were deeply concerned about the minors welfare.

Yet in a call with prosecutors, the then-attorney general Mr Sessions, as per participants notes, told them that we need to take away children. The then-deputy attorney general Rod J Rosenstein, who had a call with the five prosecutors a week later, stressed that government lawyers should not have refused to prosecute two cases even though the children involved were barely older than infants.

Trumps policies on migration throughout his term have been controversial, but the issue of separating children from their parents became a disaster when the administration struggled to reunite the families after legal processes had been followed.

Horowitz stressed in his report that the idea behind a zero-tolerance policy was to deter future illegal immigration.

The draft report highlighted that the justice departments single-minded focus on increasing prosecutions came at the expense of careful and effective implementation of the policy, especially with regard to prosecution of family-unit adults and the resulting child separations.

The Times report revealed that though Horowitz has been preparing to release the report since late summer, the process involving responses from officials whose conduct is under scrutiny is likely to delay its release until after the presidential election.

The report highlights other incidents which have alarmed officials, including cases of separation of breastfeeding defendant mothers from their infants during a secret 2017 pilot programme along the Mexican border in Texas.

The report also outlined instances of border patrol officers missing serious felony cases as they were stretched too thin and noted that the failure to inform the US Marshals Service before announcing the zero-tolerance policy resulted in serious overcrowding and budget overruns.

The draft report reveals that after the pilot programme in Texas, the justice department pushed the policy to separate parents from children across the entire southwestern border, with help from prosecutors.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : As Covid-19 takes its toll on the mental health of people globally, over 9 in 10 people in India think robots can support their overall well-being much better than humans, a new Oracle study said on Wednesday.

A whopping 91 per cent of Indian workforce surveyed said they would prefer to talk to a robot over their manager about stress and anxiety at work, according to the study by Oracle and Workplace Intelligence, an HR research and advisory firm.

The study of more than 1,000 employees, managers, HR leaders, and C-level executives across 11 countries found that the Covid-19 pandemic has increased workplace stress, anxiety, and burnout for people all around the world, and they prefer robots instead of other people to help.

Nearly 93 per cent people said their mental health issues at work negatively affect their home life while 95 per cent of those surveyed believed companies should be doing more to support the mental health of their workforce.

For the Indian workforce, 65 per cent feel that they are working more than 40 hours per month and 32 per cent feel the burnout from overwork.

"There is a lot that can be done to support the mental health of the global workforce and there are so many ways that technology like AI can help. But first, organizations need to add mental health to their agenda," said Emily He, senior vice president, Oracle Cloud HCM.

While 70 per cent of people globally have had more stress and anxiety at work this year than any other previous year, 84 per cent of Indian workforce felt more stress and anxiety.

This increased stress and anxiety has negatively impacted the mental health of 78 per cent of the global workforce, causing more stress (38 per cent), a lack of work-life balance (35 per cent), burnout (25 per cent), depression from no socialisation (25 per cent), and loneliness (14 per cent).

"The pandemic situation has witnessed HR dealing with a crisis which has no precedence to draw wisdom from. HR is coordinating communication, facilitating remote working, helping keep workers stay productive, and assisting with mental wellbeing needs," said Shaakun Khanna, head of HCM applications, Asia Pacific, Oracle.

The new pressures presented by the pandemic have been layered on top of everyday workplace stressors, including pressure on global workforce to meet performance standards (42 per cent), handling routine and tedious tasks (41 per cent) and juggling unmanageable workloads (41 per cent).

The most common repercussions globally were sleep deprivation (40 per cent), poor physical health (35 per cent), reduced happiness at home (33 per cent), suffering family relationships (30 per cent), and isolation from friends (28 per cent).

As boundaries have increasingly blurred between personal and professional worlds with people working remotely, 35 per cent of people are working 40+ more hours each month and 25 percent of people have been burned out from overwork.

"Despite perceived drawbacks of remote work, 62 percent of people globally find remote work more appealing now than they did before the pandemic, saying they now have more time to spend with family (51 per cent), sleep (31 per cent), and get work done (30 per cent)," the findings showed.

Nearly 76 per cent of people globally believe their company should be doing more to protect the mental health of their workforce, the report mentioned.
JERUSALEM: Israeli police clashed with hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews overnight as they sought to enforce restrictions on public gatherings during a nationwide coronavirus lockdown, the police said Wednesday.

Footage released by police showed huge crowds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem chanting and hurling stones and metal bars at police officers. The police said 17 people were arrested.

Clashes also erupted in Modiin Ilit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement in the West Bank. Police said they ordered people to leave a synagogue before being attacked with stones and fireworks, Four police officers were wounded and seven people were arrested, police said.

Segments of Israels ultra-Orthodox community have defied restrictions on religious gatherings intended to contain the countrys coronavirus outbreak, even as the insular community has seen its own cases soar.

Israel went into a second nationwide lockdown last month after developing one of the worst outbreaks in the world on a per capita basis. The country currently has around 60,000 active cases, including 855 people hospitalized in serious condition.

Israel, with a population of just 9 million, has reported a total of more than 270,000 cases and more than 1,800 deaths since the pandemic began.

Late Tuesday, the government decided to extend a state of emergency for another week, until Oct. 13. The emergency measures require that people stay within 1,000 meters (yards) of their homes except for essential services and restrict both protests and religious gatherings.

Protesters have been holding regular demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for months, calling on him to resign over his trial on corruption charges and criticizing his governments handling of the pandemic.

Netanyahu and his supporters say the restrictions on protests are needed to prevent virus transmission, while critics accuse him of trying to muzzle dissent. Ultra-Orthodox leaders, who are key political allies of Netanyahu, had earlier accused the government of singling out their community by limiting religious gatherings while allowing the outdoor protests to continue.

Protesters held dozens of small demonstrations across the country late Tuesday, apparently while complying with requirements to stay close to home. Demonstrators scuffled with police during a larger demonstration in Tel Aviv when they tried to stage a march through the city.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
UK moves to flout international law on Brexit were mainly a negotiating tactic in ongoing trade talks, Simon Coveney has said.

Mr Coveney said he believed the British tactical move had backfired to a large extent  and he insisted that the interests of Brussels negotiators, and the Irish Government, were on talks seeking a trade deal before the UK quits the EU on December 31 next.

We will continue to focus on the real prize here which is to get a deal, the Foreign Affairs Minister told the Oireachtas EU affairs committee.

The Foreign Affairs Minister said ambitions of forging a wide-ranging EU-UK partnership, outlined in a Political Declaration which accompanied last years Withdrawal Agreement were no longer realistic.

"It is quite clear we are not going to get a permanent and comprehensive agreement on a future relationship," he said. The aim now was for a realistic EU-UK trade deal which would avoid tariffs and quotas.

The Minister said the level playing field  which implies no UK undercutting on environment, labour standards or state aids to business  had become toxic in UK political circles.

He said EU chief negotiator, Michel Barnier was right not to move the negotiations into the next so-called tunnel phase. This was because there must first be agreement on a workable mechanism to resolve future EU-UK disputes.

On the dispute over EU fishing boats future access to UK waters  an issue of key Irish interest  he said there had been hopes of a deal before the end of this past summer. Now any deal on the issue still faced big problems.

Mr Coveney again said there was no justification for the UK's Internal Market Bill which changes Northern Irelands future trade status after Brexit. He predicted the legislation will get a rough ride in the UK House of Lords where there were many legal experts to challenge its legality in international law.

The Minister said the measure had harmed the UKs international reputation. But he said the appearance of similar measures in the UKs upcoming finance bill will tell a lot about Londons sincerity when it comes to cutting a trade deal with the EU at all.

"If the Finance Bill is introduced with that provision in it, I think many in the EU will see it as an indication that the British Government simply doesn't want a deal," Mr Coveney said.
A shooting took place Wednesday morning in Uptown Harrisburg, dispatchers said.

Shots were fired around 10 a.m. near 6th and Woodbine Street, across the street from the Camp Curtin YMCA, according to Dauphin County dispatch.

ABC 27 reported two people were injured and taken to the hospital.

Harrisburg police were not immediately available to provide additional information.

The shooting is under investigation.

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President Trump, who is suffering from COVID-19, removes his mask at the White House. (Getty Images)

Every political campaign hopes for an October surprise to shift the November election their way.

President Trumps COVID-19 diagnosis and hospitalization may be the worst self-inflicted October surprise any candidate ever stumbled into.

Trump didnt plan to get sick, of course. But his refusal to wear a mask or keep people at a safe distance made him vulnerable to the coronavirus and helped turn the White House into a hot zone, with at least a dozen positive cases.

For months, Trump and most of his aides flouted public health guidelines. They staged campaign rallies and White House ceremonies, including one on Sept. 26 to introduce Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett that may have been a super-spreader event.

Even after the president spent three days in the hospital, the White House didnt try to track down the hundreds of people with whom he or his aides had met  and possibly infected.

On his return from the hospital, Trump took off his mask and posed for a video. "Don't be afraid of it. You're going to beat it, he said of COVID-19.

If the president intended to reassure Americans, he instead displayed the Trump traits that voters like least: his self-absorption, his disdain for scientific advice  and his failure to express any empathy for the more than 210,000 Americans who have died of COVID-19 in the last six months.

It also showed the incompetence that has been one of Trumps trademarks for the last four years.

Last spring, the pandemic handed the president a difficult challenge: organize a coherent national response to a deadly virus no one had seen before.

Trump bungled the job. He insisted the virus was no worse than a seasonal flu when  by his own admission  he knew it was far more deadly.

He launched a federal effort to coordinate medical supplies, then abandoned the effort and told governors they were on their own.

He promised tests for everyone, and he never delivered.

He encouraged supporters to stage uprisings against Democratic governors who wanted lockdowns, and he praised Republican governors who reopened their economies too hastily.

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His administration did do some things right. It sent billions of dollars to pharmaceutical companies to jump-start development and testing of experimental vaccines. It ordered industrial firms to make ventilators and ended up with a surplus.

But the overall results have been tragic.

The U.S. death rate, which Trump claims is a success, is more than double that of Canada, more than five times that of Germany and almost 80 times that of South Korea, on a per capita basis.

Inevitably, Trump's failure to lead during the pandemic has emerged as the biggest issue of the presidential race  despite his repeated efforts to blame others or change the subject.

His hospitalization for COVID-19 guaranteed that the crisis will remain Topic A until election day, now only a month away.

The irony is that Trump won the presidency in 2016 partly by claiming to be a successful businessman who could run the federal government more wisely than any politician.

That claim, like many others, turned out to be false.

The trouble began even before Trumps inauguration, when he threw away the transition strategy that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had prepared. Trump instead appointed Cabinet officers he barely knew or vetted and plunged into the presidency without any formal policy blueprint, a recipe for infighting.

Soon, negotiations over spending bills and other legislation were upended by Trumps tweets  as happened again Tuesday, when he abandoned talks with Democrats toward an economic stimulus bill to help businesses and individuals struggling with COVID-19 shutdowns.

Another priority, deregulation, has been hobbled by Trump's failure to recruit qualified staff. The Trump administration has lost 84% of its regulation cases in court; most administrations lose 30%, according to a New York University study.

Many of his executive orders have been badly written, and that gets them overturned by the courts, Elaine Kamarck, director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, told me. If you say youre going to dismantle regulations, you need very competent people to walk them through the regulatory process. He doesnt have them.

Trumps staff has seen a record level of turnover  some because of scandals, others because they fell out of favor.

In less than four years, hes on his fourth chief of staff, his fourth national security advisor, his sixth director of communications.

What COVID shows is that incompetence is damaging to the country, said Kamarck, who worked on government reform for President Clinton. Were in a mess we shouldnt be in.

For critics, the presidents inability to run a disciplined operation has one saving grace: It has damaged his political fortunes, perhaps irretrievably. Incompetence, it appears, has political consequences.

His reelection campaign has floundered. It has focused on shoring up his base of white working-class voters and evangelicals, instead of expanding his coalition toward a majority. It has burned through hundreds of millions of dollars and is short of cash in the final weeks.

At his first debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden last month, Trump sounded petulant instead of presidential, ringing alarms even within his own party.

If the polls are to be believed, voters are about to give their employee in chief a message he may find familiar: Youre fired.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Noida: The Zurich Airport International AG (Flughafen Zurich AG) that signed a key agreement with the Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL) on Wednesday (October 7, 2020) to allow the Swiss developer to begin work at the site of the upcoming Jewar airport has said that the phase 1 is likely to be completed by 2024.

Following the completion of phase 1, the Noida international airport (Jewar airport) will provide capacity for 12 million passengers per year.

"After commissioning, the new airport will have a capacity of at least 12 million passengers per year," read the official statement.

The construction of the airport which is 80 kilometres south of the national capital, is expected to start in 2021.

"As a strategic objective, we are looking at building a platform of airports in India in the mid-term. So, it could be that we will join hands with a financial investor in a later stage to make this platform (Noida airport) grow. At this stage of the development phase (of Noida airport), we will do it ourselves," Daniel Bircher, Chief Executive Officer, Zurich Airport International (Asia) told PTI news agency.

"We are looking at Rs 4,500 crore of investment for the first phase. This is in an area of 1,334 hectares of land that has been given to be developed. This includes one runway, apron space, this includes 12 boarding bridges for the terminal, and it also includes cargo catering space," Bircher added.

"We are focusing on short connecting times. We want to make it easier for the passenger to connect (for the other flight) and also for the airline to reduce the time the aircraft is on the ground so that reduces the cost for the airline," he stated.

"We see good potential in developing this airport into a logistics hub with all the adjacent logistics development and planned projects. It also includes 74 hectares of cityside area that can be developed. This we will take in a phase-wise approach, initially most likely a hotel and the rest we are still studying. This includes also a metro station on our land," Bircher added.

A Zurich Airport official statement read, "Despite the coronavirus pandemic, Flughafen Zurich AG remains convinced of the long-term growth opportunities of the Indian aviation market."

Earlier in the day, the 'concession agreement' for the Greenfield airport, estimated to cost Rs 29,560 crores, was inked between the Uttar Pradesh government's agency and the Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (YIAPL), a special purpose vehicle floated by the Zurich Airport for the project.

The agreement was signed by Dr Arun Vir Singh, CEO, Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL), and Christoph Schnellmann, Chief Executive Officer, Noida International Airport.

The Noida International Airport will be developed on the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

Jewar Airport will reportedly operate as a fully digital airport, providing a safe and contactless travel experience and customized commercial offerings to passengers. It will be the first net-zero emissions airport in its class, setting a new standard for sustainable aviation.

Construction of the Noida International Airport will support economic growth through job creation in the state, also a preferred destination for domestic as well as global investors in the upcoming years.

Dr Arun Vir Singh, Chief Executive Officer, Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL) said, World-class airport will not only connect the western UP region with other domestic and international destinations but also provide additional capacity to Delhi NCR region.

Notably, in November 2019, the Zurich Airport International AG won the contract to build and operate the airport in Greater Noida for a period of 40 years and it owns 100% of the project.

In addition to the project in India, Flughafen Zurich AG is currently involved in eight airports in Latin America. In addition to four airports in Brazil and two in Chile, the Zurich airport operator is involved in the airports in Bogota and Curacao.

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President Donald Trump said that he has 'fully authorized' the total declassification of any and all documents pertaining to Russia collusion, calling the investigation a 'hoax.'

The tweets about the documents were mixed in with a torrent of tweets made by Trump on Tuesday, who made 42 tweets and retweets in under an hour.

'I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax,' he said in the Tuesday evening tweet. 'Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!'

He later added: 'All Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country. Act!!!

Trump's tweets about the declassification of the documents were mixed in with other of-the-wall tweets made by the president on Tuesday

Trump said: 'All Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country. Act!!!

Trump gave the green light to Attorney General Bill Bar to declassify any documents related to the surveillance of Trump's campaign in 2016, Fox News reports.

John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence, declassified notes from former CIA Director John Brennan on Tuesday that showed that former President Barack Obama was briefed on a 'plan' to tie Donald Trump to Russia as a 'means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server' ahead of the 2016 election.

'Today, at the direction of President Trump, I declassified additional documents relevant to ongoing Congressional oversight and investigative activities,' Ratcliffe said in a statement.

The notes were taken after Obama had been briefed on the matter, a source familiar with the matter shared.

John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence, declassified notes from former CIA Director John Brennan on Tuesday that showed that former President Barack Obama was briefed on a 'plan' to tie Donald Trump to Russia as a 'means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server' ahead of the 2016 election

Trump has issued a flurry of tweets on a wide range of topics while under quarantine in the East Wing, slamming the FBI, FDA, Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Chris Wallace.

In one tweet, Trump set his terms for approving a stimulus bill from Congress, hours after saying he would cease all negotiations with Democrats until after the November 3 election.

'If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?' he tweeted on Tuesday night.

Trump has long called for individual stimulus payments and the continuation of the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses, but has rejected other elements of the Democrats' proposed stimulus plan. He reiterated that position on Tuesday.

Trump is seen at the White House on Monday night. He went on a Twitter rampage on Tuesday, tweeting about a variety of topics

Bident responded with a gif that could only be directed at President Trump

'The House & Senate should IMMEDIATELY Approve 25 Billion Dollars for Airline Payroll Support, & 135 Billion Dollars for Paycheck Protection Program for Small Business,' he wrote in another tweet.

'Both of these will be fully paid for with unused funds from the Cares Act. Have this money. I will sign now!' he continued.

Biden, Trump's Democrat opponent in the presidential election, responded by tweeting a gif that could only be aimed at the president, of himself saying 'get off Twitter.'

'New FDA Rules make it more difficult for them to speed up vaccines for approval before Election Day. Just another political hit job!,' Trump tweeted separately.

Earlier in the day, the FDA said vaccine makers should follow trial participants for at least two months to rule out any major side effects before seeking emergency approval -- a timeline that will rule out any hope of a vaccine before the November 3 election, as Trump had often promised.

Trump called debate moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News 'a total JOKE' in his Twitter rant

In another tweet, he cited reports of voting irregularities: '11,00 North Carolina residents get incorrect voter registration forms. 2000 LA County Voters received 'faulty' Ballots, with NO WAY TO VOTE FOR PRESIDENT. Many others throughout USA. Here we go. This will be the most corrupt Election in American History!'

In a separate tweet, he wrote: 'I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!'

It came as a response to a tweet from Hoover Institution media fellow Paul Sperry, whom Trump also retweeted more than a dozen times in the span of an hour.

Trump has previously vowed to declassify documents related to the FBI's 2016 Trump-Russia investigation, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's subsequent probe, which found no proof that the Trump campaign criminally conspired with the Russian government.

Indeed, in a follow-up tweet, Trump wrote: 'All Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country. Act!!!'

Another stream of tweets lashed out at the FBI's Trump-Russia probe and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's (above) subsequent investigation

'So I had to constantly fight off all of this Scum, achieve more than any other President in First Term, and then they talk Chaos. They created crimes against me and this administration!' Trump added in a retweet of Fox News commentator Greg Jarrett, in reference to the FBI's Trump-Russia probe.

'Can't believe these con men are not yet being PROSECUTED. Pathetic!' Trump said of the FBI investigators.

Other targets of the president's ire included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Fox News anchor Chris Wallace.

'Wear your mask in the 'beauty' parlor, Nancy!' he said of Pelosi, in reference to surveillance footage that captured her visiting a San Francisco salon without a face covering, in violation of the city's lockdown rules.

'Chris Wallace was a total JOKE. Protected Joe all night long. He's no Mike!!!' Trump tweeted of the newsman who moderated last week's presidential debates, comparing him unfavorably to his father Mike Wallace.

Biden also came in for Trump's ire in a tweetstorm from the White House on Tuesday

Trump's tweetstorm on Tuesday night followed an earlier tweet that sent stock markets crashing, when he said there would be no deal with Democrats on additional pandemic stimulus until after the election.

While some theorized that it might be a negotiation tactic, others pointed to one of the medications Trump is taking to treat coronavirus, Dexamethasone, a steroid that can have side affects of aggression, agitation and confusion.

On Monday, Trump's Twitter account was locked after he shared the email address of a New York Post columnist.

Twitter forced Trump to delete the tweet before unlocking the account, citing rules against sharing private information without consent.

Developing story, more to follow.
Authorities said video of the man was recorded by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in August 2019. Data embedded in the video file shows that the video was produced in October 2015.

Lefler said he was told the video of John Doe 42 involves oral sex with a boy.

The FBI also released three seconds of audio from the video. They said the man in the video has gray hair and is wearing a red and black plaid shirt.

"Due to the age of the images, it is possible that the individual's appearance may have changed over the years," the FBI wrote on the wanted poster.

Lefler said he is working to get voice and facial recognition software to prove that John Doe 42 is not Burki.

"I don't have any doubt in my mind that we'll be able to show that it's not Burki," Lefler said.

A spokeswoman for the FBI in Omaha did not immediately return a phone message from a reporter Wednesday.

Lefler said Burki was charged Friday with one count of production of child porn. He said authorities seized all of Burki's electronic devices.
Tesco CEO Ken Murphy on his first day in the job. Photo: Tesco/Ben Stevens/Parsons Media

New Tesco (TSCO.L) chief executive Ken Murphy has parked his tanks on the lawn of Aldi and Lidl, promising to go toe-to-toe with the German discounters on low prices.

In his first media call with journalists since taking the top job, Murphy vowed to keep Tescos prices competitive with rivals as the UK faces a historic recession and the threat of a possible no deal Brexit.

We are committed to providing value regardless of the circumstances, Murphy said on Wednesday. Particularly if we head into a recession  if times get tough  we will be even more focused on value.

READ MORE: 'Unknown' new Tesco CEO must battle Brexit, German discounters, and changing tastes

Tesco launched an Aldi Price Match guarantee in March and said on Wednesday that it had begun to win customers from the German discounter for the first time in a decade, citing data from market research firm Kantar.

Supermarket bosses have warned that prices at the tills could rise if the UK ends the Brexit transition period without a trade deal with the EU. However, Murphy said Tesco would work to keep prices low whatever happened.

We will maintain a very a sharp focus on price regardless of Brexit, he said.

Irishman Murphy joined Tesco last Friday, taking over the reins from Dave Lewis who had been in the top job for six years. Murphy, who joined from US healthcare and pharmacy giant Walgreens Alliance Boots, said his first seven days in the job had been a whirlwind of meeting staff and visiting stores.

Tesco has always been a company Ive admired and I feel privileged to now been part of the team, he said.

READ MORE: Tesco sales and profits rise despite 533m of COVID-19 costs

While only a week into the job, Murphy suggested he wouldnt make any major changes to the business.

You can take it that Im really happy with the strategy and the direction of the company unless you actually see a changing of the stores, he told journalists. As far as Im concerned, my job is to maintain momentum in the business and keep us focused on delivering a brilliant Christmas.

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Murphy said his predecessor had left the business in great shape.

This is less about me making my mark and much more about Tesco delivering for customers, he said.

Tesco has recently been pulling back from international markets, selling businesses in Asia and Poland. Murphy said he had no plans to pull back further from central Europe, where Tesco has sizeable operations.

The comments came as Murphy presided over his first result of results in charge of the business. Tescos half-year sales rose 6.6% to 26.7bn ($34.4bn) and pre-tax profit jumped 28.7% to 551m.
Pabst Blue Ribbon cannabis-infused seltzer is from L.A.-based Pabst Labs, which was granted the right to use the name and logo by Pabst Brewing Co. (Pabst Labs)

The name and logo of 176-year-old heritage beer brand Pabst Blue Ribbon now can be found on frosty cold cans of lemon-flavored cannabis-infused seltzer water.

Los Angeles-based Pabst Labs, which employs a half-dozen people, including at least two former employees of Pabst Brewing Co. (which is also located in L.A.), officially announced the branding play Wednesday. However, the 12-ounce cans, each of which contain 5 milligrams of THC, 4 grams of sugar and 25 calories, have been quietly rolling out to local dispensaries since the middle of September, according to Pabst Labs brand manager Mark Faicol, one of the former Pabst Brewing Co. employees.

Faicol said the initial response to the drink at retail has been "incredibly positive." The new buzzy nonbrew debuts with a single flavor, lemon, and the drink has an effervescent bite fans of LaCroix seltzer will appreciate. Additional flavors are in the works, Faicol said.

Pabst Blue Ribbon Cannabis-Infused Seltzer ($24 per 4-pack, $120 per 24-can case) is available only in California, and a list of stocking dispensaries can be found at pabstlabs.com. The drink also can be ordered for delivery.

In an interview with The Times last week, Faicol was quick to underscore two important things about the beer brand's move into the cannabis beverage space. First, while the beverage packaging may bear the beer brand's name and instantly recognizable blue-ribbon logo, the contents are nonalcoholic. Second, Pabst Labs is an almost 2-year-old standalone company that shares nothing more than a first name with the beer brewing company that dates to 1844.

"[Pabst Brewing Co.] can't legally hold a cannabis license because its not federally legal," Faicol said. "There's no financial stake, and theyre not going to share in any of the sales. But they did give us the rights to use the brand with no fee. While I can't speak on their behalf, what I think it's really affording them is an opportunity to learn about the [cannabis beverage] space with a partner that they really trust."

Story continues

Each 12-ounce can of lemon-flavored Pabst Blue Ribbon cannabis-infused seltzer contains 5 milligrams of THC, 4 grams of sugar and 25 calories. (Pabst Labs)

Faicol likened the brand extension to Pabst's recent moves into other nonbeer beverages, including spirits (a project he worked on while at the company), hard seltzer, hard tea and, most recently, hard cold-brew coffee.

What the brand owner's blessing gives Pabst Labs, Faicol said, is powerful brand awareness in a relatively new  and rapidly growing cannabis beverage space that is expected to be a $4 billion business by 2024. "It's transcended generations," Faicol said. "Its [a brand] your grandparents probably know about it, your parents know about it and your friends today know about it. We're looking to appeal to new and long-term brand supporters [as well as] the canna-curious."

In addition to giving its nascent beverage brand a leg up on competition, Faicol said he hopes the rights to use the Pabst Blue Ribbon name and logo will go a long way in helping to destigmatize the cannabis industry.

"If someone's carrying a can of PBR, that's going to elicit some type of response. Thats going to elicit a lot of curiosity, and people are going to ask: 'Hey, what is that?'" Faicol said. "With PBR and our brand coming into the space, were really hoping to kind of normalize the category."

We'll see who will drink to that.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
They liked each other enough when both were state lawmakers from York County, former colleagues say.

Scott Perry, from the Dillsburg area, represented part of Yorks large Republican delegation in the state House of Representatives. Eugene DePasquale, the token Democrat, represented the city of York in the House.
Two Islamic State members linked to the kidnapping of four slain Americans will stand trial in the United States for hostage-taking and terrorism-related charges, the Justice Department announced Wednesday, in what the families of victims said was the first step in the pursuit of justice.

British nationals El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, whom their captives nicknamed the "Beatles" for their accents, make up half of the notorious Islamic State cell that the US government has tied to the murder of more than two dozen hostages, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and American aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller.

Elsheikh, 32, and Kotey, 36, are each charged with conspiracy to commit hostage-taking resulting in death, four counts of hostage-taking resulting in death, conspiracy to murder US citizens outside of the United States and conspiracy to provide material support to both terrorists and a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death. If convicted, each faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

They have underestimated American resolve to obtain justice for our fellow citizens, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers in a news conference unveiling the charges Wednesday. "These men will now be brought before a United States court to face justice for the depraved acts alleged against them in the indictment."

The indictment comes more than two years after Elsheikh and Kotey were captured by US-allied Kurdish fighters in Syria. Since last October, the US military has held them without charge at an airbase in Iraq.

The families of the four Americans kidnapped and killed by the Islamic State welcomed the news in a statement Wednesday.

We are hopeful that the US government will finally be able to send the important message that if you harm Americans, you will never escape justice. And when you are caught, you will face the full power of American law, they said.

During interviews with foreign journalists, the two men have downplayed their role in IS. Elsheikh and Kotey deny taking part in the executions and said their duties consisted mostly of extracting information from the detainees to be used in ransom negotiations.

According to the indictment, Kotey and Elsheikh worked closely with Abu Muhammed al-Adnani, a former IS commander and chief media spokesperson who reported directly to former IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Prosecutors allege that in their role supervising detention facilities the pair engaged "in a prolonged pattern of physical and psychological violence against hostages."

It wasnt clear until recently whether Elsheikh and Kotey would ever face trial in the United States. Attorney General Bill Barr had threatened to hand them over for prosecution in Iraq, where human rights groups say trials of IS fighters lack due process, if the United Kingdom did not promptly share key evidence.

British authorities have hundreds of witness statements and intelligence intercepts collected on the Beatles. A court ruling prevented them from transferring that evidence to the United States, a country where capital punishment is a possible outcome.

The parents of the American hostages urged the White House privately and publicly to rule out their execution so that US prosecutors could build the strongest case possible using the British-supplied evidence.

Barr relented in August, telling the UK government that he would take the death penalty off the table. That assurance cleared the way for a UK judge to reverse the ruling on evidence-sharing.

The Justice Department said Elsheikh and Kotey will make their first appearance in the US Court for the Eastern District of Virginia later on Wednesday.

The families were also unanimous in asking that the pair stand trial in a federal courtroom rather than be sent to the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which they feared could be used as a further recruitment tool for groups like IS.

Marsha Mueller, whose daughter Kayla was held captive and killed by the group, told Al-Monitor in August she preferred the men receive a life sentence in a supermax prison.

My hope is that they are tried and put away in life in prison and solitary confinement, and they are pretty much forgotten about, she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 19:47:24|Editor: huaxia

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Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley testifies before the House Armed Services Committee during a hearing on the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Budget Request from the Department of Defense on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., the United States, on Feb. 26, 2020. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

"There is no change to the operational readiness or mission capability of the US Armed Forces," says Jonathan Hoffman.



WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Members of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, including Chairman Mark Milley, are reportedly in quarantine after exposure to COVID-19, as infections linked to the White House continue to grow.

The news emerged Tuesday afternoon after the Coast Guard announced its vice commandant, Admiral Charles Ray, had tested positive for the virus and would be quarantining from home.

Ray attended meetings with other senior military leaders at the Pentagon last week, according to a spokesperson.

"Out of an abundance of caution, all potential close contacts from these meetings are self-quarantining and have been tested this morning," Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement. "No Pentagon contacts have exhibited symptoms and we have no additional positive tests to report at this time."

In addition to Milley, Vice Chairman John Hyten and several other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a panel of high-ranking U.S. military officers who advise the president and other civilian leaders on military issues, have also reportedly entered quarantine.

"There is no change to the operational readiness or mission capability of the US Armed Forces," Hoffman said. "Senior military leaders are able to remain fully mission capable and perform their duties from an alternative work location."

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller, senior advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, and several others have joined a growing list of individuals in the president's orbit known to have contracted COVID-19, which included his confidants, campaign and White House aides, allies on Capitol Hill, and journalists covering the White House.

"Over the last 5 days I have been working remotely and self-isolating, testing negative every day through yesterday," Miller said in a statement. "Today, I tested positive for COVID-19 and am in quarantine."

A screengrab from Katie Miller's Twitter account on May 26, 2020 shows that the communications director for U.S. Vice President Mike Pence tweeted "Back at work today after three NEGATIVE COVID tests," more than two weeks after contracting the coronavirus. (Xinhua)



Miller's wife, Vice President Mike Pence's communications director Katie Miller, tested positive for COVID-19 in May.

She tested negative on Tuesday morning and traveled with Pence to Salt Lake City, Utah for the 2020 vice presidential debate scheduled for Wednesday but left the trip "out of an abundance of caution" as soon as she learned of her husband's diagnosis, according to an official.

Devin O'Malley, Pence's press secretary, tweeted Tuesday evening that the vice president had tested negative again in the afternoon.

"Vice President Mike Pence is encouraged to go about his normal activities and does not need to quarantine," according to a memo written by his doctor.

Democrats are demanding more information and transparency from the White House around details of recent events that may have led to the infection of Trump and others.

"The Trump White House's opaque, secretive handling of its super-spreader event is a public health threat," Senate Minority Leader and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer tweeted. "The outbreak which hospitalized Pres. Trump and infected numerous WH staff, 3 Senators, and more has yet to be fully contained."

A day after returning to the White House following a three-day hospitalization for COVID-19, Trump, who continues to receive treatment, has reported no symptoms, White House physician Sean Conley said in his memo Tuesday.

The Marine One carrying U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 5, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

"He had a restful first night at home, and today he reports no symptoms. Vital signs and physical exam remain stable, with an ambulatory oxygen saturation level of 95-97 percent," Conley wrote. "Overall he continues to do extremely well."

Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning he was feeling "great" and looking forward to the next debate with 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in Miami, Florida on Oct. 15.

Hours earlier, Republicans again sought to downplay COVID-19 by comparing it to flu, which was later hidden by Twitter behind a label stating that it violated its rules "about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information" related to the virus.

Trump and Biden met for their first encounter in the 2020 race in Cleveland, Ohio on Sept. 29, two days before the incumbent's diagnosis. The presidential candidates did not shake hands that night, while there was a distance between their podiums with neither wearing masks on stage.

Biden has undergone four COVID-19 tests since Oct. 2 with all results returning negative, according to his campaign team.

Speaking to reporters after a campaign stop in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Tuesday evening, Biden said the next debate should not be held if Trump still has the virus.

"I think if he still has COVID, we shouldn't have a debate," Biden, who's leading his rival in national and battleground state polls, said. "I'm not sure what President Trump is all about now. I don't know what his status is. I'm looking forward to being able to debate him, but I just hope all the protocols are followed."

It is unclear if Trump, who may remain contagious, will be healthy enough to attend the matchup, as his doctors have warned he isn't out of the woods yet. Aged 74 and clinically obese, the president is at a higher risk of serious complications from the virus that has infected over 7.5 million people and killed more than 210,000 in the United States. 
It is highly recommended for a senior driver to shop online for cheaper rates, as insurance companies dont begin to charge extra at the same age, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company.

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This column is a response to comments left on my column on the Times-News website last week. I was as troubled by them as I was by watching our presidents performance in the first debate. My reason is simple. I have an angry physical reaction whenever I notice anyone seriously saying negative things about another person or group of people. There are actions, behaviors, preferences, beliefs, or even ways of public dress which are open to judgment. NO ONE ON EARTH should ever be considered deplorable.

I was incapable of making this statement as a young teenager. Even until my late twenties, I was well on my way to becoming a person I now dislike because I was so focused on becoming, to use a popular teenage phrase, part of the in-crowd. That long story is part of the book I am preparing, but the journey to now has been painful to me and to those who have known me.

The quote from my critic which most upset me is I am a proud and loud Trump supporter, because of that I have been called ignorant, a racist, a homophobe, stupid, greedy, oh and lets not forget a deplorable. Not by our president, but by the left and your girl, Hillary. I understand that because loved ones who support Trump express the same belief. Trumps support as early as the 2016 Republican primaries came from people who had been hurt by similar comments.

A former editor of the Times-News requested a partisan column when I was the Democratic chair, but in the years since, my purpose in writing has changed. I am now attempting to focus on non-partisan, anti-tribal, practical, forward-thinking discussion of current public affairs. Since the 2016 election, most of my columns have not been written with any intention to favor any political party. When I am intentionally partisan, I clearly admit it.

After the 2000 election, when I voted for Bush, I increasingly noticed a tendency toward skepticism and distrust of elected officials and bureaucrats. Cynicism and political satire were usual, but the amount of serious distrust was not. Political commentary has always had partisan leanings, but in the last twenty years, the rise of the entertaining commentator has created fans. The celebrity commentator has gathered followers. Supporters of the various celebrity commentators become true believers of viewpoints which often emphasize the personal attacks against members of the group and their accepted beliefs. Those attacks would get less notice without the attention given by commentators. Traditional news mentions criticism of proposals, actions or even persons without further commentary.

Eleanor Roosevelt, who endured personal attacks from her mother-in-law as well as untold other people, famously said, No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. I believe in the truth of that statement. However, I also try to keep in mind Pogos famous quote We have met the enemy and he is us. The American Ideal was expressed in the Declaration of Independence. All men are created equal. Our Constitution promises equal justice under our laws. As patriotic citizens of the United States, it is our duty to live up to our ideals every day. We must examine our actions and our words constantly.

There is no room for hurting others because you have been hurt. We gathered as a people in this country to work toward a more perfect union. Disagreement is unavoidable but being disagreeable is simply unpatriotic. None of us is perfect. Regrettable actions occur. Unkind words are spoken. They must be remedied. Expressions of regret with apology should be accepted when change is evident.

Best practices in parenting, marriage, leadership, management and negotiation show that problems are not solved through personal attack. Disrespectful speech creates more problems. You and I can change ourselves. We can also influence others by word and action. As citizens, we should hold our public servants, including our elected officials, accountable. The United States was founded on the ideal of equality of mankind and equity of justice. In debate, the fancy word for personal attack is ad hominem. It is an untruth, a fallacy. In a schoolyard, it is called bullying. We cannot support it. Anywhere.

Linda Brugger, retired from the Air Force, leaning Democrat and community activist can be reached at IdahoAuthor@outlook.com. She welcomes feedback.

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The Canada-U.S. border remains closed until October 21, a deadline that has extended every month since lockdowns began in March. Non-essential travel is also closed off to most visitors from other parts of the world. Theres little reason to think these policies will change soon, as COVID-19 cases continue to surge in parts of Canada, the U.S. and some nations in Europe.

But Canada has already begun exploring ways to reopen the border slowly and to specific travellers. Last week, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino announced certain family members and spouses of Canadian citizens are allowed entry, as are some foreign nationals and international students.

When borders do reopen, what should that look like? Who should be allowed in? What public health protocols and benchmarks should Canada meet before we even consider it?

Dr. Vivek Goel, professor at the University of Torontos Dalla Lana School of Public Health and member of the federal governments COVID Immunity Task Force, talks to Adrian Cheung about the research of reopening borders and why a blanket ban on all visitors might not be a long-term answer.
MALTA, NY  (October 6, 2020)  The Super DIRTcar Series roared to life once again at Albany-Saratoga Speedway launching a weeks worth of Big Block Modified action all across New York State. Anthony Perrego, the 26-year-old driver from Montgomery, NY, made every lap count and picked up the $7,500 payday with a last-lap pass on local hero Ronnie Johnson. Meanwhile, Mike Mahaney was within striking distance of the leaders after starting 11th but had to settle for a strong 3rd place finish.

Ronnie Johnson, from Duanesburg, NY, rocketed from the VP Race Fuels Making Power Point to lead the field to start the 60-lap Billy Whittaker Cars Super DIRTcar Series DIRTcar OktoberFAST presented by DIRTVision Feature into turn one.

Early in the race Albany favorite Matt DeLorenzo and 2019 Super DIRTcar Series champion Mat Williamson, from St. Catharines, ON, made strong charges for the lead but Johnson kept them at bay by riding the cushion up top. On lap 18, Johnson caught the tail of the field and had to start working through traffic. Pennsylvanias Rex King Jr. was the first to fall to the No. 2RJ but he wouldnt be the last.

By lap 20 Anthony Perrego, in the No. 44, began to show his nose to Johnson on the bottom part of the track. Perrego actually got alongside Johnson just as the caution flag flew for the first time in the Feature.

A succession of cautions claimed the likes of Pat Ward who slowed with an engine issue and front-runner Matt DeLorenzo who clipped the front stretch wall on the restart and suffered a flat tire. Luckily, the driver of the No. 3D was able to clear the track in turn four as the entire field was on the gas right behind him.

The race ended on a long green-flag run and that played directly into the hands of Anthony Perrego.

The top was really dominant throughout the race but it got a little dirty and he [Ronnie Johnson] started to back up to me. Ive run a lot of races here and when you rip around the top like that, the tire overheats, Perrego said. Ive had it happen to me where I got passed.

Although hes a young racer, thats the type of decision making and knowledge that a veteran driver might have. Catching Johnson was one thing but passing him is another story.

In traffic, most of the guys were blazing around the top side and I knew he could get a few cars between us. He was looking for the bottom but every time he moved down hed lose traction, noted Perrego. I think thats really where we got him at the end. He probably kept seeing my nose and number and started moving down.

Perrego was amped to get his first career Super DIRTcar Series win.

I am really happy for the team. Weve really turned things around here and were glad to get a big one!

There are, of course, two sides to a last-lap thriller. Ronnie Johnson may lose some sleep over this one but it was a very strong run for the No. 2RJ. He led 59/60 laps, which thanks to Bart Contracting, earned him another $250 for leading the most laps without winning. A bittersweet award to say the least.

Heres how Johnson broke it down:

Anthony was working the bottom and I was getting freer and freer as the race went on and I really couldnt move my line. I led 58 laps up there. But thats just the way it goes. I dont know what I could have done differently there, said Johnson. Ill probably lay awake tonight thinking about it. Its disappointing but it was a sold run.

Mike Mahaney was crowned the Albany-Saratoga Speedway DIRTcar Big Block Modified track champion in September. He used that expertise to drive up from 11th, passing many of the best Big Block Modified drivers there are to capture the final step on the podium.

At the green flag, it was go time for the No. 35 Adirondack Auto machine and the car just worked.

Starting from 11th, especially earlier on, I was very aggressive moving around, going top, bottom, wherever it took to get the spots, Mahaney said. Everybody was on the top but once they started to go in different lanes, I could go where they werent. I had a great race car in either lane. That got us some spots early and got us to the front.

Mahaneys drive thrilled race fans everywhere watching at home on DIRTVision.

Super DIRT Week is known for brand new wraps and paint jobs on cars. Mahaneys team continued that tradition and with good reason.

Tony Monaco, from Tony Monaco Landscaping, his daughter is fighting breast cancer. We wrapped the car with pink and put Keep fighting Maryann on the car because we want to raise awareness about it. We want to remind everyone fighting cancer to stay strong and to know we got their backs. Plus, its a great paint scheme that we get to support them with.

Matt Sheppard, to the surprise of many, had to transfer out of the Last Chance Showdown to make the field. He won that race and continued his campaign in the 60-lap Feature by passing another 11 cars to pick up the $250 Bart Contracting Hard Charger Award.

Race fans will be eager to see if Super Matt Sheppard returns to form at Utica-Rome Speedway tomorrow live on DIRTVision.

Gypsum Racings Billy Decker set the fast time of the night and grabbed an extra $500 from Bart Contracting for his trouble.

Join us tomorrow where the Billy Whittaker Cars Super DIRTcar Series, Bicknell Racing Products DIRTcar 358 Modified Series, and COMP Cams DIRTcar Pro Stock Series will be in action beginning with Hot laps at 5PM exclusively on DIRTVision at Utica-Rome Speedway.

Feature (60 Laps)

1. 44P-Anthony Perrego [2][$7,500]; 2. 35-Mike Mahaney [11][$4,000]; 3. RJ2-Ronnie Johnson [1][$2,500]; 4. 115-Ken Tremont [8][$1,800]; 5. 99L-Larry Wight [15][$1,600]; 6. 91-Billy Decker [5][$1,400]; 7. 88-Mat Williamson [6][$1,300]; 8. 3J-Marc Johnson [10][$1,200]; 9. 9S-Matt Sheppard [21][$1,100]; 10. 5H-Chris Hile [7][$1,000]; 11. 25-Erick Rudolph [12][$800]; 12. 44-Stewart Friesen [20][$700]; 13. 98H-Jimmy Phelps [14][$600]; 14. 98-Rocky Warner [24][$575]; 15. 19-Tim Fuller [16][$550]; 16. 21A-Peter Britten [26][$525]; 17. 32C-Max Mclaughlin [17][$500]; 18. 2-Jack Lehner [18][$500]; 19. 19M-Jessey Mueller [13][$500]; 20. 20-Brett Hearn [19][$500]; 21. M1-David Marcuccilli [3][$500]; 22. 165-Rex King [22][$500]; 23. 97-Bobby Hackel [23][$500]; 24. 3D-Matt Delorenzo [4][$500]; 25. 42P-Pat Ward [9][$500]; 26. 111-Demetrios Drellos [25][$500]

DIRTcar OktoberFAST is brought to fans by many important sponsors and partners, including:

ARP [automotive Racing products], ASI Race Wear, Bart Contracting Inc., Beyea Headers, Bicknell Racing Products, Billy Whittaker Cars & Trux, Chevy Performance, Cometic Gasket, COMP Cams, DART, DIRTVision, Drydene, Fast Shafts, FireAde, Fox Shox, Hoosier Racing Tire (Official Tire), I Love New York, Integra Racing Shocks, Intercomp, iRacing (Official Online Racing Game), Penske Shocks, Racing Electronics, SIS Insurance (Official Insurance Provider), Stirling Lubricants, St. Lawrence Radiology, SRI Performance, SuperGen Products/ Champion Power Equipment, TNT Rescue, VP Racing Fuels (Official Racing Fuel), Wrisco (Exclusive Racing Aluminum).
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Veteran NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore will join astronauts Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann for NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test, the inaugural crewed flight of the CST-100 Starliner launching to the International Space Station in 2021.

Wilmore will take the place of Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson on the flight test as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. Ferguson decided not to fly for personal reasons.

Wilmore has been training side-by-side with the crew since being named the sole backup for all flight positions in July 2018. He now will shift his focus specifically to the spacecraft commander's duties in preparation for the flight to the space station. The flight is designed to test the end-to-end capabilities of the new Starliner system.

"Butch will be able to step in seamlessly, and his previous experience on both space shuttle and space station missions make him a valuable addition to this flight," said Kathy Lueders, associate administrator of NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. "Chris has been a talented member of the crew for this mission. The NASA and Boeing Commercial Crew teams sincerely appreciate the invaluable work he has completed and he will continue to lead in the development of Starliner, which will help ensure that the Starliner Crew Flight Test will be a success."

Wilmore has spent a total of 178 days in space over the course of two missions. In 2009, he served as the pilot of space shuttle Atlantis on STS-129, helping to deliver 14 tons of spare parts for the space station. In 2014, he returned to the space station via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for a 167-day mission, during which he performed four spacewalks.

A native of Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, Wilmore earned bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, and a master's degree in aviation systems from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He is a retired captain in the U.S. Navy, with more than 7,800 flight hours and 663 carrier landings in tactical jet aircraft. He was selected as an astronaut in 2000.

"I'm grateful to Chris for his exceptional leadership and insight into this very complex and most capable vehicle," Wilmore said. "Having had the chance to train alongside and view this outstanding crew as backup has been instrumental in my preparation to assume this position. Stepping down was a difficult decision for Chris, but with his leadership and assistance to this point, this crew is positioned for success. We will move forward in the same professional and dedicated manner that Chris has forged."

Ferguson will assume the role of director of Mission Integration and Operations, as well as director of Crew Systems for Boeing's Commercial Crew Program, where he will focus on ensuring the Starliner spacecraft meets the needs of NASA astronauts. In this role, he will be one of the last people the crew sees before leaving Earth and one of the first they see upon their return, as well as supporting them throughout their training and mission.

"I have full confidence in the Starliner vehicle, the men and women building and testing it, and the NASA astronauts who will ultimately fly it," Ferguson said. "The Boeing team has taken all lessons from our first uncrewed Orbital Flight Test to heart, and is making Starliner one of the safest new crewed spacecraft ever fielded. I will be here on the ground supporting Butch, Nicole, and Mike while they prove it."

Ferguson has been an integral part of the Starliner program since 2011, after retiring from NASA as a three-time space shuttle veteran, including as commander of STS-135, the final space shuttle flight to the space station.

"My personal thank you to Chris for his leadership. He is putting his family first, which Boeing fully supports," said Leanne Caret, president and CEO, Boeing Defense, Space & Security. "We are fortunate he will continue to take an active role on the Starliner program and bring his depth and breadth of experience in human spaceflight to the program."

The development of a safe, reliable and cost-effective solution for crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station remains a priority for NASA and Boeing, allowing the on-orbit research facility to continue to fulfill its promise as a world-class laboratory.

NASA's Commercial Crew Program is working with the American aerospace industry as companies develop and operate a new generation of spacecraft and launch systems capable of carrying crews to low-Earth orbit and to the space station. Commercial transportation to and from the station will provide expanded utility, additional research time and broader opportunities for discovery on the orbital outpost.

For more information on NASA's Commercial Crew Program, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


Ex-engineer of Transneft subsidiary pleads guilty to trade secrets disclosure

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

10:41 07/10/2020

MOSCOW, October 7 (RAPSI)  A defendant in a case over disclosure of trade secrets, ex-engineer of Transneft-Diascan, a subsidiary of Transneft oil company, Sergey Zubin has pleaded guilty, according to the Investgative Committees spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko.

Investigators believe that Zubin after his dismissal offered to sell a businessnan oil diagnostic work equipment engineering documentation for 400 million rubles ($5 million).

According to the investigation, Zubin illegally obtained engineering drawings for oil diagnostic work instruments without the owners consent during his work in Transneft-Diascan. Experst estimated expenditures for these developments at more than 2 billion rubles ($25.7 million). In July 2019, he resigned from his post and in 2020 attempted to sell the materials.

The former Transneft employee was arrested on Monday.
The Sept. 30 state map for COVID-19 transmission. According to numbers released Wednesday evening, Williamstown is moving to "gray" as of Oct. 7.

UPDATE: Williamstown Moves to Gray; No Change Triggered for Mount Greylock Schools

Update on Wednesday evening: The Community-Level COVID-19 Data Report from the commonwealth lists Williamstown as "gray" with a 1.9 per 100,000 average daily incidence rate for the novel coronavirus over the last 14 days.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  With just two positive COVID-19 tests in the last 14 days, the town is moving out of the yellow and into the gray in the commonwealth's weekly community-level data report.

That means the Mount Greylock Regional School District does not have to move back to remote instruction for its three public schools.

School officials and families were keeping a close eye on the weekly release of data from the commonwealth because of a trigger in the district's reopening plan. Williamstown Elementary, Lanesborough Elementary and Mount Greylock Regional School will go fully remote if either of the district's member towns are rated "yellow" for three consecutive weeks.

Williamstown was yellow for two straight weeks heading into Wednesday.

Each Wednesday, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health releases a new map of community transmission rates of the novel coronavirus. Although the map was not updated early Wednesday evening, the raw data was posted by the commonwealth.

It showed that on a basis of incidents per 100,000 of population, Williamstown had a score of 1.9 for the last 14 days, which puts it in the gray classification, like most of Berkshire County.

As of last Wednesday, Sept. 30, Williamstown was the only Berkshire County municipality categorized as yellow. No county towns were listed as "red" in the commonwealth's gray, green, yellow, red classifications.

By definition, yellow communities show and average daily COVID-19 case rate of between four and eight per 100,000 residents.

Green communities have fewer than four cases per 100,000 residents. Gray means a town or city has fewer than five reported cases in the period covered.

Red communities had case rates of more than eight per 100,000 residents. The only "red" community in Western Massachusetts on the Sept. 30 map was Springfield, which had 8.26 cases per 100,000. It stayed red in the Oct. 7 numbers with 14.6 cases per 100,000.

The Mount Greylock Regional School Distirct, which includes Williamstown and Lanesborough and which has tuition agreements with the towns of New Ashsford and Hancock, opened under an agreement with its teachers union that automatically moves learning to a remote model if either of the member towns (Williamstown and Lanesborough) are in the yellow or red for three consecutive weeks.

Likewise, the district will remain fully remote until a rating of gray or green is achieved "in either of the member towns of Lanesborough or Williamstown for three (3) consecutive weeks," according to language on the district's website. iBerkshires.com asked Interim Superintendent Robert Putnam on Sept. 16, but he did not respond with a clarification on whether the return to in-person instruction trigger should have read "a rating of grey or green in both of the member towns."

As of Wednesday afternoon, the phrasing "either of the member towns" for a return to in-person instruction remains on the school's website.

If Williamstown had persisted in the yellow, then the agreement specifies all three district schools would go remote.

The middle-high school uses an AARBB model where half of the student body can attend school in person on Mondays and Tuesdays and the other half can attend in person on Thursdays and Fridays.

Since hybrid instruction only began on Monday, Oct. 5, a move to fully remote instruction would have meant that only half of the middle-high school's student population will have had the opportunity to attend school in person at all until at least the end of this month.

The district's two elementary schools began hybrid instruction on an AM/PM model, where half of each schools pupils attend in person in the morning and the other half attend in person in the afternoon.
Boston Public Schools reopening for in-person learning is being pushed back after the citys positive test rate climbed over 4%, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced on Wednesday.

Walsh told reporters during a Wednesday morning press conference that it was prudent to pause the reopening plan because of the increase.

On Monday, the district began its first full week of hybrid for students with special needs, English language learners and those who are homeless. The district planned to bring preschoolers and kindergartners back to school next week. Now those plans are being pushed back to Oct. 22.

Other grades werent planning to start in a hybrid model until next month.

On Oct. 15 and 19, kindergarten students are expected to return to school. Then on Oct. 22 and 26, grades one, two and three can return.

Grades four through eight will go back to class on Nov. 5 and 9, Walsh said. Grades nine through 12 will go back on Nov. 16 and 19.

We will reevaluate where we are based on the data that we see between now and then, and there are many other dates that we will be looking at to see where our positivity rate is in the city of Boston, Walsh said.

The city announced in August that the public schools will begin the new academic year with a phased-in approach with the year starting with remote learning.

He said then that if the positive coronavirus test rate hits 4% in the city then students will have to switch back to remote learning.

The bottom line is we need to contain this virus and keep our community safe, Walsh said in August. If we want to have in-school learning this year, that is one of the most important things we can do.

The hybrid plan calls for three days of online learning for students a week, with a mix of large group and small group instruction and projects, access to physical education, arts and enrichment, and meals provided at school.

For the past two weeks the percentage of positive tests has risen dramatically across the state compared to August and September.

Health officials reported more than 700 new COVID infections a day during the first two days of October  numbers that havent been seen in a consecutive string of days since this past spring.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health reported an 454 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. The statewide total is now 133,359.

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Trump or Biden: Who will US-Egyptians vote for? The decisive factor is the US foreign policy towards Egypt and the Middle East

The US is seeing the strangest presidential elections in its history. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the largest anti-racial discrimination demonstrations in recent history, and President Donald Trump's infection with the virus, the US public are divided over the Republican billionaire and his rival Democrat Joe Biden.

Both presidential contenders are faced with a barrage of criticism and accusations. Meanwhile, they are both seeking the swing voters who can determine the election result.

Amid this unconventional race to the White House, where does the Egyptian community in the US stand? Statistics revealed there are hundreds of thousands of Egyptian eligible voters in the world's biggest democracy.

Usually, the Arab community in the USA, especially the Egyptian, is inclined towards the Republican camp, which is the traditionalist party in American politics; opposing abortion and backing moral and religious values, suiting the Arab and Egyptian temperament in general.

In addition, they endorse the principle of classical liberalism, which upholds civil rights and law and order with the commitment to economic freedom.

Over time, the Republicans began to lean towards the right and modified their opinions.

On the other hand, the Democratic Party gained momentum by supporting immigrants and the minorities rights and dreamers and prioritising human rights principles.

Much like the American public, Egyptian voters in the US are divided over the two presidential candidates.

Several months ago, the Egyptians for Trump 2020 Facebook page was created. Garnering over 2,000 followers, the page was launched by an Egyptian young man, Romani Gayed, 30, who resides in Nashville, Tennessee.

Gayed immigrated to the US more than 15 years ago, where he went to high school and university. He currently works in the field of medical analysis.

Gayed said as a civil activist, I support Trump's domestic efforts aiming at improving the life of American citizens and his efforts abroad to bring peace to the Middle East and dismantle terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State, which was founded during the tenure of his predecessor Barack Obama and had a negative effect on the progress and prosperity of the region, as well as Trumps backing of Egypt and President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.

He added that he pursues supporting Trump by putting forth the facts regarding the American president and drawing attention to his achievements, which the American media doesnt give enough attention, as well as encouraging the Egyptian-American community to vote.

Gayed believes Egyptians in the US have benefited from Trump's economic reforms, which have resulted in lowering unemployment rates to their lowest levels in decades. He added that Egyptians in the Middle East have also benefited from the dismantling of the Islamic State terrorist group after the killing of its leader Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi, which in its turn helped Egypt to focus more on developmental and economic projects.

He considers the accusations of racism levelled against Trump are a political game that aims to tarnish his reputation. He sees that the proof on this is that Trump cared about minorities in America. He has also made permanent subsidies to African-American private universities instead of them asking for it every year as well as decreasing the unemployment rate to its lowest level among African-American and Hispanics.

In addition, he has tightened the laws concerning abortion and signed an executive order to enhance freedom of speech and religious liberty, known as Religious Liberty Executive Order, which promotes religious liberty as a political priority for the administration and demands all federal agencies to take necessary decisions to protect them."

Gayed rejects the criticisms levelled against Trump that his rise to the helm has given the extreme right a push. He says that Trumps rise has struck a power balance after an extreme leaning towards the left during the previous administration. This balance is viewed by the leftists as extremism, but all the American presidents decisions are to the advantage of the American citizen indiscriminately.

He stated that, as an American-Egyptian, he would like to encourage the Egyptian and Arab community to vote for Trump since his standpoints have been in support of the Arab world in the issues of peace and stopping foreign interventions.

He added that there is an obvious contrast between the Trumps administration standpoint towards the Egyptian government and backing it in its war against terrorism and the Obama administration which was a blow to peace in Egypt and the Arab world.

Rana Hassan, a university student in Florida, is a swing voter. She has been keen to monitor the stands and viewpoints of both camps.

Hassan said Trumps supporters reject the accusations of racism levelled against Trump and the recent violent demonstrations. They uphold the right to have arms and use them, refuse immigration, agree with building the Mexico-United States barrier, oppose abortion and consider it immoral and assert they are pro-life supporters. They refuse the government's interference in the healthcare programme.

Hassan asserted that Biden's defenders believe the government must have a prominent role in the healthcare programme and there is a necessity to impose more rules to organise the sphere of trade and business. They back abortion and they view it as the right to choose, refuse building the Mexico-US barrier, they demand more openness to criticise governmental policies and discuss racism which the US suffers from to find solutions and adjust the way in which the American history is taught.

She sees there is a severe congestion between the two sides and mutual recriminations and accusations of treason; the Republicans accuse the Democratic Party of seeking to transform the country into a socialist state while Democrats warn that Trumps ideas and his supporters threaten to undermine democracy and freedoms.

There is a strong camp among Egyptians that supports Biden. In spite of the fact there are no activities on social media that reflect this, their support to Biden emanates from their refusal of Trumps policies.

Sherif Hassan, a university professor in Texas, asserts that he will vote for Biden in the hope that the new administration will amend some of Trump's strategies to be more inclusive.

He explains that Trumps policies affect US-Egyptians based on several factors, the most important of which is whether they hold a green card or have a US nationality. Green card holders, such as students, visitors and professionals, have faced several difficulties due to the strict immigration and travel laws which affected foreigners in general and some of them couldnt bring their families, while others couldnt renew their residency permit.

Like the general American public, Egyptians who have US nationality have been widely affected by the instability of the government and their confidence declined due to misleading information, mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis, the decline of the US international role which was reflected negatively on its global image, in addition to antagonistic speech and the escalation of racial tensions which the minorities suffered from.

Hassan sees that the standpoint of the American presidential candidate and his relationship towards Egypt is a very influential factor according to the voters of Egyptian descent. This doesnt apply only to the voters from the first generation of Egyptian immigrants to the US but to the second generation as well.

Despite the difference in vision between the two generations, the second generation tends to concur with the first generation and uphold their cultural heritage when it comes to Middle East issues and how the candidates deal with them. However, both candidates stands towards such issues havent shown much variation.

Mohamed Ahmed, an engineer, said he will vote for Biden, pointing out at the same time that the Egyptian community didnt benefit from Trump. He doesnt believe that it has been harmed too.

He also believes that there hasnt been any American president who has made a direct impact on Egyptians in general. He considers that foreign policies are a very influential factor on the Egyptian-American voters while the impact of the domestic issues on the Egyptian voters is a personal matter and sometimes moral considerations or favouring personal interests play a role.

For instance, some Muslim doctors will vote for Trump so that their incomes or taxes wont be affected due to changes in the healthcare sector. Ahmed said that the matter differs concerning moral considerations.

From his viewpoint, there is no big difference in opinion between the first and second generations of US Egyptian immigrants, but the second generation is more vocal in expression and in upholding rights and duties and they dont accept any infringement on these rights. He sees there is a great difference in the foreign policies between the two parties, and accordingly the upcoming elections will have a huge impact on the American foreign policy, and by extension on relations with Egypt.

Nada Mohsen, a university student in Texas, says that she prefers Biden, pointing out that Trump didnt attack Egyptians specifically but he attacked Muslims generally. He has encouraged Islamophobia. For he has described Muslims as terrorists, therefore he supported racist and xenophobic voices. As a result, these voices were emboldened to repeat Trumps claims against Islam. He encouraged hate crimes and being prejudiced against Muslims. Mohsen points out that the matter isnt related to racism as much as to Islamophobia. She believes that voting for Biden will be useful for Egyptians because he will restore the soul of America to quote Biden himself.

Mohsen said she believes Biden wont make America better than it has been before Trump, but at least he wont allow racist and Islamophobic voices to be raised. He wont describe Muslims as terrorists.

She added that Biden tends to focus on domestic issues and American families. Many a time, he stressed that Americans prefer to listen to their families and how his policies will directly affect them. Mohsen believes that Islamophobia will be the first and foremost issue that will affect the Egyptian voter and the ban which Trump has imposed on Islamic countries, even if Egypt werent among these.

Finally, the Egyptian voter in the US is part of the American society and is usually influenced by the same factors that affect the American citizen. However, the decisive factor is the American foreign policy towards Egypt and the Middle East. But in any case, it must be put into consideration that the policies of candidates and American parties maintain constant directions towards Israel and accordingly most of the countries in the region.

*The writer is deputy chief editor and head of the foreign desk of Al-Ahram Daily newspaper

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Premier Oil this morning announced that it had agreed to merge with fellow North Sea explorer Chrysaor in a deal which will make the firm the largest independent London listed oil company.

Shares in the firm leapt 10.9 percent as markets opened this morning.

The deal will see Premiers $2.7bn debt pile, which has been weighing on the firms profitability for years, paid off and canceled. Its creditors will receive a $1.2bn cash payment.

The FTSE 250s shareholders are expected to own up to 5.45 percent of the new group, while Harbour, Chrysaors biggest shareholder, will own 39 percent.

Analysts at Jefferies said that the deal would create an estimated $200m in equity value for Premier shareholders.

The new entity will be led by Chrysaor chair Linda Cook, who used to run Shells gas and power division.

As a result of the merger, the group will have a combined production of over 250,000 barrels of oil per day.

In the first half, the two had a total revenue of $1.8bn.

Rumors of talks between the two firms over a potential refinancing deal emerged last month but at the time Premier dismissed them.

To date, terms of the transactions discussed do not, in Premiers opinion, provide better outcomes for either its shareholders or creditors than those proposed under the heads of terms announced on 20 August, the firm said in a statement on 15 September.

The deal is subject to shareholder approval. Premiers board has unanimously recommended that they vote in favor of the deal.

After years of problems related to its debt, Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said the firm had effectively been put out of its misery.

The companys problems date all back to 2014 and the oil price crash which occurred that year. It simply had taken on too much debt when oil prices were above $100 per barrel and has been running to stand still ever since

Against this backdrop, the tie-up with private equity-backed operator Chrysaor is more of a rescue mission than a merger of equals.

Chief executive Tony Durrant said: There is significant industrial, commercial and financial logic to creating an independent oil and gas company of this size with a leading position in the UK North Sea.

The transaction will also provide the Combined Group with a solid foundation from which to pursue a fully-funded international growth strategy.

Cook added: This transaction is the next step in Harbours aspiration to develop a new independent exploration and production company with global relevance.

It significantly advances our leading position in the North Sea, where we will continue to re-invest, and expands our geographic footprint to Asia and Latin America.

We are excited by the Premier assets in these regions and view them as the foundations upon which to build material portfolios and further diversify the company.

By City AM

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
A little idea led to a big jackpot for the Glencoe Fall Fair.

An online 50/50 draw launched to help the Glencoe Agricultural Society survive the COVID-19 pandemic went far beyond the initial guaranteed payout of $1,000, with the split pot skyrocketing past $366,000.

It was quite exciting to see the community spirit that we generated, said society president Ashleigh McLean.

A Glencoe local won the draw, taking home more than $180,000. Tickets were purchased in every province, and some as far away as Pakistan, Germany and Denmark.

The $180,000 raised not only will let the society weather the pandemics worst and the 2020 fairs cancellation, but also upgrade its buildings and pay off a longstanding capital improvement loan.

McLean said planned improvements would make the structures and fairgrounds more accessible and energy efficient.

They also plan to inject additional funds into community initiatives and youth leadership programs.

It gives us a future to look forward to, McLean said. These funds definitely came at a time when it was really needed.

Their societys $50,000-a-year building costs alone threatened to push the society into the red after pandemic restrictions cut off all regular revenue streams.

When launching the fundraiser, McLean said she thought the pool might reach $10,000, enough to help the society cover some of its overhead this year.

The overwhelming Glencoe and area response to the digital fundraiser speaks to the sense of community found in small towns and rural areas, McLean said.

These are really challenging times for a lot of communities, especially . . . smaller towns, she said. I like to think that sense of spirit and pride and commitment to the community really showed during the weeks leading up to the draw.

The Glencoe Fall Fair plans to return in the last week of September 2021.

You can feel really defeated at times like this, McLean said. (The draw) just relit a fire underneath us to keep going.

MaxMartin@postmedia.com

The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada
She has been catapulted to the spotlight amid a blossoming romance with Brad Pitt.

And Nicole Poturalski was sure to set pulses racing as she showed off her sensational figure in a sizzling post shared via Instagram on Tuesday.

The model, 27, put her toned abs and slender physique on display as she posed in a floral halterneck dress that had cut-out detailing.

Wow! Brad Pitt's model girlfriend Nicole Poturalski, 27, looked sensational as she showed off her toned abs in a floral halterneck dress with cut-out detailing on Tuesday

Nicole's colourful ensemble featured a graphic print in green, orange, yellow and pink, and it was cut high on her chest while the skirt fell over her knees.

The brunette beauty wore her luscious locks in loose waves that cascaded over her shoulders and she used a light palette of make-up to accentuate her pretty features.

Making sure to show off her look, Nicole walked slowly up to the camera and zoomed in on her torso to accnetuate her abs.

Stylish: The brunette beauty wore her luscious locks in loose waves that cascaded over her shoulders and she used a light palette of make-up to accentuate her pretty features

Glamorous: Nicole's colourful ensemble featured a graphic print in green, orange, yellow and pink, and it was cut high on her chest while the skirt fell over her knees

Looking good: Making sure to show off her look, Nicole walked slowly up to the camera and zoomed in on her torso to accnetuate her abs

Brad, 56, and Nicole were first spotted together in November during a performance of Kanye West's opera Nebuchadnezzar at the Hollywood Bowl.

The pair sparked relationship rumors when they were spotted arriving in the South of France on a private jet and visited Chateau Miraval, where he produces $390 (300) Rose champagne.

An insider revealed to US Weekly that Brad remains 'realistic about the relationship' since she 'lives in Germany' and he 'has a very complicated family situation that he is trying to get sorted out.

The boyfriend: Brad, 56, and Nicole were first spotted together in November during a performance of Kanye West's opera Nebuchadnezzar at the Hollywood Bowl

Earlier in September The Sunday Mirror reported that his ex Angelina Jolie was 'furious' that Brad had taken her to the spot in France where they were married just over six years ago.

Brad was married to Jennifer Aniston, 51, from 2000-2005. Nearly nine years later, he married Angelina in 2014, but she filed for divorce in September 2016.

Making matters worse was that Brad and Nicole visited only days after what would have been his sixth wedding anniversary with the actress.

'Angie is furious and utterly stunned Brad could stoop this low,' a source told The Mirror. 'She was highly hopeful they could dial down the intensity after a terrible summer of fighting, but now thats totally off the table.'

The former couple had appeared to reach a cordial understanding about co-parenting their kids, with the Once upon A Time... In Hollywood actor spotted leaving the actress' LA home in June after spending time with the children.

However, US Weekly claims they are now at odds again over how much time they each get with their children Pax, 16, Zahara, 15, Shiloh, 14, and 12-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
EIB to allocate EUR 300 mln loan for energy efficiency in Ukraine

12:50, 07.10.20 1751

The agreement was signed during the 22nd EU-Ukraine Summit.
I try to be a lifelong learner ... from all sources. I will read magazines that ideologically would be described as being opposite of what you might describe as my conservative world view. I'll read articles from Mother Jones. ... I like reading smart people who have thoughtful takes on things.

Being open-minded is important. ... authentically listening, I don't mean like pretending to listen or showing the facial expression of listening, but truly trying to understand the objections or the purpose for various pieces of legislation.

The critical points of not personalizing disputes, not taking with you the negative energy of debates, that's something I've tried to incorporate in my personal and professional life over the last 10 years or longer.

The successes I'm most proud of in my time in the Legislature are truly the win, win, wins, where you approach a problem that we all agree exists in a different way, and everyone was better off.

People don't text me telling me how to vote. That wouldn't go anywhere with me. People who can give pertinent information are helpful, but you shouldn't let anyone dictate what your vote should be.
The Good Lord Bird, the Showtime series adapted from the 2013 National Book Awardwinning novel by James McBride, is the first time since 1955 that weve seen a version of the John Brown story appear on screen. Ethan Hawke, who plays the heck out of Brown as a craggy, eccentric old crusader, has said that in his preparation for the role, he imagined the Old Man as a giant elk, walking through the foresta person of singular gravitas. But McBrides story is also a coming-of-age tale, and for a historical tragedy, its surprisingly funny.

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The Good Lord Birdbook and showis narrated by a fictional character not found in the historical record: Henry Shackleford, an enslaved child Brown quasi-adopts after his father dies. Brown mistakes Henry, whos played in the series by Joshua Caleb Johnson, for a girl; seeing no reason to correct the mad-looking white man, Henry becomes Henrietta. He dons a dress and sticks by Browns side through the bloodiest months of Bleeding Kansas; goes north and eavesdrops on Browns meetings with Frederick Douglass (Daveed Diggs) and Harriet Tubman (Zainab Jah); and witnesses the planning, and botched execution, of the Harpers Ferry raid in October of 1859.

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Henry Shackleford isnt real, though hes an extremely good literary device for a story that explores Browns fatherly tenderness and staunch commitment to interracial friendship. What other parts of the historical record does The Good Lord Bird twist, turn, and elide in telling its story?

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That Bird

In the first episode, which follows the fighting between Browns band and pro-slavery forces in Kansas in the summer of 1856, Hawkes John Brown gives Henry a feather from a Good Lord Bird. Browns son Frederick, who befriends the young Henry when he joins Brown and his group of guerrilla fighters, tells him that the birds are considered to be a source of enlightenment: They say one feather from a Good Lord Bird will bring you understanding that would last your whole life.

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Ivory-billed woodpeckers were indeed called Good Lord Bird or Great God Bird because of their huge size and beautiful colors. The idea behind the nickname, just as Frederick explains on the show, is that people who spotted the gorgeous birds, which had a 2-foot wingspan, couldnt help but exclaim out loud. Ivory-billed woodpeckers have been thought extinct for more than half a century, although there have been several sightings reported (and debated) in the last 20 years.

Dutch Henry

When we meet the fictional Henry Shackleford and his father, theyre held in bondage by Dutch Henry Sherman, a German immigrant who has a tavern that (as Henry says in voice-over) served as a post office, way station, rumor mill, and gin house for the Missouri Redshirts who came across the border to drink, throw cards, and holler about n****rs taking over the world.

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Though theres no record of his enslaving a boy who ends up riding with John Brown, Dutch Henry Sherman had a store and tavern in Kansas much like the one Henry describes and, along with his two brothers, supported the pro-slavery cause. By all accounts [the Shermans] were a brutal trio cut in the mold of border ruffians, David S. Reynolds writes in his book John Brown, Abolitionist. Brown viewed the Shermans as enemies, and Dutch Henrys brother William Sherman (Dutch Bill) was one of the five pro-slavery settlers killed by John Brown and his men in the course of the massacre at Pottawatomie Creek.

Browns Disguise

When Henry first meets John Brown in Dutch Henrys tavern, the Old Man affects an Irish accent and introduces himself as Shubel Morgan (at least, until Dutch Henry asks for his name again, and Brown calls himself Shubel Isaac, then explaining Isaac is my middle nameagain, this is a comedy). Brown did indeed use the alias Shubel Morgan, but that was a little later in his life, when he returned to Missouri in disguise in the winter of 1858, on a mission to free a group of enslaved people and bring them to Canada.

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Browns Crew

John Browns men, says Henry in voice-over, were a ragtag assortment of the scrawniest, saddest-looking individuals I ever saw. Bushwhackers, sticky-rope cattle rustlers, an Indian, even a Jew. The shows IndianOttawa Jones, played as a fierce and committed fighter by the actor Mo Brings Plentystays with Brown through the raid at Harpers Ferry.

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The Good Lord Bird shows how fluid and diverse a crew Browns associates made. To Henrys eyes, the group looks ragged, and Browns lack of discipline seems dangerous. (He didnt care much for the details of his army, Henry says at another point. Werent taking no attendance.) But from our modern perspective, its remarkable how ecumenical Brown was in his alliances. The shows Jew may be a reference to the historical figures Theodore Weiner, August Bondi, and Jacob Benjamin, three immigrants from Europe who joined with Brown in Kansas to fight for the Free State movement. And John Tecumseh Ottawa Jones was indeed an ally of Browns, although not present for the Harpers Ferry raid. Part Chippewa and part white, Jones was (as Reynolds writes) a prosperous and well-educated farmer, married to a white woman who came to the state as a missionary from Maine. The Joneses gave Free Stater forces material aid when Brown was in Kansas. Ottawa Jones suffered for it: Pro-slavery Missourians destroyed his farm in 1856.

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But while Brown considered him a friend and a compatriot, Jones wasnt one of the group that hid with Brown in the woods and fields in the summer of 1856, nor did he end up in the small band that fought with Brown at Harpers Ferry in October of 1859.

Animals

Did John Brown really, as The Good Lord Bird has it, keep a pet squirrel for 17 years? Did he wander the banks of a river, talking to a squirming captive rabbit about the Lord? That rabbit may be invention, but Brown was, overall, a lover of animals. Reynolds describes Browns childhood grief over the loss of a bobtail squirrel he had tamed. When Brown kept sheep during the earlier periods of his working life, Reynolds writes, he would stay up late at night when sickness hit, holding newborns to their ill mothers teats so that they wouldnt starve.

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Browns consideration for and kinship with animals was to become part of his legend. After seeing him speak in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1857, Ralph Waldo Emerson praised Brown in his journal, particularly mentioning the former shepherds closeness with animals and with nature: He always makes friends with his horse or mule  and when he sleeps on his horse, as he does as readily as on his bed, his horse does not start or endanger him.

The Killings

The first episode follows Brown and his band through the home invasion and killing of James Doyle, a pro-slavery settler whom Brown murders because he was present at Dutch Henrys tavern and seemed to support the pro-slavery side. This part of the episode is a much slimmed-down version of the famous Pottawatomie massacre, in which John Brown, five Brown sons, and three others killed five pro-slavery settlers in the middle of the night of May 24, 1856.

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On the show, the killings happen in part because Brown feels guilty that Henrys father died at the hands of Dutch Henry Sherman. Brown decides to lead his men to the cabin looking for Sherman, to exact retribution. Because the show cant feasibly include all the context of the political conflicts that led up to the Pottawatomie killings in real life, the murder of James Doyle feels more random, and much more shocking. The shows Doyle, begging for his life, protests that hes not truly pro-slavery, though he would like to own some n****rs to work the land. In the historical record, Brown undertook the raid to make a point, after pro-slavery forces ravaged the Free State stronghold of Lawrence a few days before. And the real-life Doyle seems to have been much more active in pro-slavery activities than his fictional avatar protests.

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Perhaps The Good Lord Bird chose to obscure some of this context for the raid so that the viewer would feel, as our audience avatar Henry does, deeply surprised by these events. This is probably also why Hawkes Brown is much more intimately involved with the killing of James Doyle than the historical Brown. According to a later account from James Townsley, a Free Stater who was present on the night of the historical massacre, John Brown himself did not land the sword blows that killed four of the five men who died that nightthough he did shoot James Doyle in the head. On the show, perhaps to heighten the shocking effect as Henry looks on, Hawkes Brown kills Doyle with blows from his own sword; the sounds of metal cleaving flesh are obscenely loud.

His Last Words

The Good Lord Bird opens with Brown climbing a scaffold and, right before the hangman puts a hood over his head, saying, What a beautiful country. (He uses this phrase again, later in the episode, while burying his son Frederick.) Here, the show has compressed the time frame and edited reality a bit. Brown was said to have observed to those transporting him to the gallows: This is a beautiful country. I never had the pleasure of seeing it before. The Good Lord Birds choice to open the show with the slightly truncated version emphasizes the Old Mans undaunted patriotism, even in the face of death.
A former Lakefield resident has made the long list for the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

Tama Ward of Vancouver, B.C. was added to the list for her nonfiction piece titled The Milkmaids Tale.

Ward lived in Lakefield while completing her undergraduate degree in English and anthropology at Trent University from 1982 to 1985.

Her father, Ron Ward, founded the Lakefield Literary Festival 26 years ago to honour his friend and neighbour Margaret Laurence.

Wards family bought the Margaret Laurence house (then a private residence) and had it recognized as a historic site of literary significance.

Shelley Ambrose (then of CBC) helped Wards family conceptualize the first year of the literary festival, including the public readings, workshops and the banquet. Shelagh Rogers, host of CBC Radios The Next Chapter, emceed the event.

Ward spent 25 years working in community theatre and refugee work. Her midlife included three years of milking Holsteins on a family-run dairy farm, Hammingview Farms, in Pitt Meadows, B.C.

Currently, Ward serves as a religious educator with the United Church of Canada and is working on a mythically imagined retelling of the life of Jesus.

Her story, My Friend Hafiz, was long listed for the 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

Announced on Oct. 1, the winner of the CBC nonfiction prize was Jonathan Poh from Burnaby, B.C.

He received $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and will also receive a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. His story has been published on the CBC Books website.

The four runners-up who each received $1,000 included Joseph Kakwinokanasum of White Rock, B.C., Amy MacRae of Vancouver, Rachel Preston of Nanaimo, B.C., and Leona Theis of Saskatoon.

Marissa Lentz is a staff reporter at the Examiner, based in Peterborough. Her reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Reach her via email: mlentz@peterboroughdaily.com

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(Newser)  News broke Tuesday that former Rep. Katie Hill's memoir would be turned into a film starring Elisabeth Moss, before disapproval spewed from Hill's old congressional Twitter account. Only Hill wasn't the one tweeting early Wednesday. Instead, anonymous posters identified as "Katie's former staff" blasted Moss and show producer Blumhouse for giving a voice to someone who "took advantage of her subordinates" and "caused immense harm to the people who worked for her, many of whom were young women just beginning their careers in politics," per the Daily Beast. Hill resigned from Congress last October after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with a female campaign staffer. She denied a relationship with a congressional staffer, which would have violated House rules, saying it was a rumor started by her estranged husband, whom she also accused of leaking nude photos of her.

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"I was exploited online by my abusive ex-husband and the right-wing media in a coordinated attack. I was a victim," Hill wrote in She Will Rise: Becoming a Warrior in the Battle for True Equality, per Los Angeles Magazine. But "Hill can be both a victim and perpetrator," the posters wrote, noting she was "never investigated by the House Ethics Committee, nor has she been held accountable by anyone other than herself." Within an hour, Hill said the congressional account had been "handed back to the House Clerk when I resigned," and "God knows who hacked it from there," per Politico. A day earlier, Moss had said she was "honored" to portray California's first openly bisexual member of Congress, per Vulture. "Her strength and work to amplify women's voices is incredibly inspiring to me, and her experiences could not be more important for us to magnify right now," she said. (Read more Katie Hill stories.)
Thom Rainer settles dispute with LifeWay, heading off lawsuit; will honor transition agreement

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The Southern Baptist Conventions publishing arm LifeWay Christian Resources and the organizations former president Thom Rainer announced Tuesday that they have come to an amicable resolution of their differences heading off a potentially embarrassing breach of contract lawsuit.

LifeWay Christian Resources and former CEO Thom Rainer have agreed to an amicable resolution of their differences after discussions on Monday, Oct. 5, 2020, LifeWay and Rainer said in a joint statement to The Christian Post.

LifeWay alleged in a lawsuit filed Sept. 28 in Williamson County, Tennessee, that Rainer violated a transition agreement he signed with the SBC publisher upon his 2019 retirement to not do business with their competitors. The agreement under which he was reportedly paid in excess of $1 million, prevented him from doing business with LifeWay's competitors until Oct. 31, 2021.

In August, however, Tyndale House Publishers, which is specifically listed as a LifeWay competitor in the transition agreement, announced that it had reached a multi-book, multi-year agreement with Rainer, sparking LifeWays lawsuit and a rumble in evangelical circles.

Rainer previously said that in October 2019, he received a written and amicable release from publishing with LifeWay Christian Resources and spoke with the organizations attorney and had assumed all was well until he received notice of the lawsuit.

LifeWay contended in its lawsuit that the termination of the Publishing Agreement did not release Rainer from the noncompete section of his transition agreement which keeps him as a paid LifeWay employee through Oct. 31, 2020, as chief advisory officer.

Under the new settlement, Rainer will end his partnership with Tyndale and honor the terms of the transition agreement.

Under the settlement agreement, Rainer has agreed to honor the transition agreement, including the non-compete clause. He has agreed not to move forward with his business partnership with Tyndale House Publishers, which was a violation of his non-compete agreement," the statement said.

Our prayer has always been that this could be resolved between LifeWay and Dr. Rainer amicably, LifeWays Trustee Board Chairman Todd Fannin said. Were thankful Dr. Rainer agreed to honor his word and commitment to LifeWay, which has been our goal from the beginning. The trustees and Dr. Rainer are looking forward to putting this behind us.

Responding to questions about a report that he was paid in excess of $1 million as part of the terms of the disputed transition agreement, the former LifeWay president told CP that he had started repaying some of that money several months ago. A follow-up statement from his son, Sam Rainer, said his father started making payments four months ago.

A LifeWay spokesperson told CP that Rainer had only returned two-and-a-half months of his salary.

Lifeways lawsuit alleged that if Rainer was allowed to continue his partnership with Tyndale it would cause LifeWay to suffer immediate and irreparable harm for which there is no adequate remedy at law.

Jimmy Scroggins, who is on the LifeWay board, said he was disappointed by the lawsuit and noted that it was not discussed with the full board when it was filed. He called it "embarrassing" and "damaging to the kingdom."

I am confident there were, and are, better options for resolving any contractual disputes we have with Dr. Rainer, he stated before the settlement was reached.
Investment in technology will help deliver outstanding service

Cogital Group, an accounting, advisory and businesses services group that includes Wilkins Kennedy, is to re-brand as Azets, the groups largest established brand.

Leading firms Wilkins Kennedy  which has offices in London Road, Newbury  Baldwins and Campbell Dallas, along with all associated companies, are rebranding as Azets.

Unifying the brands represents the next phase in the groups development.

Azets says all of its clients across the enlarged group will gain the benefits of synergies, including the option to access additional services, skill sets and an international offering, while retaining a personal local service.

The rebrand follows significant investment in technology to provide service and advice, wherever the client might be located.

The investment in technology gives clients access to a suite of traditional and technology-based services, including the groups proprietary digital workplace technology CoZone.

Azets Group chief executive Dawn Marriott said: I am delighted to announce this milestone in our growth story.

We have now managed to combine the strength of our individual entities, along with our UK heritage and our contemporary European name, across seven countries.

Unifying our brands was the next step in our groups development, enabling our 6,500 people to deliver a service of outstanding professional quality.

This rebrand reflects the vision we set ourselves to be smart, effective and efficient partners to our clients.

It allows us to demonstrate clearly who we are and to deliver the benefits of scale, whilst retaining our foundations and what sets us apart, the delivery of a personalised and localised service through our dynamic and collaborative teams.

Its a win for our 120,000 clients and for us.

Azets chief executive for London and the South East William Payne said: Unifying under one modern brand gives our firm a platform to offer clients across London and the South East a broader service.

We can do that by working closer as a team, accessing expertise nationally and internationally, sharing ideas and best practice.

The one thing that wont change is our highly personalised approach, which is a cornerstone of our service.

We set huge store in the working relationship our teams have with our clients.
The same day, she, her parents and two brothers traveled to a get-together of 20 relatives over the next 3 1/2 weeks. Fourteen of them stayed in the five-bedroom, two-bathroom house at varying lengths of time ranging from 8 to 25 days; they did not wear face masks or stay at least 6 feet apart from each other. Six other relatives came by during two days  once for 10 hours, the other time for three hours  but maintained physical distance and remained outdoors, although they too did not wear face masks.
With rising pilgrim traffic, the Rudraprayag district administration in Uttarakhand has now decided that the priests of Kedarnath shrine along with health, police and administration officials will be tested for Covid-19 every 15 days, official said Wednesday.

With relaxations under Unlock 5.0, the number of pilgrims visiting the Char Dham shrines has been increased to 3,000 per day.

Dr. BK Shukla, chief medical officer of Rudraprayag district said that everyone staying permanently at the Kedarnath shrine premises will be tested at regular intervals.

As pilgrims coming to the shrine have increased in the past few days since the state government announced more relaxations, the risk has increased. Keeping that in mind, the district magistrate has instructed that the chief priests health will be checked twice daily and he will be tested every 15 days, said the chief medical officer.

He added that all other priests will also be tested every 15 days on a rotational basis.

We have already tested around 190 people and sufficient antigen test kits have been given already to the dispensary in the shrine premises. The health condition of all district officials is being monitored. The health status of the pilgrims is also being monitored at different points, district border and two points before entering the shrine, said Dr. Shukla.

The district administration took the decision of regular testing after it received many complaints of pilgrims not wearing masks and violating social and physical distancing norms at Kedarnath shrine. The helipad near the shrine will also be sanitized on a daily basis.

Vinod Shukla, president of Kedarnath Tirtha Purohit Mahasabha, said, Despite security personnel and all safety measures in place, many pilgrims are not wearing masks. We are also continuously monitoring the situation and ensuring that pilgrims follow all safety protocols, but with increased numbers, it is difficult to manage.

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Josie Norris /Staff Photographer

All five North East Independent School District trustees seeking to keep their board seats in the Nov. 3 election face challengers opposed to the districts sex education curriculum.

The contest features 11 candidates in all.

Four of the six challengers echo the concerns of the San Antonio Family Association, a conservative group that has protested the sex ed curriculum the board adopted four years ago.

Read about the candidates here.

Tom Reel, San Antonio Express-News / Staff photographer

MJ Hegar, the former Air Force pilot running as a Democrat against U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, voted for Republican presidential nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney in 2008 and 2012, she told Hearst Newspapers.



"While I have been a Democrat for nearly a decade, like many of my fellow Texans, I've voted for candidates from both parties in the past, including voting Republican as late as 2012, Hegar said.



Why she called her 2012 vote a "turning point."

Jerry Lara /Staff photographer

NEED TO KNOW NEED TO KNOW
U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins has denied a motion for a temporary restraining order against Gov. Kay Ivey and State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris to block enforcement of their emergency regulations to limit the spread of COVID-19, including the statewide mask order.

Seven people represented by former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore sued Ivey and Harris on Sept. 24 claiming the orders violated their constitutional rights under the First, Fifth, and 14th Amendments.

They asked the court to block Ivey and Harris from enforcing orders with regard to wearing of masks, unconstitutional regulation of houses of worship, discriminatory closing of businesses, social distancing, assembly, and stay at home orders.

But in a ruling issued Tuesday, Watkins wrote that temporary restraining orders require imminent irreparable harm and are premised on the need for speedy and urgent action to protect a plaintiffs rights before a case can be resolved on its merits. Watkins said the plaintiffs did not act with speed and urgency.

Harris first issued orders restricting public gatherings in March, and Ivey and Harris issued the statewide mask order in July. Watkins wrote that the plaintiffs could have challenged the orders as much as five months and at least two months earlier than they did.

Either way, Plaintiffs waited an impermissible amount of time to seek the extraordinary and drastic remedy of a temporary retraining order, Watkins wrote.

Tuesdays ruling does not end the case. Lawyers representing Ivey and Harris intend to file a motion to dismiss the case. Watkins ordered them to file that by Oct. 20 and ordered the plaintiffs to file their response by Nov. 3.

Moore issued a statement in response to the ruling and addressed the issue on the timing of the request for the temporary restraining order.

We were unable to file a request for a Temporary Restraining Order before our clients contacted us, Moore said.

We maintain that the Governor and the State Health Officer have exceeded their authority, depriving our clients and the citizens of Alabama of their constitutional rights under the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Alabama. We look forward to a hearing before the Court on this matter.

In August, Montgomery County Circuit Judge Greg Griffin dismissed a lawsuit against the mask order filed in state court by a different set of plaintiffs.

Since issuing the mask order as part of a "safer at home order in July, Ivey and Harris have extended it three times, most recently on Sept. 30. It now extends until Nov. 8.

Ivey, Harris, and other officials say the mask order and other restrictions in the safer at home order have helped control the spread of the virus, reducing the number of people hospitalized and the percentage of tests that return positive from peaks during the summer.

The Alabama Department of Public Health reports that there have been 142,292 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Alabama, with 2,454 confirmed deaths.

This story was updated at 6:38 p.m. to add a statement from Roy Moore.
Less than half the UK population are expected to be vaccinated to combat the coronavirus.

A vaccination is almost ready and can be as early as Easter. The Prime minister plans to have it sent out with priority. In Oxford University, the scientists and professional researches are currently working on inoculation and stated it will be approved by the end of the year. Knowing how difficult it is to be approved by the FDA, the University, and the Scientists at the Lab try their best to research the correct measures.

The government officials believe they will be able to give vaccines through Drive-through so they can do it quickly as possible. Officials stated the vaccine can be used to 53 million British adults in less than six months. Independent shared a calculation of the country's population which shows, "if the country's 53 million adults were all to be vaccinated with two doses within six months, it would mean 600,000 jabs being given every single day. To do the same in three months, it would require 1.2 million doses a day."

Starting with the priorities who are seniors, nurses, staff, and essential workers, the vaccination would most likely be developed soon successfully. Many are looking forward to the vaccination as it is being tested on animals. Then human testing will be available, the government reported.


Boris Johnson spent almost 17 million on the Conservative Party's 2019 general election campaign which resulted in him winning a crushing 80-seat majority.

The Tories spent 16.5 million in the run up to the poll last December, according to official spending data published today by the Electoral Commission.

The campaign run by Mr Johnson was 2 million cheaper than the disastrous one overseen by his predecessor as Tory leader Theresa May during the 2017 general election.

However, it is not yet possible to compare the Tories' 2019 poll spending with that of the Labour Party, with the Electoral Commission opting to release the data in batches.

Boris Johnson and the Tories spent almost 17 million during the 2019 general election campaign - approximately 2m less than the Conservative Party spent at the 2017 poll

Tories spent thousands on takeaways during election campaign The Conservative Party spent thousands of pounds on takeaways during the 2019 general election campaign, official figures have revealed. UberEats was the overwhelming pick of Tory activists, with almost 23,000 reportedly spent on meals from the delivery service. Pizza Hut was a distant second in popularity, with the party racking up a bill of almost 2,000. Some 610 was spent on Pizza Express, 300 was spent on Papa Johns and 279 was spent on Dominos. Advertisement

The cash spent by the Tories in the run up to polling day was split into three main categories: Leaflets, advertising and market research.

Just shy of 6 million was spent on leaflets while 4.5 million was spent on market research and canvassing.

Some 3 million went on advertising, with Facebook getting about 700,000 and Google getting about 500,000.

Just over 500,000 was spent on holding Conservative Party rallies and campaign events.

The Tory spending dwarfed that of the SNP, Plaid Cymru and Ukip - the other parties with spending data released in the Electoral Commission's first batch of data.

Nicola Sturgeon's party spent a total of approximately 1 million while Plaid Cymru spent just 184,000.

Ukip spent just under 9,000 only two years after the party spent almost 300,000.

The Electoral Commission has a legal duty to publish spending returns for political parties but the coronavirus crisis has wreaked havoc with its normal activity.

Parties which spent more than 250,000 at the 2019 general election were due to submit their data to the watchdog in June.

The Electoral Commission is yet to publish spending data for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party

But Covid-19 meant not all parties and campaigners were able to deliver their returns on time.

As a result, the Electoral Commission has decided to publish the spending data in batches so that people can see it when it is ready for release.

It is unclear when the 2019 spending data for the Labour Party will be published.

At the 2017 general election the Tories spent 18.6 million while Labour spent just over 11 million.
New bill assures the right for children to know their biological background, and applies to both adoptions and artificial insemination using third-party donors of genetic material.

Presenting a new legal project on Wednesday morning, Sam Tanson emphasised that children's well-being is a priority. Knowing one's origin is a human, and thus also child's, right. Moreover, it is important to children's personal development.

In the future, the identity of third-party sperm and egg donors need to be documented as a legal requirement for artificial insemination.

This applies to artificial insemination carried out both in Luxembourg and abroad, in cases where at least one of the parents-to-be lives in Luxembourg.

Only the child themselves will be allowed to request information pertaining to their biological identity and the donor. However, if they are a minor they will need their parents' permission.

At present, a woman can give birth anonymously - that is, give birth in the hospital and leave the child in the care of another party without leaving for the child her identity or any other information. The new bill will instead introduce a "secret" birth, wherein one or both parents can declare their identity. This information would only be given to the child if a special agreement is in place to render this a possibility. They may also leave "non-identifying" information, such as a letter explaining the circumstances of the birth and their decision.
Chinas former ambassador to Australia rejected the notion that the bilateral relationship is in a deep freeze, citing robust and complementary trade links and striking a conciliatory tone despite rising tensions.

Fu Ying, Chinas ambassador to Australia from 2003 to 2007, told the Australian Financial Review newspaper in a written interview published on Monday that China treasures its ties with Australia ... We believe that a sound and stable China-Australia relationship is in the interests of both countries.

Rejecting some Australian medias characterization of a deep freeze between Beijing and Canberra, Fu said that co-operation between China and Australia has been robust, and the quick recovery in the bilateral trade after the outbreak of the pandemic is a case in point.

One of Chinas top diplomats, Fu is currently vice chairwoman of the foreign affairs committee at Chinas top legislature, the National Peoples Congress (NPC), and previously served as vice foreign minister from 2009 to 2013.

The trade structure between China and Australia is determined by the complementary needs of the two countries. Australia is a country with rich resources while China has a huge demand for resources, she was quoted as saying. China imports more than 80% of Australian iron ore, 75% of its wool, and 40% of its wine, according to the report.

Fus comments came as the bilateral relationship hit the rocks after Canberra excluded Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE from its 5G networks over security concerns in August 2018, amid Washingtons global campaign to get other countries to follow in its footsteps.

Since then, tensions have risen further over a series of issues including trade disputes, espionage allegations and the media. In August, China initiated two trade remedy investigations into Australian wines. The same month, it detained an Australian journalist, Cheng Lei, over criminal activity endangering Chinas national security, according to Chinese foreign ministry.

I dont believe the international community wants to be forced to take sides in a split world, Fu said. As a stakeholder, Australia would not want to face this choice either ... We also expect Australia to bridge the current divergence, not the opposite.

Fu, who remains active in Chinese diplomacy around the globe, called for an end to the two sides confrontation and abusive language. She also said that (both) countries need to show their sincerity and courage to get out of the current dilemma, according to the published interview.

These conciliatory comments coincided with similar remarks made by the current Chinese ambassador in Canberra, Cheng Jingye, urging that the two sides should insist on treating each others development as an opportunity rather than a threat, abandon the Cold War mentality, and continue to build trust and remove suspicion.

Calling for creating a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory business environment for companies from both sides, Cheng said in a statement last week that (we) hope that the Australian side could work with us to carry forward bilateral relations along the right track on the basis of mutual respect and benefit.

Contact reporter Lu Zhenhua (zhenhualu@caixin.com) and editor Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com)

Support quality journalism in China. Subscribe to Caixin Global starting at $0.99.
Col. Jennifer Pritzker

The TAWANI Foundation is proud to announce that Col. Jennifer Pritzker has been recognized as a 2020 Making History Award honoree by the Chicago History Museum. She was presented with the John Hope Franklin Making History Award for Distinction in Historical Scholarship.

In support of the State of Illinois and the City of Chicagos efforts to encourage social distancing, the Chicago History Museum hosted its 26th annual Making History Awards virtually on October 6, 2020. This event supports the Museums mission to share Chicagos stories, serving as a hub of scholarship and learning, inspiration, and civic engagement. Attendees celebrated the accomplishments of seven distinguished honorees who have left their mark on Chicago, including Col. Jennifer Pritzker.

It is a great honor for me to receive this Making History Award, says Col. Jennifer Pritzker, TAWANI Foundation Founder and CEO. My father started taking me to the Chicago History Museum from the time I was eight years old, and those visits gave rise to my interest in history. These experiences provide an example of how important historical institutions are for people to learn about their past and help shape our future and set a standard for me when I decided to build my institution, The Pritzker Military Museum & Library.

For nearly three decades, Col. Jennifer Pritzker served in the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Reserve, and the Illinois Army National Guard. She is currently the President and CEO of TAWANI Enterprises, President and Founder of the TAWANI Foundation and Pritzker Military Foundation, and Founder and Chair of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library.

A historian, businesswoman, investor, developer, and philanthropist, she founded the TAWANI Foundation in 2002 to provide support in the areas of arts and culture, historical preservation, health and wellness, LGBTQ and human rights, education, and environmental initiatives.

Over the past twenty-six years, the Making History Awards have honored 113 Chicagoans and thirteen Chicago companies whose enduring contributions to art and culture, sports, business, and civic life have made Chicago a better and more vibrant place to live.

To learn more about the institution and the Making History Awards, please follow this link.

About TAWANI Foundation

Founded in 2002 by notable philanthropist and entrepreneur Colonel (IL) Jennifer N. Pritzker, IL ARNG (Retired), TAWANI Enterprises philanthropic organization, the TAWANI Foundation is a 501(c)(3) that provides support in the areas of arts and culture, historical preservation, health and wellness, LGBT and human rights, education and environmental initiatives. TAWANI Foundations vision is to make a sustained and measurable difference for organizations that focus on enriching knowledge, improving health and wellness, and promoting scientific understanding  all with a common goal of making a positive, long-term impact on individuals, communities and the culture itself. To learn more, visit http://www.tawanifoundation.org.
Hurricane Delta made landfall in Mexico Wednesday as an extremely dangerous Category 2 storm, coming ashore near Puerto Morelos along the northeastern coast of Yucatan Peninsula.

The US National Hurricane Center in Miami said satellite imagery, radar data from Cuba and surface observations in Mexico indicate that the center of Delta came ashore around 5:30 a.m. local time sustaining top winds of 110 mph (175 kmh).

Quintana Roo Gov. Carlos Joaquin warned residents and tourists that it is a strong, powerful hurricane. He considered it a good sign that Delta had weakened a bit late Tuesday, but said the area hadnt seen a storm like it since Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

Delta had increased in strength by 80 mph in just 24 hours, and its top winds peaked at 145 mph (230 kph) before it weakened as it neared the shore. Forecasters warned it was still an extremely dangerous storm nevertheless, with a life-threatening storm surge that could raise water levels 9 to 13 feet (2.7 to 4 meters), along with large and dangerous waves and flash flooding inland.

Thousands of Quintana Roo residents and tourists were hunkering down in government shelters. Everyone had been ordered off the streets by 7 p.m.

The evacuations of low lying areas, islands and the coastline expanded as Delta exploded over the warm Caribbean waters offshore. Much of Cancuns hotel zone was cleared out as guests were bused to inland shelters. In Cancun alone, the government opened 160 shelters.

Some 300 guests and nearly 200 staff from the Fiesta Americana Condesa hotel were taken to the Technological Institute of Cancun campus. All wearing masks, they spread out on thin mattresses in a classroom building and tried to get comfortable as workers boarded up the buildings windows in a light rain. Some played cards or watched videos on their phones, while others called relatives.

The hotel has done a good job of making sure that we were provided for and that were going to be safe here in this place, so we dont have any concerns at all, said Shawn Sims, a tourist from Dallas sheltering with his wife, Rashonda Cooper, and their sons, 7-year-old Liam and 4-year-old Easton.

This is my first (hurricane) experience, but I see that these guys have a plan and they know what theyre doing, Sims said.
The Uttar Pradesh police on Wednesday booked four persons including Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan on sedition and other charges at Maant police station in Mathura, two days after they were held while on their way to Hathras.

IMAGE: Police produce journalist Siddique Kappan and three others, suspected to have links with the Popular Front of India and its affiliate in Mathura, to a court in Mathura. Photograph: PTI Photo

Charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the IT Act have also been filed against the four who were later remanded in judicial custody for 14 days by a Mathura court, officials said.

The FIR claimed that police recovered pamphlets "Justice for Hathras victim", six mobiles and a laptop from them, and during the initial probe it was found that they were going to Hathras with an intention "to breach the peace" as part of a "conspiracy".

The four were held on Monday when they were on their way to Hathras, where a Dalit woman had died after allegedly being gang-raped -- an incident that has sparked widespread outrage.



Police had earlier claimed that the four, identified as Kappan, a journalist of Malapuram in Kerala, Atiq-ur-Rehman of Muzaffarnagar, Masood Ahmad of Bahraich and Alam of Rampur, had links with alleged radical group Popular Front of India and its affiliates.

They were on Wednesday booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including 124A (sedition) and 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), according to the FIR.



They have also been charged with IPC Section 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belief).



"The recovered pamphlets, Am I not India's daughter, made with Carrd.co, encourage social discord and public unrest," the FIR said.



The FIR alleged that internet platform 'Carrd.co' and website 'Justice for Hathras' were being used to instigate cast violence, riots and collecting donations.



Such websites are spreading anti-national propaganda in the country and distorting facts to create tension and disturb law and order, it alleged.

In this way, it is clear that prima facie internet platform Carrd.co and website 'Justice for Hathras' have committed offences under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and other Acts.



"The four persons and other unidentified persons have been found to be involved in these criminal acts and an investigation is necessary to find the details of their actions...," it said.



It has to be probed from where and why these websitea are being operated, how much money is being collected through this platform/website, where was this amount used and who were beneficiaries, the FIR said.



Chief Judicial Magistrate Anju Rajput granted the police a 14-day judicial remand of the four persons, saying the offence is of serious nature and requires more interrogation.

Earlier, the Kerala Union of Working Journalists had sent a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking Kappan's release and also filed a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court.



The Press Association and the Indian Women Press Corps on Wednesday described the journalist's arrest as the Uttar Pradesh government's attempt to "silence" the media and demanded his immediate release.



"The UP government claims that the journalist has links with some groups but has not offered any proof in this regard," they said in a statement.



Uttar Pradesh police had on Monday claimed the four people had links with the PFI which has been accused of funding protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act across the country earlier this year.

The state police had sought a ban on the outfit.
An aerial view shows the damage in Saint-Martin-Vesubie, southern France, as clean-up operations continue after storm Alex hit the Alpes-Maritimes department, bringing record rainfall in places and causing heavy flooding that swept away roads and damaged homes, France, October 6, 2020. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard (Photo : Reuters Connect )

The search for missing persons in the wake of France-Italy floods in Alpine villages and on nearby coast is faced with another gruesome challenge: finding the corpse of bodies from a cemetery damaged by violent rains and floods at the height of Storm Alex.

In France, the affected areas were declared natural disaster zones. President Emmanuel Macron is expected to visit the area Wednesday.

Damaged Cemeteries and Washed Out Corpses

Bodies from cemeteries had washed up on the Italian side. The cemetery corpses were already in an advanced state of decomposition, having a stark difference from recent storm victims. The spokeswoman for France's Alpes-Maritimes regional administration said that cemeteries in the French towns of Saint-Martin-de-Vesubie and Tende were washed out with floods. In Tende, the village cemetery was divided, and bodies were unearthed.

READ: Venice Stops Flooding and Holds Back Sea Waters with Mile-Long Barrier Network

Missing Persons and Death Tolls

Since Friday, authorities reported 12 deaths: four were French, eight were Italian.

The true death toll may not be known in the next few days as remote communities remain isolated due to the storm's damage. Roya Valley, one of the hardest-hit villages, remains cut off as roads collapsed, and fallen trees and debris block several roads.

In France, rescuers are still searching for 21 people who went missing since the storm. Among those missing are two firefighters whose vehicle fell into the water when a road collapsed.

Prime Minister Jean Castex said that they had deployed 900 rescuers, 500 police officers, and some troops for emergency operation in the mountainous regions where 12,000 residents are located.

READ ALSO: Delta Intensification: Now a Category 4 'Major' Hurricane as It Heads for Mexico and the USA

Missing Wildlife

A wildlife park in the French Riviera city of Nice was also damaged by the flood, leaving enclosures in rubble and causing animals to escape.

Seven black Canadian wolves were reported missing. French Office of Biodiversity warned that the wolves might starve to death as it is used to being fed; thus, it must be found and captured using a dart gun, the OFB regional director Eric Hansen said.

Black Canadian Wolves weigh up to 80 kgs. A third enclosure with three Europeans was spared from the flood, and park officials said it would also be the Canadian wolves' temporary shelter when recaptured.

Other animals from the zoo were also found dead. A polar bear was found dead after raging waters swept its enclosure. The park has three bears, and Hansen believed that the two bears had died as well.

Life After the Storm

Breil-sur-Roya, the river known for trout fishing and is the lifeline of 2,000 residents, became a torrent of mud, rocks, and debris during the storm. Long-time residents say they have not seen anything like it since.

The village started cleaning up, spending the entire days shoveling muds out of homes and shops. Trucks hauling felled trees and debris to clear streets and roads became a common sight. Cars damaged by the flood were piled on top of each other.

Georges Pomarede, a retired police officer, said that the situation was "catastrophic": their campgrounds, stadium, swimming pool, shops, hotel are all gone, and houses were ravaged by flood. Pomarede further described the France-Italy floods as a phenomenal disaster.

READ NEXT: Storm Alex: 9 Dead, More Missing, Hundreds of Houses Swept Away

Check out more news and information on Floods on Nature World News.
Clashes in the Syrian Desert between pro-government forces and holdouts of the Islamic State group have killed at least 90 combatants this month, a war monitor said on Wednesday.

Russian aircraft carried out strikes in support of their Syrian regime ally, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The clashes broke out in two separate areas of the vast desert that separates the Orontes valley in the west from the Euphrates valley in the east.

The government side lost 41 dead, the jihadists 49, the Britain-based war monitor said.

At least 10 government loyalists and 13 IS jihadists were killed over the past 24 hours alone, Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman said.

"IS is trying to prove that it is still strong," he added.

Mobile IS units have remained active in the Syrian Desert, known in Arabic as the Badia, since the jihadists lost the last shred of its self-proclaimed caliphate in March last year.

September clashes killed 13 pro-government fighters and 15 jihadists, while in early July 20 pro-government fighters and 31 jihadists were killed over two days.

In August, IS claimed an attack, presumably mounted from the desert, that killed a Russian general near the Euphrates valley city of Deir Ezzor.
The owner of the Hershey Square shopping center said five new high-profile tenants will open their doors by next spring.

PennLive previously reported that Big Lots, Planet Fitness, T.J. Maxx and Five Below are coming to the former Kmart site in the Derry Township shopping center. A Chipotle Mexican Grill will open there as well.

Construction work to prepare the center for its new tenants began last month, said shopping center owner Heidenberg Properties.

The former Kmart store is located in Derry Township at the Hershey Square shopping center. (Daniel Urie, PennLive, File)

The Kmart closed in March 2019. From November through May, Heidenberg Properties said it executed 10-year lease agreements for more than 90,000 square feet of the site for T.J. Maxx, Big Lots, Five Below, and Planet Fitness. The Chipotle will be built on a new pad site in front of Weis Markets and will include a drive-thru lane.

We knew that this space would be desirable to top-tier retailers and we couldnt be more excited about the new tenant line up, Heidenberg Properties' VP of real estate Ken Simon said in a press release. The mix of treasure-hunt, value and experiential retailers that we are adding will well-position this property for the long term.

"Late 2020" will be here before we know it! But in the meantime, we're busy behind the scenes planning the space and designing equipment. Here's a sneak peek at the vision board guiding our plans. Posted by Where the Wild Things Play on Monday, January 20, 2020

A sixth tenant is also expected to open next year as well. Where the Wild Things Play, an indoor play space for children, will take up 4,000 square feet of space at the former Kmart space and will include five playhouses, an enclosed climbing structure and STEM activities, according to a Hummelstown Sun report. The company said on its Facebook page in June that it expects to open in the spring or the summer.

In addition to the 55,000-square-foot Weis Markets, the shopping center includes a number of smaller tenants, including Fine Wine & Good Spirits Premium Collection, Panera Bread, Five Guys, Visionworks and Applebees. The shopping center has more than 223,000 square feet of space.

Heidenberg Properties, a real estate development company based in New Jersey, acquired the Hershey Square shopping center in 2014.

--Business Buzz

You can follow Daniel Urie on twitter @DanielUrie2018 and you can like PennLives business page on Facebook at @PennLiveBusiness
Kellyanne Conways 15-year-old daughter has more than one million followers on TikTok, and its not because shes an expert when it comes to dance challenges.

Claudia Conway has become a sensation on the social network and beyond for her videos that often criticize her mother and the administration of President Donald Trump. Her commentary has become the toast of Twitter as well as a subject of debate, one reignited following the COVID-19 outbreak at the White House.

Last week, Claudia scooped her mother, a senior counselor to the president, on the news of Kellyannes own positive COVID-19 test. Claudia, who later tested positive for COVID-19 herself, had said she noticed her mother coughing in the house after Trump tested positive and predicted Kellyannes test result. (In a comment on one of her TikTok videos, Claudia said her COVID-19 symptoms include a pounding headache and difficulty breathing and chills.)

In a later video that has since been deleted, Kellyanne can be seen admonishing Claudia.

Youve caused so much disruption, she says in the video. You lied about your f***ing mother, about COVID! About COVID! she screams.

Its how I interpreted it, Claudia says in reply.

Youre taping me again? says Kellyanne, ostensibly noticing Claudias phone.

In another video, Claudia clarifies the results of her mothers COVID-19 testing at her mothers urging.

"Right now, Kellyanne can be heard saying.

yall love to twist everything  im not getting emancipated because of my moms job.. it is because of years of childhood trauma and abuse  CLAUDIA CONWAY (@claudiamconwayy) August 23, 2020

A little clarification from my previous posts, Claudia says in a caption on the video. My mother claims that she did not lie to me. She had three tests done. First negative, second two positive. We were not in communication. I misinterpreted it.

A conflict between Conway and her parents has played out publicly in recent months.

In August, Kellyanne said she would be leaving the White House after Claudia made allegations of abuse and said she was seeking emancipation from her parents. (Kellyanne did not say that was the reason for her departure.)

My daughter, Claudia, is beautiful & brilliant. She has access to top doctors & health care & lives comfortably



Like all of you, she speculates on social media



Yet shes 15



You are adults



We have COVID, but its clear whos really sick  Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) October 6, 2020

At the same time, Kellyannes husband, attorney George Conway, said he would be leaving his position with the Lincoln Project, a Republican political action committee working to unseat Trump in the 2020 election.

Kellyanne grew up in Atco and the Conways have homes in Alpine and Ventnor City. She responded to the attention Claudias videos have gotten on Twitter early Tuesday.

My daughter, Claudia, is beautiful & brilliant, Kellyanne tweeted. She has access to top doctors & health care & lives comfortably. Like all of you, she speculates on social media. Yet shes 15. You are adults. We have COVID, but its clear whos really sick.

Of course, Claudias family is no stranger to public conflict.

Kellyanne and George have famously maintained opposing positions on Trump in the public sphere, including social media.

We disagree about plenty. But we are united on what matters most: the kids," Kellyane said in a statement announcing her White House departure, focusing the reason for her exit on the need to supervise remote learning for her four children.

Caution: some videos below contain profanity.

Kellyanne Conway being MAD that her daughter lied about COVID is the pinnacle of irony. The Trump administration has told blatant lies about covid and its dangers for 8 MONTHS. I trust Claudia Conway more than the White House. #ClaudiaConway #TrumpCovid19 #COVIDIOT pic.twitter.com/PH8TpwSBvz    (@caasseydilla) October 6, 2020

The Conways have asked media to refrain from covering their daughter and her TikTok videos.

Still, social media has been awash with praise for Claudia  some have even mused that she should be awarded a Pulitzer for her dispatches from inside the Conway household.

Consider the teens TikTok bio: currently trending on twitter for no apparent reason. the media is obsessed."

(to the tune of eleanor rigby)



claudia conway

posted on tiktok that trump needs to be stabilized

pulitzer prize  Nora Panahi (@whokillednora) October 6, 2020

When officials publicly downplayed the presidents COVID-19 symptoms, Claudia claimed Trump was not doing well.

She responded to an announcement from Trump that he was feeling really good and would be leaving Walter Reed Medical Center, where he was treated for COVID-19.

He is so ridiculous, Claudia said. Apparently he is doing badly lol and they are doing what they can to stabilize him.

Ohh my god Claudia Conway And Kellyanne Conway are about to get a multi million dollar reality show deal any minute now pic.twitter.com/ZQFluhPzxr  DanielNewma (@DanielNewman) October 6, 2020

Im furious, she said in a TikTok video after Trumps positive COVID-19 test. Wear your masks. Dont listen to our idiot f---ing president piece of s---. Protect yourselves and those around you."

On Twitter, people are saying that Claudia has emerged as a whistleblower and a reliable source in the face of White House obfuscation.

You are a monster who has contributed to the lies which murdered hundreds of thousands of people, Hollywood producer and director Judd Apatow tweeted in reply to Kellyannes tweet about her daughter. Claudia is a bright light of truth who has the courage to call out the lies you have sold your soul to sell. I wish her the best life. She is already doing great things.

Others are more skeptical of Claudia being labeled as a standard bearer for the resistance, pointing out that Kellyanne may be playing a role in her daughters social media presence (beyond her brief appearance in some recent TikTok videos to prompt her daughters clarification").

Do people seriously think Kellyanne is just accidentally dropping key information in front of her teenager who is very active on social media and invested in sharing family secrets? author Roxane Gay tweeted. "Guys. Come on.

Some discouraged the framing of Claudia as a political figure, citing both her age and mental health issues she has been open about on social media.

Leave 15-year old kids out of politics.



It doesnt matter how much you hate their mother. Leave kids out of politics.  The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) October 6, 2020

Stop fantasizing about making Claudia Conway into a cast member in your next teen heroine film, comedian Phillip Henry tweeted. Shes not Katniss Everdeen, you weirdos. Shes just a teen fighting with her parents. Laugh and go.

My own daughter is 15, its an interesting age, in many ways they are so mature but they are also still children, writer and activist Shay Stewart Bouley tweeted. My heart breaks for Claudia Conway, she needs her parents to be better people, and for adults to leave her be.

Still others speculated a reality show was in the cards, painting Kellyanne as a kind of Kris Jenner waiting to seize on a Kardashian-like opportunity.

Kellyanne: stop listening to my kid on Tik Tok



Also Kellyanne: Claudia, write exactly what I tell you to on Tik Tok so people will listen to it.  Goddamned Atheist (@1damnedatheist) October 6, 2020

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com.
She bore the brunt of more than 200 Ofcom complaints over her racy gown on Saturday night's Britain's Got Talent.

But Amanda Holden made sure not to offend any fans with her outfit choice as she left the Global Radio studios in central London on Wednesday.

The TV talent show judge, 49, kept a low-profile in a stylish jumper and leather-look leggings as she strutted through Leicester Square after hosting her Heart FM show.

Goodbye, drama: Amanda Holden made sure not to offend any fans with her outfit choice as she left the Global Radio studios in central London on Wednesday

The mother-of-two's cosy black jumper featured an asymmetric zigzag pattern that decorated the neckline and cuffs.

Amanda displayed her slender pins in faux leather leggings and wore black boots adorned with gold chains.

The radio host added a designer touch with a Dior handbag that rested on her shoulder and she wore classic tortoiseshell shades.

Amanda complemented the bag's gold detailing with a pair of gold hoop earrings and pendant necklaces.

Hell for leather: The TV talent show judge, 49, kept a low-profile in a stylish jumper and leather-look leggings as she strutted through Leicester Square after hosting her Heart FM show

Amanda enhanced her natural beauty with natural make-up, and styled her caramel hair in a loose wave.

The star's outfit on Wednesday was relatively understated compared to her head-turning dress on Saturday's Britain's Got Talent show.

The mother-of-two ensured all eyes were on her when she taped the fifth semi-final of the talent show in a plum-coloured gown featuring a sheer black lace bustier.

Amanda's outfit sparked 236 Ofcom complaints and led viewers to question whether she had suffered a wardrobe malfunction on the show.

The week prior, she wore a plunging navy gown with a daring thigh-high split and a built in underwire on the bust which sparked another flurry of complaints.

Fashionista: The radio host added a designer touch with a Dior handbag that rested on her shoulder and she wore classic tortoiseshell shades

Work it: Amanda displayed her slender pins in faux leather leggings and wore black boots adorned with gold chains

Some viewers mistook the revealing neckline for a nip slip and expressed their outrage at her risque outfit choices on Twitter.

One fan said: 'When has it become acceptable to show your underwear on a family show Amanda Holden?'

While another complained: 'Does anyone else think a large portion of Amanda's dress has gone missing..? Don't they realise kids watch this show.'

Another fan quipped: 'Amanda Holden still thinking she's a teenager.'

On Friday, Amanda laughed off the drama regarding her BGT controversies as she spoke exclusively to MailOnline.

Wow: The star's outfit on Wednesday was relatively understated compared to her head-turning dress on Saturday's Britain's Got Talent show

She said: 'I can see what people think, it had a like an underwire, you know when you have an underwire bikini or bra, the end of it it's like an upside down U isn't it. The end of it dug in.

'I was more insulted that people thought I had either huge saucepan nipples or nipples over my cleavage.

'I am seriously thinking my girls need separate representation to me, because they are known on their own.

'They don't need me, they're going to go off and do Piers Morgan's Life Stories on their own next year!

'They're going to do their own album, they're bringing out their own autobiography - The Truth Behind The Bra!'
NCN-NPC Investor Meeting online Oct 14-15 The Canadian companies are always interesting and innovative, but this years group is one of the strongest weve seen, says Mike Dovbish, Director, Nutrition Capital Network.

Natural Products Canada and Nutrition Capital Network are pleased to announce the 2020 edition of their annual investor meeting featuring 15 of Canadas up-and-coming food and nutrition opportunities. Investors can register for the virtual event now.

Were delighted to partner with Nutrition Capital Network to deliver this exceptional meeting for the 4th year in a row, says Shelley King, CEO, Natural Products Canada, which supports the commercialization of natural products across a range of sectors, including health and nutrition. And were proud to showcase these excellent Canadian companies to investors around the world.

The NCN-NPC Investor Meeting, which began in 2017, has quickly become a must-attend event for investors seeking emerging Canadian nutrition-focused investment opportunities. Previous companies include Partake Brewing and Millennia TEA, which have both raised capital in 2020.

The Canadian companies are always interesting and innovative, but this years group is one of the strongest weve seen, says Mike Dovbish, Director, Nutrition Capital Network. Descriptions of the companies can be found on the website.

A strategic partner for Natural Products Canada, NCN is a leading source of investment opportunities in the natural health and wellness sectors. It has held 47 investor meetings, attracting a diverse and enviable network of investors and corporations involved in the booming nutrition, supplement and wellness markets. Of the 827 companies that have presented, 53% have gone on to complete some form of transaction.

The combination of the NCN track record with NPCs hands-on support for innovative Canadian companies makes this meeting an excellent source of investment opportunities, says Nick McCoy of Whipstitch Capital, who will set the stage with key market and transaction data from the better for you sectors on the first day of the meeting.

The two-day event features 5-minute pitches from the presenting companies, followed by questions from an illustrious lineup of experts drawn from NCN and NPCs extensive networks of investment and corporate leaders, including: Denis Boyer (Avrio Ventures); Ben Lightburn (Angel Investor, formerly CEO of Mazza Innovation); Rhiannon Davies (The Atlantic Womens Venture Fund); Chelsea Stanmir (Lyra Growth Partners); Matt Schueller (Natures Way); and Genevieve Pinto (Renewal Funds).

NCN has very quickly converted the best aspects of their investor meeting model into a highly effective and valuable experience you can enjoy from your home office, says King, noting the extensive features of the event are explained in this short video. The quality of the companies, the calibre of the panelists, and the opportunity to network with this diverse group of experienced investors make this a very powerful meeting.

For more info:

Sue Coueslan (sue@naturalproductscanada.com)

VP Communications and Stakeholder Relations

Natural Products Canada

About Natural Products Canada:

Natural Products Canada (NPC) is the driving force behind Canadas Natural Product Innovation Clustera strategic community of SMEs, research institutes, corporations, investors, government departments, and service providers who support the development and commercialization of naturally-derived products and technologies in health and life sciences, natural resources, agriculture and agri-food, and sustainable bioproducts. As part of its role in the Cluster, NPC offers a suite of Commercialization Programs to help companies and researchers advance high-potential products and technologies; provides connection and innovation scouting services to industry and investors through its Innovation Hub; and leverages its Investment Fund to help develop and de-risk promising Canadian opportunities. NPC has over 800 opportunities in its pipeline, has completed twelve investments, and has already experienced two exits. Established in 2016, NPC is funded by a range of public and private investors, including the Government of Canadas Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research (CECR) program, administered by the Networks of Centres of Excellence. Visit http://www.naturalproductscanada.com

About Nutrition Capital Network:

The mission of Nutrition Capital Network (NCN) is to facilitate financing, partnering and asset sales for growing companies, and to introduce investors to the next generation of successful brands and technology in the nutrition and health & wellness industry. NCN hosts five Investor Meetings each year featuring qualified deals screened by the NCN Selection Committee, in addition to unique industry content: An East Coast spring meeting (New York) and a West Coast fall meeting (San Francisco), both presenting branded products primarily; and an annual European meeting (Geneva, Switzerland) at Vitafoods Europe, and a meeting at SupplySide West (Las Vegas) dedicated to ingredients, science and technology. In 2017, the NCN - NPC Investor Meeting was launched as an investor meeting co-hosted with Natural Products Canada. Led by industry veterans and experienced investment professionals, NCN helps active investors make purpose-driven connections with curated health and wellness companies.
Quinta Jurecic and Susan Hennessey of Lawfare argue, in The Atlantic, that The Reckless Race to Confirm Amy Coney Barrett Justifies Court Packing. The article aims at a more-in-sorrow-than-anger tone, which it announces without subtlety: We have now come to believe, more in sorrow than in anger, that adding justices may be the only way to restore the institutional legitimacy of the Court. It is, however, an incoherent soup of Democratic talking points to justify what Democratic partisans want to do.

Jurecic and Hennessey persistently stack the deck by omitting or whitewashing just about everything that runs against their argument. For the past few years, court packing has largely been a fringe idea, promulgated by leftist scholars and activists  well, if you ignore Pete Buttigieg (who used the idea to vault from nowhere into national prominence), Elizabeth Warren, Beto ORourke, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Kamala Harris, all of whom were warm to the idea a year ago. As you may have heard, Harris is on the national ticket. Some fringe.

Democrats under Franklin D. Roosevelt rejected the potential short-term political gain of adding seats to the Court as coming at too high a cost to its long-term institutional credibility. Thats putting it very mildly. The Democratic Chairman of the House Rules Committee said it was the most terrible threat to constitutional government that has arisen in the entire history of the country and would change the meaning of our basic laws and our whole system of government and give the president something which no man in all this world ought to enjoy. The Senate Judiciary Committees report said the proposal should be so emphatically rejected that its parallel will never again be presented to the free representatives of the free people of America. Youd think people who purport to care about our free institutions and the rule of law might find this concerning.

Turning to the nomination precedents, In the history of the United States, only three Supreme Court justices have been nominated and confirmed in an election year by an incumbent who went on to lose. Thats wrong. There have been four: Melville Fuller by Grover Cleveland in 1888, George Shiras by Benjamin Harrison in 1892, Mahlon Pitney by William Howard Taft in 1912, and Benjamin Cardozo by Herbert Hoover in 1932. They continue, Never in modern American history has a defeated incumbent been allowed to fill a vacancy in the lame-duck period before leaving office. This is contrasted with the Senate stopping John Quincy Adams from doing so, as well as Millard Fillmore and James Buchanan, neither of whom ran for reelection. But it has been done three times, two of them after John Quincy Adams (the other was by his father), and once after Fillmore and Buchanan. So modern is an elastic term here.

Story continues

Naturally, no effort is made to address the actual historical precedents, under which every president with an election-year Supreme Court vacancy has made a nomination, and their confirmation has always turned on whether or not the presidents party controls the Senate. This is a pattern as old as the republic itself. Some critics have tried to grapple with these precedents, but Jurecic and Hennessey prefer to hope their readers are unaware of them.

Jurecic and Hennessey argue that there is an unprecedented legitimacy crisis because a president who resoundingly lost the popular vote has filled two seats on the Supreme Court. I am quite certain that 2.09 percent of the vote is not a margin Jurecic and Hennessey would describe as resounding if describing a Republican victory. But consider Benjamin Harrison. Harrison won the White House in 1888 while losing the national popular vote, the second of three consecutive elections in which Grover Cleveland won the popular vote. Harrison appointed two justices in his first three years, a third who was nominated in January 1892 and confirmed by Senate Republicans in July, and a fourth in the lame-duck session in February 1893, after Harrison lost the election. Was this a legitimacy crisis? When Republicans next faced the voters in 1896, they won a popular majority, the first of six in eight elections.

When Jurecic and Hennessey talk about legitimacy, they never answer, Legitimate to whom? They offer no evidence that a Supreme Court nomination by a duly elected president, confirmed by a duly elected majority of the Senate, lacks legitimacy under the very Constitution that grants those powers. The most serious legitimacy crisis in the Supreme Courts history, in the aftermath of the Dred Scott decision, arose not from the appointment of justices but from an overreaching decision untethered to constitutional text and unduly close collaboration between the Supreme Court and the political branches. Rapidly escalating the number of justices appointed by the next president is a far greater and more obvious threat to that kind of legitimacy.

Jurecic and Hennessey warn that allowing Republicans to confirm a Supreme Court nominee close to the election, simply because they have been duly elected to hold both the presidency and a majority of the Senate, allows Republicans to play unprecedented one-sided hardball:

If Democrats gain the Senate and the White House in 2021, they will be faced with the choice of either engaging in reciprocal hardball  by wielding the raw political power to expand the Court, for example  or doing nothing and acquiescing to the breach. The latter strategy asymmetric hardball  a situation in which one party plays hardball and the other sits on its hands.

How, you may ask, do Jurecic and Hennessey work into their story of how one party plays hardball and the other sits on its hands the conduct of Senate Democrats before 2017? We recall that Democrats were attempting  as the minority party in the Senate  a filibuster of a Republican nominee for chief justice as far back as 1986, and a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee in 2005. Joe Biden participated in both filibusters, Barack Obama in the second. Even after Democrats voted down Robert Bork on purely ideological lines in 1987, Republicans voted en masse for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. In 2003, Democrats (again in the minority) launched an unprecedented filibuster of appellate-court nominees. After threatening to eliminate the filibuster for such nominees  provoking an eloquent defense by Obama  Republicans backed down and cut a deal, surrendering some of their outstandingly qualified nominees. When Democrats were in the majority, they broke the deal, eliminating the filibuster in 2013 to ram through Obamas nominees. How do Jurecic and Hennessey reconcile this history with a story of only Republicans playing hardball? By pretending none of it ever happened.

Thus, they argue that a Democratic threat should convince Republicans to make a deal:

If Democrats can convince Republicans that confirming Barrett would result in additional justices appointed by a President Biden, perhaps Republicans would step back from the brink and refrain from confirming Barrett.

Taking that deal sounds more reasonable if you conceal from your readers what happened last time.

So, what is their plan?

Democrats should add seats to the Court; the most common suggestion has been two, to balance out Republican appointments to Antonin Scalias and Ginsburgs seats.

In other words, this is not just about Barrett; for all of Jurecics and Hennesseys talk about the Barrett nomination, they are actually also trying to get back at Republicans for not confirming an election-year nominee in 2016.

Republican-appointed justices have been able to perpetuate conservative control over the Court despite periods of Democratic control of the White House and Senate. . . . This would change the political environment . . . to a situation in which both parties have an incentive to cooperate. . . . It also corrects the imbalance of a Court stacked with Republican appointees, returning both parties to something closer to an even playing field.

Conservative control of the Court would be news to anyone who has followed the Supreme Courts decisions on social issues, which have persistently ruled in favor of liberals, often without even the vaguest grounding in the text of the Constitution  a thing that might matter if the rule of law is your concern. This has happened despite extensive periods of Republican control of the White House and Senate. When Jurecic and Hennessey talk about imbalance and an even playing field, they mean that there are simply certain outcomes the Supreme Court should never be permitted to reach, regardless of what the law actually says.

Expanding the Supreme Court in order to dictate the outcomes it reaches is fundamentally different in kind from simply using the powers of the presidency and the Senate to control who fills the existing seats on the Court. Jurecic and Hennessey are, by their own admission, fully aware that this would be a devastating blow to the independence of the judiciary and corrosive of the rule of law. Dressing up a desire to reach preferred outcomes  or worse, simply to thwart Donald Trump  in the clothing of norms and legitimacy is shameful. Doing so without even frankly addressing the arguments is intellectually shabby to boot.

More from National Review
WILLIAMSTOWN  In a new court brief, lawyers for Williamstown argue that the towns police chief had good reason to place a sergeant on paid a
New York  President Donald Trumps accountant must turn over his tax records to a New York state prosecutor, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said a stay of a lower-court decision will remain in effect so Trumps lawyers can appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A district court judge had rejected their renewed efforts to invalidate a subpoena that the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. issued to Trumps accounting firm.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department was reviewing the ruling.

The Supreme Court in July ruled 7-2 against the president. It is down to eight justices after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The matter may not be fully resolved before the November election.
HOLYOKE  Valley Health System, parent of Holyoke Medical Center, had a profit margin of just 0.2% in fiscal 2019, earning $400,000.

Thats according to the most recent hospital financial performance report from the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA). Made public Tuesday, the study examines health care systems' profits and losses from fiscal 2019, well before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

The report said the median total margin for acute care hospitals across the state was 3.5%, a 1 percentage point decrease from fiscal 2018.

Variations in profit margins translate into huge differences in the funding hospitals can put toward capital improvements, equipment purchases and building repairs. Larger hospital systems in eastern Massachusetts have more leverage with insurers and tend to do better, said Spiros Hatiras, president and CEO of Valley Health System.

Its not like these people have figured out how to make money and we dummies in Western Massachusetts dont know how to do it, he said. Its a problem because we get paid for many things less than what it actually costs us.

Valley Health Systems physicians practice, called Western Mass Physician Associates, lost $4.3 million in fiscal 2019, a 44% loss.

Weve always had a negative margin on the physician side, Hatiras said. That is simply a function of the reimbursement and the cost. This is why a lot of physicians are not in private practice anymore. They cant afford to be in private practice.

But hospitals need doctors, so Valley Health System subsidizes the physicians practice with money earned by the hospital.

HMC President and CEO Spiros Hatiras said at the press conference that the relief funding will allow the hospital to bring back furloughed workers.

The report found majority of hospital health systems and hospitals reported a positive total margin. Acute hospitals tended to have greater margins than their associated parent systems.

Mercy Medical Center in Springfield lost $13.3 million in fiscal 2019, a loss margin of 4.2%.

The same report shows crosstown competitor Baystate Medical Center, Western Massachusetts' only teaching hospital, earning a $126 million in profit.

Baystate parent Baystate Health showed a profit of $71 million. Thats a profit margin of 3%.

Baystate Healths other hospitals showed losses or slim profits. Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield made $1 million for a profit margin of 1%. Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield lost $9.6 million for a loss of 15.2%. Baysate Wing Hospital in Palmer lost $6.2 million for a loss of 7.1%. Baystate Medical Practices lost $48.5 million, or 14.7%.

Mercy Medical Center parent Trinity Health showed a $786 million profit nationwide, according to the report. Locally, its physician groups all lost money, with negative margins running from 18.6% to 110%.

Trinity Health Of New England didnt make anyone available for an interview Tuesday. But spokeswoman Amy Ashford said a written statement:

This report does not accurately reflect Mercy Medical Center and its affiliates. Like many other hospitals across the country, this is a time of change and great opportunity for Mercy Medical Center and its affiliates, and we are making tremendous progress. We have implemented some necessary cost-saving measures and process improvement initiatives, and are now focusing on making smart investments to grow our facilities and support our strategy and operations.

Ashford said Trinity Health Of New England closed inpatient psychiatric services at Providence Behavioral Health Hospital in Holyoke on June 30 because of a serious psychiatrist shortage preventing the hospital from providing safe, quality care.

In Northampton, Cooley Dickinson Hospital reported $15.7 million in profit, a margin of 7.6%. But its affiliated CD Practice Associates lost $14.2 million, according to the CHIA report.

Such losses reflect the investment in provider practices as we work to meet the communitys needs for physicians and advanced practice clinicians across a range of specialties (including primary care) and other investments such as electronic medical records and important infrastructure to meet our mission, said Cooley Dickinson spokeswoman Christina Trinchero.

Cooley Dickinson is part of Boston-based giant Partners Health Care, which brought in $486.2 million for a profit margin of 3.5%.

Although this report covers a time period prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Massachusetts, it will provide a valuable foundation to further study the impact the pandemic has had on the financial stability of hospitals and health systems in the Commonwealth, CHIA Executive Director Ray Campbell said in a statement.

Hatiras said the pandemic isnt going to have too big an impact on Valley Health Systems bottom line, with state and federal aid replacing lost revenue at the physicians practices. People either couldnt or wouldnt seek care, and elective hospital procedures were stopped earlier in the pandemic.

With COVID I dont think its going to be much worse, he said.
The Nigerian Army says its operations to curtail the activities of criminals across the country had witnessed tremendous successes.

As part of efforts to tackle the prevailing security challenges confronting the country, the Nigerian Army has taken delivery of more sophisticated platforms and war equipment for its operations.

The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Tukur Baratai, disclosed this at the opening of the Chief of Army Staff's combined first, second and third quarters conference, on Tuesday in Maiduguri.

Mr Buratai, a lieutenant-general, said while some of the platforms were procured from foreign sources, some were sourced locally through local ingenuity and collaborations.

"To this end, the Nigerian army recently took delivery of key platforms to reinvigorate our operations.

"These include the VT4 and FT1 tanks, the KIA light tactical vehicles as well as the SH2 and SH5 self-propel artillery guns.

"Post-treatment training is ongoing on this equipment and they would soon be inducted into the theatre.

"The Nigerian Army received some armoured personnel carriers from Jordan and we are expecting the delivery of other major capabilities.

"Furthermore, through local ingenuity, Nigerian Army facilitated the production and delivery of the pro-force MRAPs, Ezugwu MRAPS as well as the Conqueror and Champion barriers.

"Despite teething challenges in the new innovation, these platforms have no doubt enhanced the effectiveness of our troops across various theatres.

"We will continue to work assiduously to ensure that we support all operations with equipment and platforms," he said.

Mr Buratai however, urged the commanders to ensure judicious deployment of the asset in order to justify the huge resources expended on them by the federal government.

He said the ongoing operations in different parts of the country to curtail the activities of criminals had witnessed tremendous successes.

The COAS said the military had done well in curtailing the activities of insurgents, armed bandits, kidnappers and cattle rustlers, as well as farmer-herder clashes and other crimes.

He urged the field commanders to sustain the tempo of operation to ensure the total decimation of all the inimical forces across the country.

According to Mr Buratai, the Nigerian Army had done well in operation Lafiya Dole and the recently launched operation Sahel Sanity in the North West to rid the Katsina, Zamfara, corridors of marauding bandits.

"Similarly, operation Hadarim Daji is very active in other parts of the 8 Division area of operation in order to curb incessant farmers and herders' clashes.

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"Also, since its establishment with headquarters in Doma, the 4 Special Forces Commend in conjunction with the Guards Brigade has conducted impactful operations in Nasarawa State.

"I am happy to observe that the various operations are currently achieving the desired objectives," he said.

Mr Buratai, while paying tributes to fallen officers and soldiers, said that the army had put in place an elaborate housing programme for the families of the killed-in-action personnel.

He also assured that comprehensive medical treatment for all wounded personnel would always be accorded the highest priority.

Mr Buratai said the ongoing construction of the Nigerian Army Reference Hospital in Maiduguri and Abakaliki are just a few of several measures in this regard.

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The Army chief commended the media and public for their understanding and positive change of perception regarding the Nigerian Army, adding that the media remained a powerful force in ensuring a progressive society.

He also emphasised the need for enhanced collaboration in tackling security challenges through positive, constructive and conscious media reportage.

Mr Buratai commended the collaboration of sister services and other security agencies and called for more support and collaboration towards making the country safe for all.

He thanked President Muhammadu Buhari and the Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, for their support towards defeating terrorism and ensuring peace and stability in the northeast.

(NAN)
Watch: Michella Obama attacks Donald Trump on Covid, racism | US elections

Michelle Obama, former First Lady of the United States of America, campaigned for Democratic party candidate Joe Biden with less than a month to go for the Presidential elections. Biden had served as Vice President under Michelle's husband Barack Obama. Michelle launched a broad attack on incumbent President Donald Trump, accusing him of 'wilful mismanagement' of the Covid-19 pandemic, and encouraging racism. Michelle said that Biden would 'heal' the nation and put an end to the 'chaos' unleashed by Trump. She said that it was necessary that people vote in the election as it would be won by the 'slimmest of margins' like in 2016, when Trump had defeated Hillary Clinton. Michelle said Trump was endangering his own supporters by refusing to push for basic precautions against Covid like wearing masks and practicing social distancing. The US will choose its next president on November 3. Watch the full video for more. ...read more
Theres no higher or better purpose for our time than literally getting people in a room together.

Those were Jazz Philadelphia executive director Heather Shayne Blakeslees words as her group launched its inaugural Jazz Philadelphia Summit in 2018  and the guiding principle behind the proceedings.

The notion of gathering a large group has now become complicated, of course, and the 2020 summit will take place virtually this Friday and Saturday. The hope, Blakeslee says, is to bring people together from the various threads that make up the citys often disparate jazz scene to inspire each other "and help them get through this year.

 READ MORE: Phillys jazz cats are back on stage, live-streaming from an iconic, empty club

With venues shuttered and festivals canceled by the coronavirus pandemic, the theme this year is resilience, says Jazz Philadelphia president Gerald Veasley, an in-demand bassist whos seen his own instrument start gathering dust. "When March came and all of our lives got turned upside down, we immediately thought about how we could serve our community with trying to figure out, if not how to move their careers forward, then at least to be able to pay the rent.

Over the course of two days, the Jazz Philadelphia Summit will present workshops, panel discussions, presentations, networking opportunities, and livestreamed performances. Presenters include notable jazz musicians from the city and beyond, as well as industry professionals from the concert-presentation and festival worlds. Topics on the agenda include new technologies, along with mental health and wellness.

British-born bassist Anthony Tidd, a longtime Philadelphia resident recently named a Jazz Hero by the Jazz Journalists Association, was among the first artists to see a potential way forward from this newfound isolation. During the Summit he will discuss his experiences creating Act4Music, a months-long virtual festival launched in April that eventually presented 260 performances from across the globe.

During the time that Ive been in Philadelphia, Ive found that so many creative musicians have real trouble trying to find places where we can just get on stage and play, Tidd says. So Ive spent a long time thinking about ways that I could change that, and one way that I came up with was to create a virtual venue which would record shows and present them to audiences around the world.

While I was developing that the pandemic happened, he says. "I was nowhere near finished, but I took what I had done so far and turned it into Act4Music.

Jazz Philadelphia both supports the local music community and helps counter the troubling tendency toward division in the country as a whole, he says. In U.S. society, a lot of times people just dont talk to each other. Thats not just in terms of jazz musicians; its true of people of different races and different religions. So anything that allows people to have a dialogue with people outside of their direct circles and allows them to see the humanity in other people is a good thing. The summit is doing that.

Social justice will also be a major topic of this years summit, Veasley says. We just experienced a summer like none other that I can remember. A summer of unrest and a summer of outrage. We realized that the music industry and particularly the jazz community had something to say about those things, and would need to process and heal in that arena as well.

Drummer and educator Terri Lyne Carrington, this years keynote speaker, will discuss her work with the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. Pianist Vijay Iyer will talk about artists' responsibility as change-makers.

Other summit highlights include an Ask Me Anything session with WRTI general manager Bill Johnson. Performers include Arnetta Johnson, Larry McKenna, Bobby Zankel, and others.

Bassist and Philly native Christian McBride will be the weekends closing act, as a nod to a brighter future.

Christian is one of the most positive, encouraging people that I know, Veasley says. After two full days of tough conversations, a lot of digging deep to find solutions, well be looking for a path forward. In spite of everything, what are the things that we can celebrate and look forward to?

JAZZ PHILADELPHIA SUMMIT

Friday and Saturday, tickets $15-$250, jazzphiladelphia.org


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Tesla Inc. fired an employee for 'maliciously sabotaging' part of a factory last month, Bloomberg reported citing an internal email. The electric car maker informed workers at its auto plant in Fremont, California that the employee was terminated after internal investigation.



The operations at the facility were disrupted for only a short period as the company responded to the incident rapidly, the report noted.



In the email, Al Prescott, Tesla's vice president of legal and acting general counsel, wrote, 'Two weeks ago, our IT and InfoSec teams determined than an employee had maliciously sabotaged a part of the Factory. Their quick actions prevented further damage and production was running smoothly again a few hours later.'



As per the memo, the unnamed employee allegedly sought to cover up his tracks, blame a co-worker and destroy a company computer. However, the employee confessed after being shown the irrefutable evidence, and the company terminated the employment.



Tesla manufactures the S, X, 3 and Y models at its auto plant in Fremont, which employees more than 10,000 people.



Stating that the acts were crimes, violations of its code of conduct, and are unfair to other employees, Tesla said it will take aggressive action to defend the company and its people.



Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk last month had confirmed that Tesla's factory in Nevada was the subject of a hacking attempt by a Russian national and his co-conspirators. Prosecutors in Nevada filed a complaint against Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov for allegedly conspiring to recruit an employee at the company, in order to surreptitiously install malware on its computers.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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The Govenror of Ondo State, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has said the manner at which he presided over the reign of governance in the state thus is an evidence that not all politicians are liars.

He also said if re-elected for another term, Akure, the state capital, will be connected to the global economy.

In a similar vein, the Deji of Akure and Paramount Ruler of Akure Kingdom, Oba Ogunlade Aladetoyinbo Aladelusi has described the Governor as a noiseless achiever, saying "I never knew he could perform mertitoriously as he did despite the bogus debts he inherited from his predecessor".

Oba Aladelusi also described Akeredolu as a man that is too frank and sincere for the political system that operates in Nigeria, adding that "a straightforward man like you can only be encouraged by what tomorrow will say about your today".

Speaking when he played host to the Governor and his campaign team in his palace on Tuesday, the monarch said Akeredolu has fulfilled his promises to the people of Akure kingdom, adding that "whoever says Governor Akeredolu has not performed, particularly in Akure would only be lying on what is visible."

"When Governor Akeredolu assumed office amidst inherited debts running into billions, many people thought he wouldn't perform. I wrote him off myself because he inherited a scaring debt. He inherited six months of unpaid salaries but today, he has almost completely paid all the arrears.

"I want to say without any fear or favour that our Governor is too honest, frank and straightforward for the Nigerian political environment. People like you only work for tomorrow, not today.

"Anyone that says Mr.Talk and Do didn't perform in Akure is only lying. His work is all over the places. I never knew he could do much. But to my surprise, what he has done is even more than what those who met surplus did.

"Anyone that love Akure and believes in Akure, I will always love. Mr. Governor is the architect of modern Akure. Our hospital that has been long abandoned is now wearing a new look courtesy of this Talk and Do Governor. He's almost dualizing the whole of Akure. Aketi has done very well and he has appointed our people into government," the King, said.

In his remarks, Akeredolu said he didn't join politics to maximise wealth but to show that not all political actors are liars, hence, his resolve to always do what is right, and not what is good.

"You have convinced me beyond any doubt, that you love this Akure. You made a case that for many years at the federal level, Akure has nothing. But today, we are happy that the minister from Ondo State is from Akure.

"We thank You. Akure is our state capital. And it is important that we work here. And we will do more. We have a college of medicine here. We are building a 500-bed hospital in Akure. Please support us to continue this work.

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"By the grace of God, Akure will be connected to the global economy before I leave government. I want to prove that not all politicians are liars and I have proven that. I will never betray my belief. I will continue to do what is right, and not what is good. Like I do say, I want history to be kind to me.

"By the grace of God, Akure has been designed to be connected to global economy and we will do that. Akure airport is already designated as an international cargo airport. That will soon happen. We will construct Igbatoro road. Akure will be more modernised in our second term", Akeredolu said.

In the entourage of the Governor were the immediate past Governor of Ogun State and Senator Representing Ogun Central Senatorial District, Ibikunle Amosun, Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Donald Tayo Alasoadura, Erudite Lawyer, Niyi Akintola SAN, Director-General of the Akeredolu/Aiyedatiwa Campaign Organisation, Rt. Hon. Victor Olabimtan, among others.
RTHK: Biden: No debate unless Trump Covid-19 free

Democrat Joe Biden said on Tuesday he would be opposed to debating Donald Trump next week as scheduled if the US president is still sick with Covid-19, saying he would want to follow health guidelines.

"I'm looking forward to being able to debate him, but I just hope all the protocols are followed," Biden, 77, told reporters as he returned from a speech near the Civil War battlefield site in Gettysburg.

Trump, 74, announced early on Friday -- two days after his first debate with Biden in Cleveland -- that he had tested positive for the virus.

The men are scheduled to square off again on October 15, but Biden said: "If he still has Covid, we shouldn't have a debate."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines say people who test positive for the virus should stay home for at least 10 days after symptoms first appear, while people who become severely ill might need to stay home for up to 20 days.

"It's a very serious problem, so I will be guided by... what the docs say is the right thing to do," Biden said.

Trump has given no indication he would bow out due to his health, saying in a tweet that he is "looking forward" to the next debate. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2020-10-07. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Prum Chantha (L) and her son sit at a Buddhist temple near Prey Sar Prison in Phnom Penh, Oct. 6, 2020.

The 15-year-old autistic son of a jailed member of Cambodias banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) said Tuesday he was beaten by police while in custody after being arrested for entering the partys abandoned headquarters to collect flags.

The son of former senior CNRP member Kak Komphear was arrested by local police after he entered the partys old headquarters in Phnom Penhs Chak Angre Leu district on Sunday by climbing over a fence, according to the authorities.

The boy was released Tuesday without charge after being forced to sign a letter confessing that he had been wrong to illegally enter a prohibited place and vowing to refrain from doing so in the future. Government-affiliated media outlet Fresh News later posted a video of him reading the confession aloud on its website and apologizing for causing mischief.

The forced confession came after police photographed him standing against a wall in handcuffs during his arrestan image that has since been posted to social media and shared widely, prompting calls from rights groups to protect his identity because he is a minor.

Following his release on Tuesday, Kak Komphears son told RFAs Khmer Service that the police in Chak Angre Leu had beaten him while he was in handcuffs.

They handcuffed me in a way that caused wounds to my wrists, he said, without elaborating.

I just want to fight for my country. The wounds do not hurt badly.

Phnom Penh Police Commission spokesperson San Sok Seyha said police brought the boy in for questioning about what he was doing in a prohibited place.

Competent authorities brought him in to question him and find out if he stole any property when entered the building, he said.

They released him this morning when they found that he was not involved in any theft.

San Sok Seyha denied that the boy was beaten by police while in custody.

Kak Komphears wife Prum Chantha told RFA that her son had done nothing wrong and said the police had abused the rights of a minor with disabilities.

They put handcuffs on my sonthat is violating the childs rights. This country does not even respect the rights of a child.

Prum Chantha said that after her son was released, the two of them went to visit Kak Komphear in prison.

His father wept after he realized his son was arrested and was injured by the police handcuffs, she said.

Upon seeing his father crying, my son tried to console him, telling him to be strong.

Ny Sokha of local rights group Adhoc told RFA forcing the boy to sign a confession in exchange for his release is wrong and a form of pressure on a minor.

In general, if a criminal is arrested, he cannot be released by signing a letter of agreement like that, he said.

If [the authorities] felt they had no proper reason to arrest him, they should have released him without making him sign such a letter.

Fathers arrest

The boys detention comes less than five months after the May 31 arrest of his father, Kak Komphear, who had attempted to flee Phnom Penh for Takeo province after living in hiding for more than a year. He was ordered to pre-trial detention in Prey Sar Prison on charges of plotting and incitement to commit a felony under Articles 453, 494, and 495 of Cambodias penal code, according to his arrest warrant.

In a separate case, dating from January last year, Kak Komphear was convicted in absentia for instigating insult and incitement to commit a felony under Articles 28, 494, 495, and 502 of Cambodias penal code and sentenced to 20 months in prison. The charges were based on allegations that he had taken part in an election boycott campaign that the government said was part of a coup by the CNRP.

Cambodias Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP in November 2017, two months after leader Kem Sokhas arrest, for its role in opposition leaders alleged scheme. The ban, along with a wider crackdown on NGOs and the independent media, paved the way for Prime Minister Hun Sens ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) to win all 125 seats in parliament in the countrys July 2018 general election.

At least 17 CNRP members have been detained in Prey Sar Prison since the start of the coronavirus pandemic on charges of incitement for comments they made deemed critical of Hun Sens leadership.

NGO statement

Also on Tuesday, six Cambodian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) issued a joint statement urging Minister of Interior Sar Kheng to take action to stop local authorities from harassing NGOs and unions, less than a week after Cambodia dismissed a U.N. Human Rights Council report accusing the government of sending police to monitor human rights gatherings, intimidating participants and organizers.

The Coalition of Cambodia Apparel, Cambodia Labor Confederation, Central, Cambodia Trade Union Federation, Coalition of Cambodia Farmer Community, and Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association said police from Phnom Penhs Mean Chey district had come to their offices and demanded that they hand over for inspection ID cards, passports, foreign visas, and a list of their organizational structure, including photos of Cambodian and foreign staff.

We believe the actions by Mean Chey authorities and other local authorities to update their lists of our staff identifications, including their photos, run contrary to the Law on Association and Nongovernmental Organizations (LANGO), which says that we are only required to give such information to the Ministries of Interior, Labor, and Economy, the statement read.

Cambodia Trade Union Federation president Yang Sophoan told RFA she believes authorities sought to threaten and intimidate her staff and demanded that they speak with the Ministry of Labor, which she said already has all of the relevant information about her organization.

It seems what they have done so far is a show of strength to intimidate or threaten us, she said.

Late last month, Mean Chey District Police Chief Meng Vimeandara sent a letter to the six NGOs informing them that they should prepare documents in cooperation with local authorities as they update their statistics on local and foreign staff, as well as organizational structure, from Oct. 3 on. When the NGOs refused to respond, authorities said they would proceed with the process without any schedule.

RFA was unable to reach Ministry of Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak for comment Tuesday. However, Mean Chey District Security Police Chief Phin Phal had previously told RFA that the police must register NGO statistics to more easily manage staff residing in the district.

Am Sam Ath, deputy director of the rights group Licadho, told RFA the police actions amount to a threat against local NGOs, which have already registered with the Ministry of Interior.

The LANGO does not state that the authorities can monitor the number of NGO staff, he said.

Continuing to do so will constitute a threat and intimidation and will affect the NGOs work.

Acts of intimidation

Last week, Cambodia was cited in a report by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to the Geneva-based Human Right Council on instances where governments punished their citizens for cooperating with the UN human rights mechanisms and representatives.

In Cambodia, we continue to receive reports of acts of intimidation against civil society and human rights organizations, which impede their capacity to monitor and reportincluding to this Council, said the country-specific section of the global report.

The Office of the U.N. Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) found that local rights groups were afraid to associate and with U.N. rights monitors for fear of reprisals, according to the report, based on events in 2019. Rhona Smith, U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Cambodia, was quoted as saying training sessions and gatherings her office hosted were shadowed by security agents.

Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Sok Ry Sum and Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Chinese Christian kindergarten teacher imprisoned on suspicion of sharing faith with students

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A Chinese Christian teacher who was once imprisoned for her faith said she was forced to flee China after Communist Party officials accused her of using a curriculum based on the Bible and sharing her faith with students.

On Monday, the Jubilee Campaign hosted a U.N. Human Rights Council webinar, titled "China Bans Faith for All Children," which focused on the testimonies of victims and survivors of Chinas crackdown on religion.

Esther, a former kindergarten teacher in China, shared with attendees how she became a Christian after surviving a devastating car accident in 2007. She joined a church in Guangzhou that same year and later took a job at Woodland kindergarten, where she was surrounded by other Christians.

Though the schools program was influenced by the Christian ideals of humility and joy, it was not a Christian program, Esther said.

While working at the school, Esther also helped lead Christian summer camps for teens and adults. Around this time, an education department official summoned Esther and encouraged her to give up her faith to focus on her work as a kindergarten teacher.

They asked me to stop my involvement with church and also asked me to not involve any university students in our outreach, she said.

Though the next couple of years were relatively peaceful, Esther said she received phone calls from time to time from the education department urging her to stop planning religious camps for children and inquiring about the kindergarten.

In 2014, Esther was again summoned by educational bureau authorities who interrogated her for 24 hours to find out whether she was teaching her students Christianity or using Christian materials. Authorities then raided her kindergarten classroom to search for religious or "illegal" materials.

The interrogation finally ended at 11 p.m. and Esther asked if she could go home.

They said no, she said. I asked if I could have a lawyer, they say no.

Esther was held overnight. I was very cold and very hungry, she said, and was transferred to a detention center the next morning. There, she was forced to work long hours and share a bed with 16 other women.

I was questioned regularly, she said. I was asked over and over again, Do you only have Christian materials at school? Is the current material based on the Bible? Who was involved in printing the material?

It became clear that I was being unlawfully punished for two reasons: I am a Christian, and I taught kindergarteners materials based on the Bible, she said.

In April 2015, Esther was charged with operating an illegal business and sentenced to two years in prison. But even after her release, Esther and her husband were constantly watched by government authorities. Afraid to cause problems for their friends and family, the couple moved around constantly.

We couldn't live anywhere in China and be safe, she said. We have to leave in order to escape persecution and find a place where we could practice our faith deeply and peacefully.

In China, all youth younger than 18 are restricted from enjoying the right to practice their religion or belief and freedom of expression.

Following the implementation of the Regulations on Religious Affairs in 2018, provincial governments have banned minors from attending any religious-based activities or places of worship and questioned students about their faith at schools.

Bob Fu, president of China Aid, told webinar attendees that China has launched a war against childrens faith.

He noted that last year, hundreds of Christian schoolchildren in Zhejiang province were asked to fill out a form identifying their religious faith. After they disclosed their religious faith, children who identified as Christian were ordered to sign a document renouncing their faith.

After rounds of threats, pressure, intimidation and direct coercion by their teachers and public security officers, all but one student in that high school were forced to sign that paper, he said.

For the first time since the Cultural Revolution of Chairman Mao in the 1960s, Chinese children are forced to renounce their faith in public by the Chinese Communist Party, Fu said.

According to estimates, there are 3.5 million Christian children and teens in China, he said, yet they are forbidden to practice their faith.

Fu emphasized that Chinas continued crackdown on freedom of thought, conscience, and religion violates Article 18 of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights and other international covenants.

The international community should or must confront this, he said. This is a direct violation.

The Jubilee Campaign added: "Through the experiences and recommendations of survivors, the event hopes to serve as a base to understand the widespread effects of Chinas breaches to the Convention the Rights of the Child Article 14 and facilitate steps forward for member states and U.N. bodies to address the violations."
Figures reported in Romania on novel coronavirus infections, but also deaths due to COVID-19 "sound a strong alarm signal that we all have the responsibility to take into account," the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis said on Wednesday at the Palace Cotroceni.

He said that today has seen "the largest increase in the number of illness cases"and said the figures were "extremely worrying.""The situation is complicated not only in Romania, but also in the rest of the European states," the head of state said.At the same time, Iohannis thanked the medical staff. "The coming months will not be easy at all," he said, urging people to show solidarity.
"I've had the privilege of working with DPS school and district administrators and educators, the DPS Education Foundation, and their funders for many years," explains Jeanne Timmons, Creative Learning Systems' Regional Sales Manager. "We are honored that DPS has chosen to continue our work together toward a fully articulated ECE12 STEM program for their students." To date, the Colorado-based company has helped implement more than two dozen STEM SmartLab Learning environments in 22 schools across the district.

SmartLabs are fully articulated, K12 STEM solutions that empower students to explore robotics, software engineering, mechanics and structures, circuitry, scientific data and analysis, alternative energy, computer graphics, and digital media arts. The comprehensive SmartLab solutions are carefully designed and provisioned for each grade level. Every program elementtechnology, classroom design, construction kits, curriculum, scope and sequence, professional development, and ongoing supportwork together to meet students where they are and take them as far as they are able. As Susana Cordova, DPS Superintendent, explained speaking at a ribbon cutting for the Montbello campus in 2019, "SmartLabs level the playing field for all students."

Creative Learning Systems' more than 30 years of experience developing innovative turnkey learning solutions contributed to their selection. But their new solution for Chromebook users became a defining point.

"There's also the technology side of programs like this we need to keep in mind," explains Zane Umberger, System Administrator for DPS. "We challenged CLS to come up with a more mobile, Chromebook version of their SmartLab program. We're partnering to make that happen. And, especially now with so many students learning remotely, it is definitely the right direction to go."

"Our mission is to prepare today's students to solve tomorrow's problems," explains Ashley Mathis, Creative Learning Systems' CEO. "In addition to helping students learn science, technology, engineering, and math principles, our approach to personalized, project-based learning helps students gain essential 21st century skills like collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication," furthers Mathis, "and we're honored to serve so many students here in our own backyard."

About Creative Learning Systems

Creative Learning Systems has pioneered the conversion of traditional learning environments to project-based learning experiences since 1987.

Today, Creative Learning Systems partners with the most innovative school leaders nationwide to provide personalized, project-based learning experiences and environments that increase a student's capacity through engaged, active and social problem solving.

Their mission is to ensure that today's students will be tomorrow's leaders, prepared and ready to solve the complex challenges in our ever-changing world.

www.creativelearningsystems.com/smartlabs/

SOURCE Creative Learning Systems
K Ezhilarasan By

Express News Service

TIRUCHY: AIADMK cadres in the central region are concerned that no functionary from this belt has found a place in the 11-member steering committee of the party created on Wednesday. Cadres pointed out that the central districts have little or no representation in any top posts in the ruling party, expressing concern as to how this might affect the AIADMKs prospects in the upcoming Assembly elections in the State.

Several political heavyweights have emerged from the central region, which includes Ariyalur, Perambalur, Tiruchy, Karur and Pudukkottai districts. It has enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the Dravidian parties.

Late DMK chief M Karunanidhi made his electoral debut from Kulithalai near Tiruchy and always preferred to conduct the partys state-level conferences in Tiruchy. His rival and late chief minister J Jayalalitha also placed a great deal of importance on the region, even contesting and winning from the Srirangam Assembly seat in 2011.

ALSO READ: EPS is AIADMKs CM candidate for Tamil Nadu assembly polls, BJP welcomes decision

Its central location in the state made Tiruchy politically vibrant and the region has hosted many historic events and conferences. But cadres fear it might be disappearing from the AIADMKs political map going by recent developments.

While other regions such as Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai have got representations in the partys steering committee, the Tiruchy region has got none despite 24 assembly segments being located in the central districts, 15 seats of which were won by the AIADMK in the 2016 elections.

Though several well-known faces in the party hail from the region, including Ministers Vellamandi N Natarajan, S Valarmathi, C Vijayabaskar, M R Vijayabaskar, chief government whip Thamarai S Rajendran, none has made it to the steering committee or the partys other top posts.

The only member of the steering committee who hails from near the region is Minister R Kamaraj from Tiruvarur. Partys deputy coordinator and Rajya Sabha MP R Vaithilingam, from Thanjavur, is the highest ranked office-bearer from near the region.

The AIADMK cadres wondered how the aspirations, interests and problems of Tiruchy and its surrounding districts could be represented in the party.

Causing more concern to the AIADMK workers is that their rival party, the DMK, recently elevated former minister K N Nehru, from Tiruchy, as the principal secretary of the party. Similarly, former union minister A Raja, from Perambalur, has recently been made the partys deputy general secretary.

The cadres are of the view that while the DMK is giving importance to the central region, their party seems to be falling behind. They fear this may have consequences at the polls.

A senior AIADMK functionary from Tiruchy said that the party saw a setback in the district in the recent rural local body elections. In order to regain strength here, the district has to be given importance by the party high command. But there is no representation from this entire region in the partys vital affairs.
ALTON  City officials, in partnership with the East End Improvement Association and the YWCA of Alton, will host a Reverse Trunk or Treat 6-8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, at the Alton Liberty Bank Alton Amphitheater.

The event will offer a COVID-safe venue for children to celebrate this years Halloween. Employees from all city departments, including the Alton Police and Alton Fire Departments, will be on hand.

With all that is going on right now with COVID-19 and the cancellation of the Halloween Parade, we feel that this is a much needed event for our community, said Alton Mayor Brant Walker.

The East End Improvement Association has sponsored the Alton Halloween Parade since its inception in 1916.

Because of COVID-19 and as hard as a decision it was, we concluded for the health and safety of our community we had no other choice but to cancel this years parade, said Steve Schwartz, East End spokesman. We feel this event affords us a great opportunity to continue a Halloween tradition in Alton and are proud to partner with the City of Alton and YWCA of Alton. We look forward to 2021 to continue our sponsorship of the Alton Halloween Parade and its great tradition.

The YWCA of Alton has participated in past Halloween Parades, but this is the first year it has an opportunity to act as a sponsor.

YWCA is thrilled to participate as we love our community and are happy the City of Alton is able to offer a space for the Reverse Trunk or Treat while making it as safe as possible during these unprecedented times, said YWCA of Alton Executive Director Dorothy Hummel.

Families are asked to bring their children in costume. Drivers are asked to pop open their trunks to receive treats. All passengers should be wearing COVID-19 masks. Vendors are asked to wear masks and gloves and practice social distancing.

Any organizations or individuals wishing to participate should contact the East End Improvement Association at altonhalloweenparade@gmail.com or call Steve Schwartz at 618-972-8329.
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Limerick TD and Minister of State Patrick O'Donovan says he's worried about the impact of "uncontrolled consumption of alcohol" in private homes over the next three weeks.

He made his comments following the closure of many pubs and restaurants in Limerick after the introduction of Level 3 restrictions as outlined in the Government's Living with Covid plan.

Mr O'Donovan raised his concerns at a meeting of the Fine Gael Parliamentary meeting last night during which he called for a review of off-licence opening hours and the volume of alcohol that individuals can purchase at any one time.

Speaking to Claire Byrne on RTE Radio One he said the introduction of restrictions may be needed.

"I'm expressing a personal opinion here Claire but I think if we are to ask people to put up with the restrictions that we have asked them to put up with then I don't think that it's beyond the grounds of fairness to ask people not to have house parties. Some people will continue to have them so maybe we should just turn down the volume of alcohol," he said.

The Newcastle West native said he will raise the matter with the Health Minister but he stressed he is not seeking to have off-licenses closed.

"If we continue to have an environment where you can have uncontrolled consumption of alcohol for the next three weeks I worry about that. When you see slabs of cans being taken home you know that they are not being taken home for an after-dinner aperitif."

The junior minister, who has responsibility for the Office of Public Works, said the examination would need to take place quickly if it is to be effective while the Level 3 restrictions remain in place.

He said it has been made clear by public health officials that uncontrolled consumption of alcohol has a direct impact on the spread of Covid-19.

"We are asking people to exercise common sense here. When you see slabs of cans being taken home, you know that they are not being taken home for an after-dinner aperitif. We cannot pretend that house parties aren't going on when they clearly are."

Mr O'Donovan added that it is not acceptable for people to fill their shopping trolleys with nothing but alcohol.

"A culture has developed in recent weeks that this is OK. It is not OK," he said.

For more Limerick news click here
At least 30,000 jobs in the business process outsourcing industry (BPO) await overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who have lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, an official of the Department of Labor and Employment said today.

Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique Tutay said that the Duterte administration would sign an agreement today with the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines, an advocacy group for the BPO industry.

We will forge a partnership with them so they can assist our OFWs who have been repatriated and give them jobs in the BPO sector if they want to improve on their [existing] skills, Tutay said in English and Filipino an interview with ABS-CBNs Teleradyo.

OFW applicants will be sent to the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority if they need to undergo training for their new BPO jobs, she added.

Thousands of OFWs have been laid off from their overseas jobs since the pandemic began early this year. Also, at least two million Filipinos in the Philippines have been displaced due to the economic downturn caused by the health crisis.

This article, 30,000 BPO jobs await migrant Pinoy workers displaced by pandemic, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company.
The U.S. border policy under the Trump administration that for two months in mid-2018 separated children from their undocumented parents as a cruel means of deterrence was one of the earlyand still most instructiveabominations of the Trump presidency. As time passes, expect Trump officials to edge away from responsibility for the program, as many already have. In fact, the finger-pointing and responsibility contortions started almost immediately after the public backlash against the policy. ThenAttorney General Jeff Sessions told CBN in June 2018 that the Trump administration never really intended to separate migrant children from their families. But a New York Times report on the coming Justice Department inspector generals report tells a very different storyone of a policy that is a moral outrage and was pushed by DOJ officials at the very top of the central organ of American legal infrastructure.

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Two officials at the forefront of the child separation effort, according to the draft IG report, were thenAttorney General Jeff Sessions and thenDeputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. In May 2018, when a handful of U.S. attorneys covering border states expressed concern about the push to use infants as leverage against migrants arriving in the country, Sessions explicitly advocated for the execution of the policy in a conference call. We need to take away children, Sessions told the prosecutors, according to participants shorthand notes of the call. If care about kids, dont bring them in. Wont give amnesty to people with kids. That was the Trump line, and lets not forget Jeff Sessions was pushing it, no matter what he says now.

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The report also fingers Rod Rosenstein, made famous by his role overseeing the Russia investigation after Sessions recusal. Rosenstein, the Times reports, went even further in a second call about a week later, telling the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were. He said that government lawyers should not have refused to prosecute two cases simply because the children were barely more than infants. The U.S. attorney who had refused to prosecute those two cases, wrote his staff following the call that, per Rosenstein, we should NOT be categorically declining immigration prosecutions of adults in family units because of the age of a child. That was the Trump line, and lets not forget Rod Rosenstein was pushing it, no matter what he says now.

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The two-year internal investigation by Inspector General Michael Horowitz, which relies on more than 45 interviews with key officials, as well as a trove of other documents, determined that top officials at the DOJ were, in fact, a driving force behind the family separation policy. Sessions did not cooperate with the internal probe, and Rosenstein shrugged off any culpability in his response to the report. Much of the blame for the policy has been placed on the Department of Homeland Security and the president himself, and that is appropriate, but Sessions and Rosenstein are also key figures that bear responsibility for an inhumane zero tolerance policy that deliberately aimed to separate desperate families, leaving thousands of children in the care of the U.S. government. We all know what happened next: Chaos ensued, as children were separated from their parents for sometimes months at a time, doing lasting harm. Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein helped make that happen. Lets not forget that, no matter what they say now.
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Business Intelligence Group today announced the winners of the 2020 Public Relations and Marketing Excellence Awards which identified the leading agencies and corporate departments who delivered quantifiable business results.

Whilly Bermudez

"Businesses are certainly in an unusual time, and many rely on public relations and marketing professionals to help ensure customer stability," said Maria Jimenez, Chief Nominations Officer of the Business Intelligence Group. "Our winners have clearly shown us and our judges that they have the unique ability to solve critical business issues with knowledgeable and consistent communications and campaigns for their clients. Congratulations to you all!"



The arrival of Whilly Bermudez to Best Doctors Insurance had an immediate impact. Whilly's relentless pursuit to take ideas beyond their creative limits knows no bounds. As one of the most highly regarded professionals in South Florida and one of the most recognizable names in the industry, Whilly's focus is to create 'out of the box' concepts continue to set him apart. For 20+ years, WB has developed countless unique business concepts & placed his creative stamp on countless client brands.

In under 12 months, the Marketing Team at Best Doctors Insurance launched a myriad of new initiatives that include high quality video content creation, an in-house magazine, and even a weekly podcast show. The Marketing Department has been under the leadership of Marketing Director- Whilly Bermudez since September 2019. "It's about being highly creative and highly organized. It is important to always have vision and continuously work towards that end. But most importantly, it's about having the right team," said Bermudez.



Since 1989, Best Doctors Insurance has been a leading international health insurance company in Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada. The company provides their members the very best access to healthcare by delivering unique health plans of the highest quality. For the past 30 years, their insurance products have been the premier staple in the industry and its medical standards; along with a wide range of exclusive benefits, they are the key differentiator in the lives of their members.



For any information, visit the new Best Doctors Insurance corporate website: BestDoctorsInsurance.com



Media contact:

Alexandra Gratereaux - Marketing & PR Specialist, (305) 269-2521 | [email protected]

SOURCE Best Doctors Insurance

Related Links

http://BestDoctorsInsurance.com


MOGADISHU, Somalia 06 October 2020  Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) and Somali Media Association (SOMA) strongly condemn the gun threat, harassment and arbitrary detention by Somali police against journalists on Friday 2 October 2020 in Baidoa and on Monday 5 October 2020 in Mogadishu respectively.

On Friday, South West State police detained freelance cameraman, Yusuf Mohamed Adan, who reports for Five Somali TV and Arlaadi News website, while covering a clan protest in Baidoa, according to Yusuf himself and colleagues. He was held at the Baidoa police station until Sunday 4 October, when he was freed without charge.

On Monday, Radio Kulmiye reporter, Farhan Mohamed Hussein and his cameraman Mowlid Haji Abdi Kheyre were attacked by a uniformed police officer at Tarabunka junction in Mogadishu's Hodan district. According to a video evidence and interviews with the pair, the radio journalists were on assignment to gather vox-pops from tuk-tuk drivers regarding the re-opening of roads previously blocked by the security forces. The police officer blocked the journalists from recording videos and threatened to shoot if they do so. They were held at the Hodan police station for several hours. Both were freed without charge.

The police officer harassed us at gunpoint and even threatened to shoot us if we continue recording videos, forcing us to stop the interview, said cameraman Mowlid.

SJS and SOMA are extremely concerned by the lack of accountability in the police to ensure credible investigation whenever their officers attack or threaten journalists. It is also harrowing that journalists came under armed police attack while simply doing their job.

We are very concerned by these latest string of targeted attacks on journalists in Mogadishu and Baidoa. These incidents follow President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo's public comments on September 26 linking some journalists to al-Shabaab without any evidence, Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, the secretary general of Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) We jointly call for an immediate investigation into these incidents. In order to end the impunity for crimes against journalists, Somali Federal government and its Member States should be serious and make sure redress for all abuses against journalists, including harassment, threats, attacks, arbitrary detention, and murder.

The police officers, who harassed the journalists and threatened, must be held accountable and a thorough and honest investigation be opened, Mohamed Abdulwahaab, Secretary General of Somali Media Association said, No police officer should be above the law

Meanwhile SJS and SOMA welcome the joint letter by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Monday which calls for Somali President to take concrete steps to protect the media ahead of elections by starting with reforming the draconian media law and refraining from making statements that place journalists at risk.

Further, ahead of the elections, we jointly remind Somalia political leaders, the civil society groups and the international partners to take their responsibility to protect human rights including the right to freedom of expression and press freedom before, during and after the election, and therefore ensure that individuals known to have committed serious human rights violations  including violations and rights abuses against journalists are not allowed to run for elected positions or any other government roles.
A WOMAN has given up work to be with her teenage son after it was found cancer has returned to his brain.

Charlie Ilsley, 13, was first diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2015 and has had various types of intensive treatment since then as the disease spread.

Now a scan has revealed a tiny tumour in his brain and he is to undergo a new form of immunotherapy in Mexico, where he has already had treatment.

His mother Toni will accompany him after giving up her job at the Day Lewis pharmacy in Sonning Common.

Mrs Ilsley, of Buckingham Drive, Emmer Green, said: I just want to spend the rest of the time with Charlie and make sure Im there for him 24/7. Thats my job now.

Were in a grim situation. This is the first time in five years hes had one in his head. It is really worrying me because it causes major problems. The last thing I want in the world is for him to suffer. I said to him, The scan has shown that the cancer has grown a tiny little bit. He said to me, Im worried about my cancer growing and I said to him, Dont worry, its my job to worry.

It breaks your heart. No one deserves to go through what Charlies gone through and if I could have it instead of him, I would. I say that to him and he says that would be worse because there wouldnt be anyone to look after him.

I have to sit here and think about if he dies and how Im going to cope without him. We have been together one-to-one for six years. Hes a massive part of my life and I love him to bits. Well just fight together.

Charlie had three weeks of CAR-T cell treatment, a form of immunotherapy, in Mexico City last month.

Mrs Ilsley and her husband Mark received the results of his latest scan last week, which showed the 1.5mm tumour in his cerebellum.

The only consolation was the doctors saying it had grown very slowly rather than aggressively.

Mrs Ilsley said: The doctor is saying its progression now because of this new one that has popped up in his brain. Were in the worst situation we have been in for five years.

Charlie, a pupil at Highdown School in Emmer Green, currently has no symptoms and his mother says he eats and sleeps well and enjoys playing on his PlayStation with his friends online.

He flew back to Mexico yesterday with his parents for more immunotherapy, which will involve injecting two drugs directly into Charlies spine.

The family expect to have to raise at least another 25,000 for the treatment as that is what the previous immunotherapy cost.

Mrs Ilsley said: Well go over there and see what happens. Going straight into the spine is a much more complex procedure but the side effects are zero. It is uncharted but the doctor said hes used to that.

If this isnt going to work and Im going to lose him, I want to make sure Im with him all the time and hes not going to suffer. Ill never give up on him, hes too precious.

She thanked all of her sons supporters who have helped raise thousands for his treatment, in particular Claire Brown, from Cheltenham, who has led the fund-

raising campaign.

I just couldnt do it without her, said Mrs Ilsley. Shes amazing. She walked into our lives a couple of years ago. Every day she has been relentlessly trying to raise money to keep this little boy alive.

Following his diagnosis in 2015, Charlie underwent a 10-hour operation and had 31 sessions of radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy before being given the all- clear.

Then in spring 2018 two tumours were discovered on his spine. Charlie was given the all-clear for a second time in August last year after undergoing specialist radiation treatment in Turkey which his family had to raise the money to pay for.

But in November they were told the disease had returned after a lumbar puncture showed cancer cells in his spinal fluid.

Earlier this year, the Ilsleys were told that the chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatment that Charlie underwent had failed.

To make a donation, visit www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/

teamcharlie2020

 Tesco in Henley will be holding a fundraising day for Charlies treatment tomorrow (Saturday) and will have buckets for shoppers to make donations.
 Flash

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, long notorious for firing baseless accusations against China, moved up another notch in his China-smearing campaign during a five-day European tour in Greece, Italy, the Vatican and Croatia.



From the COVID-19 fight to religious "freedom," from 5G to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the top U.S. diplomat's relentless China-bashing rhetoric was met with criticism from senior officials in these countries and solemn condemnations from the Chinese embassy.

Self-centered political motivation

Pompeo began his tour in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, where he was received by nearly 2,000 protesters carrying signs reading "The hawk of war is not welcome in our country" and "The murderers of the peoples are not welcome."

On Wednesday, Pompeo hosted a symposium on religious freedom at the U.S. embassy to the Holy See in Rome. Pope Francis was invited to the event but did not attend, fearing that the Trump campaign would use him as a political tool in the 2020 presidential election.

Asked if the event "amounted to exploitation of the Pope" by Italy's ANSA news agency, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican's secretary for relations with states, said "Yes, that is precisely why the Pope will not meet American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo."

Pompeo renewed his smearing of China at the event, claiming "Nowhere is religious freedom under assault more than it is inside of China today," while blaming "the Chinese Communist Party" and "all communist regimes."

The Chinese embassy in Italy, as a response, condemned Pompeo's statements in a press release on Thursday, saying his statements "overflow with ideological prejudice and ignorance about China."

"Today, Chinese citizens of all ethnic groups enjoy an unprecedented sense of satisfaction, happiness and security. The assessment of whether the situation of human rights, religious freedom, and cyber security in China is good or not is up to those with the foremost right to speak on the matter -- namely the 1.4 billion Chinese citizens, and certainly not any foreign politician," the embassy's statement said.

Quoting an Italian proverb that says "Sow the wind and you shall reap the whirlwind," the Chinese embassy urged Pompeo to stop his grandstanding as soon as possible.

To cover up Washington's slow response to the COVID-19 pandemic and deflect U.S. public attention from other pressing domestic issues, Pompeo has once again made China a scapegoat during the trip.

"Recovering from the virus should also mean accountability for the Chinese Communist Party," said Pompeo in a press conference with Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, attempting to shift the blame for inability of his own government in protecting the American people from the novel coronavirus.

Two days ahead of Pompeo's visit to Croatia, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic criticized U.S. President Donald Trump for ruining the international reputation of the United States and called him a "rabble-rouser," Croatian national news agency Hina reported.

"Donald Trump has ruined it all. He incites hatred, provokes, and that's it," Milanovic said, adding that Pompeo's visit was to sell war planes.

In an analysis article titled "How the world will look after the coronavirus pandemic" published by Foreign Policy in March, Kori Schake, deputy director general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said "the United States will no longer be seen as an international leader because of its government's narrow self-interest and bungling incompetence."

Ill-founded anti-China sentiment

Pompeo has long sought to persuade European countries to avoid deeper economic cooperation with China and Chinese companies, citing unfounded charges of China's economic presence in other countries as "not for sincere partnerships" and that Huawei's 5G technology poses high security risk.

In response, Di Maio said that "Italy is well conscious of the need to ensure the security of 5G networks. It is our absolute priority."

On Thursday, Huawei Italy announced it will open a Cybersecurity and Transparency Center in Rome next year, allowing customers, the government, and independent third-party testing organizations to perform fair, objective, and independent security tests, according to the company's spokesperson.

"I am speechless that a country the size of the United States attacks another country through the demolition, via groundless accusations, of a company of that country," Huawei Italy president Luigi De Vecchis said at the event on Thursday.

In his interviews with Croatian media, Pompeo continued peddling his anti-China cliches, which was described by Hina as "working on globally reducing the Chinese influence."

As a response to Pompeo's suspicions over the BRI during a joint press conference, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic called the China-proposed global development initiative "smart."

"They were very smart to devise this format of the relationship and the political dialogue and the economic framework with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe," Plenkovic said.

"We are fully aware of all the aspects of this policy and our objective is to have a level playing field when it comes to both the relationship between Croatia and the other members of the European Union and China and its market, as well as the Chinese presence here in accordance with the rules that exist on the global level and which put us in the same market position," Plenkovic said, rebutting charges that Chinese investments in the region are "predatory."

In March last year, Italy and China signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly advance the construction of the Belt and Road during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the country, a sign of the increasing popularity of the development initiative in Europe.

Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, warned last month that the current U.S. administration "needs to stop distorting and exaggerating China's actions," and stop viewing China as a strategic competitor because China "does not pose an existential threat to Americans, our country or our way of life."

He called on the world's two largest economies to work together against such common threats to mankind as climate change, terrorism, global economic crisis and the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Getty

The fight for LGBTQ rights always sounds grand, andas grand, sweeping phrases often doits bravura obscures the grittier, more complex reality. The core of any civil rights movement is brave individuals first realizing, then questioning whatever prejudice has been visited upon them, then rousing themselves to do something about it. Those are very personal and piercing decisions to take.

Then those people may reach out for help, advice, and support; they may ally themselves with others. A case is formed. How far such a case goes depends on luck and a lot of hard, often thankless work by activists, lawyers, and campaigners from organizations like the ACLU, Lambda Legal, the Transgender Law Center, HRC, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and GLAAD. Support may come from smaller organizations, and local chapters of organizations; from volunteers working and canvassing.

Lets Call Religious Freedom by Its Real Name: Poisonous, Anti-LGBTQ Bigotry

This mostly invisible toil is important to underscore. The population-at-large may only see the results of this work on TV in news bulletins at the end of months and years of work they do not know about. The ticker-tape parades, swelling orchestral music, cheers, applause, and slow-motion rainbow flags flapping in the wind occur as a culminationand not frequently enough. Do not let colorful Pride parades, and all those LGBTQ characters on TV, lull you: in reality, LGBTQ people, and their rights, are under attack. LGBTQ people need your active support, now urgently.

Imagine being an individual who feels they have been discriminated against, coming to that recognition, and then extending that recognition into action. You may not be a natural activist.

You may, like Jim Obergefell whose name is borne on the landmark 2015 Supreme Court ruling that enshrines marriage equality, begin as someone who is simply seeking legal redress over his relationship not being treated equally to a straight persons. Or Gerald Bostock, Aimee Stephens, and Donald Zarda, who just wanted to get on with doing their jobsand whose cases were at the heart of this years historic Supreme Court anti-discrimination ruling.

Story continues

Marriage Equality Is in Danger, Says Supreme Court Victor Jim Obergefell

Obergefell told me last week that he felt marriage equality was in peril, given the likely appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Right on cue on Monday, as the new term of the Supreme Court began, Justices Thomas and Alitoin declining homophobic Kentucky clerk Kim Davis caseopined that Obergefells case threaten[ed] the religious liberty of the many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman.

Thomas wrote that the case enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss.

Only the court could fix this, Thomas wrote, making clear that one of the objectives of a conservative-dominated court would be to overturn marriage equality. Until then the case would have ruinous consequences for religious liberty.

Next month, the Supreme Courtpossibly, probably, with Barrett appointedwill hear the Fulton v. Philadelphia adoption case. With a conservative majority locked in, the court will almost surely allow taxpayer-funded adoption and foster agencies to turn away same-sex families on the basis of, what else, their religious freedom being imperiled if they are prevented from doing so.

This author has written before about religious freedom and religious liberty, and how conservatives have perverted the definitions of both to attack LGBTQ people; to turn themselves into victims when they are, and always will be, the bully. Thomas alarming declaration should clarify the urgency of voting Bidenif you believe in LGBTQ equality, that is; and this must be recognized by not just LGBTQ people, but their allies. Bluntly: Straight folks, its time to show up. You are needed.

Equality is an important word, and one not used nearly enough by the media and politicians. We hear and read about LGBTQ rights or gay rights: these can make it sound like that the fight is for some kind of set of special rights. It is not. The fight is to get LGBTQ people to an equal starting line, and to stop us from simply being discriminated against. That discrimination happens because we are not equal before the law and therefore vulnerable to having existing laws used against us by those who wish us to remain unequal.

Plaintiff Gerald Bostock Elated After Supreme Court LGBTQ Victory. Now His Case Returns to Georgia.

Straight peopleinformed, very nice straight peopleare often surprised by this maddening state of affairs. When the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act did protect LGBTQ people from discrimination, the reaction of many people was: Hang on, werent LGBTQ people protected already? We thought they were. Thats ridiculous.

Yes, it is ridiculous. Imagine being LGBTQ, or indeed a member of any minority, and living with this absurdity of having to argue inwardly and outwardly for the very right to live equally to everyone else every day of your life.

Yes, this is absolutely absurd, and believe me: LGBTQ people find having to fight for basic civil rights and protections absurd, but we do it because we have to. We do it because we hopemuch as our even braver peers hoped in the years before we were born, in a time of even greater prejudiceto leave the world in slightly better shape for those that come after us.

But it is still an absurd fight. We have to repeat, long after we thought that we shouldnt need to, that we deserve equality. Like those surprised straight people, we find it amazing that we have to say those words. We find ourselves arguing for our very existence. Over and over again. Straight America needs to realize this, as well as just how much concerted harm is being done to LGBTQ Americans, particularly trans Americans; on November 3, in the voting booth, their some of my best friends ally-ship must become active.

Ranged against us are the president and his cabinet, religious fundamentalists, conservative senators and congresspeople, and ever more conservative judges and conservative Supreme Court justices, and conservative columnists keen to stop us getting anywhere near the starting line; who appear to want to legislate us out of existence. What motivates their hatred; a strong word but what else can one call it? They use cloaking words like faith and religious liberty when really they just despise LGBTQ people.

The real mystery: What do they hate so much, and what nourishes this hate? Probably the unnatural sex they imagine LGBTQ people having. The fact they are different to whatever was rapped into their heads as kids.

The effects and ripples of this relentless othering, hatred and discrimination is horrific and utterly un-Christian: LGBTQ teens suffering from depression, LGBTQ people attempting suicide, and acts of violence being committed against LGBTQ people, particularly Black trans women. The fight against LGBTQ equality doesnt occur in a vacuum; it doesnt end with celebrating Amy Coney Barretts likely appointment as a victory for conservatives; it means more misery, more utterly needless misery, for large numbers of people.

If you consider yourself any kind of Christian, think about what you are celebrating and fighting for. If your conservatism means something beyond owning the libs, think specifically about what your politics are doing to the very real lives of others. Imagine it was you, as a straight conservative, who had to fight for the most basic civil rights under the law for the last half-century and more. Your faith and conservative politicsthat bible you are holdingmean nothing if they extend to simply hurting other people.

Of course, the fight against LGBTQ equality isnt really about faith; it is about powerand the whipping up of cultural wars and the exploitation of faith as a way of crowd-sourcing bigotry in the quest for votes. LGBTQ people and equality are just collateral damage for President Trump. Mike Pence, in contrast, wholeheartedly believes in the judgmental ugliness he pursues.

The war the Republican Party has waged against LGBTQ people from the Reagan era onwards has led to so much needless harm and cultural regression. It is sick. If Trump and Pence were capable of feeling shame, they would be drowning in it. But no; the culture war must simply be ramped up. And so, LGBTQ people, used to all this nonsense for so many years, find themselves yet again on a battlefield they never asked to be on but are wearily familiar with.

The lawyers and campaigners will fight at the Supreme and lower courts because they are passionately engaged in the battle for equal rights and justice. But, as with so many wars LGBTQ people have fought in, this is also a fight against a pointless viciousness. Bigotry is an insulting waste of everyones time, yet it must be confronted and beaten. The Mattachine activists knew and felt that in their bones. The Stonewall rioters knew and felt the same. So do we. Right now, and most importantly on November 3, LGBTQ people need the rest of America to know and feel it too.

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GREENSBORO, N.C.  The City Council here approved a resolution which apologizes for the shooting deaths of five demonstrators, including the husband of a Northampton physician, at a 1979 rally against the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party.

The Greensboro City Council voted 7-2 on Tuesday night to pass the resolution, which says in part that the citys police department neglected to act on knowledge it had that the Nazis and Klan were planning violence, according to the Greensboro News & Record.

This apology is 41 years too late, Councilwoman Michelle Kennedy said. On behalf of the 5-year-old kid I was then ... I am sorry for what the city of Greensboro failed to do on that day and for the things that we did. There is nothing in my professional life or in my adult life that means more to me than saying what we are saying tonight and the only thing I regret is that it didnt happen 41 years ago.

The resolution also creates a scholarship for five high school students in memory of those who died.

One of the five killed was Michael Nathan, 32, the husband of Northampton physician Marty Nathan. At the time of the shootings, Michael Nathan was the chief of pediatrics at a Durham, N.C., clinic that helped low-income families.

In a statement to The Republican on Wednesday, Marty Nathan thanked those who fought for decades for the city to come to reckoning with the Greensboro Massacre.

I particularly would like to thank the city councilors who, many of them after years of struggle with their peers, voted to pass the resolution last night. You did right and no one can take that from you, Marty Nathan said.

She added, Last night I watched as brave people represented their changing constituency in Greensboro and said that that history would be exposed and opposed. They gave this necessary gift not only to us, the victims of the Massacre, but to the tens of thousands of young people now in the streets demanding an end to racist policing, frequently being met with violence by the ideological descendants of the Greensboro killers. Your courage gives those brave young people knowledge and strength in their struggle and will lead us to a better society.

The demonstrators were shot and killed during the Nov. 3, 1979, rally at a low-income housing community in Greensboro. Juries acquitted several people of killing the protesters and wounding others, according to the Associated Press. A subsequent civil case found six members of the Klan and Nazi party and two Greensboro police officers liable for wrongful death.

A settlement in a civil trial awarded $300,000 to Nathans estate. Marty Nathan donated the settlement money to fund the Greensboro Justice Fund.

Two city council members voted against the resolution Tuesday, saying they couldnt support it because they feel it suggested that the police somehow colluded in bringing about the shootings.

However, Mayor Nancy Vaughan told the News & Record that the resolution needs to be viewed in a historical perspective.

I dont believe that there was any conspiracy or collusion between the Greensboro Police Department and other parties, Vaughan said. But, she added, the police purposely took a low-profile approach to the event.

To take a low-profile approach to what happened in November, I certainly believe, was the wrong approach, the mayor said. Low profile turned into no profile.
Taiwan has spent almost $900 million this year on scrambling its air force against Chinese incursions, the islands defence minister said on Wednesday, describing the pressure they are facing as great.

China, which claims democratic Taiwan as its own territory, has stepped up its military activity near the island, responding to what China calls collusion between Taiwan and the United States.

China has been angered at increased U.S. support for Taiwan, including visits by senior U.S. government officials and ramped up arms sales.

In the past few weeks, Chinese fighter jets have crossed the mid line of the Taiwan Strait, which normally serves as an unofficial buffer zone, and flown multiple missions into Taiwans southwestern air defence identification zone.

Speaking at parliament, Taiwan Defence Minister Yen De-fa said to the air force had scrambled 2,972 times against Chinese aircraft this year at a cost of T$25.5 billion ($886.49 million).

Recently the pressure has been great. To say otherwise would be deceiving people, Yen said, without giving a comparison figure for last year.

He clarified that a figure of 4,132 air force missions this year, as provided in a ministry parliamentary briefing paper, included training and regular patrol missions.

Yen said that the armed forces would this month carry out their own drills off Taiwans southwest coast, though they would not be live fire.

Taiwans armed forces are well-trained and well-equipped but are dwarfed by those of Chinas, and Taiwans Defence Ministry has previously acknowledged the strain the repeated Chinese drills were placing on them.

Taiwan is in the process of revamping its fighter fleet.

The United States last year approved an $8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, a deal that would bring the islands total number of the aircraft to more than 200, the largest F-16 fleet in Asia.
This year's September was the hottest ever according to new data, suggesting 2020 could become the warmest year since records began.

The global average for the month was 0.05C (0.09F) warmer than 2019 and 0.08C (0.14F) warmer than 2016  the previous two warmest Septembers ever recorded  according to the latest data from the European Union's Copernicus climate monitoring service.

It's the third monthly record to be broken this year: 2020 has so far registered the hottest January and May on record, leading scientists to believe it could be the hottest year on record. Devastating wildfires in Australia and the U.S. this year have been linked to climate change.

Image: Embers light up a hillside behind the Bidwell Bar Bridge as the Bear Fire burns in Oroville, Calif. (Noah Berger / AP file)

"The last five years have themselves been the five warmest on record," said Freja Vamborg, a senior scientist with Copernicus Climate Change Service.

"The world has already warmed at least one degree (1.8F) above the pre-industrial era, and this is a trend that will continue if we don't curb greenhouse gas emissions," she added.

September also saw unusually high temperatures off the coast of northern Siberia, in the Middle East and in South America and Australia, the data showed.

Warming in Siberia is of particular concern to climate scientists as it is causing permafrost  carbon rich soil that is meant to stay frozen  to melt, in turn releasing more carbon into the atmosphere that further contributes to global warming.

Image: Greenpeace and local activists extinguish a peat fire in a Suzunsky forest next to the village of Shipunovo, 170 kms south from Siberian city of Novosibirsk o (Alexander Nemenov / AFP - Getty Images file)

The region experienced record-breaking heat and even wildfires in the spring with temperatures 10C (18F) warmer than the May average. Exceptional temperatures continued throughout the summer, Copernicus said, with the average June temperature for the whole of arctic Siberia more than 5C (9F) higher than the 1981-2010 average.

That warmth has also led to arctic sea ice levels being observed at their second lowest on record, contributing to global sea level rises.

"This isn't a new normal," Vamborg warned, but "a constant reminder that this is the path that we're on, and it's a path we can change if we do something about greenhouse gas emissions."
U.S. President Donald Trump listens during a phone call with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, in his conference room at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 4, 2020. (Tia Dufour/The White House via AP)

Trump Announces Declassification of Russia Collusion, Clinton Email Probe Documents

President Donald Trump announced in a Twitter post late on Tuesday he has authorized the total declassification of all documents relating to the Russia collusion and Hillary Clinton email probes.

I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions! he wrote at around 8:40 p.m. ET. He did not elaborate on the nature of the documents.

Later, he wrote that he cant believe these con men are not yet being PROSECUTED, referring to former FBI officials.

Earlier this week, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said that Trump, while he was being treated for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus in the hospital, authorized him to declassify the information.

This morning weve already had a couple of discussions on items that he wants to get done, Meadows said an interview with Fox News. Candidly, hes already tasked me with getting declassification rolling in a follow-up to some of the requests that Devin Nunes and others have made, he said, referring to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Meadows also didnt disclose what documents Trump was working on declassifying.

It came as House Republicans said they would fight efforts from U.S. intelligence agencies to block the disclosure of classified information surrounding the probe into whether Russia colluded with Trump in the 2016 election.

Nunes told Fox that he would not rule out an overhaul of the entire intelligence community.

We want every damn bit of evidence that every intelligence agency has, or its maybe time to shut those agencies down, the California Republican said. Because, at the end of the day  our liberties are more important than anything else we have in this country. And they have been stampeded over by these dirty cops.

Nunes said that memos from Christopher Steele, who authored the controversial and discredited Steele dossier about Trump, should be published. Steele, a former UK intelligence officer, was hired by Clintons campaign to come up with alleged links between Russia and Trump.

Top Democrats and the former Obama administrations CIA director, John Brennan, cried foul over the recent developments.

Rep. John Ratcliffe, (R-Texas), is sworn in before a Senate Intelligence Committee nomination hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 5, 2020. (Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)

Brennan told CNN that current Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe is selectively declassifying information to boost Trump ahead of the November election. Ratcliffe made a decision to declassify notes written by Brennan after he briefed former President Barack Obama on intelligence related to Russian security service saying Clinton approved a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.

John Ratcliffe is anything but an intelligence professional. It is appalling his selective declassification of information. It is designed to advance the political interests of Donald Trump and Republicans who are aligned with him, Brennan said.

Democrats accused Ratcliffe of spreading disinformation from Russia. However, Radcliffe told news outlets that such claims are false.

To be clear, this is not Russian disinformation and has not been assessed as such by the intelligence community. Ill be briefing Congress on the sensitive sources and methods by which it was obtained in the coming days, he said to Fox News.

Ivan Pentchuokov contributed to this report.
A recent report published in Science Translational Medicine by MUSC Hollings Cancer Center investigator Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D., sheds light on immune cell biomarkers that may reveal which patients are most at risk for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a life-threatening condition that can arise after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for treatment of liquid cancers such as leukemia.

"Allogeneic HSCT remains the only validated treatment to cure leukemia," explained Paczesny, chairwoman of the MUSC Department of Microbiology and Immunology. "In HSCT, donor-matched cells are infused into the bloodstream of sick patients and ultimately travel to the bone marrow. Some of these cells are immune cells, which help eliminate residual leukemic cells not killed by chemotherapy. Yet despite careful donor-recipient matching and use of immunosuppressive therapies following transplantation, some of the donor's immune cells may begin to attack the patient's tissues, which is called graft-versus-host disease."

GVHD impacts up to 50% of patients receiving HSCT and can manifest in multiple organs. About a third of those with GVHD experience localized effects within the gastrointestinal tract (GI-GVHD), which carries the highest risk for fatality.

Paczesny described the phenomenon further. "For patients with leukemia, you are providing donor cells that have a different biological, or antigen, signature as compared to the recipient. That is how these immune cells recognize the leukemia and destroy it. However, these antigens are also present in normal tissue, particularly in areas of the body with the most microbiota, like the gut. So that is where the donor immune cells attack and where symptoms are the hardest to treat."

A biomarker story

Bone marrow-derived stem cells are referred to as multipotent, meaning they can mature into many different types of cells. This includes red and white blood cells as well as other immune cell types such as dendritic cells and T-cells that are responsible for balancing immunity and tolerance.

Dendritic cells exchange messages with T-cells by displaying short protein chains on the cell surface, called antigens. T-cells, which become activated when they recognize "non-self" antigens, then play a key role in triggering the body's other defense systems against foreign invaders that can include transplanted cells from a different host.

Previous work from the Paczesny laboratory has shown that immune cell signaling pathways in GI-GVHD increased numbers of "super activated" pathogenic T-cells (Th17 cells) in the blood of these patients. The presence of these aggressive T-cells correlated with lower survival as compared to patients either lacking GVHD or those with less severe forms of GVHD in the skin. These cells were also unique in their ability to be induced by a T-cell signaling receptor called ICOS, short for "inducible T-cell co-stimulator."

"This started as a biomarker story," Paczesny said. "We were trying to understand where the activation of these T-cells was coming from. What was the antigen presenting cell? If you have markers of ICOS signaling on the T-cell side, there should be an ICOS ligand somewhere on the antigen presenting cell in that same cohort of patients."

Because ICOS ligand is located on the surface of antigen-presenting cells, such as dendritic cells, it can easily be detected using existing technologies like flow cytometry that can scan for these external markers on cells in the blood. In this way, individuals who are actively developing symptoms of GI-GVHD following HSCT could potentially be flagged.

Paczesny's group showed that levels of dendritic cells (specifically a population known as plasmacytoid dendritic cells) expressing the ICOS ligand were increased in patients with GI-GVHD as compared to controls. Critically, patients with high levels of these cells had significantly lower three-year survival outcomes compared to those with low levels.

Djamilatou Adom, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow working with Paczesny, further explored the role of ICOS signaling in GI-GVHD using mice. First, they showed that genetic elimination of ICOS ligand production in donor-mouse bone marrow cells prior to transplanting them into recipient mice protected the recipient mice from GVHD-related death. Also, using "humanized" mice with nonfunctional immune systems, the researchers discovered that transplanting human ICOS ligand-expressing plasmacytoid dendritic cells into these mice (whose own bone marrow had been destroyed through radiation) led to GVHD with increased levels of Th17 cells within the intestines.

The involvement of plasmacytoid dendritic cells in GVHD was an interesting finding, said Paczesny. "If these cells are not stimulated, they are usually considered more tolerogenic. In other words, they are the good guys. They lessen the severity of GVHD. However, if they become T-cell activating - for instance the ICOS ligand is one of the factors that will activate them by binding ICOS - then they become more toxic and might drive the development of GVHD. This point has previously been controversial in the field; however, past studies have only looked at overall numbers of plasmacytoid dendritic cells in these patients, not the activation status of these cells."

A new drug target in GVHD

Next, Paczesny explored whether targeting cell-to-cell ICOSL-ICOS signaling might prevent GI-GVHD. Classical T-cell activation is induced by the CD28/B7 co-stimulation pathway, in concert with the recognition of foreign antigens by the T-cell receptor. The CD28/B7pathway can be disrupted by the currently approved drugs abatacept and belatacept (Figure 1). However, through mechanisms that are still not well understood, immune cells can escape the CD28/B7 pathway blockade by rerouting or reinforcing their activation through alternative costimulatory pathways like ICOS/ICOSL.

In collaboration with researchers at Alpine Immune Sciences in Seattle, Washington, Paczesny's team found that dosing mice with the drug candidate ALPN-101, a recombinant human Fc fusion molecule that binds and blocks both ICOS and CD28 on T-cells, conferred complete protection from GVHD while also preserving anti-tumor effects of the transplant. It also performed better than drugs targeting CD28 (belatacept) or ICOS pathways individually.

"This is the first time I've seen a drug work as a treatment for GVHD that also preserves anti-leukemic activity of HSCT. This is new," explained Paczesny. "What's also interesting is that the drug was effective when we provided it early, directly after transplantation, and also when we provided it as a later treatment, after disease had already built up. This is important because most of the time GVHD symptoms appear much later, and that's when we need to intervene."

Clinical trials with ALPN-101 have begun, and Paczesny hopes that her biomarker research, which was supported by more than $1.5 million in funding from the National Cancer Institute, will open doors for the treatment of GVHD and other immune-related diseases such as lupus.

"There has been a big jump in the number of transplantations recently because clinicians have improved their HSCT technique and expanded its applications. There is now also more demand for mitigation of allogeneic responses and more need because cellular therapies with third-party donors are also expanding. Therefore, GVHD will continue to be an issue. But now, we have a biomarker that, when it is elevated, will help us know when to begin a specifically targeted treatment."

###

About MUSC

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, MUSC is the oldest medical school in the South, as well as the state's only integrated, academic health sciences center with a unique charge to serve the state through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and nearly 800 residents in six colleges: Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. The state's leader in obtaining biomedical research funds, in fiscal year 2019, MUSC set a new high, bringing in more than $284 million. For information on academic programs, visit musc.edu.

As the clinical health system of the Medical University of South Carolina, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest quality patient care available, while training generations of competent, compassionate health care providers to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. Comprising some 1,600 beds, more than 100 outreach sites, the MUSC College of Medicine, the physicians' practice plan, and nearly 275 telehealth locations, MUSC Health owns and operates eight hospitals situated in Charleston, Chester, Florence, Lancaster and Marion counties. In 2019, for the fifth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.

MUSC and its affiliates have collective annual budgets of $3.2 billion. The more than 17,000 MUSC team members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers and scientists who deliver groundbreaking education, research, technology and patient care.

About MUSC Hollings Cancer Center

MUSC Hollings Cancer Center is a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center and the largest academic-based cancer research program in South Carolina. The cancer center comprises more than 100 faculty cancer scientists and 20 academic departments. It has an annual research funding portfolio of more than $44 million and a dedication to reducing the cancer burden in South Carolina. Hollings offers state-of-the-art diagnostic capabilities, therapies and surgical techniques within multidisciplinary clinics that include surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation therapists, radiologists, pathologists, psychologists and other specialists equipped for the full range of cancer care, including more than 200 clinical trials. For more information, visit http://www.hollingscancercenter.org.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 20:53:17|Editor: huaxia

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by Martina Fuchs

GENEVA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The new head of the Kofi Annan Foundation has said mobilizing young leaders to combat violent extremism around the world and including them in decision-making processes are paramount for peace, while warning that the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic will further squeeze the budgets of humanitarian organizations.

Corinne Momal-Vanian, who was appointed as the Kofi Annan Foundation's new executive director in March 2019 and took up her new post this June, said peace building and promoting youth leadership are on top of her to-do list.

"We are looking at the role of youth in preventing violence and violent extremism," Momal-Vanian, who previously served as the director of conference management at the United Nations (UN) offices in Geneva, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"The pandemic has affected young people the most probably in terms of their employment opportunities. Education has been stopped in many cases. We try to counter this narrative and give a narrative of hope to young people. And to do that, we use young people."

She underlined that the Foundation's youth engagement initiative "Extremely Together" could help change negative narratives and bring the young generation together to counter violent extremism.

"Because who's better than young people to talk to young people? We have found that in general young people are excluded from decision-making. One of our priorities for the next few months is to look at how to include young people in decision-making processes at the national and international levels."

Apart from promoting youth leadership, the Foundation also focuses its work on mediation and crisis resolution, transitions to peace, combatting hunger, and changing drug policy.

"We also do a lot in peace building. We have a lot of experience with countries emerging from conflict and communities that are divided. We work on accountability and reconciliation. What we try to do now is to put all the experience we have acquired into an online tool so that it is accessible to everybody," Momal-Vanian said.

"We are a very small organization. But we try to run either small projects that can show the way, or work with many partners."

In 2001, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to the UN and its former Secretary-General Kofi Annan "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world." Annan founded the Geneva-headquartered Foundation in 2007 and served as its chairman until his death in 2018.

FUNDING CHALLENGE

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and charities hard as public and private donations have dropped, forcing many to cancel their activities and fundraising programs.

As an independent organization, the Foundation is funded by public and private donors, such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the European Commission, the World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"It's a very tough environment, not only for us as a small foundation, but for all the non-profits," Momal-Vanian said. "Normally, NGOs like us get funding from governments, large grant-making foundations, from individuals. All these sources have dried up because there are just too many needs to respond to the impacts of the pandemic. Governments are collecting less tax, so their budgets will be in the red in many places."

"What we see, however, is that when you have successful and impactful programs, there are still donors willing to give. And that is very encouraging."

Momal-Vanian said China is a "super important player" when asked about the Foundation's future work plan with Chinese stakeholders. "We would be very happy to cooperate in particular on youth leadership and peace building." Enditem
Indonesia seizes 2 Philippine vessels for illegal fishing

October 07,2020 | Source: Xinhua

Indonesia has seized two Philippine fishing vessels with 21 crew members in the Indonesian waters, according to the Ministry of Marine and Fisheries Affairs (KKP) on Tuesday.



Minister of Marine and Fisheries Affairs Edhy Prabowo said the two vessels were arrested on Oct. 1 by the KKP Orca 04 Supervisory Ship.



"This is the first time we seized illegal fishing vessels in the Pacific Ocean," Prabowo told a virtual press conference.



He added that the modus operandi and movement of illegal fishing vessels are very dynamic, even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.



One of the vessels is a 105.90-gross tonnage (GT) vessel with 18 Filipino crew members who caught fish using purse seine. Meanwhile, the other vessel is a 20.62-GT lightboat with three Filipino crew members.



The two vessels were taken to the Bitung Marine and Fishery Resources Monitoring Base for further inspection.



It's reported that Indonesia held 74 illegal fishing vessels consisting of 57 foreign and 17 Indonesian vessels since 2014.

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Theme(s): Fishing Craft, Gear and Fishing Methods.
Yet almost all attention gets focused on Trump and his unending parade of exploding spectacles. His bout with COVID-19 is one of the few spotlights he hasnt dragged onto himself -- though was anything weirder than his short Sunday spin outside the hospital in an armored presidential limo?

Seattle did look a little beaten up, as does every town and city plagued by the virus-related closings. Trump added cramps to the pain with his fantasy portrayals of civic disorder taking over Seattle, as well as all of Portland and New York City. From his mental meanderings and news reports centered on some sporadic violence, many thought the Northwest was getting stomped under the jackboots of anti-fascist extremists. Trumps nonsense about the antifa threat was easy to ignore. (For me, the smoke would have been a more serious deterrent, and it was gone when I arrived.)

Crime has actually dipped across Seattle, including in the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. And the recent Portland rally called by the Proud Boys, the white supremacist group that Trump gave a thumbs-up to at the debate, drew far fewer participants than expected. There wasnt any serious violence this time, according to a relieved Multnomah County sheriff.
Cork and Dublin Airports, "the engines of the Irish economy" are running on empty, an Oireachtas committee will hear today.

Representatives from across the aviation industry will outline to the Oireachtas Transport Committee, the dire effects that the Covid-19 pandemic has had.

DAA, which owns and operates Dublin and Cork Airports, will tell the committee that Dublin's passenger numbers will be as low as they were in 1995.

"Dublin and Cork airports have been engines of the Irish economy, but now theyre running on empty. In total our airports have already lost 20m passengers compared to 2019; Dublin Airport will have fewer than 9 million passengers this year - that means were back at 1995 levels. Weve lost 25 years of growth.

"Our sector has been demonised since this pandemic began. Other key sectors have been allowed to re-open with the understanding and acceptance that there is an element of risk involved. The Irish aviation sector, however, is being held to a much higher and, quite frankly, unreasonable standard, with continued constraints being placed on opening up international travel.

"Because of this, Irelands connectivity to the world is faltering."

The company will tell the committee that its losses have hit 150 million this year but will say that it has the capability to do 15,000 pre-departure tests in Dublin Airport, but needs government assistance.

"Government needs to approve a rapid turnaround, low cost, scalable testing solution for use in Irish airports so that we can move quickly."

Read More Airlines at risk as cash burn set to bleed into 2021

DAA will present a pre-testing plan to the committee which would see passengers tested at a DAA facility 24-48 hours pre-departure.

Ryanair, meanwhile has made a submission to the committee which says that the Government is not prepared for an improved aviation sector and risks losing jobs in Cork and Shannon.

A submission from the budget airline says that should there be an upswing in the industry, Ireland will not be able to capitalise. The submission adds that Ryanair's European competitors have been bailed out to the tune of billions, something which Ireland's private airlines have not been.

"Ireland currently has no policy or strategy to support aviation in emerging from this C-19 pandemic. As a nation we are currently unprepared for reaping any upswing in demand in a post successful vaccine scenario."

Government policy seems to assume that airline seat capacity will bounce back to pre-C-19 levels  it wont.

The airline says that Ireland must adopt the EU traffic light system and the recommendations of the Aviation Recovery Task Force, which could see around 900 million pumped into the sector.

"These supports to retain and attract airline capacity. We estimate in the region of 300 million per annum for intra-European traffic representing real value in supporting the 140,000 jobs in aviation and the 325,000 jobs in Tourism, and would structurally prepare Ireland to reap the benefits of any recovery in a post vaccine scenario."

The committee will also hear from Mary Considine, CEO of the Shannon Group, who will say that "Government action is urgently required to adopt the proposed pan-European traffic light system and a European-wide testing protocol".
Bobby Toney (front center) poses for a portrait with Michelle Rauscher (left) Jen Schemeley (center) and Jemai Gibson (right) in Audubon, N.J. on September 27, 2020. Toney he fixes old bikes and donates them to kids. Read more

Early this year, Bobby Toney had an epiphany after seeing, of all things, a bike in a trash can.

I looked at it and thought, Wouldnt it be cool if I fixed it and gave it to a kid?" said Toney, 46, who lives in Audubon, Camden County. "Because I remember when I was a kid and had a bike  I have a lot of fine memories.

Besides, he likes how life imitates bike riding: In life, you will hit bumps and potholes and fall down, he likes to say. The same thing happens with bikes. And we can always get back up again.

So, figuratively, the wheels began rolling for Toney. And he thought, why not repair discarded bikes and distribute them to youngsters?

The problem was, he had never done that before. So how did he learn to fix and remodel bicycles?

YouTube, he said.

Once Toney had watched several videos, he was off and riding.

He gave the first bike he fixed to his longtime friend Michael Africa Jr., for his daughter Alia.

Its a really powerful thing that Bobby is doing, said Africa, a Delaware County resident (who will be the subject of a Dec. 3 HBO film 40 Years a Prisoner, which details his effort to release his parents, who had been members of the MOVE organization, from jail 40 years after their involvement with the group). There are a lot of bikes that people discard that go into a landfill. This is a great way to salvage a bike and regift it.

In the beginning, Toney financed the refurbishing out of his own pocket. As his project grew, he sought donations on his Facebook page, Bobbys Bikes. Africa also solicited donations on Toneys behalf via his own nonprofit, seedofwisdom.org.

And Toney recently began selling Bobbys Bikes T-shirts, whose proceeds support the bike-rescue mission.

But his project received its biggest boost last month when he met fellow Audubon resident Nelson Terry Jordan Jr., 74, a retiree who once owned a bike shop and had plenty of tools and spare bicycle parts to share.

We were both on an Audubon community page, and I saw him make requests for 20-inch bicycles and bike parts and it was like, Eureka!" Jordan said. "I had a basement full of bike parts and I was trying to get the right situation where I could either donate or sell [them] and the tools because I needed space.

Jordan found a willing taker in Toney.

It was a huge win-win, said Jordan. "I get to clean my basement and he can use the tools and parts for the good work he is doing.

Toneys first bike was delivered in May. He has since delivered 13 more.

One of them went to the 14-year-old daughter of his childhood friend, Deitra Chamberlain of Mount Laurel.

I had known Bobby pretty well  we grew up together and reconnected on Facebook, Chamberlain said. I reached out to him and said my daughter [Racquel] always wanted a BMX. He got on top of it.

The bike was delivered in early September.

It was absolutely wonderful. He customizes [the bike] for the child, she said. Its a great gesture, something we appreciated, and my daughter was absolutely excited for it.

He also donated three bikes to Patricia Stradford of Audubon, who learned of Toneys mission through both his Facebook page and the Audubon community page. She reached out, and told him that she had three boys at home who could use bicycles.

He is really kindhearted, and its such a great thing he does, Stradford said. You could see he enjoys giving back to the community.

Donating the bikes is emotional for Toney. He makes each bike in memory of his daughter, Jemica, who was just 3 years old when she died in 1996 from bacterial meningitis. On each bike, he paints the initials JSB, which stands for Jemica Shamir Brantley.

Finding the time to devote to his two-wheeled passion can be a challenge because Toney has two jobs: During the day, he details cars at Cherry Hill Triplex; at night, he cleans Filomenas Lakeview restaurant in Deptford after closing.

But he said that theres nothing like fixing bikes and then presenting them to kids.

I love them and I know kids love them, and people have so many great memories [of] riding their bike, Toney said. People dont live forever, but memories do.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 7)  Those convicted of minor offenses can apply for a community service penalty to escape jail time beginning November 2.

This is in line with Republic Act 11362 or the Community Service Act, signed by President Rodrigo Duterte in August 2019. In a statement on Wednesday, the Supreme Court announced its approval of the guidelines for the implementation of the law.

The rules were promulgated by the Supreme Court in an en banc session on Wednesday and will take effect next month.

Minor offenses include those punishable with arresto menor or imprisonment of up to 30 days, or arresto mayor with up to six months behind bars.

Under the Supreme Courts guidelines, the judge should inform the offender of the option to render community service in the area where the crime was committed. Examples include causing alarm and scandal, tumults, and other disturbance of public orders.

The judge should also explain to the accused, however, that the same will be barred to apply for community service or probation should he or she choose to appeal the conviction, the high court said.

Application must be filed within the appeal period and shall be resolved by the court within five days. In deciding on the application, the court should take into consideration the gravity of the offense and circumstances, welfare of the society, and reasonable probability that no laws will be violated during the service period.

The courts decision granting or denying the application will not be appealable.

The law defines community service as any actual physical activity which inculcates civic consciousness, and is intended towards the improvement of a public work or promotion of a public service.

It further states that defendants who violate the terms of the community service will be ordered rearrested.
Growing up in Montana, our rivers, streams and trails gave me endless hours of adventure, and now as a father, some of my fondest memories are teaching my three children how to hunt and fish on the same public lands that I explored as a kid.

Our outdoor way of life is a core part of who we are as Montanans, but it relies on having access to our states pristine rivers, streams and lands. Montanas strong public access laws make us unlike any other state in the nation. Year after year, out-of-state landowners and special interests have tried to infringe on our access to these lands and push schemes to sell them off to the highest bidder.

Ive always fought to keep these public lands in public hands, and for me, this is a fight that goes back decades. Twenty years ago, when I was an assistant attorney general, I was tasked with defending Montanas stream access law that gives anglers rights to our rivers from public crossings.

I went up against a lawyer named William Perry Pendley with the Mountain States Legal Foundation. Pendley is infamous for advocating for the sale of our public lands and opposing access laws. This time, Pendley was suing Montana to restrict public access to our streams. In federal court, I stood up and said, My name is Steve Bullock, I represent the people of Montana, and these streams and rivers belong to all of us.

We won the case for the people of Montana, but the threats to our public lands  and access to them  are as real today as they were 20 years ago.

So you can imagine my alarm when Pendley was appointed head of the Bureau of Land Management last year. He ran the federal agency with power over 27 million acres of public land in Montana despite his well-recorded opposition to keeping our lands public. Pendley has even said that the Founding Fathers never intended for the government to own public lands. To make matters worse, Sen. Steve Daines supported Pendleys appointment, despite the threat he posed to our way of life.

To borrow a phrase, the fox was guarding the hen house, and Sen. Daines wasnt willing to stand up to protect us. So I took action.

I filed a lawsuit to remove Pendley from his position in July, because not only was he unfit to be in charge of Montanas public lands, but was also serving in his role illegally. He served as the head of the Bureau of Land Management for 424 days without Senate confirmation  a flagrant violation of our Constitution.

On the eve of National Public Lands Day, a federal judge ruled in our favor. Montanans could rest easy knowing that Pendley had to pack his desk and vacate his Directors Office.

We won this battle to protect our Montana way of life, but I know there will be others. Because while Montanans want to conserve our wild place and protect our blue ribbons streams for fishing, out-of-state developers and special interests will continue to try to sell them off to the highest bidder and restrict access to a wealthy few.

Keeping public lands in public hands cant just be a slogan politicians throw around in election years. Our leaders in Washington need to fight to protect these lands every day, and Sen. Daines has abdicated his responsibility.

Throughout his time in Washington, Daines has played politics with our lands and often sided with out-of-state developers over Montanans. Daines voted for a measure that risked the sale of these lands to the highest bidder and pushed for what would be the single largest rollback of protections for public lands in our states history.

Montanans deserve a Senator that fights tooth and nail for our public lands  not one like Senator Daines who sides with out-of-state interests that threaten our access to these places.

If we want to make sure Montana stays the last best place, we need to stand up to people like Pendley in Washington who attack our way of life. That is what I have done throughout my whole career. I wasnt afraid to take on Pendley two decades ago, I wasnt afraid to take him on two months ago, and I sure wont be giving people like him a free pass in Washington either.

Protecting our public lands  and access to them  isnt a Republican or Democrat issue  its a Montana one, and Ill take on anyone who tries to infringe on this core part of who we are.

Steve Bullock is governor of Montana and a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate.

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By PTI

SHIMLA: Himachal Pradesh BJP MLA Surender Shourie said Tuesday he tested positive for COVID-19 on October 2, a day before he was to attend a public meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Solang after the inauguration of the Atal Tunnel.

He, however said he and his staff isolated themselves immediately, but some people were spreading misinformation that he hid his test result.

After recovery, he said, he may take legal action against those trying to tarnish his and the state government's image for their "selfish political motives".

In a Facebook post, Shourie, 39, said he was asymptomatic and got himself tested for the coronavirus on the direction of the Special Protection Group, which is responsible for the prime minister's security, and not because he had any symptoms.

"As soon as I received my coronavirus test report, I and my staff isolated ourselves," he said.

The Banjar MLA is the eighth legislator in the 68-member assembly who has contracted the virus.

On September 22, Nachan BJP MLA Vinod Kumar Chauhan tested COVID positive.

Sundernagar BJP MLA Rakesh Jamwal tested positive on September 20, two days after the monsoon session of the assembly adjourned sine die.

On the first day of the session on September 7, BJP MLA from Indora Reeta Devi had tested positive.

She attended the session before her COVID-19 test was conducted.

Nalagarh Congress MLA Lakhwinder Rana tested positive on September 6.

Power Minister Sukhram Chaudhary and Doon MLA Paramjeet Singh too had tested positive for the infection.

Both recovered and attended the monsoon session.

Jal Shakti Minister Mahender Singh Thakur rejoined his office in state secretariat on September 21 after his recovery.

He had tested positive on September 3.

He could not attend the session which was held from September 7 to 18.
A Florida couple have been arrested on aggravated child abuse charges after one of their six children was found being held captive inside a dark, boarded-up room covered in human waste.

The child was rescued on Monday after setting fire to the soiled mattress in the bedroom, which drew first responders to the house.

Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco seemed visibly shaken discussing the case at a press conference on Tuesday.

Kelley Davis, 36, and Daniel Davis, 37, have been charged with aggravated child abuse for allegedly keeping one of their six children in deplorable conditions

Deputies who responded to the family's home in Sugar Hill, Florida, on Sunday in response to arson fire found the victim under age 10 being held captive inside a dark bedroom

The single window in the room with no electricity had been boarded up to prevent natural light from streaming inside

'This is one of those cases that will tear your heart apart,' he warned reporters. 'This is heartbreaking.'

According to Nocco, his deputies arrested Kelley Davis, 36, and her husband, 37-year-old Daniel Davis, after responding to their home in Sugar Hill near the county line for a report of arson fire just after 10.40am on Monday.

They determined that one of the Davis couple's six children, who range in age from infant to 10 years old, had lit a mattress on fire in an attempt to escape, reported Fox 13.

Nocco said that the parents, whom he characterized as 'pure evil,' had kept the child locked in a bedroom with no electricity, no toys, no games or television since at least March.

He said the conditions inside the room were worse than in solitary confinement in prison.

The single window in the room had been boarded up with screws to prevent natural light from streaming in, and the door had an elaborate, multi-level locking system on the outside to stop the child from leaving.

Deputies found urine and feces on the floor and walls of the child's bedroom (pictured)

The bedroom room was equipped with a locking system and had a wooden plank nailed to the frame to prevent the child from escaping

The sheriff described the conditions inside the room as 'deplorable' and not fit for even 'the worst in our society,' with feces and urine everywhere, including the mattress and a blanket.

The parents reportedly admitted the child had to yell for them to ask to use the bathroom, but they would not always hear the cries, forcing him to relieve himself on the floor.

The Davises also allegedly admitted to locking the child in the room for up to 12 hours overnight and when the victim misbehaved.

Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco seemed visibly shaken discussing the suspects, whom he described as 'pure evil'

They failed to explain why they targeted the child for mistreatment, only referring to certain personality traits they did not like.

Nocco said that it is believed that the couple's children have Stockholm syndrome - a psychological condition where hostages develop and alliance with their captors in the course of their captivity.

But according to the sheriff, one of the children was able to set aside her bond with the parents and extend help to her isolated sibling by slipping a book of matches under the door, leading to the fire that alerted authorities.

Nocco told reporters it was a telling sign that after discovering the fire in her child's bedroom, the mother's first phone call was not to 911 but to her husband.

A detective assigned to the case said during Monday's press briefing that after his arrest, Daniel Davis 'freely admitted that the dogs that lived in that home had better conditions' than his child.

'No matter how many times you look at something, just know the conditions are a million times worse, the smells, the bugs in the room,' Nocco stressed.

Pasco County Detective Randall Jones said that the father freely admitted that the family's dogs lived in better conditions than his child

The sheriff said that there were previous calls for service to the family's residence in February and July, but nothing suspicious was found on those occasions.

On August 26, a neighbor called 911 after seeing an unsupervised child rummaging through a refrigerator in the Davises' garage.

Deputies who responded to the scene spoke to the child, who did not say anything. The father said the child has behavioral and possibly mental health issues.

'Everything about this is just sad,' Nocce noted. 'It's beyond belief how evil people can be.'

Daniel and Kelley Davis are being held in the county jail on $50,000 bond each.

All six of their children are now in protective custody.
ATLANTA, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Whitefoord announced that former Grady Health System senior executive Craig Tindall will join in October as its new Interim Chief Executive Officer. "I am honored to work with the Whitefoord Board and leadership to continue the legacy started by Dr. Brumley and his family 25 years ago," Tindall said. "Through the years, Whitefoord has established itself as a foundational element towards improving the health and education of the Edgewood community and I'm tremendously excited to be part of it."

Tindall comes to Whitefoord with more than 30 years of experience directing the operations of multiple hospital departments within Grady Health System - metropolitan Atlanta's safety net hospital, premier Level 1 Trauma Center, and teaching hospital for Emory and Morehouse Schools of Medicine.

"We are so fortunate to be joined by Craig during an important point in Whitefoord's history, where it is actively working towards expanding health services to families and children Atlanta-wide through its school-based health center work and new Health Center," said Kate Pfirman, Whitefoord's Chief Operating Officer

Tindall has dual master's degrees with an MHA and an MBA from Georgia State University, and was awarded the 2019 Max Holland Distinguished Alumni Award by the GSU Institute of Health Administration. Additionally, Craig has a BA from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. He is also a graduate of Leadership Atlanta (2010) and Leadership Georgia Hospital Association (2006).

About Whitefoord, Inc.

Whitefoord is a community-based and driven Federally-Qualified Health Center that is dedicated to providing health care through school-based health centers and in community settings; promoting health awareness; encouraging healthy families; and, advancing early childhood development. Today, Whitefoord serves more than 2,500 families and children in Southeast Atlanta through its 4 health centers and its partnership with Atlanta Public Schools around early child care and education. For more information, visit www.whitefoord.org or call 404-373-6614.

Media Contact

Allie Morse | (470) 427-2576 [email protected]

SOURCE Whitefoord

Related Links

https://www.whitefoord.org


A reasonably informed voter would expect a Houston congressman representing the energy capital of the world to know something about Texass electric grid, but U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw demonstrated a deficit of information when trying to impress oil and gas lobbyists last week.

Nuclear would be a far better energy resource than solar and wind if they cared about zero emissions, Crenshaw told a virtual energy summit organized by Texas Oil & Gas Association. So these things dont work  these are silly solutions. Theyre no solutions at all.

Texas is the nations largest producer of wind power, and solar energy is the fastest-growing source of power on the states grid. Wind and solar employ 143,000 Texans, and Houston has become a hub for electricity trading.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Nuclear energy needs to shake off links to coal

For reasons I cannot fathom, conservatives such as Crenshaw like to mislead the public about the viability of wind and solar energy, limitless fuels that have kept electricity prices in Texas among the lowest in the nation. The only reason to dislike renewable energy is if your donors and supporters make their money from uncompetitive fossil fuels.

The good congressman clearly has not kept up with the latest developments in battery storage technology. Otherwise, he would stop parroting the tired, old line about the sun not always shining and the wind not always blowing. Times are changing. The old talking points no longer apply.

Crenshaw, who is among the few Republicans acknowledging the need to fight climate change, needs a staff briefing on Texass competitive wholesale electricity market, instituted by former Gov. Rick Perry and a very conservative Texas Legislature.

In the grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, generators compete to sell electricity. ERCOT starts with the cheapest supplier and keeps contracting for power until the states needs are met for the following day. Generators are paid by how much Texans use and what prices are realized.

Nuclear power plants in Texas operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for most of the year. Unlike natural gas plants, they cannot ramp up and down. They take whatever price they can get, and most of the time, those prices are quite low.

Conservatives will complain that federal tax credits allow wind and solar operators to offer electricity at negative rates, which is true. But thats not exactly unfair, since fossil fuel plants do not pay taxes on the carbon dioxide they produce.

Nuclear plant owners complain they should get tax credits for carbon-free energy, and its not a bad argument. Until you consider the billions of dollars in research and development assistance and crazy tax benefits nuclear power has received from taxpayers over the decades.

Nuclear is arguably the most heavily subsidized form of generation in the country. Meanwhile, the tax credits for wind and solar are expiring over the next few years. But even if nuclear received the same clean energy credits as wind and solar, no new atomic plant could compete with wind, solar or batteries based on the all-in cost, what experts calls the levelized cost of energy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Nuclear also has the rather large problem of what to do with the waste. President Donald Trump wants to send it to a West Texas facility, but even Gov. Greg Abbott last week wrote a letter opposing that plan. With friends like that, nuclear power does not need enemies.

Crenshaw is right about one thing, though. We need to embrace nuclear power to meet our carbon emission goals. People who say otherwise are unrealistic.

We cannot afford to shut down the reactors we have now, and we need to keep working on advanced nuclear technologies that will generate cheaper and safe power.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Nuclear power as we know it is finished

For a decade, the Department of Energy has financed research into small modular reactors, which are much simpler than what we use today. Companies can assemble these reactors in factories and ship them around the country.

In August, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted the first-ever design certification to a small modular reactor developed by Nu-Scale Power. Nu-Scale can now begin constructing a reactor. The company says it has signed agreements with entities in the United States, Canada, Romania, the Czech Republic and Jordan.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, meanwhile, report a breakthrough in designing a nuclear fusion reactor. Unlike Nu-Scales fission device, fusion produces no radioactive waste.

Neither of these technologies, though, will produce electricity before 2035, which should be about the same time Crenshaw gets the all the high-tech toys featured in his silly superhero-themed campaign ad.
France, Germany and UK seek Russia sanctions over Navalny poisoning Alexei Navalny has called for targeted sanctions against Putin supporters

Germany, France and Britain on Wednesday directly accused Russia of "involvement and responsibility" in the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, announcing that they will seek EU sanctions over the case.

Moscow quickly hit back that the accusations were "unacceptable" and amounted to "blackmail".

The European powers have repeatedly asked Moscow to shed light on the poisoning which took place on Russian soil, but "no credible explanation has been provided by Russia so far", according to a joint statement issued by the German and French foreign ministers.

"In this context, we consider that there is no other plausible explanation for Mr Navalny's poisoning than Russian involvement and responsibility," they said.

Berlin has until now only urged Moscow to investigate the case, but stopped short of making a direct accusation against President Vladimir Putin's government.

Britain's foreign secretary Dominic Raab also accused Moscow of involvement, adding that London would work with international partners to "take forward sanctions targeting Russian officials and others".

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova shot back, accusing France and Germany of "threats and attempts to blackmail us".

"The declaration of the two ministers, unacceptable in content and tone, signals Paris and Berlin's categorical lack of desire to consider the facts," she said in a statement.

The sharpened tone from the European powers came a day after the UN's chemical weapons watchdog OPCW confirmed Germany, France and Sweden's finding that the Russian opposition leader was poisoned by a nerve agent of the Soviet-developed Novichok group.

Paris and Berlin said they will push for EU sanctions targeting "individuals deemed responsible for this crime and breach of international norms, based on their official function, as well as an entity involved in the Novichok programme".

Story continues

Earlier Wednesday, Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas had set the stage for the move, telling German lawmakers that sanctions against Russia would be "unavoidable" unless Moscow cleared up the case.

"A serious violation of international law was perpetrated with a chemical warfare agent, and something like that cannot remain without consequences," he said.

Navalny was flown to Germany for treatment in late August after falling ill on a plane and spending several days in a Siberian hospital.

He was discharged after just over a month in Berlin's Charite hospital and has vowed to return to Russia to resume his opposition campaign when he is fully recovered.

Russia has rejected the allegations, lashing out on Tuesday at a "conspiratorial scenario" planned in advance.

- New low -

The case has plunged Russia's relations with Germany to a new low, just a year after a murder in a central Berlin park that German prosecutors say was ordered by Moscow.

The trial of a Russian suspect in the killing opened on Wednesday.

The brazen murder in the heart of the German capital appeared to be a tipping point for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said in May the killing "disrupts a cooperation of trust" between Berlin and Moscow.

Merkel has always stressed the importance of keeping dialogue open with Putin, but she has toughened up her tone in recent months.

With tensions running high, calls have grown for Berlin to scrap a controversial 10-billion-euro ($12 billion) pipeline project, which is set to double Russian natural gas shipments to Germany.

Asked during the parliamentary question-time if the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project could be hit, Maas said that "after the discussions we had, it is most likely for the EU to find agreement on a list of people" on whom sanctions would be imposed.

- Oligarchs and top officials -

Navalny, 44, who is recovering in Berlin, has also urged the European Union to take action including entry bans against key figures in or backing Putin's government.

In an interview with Bild daily, the Kremlin critic took aim directly at Valery Gergiev, chief conductor at the Munich Philharmonic, citing the musician as someone who should be held to account for his unapologetic backing of Putin.

"He is the perfect example. Such people must be put under pressure," said Navalny.

"People like him must be slapped with entry bans and you know what? 99 percent of Russians would welcome that."

Navalny stressed that any embargo must not hurt the general Russian population.

Rather, "the most important is to impose entry bans against those profiting from the regime and to freeze their assets," Navalny said.

"Oligarchs and high-ranking officials, Putin's closest circles."

burs/er/cdw/rbu/qan
As per the FIR, Sharat Kumar of Rajasthan Tak and Lokendra Singh, who manages Sachin Pilot's press releases on social media, have been accused of fabricating the news report

Jaipur: Two journalists have been booked by Jaipur Police for allegedly putting out fake news in August during the power tussle between Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot, police said on Wednesday.

The FIR, lodged with Vidhayakpuri police station, was registered on 1 October against Sharat Kumar of Rajasthan Tak (Aaj Tak) and Lokendra Singh of XYZ news agency. Singh is associated with Pilot and handles his press releases on social media.

Reacting to the FIR, Singh said, "The matter is politically motivated."

In the FIR, Station House Officer (SHO) of special offences and cyber crime-commissionerate, has accused them of fabricating a news report that illegal phone tapping of Congress MLAs and ministers, who were staying in a hotel in Jaisalmer at that time, was being done from a hotel in Mansarover in Jaipur.

During the crisis in July, the Rajasthan Congress shifted the MLAs of the Ashok Gehlot camp, who were confined to a hotel in Jaipur, to Jaisalmer fearing horse-trading ahead of the assembly session in August.

"Misleading, baseless, fake and sensational news was created and circulated on social media and broadcasted on news channel by SharatKumar of Rajasthan Tak (Aaj Tak)," the FIR stated.

The news was run on 7 August.

The case was registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including section 76 of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008.

The FIR stated that "misleading information" was being circulated on WhatsApp on 7 August that illegal phone tapping of ministers and MLAs staying at Jaisalmer's Suryagarh Hotel was being done and four jammers were installed in the hotel, and this was being executed from a hotel in Jaipur's Mansarovar area, which involved officers of a private telecom company.

The matter was informed to the SHO of special offences and cyber crime by the duty officer of police control room in Jaipur on 7 August, following which a complaint was registered and probed by the SHO, the FIR stated. After a probe into the complaint, the police lodged the FIR on 1 October.

Investigating Officer Omprakash Matwa was not available for comment.

Targeting the chief minister over the matter, BJP state president Satish Poonia said Gehlot talks big about democracy but is suppressing the media.

The feud between Gehlot and Pilot came out in the open after Pilot along with 18 other MLAs revolted against his leadership in July, which led to a political crisis for nearly a month.

Gehlot and other leaders had blamed the BJP for trying to topple his government.

Pilot was removed from the post of Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president and deputy chief minister.

The month-long crisis came to an end in August when Pilot and other MLAs met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi and a committee of three members was set up by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to look into the grievances.
LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / CLS Holdings USA, Inc. (OTCQB:CLSH)(CSE:CLSH) ("CLS" or the 'Company'), a diversified cannabis company operating as Cannabis Life Sciences, today made available its presentation from the 2020 Canaccord Genuity Virtual Cannabis Symposium.

Watch It Here

Presented by President and COO, Andrew Glashow, viewers can learn about the current state of the company directly from its leadership. This presentation also reviews the operational changes made at CLS entities through the summer, and the momentous developments that have taken place since the company's acquisition of its Nevada retail and manufacturing subsidiaries. The Company is honored to have had the opportunity to present at this esteemed conference.

About CLS Holdings USA, Inc.

CLS Holdings USA, Inc. (CLSH) is a diversified cannabis company that acts as an integrated cannabis producer and retailer through its Oasis Cannabis subsidiaries in Nevada and plans to expand to other states. CLS stands for "Cannabis Life Sciences," in recognition of the Company's patented proprietary method of extracting various cannabinoids from the marijuana plant and converting them into products with a higher level of quality and consistency. The Company's business model includes licensing operations, processing operations, processing facilities, sale of products, brand creation and consulting services. http://www.clsholdingsinc.com.

Twitter: @CLSHoldingsUSA

Oasis Cannabis has operated a cannabis dispensary in the Las Vegas market since dispensaries first opened in Nevada in 2015 and has been recognized as one of the top marijuana retailers in the state. Its location within walking distance to the Las Vegas Strip and Downtown Las Vegas in combination with its delivery service to residents allows it to efficiently serve both locals and tourists in the Las Vegas area. In February 2019, it was named "Best Dispensary for Pot Pros" by Desert Companion Magazine. In August 2017, the company commenced wholesale offerings of cannabis in Nevada with the launch of its City Trees brand of cannabis concentrates and cannabis-infused products. http://oasiscannabis.com

Photo: Oasis Cannabis Dispensary. Las Vegas, NV

Founded in 2017, City Trees is a Nevada-based cannabis cultivation, production and distribution company. Offering a wide variety of products with consistent results, City Trees products are available in numerous dispensaries throughout the state of Nevada. https://citytrees.com

Photo: City Trees production facility, Las Vegas, NV

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain 'forward-looking information' within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and 'forward-looking statements' as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (collectively, the 'forward-looking statements'). These statements relate to, among other things, the future impact of the COVID-19 virus on our business, the future results of our initiatives to retain our employees and strengthen our relationships with our customers and community during the pandemic, the future effect of our initiatives to expand market share and achieve growth during and following the pandemic, future results of operations and financial performance, anticipated future events, and the effectiveness of our business practices during the pandemic. The continued spread of COVID-19 could have, and in some cases already has had, an adverse impact on our business, operations and financial results, including through disruptions in our cultivation and processing activities, supply chains and sales channels, and retail dispensary operations as well as a deterioration of general economic conditions including a possible national or global recession. Due to the speed with which the COVID-19 situation is developing and the uncertainty of its magnitude, outcome and duration, it is not possible to estimate its impact on our business, operations or financial results; however, the impact could be material. In some cases, you can identify forward looking statements by terminology such as 'may,' 'might,' 'will,' 'should,' 'intends,' 'expects,' 'plans,' 'goals,' 'projects,' 'anticipates,' 'believes,' 'estimates,' 'predicts,' 'potential,' or 'continue' or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements are only predictions, are uncertain and involve substantial known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, levels of activity or performance to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity or performance expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. We cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity or performance. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date that they were made. These cautionary statements should be considered together with any written or oral forward-looking statements that we may issue in the future. Except as required by applicable law, we do not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements to conform these statements to reflect actual results, later events or circumstances or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. See CLS Holdings USA filings with the SEC and on its SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com for additional details.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Corporate:

Chairman and CEO

Jeff Binder

President and COO

Andrew Glashow

888-438-9132

Investor Relations:

investors@clsholdingsinc.com

SOURCE: CLS Holdings USA, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609490/CLS-Holdings-USA-Inc-President-COO-Andrew-Glashow-Presents-at-the-Canaccord-Genuity-2020-Virtual-Cannabis-Symposium
Time for Betsi to go: MS calls for North Wales health board to be scrapped as special measures set to continue

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Oct 7th, 2020

A Senedd member has called for Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board to be scrapped following an announcement that it will remain under special measures.

The North Wales health board has been under the highest level of Welsh Government monitoring for more than five years, following a critical report into failings on the Tawel Fan mental health ward at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in Denbighshire.

Health Minister Vaughan Gething today (Wednesday 7 October) announced there would be no changes to its escalation status, despite praise for the positive way in which it has responded to the coronavirus pandemic.

Plaid Cymru has made redesigning health services in the region one of its key pledges if it gains power at next years Senedd elections.

Ynys Mon MS Rhun ap Iorwerth said the lack of progress underlined the need for the health board to be disbanded.

The partys Shadow Health Minister said: After more than five years in special measures, Welsh Government has announced that the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board is to stay in special measures.

Thanks to all the staff doing their best in difficult circumstances.

This confirms my belief that the health board has to go. A fresh start is needed, for staff and patients across North Wales.

The North Wales organisation announced the appointment of a new chief executive in August in a bid to deliver improvements.

Jo Whitehead will take up the role in January after joining from Mackay Hospital and Health Service in Queensland, Australia.

Ms Whitehead said she was determined to help the health board meet its challenges.

However, both the Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Conservatives said it could be the last opportunity for Betsi Cadwaladr before a more significant restructuring.

In todays written statement, Mr Gething acknowledged the board had made some progress since entering special measures in June 2015, but added officials had raised outstanding issues over mental health services.

The Labour Health Minister said: The group acknowledged the positive way in which Betsi Cadwaladr UHB had responded to the pandemic over recent months, recognising that the trend had affected North Wales on a more sustained basis to the rest of Wales.

It reviewed evidence submitted by the health board that demonstrated progress over recent years including on the areas which had originally been designated as special measures.

However, there remained concerns on performance and strategic solutions that may require specific external support.

Specifically, the group wanted some further assurance from the health board in respect of progress in mental health services.

He added: The group felt it was important for the health board to promote the good work it was doing and to focus on its actions, rather than be distracted by the status label.

At this stage, there was no recommendation for a change to escalation status.

A further meeting is set to be held before the end of the year, specifically to look at the health boards status.

By Liam Randall  BBC Local Democracy Reporter
Hisar: Some unidentified assailants allegedly burnt a businessman to death after looting Rs 11 lakh cash from him in Haryanas Hisar district, police said on Wednesday. The incident took place in Hansi area on Tuesday night, they said.

Ram Mehar (35), a resident of Data village on Bhatla-Data road in Hansi, was going home in his car when the robbers intercepted him, police said. The attackers then allegedly looted the businessman, locked him in the car and set it on fire, they said.

On receiving information, police rushed to the spot and found Mehar charred to death inside the vehicle. Later, the relatives of the victim were contacted after he was identified through the number plate of the vehicle. Mehar, who owned a factory of disposable cups and plates in Barwala, was coming to Data village from Hisar after withdrawing Rs 11 lakh from a bank, the victims family told police. A case has been registered against unknown persons and the CCTV footage from the area is being scrutinised to trace the culprits, said Hansi police spokesperson Subhash.

Hitting out at the BJP-led government in the state over the incident, Congress partys chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said jungle raj prevails in Haryana, where criminals were having a free run. He said it was shocking that the businessman was looted in the middle of a road and then burnt.

Where is the government? the Congress leader asked. .

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
Tete  President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera and his Mozambican counterpart Filipe Nyusi has highlighted the need to maintain political and diplomatic consultations between the two countries aiming at finding lasting solutions on issues affecting the two countries.

This was discussed during President Chakwera's day long visit to Songo in Tete Province in Mozambique Tuesday after the two heads of state, met privately before co-chairing a high level bilateral engagement meeting between delegations from the two countries.

In a Joint Communique, the two Presidents say apart from power supply to Malawi, the two countries have agreed work together to create additional infrastructure along the development corridors with the aim of improving mobility of people and goods by prioritizing Malawi connection to the Sena rail line through Vila Nova de Fronteira de Marka.

"We are very willing to supply energy to Malawi; through the already existing projects such as the construction works for the 400KV electricity transmission line for Mozambique and Malawi interconnection. Connecting Matambo Substation in Tete Mozambique and Phombeya in Malawi," President Nyusi said after the bilateral talks with President Chakwera.

The two governments expressed satisfaction in the communique with the process of reaffirming of the common border that is taking place in accordance with the plan agreed between the technical teams of the two countries.

"There is a need to raise awareness among border communities in order to preserve the landmarks and avoid construction of new infrastrures on the affirmed borders as a way of ensuring peaceful co-existence among the local communities in the two countries," the Communique reads in part.

President Chakwera addressing the high level delegation after the private meeting with his counterpart, he said the two countries share common social statuses which need to be respected.

"Malawians and Mozambicans are all the same despite sharing the borders. We are all brothers and sisters," he pointed out.

During the President Chakwera's visit, with his Mozambic
(Newser)  A 25-year-old man plummeted to his death from an Arizona cliff, and in retrieving his body, a sheriff's deputy made another stunning find. A National Park Service release notes that a call came in around 9am Sunday that someone had fallen from a bluff at Glen Canyon Dam Overlook, perched above the Colorado River near Page, in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Witnesses say the victim, since identified as Orlando Serrano Arzola, had been taking pictures before he fell. Coconino County Sheriff's Office spokesman Jon Paxton says it appears Arzola had been climbing on the rocks to try to get a better view for his photos.

story continues below

"When he tried to climb back out, evidently he lost his footing or rock hold," Paxton tells NBC News. Arzola fell about 100 feet, then slid another 150 feet, exhibiting no movement when his body finally stopped tumbling. A sheriff's office deputy was able to rappel to the body about a half-hour later and confirm Arzola had died. His body has since been transported to the Flagstaff medical examiner's office for an autopsy. Meanwhile, another NPS release notes the sheriff's deputy stumbled across another disturbing find near Arzola's body: bones that have since been identified as human remains. An investigation into that death is now underway, with no further information available. (Read more Arizona stories.)
People had a chance at an earlier public planning meeting to look at maps and ask questions for a highway use study. Similar maps will be on display during a series of three public meeting beginning on Oct. 19.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 21:53:50|Editor: huaxia

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MOSCOW, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he hopes the political crisis in Kyrgyzstan will be resolved peacefully and quickly without any losses.

"We hope that a normal democratic political process will be restored. And this should happen as soon as possible," Putin said in an interview with Rossiya-1 TV channel.

Russia is keeping in touch with all parties to the conflict and will continue to implement all plans with Kyrgyzstan after the political situation in the Central Asian country returns to normal, he said.

Parliamentary elections were held in Kyrgyzstan on Sunday with the participation of 16 political parties. Preliminary results showed that four parties crossed the 7 percent threshold to enter the parliament.

Some parties which failed to meet the threshold organized nationwide protests on Monday, demanding the annulment of the elections and claiming gross violations.

Kyrgyzstan's Central Election Commission on Tuesday annulled the results of the elections after clashes between police and protesters caused hundreds of injuries and one death. Enditem
Peter Sipsas Named Managing Director and Global Head of Private Equity and Credit Search; Meredith Flynn Named Head of Market Intelligence

NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Jensen Partners, an executive search and corporate advisory firm for the alternative investment management industry, today announced the appointments of Peter Sipsas as Managing Director and Global Head of Private Equity and Credit, and Meredith Flynn as Head of Market Intelligence. Mr. Sipsas and Ms. Flynn will expand the firm's alternative investments recruiting platform to 17 and launch a new dedicated practice for investment professionals. Both Mr. Sipsas and Ms. Flynn will be based in New York.

"Both Peter and Meredith are proven leaders in the industry and each brings considerable private markets expertise and established relationships with investors and candidates," said Sasha Jensen, Founder and CEO of Jensen Partners. "They will accelerate the global growth of our firm and provide valuable insights to our alternative investment management clients."

Mr. Sipsas brings to Jensen Partners more than 13 years of retained executive search experience in financial services. As Global Head of Private Equity and Credit, Mr. Sipsas will oversee the firm's expansion into investment professional recruitment. Previously, he founded PJ Sipsas, an independent executive search consultancy that focused on professional services and advised CEOs and management teams at Korn Ferry, Heidrick & Struggles, Caldwell Partners and Russell Reynolds. Mr. Sipsas also worked on Solomon Page Group's Capital Markets team in New York and London, where he recruited both sell-side investment banking and sales & trading professionals for large investment banks, as well as investment professionals for private equity firms and hedge funds.

Ms. Flynn brings nearly 20 years of retained executive search and institutional investing experience. As Head of Market Intelligence, she will lead Jensen Partners' strategic research and business development efforts globally. She will also analyze business opportunities and support Mr. Sipsas in building out the Private Equity and Private Credit products. In addition, she will support George Lewis' Infrastructure practice and Peter Mayer's European expansion. Previously, Ms. Flynn was a seasoned Knowledge Manager at Korn Ferry, where she supported the firm's Global Private Markets and Family Office practices. She managed all private market research and reporting for the firm, provided informed views on market trends and sourced suitable firms and candidates. She has also held various institutional marketing and sales roles at ING U.S. Investment Management, Barclays Global Investors and Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

In addition, Ms. Flynn has extensive institutional investor experience and relationships with large limited partners in the U.S. She served as a lead Investment Analyst for Alameda County Employees' Retirement Association (ACERA) for more than six years. She was also a private equity investment operations analyst for North Carolina Department of the State Treasurer, where she managed public reporting and the capital contributions/distributions of more than 100 funds.

"This is a tremendous opportunity to join Jensen Partners and partner with Sasha to grow the business beyond distribution," Mr. Sipsas added. "I look forward to applying her innovative data-intensive mapping approach and ensuring clients expand beyond the usual talent pools to attract highly qualified, diverse investment professionals."

Mr. Sipsas began his career as a legal recruiter at Robert Hadley Associates, where he placed Associates at large corporate law firms. He started as a reporter's assistant at the cable news channel NY1 and served as a human resources generalist at the Associated Press. He graduated from Queens College of the City University of New York.

Ms. Flynn earned an MBA in Finance and Marketing and a B.A. in Japanese Studies from the University of San Francisco. She is a retired Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve, having served as a Supply Corps Officer.

About Jensen Partners

Jensen Partners is a global advisory, corporate development and executive search firm that leverages its extensive relationships in the investor and alternative asset management community to identify and place leading investment and capital-raising candidates. The firm takes a data-driven approach, combining quantitative and qualitative insights to source and place the ideal human capital. In addition to executive search, Jensen Partners offers LP/GP referencing, proprietary 360 Investor Referencing methodology, and compensation benchmarking and analysis. To learn more, please visit www.jensen-partners.com.

Jensen Partners Proprietary Mapping and Data Recruitment Model

Since 2014, Jensen Partners has tracked more than 12,000 marketing moves across the alternative investment industry, which gives the firm the depth and breadth of data necessary to find the best talent and make the best recommendations. Jensen Partners has also recently invested heavily in its data capabilities by bringing in expert resources to optimize the firm's market mapping model and identify new opportunities for its clients.

In 2017, Jensen Partners began tracking the diversity of marketing talent to better meet the demand for diverse hires, and in 2020 the firm will begin tracking the movement of marketers specializing in ESG and impact investing. Jensen Partners makes these data and insights about trends in the alternative investment industry available exclusively in its quarterly newsletter.

Media Contact:

Samantha Foley

646-818-9140

sfoley@prosek.com
VANCOUVER, B.C., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Global Radiation Dose Management Market is forecast to be worth USD 505.3 million by 2027, according to a new report by Emergen Research. Increasingly expanding healthcare facilities, led by rapidly growing imaging device deployments, are considered to be prominent drivers for the global demand for radiation dose control through the projected era. Following this, a growing focus on the introduction by policy authorities of uniform standards for radiation exposure is anticipated to improve radiation acceptance dose management systems in the coming years. For instance, the organization of the Heart Rhythm Society, the American College of Cardiology, the North American Society for Cardiovascular Imaging, and other organizations released a consensus paper on the practical usage of radiation when carrying out cardiovascular imaging in 2018.

Regulation of the radiation dose is used to monitor and measure the number of prescriptions needed during treatment such that it can avoid the high radiation dose among patients. In patients, they avoid burns and radioactive exposure that happens due to the over-dose of radiation. They play a crucial role in reducing patients' exposure to damaging doses of radiation under imaging procedures. Nevertheless, the shortage of healthcare facilities in developing countries and the higher implementation costs of electronic systems are likely to impede the development of the global radiation dose management market during the forecast period.

Area of use where diagnostic imaging is widely applied includes radiography, angiography, mammography, and fluoroscopy & interventional imaging, among others. Many suppliers of diagnostic imaging equipment are actively interested in integrating radiation exposure control devices into these imaging applications. Compared to other imaging methods, X-ray and computed tomography technologies release a significant volume of radiation. The industry demonstrates strong growth potential, owing to the high incidence of chronic illnesses, efficient and safe care-focused treatment approaches, and consumer consciousness-raising.

Due to the increasing prevalence of radiation-associated diseases, North America is expected to register a comparatively higher CAGR in the global radiation dose management market. According to evidence released in the American Heart Association Journal (AHAJ) in 2018, the patient incidence of cancer decreases following the first ten radiation exposures correlated with computed tomography angiography procedures. In the global radiation exposure control industry, Asia Pacific is projected to experience slightly slower growth due to higher device deployment costs and a lack of uniform standards in developing nations. Improving technologies and evolving healthcare infrastructure in developing countries, however, is projected to create a favorable climate for substantial global radiation dose management systems.

Request free sample of this research report at: https://www.emergenresearch.com/request-sample/18

Further key findings from the report suggest

Based on component, the service category generated substantial revenue in 2019 and is estimated to rise with a CAGR of 12.9% in the forecast period, due to increasing patient understanding of issues such as the harmful effects of diagnostic imaging pollution, which has forced healthcare facilities to scrutinize quality control of diagnostic ionization pollution.

The area process monitors sub-segment is expected to grow with a CAGR of 7.9% in the forecast period due to its use in the control of ionization pollution exposure. Such devices support activities with high accuracy and effectiveness of radiation monitoring and warnings where a violation of permissible radiation standards arises.

The radiography application is the major contributor to the Radiation Dose Management Market. The radiography application of the North America region is the major shareholder of the market and held around 31.3% of the market in the year 2019, due to its increasing use in cancer diagnosis, that is a significant burden of disease and its increasing prevalence owing to a rise in the worldwide geriatric population community-radiography category.

region is the major shareholder of the market and held around 31.3% of the market in the year 2019, due to its increasing use in cancer diagnosis, that is a significant burden of disease and its increasing prevalence owing to a rise in the worldwide geriatric population community-radiography category. North America dominated the market for Radiation Dose Management in 2019 due to the danger of exposure to radiation from diagnostic imaging and the existence of legal criteria for the usage of ionizing pollutants. The North America region held approximately 35.7% of the market, followed by the Asia Pacific , which contributed to around 30.9% of the market revenue in the year 2019.

dominated the market for Radiation Dose Management in 2019 due to the danger of exposure to radiation from diagnostic imaging and the existence of legal criteria for the usage of ionizing pollutants. The region held approximately 35.7% of the market, followed by the , which contributed to around 30.9% of the market revenue in the year 2019. Key participants include Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Philips Healthcare, Landauer Inc., GE Healthcare, Medicvision, Bayer AG, Toshiba MSC, Sectra, Seimens Healthcare Private Limited, and Infinitt Healthcare Co. Ltd., among others.

To get leading market solutions, visit the link below: https://www.emergenresearch.com/industry-report/radiation-dose-management-market

For the purpose of this report, Emergen Research has segmented the Global Radiation Dose Management Market based on the component, product, application, and region:

Component Outlook (Revenue, USD Million; 2017-2027)

Software

Service

Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million; 2017-2027)

Dosimeters

Area Process Monitors

Others

Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million; 2017-2027)

Radiography

Angiography

Mammography

Fluoroscopy & Interventional Imaging

Others

Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million; 2017-2027)

North America

U.S.



Canada

Europe

Germany



U.K.



France



Benelux



Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

China



Japan



South Korea



Rest of APAC

Latin America

Brazil



Rest of LATAM

Middle East & Africa

& Saudi Arabia



UAE



Rest of MEA

Find more similar research insights by Emergen Research:

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About Emergen Research

At Emergen Research, we believe in advancing with technology. We are a growing market research and strategy consulting company with an exhaustive knowledge base of cutting-edge and potentially market-disrupting technologies that are predicted to become more prevalent in the coming decade.

With market-leading insights and an in-depth understanding of leading and niche technologies, our solutions address the most pertinent questions for your business needs. A major technological shift has been witnessed towards creating a 'Circular Economy,' fuelled by factors, such as the increased adoption of bio-based materials, along with other methods for achieving carbon neutrality. We are conversant in technologies, viz., Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Smart Manufacturing, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Analytics, Machine learning, Nanotechnology, Edge Computing, Blockchain Technology, Cloud Computing, Vehicle Electrification, Advanced Maintenance Analytics, and Predictive Maintenance, among other prevalent and emergent technologies.

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SOURCE Emergen Research
For the fourth time, a court postponed judgment in the trial of three suspects accused of masterminding the 2013 Westgate Mall terror attack that left 67 people dead.

The verdict on whether the three are guilty of terror charges is expected Wednesday.

Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi has so far postponed the judgment four times, the latest last being Tuesday evening when he cited time constraints.

Ahead of the judgment, the Milimani law courts remained under tight security with officers drawn from the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, regular police and the prison warders.

The magistrate was expected to read the judgment in an open court under a tent but suddenly changed his mind and decided to do it inside a courtroom, where he announced the postponement.

On his way to the courtroom from his chambers, a police officer carried the file for him. Magistrates are usually not accorded such treatment and security.

The courtroom was filled by a battery of journalists (both local and international), court orderlies, police and relatives of the accused persons.

Mr Andayi was scheduled to pass the judgment on Monday but he failed to do so on grounds that the same was not ready for delivery as some sections needed to be tied up.

He had postponed it again on September 18, when he said it was not ready due to the volume of work involved in the case that the prosecution adduced 145 witnesses.

Mohammed Ahmed Abdi, Hussein Mustafa and Liban Abdullahi are charged with 12 counts related to commission of a terrorist act, conspiracy to commit a terrorist act, giving support to a terrorist group, aiding a terrorist group and being in the country illegally.
She gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Tullulah, seven months ago.

And Jesinta Franklin, 29, has now revealed the one fashion item that she can no longer wear after becoming a mother.

In a clip shared to her Instagram Stories on Wednesday, the former Miss Universe Australia's bundle of joy was seen grabbing at her chunky earrings.

'Risky!' Jesinta Franklin, 29, has now revealed the one fashion item that she can no longer wear after becoming a mother

Accepting her fate, Jesinta smiled to the camera before slowly positioning her head away from the youngster.

'Risky! I used to wear these almost daily, now I can only wear it when I'm child-free,' she said of her earrings.

This comes after Jesinta revealed she is making it her mission to spend more time on the person who matters most: herself.

Since the birth of Tullulah, the model has struggled to get any time to herself because newborns 'are so dependent on you'.

'Used to wear these daily!' In a clip shared to her Instagram Stories on Wednesday, the former Miss Universe Australia's seven-month-old daughter Tullulah was seen grabbing at her chunky earrings

Inner peace: This comes after Jesinta revealed she is making it her mission to spend more time on the person who matters most: herself

Jesinta told The Daily Telegraph on Thursday it was important to take time for oneself 'because otherwise your life becomes taken over by running the house and being a mum'.

She spoke about her struggle to make time for herself during a photo shoot announcing Crown Sydney's partnership with Grown Alchemist.

It comes ahead of the casino complex opening in Sydney in December.

'In those first few months, there is no time for yourself. You really become dedicated naturally to your child and all of their needs because they are so dependent on you,' she said.

Priorities: The model said on Thursday it was important to take time for oneself 'because otherwise your life becomes taken over by running the house and being a mum'

'Now [Tullulah] is not so dependent on me, finding that time for myself is really important because otherwise your life becomes taken over by running the house and being a mum.'

Jesinta hopes to enjoy more quality time with her husband, Lance 'Buddy' Franklin, in the coming weeks, after he recently spent seven weeks away from his family playing AFL in Queensland.

The duo were separated due to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing footy players to self-isolate in 'hubs' away from the general public in order to compete.

Self-care: 'In those first few months, there is no time for yourself. You really become dedicated naturally to your child and all of their needs because they are so dependent on you,' she said

Because of his sporting commitments, the Sydney Swans player missed out on his first Father's Day on September 6.

At the time, Jesinta shared a post to Instagram about how much she was missing her husband.

'Happy 1st Father's Day @buddy_franklin23,' she wrote. 'So sad we can't be with you today. We are sending lots of virtual cuddles via FaceTime.

Family first: Jesinta hopes to enjoy more time with her husband, Buddy Franklin, in the coming weeks, after he recently spent seven weeks away from his family playing AFL in Queensland

'Big love to all the other families who can't be together today x.'

Jesinta also told The Daily Telegraph she and Buddy 'would love to give Tullulah a brother or a sister' someday.

'I think for us now it is just about enjoying her,' she added.
AMHERST  Declining enrollment  including at the high school where there is now less than 900 pupils  is a concern and could impact how much state aid the district receives a year from now, officials said.

Our enrollment numbers (for all grades) are lower than we would have anticipated this year, Superintendent Michael Morris said during Tuesdays Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee meeting.

Each year, on Oct. 1, school districts across the state are required to report enrollment data from this day, to Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Education.

Enrollment data is used to calculate state Chapter 70 school aid for the following year.

At Tuesdays meeting Morris expressed concern about the financial implications of the districts enrollment decline, in terms of state aid coming to the district.

At the high school, to be under 900 students is a bellwether, Morris said.

He said enrollment there is 886 students in Grades 9-12.

Asked by a member of the school board for current data on elementary school enrollment, he said that would be provided at the next meeting, adding they are declining too.

Morris said that it may some of the enrollment decline is due to parents enrolling their children in private and parochial education centers, and home-schooling.

The 886 high school students reported by the superintendent  a 24% decline over the past decade  is 34 less than the 920 currently shown on the DESE website, for the 2019-2020 school year.

According to the state DESE, Amherst-Pelham enrolled 1,168 students a decade ago in 2009-2010.
Now Open

7 October 2020

Accor has expanded its portfolio of hotels in Japan with the opening of the Mercure Kyoto Station hotel, the first Mercure branded hotel in the Kansai region and the sixth in the country.

Situated just minutes from JR Kyoto Station, the hotel boasts 225 guestrooms ranging in size from 23 to 34 square meters.

Rooms feature design elements that include motifs from the Heian period - a nod to the ancient history for which Kyoto is renowned.

Mercure Kyoto Station is 500 metres from JR Kyoto Station and 47km from Osaka International Airport. Notable buildings such as Kyoto Tower and Shimabara Oomon are located within walking distance from the hotel while the World Heritage sites of Nishi Honganji and Toji are located within close proximity.
BATON ROUGE, La.  Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin is announcing the launch of GeauxBot, a virtual voter assistant created in partnership with IBM. The IBM Watson Assistant technology grants voters access to pertinent election information such as registration deadlines, election dates, polling locations and hours. GeauxBot is an additional resource along with the GeauxVote mobile app and GeauxVote.com, to quickly obtain the most accurate election information available.

I am excited about this new feature which will help answer voters' questions 24/7, Ardoin said. This is yet another way Louisiana is at the forefront of voter outreach and assistance.

GeauxBot is accessible by visiting [voterportal.sos.la.gov]voterportal.sos.la.gov or by selecting Elections and Voting on the secretary of state website. Voters may then follow the instructions below to utilize the feature:

 Select the blue chat icon at the bottom right of the screen. A disclaimer will appear, please read and indicate I accept.

 Voters will then be able to choose a topic (Voter Registration, Absentee Voting, Early Voting, Election Day Voting) or enter a specific question into the window.

 GeauxBot will ask prompting questions related to the voters question and provide relevant answers.

 Should the voter have further questions, the Elections Division telephone hotline 800.883.2805 is available Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

GeauxBot is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. . For more information about the Secretary of States Elections Division, visit www.GeauxVote.com or call 225.922.0900.
After a rapid jumpstart to Michigans fall colors two weeks ago, the fall color change appears to have slowed down in the past week.

This is a good thing. I feared we were going to rush through peak fall color, and you might miss it. Earlier today I asked folks in the Michigan Weather Facebook group and my personal Facebook page to send us photos and color reports.

So Ive tweaked the fall color map based on reports as of today, October 7. I actually did walk back the color amount on a few counties from last week, after getting more thorough reports in those areas.
A 35-year-old trader was allegedly burnt alive by three unidentified men after he was robbed of 11 lakh near Bhatla village at Hansi in Hisar district on Tuesday night, police said on Wednesday.

The victim, Ram Mehar of Datta village in Hisar, ran a factory in Hisars Barwala town.

Sadar Hansi station house officer Kashmiri Lal said that they received a call that two motorcycle-borne men and a car occupant were following the trader near Bhatla village.

When we reached the spot minutes later around midnight, we found the driver was burnt alive and the car was gutted. His relatives told us that he had called them up also to say that three men were chasing him and he was carrying 11 lakh, the SHO said.

A case was registered under Sections 392 (punishment for robbery) and 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

The victims nephew said that he had given 9.9 lakh to his uncle on Tuesday after withdrawing the amount from a bank.

Congress general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala said that maha jungle raj prevailed in Haryana.

A trader was burnt alive in the middle of the road after looting 11 lakh from him. There is maha jangalraj in the state under the Manohar Lal Khattar government. There is no law and order. Criminals are ruling in the state. Traders lives and goods are being looted. How long will we survive? Where is the government? he said.
THE government has signed two-bilateral grant agreement with the Switzerland government worth 44.1bn/- for the Performance Based Health Basket Fund and Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN) II programme.

The agreements were signed by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance and Planning, Mr Dotto James and Switzerland Ambassador, Didier Chassot.

In the first agreement, the Swiss government has injected 39.15bn/- to finance the Second Phase of Productive Social Safety Net Programme (PSSN II) 2020-2023.

The second one is the amendment to the Grant Agreement amounting 4.95bn/- as additional contribution to the Performance Based Health Basket Fund, 2020-21.

Speaking after signing the agreement, Mr James said the PSSN II project being undertaken by Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF) will improve access to income earning opportunities and socio-economic services for the targeted poor households.

It will also, said Mr James, enhance and protect the human capital of their children as it reduces poverty and improves human capital, improves consumption and increases engagement in income generating activities.

The grant, the paymaster general said, will as well increase school enrolment and health seeking behaviours for children.

The signing of the PSSN agreement brings to an end PSSN I which was implemented from February 2013 to December 2019 in 159 local government authorities in Mainland and Zanzibar.

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He cited some of the PSSN I output among others as increased enrollment of 1,805, 613 children for primary schools and 448,409 for secondary schools from the targeted poor households.

Other achievements are provision of temporary employment to the poor households for those who were capable of working, whereas 253,117 participated through public works.

The Permanent Secretary said evaluation of PSSN I had shown success in enabling the poorest households to participate in production and ability to survive the natural hazards, reduce poverty and to build human capital.

He said PSSN II which will be implemented in four years, with a budget of 2.02tr/-, aimed at reaching poor households in villages and streets which were not reached in implementation of PSSN I.

On the Performance Based Health Basket Fund, 2020-21, he said the objective was to strengthen the primary health care system, to improve performance of health care workers and quality of health service delivery.

It also intends to improve access to quality primary health care services and improve social accountability as well as to support health sector strategic plans with its respective ultimate goals.

He expressed government commitment to improve health services provision by supplying medicines, equipment, reagents and medical expertise.

On his part, the Swiss Ambassador, Mr Chassot expressed continued bilateral relations by supporting fully to attain sustainable goals and economic agenda.
Health chiefs - including Patricia Miller (above), chief executive of Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - have said racism exists in the NHS and called for greater acknowledgement of 'white privilege' in the service

Health chiefs have said racism exists in the NHS and called for greater acknowledgement of 'white privilege' in the service.

A discussion was held as part of NHS Providers' virtual annual conference on how trust leaders were challenging themselves and their organisations to identify and tackle race inequality.

Patricia Miller, chief executive of Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, described growing up in a mixed heritage household after her grandfather migrated to the UK among the final wave of Windrush immigrants to settle in the country.

Speaking to panellists today, she said: 'I think the reality for me is that the world is seen through the lens of a white person, it's not seen through the lens of a person of colour.'

She added: 'One thing I've learned from being an executive is that you can be the most senior person in an organisation and you're not protected from racism.

'I knew there were a number of staff that, since my arrival at the organisation, had never spoken to me and I'm pretty sure that wasn't because they don't like my hairstyle or my approach - it's simply the fact they don't like my ethnicity.'

Roisin Fallon-Williams, chief executive of Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, said it was a privilege to hear stories such as those shared by Ms Miller.

Ms Miller described growing up in a mixed heritage household after her grandfather migrated to the UK among the final wave of Windrush immigrants to settle in the country. Speaking to panellists today, she said: 'I think the reality for me is that the world is seen through the lens of a white person, it's not seen through the lens of a person of colour'. (File image)

She said: 'For me, discovering that I have white privilege, working in an organisation where we're beginning to think more widely as a board, as senior leaders, about this term white privilege, it's invoking all those things around "it doesn't mean me because of my background".

'I think about my dad - he once said to me "nobody knows I'm Irish until I open my mouth", and that is so true.

'But actually for many of us who are white, that have been in a place of suffering and being discriminated against, our ability to integrate because of how the system is set up for us is much greater and easier than it is for our colleagues of colour.'

She shared a story about a matron in the NHS who had been in every police cell in Birmingham 'not because he committed a crime, but because he was black'.

Richard Mitchell, chief executive at Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said white privilege was best summed up by an article he had read that was written by a non-white journalist with the headline, 'I was stopped and searched for spinach'.

'In the past, I thought that my adult working life - going to university, graduate job and executive level role - was entirely because I'm a nice person and I work hard, but I do recognise this is not the case,' he said.

The panellists were asked what they would say to Sir Simon Stevens (above, foreground), chief executive of NHS England, about white privilege. Ms Miller replied: 'NHS England needs to lead by example. It can't talk about race equality when it doesn't exist in its own organisation'

'Those achievements and opportunities have been heavily influenced by the privileges my parents gave me and the privileges I had access to.'

He said it was 'embarrassing' that there were only eight chief executives at NHS trusts from minority backgrounds out of 250.

He said that some of the comments he had heard from colleagues included experiencing microaggressions at work and racism from patients.

The panellists were asked what they would say to Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, about white privilege.

It comes after NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said there needed to be 'concrete action' to tackle structural racism in the health service. In a speech on Tuesday, he referenced two 'seismic' events that have 'shone a light on inequalities' - the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests (above, a BLM rally in London in June)

Ms Miller replied: 'NHS England needs to lead by example. It can't talk about race equality when it doesn't exist in its own organisation.'

Mr Mitchell's message to Sir Simon was: 'Let's seek solace that things have got better, but we now have to use the foundation stones in place to practically see much faster action quicker.'

Mr Hopson (above): 'First we had Covid-19, with its disproportionate impact on people of colour. Then we had the murder of George Floyd, together with the BLM protests it triggered. Both exposing the invidious impact of health inequalities and of structural racism on our staff, our patients and our communities'

It comes after NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said there needed to be 'concrete action' to tackle structural racism in the health service.

In a speech on Tuesday, he said: 'Over the last nine months, two seismic events have shone a bright light on inequalities in our nation.

'First we had Covid-19, with its disproportionate impact on people of colour.

'Then we had the murder of George Floyd, together with the Black Lives Matter protests it triggered.

'Both exposing the invidious impact of health inequalities and of structural racism on our staff, our patients and our communities.'

A new study commissioned by London Mayor Sadiq Khan found that black people were at almost twice the risk of dying from Covid-19 than white people.

The report, released on Tuesday and conducted by researchers from the University of Manchester, found the disparity was partly due to long-standing socio-economic inequalities as well as the over-representation of BAME people in careers such as health and social care - professions more susceptible to exposure to the virus.
Brent crude futures fell by 70 cents, or 1.6%, to $41.95 a barrel.

Oil prices fell on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump dashed hopes for a fourth stimulus package to boost the coronavirus-hit economy and on a larger-than-expected increase in U.S. crude inventories.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures fell 81 cents, or 2%, to $39.86 a barrel by 0411 GMT while Brent crude futures fell by 70 cents, or 1.6%, to $41.95 a barrel, as reported by Reuters.

Read alsoOver 50% of entrepreneurs wary of economic crisis  pollPresident Trump, still being treated for COVID-19, ended talks on Tuesday with Democrats on an economic aid package for the United States, the world's biggest oil consumer, with the U.S. presidential election only weeks away.

Price were also pressured by data from the American Petroleum Institute showing U.S. oil stockpiles rose by 951,000 barrels last week.

More news reports
ALBANY  The development group attempting to build a blood plasma collection center in the Upper Washington Avenue neighborhood has sued the city over an ordinance passed earlier this year that effectively prevented them from opening.

The lawsuit will force the citys Common Council to hire an outside attorney because of the back and forth between the council and mayors office during the legislative process that raised some of the same issues as the developers lawsuit.

Filed on Sept. 17, the lawsuit asks a state Supreme Court judge to overturn the Common Councils decision to pass an ordinance requiring a 1,000-foot setback for any proposed blood plasma collection center from any church, school or park.

That requirement limited the number of properties within the city the developer would be able to use for the project.

The lawsuit is the fulfillment of a warning that Mayor Kathy Sheehan issued when she vetoed the councils legislation.

"While I understand the approval of this ordinance by the Common Council was driven by the best of intentions, I have been advised by corporation counsel it is an unconstitutional zoning action with no rational basis in law," she wrote.

The council promptly overrode her veto at its next meeting.

The council will now have to hire private attorneys to represent it in the proceedings after the citys corporation counsel decided it would be a conflict of interest to represent the council along with the city planning board and Sheehan.

The citys lawyers defended the planning and zoning board decisions to the council before the council passed their ordinance and raised them again in Sheehans veto messages, said Marisa Franchini, the citys corporation counsel.

Both of these actions raised some of the same issues that the plaintiff is raising here in the lawsuit, she wrote in a letter to the councils leadership.

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.

Council members briefly discussed the issue during their caucus session on Monday before going in to executive session to talk about it further.

The project called for CSL Plasma to open an 11,000-square-foot blood plasma collection center in the Hannaford Plaza on Central Avenue. Neighbors, led by Councilman Michael OBrien, opposed the project. The project would be similar to a collection center operating in Schenectady.

Plasma collection involves drawing blood from donors, spinning the blood to remove the red blood cells, and keeping the remaining liquid - which is mostly water and proteins. That plasma is then used in therapies and medical procedures.

On its website, CSL Plasma says donors can earn up to $400 a month but an average session pays around $30 to $40 an hour, generally paid in prepaid debit cards or gift cards.
Two scientists won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for creating genetic scissors that can rewrite the code of life, contributing to new cancer therapies and holding out the prospect of curing hereditary diseases. Emmanuelle Charpentier, who is French, and American Jennifer Doudna share the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.1 million) prize for developing the CRISPR/Cas9 tool to edit the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with precision. The ability to cut the DNA where you want has revolutionized the life sciences, Pernilla Wittung ...
In this article F

Headquarters of the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan. In a recent survey of 30,000 workers, the auto giant found a majority never want to come back to the office five days a week, and it is taking that data seriously. James Leynse | Corbis | Getty Images

The era of massive highways and major commutes was a boon to car companies like Ford, but now the automakers find themselves in the unexpected position of designing a future of work that could work against that 20th century American approach to employment. San Francisco officials are newly looking at remote work as a potential solution for climate change, not just a short-term fix for coronavirus, with the elimination of commutes a source of emissions reduction. The car company's thinking may be along different lines, but over the past few months, Ford surveyed over 30,000 of its workers about working remotely and their comfort level with it longer term. And the results suggest that if car commutes are not entirely out, they are going to see a substantial reduction. Seventy percent of Ford employees indicated they did not want to return to the office full-time, and preferred a hybrid approach. It falls to Jennifer Kolstad, global design director at Ford, to figure out how the new way of working is created for the 117-year-old company.

'On work' all the time

Kolstad is certain of certain changes Covid-19 will make permanent. For one, the idea of just showing up to the workplace as as key to keeping a job is over. The employment concept of "presenteeism"  often defined by the example of people coming into work even when they were ill just to prove they were "on the job"  is being ushered out by the Covid experience and remote work experiment. "It's no longer 'If I don't see you, you are not working. ... You're probably working more than ever before. The idea of 'at work' is replaced by 'on work' ... and on all the time," Kolstad said the Tuesday's CNBC @Work virtual summit. Choice of workplace is a new variable in employment, and it is also going to be new capital for employers and employees to negotiate, Kolstad said. Research recently conducted by a group of companies, including Slack, found that only 12% of knowledge workers wants to go back to exactly the way work was in the past. "I think organizations will have less choice than they imagine if there is large contingent of companies who say remote work is acceptable to them, because all things being equal, wouldn't you rather have the optionality," said Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and CEO of work collaboration software company Slack, at the CNBC @Work virtual event. He noted that he'd just hired his first senior executive not based in the Bay Area, but in Chicago.

"We will create a new landscape of work somewhere in the middle," said Ford's Kolstad. And there will be "new non-negotiables" the Ford executive added. Ford constructed a think tank to envision what the future looks like, and a big theme that has emerged is that post-Covid there will be constant change, even after a vaccine is available, and companies need to build what she described as "systemic resiliency." That's an idea which Vishaan Chakrabarti, dean at the University of California, Berkeley's College of Environmental Design  who headed planning for Manhattan during the post-9/11 Bloomberg administration  agreed is important to keep the focus on as changes are contemplated after Covid. "We are usually fighting the last war ... protecting against a physical terrorist attack when the next one might be a different foe, and the next pandemic might be completely different than Covid. So we need to be careful about being reactionary, and think of resilience of core systems. ... What I've really learned is you don't know where the next thing will come from and it won't be the thing you plan for because it was the last threat."

The end of open office 'factory farm' floor plan?

One scenario Ford is exploring is called "hoteling," a de-densification strategy which replaces designated work stations with a booking system for employees to reserve desks and collaboration spaces. But Kolstad said Ford still has a lot to learn about employee openness to collaboration zones in a post- vaccine world. "Will they feel comfortable? Probably at some point, but there will be residual memories about it being not too long ago that close proximity made me sick." Just entering and exiting workplaces remain unknowns. "Do we suddenly re-size all elevators because we need to space people out in lifts to move them vertically in buildings? That's really expensive and I don't know yet," Kolstad said.

The office rethink could spell doom for the open office design approach fitting workers as close together as possible that has come to define many modern workplaces, Chakrabarti said. (Michael Bloomberg was a big proponent of open floor plans as New York City mayor and at his company.) "We may question that ... we need to make workspaces better. We are a very developed economy and not making widgets at our desks, and workplaces need to be pleasant," he said. "We've gone too far to 'let's pack as many people into office spaces as we can.' ... if we can have some people at home we can give more breathing room to those in the office." But he added, "We don't have a single client who thinks they need to maintain a six foot distance forever and you can never touch a door again. ... There will be interest in newer buildings with better technology and restrooms ... more touchless doors and elevators you can control with your phone ... but I don't think somehow we are turned into this hypochondriac state."

'False choices' in remote work migration

The changes being contemplated inevitably confront downsides of remote work. "We are trying to identify the things we will never get out of a plastic screen, which is meaningful relationships and we are deeply trying to understand what it takes to innovate, and human connections are required to get us to that," said Ford's Kolstad. "Never get it through remote. You can only get it in physical community spaces and the reality of coming together," she added. "Does tech create new questions? Sure, remote work is possible, but to quote Jerry Seinfeld, this is just not great. I don't know that many people who love this life. Everyone is looking forward to saying we can get together and innovate again. .... All smart business people know what is important about a great business is human capital and I don't think the best and brightest want to sit at home all day," Chakrabarti said. Kolstad stressed that the process companies like Ford are going through now is deeper than corporate floor layout and furniture being moved around. "This is not about desks and chairs. We're talking about a behavioral and cultural shift," and that will include, as one example, taking into account family structures and children's educational needs. "We don't have this societal resilience," Chakrabarti said. "In New York City, why did it take so long for schools to close? Because they are also homeless shelters." "Most of us are hungry for face-to-face, whether it is at the office or a happy hour or lunch," he said. "But we should also talk about what people are enjoying about remote work .... terrible commutes most people have and most people don't miss that. We have to improve the way in which we move around to make it not such a binary decision between not commuting and missing face-to-face. That's a false choice."

There's still a projection of power with a logo on the side of a building. Stewart Butterfield Slack CEO and co-founder

Slack's Butterfield drew a distinction between the work-from-home period triggered by the pandemic and a work-from-home future designed to be permanent. Right now, "If you are a working single parent with young kids and no school you are pretty much in an impossible situation, regardless of work from home or not," the Slack CEO said. But in a country like Japan, where people tend to live in smaller spaces, the idea of remote work as a permanent solution can be less appealing. "You would have to rebuild the country for people to work from home in Japan," he said. The Slack CEO thinks that 90-minute commutes, and the use of bulk square footage in offices, "which is like factory farm housing," may not make sense in many places, and for many roles. For workers who sit at desks in headphones most days working on individual projects, there is reason to reimagine the use of desks. They may not be able to go to work in a cafe today, but in the future, that option will present itself again. Slack is still sitting on 800,000 square feet of office space and 10 year leases, so the company will have to reimagine how it uses offices and gets teams together. There are certain physical attributes of an office that can't be recreated remotely, Butterfield said. "There's still a projection of power with a logo on the side of a building."
The government will



get Disha Bill cleared in the next session of the state legislature to provide "big" security cover to women, Home Minister Anil Deshmukh has said.

The draft in this regard has been finalised and the government will incorporate more suggestions from women and experts on the issue, Deshmukh was quoted as saying in an official statement.

He made the remarks during a meeting held with women leaders at Sahyadri Guest House here on Tuesday, it said.

The meeting was attended by ministers of state for home Satej Patil and Shambhuraj Desai, NCP MP Supriya Sule, Shiv Sena legislator Manisha Kayande and others.

Deputy Chairperson of State Legislative Council Neelam Gorhe took part in the meeting via a digital platform, the statement said.

"A big safety cover is being prepared for mothers and sisters. Its draft has been finalised. More suggestions from mothers, sisters and experts will be incorporated into it.

"The government will get the Disha Bill passed during the next session of the legislature," the statement quoted Deshmukh as saying.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government formed last year had earlier talked about bringing a law on the lines of the "Disha Act" of Andhra Pradesh to expedite trials of crimes against women.

The Andhra Pradesh government had enacted the Disha Act in the aftermath of the gruesome rape and murder of a veterinararian in Hyderabad late last year, to ensure speedy investigation and trial of sexual assault cases.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
People watch a TV showing an image of Jo Song Gil, the North Koreas former ambassador to Italy, during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020. Jo who had vanished in Italy in late 2018, lives in South Korea under government protection, a lawmaker said Wednesday. The Korean letters read: Who is the North Korean Jo Song Gil. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A senior North Korean diplomat who vanished in Italy in late 2018 is living in South Korea under government protection, according to legislators in Seoul.

If confirmed, Jo Song Gil, the former acting ambassador to Italy, would be the highest-level North Korean official to defect to its rival since the 1997 arrival of Hwang Jang-yop, a senior ruling Workers Party official who once tutored leader Kim Jong Uns father, late leader Kim Jong Il.

South Koreas spy agency earlier told legislators that Mr Jo left his official residence in Rome with his wife in November 2018 and was under protection at an unspecified location outside the European country.

Ha Tae-keung, who sits on the intelligence committee of South Koreas National Assembly, wrote on Facebook that Mr Jo arrived in South Korea last year and is under the protection of the government.

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Mr Ha said he was confirming Mr Jos arrival on behalf of the committee to prevent a media frenzy, after a South Korean TV station reported about his defection on Tuesday evening.

The legislator said the committee decided not to provide further details about Mr Jo for his safety.

Jeon Hae-cheol, the committees chairman, told reporters later that Mr Jo went to South Korea voluntarily after expressing wishes to resettle there several times.

Mr Jeon said Mr Jo did not want his arrival to be publicised because of worries about relatives in North Korea, according to the legislators office.

The legislators did not say how they obtained the information. It is likely they were briefed by the National Intelligence Service, the countrys main spy agency, as committee members routinely meet NIS officers for discussions on North Korea.

The NIS said it was checking reports about Mr Jos arrival. South Koreas foreign and unification ministries said they could not confirm the reports.

Thae Yong Ho, a former minister at the North Korean embassy in London, was previously the most senior North Korean diplomat to defect to South Korea. He went to Seoul in 2016 and was elected to parliament this year.

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He said he decided to defect because did not want his children to live miserable lives in North Korea and he was disappointed with Kim Jong Un.

Mr Thae issued a statement urging media outlets to refrain from exposing too much about Mr Jo, citing worries about possible reprisals on his daughter left in North Korea.

The motive for his departure from his Rome residence is not known, and North Koreas state media have not mentioned his possible defection.

About 33,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the late 1990s to avoid political suppression and poverty.
BOSTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Pathlight Capital ("Pathlight") announced it is serving as the FILO Agent on the recently funded $125,000,000 FILO Facility for The Neiman Marcus Group ("Neiman Marcus" or the "Company"), one of the largest omni-channel luxury fashion retailers in the world.

The FILO Facility was funded upon the Company's successful emergence from Chapter 11 on September 25, 2020. Proceeds from the facility will be used to refinance existing debt and provide liquidity to support the reorganized Company's ongoing operations and strategic initiatives.

"The newly emerged Neiman Marcus Group is now in a much stronger financial position than prior to restructuring. NMG has emerged with substantially reduced debt, one of the best capital structures among multi-retailers and access to over $475M of liquidity from cash and availability under our ABL facility. It was a pleasure working with the Pathlight Capital team to establish the new FILO facility. The increased access to capital provides enhanced financial flexibility to respond to the rapidly changing environment and allows continued investment in our business," stated Geoffroy van Raemdonck, Chief Executive Officer of Neiman Marcus Group.

"Neiman Marcus is an iconic luxury retailer that has been an industry leader for over 100 years, offering distinctive luxury brands through a renowned customer experience," said Katie Hendricks, Managing Director at Pathlight Capital. "We believe the reorganized Company is well positioned to capitalize on its digital transformation strategy and are excited to support the management team and new equity in this next chapter of the business."

About Pathlight Capital

Pathlight Capital is a private credit investment manager dedicated to meeting the needs of companies that operate across a broad range of industries by providing asset-based loans secured on a first or second lien basis against tangible and intangible assets. Pathlight provides creative financing solutions to allow management teams to access incremental liquidity for the purposes of funding working capital, debt refinancings, growth, acquisitions, dividends and turnaround strategies. For more information, please visit www.pathlightcapital.com.

About Neiman Marcus Group

Neiman Marcus Group is a luxury, multi-branded, omni-channel fashion retailer conducting integrated store and online operations under the Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus Last Call, and Horchow brand names. For more information, visit www.neimanmarcusgroup.com.

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The Indian stock market continues trading in the green with Sensex up 275.78 points or 0.7 percent at 39850.35, and the Nifty gained 63.30 points or 0.54 percent at 11725.70.

Among the sectors, the auto index along with the oil & gas sector added half a percent each. On the other hand, the metal index shed over a percent..

Shares of gas producers Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Oil India Limited rose after reports indicated that the government may consider a proposal to end price controls over locally produced gas, according to a CNBC Awaaz report.

Reliance Industries share price gained over 3 percent after it said on October 6 that Abu Dhabi Investment Authority would invest Rs 5,512.50 crore in its retail arm.

Jyoti Roy - DVP- Equity Strategist, Angel Broking feels that with thsi investment, RRVL has raised Rs 37,710 crore from leading global investors including Silver Lake, KKR, General Atlantic, Mubadala, GIC, TPG and ADIA in less than four weeks. The brokerage firm has maintained its positive view on Reliance industries and expect that the digital and the retail business will be the future growth drivers for the company.

The IT index shed half a percent after the Trump administration announced a rule that may curb US companies' use of skilled foreign workers by narrowing the definition of specialty occupations eligible for H-1B visas and require companies to pay higher wages to those enrolled in the visa program.

The top IT losers included Wipro, Coforge, HCL Tech and Infosys.

Shares of TCS traded flat ahead of its September quarter numbers. The company is expected to see sequential decline in Q2FY21 reported profit due to provision in EPIC legal case, but adjusted bottomline may grow in double digit QoQ.

The ramp up of large deals is likely to boost dollar revenue growth in the range of 2.5-3 percent and constant currency revenue growth could be in the range of 4.5-5 percent for the quarter ended September 2020, compared to previous quarter (Q1) which was impacted by supply-side constraints.

Metal stocks came under pressure with the top losers being Hindalco Industries, JSPL, Hindustan Zinc, NALCO and Welspun Corp.

However, Morgan Stanley has an overweight call on JSPL with target at Rs 280 per share. It is of the view that domestic volume growth was better than the industry in Q2 adding that the company is on track to deliver better volumes than full-year estimate for FY21, according to a CNBC-TV18 report.

Vinay Rajani, Technical Research Analyst at HDFC Securities has a buy recommendation on JSW Steel with target price at Rs 312 per share. The stock price is on the verge of giving breakout from consolidation which occurred in the last six weeks, between Rs 292 and Rs 268, he said.

Around 178 stocks have hit new 52-week high including names like TCS which hit new high and was trading at Rs 2,721.50 at 12:41 hours.

: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
Joe Biden has reserved $6.2 million to spend on TV advertising in Texas during the final four weeks of the presidential campaign, a staggering amount for a state that hasnt voted for a Democrat for president since 1976.

Bidens campaign will spend more than $530,000 in the Austin market, $1 million in San Antonio, $1.6 million in Houston and nearly $2.6 million in Dallas-Fort Worth, according to data collected by ad tracking firm Advertising Analytics. Hell also target South Texas markets and Midland-Odessa, according to the ad tracking firm.

The ad buy is set to start Tuesday and continue to Election Day.

Although Bidens campaign could cancel the buy or shift spending to other states as the election approaches, Texas Democrats say its a promising sign that the Biden campaign is making a concerted effort to win Texas. The spending would be more than any Democratic nominee has invested in the state in decades.

Polling also looks promising for the Biden campaign. With little previous spending in the state, polls continue to show Biden trailing President Donald Trump by a few points, with some within the margin of error.

It shows you that they think theres a possibility, Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa told the American-Statesman. Why else do you spend $6 million in Texas?

Prosecutor vs. 'king of sound bites:' Why the Harris-Pence debate is no ordinary VP faceoff

Meanwhile, the Texas Democratic Party is preparing a multi-million dollar ad buy to target Black and Latino voters, and Hinojosa said he hopes Biden will invest in get-out-the-vote efforts in Latino communities, especially those along the border.

We think that is what is going to push him over the top, he said.

Biden and his running mate U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris have yet to make an appearance in Texas during the general election campaign, but Harris husband Doug Emhoff campaigned Monday in San Antonio and Edinburg, the county seat of Hidalgo County, the most populous in the Rio Grande Valley. He met with Jewish community leaders and other faith leaders in Dallas Tuesday.

Story continues

Samantha Cotten, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign in Texas, said Texas voters will reject Biden, calling the Lone Star state Trump country.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, on Monday in Miami.

The last ditch effort by the Biden campaign 28 days out is comical. We welcome them to continue lighting their money on fire in a state that will resoundingly reelect President Trump on Nov. 3, Cotten said.

The Trump campaign does not have any ad buys currently reserved in Texas, according to Advertising Analytics.

This year is different

Bidens advertising blitz comes days after Beto ORourke, the former El Paso congressman who came within 2.6 points of defeating U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in 2018, made the case for increased spending in Texas in an op-ed for the Washington Post with Tory Gavito, president and cofounder of Way to Win, a national coalition of Democratic donors, and former executive director of the Texas Future Project.

The two urged the campaign to invest big, late money in Texas, which they said could put an end to the suspense about whether President Trump will concede defeat Nov. 3.

If Biden wins Texas 38 electoral votes, Trump would have no viable path to victory.

Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report and one of the nations top political forecasters said Monday that he doesnt see Biden as the favorite in Texas, but a Biden victory in the Lone Star state would be probable if he wins the popular vote nationally by more than 10 points.

If the kind of national polling we're seeing now were to hold, the tipping point for outlets to "call" the race for Biden on Election Night could actually be a blue Texas, he tweeted.

Democrats have historically failed to invest in Texas, despite the size of this prize, because they believed the door is closed to Democratic presidential candidates, ORourke and Gavito wrote. But, like many things in 2020, this year is different  Biden has his foot in the door and needs to kick it open for a quick end to the election.

ORourkes Powered by the People, a political action committee, also announced Tuesday that it would hold an all-day phone bank Monday to reach 1 million Texans.

Lincoln Project

Also Tuesday, the Lincoln Project, formed by former Republican strategists working to defeat Trump, announced that it would invest $1 million in Texas to target Hispanic voters.

The group is calling the campaign Operation Sam Houston and will release several Texas-specific ads that will run on TV in Central Texas, as well as in smaller markets, including Lubbock.

The ads, some of which will be in Spanish, will target Hispanic voters and suburban and rural Republican women. The ads are likely to run through Election Day, according to Lincoln Project spokesman Nate Nesbitt.

Texas has been moving towards a swing state for many cycles now and Donald Trump has dramatically accelerated that trend, said Mike Madrid, co-founder of the Lincoln Project. The polling data is undeniable and has been consistent for months  Republican voters are leaving Trump and Democrats are historically energized to turn him out of office. We see an opportunity in Texas and we are going to take advantage of it.

Texas GOP chairman Allen West called the group dishonorable, characterless and devoid of human integrity.

The members of the Lincoln Project have duly made themselves my opposition, an adversary, and I am focused on defeating them along with the progressive socialist left, the Democrat Party, here in the Lone Star state, West said in a statement.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Election 2020: Biden ramps up efforts in Texas with $6 million ad buy
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio Department of Health is allowing the Cleveland Browns to double the number of spectators allowed at games at FirstEnergy Stadium, to 12,000.

The stadium has a capacity of 67,895.

Lance Himes, the departments interim director, outlined in an email sent late Monday afternoon that in addition to the 12,000 spectator limit, the following will be required:

Additional seating sections and concourse walkways will be opened to accommodate more spectators while ensuring that six-foot social distancing protocols are maintained.

Spectators will be directed to enter the stadium using the designated entrance that is closest to their assigned seat.

Spectators will be grouped in pods of predominantly 2-4 people with no grouping larger than 6 individuals who are all members of the same party/group.

Will follow the same operating standards and plans outlined in the original Cleveland Browns' Responsible Restart Plan.

Will coordinate/cooperate with Cleveland Department of Public Health to allow its representative(s) to be onsite during each game to assess compliance, how the teams spectator plan worked and whether any modifications are needed.

Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam and owner and Executive Vice President J.W. Johnson and Chief Operating Officer/ Executive Vice President Dave Jenkins sent a letter to the state on Sept. 29 asking to allow more fans. The state had previously approved a variance to allow 6,000 spectators.

The team strictly followed the state rules for home games on Sept. 13 and Sept. 17, and no outbreaks had been traced to FirstEnergy Stadium, the letter stated.

Accordingly, we are now formally requesting continued approval of the plan of the Plan from the Ohio Department of Health, with a new spectator capacity variance as contemplated by the order, the letter states.

Browns' owners and executives wanted to increase capacity to 16.8% to 24% of the stadiums capacity beginning Oct. 11.

Thats 11,406 people to 16,294 people.

Himes, the interim health department director, didnt provide any explanation in his response about why he decided on 12,000 spectators.

On Sept. 5, Gov. Mike DeWine approved variances to the states public health orders for the Browns and Cincinnati Bengals.

More coverage:

Ohio officials report 1,057 new coronavirus cases: Monday update

Gov. Mike DeWine, Fran DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted are each negative for coronavirus

If the president of the United States can have it, that means anyone can have it: Gov. Mike DeWine talks about President Trumps diagnosis
SAINT-MARTIN-VESUBIE, France: A van clings to the edge of an Alpine ravine, tossed by an exceptional storm. A tattered French flag hangs off a tree uprooted by vicious floods. Emergency medics treat injured residents in a brasserie converted into a field hospital.

With at least 12 dead and others missing, France and Italy are still assessing damage and cleaning up after violent rains that began Friday, sweeping away homes and unearthing bodies from cemeteries.

French President Emmanuel Macron is visiting the mountainous area near the Mediterranean coast Wednesday, and promised government aid to flood victims.

The nation will not abandon any of its territories, any of its children, he said in a Facebook post before the trip. Together we will surmount this.

Still reeling days later, residents described to The Associated Press what they called the worst flooding in their lifetimes.

In the village of Saint-Martin-Vesubie, dogs barked frantically as their owners muzzled them to board evacuation helicopters for the city of Nice. One man sent his family to safety while he stayed behind to try to sort out an insurance claim, in hopes of some compensation for the damage to his home.

Residents gathered outside the town hall, hugging and trying to console each other. Someone set up a barbecue while people waited to be evacuated, grilling sausages for the group. Across the street, the town brasserie is now a field hospital and resting point for rescuers and medics working in the area. Outside one home, a van hung precariously on the edge of a cliff.

In Breil-sur-Roya, someone rescued a French tricolor flag from a bridge nearly wiped away by the floods, and hung it to dry on the remains of a tree felled by the storm. Mud caked everything cars, dishes, floors and walls.

Four deaths have been reported in France, and eight in Italy since the storm pounded Frances Alpes-Maritimes region and Italys northwestern regions of Liguria and Piedmont. The Alpes-Maritimes regional administration said about 20 people were still missing Wednesday.

The French prime minister said more than 900 rescuers, 500 police officers and some troops were involved in the emergency operation in the mountainous region, which is home to 12,000 residents.

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
Melis Myrzakmatov, the former mayor of Osh, returned to the city on October 7 and immediately addressed supporters, telling them Kyrgyzstan is "in a very dangerous situation" after opposition parties claimed the October 4 parliamentary elections were manipulated and unfair, touching off protests that turned violent.



Myrzakmatov arrived from Turkey at the Osh international airport after midnight and went to the central square, where thousands of supporters were waiting for him, according to RFE/RLs Kyrgyz Service.



Myrzakmatov urged them "to preserve national unity and resist forces interested in organizing a civil war and dividing the country."



He also said that the parliamentary elections were "very dirty" and that only worthy people should be elected to the Kyrgyz parliament.



Myrzakmatov arrived in Kyrgyzstan's second-largest city after Kyrgyz officials annulled the results of the elections following chaotic protests that broke out in Bishkek and other cities on October 5 and spilled into the next day. Various political forces claimed to have seized power in what President Sooronbai Jeenbekov described as a coup.



Jeenbekov, whose whereabouts are unknown, called for calm as he described in a brief video the actions of angry demonstrators who took over government, television, and security buildings as an attempt by some political forces to illegally seize power.



It is unclear who is in charge, with both the president and opposition parties claiming authority.

The Central Election Commission said on October 6 that the election results had been canceled and would be rerun. It provided no further details.



Myrzakmatov said "thieves and crooks" were preparing to sow confusion, "but we will not allow this and will fight for the country's integrity and its development."



The former mayor of Osh was sentenced to seven years in prison in absentia in 2015 by the Osh City Court after it found him guilty of abuse of power and corruption.



Myrzakmatov was the only prominent official with ties to former President Kurmanbek Bakiev who managed to hold onto his post after Bakiev's ouster and deadly interethnic clashes in Osh and nearby areas in 2010.



The Kyrgyz government managed to sack Myrzakmatov in December 2013 after several unsuccessful attempts.



He failed to regain his post in a January 2014 election, and later disappeared after Kyrgyz authorities began investigating allegations that he had ordered illegal infrastructure projects.



He considers the criminal case against him to be political persecution.

The political leadership in the city is currently in the hands of parliamentary deputy Duyshonkul Torokulov, but his grasp on power is tenuous. Torokulov proclaimed himself mayor, saying former mayor Taalaibek Sarybashev transferred power to him.



People attending the rally in Osh demanded the formal resignation of Sarybashev, and the Osh City Council later held an extraordinary meeting at which it showed no confidence in the mayor.



The election results in Kyrgyzstan, a close ally of Russia which has long been a platform for geopolitical competition between Moscow, Washington, and Beijing, sparked a tumultuous night of protests and clashes in Bishkek on October 5.



In chaotic scenes, demonstrators broke into the building housing the parliament and presidential offices, and set free Almazbek Atambaev, a former president jailed earlier this year on corruption charges.



Police used water cannon, rubber bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades to disperse the crowd, according to RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service. The mayhem left one person dead and 590 injured.
Special Warfare Operator First Class Adel A. Enayat is charged with with sexual assault, aggravated assault via strangulation and assault by battery

The alleged incident took place the Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq in 2019

Enayat, who denies the charges, appeared at a San Diego court on Tuesday

It is not known what the witnesses granted immunity plan to testify

Enayat's lawyer has said a number of people saw his accuser sitting on his lap

He has also argued witnesses have been reluctant to come forward

Enayat was at a San Diego court Tuesday for a hearing in his court-martial

Five sailors have been granted immunity to testify in the trial of a Navy SEAL charged with sexually assaulting a female colleague after July 4 celebrations in Iraq last year.

Special Warfare Operator First Class Adel A. Enayat, an enlisted SEAL, is charged with with sexual assault, aggravated assault via strangulation and assault by battery for allegedly biting the victim on the face, according to his charge sheet.

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He denies the charges.

The alleged incident at the Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq led to the entire Foxtrot platoon of SEAL Team 7, known as Trident 1726, being sent home early to San Diego. They had been in the country since March 2019.

It is not known what the witnesses granted immunity, which includes three Navy SEALs, plan to testify but Jeremiah Sullivan, the lawyer for Enayat, has previously said a number of people saw his accuser sitting on his lap.

Sullivan has also argued witnesses have been reluctant to come forward, in part due to the attention the trial of Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward Gallagher received.

Enayat appeared at a San Diego court Tuesday for a hearing in his ongoing court-martial, The San Diego Union Tribune reports. He will be back for a hearing next month; the trial will start in February.

Enayat appeared at a San Diego court Tuesday for a hearing in his ongoing court-martial

The alleged victim, who has not been named, is said to have been left with bruising on her jawline, breast, a shoulder, her stomach.

The Associated Press has previously reported that she told a friend the sex started out consensual in the SEAL's room, but then he started biting and choking her.

She is said to have told her friend that at one point she thought 'what is he going to do with my body when he kills me?' because she said he was strangling her so hard she couldn't breathe.

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At a previous hearing in the case, Sullivan said he was concerned Enayat, who identifies as 'non-white,' cannot get a fair trial because of systemic racism in the military justice system.

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He pointed out that there are no black judges on the Navy bench. Sullivan said Enayat is innocent and 'we look forward to trying his case in a court of law.'

The drinking at the Fourth of July barbecue in Iraq and the alleged sexual assault that same night came only two days after the acquittal of Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward Gallagher.

Gallagher was accused by his platoon members of killing a captive Islamic State fighter and shooting civilians during a deployment to Iraq in 2017.

He was also a member of SEAL Team 7 in Iraq but with a different platoon and under different leadership.

U.S. Navy SEAL Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher (R), with wife Andrea Gallagher, leaves court after being acquitted of most of the serious charges against him during his court-martial trial at Naval Base San Diego in San Diego in July last year

Gallagher  who was convicted of a single charge for posing with the dead teen militant's body for a picture  got support from President Donald Trump, who prevented the military from taking disciplinary action against the ex-SEAL, pitting the commander-in-chief against the Navy's top brass.

The Fourth of July incident led to a second ethics review of America's commando forces in a year.

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That review by the Special Operations Command found a problematic culture that overemphasized combat and put troops at times far from supervision, opening the door to inappropriate behavior.
Although hes not much of a fan of the overrated Hamilton, Donald Trump has, according to the New York Times, been a regular presence over the years at openings on Broadway, where he has said he prefers musicals and saw Evita as many as six times. What are we to make of his love for the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical, which debuted on Broadway in 1979 and was made into a 1996 film starring Madonna and Antonio Banderas?

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Evita tells the story of the rise and fall of Eva Peron (nee Duarte), beginning with her penniless origins, continuing through to her political career as the first lady to President Juan Peron of Argentina, and ending with her death from cancer. The musical frames the story of the Perons through the eyes of a sardonic everyman narrator, Che. The show wrestles with Evitas allure, simultaneously admiring her political genius and depicting her as gaudy, tasteless, and having made her career on her back. It also portrays her as the primary author of Juan Perons sham populism. In the musical, Peron is both a fascist and a bit of a bore, lacking the lupine imagination of the social-climbing radio personality he married.

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In Evita, Eva, not Juan, is the tactical mastermind of the Perons rise to power. Eva stage-manages Juans gradual appearance on the national scene and his resignation from the army. She also uses the free publicity she gets as a media figure to campaign for Juan on explicitly populist terms, promising her listeners that There is only one man who can lead any workers regime / He lives for your problems, he shares your ideal and your dreams.

It is Eva who understands the role of performance in politics. In Dont Cry for Me Argentina, the musicals most famous song, she addresses her nation with lyrics both self-pitying and patently false, claiming she never invited fortune and fame into her life and is truly dedicated to the people, not herself. Just a few minutes later, she reveals her showbiz acumenand her hypocrisyin one of the shows most embarrassing couplets: I came from the people, they need to adore me / So Christian Dior me from my head to my toes.

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The Eva Peron of Evita lives for her own advancement and stardom. She abandons the poor of Argentina to gallivant around the globe meeting leaders of various nations and only returns after a series of snubs from high-society types and diplomats. Finally turning to help the people who put her husband in office, she starts a foundation dedicated to making the dreams of her poorest constituents come trueand then loots it. As Che sings of the foundation, Accountants only slow things down, figures get in the way / Never been a lady loved as much as Eva Peron.

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In short, Evita is a musical about a couple who use populism to advance their own careers and relentlessly ransack the state while staying beloved and popular. In part due to an earlier career in broadcast media, they understand how to manipulate gullible, low-information voters furious at a seemingly rigged status quo that has shut them out. Yet they never gain social acceptance among the elite because of their tackinessmuch as the self-made millionaire hero of Trumps favorite movie, Citizen Kane, fails to make up for the lack of love in his life by launching a career in politics.

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Thanks to Ches lacerating commentary and the often insipid lyrics given to its protagonist, Evita is more takedown than hagiography, even in its most sumptuous moments. Still, its not hard to imagine Donald Trump setting aside the shows ironyfor we have seen how little power irony has over himand succumbing to the allure of Eva and Juan. Perhaps, nearly a decade from publishing The Art of the Deal, Trump saw that he could offer our nation a two-for-one, giving us Eva and Juan together in one orange, small-handed package. Sadly, as Eva died of cancer and Juan lost power in a military coup, the show offers little help to those of us who might be interested in stopping him.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-08 00:12:39|Editor: huaxia

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JOHANNESBURG, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The South African economy is likely to recover to pre-crisis levels at the end of 2021 or 2022, said the deputy governor of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Fundi Tshazibana on Wednesday while speaking at the Absa Annual Fixed Income Conference.

Tshazibana said despite the fiscal and monetary support provided, South Africa would take about two years to recover from the COVID-19 shocks.

"Private and official institutions, on balance, do not project a return of real gross domestic product (GDP) to pre-COVID-19 levels until late-2021 or even late-2022. Negative output gaps are expected to be the norm. With respect to unemployment, the consensus view is that normalization will take even longer," she said.

Tshazibana stated that while the economic activity has rebounded with the easing of lockdown, it has not reached the "normal" and pre-crisis levels.

She noted that most emerging market currencies including South Africa have stabilized, even though they remain much weaker than pre-crisis levels.

"The South African rand is currently trading at about R17.00/US$, weaker than the January 2020 average of R14.40/US$ but much improved from early April lows of R19.00/US$. Shorter-dated government bond yields are now trading lower than at the start of 2020, though yields on longer-dated bonds are higher, probably reflecting higher credit risk and debt issuance," she said.

Tshazibana said the lockdown forced many companies to adapt to different ways of work and of doing business, which, if implemented on a larger scale in the coming years, could boost production. She pointed out that automation, e-commerce and remote working have a potential to play a greater role in economic activity in the coming years.

The SARB observed that the country could benefit from the global fund managers seeking high returns outside their "safe" markets by providing the capital inflows towards emerging security markets. Enditem
Cap Guard face shields facilitate clear and effective communication. "We are missing a vital component of communication when our faces are hidden. Have you ever misunderstood a text because you were missing the emotion it was sent with?" Dr. Lisa Rose Johnson Ed. D.

Developed to allow people to interface safely and clearly, the patent pending Cap Guard face shield provides hygienic barrier protection while permitting visibility of facial expressions and lip movement for effective communication. http://www.capguard.us

Many educators struggle to teach effectively wearing a mask, and most students find wearing a mask all day to be uncomfortable lending to increased face touching which puts them at further risk. In addition, communication between teacher and student can be difficult. Dr. Lisa Rose Johnson Ed.D. is the Teacher Education SIG Representative for New Jersey Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages/New Jersey Bilingual Educators (NJTESOL/NJBE), It is difficult to assess students when they are wearing a mask. It is hard to see their mouth movements, and when they read aloud it is hard to hear what they are saying. This also makes it hard for students to learn from each other. As an ESL teacher it is important for the students to see how the sounds are made. Also, when students learn languages it is important to see how the teacher's mouth moves. All students benefit from verbal and nonverbal communication and wearing a mask makes it hard to see this. Wearing a face shield would allow for safety for students to see teachers.

As a School Solutions partner with the National School Superintendents Association (AASA), Cap Guard offers face shields to educators, students, and school communities across the country. Too often, the compromise when teacher and student get frustrated with communication is to pull down their masks. This is not a compromise. Its an unacceptable risk which can be mitigated by the wearing of a face shield such as Cap Guard that will still offer protection and simultaneously allow for full face expression and lip movement visibility.

School-based Speech Language Pathologists also encounter the same degree of difficulty when assessing students and providing speech therapy. Masks make it difficult to communicate and evaluate how a student is making certain sounds. Some schools have instituted masks with clear cut outs around the mouth to aid Speech Language Pathologists, but there have been complaints of chafed faces, chapped lips, and mouth and cheek rashes. Stacy Fronner MS CCC-SLP is a school-based Speech Language Pathologist, Some letters make very similar sounds. Masks decrease hearing acuity. I need to see a student's mouth to determine if they have correct tongue or lip placement. The placement of the mouth, lips or tongue gives me visual cues as to how the student is producing the sound. It is important to note if a student who is having difficulty producing sounds correctly is groping (moving their mouth repeatedly trying to produce the correct sound). It is important to note if a student who stutters is opening their mouth with no sounds coming out. Fronner continues, Facial expressions are an important part of communication. It is our emotions that give meaning to our words. Those emotions are conveyed through facial expression, voice, and body posture. We are missing a vital component of communication when our faces are hidden. Have you ever misunderstood a text because you were missing the emotion it was sent with?

Cap Guard supports the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and is a proud sponsor of ASHAs national conference, Practical Solutions for Elementary Assessment, Treatment, and Collaboration, for school-based Speech Language Pathologists. The online conference is active now and continues through October 10th.

Ideally, the most effective combination for maximum protection from COVID-19 transmission is wearing a mask and a shield combined with social distancing and proper hand hygiene, but this is not always functional. Educators and Speech Language Pathologists are having to work in less than ideal conditions with preventative measures varying from school to school. Some schools are set up for social distancing; others only have separation in the classrooms. Some schools allow the wearing of face shields; some schools only permit such in conjunction with wearing a mask. To further confuse the issue are the varying opinions on the efficacy of face shields put forth by the CDC, the Infectious Disease Society of America, the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, and a host of leading Epidemiologists and medical journals. A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) supported face shields for clearer communication with protection. The use of a face shield is also a reminder to maintain social distancing, but allows visibility of facial expressions and lip movements for speech perception.  Face shields offer a number of advantages. While medical masks have limited durability and little potential for reprocessing, face shields can be reused indefinitely and are easily cleaned with soap and water, or common household disinfectants. They are comfortable to wear, protect the portals or viral entry, and reduce the potential for autoinoculation by preventing the wearer from touching their face.

The Cap Guard face shield is one tool in an arsenal of PPE products and resonates well with Educators and school-based Speech Language Pathologists across the country. Cap Guard supports the National School Superintendents Association (AASA) and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and their efforts to make the 2020-2021 school year as safe and as productive as possible. Industry expert, Tim Bolton, VP-Sales for North American Plastics, Im a parent of school aged children myself, and all of us are trying to navigate through this school year. Cap Guard face shields are excellent tools in the school setting when full facial expressions and lip movement visibility are critical to the message being imparted. They also are of great additional benefit when used in conjunction with masks and following guidelines set forth by infectious disease experts.

Cap Guard features:



Adult and child sizes

100% recyclable and reusable,

Easily sanitized with antibacterial soap and water

Optically clear and scratch resistant lens

Full facial coverage, protects eyes

Facilitates effective verbal and non-verbal communication

Full visibility of facial expressions and lip movement

Less claustrophobic, eyeglasses less likely to fog

Shield easily attaches to brim of cap or visor

Provides maximum benefit when combined with a face mask

Cap Guard face shields are the clear choice of face covering alternatives as part of the overall strategy to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 in the community setting.

For further information, visit: http://www.capguard.us
A man who dressed up as the Hulk when he smashed President Donald Trumps star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last week turned himself in to Los Angeles police Monday.

James Lambert Otis, a 56-year-old activist, had done the same thing before, police say.

Otis was questioned and booked on suspicion of felony vandalism after police reviewed video footage of the incident that took place around 5:50 a.m Friday. Otis allegedly smashed the star with a pickax while he was dressed as the irascible Marvel hero.

A Hollywood Chamber of Commerce spokesperson informed The Times on Friday that damage to the plaque was over $3,000, which made the crime a felony.

It will be up to the chamber to again replace the star, just as it did in 2016 when Otis destroyed the mini-monument with a sledgehammer and pickax. That time he was charged with one felony count of vandalism.

Otis, who was not available for comment on Monday, told The Times in 2016 he had an open disdain for the then-presidential candidate.

I just sort of had enough with Mr. Trumps aggressive language toward women and his behavior, his sexual violence with women and against women, Otis said in regard to accusations of sexual assault made against the president. Ive had personally in my own family four people who have been assaulted or have had sexual violence happen to them. It all became very personal.

In 2016, Otis was dressed as a construction worker complete with a hard hat and vest.

By Andrew J. Campa, Los Angeles Times (TNS)
Japans imports of crude oil from the UAE reached 18.143 million barrels in August, according to data from Agency for Natural Resources and Energy in Tokyo, part of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.



The percentage of oil imports from the UAE amounted to 24.8 per cent of the total Japanese oil imports, reported state news agency Wam, noting that the amount of crude oil that Japan imported during that month amounted to 73.189 million barrels.








The whitepaper addresses two scenarios food and beverage business owners will need to contemplate as we remain restrained by the COVID-19 virus.

Scientists warned that the United States could face a second wave of coronavirus this fall when the global pandemic first infected the nation earlier this year. Now as the colder months are drawing near, restaurant owners are fearing two major setbacks: (1) the cold weather is setting in which will virtually eliminate dining out; (2) politicians are threatening another lockdown if COVID-19 cases increase. While indoor dining in New Jersey is still limited to 25 percent capacity, providing little relief to struggling businesses, restaurant owners are wondering how they are going to survive the days ahead.

Bielat Santore & Company has assisted owners and operators of restaurants, bars, banquet halls, hotels, and the like in navigating through the coronavirus closures since Day 1  March 16th, over 200 days ago. Along with the companys weekly Restaurant Industry Alert email bulletins, the firm launched a Resource Library page on their website featuring exclusively created resources for the food and beverage industry. The latest resource added is a whitepaper titled, Selling a Restaurant Business Amidst a Pandemic. The whitepaper addresses two scenarios food and beverage business owners will need to contemplate as we remain restrained by the COVID-19 virus.

Other beneficial resources in the Resources Library include a newly released 100 Days of Darkness E-Book, detailing the journey through the first 100 days of the global pandemic that impacted our nation, and the Restaurant Opening Playbook, a preparation and execution guide, illustrating the steps forward to successfully reopen for businesses amid Covid-19.

To view Bielat Santore & Companys Resources Library page, visit https://www.123bsc.com/resource-library/. To request a copy of these resources, email Courtney at courtney@123bsc.com or call 732.531.4200. For other Bielat Santore & Company updates, visit http://www.123bsc.com/news/.

About Bielat Santore & Company

Bielat Santore & Company is an established commercial real estate firm. The companys expertise lies chiefly within the restaurant and hospitality industry, specializing in the sale of restaurants and other food and beverage real estate businesses. Since 1978, the principals of Bielat Santore & Company, Barry Bielat and Richard Santore, have sold more restaurants and similar type properties in New Jersey than any other real estate company. Furthermore, the firm has secured in excess of $500,000,000 in financing to facilitate these transactions. Visit the companys website, http://www.123bsc.com for the latest in new listings, property searches, available land, market data, financing trends, RSS feeds, press releases and more.
(Photo : REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed) Amer, an Iraqi refugee who is waiting in Jordan for U.S. resettlement, poses outside of his home on the outskirts of the capital Amman, Jordan, September 14, 2020. Picture taken September 14, 2020. (Photo : Hootsuite) Hootsuite logo

Hootsuite has fired its whistleblower employee who disclosed about the company's $1.5 million deal with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in social media.

After some lengthy posts in September, Sam Anderson shared in Twitter on October 6 that she is no longer with the company, although it was not her decision to leave the company.

"As of yesterday morning, I am no longer employed by Hootsuite,"Anderson said adding that she is no longer sure what she can and cannot say about her departure, "but I assume it's fair to say (and also probably obvious) that it was not my decision to leave."

As of yesterday morning I am no longer employed by Hootsuite. Im not sure what I can and cant say about my departure, but I assume its fair to say (and also probably obvious) that it was not my decision to leave.  Sam | abolish the police (@samelaanderson) October 6, 2020

In September Anderson slammed her former employer for "eagerly accepting money from" from the agency which is allegedly subjecting female immigrant detainees to forced hysterectomies, locking children in cages, and separating families apart. She added that the company's decision to deal with ICE "is devastating and disgusting in a way that I can't effectively put into words."

That we are eagerly accepting money from an organization that is allegedly subjecting its female detainees to forced hysterectomies, that has a documented history of locking children in cages, that tears families apart and destroys lives is devastating and disgusting in a way  Sam | abolish the police (@samelaanderson) September 23, 2020

She also shared how ICE "targeted or harassed" the Hootsuite support team in Mexico. A day after a public outcry, the Vancouver-based company said it already terminated the discussions about the $1.5 million three-year contract with ICE on September 24.

This was after its own staff pressured the company to cancel the deal because of the U.S. immigration agency's human rights track record. Anderson also tweeted that more than 100 Hootsuite workers had been "extremely vocal in their opposition to this deal."

We typically do not make public facing statements about specific customers or contracts. However, due to the attention around this particular case we can confirm that Hootsuite has decided not to do business with the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.  Hootsuite (@hootsuite) September 24, 2020

Hootsuite CEO Tom Keiser released a statement on Twitter that explained the company's decision over the deal with agency that "sparked a great deal of internal conversation." Keiser shared that the company decided to sign a contract with ICE after considering various factors such as the power of social engagement and communications to break down barriers. The deal was also supported by a set of objective guidelines that a committee has developed.

However, the CEO noted that the company received "emotional and passionate reaction from our people" this week. Also, the decision has also divided the company," which Keiser said "is not the kind of company" that he came to lead. "As a result, we have decided to not proceed with the deal with ICE," Keiser said.

Read also: Homeland Security Used Surveillance Drones and Helicopters to Monitor George Floyd Protests

ICE controversies

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003 after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. The agency is one of three offices that assumed the functions of the now defunct United States Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It now employs more than 20,000 people.

Some politicians and activists were calling for the ICE's abolition as the immigration agency was scrutinized for its tactics under the current administration, which include separating migrant families and locking up children in cages.

In mid-September, ICE nurse Dawn Wooten filed a complaint against how women were treated at an ICE detention center in Georgia. She revealed about a concerning high number of gynecological procedures, which include hysterectomies, performed on immigrant detainees. Wooten accused ICE's main physician Dr. Mahendra Amin of performing these invasive surgeries.

House immigration subcommittee vice chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal said in a statement that at least 17 detainees at the Irwin County Detention Center were subjected to unnecessary gynecological procedures, which are often without proper consent. Jayapal expressed that the initial reports have become painfully clear as they "are likely part of a pattern of conduct."

Read also: Here's How You Can Help Families Separated At The Border

This is owned by Tech Times

Written by CJ Robles

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
As many as 39 countries at the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee on Tuesday urged China to close the detention camps in Xinjiang.We request that China close the detention camps in Xinjiang, that China stops tearing down mosques, religious sites, that China stops forced labor, and that China also stops forced birth control, Sputnik quoted German Ambassador to the United Nations Christoph Heusgen saying on behalf of the 39 UN member states to reporters. Xinjiang is home to around 10 million Uyghurs.

The Turkic Muslim group, which makes up around 45 per cent of Xinjiangs population, has long accused Chinas authorities of cultural, religious, and economic discrimination.About seven per cent of the Muslim population in Xinjiang has been incarcerated in an expanding network of political re-education camps, according to US officials and UN experts.Classified documents known as the China Cables, accessed last year by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, threw light on how the Chinese government uses technology to control Uighurs worldwide.

China put a million or more Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities into detention camps and prisons in Xinjiang over the last three years under President Xi Jinpings directives to show absolutely no mercy in the struggle against terrorism, infiltration, and separatism, revealed the documents released in US media.However, China 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.

ALSO READ: Jaishankar, Australian counterpart discuss expanding cooperation in global affairs, regional issues

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 practicing 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 Chinas atrocities on the minority Muslims.

ALSO READ: 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics: Three scientists awarded for Blackhole discoveries
In its first-ever homeland threat assessment, the department described a landscape that mostly aligns with the views of career intelligence analysts in other agencies and outside national security experts. But while the body of the report makes clear that Russia is the primary foreign threat to the 2020 elections  an assessment shared across the intelligence community  the acting homeland security secretary, Chad Wolf, offers a different emphasis in the foreword, stating that China, Russia and Iran are all seeking to disrupt the election.
The states response to the virus since the start of the pandemic has been complicated and tense as new plans and restrictions emerged. Even its public health office has been in tumult, with Dr. Paul Mariani, an infectious-disease specialist, resigning last month after just two weeks on the job.

Dr. Mariani instituted an order requiring close contacts of those with the virus to quarantine or risk a misdemeanor charge, but the governor quickly overturned it after Republican legislators and residents voiced outrage. Dr. Mariani resigned because he did not want his signature on an order he felt went against public health guidelines, Mr. Burgum explained in a news briefing. Dr. Mariani declined to be interviewed.

Around Bismarck, there is a range of responses to the virus; but people are generally left to make their own choices about the potential risks. Some cafes are bursting with maskless patrons and workers. Other businesses have limited their capacities. Around half of the customers in Als Barber Shop, near one of the citys hospitals, wear a mask, Travis Zenker, the owner, said.

All of it should be a personal choice, said Wanda Serr, owner of Little Cottage Cafe, a popular diner where workers do not wear masks.

If you feel safe, go out and do what you do; if you dont feel safe, its your right to stay home, she said.

As cases have risen, some officials have tried to press for county-level mask requirements.

I feel like Im powerless, said Renae Moch, public health director for Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health, who said she received insulting and threatening emails and Facebook messages for suggesting that the county set a mandate.

Miles from Bismarck, smaller communities have long turned to city hospitals to handle cases they do not have capacity to manage, but that is shifting.
ATLANTA, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Marine Products Corporation (NYSE: MPX) announced today that it will release its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2020 on Wednesday, October 28, 2020 before the market opens. In conjunction with its earnings release, the Company will host a conference call to review the Company's financial and operating results on Wednesday, October 28, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

Individuals wishing to participate in the conference call should dial toll-free (833) 968-2235 or (825) 312-2057 for international callers, and using conference ID number 7748667. For interested individuals unable to join via telephone, the call also will be broadcast and archived for 90 days on the Company's investor website. Interested parties are encouraged to click on the webcast link 10-15 minutes prior to the start of the conference call.

Marine Products Corporation (NYSE: MPX) is a leading manufacturer of fiberglass boats under three brand names: Chaparral, Robalo and Vortex. Chaparral's sterndrive models include SSi and SSX, along with the Chaparral Surf Series. Chaparral's outboard offerings include various models, such as OSX Luxury Sportboats, the 257 SSX, and SunCoast Sportdecks. Robalo builds an array of outboard sport fishing boats, which include center consoles, dual consoles and Cayman Bay Boat models. Chaparral also offers jet powered boats under the Vortex brand name. The Company continues to diversify its product lines through product innovation. With premium brands, a solid capital structure, and a strong independent dealer network, Marine Products Corporation is prepared to capitalize on opportunities to increase its market share and to generate superior financial performance to build long-term shareholder value. For more information on Marine Products Corporation visit our website at MarineProductsCorp.com.

For information about Marine Products Corporation or this event, please contact:

Ben Palmer

Chief Financial Officer

(404) 321-7910

[email protected]

Jim Landers

Vice President Corporate Services

(404) 321-2162

[email protected]

SOURCE Marine Products Corporation

Related Links

http://www.marineproductscorp.com


A Baltimore man was arrested and charged this week in a road-rage shooting last month on southbound Interstate 95, south of the Fort McHenry Tunnel, police said.

Sterlin Harrison, 23, of the 100 block of Augusta Avenue, is charged with first- and second-degree attempted murder in the shooting, which happened just before 8 p.m. on Sept. 12, Maryland Transportation Authority police said.

The alleged victim told police she was driving a gray, Saturn sedan when the driver of a silver Acura sedan began tailgating her car near the tunnels toll plaza, then followed her through the tunnel and pulled up alongside her, officials said.

The man, who she described as a black man in his 20s or early 30s, lowered his passenger-side window, pulled a handgun and fired at her vehicle, missing both the woman and her car, police said.

After an MDTA police investigation, Baltimore Police Department Warrant Apprehension Task Force arrested Harrison Monday, MDTA police said.

No attorney was listed for Harrison in online court records, and no phone number was listed for his address. The identity of the alleged victim was not released.

Harrison was taken to the Baltimore Central Booking & Intake Center, where he is being held without bail.

Detectives ask anyone with additional information about the incident to contact the MDTA Police Criminal Investigations Unit at 410-537-6700.



2020 The Baltimore Sun

Visit The Baltimore Sun at www.baltimoresun.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, an honest look at President Biden's press conference.

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Family of Transient Killed by OC Deputies Files Claim With County

SANTA ANA, Calif. (CNS)The family of a homeless man fatally shot during a struggle with Orange County sheriffs deputies in San Clemente last month filed a wrongful death claim with the county on Oct. 7.

The claim, which is a necessary precursor to a lawsuit, was filed on behalf of 42-year-old Kurt Andras Reinholds wife, Latoya Reinhold, and their son and daughter, ages 8 and 7.

Reinhold was shot during a scuffle with two sheriffs deputies outside of Hotel Miramar at El Camino Real and Avenida San Gabriel at about 10 a.m. on Sept. 23.

Reinhold was shot twice, was unarmed, and did not pose an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to either of the deputies, according to the claim.

The deputies, who were part of a homeless outreach team, approached Reinhold for an unknown reason, authorities said.

The familys attorney, Neil Gehlawat, said one of the deputies already had a Taser out as they approached Reinhold.

The reason for the contact remains unknown, Gehlawat said.

I guess it was because he was jaywalking, the attorney said.

But just before Reinhold reached the other side of the street, the deputies turned him around, the attorney said.

The deputies were trained to interact with transients and to deescalate tension, Gehlawat said.

Tackling him to the ground doesnt sound like deescalation to me, he said.

Sheriff Don Barnes said in a news conference after the shooting that it appeared Reinhold was attempting to clutch at one of the deputies weapons.

Barnes said one of the two deputies was heard saying, Hes got my gun, but the sheriff added it was unclear whether Reinhold managed to unholster the firearm.

This reaching for the gun is a false narrative, Gehlawat said.

If you watch the video closely, Mr. Reinhold is in a choke hold by the deputy. Hes flailing his arms, which happen to incidentally touch the holster area. Theres no physical way possible he could unholster the gun.

Reinhold was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and struggled with the mental illness for several years, Gehlawat said.

He was put on medication for it, and at times, he intermittently took the medication, so there were good days and bad days toward the end, Gehlawat said. In the last year or so it became more prominent and pronounced and he struggled with it more.

Reinholds family was supportive, but he would travel around, including in the San Francisco Bay area and then to San Clemente, Gehlawat said. Its unclear why Reinhold ended up in San Clemente.

The county has 45 days to either accept or reject the claim, which doesnt specify an award.

Barnes issued the following statement:

The Orange County Sheriffs Department extends our condolences to the family of Mr. Reinhold for their loss. Every time law enforcement contact escalates to the use of deadly force, it is tragic for the family, the deputies and the community. It is vitally important that we reserve judgment until a full and complete investigation has been completed by the Orange County District Attorneys Office.

What led to the initial contact with the deputies is part of the ongoing investigation. During the physical altercation, Mr. Reinhold grabbed one of the deputies guns. This information is shared as a factual circumstance of the encounter between the deputies and Mr. Reinhold, and not to excuse or assign blame to either party.

With the current state of police community relations, we should not tolerate attempts to inflame and drive a narrative that does not fully capture the context of this singular incident.

The Orange County Sheriffs Department takes seriously our responsibility to provide professional and transparent law enforcement services to our community. As your sheriff, I commit to being forthright and transparent as this investigation continues.
Two consumer advocacy groups filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this week against CenterPoint Energy of Houston for allegedly failing to disclose its recent financial ties to a New York hedge fund.

Washington-based Public Citizen and Indianapolis-based Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana said in its complaint that the Houston area's regulated utility had a responsibility to notify federal energy regulators that Elliott Management invested $1.35 billion in CenterPoint in exchange for significant management concessions, including Elliotts choice for board members and a new CEO.

CenterPoint agreed to install two new board members preferred by Elliott, including former Halliburton CEO David J. Lesar and Barry T. Smitherman, an energy lawyer who has served as chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas and the Public Utility Commission of Texas, according to the complaint. A month later Lesar was named CEO of CenterPoint.

Details of the arrangement are hidden in two confidentiality agreements between CenterPoint and Elliott, according to the complaint. The agreements and the investment was noted in securities filings by CenterPoint on May 7.

Elliott has a reputation for pressuring companies to divest operations or sell outright. Elliott launched a proxy fight that forced the oil and gas producer Hess Corp. to divest its refining assets in 2013. Four years later, Elliott tried to force Hess to oust its CEO and sell the company.

Three years ago, Elliott teamed up with another investor and extracted a deal from merchant power company NRG Energy that ultimately resulted in NRG launching a plan to divest $4 billion in assets, including wind and solar projects.

Federal rules require utilities to disclose within 30 days any significant change related to company control to FERC, according to the complaint. FERC regulates CenterPoints utility in Indiana, the Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Co. The Public Utility Commission regulates CenterPoint in Texas.

The last time FERC approved a notice of change in status for CenterPoint was May 2019 to reflect CenterPoint's acquisition of Southern Indiana Gas and Electric, said Tyson Slocum, energy program director for Public Citizen and author of the complaint.

RELATED: CenterPoint at crossroads as David Lesar takes reins as CEO

More hedge funds are investing in power companies, said Slocum. The Federal Power Act was designed for transparency so citizens know who owns and controls power companies.

CenterPoint is aware the complaint has been filed and is reviewing it, according to CenterPoint spokeswoman Alicia Dixon.

Elliott Management did not respond to requests for comment.
Students ran across town to honour the life of Canadian icon Terry Fox on Thursday with teachers in tow. As part of the annual National Terry Fox Run, Swan Hills School raised $2529.50 for cancer research funding through sponsorships and fundraising.

Kindergartens were given the task of a brisk walk around the block near the school, while Grades 1 through 3 ran relay laps around the school. Many were extremely tired by the end, but they preserved, much like Fox did during his monumental run. Older grades moved in cohorts to accommodate for social distancing and cohorts. It took about 45 minutes for the older grades to complete the entire run. As part of the reward for raising the schools goal of $1000, Principal Slade Sekulich will sing the announcements on a date TBA.

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One week after the fatal tanker explosion in Lokoja, Kogi State capital, another tanker laden with petrol has been involved in an accident on the same road in the Felele area of the city.

Not less than 23 persons died in the September 23 fire incident, PREMIUM TIMES reported.

Governor Yahaya Bello in his reaction at the time blamed the incident on bad roads abandoned by the federal government.

He also called the attention of the minister of works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, to some of the roads.

However, in a statement issued on Wednesday, the states commissioner for information, Kingsley Fanwo, said another tanker loaded with petrol was involved in an accident.

He said the government has put in place necessary safety measures and deployed officials of the fire service and other security personnel to the scene of the accident to avert human casualties.

Government is by way of this announcement, strongly advising members of the public who are scooping the PMS from the fallen tanker to desist from such a dangerous act immediately to avoid plunging the state into another tragedy.

Anyone found to be engaging in activities capable of endangering the lives of the people around the accident scene will be made to face the full wrath of the law.

Residents of the area should go about their normal businesses with caution as the government is in full charge of the situation, the statement read.

Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES on Wednesday evening, the Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Idris Fika, said the accident was caused by brake failure.

He noted that there was no casualty or injury sustained and that the PMS has been transferred into another tanker.

We made sure it didnt catch fire. Everyone was present and we tried every means to control the situation. The petrol has been transferred into another tanker, he said.
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With Disneyland still closed to the public amid the coronavirus pandemic, one California family is enjoying a very impressive substitute.

Grandfather Steve Dobbs has constructed his own miniature theme park in the backyard of his Fullerton home so that his grandchildren can experience the kind of magic that's usually found at the 'Happiest Place on Earth'.

Named 'Dobbsland', the mini theme park features its own Main Street USA, a Sleeping Princess Castle and a Madderhorn roller coaster.

Dobbs, who is a retired Boeing engineer, first began working on the theme park about a decade ago, creating a Pirates of the Caribbean themed ride for his oldest grandchildren.

Those kids are now in their late teens, but Dobbs has continued construction of the park for their younger siblings and cousins, and it has become a special place for the entire family to gather amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Grandfather Steve Dobbs has constructed his own miniature theme park in the backyard of his Fullerton home. Named 'Dobbsland', the space has become a beloved haven for the retired engineer's young grandchildren

The mini theme park features its own Main Street USA, a Sleeping Princess Castle and Madderhorn roller coaster. Two of Dobbs' grandchildren are seen enjoying the space

Dobbs pays attention to detail in the creation of his park's attractions. Main Street USA is seen lit up in lights as his granddaughters watch a film at the 'Cinema'

Dobbs and his 10-year-old granddaughter Ruby spent some of the shutdown period working on the theme park's latest attraction - 'Safari Ride'.

'The whole thing was her idea,' Dobbs proudly told San Francisco Gate on Tuesday.

'I helped her, but she designed it on the computer, with the animation and everything.'

The ride consists of a mechanized sled that stops at various stations created to look like exotic parts of the world.

Together, the grandfather and granddaughter constructed an 'African Savanna' scene, an 'Alaskan Wilderness' scene, and a 'South East Asian Jungle Ruins' scene, complete with fake snake designed on a 3-D printer.

The theme park helps the young children learn real life skills in addition to stimulating their imaginations.

'Everything they do, it's part of their education,' Dobbs stated.

Dobbs and his 10-year-old granddaughter Ruby spent some of the shutdown period working on the theme park's latest attraction - 'Safari Ride'. Ruby is pictured working on some art for the installation

Proud Ruby is seen outside her Safari attraction in a photograph taken back in May

Dobbs currently teaches part-time at Cal Poly Pomona, and his students have also been involved in the construction of his theme park.

The Madderhorn roller coaster - which goes up to 12 mph - was a senior project for nine students at the school.

In order to made sure it met compliance, Dobbs hired the same engineering team that approves Disney rides to come and give it the tick of approval.

'I said to them, you'd better make it safe, because my grandkids are going to be riding it!' he stated.

Dobbs currently teaches part-time at Cal Poly Pomona, and his students have also been involved in the construction of his theme park - including the roller coaster

In order to made sure it met compliance, Dobbs hired the same engineering team that approves Disney rides to come and give it the tick of approval

Dobbs is a former Boeing engineer, and the construction of his Dobbsland rides require careful planning

As the coronavirus pandemic stretches on, the real Disneyland remains closed, much to the disappointment of millions of American children.

But for Dobbs' lucky grandkids, his theme park remains very much open - and a new attraction is already in the works.

Opening soon at Dobbsland is a 'Harry Potter Quidditch zipline ride', which will see riders attempt to throw a golden snitch through a moving target as they zip along in mid-air.
In a townhouse near Wilfrid Laurier University, 21-year-old student Ryan Lane lives with his four roommates, and  more often than not  three of their significant others. It is, Lane said, a pretty packed house. So, theyve been trying this fall to keep their bubble tight.

That meant no outside friends, unless the visit was in their yard out back. They have a group chat to coordinate which floor of the house has to be quiet and when, to work with each of their Zoom call requirements and give space when someone has to study or write a midterm.

We all keep each other accountable, and before we go out and do anything that would be out of the ordinary, we make sure we check with everyone, and make sure everyones comfortable, said Lane.

If they didnt trust even one or two housemates to follow the rules, the arrangement would fall apart. This is something we talked about coming into SeptemberIm not going to come back here if were not going to be safe.

As students approach the first long weekend of the school year, a time when many traditionally head home for Thanksgiving, the Star checked in with several students living in larger houses about how theyve been managing pandemic precautions and studying from home  as well as the potential risks to their families if they return home from campus for the weekend.

Lane noted that one of his family members is immunocompromised, and that risk had informed his choices about exposure since returning to school  he wanted to be able to visit over the coming long weekend without worrying about harming them.

Each of the students who spoke to the Star said they believed their house was taking public health considerations seriously  though several acknowledged that theyd been inside the same house with more than 10 people since returning to campus.

Other students, in their view, were being less responsible.

I definitely dont think people are being safe and taking this seriously at all, said Cassidy McMackon, a fifth-year student at Queens University. I had a guy on Tinder say, actually, Im having a party tonight, do you want to come?

McMackon pointed to a house party that took place on Sept. 18, which had been connected to at least five COVID-19 cases by Oct. 1.

Some of the individuals associated with that party were Queens students, the local public health unit confirmed to the Star. The university said that 20 cases from the campus community have been reported to them between Aug. 31 and Oct. 4, including 10 last week.

McMackon said she lives with three other Queens students and a member of the military. Three of them had significant others, all of whom had visited  two lived locally and one had been back and forth from Sudbury.

Then there were their friends. I have one friend whos come over a couple times, and then theres been two other people weve been seeing, she said. Two of those friends live together, while the other lived in a separate house. She said shed visited his home since returning to school, and wasnt too concerned about exposure to his other housemates.

I do think the people that are really behaving themselves, for lack of a better word, are suffering, said McMackon.

Before public health began advising households only to see one another, when circles of 10 were allowed, she said larger houses were unable to have friends over and might be forced to choose how many housemates could see their significant others.

I think it definitely presents challenges, especially because if (even) one person in the house comes into contact with a COVID case, everyone else is kind of screwed over, she said.

McMackon said some of her housemates plan to spend Thanksgiving in the GTA, but said she trusted them all to be safe. Im not worried about when they come back, she added.

Toronto Mayor John Tory, on CP24 Monday, urged families not to convene with university-aged kids for the holiday.

Unfortunately, that is the advicetheyre going to come home into a setting with their parents who might be up into that age range where, you know, theres a vulnerability there, said Tory.

But Luke Jin, 21, a student at the University of Torontos Scarborough campus, said he doesnt believe that message has been communicated adequately to postsecondary students  including himself.

The first he heard of that advice was from a Star reporter, he said. Lane, too, said he hadnt heard the guidance about Thanksgiving before being asked about it on Tuesday.

If the rules were set in stone, Jin said that he and his housemates would follow them, but his plans until that point had been to visit his family in Ottawa over the coming weekend.

He and his three housemates have been around roughly 15 people recently, he said  including the four of them. All of those friends either lived with each other or on their own, he added.

Earlier in the fall, theyd had events like cookouts at their house, but whittled them back as cases began to climb. Especially because reading week and Thanksgiving are coming up, Jin said. Its not like we want to pass it to our families, who I guess are higher risk than us.

Jim Dunn, chair of McMasters department of health, aging and society, said it wasnt surprising to him that Jin didnt know what the public health guidance was for Thanksgiving. He pointed out that Ontarios chief medical officer of health last week answered a question about Thanksgiving gatherings by advising people to ensure their turkeys were fully cooked.

What shocks me about the current situation is there seems to be an incredible reluctance to tell people specifically what to do, Dunn said.

The province has since advised households not to mix during Thanksgiving, with Minister of Colleges and Universities Ross Romano saying Tuesday that students should stay put this weekend.

They are young adults, and I trust that they will make smart decisions, he said. I trust that they are going to respect their own health and safety, and the health and safety of their family and their extended family.

Dunn pointed to a cluster of COVID-19 cases at Western University last month as an example of how activities that would be seen as quite innocent in usual times could contribute to outbreaks. Eleven cases within the outbreak were linked to three student houses.

If students were living in larger houses, Dunn said there should be clear communication not to interact with anybody else, or travel home to visit family this weekend.

Have a Thanksgiving with only your roommates, Dunn said. Thats one way to manage your risk.

With files from Ann Marie Elpa and Kris Rushowy

Victoria Gibson is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering affordable housing. Her reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Reach her via email: victoriagibson@thestar.ca

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The Indian Air Force (IAF) Day is celebrated every year on October 8 and on Thursday the IAF will proudly observe its 88th anniversary. On the occasion, a scintillating air display by various aircraft will be the hallmark of the Air Force Day Parade cum Investiture Ceremony at Air Force Station Hindan (Ghaziabad) near Delhi.

On the ocassion, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh wished the air warriors and their families. Taking to Twitter, he wrote, "I am confident that the IAF will always guard the nation's skies, come what may. Here's wishing you blue skies and happy landings always."

I am confident that the IAF will always guard the Nation's skies, come what may. Here's wishing you blue skies and happy landings always.  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) October 8, 2020

SEE PICS: IAF's frontline war machines Rafale, Sukhoi-30 MKI, Apache, Tejas, Gajraj to showcase its firepower on IAF Day 2020

IAF's frontline warplanes like Rafale, Su-30MKI, Apache, Tejas, 'Gajraj' will showcase its lethal firepower. 56 aircraft, including 19 fighters and seven transport aircraft along with 19 helicopters, would be taking part in aerial display during this year's Air Force Day Parade, according to a press release by the IAF.

The Rafale fighter aircraft would fly in the Vijay formation along with the Jaguars and then in the Transformer formation with the Sukhoi-30 MKI and Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas fighter aircraft during the IAF Day parade this year.

Date and time of the event: The Indian Air Force Day will be celebrated on October 8 (Thursday) at the Hindon Base in Ghaziabad. The ceremony usually starts at 8 am and continues till 11 am.

Why Indian Air Force Day is celebrated on October 8? The IAF was founded on October 8, 1932, and the force has participated in several crucial wars and landmark missions. It was officially established as an auxiliary air force of the British Empire which honoured India's aviation service during World War II with the prefix Royal. After India gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, the name Royal Indian Air Force was kept and served in the name of Dominion of India. With the government's transition to a Republic in 1950, the prefix Royal was removed.

#AFDay2020

A momentous journey of Eighty Eight Years. Indian Air Force is ever ready to INNOVATE , INTEGRATE & INTIMIDATE. Promo video of IAF on the occasion of 88th Anniversary. Jai Hind! pic.twitter.com/8hFIzCqpdb  Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) October 5, 2020

Since 1950 the IAF has been involved in four wars with neighbouring Pakistan and one with the People's Republic of China. Other major operations undertaken by the IAF include Operation Vijay, Operation Meghdoot, Operation Cactus and Operation Poomalai. The IAF's mission expands beyond engagement with hostile forces, with the IAF participating in United Nations peacekeeping missions.

The IAF is the air arm of the Indian Armed Forces and its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during armed conflict. Its complement of personnel and aircraft assets ranks fourth amongst the air forces of the world. During the event, IAF chief and senior officials of the three armed forces are present. An air show by various aircraft is displayed by the pilots.

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The President of India holds the rank of Supreme Commander of the IAF. The Chief of Air Staff, an air chief marshal, is a four-star officer and is responsible for the bulk of operational command of the Air Force. There is never more than one serving ACM at any given time in the IAF.

However, this year the events related to Air Force Day celebrations have been scaled down due to ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The regular scheduled events related to veterans at Delhi/NCR has been cancelled.

An official statement read, "Events related to Air Force Day celebrations have been scaled down due to ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic. Accordingly, the regular scheduled events related to veterans at Delhi/NCR stand cancelled."
Russia's richest woman Yelena Baturina has refused to discuss her alleged payment of $3.5 million to Joe Biden's son Hunter.

But her brother, Viktor Baturin, 63, has told DailyMail.com the money was 'a payment to enter the American market.'

Joe Biden was the vice president when Baturina wired the money in a series of payments to a bank account held by Hunter's investment firm Rosemont Seneca Thornton in 2014, according to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The following year, she opened up an office in the US to oversee her investments in America. In 2016, she launched her first development project, investing $10 million in commercial buildings next to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

The ultra-wealthy 57-year-old has long been dogged by corruption allegations, stemming from when her late husband, who was the mayor of Moscow, awarded her with lucrative government business contracts, helping her grow the business.

The suspicion the money was given to Hunter in order to influence Joe has been a battle cry of corruption for Republicans, as it would be considered illegal to try to influence a public official into creating policies that would favor Hunter's interests.

President Trump referenced the alleged payment during the first presidential debate, but Joe Biden flatly denied his 50-year-old son had received the Russian's money.

Baturina, whose estimated fortune is around $1.3 billion, told DailyMail.com she was 'not interested' in explaining an alleged consultancy fee. Hunter's lawyer denied he received $3.5 million from Baturina, claiming he wasn't a co-founder of the investment firm.

But now, in a bizarre twist, her brother Viktor claimed 'it was a payment to enter the American market' while also suggesting she may have been 'set up' into making a payment.

Russia's richest woman Yelena Baturina has refused to discuss her alleged payment of $3.5 million to Joe Biden's son Hunter, as her brother claimed she may have been 'set up'

Last month, the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said Baturina wired the money in a series of payments to a bank account held by Hunter's investment firm Rosemont Seneca Thornton in 2014

Baturina is the widow of former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov (pictured together), who died in 2019 and was Mayor between 1992 and 2010. He was fired by Russia's then president Dmitry Medvedev over corruption allegations, which were never proven in court prior to his death last year

Baturina said in a statement in 2016 about her new US business activities: 'We've managed to make a number of investments at a very good moment - in the situation when the market dropped after 2008.

'Today the market has without a doubt fully recovered, and the forecast for the future is very good  the rental sector is particularly stable.

'In this regard, we plan to expand our operations, and are considering the acquisition of a number of similar projects. '

Baturina and her brother have long had an unpredictable business and personal relationship. Both were involved from the start in her company, a plastics turned construction firm INTECO, the basis of her fortune.

Her brother Viktor Baturina, 63, claimed 'it was a payment to enter the American market' while also suggesting she may have been 'set up' into making a payment

The businessman said: 'Yelena, due to her nature, is not involved in anything on her own.

'Some proposals are prepared for her, she considers them and says - 'yes, we'll do it'.

'As I understand it, the people around her offered her a set of steps for entering the American market.

'They proposed this scheme.

'Of course, I'm not surprised, there were no special goals.

'It was a pure business, her subordinates proposed a scheme to her and she then had no option but to take responsibility.

'I believe they explained to her that it was a payment to enter the American market.'

In a separate interview, he said: 'Her subordinates probably set her up.'

Baturina is the widow of former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, who died in 2019 and was mayor between 1992 and 2010. The two met in 1987 while working on Moscow's council committees before marrying in 1991.

Much of Baturina's fortune was built on her plastics-turned-construction firm Inteco, which dominated the construction business in Moscow - thanks in part to lucrative government contracts granted while her husband was mayor.

There was outcry in 1995 when her firm was awarded a contract with Moscow to build seats for the 81,000-person Luzhniki Stadium, the city's largest stadium. Critics accused Luzhkov of corruption by awarding the contract to his wife.

Baturina's firm later shifted into construction and was credited with receiving up to 20 percent of Moscow's new construction contracts.

Luzhkov was fired in 2010 by Russia's then president Dmitry Medvedev over corruption allegations, which were never proven in court prior to his death.

Much of Baturina's fortune was built on her plastics-turned-construction firm Inteco, which dominated the construction business in Moscow - thanks in part to lucrative government contracts granted while her husband was mayor. Pictured: Baturina and Luzhkov in 2016

Luzhkov denied claims of wrongdoing or corruption, saying he was falsely accused because he refused to support Medvedev. Still, because of the 'political difficulties', Baturina moved herself and her two daughters to London in 2011. Pictured: Baturina with her two daughters at Luzhkov's funeral in 2019

Luzhkov denied claims of wrongdoing or corruption, saying he was falsely accused because he refused to support Medvedev.

Still, because of the 'political difficulties', Baturina moved herself and her two daughters to London in 2011.

Since moving to England, Baturina still remained in the public eye, most recently last year when she suddenly quit from her trustee position for the Mayor's Fund for London, which pays for education programs in deprived areas of the city.

She resigned after an investigation revealed a board member at her own foundation was being prosecuted for alleged money laundering and tax crimes in Spain. The alleged crimes were not in relation to his work at her charity.

It was only last month when Baturina's connection to Hunter Biden came to light in the recent GOP report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The report stated the transactions occurred in February 2014 - while Joe Biden was still vice president.

It quickly drew outcry from some Republicans, although the report doesn't indicate there was anything illegal about the transaction.

Critics have long claimed Hunter 'cashed in on Joe Biden's vice presidency' by obtaining high-paying positions, such as his board position with Ukraine energy company Bursima. He got the job in April of 2014 and stepped down in 2019.

The report states: 'Hunter Biden's position on Burisma's board was problematic and did interfere in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine.'

Still, the findings did not show that Hunter's dealings ever influenced Joe Biden or impacted the White House's policy.

President Trump referenced the alleged payment during the first presidential debate on Tuesday, but Joe Biden flatly denied his 50-year-old son had received the Russian's money

The GOP report also states that between May 6, 2015 and December 8, 2015, Baturina sent 11 wires in the amount of $391,968.21 to a bank account belonging to BAK USA LLC, a technology startup based in Buffalo, New York. The transactions all listed 'Loan Agreement' in the payment details section.

Nine of the 11 transactions, totaling $241,797.14 were first sent from Baturina's accounts to a Rosemont Seneca Thornton bank account, which then transferred to the money to BAK USA, according to the report.

BAK USA, which proposed to manufacture computer tablets in partnership with unnamed Chinese partners, was repeatedly touted by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo as a success story in his tax-break scheme to lure startups.

The company filed for bankruptcy liquidation in 2019 with $39.4 million in debts and just $147,000 in assets. It's unclear what connection Hunter Biden or his firm had to the now-defunct company.

Biden's campaign immediately panned the report, released six weeks before the election, as an effort by an ally of President Donald Trump's to damage his election opponent.

The campaign said the investigation was founded on 'a long-disproven, hardcore rightwing conspiracy theory' and, even before the report was released, issued a detailed statement aiming to rebut point-by-point allegations that it said had long been debunked by media organizations as well as by U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

Democrats have accused Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, the Homeland Security chair, of a politically motivated initiative at a time when they say the committee should be focused on the pandemic response and other, less partisan issues.

Johnson has acknowledged in interviews that he hoped to complete the report before the election, telling The Associated Press that the 'American people deserve the truth' about his probe.

Baturina is the widow of former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who died in 2019 and was Mayor between 1992 and 2010. Pictured: Vladimir Putin with Yelena Baturina at her husband's funeral in December 2019

As Baturina refuses to answer comments about the payment, she is nowhere to be seen at her palatial five story multi-million dollar home in London. Her luxury home is located in London's Kensington area which is a few minutes walk from the palace home of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

But he has also been on the defensive over Democratic accusations that his investigation was serving to amplify Russian disinformation. He has denied receiving information from Andrii Derkach, the Ukrainian lawmaker singled out by intelligence officials.

Baturina, who has refused to answer questions about the payment, has not bee seenn at her palatial five story multi-million dollar home in London's Kensington area, a few minutes walk from the palace home of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

The home, which has animal sculptures at the front and is in a street lined with Porsches, Mercedes, Rolls Royces and other high end cars, had the blinds drawn on its 13 street facing windows.

The property was bought in 2013 through a company in Gibraltar and was obtained through a mortgage provided by a private bank based in the UK, the Channel Islands and Gibralter.

Houses in the area can be bought for around $12 million and the late Hollywood film director Michael Winner used to live nearby.

A security official said: 'I have read these stories about Hunter Biden but she is not here to talk to you.'

Her daughters Olga, 26 and Elena Luzhiova, 28, have also been registered at the property.
F at shaming is undoubtedly a grisly business. Unless you happen to be an Alaskan brown bear, that is.

In fact, the chunky inhabitants of the state's Katmai National Park and Preserve are celebrated for their heft and now have a new heavyweight champion in their ranks.

After a week of voting, the park has crowned bear 747 the winner of Fat Bear Week 2020.

The annual tournament celebrates the success of the pre-hibernation preparations by bears at Brooks River and between September 30 and October 6 social media followers weigh in on which animal was the fattest of them all.

"For each set of two bears, vote for one who you think is the fattest," the competition's website explained. "The bear with the most votes advances. Only one will be crowned champion of Fat Bear Week."

Announcing the winner of the knock-out competition on Tuesday, the park said in a Twitter post: "Youve crowned the Earl of Avoirdupois, bear 747, the 2020 Fat Bear Week Champion."

It added: "No longer the runner-up, 747 fulfills the fate of the fat and fabulous as he heads off to hibernation."

According to the competition's website, 747 appears to weigh at least 1,400 pounds and has become one of the most dominant bears at the park.

"Hes found most often in the jacuzzi or the far pool," 747's online biography reads.

"Only rival males of comparable size, of which there are very few, can challenge him for fishing spots."

Meanwhile, in a nod to all of this year's competitors, including second-placed Chunk, organisers of the tournament said its contestants "exemplify the richness of Katmai National Park and Bristol Bay, Alaska", describing it as "a wild region that is home to more brown bears than people and the largest, healthiest runs of sockeye salmon left on the planet".

The tournament, which helps raise funds for conservation, research, and protection of the park's hefty inhabitants, coincides with the bears being at their biggest in preparation for their months-long hibernation during the winter.

The animals lose around a third of their body weight during their hibernation, so bulking up in advance is essential.
Details surrounding a free handicapping contest that will be taking place this coming Sunday (Oct. 11) for the Red Mile's Kentucky Futurity Day card have been announced.

The United States Harness Writers Association (USHWA) will host the next free harness racing handicapping contest on Scott Albergs Facebook page on Sunday, October 11.

One of the Red Mile races will be the special race that contestants will be challenged to handicap. Entry is free of charge and there is no purchase necessary to play. All you have to do is select the correct exactor (first two official finishers in the race -- must submit their starting post position by number).

National USHWA is sponsoring the three prizes that will be given away. First place will receive a $150 gift card, second place a $75 gift card and third place a gift box with 30 different popular candy bars in it.

Scott Alberg, the 2006 National Harness Handicapping Champion, who also has numerous other handicapping titles, has been a Standardbred owner in the past, and has agreed to partner with USHWA as the contest's title sponsor.

To enter the free contest, fans must go to Scott Albergs Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/scott.alberg.3), where the contest will be prominently displayed. Entries will be accepted beginning Friday, October 9. Alberg, as he has done in the past, will run the contest. Participants have until 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning (Oct. 11) to enter the contest. All rules and regulations will be posted for the contest.

Anyone who is not on Facebook can still enter the contest by sending in their selections via email to [email protected].

USHWA members Garnet and Nicholas 'Ace' Barnsdale will host the Facebook Live draw to determine the contest winners at 8:00 p.m. Sunday, October 11 at www.facebook.com/USHarnessWriters.

For more information, check out Scott Albergs Facebook Page, USHWAs Facebook Page, Twitter and Instagram accounts or the USHWA website at www.usharnesswriters.com. A list of prize winners is available anytime from either Scott Albergs Facebook page or via email at [email protected].

Current USHWA members are not eligible for the contest.

(USHWA)
Pham Doan Trang, one of Vietnams most prominent activists and independent journalists, has been arrested for alleged propaganda against the state, according to a rights group.

Ms Trang was reportedly arrested at 11:30 p.m. (1630 GMT) in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday, the same day Vietnam and the U.S. held the 24th Annual U.S. Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue, which included wide-ranging discussions on human rights, including freedom of expression.

In a statement issued on Wednesday morning, Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, strongly condemned Ms Trangs arrest, saying: Even after suffering years of systemic government harassment, including severe physical attacks, she has remained faithful to her principles of peaceful advocacy for human rights and democracy.

Her thoughtful approach to reforms, and demands for peoples real participation in their governance, are messages the Vietnam government should listen to and respect, not repress, he added.

Vietnamese authorities charged Ms Trang with making, storing, disseminating or propagandising information that aims to oppose the Vietnamese state, for which the harshest sentence is 20 years in prison.

In 2018, Ms Trang was given the Homo Homini Award by Czech-based human rights organisation, People In Need.

In 2019, Reporters without Borders awarded her a Press Freedom Prize in recognition of the impact of her work.

Ms Trang is the author of numerous books and a frequently publishing journalist, activist and blogger whose work has covered topics including LGBT rights, womens rights, environmental issues, police brutality, the suppression of activists, and land rights.

Her arrest comes amid a clampdown on journalists and activists ahead of Vietnams five-yearly National Congress in January.

(dpa/NAN)
Kurukshetra: Amid the ongoing border tension between India and China, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi has said that he would have thrown the Chinese troops out of the Indian territory in just 15 minutes if his party was in power at the Centre.

The Gandhi scion also made a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his governments inept handling of the India-China border row.

The Congress MP from Keralas Wayanad made these remarks while addressing a public gathering at Anaj Mandi in Haryana's Kurukshetra on Tuesday night.

He is currently touring Punjab and Haryana as part of his Kheti Bachao Yatra.`

Live TV

Calling PM Modi is a "coward," Rahul Gandhi said, The coward PM says that no one has taken our land. Today, there is only one country in the world whose land has been taken by another country. India is the only country where another country came in and took away 1200 square km. And PM calls himself a `deshbhakt` and the whole country knows that China`s forces are inside our territory, what kind of patriot he is? If we were in power we would have thrown out China in less than 15 minutes."

I guarantee you when our government was there, China did not have enough power to put even one step in our country. There is only one nation in the entire world whose land has been usurped and that is India and they call themselves patriots," he added.

Earlier on Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi offered prayers at Geeta Sthali in Kurukshetra.
Nurburgring boss Mirco Markfort is hoping this weekend's race at the famous venue boosts the chances of a proper return to the Formula 1 calendar.

Before this weekend's race, the Nurburgring last hosted a Formula 1 race in 2013, in the final installation of the annual 'alternating' arrangement with Hockenheim.

Since then, Germany has dropped off the calendar altogether - but amid the covid crisis and race cancellations, Nurburgring boss Markfort put together a one-off deal for 2020.

The October date is expected to bring inclement weather.

"The weather looks like it's going to be a lot colder than the races we've had so far this year, and there may be a little bit of rain so hopefully that will make it an even more interesting race weekend," said Max Verstappen.

Nurburgring boss Markfort is happy that Mick Schumacher, the son of local hero Michael Schumacher, will be in action for Alfa Romeo on Friday.

"Mick Schumacher in particular could trigger another German hype," he told SID news agency.

"With a strong Mick Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel there are of course the chances for a lot of spectators, which could be another small plus for Germany as a Formula 1 location."

In fact, the covid situation means that only 20,000 spectators will be present, with Markfort assuring them that the health concept ensures their safety.

"We have grandstands that are spread over the entire area, so we can assign a parking space to each grandstand, which means we have good separation," he explained.

If the weekend proceeds smoothly, Markfort thinks more Formula 1 races at the Nurburgring are even possible for the future.

"We offer a unique location, we are a unique brand, and we have proven in these times that we are very flexible," he said.

However, he admits that another alternating scheme with Hockenheim is the more likely scenario for the future of the German GP.

"That would be the best option from an entrepreneurial point of view," said Markfort.

(GMM)
A 5-year-old boy from Scappoose, Oregon, was so distressed about the raging wildfires in his state that he decided he wanted to help the firefighters. His grandmother took him to the store, and the little boys carefully chosen gift is now a front line mascot.

Sasha Tinning took her grandson, Carver, shopping for supplies to contribute to a donation drive for firefighters in the Oregonian cities of Molalla and Colton. Carver soon found the perfect way, in his opinion, to send a little positive force to the front lines: a Baby Yoda doll that he found on a toy aisle.

For those unfamiliar with The Child, more commonly known as Baby Yoda, the little green character is from the Star Wars Disney+ original television series The Mandalorian.

Carver, 5, with Baby Yoda before sending his care package. (Courtesy of Tyler Eubanks)

The thoughtful Carver, who likes to make people smile, thought that the firefighters needed the Baby Yoda doll more than he did. He then put together a care package, including the toy and a handwritten note.

Carver walked up, and he had his mask, and he said he was bringing something for the firefighters, Tinning told Fox 12 Oregon.

Thank you, firefighters, he penned on the note. Here is a friend for you, in case you get lonely. Love, Carver.

Firefighters take turns carrying Baby Yoda on front line expeditions. (Courtesy of Tyler Eubanks)

Tinning voiced appreciation for the firefighters putting their lives on the line to battle the wildfires. To have a little bit of sunshine during such a dark time, I think thats really special for them, she told CNN, praising Carvers choice of toy for being just cute as the dickens.

The 5-year-olds thoughtfulness hit the spot. Days later, the head of the donation drive, Tyler Eubanks, reported back to Tinning that the firefighters loved Baby Yoda. He was accompanying them everywhere.

Baby Yoda with a battle-ready head wrap printed with the American flag. (Courtesy of Tyler Eubanks)

Front line crews even set up a Facebook group, Baby Yoda fights fires, to document the comforting dolls adventures with his new brigade. The toy, a friend for all, has since been passed from camp to camp. On one expedition, he made it as far as Canada.

At the time of writing, Baby Yoda is bringing a little force to the firefighting effort in Boulder, Colorado. His fan page has 44,753 followers and counting.

Appreciative fire crews with Baby Yoda. (Courtesy of Tyler Eubanks)

The cherubic future Jedi master is spreading joy even beyond the front lines, but the front lines are where its needed most.

These firefighters are away from their children, their loved ones, Tinning reflected. This is a little pal that brings a bit of normalcy to a crazy time.

In this aerial view from a drone, people walk through a mobile-home park destroyed by fire on Sept. 10, 2020, in Phoenix, Ore. Hundreds of homes in the town have been lost due to wildfire. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc
Chandigarh: Haryana Chief Secretary Vijai Vardhan on Wednesday told the deputy commissioners that gram sabhas should pass resolutions against stubble burning, according to an official statement here. Besides this, Vardhan, who was presiding over a meeting with the DCs through video conferencing, directed them to ensure the availability of crop residue management machinery to small and marginal farmers on a priority basis.

He said that every sarpanch should hold a meeting of the gram sabha and should pass a resolution not to burn stubble. Vardhan also directed them to carry out a comprehensive awareness campaign at the district-level, block, and village level, so as to make the people aware about ill effects of stubble burning on the environment.

He said that activities like organising seminars and wall painting should be carried out. The chief secretary said that all those panchayats, which earlier came in the red zone on stubble burning but now perform well under the crop residue management will be rewarded at the state level.

He said that the panchayat, which gets the first, second and third position, will be rewarded an amount of Rs 10 lakh, Rs 5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh, respectively. Notably, every year, Punjab and Haryana are blamed for rising air pollution and smog due to stubble burning by farmers.

The chief secretary directed the DCs to ensure adequate supply crop residue management machinery in districts, allocation of 70 per cent machinery to custom hiring centeres and farmers, especially small and marginal farmers. In the meeting, Additional Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, V Umashankar informed that a system has been developed to closely monitor and control the incidence of crop residue burning. Under this, an SMS will be sent by state authorities twice a day to sarpanches, village secretaries, deputy directors, agriculture departments, tehsildars and deputy commissioners if stubble is found burning in the range of 100 to 115 m, based on the satellite image so that the officers concerned can visit the spot and take stock of the situation and implement the next action.

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
Spokesperson of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov says Russia is deeply concerned over the presence of Syrian militants in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The current presence of militants in the heated conflict zone presents a great danger and is a matter of deep concern for Russia, and we have already talked about this, Peskov said in response to the question whether Russia is preparing to carry out an anti-terrorism operation in Nagorno-Karabakh after receiving reports on the presence of Syrian militants there.

Peskov also stated that he doesnt have news about Russias possible counterattack against the militants.

Earlier, in an interview with RIA Novosti, President of Syria Bashar al-Assad had said that Syrian militants are being transferred to Nagorno-Karabakh and that Turkey is using terrorists from Syria and other countries in Nagorno-Karabakh. He had also declared that President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the main person who launched a new stage of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
G reene King is cutting 800 jobs and shutting more than 25 pubs after tighter coronavirus restrictions hit trade.

The company said it would close 79 UK venues temporarily, with around a third of the closures expected to be permanent. It said it hoped that the other venues would reopen in the future.

Making the announcement, the chain called on the Government to provide urgent support for the hospitality sector after tighter measures, including the recent 10pm curfew , were bought in to curb the spread of Covid-19.

It comes as Sir Keir Starmer asked the Prime Minister to publish the evidence that shows there is a scientific basis for pubs shutting early.

The company, which was bought by a Hong-Kong real estate giant last year, is one of the UKs biggest hospitality firms, with 3,100 pubs, restaurants and hotels across.

A spokeswoman for Greene King said: The continued tightening of the trading restrictions for pubs, which may last another six months, along with the changes to Government support was always going to make it a challenge to reopen some of our pubs.

Therefore, we have made the difficult decision not to reopen 79 sites, including the 11 Loch Fyne restaurants we announced last week.

The chain has also asked the Government to provide more support to the hospitality industry / PA

Around one-third will be closed permanently and we hope to be able to reopen the others in the future.

We are working hard with our teams to try and find them a role in another of our pubs wherever possible.

We urgently need the Government to step in and provide tailored support to help the sector get through to the spring and prevent further pub closures and job losses.

The announcement comes after warnings from pub, restaurant and bar bosses that the curfew and other restrictions will result in swathes of job losses across the secto r.

Last week, the boss of rival Fullers said that around a tenth of its almost-5,000 employees could face redundancy without further state support.

The bosses of London-focused groups Youngs and City Pub Group also warned that they might have to axe hundreds of roles when furlough ends later this month.

Meanwhile Sir Keir asked Boris Johnson to review the rule" on making pubs close at 10pm if he could not provide scientific evidence.

The Prime Minister cant explain why an area goes into restriction, he cant explain what the different restrictions are, he cant explain how restrictions end  this is getting ridiculous.

Next week, this House will vote on whether to approve the 10pm rule. The Prime Minister knows that there are deeply-held views across the country in different ways on this. One question is now screaming out: is there a scientific basis for the 10pm rule?

Boris Johnson replied: The basis on which we set out the curtailment of hospitality was the basis on which he accepted it two weeks ago  that is to reduce the spread of the virus and that is our objective.

On Labour abstaining from the vote on the rule of six policy on Tuesday, he added: What kind of a signal does this send to the people of the country about the robustness of the Labour Party and their willingness to enforce the restrictions?

That is not new leadership, that is no leadership.
ANN ARBOR, MI  The University of Michigan has identified small clusters of COVID-19 cases at three residence halls, according to an Oct. 6 update on the universitys COVID-19 dashboard.

The clusters have been identified on the third and fourth floors of West Quad; fifth floor of South Quad; and fifth and sixth floors of Mary Markley Hall, according to the update.

UM published public health notices on Oct. 6 for each of these residence halls, alerting the public of the clusters. According to the notices, there were 11 reported positive cases at Mary Markley, nine reported positive cases at West Quad and four reported positive cases at South Quad.

All the cases appear to be related to close contacts who have previously tested positive, but students on impacted floors of each residence hall are required to get tested for COVID-19, the notices state.

In September, South Quad had a cluster outbreak on the sixth and eighth floors, but after creating a pop-up testing site, more than 220 COVID-19 tests came back negative.

221 University of Michigan students test negative for coronavirus after cluster at South Quad

Residents should monitor their health by completing the ResponsiBLUE Symptom Tracker daily, the notices state. Anyone with symptoms should contact University Health Services at 734-764-8320, according to the notices.

According to UMs COVID-19 dashboard, South Quad has had the most COVID-19 cases since Aug. 21 with 49. West Quad has had 41 since then and Mary Markley 24. Alice Lloyd has had 17 cases, and both East Quad and Mosher-Jordan have had 12.

The only residence halls listed on the dashboard without confirmed positive cases are Baits and Barbour/Newberry.

As of 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 7, UM has had just seven confirmed cases of COVID-19 since Oct. 4. UMs Oct. 6 update on the dashboard acknowledges that cases this week are noticeably lower" in comparison to recent weeks, and that trend is consistent at both the campus and county level.

In the three weeks prior, though, there were 524 confirmed cases with a majority of those being tested outside of UHS and Occupational Health Services, according to dashboard numbers. A previous update on the dashboard said UM met two response metrics  exceeding five days of increase in new infections (using a seven-day average) and Washtenaw County disease levels exceeding 70 new cases per million  and campus and county health officials are reviewing the situation to determine additional mitigation strategies.

University of Michigans increase in COVID-19 cases triggers review

Only 86 tests have been conducted at UM since Oct. 4, according to the dashboard. In the week prior, there were 4,510 tests conducted, the highest number of tests in any week since the beginning of the pandemic.

At the Sept. 17 Board of Regents meeting, the regents authorized an agreement with Ann Arbor-based LynxDx Inc., which will allow the university to ramp up its testing capacity to up to 6,000 individuals per week.

READ MORE:

University of Michigan regents support Schlissels handling of the pandemic

All over the place: Universities' COVID-19 data has no reporting standards

Coronavirus cases surge in University of Michigan residence halls
The Berlin-based biochemist and microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier, a Leopoldina member since 2015, is being honored with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Charpentier receives the award for the development of a method for genome editing. She is awarded the Nobel Prize jointly with biochemist and molecular biologist Jennifer Doudna (Berkeley/USA).

The President of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Gerald Haug extends his congratulations to Emmanuelle Charpentier on this prestigious award: "With this year's Nobel Prize, groundbreaking discoveries in the field of genome research are being recognized, which hold great promise for future applications in medicine, biotechnology, animal and plant breeding. I am delighted that Emmanuelle Charpentier, an outstanding colleague of the Max Planck Society, is being honoured."

Emmanuelle Charpentier studied biochemistry and microbiology at the University Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris (France), where she also received her PhD. After research stays in the USA, the scientist habilitated at the University of Vienna (Austria) and then went on to Umea University (Sweden), where she still holds a visiting professorship. From 2013 to 2015 Charpentier was professor at the Hannover Medical School (Germany) and headed the Department of Regulation in Infection Biology at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig (Germany). In 2014 she was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship. From 2015 to 2018 she was director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin (Germany). Since 2018 Charpentier has been acting and founding director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin.

Emmanuelle Charpentier has been honored with numerous prizes for her scientific achievements, including the Leibniz Prize 2016, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prizes 2016, the Annual Award for Outstanding Contributions to Biomolecular Technologies 2016 of the US Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities, the Kavli Prize in the field of nanosciences 2018, as well as the Carus Medal of the Leopoldina 2015 and the associated Carus Prize of the City of Schweinfurt 2016. In addition, she was awarded the Richard Ernst Gold Medal of ETH Zurich in 2019 and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Emmanuelle Charpentier has been a member of the human genetics and molecular medicine section of the Leopoldina since 2015.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is currently endowed with a total of ten million Swedish kronor (equivalent to around 950,000 euros). All Nobel Prizes are traditionally bestowed on the laureates on 10 December, the anniversary of founder Alfred Nobel's death.

The Leopoldina has more than 1,600 members, with a current 34 Nobel laureates among them.

The member profile of Emmanuelle Charpentier can be found here: http://www.leopoldina.org/en/members/list-of-members/list-of-members/member/Member/show/emmanuelle-charpentier/

###

About the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

As the German National Academy of Sciences, the Leopoldina provides independent science-based policy advice on matters relevant to society. To this end, the Academy develops interdisciplinary statements based on scientific findings. In these publications, options for action are outlined; making decisions, however, is the responsibility of democratically legitimized politicians. The experts who prepare the statements work in a voluntary and unbiased manner. The Leopoldina represents the German scientific community in the international academy dialogue. This includes advising the annual summits of Heads of State and Government of the G7 and G20 countries. The Leopoldina's members come from more than 30 countries and combine expertise from almost all research areas. Founded in 1652, the Leopoldina was appointed the National Academy of Sciences of Germany in 2008. It is committed to the common good.
She was seen sharing a public kiss with her new beau, actor Gian Marco Flamini, on the streets of Los Angeles last month.

But Mischa Barton was seen enjoying some solo time on Tuesday, when she made a trip to the supermarket near her home in the Southern California city.

The 34-year-old actress cut a casual figure in a baggy black logo top, which she teamed with a pair of matching jogging bottoms.

Grocery run: Mischa Barton was seen enjoying some solo time on Tuesday, when she made a trip to the supermarket near her Los Angeles home

Complementing her look with a pair of black loafer mules, the star toted a large black leather handbag with a gold chain strap.

Adhering to safety guidelines by wearing a protective face mask, the actress-turned-reality star tied her golden locks back into a ponytail.

Her outing comes weeks after she was seen strolling arm-in-arm with actor Gian Marco Flamini through the streets of Los Angeles' Echo Park, more than a year after her stop-start relationship with model James Abercrombie came to an end.

Stepping out in casual style: The 34-year-old actress cut a casual figure in a baggy black logo top, which she teamed with a pair of matching jogging bottoms

Looking close, the pair removed their face masks  a mandatory requirement across the state  and leaned in for a kiss during their relaxed walk.

Mischa's former relationship with Abercrombie originally ended up in July 2019, shortly after fans noticed that she had unfollowed the heir on social media.

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! that Mischa 'broke up with him is to focus on her career'.

The on-off couple later sparked reconciliation rumours after they were pictured together last October.

New beau: Her outing comes weeks after she was seen strolling arm-in-arm with actor Gian Marco Flamini through the streets of Los Angeles' Echo Park

Mischa began dating James, a model from Melbourne, Australia, in spring 2017, shortly after the two met at a party in LA.

Their relationship followed a period of turmoil for the actress, who was hospitalised in January after a neighbour spotted her ranting over her backyard fence.

She later claimed that medical staff told her she had been given the date rape drug GHB.

Mischa also took a stand in March 2017, when she and her lawyer Lisa Bloom announced that an ex-boyfriend had filmed a revenge porn video and was attempting to shop the tape around to interested buyers.

She obtained a restraining order against the former beau in May of that year.

In an interview with the New York Times, Mischa credited Abercrombie with 'helping her through' the upheaval, adding, 'I think it drove us together.'
Barring all odds, the people of Ondo State will file out on October 10 to elect a governor who will pilot the affairs of the state for the next four years.

The Ondo election is an off cycle election, just like the recently held Edo election, which returned the incumbent governor, Godwin Obaseki, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), back to the Dennis Osadebey House, as the Edo State Government House is called.

In the case of Ondo, it is either the electorate return the incumbent governor, who is the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), or they elect a completely new person as their governor.

Although, according to the umpire in the election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), there are 17 political parties that will participate in the election, there is no doubt that the election is a three-way race.

The three major contenders, according to key political watchers in the state are: Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of the APC; Eyitayo Jegede of the PDP; and Deputy Governor Agboola Ajayi, the candidate of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), a party whose promoters have described as the third force.

Certainly, one of the aforementioned trio will emerge the governor of the state after the October 10 election.

The contenders:

Rotimi Akeredolu

He hails from Owo in Owo Local Government Area in the Ondo North senatorial district.

He is the second Owo man to be elected governor of Ondo State. The first was the late Michael Adekunle Ajasin, who was elected governor in 1979 on the platform of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr Akeredolu was first elected governor of the state in 2016. He won the election, even as an opposition candidate, defeating the candidate of the then ruling party, Mr Jegede of the PDP.

The October 10 election will make it the third time Mr Akeredolu will be seeking election for the governorship seat.

He debuted his gubernatorial ambition in 2012 on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria. He only won in three of the 18 local council areas in the state, losing the election to the then incumbent governor, Olusegun Mimiko, who is the first person to have completed two terms of eight years as a democratically elected governor of the state.

Akeredolus strengths

Incumbency Factor

Since the country returned to civil rule in 1999, only few incumbent governors have lost re-election.

But as seen previously, especially with the recently held Edo and Kogi elections, where the incumbents won re-election, Mr Akeredolu stands a big chance to win another term, if incumbency is the only metric for evaluating a candidates chance in an election.

As posited by many political pundits, an incumbent governor stands a big chance of winning re-election in Nigeria because of the enormity of state resources at his beck and call, which he can easily deploy to his own electoral advantage.

Mr Akeredolu is most likely not going to be an exemption to this general rule.

It is also believed that he wont be short of funds for logistics before, during, and after the election. Winning an election in Nigeria is capital-intensive and many times, those with the financial war chest are the ones who win.

Logistics, in the context of elections in Nigeria, could mean compromising voters through material inducement, before and during the election, a practice that contravenes the provisions of the Electoral Act.

Almost all the major political parties in the country are guilty of this cardinal sin, most especially since 2015, when other means of rigging elections, such as arbitrarily stuffing ballot boxes with votes, bizarre allocation of votes to a particular candidate, and ballot snatching seem to have receded.

APC as a united party

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Another major factor that may tilt the election in favour of Governor Akeredolu is that his party, the APC, appears to be united, going into the election.

Almost all members of the party are solidly behind him, drumming and canvassing support for his re-election across the length and breadth of the state.

Following the APC primaries that saw him emerge as the candidate of the party, some had predicted that other formidable aspirants would leave the party to find comfort elsewhere.

Fortunately for Mr Akeredolu, virtually all the aspirants stayed behind in the party. They include Olusola Oke, Ifedayo Oyedele, Isaacs Kekemeke, Segun Abraham, Jimi Odimayo and a host of others.

Unlike in 2016, when a national leader of the APC, Bola Tinubu, did not support him, Mr Akeredolu is believed to enjoy the support of the former Lagos State governor. He is also believed to enjoy the support of the presidency and the APC governors, especially that of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi.

Modest Performance

Regardless of whatever misgivings anyone may have, Mr Akeredolu is believed to have recorded some modest performance in terms of road construction and rehabilitation, renovating health facilities, school renovation, and industrialisation, which is meant to provide jobs for the teeming youth, improve the standard of living of the people and also raise the internally generated revenue of the state.

The Ore Industrial Hub, Ondo Liyin Hub, the Chocolate Factory in Idanre, though run through private public partnerships, are all meant to improve the economic profile of the state beyond its civil service status.

The governor has also signed a couple of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) meant to attract more investments to the state. However, the citizens want to see these MoUs translate into reality, as a lot of MoUs signed with pomp in the past simply evaporated without a trace till today.

Weaknesses

Accusation of Arrogance

One of the pieces of moral baggage around Governor Akeredolu is that he is seen as arrogant and someone who talks down on people.

The governor usually speaks his mind, not minding whose ox is gored or the intensity of the expressions or words he deploys in conveying his messages.

While his supporters hail him on this as being straightforward and frank, his critics say he has a loose tongue, and most times, uses words unbefitting of his status as governor.

He once reportedly told his supporters to pour red oil on the white linen of his erstwhile antagonist, Ajayi Boroffice, a senator representing Ondo North, because of perceived political differences, in spite of belonging to the same political party.

The two politicians have since reconciled. Mr Boroffice was the leader of the defunct Unity Forum in the party. The forum was initially opposed to the re-election of Mr Akeredolu but members of the forum are now canvassing votes for him.

He also was reported to have called his estranged deputy, Agboola Ajayi, a nincompoop during a live TV program on Monday, September 7, 2020. Till now, the governor has not taken back this expression considered to be gutter language in some quarters.

Another example of the verbal gaffes of the governor, pointed out by his critics, was when he allegedly threatened the paramount ruler of Ikale land, Abodi of Ikale land, J.B Faduyile, that he would not mind deploying security operatives to level Ago Alaye (an Ikale community) if the traditional ruler would not restrain his people from trespassing on a disputed land between the community and Araromi Obu, another community in the state.

Because of the dispute over the land and the perceived bias of the governor towards the Araromi Obu people, he was also caught on tape saying he would not need the votes of Ikale people to win a second term in office during a visit to Mr Faduyiles palace.

Its believed some Ikale people are still nursing some grudges against him over his sins against them and may want to take their own pound of flesh come October 10.

The aforementioned are a few examples of what observers describe as some of the verbal lapses of the governor which may work against his re-election come October 10.

Be that as it may, he has reconciled with Mr Boroffice and even with Mr Faduyile, the traditional ruler of all Ikale people.

Allegation of family monopolisation of government business

The governor is accused of running the government of the state like his family business, an allegation he has consistently denied.

Mr Akeredolu denied the allegation on October 4, during a live debate organised by Ondo State Radiovision Corporation for four gubernatorial candidates ahead of the October 10 polls. He called on anyone who has any evidence of such an allegation to bring it forward.

He also threatened to sue anyone making unfounded allegations against his family.

While there have been insinuations that his wife has a stronghold on the governor with his son allegedly serving as a consultant on mega deals to the state government, none of the critics have put forward any concrete proof to substantiate the claims.

However, the insinuations have refused to go away. In fact, they have become louder and more entrenched as the election comes down to the wire.

Allegation of Ondo south marginalisation

Mr Akeredolu is being accused of marginalisation of the people of Ondo South in terms of project distribution.

Until very recently, when he started fixing some township roads in the area and the Ore Flyover Bridge, he was accused of abandoning the zone, which is the oil-producing zone in the state.

Also, a large section of the zone, especially the people of Okitipupa local government Area, have been without electricity for close to a decade in spite of the Omotosho power plant located in the area.

The people are saying that without electricity in their area, they wont vote him for a second term in office.

Asides that, some politicians in the area also feel that it is the turn of the zone to produce the next governor of the state and they feel that the time for them to do so is now.

The last time the zone produced the governor of the state was 2007. He was the late Olusegun Agagu who was removed from office in 2009 via a judicial pronouncement by the Court of Appeal.

Winning Projection

According to those familiar with the electoral politics of the state, Mr Akeredolu is projected to win in about 11 local council areas in the state.

Rotimi Oyeneyin, a political analyst, listed the council areas Mr Akeredolu could win as: Akoko North/East, Akoko North/West, Akoko South/East, Akoko South/West, Ile Oluji/Oke-Igbo, Irele, Ilaje, Odigbo, Ose, Owo and Idanre.

He, however, said the governor may lose in Idanre because of the soaring popularity of the ZLP in the area.

Eyitayo Jegede

He is the candidate of the PDP. He was the candidate of the same party in 2016 but lost to the incumbent governor.

There were issues around his candidacy in 2016 until the courts finally resolved that he was the right candidate of the PDP, barely a few days to the election. His supporters said he would have won the 2016 election if he had enough time to prepare for it.

He was the attorney general and commissioner for justice in the administration of the immediate past governor of the state, Olusegun Mimiko.

He hails from Akure, the capital city of the state, in Ondo Central senatorial district. Akure, spanning two local governments, has never produced the governor of the state.

Strengths

Warm personality

He is a likeable personality, quiet, decent and generally warm. He is also considered to be well-mannered and mentally sound.

Even Governor Akeredolu attested to the personality of Mr Jegede while appearing on an Arise TV programme recently.

Mr Akeredolu described him as a worthy opponent, saying Eyitayo Jegede is my colleague; he is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria; he is worthy of the office. I cannot see anything wrong with him. He is somebody I have a lot of respect for. He is eminently qualified to be a governor, unlike some people, who are not qualified to be a governor of this state.

Moreover, Mr Jegede is a household name in the state, having contested in 2016.

If being loved as a politician would translate to massive votes on election day, Mr Jegede will not have a problem defeating the incumbent governor.

However winning an election goes beyond wearing a permanent smile on ones face all the time or having a name that rings a bell.

Atiku and Makindes factor

Its believed that Mr Jedede enjoys massive support from Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2019 general elections.

Recall that Mr Abubakar defeated President Buhari in the 2019 presidential election in the state.

Because of Mr Abubakars support, some analysts believe that Mr Jegede wont be short of resources and logistics to prosecute the election, as they believe that Mr Abubakar will roll out funds to support him.

Mr Jegede also enjoys the support of Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, who has made several tours to the state, talking to political actors in order to galvanise support for Mr Jegede.

Initially believed not to be supporting him because of the silent war of attrition going on in the PDP leading up to the 2023 presidential elections, Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwwal, has now come to publicly to say all PDP governors are rooting for Mr Jegede to win the election.

PDP a household platform in the state

Ordinarily, being in the PDP should give Mr Jegede some leverage as it is a household platform with tentacles in all the nooks and crannies of the state.

In the 2019 general elections, the PDP won in two of the senatorial districts  Ondo South and Central  two zones with the highest voting strength in the state.

The party also delivered the last presidential election in the state to its candidate, Mr Abubakar, who defeated Muhammadu Buhari, candidate of the APC, in the election in Ondo State despite the state being governed by the APC. Mr Buhari eventually emerged the winner of the election nationwide as declared by INEC.

Weaknesses

Unwritten rule of zoning

Mr Jegede comes from Ondo Central, which is the same zone with immediate past governor, Mr Mimiko, who ruled the state for eight years.

It is a popular narrative in the state that it is not yet the turn of the zone to produce the governor of the state.

This same albatross of zoning was one of the significant factors that cost him the election in 2016, in spite of being supported by then incumbent governor, Mimiko.

Mr Mimiko and Mr Jegede have since parted ways, though the latter tried to reach out to the former recently to see if he could court his support for his latest ambition.

How Mr Jegede will manoeuvre his way around the currency of zoning in the forthcoming election remains to be seen, even as another prominent indigene of Akure, Tayo Alasoadura, current minister of state for Niger Delta affairs, has said that it is not yet the turn of Akure to produce the governor of the state.

Disunity in Ondo PDP

From all indications, the Ondo State chapter of the PDP at the moment, is polarised.

The polarisation is a fall out of the partys gubernatorial primaries that saw the emergence of Mr Jegede as the partys flagbearer.

While some aspirants, who vied for the ticket with him, have pledged to support him in the election, some have left the party while others, who chose to stay back, have been unusually quiet.

Some of those who stayed back and have been drumming support for him are Sola Ebiseni, a former commissioner in the state and Bode Ayorinde, a former federal lawmaker. The latter is from the same town, Owo, as the incumbent governor.

Other aspirants who stayed back in the party but have been silent during the campaign so far are Boluwaji Kunlere, a former senator representing Ondo South between 2011 and 2015, and Eddy Olafeso, immediate past chairperson of the PDP in the southwest.

Banji Okunomo, from Ilaje local council area, has dumped the party for the ZLP.

While Nicholas Tofowomo, the current senator representing Ondo South, remains in the PDP, most of his supporters are canvassing support for the candidate of the ZLP.

Mr Tofowomo reportedly backed Mr Okunomo to win the PDP ticket but lost it to Mr Jegede.

The senator representing Ondo Central, Ayo Akinyelure, is said to be supporting Mr Jegede. Mr Akinyelure is from Idanre, the same place with the state chairperson of the APC, Ade Adetimehin.

Commentators are of the view that the disunity in the party will have a strong impact on the performance of Mr Jegede in the election.

His choice of running mate

Mr Jegede chose Gboluga Ikengboju, a legislator representing Okitipupa/Irele federal constituency in the House of Representatives.

The choice of Mr Ikengboju shocked some party chieftains, just as it angered some who said they would never support the candidacy of Mr Jegede in the election.

All attempts to make Mr Jegede change Mr Ikengboju as his running mate fell on deaf ears as he insisted on keeping him.

Meanwhile, some chieftains of the party believe the choice of Mr Ikengboju is a reward for supporting Mr Jegede during the race to win the partys ticket. Moreover, Mr Ikengbojus local council, Okitipupa, has traditionally been a stronghold of the PDP since 1999.

Mr Ikengboju is from Ondo South and many had expected him to support someone from the zone during the PDPs primaries. Rather, he chose to tag along with Mr Jegede who is from the Central senatorial district.

Estrangement from Mimiko

Fact is, Mr Jegede became a political force in Ondo State, courtesy of Mr Mimiko who appointed him his commissioner for justice for almost seven years.

Mr Mimiko also went all out to ensure Mr Jegede was the candidate of the PDP in the 2016 election in the state, against all odds.

Some supporters of the former governor popularly called Iroko said they would never support Mr Jegede in the October 10 election

Winning Projection

Mr Jegede is projected to win Akure North and Akure South, the local councils with the highest voting strength in the state, other things being equal.

Some observers say he may win Okitipupa local council because his running mate hails from the place, in addition to the fact that the council area has always been pro-PDP. All that seems to be changing now though considering that there are top APC chieftains and ZLP in the area.

Verdict: He could win two or three local councils.

Agboola Ajayi

Mr Ajayi is the incumbent deputy governor, though estranged from his boss, Mr Akeredolu, over irreconcilable political differences.

He parted ways with the governor when he defected to the PDP in spite of assurances and reassurances that his relationship with his principal was cordial and that he would work for the reelection of the governor.

After spending less than a month in the PDP, he vied for the partys ticket but ended up a runner-up to the winner, Mr Jegede. He eventually ditched the PDP for the ZLP.

Meanwhile, all attempts to impeach him by the State House of Assembly have so far proved abortive, just as the governor and his supporters continue to bash him over what they call an act of betrayal on the part of Mr Ajayi.

The failed impeachment move has led to the suspension of some lawmakers believed to be pro-Ajayi.

It should be noted that Mr Ajayi is the only deputy governor in the state who could not be impeached by the state house of assembly on the prompting of the governor.

From all indications, it does not look like the state lawmakers will be able to impeach him before the expiration of his tenure.

Mr Ajayis strength

Extensive grassroots penetration

He is a grassroots politician who is reputed to have the capacity to connect well with the people.

For the first two years of the Akeredolu-led administration, its believed that Mr Ajayi was the one handling and coordinating the political side of the administration, an access that made him mine some political advantage for himself to the detriment of the political capital of Mr Akeredolu.

In 1999, he was a supervisory councilor in the Ese Odo local government, and later became the chairperson of the council area, first as a caretaker in 2003 to 2004, until he was elected in 2004 till 2007. He leveraged on the position to get himself into the Association of Local Governments in Nigeria, where he served as treasurer in the Ondo State chapter of the group.

He was later elected a member of the House of Representatives in 2007 on the platform of the PDP representing Ese-Odo/Ilaje federal constituency and served as the chairperson of the committee on NDDC, one of the so-called juicy committees.

Like a bolt from the blue, Mr Ajayi emerged the running mate to Mr Akeredolu in the 2016 governorship election in the state, which the APC later won.

Glancing through his political dossier, its crystal clear that he is not a pushover. However, there is more to winning an election in Nigeria than ones rich political credentials.

Pros

Power Shift

The current agitation in Ondo South for power to shift to the zone seems, on the surface, to have gelled with the ambition of Mr Ajayi, who is the only candidate from the zone contesting on a major platform.

As a matter of fact, the root of his ambition is in Ondo South and some top political players in the zone appear to be rooting for him as they believe this is the best time for someone from the area to become the governor of the state.

The allegation against Governor Akeredolu that he has not been fair to the zone in terms of developmental projects also seems to be working in favour of the deputy governor.

However, votes from Ondo South alone wont make him the governor. Moreover, the APC also parades some political heavyweights who will want to prove their mettle by delivering the zone to Mr Akeredolu.

Mr Akeredolus running mate, Lucky Ayedatiwa, is from Ilaje local council, one of the council areas with massive voting strength. Olusola Oke is from the same council too.

The business mogul, Jimoh Ibrahim, who has donated generously to the campaign of Mr Akeredolu, is from Ondo South. So is Paul Akintelure, who was Mr Akeredolus running mate in 2012.

A former commissioner for education in the state, Oladunni Odu, reputed to be a grassroots person, is also from the zone, ditto for the current commissioner for education, Femi Agagu, who is believed to have inherited his late elder brothers vast political dynasty, Olusegun Agagu.

Also, the running mate to Mr Jegede, Mr Ikengboju, is from Ondo South, which has always been a comfort zone for the PDP since 1999.

In any case, Mr Ajayis ambition is loudest in Ondo South. It remains to be seen if he will win handsomely in the one.

Mimiko factor

Although Mr Mimiko lost his bid to go to the senate in 2019 on the platform of the ZLP, coming a distant third in the election, he is believed to be a strong political factor in Ondo State by his fans.

He is the national leader of the ZLP and a strong backer of Mr Ajayi.

Some analysts and observers believe he will deliver Ondo East and West areas with huge voting strength to Mr Ajayi.

That remains to be seen as the ZLP only managed to win just a House of Assembly seat in the area in 2019.

There is no doubt, however, that the factor of Mimiko has been adding value to the candidacy of Mr Ajayi.

More importantly, this may be the last chance for Mr Mimiko to once prove his political brilliance which seems to have dimmed a bit in recent times.

If he fails with Mr Ajayi, well, it may be a farewell to his otherwise brilliant political career.

Weaknesses

Doubtful intellectual capacity

Of the three leading gladiators in the election, Mr Ajayi is seen to be the least intellectually endowed.

The other two  Mr Akeredolu and Mr Jegede  are senior lawyers, both Senior Advocates of Nigeria, and are believed to be intellectually sound and engaging.

Although Mr Ajayi is a lawyer and was called to the Nigerian Bar having graduated from Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State and the Nigerian Law School, some critics of his said he does not have the intellectual wherewithal to govern a state like Ondo State.

Apparently coming in defence of Mr Ajayi, Mr Mimiko said recently that all a leader needs to have is a good heart in order to perform. He said a leader must have compassion for his people. He described Mr Ajayi as a compassionate leader.

While he is a lawyer, according to a letter from the Council of Legal Education and sighted by this newspaper, Mr Ajayi only submitted his O-level results to INEC for the election.

The use of his O-level result rather than his LL.B and B.L results have continued to raise some doubt about his qualifications, though none of his accusers has been able to substantiate the claim of forgery against him.

The ZLPs limited popularity

Beyond Ondo South and Central, especially in Ondo town and Ifedore, where his running mate, Gboye Adegbenro, comes from, the ZLP is not so strong in Ondo North, the senatorial district of Mr Akeredolu.

The zone has the smallest number of registered voters in terms of percentage; Ondo North is 27 percent, South 33 per cent while Central has 39 per cent.

Asides that, Mr Mimiko, who has his own baggage, is the only major backer of Mr Ajayi, who continues to tell anyone who cares to listen to him that he is going to win the October 10 election.

Minority factor

Mr Ajayi hails from Ese-Odo local council.

He is considered a minority by his ethnic tribe, Arogbo-Ijaw, whose population is quite small.

However, when some other invisible election variables favour a candidate, his minority ancestry becomes insignificant.

Winning projection

Mr Ajayi is projected to win in Ese-Odo, Ifedore, Okitipupa, Ondo East and West, based on where the strengths of his backers and supporters are.

Some faithful of the APC in the state have said Mr Ajayi would barely win a council area out of the 18 council areas in the state.
Peacekeepers from the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) on patrol in the Irumu Territory, Ituri.

Planning for a drawdown of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is well underway, but much work still remains to be done to put the country firmly on the path to long-term stability and sustainable development, the Security Council heard today.

Leila Zerrougui, Head of the UN's Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), urged Council members to continue to support its efforts to help the Congolese government and people maintain the gains made since its establishment in 2010.

Discussing the political situation, she said that in the peaceful transfer of power that following the 2018 elections, the political class accepts - "and even appreciates" - the opportunities offered by the ruling coalition between the Cap pour le Changement (CACH) and the Front Commun pour le Congo (FCC).

Dangers lurk

However, in addition to persistent tension between coalition members, there is a risk that politicking and positioning ahead of elections in 2023 will overshadow the governance reforms and stabilization measures that the Democratic Republic of the Congo needs, she said.

"The current political dispensation remains fragile and could yet unravel," she said. "At the same time, it has the potential to sustain and advance the gains which have already been made - should all actors work towards this goal."

Ms. Zerrougui said that she is sparing no effort in exercising her good offices, meeting regularly with stakeholders from across the political spectrum, urging them to focus on implementing reforms to address the pressing needs of the Congolese people.

Thin line of stability

"In doing so, I have sought to impress upon all my interlocutors that there is a difference between normal political competition and behaviour that undermines the stability of the country," she said.

On the future of MONUSCO, she said that the Council will soon be presented with a joint strategy for its progressive and phased drawdown, with President Felix Tshisekedi requesting a progressive transfer of tasks from the Mission to the Government.

Elaborating, she said that the Government agrees that in the coming years, MONUSCO will gradually consolidate its footprint in the three Congolese provinces - North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri - where conflict persists, while also pursuing its good offices work and institutional strengthening at the national level.

Withdrawal 'relatively soon'

Meanwhile, she added, MONUSCO should be able to withdraw "relatively soon" from the Kasai region, while an improved security situation should enable the Mission to scale back its military presence there in Tanganyika.

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She went on to say that MONUSCO remains focused on improving the implementation of its protection-of-civilians mandate - including by deploying new technologies such as unarmed drones - alongside working with local communities and civil society to promote reconciliation and monitor human rights.

She also appealed to the Council to support MONUSCO's efforts to foster a community-based approach to the reintegration of ex-combatants in the east of the country.

That approach involves building the resilience of communities receiving ex-combatants and providing for legitimate needs, while also removing incentives for former fighters to form and join armed groups.

Avoid past mistakes

"It is vital ... that we avoid repeating the experiences of the past," when large numbers of ex-combatants were granted amnesty and integrated into the Congolese security forces, where the prospect of obtaining a rank was an incentive to form an armed group, she said.

MONUSCO's mandate dates back to July 2010, when it took over from an earlier UN peacekeeping operation, the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC).

It had just over 18,000 deployed personnel as of August, including more than 13,000 contingent troops. Its approved budget for the 123 months to June 2020 was $1.09 billion.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Oil prices tumbled on Wednesday as U.S. stimulus hopes faded and data showed a larger-than-expected build in crude oil supplies. Benchmark Brent crude fell 70 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $41.95 a barrel, while U.S. crude futures were down 80 cents, or 2 percent, at $39.86. Coronavirus relief talks came to an abrupt halt Tuesday as U.S. President Donald Trump ordered Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to stop negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, saying talks won't resume until after the election. Trump's tweets came after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned of ongoing risks to the economy if authorities did too little to support the economic rebound. As growth worries resurface, markets are taking some comfort from new poll numbers showing Democratic nominee Joe Biden's widening lead over President Trump as well as Trump's tweets seeming to promise backing for individual pieces of fiscal stimulus. Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute reported a build in U.S. oil inventories of 951,000 barrels for the week ending October 2, compared with the 831,000-barrel draw expected. Investors now await data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration later in the day for further direction. 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.
20m Business Rates avoidance issue around contrived occupation could be solved with law change

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Oct 7th, 2020

One of the most abused areas of business rates could be changed, to help collect 10-20m that ought to be due to the public purse.

Welsh Government explain: We believe that non-domestic rates should be collected as effectively and as fairly as possible. As part of a broader programme of reforms to the local government finance system, we are committed to reducing the opportunities for disingenuous persons to avoid their non-domestic rates liability.

They cite data from 2018 that suggests amounts to an annual revenue loss of between 10 million and 20 million per year, calling abuse of Empty Property Rates Relief the most commonly reported method of avoidance.

Owners of empty non-domestic properties are not liable to pay rates for the first three months after a property becomes empty (the initial relief period). The aim of the initial relief period is to provide owners with a period of reprieve from paying rates while seeking a new occupier or use for the property. After the end of this period, the owner must pay full rates indefinitely. For industrial properties, the initial relief period is six months because industrial properties are generally harder to let and can take longer to repurpose.

The abuse element comes in due to a rule that if at any time the property is occupied for a temporary period of 42 days or more where full rates are paid by the occupier it acts as a reset to the relief cycle arrangements, and the owner is eligible for another cycle of three or six months relief. There is no limit on the number of times an owner can claim future cycles of relief so long as the temporary occupation criterion is satisfied.

The 42-day rule was introduced in 2008 to help owners who regularly let properties to short-term occupants, eg. pop-up and seasonal businesses.

Welsh Government say abuse of the 42-day rule has become the most common and widely known method of non-domestic rates avoidance, where periods of artificial or contrived occupation are staged, although not detailed there are apocryphal stories of popup art galleries, spurious storage use, odd short term leases and various schemes to enable the reset to take place.

The proposed change will require property owners to prove the property has been occupied for six months (instead of the current 42 days) and the occupier would need to pay six months of full rates before becoming eligible for a further period of relief.

Welsh Government say, It is hoped this will discourage artificial or contrived occupation arrangements and that it will be less financially beneficial for people seeking to exploit a tax advantage.

You can view the full consultation documentation, and respond online, via this page on the Welsh Government website: https://gov.wales/node/32838/respond-online

Responses can also be emailed or posted direct to:

Non-Domestic Rates Policy Branch

Welsh Government

Cathays Park

Cardiff

CF10 3NQ

Email: LGF1Consultations@gov.wales
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7, 2020 18:34 472 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49af3af 1 National Jobs-law,Omnibus-Law-on-Job-Creation,omnibus-law,labor-union,judicial-review,Constitutional-Court Free

A number of the countrys labor unions plan to challenge the recently passed Job Creation Law through a petition for judicial review with the Constitutional Court.

The National Federation of Trade Unions (KSPN) said a special team had been deployed to scrutinize the 905-page law to single out provisions that contradicted the Constitution or infringed on workers rights.

Our team is studying the law to file the judicial review petition, KSPN president Ristadi told kompas.com on Tuesday, adding that provisions regarding temporary and outsourced workers were among the most problematic parts of the law.

The law revised Article 66 of the 2003 Manpower Law, which guaranteed a specific period of hire for temporary or outsourced workers, by adding the term indefinite work agreement, which appears to contradict a Constitutional Court ruling that companies must have transition schemes to protect workers.

The courts rulings are final and binding.

All-Indonesia Workers Union Confederation (KSPSI) president Andi Gani Nena Wea said the organization would soon submit a petition for judicial review with support from other parties.

He said many lawyers had expressed their willingness to assist workers in the legal processes that accompanied the fight against the contentious law.

Read also: Labor unions strike, stage rallies to oppose controversial new jobs law

The KSPSI, as the largest workers confederation in the country, will file a [petition for] judicial review with the Constitutional Court [...]. A lot of advocates are willing to fight with us in court, Andi said, as quoted by kompas.com.

The Job Creation Law, which the government claimed would improve bureaucratic efficiency and cut red tape binding business permits and investment, has received significant opposition from labor unions and members of the public who see it as a threat to social justice and environmental sustainability.

In addition to being detrimental to workers, critics argued, the law would be harmful to the environment as it made the environmental licensing requirements for businesses less rigorous. The law requires only businesses that have important effects on the environment to conduct environmental impact analyses (Amdal).

Under the law, the government is allowed to manage forest areas without a minimum limit.

The Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA) said it would join the fight at the Constitutional Court.

KPA secretary general Dewi Kartika argued that the House of Representatives, whose legislators passed the law on Monday, had ignored the Constitution and the 1960 Basic Agrarian Law for the sake of large-scale investment.

The KPA will challenge the law at the Constitutional Court, Dewi told tempo.co. (Vny)
Pennsylvania has a long history of being consequential in presidential elections  choosing 20 of the last 25 presidents.

With 20 electoral votes up for grabs, it is considered by some analysts as the most important state in the 2020 presidential election.

It's an opinion clearly shared by President Donald J. Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, as they made a combined 10 campaign visits to Pennsylvania in September.

Trump hasn't been here since late September, five days before the White House told the public he tested positive for COVID-19. Biden campaigned in Gettysburg on Tuesday.

More: In Gettysburg, Biden invokes Lincoln in call to heal the American soul

"The candidates have been virtually living here," said Terry Madonna, a pollster and political analyst at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. "That tells you how important Pennsylvania is."

Five states in one

Winning in Pennsylvania is no small feat. It's a geographically diverse and large area with more than 12 million people.

Drive two hours east from Pittsburgh or two hours west from Philadelphia and it can easily feel like a different state  one with pastoral landscapes and more conservatives. Voters who live in the heartland of Pennsylvania have helped Republicans maintain party control of the state Senate since 1994 and the state House for the majority of the last 25 years.

Gerrymandering has also helped.

Visit the northeast and southwest corners and you'll find Pennsylvanians who come from a long line of blue-collar workers in the old coal and steel industries. Now, some of them are working in the oil and gas industry. Voters in these areas elected Democrats for decades and in the last 10 years gradually started to vote for Republicans. They are a big reason Trump won the state by 44,000 votes, or less than 1 percent, in 2016.

Pharmaceutical and technology companies are plentiful in the suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and health care jobs are abundant across the state. College-educated women in these areas helped propel a record number of women to state and federal legislative positions in the 2018 midterms. These voters are expected to play a big role in deciding the presidential election this year.

Story continues

Helen Cook, of East Berlin, Pa., holds a sign and chants in support of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in Gettysburg's Lincoln Square on Tuesday, October 6, 2020.

In the northwest corner, Erie has been a Democratic stronghold but was one of the counties that flipped to red four years ago. Erie is geographically unique in Pennsylvania with its shoreline along one of the Great Lakes, but it is politically similar to the northeast and southwest corners with its abundance of working-class voters.

The cities in Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Harrisburg, Lancaster, York and more have reliably voted for Democrats. Those voters are seeping into the suburbs, even in southcentral Pennsylvania's agriculture and manufacturing belt where Republicans typically outnumber Democrats. The GOP still has the registration advantage in a seven-county region that includes big names like Hershey's, Utz and Harley-Davidson. But more voters are switching to the Democratic Party in southcentral Pennsylvania than the Republican Party, and it's a statistic that really started to increase in 2019.

"Pennsylvania is a battleground because it's not just one state. You're really competing in five different states," said J.J. Abbott, executive director of Commonwealth Communications, a nonprofit progressive group. Abbott previously served as press secretary for Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat from heavily Republican York County. "It's more complicated and personalities are not always easy to predict."

In some ways, Pennsylvania is a microcosm of the country, with its eastern and western borders holding the biggest population centers and a lot of industry and heartland in between. Political commentator James Carville once described the state as, "Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between."

"Campaigns know if their messaging works here, it can probably work nationally," said Jesse White, a political strategist at Perpetual Fortitude, a Democratic consulting and digital management firm. "To be able to come in here as a national campaign and have the resources and messaging to effectively win a state as diverse as Pennsylvania is real work."

More: Ginsburg's death is raising the stakes in the Pa. presidential election: 'It's enormous'

Personality over party

While state races and gubernatorial matches offer few surprises, presidential elections can be harder to predict.

The governor's seat had regularly flipped between Republicans and Democrats every eight years until 2014 when Wolf defeated former Gov. Tom Corbett after the incumbent Republican's first term.

The state tends to split its U.S. senators, sending one Democrat and one Republican to Washington, D.C.

But presidential races attract a much higher volume of voters than state races or midterms, and those voters have been known to choose candidates in the opposite party.

That certainly happened with Trump four years ago, when nearly 200,000 voters switched their registrations to Republican so they could cast their votes for the political newcomer in the 2016 Pennsylvania primary. Additionally, a hefty number of Democrats voted for Trump in the general election.

A passing motorcyclist holds up four fingers and yells "four more years" as he drives down Camp Gettysburg Road near the Lodges at Gettysburg in Freedom Township on Tuesday, October 6, 2020.

It was somewhat similar to what happened in the state during the 1980s.

"Reagan Democrats are now Trump Democrats," said Jeffrey Lord, a political analyst from Camp Hill who served as an associate political director in the Reagan White House.

Pennsylvania has always been a swing state, Lord said.

"Culturally, it's who we are," he said. "President Trump doesn't have anything to do with this. It's the culture of Pennsylvania. The U.S. Constitution was written here."

More: U.S. congressmen from Pa. tested for COVID-19 after flying with Trump to Harrisburg rally

Democrats have also been able to attract Republican voters.

Former President Barack Obama had ripe conditions in 2008 as a change candidate after eight years of Republican President George W. Bush, who led the country into a recession.

Obama's presidency seemed fated, but it was a close election in Pennsylvania until Election Day, when he ended up winning by 10 points  the largest margin since 1996.

After Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry won Pennsylvania by 2 points in 2004 and Al Gore won the state by 4 points in 2000, Republicans saw those narrow margins and Obama's Pennsylvania primary loss to Hillary Clinton as an opportunity for Republican Sen. John McCain to win the state in 2008.

"Pennsylvania has been fool's gold many times," said Charlie Gerow, a Republican strategist in Harrisburg. "Republicans came in every four years and thought they would win. McCain came in with a huge surge of activity in the last 10 days of 2008, trying to win the state."

That didn't happen, largely because Obama had a huge, insurmountable turnout of Democrats in cities across the state. But he also gained votes from McCain's party that helped him win Republican strongholds, such as Berks, Pike and Wayne counties.

"Voter registration doesn't mean much in Pennsylvania," Gerow said.

Democrats still have a registration advantage in the state, but it has eroded over time, falling from 4.4 million registered Democrats in 2008 to 4.1 million today. In that same time frame, the number of registered Republicans has increased from 3.2 million to 3.4 million.

Pa. voter trends: Republicans switching parties in reliably red counties and more

People walking east on West Sixth Street, in support of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, pass a few supporters of President Donald Trump, right.

Obama cut into Republican margins in places like Lancaster County, which Kerry lost by 32 points and Obama lost by 12 points.

Obama won Pennsylvania by 6 points in 2012, fending off Republican challenger Mitt Romney. But Romney won back Berks, Pike and Wayne counties, and Trump held onto them and flipped blue counties in 2016.

More than voting for Democrats or Republicans, Pennsylvanians tend to vote with their gut instincts, typically casting their ballots for the candidate they perceive to be more genuine.

"Pennsylvania is a state that chooses personality over political party," White said.

The state's independent streak dates back to at least 1912, when it snubbed Democrat Woodrow Wilson and Republican William Howard Taft for Progressive "Bull Moose Party" candidate Teddy Roosevelt.

Pennsylvania is a state that chose Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt three of four times, Republican Thomas Dewey over Democrat Harry Truman, Republican Dwight Eisenhower twice and helped to elect the rising star in Democrat John F. Kennedy.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump are on opposite sides of the vote-by-mail issue.

This year, the Biden and Trump campaigns both think Pennsylvania is in play.

"Democrats don't think Trump can win the election without Pennsylvania," Gerow said. "I don't think Biden wins without it. It's the most important state in 2020."

Pennsylvania is a winnable state for either party in any given election year, and it carries enough electoral votes to be a game-changer, analysts say.

'Running out of time': Efforts to speed up counting mail ballots stall in battleground states

"At the end of the day, it's math, and the state's 20 electoral votes are very intoxicating," Gerow said. "Pennsylvania is the ultimate chess game."

Unless the Electoral College changes, Pennsylvania's importance in general elections is unlikely to change.

"Elections here have always been close," Gerow said. "The state being up for grabs is a great thing for democracy. Pennsylvania is a true swing state, and it will be a swing state forever."

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Is Pennsylvania the most important swing state in the 2020 election?
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Battles continue in all directions of the Artsakh line of contact as Azeri forces keep attacking, Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson Artsrun Hovhannisyan said.

Battles continued throughout the night and today morning. Overall, the battles continue in all directions. Today, during the entire day the Azerbaijani armed forces delivered strikes using long-range missile and other aerial attacking measures at the peaceful population, on Stepanakert, Shushi and other settlements. We have videos of these attacks, he said.

Hovhannisyan told reporters that the Artsakh Defense Army is taking successful countermeasures in the northern direction.

The Defense Army has successes in the northern directions, it has returned positions. I can say one thing, this is war, and there are situations when great difficulties could happen, retreats, flanking, bypass, but victory will be ours. The Defense Army is firmly fulfilling its mission, he said.

Asked about the situation at the Armenia state border, he said that the situation at the Armenia-Azerbaijan border is calm.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Over the weekend, President Donald Trump was reportedly treated for the coronavirus with a combination of antibodies geared to stop the virus from entering cells and replicating. It's a promising but unproven therapy that, for virtually anyone else, would be impossible to access without entering a clinical trial.

In a trial, there's always a chance a patient will get a placebo, though volunteers still receive what's considered the best proven standard of care. Trials such as these help scientists learn something important that could benefit many others.

It might be unrealistic to expect the President of the United States to enter a clinical trial, but it wouldn't necessarily have been more dangerous than taking an untested treatment, and it would have been a great counter-argument to accusations that he's anti-science.

US President Donald Trump puts his mask in his pocket after leaving hospital. Credit:AP

As it is, headlines are playing up the elitist nature of Trump's treatment. "This sends a signal to the American public that clinical trials are for chumps," says Jonathan Kimmelman, a medical ethicist at McGill University in Canada.
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday (October 7, 2020) has filed a prosecution complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) against three people before the District & Sessions Court (PMLA) Ernakulam in the Kerala gold smuggling case through the diplomatic channel.

The prosecution complaint was filed against - Sarith PS, Swapna Prabha Suresh and Sandeep Nair.

The ED initiated investigation under the provisions of PMLA on the basis of NIA's FIR filed before the Special Court.

The Customs Commissionerate (Preventive) in Cochin had registered relating to the seizure of 30 kg or 24 karat gold worth Rs 14.82 crores at the Trivandrum International Airport.

The said gold was camouflaged as diplomatic baggage to a UAE Consulate, which has immunity from checking at the airport as per the Vienna Convention.

The consignment was to be received by the accused Sarith who had worked in a UAE Consulate earlier as a Public Relations Officer in complicity with Swapna Prabha Suresh, Sandeep Nair and others.

During the course of an investigation under PMLA, it was revealed that the above-accused persons have indulged in criminal activities and a huge amount of proceeds of crime have been generated and the accused persons are possessing/concealing/using such proceeds of crime and accordingly, Prosecution Complaint under PMLA has been filed against them for punishing the accused in accordance with the law for the offence of money laundering.



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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 18:17:35|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- China welcomes and supports the signing of a comprehensive peace deal between the Sudanese government and opposition groups, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Spokesperson Hua Chunying's remarks came after the Sudanese government signed a comprehensive peace deal with opposition groups in the South Sudanese capital Juba on Saturday to end decades of conflict in Darfur, the Blue Nile, and South Kordofan regions.

The peace deal will help Sudan continue to advance the political transition process smoothly, Hua said in a statement, noting that China hopes all parties in Sudan will implement it well.

China is ready to work with the international community to further play a constructive role in promoting peace, stability, and development in Sudan, she added. Enditem
PLEASANTON, Calif., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Blume Global , a leading provider of logistics and supply chain solutions empowered by the largest globally-connected network, today announced that Valor Victoria , logistics firm and freight coordinator, has selected the Blume Digital Operating Platform to serve as the foundation to share data among customers and vendor partners and keep stakeholders informed as the company coordinates freight movement across multiple modes of transportation.

A transportation, trucking and railroad technology company, Valor Victoria enables importers and exporters to identify and execute strategies utilizing roundtrip economics, to create effective solutions to match importer freight to exporter freight for Beneficial Cargo Owners (BCO) and Non-Vessel Operating Common Carriers (NVOCC). Valor Victoria works with progressive companies to transform their supply chain solutions through its unique partner relationships. The company continues to establish a preemptive sales atmosphere of round-trip movements by pre-selling export containers in markets associated with importer distribution centers and manufacturing facilities.

Valor Victoria will employ Blume Global technology to:

Digitize Operations: By using Blume's digital operating platform, all documents and information are digitized enabling fast visualization, search, data validation, automation, and analytics from scheduling appointments to tendering loads and rail billing.

By using Blume's digital operating platform, all documents and information are digitized enabling fast visualization, search, data validation, automation, and analytics from scheduling appointments to tendering loads and rail billing. Interface with existing platforms and portals : In order to maximize benefits for the end customer, this integration will provide seamless service, visibility, and execution on freight for Valor Victoria's customers that range from BCOs to world-class freight forwarders.

: In order to maximize benefits for the end customer, this integration will provide seamless service, visibility, and execution on freight for Valor Victoria's customers that range from BCOs to world-class freight forwarders. Improve business operations and efficiencies: This includes automatically receiving and processing customer shipment requests, scheduling door-to-door moves, connecting with motor carrier networks to tender work / receive milestones, and creating and sending electronic rail billing to rail partners.

"Based on the benefits provided by Blume's technology, Valor Victoria will be able to effectively scale into multiple locations and services, helping the company reach its potential for rapid growth," said Pervinder Johar, CEO of Blume Global. "Our solutions guarantee new levels of customer service and will enable Valor Victoria to successfully execute on new innovative supply chain strategies."

"Valor Victoria has a distinctive understanding of carrier concerns, and our team works alongside them to create efficiency in the line-haul for stakeholders," said Ashley Ritteman, CEO of Valor Victoria. "With continued validation from Blume's long-standing relationship with Valor's class one railroad partner, and witnessing the continued success of Blume solutions within the supply chain, we are convinced of the company's commitment to amplify our impact on the industry."

The Blume Digital Operating Platform is the only cloud first, industry-leading, secure, API-enabled, real-time platform that connects, and uplifts the entire logistics supply chain ecosystem. Driving rapid digital transformation, the platform captures and cleans data from Blume Network sources into a single virtual and highly available place, powering logistics and supply chains globally.

Built on decades of market leadership in international and domestic multi-modal logistics, Blume Global partners with ocean carriers, air cargo carriers, trucking companies, railroads, marine terminals, airports, rail ramps and warehouses in more than 130 countries to ensure freight moves in an efficient, predictable and highly visible way. Learn more about Blume Global and its extensive network at www.blumeglobal.com .

About Blume Global

From the world's largest global retailers, manufacturers and consumer products companies to the smallest owner-operator drayage trucking companies, success depends on end-to-end visibility and orchestration of global supply chain networks. Every move. Every mode. Every mile. With its AI-enabled, data-driven digital platform and solutions for real-time visibility, logistics execution, asset management, optimization and financial audit & settlement, Blume Global leverages more than 25 years of data insights, its globally connected network, and advanced technologies to help enterprises be more agile and responsive, improve service delivery and reduce costs. Learn more at blumeglobal.com .

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Central Pennsylvanians may see rain showers Sunday or Monday as Hurricane Delta moves north, according to the National Weather Service.

Meteorologist Matt Steinbugl said the remnants of Hurricane Delta should be approaching the midstate from the southwest by the weekend. This week is expected to be sunny and rain-free, other than an outside chance of sprinkles Wednesday.

Its hard to say exactly how much rain central Pennsylvania will get because of Delta, but Steinbugl said it will not be significant.

He also said the 40 mph wind gusts forecasted for Wednesday are because of a low-pressure system that is not connected to the hurricane.

Hurricane Delta made landfall in Mexico Wednesday as an extremely dangerous Category 2 storm with 110 mph winds, according to The Associated Press. Quintana Roo Gov. Carlos Joaquin said the area has not seen a storm like Delta since Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

The AP reported Delta could spend several hours along the Yucatan Peninsula before moving into the Gulf of Mexico and striking the U.S. Gulf coast as a considerably larger storm.

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US President Donald Trump appeared to be using his bout with Covid-19 to try to gain an advantage over his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, even as the number of infections around him continued to rise and some of America's top military leaders went into quarantine.

General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General James McConville, the Army chief of staff; and several other Pentagon leaders are quarantining after being exposed to the coronavirus, Defence Department spokesman Jonathan Hoffman announced on Tuesday, after a statement from the US Coast Guard that Admiral Charles Ray, the division's second in command, tested positive for Covid-19.

Two more White House staffers also tested positive, including a military aide and one of Trump's valets, an active member of the US military who travelled with the president last week, according to Bloomberg News. The latest cases bring the number of infections among individuals who either work at the White House or have recently attended events there, including the president and First Lady Melania Trump, to 19.

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

Trump, who received an aggressive course of experimental treatments while hospitalised and will get round-the-clock care at the White House, has consistently played down the disease even though the US has the world's highest coronavirus death toll.

Political analysts said that with only four weeks left until the November 3 election, the positive diagnosis and the personality of the candidate left the Trump campaign with little choice but to double down on denying the gravity of the virus as the president faced a backlash for telling Americans not to fear a contagion that has killed more than 1 million people worldwide.

The image of Trump removing his face mask on the South Portico of the White House after his return from the Walter Reed medical centre, and then saluting and waving, coincided with an online video of him saying: "Don't let it dominate you. Don't be afraid of it."

Story continues

Trump underscored this strategy with a Twitter post comparing Covid-19, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans, to the seasonal flu. Twitter slapped a warning on the post, saying that it spread "misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19".

Facebook also removed a post by Trump with a similar message comparing the illness with seasonal influenza.

"Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu," Trump wrote.

"Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!"

Influenza was estimated by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to have killed 22,000 Americans in the 2019-2020 season and 34,200 in the previous year.

Biden posted on Twitter a split-screen video showing him putting a mask on and the footage of Trump removing his at the White House.

Trump also announced via Twitter that he was "looking forward" to the second of three debates with Biden, scheduled to take place in Miami on October 15, which would be 14 days after the president announced his Covid-19 diagnosis. Conley and other White House officials have refused to give a date for Trump's last negative test result.

In polls taken since Trump's diagnosis and the first debate with Biden on September 29, which saw the president repeatedly talk over his Democratic rival and the moderator, Trump's fortunes have worsened.

Among likely voters, 57 per cent said they supported Biden and 41 per cent Trump, according to a CNN poll released on Tuesday, the largest margin seen in a major survey so far.

But given the vagaries of the US Electoral College, which decides the winner, the race will still come down to a handful of swing states that are less clear because of Biden's more narrow lead.

Meanwhile, a survey released on Tuesday by Pew Research found that an unfavourable view of China had hit historic highs in many developed countries, but when it came to handling the pandemic, the US ranked even lower.

In a survey of 14 countries, a median of 61 per cent of respondents said China had done a bad job of handling the pandemic, topped only by the 84 per cent who said the US had mismanaged it.

This compared with the 35 per cent of respondents in European nations, Canada, the US, South Korea and Japan who said a poor job had been done by the World Health Organization - the United Nations agency Trump has blamed along with China for the spread of the virus in the US.

Confidence in President Xi Jinping to do the right thing in world affairs also hit new lows, with at least 70 per cent of the respondents across all the countries expressing "no confidence" in the Chinese leader, up 17 percentage points, led by Japan with 84 per cent and South Korea with 83 per cent.

However, Trump's ratings were also poor.

"In Germany, 78 per cent say they have no confidence in Xi - but 89 per cent say the same of Trump," the Pew report said.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Netflix has recently been the target of criticism over a controversial movie called Cuties. Now, the company is facing a criminal charge over the film.

A grand jury in Tyler County, Texas has indicted Netflix. The company knowingly promoted visual material which depicts the lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 years of age at the time the visual material was created, which appeals to the prurient interest in sex, and has no serious, literary, artistic, political, or scientific value, according to the indictment.

Netflix, Inc. indicted by grand jury in Tyler Co., Tx for promoting material in Cuties film which depicts lewd exhibition of pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 yrs of age which appeals to the prurient interest in sex #Cuties #txlege pic.twitter.com/UJ1hY8XJ2l  Matt Schaefer (@RepMattSchaefer) October 6, 2020

The charge is a state felony. Netflix has been served with a summons, though an arraingment date hasnt been set. The companys co-CEOs, Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos, were named in the indictment.

Cuties is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children, Netflix told Reuters in a statement. This charge is without merit and we stand by the film. The French movie is about an 11-year-old Muslim girl who, according to Netflix, starts to rebel against her conservative familys traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew.

Even before Cuties started streaming on September 9th, Netflix received blowback over a promotional poster that allegedly sexualized young girls. The company apologized for the inappropriate imagery and said it wasnt representative of the film. Turkey, meanwhile, instructed Netflix to block access to Cuties in the country.

We're deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for Mignonnes/Cuties. It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film which won an award at Sundance. Weve now updated the pictures and description.  Netflix (@netflix) August 20, 2020

Cuties won an award at the Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered in January. The films director, Maimouna Doucoure, told Deadline last month that she has received attacks on her character from people who had not seen the film, who thought I was actually making a film that was apologetic about hypersexualiation of children. She also claims to have received death threats.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday held the Shaheen Bagh protest perhaps no longer remained the "sole and empowering voice of women", as the presence of various groups of protesters had possibly resulted in them acting at cross-purposes.

Citing the report of interlocutors, a bench comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Aniruddha Bose and Krishna Murari said that it appeared that an absence of leadership guiding the protest and the presence of various groups of protesters had resulted in many influencers who were acting possibly at cross-purposes with each other.

"Thus, the Shaheen Bagh protest perhaps no longer remained the sole and empowering voice of women, who also appeared to no longer have the ability to call off the protest themselves," it said.

The top court had appointed two interlocutors - senior advocate Sanjay R. Hegde and Sadhana Ramachandran, who is a mediator trainer, to meet the protesters at the site.

According to their first report, the top court found that the nature of demands was very wide and that it did look difficult to find a middle path towards at least facilitating the opening of the blocked public way.

The second report of the interlocutors suggested that the views reflected in private conversations with the protesters were somewhat different from the public statements made to the media and to the crowd in attendance.

"While the women protesters had sat in protest inside the tent, there was a huge periphery comprising mainly of male protesters, volunteers and bystanders who all seemed to have a stake in the continuance of the blockade of the road," the bench said.

During the site visit on March 20, before the lockdown to control the outbreak of Covid-19 was imposed, it was revealed that there were about 35-40 'takhts' (platforms) inside the tent and each had 2-3 women occupying the space, resulting in a rough estimate of about 75-100 women inside the tent, as well as 200 or more outside the tent having a connection with the protest.

"While the tent was occupying half of the carriageway, the remaining half of the carriageway had been blocked by creating facilities such as a library, a large model of India Gate and a big metallic three-dimensional map of India located upon a very strong metal scaffolding and anchored by heavy stones, making its removal very difficult," the top court observed.

Noting that mediation through interlocutors did not produce a solution, the top court said a right to hold meetings on public streets was subject to the control of the appropriate authority regarding the time and place of the meeting and subject to considerations of public order.

"However, as the rule requiring prior permission of the concerned authority did not contain any guidance as to when such permission to hold a public meeting may be refused, it was found that the same conferred arbitrary powers and gave an unguided discretion to the concerned authority, and this was accordingly held to be ultra vires Article 19(1)(b) of the Constitution," it said.
In a huge setback for the anti-CAA protestors and Islamic mobs of Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi, the Supreme Court on Wednesday, in a scathing remark said that the public places like Shaheen Bagh cannot be blocked or occupied indefinitely for protests. A Supreme Court bench of Justices S K Kaul, Aniruddha Bose and Krishna Murari delivered this verdict while delivering a judgement on the scope of the right to protest and whether or not there can be any limitations on such a right.

The Supreme Court bench on Wednesday said that no person or group of persons can block public places or carriageways to demonstrate or express dissent. Such kind of occupation of public place for protests is not acceptable and protests must be held at designated places, ruled the Supreme Court.

Hearing a batch of petitions seeking guidelines on the right to protest, the Supreme Court observed, Public spaces and places cant be occupied indefinitely whether in Shaheen Bagh or elsewhere. The administration must keep such spaces free from obstructions. Not wait to fire from courts shoulder. Dissent and democracy go hand in hand but protests must be carried out in designated area, said the bench comprising Justices S K Kaul, Aniruddha Bose and Krishna Murari.

On September 21, the top court had reserved its order on the aspect of the need to balance the right to protest with the right of mobility by other people. The petition was filed by Advocate Amit Sahni in January seeking removal of the protests against CAA-NRC at Shaheen Bagh. The petitioner had complained that protests were blocking the roads, affecting the right of free movement of the public.

Authorities should have acted to clear the Shaheen Bagh area: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court also slammed the government for not clearing the blocked road and waiting for courts order instead. The court said that authorities have to act on their own and cannot hide behind courts.

The Delhi Police ought to have taken action to clear Shaheen Bagh area, the Supreme Court said on the so-called anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh.

The apex court also said right to peaceful protest is a constitutional right and it has to be respected. However, the right does not mean agitating people should adopt means and modes of protest that was used against colonial rulers during struggle for independence.

Demonstrations which cause inconvenience to a large number of people and violate their rights is not permissible under the law, the court further added. The court said that the right to protest has to be balanced with the right of the people to use a public road. Noting that a pubic road was blocked for a long period of time, the bench asked, what about this right to use the road?

As Shaheen Bagh protests were already called off in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, the issue of road blockade had become infructuous. But the apex court had said that it will deliver a verdict on the issue of Right to Protest Vs. The Right to Mobility. Todays order gives the governments legal sanction to remove protests blocking public places without the need to waiting for a court order, therefore it will have a far-reaching impact.

Shaheen Bagh Anti-CAA protests

The anti-CAA protests, especially at Shaheen Bagh, which began as a peaceful protest crossed all the boundaries as it turned out to be another typical left-wing managed anti-India event. Eventually, the Shaheen Bagh protest site had provided fodder and a shield for violent rioters who had, in February, targeted Hindus and gone on a rampage burning the capital, timing the bloodbath with US President Trumps visit to Delhi.

Following the failure of violent protests perpetrated by the Muslim mobs on the streets of Delhi and Jamia Millia Islamia University, few women belonging to Muslim community sat on a protest at Shaheen Bagh, blocked a bus stop and a highway causing severe problems to the public of Delhi.

Shaheen Bagh protests, which were initially passed off as an organic protest in a bid to save the constitution began to turn into a blatantly communal event. It was earlier reported that the Muslim mobs had shouted pro-Pakistan and Hinduphobic slogans like Jinnah Wali Azadi, demanding another partition of the country.

Source : OpIndia
After launching two early college high school programs over the past two years focused on training students for cybersecurity and health care jobs, the San Antonio Independent School District is building on a national job training model to develop more skilled workers locally.

SAISD officials plan to develop a manufacturing and engineering-focused Pathways in Technology, or P-Tech, early college school at Highlands High School on the Southeast Side. The program will open for students in fall 2021, and take four to five years to complete.

The P-Tech model, started in New York, brings school districts together with local colleges and employers. Students participate in the program throughout high school, interning or receiving on-the-job training with local companies, and graduate with an associate degree and job certifications.

Students receive a college degree tuition-free and are prepared to get a job in an in-demand field upon graduation, said Michelle Garcia, coordinator of the Engineering Institute at Highlands and the primary organizer of the P-Tech program at the school.

We started really with workforce data. We looked at information from Workforce Solutions Alamo on what are high-demand, high-wage jobs in this area? Garcia said. When we hear from employers, This is the skill I need, we make sure that goes into the program instead of it being one field trip or job shadow. Students are actually going to be embedded for four to five years.

At Highlands, the first class will have between 120 and 150 students. Students can apply for P-Tech programs at saisdchoice.com. Admissions will be based on a lottery, and students from any SAISD high school can apply.

Students in the Highlands program will remain SAISD students while they receive an associates degree through St. Phillips College related to one of four careers: engineering, manufacturing, aerospace or welding.

On ExpressNews.com: Alamo Colleges exploring deals with school districts to run early college high schools

SAISD hasnt officially partnered with employers that will offer training for students. But Garcia said companies including H-E-B, Toyota and one of the automakers parts suppliers, Toyotetsu, are likely participants in the program.

She said shes talked with other employers, including Boeing, to gauge their interest in participating.

TX FAME, the local arm of the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education, will also partner with SAISD to help develop the program.

Garcia said the Highlands P-Tech program has received $300,000 in funding so far, primarily in grants from the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Workforce Commission. The money will be used to purchase manufacturing equipment and ensure labs are state of the art, she said.

Neither the school district nor local companies have wavered in their support of the new P-Tech despite the pandemic, Garcia said. And since students in their first two years in P-Tech take mostly preparatory courses, she didnt expect the pandemic to effect the roll-out of the program much.

Students next year likely still will take online courses and potentially use virtual simulators to learn about manufacturing equipment. But Garcia said she expects students will still be able to safely receive hands-on training.

SAISD opened Cyber P-Tech at Sam Houston High School two years ago, and a nursing and health care-related version of the program at Fox Tech High School last fall.

Next fall, the district will also launch P-Tech programs in construction sciences at Lanier High School and in business administration at Edison High School.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio ISD to open a construction and architecture academy with a college component

Thats whats cool about all of our different P-Techs, Garcia said. We feel like weve aligned them and differentiated them to be working together on similar challenges and concepts of P-Tech, but in different areas that are essential workforce gaps in our area.

U.S. manufacturing firms long have complained about a lack of skilled workers available to fill factory jobs. They argue some students dont necessarily need to go to college, but instead could receive training from the apprenticeship-like P-Tech program and begin their career debt-free.

One of the challenges is that the students just dont realize the manufacturing career paths that are out there, said Bill Cox, president and CEO of Cox Manufacturing, said during a recent virtual event hosted by the San Antonio Manufacturers Association. So many of the students, all they know is you get out of high school and youre expected to go to college. And a lot of the kids are just going to college because they think thats what they need to do.

Other manufacturing-focused training programs in San Antonio are similar to P-Tech. Alamo Academies, also run by the Alamo Colleges, offers training for high school juniors and seniors and summer internships.

But Cox said traditional school-day scheduling isnt conducive to providing students on-the-job training with local manufacturers.

Its hard for students that are in those programs to work in a manufacturing job during a day shift, so many of those students end up going to work fast-food schedules, and its unfortunate, Cox said.

Summer internships are too short, and students join companies all at the same time without the ability to develop a steady track toward employment, he said.

Youre limiting the capacity and the experience of the student, Cox said. So Im a big advocate of following the European model of an internship embedded into the regular school year, and having that partnered with manufacturers where students have work experience during day shift hours, during normal school years.

After Highlands High School in 2017 received a improvement required rating from the Texas Education Agency for poor performance, Garcia said she believes the P-Tech program is part of the schools continued turnaround.

We want to see students graduating from our program and jumping right in and getting the first interviews for these top jobs in San Antonio in various fields, Garcia said. Ultimately, its improving outcomes for students, and getting them higher wage jobs more quickly.

diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net
A District School Board of Niagara teacher whose passion is to work with students in the science and technology program is among a group of educators to be recognized nationally for teaching excellence.

Leonard Aylward, a teacher and consultant for innovation and technology with DSBN, is among 71 educators who have been awarded a Prime Ministers Award for Teaching Excellence.

The announcement of his honour, which was made Oct. 5 in a media release from the Prime Ministers Office, coincided with World Teachers Day,

The award goes to Canadas top teachers for categories including teaching excellence; teaching excellence in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM); and excellence in early childhood education.

The award means a lot, said Aylward. Its specific to my passion, which is having students work with science, technology, engineering and math. It reaffirms what I have believed all along about how important STEM education is and how it can be a motivator to engage students.

His award, which was supposed to be announced last March but was delayed due to COVID-19, recognizes teachers at the elementary or secondary school level who keep students engaged in STEM learning.

Aylward, as a specialist, serves the entire board, for whi he has worked the past 21 years.

Aylward will receive a certificate of achievement and a cash prize of $1,000. He will also receive a letter of congratulations signed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
You wont find cinnamon, nutmeg, or any other typical fall baking spices in a classic French apple cake. Nor will you find any nuts, glaze, or extra crumble topping.

What you will find, though, are hefty chunks of apples, nestled in a tender, buttery, rum-infused cake, all finished with a crackly, sugary top. The apples shine beautifully.

This staple of French kitchens is the epitome of simple, cozy fall baking, and a timeless recipe that all home bakers should have in their repertoires.

What Makes It French?

Several regions of France have their own unique twists on apple cake, but this recipe is considered to be the most popular countrywide. Its popularity has reached outside French borders, too, thanks to various American chefs, such as Dorie Greenspan and David Lebovitz, sharing its recipe across the Atlantic.

The fame of the classic French apple cake is in large part due to its delicate crumb, made with a generous amount of butter. In France, this is what we call a moelleux (literally meaning soft or tender) cake. In texture and taste, it is reminiscent of German versunkener apfelkuchen or Russian sharlotka, both made in similar ways, with a tender crumb and high apple-to-cake ratio.

But perhaps what really makes this cake distinct from its American counterpart is that it doesnt call for those warm spices, often included in baked apple goods in North America. Instead, the French turn to booze: a healthy splash of dark rum complements the apples and infuses the cake with an incomparable flavor and fragrance. The rum is really the magic ingredient here.

Baking Tips for Success

Rum aside, this apple cake is a very simple, honest treat, made with basic ingredients that you likely already have on hand: flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and of course, crisp seasonal apples.

This is an easy one-bowl recipe that any novice baker can make. With these tips and tricks, you will be set for guaranteed success.

Select the Right Apples

As with every apple recipe, this one begins with selecting a suitable apple variety. Choose baking apples that will hold their shape when bakedso they dont turn into applesauce. Fuji, Honeycrisp, Mutsu, Jonagold, Pink Lady, Braeburn, and Granny Smith apples are all great choices here.

This cake requires two large (or three small) apples. You can opt for just one variety or use a mix of them to create a contrast of tart, sweet, and mellow flavors. For instance, a Granny Smith (tart and crisp) paired with a Jonagold (sweeter, with honey notes) will create a beautiful contrast of flavors in every mouthful.

Make sure you cut the apples into uniform chunks so they disperse evenly throughout the batter, giving you a consistent texture after baking.

Peel, core, and cut the apples into uniform chunks. (Audrey Le Goff)

Ribbon the Sugar and the Eggs

The key to achieving a tender, airy cake crumb is to beat together the eggs and sugar until they reach the ribbon stageperhaps the only crucial baking technique in this recipe.

Ribboning is achieved by vigorously whisking the eggs and sugar together until the sugar crystals dissolve and the mixture becomes pale and thick. When you lift the whisk, the mixture should fall from the whisk in a smooth ribbon. You can whisk by hand, with an electric mixer, or in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, but youll need to do so for a long period, at least 5 minutes. This step is essential to incorporate air into the batter and give you that desired texture after baking.

Whisk together the eggs and sugar until the mixture forms a ribbon. (Audrey Le Goff)

Use Great-Quality Rum

Since the unique taste of the classic French apple cake relies on a generous splash of rum, using a great-quality rum will make all the difference. Alternatively, a good-quality brandy, such as Cognac, or perhaps even better, Calvados (apple brandy from Normandy) would work great, too.

Using rum is very highly recommendedit truly makes the flavor of the cakebut for a non-alcoholic version, you can substitute it with apple juice.

Fold the apple chunks into the batter. (Audrey Le Goff)

Trust the Ratio

When folding the apple chunks into the batter, you will probably think there isnt enough batter to cover all the applesbut dont fret, this is normal. Use a spatula to spread the thick, chunky batter into your prepared cake pan, making sure there are no air pockets. As it bakes, the batter will expand greatly and the ratio of cake to apple chunks will be just perfect.

Sprinkle the batter with a thin layer of sugar before baking. (Audrey Le Goff)

Dont Skip the Finishing Touch

Right before baking, the cake is finished off with a thin layer of sugar, which will create its signature crunchy sugar top. About two tablespoons of sugar is enough to create the thin crust. This step cannot be skippedimagine a creme brulee without its crackly burnt sugar top. Either recipe just wouldnt be the same.

Bake until a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. (Audrey Le Goff)

Classic French Apple Cake

This cake is quite delicate in texture, so be gentle when removing it from the pan. A springform pan is preferred, although not mandatory.

Enjoy the cake warm or cool, with a dollop of creme fraiche on top in true French fashion.

Makes one 8- or 9-inch cake

1/2 cup unsalted butter, plus more for greasing

2 large (or 3 small) baking apples (such as Fuji, Honeycrisp, Mutsu, Jonagold, Pink Lady, Braeburn, or Granny Smith)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

3/4 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for sprinkling

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons dark rum (or Cognac, Calvados, or apple juice)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F with a rack in the middle. Line the bottom of an 8-inch or 9-inch cake pan (preferably springform) with parchment paper, and grease the sides with butter.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan and set aside to cool.

Peel and core the apples, then dice them into 1/2-inch chunks.

In a small bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl, vigorously beat the eggs and sugar together until the mixture turns pale and thick, and falls from the whisk in a smooth ribbon. It should take at least 5 minutes. Whisk in the dark rum and vanilla extract.

Whisk in half of the flour mixture and gently stir. Add in half of the melted butter and gently stir. Stir in the remaining flour mixture, then the rest of the butter.

Fold in the apples until they are evenly coated with the batter. (It will look like there is too much apple and not enough batter, but this is normal.)

Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan, making sure there are no air pockets, and smooth the top a little bit with a spatula. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of sugar evenly over the top of the batter.

Bake the cake for 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes, then carefully remove it from the pan.

Enjoy warm or cool, served with creme fraiche.

Audrey Le Goff is a French food writer, photographer, and creator of the food blog, Pardon Your French, where she shares recipes and stories from her beloved home country, France. She is the author of the cookbook Rustic French Cooking Made Easy (2019). She currently lives in Niagara, Canada. Follow her on Instagram @pardonyourfrench
Every month, 16,000 people turn to NYH for help to put food on their tables, that number increasing by nine percent after 2018 and dramatically more so during this pandemic. While NYH had to close more than half of its network in March and cease many of its volunteer activities, there was a 75% increase in demand compared to the same period last year. With the help of Schulich's new campaign, NYH is creating pre-packed food hampers for families in need and will distribute 3000 a week.

"COVID-19 has impacted everyone one way or another and we have seen firsthand the struggles our community faces," says Ryan Noble, Executive Director of NYH. "Over the past eight months, we have seen a surge in demand for emergency food and many have come to rely on North York Harvest for support. That is why we are so grateful for the contributions and leadership of The Schulich Foundation, one of our most loyal supporters, who's providing this match and rallying the community to help those in need. If you're thinking of donating funds to North York Harvest, now is the time because your donation will double."

The Schulich Foundation has worked with NYH for two decades now. "Together, we'll provide double the love, strength and support during this crisis by bringing food and hope to the most vulnerable in our community," says Judy Schulich.

FAQ: A Thanksgiving Food Hamper for People in Need



How can the public help?

Financial donations to North York Harvest Food Bank will be doubled until November 30, 2020 . Donations may be made at http://bit.ly/DonateNorthYorkHarvest.

What's in the hamper?

A selection of high-quality nutritious staples for families, including tuna, beans and lentils, pasta, cereal and canned fruit and vegetables.

Who's making the hamper?

The North York Harvest Food Bank was founded in 1986 and currently distribute emergency food to the community through a network of 40 agencies.

Who needs the hamper?

A growing number of families: NYH served nearly 9,000 households in August alone.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the demand for NYH's help by 75%.

How many hampers will this campaign create?

At a cost of $15 each to prepare, NYH needs to prepare at least 3,000 hampers to families in need each week.

What else does the North York Harvest Food Bank do?

Provide support in food procurement and logistics for non-profits in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

(GTA). They train Ontario Works recipients with new skills and provide job opportunities in partnership with the Learning Enrichment Foundation.

Not simply a food bank, NYH is a community wealth builder, investing in North York's future.

SOURCE North York Harvest Food Bank

For further information: For media inquiries only: Scott Dagostino, 647-839-8973, [email protected]
The Paramount Chief of Osu, His Royal Majesty, Nii Okwei Kinka Dowuona VI, has been re-elected as the President of the Greater Accra Regional House of Chiefs for the second time.

The Osu Mantse, who doubles as the President of the Osu Traditional Area of the Greater Accra Region, polled five votes out of the seven votes cast.

He defeated his sole contender, King Odaifio Welentsi III, Nungua Mantse to retain his seat as the President of the House.

Nii Dowuona VI, a former banker, in 2016 replaced Nene Abram Kabu Akuaku III, Paramount Chief of the Ada Traditional Area, whose term of office came to an end after defeating King Odaifio Welentsi III, Nungua Mantse, to clinch the seat for the first time.

The Osudoku Mantse, Nene Ngogmowuyaa Kwesi Animle III also went unopposed for the Vice President position of the House.

In all, three (3) persons were elected for the representation to the National House of Chiefs. The three were the Kpone Mantse, Nii Tetteh Otu lll, Ada Mantse, Nene Abram Kabu Akuako and Ga Mantse, Nii Adama Latse as the President and his Vice were automatically Members of the National House.

In a brief speech to the House, His Royal Majesty Nii Okwei Kinka Dowuona VI called on members to come together and unite to form a formidable team to move the region forward.

The Osu Mantse urged all the political parties to embark on a clean campaign and be Ambassadors of peace rather than engaging in campaign of insults, accusations and counter accusations.

Nii Dowuona VI further urged the youth not to allow themselves to be used by politicians to perpetrate violence before, during and after this year's election.


Quarry manager finds living stones in Thailand Quarry manager finds living stones in Thailand

Andrew Goodman was a Dereham-based quarry manager before sensing the call to become a missionary to the Shan people in Thailand. Network Norfolk caught up with him while he was on furlough in the UK, and he shared something of his story.



My wife and I moved to Dereham in 1990. I managed a pit near Downham Market and started one at Easton, behind the Showground. We were new and enthusiastic Christians, and I felt prompted to join the Anglican church, St Nicholas. I got to speak at Gressenhall and Dereham, and we later got baptised by the Brethren at Dereham Christian Fellowship and developed close links with Eckling Grange.



My wife was just finishing her PhD in chemistry, and we were seeking God for direction. At Spring Harvest, we stepped forward as willing to go on mission, and I began to be moved by the spiritual poverty in Asia. In 1992 we were at an OMF conference at All Nations, and the first Thai person I had met gave a testimony.



I became aware of the lawlessness among the Shan, and as I started praying for them, I got scared. The Golden Triangle where they live is the second biggest opium-producing area in the world, and the biggest producer of methamphetamines. But reading through the Book of Nehemiah I was very struck by what Nehemiah said: Remember God who is great and awesome, and fight. (4:14) At the next worship session, the song was about building the kingdom out of living stones, which meant a lot to me as a quarry manager.



Over the weekend I had doubts about the whole thing, but when I went in to work on Monday the weighbridge manager brought out a copy of the Daily Telegraph, which had a picture of the Golden Triangle.



We moved out to Chiang Mai in Thailand in 1995, when our eldest daughter Sophie was two and a half. I spent two years learning Thai and then learned the Shan language. Our work now has four foci: walking with Shan leaders in mutual encouragement, radio broadcasting, producing micro SD cards with the Shan Bible to go in mobile phones, and running an AIDS care programme. We help children with education, because the parents have often died, and the grandparents need assistance.



The Shan are still very much an unreached people. Twelve years ago there were 150 Shan Christians, today there are 1,400. They are a strongly Buddhist group, though they have become more receptive through radio broadcasts and through Shan Christians finding bridges to the Lord from their Buddhist beliefs.



Our radio broadcaster was originally from Shan State in Myanmar. He was a vagrant and labourer and had been in prison for not having the right papers. He found Jesus after a Karen man shared the Gospel with him. He fell in love with the mans daughter, married her, and had an amazing transformation.



Like people everywhere weve had some issues. Our youngest son Isaac has suffered from chronic fatigue for four years, and my wife had a stroke which from which she still has some balance issues. A Thai woman we know was very inspired by the way shes kept going.



OMF groups in Dereham, Cromer and Heacham currently support us, and Id be glad to speak with other people who are interested in doing so. In terms of prayer, Id like to praise God for the way He has been softening the hearts of the Shan, and I would ask people to pray for the ongoing work of the Spirit and the maturing of the Shan leaders. Our heart is to see a movement among the Shan  that salvation would spring up among them.



You can contact Andrew Goodman on aungsa@yahoo.com



Pictured above are Andrew Goodman (top), a woman who has been helped by the AIDS ministry, and the radio broadcast.











Eldred Willey, 07/10/2020
The Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile is launched from the Russian guided missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov on October 7 - Reuters

Russia's armed forces marked birthday of President Vladimir Putin's 68th birthday with the successful test launch of a hypersonic missile.

The Tsirkon missile, which can travel at 8 times the speed of sound, was launched on Tuesday from a vessel in the White Sea in Russia's north-west, said the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. It successfully hit its target in the Barents Sea, he added.

The missile covered a distance of 450 kilometres in four and half-minutes after reaching a hypersonic speed of more than Mach 8.

President Putin takes pride in hypersonic weapons, contrasting Russia's status as world-leader in their development with the Cold War when Moscow played catch-up to the US in terms of military technology.

Mr Putin praised the test in remarks broadcast on television: This is a major event not only in the life of the armed forces but also for all of Russia, for the whole country."

Mr Putin has previously argued that Russia had to develop new weapons in response to the development of the US missile defence system that threatens to erode Russias nuclear deterrent.

Missile launch - RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY via reuters

Tsirkons tests will continue for some time before the newest missile can be deployed on Russian vessels and submarines, according to Gen Gerasimov who did not give a timeline for the completion of those tests.

The missile test comes at a point when relations between Russia and the United States are their worst since the end of the Cold War.

Washington last year pulled out of a key nuclear arms treaty, citing Russian violations.

Time is also running out on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the last major nuclear arms agreement between the two countries which is due to expire in February.

Russia and the US have spent months negotiating an extension for the treaty as the Trump administration insists that it will only renew the deal if Russia makes additional commitments.

The expiry of the treaty would leave the world with no legal restrictions on US and Russian nuclear weapons for the first time in almost half a century.
A United Airlines pilot and his wife died on Monday only four days after their wedding when their private plane crashed in Colorado.

The bodies of Costas John Sivyllis, 30, and Lindsey Vogelaar, 33, were recovered from the crash site in Ingram Basin in the San Juan Mountains that evening.

The couple, from Port Orange, Florida, had eloped to Colorado for a small, mountain-top wedding on October 1, and were traveling back home when their plane crashed about 15 minutes after take-off.

They had been documenting their elopement and honeymoon online for friends and family, showing off their 'just married plane' and taking their first flight together as a married couple in the days leading up to the crash.

Costas John Sivyllis, 30, and Lindsey Vogelaar, 33, died Monday after their private plane crashed into Colorado's San Juan Mountains four days after they eloped

The United Airlines pilot and his flight attendant wife were traveling home to Florida. They are pictured here in their wedding dress and suit earlier this week in a picture posted to Facebook

Their private plane crashed into the San Juan Mountains in Colorado on Monday

San Miguel County Sheriff's Office learned of the crash after the plane departed from Telleride Airport at around 12.45pm. The couple had planned to stop to refuel in Oklahoma.

They were the only people on the single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza plane.

Deputies and rescue crews began high-altitude, low-level helicopter operations on Monday evening but it soon became a recovery mission after they determined that the newlyweds had been killed in the crash, according to KIRO7.

Their bodies were finally recovered at around 6.25pm Monday.

'Sheriff Masters extended his personal condolences, and those of the entire rescue team, to the victims families,' San Miguel County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

The Florida-based couple eloped to Colorado on October 1 for a mountaintop wedding

Family and friends mourned the couple's death on social media Tuesday as they shared pictures from their wedding just days before.

'As many of you know, my beautiful sister, best friend, and the most gorgeous bride passed away yesterday with her handsome, most cheerful, husband in a plane crash,' Vogelaar's sister Courtney wrote on Facebook.

'They were married for four days, and they loved each other with all of their heart and soul. They loved life and lived it to the fullest.

'Our hearts are aching more than I can ever explain,' she added. 'Thank you to everyone that has been reaching out, it is a lot to process.'

Sivyllis was a flight instructor as well as a pilot and Vogelaar also worked as a flight attendant. The last pictures on both their Facebook pages show plane views from their work.

The couple met in an airport during a layover in Birmingham, England, according to friend, saying that he remembers the moment Vogelaar met her future husband and how it changed her forever.

The couple had posted pictures of their 'just married' signs in their plane

They were the only passengers in this single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza plane

Sivyllis, pictured right with his wife, had always dreamed of becoming a pilot

The couple met during a layover in Birmingham, England, according to a friend

'She was incredibly intelligent, multilingual. Cute as hell and so much fun to have a drink with,' co-worker Steven Charles Lloyd wrote of her.

'Costas was the best kind of guy youd ever want to meet. He possessed all the talent and swagger imaginable to become one of the best Captains ever. He loved his job as a 1st officer on the 757 so much,' he added.

Sivyllis graduated from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona in 2012, according to WESH 2.

'Our hearts are heavy. Yesterday, we tragically lost our good friend, Embry-Riddle Eagle, Industry Advisory Board member, and amazing aviator Costas Sivyllis. He was loved by all who knew him and he will be greatly missed,' said Alan Stolzer, the dean of the college.

Their plane crashed into the mountains only 15 minutes after take off

Their bodies were recovered from the crash site on Monday evening

Deputies and rescue crews began high-altitude, low-level helicopter operations on Monday

It soon became a recovery mission after they determined that the newlyweds had been killed

Sivyllis had written about his work as a mainline pilot in a blog post for the Air Line Pilots Association.

He said that being a pilot had been his lifelong dream and that flying over the Atlantic Ocean at night always reminded him of that.

'Its a peaceful calm  a sight I relished traveling as a kid overseas to see family, an annual journey that made me fall in love with flying,' he wrote, according to People.

'I take a moment to think about how I dreamt of this for years. Yet now, its a reality as I sit back and monitor the flight instruments and chat casually with the other pilot about our schedule for next month.'

The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed they are investigating the crash.

The Federal Aviation Authority is also investigating.
Stressing the "integrity of Azerbaijan," Iranian government spokesperson Ali Rabiei urged Armenia to pull out its forces from Azerbaijan's occupied territories, Nagorno-Karabakh, saying that third-party intervention outside the agreed framework for resolving the dispute would be non-constructive and harmful.

Speaking in his weekly press briefing on Tuesday, October 6, Rabiei vocalized the Iranian position in the conflict between Armenia and the Azerbaijan Republic over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, that the conflict has no military solution and potentially puts the lives of Iranian citizens in border areas at stake.

"We want peace in the region," he said, adding, "Tehran calls the two sides to immediately end bloodshed and hostility, and resume diplomatic negotiations to address the dispute according to the international laws.".

Referring to rural Iranian border areas being hit by mortars, Rabiei underlined that Tehran was deeply concerned about harm to Iranian lives and assets.

"Should such incidents recur, we will not stand idly by and respond with all choices on the table," Rabiei warned.

Rabiei's comments echoed earlier remarks expressed by Ali Akbar Velayati, the senior adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in foreign affairs and the country's Minister of Defense.

"Armenia should withdraw its forces from the regions it has occupied in the Republic of Azerbaijan," Velayati said on Tuesday.

Nonetheless, he reiterated that such a process should take place politically, not militarily.

In an interview with the influential Iranian daily Kayhan, Velayati referred to the Armenian occupation of seven cities and the four UN resolutions calling for Armenians' withdrawal from the occupied Azeri territories and their return to the internationally accepted boundaries, stressing that all UN member states must obey the resolutions.

"We call on Armenia to return those occupied parts to the Republic of Azerbaijan. More than one million Azeris have been displaced after the occupation of those areas and must return home soon," he added.

While comparing Armenian troops with the Israeli forces "occupying Palestinian lands," Velayati underlined that Yerevan should withdraw its troops from Nagorno Karabakh.

At the same time, Velayati blasted Turkey for "fanning the flames of war", adding, "Why is Turkey insisting on the continuation of war? This country (Turkey) must help end the war if it can do so, provided that the occupied cities of the Republic of Azerbaijan be liberated definitely."

Velayati was referring to the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which has a predominantly Armenian population but has been part of the Republic of Azerbaijan since Soviet Union times.

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, with Iran's Minister of Defense, Army Brigadier General Amir Hatami, cautioning the warring parties in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that Tehran would take "measures stronger than warnings" if the shells fired in the fighting continue to hit Iranian territories.

While Rabiei clarified that "Iran's official positions in the domain of foreign policy" are "only announced through the government and the foreign ministry," regardless of the government's official position, all other Shiite clergy-dominated Iranian authorities have openly supported Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia.

Along with Iran and Iraq, Azerbaijan is the only country with a predominant Shi'ite population.

Four representatives of Khamenei in predominantly Turkish-speaking provinces of Iran recently backed Azerbaijan's position over the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

The representatives of Khamenei, in the provinces of Ardabil, East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, and Zanjan, issued a joint statement on October 2, asserting, "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."

The joint statement seemed 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."

This public support comes as Iran seeks to pursue a "policy of neutrality" in the conflict between its two neighbors.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 20:21:18|Editor: huaxia

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JERUSALEM, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on Wednesday by phone on regional security issues, Netanyahu's office said.

The talk focused on "the Iranian aggression and the situation in Syria," said a statement issued by the prime minister's office.

The two leaders also discussed promoting bilateral cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak, the statement said, without elaborating on specific steps. Both Israel and Russia are among the hard-hit countries.

Israel and Russia have been coordinating their moves in Syria to avoid clashes between their forces in the war-torn country. Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against what it called Iranian sites and forces in Syria. Enditem
Four years ago this week, news broke that the Republican nominee for president, Donald J. Trump, had been caught on tape talking with Access Hollywood host Billy Bush about his habit of sexually assaulting women. In that 2005 conversation, the then-Apprentice star bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, kissing women before they can stop him, and moving on a married woman like a bitch. Trump already had image problems that didnt square with either partys idea of presidential behavior, but the tape offered testimony (from the offenders own mouth) that he was more than just a boor: He was a predator, and hed been caught confessing. The case against him seemed complete. The businessman whose casinos declared bankruptcy and whose university was beset with fraud allegations had established his Republican bona fides on birtherism and campaigned on building a wall and imprisoning his opponent. Now it turned out he was proud of assaulting women. Everyone could hear the truth for themselves. And nearly everyone with a platform who didit can be hard to remember that this was truethought this would be the ignominious end of an ugly reality TV candidacy. It seemed like the defining, karma-laden October surprise of the election. Misogyny isnt rareHillary Clintons campaign made that crystal clearbut no one really thought a broad swath of the American public would find sexual assault not just electable but charming. That moment was not so different from the peculiar and pivotal moment were living through in October of 2020, with the president infected with a deadly virus whose seriousness he has downplayed for months. Only in 2016, the certainty that it was over for Trump when the Access Hollywood tape dropped was even more universal. The day after the tape was released, Mike Pence condemned what he had heard. Trump even gave something that passed for an apology. It would be the final concession he would make on the record to societal expectations of good behavior.

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Then the spin began: We heard the locker-room talk defensewhich effectively turned the world into a metaphorical locker room where men could be indulgently absolved of anything misogynistic they said, provided they werent addressing women. It was an ugly exercise in special pleading, but Fox News beat the drum and we know how it ended: An event that everyone at the time saw as manifestly disqualifying got repackaged as no big deal, and also somehow fake news. It even produced a handy shorthand about how Trump is a victim persecuted or held to impossible standards. We now know what that victim of the terrible media was up to: Trump spent those weeks in October trying to keep Stormy Daniels quiet about the affair theyd had while Melania was home with their newborn son, Barron.

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In other words, it was an inflection point that didnt come to pass, a moment when everything should have changed and didnt. The Access Hollywood tape proved that either Republicans no longer reacted to scandal, one of their biggest political tools, or they had never been serious about the family values version of decency theyd spent decades professingand saw a womans right to not be sexually assaulted as negotiable. (A year later, Steve Bannon would describe the moment as a litmus test for who Trumps true supporters were.) Just a few days after the tape broke, and after Trump denied the veracity of its contents at a presidential debate, several women came forward to describe Trump doing variations of what Trump said hed done to themconfirming that this wasnt idle locker talk but an accurate description of his conduct. The Trump campaign called them opportunists and liars, and many Republicans followed suit. For all that the GOP claims to admire Melania Trump, by the time news broke in January 2018 that Trump had cheated on her with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, Republicans were committed to a moral program that implicitly condoned the president groping women, sexually assaulting them, cheating on his wife, and paying hush money to cover it up. Theyd already ignored more than a dozen specific allegations of sexual assault; by continuing to support Trump, the Republican position became not just politically expedientit became the party platform. Anything Trump had done to women would not be enough for them to abandon him.

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Did this debase the office of the president? Certainly. More importantly, perhaps, it clarified that the party in power had consciously decided not to see women as equal citizens under the law, but it had also decided that women were no longer worth protecting. The second bit matters: Inequality for women is hardly new, but the patriarchal compromise has long been that you sacrifice equality in exchange for masculine protection. In dispensing with even lip service toward that principle, Republicans made the fine print of that bargainand their specific version of the offerclear to more than half the country: You get political subjugation, and well side against you with your assailant if youre ever harassed or attacked.

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Women shoulder a lot. Their rights have been deprioritized by both political parties for decades. They are used to slights and oversights. But when a society makes its indifference to victims this apparentwhen it normalizes and excuses predators and then worships themthe entire intolerable apparatus snaps into focus: How insult after insult is expected to be absorbed. How assault gets metabolized and dissected into questions of intent rather than effect. How the pursuer is sympathized with while the pursued party is characterized as ungenerous or unforgiving or mean. How the predator isnt just unpunished or tolerated, but lionized.

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The Me Too movement emerged in part as a lunge toward accountability in the year after the Access Hollywood tapeand after witnessing how the many Trump accusers who came forward were treated. That the movement would suffer a backlash was apparent from the moment it began. Correcting a mille-feuille of misogynistic habits was never going to happen in one year or even three, and the stakes were sky-high. Some very rich men lost their jobs or had to leave the public eye for a while. People do not like that. Theres an underexamined cost to enforcing social norms that prioritize equality over sexist defaults. Lets face it: Its awful when a beloved author or actor or icon turns out to have been a sexual predator, and not just because of the victim. Repeatedly having to choose between famous and beloved men and their lesser known accusers starts to feel like a lose-lose proposition. Canceling was read by some as a laughably mild response to a sometimes criminal offense, and by others as an intolerable extralegal intervention.

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It was clear at the time just how much Brett Kavanaughs confirmation saga in Trumps second year, with Me Too still powerful but wobbling, was a part of the greater Trump cyclehow, as Trumps pick, despite obvious and disqualifying defects, the judge became an avatar for a fight that the president and his party believed they had already won. Kavanaughs confirmation hearings would radicalize people on both sides of the question. Many Republicans found it terrifying to see a man questioned over assaults he may have committed as a teenager and retrenched to a boys will be boys posture that implicitly condones the assault of teenage girls so that teenage boys can make their sexual mistakes without negatively affecting their own futures. Democratswomen especiallywere horrified by how Republicans treated Christine Blasey Ford and by how Kavanaugh conducted himself, raging at senators and at the American people, vowing revenge because someone dared to question his conduct. But Kavanaugh had learned Trumps lesson: He first presented himself to the American people as a mild-mannered, kindly churchgoer. By the time of his hearing, hed revised his performance to a Trumpian model that understands shouting as powerful and male anger, no matter how hysterical, red-faced, and unglued, as honest.

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Its a sign of how far down an ugly road weve traveled that, when a bona fide rape accusation against Donald Trump emerged last year, it sank like a stone. This was probably in part a demoralized learned behaviorwe knew by now that no accusations of this kind would dent his support. It didnt help that the Me Too movement was in full backlash; the fact that Julie Swetnick, one of Kavanaughs three accusers, turned out to be less than reliable (as would Tara Reade, Joe Bidens accuser) scrambled an overwhelmed publics ability to meaningfully respond to allegations of sexual misconduct. E. Jean Carrolls description of Donald Trump attacking her in a dressing room was extraordinary in that it understood this landscape: It perfectly foresaw the conditions of its nonreception. Carroll grasped that Trump was, politically speaking, scandal-proof. That didnt change what had happened to her, but it could, theoretically, free her up to tell her story a different way. So she did. Carroll broke with the conventions and laid out her narrative: rather than smash herself against public indifference toward the president assaulting people because it clearly wouldnt sink him, her account of being attacked situates him among many such assailants in her life. It forefronts her personhood, complete with her foibles, charms, defects, resilience, and whimsical anecdotes. It subordinates Trump to a larger story about the forces that shaped her. In the book from which that essay is excerpted, she quite originally acknowledges her own occasional awfulness. The list of Hideous Men she uses to structure the book comes to include her as a Hideous Man too.

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And now, in yet another oft-buried headline, Carroll is suing Trump for defamation and requesting that he submit a DNA sample to compare with the dress she wore on the day of the alleged attack. While Attorney General William Barr corruptly forces the Department of Justice to represent Trump for a crime he allegedly committed long before he was president, Carroll has spent the past few months interviewing the women Donald Trump allegedly groped and harassed and publishing the conversations in the Atlantic. Its a fascinating series both for its candor and for how firmly it insists on the alleged victims right to commiserate and talk about their experiences in any way at all. One detects in these conversations a certain freedom that comes from not mattering.

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So its worth pausing to reflect on how we got here. Trump is running for reelection, and the 26 women who have accused him of sexual misconduct are so far from being an issue in the campaign for president of the United States that I had to Google the number to double-check. Bill Cosby was taken down by the drip-drip-drip of additional accusations because his brand was respectable. Trump has so blatantly annihilated any expectation that he might behave decently that no one even bothers anymore. And so the man who normalized sexual assault and made it a part of the power of his office is now poised to replace a champion of womens rights with his third Supreme Court justice, a woman who has expressed her openness to eliminating gay marriage and abolishing reproductive freedom. Its not where I thought wed be when the Access Hollywood tape dropped four years ago. Not even I thought misogyny could achieve this much.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
Photo: The Canadian Press

President Donald Trumps accountant must turn over his tax records to a New York state prosecutor, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said a stay of a lower-court decision will remain in effect so Trumps lawyers can appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A district court judge had rejected their renewed efforts to invalidate a subpoena that the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. issued to Trumps accounting firm.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department was reviewing the ruling.

The Supreme Court in July ruled 7-2 against the president. It is down to eight justices after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The matter may not be fully resolved before the November election.
TCN News

The students, faculty, staff and alumni of the prestigious University of Oxford have expressed grave concerns against the rising caste and gender-based violence in India.

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Calling the incident particularly horrifying and another heinous manifestation of systemic sexual violence and caste-based atrocities in India, the letter has wholly condemned the mishandling of the case. The university community has further accused the UP Police and state government of abusing and harassing the victims family, stating that the authorities have been dealing with the case with absolute apathy and repression.

The letter said that the police acted in an abhorrent and hasty manner by cremating the victims body in the dead of the night against her familys wishes. It resonated that locking the entire village, restricting the movement of the media, civil society and the political opposition, are all hallmarks of an authoritarian and casteist regime that are antithetical to the democratic and constitutional ideals of the country. All of this, it said, indicates, a sinister design to destroy evidence while violating the dignity of the victim even in her death.

The students and faculty of University of Oxford have also opposed UP polices repeated assertions that there is no evidence of rape despite a pending investigation, indicating that it not only betrays a premeditated attitude but also a severe lack of understanding of the law on sexual offences and the duties of the police.

Considering the current political climate and developments surrounding the Hathras case, the letter says, it strongly believes that the UP governments moves of setting up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and transferring the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are merely tokenistic and only stand to shield the upper-caste perpetrators of the crime.

Acknowledging that atrocities against Dalits and marginalized communities in India are not new, the letter has expressed alarm at the recent surge in such incidents, therefore reminding the Indian government to fulfil its constitutional and moral duty to fight against the oppressive systems of caste and patriarchy.

Expressing deep anguish at the structures of the UP government perpetuating caste oppression and gender-based violence, the university community have voiced their unconditional support and solidarity to the victims family, and Dalit and womens organizations in India leading the fight against the intersecting systems of caste and patriarchy. Further, as privileged members of the University of Oxford, the community has pledged to be allies in the struggle for annihilation of such privileges.
Toronto police say four teenagers have been taken to hospital, two of them with serious injuries, after an early-morning crash in the citys downtown.

It happened around 3 a.m., when police say a Porsche went off the road and hit a pole, splitting the car in two.

Police say there were four people in the vehicle  all of them aged 13 or 14.

Two of them were injured and stayed at the scene, while the other two ran away but were eventually found and taken to hospital.

Police are looking to speak with anyone who saw the crash or the moments leading up to it.
NMB bank has launched three innovative and transformative digital customer experience tools, aimed at simplifying interactions between it and its customers.

Gracing the occasion in Dar es Salaam, the bank's Chief Executive Officer, Ruth Zaipuna said with this approach, the bank will also recognize and visit customers to appreciate their loyalty and business, because the theme this year is 'One Team, One Dream'.

She further said the digital customer experience tools are part of the bank's celebration of the International Customer Service Week that aims to recognize, encourage and appreciate its customers and staff who deliver exceptional customer experience.

For example, the new NMB WhatsApp Contact Centre number, offers customers an innovative alternative to customer service, where in addition, the bank continues to stay close to its customers and encourages them to be part of its transformation journey and mission, and be the bank of choice by sharing their feedback on service improvements using this channel.

Through the QR code instant feedback platform displayed on NMB ATM screens across the country and at all service desks in branch network, customers with smart phones can scan and provide feedback on the services received from the bank.

"The bank is dedicated to the use of technology in bringing solutions to its customers. I am happy to announce the launch of these three digital platforms that will transform our customers experience by providing innovative banking services and additional opportunity to receive feedback for service improvements," said Ms Zaipuna.
When stores have a policy of wearing a face covering, its not optional.

A 30-year-old Wyandotte woman discovered that the hard way after causing a ruckus when she was told to wear a face mask or leave the store.

The incident occurred at about 12:46 p.m. in the 100 block of Sycamore. The caller told police that a customer got upset when she was told she had to wear a mask. When officers arrived, they were told she left on a bicycle.

An officer found the woman and told her she was no longer welcome at the store. She told the officer she wouldnt return, but a short time later employees reported that the woman continued to call the store to complain.

The store owner and an employee told police that the woman walked into the store with a bandana covering her face, but while walking through the store, she pulled it down. The employee asked the woman to put it back on.

I have a medical condition, she reportedly told the employee. I dont have to wear it.

The employee explained that if she would not wear a mask, she would have to leave the store. However, she refused. The employee called the police and the woman left.

The owner said that after leaving the store, the woman called four or five times to complain, saying she believed the employee harassed her. While the officer was still there, the woman called again, so the officer spoke with her.

She told police her face covering fell off and the employee did not give her time to put it back on. She denied giving the employee a hard time.

The officer advised the woman not to call the store again, or else the owner could pursue charges for telephone harassment.

Deputy Police Chief Archie Hamilton said that private businesses have the right to refuse service to anyone who does not adhere to their policies.

A policy requiring a face covering is no different than the no shirt, no shoes, no service policy we often see displayed in windows of businesses he said. All too often people would rather challenge societal rules and policy than being courteous and respectful.

Hamilton said that wearing a mask in a public place during a pandemic is not much different than saying thank you when someone opens a door for you, adding that being courteous, less confrontational and understanding will reduce stress and improve a persons quality of life.
Mumbai, Oct 7 : The Bombay High Court has granted conditional bail to Bollywood actress Rhea Chakraborty, and two others, but rejected the bail plea of her brother Showik, her lawyer Satish Maneshinde said here on Wednesday.

Justice S.V. Kotwal, who had completed the hearing on the bail applications on September 29 and reserved his ruling, pronounced the much-anticipated order this morning.

The Court granted bail of Rs one Lakh to Rhea, and for Rs 50,000 each to Dipesh Sawant and Samuel Miranda.

However, Justice Kotwal rejected the bail pleas by Showik Chakraborty and Abdul Basit Parihar.

The five accused had sought bail from the high court after the Special NDPS Court here rejected their applications last month.

They were among the 20 arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with the drugs angle probe into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

Arrested by the NCB late night on September 8 in the drug related case, Rhea has spent 28 days in custody till date, though she was sent to extended judicial custody by a Special NDPS Court till October 20, on Tuesday.

Additional Solicitor-General Anil Singh, appearing on behalf of NCB pleaded for a stay on the operation of the order, but Justice Kotwal declined it.

Rhea and Showik's advocate Maneshinde, and lawyers for the other co-accused Rajendra Rathod, Tariq Sayed and Subhodh Desai had strongly argued in the case of bail for their clients.

Among other things, they contended that the NCB lacked jurisdiction to probe the matter in view of the Supreme Court order of August 19 directing to hand over all investigations in the Sushant case to the CBI, the offences under which the accused were nabbed by the NCB were bailable and the charges under the NDPS Act Section 217A against the accused did not have supporting evidence.

Countering the defence lawyers' arguments, Singh maintained that the NCB had jurisdiction in the probe and had sufficient evidence to prove that the accused were part of a larger narcotics syndicate.

Welcoming the court order this morning, Maneshinde said, "Truth and justice have prevailed and ultimately the submissions on facts and law have been accepted by Justice Kotwal.

"The arrest and custody of Rhea was totally unwarranted and beyond the reach of law. The hounding and witch hunt by three Central agencies -- the CBI, ED and NCB -- of Rhea should come to an end. We remain committed to Truth. Satyameva Jayate," said Maneshinde.

Among the conditions listed for Rhea's bail were depositing her passport with the NCB, reporting to the local police station daily for 10 days, not leaving Mumbai without informing the NCB, etc.

Similarly, Sawant and Miranda have also been asked to submit their passports as per the conditions.

In an unprecedented swoop to "uproot the Bollywood drug citadel", the NCB had made the sensational arrest of Rhea, Showik, drug peddlers and narcotics suppliers, and persons linked with the film industry during August-September in connection with the drugs angle which surfaced during the investigations of Sushant's death case.

The 18 others arrested till September-end are: Dipesh Sawant, Samuel Miranda, Abbas Lakhani, Karan Arora, Zaid Vilatra, Abdul Basit Parihar, Kaizan Ebrahim, Anuj Keswani, Ankush Arenja, Kamarjeet Singh Anand, Sanket Patel, Sandeep Gupta, Aftab Ansari, Dwyane Fernandes, Suryadeep Malhotra, Chris Costa, Rahil Vishram and Kshitij R. Prasad.

Some of the accused have been granted bail, others remain in custody for varying periods as the NCB probe continues along with questioning of several leading actresses.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: q.najmi@ians.in)

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
07.10.2020 LISTEN

A heavy downpour has displaced about some 300 residents in the Asokwa Municipality of the Ashanti Region.

The rains, which started pouring at about 2 am on Wednesday, 7 October affected areas such as Kuwait and Atonsu among others.

Some houses at Sokoban, within the Kumasi Metropolis, were also submerged.

The National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) Director for the area, Mr Eric Nana Akosah, told Class91.3FMs Ashanti regional correspondent Elisha Adarkwah that the devastation caused by the resultant floods is very serious.

Mr Akosah said: Atonsu, Atonsu market, the rains destroyed their goods and property.

As for Kuwait, the houses have been submerged.

It is very serious.

People have been displaced, uncountable, about 300 people so far.

The houses have been submerged.

One of the displaced victims at Sokoban said: My things have been destroyed.

The things I use for decor. So, were appealing to the authorities to come and fix the bridge, even if they wont fix it, they should give us excavators or machines, well buy our own diesel, he said.

"The resident said the rains started around 2.

We havent slept all night. It happens every time it rains, but we thought the authorities will come and fix the bridge.

Another resident also said: It began around 2 and we came outside. It has destroyed our beds and everything in our rooms. Were appealing to the authorities to come to our aid.

Meanwhile, the NADMO Director has said plans are being made to find an alternative place for the displaced residents to sleep tonight.

---Classfmonline
Joseph V. Micallef is a best-selling military history and world affairs author, and keynote speaker. Follow him on Twitter @JosephVMicallef.

On Sept. 15, the Trump administration held a ceremony at the White House for the formal signing of an agreement normalizing relations between Israel and two Gulf countries, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.

Termed the Abraham Accords, the agreement was heralded at the White House as "the dawn of a new Middle East," while critics of the administration discounted the accord, calling it a distraction and a diversion. In the wake of the signing ceremony, U.S. President Donald Trump received a nomination for a Nobel Peace prize, a development that brought howls of outrage from some of his critics and a call that the prize should be abolished.

What is the significance of the Abraham Accords? Are they in fact a new dawn or a sideshow? The Accords are a significant achievement, and they underscore the important changes occurring in the Middle East. They will not bring peace to the Middle East, at least not yet, but they are an important step in that direction. To quote Winston Churchill's remarks after the Second Battle of El Alamein: "... this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

According to the Trump administration, there are five or six other countries that are also prepared to move forward and sign agreements normalizing their relations with Israel. The names of these countries were not disclosed. It most certainly does not include Qatar, which has already said it would not sign any such agreement, nor is it likely to include Saudi Arabia, at least not at any time soon. According to unconfirmed reports, signing any such accord has created a deep division within the ruling family, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in favor of the agreement and his father King Salman opposed. Privately, however, the Saudi government has been supportive of the Accords and has already, among other things, opened its airspace to Israeli flights.

What exactly does normalization mean? Israel has never been at war with any of the Arab countries in the Gulf, but neither has it ever held diplomatic relations with any of them. As part of the Abraham Accords, both parties will establish diplomatic relations and exchange ambassadors, as well as establish commercial relations, including allowing trade, investment and tourism.

The agreement does represent a change in what has been a 75-year policy of unquestioned support for Palestinian statehood and opposition to the existence of the Israeli state. In reality, over the last decade, support for the Palestinian cause has been increasingly less reflexive and opposition to Israel more muted. In that sense, the Accords are less a dramatic change than they are a formal and public recognition of the changes that have been playing out in the Middle East.

Nonetheless, the agreements are important. They represent a significant diplomatic triumph for the Trump administration, one that underscores a vastly different approach to the Middle East than the preceding Obama administration. It has also produced significant winners and losers among the political actors in the contemporary Middle East.

The Winners

The United States is an obvious winner. At a time when it seemed Russian influence in the region was ascending and American influence declining, the Accords underscored that the U.S. still plays a critical role in the region and that its influence is still paramount. The Accords reinforce Trump's carefully cultivated image as "a dealmaker" who can get things done.

More importantly, the agreements lend further credibility to the Trump administration's plan to build a broad coalition consisting of Israel and other Arab countries to work together to contain Iran and to stabilize the Middle East and its many conflicts.

This strategy is a significant departure from the Obama administration's willingness to accede to Iran a more prominent role in the region and its blunt advice to the Arab Gulf states that they would need to accept that.

On the other hand, while the Accords will formalize cooperation between Israel and the Gulf states, such cooperation, especially on security matters and the sharing of intelligence on Iranian activities, has already been going on for more than a decade. The Accords are not going to pave the way for a NATO-like, mutual defense arrangement in the Middle East. Israel is not going to defend the Gulf from Iranian incursions, even though it is already playing a role in helping the Gulf states defend themselves against Iranian cyberwarfare.

Moreover, with the exception of the violence between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, the rest of the conflicts in the Middle East -- the Yemen and Syrian civil wars; the collapse and potential civil war in Lebanon; the role of transnational jihadist organizations such as al-Qaida or the Islamic State; and the continuing social unrest spawned in the wake of the Arab Spring -- don't directly involve Israel, or at least do so only marginally. However, the collapse of civil authority in Beirut and the activities of Hezbollah may still draw Israel into the Lebanese morass.

The Accords are further proof that the principal axis of Middle East politics is largely transitioning from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to an Iranian/Shiite-Arab/Sunni axis. That doesn't mean that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict goes away, at least not immediately. It leaves the Palestinian National Authority more isolated, but it does mean that it increasingly becomes a secondary consideration in the region's international relations.

Israel is the second obvious winner. The economic impact of the agreement could be significant. The Accords could create wide-ranging opportunities for Israeli business in the Gulf states.

"[Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC] and [Middle East North Africa, or MENA] region will become the epicenter of Israeli trade. The opportunities for Israeli companies to sell their products into the region are enormous. Cyber, fintech, ag tech, health care, digital health, food safety, among others, are wide open. I tell people that LinkedIn almost crashed the day of the announcement," said Isaac Applebaum, the founder and chairman of MizMaa Ventures, a group that is very active in economic development and investments in the region. "Thousands upon thousands of contacts were made in the first week. Also, the opportunities for Gulf States to partner with Israeli companies will be limitless and bi-directional. They will further strengthen these agreements.

"This is more than just about trade. You cannot imagine how many companies are already discussing cross border investments, acquisitions, joint ventures, and venture capital opportunities," Applebaum added.

More importantly, it whittles away at those opponents who were looking to further isolate Israel and were pressuring foreign governments and companies to support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The Arab Gulf states are also winners. In addition to the economic opportunities afforded by the Accords, the least of which is access to Israel's sophistical venture capital and high-tech community, signing the agreement aligns them further with the U.S. and enhances their access to sophisticated American arms. It strengthens and gives credence to American attempts to further isolate Iran, and it helps boost the reelection chances of Trump, their preferred candidate, in the 2020 presidential race.

The Losers

The agreement also produced some clear losers. First and foremost was the Palestinian Authority. The Abraham Accords are separate from the Trump administration's Peace to Prosperity initiative to craft a lasting peace between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, although they are clearly linked and are both elements of the Trump administration's broader foreign policy in the Middle East.

Once again, the Accords are less a dramatic change then they are a confirmation of the trend over the last decade of the Arab Gulf states being less reflexively supportive and generous to the Palestinian state.

According to a report in the Jerusalem Post, the Palestinian government's funding dropped by half with respect to foreign aid in the first seven months of the year, from $500 million in 2019 to $255 million in 2020, dropping in Arab aid during the same period by 85% -- from $267 million in 2019 to $38 million in 2020.

Over and above the ongoing violence, Israel and the Palestinian state have been engaged in an effort to isolate each other. In the case of the Palestinian Authority, that has principally been through the BDS movement, which originally had strong support within the Arab world, though it varied dramatically by country. The Abraham Accords represent a dramatic reversal of the initial support for this movement, especially if other Gulf Arab countries, as is expected, join in.

The Palestinian Authority still has the support of Iran and, to a lesser extent, Turkey, but both of those countries have larger economic and foreign policy issues they are dealing with. Neither has the deep pockets of the Gulf Arab states. While publicly they continue to support the Palestinian Authority, from a practical standpoint there is not a lot they can do.

Both Iran and Turkey saw in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict an issue that they could leverage for a broader leadership role within the Middle East. Neither has been successful. The Arab world has grown tired of dealing with the Palestinian issues. It's ready to move on. It is the Palestinian Authority that is increasingly isolated.

Moreover, according to one intelligence source who asked to remain anonymous:

"Don't underestimate the power the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and the UAE hold over the Palestinian Authority. Cutting off funding was just the first step. The next shoe is about to drop. They are ready to force regime change. They are done with the Palestinian issue. They are going to use their capital and their influence to change the situation on the ground."

That's why Trump keeps insisting that the Palestinians "will have to make a deal." From Washington's perspective, the Palestinian Authority has "lost." Many of its former allies are moving on, and those that it retains cannot do much for it. Much to the chagrin of his critics, should Trump be reelected, there is a good chance that an agreement ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, greased with some $50 billion of infrastructure investment, will finally be reached.

The second clear loser is Russia. Moscow has shown that it will stand by its clients in the Middle East and that its special forces and weaponry, and increasingly its mercenaries, can tip the balance or at least help stabilize the military situation in places such as Syria and Libya. But the Russian ascendency in the Middle East was never more than a mirage enabled by a clever smoke-and-mirrors diplomacy and the fecklessness and incoherence of the Obama administration's Middle East policy.

The political manifestation of Sunni-Shia rivalry, Saudi Arabia versus Iran, creates additional complications for Russia. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict cut across the Sunni-Shia divide and allowed Russia to be firmly, at least publicly, on the Palestinian/Arab side. The Sunni-Shia divide forces the Kremlin to balance its relationship with Saudi Arabia, which is crucial to stabilizing oil markets from which it derives a significant portion of government revenue, and its relationship with Iran, an important ally and client whose actions often serve to amplify Russian actions in the region.

That doesn't mean that Moscow doesn't retain a seat at the table. It does. Moreover, it is still able to shape events and to thwart or undermine American policies, but the initiative now clearly lies with Washington. The Kremlin's attempt to leverage its position in the Middle East in order to secure "chips" that it could barter with the White House to achieve other foreign policy goals has, so far, failed. Besides, between the crash in oil prices and the continuing disintegration of the portion of the Soviet Empire that Russia retained, Moscow has its hands full.

Iran is also a loser. The implicit rationale in the Abraham Accords is that the threat posed by Iran supersedes the historic positions of the Gulf Arab states around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Accords, from Tehran's perspective, are at the very least a diplomatic structure to coordinate a broad anti-Iranian coalition and, at worst, could over time evolve into a more unified anti-Iranian military coalition.

Tehran was able to use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as leverage with other Arab governments and to curry support within the Sunni Arab community. A sharper division across the Middle East along a Sunni-Shia axis limits those options and casts the conflict as little more than the latest chapter in the historic Shia rivalry.

While the European Union has made it clear it does not support the Trump administration's reimposition of economic sanctions on Iran, it has not found a practical way of working around those sanctions. In the end, the EU and European companies will not risk their relationship with the U.S. government or access to American markets to help Tehran overcome U.S. sanctions.

Moreover, the Iranian government is cognizant that to Russia it is just a chip that it can trade with the U.S. in pursuit of other, more important, foreign policy goals. Moscow will not hesitate to throw Tehran under the bus if it serves its purpose.

Turkey is also a loser, of sorts. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has never figured large in Turkish foreign policy. In recent years, Ankara has becoming increasingly supportive of the Palestinian cause, and what was once a close working relationship with Israel has becoming increasingly strained.

As noted above, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought to leverage support of the Palestinian cause to a leadership position within the Sunni world and especially the Arab Sunni community. This effort has been unsuccessful. There is little appetite in the Arab world for Turkish leadership.

Outside of Sudan, where Ankara has leveraged financial and diplomatic support to obtain military facilities in the Red Sea, and Libya, where Turkish arms and Ankara-financed Syrian mercenaries have been used to buttress the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) against the Saudi and Gulf states-supported, Benghazi-based government of Gen. Khalifa Haftar, Erdogan has had little to show for his efforts.

Increasingly, Turkey's focus seems to be the Eastern Mediterranean, where it is motivated by the prospects of large gas deposits, its historical enmity with Greece and the prospect of gaining access to Libya's oil reserves.

Saudi Arabia is neither a winner nor a loser, so far. The Saudis will probably be among the last to sign the Abraham Accords, although they will do so eventually. But they have not lobbied their Gulf Arab allies against doing so. On the other hand, the willingness of their Gulf allies to embrace the Accords also underscores concerns within the Gulf about both the effectiveness of Saudi military power and concerns that Prince Salman's reforms could prove destabilizing to the region.

The U.S. focus on containing Iran is welcome to the Saudi government, especially since the record of the Saudi military in the Yemen civil war makes it clear that, notwithstanding the billions of dollars that Riyadh has spent on armaments and on training, the Saudi military does not have the ability to defend the country if it ever found itself in a conflict with Iran.

There is an additional wild card in the Israeli-Saudi relationship that will have a bearing on how quickly Saudi Arabia signs the accords and its willingness to force a regime change within the Palestinian Authority. According to that same unnamed intelligence source, "The Saudis want control over the Temple Mount. They already control the two most important Muslim sites and this is the third. For Prince Salman, that would be a significant bargaining chip in his dealings with the Saudi religious establishment. Controlling the three most important sites in Islam will make Riyadh the undisputed leader of the Muslim world and will be a crushing defeat of Turkish President Erdogan's ambition to lead the Islamic world."

The Abraham Accords are not the equivalent of a Middle East-wide peace agreement as the Trump administration has on occasion implied, but neither is it the sideshow that his critics have claimed. It is a significant diplomatic achievement, even more so if other Gulf Arab countries sign the Accords.

It is an important element toward a much broader strategy to stabilize the region and to end its endemic conflicts. A lasting peace between the Palestinian Authority and Israel and an agreement with Iran to end its nuclear development program and its destabilizing policies in the Middle East are the two other elements that need to come together for a more comprehensive and lasting peace in the region.

Neither will be easy, but neither is impossible. Given the record of the Trump administration in the Middle East to date, I wouldn't count it out. For now, as Winston Churchill so aptly put it, it is the end of the beginning.

-- The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.
Supacem opens doors to Ghana's armed forces

07 October 2020

Ghana's armed forces have been given a special a tour of the Supacem cement factory in Tema, Ghana. The army was visiting the facility after the cement company donated 850 bags of cement to the armed forced earlier this year.



Supacem (LafargeHolcim) has donated 2400 bags of cement to security institutions in the country as part of its corporate social responsibility. The institutions include Ghana's Armed Forces, Ghana's Police Training School and Ghana's Prison Service at the Awutu Breku priosons in the central region.



The cement donated to the Ghana Armed Forces was used to provide acccommodation for retired military personnel.

Published under
Northern Ireland plane making giant Bombardier has posted pre-tax losses of more than 23m - but remains confident a deal to sell its operations here will complete this year despite increased uncertainty.

The firm said the aerospace sector will "recover in the medium term" post Covid-19 but it remains challenging for the company. And it said Brexit could "result in increased geographical and economic risks including disruptions and uncertainty around our business".

The business, which posted rising turnover here of $890m (685m) for Short Brothers plc, said while it has cut almost 500 staff since the start of coronavirus, by using the Government's Job Retention Scheme it has "managed to mitigate a larger number of reductions and will continue to maximise opportunities afforded by the scheme".

In its latest accounts ending December 2019, it said a $500m (385m) takeover of the business in Northern Ireland by US-owned Spirit AeroSystems is "fully expected to complete by the end of 2020".

That is despite increasing issues around the sale, including its delay due to Covid-19. Spirit AeroSystems has also filed documents with US regulatory authorities confirming the sale may not close by the date of October 31, which it says could then lead to legal action from Bombardier.

Bombardier, is also facing continued Covid-19 challenges, and cut its workforce following the impact of the global virus on customer demand.

It said "future workplace rotations are being considered post Covid-19 to continue to minimise the employee population across our sites".

It said the business "continues to face challenging cost pressures in a difficult overall aerospace context".

But the company said it is now the preferred bidder to develop an unmanned combat aircraft for the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

It said the company "continues to look towards new markets and opportunities" and in April 2019 it was contracted by the MoD to produce a preliminary designs for a technology demonstrator vehicle".

On the Spirit AeroSystems deal, which has yet to complete, it said "the transaction is expected to complete in 2020 subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions".

One of the conditions of the deal finalising is the "absence of a material adverse change to the acquired business".

The company also said it aims to deliver on "major cost reduction initiatives for current sustaining programmes and programmes under development".

Is main risks, it added, include coronavirus, Brexit, Treasury and the aerospace environment.

But with work returning at the end of April, the firm said the delivery outlook is expected to accelerate and peak seasonally, during the last quarter of 2020.

Bombardier said it expects the industry to "recover in the medium term" and that long-term prospects "are good".

A spokesman for Bombardier said: "We experienced a higher sales cost in 2019, due to our programme ramp-up schedule in Belfast. Also, our overall pension scheme liabilities increased significantly in the year, due mainly to an unusually low discount rate of 2% as a result of the ongoing market uncertainty around Brexit. With regard to the Spirit AeroSystems deal, both parties are working to close the transaction in 2020."
The film crew of Izvestia daily of Russia came under Azerbaijani shelling in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh); this became known Wednesday.

It is reported that reporter Denis Kulaga, together with cameraman Aleksandr Malyshev and local residents, managed to hide in the basement of a residential building, with drones circling above them. In addition, explosions took place on several 100 meters.

The correspondent said that at night the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh was shelled, and the air siren did not stop.
Saturday Night Live premiered season 46 this year with a goofy recreation of the first presidential debate with Alec Baldwin reprising his role as Donald Trump and Jim Carey debuting a spastic bizarro version of Joe Biden.

In previous years, I wouldve looked forward to this. Like any red-blooded Curb Your Enthusiasm fan, I relished each one of Larry Davids cameos as a version of Bernie Sanders who carries loose leaf papers in a binder like a sloppy college professor. Kate McKinnon flipping the switch on TikTok with Liz Warren is my love language. And Baldwins portrayal of Trump last season felt important, and even necessary.



Now it just feels disrespectful.



Its not that there isnt plenty of material. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, the first debate was one of the most embarrassing and painful nights in American history. I, for one, have not grown out of Football In The Groin-style humor: Embarrassment and pain make for great comedy, but whats getting kicked in the nuts here is the future of our country. And the writers of SNL are playing the role of Simpsons bully Nelson, pointing and saying "haaaahhaa" for an audience of millions tasked with a decision that may very well result in the death of a hundred thousand more people from the coronavirus.



The leader of the free world refusing to condemn racist ideology should not be a punch line. Baldwin making up silly fake monikers for fake white supremacy groups like Eugenic Eagles turns the Proud Boys into just another goofy-sounding club, rather than a genuine racist threat whose members are literally given promotions in rank on their first violent assault.

RELATED: 'SNL' loves SF: The best sketches skewering the Bay in 2019

Jim Carey returning to his Cable Guy roots and whipping out a TV remote to pause Baldwin revises Chris Wallaces failure to enforce the agreed upon rules and, you know, let voters hear the policies that will shape the next four years of our country.

Joe Biden did start 20 sentences about his plans and couldnt finish them, a fair burn that scored a laugh, but there was a reason for those half-starts beyond his troubling lack of eloquence. And that reason gets erased by the inhuman elasticity of Jim Careys cheeks and Trumps resting duck face.



Many of the people watching SNL didnt see the original debate, some mightve only seen a few clips, others may have tuned out altogether. For those less active in politics, this cartoon recreation of a debate may be what sticks in their memory. Its part of a not-at-all-new, but increasingly dangerous, trend of revisionist spin being more important than what actually happened. Traditionally, satire has a role in fighting that spin, but in an atmosphere where facts are malleable, this type of humor just drops another dumpster full of matches next to the one thats already burning and turns on a boombox blasting Prodigys Firestarter.



These types of sketches arent revealing anything or getting to some deeper truth (no matter how close Carey comes to impersonating the tone of Bidens voice). And the temptation to both-sides the situation, especially casting a physical comedian as Joe Biden, a candidate so vanilla that hed look uncomfortable in a carton of Neapolitan ice cream, is a disingenuous contrast to a president whose showmanship potentially infected his own Secret Service members with a deadly disease.



I know the weekly tradition of Saturday Night Live is comforting to millions of people and laughing is therapeutic, but you know whats better medicine than laughter? Actual medicine. And as tough as it is to swallow, the only thing thats going to make our country less sick is taking politics much more seriously than this.

But at this point the social media lifeblood of "SNL" lives and dies by the cold open, and theres no way theyd abandon the most ubiquitous topic in the American universe. So what could they do instead?

How about a sketch showing people voting, emphasizing how stupidly easy it is and how stupidly stupid it is to make that act harder? Or you could contrast Americas coronavirus response with that of the rest of the world, giving myopic American viewers a broader perspective on how many countries have essentially beaten this thing. Maybe a flash forward to Decision 2032, a future election that shows the doomsday consequences of the incivility that they so playfully mocked in the last debate.

The show could use its massive cultural influence to contextualize the avalanche of misinformation piling onto everyday Americans, but that requires abandoning partisan framings that demand a disingenuous balance. Saturday Night Live is silly, and that shouldnt change, but our current political landscape is just too dangerous to be made slapstick.

Im also not saying it should become a political advocate like The Daily Show; it just needs a moral compass as a guide rather than the media sideshow. And if "SNL" takes that approach, staffed by arguably the best comedy writers in the universe, it should be able to keep the material balanced/dodge boycotts. By taking a higher road rather than taking a mud bath in a political spin pigpen, theyd still show more than one perspective, and in the process make it clear that as a country, we can be better than our politicians give us credit for.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. The Artsakh Defense Armys counterstrike that destroyed a large Azeri military fuel base has also destroyed nearly an entire military base, Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson Artsrun Hovhannisyan said.

According to new validated information, one motor-rifle battalion, with a reinforced artillery division and a special operations detachment were destroyed together with the fuel warehouse, he said.

He said the Azeri forces suffered nearly 200 killed servicemen in the barracks near the warehouse.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 20:30:52|Editor: huaxia

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TOKYO, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- In the context of a continued decline in exports and difficult recovery of inbound tourism amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Japanese government has launched a domestic travel promotion campaign to help tourism revive.

However, as a recent resurgence of the pandemic makes people hesitate, the "Go To Travel" campaign has run into trouble and may take more time to swing into full gear.

The government originally planned to launch the campaign in August, but moved it forward to July 22 to exploit a four-day vacation beginning July 23.

Since the beginning of July, the epidemic has rebounded in some parts of the country. In particular, the number of daily new infections in Tokyo has been on the rise.

With the situation, some experts and the public have expressed deep concern about the nationwide tourism promotion campaign, fearing that the mass movement of people would lead to a wide spread of the virus. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, alongside other government officials, have made clear their objections.

The Japanese government was thus forced to adjust its plan and exclude Tokyo from the campaign, affecting its residents and visitors as well.

Tokyo is both the most important source of tourists and a major tourist destination in Japan. As a result, many travel agencies have received cancellation requests, and the Japanese government has had to reimburse the related cost.

After Tokyo lowered its COVID-19 alert level in mid-September, the central government decided to bring it back to the Go To Travel campaign from Oct. 1.

The program subsidizes domestic travels across the country, with the government providing up to half of the cost of the travel.

Under the 1.35 trillion yen (12.7 billion U.S. dollars) campaign, each tourist can get a subsidy of up to 20,000 yen (188.6 U.S. dollars) per day when going on a lodging trip, and a one-day round trip can get up to 10,000 yen (94.3 U.S. dollars).

The specific measures include the 35-percent discount on transport and accommodation expenses, and the 15-percent discount on catering, shopping, sightseeing and transport expenses at the tourist destinations through the use of coupons.

However, for some tourists, the process of getting and using vouchers has turned out to be not smooth. Some of the vouchers could not be used because they were not delivered in time, and a large number of inquiries made the official website once paralyzed.

Meanwhile, fewer shops were accepting vouchers than expected. Some shop owners also complained that they had applied for accepting vouchers but failed to get the permission as of Oct. 1.

Some local residents told local media that as the number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 is still surging in the Tokyo area, it is premature to promote tourism and they will not participate in the campaign.

Japan is trying to achieve an economic rebound backed by tourism and contain the virus spread at the same time. However, it may takes longer time as currently both goals appear to be difficult to reach. Enditem
Ramco Systems announced that one of India's largest business conglomerates has successfully gone live on Ramco Contract Workforce Management System with Payroll to efficiently manage the organization's 55,000+ contingent workforce, across its Steel, Energy, Infra, and Ports division.

Ramco's comprehensive Contract Workforce Management Solution addresses the complete lifecycle right from Budgeting, Contract Employee Onboarding, Roster Creation to Time & Attendance Consolidation, Payroll Consolidation, and Contractor/ Statutory Report generation.

With modules for Payroll, Onboarding, Time and Attendance, Wage/ Bill Simulation, bundled with Mobility features, vendor portals for contractors and statutory remittance portals, Ramco's solution has enabled the organization seamlessly manage every single contract worker that is a part of the ecosystem.

The integrated 'Aadhar Card Validity' feature also enabled the company to comply with the safety regulation and employee duplicity across its plants.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - AUGUST 27: Amanda Kloots and Nick Cordero attend the Beyond Yoga x Amanda Kloots Collaboration Launch Event on August 27, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Beyond Yoga)

On Oct. 5, Donald Trump shared on Twitter that he would be leaving Walter Reed Medical Center after three days of being treated for COVID-19. "Feeling really good!" he wrote in a tweet. "Don't be afraid of Covid. Don't let it dominate your life." With over 200,000 coronavirus deaths in the US, many medical experts and impacted families alike took issue with Trump's both insensitive and harmful tweet. Amanda Kloots, who lost her husband, Nick Cordero, to COVID-19 complications in July, responded to Trump's tweet on her Instagram Tuesday, and she said it best.

"To all the over 208,000 Americans who lost loved ones to this virus - I stand by you, with you, holding your hand," she wrote alongside a screenshot of the tweet. "Unfortunately it did dominate our lives didn't it? It dominated Nick's family's lives and my family's lives. I guess we 'let it' - like it was our choice?? Unfortunately not everyone is lucky enough to spend two days in the hospital." After months of battling coronavirus, Cordero died at age 41 on July 5, and was survived by Kloots and their 1-year-old son, Elvis.

"I cried next to my husband for 95 days watching what COVID did to the person I love. It IS something to be afraid of."

"I cried next to my husband for 95 days watching what COVID did to the person I love," Kloots continued. "It IS something to be afraid of. After you see the person you love the most die from this disease you would never say what this tweet says. There is no empathy to all the lives lost. He is bragging instead. It is sad. It is hurtful. It is disgraceful." She expanded further in a tearful series of Instagram Stories, sharing she was and is still afraid of the virus. "I think about if I got it, if I got as sick as Nick, little Elvis, he doesn't have his mom anymore. So I'm afraid."

Kloots criticized Trump for lacking empathy for Americans who have suffered from the virus and are grieving the losses of those who have. "It's beyond hurtful," she said, explaining that his diagnosis and recovery could have been an opportunity for the president to be kind, and call for Americans to wear masks and social distance. "Say something that might make the people that you lead feel like you got us, that you're wrapping your arms around us, that you now understand, maybe a little bit, what we went through and what we're going through." Read Kloots's powerful response ahead.
GREENWICH  With less than four weeks to go until Election Day and an already record number of absentee ballots sent out in Greenwich, safety and security of voting is a big issue in town.

On Tuesday, a steady stream of residents headed to the secure drop box locations at Town Hall and the lobby of the police station  with some dropping off applications for absentee ballots and others returning their filled-out ballots. The Town Clerks Department mailed 10,000 absentee ballots last week, with more requested every day. The demand has more than doubled this year, likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said.

With the strong voter interest, the town registrars of voters held a Zoom presentation with Greenwich Reform Synagogue on Tuesday night to discuss what residents need to know about voting safely.

Republican Registrar Fred DeCaro III and Democratic Registrar Mary Hegarty stressed the security of voting by absentee ballot as well as the safety measures planned for the towns polling locations to protect voters and poll workers from the coronavirus.

When it comes to absentee ballots, Hegarty stressed three common mistakes to avoid  because incorrectly filled out ballots will be rejected.

She said a voter must remember to:

* Put the ballot inside the inner envelope, and put that into the outer envelope. If the ballot is returned in the outer envelope, it can be rejected.

* Sign the inner envelope after putting the ballot inside. This is the most frequent mistake that leads to rejecting an absentee ballot.

* Return only one ballot per envelope. It doesnt happen often, but Hegarty said couples sometimes send ballots back in the same envelope. Each ballot must be returned separately; only one ballot can be counted from each envelope.

These mistakes are not very difficult to avoid, she said. People have heard horror stories and are very concerned about whether their ballot will be properly counted. I can assure you that here in Greenwich and across the state of Connecticut, your absentee ballot will be properly counted in this election.

Absentee ballots can be returned by mail or in the drop boxes, which are checked daily. The town clerk keeps the returned ballots sealed in a vault until they are given to the registrars for tallying.

A ballot can be legally transported only by a voter, a family member or a designated caregiver, Hegarty said. If a voter is unable to mail or drop off their absentee ballot, it would be illegal for a neighbor or friend to transport it. When there is no other option, the registrars can send a police officer or a designated representative to get a ballot.

Do not dawdle, Hegarty said. Late-arriving ballots mean no vote. The last possible moment to deposit your ballot in a ballot box is Election Day, 8 p.m.

For those voting in person, masks will be required and social distancing will be enforced for what is expected to be a high turnout election, DeCaro said.

To speed up voting and add protection, he said a voter can:

* Bring their own ballpoint pen to the polling place instead of using the one supplied. But no Sharpies, though, because they have very, very strong ink in them and will go right through paper and create problems, DeCaro said.

* Bring a flat surface such as a book or a clipboard that they can use when filling out their ballot, instead of using the booths.

Measures will be taken to keep the polling place clean, Hegarty said. Special poll workers will serve as COVID safety monitors and clean the privacy booths and other contact surfaces constantly throughout the day, she said.

For ID at polling places, DeCaro said voters could bring a photo ID, a Social Security card or items with a name and signature such as a credit card. Voters can also sign an affidavit at the polling location affirming their identity.

One frequently asked question, according to DeCaro, is whether voters can request an absentee ballot just in case and then decide to vote at the polls instead.

If you have not returned your absentee ballot by either putting it in the mail or putting it in a drop box, you are legally entitled to come to the polls and vote, he said. If, however, you have done either of those things, then obviously you dont want to be at the polls.

DeCaro said voters can find a wealth of information at www.greenwichct.gov/vote, including their registration information, party affiliation, state legislature district and polling place  complete with a Google map.

Theres also an absentee ballot status lookup where a voter can find out whether their application has been received, if a ballot has been mailed to them and also whether the town has received their ballot.

There is no tracking during transit, but at least you have the comfort of knowing your application has been received and when your ballot has been returned, DeCaro said.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
The putrid stench of a dead lion, killed by poachers, wafting from the forest would sicken young Eunice Maantei as she was growing up in Imurutot, a village bordering the expansive Amboseli National Park. So did the unpleasant smell of charcoal burning deep inside the forest.

"One day, I will stop this destruction," she would say to herself. That day came in February 2019. Ms Maantei, now 20, is one of the eight women in Team Lioness, an all-female community ranger unit formed last year.

The unit patrols Olgulului-Ololarashi Group Ranch (OOGR), which is part of the 150,000-acre community land encircling the park. They are backed up by the 68 all-male members of lgulului Community Wildlife Rangers (OCWR).

The OOGR, which straddles the Kenya-Tanzania border, hosts the natural habitats and migratory corridors for various species of wild animals, including the park's 2,000 elephants, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw).

Wildlife safety

Besides ensuring the safety of wildlife and biodiversity, Team Lioness educates locals on the importance of taking part in wildlife conservation, which the people in Ms Maantei's community depends on for survival.

The women, carefully selected from the eight Maasai clans living around the national park -- one of Kenya's major heritage sites -- are part of an even bigger cultural mission.

Their work has helped in the fight against gender stereotyping and discrimination in the community.

For, while maa traditions prohibited social interaction between men and women, the fact that the team works alongside men and is providing enviable leadership in conservation has done a lot to change the community's perception of women.

This has, in turn, debunked myths that limit women's role in society to domestic chores.

"It used to be a taboo for women and men to sit or eat together," says Ms Maantei. "Today, however, we freely interact with the male rangers and even go out together on patrols. That was unheard-of in our community," says the sixth-born in a family of eight.

As fate would have it, the opportunity provided by Ifaw coincided with Ms Maantei's completion of her secondary education.

Conservation

Her parents, she says, were happy for her because they had taken note of her passion for conservation.

"They believed I could make a good ranger," she says.

For three weeks, Ifaw offered intensive training in detection of poaching activities, documenting human-wildlife conflict and solving related disputes. They also received training in self-defence in case of an attack by poachers or wild animals.

For instance, whereas culture prohibit women from climbing trees, which was believed to be a harbinger of infertility, Team Lioness has exposed such myths as unfounded.

Ms Ruth Sikeita recalls the only attack they have encountered so far. An ambush by a buffalo. Some had to scale tall trees while others chose to lie flat on the grassland.

Every day, Team Lioness squad members rise at 5am for a morning run till 6am, when they return to clean up and have their breakfast.

At 8am, decked out in jungle fatigues, they troop out armed with notebooks, pens, binoculars and global positioning system (GPS) devices. Ifaw caters for their everyday needs and pays them a monthly salary. Ms Sikeita says the squad covers at least 20 kilometres in their morning and afternoon patrols.

The afternoon patrol, however, depends on occurrence of emergencies such as wildlife trespassing into farms, people felling trees illegally to burn charcoal or herders driving their animals into the park, she says.

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"We usually interact with the herders or visit homesteads to gather as much information as possible," says Ms Sikeita, who is also a trained Early Childhood and Development Education (ECDE) teacher. Women, she says, are their greatest source of information.

"They have a lot of information because children returning from the grazing fields share news with their mothers first, before anyone else." The information gathered is shared with the local administration and the Amboseli National Park management for immediate action. Ms Sikeita is married and her mother-in-law takes care of her two children.

"My husband is supportive of my work and my mother-in-law is taking good care of the children. I video-call them every evening," says Ms Sikeita, whose husband also works away from home.
'Don't have to convert anyone but teach how to live': RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat

Neither India, nor Pakistan is happy with partition: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat

No India without Hindus, no Hindus without India: RSS chief

World looking up to Indian way of life amidst pandemic: Bhagwat

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Jaipur, Oct 07: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Tuesday said the entire world is adopting the basic element of Indian ways of life for its growth and sustenance amid the corona pandemic.

He said 50 years ago, a scheme of organic manure was dumped by the Centre because it was developed by indigenous brains but there is no alternative before the world today.

"The entire world is returning to the basic elements of Indian thought process to practice developmental ways while being environment friendly after being battered by coronavirus during the last six months," said Bhagwat at an event in Kota.

Despite fall in national average, 5 states see big surge in coronavirus cases: Data

He was addressing a function on the 100th birth anniversary of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh leader Dattopant Thengadi.

Praising Thengadi's foresight and his works, Bhagwat said the agriculture was never a subject of trade in India but the world sees it as agriculture economics.

"We have seen this as a means of worshipping Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of glory, not as a means of conducting trade," he said.

He said the agriculture's economics aspect is not bad but people fail to see that a section of people seeks to exploit others for the business.

He said Thengadi's birth anniversary celebration is for showing gratitude to the work done by him.

He said there is a need to create an agriculture that nourishes the whole world.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

"We have to adopt ideal agricultural practices based on experience and proven evidence. India has ten thousand years of agricultural experience, so it is not necessary to take anti-environment practices from the West," he said.

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 9:31 [IST]
(Photo : Screenshot from: Pink Fong Youtube Page ) Viral Kids Song 'Baby Shark' Uses as Inmate Punishment in Oklahoma (Photo : Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images) A prison guard at HMP (Her Majesty's Prison) Pentonville stands behind a locked gate May 19, 2003 in London. A new report from the Prison Reform Trust (PRT) says overcrowding in Britain's prisons has been caused by tougher sentencing rather than an increase in crime. Since 1991, offenders of petty crimes are three times more likely to be imprisoned.

Do you still remember the 2016 most popular children song titled 'Baby Shark'? If you have a kid that year, you might be one of the parents that were totally sick of that beat. Now, imagine yourself being handcuffed while listening to this same song for hours on loop.

Oklahoma's 'Baby Shark' torture

'Baby Shark,' created by Youtube children page Pink Fong, is one of the most famous children songs of 2016, or until now. A lot of children got addicted to listening or dancing to the beat of this song.

However, no one really expected to see this song used as a 'torture tune' for inmates in Oklahoma.

In a bizarre report made by Fox News, two former Oklahoma jail employees and their supervisors were charged on Monday, Oct. 6, over an alleged 'inhumane' discipline practice they had been doing to their inmates.

As explained, the employees force their inmates to listen to the children's song on repeat for hours in a separate attorney visitation room.

They were allegedly required to face the wall for hours while wearing handcuffs and listening to 'Baby Shark' on full volume.

District Attorney David Prater charged Oklahoma County jail employees Gregory Cornell Butler Jr. and Christian Charles Miles, both 21, and their supervisor, Christopher Raymond Hendershott, 50, with misdemeanor counts of cruelty to a prisoner and conspiracy.

Butler and Miles were allegedly the ones that imposed the 'Baby Shark' discipline to the inmates. They are now both resigned from their positions.

Meanwhile, Hendershott, which is now retired, was accused of not intervening and allowing the behavior.

"We don't tolerate it," said Sheriff P.D. Taylor on Monday. "We always did an excellent job policing ourselves."

'Inhumane' punishment for inmates in the U.S.

It was not the first time U.S. prison facilities were accused of abusing their power against federal inmates.

Despite having unlawful status in America, prison inmates still have law rights based on federal and state laws.

Cornell Law School describes this law under the Eighth Amendment, which protects inmates from cruel and unusual punishment. However, prisoners are no longer entitled to the full constitutional rights of an American citizen.

"A confined person also has a protected interest in freedom from discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or sex," as explained by the page.

ALSO READ: Ohio Gamer Casey Viner Sentenced To 15 Months In Prison For Deadly Swatting Case

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In February Egypts population hit 100 million. Now, just eight months later, another million has been added to the total. Amr Hassan, former rapporteur of the Egyptian National Population Council, points out that this means an average of 4,250 children are born every day.

Egypt has been trying to rein in population growth for 55 years, Hassan told Al-Ahram Weekly. Countries like Iran and Turkey, which began targeting population growth at the same time as Egypt, managed to close the file 20 years ago. While at first Egypt had some success, any advances have been wiped out in the last 10 years. According to Hassan, Egypt succeeded in cutting the fertility rate from 5.3 children per woman in 1980 to 3.5 in 2000 and then to three in 2008. (Fertility rates refer to the total number of children born to each woman during her child-bearing years.)

The period between 2011 and 2014 saw a major setback, with fertility rates climbing back to 3.5 children per woman by 2014, prompting the government to launch the National Population and Development Strategy 2015-2030. The strategy targets population growth through five avenues: family planning and reproductive health; child and adolescent health; education; media and social communication; and the empowerment of women. In 2018 surveys indicated that the fertility rate had dropped slightly to 3.1 children per woman, close to the 2008 number.

Although at first glance this may appear an achievement, in reality it means that no improvements have taken place over the last 12 years, says Hassan, and it falls far short of meeting the ambitions of the 2015-2030 strategy which had set 94 million as the target population in 2020. In comparative terms, Egypt has the highest rate of population growth among Arab countries, and the third highest, after Nigeria and Ethiopia, in Africa. Globally it ranks 14th, and by 2050 is forecast to become the 11th. The Population Reference Bureau, says Hassan, has forecast that Egypts population will increase by a staggering 70 million between 2018 and 2050.

The optimum fertility rate for Egypt is 2.1 children per woman, which would allow the population to replace itself from one generation to the next. This, says Hassan, is important to lessen the demands of Egypts limited resources, not least its share of Nile water. Egypts quota has remained constant, at 55.5 billion cubic metres annually since 1959, a period in which the population has quadrupled. Whereas the average individual share of water was 2,000 cubic metres per capita per year in 1959, today it is 600 cubic metres, well below the 1,000 cubic metres water poverty line set by the UN.

The reasons the rise in birth rates over the past decade are multiple, according to a study by the Population Council, an international NGO. Titled Fertility preferences and behaviours among younger cohorts in Egypt: recent trends, correlates, and prospects for change, the study focused on individuals, aged between 15 and 34.

Several socio-economic, political, and programmatic factors may have contributed to the desire for larger families, said the study: Political unrest following the 2011 and 2013 revolutions and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power resulted in decreased political commitment to family planning, changes in Ministry of Health and Population priorities, and a shift away from a public discourse that condones and promotes family planning.

The study posited decreased use of family planning among married women with two or more children, a shift towards short acting methods of contraception, and increased contraceptive discontinuation between 2008 and 2014 as the three main drivers of increased fertility.

The study noted a considerable decline in exposure to family planning (FP) messages through various channels, with the percentage of women who reported exposure to FP messages through television declining from 60 per cent in 2008 to 40 per cent in 2014, as well as the phasing out of USAID from the national family planning programme in 2008 which resulted in less funding for training and supervision as well as discontinuation of media campaigns that had been successful in raising awareness of FP.

The situation was compounded by reduced exposure to family planning messages because changing viewing patterns, with private media channels increasingly dominating broadcasting schedules, and a weakened private family planning sector, especially in terms of NGOs which catered to the needs of middle-class women in urban areas. The study also pointed to a shortage of trained physicians at primary healthcare facilities, and the rising cost and erratic supply of contraceptives.

On the positive side, the study pointed out that the family planning programme is receiving unprecedented high-level political support along with increased governmental and international donor funding.

In the summer of 2017 President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi pointed out that population growth constituted, alongside terrorism, one of the two major challenges facing Egypt. And in May 2018, USAID and the Ministry of Health and Population launched a new Family Planning Programme. The five-year, $19 million programme is being implemented in nine governorates in Upper Egypt, and in selected areas of Cairo and Alexandria. It provides technical assistance and training to the Ministry of Health to strengthen its Family Planning and Reproductive Health Programme, enhance the quality of services and improve contraceptive use.

To deal with population growth effectively, issues of governance need to be addressed, says Hassan. The multiple players and entities involved in implementing the population strategy, need to be brought together under a single body that can coordinates their work and determine who is responsible when targets are missed. It is a role the Egyptian National Population Council used to play when it was affiliated first to the presidency, and later to the cabinet. Now, says Hassan, it is affiliated to the Ministry of Health and has lost much of its leverage.

The Population Council study makes a number of recommendations. They include fostering greater collaboration between the Ministry of Health and Population and a range of stakeholders to integrate information about fertility awareness, family planning, birth spacing, and gender equality into secondary school curricula, livelihood training programmes, and worker health programmes; encouraging private TV channels to broadcast voluntary family planning messaging by granting tax incentives; and integrating family planning into medical and nursing school curricula to ensure a new cohort of service providers competent in family planning service delivery.

The study also recommended enhancing the role of the private sector in family planning service delivery.

The Egyptian government should assist NGOs in generating funds to support the provision of subsidised FP services to women who live in urban areas who cannot afford the fees of private doctors, and private doctors and pharmacists should receive training on counselling and contraceptive technology. Pharmaceutical companies may play a role in offering such training as this could eventually lead to increased revenues through increased sales, suggested the study.

The private sector in Egypt should be encouraged to play a greater role in supporting the national family planning programme and reducing reliance on international donor funding Large corporations could sponsor provider training programmes and media campaigns or donate equipment to Ministry of Health facilities as part of their corporate social responsibility programmes.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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He has bilateral pneumonia.

Maryna Poroshenko, the wife of former Ukrainian President Poroshenko, who has recently tested positive for COVID-19, says his health condition has worsened.

"He has bilateral pneumonia. He is in hospital, he is receiving combination therapy. Unfortunately, his blood condition has worsened now  it is very thick. Doctors cannot even take it for testing to monitor the condition and see the course of the disease," Maryna Poroshenko told Ukrainian journalist Yanina Sokolova during the Soromno TV program.

Yevhenia, one of their daughters, also tested positive for the coronavirus. According to Maryna Poroshenko, the young woman's course is milder than her father's. Her condition could be easily managed with fever-reducing drugs.

Poroshenko contracts COVID-19: Background
Some of the 400 birds Stephen Maciejewski collected in Center City Philadelphia Oct. 2, during what Pennsylvania Audubon says a rare event with from 1,000 to 1,500 birds colliding into buildings in just a three block area. Read more

Stephen Maciejewski dropped to a knee on a Center City sidewalk Wednesday morning and gently scooped up a yellow-billed cuckoo that had smashed into a skyscraper and died on its way to Central America or the West Indies.

This probably happened yesterday, said Maciejewski, a 71-year-old retired social worker and volunteer for Audubon Pennsylvania. He labeled a plastic bag with the time, date, and location, tucked the slim migrator into it, and continued his rounds.

Maciejewski gets emotional when he speaks about all the birds he finds, but nothing, he says, prepared him for what happened Friday.

So many birds were falling out of the sky, we didnt know what was going on," he said, choking up. "It was a really catastrophic event. The last time something like this happened was in 1948.

On Friday, an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 birds flew into buildings in a 3-block radius of Center City overnight and into early morning during what Maciejewski called a perfect storm of avian calamity. That could mean thousands more likely perished elsewhere in the city, he estimated.

He collected 400 birds between 5 and 8 a.m. in the radius he regularly covers roughly spanning 17th to 19th Streets between Market Street and JFK Boulevard  an astonishing number, according to an Audubon Pennsylvania official.

There were so many, I was picking up five at a time," Maciejewski said. One guy from building maintenance dumped 75 living and dead birds in front of me as if it were a collection."

Maciejewski logs each bird, noting its flight path, time, and location of impact.

"There were so many birds I ran out of supplies.

He can collect only so many birds because building maintenance crews and Center City District workers sweep detritus, including bird bodies, early each morning before commuters arrive. Maciejewski has established a rapport with some workers who save birds for him.

We collected almost 100 birds on one small roof, he said of Fridays haul.

In the five days after, things returned to normal, and Maciejewski has collected no more than 32 birds a morning.

Why so many birds in one day? Maciejewski and Audubon Pennsylvania can only guess.

This is complicated stuff, he said.

It appears weather events lined up for the worst during what was likely the peak of migratory birds' flight from Canada, Maine, Upstate New York, and elsewhere toward Central and South America. A sudden plunge in temperatures could have prompted the birds to start their flights en masse.

In Philadelphia, Friday brought low cloud cover, light rain, and a full moon, all of which could have pushed the birds lower. Birds flying from remote Northern habitats might have little experience with glass.

As they reached Philly in the dark, the birds would have been attracted to the lights inside the buildings. Some of the skyscrapers have indoor atriums, which could have led birds to think they could land there.

On any given morning, street trees reflect in the glass, making it appear they are inside buildings.

Maciejewski began this volunteer effort Sept 1. and will continue through the end of the month. He said he routinely finds the most downed birds near the two Comcast buildings, BNY Mellon Center, and Logan Square, but also just about anywhere. On Wednesday morning, the yellow-billed cuckoo was killed at 15th and Market Streets.

Inquirer columnist Inga Saffron has written about the impact of glass buildings on birds. The U.S. House of Representatives in July introduced the Bird-Safe Buildings Act of 2019. If approved, it would require buildings to use methods designed to eliminate bird crashes.

We have to bring people together to make the glass friendlier to birds, Maciejewski said. Were contributing to the extinction of American songbirds.

Keith Russell, an ornithologist with Pennsylvania Audubon, said he placed the birds Maciejewski collected Friday in a freezer in his Germantown home. The birds will be taken to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel and logged.

Russell said he still hasnt been able to sort through all the species collected Oct. 2, but they included various warblers, cuckoos, and others. The birds are counted each morning for a Pennsylvania Audubon database.

This is a very big issue in the world of bird conservation, Russell said. The estimates are 350 million to one billion birds die every year colliding with buildings.

Russell has been with Pennsylvania Audubon since 2003. But before that he worked at the Academys bird department.

He said the last big bird kill of this scope happened 72 years ago when a massive flock struck what was then the PSFS Building at 12th and Market Streets, now a Loews hotel.

Think of what the birds experience, Russell said. Its like being on a dark highway and you suddenly see headlights. You dont see anything else but those lights. On Oct. 2, birds could have been overtaken by a rainstorm, or conditions. They think Weve got to stop, and they see all those buildings and bright lights. 

"For birds, it was the equivalent of a couple of jumbo jets going down and everyone dies.

Jason D. Weckstein, a professor and ornithologist at Drexel, said the birds will be studied for things such as diet.

The birds will go into the collection at the Academy for hundreds of years, Weckstein said. They have stories to tell.
GLIL YAM, Israel, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- There are perhaps no bigger buzzwords in 2020 than "Automation" and "AI". Customer experience has been the top focus for most businesses for the last several years, and with good reason and this is exactly where Automation and AI demonstrate the most.

Today, we live in a world powered by customer experiences. Excellent customer experiences drive the success or failure of companies, and for this reason, customer experience, Automation, and AI is everything. Literally, there is no industry in which customer experiences aren't important.

Eli Israelov, CEO CommBox CommBox conversational AI-Powered platform

As companies scale, AI and automation become even more critical. The day to day operation of a growing business can be chaotic and time pressured. Some employees will be working overtime every day just to meet the demands of a thriving business. Automation is a great way to offload some of this pressure by streamlining the business processes and taking repetitive tasks away from your agents.

Eli Israelov CommBox CEO clarified that: "From what we recently experience here at CommBox we can clearly see that the adoption of AI and automation technologies in the workplace is set to rise to even greater levels, transforming our workplaces in a multitude of ways. Now more than ever we notice more and more businesses that are using CommBox that are looking to automate larger chunks of their business processes and eliminate repetitive tasks and still provide an excellent customer experience because in CommBox the conversational automation and the core business processes automation is always backed by human agents if needed (as part of the same journey). I believe that the use of business process automation will be at the heart of companies strategy for the next few years regardless of the industry it operates in."

When it comes to connecting brands and their customers, CommBox, is considered among the world leading software solutions. The CommBox omnichannel AI-Powered platform allows brands to engage and develop relationships with their consumers using some of the world's most popular messaging channels, like WhatsApp, SMS, Email, Chat, Voice, Telegram, Video Chat, and more. All conversations and relationships are done through one smart inbox using prebuilt templates and the latest tools to design automated and more human conversations.

CommBox is a digital messaging platform powered by a unique AI algorithm and a robust automation engine that enables automation of crucial business processes.

"During the pandemic we had the privilege to help brands to communicate more effectively with their customers whether the teams were located at home or in the office. We have encountered massive traffic volumes during and have successfully managed to deliver the same exact service to our customers. Many of our customers found themselves in a situation they are not familiar with and needed to shut down their call center regular activity and move towards a home-based call center solution.

What we are mainly witnessing is current customers expanding their use of the platform and new customers joining in the CommBox automation solutions from different countries across the globe," Israelov confirmed.

CommBox has announced its exponential growth in H1 of 2020, with an increase of 90% in revenue as compared to the same period last year.

Eli Israelov added: "We are constantly working to improve our platform and to find out more ways on how we can scale requests from our customers. We understand that business automation processes are now at the core of every business regardless of its size and industry."

Media contact:

Ran Yosef

[email protected]

+972549919393

SOURCE CommBox

Related Links

http://www.commbox.io


CARROLLTON, Texas, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Fastsigns Holdings Inc. announced today it acquired GTN CAPITAL GROUP, LLC the parent company of NerdsToGo, an emerging IT services franchise brand. Fastsigns Holdings Inc. is the parent company of FASTSIGNS International. Inc., which is the franchisor of FASTSIGNS, the leading sign, graphics and visual communications franchise.

"We are excited to officially welcome NerdsToGo, a growing franchise organization in the IT Services business, into our family," said Catherine Monson, CEO of FASTSIGNS International. "We look forward to what lies ahead for this exciting brand, especially the continued growth that will benefit NerdsToGo customers, franchisees, and team members."

NerdsToGo has been franchising for 3 years and is a part of the large and growing IT services industry with 25 franchise locations in 16 states. Connectivity is more important than ever with COVID-19 only accelerating remote working, online learning, and business continuity all of which require error-free networking, security, privacy, and videoconferencing. Poorly functioning IT systems are a huge headache and productivity constraint for consumers and small businesses alike who need reliable solutions.

"We look forward to growing this business with existing franchisees and introducing the NerdsToGo brand to a new group of potential franchisees and customers," added Monson." Our goal is to add value to the business as well as to expand and grow the NerdsToGo brand as a standalone business. David Colella, CEO and founder of NerdsToGo, will remain in place as brand president and will continue to grow the brand and support franchisees."

"As part of our ongoing strategy to provide outstanding support and growth opportunities to our franchisees, we have joined the FASTSIGNS family," Colella said in a statement. "We are excited to join forces with one of the most powerful organizations in the franchise industry. After spending time with the FASTSIGNS Executive Team, it became clear to me that we could leverage their franchising expertise in development, support, marketing, brand positioning, and unit level economics to grow the NerdsToGo business. I found the culture at FASTSIGNS to be consistent with the franchisee-first mindset that we have at NerdsToGo, with both organizations maintaining a commitment to its customers and employees. This relationship will allow us to grow the NerdsToGo franchise network and expand our awareness and footprint across the country and internationally."

About FASTSIGNS

FASTSIGNS International, Inc. celebrates its 35th anniversary in business in 2020 as the leading sign and visual communications franchisor in North America, and is the worldwide franchisor of more than 735 independently owned and operated FASTSIGNS centers in 9 countries including the United States and Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Canada, Chile, Grand Cayman, the United Arab Emirates, Malta, France and Australia (where centers operate as SIGNWAVE).

FASTSIGNS locations provide comprehensive signage and visual graphic solutions to help companies of all sizes and across all industries attract more attention, communicate their message, promote their products, help visitors find their way and extend their branding across all of their customer touch points. FASTSIGNS has been ranked the #1 franchise opportunity in its category in Entrepreneur magazine's Franchise 500 for the past four years, a 2019 Top Franchises for Veterans by Franchise Business Review and a 2019 America's Best Franchises to Buy list by Forbes magazine.

About NerdsToGo, Inc.

NerdsToGo, Inc. launched its original location in Guilford, CT in 2003 and quickly became the emerging leader in providing computer and technology-based services to both the small and medium sized business market and the residential market. NerdsToGo began franchising in 2017 and quickly grew to 25 independently owned franchise locations in 16 states. The Company also continues to own and operate the original Guilford, CT location.

NerdsToGo locations provide the total solution in computer and technology support to help small to medium sized business owners and residential customers lead a more effective, efficient and entertaining life through use of a wide range of technology devices including computers, iPhones, iPads, communication devices, Wi-Fi networks, printers, and smart devices. The Company's signature service is delivered by sending a Nerd onsite to customer locations in a well branded, eye catching Nerd Van or through remote support. Customers can also receive service by visiting a local NerdsToGo service center. NerdsToGo acts as the IT department for small to medium sized businesses by helping to design, implement and support IT networks, provide data backup & continuity services, cybersecurity solutions, cloud services, remote support, vendor management services and overall routine maintenance. NerdsToGo continues to grow its franchisee base, while delivering exceptional service and customer support through every interaction.

For information about the NerdsToGo franchise opportunity, contact Mark Jameson ( [email protected] or 214-346-5679).

SOURCE FASTSIGNS International, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.fastsigns.com


Women and children rest against a tent in the General Hospital site in a makeshift site in Bunia, in Ituri province, DRC (file photo).

Thousands of children continue to suffer grievously as unrelenting violence persists across eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday, expressing deep concern.

Since the beginning of the year, the brutality and chaos unleashed during longstanding conflict in the province of Ituri have deteriorated further, worsening conditions for children, according to the UN agency.

The conflict-ravaged, and mineral-rich eastern DRC has been plagued by violence stretching over decades of brutal fighting that has forced millions of civilians from their homes - many of them numerous times.

Impact on children

Militia attacks in populated areas have not only left hundreds dead but also reports of children being maimed, murdered or recruited by armed groups.

Between January and June, 91 children had been killed, 27 maimed and 13 sexually abused, according to UNICEF.

Meanwhile, more than 1.6 million people, the majority of whom are women and children, are estimated to be internally displaced; nearly 18 health facilities have been looted or destroyed; and attacks against more than 60 schools have left around 45,000 children out of the classroom.

And these are only the verified incidents, the actual numbers are likely to be significantly higher.

Millions in need

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), national data shows that about four-in-10 people throughout the country are food insecure, with some 15.6 million suffering crisis or emergency levels of hunger.

Most of the more than five million Congolese displaced inside the country live in makeshift camps and urban areas with poor sanitation and healthcare, particularly dangerous during the COVID-19 pandemic, as malaria and cholera exacerbate the hunger challenge.

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And in Ituri, 2.4 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, UNICEF said.

While at least 150,000 people - including over 87,000 children - have been assisted by UNICEF and its partners on the ground with healthcare and nutrition, protection, education, water and sanitation between January and August, insecurity in the province continues to undermine humanitarian efforts.

Rescue aid

Working with partners, the agency has been able to reintegrate 365 children from armed forces and militant groups, trace their families and provide psychosocial support.

It has also supplied more than 87,000 vulnerable children with safe access to community spaces for socialization, play and learning, and equipped 68 child victims of sexual violence with medical, psychosocial and legal assistance.

And through the UNICEF rapid response mechanism, more than 140,000 people, including 85,000 children, have received non-food items, shelter and hygiene products.

Financing shortfall

However, insufficient funding is limiting the scope of the UN agency's activities.

UNICEF pointed out that its DRC Humanitarian Action for Children appeal has a 74 per cent funding gap, flagging that while estimated at $318 million, the shortfall stands at $235 million
The parents of a 10-month-old boy who was found unconscious in a bathtub are fighting to keep their son on life support after doctors declared him brain dead and urged them to pull the plug.

Mario and Ana Patricia Torres, from Houston, have filed a lawsuit against Texas Children's Hospital seeking to give their baby Nick a fighting chance after he was pronounced legally dead on September 30.

The little boy has been in the intensive care unit since September 24 after he was found 'laying in water and unresponsive', in a near-drowning accident, CNN reported.

Six days later, hospital staff declared the boy deceased due to a lack of brain activity and recommended he be disconnected from his ventilator.

Mario and Ana Patricia Torres, from Houston, are suing Texas Children's Hospital after doctors urged the parents to pull the plug on their baby son who was declared brain dead last week

Ten-month-old Nick Torres has been in the ICU since September 24, when he was found unconscious in a bathtub

Doctors say the little boy has no brain activity and pronounced him dead on September 30

However, the couple believe their son still has a chance of survival because his heart is still beating and are refusing to give up hope.

The parents last Wednesday filed for an injunction against the hospital and also sought more than $1million, claiming doctors were 'rushing to make a decision' and not giving their son the opportunity to fight for his life.

The couple have maintained only God can decide to give or take away their son's life and the decision should not fall on the doctors.

The family has also launched an online petition and a GoFundMe campaign in hopes of buying more time with their son.

'He is on life support, but the doctors already lost hope and want to remove the life support that is keeping him alive. I have faith that GOD is the main doctor,' the mother wrote in a post.

A Harris County district judge denied the injunction last week but granted the parents more time to file an appeal, evidence of which will be heard in court on Wednesday.

Family attorney Kevin Acevedo described the matter as a morality issue about who should be allowed to decide between 'life and death'.

The boy's heartbroken parents have asked the public to support them in their battle to keep him alive

The parents claimed doctors are 'rushing to make a decision' to end their son's life

'Do the parents choose, or do the doctors choose? And when the doctors don't agree with the parents, who gets to decide? And those are the issues that are at the heart of this case,' he told the news station.

The hospital meanwhile has argued that baby Nick has had no blood flow to his brain and is considered dead according to Texas law.

The senior medical doctor who pronounced the boy dead also noted he has started to show 'postmortem deterioration' which cannot be slowed down by a ventilator.

The hospital said Nick had also 'developed progressive signs of organ failure, including cardiac failure,' according to court documents.

'[His] current condition and physiological changes have nothing to do with the presence of oxygen provided by the ventilator. In addition, these changes cannot be stopped or slowed by the ventilator or any other service,' doctors said.

The family has launched an online petition and a GoFundMe campaign in hopes of buying more time with their son

A panel of three judges is expected to make a decision on the case later this week.

Meanwhile, the Torreses have refused to give up on hope for their son and have been documenting their battle on social media, asking for prayers and support.

'We want to take our baby home and provide home care since no hospital is willing to take him,' Patricia Torres wrote in a Facebook post.

'HE IS ALIVE. His heart is beating on its own. Blood is running through his veins, we've been changing his diapers, a dead person does not pee or poo. His eyes have tears, he is crying for justice.

'I don't want a Hospital to decide if my baby dies or lives. Only God can give and take life away [it's] not for a human to decide.'

In a statement to the news station, The Texas Children's Hospital said it has complied with all 'applicable legal standards in providing services'.

'We know losing a child is incredibly difficult for any family. Texas Children's seeks to provide the most compassionate and appropriate care possible to every patient we serve,' they said.
Nearly a Third of Hospitalized CCP Virus Patients Experienced Altered Mental State: Study

Almost a third of people who have been hospitalized for the CCP virus have experienced an altered mental state, according to a new study.

Scientists found patients who suffered altered mental states, most of whom were older and male, were more likely to die than those who did not.

The study, published on Oct. 5 in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology journal, analyzed the records of the first 509 patients who were hospitalized with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus between March 5 and April 6.

The records were sourced from the Northwestern Medicine Healthcare system, which consists of one academic medical center and nine other hospitals in the Chicago area.

Out of 509 patients, 162 suffered from encephalopathy.

Encephalopathy is a generic term meaning somethings wrong with the brain, said Igor Koralnik, one of the authors of the study and the chief of neuro-infectious disease and global neurology at Northwestern Medicine.

Koralnik said that encephalopathy can encompass various conditions, such as attention issues and troubles concentrating, short-term memory loss, disorientation, being in a state of stupor, or unresponsiveness.

The data suggested that people who experienced encephalopathy were also the ones who had worse medical outcomes than those who did not suffer from encephalopathy. Furthermore, patients who suffered from encephalopathy also spent more time in the hospital than those who didntover three times longer in fact.

After being released from the hospital, only a third of the 162 people who suffered from encephalopathy were able to perform regular tasks like paying bills or cooking. By comparison, 89 percent of those who did not experience encephalopathy were able to manage regular activities without assistance.

Encephalopathy was associated with the worst clinical outcomes in terms of ability to take care of their own affairs after leaving the hospital, and we also see its associated with higher mortality, independent of severity of their respiratory disease, Koralnik said.

However, there is no clear indication as to what causes encephalopathy, as there is a lack of testing amidst the pandemic. Scientists said it could be due to factors such as inflammation, systemic disease, the condition that limits the ability to coagulate blood, or a brain invasion from the virus.
Three militants were killed in an overnight exchange of fire with security forces in south Kashmirs Shopian district on Wednesday, police said.

They said that the exchange of fire began on Tuesday evening at Sugan area of Shopian after police, army and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jointly cordoned off the area.

The gunfight continued through the night; the two men were killed early Wednesday and the third one later in the morning.

 Two unidentified terrorists were killed. The operation is going on, the Kashmir Police tweeted.

Later it said that one more unidentified militant was killed, taking the country to three. Search is going on. Further details shall follow, it said.

A Hizbul Mujahideen militant was killed in retaliation in Ganderbal on Tuesday evening when he attacked a BJP worker. The workers personal security officer was also injured in the attack and later succumbed.

Two CRPF personnel were killed and three wounded in a militant attack at Pampore on Monday.

On September 27, two militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in south Kashmirs Pulwama district, police officials said.

On September 25, two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commanders were killed after a night-long exchange of fire in Sirhama area in Bijbhera. The militants were identified as Adil Ahmad Bhat of Pulwama and Abu Rehan alias Towheed, a Pakistani national.

On September 22, a militant was also killed in an encounter with security forces in an overnight gunfight in central Kashmir, officials had said. The slain militant was identified as Asif Shah resident of Samboora Pulwama. He was said to be affiliated with Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

On September 17, three Hizbul Mujahideen militants were killed in an exchange of fire with forces in Batamaloo area of Srinagar. According to the police, a woman was also killed in the crossfire during the gunfight.

So far, around 184 militants have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir this year.
In perhaps one of the most dramatic Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meetings held on October 5, the council nearly came to a point of putting the borrowing options given to states to a vote due a lack of consensus.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Centre was confident that it had the numbers to have a favourable result on the borrowing options. However, things changed during the discussions, and the government officials were soon found to be trying to force the meeting to a close.

Things came to point where a minister from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government had to intervene. The minister told the Centre that no decision can be arrived at without a consensus on the issue and that the council should meet again to discuss it.

"There was a lot of chaos. It was a long meeting and the opposition-ruled states were firm on their stand. In fact, they managed to convince two other states to push for a third borrowing option," a person aware of the discussions told Moneycontrol.

Non-BJP states like West Bengal, Kerala, and Chhattisgarh conveyed to the Centre that it has constitutional obligations to compensate states fully for any shortfall in tax collections due to the implementation of the GST.

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"The finance secretary's (Ajay Bhushan Pandey's) abrupt decision to close the meeting and announce that the department (of economic affairs) would oversee borrowings by states, when the deliberations were still on, made states very angry. Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry, which the Centre had said were on its side, then said it's actually the Centre that should borrow," the official said.

It was then that the opposition-ruled states, confident of their numbers, pushed for a voting on the issue and said the decision would be binding to all stakeholders.

"The Centre was immediately put on the backfoot as it was no longer sure of having the required numbers. The issue narrowly missed being put to a vote because the Centre no longer had muscle," the official said.

On the advice of a minister from a BJP-ruled state, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman assured other states that no decision on the issue would take place without a consensus.

Consequently, the council decided to meet again on October 12 to discuss the same.

The council extended the levy GST compensation cess on luxury goods like cars and tobacco products beyond 2022.

The Centre had in the last GST Council meeting offered two borrowing options to states. Under the first option, the Centre in consultation with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would provide a special window to states to borrow Rs 97,000 crore at a reasonable rate of interest and this money could be repaid after five years from the collection of cess.

The other option was that states could borrow entire GST compensation gap of Rs 2.35 lakh crore in FY21 in consultation with the RBI.

When the GST was implemented in 2017, the Centre had promised to compensate states for any revenue loss for five years from a pool created by levying cess over and above the GST on luxury and sin goods.

This pool generated a surplus in the first two years and had a deficit in FY20 as well as in FY21.
This is an opinion column.

Ed Ticheli is excited, which he almost always seems to be. He waves his arms as he speaks and, although born in Montgomery, his voice reflects more the years spent living in New York than any Southern roots. On this recent chilly morning, the real estate developer is all but giddy over the almost-completed, long-anticipated $26 million revival of the Stonewall Building on Fourth Ave. North and 23d Street in downtown Birmingham. It features 140 units of rare below-market rentals in a city core increasingly dotted with pricey condominiums and apartments.

Ticheli bought the building in 2007, but it has sat empty and dormant for decades.

Weve completely transformed the neighborhood, he says. No displacement. No gentrification. We didnt move anyone out.

Monthly rents in the historic 12-story building start at $700 for a studio and one-bedroomand are generally 40 percent cheaper than prices typically charged downtown. About a third of the units are already rented, Ticheli says; he hopes to reach 70 by the end of November.

Stonewall is an Opportunity Zone project, among the first to be completed in the state. (OZs were created by Congress as part of the controversial Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 as a way to incentivize wealthy folks and cash-fat institutions to invest in businesses and real estate in areas theyve likely never been and usually overlooked, termed economically distressed and identified by state governments. Taxes on gains in these areas may be deferred or eliminated if the investment is held for at least a decade.)

Across the states 67 counties, Gov. Kay Iveys office and the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs designated 158 OZ census tracts60 are in Birmingham.

Its difficult to know the true number of OZ projects in the state because theres no formal tracking mechanismhere or nationally. About a year ago, Alex Flachsbart, CEO of Opportunity Alabama, a non-profit helping Alabama maximize opportunity zones, estimated there were 30 or so in the works. Among them: Carolline Oaks, a $13 million senior-assisted living community being built in the former Cleburne County High School building in Heflin (slated to open soon, as well); a hotel and teaching center in partnership with Stillman College in Tuscaloosa ("We are still looking forward to it, said a Stillman spokesperson, but have it on hold due to pandemic); and Lakeview Green, a five-story mixed-use development on the Birmingham site where former Davis High School once stood (construction began in December 2019.)

There are probably dozens across the state we dont know about, Flachsbart told me this week. Theyre between the lawyers and accountants.

To develop the Stonewall, Ticheli received $7 million in federal and state tax credits, as well as $700,000 in tax incentives from the City of Birmingham. They were critical, he says, to making the math work (PNC Bank invested $11 million in equity; the project carries a $4.25 million mortgage) and being able to price rents affordably relative to the area.

We took a blighted building and brought it back to life, he said. Without the credits, it would have been impossible to pencil outyou dont want to go bankrupt. Instead of putting [the credits] in my pocket, I put them into the project.

Stonewall is indeed transformative. It brings housing options to early-career residents and young families who may not otherwise be able to afford to live downtown, within walking distance from restaurants, bars, and other retail in dire need of customers. Ticheli is also providing the nonprofit Dannon Project, just across the street, with five Stonewall apartments for 10 years at no charge for use by clients in its workforce development and re-entry programs.

He calls Stonewall naturally occurring affordable housing, different than, say, Section 8 housing, where market-rate rents are subsidized by government-funded vouchers. This is the opportunity zone model, he says.

Opportunity takes many forms.

The zones exist, according to the Internal Revenue Service website, to spur economic development by providing tax incentives for investors who invest new capital in businesses operating in those tracts.

businesses operating.

Were a long wayyears awayfrom knowing if the opportunity in the zones extends beyond investors. If all that shelter-seeking cash is as enamored with funding transformative businesses, with creating jobs, with lifting families in those economically-distressed neighborhoods as it now is with buildings.

Thats true opportunity.

A voice for whats right and wrong in Birmingham, Alabama (and beyond), Roy isnt afraid to start uncomfortable conversations. His column appears in The Birmingham News and AL.com, as well as in the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register. Reach him at rjohnson@al.com and follow him at twitter.com/roysj
BEIRUT (AP)  Lebanon's President Michel Aoun has called for binding consultations with members of parliament next week to name a new prime minister, his office said Wednesday.

The announcement comes two weeks after the latest prime minister-designate resigned amid a political impasse over the formation of a new government. Mustafa Adibs resignation on Sept. 26, dealt a blow to French President Emmanuel Macrons efforts to break a dangerous stalemate in this crisis-hit Mideast country. The consultations are set for Oct. 15.

Adibs resignation nearly a month after he was appointed to the job came at a time when Lebanon is going through a severe economic and financial crisis, made worse by the spread of the coronavirus, and desperately needs international assistance. The crisis has been amplified by the devastating explosion in Beiruts port in August that killed 194 people, wounded about 6,500 and caused billions of dollars in damage.

After Adibs resignation, Macron accused Lebanons political class of collective betrayal and choosing to favor their partisan and individual interests to the general detriment of the country.

Lebanons two main Shiite parties  the militant Hezbollah and its ally Amal led by parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri  had insisted on retaining the finance ministry in the new government and on naming all the Shiite Cabinet ministers. Adib, Lebanons ambassador to Germany, rejected those conditions and stepped down.

Macron has been pressing Lebanese politicians to form a Cabinet made up of non-partisan specialists that can work on urgent reforms to extract Lebanon from the financial crisis. Macron has traveled twice to Beirut since the Beirut port explosion and has made it a personal mission to try to repair the damaged country, raising resentment from some who see it as a neo-colonial foray.

Outgoing Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned six days after the Beirut blast on Aug. 4, when nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrates, a highly explosive chemical used in fertilizers, exploded at Beiruts port. The material had been stored at the facility for six years.

Story continues

What ignited the nitrates remains unknown. More than two dozen people, mostly port and customs officials, have been detained so far. The judge in charge of the investigation has questioned top security officials, former Cabinet ministers and port employees.

It was not clear if Lebanons political groups have agreed on the future premier but former Prime Minister Najib Mikati has reportedly put forward a proposal for a 20-member Cabinet consisting of 14 experts and six politicians.

The international community has said it will not help Lebanon financially before wide reforms in the tiny country are implemented to fight widespread corruption and mismanagement.
It was just a matter of time, and sooner rather than later, Opel has started implementing its all-new corporate design language to other models in the range. Following the premiere of the all-new Mokka, the first model to adopt the new styling will be the refreshed Crossland. Notice that we left out the X from the moniker, as the company itself has decided to drop it altogether.While the Opel Vizor rework for the Crossland seems like a rushed job (looks are a matter of personal taste, so dont judge us too harshly), we think dropping the X letter from the name is a good move. It was quite confusing given that its been used as a reference to models from the company that previously had all-wheel drive traction at least as an option, whereas the Crossland was never intended as such.According to the company the order books will be opened soon, with first deliveries scheduled across Europe from early next year, but so far, the brand has not shared any pricing details. On the other hand, we do know quite a lot about the rest of the specifications.As such, when it arrives at dealerships, the new Crossland will greet customers with an enhanced chassis, a further developed steering, IntelliGrip adaptive traction control, and even a new GS Line+ trim, among others. The sporty Crossland GS Line+ version will include black 17-inch alloys, a two-tone exterior appearance courtesy of the black roof, the companys AGR-certified ergonomic seats or rear LED taillights.The IntelliGrip system, available from early 2021, aims to fulfill the duties of an actual 4x4 system with electronic trickery, and inside the top versions come equipped with the latest Multimedia Navi Pro infotainment system with 8-inch touchscreen, OpelConnect services, as well as Live Navigation, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto.Opel Crosslands powertrain range is made up of just a couple of gasoline and diesel engines (1.2- and 1.5-liter, respectively), though at least customers can have them in different power configurations . The gas options have 83, 110, and 130 PS levels  and the latter can be had both with a six-speed manual and automatic transmission. Meanwhile, the diesel choice is fixed: 110 PS with 6MT or 120 PS with the automatic.
Sushant Singh Rajput Death Anniversary: A Timeline of the of events that have transpired so far

Never said Sushant was murdered: Gupteshwar Pandey

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

Patna, Oct 07: Bihar's former DGP Gupteshwar Pandey said he never stated that Sushant Singh Rajput was murdered. "In fact...FIR registered in Bihar mentioned abetment to suicide. It was the Mumbai Police that behaved unprofessionally when our team landed in Mumbai," he added.

"As far as the AIIMS report is concerned, I've not seen that. Wait for CBI's conclusive report," Pandey further said.

Sushant Singh Rajput case: Abetment to suicide not ruled out

The AIIMS report submitted to the CBI last week has created a stir around. After Sushant Singh Rajput's family demanded a probe into Dr Sudhir Gupta's report, the Mumbai Police chief and the Maharashtra government went on to demand an apology from the media houses and the politicians who allegedly tried to defame them in the case.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

Pandey, who has now taken voluntary retirement to run in the upcoming assembly elections, said that the CBI can still file the murder charges.

The former DGP played an important role in pushing for the CBI inquiry in the actor's death case after the actor's father K K Singh filed an FIR with the Bihar Police alleging abetment to suicide in July this year.

Apart from his controversial statement in which he mentioned Rhea's 'aukaat', the former top cop had also expressed suspicion over Mumbai Police's investigation in the case.

In August, right after the CBI taking over Sushant's death case, Pandey had said, "They've forcibly quarantined an IPS officer. If the Maharashtra government is proud of their police, then tell us what they've done in 50 days after the death of Sushant Singh Rajput? Mumbai has closed all communication channels with us. This indicates that something is wrong."
STEVE ST. CLAIR

DECORAH -- About a year ago The Courier published an editorial criticizing the board of directors of an Iowa public body (ICAP) for spending taxpayer dollars to send board members to lavish locations for board meetings, such as Marco Island, Florida, and Mackinac Island, Michigan (ICAP Events Should Be In Iowa, 10/3/19). The Courier rightly denounced these actions as egregious and called the meeting trips out-of-state junkets. Eastern Iowans would do well to remember The Couriers justified scolding now, as one of those board members, Michael Bergan, asks to be returned to the Iowa House.

Recall that Bergan beat Democrat Kayla Koether two years ago by 9 votes after a controversial vote count that left 29 mail-in ballots uncounted. Bergan has been a long-time member of the ICAP board. Bremer, Clayton and Winneshiek Counties, and many other public bodies in eastern Iowa, have paid public funds into ICAP, and have had every right to expect ICAPs board to spend them responsibly. The Courier had it right in saying that the board members should be embarrassed.

Mr. Bergan's unjustifiable spending of tax dollars should not be forgotten as he asks for votes this election.

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China, the world's largest creditor, is increasingly coming under pressure to cancel its huge debt to coronavirus-hit poor countries under the Group of 20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), according to a media report.

World Bank President David Malpass on Monday called on to cancel debt to coronavirus-hit poor countries, blaming Beijing's well capitalised official lenders of not fully participating in the DSSI.

An added factor in the current wave of debt is the rapid growth of new official lenders, especially several of China's well-capitalised creditors," Malpass said, addressing an online event hosted by the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

They've expanded their portfolios dramatically and are not fully participating in the debt rescheduling processes that were developed to soften previous waves of debt," Hong Kong-based South Morning Post quoted him as saying.

The finance ministers of G20 agreed for a "time-bound suspension of debt service payments" to the 77 poorest countries in the world during online spring meetings of the Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on April 15 in view of the grim situation faced by these countries due to the pandemic.

Under this DSSI, a payment of an estimated USD 12 billion due to be paid between May 1 and the end of 2020 has been rescheduled.

According to a write up in China's state-run CGTN, over 100 low- and middle-income countries will still have to pay a total of USD 130 billion in debt service in 2020.

In addition, 43 countries have received about USD five billion from the DSSI to fund social, health and economic measures to respond to the pandemic.

is the biggest bilateral lender for most emerging economies especially lending to hundreds of projects under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Of the amount due from poor nations taking part in the G20 debt plan between May and December this year, 70 per cent or USD 7.17 billion, was to China. That amount is expected to rise to USD 10.51 billion or 74 per cent of the total, next year if the DSSI is extended, the Post report said on Wednesday.

China faced criticism especially from the G7 countries for classifying large state-owned, government-controlled financial institutions as commercial lenders and not as official bilateral creditors.

Those critics include Malpass, who said China Development Bank (CDB) needed to take part as an official bilateral lender for the DSSI to be effective, the report said.

China has argued that since CDB lends at commercial instead of concessional terms, the bank should be treated as a commercial lender. CDB's lending to DSSI-eligible countries is heavily concentrated in Angola and Pakistan.

China said that since the G20's debt freeze agreement was adopted in April, it had received more than 20 requests and reached agreements with more than 10 borrowers by the end of July, without specifying the recipients.

For its part, China has pushed for the World Bank to be included in the DSSI, a move that has so far been resisted by other World Bank/IMF members.

In June this year, Beijing held an online China-Africa Summit on Solidarity against COVID-19 in which the debt situation was discussed, as 40 of the 77 developing countries are located in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to estimates, China's debt to African countries amounted to USD 150 billion as of 2018.

Reports say China holds about a third of Africa's sovereign debt as China has extended finance to a number of African countries amid concerns about a debt trap and even loss of sovereignty, especially after Sri Lanka handed over its Hambantota port to a state-run Chinese firm in 2017 for a 99 years' lease as a debt swap amounting to USD 1.2 billion.

The Post quoted Mark Bohlund, senior analyst at REDD Intelligence as saying there was no movement on the DSSI extension and CDB inclusion largely due to China not wanting to be bullied around on the global stage.

Bohlund said China did not want to be forced into effectively footing much of the bill for the DSSI extension without any concessions from the G7 nations in other areas.

In May this year, the New York Times reported that China is flooded with debt relief requests from several countries including Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sri Lanka and a number of African nations, asking to restructure, delay repayments or forgive tens of billions of dollars of loans coming due this year.

China faces difficult choices. If it restructures or forgives these loans, that could strain its financial system and infuriate the Chinese people, who are suffering under their own slowdown. But if China demands repayment when many countries are already angry with Beijing over its handling of the pandemic, its quest for global clout could be at risk," it said.
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has asked the Arvind Kejriwal government to take immediate action on major pollution sources like construction and demolition activities and open garbage dumping in the national capital.

The central pollution watchdog expressed concern over the menace of air pollution in Delhi during winters.

Listing out a series of tasks to be accomplished across Delhi, the CPCB asked in a letter to the Delhi government on October 9 (Tuesday) to take early action on dumping of mixed municipal solid waste at three dumpsites in Bhalswa, Ghazipur and Okhla.

"It is observed that construction and demolition activities and open dumping of waste/garbage continue to be the major concern in most of the areas and therefore, special efforts are needed to curb these activities," the CPCB said.

It said some tasks to curb air pollution in Delhi have been accomplished but "more needs to be done".

Pointing out the shortcomings in action plans of 13 pollution hotspots in the capital, it said the updated status of Wazirpur hotspot has not been received while the target of greening and paving in the hotspot areas is not mentioned.
EDWARDSVILLE  The city council took its first step toward a new fire station by approving the purchase of property along Governors Parkway Tuesday.

With its unanimous vote, the council agreed to pay $156,400 for 1.84 acres of land from owners William and Lisa Markowitz, who live in the 7400 block of Governors Parkway. This location is near the north end of District Drive. Buying this site supports continuing the citys three fire station model and it fits with the citys current growth pattern, which has been to the east. This also marks the first step toward closing the Montclaire Fire Station, which was built in 1969 and houses just two personnel at a time.

Per the real estate contract, the city will close on the deal on Dec. 1. The Markowitz family will maintain the rest of their property, 2.4 acres, behind the future fire station.

A six-foot high full screen fence along the northern boundary of the citys lot will screen the station from the family, along with a row of Thuja Green Giant Arborvitae, three feet tall and staggered along the north side of the fence. These are to be planted between Oct. 15 and Dec. 15.

Mayor Hal Patton announced that beginning Oct. 20, city council meetings will revert to in-person meetings, maintaining social distancing and adding accommodations for public comments. He advised committee meeting chairpeople to decide at their next meetings, during the week of Oct. 12, whether they will follow suit. Meetings have been virtual since mid-March.

Edwardsville has been recognized again as a recipient of the Tree City USA designation and growth award. Patton praised the citys beautification and tree committee for its efforts.

In other action, the city council unanimously approved the following items:

 A resolution approving the adoption of the Madison County Multi-Jurisdictional All Hazards Mitigation Plan

 Buying a 2021 Chevrolet Silverado pickup for public works at a cost of $31,870. This is more than $10,000 less than the other candidate, a 2020 Ford Interceptor Hybrid, similar to the ones the police department has bought

 A resolution for improvement under the Illinois Highway Code for the future repaving of St. Louis Street between North Main and West Vandalia streets

 A professional services agreement with Oates Associates, for resurfacing St. Louis Street between North Main and West Vandalia streets for $95,600

 A supplemental resolution for improvement under the Illinois Highway Code for the Center Grove Road/Nature Trail Connection

 A supplemental professional services agreement with Oates Associates, Inc. for the Center Grove Road/Nature Trail Connect for $8,732.32

 A resolution authorizing submittal of Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program Grant to install a shared-use path along Route 157

 An ordinance adding four-way stop signs at the following intersections, Lindley and Orchard and Phillipena and Hunicke

 A resolution authorizing a ground lease agreement with District 7 for land for the proposed ice rink and teen center

 A resolution authorizing the mayor to sign a Metro East Park and Recreation District Grant agreement

 Two resolutions authorizing the singing of $20,000 from the Rotary Club of Edwardsville and the Solon Foundation for lighting for the pickleball courts in exchange for using the court one day a year for the next 10 years

The next city council meeting will be Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. at Edwardsville City Hall, located at 118 Hillsboro Ave.

Reach reporter Charles Bolinger at 618-659-5735
The Supreme Court is leaving in place a decision that allowed a lawsuit to move forward against a Kentucky clerk who was jailed in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The high court said Monday it would not take the case involving Kim Davis, the former clerk of Rowan County, and two same-sex couples who had sued her. Soon after the 2015 Supreme Court decision in which same-sex couples won the right to marry nationwide, Davis, a Christian who has a religious objection to same-sex marriage, stopped issuing all marriage licenses.

That led to lawsuits against her, and a judge ordered Davis to issue the licenses. She spent five days in jail after refusing.

Davis had argued that a legal doctrine called qualified immunity protected her from being sued for damages by couples David Ermold and David Moore as well as James Yates and Will Smith. Their case will now move forward.

Davis, a Republican, ultimately lost her bid for reelection in 2018. Democrat Elwood Caudill Jr. is now the countys clerk.

Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas wrote for himself and Justice Samuel Alito that while he agreed with the decision not to hear the case, it was a stark reminder of the consequences of the courts 2015 decision in the same-sex marriage case. Because of that case, he wrote, those with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage will find it increasingly difficult to participate in society without running afoul of the case and its effect on other antidiscrimination laws.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Kentucky
The son of a French aid worker taken hostage in Mali said on Wednesday he was still awaiting news about his mother after speculation intensified following the release of detained jihadists.

Hopes that 75-year-old Sophie Petronin and abducted Malian opposition leader Soumaila Cisse may soon be released surged at the weekend when security sources said Mali's new government had freed scores of jihadists.

But Petronin's son, Sebastien Chadaud, who flew to the Malian capital Bamako on Tuesday, said he had no information about this mother.

"Nothing yet," he said in a brief message to AFP, adding that he did not know whether any release was underway or not.

Petronin was abducted by gunmen on December 24, 2016, in the northern city of Gao, where she worked for a children's charity. She is the last French national held hostage in the world.

Cisse, a 70-year-old former opposition leader and three-time presidential candidate, was kidnapped on March 25 while campaigning in his home region of Niafounke ahead of legislative elections.

Anger at his abduction was a factor in a groundswell of protests against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was finally toppled by young army officers on August 18.

The junta has installed an interim president, Bah Ndaw, but made concessions to Mali's neighbours demanding safeguards for a return to civilian rule.

Ndaw's government is led by a civilian, with military men in key ministerial positions. Under a "charter" endorsed by the junta, the transition period will last for a maximum of 18 months.

Petronin and Cisse are believed to be held by an armed Islamist group linked to Al-Qaeda.

One of the world's poorest and most unstable countries Mali is in the grip of an eight-year-old jihadist insurgency that began in the north, spread to the ethnically volatile centre and advanced into Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of civilians and soldiers have been killed and hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes.

The French and Malian governments have refused to comment on any exchange.
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WESTPORT  Four days after threatening messages to President Donald Trump and law enforcement were posted downtown, police may have information on the alleged culprits.

As of this writing, the investigative efforts of the Westport Police Department Detective Bureau have yielded information on two responsible parties, Anthony Prezioso, Westport police spokesperson, said in a news release Wednesday.

On Sept. 27, police were contacted on the report of a number of paper fliers with threatening messages being spotted downtown. Some signs read, This town is ours. Kill Trump. Fight the white. Others said, The only good cop is a dead cop.

On Tuesday, elected officials across the aisle as well as the leaders of the Republican Town Committee and Democratic Town Committee condemned the signs in a joint statement.

As Chairs of the Westport Republican and Democratic Town Committees and elected leaders of Westport, we publicly and jointly denounce the hateful messaging that was discovered in town on Sunday morning, the statement reads. We believe that regardless of political affiliation or personal beliefs, there is no place for disrespect, hateful messaging or violence to express ones perspective.

The statement was signed by DTC Chair Ellen Lautenberg, RTC Chair Joseph Sledge, First Selectman Jim Marpe, Second Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker and Third Selectwoman Melissa Kane.

We hope that all Westport residents will do what they can to maintain civility both leading up to and beyond Election Day, it said.

The investigation included close collaboration with federal law enforcement based on statements expressed in the postings, according to Prezioso.

The Westport Police Department understands that this incident has caused a great deal of alarm and varying levels of concnern for many living within our community and with that in mind has been working diligently to identify the responsible individuals, he said.

With this significant development residents should be assured there is currently no viable threat to the community, he said.

At the present time this investigation remains open and active, and any additional developments relative to the case will be detailed at a later date, Prezioso said.

dj.simmons@hearstmediact.com
The United Front Party (UFP) has endorsed Nana Agyenim Boateng, founder, and leader of the party, as its presidential candidate for the 2020 general elections.



The party also out doored its national executives and manifesto at the national delegates conference held in Kumasi on Tuesday.



Speaking at the conference, Nana Agyenim Boateng said the party would win most of the seats in parliament and also win the presidential seat due to some solid structures it had put in place.



However, he could not introduce the parliamentary candidates of the party, even for the Ashanti region, where the congress was held.



Nana Boateng said the party would make agriculture very attractive by giving priority to other cash crops apart from cocoa, which he claimed, had been over-prioritized by previous governments.



On education, the flag bearer underscored the need for professionals to be trained using local dialects other than the English language.



The national executives of the party were made up of Nana Agyenim Boateng, as Chairman, Mr Barnabas Adarkwa, First Vice, Mr James Ghartey, Second Vice, and Mr Fuseini Imuru, third Vice Chairman.



Others were Mr Emmanuel Bonnah, General Secretary, Mr Nathaniel Seidu, Assistant Secretary, and Dr. Peter Sarbeng, Organizer.



The rest were Mr Solomon Nana Yaw Barimah, Deputy Organizer, Madam Joana Antwi, Womens Organizer, and Mr Daniel Asamoah Mensah, Treasurer.



Solidarity messages were read by representatives from NDC and All Peoples Congress (APC).

Source: GNA









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Shoppers wearing protective masks wait in line to enter a Lowe's Cos. store in San Bruno, California, U.S., on Wednesday, May 20, 2020.

Lowe's said Wednesday it will give $100 million more in bonuses to hourly employees, as strong demand for home improvement continues.

It marks the sixth time the home improvement retailer has given additional pay to workers at its stores, distribution centers and support centers during the coronavirus pandemic. It gave bonuses to part-time, full-time and seasonal employees in March, May, July and August. It also increased pay by $2 an hour for the month of April.

With the latest round, the home improvement retailer will have paid more than $675 million in additional pay to employees this year. It will pay the latest bonuses on Oct. 16. Full-time hourly employees will receive $300 and part-time and seasonal hourly employees will receive $150.

Also Wednesday, Lowe's announced a cash tender offer for up to $3.5 billion of its outstanding debt securities. The company said the goal of the offer is to reduce its interest expenses and manage the maturities of its debt.

Other retailers, including Walmart, Target and Kroger, have also given bonuses or increased worker pay during the pandemic. Walmart has given three rounds of bonuses and said it would remain closed on Thanksgiving to give employees time with their families. Target speeded along plans to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour as it phased out a temporary, pandemic-related $2 an hour wage increase.

Customers have shopped at Lowe's for DIY supplies, kitchen appliances and landscaping tools as they spend more time at home during the pandemic. The global health crisis has also inspired some Americans to move out of cities and buy homes in suburban or rural areas, a trend that analysts predict will drive long-term sales for home improvement retailers.
Joe Biden speaks Tuesday at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)

Joe Biden called Tuesday for an end to the divisions and partisanship that now define U.S. politics, traveling to the historic battlefield at Gettysburg, Pa., for a speech that did not mention President Trump and that likely sets the tone for the final four weeks of his presidential campaign.

Biden repeatedly urged Americans to set politics aside in the spirit of President Lincolns call for unity in his iconic Gettysburg address. It's an implausible request in what is probably the most heated presidential campaign of the modern era, but it encapsulates the tone that Biden, enjoying his front-runner status in the race, wants to use as his closing argument to the nation's voters.

"Today once again, we are a house divided, he said, speaking against the backdrop of a sun-splashed rural landscape at the site of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. But that, my friends, can no longer be. We're facing too many crises. We have too much work to do. We have too bright a future to have a shipwreck on the shores of hate and anger and division."

"You dont have to agree with me on everything  or even on most things  to see that what were experiencing today is neither good nor normal," he added.

His 22-minute speech offered a stark contrast to Trumps polarizing bravado, which has been undiminished by his illness with COVID-19. Within hours of returning from the hospital on Monday, Trump was sending partisan thunderbolts that dismissed the seriousness of the infection that has killed more than 210,000 Americans. On Tuesday, he abruptly ended negotiations with Congress over legislation to extend economic aid for victims of the pandemic and recession.

With its bipartisan appeal and above-the-fray tone, Biden's speech clearly reflected the state of the presidential race in its closing month, with many voters already casting ballots by mail or through early voting. Biden exuded confidence at a time when polls show him leading by comfortable margins, both nationally and in battleground states like Pennsylvania, the site of the speech.

Story continues

The polls indicate that Trump, who trailed Biden going into last week's presidential debate, lost more ground in the aftermath of that encounter, in which the president repeatedly interrupted his challenger and got into quarrels with the event's moderator, Chris Wallace of Fox News. His COVID-19 diagnosis does not appear to have brought Trump any sympathy bonus. Instead, some polls show further slippage for him since his hospitalization on Friday.

Biden's speech  which hed said earlier in the day he had spent a lot of time writing  set a high-road tone of the sort a front-runner can employ. With support of his partys base secure, he could dispense with partisan rhetoric and instead make a pitch to attract moderates and disaffected Republicans who are weary of the drama of the Trump era.

He also sought to disarm one of the principal wedge issues that Republicans are trying to deploy against him  the argument that his sympathy for Black voters and approval of protests for racial justice signal a lack of support for law and order and the police.

I do not believe we have to choose between law and order and racial justice in America, he said, reiterating that he does not support the calls to defund police that have been embraced by many progressives.

We can have both.

"This nation is strong enough to both honestly face systemic racism and strong enough to provide safe streets for our families and small businesses that too often bear the brunt of this looting and burning," he added.

Although he did not mention Trump, Biden dwelled on the white supremacists and hate groups that have gained prominence following the debate, in which the president invited one such group, the Proud Boys, to stand by.

"I will send a clear, unequivocal message to the entire nation: There's no place for hate in America, Biden said. It will be given no license, it will be given no oxygen, it will be given no safe harbor."

Repeatedly calling on Americans to put politics aside, Biden said the COVID-19 pandemic and the recession are problems that cry out for bipartisan solutions.

Wearing a mask is not a political statement; it is a scientific recommendation, he said, a contrast to Trumps decision to whip off his mask before cameras as he entered the White House after leaving the hospital Monday night.

It is a virus," Biden added. "It is not a political weapon.

Biden's appeals to bipartisanship could presage post-election conflicts with his party's progressive wing, which is advocating moves such as expanding the size of the Supreme Court that would surely meet furious opposition from Republicans. And he acknowledged that many in his own party have called him naive" for his faith in the possibility of building a working relationship between the parties.

Im told, 'Maybe thats the way things used to work, Joe, but they cant work that way anymore, he said. Well, Im here to tell you they can. And they must if were going to get anything done. Im running as a proud Democrat, but I will govern as an American president.

The event also drew contrast with a speech that Trump made in Gettysburg in October 2016, as he seemed to be headed toward defeat by Hillary Clinton. In that speech, which also served as a closing argument of sorts, Trump laid out his populist themes and also talked about unity, but his remarks were notable for their divisiveness.

Trump declared that the election was rigged against him, that the media was corrupt and that he would sue the many women who had accused him of sexual misconduct  a threat he never followed up on.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
CANDIDATES vying for different posts in the October 28th General Election have been urged to use the campaign window in educating the public on dangers of engaging in heavy alcohol intake, which might lead to loss of lives.

The Coordinator of the Crisis Resolving Centre (CRC), Ms Gladness Munuo made the call recently, as part of an initiative to commemorate the International Alcohol Free Day marked on each October 3.

"Studies shows that excessive consumption of alcohol has led to the growth of non-communicable illness such as blood pressure, diabetes and cancer. "Likewise, many countries are losing their manpower, especially the youth dying for heavy consumption of alcohol," said Ms Munuo.

The alcohol free advocate pointed out that election aspirants could incorporate an awareness raising segment in their campaigns, to help ease the pace at which the problem is escalating.

Ms Munuo added that if the problem is left to continue, chances of illness and losing people, who die due to excessive consumption of alcohol will grow further.

She added that each October 3, people across the globe come together to mark the alcohol free day. This exemplifies that a person can live free from alcohol.

According to her, Tanzania, like many other countries, commemorates the day, but due to existence of Covid-19 in the many countries this year's observance has been marked via virtual workshops on using substitute drinks among many activities.

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"Alcohol consumption is not recommended to expectant mothers who want to deliver healthy babies," she said.

Under this year's theme "Tell your story" the Coordinator called upon people to, instead of capitalizing on excessive alcohol consumption, opt for other drinks like milk, tea and water for own health benefits.

A statement issued by Movendi International, a largest independent global movement for development through alcohol prevention noted that more efforts are needed at national level to protect people's right to live free from alcohol and to promote health and development through alcohol prevention.

"More than three billion people equivalent to 57 per cent of the global adult population live free from alcohol, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) - many of them, living in low- and middle income countries. "But the alcohol industry is pushing aggressively to convert children, youth and adults to alcohol consumers and in doing so is threatening health, well-being and socio-economic development of countries," noted the statement.

The WHO Global Alcohol Strategy provides guidance for policy-makers in [name your country] by encouraging to support children, youth and adults in their alcohol-free way of life and to protect them from pressures to start consuming alcohol.
During a briefing today, Representative of the Republic of Armenia to the European Court of Human Rights Yeghishe Kirakosyan says Armenia continues to inform the ECHR about Azerbaijans and Turkeys violations of International Humanitarian Law and the European Convention on Human Rights on a daily basis.

On September 29, the Government of Armenia submitted to the ECHR a request to apply an interim measure against Azerbaijan, and a request to apply a similar measure against Turkey was submitted on October 4.

The next step may be the move of the issue to the Ministerial Committee of the Council of Europe. Kirakosyan also informed that the main complaint against Azerbaijan and Turkey hasnt been submitted yet. According to him, if the ECHR renders a decision against Turkey, other countries can also take advantage of this decision.

Kirakosyan added that Armenia and Artsakh dont need the decision of the ECHR to ensure their security and have the full-fledged right to neutralize foreign aggression since this poses an existential threat.
Brazil has more than 286,000 community health workers integrated into the national primary healthcare program. These professionals form a broad network serving 75% of the population, especially low-income families who lack medical insurance and are the most adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Back in March, researchers at Imperial College London noted Brazil's network of community health workers as a valuable asset that could assure an effective response to the pandemic. According to the article, the service they provide sets an example to be followed by other countries. But the response was not effective, there was no national plan, and the service provided by community health workers wasn't considered essential to control the disease until July.

They weren't even considered health professionals and so weren't given personal protective equipment [PPE], just to take one example," said Gabriela Lotta, a professor at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV). Lotta is affiliated with the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM) , one of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs) funded by Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP.

In collaboration with researchers at Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz, a leading public health research institution linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Health), the University of York (UK) and the London School of Economics, Lotta authored an article published in the Comment section of The Lancet warning that community health workers in Brazil were being treated with neglect during the pandemic.

Several countries have community health workers, but the researchers at Imperial College London focused on Brazil's advantage in this respect because it was one of the first countries to create such a network as an integral part of primary care and the national health system [in Brazil, Sistema Unico de Saude, SUS]. In most countries community health workers aren't part of the official health system but belong to NGOs or civic associations." Gabriela Lotta, Professor at Getulio Vargas Foundation

Thanks to this structural feature, she added, Brazil's community health workers would have been able to perform important functions during the pandemic, "provided they had PPE, training, the backing of governmental policy, support, and recognition of their significance".

Three tiers of government

For Lotta, neglect of community health workers exemplifies the effect on cities of the lack of a national plan to combat the pandemic: although the service they provide is run by local authorities, the federal government is responsible for funding and other support mechanisms.

"There are huge disparities among Brazilian cities," Lotta said. "Municipalities find their hands are tied if they lack the funding and other resources to determine a strategy on their own. There has to be a national plan, with substantial transfers from the federal government to fund community health workers. It's up to local government to execute. Of course, if a city has resources it can use them, but the federal government should shoulder most of the burden and set the policy. That includes defining whether community health workers are health professionals or not and whether they should get hazard pay. All these decisions have to apply to the entire national health service."

During the first four months of the pandemic, Lotta continued, community health workers received neither training nor PPE. They were at last classed as key workers only on July 21, 2020, when President Bolsonaro signed Law 14,023/2020.

"Because there was no national plan and they weren't even classed as health professionals, only 9% received infection control training and PPE. Their union says some 100 have died from COVID-19, but the actual number may be three times higher," Lotta said.

Brazil has one of the world's highest death tolls of nurses, nursing assistants, and nurse technicians affected by COVID-19, according to the International Council of Nurses (ICN). In its last update, Brazil's Federal Nursing Council (COFEN) pointed to 441 deaths. The number of physicians who died from the disease had reached 244 by September, according to the Sao Paulo Physicians Union.

"The law is positive, although it has yet to be implemented," Lotta said. "Better late than never. At least there's a legal measure that says community health workers are entitled not to go out to work if they aren't given PPE. They had no such right before. They were very vulnerable."

Nevertheless, she added, the law does not automatically solve the problems of community health workers or ensure they play an effective role in combating the pandemic. "It's an important contribution, but it won't necessarily translate into better policy," she said. "Even with this law in place, local governments lack the means to prioritize community health workers in fighting the pandemic until a strategic plan and a funding scheme are established."

Key functions, key workers

Among the functions that could be performed by community health workers during the pandemic, Lotta highlighted key activities such as tracing contacts of infected people, combating fake news by disseminating trustworthy information, and monitoring social isolation in confirmed cases.

"They already act as health educators. They live in the communities where they work and are seen as trustworthy and legitimate," she said. "Keeping their neighbors well-informed about personal hygiene, and the importance of face covering and social isolation is an effective way to neutralize fake news. A few cities have community health workers circulating in cars with loudspeakers to give out this kind of information."

Contact tracing would not be a problem for them, Lotta argued. "They already did something very similar to contact tracing when they monitored people's healthcare requirements. In the few Brazilian cities that have had contact tracing it's been done by community health workers," she said.

They could staff telephone banks to call patients with the disease who are isolated at home and assess their need for hospitalization if local authorities supplied thermometers and pulse oximeters, she added.

They could also man the roadblocks set up at the entrances to many cities. "The disease was transmitted to many small and medium towns by visitors who were infected but had no symptoms, especially if the locality was a tourist attraction," Lotta said. "Some local authorities installed roadblocks manned by community health workers, who took people's temperature as they arrived by car and told them about the measures in place to deal with the pandemic. Of course, in this case, they will have had to supply PPE and support of other kinds. We have the structure, and if such apparently simple but crucial measures were universally applied they would have a positive impact in terms of containing transmission of the virus."
It took Carrie Wanamaker several days to connect the face she saw on GoFundMe with the young woman she had met a few years before.

According to the fundraising site, Adeline Fagan, a 28-year-old resident OB-GYN, had developed a debilitating case of Covid-19 and was on a ventilator in Houston.

Scrolling through her phone, Wanamaker found the picture she took of Fagan in 2018, showing the fourth-year medical student at her side in the delivery room, beaming at Wanamakers pink, crying, minutes-old daughter. Fagan supported Wanamakers leg through the birth because the epidural paralyzed her below the waist, and they joked and laughed since Wanamaker felt loopy from the anesthesia.

I didnt expect my delivery to go that way, Wanamaker, a pediatric dentist in upstate New York, said. You always hear about it being the woman screaming and cursing at her husband, but it wasnt like that at all. We just had a really great time. She made it a really special experience for me.

Fagans funeral took place on Saturday.

The physician tested positive for the virus in early July and died on 19 September after spending over two months in hospital. She had worked in a Houston emergency department, and a family member says she reused personal protective equipment (PPE) day after day due to shortages.

Fagan is one of over 250 medical staff who died in southern and western hotspot states as the virus surged there over the summer, according to reporting by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News as part of Lost on the Frontline, a project to track every US healthcare worker death. In Texas, nine medical deaths in April soared to 33 in July, after Governor Greg Abbott hastily pushed to reopen the state for business and then reversed course.

Among the deceased healthcare workers who have so far been profiled in depth by the Lost on the Frontline team, about a dozen nationwide, including Fagan, were under the age of 30. The median age of death from Covid for medical staff is 57, compared with 78 in the general population. About one-third of the deaths involved concerns over inadequate PPE. Protective equipment shortages are devastating for healthcare workers because they are at least three times more likely to become infected than the general population.

Story continues

It kicked me in the gut, said Wanamaker. This is not what was supposed to happen. She was supposed to go out there and live her dreams and finally be able to enjoy her life after all these years of studying.

Fagan worked at a hospital called HCA Houston Healthcare West, and had moved to Texas in 2019 after completing medical school in Buffalo, New York, a few hours from her hometown of LaFayette.

She was the second of four sisters, all pursuing or considering careers in the medical field. Her younger sibling, Maureen, 23, said she dealt with patients in uncomfortable or embarrassing situations with grace, as she had observed when she accompanied her on two medical mission trips to Haiti. Addie was very much, Do you understand? Do you have other questions? I will go over this with you a million times if need be.

Maureen also mentioned Fagans comic side  she was voted by her colleagues most likely to be found skipping and singing down the hall to a delivery and prone to rolling out hammy Scottish and English accents.

Fagan loved delivering babies, loved being part of the happy moment when a baby comes into the world, loved working with mothers, said Dori Marshall, associate dean at the University at Buffalo medical school. But she found living by herself in Houston lonely, and in February Maureen moved down to keep her company; she could just as easily prepare for her own medical school entrance exam in Texas.

It is unclear how Fagan contracted coronavirus, but to Maureen it seemed linked to her July rotation in the ER. HCA West is part of HCA Healthcare  the countrys largest hospital chain  and in recent months a national nurses union has complained of its willful violation of workplace safety protocols, including pushing infected staff to continue clocking in.

Amid national shortages, Maureen said her sister faced a particular challenge with PPE. Adeline had an N95 mask and had her name written on it, she said. Adeline wore the same N95 for weeks and weeks, if not months and months.

The CDC recommends that an N95 mask should be reused at most five times, unless a manufacturer says otherwise. HCA West said it would not comment specifically on Maureens allegations, but the facilitys chief medical officer, Dr Emily Sedgwick, said the hospitals policies did not involve individuals constantly reusing the same mask.

Our protocol, based on CDC guidance, includes colleagues turning in their N95 masks at the conclusion of each shift, and receiving another mask at the beginning of their next shift. A spokeswoman for HCA West, Selena Mejia, also said that hospital staff were heartbroken by Fagans death.

On 8 July, Fagan arrived home with body aches, a headache and a fever, and a Covid test came back positive. For a week the sisters quarantined, and Fagan, who had asthma, used her nebulizer. But her breathing difficulties persisted, and one afternoon Maureen noticed that her sisters lips were blue, and insisted they go to hospital.

For two weeks the hospital attempted to supplement Fagans failing lungs with oxygen. She grew so weak she wasnt able to hold her phone up or even keep her head upright. She was transferred to another hospital where she agreed to be put on a ventilator.

Less than a day later, she was hooked up to an ECMO device for a highly invasive treatment of last resort, in which blood is removed from the body via surgically implanted intravenous tubes, artificially oxygenated and then returned.

She lingered in this state through August, an experience documented on a blog by her software engineer father, Brant, who arrived in Houston with her mother, Mary Jane, a retired special education teacher, even though they were not allowed to visit Fagan.

The medical team tried to wean her off the machines and the nine sedatives she was at one point receiving, but as she emerged from unconsciousness she became anxious, and was put back under to stop her from pulling out the tubes snaking into her body. She was able to respond to instructions to wiggle her toes. A nurse told Brant she might be suffering from ICU psychosis, a delirium caused by a prolonged stay in intensive care.

The family tried to speak with her daily. The nurse told us that they have seen Adelines eyes tear up after we have been talking to her on the phone, Brant wrote. So it must be having some impact.

On 15 September, her parents were at last permitted to visit. I do not think we were prepared for what we saw, in person, when we entered her room, he wrote. Occasionally, Adeline would try to respond, shake her head or mouth a word or two. But her stare was glassy and you were not sure if she was in there.

It was too much for him. Being the softy that cannot stand it when one of my girls is hurting, [I] commenced to get light-headed and pass out.

Finally, on 17 September, it seemed Fagan was turning a corner. Still partly sedated, she was nevertheless able to sit up without support. She mouthed the words to a song, being unable to sing because a tracheostomy prevented air passing over her vocal cords.

The next day, the ECMO tubes were removed. The day after that, Brant made his last post.

His daughter had suffered a massive brain haemorrhage, possibly because her vascular system had been weakened by the virus. Patients on ECMO also take high doses of blood thinners to prevent clots.

A neurosurgeon said that even on the remote chance Fagan survived surgery, she would be profoundly brain damaged.

We spent the remaining minutes hugging, comforting and talking to Adeline, Brant wrote.

And then the world stopped 
The Managing Director, FirstBank of Nigeria Limited, Dr. Adesola Adeduntan has stressed the importance of infrastructural development in driving inclusive growth, investment and poverty reduction in Nigeria.

According to him, with about 50 per cent of the country's population living in rural areas, achieving equitable and inclusive economic growth would require a keen focus on the rural economy.

Adeduntan disclosed this recently at the University of Ibadan Alumni Association Annual Lecture with the theme: 'Stimulating the development of the Nigerian economy through inclusive growth.'

He noted that globally, the rural economy holds strong potential for sustainable economic growth, employment generation and the promotion of decent living standards.

The First Bank CEO pointed out that significant opportunities exist to accelerate economic development and inclusive growth through deliberate government policy interventions and private sector actions.

He said the federal government needs to execute some inclusive growth initiatives that worked for other economies which have recorded significant economic development.

Adeduntan, however, said the government must be commended for taking bold and decisive actions on a number of economic issues including the liberalisation of downstream sector; adoption of cost reflective electricity tariff, among others.

According to him, "There is need for massive investment in social infrastructure - education, health, security. There is also need to accelerate investments in physical infrastructure; to convert the country to a bubbling and veritable construction yard. "There should be deliberate focus on vocational education to create a strong base of blue collar jobs - technicians, plumbers, bricklayers, welders, tilers, and others to support the construction activities.

"Given that financial institutions are at the epicenter of financial development that is required for growth to be inclusive, financial institutions have critical roles to play in driving inclusive growth. At FirstBank, we are implementing several support initiatives that are driving financial inclusion and human capital development.

"At FirstBank, we are implementing several support initiatives that are driving financial inclusion and human capital development. FirstBank's financial inclusion programme is anchored around its agent banking proposition and network which is branded as Firstmonie."
Barring any last-minute change in plans, the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, will today (Wednesday) name a new emir for the influential Zazzau emirate following the passage of Emir Shehu Idris on September 20.

Emir Idris, who was enthroned as the emir of Zazzau in 1975 died at 84 after reigning for 45 years.

There have been speculations in the past few days over who the governors choice for the position would be.

Extensive checks by PREMIUM TIMES in the past 24 hours suggest that Mr El-Rufai may have settled for Ahmed Bamalli, Nigerias immediate past ambassador to Thailand and Myanmar.

Mr Bamalli has long been speculated as the governors preferred pick for the throne, although the Kaduna State government has repeatedly denied that Mr El-Rufai has preference for any of the contenders for the position. But the governor has never been shy in saying he would assert his power as the ultimate decision maker in the emergence of a new emir for the emirate..

However, reliable and knowledgeable sources familiar with the Kaduna governments plan to name a successor for the late Emir Idris told PREMIUM TIMES the chances of Mr Bamalli emerging is now brighter than ever.

All the people interviewed for this report said Mr El-Rufai has in the past few days told close appointees and confidants that he would not appoint as emir a prince that his government had declined to reappoint as district head.

That is in reference to Bashir Aminu, Iyan Zazzau, the man initially speculated as the frontrunner in the race. Mr Aminu, who became district head of Sabon-Gari in 1979, was not reappointed after the government restructured districts and reduced their number from 390 to 77.

In their selection deliberations, the Zazzau Emirate kingmakers ranked the Iyan Zazzau number one among contenders for the throne.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the kingmakers excluded Mr Bamalli from the shortlist of three submitted to the governor penultimate Friday.

It is unclear why the kingmakers, who were well aware of this (governments refusal to reappoint Mr Aminu) thought they could secure the elevation to emir of someone that an incumbent government did not appoint to a lesser office, one of our sources, a government insider, said.

That argument appears to have effectively eliminated Mr Aminu from the race.

Another source said the Kaduna governor has also signalled to his close aides that he would take a decision that would save the number of ruling houses in Zazzau Emirate from shrinking from four to two.

He is said to have lamented that the succession to the emirship of Zazzau had become a relay between the Barebari and the Katsinawa dynasties who have held the throne for the last 100 years.

One associate quoted Mr El-Rufai as saying he would start the process of giving justice to the Mallawa and Sullubawa ruling houses who have long been excluded from the throne.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt that apart from appointing Mr Bamalli of the Mallawa dynasty to succeed Emir Idris, Mr El-Rufai may proceed to amend the states chieftaincy law to input a rotational arrangement so that the Sullubawa dynasty can take its turn whenever the throne becomes vacant again.

The governor is said to have argued in the past days that the appointment of Mr Bamalli as Emir of Zazzau will preserve the viability of all the four ruling houses in the emirate.

The Barebari, Katsinawa, Mallawa and Sullubawa houses have all produced at least one emir each, but the Barebari and Katsinawa dynasties have dominated the last 100 years, with two consecutive Katsinawa successions from 1959.

The Katsinawa ruling house has ruled Zazzau Emirate for 61 unbroken years, following the appointment of Emir Aminu in 1959 in succession to Emir Jafaru Dan Isyaku of the Barebari ruling house. The recently departed Emir Idris succeeded Emir Aminu in 1975.

Neither the Mallawa nor the Sullubawa dynasties has had one of their members on the throne in the last 100 years.

Available records show no Mallawa emir has reigned since 1920, when the last of the four emirs that that ruling house produced died. The reign of the only Sullubawa emir ended in 1857, after only three years on the throne. It has been a long 163 years since then.

The Barebari have produced nine emirs for a cumulative reign of 83 years. The Katsinawa dynasty has ruled for a cumulative 82 years through four emirs, including the last two Emirs of Zazzau.

The prolonged exile of two ruling houses from the throne threatened their royal claims with extinction with the passage of time, an official quoted Mr El-Rufai as saying.

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There is no reason to reduce the plurality of options available to occupy the throne from the traditional four ruling houses.

Apart from preserving the royal status of all the ruling houses, the governor also appears to want to signal that direct succession from father to son is not the preferred option. That rather, it should be viewed as an exception, not the rule, something to be considered only in the unlikely instance that no credible and acceptable candidate directly descended from a previous emir was available.

ALSO READ: Zazzau Emirate kingmakers begin fresh selection process

This planned rejection of direct succession mode would help relieve kingmakers of the sense of obligation that comes naturally with the affection they develop for a long-reigning monarch, who may have appointed or retained them in their positions and whose grace may have afforded them favours.

They may likely transfer this affection to the offspring of their benefactor, skewing the selection process in favour of the incumbent dynasty. This would have the unsavoury consequence of imposing a de facto monopoly of one dynasty on what is formally a structure of four ruling houses.

The arguments over the exclusion of the Mallawa and the Sullubawa dynasties from the throne for prolonged period appear to have knocked out Munir Jaafaru of the Barebari dynasty and Aminu Idris of the Katsinawa ruling house from the race.

There are speculations in Zaria, the seat of the Zazzau Emirate, that Mr Aminu may mount a legal challenge if not selected as the emir.

Asked what Mr El-Rufai and his government would do if this happens, an official of the state government, who asked not to be identified because he had no permission to discuss the matter with the media, said, Litigation over succession in the Fulani emirates is rare. Even the bitter contest for the Kano throne in 2014 between Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and the children of the late Emir Ado Bayero did not lead to litigation.

The official said the emergence of speculation that the Zazzau Emirate might be split into four emirates is seen as a subtle message by some princes who are enraged by the threat of legal action and are prepared to countenance unprecedented steps as the lasting antidote to the monopoly of one or two ruling houses.

When contacted for comments, the spokesperson for the Kaduna Governor, Muyiwa Adekeye, said, Government will update the public as soon as it has any information. I can only advice your paper to be patient and await a formal announcement. Please, let us not raise tension unnecessarily.

The intense race for the influential Zazzau throne began following the demise of the long-reigning Emir Idris, on September 20. Mr Idris, who died at 84, ascended the throne in 1975.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that four princes from three ruling houses were in the forefront in the race for the coveted throne. There were Mr Aminu; Mr Bamalli; Yeriman Zazzau, Munir Jaafaru; and the Turakin Zazzau, Aminu Idris.

This newspaper reported penultimate Friday that the kingmakers recommended three of the contenders based on a grading and voting system agreed and executed by the five kingmakers.

Mr Aminu was graded highest by the kingmakers with 89 per cent grade and 3 votes while Mr Jaafaru came second with 87 per cent and one vote.

The son of late Emir Idris, Aminu Idris, was graded 53 percent with one vote, putting him in the third position. Mr Bamalli was eliminated from the contest.

In the report sighted by PREMIUM TIMES, no reason was given for the kingmakers low grading of Mr Bamalli but palace sources said the kingmakers rated him low because his father did not occupy the Zazzau throne.

The Kaduna Government later accused some of the kingmakers of receiving bribe and of compromising themselves during the selection process.

That selection process was nullified. On September 30, the government asked the kingmakers to restart the selection process.

The government claimed it took the decision because the initial process excluded two interested applicants while two candidates were assessed without the sighting of their their CVs.

The government also complained that the report of the selection meeting of September 24 2020 was leaked to the media before its receipt by the state governor.

The move was seen in some quarters as the governments way of bringing back Mr Bamalli back in the turf after his exclusion by the kingmakers.

The kingmakers then did a fresh screening of all the 13 candidates that indicated interest in the throne from all the ruling houses, including the two previously excluded.

The report of the assessments were submitted to the governor for his consideration and announcement of a successor to Emir Idris.
Treasury Wine Estate's Lindeman's collaborates with The Carbon Trust

Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) has announced a new partnership between Lindemans and the Carbon Trust  a collaboration that aims to see its Lindemans branded range of products certified carbon neutral in Europe by the end of 2020.

Over the last year TWE has been working in partnership with the global climate change and sustainability consultancy, The Carbon Trust. The partnership has involved measuring the product carbon footprint of its glass and cardboard packaged Lindemans range in order to certify the brand to the internationally recognised PAS 2050 standard in Europe.

Lindemans has now put in place a series of key measures across its regional supply chain to reduce its carbon footprint. These include moving the whole portfolio in Europe to lightweight bottles, optimising the recyclability of its packaging and using solar-powered, renewable energy as well as efficient refrigeration at winery-level.

In order to realise its goal of making the Lindemans portfolio in Europe carbon neutral by the end of 2020, TWE has offset the remaining footprint by working with Carbon Footprint Ltd and investing in carbon credits from inspiring global carbon positive projects such as:

Reforestation projects in the Amazon Rainforest and the UK

While the aim in the Amazon is to protect the Rainforest and its biodiversity, many of the trees in the UK will be planted in schools to facilitate education and CSR benefits

While the aim in the Amazon is to protect the Rainforest and its biodiversity, many of the trees in the UK will be planted in schools to facilitate education and CSR benefits Supporting solar power in the Philippines

This solar power project is located on Negros Island and involves the installation of Solar Power Plants in the La Carlota and Manapla communities. The project is part of a number of community engagement activities with the local government.

This solar power project is located on Negros Island and involves the installation of Solar Power Plants in the La Carlota and Manapla communities. The project is part of a number of community engagement activities with the local government. Wind farms in India

The project involves the installation and maintenance of wind turbines in the Maharashtra state of India

Ben Blake, Head of Marketing for EMEA at TWE, said: We are delighted to have completed work with the Carbon Trust to measure and certify the product carbon footprint of our full Lindemans range in Europe and are now looking forward to achieving our ambition of being certified carbon neutral by the end of 2020. Lindemans is the perfect brand to lead the way in Europe, with its significant profile across the UK, the Nordics and The Netherlands.

Sustainability is a key priority for TWE across all regions and this partnership with the Carbon Trust is another step in our journey.

John Newton, Associate Director at the Carbon Trust, said: We are pleased to have been working closely with Lindemans on its sustainability agenda for the past year. We have worked with Lindemans to certify the product carbon footprint of its entire brand portfolio as part of its commitment to reaching its carbon neutral goals.



TWE recently announced new sustainability goals including the introduction of Global Packaging Guidelines with targets of 100% of packaging to be recyclable, reusable or compostable by end of 2022 and 100% of product and outer packaging materials to comprise 50% average recycled content by 2025 globally.

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ATLANTA - Authorities are offering a $10,000 reward as they continue to search for the person who shot actor Thomas Jefferson Byrd in Atlanta.

Best known for his roles in Spike Lee films, Byrd was found dead around 1:45 a.m. Saturday morning on the citys southwest side. He had been shot multiple times in the back.

The reward was announced Tuesday. Police have not identified a suspect in the 70-year-old actors shooting death or said why it may have happened.

Byrd was found shot near his home and died before he could be taken to a hospital. Robert Calloway told WSB-TV he found Byrd in a yard and ran to a fire station for help. Calloway didnt know Byrd.

I thought he had a health issue. He was in the yard, Callaway said.

Byrd acted in films including Clockers, Chi-Raq, Bamboozled, He Got Game and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. Also a stage actor, Byrd was nominated in 2003 for a Tony award for for his performance in the Broadway revival of Ma Raineys Black Bottom, co-starring Whoopi Goldberg and Charles S. Dutton.

Police ask anyone with information to call them or Crime Stoppers at 404-577-8477, or submit information online at www.StopCrimeATL.com.
Willie Mason has opened up on the moment he was accused of disrespecting the haka and the torment of abuse he copped from New Zealand players as a result.

The 40-year-old former NRL star played for the Australian Kangaroos in the 2006 Tri-Nations tournament, where he was caught up in a scandal over an outburst during the Kiwi's traditional war dance.

The prop forward was shown on the broadcast yelling 'f**k off' during the haka, which was viewed as him slamming New Zealand culture.

But Mason said that was not the case and he was having a dig at All Black's fullback Brent Webb.

Willie Mason (pictured) has shared the story behind his slur during the haka in the 2006 Tri-Nations Tournament in New Zealand

'I was born in New Zealand - the whole "disrespecting the haka", it's pretty hard to do. There's nothing but respect to the haka,' Mason said on The Fan.

'It was Brent Webb, who at that time, he was a cheeky little dude. He was hammering me and I'm like, "You can't make the Australian side. You're Aboriginal and you can't make the Aussie side. You're playing for New Zealand". And a few expletives in there.

'Then the camera zoomed in when I'm telling him to go and get effed and then the whole nation turns on me, saying I'm disrespecting the haka, telling the haka to get effed.

'I said, "I don't think that's possible". But they ran with it and the whole of New Zealand wanted to kill me.'

Mason was captured saying 'f**k off' on the broadcast during the haka (pictured), which was aimed at All Blacks fullback Brent Webb

Mason's slur caught the attention of his opponents, with the 115kg giant copping a brutal shoulder charge from rival second rower David Kidwell midway through the first half.

'I reckon he gave him about three verses of the haka after he hit him, too!' commentator Phil Gould said after the savage hit.

Mason was attacked in the media after the slur, even after he explained who his sledge was aimed at.

He said his slur was taken the wrong way and lead to him taking the hit of his career.

'It was just taken out of context. I just didn't understand why and how you could disrespect the haka, by just telling another bloke to get effed,' he said.

The Kangaroos went on to win the match 30-8, before claiming the Tri-Nations weeks later with a 16-12 win over the Kiwis in golden point extra time.
The actor against whom Richa Chadha filed a defamation suit has refused to apologise. During a hearing of the case at the Bombay High Court on Wednesday, the defendants lawyer had said that she was ready to tender an unconditional apology to Richa. However, she now appears to have changed her mind.

The actor took to Twitter on Wednesday evening to say that she will not apologise to anyone. I hv nothing to do wd Ms Chadda.We as women hv got 2stand wd each other,shoulder to shoulder.I dont want any unintentional harrasment to her or me on this matter. My fight 4justice is against only Mr. Kashyap &I want 2focus solely on dt ryt now.Lets make d world c his true face, she wrote.

I am not apologizing to anyone. I have not wronged nor have I given a wrong statement about anyone. I just said what @anuragkashyap72 told me. #SorryNotSorry, she added. When someone tweeted So (name redacted) innocently slandered @RichaChadha? , she replied, No (name redacted) did not defame her.. it was what Mr. Kashyap said about her, still want to blow It out of proportion, GIRL?

Richa did not respond to the actors tweet but simple retweeted it, writing update.

Also read: Bobby Deol says he was supposed to play Akshay Kumars role in Ajnabee: This industry is ruthless

The actor, who has accused filmmaker Anurag Kahsyap of rape, claimed in an interview that he told her how other actors such as Richa Chadha, Huma Qureshi and Mahie Gill got work from him in exchange of sexual favours. Richa then filed a defamation suit against her.

A single-judge bench of Justice AK Menon asked the defendants lawyer Nitin Satpute if his client wished to withdraw her statements against Richa Chadha. Satpute consulted her and said that she had agreed to apologise. She said it innocently. She is a big follower of the plaintiff (Chadha) and respects her. She is ready to withdraw the statement and tender apology, he said. She regrets whatever she said and her intention was never to defame any woman, advocate Satpute told the court.

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A cyclist is fighting for his life after a crash in south London.

A man in his 30s is thought to have collided with another cyclist close to Tesco Express in Lewisham Way at 23.45pm on Monday.

He was taken to hospital where he remains in a life-threatening condition, Scotland Yard said.

His next of kin have been told and no arrests have been made.

Police are appealing for dash cam footage / Google Maps

Officers have made contact with the other cyclist involved in the crash and no other injuries were reported.

Met Police said the incident was reported to them the morning after the collision and are appealing for dash cam footage and witnesses to come forward.

Anyone with information should call the Serious Collision Investigation Unit on 02082851574. Alternatively call police on 101, tweet @MetCC or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
I waded across the Mississippi once. That might sound preposterous or Paul Bunyan-like in hyperbole, but the Mighty Mississip has, like all big rivers, its humble origins. The official starting point is Lake Itasca, located in its namesake state park in northern Minnesota. From there the river is a 20-foot wide stream of ankle-wetting water embarking on its three-month, 2,300- to 2,350-mile journey (depending on who you ask) to descend 1,475 feet to the sea at the Gulf of Mexico.

This course takes it along Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, a broad slice of American life and landscape, and all I can think is: road trip! In fact, its already mapped for you: The Great River Road National Scenic Byway, first developed in 1938, is a route as grand as the river itself. Stringing together a series of local, state, and national highways, the combined 2,340 miles follow as closely as possible along the banks of the muddy master, in some cases on both sides. Each state has its own managing commission but the entire route (fhwa.dot.gov/byways/byways/2279/maps)is marked by green signs bearing a white river steamboat inside a pilot wheel.

The headwaters of the Mississippi River, in northern Minnesota. (Kevin Revolinski)

Consider the range of cultural experiencesshucking fresh oysters and spooning up jambalaya while listening to jazz in the French Quarter in New Orleans; hitting up Graceland, getting your fingers covered with barbecue while tapping your feet to blues in Memphis; and dining on fried walleye filet with a side of wild rice (or a Juicy Lucy burger in Minneapolis) and local craft beer while listening to the loons at the headwaters in Minnesota.

The segment running the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota is characterized by majestic bluffs overlooking barges negotiating the locks while eagles circle above. The winding road passes through tiny towns such as Potosi, Wisconsin, home to an eponymous brewery and the National Brewery Museum.

Reelfoot Lake National Wildlife Refuge, Tennessee. (Anthony Heflin/Shutterstock)

Midway along this life journey I found myself in St. Louis, beneath the Gateway Arch, on a tram ride to the top for a unique viewing experience of the river. In the afternoon, I crossed east to Illinois and visited Cahokia Mounds, one of 11 UNESCO World Heritage cultural sites in the United States. In the 13th century, this city, built by what archaeologists refer to as the Mississippian culture, once rivaled London in size. At the top of its largest earthen pyramid I looked back at the Arch where it marked the river.

Driving home, I stopped for dinner in the Quad CitiesDavenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, and Rock Island and Moline, Illinois. The river runs through them east-west. Here you can take a cruise on the riverboat Celebration Belle, tour the Deere family mansions, and see a combine being made at the John Deere factory.

The view from the top of the earthen pyramid at the Cahokia Mounds. In the distance is the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. (Kevin Revolinski)

Choose Your Angle

A road map so enormous can use a bit of focus. Consider a theme for your Great River Road adventure.

History buffs can visit Civil War battlefields, Underground Railroad locations, and archaeological sites. Besides Cahokia, there is more archaeology at Wickliffe Mounds State Park in Kentucky. Or visit one of more than 70 interpretive centers covering a wide variety of topics, including Mark Twain, Lewis and Clark, the National Eagle Center, aquariums, art museums, and much more.

The history of American music runs countercurrent, following the river north from roots of Delta blues and Dixie, migrating as the blues up into St. Louis and Memphiseach of which has excellent museums dedicated to the sound evolution that would give us rock, soul, R&B, country, and jazz. From Louis Armstrong at New Orleans Jazz Museum to Princes Paisley Park near the Twin Cities, with the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi, along the way, the Great River Road offers a master course in music.

The confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, Pikes Peak State Park, Iowa. (Joseph Sohm/Shutterstock)

Foodies could call this the barbecue trail, with Memphis (wet or dry rub?) and St. Louis as obvious hubs, but with several alternatives besides: Kentucky and Arkansas have their own ideas about barbecue, and even New Orleans goes rogue on the definition with its barbecue shrimp. (And while barbecue is not often considered a Minnesota thing, The Piggy BBQ in Walker, 30 miles east of the headwaters is worth the extra miles.)

Meanwhile, beer flows where the river goes: Craft beer fans will find more than 50 breweries (CrafBbeer.com/beercation-destination/breweries-along-great-river-road) along the route, without even venturing far from the river into brewery-dense places such as St. Louis and the Twin Cities.

Chalmette Battlefield, where the Battle of New Orleans took place in 1815. (Dean Bernard/Shutterstock)

Natural Beauty

The river route has an unbeatable natural beauty for nature lovers. Twice each year, millions of birds from 325 species make the migration along the Mississippi Flyway (Audubon.org/mississippi-flyway), drawing many birders hoping to add to their life lists.

State parks abound: Pikes Peak in Iowa overlooks the river, great for fall colors. Mississippi Palisades State Park in Illinois features its own overlook and the iconic sandstone tower Sentinel Rock. Missouris Hawn State Park is home to sandstone canyons, while Kentuckys Columbus-Belmont State Park, a Civil War site, offers river cliff-top camping. Reelfoot Lake State Park is a watery wonder with thousands of acres of lake and flooded woods for paddling, plus a national wildlife refuge nearby. Eagles dominate here in the middle of winter. Finally, St Bernard State Park lies just 18 miles south of Bourbon Street, yet is immersed in nature with camping, boating, swimming, and excellent birdwatching. Minutes away at Chalmette, visit the site of the Battle of New Orleans, the last major battle of the War of 1812.

The history of American music runs south to north, from Delta blues and Dixie into St. Louis and Memphis. (Chuck Wagner/Shutterstock)

Overwhelmed yet? The great thing is this road trip is inexhaustible. I try to knock off a bit more of this each year. Start planning for next spring and summer, or even now for sites along the southern stretch. Check out the Experience the Mississippi River website (ExperienceMississippiRiver.com/interactive-tools/order-a-free-great-river-road-10-state-map) for more itinerary ideas and to order or download a free map of the entire route.

Kevin Revolinski is an avid traveler and the author of 15 books, including The Yogurt Man Cometh: Tales of an American Teacher in Turkey, and several outdoor and brewery guidebooks. He is based in Madison, Wis., and his website is TheMadTraveler.com
The Head of Afghanistan's peace council Abdullah Abdullah met with India's National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and other senior officials in New Delhi on Wednesday and discussed the peace process in the war-torn country.

Abdullah arrived in the national capital on Tuesday on a five-day visit during which he will hold also talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

In a statement on Twitter, Abdullah said Doval has assured him of Indias full support for the peace efforts, and that any peace settlement acceptable to Afghans, will have the support of New Delhi. "He [Ajit Doval] further stated that his country is in favor an independent, democratic, sovereign and peaceful Afghanistan, where no terrorists can operate. I thanked India for the invitation, its continued support for Afghanistan, and its constructive role in peace efforts," Abdullah said.

The Afghan delegation also met Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and foreign secretary Harsh Shringla. There has been no immediate statement on the meeting from the Indian side.

The visit of the influential Afghan leader to India comes in the midst of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha. Afghan officials said the visit is part of the efforts to build a regional consensus and support for the Afghan peace process. The Taliban and the Afghan government are holding direct talks for the first time to end 19 years of war that has killed tens of thousands of people and ravaged various parts of the country.

Last month, another influential Afghan leader Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum had visited India.

Had a constructive discussion with HE Ajit Doval, the NSA of India. We discussed the #AfghanPeaceProcess, & the talks in Doha. He assured me of Indias full support for the peace efforts, & that any peace settlement acceptable to Afghans, will have the support of India. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/gP1rr9hFXL  Dr. Abdullah Abdullah (@DrabdullahCE) October 7, 2020

READ | Afghan Govt, Taliban To Begin Peace Talks In Doha, Experts Hope For A Lasting Ceasefire

Close eye on peace process

India has been a major stakeholder in the peace and stability of Afghanistan. It has already invested USD two billion in aid and reconstruction activities in the country. India has been supporting a national peace and reconciliation process which is Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, and Afghan-controlled.

On September 12, an Indian delegation attended the inaugural ceremony of the intra-Afghan negotiations in Doha while Jaishankar joined it through video conference.

India has been keenly following the evolving political situation after the US signed a peace deal with the Taliban in February. The deal provided for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, effectively drawing curtains to Washington's 18-year war in the country. The US has lost over 2,400 soldiers in Afghanistan since late 2001.

New Delhi has also been maintaining that care should be taken to ensure that any such process does not lead to any "ungoverned spaces" where terrorists and their proxies can relocate, in a clear reference to Afghan border areas adjoining Pakistan where anti-India groups have flourished under the Pakistan Army's and ISI's care.

(Photo: Twitter/@DrabdullahCE)

READ | India Believes Indigenous Defence Capabilities Foundation To Enduring Peace: Rajnath

READ | Indian Navy & Bangladesh Navy hold Bilateral Exercise Bongosagar; China Watching?
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 16:54:44|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Egypt registered late on Tuesday 121 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total infections in the country to 103,902.

Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said in a statement that 11 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll from the disease to 6,001.

Meanwhile, 51 more patients recovered and left hospitals, taking the total recoveries to 97,449, the spokesman added.

The COVID-19 recovery rate in Egypt is now close to 94 percent in the most populous Arab country.

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 infections 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 three 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. Enditem
Actress Nora Fatehi has shared a heart-warming post for Malaika Arora on Instagram. The actress had taken the latters place as a judge in the ongoing dance reality show Indias Best Dancer. This happened after Malaika tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Now that she has completely recovered, Nora has bid adieu to the show and Malaika is back as the judge.

On her last day on the sets of the show, Nora shared a carousel of pictures with Malaika. In the caption of the drop dead gorgeous photos, Nora mentioned how grateful she is to Malaika for trusting her with the position of the judge on the show.

She has also expressed her gratitude towards the team of the show for the way in which they treated her. Furthermore, the actress has also shared her happiness on Malaikas recovery from the novel coronavirus.

Noras post till now has crossed over a million likes and has had friends and fans liberally drop heart emojis in the comment section.

Malaika, too, has reposted one of the photos that Nora had shared on her profile. In the caption of her post, she also appreciated Nora and added that she wishes to share the stage with her in near future. The stunning actress also went on to say that Nora is beautiful inside out.

Malaika returned to the sets of Indias Best Dancer on Monday after the recovery break. She had shared the news of contracting the deadly virus on September 7 with her Instagram family.

Meanwhile, Malaikas beau Arjun Kapoor has also tested negative for COVID-19. He shared a note on social media informing his fans and well-wishers about the same. In his post, he has urged everyone to wear a mask at all times.

Nora was last seen in the movie Street Dancer 3D, directed by Remo Dsouza. She will be next seen in Bhuj: The Pride of India.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 14:42:41|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called on governments to invest more in universal health coverage.

COVID-19 has shown that universal health coverage, strong public health systems and emergency preparedness are essential, he said in a video message for the launch of his policy brief on COVID-19 and universal health coverage.

Universal health coverage, according to Guterres, requires governments to step up investment in common goods for health, including surveillance and risk communication, so that the world never faces such a situation again.

It requires public health programs to be inclusive and equitable, without financial barriers. Health treatment should not depend on financial status, he said.

He also asked for efforts to control the further transmission of COVID-19 through proven public health measures and a coordinated global response, and to protect the delivery of other health services during the pandemic.

He stressed the need to ensure access to future COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatment, and said funding the groundbreaking ACT-Accelerator, a global collaboration led by the World Health Organization for such purposes, is the fastest way to end the pandemic.

Guterres also asked for the strengthening of preparedness. Pandemic preparedness and response are global public goods that require large-scale investments, he said.

"Universal health coverage comes at a cost. But the price is cheap, when we consider the alternative," he said. "I urge all to speed up and scale up investment in universal health coverage and in stronger health systems, starting immediately." Enditem
Jonathan Price was tasered and shot four times by Officer Shaun Lucas, now charged with his murder

The fatal encounter between Jonathon Price and police officer Shaun Lucas began when the victim offered a handshake to the cop who is now accused of murdering him, according to an affidavit from the Texas Rangers.

Officer Lucas was responding to a possible fight in progress at the Kwik Chek convenience store around 8:30 p.m. in Wolfe City, per the probable cause affidavit, CBS DFW reported Wednesday. The incident was captured on the officers body cam.

Read More: Texas officer arrested, charged in fatal shooting of Jonathan Price

(Credit: Jonathan Price)

Lucas was met by Price, who greeted him cordially and tried to shake his hand. According to the affidavit, Price asked Lucas multiple times You doing good? while extending his hand.

Despite the overture, Lucas insisted that Price, 31, was possibly intoxicated and tried to detain him.

I cant be detained, Price responded.

Lucas then grabbed Prices arm and gave him verbal instructions but Price did not heed the warning. Lucas used his taser when he failed to comply and the 22-year-old rookie then shot Price as he walked away from him.

While being Tased, Price continued to walk toward Officer Lucas. Price appeared to reach out and grab the end of Officer Lucas Taser. Officer Lucas discharged his firearm four times, striking Price in the upper torso, a Texas Rangers investigator wrote in the probable cause affidavit.

Read More: Oscar Grant police shooting investigation will be reopened 10 years later

As theGrio reported, witnesses have recounted that Price was attempting to break up a fight between a man and woman at the gas station last Saturday. Price, a former athlete employed by Wolfe City as a fitness trainer, was the only one shot.

Lucas was suspended by The Wolfe City Police Department and was arrested and charged with murder on Monday. His bond was set at $1M. The Texas Rangers determined that his actions were not objectionably reasonable, but his attorney disagrees.

Story continues

After Mr. Price refused repeated instructions and physically resisted, Officer Lucas deployed his Taser and continued to give Mr. Price instructions. Mr. Price resisted the effects of the Taser and attempted to take it away from Officer Lucas, attorney Robert Rogers said in a statement. Officer Lucas only discharged his weapon in accordance with Texas law when he was confronted with an aggressive assailant who was attempting to take his Taser.

Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney who is representing the families of Atatiana Jefferson and Ahmaud Arbery, is now representing the Price family.

His name was #JohnathanPrice. In Wolfe City, TX he was known as a hometown hero. Motivational speaker, trainer, Posted by Lee Merritt on Sunday, October 4, 2020

When police arrived, Im told, he raised his hands and attempted to explain what was going on, Merritt wrote on Facebook. Police fired tasers at him and when his body convulsed from the electrical current, they perceived a threat and shot him to death.

Price has been described as a pillar of the community, and his services will be held on Saturday.

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The post Jonathan Price offered handshake to Texas police officer before fatal shooting appeared first on TheGrio.
Stories that seem to matter the most tend to start with another storys ending. These kinds of stories stick with you, I think, because in their interconnection they reflect the continuity of life. So it is with the writing of this article.

Two weeks ago, Mary May phoned me from her Beaver Mines residence requesting I do a piece on Memory Lane Magic, a collection of short stories her husband Ken wrote two years before he passed away from myelofibrosis, a type of bone marrow cancer that affects the production of red blood cells.

Youre Waynes son, Mary said then, and it seems right for you to write about this.

Ken May was my dads high school math teacher at Winston Churchill High School in Lethbridge. It was Mr. May, Dad says, who inspired him to become a high school math teacher himself, which brought our family here to Pincher Creek in 1992.

You can see already how the stories of Memory Lane Magic have more meaning than whats written on the pages.

Born in 1942, the fifth of seven children, Ken studied science at Brandon College before heading west to Simon Fraser University to complete his bachelor of education degree.

This is where he met Mary. The two married in 1967 and moved back to Manitoba before Ken began teaching math at Winston Churchill in 1975. Ken taught at the school for 35 years before he and Mary retired to Beaver Mines.

In 1989, Ken was diagnosed with polycythemia vera, a rare form of blood cancer that causes the bone marrow to produce too many red blood cells.

At the time, Mary says, the only effective treatment was phlebotomy  or giving blood to decrease the red blood cell count  and the head of hematology at the University of Calgary told them Ken would be lucky to last seven years. Hed end up making it almost 30, something which Mary credits to advances in medication, excellent treatment and Kens optimistic spirit.

In the early 2000s, Kens polycythemia morphed into myelofibrosis. Though receiving steady treatment for a decade helped Ken maintain an active lifestyle, eventually the medication stopped working and Ken was forced to receive blood transfusions every week for the last four years of his life.

Being forced to slow down, Mary says, prompted Ken to begin writing more.

He liked to write. He taught math, but loved expressing himself on paper. He was a Renaissance man, she says with a chuckle.

The extra time for writing is what prompted the creation of Memory Lane Magic.

Cover to cover, the anthology is a slim collection of short stories about Kens experience growing up on a farm outside of Boissevain in southern Manitoba. Ken wrote the stories for his family back in 2016. He passed away Aug. 27, 2018.

He had a really incredible memory for things that happened on the farm, and his sister Arlene helped corroborate some of the ideas that he was a bit hazy about, explains Mary.

He had a wonderful childhood. He just had wonderful memories of growing up on the farm.

Part of the magic of the stories is the illustrations provided by local artist and May family friend Bobbi Wendland.

The pastel illustrations bring a soft yet vivid representation of Kens stories, essentially creating a feeling of nostalgia on the pages.

Those stories were so good, and since I grew up on a farm  probably in the same era as Ken did  I just knew what picture to draw, says Bobbi.

All in all, providing the collections imagery took about a month.

Im happy I could make those illustrations, Bobbi says with a smile. Every time you read [the stories] you see something different, something more.

Originally, Memory Lane Magic was printed off on sheets of paper and placed in binders as a Christmas present for May family members. To commemorate the second anniversary of his passing, however, Mary posted about the collection on Facebook. Within two days, she had sold 110 copies.

People simply fell in love with stories that chronicled the terror that was Mollie the horse, the heartfelt recount of Kens best friend (a turkey named White Kenny), and the confession of Christmas Eve guilt that plagued Kens conscience for 66 years.

The spike in interest has encouraged Mary to shift gears.

My purpose is to raise more money for blood cancer research, says Mary. Ive committed to half of the proceeds from these books going to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada, and so far I think Ive taken in over $2,000.

In addition to the $1,000 the book has raised, Marys participation in Light the Night Walk in Calgary raised another $1,000. That amount was matched by the Calgary company Horizon Heating, and an additional donation of $1,000 means Mary has been able to raise $4,000.

The short stories appeal has spread beyond close family and friends to Kens acquaintances and even strangers, something Mary attributes to Bobbis art and the nature of Kens writing. Since publishing Memory Lane Magic, she has received several emails from people she has never met thanking her for making the stories available.

Even people who dont know Ken but just have a farm background  it takes them back, Mary says.

To be honest, I am a little awed that a small 40-page collection of short stories about a country kid from Manitoba could have this kind of effect on people. Whats powerful to me is that the real story of Memory Lane Magic is the one that is taking place off of the pages  and its still being written.

When they involve someones memory, stories have a habit of never really ending, anyway.

I sort of feel as I read his stories that theyre bringing him back to me, shares Mary. And I know others, especially the people who knew him well and our family members, feel that too.

Copies of Memory Lane Magic can be purchased at the Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village gift shop, the Lebel Mansion, Pincher Office Products, or directly from Mary at 403-627-3987.

Read more about:
France and Germany said on Wednesday they would propose European Union sanctions against Russian individuals after receiving no credible answers from Moscow over the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent.

Several Western governments have said Russia, which has denied accusations by Navalny that it was involved in the poisoning, must help in investigations or face consequences.

The decision and speed with which Europes two main powers agreed to push ahead with sanctions suggests a hardening of the blocs diplomacy towards Moscow.

It is in stark contrast to 2018 when it took almost a year for members to agree on sanctions against Russian individuals following a nerve agent attack on a Russian spy in Britain.

No credible explanation has been provided by Russia so far. In this context, we consider that there is no other plausible explanation for Mr Navalnys poisoning than a Russian involvement and responsibility, Foreign Ministers Jean-Yves Le Drian and Heiko Maas said in a joint statement.

Diplomats had earlier told Reuters the two countries would propose sanctions on Russian GRU military intelligence officials when the EUs 27 foreign ministers meet on Oct. 12.

Drawing the necessary conclusions from these facts, France and Germany will share with European partners proposals for additional sanctions, the two ministers said.

Proposals will target individuals deemed responsible for this crime and breach of international norms, based on their official function, as well as an entity involved in the Novichok programme.

Blood samples taken from Navalny confirmed the presence of a nerve agent from the banned Novichok family, the global chemical weapons watchdog said on Tuesday.

EU foreign ministers are expected to give their political support on Monday, but the sanctions are not expected to be approved immediately as legal texts must be prepared and cleared by experts from the 27 EU states.

Le Drian told a parliamentary committee in Paris on Wednesday: We say with Germany that clarification by Russia is indispensable and if it doesnt clarify then we will need to draw conclusions among Europeans. We are in sync with Germany.

He said Paris was not closing the door to dialogue with Moscow.
The Indian market rallied for the fifth consecutive day to close in the green on October 7, staving off negative global cues after US President Donald Trump abruptly called off until after the election the talks with Democratic lawmakers on a second coronavirus relief package.

The rally pushed the benchmark indices towards crucial resistance levels the S&P BSE Sensex came close to 40,000 while the Nifty50 reclaimed 11,700 for the first time since February 25.

The Sensex ended the day 304 points higher at 39,878 while the Nifty50 closed with gains of 76 points to 11,738.

"Markets recovered quickly in the morning trade and traded in the green throughout the day led by autos ahead of the RBI policy. Although the broader market was a bit lacklustre, we did see sustained buying in cement and select pharma counters during the day," S Ranganathan, Head of Research at LKP Securities, said.

Sectorally, the action was seen in consumer durables, energy and auto indices while profit-taking was visible in metals, realty and power indices.

On the broader markets front, the S&P BSE midcap index fell 0.6 percent, while the S&P BSE smallcap index was down 0.4 percent.

Top Nifty gainers included Maruti Suzuki, Hero MotoCorp and Titan.

Top Nifty losers included Tata Motors, BPCL and Bajaj Finance.

Stocks & Sectors

Sectorally, the action was seen in the S&P BSE consumer durables index which was up 1.7 percent. The energy index gained 1.5 percent and the auto index closed with gains of 1.3 percent.

On the losing front, the S&P BSE metal index fell 2.9 percent, the realty index 1.6 percent and the power index was down 1.4 percent.

A volume spike of more than 100 percent was seen in stocks like ACC, Vedanta, GMR Infra and ONGC.

Long buildup was seen in stocks like Titan Company, TCS and Apollo Hospitals.

Short buildup was seen in stocks like MGL, BHEL and UBL.

More than 100 stocks on the BSE hit a fresh 52-week high. These include Hero MotoCorp, TCS, Dr Lal PathLabs and Asian Paints.

Technical View

The Nifty formed a bullish candle on the daily charts

The market appears to have stretched on the upside in the near term with successive positive closes five sessions.

If the Nifty remains range-bound with a negative bias in the next session, upsides may remain capped at around 11,794.

"Though there is no immediate threat of short-term correction, more weakness can be expected if the Nifty closes below 11,629 levels," Mazhar Mohammad of Chartviewindia.in said.

"For the time, traders are advised to remain neutral on the long side but intraday traders with a high-risk appetite can consider shorting if the Nifty opens near 11,770 levels with a stop of 11,810 and can look for a modest target of 11,690," he said.
The trial of four men has got under way in relation to 39 people who were found dead in a lorry container in 2019. (PA/Elizabeth Cook)

A lorry container became a hot tomb for 39 Vietnamese migrants who died amid a people-smuggling operation, a court has heard.

Four men are on trial for their alleged role in a people smuggling plot after the bodies of 39 Vietnamese men, women and children were found in a lorry container in Essex last year.

Among the dead found in October 2019 were 10 teenagers, two as young as 15.

They endured unbearable conditions, facing temperatures reaching 38.5C and having no fresh air for almost 12 hours inside the sealed container, the Old Bailey heard on Wednesday.

Gheorghe Nica (left) and Eamonn Harrison (right) are standing trial. (Elizabeth Cook/PA)

Eamonn Harrison, 23, of Mayobridge, Northern Ireland, is accused of driving the lorry trailer to Zeebrugge in Belgium, from where it was shipped to Purfleet, Essex.

He faces 39 counts of manslaughter and one count of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and denies all charges.

Gheorghe Nica, 43, of Basildon, Essex, has admitted being part of a people-smuggling plot but denies manslaughter.

Valentin Calota, 37, of Birmingham, and Christopher Kennedy, 24, of County Armagh, Northern Ireland, deny being part of a people-smuggling conspiracy.

Christopher Kennedy (left) and Valentin Calota (right) in court. (Elizabeth Cook/PA)

Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones said the victims, who were put into the lorry in northern Europe, died from oxygen starvation and the effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

In short, they suffocated. There were no survivors, he said.

Some had tried to contact their families, he said, with 28-year-old Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh attempting to send a message that read: Maybe going to die in the container, cant breathe any more dear. The message did not send.

Jurors were told the cost of being smuggled across the channel in a lorry was about 10,000 per person, with people desperate to come to the UK for a better life.

The court heard the people-smuggling group had been successful before the loss of life in October.

Police and forensic officers at the Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays, Essex, after 39 bodies of Vietnamese migrants were found. (PA)

Obviously, any time you fill an airtight container with a large number of people, where they will be left for hours and hours, with no means of escape and no means of communication with the outside world  well, it is fraught with danger, the prosecutor said.

Story continues

They were driven to Zeebrugge by Harrison, who unhooked the trailer so it could be loaded on to a ship, jurors were told.

Harrison has been involved in people-smuggling as far back as May 2018, having been issued a fine  yet to be paid  after being stopped in the Calais area with 18 Vietnamese nationals in the back, the court heard.

Jurors were told he made two successful runs just days before the fatal incident, taking mostly Vietnamese migrants to Zeebrugge.

When the container with the 39 migrants arrived in Purfleet, lorry driver Maurice Robinson collected the trailer early on 23 October, and was told to give them air quickly, but dont let them out, Emlyn Jones said.

Robinson drove out of Purfleet port and almost immediately stopped and opened the doors at the back, he said.

What he found must haunt him still. For the 39 men and women inside, that lorry had become their tomb.

Boris Johnson signs a book of condolence during a visit to Thurrock Council offices in Essex. (PA)

When Kennedy heard about the deaths, he told a friend it must have been too many and run out of air, the court heard.

Jurors were told Robinson has pleaded guilty to 39 counts of manslaughter and the conspiracy charge, and worked for Ronan Hughes, who ran a haulage business in County Monaghan in Northern Ireland.

Hughes, 40, has pleaded guilty to 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to assist in unlawful immigration.

The trial, which is expected to go on for up to six weeks, continues.
BURLEY The start of the pandemic six months ago closed schools, sent workers home to do their jobs and forced businesses and local governments to find new ways of doing things. But some people say some bright spots emerged from the pandemic.

People were forced to reconsider what they value, stretch their limits of learning new things and find joy in simple activities with their children and immediate families.

Schools not easy, but isnt all bad either

Natalie Wybenga, a first-grade teacher at John V. Evans Elementary school, said since returning to the classroom parents have been extremely cooperative.

The biggest positive for me is the amount of parental support Im receiving, she said. The help may be fueled by parents newfound respect and understanding of what teachers do after schools sent students home to learn last spring.

One of her least favorite parts of teaching children is sometimes dealing with their parents, she said.

The majority of the time they are so negative, she said. But this year they have been phenomenal.

After months away from the classroom, educators also seem to have developed a new passion for teaching, she said.

We know how many students are behind, she said. And all of the teachers are working together to give them what they need to succeed.

Staff, she said, are working together like never before.

The staff has become like one big family. We are sharing ideas and thoughts on how we can accomplish things, she said.

Teachers are also relying on each other to make it through this, she said.

Even the students at the elementary school  kids who are tasked with new procedures like working in pods of four students instead of engaging with the whole classroom, waiting to use the restrooms to keep the numbers of students congregating in one room low and extra requests to wash and sanitize their hands and desks  havent dimmed their excitement about returning to the classroom.

Everybody is so glad to be back, she said. And the students will do anything to stay in school.

Another positive aspect of the pandemic has been an increased awareness of personal hygiene.

I think we will also cut down on contracting other viruses like the flu and colds because we have learned to be so careful about germs, Wybenga said.

Senior citizens see benefits of learning new things

Burley senior citizens Ralph and LaVonda Hart, ages 87 and 78 respectively, said during the pandemic they expanded their use of online shopping, which saves time and gas money, and LaVonda is now set up to do her church family history service work at home, which will keep her from having to drive on the bad roads this winter.

And we dont have to hassle with the crowds, she said about ordering her groceries online.

The pandemic forced them to find alternative ways to get the things they need, she said, including finding new ways to worship.

The way people go to church is very different now and for a while, no one was going at all, LaVonda Hart said.

The couple now uses the television and computer to access religious services, which is easier for her husband, who has some health conditions that affect his mobility.

Hes more comfortable at home watching the television. He doesnt always feel like going out, she said.

Ralph Hart said for him the pandemic is a spiritual catalyst and reinforces the importance of following the gospel.

My thinking turned to spiritual things, said Hart about the most positive change that happened to him. The Lord is in charge and the more we learn to trust and have faith in him, the better it will be.

More time with family is a positive

Rupert mother Cheylie Griffon said that for her, spending more time with family is the best thing thats come from the virus.

Griffon and her husband, Brooks Griffon, were able to spend more time with each other and with their 2-year-old daughter.

My husband was staying home to do his job and even though he was still working regular hours he was able to see us more each day, Griffon said. We were able to go on walks together and we were forced to find the positive aspects in all of it.

The fact that there were no bicycles or board games available at Walmart was bad in one respect, she said, but on the other hand, it underscored how families were pulling tighter together.

Griffon said she and her husbands families are both in Utah and they were not able to see them much.

We had to rely on each other, she said.

They also watched as the community around them pulled together to help out people in need.

It was cool to see neighbors come together like that, she said.

Her husband, she said, had never witnessed the staggering amount of 4-H support and donation during the fair that went on this year.

It was more than hed ever seen, she said.

Small city gets help with big projects

Heyburn city administrator Tony Morley said the pandemic spurred city officials to revamp the citys website, which will be finished at the end of the year and gives residents more information, streamlined access and provides additional opportunities for people to participate in city government.

Morley said the website will include direct links to city codes and resolutions and online links to watch City Council and planning and zoning meetings.

The costs of the redesign were prohibitive for a small city like Heyburn, running $8,000 to $10,000 with monthly maintenance fees costing $300 to $600.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, will reimburse the city for the upgrades, he said.

In order to protect the citys work staff, some employees were sent home to do their jobs and were set up with work laptops, he said. Those costs will also be reimbursed and will remain as city assets after the pandemic.

The city is mandated to provide basic services like water and wastewater, so having a whole department decimated by the virus was not an option and they had to figure out ways to lessen the risk, he said.

It forced city employees to band together and work on problems.

Morley said staff learned to sit around a virtual table and work on common goals and navigate around obstacles.

It brought a unifying effect, he said. It was an enlightening experience and in some ways it was fun.

Morley said the city is seeing an influx of people from larger cities like Denver and Seattle, who are relocating after their jobs became more receptive to people working from home, which can now be outside of the bigger cities.

2021 will be totally different than 2020, said Morley. All of the upheaval will be turned into positives going forward.

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Patna, Oct 7 : Bihar's former DGP Gupteshwar Pandey, who was tipped to contest the October-November Assembly election on a Janata Dal-United ticket, does not figure in the list of 115 candidates released by the state's ruling party on Wednesday.

It was being speculated that Pandey, who hails from Buxar, could be fielded from there. However, the seat has been allotted to the Bharatiya Janata Party, who has fielded Parsuram Chaturvedi.

According to JD-U insiders, the party wanted to give a clear message that no one could use a government post for political gain. However, Pandey may be sent to the state Legislative Council later, a party leader said.

Pandey, who came under huge criticism for his comments on actor Sushant Singh Rajput's mysterious death, faced more flak from opposition parties, especially Maharashtra's Shiv Sena, after he took voluntary retirement from the Indian Police Service on September 22 and joined the JD-U three days later.

Even the top JD-U leadership was feeling the heat over his inclusion in the party.

Another theory doing the rounds is that the BJP did not want to give up the Buxar seat, where it enjoys strong influence, especially among the upper castes. Besides, Union Minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey is the sitting BJP MP from Buxar.

Pandey had earlier claimed that he has potential to contest election from more than 25 constituencies in Bihar.
Christine Marrewa-Karwoski, Asian studies postdoctoral fellow

The Ramayana and the Mahabharat in print form are hefty tomes filled with kings, epic battles, monkey warriors, demons, heroes, and villainsand lots of tragedy, poignancy, valor, and plot twists. Some have compared them to the HBO medieval fantasy series Game of Thrones, but with even more drama.

When Marrewa-Karwoski taught her Epics Across Oceans class in the past, she stuck mostly with the bound volumes of the stories. But this semester, she decided that teaching online presented an opportunity to leap beyond print.

"This semester, I am not as textually based as I would usually be," she said. Online teaching "has forced me to go outside the box. I wanted to make the class a lot more media savvy, and to bring in a lot of different points of view from people all over the place."

The Ramayana and the Mahabharat date back to around 400 BCE, according to scholars. Both are long, but the Mahabharat in particular is ten times the length of the Odyssey and the Iliad combined. It's been said that everything can be found within the Mahabharat," Marrewa-Karwoski told her class.
Kwaku Agyeman didnt let systemic barriers in school prevent him from becoming a registered psychotherapist.

In fact, it compelled the 25-year-old lifelong resident of Queens Plate, near Rexdale, to remain living in his community to inspire a younger generation to achieve success.

As a Black male in school, they know youre from Rexdale and if youre having an emotional challenge one day, they always attribute it to you being a bad person, he said. They dont look at whats going on underneath. I witnessed friends being given so many chances because of the colour of their skin.

Agyeman is founder and executive director of Rexdale Youth Mentorship, a two-year-old organization for 13- to 21-year-olds intended, he said, to be a powerful tool to support youth to greater self-confidence.

Our hope is that youth access supportive, loving and caring mentors, who are able to assist them in realizing their full potential, he said. A lot of youth, even adults, dont realize their potential. Weve seen youth step up and be leaders in this community, which is so powerful.

Youth receive homework help, workshops on career exploration, employment and self-care, field trips, as well as a barbecue this summer and school-supply-stuffed backpacks and holiday gifts.

Queens Plate, off Rexdale Boulevard near Highway 427, is an area with large public housing buildings. Area youth are largely Black or racialized and second-generation Canadians, systemic barriers that impact their life trajectory, Agyeman said.

At school, the majority of these youths teachers and authority figures are white, he said. When people dont look like you, it can impact your self-confidence and ability to believe what you can be. They lack representation. They lack access to safe spaces. Us doing this program makes the community centre available to them.

Agyeman runs the program with his friends, David Anderson, 25, Abba Wie-Addo, 25, and Bobby Lewis, 26, all Black social services professionals and decades-long or lifelong Queens Plate residents.

Were representation to youth, said Anderson, a registered social worker and child and youth worker who is the programs associate director and program facilitator.

Were Black professionals who went to school and are making it in our field. A lot of youth who access the program weve seen growing up. We meet them where they are and accept them.

Wie-Addo, who has a degree in social justice and peace studies and criminology, joined the team as its director of administration and social media strategist after doing a childrens breakfast program in the community housing complex.

I hope youth feel comforted; they can lean on someone outside their household who has been through some of the same things, who identify with them, she said. Young girls and boys are very vulnerable. They go with the flow and follow the crowd. Its easy for them to fall off the tracks.

Lewis, a university graduate who is studying to become a teacher, said he wants to inspire youth to higher education and to capitalize on available social resources, including emotional supports.

I want to raise the level of people ultimately obtaining college and university diplomas and degrees to promote social mobility, said the programs youth program co-ordinator. I want to teach youth financial literacy and emotional literacy. Culturally, mental health resources and supports arent really embraced. I want them to know its OK to seek help.

Mentee Dejhon Marlin, 17, said the programs mentors are guiding him to a brighter future.

Kwaku, David, Bobby and Abba had a big impact on me with school, Marlin said in an email. They have given me great advice and shown me the right path to help me with my future career, like with classes that I would have to take in high school and in college.

Marlin said he is changed for the better by the experience.

I feel like I have grown as a person because now I look at things differently, he said. Im more open to trying new things that would better me and help me grow.

Oct. 8, 2020: Correction: This article was updated to correct Abba Wie-Addos university degree and include her position with Rexdale Youth Mentorship.

Tamara Shephard is a reporter with toronto.com. Reach her via email: tshephard@toronto.com
Uttar Pradesh government has rolled back on its decision to privatise one of its power distribution companies (discoms), amid protests against the move.

Members of the Power Officers' Association have been protesting over the past two days in Lucknow, causing electricity supply issues in the city, according to a Business Standard report.

The power department and the state's energy minister Shrikant Sharma agreed on "not privatising any discom in the state", the report said citing a memorandum.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the story.

The Uttar Pradesh government was planning on privatising one of its discoms - Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam (PuVVNL), which supplies electricity in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Business Standard reported.

"The power minister assured that no decision regarding the privatisation of discoms would be taken without taking the employees in confidence. The government is taking back the decision of privatising the Purvanchal discom", the memorandum said.

The memorandum also said the power department would ensure a decline in losses, improve billing efficiency and increase revenue collection, according to the report.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached 74 immovable properties and eight vehicles worth Rs 82.83 crores held in the name of Chennai-based SLO Industries under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) in connection with a bank fraud case, as per ANI report.

The ED had taken action based on an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB), Chennai against metal and chemical manufacturing firm SLO Industries and its promoters for allegedly defrauding Corporation Bank to the tune Rs 201.88 crore.

ED has provisionally attached 74 immovable properties & 8 vehicles totalling to Rs 82.83 crores, held in the name of SLO Industries Ltd, Chennai & others, under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) in a bank fraud case: Enforcement Directorate (ED) pic.twitter.com/4npHF3O7Aw - ANI (@ANI) October 7, 2020

An FIR was registered after B R Akolkar, deputy general manager of Corporation Bank filed a complaint with the CBI against SLO Industries, for defrauding and siphoning off of funds through associate concerns and its accounts held with other banks.

Investigation had revealed that SLO Industries had availed loans from Kellys Corner Branch of Corporation Bank, Chennai in the name of the company by furnishing forged documents.

Also Read: ED arrests CFO, internal auditor of Cox and Kings in YES Bank loan case

Also Read: ED may soon file money laundering case to probe Hathras protesters' funding
The next phase of the Boston Public Schools reopening plan has been delayed because the city's coronavirus positivity rate has climbed higher than 4 percent.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh made the announcement on Wednesday, saying: 'We believe it is prudent at this time to pause the school reopening plan.'

Preschoolers and kindergartners who were scheduled to report to school the week of October 15 instead will now start October 22.

Walsh said the date is dependent on how the virus data develops between now and then.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced on Wednesday that the next phase of the Boston Public Schools reopening plan would be delayed due to surging virus rates

He called it a difficult decision given the benefits of in-person instruction.

'I understand the importance of having school for our young people,' he said.

Remote learning began on September 21 and families were allowed to opt for hybrid learning scheduled to start this month.

Some students, including those with special needs, English learners, those experiencing homelessness, and those who are in state care have already been allowed to return to in-person classes.

They will continue to be taught in person, the mayor said.

'For many of these students, not being in school presents a risk that cannot be mitigated the way that the risk of COVID can be,' Walsh said. 'The risk of moving backwards, that is very difficult to recover from.'

Grades 4 through 8 are now scheduled to transition to a hybrid model the week of November 5, and grades 9 through 12 the week of November 16.

Boston's Mayor Marty Walsh greets fourth grader Yunelfi Santana as he arrives for in school learning at Ellis Elementary School in the Roxbury neighborhood on October 1

The district has about 54,000 students in 125 schools.

Massachusetts is among the hardest-hit states, with at least 9,323 COVID-19 deaths and more than 133,300 confirmed cases.

There have been more than 17,700 cases and 764 deaths in Boston alone as of Tuesday, according to Marty Martinez, the city's chief of health and human services.

The average positivity rate for the seven days ending Saturday reached 4.1%, the highest it's been since early June, Martinez said.

The Boston Teachers Union welcomed Walsh's decision, but called for the city to do more to ensure that city schools are safe.

'In light of the positivity rate exceeding 4 percent, consistent with and in part resulting from troubling statewide and national trends in COVID-19 spread, we support the postponement of broadening in-person learning within the Boston Public Schools that the Mayor announced today,' union President Jessica Tang said in a statement.

She called on the city to release the results of school air-quality tests, and asked for independent facility inspections to ensure the safety of students, staff and parents.

The city's schools are 'safe and ready' for students, Superintendent Brenda Cassellius said at Wednesday's news conference.
UPDATE: Authorities identified the victim Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020 as Derek Colley, 26, of Trenton.

The shooting of a male on Spring Street in Trenton Monday afternoon put the citys homicide count at 30, a number it last reached six years ago.

Authorities on Monday night had not publicly identified the victim, who was slain the 200 block of Spring Street - the epicenter of violence in the city recently.

This past Friday night, police found Hussain Abdullah, 35, shot dead in the middle of the same block. And last Tuesday, a 4-year-old girl was shot in the hand in the 300 block of Spring Street when gunfire erupted as she stood with her mother.

Police and the county prosecutors office have not announced charges or arrests in the three shootings along Spring Street.

The state capital had no homicides in the month of September after a particularly violent spring and summer.

Trenton, for the past three decades, typically has anywhere from 10 to 20 homicides annually. In 2005, street gang warring pushed the death toll to 31, a then record, before the city notched 37 killings in 2013, and then 34 in 2014.

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Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com.
Demanding a judicial inquiry into the Hathras rape incident either by a sitting High Court judge or a Supreme Court judge, the Congress on Wednesday termed bizarre the response of the Uttar Pradesh government on the issue and alleged that it has been slapping sedition charges as if these were pick-pocketing cases.

Addressing a virtual press conference, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi claimed that no government ever, including that of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the past in Uttar Pradesh had invoked sedition charges after a rape incident as done by the Yogi Adityanath dispensation.

Singhvis comments came on a day when the Uttar Pradesh police booked four people, including a journalist from Kerala, Siddique Kappan, on sedition and other charges in Mathura, two days after they were arrested while on their way to Hathras.

Charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the IT Act have also been filed against the four who were later remanded in judicial custody for 14 days by a Mathura court.

The response of the Yogi Adityanath government to the Hathras incident has been bizarre and it has been coming up with a number of conspiracy theories, Singhvi said.

Over 21 FIRs have been filed against various people on conspiracy charges, outnumbering the cases against the main accused in the rape incident, he added.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday alleged that an international conspiracy was being hatched to destabilise his government, following its tough stand against anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests.

Another kind of conspiracy alleged by the chief minister is a conspiracy to destabilise and overthrow his government, Singhvi said.

Stop blaming everyone in the world except yourself. Each time you point your figure, there are three fingers pointing back at you, which you cannot and must not ignore. And last, stop arresting all third parties around you in a 360 degree fashion and ignoring punitive action, but more importantly, punishment by conviction of the real accused of murder and rape, he added.
Germany will put a suspected Russian hitman on trial for murder today, accusing him of shooting dead a former Chechen commander in a Berlin park last year.

Vadim Krasikov, 55, who went under the alias Vadim Sokolov, is accused of killing 40-year-old Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin's Kleiner Tiergarten park on August 23.

Krasikov is thought to have carried out the killing on the orders of the Russian state, having entered the country on a fake French-issued passport.

Vadim Krasikov, 55 (left), will go on trial for murder in Germany today, accused of shooting dead Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, 40 (right), in a Berlin park last year

Khangoshvili, who had been seeking asylum in Germany, led troops fighting against Russia in the Second Chechen War, and was considered a terrorist by Moscow.

The Kremlin has officially denied any involvement in the plot, but nevertheless, the case has the potential to worsen tensions between Berlin and Moscow.

It comes just weeks after Germany accused the Russian state of poisoning Putin's arch-rival Alexei Navalny with Novichok.

Navalny was flown to Germany for treatment after falling ill in Russia, and is still in the country as he recovers from the poisoning.

Krasikov, whose full name was not revealed by German authorities but was widely reported last year, is accused of shooting Khangoshvili three times - once in the shoulder and twice in the head - in broad daylight in the Berlin park.

Khangoshvili - who was identified by German authorities using a pseudonym, Tornike Kavtarashvili - had been on his way to Friday prayers when he was killed.

Krasikov is accused of hiding in bushes in the park, before coming up behind Khangoshvili on an electric bike and opening fire with a silenced Glock pistol.

Khangoshvili (right, with former Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov, left) led troops against Russian in the Second Chechen War, and was considered a terrorist by Moscow

Prosecutors allege that he sped away down the Spree River before ditching the bike, a bag containing the murder weapon, and a wig he was wearing into the water.

Sporting a bald head and dressed like a tourist, he is then accused of trying to blend in with nearby crowds.

But two teenagers who claim to have seen him throwing things into the river identified him to police, who arrested a short time later.

He has so-far refused to cooperate with authorities.

Given the high stakes, Wednesday's trial will likely be closely scrutinised for details pointing to Moscow's alleged involvement.

Krasikov's true identity was revealed by investigative website Bellingcat, which said he grew up in Kazakhstan when it was part of the Soviet Union before moving to the Russian region of Siberia.

He received training from Russian intelligence service FSB and was part of its elite squad, the website said.

Days before the August 2019 killing, he had posed as a tourist, visiting sights in Paris including the Eiffel Tower before travelling to Warsaw, according to a report in Der Spiegel weekly.

He also toured the Polish capital before vanishing on August 22, without checking out from his hotel, the report said.

Krasikov is accused of using an electric bike to approach Khangoshvili from behind before shooting him once in the shoulder and twice in the back of the head (scene, pictured)

After being arrested in Germany, police found his mobile phone and a return flight ticket for Moscow on August 25 in his hotel room in Warsaw, Spiegel reported.

Putin had described the victim as a 'fighter, very cruel and bloody' who had fought with separatists against Russian forces in the Caucasus and also been involved in bombing attacks on the Moscow metro.

Moscow also said it had been seeking his extradition.

Named as Zelimkhan Khangoshvili by German media, the victim had survived two assassination attempts in Georgia.

Following that, he sought asylum in Germany and had spent the past years in the country.

Both the killing and Navalny's poisoning have been likened to the poisoning of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal in Britain in 2018, also widely blamed on Russian intelligence.

Furious over the killing in a busy park in broad daylight, Berlin expelled two Russian diplomats, sparking a tit-for-tat reaction from Moscow.

Russia has for years drawn the ire of Western powers, from annexing Ukraine's Crimea to meddling in elections and backing President Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria.

Merkel this year also revealed that she was the target of 'outrageous' hacking attempts by Russia.

If convicted, the suspect faces life in jail.
Education Queensland is already providing a free schools breakfast program in 131 schools with Foodbank Queensland, "in areas where students need it most", Education Minister Grace Grace has said.

Ms Grace dismissed the Greens' idea to expand the free schools breakfast program by increasing royalties paid by mining companies as a "thought bubble".

Victoria's Baden Powell College is one of about 50 schools in Melbourne's western suburbs that uses the services of the charity providing free breakfasts at schools. Credit:Jason South

The Queensland Greens had announced that they would spend $374 million each year to provide a free breakfast and lunch program in every state school if they could influence government in Queensland.

The $374 million yearly cost would come from the Greens' plan to increase royalties paid by mine companies to Queensland Treasury.
Orascom Investment Holding (OIH): The company owned by business tycoon Naguib Sawiris might be considering acquiring a majority stake in United Bank, 99 per cent owned by the Central Bank of Egypt.

Sawiris told the financial daily Hapi that the price of United Banks shares was in the price range OIH had put for its debut in the banking sector and was more than that of the two Cairo-based Lebanese banks that are also currently on sale, Bank Audi and Blom Bank. The aim of the acquisition is to open the door for OIH to be involved in small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) finance.

Sawiris has been showing interest in the Egyptian banking sector for a while, and he has also expressed his desire to be awarded a license to open a bank, declined by the Central Bank governor. He has also tapped non-banking financial services thanks to controlling stakes in investment bank Beltone and Sarwa Capital.

OIH is one of two entities resulting from the ongoing demerger of OIH activities, the other being Orascom Financial Holding. Following the demerger, only one of the two companies will be listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange, depending on which is the more attractive to investors, Sawiris said.

The demerger took place to allow each of the two resulting entities to focus on one investment sector, OFH on financial services and OIH on logistics and transportation, agro-industry, or real estate. Should OIH choose to focus on real estate, the company will consider incorporating Ora Developers, also chaired by Sawiris, as a subsidiary. Sawiris has also said that OIH is considering investing in strategic plots offered by Egypts Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), like the building formerly used as the headquarters of the former ruling National Democratic Party.

Bank of Alexandria (ALEXBANK): The leading privatised commercial bank is witnessing yet another change in ownership structure. The Italian Intesa Sanpaolo, major shareholder in ALEXBANK, has bought back a 9.75 per cent stake in the Bank from the International Finance Cooperation (IFC).

Through this deal, valued at $162 million, the Italian banking group has increased its stake in ALEXBANK to 80 per cent. In 2006, ALEXBANK was the first state-owned bank to sell a majority stake to a strategic investor, Intesa Sanpaolo, which took over 80 per cent of the bank while the government retained a 20 per cent stake. In 2008, IFC bought the 9.75 per cent stake in ALEXBANK from Intesa Sanpaolo. The bank recorded a 10.3 per cent increase in its net profits in 2019 to reach LE3.39 billion.

Nile Cotton Ginning (NCGC): All deals related to the acquisition by IMEX International of NCGC will be suspended until a settlement on NCGCs debts owed to the Holding Company for Construction and Development (HCCD) is paid.

HCCD chair Hisham Abul-Ata told the local press that IMEX plans to increase the capital of NCGC to pay the settlement amount after purchase would not preserve the holding companys rights. Holders of 94 per cent of NCGC shares had earlier been told they could sell their shares to IMEX in response to the latters buyout proposal at LE50 per share.

Sixth of October Development and Investment Company (SODIC): The real-estate developer is on track with its schedule to deliver units in its Eastown district in New Cairo (EDNC) in 2021, according to a recent company statement. SODIC has signed LE1.7 billion in contracts with construction firms to build the district, and over 50 per cent of the construction work has now been completed.

EDNC is the commercial component of Eastown, SODICs mixed-use development strategically located directly on Road 90, the main street and central axis of New Cairo and immediately adjacent to the American University in Cairo (AUC) campus. This project is in line with the companys strategy to largely retain prime non-residential assets to contribute to recurring income in the future. With its prime location and offerings, EDNC will serve as the cornerstone of SODICs recurring income portfolio, said Maged Al-Sherif, SODICs managing director.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Coptic Solidarity Hosts Fifth Annual Modern Coptic Martyrs Remembrance Day on 9th Anniversary of Maspero Massacre





NEWS PROVIDED BY

Coptic Solidarity

Oct. 7, 2020



WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- Coptic Solidarity's 5th Annual Modern Coptic Martyrs Day will be hosted on Zoom this Friday, October 9th at 2 PM, Eastern Standard Time. This year's event will be held on the ninth anniversary of the Maspero Massacre, when 27 Copts were brutally murdered by the Egyptian Army while they were peacefully protesting a church closure.







Numerous other Copts have also been killed for their faith in modern times, including large scale attacks, and many on individuals and their properties. Copts were murdered on the beach by ISIS, killed in church bombings, and murdered on the street or in their homes, such as Fr. Samaan Shehata, and Copts in el-Arish.



The Modern Coptic Martyrs Remembrance Day is a vital opportunity to ensure the world not forget about the numerous Copts who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for their faith and to seek justice for them, their families, and communities.



Advance registration is required. The login information for this Zoom event will be emailed to those who register, prior to the event.



Confirmed participants include:

Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Religion or Belief

Commissioner Frederick A. Davie, US Commission on International Religious Freedom



Commissioner Frederick A. Davie, US Commission on International Religious Freedom Lord David Alton of Liverpool, Independent Crossbench Life Peer in UK House of Lords



US Senator James Lankford (R - OK)



US Congressman Jim McGovern (D - MA), Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission



US Congressman Gus Biliriaks (R-FL)



US Congressman French Hill (R-AR)



Mr. Frank Wolf, Former US Congressman (R-VA)



Canadian MP Candice Bergen, MP for PortageLisgar in Manitoba



Canadian MP Garnett Genuis, MP for Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, Alberta



Canadian MP Derek Sloan, MP for Hastings-Lennox & Addington in eastern Ontario



Mrs. Caroline Doss, Esq.,President, Coptic Solidarity



Ms. Erin Melek - Coptic musician



Ms. Monica Reyad - Coptic poet

Coptic Solidarity is an organization seeking to help minorities, particularly the Copts, of Egypt and we support those in Egypt working for democracy, freedom, and the protection of the fundamental rights of all Egyptian citizens. It advocates in cooperation with the affiliated organizations in Canada and in Europe (Solidarite Copte). For more information, contact Lindsay Griffin at 801-512-1713 or coptadvocacy@copticsolidarity.org



SOURCE Coptic Solidarity



CONTACT: Lindsay Griffin, 801-512-1713, coptadvocacy@copticsolidarity.org



Related Links



https://www.copticsolidarity.org/


Lawmakers are charged with the arduous task of rewriting the U.S. antitrust laws  something that hasn't been done in earnest in decades. The country's two major antitrust statutes , the Sherman Act (monopoly law) and the Clayton Act (merger law) were passed in 1890 and 1914, respectively. The Federal Trade Commission Act, which established the FTC and gave it powers to regulate competition, was also passed in 1914.

In statements following the report, all four companies objected to the House Democrats' characterization of their businesses as monopolies and insisted that robust competition still exists in their markets.

The staff recommended that Congress go back to the original intent of the antitrust laws by clarifying that they're not only meant to protect consumers, but also "workers, entrepreneurs, independent businesses, open markets, a fair economy and democratic ideals."

Democratic majority staffers on the subcommittee wrote in their report that "the courts have significantly weakened" antitrust laws since their enactment, contradicting Congress' intent by focusing narrowly on "consumer welfare."

But since those laws were enacted, court rulings have made it increasingly difficult for the government to secure wins when trying to challenge mergers or monopoly conduct, experts testified during the investigation by the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust . After a period of robust enforcement in the early 20th century, the Chicago School of Antitrust Analysis emphasized the importance of the "consumer welfare" standard that relied heavily on increased prices as an indication of harm. That sort of standard is especially tricky when it comes to tech companies, which often don't charge consumers directly for their services, but make money off of ads and data.

Subcommittee member Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., told CNBC she believes "significant legislation" acting on the report's recommendations can be introduced within three to six months of the next legislative session.

"It may be that some pieces of legislation take longer because we do have to get it right, but I think that it's very important that we move urgently because we've seen how innovation and creativity have been really stifled and how small businesses, in particular, have been losing out and how consumers have been losing out," Jayapal said in an interview Tuesday night after the report was released.

Jayapal acknowledged the timeline may be ambitious but said there is a "good chance" antitrust legislation could make it to the floor in the next Congress. Still, the outcome of the presidential and congressional elections and ongoing pleas from constituents for pandemic relief could delay the passage of antitrust laws, as it did the investigation's conclusion.

Even so, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have remained interested in antitrust reform despite disagreements on some of the proposed changes. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who has been one of the Democratic subcommittee members' key allies in their push for reform, released his response to the majority report Tuesday outlining areas of "common ground" and "non-starters." In an interview before the majority report's release, Buck told CNBC his response shouldn't be mistaken for a criticism of the majority report.

"I think it's clear that there will be a bipartisan effort to make reforms in the antitrust area," Buck said. "And if I was one of the tech companies I would see this week of Democrat and Republican responses as very concerning because there is clearly a bipartisan conclusion that these companies are acting anticompetitively and that [there's] bipartisan consensus on many of the reforms that are necessary."

Buck opposed one of the recommendations that Jayapal said she was most excited about: imposing structural separations to remove potential conflicts of interest for companies that compete with third parties using their services. The idea has been likened to a sort of digital-age Glass-Steagall Act, referring to the 1930s law that separated commercial and investment banking. Buck called the idea in his written response, "a thinly veiled call to break up Big Tech firms."

Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., did not sign onto any of the three documents his fellow subcommittee members released Tuesday  the Democratic report, Buck's response and a report led by Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio about alleged conservative censorship by tech platforms. In a statement, Armstrong said his decision "should only be interpreted as an acknowledgement that this issue will require targeted bipartisan legislation."

Despite wide agreement of anticompetitive behavior in tech markets, Armstrong said in the statement, "there is considerable disagreement on the appropriate remedies." He said he's committed to continue working "on the appropriate solutions," including by first adding more funding for the DOJ and FTC to ramp up tech oversight.

Jayapal said there are plenty of aspects of antitrust reform to tackle and noted that Republicans like Buck and Armstrong have been highly involved in the investigation.

"I'm looking forward to working in a bipartisan way and also if there are areas where we differ on the need of the strength of our proposals, we have to make that case," Jayapal said. "And honestly, I think time will continue to show that it's absolutely essential that we take on issues like structural separation."

Congress will need to move with urgency to keep up with the fast-changing markets in which the tech companies operate. Several firms are already facing the threat of imminent enforcement actions from the antitrust agencies, including an expected lawsuit against Google from the Department of Justice. Once a suit is brought, it could still take years for the litigation battle to play out, adding to the agency's need for more resources to be allocated by Congress.

Despite all the other legislative tasks that will be at the top of the agenda next year, Jayapal said she remains hopeful that antitrust reform will make the cut.

"I feel good that we will prioritize this. I think the investigation has laid the groundwork for it and I do think we need to move expeditiously because things do change quickly," she said. "The one thing we've got going for us is, I think sometimes antitrust law can seem really intellectual and not necessarily relevant to the people. But everybody deals with these tech platforms. And honestly, a tremendous number of Americans feel trapped by these platforms, either their businesses or them individually. So we've got that behind us, there's a tremendous amount of public support for this, for what we're doing, and I think that's helpful."

WATCH: How US antitrust law works, and what it means for Big Tech
OJ Simpson would walk free even more easily today if he were on trial for murder because of the anti-police sentiment in America, his former close friend has claimed.

Ron Shipp said that 'OJ would walk free today' because Black Lives Matter protests and the death of George Floyd have turned people against law enforcement.

Shipp, a former Los Angeles Police Department cop, said he was haunted by Simpson convincing him he had changed his ways after a beating he gave his wife Nicole in 1989.

Five years later Simpson allegedly killed her and her friend Ron Goldman at her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles.

OJ Simpson's former close friend Ron Shipp said that 'OJ would walk free today'. Shipp, 68, who knew Simpson for two decades, said: 'OJ would get off more than ever with everything that's going on today

Shipp says OJ would be let off easy because Black Lives Matter protests and the death of George Floyd have turned people against law enforcement

Last Saturday was the 25th anniversary of the killing, which Simpson was acquitted of, and Shipp appears in a new documentary talking about the case.

In 'OJ and Nicole: An American Tragedy', which airs Monday on Investigation Discovery, Shipp revisits his testimony during the trial which was the last time he saw Simpson in person.

Shipp answered questions from defense attorney Carl Douglas while on the witness stand for the 1994 murder

Shipp said that Simpson once said he had dreams about killing Nicole before the defense destroyed him by bringing up his problems with alcohol and his infidelity.

Twenty five years on, Shipp says he is still 'pretty badly scarred' by what happened in court that day.

But he says in some ways things are worse for law enforcement than in 1994 when the country was still reeling from the beating of Rodney King by LAPD cops.

Shipp, 68, who knew Simpson for two decades, said: 'OJ would get off more than ever with everything that's going on today.

'I couldn't become a cop today if you gave me a $1million a year. If it happened today they probably would have let OJ out on bail. After that they would drop the charges because that's where it is today.

'Everybody believed at the time all these cops were racist and they're out to get you. There's a lot of LAPD cops that were racist but there's a lot of them who just hated crime. It breaks my heart to see what's happening in law enforcement today.

'You had a few bad shootings but when you look around the whole country...I would hate to lose one of my loved ones on a bad shooting but they happen, but then again George Floyd that was the worst things I've ever seen'.

Shipp said that the incident which sticks with him about Simpson happened in 1989 when he badly battered Nicole.

In 'OJ and Nicole: An American Tragedy ', which airs Monday on Investigation Discovery, Shipp revisits his testimony during the trial which was the last time he saw Simpson in person

Simpson allegedly killed his wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman at her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, but was found not guilty

She showed him pictures of the times he did it before and Shipp saw the man he regarded as his hero in a new light.

At the time Shipp was a domestic violence expert for the LAPD and knew that the advice was to never counsel somebody who is a friend of yours.

Ron Goldman, who was believed to have been murdered by OJ, is pictured

But he thought to himself this was a 'special situation - this is OJ Simpson'.

Shipp said: 'I said OJ, you have to change and they did end up going to counseling.

'He said to me he would never ever touch her again and I thought, you won't, you've learned your lesson. I softened up.

'I said to Nicole I think he's okay but he has to continue to do therapy. I believed him.

'I regret that. It's a difficult thing for me. Even though I know that batterers will never change but this was OJ'.

After Simpson was acquitted, Goldman's family made it their life's mission to prove his guilt and brought a civil case against him, which they won.

A jury awarded them $33.5million damages but they have not received anything from Simpson and in the meantime the judgement has grown to $70million.

In 2008 Simpson was jailed for 33 years for an armed robbery at a Las Vegas hotel involving his own memorabilia and was released early in 2017 having served nearly nine years.

Shipp - who is sure Simpson was guilty - said that his former friend is so arrogant he thinks people should carry on adoring him as they always did.

He said: 'I bet you deep down inside that he probably feels he doesn't deserve to go prison and he didn't do it.

Shipp - who is sure Simpson was guilty - said that his former friend is so arrogant he thinks people should carry on adoring him as they always did

Shipps says in some ways things are worse for law enforcement now than in 1994 when the country was reeling from the beating of Rodney King by LAPD cops

'He may be thinking I did my time, did more than I was supposed to do and now I'm back in society and you guys should love me'.

Shipp said that despite this, Simpson may have turned to God to help cope with his demons.

He said: 'People ask me what would I say if I ran into him? In order for me to get through this I had to get spiritual or I'd have lost my mind.

'I'm thinking because his mom raised him like that, maybe that's where he is today.

'Being who he is and going to prison, that's got to be - you go from beautiful Rockingham to jail, that's unbelievable'.
New Zealanders are celebrating after it was declared the deadly coronavirus has been eliminated in the community for a second time.

Health officials on Wednesday announced the end of the 'Auckland Autumn cluster' with the recovery of the last six infected residents and no new cases in ten days.

The fresh cluster, identified in August, brought an unwelcome end to a 102-day run without any cases in New Zealand.

As of midnight on Wednesday, Auckland's restrictions will be brought down to an alert level one - joining the rest of the country.

New Zealand has eliminated coronavirus in the community for a second time (pictured people in Wellington wear face masks)

The changing of restrictions will mean there is no 100-person limit to public gatherings and no distancing rules in bars and restaurants.

Three infections have been recorded within the last 24 hours but these are all in hotel quarantine.

As part of the celebrations the All Blacks will be able to have a full crowd cheer them on when they go head to head with the Wallabies on October 18.

Health Minister Chris Hipkins said Wednesday's news was a major milestone for the country.

'This is a big milestone. New Zealanders have once again through their collective actions squashed the virus,' he said.

Auckland has officially gone ten days without any new infections within the cluster (pictured people walk past a social distancing sign in Auckland)

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured) on Monday said there was a 95 per cent chance the virus was not in the community

'The systems that have been developed and strengthened since our first wave of COVID-19 have worked very effectively to chase down the virus, isolate it, and eliminate it.'

On Monday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there was a 95 per cent chance the virus is not in the community as the country hasn't recorded a local case since September 24.

'COVID-19 will be with us for many months to come. But we should still mark these milestones,' she said.

Back in April it was declared New Zealand had beaten the virus before a second wave broke out in Auckland in August.

The second wave led to 186 new infections in residents and forced Ms Ardern to place the city back into a strict lockdown.

There are currently 37 people in quarantine with the virus, including one being treated in an Auckland hospital.

New Zealand's pandemic death toll is 25.
By PTI

BEIJING: China, the world's largest creditor, is increasingly coming under pressure to cancel its huge debt to coronavirus-hit poor countries under the Group of 20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), according to a media report.

World Bank President David Malpass on Monday called on China to cancel debt to coronavirus-hit poor countries, blaming Beijing's well capitalised official lenders of not fully participating in the DSSI.

"An added factor in the current wave of debt is the rapid growth of new official lenders, especially several of China's well-capitalised creditors," Malpass said, addressing an online event hosted by the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

"They've expanded their portfolios dramatically and are not fully participating in the debt rescheduling processes that were developed to soften previous waves of debt," Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post quoted him as saying.

The finance ministers of G20 agreed for a "time-bound suspension of debt service payments" to the 77 poorest countries in the world during online spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on April 15 in view of the grim situation faced by these countries due to the coronavirus pandemic.

ALSO READ | Opposed to formation of 'exclusive cliques': China on Quad Ministers' meet

Under this DSSI, a payment of an estimated USD 12 billion due to be paid between May 1 and the end of 2020 has been rescheduled.

According to a write up in China's state-run CGTN, over 100 low- and middle-income countries will still have to pay a total of USD 130 billion in debt service in 2020.

In addition, 43 countries have received about USD five billion from the DSSI to fund social, health and economic measures to respond to the pandemic.

China is the biggest bilateral lender for most emerging economies especially lending to hundreds of projects under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Of the amount due from poor nations taking part in the G20 debt plan between May and December this year, 70 per cent or USD 7.17 billion, was to China.

That amount is expected to rise to USD 10.51 billion or 74 per cent of the total, next year if the DSSI is extended, the Post report said on Wednesday.

China faced criticism especially from the G7 countries for classifying large state-owned, government-controlled financial institutions as commercial lenders and not as official bilateral creditors.

Those critics include Malpass, who said China Development Bank (CDB) needed to take part as an official bilateral lender for the DSSI to be effective, the report said.

China has argued that since CDB lends at commercial instead of concessional terms, the bank should be treated as a commercial lender.

CDB's lending to DSSI-eligible countries is heavily concentrated in Angola and Pakistan.

China said that since the G20's debt freeze agreement was adopted in April, it had received more than 20 requests and reached agreements with more than 10 borrowers by the end of July, without specifying the recipients.

For its part, China has pushed for the World Bank to be included in the DSSI, a move that has so far been resisted by other World Bank/IMF members.

In June this year, Beijing held an online China-Africa Summit on Solidarity against COVID-19 in which the debt situation was discussed, as 40 of the 77 developing countries are located in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to estimates, China's debt to African countries amounted to USD 150 billion as of 2018.

Reports say China holds about a third of Africa's sovereign debt as China has extended finance to a number of African countries amid concerns about a debt trap and even loss of sovereignty, especially after Sri Lanka handed over its Hambantota port to a state-run Chinese firm in 2017 for a 99 years' lease as a debt swap amounting to USD 1.2 billion.

The Post quoted Mark Bohlund, senior analyst at REDD Intelligence as saying there was no movement on the DSSI extension and CDB inclusion "largely due to China not wanting to be bullied around on the global stage".

Bohlund said China did not want to be "forced into effectively footing much of the bill for the DSSI extension without any concessions from the G7 nations in other areas".

In May this year, the New York Times reported that China is flooded with debt relief requests from several countries including Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sri Lanka and a number of African nations, asking to restructure, delay repayments or forgive tens of billions of dollars of loans coming due this year.

"China faces difficult choices. If it restructures or forgives these loans, that could strain its financial system and infuriate the Chinese people, who are suffering under their own slowdown.

"But if China demands repayment when many countries are already angry with Beijing over its handling of the pandemic, its quest for global clout could be at risk," it said.
FLORHAM PARK, N.J., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- HR Acuity, the only technology platform specifically built for employee relations and investigations management, has been named the winner of a Gold Stevie Award for Company of the Year and a Bronze for Female Entrepreneur of the Year, 11 to 2,500 Employees, both in the Business Services category, in the 17th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives, entrepreneurs, employees, and the companies they run  worldwide. The Stevie Awards have been hailed as the world's premier business awards. Winners will be celebrated during a virtual awards ceremony on Wednesday, December 9. Registration for the ceremony is now on sale.

More than 1,500 entries were submitted this year for consideration in more than 100 categories, including Executive of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, Company of the Year, Startup of the Year, Women Helping Women, and Women Run Workplace of the Year.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners were determined by the average scores of more than 180 business professionals around the world, working on seven juries.

HR Acuity and its CEO Deborah J. Muller were both honored as pioneers in employee relations. Launching HR Acuity in 2009, Muller understood the urgency of employee relations early. It took seismic events like #MeToo and the Black Lives Matter movement for many organizations to catch up, but employee relations has become a strategic force within organizations. HR Acuity provides the tools and expertise to protect their organizations and reduce risk, act against racial bias, harassment and inequalities and create better, safer workplaces.

In the words of the Stevie judges:

"Movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter demonstrate the importance of focusing on ensuring a fair workplace and building workforce trust. HR Acuity remains the only organization of its type that focuses on employee relations, taking into account both the employer experience from a risk perspective and the employees' experience."

"Significant advances and prompt response to our chaotic times. Your innovation and your commitment to providing value that is real and practical. Visionary leadership in your industry."

"In attempts to rectify the wrongs that are a part of our history, laws and regulations have been passed to protect all people from discrimination in the workplace. While these laws are enacted for good reason, it is challenging for me to keep up with. A technology platform geared towards managing ER issues is definitely something the HR industry needs."

"Deb has made a significant contribution to employee relations with the tech platform HR Acuity and is committed to openness and communication Forging a way forward for a fairer methodology to conduct employee relations which can be unbiased and free from harassment."

"We are humbled to join the ranks of other Stevie Women in Business award winners," said HR Acuity CEO and founder Deb Muller. "We are especially thrilled that the judges recognized the importance of employee relations. It has never been more important to look out for your employees and your company. Employee relations professionals are on center stage every day, and we are proud to be able to help them succeed in their critical roles."

Maggie Gallagher, president of the Stevie Awards, said, "In a year like no other in our lifetimes, we've produced a cohort of amazing, Stevie-winning women, organizations, and achievements like no other. At all times our winners show themselves to be fearless and indomitable, but their leadership and example are especially valued this year. We congratulate all of our Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie winners. We look forward to celebrating them during our December 9 virtual ceremony, and to hearing from some of them during our Women|Future Conference on November 12-13."

Details about the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the list of Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners in all categories are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

About HR Acuity

While you can't prevent every employee relations issue, you can change how you respond. HR Acuity is the only technology platform specifically built for employee relations and investigations management. HR Acuity's SaaS technology empowers you with built-in intelligence, templates and reporting so you can conduct best practice, fair investigations; uncover trends and patterns through forward-looking data and analytics; and provide trusted, consistent experiences for your people. For more information, visit www.hracuity.com and follow @hracuity on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About the Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

HCL Technologies sponsored the Red Ladder Women in Technology Awards in the 2020 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

CONTACT: Nicole Paleologus, [email protected], 215-478-4815

SOURCE HR Acuity

Related Links

http://www.hracuity.com


Plastic waste has long been a visible  and growing  problem in oceans around the world, with refuse littering the shorelines of once-pristine beaches, stretching out across a wide expanse of sea in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and threatening sea life that ingest it.

A new report offers a glimpse of the scale of microplastics building up on the ocean floor. In what researchers called the first such global estimate, Australias national science agency says that 9.25 million to 15.87 million tons of microplastics  fragments measuring between five millimeters and one micrometer  are embedded on the sea floor.

That is far more than on the oceans surface, and its the equivalent of 18 to 24 shopping bags full of small plastic fragments for every foot of coastline on every continent except for Antarctica.

It is an issue that activists have long warned about even as the fight to clean up the ocean has focused largely on the eradication of single-use plastic products like shopping bags.
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Equinox Ophthalmic, Inc, an early-stage medical device company that is developing a new paradigm to revolutionize the treatment of glaucoma and other progressive eye diseases, today announced the appointment of Stuart Raetzman as Executive Chairman.



Company founder, John Berdahl, MD, will continue to serve on the Board of Directors and as Chief Medical Officer. Equinox Ophthalmic, Inc. is a company focused on addressing the unmet need in glaucoma by providing a non-surgical, nonpharmacologic and safe option for patients who suffer from either severe or Normal Tension Glaucoma (NTG).

"We are excited to announce that Stuart Raetzman is leading the team at Equinox as Executive Chairman," said Dr. Berdahl. "Stuart brings the perfect combination of proven leadership and management skills, a deep understanding of the eye care, pharmaceutical and medical device industries and a global perspective. He is poised to guide Equinox on a path to success in bringing transformational products and treatments to patients, physicians and the marketplace in the safest, most predictable way to treat glaucoma."

Raetzman brings over two decades of global leadership experience in multiple healthcare businesses including medical devices, biologics, pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter products. In this role, he will lead the organization in the development of the Mercury Multi-Pressure Dial to address the significant unmet needs in glaucoma.

Raetzman, who previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Galderma and Nestle Skin Health, brings more than 20 years of domestic and global experience in the eyecare industry through leadership roles with Alcon, Allergan and Chiron Vision. He understands the global marketplace, having lived in the US and in Europe while leading global businesses.

In healthcare, you get few opportunities to change the paradigm and develop disease-modifying options for patients and the physicians, Raetzman said. I am honored to join Equinox at this exciting time. The company has made great strides in successful Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clinical trials and I look forward to leading the strategic vision.

Stuart Raetzman is the right person at the right time to join Equinox, Board Member Andy Corley said. His unique skill set and background, which he has honed through more than two decades in the industry, is just what we need to move us forward so we can begin helping glaucoma patients in the safest way possible.

About Equinox Ophthalmic, Inc.

Equinox is revolutionizing the treatment of glaucoma and other progressive eye diseases through research and technology innovation around the physics of ocular health. With the research and creativity of a world-renowned glaucoma specialist as its foundation, Equinox has gathered a highly experienced medical leadership team as well as experts in creating and commercializing game-changing ophthalmic products. With funding from Flying-L-Partners, Visionary Ventures and Blue Stem, Equinox is establishing a new paradigm in glaucoma care for physicians and patients through a revolutionary approach to treatment and management known as Multi-Pressure Glaucoma Management (MGM). For more information visit www.Equinoxus.com .

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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Mercenaries and members of terror groups are involved in military attacks from Azerbaijan against Armenian population, Armenias Human Rights Defender said, adding that the evidence gathered from an independent investigation conducted by him will be sent to the international partners.

According to the majority of credible sources, thousands of mercenaries from Libya and northern parts of Syria, who also have affiliations with ISIS, have been deployed to Azerbaijan by Turkey.

This is confirmed by evidence gathered from an independent investigation conducted by the Human Rights Defender of Armenia. The evidence includes photos and video materials objectively demonstrating the same.

This is occurring, right now, squarely in the territory of the Council of Europe.

The Human Rights Defender of Armenia calls upon the international community to turn its attention immediately to these extremely worrying, indeed criminal, developments.

Without urgent and real preventive steps, the ongoing humanitarian disaster that Azerbaijan and Turkeys actions have directly caused on the peaceful population will certainly lead to severe consequences for the whole region. The use of mercenaries is a crime with multiple, complex consequencesincluding, of course, a threat to security, to peace and to the entire system of human rights. This fundamental principle is confirmed in the UN Human Rights Councils 42/9 Resolution of 26 September 2019.

The collected evidentiary material and data will be sent to our international partners in all necessary and actionable formats.

The Human Rights Defender of Armenia continues to operate in an extraordinary manner, around-the-clock and 24/7. Close cooperation is established with the Human Rights Defender of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), the Ombudsman said in a statement.
Starting Friday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf plans to allow increased attendance at events and gatherings, using new math that has many scratching their heads and wondering.

Two things stand out. First, wheres the science in the new math? And second, the new math does more harm to small business taverns and licensed restaurants that can offer discrete gatherings.

Lets first look at the science in the numbers. Using the governors new math, an event with an indoor capacity of 2,000 people may have 400 attend, while another location that can handle 2,500 is only allowed 375.

Wheres the COVID-19 science in that?

Lets look at the continued damage being inflicted on our mom-and-pop establishments. Our average member has 100 or fewer seats. Previously they could have 25 people for a discrete gathering. Now its down to 20 with the latest math from the governor.

The decision is confusing, lacks science, and picks winners and losers.

While he may have thought he was helping the overall industry, Wolf just put another nail in the coffin of neighborhood, family-owned taverns and licensed restaurants.

Chuck Moran

Executive Director, Pa. Licensed Beverage and Tavern Association

Harrisburg
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Zohab Mnatsakanyan today held phone talks with his Czech counterpart Tomas Petricek, as reported the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia.

The foreign ministers exchanged views on the latest developments in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.

Presenting the situation created as a result of the military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan, Mnatsakanyan expressed his deep concern over the adversary targeting the peaceful civilians and civilian infrastructures in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in violation of international law.

The foreign minister also condemned Turkeys working style of instilling destabilization in the region through the deployment of foreign armed terrorists in the conflict zone and their direct involvement in the hostilities.

Both foreign ministers underscored the importance of an immediate cessation of hostilities.
LONDON  Lawmakers in the European Union have written a letter to Amazon boss Jeff Bezos asking if his company is hiring intelligence agents to spy on politicians, trade unionists, and members of staff.

Authored by Leila Chaibi, a French politician from the La France Insoumise party, the letter was signed by 36 MEPs (Members of European Parliament) from mostly left-wing and green parties across the EU.

"We wonder about your intentions with great concern: does Amazon's monitoring intentionally target trade unionists, Amazon workers, as well as political representatives (including ourselves) who could possibly express criticism of its activities?" the letter reads.

The letter comes after Amazon deleted two job postings for "intelligence analysts," ideally with French and Spanish language skills. According to the postings, the jobs involved monitoring various threats perceived by Amazon including trade unions and "hostile political leaders."

"We are concerned about whether European trade unions, as well as local, national or European elected representatives, are affected by this approach to 'threat monitoring', which aims to repress collective action and trade union organizing," the letter reads.

If hired, the analysts would have been charged with gathering information on any internal and external threats to Amazon and reporting the data to leaders across the organization.

The job ads said the analysts would be tasked with gathering intelligence on "sensitive topics that are highly confidential, including labor organizing threats against the company," "funding and activities connected to corporate campaigns (internal and external) against Amazon," as well as briefings on "dynamic situations" including protests, geopolitical crises and other topics "sensitive to human resources and employee relations."

The roles, which were aimed at candidates with law enforcement or military experience, were both based in Phoenix, Arizona, and the hires would be part of Amazon's Global Security Operation's Global Intelligence Program.
DAA chief executive Dalton Philips was speaking today in front of a Joint Committee on Transport & Communications Networks.

He said "As I speak to you today, Im thinking of people like Rob Rankin from Vagabond Tours in Wicklow, who has had virtually zero revenue since March, because there have been no international visitors. Im thinking of Stephen Teeling and his staff in Teelings Whiskey Distillery in the Liberties, who rely on our shops as their biggest sales outlet."

He said Ireland is one of the most open economies in the world and is hugely dependant on Foreign Direct Investment, exports and tourism and on the air travel to stay connected with global markets.

Speaking about airports under the authority of the DAA, he said "Dublin and Cork airports have been engines of the Irish economy, but now they are running on empty.

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"In total our airports have already lost 20 million passengers compared to 2019; Dublin Airport will have fewer than 9 million passengers this year - that means we are back at 1995 levels." He said the airports have lost 25 years of growth."

He said the sector has been 'demonised' since this pandemic began. He argued that other key sectors have been allowed to re-open with the understanding and acceptance that there is an element of risk involved.

Unreasonable standards

The Irish aviation sector in his eyes is being held to a much an "unreasonable standard", with continued constraints being placed on opening up international travel.

Mr Philips said last week American Airlines withdrew a Dallas flight from Dublin, which means for the first time in 10 years, they will not have a presence in Ireland this coming winter.

He said industry sources are suggesting it could be 2024 before the sector sees any recovery. He also said the sector has accumulated more than 150 million in losses since the pandemic began and their net debt will have doubled by the end of 2020.

He added "There has been minimal movement on the European Commissions recommendations in relation to the easing of travel restrictions published in May, or on the recommendations of the Governments Aviation Recovery Taskforce published in July."

He did welcome the government's adoption of EU's Traffic Light system which identifies which countries are safe to travel. However, he said it needs accompanied by testing protocols for high risk red list regions, discarding blunt travel restrictions and quarantines.

Mr Philips also said that the DAA have developed proposals to facilitate mobilising pre-departure testing at Dublin and Cork airports by mid-October with capability to deliver up to 15,000 tests per day.
An English businessman who targeted two young sisters while they were being neglected by their mother and moved the family to Ireland to avoid detection has appealed against the severity of the 14-year jail sentence imposed for the rape and sexual assault of his victims.

The 39-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, was found guilty at the Central Criminal Court in April 2019 following a 42-day trial on three counts of rape and eight counts of sexually assaulting the two girls at addresses in Dublin and Louth between December 3, 2010 and March 10, 2011.

His victims were aged 10 and 12 years at the time of the offences.

The man, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison with two years suspended on condition that he participated in the Better Lives treatment programme for sex offenders, continues to protest his innocence and disputes the jurys verdict.

In March, he lost an appeal against his conviction on the 11 charges when the Court of Appeal rejected claims that interviews of the girls by specialist gardai were fundamentally flawed.

Counsel for the man, Caroline Biggs, SC, told the Court of Appeal on Wednesday that the sentencing judge, Mr Justice Michael White, had erred in law and in principle by characterising the conduct of his defence during the trial as an aggravating factor in fixing the term of his sentence.

Ms Biggs said the judge had remarked that the realisation by the older sister that she and her siblings were taken into care because their mother was not able to protect them was turned into a weapon against her by the defendant.

The man had instructed his legal team to claim she had conspired with her younger sister to make false allegations of sexual abuse in order to avoid having to return to their mothers care.

Mr Justice White had stated that the reverse was true as the girl had realised that further contact with their mother endangered her and her sister because the man would come back into their lives.

Ms Biggs said her client was perfectly entitled to fight tooth and nail in mounting a defence against the charges.

She told the court the mans sentence was effectively one of 14 years, as he was unlikely to be able to avail of the suspended period of two years because a condition of participating in the Better Lives treatment programme was that a convicted person accepted their guilt.

Ms Biggs claimed such a sentence was disproportionate and failed to take into account mitigating factors in the mans favour.

She said the offending had taken place over a relatively short space of time compared to many cases of sexual abuse and had lasted months as opposed to decades.

The barrister said it was not a case of a father-daughter relationship which would constitute the greatest abuse of trust.

Opposing the appeal, counsel for the DPP, Dominic McGinn SC, said that while cross-examination of witnesses was a necessary part of the case of most defendants, the manner in which the man had approached it constituted an element of the gravity of his offences.

Mr McGinn said the trial judge had pointed out that the accused was having his legal team put a very damaging suggestion to one of his victims in the full knowledge that it was untrue.

Counsel said putting it to the older girl that she had fabricated allegations against the man simply because she did not want to return to her mothers care and not that when she had actually blamed her for allowing her to be abused was cynical and pejorative.

Mr McGinn said the man had had to exercise judgement on how he approached the defence of his case.

He noted that Mr Justice White had pointed out to the man the consequences of taking particular actions and that the judge had indicated he would consider them as aggravating factors.

Mr McGinn said there had to be consequences for putting suggestions he knew to be untrue and extremely damaging to the victim.

He said there were several serious aggravating factors in the case including the fact that the man had set about creating a position where he would have access to the two girls and moving them away from home so they would no longer have access to social services.

The president of the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice George Birmingham, presiding, with Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy and Ms Justice Maire Whelan, reserved judgement on the appeal.
KAMPALA The Government of Japan has donated USD 4.1 million to support refugees and host communities, as well as border security in Uganda over a period of one year from April 2020 to March 2021.

The support has been extended to four UN agencies: the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF).

The contribution was made on Wednesday October 7 H.E. Kameda Kazuaki, the Ambassador of Japan to the Republic of Uganda, during a press conference at the Uganda Media Center in Kampala.

While recognizing the serious impact of displacement on vulnerable groups such as women and children, the Government of Japan has been extending financial support to address the humanitarian crisis, having consistently paid close attention to the plight of Ugandas local communities hosting refugees, most of which already lag behind the rest of the country in economic and social development. I am pleased to announce a fresh contribution by the Government of Japan through several UN Agencies in the same spirit. In addition, Japanese Government has provided emergency funding of more than US$ 1.4 million in June this year through UNICEF for the provision of supplies as well as essential healthcare services targeting children and women in the face of the rapidly increasing demand due to the spread of COVID-19, said Ambassador Kameda.

Hilary Onek, Minister of Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, who attended the press conference said, The Government of Uganda is proud to be associated with the Government of Japan. We are appreciative of the Partnership and support that the Government of Japan continues to extend to the Republic of Uganda in terms of Humanitarian Support, Development Assistance and Technical support.

Speaking on behalf of the UN system in Uganda, the UNDP Resident Representative, Ms Elsie G. Attafuah, said, This assistance is significant for the United Nations not just because it was extended at the beginning of the year for us to kick start the operation of the year, but also came at the right moment when the global pandemic started to impact across the world on humanitarian and development interventions both from the funding and operational perspectives. The contribution helped us continue delivering critical activities in Uganda to support the government and help the people on the ground.

Present at the press conference were representatives of the involved UN agencies: Mr Sanusi Tejan Savage (IOM Uganda Chief of Mission); Mr Joel Boutroue (UNHCR Representative); and Dr. Viorica Berdaga (UNICEF Chief Child Survival and Development).

The assistance has been provided as part of implementation of the Comprehensive Refugee Response (CRRF) in Uganda and the Global Compact on Refugees, a strategy which under the Governments leadership coordinated a wide range of stakeholders including UN agencies, International Financial Institutions, development and humanitarian partners and the private sector to sustain Ugandas settlement transformative agenda and non-camp refugee management policies.

Uganda is the largest refugee hosting country in Africa with more than 1.4 million refugees and asylum- seekers. Majority of the refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda originate from South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. Ugandas refugee laws and policies are among the most progressive in the world. Refugees and asylum seekers are entitled to work, have freedom of movement and can access social services.

IOM: Has received US$ 240,145 to contribute to reduce transnational security threats while increasing border security and regular migration in Uganda. The intervention primarily supports the Government of Uganda, and specifically the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration control (DCIC), to improve immigration procedures through the elaboration of work permit, citizenship guidelines and visa policy. Furthermore, maritime security is to be strengthened through the provision of border patrol assets and training of border officials assigned to lake patrol.

UNDP: Has received US$727,272 to foster humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding nexus for resilience efforts towards refugees and host communities in Northern Uganda. The project contributes to the comprehensive refuge eresponse in the country which is based on the UN Refugee and Host Population Empowerment (ReHoPE) framework. In particular, UNDP is able to expand gender responsive livelihood opportunities and strengthen the capacity of refugees and host communities to sustainably manage environmental resources.

UNDP is also able to strengthen central governance coordination in implementing the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) Action Plan and strengthen the capacity of local governments to engage into the refugee response.

UNHCR Has received US $1,237,754 towards the provision of minimum health care package in Bidibidi refugee settlement and promotion of livelihood opportunities for refugees and host communities through UNHCR-JICA cooperation on rice promotion in Rhino Camp and Adjumani settlements. The project is implemented within the context of the CRRF. The fund specifically supports the continuation of UNHCR-JICA cooperation on rice promotion and multiplication for both refugees and host communities; support the management of 14 health facilities to provide adequate quality and lifesaving health care services including management of medical referrals to secondary and tertiary health facilities in and outside the settlement and supporting preparedness and response for disease outbreaks.

UNICEF Has received US$454,545 to help improve childrens health and protection in Adjumani, a refugee-hosting district in Northern Uganda in March 2020. With the funds received, UNICEF is supporting the Government of Uganda to provide over 6,500 beneficiaries with water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services, and by supporting the construction of WASH facilities in two health centers and two schools. In June 2020, UNICEF further received US$1,428,300 to support Ugandas National COVID19 Response Plan through the provision of critical medical and water, sanitation and hygiene supplies, along with support to risk communication, community engagement, and essential service delivery with a focus on health, nutrition and child protection.

To date, this critical support helped procure 70 oxygen concentrators, 50 pulse oximeters, vaccines for refugee children, and critical WASH supplies to 56 health centers in the refugee-hosting districts of Kikuube and Isingiro. In addition, 293 medical staff were trained and are providing mental health and psychosocial support.

Related
Express News Service

BENGALURU: The Covid-19 pandemic has pushed institutes of higher education between a rock and a hard place. They are trying to negotiate with parents on fees, while at the same time taking care of the expenditure to accommodate online education.

All this while the salaries for lecturers -- which dictate the quality of academic institutes, is weighing in on them. While a faculty member said that they received partial pay throughout and after the lockdown, institute heads said they are trying to find ways, including pay cuts, not to go under.

An official of a private college said that institutes may shut some of the programmes this year. Both students and institutions are struggling to tide over the crisis. While students are finding it hard to get loans to pay their fees, colleges are raising loans to make ends meet.

Also, professional colleges are anticipating a severe shortage of students this year, as non-Karnataka students are likely to refrain from taking up courses in the state, which is a hub of medical and engineering colleges.

An official of an engineering college, on condition of anonymity, said, Admissions may be a challenge for many institutions. It may vary from 30-100% in different institutions and streams. But the average may stand at about 60- 65%. During pre-Covid times it used to be 70-75%.

This drop is because outside students are not coming to Karnataka. Students are facing hardships as parents have been unable to get loans, said educationist Wooday P Krishna, president, Karnataka Private Postgraduate Colleges Association.

Now, banks are particular about the collateral, value of property, and insist that the property should be located within their area of operation, he said. Loans are normally taken for professional courses, like MBA and MCA, where the fee ranges from Rs 1.75 lakh to Rs 3 lakh.

A large chunk of students, nearly 20%, for these courses come from otherstates, but they dont seem to be coming in, Krishna said.

Even students from rural areas are not moving to private institutes in neighbouring districts, and a large chunk of seats are vacant, he added. Standalone institutes that do not have the financial reserves like larger institutes and depend on annual fees for revenues are going under. It will take at least two years for institutes to break even, he predicted.

Christ University Vice-Father Abraham Vettiyankal M said that the financial hardships faced by parents can be gauged by their requests for concessions in fees and payments by instalments.

This year, the admissions are over and the number of parents seeking such exemptions have been fewer. We are expecting a surge next year, he said.

The largest expenditure for any institute is faculty salaries. It varies between 40 and 60 per cent of the total expenditure, while it is around 50 per cent for majority of institutes, said a source.

Till now, only a few institutes have not effected a pay cut, while a majority of colleges have told their faculty members that their while pending sums from their pruned salaries would be paid back once the situation returns to normal.

Lecturers too have just salaries as their major source of income and they cannot be denied their livelihoods, he said. Institutes are also waiting to start offline classes. Only with physical classes will we have the moral right to seek fees from students, said Krishna.
A suspect was in custody after a fatal stabbing in Rutherford on Tuesday, authorities said.

The slaying on Union Avenue, near Beech Street, was a domestic violence incident, according to Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella.

No other individuals are believed to be involved, Musella said late Tuesday.

The prosecutor described the victim only as a male and did not immediately disclose the name of the person who died or the suspect.

Authorities said more information was not immediately being released.

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Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com.
City of Gibraltar joins the MITN Purchasing Group We invite all of our current vendors to register or contact the vendor support team with any questions.

The City of Gibraltar announced today that it has joined the MITN Purchasing Group, a regional purchasing group that helps local governments post, distribute, and manage RFPs, quotes, addendums, and awards online. BidNets MITN Purchasing Group provides notification to registered vendors of new relevant solicitations, any addenda and award information from nearly 250 participating agencies across Michigan. The City of Gibraltar invites all vendors to register online at http://www.bidnetdirect.com/mitn.

The City of Gibraltar joined the MITN Purchasing Group in October. In joining, the City of Gibraltar has become the 239th participating local government agency utilizing the system to streamline their purchasing process. The MITN Purchasing Group is a single, online location for managing sourcing information and activities and provides local Michigan government agencies a method to minimize costs and time delays associated with the procurement process. The City of Gibraltar was distributing bids and managing the procurement process manually before joining the system. In joining, the City of Gibraltar looks to save time, increase competition, and achieve cost savings over the traditional paper-based bid process.

The City of Gibraltar now has access to an extensive vendor pool, thereby enhancing competition without increasing distribution costs. In addition to the existing vendors on the MITN Purchasing Group, all vendors looking to respond to bids with local government agencies can register online: http://www.bidnetdirect.com/mitn. The City of Gibraltar invites all current vendors not already registered on the MITN Purchasing Group to do so today. Vendor registration is easy and takes only a few minutes online.

Registered vendors can access bids, related documents, addendum and award information. In addition, the MITN Purchasing Group offers a value-added service to notify vendors of new bids targeted to their industry, all addenda associated with those bids and advance notice of term contract expiration. A robust NIGP code category list allows vendors registering to find the correct codes and receive matched bids.

By using the MITN Purchasing Group, our valued vendors can now access not only our open bids, but those from other municipalities, counties and school districts throughout the Michigan. In addition to the time savings we anticipate, our vendors will also benefit from registering in one location for all local bid opportunities. We invite all of our current vendors to register or contact the vendor support team with any questions, Timothy McLean, City Administrator for the City of Gibraltar.

Vendors may register on the MITN Purchasing Group: http://www.bidnetdirect.com/mitn. BidNets vendor support team is available to answer any questions regarding the registration process or the bid system at 800-835-4603 option 2.

Other local Michigan government agencies looking to switch from a manual bid process, please contact the MITN Purchasing Group for a demonstration of the no-cost sourcing solution.

About the City of Gibraltar:

The City of Gibraltar is located in the southeast portion of Wayne County, just a few miles north of the Wayne County/ Monroe County border, and on the Detroit River and Lake Erie . The City is about 25 miles southwest of Downtown Detroit, Michigan. Gibraltar is bordered by the City of Trenton to the north and Brownstown Township to the west and south, while the Detroit River serves as the border to the east. Gibraltar is approximately 3.9 square miles in area.

About BidNet Direct:

BidNet Direct, powered by mdf commerce, is a sourcing solution of regional purchasing groups available at no cost to local government agencies throughout the country. BidNet Direct runs regional purchasing groups, including the MITN Purchasing Group, across all 50 states that are used by over 1,500 local governments. To learn more and have your government agency gain better transparency and efficiency in purchasing, please visit https://www.bidnetdirect.com/buyers
One of the most important things Trump accomplished in his first term  with Sen. Mitch McConnell's support  has been to place strict constructionists on federal courts across America, including the Supreme Court. These judges interpret legislation and determine whether it is constitutional, rather than legislating from the bench. This matters because Democrats are using the Wuhan virus as an excuse to ignore longstanding state legislation governing elections. On Tuesday, both the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit ruled against activist judges. These decisions may reflect the fact that at least some judges believe that siding with the status quo could help prevent a civil war.

In Andino v. Middleton, the Supreme Court was asked to determine whether a federal district court could use the Wuhan virus as a reason to overturn the South Carolina Legislature's refusal to change the state's existing voting laws. These laws, enacted in 1953, required that residents voting by mail get a witness to sign their ballots. Democrats were not asking the Court to determine whether the existing legislation was unconstitutional. Instead, they wanted the judge to override the legislation because they were peeved that the Republican majority refused to do so.

The district court judge, an Obama appointee, eagerly seized the opportunity to change the existing law to do away with the witness requirement. She didn't include the Legislature in this decision. She did it by judicial fiat.

At the Supreme Court, something interesting happened. All eight justices  not just the four strict constructionists  held against the district court judge. They reversed the district court's ruling, although they held that absentee votes that had already been mailed could be counted. (Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch would have disallowed even that small exception.)

Justice Kavanaugh wrote a short concurring opinion that warns leftist federal judges to stop rewriting election laws. It's the job of the state's Legislature, which is "politically accountable," not the job of a federal court, to decide what to do during pandemics:

It follows that a State legislature's decision either to keep or to make changes to election rules to address COVID19 ordinarily "should not be subject to second-guessing by an 'unelected federal judiciary,' which lacks the background, competence, and expertise to assess public health and is not accountable to the people."

Ultimately, district courts lack the appropriate accountability to second-guess the Legislature. Therefore, as elections draw near, district courts should not interfere with state election laws:

Second, for many years, this Court has repeatedly emphasized that federal courts ordinarily should not alter state election rules in the period close to an election.

Let me reiterate that Kavanaugh put down a baseline: decisions about how votes should be cast belong to legislatures, not judges. Judges across America would be well advised to remember that.

The Ninth Circuit, which was, for a long time, the hardest-left, most activist appellate court in America, is also getting with the program:

Today the Ninth Circuit granted a stay of an order issued by District of Arizona Judge Douglas Rayes  an Obama appointee  invalidating an Arizona statute requiring early voters to return their ballots along with a signed ballot affidavit to polling officials by 7:00 PM on Election Day. [snip] On September 22, 2020, Judge Rayes enjoined Arizona election officials from enforcing the election day deadline for "curing" a defective early-voter ballot and affidavit, and ORDERED the State of Arizona: "to create and to institute a new procedure that would grant voters who failed to sign their ballots up to five days after voting has ended to correct the error."

Once again, a district court judge meddled in an area that is almost entirely the Legislature's unique purview. The Ninth Circuit, however, held that the Arizona law met the reasonableness requirement for ballot access and stayed the district court's order. It also held that "the public interest is well served by preserving Arizona's existing election laws."

The 9th Circuit made the right decision. What's intriguing is that it was a unanimous decision from three judges appointed by Reagan, Clinton, and Obama. This parallels the four hard-left and left-leaning judges on the Supreme Court refusing to let a lower court judge amend South Carolina's laws.

While leftist district court judges are busy playing politics, more thoughtful and mature judges, even though they're leftists, may have decided that they'd rather play by the old rules and lose an election than face the possibility that a bloody civil war occurs because of the Democrats' new rules.

Image: United States Supreme Court (cropped) by Jarek Tuszynski. CC-BY-SA-3.0 & GDFL.
The Legal Services Board has issued proceedings in the Supreme Court to strike disgraced former gangland lawyer and police informer Nicola Gobbo from the bar roll.

Ms Gobbo hasn't held a practising certificate since 2014, but despite a history of complaints against her, legal proceedings about her and a royal commission, the barrister who informed on her own clients has remained on the Supreme Court bar roll.

Nicola Gobbo outside the Supreme Court in 2004, at the height of her criminal defence career. Credit:Vince Caligiuri

On Wednesday, the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner issued proceedings in the Supreme Court, which maintains the roll of names of the state's barristers, to obtain an order to strike off Ms Gobbo's name.

In a statement the board said: "We can't comment further while this matter is before the court".
Like the late Frankie Titter ye not Howerd, Al Pub Landlord Murray and Roy Chubby Brown, Boris Prime Minister Johnson is a turn that really only thrives with a live audience. The prime minister of mirth, as he admitted during his virtual speech to the Conservative Party conference, feels at his best when he has an audience to play off. In such a setting, the prime minister can get his timing right, judge his mock fluffs and the length of a pause, and deliver such carefully crafted laugh lines as Captain Hindsight and his regiment of pot-shot, snipeshot fusiliers.

It was once remarked that Michael Heseltine, a party favourite of a previous age, was the only man who knew how to find the G-spot of the Conservative Party conference; Johnson is one very few to be able to tickle its funny bone. Yet success in either endeavour requires the recipient of such attentions to be present. Alas, a word the prime minister has turned into a bit of a catchphrase, he must play to an empty house.
The in Maharashtra on



Wednesday requested Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh to investigate what it called a "BJP-driven social media terrorism" aimed at defaming the state government and police in connection with actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death case.

Leaders of the ruling Shiv Sena, NCP and have stepped up their attack on the since an AIIMS medical panel ruled out "murder" in Rajput's death, which is currently probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

After a delegation of leaders called on the police commissioner, state Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said they have been assured of a probe into the allegations levelled by them.

The has dismissed the allegations as "wild and baseless".

"We met @CPMumbaiPolice with demand to probe the driven Social media terrorism - Conspiracy against our democracy, a methodology designed to defame opp govt's by creating narrative based on artificial public rage. Our team dug into Twitter terrorism & found out following facts," Sawant tweeted.

He alleged that "thousands" of Twitter accounts were opened after Rajput's death in June this year "just to run a campaign against Mumbai Police and the state government".

Sawant said these accounts tweeted and retweeted hashtags suggesting that Rajput was killed.

"The behavioural pattern of these twitter handles, history of their tweets and frequency of their retweets suggest that it was a well-thought planned conspiracy against the Maharashtra government," he alleged.

The Congress spokesperson further claimed that some professional agencies were specifically hired to malign the image of the Mumbai police and the state government.

He said the Congress had submitted the name of one such agency to the police.

"The target of this campaign was to paint a picture that the Mumbai Police is trying to push the matter under the carpet as the CM is desperate to save his son," he added.

Hitting back, Maharashtra BJP chief spokesperson Keshav Upadhye said, "the Congress and Sawant have the habit of making wild and baseless allegations..let the matter be probed".

Taking a dig, he said instead of making "baseless" allegations, the ruling party should focus on the deteriorating law and order situation in the state including the safety of women.

On Tuesday, Maharashtra Home Minister and NCP leader Anil Deshmukh said the state cyber department will probe who defamed the state in connection with the Rajput's death case on the social media.

He had also told reporters that a US-based university's study in connection with the case revealed "BJP hand in hyping the conspiracy theory".

(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.)
Gene Hamilton, a top lawyer and ally of Stephen Miller, the architect of the presidents assault on immigration, argued in a 32-page response that Justice Department officials merely took direction from the president. Mr. Hamilton cited an April 3, 2018, meeting with Mr. Sessions; the homeland security secretary at the time, Kirstjen Nielsen; and others in which the president ranted and was on a tirade, demanding as many prosecutions as possible.

Mr. Hamilton declined to comment for this article, as did Mr. Horowitzs office. Mr. Sessions did not respond to requests for comment. Alexa Vance, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, disputed the draft report and said the Homeland Security Department referred cases for prosecution.

The draft report relied on for this article contains numerous factual errors and inaccuracies, she said. While D.O.J. is responsible for the prosecutions of defendants, it had no role in tracking or providing custodial care to the children of defendants. Finally, both the timing and misleading content of this leak raise troubling questions about the motivations of those responsible for it.

The draft report also documented other revelations that had not previously been known:

Government prosecutors reacted with alarm at the separation of children from their parents during a secret 2017 pilot program along the Mexican border in Texas. We have now heard of us taking breastfeeding defendant moms away from their infants, one government prosecutor wrote to his superiors. I did not believe this until I looked at the duty log.

Border Patrol officers missed serious felony cases because they were stretched too thin by the zero-tolerance policy requiring them to detain and prosecute all of the misdemeanor illegal entry cases. One Texas prosecutor warned top Justice Department officials in 2018 that sex offenders were released as a result.

Senior Justice Department officials viewed the welfare of the children as the responsibility of other agencies and their duty as tracking the parents. I just dont see that as a D.O.J. equity, Mr. Rosenstein told the inspector general.

The failure to inform the U.S. Marshals Service before announcing the zero-tolerance policy led to serious overcrowding and budget overruns. The marshals were forced to cut back on serving warrants in other cases, saying that when you take away manpower, you cant make a safe arrest.

For two years, Ms. Nielsen has taken the brunt of the public criticism for separating migrant families because of her decision to refer adults crossing the border illegally with children for prosecution. A day after the presidents retreat, Mr. Sessions distanced his department from the decision, telling CBN News that we never really intended to separate children.

That was false, according to the draft report. It made clear that from the policys earliest days in a five-month test along the border in Texas, Justice Department officials understood  and encouraged  the separation of children as an expected part of the desire to prosecute all undocumented border crossers.

It is the hope that this separation will act as a deterrent to parents bringing their children into the harsh circumstances that are present when trying to enter the United States illegally, a Border Patrol official wrote on Oct. 28, 2017, to the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, according to the draft report.
In the states first pass at evaluating health equity during the coronavirus pandemic, four Bay Area counties did not meet the states new guidelines required to advance economic reopening, signaling ongoing disparities in infection rates within some of the regions disadvantaged communities.

But these results, released Tuesday, wont prevent some counties from moving forward with easing restrictions  and dont necessarily signify a lack of progress in these communities.

The states new health equity metric is one of three indicators California is using to determine when counties may advance reopening and roll back shelter-in-place restrictions, according to the states color-coded, tiered system for assessment.

Tuesdays report showed that four Bay Area counties  San Francisco, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Sonoma  are not meeting the metric goals required for moving forward with additional economic reopening.

But almost all of the Bay Areas nine counties show significant differences in the positive test rates for disadvantaged communities compared to each county overall. In several counties, the positive test rate for lower-income communities is more than double the rate for the rest of the county.

Todd Trumbull

Alameda, Santa Clara, Napa, Solano and Marin met the required equity metric Tuesday, though some did not necessarily meet the other two metrics, which measure overall positivity test rates and cases per 100,000 residents. Meanwhile, some counties met the equity metric but still show significant gaps in positive test rates.

The equity metric, which counties must meet in order to move forward with reopening, went into effect Tuesday. It relies largely on the positive test rate  the percentage of coronavirus tests that come back positive, which is widely used as an indicator for when its safe to ease restrictions and reopen a local economy. Higher positive test rates indicate the virus is spreading more quickly.

Under the metric, each county must ensure that positive test rates in its most disadvantaged neighborhoods do not significantly lag behind the countys overall positive rate. For a county to advance to a less-restrictive tier, the disadvantaged neighborhoods  measured by a variety of social, health and economic factors  must come within 5% of the overall positive test rate required for that tier.

State health officials claimed Tuesday that California is the first in the nation believed to implement a health equity metric to track the virus in underserved communities.

Were incentivizing counties to reduce their infections across every neighborhood, so the counties with the lowest disparities, or the least differences, are going to be able to move more quickly through the color tiers, said Dr. Erica Pan, the states health officer, during a press conference Tuesday. The counties that are not addressing yet those disparities, or not quite reaching the lower test positivity in the areas that have the most disadvantaged communities, are going to move slower through the colored tiers.

San Francisco  which is in the states orange tier  is close to meeting the equity metric.

We have made and continue to make significant investments in an equitable emergency response, including being one of the first cities in the nation to offer free low barrier testing, free isolation and quarantine accommodations, an aggressive outbreak management program for vulnerable communities, and mobile community testing that brings testing to neighborhoods with the highest rates of COVID-19, among others, San Franciscos COVID Command Center said in a statement Tuesday.

The metric aims to ensure that communities of color no longer bear the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic  a stark pattern that has persisted in the Bay Area and beyond since March. Coronavirus cases and deaths remain highest among Latino, Black and Indigenous communities.

We want all of our businesses and our communities to come together and realize that it is so important, both to address the disparities and interrupt disease transmission and address this pandemic head on, Pan said. We have to prioritize our interventions to the communities where we are seeing the most disease.

Contra Costa County Health Services said Tuesday it welcomes the states new metric as it reinforces work weve already begun. Testing positivity rates in the countys disadvantaged populations reached an estimated 6.8%, compared with the countys overall 3.3% testing rate.

We believe its critical to do as much as we can to help reduce the burden of COVID on historically marginalized communities, a county spokesman said, in a statement. Health disparities in any one part of the community affect us all.

In San Mateo County, the positivity rate for vulnerable communities is 5.3%, compared with an overall county positivity of 2.6%, the county said.

The countys health chief, Louise Rogers, said the equity metric, reinforces our need to double down on the strategies we have already prioritized in San Mateo County to protect lower-income residents and populations of color who face greater exposure and risk.

We see that exposure and risk not only stemming from overcrowded housing but from being frontline workers whose work involves regular close contact with others, such as food services, custodial/maintenance, caregiving, and who cannot afford to isolate when they have been exposed, Rogers continued. There are deep, underlying socioeconomic factors that drive the disparate impacts of the virus and wont be solved quickly.

Sonoma County Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase said Tuesday the county is focused on targeted testing, contact tracing and bilingual outreach for its most affected communities, which has shown success, including a nearly 25% reduction in the disparity in case rate between Latinx and non-Latinx residents. Our community still has work to do to address health disparities. The new health equity measure will help us achieve this goal.

Local leaders have expressed mixed feelings about the equity measurement, with some saying it holds counties to unrealistic standards.

One official said its inadequate and unfair. Yet others said that even if its not a perfect solution, they understood the value in tracking the disparate impact of the pandemic on some communities, and especially people of color.

Meanwhile, there was no movement for the Bay Areas nine counties among the states four-color, tiered blueprint for a safer economy Tuesday afternoon, according to Dr. Mark Ghaly, the secretary of Californias Health and Human Services Agency.

Merced, Ventura and Yuba counties advanced from the states most restricted tier of purple into red, Inyo County advanced to orange, and Humboldt, Plumas, Siskiyou and Trinity counties moved to the yellow tier, which is considered minimal risk for spreading the coronavirus.

Tehama and Shasta counties were the first two counties to slide backward since Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled the new plan Aug. 28. Tehama dropped back to the most-restrictive purple tier, and Shasta dropped to the second-worst red tier.

Humboldt was the only county that moved quicker through the tier system because of the health equity metric, and no counties failed to move forward based solely on the new metric, Pan said.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Erin Allday and Rusty Simmons contributed to this report.

Tatiana Sanchez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tatiana.sanchez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TatianaYSanchez.
The National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) as part of its mandate to support private businesses to recover from the effects of COVID-19 is organizing an Entrepreneurship, Business Management and Financial Literacy training for Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) that received financial support under the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme Business Support Scheme (CAP BuSS) across the country.



The event which has been running since Monday,28th September 2020 targets about 8,100 beneficiaries of the Scheme. It is expected that the training exercise will end on Saturday, October 31, 2020.



The ongoing training programme includes financial management, bookkeeping, basic accounting and formalization of businesses. It is hoped that these topics will contribute positively to the agenda of NBSSI to push for the formalization of MSMEs in Ghana. The training programmes are being facilitated by representatives of NBSSI and professionals with experience in financial literacy and business formalization.



The initiative forms part of the technical support aspect of the Scheme being implemented by the NBSSI to assist beneficiaries of the CAP BuSS initiative to equip them with additional skills and knowledge to grow and sustain their business.



Since the inception of the Scheme, NBSSI made it known that the Scheme will not only focus on providing financial support to these beneficiaries but will be equally dedicated to ensuring that beneficiaries utilize the funds well in order to grow and sustain their businesses which will motivate repayment. The NBSSI has also indicated that its 185 offices are opened to assist MSMEs all year round.



While at it, the NBSSI has taken into consideration the necessary COVID-19 health protocols to ensure that participants are safe. Provision has been made for Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) including hand sanitizers, soaps, nose masks, water and veronica buckets. Social distancing is also being observed.







Why the CAP BuSS was set up



The CAP BuSS was instituted by the President, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to provide support to MSMEs negatively impacted by the Coronavirus Pandemic.



In Ghana, MSMEs account for 92% of businesses and contribute to about 70% of Gross Domestic Product (ISSER, University of Ghana, 2015). Undoubtedly, MSMEs are the pulse of the Ghanaian economy. It is these businesses that keep the lights on in Ghana.



Currently, about 237,518 MSMEs have received disbursements from the Scheme. Beneficiaries include businesses in the manufacturing, health care and pharmaceutical, water and sanitation, textiles and garments, education and hospitality sectors.





Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Walmart Inc. must disclose some internal files related to alleged mishandling of opioid painkillers sold through the companys in-store pharmacies, after a judge ruled in favor of investors who claim directors failed in their oversight.

Two pension funds quite clearly have a credible basis to probe whether board members wrongfully turned a blind eye to excessively large sales of the highly addictive medicines, Delaware Chancery Judge Travis Laster ruled Monday. Walmart must turn over board discussions about opioid issues stretching back to 2010.

I dont think this is a close call, Laster said during a video hearing. I dont think you can say with a straight face there isnt any evidence of wrongdoing.

States and local governments are suing numerous drug makers, distributors and pharmacies over the U.S. opioid epidemic, including Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart. The retailer faces a November trial in Ohio in which municipalities will seek billions in damages for alleged failures to recognize red flags about heavily repeated sales of the painkillers.

Randy Hargrove, a Walmart spokesman, rejected claims that the companys board members or executives fumbled their handling of opioid issues. Walmart takes its responsibility to shareholders seriously, Hargrove said in an emailed statement. We continue to believe that the evidence will show neither Walmart nor its board engaged in any misconduct.

The funds, which own Walmart shares, contend in court filings that some of the chains executives ensured a steady stream of the painkillers to doctor-run pill mills that routinely wrote hundreds of prescriptions for opioid painkillers. To support their claims, the investors cite evidence that emerged in the opioid cases consolidated before a federal judge in Cleveland, as well as media reports.

Enforcement Action

When the federal government moved to investigate and then prosecute Walmart, the retailer used its political clout to thwart any such enforcement action, causing career public servants to quit their jobs in frustration and disgust, the funds alleged.

David Wales, a lawyer for the funds, told the judge during the hearing Monday that the plaintiffs are seeking the internal files to get a better handle on the boards oversight of opioid distribution. The company agreed with the federal government in 2010 to beef up monitoring of sales of the highly addictive pills.

Still, the company failed to keep an eye on excessively large opioid sales within its 2,700 in-store pharmacies, Wales said. The investigation would focus on whether Walmart lived up to its agreement with the government, he added.

The judge overseeing the consolidated opioid claims against Walmart and other pharmacy chains rejected the companies bid to have the suits thrown out, saying there was enough evidence of lax oversight to raise questions about Walmarts liability, Wales said.

For example, in a January ruling, the judge in Cleveland said Walmart started flagging excessive opioid orders in 2011, but that didnt stop them from being shipped. Its unclear what, if any, due diligence was done on these flagged orders, the judge said. It appears Walmart simply shipped the flagged orders and didnt report them to federal regulators, according to the decision.

David MacIssac, another lawyer for the funds, said Walmart never disclosed that a federal prosecutor threatened to indict the company for its sloppy handling of opioids, which could lead to more than $1 billion in fines. Shareholders and plaintiffs in the other cases are being left in the dark on these issues despite Delaware and federal requirements to disclose this information, MacIssac told Laster, according to a transcript of the hearing.

No Evidence

Ray Dicamillo, one of Walmarts lawyers, told the judge Monday the funds have no evidence directors were involved in the opioid issue and sales of the painkillers was a minuscule part of the chains business. He said the health and wellness unit  which sells opioids and many other prescription drugs but also medical and health care products, eye-care services and over-the-counter medications  generates about 8% of the retailers revenues, according to a transcript of the hearing.

Whats missing is a direct link to board members or senior executives in connection with the alleged wrongdoing, Dicamillo said.

Sean Berkowitz, a former Enron prosecutor who is now part of Walmarts defense team, derided part of the funds document requests as amounting to a fishing expedition.

Laster has a track record of making opioid companies turn over internal files to investors who want to know if corporate directors engaged in wrongdoing. In January, he directed AmeriSourceBergen Corp., one of the largest U.S. drug distributors, to disclose files about its handling of the painkillers to investors.

The Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania-based company is accused of turning a blind eye to excessive opioid orders to rack up billions in profits. AmeriSourceBergen has appealed Lasters ruling to the Delaware Supreme Court.

Walmart has been expanding health-care services this year, introducing low-cost clinics in Georgia, Arkansas and Texas where checkups are just $30. While the retailer hasnt said how many it plans to open, the clinics could bolster services at its 4,750 stores across the U.S. that millions of Americans visit each week.

The Walmart cases are Norfolk County Retirement System v. Walmart Inc., 2020-0482, and Police and Fire Retirement System of Detroit v. Walmart Inc., 2020-0478, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington)

With assistance from Leslie Patton.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
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Linkedin Marchio Irfan Gorbiano and Nina A. Loasana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7 2020

The passage of the controversial omnibus bill on job creation on Monday in a House of Representatives plenary session has been met with widespread opposition from labor groups and civil society organizations, despite the risk of coronavirus transmission and the threat of a crackdown from the National Police.

The Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions (KSPI) had said that around 2 million workers representing 32 labor unions would take part in mass rallies to express their opposition to the passage of the omnibus bill across Indonesia.

As of today, we ask the permission [of the authorities and factory owners] for these three days to use our constitutional right [to express] our strong rejection of the passage of the job creation bill, KSPI president Said Iqbal told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

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These are the destinations where most private jet charters are flying to

The jet set is flying for business and pleasure

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc across the world. Among the industries that have been brutally hit, the aviation sector has been among the worst. Even so, the private aviation segment has seen an unprecedented rise in enquiries and demand. For the HNIs in India, private charters are the way to travel in the coming months, and likely even years. The rise of private charters may also be linked with the forecasted K-shaped recovery of the Indian economy. It is safe to say, for now, that private charters are here to stay.

One of the reasons why most people in India prefer private charters is because they provide far fewer touch points compared to flying commercial. The advantage of flying at a time that is convenient to you, with lesser or no stops and with a group of people that you possibly know is just a bonus.

Related read: Check out Akshay Kumars private jet

Then there are group charter flights, which have fixed routes and a fixed number of people which they fly on those routes. Just think of these as carpools that involve a set of people heading to the same destination. According to Kanika Tekriwal, the CEO of JetSetGo, more people have been enquiring about private jet availability than ever before. According to her the number of requests have gone up nine times or 900 per cent since the lockdown began.

For most part, private jet usage is for work. The demand goes up most during a state or general election when political leaders have to fly across the country to make it to rallies in time. But with rallies being banned or restricted anyway, there has been a drop in that demand. The other reason why people fly private is when their company is footing the bill, which is to say, for business. You want to get your employee to your clients office in a short time, you fly them private. But Tekriwal has seen the rise of a new trend.

Story continues

According to Tekriwal, the most number of charter flights have been originating from the five metros: Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad and people are mostly flying to Dubai, Maldives, Thailand, Geneva, and London.

Dubai

Dubai had opened its borders to foreign tourists on June 7 itself. The emirate has been the playground of the rich and famous so it isnt surprising that it features among the destinations for private charter flights. It also helps that a lot of HNIs have a home in Dubai so why not fly and live in a different country if you have the opportunity, right?

Maldives

Maldives paradise beach.

The Maldives has been welcoming tourists as early as July. To make things easier for foreign tourists, the Maldives isnt just skipping the COVID-19 testing, it is also not insisting on self-quarantining or declaring your health status. Which may be tad scary, but if youre flying private, would it even matter?

Thailand

Thailand, Krabi province, Railay beach, Hat Tham Phra Nang beach

Thailand too has opened its borders to foreign tourists. Not just that, it is taking things a step forward by introducing a 90-day, long-term visa for travellers with an option of renewing it twice. Which means you can stay in Thailand for as many as nine months. Unlike the Maldives, though, you will have to self-quarantine for 14 days and show that you have a booking for the entire duration of your stay.

Geneva, Switzerland

Aerial view of Leman lake - Geneva city in Switzerland

According to rules, tourists arriving in Switzerland from select countries are required to go into quarantine the moment they arrive in Switzerland. India is one of the countries in the list. Having a negative test result doesnt exempt you from quarantine and you will be required to stay indoors for ten days upon your arrival. Though, if youre flying private to Geneva, its safe to say you will likely be quarantining in luxury.

London, England

There were already two airlines that have begun operations from Mumbai and Delhi to London. Following the footsteps of Vistara and Air India, low-cost airline Spice Jet is beginning its flights to London starting this December. We get the allure of London in Christmas. And even despite the coronavirus, its quite unlikely that the city wont be everything youve dreamt of this Christmas. But you dont have to wait for December to fly to London if youre flying private. Several HNIs are already flying the coop and parking themselves in the British capital. We would do the same too, if we had the choice. Wouldnt you?

What to read after this?
New Delhi: A day before the 88th-anniversary celebration, the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Wednesday (October 7, 2020) has released a song on their social media platforms to cheer up everyone.

The 1:39 minute-long clip shows IAF's air warriors in action ahead of the Air Force Day parade on October 8.

The IAF tweeted the video and captioned it in Hindi that roughly meant, "Symbol of patriotism, valour, sacrifice, strength and courage - the air warriors of the Indian Air Force."



Earlier, IAF had posted a 6:08 minute promo video that showed their momentous journey of eighty-eight years.

"Indian Air Force is ever ready to INNOVATE, INTEGRATE & INTIMIDATE," they said.

#AFDay2020

A momentous journey of Eighty Eight Years. Indian Air Force is ever ready to INNOVATE , INTEGRATE & INTIMIDATE. Promo video of IAF on the occasion of 88th Anniversary. Jai Hind! pic.twitter.com/8hFIzCqpdb  Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) October 5, 2020

Meanwhile, this will be the first Air Force Day celebration amid India-China border tension at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and will be the perfect opportunity to show Indian air defence strength.

Also read | IAF's frontline war machines Rafale, Sukhoi-30 MKI, Apache, Tejas, Gajraj to showcase its firepower on IAF Day 2020

Notably, the Rafale fighter aircraft that was formally inducted into IAF's famous 17 Squadron, the 'Golden Arrows', at the Ambala airbase in Haryana on September 10, is all set to make its Air Force Day parade debut.

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.

Live TV
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Hundreds of pro-Armenian protesters gathered outside the Los Angeles Times building in El Segundo Tuesday evening, prompting police to close nearby streets, CBS Los Angeles reports.

The protesters appeared to have parked their vehicles on the eastbound lanes of Imperial Highway and took over the street in front of the building with police ensuring the group was not trying to get onto the freeway like another group did over the weekend.

Demonstrators said they were holding a peaceful protest calling for fair coverage on Azerbaijans aggression toward Artsakh and Armenia.

The protest began at about 4 p.m. and continued late into the night.
An airline passenger is accused of sexually assaulting a sleeping 18-year-old on a plane, authorities say.

Ian Wagner, 38, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, is charged with sexual assault and indecent exposure during a Frontier Airlines flight from Indiana to Colorado in 2017, according to an FBI news release Wednesday. He was arrested Sunday.

Wagner is accused of touching the inner thigh of the teen while she slept. The FBI says she was incapable of appraising the nature of the conduct and physically incapable of declining participation in, and communicating an unwillingness to engage in, the sexual contact.

Wagner is also accused of exposing himself and masturbating on the plane, according to court documents.

Wagner could be sentenced to three years in prison if convicted. Hes being charged in Nebraska federal court because the airplane was in flight over the state at the time of the sexual assault, authorities say.

Crimes aboard aircraft fall within the FBIs jurisdiction, and in the case of in-flight sexual assaults, usually take the form of unwanted touching, the news release says.

Playing Baby Shark on repeat as punishment gets jailers charged, Oklahoma DA says
University of Arizona Cancer Center's Dr. Daniel Persky led a study that found many patients with the most common non-Hodgkin's lymphoma type, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), can safely skip radiation and receive fewer chemotherapy treatments.

TUCSON, Ariz. - Skipping radiation and receiving less chemotherapy may become the new standard of care for some lymphoma patients, according to a recent collaborative study led by a Daniel Persky, MD, associate director for clinical investigations at the UArizona Cancer Center, principal investigator of its Lymphoma Clinical Research Team, and professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the UArizona College of Medicine - Tucson.

The study aimed to improve treatment for patients with Stage I or II (limited stage) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the most common type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in the United States. Non-Hodgkin's lymphomas are cancers of lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that helps protect the body from infection and disease. The disorder accounts for almost 40% of non-Hodgkin's diagnoses and is usually a fast-spreading cancer, but one that is potentially curable.

In some cases, DLBCL can be treated with a chemotherapy combination of drugs known as R-CHOP. This combination consists of five drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - rituximab (R) plus cyclophosphamide (C), hydroxydaunomycin (H), oncovin (O) and prednisone (P). Patients then undergo three cycles of the chemotherapy followed by radiation, or complete six cycles without radiation.

In the new study published in July in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, research suggests radiation is not needed for many patients. Instead, it suggests using a positron emission tomography (PET) scan after three cycles of R-CHOP. If the patient's scan is negative, they can proceed with one additional round of R-CHOP to complete their treatment.

Dr. Persky was the lead investigator for the study conducted by the SWOG Research Network, a cancer clinical trials network funded by the National Cancer Institute. Results showed that 91% of people who received no radiation were alive five years after treatment, and 89% were cancer-free.

The study is promising for reducing unintended harmful effects that can be caused by radiation and chemotherapy, such as R-CHOP, in patients. These effects are particularly concerning for older patients who may be suffering from, or at risk of, other health conditions as they age. Therefore, reducing the toxicity of their cancer treatments can have significant health benefits and improve their quality of life.

"We serve this population, and tolerance to the treatment is important to them," Dr. Persky said. "It is much easier to get an older patient through four cycles of R-CHOP than it is through six."

"This is very significant for many of our patients at the UArizona Cancer Center," said Joann Sweasy, PhD, the Nancy C. and Craig M. Berge Endowed Chair and UArizona Cancer Center director. "I congratulate Dr. Persky on leading this high impact clinical research study."

In the study, patients with a positive PET scan did not proceed with additional rounds of R-CHOP. Instead, they underwent radiation therapy and a booster treatment in areas where the scans showed rapidly growing cancer cells. These patients then received treatment with a radioimmunotherapy drug, ibritumomab tiuxetan, that is not yet FDA approved for DLBCL, but is approved in other types of lymphoma.

"The interim PET positive group were those at greater risk of relapse or recurrence of their cancer," Dr. Persky said. "This group also did really well in the study."

The findings may be significant for patients diagnosed with this disease in the future.

"This can be the new standard of care for limited stage DLBCL patients," Dr. Persky said. "Many patients can forgo radiation and receive less chemotherapy while still getting excellent results."

###

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Cancer Institute, a unit of the NIH, under Award Nos. U10-CA180821, U10-CA180888, U10-CA180819, U10-CA180820 and U24-CA180803.

NOTE:

Photos available here - https://arizona.box.com/s/0l7upzmxmgu282xwps41jow6jkcoxr0c.

Media Contact:

Blair Willis

520-626-0331

bmw23@arizona.edu

About the University of Arizona Cancer Center

The University of Arizona Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center with headquarters in Arizona. The UArizona Cancer Center is supported by NCI Cancer Center Support Grant No. CA023074. With primary locations at the University of Arizona in Tucson and at Dignity Health St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, the UArizona Cancer Center has more than a dozen research and education offices throughout the state, with more than 300 physicians and scientists working together to prevent and cure cancer. For more information: cancercenter.arizona.edu (Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | YouTube).

About the University of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson

The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson is shaping the future of medicine through state-of-the-art medical education programs, groundbreaking research and advancements in patient care in Arizona and beyond. Founded in 1967, the college boasts more than 50 years of innovation, ranking among the top medical schools in the nation for research and primary care. Through the university's partnership with Banner Health, one of the largest nonprofit health-care systems in the country, the college is leading the way in academic medicine. For more information, visit medicine.arizona.edu (Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn).

About the University of Arizona Health Sciences

The University of Arizona Health Sciences is the statewide leader in biomedical research and health professions training. The UArizona Health Sciences includes the Colleges of Medicine (Tucson and Phoenix), Nursing, Pharmacy, and the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, with main campus locations in Tucson and the growing Phoenix Biomedical Campus in downtown Phoenix. From these vantage points, the Health Sciences reaches across the state of Arizona and the greater Southwest to provide cutting-edge health education, research and community outreach services. A major economic engine, the Health Sciences employs nearly 5,000 people, has approximately 4,000 students and 900 faculty members, and garners $200 million in research grants and contracts annually. For more information: uahs.arizona.edu (Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | LinkedIn | Instagram).
Gurugram, Oct 7 : Three sharpshooters of notorious gangster Sube Gurjar, who were nabbed by the Gurugram Police from Sohna after a brief exchange of fire, have disclosed shocking details during their interrogation.

According to the police, 32-year-old Kamal alias Kamali, a resident of Bada village in Gurugram and a father of two, used to run a private school bus some three years ago.

Kamal is the cousin of Rajesh alias Fauji who was also apprehended on Tuesday by the Gurugram Police.

"Kamal had joined the Sube gang three years back and had committed two murders on the directions of Sube and Rajesh. He was a silent shooter of the Sube gang and the other gang members did not even know of him. Kamal used to commit the crime at the behest of Sube and Rajesh and used to follow their orders," a senior police officer said on Wednesday.

The official added that Kamal had entered the crime world just to earn some quick money.

Meanwhile, another gang member, Aman from Ludhiana district in Punjab, used to live in Hans Enclave but was currently residing in Tata Prevanti EWS flat in Gurugram for about six months.

He had studied till Class XII and used to sell illicit liquor to Rajesh.

Rajesh encouraged him to earn some quick bucks and told him about the Sube gang.

"Apart from Sube and Rajesh, no member of the gang knew about him. He was also a silent sharpshooter for the gang. Aman was involved in a firing incident in Rewari. He was about to carry out a murder in Sohna along with his arrested companions," the officer said.

Rajesh Kumar alias Fauji (38), the father of three children and a resident of Badha village in Gurugram, currently resides in Rajiv Colony in Naharpur Rupa village.

According to the police, Rajesh was the most trusted aide of Sube. He used to keep an eye on all the activities of the gang in Gurugram.

The police have registered around 18 cases against him, including 5 murder cases.

Sube Gurjar is a notorious criminal from Haryana who carries Rs 5 lakh bounty on his head.
A man accused of sexually assaulting a young girl in Plainfield about two years ago was arrested by U.S. Marshals in Nashville, Tennessee, acting Union County Prosecutor Lyndsay Ruotolo announced Wednesday.

Jose A. Donis, 53, was arrested Tuesday after he was charged in June with second-degree sexual assault of a child under the age of 13 and third-degree endangering the welfare of a child. He remained at large until investigators received a tip and arrested him, authorities said.

The alleged sexual abuse took place from early June to late September 2018 and Donis rented a room in the building where the child lived, said Union County Assistant Prosecutor Kathleen Dillon. His last known address was on the 900 block of West Third St. in Plainfield, authorities said.

Donis will remain in custody in Tennessee pending extradition to New Jersey.

Yesterdays arrest was the culmination of outstanding investigative work into terrible crimes against a young child, as well as a relentless effort to bring a dangerous predator to justice, Ruotolo said. This result reflects the remarkable resolve of our investigative staff and the federal authorities assisting them.

The Plainfield Police Division and the Prosecutors Offices Special Victims Unit (SVU) led the investigation.

Anyone with additional information about the activities of this defendant is still urged to contact SVU Detective Claudia Diez at 908-868-0391 or Sgt. Sofia Santos 908-577-4256. Tips can also be submitted anonymously by phone at 908-654-TIPS (8477) or online at www.uctip.org.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.
Danish starchitect Bjarke Ingels is famed for his mind-blowingly innovative buildings: a ski slope cheekily set atop the Copenhill waste-to-energy plant; a joyful pile of primary-color blocks for the Danish LEGO museum; NYCs new the XI, two towers that gracefully lean toward each other in an unlikely spiral; Urban Rigger, a 2016 floating Copenhagen complex designed to address a student-housing shortage.

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Given Ingelss vivid imagination, I was intrigued when my colleague Sam Cochran, ADs Features Director and resident architect whisperer, informed me that Ingels and his Spanish life partner, Rut Otero (also an architect), and their son, Darwin, live in the Copenhagen harbor on a houseboat. But no conventional life aquatic: The couples sleek, futuristic home base is a decommissioned ferryboat that Ingels has completely tricked out with sliding window walls, a glass-enclosed pavilion for the main bedroom and its Japanese-inspired bath, and a gleaming white hull (seen above) that resembles a spaceship.

Courtesy of BIDN/AD

Ingels has long been a booster of floating housing, calling it the most resilient architecture. As sea levels rise, so will houseboats. The ship he and Otero call home gave him the chance to fully practice what he preaches, and although it looks picture-perfect in ADs shoot, transforming the hulking vessel into an actual family home was, reveals Cochran in his fascinating story, a renovation feat involving grueling months without heat or running water. People had warned me that living on a houseboat was simultaneously the best and worst thing, Ingels recalls. All aboard!

AMY ASTLEY, Editor in Chief

Instagram: @amyastley

Miguel Flores-Vianna

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
As we approach the end of our tenth week of the stage four lockdown, its news to no Victorian that our state has been particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic collapse.

Lockdown bites: An empty Flinders Lane. Credit:Getty

After years in which Victoria led the nation on economic growth and job creation, this recession has slammed into the local economy harder than that of any other state, and not just because of the second outbreak of the virus mid-year. Victoria is disproportionately exposed to service industries that have been shut down during the pandemic, and to population growth through immigration, which is on hold for the foreseeable future.

Victorians had a lot riding on the federal budget handed down on Tuesday evening but, in many respects, its core measures are designed to support the economy that existed during the last recession three decades ago, rather than the one in need of reconstruction today.
Kigali  Burundi has requested Rwanda to deport 19 combatants arrested on Kigali's territory, a situation that could test the fragile relations between the two neighbours.

Rwanda said the fighters, who identified themselves as members of the "Red Tabara", crossed into its territory on September 29, armed with guns, and were apprehended in Nyungwe Forest.

Rwanda's military informed the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism (EJVM), a conflict monitoring team for the region, and invited it to investigate the cross-border incident.

On Sunday, the Burundian government issued a statement demanding their extradition, noting that they are "a group of armed bandits" that uses Rwanda as a hiding base to commit crimes in Burundi.

"A group of armed bandits from the Rwimbogo sector in Rwanda attacked two households and killed a 30-year-old man in Kayanza Province in Burundi.

"In pursuit by law enforcement, the group retreated to the hill from where it had come to Rwanda, taking with it seven goats stolen from the attacked households," the statement reads.

Direct return

Burundi called on Rwanda to return the [suspected] criminals to it "without passing directly through other mechanisms, just as Burundi has always done in cases when Rwandan criminals are arrested in Burundi, so that they may be held accountable to justice".

It added: "The government once again condemns this heinous act and welcomes the results of the exchange of information with the Rwandan local security forces, at the request of the Burundian security forces, which have made it possible to locate and track the movements of these criminals in their places of withdrawal."

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On Monday, officials from the regional military framework, the Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism (EJVM), travelled to Nyaruguru District in the southern province, where the group is being detained, to investigate the cross border incident.

The team was briefed by RDF area commander, Major Alex Nkuranga, who narrated how the group was intercepted and arrested.

Longstanding tensions

Rwanda and Burundi have, over the years, traded accusations related to support of rebels opposed to their governments.

In a move aimed at quelling tensions, military officials from both countries met publicly in August, for the first time in five years, to discuss and find common ground on the longstanding tensions that have affected security, trade and movement along their border.

At the meeting, the countries negotiated a path towards enforcing security at their common border but no pact was signed.

Groups of Burundian refugees have also been voluntarily returning home over the last couple of weeks, and the UNHCR says many more are registering to return after a resumption to peace in their home country.
OTTAWA, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global active pharmaceutical ingredient market size was estimated around US$ 168.87 billion in 2019 and expected to reach over US$ 285.5 billion by 2027. View Full Report@ https://www.precedenceresearch.com/active-pharmaceutical-ingredient-market



Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) is the portion of drug that generates intentional effects. APIs are biologically and chemically active constituents of medicines with direct effect in mitigation, prevention, cure and treatment of diseases. Some of the medicines like combination therapies have many active ingredients to treat diverse symptoms or perform in numerous ways. Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient has active ingredient that is contained in medicine. For illustration, an active ingredient to reduce pain is incorporated in a painkiller. A slight amount of the active ingredient has result thus only small part of the active ingredient is confined in medicine.

Companies use certain principles to regulate strength of the API in all drugs. Nevertheless, these standards may vary extensively from one brand to other. Every brand may employ diverse test methods that may result in dissimilar potencies. Although many pharmaceutical firms are located in the U.S. and England, numerous API manufacturers are also located overseas. The biggest are situated in Asia Pacific, predominantly in India and China. Increasing numbers of organizations are outsourcing to curtail costs on employees, costly equipment, and infrastructure.

Get the Sample Pages of Report for More Understanding@ https://www.precedenceresearch.com/sample/1035

Growth Factors

Continuously growing prevalence of chronic illness, escalating significance of generics, and the cumulative uptake of biopharmaceuticals are some of the prime factors stimulating the growth of the active pharmaceutical ingredient market globally. Alternatively, the critical drug price control policies in numerous nations and the swelling diffusion of counterfeit drugs may hamper the growth of API market in these nations during next few years. As per, 2017 NCBI article on a survey directed in a tertiary hospital in Japan, about 339 bacteremia UTI cases were identified. Thus, escalating occurrence of such infectious sickness and hospital-acquired contaminations are projected to stimulate growth of API market in the nearby future.

Some of the prime factors spurring the growth of the market are increasing occurrences of cardiovascular, oncology, lifestyle and diabetes diseases, intensifying number of diagnostic centers and hospitals and escalating elderly population in emerging countries. Furthermore, cumulative healthcare spending, growing disease responsiveness and education are propelling the growth of the market. Conversely, a shortage of accomplished workforce and inadequate accessibility of drugs in the emerging nations are hampering the growth of the market in these regions.

Report Highlights

Some of the tactical initiatives commenced by many business players to sustain stability in the market are biological products, new drugs launches, collaborations, acquisitions, and geographical expansion.

Oncology is projected to be the fastest-growing segment driven by developing pervasiveness of cancer and cumulative lifestyle-associated sicknesses.

In the event of outsourcing, APIs are subject to strict regulations and omission from the nation they are shipped to. For example, API manufacturing plants abroad still go via an scrutiny by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

API market has observed marvelous growth since last few decades due to augmented application of biologics and drugs in the treatment of diseases.

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Regional Snapshots

In 2019, North America conquered the global market on account of high economic development plus widespread technological innovations in the region. Snowballing pervasiveness of cancer and other lifestyle-related illnesses inspires R&D undertakings by crucial market participants, thus enhancing the growth of the market. Asia Pacific is anticipated to record fastest growth in the market throughout the estimate period. On account of obtainability of affordable labor, foremost corporations in the market are setting up API business plants in emerging nations such as India and China.

Key Players & Strategies

Numerous companies are concentrating on widespread R&D for the development of drugs explicit to novel biomarkers. There are several APIs in the market for tumor treatment like Imatinib by Novartis and Trastuzumab, Bevacizumab, and Rituximab by Roche. Inorganic growth via acquisition and merger are some of the crucial tactics accepted by top business players since past few years. For example, Ranbaxy acquired Sun Pharmaceutical, to aid company appear as Indias uppermost drug manufacturer. Correspondingly, Hospira acquired API manufacturing facility and related R&D capacity of Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd. in July 2014.

Boehringer Ingelheim collaborated with Solve Care-an Estonian block-chain healthcare company to produce a Diabetes Care Administration Network In June 2019. The digital mode is intended at streamlining management tactics for patients with type 2 diabetes. This platform will allow patients to interconnect with healthcare suppliers, co-ordinate with specialists, comprehend their insurance, and access precise records.

Prominent players operating in this market are Pfizer, Inc., Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Mylan N.V., Novartis AG, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Actavisplc, BASF SE., Lonza Group AG, and Hospira Inc. among others.

Market Segmentation

By Type of Manufacturer

Merchant APIs

Captive APIs

By Type

Generic APIs

Innovative APIs

By Type of Synthesis

Biotech

Synthetic

By Application

Orthopedic

Pulmonology

Gastroenterology

Endocrinology

Cardiology

Oncology

CNS & Neurology

Nephrology

Ophthalmology

Others

By Regional Outlook

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Middle East & Africa

Latin America



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One of Dharavis biggest challenges in the past few months has been to sensitize the masses about the dangers of COVID-19. While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the state government have worked tirelessly to spread awareness, they have also relied heavily on community engagement for sensitizing the masses.

Currently, we are approaching every section of society to spread awareness about the virus. The reason Dharavi has seen a drop in the number of cases is because of community engagement. So we are tapping every resource of the community. Through NGOs we are also reaching out to the front section of the society," said Kiran Dighavkar, Assistant Commissioner of the G North ward, BMC.

Dharavi is not an enclosed zone, people step out for work from these slums every day and many come here to work as well, especially after we entered the unlock phase. Therefore, there is a possibility of a second wave of infection surfacing in this area and the only way to avert it is to make people aware of the safety measures like mandatory use of face masks, social distancing, use of hand sanitizers, etc," he added.

One such sensitization drive in Dharavi that has received praises from international organisations as well the local governing authorities. It is being organized by an NGO called Bhamla foundation, which has brought together a group of 180 maulvis and maulanas of the area to spread awareness about COVID-19 through religion. The Founder of Bhamla Foundation, Asif Bhamla told News18, The situation was very chaotic in the initial days of the pandemic since many people refused to follow social distancing norms, and roamed about freely. If our volunteers tried to educate them about the virus, they were dismissed. They would not even allow our volunteers to check their temperatures or oxygen levels."

Soon as we Approaching 175 days of intense ground work by volunteers #Ecochamps of @bhamlafoundatio an insight of #Dharavi Pattern which was ref by @WorldHealthOrg2 @DrTedros Im thankful to all for supporting the Nation in troubled times We pledge to continue with your blessings pic.twitter.com/UsLVwKyGbS Asif Bhamla (@Asifbhamlaa) September 13, 2020

Therefore, we thought of bringing the maulvis and maulanas of the area on board, because they are immensely respected among the community members. We thought that if the clerics were to talk about the preventive measures, perhaps it would resonate more with the masses," he added.

In the last 6 months, these Muslim clerics have made door-to-door visits to the houses in the area almost every day, in a bid to sensitize people, and there has been a distinctive behavioral change in how people react to COVID-19, said Bhamla. We asked senior maulvis, and maulanas to go on door-to-door visits in our vans and educate people. We realized if we explain things to them from a religious perspective, they would reckon that they should take precautions against COVID, and not jeopardizes their own lives, their families lives as well as the lives of the members of their community, since it is against their religion." said Bhamla.

One of the volunteers of the NGO, Sohail Khan explained, Our first task was to reach out to the maulanas and maulvis and get them onboard. Since the mosques were closed, we spoke to only three of them. But, once they were convinced, they brought more religious preachers of the area. Slowly, the group began to grow." A big challenge for the team was also to convince the elderly population, who were unwilling to comply with the rules and,more importantly, often refused to go to the quarantine centers when they were unwell.

The maulvis nudged them to go, and so they finally conceded. In centers where many Muslims were kept in quarantine, the NGO also arranged for the azaan to be read, so that the senior citizens did not feel secluded, even though they were away from their families.

Farooquie Sheikh, who heads the Jama Masjid, the biggest mosque of the area, told News18, Since the early days of lockdown, in every namaz, we explain to people how important it is to take proper precautions against COVID-19. We tell families to keep the kids at home. We keep a track of police guidelines, market timings, and we repeat those announcements so that people are well aware of them, and there isnt any confusion."

We also do door-to-door visits to explain the importance of social distancing. Dharavi is extremely populated, so we made it our prerogative to visit every house we can to spread the message," he added. Many maulvis and maulanas also carry photographs of the deceased during their visits so that people can see for themselves the havoc COVID-19 has wreaked on so many families. The maulvis also try to explain how this grave crisis has shut down holy places like Mecca and Medina, so Dharavi residents shouldnt complain about following precautions. They try to evoke nationalistic sentiments among the locals and tell them to follow precautions for the sake of their own country.

We are still doing the announcements. Our mosques are still not open. Few come to offer namaaz, as per social distancing norms, and then after the azaan, we dont allow anyone else to enter. By Gods grace, look at how the numbers in Dharavi have gone down," added Sheikh.

Meraj Husain, the CEO of Bhamla Foundation said, During this pandemic, three big festivals  Eid, Bakri Eid, and Muharram  also happened. Ramzan is one of the biggest Muslim festivals so the markets are usually full and big celebrations take place in the evening. But this year we were very concerned about public gathering and wanted to curb it as much as possible so that we can avoid the spread of coronavirus. So, we spoke to all the maulanas of the masjids, and they gave extensive guidelines about avoiding the usual festivities  not stepping out for celebrations or shopping, and instead repeatedly instructed people to celebrate with their loved ones in their homes. And, most people followed those instructions."
Delhi reported the highest number of new coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in five days on Wednesday, even as testing fell by over 2,000 from the previous day. The Capital added 2,871 new cases of the viral infection on Wednesday, pushing the positivity rate back over 5% after a single day dip.

Positivity rate is the fraction of samples that test positive among total tested and reflects the trends in ongoing transmission.

According to recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO), the positivity rate from a region that has a comprehensive testing programme should be at or below 5% for at least two weeks before it can be considered that the outbreak is under control in the region.

The positivity rate on Wednesday stood at 5.57%, an increase from 4.99% a day before  the first time in several months that the number fell below 5%.

Even though the number of new cases have declined from the peak of around 4,400 cases in mid-September, the city continues to report an average of 2,627 cases over the week. The number of tests, however, have gone down since then. In the 11 days between September 9 and 19, when the Capital added a daily average of 4,160 new cases, the city collected a daily average of 58,485 samples for Covid-19 tests. However, around 49,000 tests for detecting the infection were done during the last seven days, while over 54,600 were done the week before that.

The number of RT-PCR tests, considered the most accurate diagnosis of the infection, dropped marginally as well on Wednesday. In any case, the gold standard tests only account for 18% of the total tests. The rapid antigen tests that are widely used are cheap, easy to perform and give results within 15 minutes. However, they are more likely to throw false negatives.

On average 9,232 RT-PCR tests were performed over the last seven days as compared to an average of 10,203 a week before. The Delhi high court had rapped the government for not using its entire capacity of 14,000 RT-PCR tests a day.

The Delhi government had also communicated to the district authorities in the third week of September that there should be no lapse in testing every symptomatic person using the RT-PCR method. This came after they found data of 1,400 symptomatic people who were not checked using the more accurate test.

The RT-PCR test is more accurate and will be better reflective of the situation on the ground. If the number of cases are going up or down we will come to know if we are performing a lot of RT-PCR tests. The rapid antigen tests did help in scaling up, but there are set guidelines for where these tests should be done and that has to be adhered to, said Dr Lalit Kant, former head of the department of epidemiology and infectious diseases at ICMR.

The number of cases might have gone down for now, but there should be no laxity in control measures. This is because the cases of most respiratory illnesses go up during the winters  people are in close proximity within enclosed spaces increasing the risk of transmission. The immunity also goes down when there is a dip in temperature making people more susceptible to all kinds of infections, said Dr Neeraj Gupta, head of the department of pulmonary medicine at Safdarjung hospital.
G hislaine Maxwell has reportedly hired a lawyer who previously represented a "spokesman" for Osama bin Laden.

Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend hired New York lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, as she prepares for her her sex trafficking trial next year, reports the Mirror.

Papers filed at New Yorks Southern District Court and signed by Ms Sternehim, stated that she "hereby appears as counsel for defendant Ghislaine Maxwell", according to the site.

Ms Sternheim's most high profile client is Khaled al-Fawwaz, a lieutenant of the al-Qaeda chief. The terrorist was jailed for life in 2015 after being convicted of conspiracy for his role in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa that killed 224 people.

Al-Fawwaz, who lived in London, has been described as Bin Laden's spokesman in the UK's capital city.

At the time of his conviction, a statement from Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Al-Fawwaz had "played a critical role for al-Qaeda in its murderous conspiracy against America".

Ms Sternheim also represented Minh Quang Pham, a former London McDonalds worker who plotted a suicide bomb attack at Heathrow Airport.

Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to charges that she recruited three girls, including one who was 14, and joined Epstein in the abuse in the 1990s.

The 58-year-old socialite was arrested in July.
After almost 2 years of successfully selling their popular metal landscape edging online, Dakota Tin is now offering this product line as a wholesale option to retailers. Selling thousands of rolls of our landscape edging over the last 1  years has allowed us to improve on the product based on customer feedback, says Dakota Tin founder Ryan Rusher. Additionally, weve expanded our capabilities to handle large volumes of distribution of 
Major iPhone manufacturers for Apple have got the approval to manufacture products in India under a plan aimed at attracting investments of $143 billion or Rs 10.5 trillion. The approval comes for 16 companies for mobile-phone production over the next five years in the country.

 MensXP_Akshay Bhalla

Key suppliers like Foxconn, Wistron, Pegatron and Samsung Electronics were among a list of companies that were cleared by Indias Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. In the next five years, a total of 60% of the total production of Rs 6.5 trillion is expected to be exported to other nations.



 Wistron India

Ever since the heightened tensions between India and China, the former has been attempting to lure global companies to set up manufacturing plants in the country instead of relying on China. The initiative is a part of the Production Linked Incentive program, that plans to increase smartphone production with each subsequent year.



Apple and Samsung together account for nearly 60% of global sales revenue of mobile phones and this scheme is expected to increase their manufacturing base manifold in the country, the ministry said in a statement.

Industry has reposed its faith in Indias stellar progress as a world-class manufacturing destination and this resonates strongly with Prime Ministers clarion call of AtmaNirbhar Bharat  a self-reliant India, the ministry added.

Whats surprising is that major Chinese companies like Oppo, OnePlus, Realme, Xiaomi, Vivo are not part of the program as they had not applied for the initiative. Currently, Indias smartphone market is dominated by Chinese smartphone vendors, commanding 80% of the market share. This approval by the Ministry may just tip the scales towards companies like Samsung and Apple after the market has been long dominated by Chinese vendors. Samsung used to be the leader in the Indian smartphone market, however it swiftly lost its top position due to tough competition from Xiaomi and Vivo.

Other Indian companies such as Lava, Bhagwati (Micromax), Padget Electronics, UTL Neolyncs and Optiemus Electronics have also received the same approval.
President Trump is now free of coronavirus symptoms and appears to have developed antibodies to the virus, Trumps physician Sean Conley said on Wednesday.

The president revealed early Friday morning that he had tested positive for the illness, and was airlifted to the hospital that day after a drop in his blood oxygen levels forced physicians to administer supplemental oxygen. On Monday, doctors cleared the president to return to the White House, where he is currently recovering.

The president this morning says I feel great! His physical exam and vital signs, including oxygen saturation and respiratory rate, all remain stable and in normal range, Conley wrote in a memo to the White House. Hes now been fever-free for more than 4 days, symptom-free for over 24 hours, and has not needed nor received any supplemental oxygen since initial hospitalization.

Trump confirmed on Tuesday that he intends to participate in person at the upcoming presidential debate with Democratic rival Joe Biden. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, coronavirus patients generally cease to be contagious ten days after the complete dissipation of symptoms.

I am looking forward to the debate on the evening of Thursday, October 15th in Miami, Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. It will be great!

Biden told reporters on Tuesday night that the president should not debate if he still has coronavirus by the time of the debate.

I think if he still has COVID, we shouldnt have a debate, Biden said. Im not sure what President Trump is all about now, I dont know what his status is. Im looking forward to being able to debate him. But I just hope all the protocols are followed, whats necessary at the time.

More from National Review
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin poses for an undated booking photograph. (Minnesota Department of Corrections via Reuters)

Former Minneapolis Officer Charged in George Floyds Death Released From Jail

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was released from jail after posting $1 million bail, coming months after he was seen kneeling on the neck of George Floyd before his death, setting off nationwide riots and protests.

Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter in Floyds death. He was released from the Oak Park Heights jail, where he was being held since late May, said a Minnesota Department of Corrections spokesperson to Fox9.

The Hennepin County Sheriffs Office, in a notice of release (pdf) on Wednesday, said Chauvin was released after he paid a $1 million bond and is now required by law to appear in court in March 2021. A court document (pdf) showed that he paid the bond on Wednesday.

Following Floyds death on Memorial Day, Attorney General Keith Ellison announced charges against three other officers involved in Floyds death. Former officers Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao are all charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Chauvin can face up to 40 years in prison if he is convicted of second-degree murder.

The four officers were terminated from the department following Floyds death and the subsequent outcry.

George Floyd in a file photograph, left, and Derek Chauvin, who was arrested May 29, in the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, in a mugshot. (Christopher Harris via AP; Hennepin County Sheriff via AP)

Chauvins attorney and attorneys for the other officers have argued that Floyd had contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, and also had a high level of fentanyl in his system. The Hennepin County Medical Examiners office, days after Floyds death, confirmed (pdf) fentanyl intoxication contributed to Floyds death.

His cause of death was listed as cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression, while his manner of death was listed by the office as homicide.

In August, Earl Gray, the attorney for former officer Gray, filed a motion in court that alleged Floyd contributed to his own death by consuming a lethal dose of fentanyl, Fox9 in Minneapolis reported.

A police officer stands watch as a looted pawn shop burns behind them, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 28, 2020. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

All he had to do is sit in the police car, like every other defendant who is initially arrested. While attempting to avoid his arrest, all by himself, Mr. Floyd overdosed on Fentanyl, Gray wrote in the motion. Given his intoxication level, breathing would have been difficult at best. Mr. Floyds intentional failure to obey commands, coupled with his overdosing, contributed to his own death.

Footage captured on Lanes bodycamera showed Floyd, a convicted felon with a lengthy criminal history, had a white spot on the left side of his tongue that appears to show 2 milligrams of fentanyl, a lethal dose, according to the lawyer.

Independent investigators hired by the Floyd family said he died in a homicide at the scene of the incident as a result of officer Derek Chauvins knee on his neck, which was depicted in a now-viral video and sparked months of nationwide unrest.

The three other officers previously posted bail amounts of $750,000 and are free, awaiting their trial dates. All four are scheduled to face trial together in March.
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At his final campaign mass rally before revealing he had contracted COVID-19, U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed a lengthy, bitter attack on the media for supposedly failing to cover the news that he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In front of 3,000 wildly cheering supporters at the airport in Duluth, Minn., Trump bragged about his Nobel Prize nomination and how he had ended endless wars and brought peace to the Middle East.

I was nominated for three Nobel Prizes and I didnt get one story, I have to tell you because they refused to run it, he told the crowd. We got nothing! These people are sick!

As he did Duluth last week, Trump and his campaign team, desperate for some good news to boost his struggling re-election efforts, have been bragging for the past month about the nominations for his work on Middle East peace and for helping to improve relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

On Friday, the Nobel committee will announce the winner of the 2020 peace prize. Trump is actually nominated for the 2021 award. Nominations close each year on Jan. 31. He may also be nominated for this years award, but nominations are kept secret for 50 years unless the nominator reveals the name. No one has come forward to say they have done so for this years award.

Both a Norwegian legislator and a Swedish parliamentarian nominated Trump for what they say is his help brokering and agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and for peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans. A third nomination came from a group of Australian law professors for what they term the Trump Doctrine of foreign policy.

Can you name a person who has done more for peace than President Trump? said Christian Tybring-Gjedde, the far-right Norwegian politician who nominated Trump. The committee should judge him on the facts  not on the way he behaves.

According to the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the award, the prize is supposed to go to the person or organization that has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.

But in fact Trump has done little in office to meet those standards.

He has weakened U.S. commitment to international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO and the World Health Organization, threatening to withdraw completely or drastically cut their funding. He has openly attacked world leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and has mocked international co-operation efforts on issues such as climate change, immigration and refugee aid.

Indeed, it would be an outrage for the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to Trump, one of the most unworthy nominees in recent memory.

If that happens, the Nobel committee should pack up its bags and stop awarding the prize altogether, having lowered the stature of one of the most prestigious honours in the world to the point where it is meaningless.

Four American presidents have been awarded the prize, including Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. In 2002 Jimmy Carter won for work on human rights. In 2009 Barack Obama won for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples.

Trump is not in their league.

The notion that Trump  the man who earlier this year seemed intent to start a war with Iran as a distraction from his impeachment trial, who just this summer called the world wars beautiful, and who more recently bragged about possessing a secret nuclear doomsday weapon  should be awarded the Nobel would be laughable if it werent so outrageous, Zachery Tyson Brown, a U.S. army veteran who is a security fellow at the Truman National Security Project, wrote recently for InsideSources.com.

Instead of promoting brotherhood between nations, Trump has only sown division, both at home and abroad, he added.

Still, Trump truly believes he deserves to win. Back in 2019 he said at the United Nations: I think I'm going to get a Nobel Prize for a lot of things, if they gave it out fairly, which they dont.

Fairly or not, they should deny Trump his wish.

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Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. Sun Tsu

Ive never been a fan of trying to assess, either strategically or from a mental health standpoint, Trumps propensity to take extreme positions. Sometimes he lashes out even when he is losing, like with his row during his 2016 campaign with the Muslim parents of a slain Gold Star soldier or with cutting funding to the WHO. Sometimes he wont retreat even though hes not getting what he wanted, like with his wall or his tariff row with China. Sometimes he does a 180, as he did with first saying only he could lead the charge against Covid-19, then saying the matter was in the hands of governors.

But even by the standards of Trumps signature erraticness, yesterday was a standout, if nothing for the stakes. Trump decided to own the failure of deadlocked stimulus talks, when these were Congressional negotiations where each party was set up to point fingers at the other guy:

So Trump resurrects "Just the Flu" and kills an economic stimulus package on the very same day Literally goes all in on his two most unpopular positions with less than a month go to before the election pic.twitter.com/nMcDdEnXFm  Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) October 6, 2020

Now admittedly, the Administration had inserted itself by having Treasury Secretary Mnuchin act as chief Republican negotiator against the Dems Pelosi. And the talks looked to have been stuck at the empty theatrics stage for a while. The Republicans have been divided, with Congressmen in close races generally more amendable to a bigger stimulus package. But the hard-core conservatives have been opposed to a bigger package, and the Administration is particularly hostile to providing funds to state and local governments. The House had passed a $2.2 trillion bill, while Mnuchins offer was $1.6 trillion.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the trigger for Trumps rupture was a Tuesday evening update from McConnell, Mnuchin, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. McConnell said that even if Mnuchin and Pelosi came to an agreement, it wasnt likely to have the votes in the Senate.

As Lambert has regularly pointed out is that the Dems are willing to throw the working class under the bus rather than pass the Republicans inadequate relief bill. Its more important for them to deny Trump any talking points.

It didnt help Trumps optics to have Fed chairman Jay Powell issue his most forceful call for more spending to date. From the Financial Times:

Speaking to the National Association for Business Economics, Mr Powell said the economic recovery from the damage inflicted by the coronavirus was far from complete and the risks of policy intervention are still asymmetric. Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses, he said. By contrast, the risks of overdoing it seem, for now, to be smaller. Even if policy actions ultimately prove to be greater than needed, they will not go to waste, he added.

Needless to say, Trumps recovery from coronavirus is more credible than the idea that the economy is anything more than a technical recovery, aka a dead cat bounce. Even thought the earlier stimulus packages unduly benefitted the rich, the income supplements, particularly the $600 a week extra in unemployment benefits, preserved spending. The PPP also bolstered incomes and kept many small businesses going.

However, the economy is bleeding out from an artery, which means stopping transfusions is a very bad idea. From the Wall Street Journal at the start of the month:

A drop in household income and persistently high layoffs are threatening to further slow the U.S. economic recovery, which already appears to be losing momentum as the pandemic continues. Personal incomewhat households received from salaries, investments and government aidfell 2.7% in August as enhanced unemployment checks shrank, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Meanwhile, another 837,000 workers filed for unemployment compensation last week after being recently laid off, the Labor Department said. In total, nearly 12 million workers are receiving unemployment compensation through regular state programs. The level of weekly jobless claims shows layoffs remain persistent in some industries, and more companies announced cuts this week. American Airlines Group Inc. and United Airlines Holdings Inc. told employees they will go forward with more than 32,000 job cuts Thursday, after lawmakers were unable to agree on a broad coronavirus-relief package. Insurer Allstate Corp. on Wednesday said it planned to lay off 3,800 employees. Walt Disney Co. on Wednesday announced permanent layoffs for 28,000 theme-park workers who were previously on temporary furlough.

And despite the support of the PPP and other programs, small business are failing at a rate higher than during the financial crisis. Wolf Richter points out that the PPP helped many very small business owners simply shutter their enterprises, giving them enough to settle with landlords and other creditors, rather than declare bankruptcy. From his post yesterday:

From March through mid-July, over 420,00 small businesses  or 7.1% of all small businesses  permanently and quietly closed their doors, more than typically in an entire year, according to a study by Brookings, released in September. The analysis found that many small businesses are financially fragile and not equipped to weather a prolonged period of substantially reduced revenues: 47% rely on personal funds of the owner to fill a two-month revenue drop.

88% rely on the personal credit score of the owner (such as working capital funded by personal credit cards).

Only 44% have had a bank loan over the past five years. Small businesses account for about 99% of all businesses in the US and about 47% of jobs in businesses. If these 420,000 businesses are representative of national employment, this means we have lost at least 4 million jobs that will only return with the creation of new businesses, the report said.

After Mr. Market had a hissy, Trump tried reversing gears and shifting blame to Team Dem:

The House & Senate should IMMEDIATELY Approve 25 Billion Dollars for Airline Payroll Support, & 135 Billion Dollars for Paycheck Protection Program for Small Business. Both of these will be fully paid for with unused funds from the Cares Act. Have this money. I will sign now!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020

If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy? @MarkMeadows @senatemajldr @kevinomccarthy @SpeakerPelosi @SenSchumer  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020

Mind you, Nate Silver points out that based on the economic index he uses, Trump would likely be polling ~3 points worse than he is due to the earlier stimulus, and that even if a stimulus deal came together, it would be happening too late to make much difference:

Thats certainly not to imply that the collapse of further stimulus spending will cause a further 3-point or 8-point shift in the polls away from Trump. The news comes pretty close to the election (in our model, only 11 percent of the forecast is now based on the economy and incumbency, and this will fall to 0 percent by Election Day), the stimulus wasnt necessarily likely to pass anyway, and the failure of further stimulus funding doesnt entirely erase the fact that people and businesses did get some help in the spring.

However, one of the reasons quite a few Republicans spoke favorably of Trump was due to how the stock market has performed under his tenure. So if the no stimulus market sad continues, that could do some damage.

Regardless, the stimulus deal tweets looks like yet another episode of Trump needing to be the center of attention no matter what the cost. And its not like Trump has much going for him of late.

His Executive Order barring many foreclosures though year end should reduce homelessness for a while, but isnt a lasting solution. As widely predicted, his promise of a vaccine October surprise isnt working out, and two of the front-runners had setbacks. From Motley Fool:

Three patients taking part in clinical trials for Modernas coronavirus vaccine candidate and two taking part in Pfizers study have experienced intense side effects, according to a report published by CNBC. Those effects included high fever, pounding headaches, intense chills, and exhaustion On a more positive note, all three Moderna trial participants and one in the Pfizer trial reported that their side effects, while intense, melted away after at most one day. All five, meanwhile, expressed the belief that the discomfort they experienced will be worth it for the value of the research being undertaken.

Trumps law n order routine doesnt seem to be getting much traction despite support for Black Lives Matter weakening. And not only did Trumps debate performance work against him, but he doesnt appear to have gotten much of a sympathy bounce for having been hospitalized. From MarketWatch:

Bidens lead in the CNN poll was 57% to 41%, in a survey taken after the first presidential debate and mostly after Trumps COVID-19 infection was made public. Taken together with other polls, including an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showing a 14-percentage-point Biden lead after the debate but before Trumps diagnosis was known, Bidens lead is a smaller  though still significant  9.2 percentage points in the latest RealClearPolitics average. In an average of top battleground states, Bidens lead is just over 4 points

As you can see, even the relatively cheery The Real Clear Politics poll averages show recent decay for Trump:



And Chris Cillizza explains why the CNN result is even worse than it looks (emphasis original):

With less than a month before the November election, President Donald Trump has hit a new low: He now trails former Vice President Joe Biden by his largest margin (16 points) of any CNN poll conducted in this entire election. Which, if you are the President or his supporters, is bad! Like, really bad! But its actually not the worst news in the latest CNN/SSRS poll. That honor goes to this: 9 in 10 likely voters (90%) in the CNN poll say that their minds are made up when it comes to which candidate they will be voting for this fall. A meager 8% of those likely voters said they might change their mind while 1% (who are these people???) said they had no preference between the candidates as of yet.

I never understood how Trump managed to be so successful despite his regular self-destructive antics. I had attributed it to luck. It looks like his luck has finally run out.
(Photo : Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Nintendo of America) In this photo provided by Nintendo of America, fans of all ages experience fun photo ops, game demos and other Luigis Mansion 3-inspired goodies at a preview event in Los Angeles on October 18, 2019. Luigis Mansion 3 is the latest game in the Luigis Mansion franchise, with Luigi returning as the reluctant and cowardly hero, tasked with saving his friends from a spooky hotel. Luigis Mansion 3 launches exclusively for the Nintendo Switch system on October 31, 2019. (Photo : Photo by Bob Riha, Jr./Nintendo via Getty Images) In this photo provided by Nintendo of America, a select group of kids enjoy meeting video game luminaries Shigeru Miyamoto, (R), the creator of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, Takashi Tezuka, (L) the creator of Yoshi games and Tsunekazu Ishihara, (center rear) president and CEO of The Pokemon Company International on June 11, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. The kids got hands-on time with the hottest new games for the Wii U console and the Nintendo 3DS system, including a world-exclusive look at Fossil Fighters Frontier, an upcoming game for the Nintendo 3DS system launching in 2015.

Long wait is over. Next Spring in Japan, Super Nintendo World will open its doors. The company unveils the announcement of Nintendo World opening in a YouTube teaser of CG-video with the song of Galantis and Charlie XCX as its soundtrack. Previously, Nintendo's theme park was supposed to be open this summer of 2020, ahead of the Olympic Games.

However, the video didn't showcase what the themed park looks like. Instead, it showcased a dance sequence and unrealistic segments, showing how players go from hanging out at home with their Nintendo Switch to enjoying a real-life experience.

But, a website was also launched to describe what the visitors would experience. The site mentioned that families are allowed to travel the park on Yoshi's back, the fictional green dinosaur in Nintendo's published video games.





Slated to open before the Summer Olympics at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka #MarioKart pic.twitter.com/khlMSTREPH Super Nintendo World means you can now step into a real-life Mario Kart race!Slated to open before the Summer Olympics at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka #Nintendo  Kurumi Mori (@rumireports) January 13, 2020

It added that the visitors will be provided with a "power up band," which appears to be the wearable to enter the Super Nintendo World. On the other hand, Bloomberg reported that the band and a smartphone app will allow guests to battle bosses and collect coins, based on a briefing with J.L. Bonnier, the Universal Studios Japan's CEO.

What to expect with Super Nintendo World

Super Nintendo World will have state-of-the-art shops, rides, interactive areas, and restaurants. All of these will feature Nintendo's most popular games and characters.

The opening schedule was moved next Spring in 2021 because of the ongoing global pandemic caused by COVID-19. To give the Japanese residents an advanced experience, a "Mario Cafe & Store" will open next week, on Oct. 16 in Universal Studios Japan.

Nintendo also showed off some of the branded merchandise and food the visitors can buy. These include a super mushroom drink, some cute Mario and Luigi hat-shaped pancake sandwiches, pouches, t-shirts, and cushions. You can check this website for more images of the Super Nintendo World.

For more news updates about Nintendo and other game publishers, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Also Read: Nintendo Switch, Blizzard Make Overwatch Free!-Full Game Version for a Week Starts on October 13!

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Giuliano J. de Leon

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The seminar was hosted by Rep. Kim Byeong-wook, the secretary of the National Policy Committee and a lawmaker from the Democratic Party (DP), and Delio, the virtual asset lending company. It was sponsored by Delio's DeFi project DUCATO.

Kim Tae-nyeon, floor leader of the ruling DP, delivered a congratulatory message to the seminar, saying, "The Democratic Party of Korea and the government are rolling out the Korean New Deal, a national development plan that will transform Korea into a leading nation." He added, "Building an AI government utilizing blockchain is one of the main pillars of the Korean New Deal." In addition, Rep. Youn Kwan-suk, the chairman of the National Policy Committee, mentioned that the National Assembly is carefully thinking about how to revise the overall laws for digital finance innovation and that the work on the virtual asset should be done swiftly with lots of social discussions, from defining the industry and the implementing ordinances of the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information, in order to promote the industry and protect investors.

Rep. Kim Byeong-wook said in the opening speech that the National Assembly should consider how to establish the law and system for the development of the virtual asset and related industries and for investor protection. He emphasized that the virtual asset has the widest possibilities in the post-COVID-19 era and the related law and system should be established to define the virtual asset as an industry.

Lee Hae-bung, the deputy director of the Financial Supervisory Service, explained major issues of the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information which passed the National Assembly last year. He highlighted that the amendment does not allow the virtual asset to enter the institutionalized system. He said that Korea should establish the virtual asset law to clarify a boundary between finance and virtual asset like the U.S. and the U.K.

The commercial banks admitted that they look forward to the legislation of the law on the virtual asset. Jang Hyeon-gi, head of Shinhan Bank's Digital R&D Center, spoke that a bank can play its role in the area of DeFi with a converged model of blockchain and financial service, adding that Shinhan Bank has already been preparing various services based on blockchain like Virtual Asset Wallet, Custody, Payment, etc. Jo Jin-seok, head of KB Kookmin Bank's IT Innovation Center, predicted that as all the assets that exist around the world would be digitized quickly, in compliance with this trend, banks would release the "digital asset" management platform. Especially, since the amendment passed the National Assembly last year, Korean banks have a great deal of interest in the custody industry, the virtual asset entrust business.

The virtual asset companies backed up the legislation of the virtual asset business law. Han Seong-hee, the director of Bithumb, pointed out that it is urgent to make the law on the virtual asset and insisted that the virtual asset companies and commercial banks should co-work on a business to earn the trust of the virtual asset and to make the market vitalized. Jung Sang-ho, the CEO of Delio, the virtual asset lending service company, said, "Korean government has never admitted the virtual asset as an industry." As a voice of the industry, he addressed that it is urgent to create effective laws because the virtual asset has been established in the financial industry by the drastic growth of financial services like lending and deposit using the virtual asset.

Koo Tae-eon, the attorney who's in charge of the legal revision, said, "First, the regulation that allows the virtual asset should become clear by revising the financial laws. Also, the virtual asset that is not a financial product among various virtual assets should be dealt with outside the regulation."

Prof. In Ho from Korea University and Prof. Ha Tae-hyeong from the University of Suwon participated in this seminar as academic representatives. Several virtual asset companies joined the seminar to talk about the necessity of the virtual asset business law and related tasks, including Bithumb, Hashed, an investment company, Peertec, a blockchain financial technology company, and Delio, a company specializing in DeFi.

Except for the virtual asset companies, major commercial banks that are traditional financial institutions in Korea and the representatives of the National Assembly agreed to legislation on the virtual asset business law. It is expected that Korea will speed up to establish the laws related to the virtual asset.

SOURCE Delio
A "great president is one who puts America first," concludes bestselling author Robert Spencer in his latest book, Rating America's Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was an Absolute Disaster. His review of presidential history offers a provocative, intriguing analysis of what exemplifies policies that maintain American independence at home and abroad.

Spencer proudly follows the limited government traditions of Founding Fathers like Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They, Spencer claims, "would largely agree with my evaluations." While "America first ... has been mislabeled, derided, and dismissed as 'isolationism,'" for Spencer, this phrase "only means that in dealing with the world, American presidents will be looking out primarily for the good of Americans."

Embracing President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1961 warning against the "military-industrial complex," Spencer usually opposes American military interventions abroad, a message that has the most compelling, fresh evidence. The "George W. Bush/Barack Obama effort to plant democracies in Muslim countries so that they would no longer pose a threat to the U.S. is a foredoomed endeavor," he soberly analyzes. "Democracy led to the installation of Sharia constitutions and regimes that hated America" in Afghanistan and Iraq, countries that became America's "two lengthiest and costliest nation-building endeavors."

Unsurprisingly, for the conservative Spencer, the 19811989 "presidency of Ronald Reagan stands out brilliantly in American history," yet Spencer argues that Reagan also went astray in Afghanistan. His administration covertly aided the mujahedeen's successful insurgency against Soviet invaders in 19791989, a victory that hastened the Soviet Union's demise and the Cold War's end. He therefore bears "responsibility for the jihad attacks on September 11, 2001, and the general resurgence of the global jihad in the twenty-first century," argues Spencer, without offering and weighing any realpolitik alternatives.

Astonishing to many, Spencer even asserts that President George H. W. Bush's conduct of the 1991 Gulf War "was yet another unnecessary foreign intervention." In an online interview, this author noted the broad American and international consensus against allowing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to occupy oil-rich Kuwait while threatening the wider region's vital energy resources. Hussein's stunning defeat additionally allowed for a containment of Iraq that largely eliminated Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs, including a nuclear program on the verge of successful proliferation. Spencer's response that Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region could have led Kuwait's liberation will convince few.

By contrast, Spencer offers no dissent to World War II (19391945) as a necessary struggle against totalitarian evils in Germany and Japan. Here President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)'s inspiring leadership "is one of the cornerstones of his reputation as one of America's greatest presidents." Yet he "made drastic mistakes in his handling of the war," Spencer notes, such as Roosevelt's Japanese-American internment, a "needless deprivation of the civil liberties of numerous loyal Americans." Roosevelt's advocacy for the postwar United Nations (U.N.) also disappoints Spencer, for the U.N. has been "steadfastly and consistently anti-American" under widespread communist and Islamic influence.

Domestically, Spencer damns Roosevelt's iconic New Deal. This bloated mass of government programs and regulations did far more to stimulate historic myths than economic growth. After Roosevelt became president in 1933, the "economy recovered more slowly during the Great Depression than it did from any other economic crisis in the nation's history," Spencer notes.

Roosevelt's Democratic successor down the line, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, fared no better launching in 1964 the War on Poverty. Its welfare programs have since cost over $22 trillion, over three times the cost of all America's actual wars. American poverty rates, already falling rapidly before LBJ, encompassed 17 percent of Americans in 1965 and had dropped to 14 percent by 2014.

These presidents would have been unrecognizable to earlier generations of Democrats. The Democratic Party had traditionally contained Jeffersonian defenders of limited government, like President Andrew Jackson (18291837). "Remarkably, the Jackson administration remains the only one in American history to pay off the national debt completely," Spencer admires.

Yet at the 20th century's dawn, progressive ideology began to influence both Democrats and Republicans like President Theodore Roosevelt, who sometimes exclaimed, 'To hell with the Constitution." FDR's distant cousin Teddy "opened the door to the good of the people being invoked as an excuse justifying all manner of abuses of power," Spencer laments. "Authoritarianism  in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Communist China, and many other places  would be the bane of the twentieth century; progressivism was a softer version of the same impulse." Unfortunately, against this challenge, Republicans like Eisenhower often "reduced the Republican Party to a faint echo of the Democrats."

Along with economic liberty, Spencer is equally zealous for civil rights, and he therefore notes often overlooked racial equality stands of Republican presidents Chester A. Arthur (18811885) and Calvin Coolidge (19231929). He lauds the original Republican president, Abraham Lincoln (18611865), as a "penetrating and original thinker and something that is even more rare, a remarkable writer." Among his contemporaries, "Lincoln continued to stress the immorality of slavery, a fact that few others dared to approach."

Lincoln's leading general in the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant, followed the martyred Great Emancipator as a Republican into the presidency in 1869. Not far behind Lincoln, Spencer places Grant, often criticized for corrupt subordinates, "in the top tier among the presidents" for his commitment to full enfranchisement of formerly enslaved blacks in the defeated Confederacy. Had Grant "been able to fully implement and enforce his Reconstruction agenda, he would have gone down in history as one of the nation's greatest presidents, bridging and healing the racial divide that continues to be a source of strife."

By deviating from "criteria developed by socialist internationalist historians," Spencer upends commonplace rankings of well known (e.g., Woodrow Wilson) and more obscure presidents (e.g., Warren G. Harding). In the longstanding debates over whether defeating Germany was necessary in World War I (19141918), Spencer unambiguously concludes that America under Wilson had "no reason to get in" in 1917. Thus, "Wilson merits the title of the first internationalist president, who put the interests of the world ahead of the interests of his country," and "his presidency was an unmitigated disaster."

Postwar America resoundingly elected in 1920 to succeed the Democrat Wilson the Republican Harding, often a mere footnote in America's presidential pantheon. Yet under Harding's tax and spending cuts, the "twenties began roaring," Spencer notes. "The country was much better off with the simple and humble Harding in the White House than it was when the renowned intellectual and crusader for civilization Wilson was there."

Vice President Coolidge succeeded Harding in office after the latter's death in 1923 and won the 1924 election. Like him, Coolidge has had no great presidential histories, but he was a "modest man whose accomplishments as president were anything but modest." By his last year in office in 1928, for example, only America's wealthiest two percent paid income taxes.

Spencer's well developed analysis leaves no surprises in his concluding chapter on the current president, Donald Trump. "Accomplishing so much despite the unparalleled obstacles he faced places Trump in the first rank of American presidents," Spencer enthuses. Agree or disagree, Spencer makes an original and valuable contribution to America's presidential history.

Image: Ninian Reid via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, has directed a full investigation into the report of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on how N2.67 billion released for school feeding of the 104 Unity Colleges during the COVID-19 lockdown found its way into individual accounts.

Mr Adamu in a statement signed by the spokesperson of the federal ministry of education, Ben Gooong, said the investigation is compulsory in order to establish the veracity of the claims and to ensure that there is no diversion of public funds or misappropriation of same.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the chairperson of the anti-graft agency, Bolaji Owasanoye, said investigations done by the ICPC had shown that the said funds were diverted into private accounts.

We discovered payment of N2.67 billion during lockdown when the children were not in school, and some money ended up in personal accounts. We have commenced investigations into these findings, he said.

However, the education minister said the principals explained that payments made during the lockdown period had to do with debts owed food vendors even before COVID-19, some of which are still pending.

In response to queries issued by the Federal Ministry of Education, the Principals explained that payments on meal subsidies to Unity Colleges on the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System, (GIFMIS) platform is designed to accommodate individual officers of those colleges who are officially recognized to receive such payments and disburse the same to food vendors. This followed difficulties encountered by farmers, local food vendors, and market women who do not have Tax Identification Numbers (TIN), PENCOM, and other requirements to access the payment platform, he said.

The minister also said the principals said the debts arose from irregular and inadequate budgetary allocations and releases over the years.

The ministry, in line with the Ministers directive, is to collaborate effectively with officials of the ICPC to unearth the facts as well as find a lasting solution to the payment system for meal subsidies that will ensure accountability and transparency, he said.

Not true

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported how the minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, said she did not misappropriate N2.67 billion meant for feeding school children during the COVID-19 induced lockdown, under the Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP).

The minister said the report from the ICPC was misunderstood.

The amount traced by the commission on school feeding is not the same as the federal government Home-Grown School Feeding Programme under the Social-National Social Investment Programmes (SIPs), she said.

Ms Farouq had to issue the clarification when it became obvious the statement of Mr Owasanoye was misconstrued to be an indictment of her ministry which handles the Home Grown School Feeding Programme.

Mr Owasanoye also issued a press statement to clear the air on his earlier tweets which said the alleged diversion was funds budgeted for feeding boarding students in the federal unity schools.
Chisholms report noted that Coles gun had a spent round in the chamber  the one that investigators believe he fired while running, possibly striking himself in the arm  and that the magazine was recovered in his sling bag, meaning the gun had no more bullets in it when he was shot. Mensah and two other officers at the scene said Cole pointed the gun at them.
Farmers are being invited to apply for grants worth 25 million to boost on-farm productivity by purchasing new technology and equipment.

The third and final round of the governments Countryside Productivity Small Grants (CPSG) scheme is now open for applications.

Under it, farmers can apply for grants of between 3,000 and 12,000 to buy equipment such as livestock monitoring cameras and precision farming technology.

Last year, new items were added to the list, such as equipment that helps minimise soil compaction in fields, monitor ammonia levels and increase machinery precision when applying slurry.

Farmers who have been successful in applying for grants in previous rounds of the scheme will also be able to apply for different pieces of equipment.

Defra farming minister Victoria Prentis said boosting the farming industry's productivity was 'essential'.

I have experienced first-hand the benefits that having innovative equipment can bring, including saving businesses time and money while improving yields and minimising the impact we have on the environment."

To date, 35m has been allocated to farmers in the schemes first two funding rounds, with the final round bringing the total funding made available to 60m.

Farmers have until midday on 4 November to make an application to the Rural Payments Agency (RPA).

The agency's chief executive Paul Caldwell is encouraging farmers to look into the scheme to help them prepare their future.

Having access to game-changing innovative technology can make a real difference to farmers and help boost the productivity of the whole farming sector in England.

I would encourage all our customers to consider how this offer may benefit their business or help them to prepare for their future farming and apply for a small grant.
This upzoning approach of super luxury towers with a small set-aside for affordable units is bad for New York City, bad for our neighborhoods, and bad for affordability, said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat who leaves office next year, appears ready for the fight. Vicki Been, his deputy mayor for housing, said in an interview that the economic devastation of the pandemic had made the need for affordable housing even more urgent.

We need affordable housing in every neighborhood, she said. This is a neighborhood that does not have any.

Ms. Been said the city had already been working with the community to gather feedback.

Im sure there will be controversy, but I think its the right thing to do, she said.

The pandemic has transformed the real estate market in New York City, causing rents and home prices to drop as some people flee to the suburbs. The city has faced an affordability crisis for years, and it is too early to know if the pandemic will have a long-term effect on the cost of living.

With 15 months left in his administration, Mr. de Blasio said he wanted to move forward on two other rezoning proposals  on Governors Island, off the southern tip of Manhattan, and in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, another industrial area.

Theres important work to do in terms of development that actually produces for communities and for the good of all, not just for a few developers, the mayor said.
Heres a list of top ten stocks that may be in news on Wednesday:

State Bank of India: The government on Tuesday appointed Dinesh Kumar Khara as chairman of SBI, with Rajnish Kumar stepping down at the end of his three-year tenure. The Banks Board Bureau had recommended that managing director Khara be made the next chairman.

Reliance Industries: Abu Dhabi Investment Authority will invest 5,512.50 crore in Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd for a 1.2% stake, in the seventh stake sale by the Mukesh Ambani-led company to as many investors in less than four weeks.

Bajaj Finance: The company said its consolidated deposit book rose by 22.5 per cent to 21,600 crore as of September 2020, while customer franchise grew by 14 per cent to 4.41 crore.

Tata Motors: The group's global wholesales, including Jaguar Land Rover, declined by 16% to 2,02,873 units in the second quarter of the current financial year over the year-ago period. However, the company's stock on BSE rose nearly 8% to 144.45.

HDFC Bank: Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Aditya Puri has assured employees of the country's largest private sector lender that their jobs and bonuses are secure. Puri, who retires later this month, said the bank is doing well, has sufficient capital and does not have any strain in the loans that it has made.

Tata Consultancy Services: The IT major is likely to report a 8-15% sequential rise in September quarter profit on Wednesday and a 2-3% growth in revenues in constant currency terms.

Cox and Kings: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday arrested Cox and Kings chief financial officer Anil Khandelwal and internal auditor Naresh Jain in the alleged money-laundering case involving Yes Banks former promoter Rana Kapoor.

Dewan Housing Finance: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday filed a rejoinder affidavit in the Supreme Court opposing the Bombay High Court's order granting bail to Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan, promoters of Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd, facing money laundering charges in the Yes Bank case.

Dixon Technologies: The company's arm Padget Electronics has been chosen as domestic mobile phone manufacturing partner in the government's production linked scheme.

Matrimony.com: The matchmaking service provider expects to record double digit growth in revenues and would invest in products and marketing to garner a larger pie of the market share, a PTI report said.

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Business leaders ranging from Commonwealth Bank chief Matt Comyn to Woolworths boss Brad Banducci and retail billionaire Solomon Lew have praised the federal budget, saying the measures announced will help rebuild an economy battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday night, the federal government announced billions in budget measures which are set to directly benefit businesses, including massive asset tax breaks, wage subsidies for young employees, and accelerated income tax cuts which are set to spur spending in the retail sector.

CBA chief executive Matt Comyn says the federal budget will spur economic growth. Credit:

Commonwealth Bank of Australia chief executive Matt Comyn singled out the asset write-off scheme, which allows businesses earning less than $5 billion annually to deduct the full cost of buying an asset worth up to $150,000, as an efficient way to stimulate spending.

"In particular, we welcome the financial support to encourage business to invest in new equipment, take on more skilled workers and provide new opportunities for young people that together over time will help to bring down the rise in unemployment," Mr Comyn said
A three-year battle between ODM and Nairobi nominated MCA Perpetua Mponjiwa has intensified, with the party blocking attempts to have her sworn in by the county assembly, despite a new court order.

Attempts to have Ms Mponjiwa take the oath of office as ODM's nominated ward rep have twice proved futile -- in April 2019 and July this year -- with the party saying it only recognises Ms Eve Malenya as its nominee.

Ms Malenya was de-registered from the IEBC nomination list last year following a successful court case by Ms Mponjiwa.

However, Ms Malenya sought court orders to stop the swearing-in of Ms Mponjiwa.

She said that she was the right person for nomination as MCA, asking the court to suspend the April 5, 2019 gazette notice on Ms Mponjiwa's swearing-in.

Ms Malenya argued that Ms Mponjiwa ran as an independent candidate in the 2017 General Election and was therefore ineligible to be nominated or elected.

ODM has now put a spirited effort at the county assembly to stop a new attempt to swear in Ms Mponjiwa.

This is after the High Court issued another order mid last month giving the assembly two weeks, up to October 1, to have Ms Mponjiwa sworn in.

Stranger to the party

However, ODM through Minority Leader Michael Ogada, objected to the swearing-in, arguing that Ms Mponjiwa is a "stranger to ODM", having resigned several years ago from the party.

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He cited Article 177(2) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 read together with Section 37(1) of the Elections Act 2011 on the nomination of special seat members and allocation for the special seat respectively.

"In light of the provisions therefore, the position is a preserve of ODM and the party cannot have a member who belongs to a different party being imposed on us," Ogada said.

"In view of this it will be in total contravention of the law for this honorable House to give a nod and proceed to swear in a member who resigned from the ODM on May 8, 2017 and as such has never been recognized by the very party she purports to cling on," he said.

Temporary Speaker John Kamangu implored ODM to explore an alternative court avenue on the matter as the assembly cannot give any alternative direction or ruling beyond the said ruling of the High Court.

"The proceedings of this Assembly are regulated by the rule of law, and that as law maker, we are bound by it. In the light of the said court order and the contestation by the Minority side that the said Perpetua should not be sworn in on the floor of this Assembly, I am therefore unable to give any alternative direction. However, the Constitution envisages the right to appeal to any order before a court of law, which I therefore implore upon the Minority side to explore," Kamangu said.
Hurricane Delta made landfall early Wednesday morning on the Yucatan peninsula as a Category 2 storm, forecasters said. The storm is now heading into the Gulf of Mexico, where it is expected to strengthen on its path toward Louisiana.

Delta is expected to make landfall again in south Louisiana on Friday as a Category 3 hurricane, the National Hurricane Center said. The long-term forecast track continued to shift slightly west overnight, placing landfall around Vermilion and Iberia parishes.

Chances are increasing for life-threatening storm surge and dangerous hurricane-force winds along the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, beginning Friday, forecasters said. Now is the time for residents to make plans and prepare.

Forecasters say storm surge and hurricane watches will likely be issued for the Gulf Coast on Wednesday.

Where is Hurricane Delta?

Delta made landfall around 5:30 a.m. near Puerto Morelos with estimated winds of 110 mph, which is a strong Category 2 storm. Category 3 hurricanes have winds of 111 to 129 mph.

Civil defense official Luis Alberto Ortega Vazquez said there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries, but Delta had toppled about 95 trees and knocked out electricity to parts of Cancun and Cozumel. Ortega said about 39,000 people had been evacuated in the states of Quintana Roo and Yucatan, and that about 2,700 people had taken refuge in storm shelters in the two states.

Watch a video that shows what it looked like in the Yucatan just before landfall:

As of 7 a.m., Delta was about 35 miles west of Cancun, Mexico, and was moving northwest at 17 mph. It had winds of 105 mph.

Hurricane-force winds extend up to 30 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend up to 140 miles.

On the forecast track, the center of Delta will move over the northeastern portion of the Yucatan peninsula Wednesday morning. Then, Delta is forecast to move over the southern Gulf of Mexico Wednesday afternoon, be over the southern or central Gulf of Mexico through Thursday and approach the northern Gulf Coast on Friday.

Strengthening expected

Delta significantly weakened Wednesday morning before making landfall as a Category 2 storm, the National Hurricane Center said. On Tuesday, Delta was a Category 4 storm with winds of 145 mph.

Delta weakened further during landfall, and additional weakening is likely Wednesday morning as the storm moves over the Yucatan peninsula. But the hurricane is expected to regain its strength in the Gulf of Mexico, forecasters said.

Delta could become a Category 4 hurricane again by late Thursday with winds of 130 mph. Some weakening is expected as Delta approaches the northern Gulf Coast on Friday. The storm is expected to have winds around 115 mph -- a Category 3 storm -- at landfall, forecasters said.

The storm is also expected to become considerably larger by the time it reaches the Gulf Coast, the National Hurricane Center said, which means it will "likely bring a sizable area of hazardous conditions to the coast."

Hurricane conditions will remain in southeast Louisiana through early Saturday and slowly improve through the remainder of the day Saturday, forecasters said. Delta is expected to weaken to a tropical storm by late Saturday as it moves through central Mississippi. A cold front is then expected to move through the area Tuesday or Wednesday.

Heavy rain, coastal flooding and winds possible in Louisiana

Heavy rain, life-threatening storm surge and damaging winds are possible in Louisiana, depending on the eventual track and intensity of Hurricane Delta, forecasters said.

"We are confident Delta will bring impacts to the area, but have far less confidence in the exact magnitude of the impacts," the National Weather Service in Slidell wrote in its Wednesday morning update.

Here's the forecast from the National Weather Service in Slidell and the National Hurricane Center.

STORM SURGE: Life-threatening storm surge is possible Thursday night through Saturday morning. The highest surge will occur near and east of where the center of circulation crosses the coast, forecasters said. East and south facing shores like Waveland, west and northwest portions of Lake Pontchartrain, inside Barataria Bay and east of the mouth of the Mississippi River are especially vulnerable.

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RAIN: Heavy rainfall is possible Thursday night through Saturday. Generally 4 to 10 inches of rain is forecast for areas west of I-55 and north of I-10 in southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi. Less than 4 inches of rainfall is forecast for the remainder of southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi.

Locally higher amounts will be possible where heavy rain bands develop, with isolated totals of 12 inches possible.

These rainfall amounts will lead to flash, urban and small stream flooding, along with minor river flooding.

Heavy rainfall will eventually spread into the Tennessee Valley, and interior southeastern United States this weekend into early next week.

FLASH FLOODING: The highest risk of flash flooding from rainfall will be generally west of I-55 Friday into Friday night.

WIND: Wind impacts will greatly depend on the eventual track and intensity of Hurricane Delta, forecasters said, but will be most likely from Friday into Saturday. The earliest reasonable time for tropical-storm-force winds to begin affecting coastal locations in southeast Louisiana is Thursday night.

TORNADOES: Southeast Louisiana, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge, has a marginal risk of severe weather. The main threat of tornadoes would be from late Thursday night to Saturday morning.

+8 During a busy 2020 hurricane season, Louisiana has been in the 'cone of uncertainty' six times This year has seen a particularly busy hurricane season with 25 named storms, which is just two shy of the 2005 record.

Watches and warnings

Forecasters say storm surge and hurricane watches will likely be issued for the Gulf Coast on Wednesday. Here's what is in effect as of 7 a.m.

A hurricane warning is in effect for:

Tulum to Dzilam, Mexico

Cozumel

A tropical storm warning is in effect for:

Cuba province of Pinar del Rio

Punta Herrero to Tulum, Mexico

Dzilam to Progreso, Mexico

Read the full advisory. The next one is due at 7 a.m.

Storm categories

On the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, the wind categories are:

Tropical storm: 39 to 73 mph

Category 1 hurricane: 74 to 95 mph

Category 2 hurricane: 96 to 110 mph

Category 3 hurricane (major hurricane): 111 to 129 mph

Category 4 hurricane: 130-156 mph

Category 5 hurricane: 157 mph and higher

What else to know?

No other tropical cyclones are expected to form in the next five days in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

Systems are named once they strengthen into a tropical storm. The next available name is Epsilon. Forecasters moved to the Greek alphabet in September after using all the available names for the 2020 Atlantic season.

Louisiana has a message for Jim Cantore as Hurricane Delta approaches: 'Stay home' The message was loud and clear. Emblazoned on the sign over the Metairie end of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, in a space usually reserved f

The Atlantic hurricane season ends Nov. 30, but storms can form any time.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Don't miss a storm update this hurricane season. Sign up for breaking newsletters. Follow our Hurricane Center Facebook page.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7, 2020 18:55 472 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49af93a 1 Food COVID-19,coffee-by-the-liter,coffee-shops,#keepyourdistance,#washyourhand,#socialdistance,#avoidcrowd,#usesoap,delivery-service,#covid19taskforce,#mothermessage,#wearmask Free

Over the past few years, Indonesia has seen an increase in coffee consumption.

A report released by the United States Department of Agricultures (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service shows that the countrys coffee consumption rose to 4.3 million bags in the 2018-2019 season, thanks to consumer demand for freshly roasted, soluble and ready-to-drink (RTD) products.

The same researchers forecasted that, in the 2019-2020 season, consumption would increase to 4.9 million bags with coffee shop chains opening new outlets at nearly every shopping center, transportation hub and office complex.

But then the pandemic hit, prompting coffee shop owners to rethink their strategies.

Yoshua Tanu, CEO of Jago Coffee, a digital platform for coffee chain brands on wheels, told kompas.com that the COVID-19 pandemic had affected the business, especially during the imposition of large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) in Jakarta.

Nevertheless, the platform has seen a 30 percent increase in monthly income, thanks to its delivery service.

Read also: Coffee by the liter, Korean food most sought-after during pandemic: Tokopedia

Yoshua explained that Jago Coffee offered a free-delivery service without minimum order value.

He reasoned that high delivery fees or minimum order amounts would make consumers think twice before buying the products and added that the strategy had gained the company more loyal customers.

On-demand delivery services have indeed helped coffee shops stay afloat during the pandemic.

Following the imposition of the PSBB, many coffee shops began to offer coffee by the liter through online food delivery services, such as Go-Food and GrabFood.

Coffee lover Erwin told kompas.com in June that he would often visit coffee shops in pre-coronavirus days. However, he now prefers to purchase coffee by the liter using the delivery service, as he can get several cups of coffee in one bottle.

Read also: Coffee in the new normal era: The end of coffee shops?

In addition to online food delivery services, 1-liter quantities of coffee are also available for purchase via e-commerce platforms, such as Tokopedia.

Tokopedia has launched the #SatuDalamKopi (united in coffee) campaign to promote local coffee sales, such as the 1-liter coffee, ground coffee and coffee beans, on one page of its website.

Dua Coffee is one of the local cafes that started selling its products through Tokopedia since the pandemic began.

The cafes cofounder Omar Karim Prawiranegara said 80 percent of the coffee shop sales now came from online orders. Moving our business online was inevitable, and online sales are now the backbone of our business, he said. (jes)

Editors note: The following is part of a campaign by the governments COVID-19 task force to raise public awareness about the pandemic.
Could Zoila Chavez from Flipping Out be reuniting with Jeff Lewis? Lewis recently shared that theres a chance Chavez may be returning to work for him after the two parted ways.

Zoila Chavez, Jeff Lewis | Isabella Vosmikova/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank

Chavez remained in Nicaragua during COVID, but Lewis recently revealed the two are talking about having her return to work on a very part-time basis. I needed someone to fill like a day or two, so I called Zoila Chavez in Nicaragua, Lewis shared on his Sirius XM show, Bravos The Daily Dish reports. We had a nice conversation. She is flying back anyways in mid-October and we are discussing her working on Saturdays.

He added that Chavezs sister will continue to work for him too. Im really excited, he said.

Jeff Lewis has been juggling nannies

Lewis offered additional insight into why Chavez may be returning to Jeff Lewis Design. I have some news, some good news, he dished on his radio show. Well, OK, so I had Monroes old nanny came back. Remember she decided that she was going to switch careers after working for Monroe?

Lewis shared that the former nanny switched to a career as a flight attendant. Then obviously she lost her job, he said. The nanny returned to work for Lewis briefly before landing a full-time nanny job with another family.

Jeff Lewis, Gage Edwards |Nicole Wilder/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank

RELATED: Flipping Out Star, Jeff Lewis Says He Reunited with Zoila Chavez

Chavez originally started working for Lewis as a housekeeper. She ended up becoming somewhat of a mother figure to Lewis and eventually he wanted her to care for his child when he knew he was going to become a father. However, Chavez retired after 18 years of working for Lewis.

Bravo producer Andy Cohen recently hinted at a reconciliation on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. Even though Jeff and Zoila did not end the show on great terms, Im happy to say that they have reconciled and Zoila is alive and well and has been waiting out COVID in Nicaragua, he said. But shes coming back to L.A. soon.

Lewis missed Zoila Chavez

Lewis and Chavez didnt have a complete dissolution of their relationship, but they didnt part ways on the warmest terms. Chavez became irritated and exhausted on the job. But she continued to work even though it was clear she was ready to move on. For years, she has wanted to retire. Ive just overlooked it and I ignored it, Lewis said during a Flipping Out episode. But she stayed for me.

Although Chavezs sister continued to work for Lewis, Lewis clearly missed his longtime housekeeper and friend. Its funny, I was just talking to her sister because I havent seen her in a while. I want her to come by and see the baby, Lewis said on his radio show last year.

Zoila Chavez, Jeff Lewis |Vivian Zink/Bravo

RELATED: Flipping Out: Does Jeff Lewis Still Talk to Zoila Chavez?

Chavez attended Lewis daughters birthday party last year and he reflected on his radio show about how much he missed her. I just forgot how funny she is, he shared. I forgot why I love this woman so much. Shes too fun.
Irvine, Calif., Oct. 7, 2020 - Electrical engineers, computer scientists and biomedical engineers at the University of California, Irvine have created a new lab-on-a-chip that can help study tumor heterogeneity to reduce resistance to cancer therapies.

In a paper published today in Advanced Biosystems, the researchers describe how they combined artificial intelligence, microfluidics and nanoparticle inkjet printing in a device that enables the examination and differentiation of cancers and healthy tissues at the single-cell level.

"Cancer cell and tumor heterogeneity can lead to increased therapeutic resistance and inconsistent outcomes for different patients," said lead author Kushal Joshi, a former UCI graduate student in biomedical engineering. The team's novel biochip addresses this problem by allowing precise characterization of a variety of cancer cells from a sample.

"Single-cell analysis is essential to identify and classify cancer types and study cellular heterogeneity. It's necessary to understand tumor initiation, progression and metastasis in order to design better cancer treatment drugs," said co-author Rahim Esfandyarpour, UCI assistant professor of electrical engineering & computer science as well as biomedical engineering. "Most of the techniques and technologies traditionally used to study cancer are sophisticated, bulky, expensive, and require highly trained operators and long preparation times."

He said his group overcame these challenges by combining machine learning techniques with accessible inkjet printing and microfluidics technology to develop low-cost, miniaturized biochips that are simple to prototype and capable of classifying various cell types.

In the apparatus, samples travel through microfluidic channels with carefully placed electrodes that monitor differences in the electrical properties of diseased versus healthy cells in a single pass. The UCI researchers' innovation was to devise a way to prototype key parts of the biochip in about 20 minutes with an inkjet printer, allowing for easy manufacturing in diverse settings. Most of the materials involved are reusable or, if disposable, inexpensive.

Another aspect of the invention is the incorporation of machine learning to manage the large amount of data the tiny system produces. This branch of AI accelerates the processing and analysis of large datasets, finding patterns and associations, predicting precise outcomes, and aiding in rapid and efficient decision-making.

By including machine learning in the biochip's workflow, the team has improved the accuracy of analysis and reduced the dependency on skilled analysts, which can also make the technology appealing to medical professionals in the developing world, Esfandyarpour said.

"The World Health Organization says that nearly 60 percent of deaths from breast cancer happen because of a lack of early detection programs in countries with meager resources," he said. "Our work has potential applications in single-cell studies, in tumor heterogeneity studies and, perhaps, in point-of-care cancer diagnostics - especially in developing nations where cost, constrained infrastructure and limited access to medical technologies are of the utmost importance."

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This project was supported by startup funding from UCI's Henry Samueli School of Engineering.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 222 degree programs. It's located in one of the world's safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County's second-largest employer, contributing $5 billion annually to the local economy. For more on UCI, visit http://www.uci.edu.

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UCI faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UCI news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at communications.uci.edu/for-journalists.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned coronavirus is spreading in London, as new analysis showed 19 out of the 20 areas under local lockdown measures in England have seen a rise in infection rates.

Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, urged Johnson to explain why restrictions in these areas hadn't had an effect. "It's obvious that something has gone wrong here," he told lawmakers in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

As Johnson came under increasing pressure to take action to curb rising infections ahead of the winter, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon ordered pubs to close for two weeks in Scotland's two biggest cities.

The prime minister has repeatedly said he doesn't want another national lockdown, but all options remain on the table if hospitalizations spiral out of control. Local leaders in northern England are bracing themselves for further restrictions, as infection rates soar in cities including Liverpool and Manchester.

Speaking in Parliament, Johnson said a combination of national and local measures is the right approach to tackle outbreaks of the virus across England.

"I wish I could pretend that everything was going to be rosy in the Midlands or, indeed, in London where, alas, we are also seeing infections rise," he said. "That is why we need a concerted national effort, we need to follow the guidance."

The head of the National Health Service, Simon Stevens, warned on Wednesday that a "significant minority" of people who contract Covid-19 cannot shake off the effects of the virus. Those suffering these so-called "long Covid" symptoms will be offered specialist help at clinics across England, he said.

Analysis released by Labour showed the town of Bolton, in northwest England, has seen its infection rate rise from 22 cases per 100,000 people to 255 per 100,000 since it was placed under restrictions on July 30.

The infection rate in Burnley, another northwest town, increased more than 20 times to 434 cases per 100,000 from 21, the study found.

Starmer also criticized inconsistencies over the way local restrictions have been imposed by the government. In Johnson's own local authority of Hillingdon, in west London, there are no local restrictions despite cases reaching 62 per 100,000 -- higher than the rates in the 20 lockdown areas when local measures were imposed, Starmer said.

Andy Burnham, Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, told reporters that local restrictions had become "too complex" and it was time for a "reset." He said people have been confused by the way national measures, such as the rule of six, fit into the local lockdown measures.

The 10pm curfew for pubs, bars and restaurants is actually creating "more gatherings in the home" because people are going straight to supermarkets to load up on alcohol afterward, Burnham said.

Starmer told Johnson he wants to see the scientific evidence behind the 10pm curfew, suggesting Labour may oppose it and providing a boost to Conservative rebels who want the measure thrown out.

Beverley Hughes, Greater Manchester's deputy mayor for policing, said there has been a rise in the number of large gatherings in recent weeks. Only 15 people are currently allowed at weddings in England, but Hughes said many are flouting the rules.

"It almost feels as if the fines that people get, the fixed penalty notices, are being factored in as a cost people will bear in order to go ahead with their weddings," she said.

Meanwhile Transport Secretary Grant Shapps signaled in a Sky News interview that he'll announce a new task force to develop plans for coronavirus testing of passengers arriving back in the U.K.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: For Arjun P, who was fighting breathlessness and lung distress for almost four years, it was almost a crossroad between life and death- travelling all the way from Rajasthan to Kerala for a surgery. On August 24, Arjun P, 20, who lives in Jalore, Rajasthan, developed sudden chest pain and severe breathlessness. He was rushed to the hospital where it was diagnosed that his left lung had ruptured, accumulating a large volume of air and causing increased pressure inside the chest. The doctors immediately put a tube in his chest to decompress the air.

After three days, the drain was removed and he recovered. However, on August 27, he developed similar symptoms again, and a tube was once again inserted. But his discomfort continued. Later it was found that he had a large hole in the lung which had to be repaired through surgery. Arjun experienced the same problem in the other lung three years back, while on a holiday in Kerala. Even back then, chest tubes were inserted, but it didnt provide much relief. He was referred to Dr Nasser Yusuf, cardiothoracic surgeon for further management. He underwent surgery successfully and thereafter travelled back home to Rajasthan.

Recalling this traumatic experience, Arjuns father Rajan P, who runs a private school in Jalore, decided to seek the treatment of Dr Nasser Yusuf again. With a tube in his chest, Arjun and family travelled by road for almost seven hours to reach Ahmedabad so they can catch a flight to Kochi. Despite the medical certificate issued by the hospital stating he was fit to travel, he was refused entry by airport officials because of the tube in his chest.

After a series of discussions with the airport authorities that lasted 24 hours, Arjun was permitted to board a flight to Kochi. On arrival, he got himself admitted to Sunrise Hospital. Upon routine checkup, he was diagnosed with Covid. This came as a surprise to the family, as they were coming from a green zone. He was put in institutional quarantine and treatment for 14 days. Even after he was cured, however, the problem of air bubbling in his chest remained. He had, by now become weak and malnourished. The infection had set in and pus started draining out through the tube. Surgery was his only hope.

An emergency surgery was performed on September 18 by Dr Nasser. They diagnosed pus in the chest cavity. The lung was densely stuck to the heart with multiple Bullae (Balloon like formations) on the lung surface. This was the cause of air leak and bubbling. The pus was completely drained, the lung freed, multiple bullae removed and the hole in the lung repaired. The patient made a remarkable recovery and was discharged after a week.

According to Dr Nasser, the surgery was further complicated by Covid which primarily affects and damages the lung at times leading to death.Operating on Covid patients is a huge challenge. Usually, open surgery (30 cm long incision) is done, accompanied by severe pain and delayed recovery. In Arjuns case, we successfully performed a Keyhole surgery (Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery ), said Dr Nasser. Dr Shaji P G (Anesthetist), Dr Vineeth Alexander (Pulmonologist), and Dr Jithin Jose (Intensivist) were also part of the medical team.
WASHINGTON - A week after the postponement of a much-anticipated retrospective of Philip Guston was met with intense criticism, National Gallery of Art Director Kaywin Feldman defended the decision in a candid assessment of the federally funded institution. But she also suggested that the show will go on view sooner than 2024.

Feldman said Tuesday that her institution needs to catch up to the changing world before it can properly present the difficult images in the anti-racist exhibition, some of which include Ku Klux Klan figures. It also needs to diversify its curatorial staff, prepare its largely Black security force and re-examine long-held assumptions about race, as many other organizations are doing.

"I am convinced we can't do this show without having an African American curator as part of the project," Feldman said of the touring exhibition being presented by the NGA, Tate Modern, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. "It's not about the artist, it's about us."

But Feldman also says the exhibition will probably happen sooner than 2024. Originally set to open in June, the museums announced then that the tour would be postponed to next year because of the pandemic, with the Tate planning to open it in February before it came to Washington in June 2021. When it became clear in recent weeks that ongoing travel restrictions would make it difficult to get the hundreds of works to London in time, Feldman said the museums rushed to agree on a target of four years out, when covid-19 probably would not be a factor and scheduling four stops would be easier.

"That date was pulled out of the air in haste," Feldman said. She is hopeful that the show will open in D.C. in 2022 or 2023.

Except for the date, Feldman said she stands behind the call to postpone the exhibit. "I still feel very strongly we made the right decision," she said.

In a joint statement released last week, the four museum directors - Feldman, Frances Morris of the Tate Modern, Matthew Teitelbaum of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Gary Tinterow of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston - delayed the show "until a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the center of Philip Guston's work can be more clearly interpreted." The statement noted the racial protests gripping the country and said the museums needed time to reframe the exhibit.

The postponement sparked widespread outrage. Hundreds of artists signed a petition demanding reinstatement of the exhibition as planned; more broadly, critics called the decision cowardly and charged the museums with shirking their responsibilities to interpret the art. Many insisted the exhibition couldn't be more timely.

Feldman disagrees, saying the KKK images in Guston's work are in a special category of racial violence. "I would argue the Klan is a symbol of racial terrorism. The Klan struck fear in people of color, Jews, LGBT people ... but no group has suffered from the violence of the Klan as much as African Americans," she said.

Members of the gallery's staff, including some guards, voiced their objections to the show's images, Feldman said. Others, who asked to remain anonymous to speak about internal matters, described the decision as a major miscalculation and said Feldman should have foreseen the reaction from the art community.

Each museum came to the decision to postpone individually and for different reasons, Feldman said. But given the racial unrest that has overtaken the country, she believes the volatile moment makes the exhibition more difficult. "The context of today matters," she said. "Asserting that the audience should understand our point of view while not acknowledging their point of view is disrespectful."

The National Gallery is not ready to take on the challenges of presenting these works, she added. The museum's staff is racially divided by department: Eighty-three percent of its security staff are people of color, compared with 2 percent of its curatorial staff. The gallery has no Black curators.

Since 1999, the museum has presented 93 large monographic exhibitions on the scale of Guston, and 93 have featured White artists. The only Black artists have been Gordon Parks, Martin Puryear and Romare Bearden.

Feldman considered these facts, and the ongoing stress of her staff, many of whom are working remotely and caring for family members, young and old. The postponement provides time for Mikka Gee Conway, the chief diversity, inclusion and belonging officer who was appointed just last month, to get acclimated and for the museum to hire a new curator of African American and African diasporic art.

Feldman also rejected any notion that she's pandering to public demand by again rethinking the exhibition date. She insists that the art world in general could use more listeners.

"We live in such a polarized time," she said. "You're either scholarly or listening to the public. I firmly assert you can be both. Everything we do will be rooted in scholarship, but we can't disown the public's point of view."
GAME DAY They married on a Husker bye weekend, which fell the day before what would have been her grandparents 50th anniversary. Every Nebraska bride will understand the struggle in trying to have a fall wedding, Kate says. They invited 160 guests, with the bulk of their budget going toward guest experiences, like the meal and bar.

SWEETEST MOMENT Theyll never forget reading their vows to each other. We hadnt heard them before the ceremony. It melted my heart to hear the words Eric put together, Kate says. Their ring bearer, nephew Kingston, stole the show with his happy demeanor. He even got offers from other engaged guests to be the ring bearer for their weddings.

UNITED WE STAND They planted an oak seed from the Nebraska Arboretum for the unity ceremony, using mason jars full of soil from the backyards of where they grew up. We have the oak planted in a large pot and its doing quite well. We plan to keep it with us until we can plant it in our forever home.
ICCT Study Shows Plug-in Hybrid CO2 Emission Ratings Understated By 200-400%







Editor's Note: I believe that the "blinded greenies" belief in EV fairy tales will soon be outed as bull...the total emissions from build to drive for EV's is higher than for ICE running on Flex-fuel without the limitations of electric. See Electric Vehicles Solution or Diversion?

Study Results: Analysis of plug-in hybrid electric passenger car data confirms real-world CO2 emissions are two to four times higher than official values

September 28, 2020 (Berlin)  A new analysis of the real-world usage of more than 100,000 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles shows a large deviation between on-road CO2 emissions and fuel efficiency and the official vehicle type-approval values. The results of the joint study, released by German Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI and the International Council on Clean Transportation, suggest that incentives to promote a higher share of electric driving would increase the potential for plug-in hybrid vehicles to reduce emissions.

For the study, the authors analyzed a comprehensive dataset of the real-world usage patterns for plug-in hybrid vehicles in Europe, North America, and China. For their statistical analyses, the researchers made use of anonymized data that vehicle drivers had voluntarily reported to online portals such as Spritmonitor in Germany and MyMPG in the United States. The researchers also took into account data on company cars that had been provided by fleet managers.

Dr. Patrick Plotz, Coordinator of the Business Unit Energy Economy at Fraunhofer ISI and lead author of the study, summarizes one of the key results: "On average, the real-world fuel consumption and CO2 emission values of plug-in hybrid vehicles for private drivers in Germany are more than twice as high as according to the official test procedure. For company cars, the deviation is even four times the official values." As a result, the gap between official and real-world values is much larger for plug-in hybrid vehicles than for conventional combustion engine vehicles.

As plug-in hybrid vehicles are equipped with a combustion engine as well as an electric motor, their potential for reducing emissions depends strongly on daily driving patterns. Plug-in hybrid vehicles often are not recharged regularly, which implies driving is often performed on the combustion engine. Statistically, private users of vehicles in Germany re-charge their plug-in hybrid vehicle only on three out of four days. Company car users, on average, re-charge only every second day. The low frequency of recharging reduces the share of electric driving and thereby increases fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of plug-in hybrid vehicles in real-world driving. On average, private plug-in hybrid vehicles are driven only 37% of their mileage in electric mode; for company car vehicles it is only 20%.

The Fraunhofer ISI and ICCT researchers offer concrete recommendations from their analysis. The European Commission should update the testing procedures for plug-in hybrid vehicles and limit any credits as part of the EU CO2 regulation for new cars to those plug-in hybrid vehicles that demonstrate a high share of electric driving in real-world. ICCT Director Dr. Peter Mock suggests that "National governments should provide fiscal incentives only for those plug-in hybrid vehicle models that offer a high electric range and limit the power of the built-in combustion engine." Furthermore, any subsidies or reduced taxation rates should be tied to the vehicle owner demonstrating predominantly electric driving. Meanwhile, legal and financial barriers for installing home charging devices should be reduced.

Vehicle manufacturers should also take action: By increasing the electric range of plug-in hybrid vehicles from todays average of 50 kilometers to 90 kilometers and limiting the power of the built-in combustion engine, manufacturers can provide an incentive for drivers to regularly re-charge their vehicles and to drive predominantly with electricity. Fleet managers should limit the available budget for petrol or diesel and instead offer employees the option to re-charge plug-in hybrid vehicles easily and at low cost. In doing so, the share of electric driving for plug-in hybrid vehicles could be increased.
A Donald Trump supporter holding a QAnon flag visits Mount Rushmore National Monument on July 01, 2020 in Keystone, South Dakota. President Donald Trump is expected to visit the monument and speak before the start of a fireworks display on July 3. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

Facebook said it has banned QAnon accounts across all its platforms, effective Tuesday.

The move is an update to a policy the company announced in August than only banned QAnon accounts that promoted violence.

Facebook has been criticized for not doing enough to curb the spread of conspiracy theories on its networks.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Facebook said it will ban QAnon accounts across all its platforms, effective Tuesday.

The decision comes after Facebook faced criticism for not doing enough to stop the spread of conspiracy theories on its networks.

The move will not target individual posts, only accounts a Facebook spokesperson told NBC News.

"Starting today, we will remove Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts for representing QAnon," Facebook's press release reads.

"We're starting to enforce this updated policy today and are removing content accordingly, but this work will take time and will continue in the coming days and weeks. Our Dangerous Organizations Operations team will continue to enforce this policy and proactively detect content for removal instead of relying on user reports."

In August, Facebook said it would take broad action on groups that it described as posing "significant risks to public safety," including QAnon.

The company did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment, but told NBC News the change is an update to a policy it implemented in August which removed 1,500 pages, groups and profiles related to QAnon. The removals targeted accounts that discussed violence.

The social-media network said the bans will "bring to parity what we've been doing on other pieces of policy with regard to militarized social movements."

QAnon conspiracy theorists have aggressively spread a false theory that a secret cabal of satanists and pedophiles are trying to oust President Donald Trump, including Democrats. Republicans across the country have also spread baseless claims that Democrats are protecting child abusers and sex traffickers.

Story continues

One baseless theory included a claim that Democrats sacrifice children and drink their blood to extend their own lives.

According to multiple news reports, QAnon-linked accounts have coordinated disinformation campaigns in the last few weeks, including the unfounded theory that the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was secretly wearing an earpiece before last week's debate began.

Read the original article on Business Insider
In a first-of-its kind report a US Senate Committee has alleged that the four big tech companies, which are Google, Apple, facebook and Amazon, are "kind of monopolies" last seen decades ago. The report that comes after testimonies of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, note that the big tech companies are monopolies similar to the ones seen in the era of "the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons."

The 449-page report by the US House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee says that these companies "wield their dominance in ways that erode entrepreneurship, degrade Americans' privacy online, and undermine the vibrancy of the free and diverse press."

The tech companies, obviously, disagree. A Google spokesperson in the US told media that the report relies on "outdated and inaccurate allegations from commercial rivals" and noted that the solutions offered by the Senate Committee would "cause real harm to consumers".

Apple too issued a similar statement. "We have always said that scrutiny is reasonable and appropriate but we vehemently disagree with the conclusions reached in this staff report with respect to Apple. Our company does not have a dominant market share in any category where we do business," apple said in a statement.

Amazon, in a blog, called the findings in the report that took 16-months to prepare "fringe notions." The company wrote on its blog, "Misguided interventions in the free market would kill off independent retailers and punish consumers by forcing small businesses out of popular online stores, raising prices, and reducing consumer choice and convenience.

The report, however, was clear that it sees the tech companies indulging in monopolistic practices. It said that the practices followed by the tech companies have led to "less innovation, fewer choices for consumers, and a weakened democracy."

"To put it simply, companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons," the report notes. "By controlling access to markets, these giants can pick winners and losers throughout our economy. They not only wield tremendous power, but they also abuse it by charging exorbitant fees, imposing oppressive contract terms, and extracting valuable data from the people and businesses that rely on them."

The report slammed the leadership of tech companies for evading the questions asked during Senate hearings. It said their answers were "often evasive and non-responsive, raising fresh questions about whether they believe they are beyond the reach of democratic oversight."
Seven decades ago this week, the Chinese army invaded Tibet, a region that had been effectively independent since the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. But, since no country recognised Tibetan independence, China could go into the region unhindered, moulding Tibet into the province-like dependency it is today.

After a vicious civil war with the Nationalists that ended with the victory of China's Communist Party (CCP) in 1949, Mao Zedong moved contingents of the People's Liberation Army(PLA) to the west, to conquer Tibet, an area China had claimed for centuries.

After the fall of the Qing dynasty, central control had weakened, and Tibetans had tried, in vain, to establish their own state.

But as no Chinese troops were strong enough to occupy the territory, Lhasa, ruled by religious Lamas, operated as a de facto independent state for four decades.

"Even the Chinese will accept, reluctantly, that it was de factoin practice independent from at least 1912," says Robert Barnett, currently a visiting scholar with the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) in London.

But in October 1950, the status quo came to an abrupt end.

"The PLA were on the border of Tibet and China, and they had to try and carry out that invasion before the winter of 1950 set in," says Barnett.

"It was quite difficult for them." The troops, worn out after years of civil war, did not make it into central Tibet. The rest of the region, and the capital, Lhasa, remained untouched - for "at least another year".

"During that year, they persuaded the Tibetans to agree to surrender," Barnett says.

"They had no choice," as none of the big powers of the time, the UK, the US, India, or neighboring Nepal, had recognised Tibet as an independent state.

Initially the Chinese operated prudently. "Before they actually reached the capital, Lhasa, and during the following eight or so years, the Chinese were very careful not to interfere in Tibetan affairs, except foreign affairs," says Barnett.

"They let the Tibetan army remain; they let the Dalai Lama still run his government."

Brutal crackdown

But the Tibetans became increasingly nervous and suspicious of the Chinese presence.

This feeling escalated when reports reached central Tibet about how Chinese troops in adjacent regions, such as in the Tibetan areas of the Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Sichuan,were using increasingly aggressive methods to subject the Tibetans, confiscating land, breaking up the traditional class system, arresting landlords and bombing monasteries.

"Word spread rapidly, and by 1958, the Tibetans were terrified of Chinese plans for their society and began to organise rebellions and resistance," says Barnett.

The Chinese response was a brutal crackdown, in 1959, that resulted in the destruction of hundreds of monasteries, the killing of thousands of Tibetans. Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled to India where he continues to live in exile.

"Autonomous regions"

Over the following decades, Tibetans staged numerous demonstrations protesting China's presence, the biggest ones taking place in1989 and 2008. China has always replied with brutal force.

Today, Tibet, as well as other "autonomous regions" that are formally governed by members of China's minorities, but in practice controlled by the CCP, are being brought under increasingly tight scrutiny by Beijing.

This is a direct result of current Party Secretary Xi Jinping's apparent attempts to integrate China's minorities with the dominant Han-Chinese by means of "ethnic contact, exchange and blending," a catchphrase initially invented by Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao, but today made into a national policy intended to further subject the minorities - in some cases, as in Xinjiang, by brute force.

How will the Dalai Lama reincarnate?

The one crucial element Beijing does not control in spite of its seven decades in Tibet is the Dalai Lama. The spiritual leader fled in 1959. Today he is 85 years old. According to Tibetan Buddhism, his successor is his re-incarnation.

But who decides which newborn is the real reincarnation?

According to Barnett, Beijing "is demanding complete control of the process". A register of all possible re-incarnates is being set up, and "an enormous number of committees and organisations" was set up inside the Tibetan areas controlled by Beijing, "designed to persuade lamas to support China's decision" on the successor of the Dalai Lama.

"Of course the Tibetans in exile say they want nothing to do with this process," that they will decide through their own, traditional religious methods.

"It is going to be a big battle. And it means that there is going to be more than one Dalai Lama," suggesting that the struggle for control over the minds of the Tibetans is far from won.
A three-judge bench observed that while dissent and democracy go hand in hand, protests must be carried out in the designated areas

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that occupying public places like Shaheen Bagh for protests is not acceptable and such a space cannot be occupied "indefinitely".

The apex court's verdict came on a plea against anti-CAA protests which had led to blocking of a road in Shaheen Bagh in the National Capital last December.

A bench comprising Justices SK Kaul, Krishna Murari, and Hrishikesh Roy held that public places cannot be occupied indefinitely like during the Shaheen Bagh protests.

As per LiveLaw, the Bench said: Dissent and democracy go hand in hand but protests must be carried out in designated areas. Such kind of occupation of public place for protests is not acceptable.

The court held that the Shaheen Bagh movement began as a protest but caused inconvenience to commuters. Social media channels often fraught with danger lead to highly polarising environment and this is what was witnessed in Shaheen Bagh, it said.

The Bench also said that Delhi Police ought to have taken action to clear the Shaheen Bagh area from the protesters.

The top court said that it adjudicates the legality of the action and added that the ruling was not meant to give a shoulder to the administration, reports LiveLaw. It is the responsibility of the respondent parties to take suitable action but such actions should produce suitable results, the three-judge Bench observed.

As per Scroll.in the apex court said it had referred to different protests across Delhi and taken into account various rulings by parties including regulations on demonstrations before arriving at the judgement. Shaheen Bagh produced no solution, it said.

The verdict came on a plea of lawyer Amit Sahni against the blockade of a road in Shaheen Bagh area by those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act.

The bench had reserved its verdict at the last hearing on 21 September. "We have to balance the right to protest and blocking of roads.

In a parliamentary democracy, protests can happen in parliament and on roads. But on roads, it has to be peaceful," the bench had said at the time.

The apex court had said there cannot be a "universal policy" on the right to protest and possible curbs as the situation may vary from case to case.

In the previous hearing on 21 September, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the Centre said suggested that the petitions may not survive in light of the developments in the case, however, none of the petitioners, barring one agreed to withdraw their pleas.

Petitioner Amit Sahni, said that these kinds of protests should not be allowed in the larger public interest. "This was allowed to continue for more than 100 days and people faced difficulty," he said.

Advocate Mehmood Pracha, appearing for an intervenor, said that there was a right to peaceful protest, and "some people from a political party went there and created riots".

"We have the right to protest. State machinery is not sacrosanct. Members of a political party went there with the police and created the situation," PTI quoted him as saying.

But Mehta disagreed, saying that the right to protest cannot be absolute, and cited some previous judgements that supported his claim. In response, the top court reserved its verdict and said that it had appointed "interlocutors" in the Shaheen Bagh case as an experiment and they had suggested some measures which can be looked into.

Shaheen Bagh became the epicentre of the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) as mostly women, some with young children, staged a sit-in protest there for over three months. The protest was called off in view of the coronavirus outbreak.

With inputs from PTI
For the first time since Massachusetts flattened" the curve of coronavirus infections, the percentage of positive tests has risen dramatically over the last two weeks compared to August and September, prompting warnings from health experts as colder weather moves in.

This is not a blip; this is a trend, said Dr. Douglas T. Golenbock, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at UMass Medical School. I dont know how you couldnt be very concerned.

Health officials reported more than 700 new COVID infections a day during the first two days of October  numbers that havent been seen in a consecutive string of days since this past spring. The seven-day average of positive tests has climbed to about 1.1%, where it has stood so far this month, according to the latest Department of Public Health data.

The rate of infection has risen in tandem with an increase in the percentage of individuals who test positive, which began creeping up as early as the first few weeks of September, according to Tuesdays data from DPHs daily COVID dashboard.

Because of a lag in reporting from testing laboratories, much of the COVID data reported by DPH is incomplete, or in the process of being updated days  and sometimes weeks  into the future.

Remember that we dont know how many cases there really are, we never know that, said Dr. Eric Rubin, editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and professor in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard University. We only know how many individuals test positive out of how many are tested.

While there is an increase in reports of COVID cases in Massachusetts, the rate of death hasnt risen as prominently, even as hospitalizations continue to climb. Rubin says that could be in part because hospitals havent been overwhelmed with patients sickened with the respiratory virus like they were in the spring. Hospital workers are now better equipped to manage those who do need treatment and support, Rubin said.

People in all risk groups appear to be doing better, at least from the standpoint of death, Rubin said.

Golenbock said the number of patients hospitalized at UMass Memorial Medical Center remained relatively stable over the summer, but has been budging up recently. He said he was somewhat surprised that Gov. Charlie Baker is allowing the vast majority of communities to proceed into Step 2 of Phase 3 of the states reopening plan, given the uptick in virus activity.

Its not like its hard for someone in Revere to go to dinner in Wellesley, he added.

Twenty-nine communities will not be able to enter Step 2 of Phase 3, which permits indoor and outdoor performance venues, recreational facilities, gyms, libraries and other venues and institutions to scale up to 50% capacity. Those communities are: Attleboro, Avon, Boston, Chelsea, Dedham, Dracut, Everett, Framingham, Haverhill, Holliston, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, Lynnfield, Marlborough, Methuen, Middleton, Monson, Nantucket, New Bedford, North Andover, Plainville, Revere, Saugus, Springfield, Tyngsborough, Winthrop, Worcester and Wrentham.

State officials and experts have been anticipating a rise in cases in the colder months, not just because many school districts and colleges began the fall semester with in-person or hybrid learning, but because infections are up nationwide.

Nearly half of U.S. states have seen a sustained increase in cases over the last week, where daily new infections are at or above 15 per 100,000 people, according to New York Times data. Over the last seven days, Massachusetts has averaged 627 new daily cases, which is up 62% from the average over the prior 14-day period, the Times reports.

This seems like its kind of inevitable, because cases have been rising in the rest of the country, Rubin said.

States hard hit by the pandemic early on in the spring are beginning to climb again, like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Medical experts stress that its hard to predict the course of the virus heading into the winter, but are urging even more caution as people spend more time inside during the colder months.

Experts have said the virus can remain in the air for longer periods of time indoors, particularly in poorly ventilated buildings.

We are facing one big issue, which is that people are going to be indoors more, Rubin said. "That is a concern.

Related Content:
The death has occurred of Kevin Keatinge

Celbridge, Kildare / Ballyfermot, Dublin

KEATINGE, Kevin (Celbridge, Co. Kildare and formerly of Ballyfermot and ex. Dublin Corporation) October 5th., 2020 (peacefully) at home surrounded by his loving family. Beloved husband of the late Peggy; sadly missed by his loving children Tony, Mickey, Catherine, Deirdre, Kevin, Jean and Robert grandchildren, great-grandchildren, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, brothers, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, nephews, relatives and many friends.

May he rest in peace

Due to Government advice and restrictions regarding public gatherings and to protect our most vulnerable family members and our friends, a private family funeral will take place. We look forward to meeting everyone at a Memorial Service for Kevin where we will honour his life.

Those who would have liked to attend the funeral; but due to current restrictions cannot, may join the private family Funeral Mass on Thursday, October 8th, at 10 am by following this LINK or please leave your personal message by selecting Condolences below or alternatively leaving a message at www.cunninghamsfunerals.com.

Family flowers only please, donations if desired, to the Irish Cancer Society.



The death has occurred of Mary O'Sullivan (nee Cosgrave)

Aughraboura, Athy, Kildare / Castledermot, Kildare

Mary OSullivan (nee Cosgrave) passed away after a long illness, surrounded by her loving family. Predeceased by her brother John. Sadly, missed by her husband Martin, daughters Rosemary, Louise and Marina, her grandchildren Alex, Molly, Rosie, Louis, Jimmy, Leah, sons-in-law, her brother Philip, sisters-in-law Valerie and Lucy, nieces, nephews, relatives, neighbours and wide circle of friends.



The death has occurred of Mary PHILLIPS (nee Burke)

Clongorey, Newbridge, Kildare

PHILLIPS (nee Burke), Mary (Clongorey, Newbridge, Co. Kildare) - 5th October 2020 (peacefully) at Tallaght Hospital. Sadly missed by her sons & daughters, Ned, Des, Angela & Louise, their partners, grandchildren, brothers & sisters Pat, Margaret & Nancy, extended family, relatives, neighbours & friends.

May Mary Rest In Peace

A private family funeral will take place due to advice on public gatherings. Removal from her residence on Thursday morning at 10.15am to arrive at St. Conleths Parish Church, Newbridge for 11am Mass. Funeral afterwards to Barrettstown Cemetery.

Mass will be live-streamed on the Newbridge Parish webcam on www.newbridgeparish.ie/webcam.

For those who cannot attend due to current restrictions, can leave a personal message for the family on the condolence page below.

The family thank you for your co-operation, understanding and support during this sensitive time.



The death has occurred of Theresa Carr (nee Burke)

Cappagh, Newtown, Kildare / Oranmore, Galway

Theresa Carr (nee Burke) Cappagh, Newtown, Co. Kildare and late of Renville, Oranmore, Co. Galway, passed away, peacefully, in her 95th year, surrounded by her loving family, on Sunday, October 4th 2020. Loving wife of the late John and mother in law of the late Rosemary. Cherished mother of Brendan, John and Frank. Deeply regretted by her grandchildren Marian, Derek, Alan, Aiveen, Darina, Emmet, Ronan, Shane and Cormac, her four great-grandchildren, daughters in law Kathleen and Catherine, nieces, nephews, relatives, neighbours and friends.

May Theresa Rest in Peace

Theresa will be reposing at her family home on Tuesday from 4pm to 7.30pm with strict social distancing in place.A private family funeral will take place on Wednesday morning at 11am in The Church of the Nativity Newtown, followed by burial in the Old Cemetery, Oranmore, arriving at approx 2.15pm. Due to government advice regarding public gatherings, those who would have liked to attend the funeral, but due to current situation cannot, are invited to leave a personal message for Theresa's family in the "condolence" section below.
As a Calistoga homeowner I experienced firsthand this past weekend how outstanding teamwork, leadership and trust save lives and property and can renew faith in our abilities to work together in an increasingly complex, cacophonous and dangerous world.

Our hillside is in the midst of the Glass Fire, which ignited on Sept. 27 in windy weather, laying waste to wide swaths of Wine Country. Hundreds of homes and buildings in Napa and Sonoma counties were destroyed, including a number of wineries.

When we returned to check on our property on Saturday we were met by a fire crew from Snohomish, Wash., that was putting out hot spots all over our hill.

A few hours later, while working on our property we noticed smoke coming out of the ground near a large blackened tree on a neighbor's property. After failing to put out the source of the smoke myself, I called 911. The 911 dispatcher immediately connected me with the Cal Fire emergency operator. In less than five minutes the crew from Washington state was on the scene after having worked up to the top of our hill. They took care of the hot spot in a few minutes. They were in the middle of a 24-hour shift.

This is just one simple example of the incredible teamwork, leadership and trust of multiple organizations from all over the western United States. Cal Fire, firefighting aircraft, government organizations, meteorologists, local police, Highway Patrol, PG&E, dispatchers, media outlets, volunteers and others have created coherent and agile strategies to speak the same language when they are called on to keep us safe.

We see the news of an enlarging national divide on multiple fronts in our everyday lives. The positive forces exemplified by those who literally have their feet to the fire is an indelible beacon that we can deal with adversity in an intelligent, respectful and effective manner.

Andy Dolich is a sports executive who has worked for four professional leagues.
Oil prices fell on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump dashed hopes for a fourth stimulus package to boost the coronavirus-hit economy and on a larger-than-expected increase in US crude inventories.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures declined 42 cents, or 1%, to $40.25 a barrel by 0648 GMT while Brent crude futures fell 30 cents, or 0.7%, to $42.35 a barrel.

Crude prices got hammered with one-two punch after President Trump sent all risky assets into freefall after ending negotiations on fiscal stimulus and after US crude stockpiles posted their first build in four weeks, said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA.

President Trump, still being treated for Covid-19, ended talks on Tuesday with Democrats on an economic aid package for the United States, the worlds biggest oil consumer, with the US presidential election only weeks away.

President Trumps decision to end fiscal stimulus talks surprised markets. While many didnt expect to see a deal reached before the election, the abrupt end sent all risky assets sharply lower, Moya added.

Price were also pressured by data from the American Petroleum Institute showing US oil stockpiles rose by 951,000 barrels last week.

(This was) not exactly what the recovery doctor ordered as the oil market was already tanking from a two-week high after President Trump quashed hope for a pre-election stimulus deal, said Stephen Innes, chief market strategist, at online brokerage AxiCorp.

But losses were limited by restrictions on the supply side.

Energy companies secured offshore production platforms and evacuated workers on Tuesday, some for the sixth time this year, as Hurricane Delta took aim at US oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.

The storm has shut 29.2% of offshore oil production in the Gulf, which accounts for 17% of total US crude oil output.

In Norway, the Lederne labour union said on Tuesday it will expand its ongoing oil strike from Oct. 10 unless a wage deal can be reached in the meantime. Six offshore oil and gas fields shut down on Monday because of the strike, cutting the countrys output capacity by 8%.
Reuters

If you think same-sex marriage isnt in danger of being overturned, Justice Clarence Thomas would like you to think again.

Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, today published a blistering attack on the Supreme Courts landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down state bans on same-sex marriage in 2015, arguing that it should be overturned.

Thomass opinion is not a court decision and has no legal impact. My husband and I are still legally married, and our daughter has not yet been taken away from us. But Thomass screed is a terrifying warning for the millions of LGBTQ Americans who have built families together in the wake of Obergefell, and a reminder that we are not nearly as secure in our rights as many of us thought. Especially when you count up the justices likely to agree with Thomas.

Ironically, the context for Thomass opinion is a small victory for gay people: The Supreme Court refused to take up a challenge by Kim Davis (yes, that Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to certify any marriages after the Obergefell decision, and who has since become a well-paid poster child for the religious freedom movement) arguing that she should be immune from a civil lawsuit brought by two of the couples she refused to marry. Davis lost at the district court, lost again at the appeals court, and today, the Supreme Court refused to take her case.

Justice Thomas, while agreeing with the denial of review because the case was narrowly about immunity, took the occasion to opine about how Obergefell threaten[ed] the religious liberty of the many Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman.

Worse, Thomas complained, Obergefell enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss.

In sum, concluded Thomas, quoting Chief Justice John Roberts dissent in the case, by choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment, and by doing so undemocratically, the Court has created a problem that only it can fix. Until then, Obergefell will continue to have ruinous consequences for religious liberty.

Story continues

To be sure, Thomass opinion is hardly surprising; he dissented in Obergefell, writing separately to note that gay people cant have their dignity harmed by marriage bans because Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved.

And Thomas has a long record of authoring quixotic concurring and dissenting opinions that seem to come from another jurisprudential planet. He has questioned the reasonable expectation of privacy, the cornerstone of Fourth Amendment interpretation, as well as the constitutionality of Social Security, campaign finance laws, any use of race to make any decision whatsoever, and even the application of the First Amendment to states (meaning that states could establish official religions).

Whats troubling about Thomass concurrence today, though, is that its not another weird Thomas opinion butlike other of his once-outlier opinionsmay well represent a roadmap for the Trump Court to overturn not just same-sex marriage but also numerous other rights, under the guise of protecting religious freedom. (Last year, he provided a similar roadmap to overturning Roe v. Wade.)

Indeed, Thomass opinion reads like a primer on the redefinition of religious freedom that has flourished in the last ten years and has now become Republican party orthodoxy. (I first wrote about it in 2013.)

First, notice the inversion of victim and oppressor. In Thomass opinion, the victims are not the gay couples turned away by Kim Davisthe victim is Kim Davis. Never mind that implicit (or explicit) No Gays Allowed sign; in this logic, the real victim is the person who wants to turn the gays away, but cant.

Second, notice the elision of real religious freedom cases, which are between the believer and the government, and these religious freedom cases, which are between a person who wishes to discriminate, and people who are the victims of discrimination.

For over one hundred years, religious freedom meant protecting people from government persecution: a Muslim prison inmate forbidden from growing a beard, a Native American who lost his job because he ingested peyote in a religious ritual, students forced to say sectarian prayers in public school. In those classic cases, there were no third parties whose rights were abridged by someone elses religious practice.

In fact, the first time religious freedom was said to include my right to discriminate against you because of my religious belief, the people arguing it were segregationists. My faith requires me to separate blacks and whites at my restaurant, they saidand they were roundly rejected.

Religious freedom never meant freedom at someone elses expense.

Until 2014, that is, when the Supreme Court held that Hobby Lobby, a corporation owned by a single family (who just happen to be major donors to the Religious Right), had a religious exemption to Obamacare, and could deny female employees insurance coverage for contraception.

Thomass opinion follows the same script but takes it a step further, saying the right to discriminate is among the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment.

Really? I dont see discrimination against third parties explicitly in the text. And last I checked, I dont get to hide behind religious freedom if I shoot someone, or deny them service at my restaurant because of their race, or shout fire in the proverbial crowded theater.

Finally, Thomass opinion is troubling because, judging from their past writings, Justice Neil Gorsuch, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Future Justice Amy Coney Barrett appear to agree with it. Add in Justice Alito, who concurred today, and youve got five justices saying that my marriage interferes with someone elses religious freedom because they dont want to recognize that it exists.

Still think gay marriage is safe, settled, and beyond todays political disputes? Wrong. Its none of the above.

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Irans currency dropped to its lowest value ever against the US dollar last week amid crushing sanctions by Washington, a disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic and a string of disjointed foreign policy efforts that have caused distrust in the regime and caused money to flee the country.

On Thursday, the rial fell to 300,000 to the US dollar; it had been at 262,000 only a few weeks before. That's an enormous drop from 2015, when the rate was just 32,000 rials to the dollar.

The rial's value has fallen almost in half this year, and 30% in the last three months alone. A portion of the drop is due to a major slump in oil prices and a downturn in the global economy triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Even before the pandemic, domestic consumption was the only thing going for the regime economically as heavy international sanctions were already hurting the country, said Alex Vatanka, the director of the Middle East Institutes Iran Program. But the pandemic spiraled the situation into disaster.

They didnt have a fallback position and that meant they had to keep their local economy going, he said. Thats why they were so reluctant to close down business and to tell people to stay home, the usual things that a lot of countries decided to do.

The rial's loss of value is partly a product of sanctions against the regime that were triggered by US President Donald Trumps decision in 2018 to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. Among some of the harshest US sanctions are restrictions on Irans oil exports, the countrys main source of income.

Although some Iranian leaders will use the collapse of the nuclear deal as a scapegoat for the regimes economic woes and Washington in turn will say its sanctions caused the rials downfall, foreign policy experts cite disjointed international efforts by Irans leadership that have crippled the country's economy since the 1979 revolution.

Oftentimes people want to boil this down to the nuclear program, but its much bigger than the program, Vatanka said. Nobody wants to talk about the elephant in the room, that this crisis is fundamentally not an economic crisis but a crisis about choice of foreign policy. Its not about Trump. It goes back to 1979. Its the crisis of what kind of foreign policy do you want to have, a revolutionary foreign policy or do you want to be a normal state? [Iranian Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei doesnt want to choose.

Traders have blamed the sanctions for sparking a failure in returning export earnings. To combat the loss, last month the regime pledged to invest 1% of its sovereign wealth fund, the National Development Fund, to shore up its market. And Iranian officials have warned exporters to return their foreign earnings home from abroad or face having their licenses revoked. The central bank agreed to publish the names of violators.

Now Iranians fear a seeming bubble in the Tehran Stock Exchange and the currency's loss of value will lead to a big crash and a major loss of individual savings. This is contributing to a flood of investment outside the country, in particular involving the purchase of properties in places such as Turkey. Such capital flight became so bad that Khamenei made a statement against it.

But what Irans supreme leader did not say may be more important.

What Khamenei should have mentioned is this lack of trust in the state and the ability of the government to protect the investors money at home, Vatanka said. He didnt mention that foreign policy is at the heart of everything that" concerns the average Iranian.
"And that's why the tax cuts that will drive investment and support these businesses, the loss carry-back some of the COVID losses of this year: all of that is going to ensure a stronger economy in Australia." Youth focus Mr Frydenberg has defended his focus on young people in the budget. A new JobMaker hiring credit was announced that will establish a wage subsidy for new hires paid for a year at $200 a week for those aged under 30, and $100 a week for those aged 30 to 35. Mr Frydenberg was asked whether the initiative, which requires new hires to work for a minimum of 20 hours a week, would discourage businesses from employing older workers.

"We've got a series of other programs [so] this should not be seen in isolation from the broader context of measures that we've undertaken," he said, pointing to the governments job training program and 50,000 places for short courses. "And of course, we've got record investments in infrastructure, which are designed to boost job creation across the economy," he said. Mr Frydenberg admitted though that young people were front and centre in the budget due to the danger that they will be out of work for a long time. "Our focus on apprentices and our focus through the JobMaker hiring credit is focusing on those workers who may not have had the fully developed experience in the workforce [who] have not had that length of time where they can develop the skills as some of the senior members of the workforce and therefore, they are at a disadvantage," he said.

Loading "And if they stay out of the [unemployment] lines, then that could be a long-term proposition for them. And that's not good news for them, personally, and certainly not good news for the economy." Mr Frydenberg said the tax cuts included in the budget will only reach their full effect as states and territories ease coronavirus restrictions, and that the budget overall was based on the assumption that Victoria will move out of its lockdown as scheduled and reopen by the end of the year. "The savings ratio has increased as a function of what has happened with the health restrictions," he told Sunrise. "People have not been able to go to their local cafe or their local restaurant all their favourite holiday destination, because of those health restrictions. As we have success in suppressing the virus, and those restrictions are eased, more people will spend."

The federal government has also assumed Western Australia will have completely reopened its borders by April, and other states with hard boarders  such as Queensland  will do so by the end of the year. The Treasurer said the ATO was confident the cuts, which are backdated to July 1, would begin to feed into pay packets before Christmas. The backdated cuts would then be paid with next year's tax returns. Labor, ACTU says budget leaves too many behind "If you are over the age of 35, you will lose your wage subsidy in March ... and you'll be competing for a job with someone under 35 who is being subsidised for work," Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said. "If you are a woman, half the population ... [who] are being particularly adversely affected by the pandemic ... there is nothing really there to support you, and it is almost like it was an afterthought: a women's economic statement, throw it into the speech."

Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers said the federal government "fell down" in creating a vision for the future in its budget. "Central to having confidence in the future is having a government that has a plan for the future and a vision and can explain to people where they fit in that vision," he said. The Australian Council of Trade Unions has cast doubt on the JobMaker program, claiming it could incentivise businesses to churn through employees and discourage long-term employment. The problem with this subsidy is that it can be for casual, insecure, short term and part time jobs, ACTU President Michelle ONeill told ABC Radio Nationals Breakfast program.

In fact, the employer can get double the subsidy by giving two people a part-time job than if they gave one person a full-time job, and for many young people, particularly those on youth wages, you can't live on a job that gives you 20 hours a week, it's just not enough to put food on the table. Businesses, banks rejoice Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said the budget would drive job creation through spurring investment and subsidising wages. "Well I think we can be pretty confident that businesses will hire. For a couple of reasons. First of all, there's a huge package to drive extra investment and we know that when businesses invest that they create jobs," she told the ABC. "So I think Australians can be very confident that those initiatives last night will see investment and will see job creation."

Ms Westacott said the asset write-off for businesses would encourage spending. "The beauty of what the government has announced last night is that it will cover the entire economy. And those businesses often say, look I've still got all of the demand, I've got the demand for meat productions I just need new equipment. I need to make that stack up," she said. "So they start putting on extra plant and equipment. That means they create a work order for someone who builds that equipment. They create a work order for someone to deliver it. They upgrade their IT. They upgrade all their systems. If you're a tradie, you buy new tools, you buy a new ute. Suddenly, you're getting back in business." National Australia Bank chief executive Ross McEwan has praised the instant asset write-offs, tax cuts, research funding and stimulus measures in the budget.

"The tax incentives to encourage businesses to invest and wage subsidies to create more jobs will be significant contributors to rebuilding Australias economy," Mr McEwan said. Getting businesses going again isnt just the responsibility of governments. Companies like NAB must also step up. We all have a responsibility to do our part to ensure Australia emerges as a stronger global player on the other side of this. Health funding Former Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone says, while funding for the nation's pandemic emergency response, aged care and mental health were among a number of positive announcements, there are "still things that need to be addressed". "If we look at public hospital, elective surgery waiting lists and emergency department waiting times ... [there] were record wait times in a number of our states and jurisdictions [before the pandemic]," he told Today.

"During the COVID pandemic, obviously we had elective surgery frozen in many states and, indeed, in Victoria, for a significant period of time. That's going to put back pressure on people waiting for elective surgery." Asked for his thoughts the budget assumption that all Australians would be vaccinated against coronavirus by the end of next year, Dr Bartone said a mid-2021 vaccine arrival was "probably the best approximate time frame", but "there is no guarantee". "In the immediate outlook, it is steady as she goes and positive signs at this stage," he said of public health funding in the budget more generally. JobSeeker The Australian Council of Social Service said the budget ignored the unemployed and those on low-incomes, with tax breaks given to those who already have a job.

"It's a crushing letdown for people on JobKeeper who are facing the prospects of no confidence, no certainty, no adequacy of their incomes coming to the end of the year," the council's chief executive Cassandra Goldie said on ABC Radio National. "There's nothing in the budget beyond the end of the year in terms of fixing the level of social security for people who are affected the worst by this pandemic." Mr Frydenberg said JobSeeker recipients will need to wait until the end of the year to see what happens to their payments, denying the absence of an announcement about the supplement on Tuesday night means it will definitely disappear in December. "Both the Prime Minister and I have made clear that, closer to the end of the year, we will make a decision about the future level of that payment," Mr Frydenberg told Ben Fordham on 2GB.

Loading "And that will be based on an understanding of where the labour market dynamic is, because obviously you want to get that payment at the right level so that it encourages mobility in the labor market and people moving into jobs where they're available." The JobSeeker payment replaced the Newstart allowance of about $40 a day in March. Last month, the JobSeeker rate dropped by $300 a fortnight, due to a reduction in the extra coronavirus supplement available to those who received the payments. Ms Goldie also highlighted a lack of attention for those on temporary visas who are not entitled to any government support, and little investment in affordable housing.
Wilkes-Barre, PA (18701)

Today

Cloudy with snow showers developing during the afternoon. High around 30F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 40%..

Tonight

Snow showers before midnight. Becoming partly cloudy later. Low 9F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 50%.
SABRATHA - Two migrants were shot and killed by guards at a detention camp in Sabratha, Libya, hosting dozens of people in dire living conditions, eye witnesses have said. Trawaria, an 18-year-old migrant from the Ivory Coast, said she witnessed her 26-year-old being shot and killed on October 3.



Another migrant at the facility, Rukaia, said men, women and children were all detained at the camp for nine days, without clean water. She said men were locked up in part of the camp and started to fight for water when the guards opened fire and fled.



Rukaia and other migrants were reportedly taken to the center in Sabratha after the Joint Force of the interior ministry announced the detention of 350 African migrants who were about to leave for Europe through Ajilat and Jamil, 100 km west Tripoli.



''We asked for water, just water, their answer was 'wait, wait' with no action, everybody was very thirsty even me'', Rukaia said. ''That day I went to talk to the guards and I told them we needed to drink water, they promised to give us water but that wasn't true, I had to drink dirty water as I was dying of thirst.'' Rukaia went on to say that men were kept inside part of the facility in very hot weather: ''the temperature was boiling, they were very thirsty and they can't get outside not even to use toilets so they were doing everything inside. The guards passed over a tube through a little window to let the men drink water from''. She said men inside started to fight over the water: ''women were worried for their husbands inside so they started shouting to open the gate''. When a guard heard the noise ''he faced the gate and started shooting'', she said. ''He knew that there were people behind the door, he aimed at that door with his Kalashnikov and fired three times''. She said three people were shot ''including Trawaria's husband'' and two died.
Poland's anti-monopoly regulator UOKiK has imposed maximum fines of $7.6 billion on Gazprom and $61 million on five other companies, respectively, which are involved in constructing the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, because the said companies each constructed the pipeline without the regulator's consent.

The regulator tweeted that it has also issued an order to terminate the contracts concluded to finance the construction of Nord Stream 2.
A report by a team from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) has concluded that the first weeks of the new school year in Spain have not had a significant impact on the evolution of the coronavirus epidemic.

If schools had acted as amplifiers of contagion, we should already observe an effect on the global incidence, reads the analysis by the Research Group on Computational Biology and Complex Systems at the UPCs physics department, which has sent its findings to the European Commission.

The academic year at primary and secondary schools began between September 7 and 14, depending on the region. In order to determine whether coronavirus transmission inside schools has been notable since then, researchers focused their analysis on specific regions that publish data series disaggregated by age: Andalusia, Castilla y Leon, Catalonia and the Valencia region, plus Madrid because of its relevance as the epicenter of the epidemic in Spain.

Its important to underscore that this is just a first analysis and that everything can change. But what we are seeing is that school reopenings in themselves have not significantly altered the trends, says the physicist Clara Prats, who participated in the study. The regions where incidence was already rising continued to experience a rise at a similar rate, and those where it was going down continued to see a decline.

Its possible that there is a more subtle change underway that we will notice in the coming weeks, but this is the picture for now, she adds.

These results seem to confirm the usefulness of the measures adopted by schools to prevent transmission, including the creation of stable groups of students  called bubbles  and the obligation to wear facemasks among students over the age of six.

But the results must be viewed with caution because they focus on a short period of time, and also because of the good weather that has so far made it easier to ventilate classrooms, admits Prats.

Analysis by age

The study  part of a larger report called Analysis and prediction of Covid-19 for EU-EFTA-UK and other countries,  looked at the 14-day cumulative number of coronavirus cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Spain at the time that schools reopened, then checked the incidence again three weeks later. It also analyzed the evolution of transmission in individuals up to 18 years of age in four regions of Spain that provide figures disaggregated by age.

These figures show that Andalusia and Catalonia experienced a slight increase in contagion among the school-age population. But this could be explained by greater screening efforts, note the researchers. In Catalonia, for instance, every time a child tests positive for the coronavirus, PCR tests are conducted on all other children in the same bubble group. There have also been mass screenings at schools located in high-incidence zones.

In Andalusia, which has just announced a protocol change, tests have so far only been conducted on classmates considered to be close contacts, which sometimes means the entire class and sometimes only a few students. But when more tests are done in a population group with many asymptomatic individuals, it is to be expected that the number of positive cases will grow, as well as its relative weight compared with other population groups that are not undergoing so much screening.

Ups and downs

In the Valencia region, which tests all members of a bubble group when a positive case is detected, the data shows a slight decrease in transmission among students since schools reopened. In Castilla y Leon, however, there has been a relevant increase among children up to nine years of age, with the percentage of monthly incidence rising 10 points to 22.8% between the first two weeks of September and the last two weeks.

Researchers say this could be due to more contagion at schools, or to greater screening of this age group, or lower screening of other age groups. We dont have a clear answer, its a surprising figure that requires a search for an explanation, says Prats.

The age bracket analysis does not include other regions of Spain because no segmented data sets exist for them. Madrid, which does not offer this information either, was nevertheless included in the first part of the report, which analyzed the global evolution of the coronavirus in Spain since schools reopened, due to this territorys relevance in epidemiological terms.

Prats says that overall, the numbers indicate a low transmission, perhaps because children are less likely to pass on the virus, and probably also due to the success  so far, at least  of preventive measures at schools.

Since March, her research group has been sending reports about the evolution of the pandemic in Spain to two European Commission departments focusing on health and new technology. The groups analyses are also sent three times a week to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

English version by Susana Urra.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of businesses, since not being able to sell in physical spaces, they looked for ways to continue operating through the internet. In this context, Mercado Libre presented a campaign called " Let's put the economy in gear " with the aim of making visible the stories of all the entrepreneurs who are part of the economic reactivation of Latin America.

The company seeks to inspire progress and solidarity through the message: "behind each purchase made within the platform there is an entire economy starting up."

"During the pandemic, thousands of SMEs and startups throughout Latin America were digitally reconverted. Mercado Libre wants to motivate Latin American entrepreneurs to join the platform and see us as an ally in the economic recovery. We are proud to be together to all these entrepreneurs and support them side by side, until the best comes, "Hernan Cieri, Marketing Director of Mercado Libre Mexico, said in a statement .

The company accompanies the thousands of projects that had to change their business model, with an ecosystem of value that includes technological, financial, training and labor inclusion tools throughout the region where the platform operates. In Mexico alone, the ecommerce platform has managed to add more than 8,000 SMEs since March 24, which means around 45 a day.

"The central concept of the campaign is to show how Mercado Libre supports SMEs and entrepreneurs to sell their services and products, especially in the challenging context of recent months. That is why we show behind closed curtains, what they live many, in an underworld where everything is moving, changing, generating employment and sales, reactivating ", Cieri concludes.

The campaign is already visible on TV, radio,advertising and social media in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia.

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The Republican candidate for the 165th state Legislative District wants to make it financially easier to enter the police academy. The Democratic incumbent agrees with him and says help should also be extended to firefighters and paramedics.

Republican Bob Smythe of Springfield said, if elected, he would introduce legislation that would create a new grant program to provide up to 75 percent of the training costs through the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.

Many law enforcement officials acknowledge that they face major challenges in recruiting, hiring, and retaining accredited candidates, he said. I want to reduce the financial barriers for individuals who want to join the ranks of law enforcement but lack the economic means to attend an academy. This will provide police departments with a more diverse pool of candidates that is representative of all socio-economic levels.

Incumbent state Rep. Jennifer OMara, D-165 of Springfield, agreed and wants to do more.

I commend Mr. Smythe on his proposal  its an important step towards increasing accessibility for those interested in becoming law enforcement officers, she said. I would urge the program be expanded to include covering the costs of training for firefighters and EMS professionals, in addition to police officers.

To become a municipal police officer in Pennsylvania, a candidate must complete a 22-week basic training program at a certified police academy, such as the one at Delaware County Community College. Because of budget constraints, many police departments require individuals to have already obtained their certification before they apply for a position. In Delco, only the Chester City and Upper Darby police departments are able to hire an individual first, then cover their tuition cost.

My proposed PHEAA grant program will alleviate the financial barriers that prevent too many individuals from pursuing a career in law enforcement, Smythe, whose father has served in law enforcement for almost 50 years, said. If a member of law enforcement is putting their life on the line to keep our communities and families safe, the last thing they should be worried about is how they are going to repay their student loan.

Smythe said PHEAA already has the Pennsylvania Targeted Industry Program in place that provides need-based grants for students in specific subjects, such as energy, health, advanced materials and diversified manufacturing and agriculture and food production. The PA-TIP grants provide up to 75 percent of a students educational costs, including tuition, books, fees and supplies.

Smythe intends for his proposal to expand this for those in law enforcement.

OMara said right now the biggest problem facing first responders is recruitment.

As co-chair of the Bipartisan Fire and Emergency Services Caucus, Ive been at the forefront of this issue in Harrisburg  I actually helped to create a joint task force between Harrisburg and Washington to address this issue, which I co-chair along with state Rep. Frank Farry, (R-142 of Langhorne) and U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, (R-1 of Bucks County), she said.

She added that funds are being distributed to those who volunteer.

We have started to try and address some of these issues with legislation this session, including legislation to give grants to students who volunteer with local first responder companies and remain in Pennsylvania and efforts to move some of the training online to lower travel costs, OMara said. The bottom line is we must work together in a bipartisan way to address the shortage of first responders in the commonwealth.
Top officials in charge of making sure that a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine is swiftly delivered to the American people waved caution flags on Tuesday, all but assuring that a shot wont be widely available by Election Day. The Food and Drug Administration has been working for months to hammer out clear standards for vaccines seeking to be fast-tracked to market.

The process has placed the agency at odds with the White House, which has wanted to get a shot approved by the time Americans head to the polls on Nov. 3. On Tuesday, the FDA said it would demand two months of ...
Civil rights organizations and activists sued San Francisco on Wednesday, alleging police illegally tapped into a network of more than 400 surveillance cameras to keep track of police-brutality protesters this spring.

The suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, centered on the demonstrations that immediately followed the Memorial Day police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, when thousands in San Francisco and elsewhere took to the streets to protest police violence against Black and brown people.

Plaintiffs attorneys claim that from May 31 to June 7, San Francisco police accessed real-time surveillance footage from private cameras in the Union Square area without first obtaining necessary approval from the Board of Supervisors.

A 2019 San Francisco ordinance bans city agencies from using, borrowing or acquiring surveillance technology without prior approval from supervisors in all but emergency circumstances. The cameras tied to the suit are owned and operated by a private entity, the Union Square Business Improvement District.

Hope Williams, an activist who organized a June 2 protest in San Francisco and who serves as the cases lead plaintiff, said tapping the surveillance cameras was a tactic to keep people from speaking out.

Williams and two other activists suing the city are represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation  a San Francisco-based nonprofit that focuses on privacy protections  and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

Saira Hussain, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said such dragnet police monitoring could cause a chilling effect on future demonstrations.

It makes it so that people think twice before they venture out to these protests, she said. It makes the job harder for organizers like Hope, who try to bring people out and get them to participate and speak up to try to end police violence against Black communities.

The plaintiffs are not seeking monetary damages, but rather a court order that would compel police to follow the city ban on surveillance technologies.

San Francisco police declined to comment on the lawsuit, deferring instead to the City Attorneys Office. A spokesman for the office provided two letters in which San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott addresses the incident to members of the Board of Supervisors.

In the letters, Scott stated that the looting and civil unrest following some of the early protests warranted an exigent circumstance that would allow police to bypass supervisor approval.

While Scott acknowledged that the departments Homeland Security Unit requested a live-feed link to the camera network on May 31, he said it was not ultimately used.

The remote link was requested ... to access only if the arson, violence and looting continued, Scott wrote in a Sept. 9 response to inquiries by Supervisor Aaron Peskin. The criminal activity did not continue in the (camera networks) service area, subsequently HSU did not monitor any activity, including first amendment activities, through the remote live access link.

Hussain said the city ordinance allows police to receive a tip, including a piece of surveillance footage from a non-city actor, without previous board approval. Such is often the case when police receive security camera footage of a specific crime or suspect.

But this case isnt about a tip or even a targeted investigation, Hussain said. Its about SFPD harvesting a private camera network for an entire week of dragnet, real-time surveillance, in blatant violation of the law.

Plaintiffs attorneys argue that there was no exigent circumstance that exempted the department from obtaining approval to tap the camera feeds. San Francisco code defines exigent circumstances as emergencies involving imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to any person.

The suit comes just weeks after police were accused of potentially violating another surveillance-related ordinance by circumventing a ban on facial-recognition technology. Police said another agency proactively provided its own facial-recognition results after San Francisco police sent out a crime alert bulletin with a photo of a gun suspect.

The results were later used by San Francisco police to build a case against the suspect, who was charged with assault with a semiautomatic firearm, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence and other gun charges. Prosecutors are now reviewing whether the case can be supported by other, independent evidence.

Emails obtained and released by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in July show how San Francisco police requested and were granted access to the Union Square Business Improvement Districts web of cameras, which include remote zoom and focus capabilities. The network covers blocks from Bush and Market streets to the north and south, and from Taylor and Mason streets to Kearny Street going west to east.

Business improvement districts, also called community benefit districts, are run by clusters of property owners who tax themselves to pay for services beyond what the city provides, like extra street cleaning or homelessness outreach.

The suit states that on the morning of May 31, an officer from San Francisco Police Departments Homeland Security Unit emailed the Union Square Business Improvement District to request real-time access to its cameras on Market Street to monitor the potential violence today for situational awareness and enhanced response.

An email response that same morning shows the district allowed police 48-hour access to remote use of the cameras, according to the suit.

A follow-up email from police on June 2 requested a five-day extension of the access, stating, We have several planned (demonstrations) all week and we anticipate several more over the weekend. This request was also granted, according to the lawsuit.

On June 10, the suit states, an officer sent another email to the district thanking it for the use of your cameras. The cameras, the officer stated, were extremely helpful in giving us situational awareness and ensuring public safety during the multiple demos that came through the area.

It is unclear from the suit exactly what police obtained, but the cameras would have likely captured at least one of the plaintiffs protests during the dates police had apparent access. That demonstration began at City Hall and marched east on Market Street, including past areas where USBIDs cameras are located, the suit states.

Representatives from the business improvement district did not respond to requests for comment.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
Newsfrom Japan

New York, Oct. 6 (Jiji Press)--A Japanese jazz pianist active in New York was seriously injured late last month in an attack by young people in a downtown Manhattan subway station, it was learned Tuesday.

Tadataka Unno, 40, sustained fractures in his right arm and shoulder and bruises all over the body. He still suffers from pain.

He does not know how long it will take to fully recover or when he will be able to start playing the piano again, according to the pianist.

Unno was on his way home from work on the evening of Sept. 27, when he was attacked by a group of about eight young men and women, who accused him of touching the body of one of them.

Although they did not make outright racist remarks, Unno heard a voice saying, "Chinese."

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw has 1 million Twitter followers. His fundraising power puts him within shouting distance of high-ranking members such as Steve Scalise, R-La., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A former Navy SEAL, he has managed to appear both loyal and critical of President Trump, and was the only Texan elected official with a major speaking role at the Republican National Convention.

Theres no question of Crenshaws outsized national standing as a freshman congressman, but now his fate is in the hands of Houstonians in the 2nd Congressional District, which makes a wiggly westward arc from Kingwood to neighborhoods near Rice University.

Turn the stage lights off, though, and his race against Democrat Sima Ladjevardian, 54, looks rather conventional.

First, lets consider what is unusual. Crenshaw, 36, has shown a penchant for standing up to party and president. He wrote a letter of support for the inclusion of Log Cabin Republicans, who represent LGBT conservatives, at the Republican Party of Texass state convention. Hes called for Republicans to take climate change seriously. When Trump criticized Sen. John McCain months after his death and when Trump told the liberal congresswomen in the Squad to go back, Crenshaw tweeted at the president to quit. When Trump withdrew troops from Syria, Crenshaw released a nearly 12-minute video that respectfully but emphatically rejects the presidents rationale.

We applaud Crenshaw for using his platform to take these stands. At other times, he has left us both troubled and disappointed. Like many others early in the pandemic, Crenshaw argued that masks werent effective against the coronavirus. While he changed his mind as evidence showed otherwise  even purchasing and then donating 50,000 masks  he continued to push misrepresentations, as he did in his more recent videos defending Trumps coronavirus response. He was wrong to call Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgos mask order draconian and was wrong to remove his mask for long enough while at a crowded fundraising party to be photographed without it.

Houston Chronicle Election Recommendations 2020

Were also concerned that his positions on key issues for Houston, including how to confront climate change, arent far-seeing enough. Hes called renewable energy silly and has not embraced a carbon tax, something even many major oil companies are willing to accept. His positions on the border and on prescription drugs also disappoint.

Ladjevardian supports expansion of the Affordable Care Act and supports renewables and better fracking regulation  but no ban  as means to help Texas transition its economy away from over-dependence on fossil fuels. A lawyer and former national adviser to the Beto ORourke campaign, she brings passion and plenty of smarts to this race. Libertarian Elliott Scheirman made a notably articulate case for market-based solutions.

And yet, its impossible to ignore Crenshaws star power and his potential to shape the future of the Republican Party around respect, ideas and principles.

In addition, if he retains his seat, Crenshaw is likely to wield the kind of power that matters on delivering funding for dredging, roads and floodgates. We believe voters should return him to Congress.
A New York City woman not wearing a face mask is accused of assaulting a Wawa employee who asked her to leave the store.

Hackettstown police said Ashanty Niang, 23, of the Bronx, was not wearing a face covering early Saturday morning at the Wawa at 299 Mountain Ave.

An employee asked Niang to cover her face, and she used her jacket, police said.

Niang kept taking the jacket down, uncovering her mouth, and the Wawa employee asked her to leave the store, according to police.

Niang allegedly slapped the Wawa employee on the face. Police were called at 12:24 a.m. for the assault at the store.

Niang was charged with violating Gov. Phil Murphys executive order, simple assault, and disorderly conduct. She has a pending court appearance.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com.
The Armenian side has no information about the prisoners, representative of the Armenian Defense Ministry Artsrun Hovhannisyan told a briefing on Wednesday.

Asked to comment on whether there are prisoners from Armenia and Artsakh, the representative of the Ministry of Defense reminded that even in relatively calm conditions there were no direct contacts between the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides on this issue.

Contacts were carried out exclusively through the ICRC, he said.

"Now there is no more. Therefore, regarding the prisoners, I cannot provide substantive information," Hovhannisyan noted, adding that there is no information about a humanitarian truce for the evacuation of the bodies of the dead either.
[This article was originally published in 2017]

Lavender on your pillow, avoiding all digital screens, meditation - there are seemingly endless ways that supposedly promise a good nights sleep.

But according to sleep expert Sammy Margo, it could be as simple as eating the right foods before bed.

Margo, author of The Good Sleep Guide, revealed how not only can certain foods help us drift off, but the wrong ones can keep us up.

New research by Simba Sleep has revealed that over two thirds (69 per cent) of Brits feel sleep-deprived, and our love of spicy foods, caffeine and alcohol may hold the cause.

About a third of people struggle with insomnia, and judging by Margos suggestions, we should all be eating foods more likely associated with breakfast before bed - brinner, anyone?

How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Show all 8 1 /8 How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Weetabix Chief executive of Weetabix Giles Turrell has warned that the price of one of the nations favourite breakfast are likely to go up this year by low-single digits in percentage terms. Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Nescafe The cost of a 100g jar of Nescafe Original at Sainsburys has gone up 40p from 2.75 to 3.15  a 14 per cent risesince the Brexit vote. PA How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Freddo When contacted by The Independent this month, a Mondelez spokesperson declined to discuss specific brands but confirmed that there would be "selective" price increases across its range despite the American multi-national confectionery giant reporting profits of $548m (450m) in its last three-month financial period. Mondelez, which bought Cadbury in 2010, said rising commodity costs combined with the slump in the value of the pound had made its products more expensive to make. Cadbury How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Mr Kipling cakes Premier Foods, the maker of Mr Kipling and Bisto gravy, said that it was considering price rises on a case-by-case basis Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Walkers Crisps Walkers, owned by US giant PepsiCo, said "the weakened value of the pound" is affecting the import cost of some of its materials. A Walkers spokesman told the Press Association that a 32g standard bag was set to increase from 50p to 55p, and the larger grab bag from 75p to 80p. Getty How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Marmite Tesco removed Marmite and other Unilever household brand from its website last October, after the manufacturer tried to raise its prices by about 10 per cent owing to sterlings slump. Tesco and Unilever resolved their argument, but the price of Marmite has increased in UK supermarkets with the grocer reporting a 250g jar of Marmite will now cost Morrisons customers 2.64 - an increase of 12.5 per cent. Rex How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Toblerone Toblerone came under fire in November after it increased the space between the distinctive triangles of its bars. Mondelez International, the company which makes the product, said the change was made due to price rises in recent months. Pixabay How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Maltesers Maltesers, billed as the lighter way to enjoy chocolate, have also shrunk in size. Mars, which owns the brand, has reduced its pouch weight by 15 per cent. Mars said rising costs mean it had to make the unenviable decision between increasing its prices or reducing the weight of its Malteser packs. iStockphoto

The five foods you should eat before bed:

1. Bananas

Although generally considered an energy-boosting food, bananas are rich in magnesium which relaxes muscles and they also contain serotonin and melatonin, which encourage sleep.

2. Almonds

Known as a great source of healthy fats, almonds are also bursting with tryptophan and magnesium, which both help to naturally reduce muscle and nerve function while also steadying your heart rhythm, according to Margo.

3. Honey

Just one teaspoon of honey is enough to stimulate the release of melatonin in the brain and shut off orexin (which keeps us alert), thus helping you to wind down.

4. Oats

As well as being yet another food rich in vitamins, minerals and amino acids which promote sleep-inducing melatonin, oats encourages insulin production and naturally raise blood sugar.

5. Turkey

One of the most famous sources of tryptophan, turkey is also a great source of protein and will make you feel full so you dont wake up in the night hungry.

Garcon Wines: Wine delivery that fits through your letterbox Show all 7 1 /7 Garcon Wines: Wine delivery that fits through your letterbox Garcon Wines: Wine delivery that fits through your letterbox Garcon Wines Garcon Wines: Wine delivery that fits through your letterbox Garcon Wines Garcon Wines: Wine delivery that fits through your letterbox Garcon Wines Garcon Wines: Wine delivery that fits through your letterbox Garcon Wines Garcon Wines: Wine delivery that fits through your letterbox Garcon Wines Garcon Wines: Wine delivery that fits through your letterbox Garcon Wines Garcon Wines: Wine delivery that fits through your letterbox Garcon Wines

And heres what to avoid consuming before bed:

1. Alcohol

Whilst you might find one glass of wine (or your drink of choice) helps you nod off, alcohol stops you falling into deep sleep.

2. Cheese

Ever heard people say they have strange dreams after eating lots of cheese? Hard cheese contain high levels of the amino acid tyramine which actually makes the brain feel more alert.

So despite our fondness for a post-dinner cheese-board, chowing down will only make it harder for you to fall asleep.

3. Spicy food

Ever had, ahem, digestion issues after a curry? As well as indigestion, hilli peppers contain capsaicin which makes it harder for your body to regulate temperature thus resulting in a less peaceful nights sleep.

4. Fatty food

Fatty foods are hard for your stomach to digest and are more likely to cause heartburn which makes it more difficult to get to sleep. Fatty foods high in protein, like steak, digest slowly and may disturb our Circadian rhythm, she says.

5. Coffee

Perhaps obvious, the caffeine in coffee makes it a no-no before bed - the stimulant stays in your system for a long time and you can still be feeling the effects even ten hours later.

While particular foods and drinks may feel warming, those that are spicy, caffeinated, or high in fat and protein can play havoc with our sleep, Margo said.

Lying down after eating a spice-laden meal can result in heartburn and a restless night."

She said that while nightcaps can cause drowsiness, too much alcohol can stop you from entering the deeper stages of sleep. This results in grogginess the next day.

So unfortunately it looks like a lot of the most delicious things to munch of an evening arent helping fight our insomnia at all.

The answer? Perhaps a bowl of porridge with honey, banana and almonds - maybe keep the turkey separate, unless thats your thing.
A feared Dublin criminal who was convicted of dismembering a mans body and dumping it in a Dutch lake has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for drugs possession at Longford Circuit Criminal Court.

Philip County (33), with an address in Edgeworthstown Co Longford, was handed down the sentence by Judge Keenan Johnston after Mr County pleaded guilty to to possession of cocaine and MDMA with a total street value of 7,298 during an armed raid at his home in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, in October 2017.

The Dubliner had previously been released on bail in May where he was informed by Judge Johnston that he was facing a three year prison sentence with final two years being suspended.

Mr Countys bail was, however, revoked just weeks later when it emerged Mr County had a conviction at the Amsterdam Court of Appeal from May 2017.

The terms of that sentence involved Mr Countys conviction of being a co-perpetrator in the concealment, removal and disposal of a corpse in Amsterdam and had been sentenced to 21 months in prison.

In May 2017, Mr County and two other men were sentenced to two years in prison for hiding the dead mans body in 2009, but County had already served that time while on remand in a Dutch prison.

In light of the Amsterdam conviction, Judge Johnston remanded Mr County in prison in June until his reappearance in court yesterday for sentencing.

The court was told that when gardai called to Mr Countys home in Edgeworthstown at the time they found 71 grammes of cocaine, 33 grammes of MDMA and 30 MDMA tablets with an overall street value of 7,298.

Drug paraphernalia and evidence of drug dealing was also found on the premises.

The court heard a probation report carried out on Mr County while in custody was not positive in its findings.

It found the accused to be at high risk of reoffending and detailed his criminal associations, attitude towards offending, substance misuse as well as emotional and personal issues.

Judge Johnston also referenced Mr Countys previous conviction in Holland and noted how he told probation officers of the incident.

The accused was involved in a very serious crime in Holland in respect the body of a deceased person was dismembered by him with the help of some other associates, he said.

In the probation report, the accused indicated that the individual involved had been murdered while he was away from his apartment and when he came back he assisted the other parties in disposing of the body.

The court heard that Mr County still had eight months left of a 21 month sentence to serve in the Netherlands for that incident with Dutch law enforcement officials likely to seek his extradition to serve out the remainder of that sentence upon his release from Irish prison.

It also emerged that despite having a reasonably good family support Mr Countys mother has also been convicted of drugs possession.

Judge Johnston referenced Mr County's "prior convictions" of which he has over 50, including a number for drugs and firearms.

The court further heard how gardai have since warned Mr County his life is under threat from unnamed criminals with the defendants wife also having left him in recent months.

In mitigation, Judge Hughes said Mr Countys early guilty plea had saved the State the time, cost and expense of a criminal trial while also commenting on his forthright admissions and cooperation with probation officers.

He consequently sentenced Mr County to five years in prison with the final two and half years suspended on condition he enter a 500 bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for ten years.

On release from prison, Mr County was also ordered to submit himself to probation services for a period of 18 months and to remain drug free for the duration of the suspended sentence.
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I am a psychiatrist. My field has been marred with human rights violations and treatments that though well-meaning, did not yield the results that were intended. I have always been at the watch and helm of speaking out when I see gaps and places where my colleagues and I are called to do better. I have been treating patients for over 15 years now. I have remained silent but cannot any longer. The health and lives of my colleagues are at peril. Doctors are killing themselves, and who is taking notice?

As doctors, we are held to superhuman standards. Patients and society hold us there; we are the faces you see when you are at your lowest, the people you ask to help your family members and friends. We stand in places that others cannot imagine- holding your hand when you receive bad news, rejoicing at your triumphs. We are humans, and we suffer from depression, anxiety, bipolar, and so many of the other ailments described by the DSM-5. Our licensing boards, which vary state to state, ask us about psychiatric treatment every year when we renew our licenses. This provides not only stigma but makes us as a profession hesitant to seek treatment at times when we may need it the most.

I have been there for my patients the day after I received a cancer diagnosis, and when I realized I had to have radiation treatment, my first question was, Can I work? What if my diagnosis was not physical? What if I was diagnosed with depression  am I less able to treat my patients. My experience, both personal and anecdotal, is that I am better able to understand the plight that is human, that is, pain and perseverance. However, that is not the stance taken by many licensing boards, and it must change.

We recently lost a fellow doctor his name was Dr. Raymond Thornton. He was a fellow West Virginian who hailed from my hometown  a small town where the Kanawha and Ohio rivers meet. He was brilliant and both my parents, who were teachers at Point Pleasant High School, remember him as such. He matriculated first to Julliard and later to the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he earned his MD in 1998. He did his residency in interventional radiation and did fellowships at UCSF and San Diego. He had posts at Memorial Sloan Kettering and the University of Colorado. He had presented papers for the NIH in Washington DC and as far as Japan. Though impressive, his laurels are not the salient point of this message: He was one of us. He likely struggled through anatomy and took test after test to prove his worthiness of the designation of Medical Doctor. He was one of us. His life was extraordinary to me, my parents, his parents, sister, and the residents of a small West Virginian town and undoubtedly many towns and people thereafter. His niece followed in his footsteps and is also one of us; she is a neurologist and is studying to be a pediatric neurologist. We must end this deluge of physicians ending their lives.

His sister Georgia Thornton writes:

Dr. Raymond Thornton, brilliant interventional radiologist struggled for 6 years with Lyme disease. For the first two, he was never tested for or diagnosed. Many times, he was told he was picking his own skin or that his symptoms were psychological, finally he found a doctor who listened, tested and began treating him yet the damage was done. He struggled with fatigue, pain and other symptoms that forced him to not practice for two years. He was able to return to nearly full practice when he tragically took his own life on October 1st. He had reached out to a physician suicide line and had an appointment by Zoom for the next day. In the interim he used two small charcoal grills in his trunk, taped his vents (with a fire extinguisher next to him, no doubt to put out any fire that might put others in dangers way). He sat down and covered himself with a blanket and went to sleep.

These are hard to hear facts, but these are the facts that put into a picture the last moments of one of our colleagues lives. We die with guns to our heads and trash bags down, so no one has to clean up our mess. Our mess- all the neurons and synapses that capture the knowledge we have acquired over the years. How can that be quantified? We die with pills in our mouths, tricyclics to interfere with cardiac conduction, benzodiazepines for sedation, alcohol for liquid courage. Where do our patients stories collected over months and years go? We die by carbon monoxide like my friend Dr. Thornton. He knew what carbon monoxide would do to his body. Even in the end, there is often an eye on making the cleanup easier for those around us. I believe the cleanup also presents in waves that echo the gaps of knowledge left laid bare for years and decades.

I can do better. We can do better. Please partner with me and advocate for the ability for doctors and residents in our profession to receive medical and psychiatric care without fear of losing our licenses or having to face stigma and judgment. It can save lives. Please, we are more stressed than ever, and we need to speak the names of our fellow friends and colleagues who have died by suicide. We need to advocate for them and for all of us to have access unfettered by fear to utilize the very lifesaving treatments we recommend to our patients.

Courtney Markham-Abedi is a psychiatrist.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Michigan Congressman Paul Mitchell is quoted; "Congratulations to Sharp Tooling Solutions for being recognized by Lockheed Martin as an Elite Supplier. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I understand how important it is for those who serve in our armed forces to have the best equipment possible, and I'm proud of the many people and companies in Michigan's 10th district that support our military. Thanks to Sharp Tooling Solutions' outstanding work and vital contributions to the F-35 program, Michigan maintains its reputation as the Arsenal of Democracy and our armed forces continue to be the world's best."

About Lockheed Martin  Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 110,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. For additional information, visit their website: www.lockheedmartin.com.

About Sharp Tooling Solutions  Located in Romeo Michigan, Sharp is AS9100 certified and a full-service supplier to aircraft and defense OEM companies. Sharp employees over 70 dedicated, highly skilled associates that produce world class products utilizing cutting edge technologies. To learn more about Sharp, visit: www.sharptoolingsolutions.com.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Ashtabula River is now so clean, it has cleared all requirements to remove the designation of a federal area of concern.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced Wednesday that the last beneficial use impairment was removed in September, meaning the river -- once a major shipping hub in Lake Erie -- can start the delisting process.

By the time its delisted" next year, the river will be the sixth cleared from the original 31 areas in the 1987 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The EPA, state and federal partners and others have spent over $67.5 million to help rehabilitate the river.

The Lower Menominee River AOC in Wisconsin was the first to be delisted since 2014, said Kurt Thiede, the EPA Region 5 administrator and Great Lakes National Program manager.

Im proud  both as EPA Administrator and as an Ohioan  to announce that the Ashtabula River is the first AOC in the state to begin the delisting process, Wheeler said in a news release. We are within sight of the finish line in terms of returning Ohios rivers to health again  so they can again become a place where people can swim, play, catch fish, and generally enjoy what this great state has to offer.

Along with the Ashtabula River, improvements have also been made on the Black River in Lorain and the Cuyahoga in Cleveland, both tributaries to Lake Erie.

All management actions have been completed on the Black River, and Thiede said they would be monitored going forward. The next step will be to remove beneficial use impairments and eventually remove the designation of area of concern.

Through a combination of Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funding and strong partnerships with our local, state and federal partners, more than $24 million has been spent on completing habitat restoration projects in the Black River AOC, Thiede said in a news release.

The Cuyahoga River is also making strides. The EPA and state agreed in September on a list of important management actions to remove the last seven beneficial use impairments for the river. That consists of 16 projects that will prioritize cleaning up contaminated sediments and restoring the wildlife habitat and fish.

Related: Cuyahoga River fish safe to eat, Ohio EPA says
Haryana BJP president OP Dhankar on Wednesday slammed the Congress for using the newly enacted farm bills for their political advantages.

While interacting with mediapersons after a meeting of party workers in Panipat, Dhankar said, The Congress is opposing the promises it made in its election manifesto. The farmers are being misled over the farm bills by the Congress as its leaders have lost the confidence of people.

He said the minimum support price will continue and these bills will help the farmers to sell their produce outside the mandi without any taxes. It will also help the growers of onion and potato as these vegetables have been exempted from the list of essential commodities and the farmers will get good and remunerative prices, he added.

Will announce BJP candidate for Baroda by poll after Oct 10 meet

Dhankar said the BJP will announce its candidate for the Baroda by poll after a meeting of election committee on October 10.

The Baroda voters know that the BJP is in power and their nominee can bring development projects in the constituency in the next four years. Our candidate will register a thumping majority in the by poll scheduled to held on November 3, he said.

Slamming Punjab chief minister Captain Amrinder Singh, Dhankar said he is misguiding farmers by touring on a tractor with sofa.  Captain sahabs supporters burnt the same tractor twice at Haryana Punjab border and in Delhi. This shows that the Congress is trying to make headlines, he added.
Chris Noble couldnt stay retired long.

It was only six weeks into retirement when she starting working for one of Houstons breast imaging centers, The Rose, as what she calls a friend-raiser.

Related: Clinic hopes to thwart declining breast cancer screenings

But when Houston was required to quarantine earlier this year due to COVID-19, Nobles ability to raise money for The Rose at public events became almost nonexistent.

Thats when she started painting.

I started painting these pictures of women and as I started painting, I started adding bling and sparkles and that sort of stuff, said Noble. They turned out pretty fabulous.

Noble began selling her paintings on social media for $250 each, or the cost of a mammogram, said Noble.

Her concepts theme is Buy a Girl, Save a Girl and all the proceeds from the paintings go directly to The Rose to help aid its mission of helping patients receive breast cancer treatment.

As The Rose enters Breast Cancer Awareness Month, its hoping to serve as many patients as possible, insured or not. When patients with insurance pay to get a mammogram at The Rose, they also help pay for someone who is uninsured.

Noble hopes her art will be able to help patients as well, already raising enough money for 15 mammograms. Noble has painted over 150 pieces since May.

So many women, so many families need help, said Noble. The Rose is needed more than ever before because so many women are not going to have health insurance.

Noble owned her own IT company for 25 years before retiring in 2013. An extrovert at heart, her outgoing nature allowed her to continue working and volunteering as much as she could.

I have been a patient for The Rose for many years, and I knew I wanted to do something related to women, said Noble.

Now, at 71 years old, she knows she should stay home as much as possible to prevent contracting COVID-19.

My real goal is to just survive this pandemic, said Noble. Its really tough to quarantine an extrovert. I dont have health issues, but because of my age, I had to stay home. Ive spent a lot of time creating these things. I dont really have a number in mind, I just do as much as I can do.

In addition to painting women, she also paints flower arrangements and decorative crosses, all at varying prices. She even does requests.

Noble is happy she found a way to get through the pandemic while also allowing other patients at The Rose afford their mammograms. As a former business owner, she knows nonprofits need as much help as they can get at the moment.

I think its important to support any cause you believe in, said Noble. Right now, nonprofits need every bit of help they can get.

The Rose has had its challenges as other nonprofits had theirs. As citizens of the world, weve got to donate time or donate money. We have to. Or these places will go away.

ryan.nickerson@hcnonline.com
The Presidential candidate of the Ghana Union Movement (GUM), Reverend Christian Kwabena Andrews is expected to begin a two-day familiarisation tour of the Oti Region on Friday.



The itinerary copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said the flagbearer would on Friday visit the Buem, Nkwanta South, Nkwanta North and Kadjebi constituencies to interact with chiefs, imams and the clergy.



On Saturday, Osofo Kyiri Abosom would be in Krachi Nchumuru, Krachi West, Krachi East and WoraWora in the Biakoye constituency to also interact with opinion leaders and Zongo chiefs.



Mr Henry Awutwe, the parliamentary candidate for the Ghana Union Movement in the Krachi East Constituency, told the Ghana News Agency that preparations were underway for the visit.



He said the GUM would increase its campaign activities in the Oti Region, adding that the party was working to snatch three seats, including the Krachi East constituency.

Source: GNA









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Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo has been quietly postponing real estate foreclosures through executive orders shutting down the facility where those auctions are held, providing relief to struggling homeowners and landlords.

The moves, which make Harris County the only region in Texas where foreclosures have been effectively suspended during the pandemic, buy time for thousands of homeowners and commercial landlords to reach a deal with their loan servicers before losing their properties. It is also creating a backlog of properties in danger of foreclosure.
Looking at the three models lined up for this drag race, we can see no reason to disagree. They're all so very similar in the practicality and the value for money they offer, and yet sufficiently different in their personalities to make choosing between them quite a challenge.Their powertrains aren't too much alike either. Two have four-cylinder engines, but their displacements are different: 2.0-liter for the Accord , 2.5-liter for the Mazda6. The Toyota , on the other hand, gets a huge (by comparison) 3.5-liter V6, which surely means there's no point in racing the three, right? Actually, no, but more on that later.The other major differentiator is the way these engines go about procuring their air. While the Toyota sucks it out of the atmosphere using the power of its lungs alone, both the Honda and the Mazda6 goes a bit European by relying on respirators to increase the flow of oxygen. That's one (complicated) way of saying the first is naturally aspirated, while the other two are turbocharged.So, what does all this mean for their power outputs? From start to bottom, the Camry TRD gets 301 hp out of its atmospheric V6 engine, the Accord squeezes a decent 255 hp with help from the blower, and the Mazda6 has to make do with just 227 hp. The order is completely reversed as far as torque is concerned: 310 lb-ft (420 Nm) for the 6, 273 lb-ft (370 Nm) for the Accord, and 262 lb-ft (367 Nm) for the Camry All three sedans are front-wheel-drive and use automatic transmissions, though things aren't exactly even in this department either. No two cars share the same number of gears, with the Honda sporting no fewer than ten, the Toyota eight, and the Mazda shifting through just six.Given the very high number of variables, it's really difficult to predict which way this will go. The Toyota holds the horsepower advantage, but the Mazda has a ton more maximum torque, while the Honda can access its twist power earlier on (from 1,500 rpm) thanks to its turbo.Then there's the whole transmission situation: with ten gears to choose from, the gearbox on the Accord can make sure it keeps the engine in its optimal powerband for longer, something the six-speed Mazda might struggle with. But we're wasting our breath here: the Camry TRD gets red seat belts, so the race is won before even turning a wheel.
Chinese authorities have released regulations to ban civil servants from drinking alcohol outside their working hours to boost their work performance and improve the government's image.

The move can help state employees concentrate on their work and avoid mistakes, according to official media.

It is also deemed crucial in the prevention of bribery, which often takes place during lavish, out-of-office meals that feature liquor.

Communist officials, civil servants and staff in state-run firms must not drink after work on weekdays, according to the rules which have been rolled out in multiple Chinese regions

Similar rules are now being enforced in multiple regions - including the city of Nanjing and the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai.

While some local authorities have in the past cracked down on work-related drinking events, the recent push prohibits the consumption of alcohol in officials' private time on weekdays completely.

In the county of Qingcheng in Gansu, government workers, civil servants and staff at state-run companies have been ordered not to enjoy alcoholic beverages during and after their eight hours in the office.

For those who do need to drink during the week, they must send an application to their higher-ups in advance, according to a government release.

The applicants must explain the nature of the event, the identity of other attendees and how much alcohol they plan to drink.

For those who do need to drink during the week, they must send an application to their higher-ups in advance. In the file photo above, Chinese President Xi jinping toasts the guests during a banquet marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the P.R.C. on September 30, 2019

The police authority of Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, demands all officers in the city not drink on workdays to 'improve the force's conduct and enforce its discipline'.

In Nanyang, central China's Henan Province, Communist officials and civil servants will face random alcohol tests at least once a month to ensure they follow the no-drinking order.

While in Menyuan in Qinghai, the practice has been brought in to clamp down on 'extravagance and hedonism'.

Although most places launched the rules before or in July, the action became a trending topic this week when many Chinese are meeting family and friends for meals to celebrate the country's National Day.

In China, bribery often takes place during lavish, out-of-office meals that feature liquor

Commenting on the policy from Qingcheng County, Beijing News billed it as the 'strictest alcohol ban'.

A column, which also appeared on state news agency Xinhua's website, claimed that government workers shouldered more responsibilities at work than ordinary citizens, and drinking liquor would impact their work efficiency.

The habit would also encourage lavish spending and corruption, it added.

The article went on to criticise the ban and said it could invade government workers' privacy.

The author said though it was 'essential' to forbid booze during office hours, the decision to extend it after work was 'excessive'.
SALT LAKE CITY  Vice President Mike Pence and his Democratic challenger, California Sen. Kamala Harris, are set to face off in a debate that will offer starkly different visions for a country confronting escalating crises.

The debate Wednesday night in Salt Lake City is the most highly anticipated vice presidential debate in recent memory. It will unfold while President Donald Trump recovers at the White House after testing positive last week for the coronavirus and spending several days in the hospital, a serious setback for his campaign that adds pressure on Pence to defend the administrations handling of the pandemic.

For Harris, the debate is her highest profile opportunity to say how Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would stabilize the United States, especially when it comes to the pandemic and racial injustice. She will have the chance to explain her views on law enforcement, an area in which shes viewed warily by some progressives, given her past as a prosecutor.

Ultimately, the debate is a chance for voters to decide whether Pence and Harris are in a position to step into the presidency at a moments notice. Its hardly a theoretical question: The 74-year-old Trump is fighting the virus and Biden, at 77, would become the oldest person elected president.

Pences debate strategy aims to highlight the administrations economic record and attempt to portray the Democratic ticket as beholden to radical left, said former GOP Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who is helping the vice president prepare for the debate, on Fox & Friends.

While the debate will likely cover a range of topics, the virus will be at the forefront.

Pence and Harris will appear on stage exactly 12.25 feet (3.7 meters) apart separated by plexiglass barriers. Anyone in the small audience who refuses to wear a mask will be asked to leave.

Pence was with Trump and others last week who have since tested positive, and the vice president has faced questions about whether he should be at the debate at all. Pence has repeatedly tested negative for the virus, and his staff and doctors insist he does not need to quarantine under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

The CDC defines risky close contact as being within 6 feet (1.8 meters) of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from two days before the onset of symptoms or a positive test.

Pences team objected to Harris' request for plexiglass barriers, arguing it was medically unnecessary. But the Commission on Presidential Debates had already agreed to the barriers, and Pences aides said their presence would not dissuade him from attending the event.

Pences chief of staff, Marc Short, said there is zero risk of the vice president pulling out of the debate over the plexiglass spat. He said Pence will be there because its too important for the American people.

Sabrina Singh, a spokesperson for Harris, said the senator will be at the debate, respecting the protections that the Cleveland Clinic has put in place to promote safety for all concerned. The Cleveland Clinic serves as a health adviser to the commission.

The debate is unlikely to be a repeat of the chaotic debate between Trump and Biden last week.

Pence is eager to seize on the Democrats' liberal policies, but it may be difficult to shift the conversation away from the Republican administrations uneven handling of the pandemic. Pence serves as chair of the presidents coronavirus task force, which has failed to implement a comprehensive national strategy even as Trump himself recovers from the disease and the national death toll surges past 210,000 with no clear end in sight.

Biden has raised questions about whether he will participate in his next scheduled debate with Trump, telling reporters on Tuesday: I think if he still has COVID, then we shouldnt have a debate.

The vice president is a 61-year-old former Indiana governor and ex-radio host, an evangelical Christian known for his folksy charm and unwavering loyalty to Trump.

Harris is a 55-year-old California senator, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She is also a former prosecutor whose pointed questioning of Trumps appointees and court nominees and cool charm on the campaign trail made her a Democratic star.

She will make history as the first Black woman to appear in a vice presidential debate. Democrats hope the historic nature of her candidacy will help energize key groups of likely Democratic voters  African Americans and young people, in particular  who have shown less excitement for Biden.

Its unclear how aggressive the candidates will be with each other.

Both have adopted a cautious approach on the trail, keeping in line with past running mates who, above all, are tasked with not hurting their partys ticket.

Some Harris allies fear that a conservative approach will prevent her from shining.

Overly scripting Kamala Harris is tantamount to removing five bullets out of her gun before you walk into a gun fight, said Nathan Barankin, who served as Harris' chief of staff in the Senate and when she was California attorney general.

While some Democrats have set high expectations for the debate, Harris and her allies have been trying to keep them low. Last month, when Californias state Senate president told Harris on a Zoom call that home state fans were excited to watch her debate, Harris quickly interjected.

Hes a good debater, she said, laughing. Im just, Im so concerned, like I can only disappoint.

Gender will likely play a role in the debate, Hillary Clinton, the first woman to lead a presidential ticket, said during a recent fundraiser.

She suggested Pence would try to paint Harris as the inexperienced woman candidate. Harris will have to be mindful of the double standard for women in politics as she responds, Clinton said.

Shes got to be firm and effective in rebutting any implication that comes from the other side, but to do it in a way that doesnt, you know, scare or alienate voters, Clinton said.

Harris has been preparing for the debate in Salt Lake City since Saturday. Karen Dunn, a Washington lawyer who helped prepare Clinton for her 2016 debates against Trump, is leading Harris' debate preparations.

Harris plans to focus on failures of leadership by the Trump-Pence administration but avoid personal attacks against Trump, as Biden has done since the president was hospitalized for the virus, according to a campaign aide who wasnt authorized to discuss debate planning publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pence has spent the last four years defending the president on a near-daily basis and mastered the art of turning Trumps chaotic rhetoric into more palatable, middle-of-the-road commentary.

Aides note that Pences criticism has focused almost exclusively on Biden and his record instead of Harris. Its likely to stay that way Wednesday.

 The Associated Press
Mumbai/New Delhi, Oct 7 : Shortly after the family members of late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput wrote to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) demanding the reconstitution of a medical team, the federal agency sleuths were once again in Mumbai.

A CBI source said that the investigation into Sushant's death is still continuing and all the aspects are being looked into "meticulously".

"As per the demand of the investigation, either a team or a set of officers visit Mumbai at regular intervals, besides the agency officers from the Mumbai branch present there," the source added.

The source, however, refused to share the name of the officials of the agency who arrived in Mumbai from Delhi.

The source said that the CBI sleuths reached Mumbai to collect more details in the case.

The remarks came after Varun Singh, son of Sushant's lawyer Vikas Singh, wrote to CBI chief R.K. Shukla after the Bombay High Court granted bail to Sushant's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, late actor's house manager Samuel Miranda and personal staff Dipesh Sawant in a narcotics related case.

Rhea was arrested on September 8 after three days of questioning. However, the high court denied bail to her brother Showik.

Varun Singh, in his letter to the CBI chief, referred to the report of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) rejecting the possibility of murder and claimed that the forensic examination conducted by the forensic board is faulty.

"I have been reading in the media about the report submitted by AIIMS to CBI with regard to the opinion expressed by CBI in the matter of the death of Sushant Singh Rajput on June 14, 2020. I have also seen some doctors who were part of the AIIMS team come on TV and make statements with regard to the forensic examination done by the team," he said.

The letter said that in spite of several efforts to get a copy of the report, there has been no response by AIIMS forensic board head Dr Sudhir Gupta and "I am accordingly writing this letter on the premise that the news report regarding the AIIMS opinion is correct".

The leaked forensic report, if correct, amounts to drawing a biased and boastful conclusion from insufficient evidence, Varun Singh said.

The CBI registered a case on August 6 on the recommendations of the Centre. Sushant was found dead on June 14 in his Bandra flat.

The CBI team had reached Mumbai on August 20, a day after the Supreme Court gave its nod for the federal agency probe.

The AIIMS forensic team also visited Mumbai and recreated the crime scene at Sushant's apartment and recorded the statement of several people.

The Narcotics Control Bureau, however, registered a case after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing the money laundering angle into Sushant's case found alleged drug chats.

Jaikush Hoon, a criminal lawyer commenting on the bail to Rhea, Miranda and Sawant by the High Court, said that the NCB has failed to build its case against the three under sections 27(a), 22(c), 22(b), 20 (b)(c) of the NDPS Act,1985.

"In my opinion, the mastermind is out on bail now. It is a big setback to NCB and Sushant case as well. The agency was after a drug syndicate of 1.35 lakh crore in the country and this order would come as a relief to lot of people who are active or facilitating member of the crime syndicate," he said.

He said tampering with evidence and influencing of witnesses could be on the cards.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday will hear a PIL seeking a court-monitored CBI probe into the death of Sushant Singh Rajput's former manager Disha Salian, along with the agency's probe into the death of the Bollywood actor, as both are "inter-linked".

The PIL is listed for hearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde and comprising Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.

The plea, filed by Puneet Kaur Dhanda through advocate Vineet Dhanda, has sought a direction to Mumbai Police to place on record the detailed investigation report in the case after it was reported that her case file is missing or has been deleted.

Dhanda has urged the top court if, after perusal of the same, the court finds it unsatisfactory, then the matter may kindly be referred to Central Bureau of Investigation for further investigation.

Salian died on June 8 after falling off the 14th floor of a residential building (Regent Galaxy) in Mumbai's Malad West. "A week later, on the morning of June 14, Sushant Singh Rajput allegedly died by suicide which creates suspicion," said the plea.

The plea argued that Salian was in a relationship with actor Rohan Rai, who had appeared in some TV serials, and they were about to get married after the Covid-19 induced lockdown ended.

"According to a family statement given to Mumbai Police, the family was happy with the relationship. The couple was waiting for the lockdown to get over and wanted to get married immediately. Just before the lockdown, Disha and Rohan had brought 2 BHK flat in the Regent Galaxy building at Malad West.....", added the plea.

The petitioner insisted that the deaths of Sushant and Salian are interconnected.

"The Bihar Police reached Malwani Police Station to seek details about Sushant's ex-manager's death. However, the Mumbai Police told Bihar Police that the description of her case has been 'deleted by accident' and cannot be retrieved. This is to be noted that the Mumbai Police investigating officer initially was ready to share the details of the case but things changed after he received a call," the plea claimed.
ST. MARYS  Planning a communitys recreation schedule in the middle of a pandemic is a little like blazing a trail in a blizzard without snow shoes. But neither storm nor threat of COVID-19 is preventing the fitness folks at the municipality from soldiering on.

According to Mallory Fraser, Director of Community Development and Recreation, a new Return To Winter Play Plan for the RecPlex is in the works. Designed to ensure that Nova Scotia Public Health guidelines are respected over the coming cold and closed-up months, the protocol is currently under review by council. Once approved, anyone who wishes to participate in activities at the centre must review and conform to the new regulations. It should be be available to the public at the Sherbrooke municipal office later this week or early next.

Meanwhile, recreation and community development staff want to know what residents think about the job theyre doing. We are asking St. Marys residents to take part in our short recreation survey to better understand what individuals would like to see in terms of recreational programming, a notice issued last week stated.

Specifically: What types of programming, where, and which times of the day would people prefer; and what barriers prevent participation in general? Additional comments are also welcome. Staff asks that answers be submitted to the departments Facebook page; mailed to Municipality of the District of St. Marys, P.O. Box 296, Sherbrooke, NS, Canada, B0J 3C0; or emailed to mallory.fraser@saint-marys.ca.
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(Newser)  In 2012, Banana Republic bestowed a special gift upon Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Women of the Year Awards gala hosted by Glamour: a crystal necklace that she could wear with her black robe as one of her signature "statement" collars. "This is my dissenting collar," Ginsburg, who died last month at the age of 87, told Yahoo in 2014. "It looks fitting for dissent." In 2019, the clothing retailer officially rereleased the necklace for a limited time as the "Dissent Collar," using Ginsburg's own words as a naming inspirationand now, there's a new incarnation for 2020. Good Morning America notes Banana Republic is once again hawking the accessory, this time with a new name: the "Notorious Necklace."

story continues below

The bad news: The necklace is already sold out. The good news: "We are working hard to get them restocked as quickly as possible," per the Banana Republic site. The company says all of the proceeds from sales of the RBG tribute necklace, which People notes retails for $98, will go to the International Center for Research on Women, a global research nonprofit dedicated to advancing gender equality and battling poverty, through the end of the year, per USA Today. (Read more Ruth Bader Ginsburg stories.)
T wo serving inmates have been found guilty of trying to murder a guard at a top security jail.

Brusthom Ziamani, 25, was jailed for 22-years plotting an attack inspired by the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby.

He was caught with a hammer and knife en route to behead a soldier in 2014.

While being held at HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire, Ziamani befriended radicalised Baz Hockton, 26, and the pair hatched a terror attack behind bars, the Old Bailey heard.

HMP Whitemoore / Google Maps

They made makeshift bladed weapons and fake suicide belts to launch a ferocious attack on officer Neil Trundle on January 9.

Two female staff members were hurt as they tried to stop the assault, with left Mr Trundle covered in blood.

Ziamani, originally from Camberwell, south London, had denied attempted murder and an alternative of wounding with intent, but admitted assaulting the two women.

He claimed he wanted to be transferred because Whitemoor had become hostile to Muslims in the wake of former inmate Usman Khans attack at Fishmonger Hall.

Hockton, originally from Dagenham, who declined to give evidence, had denied attempted murder but admitted wounding with intent.

An Old Bailey jury deliberated for three hours and nine minutes to find them both guilty of attempted murder.

Brusthom Ziamani / PA

The court had heard the defendants had lured kind and helpful Mr Trundle to a store cupboard on the pretext of asking for a spoon.

They then set upon the officer, targeting his vulnerable head, upper chest and neck areas shouting Allahu Akbar.

Ziamani briefly broke off to punch nurse Jayle Cowles and prison officer Georgina Ibbotson before resuming the onslaught on Mr Trundle.

When another officer approached, Ziamani opened his jacket to expose the fake suicide belt, and said: Ive got a bomb.

Meanwhile, Hockton was seen on graphic CCTV footage to charge at another officer before both inmates were restrained.

An examination of the fake suicide belts revealed one had been constructed with a battery and pressurised can and the other was made from boxer short elastic, electrical cable and plastic bottles.

Mr Trundle was left covered in blood, with blood on the walls around him, having suffered cuts to his scalp, arm and shoulder.

Reliving the attack, Mr Trundle, who has 14 years prisons experience, said: Before I knew it I was on the floor on my back.

I did not see any weapons. I could feel blows coming down on me.

I did not realise how bad the damage was to myself until I went to the hospital and looked in the mirror.

Mr Trundle denied there was any anti-Muslim feeling at Whitemoor over the deaths of two Cambridge students at Fishmonger Hall.

He said staff had been advised on appropriate behaviour after he heard the term raghead used to describe Muslims once.

Prosecutor Annabel Darlow QC had told jurors the attack was terrorist-related.

Ziamanis plan to become a martyr was spelled out in handwritten notes.

In a note found in a cell search, Hockton had written: Cant stand anything in uniform and if I see a cop on the wing Im stick a spike in his head like a unicorn. (sic)

Ms Darlow told jurors Ziamanis previous conviction demonstrated he had wanted to kill a British officer for terrorist purposes.

She said: The prosecution say this is exactly what happened in the case, albeit transplanted from the outside world where Mr Ziamani had greater access to weapons and targets to the more limited confines of the prison environment.

Giving evidence, Ziamani denied it was a terror attack, saying he only wanted to inflict some damage, like a bloody nose, to get sent to a different prison.

The two men did not react as the jurys verdict was read out, but could be seen smiling as they were sent to the cells.

The judge, Mrs Justice May, listed the case for sentence at 2pm on Thursday.

Additional reporting by PA Media
The requirement for governors facing criminal charges to keep away from their offices hangs in the balance after county bosses filed a petition questioning its constitutionality.

Through the Council of Governors (CoG), they have filed a petition seeking protection from being denied access to their offices once charged with graft.

The CoG has listed the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Inspector General of Police as respondents.

High Court judge James Makau has certified the matter as urgent, and ordered that direction on hearing the petition be given by a panel of three judges on October 21, 2020.

He issued the order on Monday.

Tainted governors

The requirement to keep graft-tainted governors away from from their offices started when High Court Judge Mumbi Ngugi upheld the decision of a magistrate court barring Samburu County's Moses Lenolkulal from accessing his office.

She ruled that he can only access his office with written permission from the EACC.

The ruling has gone on to affect other county bosses including former Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu, Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko and Migori Governor Okoth Obado.

Recently, Garissa Governor Ali Korane was also barred from accessing his office after he was charged with mismanaging Sh233 million county funds.

Tharaka Nithi Governor Muthomi Njuki was also barred, along with other officials, from accessing county offices until a Sh34 million graft case against him is heard and determined.

According Justice Ngugi, allowing persons facing criminal charges to public offices entrenches corruption and impunity in the land.

Additional reporting by Sam Kiplagat
Mumbai, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/07/2020 -- Prismane Consulting has published its Global Propylene Glycol Market Study Report and Market Model.



Propylene Glycol is a colorless, odorless, viscous organic compound, soluble in a broad range of solvents, including acetone, chloroform, and water. It is a vital polymer feedstock and is produced from propylene oxide. In terms of capacity, Asia-Pacific leads followed by North America, Europe, and the Middle East. North America. US has a production capacity of 850 kilo tons with Monument Chemical, Dow Chemical, Huntsman, LyondellBasell Industries N.V., Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) having production capacities in the country. Dow Chemicals and LyondellBasell together account for over 75% of the country's propylene glycol capacity. The country is a net exporter of propylene glycol with exports rising by 7.8% between 2018 and 2019.



The propylene glycol industry has witnessed several capacity expansions in the past five years. Sadara started operations at its 70 kilo tons propylene glycol facility in Jubail, Saudi Arabia in 2017. Recently, Manali Petrochemicals (MPL) announced its final plan to increase the production capacity of Propylene Glycol from 22 kilo tons to 70 kilo tons. The company is planning to invest around Rs. 150 crores in two phases. In the first phase, MPL is planning to expand the capacity by 24 kilo tons, which will be completed in 18-21 months and then by another 24 kilo tons in second phase.



Currently India imports around 67 kilo tons/year of Propylene Glycol from China, South Korea Singapore, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia.



Determining the impacts of the global Covid-19 pandemic remains a key question across different end-use applications and sectors as the global pandemic has altered most of the landscape and has had a negative impact on the global Propylene Glycol market.



In Prismane Consulting's Propylene Glycol strategy report, we have analysed the historic and current market situation of Propylene Glycol for different application and sub-application. The recent development in terms of capacities, expansions and investments has been considered in the report. Specific section on the formation of business alliance and joint ventures in the Propylene Glycol production value chain has been included. The changing trend in end-use applications like Food & Beverages, Pharmaceuticals, Cosmetics, Personal Care, Households, Paints & Coatings, Chemical and Industrial other details have been analysed.



Global Propylene glycol Market, by Source

- Propylene Oxide

- Bio-derived

Global Propylene glycol Market, by Application

- Unsaturated Polyester Resin

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- Cosmetics & Personal Care

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- Food & Beverages

- Liquid Detergents

- Paints & Coatings

- Others



The Propylene glycol market study  2020 Market study covers:



Market Data, Country Summaries & Product Review

- Global Demand Supply& Market Analysis

- Propylene glycol Market data in terms of volume and value for each end-use at regional and country level

- Propylene glycol Market analysis for Production, Capacity, Demand, at Regional and Country level

- Demand Composition, by Source and Application

- Trade (Import, Export and Net Export)

- Capacity & Production

- Latest Trends and market developments

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- Process technology

- Strategic Issues and Recommendations

- Market / Product Outlook (Historical, Short, Mid and Long-term forecast)

- Business Opportunities & Challenges

- Strategic Analysis and High-level information on Market Entry, Best Strategies adopted



For more information about this report Click Here



About Prismane Consulting

Prismane Consulting is a unique consulting and market research firm providing management, economic and technical expertise across the global Chemicals, Petrochemicals, Polymers, Materials and Energy value chain. The company has been advising clients on their key strategic issues solving their toughest and most critical business problems. We have helped some of the fortune 500 companies develop their strategic plans by tracking and interpreting market dynamics.



Prismane consulting has completed a number of multi-client studies and projects. It offers Market Studies, World Analysis and Strategy Reports related to Refining, Chemicals, Petrochemicals, Plastic & Polymers and Materials.For update on the annual subscription (monthly, quarterly and annually) on the chemicals industry, please write to sales@prismaneconsulting.com



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Chemicals & Energy, Prismane Consulting

Tel: +91-20-67277711/12

Email: sales@prismaneconsulting.com
Derek Chauvin was involved in multiple cases of police violence

Derek Chauvin, the police officer seen kneeling on the neck of George Floyd before his death in a viral video that prompted nationwide protests against police brutality, has been released from prison on bond.

On the same day, Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back by police officers seven times while unarmed, was released from the hospital.

The officer responsible for Mr Floyds death was released from the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Oak Park Heights on Wednesday, according to Hennepin County records.

Mr Chauvin was one of four former police officers charged in the killing of Mr Floyd, an unarmed black man who pleaded for his life as Mr Chauvin kineeled on his neck for over eight minutes in the disturbing video.

The officers actions sparked global anti-police brutality and anti-racism demonstrations throughout the summer.

According to court documents, Mr Chauvin posted $1 million bond, and the Department of Corrections confirmed he was no longer in custody at the state's facility where he had been detained.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is in the process of being released from the Hennepin County correctional facility, his attorney tells us. He is one of the four officers charged in the death of George Floyd. He faces murder and manslaughter charges.  Omar Jimenez (@OmarJimenez) October 7, 2020

Mr Floyd died May 25 after Mr Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against his neck for several minutes as he said he couldn't breathe.

Mr Chauvin and three other officers were fired after the killing.

He is charged with second-degree murder and other crimes; Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao are charged with aiding and abetting.

The other three officers previously posted bail amounts of $750,000 and have been free pending trial.

Currently, all four men are scheduled to face trial together in March, but the judge is weighing a request to have them tried separately.

Story continues

In Milwaukee, Mr Blake - who was shot by police seven times in the back while he was walking away from a group of officers responding to a fight - was released from the hospital.

Mr Blake has been hospitalised since 23 August.

Though hes no longer in the hospital, hes far from cleared to head home; Mr Blake will now begin rehabilitative work at a spinal center near Chicago, according to his lawyer, Patrick Cafferty.

Mr Blakes kidney, liver, small intestine, colon and stomach were damaged by the shooting. At the time of his shooting, Mr Blakes attorney said the 29-year-old was paralysed from the waist down.

In case you hadnt heard, Derek Chauvin, the ex-police officer charged with murdering #GeorgeFloyd has been released from jail on a non-cash bond. pic.twitter.com/vsN3aRFoil  Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) October 7, 2020

As with the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Mr Blakes shooting ignited protests in Milwaukee and poured fuel on the flames of racial justice protests that have been ongoing since May.

Mr Blake recorded a video last month encouraging his supporters not to take their lives for granted.

"Your life, and not only just your life, your legs, something you need to move around and forward in life, can be taken from you like this," Mr Blake said. "Stick together, make some money, make everything easier for our people out there, man, because there's so much time that's been wasted."

The Associated Press contributed to this report
On Thursday, October 8, at 15.00 the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency will host a press conference entitled "Govt's Failure to Fulfill Obligations: Future of Green Generation under Threat." Participants include Director of the European-Ukrainian Energy Agency Oleksandra Humeniuk; Head of Board of Ukrainian Wind Energy Association Andriy Konechenkov; Board Chairman of the Ukrainian Association of Renewable Energy (UARE) Oleksandr Kozakevych; CEO of DTEK Renewables Maris Kunickis; Co-Chair of the Energy Committee of the European Business Association Carl Sturen (8/5a Reitarska Street). The broadcast of the press conference will be available on the Youtube channel of the Interfax-Ukraine agency. Admission of journalists requires registration on the spot. Additional info by phone: (050) 477 0994 (Dmytro).
Shah Rukh Khans daughter Suhana is far from making her film debut. However, going by her Instagram status, she is already a star. The actors daughter shared another stunning picture of herself and fans cant keep calm.

Suhana shared the picture without any caption. Her dads industry colleagues were quick to respond; Maheep Kapoor, wife of actor Sanjay Kapoor and mother of Suhanas close buddy, Shanaya wrote: pretty pretty pretty. Her childhood friend actor Ananya Pandays mother Bhavna dropped a bunch of heart emojis. Among them was also Suhanas cousin, Alia Chibba, who also dropped a bunch of appreciative emojis. Her many fans wrote back calling her a beauty.

Few days back, she had shared a picture of a sunset from the deck of a ship. It featured a book and a pair of earphones.

As per reports, Suhana is in UAE these days. Shah Rukh along with his family members including wife Gauri and elder son Aryan had been spotted watching an IPL match in a stadium.

Also read: What Akshaye Khanna said about Vinod Khanna leaving family for Osho: Something must have moved him so deeply inside

Suhana usually shares her picture with minimal text; however, recently she shared her thoughts on colour bias and had written: Theres a lot going on right now and this is one of the issues we need to fix!! this isnt just about me, its about every young girl/boy who has grown up feeling inferior for absolutely no reason. Here are just a few of the comments made about my appearance. Ive been told Im ugly because of my skin tone, by full grown men and women, since I was 12 years old. Other than the fact that these are actual adults, whats sad is that we are all Indian, which automatically makes us brown - yes we come in different shades but no matter how much you try to distance yourself from the melanin, you just cant. Hating on your own people just means that you are painfully insecure. Im sorry if social media, Indian matchmaking or even your own families have convinced you, that if youre not 57 and fair youre not beautiful. I hope it helps to know that Im 53 and brown and I am extremely happy about it and you should be too. #endcolourism.

Suhana, who is a student at a college in New York, flew down to be with her family this March, in the initial days of the coronavirus pandemic. She celebrated her birthday in May at her home in Mannat, Mumbai.

Follow @htshowbiz on Twitter
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani did not provide any financial support to his younger brother Anil Ambani to save him from going to jail in the Ericsson dues case, which settled in March 2019. Instead, Anil Ambani's troubled firm Reliance Communications (RCom) paid Ericsson dues by raising around Rs 460 crore by leasing corporate assets to a group company of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, according to legal documents submitted by Anil Ambani in UK Court in the financial dispute with Chinese banks.

In response to a BusinessToday.In query, a spokesperson for Anil Ambani says: "The Ericsson matter pertained to a corporate liability, and funds to meet the obligation were raised through a corporate transaction by leasing out corporate assets. No funds whatsoever were provided by Mukesh Ambani to Anil Ambani in a personal capacity, nor was there any gift."

It is not clear which asset was leased out. An email sent to Reliance Industries didn't elicit any response.

On March 18, 2019, Reliance Communications (RCom) issued a press release, saying it paid Rs 458.77 crore to Swedish telecom equipment maker, clearing the outstanding dues and fending off a possible jail term for its Chairman Anil Ambani. In the statement Anil Ambani said, "My sincere and heartfelt thanks to my respected elder brother, Mukesh, and Nita, for standing by me during these trying times, and demonstrating the importance of staying true to our strong family values by extending this timely support. I and my family are grateful we have moved beyond the past, and are deeply touched with this gesture."

But a year and a half later, Anil Ambani's The Reliance Group spokesperson clarifies that RCom's press release dated 18 March 2019 only captured the gratitude expressed by Anil Ambani as Chairman of RCom, to the Chairman and Director of Reliance Industries Limited, Mukesh and Nita Ambani, respectively.

Sources in both the groups say relations between Ambani brothers are not warm enough for the now vastly rich elder Ambani to save Anil financially from mounting debt. Two of Anil Ambani's companies--- RCom and Reliance Naval and Engineering Ltd--- are now under insolvency process. Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio is one of the bidders for a part of RCom's assets. The other major companies of Anil Ambani-- Reliance Infrastructure, Reliance Power and Reliance Capital--are debt-ridden and are together valued just Rs 1,600 crore in the stock market.

YES Bank recently issued a notice of possession to Ambani's headquarters at Santacruz and two other offices in South Mumbai for its dues. BT reported earlier that The Reliance Group of Anil Ambani is likely to shift corporate headquarters and chairman's office back to Reliance Centre at Ballard Estate in South Mumbai. In a major relief for Anil Ambani, the Delhi High Court in an interim order in August stayed insolvency proceedings against him and directed him not to dispose his assets until further order.

Once the world's sixth-richest person with wealth of $42 billion, Anil Ambani was ordered by a UK court in May to pay $716 million (Rs 5,276 crore) including interest and legal costs to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank. Anil Ambani told the London court in September that he had to sell off all his jewellery to pay for his legal costs and his current expenses are being borne by his wife and family. He also said that he received loans from his son.

According to Anil Ambani sources, the UK proceedings are for the liabilities of RCom, which is already under insolvency in India and the Chinese banks will get their share of payments from the sale proceeds. "The matter pertains to an alleged personal guarantee for a corporate loan availed by RCom in 2012 from the Chinese State-owned banks, and not a personal loan of Ambani," a source said.

At least some of the lenders of Anil Ambani's businesses believe that his elder brother will again bail him out. Anil Ambani and his family were at the forefront during the weddings of Mukesh Ambani's daughter Isha with Anand Piramal, and son Akash with Shloka Mehta . It was Anil Ambani who came out to receive former President late Pranab Mukherjee during Isha's wedding in December 2018.

After the demise of father Dhirubhai Ambani in 2002, Mukesh and Anil had split the Reliance empire. Family business was divided in 2005 with the mediation of mother Kokilaben Ambani. But, a series of court battles and public spats happened for the natural gas produced from Reliance Industries' asset in Krishna Godavari (KG) basin. Making it more bitter, Anil Ambani's group filed a Rs 10,000 crore defamation suit against Mukesh in 2008 for the latter's remarks in an interview.

Finally, in 2010, the Supreme Court gave the verdict in favour of Mukesh's company in the gas dispute. In May 2010, the brothers scrapped all "non-compete" agreements among their companies, allowing either group to enter sectors that had earlier been reserved for one of them. This paved the way for Mukesh Ambani's entry into telecom, launching Reliance Jio.

It was rumoured during the time that the brothers settled financially before removing the non-compete clause from their family agreement. The Ambani family partied together in December 2011 at Chorwad in Gujarat during the 80th birth anniversary celebration of late Dhirubhai Ambani.

After that, the brothers were never seen together in any of the public functions. Mukesh was focused on building the telecom business and other expansions. In 2016, the brothers again united for their niece's wedding. Anil Ambani was happy at one point of time that his brother was coming up with Jio, and said in September 2016 that his telecom company had "virtually" merged with Reliance Jio. "Our spectrum is shared, our network is shared, our fibre is shared, our towers are shared, our voice is shared," he explained, while responding to the questions of shareholders at the AGM of RCom. It was just a few days after the launch of Jio's commercial operations.

Mukesh Ambani said in an interview at the same time, he was "happy" that they had overcome all their past issues at the family level, but added that their businesses were separate. Broadly, these statements were seen by the market as a reunion. But the launch of Jio destroyed the telecom business of Anil. In early July 2017, RCom blamed Jio directly as the reason for the financial stress in the telecom industry.

Soon, RCom started defaulting on its repayments on a debt of Rs 45,000 crore. Its asset sale failed to take off. Finally, Mukesh gave the helping hand and agreed to buy the RCom assets. Jio had announced a Rs 23,000-crore deal in December 2017 and completed the purchase of media convergence nodes and fibre for Rs 5,000 crore. But the spectrum sale got stuck after the telecom department sought bank guarantees. Ericsson went to court around the same time.

Also Read: 'Don't drink, smoke or gamble': Anil Ambani tells UK court

Also Read: Chinese banks to go after Anil Ambani's worldwide assets to recover debt

Also Read: Delay in spectrum auction hurting investor sentiment, causing loss to national exchequer: Reliance Jio
"We are at a turning point in government IT due to the fact that automation is speeding up the pace of products and solutions implementation by about tenfold, or more depending on the customer need," said Luther McGinty, chief technology officer of Paradyme Management. "We have seen the incredible potential of automation, especially with the practices of DevSecOps. It's a game changer for what is possible for government solutions. To help government achieve this kind of change, we realized that a significant, ongoing commitment to R&D is absolutely required  not just as an add-on to an organization, but as part of the core of operations as well as our culture. That's what we've created in Paradyme Labs, and we're using it to foster the most rapid solutions possible in close collaboration with customers and our cross-functional internal teams."

Over the past two years, Paradyme, which is headquartered in Greenbelt, Maryland, has nearly doubled the size of its team. To support this growth and also serve as a hub for its growing IT lab, the company opened a new Tysons office at 8255 Greensboro Drive in McLean, Virginia, with close to 4,000 square feet of space. The office also offers a Northern Virginia location option for about ten percent of Paradyme's 200 employees around the region. While the team is currently operating remote and functioning well using Microsoft Teams as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the company anticipates returning to in-office operations in Q1 2021.

For more information about Paradyme's DevSecOps, please go to: http://www.paradymemanagement.com/our-solutions/cloud-native/

About Paradyme Management Inc.

Paradyme Management is a rapidly growing government technology leader that puts service first, for its customers, its team and the communities it supports. Paradyme harnesses the power of advanced information technology to tackle some of the toughest challenges facing the federal government today, specializing in the areas of GovSecOps, cloud engineering, data analytics, enterprise integration, ERP software implementation and software development. The Paradyme team is committed to working closely with customers to listen well, understand needs and develop effective and efficient solutions that deliver strong value. With offices in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Tysons, Virginia, Paradyme's award-winning culture sets it apart through its team's deep commitment to service and collaboration with its customers, each other and the community. www.paradymemanagement.com

SOURCE Paradyme Management Inc.

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(Alliance News) - Baillie Gifford Japan Trust PLC on Wednesday said it substantially outperformed its benchmark in its most recent financial year, with SoftBank Group Corp the largest positive contributor.

The medium to smaller sized Japanese companies investor said its net asset value total return, deducting borrowings at fair value, increased by 6.8% in its financial year ended August 31. In comparison benchmark, the TOPIX index total return in sterling terms, saw a 0.1% negative return for the period.

"SoftBank Group was the largest positive contributor to performance this year as the shares substantially outpaced the wider market, delivering a total return of 26% in sterling terms," said manager Baillie Gifford.

It added: "We also had good contributions from a variety of our internet holdings, including long-standing investments such as GMO Internet and M3, as well as more recent purchases such as Bengo4.com and Demae-Can."

Net asset value per share as at August 31 was 840.8 pence, up from 792.1p the year before.

Baillie Gifford Japan increased its final dividend to 4.50p per share from 3.50p the year before.

Baillie Gifford said: "Your company has been resilient to the coronavirus pandemic to date and the underlying progress made by a number of the holdings has been very satisfactory. The outlook for the global and Japanese economies remains, as ever, uncertain. The good news for shareholders is that it seems highly unlikely that the current coronavirus pandemic will be the main concern in five years' time. We believe that a selected portfolio of growing businesses is capable of increasing shareholders' wealth over time. When we consider the quality of the companies in your portfolio we look to the future with optimism and confidence."

Shares in Baillie Gifford Japan were up 0.7% at 904.45 pence in London on Wednesday.

By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
OTTAWA  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised help to big city mayors in Ontario and Quebecs COVID-19 hot spots as rising coronavirus infections expose ongoing gaps in health care and the social safety net in the two provinces.

In Toronto, help is expected soon via a revised business aid package that Mayor John Tory said hes been assured will be retroactive to Oct. 1, and that he hopes will be simpler and more flexible than the last round of commercial assistance and rent relief, in order to address fears expressed by many small business and restaurant owners they cannot survive a new round of closures.

In Ottawa, that federal help could come via a surge in COVID-19 testing and laboratory capacity at a federal building Trudeau is offering to make available to local public health authorities.

The federal government is already providing hundreds of federal workers to do contact tracing in Ontario, Alberta and Quebec, and expects to sign agreements with other provincial governments, which are responsible for testing and contact tracing.

In several phone calls over the past three days, Trudeau spoke to mayors in Toronto, Peel Region, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City to determine their needs.

The messages from Tory and Ottawas Jim Watson were similar, according to the two mayors: the spike in new cases is an immediate challenge, putting a strain on testing and contact tracing in their cities, as well as on housing and shelter resources.

Tory said the pandemic has created a huge housing problem for Toronto, and he told Trudeau the $1 billion fund to rapidly convert buildings to support immediate isolation housing needs was a great start to address what is also a longer-term problem.

We had to literally move 3,000 people into alternate accommodations because the existing shelter system didnt allow for physical distancing, Tory said in an interview. He also wants more support for mental health service needs, and underlined Torontos testing and contact tracing backlog challenges.

Watson told Trudeau the $1 billion rapid housing initiative announced last month is set to end Mar. 31 when the need for help is likely to run into summer months. He asked Trudeau to speed up a federal offer of the use of a federal building in the southern Ottawa suburb of Fallowfield with an on-site lab to expand COVID-19 testing capacity  a plan that Watson said might be finalized in the next week or two.

The mayors flagged their concerns for small businesses, especially the hospitality sector, and the strain on municipal funding as public transit costs remain high while ridership remains low.

Money from the $19-billion federal Safe Restart Agreements with provinces has begun to flow to municipalities in the past few weeks, Tory and Watson said.

Toronto has received around $600 million so far, and the second phase will require the city to apply for another $600 million. Ottawa has received about $75 million of $124.5 million it has been allocated. Both cities still face big shortfalls in their fiscal years  Ottawas is about $67 million, while Torontos could be around $300 million if it receives the $1.2 billion from the Safe Restart pool.

The mayors impressed upon Trudeau the need for future support, while thanking him for federal help to date.

Justin Trudeau gets cities, said Tory. Still, he said he didnt miss the opportunity to say wed probably need to have something, albeit perhaps more modest, that would be called Safe Recovery 2.0 because in 2021 the pandemic will still be taking its toll.

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The League of Women Voters of the Midland Area hosted a forum on Friday for the candidates for the 98th State House District Representative. Democrat Sarah Schulz and incumbent Republican Rep. Annette Glenn answered a series of questions as well as presented their own statements, moderated by Kim Steinke, president of LWV of Midland.

After providing an opening statement each, Glenn and Schulz took turns answering seven questions as well as replying to their opponents answers. Below is a transcript of their conversation.

Opening statements

Schulz: Thank you so much, Kim, and thank you to the League of Women Voters and to MCTV. Im Sarah Schulz and Im running to be your representative in Lansing. Im the vice president for human resources at a large national nonprofit that helps students in urban schools graduate. Im from Flint. Im the daughter and granddaughter of UAW autoworkers. Im the wife of a public school teacher and a mom of two middle schoolers in Midland Public Schools. I believe in good jobs. I believe people should not have to work two jobs in order to survive. I believe in healthy communities where everyone thrives. And I believe that Michigan schools can be on top again. In 2008, I lost my job and I and my husband and our two babies moved into a very old trailer home that did not have running water. It had a leaky roof and barely any heat. We were a young family in need of help and we got it from enrolling our kids in MIChild health insurance and using food banks. We could not have made it through that time without our community. I want to make sure that support is there for other young families who need to get back on their feet. And boy, have we needed each other in the last seven months! From COVID, where my team and I handed out 1,200 handmade facemasks for our community, to during the flood, when we took off work for weeks to help our community and neighbors recover. These disasters in recent times have proven that our community has never been more important to us than it is now. I believe that true leaders serve and put people over politics so everyone can reach their full potential. When we do that, everyone is better off. I cant wait to serve our community in Lansing and would be honored to have your vote on Nov. 3.

Glenn: Thank you. And I appreciate the invitation to be with you as well and the work you do in helping support getting voter information out. I am Annette Glenn, the current representative for the 98th District which encompasses parts of Bay and Midland counties. Ive been married 37 years. I have five children and eight really wonderful grandchildren, many that still live and work or go to school in the area, and we are extremely blessed to call the 98th home. I grew up in a family of seven kids. My dad was a dentist, and my mom a nurse and we all started working at Dads office at age 8, learning to balance a checkbook and to work hard. Our family always followed current events and was always involved in public service, community service and neighborhood service, which brings me to where I am today. I was elected in 2018 for the first time, and shortly thereafter, was appointed to serve on the House Appropriations or the budget setting committee where I constantly used everything my parents taught me about hard work and how to balance checkbooks to craft our over $16 billion budget. I currently serve on the Health and Human Service and K-12 subcommittees. Im vice chair of the Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Department of Insurance and Financial Services, Natural Resources and Environmental Quality, and I chair Michigan State Police as well as our Military and Veteran Affairs. When Im not working on the 75% of the state budget, Ive had the privilege to work on legislation that protects children from abuse and neglect, protects victims from human trafficking, and protects families and people from sexual assault. Weve worked to increase government accountability and to ensure that we have funded critical literacy programs, ensuring that all kids were able to go back to school this fall in a manner that was safe for them. I am honored and humbled to be serving and I look forward to continuing to serve in the future. Thank you.

What are the three biggest issues facing Michigan to be addressed by the state legislature in the next term?

Glenn: I dont think theres any doubt that one of our top three issues is going to be coronavirus recovery. Whether its navigating the unemployment insurance agencies or the often confusing and sometimes conflicting executive orders or placing COVID patients into nursing homes, I believe there are a lot of situations where the governor and the state couldve handled things better if we had better collaboration. And these are all issues that still need to be addressed on top of navigating how to safely open our economy, which absolutely must be science-based and a common sense approach to recover. It needs to be focused on a regional approach thats best for each area rather than a one-size-fits-all so that our children can be educated safely and effectively and we can continue to move the state forward. Locally, theres no question flooding, flood recovery and rebuilding is a top priority. Moving forward, I want to continue to ensure that we have a truly independent investigation and the dam owner, the state and anyone else responsible for the dam failure is held accountable. I want to continue working on dam safety and funding as a member of the DNR and EGLE subcommittees to help prevent a situation like this from ever happening again. I will continue to work with our champion, Sanford Village President Dolores Porte, and helping in any way I possibly can with the recovery. Education, literacy and racial justice is the third thing I think we need to focus on. Over 50% of our third graders arent reading at grade level, which makes them four times more likely to drop out of school and end up in that prison pipeline. We need to focus on ensuring our at-risk students and minority children are not disadvantaged. We need to take care of our children and our communities, and ensure they have the resources needed to be successful in their education, their lives and their careers. If they can dream it, we need to help them achieve it. Those are my top three priorities. Thank you.

Schulz: The top three priorities that come to mind for me the most are not just my top priorities, but theyre the top priorities of our district based on hundreds and hundreds of conversations that Ive been able to have with citizens over the last two years. Those priorities have remained pretty constant. Theyre strong schools, making sure that we are respecting and resourcing our teachers, that we dont have a digital gap or an educational gap in our students ability to meet their fullest potential, especially in the face of COVID and especially in the face of the teacher shortage. Second, good jobs, the ability for us to have good jobs in our district that provide pay equity for minorities and pay equity gender, that we have strong unions, that we have a living wage and good benefits that people can have for their jobs so that when theyre working a full-time job, they have the security and flexibility to plan for the future. And also, healthy communities, by which I mean a healthy infrastructure in our communities. Not just roads, but also wifi access, and also our dam system to make sure that infrastructure is safe. We need to close the $16 billion investment gap in our water infrastructure that was identified by the Snyder administration. Healthy communities is also having healthy bodies and making sure we have access to prescription drugs that are not so costly that people in our communities are making a decision between whether or not to buy their insulin or pay their rent, and that were able to have healthy relationships among community members in this polarized environment. I think that COVID is a big issue, but COVID actually magnifies the necessity to focus on all the other issues that I just talked about, and definitely comes into play when Im out talking with folks in the community.

Glenns response: There is so much work to be done and its been a blessing and a privilege to be part of what we have done and accomplished so far, whether it was partnering together during COVID to get businesses open safely or whether it was being part of the return to learn package that got our kids back to going to school this fall. All of those are important things we need to continue to focus on and I continue to look forward to working on all those issues along with dam safety. Thank you.

Schulz response: Related to COVID, my team, I think it was the Tuesday after school shut down, was already mobilized with 89 volunteers to make face masks for first responders and essential workers in our community. I think one critical thing we need to learn from COVID is we need to make sure our state is prepared should a situation like that happen in the future and not be caught flat-footed with a shortage of something like PPE. We should not have to rely on community organizers and community groups to protect our workers. That is something weve learned through this COVID process that I hope we use as a cautionary tale in the future.

What is your position on the recently approved 2021-22 state budget, specifically regarding the states efforts to maintain fairness and quality of life?

Schulz: I actually just had coffee this morning with Sen. (Jim) Stamas and we were talking about the budget. He was explaining how excited he was that we were able to pass the budget given the contentiousness of the budget process in the year before. I definitely appreciate any effort to arrive at bipartisan solutions to make sure that were funding programs that are important to us in this state. We have to be thinking about not only how we balance our budget but where our priorities lie. Ive always said that our budget  be it our family budget, our company budget, or our state budget  is not just a bunch of numbers in a spreadsheet. Its actually a statement of our values. If we look at a budget it can show where our values are by how weve resourced and how weve invested in whats important like education and healthcare so were not paying lip service to those pieces, but were actually resourcing them adequately. I think that theres a lot more we can do when it relates to our budget, specifically when it comes to education. Education is important because since 2004, our state has taken a nosedive in education funding to the bottom of the list. I can see us having little blips in the right direction in the last two years, but we have a long way to go before we are able to resource and invest in education to the level we need to compete with other states and to compete with other countries. Its not gone far enough as far as Im concerned, but it is a step in the right direction, and I really love seeing the satisfaction from both parties in Lansing around some of the things we were able to accomplish.

Glenn: Thank you. I could tell you that with the coronavirus, its been an unusual year with the budget process. Nationally, when we were looking at whats called the revenue estimating conference, we were anticipating almost a $3 billion national shortfall. We were anticipating to having to cut about $1 billion out of education, which nobody wanted to do. We spent a lot of late nights wondering what were going to be the solutions and how we were going to be able to fund critical infrastructure, take care of our kids, take care of our first responders. We were blessed with some of the federal funding and the way it came into the state. The way that it came in, it allowed us to not have to make those cuts. Last year, we were actually able to create some wonderful programs all around. But I can tell you there was no expectation that we were going to be able to find extra money for schools, and yet we were able to do that. So theres additional money for literacy, which was always going to be one of my top priorities. If we dont have our kids reading, we really penalize them for everything they want to accomplish in life and just put them in a situation where they have to work much harder to accomplish what their dreams are. The budget was a top process, it was so much different this year. When we had our speeches on the House floor, we had Republicans and Democrats joining together, praising the budget. There was additional money for dam safety funding, we doubled that. I look forward to continuing to work to crafting healthy budgets that prioritize critical programs and take care of our citizens. Thank you.

Schulzs response: Thanks so much. I heard Annette talk about how she knew how to balance a checkbook before she became our state representative. I think thats great. I want everyone to know that I have been balancing billion-dollar budgets in my organization for the last 15 years. I know what its like to make sure that were making trade-offs that prioritize the things that matter and that we understand how the implications of the decisions we make in the budget will affect future years of our organization, for our 5,000 workers and millions of dollars. I think for that reason, whats really important is we focus on the priorities of this year and in COVID, its for sure education. Its also supporting small businesses, the backbone of our economy, making sure theyre prepared to meet reopening standards, and also that were supporting our workers, giving them things like prevailing wages and repealing right to work, making sure they have paid sick leave for those 1.7 million workers who do not.

Glenns response: Thank you. Honestly, I could probably spend three hours talking about the budget and everything that we did to make things work for citizens. Sarah is absolutely correct that what we fund shows our priorities. Out of everything we were able to do, we increased funding for our students, hazard pay for our teachers, increased funding for our support staff. Those all show our values and how much we value our students, our teachers and education here. We also increased dam safety funding. We doubled the number of dam inspectors that we have. I dont know if theres anything thats going to be higher priority in this area given the unpredictability of our rain and water. I have people talking to me constantly every time it rains, wondering whether theyre going to be drenched or not. I will continue to focus on education, recovering from coronavirus, and doing everything we can to recover and rebuild from the flood. Thank you.

Regarding the recent catastrophic collapse of the Sanford and Edenville dams, what steps will you take if elected to strengthen regulatory oversight and legal remedies for residents?

Glenn: As I mentioned in my opening statement, I think it is absolutely critical that we have an independent investigation so that we can determine who all is at fault: the dam owner, the state, regulations. All of that needs to be taken into account so we can rebuild. I hear the stress in peoples lives as they determine if they want to rebuild or get flooded again. If this happens, whats going to happen? We have erosion thats continuing to go on. We have vegetation thats growing on our bottomlands and concerns about the stability of that. There was a new report that came out, its just beginning, and there are a lot of ideas that came out of that, saying our departments werent really taking the dam safety experts seriously. Something else I learned about this is that our dam safety expert inspectors dont actually go out to the dams and inspect them. Theres paperwork thats provided by the dams to show whats going on. By doubling that force, Im hoping that we actually allow these inspectors to go out and physically look at our dams. Our Sanford dam had whats called a high hazard rating, which meant that when it failed, we were fully expected to lose not only significant properties, but life. I rarely talk about the flood without giving a huge shout out to our first responders, that were able to evacuate over 11,000 people safely. There was no significant loss of life, no loss of life whatsoever. Not only that, we had no serious injuries. So back to the independent investigation, those are going to get us a lot of answers as to what we really need to do, increasing funding for dam safety, our inspectors and holding everyone responsible accountable, and making sure they take care of their issue and funding as well. Thank you.

Schulz: Thank you so much, Kim. I know what those flood survivors are dealing with because I was  and still am  a flood survivor myself. My family and I, and my parents, were evacuated off of Wixom Lake by pontoon boat. We are still down to the studs in those homes, trying to rebuild just like so many other people in our communities. Yes, we absolutely have to have an independent investigation, not only into those dam owners, but also into anyone who has received campaign finance donations from those dam owners. We need to make sure that in the future, no campaign contributions can go to regulated entities like dams so dam owners who are in a position to devastate communities like ours cannot buy influence from our lawmakers. We need to make sure that this never happens again by, again, doubling the number of inspectors we have. We actually have thousands of privately-owned dams in our state. We need to make sure that those owners are able to, and can prove that theyre able to, have the money to upkeep and do repairs on those dams and to help communities if theyre devastated. We need to double the spillway capacities in our state to make them meet the federal standards. We also need to take care of flood survivors. Right now we have one case manager for every 500 people who were devastated by the floods, and thats not nearly enough as those folks are trying to rebuild and revisit their lives. We also need to make sure that were able to, as I mentioned, close that infrastructure gap that we have in our waterways where we have $16 billion that we need to spend that was identified by the Snyder administration. This wasnt an act of God; we couldve prevented these dams from failing when they failed if we had good leadership in place beforehand to hold them accountable to the repairs that they were responsible for.

Glenns response: Thank you. I absolutely agree that in the future we absolutely need to make sure dam owners have not only the capability financially to repair and upkeep the dams, but also to take care of the damage should anything happen. We absolutely should be able to hold them responsible and make them make people whole, theres no question about that. There are some interesting things Ive been made aware of at the state level. For example, the state had the dam repair money and we applied for it, and we did not get it. That money went instead to actually to get rid of some dams instead of repairing some of our high hazard dams. I want to look at that program as well, and make sure those funds go to the locations that are most needed. Its important that we protect other communities from suffering the devastation we have. I cant tell you how many muddy basements and drywall we have pulled out and helped people with. I dont want anybody else to go through what we did.

Schulzs response: To go through what we did and are still going through. I know a family of five thats still living in a camper in Sanford, one of several. They are trying to fortify that camper for the winter by wrapping insulation around the outside and stuffing straw underneath. Meanwhile, theyre trying to rebuild their home and all they have right now is a hole in the ground. They dont know how theyre going to have the funds to just pour the cement for their foundation let alone rebuild their home. We have had a bill that has been through the House and the Senate and its now sitting with the governor that will provide help to the municipalities here but will not provide help for that family to get back on its feet to get in a home that is safe for the wintertime. We need to not forget about the families that are still suffering so much from these tragedies and make sure that all of our focus is eliminating as much red tape as we can and focusing on getting them relief immediately because winter is coming.

For the past 25 years Michigan has been one of the leading states offering a free-market inter-district schools of choice policy, in which students can elect to attend a school in a district other than the one in which they live. Please provide your position on Michigans Schools of Choice Policy. What are the advantages and potential disadvantages?

Schulz: Thanks, Kim. As I said before, education at large is one of the issues people bring up to me all the time when Im out talking to members of our community. This issue of school of choice, the issue of private charter schools and private schools and public school funding comes up quite frequently. I have to say that if we resourced schools adequately and equitably, and made sure those schools had all the right programs, all the same abilities for students to learn and achieve, then we wouldnt be worried about some of the issues that come up with schools of choice where you have students selecting one school over another, where schools are having trouble to maintain that consistent and stable amount of funding. You then end up with a downward spiral of a school because its losing funding and cant support the programs it wants to have. My husband is a public school teacher. He has been for about 20 years. Our schools, for that period of time, have been really devastated by things like standardized testing and accountability measures that are unfair to our teachers and this long-standing reduction in school funding and school resourcing. If we were able to actually resource those schools enough so that one student who had the ability to make a choice could make a choice to go to a school that maybe specialized in something or a student who did not have that ability to make a choice because their parents are unable to drive them to school or arent able to fill out the paperwork to go to a school of choice could stay in their home district and get the same level of education and have the same outlook on their future, then school of choice would be great. But what we do see now because of the inequities in the way that we have structured and built our schools, we end up with inequities in the ability for our students to learn and be educated. That is a real problem in our state.

Glenn: Thank you. I do want to address something that Sarah ended with about the last question. If youve got the name of this individual in the trailer, please have them reach out. Please send it to me afterwards. Weve got all kinds of resources from Home to Stay. FEMAs got rental assistance. Weve got 211. Theres no reason they need to be in that trailer unless they are choosing to be. We have resources we can provide to them while theyre rebuilding. Id be happy to work with you to get those resources to them this afternoon. On education, I have five children that learn very differently. We have used every available education option that is out there to meet the needs of our kids. Ive found that other families are exactly like us, their kids are not cookie cutter; one-size-fits-all does not work for them. We had one who graduated from Midland High, one that graduated from Bay City Western, one that attended the Bay-Arenac ISD Career Center and who now works for Virgin Orbit in California, weve got kids who did online schooling, that attended a private school for specific classes  that was a big benefit to them  we homeschooled. Our kids had different needs at different times in their lives. I can tell you theres nothing more amazing in this community than how they look at education. It is a top priority. Parents, teachers, everybody is all about the kids, what we can do to meet the needs of the kids. In some cases, that means schools of choice. In some cases, that may mean charter schools. Weve got great charter schools that have served and taken care of kids, brought them up to grad level and allowed them to succeed. Weve got others that need to be looked at and probably shut down. I think the most important thing is to maintain that flexibility so we can meet the needs of each child individually so they truly can achieve what they desire and they can be where they need to be to learn where they choose to. Thank you.

Schulzs response: Rep. Glenn, Ill get you the name of that family and at least five others that I know about. Ive also been talking with the governors office to try to get them support. I think its true that students learn differently, but its also true that not every student has the ability to make those choices. The students who have, for example, parents who are both essential workers working at a hospital and grocery store might not have the ability to drive their kids across town or two towns over to get to the school district that might best suit their learning. I would much rather resource our public schools to support any student to be able to learn, regardless of their familys ability to give them special access to different choices and options. I think we need to focus on achieving a level of equity for all students, not just those who have the privilege of choice.

Glenns response: Thank you. I would love to see funding follow the students so they do have those options. If they need it in another form like transportation, then it can be provided for them. I have been unbelievably impressed by the superintendents Ive gotten to work with the last two years. They care about these kids. They are looking for innovative ways to keep them in school, to help them achieve their dreams. Theyre constantly looking at Oh, youve got kids with an interest in skilled trades. How can we meet that need so they have those opportunities? Youve got ones interested in automotive, so thats available at Dow High. I cannot say enough about the superintendents of this district and how much they care for their kids and how they look to meet every need they possibly can whether that kid choses to stay home virtually, they choose a hybrid option or are coming to school in person. Youre doing an amazing job and Im looking forward continuing to partner with you.

What are your top three priorities for healthcare, including childrens and womens health issues?

Glenn: That is a tough one. During COVID, we have really looked at things weve been able to streamline the red tape so we can get access and care to people quicker than weve been able to in the past. Continuing to allow telemedicine to work will help everybody. My husband is a high-risk patient who usually gets treatment at U of M. However, his appointments were the week when everything was shut down in March. That said, he was able to access telemedicine, and Ive been able to talk to many others  whether its young students, young children and mothers  who said that access was a blessing. The thing is, (transportation) is not required. You no longer have to get in a car to go to the doctor. You no longer have to make an appointment and get a babysitter. I think that making telemedicine accessible to all is going to be a huge blessing to all of us. Prescription drug prices is something I hear a lot about when Im out in the community. There are two bills that are part of a bipartisan package (where) if you change your healthcare, theyre not going to be able to change how they reimburse you for prescription drug price. Theyre not going to be able to change the price partway through. Therell be more transparency. Well be able to continue to see what those drugs cost, what research there is so we can make good decisions about how to support people so they arent making decisions about what they can do, like paying rent or paying for electricity or buying prescriptions. Another priority for me is going to be is getting doctors incentives to do their practice in underserved areas, specifically in areas of family practice psychiatry where those underserved areas really need those additional services. Thank you.

Schulz: Thank you, Kim. Healthcare comes up all the time. First we have to strengthen and protect healthy Michigan in the Medicaid expansion, which is especially important during COVID so that were protecting and providing healthcare for folks who have jobs, as well as folks who are unemployed and under employed. I see people all the time who are worried about losing their job because theyre therefore losing their health insurance, especially since our unemployment rate is so high because of COVID. I think mental health is really important. I have friends and acquaintances who are in the mental health profession, whether they are social workers or therapists. They talk about the scarcity of mental health facilities in our state, especially for children, youth and specialties. We need to make sure were investing in mental health care and reducing the stigma that sadly still exists around mental health. I agree with Rep. Glenn. Prescription drug affordability is a huge issue. We can go further than the bills that are currently being proposed and into areas that other states have gone like capping certain drug prices like insulin. Also allow the ability for us to cross the border into Canada and be able to participate in the programs there that drive prescription drug costs lower. I think we should have a regulatory body in our state that is paying attention to pharmaceutical companies to make sure those CEOs are not getting wealthy off of the backs of the sick people of our state. From a womens health perspective, I would focus on womens health especially in our Black and Brown communities. We know that (limited) access to healthcare and morbidity rates are really high there as well.

Glenns response: This recent budget that the governor signed this past week increased funding  I think the official term was Healthy Babies, Healthy Moms  so I was excited to see that. Definitely preexisting conditions need to continue to be covered. That and prescription drugs are the first two things I hear all the time. Mental health calls on our hotline are up 1,000%. Being able to have psychiatrists and family doctors people can refer to get help as soon as possible is a big priority as well. Thank you.

Schulzs response: I would just point out that my opponent recently voted No with only a handful of other lawmakers on a mental health hotline across the state. I also know that when people are experiencing mental health issues, a lot of times a phone call in the middle of the night to someone whos equipped to help them can be an absolute lifesaver. I have a friend who was working minimum wage at a mental health facility and she stuck herself with a dirty needle. In order to get the prescription drugs that she needed to make sure she wasnt going to develop HIV/AIDS, it would cost her $1,000 for one prescription and $2,000 for the other prescription without insurance, which she did not have. She was left with the decision of Do I risk contracting HIV or do I max out my credit cards in order to buy these prescriptions and call in loans and ask friends for help? She ended up doing the latter. I think that we should be able to provide prescription drugs in this country, in this great state for people like my friend without them having to worry about breaking the bank.

What is your position regarding the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac?

Schulz: We were actually talking about Line 5 two years ago and here we are again, still talking. Back then, we were making the case to do something about it. We had a history of the administration who knew the dangers of that ticking time bomb at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac but was trying to kick the can down the road. I think weve gone a little bit further to recognizing Line 5 as a serious issue and weve moved into the discussion of what we need to do about it. We still havent come up with a solution. I think that people who say we should go to the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac and take that pipeline out of the water are a little bit short-sighted. I think we have to explore all our options because there are issues with if we were to remove it and if we were to keep it there. I think building encasement tunnel is one of those options that can and should be explored with real intent. If it can keep our waterways and our precious Great Lakes safe and create and maintain great jobs and affect good union jobs for our state, we need to consider that. Were in this space where we live in this extremist world. You either want to rip out Line 5 or just leave it there and let it be a ticking time bomb. Im always for trying to find the right solution that can benefit everyone.

Glenn: Thank you. I do hear a little bit about Line 5, though not as much as the other issues youve asked about. I am supportive of that tunnel. That will not only create a lot jobs, but itll make it safe to provide energy. What runs through that pipeline right now is enough gas to fill one million passenger cars and trucks every single day. Theres enough diesel running through it to fuel 6,000 semi-tractor trailers every day, and enough jet fuel for 883 commercial planes and enough propane for 300,000 homes a year. Sixty-five percent of the Upper Peninsulas propane comes through Line 5 and 55% of the Lower Peninsulas propane comes through Line 5. I think were going to penalize a lot of families if we were suddenly to determine to truck that in instead of through the pipeline. Just to give you an idea, that would take 2,100 semis, which would be 90 trucks an hour, which would put an increased burden on our infrastructure while were already trying to find additional road funding. I think for safety and heating and cost control for families, the encasement is out best option. It will provide a huge number of jobs that will be a blessing to the entire state at a time when we do have high unemployment. Once those families come, if theyre not already living here, they will want to stay. I appreciate you asking that question and look forward to continuing to work on it. Thank you.

Schulzs response: Just to be clear Im strongly in favor of reducing our overall dependency on fossil fuels, but I dont think were ready to do it overnight. Until then, we need to find real solutions to make sure the way we use fossil fuel is as safe as possible. Ive had a lot of conversations with friends in the building trades and the labor movement about Line 5 and the safety of that tunnel. We cant wait forever. We cant continue this conversation and come back to it two years from now. We have to find a solution now and go with it as soon as possible. One more anchor strike in the Straits of Mackinac could have devastating impacts not only in the Great Lakes, but on our whole states economy.

Glenns response: Thank you. Its absolutely critical that we protect our water. Everything else we talked about doesnt matter if we dont have fresh, clean water to use to take care of ourselves. Im convinced that the tunnel is the safest way to do that. As science continues to evolve, you know were going to find better energy sources and better ways to do things and Im always looking for whats next, whats best for our state, best for our citizens. Sarahs right, we should not be talking about this in two years. We should have things much further down the line and we should be protecting our water and taking care of our families. Thank you.

What is your opinion of the bill that would eliminate the exemption that the state legislature and governors office have from the Freedom of Information Act?

Glenn: Thank you for asking that question. The first bill I introduced actually has to do with the Freedom of Information Act. I would very much like to extend that to the legislature and the governor. In our local communities, you ask for information and its readily available. Making the information we have at the state level accessible and affordable for people who have those questions, Im 100% supportive of that. I think transparency and accountability in government is key for building trust. When we close things down and dont share that information, it builds distrust and concern and people to know whats going on behind the scenes if its not being shared. In our office and other offices, you do have information that pertains to constituents individually that is private and applies only to them. I think its critical that information continues to be maintained privately just like it would be in a doctors office. If someone comes to me with a private concern whether its about unemployment or something else, they need to know that information isnt going to make its way onto a Facebook page. Someone wont be able to FOIA that information and ask for what they asked for specific help on. But Im totally supportive of opening, more paperwork, more answers, giving that information out to everybody.

Schulz: Thanks so much, Kim. What Ive been saying through all this campaign season and last campaign season, theres nothing I love more than when I sit down with somebody. We might have disagreements on most things but we agree on so much more. The last two questions Annette and I agree on. You might think we disagree normally but we have an agreement on Line 5 and we have an agreement on transparency. I believe there is nothing more sacred than having access to the people we are supposed to elect and send to Lansing and Washington to represent us. The work that they do for us, we should have access to that, aside from any information that could disclose an individuals personal issue. I fully support more transparency with our governor and legislative offices. I also support more easy access to information; you can make a request on the internet and not have to fill out endless paperwork or waiting for a long time. These folks that we sent to Lansing and Washington work for us and we should be able to have access to information about that work to help us understand whether or not theyre doing a good job so it can help us make a decision of whether or not wee want to rehire them in next election cycle.

Glenns response: Just recently, I introduced whistleblower bill that would create an office in the state government where state employees could come and report what they see as a concern to them whether its financial or about a policy. Weve found that sometimes when the legislature and governor are disagreeing, these state employees dont feel like they can share that information openly. I felt very strongly that if this had been available, we wouldve been able to perhaps limit what happened in Flint (during the water crisis) or stop it altogether. The same thing with the dam. If people felt that they couldve come forward and explain all they got was paperwork and they couldnt actually go and see the dam, they might have been able to prevent either one of these tragedies from happening. That transparency is key. The bill passed with bipartisan support.

Schulzs response: Id just like to round that out that I support full transparency when it comes to campaign financing making sure that  like in the case of the dams  there arent any folks who own regulated entities in our state who are allowed to buy influence via campaign finance to our local legislators. Follow that money and that influence into the decisions that people are making as legislators. Thats were the transparency comes in. And in the case of the dam situation, we need access to that information as soon as possible because lives and homes are at risk.

Closing statements

Schulz: Thank you to you, Kim for doing this and to the League of Women Voters for your work to make access to voting fair and as secure and easy as possible. I just want to end by saying, like I said a minute ago, I think two people when they sit down, no matter where they are on the political spectrum, they agree on so much more than what they disagree with. The reason I got into this race in the first place is because Im so tired of the state of leadership in politics in our state and in our country where two people just dig at both sides at whatever issue and just scream into the void. Meanwhile, people around their kitchen tables are not getting the help and support and resources they need to live their best lives. Thats where I come in. Ive been trained in conflict resolution and problem solving. Ive been doing this in my organization for decades. I would be honored by your vote on Nov. 3.

Glenn: It has been an immense honor and privilege and a blessing to serve the residents of the 98th District. As we continue the progress weve made so far together and continue to work with local partners in Bay and Midland counties, were recovering and rebuilding from the coronavirus and the flooding. Its going to take years. In that light, Ill be a leader on dam safety, ensuring a flooding event like this never happens again. Ive already voted to increase staff for dam safety and funding for dam safety and will continue to make that a priority. Ill continue to support a fully independent investigation and once thats complete, holding everyone thats responsible accountable. Literacy and education will always be my top priorities, ensuring our children are set up for success as early as possible. In addition to Republican support, Ive been endorsed by a Democrat state representative and five local Democrat county officials. I am privileged to (have worked) with them in a bipartisan manner over the last year. I look forward to earning your support and having your vote on Nov. 3.
HUTCHINSON, Kan., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A newly-branded suite of digital multi-channel banking solutions was unveiled to hundreds of community banks and credit unions this week by Data Center Inc. (DCI). The privately-owned developer of iCore360 banking software is challenging all community banks and credit unions to "stop banking digitally."

iCoreGO logo

Unveiled as iCoreGO, the company's rebranded line of digital consumer-facing banking applications was announced with fanfare at the DCI 2020 virtual banking conference and user group meeting, with an overview of the suite's new application designations, features and impetus behind the rebranding.

Sarah Fankhauser, DCI President and CEO, said, "Our non-core solutions have undergone such dramatic expansion and enhancement in the last couple of years that we felt they needed a new identity to better reflect the bold new choices DCI is bringing to banks for their customers. These products stand alone from our iCore360 and other DCI solutions, and are being integrated into other core systems by hundreds of banks and credit unions."

Fankhauser adds that the company's strategy for the new iCoreGO brand is to build on the prominent reputation and trust of its flagship iCore360 product, while giving these non-core consumer-facing solutions their own individually-recognized identity.

All current and future DCI multi-channel applications are now part of the company's new iCoreGO product line, including online/mobile banking, mobile deposit, new customer onboarding, loan/deposit account opening, interactive/AI voice banking, electronic statements, custom website design/hosting, bill pay and more. The iCoreGO products are available to any bank or credit union, regardless of their core, and are available individually or as a packaged suite. DCI core applications like iCore360 remain unchanged.

Banks or credit unions interested in finding out more about iCoreGO can contact DCI online at www.datacenterinc.com/contact or by email at [email protected]

About DCI

DCI is the developer of the award-winning iCore360 core banking software and iCoreGO multi-channel consumer banking solutions for community banks nationwide. DCI is privately owned by a group of bank clients, with several serving as board members and user group leaders. In addition to iCore360 and iCoreGO, DCI provides private ATM network/card management, teller solutions, remote capture, custom analysis, risk/vendor management, managed IT and more. Among other awards, DCI has been named a FinTech Rankings Top 100 technology provider by IDC Financial Insights, a FinTech Forward Top 100 technology provider by American Banker and BAI, a multiple winner of the BankNews Innovative Solutions Award and endorsements from multiple regional banking associations. For more information about DCI, visit www.datacenterinc.com or contact [email protected].

Contact: Mark Harris, VP, Marketing

(620) 694-6771

SOURCE Data Center Inc.

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CHICAGO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- BNY Mellon Wealth Management has named Greg Teegen as Senior Client Strategist, based in Chicago, IL and covering the Midwest. He will work with our ultra-high-net-worth clients, including business owners, corporate executives, private equity fund principals, family offices, and foundations and endowments on their wealth strategy and planning. Greg reports directly to Andy Paterson, Central Region President.

Greg brings over 25 years of financial services experience to this role. Prior to joining BNY Mellon, Greg was an Executive Director in the J.P. Morgan Private Bank where he worked with ultra-high-net-worth families, family offices, and foundations, advising them on all aspects of their multi-generational wealth. Before his role in the Private Bank, he held a variety of leadership positions in the Chase Commercial Bank, providing credit, treasury management, capital markets, and corporate finance advisory solutions for mid-sized companies.

"Greg's experience working with high-net-worth individuals and families to build comprehensive wealth management strategies directly aligns with our BNY Mellon Active Wealth approach to preserve, grow, and transfer investors' wealth to future generations," said Paterson.

Greg earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Indiana University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. In his community, he is a board member for both HFS Chicago Scholars and Ladder Up.

ABOUT BNY MELLON WEALTH MANAGEMENT

For more than two centuries, BNY Mellon Wealth Management has provided services to financially successful individuals and families, their family offices and business enterprises, planned giving programs, and endowments and foundations. It has $254 billion in total client assets, as of June 30, 2020, and an extensive network of offices in the U.S. and internationally. BNY Mellon Wealth Management, which delivers leading wealth advice across investments, banking, custody, and wealth and estate planning, conducts business through various operating subsidiaries of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation. For more information, visit www.bnymellonwealth.com or follow us on Twitter @BNYMellonWealth.

ABOUT BNY MELLON

BNY Mellon is a global investments company dedicated to helping its clients manage and service their financial assets throughout the investment lifecycle. Whether providing financial services for institutions, corporations or individual investors, BNY Mellon delivers informed investment and wealth management and investment services in 35 countries. As of June 30, 2020, BNY Mellon had $37.3 trillion in assets under custody and/or administration, and $2.0 trillion in assets under management. BNY Mellon can act as a single point of contact for clients looking to create, trade, hold, manage, service, distribute or restructure investments. BNY Mellon is the corporate brand of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE: BK). Additional information is available on www.bnymellon.com. Follow us on Twitter @BNYMellon or visit our newsroom at www.bnymellon.com/newsroom for the latest company news.

Media Contact:

Ben Tanner

212-635-8676

[email protected]

SOURCE BNY Mellon Wealth Management

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Contractors for Losani Homes and officers from the OPP provincial liaison team paid a short-lived visit to the McKenzie Meadows construction site in Caledonia on Wednesday morning, just ahead of a court hearing into the disputed territory.

A lone worker in an orange safety vest was met at the entrance to the site by a dozen Indigenous land defenders, who have been occupying the site, which they have renamed 1492 Land Back Lane, since July 19.

The group walked the contractor off the property, telling him there would be no work done.

You dont get paid enough, bud, one of the land defenders said while ushering the contractor off the property.

After a few minutes of discussion with Land Back Lane spokesperson Skyler Williams, the two police officers also drove away.

Williams said Wednesdays visit, which officers texted him about last night, meant cancelling a scheduled appointment to present evidence to Superior Court ahead of Fridays hearing in Cayuga, where Justice R. John Harper will review two injunctions related to the occupation.

Instead of letting the (legal) process happen, were standing here on the side of the road, Williams said.

This was the second attempt by contractors acting for the developers to locate a natural gas pipeline as part of prep work for the planned 218-unit subdivision, only to be rebuffed by land defenders.

Police continue to arrest land defenders and their supporters for allegedly breaching the court order barring anyone not authorized by Foxgate Developments from being on the property.

Haldimand OPP spokesperson Const. Rod LeClair said Tuesday that 26 people have been arrested to date.

At some point theres nobody left to stand on the land, Williams said.

Earlier this week, Indigenous land defenders blocked Argyle Street in Caledonia after police tried  unsuccessfully  to arrest one of the members outside an Ancaster grocery store on Garner Road West.

The 1492 Land Back Lane group tweeted around 6 p.m. on Monday that Argyle would be blocked between 6th Line and Highway 6 for 24 hours, but traffic was flowing again just after 8 a.m. on Tuesday.

In a news release Wednesday, OPP said demonstrators threw rocks when officers went to the Argyle site, damaging several police cruisers and civilian vehicles in the area.

Police also said a control box for rail tracks in the area of 6th Line was damaged following a blockade there.

OPP say they continue to investigate.

In a statement on Facebook, Haldimand County Mayor Ken Hewitt said he does not agree with many of the steps the OPP have taken but he expects police will continue charging those attending the site.

He said what is happening in Caledonia is not peaceful.

It is not a peaceful protest when the threat of violence exists behind all decisions or direction the OPP make, he wrote. When roads are closed because the OPP are doing their job and enforcing arrests, it is not peaceful.
President Donald Trumps return to the White House, particularly his pose on the terrace with his mask off and two thumbs up, drew criticisms from elected officials around the country, including from his own political party.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, said it was irresponsible that Trump and others ignore the advice of public health experts who warn of the highly contagious nature of COVID-19. While some have contracted the virus and experienced mild symptoms, more than 1 million people worldwide have died. More than 210,000 of those deaths were in the United States.

I think all of us in public life, and I would include the president in this category, need to carry the message that while this thing may not be bad for some, it can be deadly for others, said Baker, who delivered COVID-19 updates from Salem Tuesday afternoon. If we are serious about being all in this together, we all need to do the things that stop the spread, and that starts with wearing a face covering.

The president left Walter Reed National Military Center after three days. Trumps physicians told reporters the president was being treated with a steroid and a five-day course of Remdesivir, with the fifth dose being administered Tuesday night, NPR reported.

Trump delivered remarks but appeared to be taking deeper breaths as he stood on the terrace. He later tweeted a video telling people not to fear the virus saying, Dont be afraid of it. Youre going to beat it.

In Massachusetts, 9,323 people have died from complications from coronavirus since the pandemic began; eight of those deaths were announced Tuesday. State health officials reported 454 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday.

Yet some residents deny the virus poses such a threat. A protest against the governors flu vaccine mandate for schoolchildren on Monday drew hundreds, including dozens who were not masked. The organizer, Vincent Delaney, is the plaintiff behind a lawsuit challenging Bakers mask mandate.

I have never put a mask on this face. I refuse to do so, Delaney told the crowd outside Boston federal court on Monday. The unmasked protesters lingered as others went home, and speakers decried both the mask and flu vaccine mandate.

Baker said when he hears people claim the virus isnt dangerous, he thinks of Robert Lewis Jr., founder and president of The Base nonprofit that helps student athletes with college and career training. Lewis told GBH News he nearly died after contracting COVID-19 in March.

Hes in his 50s, the most alive guy you would ever spend time with, and on some level its a miracle hes still with us, Baker said. Theres plenty of stories like that.

There are 200,000 people who died from this thing and many others who didnt die because they were saved by the health care system. Baker added. It is a brutal, vicious disease for those it negatively impacts, and it is horribly contagious to begin with. Those are the facts.

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Ahead of the Marwahi Assembly By-election scheduled for November this year, Ajit Jogis daughter-in-law Richa has been issued a show cause notice by the district caste certificate investigation committee over her caste credentials. Following a complaint lodged by BJP leader Sant Kumar Netam demanding the revocation of Richa Jogis case certificate, the committee asked Richa to furnish evidences to support her caste credentials failing which her certificate will be annulled. The committee has granted her 10 days-time to furnish the necessary documents.

Previously, former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi and his son Amit had landed in soup over their caste credentials. Ajit Jogi, a bureaucrat-turned-politician who passed away recently, had remained embroiled for close to 20 years in a legal battle involving his caste certificate.

Netam, who had challenged the caste certificates of late Ajit Jogi and his son in the past, recently complained to Mungeli collector challenging Richas caste certificate issued by the tehsil office, Jarhagaon Rajasv Mandal, in July over various anomalies.

The 18-point complaint mentioned that Richa had secured a caste certificate with Gond caste while the certificate issued to her earlier did not have it mentioned. He also pointed out other anomalies including mismatch in signature, email ID, phone number, Aadhar details and a number of other issues in the online application of Richa Rupali Sadhu.

Fearing legal obstacles in the way of his candidature over his caste credentials, Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC) chief Amit Jogi was reportedly planning to field his wife Richa from Marwahi seat in the upcoming by-poll. Following the issue over his wifes caste certificate, Jogi took to Twitter to retaliate with an emotional message.

None questioned the caste credentials of Richas family in the past as they were engaged in government jobs for the last five decades but now she had fallen under the scanner for being the daughter-in-law of Ajit Jogi, said Amit on his Twitter handle. Those questioning Marwahis daughter-in-law will get a befitting reply from public, he claimed.

Previously in 2018, Richa had contested from Akaltara seat but did not face any issue then as it was a general category seat.

Reacting to the matter, Congress media cell chairperson Shailesh Nitin Trivedi said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its B team (JCC) were resorting to variety of gimmicks in Marwahi by-polls and the present controversy was a part of their plan.

Former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi had represented the Marwahi seat for 20 years and the Jogi family was desperate to keep the seat in by-poll to ensure that the familys political legacy remained intact.
CANDIDATES who propagate hate speeches and seditious statements during ongoing election campaigns risk being disqualified, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) has warned.

The NEC cautioned that it would not tolerate candidates who infringe election regulations; insisting it would remove them from a list of candidates before the October 28th General Election.

NEC Director Dr Wilson Mahera sounded the warning during a crucial stakeholders meeting organised by the electoral body in Mara Region on Monday.

"We will not bear with anyone who does not abide by the regulations such as creating public fears, seditious statements... a leader who continues causing public fears, uttering seditious words may find himself/ herself out of the list of candidates before polling date," Mr Mahera said.

He wondered why some political leaders have continued to blame NEC over disqualified candidates vying for different posts, noting that so far, the commission has worked on many appeals.

The NEC Director urged those who still have complaints against disqualification of their aspirants to follow proper channels to appeal, instead of giving statements that jeopardise the country's peace and tranquility.

"We have worked on many appeals and our doors are open for anyone to challenge the decisions we make... they can go to court, instead of threatening and inciting violence," he said.

Some participants of the meeting underscored the importance of every candidate to avoid uttering seditious statements during and after the general election.

The meeting brought together various stakeholders from across the region.

One of the NEC's commissioners, who attended the meeting, retired Judge Thomas Mihayo, assured Tanzanians that the body will ensure that the election is going to be free and fair.

Retired judge Mihayo, however, urged every stakeholder to fulfill his or her responsibility during the general election, something which will create a room for citizens to vote peacefully on polling day.
Many investors are still learning about the various metrics that can be useful when analysing a stock. This article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE). By way of learning-by-doing, we'll look at ROE to gain a better understanding of AstraZeneca PLC (LON:AZN).

Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity.

Check out our latest analysis for AstraZeneca

How Is ROE Calculated?

Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations)  Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for AstraZeneca is:

15% = US$2.0b  US$14b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

The 'return' refers to a company's earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each 1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made 0.15 in profit.

Does AstraZeneca Have A Good Return On Equity?

By comparing a company's ROE with its industry average, we can get a quick measure of how good it is. The limitation of this approach is that some companies are quite different from others, even within the same industry classification. If you look at the image below, you can see AstraZeneca has a similar ROE to the average in the Pharmaceuticals industry classification (16%).

roe

That's neither particularly good, nor bad. Even if the ROE is respectable when compared to the industry, its worth checking if the firm's ROE is being aided by high debt levels. If so, this increases its exposure to financial risk. Our risks dashboardshould have the 3 risks we have identified for AstraZeneca.

How Does Debt Impact ROE?

Virtually all companies need money to invest in the business, to grow profits. The cash for investment can come from prior year profits (retained earnings), issuing new shares, or borrowing. In the case of the first and second options, the ROE will reflect this use of cash, for growth. In the latter case, the debt used for growth will improve returns, but won't affect the total equity. Thus the use of debt can improve ROE, albeit along with extra risk in the case of stormy weather, metaphorically speaking.

Story continues

AstraZeneca's Debt And Its 15% ROE

AstraZeneca clearly uses a high amount of debt to boost returns, as it has a debt to equity ratio of 1.57. There's no doubt its ROE is decent, but the very high debt the company carries is not too exciting to see. Debt increases risk and reduces options for the company in the future, so you generally want to see some good returns from using it.

Summary

Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. Companies that can achieve high returns on equity without too much debt are generally of good quality. All else being equal, a higher ROE is better.

But ROE is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, since high quality businesses often trade on high multiples of earnings. The rate at which profits are likely to grow, relative to the expectations of profit growth reflected in the current price, must be considered, too. So you might want to check this FREE visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.

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.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 17:09:25|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- China hopes Kyrgyzstan will restore stability as soon as possible, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday.

China is highly concerned about the current situation in Kyrgyzstan, spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a statement.

As a friendly neighbor and comprehensive strategic partner, China sincerely hopes that all parties in Kyrgyzstan can properly resolve the problem in accordance with the law through dialogue and consultation, she said.

China has always respected the development path chosen by the Kyrgyz people in line with their national conditions, said the spokesperson, noting that China firmly supports the policies and measures adopted by Kyrgyzstan in safeguarding independence, sovereignty and security, and firmly opposes external forces' interference in Kyrgyz internal affairs.

"We hope Kyrgyzstan will restore stability as soon as possible, and realize national economic and social development," said Hua. Enditem
Senate Panel Subpoenas FBI Informant Stefan Halper

A Senate committee chairman issued a subpoena this week to one of the spies the FBI used against Donald Trumps campaign before the 2016 campaign.

Stefan Halper, 76, was told to appear at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington on Oct. 20.

Halper was told he would be answering questions about or related to Crossfire Hurricane, the FBIs counter-intelligence investigation of Trumps campaign; an investigation into that investigation by the Department of Justices Office of Inspector General; and the unmasking of U.S. persons or entities affiliated, formally or informally, with the Trump campaign, the Trump transition team, or the Trump administration.

Halper faces penalties if he refuses to appear.

A copy of the subpoena, issued by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), was obtained and published by the Washington Examiner.

A spokesman for the committee didnt respond to a request for comment.

Neither Halper nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment.

Johnsons committee last month authorized him to subpoena 40 people involved in Crossfire Hurricane.

Johnson and other Republicans have argued that the probe was rife with malfeasance, pointing to the reliance on an unsubstantial dossier that relied on Russians to make outlandish claims about Trump.

Former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page in New York on Aug. 21, 2020. Page was one of two Trump campaign advisers who were targeted by Stefan Halper. (Brendon Fallon/The Epoch Times)

Democrats opposed the subpoenas and say Republicans should focus on combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

Halper, a former University of Cambridge professor, was one of four spies the FBI used to target Trumps campaign.

Halper was dismissed as an asset in 2011 because of questionable allegiance to people he was spying on and aggressiveness towards FBI agents, according to a 2019 report from the Department of Justices Office of Inspector General.

He was later brought back and got close to Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser who was illegally spied on by the FBI, as well as George Papadopoulos, another aide.

Halper allegedly told the FBI a false story to smear Michael Flynn, who at the time was a Trump campaign adviser. According to a recently released audio clip, Halper suggested insider knowledge of Flynns impending downfall.

Halper has not spoken publicly about his spying activities. According to publicly available information, he has not been questioned by Congress or the inspector general about his spying.

Page told The Epoch Times that he sees a double standard in terms of the amount of information leaked about him and the lack of information thats been disclosed about Halper.

Whats particularly terrible about itand again, I talk about this in some length in my bookits the dual standards of justice, right? Where, well, we dont want to leak anything related to Professor Halper, right? His name is not even in the 480-page Inspector General report, right? But nonetheless, theres all kinds of false information about me, he said.

Petr Svab and Jan Jekielek contributed to this report.
L ockdown restrictions should be ditched in favour of a herd immunity approach to tackling the Covid-19 pandemic, a group of experts has said.

An international coalition of scientists penned an open letter calling for those who are less vulnerable to coronavirus to be allowed to return to normal life, while others shield.

The new declaration, titled the Great Barrington Declaration after the US town where it was written, has been signed by more than 2,600 scientists and 3,300 medical experts, as well s more than 50,000 members of the public.

Those from the universities of Oxford, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Cambridge, Sussex, York, St Georges University of London, Strathclyde, Leicester, Queen Mary University of London and the University of East Anglia are among the global experts who have signed the declaration.

It comes after recent remarks from the leader of the NHS in England, Sir Simon Stevens, who said that asking all over-65s to shield to slow the transmission of the second wave of coronavirus would be age-based apartheid.

Another expert also warned that the declaration ignores the growing evidence on long Covid  whereby thousands of fit and young people who contract the virus have been left with debilitating symptoms months after a mild infection.

Freelance professional musicians perform a section of 'Mars' from Holst's 'The Planets' in Parliament Square, Westminster / PA

Professor Jeremy Rossman pointed out that research suggests that protective antibody responses may decay rapidly and that there have been cases of re-infection of the virus.

Meanwhile Sweden, which adopted a herd immunity approach , was not able to successfully protect the vulnerable population, he added.

The declaration states: As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing Covid-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.

Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health  leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.

Despite the emphasis on herd immunity, other academics warn antibodies may 'decay rapidly' / PA

The letter continues that Covid-19 is "more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young". It claims that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity, and that society's goal should be to minimise social harm until herd immunity is reached.

It adds that those who are not vulnerable should return to office working, and that schools, universities, restaurants, and pubs should remain open.

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.

The letter comes after several anti-lockdown protests / AP

Commenting on the declaration, Prof Rossman, honorary senior lecturer in virology at the University of Kent, said: Unfortunately, this declaration ignores three critical aspects that could result in significant impacts to health and lives.

First, we still do not know if herd immunity is possible to achieve. Herd immunity relies on lasting immunological protection from coronavirus re-infection; however, we have heard many recent cases of re-infection occurring and some research suggests protective antibody responses may decay rapidly.

Second, the declaration focuses only on the risk of death from Covid-19 but ignores the growing awareness of long Covid, that many healthy young adults with mild infections are experiencing protracted symptoms and long-term disability.

Third, countries that have forgone lockdown restrictions in favour of personal responsibility and focused protection of the elderly, such as Sweden, were not able to successfully protect the vulnerable population.

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Prof James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, and of the University of Oxford, said: The main signatories include many accomplished scientists and I read it with interest. I will not be signing it however. The declaration risks the same error we have seen with the UKs track trace and isolate scheme  one can promise a scheme that is very easy to describe but is hard to deliver.
Fierce fighting started in the Caucasus region of South-Eastern Europe on Sunday, September 27, following an announcement by Armenia that it was declaring martial law and mobilising its army.

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A map of South-Eastern Europe. Photo: BBC.

Source: UGC

Since then Armenia and Azerbaijan forces have been engaged in fighting with dozens of deaths being reported among them being civilians.

It was reported at the heart of the conflict was a dispute over the control of the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh which has been internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.

Armenia claimed Azerbaijan had launched a military operation inside the breakaway region with the latter claiming it attacked only in response to Armenian shelling.

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In a joint appeal, Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump and Macron urged the two sides to return to negotiations aimed at resolving their longstanding territorial dispute.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev have both rejected the idea of holding talks.

Read about further developments on BBC
Challenge accepted: Oxylabs proposal to automate the detection of harmful content online targeting vulnerable groups will turn into reality

VILNIUS, LITHUANIA / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Oxylabs, a provider of premium proxies and data scraping tools, has won the challenge, curated by the innovation accelerator GovTech Lab, to find a solution on how to automate the detection of illegal content online. The Oxylabs proposal, incorporating artificial intelligence (AI), will be turned into a fully-functioning prototype, which will strengthen the position of institutions fighting against harmful activities on the internet.

The challenge was initially proposed by the Communications Regulatory Authority of the Republic of Lithuania (RRT) as a response to the rising numbers of illegal content online. The nation-wide competition was launched through the GovTech Lab platform to find a solution or a tool that could recognize prohibited visual material placed on Lithuanian servers and send its link (URL) to the RRT hotline.

"We have selected the Oxylabs team since we believe that their proposed AI-based solution could be highly efficient in identifying harmful online content, helping us to create a friendlier online environment for everyone, especially children" - said Vaidotas Ramonas, Director of Digital Services Department of the Communications Regulatory Authority (RRT).

Since the foundation in 2015, Oxylabs has been the leader of innovation in the field of web data gathering, employing cutting-edge technologies to solve complex tasks. The company has entered the competition with a strong team of data scientists, software developers, and engineers who were already familiar with the application of AI and machine learning (ML) algorithms. Ovidijus Balkauskas, Oxylabs Tech Team Lead for the GovTech Challenge, said:

"The solution for the challenge resulted from our gathered know-how in AI and ML-driven web data collection and extensive research. We have looked into the functionalities of existing tools and spent endless hours consulting with experts in the fields of technology, social issues, and law to better understand the challenges and resources needed for further the development of the tool."

Supporting the initiatives of social good reflects Oxylabs alignment with the company's dedication to creating value for both businesses and societies at large. The Chief Executive Officer at Oxylabs Julius Cerniauskas confirmed:

"Ethical and effective web data gathering has immense potential to fuel the work of NGOs, academics, and researchers worldwide. Our expertise in the field and unmatched web scraping tools has placed us in a unique position to spearhead the data-driven social responsibility efforts.

Oxylabs will engage in the intense 10-week accelerator program filled with training sessions, where, together with the RRT consultants, the winning idea will turn into reality. After reaching the final stage of the project, the created prototype will be adapted to serve the needs of various institutions globally.

"Oxylabs is always on the lookout for new partnerships to make big data serve big goals. As the market leaders and role models, we see it as our responsibility to contribute to the important work of NGOs, academia, and researchers, so get in touch to join forces with us" - invites Julius Cerniauskas.

For information on partnership opportunities, please contact hello@oxylabs.io

Media contact:

Name: Vytautas Kirjazovas

Company: Oxylabs

Website: https://oxylabs.io

Phone: +447593365814

Email: press@oxylabs.io

SOURCE: Oxylabs

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609524/Oxylabs-Innovative-Solution-to-Make-Internet-Cleaner-Wins-the-National-Competition
India has approved 16 companies for incentives under the PLI scheme, as a means to boost domestic smartphone manufacturing.

India is going to become a major hub of smartphone manufacturing soon. The government approved incentives under the PLI (Production-linked incentive) scheme to 16 smartphone manufacturing companies including Foxconn, Samsung, Lava, Micromax and more, as a means to boost domestic manufacturing.

Smartphone manufacturing has been a marquee feature under Prime Minister Narendra Modis Make In India policy, and the government had announced a $6.65 billion (roughly Rs 48,894 crores) incentive scheme to turn the country into a manufacturing and export hub for smartphones.

Government officials, earlier this year, amended the rules to the PLI scheme to make it more market-friendly by removing caps and other contentious clauses. The incentives range from 4% to 6% over a five-year period, provided the manufacturer makes smartphones valued at around $200. The incentives will be only released if the manufacturer ramps up production level by more than Rs 4,000 crore over and above the production level in the base year.

16 companies approved under the PLI scheme

According to a report by Reuters, 16 companies have received the approval of incentives under the scheme, and have agreed to ramp up production in the country. The list includes iPhone manufacturers Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron. However, the government did not disclose the investment these companies will make. Sources told Reuters that a total of almost $900 million (roughly Rs 6,614 crores) have been planned by these companies to be invested in India over a five-year period.

Samsung, which owns the worlds largest mobile manufacturing plant in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh, also received approval under the scheme. Furthermore, Indian smartphone brands like Lava and Micromax also got approval. According to a statement given to Reuters, the approved companies are expected to make Rs 10,50,000 crores worth of smartphones in India.

Source: Reuters
The West Bengal government will keep a track of Covid-19 patients with high viral load to further prevent the spread of the disease.

Viral load of a Covid-19 patient is denoted by the cycle threshold (CT) value mentioned in the test report. A patient with CT value lower than 20 has a higher viral load and hence is considered more prone to spreading the disease than those with a higher CT value.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has asked to categorise Covid-19 patients according to their CT value, which is mentioned in the Covid-19 test report once a person tests positive. A patient with CT value less than 20 has high viral load and has a high potential to spread the disease, said a top official of the West Bengal government.

Directions have already been issued by the state health department to the district administrations to keep a track of patients with low CT value.

These persons need to be identified on a daily basis from the list of Covid-19 patients and tracked. They should be hospitalized if necessary and if they are lodged in safe homes or are undergoing isolation at home, it has to be ensured that they are maintaining all Covid-19 safety protocols such as wearing masks and maintaining safe distance from others, said a senior official of the state health department.

The state government is also planning to publish leaflets mentioning the Covid-19 safety protocols and guidelines which would be distributed to the households by ASHA workers.

Also Read: BJP leader attacked in Bengal allegedly by TMC workers; phone, gold chain snatched

The six districts in the western part of the state and Jangalmahal area, including West Midnapore, Jhargram, Purulia and Bankura, Birbhum and West Burdwan, have been asked to take special care of the tribal population as they are vulnerable to Covid-19.

Members of the Lodha and Sabar tribes often suffer from malnutrition. If they get infected with Covid-19, it would be a cause of concern as mortality may rise. The district administrations have been directed to take special care of the tribal population and their nutrition, said the official.

Also Read: Bengal recorded over 200 rapes, more than 600 kidnappings in August: Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar

Meanwhile, the state government has alerted the administrations of districts sharing borders with neighbouring states such as Jharkhand and Odisha.

Covid cases are rising in some neighbouring states. The districts have been asked to remain alert. People entering green zones of West Bengal from neighbouring states should be mandatorily sent to home isolation, said the official.

The state has already undertaken a door-to-door survey to identify persons suffering from severe acute respiratory illness (SARI), influenza-like-illness and co-morbidities. The districts have been asked to keep a track on these persons.
Bollywood is slowly getting back to work, with a number of films gearing up to hit the floors from mid-October onwards. Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, too, is eager to face the camera again but at the same time, he isnt in a tearing hurry.

As an artist, I surely want to be on the sets, and work. But neither do I want to take a personal risk nor put the cast-and-crew at unnecessary risk by rushing into things, says Siddiqui, who was shooting for Kushan Nandys Jogira Sara Ra Ra when the lockdown came into force around March-end.

I think a lot depends on the number of (Covid-19) cases etc. (when a film goes on the floor). Lets see how things pan out, says the Kick actor, adding: As far as I am concerned, if things can be worked out, I can shoot wherever I am at that given time because luckily, meri koi bhi film kisi specific jagah pe based nahi hai. They can be shot anywhere. Siddiqui has spent the majority of his lockdown time at his village, Budhana (Uttar Pradesh), and Dehradun (where his younger brother lives).

Even though theatres have been shut for over six months now, the actor has continuously had film outings -- Ghoomketu, Raat Akeli Hai and Serious Men -- on various OTT platforms. What really matters to me, as an actor, is that my work is reaching people regardless of the audiences, says Siddiqui, who received global acclaim for his web series, Sacred Games.

Ask Siddiqui if theres a clear distinction between the craft of creating web shows and movies, especially in India, and he says: For years, we have been making formula (Hindi) films. Ek hero hai, ek heroine hai aur kucch gaane hain. I am not saying ke uss tarah ki filmein galat hain.

In fact, the Gangs of Wasseypur actor feels its not correct to blame only filmmakers. After all, people  over the years  have been watching those films in huge numbers, helping them make money. Even I have been a part of such films. Hamari audiences ko bhi woh cinema kaafi pasand aata hai, he says.

At the same time, Siddiqui maintains that movies of all kind should be attempted. Most of our Hindi films, at best, can be called musical operas, he says, adding: See, formula films will continue to get made. And honestly, the reality is that whichever filmmaker  be it an insider or outsider  gets a chance, they will make the same formula stuff.

The Manto actor goes on to add that the same formula will continue to work. He explains: Bahut zyaada change nahi aane waala hai, at least in the near future. Even when someone tries something different, not many people appreciate or watch it, says Siddiqui, who also has feature films such as Bole Chudiyan and Roam Rome Mein, besides Jogira Sara Ra Ra, in his kitty.

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The judge gave Taniqua Williams the high bail partly because of the cruel nature of the rape case. In essence the victim of this rape and armed robbery was set up by this woman, according to the states proffer, Lyke said. And this woman was allegedly her friend. With friends like this you do not need an enemy."
Three members of a Winnipeg family accused of staging a hate crime at their now-defunct River Heights restaurant have every intention of returning to Winnipeg for trial once COVID-19 restrictions are reduced, their lawyers say.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 6/10/2020 (473 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Three members of a Winnipeg family accused of staging a hate crime at their now-defunct River Heights restaurant have every intention of returning to Winnipeg for trial once COVID-19 restrictions are reduced, their lawyers say.

"They maintain their innocence and want their day in court," said Phil Cramer, lawyer for Maxim Berent, who, along with his father Alexander and mother Oxana Berent, are facing charges of public mischief after alleging their Corydon Avenue restaurant, BerMax Caffe + Bistro, had been the target of four anti-Semitic attacks last year.

The three accused relocated to Los Angeles in January and were set to stand trial in Winnipeg, beginning Oct. 13.

The three former owners of BerMax Caffe and Bistro Alexander Berent, Oxana Berent and Maxim Berent relocated to Los Angeles in January and have had warrants issued for their arrest.

Last week, a judge, in the expectation the three accused would not arrive in Winnipeg for trial, issued warrants for their arrest.

Defence lawyers said Tuesday they agreed to the warrants, which would allow the three accused to return to Winnipeg at a later date, turn themselves in to police, and then be released on a promise to appear in court.

"This was all by agreement (with the Crown)," said Michael Lazar, Oxana Berents lawyer, adding the three accused have had an active role in trial discussions since their move to California.

"If you are just going to abscond and blow the whole thing off, you dont make efforts to try and make other arrangements, you just disappear," Lazar said.

If you are just going to abscond and blow the whole thing off, you dont make efforts to try and make other arrangements, you just disappear."  Michael Lazar, Oxana Berents lawyer

Lazar said the family was given court approval to relocate to Los Angeles in January, before the pandemic, after arguing they had no financial supports in Winnipeg and were being ostracized by the religious community.

In Los Angeles, the family found support with a local Jewish social agency, Lazar said.

"And then COVID came along, and we indicated to them that, obviously now coming from the States, you have to isolate for two weeks when you get back," Lazar said.

The familys efforts to find a place to stay were fruitless, and they didnt have the money to pay for two weeks in a hotel, Lazar said.

Defence lawyers filed a motion to allow the trial to proceed with the three accused participating via video from Los Angeles, but it was dismissed.

"I think part of the issue is it was going to be a lengthy trial," Lazar said. "There have been a number of cases during COVID where people have done this, but this was a much longer, more complicated trial, there was video evidence, surveillance, and the judge was concerned that (the accused) wouldnt be able to see it."

Then last week, defence lawyers filed a motion to adjourn the trial, but a judge rejected it because no fixed date could be assigned.

It was after that when Crown and defence lawyers agreed to cancel the trial and issue the arrest warrants, including an agreement from the Crown that the three accused would not be charged with failing to appear in court upon their return to Winnipeg.

"It was clear they couldnt physically come back right now," Lazar said. "Quarantine was the big issue.

"This was actually a fairly co-operative effort between the Crown and defence lawyers to try and deal with this," he said. "We are dealing with unusual situations due to COVID right now and it requires a fair degree of creativity sometimes."

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

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NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The effects of screens on children's sleep have been a focus of public health concern for decades. With screen time on the rise due to the coronavirus pandemic there is renewed attention on its impact on children and babies. A new study that will be published in an upcoming issue of SLEEP, found that infants as young as 3-months old may be more vulnerable to the effects of touchscreens. Screens may cause a disruption to their sleep-wake rhythms, with age playing a substantial role in the relationship between the type of screen exposure and sleep.

Nanit logo Flinders University logo

The global study led by researchers at Flinders University and Nanit, developers of the leading smart baby monitor and sleep tracker, is the first ever to use objective sleep measurement to examine the link between touchscreen and television exposure to daytime and nighttime sleep of infants. With the largest sample size to date, researchers used the Nanit Plus camera with its computer vision technology to track and analyze nearly 14,000 nights of infant sleep along with parents reporting on the sleep and screen time of more than 1,000 infants.

Findings from the study revealed:

Daytime touchscreen exposure is associated with marked decreases in nighttime sleep in older infants. Infants that were 13-months-old, on average, lost 1-minute nighttime sleep for each minute of time they used a touchscreen during the day. Touchscreens were also associated with poorer sleep quality and more fragmented sleep with more nighttime awakenings.

Infants that were 13-months-old, on average, lost 1-minute nighttime sleep for each minute of time they used a touchscreen during the day. Touchscreens were also associated with poorer sleep quality and more fragmented sleep with more nighttime awakenings. Watching television during the day was linked to shorter than average sleep duration. 3-month-old infants that watched 34 minutes of television during the day averaged 20 minutes less daytime sleep and 22 minutes less total sleep within 24 hours.

3-month-old infants that watched 34 minutes of television during the day averaged 20 minutes less daytime sleep and 22 minutes less total sleep within 24 hours. Age plays a more substantial role when it comes to touchscreen exposure compared to television. Touchscreen exposure was more robustly associated with sleep than television exposure. A surprising finding showed 3-month-old infants that were given 5 minutes of time with a touchscreen device during the day averaged 13 minutes less daytime sleep. However, the findings also suggest a trade-off between daytime and nighttime sleep. The displacement of daytime sleep may promote longer sleep stretches at night.

Dr. Michal Kahn, lead author of the study and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Flinders University said, "We see that even in moderation, screens can have a considerable impact on infant sleep. There is still much we have to explore in understanding the connection between screen time and sleep, but this research definitively shows us they are linked and the effects vary by age."

"There are so many factors that go into helping your baby sleep well. Parents may not often think about how a little bit of screen time can have a big effect on the amount of sleep and how well they sleep. These findings suggest that while even a small amount of screen exposure might lead to a decrease in daytime sleep, nighttime sleep might be more consolidated in younger infants," said Dr. Natalie Barnett, Director of Clinical Research at Nanit.

The report Sleep and screen exposure across the beginning of life was authored by Dr. Michal Kahn, Research Fellow, Flinders University; Dr. Natalie Barnett, Director of Clinical Research, Nanit; Dr. Assaf Glazer, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Nanit; and Prof. Michael Gradisar, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University. To view the report, please visit SLEEP .

Methodology

A global sample of 1,074 infants ranging in ages 0-18 months participated in the study and nearly 14,000 nights of sleep were objectively assessed using Nanit's computer-vision technology. Sleep was additionally reported by parents in an online survey, as was infant's exposure to screens. The study was conducted in November and December 2019 prior to the outbreak of COVID-19.

ABOUT FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

Flinders University is a globally focused, locally engaged institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching, learning and research. A highly research active university, Flinders is finding solutions to the world's challenges and contributing to social, cultural, and economic growth. Ninety percent of its research has been ranked at or above world class by Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). Flinders University's research achievements are underpinned by a robust network of partnerships with organisations and industries and are an important part of Flinders' exceptional student experience.

ABOUT NANIT

Founded at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute by Dr. Assaf Glazer, Tor Ivry and Andrew Berman, Nanit uses technology, science and data to create innovative products that are safer and smarter, for parents and babies everywhere. Named by Fast Company as one of the Most Innovative Companies of 2019 , Nanit combines computer vision, machine learning and advanced camera sensors that measure a baby's sleep cycle and breathing motion, to provide actionable insights that lead to healthier, improved sleep for the baby and the entire family.

Nanit's Research division has ongoing partnerships with major universities and institutions that explore pediatric sleep and development. Advisors have included world-renowned sleep experts Dr. Avi Sadeh of Tel Aviv University, Dr. Deborah Estrin of Cornell Tech, Dr. Thomas Anders of Brown University, Dr. David Gozal of University of Missouri and Dr. Haviva Veler of Weill Cornell Medicine. Since launching in 2016, Nanit has tracked over 135 million hours of sleep, 28 million parental visits, and over 13 million morning wakeups. For more information, visit www.nanit.com .

Media Contacts:

Jaime Cassavechia

EJ Media Group

[email protected]

646-701-7041

Jodi Lefkowitz

Nanit

[email protected]

For Flinders University:

Tania Bawden

+61 (0)434101516

[email protected]

SOURCE Nanit; Flinders University
Tuareg guitarist Mdou Moctar has signed with Matador Records and shared a new song called Chismiten. The track comes with a video that combines illustrations by artist Robert Beatty with animation and cellphone footage shot in Niger, including the markets in Niamey and Agadez and the famous Agadez Mosque. Watch the visual, made by Sabrina Nichols, below.

The song is about how people in a relationship lose their sense of self, they become jealous and envious of others, Mdou Moctar said. It is not about one specific person, but about all people in the world. I turn to Allah for guidance not to be that person.

Mdou Moctar performed the lead guitar and vocals on Chismiten. Hes backed by Ahmoudou Madassane (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Michael Coltun (bass guitar, backing vocals), and Souleymane Ibrahim (drums, backing vocals).

Mdou Moctars forthcoming LP for Matador is due out in 2021. It will follow last years Ilana: The Creator.

Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
Sullivan's Island Town Councilwoman Sarah Church stops to chat with local biologist and independent researcher Sarah Diaz in the island's maritime forest on Monday, Oct. 5, 2020. Town Council narrowly voted last week to chop down much of the forest, something both woman  and most islanders  oppose. Brian Hicks/staff
Find all of the most important pandemic education news on Educating N.J., a special resource guide created for parents, students and educators.

This years New Jersey Teacher of the Year is Angel Santiago, a fifth-grade teacher in Gloucester Township in Camden County who says he wants to advocate for more racial diversity in the states teachers.

Santiago was named the winner at Wednesdays state Board of Education meeting, which was held virtually via live online video.

An emotional Santiago accepted the award from his classroom at Loring Flemming Elementary School.

When Im asked what I do for a living, Ive never been more proud to say that I teach, he said, giving a shoutout to all of his fellow New Jersey educators finding new ways to teach during the coronavirus pandemic.

Santiago, one of a small number of male Latino elementary school teachers in New Jersey, said he grew up in Vineland in an overcrowded house with his grandmother, cousins and a mother working multiple jobs while going to community college. He was drawn to teaching and ended up becoming a fifth grade teacher.

The married father of one also leads an after-school club, called Young People of Character, where students of different backgrounds and nationalities come together to do community service projects.

He said he plans to advocate for more diversity in New Jerseys public school workforce. While more than half of New Jersey public school students are non-white, only about 16 percent of teachers, administrators and staff were people of color last year, according to state statistics.

Black and brown boys and girls can grow up to be teachers, like me, he said.

Santiago received congratulations from state officials and education groups.

New Jersey is known for having the best public school system in the nation, which is due in large part to the strength of our teaching workforce, said Gov. Phil Murphy. Angel Santiago exemplifies the kind of commitment and professionalism that we see in classrooms throughout New Jersey.

I commend him for serving as a role model, not only for his students, but for all of New Jersey, said Interim Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer.

The Teacher of the Year award comes with a new leased car, a $500 clothing allowance, a laptop, a gold ring, a video projector and other perks. The program is sponsored by the New Jersey Education Association, the Educational Testing Service and the New Jersey School Boards Association.

The teacher of the year gets a six-month sabbatical, funded by the Education Testing Service, to work with the state Department of Education. The winner usually gives presentations around the state and attends national conferences. But much of that work will likely be done virtually during the coronavirus pandemic.

Santiago will also be a finalist for the National Teacher of the Year award.

In previous years, the New Jersey winner, along with Teacher of the Year recipients from other states, has taken trip to Washington, D.C., to meet the president. Its unclear if that will happen this school year.

Last years New Jersey winner was Kimberly Dickstein-Hughes, an English teacher at Haddonfield Memorial High School in Camden County. Due to the pandemic, she modified her plan to make in-person speeches and presentations at schools in the spring and focused on helping teachers create Learning Live video lessons that aired on NJTV for students learning at home.

This years recipient was selected from the 21 County Teacher of the Year winners. The other 2020-2021 New Jersey Teachers of the Year for the counties are:

 Atlantic: Phillip Pallitto, a fifth- and sixth-grade English language arts teacher and arts integration specialist at Jordan Road School in the Somers Point School District.

 Bergen: Megan Williams, a high school French teacher at Tenafly High School.

 Burlington: Michael Dunlea, a third-grade teacher at Tabernacle Elementary School in the Tabernacle Township School District.

 Cape May: Rachel Krementz, a teacher of special education in the fifth and sixth grades at Ocean Academy in Cape May County Special Services.

 Cumberland: Kristina Messina, a teacher of grades K-5 at Mount Pleasant Elementary School in the Millville School District.

 Essex: David Coster, a teacher of math and technology at Cedar Grove High School.

 Gloucester: Jami Centrella, an elementary-level teacher of English language arts at Caroline L. Reutter School in the Township of Franklin Public Schools.

 Hudson: Alicia Vilas, a fourth-grade teacher at Dr. Maya Angelou Elementary School (PS #20) in the Jersey City School District.

 Hunterdon: Angela Mikula, an arts education specialist at the Delaware Township School in the Delaware Township School District.

 Mercer: Jessica Merz, a teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and a teacher of American Sign Language at the Marie H. Katzenbach School for the Deaf, located in Trenton.

 Middlesex: Jaclyn Terebetski, a teacher of business and technology at Carteret High School.

 Monmouth: Christina Gauss, a high school Spanish teacher at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School.

 Morris: Christopher Butchko, a teacher of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Montville Township High School.

 Ocean: Lucia Giavatto-DiLeo, a teacher of Spanish and French at Manchester Township High School.

 Passaic: Megan Graziano, a teacher of biological sciences at Clifton High School.

 Salem: Michelle Williams, a teacher of biological sciences and Advanced Placement Environmental Science at Woodstown High School in the Woodstown-Pilesgrove School District.

 Somerset: Micki Cobos, a teacher of English as a second language (ESL) at Somerville High School.

 Sussex: Meghan Radimer, a teacher of physical education and health at Stillwater Township School in the Stillwater School District.

 Union: Jamie Warner, a teacher of social studies at Orange Avenue School in the Cranford School District.

Warren: Courtney Kopf, a teacher of life sciences and the anti-bullying specialist at Belvidere High School.

This is the 51st year of New Jerseys Teacher of the Year program. Local school districts also chose teachers of the year for each school around the state.

The state Teacher of the Year is chosen by a panel of representatives from state school organizations, the teachers' union, state officials and last years winner.

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

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com.
The former Minneapolis police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd has been released from prison after posting bond.

Derek Chauvin, 44, was released from the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Oak Park Heights on Wednesday morning, the Department of Corrections confirmed.

The ex-cop walked free after posting a non-cash $1million bond signed by A-Affordable Bail Bonds, Inc, online court records show.

Chauvin had been in custody at the maximum security prison since May 31 after video showed him pressing his knee onto Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes shortly before his death.

He is charged with second and third degree murder as well as second-degree manslaughter. His bail was initially set at $1.25million or $1million with conditions.

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Fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin (left) was released from prison on Wednesday after posting non-cash bond

Chauvin was charged with murder and manslaughter in May after viral footage showed him pressing his knee against George Floyd's neck shortly before he died

Court records show Chauvin was released after posting $1million non-cash bond, guaranteed by Allegheny Casualty Company

A release receipt posted by the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office showed Chauvin was freed at 11.22am.

Under the conditions of his release, he must attend all court appearances and cannot have any direct or indirect contact - including social media - with any members of Floyd's family.

He is also not permitted to work in law enforcement or security, and must not possess any firearms ammunition.

Floyd's death was captured in widely seen bystander video that set off protests against police brutality and racial injustice around the world.

Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died on May 25 while being arrested for using a counterfeit $20 bill at a local Minneapolis deli.

Pictured (left to right): Former officers Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao in their mugshots. The three other cops have been charged with aiding and abetting

Chauvin made his first in-person appearance (pictured) in court last month after previously appearing via videolink

Chauvin appeared in court for the first time on September 11, 2020 in Minneapolis. He is awaiting trial set for March 8

Chauvin, who is white, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes, causing Floyd to pass out, while three other responding officers stood by.

All four cops were fired from Minneapolis Police Department after footage of the fatal confrontation went viral.

Former officers Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao have been charged with aiding and abetting.

The three officers previously posted bail amounts of $750,000 and have been free pending trial.

Currently, all four men are scheduled to face trial together on March 8, but the judge is weighing a request to have them tried separately.

Chauvin made his first in-person appearance in court last month after previously appearing via videolink.

Wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, face mask and handcuffs, he was led away by correction officers after the three hour hearing, as protesters near the court shouted abuse at him.

During the hearing, the judge presiding over the case dismissed the local prosecutor from the murder trial, accusing him and his team of 'sloppy' work.

Floyd's death was captured in widely seen bystander video that set off protests against police brutality and racial injustice around the world

Nationwide demonstrations overtook the United States this summer after George Floyd was killed in police custody on Memorial Day

Mike Freeman, Hennepin County attorney, was removed from the case along with the three other members of his team.

Judge Peter Cahill said that Freeman acted in error by sending his staff to speak to the medical examiners following Floyd's death, without having any independent witnesses to their discussion.

'It was sloppy not to have someone present,' said Cahill. 'Those four attorneys are off the case. They are now witnesses.'

The medical examiner's verdict is expected to play a key, and highly controversial, role in the trial.

The Hennepin County medical examiner's office said Floyd experienced cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by the officer.

Their autopsy said Floyd had 'other significant conditions' including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease, plus 'fentanyl intoxication; [and] recent methamphetamine use.'

An independent autopsy conducted by Dr Allecia Wilson and Dr Michael Baden, commissioned by the family, said he died as a direct result of the way he was arrested.
An angry mother polar bear emerged from a sauna with her two cubs to attack and seriously wound a Russian reindeer herder.

Vladimir Sleptsov suffered head, arm and leg injuries in a brawl with the angry beast on Bolshoy Lyakhovsky island in the Arctic. The 50-year-old only survived the ordeal by playing dead.

The man told how he had gone by snowmobile to check on a camp used by herders when the three bears suddenly emerged from the wooden hut used as a banya, or steam sauna.

The mother bear lunged at him, gashing the side of his face in a terrifying confrontation.

Vladimir Sleptsov, 50, went to investigate a camp used by fellow reindeer herders on Russia's remote Arctic island Bolshoy Lyakhovsky. When he arrived at the camp, a female polar bear with two cubs leapt out of a sauna and viciously attacked him. He is pictured left and right, after the attack

Some have called for the bear that attacked Sleptsov to be shot, despite a law protecting the large predators. Alexander Tastygin, president of the Kyymaan Hunting Club, warned that hungry bears on Russia's Arctic island had become 'extremely dangerous' [File photo]

A wounded Sleptsov told how he played dead, and the bears eventually departed towards the sea.

The summer grazing camp was deserted at the time but Sleptsov managed to call his relatives who summoned help.

Russia's FSB security service flew in with an Mi-8 helicopter and took him to hospital in remote mainland village Tiksi.

'First I saw a destroyed house at the camp used to store food,' said herder Sleptsov after receiving medical treatment.

'The food was scattered all over the place by the bears

'Suddenly a huge bear with two cubs, born last year, judging by their size, jumped out of the sauna door and stood right next to me.'

The mother attacked him and some reports said Sleptsov used a knife to defend himself.

Sleptsov said that when he pretended to be dead, the bears moved away.

Vladimir Sleptsov, 50, suffered head, arm and leg injuries in a brawl with the angry beast on Bolshoy Lyakhovsky island (pictured) in the Arctic

Badly wounded, he managed to call his relatives who summoned help.

He denied earlier reports that he had been attacked while sleeping in his tent on a goose-hunting trip.

Now there are calls to locate and kill the bear after its attack on a human.

President of Kyymaan Hunting Club, Alexander Tastygin, said: 'Polar bears are protected in the Red Book, but this man-eater should be foundand shot.

'If you don't, a future sacrifice is inevitable.'

He warned that hungry polar bears on Russia's Arctic islands are now 'extremely dangerous'.

Sleptsov's condition is 'stable' after the attack, said Alla Andreeva, chief doctor at Bulunskaya Central Regional Hospital.
The Uttar Pradesh Kisan Congress has launched a week-long programme called Gandhi Ki Lathi, as a symbolic gesture to promote self-defence and empowerment of women amid increasing incidents of crime against them in the countrys most populous state.

We have launched the week-long Gandhi Ki Lathi programme to distribute lathis among women for self-defence and to empower them against crime amid the recent incidents such as the Hathras gang-rape case, said Tarun Patel, president, Uttar Pradesh Kisan Congress (central zone).

Also read: Congress, farmers stage protest in Muzaffarnagar against farm bills

A token distribution of lathis was made to around 20 women at a programme organised at the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) headquarters in Lucknow to mark the birth anniversary of farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait on Tuesday.

The Uttar Pradesh Kisan Congress put up a banner with Mahatma Gandhis picture in the backdrop of the dais. The banner carried the slogan Gandhi Ki Lathi Betiyon Ki Aatm Raksha Ke Liye (Gandhis lathi for the security of women).

Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Aradhana Mishra, who was the chief guest at the programme, garlanded the pictures of Tikait and Mahatma Gandhi on the dais before lathis were distributed.

Gandhijis lathi gives the message of self-defence and self-reliance, Mishra said.

Patel said both Mahatma Gandhi and Tikait carried lathis with them.

We value the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi and Tikait. We also value the items they used. They carried a lathi with them and it (the lathi) shows us the way. Holding a lathi adds to inner strength. It makes one feel strong for the purpose of self-defence. We need Gandhijis lathi in this day and age for self-defence and self-reliance. Its not for any aggression, said Patel.

We will organise similar Gandhi Ki Lathi distribution programmes until October 11 in different districts of the state, he added.

A political analyst said there were apprehensions that the distribution of lathis among women might not send the right signal to the society, despite the UPCCs assertions.

Lathi may be used for self-defence, as well as for aggression. Lathis are being misused for aggression these days. There are contradictory reports on the Hathras gang-rape case. The opposition should be constructive in its approach and must not indulge in any gimmick, said SK Dwivedi, a former head of the political science department at the Lucknow University.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Umesh Raghuvanshi Umesh Raghuvanshi is a journalist with over three decade experience. He covers politics, finance, environment and social issues. He has covered all assembly and parliament elections in Uttar Pradesh since 1984. ...view detail
An internally displaced Burkinabe woman sits among belongings in Kaya, Burkina Faso, February 2020.  UNHCR/Sylvain Cherkaoui

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, strongly condemns an attack that killed 25 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Burkina Faso on the night of 4 October.

Survivors of the attack said that 25 people  all men  were killed, and one seriously injured when their convoy carrying 46 people was ambushed by an armed group near the town of Pissila, in the countrys Sanmatenga province in the Centre-Nord region.

The men were separated from the group and executed, one of them was left for dead. The women and children were later released, and the armed group fled the scene.

We are heartbroken by news of this brutal and callous act, said Ioli Kimyaci, UNHCRs Representative in Burkina Faso. Innocent civilians are seeking safety but instead are paying with their lives with alarming frequency, she added.

The surviving family members managed to reach Pissila, a town nine kilometers away. UNHCRs partner ICAHD has been providing them with psychological support.

The attack on the IDPs occurred as they were returning to their homes from Pissila, hoping for an improved security situation there. Hundreds of people have been killed in Burkina Faso this year, in dozens of attacks on civilians.

Burkina Faso is now the worlds fastest-growing displacement and protection crisis with over 1 million people  more than one in every 20 inhabitants  displaced by surging violence inside the country. Many have fled multiple times in Burkina Fasos north and east.

Media Contacts:
After seven months at home, second-year students in senior and junior high schools returned to school on Monday.

Of course, parents and Ghanaians in general were excited at the development which followed the easing of restrictions imposed by the President in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the time the decision was taken to shut down schools, it was the best step taken following on the heels of similar actions worldwide.

We cannot afford not to express gratitude to the Almighty God who listened to our prayers and imbued political leadership with the necessary and relevant wisdom on how to steer the ship of state on such choppy waters.

The days when the pandemic statistics was rising anxiety was etched on the faces of Ghanaians making some of them vulnerable to the lying tongues of some political actors.

They churned out toxic remarks in their bid to make government look helpless and incapable of managing the situation.

Political leadership maintained its cool and worked with local scientists and listened to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Today, we understand the coronavirus better than we did yesterday vis-a-vis opposition party-propelled fake news. Today, we understand the ruse in the creation of a parallel Covid-19 committee by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

In spite of the politicization of the subject, government remained focused, the positive outcome of which is what we are deservingly relishing today in the form of a manageable Covid-19 situation.

Today, even as the clouds begin to clear, we remain somewhat in uncharted waters, a situation which therefore calls for continuous vigilance as part of a new normal world.

We cannot afford to stand down our guard because the disease we are confronted with on a global scale is deadly and which we are still learning about.

The decision to reopen the school gates to our children even when the World Health Organisation (WHO) is yet to give the all-clear signal was, of course, based on science and data.

Constant monitoring cannot be overemphasized at this time when the children have just returned.

In view of the declining rate of the infection in the country, especially in the epicentre, Accra, it has led to rising protocol breaches by many residents.

Teachers of reopened schools cannot afford to be reckless because children are in their care. Strict application of Covid-19 protocols should be the norm in all schools across the country.

We cannot rule out breaches occasionally but these should be stemmed without delay and those responsible sanctioned.

We call for the establishment of joint Ghana Health Service/Ghana Education Service teams to monitor the schools with a view to ensuring that the protocols are observed.

Should those engulfed in unbridled obsession with political power jump into the limited schools reopening with concocted tales, let us ignore them and keep our eyes on the children.

The reopened schools should be spared the toxic politics of the NDC.

---Daily Guide
The Netflix logo is reflected in the eye of a woman in Paris, on Sept. 19, 2014. (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Netflix Charged for Lewd Exhibition of Children in Cuties Film

A grand jury indicted Netflix for promotion of lewd visual material depicting a child after the streaming platform released Cuties, a film that includes hypersexualized portrayals of young girls.

The grand jury in Tyler County, Texas, found that California-based Netflix did knowingly promote visual material which depicts the lewd exhibition of the genitals or public area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 years of age.

The depiction has no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value, the one-page indictment stated.

Lucas Babin, the countys district attorney, said he watched the movie.

After hearing about the movie Cuties and watching it, I knew there was probably cause to believe it was criminal, he said, citing state law.

The legislators of this state believe promoting certain lewd material of children has destructive consequences, he added. If such material is distributed on a grand scale, isnt the need to prosecute more, not less? A grand jury in Tyler [C]ounty found probable cause for this felony, and my job is to uphold the laws of this state and see that justice is done.

Netflix attempted to dismiss the accusations.

Cuties is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children, a spokesperson said in a statement to news outlets. This charge is without merit and we stand by the film.

Cuties, first released in France, contains 10 scenes that show sexuality or nudity, according to IMDB. In one scene, a young girl fully exposes one of her private areas, the movie rating and review website said.

That girl was of age when at the time of filming, Dean Garfield, a Netflix vice president, said in a letter to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

Head of Acquisitions Alexis Hofmann, Cuties Director Maimouna Doucoure, and President and CEO of BAC Films David Grumbach attend the Cuties premiere during the 2020 Sundance Film Festival at Egyptian Theatre in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 23, 2020. (Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images)

Garfield argued that the movie also doesnt not depict sexual acts, simulated or otherwise, or glamorize or promote the sexualization or exploitation of children.

The films central theme is that the conduct of the Cuties is not sexy, arousing, or alluring. Rather, given their ages, it is inappropriate, shameful, and a hallmark of a cultural failing, he said.

Lee responded by saying the company acknowledged the conduct of the young girls is inappropriate, shameful, and a hallmark of a cultural failing.'

I couldnt agree more. What I cannot understand, however, is how Netflix can condemn the conduct depicted in Cuties, while celebrating the film and filmmakers who asked several underage girls to stand in front of a camera and engage in that same inappropriate, shameful conduct for all the world to see, he added.

Shortly after the U.S. release of the film, several Republican lawmakers called on the Department of Justice to charge Netflix for distribution of child pornography.

Later in September, 34 GOP House lawmakers wrote a letter to Attorney General William Barr making their case.

Cuties clearly meets the United States legal definition of child pornography, the letter stated. Cuties contains, a scene where an 11-year-old girl dressed in a tank and panties is splashed with water and begins twerking in a frenzied kind of way, and numerous other, equally distressing depictions of minors.

The Department of Justice hasnt commented on the requests and didnt respond to a request for comment.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Stepanakert City is under continuous Azerbaijani bombardments targeting civilian infrastructures of the capital of Artsakh.

Air raid sirens are heard many times during the day.

The video released on October 7 shows Stepanakert after the latest bombardment attack overnight October 6-7. Heavy damages to civilian infrastructure, residential homes and property was inflicted.

Artsakhs presidential spokesperson Vahram Poghosyan told ARMENPRESS that currently the authorities are assessing the damages.

According to latest available information 21 civilians were killed in Artsakh and Armenia since the beginning of the Azeri attacks.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH), which owns Vumatel and DFA, is well-positioned to become South Africas next telecommunications powerhouse.

Speaking to investors during Remgros results presentation, CEO Jannie Durand said CIVH is one of their most valuable assets as it operates in a high growth space.

He added that Remgro is investing in CIVH as they see a lot of growth potential in the telecommunications market.

CIVH chairman Pieter Uys added that there are many areas where CIVH, Vumatel, and DFA can replicate its successful open access, wholesale business model.

The areas which CIVH is currently exploring include data centres, tower infrastructure for mobile networks, and rolling out a wholesale mobile network.

Uys said CIVH is already operating in the data centre space, which includes edge data centres in business districts and Vumatels presence in residential areas.

These edge data centres can be upscaled into a more mature data centre business in future.

Looking at mobile tower infrastructure, Uys said Vumacams 3,000 camera poles can be used as facilities for a wireless mobile network.

The Vumacam poles have electricity feeds and are connected to Vumatels fibre network, which makes them suitable to serve as high-density mobile network sites.

This infrastructure can be used by either the current mobile players or CIVH can use it to launch its own open-access wireless network.

The biggest prize for CIVH will be to roll out a national wireless open-access network (WOAN), which the government has been punting.

Vumatel and DFA specialise in open-access networks, and a wireless network built on the same principles, therefore, fits in perfectly with CIVHs portfolio.

CIVH showed strong support for the WOAN in submission to ICASA, saying it has the potential to transform the industry.

It called for assigning spectrum in the 700MHz, 2,600Mhz, and 3,500MHz bands to the network to ensure a sustainable structure.

CIVHs strong assets

CIVH has three major assets which form the foundation for its future growth  its growing fibre and IoT networks, a strong management team, and Remgros financial backing.

Vumatel and DFA are working in tandem to build a national fibre network to provide access to South African businesses and homes.

Its current 29,300km fibre network scales across all key metros in South Africa, passes 690,000 premises and connects 11,500 mobile base stations and 240,000 homes and businesses.

CIVH is also a large shareholder in SqwidNet, which has been in operation as the licensed Sigfox operator in South Africa since 2016.

SqwidNets IoT network currently covers over 90% of South Africas population and 90% of the countrys national roads.

CIVH has also assembled a highly experienced management team which include former Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys as chairman, Raymond Ndlovu as CEO, and former Vodacom CTO Andries Delport as CTO.

This management team positions CIVH as a strong telecommunications player in South Africa and a potential mobile player in future.

CIVHs growth is, however, highly dependent on getting enough capital  something which Durand and Uys are well aware of.

From where we sit the only restriction for strong growth is to get enough capital into the business, Uys said.

To get more capital into the business, CIVHs management launched a primary capital raise programme in November 2019 targeting R6 billion in funding.

This money will be employed for Capex and to be ready to pay off some of CIVHs debt over the next two years.

Uys said this process slowed down during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was recently reactivated with a lot of interest from the market.

If all of these plans come together, it will create a new wholesale telecommunications powerhouse in South Africa operating in the fibre, mobile, and data centre market.

The image below shows the opportunities which CIVH sees in the South African telecoms market.
The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that courtrooms have been forced to become virtual, but is the long-term adoption of technology a threat to justice? Credit: Shutterstock

Since the beginning of the health crisis, Canadian courts, like those in other countries, have been making a technological shift. The number of proceedings filed online have increased and the same holds for virtual trials.

Although their use appears legitimate during the pandemic, video communications applications such as Skype or Zoom are hindering the role of the non-verbal communication in courtrooms.

The issue may seem simple and innocuous, but in reality, it is not.

Erroneous beliefs

The outcome of lawsuits is not only determined by laws and precedents. Indeed, the appearance of witnesses and the way they behave can play a determining role. Nervousness and hesitation are typically associated with lying, while spontaneity, according to many court judgments, may indicate that witnesses are telling the truth.

However, research on lie detection shows very clearly that beliefs of this naturestill in use in 2020are erroneous and have no more scientific basis than those used in the Middle Ages. Indeed, an honest litigant may hesitate and be excessively nervous. A hardened liar may express himself spontaneously. There is no gesture, no look, no facial expression, no reveal similar to Pinocchio's nose.

Furthermore, as psychologist Judith Hall and her colleagues point out, "there is no dictionary of non-verbal cue meanings, because contextual factors involving encoders' intentions, their other verbal and non-verbal behaviors, other people (who they are and their behavior), and the setting will all affect meaning."

In other words, learning to "read" non-verbal behaviors is fiction rather than science. Unfortunately, as I documented in my master of laws thesis on the non-verbal behaviors of witnesses during trials and my doctoral thesis in communication on the detection of false testimony, a number of judges seem to believe otherwise.

Beyond lie detection

Since using a single glance to determine whether someone is lyingas depicted in the mediais not possible, some may believe that the non-verbal behavior of witnesses, judges and lawyers is of no use. However, this would be a mistake. Indeed, scientific research has been documenting the functions of non-verbal communication for decades. Thousands of peer-reviewed articles have been published on the subject by an international community of researchers from different disciplines.

During trials, lie detection represents a grain of sand in the ocean of non-verbal behavior functions. Gestures, looks, facial expressions and postures allow witnesses to communicate emotions and intentions, judges to foster empathy and trust, and lawyers to better understand at any given moment the actions and words of witnesses and adapt accordingly. All of this largely occurs automatically.

The non-verbal aspect of trials is not limited to faces and bodies. The characteristics of the environment in which they take placethe courthouse and the courtroomcontribute to the image of justice. The location where witnesses are questioned and where participants are seated influences how trials are conducted. For example, judges are seated higher than others in the courtroom, which can affect the authority given to them by litigants.

Non-verbal communication is an integral part of trials

During the pandemic, applications such as Skype or Zoom allowed for the hearing of urgent cases. However, several jurisdictions have announced that virtual courtrooms will remain open after the end of the health crisis. For some, their primary benefit would be to promote access to justice.

However, by reducing non-verbal information, virtual trials limit the ability of witnesses to be understood, to feel understood and to understand others adequately. Since the assessment of credibility depends on the ability of judges to understand what witnesses are saying, the impact can be significant, especially since "[c]redibility is an issue that pervades most trials, and at its broadest may amount to a decision on guilt or innocence."

Since the conduct of a cross-examination, in turn, depends on the lawyers' ability to understand at all times the actions and words of witnesses, an access to the courts that restricts non-verbal behavior to a face on a screen, can have far-reaching consequences. As the Supreme Court of Canada wrote: "Effective cross-examination is integral to the conduct of a fair trial and a meaningful application of the presumption of innocence."

The importance of interdisciplinary dialog

The use of applications such as Skype or Zoom should not be taken lightly. In addition to the effects on the assessment of credibility and the conduct of cross-examinations, virtual trials could have other consequences.

These include dehumanizing victims and defendants, an effect already documented among immigrants heard via videoconferencing. Virtual trials can also amplify the negative effects of facial stereotypes, which can distort the assessment of evidence and the outcome of trials, even to the point of determining whether a person should be sentenced to death.

In view of this, before virtual courtrooms become permanent or laws are changed, the role of non-verbal communication in courtrooms should be fully appreciated. In order to maximize the advantages and minimize the disadvantages of the shift to online justice, dialog between the legal community and researchers working in disciplines like psychology, communication and criminology, is fundamental.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
It's been hailed as the new Sex and the City, but Netflix's glamorous new show Emily In Paris has come under fire from critics for its outdated and stereotypical portrayal of French people.

The series follows Emily, played by Lily Collins, who has moved from Chicago to take on a new job with a marketing firm in the French capital, where she's met with a frosty response from Parisians who show no patience for the bubbly American.

Playing on outdated stereotypes about the French, the characters are portrayed as uncivil and unfriendly, and at times aggressive towards the foreigner, who doesn't speak a word of the language.

Most of the women show no interest in the #metoo movement or feminism, while many the men's flirtatious ways border on sexual harassment.

Many took to Twitter to complain that Emily in Paris was portraying all French people as rude, unfaithful types who take pride in being unpleasant and inappropriate, including one man who whispers in her ear: 'I like American p****.'

Scroll down for video

In the show, each French person Emily meets is portrayed as rude, including this woman who is letting her dog relieve himself in the street without picking anything up

Arnaud Viard plays Paul Brossaud, the founder of the marketing firm Savoir. His sale of the the company to an American partner leads to Emilys arrival in Paris

Netflix fans have criticised new hit show Emily in Paris for portraying all French people as rude (pictured, Lilly Collins as Emily and Phillippine Leroy-Beaulieu as Sylvie Grateau

Viewers felt the show was listing stereotypes about French people, but were very enthusiastic about hot French chef Gabriel

Upon arriving in Paris, Emily who only knows rudimentary French, is confronted with several callous characters.

The first two people she meets in the French capital are an unfriendly concierge and a libidinous estate agent who piles on the pressure when Emily refuses his offer to go for drinks.

The American's new boss Sylvie Grateau, played by Phillippine Leroy-Beaulieu, immediately seems to dislike her and plots to send her back on the first plane to Chicago.

Emily's coworkers are no better, calling her 'la plouc,' - meaning 'the hick' - and refusing to invite her for lunch.

Emily's French coworkers are unfriendly and judgmental and called her 'la plouc,' which means 'The Hick'

Sylvie, who is Emily's boss, immediately takes a dislike of her for no reason and dreams of sending her back to Chicago

Throughout the show, each French person Emily encounters treats her poorly, from a snob date who judges her for liking Swan Lake to a florist who refuses to sell her the flowers' she's requested.

In one episode, a dog walker, dressed to the nines, is seen smoking while her bulldog - French, of course - goes to the toilet on the street, before she struts off without cleaning up.

The stereotypes dig deeper too, with all French people seeming uneducated about sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement, and affairs being portrayed as typical occurrences.

Emily's boss Sylvie is the mistress of one of the firm's clients Antoine, who sends luxury lingerie to Emily to 'thank her' for a campaign she's imagined for his perfumery business.

Gabriel is one of the only friendly French people Emily encounters on the show, along with Camille, a Parisian blonde who helps her buy flowers

Audiences fawned over smoldering Gabriel, who entertains a flirtatious friendship with the American girl

Dishy French chef Gabriel, played by Lucas Bravo, made Twitter swoon with his good looks, and is one of the few characters in the show who is kind to Emily

'In Paris, the customer is always right,' tells her Mindy, her first friend in Paris, who is Chinese but speaks fluent English.

The only two friendly French characters are Gabriel, Emily's attractive and flirtatious downstairs neighbours played by Lucas Bravo and Camille, a beautiful blonde she meets close to her Parisian pad.

Viewers were quick to pick on the fact the show was presenting a very exaggerated and outdated portrayal of the French.

'First 15 minutes of#EmilyInParis and I hate the way we French people are portrayed. WE ARE NOT ALL MEAN AND RUDE,' one viewer said.

'So French are sexist, rude and superficial but at least they have hot guys, great food and outstanding fashion,' another sarcastically wrote.

'Okay im used to trash Parisians BUT THEYRE EXAGGERATING IT SO MUCH!!!!! theyre not THAT rude come on,' another said.

'Hmm how condescending is Emily? Why is she wearing a bloody beret? Why are they showing French people as rude and arrogant? Stereotypes galore. I cant take this show seriously,' said one.

Viewers felt the show had relied on cliches in his portrayal of French people as rude and unfriendly

However, the blow was softened with the popularity of the show's Frenchie male lead Gabriel, played by Lucas Bravo, who swept viewers off their feet with his good looks.

Nobody complained Gabriel, however, who meets Emily after she confuses the door of his apartment for hers.

Many viewers were taken with the attractive French actor, 32, who is poised to appear in a new adaptation of Mrs Harris Goes to Paris.

'I need a Gabriel in my life,' one said.

'Bro! this Gabriel guy from #emilyinparis has my heart now,' said another.

'Guys lets be honest, we all fell in love with Lucas Bravo,' one said.

'oh Gabriel! my ovaries are exploding,' one wrote.

'Can i order a Gabriel from Normandy, please,' said another.
A Belgian model has posted images of the idyllic beginning of her relationship with her ex-boyfriend alongside shocking photos of her badly-bruised face at the end of the 18-month relationship.

Anthonia Rochus, 21, from Lier in Belgium posted the images on Twitter with the message: 'Where it all started V where it all ended.'

The Flemish model, who was with her partner - who she doesn't name in her post - for 18 months, shared a happy early image of them together alongside several of her sporting heavy bruising on her face.

Belgian model Anthonia Rochus, 21, said her new relationship went from a fairytale to a nightmare over the course of 18 months as her ex-boyfriend revealed a controlling, jealous and violent side

On Friday, the model shared a series of photos of herself with a heavily bruised face on Twitter. She says the injuries are the result of attacks by her ex-boyfriend and explained that she was sharing the images - and pursuing police action - because she does 'not want to read that a woman has died and find out that he was the culprit'

The 21-year-old from Lier said she felt only 'pain and sadness' when looking at the start and end of the relationship with her ex, who she does not name or identify in the post

Rochus explained that what started out as a summer romance, ended with her reporting her boyfriend to police.

Belgian officers confirmed they are investigating the alleged abuse - while the case was covered widely in the Belgian media.

Explaining what drove her to go public after suffering in silence, she said: 'I do not want to read that a woman has been killed and find out he was the culprit.

'This is my before and after. No happy ending, no true happiness, just pain and sadness. This is also how it can go.

'Finally I have found the courage to tell my story. But this is not the end. I'm coming out of this stronger than ever.'

Rochus explained that she met her ex-boyfriend on holiday nearly two years ago, calling it 'love at first sight' and adding that they 'started living together almost immediately'.

Rochus said she met her ex-boyfriend (pictured) on holiday and that it was 'love at first sight.' The pair starting living together 'almost immediately' and the relationship seemed to be going well. Rochus' boyfriend showered her with gifts and compliments in their early days

The beautiful model said that after a while, her ex-boyfriend became controlling and jealous and that he did not allow her to put on make up or choose which clothes to wear

After punching a hole in a door and knocking a lamp of the ceiling, Rochus' ex-boyfriend allegedly turned his anger on her. Rochus claimed she was first attacked after the couple had been out at a party: 'At home, he grabbed my hair and smashed my face into the radiator'

However, her new beau, who initially showered the model with gifts and compliments, soon revealed a short temper and a jealous side, according to Rochus.

She said: 'Suddenly, I wasn't allowed to wear makeup anymore, and I couldn't wear the clothes I wanted.'

The model claimed that her boyfriend became increasingly aggressive, taking out his frustration on the furniture at first.

After he punched a hole in a door and knocked a lamp off the ceiling, he allegedly turned his anger on his young girlfriend.

Rochus said: 'He saw me smoking a cigarette with a friend at a party and blew a fuse.

'At home, he grabbed my hair and smashed my face into the radiator. I drove to my mother's that night with my face covered in blood.'

After the first alleged attack, Rochus said she drove to her mother's house with her face covered in blood. She said the violence against her became more frequent after that

One alleged attack landed the young woman in the hospital. Rochus said a doctor had told her that she had suffered a heavy blow to the temple that and if it had been a bit stronger, she could have been killed

In her Twitter post, the model referenced the #MeToo movement, saying 'Every woman now knows that they should not put up with this'

She also claimed that the violent episodes became more frequent after that night.

In the summer, Rochus ended up in hospital after another alleged beating.

The model said: 'The doctor who checked my injuries was very clear, 'you suffered a heavy blow to your temple. It if had been a bit stronger, you could be dead now'.'

She added: 'Look at the #MeToo movement. Every woman now knows that they should not put up with this.'

The investigation continues.

If you've been affected by domestic violence, you can find numbers for dedicated helplines in Belgium and other European Union countries here.
Students will be required to pay a processing fee of Rs 200 for each solution that they dispute. They will also have to upload necessary documents online to support their claim

The question paper and answer key for the Delhi University Entrance Test (DUET) 2020 postgraduate (PG) courses have been released by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on its official website - nta.ac.in.

According to a report by Jagran Josh, candidates can raise objections, if any, against the answer keys by 9 October up to 5 pm.

Students will be required to pay a processing fee of Rs 200 for each objection raise. The payment will have to be made through debit/ credit card or net banking.

Candidates will have to send their objection online and will also be required to upload necessary documents to support their challenges. Objections raised without substantiate claims will not be considered.

After considering the objections raised, NTA will release final answer key for DUET 2020 PG course. The result of the examination will be declared on the basis of the final answer keys.

A report by Hindustan Times said that DUET 2020 was conducted from 6 to 11 September. This year 1,50,670 students have appeared for the entrance examination.

Steps to check DUET answer key 2020 for PG courses:

Step 1: Go the National Testing Agency official website -nta.ac.in

Step 2: Under the Latest at NTA section, opt for the link that reads, "PUBLIC NOTICE: DUET- 2020 Display of Question Papers & Challenge of Answer Keys for 61 PG Courses."

Step 3: You will be directed to a new page where you will be required enter your form number and date of birth.

Step 4: Press the login button.

Step 5: The DUET answer key 2020 will appear on the screen. Download and match your responses against the answer key.

Here is the direct link to check DUET 2020 PG answer key and raise objections: http://ntaexam2020.cbtexam.in/CandidateKeyChallenge/loginpage.aspx
Following a Michigan Supreme Court decision that stripped Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of her authority to unilaterally issue COVID-19 emergency executive orders, legislative Republicans are now gearing up to play a more active role in setting the states pandemic response.

But the Republican-majority legislature and the Whitmer administration are still worlds apart on COVID-19 prevention measures like requiring face coverings where close contact with other people could occur, meaning finding common ground on future pandemic policy is already getting complicated.

Related: Michigan lawmakers to take up coronavirus bills this week after court invalidates Whitmer orders

On Tuesday evening, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clark Lake, and House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, announced theyd begin passing time-sensitive COVID-19-related legislation this week. The Senate is scheduled to meet Thursday and the House will meet Tuesday, Oct. 13.

The lawmakers did not specify which pandemic-related executive orders thrown into legal limbo by the Supreme Court ruling they deemed worthy of saving, although its safe to assume a statewide mandate on mask-wearing  which public health experts have described as an effective way to limit COVID-19 spread  isnt on the list.

Over the weekend, Shirkey said he would not support codifying Whitmers executive order requiring face coverings in indoor public places and outdoor places where people cant maintain six feet of distance from each other. Asked about whether hed support a mask mandate Monday during a call with reporters, Chatfield said he wasnt certain the question has much merit after Shirkeys comments.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services issued an emergency public health order under a different statute Monday that requires mask-wearing and limits the number of people allowed at public gatherings through Oct. 30. Shirkey slammed that order as an effort by the Whitmer administration to attempt an end-run around the Supreme Court.

Responding to his comments at a Tuesday press conference, Whitmer referred to Shirkey as an anti-masker, calling it concerning that Republicans werent supportive of requiring masks even after President Donald Trump was admitted to the hospital for COVID-19.

Related: Anti-masker Republicans in Legislature wont make Whitmer hold back on fighting COVID-19, she says

This weeks back-and-forth is the latest development in a months-long dispute between Whitmer and legislative Republicans over how best to respond to the pandemic.

Initially, lawmakers agreed to extend the COVID-19 state of emergency Whitmer declared when COVID-19 was first detected in Michigan in March. But frustrations with the governors stay-at-home order and other measures led Republicans to let their approval of the state of emergency lapse after April 30.

The court battle that followed when Whitmer continued issuing executive orders under a state of emergency without legislative backing was lengthy and costly. According to documents from the House and Senate business offices released publicly by the progressive group Progress Michigan Tuesday, both chambers spent a combined $542,295.06 to fight the governors COVID-19 actions.

In a video address posted after a split Supreme Court decision found she did not have the constitutional authority to continue the state of emergency without the legislature, Whitmer said she has and will be using additional executive powers to keep people safe, but urged the legislature to start showing that theyre taking this crisis seriously" and start by codifying her executive order on unemployment.

Ill work across the aisle with Republicans where we can find common ground to slow the spread of the virus and rebuild our economy, she said. But I wont let partisan politics get in the way of doing whats necessary to keep people safe and save lives.

COVID-19 didnt stop being a threat because of the court ruling, because were tired of it, or because the legislature left town. We all have to do our part, because when it comes to fighting this virus, we are all in this together. pic.twitter.com/5LQwXO9UYi  Governor Gretchen Whitmer (@GovWhitmer) October 6, 2020

Speaking to reporters Monday, Chatfield said he anticipates a much better and more healthy cooperation with this administration moving forward, but also pushed back on Whitmers efforts to keep the rules in effect: What was unconstitutional last week is still unconstitutional this week, he said.

Chatfield said he is confident the legislature and administration could find common ground, stressing that lawmakers have been taking COVID-19 seriously.

Had we actually cooperated, elementary schools and gyms probably would have been open before strip clubs and casinos, he quipped. And now were going to be working together, in cooperation, to open our state up safely with data and transparency for the first time in six months.

House Democratic Leader Christine Greig views the situation differently. In a statement, she said Republicans have thus far refused to work in good faith with the governor or legislative Democrats on COVID-19 response measures, and said they now have the responsibility to address the chaos and disruption to the states pandemic response that they have created.

Related: Gov. has no authority to continue state of emergency, Michigan Supreme Court rules

Rep. Hank Vaupel, R-Fowlerville, chairs the House Health Policy Committee. He said hes looking forward to working more closely with the administration on COVID-19 response, particularly on shielding seniors and vulnerable populations from the worst of the virus.

Vaupel said he personally wears a mask in public, but is not supportive of codifying a statewide mask mandate. He favors a flexible approach that sets some statewide guidelines based on the latest COVID-19 statistics, but allows local health officials and businesses more leeway to set reopening plans based on regional trends.

The virus is not going to go away, he said. I think that we do have to get back to giving people some individual responsibility of their own in dealing with it.

Medical experts say they hope lawmakers will ultimately put scientific evidence, not politics, at the forefront when codifying future measures to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Lansing physician Dr. Farhan Bhatti said this weeks MDHHS order should be considered a really good starting place for legislators, adding that studies in 16 countries have shown mask-wearing dramatically reduces the spread of COVID-19.

This isnt a controversial issue, and it does not need to be a partisan issue, he said. Its a matter of science, and its a matter of fact, and so the politicians need to take those facts and use them to inform their decisions instead of making decisions and then trying to find dubious facts to support their decisions.

Since March, the state has recorded 129,826 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 6,838 deaths linked to the novel respiratory illness. There have also been 13,803 probable cases and 323 probable COVID-19 deaths that werent confirmed by diagnostic test.

Read more on MLive:

Unemployment could become a mess in Michigan without executive orders

Tuesday, Oct. 6, coronavirus data by Michigan county: 3 counties climb to orange, 7 remain red

As Gov. Whitmers coronavirus orders fizzle, health departments across Michigan consider their own

Michigan health department issues order requiring masks, limiting gathering sizes statewide

Read the full order that DHHS is using to replace 40+ Whitmer rules

Are Michiganders still living under coronavirus orders? Gov. Whitmer asks Supreme Court to clarify

Gov. has no authority to continue state of emergency, Michigan Supreme Court rules

Whitmer vehemently disagrees with Supreme Court ruling, says emergency orders remain in place for 21 days
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 23:45:13|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The total number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases across the African continent has reached 1,526,000 as of Wednesday, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.

The Africa CDC, a specialized healthcare agency of African Union (AU) Commission, said in a statement issued on Wednesday that the number of deaths due to illnesses related to the pandemic reached 37,098 as of Wednesday afternoon.

The Africa CDC said the number of people who have recovered from the infectious virus across the continent has reached 1,262,348 so far.

Amid the uneven impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on African countries, the Africa CDC said that the African countries most affected by the disease in terms of the number of positive cases include South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia, and Nigeria.

The continental disease control and prevention agency also said that the average continental fatality rate is currently around 2.4 percent. Enditem
Family, friends and neighbours gathered last week to celebrate the only centenarian in Marian Place, as Mrs Lil Lowbridge reached 100 years-old.

The residents of the area organised a collection amongst the houses to present Mrs Lowbridge with an impressive Seiko clock in addition to balloons and a cake to mark the momentous occasion.

And the lady of the moment, Mrs Lowbridge took it all in her stride, and was in fact somewhat bemused at the fuss,

She jokingly told the large gathering of neighbours outside her house when asked if she knew they were going to surprise her: If I had known that, I wouldnt have come out!.

She was also taken aback that the local paper would cover the event. Ive had a big surprise, she told the Tullamore Tribune about the turnout on the day.

Still very much hale and hearty, she took turning 100 very much in her stride. I feel as if I am only 16, she said.

She thanked everyone who turned up to celebrate the occasion, and treated her to two renditions of happy birthday on the day.

The centenarian said she planned to enjoy the rest of the day with her family. Why not? You only reach it once, she remarked.

Mrs Lowbridge, who is originally from Clonaslee, was joined by her son John, daughter Ann Marie, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Local resident Eddie Dowling thanked everyone who had made a contribution towards the gifts, and ODonoghues Bakery who made the cake. He also thanked local businessmen James OConnor and Gordon Whelan who made additional contributions towards the gifts.

The enthusiastic response from Mrs Lowbridges neighbours certainly showed the esteem in which she is held, which Mr Dowling remarked upon.

The Ireland in which Mrs Lowbridge was born into was a very different one to the one we know today. Ireland was in the throes of the War of Independence, and was still under the last days of British rule.

In the week prior to Mrs Lowbridges birth, Kevin Barry was arrested and hanged for his part in an attack on British soldiers.

In the years that followed, the Irish Free State would emerge in the fledgling years of Irish freedom.
According to the latest NCRB data, of the 19 metro cities in the country, Kolkata has recorded the least number of sexual assault cases on women.

The metropolis has also not recorded any attempt to rape or sexual harassment case.

The NCRB data also revealed that all the victims those lodged complaint alleging sexual assault in Kolkata in 2019 were above 18 years.

PTI

According to a report released recently by the National Crime Records Bureau, 14 cases of sexual assaults were registered in the city in 2019. Like Kolkata, Tamil Nadus Coimbatore, too, has not reported any sexual harassment case, according to news agency PTI.

Over 12,900 cases of crimes against women in Delhi

According to data, 12,902 cases of crime against women were registered in Delhi last year, while 6,519 cases were registered by Mumbai Police.

Uttar Pradesh (59,853) has the highest number of crimes against women cases, Maharashtra (37,144) ranks third after Rajasthan (41,550).

File Photo

Police say that better and efficient policing is one of the reasons behind Kolkata being safe for women. The city has more awareness in such cases as well.

The NCRB data shows 59 cases of rape have taken place at Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh in 2019, though Delhi tops the list with 1,231 cases

Rajasthan has emerged as the most unsafe place for women. Apart from the staggering number of rapes and assault, the state had 18,432 cases of domestic violence.
A visual thermometer is used to monitor the temperature of all those entering the school at Discovery Charter School, 4700 Parkside Ave., Philadelphia, which opened in person on Monday, Aug. 31, 2020. New rules are in place due to COVID-19. Read more

Education policy may not have received any attention in last weeks presidential debate, but results from a series of polls in critical swing states suggest voters in general, and Black voters, in particular, have strong feelings about the need for greater educational choice and charter schools. In August, at the request of the Manhattan Institute, Rasmussen Reports embedded a series of questions on school choice and charter schools into its state-wide polling in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. A new Manhattan Institute report released this week discusses the findings.

Among these states, 46% to 52% of likely voters reported that they believe that giving parents the right to choose their childrens school raises the overall quality of K-12 education for students; only 18% to 20% believe that it lowers educational quality. Black respondents were more likely to believe that school choice raises educational quality.

Between 66% and 70% of all respondents supported the concept of publicly funded K-12 school choice; among Black respondents, 66% to 77% supported this. More than half of all respondents supported state funding of charter schools as an alternative to traditional local district-managed public schools; support for charter schools among Black respondents ranged from 58% to 67%.

 READ MORE: Pa. must fund students, not school districts | Opinion

This general support for school choice and charter schools among Black families goes beyond the survey results. Whereas enrollment in charter schools only accounts for 7.3% of all students in public schools in the states polled, the number is 17% for Black students across all five states, almost four times that of white students. In all but North Carolina, Black students are the group most likely to enroll in charter schools. In Michigan, 27% of Black students in public schools attend charter schools, and in Pennsylvania, 23% do.

Under President Barack Obama, the Democratic Party was committed to the growth of charter schools as a means of expanding educational opportunities to traditionally underserved communities. This years Democratic Party platform, however, calls for increased scrutiny of the admissions practices, disciplinary procedures, and public finances of charter schools. The Trump administration, on the other hand, seems somewhat friendlier to school choice. It has voiced support for tuition tax credits for use in private and religious schools. At the same time, it has awarded $65 million to expand the supply of charter schools in needed areas and has not proposed any significant expansion of federal regulation of existing or new charter schools.

 READ MORE: While most Philly charters are opening virtually, this school started in person

In a year in which equal opportunity for the nations Black citizens has risen to the forefront of the political debate, it is surprising that the support for charter schools among Black voters has met such indifference from the presidential candidates. Research of educational outcomes aligns with the support for charter schools among Black voters. A 2015 study from Stanford Universitys Center for Research on Educational Options found that learning gains for charter school students are larger by significant amounts for Black, Hispanic, low-income, and special education students in both math and reading. The achievement advantages for students who were in two of these subgroups (Black and special education) were quite large, amounting to months of additional learning per year.

More recently, my Manhattan Institute colleague and Boston University professor Marcus Winters replicated a randomized control study on the impact of charters on students in Newark, N.J. It found that enrolling in a Newark participating charter school leads to large improvements in a students math and English language arts (ELA) test scores, on average. Further, these improvements were sustained over time.

We should not be surprised that parents in all communities value educational options for their children, and that when given the chance, they choose those options that work best for them. Nor should we be surprised that voters reject the notion that these alternatives somehow harm the local district-managed public schools. In a nationwide study earlier this year, Winters considered the possibility that charter schools might create negative impacts on local district schools and found no evidence to support that claim. Rather, he found a very small but positive relationship between the proportion of students within a geographic district who attend a charter school as of 2009 and the test-score growth for students enrolled in the traditional public schools in the same district over the next seven years.

 READ MORE: School choice and the fight for public educations soul | Editorial

Charter schools work for lower-income children of color in the urban school districts that have historically underserved them. As public opinion in key battleground states demonstrates, their parents are not seeking charters and additional choice in order to harm public education; most still send their children to traditional district schools. Rather, they are seeking greater opportunities for their children. Our elected officials and those seeking high office should listen to what they are saying and support their efforts.

Ray Domanico is the director of education policy at the Manhattan Institute and coauthor of the recent report, School Choice: Public Opinion in Five Battleground States.
In the months since a gunman killed her only child and critically injured her husband, U.S. District Judge Esther Salas said she has forgiven her sons killer and plans to return to the bench in an effort to honor her son, who gave his life for his father and I, the judge said in an interview on Good Morning America Tuesday.

Salas described in detail in the interview how her life turned upside down on July 19. One second, she was talking with her son Daniel who came from college to celebrate his 20th birthday in their North Brunswick home. The next second, the doorbell rang and Daniel sprinted up the stairs to answer it.

On the other side of the door was Roy Den Hollander, an antifeminist attorney, who was disguised as a FedEx deliveryman and was targeting Judge Salas.

The next thing I hear was Boom! and then I hear No! and then a series of bullets, Salas said in her first interview since the attack.

She ran up the stairs and saw Daniel clutching his chest and when she lifted her sons shirt up, she saw the bullet hole.

Salas said she and her husband, Mark Anderl, who was shot three times but survived, were next to each other as their son died.

We were both just watching him fade away, Salas said.

Daniel Anderl was a rising junior at Catholic University. His mother described him in the interview as the love of our life from the moment he was born.

He was the center of our universe, Salas said.

The judge she found peace after her and her husband were debriefed about the attack and Den Hollanders motives by the FBI.

If he didnt do it that day, he was going to do it, Salas said. ... "He hated me because I was a woman. He hated me because I was Latina. And that was the source of hate. That is what I had done. I had the nerve to become a judge.

Salas said she has worked to forgive Den Hollander because hate is heavy. Love is lighter.

Den Hollander was found dead by authorities from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after the attack.

Shortly after the deadly attack at her home, Salas released a video calling for more privacy and tighter security for federal judges and their families. Authorities said Den Hollander had a dossier on Salas and her family, and knew where they lived and where they went to church.

The reason I did (the video) was because I said I have to protect and at least help to protect my brothers and sisters on the bench," she said. "And how do we do that? We do that by never letting anyone forget Daniel. Never letting anyone forget what he did for us. never letting anyone forget the high price we all pay if indeed the right things arent done.

Last month, New Jersey lawmakers introduced a bill, the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act of 2020, that would shield the personally identifiable information of federal judges and their immediate family from the public.

This legislation will not bring Daniel back, but we must ensure, Judge Salas said, that his death need not be in vain, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez said outside the Newark federal courthouse when he introduced the bill last month. We have to protect the independence of our courts, the safety of our judges and prevent this sort of tragedy from ever happening again. It is a common sense bill. It will save lives.

Salas said she absolutely plans on returning to the federal bench in New Jersey, though she did not say when in the interview Tuesday.

This man took the most important thing in my life," Salas said. "I cant let him take anything else. I know I am going to strive every morning to be the best person I can be. My son gave his life for his father and I. I have to look at that and say, What a gift. I cant squander it.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Joe Atmonavage may be reached at jatmonavage@njadvancemedia.com.
There is more plastic embedded in the sea floor, 9.25 million to 15.87 million tons, than floating on the oceans surface, researchers in Australia have found, in what a scientist called the worlds first estimate.

The new study published Monday by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO, in Australia highlights how humankinds use of plastics has seeped into the darkest depths of the worlds waters.

The research puts a number on the amount of microplastics that has accumulated in a hidden part of the environment. It is an issue that activists have long warned about even as the fight to clean up the ocean has focused largely on the eradication of single-use plastic products like shopping bags.

It really points to the ubiquity of the problem. It is really everywhere all the time and increasing, Britta Denise Hardesty, a principal scientist for CSIRO and an author of the study, said in a phone interview Wednesday.

You could say thats a huge amount, or you could say its a drop in the bucket compared to how much we dump into the ocean every year, depending on what ones perspective is, she said. She added that the aim of the study was merely to measure the problem, and she described it as the first global estimate.

The figures translate to roughly 18 to 24 shopping bags full of small plastic fragments for every foot of coastline on every continent except for Antarctica, Hardesty said.

Using a robotic submarine, the scientists collected 51 deepwater samples of sand and sediment in the Great Australian Bight in 2017, hundreds of miles from the shore, and determined the global estimate based on the average number and size of the particles.

The study found zero plastic particles in some deep-ocean sediment, but up to 13.6 particles per gram in others, a figure up to 25 times larger than what had been found in earlier deep-sea studies of microplastics.

Hardesty said that trash was more likely to accumulate in some parts of the ocean than others.

People think of the oceans as being flat and not having a lot of geology, so to speak, but its underwater mountains, caves and valleys, as well, she said. So theres a lot of structure there. Things are going to accumulate or end up in some areas. She added, Its similar to if you go to the beach, you can walk along the beach and see no trash, no trash, no trash, no trash, and all of a sudden you reach this spot and its just full of trash.

Hardesty said that there was incredible variability in the plastic samples: You can sample a site a few meters away and find more difference there than you find in a site that is kilometres away.

The variability allowed the scientists to apply their findings on a larger scale, she added. The scientists said that their estimates were conservative to take into account the full range of samples. They also eliminated fibres or other materials from their count to rule out the potential contamination of the samples.

Scientists believe that 4.4 million to 8.8 million tons of plastic enter the sea every year. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gyre of refuse between California and Hawaii that is estimated to be more than twice the size of Texas, carries more than 87,000 tons of trash. In recent years, hundreds of plastic objects have been found in the bellies of dead whales around the world.

Over time, some plastics break down into smaller pieces and sink into the ocean. More buoyant types of plastic do not sink by themselves and either wash up on beaches or end up in deepwater. Microbes and mussel colonies growing on floating plastic often cause the entire mass to sink from the added weight.

Although the study did not research the effects of microplastics  fragments between five millimetres and one micrometer  in deepwater, Hardesty said that they could be ingested by smaller plankton and fish on the seabed and move up the food chain. Once eaten by fish, they can be consumed by people.

Microplastics are not confined to the ocean; they are also found in air particles and are spread by wind. One study even detected a variety of microplastics in the human gut.

While cities across the world have banned plastic bags and straws, the use of disposable plastic packaging has surged amid the coronavirus pandemic as consumers grow more concerned about hygiene and contamination.

Hardesty said that it was important to prevent plastic from ending up in the ocean in the first place. CSIRO is also involved in efforts to reduce plastic consumption significantly and in improving waste management with new technology to prevent plastic bags and debris from clogging gutters and washing into the ocean during floods.

Hardesty said that she was hopeful that awareness about plastic pollution would lead to more sustainable policies and shifts in behaviour.

Most of what ends up in oceans are in peoples hand at some point, she said. They can see that their behaviour  their actions and purchasing power  is very powerful and that can result in change.
A local group is looking to make river clean ups a communal event.

On Oct. 3, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., about 20 residents gathered in Wallaceburg to pick up trash found in the river and on the shorelines of the Sydenham.

By the end of the day, theyd retrieved about 600 pounds of trash, according to organizers, and about two-thirds of that is recyclable.

The community effort got underway after resident Sandy Baird reached out to several media outlets in Chatham-Kent, asking them to run a story about local resident Sally Joyce, who has been cleaning up the rivers, with a kayak and laundry bags, all by herself.

Ive been a friend of Sallys for a long time and really admire what she does. Every day when shes out kayaking, shes got a mesh bag with her and shes collecting stuff along the river. Its just part of her day-to-day stuff. When she said she wanted to make a larger effort, because its more than one person can do, I said well how can I get involved, said volunteer Randa Speller.

Even the municipality got involved and agreed to take all the trash to the transfer station in Wallaceburg for free, according to Joyce.

Volunteer and magnetic fisher Henry Van Haren said he has pulled out about 40 bikes and shopping carts from the river in Chathams downtown core in the past few years.

Its a fun little hobby, but its messy, he said. Its terrible all that stuff thats piled up in here  batteries, a lot of plastic, garbage bags full of clothes. All the metal, fuel grease and oil youll find, and thats what ends up in our oceans.

Strong House Canada, a floating home contractor based in Wallaceburg, plans to adopt a section of the river, according to Joyce who works with the company.

We call ourselves friends of the river, said Alexander Topol, company executive. Were very fortunate to be in Wallaceburg right now because this is the best secret there is because you can see nature, turtles, and birds.

Joyce and Strong House hopes to challenge other Chatham-Kent businesses to adopt sections of the river and become responsible for the clean up.
NAIROBI, Kenya  A court in Kenya on Wednesday found two men guilty for their role in an assault on an upscale mall in the capital, Nairobi, that killed 67 people in 2013, the first convictions in one of the deadliest terror attacks in the countrys history.

The men  Mohamed Ahmed Abdi and Hussein Hassan Mustafah  were found guilty of charges including conspiracy to commit terrorism and aiding the Qaeda-linked Shabab terrorist group. A third man, Liban Abdullah Omar, was acquitted of all charges. A fourth, Adan Dheq, was released last year because of a lack of evidence.

The ruling comes seven years after the attack on the Westgate mall, in which Shabab gunmen killed 67 people from 13 countries, wounding 175 others.

Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi of the Milimani law courts in Nairobi delivered the judgment, which had been delayed multiple times. A court translator gave the verdict, which took four hours to read, in Somali to the accused, who are all ethnic Somalis.
If you really want to honour him, implement his inclusive ideology: SC Bose's grandnephew

From CM to PM: Modi enters 20th year in public office without a break

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Oct 07: In yet another political milestone for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday (October 7) entered his 20th year in a public office without a break. It was on October 7 in the year 2001 when Modi was sworn in as Chief Minister of Gujarat for the first time.

PM Modi was appointed as chief minister of Gujarat by the BJP when the saffron party was battling infighting among its own leaders. It would not be wrong to say that PM Modi used his 3 terms as Gujarat CM to strengthen the party and helped the BJP end the Congress' domination at the Centre.

VVIP plane acquisition process began under UPA, Modi govt brought it to conclusion: Report

The BJP's long agenda of Ram Temple in Ayodhya was fulfilled after Modi came into power. He laid the foundation stone for the temple in Ayodhya on August 5 this year. In yet another win for the BJP was abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and later banning the practice of triple talaq.

Modi took charge as Gujarat chief minister on October 7, 2001 following devastating earthquake which had rocked Bhuj. His policies as chief minister, credited with encouraging economic growth, have received praise. Under Modi's leadership, Gujarat became self-sufficient on several fronts and 'Gujarat Model' became popular across the country.

In September 2013 Modi was named the BJP's candidate for prime minister ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

The massive development work done by Modi as the Gujarat CM played an important role in BJP's election campaign during Lok Sabha election in 2014.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

In 2007, Modi took oath as Gujarat CM for the second time and he became the CM in 2012 for the third time in a row. In 2014, Modi took oath as Prime Minister after BJP won Lok Sabha poll with majority. In 2019, PM Modi led BJP to a thumping victory to take oath as prime minister for the second time.

Amid the country reeling under the COVID-19 pandemic, Modi pushed for 'Aatma Nirbhar Bharat', provision of free foodgrains to underpriveleged and vulnerable who have been hit the hardest. Modi's effective response to Chinese aggression on the LAC, and execution of long-pending reform measures related to labour an farm sector are some of the other facets of his leadership, highlighted by his party.
A combination picture shows Alexanda Kotey and Shafee Elsheikh, who the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) claim are British nationals, in these undated handout pictures in Amouda, Syria released on Feb. 9, 2018. (Syrian Democratic Forces/Handout via Reuters)

2 ISIS Beatles Indicted on Charges Relating to Beheadings of US Hostages: DOJ

The Justice Department has indicted two suspected ISIS terrorists for their alleged role in the abduction and killing of four American journalists and aid workers among others in Syria.

Alexanda Amon Kotey, 36, and El Shafee Elsheikh, 32, have been placed in FBI custody on charges related to their allegedly participating in the hostage-taking scheme and are expected to appear in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, later on Wednesday, the department announced.

Kotey and Elsheikh are two of the four men who were often referred to as The Beatles by the hostages for their English accents. Other members of the group include Mohamed Emwaz who was killed in a U.S. military airstrike in November 2015 in Syria and a fourth British citizen, who is currently incarcerated in Turkey.

Kotey and Elsheik were captured by Syrian Kurdish forces in 2018 and were later transferred to the custody of the U.S. military.

The men are accused of being involved in the kidnappings, and physical and psychological violence against American hostages journalist James Wright Foley, humanitarian aid worker Kayla Jean Mueller, journalist Steven Joel Sotloff, and aid worker Peter Edward Kassig, as well as nationals from other counties including the United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, and other European countries.

To the American people, todays announcement is a reminder of the threat that we continue to face from radical Islamic terrorists, Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers of the National Security Division said during a press conference on Wednesday. These terrorists despise the freedoms and way of life we cherish as Americans and are hell-bent to impose their ideologies on a world that continues to reject them.

According to the indictment, between 2012 and 2015, Kotey and Elsheikh are also accused of facilitating the demand of a monetary ransom and other conditions for the release of the hostages and operating a sophisticated and coordinated media operation designed to further their terrorist goals.

During captivity, the hostages were subjected to prolonged and brutal acts of torture including forced witnessing of murders, mock executions, shocks to the body, placed in headlocks and chokeholds, waterboarding, beatings, denial of bathroom access, food deprivation, and being physically restrained with handcuffs or zip ties, the indictment alleged.

These charges are the product of many years of hard work in pursuit of justice for our citizens slain by ISIS. Although we cannot bring them back, we can and will seek justice for them, their families, and for all Americans, Attorney General William P. Barr said in a statement.

Our message to other terrorists around the world is thisif you harm Americans, you will face American arms on the battlefield or American law in our courtrooms. Either way, you will be pursued to the ends of the earth until justice is done, he added.

This comes after Barr provided an assurance to the UK government that the United States would not pursue the death penalty against Kotey and Elsheik in return for evidence that could assist in the U.S. prosecution of the two men.

A British court ruling (pdf) earlier this year effectively blocked the UK government from sharing information with U.S. authorities, saying that the evidence should not be handed over without the proper death penalty assurances.

Kotey and Elsheik are each charged with conspiracy to commit hostage-taking resulting in death; four counts of hostage-taking resulting in death; conspiracy to murder United States citizens outside of the United States; conspiracy to provide material support to terroristshostage-taking and murderresulting in death; and conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death.

If convicted, the men face a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Parents of one of the victims, Kassig, said in a statement that they were relieved that Kotey and Elsheik will be prosecuted for their alleged crimes.

We are grateful to many for their assistance throughout this journey to date, Ed and Paula Kassig said in the statement. Although nothing can bring our son back, we are grateful that his alleged captors will face justice in the form of a fair trial under U.S. criminal laws.
The 12th Chemical Pathology Course

This is an annual event organised by Roche Vietnam to empower medical laboratory professionals for improved diagnostics quality and patient outcomes.

With the new normal setting in in Vietnam and around the world, the programme was held virtually to ensure the safety of participants. Several topics were shared by industry leaders on the latest innovations that improve diagnostics quality and laboratory diagnostics of the 21st century. The virtual format for this years programme also enabled a larger audience to participate, not just in Vietnam, but also from other Asia-Pacific countries.

Six presentations were delivered at CPC XII with the following highlighted topics: LC-MS (Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry) methodology, measurement of serum Calcium, "How is procalcitonin helpful for critical clinical decisions? Statistics in external quality assessment", "The total pathway to implementing a new test", and PTH in Chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Industry leaders such as Associate Professor Ronda Greeves, senior lecturer in Clinical Biochemistry at RMIT University, Australia; Associate Prof. Graham Jones, senior staff specialist in Chemical Pathology at SydPath, St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney; MSc. Peter Graham, who manages Blood Disciplines (Chemical Pathology, Haematology, Transfusion, Serology, and Immunology) at RCPAQAP, Australia; as well as Associate Prof. Vu Van Giap, general secretary of the Vietnam Respiratory Society and deputy director of the Respiratory Center at Bach Mai Hospital, Hanoi shared their experiences and new trends on these topics.

Dr. Qadeer Raza, general manager of Roche Vietnam, said, As a global leader in diagnostics, Roche understands that quality diagnostics results are essential to improve patient care and quality of life. We are proud that Chemical Pathology Course has been successfully organised on an annual basis to empower medical laboratory professionals across the nation for improved diagnostics quality and patient outcomes.

According to Associate Prof. Hoang Thi Bich Ngoc, president of the Vietnam Association of Clinical Biochemists, diagnostics results influence up to 70 per cent of all clinical decisions. It is essential that healthcare professionals keep their knowledge and technical skills up to date on a regular basis.

We are pleased to collaborate with the Ho Chi Minh Medical Association to contribute to CPC XII webinar. This marks the continuous collaboration over the past years to share the information and knowledge to the medical workers and to improve the quality of patient diagnostics and treatment. We would like to sincerely thank Roche Vietnam for organising CPC for over 11 years for nearly 6,000 Vietnamese and international delegates to participate, commented by Dr. Pham Trung Ha, president of the Ho Chi Minh City Association of Clinical Biochemists (HACB).

Since 2009, the Chemical Pathology Course has been pioneered by Roche Vietnam in collaboration with domestic and foreign partners with the purpose of updating knowledge and advanced skills for laboratory staff throughout the country and contributing to the improvement of the laboratorys quality and efficiency in Vietnam.

Ever since being founded, the programme has been supported and endorsed by many prestigious domestic and foreign medical associations such as the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC), the Asian & Pacific Federation of Clinical Biochemistry (APFCB), the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia Quality Assurance Programs (RCPAQAP), Ho Chi Minh Association of Medical Laboratory Technologists (HAMLT), Ho Chi Minh City Association of Clinical Biochemists (HACB), Ho Chi Minh City Medical Association (HMA), Vietnam Association of Clinical Biochemists (VACB), and other health organisations.

Recordings of the event will be uploaded on the website of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) in order to support healthcare professionals and lab technicians to access and learn from these helpful educational materials.
Being previously infected with coronaviruses that cause the 'common cold' may decrease the severity of COVID-19, according to researchers, including one of Indian origin, who said the finding could have significant implications on vaccine development.

IMAGE: People wearing protective masks wait in line to board a bus amidst the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Mumbai. Photograph: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, also demonstrates that the immunity built up from previous non-SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infections does not prevent individuals from getting COVID-19.

The researchers at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine in the United States noted that SARS-CoV-2 is a relatively new pathogen.



There are many other types of coronaviruses that are endemic in humans and can cause the "common cold" and pneumonia, they said.



These coronaviruses share some genetic sequences with SARS-CoV-2, and the immune responses from these coronaviruses can cross-react against SARS-CoV-2.



The study looked at electronic medical record data from individuals who had a respiratory panel test result between May 18, 2015 and March 11, 2020.



The CRP-PCR detects diverse respiratory pathogens including the endemic "common cold" coronaviruses.



They also examined data from individuals who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 between March 12, 2020 and June 12, 2020.



After adjusting for age, gender, body mass index, and diabetes mellitus diagnosis, COVID-19 hospitalised patients who had a previous positive CRP-PCR test result for a coronoavirus had significantly lower odds of being admitted to the intensive care unit.



They also had lower trending odds of requiring mechanical ventilation during COVID, the researchers said.



The probability of survival was also significantly higher in COVID-19 hospitalised patients with a previous positive test result for a common cold coronoavirus.



However, a previous positive test result for a coronavirus did not prevent someone from getting infected with SARS-CoV-2.



"Our results show that people with evidence of a previous infection from a "common cold" coronavirus have less severe COVID-19 symptoms," said Manish Sagar, an associate professor at Boston University School of Medicine and the study's co-corresponding author.



The researchers also found that immunity may prevent COVID-19 in ways that are different from preventing infection by SARS-CoV-2.



This is demonstrated by the fact that the patient groups had similar likelihoods of infection but differing likelihoods of ending up in the ICU or dying, they said.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijani forces attempted to advance and reinforce overnight October 6-7 in the south-eastern direction (off Jebrayil), but Artsakhi forces delivered precision artillery strikes at the adversary attacking units, the Armenian Defense Ministry said.

After another rocket-artillery strike at 06:30, leaving behind an additional 60 of their own killed servicemen, what was left of the three over-equipped Azeri brigades fled the battlefield in panic, the defense ministry said. The Azeri forces also left several dozen hardware units, in addition to 22 destroyed equipment on the battlefield. The defense ministry said they will release videos soon.

The Artsakhi forces delivered a precision strike at a large Azeri military fuel base in the south-eastern direction.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II gave an exclusive interview for ARMENPRESS.

- Your Holiness, the Armenian Church, Armenian people and peoples confessing Islam have lived side by side for centuries having good relations. Stimulating passions, many attempt to present Nagorno Karabakah conflict as a war of religions. How would you comment on this?

- As a result of historical consequences, starting from the Middle Ages and particularly following the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Turkey the Armenian people spread all over the world. Many Muslim countries extended a brotherly hand and provided shelters to the Armenian people who survived the genocide, where up till now Armenian communities exists. The Holy Apostolic Armenian Church has its Dioceses in nearly a dozen of Muslim countries, where our compatriots live as exemplary citizens of those countries, bringing their contribution to the development and prosperity of those countries and enjoying the friendly attitude of the leadership. The Armenian Church continues the dialogue at various inter-religious platforms for the sake of peaceful and welfare life of the humanity. The visits of the leaders of the Islamic world to the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin and reciprocal visits are a proof of this. Starting from the 1st days of the Artsakh war, by the mediation of the Patriarchs of the Russian Church, a platform of trilateral meetings was established with the participation of the religious leader of the Muslims in Caucasus and the Catholicos of All Armenians. During those meetings it has been emphasized several times that Karabakh conflict has no religious roots, also the necessity of peaceful co-existence and mutual understanding of Christians and Muslims in our region was emphasized.

During these days, when many civilians fall victim of the Azerbaijani aggression, settlements are bombed and the brave children of our people protect their right to free and independent life risking their own lives, we often witness attempts even at the level of the Azerbaijani president to give a religious nature to Karabakh conflict, which is nothing else but provocation, which unfortunately can lead to horrifying consequences.

- In his official speech addressed to the Azerbaijani people on October 4, Ilham Aliyev noted that Azerbaijanis have lived in Karabakh for centuries and today the cultural, historical and religious monuments created by Azerbaijanis have been destroyed.

- This is another announcement of the Azerbaijani president that does not correspond to the reality. Muslim monuments in Armenia and Artsakh have always been under state protection. A brillian example of my words is the Mausoleum of Kara Koyunlu Emirs father, Emir Saad in Argavand village of Armenia, or the Blue Mosque in Yerevan. During the past years the authorities of Artsakh provided necessary funding for the maintenance and restoration of the Mosques and other Muslim monuments in Sushi, Aghdam and other regions. While in Azerbaijan, and particularly in Nakhichevan Azerbaijani servicemen destroyed valuable Christian monuments, tens of thousands of centuries-old cross-stones and tombs. The world learned about this from various footages. The Armenian people have always respected the religious-cultural values of others, in this case Islamic values. Peoples living in other countries, with whom our compatriots live side by side, can testify this.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
Force later identified the errors and apologised to the boys' families

But officers faced with 'confused scene' told 18-year-old's family he had died

Dylan Irvine (pictured), 19, from Peterhead, died and his 18-year-old friend was rushed to hospital with serious injuries following a car crash on the A90 in Aberdeenshire

Police officers have apologised after they wrongly told a family their son had died in a horrific crash.

Emergency services had been called out to reports of a red Ford Fiesta veering off the A90 into a field near the Aberdeenshire coast.

Dylan Irvine, 19, from Peterhead, died at the scene and his 18-year-old friend was rushed to hospital with serious injuries.

However, police told the injured man's family he had in fact died following some 'confusion' at the scene.

It is believed the injured man gave officers someone else's name when they arrived at the crash.

It is understood a review of the incident is now under way, although Police Scotland has apologised to the families.

Mr Irvine has been described by loved ones as 'adventurous and outgoing'.

His family were too upset to speak, but in a statement released through the police they said: 'Dylan was a loving son, brother and grandson, and was loved by all that had the pleasure of knowing him.

'He is sorely missed by all. He had an adventurous and outgoing soul and had the biggest heart.

'Our family would like to thank all of the emergency services for their efforts at the scene and we would ask that our family's privacy is respected at this difficult time.'

However, police told the injured man's family he had in fact died following some 'confusion' at the scene. It is believed the injured man gave officers someone else's name when they arrived at the crash

The 18-year-old, who is believed to have been the owner of the red Ford Fiesta, remains seriously ill in hospital.

The car was spotted in a field between Crimond and St Fergus at around 7.30am on Monday, with police, fire crews, paramedics and an air ambulance called to the scene.

Police are appealing for anyone who saw the vehicle on the A90 on Sunday night, or in the hours leading up to 7.30am, to come forward with information or dash-cam footage.

Chief Inspector Neil Lumsden said officers had been faced with a 'confused scene' when they arrived.

He said: 'Officers at the scene of a crash use every avenue available to help identify those involved as quickly and accurately as possible.

'This includes using personal effects found at the scene. Officers also use various police systems to find out who is the registered keeper of a vehicle, looking at who is insured to drive the vehicle and checking for any other information that can be found through, for example, the DVLA.

'Finally, crash investigators will also use the information gathered from those involved who are able to identify themselves and others.

'On this occasion, officers were faced with a confused scene including incorrect information provided by a witness. Once identified, the error was promptly corrected and the families of those involved were spoken to and were understanding of the circumstances.

'We have apologised to the families for any unintended upset and will review to identify any learning.'

Anyone with information, or saw the car in the hours leading up to its discovery, should call 101.
DANBURY  City Council is expected to vote Thursday evening on whether to rename its sewer plant after comedian John Oliver, but not all members are on board.

There is concern that naming the plant after a comedian could trivialize local government. The council has received dozens of letters in support of the name, however, and there seems to be enough support among council members to pass the resolution.

John Oliver should know that every time I smell the plant. Ill think of him, council member Warren Levy said. at the City Council meeting Tuesday evening.

An ad hoc committee is reviewing the HBO hosts dream for the facility to be named the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant in exchange for $55,000 in donations to Connecticut charities.

Local banks also plan to launch a community fundraiser for Danbury food banks in honor of the renaming.

Many council members said the naming and back-and-forth between Oliver and the city have brought levity to residents stressed out by the coronavirus pandemic.

It has created this sense of Danbury pride in a time where we needed that, councilman Roberto Alves said. We needed a laugh.

Associated Press

But some didnt quite get the joke.

I guess Im missing the humor in all this, council member Bob Taborsak said.

He said he didnt think city buildings should be named after people with no tie to Danbury.

It just seems to me were trivializing local government by having Mr. Oliver involved in this, said Taborsak, adding he plans to abstain.

That concern was similar to councilman Paul Rotellos. He moved for the ad hoc committee to be created to study this and future names of city property.

The precedent of naming not just a sewer plant, but perhaps a school or a park or something like that for another issue that comes up in the future is something to explore, he said. I think this will be a good opportunity to do that.

The committee will meet virtually at 5:45 p.m. Thursday, with a special meeting of the full council at 6:30 p.m.

But for this facility, the name shouldnt be an issue, Levy said.

I dont think there's a long line of people that want their name on the side of the wastewater system, he said.

Mayor Mark Boughton said the resolution to rename the plant is not binding.

There is no permanency here, he said. Future councils can name it whatever they want.

On his show Last Week Tonight, the English comedian had urged the city not to Danbury this up by turning down his offer.

Council member Farley Santos urged his colleagues not to British this up.

Turning this down not only makes us look foolish, but also reveals how out of touch with our constituents we may be, Santos said.
The smaller storms on Saturn interact with the larger system and as a result effectively pinch the eastern jet and confine it to the top of the planet. The pinching process warps the stream into a hexagon. CREDIT Jeremy Bloxham and Rakesh K. Yadav

With its dazzling system of icy rings, Saturn has been a subject of fascination since ancient times.

Even now the sixth planet from the sun holds many mysteries, partly because its distance away makes direct observation difficult and partly because this gas giant (which is multiple times the size of our planet) has a composition and atmosphere, mostly hydrogen and helium, so unlike that of Earth. Learning more about it could yield some insights into the creation of the solar system itself.

One of Saturn's mysteries involves the massive storm in the shape of a hexagon at its north pole. The six-sided vortex is an atmospheric phenomenon that has been fascinating planetary scientists since its discovery in the 1980s by the American Voyager program, and the subsequent visit in 2006 by the U.S.-European Cassini-Huygens mission. The storm is about 20,000 miles in diameter and is bordered by bands of winds blowing up to 300 miles per hour. A hurricane like it doesn't exist on any other known planet or moon.

Two of the many scientists-turned-interplanetary-storm-chasers working to uncover the secrets of this marvel are Jeremy Bloxham, the Mallinckrodt Professor of Geophysics, and research associate Rakesh K. Yadav, who works in Bloxham's lab in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. In a recently published paper in PNAS, the researchers began to wrap their heads around how the vortex came to be.

"We see storms on Earth regularly and they are always spiraling, sometimes circular, but never something with hexagon segments or polygons with edges," Yadav said. "That is really striking and completely unexpected. [The question on Saturn is] how did such a large system form and how can such a large system stay unchanged on this large planet?"

By creating a 3D simulation model of Saturn's atmosphere, Yadev and Bloxham believe are they closing in on an answer.

In their paper, the scientists say that the unnatural-looking hurricane occurs when atmospheric flows deep within Saturn create large and small vortices (aka cyclones) that surround a larger horizontal jet stream blowing east near the planet's north pole that also has a number of storms within it. The smaller storms interact with the larger system and as a result effectively pinch the eastern jet and confine it to the top of the planet. The pinching process warps the stream into a hexagon.

"This jet is going around and around the planet, and it has to coexist with these localized [smaller] storms," said Yadav, the study's lead author. Think of it like this: "Imagine we have a rubber band and we place a bunch of smaller rubber bands around it and then we just squeeze the entire thing from the outside. That central ring is going to be compressed by some inches and form some weird shape with a certain number of edges. That's basically the physics of what's happening. We have these smaller storms and they're basically pinching the larger storms at the polar region and since they have to coexist, they have to somehow find a space to basically house each system. By doing that, they end up making this polygonal shape."

The model the researchers created suggests the storm is thousands of kilometers deep, well beneath Saturn's cloud tops. The simulation imitates the planet's outer layer and covers only about 10 percent of its radius. In a monthlong experiment the scientists ran, the computer simulation showed that a phenomenon called deep thermal convection -- which happens when heat is transferred from one place to another by the movement of fluids or gases -- can unexpectedly give rise to atmospheric flows that create large polar cyclones and a high-latitude eastward jet pattern. When these mix at the top it forms the unexpected shape, and because the storms form deep within the planet, the scientists said it makes the hexagon furious and persistent.

Convection is the same force that causes tornadoes and hurricanes on Earth. It's similar to boiling a pot of water: The heat from the bottom transfers up to the colder surface, causing the top to bubble. This is what is believed to cause many of the storms on Saturn, which, as a gas giant, doesn't have a solid surface like Earth's.

"The hexagonal flow pattern on Saturn is a striking example of turbulent self-organization," the researchers wrote in the June paper. "Our model simultaneously and self-consistently produces alternating zonal jets, the polar cyclone, and hexagon-like polygonal structures similar to those observed on Saturn."

What the model didn't produce, however, was a hexagon. Instead, the shape the researchers saw was a nine-side polygon that moved faster than Saturn's storm. Still, the shape serves as proof of concept for the overall thesis on how the majestic shape is formed and why it has been relatively unchanged for almost 40 years.

Interest in Saturn's hexagon storm goes back to 1988, when astronomer David A. Godfrey analyzed flyby data from the Voyager spacecraft's 1980 and 1981 Saturn passes and reported the discovery. Decades later, from 2004 to 2017, NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured some of the clearest and best-known images of the anomaly before plunging into the planet.

Relatively little is known about the storm because the planet takes 30 years to orbit the sun, leaving either pole in darkness for that time. Cassini, for instance, only took thermal images of the storm when it first arrived in 2004. Even when the sun shines on Saturn's northern pole, the clouds are so thick that light doesn't penetrate deep into the planet.

Regardless, many hypotheses exist on how the storm formed. Most center on two schools of thought: One suggests that the hexagon is shallow and only extends hundreds of kilometers deep; the other suggests the zonal jets are thousands of kilometers deep.

Yadev and Bloxham's findings build on the latter theory, but need to include more atmospheric data from Saturn and further refine their model to create a more accurate picture of what's happening with the storm. Overall, the duo hope their findings can help paint a portrait of activity on Saturn in general.

"From a scientific point of view, the atmosphere is really important in determining how quickly a planet cools. All these things you see on the surface, they're basically manifestations of the planet cooling down and the planet cooling down tells us a lot about what's happening inside of the planet," Yadav said. "The scientific motivation is basically understanding how Saturn came to be and how it evolves over time."



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Mumbai, Oct 7 : Bollywood actor Siddhant Chaturvedi, who is currently in Goa to shoot for director Shakun Batra's untitled next film, has shared a picture of him doing a cartwheel.

Siddhant took to his Instagram Stories, where he posted the picture. In the image, he could be seen dressed in a bright printed shirt and black shorts. He is seen attempting a cartwheel.

He captioned the image: "Back to #Tricking #Kicking and #Parkour".

Batra's film also stars Deepika Padukone and Ananya Panday. Deepika had to recently cut short her Goa schedule and join the NCB probe in Mumbai into a possible drugs angle in the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

The details of Batra's project are still under wraps, although Siddhant had told IANS in a recent interview that the film belonged to a genre that has not been tried in Bollywood before.

Siddhant has an interesting slate of work lined up. He will be seen in the second instalment of "Bunty Aur Babli" and the horror comedy "Phone Bhoot".
Esri, the global leader in location intelligence, today announced two major capabilities in Site Scan for ArcGIS that will enable governments and critical infrastructure organizations to meet hardware and software regulations in the US and Europe. Through an established partnership with Auterion, creator of the most widely used open-source drone autopilot operating system, security-conscious US organizations will be able to use Site Scan, Esri's unmanned aerial systems flight planning and processing solution, to plan and execute missions with the trusted and secure Freefly Astro drone, powered by Auterion. Additionally, for organizations in Europe with data sovereignty requirements, a new and fully independent instance of Site Scan for ArcGIS has been deployed to European servers, ensuring that organizational data resides within the region.

Site Scan for ArcGIS is used by organizations that require drone imagery for visual inspections, site monitoring, asset management, and situational awareness. It's an all-in-one, cloud-based drone mapping solution for managing fleets and collecting, processing, analyzing, and sharing data products. Industries using this solution include architecture, engineering, construction, natural resources, infrastructure, and government. Core capabilities in Site Scansuch as scalability, collaboration, time saving, and now enhanced security functionalityprovide value to customers.

The US government has recently issued a growing number of advisory warnings and bans on the use of drones that pose security risks. These precautions have adversely impacted federal agencies and private firms that manage critical infrastructure, causing them to adopt incongruous drone data capturing and processing workflows that consist of multiple vendor solutions. Esri can now offer these agencies a single, end-to-end drone solution that integrates Freefly Astro, using US Department of Defense-approved Blue sUAS software architecture from Auterion, and is fully supported by Site Scan.

"Our expertise in providing an enterprise drone platform based on open-source software enabled us to meet the needs of the US government and governments worldwide," said Dave Sharpin, CEO, Auterion Government Solutions. "We are very excited to partner with Esri and provide [its] users with our groundbreaking technology."

By law within Europe, data from publicly funded or critical infrastructure projects cannot leave the European Union (EU). To enable a scalable drone workflow, Site Scan for ArcGIS has been deployed to a server cluster in Ireland. European customers that require their data not be transmitted outside the region can now leverage this server cluster to meet project requirements.

"The relationship we have established with Auterion is key in being able to offer high-quality, secure drone software to our US customers looking to take advantage of our advanced, secure, drone-based imagery collection and management platform," said Richard Cooke, Esri director of imagery and remote sensing. "Additionally, through the development of the EU deployment, an even wider range of customers located in Europe will be able to maintain their data and data processing locally."

The Freefly Astro and Site Scan integration will be available for customers by December 2020. The European deployment of Site Scan is available today. To learn more about the new integration of Site Scan with the Freefly Astro drone or about the EU deployment of Site Scan, contact the Esri sales team at esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/site-scan-for-arcgis/overview#contactsales.

About Auterion

Auterion provides enterprise and government with an ecosystem of software-defined drones, payloads, and third-party applications within a single easy to use platform based on open-source standards.

With 50+ employees across offices in California and Switzerland, Auterion has raised $25M in venture-backed funding from investors such as Lakestar, Mosaic Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, and Tectonic Ventures. The company's global customer base includes GE Aviation, Quantum Systems, Freefly Systems, Avy, and the U.S. Government. Learn more at www.auterion.com.

Twitter: @auterion

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/auterion/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/auterion/

About Esri

Esri, the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping helps customers unlock the full potential of data to improve operational and business results. Founded in 1969, Esri software is deployed in more than 350,000 organizations including 90 of the Fortune 100 companies, all 50 state governments, more than half of all counties (large and small), and 87 of the Forbes Top 100 Colleges in the U.S., as well as all 15 Executive Departments of the U.S. Government and dozens of independent agencies. With its pioneering commitment to geospatial information technology, Esri engineers the most advanced solutions for digital transformation, the Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics. Visit us at esri.com.

Copyright  2020 Esri. All rights reserved. Esri, the Esri globe logo, ArcGIS, The Science of Where, esri.com, and @esri.com are trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of Esri in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products or services mentioned herein may be trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of their respective mark owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201006005312/en/
Working with fish, birds and mice, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report new evidence that some animals' natural capacity to regrow neurons is not missing, but is instead inactivated in mammals. Specifically, the researchers found that some genetic pathways that allow many fish and other cold-blooded animals to repair specialized eye neurons after injury remain present in mammals as well, but are turned off, blocking regeneration and healing.

A description of the study, published online by the journal Science on Oct. 1 (science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.abb8598), offers a better understanding of how genes that control regeneration are conserved across species, as well as how they function. This may help scientists develop ways to grow cells that are lost due to hereditary blindness and other neurodegenerative diseases.

"Our research overall indicates that the potential for regeneration is there in mammals, including humans, but some evolutionary pressure has turned it off," says Seth Blackshaw, Ph.D., professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "In fact, regeneration seems to be the default status, and the loss of that ability happened at multiple points on the evolutionary tree," he says.

For the study, Blackshaw's team focused on supportive cells in the back of the eye. In zebrafish, a standard laboratory model whose genome has been well defined, these cells, known as Muller glia, respond and repair the light-sensitive retina by growing new cells in the central nervous system called neurons. In addition to regrowing eye tissue, zebrafish's regenerative abilities extend to other body parts, including fins, tails and some internal organs.

The retina is a good testing ground for mapping genetic activity, explains Blackshaw, because it contains structures common to other cells in the nervous system. In previous studies, moreover, scientists have found that the genetic networks in the retina are well conserved across species, so comparisons among fish, birds, mice and even humans are possible.

For the new experiments, the Johns Hopkins researchers created retinal injuries in zebrafish, chickens and mice. Then they used high-powered microscopes and a previously developed gene mapping tool to observe how the supportive Muller glia cells responded.

Blackshaw said the team was surprised to find, immediately after the injury, that the cells in each of the three species behaved the same way: They entered an "active state" characterized by the activation of specific genes, some of which control inflammation.

This active state, says Blackshaw, primarily helps to contain the injury and send signals to immune system cells to combat foreign invaders such as bacteria, or to clean up broken tissue.

Beyond that step, however, the species' responses diverged.

In zebrafish, active Muller glia began turning on a network of transcription factors that control which genes are 'on' and 'off.' In the current experiment, the NFI transcription factors activated genes that are linked to cell maturity, sending the Muller glia cells back in developmental time to a more primitive state, which then allows them to develop into many different cell types. The Muller glia then "differentiated" into new cells to replace the ones lost to injury.

In contrast, the research team saw that chickens with damaged retinas activate only some of the transcription factor 'gene control switches' that are turned on in zebrafish. Thus, chickens have much less capability to create new Muller glia and other neurons in the eye following injury.

Finally, the researchers looked at the injury response in mice. Mice share the vast majority of their DNA with humans, and their eyes are similar to human eyes. The researchers found that injured Muller glia in mice remained in the first "active" state for several days, much longer than the eight to 12 hours that zebrafish are in this state, and yet never acquired the ability to make new neurons.

Muller glia in all three species also express high levels of nuclear factor I (NFI) transcription factors, but rapidly turn them off following injury. In mice, however, the NFI genes are turned back on soon thereafter, and actively block the Muller glia from generating neurons.

The researchers found, to their surprise, they say, that the same genes that allowed the zebrafish cells to regenerate were "primed and ready to go" in the mouse eye, but that the "on" transcription factor was never activated. Instead, the NFI factors actively block the cells' regenerative potential.

Blackshaw suspects that animals with a higher potential to develop disease in brain and other neurological tissue may have lost this capability over evolutionary time to help protect and stabilize other brain cells. "For example, we know that certain viruses, bacteria and even parasites can infect the brain. It could be disastrous if infected brain cells were allowed to grow and spread the infection through the nervous system," says Blackshaw.

Now equipped with a more detailed map of the cellular response to neuronal injury and regrowth, scientists may be able to find a way to activate the regenerative capabilities hidden in human DNA, Blackshaw says.

###

This work was a collaboration between investigators at Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame, Ohio State and the University of Florida supported by the Audacious Goals Initiative of the National Eye Institute. Other authors include Thanh Hoang, Fang Wang, Clayton Santiago, Lizhi Jiang, Cristian Saez, Fatemeh Rajaii, Trisha Parayil, Vickie Trinh, Dong Wong Kim, Guohua Wang and Jiang Qian of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Jie Wang of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and West China Biomedical Big Data Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University; Patrick Boyd, Manuela Lahne, Meng Jia, Leah Campbell and David Hyde of the University of Notre Dame; Sooyeon Yoo of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Seoul National University Hospital; Casey Keuthan and John Ash of the University of Florida School of Medicine; Isabella Palazzo, Natalie Squires, Warren Campbell and Andy Fischer of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

This research was supported by the National Eye Institute (U01EY027267, R01EY024519, R01EY029548, K08EY027093, R01EY020560), the Hiller Family Endowment for Stem Cell Research at the University of Notre Dame and the Center for Zebrafish Research at the University of Notre Dame.

The authors declare no competing financial interest.
Every year the applications carry out important updates to continue meeting the needs of their users. In this context, some devices become incompatible with the new versions of the apps and some of them even stop working.

For this reason, we share what smartphones iOS and Android in which WhatsApp will stop working, to the less correctly. It is important to note that the instant messaging application will continue to be available for devices Android with operating system 4.0.3 or later and iPhone with iOS 9 or later.

Photo: WhatsApp Blog

In this sense, some of the phones on which WhatsApp will stop working on Android are:

Samsung Galaxy S2

Motorola Droid Razr

LG Optimus Black

HTC Desire

While on iOS they are:

Iphone 4s

iPhone 5

Iphone 5c

Iphone 5s

Likewise, if you are an Android user and you want to check with which operating system you have, you can go to "settings", then look for the option "about phone" (which may be in the "system" button) and check your version of Android .

You may be interested: So you can create automatic responses for your WhatsApp chats

Related:

Cuales son los telefonos en los que dejara de funcionar WhatsApp en 2021?

Which Phones Will WhatsApp Stop Working on in 2021?

WhatsApp nos dejara silenciar personas y grupos de por vida



Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Setting up Covid-19 free hospital areas for surgical patients could save lives during a second wave of the pandemic - reducing the risk of death from lung infections associated with coronavirus, a new global study reveals.

Saving lives

Reorganisation

Researchers working together around the world found that that patients who had their operation and hospital care in Covid-19 free areas had better outcomes. These areas improved the safety of surgery by having a strict policy that no patients treated for Covid-19 came into contact with those undergoing surgery.Millions of operations around the world were cancelled during the first wave of the pandemic. With the potential threat of a second wave, more patients face delays. When operations for cancer and other time-dependent are delayed, they can progress to be untreatable.This research has shown, for the first time, that hospitals around the world can continue safe surgery by setting up Covid-19 free areas to minimise the risk from the coronavirus.Researchers examined data from 9,171 patients in 55 countries, across five continents since the start of the pandemic up the middle of April 2020. Experts have discovered that pulmonary complication (2.2% vs 4.9%) and rates of death after surgery (0.7% vs 1.7%) were lower for patients who had their hospital treatment in Covid-19 areas. However, in this study, just 27% of patients had their care in these protected areas.It is estimated that around 4.7-million operations take place in the UK each year, of which around 550,000 are for removal of a cancer. Setting up Covid-19 free hospital areas could prevent 6,000 unnecessary Covid-related deaths after cancer surgery in the UK alone over the next year.As health providers restart elective cancer surgery, they must look to protect cancer surgery patients from harm by investing in dedicated Covid-19 free hospital areas. These can be tailored to the resources available locally, ensuring that patients treated for coronavirus are not mixed with patients needing surgery.However, this represents a significant challenge to many hospitals around the world. Governments and hospital providers must help to fund this major international redesign of surgical services and provide protection for patients. Covid-19 free areas could save many lives during future waves, by allowing surgery to continue safely despite high rates of infection in the community," says collaborative lead, Dr Aneel Bhangu, from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery, at the University of Birmingham.The study was funded by a NIHR Global Health Research Unit grant. It covered adult patients undergoing elective surgery with curative intent for a range of suspected cancers including bowel, gullet, stomach, head and neck, lung, liver, pancreas, bladder, prostate, kidney, womb, cervix, ovarian, breast, sarcoma and brain tumours.Major reorganisation of hospital services to provide Covid-19 free areas for elective surgery must be justified by evidence like this, as it redirects time and resources away from other services. We have proved that those efforts are essential in protecting patients undergoing surgery during the pandemic.Our data showed that Covid-19 free hospital areas were beneficial when the rate of infection in the community was both low and high. We recommend that Covid-19 free areas are set-up in all countries currently affected by the pandemic, including those likely to suffer from future waves.However, overcoming the challenges of setting up such pathways, including separate hospitals to provide elective surgery, may lead to unintended consequences. Consequences for hospitals must be carefully monitored to achieve the best balance of healthcare for patients," Dr James Glasbey, the study lead at the University of Birmingham.Data included in this study represented a wide variety of different surgeries for patients of all ages, genders and ethnicities.
Lecturers and staff at Cambridge University are to be given 'unconscious bias' training after the number of black students rocketed over the past three years.

Departments in the prestigious school of learning have taken the decision to have the courses in an effort to cut down on racism incidents.

It comes after grime star Stormzy launched a scheme to fund tuition fees and living costs for undergraduates.

The UK's top university, according to the Complete University Guide, has praised the musician for breaking down barriers, as he funds the tuition fees and living costs for two students each year.

The number of black undergraduates taking their places at Cambridge University has tripled in the space of three years

Cambridge's data shows that 137 UK-based black undergraduates have been admitted to a degree course this year, which is a rise of just over 50 per cent on the 2019-20 academic year.

The university said this represents 4.6 per cent of the number of UK undergraduates commencing their studies and follows a similar increase of almost 50 per cent last year.

There are now more than 300 black British undergraduates at Cambridge.

Senior pro-vice-chancellor Professor Graham Virgo said: 'In just three years, the number of UK-based black undergraduates taking up their place at Cambridge has more than tripled.

'This is testament to their hard work and ambition.

Cambridge has praised grime artist Stormzy, pictured during his Glastonbury headline set last year, after he started providing scholarships to support black students to join the prestigious university

'The collegiate university, its students, and partners have been working hard to reach out to potential applicants to encourage them to apply.

'We accept this is not just about ensuring that our intake reflects UK society.

'The university, and colleges, need to work hard to ensure that once admitted, all students, no matter what their ethnic background, feel Cambridge is a welcoming place and one in which they can realise their potential and thrive.

'That is why we're working with black students at Cambridge to ensure that their education is the best it can possibly be.'

Other factors believed to have played a part in the rise are a social media campaign aimed at overturning perceptions about what Cambridge is like and partnerships with initiatives such as Target Oxbridge, which encourages applications.

Current students are also engaged in access work, with members of the African Caribbean Society (ACS) volunteering as mentors for younger students.

The society's president Sharon Mehari said: 'As a society devoted to creating a welcoming and empowering space for all black students, it is an honour and a joy to see that Cambridge will be ushering in its largest intake.

'This speaks to the passion of the many individuals, organisations, and institutions who have worked to ensure that Cambridge is a place where black students have their academic ability, creativity, ingenuity and heritage valued.

'There is no doubt that this cohort of students will thrive and leave an impact on Cambridge in ways we have never seen.

'We at the ACS are so excited to celebrate every individual and welcome them into the family.'

The university is working in collaboration with black students to identify ways in which the awarding gap between black and white students can be closed and says it is committed to eliminating this gap by 2024.

Departments throughout the university are examining ways of diversifying the curriculum, and providing a wider choice of authors to study.

The university is providing race awareness and unconscious bias training to all staff.

Last month, the university announced that for the first time, 70% of its UK undergraduate intake this year come from state schools, and more than a fifth come from what are officially described as the most deprived areas of the country.
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Tuesday issued a draft report on revised training procedures for the Boeing <BA.N> 737 MAX, a key milestone to the plane's eventual ungrounding.

The FAA said the draft Flight Standardization Board report would be open for public comment through Nov. 2 before the procedures are finalized. The proposal adds new training requirements to deal with a key safety system called MCAS tied to two fatal crashes that killed 346 people and led to the plane's grounding in March 2019.

Boeing did not immediately comment.

MCAS, which was designed to help counter a tendency of the MAX to pitch up, could be activated after data from only a single Angle of Attack (AOA) sensor.

Faulty data that erroneously triggered MCAS to repeatedly activate played critical roles in fatal 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, a U.S. House report released last month said.

The FAA is requiring new safeguards to MCAS, including requiring it receive data from two sensors, before it allows the 737 MAX to return to service.

Pilots must undergo new simulator training before they can resume flights, including training on multiple flight deck alerts during unusual conditions along with how to respond to a runaway stabilizer with timely pilot actions required.

Pilots must also get training for erroneous, high AOA malfunctions.

The FAA must finalize the software upgrade requirements and other changes to the 737 MAX before it can issue an ungrounding order, which is expected at some point in November. That could allow the MAX to begin resuming commercial flights before the end of 2020.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler and Aurora Ellis)
We are proud to continue supporting A.C.T.s performance, education, and outreach programs through this donation.

Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution (Clearinghouse CDFI) announced today a $120,000 donation to Strand Theater, a 283-seat theater and 120 seat event and performance space owned by the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) in San Francisco. A.C.T. is a nonprofit theater company whose performance, education, and outreach programs benefit more than a quarter million people annually.

Clearinghouse CDFIs donation follows its original allocation of $14.6 million of New Market Tax Credits and $2.4 million of Historic Tax Credits for restoration of the historic theater in 2014. The Strand Theater, which reopened in 2015, is now a vibrant performing arts and education center serving the Bay Area and beyond.

The refurbishment of the Strand Theater has strengthened and inspired a diverse community in a severely distressed area of San Francisco, said Douglas Bystry, President and CEO of Clearinghouse CDFI. We are proud to continue supporting A.C.T.s performance, education, and outreach programs through this donation.

We are grateful for the generosity Clearinghouse CDFI has provided in support of the development of A.C.T.s Strand Theater in Mid-Market, said Jennifer Bielstein, Executive Director of A.C.T. The theater is a beautiful space for our community to come together through the power of live theater. We look forward to welcoming everyone back as soon as it is safe to gather.

Clearinghouse CDFI has funded $1.9 billion in total loans for over 1,900 community projects over the past 23 years. These projects have created or retained more than 21,500 jobs and benefit over 1.9 million individuals. This includes rehabilitation of more than 18 million square feet of blighted properties. In 2019, Clearinghouse CDFI financed projects served 84,685 individuals from minority populations, and 65% of all loans were made to minority and women-owned organizations.

About American Conservatory Theater

American Conservatory Theater is a Tony Awardwinning theater and educational institution dedicated to nurturing the art of live theater through dynamic productions, intensive actor training in its conservatory, and an ongoing engagement with its community. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon and Executive Director Jennifer Bielstein, A.C.T. embraces its responsibility to conserve, renew, and reinvent our relationship to the rich theatrical traditions and literatures that are our collective legacy, while exploring new artistic forms and new communities. A commitment to the highest standards informs every aspect of A.C.T.s creative work. Founded by pioneer of the regional theater movement William Ball, A.C.T. opened its first San Francisco season in 1967. Since then, A.C.T. has performed more than 400 productions to a combined audience of more than seven million people. A.C.T. reaches nearly 200,000 people through its productions and programs every year. For more information, visit https://www.act-sf.org/.

About Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution (Clearinghouse CDFI):

Clearinghouse CDFI addresses unmet credit needs throughout the U.S. and in Indian Country through direct lending, equity investments, and financial assistance. For over 23 years, Clearinghouse CDFI has helped bridge the gap between conventional lending standards and the needs of low-income, distressed, and communities of color. Clearinghouse CDFI is also a B Corpa certification received from the nonprofit B Lab. B Corps are companies who meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability, and use business as a force for good. More information is available at: http://www.ccdfi.com.
Police have discovered the remains of an individual killed by the MS-13 gang and buried in a wooded area about four years ago in Long Island.

The Nassau County Police acted on a tip Tuesday afternoon and were led to the shallow grave by a New York State Police search dog.

Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said the victim was one of 16 people who were reportedly killed by the notorious street gang, and six who were found buried throughout the New York City neighborhood.

Aerial view of the restrictive grounds of the Town of Hempstead water supply where authorities found the body of an individual was Tuesday. The victim is reportedly one of 16 who were murdered by the MS-13 gang in Long Island, according to the Nassau County Police

Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said investigators had visited the grounds of the water supply area in the town of Uniondale on two occasions, but never came to any conclusions until Tuesday afternoon when they acted on a tip and were led to the secret burial spot by the New York State Police dog

'We'll keep pushing until we put all of these savages behind jail and keep them there,' Ryder said. 'We believe they are all there now and we'll keep going after them until they're all arrested.'

Ryder said investigators had been to the Town of Hempstead public water supply, which is closed off to the public, on two occasions but failed to find any human remains of persons.

The burial spot in the town of Uniondale was covered with dirt, leaves and branches. The entrance gate to the water supply grounds was a couple of feet away from a passageway used by students as a shortcut to a local high school, according to WABC-TV.

Authorities made the gruesome discovery of a body that has been buried for at least three to four years the restrictive area of public water supply in Uniondale, New York. The remains belong to a person who was reported missing and allegedly killed by the MS-13 gang

Authorities made two visits to the Town of Hempstead public water supply in the past, but never found any human remains tied to killings reportedly carried out by the MS-13

The body, whose name, age and gender were not publicly released pending family notification, could be part of several people reported missing in 2016 or 2017, according to Ryder, who added that the police department has an idea who the person may be.

Newsday reported the remains were found about 300 yards inside the water supply's restricted zone.

The MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, was founded in Los Angeles between the 1970s and 1980s to provide protection for immigrants from El Salvador from rival gangs.

The gangs presence quickly spread to El Salvador as many members were deported, thus expanding the MS-13 influence to neighboring countries in Central America.

The notorious street gang throughout the years expanded across the United States, entrenching itself in New York, New Jersey, Texas, Mississippi and Virginia.
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Director General  Dr A P Maheshwari said on Wednesday that the paramilitary force will connect with at least 12 crore people through its 1,600 bases across the country in the next 100 days to educate them about Covid-19 safety measures as part of a mega-awareness campaign planned by the Centre.

Home minister Amit Shah had, on Tuesday, asked all the paramilitary forces to initiate a large scale campaign about Covid-19 safety protocols so that the number of cases can be controlled.

A meeting was held in the home ministry on Tuesday. It was decided that a campaign underlining three things - wearing a mask, washing hands and ensuring social or physical distancing, should be ensured by everyone to check the coronavirus spread. All the security forces, including the CRPF, will undertake this campaign in their respective areas. We aim to get in touch with 12 crore people through our 1,600 bases in the country over the next 100 days, Maheshwari said.

He informed that CRPF has already provided help to over 50,000 people affected due to the pandemic in the last six months.

Maheshwari was addressing the troops of the Rapid Action Force (RAF) on its 28th anniversary at the Central Reserve Police Force camp in Meerut.

The paramilitary forces  including, Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) - are currently engaged in providing medical, ration or blood/plasma related help to people in different states but the Centre has asked them to use their reach to inform people about life saving measures that can be easily taken.

CRPF spokesperson M Dhinakaran said  We have already made a large number of masks and sanitisers in various areas. As part of the latest Covid-19 campaign, our units will go to remote villages in Naxal-affected districts, north east and Jammu and Kashmir as well as cities in other states and inform people about advantages of wearing masks, washing hands and physical distancing. We will connect with RWAs, community leaders etc to send this message.

Speaking at the event, Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai said that the Delhi riots were part of a big conspiracy to disturb the peace of the country while lauding forces like the Rapid Action Force (RAF) for successfully foiling the evil designs of such people.

A big conspiracy was hatched to disturb the peace in the national capital this year through riots. However, the RAF played an important role in suppressing the elements that spread anarchy and ensured peace, Rai said, adding that the nefarious designs of rioters were completely defeated.

You suffer damage and injury during riots and protests...but you use force only when violent groups start troubling the peace of society, the MoS added.

The RAF is a special anti-riot wing of the CRPF and was raised in 1992. It is deployed for internal security and law and order duties in various states.

The force was deployed during the communal violence that broke out in northeast Delhi in February, killing 53 people and injuring about 200. Delhi Police has filed multiple chargesheets before a Delhi court in these cases.

The RAF has 15 battalions (over 15,000 personnel) located in various parts of the country.

Rai said that the best part about RAF is that it uses minimum force while maintaining peace in a particular area.

The MoS also lauded the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the parent organisation of RAF, for killing several terrorist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir in the last few years and playing a key role in bringing the population of the Union territory to the mainstream.
Good morning! It is 7 a.m. and your children are already freaking out about online school. Canvas, the platform that is supposed to store all of the assignments and lessons and links to Microsoft Teams, isnt working and one kids earbuds have disappeared. You were up until midnight finishing a presentation, but oh well! Over the next 10 hours you will be managing your childrens educational technology, attempting to keep them focused, attempting to get them outside, attempting to get them back inside, soothing their frustrations, relearning algebra, cooking their meals, filling their afternoons, and trying not to explode. Also, your boss sent you three emails overnight and in your head a cartoon clock is ticking, because you are also, supposedly, working a full-time job.

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For much of the spring and summer, parents were crying out, Why isnt anyone talking about how were going to reopen the schools? But now that its fall and many of the schools are still closed, I have another question, and its just as pressing: Why isnt anyone talking about a way to ease the impossible situation working parents find themselves in? Why isnt anyone talking about less work?

I know this sounds naive. Telling businesses not to maximize profits is practically unpatriotic!

No matter your situation, the coronavirus pandemic has no doubt made a total mess of your already precarious balance between work and life. In a recent New York Times pieceone of many exploring how stressed out parents areworking mothers and fathers said that to cope, they were quitting their jobs, or moving closer to extended family, or leaving children home alone, or abandoning public school for privatebecause, regardless of risk, at least the private schools were opening. But absent from that piece, as its been from nearly all writing on this subject, was a simple question: Why, with every single bit of routine and structure completely demolished by this pandemic, are we still acting like work is the same? And whywhen working parents are looking to the government, to the school districts, to the child care providers, to face reality and help us improve itare we not also looking at our bosses?

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My argument is simple: If you are the boss, you need to pump the brakes in 2020 and 2021. Anyone who runs a company should recognize that an enormous number of their employees simply cannot be as productive during the pandemic as they typically are. This means not just an avuncular acceptance of the occasional adorable-baby Zoom cameo. This means understanding that youre not going to make as much moneyor, maybe, any moneyfor the time being. Forget your ambitious growth plans and all those financial goals. The only goal you need to have until life goes back to normal is to make as much money as it takes to keep your business afloat. This is not the time for high expectations. This is the time to keep your companys head just above water.

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I know this sounds naive. Telling businesses not to maximize profits is practically unpatriotic! But a growing cohort of economists and academics argue that making such a move is not only the right thing to do ethically, but is in fact a canny long-term strategic decision, one that can set a company up to bounce back more quickly during the inevitable economic rebound. I dont think its naive, said Andrew Kassoy when I told him about my modest proposal. Kassoy is the CEO of B Lab, the organization that certifies companies that agree to meet high standards of social and environmental benefit as B Corps. I think its totally reasonable, and I think its absolutely true. We should expect businesses to look out for their workforce, who are their greatest assetnot just in the midst of a pandemic, but all the time. They should make sure people have balance and can look out for their families. Those are the purposes of a job in the first place.

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Theres precedent for this. The mid-20th century economic boom owes its existence to leaders of industry deciding to dial back their capitalistic rapaciousness for the common good (and, as it happens, the long-term good of their companies). Were currently in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and it was on the heels of that calamity, during World War II, that a group of executives from firms like Coca-Cola, GE, and General Motors began meeting to plan the postwar recovery they hoped they could help facilitate. The Committee for Economic Development, as it was called, hatched an enormous jobs programbut also committed to their businesses thinking about employees, and their relationship to the company, in a completely new way. They said, We are going to hit the brakes on extracting as much resources from our business as we possibly can,  explained Rita Gunther McGrath, a professor at Columbia Business School.  We are going to allow labor to have a seat at the table. Were going to cover health insurance, provide generous benefits. Because we need to create a consumer class. 

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In hyper-competitive 2020, though, theres no incentive for individual companies to make similar decisions. Especially not when the pandemic is increasing pressure on companies. The issue is that some competitor is not going to [slow down], and at the end of the day its a competitive environment, said Robert Ployhart, a professor of management at the University of South Carolina, who does think my proposal is naive. When all this is over, you dont want to be on the bottom of your competitive group.

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Felix Salmon, host of the Slate Money podcast and chief financial correspondent for Axios, said he thinks of the problem in a different way than I hadnot companies planning to make less money, but companies responding to the reality of a distracted, stressed-out workforce. Its not like you have the option of having all your employees be as productive as they always were, he said, when I asked him if he thought bosses should cut their employees more slack. On some level this isnt even a decision that companies can make. Its a fact of life thats being forced upon them. Companies facing that loss of productivity and revenue have a decision to make about what kind of pressure to put on workers, and how to treat them in a difficult year. If you have an employee whos a parent and whos a great manager and who is having to suddenly juggle a bunch of schooling and stuff, does it make any sense to fire or demote that person for things that are completely outside their control? Salmon asked. If you do, you end up rewarding the people who got lucky. Who dont have kidslucky indeed!or live in the suburbs or didnt get COVID or whatever. Rewarding employees for getting lucky is not a sensible thing to do strategically. What you want to do is reward the kinds of things that will have a good long-term effect on your companys culture and profits.

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The problem is that if you only lower goals for the unlucky among us, someone else gets screwed. This can leave employees without children resentful of their colleagues with children, who have mostly been the ones aided by the patchwork of new benefits like extended family leave. Which is, again, why companies should not just lighten the load for a few. Instead, companies should understand that, like the rest of us, they must shoulder some of the burden of the pandemic by lowering expectations for everyone, which means lowering expectations for the business itself.

But talking with economists and academics, I started to think of my argument less as a demand for companies to declare themselves ready for a bad year in the service of their employees, and more that companies should be investing in unprofitabilitythat, in a year when everyone is struggling, they should take the opportunity to build and support their workers, the resource most likely to help them rebound down the road. Misty Heggeness, a research economist at the U.S. Census Bureau whos studied how the pandemic has disproportionately affected working women, agreed. Its not so naive, she said, to think about making investments in the short run that might temporarily reduce profits that, once were beyond this pandemic, will put you in a better spot to ramp up.

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Zeynep Ton at MITs Sloan School of Management rejected my binary profits-or-workers argument entirely, insisting that even in a crisis, companies that focus on treating their employees well position themselves to winnot to be mediocre, but to win with good jobs. Of course, its much easier for companies that are already winning to dial things back than it is for companies that are, say, staving off bankruptcy to make the choice to lose more money. Many small businesses, especially in retail, are facing existential crises, and the pandemic choice has come down to furloughing employees or going out of business and losing them all. Still, there are plenty of businesses in the middle, companies with healthy cash reserves that arent risking collapse but just facing a worse-than-usual year. There are huge distinctions between what large multinationals and small companies can do during these kinds of situations, said Kassoy. Ive been disappointed that many of those large companies havent done more.

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For any company that is fortunate enough to be able to have a four-, five-plus-year time horizon, Salmon told me, it makes sense for them to look past this years profits and probably next years profits and try and manage for the long term. If you do that, you wind up with a strategic stance which is very similar to the one that youre talking about.

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The problem is, as Robert Ployhart put it, companies are less likely to take the long view in a time of crisis. But its time for them to start! Its time for business leaders to exhibit some courage and save Americas parents. Take the pressure off your employees. Give everyone more time off, reduce duties, chill out on targets and quarterly whatchamacallits, put those ambitious projects on the back burner. And then maybe 2020 wont be a lost year after all. Itll be the year you laid the groundwork for a business that thrives well into the future, with loyal employees whowhen they actually have the time and energy to do their jobswill do them well.
Lilongwe  (C)Govati Nyirenda

Malawi President, Dr Lazarus Chakwera has hailed his state visit to the Republic of Mozambique as a move to further cement the bilateral relationship between the two countries.

This is a third international state visit since he was elected to power on 23 June, 2020 after visiting Zambia and Zimbabwe respectively.

Briefing the media on arrival at the Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) Chakwera said his visit to Mozambique was very successful as he tackled, with his Mozambican counterpart, Philip Nyusi, various topics of mutual benefit to the people of the two nations.

"We discussed various important issues that matter to the two countries. For instance, President Nyusi is very ready to work with us in areas of energy, agriculture, security and rail transport among others.

"The Mozambican President has assured me that he will make sure that farm inputs, especially fertilizer will be transported into the country through Mozambique without any challenges," he said.

The Malawi leader said he was thrilled because President Nyusi gave him a warm reception and that he was quite aware of how strategic Beira and Nacala Ports are to Malawi, as a landlocked country.

Chakwera's visit happens when northern Mozambique is having its security being compromised due to some rebellious attacks.

The President said he wants problems affecting any of the countries within the SADC region to be considered as shared problems to all member states.

"We need to join hands in dealing with such situations to ensure that people of those affected countries are helped accordingly," he said.

Chakwera said Malawi was currently working with Zambia in the sector of energy noting that the two countries shared similar problem of black outs.

The Plane carrying President Chakwera touched down at KIA at around 4 :27pm and the president was met on arrival by the State Vice President, Dr Saulos Klaus Chilima.

KIA was dressed with different political party colours of the Tonse Alliance member parties that include the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), UTM and Peoples Party (PP) among others.
Afghan peace negotiator Abdullah Abdullah on Wednesday discussed his countrys peace process with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, who told him India is in favour of a democratic and sovereign Afghanistan where no terrorists can operate.

Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation in Afghanistan, met Doval on Wednesday evening to brief him on the talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban at Doha in Qatar.

Doval hosted a dinner for Abdullahs delegation that was attended by foreign secretary Harsh Shringla, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, army chief Gen MM Naravane, senior officials of the external affairs ministry and key members of the High Council for National Reconciliation.

Abdullah tweeted that he had a constructive discussion with Doval on the Afghan peace process and the talks in Doha. He [Doval] assured me of Indias full support for the peace efforts, and that any peace settlement acceptable to Afghans, will have the support of India, Abdullah said.

He [Doval] further stated that his country is in favour [of] an independent, democratic, sovereign & peaceful Afghanistan, where no terrorists can operate, he added.

Abdullah also thanked India for its continued support for Afghanistan and its constructive role in peace efforts.

There was no official word on the meeting from the Indian side.

Abdullah arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday afternoon for a five-day visit, during which he will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday and external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Friday.

He will also deliver a speech at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) on Thursday.

Before his arrival in India, Abdullah issued a statement that described India as a strategic partner of Afghanistan. He said, Our historical relation with India is very important to us, and the role of India in establishing a lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region is vital. I am visiting India on an official invitation by the government of India to discuss the peace efforts, and the need for regional consensus and support for the Afghan peace process.

Abdullahs visit is part of an outreach to key countries in the region for support for the negotiations in Doha. He travelled to India after a three-day visit to Pakistan last week.

In Islamabad, he had met Prime Minister Imran Khan, foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa. Abdullah told the Pakistani leadership that a message about reducing violence and showing greater flexibility in negotiations should be communicated to the Taliban leadership participating in the negotiations in Doha.

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 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.

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Shilajit Mitra By

Express News Service

A dapting Manu Josephs 2010 novel, Sudhir Mishra was drawn to the irreverent nature of the work. The poor in Manus world are not boring, the director notes. They can have a plan and take control of their lives. They are not just worms crawling and being stomped over. Its not that kind of a bad art film view of the world. The resultant film, Serious Men, was released on Netflix on October 2. Nawazuddin Siddiqui stars as Ayyan Mani, a working-class Dalit immigrant living in Mumbai.

Ayyan, whose parents were agricultural labourers from the south, dreams of a better life for his child. He frames his schoolgoing boy as a genius and runs an elaborate con involving a local redevelopment project. The character, with his sportive mix of impishness and underdog drive, is a great fit for Nawazuddin, whose own journey as an outsider in Mumbai is well known.

I like to personalise every character I play, the actor says. We all come with dreams of achieving something in life. When we cant, we try to complete those dreams through our children. Sometimes, in doing so, we end up adopting the wrong ways. In the film, Ayyan works as a personal assistant at the National Institute of Fundamental Research. His boss, Acharya, is a Brahmin scientist probing space microbes in the stratosphere.

Their relationship approximates how caste hierarchies operate in the scientific world, and how desperate Ayyan is to subvert the equation. I liked that this was a realistic film, says M Nassar, who plays Acharya. Ive come across such characters before. There are lots of Acharyas in Tamil films (laughs). I also liked the subtle way the film discusses caste politics. This, Sudhir agrees, was a major note in Manus book  as well as the subsequent screenplay by Abhijeet Khuman and Bhavesh Mandalia. Serious Men takes the issue of caste and makes it into a metaphor, Sudhir says. Ayyan is aware of the burden it has placed on him.

At the same time, he deals with it in a manner thats upfront and non-victimised. So, in a way, it is more hopeful. Its not asking for pity. Its not about an outsider coming and liberating the downtrodden. Its about the insider himself grappling with his issues and finding a way out. Much of the film was shot at the BDD Chawls in Worli, Mumbai. Erected in 1920, the chawl was converted into a prison during the independence struggle. Later, it was populated by mill workers and state employees belonging to Mumbais Ambedkarite community. Just like in the film, the chawls residents have been embroiled in a tense eviction battle with the state government.

Theres also a wealth of visual contrast mined: Ayyans crumbling tenement flat is dwarfed by the rising skyscrapers of Lower Parel. It was a lovely experience shooting at BDD Chawl, Nawazuddin says. Ive lived in such places so it didnt seem out of the ordinary. Theres a kinship I started to feel with the place. Nassar, who has shot for films like David and Marjaavan in Mumbai before, says he loves exploring the city. I like the slum areas of Mumbai. When I walk across those areas, I see genuine happiness in the children living there.

If only that happy child is groomed properly, what a wonderful citizen it will become. The films supporting cast is of note, particularly Sanjay Narvekar as politician Dharve and Indira Tiwari as Oja, Ayyans wife. I remembered Sanjay as Dedh Phutiya in Vaastav, Sudhir shares. Hes a wonderful actor and human being. Meeting him, its hard to imagine he can play such rough-hewn characters. Indira, too, is a find. She has played Oja with such grace. Talking about the scene where Ayyan threatens a little girl on the rooftop, Nawaz says it brings out his desperate humanity. Every character has good and bad qualities. Its not a dark shade but a grey shade. We all have our negativities and politics. Thats what makes a film realistic, the actor concludes.

I like to personalise every character I play. We all come with dreams of achieving something in

life. When we cant, we try to achieve those through our children
Donald Trump Holds Campaign Event In Duluth, MN

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One for a campaign rally at the Duluth International Airport on Sept. 30, 2020 in Duluth, Minnesota. Credit - Stephen MaturenGetty Images

This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIMEs politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

About this time four years ago, there was a smug confidence among the pundit class in Washington that Hillary Clinton was going to grind her way to a victory, Donald Trump was going to spend the rest of his life claiming he had been cheated of the White House and politics would find its equilibrium and forever swear off treating elections like a reality show.

Golly, were we wrong. Whatever the current polls say, we should consider this possible election outcome: Trump may well win a second term.

The President is back at the White House and reportedly on the mend after three nights in Walter Reed, recovering from COVID-19. Hes champing at the bit to get back out on the campaign trail himself. He says he wants to debate Joe Biden next week as planned, and hes sending Vice President Mike Pence into tonights debate in Utah and tomorrows rally in Arizona ready to fight for votes.

Trump has been running for re-election since he won in 2016. Even in the window between his win and his Inauguration, he held thank you rallies. He started raising money and building a machine earlier than anyone in U.S. history. His takeover of the Republican Party started in the West Wing and the Republican National Committee, but he carefully installed loyalists in state parties and, in turn, shoveled GOP cash to them to build-out turnkey get-out-the-vote operations for him.

There is always a back-and-forth on which party has the upper hand when it comes to the use of tech, but no one can deny Trump has gone bigger on social-media spending. On Facebook and Google alone this year, Trump has spent $195 million to Bidens $124 million, according to tracking done by Democratic firm Bully Pulpit Interactive.

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Over the years, Trump has proven to be a Teflon contender, the ever-cascading series of scandals that have befallen his tenure never seeming to stick. Despite lagging Biden in national polls, he remains within striking distance in key states like North Carolina and Florida. Trump has had his hands on the wheel for the last four years. Its been a bumpy ride, but for many voters, thats been fine. The pre-coronavirus economy was humming along, Trump had alienated many global peers but hadnt started any more wars, and the impeachment saga proved insufficient to remove Trump from office. His ability to shock and offend is now a rote part of American politics.

There are, of course, things Trump should be worried about. Hes been slipping with important blocs of voters since his first weeks in office. In the latest NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll, there comes this warning sign: before the debate in Cleveland, Trump was ahead of Biden by 23 points among white voters who lack a college degree; after the debate, that advantage shrunk to 14 points. Trump faced his biggest declines among older voters and suburban women, two groups he is now on pace to lose by more than points.

Trump came to power in large part by being underestimated. Theres a lot of that happening again, with observers looking at data points like white voters slide away from Trump and his financial troubles. But Trump is also not wrong when he asserts that many of the people who will vote for him  not MAGA loyalists, but those who will ultimately cast their ballot for him anyway  arent showing up in polls and are still as aggrieved as they were four years ago when they helped vote him into power.

On Nov. 3, if Trump easily carries a vault of important states like Texas and Georgia, plus holding on in Ohio, Michigan and Arizona on top of the states that are already expected to be in the bag with him, we could see a Trump win declared that night. Biden has said he will concede if he loses. But whereas Biden has a half-dozen routes to the needed 270 electoral votes, Trumps path is one that requires everything falling into place and little margin for error.

A lot of Americans just want this election to be over. Were all tired. And given that collective lack of sleep, we could also be as wrong as we were four years ago.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.
She may be one of Australia's most glamorous footy WAGs.

But Rebecca Judd's mind went straight to the gutter on Tuesday during a discussion about sticky substances on KIIS FM's 3pm Pick-Up.

The mother of four, 37, and her radio co-host Katie 'Monty' Dimond were discussing the sticky consistency of eggs, when Rebecca interjected: 'It's like semen, don't you reckon?'

Grim: Rebecca Judd's mind was in the gutter on Tuesday as she casually referenced the smell and consistency of semen during a discussion about eggs on KIIS FM's 3pm Pick-Up

A stunned Monty fell silent, prompting Rebecca to ask producers to remove that section of the discussion from the podcast - which they didn't.

'Cut that bit out... But it is, don't you reckon? It doesn't come off!' she said, adding: 'It's the same [as egg], maybe because it's, like, a natural substance.'

An awkward silence ensued, before Monty swiftly changed the subject.

'It doesn't come off!' Rebecca likened semen to eggs, insisting that it 'sticks' to everything

Rebecca's awkward confession comes a year after her husband, retired AFL star Chris Judd, confessed in an interview that he'd imposed a 'sex ban' on his amorous wife.

The former Carlton captain revealed on Triple M that he refused to get intimate with Bec should she order Italian from UberEats instead of Chinese food.

He said: 'Bec wanted the Italian, I wanted the Chinese, and I said, "I'm not having Italian." I said, "If you're having Italian, I'm going on a sex strike."

Banned! Rebecca's awkward confession comes a year after her husband, retired AFL star Chris Judd (left), confessed in an interview that he'd imposed a 'sex ban' on his amorous wife

'Let's just say within half an hour I was sitting on the couch eating a big bowl of black bean!'

Chris added: 'That's the power of a sex strike. Some people would say that's cruel - it's cruel to use that treatment on Bec, to take that away from her - but I can see the power in it.'

The Judds have been married for 10 years and share four children: son Oscar, eight, daughter Billie, six, and twin boys Tom and Darcy, four.
On Nov. 2, 2010, Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., was hours away from the end of his political career. He didn't know it for sure yet  he was clinging to a slim hope he might survive  but he could feel that the political tides, turning in North Dakota for decades, might finally drag him under. Before results came in, he wrote a concession speech.

That night, Pomeroy sat with his staff in a Fargo hotel room and watched television reporters count the votes. Western North Dakota, as they'd expected, was looking red. But Cass County trickled in with less support than he'd like. Grand Forks and Barnes were looking anemic, too.

Pomeroy, after 18 years in Congress, had seen enough. He practiced the speech he'd written a few times; he wanted, he said in a July interview, to make sure he didn't choke up. Then he went downstairs and delivered it.

Just a short walk away, at another Fargo hotel, Rick Bergs night was going well. The former state House majority leader  and now a GOP congressman-elect  was crowing about the sudden, seismic shift in North Dakota and national politics that was sweeping him into office.

"Two years ago, people wanted change, Berg told the crowd. But what they wanted was for Washington to change."

They got their wish. Pomeroy's departure meant that, for the first time in three decades, the state's lone congressman wouldn't be a Democrat. And across the country, the tea party revolution was sweeping Democrats away. The GOP would pick up 63 U.S. House seats  the biggest power shift in congressional midterm elections in generations.

Its hard to pick a date that the Democratic-NPLs golden years ended. One answer might be in the early 1990s, when the governorship slipped away. In an interview, former Sen. Byron Dorgan called Ed Schafers 1992 win a watershed: It meant that the GOP could suddenly control the flow of political appointees and build a political bench  ensuring theyd have better candidates in elections to come.

Another moment might be as late as 2018, when Sen. Heidi Heitkamp lost to then-GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer, surrendering the partys last statewide office. But by then, the state had become so red that it became hard to imagine when there might be another statewide Democrat again.

This is the fifth and final installment in a series produced by Forum News Service and the North Dakota Newspaper Association Education Foundation, exploring North Dakotas political history. The series has charted the course nearly from statehood, beginning with the rise of the Nonpartisan League  a prairie political rebellion built on farmers grievances  through the Depression years, the New Deal, the Cold War arrival of Air Force bases and the discovery of the states vast oil reserves.

Each of those has had a profound effect on state politics. Pomeroy, looking back on his career, sees his own undoing in the political fight over the Affordable Care Act  the health care law that the 2010 election was nominally about  but knows there was more on the ballot.

Nothing stays the same, and so North Dakota's economy changes, Pomeroy said  like farms getting bigger, smaller towns withering and the arrival of an oil industry reshaping state politics. The knockout round came in 2010, but the GOP had been punching stronger for years.

Thats also true of state demographics, which Pomeroy points out are tending more and more into an overlap with the core Republican base: whiter than the rest of the country  with fewer college graduates but more modest incomes  and oftentimes at church on Sundays.

I think the Republican Party is going to be in pretty good shape for a pretty good while given its alignment with that demographic base, Pomeroy said.

From Cass County to Bismarck

But while it might be hard to pinpoint where the Democratic-NPLs golden age ended, its a lot easier to pick when it started. Probably the best answer is the election of Gov. Bill Guy in 1960  just a few years after the Democratic Party and the long-time populist Nonpartisan League merged.

Guy came to power after an early career as a Cass County farmer. He was a school board member, then he was a failed legislative candidate  multiple times, in fact  before a steep and sudden rise to high office. He was elected to the state House in 1958; he became governor in 1960 when he won just a little less than 50% of the vote, beating out his GOP rival by a little less than 5 points.

And as governor, he was recognized as a modernizer. An obituary from 2013 quotes an effusive bunch of colleagues, including Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., who called him a man who brought us into the 20th Century. Guy helped build the deep Democratic bench that would rule the state for years, too  appointing Dorgan, the future senator, as Tax Commissioner. Democrats success would continue for years, through two more Democratic governors.

I have no idea why he selected a 26-year-old to run a state agency," Dorgan said. "I remember him very well, and I spent time with him in the car driving to events, other events in the state. I sat in his cabinet meetings. He was just very very smart, and very interested in a wide-ranging set of issues, including water policy. People knew that he was a very active, very interesting man who was going to do things that could make a difference and be positive for North Dakotans."

There are dozens of ways to explain the partys success and its eventual unraveling, which is precisely what makes it so hard to map out. While its true that North Dakota changed  with farms getting bigger and oil money and Air Force bases reshaping the state  the rest of the world was changing, too.

Sen. Cramer, the man who finally defeated the last Democratic incumbent in 2018, puts Democrats failures in less flattering terms. In his retelling, the party couldnt read the economic tea leaves, and crucially lost rural areas as farms got bigger by backing the wrong farm policies.

(But its clearly a cultural matter, too, as the Democratic Party becomes more diverse and urban and the GOP remains largely white and increasingly rural. Cramer, for example, pokes fun at Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Bookers veganism as not relatable)

The rise of conservative media has helped shift the loyalties of small-town America, and political alignment is now as much urban-rural as have vs. have-not. Politics are more combative, especially after the 1990s House speakership of Newt Gingrich. And the racial demographics of the U.S. are shifting quickly, heightening some white voters deep-seated racist anxieties.

But theres something almost cyclical to it though, too. Mark Jendrysik, a UND political scientist, points out that, on a long enough time scale, stretching back beyond the Democrats golden years, the state is reverting to a deeply Republican past.

"You could argue what's happened in the last decade, 20 years, is a reassertion of the pattern of North Dakota politics, where the Republicans are dominant, and whatever other party exists is marginal at best, Jendrysik said. And the North Dakota Democrats of today are marginal at best, he said, without the on-the-ground organization or the high-profile leaders they need to be effective at the state level.

"Which is unfortunate, he said, Because that's what keeps the majority party on its toes."

For now, the Democratic-NPL is wandering in the wilderness, its statewide candidates typically doomed to landslide losses. But Kylie Oversen, the party chairwoman, sees brighter days ahead.

We dont take for granted that winning back the governors seat, as Democrats, is probably the most important thing we could do to take back power. But, on the other hand, there is also real power in the Legislature, she said. ... Maybe we wont be in the majority in the next two or three cycles. But we can get back to a little more balance. We picked up seats in 2018. Im confident well pick up seats in 2020.

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In the pantheon of popular music, it's a shame the guitar has taken a big-time back seat to more artificial musical leanings. I love the instrument; I've spent my whole life obsessed with it. So, yeah, it makes me sad to see it fading away, out of public interest. But I get it, we're in a digital age, and the guitar is a bit too analog. Plus, I think too many people misrepresented the guitar as a corny extension of a hackneyed rocker's prick, a dishonor to the instrument's gorgeously expressive and supremely emotive nature. Eddie Van Halen knew how to make the guitar sing in a way that transformed the tool into a cultural touchstone. We need more EVH's in this world to reintroduce the guitar to the people, as it was meant to be, not the shell of what it has become.
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Linkedin Winny Triswandhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7, 2020 11:17 473 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c499dcc3 3 Books historical-fiction,books,book-recommendation Free

Our anxiety caused by being confined at home for months and months has slowly shifted to anxiety about the unprecedented changes that are happening in the many facets of our lives, and wondering when we can go back to life as we knew it. Our traveling plans will have to wait while we hold our breath underneath our cloth masks whenever we step out of our home confinement.

In the meantime, I find solace and escape through historical fictions. Theres nothing like delving deep into history to remind us of human resilience while also distracting us temporarily -- in a good way -- from our current troubling situation. When we read about historical figures chattering, scheming, fighting, romancing and eventually dying, the current distressing situation disappears temporarily from our mind, reminding us of the timelessness of the human struggle. And, as a result, maybe once were done with the books, our jagged breath will slowly become calmer again.

Here are some page-turners to remind you that in the big picture, our current situation is merely a blip in history.

1. Robert Graves - I Claudius

Robert Graves wrote the novel in 1934 as an autobiography of Claudius and his unlikely ascent to become emperor of Rome. Crippled, lame and thought to be an idiot, Claudius had to literally play the fool to survive the murderous internal politics and dangerous jostling of power in the most powerful house in ancient history. In Graves hands, the timeless novel brought to life a family worthy of Game of Thrones inspiration. His grandmother, Livia, easily poisons rivals to keep her husbands power. His sister, Livilla, casually disposes of her husband before being starved to death by her own mother. His nephew, Caligula, thinks himself as God and demands devotion as such. Meanwhile, Claudius tries to keep his nose down and chronicle history dutifully while the world around him catches fire.

If you like this, youll love: The follow-up Claudius the God by the same author, chronicling his reign as Emperor; Augustus by John Williams; Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar.

2. Anne Marie Selinko - Desiree

I particularly love this for the stranger-than-fiction satisfying ending. This novel chronicles the unbelievable true story of how the daughter of a silk merchant in Marseilles became the Queen of Sweden; and thats after Napoleon Bonaparte dumped her. Imagine, youre a young girl from Marseille who was unceremoniously ghosted by your fiancee and first love. Imagine if said fiancee became the worlds most respected military figure while marrying one of the most glamorous women in the country, becoming historys original #CoupleGoals. Now imagine this happening while your own sister had married his brother, turning your ex-fiancee into your in-law. Desiree Clary could have been immortalized only in the list of poor jilted lovers, but she ended up as Queen of Sweden while Napoleon died alone in exile, his family ruined.

If you like this, youll love: Sandra Gulland's The Josephine B Trilogy for a page-turning chronicle of Napoleon and Josephine

3. Isabel Allende - The House of Spirit

Set in an unnamed South American country, Isabel Allende constructed a saga spanning three generations of the Trueba family centering on the hateful patriarch, Esteban Trueba. Colored by original magical characters including a globetrotting adventurer uncle, eccentric clairvoyant Clara and the beautiful green-haired mermaid-like Rosa, the book has one foot in a Latin country on the brink of revolution and another in a fantasy land. The absurdities that follow the Trueba family symbolize the political stand of the characters.

If you like this, youll love: Anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez for its brand of magical realism and the Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

4. John Shors - Beneath a Marble Sky

When his wife passed away, Hindustans emperor Shah Jahan was shattered and poured his grief into building an unparalleled monument for his wife. This novel told the story of the Taj Mahals development, woven into the royal princess Jahanaras own story of brutal arranged marriage, murderous family rivalries and her own forbidden love with the monuments architect. Despite it being 350 pages long, the book is an easy read that also informs on issues such as womens oppression and Hindu-Buddha-Islam tension during 17th century Hindustan.

5. Lisa See - The Snow Flower and Secret Fan

What makes this novel so special for me is not just the lyrical prose and exquisite details, but the overall theme that is rarely touched in fiction: the mystery of female friendship.

From the official summary, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. Lily, the daughter of a poor farmer family at the tender age of seven, is paired with a laotong, old same, in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. The laotong, Snow Flower, introduces herself by sending Lily a silk fan on which shes painted a poem in nu shu, a unique language that Chinese women created in order to communicate in secret, away from the influence of men.

As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on fans, compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of isolation to share their hopes, dreams and accomplishments. Together they endure the agony of foot-binding and reflect upon their arranged marriages, shared loneliness and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive.

If you like this, you'll love: Memoirs of a Geisha; Lust, Caution (the film)

6. Mary Renault - The Persian Boy

These days the news seems to be filled with antagonists; our folk hero turns into an anti-hero. I just want to go back to falling in love with a flawless idol, and Alexander is as perfect as it gets. Told through the worshiping eyes of Alexanders favorite eunuch and lover, Mary Renaults Alexander is a beautiful, loving, cultured conqueror with an unmatched brilliance on the battleground who could do no wrong, apart from maybe drinking unboiled water amid a war that brought an early end to his life and world dominance. This tale is worthy of his demi-god, world-conquering myth that has lasted over 2,000 years.

If you like this, youll love: The entire Alexander trilogy from Mary Renault, Alexander at the Worlds End by Tom Holt

7. Hilary Mantel - Bringing up the Bodies

With its dense dialogue and a plot that spans over 400 pages, this book is not the easiest read. The second installment of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, Bringing up the Bodies is the most riveting as it drops the readers into Henry VIIIs most infamous chapter of history. Thomas Cromwell had to build a case to allow Henry to annul his marriage to Anne Boleyn while keeping his throne and breaking away from the Pope bloodlessly. If you love political intrigue from House of Cards to Games of Thrones, youll enjoy how Cromwell, a brilliant man from an unlikely plebeian background, continuously schemes against the wolves that circle the Tudor court.

If you like this, youll love: Hilary Mantels Wolf Hall trilogy. The Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George; The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory

***

Winny Triswandhani is an avid reader and observer of literature and the performing arts. She is a member of the COVID-19 virtual batch of the Baca Rasa Dengar book club and currently a communications practitioner in a tech company.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., August 19, 2020.

This is the second time that the same appeals court has rejected Trump's request to deny Vance access to tax returns dating back to 2011 by upholding a lower Manhattan federal court ruling.

Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow said later Wednesday morning that he will ask the Supreme Court to stay the unanimous decision against the president by the three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, pending his planned request to ask the high court to overturn the appeals ruling.

But the appeals court suspended enforcement of that subpoena by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., giving Trump time to ask the Supreme Court, for a second time, to step into the case and block the subpoena permanently.

A federal appeals court in Manhattan on Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump 's effort to block enforcement of a grand jury subpoena that demands years of his income tax returns from his accountants.

Trump lost an earlier appeal of a similar ruling when he successfully asked the Supreme Court to review the case.

The Supreme Court this summer said that Trump did not have an "absolute" right to prevent his accounting firm Mazars USA from complying with the subpoena just because he is president.

But the high court at the same time had allowed Trump to raise new objections with a Manhattan federal court judge, who had rejected his first effort to stop the subpoena from being enforced.

However, the judge quickly denied Trump's new arguments that the subpoena was overbroad and issued in bad faith. That loss triggered Trump's second appeal, which was denied Wednesday.

Vance is seeking tax returns related to the president and the Trump Organization and related entities as part of a criminal investigation of Trump's company.

Court filings suggest that the probe is not only eyeing hush-money payments made shortly before the 2016 presidential election to two women who said they had sex with Trump, but also possible tax crimes, as well as insurance and bank fraud by the company in connection with the valuation of Trump-owned assets.

Vance's office already said he would not seek to enforce the subpoena, which was issued in August 2019 by a grand jury, to allow Trump time to exhaust his appeals.

The Supreme Court is not required to take any appeal of a lower court decision.

In its opinion Wednesday, the panel of judges briskly brushed aside Trump's claims.

"We find that the claim of overbreadth is not plausibly alleged for two interrelated reasons," the appeals panel wrote.

The panel said that Trump's "bare assertion that the scope of the grand jury's investigation is limited only to certain payments made by" his then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen in 2016 to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who was one of two women who said she had sex with Trump, "amounts to nothing more than implausible speculation."

"Second, without the benefit of this linchpin assumption, all other allegations of overbreadth  based on the types of documents sought, the types of entities covered, and the time period covered by the subpoena, as well as the subpoena's near identity to a prior Congressional subpoena  fall short of meeting the plausibility standard," the court said.

"Similarly, the President's allegations of bad faith fail to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued out of malice or an intent to harass. Accordingly, we affirm" the lower court ruling.

The panel was composed of the judges Pierre Leval and Robert Katzman, both of whom were appointed to the 2nd Circuit by President Bill Clinton, and Raymond Lohier, who was appointed to the appeals court by President Barack Obama.

Vance's office declined to comment on the ruling.

Trump's lawyer and a White House spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.

This is breaking news. Check back for updates.
Ghislaine Maxwell has reportedly added Bobbi Sternheim to her legal team

Maxwell, 58, is in jail in Brooklyn awaiting trial next year for sex trafficking

Sternheim represented Khaled al-Fawwaz, sentenced to life in 2015 for terrorism

Al-Fawwaz was found guilty of plotting the 1998 Kenya and Tanzania bombings

She also represented Minh Quang Pham, sentenced in 2016 to 40 years

Pham was charged with plotting a suicide attack on London's Heathrow airport

Ghislaine Maxwell has hired a New York-based lawyer who previously represented one of Osama bin Laden's henchmen, as she seeks to bolster her team ahead of her sex trafficking trial next year.

Bobbi Sternheim is described on the website of her law firm, Fasulo Braverman & Di Maggio, as a 'recognized leader' in 'litigating difficult and complex cases'.

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They say she holds Top Secret/SCI Clearance and has tried international organized crime and racketeering conspiracies, international terrorism offenses, international telemarketing fraud, capital murder, and interstate transport of pornographic media.

Bobbi Sternheim has been hired by Ghislaine Maxwell to help her defense in next year's trial

Sternheim has made a name for herself representing a series of Al Qaida terrorists

Among her most famous clients is Khaled al-Fawwaz, described by prosecutors as 'a top al-Qaida terrorist'.

She represented him during his 2015 trial on charges of conspiracy resulting in twin embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, which killed 224 people.

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Manhattan prosecutors said that al-Fawwaz 'worked for years, directly and personally for Osama bin Laden. ... The defendant helped Osama bin Laden declare his bloody war on Americans.'

Al-Fawwaz was sentenced to life in prison.

Maxwell, pictured with her late pedophile ex Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested this summer

Maxwell, seen in July during her videoconference arraignment, is being held in jail

Charges against Maxwell were unsealed on July 2 by New York prosecutors

Sternheim, the former head of New York Women's Bar Association, also took on another high profile case involving a Vietnamese man who U.S. authorities say was instructed by a top figure with al Qaedas Yemen affiliate to carry out a suicide attack at Londons Heathrow Airport.

Minh Quang Pham, 33, was sentenced by a Manhattan judge to 40 years in March 2016, after pleading guilty to charges he provided material support to al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Pham, a graphic artist who left behind a pregnant wife in Britain to travel to Yemen in 2010, admitted he helped prepare the Islamist militant groups online propaganda magazine, Inspire, and received military-type training.

Prosecutors said Pham was trained on how to carry out the suicide attack on Heathrow by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric who became a leader in the group. Al-Awlaki was killed in a September 2011 U.S. drone attack.

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Maxwell, 58, is currently in jail awaiting trial on grooming and abuse charges, which she denies, after being arrested in the US in July.

Papers filed at New York's Southern District Court, obtained by The Daily Mirror, said Sternheim 'hereby appears as counsel for defendant Ghislaine Maxwell'.
The Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar yesterday convened a meeting with a number of IDA Irelands bio -pharmaceutical client companies to hear about the role they are playing in the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic both nationally and internationally.

The meeting which was held over video conference included several of the bio pharmaceutical companies who are developing vaccines or therapeutic treatments in Ireland which are: Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Gilead, Regeneron, Sanofi and Janssen Sciences.

The FDI biopharma sector directly employs 34,000 in Ireland and is the third largest exporter of pharmaceuticals globally, accounting for exports of 80bn.

Speaking after the meeting, the Tanaiste said, "Ireland is a really attractive location for bio-pharma and other high-tech companies to invest and with all of these major global companies based here, we have a real role to play in finding treatments and a vaccine for this virus. I also took the opportunity today to thank the companies and the 34,000 people they employ here, for the work they have been doing over the past few months to defeat Covid."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has refused calls to resign over a damning Church of England child sex assault inquiry's 'shameful and disgraceful' findings.

The religious leader, 64, admitted he understood why victims may be asking for him to step down, but he insisted he was better staying in the role to continue his work.

It came after a 60-year-old abuse survivor - known only as Gilo - said such failings in any other sector of life would have left their jobs.

Archbishop Welby said: I know that since I came into this job I have worked as hard as I could to move the church to a different place. I understand his anger. I've got to do better.

The whole system has been broken. It needs to move towards much more independent oversight of safeguarding

I am confident now that whenever we know about something we deal with it straightaway

I had a disclosure of safeguarding as late as yesterday, around this time as it happens, in an hour it was reported to our safeguarding people and it was in their hands.

I think we have been poor with dealing with redress and in dealing with the victims and survivors.'

The Archbishop of Canterbury said it had received a new safeguarding report yesterday

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse said the church put its own reputation above protecting them.

It recommended that bishops lose their responsibility to keep children safe because alleged paedophiles were given more support than victims.



The IICSA said reports of recent abuse have continued  with 449 in 2018.

Hundreds of paedophiles have been harboured by the Church over almost 70 years, the report found, undermining its 'moral purpose' as a Christian institution.

It said the CofE has been guilty of 'neglecting the wellbeing of children in favour of protecting its own reputation'.

From the 1940s to 2018, 390 clergy or people in positions of trust associated with the Church have been convicted of sexual offences against children.

The damning report was released yesterday and painted a terrifying picture of abuse

Archbishop Welby added to Radio 4's Today programme: 'Its shameful and disgraceful and reveals exactly what they said, a culture in which there was cover-up and hiding and its deeply shaming.

'It didnt come as a surprise because weve been working on this, as the report said later on, weve begun a journey of changing that and now certainly over the last few years it is a very serious matter, a disciplinary matter, for anyone to cover up any abuse at all and weve strengthened that and multiplied the amount of money for example that weve spent on safeguarding ten-fold, but it wasnt a surprise because Ive lived that for the seven-and-a-half years Ive been in post and weve been working hard to change it and the report says weve begun a journey and quite rightly says weve not gone quick enough or far enough yet.

'I didnt wonder, I knew. I was shocked by the level when I came into this job by the extent to which it was happening but one was aware that we had a history that was not so good, we knew about Peter Ball, I was ordained in 1992 which I think was about the year where he resigned as the Bishop of Gloucester so one knew about that from that moment onward.

'In each place where I was working from my parish onwards we tightened up on safeguarding very sharply'

Last night on the radio station's PM programme survivor Gilo - whose abuser is dead - told them top management should look at their own positions.

Ball, a friend of the Prince of Wales, who was jailed for 32 months in 2015 for sex abuse against boys carried out over three decades, had been allowed to continue unchecked

He added: 'Senior figures, including Archbishop Welby should seriously question themselves about whether they should be resigning.

'In any other sphere of live, you know if look at Government department's, ministers, etc, you would see failure marked by resignation.

'I think it's very clear from this report that the church has failed and continue to fail despite being aware of its failings.'

The findings of the inquiry, set up by Theresa May in 2014 following the Jimmy Savile scandal, amount to a wholesale condemnation of the attitude to sex abuse of both bishops and more junior clergy.

It said Bishop Peter Ball, a friend of the Prince of Wales, who was jailed for 32 months in 2015 for sex abuse against boys carried out over three decades, had been allowed to continue unchecked after being first caught in 1993 because of the leniency of a former Archbishop of Canterbury.

It said Lord Carey 'simply could not believe the allegations against Ball or acknowledge the seriousness of them regardless of evidence, and was outspoken in his support of his bishop', adding: 'He seemingly wanted the whole business to go away.'

It concluded: 'Many of these cases demonstrate the Church of England's failure to take the abuse seriously, creating a culture where abusers were able to hide.

'Alleged perpetrators were given more support than victims, who often faced barriers to reporting they simply couldn't overcome.'
Jumeirah Living  Jumeirah Groups luxury brand of serviced residences  has won a series of accolades for its World Trade Centre Residences in Dubai.

The luxury retreat set in the heart of the citys business district was named the Best Luxury Hotel Apartment on a Global Level, the Best Apartment Hotel in the United Arab Emirates and the Most Unique Guest Experience in the UAE at the Haute Global Excellence Awards 2020.

Every year, the Haute Grandeur Global Excellence Awards honours establishments that continuously excel through remarkable hospitality experiences. As one of the worlds leading and most respected luxury hospitality awards, they recognise exceptional contributions by hotels, lodges, resorts, spas, retreats and restaurants worldwide.

The Jumeirah Living World Trade Centre Residences is a lavish inner-city home designed to offer personalised services for effortless living. Designed for short, mid-term or extended stays, Jumeirah Living residences feature sumptuous finishes and contemporary interiors to provide guests and residents with the world-class luxury service for which Jumeirah is renowned  and in the comfort of a home environment. This experience is also available at the newly opened Jumeriah Living Marina Gate located in the heart of Dubai Marina, Grosvenor House Suites by Jumeirah Living on Park Lane, London, and Jumeirah Living Guangzhou in China.

The Jumeirah Living World Trade Centre Residence is a 41-storey luxury serviced apartment tower in Dubais business district. The high-rise comprises 377 serviced residences ranging from one-bedroom duplexes up to four-bedroom double-storey apartments.

One of Dubais most acclaimed luxury serviced residences, it is a first choice for travellers in search of personalised stays that combine home comforts with all the service hallmarks of a five-star hotel.

The luxury residence tower is also pet-friendly with a Lifestyle Team available 24 hours to attend to guests needs. Services and facilities such as pet sitting, dog walking are also available on request.

Redefining the standards of living and designed to offer a unique yet personalised lifestyle experience with a particular emphasis on effortless living in the city, Jumeirah Living has firmly established itself as a global leader in luxury serviced residences and apartments.

Naser Mohamed, General Manager of Jumeirah Living World Trade Centre Residence, said: As we continue to strive for excellence, we are immensely proud and honoured to receive these accolades from a reputed awards organisation such as the Haute Grandeur Global Excellence Awards. Jumeirah Living World Trade Centre Residence offers long-stay guests and residents, for both business and leisure, unrivalled urban living delivered with Jumeirahs renowned service expertise. These awards are testament to the unwavering dedication of the team to curate a unique personalised living experience for our guests. -- Tradearabia News Service
SPRINGFIELD  The Edwardsville/Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce has joined 40 business organizations in Illinois, including 27 chambers of commerce, opposing Illinois progressive income tax amendment on Nov. 3.

Amid snowballing corruption investigations and a COVID-19 recession, now is the most dangerous time to give our politicians free-reign of our paychecks, said Illinois Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Todd Maisch. The progressive income tax amendment is simply a big bag of cash dropped at the back door of the Capitol for the ethically-challenged legislature to spend however they want.
Nearly 2,800 criminals apprehended by voluntary peoples guards in 2020

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

16:16 07/10/2020

MOSCOW, October 7 (RAPSI) - Voluntary peoples guards and public law enforcement apprehended about 2,800 criminals and offenders in 2020, Russias Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said at the Federation Council on Wednesday.

In total, nearly 970,000 citizens were involved in the public order maintenance this year, he added.

According to the Interior Minister, over 130,000 administrative offenses were repressed in 2020 with the aid of voluntary peoples guards.

The crime rate also declines thanks to preventive maintenance in relation to predelinquents. In total, around 370,000 people of this category are recorded in police and controlled by local district police chiefs, Kolokoltsev stated.




UP: Elections not won on exit polls basis, results will be surprising: Kamal Nath

Hathras gang-rape case: Yogi Adityanath slams Opposition, says they are hatching conspiracies

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Lucknow, Oct 07: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath slammed the opposition parties for leading protests against the alleged gang-rape and murder case in Hathras district.

CM Adityanath accused the Opposition of hatching conspiracies against the state and said that they are "doing politics on the basis of caste, religion and region."

"People who have been dividing the society on the basis of caste, religion and region, are still doing it. They can't see development, and so they're hatching new conspiracies," the chief minister said.

FIR registered against Hathras-bound Kerala scribe, three others over claims of PFI links

The state chief minister's comments come as several opposition leaders have been visiting the Hathras district to meet the woman's family.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

On Saturday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra met the family of the woman. The visit which followed a dramatic standoff with the police at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border was the Congress leaders' second attempt.

A Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped and brutally assaulted in Hathras on September 14. She succumbed to her injuries in Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital on September 29.

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 14:49 [IST]
The Takoradi Constituency of the New Patriotic Party (NPP)is garnering more grass-roots support to ensure massive victory for the party in the December 7 general elections with a health walk in Takoradi.



The purpose of the health walk was to increase the garner votes and increase the margin of the Takoradi Constituency candidate, Mr Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah



The exercise was supported by nine other constituencies within the region.



Present at the event were a Vice-Presidential Staffer, Mr Augustine Blay; Mr Bice Osei Kufour (Musician Obour); Mr Isaac Armoh, former MP for Ayawaso West Wuogon; Mr Mireku Ducker, MP for Tarkwa-Nsuaem and Mr Joseph Cudjoe, MP for Effia.



The rest are Mr Ignatius Asaah Mensah, DCE for Mpohor; Regional Chairman, Mr Ndede Siah; Regional Communications Director of the party, Mr Issah Fuseini; Regional and constituency executives of the party, and some youth groups within the party.



The health walk dubbed,4 More 4 Nana Victory Walk included a free medical screening, unveiling of a land awaiting sod-cutting to begin the construction of an AstroTurf expected to be completed before the end of the year.



Mr Siah charged the party faithful to go all out to make sure that the party gets two additional seats to the 13 seats it already had to make it 15 out of the 17 seats available in the Region.



The Chairman cautioned party faithful not to be complacent, but work hard to sell the partys message of hope and encourage more people to go out and vote massively come December, 7.



Mr Kufour (Obour) commended the members for their dedication and love for the party and turning out in their numbers to support the Walk.



He noted that the collaboration among the parliamentary candidates (PCs) and their opponents who contested them in the partys primaries have been overwhelming and commendable.



Mr Armoh, former MP for Ayawaso West Wuogon urged all Polling Station Agents to do their work with love and commitment without inducement and asked them to be vigilant especially, during the counting of the ballot papers, signing of the Pink Sheets, and collation from the various Centers.



Mr Mercer, MP for Sekondi maintained that the 2020 elections was crucial to the NPP since the NPP-led Government has invested a lot in the Ghanaian economy, bringing hope to investors and Ghanaians and therefore "cannot sit aloof for this toil to go down the drain".



He called on the members not to give in to apathy and mobilize themselves to go out and convince others to vote massively for victory come December 7.



Mr Mercer also known as Bobo contended that "Ghanaians should not make the mistake of bringing back the NDC who took the country to the IMF and brought so many restrictions to the country but rather vote for the competent team that had laid a solid foundation for the country.



Mr Mensah, DCE for Mpohor said the party was resolute in its quest to explore every avenue, including a one-on-one campaign, to win the elections.



Mr Ducker, MP for Tarkwa-Nsuaem allayed the fears that the elections were going to be tough for him due to diversionary tactics by some unknown persons in the party leading to a member of the party who contested him in the party's primaries vying as an independent candidate.



He expressed the confidence of winning convincingly devoid of skirt and blouse voting to bring victory to the party in the December 7 general elections.



Mr Darko-Mensah, MP for Takoradi who doubles as the Western Regional Minister indicated that the good work and the massive infrastructural development that has been done by President Akufo-Addo which has put the economy on a sound footing cannot be truncated by the NDC again.



He pointed out that the numerous infrastructural projects undertaken by the NPP administration in the region was expected to create about 500 direct and indirect jobs for the teeming youth in the Region.



The Regional Minister also gave a strong assurance that the party would not allow the Tarkwa-Nsuaem seat to fall into the hands of the opposition or any independent candidate.

Source: GNA









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The Electoral Commission (EC) has set up two vetting teams to scrutinize the nomination forms of all the presidential aspirants in the 2020 election.



They are the Technical and IT teams, which would be scrutinizing the forms to ensure that the aspirants meet the qualifications as set out in the law such as being over 40 years old and having satisfied all tax obligations among others.



The IT team for instance will check and verify whether candidates and supporters are indeed registered voters.



The teams are to operate within the confines of the law and not to exercise discretion.



The Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Jean Mensa made this known when she received the nomination forms of some aspirants on Tuesday and added that the teams have been tasked to be fair.



As part of our efforts to ensure a transparent and fair and yet accountable process, the Commission has developed a criterion that enables candidates to be vetted along with benchmarks set up by law," she said.



"The template is also aimed at guiding our team which will be awarding marks after scrutinizing and reviewing each of the forms. It is important to know that the Commission has set up two teams, she said.



Three aspirants - President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo from the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Alfred Kwame Asiedu Walker, an independent aspirant being partnered by Jacob Osei Yeboah as running mate and Reverend Christian Kwabena Andrew from the Ghana Union Movement (GUM) filed their forms on Tuesday.



President Akufo-Addo filed his nomination in person at the EC headquarters before midday Tuesday accompanied by his Running Mate, Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.



Other government appointees were also at the EC to support President Akufo-Addo.



That of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer, former President John Dramani Mahama is expected to be filed on Wednesday, October 7, 2020.



The General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia is expected to do that on behalf of Mr Mahama who is currently on the field campaigning.



Below is a copy of the address delivered by the EC chair



ADDRESS DELIVERED BY THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE

ELECTORAL COMMISSION,

MRS JEAN MENSA

ON

TUESDAY 6TH OCTOBER, 2020

ON THE RECEIPT OF NOMINATION FORMS FROM PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES FOR THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL AND PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS



Good Morning Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates, Fellow Commissioners, Directors, Ladies and Gentlemen and our Friends from the Media.

This is the day the Lord has made, we rejoice and we are glad in it. We thank the good Lord for His mercies.



On behalf of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, I warmly welcome you to the Commission this morning



This morning we are gathered here to kick start one of the most important activities in the lead up to the December 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections. Indeed without this activity, the Commission cannot run the Elections.



Here, Im referring to Filing of Nomination by Presidential Candidates who are seeking to contest the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary Election.

Regulation 7 of the CI 127 enjoins a Presidential Candidate to complete and sign four (4) copies of the Nomination Form.



Additionally the Forms are to be signed by no less than two (2) persons who are registered voters in the area of authority of each District Assembly.



The Presidential Candidate is required to also designate a person to serve as Vice President



Furthermore he or she is required to deliver the Forms to the Commission on the date prescribed by the Commission.



As part of the Commissions efforts to ensure a transparent, credible, fair and yet accountable process, the Commission has developed a detailed Checklist that embodies the criteria to be satisfied by the Presidential Candidates as prescribed by law. The template will guide the scoring and awarding of marks by Teams established by the Commission to scrutinise and review each of the Nomination Forms submitted.



This year, the Commission has set up two (2) Teams which have been tasked to review all the Forms submitted. The technical team has been tasked to scrutinise the Forms submitted to ensure that Presidential Candidates meet the qualifications as set out in the law namely; the Presidential Candidate is at least forty (40) years of age, that he/she has satisfied all tax obligations, that he/she has nominated a Vice Presidential Candidate among others.



The second Team namely the IT Team has been charged with the responsibility of scrutinising all the Voter IDs of the Presidential Candidates and their supporters to verify whether the Candidates and their supporters are indeed registered Voters.



Both Teams have been provided adequate training and have been oriented to carry out their functions as prescribed by the law.



The guiding principle for both Teams is clear. They are to operate within the confines of the law. They are not to exercise discretion in the matter.



Above all, they have been tasked to be fair and yet firm in executing their duties.



We have no doubt that the process will be transparent, fair and peaceful.



Additionally, we are confident that the five (5)-day period provided for the filing process as opposed to the two (2) days provided in previous nomination processes, will allow enough time for Presidential Candidates to correct any errors identified in their Forms. We are confident that this will help eliminate the tension and rancour that characterised previous nomination processes.



I welcome you all warmly to the Electoral Commission of Ghana once again and thank you for coming personally to submit your Nomination Forms.



As Returning Officer of the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, I will now receive your Forms which will be subjected to vetting and scrutiny by our Teams.



I assure you that our Teams will go to the work on the Forms immediately. We will contact you in within the shortest possible time to inform you of the decisions arrived at.



Thank you very much.

May God bless our Homeland Ghana and make our Nation great and strong.

Source: graphic.com.gh









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Barring all odds, the people of Ondo State will file out on October 10 to elect a governor who will pilot the affairs of the state for the next four years.

The Ondo election is an off cycle election, just like the recently held Edo election, which returned the incumbent governor, Godwin Obaseki, of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), back to the Dennis Osadebey House, as the Edo State Government House is called.

In the case of Ondo, it is either the electorate return the incumbent governor, who is the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), or they elect a completely new person as their governor.

Although, according to the umpire in the election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), there are 17 political parties that will participate in the election, there is no doubt that the election is a three-way race.

The three major contenders, according to key political watchers in the state are: Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of the APC; Eyitayo Jegede of the PDP; and Deputy Governor Agboola Ajayi, the candidate of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), a party whose promoters have described as the 'third force.'

Certainly, one of the aforementioned trio will emerge the governor of the state after the October 10 election.

The contenders:

Rotimi Akeredolu

He hails from Owo in Owo Local Government Area in the Ondo North senatorial district.

He is the second Owo man to be elected governor of Ondo State. The first was the late Michael Adekunle Ajasin, who was elected governor in 1979 on the platform of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr Akeredolu was first elected governor of the state in 2016. He won the election, even as an opposition candidate, defeating the candidate of the then ruling party, Mr Jegede of the PDP.

The October 10 election will make it the third time Mr Akeredolu will be seeking election for the governorship seat.

He debuted his gubernatorial ambition in 2012 on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria. He only won in three of the 18 local council areas in the state, losing the election to the then incumbent governor, Olusegun Mimiko, who is the first person to have completed two terms of eight years as a democratically elected governor of the state.

Incumbency Factor

Since the country returned to civil rule in 1999, only few incumbent governors have lost re-election.

But as seen previously, especially with the recently held Edo and Kogi elections, where the incumbents won re-election, Mr Akeredolu stands a big chance to win another term, if incumbency is the only metric for evaluating a candidate's chance in an election.

As posited by many political pundits, an incumbent governor stands a big chance of winning re-election in Nigeria because of the enormity of state resources at his beck and call, which he can easily deploy to his own electoral advantage.

Mr Akeredolu is most likely not going to be an exemption to this general rule.

It is also believed that he won't be short of funds for 'logistics' before, during, and after the election. Winning an election in Nigeria is capital-intensive and many times, those with the financial war chest are the ones who win.

Logistics, in the context of elections in Nigeria, could mean compromising voters through material inducement, before and during the election, a practice that contravenes the provisions of the Electoral Act.

Almost all the major political parties in the country are guilty of this cardinal sin, most especially since 2015, when other means of rigging elections, such as arbitrarily stuffing ballot boxes with votes, bizarre allocation of votes to a particular candidate, and ballot snatching seem to have receded.

APC as a united party

Another major factor that may tilt the election in favour of Governor Akeredolu is that his party, the APC, appears to be united, going into the election.

Almost all members of the party are solidly behind him, drumming and canvassing support for his re-election across the length and breadth of the state.

Following the APC primaries that saw him emerge as the candidate of the party, some had predicted that other formidable aspirants would leave the party to find comfort elsewhere.

Fortunately for Mr Akeredolu, virtually all the aspirants stayed behind in the party. They include Olusola Oke, Ifedayo Oyedele, Isaacs Kekemeke, Segun Abraham, Jimi Odimayo and a host of others.

Unlike in 2016, when a national leader of the APC, Bola Tinubu, did not support him, Mr Akeredolu is believed to enjoy the support of the former Lagos State governor. He is also believed to enjoy the support of the presidency and the APC governors, especially that of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi.

Modest Performance

Regardless of whatever misgivings anyone may have, Mr Akeredolu is believed to have recorded some modest performance in terms of road construction and rehabilitation, renovating health facilities, school renovation, and industrialisation, which is meant to provide jobs for the teeming youth, improve the standard of living of the people and also raise the internally generated revenue of the state.

The Ore Industrial Hub, Ondo Liyin Hub, the Chocolate Factory in Idanre, though run through private public partnerships, are all meant to improve the economic profile of the state beyond its civil service status.

The governor has also signed a couple of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) meant to attract more investments to the state. However, the citizens want to see these MoUs translate into reality, as a lot of MoUs signed with pomp in the past simply evaporated without a trace till today.

Weaknesses

Accusation of Arrogance

One of the pieces of moral baggage around Governor Akeredolu is that he is seen as arrogant and someone who talks down on people.

The governor usually speaks his mind, not minding whose ox is gored or the intensity of the expressions or words he deploys in conveying his messages.

While his supporters hail him on this as being straightforward and frank, his critics say he has a loose tongue, and most times, uses words unbefitting of his status as governor.

He once reportedly told his supporters to pour red oil on the white linen of his erstwhile antagonist, Ajayi Boroffice, a senator representing Ondo North, because of perceived political differences, in spite of belonging to the same political party.

The two politicians have since reconciled. Mr Boroffice was the leader of the defunct Unity Forum in the party. The forum was initially opposed to the re-election of Mr Akeredolu but members of the forum are now canvassing votes for him.

He also was reported to have called his estranged deputy, Agboola Ajayi, a nincompoop during a live TV program on Monday, September 7, 2020. Till now, the governor has not taken back this expression considered to be gutter language in some quarters.

Another example of the verbal gaffes of the governor, pointed out by his critics, was when he allegedly threatened the paramount ruler of Ikale land, Abodi of Ikale land, J.B Faduyile, that he would not mind deploying security operatives to level Ago Alaye (an Ikale community) if the traditional ruler would not restrain his people from trespassing on a disputed land between the community and Araromi Obu, another community in the state.

Because of the dispute over the land and the perceived bias of the governor towards the Araromi Obu people, he was also caught on tape saying he would not need the votes of Ikale people to win a second term in office during a visit to Mr Faduyile's palace.

It's believed some Ikale people are still nursing some grudges against him over his 'sins' against them and may want to take their own pound of flesh come October 10.

The aforementioned are a few examples of what observers describe as some of the verbal lapses of the governor which may work against his re-election come October 10.

Be that as it may, he has reconciled with Mr Boroffice and even with Mr Faduyile, the traditional ruler of all Ikale people.

Allegation of family monopolisation of government business

The governor is accused of running the government of the state like his family business, an allegation he has consistently denied.

Mr Akeredolu denied the allegation on October 4, during a live debate organised by Ondo State Radiovision Corporation for four gubernatorial candidates ahead of the October 10 polls. He called on anyone who has any evidence of such an allegation to bring it forward.

He also threatened to sue anyone making unfounded allegations against his family.

While there have been insinuations that his wife has a stronghold on the governor with his son allegedly serving as a consultant on mega deals to the state government, none of the critics have put forward any concrete proof to substantiate the claims.

However, the insinuations have refused to go away. In fact, they have become louder and more entrenched as the election comes down to the wire.

Allegation of Ondo south marginalisation

Mr Akeredolu is being accused of marginalisation of the people of Ondo South in terms of project distribution.

Until very recently, when he started fixing some township roads in the area and the Ore Flyover Bridge, he was accused of abandoning the zone, which is the oil-producing zone in the state.

Also, a large section of the zone, especially the people of Okitipupa local government Area, have been without electricity for close to a decade in spite of the Omotosho power plant located in the area.

The people are saying that without electricity in their area, they won't vote him for a second term in office.

Asides that, some politicians in the area also feel that it is the turn of the zone to produce the next governor of the state and they feel that the time for them to do so is now.

The last time the zone produced the governor of the state was 2007. He was the late Olusegun Agagu who was removed from office in 2009 via a judicial pronouncement by the Court of Appeal.

Winning Projection

According to those familiar with the electoral politics of the state, Mr Akeredolu is projected to win in about 11 local council areas in the state.

Rotimi Oyeneyin, a political analyst, listed the council areas Mr Akeredolu could win as: Akoko North/East, Akoko North/West, Akoko South/East, Akoko South/West, Ile Oluji/Oke-Igbo, Irele, Ilaje, Odigbo, Ose, Owo and Idanre.

He, however, said the governor may lose in Idanre because of the soaring popularity of the ZLP in the area.

Eyitayo Jegede

He is the candidate of the PDP. He was the candidate of the same party in 2016 but lost to the incumbent governor.

There were issues around his candidacy in 2016 until the courts finally resolved that he was the right candidate of the PDP, barely a few days to the election. His supporters said he would have won the 2016 election if he had enough time to prepare for it.

He was the attorney general and commissioner for justice in the administration of the immediate past governor of the state, Olusegun Mimiko.

He hails from Akure, the capital city of the state, in Ondo Central senatorial district. Akure, spanning two local governments, has never produced the governor of the state.

Strengths

Warm personality

He is a likeable personality, quiet, decent and generally warm. He is also considered to be well-mannered and mentally sound.

Even Governor Akeredolu attested to the personality of Mr Jegede while appearing on an Arise TV programme recently.

Mr Akeredolu described him as a worthy opponent, saying "Eyitayo Jegede is my colleague; he is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria; he is worthy of the office. I cannot see anything wrong with him. He is somebody I have a lot of respect for. He is eminently qualified to be a governor, unlike some people, who are not qualified to be a governor of this state."

Moreover, Mr Jegede is a household name in the state, having contested in 2016.

If being loved as a politician would translate to massive votes on election day, Mr Jegede will not have a problem defeating the incumbent governor.

However winning an election goes beyond wearing a permanent smile on one's face all the time or having a name that rings a bell.

Atiku and Makinde's factor

It's believed that Mr Jedede enjoys massive support from Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2019 general elections.

Recall that Mr Abubakar defeated President Buhari in the 2019 presidential election in the state.

Because of Mr Abubakar's support, some analysts believe that Mr Jegede won't be short of resources and logistics to prosecute the election, as they believe that Mr Abubakar will roll out funds to support him.

Mr Jegede also enjoys the support of Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, who has made several tours to the state, talking to political actors in order to galvanise support for Mr Jegede.

Initially believed not to be supporting him because of the silent war of attrition going on in the PDP leading up to the 2023 presidential elections, Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwwal, has now come to publicly to say all PDP governors are rooting for Mr Jegede to win the election.

PDP a household platform in the state

Ordinarily, being in the PDP should give Mr Jegede some leverage as it is a household platform with tentacles in all the nooks and crannies of the state.

In the 2019 general elections, the PDP won in two of the senatorial districts - Ondo South and Central - two zones with the highest voting strength in the state.

The party also delivered the last presidential election in the state to its candidate, Mr Abubakar, who defeated Muhammadu

, candidate of the APC, in the election in Ondo State despite the state being governed by the APC. Mr Buhari eventually emerged the winner of the election nationwide as declared by INEC.

Weaknesses

Unwritten rule of zoning

Mr Jegede comes from Ondo Central, which is the same zone with immediate past governor, Mr Mimiko, who ruled the state for eight years.

It is a popular narrative in the state that it is not yet the turn of the zone to produce the governor of the state.

This same albatross of zoning was one of the significant factors that cost him the election in 2016, in spite of being supported by then incumbent governor, Mimiko.

Mr Mimiko and Mr Jegede have since parted ways, though the latter tried to reach out to the former recently to see if he could court his support for his latest ambition.

How Mr Jegede will manoeuvre his way around the currency of zoning in the forthcoming election remains to be seen, even as another prominent indigene of Akure, Tayo Alasoadura, current minister of state for Niger Delta affairs, has said that it is not yet the turn of Akure to produce the governor of the state.

Disunity in Ondo PDP

From all indications, the Ondo State chapter of the PDP at the moment, is polarised.

The polarisation is a fall out of the party's gubernatorial primaries that saw the emergence of Mr Jegede as the party's flagbearer.

While some aspirants, who vied for the ticket with him, have pledged to support him in the election, some have left the party while others, who chose to stay back, have been unusually quiet.

Some of those who stayed back and have been drumming support for him are Sola Ebiseni, a former commissioner in the state and Bode Ayorinde, a former federal lawmaker. The latter is from the same town, Owo, as the incumbent governor.

Other aspirants who stayed back in the party but have been silent during the campaign so far are Boluwaji Kunlere, a former senator representing Ondo South between 2011 and 2015, and Eddy Olafeso, immediate past chairperson of the PDP in the southwest.

Banji Okunomo, from Ilaje local council area, has dumped the party for the ZLP.

While Nicholas Tofowomo, the current senator representing Ondo South, remains in the PDP, most of his supporters are canvassing support for the candidate of the ZLP.

Mr Tofowomo reportedly backed Mr Okunomo to win the PDP ticket but lost it to Mr Jegede.

The senator representing Ondo Central, Ayo Akinyelure, is said to be supporting Mr Jegede. Mr Akinyelure is from Idanre, the same place with the state chairperson of the APC, Ade Adetimehin.

Commentators are of the view that the disunity in the party will have a strong impact on the performance of Mr Jegede in the election.

His choice of running mate

Mr Jegede chose Gboluga Ikengboju, a legislator representing Okitipupa/Irele federal constituency in the House of Representatives.

The choice of Mr Ikengboju shocked some party chieftains, just as it angered some who said they would never support the candidacy of Mr Jegede in the election.

All attempts to make Mr Jegede change Mr Ikengboju as his running mate fell on deaf ears as he insisted on keeping him.

Meanwhile, some chieftains of the party believe the choice of Mr Ikengboju is a reward for supporting Mr Jegede during the race to win the party's ticket. Moreover, Mr Ikengboju's local council, Okitipupa, has traditionally been a stronghold of the PDP since 1999.

Mr Ikengboju is from Ondo South and many had expected him to support someone from the zone during the PDP's primaries. Rather, he chose to tag along with Mr Jegede who is from the Central senatorial district.

Estrangement from Mimiko

Fact is, Mr Jegede became a political force in Ondo State, courtesy of Mr Mimiko who appointed him his commissioner for justice for almost seven years.

Mr Mimiko also went all out to ensure Mr Jegede was the candidate of the PDP in the 2016 election in the state, against all odds.

Some supporters of the former governor popularly called 'Iroko' said they would never support Mr Jegede in the October 10 election

Winning Projection

Mr Jegede is projected to win Akure North and Akure South, the local councils with the highest voting strength in the state, other things being equal.

Some observers say he may win Okitipupa local council because his running mate hails from the place, in addition to the fact that the council area has always been pro-PDP. All that seems to be changing now though considering that there are top APC chieftains and ZLP in the area.

Verdict: He could win two or three local councils.

Agboola Ajayi

Mr Ajayi is the incumbent deputy governor, though estranged from his boss, Mr Akeredolu, over irreconcilable political differences.

He parted ways with the governor when he defected to the PDP in spite of assurances and reassurances that his relationship with his principal was cordial and that he would work for the reelection of the governor.

After spending less than a month in the PDP, he vied for the party's ticket but ended up a runner-up to the winner, Mr Jegede. He eventually ditched the PDP for the ZLP.

Meanwhile, all attempts to impeach him by the State House of Assembly have so far proved abortive, just as the governor and his supporters continue to bash him over what they call an act of betrayal on the part of Mr Ajayi.

The failed impeachment move has led to the suspension of some lawmakers believed to be pro-Ajayi.

It should be noted that Mr Ajayi is the only deputy governor in the state who could not be impeached by the state house of assembly on the prompting of the governor.

From all indications, it does not look like the state lawmakers will be able to impeach him before the expiration of his tenure.

Mr Ajayi's strength

Extensive grassroots penetration

He is a grassroots politician who is reputed to have the capacity to connect well with the people.

For the first two years of the Akeredolu-led administration, it's believed that Mr Ajayi was the one handling and coordinating the political side of the administration, an access that made him mine some political advantage for himself to the detriment of the political capital of Mr Akeredolu.

In 1999, he was a supervisory councilor in the Ese Odo local government, and later became the chairperson of the council area, first as a caretaker in 2003 to 2004, until he was elected in 2004 till 2007. He leveraged on the position to get himself into the Association of Local Governments in Nigeria, where he served as treasurer in the Ondo State chapter of the group.

He was later elected a member of the House of Representatives in 2007 on the platform of the PDP representing Ese-Odo/Ilaje federal constituency and served as the chairperson of the committee on NDDC, one of the so-called 'juicy' committees.

Like a bolt from the blue, Mr Ajayi emerged the running mate to Mr Akeredolu in the 2016 governorship election in the state, which the APC later won.

Glancing through his political dossier, it's crystal clear that he is not a pushover. However, there is more to winning an election in Nigeria than one's rich political credentials.

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Pros'

Power Shift

The current agitation in Ondo South for power to shift to the zone seems, on the surface, to have gelled with the ambition of Mr Ajayi, who is the only candidate from the zone contesting on a major platform.

As a matter of fact, the root of his ambition is in Ondo South and some top political players in the zone appear to be rooting for him as they believe this is the best time for someone from the area to become the governor of the state.

The allegation against Governor Akeredolu that he has not been fair to the zone in terms of developmental projects also seems to be working in favour of the deputy governor.

However, votes from Ondo South alone won't make him the governor. Moreover, the APC also parades some political heavyweights who will want to prove their mettle by delivering the zone to Mr Akeredolu.

Mr Akeredolu's running mate, Lucky Ayedatiwa, is from Ilaje local council, one of the council areas with massive voting strength. Olusola Oke is from the same council too.

The business mogul, Jimoh Ibrahim, who has donated generously to the campaign of Mr Akeredolu, is from Ondo South. So is Paul Akintelure, who was Mr Akeredolu's running mate in 2012.

A former commissioner for education in the state, Oladunni Odu, reputed to be a grassroots person, is also from the zone, ditto for the current commissioner for education, Femi Agagu, who is believed to have inherited his late elder brother's vast political dynasty, Olusegun Agagu.

Also, the running mate to Mr Jegede, Mr Ikengboju, is from Ondo South, which has always been a comfort zone for the PDP since 1999.

In any case, Mr Ajayi's ambition is loudest in Ondo South. It remains to be seen if he will win handsomely in the one.

Mimiko factor

Although Mr Mimiko lost his bid to go to the senate in 2019 on the platform of the ZLP, coming a distant third in the election, he is believed to be a strong political factor in Ondo State by his fans.

He is the national leader of the ZLP and a strong backer of Mr Ajayi.

Some analysts and observers believe he will deliver Ondo East and West areas with huge voting strength to Mr Ajayi.

That remains to be seen as the ZLP only managed to win just a House of Assembly seat in the area in 2019.

There is no doubt, however, that the factor of Mimiko has been adding value to the candidacy of Mr Ajayi.

More importantly, this may be the last chance for Mr Mimiko to once prove his political brilliance which seems to have dimmed a bit in recent times.

If he fails with Mr Ajayi, well, it may be a farewell to his otherwise brilliant political career.

Weaknesses

Doubtful intellectual capacity

Of the three leading gladiators in the election, Mr Ajayi is seen to be the least intellectually endowed.

The other two - Mr Akeredolu and Mr Jegede - are senior lawyers, both Senior Advocates of Nigeria, and are believed to be intellectually sound and engaging.

Although Mr Ajayi is a lawyer and was called to the Nigerian Bar having graduated from Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State and the Nigerian Law School, some critics of his said he does not have the intellectual wherewithal to govern a state like Ondo State.

Apparently coming in defence of Mr Ajayi, Mr Mimiko said recently that all a leader needs to have is a good heart in order to perform. He said a leader must have compassion for his people. He described Mr Ajayi as a compassionate leader.

While he is a lawyer, according to a letter from the Council of Legal Education and sighted by this newspaper, Mr Ajayi only submitted his O-level results to INEC for the election.

The use of his O-level result rather than his LL.B and B.L results have continued to raise some doubt about his qualifications, though none of his accusers has been able to substantiate the claim of forgery against him.

The ZLP's limited popularity

Beyond Ondo South and Central, especially in Ondo town and Ifedore, where his running mate, Gboye Adegbenro, comes from, the ZLP is not so strong in Ondo North, the senatorial district of Mr Akeredolu.

The zone has the smallest number of registered voters in terms of percentage; Ondo North is 27 percent, South 33 per cent while Central has 39 per cent.

Asides that, Mr Mimiko, who has his own baggage, is the only major backer of Mr Ajayi, who continues to tell anyone who cares to listen to him that he is going to win the October 10 election.

Minority factor

Mr Ajayi hails from Ese-Odo local council.

He is considered a minority by his ethnic tribe, Arogbo-Ijaw, whose population is quite small.

However, when some other invisible election variables favour a candidate, his minority ancestry becomes insignificant.

Winning projection

Mr Ajayi is projected to win in Ese-Odo, Ifedore, Okitipupa, Ondo East and West, based on where the strengths of his backers and supporters are.

Some faithful of the APC in the state have said Mr Ajayi would barely win a council area out of the 18 council areas in the state.
The Olympic Rings logo is pictured in front of the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne on March 18, 2020. (Fabrice Coffrini /AFP via Getty Images)

Britain Pressured to Boycott Beijing Olympics Over Human Rights Atrocities

Britains foreign secretary was pressured by the foreign affairs committee on Tuesday to boycott the Beijing Olympics over Chinas human rights atrocities against the Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

When questioned over whether, in the face of mounting evidence of the human rights abuses Britain should attend the 2022 winter games that China is set to host, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab did not exclude a boycott of the event.

Generally speaking, my instinct is to separate sport from diplomacy and politics. But there comes a point where that may not be possible, he said.

People hold signs protesting Chinas treatment of the Uyghur people outside of British Columbia Supreme Court building in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on May 8, 2019. (Lindsey Wasson/Reuters)

Raab, a former lawyer, acknowledged the mounting evidence of serious and egregious human rights violations, gross human rights violations against the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region but said it was difficult to have these legally categorized as genocide.

When Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the foreign affairs committee, quizzed Raab as to why this was, he said that on genocide the challenge  is that you have got to prove, to demonstrate that not only was it a destruction of a minority  but [done] with the deliberate intention of destroying it.

Tugendhat argued that other lawyers had provided the requisite proof.

Genocidal Intent

Other lawyers including Ben Emmerson have cited the cultural destruction the forced sterilization and many other different areas as giving cause for the evidence of [genocidal] intent that you speak of, he said.

Clearly there is a line here possibly a narrow one between the two of youhow much more evidence do you think you need to see? he added.

Raab responded with, I think you can always find a lawyer or a scientist that will disagree with something the government is doing but the reality is its not just a question of showing that theyve been targeted.

Uyghurs of the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement (ETNAM) hold a rally to protest the 71st anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China in front of the White House in Washington, on Oct. 1, 2020. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

It is establishing that they have been targeted as a minority, not just because they are a nuisance and raising concerns.

Raab went on to say that a charge of genocide requires a set of very particular evidential burdens and triggers a whole range of consequences.

Lawyers will differ on precisely when definitions are reached, he added.

Tugendhat further pressed Raab citing the validity of details of Chinas abuses against the Uighurs as warranting a classification of genocide.

Detention Camps

Clearly the detention camps that we are seeing, forcing of the Chinese language and silencing the Uyghur tongue  seem to indicate that it is a particular group that is being targeted for its cultural religious and social observations not just a minority which may or not be problematic, he said.

Raab said that Frankly the precise legal label does have implications.

But actually it shouldnt distract us from saying this is appalling, we condemn it and it is at odds with the responsibilities that come with being a member of the international community, he said.

The pressure on Britain to Boycott the Beijing winter Olympics comes following The World Uyghur Congress (WUC), the largest overseas Uyghur organization, in August urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to reconsider its decision to hold the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.

The WUC, unlike Raab, does regard the detail of Chinas abuses against the Uyghurs as evidence of genocide.

In their formal complaint to the IOCs Ethics Commission, they said the IOC had acted in breach of the Olympic Charter by failing to reconsider holding the 2022 Olympics in Beijing following verifiable evidence of genocide and crimes against humanity taking place against the Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims by the Peoples Republic of China.

We hope that the Ethics Committee will engage with the issue we have put before them and call for the 2022 Olympic to be moved if international crimes continue to be carried out against the Uyghurs, said Michael Polak, a London-based lawyer who prepared the WUCs submission.

Global Political Issues

The IOC, however, responded by saying it must remain neutral on all global political issues.

But WUC President Dolkun Isa said, The IOC can no longer claim ignorance of Chinas genocide against the Uyghur people.

If the International Olympic Committee allows the Chinese government to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, it will go down as a historically shameful decision, he said.

Former Uyghur detainees previously told The Epoch Times that they were subjected to torture, forced to denounce their faith, and forced to pledge loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) while held for unknown reasons in often overcrowded facilities.

Also, Uyghur women have been subjected to forced sterilization, forced abortion, and coercive family planning, a recent report revealed.

Meanwhile, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, a prominent British human rights lawyer who chaired the China Tribunal on forced organ harvesting, establishing it in March as a crime against humanity, is convening another independent tribunal to investigate whether the Chinese regimes alleged human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims constitute genocide or crimes against humanity.

The tribunal organizers expect to hold two public hearings in London next year, each lasting several days. A verdict is expected by the end of 2021.

Alexander Zhang contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump called on Congress to approve federal economic relief late Tuesday mere hours after publicly terminating negotiations with Democrats, posting tweets that appeared to contradict his own declarations from earlier the same day.

Trump had on Tuesday afternoon instructed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to abandon bipartisan talks over a stimulus package, complaining that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was making unreasonable demands in negotiations. I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election, the president said.

About seven hours later, Trump appeared to reverse himself in a new string of tweets.

After canceling talks, he publicly urged members of his own administration to work with congressional Democrats to approve additional federal stimulus measures.

At 9:54 p.m., he called on the House and Senate to IMMEDIATELY approve $25 billion in new aid for the airline industry, which has already begun laying off thousands of employees after federal aid programs expired last week.

At 10:18 p.m., he called for Congress to direct $1,200 payments to millions of Americans and said he wanted immediate aid for small businesses.

"I am ready to sign right now," he wrote. "Are you listening Nancy?"

He was referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., though he "tagged" his chief of staff Mark Meadows and other congressional leaders in the Twitter post.

All of these new positions unfolded through Trump's Twitter account and not in any public statements.

 READ MORE: The Federal Reserve chair says the lack of more stimulus imperils economic recovery

He hasn't made a public appearance since returning to the White House Monday evening from the hospital, where he was being treated for coronavirus. During his hospital stay, he called on Congress to join together to pass a stimulus deal, a viewpoint that he seemed to shift away from Tuesday only to shift back to it again in the evening.

Trump's initial effort to cancel the talks on Tuesday sent the stock market sharply lower. His push late Tuesday evening to revive stimulus talks sent stock market futures sharply higher.

Democrats have for months rejected the idea of passing stimulus funding on a piecemeal basis, instead insisting on one comprehensive package to aid the economy, although Pelosi has suggested Congress could act first to help the airline industry. The president's demands Tuesday night also left out addressing the expiration of additional federal unemployment benefits for tens of millions of jobless Americans.

The president's sudden whiplash over the stimulus package followed the widespread backlash to his decision to abruptly end talks with Pelosi, which startled even some congressional Republicans and led to a dip in the stock market. The Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group that proposed a $1.5 trillion stimulus package, called for a resumption in negotiations, while Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., a vulnerable House member in a difficult reelection race, said he disagreed with the president and "strongly urge" Trump to rethink the decision.

The president has long sought an additional stimulus package ahead of the Nov. 3 election, and it remained unclear exactly why he suddenly gave up on talks. During a call Tuesday with the president, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., suggested to Trump that Pelosi was stringing him along and no deal she cut with Mnuchin would command broad GOP support to pass in the Senate, according to two people with knowledge of the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it.

Trump has also long claimed that good negotiators must know when to walk away from the table, and frequently boasts at campaign rallies that his hard-line negotiating style produces major concessions from his opponents. That approach appears unlikely to yield a successful stimulus package in time for the election. Pelosi speculated to other congressional Democrats Tuesday that the steroid medication the president is taking to recover from the coronavirus could be altering his thinking.
As a child, Anita Gandhi found the stock market daunting. A good memory and her ability to crunch numbers, however, helped her overcome those fears. By the time she was a teenager, Gandhi was wondering why the world of investing and markets did not feature more women.

Women, Gandhi saw, did not like heavy lifting in the literal sense but excelled at it in the metaphorical sense. Indeed, when it came to investing, she believed that women had the traits needed for success  patience and self-study  in abundance. There is no grunt work or the endless, repetitive activity of the factory floor; all it takes is acumen.

Gandhis acumen has taken her far over the course of a career that is now into its fourth decade. Along the way, she passed the CA and ICWAI exams with flying colours, and mastered the art of analysing annual reports and cash flows.

Gandhi joined Arihant Capital Markets Ltd in 2002 to launch its institutional business and is now a whole-time director at the broking house. She plunged into her work, trying to ensure that investments under her watch always earned money.

By the time she joined Arihant Capital, Gandhi was already a veteran, having spent 14 years in the industry and in financial markets. A passion for research, minutely examining numbers and business models, gave her an edge when she interacted with heads of treasury, fund managers and investment heads at insurance companies.

Over the years, Gandhi built up an impressive portfolio of 75 high-profile clients, including banks, insurance firms and mutual funds. She began building that network of clients in the days when physical copies of contracts had to be submitted to the domestic institutional offices before 4.30 pm every day.

Under her leadership, the institutional businesss annual turnover grew from zero to around Rs 6,000 crore. And Arihant, where Gandhi had launched the institutional business from a small rented office in Borivali, rather than from South Mumbai like all other institutional brokers, soon moved to a posh, 4,500 square feet space at Solitaire Corporate Park on the Andheri-Kurla road.

"All along, I kept on talking to clients, helping them understand the real dynamics. That helped me carve out a niche for myself in this male-dominated broking industry," says Gandhi.

Later, Gandhi also played a vital role in establishing a mutual fund distribution desk for Arihant. Her efforts saw Arihant feature as one of Forbes Best Under a Billion companies.

Investment philosophy

Gandhi spends a lot of time researching and understanding companies, their businesses, tracking earnings and sales, examining whether funds are invested in core activities or backward-forward integration, and so on.

"With the advancement of technology, a lot of data is easily available, such as company annual reports and quarterly results, which help understand the basic structure of a company," she explains.

Keeping a tab on cash flows is essential as companies that divert funds to unrelated businesses may not always succeed, says Gandhi.

She has always stressed on the need to have a balanced portfolio for a steady flow of income. Investing in high-quality debt, Gandhi says, ensures strong asset diversification. A 40-60 percent allocation to good-quality debt papers is needed during volatile times, such as the current period, when Covid has held the world hostage, she says.

Identifying durable businesses

During the Dotcom boom, Gandhi picked strong IT stocks such as Infosys and Wipro. Many investors were betting on Y2K during the dotcom bubble in 2000. Most IT companies were trading at PEs of 100 and couldnt envisage that earnings would stop growing.

Gandhi kept close tabs on product innovations, shifts in sales and behavioural trends to gauge future earnings growth and saw demand plateauing for some of the technology companies.

A few years later, she identified resilient commodity stocks that stayed the course when most commodities fell by the wayside after the Lehman collapse. Likewise, she picked the winners among infrastructure stocks during the infra boom-bust.

She had advised clients to buy shares of Trent, Infosys, Aarti Industries, Natco Pharmaceuticals, Tata Elxsi, and Tata Chemicals at a very early stage, helping them garner rich returns.

In 2006-2007 many infrastructure firms started getting skyrocketing valuations based on their order books alone, as most investors ignored cash flows. Gandhi realised the firms could not simply keep borrowing without generating sufficient cash flows and cautioned her clients to avoid running after such stocks.

The infrastructure companies borrowed aggressively and many of those loans turned into non-performing assets of banks, leading to the crisis that has been ongoing in recent years. By understanding the business and the cycles, Gandhi was able to dissuade her clients from investing in banks that had large NPAs.

In 2007-2008, there was a big rally in the power sector as well. Most investors ignored the fact that even though power plants needed investments of Rs 5 crore per MW, they offered only single-digit, regulated returns. Gandhi advised her clients to stay away from high-priced power stocks and IPOs as the sector offers limited profits.

She was also able to save her clients from the real estate bubble of 2007-2008. Gandhi warned that DLF and other realty firms could not sustain their high valuations as they would not be able to make similar profits over the next five years as land acquisition costs had risen while inventory would pile up.

Companies that change in sync with demand requirements can sustain their profitability, says Gandhi, adding that it is imperative to continuously spend on research and development to ensure the right product is offered to the end consumer. Managements must be cost conscious and there should always be a focus on enhancing the companys margins, she adds.

Gandhi believes managements that are ethical, focussed on the core business and adaptive generally do well. Covid-19 has changed demand, supply and operating dynamics for many firms and firms that adapt swiftly can be winners, she says.

Advice for women

Women need to be keen to make money and need better deals, better pay, etc. like men, says Gandhi. Women also need to hone their investment skills, she said, adding that there has to be passion and urge to make money out of knowledge-based investments.

She advises women to look at the qualities of legendary investors such as Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger and try to emulate them.

One thing Gandhi believes women should do is start investing early. She feels they should defer big spends on clothes and cosmetics and use that money to invest in good companies instead. The profits from these investments will enable them to buy these luxuries later, she points out.

Santanu Chakraborty is a journalist who has been writing on the Indian equity and debt markets for the past 12 years.
The government of Barbados has indicated in a communication that the Ghanaian nurses exported to help their public healthcare system have been impressive so far.

According to Colonel Jeffrey Bostic, Barbados's Minister of Health and Wellness, the Ghanaian nurses assigned to various health facilities in the Carribean country are doing marvelously well.

Some of the nurses are stationed at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), while others have been posted to polyclinics.

Nurses taking an oath. Source: Facebook

Source: UGC

The Minister made this known while addressing the Barbados Labour Partys (BLP) political meeting on October 5, 2020.

The government of Ghana in July 2020, exported some 95 nurses to the Caribbean country to assist with healthcare delivery and health-related programmes.

49 female and 46 male nurses left the shores of Ghana to Barbados in fulfillment of a memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries.

While speaking at the political function, Colonel Jeffrey Bostic is reported to have said:

I am happy to report that, within the next few weeks, now that we have brought 95 nurses from Ghana here who are now into the public health system working and at the QEH, that we are going to extend the opening hours of the polyclinic at St John from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week in the first instance, before we go the full 24 hours,

QEHs executive chairman, Juliette Bynoe-Sutherland, is also reported to have indicated that 46 Ghanaian nurses are now working in the country after they underwent some vigorous training.

She is noted to have said:

The nurses have completed their orientation and have started working in their various speciality areas across the hospital, and they have been so far well-received. So far, we have had no complaints [or] negative feedback associated with those nurses.

Mrs. Bynoe-Sutherland added that each nurse from Ghana had been assigned a Barbadian nurse who would support them in their adaptation to the new environment and new culture.

In other news, YEN.com.gh earlier reported that the flagbearer of the Ghana Union Movement (GUM), Reverend Christian Kwabena Andrews, also known as Osofo Kyiri Abosom has said that his party will win the December 2020 polls with 65% votes.

According to Osofo Kyiri Abosom, his party is doing the actual grassroots campaign and the fruit of their labour will materialize on December 7, 2020.

We are on the ground. The elites are being deceived by what they see in the cities. This is the same mistakes Nkrumahs opponents made."

Source: YEN.com.gh
Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, on Monday (AP)

Joe Biden delivered what could be remembered as the signature speech of his 2020 campaign so far, calling on Americans to ditch the fierce partisanship that has gripped the nation during the Donald Trump era and turn division into unity.

Biden delivered his modern-day Gettysburg-style address on the site of the Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania on Tuesday after extending his nationwide polling lead over Donald Trump by 16 points, according to CNN.

The Democratic nominee himself attacked Trumps decision to return to the White House after just three nights in hospital on Monday, condemning his maskless appearance on the Truman Balcony as macho and lacking consideration for a virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans.

The results of Biden's most recent coronavirus test, meanwhile, were negative. If he remains Covid free, and the president recovers, the two are on a collision course for the second debate on 15 October.

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New Delhi, Oct 8 : Global aviation trade associations on Wednesday made a joint call for a globally-consistent approach to testing international passengers as an alternative to quarantine measures.

"Governments must cooperate to remove quarantine restrictions and restart air travel. A systematic approach to Covid-19 testing will provide an effective way to give governments the confidence to re-open borders without quarantine," the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the Airports Council International (ACI) World said in a joint statement.

"The aviation industry, focused on the health and safety of passengers and their employees, has worked with the International Civil Aviation Organisation's Council Aviation Recovery Taskforce (CART), which included the World Health Organisation, to agree and implement a layered approach to health measures that will enable safe operations amid the Covid-19 crisis." As per the statement, the CART reconvenes this week.

"Both associations call for an internationally agreed and recognised approach to testing passengers during the travel process that is fast, practical, accurate, low-cost, easy-to-use and supported by public health authorities," the statement said.

"The global shutdown of air transport as a result of Covid-19 travel restrictions has had a catastrophic impact on employment. Some 4.8 million industry jobs have been lost or are under threat."

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
The imposition of tariffs and regulatory checks in the event of a no-deal could lead to millions of lamb carcasses going to waste, a rural group warns.

A no-deal after the transition period ends on 31 December 2020 will have a detrimental effect on the UK farming sectors most dependent on trade with the EU.

Between 2013-17, 82% of the UK beef and 78% of the dairy/eggs and fruit and vegetables that were exported went to the bloc.

But it is the lamb sector that is considered to be one of the most vulnerable, with 89% of all sheep-meat exports finding their way to the EU.

Estimates by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) show that if exports remain at 2019 levels, but tariffs are imposed, about 3 million lamb carcasses normally destined for the EU would not find a market there.

Millions of lambs would have to come back to the UK market, leading to depressed prices and nearly two million carcasses unsold.

The CLA says that even with a dramatic increase in domestic consumption, and the sector stretching the UKs cold storage capacity, the possibility of millions of lamb carcasses going to waste hangs over the sector.

And with a greater proportion of UK-produced lamb staying in the UK market, farmers would face a dramatic drop in the value of their lambs.

Sarah Hendry, the director general of the CLA, said many British sheep farming businesses were facing 'the most enormous pressure'.

"They fed the nation through lockdown and are on the cusp of readjusting their business for a new life outside the Common Agricultural Policy. Now many face the complete collapse of their market."

Despite long-promised mitigation measures from the government to protect the areas of farming most vulnerable to a no-deal, the industry is yet to see any details.

Ms Hendry urged the government to put in emergency financial support in place for those farming businesses on the cliff edge.

If the EU imposes tariffs, many farmers will no longer have customers for their produce and their businesses could easily collapse.

"Lamb is one of the most obvious sectors to be hit, and a no deal could see them affected in spring next year when they go to market," she said, adding malting barley and beef also faced losing their market.

While most UK fruit and vegetable businesses are focused on the domestic market, meaning exports are minimal, large parts of UK farming rely on outside trade, mostly with the EU.

At the same time, many EU farmers rely on the UK market. Over 80% of UK meat imports and nearly 100% of imports of dairy and eggs came from the EU during 2018.

British consumers buy a wide range of goods imported from the EU, particularly fresh fruit, vegetables and meat. Overall, the EU exported around 38.2bn worth of agri-foods to the UK during 2018.

Ms Hendry said while it was right to have a tough negotiating strategy in UK-EU talks, it was also right to highlight the importance of the UK market to many European farmers.

"But we should not lose sight of the importance of the EU market to British producers," she said, "And if no deal is possible, then government must come forward with robust emergency support measures to protect farmers until a deal is eventually struck.
Matt Baron/REX/Shutterstock

Jeff Bridges says it was "love at first sight" when he met his wife Susan Bridges, while making the 1975 film Rancho Deluxe in Paradise Valley, Montana, where Susan was working as a waitress.

The couple married two years later and are now the proud parents to three daughters  Isabelle, 39, Jessica, 37, and Hayley, 35  and grandparents to Grace, 9, and Ben, 5

Bridges, 70, tells PEOPLE that the secret to his 43-year marriage is a mutual respect.

"We are quite different as people, and we celebrate that rather than making it drive us apart. I respect her wisdom, and Im sure the girls do too," says Bridges. "Ive really been blessed."

For more on Jeff Bridges, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday.

Jeff Bridges and his wife Susan Ron Galella/WireImage

The Big Lebowski actor, who stars in the upcoming TV series The Old Man, recently teamed up with daughter, Isabelle, for a new childrens book, Daddy Daughter Day, which she wrote and he illustrated. The book is about a dad and daughter who go on a series of adventures and is based on the close bond Bridges has with his girls.

RELATED: Jeff Bridges Reveals His Wife of 41 Years 'Said No' When He First Asked Her Out

Isabelle says her parents' marriage has served as an inspiration to her.

"They love each other, but they like each other, they spend time together. They make an effort to ask each other questions about what the other is interested in," she says.

And while Bridges has been an acclaimed movie star for almost 50 years, with seven Oscar nominations (and one win, for 2009s Crazy Heart) he says his family has been his lifes greatest joy.

"Time goes so fast, and its so precious," says Bridges. "To spend it with people you love, theres nothing richer than that."
"As a recognized leader in medical device cybersecurity, there are few people who have spent more time than Michael McNeil has, thinking and addressing the problems of device security. He is considered by many as the one who has established the de-facto standard for how manufacturers should implement security governance, processes, and technology," says Mike Kijewski, MedCrypt CEO. "2020 has been quite the year for us. We were impacted by the pandemic, just like the rest of the world, but that didn't stop us from continuing our commitment to educating the industry about why we need to prioritize cybersecurity now and always."

Michael McNeil recently joined McKesson as senior vice president and global CISO. He most recently held a role as the global product security and services officer for Royal Philips, responsible for leading the global product security program. He is recognized in the industry as having built a model medical device security program at a leading manufacturer and has not only led Philips but the entire industry forward on this topic. Prior to Philips, McNeil was the former global chief privacy and security officer at Medtronic.

Michael was a member of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Healthcare Industry Cybersecurity Task Force and is currently an active board member of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), and the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center (H-ISAC). Michael has held the chair position for the Medical Device Privacy Consortium (MDPC) and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Health Sector Coordinating Council (HSCC) - Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Partnership of the Healthcare and Public Health Sector's joint cybersecurity working group, and formerly AdvaMed Cybersecurity Working Group.

"I was initially attracted to MedCrypt because it is a company that understands and is committed to the absolute importance of cybersecurity in the healthcare industry. The COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting where changes must be made and MedCrypt is focused on improving device security and therefore patient safety," said Michael McNeil, senior vice president, global CISO at McKesson.

"Having Michael McNeil join our board continues to build on MedCrypt's momentum in the industry and our ability to provide safety-focused cybersecurity solutions to medical device manufacturers. We are looking forward to his contribution and leadership to support our mission," added Axel Wirth, MedCrypt's chief security strategist.

For the remainder of 2020, MedCrypt will focus on continued development of its product portfolio and expanding its engagement with leading manufacturers in the space, ensuring that proactive cybersecurity is a top of mind business and patient safety priority for the many companies developing hospital-based devices and evolving digital health and remote care technologies in response to the global pandemic.

About MedCrypt, Inc.

MedCrypt is a San Diego-based company that provides proactive security for healthcare technology. MedCrypt's platform brings core cybersecurity features to medical devices with just a few lines of code, ensuring devices are secure by design. MedCrypt announced a $5.3 million Series A funding round in May of 2019, bringing the total funds raised to $8.4 million with participation from Eniac Ventures, Section 32, Y Combinator, and more. The company is based in San Diego, California. For more, please visit www.medcrypt.com .

Contact: Brenda Manea

BAM

[email protected]

SOURCE MedCrypt
In a recent study, researchers have explored the connection between social media and hate crimes.

The study has been published in the Journal of the European Economic Association.

The study displayed a reduction of over 10 per cent in the probability of hate crime during weeks with Facebook outages. However, one of the researchers said that further study can help one understand the impact of social media on our lives.

The researchers investigated how negative rhetoric about refugees on social media may have contributed to hate crimes against refugees in Germany between 2015 and 2017.

News reports often suggest a relationship between fake news, social media echo chambers, and online bot armies with real-life outcomes. But despite the public interest and demands for policy action, there is little evidence about the relationship between social media content and offline behaviour, suggested the study.

In Germany, social media is among the main news sources of 18-year-olds to 25-year-olds. In the United States, around half of all adults use social media to get news and two-thirds of Facebook users use it as a news source.

In contrast to traditional media, social media platforms allow users to easily self-select into niche topics and extreme viewpoints. This may limit the range of information people absorb and create online communities that reinforce similar ideas and viewpoints.

The researchers measured anti-refugee sentiment on social media based on the Facebook page of the Alternative fur Deutschland, a relatively new right-wing party that positions itself as anti-refugee and anti-immigration.

The party is by far the most popular far-right political movement in Germany and with more than 300,000 followers, 175,000 posts, 290,000 comments, and 500,000 likes (as of early 2017), its Facebook page has a broader reach than that of any other German party.

As the researchers show, the rhetoric about refugees on the Alternative fur Deutschland Facebook page differs markedly from traditional news sources and in many cases contains language that prominent German non-governmental organizations have classified as hate speech.

The researchers established that spikes in posts about refugees on social media are tightly linked to anti-refugee hate crimes, particularly in municipalities where people were more exposed to the Alternative fur Deutschland page. This correlation was especially pronounced for violent incidents such as assault.

Municipalities with Alternative fur Deutschland users were three times more likely to experience an attack during the observation period. Out of the total 3,335 attacks on refugees in the same sample, 3,171 occurred in municipalities with Alternative fur Deutschland Facebook page users.

The paper used the timing of hundreds of local internet disruptions as well as Germany-wide Facebook outages to ask whether these data patterns may reflect a causal effect of social media. Both types of disruptions reduce exposure to social media content and therefore allow a conclusion about causal effects.

The authors found that, while anti-refugee attacks increased with anti-refugee posts, this relationship disappeared during the internet or Facebook outages. That is, if a municipality was cut off from social media or the internet more broadly, the frequency of anti-refugee hate crimes was no longer correlated with the amount of hateful content about refugees online posted in a given week.

The results suggest that, during weeks with Facebook outages, there were on average 11 per cent fewer new total posts and 24 per cent fewer posts about refugees on the Alternative fur Deutschland page. It appears that Facebook outages reduced the probability of a hate crime by 12 per cent.

The researchers do not claim that social media itself causes crimes against refugees. Rather, the results suggest that social media can help propagate violent crimes by enabling people to spread extreme viewpoints.

We think our paper can only be a starting point for understanding how social media causes changes in our lives, said Karsten Muller, one of the papers researchers. It would be crucial to have additional empirical evidence. Our findings on hate crime suggest that the stakes are high.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.)

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India is offering young foreign nationals and non-resident Indians (NRIs) a chance to visit the country as guests of the government through a quiz competition.

Registration is now open for the world-wide quiz competition named 'Bharat ko Janiye' (Get to know India). People in the age group 18-35 can join the contest by registering at www.bharatkojaniye.in, the designated website of the competition.

Complete details of the quiz competition testing the knowledge of participants about India are available at this website.

The quiz will be conducted in four rounds: the welcome round from November 1 to 30; second or qualifying round from December 7 to 13; semi-final round from December 14 to 20; and the final round from December 21 to 27.
By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two alleged Islamic State militants known as the 'Beatles' arrived in the United States on Wednesday to face trial on U.S. criminal charges for their alleged involvement in beheadings of American hostages in Syria, U.S. officials said.

The alleged militants, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, had been under U.S. military guard in Iraq for the last year and are now in federal custody. They appeared by video link at an Alexandria, Virginia Federal court hearing late on Wednesday afternoon.

The chief federal prosecutor for eastern Virginia, Zachary Terwilliger, said after their court appearance: "Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee ElSheikh made their initial appearances in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. They were appraised of the charges against them."

Terwilliger added that families of American victims of the accused militants should know that "It is now a certainty that ISIS will not have the last word. When it comes to your children, you will."

Further hearings in the case, including a detention hearing and arraignment, have been scheduled for Friday.

Kotey and Elsheikh grew up in Britain and were UK citizens, but the British government withdrew their citizenship. They are suspected of membership in a four-strong Islamic State cell known as the 'Beatles' because of their British accents.

That group is alleged to have detained or killed Western hostages, including U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig. The cell became notorious for allegedly participating in graphic Islamic State videos posted online showing beheadings of foreign hostages.

"These charges are the product of many years of hard work in pursuit of justice for our citizens slain by ISIS. Although we cannot bring them back, we can and will seek justice for them, their families, and for all Americans," Attorney General William Barr said in a statement.

Story continues

In order to secure British help in obtaining evidence on the pair, Barr agreed that U.S. prosecutors would not seek the death penalty in any cases against them and would not carry out executions if they were imposed.

"As for their ringleader, Mohamed Emwazi (infamously known as Jihadi John), he faced a different type of American resolve - the mighty reach of our military, which successfully targeted him in an airstrike several years ago," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers told a news conference.

The 24-page indictment includes a lengthy list of tortures which it accuses the defendants of inflicting on their captives, including electric shocks with a taser, forcing hostages to fight each other, 20-minute beatings with sticks and waterboarding.

Among specific murders the indictment alleges Kotey and Elsheikh were involved in was that of Mueller, who was seized and detained by Islamic State militants in August 2013. The indictment says that beginning about October 2014, Mueller was sexually abused by the late Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi while held captive in Syria.

Mueller's family received an email from Islamic State fighters in February 2014, confirming her death in Syria, the indictment says.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Islamic State is still trying to radicalize people in the United States and elsewhere.

"Their goal is to motivate people to launch attacks against Western targets wherever they are, using any means available," Wray said.

Wray and Demers said the support of the British government was critical to moving the investigation and prosecution forward.

The families of Foley, Kassig, Mueller and Sotloff welcomed the news.

"James, Peter, Kayla and Steven were kidnapped, tortured, beaten, starved, and murdered by members of the Islamic State in Syria," they said in a joint statement.

"Now our families can pursue accountability for these crimes against our children in a U.S. court."

The indictment alleges four counts of hostage taking resulting in death against Kotey and Elsheikh and four more criminal counts of conspiracy to murder and to support terrorists. If convicted, Kotey and Elsheikh could face up to life in prison.

Terwilliger said the two defendants asked for lawyers to be appointed to defend them and lawyers were appointed. He said that the defendants were being tested for COVID-19 on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball, Jonathan Landay and Idrees Ali; Editing by Mary Milliken, Rosalba O'Brien and David Gregorio)
Ellies is one of South Africas most iconic technology brands and its lighting, electrical, and electronic products are a popular choice among consumers.

Founded in 1979, Ellies is the leading Southern African manufacturer, importer, wholesaler, and distributor of a wide range of electrical and electronic products, and aerial and satellite equipment.

In recent years, however, the company has been struggling which forced it to implement significant job cuts this year.

The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown put further pressure Ellies, with a knock to both its revenue and profit.

Its revenue decreased by 13.8% to R1.17 billion (2019: R1.36 billion) while its operating loss increased by 191% to R88.3 million (2019: operating loss of R30.4 million).

In its trading statement, Ellies said COVID-19 created material uncertainty around the company as a going concern.

If the economy and as a result, the performance of Ellies, deteriorate and management is unable to stem the losses incurred in a major subsidiary, these present material uncertainty to Ellies remaining as a going concern, it said.

Ellies added that it may not be able to realise its assets and discharge its liabilities in the normal course of business.

This raised concerns that Ellies future is uncertain and that it may even face closure in future.

Ellies CEO Shaun Prithivirajh responds

To find out whether Ellies is at risk of shutting down, MyBroadband spoke to Ellies CEO Shaun Prithivirajh.

Prithivirajh said there are no plans for Ellies to close. I am confident that Ellies will not only survive, but thrive, he said.

He said to achieve a more sustainable situation, they have to execute on their strategy to turn around the business.

Significant changes have already been implemented at Ellies, which include:

Migration of the Johannesburg warehousing and distribution functionality to a third party service provider.

Disposal of properties that are not core to their business operations.

Stock impairment of slow-moving and obsolete stock that was identified during the physical move to Value Logistics.

Integration of IT systems with Value Logistics that provide Ellies with real-time data to better manage inventory.

Restructuring of Ellies head office functionality which has improved their OPEX and effectiveness.

The above strategic initiatives have already started to show positive results in the first quarter, Prithivirajh said.

The focus for the remainder of the year is to fully upgrade their ERP system, continue to extract value from its MultiChoice partnership, and grow its connectivity partnership with Vox.

A key strategic growth driver is alternative energy, especially solar. We have developed and secured innovative product offerings in this space and are in the process of going to market, said Prithivirajh.

We will also continue to interrogate products, partnerships, outlets and business units that are not profitable so as to prevent any contagion effect on the group.

Ellies and Vox partnership

In January 2020, Vox entered into a business partner agreement with Ellies as part of a commitment to work together in expanding their respective product and solutions portfolios.

This partnership will allow Vox access to over 4000 satellite installers who will be able to promote and install Voxs satellite service.

This will also give Vox reach in areas where they do not have offices. The partnership will also allow Ellies to extend their offering to include the entire ICT stack.

The photo below shows Ellies CEO Shaun Prithivirajh and Vox CEO Jacques du Toit during the official announcement of the partnership.

Now read: Ellies to cut 183 jobs
Cannabis that was grown in a suitable environment, using tube lights, exhaust fans, and other equipment in order to facilitate proper growth that is what the Goa Police came across when they raided an apartment Gaudewada, Mandrem.

The cannabis nursery was run by two Russian nationals inside an apartment they had rented.

Reuters/ Representational Image

Five fully cultivated cannabis plants along with dry Ganja weighing 2.5 kg all worth Rs 3.5 lakhs and cash of Rs 25,000 was also recovered during the search.

Two Russians arrested

Two men, identified as Aleksei Perevalov and Aleksei Rebriev, both Russians have been arrested by the police under section 20(a)(i), 20(b)(ii)(A), 25 R/w 29 of Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

Reuters/ Representational Image

The owner of the apartment, identified as Sudhir Gawade a resident of Mandrem for allowing his premises for the cultivation of cannabis has also been booked by the police.

According to the police, the two men had come to India on a five-year tourist visa and stayed back in the country even after the lockdown was announced and most of the foreigners had left.

The two men had rented the apartment in May, where they set up their cannabis nursery.

Reuters/ Representational Image

The police raided the apartment on specific inputs on the two foreigners cultivating and selling the banned substance there.

Police also said that they have increases vigil on such activities, especially done by foreign nationals.

This is not the first time Russians have been arrested in Goa for growing cannabis.

Not the first time

In February 2019, four Russians were arrested as they allegedly grew cannabis in a rented apartment in Mandrem.

Reuters/ Representational Image

In December 2018, a Russian couple was held for allegedly growing cannabis in their rented apartment in Anjuna.

In July 2018, two Russians were arrested with marijuana worth Rs 10 lakh, which they had grown in their apartment.

The latest raids come at a time when Goa is trying to open up for tourism once again following the lockdown since March.
Kuwaits deputy chief of the National Guard who spent years in the oil-rich countrys security services, was nominated as crown prince on Wednesday, the Kuwaiti state news agency reported.

The nomination makes Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah the possible heir apparent to the new emir, 83-year-old Sheikh Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah, who was propelled to power following the death of his half-brother.

Although Sheikh Nawaf had a full year to choose a successor, he picked Sheikh Meshal in record-breaking eight days, ending frenzied speculation that has gripped Kuwaiti social media.

Before Sheikh Meshal can be officially named crown prince, lawmakers must approve the choice during their final session on Thursday, ahead of the formation of a new government  a rare vote for the region's Arab monarchies in which the question of succession is typically decided behind palace doors.

Following the session, Kuwaits parliament will dissolve itself ahead of elections tentatively set for late November.

At age 80, the low-profile Sheikh Meshal, half-brother of the late Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah and the seventh son to ascend from the same branch of the royal family, is widely seen as a conventional and safe choice. While his health status remains unclear, he recently underwent a kidney transplant, according to a Washington Institute for Near-East Policy article from May 2018.

Given his career building up the interior ministry for over a decade, very little is known about his policy preferences. Unlike other top contenders for the post, he has steered clear of the country s tumultuous politics and the royal family's public feuds over corruption allegations.

Bader al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University, described the British-educated minister as a rare senior member of the royal family and political old guard who remains untainted by the country's corruption scandals.

He's an insider and an outsider at the same time, said al-Saif, noting that the country's National Guard remains a respected institution above the political fray. The unchecked corruption requires introducing a name that is fresh, and has no associations.

Even so, Sheikh Meshal is no newcomer to Kuwaiti government. He was a close confidant of Sheikh Sabah throughout his tenure, accompanying him on official diplomatic visits as well as to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where the emir received medical treatment after surgery and later died.

His selection delays any generational change in Kuwait, reinforcing the contrast with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, now in effect led by powerful young princes. Under the late Sheikh Sabah, who commanded great respect as a seasoned diplomat in a region divided along political and sectarian lines, Kuwait managed to pursue independent foreign policies despite the pressures of more belligerent regional heavyweights.

Change will happen in an orderly, gradual way, said al-Saif. This is the Kuwaiti way.

The choice of Sheikh Meshal is also a sign that Kuwait will look inward in the years ahead. A worsening coronavirus outbreak, escalating tensions between the parliament and Cabinet and plunging oil prices have sharpened attention on Kuwait's domestic grievances. Parliamentary gridlock has blocked the passage of a public debt law needed to raise $65 billion and mitigate the countrys looming liquidity crisis, and calls are growing for political reform.

Also Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Kuwait City, becoming the the latest political figure to pay his respects to Sheikh Sabah, following visits from Saudi, Emirati, Qatari and other Arab officials. Erdogan's meeting with the new ruling emir further underscores the late Sheikh Sabah's ability to navigate between regional political rivalries, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pitted against Iran and Qatar.

Erdogan later headed for Qatar to meet with its ruling emir. Turkey has backed the tiny Gulf state in the face of a years-long blockade by its neighbors over its support for Islamists. Ankara and Doha are also on the same side in Libya's spiraling proxy war, backing the U.N.-supported government in Tripoli.
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Ascending to this incredible new observation deck might just be the peak experience of a visit to the Italian Alps.

Called Otzi Peak 3251m, it is perched around the corner from Austria on the Schnals Valley Glacier ridge in the South Tyrol at a height, as the name suggests, of 3,251m (10,666ft).

The viewing platform offers breathtaking views and has been designed so it only touches the ground where necessary. This, say the architects, makes it an 'almost floating construction which lets you become one with the mountains and breathe in the freedom'.

The incredible Otzi Peak 3251m observation deck on the Schnals Valley Glacier ridge in Italy's South Tyrol

The viewing platform offers breathtaking views and has been designed so it only touches the ground where necessary. This, say the architects, makes it an 'almost floating construction which lets you become one with the mountains and breathe in the freedom'

Otzi Peak 3251m can be reached in two ways - either by hiking up the Grawand mountain or via the Schnalstal Glacier Cable Car, which runs from the Italian village of Maso Corto to the Grawand mountain station, 3,212m (10,538ft) up

It has been created by Italian-based design studio Network of Architecture (Noa) and is now open for visitors.

The platform is made out of Corten steel, which Noa says gives it a 'modern touch that also blends in with the landscape'. It also incorporates the pre-existing cross there.

One of the stand-out features is the deck's 'geometric viewing funnel'.

Its purpose is apparently to direct viewers' eyes to the spot nearby where Otzi - a 5,300-year-old glacier mummy - was discovered by hikers in 1991.

'The angle of the viewing funnel takes the visitor on a carefully crafted, intellectual journey to the Iceman,' say the designers.

The platform has been designed by Italian-based design studio Network of Architecture (Noa) and is now open for visitors

Architecture firm Noa says: 'At the new observation deck on the Schnals Valley Glacier, your mind is refreshed with the wide-open views'

One of the stand-out features is the deck's 'geometric viewing funnel' (pictured). Its purpose is apparently to direct viewers' eyes to the spot nearby where Otzi - a 5,300-year-old glacier mummy - was discovered by hikers in 1991

On the left are a series of steps and a walkway that lead to the observation deck. One the right is the geometric funnel from another angle that Noa says will leave visitors feeling like they're floating

What's more, the end of the funnel is completed with a glass railing, leaving visitors 'feeling like they are floating on air'.

Otzi Peak 3251m can be reached in two ways - either by hiking up the Grawand mountain or via the Schnalstal Glacier Cable Car, which runs from the Italian village of Maso Corto to the Grawand mountain station, 3,212m (10,538ft) up.

They can then hike up the remaining 40 metres (131ft) to the viewing platform using a series of steps and a walkway.

The viewing platform also lies close to Hotel Grawand, which at an altitude of 3,000 metres (9,842ft) is Europe's loftiest hotel.

The platform is made out of Corten steel, which Noa says gives it a 'modern touch that also blends in with the landscape'

Hotel Grawand, which at an altitude of 3,000 metres (9,842ft) is Europe's loftiest hotel. This image was taken before the observation deck was built

The easiest way to reach the Schnals Valley Glacier ridge is by cable car, pictured

Breathtaking location: Views from Hotel Grawand are spectacular, as this image shows

Noa adds: 'At the new observation deck on the Schnals Valley Glacier, your mind is refreshed with the wide-open views.

'There is something sublime about this special place, right at the top of the Schnals Valley Glacier ridge, where Italy's impressive alpine landscape soars high above the reservoir below, and Austria is around the corner. In this unique geographic location, fate decides whether a drop of glacier water will make its way towards the Mediterranean or the Black Sea.

'The breathtaking landscape view of snow-covered mountain peaks makes time standstill. Hikers and skiers visit the peak to experience nature at its fullest: rugged, stony, with wind and weather  pure.'
A controversial home construction scheme providing $25,000 renovation grants has been quietly axed in the Budget just four months after it was launched.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in June unveiled the $688million HomeBuilder program offering 27,000 subsidies in the hope this would support 140,000 jobs in the struggling construction sector.

Australians were able to claim $25,000 from taxpayers to build a new house worth up to $750,000 or renovate an existing one valued between $750,000 and $1.5million.

A controversial home construction scheme providing $25,000 renovation grants has been quietly axed in the Budget just four months after it was launched. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in June unveiled the $688million HomeBuilder program offering 27,000 subsidies in the hope this would support 140,000 jobs in the struggling construction sector. Pictured is a Melbourne house under construction

Despite that, building approvals in New South Wales, Australia's most populated state, plunged by 14.2 per cent in August.

This however followed a 32 per cent increase in July as the aftermath of coronavirus lockdown delays caused a short-lived spike in approvals.

National building approvals fell by 1.6 per cent in August, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics results released less than a week before Budget day.

The Budget papers released on Tuesday showed no further funding for HomeBuilder, which ends on December 31.

Singles earning up to $125,000 and couples on combined incomes of $200,000 are eligible to apply during the next 12 weeks, provided construction is scheduled to begin within three months of the contract date.

Labor's housing spokesman Jason Clare criticised the government for axing the HomeBuilder scheme rather than fixing it.

'I thought one of the things that would be in the Budget last night is a fix to their bungled HomeBuilder scheme,' he said.

'The scheme's rolling out too slowly. It's too restrictive.

'For people in Sydney, it's very hard to buy a house and land package for less than $750,000.'

The Budget papers released on Tuesday showed no further funding for HomeBuilder, which ends on December 31. Pictured is Treasurer Josh Frydenberg delivering a post-Budget address in Canberra on Wednesday

Sydney's median house price stood at $983,262 in September while Melbourne's equivalent value was $780,836, CoreLogic data showed.

Recipients of the HomeBuilder scheme would not have qualified to build a brand new house, with a median price, in Australia's two biggest cities but they would have been eligible for a grant to renovate an existing, mid-priced home.

The government instead announced, three days before Tuesday's Budget, the extension of the $500million First Home Loan Deposit Scheme.

Instead of stumping up for a 20 per cent deposit, a property newcomer only have to save for a five per cent deposit with taxpayers underwriting the rest.

Another 10,000 places were offered as of Tuesday, whereby recipients have until June 30 next year to build a new home or a newly-built one.

In 2020, the program has helped 20,000 first-home buyers but the first tranche was not restricted to new or newly-built homes.
Walkin lawton sighting Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Lawton Chiles was spotted in strolling through downtown Marianna. He addressed the Marianna Jaycees at a noon luncheon and spoke to several local officials and townsfolk before heading in the direction of Blountstown.  Jackson County Floridan, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 1970

more than col Wage data showed the typical worker in the area was better off than five years prior, in terms of purchasing power, with earnings going up more than enough to offset the cost of living. The average working man in Jackson County needed to put in 36 minutes on the job in order to buy two dozen eggs.  Jackson County Floridan, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 1970

Schools settleAfter six weeks of operating under a federal court order, Jackson Countys 14 schools settled down to the day-to-day job of educating nearly 8,300 students. School Superintendent Childs said the schools werent out of the woods yet, sighting continuing problems, but took an optimistic tone when looking toward the rest of the school year. The first week of school saw chaos in some schools, especially where there were a greater number of student transfers than expected: buses ran off schedule, pupils boarded the wrong bus or no bus at all, lunchrooms struggled to feed seemingly endless lines of students, water fountains dried up and electricity failed. Within two weeks, most major logistical problems had been overcome.  Jackson County Floridan, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 1970
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

It's generally accepted health advice that adults of all ages should sit less, move more, and engage in regular exercise to feel better and reduce the risk of chronic diseases. However, when it comes to the brain and cognition, a new study of older adults from Colorado State University suggests that some sedentariness isn't all bad, so long as basic physical activity benchmarks are being met.

The research, from Assistant Professor Aga Burzynska in the CSU Department of Human Development and Family Studies, examined the association between sensor-measured physical activity and cognitive performance in a sample of 228 healthy older adults, aged 60 to 80.

Published in Psychology and Aging, the results showed that, as expected, adults who engaged in more moderate-to-vigorous activity had better speed, memory, and reasoning abilities. However, the data also revealed that adults who spent more time sedentary performed better on vocabulary and reasoning tasks.

The study could be a bit of good news for a population of Americans who spend a significant amount of time sitting for work and for leisure.

Sensitive measurements

The association between increased physical activity and improved cardiovascular and metabolic health is one that's well documented, according to Burzynska. But the link between different intensities of daily physical activity and cognitive health is less understood, especially in older adults.

"We know that as we grow older, even if we do not have any cognitive impairments, people aged 60 and up already show some decreases in speed, executive functioning, and memory. Those decreases are totally within a normal range, but this study was looking to understand how our behaviors and habits may correlate with cognitive outcomes in older age," Burzynska said.

What differentiates this study from others is the way the researchers measured daily physical activity, using scientifically validated sensors that are more accurate than your average, consumer-based activity tracker. Other studies rely on self-reported data to measure physical activity, "and we already know that people like to overestimate their daily movement and underestimate the time they spend sitting," Burzynska said.

"If you ask, 'How long did you sit today?' people will perhaps say two to three hours when the reality is more like six to eight hours," she added.

Further, where other studies might use only one or two measures of cognition and a general definition of physical activity, Burzynska's study employed a broad assessment that tested 16 cognitive tasks. In addition, they measured and controlled for socioeconomic and health factors, such as employment status, income level, aerobic fitness, blood pressure, and mobility issues.

"Our study has pretty high-quality measures that cannot be done 'quick and dirty'," Burzynska said.

Older adults who participated in the study wore the sensor on their hip for a span of seven days, during which the sensor captured the daily time they spent sitting or in light versus moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.

Fluid vs. crystallized cognition

The cognitive assessment prompted participants to select patterns, fill-in-the-blanks, and identify shapes, among other tasksthe results of which helped researchers gage if there was a correlation between physical activity and fluid vs. crystallized cognition.

So-called "fluid" abilities, such as speed and memory, problem solving, and reasoning skills, tend to decline throughout adulthood; yet, participants in the study who engaged in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity performed better on fluid tasks, suggesting that exercise might stave off some of the typical effects of brain aging.

However, most participants in the study did not spend a significant amount of time in physical activity; in fact, data showed that, on average, most participants spent less than 2.7% of their time engaged in moderate-to-vigorous activities. Those older adults who instead sat more hours each day performed better on knowledge-based activities, like vocabulary tests or reading comprehension. These "crystallized" abilities tend to strengthen with age as adults acquire more knowledge and experience.

Interestingly, the researchers observed no associations between light physical activitiessuch as doing laundry, cooking, or other household choresand cognition. Although replacing sedentariness with light physical activity has been recommended for better metabolic health, there is no evidence of such a relationship at the cognitive level.

While the results are purely correlations and have no clear causes, the researchers speculate that when people are sedentary, they're likely to be engaging in educational, stimulating activities, like reading, playing games or puzzles, or attending plays, which might serve to boost crystallized cognition.

"There's this big push within health and wellness that sitting is always bad for your body, that being a couch potato is not good," Burzynska said, "and although our earlier studies indicated that the brains of those who spend more time sitting may age faster, it seems that on the cognitive level, sitting time may also be meaningful."

Ways to spend our sitting time

However, future studies are needed to determine how exactly the participants spent their time sitting before any definitive conclusions can be made about sedentary activity and cognitive health.

Burzynska says the study reinforces the recommendation that regular exercise is good for general health, but for those older adults who might not be able to be physically active, engaging in more cognitively demanding activities may also be an option.

"I don't think I would in any way suggest that we should engage in more sitting, but I think trying to be as physically active as possible and making sure that you get stimulated in your sedentary timethat it's not just spent staring at the TVthat this combination might be the best way to take care of your brain," she said. "I hope it sends some positive message for those of us who have had limited opportunities to exercise during the pandemic."

In the quest for long-term brain health, it seems balance is the answer.

"When you exercise, enjoy your exercise. Maybe sometimes think, 'Yeah I'm going to go sit now and enjoy a really good book," Burzynska added.

Explore further 10-minute reduction in the daily time spent sitting and lying may be beneficial for cardiometabolic health

More information: Agnieszka Z. Burzynska et al. Sensor-measured sedentariness and physical activity are differentially related to fluid and crystallized abilities in aging., Psychology and Aging (2020). Journal information: Psychology and Aging Agnieszka Z. Burzynska et al. Sensor-measured sedentariness and physical activity are differentially related to fluid and crystallized abilities in aging.,(2020). DOI: 10.1037/pag0000580
Texas RangersBy IVAN PEREIRA and MARC NATHANSON, ABC News



(NEW YORK) -- The Texas police officer charged with murder in the shooting death of Jonathan Price on Saturday has retained the attorney who defended Dallas officer Amber Guyger against similar charges last year.



Wolfe City police officer Shaun Lucas has retained attorney Robert Rogers as he faces murder charges for the Oct. 3 shooting of Price while responding to a domestic dispute call at a gas station convenience store.



Rogers represented Guyger when she was convicted of murder after she accidentally entered the apartment of her upstairs neighbor, Botham Jean, and fatally shot him when she mistook him for an intruder, on Sept. 6, 2018. Rogers argued that Guyger perceived Jean as a deadly threat and thus committed no crime.



She was sentenced last October to 10 years in prison.



In a statement, the attorney contended that Lucas, 22, opened fire at Price, who was unarmed, because he resisted arrest.



"Mr. Price did not claim to be an uninvolved, innocent party," Rogers said in the statement. "Officer Lucas told Mr. Price he was detained, and Mr. Price resisted. After Mr. Price refused repeated instructions and physically resisted, Officer Lucas deployed his taser and continued to give Mr. Price instructions. Mr. Price resisted the effects of the taser and attempted to take it away from Officer Lucas. Officer Lucas only discharged his weapon in accordance with Texas law when he was confronted with an aggressive assailant who was attempting to take his taser."



However according to a statement from the Texas Rangers, who are investigating the incident, Price, 31, "resisted in a non-threatening posture and began walking away" when Lucas deployed his Taser and then discharged his gun.



"The preliminary investigation indicates that the actions of Officer Lucas were not objectionably reasonable," the statement said.



Price's family says Price, who is Black, was attempting to break up the domestic disturbance and didn't threaten anyone.



"He noticed a man assaulting a woman and he intervened," civil rights attorney Lee Merritt said in a Facebook post. "When police arrived, I'm told, he raised his hands and attempted to explain what was going on. Police fired Tasers at him and when his body convulsed from the electrical current, they 'perceived a threat' and shot him to death."



Price worked as a Wolfe City employee and a physical trainer, according to his family.



Lucas, who is white, was arrested Monday night and held on $1 million bond.



"It's just -- this is just -- I can't wrap my brain around this," Lucas' stepfather told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA-TV. "He's a good kid. He's devastated. He's devastated for everybody involved."



The Hunt County District Attorney's office said Tuesday that the investigation into the incident is continuing.



"Though an arrest has been made, our office has not received the case from the Texas Rangers as it remains an active and ongoing investigation," the DA's office said in a statement. "As is customary, this case will be filed with our office once the investigation is complete. Until then, the thorough work of the Texas Rangers and others will continue."



Price's family told WFAA Tuesday that they hoped Lucas would face justice.



"My son got life. I want him to get life [in prison]," Prices mother, Marcella Louis, said of Lucas. "And think about it -- hes going to have time to think about it. My son is not."



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Metallis Resources Inc. (TSXV: MTS) (OTCQB: MTLFF) (FSE: 0CVM) (the "Company" or "Metallis") today announces the closing of the first tranche ("First Tranche") of its non-brokered private placement (the "Financing") which was initially announced on September 28, 2020, raising $2,994,350. The Company has received conditional approval of the Financing from the TSX-V. The Company also announces that due to investor demand, it has now increased the size of the Financing from $3 million to $3.5 million by adding an additional 300,000 non-flow through units at $0.40 per unit and 850,000 flow-through units at $0.45 per unit.

The Financing will now consist of up to 3,072,222 flow-through units at a price of $0.45 per unit for proceeds of up to $1,382,500 and up to 5,300,000 non-flow-through units at a price of $0.40 per unit for proceeds of up to $2,120,000. The First Tranche closed 4,805,000 units at $0.40 per unit for proceeds of $1,922,000, and 2,383,000 flow-through units at $0.45 per unit for proceeds of $1,072,350.

Each flow-through unit consists of one flow-through common share and one non-flow-through, non-transferable share purchase warrant. Each warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one additional common share at a price of $0.68 per share for a 3-year period.

Each non-flow-through unit consists of one common share and one non-flow-through, non-transferable share purchase warrant. Each warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one additional common share at a price of $0.60 per share for a 3-year-period.

The flow-through shares will qualify as "flow-through shares" for the purpose of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the "Act"). The proceeds of the flow-through private placement will be incurred on "Canadian exploration expenses" (within the meaning of the Act). The Company will renounce these expenses to the purchasers with the effective date no later than December 31, 2020, and as required under the Act.

The flow-through proceeds from the Financing will be used strictly for qualifying exploration expenditures and the non-flow-through proceeds will be used for both exploration and general working capital.

Canaccord Genuity Corp. acted as a finder in association with a certain subscription in the First Tranche. The Company will pay Canaccord $3,150 in cash finders fees and will issue 7,000 finder's warrants exercisable at $0.40 per share for 3 years from the date of issuance.

Shares and warrants issued on closing are subject to a trading hold period expiring four months plus one day from the date of issue.

Metallis also announces that it has granted Frank Lagiglia of Nicosia Capital Corp. stock options to purchase 100,000 shares of the Company at a price of $0.40 per share for a five-year period. The options will vest over a one-year period. Nicosia has been a provider of investor relations services to the Company since August 2018 and was not granted any stock options prior to this announcement. The options are granted in accordance with Metallis Resources Stock Option Plan (the "Plan") as approved by the shareholders at the Company's Annual General and Special Meeting held on September 15, 2020. A copy of the Plan is available under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

About the Kirkham Property

The wholly-owned 106 sq. km Kirkham Property is located about 65 km north of Stewart, B.C., in the heart of the Golden Triangle's prolific Eskay Camp. The Property is prospective for multiple mineral deposit types and is located along a strategic geological boundary  the "Red-line" exposed on the western margin of the Eskay Rift system in the Golden Triangle, northwestern British Columbia.

The northern border of Kirkham is contiguous to Garibaldi Resources' E&L Nickel Mountain Project. The northeast corner of Kirkham is within 12 km of the Eskay Creek mine while the eastern border is within 15 - 20 km of Seabridge Gold's KSM deposits and Pretium Resources' Brucejack mine.

About Metallis

Metallis Resources Inc. is a Vancouver-based company focused on the exploration of gold, copper, nickel, and silver at its 100%-owned Kirkham Property situated in northwest British Columbia's Golden Triangle. Metallis trades under the symbols MTS on the TSX Venture Exchange, MTLFF on the OTCQB Exchange, and 0CVM on the Frankfurt Exchange. The Company currently has 43,343,767 common shares issued and outstanding after the closing of the First Tranche.

On behalf of the Board of Directors:

/s/ "Fiore Aliperti"

Chief Executive Officer, President and Director

CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Press Release may contain statements which constitute 'forward-looking' statements, including statements regarding the plans, intentions, beliefs and current expectations of the Company, its directors, or its officers with respect to the future business activities and operating performance of the Company. The words "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect" and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company, or its management, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future business activities or performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that the Company's future business activities may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Such risks, uncertainties and factors are described in the periodic filings with the Canadian securities' regulatory authorities, including quarterly and annual Management's Discussion and Analysis, which may be viewed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated, or expected. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be others that cause results not to be as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release.

SOURCE Metallis Resources Inc.

Related Links

metallisresources.com


Rabat, (MAP)- Morocco and the United Nations (UN) signed, Tuesday via videoconference, a headquarters Agreement for the establishment in Morocco of the Program Office for Counter-Terrorism and Training in Africa of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT).

Signed by Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates, Mr. Nasser Bourita, and the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism, Vladimir Voronkov, the center reflects the ambition to combine efforts to meet the challenges posed by the growing terrorist threat in Africa in recent years.

This office, the first of its kind in Africa, aims to "strengthen the capacity of member States through the development of national training programs in the fight against terrorism," said Mr. Bourita, who was speaking on the sidelines of the signing ceremony.

Morocco, the Minister said, is committed to working with this new structure to create a dynamic portfolio of cutting-edge training that evolves and adapts to the mission "in perpetual change and increasingly difficult to prevent, detect and prosecute terrorist activities".

To rise to this challenge, recommended Mr. Bourita, "our actions must be in perfect harmony with the needs of African States, complementary to the various initiatives launched by these countries, developed with the contribution of African States and shared among partners in a cooperative approach and solidarity".

The creation of this center, the result of more than nine months of hard work, comes at a time when Africa is suffering from an "alarming" upsurge in terrorist acts during 2020, Mr. Bourita stressed.

These acts have increased by 31% since 2011, reaching 4,100 attacks in the first half of the current year, while the number of deaths due to terrorism jumped by 26% in one year (12,507 compared to 9,944 in the first six months of 2019).

In the Sahel, the scene of the most significant upsurge in violence, the acts of Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin' (JNIM) and Daesh have increased sevenfold since mid-2017, the Minister said.

In Lake Chad, the number of victims of the Boko Haram and Daesh terrorist attacks has nearly doubled since June 2017, from 506 to 964, Mr. Bourita said.

These figures, the Minister concluded, underscore that Africa needs more than ever "immediate and determined" action to stabilize the continent, consolidate its security, and enable it to focus on sustainable development.

The signing ceremony took place in the presence from New York of Morocco's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Omar Hilale.
RALEIGH, N.C. - North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham inched back into the public sphere on Wednesday, a day after The Associated Press reported the Democratic contender had an intimate encounter this summer with a public relations consultant.

Within hours of the military disclosing that it is investigating Cunningham, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, he rejected the idea that the race with Republican Sen. Thom Tillis had turned into a referendum on his character, even while expressing remorse for extramarital activity.

Ive made it clear that Ive hurt my family and that Ive disappointed my supporters, and Im taking responsibility for that, Cunningham told WNCN-TV, which found him in the parking lot of a Raleigh coffee shop. Im very clear that this campaign isnt about my personal life; its about the people of North Carolina; its about the issues that are important to North Carolinians, and thats what Im staying focused on.

Cunningham acknowledged late last week that he and the woman  both of whom are married  had exchanged sexually suggestive text messages. On Tuesday, the AP, citing previously undisclosed texts and additional interviews, reported the relationship extended beyond texts to an intimate encounter as recent as July.

The Army Reserve is investigating the matters involving (Lt. Col.) James Cunningham, Lt. Col. Simon Flake said in an emailed statement Wednesday morning that cited Cunningham by his official first name. As such, we are unable to provide further details at this time.

Flake did not explain why the Army is investigating or how Cunninghams relationship with the woman might affect his military career. Adultery has long been a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Last year the wording was broadened to include any extramarital sexual contact. Service members can face a maximum penalty of dishonourable discharge, forfeiture of pay and confinement for a year.

Cunningham and his campaign had been largely quiet since he acknowledged the texts last Friday and apologized. But that changed Wednesday with comments by him and his allies.

Cunningham campaign spokesperson Rachel Petri said in a news release that the candidate will participate in this process, a reference to the military investigation  but she also noted that it does not change the stakes of this election or the need for new leaders who will fight for the issues North Carolinians care about.

Meanwhile, Tillis, who is quarantined in his North Carolina home after testing positive for COVID-19 last week, has gone on television several times saying voters need to hear directly from Cunningham, who he said made the race about integrity in a recent debate. The candidates have faced off three times. No more debates are scheduled.

He owes North Carolinians a full explanation, Tillis campaign account tweeted Wednesday. The truth still matters in North Carolina, Cal.

Cunningham also made his first quasi-public appearance Wednesday night  speaking briefly at an environmental awards ceremony. While the event was fully online, the fact that Cunningham appeared virtually with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker signalled hes not considered politically radioactive.

During the event, Cunningham apologized again to those watching and said the campaign is about something much bigger than just me.

State Democratic Party Chair Wayne Goodwin renewed his endorsement by attacking Tillis. The fact is that theres only one candidate who has blocked Medicaid expansion, voted to end protections for people with preexisting conditions, and enabled this administrations bungled response to this pandemic, which is why North Carolina will send Cal to the U.S. Senate next month, he said in a news release.

Cunningham, who serves in a legal unit based at Fort Bragg, has made his military career a key element of his campaign. In television ads, he mentions his decision to volunteer for the Army Reserve in 2002 in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and has prosecuted military contractors for misconduct. He has said he would emphasize rooting out corruption from Washington if elected.

Ive always run to the fight, he says in a recent TV commercial, adding that in the military, Ive learned that our country comes before party.

Without addressing the specifics of Cunninghams situation, military law expert Eric Carpenter said Wednesday in an interview that a reservist cant be court-martialed unless several legal hurdles are met, including evidence the sexual contact happened while the reservist was on active duty. However, a commanding officer could separately issue a reprimand for unbecoming conduct, said Carpenter, a professor at Florida International University College of Law.

The Tillis-Cunningham race is closely contested and the most expensive Senate race in the country in terms of campaign spending. Theres been $112 million spent for or against candidates by independent expenditure groups since the general election began in March, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
NEWS FLASH

Air Serbia has suspended services from Kraljevos Morava Airport to Vienna until the start of the 2021 summer season on March 28 of next year. The carrier suspended operations from Kraljevo following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and has not restored operations to the Austrian capital since. It also did not go ahead with the launch of a new seasonal service from Kraljevo to Thessaloniki, which is yet to be rescheduled for next year. The carriers operations from Kraljevo, which started in December 2019, are subsidised by the Serbian government, after it was the sole bidder for public service obligation flights.
Panaji, Oct 7 : Goa will not compromise on the ongoing Mhadei river water sharing row with Karnataka and the state is on the right track, especially with the filing of a contempt petition against the neighbouring state for violation of apex court's orders, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said on Wednesday.

"There is no compromise. We are strong in that regard. We have taken a stand. We are very much clear. We have filed a contempt petition. We are strong on that and we will follow the matter in the Supreme Court. We are on the right track," Sawant said.

The Chief Minister was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a function organised by a government corporation in Panaji.

The state government on Tuesday filed the contempt petition against Karnataka in the apex court alleging that the southern state is illegally diverting water from the Mhadei river basin via the newly constructed Kalasa-Banduri canal, despite a special leave petition filed by the Goa government in the apex court vis a vis the contentious issue.

The SLP, which was filed in July last year, also challenged the Mhadei Water Dispute Tribunal award in 2018, which allowed Karnataka to divert 13.42 TMC water from the river basin.

The SLP had also said that Karnataka was diverting more water than what was awarded.

Mhadei also known as the Mandovi river in Goa and Mahadayi in Karnataka, is considered as a lifeline in the northern parts of Goa. It originates in Karnataka and meets the Arabian Sea in Panaji in Goa, while briefly flowing through Maharashtra.

While the river runs 28.8 km in Karnataka, it is over 50 km in length in the state Goa. Goa, Karnataka are battling out a two decade-long dispute over the sharing of the Mhadei waters.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot on Tuesday directed manufacturers and dealers of high security registration plates (HSRP) not to take new bookings unless a system is put in place to address the issues being faced by vehicle owners. Gahlot also restrained the Transport department from taking coercive measures to enforce rules pertaining to HSRP until further orders.

The Transport department had issued a public notice asking vehicle owners to get HSRP and colour-coded stickers, saying it would launch a drive to check violations. With vehicle owners in the city facing various problems while booking appointments online for HSRP and the stickers and also complaining of delays at the dealers' end, Gahlot held a meeting on Tuesday to address the grievances.

As per the Motor Vehicles Act and the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, HSRP and colour-coded stickers are mandatory for all vehicles. Around 30 lakh vehicles in Delhi registered prior to April 1, 2019 don't have these. New vehicles registered after April 2019 come equipped with HSRP and colour-coded stickers. During the meeting, the transport minister discussed several issues faced by vehicle owners in getting the HSRPs.

He instructed original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to put a system in place to address the grievances. Gahlot also instructed them not to book any new appointment for HSRP fitment until then. "Our objective is public convenience. It was misinterpreted by a section of people that we are immediately enforcing the HSRP rule. This created a panic among vehicle owners.

"We have asked dealers and HSRP manufacturers not to take any further appointments until a proper system is in place," Gahlot said. An HSRP vendor in Delhi, Rosmerta Safety Systems Private Limited, said in a statement that as directed, it was putting a system in place to address the grievances of vehicle owners and not taking any new appointment for HSRP fitment till further notice.

"As instructed by the minister, we are submitting the SOP and plans for a mobile app and a doorstep fixation system this week. Further, vehicle owners who have booked the plates till today will get them in the next few days," said a spokesperson of the company.

The minister also issued instructions to the Transport department to delay the enforcement of the rules till further orders. "We are clear on our part that we will give sufficient time to vehicle owners to get the HSRP and colour-coded stickers installed before enforcing the HSRP rules," he said.

The meeting was attended by senior officers from the Transport department, the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and other stakeholders, including OEMs, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) and HSRP manufacturers.

Also read: Ahead of festive season, Maruti records 34% jump in passenger vehicle sales in Sept
(Alliance News) - The president of the European Council Charles Michel spoke to Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday and urged him to clarify Britain's position in post-Brexit trade talks.

"Just talked to Boris Johnson," Michel tweeted after the call, which an EU source said had been requested by Johnson. "The EU prefers a deal, but not at any cost. Time for the UK to put its cards on the table."

source: AFP

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Win McNamee/TNS

Continuing to blur the line between political campaign and suicide cult, President Trump took to multiple outlets to urge his remaining followers not to be afraid of the coronavirus or let it dominate them but rather to beat it. He did so after discharging himself from Walter Reed National Medical Military Center hospital and returning to the White House to doff his mask for yet another dangerous and bizarre photo op.

Many politicians lack the imagination to grasp issues until they personally experience them. Trump is that rarer specimen whose ignorance has not only survived his experience but somehow been deepened by it. The president called his illness a school where he learned a lot about COVID  at long last  but he flunked the final.
LONDON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Windward, the Predictive Maritime Intelligence company transforming global maritime operations, announced today that it has partnered with The Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre-Narcotics (MAOC (N)), an EU Law Enforcement unit created to respond to the threat of illicit drug trafficking by maritime and air conveyances. Windward's maritime intelligence platform gives MAOC(N) and its member countries a technological edge in Europe's fight against drug trafficking in the Atlantic and Mediterranean maritime domain.

With air traffic down due to COVID-19, drug smugglers are relying heavily on maritime shipping to transport illegal contraband around the world. To track down illicit trafficking before the smuggled goods reach Europe's shores, MAOC(N) is using Windward's advanced maritime intelligence platform to improve the Centre's capabilities to profile and monitor vessels of interest, collaborate globally across borders, as well as to enhance its data and intelligence. MAOC(N) produces sensitive intelligence reports on these activities, and is reliant on accurate, open-source data that is ultimately admissible in a court of law.

European and other global authorities face many challenges when protecting maritime borders, ranging from information overload, an incomplete picture, fragmented data, and more. Windward bridges this gap by leading a paradigm shift in the global maritime industry from reactive decisions to Predictive Intelligence. By providing a comprehensive, real-time view of the maritime ecosystem that is easily integrated into existing sources, systems, and workflows, Windward enables authorities to gain control over their shores.

"Windward's maritime Predictive Intelligence solution is powerful, highly accurate, and has become an integral component in our fight against drug smuggling throughout Europe," said Michael O'Sullivan, Executive Director of MAOC(N). "We are using Windwards' AI platform to monitor illicit maritime activity and the AIS data has proven to be of the highest quality. Combined with our existing analytics we have significant visibility into the broader maritime landscape, enabling MAOC(N) to collaborate globally and across borders."

Windward's Predictive Intelligence is powered by MAIA (Maritime Artificial Intelligence Analytics) and is based on 300 behavioral analytics models and over 10 billion data points collected over the span of 8 years, giving authorities the power to make smarter decisions, faster. Relying on thousands of case studies and a vast array of parameters including vessel routes, speeds, and unusual changes in course, MAIA analyzes existing behaviors to predict in real-time which vessels are likely to be involved in illicit activities. Windward's solution is the new global standard in maritime control, enabling government bodies to protect their borders, national interests, and citizens by minimizing illicit activities.

"We are proud that MAOC(N) selected Windward's Predictive Intelligence solution to help them in the fight against illegal drug trade," said Ami Daniel, CEO of Windward. "Europe has over 65,000 kilometers of coastline, a huge door for potential smugglers, sanction breakers, and illegal traders to enter. Using Windward's technology, MAOC(N) and other authorities can now have a clear view of global maritime trade and obtain real-time intelligence into which vessels are deemed safe and which are likely to be involved in illegal activities."

About Windward

Windward aims to digitalize the maritime ecosystem and help organizations achieve business and operational readiness through Future Forward decisions. Windward's Predictive Intelligence solution fuses AI, big data, and maritime expertise to enable clients and partners to understand the maritime ecosystem and its broader impact on safety, security, finance, and business.

About MAOC

MAOC (N) is an operational platform which was established by seven European countries (Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Portugal, France and the United Kingdom) with the aim of providing support to international and multilateral cooperation to suppress illicit drug trafficking by sea and by air.

Media Contact

Sarah Schloss

Headline Media

[email protected]

+1 914 506 5105

SOURCE Windward
Victoria's opposition has demanded that Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp return to a parliamentary committee and be re-examined by the state's hotel quarantine inquiry after he amended the evidence he gave about the ill-fated quarantine program.

In a letter written this week and released late on Tuesday, Mr Crisp said the evidence he gave on August 26 to the public accounts and estimates committee that he regularly briefed Police and Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville was incorrect.

Andrew Crisp, with Daniel Andrews, Brett Sutton and Lisa Neville. Credit:Getty Images

He said he had identified three occasions when he told the committee that he gave Ms Neville regular updates on the establishment of Victoria's hotel quarantine program in March.

"I wish to correct this in acknowledgment that I did not brief the Minister for Police and Emergency Services throughout March 27 and 28, 2020, with regard to what was being planned," he wrote.
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...
[October 07, 2020] Avtex Named 2020 Tekne Award Finalist Avtex (News - Alert) , a customer experience (CX) consulting and technology company, has been acknowledged as a finalist for the Minnesota Technology Association 2020 Tekne Awards in the Financial Services Technology category. For the past two decades, the Tekne Awards have recognized organizations that are leading-edge innovators in science and technology throughout Minnesota. In addition, they recognize new technologies that positively impact people's lives. Avtex has been named a finalist in the Financial Services Technology award category for its SmartApps Suite, a full-feature app suite for credit unions that enhances CX and combats the rising rate of fraud in the industry. The suite consists of multiple applications with real-time integrations that work together with a credit union's core technology. "Avtex continues to invest in innovation which allows our clients to differentiate the experience they deliver to their customers," said Michael Shrall, VP of Innovation at Avtex. "Avtex SmartApps provide Credit Unions the ability to provide seamless member engagement while reduce fraud and simplifying the contact center operations." Each application in SmartApps has a unique purpose that enables credit unions to eliminate member frustrations and increase the quality of member interactions. The suite offers a range of member experience supporting features ad functionality, including caller requested callbacks, intuitive speech recognition options, fraud detection and more. "Avtex has a dedicated Financial Services team that has, for the last 15 years, fueled exceptional customer experiences for our clients," said Alfredo Rizzo, VP of CX Architects & Evangelists at Avtex. "From insurance companies to banks and credit unions, Avtex's Financial Services clients differentiate from their competition by providing an effortless customer experience across all channels of interaction."

Each year, the Tekne Awards shine a spotlight on the people and organizations driving Minnesota's innovation economy," said Jeff Tollefson, President and CEO of the Minnesota Technology Association. "This year, we are excited to honor those organizations that played a significant role in spearheading science and technology innovation in Minnesota and around the world." Winners will be announced on November 18th at the virtual Tekne Awards Celebration. A full list of Tekne finalists is available online at tekneawards.org. About Avtex Avtex is a full-service Customer Experience (CX) consulting and solution provider focused on helping organizations build meaningful connections with their customers, members and constituents. Avtex offers a wide range of solutions to support CX transformation planning and orchestration of experiences for clients. Avtex has offices across the U.S., with headquarters in Minneapolis. Avtex is recognized as a gold partner of both Microsoft and Genesys (News - Alert) , leveraging their world class platforms as the foundation for customer engagements and digital transformation. Visit www.avtex.com for more information. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005830/en/

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  Carlos Gimenez is facing one of 2020s toughest political balancing acts.

The Republican mayor of Miami-Dade County is a Trump-endorsed congressional candidate in a nationally watched swing seat. Hes also the elected leader of the urban heart of South Florida, a coronavirus hot spot thats home to 2.7 million people, more than 87 percent of them Black or Hispanic.

So when it comes to public health, Gimenez the mayor sometimes disagrees with President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, like-minded allies eager to restart the pandemic-battered economy.

But when it comes to politics, Gimenez the candidate needs to maintain those bonds if he hopes to win election.

There is no conflict. I have to do what I think is right, after that I am a candidate for Congress, Gimenez said in an interview. Does it impact my ability to run as a candidate? Sure. But Im mayor first.

Democrat Joe Biden is outpolling Trump in the final weeks of the presidential campaign and the coronavirus outbreak has caught a second wind. In swing districts across the U.S., down-ticket Republicans are weighing policy against politics as they answer to their current constituents, try to win over new ones, and avoid going sideways with the party.

These election-year dynamics are forcing some local GOP officials into a political vise of sorts, caught at times between a president who has downplayed the coronavirus and their communities demanding an aggressive response to the disease. Theyre imposing mask mandates, enforcing social distancing and generally taking tougher positions than Trump and his allies  including, in Gimenez's case, DeSantis.

The political acrobatics could hardly be more challenging than in Floridas 26th Congressional District, where the coronavirus pandemic has hit particularly hard and a vulnerable first-term Democratic incumbent faces a fierce fight with a well-known, term-limited Republican mayor.

Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., makes remarks as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., calls attention to bills passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives which have died in the Senate, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The incumbent, Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, is running against Gimenezs coronavirus response, calling it an absolute failure. With a war chest thats less than a third of the incumbents, the mayor needs to show hes in control of the pandemic response, an effort complicated by DeSantis persistent push to reopen the state economy.

Story continues

So on Tuesday, when Trump tweeted from the White House that he would travel to Miami for an Oct. 15 debate despite his Covid-19 diagnosis, Gimenez hedged. The mayor said he would seek the advice of medical experts before Trumps arrival and said he had no concerns that the president might be Covid-positive.

We will know what his contagion level is and take the appropriate precautions, he said.

Next door, Miami City Mayor Francis Suarez, who is not facing an election this year, told Trump to stay home if hes still testing positive on Oct. 15.

I dont think its safe, not for him and anybody else, anywhere or anyone he interacts with, Mayor Francis Suarez told POLITICO.

As the campaign headed into the final stretch, Gimenez the mayor and Gimenez the candidate both were blindsided when DeSantis gave Florida businesses the OK to open doors and return to a pre-pandemic way of life. The Sept. 25 executive order preempted tougher restrictions imposed by local governments, including Miami-Dade, and banned them from collecting fines from people who defied local mask-wearing ordinances.

The DeSantis announcement was a blow, but Gimenez didnt criticize his Republican ally, not even for the lack of a heads up. Instead, he held a news conference a few days later to tell constituents which parts of the DeSantis roadmap the county would not follow.

Miami-Dade would continue to impose $100 fines on mask scofflaws, with plans to collect those fines when the DeSantis order expires, he said. Bars and restaurants that have the ability to keep six feet of space between tables were allowed to to go full capacity, but others will remain at half capacity.

They have given us as much flexibility as possible within the governors desire to open the state as fast as possible, Gimenez said.

While Gimenez tries to balance the demands of his free-market Republican governor and a local public health crisis, Gimenez will have to vastly outperform the top of the ticket, where Biden is expected to easily defeat Trump among voters in the 26th Congressional District. Hillary Clinton won the seat by 16 points in 2016.

Republicans, though, have outperformed the top of the ticket in the district before. In 2016, former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Republican, won the seat by 12 points even though Trump lost the district by 16 points.

FILE - In this June 27, 2018, file photo, U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Curbelo is running in a competitive race against Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

I think the district does afford him the opportunity to try and distinguish himself from the party and show he is independent-minded, Curbelo said in an interview. Its a very independent district.

So far, the relationship between Trump, who has pushed aggressively for an economic reopening, and Gimenez seems to be intact. Gimenez was among a small group of people to privately meet with Trump before he boarded Air Force One after a Latinos for Trump event in Hialeah. Others who chatted up the the president included Florida state Sen. Manny Diaz (R-Hialeah) and likely future Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez (R-Miami).

It was campaign stuff, Gimenez said when asked what he and the president discussed. He has endorsed me, so he just offered to help again, and I thanked him.

After Trump on Friday announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus, Gimenez told the Miami Herald that he stood eight feet away from the president. He wore a mask during the exchange, but the president did not, the Herald reported.

Hes been a bit careful, but I think hes trying to strike a balance. I think the fact he has kept Miami-Dade safe from violence and looting for the most part is going to be very helpful to him, Diaz said.

And while Covid-19 positivity has fallen to below 5 percent, Miami-Dade continues to report a significant number of new infections. The county reported 2,548 new coronavirus cases over the past week, 15 percent of all cases statewide. With the prevalence of new cases, pandemic-protection measures are popular, giving Gimenez local political cover. But conservatives in the county have placed a premium on reopening.

Opening the economy is critical for rehabilitation in both health and economics, said Miami attorney Lorenzo Palomares-Starbuck, who was a Spanish-language Trump campaign surrogate in 2016. I believe in social change and masks are useful and should be used as security cover and discretion. However, not mandates by an executive order.

Palomares-Starbuck stopped short of criticizing Gimenez. But he didnt respond to a follow-up question about the mayors political balancing act.
Shopkeepers of the Ghumar Mandi area kept their shops shut from 10am to 2pm on Wednesday in protest against the serving of change of land use (CLU) notices by the municipal corporation (MC).

As per information, the civic body had sealed two shops on Monday after their owners failed to pay the CLU charges. Following this, the shopkeepers held a protest from Aarti chowk to Bhai Bala chowk. The shopkeepers of the National road area had also closed their shops on the call of the protesters.

The shopkeepers rued that CLU charges do not apply to shops that were established decades back and are supposed to be collected before the establishment of shops.

Pawan Batra, president of Ghumar Mandi market association, said, Why should the shopkeepers pay the CLU charges when the registry of the properties has been done at and property tax is paid at commercial rates. We are already reeling under losses due to the ongoing pandemic and the civic body is adding to our woes.

Most of the shops in Ghumar Mandi were established even before the CLU norms came into existence. We had also conducted a meeting with mayor Balkar Sandhu and area councilor-cum- Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation chairman Gurpreet Gogi in the mid of September. The mayor had assured us that no action would be taken before the discussion of the issue in the meeting of the MC general house. But MC has started sealing the shops, said Batra.

The shopkeepers said that if the corporation fails to roll back the notice, they will raise an agitation in the entire city. Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal also extended support to the Ghumar Mandi market association.

Sunil Mehra, general secretary of Beopar Mandal, said, We will stand by the Ghumar Mandi shopkeepers and MC will have to roll back notices.

As per MC officials, around 1,600 notices have been served to shopkeepers across the city. Many have already submitted the fee.

Earlier, senior deputy mayor Sham Sundar Malhotra had also objected to the notices served by MC.

MC joint commissioner Kulpreet Singh said, Shopkeepers will have to pay the CLU charges as per the norms. For facilitating them, we are also providing the chance to submit the amount in installments.
Batman swooped down into Campbellford recently to recognize a super-hero effort by the Trent Hills community.

RONA Campbellford challenged residents to raise money for the local food bank as part of the Lowes Canada Heroes campaign. Store manager Reg Vineham promised to dress as a superhero and walk the canal if the community raised $1,000. By chipping in at the store with a donation when making their purchases, customers raised a total of $3,000.

RONA matched each donation by 50 per cent and will be presenting about $4,500 to the Campbellford Fare Share Food Bank.

And, as promised, Vineham recently donned a Batman costume.

Vineham said the store chose the food bank as the recipient after witnessing the need during a previous gift from Lowes for the Campbellford Fare Share Food Bank at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We kind of saw first-hand how much they need some help, Vineham told the Brighton Independent.

Thats what opened our eyes to it and it really caught on in the community. All the proceeds stay in the communityand it didnt hurt letting everyone know if we hit our goal Id dress up as a superhero and walk the canal  everybody seemed to like that.

The Campbellford community effort raised the most money across the country in the Lowes-wide campaign that includes about 700 stores. Thats pretty remarkable, Vineham noted.

We love being here to serve the community and its just awesome that they received the message so well and were generous.

Tina Fallis, assistant store manager and inventory control associate, said the campaign is important given the current economic times.

Everybodys hungry and everybody needs a helping hand, Fallis said.

The food bank has helped me in the past and I know a lot of people it has also helped. Its always one of the (charities) you hear about being hit the hardest with everything that is going on with COVID.

The cheque presentation for the Campbellford Fare Share Food Bank is forthcoming.

The Lowes Canada Heroes campaign ran from Sept. 1 to 30.
Anti-police protesters march in Portland, Ore., before the event turned into a riot, Oct. 6, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Police Disperse Rioters From Federal Building in Portland

A joint local-federal force dispersed rioters from a federal building in Portland during the latest night of unrest in Oregons largest city.

A group of dozens, many carrying shields, wearing helmets and body armor, marched from Elizabeth Caruthers Park in south Portland to the nearby Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building.

Support vehicles followed the marchers.

Within minutes of arrival, people blocked traffic on a street outside of the building and began rioting, according to an incident summary from the Portland Police Bureau.

In addition to flashing lights at the eyes of federal officers outside the ICE building, people hurled rocks towards the officers. Around 10:50 p.m., a rioter threw a lit incendiary device onto the roof of the building.

Because of the criminal activity, federal officers emerged from the building and dispersed the crowd, but about 30 minutes later, the rioters regrouped outside the ICE building.

Musicians play during a march in Portland, Ore., that turned into a riot, on Oct. 6, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

A person holds a sign while marching in Portland, Ore., Oct. 6, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

An umbrella line is seen during a gathering in Portland, Ore., late Oct. 6, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Federal officers disperse rioters in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 6, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Rioters were then told that an unlawful assembly was declared because they were throwing objects over the fence. They were given two minutes to leave, but ignored the commands.

Thats when Portland officers joined with federal law enforcement to make arrests and deploy crowd control munitions to disperse the crowd.

Video footage showed a person dressed in all-black, taking cover behind a line of umbrellasused as shields by protestersthrowing an object at the officers just before the dispersal.

During the dispersal, officers were struck with rocks.

Four people were arrested, three with Portland addresses, and one without an address listed. Charges included assaulting a public safety officer and disorderly conduct. A fifth was cited for unlawful sound amplification.

Under the new policy from the Multnomah County District Attorneys Office, most will likely see their charges dropped.

The Department of Homeland Security didnt respond to a request for comment.

The event was billed as a direct action march, autonomously organized, with the Black Lives Matter slogan no justice, no peace, according to a promotion circulating on social media.

Live streamers walk through clouds of tear gas and smoke following a crowd dispersal in Portland, Ore., late Oct. 6, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Police arrest a person during a riot, in Portland, Ore., early Oct. 7, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Gwen Boucher, a resident in a neighborhood that was the site of a riot, speaks to law enforcement officers, telling them she called 911 because her apartment filled with tear gas, in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 6, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Police arrest a man during a riot in Portland, Ore., Oct. 7, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

One person live streaming was punched in the face by a rioter who was upset that the person was filming. The victim said he required hospital treatment.

Harassment and assaults of people filming during protests and riots are not uncommon. Another person, an independent journalist, was told on Tuesday not to go downtown any longer.

One local resident told a portion of the crowd that she was trying to sleep. These things would have more value if you did it during the daytime, the resident said. Another said she appreciates the music and dancing the protests bring and blamed the escalation on law enforcement.

Prior to the dispersal, one man read the manifesto of Willem van Spronsen, saying, in part, I am Antifa.

Antifa is a far-left, anarcho-communist group. Spronsen was killed by law enforcement while attacking an immigrant detention center with incendiary devices in Washington state last year.

Besides an approximately two week break in September, protests and riots have taken place nearly every night in Portland since late May.
Events to commemorate Baby Loss Awareness week

Baby Loss Awareness week will be marked on the Island from this Friday.

The week is part of the UK awareness campaign held every year at this time across the country. This year will highlight the isolation many people experience after pregnancy and the sad loss of a much-wanted baby.



There will be information displays at Nobles Hospital and in the Strand Shopping Centre.



A tree of remembrance will be unveiled at the bereavement room of the Jane Crookall Maternity Unit at Nobles Hospital at 2pm on Thursday 15 October, with names added later of the babies that were born asleep.

A Wave of Light ceremony will be held at 7pm on Thursday 15 October on Douglas Promenade organised by local charity Little Piece of Hope.

There will also be a service of remembrance on Monday 28 December 2020 at St Thomas Church.
The global asparagus market size is poised to grow by USD 4.28 billion during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of almost 3% throughout the forecast period, according to the latest report by Technavio. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. The report also provides the market impact and new opportunities created due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Download a Free Sample of REPORT with COVID-19 Crisis and Recovery Analysis

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005622/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Asparagus Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

The wide applications of asparagus is one of the major factors driving the market growth. Asparagus is considered medicinal because it aids in maintaining the cholesterol level and blood pressure level. As a vegetable, asparagus is popularly used in ready-to-eat food products. It also has high vitamin K content that helps in blood clotting. Asparagus is also a rich source of vitamin B which aids in regulating amino acid homocysteine, which in excess can pose a serious risk to the heart. Asparagus also has good anti-inflammatory properties and high levels of antioxidants, both of which help in reducing the risk of heart diseases.

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Report Highlights:

The major asparagus market growth came from the fresh vegetables segment. The growing demand for fresh vegetables and the rising awareness about the various benefits of asparagus are driving the growth of the fresh asparagus market segment. Fresh asparagus is preferred over canned and frozen asparagus, primarily in developed countries such as the US and across Europe. Therefore, the asparagus market growth in the fresh segment will be significant during the forecast period.

Europe was the largest asparagus market in 2019, and the region will offer several growth opportunities to market vendors during the forecast period. The growing population in the region and the increasing consumption of fresh and healthy products will significantly drive asparagus market growth in this region over the forecast period.

The global asparagus market is fragmented. Altar Produce LLC, BETA Agroindustrial Complex, Crystal Valley Products, Danper Trujillo SAC, Limgroup BV, Mazzoni Spa, T&G Global Ltd., Teboza BV, Viru SA, and Walker Brothers Inc. are some of the major market participants. To help clients improve their market position, this asparagus market forecast report provides a detailed analysis of the market leaders.

As the business impact of COVID-19 spreads, the global asparagus market 2020-2024 is expected to have Positive and Superior growth. As the pandemic spreads in some regions and plateaus in other regions, we revaluate the impact on businesses and update our report forecasts.

Read the full report here: https://www.technavio.com/report/report/asparagus-market-industry-analysis

Rising Demand for Organic Asparagus will be a Key Market Trend

The rising demand for organic asparagus, one of the key asparagus market trends, will also drive market growth. Organic asparagus is produced using pest management and fertilization methods, which do not include synthetic compounds. They are available in puree, fresh, powdered, and frozen forms. The number of cultivators of organic asparagus is increasing every year due to the high demand from North America and Europe. Asparagus cultivators are concentrating on increasing their yield to meet the growing demand.

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report, such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Request a free sample report

Asparagus Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist asparagus market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the asparagus market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the asparagus market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of asparagus market vendors

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Executive Summary

Market Overview

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Type

Market segments

Comparison by Type

Fresh Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Canned Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Frozen Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Type

Customer landscape

Overview

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market drivers

Market challenges

Market trends

Vendor Landscape

Overview

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Altar Produce LLC

BETA Agroindustrial Complex

Crystal Valley Products

Danper Trujillo SAC

Limgroup BV

Mazzoni Spa

T&G Global Ltd.

Teboza BV

Viru SA

Walker Brothers Inc.

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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A former nurse at a nursing home in Cumberland County is facing federal charges that she stole 16 morphine pills from one of her patients.

The U.S. Attorneys Office in Harrisburg filed that theft in connection with health care charge Wednesday against Michelle Keys, a licensed practical nurse.

Federal investigators claim in the U.S. Middle District Court complaint that Keys stole the morphine sulfate pills prescribed to the patient in August 2019. Morphine sulfate is prescribed to relieve pain.

Keys took the pills for her own use, investigators contend.

Court records show Keys already has a tentative agreement to plead guilty. She has no deal concerning sentencing, however. Her plea agreement would not become final unless it is approved by Judge Christopher C. Conner.

Filings state that the maximum penalty for the crime is 1 year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
New Delhi: The National Green Tribunal has directed the Delhi government to take steps to enhance bio-medical waste treatment and disposal facilities in the national capital. A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel directed the AAP government to submit a report on the issue by email.

Let the Delhi government take appropriate steps in the matter and furnish a compliance report before the next date by e-mail," the bench, also comprising Justice S P Wangdi, said. The applicant may furnish a set of papers to the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, Health Secretary and Chief Secretary and file an affidavit of service within one week.

The matter is posted for next hearing on January 12, 2021. The tribunal was hearing a plea filed by International Rehab Foundation seeking directions for enhancement of bio-medical waste treatment and disposal facilities so as to bridge the gap in the generation of such waste and disposal.

The plea contended that due to unscientific disposal of the waste there is pollution and damage to public health.

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
Boris Johnsons announcement of a plan to power every home in the UK with wind power has been welcomed by environmental campaigners and organisations, but some have said that the 160m which the prime minister has earmarked for kickstarting such a large expansion is not enough.

At the Conservative Party conference on Tuesday, Mr Johnson said he wanted to make the UK what he described as the Saudi Arabia of wind, and said the sector would provide hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs.

Mr Johnson said: I can today announce that the UK government has decided to become the world leader in low-cost clean power generation  cheaper than coal and gas  and we believe that in 10 years time, offshore wind will be powering every home in the country, with our target rising from 30 gigawatts to 40 gigawatts.

The recognition that moving towards a greener economy could fire up industry and what Mr Johnson called green-collar jobs was hailed as a lightbulb moment by Greenpeace, but the organisation warned that it would require action in this parliament.

The government said the 160m investment will see around 2,000 construction jobs rapidly created and will enable the sector to support up to 60,000 jobs directly and indirectly by 2030, in ports, factories and the supply chains, manufacturing the next generation of offshore wind turbines and delivering clean energy to the UK.

The small sum comes despite analysts suggesting that reaching 40 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity would require 50bn of capital investment and the completion of a turbine every weekday for the next 10 years.

In response to the prime ministers speech, Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party, said: For decades, Greens have been arguing that the UK is ideally placed to become a world leader in onshore and offshore wind power.

But we have battled opposition from Conservative MPs locally and nationally as they sheltered their fossil fuel friends. Johnsons support for wind power suggests that the transition to green energy is now irreversible.

However, the level of investment proposed by the prime minister is nowhere near matching his rhetoric. The 160m for wind power due to be announced today falls far short of the 48bn that analysts say is necessary. The government needs to set out where this investment will come from.

Nor will it provide what we need to power every sector of the economy, most notably transport. The Green Party proposes that 70 per cent of the countrys electricity should be provided by wind by 2030. The governments proposals fall far short of this.

Mr Johnson sought to win over those who remain sceptical about renewable energy by invoking the founding of the British Empire, and Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake, who depended on offshore wind to fill the sails of their boats.

I remember how some people used to sneer at wind power 20 years ago, and say that it wouldnt pull the skin off a rice pudding, Mr Johnson said. They forgot the history of this country. It was offshore wind that puffed the sails of Drake and Raleigh and Nelson, and propelled this country to commercial greatness.

In 2013, Mr Johnson himself told radio station LBC that wind turbines couldnt pull the skin off a rice pudding.

Academics welcomed the new direction the prime minister is pursuing, but also warned that 160m would not be enough investment.

Professor Rafael Palacios, from the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London, told The Independent the announcement was very good news, but said achieving 40GW of offshore capacity in a decade would not be straightforward.

He said: "160m (probably spread through many years) is a very small amount to have a real impact on our climate change commitments, if thats the goal.

But the change in rhetoric was very much necessary. Wind power has to be at the centre of our net zero target. It is the one resource that both exists in the UK and that meets any cost/benefit analysis with proven technology.

He said multiplying existing capacity by four, over 10 years was definitely achievable and said, poking fun at the governments coronavirus testing targets: I wouldnt say it was a moonshot.

But he warned: It wont be straightforward. The key challenge is to bring down the cost of future floating farms which are a very long distance from the coast  thats where most of the untapped wind resource is and that is the one technology which is not yet mature enough, so that would need to be accelerated to meet this challenge. However, the success history and the speed of development of offshore wind suggests that it will be doable.

Dr Malte Jansen, from the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, pointed out that windfarms built in the past were significantly smaller than the windfarms currently in the pipeline.

When looking at the SSE/Equinor Dogger Bank windfarm, 3.2GW will be added in a single windfarm, he said.

The cost issues have been overcome, as this windfarm will most likely pay back subsidies to the consumers, he added.

The executive director of Greenpeace UK, John Sauven, said Mr Johnsons newly found enthusiasm for renewable energy must be followed by action.

The prime ministers recognition that last year's Tory manifesto commitment on offshore wind can generate jobs whilst cutting energy bills and carbon is a great lightbulb moment, he said.

If carried through, it would help cement the UKs global leadership in this key technology. But delivering 40 GWs of power on to the grid by 2030 requires action in this parliament.

We now need to see the prime ministers newly found enthusiasm is followed through by knocking down all the barriers that the offshore wind industry faces in delivering its ambition.

Friends of the Earths head of policy, Mike Childs, said the change of direction from the Conservative leadership indicates that any argument over the strength of renewables has clearly been won, and called for greater support for onshore wind.

He said: Investment in offshore wind is certainly critical for powering a cleaner, fairer future, but Boris Johnson mustnt ignore the huge contribution onshore wind could make too.

Government planning restrictions on onshore wind, introduced by his predecessor David Cameron, have had a devastating impact on the sector  they must urgently be reversed.

Dr Ajay Gambhir, a senior research fellow at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London, pointed out how rapidly the price of installing wind power has fallen.

He said: Just six years ago, offshore wind in Great Britain still cost as much as 150/MWh, making it one of the most expensive electricity generation technologies. Recent projects have been commissioned with an expected cost of less than 40/MWh.

This remarkable fall in cost, with potentially more to come, makes it unsurprising that this once-unloved technology is now seen as a bedrock of future zero-carbon electricity generation here.

The result of a surge in wind-power capacity, combined with the lowering price of installation, could also deliver cheaper power for UK consumers.

Jess Ralston, analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, told The Independent: This ambitious medium-term target to up the offshore wind sectors input into the net-zero electricity system is equally as good for reducing carbon emissions as it is for consumers wallets. Offshore wind is one of the cheapest and greenest renewable electricity sources around and at 40GW, as promised by 2030, it could account for around half of the UKs energy needs at the end of the decade. This would place us at a world-leading level of renewable generation  double the whole of Europes current offshore wind capacity (around 22GW).

This is a big plus for energy bills, as offshore wind costs have been massively reduced through the Contracts for Difference auctions over recent years, to the point where they are now 40 per cent below what we expected for 2030 (at around 69/MWh). Theyre even way down on what was expected just a few years ago, paving the way for future progress on price. So much so, were on the brink of negative subsidy  where the windfarms will end up paying back to the government (and therefore consumers) over their lifetimes  and as the majority of investment will be private too, this means the capital will be fronted by businesses rather than the public.
13:52 | Cusco (Cusco region), Oct. 7.

According to Edson Salazar, coordinator of said health teams, the personnel headed to Canchis, Paruro, and Acomayo bringing 7,100 tests, which will be conducted from October 8 to 10.

Doctors and health technicians will visit Sicuani (capital of Canchis), Pomacanchi (Acomayo), as well as Huanoquite, Accha, and Paruro (Paruro).

"In addition to the application of rapid tests, the plan is to deliver medicines to positive patients and those who experience COVID-19 symptoms, as well as pulse oximeters to organized communities, so that they do not reach hospitals in serious conditions," he remarked.

According to COVID-19-related statistics provided by Diresa Cusco, as of October 6, the death toll reached 1,154, the number of citizens infected rose to 54,160, and 216 were hospitalized. In addition, the region of Cusco has registered 52,316 epidemiological discharges and 1,660 hospital discharges.

Cusco Province has the largest number of positive cases (36,354), followed by La Convencion (5,327), Canchis (2,068), Quispicanchi (2,056), while Paruro has recorded the lowest number (281).
While Indian cities have been at the receiving end of the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of infection loads (10 cities accounting for half of Covid-19 cases), these engines of economic growth are also worst impacted due to pandemic-induced disruptions. City dwellers particularly the poor informal sector workers have taken the maximum brunt of the pandemic. Lockdowns, social distancing norms, shutting down of markets, factories and allied activities have paralyzed the work opportunities for these sections of urban populations. Urban unemployment which was in stress sharpened further during the initial weeks of pandemic. Prolonged lockdowns and associated restrictions tripled urban unemployment in March and April. It needs to be mentioned that a vast majority of urban population work in unorganized (informal) sector of the economy with irregular salaries, no written job contracts, often get their jobs through job contractors and subcontractors with no social protection. Of the estimated 80 million urban poor, nearly 80 per cent work in firms that often lack social security programs like Employees Provident Fund and State insurance funds, which are being channeled to extend relief to these population during the lockdown. At least in rural areas, people have some assets like land and livestock to fall back during a crisis situation like the Covid-19, but urban informal workers have nothing of that kind. Thus, in a sense urban poor are nowhere people when work and economy are literally shut.

State response to Urban Poor

As the pandemic began spreading its tentacles first in major cities and towns, both Centre and States were quick to announce a number of initiatives in the forms of cash transfers, food ration, temporary shelters apart from enlarging the existing flagship programs to lessen the hardship. The Union government announced an immediate 1.7 lakh crore economic package (for both rural and urban populations) under the existing Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) to ensure free food (through Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana or PMGKAY) and a limited cash transfer support were extended to the most vulnerable citizens many of them residing in urban areas. For instance, cash transfers included Rs.1000 to be provided to nearly 30 million poor pensioners, widows and disabled and a Rs.500 monthly deposit to be made to 200 million women holding Jan Dhan accounts (both components for a period of 3 months). Beyond cash, the government extended food rations to 800 million beneficiaries registered under the National Food Security Act. Further, to reach out the urban poor, the government extended a free grain entitlement of 5kg rice/wheat per person and 1kg chickpeas per household to an estimated 80 million migrants (who are not covered under National Food Security Act or State Public Distribution System).

In the second tranche of economic relief package announced in June, the Union government launched a number of tailor-made schemes to address the woes of urban poor. Among these was the easy access to credit provision for street vendors who were to be provided with an initial working capital of up to Rs 10,000 to restart businesses that took the brunt of the lockdown. The intervention aimed at supporting 50 lakh such vendors and providing liquidity up to Rs 5000 crores.

Given access to housing remains a major concern for urban poor especially the migrant workers, affordable rental housing scheme was curated under the existing flagship program the Prime Minister Awas Yojana. The idea was to convert government-funded housing in cities to rental complexes through public-private partnerships. Additionally, efforts were made to generate employment opportunities for the urban poor during the pandemic through Self Help Groups (SHGs) that can produce face masks and hand sanitizer. Beyond the Centre, most state governments have launched their programs and initiatives to lessen the hardships of urban poor and migrant workers. In fact, states like Kerala, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana were far more proactive than the Centre on this. For instance, Odisha announced the Urban Wage Employment Initiative for urban informal labour to carry out works identified by the Urban Local Bodies.

A reality check

Government Schemes and handouts have come as a big relief for a chunk of urban poor who could access these benefits. The Central housing scheme in particular is sustainable measure to address perennial crisis of affordable housing in cities. However, based on the reports of concerned ministries, still a large section of these marginalized population is found to be out of reach of these schemes. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution report shows that only 33 per cent of free food grains and 56 per cent of free gram (whole) for migrants under the Atma Nirbhar Bharat package have reached the intended population. Similarly, of the 8 lakh tonnes of food grains earmarked for the migrant workers, 6.38 lakh tonnes (80 per cent) was lifted by the states and UT, but only 2.64 lakh tonnes (33 per cent) have been distributed among the targeted beneficiaries in the last four months. Beyond food grains, there are major bottlenecks in disbursements of loans and financial supports meant for poor urban dwellers like small shopkeepers/SHGs. According to a recent report quoting data of the Ministry of Finance (released during Parliament session), only 7.3 percent of the 50 lakh beneficiaries had received loan approvals and of that, the loans were disbursed to 99,000 beneficiaries.

These trends of poor utilization of well-intentioned schemes have been further corroborated by some recent studies. For instance, according to a recent study undertaken by the London School of Economics (Centre for Economic Performance), notwithstanding multiple schemes and handouts extended by various governments, as much as 52 percent of urban workers in India went at least a month without work or any financial assistance during the lockdown. Among these, the informal workers were least likely to receive any assistance either from the government or their employers. The study that used inputs from 8500 workers from different cities between May and July also observed that incomes of the workers dropped by 48 percent between January-February and April-May 2020 and that 80 percent of informal workers were unemployed for over a month as compared to only 20 percent in the formal sector. It also found that financial assistance from the governments or employers could reach only a quarter of the workforce, leaving rest of them to survive on penury or handouts provided by charities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Another recent study accounted poor outcomes of these schemes to lack of awareness and necessary documents to access these state benefits. While the Centre has launched inter-state portability of ration cards in June keeping in mind migrant workers living in urban areas, it is still a work in progress and not an adequate answer to the pandemic related crises.

Way forward

A quick review of urban poor particularly the informal sector workers leaves little doubt about their precarious conditions notwithstanding a plethora of schemes and certain handouts from multiple institutions. As data from CMIE shows the pandemic induced lockdown has devasted nearly all major sectors of the economy including the organized sector. Although there is some uptick after lockdown restrictions have been eased, it will still take a long time for normalcy to arrive. A number of urban occupations that employs large percentage of urban poor such as domestic help, bus conductors, street vendors, sex workers, band performers have still a long and tough road ahead. As an example, take the case of roughly 20 million domestic workers who are low paid, work without any contract or any social security. A vast majority of them still go without their regular works and the state sponsored handouts would hardly redress the loss of their critical daily incomes.

This makes it imperative to think about sustainable measures beyond handouts or similar initiatives. The urban workers need something equivalent to the rural job scheme (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA) that promises 100 paid workdays worth of rural employment to its beneficiaries. As has been extensively reported, the often derided rural job scheme has come as a huge safety net for millions of rural poor including returnee migrants in the time of pandemic. To illustrate the efficacy of the program, in May alone, a record 417.7 million person-days of work was created under MGNREGA, while the number of households covered under the job scheme went up by 31% in May to 28 million, highest ever numbers for a month since the scheme was launched in 2007. The Union government is actively considering to launch something similar to MGNREGA for the urban poor that can act as a fallback employment option. However, urban workforce requirements and skills set are different. This essentially means the job scheme have to be curated differently and imaginatively.

While there are no equivalents of MGNREGA (which was modelled on years of experience of drought relief works in Rajasthan) in urban areas for designing the new scheme, some critical insights can be drawn from state level experiences. Economist Jean Dreze has listed the examples of Keralas Ayyankali Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme across its urban local bodies since last 10 years. Like MGNREGA, Kerala urban job scheme has generated as many as 27 lakh person-days in 2019-20. Taking cues from Kerala experience, Jean Dreze has proposed an innovative idea called Decentralised Urban Employment and Training or DUET which can be in the form of job stamps issued by governments and distributed among approved public institutions such as schools, colleges, shelters, museums, jails, municipalities among others to convert each stamp to a person-day. In this regard, Jean Dreze cites the examples of a number of European countries that are currently engaged in DUET like employment-subsidy with some successes. Of course, the government of the day has to take a careful and objective assessment of many issues including financial and administrative feasibility before it takes a call on this. However, there is growing unanimity among policy makers and subject experts that the urban India needs jobs or income schemes to that can act as a fallback option in the time of major crises.

The article has been co-authored by Megha Biswas, Research Intern at ORF.
As a result of COVID-19, CEOs in India have identified lack of skills and capabilities in IT as one of the most significant challenges to growth, and are examining their wider societal contributions and company purpose. In the first study of its kind to measure how CEOs priorities and concerns have changed during the global pandemic, KPMG conducted two surveys, one at the onset of the pandemic in January and another in August 2020.

The KPMG in India 2020 India CEO Outlook: COVID-19 Special Edition report finds that the agenda of leaders has radically shifted since the beginning of the year, as existing trends like cost optimisation strategies, rethinking of supply chain strategy, enhancing ESG programs and aligning with the new work realties have accelerated.

Overall, three key themes emerged from this years survey, which KPMG has referred to as Propelled by purpose, Realignment of strategies and Accelerated digital transformation.

Commenting on the findings, Arun M. Kumar, Chairman and CEO, KPMG in India, said, The significant shift in CEOs priorities that we have witnessed over the last six months reflect the agility with which CEOs had to deal with the challenges of the pandemic. Looking forward, similar to their global counterparts, CEOs in India are less confident about global and domestic economic growth than they were at the onset of the year. Their earnings outlook is clearly challenged.

Kumar added, The crisis is redefining the standards for corporate leadership. Societal impact is high on the agenda; Environmental, Social & Corporate Governance (ESG) has come into focus. In the context of the pandemic, CEOs in India have recognised the importance of accelerated transition to digital business models. They believe that digital technologies are imperative to maintain customer trust and keep remote workforces connected. Consequently, they are prioritizing investments in new technologies to pave the way for a more sustainable and resilient future.

Vikram Hosangady, Partner and Head, Clients and Markets, KPMG in India, remarked, Whilst we are still sometime away from normalcy, there are some permanent changes to the way businesses will function going forward. The pandemic is another instance of how the new normal is a VUCA world and companies need to be nimble and innovate constantly to succeed. If anything, COVID-19 has only acted as a catalyst to accelerate digital transformation with companies today spending more than what they originally planned for on digitisation in spite of uncertainty in earnings.

Companies will resort to Zero-based budgeting on all discretionary spends for the next two-three years and question the very need for some of these spends. This is likely to make them leaner, meaner and significantly more profitable when growth returns. The importance of liquidity and the need to be moderately leveraged is also a key learning from this pandemic, something that companies should look at etching in their business plans for the future. Hosangady added.

Key findings from the report

Propelled by Purpose:

Only 33 per cent CEOs in India are confident of the growth in their domestic economy and only 42 per cent are optimistic about growth prospects of their company, vis-a-vis 78 per cent and 84 per cent at the beginning of the year, respectively. This weakened view on the growth prospects is in line with that of CEOs globally. CEOs in India are also less confident of their companies earnings. About 19 per cent CEOs in India expect the earnings of their companies to either remain flat or decline. However, CEOs in India seemed to be better positioned than their global counterparts in terms of growth prospects of their companies earnings, with 23 per cent CEOs globally foreseeing their companies earnings, stagnating or declining. CEOs globally feel a greater need to re-evaluate their purpose amidst COVID-19, than CEOs in India. 79 per cent of CEOs globally have had to re-evaluate their purpose, as compared to only 37 per cent of CEOs in India, highlighting the confidence that CEOs in India are placing on their current leadership approach and purpose.

Realignment of strategies:

In India, COVID-19 has led to a dramatic shift in how business leaders are assessing potential risks now, compared to the pre-pandemic times. CEOs in India, while ensuring short-term survival of their companies, are likely to delve deeper into the impact of this crisis to realign strategies for long-term growth. One-third CEOs in India highlight digital disruption as an imminent risk  a three-fold increase since January 2020. CEOs in India also view supply chain risk as a major threat. The number of CEOs highlighting this as a critical risk rose five-fold since the onset of the pandemic. 89 per cent CEOs in India would continue to build on use of digital collaboration and communication tools. With remote working becoming the norm, 77 per cent CEOs in India believe they have access to wider talent pools and 48 per cent will consider downsizing their office spaces. Also, 67 per cent CEOs in India want to realise climate change gains made during the pandemic.

Accelerated transformation:

CEOs have invested heavily in technology during the lockdown period and they are betting on major dimensions of digital transformation to make their companies more operationally resilient, agile and customer-focused. CEOs in India strongly believe that digital transformation will continue to be a central pillar in defining their companys future prospects. As a result, companies are likely to strengthen their digital channels to enhance customer outreach.

Given the pressing need to adopt technology across business functions, tackling threats such as cyber security and data privacy will be inevitable.

About 125 CEOs from India participated in a survey conducted by KPMG International in January-February 2020, before many key markets were beginning to feel the full impact of the pandemic. In August- September 2020, KPMG in India conducted a follow-up pulse survey of 100 CEOs across the country to understand how CEOs priorities have changed since the onset of the crisis.
Samsung Electronics said that it will hold the fourth edition of its Samsung AI Forum 2020 online via its YouTube channel on November 2 and 3.



The forum gathers world-renowned academics and industry experts on artificial intelligence (AI) and serves as a platform for exchanging ideas, insights and latest research findings, as well as a platform to discuss the future of AI.



Day 1: AI Technologies for Changes in the Real World



On Day 1, which will be hosted by Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), Samsungs R&D hub dedicated to cutting-edge future technologies, Dr Kinam Kim, Vice Chairman & CEO of Device Solutions at Samsung Electronics will deliver opening remarks. Renowned AI experts will subsequently give presentations under the theme AI Technologies for Changes in the Real World.



This year, Dr Inyup Kang, President of System LSI Business at Samsung Electronics will join the panel discussion with the presenters. Topics for in-depth discussions include: challenges that need to be overcome on a global level through AI technologies over the next decade; limitations that AI faces in tackling real-world issues such as a pandemic or climate change; and whether humans need human-level AI, among other topics.



Day 2: Human-Centered AI



Day 2 sessions will be hosted by Samsung Research, the advanced R&D hub of the company that leads the development of future technologies for Samsung Electronics SET (end-products) Business. Under the theme Human-Centered AI, Dr. Sebastian Seung, President and Head of Samsung Research, will deliver the keynote speech, and AI experts who have been actively engaging in AI research activities worldwide will share their insights.



The event will be open to pre-registered attendees. Registration is available through the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology website and the Samsung Research website starting October 6.  TradeArabia News Service
Unidentified hackers broke into the systems of Pegasus Technologies, a company that integrates mobile money transactions between telcos, banks, and other local, regional, and international money transfer services, making off with a yet to be known sum, but said to be in billions of Shillings.



The most affected firms are the leading telcos, Airtel and MTN Uganda, as well as Stanbic Bank, Ugandas largest bank that also backs up most of the mobile money transactions.



In a joint statement released today, 5th October 2020, Anne Juuko, Wim Vanhelleputte, and VG Somasekhar, the CEOs of Stanbic Bank Uganda, MTN Uganda, and Airtel Uganda respectively, admitted there was an incident, but did not give details.



Read Full Story .... ceo.co.ug >>> :









Source: ceo.co.ug









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workers in Gautam Buddh Nagar have questioned the silence of Women's Commission chief Vimla Batham over the and demanded her removal from the post.

Around 50 AAP workers, including district unit president Bhupendra Jaduan, on Tuesday tried to gherao Batham's residence here over the issue but were stopped midway by police, party office-bearers said.

The AAP workers, who had started a march from the ISCKON temple in Sector 33 to her house nearby, submitted to police a memorandum addressed to UP Governor Anandiben Patel, demanding Batham's removal in the wake of the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman after an alleged gangrape and over crimes against women in the state.

Cases of rape with women and girls are emerging in the state every day. They are not safe in The state's women commission chief Vimla Batham has not spoken a single word on these issues despite serious incidents in Hathras, Balrampur, Bulandshahr, etc, she has not gone to meet the victim's families also, stated the memorandum.

Looking at the inactivity of the women's commission chief, we demand her removal from the post, the memorandum stated.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi, Oct 7 : The government of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday signed the concession agreement with representatives of Zurich Airport International to commence the development of the Noida International Airport at Jewar.

The concession agreement was signed by Arun Vir Singh, CEO, Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL) and Christoph Schnellmann, Chief Executive Officer, Noida International Airport, said an official statement. The concession agreement grants Zurich Airport International the licence to design, build and operate Noida International Airport for a period of 40 years.

Noida International Airport will be developed as a Public Private Partnership (PPP). NIA will operate as a fully digital airport, providing a safe and contactless travel experience and customised commercial offerings for passengers, said the statement, adding that it will be the first net zero emissions airport in its class, setting a new standard for sustainable aviation.

S.P. Goyal, Additional Chief Secretary, Civil Aviation Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh said: "Infrastructure development will be key to economic recovery, not only in the state but also for the country. The construction of Noida International Airport will support economic growth through job creation in the state, while making it the most preferred destination for domestic as well as global investors in the upcoming years." "We look forward to supporting the Zurich Airport International team to jumpstart this mega project,which will reinforce the economic progress of the state of Uttar Pradesh," he said.

Daniel Bircher, Chief Executive Officer, Zurich Airport International (Asia) said: "The signing of the concession agreement marks an important milestone in the development of the Noida International Airport. When phase 1 development is completed in 2024, we will provide capacity for 12 m (million) passengers per year." Arun Vir Singh, Chief Executive Officer, Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL) noted that the upcoming "world-class" airport will not only connect western UP region with other domestic and international destinations, but also provide additional capacity to Delhi-NCR region.

"Together, we look forward to building India's leading airport which boasts of quality, efficiency, technology and sustainability. We are very excited to begin work as we move ahead with a vision to co-create a world-class facility," the NIAL CEO said.

Last November, Zurich Airport International AG (ZAIA) won the contract to build and operate the airport in Greater Noida for a period of 40 years. ZAIA received the security clearance from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to develop the airport at Jewar in May this year.
Unnoticed by many during the contentious first presidential debate, Joe Biden introduced a new Arabic word into the American lexicon.

Inshallah.

Technically, it is three words, in both Arabic and English: in sha Allah, or if God wills.

However, If you take it literally, you wont get the intent, said Ramez Atallah, general director of the Bible Society of Egypt.

It can also mean, It will never happen, and this is probably what Biden meant.

Asked by the debate moderator about his tax returns, President Donald Trump answered, Youll get to see it.

To which the former vice president interjected, When? Inshallah?

Trump continued, and the moment was lost to almost all but Arabic-speaking viewers. Muslim Twitter users lit up in astonishment, wondering if they heard correctly.

Enchilada was about as close as other ears heard.

But while one Muslim writer has humorously called inshallah the Arabic equivalent of fuggedaboudit, what should Christians make of the phrase?

Everything is uncertain, Atallah said. We live in an unpredictable world, and no one is ever sure that what they plan will be accomplished.

He highlighted the biblical equivalent in James 4:15: You do not even know what will happen tomorrow  Instead, you ought to say, If it is the Lords will, we will live and do this or that.

Born in Egypt but educated in Canada and the United States, Atallah returned for good in 1980 and was soon given a crash course in inshallah. Calling a plumber to fix his leaky pipe, he paid about $28 in US dollars in advance and then waited endlessly for the man to come.

Tomorrow, inshallah, he was told.

Eventually the plumber came. He was not a thief. But whereas in the West, routine services can expect completion with relative dependability, Egypt has the Mugamma, a Soviet-style government administrative building in downtown Cairo.

Films have been made about the endless runaround needed simply to get stamps on paperwork.

You have to live by faith here, Atallah said, more than you do in a Western culture.

And Christians dobut not necessarily the way James, the brother of Jesus, imagined.

I use the phrase all the time, said Martin Accad, chief academic officer of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (ABTS) in Lebanon.

But Im not sure if anyone ever uses it meaningfully.

The Arabic language has several phrases that deflect from giving a straight answer. But whether expressing a general hope or escaping a promise, in the unconscious mind of even the most flippant user is a cultural absolute.

It is arrogant, and almost a rebellion against God, to say something without that formula, said Accad. Inshallah is the biblical and Quranic medicine against thinking that life is under your control.

The wording in Islams holy book is almost exactly similar to James 4, he noted. But its presence in the story of Abraham sacrificing his son indicates how thoroughly the biblical understanding permeated Arabias seventh-century culture.

O my father, do as you are commanded, says the unnamed character Muslims understand to be Ishmael. You will find me, if Allah wills, of the steadfast.

This is the sense in which pious Muslims intend the phrase, said Accad, who oversees ABTSs programs of interfaith engagement. But over the centuries, a misapplied Muslim understanding of fatalism has in turn permeated many Middle Eastern Christians.

Saying if God wills can lead to the giving up of responsibility, rather than following through while trusting the results to God, he said.

So in practice, if someone tells me, Inshallah, I will generally ask for more assurance.

To distinguish themselves from this cultural practice, many Arab evangelicals simply change the phrase to in sha al-rabb (if the Lord wills) or bi izn al-rabb (with the Lords permission).

Rabb is appropriate, Accad said. The original Greek word is kyrios, and the most popular Arabic translation renders it in James 4:15 as Lord.

Meanwhile, Allah is the Arabic translation for both Elohim and Theos, the Hebrew and Greek words for God in the Bible.

The Catholic Arabic Bible translates the James text as Allah, however. So does the ecumenical Mushtaraka versionsimilar to the Good News Biblewhich Accad said feels more natural to the reader and uses the expression common to both Christian and Muslim Arabs.

But when Imed Dabbour first became a Christian, some Arab believers advised him to avoid saying inshallah.

Raised a Muslim in Tunisia, Dabbour used the phrase instinctually.

It is a common formula to show our faith, that everything is in Gods hands, he said. Muslims use it when referencing the futurewhether we mean it or not.

Uncomfortable with giving up inshallah, Dabbour has since reconciled with the phrase, and with his culture at large. Today he is CEO of the Lighthouse Arab World media production house and is a TV host with experience on several national Arab channels.

He is also outspoken about his Christian faith and produced Augustine: Son of Her Tears to re-introduce North Africa to the early church father.

Tunisians use inshallah in both its positive and negative connotations, Dabbour said. But he wonders if many will be just as uncomfortable with Bidens use, as he was.

Some Muslim viewers may say Wow, he said, noting Biden was likely trying to appeal to them.

But others might be offended by the mocking tone, as he used it with the colloquial implication that we are people who dont keep our word.

So even if America isnt ready for Arabic, Middle Eastern Christians offer strong testimony on the terms behalf.

We are much closer to Jamess intent, Atallah said. We should say inshallah.

Editors note: CT previously explored the meaning of two other key Arabic termstaqiyya and takfiras well as why many Southeast Asian Christians call God Allah.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky says that during his official visit to Great Britain two important strategic documents will be signed: the Strategic Partnership Agreement between the countries and the Memorandum on the development of the Ukrainian Navy for GBP 1.25 billion.

"This is a very important visit. I believe it is the historic visit. First of all, we look forward to a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. There will be a substantive meeting, we will sign an important historic agreement on strategic partnership and trade between our countries, which makes it possible to continue and expand the agreement on a free trade area between our countries after Great Britain withdraws from the EU," he said in a comment on the commencement of his visit to Great Britain, the text of which is at the disposal of the Interfax-Ukraine agency.

Zelensky said that the Memorandum on the development of the Ukrainian Navy will also be signed.

"It is the important strategic document. We will be at the naval base and we will sign this memorandum worth GBP 1.25 billion. We all believed that the Navy would appear in Ukraine again. It seems to me that this is such an important strong step," he said.

The president said that a meeting with representatives of the British royal family is also planned.

"One of the priority issues for our country, in which the British are really professionals, is the infrastructure for psychological, first of all, rehabilitation for our soldiers, our veterans. I think that here we will receive support from Great Britain," he said.

In addition, Zelensky announced meetings with the Ukrainian community and with British business. "There will be a separate meeting with the mayor of London City. It is my dream to construct Kyiv City. We will talk about it," he said.
Guns and goons have played a key role in Bihar elections, and so has dynastic politics. The crime-politics nexus and dynastic politics has become an increasingly worrying phenomenon in recent times. Almost every political party has launched wives, sons and daughters of criminal-turned-politicians and their senior leaders even though they lacked political experience.

This time, too, the trigger-happy outlaws and musclemen, often called Bahubalis in local parlance, are all set to cast their impact on the assembly polls courtesy their better halves. They figure in the first list of 20 candidates released by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). The Janata Dal (U) has also distributed symbols to at least 40 candidates.

The musclemen-turned-politicians have found their way into mainstream politics either directly or through their spouses and kin. Some of them may or may not be contesting directly or indirectly, but their blessings can swing the fortunes of candidates. The presence of their spouses and wards in the fray suggested that their writ still runs large at the hustings.

Despite the Election Commissions best efforts to clean up the electoral system, the fact remains that fighting elections involve a lot of money and manpower. And, as winning elections is crucial, the political parties give probity a go-by and go for candidates who are flush with funds and muscle power.

The RJD has a major share of tainted candidates while the Janata Dal (United) has tried to avoid leaders with shady background. Some of the tainted candidates face charges which are heinous in nature, including murder, kidnapping, extortion and loot.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has fielded wives of Bahubalis in the ensuing assembly elections and sons of old party veterans. The party has fielded Vibha Devi from Nawada Assembly seat. She is the wife of the infamous Rajvallabh Yadav, who has been convicted for allegedly kidnapping and raping a minor girl. She had also contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on the RJD ticket but lost.

Rajvallabhs membership of Bihar Assembly was terminated after his conviction in the recent rape and murder case. Going by the past records, he had been booked in over 17 serious cases earlier.

Similarly, Kiran Devi, wife of Arun Kumar Yadav, has been fielded from the Sandesh Assembly seat in Bhojpur district. Her husband is the sitting MLA and absconding for the last two years in a case of alleged kidnapping and rape of a minor girl. His property has been attached on the orders of the court.

Manorama Devi, fielded by RJD from Atri Assembly seat in Gaya district, is the wife of Bindi Yadav, who has been charged with murder of a youth.

The RJD has also asked former MP and muscleman Rama Singh, charged with murder and abduction, to field his wife from the Mahnar Assembly seat in Vaishali district. Rama Singhs entry into the RJD was questioned by former union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who passed away recently.

Led by Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, the RJD has also fielded children of some top party leaders in the ensuing elections. While Sudhakar Singh, son of former minister and state RJD president Jagadanand Singh, will contest from his fathers bastion Ramgarh, sitting MLA Rahul Tiwary, son of party veteran Shivanand Tiwary, will fight from Shahpur constituency.

Similarly, Rishi Singh, son of former union minister Kanti Singh, will fight from Obra seat while Divya Kirti, daughter of former union minister Jayprakash Narayan Yadav, has been given party nomination from Tarapur seat. Jayprakashs younger brother Vijay Prakash is the sitting MLA and will contest again this time.

The RJD is also likely to field candidates with criminal antecedents, including Lalit Kumar Yadav from Darbhanga Rural, Prahalad Yadav from Lakhisarai, Ramanand Yadav from Fatua and Surendra Prasad Yadav from Jehanabad. Surendra Yadav is known as Magadh Samrat for his muscle power in the Maoist-affected Magadh division comprising Gaya, Aurangabad, Jehanabad, Nawada and Arwal districts.

A notorious gangster of Danapur, Ritlal Yadav, who was elected to the legislative council as an independent candidate, is set to enter the electoral fray. His importance in the poll can be underlined from the fact that RJD chief Lalu Prasad had visited his house to seek support for his daughter in the last Lok Sabha polls.

Some of the aspiring candidates like Rajesh Kumar Raushan alias Bablu Dev (RJD) from Kesariya and Manoranjan Singh from Ekma were charged with more than 15 IPC sections related to murder, kidnapping and robbery.

Some other strongmen seeking nominations from BJP and others include Narendra Kumar Singh from Matihani, Leshi Singh from Dhamdaha and Poonam Devi, wife of strongman Ranbir Yadav. The sitting MLA of Chhatapur, Niraj Singh, and Anil Singh from Hisua are also facing serious charges.

Another incarcerated Bahubali and former MP Anand Mohans wife Lovely Anand is set to contest from Sheohar as RJD nominee. Lovely Anand has fought 2014 Lok Sabha polls on Samajwadi ticket and 2009 Lok Sabha polls on Congress ticket from Sheohar parliamentary seat. Anand Mohan is in jail in connection with the 1994 Gopalganj DM G Krishnaiah murder case.

The ruling JD(U) too has a fair share of promoting dynastic politics. The list includes Rahul Sharma, son of former MP Jagdish Sharma, and Sudarshan, the grandson of former MP Rajo Singh. Many Bahubalis such as Anant Singh and Sunil Pandey have been elected from the JD(U) in the past and wielded power and clout in their respective areas.

The Bahubalis have been calling the shots in Bihar politics for long, even during the Congress regime when they won the polls by proxy and enjoyed the privileges of a legislator. Despite a slew of Supreme Court directives to cleanse the existing electoral system, Bihar has recorded 122 per cent rise in the number of candidates with criminal backgrounds joining the poll fray in the past decade, according to a report of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) released in 2010.

Unfortunately, the mainstream parties are not averse to giving party tickets to them. The need of the hour is to bar all leaders, charge-sheeted by the police in any criminal case, from contesting elections.
Punjab's several farmers' bodies on Wednesday rejected the Union agriculture department's invitation for a meeting over the new farm laws, saying they will not talk to anybody less than the Union agriculture minister over the issue.

The agitating farmers' bodies, rejected the invitation for talks from the Union agriculture secretary, saying an officer does not have to tell them if these laws are beneficial for farmers.

The invite for talks should come from the Union agriculture minister, said Buta Singh Burjgill, the president of Bhartiya Kisan Union (Dakunda).

The farmers' organisations also rejected Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's appeal to them to ease their rail roko' agitation to allow goods trains to pass through the state, a decision which termed as "regrettable" by the CM.

The farmers' bodies also gave an ultimatum to the chief minister to convene a special session of the Punjab assembly for passing a resolution to reject these farm-related laws within a week otherwise, they said, they would gherao Congress leaders and government representatives.

The chief minister, however, asserted that his government cannot be forced to take hasty steps by ultimatums.

Different farmers' bodies have been holding state-wide protests against the new farm laws.

The farmers' organisations rejected the Centre's invite to talk to it saying an officer does not have to tell them if the three central laws are beneficial for them.

"We reject the letter of invitation for a meeting coming from an officer (secretary) of the Agriculture Department. We are not going to talk to any officer. We are ready for talks provided a proper and written invitation comes from the Central government, said a representative of a farmers' organisation.

Farmers said a secretary-rank officer of the Union Agriculture Department had invited five to six farmers' leaders to participate in a conference to address their concerns on October 8 at Delhi.

If an officer wants to tell us about the benefits of these laws, we are not going to hear it as we know these legislations are against the farming community, said Jagmohan Singh, general secretary of Bhartiya Kisan Union (Dakunda).

When asked about Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's appeal to ease their rail-roko' stir, farmers' leaders said they would continue with it.

We are farmers and we know farming practices very well. We know when DAP or urea is needed, another farmers' leader said.

Electricity is being purchased from outside and the paddy sowing season is already over, he added.

Farmers, however, said they would consider the CM's appeal in the next meeting on October 15.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Singh regretted the farmers' decision not to heed his appeal to allow god trains to pass through the state.

"It is regrettable as by not relaxing their agitation, these organisations were damaging the interests of the farmers as well as the state," the chief minister rued.

"The state government urgently needs to transport foodgrain, coal, fertilizer and petroleum on priority, besides lifting the paddy grain from the mandis," he pointed out, urging the farmers' unions not to endanger the farmers' interest by their decision.

The CM, in a statement, said if the current stocks of wheat and rice were not lifted from the godowns, there would be no storage capacity left for the next harvest.

He noted that the state's coal stocks were critical, and if not replenished soon, there would be severe power shortages, which would hamper the wheat sowing operations.

Amarinder Singh also pointed out that with fertilizer stocks running low, potato sowing would also be adversely affected.

With blockades at petrol stations, oil flow was also getting affected, which would impact the movement of tractors and the farming produce, said the CM.

The CM also rejected the one-week ultimatum of the farmers' unions for holding a special assembly session to negate the farm laws, saying he will do what he feels is necessary for the farmers' interest.

While he had already said he would be calling a special session of the Vidhan Sabha to bring in necessary amendment Bills, issuing ultimatums is not the way to force a government into taking hasty steps, the CM said.

The Unions' threat to gherao his residence or the houses of the state ministers and Congress leaders would not force him into taking any decision which may eventually turn out to be detrimental to the interests of farmers, he 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.)
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 7)  A group of meat processors is asking the government to avoid trade disputes with countries that provide raw materials for food production especially in this health crisis.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Philippine Association of Meat Processors, Inc. (PAMPI) said the country imports up to 95 percent of raw materials for canned products.

It added that the country imports 800,000 metric tons of meat annually, of which up to 60 percent is for the production of frozen products.

In August, the Department of Agriculture (DA) imposed a temporary ban on the importation of poultry meat citing a report from China that a sample of frozen wings from Brazil tested positive for COVID-19.

Brazil is one of the countrys top sources of poultry meat.

PAMPI noted that poultry meat from Brazil is affordable and dependable for food processing. It added that without this supply, raw material cost could spike by 20 percent.

Last month, Brazil warned the Philippines that the ban was against World Trade Organization policy.

The DA lifted the ban on Sept. 7, but it required poultry meat from Brazil to have labels that state these were handled under strict hygiene and sanitation processes.
The most important question today is not what President Trump has learned from his bout with Covid-19. Trump is one of those leaders who never learns and never forgets, as the saying goes. The most important question is what have we as citizens learned  and, in particular, what have Trumps supporters learned?

Because the debate over Trump himself is over. The verdict is in: He cast himself as Superman, but he turns out to have been Superspreader  not only of a virus but of a whole way of looking at the world in a pandemic that was dangerously wrong for himself and our nation. To re-elect him would be an act of collective madness.

But while I see it that way, and maybe you see it that way, will enough Trump voters see it that way? That will depend on Joe Bidens ability to help them see all the big and small things where Trump has been so fundamentally mistaken.

The list of small things is long: Caution in a pandemic is not a sign of weakness, but of wisdom. Face masks in a pandemic are not cultural markers, just common-sense protection that says nothing other than Im a responsible person who wants to protect myself and my grandparent, myself and my customer, myself and my co-worker, myself and my neighbor from an invisible pathogen.
This is a preference for people who are tough, aggressive, willful. Those do not tend to be the characteristics of conservative thinking (nor of liberal thinking). But, Hetherington added,

People who score high in these characteristics prefer children who are tough, aggressive, and forceful rather than kids who are kind and compromising and such. They appear to be Trumps most resolute supporters. But here is the kicker. The interesting part is that these specific child rearing preferences (toughness, aggressiveness, etc.) are completely uncorrelated with other dimensions of conservatism, such as preferring traditions and traditional authority.

Since Hetherington and his co-researchers have

never measured this before, we dont know whether these people used to be Republicans or Democrats or whether they were just on the outside of politics. But we know that they are Trump supporters now, and they are the people who actually favor things like the child separation policy at the southern border.

These voters, according to Hetherington,

are a force in Republican politics through Donald Trump. I dont think they are going to go away even if Trump loses. They are going to be a nightmare for Republican politicians for years to come.

Even with full control of the White House and Congress, Democrats will face an uphill struggle maintaining popular support, Yphtach Lelkes, a professor of communication and political science at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote me:

The one truism of public opinion is that it acts thermostatically. When the government becomes more left-wing, public opinion shifts to the right (and vice versa). This is true both in aggregate, and within parties as well.

Based on this logic, Lelkes continued, if Biden wins, the public will shift to the right. This also means that the median Democrat will also be more right than if Trump wins. The shift would not, however, threaten the intraparty dominance of the Democratic establishment. The hard core left, Lelkes wrote, will be in a weaker position.

In the alternative setting  Trump wins and continues to push a right-wing agenda  the public will continue on their leftward shift (which weve clearly seen on social issues, ACA attitudes, etc.), Lelkes wrote. In that case, the Democratic establishment  the moderate left  will then be in a weaker position.

There are multiple variations on the theme that a Trump victory would severely damage the Democratic center.

Sean Westwood, a political scientist at Dartmouth, argued the gut instinct of the Sanders-Warren constituency in the case of a Trump victory would be to try to move the party leftward, but the implications would require far more serious remedies, Westwood wrote:

If the Democrats cannot win an election against a hated president, with a hugely mobilized base and when they have a large faction of Republican elites supporting their ticket, they should have profound worries about the future of the party.

If a loss occurs, Westwood continued,

blaming the system and moving to the left would still be ill advised  Democrats need to figure out how to win in states that have traditionally gone Republican. For the Democrats, more extremism would likely lead to more losses in the future.

To support his argument against the party moving left, Westwood cited a 2015 article, What Happens When Extremists Win Primaries? by Andrew Hall, a Stanford political scientist, who found that when a party nominates an extremist candidate,

the partys general-election vote share decreases on average by approximately 913 percentage points, and the probability that the party wins the seat decreases by 3554 percentage points.

On a different tack, Brandice Canes-Wrone, a professor of public and international affairs at Princeton, shares the view that the Trump insurgency will remain a powerful force within the party  win or lose.

Even with a decisive loss, the insurgent wing isnt fading away, she said:

If Trump is alive and well, its hard to imagine him maintaining a low profile, and, even without Trump, there are likely G.O.P. presidential candidates popular with this wing of the party.

The challenge facing the Republican establishment, if it seeks to regain strength, according to Canes-Wrone, will be to address the policy and emotional concerns of the insurgent wing without devolving into populism. Whether that will be achieved remains uncertain.

Daniel Schlozman, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, agreed that the Trump wing of the party will not disappear if Trump is defeated:

Whatever happens to Donald Trump himself, or to his family, Trumpism  that is, the American manifestation of global right-populism  is not going away, nor is what Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson call plutocratic populism, namely the fusion of resentment and classic conservatism.

Schlozman warned that if Trumpism

succeeds in finding new recruits among members of historically Democratic blocs, e.g. anti-immigrant Blacks, it may succeed. The only way to imagine a more responsible Republican Party is for it to lose badly and repeatedly. Given the realities of evenly matched parties and Republican advantages in the Senate and the courts, that is not a likely prospect.

Schlozman, in fact, has his doubts about the long-term viability of the Democratic Party.

In The Politics of Listlessness: Polarization, Neoliberalism, and the Democratic Party Since 1980, written with Sam Rosenfeld, a political scientist at Colgate, Schlozman describes a contemporary Democratic Party that is still suffering from decades of policymaking lethargy that extended from the 1970s into the present.
A Kerala-based journalist and three other people said to have links with alleged radical group Popular Front of India (PFI) were on Wednesday booked for sedition. The four were arrested in Mathura on Monday while on their way to Hathras from Delhi and have been sent to judicial custody for 14 days.

The PFI has been accused of funding protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) across the country earlier this year and the UP Police had sought a ban on the outfit. The four were held when, according to the police, they were on their way to Hathras were a Dalit woman had died after allegedly being gang-raped.

Four persons who were apprehended from Mathura on October 5 and had links with PFI were going to Hathras to disrupt peace as part of larger conspiracy," reads an FIR registered against them.

Police had said the four were taken into custody at Mathuras Math toll plaza where the police were checking vehicles after receiving a tip off that some suspicious people were on their way to Hathras from Delhi.

The four were in a car and identified themselves as Atiq-ur Rehman of Muzaffarnagar, Siddique of Malappuram, Masood Ahmed of Bahraich and Alam of Rampur, the police said, adding their mobile phones, laptop and some literature, which could have an impact on peace and order, were seized.

During interrogation, it came to light that they had links with the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its associate organisation Campus Front of India (CFI), the police said, adding further their interrogation is underway.

The Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ), however, claimed that Siddique is their member and the secretary of the union. The members are now mulling to move the Supreme Court against UP polices action.

On Sunday, another journalist and a politician, both unnamed as of now, were among a bunch of unidentified persons who have been booked by UP police for sedition, criminal conspiracy and attempt to instigate riots by spreading misinformation on Hathras incident.

According to a report in The Times of India, the FIR was lodged on Sunday at the Chandpa police station. Three other FIRs lodged in Hathras booked 680 people, including Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad, for Section 144 violations.
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Linkedin Sangmi Cha (Reuters) Seoul, South Korea  Wed, October 7, 2020 13:12 473 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49a1f79 2 World seafarers,South-Korea,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-quarantine,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona Free

An Indonesian seaman bust out of a South Korean quarantine facility by breaking through a wall a day before he was due to complete a mandatory two weeks in isolation, a health official said on Wednesday.

The person had tested negative for coronavirus and showed no symptoms during the isolation period, health ministry spokesman Son Young-rae told reporters.

Authorities suspected the man, who had entered the country on a ship crew visa, intended to illegally stay in South Korea, as there had been several similar incidents involving Vietnamese nationals in recent month, officials said.

Every person arriving in South Korea from overseas is required to undergo two weeks of isolation to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus regardless of whether they have COVID-19 symptoms.

In March, the countrys health ministry warned it would deport foreigners and South Korean citizens could face jail for violating self-quarantine rules after a surge in imported coronavirus cases.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 114 new infections on Tuesday midnight, bringing the national tally to 24,353 cases, with 425 deaths.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 7)  Operators of public utility vehicles and automatic fare collection systems have been directed to remove the fees for purchasing cards such as Beep cards to "alleviate the burden of the riding public" land transportation officials announced on Wednesday.

"This Board hereby directs all Public Utility Vehicles (PUV) operators and/or Automatic Fare Collection Systems (ACFS) to remove any charges or fees imposed for the purchase use of their cards on top of the fare load," said the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board in its memorandum circular number 2020-057. The memorandum will be effective on Friday, a day after its publication in a newspaper.

Penalties will be imposed should operators fail to comply with the order, the agency warned.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier said the Beep cards, which initially cost 80, should be free. He ordered that provisions be made for those who could not afford it.

The Department of Transportation on Monday ordered the suspension of the Beep card's use after service provider AF Payments, Inc. refused to waive the fees on top of the fare load.

AF Payments later said it will issue 125,000 free Beep cards to commuters after its shareholders pledged donations. However, the LTFRB maintained this is not enough.

The LTFRB said the "no beep card no ride" policy is still suspended in the EDSA Busway and a dual payment system will still be honored.

Transportation officials earlier proposed the use of Beep cards to reduce contact amid the spread of the coronavirus disease.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- For Five Coffee Roasters has officially opened their doors in Washington D.C., marking its first location in D.C. and third in the DMV area. In partnership with Rockrose Developers at 2001 K Street NW, For Five's ground-level location exists at 2000 L Street NW within Alexander Court. The location is open to the public and offers indoor and outdoor seating, making it the perfect spot to enjoy a quality cup of coffee with friends.

"Opening a location in our nation's capital was very important to our company. Working closely with the team at Rockrose over the past two years, we have not only opened our flagship location on L Street, but have also created the For Five Sky Bar in the lobby," says Stefanos Vouvoudakis, President and Co-Founder of For Five Coffee Roasters. "The design and quality are second to none. We have successfully married both specialty coffee and cocktails in what I feel is one of the premier lobby amenities."

Rockrose Director of Commercial Leasing Robert C. Fink is looking forward to continuing the For Five expansion within the L Street location at Alexander Court. "The space looks great and the coffee and baked goods are best in class. Once the pandemic is behind us and occupancy returns to Alexander Court, For Five will be opening our Sky Lobby Cafe & Wine Bar on our mezzanine level. The amenity is fully built and raring to go. Our tenants will be immediately hooked, and I look forward to the day that I can say we had them first!"

For Five at Alexander Court serves as the flagship D.C. location, housing our classic specialty drink menu, fresh pastry and our infamous For Five stuffed cookies. For Five D.C. also offers our wildly popular food program designed by For Five Executive Chef Scheyla Acosta, featuring gluten free, dairy free, and vegan options like the Churro Pancakes and the Dolsot Bibimbap throughout the breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus. The cafe is open 7 days a week from 7 A.M. to 6 P.M for dine in and takeout. Any questions about our menu or the cafe can be answered at (202)920-0101.

About Rockrose

Rockrose has been an industry leader and an influential force in real estate for half a century. Founded in 1970, the company got its start renovating Greenwich Village brownstones. This early success led to larger projects throughout the city including multi-family new construction, large-scale rehabilitation, and major office development. Over the past five decades, Rockrose has acquired, developed or repositioned nearly 6 million square feet of office space and approximately 15,000 residential apartments in New York and Washington, DC. Rockrose is guided by a creative vision and commitment to make our neighborhoods better places to live and work.

About For Five Coffee Roasters

For Five Coffee is a micro-roasting facility based in Queens, New York. Founded in 2010 by two best friends - Stefanos Vouvoudakis and Tom Tsiplakos - who wanted to introduce specialty coffee by New Yorkers for the world, For Five thrives on the energy of the city it calls home and the worldwide relationships and experiences it has garnered through the years.

CONTACT

Barron R. Bazemore Jr., For Five Director of Marketing

[email protected]

973-519-4021

SOURCE For Five Coffee Roasters
COVID-19 vaccine trial

A health worker injects a person during clinical trials for a Covid-19 vaccine at Research Centers of America in Hollywood, Florida on Sept. 9, 2020. Credit - Eva Marie Uzcategui/BloombergGetty Images

New U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance means a COVID-19 vaccine likely will not be approved by Election Daywhich could actually be a good thing for public health.

On Oct. 6, the agency posted an industry guidance document on its website asking pharmaceutical companies applying for emergency-use authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine to monitor study subjects for at least two months after vaccination, so they can look for side effects that may arise over time and get a better sense of the shots efficacy. That means its unlikely any manufacturer will receive authorization before Election Day on Nov. 3, as President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed for.

Despite reports to the contrary, White House representatives told ABC News they never tried to block the FDAs policy. Still, Trump tweeted his displeasure on Tuesday night.

New FDA Rules make it more difficult for them to speed up vaccines for approval before Election Day, he wrote, tagging FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn. Just another political hit job!

New FDA Rules make it more difficult for them to speed up vaccines for approval before Election Day. Just another political hit job! @SteveFDA  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020

Also on Oct. 6, Moncef Slaoui, co-chair of the Trump Administrations Operation Warp Speed vaccine development project, said the group urged pharmaceutical companies not to apply for emergency-use authorization until they have enough supply to widely distribute a vaccine. That will likely also contribute to a longer vaccination timeline.

Story continues

However, and perhaps counterintuitively, these moves may serve to improve public health. A slower pace of approval may boost public trust at a critical time.

Polls have shown that many Americans are concerned about the safety of a COVID-19 vaccine62% percent of U.S. adults surveyed in early September by the Kaiser Family Foundation said they were at least somewhat worried political pressure would lead the FDA to rush out a vaccine before one is ready. And in a mid-September Pew Research Center poll, 77% of respondents said they thought U.S. regulators were very or somewhat likely to approve a COVID-19 vaccine before its safety and efficacy are fully understood. Just 51% said they would definitely or probably get vaccinated if one were available immediately.

Dr. Kelly Moore, the associate director for immunization education at the Immunization Action Coalition, says thats perfectly reasonable, since researchers dont yet have answers to the publics questions about vaccine safety and efficacy. She adds that the government hasnt done a great job of communicating that, while COVID-19 vaccines are being developed on an accelerated timeline, they are still undergoing rigorous review.

People shouldnt feel badly about having reservations right now, Moore says, though she says those concerns will hopefully be put to rest once safety data from the drug trials are reviewed.

Its crucial that a majority of Americans feel confident in COVID-19 vaccines once theyre approved and deemed safe. The majority of Americans will need to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunitythe threshold at which enough people are immune to a disease that it stops spreading widely. In June, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN that if two-thirds of the U.S. population received a COVID-19 vaccine that was about 75% effective, it still might not be enough to achieve herd immunity.

A fantastic vaccine that is not used will not be successful in ending the pandemic, says Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. There needs to be a lot of work to convince the public that vaccines are safe and effective. That starts with the data.

Moore thinks clear communication and dedication to scientific rigor, as the FDA has demonstrated with its new review policy, will help with that. This new guideline and [scientists] communication that we are going to go through the routine review and approval processshould help reassure the public that we are using our normal, robust safety processes, were just doing it at an accelerated pace, Moore says.
The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro, which led months of protests against the small Balkan states pro-Western government, has been hospitalized after testing positive for the coronavirus, the church said Wednesday.

It said Bishop Amfilohije, 82, was feeling fine and had no major symptoms. He has been taken to a hospital in the capital, Podgorica, for preventive reasons.

Ahead of a parliamentary election in August, the largest faith group in Montenegro has led months of protests by its believers against a property law adopted by the parliament in December.

The pro-Russian Serbian Orthodox Church has argued that the law allows the Montenegrin state to confiscate its property as a prelude to setting up a separate Montenegrin church. This has been denied by the government.

The protests, some held in defiance of a ban on public gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic, have managed to galvanize the opposition, which narrowly won the vote in August.

Amfilohije, known for his staunch anti-Western and pro-Russian political views, played a key role in leading the anti-government protests and putting together an opposition coalition that is likely to form the countrys new government.

Amfilohije once said Muslims are a false people with a false religion and is also known for his frequent statements against gay and gender equality groups.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : Actress Payal Ghosh, who had accused film director Anurag Kashyap of sexual harassment, on Wednesday arrived at North Block in the Capital and met Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy.

After her more than 20-minute meeting with Reddy, the actress said she had come to get speedy justice and would seek the intervention of the Ministry of Home Affairs if required.

Ghosh has already taken up the issue with the National Commission for Women which took suo motu cognisance of her allegation and asked her to file a formal complaint.

"Met up with Shri G Krishan Reddy who is the MOS of@AmitShahji at @HMOIndia and also the minister of state of home ministry and had a very fruitful and forwarded conversation on the issue. It's an issue faced by many and now is the time to act," Ghosh tweeted.

Before meeting with Reddy, the actress tweeted: "I am heading to @HMOIndia to meet the officials. It's a fight to the end and no fake agenda can deter me. Bring it on." On September 20, Ghosh alleged that Anurag Kashyap had forced himself upon her. On October 1, Kashyap was questioned by Versova police in the alleged sexual assault case.

Ghosh had earlier threatened to sit on a hunger strike if the entire case was not taken up fairly by Mumbai Police. She had reportedly filed two complaints against the filmmaker. While one was filed with the Mumbai Police over charges of harassment; the other was filed with NCB, wherein she had asked the anti-narcotics agency to look into the drug angle related to Kashyap.
A low-pressure zone in the East Vietnam Sea is picking up strength and is forecast to make landfall in south-central provinces, bringing prolonged downpours to localities across central Vietnam.

As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, the low-pressure zone was located 170 kilometers east of the coast between Khanh Hoa and Phu Yen Provinces in the south-central region, according to the National Center for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting.

It will travel westward in the next 24 hours and make landfall between Khanh Hoa and Phu Yen.

Average wind speeds of 40 to 50km per hour are expected with gusts up to 75km an hour.

The tropical depression will continue heading west and weaken in the next 24 to 48 hours.

Due to the combined effects of a tropical convergence zone, the low-pressure area, and a cold front, heavy rain dampened localities from north-central Ha Tinh Province to south-central Phu Yen Province on Tuesday and Wednesday morning.

Average rainfall from 1:00 pm on Tuesday to 7:00 am on Wednesday was recorded at 100-180 millimeters.

From October 6 to 11, torrential rain measuring at an average of 300-500 millimeters will dampen central localities

The heaviest downpours, estimated at 500-700 millimeters, will be recorded in localities from north-central Ha Tinh Province to central Quang Ngai Province.

Medium to heavy rainall of 150-250 millimeters will occur in the Central Highlands and southern Vietnam, including Ho Chi Minh City, during this period.

From October 11, rain is forecast to linger in central Vietnam for a long period.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Nobel Committee members Patrik Ernfors (L) and Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam sit in front of a screen displaying the winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (L-R) American Harvey Alter, Briton Michael Houghton and American Charles Rice during a press conference at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. AP Photo

They are the mysterious zombies of microbiology, coming to life only inside living bodies, hard to kill because they are smaller than bacteria, and not quite living themselves. From Ebola to the coronavirus and HIV, viruses are humanitys biggest enemy.

Perhaps the only virus to have a cure, however, is the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), thanks to the efforts of British scientist Michael Houghton, US researchers Harvey Alter and Charles Rice and a few others, who have also designed accurate tests to identify it.

The viruses Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B had been discovered by the mid-1960s.

But it was Prof. Alter who, while studying transfusion patients in 1972, showed that there was another infection at work. Prof Houghton, while at the pharmaceutical firm Chiron in 1989, isolated the flavivirus genetic sequence. And Prof. Rice, in 1997, established the connection of the virus with the disease, Hepatitis.

Collaboration had been critical to the work of all three scientists. In 2013, Houghton declined the Gairdner Award, Canada's most prestigious international science prize, as it did not include Qui-Lim Choo and George Kuo, his two colleagues. The latter did not win the Lasker Award, either, which was won by Houghton and Alter in 2000 for discovering the virus.

An estimated 71 million people worldwide suffer from chronic HCV infection, requiring liver transplants. HCV is the primary cause of liver cancer and kills about four lakh people annually.

While its identification has made blood transfusions a whole lot safer, the development of drugs against this organism means, for the first time in human history, eradication may be accomplished.

In a pandemic year, which has also been dubbed the year of the virus, therefore, the award of the Nobel Prize 2020 to the trio is a fitting recognition.
Advertisement

You've seen Petra in Jordan on the silver screen in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, now it's time to plan a visit to see it in real life, because according to the adventure experts at Lonely Planet it's the No1 place to experience in the world.

It features as the top-ranked destination in the newly released second edition of Lonely Planet's Ultimate Travel List, a stunning coffee table book that contains the 'definitive wish-list of the 500 most thrilling, memorable and interesting travel experiences in the world, ranked in order of brilliance'.

The global runner-up spot goes to the Galapagos Islands, followed by Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in Australia (third), the Okavango Delta in Botswana (fourth) and Yellowstone National Park (fifth). The top-ranked UK destination is the Lake District, which comes 40th.

Petra in Jordan is the No1 place to experience in the world, according to Lonely Planet's updated Ultimate Travel List book

The Galapagos Islands (which comes second) is the archipelago that 'changed the course of science', says Lonely Planet, for it was here that Darwin developed his theory of evolution

The rest of the global top 10 comprises Lake Bled in Slovenia (sixth); Iguazu Falls, Argentina-Brazil (seventh); the Temples of Angkor, Cambodia (eighth); Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia (ninth), and the Annapurna Circuit, Nepal (10th).

Overall the UK scores 34 spots in the top 500, more than any other country. Completing the top five British entries are the British Museum (56th), the Wales Coast Path (82nd), the Jurassic Coast (116th) and the Brecon Beacons (153rd).

After Yellowstone, the four best-ranked U.S places are the Grand Canyon National Park (13th), Yosemite National Park (20th), Redwood National & State Parks (49th) and the Golden Gate Bridge (60th).

Trailing Uluru in Australia and forming the rest of the top five there are the Great Barrier Reef (11th), Sydney Harbour & the Opera House (26th), Lord Howe Island (58th) and Kangaroo Island (90th).

In justifying Petra's coveted podium spot, Lonely Planet says that the ancient sandstone city has 'an eternal air of mystery' and is 'now one of the most loved places on the planet, voted in as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World by popular ballot in 2007'.

Of course, Indiana Jones fans know it as the place where their whip-wrangling hero finds the Holy Grail.

LONELY PLANET'S TOP 20 PLACES IN THE WORLD, TOP FIVE IN AMERICA AND TOP FIVE IN AUSTRALIA 1 Petra, Jordan 2 The Galapagos Islands 3 Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Australia 4 Okavango Delta, Botswana 5 Yellowstone National Park 6 Lake Bled, Slovenia 7 Iguazu Falls, Argentina-Brazil 8 Temples of Angkor, Cambodia 9 Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia 10 Annapurna Circuit, Nepal 11 Great Barrier Reef 12 Bagan, Myanmar 13 Grand Canyon National Park 14 The Alhambra, Spain 15 Aya Sofya, Turkey 16 Serengeti National Park, Tanzania 17 Taj Mahal 18 Great Wall of China 19 Habana Vieja, Cuba 20 Yosemite National Park Top 5 USA 5. Yellowstone National Park 13 Grand Canyon National Park 20 Yosemite National Park 49 Redwood National & State Parks 60 Golden Gate Bridge Top 5 Australia 3 Uluru 11 Great Barrier Reef 26 Sydney Harbour & the Opera House 58 Lord Howe Island 90 Kangaroo Island Source: Lonely Planet's Ultimate Travel List, second edition Advertisement

Lonely Planet says of bronze-medal winner Uluru: 'At sunset, when its wavy walls blaze gold, Uluru looks like a ship on fire in a desert sea'

The Okavango Delta in Botswana, which just misses out on a global podium finish, is 'one of Africa's most compelling safari destinations', says Lonely Planet

Ultimate Travel List explains that Yellowstone National Park, in at No5, is the 'largest geothermal area in the world' and home to North America's answer to the big five  bison, bighorn sheep, elk, bear and wolf

Sixth-placed Lake Bled in Slovenia, the planet's most photogenic lake, says Lonely Planet

Meanwhile, the Galapagos Islands, says the tome, is the archipelago that 'changed the course of science', for it was here that Darwin developed his theory of evolution, and 'the process is more obvious here than elsewhere on Earth'. The book explains that animals 'that otherwise look alike diverge subtly from island to island, depending on their environment cormorants can't fly, iguanas can swim, tortoises live nearly 200 years'.

'Visitors continue to be astonished by the archipelago's stunning diversity,' the book adds.

Turning to third-placed Uluru, Lonely Planet enthuses that 'at sunset, when its wavy walls blaze gold, Uluru looks like a ship on fire in a desert sea'.

It continues: 'Rising to 1,142ft (348m), the sandstone monolith seizes your eyes from miles away. It's easy to see why it's a sacred site.'

Here you're looking at the seventh-best place on earth to visit - Iguazu Falls on the Argentina-Brazil border. Visit and marvel at the astounding power and furious force of this natural wonder, urges Lonely Planet

The temples of Angkor in Cambodia, No8 on Lonely Planet's epic ranking, is a 'sprawling monument to devotion'

The incredible Salar de Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia comes ninth in the global ranking, drawn up by Lonely Planet's worldwide team of travel experts and voted on by readers

The Annapurna Circuit in the hypnotic Nepalese Himalayas has been honoured with 10th place in the Ultimate Travel List

Perhaps you have fourth-place Okavango Delta in your sights for a post-pandemic perusal.

It's a great choice  'one of Africa's most compelling safari destinations' and a 'unique ecosystem sustaining vast quantities of wildlife', says Lonely Planet.

And fifth-placed Yellowstone? The book explains that it's the 'largest geothermal area in the world' and home to North America's answer to the big five  bison, bighorn sheep, elk, bear and wolf.

THE TOP-RANKED UK EXPERIENCES IN LONELY PLANET'S ULTIMATE TRAVEL LIST 40. Lake District 56. British Museum 82. Wales Coast Path 102. Giant's Causeway 116. Jurassic Coast, Devon to Dorset 153. Brecon Beacons 161. Snowdonia 170. V&A Museum, London 172. West Highland Way 212. Glen Coe 219. Seven Sisters Chalk Cliffs, East Sussex 224. Loch Lomond 227. Stonehenge 238. Skara Brae, Orkney 248. Edinburgh's Royal Mile 267. Bath's Roman Baths 283. Tower of London 291. St Paul's Cathedral 302. Scotland's Northeast 250 314. Christ Church, Oxford 340. Tate Modern, London 349. National History Museum 352. Hadrian's Wall 369. Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railway 374. Dundee's waterfront 390. Stirling Castle 394. Royal Albert Dock, Liverpool 296. St David's Cathedral, Pembrokeshire 398. Titanic Belfast 437. St Fagans National History Museum, Cardiff 443. York Minster 458. Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow 462. Castle Howard, North Yorkshire 476. Portmeirion, Wales Source: Lonely Planet Advertisement

The Lake District is, according to Lonely Planet, the best place to visit in the UK. It comes 40th out of 500 globally on the Ultimate Travel List

The British Museum comes a respectable 56th on Lonely Planet's global list of top travel spots

The Wales Coast Path is one of 34 entries in the Ultimate Travel List from the UK. The picture above was taken on the path near the village of Rhossili

Lonely Planet's VP of Print Publishing, Piers Pickard, said: 'After seven months of staying at home, now's the perfect time to start thinking about where and how to travel once normality returns.

'In putting together this book, we were excited by changes in both the "where" and the "how".

'We added 200 new entries into our list of the world's Top 500. And we were both surprised and reassured by just how many of the Top 500 are working hard to create more sustainable visitor experiences.'

So just how did Lonely Planet rank the 500 places?

It says: 'The longlist was compiled from all the highlights found in every Lonely Planet guidebook over the years. Each attraction and sight recommended by Lonely Planet authors was included, before being whittled down to a shortlist. Everyone in the Lonely Planet community was then asked to vote on their 20 top travel experiences. With hundreds of votes cast, we ended up with a score for each entry and a definitive ranked list of the top 500 places to see around the world.'

For more visit www.lonelyplanet.com/landing/ultimate-travel-list. Material here reproduced with permission from Lonely Planet  2020.
A majority of French MPs have voted to approve a controversial provision authorising the temporary reintroduction of banned neonicotinoids - a class of insecticide - to save beet farmers from ravaging aphids, small sap-sucking insects. The agriculture minister says there is no alternative, but opponents of the bill disagree.

The vote in France's lower assembly late Monday night came down in favour of sugar over honey. And appeared to support the economy over biodiversity, although the minister of agriculture, Julien Denormandie, was at pains to state the contrary.

We are all against bee-killing insecticides, Denormandie said, but there is currently no alternative, chemical or agronomical, which is effective enough."

Biologist Freddie-Jean Richard, a researcher at the University of Poitiers, told RFI that alternatives do exist and could be further developed.

Ladybirds adore aphids for example, even if they cost a bit more [than insecticides]. Nettle manure is also very effective.

There are alternatives, but sometimes there are problems developing them on a big scale because of regional constraints or intensive farming or whatever.

Food sovereignty

France proudly banned the use of neonicotinoid-based insecticides in 2018, in line with EU directives. Such products are known to disrupt insects' central nervous systems and have contributed to the collapse of swathes of France's honeybee colonies.

But sugar industry professionals say they need them to counter jaundice spread by green aphids which has led to severe drops in crop yields this year.

The reintroduction of seeds coated with neonicotinoids should make it possible to protect sugar yields. Otherwise the future of the industry and the 46,000 people it employs is under threat.

The derogation will come into effect from 2021.

"It is a difficult, important text, which does not seek to oppose economy and ecology," Denormandie pleaded. The issue is our sovereignty.

Sovereignty has become a hot button issue in France and the government argues that without the derogation, France will be put at a disadvantage compared to the dozen or so other European countries who use them.

Killing a French sector to then import sugar from Poland, Germany or Belgium is not an option, argues the government.

No one benefits

The government won the vote but not without opposition, particularly from the Left, the Greens and environmental groups like the Nicolas Hulot Foundation.

This new law will save neither bees nor agriculture, tweeted the Nicolas Hulot Foundation. The cost of bee extinction = 2.9 billion, Cost of bailing out beet growers = 77.5 million.

The government maintains it cannot keep all the beet farmers afloat while waiting for a replacement to neonicotinoids and that it is investing some 7 million euros to massively speed up research into alternatives.

Richard insists the way forward is not, however, to replace one toxic product with another.

Waiting for a new pesticide or insecticide that does the same thing but has a different name is not the solution, she said.

What's for sure is that neonicotinoids have an impact of all living things, they alter the eco-system, they have very negative effects on pollinators which are already under threat, and on fish, amphibians, birds.

In lifting the ban we're going to impact the whole ecosystem and the food chain, and the problem with pesticides is that they have a very long term effect.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of the hard-Left France Unbowed party put forward a passionate if unsuccessful motion to stop the bill saying it was "an error" and promised to take it to the Court of Justice.
PORTAGE, MI -- The Portage deputy city manager accused of drunken driving will remain in his position during the investigation, the city said Wednesday.

Michael Carroll, 57, was arrested Sept. 27 on suspicion he was operating a vehicle while intoxicated. Carroll had a blood-alcohol level of over 0.17 percent, court records show. In Michigan, a motorist is presumed intoxicated at 0.08 percent.

Carroll will remain at work continuing in his duties as deputy city manager while the court and legal process unfolds and the citys independent review can be completed, Portage City Manager Joseph La Margo said in a statement released Wednesday, Oct. 7.

Following Mr. Carrolls arraignment, we began an independent review of the matter to ensure all city policies and procedures were followed and all actions were consistent with our commitment to accountability and transparency, La Margo said. Our review of his police and driving records reveal to our knowledge this is his first offense.

Carroll was arraigned on the charges Tuesday, Sept. 29, in Kalamazoo County District Court. He was released on a $500 bond, with conditions that include instruction to not use alcohol or illegal controlled substances.

Carrolls license was suspended and he is scheduled for an alcohol use evaluation, the city manager said in his statement.

The deputy city manager has taken full responsibility for his actions and understands the possible consequences pending the outcome of the independent review, La Margo said. Carroll has also offered an apology to the City Council and fully intends to follow all treatment recommendations, he said.

Mayor Patricia Randall previously told MLive that Carroll is an asset to the city, and said that he was not driving a city vehicle or working when he was arrested.

The city will provide additional updates as they become available, La Margo said.

This unfortunate incident will not distract us from our mission of providing a high quality of life and an amazing community in which to live, raise a family, retire or run a small business, La Margo said. The independent review may also identify areas of improvement in our policies and procedures and I welcome the findings as a way to make our community even stronger.

Carroll is currently set for a pretrial hearing before Kalamazoo County District Judge Richard Santoni on Oct. 27.

Also on MLive:

Man convicted of sexually assaulting child in Monroe County

Man pooped in box at Michigan Meijer, put it back on shelf, police say

Father and son rescue woman stranded 2 nights in woods after hearing faint help me cry

Police find body of missing man in ditch after he was last seen running into Northern Michigan woods
NEW HAVEN  Staff members who work in four schools have tested positive for COVID-19, the districts top official said.

New Haven Superintendent of Schools Iline Tracey said she learned from the city Health Department late Monday that four staff members at different schools  Lincoln-Bassett, Brennan-Rogers, Nathan Hale and Elm City Montessori  tested positive for the virus.

Tracey said she informed the relevant school communities as soon as possible, but there was no risk to any students.

School is not in session, she said Tuesday.

Further, in West Haven, students in a classroom at Savin Rock Community School are being quarantined after one of the students tested positive for COVID-19, the fourth positive case in the district since schools reopened Sept. 8, Superintendent of Schools Neil Cavallaro confirmed Tuesday.

Since reopening there have been two positive cases at West Haven High School, one at Bailey Middle School and now the student at Savin Rock Community School.

In New Haven, Tracey said that in two of the four schools some other staff members who may have come into close contact with staff who tested positive were asked to remain in quarantine.

Although instruction has been happening since Sept. 3 when school began, buildings have been closed to students after the Board of Education voted for remote-only instruction for the first marking period, which ends in November.

Elm City Montessori, a local charter that is operated independently, has been offering a mix of remote and in-person instruction for students who want it and Lincoln-Bassett and Brennan-Rogers are among a number of district schools that reopened for about three to five special education students per building at a time in self-contained classrooms.

Teaching staff have the option of working from their buildings, and other employees  such as custodial and cafeteria workers  remain on site to do their jobs.

Although positive tests of school employees led to a 24-hour closure of buildings over the summer for disinfecting, Tracey said the district is doing a deep disinfecting of only areas touched by those who tested positive.

It might be a classroom instead of the entire building, she said.

Tracey declined to share the job titles of those who tested positive, and said they might not be teachers when asked whether the positive tests would impact instructional staffing.

Cavallaro noted that the cases in the West Haven schools have occurred at different times.

He could not give details of the cases, but said this is the first case at the elementary school at 50 Park St, which serves students in pre-K through fifth grade.

As is the procedure, students in the class have been quarantined and contact tracing is underway with staff and others, Cavallaro said.

Elementary school students stay in one room, he said, so only the classroom is involved.

brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com
JAKARTA: Indonesian police detained nearly 400 protesters on Wednesday, some armed with molotov cocktails and sharp weapons, on a second day of heated demonstrations over a controversial new jobs law in Southeast Asias largest economy.

Demonstrations took place in at least 12 places on Wednesday, with police detaining 183 people outside parliament in Palembang in South Sumatra, and holding more than 200 protesters for questioning in the capital Jakarta, a day after tear gas and water cannon were used to disperse crowds in multiple cities.

The protesters are demanding the government revokes an omnibus" jobs creation law that has outraged unions, who say it lopsidedly favours businesses and will hurt workers and the environment.

Footage from the Javanese city of Semarang showed angry protesters tearing down the fence of the local parliament complex, while in Jakarta and Bandung, students threw stones and burned tyres.

The sweeping legislation has been championed by President Joko Widodo as key to boosting an economy hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic by cutting red tape and attracting foreign investment.

But academics from prominent universities expressed disappointment on Wednesday over a law they said was problematic and would likely lead to a judicial review.

Susi Dwi Harijanti of Bandungs Padjajaran University said the laws swift passage shocked everybody" because parliament was usually slow in making regulations, including the ones that are clearly needed by the people".

Indonesias largest Islamic organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), also weighed in, with its leader KH Said Aqil Siroj saying it would benefit only capitalists, investors and conglomerates and would trample" on ordinary people.

Top economic minister Airlangga Hartarto on Wednesday sought to calm protesters and said many of their fears were based on false information.

I can assure you wages will not be cut," he told a virtual news conference.

Other ministers have defended controversial provisions, including a land bank, saying the government would not take away farmers lands and the law would not weaken environmental protection.

(Additional reporting by Gayatri Suroyo; Writing by Kate Lamb; Editing by Ed Davies, Kenneth Maxwell and Martin Petty)

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
MIDDLETOWN  City and state officials Wednesday praised the approval of $1.08 million in Bond Commission funding, which they said will allow the school district help ensure energy savings, protect the environment, lower the achievement gap and upgrade lighting systems to cost-effective LEDs.

Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, Middletown Mayor Ben Florsheim, Superintendent of Schools Michael Conner, state Sens. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, and Mary Daughtery Abrams, D-Meriden, and state Rep. Quentin Phipps, D-Middletown, praised the dispensation outside the Board of Education offices at 311 Hunting Hill Ave.

In all, $30 million is slated for the states 33 Alliance Districts. These monies go to school districts with the lowest Accountability Index measures in the state, according to the state.

This grant-in-aid also will pay for improvements to school buildings and allow the installation of touchless sinks in the elementary schools, which will further the safety and health of all during the pandemic.

We are in a better position than ever, in many ways, when it comes to our school infrastructure, Florsheim said, pointing to the construction of the $87.35 million Beman Middle School across the street, which will be part of an educational campus on Hunting Hill Avenue.

That involves the creation of a recreational complex once the remainder of the Woodrow Wilson Middle School building is knocked down, incorporating the gym and swimming pool.

Funds also will be used for future changes, including those at the elementary school level to prepare students for entering the new state-of-the-art middle school, he said.

For the first time, the city is budgeting for capital projects on an annual basis as well as other initiatives to be considered during budget season, the mayor said. In the past, grants were earmarked for salaries and day-to-day expenses.

That money we are saving can be repurposed back to our kids to achieve our mission of unlocking potential in all students, Conner said.

The superintendent is entering his third year of leading the public schools. Hes overseen a departure from the citys traditional uses for these dollars, and is now directing them toward operational costs, so we can begin to build upon innovation, close the achievement gap, and addressing professional capacities so we can have better classroom instruction, he said.

The districts new Aerospace Manufacturing Academy is one example.

Lesser told those gathered that this is a most critical time for investing in the schools. Dr. Conner is one of the most transformative leaders education has seen in Connecticut in a long while. He is moving mountains to close the achievement gap and achieve equity in Middletown.

Especially during the pandemic, Lesser said, more investments in the schools should be of the utmost importance. Were dealing with the biggest challenge we have ever had to deal with. We are seeing huge and growing equity issues across the state as school districts struggle to both educate young people and keep them safe.

Abrams, a retired educator and vice chairwoman of the states Education Committee, has been helping guide the delegation to secure tens of millions of dollars for construction of the Beman Middle School, she said.

Being sure every student fulfills their potential is particularly important to her, Abrams said. Infrastructure does matter. You can have the best curriculum, the best instruction, but if the infrastructure doesnt support that, you wont get the full potential from students, she said.

Both Phipps and Bysiewicz are graduates of the local school system.

Other Alliance Districts and their grants include: Ansonia, $477,647; Bridgeport, $2 million; Danbury, $1.08 million; East Haven, $477,647; Hamden, $1.08 million; New Haven, $2 million; Norwalk, $1.08 million; Stamford, $2 million; Thompson and Torrington, $477,647 each; and West Haven, $1.8 million.

For a full list of Alliance Districts, visit portal.ct.gov. To view the Bond Commission agenda, see bit.ly/34OrpfZ.
Turkey sends ISIS commander, Syrian rebels to aid Azerbaijan in Armenia conflict: reports

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Reports say that hundreds of Syrian Islamic rebel fighters, including a high-ranking Islamic State commander, have been sent to help prop up Muslim-majority Azerbaijan in its recently re-sparked border conflict over a region populated predominantly by Armenian Christians.

High-ranking Syrian rebel sources who spoke with The Daily Beast claimed that as many 1,000 Syrian rebel fighters were sent to Azerbaijan, which lies north of Iran, from Turkey on Sept. 22 and Sept. 24.

A similar claim was also reported by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which cited sources as saying that a batch of fighters was sent to the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region from the Syrian city of Afrin, where Turkey had engaged in a military campaign along with aligned militant groups against Kurdish forces.

The decades-long clash over Nagorno-Karabakh reignited on Sunday. The region is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has a majority-Armenian population that voted to break away from Azerbaijan and has been controlled by ethnic Armenians, which caused a war between the two former Soviet Union republics and a ceasefire in 1994.

More recently, clashes began again at the Nagorno-Karabakh Line of Contact, which separates ethnic Armenian and Azerbaijan forces. The recent clashes are said to be the most severe since 2016. Casualties have been reported by both sides and the United Nations has called for the de-escalation of tensions.

Despite this, the sources suggest that Turkey, a predominantly Muslim European nation strongly allied with Azerbaijan, has sent mercenaries to the region.

Armenias ambassador to Russia, Vardan Toganyan, said that militia have been deployed by Turkey from Syria to Azerbaijan, adding that the troops have been trained in camps.

Asia News, an official press agency of the Roman Catholic Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, cited Syrian armed opposition sources to report that Turkey has sent 4,000 Syrian Isis mercenaries from Afrin to fight against the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh. One leader was quoted as saying that as many as 1,000 more fighters could be on their way.

Sources told the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that Syrian rebels were taken to Azerbaijan to guard the states border in return for salaries that range between $1,500 and $2,000.

500 Hamza Brigade (affiliated with the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army) fighters were flown last Tuesday from southern Turkey to the Azeri airbase at Sumqayit (30 kilometers north of the Azeri capital of Baku), a source within the rebel group told The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity.

Two days later, on Thursday, another 500 fighters from the Sultan Murad brigades rebel faction (another Turkish-backed outfit) were similarly flown out to Azerbaijan.

Hamza commander Sayf Balud, an ethnic Turkmen, previously served as a commander within the Islamic State radical jihadist group that conquered large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and killed and enslaved thousands beginning in 2013.

The Daily Beast reports that Balud was featured in an Islamic State propaganda video shot in the town of Tal Abyad after the group captured the town from the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units. After the Islamic States military defeat, he appeared in propaganda videos in 2018 as the commander of the Hamza brigades when Turkey sent backed rebel groups into Afrin to capture control of the city.

Sources who spoke with The Daily Beast noted that the Syrian rebel units that have been sent to Azerbaijan are almost all being led by ethnic Syrian Turkmen like Balud.

Reports of Syrian rebel involvement was denied by an aide to Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, Khikmet Gadzhiev.

Rumors of militants from Syria allegedly being redeployed to Azerbaijan is another provocation by the Armenian side and complete nonsense, Gadzhiev said.

However, two fighters from a Turkish-based rebel group in northern Syria told Reuters that they were deployed to Azerbaijan in coordination with Ankara, with one saying that he was told nearly 1,000 Syrians were set to deploy.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Monday that Armenia has also brought in mercenaries and terrorists from abroad. Reuters notes that Akar attended joint military drills in Azerbaijan in August.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had previously blasted Armenia in a U.N. General Assembly speech for occupying Azerbaijan territory, on Thursday criticized international governments like France, the U.S. and Russia for calling for a ceasefire.

Occupiers need to leave the land theyre occupying first, Erdogan said. Permanent peace in the Nagorno-Karabakh region will only be possible if Armenia leaves the Azerbaijani lands it has been occupying.

On Wednesday, hundreds of Armenian protesters gathered outside of the Azerbaijan consulate in Los Angeles to protest Azerbaijans actions in Nagorno-Karabakh. The rally was held by the Armenian Youth Federation.

On Friday, the Armenian National Committee of America is leading a protest in Washington, D.C. Among groups supporting the protest is the international advocacy group In Defense of Christians.

The protest will call on the U.S. government to condemn Azerbaijan, cut off military aid to Azerbaijan and enforce sanctions on Turkey.

The AYF is leading a protest at the Turkish Embassy against Ankara and Baku's attacks on Armenia and Artsakh, [d]emanding that Turkey stop pouring fuel on this fire, a Facebook post explains.
New Delhi: Farmers body - the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee - on Wednesday turned down the Central governments request for a meeting on October 8 to resolve their concerns regarding the farm laws.

"We got a telephone call from Union Agriculture Minister yesterday. He also sent a mail asking us to come to Delhi for a meeting on Oct 8. We have decided that we will not participate in any meeting as the government is not serious," Sarvan Singh Pandher, State Secretary of Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee said.

Earlier, Secretary, Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare in a letter to General Secretary, Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, said, "Your committee has expressed concerns over the farm bills. I would like to invite you to a meeting on October 8 at Krishi Bhawan, Delhi. We would like to address your concerns."

Live TV

Amid protests over the recently enacted farm laws in different parts of the country, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had termed them as long-waiting reforms in the agriculture sector.

While interacting with farmer leaders and agricultural experts in Chennai on farmers` issues and the recently enacted farm laws on Tuesday, Sitharaman had said that the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops will be continued.

"The reforms brought out by the Narendra Modi government were waiting for a long time. Now, agricultural produce in India can be sold anywhere at a price suitable for them with profit. Now, farmers can decide where and whom they should sell and where. A farmer can sell his products anywhere and no confusion in it. There is a free hand to them," Sitharaman said.

The three laws - Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance 2020; Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020; and Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act - were passed recently by Parliament.
VANCOUVER, BC and TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Auryn Resources Inc. (TSX:AUG) (NYSE American:AUG) ("Auryn") and Eastmain Resources Inc. (TSX:ER) ("Eastmain") jointly announce that today they received final orders from the British Columbia Supreme Court and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, respectively, to implement the previously announced plans of arrangement (the "Transaction").

Pursuant to the Transaction, Auryn will acquire Eastmain after spinning out its Peruvian assets into two new companies and distributing the shares of those companies to Auryn's shareholders. The Transaction will also create Fury Gold Mines Limited ("Fury Gold"), a leading developer of Canadian gold projects. Fury Gold will receive the net proceeds of the previously completed C$23 million financing, which are being held in escrow pending completion of the Transaction.

The final orders represent one of the remaining conditions for completion of the Transaction. Subject to satisfaction or waiver of all remaining conditions, closing of the Transaction is expected to occur on October 9, 2020.

It is expected that shares of Fury Gold (TSX and NYSE American: FURY) will begin trading on the NYSE American Exchange on October 12, 2020 and on the Toronto Stock Exchange (the "TSX") on October 13, 2020. It is also expected that Eastmain will be delisted from the TSX and removed from the OTCQB after the end of trading on October 9, 2020.

Full details of the Transaction, including its principal completion conditions can be found in each of Auryn's and Eastmain's management information circulars dated September 3, 2020 and filed under each of their profiles at www.sedar.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF AURYN RESOURCES INC.

Ivan Bebek

Executive Chairman and Director

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF EASTMAIN RESOURCES INC.

Blair Schultz

Interim President and CEO

For further information please contact:

Auryn Resources

Natasha Frakes, Manager of Corporate Communications

778-729-0600

info@aurynresources.com

Eastmain Resources

Blair Schultz, Interim President and CEO

647-347-3735

bschultz@eastmain.com

About Auryn

Auryn Resources Inc. is a technically-driven, well-financed junior exploration company focused on finding and advancing globally significant precious and base metal deposits. Auryn built a portfolio of six projects in Canada and Peru containing gold, silver and copper resources and exploration targets. On July 29, 2020, Auryn announced its intention to spin out its Peruvian assets into two new companies and acquire Eastmain, creating a Canadian gold-focused exploration and development company to be renamed as Fury Gold Mines Limited. Auryn's two flagship Canadian properties are the Committee Bay gold project in Nunavut and Homestake gold project in British Columbia for which an amended preliminary economic assessment was filed effective June 24, 2020. Upon closing of the Transaction, Fury Gold's three core assets will comprise of Eau Claire in Quebec, Committee Bay and Homestake Ridge. Auryn shareholders, invested prior to the completion of the Transaction, will become shareholders of Fury Gold and will also receive shares in the two new Canadian spin out companies, one holding the Sombrero copper-gold project, and the other holding both the Curibaya silver-gold project and Huilacollo gold project. Auryn's technical and management teams have an impressive track-record of successfully monetizing assets for all stakeholders and local communities in which it operates. Auryn conducts itself to the highest standards of corporate governance and sustainability. For more information on Auryn and the Transaction, please visit www.aurynresources.com.

About Eastmain

Eastmain is a Canadian exploration company operating in the Eeyou Istchee emerging James Bay gold camp in Quebec. Eastmain holds a 100%-interest in the Clearwater Property, host of the Eau Claire Project, for which it issued a Preliminary Economic Assessment in May 2018, and the Percival Discovery made in November 2018. Eastmain is also the operator of the Eleonore South Joint Venture, located immediately south of Newmont's Eleonore Mine, which hosts the Moni/Contact Trend Discovery (2017).

Forward Looking Information and Additional Cautionary Language

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". Forward looking information is information that includes implied future performance and/or forecast information including information relating to or associated with the Transaction, including the expected date of completion of the Transaction, when Fury Gold's shares will start trading on the TSX and the NYSE American and when Eastmain's shares will be delisted from the TSX and removed from the OTCQB. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different (either positively or negatively) from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers should refer to the risks discussed in Auryn's Annual Information Form and MD&A for the year ended December 31, 2019 and subsequent continuous disclosure filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators available at www.sedar.com and Auryn's registration statement on Form 40-F filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and available at www.sec.gov and in Eastmain's Annual Information Form and MD&A for the year ended October 31, 2019 and continuous disclosure filings available at www.sedar.com.

The Toronto Stock Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Auryn Resources Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609629/Auryn-and-Eastmain-Receive-Court-Approvals-to-Complete-Arrangements
Two terror suspects known as one half of the 'ISIS Beatles' appeared on U.S. soil for the first time on Wednesday, after having been flown from Iraq to stand trial in Virginia.

Alexanda Kotey, 36, and El Shafee Elsheikh, 32, made their first federal court appearance this afternoon, appearing via videolink in Alexandria at 5pm.

The pair were indicted on eight charges, including conspiracy to murder and hostage-taking resulting in death, in connection with the killing of four US hostages in Syria and Iraq.

Elsheikh, wearing a surgical mask, asked whether he was under arrest and was informed by Magistrate Judge Theresa C. Buchanan that he was.

When asked if he wanted to hire his own lawyer or have one appointed, he said: 'I don't know. I haven't had time to consult.'

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh have been indicted on eight charges connected to the deaths of four US citizens, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday

The pair landed in the United States having flown on Wednesday from Iraq

Kotey, 'Jihadi Ringo', is a British citizen who renounced his passport on arriving in Syria

Elsheikh, 'Jihadi George', is accused of being a 'leading participant' in a 2012-15 wave of terror

Both were assigned court-appointed lawyers.

They did not enter pleas, and will next appear in court on Friday for a detention hearing and their arraignment.

Zachary Terwilliger, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, spoke briefly outside court after the hearing.

He said they had made their initial appearances, and were 'appraised of the charges against them'.

'This is the first step in achieving justice for the victims,' he said.

He thanked all those who had worked to bring the two men from Iraq, and told the families of the four U.S. victims that justice would be served.

'The Islamic State will never have the last word,' he said.

Zachary Terwilliger, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, spoke outside court

Prosecutors led by Terwilliger spoke outside the courtroom following Wednesday's hearing

They were transported from Iraq where they have been in US custody since 2019.

They are accused by the State Department of murdering two dozen hostages including Americans James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller, and at least eight other hostages from different countries, including the UK.

The department said they carried out a gruesome campaign of torture, beheadings and other acts of violence against the Western hostages they had captured in Syria.

The indictment was announced Wednesday morning by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, as he confirmed that Kotey and Elsheikh would appear in court and be indicted by a federal grand jury.

'They will be informed of the charges against them, they will be provided with counsel if they cannot afford it, they will receive medical care, and be housed in a sanitary facility and be provided with three meals a day,' said Terwilliger.

'All coupled with a due process of law - all things denied to James, Kayla, Steven and Peter and the other British, and Japanese victims named in the indictment.'

Scroll down for video

The indictment was announced Wednesday by Assistant AG for National Security John C. Demers. He confirmed that Kotey and Elsheikh would appear in court that afternoon

The indictment describes Kotey, 'Jihadi Ringo', and Elsheikh, 'Jihadi George', as 'leading participants in a brutal hostage-taking scheme targeting American and European citizens' from 2012 through 2015.

'Today is a good day, but it is also a solemn day,' Demers said at the Wednesday press conference.

Charges against 'ISIS Beatles' Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh Conspiracy to commit hostage taking resulting in death Four counts of hostage taking resulting in death Conspiracy to murder United States citizens outside of the United States Conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists  hostage taking and murder  resulting in death Conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death Advertisement

Remembering the four American victims, he added, 'we are here today because of them'.

'Many around the world are familiar with the barbaric circumstances of their tragic deaths. But these precious souls will not be remembered for their deaths. They will be remembered for the good and decent lives they lived.'

The charges were welcomed by Attorney General Bill Barr who said it acted as a warning to other terrorists around the world.

'If you harm Americans, you will face American arms on the battlefield or American law in our courtrooms,' he said.

'Either way, you will be pursued to the ends of the earth until justice is done.'

The indictment was also welcomed by the victims families in a statement Wednesday morning.

'Kotey and ElSheikh's extradition and trial in the United States will be the first step in the pursuit of justice for the alleged horrific human rights crimes against these four young Americans, who saw the suffering of the Syrian people and wanted to help, whether by providing humanitarian aid or by telling the world about the evolving Syrian crisis,' they said.

'We are hopeful that the U.S. government will finally be able to send the important message that if you harm Americans, you will never escape justice. And when you are caught, you will face the full power of American law.'

James Foley and Steven Sotloff were both working as journalists in Syria when they were captured and killed by Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh

The two men admitted that they helped collect email addresses from Kayla Mueller (pictured left) that could be used to send out ransom demands. She was killed in 2015 after 18 months in ISIS captivity. Peter Kassig (pictured right) was also killed

A Kurdish security officer escorts Alexanda Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were allegedly among four British jihadis who made up a brutal Islamic State cell dubbed 'The Beatles,' at a security center in Kobani, Syria in March 2018

How the ISIS Beatles evaded justice June 11, 2018: Then British Home Secretary Savid Javid authorized the sharing of 600 witness statements gathered by the Metropolitan Police under a 'mutual legal assistance' agreement in a letter to then US Attorney General Jeff Sessions. June 11, 2018: Javid wrote to PM Johnson, indicating that 'significant attempts' had been made to obtain assurances, but that the time had arrived to accede to the request for information without seeking any assurance. He acknowledged that there was a serious risk that Elsheikh and Kotey would, if prosecuted and convicted, face execution as a direct result of UK assistance. June 20, 2018: Mr Johnson replied on: 'On a balanced assessment of the key risks... I agree that as this is a unique and unprecedented case, it is in the UK's national security interests to accede to an MLA request for a criminal prosecution without death penalty assurances for Kotey and Elsheikh'. July 26, 2018: Elsheikh's mother Maha Elgizouli gets a High Court injunction to stop any further material from being handed over. November 2018: Ms Elgizouli urges the Crown Prosecution Service to carry out a review if there really is insufficient evidence for him to be charged and tried in the UK. By now the material handed over by the UK is returned to it by the US. January, 2019: The High Court rejects a challenge by Ms Elgizouli over the UK government's decision to share evidence with American authorities. March, 2020: The mother's appeal sees the decision overturned again and the Supreme Court blasts the UK Government's 'unlawful' decision to bow to US pressure to share evidence on the so-called ISIS Beatles without receiving assurances the suspects would be spared the death penalty. August 19, 2020: The US says they will no longer seek the death penalty for the pair, sparking hope justice will be served. August 26, 2020: The Supreme Court rules they can now be sent to the US. October 7: Elsheikh and Kotey are transported to the US where a federal grand jury will indict them on eight charges. Advertisement

The accused claim they took part in torturing their victims and extracting information, but that they did not take part in their executions.

The pair are both British but renounced their citizenship when they joined ISIS in Syria in 2014.

Foley and Sotloff were journalists working in the region and Kassig and Mueller were aid workers.

In interviews while in detention, the two men admitted that they helped collect email addresses from Mueller that could be used to send out ransom demands. She was killed in 2015 after 18 months in ISIS captivity.

The State Department, however, has said that Elsheikh and Kotey played a much more active role and in 2017, declared the pair specially designated global terrorists.

Specifically, the agency said Elsheikh 'was said to have earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions while serving as an ISIS jailer'.

Kotey, according to the State Department, acted as an Islamic State recruiter and 'likely engaged in the group's executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods, including electronic shock and waterboarding'.

In July 2014, the indictment states, Elsheikh described to a family member his participation in an Islamic State attack on the Syrian Army.

He sent the family member photos of decapitated heads and said in a voice message: 'There's many heads, this is just a couple that I took a photo of'.

Kotey and Elsheikh will face life in prison if found guilty.

According to ABC, the Justice Department has a perfect record of convictions prosecuting Islamist extremists in US district courts.

The total charges against them include conspiracy to commit hostage taking resulting in death; four counts of hostage taking resulting in death; conspiracy to murder US citizens outside of the US; conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists  hostage taking and murder  resulting in death and conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death.

The court appearance Wednesday is a milestone in a years-long effort by U.S. authorities to bring to justice members of a militant group known for beheadings and barbaric treatment of American aid workers, journalists and other hostages in Syria.

Their arrival in the U.S. to face charges sets the stage for arguably the most sensational terrorism prosecution since the 2014 case against the suspected ringleader of a deadly attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

Elsheikh and Kotey have been held in US military custody in Iraq since October 2019, but the families of their American victims have long pleaded for them to be brought onto US soil to stand trial.

British authorities were reluctant.

The indictment was unsealed by the US Justice Department on Wednesday

They eventually agreed to hand over evidence to the U.S. that would help with a prosecution, and the information was delivered two weeks ago.

Barr has also agreed not to impose a death sentence on either man - an agreement reached with the consent of their victims's families, who said they rather learn the truth of what happened to their loved ones through a trial.

The most prominent member of the ISIS Beatles was Mohammed Emwazi, the hooded executioner known as Jihadi John who was filmed slicing the necks of some of the victims in sickening videos that terrified the world in 2014.

He was killed in a US drone strike in 2016.

The fourth member is Aine Davis, 'Jihadi Paul'. He is being held in a Turkish prison on terror charges.

The group earned their nickname as their hostages used the names of the different members of the Beatles to identify their British-sounding holders when they were able to communicate with each other.
DALLAS, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global leader in cybersecurity, today announced a first of its kind intent-based industrial intelligent IPS array for industrial environments, designed to protect large-scale industrial networks from critical attacks whilst reducing OPEX and CAPEX.

EdgeIPS Pro, developed by TXOne Networks, has been specially architected to meet the needs of global smart factory owners in industries like automotive and semiconductor manufacturing, who run centrally-managed or highly-automated factories featuring multiple production lines. It is part of Trend Micro's extensive smart factory security suite that covers every layer  from comprehensive perimeters for the cloud, to corporate IT, site manufacturing operation, supervisory control, and control layers.

The IT and OT convergence in smart factories has brought enormous productivity benefits, but it has also increased the cybersecurity risks of malware infection and unauthorized access. This could completely stall production as assets deploy a flat network architecture and are highly connected, which makes them vulnerable to attacks. Manufacturers are required to find the right network security solution including network segmentation which can achieve both business intention of productivity improvement and efficient security operation.

Conventional IT network security solutions are not as adaptable as OT requires, in particular when it comes to industrial network protocol support. Existing industrial network security solutions, on the other hand, struggle with centralized management maintenance, as security appliances need to be deployed and maintained individually for hundreds of assets and networks that exist on a shop floor.

"As we face an ever-changing digital landscape, the successful convergence of IT and OT is now critical to business," said Akihiko Omikawa, executive vice president of IoT security for Trend Micro and chairman of TXOne Networks. "Adding EdgeIPS Pro as an integral part of Trend Micro's Smart Factory Security Solution is a milestone for protecting large-scale industrial networks on the shop floor. The IT-friendly deployment and management allows organizations to continue running operations while keeping serious threats at bay."

EdgeIPS Pro is a transparent intent-based industrial intelligent IPS array built with TXOne's one-pass Deep Packet Inspection (TXODI) technology, enabling network segmentation capabilities by firewall/IPS/protocol filter capability with deeper and wider industrial network protocol support. There is no need to change network configuration settings of existing assets, further minimizing initial deployment costs. It also enables efficient centralized management for large-scale industrial networks with Gen3 hardware bypass supported 48 or 96 ports and easy-to-deploy IT rack-mount form factor.

"The lack of network segmentation to stop malware propagation is the most common issue in the control network layer and a real challenge for ICS environments as they require deeper and wider industrial network protocol support," said Dr. Terence Liu, General Manager for TXOne Networks. "EdgeIPS Pro allows administrators to organize network segmentation by business intention."

To find out more about Trend Micro's security solutions for the smart factory, please visit: https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/business/solutions/iot/smart-factory.html

To find out more about EdgeIPS Pro, please visit: https://www.txone-networks.com/en-global/products/index/edgeipspro

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro, a global leader in cybersecurity, helps make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Leveraging over 30 years of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, Trend Micro enables resilience for businesses, governments, and consumers with connected solutions across cloud workloads, endpoints, email, Industrial IoT, and networks. Our XGen security strategy powers our solutions with a cross-generational blend of threat-defense techniques that are optimized for key environments and leverage shared threat intelligence for better, faster protection. With over 6,700 employees in 65 countries, and the world's most advanced global threat research and intelligence, Trend Micro enables organizations to secure their connected world. www.trendmicro.com

About TXOne Networks

TXOne Networks is an Industrial IoT joint venture of Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, and Moxa, a leader in industrial communication and networking. TXOne Networks offers solutions to secure industrial machinery to ensure the safety and reliability of industrial control networks from cyberattacks. https://www.txone-networks.com

SOURCE Trend Micro Incorporated

Related Links

www.trendmicro.com


Early on the morning after Halloween, the nation will shift to what is inaccurately known as standard time, though it applies for only about four months of the year. The vast majority of the U.S. will have to reset clocks, adjust sleep times, endure mild symptoms of jet lag and get used to the sudden early onset of darkness. Then, in March, we will have to switch back in another round of disruption and aggravation.
President Donald Trump's accountant must turn over his tax records to a New York state prosecutor, an appeals court ruled Wednesday in a decision that likely sets up a second trip to the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said in a written decision that a stay of a lower-court decision will remain in effect so Trump's lawyers can appeal the ruling to the high court.

A district court judge had rejected their renewed efforts to invalidate a subpoena that the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. issued to Trumps accounting firm.

Part of Vance's probe pertains to an investigation related to payoffs to two women - porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal - to keep them quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign about alleged extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.

Another loss: Donald Trump has now lost his bid to stop prosecutors from getting his tax returns at every court he has ever been in with them

The DA's investigation covers records in the time frame a hush money payoff was given to porn star Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump; the president has denied the allegation. The case will not lead necessarily to his returns being made public

Vance, Jr. is seeking eight years of the Republican presidents personal and corporate tax records, but has disclosed little about what prompted him to request the records.

In one recent court filing, Vance's lawyers have said he was justified in demanding them because of public reports of 'extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.'

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department was reviewing the ruling.

The Supreme Court in July ruled 7-2 against the president, rejecting Trump's arguments that he can't even be investigated, let alone charged with any crime, while he is in office.

But the court said Trump can challenge the subpoena on other grounds like anyone else who receives a subpoena.

The likelihood that the taxes would be released was unlikely to be resolved before the November election, especially since the high court is down to eight justices after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Through his lawyers, Trump argued that the subpoena was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and amounted to harassment of him, especially since the wording copied the language in congressional subpoenas.

In its decision, the 2nd Circuit rejected all of those arguments.

'We hold that none of the President's allegations, taken together or separately, are sufficient to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued "out of malice or an intent to harass,"' the appeals court said.
The U.S. Supreme Court stands in Washington, D.C., U.S. on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Oracle Corp.

Things got technical at the Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices heard arguments from Google and Oracle in a blockbuster copyright dispute that has captivated Silicon Valley for a decade.

The dispute concerns about 11,500 lines of code that Google used to build its popular Android mobile operating system, which were replicated from the Java application programming interface developed by Sun Microsystems.

Oracle, which acquired Sun in 2010, sued Google shortly afterward, arguing that Google's use of the code violates its ownership rights. Google, on the other hand, has said the code it copied was purely functional, and that its own engineers authored all of Android's code that could be said to be creative and subject to copyright protection.

At the end of an hour and a half of arguments, Justice Stephen Breyer, who at one point read aloud some code, seemed to be the only sure vote. The liberal justice appeared to lean toward Google.

Several of the other justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, suggested they were sympathetic to Oracle's copyright claims.

Still, they appeared reluctant to rule in Oracle's favor because of arguments made by leading computer scientists and Microsoft, in friend-of-the-court briefs, that doing so could upend the industry.

Several of the court's conservatives, including Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, noted that Google's allies had warned that the "sky will fall" if Oracle won.

"We are told if we agree with Oracle we will ruin the tech industry in the United States," Roberts said at one point to Malcolm Stewart, a Justice Department attorney who represented the United States and argued in favor of Oracle.

But those comments were also peppered with skepticism. "I'm not aware that the sky has fallen in the last five or six years," Kavanaugh said, noting that Google had lost its first appeals court battle in the case in 2014.

"I think the judges were really trying to ascertain whether or not that was actually going to be the case," said Brian Michalek, a partner at the law firm Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, in an interview after arguments wrapped up. "I sensed a little bit of skepticism and a little bit of sensationalism."

Justice Neil Gorsuch also repeatedly raised questions about whether a lower court that sided with Oracle was sufficiently deferential to a jury's finding in favor of Google, suggesting the top court could send the case back without a definitive ruling.

The case was among the first to be heard by the Supreme Court in its 2020 term, which began Monday, and also among the first to be heard since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died last month. Based on her prior writings, Ginsburg was expected to side with Oracle in the matter.

Arguments were conducted by telephone and streamed live to the public as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The dueling conceptions of the code at issue fueled much of the legal dispute. At stake is not just the $9 billion that Oracle has said that it is owed but also the law of copyright in the internet era, and which types of code will be subject to protection.

Google's attorney Thomas Goldstein stressed during arguments that the company had written all of the code that could be expressed differently from the way that Oracle had done. But, he said, for some purposes the code must be identical  "there are no substitutes."

"The long settled practice of reusing software interfaces is critical to modern software development," Goldstein argued. "Because there is only one way, there is no copyright protection."

Oracle's attorney, Joshua Rosenkranz, countered that Google did have options that did not involve using Oracle's code, albeit expensive ones.

"The Copyright Act does not give Google a pass just because it would be expensive to recreate our expression," he said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who asked tough questions of both sides, noted to Goldstein that Apple "spent the billions of dollars that were necessary."

"Presumably you could have," she said.

A key distinction that the justices sought to wrap their heads around was the difference between two different types of code, known as declaring code and implementing code.

Google used Oracle's declaring code, which it has likened to a QWERTY keyboard, but not its implementing code, which it says is more like a word processor.

Oracle prefers a different analogy, saying that its declaring code is more like the chapter headings and topic sentences of a novel.

For their part, the justices tried out a host of new comparisons.

Roberts, for instance, asked Goldstein if it would be permissible for someone to copy the headings used on his legal briefs if they swapped out rest of the text. Applying a similar brand of skepticism to Rosenkranz, he pointed out that someone opening a restaurant is going to have "appetizers first, and entrees and desserts" on the menu.

"You shouldn't have to worry about whether that organization is copyrighted," Roberts said. "Why isn't that exactly what Google is saying here?"

Breyer seemed to agree with the keyboard analogy and warned that allowing a copyright would have devastating consequences.

"You didn't have to have a QWERTY keyboard at the beginning," he said. "But if you let someone have a copyright on that now they would control all typewriters."

Google won twice before a district court in California, but both of those decisions were later reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear the case last term before it was delayed, along with a set of other cases, as a result of the pandemic.

In a statement after arguments, Oracle's general counsel Dorian Daley said she was "extremely pleased" with how they went.

Kent Walker, Google's senior vice president for global affairs, said in a post on Twitter that the "argument confirmed the importance of the legal rules that make that possible, and we look forward to the Court's decision."

A decision is expected by the end of June. The case is formally known as Google v. Oracle America, No. 18-956.
One of the most effective ways to curtail terrorist activity is by cracking down on their financial support networks.

In late September, the United States Departments of the Treasury designated the Lebanese entities Arch Consulting and Meamar Construction for being owned, controlled, or directed by Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The Treasury Department also designated Sultan Khalifa Asad, who is involved with both of these companies, for being an official of Hezbollah. The designations are pursuant to Executive Order 13224, as amended.

Arch and Meamar are two of several companies controlled by Hezbollahs Executive Council, of which Sultan Khalifah Asad is a member. Indeed, from the very beginning, Arch and Meamar have been associated with Hezbollah. Sultan Khalifah Asad is publicly listed as a founder of Meamar, and a number of individuals included in the companys registration documents also have public ties to Hezbollah.

Arch Consulting was previously part of the U.S.-designated Jihad al-Bina company, Hezbollahs main construction company. Today Arch is nominally independent, but it remains an important source of funding for Jihad al-Bina and is registered under the name of a Hezbollah-supported candidate in the 2004 municipal elections.

Outwardly, Arch and Meamar project a privately owned appearance, and Hezbollah exploits this illusion by using these two entities to conceal money transfers to its own accounts, enriching Hezbollahs coffers, and the bank accounts of corrupt officials.

For example, Hezbollah collaborated with former Lebanese Minister Yusuf Finyanus to ensure that Arch and Meamar won Lebanese government contracts worth millions of dollars, and the companies sent a portion of those funds to Hezbollahs Executive Council. For these and other activities on behalf of Hezbollah, Yusuf Finyanus was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department in early September.

Through Hezbollahs exploitation of the Lebanese economy and manipulation of corrupt Lebanese officials, companies associated with the terrorist organization are awarded government contracts, said Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin.

The United States remains committed to targeting Hezbollah and its supporters as they corruptly abuse Lebanese resources to enrich their leaders while the Lebanese people suffer from inadequate services.
I walked into the lobby and walked into the galleries, she recalled in a phone interview earlier this week, and I looked around and I told my then CEO, who was my boss, I said, Im going to work here one day. And she laughed and said, Youve got to get your job done here, and then, maybe. But, yeah, I knew I was going to be here one day.
New Delhi:

A total of 558 crorepati candidates are in the fray for the upcoming first and second phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections to be held on February 11 and February 15 while 275 have declared that they have criminal cases against them, says a report by think-tank Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).



Here are the phase-wise details of the candidates contesting assembly polls in the upcoming first phase and second phase in Uttar Pradesh -



First phase (Feb 11)



# Crorepati candidates

Total Candidates: 836 (First phase)

Crorepati candidates: 302



# Party-wise details



BSP: Total candidates - 73

Crorepati candidates - 66

BJP: Total candidates - 73

Crorepati candidates - 61



SP: Total candidates - 51

Crorepati candidates - 40

Congress: Total candidates - 24

Crorepati candidates - 18

RLD: Total candidates - 57

Crorepati candidates - 41

# 43 of 293 independent candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.



# The average asset per candidate contesting in the first phase of the UP poll is Rs 2.81 crore.



# Crinminal charge: Out of 836 candidates analysed, 168 have declared criminal cases against themselves.



# 143 candidates have declared serious criminal cases, including ones related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, crimes against women and the like.



# 186 candidates have not declared their PAN details.





# Education details



- 402 candidates have declared their qualification to be between 5th and 12th.

- 336 have declared having a qualification of graduate or above.



- 64 have declared themselves to be just literate.



- 15 have declared themselves to be illiterate.



The Uttar Pradesh Election Watch and ADR have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 836 out of 839 candidates from 98 political parties, including 5 national, 8 state, 85 unrecognised parties and 293 independent candidates, who are contesting in the first phase of the poll.

Full Coverage: Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections 2017





Second Phase (Feb 15)



# Crorepati candidates

- Total candidates: 721 (Second Phase)

- Crorepati candidates: 256





# Party-wise details



BSP: Crorepati candidates - 58



BJP: Crorepati candidates - 50



SP: Crorepati candidates - 45



Congress: Crorepati candidates - 13



RLD: Crorepati candidates - 15



- Total 719 candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.



- The average asset per candidate contesting in the second phase of UP elections is Rs 2.01 crore.





# Criminal cases

- 107 candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 16 out of 67 candidates from BJP have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.



- 25 of 67 from BSP have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 6 of 52 from RLD have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 21 of 51 from SP have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 6 of 18 from Congress have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 13 of 206 independent candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.



- 84 candidates have declared serious criminal cases, including cases related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, crimes against women.



# 174 candidates have not declared their PAN details.





# Education details:



- 277 have declared their qualification to be between 5th and 12th.



- 310 have declared having a qualification of graduate or above.



- 93 candidates have declared themselves to be just literates.



- 11 candidates are illiterate.



Uttar Pradesh Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 719 of 721 candidates from 92 political parties, including 6 national parties, 6 state parties, 80 unrecognised parties and 206 independent candidates who are contesting in the second phase of polls.



(With inputs from PTI)

Full Coverage: Assembly Elections 2017

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Huma Mirza, D.D.S. of Smile! Dental Boutique

Huma Mirza, DDS of Smile! Dental Boutique in Warren, New Jersey has been reviewed and approved by NJ Top Dentists for 2020. Dr. Mirza provides a full spectrum of general dentistry and cosmetic dentistry services at her Warren, New Jersey office. She has expertise with porcelain veneers, dental implants, crowns, and bridges.

Dr. Mirzas key mission as a dentist is to provide her patients with a new, positive outlook on dentistry.

Dr. Mirza graduated from United Medical and Dental School of Guys, Kings and St Thomas in London in 2002. This is one of the most prestigious dental schools in the United Kingdom. She graduated at the top of her class, winning prizes in orthodontics, pediatric dentistry, dental public health, microbiology, immunology, pathology, conservative dentistry, and was entered to win the Gold Medal prize for best dental student in London, in which she achieved the runner up position.

Upon graduating she married and moved to America where she attended NYU College of Dentistry graduating in 2006 with the highest GPA in her class. She was on the Deans list for all 3 years at NYU and won the Ethics prize and a certificate of achievement in recognition of outstanding achievements. Dr. Mirza then took part in the honors program in Oral Surgery, and was inducted into the omega chapter of OKU, an elite dental society joined by invitation only. Upon graduating from dental school Dr. Huma has taken extensive continuing education classes to improve her skill range, enabling her to be able to provide an extensive range of treatments for her patients, and helping her keep abreast of new technologies available.

Whether you need a simple filling or a full cosmetic reconstruction, Dr. Mirza has the knowledge, expertise and equipment to meet your needs with the best treatment the industry has to offer.

To learn more about Dr. Huma Mirza and her practice, Smile! Dental Boutique please visit: https://njtopdocs.com/nj-dentists/drhumamirza/

----

About Us

NJ Top Dentists is a division of NJ Top Docs. NJ Top Docs is a comprehensive, trusted and exclusive healthcare resource featuring reviewed and approved Top Doctors and Dentists in New Jersey online in an easy to use format. NJ Top Docs only reviews and approves providers based on merit after they have been extensively vetted.

NJ Top Docs is a division of USA Top Docs which allows patients to meet providers online before making their appointment.

For more information, please click here to contact us or visit http://www.NJTopDocs.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram.
Iconic bootmaker RM Williams may soon return to Australian hands with mining magnate Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest now in pole position to acquire the luxury retailer.

RM Williams has been on the block since May last year after its parent company, Louis Vuitton-backed private equity firm L Catterton, started to seek buyers for the business at a $400 million to $500 million asking price.

RM Williams-wearing Andrew Forrest with his wife Nicola in Perth. Credit:Philip Gostelow

The sale had attracted a number of interested buyers including Dr Forrest's investment fund Tattarang and global private equity firm TPG Capital, the latter of which was close to finalising a deal last month.

However, sources close to the companies who were not authorised to speak publicly on the matter have confirmed TPG has pulled out of the race, leaving Tattarang as the sole interested party.
Germany's foreign minister warned Wednesday of possible targeted and disruptive sanctions if does not provide answers about the poisoning of opposition leader with a Soviet-era nerve agent, while a Russian diplomat pushed back at calls for clarity, saying his country doesn't owe anything to anybody.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas was speaking a day after said that tests conducted at labs designated by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed that Navalny was the victim of a Novichok nerve agent.

Navalny, anti-corruption investigator who is Russian President Vladimir Putin's most visible foe, was flown to two days after falling ill on August 20 during a domestic flight in German officials said last month that labs found traces of a Novichok agent in the Russian politician's system. Navalny is now recovering in

Maas called the attack a serious breach of law and said Germany will coordinate a response with its European allies and at the OPCW in the coming days.

"It is clear that if the events are not cleared up and the necessary information is not provided, then targeted and disruptive sanctions against those responsible on the Russian side will be unavoidable and would do well not to let this happen, Maas said in Berlin.

He said Germany needs to have talks with the European Union in coming days about possible sanctions targeting individuals linked to chemical weapon development.

Navalny said last week that only Putin could have been behind the attack against him. The Kremlin called that claim absolutely groundless and unacceptable.

A group of 44 OPCW member nations including Germany, the U.K., the United States and France delivered a statement at the organization's Executive Council meeting Tuesday calling on Russia to investigate and to disclose in a swift and transparent manner the circumstances of this chemical weapons attack and share the findings with the OPCW before its next full meeting of member states, scheduled to start on November 30.

Russia's envoy to the OPCW, Ambassador Alexander Shulgin told the meeting that Russia does not owe anything to anybody. Neither to Germany nor to other countries that categorically and groundlessly accuse Russia of poisoning We do not need to explain ourselves to them and we are not going to.

However, Moscow has asked the OPCW to consider sending technical experts to Russia to "cooperate with Russian experts on the matter, Shulgin said. The organisation has said it is willing to help, but needs clarification of Moscow's request before sending experts.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Russia genuinely wishes to shed light on all the circumstances, reasons and the essence of what happened to Navalny and that Moscow invited OPCW experts to the country specifically so that they can see something here.

Moscow is yet to receive detailed information from the OPCW about its findings, Peskov added. We only know only the main outlines that were published, but there is no specifics there."



The Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday night also bristled at the OPCW's findings, calling them part of a conspiracy scenario. The ministry said Russia will lay out its version of events at this week's meeting of the OPCW's Executive Council and present the chronology of backstage manipulation by the main actors in this play.

(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.)
"Things got even more interesting in this incredibly strange year," said Ann Arbor City Council Member Ali Ramlawi as the legality of virtual public meetings came up during a virtual council meeting Oct. 5, 2020.CTN
Photo credit: Instagram/A Pretty Cool Hotel Tour

From House Beautiful

Not all vacations turn into a project. But when filmmakers Margaret and Corey Bienert stumbled across The Madonna Inn on a California move, they were inspired to turn hidden gems like the cult-favorite hotel into fun-sized travel stories worth watching. "We started doing our own little road trips [and] once we realized we had really stumbled upon a beautiful and somewhat hidden world, we decided we had to start sharing our adventures [as] photographers and filmmakers by trade," Margaret reveals.



A quick scroll through their Instagram, A Pretty Cool Hotel Tour, and you'll find the same fuzzy shag carpeting and heart-shaped tubs that have made that 70s hotel so popularall captured in the same glossy photo style of a magazine spread (a trait shared with their commercial production company, Marginal Creative.) Margaret explained the appeal of these vintage spaces in an email interview with House Beautiful. "I love the idea that you're going into this room to experience something outside of reality, and the more unconventional the decor is, the more that feels accomplished."

Unconventional it is. Since they began photographing kitsch motels, their focus has expanded behind the mirror ceilinged love motels of yesteryear to include a hot-air ballon, a bed in a Venetian gondola--even a space hotel in Wisconsin worthy of an Arctic Monkeys album.

It's an unexpected design mixed with the vintage aesthetic that keeps drawing them to what's left of these spaces, expanding their travels from local attractions to countrywide road trips. "I don't want to just sit in a nice white tub, I want to sit in a pink heart shaped tub surrounded by mirrors and a sparkling star ceiling, or a big whirlpool under a fake waterfall in a Hawaii-themed suite," Margaret says.

Story continues

Since their start a little over a year ago, their blog has managed to review an impressive amount of bicoastal options, but their dated nature makes them harder to find than your coastal luxury staple. Paired with a decline in popular over the years, Margaret had to find creative ways to track down hidden gems, sometimes resorting to scrolling through Instagram hashtags until she spots a new one. "Most of these places are pretty old so you're not going to find them by looking at 4-star hotels, you're going to find them by reading reviews that say things like '[I] can't believe there are mirrors above the beds,'" she quips.

Motel listings aren't the only way they track down the best of the best. Traveling cross-country to places with limited photos or only a description are just part of the adventure. "These places are often old and outdated and don't have much of an internet presence, so each one we went to was such a thrill to see what was actually behind those doors!" Lucky for us, every mishap and surprise is filmed for their over 67,000 following from the expansive resorts to the emergency Lysol run. "I'm a bit of a germaphobe and want to make sure I feel comfortable too! We travel with bathroom cleaners and our own pillows just in case things feel like they could use some help."

Has all their travel experience prepped them for staycations during quarantine? Margaret confesses that current times have limited interstate travel for the time being, but the new protocols have brought them back to their roots. "It's certainly not the ideal approach, but it's keeping the project going, even if we're not able to do as many as we'd like. Fantasy hotels are a great way to have a mini vacation while not going far and keeping social distancing in place!"



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By Tuvan Gumrukcu and Michele Kambas

ANKARA/NICOSIA (Reuters) - Northern Cyprus said on Tuesday it will reopen the beach area of an abandoned resort in no-man's land, a move condemned by Greek Cypriots and likely to conjure up memories of the 1974 Turkish invasion that partitioned the island.

Ersin Tatar, premier of the breakaway state of Northern Cyprus, made the announcement in Ankara alongside Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who said he backed the decision on Varosha, sealed off within barbed wire for decades.

The move could weigh on Turkey's dispute with European Union members Cyprus and Greece over territorial rights in the Eastern Mediterranean. Tensions had eased after Ankara and Athens agreed to resume talks, but Cyprus, a close ally of the Greece, promptly condemned the move to partially reopen the abandoned resort and said it would file a recourse to the United Nations Security Council.

Greece also criticised the move, and said it would support Cyprus.

"God willing, we will start to use the Maras beach on Thursday morning together with our people," Tatar said, using Varosha's Turkish name. Northern Cyprus is only recognised as a state by Turkey.

Sources in Cyprus said the plan was to open up about 1.5 km (1 mile) of beachfront to the public and not the approximately 6 square km (2.3 sq miles) inland that includes abandoned hotels and residences which its population of 39,000 people fled in 1974 during a Turkish invasion following a Greek inspired coup.

"We hope that the whole of Maras is opened to use after ongoing work is completed by respecting property rights," Erdogan said, pledging support for Turkish Cypriot officials.

Nicos Anastasiades, president of Cyprus's internationally-recognised government - and who as recently as last week was involved in a tense stand-off with his EU peers for his push for sanctions on Turkey, said: "this is an exceptionally unacceptable situation."

Story continues

Varosha is a suburb of the larger city of Famagusta, which, in Greek - Ammochostos - means "buried in sand". It has a pristine coastline of thick golden sand, most of it in the now out-of-bounds Varosha quarter.

Presently, about 200 metres (660 ft) of it is accessible to the public under the towering shadow of a hotel and a three-storey resort bombed during the war and left rotting since then. The rest of it is fenced off by rusting barbed wire which extends into the sea, guarded by Turkish soldiers.

Nicosia had already been in touch with the governments of the five permanent members of the Security Council in the hours leading up to the announcement, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Tatar had signalled steps to reopen Varosha in August, saying a revival of the area, which contains derelict hotels, churches and residences, would bring trade and tourism benefits.

Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in Northern Cyprus on Sunday, with Tatar a candidate.

Varosha has been off limits along ceasefire lines to all but the Turkish military since 1974 and has stood as a bargaining chip in the decades-long dispute between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

Several peacemaking efforts have made no significant progress and the discovery of offshore energy resources has complicated efforts to resolve the island's partition.

(Additional reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Jonathan Spicer, Mark Heinrich and Marguerita Choy)
The coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic and its impact on livelihood, economy and businesses and the protest over the farm legislations will be among the issues that will come up for discussion at the upcoming Karyakarni mandal, or the all-India executive council meeting, of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The course of the meeting itself has changed.

Earlier, the RSS, the ideological fount of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had called off the meeting of its highest decision-making body, the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha, in March.

Also read: World looking up to Indian ways of life amid Covid pandemic, says Mohan Bhagwat

Now, it will hold the Karyakarni mandal at 11 places instead of a single location.

The RSS has divided the states into 11 zones, or kshetras.

A senior functionary said it is for the first time in the history of the Sangh that the Karyakarni mandal meeting, which is held around Diwali, will be hosted in multiple locations in a bid to adhere to the social distancing norms that have been enforced to curb the spread of Covid-19.

RSS chief Mohan Bhgawat and general secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi will be present for all the 11 meetings, where no more than 40 functionaries will be in attendance.

The meetings will be held between October 27 and December 6 in Palakkad, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Jaipur, Prayag, Patna, Guwahati, Gurugram, Ghaziabad and Bhubaneswar.

The three-day annual meeting takes stock of the work carried out by the wings in the sphere of social service, communication, public relations and logistics.

The meeting also takes up issues that are in the news, or are ideologically relevant for the Sangh.

The issue of Dalit unrest following the Hathras incident -- of an alleged rape by four upper caste men of a Scheduled Caste (SC) teenager (19) and her subsequent death on September 29 -- is also likely to be discussed.

The Sangh carries out samajik samarasta, or social harmony campaigns, to eradicate casteisms and the Hathras incident, which has stoked unrest among the Dalits, has set off alarm bells.

A second functionary aware of the details said, the Sangh is of the view that the issue was not handled properly and with sensitivity.

There is a feeling that the Uttar Pradesh (UP) administration handled the situation badly, said the second functionary.

The second functionary said the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) has underlined the areas of concern about issues such as the minimum support price (MSP) not being included in the new farm laws following nationwide protests over the legislations.

The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the labour arm of the Sangh, has also announced that it would protest against the three new labour codes.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Smriti Kak Ramachandran Smriti covers an intersection of politics and governance. Having spent over a decade in journalism, she combines old fashioned leg work with modern story telling tools. ...view detail
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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP)  Two popular and highly regarded restaurants in Atlantic City will remain closed permanently, victims of the coronavirus and the restrictions that came with it.

Philadelphia restaurateur Stephen Starr told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Buddakan and The Continental, which have been closed since mid-March, will not reopen.





. . .
SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain and RALEIGH, N.C., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Patia Biopharma, SA, and Precision Diabetes, Inc. are pleased to announce they have entered into a global strategic alliance to transform the diagnostic assessment of diabetes by providing a portfolio of novel precision diabetes diagnostics, spanning the risk of developing diabetes to developing complications.

The strategic alliance builds on a collaboration between the two parties over the past few years. The companies currently collaborate on marketing initiatives to commercialize two diabetes genetic tests, DIABETESpredict and GDMpredict, and an FDA-cleared and CE-marked test for glycemic variability, GlycoMark. Precision Diabetes signed a distribution agreement with Patia to distribute GlycoMark in Europe and Mexico, and Patia recently signed a partnership agreement with Precision Diabetes to commercialize DIABETESpredict and GDMpredict in the United States. The two companies are working together to commercialize these tests in other major markets worldwide.

"The Patia-Precision Diabetes partnership is a powerful combination. Both companies continue to develop innovative diabetes tests, which will help physicians take a proactive approach to preventing, diagnosing, and managing diabetes," said Laureano Simon, Patia's CEO. "We recently introduced DIABETESpredict in selected laboratories in the U.S. with the assistance of Precision Diabetes, which continues to provide commercial support. The test provides a powerful clinical tool to physicians to determine the genetic risk of developing type 2 diabetes and potentially avoiding the onset of diabetes in the first place."

"In partnering with Patia Diabetes, we are positioning the companies to be the leaders in precision diabetes diagnostics by bringing together both our unique diabetes test product portfolios and platforms which include commercialized tests and tests in development," said Eric Button, Precision Diabetes' CEO. "Our tests allow clinicians to understand where a patient falls on the diabetes disease continuum, enabling them to create effective treatment plans specific to each patient's unique risk profile  which is at the core of precision diagnostics."

Both companies look forward to collaborating on developing and commercializing additional biomarkers for diabetes and expanding the strategic alliance.

About Patia

Patia has developed a platform of solutions to prevent, manage and intervene in type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes. Patia uniquely and cost-effectively integrates a set of high-performance genotyping tests with predictive algorithms, digital applications and lifestyle intervention.

Patia's activity starts by translating the knowledge of large genetic studies on diabetes performed at the Broad Institute of Harvard University and MIT (Cambridge, MA, USA). More information is available at www.patiadiabetes.com.

About Precision Diabetes, Inc.

Precision Diabetes, Inc. (Raleigh, North Carolina) is an emerging leader in enabling precision medicine for diabetes by using novel diabetes biomarkers and algorithms. The company's mission is to revolutionize the diagnostic assessment of diabetes by providing a spectrum of unique diabetes tests, spanning the risk of developing diabetes to developing diabetes complications. Precision Diabetes is the exclusive supplier of the GlycoMark test in the U.S., Europe, Australia, the Asia-Pacific Region, the Middle East, and Mexico. More information is available at www.precisiondiabetesinc.com.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Jacqueline Madejczyk

Precision Diabetes, Inc.

919-480-0754

[email protected]

Jaime Razkin

Patia Biopharma, SA

34 652 966 776

[email protected]

SOURCE Precision Diabetes, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.precisiondiabetesinc.com


John Lennon couldn't have known he'd only live to be 40 years old. And had he not been shot outside his home  New York City's famous Dakota Apartments  on Dec. 8, 1980, he might've lived to see his 80th birthday this year, on Oct. 9.

John Lennon (AP)

Lennon's years with the Beatles, solo career and assassination have been discussed repeatedly, but Beatles scholar and author Kenneth Womack has now examined what the musician's life was like in those final months in his new book, "John Lennon 1980: The Last Days In the Life." He spoke with TODAY about Lennon's time in Bermuda, how he found fulfillment as a sailor  and inspiration from, of all things, a TV movie. Here are five things you might not already know about the man, the myth ... and his "Moldy" poems:

The Megan Jaye, which Lennon helped sail to Bermuda. (Courtesy Brian San Souci)

Late in life, Lennon took to the sea.

After learning how to sail at his home in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, Lennon decided to become a member of the crew on a charter boat called the Megan Jaye, which sailed from Newport, Rhode Island to Bermuda in June 1980.

"There was a massive storm and John took the wheel for a while when everyone else had seasickness, and he said it was the most exciting, self-affirming moment of his life," says Womack.

Lennon Ono (David Brookstaver / AP)

Lennon commissioned a painting of himself with his son Sean.

While in Bermuda, Lennon admired paintings by American artist Nancy Gosnell, which hung in a home he was renting. He asked her to paint a portrait of Sean, then 4, and himself as a present for Yoko. The pair showed up in shorts and T-shirts, sat on the rug in the living room and she painted the scene as is. Back in New York, the painting hung in Lennon and Ono's Dakota apartment, right above the piano.

Ono and Lennon entering New York City's Hit Factory in August 1980, where he would record songs for

Lennon came up with the title to a song from a TV movie.

Also while in Bermuda, Lennon watched a TV movie called "A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story" starring Gwyneth Paltrow's mom, Blythe Danner. In the film, Danner's Eleanor receives a letter from her husband that quotes Robert Browning's 1864 "Rabi ben Ezra" poem: "Grow old along with me."

Story continues

Meanwhile, his wife Yoko Ono woke up one morning with the music to a song, "Let Me Count the Ways" in her head, and called her husband to play it for him. That song was inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 1845 sonnet "How Do I Love Thee?" The two came together to become "Grow Old With Me," one of Lennon's final songs, which appeared on the posthumous album "Milk and Honey."

"So much literature has suggested that John and Yoko lived these bifurcated lives, but she really rooted hard for him  worked to get him in the studio. He had a lot of fear over that," says Womack.

A layout of some of the apartments owned by Lennon and Ono in the Dakota. (Courtesy Scott Cardinal)

Lennon and Ono ultimately owned multiple apartments in the Dakota.

"Dirty Dozen" actor Robert Ryan, who appeared in movies and TV series from 1945 to his death in 1973, subleased his apartment in the Dakota to the Lennons. After his death, they wanted to buy the place, but the musicians were not initially welcomed as permanent residents.

"Ryan and his family were considered 'family types,' but having the Lennons as tenants wasn't something the co-op board was thrilled with," says Womack.

Fortunately, the Lennons eventually won the board over, and went on to buy more property in the building. Their primary residence was in Nos. 72 and 71 (and included a super-kitchen above the courtyard), plus a first-floor suite for office space, No. 9 for storage space, No. 4 for Helen Seaman (Sean's nanny) and her husband Norman, and No. 911, for storage. But first, they had to have a seance.

"They had to see if the apartment had good supernatural karma," says Womack. "Yoko called Ryan's daughter Lisa afterward to let her know her (late) mother was doing fine."

Dakota apartment building (David Brookstaver / AP)

Lennon's neighbors included Lauren Bacall and Leonard Bernstein.

Bacall never had a problem with Lennon, but loathed that his fans lingered outside the building  and reportedly she'd go out and bark at the fans to find someplace else to hang out.

Meanwhile, Bernstein was a longtime fan of Lennon's, and during the annual building potluck (John and Yoko brought sushi) the conductor/composer and his daughter took a poem from one of John's books ("The Moldy Moldy Man") and turned it into a singing round that they sang for him.

So what would Lennon be doing today, if he'd lived? Womack speculates he'd be doing a lot of reading. "Probably his single greatest pleasure was reading ... and he would be very engaged with politics," he says. "Hopefully he would be enjoying a splendid retirement. He and Yoko had this dream where one day, when their travels and adventures were done they'd buy a seaside place in England and get postcards from Sean, all about his adventures."

"John Lennon 1980: The Last Days in the Life" is now available in bookstores and online.
WATERLOO  New cases of COVID-19 have been reported at both Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Waterloo.

University of Waterloo reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on Oct. 5 after university officials were informed of the case by Region of Waterloo Public Health. The university did not indicate whether the conformed case is a student or employee, but did say the individual is in self-isolation.

Lauriers Waterloo campus reports five students have tested positive for COVID-19 since Oct. 3. The university says the students are in quarantine. This brings the running total to 10. All of the positive cases were reported to be among students.

Both universities have created COVID-19 dashboards to keep track of positive cases of the virus on campus.
ATLANTA, Oct., 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Patrice D'Evans, a professional actress, dancer, minister and YouTube content creator/influencer, will be presenting "Patrice D'Evans' Resilient Joy," which portrays how she overcame physical, verbal and emotional domestic abuse from early childhood through her adult life - to achieve joy and help many women and children overcome abuse.

The free, live stream event takes place on October 24th at 8:30 PM EDT on the Patrice D'Evans YouTube channel.

Join Patrice D'Evans as she presents her one-woman show which portrays how she overcame physical, emotional and verbal abuse - from early childhood through her adult life. The free event is being streamed live on October 24, 2020 at 8:30PM EDT on the Patrice D'Evans YouTube channel.

Patrice D'Evans' Resilient Joy is a true story of good versus evil that begins in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City and features angel encounters, spiritual warfare and domestic abuse. The story ultimately ends in Atlanta with Patrice being freed of abuse and living out her unique calling as "the belly dance minister."

Patrice is hopeful that her event, which is scheduled to stream during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, will bring awareness to and help end domestic violence for children and adults.

About Patrice D'Evans

Known as the "Belly Dance Minister" Patrice D'Evans (www.patricedevans.com) is a professional SAG-AFTRA actress, dancer and minister who has been featured in various feature films, commercials, T.V. shows and theatrical productions. Born and raised in NYC, Patrice is a naturally gifted, professionally trained and experienced dancer. Patrice is a YouTube Content Creator and Influencer with over 10,000 subscribers. On her channel "Patrice D'Evans" she encourages women (known as "her lovelies") by helping them "Unlock Their Joy" body, mind and spirit through dance, Bible study, prayer and healing. She also offers her (Caribbean Fusion) Belly Dance Fit with Patrice class on YouTube. Her belly dance fit drills and Saka 4 Kids program is on www.bellydancefit.com.

Contact: Jeff Glatus

336-354-3168

[email protected]

SOURCE Patrice D'Evans
NORRISTOWN  Despite continued public opposition to the sale of the Norristown Municipal Waste Authority, local leaders furthered the process by approving a series of procedural ordinances during a Norristown Municipal Council meeting on Tuesday.

The evenings proposals dealing with the local sewer system featured local legislation outlining the municipalitys role with the sewer authority, delegating responsibilities, establishing a two-party purchase agreement for the sale, and obtaining legal representation. Members of the Norristown Municipal Council approved the $82 million sale to Aqua Pennsylvania in June.

All four ordinances were each passed in a 5-2 vote with Councilman Hakim Jones and Vice President Rebecca Smith dissenting.

Im adamantly opposed to this. Im gonna continue to be opposed to this, Jones said. I think the people should  have the say on whether or not this asset is sold to a private company.

As we go into this next round of votes on the sewer system, I just want to ask that we all consider the public responses weve heard over the past few months with at least equal weight to what weve heard in private behind closed doors, and to think as we go into a tough budget season, and as all of the other private utilities that we already have  water and electric have filed for rate increases with the PUC this year, that we listen and lead in a way thats best for the people we serve, Smith said. Like Councilman Jones said, the people we already serve, not the people we think may move here some day.

Topics related to the sewer authority and sale to the national companys subsidiary have come up at a number of previous Norristown Municipal Council meetings and work sessions. Its been criticized by area residents.

The sewer sale is honestly an embarrassing development, said Norristown resident James Lewis in a statement. I have come to respect many of the council people in the past few years for their courageous stands against racism, charter schools, and for BLM and Medicare for all.

This action, selling the sewer system, is opposed by thousands of your residents, the local NAACP, former council people, religious organizations, civic organizations of all types, Norristonians of all colors and creeds and political beliefs, Lewis continued.

It is with considerable concern that I urge you to table this matter in order to promote more community engagement and thoroughly educate residents on the impact of this transaction, said Norristown resident Mila Hayes in a statement. This process has been seemingly expedited without thoughtful community engagement and consideration of the global pandemic that looms over us; specifically the Norristown community.

Among the 16 public comments that were submitted ahead of Tuesday nights meeting, there were a handful of community members living outside of Norristown who shared their disinterest.

East Norriton resident Daniel Parker was one of them. He said the same company acquired the East Norriton Sewer System earlier this summer.

It is shameful that private corporations are trying to carry out these transactions with no deliberation and input from the public, Parker said in a statement.

Parker went on to urge Norristowns elected leaders to please reconsider this dreadful plan and think of the longtime residents of this town who will suffer that much more financial precarity should this sale go through.

Norristown had first inquired about selling the assets of the Norristown Municipal Waste Authority in mid-2017, and received two bids earlier this year, according to a May 12 presentation. Borough officials held virtual meetings and informational sessions in May for Norristown Municipal Waste Authoritys customers in Norristown and West Norriton Township.

Municipal staff have explored options to pay off existing debts and finance programs including establishing a scholarship fund for Norristown Area High School students, merging the boroughs fire department stations and improving the Norristown Recreation Center.

I definitely see this as an opportunity for Norristown to take that step to the next level, and to attract development and opportunities for this area, said Councilman Thomas Lepera in June.

Thomas S. Wyatt, a partner at Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP, served as counsel for Tuesday nights proceedings.

The first ordinance mandated that the Norristown Municipal Waste Authority convey the sewer system and all property and assets of the authority to the municipality.

This ordinance does what the municipality has the legal right to do and that is take the assets back from the authority. It will do so in an orderly fashion, Wyatt said. It will do so by either assuming the impediments that are at the authority or discharging those impediments all in accordance with statute

While a majority of the council had little to say, Jones took an opportunity to talk to his fellow elected officials about the matter.

Why do we think these sales are being pushed so often and so fast throughout our region in the past few years? Why are we seeing township after township selling their public utility to a private company? he asked.

In addition to questioning the benefactors, Jones also conveyed his concern for his constituents.

Think about the many people who are gonna benefit from this who dont call Norristown their home, who would never call Norristown their home, Jones said. And when I think of the people who get hurt by this decision, I think of the lifelong residents.

I think of the long-time residents, Jones said. I think of people who have worked for decades, who have bought their homes, who have up-kept their homes, who have paid their taxes and whove always poured into their communities bottom line.

The second ordinance essentially amended the asset purchase agreement to include Municipality of Norristown, and Aqua Pennsylvania. The contract had previously listed the Norristown Municipal Sewer Authority.

A third ordinance would permit Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP. to serve as special council when undertak[ing] any and all necessary litigation and take any and all necessary legal actions before any court and/or the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission in connection with respect to the previous two ordinances.

Wyatt told council members that we have an injunction against us from the municipal waste authority.

The intent is to make sure we take account of the fact that right now there is one plaintiff and there is one intervener, Wyatt said. There very well could be other interveners. Again, its very impossible for us to predict what will happen next in a piece of litigation, but the intent is that we would only be representing the municipality with respect to 2020-14 and 2020-15.

It wouldnt be anything beyond the scope of those, but again, since we did not sue ourselves, and we dont know who will join the suit, its impossible to predict what might happen next, he continued.

Jones inquired about Wyatts representation of other local governing bodies in similar situations. While there was some discussion surrounding confidentiality, Wyatt did want to set the record straight.

I can tell you just to be clear I dont represent Aqua, at all, any way, shape or form, and I dont represent American Water, any way, shape or form, he said.

The final topic relating to the sewer system sought to allow Municipal Administrator Crandall Jones and Council President Derrick Perry to take the necessary steps to move acquisition and sale of the Sewer Authority, according to the ordinance.

Wyatt clarified there would be a roughly six-to-eight month interim, and Crandall Jones added that he would handle day-to-day operations.

Smith pressed why the authority would fall with Perry and not the entire governing body. To that, Crandall Jones said this would involve other responsibilities within Perrys current purview.

This authority is not a private authority, its a quasi-public authority so it operates pretty much like a form of government, Crandall Jones said. So there wont be anything, any major substance that council would not be aware of.

Perry agreed.

One thing I can say that I have always done since being in the president is always to come and talk to you guys about decisions that are made throughout Norristown, and as a whole I will continue to keep on doing that as we keep moving forward in all decisions that affect Norristown, he said.

The next Norristown Municipal Council work session is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 20.
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As many as 93,500 data science jobs were vacant in India at the end of August 2020, showed a study by edtech firm Great Learning.

The study said despite the coronavirus pandemic, India contributed 9.8 percent to the total global analytics job openings in August 2020, compared to 7.2 percent in January this year.

While the sector did witness a slight decrease in vacancies (from 109,000 vacancies in February to 82,500 vacancies in May 2020), the demand has continued to be fairly consistent across key industry sectors.

Moneycontrol reported that close to 10.8 million jobs have been lost so far due to the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown.

Data science jobs provide an alternative career option to these job seekers, provided they are upskilled to meet the demands of the role.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

According to the Great Learning study, the factors contributing to the increased demand for data science include a year-on-year increase in funding in Indian analytics startups and investment in the development of enhanced analytics capabilities in India, among others.

"Over the last year, we have seen an immense growth in the demand for professionals proficient with skills in data science and analytics. A key reason for this is the increased availability of top of the line analytics talent in India which has led to captive firms and international IT and KPO corporations moving more of their business to India, investing in newer technologies and digital competencies and opening new positions here, said Hari Krishnan Nair, Co-founder, Great Learning.

The research presented in this report has been collected from publicly available data, including news reports, job sites, and other information sources.

Hiring by experience levels

The study showed that there is a demand for mid- and senior-level professionals with over seven years of experience in 2020. Last year was dominated by the demand for young professionals.

Professionals with more than 7 years of experience commanded the highest proportion of jobs with a share of 14.9 percent in August 2020, up from 12.5 percent in January 2020, and 6.7 percent last year.

Interestingly, the demand for those with 10 to 15 years of experience increased to 11 percent in August 2020 after doubling to 8.6 percent in January 2020 from last year.

The demand for those with mora than 15 years of experience has also witnessed a big leap to 4.9 percent in August 2020 after almost tripling to 2.8 percent in January 2020 from 1 percent last year.

City-wise demand

Bengaluru continues to create the maximum number of jobs, contributing around 23 percent of analytics jobs in India, a marginal increase from last year, followed by Delhi-NCR at 20 percent, and Mumbai at approximately 15 percent.

Other popular metros like Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai witnessed marginal growth in the proportion of jobs in August 2020 over the last year.

Interestingly, the proportion of jobs advertised for Tier-II and Tier-III cities has increased this year to 10.5 percent from 8.4 percent in January 2020.

Great Learning said this is mainly because the pandemic has led to the adoption of remote working and hiring. This trend is expected to last till the second quarter of 2021.

Industry-wise demand

Apart from IT, the BFSI sector is the largest recruiter of analytics and data science talent (outside of IT), creating around 35 percent of all analytics jobs in the country.

Among others, the pharmaceutical sector has seen an increase in the proportion of analytics jobs at 16.3 percent, an overall increase of 3.9 percent over the last year. This is due to the focus on developing vaccines and other cures for the novel coronavirus.

Top recruiters

The list of 10 leading organisations with the most number of analytics openings this year is dominated by the IT and KPO players such as Accenture, Mphasis, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Capgemini, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, IBM India, Dell, HCL, and Collabera Technologies.

When it comes to the IT sector, almost 68 percent of the demand is getting generated by MNC IT & KPO Service Providers, the highest this year but have decreased from 74.6 percent at the start of the year.

Jobs in captive units in India, which stated one of the highest analytics job requirements three years ago, have now fallen to 5.8 percent in August 2020.

Salary trends

The study further reveals that the median salary for data science professionals in India stands at Rs 9.5 lakh per annum in 2020 as per the listed job openings.

For those with more than a decade of experience, packages are in the range of Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh depending on the role and expertise.

Skills in demand

The demand for Python professionals continues to remain the highest among recruiters with almost 27 percent of the jobs requiring Python as the core skill.

It is closely followed by Java/JavaScript that is witnessing a 22 percent demand. R comes third in the list at 10 percent, the same as last year.

Among Dashboarding and business intelligence (BI) tools, Tableau skills are most in demand at 11 percent in August 2020, followed by Microsoft Power BI contributing 6.5 percent.

With greater adoption of cloud platforms across enterprises, the demand for cloud solutions including AWS (15 percent), Azure Skills (9.7 percent), and Google Cloud (5 percent) continued to soar even during the lockdown.
Mary McCloskey confronts protesters (Lawrence Bryant/Reuters)

A St Louis couple who pointed their guns at protesters during a Black Lives Matter demonstration have been indicted on a weapons charge, their lawyer has said.

Al Watkins, an attorney for Mark McCloskey, 63, and Patricia McCloskey, 61, confirmed the indictment to the Associated Press. He said his clients had been served with an additional charge of tampering with evidence.

He could not confirm why the additional charge was added. A spokesperson for St Louis circuit attorney Kim Gardner did not immediately repsond to a request for comment.

The McCloskey's, a white couple, came to national attention in June this year when they were filmed waving firearms at a group of mostly black and unarmed protesters.

Amid a wave of demonstrations sweeping the US following the killing of George Floud, the protesters had been heading towards the home of St Louis mayor Lyda Krewson to demand an end to police brutality and greater racial equality.

The McCloskey's, both personal injury lawyers, say the protesters broke down their gate and trespassed on private property.

Attorney Gardner, a Democrat, charged the couple with felony unlawful use of a weapon. She said the display of guns risked bloodshed at what she called an otherwise peaceful protest.

Following the incident, the McCloskey's have become heroes to some conservatives and spoke at this year's Republican National Convention (RNC) where they spoke about Americans' rights to bear arms.

They baselessly accused Democrats of protecting criminals from honest citizens and trying to abolish the suburbs.

In a pre-recorded address to the RNC, the couple also claimed that a vote for presidential candidate Joe Biden would result in lawlness across the US.

Nine people involved in the protest were charged with misdemeanor trespassing, but the city counselors office later dropped those charges. The city counselors office handles lesser crimes and is not affiliated with the circuit attorneys office.

Story continues

Mr McCloskey, after a brief court hearing earlier Tuesday, expressed anger that he and his wife faced criminal charges while those who trespassed on his property did not.

Every single human being that was in front of my house was a criminal trespasser, Mr McCloskey said. They broke down our gate. They trespassed on our property. Not a single one of those people is now charged with anything. Were charged with felonies that could cost us four years of our lives and our law licenses.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

Read more

Gun-brandishing St Louis couple speak at RNC despite charges

Couple who pointed guns at BLM protesters to appear at GOP event

St Louis gun couple almost always in conflict with others, report says
The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro has been hospitalized after testing positive for the coronavirus, a church statement quoted on October 6 by Serbian media said.



Metropolitan Amfilohije, 82, is in the Clinical Center of Podgorica according to a church announcement quoted by the N1 TV channel. He has spent the last few days in home isolation under constant medical supervision, the statement said.



Metropolitan Amfilohije will remain in the hospital as long as the infection lasts, the statement said, adding that the facility is better equipped to provide treatment.



He feels well and is not experiencing significant difficulties, according to the statement, which said doctors assessed his condition as stable.



"We call on the brothers and sisters to pray fervently, full of faith and love -- both for the Metropolitans speedy recovery, and for the health and progress of all the sick, the statement said.

Based on reporting by N1
Giant beasts that roamed Southeast Asia 100,000 years ago alongside our ancient human ancestors were killed off by climate change, researchers claim.

Elephants the size of double decker buses, the biggest ape that ever lived, and Homo erectus were all driven to extinction by a loss of grassland as the climate changed.

Looking at chemical records in modern and fossil mammal teeth, the researchers were able to reconstruct whether past animals predominately ate tropical grasses or leaves - as well as the climatic conditions at the time they were alive.

Over a million years or so the climate changed from rainforest to grassland, allowing grazing animals to thrive, before changing back to rainforest where only smaller creatures and modern Homo Sapiens were able to thrive.

The discovery, by Griffith University, Brisbane, has implications for the large animals living today - with authors saying they face being wiped out by global warming.

Gorillas, lions, tigers, rhinos and other iconic terrestrial beasts will be lost forever unless carbon emissions are reduced, says lead author Julien Louys.

Artist's reconstruction of a savannah in Middle Pleistocene Southeast Asia. In the foreground Homo erectus, stegodon, hyenas, and Asian rhinos are depicted. Water buffalo can be seen at the edge of a riparian forest in the background

As part of the study the researchers compiled stable isotope data for sites spanning the Pleistocene - the last 2.6 million years - from teeth and other fossil records.

They also added over 250 new measurements of modern Southeast Asian mammals - representing species that had never before been studied in this way.

The team found rainforests dominated the area from present-day Myanmar to Indonesia during the early part of the Pleistocene.

'Southeast Asia is often overlooked in global discussions of megafauna extinctions,' according to Louys of Griffith University.

'But in fact it once had a much richer mammal community full of giants that are now all extinct,' including Elephant-like Stegodon that was 13ft tall with straightened tusks stretching out up to nine feet in front of the beast.

Modern day rainforest in Southeast Asia. Over a million years or so the climate changed from rainforest to grassland, allowing grazing animals to thrive, before changing back to rainforest where only smaller creatures and modern Homo Sapiens were able to thrive

The area the team studied went from tropical to savannah and back to tropical over the course of 2.6 million years. The team say it is often overlooked as a location for megafauna that thrive in grassland and savannah habitats - but it has a rich history of now extinct giant creatures

It shared the plains of Southeast Asia with oversized hyenas, tapirs, rhinos, water buffalo, goats and deer over 100,000 years ago.

There was also Gigantopithecus - the largest known primate which stood more than ten feet tall and tipped the scales at over half a ton.

The rainforests began giving way to grasslands through the Pleistocene, support a rich community of grazing animals including the Stegodon.

These were hunted by our early human ancestors - enabling them to thrive and the drastic change to a grassland ecosystem was a boon to some species.

However, it also led to the disappearance of other animals - like Gigantopithecus.

The tropical canopies began to return around 100,000 years ago, pushing the grasslands away - with the canopies came a rise in classic rainforest fauna that are the ecological stars of the region today.

The loss of many ancient Southeast Asian megafauna was found to be correlated with the loss of these savannah environments, the team said.

Likewise, ancient human species that lived there such as Homo erectus - the first to walk upright - were unable to adapt to the re-expansion of forests.

Dr Roberts said: 'It is only our species, Homo sapiens, that appears to have had the required skills to successfully exploit and thrive in rainforest environments.

A collection of mammal skulls of species endemic to Southeast Asia. Looking at chemical records in modern and fossil mammal teeth, the researchers were able to reconstruct whether past animals predominately ate tropical grasses or leaves

Researchers took the chemical isotopes in these fossilised teeth and other remains to determine the food sources and climate conditions in the area they lived

'All other hominin species were apparently unable to adapt to these dynamic, extreme environments.'

Ironically, it is now rainforest megafauna that are most at risk of extinction.

Many of the last remaining species are critically endangered throughout the region as a result of the activities of the one surviving hominin in this part of the world.

Prof Louys added: 'Rather than benefiting from the expansion of rainforests over the last few thousand years, Southeast Asian mammals are under unprecedented threat from the actions of humans.

'Taking over vast tracts of rainforest through urban expansion, deforestation and overhunting, puts us at risk of losing some of the last megafauna still alive.'

The findings have been published in the journal Nature.
VEVEY (dpa-AFX) - Eskimo Pie ice cream bar has changed its name after more than three months since its parent Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream acknowledged that the name is derogatory. The popular ice cream will now be known as Edy's Pie as a tribute to one of the company's founders, Joseph Edy. Dreyer's, whose parent Froneri is partly owned by Swiss food major Nestle, announced that the chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream bar with new name and image will come in early 2021. The company has paused the production of the Eskimo Pie until the introduction of the new brand. In June, the company had announced its plan to rename Eskimo Pie brand, which has been in use for nearly a century, stating that it was offensive toward native arctic communities. The name Eskimo, which is referred to Inuit and Yupik people, is considered derogatory in many places as it was given by non-Inuit people and it meant eater of raw meat. Dreyer's' decision was in line with various other brands who decided to change their ages old brand names and logos that had racist connections, including Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben's, and Mrs. Butterworth's. The companies then took the decision to remove racial imagery from their brands as a solution on racial equality in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests following the merciless police killing of African American George Floyd. Uncle Ben's, owned by Mars Inc., recently said it was changing its name to Ben's Original. Cream of Wheat's parent company, B&G Foods, said the Black chef would be taken out of boxes of the cereal. 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.
New York  President Donald Trumps accountant must turn over his tax records to a New York state prosecutor, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said a stay of a lower-court decision will remain in effect so Trumps lawyers can appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A district court judge had rejected their renewed efforts to invalidate a subpoena that the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. issued to Trumps accounting firm.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department was reviewing the ruling.

The Supreme Court in July ruled 7-2 against the president. It is down to eight justices after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The matter may not be fully resolved before the November election.

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The president had one of the greatest economies going before it happened and the liberal left does not like that, she said. They couldnt impeach him. They couldnt do anything about the Russia collusion. So then they were colluding with China, they bring in the virus.
(Bloomberg) -- Brazils upcoming decision on whether to allow Huawei Technologies Co. to supply technology to its future 5G network will help define the countrys broader relationship with China, according to a senior Chinese official.

The question is not whether Huawei will win a bid or not, Ambassador Yang Wanming said in written responses to questions, weeks after the U.S. warned of consequences if the Chinese get to build an ultra-fast fifth generation mobile network in Brazil. Whats at stake is whether a country can set up market rules based on openness, impartiality and non-discrimination for all companies.

The Chinese representative in Brasilia described the 5G bidding process as crucial for companies to assess the maturity of Latin Americas largest economy. We believe Brazil will know how to make rational decisions that take into account long-term national interests, he said.

U.S. officials have urged Brazil and other allies to block Huawei components in their 5G networks, saying they facilitate intellectual property theft and spying by Beijing. More explicitly, the U.S. ambassador in Brasilia said in an interview with local daily O Globo that American companies could stop investing in Brazil for fear of having their intellectual property compromised by the Chinese presence.

Read more: Brazil Is Weighing 5G Risks Amid U.S-China Spat Over Huawei

Chinese Ties

China overtook the U.S. as Brazils top trading partner a decade ago as Beijings appetite for Brazilian commodity exports soared. Ties between the emerging market giants have been weighed down by President Jair Bolsonaros criticism of China during the campaign trail in 2018. He later warmed up to Chinese leader Xi Jinping during a trip to Asia last year.

Tensions resumed earlier this year when Eduardo Bolsonaro, a lawmaker and the presidents son, blamed the coronavirus pandemic on the Chinese dictatorship. Yang demanded an apology, which never happened.

Story continues

Read more: China Outraged as Bolsonaros Son Blames Virus on Beijing

Yang downplayed previous frictions and said consensus between China and Brazil is bigger than our disagreements.

His responses echoed similar remarks made by Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, who mentioned good bilateral perspectives during a rare telephone call with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, last month.

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A Florida mother has been accused of leaving her newborn daughter in a hot car to die while high on crystal meth - and she only realized what she'd done when a woman walked in on her masturbating in bed.

Megan Dauphin, 30, allegedly left her newborn, McKinley Garner, in a vehicle in Panama City for almost four hours on September 2, a day that reached 90 degrees in the afternoon.

The mom was arrested Tuesday and charged with the aggravated manslaughter of her child, who was born July 14. Dauphin is being held without bond in Bay County Jail.

Dauphin is set to make her first appearance in Bay County Court Wednesday afternoon, where she is expected to act as her own lawyer, according to court records.

Dauphin had left McKinley alone in the hot car for almost four hours on September 2 before a witness said she caught Dauphin in bed masturbating with her shorts unbuttoned, court papers show.

Megan Dauphin, 30, was masturbating in bed September 2 when a woman found her and asked about her infant daughter, according to court papers. Dauphin said 'Oh my God' and rushed to the hot car where she'd allegedly left her newborn to die on a 90-degree day almost four hours prior

Upon being caught, Dauphin quickly moved her hands out from underneath the covers. The witness then asked the mother about her baby.

Dauphin said 'Oh my God,' jumped out of bed, and ran to the car, where she found her newborn, according to the documents.

Sheriff's deputies were called to her Panama City home on September 2, and responders pronounced McKinley dead after unsuccessfully performing CPR on the infant.

Police executed a search warrant and found in a bathroom pipes that tested positive for residue of marijuana and methamphetamine.

They also found a blue vibrator 'on top of all the other items' on her nightstand, as well as spoiled baby bottles and food.

According to police interviews and surveillance video, McKinley was left in the car from approximately 9:15 a.m. to 1 p.m., where she missed a feeding as temperatures climbed toward 90 degrees.

Dauphin's boyfriend told police he had left for work that morning at 6:30 a.m. while she was feeding McKinley.

He met up with her at 9 a.m. in a parking lot to give her cigarettes. The last time they spoke was at 11 a.m., he said.

McKinley Garner was less than two months old when she died on September 2

Dauphin told police a similar story. She said she'd taken her older child to school that morning.

Dauphin denied to cops that she used drugs, but was heard telling a friend she was going to jail because of the drug test, police said.

An anonymous friend told Metro.co.uk that she had partied with Dauphin the previous weekend and called the incident 'shocking.'

'The Megan I knew would have never done this,' she said.

The friend said she was disturbed by the image of little McKinley left alone to die in the car.

'All I keep picturing in my head is that beautiful baby girl wrapped up in the swaddle blanket I bought off your baby shower.'

On July 30, when McKinley was 16 days old, police from nearby Lynn Haven responded to a call that a woman was asleep at the wheel of her car, court papers show. There they found Dauphin, who had overdosed.
Mumbai, Oct 7 : Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty Kundra is proud of her eight-year-old son Viaan, who paid tribute to actor Sonu Sood with his school project.

Taking to Instagram, Shilpa shared how Viaan created an animated video for Sonu after seeing him helping thousands of migrant workers during the Covid-19 induced lockdown.

"Kids are keen observers of all that happens around them. Watching Viaan work on his recent school project reiterated this... The topic for his project was to talk about 'people who made a difference'. With all that has happened in these past few months, he's been observing and admiring all the work that my dear friend @sonu_sood has put in selflessly for the people in need. In times when everyone stayed at home with fear, he decided to be brave and put others' pain before his feelings," Shilpa wrote.

Viaan's project shows the animated version of Sonu making arrangements for two migrant workers to help them reach home.

"His brave and relentless service towards migrants who reached out to him really struck a chord with Viaan. So, he worked on this lovely animated video that he conceptualised, wrote, dubbed for, and edited as an ode to this hero (Viaan's choice completely). I take immense pride in sharing this one with you all - a 'proud mommy' moment (Remember he's only 8)," she added.

Shilpa is currently in Manali for the shoot of "Hungama 2", which also features Paresh Rawal, Meezaan and Pranitha Subhash.
North Wales Minister: The last thing that businesses need is for the UK to crash out without a free trade agreement

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Oct 7th, 2020

It is absolutely crucial the UK Government secures a free trade agreement that works for the economy of Wales, that is the message from Ken Skates MS, Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales.

Speaking to Wrexham.com last week, Mr Skates called on the UK Government to secure a free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union before the end of the transition period.

Negotiations between the UK Government and the European Union are still underway, however a number of sticking points still remain.

With the transition period due to end on December 31, there is still a chance that the UK will have left the EU with a no deal Brexit.

We asked Mr Skates what discussions and engagement has there been between the Welsh and UK Governments over the negotiations and what preparations are being put in place the for the potential no deal at the end of the year.

Mr Skates said that the pressures of coronavirus have meant that many businesses simply dont have the bandwidth, energy and the resources to be able to plan for what happens at the end of 2020 in terms of Brexit.

He said: When youre fighting fire like Coronavirus, you have to put all of your energy resources and you focus on that.

The last thing that businesses need is for the UK to crash out without a free trade agreement. That is absolutely vital and necessary, particularly for manufacturing businesses who rely on the market for exports.

Its its absolutely crucial that the UK Government secures a free trade agreement that works for the economy of Wales, because if we go into next year without an FTA and are still facing the embers of coronavirus, I really do fear for the viability of many good businesses.

I said all through this pandemic that the Welsh Government will do all it can to ensure if you had a good business in 2019, youll have a good business in 2021. In order for us to realised that we have to have a UK Government that is willing prepared and successful in negotiating a free trade agreement.

We also asked Mr Skates what benefits, if any, that he sees for Wales in leaving the EU.

He said: No deal will be as good as the deal that weve had as a full member of the EU and in recent decades.

The difference between having a free trade agreement not having one will be substantial indeed. For certain sectors such as automotive, it could be cataclysmic.

Its hugely important that the free trade agreement is secured and then we are able to transition businesses into what will be a difficult period.

But we are determined to to support Welsh businesses, both in financial terms and in terms of advice and guidance and the Business Wales service for enterprises has been crucially important during the coronavirus pandemic. Well be refreshing the Brexit Portal that was hosted on Business Wales to give businesses of all types shapes and sizes the best advice and guidance we possibly hope for.

The in / out Referendum saw 41,544 Wrexham people voting to leave the EU and 28,822 voting to remain part of it  with a whopping 71.6% turnout.
TDT | Manama

Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani received yesterday Egyptian Ambassador Yasser Mohammed Ahmed Shaban, in the presence of Foreign Ministry Undersecretary for Regional and GCC Affairs Ambassador Wahid Mubarak Sayar.

Dr Al Zayani welcomed the Egyptian ambassador, lauding deep-rooted historical fraternal relations between both countries under the care of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Egyptian President Abdelfattah El Sisi and their directives to further enhance bilateral relations for the common interest of both countries and peoples.

The Foreign Minister expressed congratulations on Egypts anniversary of the October War victory, wishing the Egyptian people more growth and prosperity. Both sides also discussed boosting bilateral relations and co-operation regarding various issues to achieve the aspirations of both countries and peoples.
A Florida State University researcher is part of a team that has found varying projections on global warming trends put forth by climate change scientists can be explained by differing models' predictions regarding ice loss and atmospheric water vapor.

The work will help climate scientists reconcile various models to improve their accuracy, said Florida State University Meteorology Professor Ming Cai, one of the authors of the study published in Nature Communications .

Climate scientists agree that the Earth's surface temperature is warming, but the details of exactly where and by how much are less clear. A worst-case climate change scenario (known as the "Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5") predicted a likely increase in average global temperatures of about 2.6 degrees Celsius to 4.8 degrees Celsius (or about 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit to 8.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.

"This uncertainty limits our ability to foresee the severity of the global warming impacts on nature and human civilization," Cai said. "The more information we have about the effects of climate change around the world, the better prepared we will be."

The difference in those conclusions would mean the difference between a sea level rise of about a half-meter to close to one meter, for example.

As scientists around the world have studied the climate, they have developed their own models. Although the major components of these climate models are based on the same general physical principles, such as conservations of energy and mass, they still differ from one another in many details, which is what leads to a range of conclusions about something like the future average global temperature.

"What are the best ways to represent those details in a climate model?" Cai said. "That's something that climate science is still working to answer. The model gets into the 'art' part of science."

The researchers investigated the variability among 25 climate models that participated in the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They found that climate models that predicted higher average temperatures for the Earth's surface overall also yielded results that showed more polar ice loss and more water vapor in the atmosphere.

"We found that these two factors explain close to 99 percent of the difference in global-mean warming forecasts among these 25 climate models," Cai said. "Our findings suggest that variability among climate models could be significantly reduced by narrowing the uncertainty in models simulating ice-albedo and water vapor feedbacks."

The research also found that cloud cover is less important than scientists previously thought for explaining variation among models.

These models are tools for making forecasts for things like sea level rise, flood risk, the viability of crops and wildlife and other considerations.

"Knowing that polar ice and water vapor in the atmosphere are the most important drivers of variability in different climate models will help climate scientists further refine those models," Cai said.

###

Researchers from Sun Yat-sen University and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory in China, Science Systems and Applications Inc. in Hampton, Virginia, and NASA contributed to this study.

This research was funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation, NASA and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Over the past two decades we have become accustomed to receiving a raft of changes to superannuation almost every federal budget night.

The 2020 budget was no different. However, while the changes were fewer in number this time, they are a game-changer and have potential for a massive impact on retirement savings for millions of Australians.

The latest reforms could unlock hundreds of millions of dollars trapped in underperforming super funds. Credit:Karl Hilzinger

A key finding of the 2009 Cooper inquiry into super was that 80 per cent of Australians were disengaged with their retirement savings. As a result, they often paid excessive super fund management fees, were left in inappropriate products by default, and often had multiple super funds due to job changes.

As I have said repeatedly, the major factor that determines how much you have in your super when you retire is the net rate of return after all fees and taxes.
(Bloomberg) -- Video game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. informed employees in its Versailles, France, office Tuesday that the location will be closed, putting an end to the U.S. companys history in the country.

The Versailles office employed about 400 people as of early 2019 and handled marketing, customer support, localizing games to different languages and other functions for the titles Activision Blizzard publishes in Europe.

The company originally planned to relocate half of the office to London, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. However, the twin factors of Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic have inhibited that process, leading to the decision to shutter the site about an hours drive outside Paris. Activision Blizzards shares fell 2.1 to $78.30 in New York. Theyve gained 32% this year.

Its not yet clear how many people will lose their jobs or how many will be given the opportunity to relocate to other offices, but French labor laws force companies to negotiate significant compensation packages for employees caught up in mass layoffs.

Staff members were told that they will learn more next week. A spokesperson for Santa Monica, California-based Activision Blizzard confirmed that management has informed its employee representatives of a plan to reorganize its activities. Over the past year we have been exploring how we might best integrate our capabilities across the business, enabling us to better leverage talent, expertise and scale as we adapt to the needs of a fast-paced, highly-competitive, digitally focused industry, the spokesperson said.

France has played a pivotal role in Blizzards history. Founded in Irvine, California, in 1991, Blizzard wound up in the hands of French conglomerate Vivendi SA in 1998. Under Vivendi, Blizzard released a string of popular games including StarCraft, Diablo II and the mega-sensation online role-playing game World of Warcraft, which has grossed billions of dollars from millions of monthly subscribers. In 2008, Vivendis games division merged with Activision to form Activision Blizzard, which was divested from Vivendi in 2013.

Story continues

The closing of the Versailles office, which was once solely an operation of Blizzard, will put an end to two years of turbulence there. A recent restructuring placed some of the Blizzard staff under the wider Activision umbrella. Blizzard has traditionally remained autonomous within the broader Activision organization, but in recent years Activision has taken a larger role in Blizzards operations.

Last year, as part of job cuts across Activision Blizzard, the publisher told Versailles staff that it was eliminating 134 of 400 positions. Staff were left in limbo for months as Activision Blizzard negotiated with the government over severance, and by the beginning of this year, those employees had taken a compensation package to leave. The company also quietly shut a Blizzard office in The Hague earlier this year. A spokeswoman said some of the roles were relocated to other offices.

In August, Bloomberg reported that U.S. Blizzard employees were sharing their salary figures and organizing in company Slack chats to seek pay increases and better treatment.

(Updates with closing of office in The Hague in penultimate paragraph.)

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Support for Judge Amy Coney Barrett spiked over the last two weeks, with nearly half of voters now supporting her confirmation to the Supreme Court as Democrats prepare to oppose her confirmation.

About 46 percent of voters say the Senate should confirm Barrett, according to a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll, up nine percentage points since President Trump announced her nomination on September 26.

Meanwhile, the number of voters who say the Senate should reject Barretts nomination dropped three points to 31 percent.

Both Republicans and Democrats now support Barretts confirmation in greater numbers, with 77 percent of GOP voters saying she should be confirmed, a six-point jump from the end of September, and 24 percent of Democratic voters saying so, a 10-point increase. Independent voters favor Barretts nomination at 36 percent, up eight points from two weeks ago.

Trump nominated Barrett last month to fill the seat left vacant by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last month. Her death immediately upended the election cycle as Republicans work quickly to confirm a new justice and Democrats prepare to oppose Trumps nominee to fill Ginsburgs seat.

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee plan to begin confirmation hearings on Barretts nomination on October 12.

Since Barretts nomination was announced, some Democrats have suggested or said directly that they are open to adding justices to the Court should Barrett be confirmed.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said last month that nothing is off the table if Democrats gain control of the Senate.

Last week, Schumer and Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, called for the upcoming confirmation hearings for Barrett to be postponed to allow Barrett and senators who were potentially exposed to the coronavirus to be tested and isolate. Their demand came after President Trump and several Republican senators announced they had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Story continues

The Morning Consult/Politico poll was conducted from October 2 to 4 and surveyed about 2,000 registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percent.

More from National Review
NEW DELHI : Even as they eagerly court investors, Indian green energy promoters now have a new task cut out for their deal advisors, to ensure no direct or indirect China connection in relation to these inbound funds, according to several developers currently in the process of raising funds.

Given the long duration involved in closing such deals, promoters told Mint that they are trying to avoid finding out about any such encumbrances later, as it may potentially setback the fund-raising exercise by a considerable time period.

With the Indian government clearance mandatory for all foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows from countries with which it shares land borders, developers are extra cautious in their due diligence as they believe that the chances of securing approval for Chinese investments are at the best slim. Also, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recently unveiled a plan of exercising better control over private businesses.

This assumes significance given that a host of clean energy deals are in the play as reported by Mint.

While an investor does carry out due diligence before investing, given the current situation between the two countries it is also incumbent upon us as promoters to find out whether or not there is a Chinese connection regarding the origin of funds. There is a growing premium on it at the start of the sale process as one doesnt want to waste time later," said the promoter of a New Delhi based clean energy firm cited above, that is in the process of raising around $250 million by selling stake.

The deal activity in India clean energy space has picked up pace after getting impacted due to the coronavirus pandemic that originated in Wuhan. These potential deals include Acme Solar looking to sell 4.84 gigawatt (GW) of solar projects; Petroliam Nasional Bhd or Petronas looking to acquire around 10% stake in Tata Power Renewable Energy Ltd, in addition to investing in Tata Power renewable energy InvIT and Avaada Energy mandating Bank of America (BofA) for selling stake.

Also, O2 Power and Ayana Renewable Power have emerged as the front-runners to acquire Azure Power 305 MW solar assets and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Actis Llp and Brookfield Asset Management Inc. are looking to buy Japans SoftBank Group Corps stake in SB Energy Holding.

India also intends to keep a track of the private contracts won by Chinese companies. In October last year, the Union home ministry had raised concerns about potentially sensitive investments in critical sectors from certain countries, given the blurred ownership lines between state-owned and privately held companies in China as reported by Mint earlier.

One has to be realistic about such things," said the promoter of a large renewable energy firm cited above, that had Chinese state owned CNIC Corp. as one of the suitors in its stake sale plan.

India is home to the worlds largest clean energy programme and aims to have 175 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy capacity by 2022 as part of its climate change commitments. As part of its commitments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted by 195 countries in Paris in 2015 to reduce its carbon footprint, 38.5% of India energy capacity is from non-fossil sources. This is expected to go up to 60% by 2030.

India has restricted bidders from countries with which it shares land border from participating in tenders for government procurement without approval from competent authorities on the ground of defence and national security. It has also imposed tariff and non-tariff barriers and barred hundreds of Chinese apps, including Blueholes PUBG, Bytedances TikTok, and Alibabas UC Browser.

Tensions run high at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), after a violent clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Galwan on 15 June that resulted in the death of 20 Indian and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers. The issue remains unresolved.

There is a growing focus to look out for any China connection with an inbound deal, no matter how remote. One cant take any chances," said the chief executive officer of green energy firm cited above who also did not want to be named.

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The October issue of Technology Magazine is now live, covering topics such as AI, automation, cloud, data and more

NORWICH, England, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- BizClik Media announced today the launch of the October edition of Technology magazine .

In this month's cover feature, we speak to Suhas Uliyar, VP Digital Assistant, AI & Integration at Oracle. Uliyar offers his insights into how AI services are revolutionising the ways companies can interact with customers.

"What we did was build an AI-powered digital assistant," says Uliyar. "It's essentially your one window through which you interact with all these other chatbots, which are subject matter experts, and which know how to then connect to the system of record. With other solutions, you ask for a specific skill to do something right here. With us, it's all implicit."

Our Top 10, meanwhile, involves us looking into the world's most valuable technology unicorns (startups worth over $1bn). While the number of tech unicorns continues to bloom, there is considerable difference in valuation among the top 10 - from the low tens of billions to almost $150bn.

Don't forget to read our other features with the likes of Vitality, Lufthansa Cargo, Serverfarm, Green Datacenter, EEI Corporation and many more.

Contact:

Shirin Sadr

Shirin.sadr@bizclikmedia.com

+442080542069

About Technology Magazine ( https://www.technologymagazine.com/)

Technology Magazine is a 'Digital Community' for the global technology industry that connects the world's largest technology brands and their most senior executives with the latest trends as the industries around the world pivots towards technology and digital transformation.

Technology Magazine is a 'trusted authority' on the latest technology news combining 'Executive Thought Leadership Interviews' with the very latest case studies on Industry 4.0, Cloud, Cyber, AI, Data and Data Analytics.

The focus of Technology Magazine's 'Digital Community' is to provide our users with the 'Ultimate Digital Experience' - an incredible digital magazine, an world-class website, an award-winning newsletter service as well as video reports, podcasts, blogs, webinars, white papers, research reports, virtual events and a database second to none.

Technology Magazine also offers its advertising partners a unique blend of digital branding, content syndication and executive thought leadership articles as well as a 'gated intelligence community' providing ultimate demand generation and measurable 'Ad-Campaign' ROI's.

Technology Magazine is read by industry professionals at all levels, as well as technology and consulting executives.

About Bizclik Media Group ( https://www.bizclikmedia.com/)

BizClik Media Group is a UK-based media company with a global portfolio of leading industry, business and lifestyle digital communities.

BizClik Media is fast becoming the trusted authority in Digital Media with a portfolio of brands across Technology & AI, Finance & Insurance, Manufacturing & Supply Chain, Energy & Mining, Construction, Healthcare, Wireless Communications & Data Centres.
DALLAS, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dallas healthcare consultancy and PPE champion Medcillary is betting the nation's dentists are going to be smiling at the prospect of a pandemic PPE service just for them. Medcillary Smiles is the company's latest venture into servicing the PPE needs of different industries impacted by the pandemic.

"We dove in to help dentists almost on day one. We didn't realize how deep the dive was going to be," said Medcillary CEO Jon Boski. "Since the beginning of the pandemic we've been rallying to help people and businesses unfamiliar with the ins-and-outs of PPE. Dentists caught us by surprise, as a clearly underserved corner of healthcare."

Boski says the needs of dentists are something they stumbled across. Someone from the University of Texas School of Dentistry Houston asked if she could offer Medcillary's PPE Sourcing Team as a resource for colleagues desperate to find masks meeting the state's suddenly stricter COVID guidelines.

That referral turned into a flood of calls from dentists across Texas and the Gulf Coast. The sourcing team that was at first overwhelmed has since become an online PPE store with one of the nation's largest in stock, domestic inventories, global supply chain and countrywide delivery matrix.

The Medcillary Online PPE Store is found at ppe.medcillary.com.

"The speed with which this has come together is a testament to the team's real desire to help," Boski said.

Dental practices make up over half of Medcillary's PPE business. They have other specialties for schools, small business and production companies. Medcillary Smiles is the largest of these specialties to formally get its own niche at Medcillary - with discount pricing and a 24-hour on-call service team.

Boski says Medcillary Smiles will be a piece of Medcillary's business post-pandemic. Prior to COVID, Medcillary's core business was identifying and distributing innovative products and services for physicians. He says work is already underway to expand its services for dentists to include innovations in dentistry.

About Medcillary

Medcillary is a healthcare consultancy and distributorship helping prepare people for tomorrow, today by identifying innovative products and services that are making medicine better. The company was founded in 2015 and operates in forty-nine states from headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Medcillary can be found on the web at www.medcillary.com.

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The saying goes, if you want less of something, tax it. Thats the point, in this case. Passage of Measure 108 would raise the states cigarette tax by $2 a pack and create a new 65% tax on the wholesale price of e-cigarettes and vaping devices  discouraging both current smokers and young adults from picking up the habit in the first place.

Of course, raising revenue is also the point. The tax increase is expected to generate $111 million in this budget cycle and $331 million in the next. Ninety percent will go to support Oregons Medicaid program, which provides health care for 1 million Oregonians. Health officials have been banking on this tax to plug a budget gap even before the pandemic hit. The rest  10% would go to prevention and cessation programs for smokers.

Oregonians should vote yes. We already know smokings severe consequences on a persons health and that tobacco-related illness costs Oregons health system about $1.5 billion a year, according to the state. Oregon has not significantly raised its cigarette tax in two decades  its rate of $1.33 a pack was the 32nd highest in the nation in 2019, according to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. Raising it by $2 will bring the price of cigarettes in Oregon close to prices in Washington and California.

We also know that the state has seen a dramatic increase in young peoples use of tobacco through e-cigarettes, even though selling such products to anyone under 21 is against the law. A 2019 Oregon Healthy Teens survey found that a quarter of 11th graders used e-cigarettes with nicotine within the previous 30 days.

With any tax, there are concerns about its impact. Low-income smokers will be hit hard, and the state lags in providing adequate cessation and prevention programs to support them. While this measure brings millions more in funding for such programs, the state still wont come close to spending the $39 million a year on cessation and prevention programs that the Centers for Disease Control recommends. And while it makes sense to look to tobacco taxes for supporting the Oregon Health Plan, the state should also explore taxing other contributors to health problems, such as beer and wine, to share the burden.

Still, this is a tax worth supporting. It provides incentive for smokers to quit, a deterrent to would-be users and will help keep Medicaid funded. Vote yes.

- The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board

To read other voting recommendations for the November election, visit our main endorsements page.

Subscribe to our free weekly Oregon Opinion newsletter. Email:


Attorney General Nessel Joins Bipartisan Coalition in Urging Creative Community to Protect Young Viewers from Tobacco Imagery

Attorney General Nessel Joins Bipartisan Coalition in Urging Creative Community to Protect Young Viewers from Tobacco Imagery

October 7, 2020 LANSING  Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel recently joined a coalition of 43 attorneys general in urging the creative community to take action to protect young viewers from tobacco imagery in streamed movies and programs. The coalition sent letters to five Hollywood creative guilds as part of an ongoing effort to reduce youth exposure to tobacco.

Last year, a coalition of attorneys general sent letters urging the streaming industry to limit tobacco imagery in their video content. The creative guilds assistance and support is critical to stopping the normalization and glamorization of tobacco use, especially youth vaping.

The statistics across our nation and right here in Michigan very clearly demonstrate that youth vaping is not something we can turn a blind eye to. Across counties in Michigan last year, our state witnessed between a 30 percent and 118 percent increase in e-cigarette use among high school students. This increase is substantial and alarming and will require all hands on deck to change it, said Nessel. My colleagues and I encourage the creative guilds to join this very important dialogue to ensure our youth across this nation are protected from the influences of tobacco use.

According to an August 2020 report from The Truth Initiative, e-cigarette use doubled among high school students and tripled among middle school students from 2017 through 2019. Young people who use e-cigarettes are four times more likely to start smoking cigarettes, are more likely to become addicted to nicotine, have more difficulty quitting and may be at higher risk for addiction to other substances.

Tobacco is the No. 1 preventable killer in the United States, with over 480,000 Americans dying from tobacco-related diseases every year. A growing body of evidence indicates that vaping can permanently damage lungs and lead to a lifetime of tobacco and nicotine use.

In the race to launch new platforms, provide more content and capture audiences, many streaming companies failed to consider the impact that easy access to movies and programs with tobacco imagery would have on children. In 2012, following a decade of studies, the Surgeon General concluded that [t]here is a causal relationship between depictions of smoking in the movies and the initiation of smoking among young people. More recently, a study by the Truth Initiative found that children who watch episodic programs with tobacco content are significantly more likely to begin vaping than those who are not exposed to such content. Even those with low levels of exposure were more than twice as likely to start using e-cigarettes, and those with high exposure were over three times more likely.

In the letter sent Monday, the bipartisan coalition urges Hollywood's creative guilds to use their collective influence to persuade members of the creative community to depict tobacco imagery more responsibly and to encourage streaming companies to:

Adopt best practices that steer young viewers away from content with tobacco imagery, such as excluding tobacco imagery in future content targeting children;

Only recommend and promote tobacco-free titles for children and families;

Mitigate the historic and cumulative impact of watching tobacco imagery by running strong anti-tobacco spots and displaying prominent and forceful tobacco warnings, especially before content with smoking or vaping; and

Offer effective parental controls, so families may be empowered to choose smoke-free content.

Letters were sent to the Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America, Screenwriters Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

Attorney General Nessel joins the attorneys general of Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, the Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin in sending the letters.

###

Ryan Jarvi 517-599-2746 Attorney General
Thousands of Congress workers and farmers teamed up in Muzaffarnagar on Tuesday to protest the controversial farm laws and to raise other issues linked to farmers. The protest was led by Uttar Pradesh Congress committee (UPCC) president Ajay Kumar Lallu, former MP Harendra Malik and former MLA and Congress state vice president Pankaj Malik.

Party workers and farmers arrived at the ground of Government Inter College in Muzaffarnagar in tractors, on two-wheelers and even on foot. While passing through the streets, they rent the air with anti- government and anti-farm laws slogans.

Ajay Kymar Lallu explained his opinion that the recently passed farm laws were against the farmers and called upon them to oppose the legislations with their full strength. He also raised the issue of pending sugarcane dues and targeted the state government alleging the law and order in the state had deteriorated.

Also Read: 11 RLD leaders booked for protest against lathi charge on Jayant Chaudhary

Former Congress MP Harendra Malik and ex-MLA Pankaj Malik also described the laws as anti-farmers which would only help corporates to exploit the cultivators. They also raised the issue of manhandling of Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, as well as RLD leader Jayant Choudhary and blamed the state government for doing so to silence the opposition leaders.

Cutting across party lines, we are united in opposing the autocratic attitude of the ruling party against opposition leaders, said Harendra Malik. The leaders called upon the crowd to raise their voice against the state governments atrocities and oppose the farm laws.
LONDON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Barings, one of the world's leading financial services firms, today announced that it has provided a senior secured credit facility to support ECI Partners in its acquisition of CSL. Headquartered in the UK, CSL is an international critical communications service provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"We are delighted to support ECI's investment in CSL, further strengthening our two firms' relationship. This marks our second transaction together, following Barings support of ECI's acquisition of Moneypenny," added Matt Carty, Director in Barings' European Private Finance group. "In the current market environment we are focused on investing in resilient businesses backed by sponsors with strong sector experience, as CSL demonstrates with the backing of experienced IoT investor, ECI."

"It has been a pleasure to work with Barings again," said Paul McCreadie, Partner at ECI. "They demonstrated a strong grasp of CSL's business model and delivered a financing package that supports our strategy to expand the group internationally and enhance the product offering to CSL's customer base."

CSL are market leaders in providing M2M and IoT connectivity solutions in the Fire, Security and Telehealth sectors. They have a focus on customers in the Fire & Security end-market, in which they have invested significantly over the years to ensure a managed service offering for reliable alarm signaling for domestic, commercial, and retail premises. CSL services over 1 million M2M devices and monitors 4 billion events through its platforms each month across the UK, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland.

About Barings

Barings is a $346+ billion* global financial services firm dedicated to meeting the evolving investment and capital needs of our clients and customers. Through active asset management and direct origination, we provide innovative solutions and access to differentiated opportunities across public and private capital markets. A subsidiary of MassMutual, Barings maintains a global presence across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Barings Global Private Finance is a 60+ investment team globally, with a 40-year track record of successfully financing middle-market buyouts, acquisitions, and recapitalizations. With product capabilities that range from traditional senior debt to bespoke junior capital securities, and hold sizes of 200 million+, Barings is focused on providing capital solutions that help our private equity clients complete their deal on time and as expected. Our long-term commitment to the asset class, local origination in each region, consistent team, and broad range of investment capabilities, are designed to provide investors an absolute spread premium to broadly syndicated loans as well as an attractive risk-adjusted return potential.

About ECI

ECI Partners invests in management buyouts and buyins for majority or minority equity investments in medium sized UK growth companies. For more than 40 years ECI Partners has been investing across a range of sectors, gaining a wealth of experience in supporting high growth businesses. The firm typically invests 25m to 100m of equity in deals valued up to 250m. ECI Partners believes in teamwork and collaboration, supporting ambitious management teams supporting their knowledge and vision with our experience. For more information, visit www.ecipartners.com.

*As of June 30, 2020

Media Contact:

Cheryl Krauss, Media Relations, Barings, 980-417-5858, cheryl.krauss@barings.com

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A soldier wearing rubber gloves and a face mask closes the gate of the Army base in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, Monday, as nearly 40 soldiers and officers there have been confirmed to have COVID-19, with virus tests ongoing for all other personnel on the base. / Yonhap



By Jun Ji-hye



Nearly 40 soldiers and officers at an Army base in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, have tested positive for COVID-19, putting authorities on high alert over more infection clusters, defense and health officials said Monday.



According to the Ministry of National Defense and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), 33 soldiers and three officers at the Army base were confirmed to have COVID-19 as of noon Monday.



Three infections were first confirmed Sunday, which prompted the military authorities to carry out coronavirus testing for everyone stationed at the base.



About 240 soldiers and officers are stationed there, raising fears over the possibility of more cases emerging.



The military and health authorities are working to trace the infection route.



Adding to the confusion is the fact that the Army base has restricted its members from taking personal leave in accordance with the government's social distancing guidelines aimed at stemming the further spread of the contagious disease. Only emergency leave has been allowed, the military authorities said.



They added that one infected officer was found to have visited Seoul, Sept. 26 and 27, noting that an epidemiological investigation was currently underway.



"We are interviewing all members of the unit to check who went off base," said Moon Hong-sik, the deputy spokesman for the defense ministry. "We are also working to check if any civilians who visited the base recently are showing symptoms associated with COVID-19."



He added the military is planning to carry out additional tests on members of nearby bases.



The outbreak at the base comes at a time when the health authorities are bracing for the possibility of another mass outbreak after the five-day Chuseok long weekend that ended Sunday, as many people traveled across the country to spend time with family members, or took advantage of the five-day holiday to go on trips.



According to the KDCA, the country recorded 73 new COVID-19 cases, including 64 local infections, for Sunday, raising the total caseload to 24,164.



The new coronavirus case numbers have stayed below 100 for the fifth straight day, but the authorities say it is too early to become complacent, considering that around 30 million people traveled across the nation over the Chuseok period.


STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has rejected pleas from transit workers to require masks on all forms of public transportation.

On Friday, the DOT sent a letter to the Transportation Trades Department (TTD) of the AFL-CIO labor federation rejecting the unions request from earlier this year to implement a mask mandate on all DOT-approved, commercial public transportation.

In the letter, the DOT referred to the proposed mandate as unwarranted, claiming that the department has already taken steps to education transportation agencies and encourage safe operating procedures.

The DOT also noted that many states and localities, like New York, have already implemented their own mask requirements on public transit.

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***

At this time, the Departments view is that the measures discussed above, along with the ongoing efforts of key transportation stakeholders, are adequate to address the concerns identified in the petition without the initiation of a rule-making process, the department wrote.

Larry Willis, president of TTD, referred to the DOTs decision as heartbreaking and unfathomable.

It is unfathomable that in the midst of a global pandemic which has killed more than 209,000 Americans, and left millions more sick and potentially facing lifelong side effects  including the president of the United States  that the U.S. Department of Transportation would outright reject such a simple, science-backed, lifesaving measure. The DOTs decision is heartbreaking, and in light of yesterdays news, frankly, shocking, Willis said.

With tens of thousands of transit workers across the country falling ill throughout the pandemic, Willis said the proposed mandate would have been a common-sense way to add an additional layer of protection for both transit workers and the riding public.

Since COVID-19 first touched American shores, the president and his administration have shown callous disregard for human life in response to this virus. Failure by this DOT to issue a common-sense federal mask mandate for all modes of commercial passenger transportation is only a continuation of that failed response. Sadly, it is working people who will suffer because of this decision, said Willis.

With the DOTs refusal to enact the mask mandate, TTD has turned its attention to Congress, with hopes that lawmakers can pass legislation that would federally mandate masks on all forms of public transportation.

We call on Congress to do what the DOT refused to and pass life-saving legislation requiring masks on all forms of commercial public transportation. The people who have risked their lives to see us through this crisis by serving on the frontlines of our transportation system deserve no less," Willis said.
LUCKNOW: The Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, which has been facing intense criticism from the Opposition parties, has tightened the security of Hathras gang-rape victims family.

According to reports, the state government has deployed round-the-clock security outside the house of the Hathras victims kin. The local police have provided three-layer security to ensure the safety of the Hathras victims family members.

The CCTV cameras have also been installed outside the victims house. It may be noted that the family had sought adequate security from the government.

Sharing more details, Hathras Superintendent of Police Vineet Jaiswal said that two women sub-inspectors and six women constables have been stationed at the victim`s house. "Two security personnel have been deployed for the security of the victim`s brother. Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel are also camping outside the house," he added.

Live TV

Apart from this, 15 police personnel, three station house officers and one deputy superintendent of police have been deployed in the village to prevent any untoward incident, he added.

An entry register has been kept outside the victims family to take down details of the visitors coming to meet the family.

Any one who comes to their house will be thoroughly frisked and only then they will be allowed entry inside the house, the SP said.

The victim`s family had repeatedly said that they feared for their safety. They had even said that they wanted to leave the village and settle elsewhere.

"We are afraid of threats (from the supporters of the four accused arrested in the case). The coming days will be more challenging for us," the victim`s brother said.

Meanwhile, in a video that has gone viral on social media, some upper caste men can be heard threatening the victim`s family and defending the four men arrested for the crime.

The men are seen shouting threats on camera when Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar visited the victim`s family on Sunday.

Videos that have surfaced online show the complete fearlessness and impunity with which the men go around dropping threats in the presence of scores of policemen.

"Do you not have faith in the CBI?" He (Chandrashekhar) does not trust the CBI, has come here to do politics. Just let us meet him once then we will make sure he does (trust the CBI)," a man shouts in one of the videos, surrounded by policemen who simply watch him.

The police are seen trying to reason with him. One of the men accused of attacking the 20-year-old woman has the same name as her brother. The men alleged that her brother had killed her and the other man had been framed.
Bihar Elections 2020: Shiv Sena to field candidate against former police chief

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Oct 07: The Shiv Sena has decided to contest 50 assembly seats in the Bihar Assembly Elections 2020.

The party said that it will also field a candidate against the former Bihar police chief Gupteshwar Pandey who had questioned the Mumbai Police on its probe into the death of Sushant Singh Rajput. Pandey had joined the JD(U) and is expected to contest the elections.

Shiv Sena's Anil Desai said that Pandey had shown seriousness in the case only to get into politics. The entire nation saw his theatrics in the case. He is going to context from Buxar, Desai said while adding that a simple Shiv Sainik will contest against him and give him a tough fight.

Bihar Elections 2020: 11 parties did not declare complete address of 5,815 donors

Desai also said that he had been given the go ahead by Maharashtra Chief Minister, Uddhav Thackeray following which they prepared to fight the elections. The party will campaign on local issues, he said while adding that the Sena had contested 80 seats in the 2015 Bihar Elections.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

Bihar will go to polls in three phases. The first phase of the elections will be held on October 28. The second and third phase will be held on November 3 and 7 respectively. Counting of votes will take place on November 10.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 16:28 [IST]
Political parties began preparations this week for the first stage of parliamentary elections, scheduled to be held between 21 October and 30 November. The National Election Authority (NEA) said campaigning will begin on 5 October and run until 18 October, three days before voting takes place on 21 October for expatriate Egyptians. For voters in Egypt, the polls will open on 24 October.



The NEA announcement came after the Supreme Administrative Court on Sunday rejected appeals filed by lawyers petitioning to have to elections suspended on constitutional grounds. The court ruled that the vote was not in violation of the constitution and the ballot should go ahead as planned. The ruling was welcomed by political parties.



The first stage of the two-stage poll will include 14 governorates: Giza, Fayoum, Beni Sweif, Minya, Assiut, New Valley, Sohag, Qena, Luxor, Aswan, Red Sea, Alexandria, Beheira and Marsa Matrouh, with 284 seats up for grabs.



Last week the NEA announced that the papers of 4,006 individual candidates and eight coalition lists had been accepted. After the Supreme Administrative Court finished settling appeals on Sunday the numbers were much the same, with about 2,000 individual candidates and two coalitions  the National Unified List and the Call of Egypt  competing for the first stage seats.



Youssef Al-Husseini, the spokesman of the Mostaqbal Watan Party-led National Unified List coalition, said in a TV interview that the coalition will stand in all four party list districts.



As for Mostaqbal Watan itself, it will have individual candidates standing in all districts, and the coalition and individual candidates will comply with the campaigning rules issued by the NEA.



The campaign will focus on social media and TV ads, said Al-Husseini. He added that competition in the House of Representatives election will be completely different from the Senate poll, where the National Unified List won all party list seats unopposed.



It will be a fierce battle, particularly among individual candidates, because citizens will have the chance to choose between candidates with different political backgrounds, said Al-Husseini.



The pro-government Mostaqbal Watan Party has been accused of replicating the one-party rule of president Hosni Mubaraks National Democratic Party (NDP). Critics say that just like Mubaraks NDP, businessmen are parachuted onto Mostaqbal Watans candidacy list in return for money.



They pay because they believe that the Mostaqbal Watan list will win regardless, said one critic. And like Mubaraks now defunct NDP, Mostaqbal Watan wants to completely monopolise political life.



Hossam Al-Khouli, deputy chairman of Mostaqbal Watan, conceded in a TV interview that much of the partys funding comes from businessmen.



We accept the money to spend on the party, campaigning and on social care projects, said Al-Khouli. Businessmen and wealthy people, after all, are allowed to participate in politics though they cannot be allowed to monopolise the political scene.



In fact, the party has members from all social classes, businessmen, university professors, school students, and those on limited incomes. We need money to spend on the partys activities, social programmes and election campaigning, and it is true that most of this money comes from businessmen.



Al-Khouli agreed that the NDP had monopolised political life at the expense of meaningful representation but insisted we are different because we are coordinating with other political parties to fill the political vacuum which hit the country after two revolutions.



The National Unified List led by Mostaqbal Watan includes 12 political parties, some of which are considered to be in the opposition.



Al-Khouli drew attention to the fact that though Mostaqbal Watan was only founded in 2014 it managed, within six years, to become the most popular political party.



We have exerted an enormous effort over the last six years. In 2015 we came second in terms of the number of parliamentary seats, and in 2020 we won a majority of seats in the Senate election. Eighty per cent of the partys members are young people who have worked hard on the ground to extend the partys grassroots presence and network of offices across Egypt.



El-Khouli, deputy chairman of parliaments Foreign Affairs Committee, insists that money alone does not build a strong political party.



You need members and offices across Egypt in order to be able to become a credible party, said Al-Khouli. He also argued that it is important for Egypt to have a majority party in order to protect the state and prevent an extremist group like the Muslim Brotherhood from reaching power again.



The Republican Peoples Party, which is a member of the National List, is also busy preparing for the polls.



We have 28 candidates on Mostaqbal Watans National Unified List, and 58 individual candidates, said party head Hazem Omar.



He expects the competition in individual seats to be particularly fierce.



You will have nine individual candidates per district, and this will make for a tough election.



The Free Egyptians Party, which won a majority of seats in 2015, is only fielding individual candidates. Party Chairman Essam Khalil is hopeful that they will be able to repeat the partys 2015 performance when it won 65 seats.



The Tagammu Party is fielding just 16 individual candidates though Deputy Chairman Amina Al-Naqqash pointed out we also have five candidates on the National Unified List. She added that the partys candidates intend to hold public rallies while observing social distancing rules.



Members of the leftist 25-30 bloc are only standing in individual seats. Group Spokesman Haitham Al-Hariri said it would be too costly to field candidates in the constituencies reserved for party lists.



The liberal Wafd Party, which only a month ago was plagued by internal rifts, says it will field individual candidates in a majority of governorates.



The party will also have nine candidates on the National Unified List, said Fouad Badrawi, the Wafds secretary-general. The Wafd, which won 39 seats in 2015, is due to hold its own elections in December to choose a new chairman.



Anwar Esmat Al-Sadat, head of the Reform and Development Party and a nephew of late president Anwar Al-Sadat, opted to withdraw from the election battle hours before the Supreme Administrative Court ordered that he be banned from participating.



The court went on to reject petitions seeking to disqualify Abdel-Rehim Ali, editor-in-chief of Al-Bawaba newspaper, and Medhat Al-Sherif, deputy chairman of parliaments Economic Affairs Committee, from standing.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

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About 80 people took to the streets Tuesday night in Brooklyn to protest Gov Andrew Cuomo's restrictions on nine New York City neighborhoods where COVID-19 rates are surging.

The group of Orthodox Jews gathered in Borough Park Brooklyn for the demonstration against the closure of schools and the banning of large religious gatherings.

Footage from the protest showed members of the group setting fire to a pile of masks in the middle of the street as others cheered.

Firefighters from a local department arrived to the scene a short time later to extinguish the flames.

The group of mostly men were also seen gathering closely together as they heard from Councilman Kalman Yeger.

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About 80 people took to the streets Tuesday night in Brooklyn to protest Gov Andrew Cuomo's restrictions on nine New York City neighborhoods where COVID-19 rates are surging

The group of Orthodox Jews gathered in Borough Park Brooklyn for a protest against the decisions to impose restrictions on their communities from Mayor Bill de Blasio and Cuomo

Footage from the protest showed the group of mostly men gathered closely together as they heard from Councilman Kalman Yeger

The men are seen standing in a street in Brooklyn amid Tuesday night's protest

Yeger is heard telling the men: 'We're going to be safe. We're going to be smart. We're going to wear masks.

'But we are not going to be deprived the right that we have in America, like everybody else in America, the right to observe our religion, the right to do it freely, the right to do it without government interference.'

'I don't care who in government thinks that they can stop us. They're wrong. Let them try,' Yeger added.

In addition to his appearance at the protest, Yeger also released a statement with other local leaders that called Cuomo's actions a disgrace.

'We are appalled by Governor Cuomo's actions today. He has chosen to pursue a scientifically and constitutionally questionable shutdown of our communities,' the statement reads.

'His administration's utter lack of coordination and communication with local officials has been an ongoing issue since the start of the pandemic and particularly recently as we face this uptick... What occurred today can only be described as a duplicitous bait-and-switch.'

The local leaders called it 'disgraceful' that Cuomo would impose restrictions 'targeting our community in the midst of our Jewish holidays'.

The statement said the communities impacted by the restrictions have been left 'shocked, angered and highly frustrated'.

The group set fire to a pile of masks during the demonstration. Firefighters arrived to the scene a short time later

Several people at the protest were seen throwing their masks into the flames Tuesday night

A group of about 50 people also gathered on Tuesday to protest. The group stood outside Good Shepherd Catholic Academy in Marine Park where they criticized the decision to close schools in hard-hit zip codes.

Principal John O'Brien told the New York Post: 'We're disappointed today. We've had one month of school where the boys and girls have been in the building every day. We're following all the guidelines that we're supposed to. Thank God we've had no positive cases, nobody's been sick, and still we have to close today.

'The zip code plan doesn't seem to be the right way to go about it. If there were cases in our school, we would have to shut down and nobody would argue about that,' O'Brien added.

Earlier on Tuesday, Cuomo introduced strict new restrictions that force non-essential businesses to close, bans religious gatherings of more than 10 people and stops all dining in nine New York City neighborhoods.

Set to take effect no later than Friday, the new rules will be imposed in parts of Brooklyn and Queens, as well as other areas across the state, where officials have been anxiously watching clusters of virus cases sprout up.

In addition to the ban on large religious gatherings and closure of non-essential businesses, restaurants will also be forced to go back to offering takeout only - just one week after they were cleared to begin welcoming diners back indoors.

On Tuesday, Cuomo imposed strict new restrictions on nine New York City neighborhoods where COVID-19 rates are surging that includes shutting down non-essential businesses and banning religious gatherings of more than 10 people

The tough new restrictions (above in red) will currently apply to nine neighborhoods in Brookyn and Queens where COVID rates are surging. Restrictions will also be imposed on some surrounding neighborhoods (above in orange) to act as what he described as a buffer

People crowd together as they wait to board buses in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday

People ignore social distancing as they wait to board buses in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday

Local leaders called it 'disgraceful' that Cuomo would impose restrictions 'targeting our community in the midst of our Jewish holidays'. People are seen in Borough Park Tuesday ignoring social distancing

Most of the neighborhoods targeted by the new restrictions are home to part of the city's large Orthodox Jewish community

Mass gatherings in those neighborhoods are also now banned.

Cuomo said some restrictions will also be imposed on surrounding neighborhoods to act as what he described as a buffer, saying the severity of shutdowns would vary by proximity to the hotspots.

It was not immediately clear what surrounding neighborhoods outside the hotspot areas would face additional restrictions.

Cuomo made the announcement just one day after he ruled that hundreds of schools in nine neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens had to close.

The new rules, which will be in place for at least two weeks, will go into effect as early as Wednesday but no later than Friday.

In the hearts of the hot spots - color-coded as red zones - schools would close to in-person learning, only essential businesses could remain open, houses of worship would be limited to no more than 10 people, and restaurants could offer only take-out and delivery.

Those areas would be surrounded by orange-coded zones where schools also would be remote-only, and 'high-risk' non-essential enterprises - such as gyms and personal-care businesses - would be closed. Religious institutions would be restricted to 25 people, and restaurants would be allowed limited outdoor dining.

A wider 'yellow' caution zone would have schools and businesses open, and restrictions would be lighter than in other zones.

The governor said the state would be consulting with local governments to draw the maps.

Most of the neighborhoods targeted by the restrictions are home to part of the city's large Orthodox Jewish community.

'A mass gathering causes infections, infections cause a cluster, a cluster causes community spread,' Cuomo said. 'That is the national evolution of things unless we intervene and we stop the cycle.'

There are currently about 20 areas statewide that are on Cuomo's hotspot list. Nine of those are in New York City's Brooklyn and Queens boroughs.

Other counties across the state that will be affected by the new restrictions include Rockland, Broome and Orange counties.

In New York City, the nine ZIP codes singled out for restrictions have been responsible for more than 20 per cent of all new infections in the city over the past four weeks despite representing only 7 per cent of the population.

The citywide positive infection rate is now at 1.9 percent. Rates in those nine hotspot zip codes is as high as eight percent in some neighborhoods.

Cuomo's announcement came just hours after Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was ready to shut down non-essential businesses in the nine zip codes.

De Blasio had put forward the plan to Cuomo to shutter non-essential business but needed state approval.

The governor and mayor have repeatedly squabbled over government responses to the spread of COVID-19.

POSITIVE TEST RATE: The citywide positive infection rate is now at 1.9 percent. Rates in those nine hotspot zip codes is as high as eight percent in some neighborhoods

The statewide positivity rate is currently at 1.2 per cent. The positivity rate in 20 hotspot zip codes across the state, including the nine NYC areas, is now at 5.5 per cent

Cuomo ordered the closing of schools in nine Brooklyn and Queens zip codes on Monday.

He held off a decision on de Blasio's proposal to close nonessential businesses in those areas until Tuesday, suggesting that the boundaries needed to be drawn differently to be effective.

Earlier on Tuesday de Blasio pressed for a quick answer, saying the city was ready to close the enterprises Wednesday but needed the state's approval.

'We are at a crucial moment in our fight against the coronavirus,' de Blasio said during his press briefing.

'We have to bring everything we can to bear. We have to be tough about it.'

In Rockland County, where virus cases in some areas have sparked concern, County Executive Ed Day said he backed the governor's plan and would do what he could to help implement it.

'The restrictions he announced are measured and clearly focused on the areas where this disease is spreading,' said Day, a Republican, urging residents to embrace their 'civic duty to do what is right, not only for ourselves but for our entire community.'

North of the city, the health commissioner in Orange County ordered school closures for at least two weeks in an Orthodox Jewish community in the Hudson Valley.

Dr Irina Gelman ordered the closure of public and private schools serving the village of Kiryas Joel, also known as the Town of Palm Tree, where an average of nearly 28 percent of coronavirus cases have come back positive over the last three days.
EMMET COUNTY, MI  A 61-year-old man is dead after a fire engulfed his home on Tuesday afternoon.

Mark Allen Rosalik, of Harbor Springs, was found dead inside the home on Hill Road near Cross Village on Oct. 6, UpNorthLive reports.

Firefighters were called to the scene around 1:45 p.m., the TV station reports. They had to tear the roof from the structure to contain the blaze.

The Michigan State Police Fire Marshal will investigate the incident, the report said.

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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. The European Union supports negotiations for the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict without preconditions, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell told the MEPs, reports RIA Novosti.

These are the biggest clashes since 1993-1994. We are very active in this field in recent days. I had an opportunity to talk to the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, called on them to stop the military operations and return to the negotiation table. Our position is clear, we believe that the battles should stop, and the sides should resume the negotiations without any precondition under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group, he stated.

Josep Borrell noted that this conflict cannot have a military solution.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Epazz, Inc.

Epazz DeskFlex Expands to Latin America; Mexico as the Pioneering Country to Adopt Multi-Language Desk Booking Software Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic



07-Oct-2020 / 10:08 CET/CEST





Epazz DeskFlex Expands to Latin America; Mexico as the Pioneering Country to Adopt Multi-Language Desk Booking Software Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

CHICAGO -- Epazz, Inc. DeskFlex (OTC: EPAZ), a provider of mission-critical cloud-computing software solutions and blockchain business solutions, announced today that the DeskFlex desk booking software system is developing multiple language packages to accommodate Latin American companies for their gradual return to the office.

According to Accenture, approximately 80% of executives agree that employees will have to collaborate with other teams and departments and work around projects or services and product lines instead of job roles. More industries are implementing remote work and agile teams as a result of the pandemic. While the physical office may differ, the future of employment is flexible remote working. Several companies implemented a flexible scheme that allows workers to work from home and promote the sharing of office spaces intended for their activities. Employers redesigned their post-pandemic offices to attract and retain talented employees, foster collaboration among workers, and reduce real estate costs. DeskFlex desk hoteling software addresses these concerns in making offices safer for employees to return to the office by alternating team member schedules and limiting bookable workstations.

DeskFlex's meeting room scheduling software pushes forward in making safer offices for returning workers and the development of multi-language software packages to attract new business in Latin America. The new DeskFlex room scheduling software will have Spanish and Portuguese translations as the first development of the many languages. Several companies in Mexico and Spain expressed interest in implementing the DeskFlex room booking software in their organizations. The downloadable DeskFlex mobile applications will also sport a multi-language interface to accommodate more international clients.

DeskFlex's room booking system seeks to achieve reduced incidences of Coronavirus contamination in offices, schools, business establishments, lecture halls, activity areas by upgrading its software systems to meet COVID prevention measures. DeskFlex's COVID-compliant software helps companies screen elevated body temperature and mask-wearing, maintain social distancing with the dynamic scheduling feature, and sanitize the premises with the automatic desk sanitation feature.

According to Shaun Passley, Ph.D., CEO of Epazz, Inc., "We are optimistic in the movement of our products across borders and have quickly added multi-languagues packages to attract companies in Latin American countries."

About DeskFlex.com

DeskFlex is a desk booking solution and room reservation software useful in booking conference rooms, meeting rooms, workspaces, desks, car parking spaces, and office equipment. DeskFlex meeting room scheduling system helps office managers accommodate remote workers' time in the office, reducing rent and facility costs. DeskFlex lets employees reserve desks in advance or claim desks right away. It adjusts the telephone switch (PBX), so calls ring at the "desk du jour." DeskFlex includes check-in, point-and-click floor maps, a web browser, a local kiosk, Outlook integration, and conference room scheduling.

About Epazz, Inc. (www.epazz.com)

Epazz, Inc., is a leading cloud-based software company that specializes in providing customized cloud applications to the corporate world, higher-education institutions, and the public sector. Epazz BoxesOS v3.0 is a complete web-based software package for small- to mid-size businesses, Fortune 500 enterprises, government agencies, and higher education institutions. BoxesOS provides many of the web-based applications organizations would otherwise need to purchase separately. Epazz's other products are K9Sky.com kennel software and the Provitrac applicant tracking system.

SAFE HARBOR

This is the "Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: certain statements contained in this press release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "may," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe," and "continue" (or the negation thereof) or similar terminology. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results or those implied by such forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that no forward-looking statement is a guarantee of future performance and that actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Epazz, Inc. assumes no obligation and has no intention of updating these forward-looking statements. It has no obligation to update or correct information prepared by third parties that are not paid for by Epazz, Inc. Investors are encouraged to review Epazz, Inc.'s public filings on SEC.gov and otcmarkets.com, including its unaudited and audited financial statements and its OTC market filings, which contain general business information about the company's operations, results of operations, and risks associated with the company and its operations.

CONTACT: For more information, please contact

Investor Relations

investors@epazz.net

(312) 955-8161

www.epazz.com

Dissemination of a CORPORATE NEWS, transmitted by EQS Group.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.




Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 04:36:29|Editor: huaxia

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Vehicles line up at a gas station as Hurricane Delta approaches in Cancun, Quintana Roo state, Mexico, on Oct. 6, 2020. Hurricane Delta strengthened into a category 4 tropical cyclone on Tuesday morning as it roared toward the Mexican Caribbean, the National Meteorological Service (SMN) said. Delta is expected to lash the southeast state of Quintana Roo, home to famed tourism resort Cancun, with heavy rains, strong winds and waves of up to 10 meters in height. (Photo by Mauricio Collado/Xinhua)

MEXICO CITY, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- Hurricane Delta strengthened into a category 4 tropical cyclone on Tuesday morning as it roared toward the Mexican Caribbean, the National Meteorological Service (SMN) said.

Delta is expected to lash the southeast state of Quintana Roo, home to famed tourism resort Cancun, with heavy rains, strong winds and waves of up to 10 meters in height.

Delta's wind speed increased at 10 a.m. local time to 215 km per hour, with gusts of 250 km per hour, the agency said, calling it a "dangerous" hurricane.

According to the agency's forecast, Delta could make landfall in Quintana Roo as a category 4 hurricane, on a scale of five, in the early hours of Wednesday morning before crossing into the neighboring state of Yucatan.

Mexico activated a red alert for parts of its Caribbean coast and islands, sparking the evacuation of the Cancun hotel zone and other locations, the National Coordination of Civil Protection said.

Quintana Roo Gov. Carlos Joaquin said airports in Cancun and the island of Cozumel were expected to close Tuesday afternoon. Enditem
Union demonstrations at Kroger stores like the one in Beaumont on Tuesday will continue through the week as the labor group works to thwart changes to the contract that the company has said is necessary to provide pay raises and fix issues union leadership has introduced to the plan.

Kroger employees from across Southeast Texas gathered in front of the Dowlen Road store in Beaumont on Tuesday afternoon to urge public support for the unions contract negotiations with the company.

Their colleagues in Galveston will host a similar demonstration this afternoon as negotiations drag on.

United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 455, which represents 28,000 members in parts of Houston, all of Southeast Texas and parts of Louisiana, has been organizing such demonstrations at stores in its coverage region since late September after union administration told workers that the company was remaining adamant about changes to healthcare.

Labor groups across Krogers markets were already calling for the return of hazard benefits that the company awarded employees in March, such as a $2 pay bump, after the hero bonus was officially taken off the table in June.

The company has reported that it is using some of that windfall to support employees, including more than $830 million for safety and cleaning equipment and several rounds of bonuses. It also has credited the implementation of emergency paid leave since March as tool for reducing risk of infection among employees.

Shirley Rome, secretary treasurer for Local 455, said whatever gains the company has made on emergency leave would be negated by making it harder for associates with the most contact with the public to get health insurance.

She said the union has been concerned about a proposal to increase the weekly hours that an employee has to work during their first year before qualifying for insurance. Raising that level to 27 hours from 20 could remove some of the most vulnerable employees in the store from having access to health care.

Were talking about people that are potentially putting their lives and the lives of their family at risk every time they go to work, which we thought the company recognized when they gave us hero pay, Rome said. I guess we are no longer heroes.

Scott Weber, grievance director for Local 455, said the union is also concerned about the possible removal of union representatives as trustees for the health plan. That, he said, would exclude workers from having a say in decisions about their health care.

In response, Kroger has argued that its proposed changes to the health plan would help stabilize it for the future and ensure the company could implement planned pay increases as outlined in the new contract.

In Krogers offer, the company proposed unspecified pay increases for every associate in the Houston division within the next six months, a $75 million annual investment in health care for hourly associates and a cap on employee insurance contributions of $32 per month for individual coverage and $172 for family plans.

We want to invest $56 million in higher wages and secure, stable and affordable health-care benefits for our associates in Houston, representatives for the company wrote in a statement to the Enterprise. The union wants to mislead our associates in order to protect and maintain a health and welfare trust fund that has experienced financial issues in the past, which included significantly reducing benefits in recent years.

The company has published parts of its proposals and criticism of the unions tactics at the Houston divisions website, krogerhoustoncba.com.

Rosalie Lowe, a lead at the floral department at the Kroger store in Orange, said the end of hazard pay and fear about changes to health plans have hurt morale among workers who interact with the public every day during the pandemic.

We feel kind of betrayed, she said. I used to love to go to work. Now, I cant look forward to it knowing what we mean to the company.

After Kroger reported in June that it had a 19.1% growth in sales in the first fiscal quarter of the year, due in part to a more than 90% increase in digital sales, Lowe said employees can only assume that the company is going forward with changes for additional profit.

Other competing grocery chains like HEB have decided to make their hazard pay raises permanent.

jacob.dick@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/jd_journalism
Record-High Unemployment

Great Recession Exemptions

(TNS)  As desperate Californians sought help with unemployment insurance claims over the summer, hundreds of employees who could fix their problems were missing work under a state-imposed leave program, according to payroll data.Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature instituted a furlough-like leave program for all state civil service employees in July to help address a projected $54 billion deficit caused by the coronavirus outbreak. The leave program generally reduces workers pay in exchange for two days off per month.The furloughs hit the Employment Development Department as its workforce, facing a historic number of unemployment claims, was already hobbled by inadequate technology and staffing missteps. The department during the pandemic accumulated a backlog of more than 1.6 million unemployment claims this year that it does not expect to work through until January.In July, 684 employees who solve complex claims problems  the kind that created the backlog  took a combined 1,078 unpaid days off under the program, according to data provided by the State Controllers Office. In August, 860 employees used 1,538 leave days, according to the data. Meanwhile, the department has been shelling out millions of dollars every month in overtime. In July and August, the department paid employment programs representatives $7.9 million for 204,000 hours of overtime, the equivalent of about 25,500 days, according to Controllers Office data.Had they not taken days off through the leave program, workers could have processed up to about 62,000 more claims over those two months, according to an analysis bybased on a strike team finding that experienced employees can process 24 claims per day.The figure represents an upper-end scenario, since not all employees are experienced. Septembers numbers arent yet available.The number of potentially affected claims, while relatively small compared to the departments backlog, spotlights a question about Newsoms approach to furloughs: Why apply them uniformly across the states 230,000 workers, rather than selectively?The Governors Office didnt respond to that question from. Employment Development Department spokeswoman Loree Levy said the leave program has not had a negative impact on EDD front line staffs productivity. Many of the (unemployment insurance) program team have worked overtime to help address the historic claim load and implement program enhancements.Ten years ago, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger exempted the Employment Development Department from his furloughs in a similar crisis as the department racked up overtime during the Great Recession.The department has had to process far more claims this time around, yet its employees face many of the same hurdles, including furloughs.As the state looks at its staffing, it wants to make sure that it prioritizes the Californians who are most vulnerable in all this, said Mike Shires, an associate professor of public policy at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. And certainly that unemployed population is one we should be paying a lot of attention to.The Employment Development Department processed about seven times as many unemployment insurance claims in the first two months of the pandemic, when unemployment reached a record high 15.5 percent, than it did during two months at the height of the Great Recession, according to May news releases.By July 4, the department had processed about 7.4 million claims, including Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims from people who are self-employed or independent contractors.The departments outdated technology systems can process about 60 percent of claims automatically, but the rest require attention from employees who must fix problems with missing or wrong information, including discrepancies that could indicate fraud, according to the strike teams report.From July 4 to Sept. 5, with the furlough program in effect, it processed another 4.3 million of the same types of claims, according to department data. Roughly 1.7 million of those would have required attention from employees based on the figures in the report.The department has been rapidly hiring new employees to try to manage the load.The employees who process complex claims are called employment programs representatives. In early 2018, the department employed about 1,800 of them. By the end of August this year, it employed twice that number.The strike team didnt specify whether other classifications of workers also process claims, and the department didnt respond to a question fromabout whether other workers help process claims.Based on the strike teams report, the department paused new claims two weeks ago to work down the backlog. The department was scheduled to resume new claim processing Monday with a new software program called ID.me. Officials expect the program to increase automatic claims processing to 91 percent from the current 60 percent. If it works, it will reduce the burden on employees to manually process claims.When Schwarzenegger first imposed furloughs in February 2009, he exempted only California Highway Patrol officers. He soon added Cal Fire, whose employees work unusual schedules and a lot of overtime.He vetoed a proposal from Democrats in the Legislature to exempt departments that get at least 95 percent of their revenue from sources other than the general fund. During the recession, the state borrowed from those funds.But in July 2010, he issued a furlough order exempting the EDD along with the State Compensation Insurance Fund, the California Housing Finance Authority and the California Earthquake Authority.Newsom announced the personal leave program in May, saying no one would be exempt, himself and his staff included. The program is projected to save about $2.4 billion per year for two years, according to the Legislative Analysts Office.Unlike under Schwarzeneggers furlough Fridays, current state workers may bank their leave days for the future under various terms.Agreements with the state scientists and engineers, for example, temporarily expand leave banks to let workers hang on to personal leave days longer than state rules normally allow.The states agreement with SEIU Local 1000, the union representing Employment Development Department workers, doesnt offer expanded leave banks. It says the following:Employees will be given maximum discretion to use (personal leave program) 2020 subject to severe operational considerations. However, whenever feasible, PLP 2020 should be used in the pay period it was earned, the unions agreement says.Local 1000 spokesman Brian Nash declined comment.If Newsom were to exempt EDD today, other groups would surely line up for exemptions of their own.After he announced plans to cut state pay in May, the firefighters union argued its members should once again be exempt. State firefighters are working weeks on end, sleeping on the ground between shifts battling deadly wildfires at reduced pay.Thousands of prison workers have contracted coronavirus at work while subject to pay reductions. Department of Motor Vehicles employees work in offices that serve steady streams of customers as the virus continues to spread. Many departments bring in revenue for the state.I think you have to look at where you need resources and make sure you have the resources there, Shires said. And those unemployment benefits are the difference between people paying their rent and eating, and not. I would think that would be a high-priority area, up there with health care and public safety.
With travel demand down 70% from 2019 levels, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said the airline could only avoid furloughs and layoffs if union workers agree to pay cuts. Mike Stewart/AP

Southwest Airlines said it can avoid furloughs through at least 2021, but only if workers agree to pay cuts.

Southwest has never furloughed or laid off employees, but has said that without a quick return of travel demand or an extension of government assistance, job cuts might be inevitable.

The airline has managed to avoid furloughs so far this year. American Airlines and United began to furlough about 32,000 workers last week.

Travel demand is down about 70% from 2019 levels, and has remained stagnant since early summer.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Southwest Airlines is asking the company's pilots, flight attendants, and other frontline workers to accept pay cuts  a first for the airline  in order to avoid the furloughs that have hit employees of other airlines around the world.

More than 32,000 workers are being furloughed at rivals American Airlines and United Airlines, along with a number of smaller carriers. Delta has managed to mostly avoid furloughs, after large numbers of employees took voluntary buyouts or unpaid leaves, but says it still expects to cut 1,900 pilot jobs on November 1.

Southwest CEO Gary Kelly has previously said that his airline could avoid furloughs through at least the end of 2020.

However, with travel demand down 70% from 2019 levels, a recovery largely stalled, and an extension of airline payroll support relief looking increasingly unlikely, Kelly said on Tuesday that the airline could only avoid furloughs and layoffs through 2021 if union workers agree to pay cuts, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal first reported.

Airlines had been prohibited from cutting jobs until October 1 under terms of the $25 billion payroll support program under the CARES Act.

If unions agree to pay cuts and then Congress passes a payroll support extension passes, the pay cuts would be reversed, Kelly said.

The airline is hoping to reach an agreement quickly, Reuters reported. "We simply don't have time for long, drawn-out, complex negotiations," Kelly said.

Story continues

Unions have typically been hesitant to give concessions, and groups representing Southwest's pilots and flight attendants expressed skepticism, the Journal reported.

Employees who are furloughed from airlines are given the option to return before the airline hires outside workers. But with airlines and trade organizations expecting demand to remain depressed until 2024, it could be a long time before those jobs return.

Read the original article on Business Insider
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December 15, 2018. My coworker is moving to California. Shes a statistician for a group of pulmonary and critical care physicians at our New York City hospital, and Im a statistician whos trying not to do too many things wrong, only three months into my first job out of school. I think youd be good with this research team, she tells me. Theres some really interesting studies on lung diseases. I nod, because thats what you do when youve been at your job for three months.

I take over her projects and start learning organ failure scoring systems, criteria for acute respiratory distress syndrome, and the differences between invasive and non-invasive mechanical ventilation. My close friend does cutting-edge cancer statistics, and I feel a bit resentful. Nobody ever wants to hear about the controversial definitions of sepsis at family parties.

As the months pass by, I slowly build my mental encyclopedia and begin to embrace my role as a pulmonary and critical care biostatistician.

March 5th, 2020. A full year and three months later, I wake up very sick. It is the kind of sick where you cant do anything but curl up on your bathroom floor and let being sick consume you. Too sick to read, too sick to sleep. I spike a fever and can hardly move for two days before I hobble to the doctors office and nearly faint mid-exam. The doctor insists I stay until I drink an entire bottle of water. Is there anyone to check on you at home? he asks, concerned. No, no, Ill be fine.

By the end of the week, my fever breaks, and Im back to work. Its early March, so Coronavirus?! is everyones first question. Theyre all joking, except the pulmonologists I work with. Nothing respiratory, I assure them. One isnt convinced. Some young people are getting silent hypoxia. It is possible to have COVID-19 with no respiratory symptoms at all, she tells me. Months later, Ill read that as the headline of various news articles, but the time, no testing is available to me.

March 17, 2020. Barely two weeks pass before the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases explode in New York City. Restaurants are instructed to close the day before Saint Patricks Day, my birthday. I cant meet up with my friends anymore, so I cook macaroni and cheese and run to Central Park to watch the sun set behind skyscrapers. My grandparents call me, and they make Happy Birthday sound like a hymn from a Catholic mass, and I laugh, and it is the only part of my day that feels like every other birthday.

While Im leaving the park, my mom texts me that she hopes I had a good day. Any other year it would be strange for her to nearly miss my birthday, but this year she is working long hours. Shes a nursing director back in Michigan, and her hospital is already preparing for their own impending COVID-19 outbreak. The preparations will not be in vain.

As I jog home, I pass a sign asking former health care workers to volunteer to take care of NYC COVID-19 patients. Before I began my career in biostatistics, I worked at a hospital caring for acutely ill patients, so I sign up without hesitation. My misguided logic is that the exploding numbers of COVID-19 cases will make my critical care collaborators too busy to pursue their research, and this seems like the best way for me to help as the world descends into chaos. While I fill out the online contact form, I wonder what it will feel like to take care of patients again. I look up YouTube videos to refresh myself on drawing blood and inserting IVs.

How absolutely crazy that I thought my biostatistics training wouldnt be useful, in retrospect.

March 22, 2020. Im a pulmonary and critical care teams statistician, so naturally, I am one of the first analysts at my hospital pulled into COVID-19 work. It starts with a text on a Sunday  the first of many  from a pulmonologist. Do we have a data dictionary for our ICU database, Kat? Our informatics team is using the structure of the ICU database I work with as part of a COVID-19 tracking repository for our entire hospital. Within days, I am told to drop all of my other research projects for COVID-19 work.

The first request for me is straightforward: summarize the laboratory results from our first 300 COVID-19 patients. 300 patients at our hospital! Thats insane, I think to myself. It seems only a week ago the news reports said there were 300 people in the entire city with COVID-19. I begin working through issues linking the databases, identifying missing information, and explaining critical care jargon to other analysts. Each morning I pull new data and watch the files grow exponentially larger.

There are countless questions flooding in from all over the hospital. Most of them revolve around who will get intubated, and when? My hospital, like so many other hospitals in NYC, is on track to run out of ventilators soon. My attendance becomes mandatory at multiple risk prediction meetings each week. I find myself in charge of extensive data cleaning and then writing code for models to answer vague and terrifying questions: we need to figure out which patients will crash, who can be transferred, and, if we run out of ventilators, who has the best chance to survive.

I am a junior researcher, previously unconcerned with hospital operations, suddenly confronted with the task of providing rapid answers for potentially immediate decision making. I accept my new role with the utmost seriousness. My days, normally spent coding with double monitors at a proper desk, suddenly fill with Zoom meetings from 8:30-5:00 from a laptop at my kitchen table. Each night after the meetings end, I take advantage of the relative quiet to code into the early hours of the morning.

For several weeks I use the long, uninterrupted hours of weekends to work, waking up with the sun and continuing on until at least 11pm, with few breaks in between. On some nights, I send my mom good morning texts at 5 a.m. Are you waking up early or have you not slept yet? is always her first question. The next is, No fever? No cough? She is worried about me, living in the international epicenter, but Im just as worried about her, working at a hospital every day. She informs me that my dad is sleeping in my old bedroom in case she brings the virus home.

Hospitals around the city begin to call me, wanting to know if I can still help care for COVID-19 patients as a former health care worker. I want to, but I cant. Im so sorry; Im helping with COVID data now. It sounds and feels inconsequential.

April 4, 2020. My best friend and her sister are also nurses in Michigan. I FaceTime her to check in. She and her sisters units have become hot floors: every room is filled with a COVID-19 patient. They were living with their parents, another sister, uncle, and cousins, but both have moved to an Airbnb for the foreseeable future. Its so crazy here, Kitty, she tells me in a defeated voice. At the time, Michigans case trajectory is second only to New Yorks.

One of her nursing friends has been hospitalized with COVID-19 and is on 6 Liters of oxygen. I cant help but think about the prediction models Ive been working on. I mentally run his characteristics through them. I know what my models would estimate his probability of intubation to be.

I listen to her talk about the N-95 masks theyve been given. Remember how they used to say those were one-time use? she asks me. I do. They started telling us they were good for the whole day, and then they said theyd be good for the whole week, and now theyre saying we might have to start sharing. I wonder what data analyst, perhaps just like me, is crunching those numbers and feeding the information to hospital administration. The virus is so terrible. Ive never done so much post-mortem care, zipped so many body bags Her voice drifts off.

I feel guilty, on the sidelines. I see the raccoon eyes  the only part of their faces visible between hair caps and procedure masks  of the physicians I spend all day hopping on and off meetings with, and I desperately want to help. I cannot hold the hand of a COVID-19 patient, but I have all their data at my keystrokes: millions of lab results, vital signs, and procedure codes. I see their inflammatory cytokines spike; I watch their oxygen levels plummet, I can tell you which organs are failing, whos on which experimental drug, and whos just been made Do Not Intubate and Do Not Resuscitate. I follow in horror, almost in real-time, the time-stamps of admission, intubation, death. I cannot compare this experience to physically caring for COVID-19 patients, but I feel haunted by it all the same.

I hole up in my tiny studio in Manhattan for days at a time, listening to the wails of ambulances and pings of messages from my computer. I see only one friend with any frequency; we both live alone, 18 blocks from each other. She texts me often, asking to meet in Central Park. She suspects I am not doing well, and she is right. I walk with her all over the Upper East Side a few times a week, each of us donned in our black cotton masks. We try not to talk about COVID-19, but its hard to avoid when our walks take us past the pop-up ICU tents and refrigerated trucks that stretch entire blocks  the overflow morgues for NYCs dead.

We try to time our walks so that were outside at 7 p.m, when the city unites to cheer for health care workers. If Im not out walking with her, I climb religiously onto my fire escape every night to clap. Sometimes a man in the apartment across the street sings Sinatra. I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps  New York, New York! Ive only lived here two years, but I miss the city that never sleeps so badly that it hurts.

Life continues in this way for me, with no real sense of time or distinguishing events, from mid-March until early May.

May 10, 2020. It is Mothers Day, and my 50th straight day of working with COVID-19 data. At 11 p.m., my cell phone goes off. It is an ominous vibration against my kitchen table, where I am perpetually sitting with my laptop whirring. Hi Honey  I just wanted to let you know that, mmm its my mom, and her voice is cracking. I finish the sentence for her, Aunt Peggy died? I ask, sadly. Yes. OK. Thanks for letting me know. I stare into the white brick wall in front of my kitchen table for so long that I start seeing multicolored spots.

My grandfathers eldest sister, my Aunt Peggy, had begun showing telltale symptoms of COVID-19 and tested positive only a few days previously. Shed been without any visitors in her assisted living home for months due to isolation restrictions. She was royalty in our family; the red-lipsticked, always fashionably late, prized guest at every family party. She had an unforgettable, incredibly sweet voice, and I can still hear her words to me last Christmas. Hows New York, Katherine? Im so proud of you. She was the first nurse in my family, and she influenced my mom to become a nurse, who influenced me to pursue medical research. The matriarch of our family left us on Mothers Day.

I spend the night trying to find a rental car company that will allow me to drive one-way from New York to Michigan. It cant be done; I am several weeks too late in my exodus from the city. I book a flight instead and leave a few days later on a near-empty plane to spend time with my family. I plan to stay in Michigan for two weeks, but I dont leave for two months.

September 20, 2020. The leaves I watched bud in Central Park during my walks this spring are changing to red and gold. As I write this, I think of countless other ways I could attempt to explain what my tiny corner of the world was like during NYCs outbreak. Most are too personal to ever record. At the same time, it is difficult to share even the memories I have, partially because I know they are incomparable to the frontline workers who risked their lives every day.

My experiences living and working in Manhattan during March, April, and May will stick with me forever. I hope there comes a day that I can meet in real life  mask free  all the analysts, hospital administrators, physicians, residents, fellows, medical students, and data engineers I conversed with so frequently during the height of the outbreak. At the same time, I hope we never have to work together again. It is a wish that I fear will not come true.

Just this past week, I attended a meeting with our Informatics team. Its good to see everyone, someone said. Its only half true; the circumstances that bring us to meetings together are never good. We discussed data structures for a possible second wave of COVID-19 in NYC as schools and indoor dining reopen. After the call, I felt an immense sadness, despite being in a much better place than when I left the city in May.

At the bottom of my heart, I dont know if I can handle another round of it all. Can you?

Katherine Hoffman is a biostatistician.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
The biggest name in satellite radio is close to an even bigger contract.

Shock jock and king of all media Howard Stern is reportedly close to a new contract with Sirius XM Satellite Radio that would pay him nearly $120 million per year, Bloomberg reports.

Sterns contract expires at the end of the year, and he has reportedly been negotiating his new contract for most of the year. He has previously signed five-year deals that ranged from $80 to $100 million a year.

The 66-year-old radio personality rose to fame with The Howard Stern Show, which was syndicated on radio from 1986 to 2005 before he signed with Sirius XM in 2006. Hes also racked up massive fines  the FCC has fined him more than $2.5 million for what was considered indecent content. New Jersey native comedian Artie Lange was on the show from 2001 to 2009.

I can tell you that we understand the economics very, very well, for instance, of content like Howard Stern, Sirius CEO Jim Meyer reportedly said at a Goldman Sachs conference. I can look every investor in the eye and tell them that is a good investment for Sirius XM.

Sirius stock had been down as much as 22% this year, but climbed 7% upon news that Sterns new deal was close. There was some thought in the industry that Stern could leave Sirius for Spotify, a music service with a massive podcasting network. But Bloomberg reports talks with Stern and Spotify never went far.

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Jeremy Schneider may be reached at jschneider@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
Chauvin, 44, was the last of the four former Minneapolis police officers charged in Floyds killing to be released from jail as the court case is pending. A 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department before he was fired in May, Chauvin is facing second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in Floyds death. Three other officers on the scene  J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas K. Lane and Tou Thao  are charged with aiding and abetting.
Updated: 10am

Major traffic congestion is expected nationwide today as gardai set up checkpoints to encourage public compliance with new Level 3 restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19.

More than 2,500 Garda members are set to be deployed as part of a policing surge across the Republic, according to the Irish Times.

Long tailbacks of eight kilometres are being reported on some commuter routes in and out of Dublin this morning, as checkpoints are causing significant delays in parts of the country.

An Garda Siochana has re-commenced Operation Fanacht as a nationwide policing operation focused on supporting public compliance with public health measures.



People are being encouraged not to travel out of their county unless for essential reasons.#HoldFirm #WashYourHands pic.twitter.com/fL5yJ8pa78  An Garda Siochana (@GardaTraffic) October 7, 2020

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Gardai have said they expect that traffic congestion, especially on the approaches to Dublin and within the city and county, will be very heavy.

Gardai are hopeful the delays would prove so long that they would discourage people leaving their home county and encourage them to work from home.

AA Director of Consumer Affairs Conor Faughnan said there is degree of ambiguity about what is classed as "essential" travel: "It's pretty obvious if you're going to work, that counts as essential, but what if you're crossing county boundaries for some other purpose, does visiting an elderly relative count if that elderly relative has needs of some sort."

Deputy Commissioner John Twomey was out this morning visiting Gardai deployed at checkpoints on the N11 in support of #OperationFanacht. pic.twitter.com/3g7gNuORG0  An Garda Siochana (@GardaTraffic) October 7, 2020

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris warned yesterday that travelling around the country would feel very different from tomorrow.

You only have to look what happens on any motorway when it goes from two or three lanes into one. Its inevitable there will be delays, Mr Harris said of checkpoints that would see traffic funnelled into one lane on motorways and other arterial routes nationwide.

Locations

The garda super checkpoints around the country will involve 132 large-scale checkpoints on main arterial routes which are set to remain in place on a more permanent basis while Level 3 restrictions are in place.

There will be thousands of additional mobile checkpoints on secondary routes in towns and villages a week" along with the static checkpoints.

The checkpoints come as part of Operation Fanacht, which came into force at midnight across the country in order to support compliance with the new restrictions under the Governments Living with Covid-19 plan.

Gardai will not have enforcement powers, however, if compliance becomes a problem they will be requested.
Ocean Countys recent surge in coronavirus cases may be setting off alarm bells, but COVID-19 is on the rise across most of New Jersey.

Since Sept. 1, the rate of infection in the state has doubled to nearly 8 cases per 100,000 people, based on a rolling seven-day average. The increase has been uneven on the county level, with one county Cumberland  seeing a decline in that time and others doubling or even tripling their infection rates.

While this virus clearly remains a threat statewide, we continue to keep our eye on key counties and localities where there are current outbreaks and elevated numbers, Gov. Phil Murphy said at a Monday afternoon news conference.
Australia is still working on how to deliver more support for countries in Asia to recover from the coronavirus pandemic amid growing concerns from aid groups that Australia has diverted funds from other countries to pay for its Pacific "step-up".

The Morrison government committed $304.7 million in new funding over two years for Pacific Island countries and Timor-Leste in Tuesday's budget, but it will not technically count as foreign aid.

Australia has committed $304.7 million in new money for the Pacific and Timor-Leste. Credit:Richard Vogel

This is because the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is not yet sure whether the programs funded under the two-year initiative can be classified as overseas development assistance.

Aid groups have welcomed the new fund for Pacific Island countries and Timor-Leste to recover from COVID-19, but are concerned countries in southeast Asia and west Asia are still missing out.
The Brazilian military provided medical care to the coronavirus-hit Guajajara tribe, Amazon's 'guardians of the forest', amid criticism that Brazil was not protecting vulnerable indigenous people from the pandemic.A woman from the Guajajara indigenous ethnic group is carried before a member of the Brazilian Armed Forces medical team examines her, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at a community school in the indigenous village of Morro Branco in the municipality of Grajau, state of Maranhao, Brazil. (Image: Reuters)
After postponing three examinations within a week for students of the distance education wing of the University of Mumbai, the Institute of Distance and Open Learning (IDOL) on Wednesday announced postponement of all IDOL exams. The rescheduled exams will now commence from October 19, but the timetable for the same will be released later.

This announcement comes a day after around 9,000 third-year BCom and third-year BA students could not attempt their paper on Tuesday due to technical glitches. Many students complained of not being able to log in to the link on the examination application prescribed to students by the university. In a statement on Tuesday, the university blamed the errors on a cyberattack on the examination software.

In a meeting of the board of examination (BoE) on Wednesday, it was decided to clarify all queries raised by students and ensure no technical errors affect exams henceforth. Therefore, all exams will be conducted starting October 19, said the statement released by IDOL on Wednesday. However, theres no clarity on the status of re-examination for students who managed to attempt their paper on Saturday (October 3).

Due to Covid-19 pandemic, this year all final-year exams are being conducted online. IDOL exams commenced on October 3. On the first day, several students complained about not being able to attempt the one-hour paper due to server issues, following which, the university announced a re-exam for the paper at a later date. The same problem cropped up the next day as well, following which, thousands of students gathered at the IDOL office at the universitys Kalina campus.

The examination software company is currently working on all queries raised by students, and we want to make sure that such problems dont crop up in the future. New exam dates will be announced soon, said a spokesperson for the university.

While the university is still unclear on what is causing the technical glitches, members of the Maharashtra Navnirman Vidyarthi Sena (MNVS) demanded that the university terminate services of the software company, LittleMORE Innovation Labs, which was hired to conduct exams this year. All exams should be cancelled till the software company is able to conduct exams for students in large numbers. Students dont need more anxiety than they are already facing, said Santosh Gangurde, state vice-president of MNVS.

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What if Donald Trump is really bad at politics?

I know, I know  I'm probably just getting cocky and foolishly allowing my judgment to be clouded by some outlier polls and my intense desire to see the president suffer a humiliating loss next month. After all, isn't Trump the political savant who launched a successful hostile takeover of the Republican Party and then managed to defy the conventional wisdom by beating Hillary Clinton? Those events from four years ago have left Democrats struggling with political PTSD, doubting themselves and fearing surprise defeats around every corner, and Republicans equally inclined to believe in their own invincibility.

But what if the truth is that Trump is only good at gauging what a certain angry, grievance-driven segment of Republican voters want to hear? And especially good at running a down-market populist general election campaign against a widely disliked former first lady who had never won a competitive election, who gave off an air of entitlement, and who was seeking the presidency while under investigation by the FBI?

And even then, he only managed to win 46 percent of the national popular vote.

We've seen the charts of Trump's approval ratings for so long that we've lost the capacity to be shocked by them. It took a grand total of 15 days  from Jan. 20 until Feb. 3, 2017  for the number of people disapproving of the president's performance to outnumber those who approved. Since then, there hasn't been a single day when that dynamic has reversed. Since March 16, 2017, Trump's disapproval rating has (barely) sunk below 50 percent for just two weeks, in late March and early April of 2020, when the president briefly seemed to be responding to the COVID-19 pandemic with the seriousness it demanded. That response faded quickly, and so did his modest uptick in the polls. Before long he was back 10 or more points under water, which is where he is now, with less than a month to go until Election Day.

Story continues

But let's leave all that aside to ponder with a modicum of perspective the colossal train wreck of the past week.

First came the most horrifying general election debate in history  one in which Joe Biden easily disproved the Trump campaign's core messages, that the Democratic nominee is a doddering old man in the depths of dementia and that he's bound to govern from the far left, while the president himself came off as radioactively dislikable.

Then we got Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis along with a growing list of prominent Republican office-holders, administration staffers, and members of the White House press corps who appeared to contract the virus while attending events where participants were actively discouraged from wearing masks. To this day, it's not entirely clear when Trump first received a positive test result, and whether he traveled (maskless) to a campaign rally in Minnesota last Wednesday and to a fundraiser in New Jersey the next day when he knew he was sick.

Then came the travesty of the president's three-day trip to Walter Reed Medical Center  where Trump's doctors told the public one thing about his condition while the White House chief of staff said another, where Trump posed for dishonest photographs showing him hard at work, and where he put members of the Secret Service in harm's way so he could go on a brief campaign swing in an SUV.

This was followed on Monday by a tweet in which Trump announced he would soon be discharged from the hospital and commanded his countrymen, "Don't be afraid of Covid." This about an illness that has so far killed more than 215,000 Americans, and from a man who regularly counsels fear of Biden, liberals, Democrats, socialism, antifa, cities, Muslims, and migrant caravans. That he also bragged about how, as president, he has received "some really great drugs" that have left him feeling "better than I did 20 years ago" only underscored how insulated he is from nearly everyone else's experience of the virus.

Within a few hours, Trump would drop a short video of himself repeatedly insisting that Americans shouldn't let the virus "dominate" them, arrive back at the White House by helicopter, and stage a dramatic removal of his face mask on the Truman Balcony (punctuated by him visibly gasping for breath), before turning to enter the building, where a staff of dozens would be tasked with caring for the most likely still highly contagious commander in chief.

It was a singularly appalling performance  though one fully in keeping with Trump's presidency, which from the beginning has been a charade, with a man who's pretending to be more successful than he really is playing the part of a populist while enacting policies to enrich the wealthiest Americans and leaving the rest of the country to fend for themselves. As long as the economic growth that began under Barack Obama continued through the first three years of the Trump administration, this reality was easy to obscure. But now, with the economy in the doldrums, more than 200,000 dead, and the president himself ailing, Trump's efforts to pretend everything is perfectly fine have become as grating and galling as they are disturbing.

When the administration of George W. Bush was floundering in Iraq, its defenders took to accusing the media of focusing exclusively on bad news. This led some critics to respond that the actual problem was that reality has a liberal bias. That went too far into easy self-congratulation, but it wasn't wholly wrong. The Bush administration was the one attempting to spin the press by hyping meager signs of progress against a rapidly expanding insurgency, while journalists were merely reporting confounding facts and events that the administration preferred the public not to hear.

Those were the good old days of Republican transparency and competence.

There is one thing that the American people know about Joe Biden. He, like them, is capable of perceiving and responding to the hard, wrenching reality of life in 2020. About Donald Trump, they know no such thing. And with ample and ever-increasing justification.

No wonder Trump looks to be headed toward a massive electoral repudiation.

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The myth of Mike Pence's appeal

Is Joe Biden the Konrad Adenauer of the U.S.?


On the eighth day of Bailey Boswell's trial, talk turned to witchcraft, at times sounding more like a screenplay than a real-life description of a couple later charged for killing and dismembering a young Lincoln woman in a small town in Nebraska.

Ashley Hills, the first of three women expected to testify about how Boswell and Aubrey Trail lived, took the stand Wednesday in Lexington, telling the jury how Trail, who claimed to be a vampire, and Boswell, his "queen," casually spoke  in their basement apartment in Wilber or in their car  of killing and torturing and witchcraft.

Prosecutors say, however fantastical the talk, it resulted in the real killing of 24-year-old Sydney Loofe, who disappeared after a date with Boswell on Nov. 15, 2017, and later was found dismembered in rural Clay County.

Boswell is on trial for her murder. Another jury convicted Trail last year.

Hills said Wednesday she never met Loofe but in June or July of that year had met Boswell on the dating app Tinder, where Boswell said her name was Jenna, and quickly said she had a sugar daddy who would pay for Hills, too.

But she had to meet him first.

Hills said Trail picked her up and took her to Wilber and showed her pictures of about a dozen women, some dressed and some not.

He later told her he was a vampire and they were his witches and that she could be his 13th, if she killed someone.

The first time she met Trail and, two hours later, Boswell, she was given $200 and told it was her weekly allowance.

"For doing what?" asked prosecutor Sandra Allen.

Nothing, Hills answered.

Hills said Boswell told her the rules within the first week and punishment if she didn't obey. If she joined them, she couldn't talk to other men, she had to ask for everything and she had to check in with Trail every three hours.

"There was a rule we were supposed to be naked when we were in the house," she said, but they didn't make her follow it.

"Were there conversations about witchcraft?" Allen asked.

Over a defense objection the judge overruled, Hills said yes.

She said Trail told her he was in control of everything, that he was a vampire and could fly. Boswell was a witch healer, the "queen" of his coven.

"To get your power, you would have to breathe in someone's last breath," Hills said.

She said she believed them.

"I think my mind got caught up in the what-ifs of life," Hills said.

"Do you believe it today?" Allen asked her.

"No," she said.

Boswell's attorney, Todd Lancaster, made repeated objections about questions regarding witchcraft and what Hills said Trail told her, calling it hearsay.

District Judge Vicky Johnson allowed the questions but cautioned the jury it was for the sole purpose of determining motive or intent.

Hills said she talked with Boswell about what type of person she should kill to join the group, whether it should be someone she was attracted to or not. "And that after the first one, I would have to find my own people to kill."

She said Boswell appeared "joyful" while talking about ways she wanted to torture people and describing how she would do it.

"She would giggle, and her eyes would light up almost," Hills told the jury.

But she said Trail punished Boswell, too, whipping her if she didn't follow his rules.

Hills said she went grocery shopping at the Beatrice Walmart one day with Trail and Boswell, where they met with a woman. Hills said she was asked afterward if she wanted the woman to be her first kill to become a witch and get her powers.

She said yes, but she didn't go through with it.

Hills said she heard later that the woman had a family emergency in California. And Hills eventually left the group, after having a panic attack in a dressing room of the Lincoln T.J. Maxx.

"I can't say for sure what snapped me back into reality," she said.

On cross examination, Lancaster focused on all the things Hills said Trail had told her, such as how he was a vampire and how witches could travel outside of their bodies and how she would get her own "kill bag," all things Trail told her, not Boswell.

Hills said Trail also had told her they looked for victims who were sex abusers or child molesters. But then, she said, they targeted people such as the woman in Walmart and Ana, one of the members of their group, who he didn't think was "evil enough."

"So Mr. Trail was just kind of making up stuff about who was getting picked out?" Lancaster asked her.

"I guess you could say that, yes," Hills answered.

She said for the most part she believed what Trail said. Asked if she thought Trail was in touch with reality, Hills said: "At the time, I thought he was a very sane, fine man."

Then Lancaster asked Hills what she thought of Trail now.

"I think he's a psychopath," she said. "I think he's a con artist."

Photos from Aubrey Trail's trial

Reach the writer at 402-473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSpilger.

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NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- RapidSOS, Responder Corp, Orleans Parish Communication District, and Western Fire Chiefs Association were awarded the $1 million Accelerate R2 Network Challenge grant funded by the Economic Development Administration (EDA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), with subject matter expertise from the First Responder Network (FirstNet) Authority.

Together, along with the State of New Hampshire serving as a key strategic partner and collaborator, these partners will form a national, free-to-use, and self-sustaining platform that brings stakeholders together for a common goal: to support innovators and agencies in empowering first responders with the tools and technologies they need to stay safe and protect our communities.

"With the COVID-19 pandemic consistently generating new and unique demands from our citizenry, strengthening intelligence and response innovation is as critical as ever," said Tyrell Morris, Executive Director of Orleans Parish Communication District. "We are excited to participate as the 9-1-1 agency representative in the R2 Network, providing insights into challenges agencies are facing across the country."

The R2 Network will consist of a three-part approach:

R2 Learn : Resources to educate entrepreneurs and public safety departments on the unique challenges and opportunities of the public safety markets.

: Resources to educate entrepreneurs and public safety departments on the unique challenges and opportunities of the public safety markets. R2 Portal : An online solution innovators and departments can use to source, vet and commercialize or deploy new technology.

: An online solution innovators and departments can use to source, vet and commercialize or deploy new technology. R2 Connect: Programming and events to create strategic exchange and enable the community to share, learn and adopt best practices and new technology.

Michael Martin, CEO of RapidSOS said, "Thanks to the endless support and feedback of public safety, RapidSOS now links 350M+ devices to 4,800+ public safety agencies -- providing critical data in over 250 million emergencies annually. We're excited to partner with these innovators in tech and public safety to develop a first-of-its-kind network to help other entrepreneurs develop solutions that will enhance our nation's emergency response systems."

Nathanial Wish, CEO of Responder Corp said, "By bridging the gap between innovators and first responders, the R2 Network will help ensure public safety has the right technology to solve ever growing needs. Our team is committed to building the long-needed resources we believe will accelerate the speed at which technology can help build more responsive and resilient communities.

Chief Jeff Johnson, CEO at Western Fire Chiefs Association said "Technology has not caught up with the needs of public safety. The technology pieces are there, but they are just not assembled, built for, and aligned in a way that is useful for first responders. We are excited to work with our R2 Network partners to solve for this."

The public-private partnership will match the grant, representing a total $2 million contribution to drive entrepreneurship and development of public safety technology. Interested public safety agencies and entrepreneurs can learn more and sign up for updates at r2network.com .

To learn more about the R2 Network, join the team for a live webinar on Tuesday, November 10th at 1 pm ET. Register for free here .

About RapidSOS

In partnership with public safety, RapidSOS has created the world's first emergency response data platform that securely links life-saving data from 350M+ connected devices directly to 911 and first responders. Through the platform, RapidSOS provides intelligent data that supports over 4,800 Emergency Communications Centers, protecting 90%+ of people in the US, across 250 million emergencies annually. Together with innovative companies certified as RapidSOS Ready, RapidSOS is supporting the nation's heroic first responders in saving millions of lives annually. To learn more about our technology that's protecting lives, visit www.rapidsos.com.

About Responder Corp

Responder Corp supports innovation in public safety through investment and accelerator programs. At Responder Ventures we invest in life-saving technology. At Responder Labs we partner with corporations and government agencies to deliver accelerator programs. We help build technology emergency responders and frontline workers need to keep themselves, and our communities, safe. Learn more at www.respondercorp.com and join our growing network at www.responderportal.com .

About Orleans Parish Communication District ( www.OPCDLA.gov )

Formed in 1982, the Orleans Parish Communication District is the PSAP for all emergency communications via 9-1-1, and non-emergency communications via 3-1-1, within Orleans Parish. The agency employs 180 individuals and provides emergency medical dispatch, emergency fire dispatch, and emergency police dispatch for the millions of annual visitors and residents of the City of New Orleans. OPCD is a member of the Association of Public Safety Communication Officials (APCO) and the National Emergency Number Association (NENA).

The Mission of OPCD is to get the Right People to the Right Place at the Right Time, Better than Anybody Else in the World.

About the Western Fire Chiefs Association

The Western Fire Chiefs Association serves as a representative for leaders of fire-related emergency service organizations throughout the WFCA member states and the Western Pacific Islands. WFCA develops and supports those leaders in order that they may best provide for the protection of people and the environment from the occurrence and outcomes of fires and other natural, technological and human-behavior-caused emergencies. Find out more about WFCA at wfca.com

Press Contact

Michelle Cahn

[email protected]

347-879-0024

SOURCE RapidSOS

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http://www.rapidsos.com


An individual deposits letters into a U.S. Postal Service collection mailbox in Philadelphia, Penn., on Aug. 14, 2020. (Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters)

USPS Mail Carrier in NJ Charged With Dumping Mail, Including Ballots

A former mail carrier in New Jersey was arrested on Oct. 7 for discarding mail, including almost 100 election ballots, according to court documents.

Nicholas Beauchene, 26, of Kearny, New Jersey, was charged with one count of delay, secretion, or detention of mail and one count of obstruction of mail. Beauchene had been a mail carrier with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) since July, according to a criminal complaint.

On or about Oct. 2, a large quantity of mail directed to addresses within West Orange, New Jersey, was found in a dumpster outside a bank in North Arlington, New Jersey, the documents say. The 788 pieces of mail there included about 98 general election ballots.

A second quantity was found in a dumpster outside a restaurant in West Orange on or about Oct. 5, authorities said; that mail included one general election ballot.

A total of about 1,875 pieces of mail were found in dumpsters. The recovered mail was placed back into the mail stream for delivery to its intended recipients, Craig Carpenito, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, said in a statement.

An analysis of the recovered mail showed it was part of two postal routes on two different scheduled delivery dates. One portion was scheduled for delivery to Postal Route 79 on or about Sept. 28. The other was scheduled for delivery to Postal Route 50 on or about Oct. 1.

Both routes are serviced out of the Orange USPS office and cover areas of West Orange. Beauchene was the only mail carrier assigned to the routes on those days.

Delaying mail carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, while obstruction of mail could result in up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The post office in Orange where Beauchene was based didnt answer a phone call on Wednesday.

Beauchene is no longer employed by the USPS, a regional spokesman told The Epoch Times via email. The spokesman didnt address the mail dumping allegations.

It isnt clear if Beauchene has retained an attorney. Information about his case wasnt available on PACER, the federal court database, as of 4 p.m. on Oct. 7.
On this measure, workers earning $60,000 this financial year are expected to pay $2160 less in tax (about $41 a week) and someone earning $120,000 will pay $2745 ($52 a week) less compared to 2017-18. H&R Block director of tax communications Mark Chapman says this is "a bit deceptive".

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said workers would be up to $2745 better off compared to 2017-18 under a fast-tracking of major tax cuts, but economists say it's likely a lot less. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

But economists are dubious many employees will get anywhere close to $50 a week more in their bank accounts. The issue for earners trying to figure out how much extra they'll have this year, based on the budget papers alone, is the government's decision to compare the amount of tax workers will pay under the new plan with the amount they paid three years ago.

When the Morrison government handed down its 2020 budget on Tuesday evening, 11.6 million workers were told they would be up to $2745 better off under a fast-tracking of major tax cuts largely helping lower income earners.

Economists compare different years when showing the effects of changing the tax rates and the calculations are complicated. Analysts looking at the entire three-stage tax plan, which is staggered over several years, often pick 2017-18 as a comparison point as this was before any of the stages of the tax cuts were in place. This is helpful for researchers judging the merits of changes to the tax system.

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But for workers trying to figure out how much more they will get this year the relevant period to compare is the current financial year with and without the tax changes, Grattan Institute chief executive Danielle Wood says. Grattan instead estimates the majority of workers will see their take-home pay increase by about $20 a week and millions could be waiting until next year to get the most from the cuts. On the think tank's measure, someone earning $60,000 will pay $1053 less tax ($20 a week) and those on $120,000 will pay $2413 ($46 a week) less than if the tax cuts hadn't been brought forward.

Another practical concern for workers is exactly when they will get their hands on the cash. This is front of mind for Treasurer Josh Frydenberg as well. Mr Frydenberg says putting "more money in Australians' pockets" will get people spending quickly and help the economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

"More sales means more jobs ... Australians will receive more than $2000 in tax relief this year as a result of our tax plan," Mr Frydenberg told the National Press Club on Wednesday. Treasury estimates an extra 50,000 jobs will be created by the end of 2021-22 due to the cuts.
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Elsevier, a global research publishing and information analytics provider, today announced the US launch of Transition to Practice, an immersive online learning platform that empowers new nurses to build skills and confidence as they transition from academia to professional clinical practice. With the COVID-19 crisis still in effect, Transition to Practice is launching at a time when clinical environments are even more demanding than before.

Aligning with the American Nurses Association (ANA) Standards of Professional Practice, Transition to Practice presents an evidence-based curriculum with cutting-edge eLearning modules  such as virtual simulation and interactive games  to accelerate competence and sharpen decision-making skills for new nurses. To promote a culture of support, the platform also features communication tools that allow new nurses to self-reflect on levels of confidence and share the support they experienced during recent shifts with their leaders.

John Danaher, MD, President, Global Clinical Solutions, Elsevier said: "A product like Transition to Practice provides new nurses with the support they need as they transition into the workforce and face a surge of critically ill patients from the pandemic, high patient-to-nurse ratios, complex hospital environments and an increasing nurse burnout rate.

"A successful transition from the academic setting to the clinical setting requires continued education to build on skills learned while in undergraduate programs. Transition to Practice is an excellent addition to Elsevier's portfolio of tools that facilitates the kind of life-long learning that leads to advanced performance."

Transition to Practice offers nurse leaders timely insights and feedback at the individual and cohort level. Using data that measures new nurses' professional competency, confidence levels and satisfaction rates, nurse leaders can identify where new nurses are struggling and create a tailored approach to address their needs. With a learner-centered onboarding approach, nurse leaders can improve the overall satisfaction levels of new nurses, help reduce stress, miscommunication and potential risks, to ultimately enable better patient outcomes.

"Transition to Practice builds on the foundation of new nurses' undergraduate education to solidify their confidence in becoming a stronger interprofessional collaborator," said Lya Stroupe, DNP, APRN, CPNP, NEA-BC, NPD-BC, Director of the Transition to Practice Program at West Virginia University Medicine, the largest health system in West Virginia, with 14 hospitals throughout the state, of which the flagship hospital participated in the pilot program for Transition to Practice and is using it now. "The tool builds new nurses' knowledge and the skills necessary to overcome the challenging transition into nursing, leading to better communication with healthcare team members and putting the patient at the center of the care."

To learn more about the value Elsevier's Transition to Practice tool brings to new nurses and nurse leaders, please visit the website.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps scientists and clinicians to find new answers, reshape human knowledge, and tackle the most urgent human crises. For 140 years, we have partnered with the research world to curate and verify scientific knowledge. Today, we're committed to bringing that rigor to a new generation of platforms. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet, and Cell, 39,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. www.elsevier.com

Media contacts

David Tucker

Elsevier Communications, Europe

+44 7920 536 160

[email protected]

Rose Ramseth

WE Communications

+1 212 551 4841

[email protected]

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7, 2020 14:18 473 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49a564f 1 National KPK,graft-convict,Supreme-Court,case-review Free

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is set to meet with Supreme Court leaders following a number of case review decisions that led to lighter punishments for graft convicts.

KPK commissioner Nurul Ghufron said KPK leaders would call on the Supreme Court to prevent the misuse of case reviews as a tool for graft convicts to get lighter sentences for their crimes.

"We hope [the mechanism] that is supposed to uphold justice for both the convicts and the public will not be misused by those trying to seek lenient decisions," Ghufron said as quoted by kompas.com on Tuesday.

He said the KPK was concerned after 22 graft convicts obtained lighter punishments in their case review pleas. "We have observed how [case review petitions] appear to be a new strategy for corruption convicts."

Even though the lower courts ruling had a strong legal standing, 12 out of those 22 graft convicts still managed to get their sentences cut after their case reviews were approved by the Supreme Court between 2019 until 2020, Ghufron added.

At least 50 graft convicts had opted to file case review requests with the Supreme Court rather than going with appeal procedures, he added.

It means, the case review procedure is seen as a generous door that grants leniency," Ghufron said.

Previously, KPK spokesperson Ali Fikri criticized the Supreme Court for the matter, fearing that the tendency to hand down lighter punishments for graft convicts could give a negative impression of the countrys legal system as a whole.

One of the latest graft convicts to receive a sentence reduction from a case review request was Anas Urbaningrum, the former Democratic Party chief serving from 2010 to 2013, whose imprisonment term was cut by the Supreme Court from the initial 14 years to only eight years.

Anas has now become the 23rd graft convict to be granted leniency by the Supreme Court in the past year.

Previously, National Awakening Party (PKB) lawmaker Musa Zainuddin, who was convicted of graft in 2017, also received a sentence reduction from nine years to six years imprisonment. (trn)
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett served as a handmaid, the term then used for high-ranking female leaders in the People of Praise religious community, an old directory for the groups members shows .

Barrett has thus far refused to discuss her membership in the Christian organization, which opposes abortion and, according to former members, holds that men are divinely ordained as the head of both the family and faith, while it is the duty of wives to obey them.

Portions of two People of Praise directory pages for the South Bend, Indiana, branch were shared with The Associated Press by a former member of the community on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue and because this person still has family members in People of Praise. A second former member, Gene Stowe, who left the South Bend branch on good terms several years ago, confirmed the authenticity of the directory pages. He said he could not say precisely what year the directory was from, but that it had to be 2013 or earlier because one of the people listed had by then moved to another state.

All the top leaders within People of Praise are male, but in each of the groups 22 regional branches a select group of women is entrusted with mentoring and offering spiritual guidance to other female members. Until recently, these female leaders were called handmaids, a reference to Jesus' mother Mary, who according to the Bible called herself the handmaid of the Lord. The organization recently changed the terminology to woman leader because it had newly negative connotations after Margaret Atwoods dystopian novel The Handmaids Tale was turned into a popular television show.

The leaders run weekly mens' or womens' groups of about half a dozen people where they pray and talk together, and where the leaders offer advice and guidance. They will also organize to help others in the community, such as providing meals when someone gets sick. Under the organizations rules, no female leader can provide pastoral supervision to a man, former members said.

People of Praises belief system is rooted in the Catholic Pentecostal movement, which emphasizes a personal relationship with Jesus and can include baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues and using prayer to heal the sick and cast out evil spirits.

Founded in 1971, the nonprofit organization has 22 branches across North America. It is not a church, but a faith community that includes people from several Christian denominations, though most of its roughly 1,800 adult members are Roman Catholic.

The existence of the directory listing Barretts name as a handmaid was first reported by The Washington Post late Tuesday. The AP reported last week that a 2006 issue of the groups internal magazine, Vine & Branches, included a photograph showing that Barrett had attend a national conference reserved for top female leaders in People of Praise.

The group had deleted copies of that magazine and other back issues mentioning Barrett and her family from its website in 2017, when her name first emerged on President Donald Trumps short list for potential nomination to the Supreme Court.

Back issues of the magazine, tax returns and other documents showed Barretts father served as the principal leader of People of Praises New Orleans branch and was on the groups all-male Board of Governors as recently as 2017. Her mother also served in the branch as a handmaid.

Other records uncovered this week also showed that both Barrett and her husband, lawyer Jesse M. Barrett, had lived in the home of two of the groups co-founders while they were young law students at Notre Dame in the 1990s.

Barrett did not disclose her decades-long affiliation with People of Praise on her voluminous Senate judiciary Committee questionnaires filed last month and three years ago, when the Notre Dame law professor was appointed by Trump to a seat on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

Barrett, 48, did not respond to a telephone message seeking comment. The White House press office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about why the mother of seven elected not to disclose her membership in People of Praise to the Senate.

Barrett also did not disclose that she had signed a 2006 newspaper ad sponsored by an anti-abortion group indicating she opposed abortion on demand and defended the right to life from fertilization to the end of natural life.

On Tuesday, all 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee issued a letter asking the Justice Department to explain the omissions and confirm whether any other materials have been left out from Barretts Senate questionnaires. If so, the department should immediately provide the materials for committee review, the senators said.

Barretts confirmation hearings are set to begin Monday as Republicans rush to approve her ascension to the Supreme Court before the Nov. 3 election.Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett served as a handmaid, the term then used for high-ranking female leaders in the People of Praise religious community, an old directory for the groups members shows .

Barrett has thus far refused to discuss her membership in the Christian organization, which opposes abortion and, according to former members, holds that men are divinely ordained as the head of both the family and faith, while it is the duty of wives to obey them.

Portions of two People of Praise directory pages for the South Bend, Indiana, branch were shared with The Associated Press by a former member of the community on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue and because this person still has family members in People of Praise. A second former member, Gene Stowe, who left the South Bend branch on good terms several years ago, confirmed the authenticity of the directory pages. He said he could not say precisely what year the directory was from, but that it had to be 2013 or earlier because one of the people listed had by then moved to another state.

All the top leaders within People of Praise are male, but in each of the groups 22 regional branches a select group of women is entrusted with mentoring and offering spiritual guidance to other female members. Until recently, these female leaders were called handmaids, a reference to Jesus' mother Mary, who according to the Bible called herself the handmaid of the Lord. The organization recently changed the terminology to woman leader because it had newly negative connotations after Margaret Atwoods dystopian novel The Handmaids Tale was turned into a popular television show.

The leaders run weekly mens' or womens' groups of about half a dozen people where they pray and talk together, and where the leaders offer advice and guidance. They will also organize to help others in the community, such as providing meals when someone gets sick. Under the organizations rules, no female leader can provide pastoral supervision to a man, former members said.

People of Praises belief system is rooted in the Catholic Pentecostal movement, which emphasizes a personal relationship with Jesus and can include baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues and using prayer to heal the sick and cast out evil spirits.

Founded in 1971, the nonprofit organization has 22 branches across North America. It is not a church, but a faith community that includes people from several Christian denominations, though most of its roughly 1,800 adult members are Roman Catholic.

The existence of the directory listing Barretts name as a handmaid was first reported by The Washington Post late Tuesday. The AP reported last week that a 2006 issue of the groups internal magazine, Vine & Branches, included a photograph showing that Barrett had attend a national conference reserved for top female leaders in People of Praise.

The group had deleted copies of that magazine and other back issues mentioning Barrett and her family from its website in 2017, when her name first emerged on President Donald Trumps short list for potential nomination to the Supreme Court.

Back issues of the magazine, tax returns and other documents showed Barretts father served as the principal leader of People of Praises New Orleans branch and was on the groups all-male Board of Governors as recently as 2017. Her mother also served in the branch as a handmaid.

Other records uncovered this week also showed that both Barrett and her husband, lawyer Jesse M. Barrett, had lived in the home of two of the groups co-founders while they were young law students at Notre Dame in the 1990s.

Barrett did not disclose her decades-long affiliation with People of Praise on her voluminous Senate judiciary Committee questionnaires filed last month and three years ago, when the Notre Dame law professor was appointed by Trump to a seat on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

Barrett, 48, did not respond to a telephone message seeking comment. The White House press office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about why the mother of seven elected not to disclose her membership in People of Praise to the Senate.

Barrett also did not disclose that she had signed a 2006 newspaper ad sponsored by an anti-abortion group indicating she opposed abortion on demand and defended the right to life from fertilization to the end of natural life.

On Tuesday, all 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee issued a letter asking the Justice Department to explain the omissions and confirm whether any other materials have been left out from Barretts Senate questionnaires. If so, the department should immediately provide the materials for committee review, the senators said.

Barretts confirmation hearings are set to begin Monday as Republicans rush to approve her ascension to the Supreme Court before the Nov. 3 election.
Ankara: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's strong backing for Azerbaijan in the conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh has set Turkey apart from other big nations and alarmed NATO allies that are demanding a ceasefire.

But for Erdogan, the resolute stance is a strategic priority and a costly necessity that reinforces his strategy of flexing military muscle abroad to retain support at home.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday. Credit:AP

The President has described Ankara's support for Azerbaijan as part of Turkey's quest for its "deserved place in the world order".

He sees an opportunity to alter the status quo over Nagorno-Karabakh, given France, the United States and Russia have for decades led international mediation efforts but achieved little. Ethnic Armenians have retained control of the enclave even though it is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.
Los Angeles:

A federal appeals court on Friday refused to restore President Donald Trumps controversial executive order closing US borders to refugees and nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries, keeping a temporary suspension in place.

We hold that the government has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, nor has it shown that failure to enter a stay would cause irreparable injury, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled.

The court denied the governments request to reinstate the measure on an emergency basis, meaning a lower court suspension of the travel ban stands for now.

A panel of three judges held a contentious hearing in the matter on Tuesday, with the lawyer representing the Trump administration insisting the controversial ban was justified for national security reasons.

Also Read: US could ask visa seekers for social media passwords, says John Kelly

Also Read: Trump administration proposes legislation to cut legal immigrants to US by half

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Vitalant, Arizona's largest nonprofit community blood provider, has partnered to host the blood drive. There is no risk in contracting coronavirus from donating blood. Donating blood is a safe process and Vitalant is following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Extra precautions will be implemented including social distancing, health screening and enhanced sanitation to protect donors, volunteers and staff.

Participants are encouraged to arrive 15 minutes early. View details for Desert Financial Arena maps and registration.

Donating blood and platelets is vital for community health, and the need for blood never stops. People with chronic illnesses and those involved in sudden tragedies count on the generosity of strangers to survive.

"Desert Financial Arena at ASU is an ideal location for a blood drive. While we can't wait to return to and watch the Sun Devils play, we're glad the space can be used to do something so helpful in the community," said Jeff Meshey, President and CEO at Desert Financial Credit Union. "It's safe, it's easy and nothing feels better than giving back," he added.

COVID-19 antibodies screening will be applicable to all successful donations, with results posted in donor portals. The morning will also include a visit from Sun Devils' mascot, Sparky, and all donors will receive complimentary t-shirts as well as a choice between Dutch Brothers gift cards and Harkins gift cards.

Donors will be permitted to wait in cars or other comfortable and convenient locations and will be alerted prior to appointment times via text. Masks will be required during donations and disposable masks will be provided by Desert Financial. Additional precautions taken during the blood drive include the following you can also find in Vitalant donation FAQs:

Waiting areas will accommodate social distancing measures of six feet apart.

Temperatures will be taken at registration; those higher than 99.5 will be asked to donate another time.

Masks and gloves will be worn by Vitalant staff.

Donation stations will be sanitized frequently and after every collection.

Donations will be taken using sterile, one-time-use collection sets.

Children and other visitors are discouraged from accompanying donors.

Pre-packaged, single-use servings of snacks/beverages will be available.

About Desert Financial Credit Union

Celebrating 81 years in Arizona, Desert Financial is the state's largest local credit union with $6 billion in assets, more than 340,000 members and 47 physical locations across the Valley, plus our fully online eBranch serving all of Arizona. As a not-for-profit cooperative, Desert Financial takes pride in sharing success. In 2019, Desert Financial gave nearly $11 million to Valley nonprofits, the community and members. Learn more at Desert Financial Credit Union and find news and information @desertfinancial on Twitter.

About Vitalant

Vitalant ("Vye-TAL-ent") is a national community blood service provider, supplying comprehensive transfusion medicine services for nearly 1,000 hospitals and health care partners for patients in need across 40 states. Vitalant inspires local communities to serve the needs of others and transform lives through the selfless act of donating blood. Every day, almost 5,000 blood donations are needed to meet the needs of people throughout the country, and Vitalant's 800,000 donors supply 1.8 million donations a year. In addition to blood products, Vitalant offers customers transfusion services, medical consulting, quality guidance, ongoing education, research and more. For more information and to schedule a donation, visit vitalant.org or call 877-25-VITAL (877-258-4825). Join the conversation about impacting the lives of others on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

MEDIA CONTACT

Diane Meehl | 480-651-4654

[email protected]

SOURCE Desert Financial Credit Union

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WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Oct. 7, 2020 - Is this person with chest pain having a heart attack? That's a question EMTs frequently confront when responding to 911 calls.

A study conducted at Wake Forest Baptist Health shows that on-scene use of a new protocol and advanced diagnostic equipment can help paramedics better identify patients at high risk for adverse cardiac events. This approach could help paramedics determine the hospital best equipped to treat those people.

The study is published in the Oct. 7 edition of the journal PLOS One.

"While only 7% of people who make 911 calls due to chest pain are having a heart attack, paramedics must be able to make the correct decisions using objective measurements to identify another 20% that need specific cardiac care," said principal investigator Jason Stopyra, M.D., associate professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest Baptist. "High-risk patients are often transported to facilities that don't have interventional cardiology capabilities, and later have to be transferred to another hospital for urgent procedures."

Currently, pre-hospital assessment of patients with chest pain focuses on looking for signs of a heart attack with a portable electrocardiogram (EKG). For the 93% of people who aren't having a discernible heart attack, paramedics rely on their experience and patient preference to decide what hospital to go to rather than on an objective risk assessment of the level of cardiac care needed, Stopyra said.

In the prospective study that took place from December 2016 to January 2018, the Wake Forest Baptist team worked with EMS agencies in three rural and urban counties in North Carolina to evaluate the use of a pre-hospital modified HEART Pathway (PHMP) to identify both high- and low-risk patients who called 911 with chest pains.

The HEART Pathway, which was developed by senior author Simon Mahler, M.D., professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest Baptist, has been used in emergency departments for 8 years, Stopyra said.

The research team trained more than 150 paramedics to use a hand-held i-STAT, a modified version of a hospital device that measures patients' blood for levels of troponin, a cardiac enzyme in the blood that can help detect heart injury. In addition, paramedics were trained to ask patients questions about their chest pain, age, risk factors and medical history to determine what's known as a HEART risk score.

The patients in the study were stratified into three groups: high risk based on elevated troponin, low risk based on a HEART score of less than 4 with negative troponin, or moderate risk based on a HEART score of 4 or higher with negative troponin. Major adverse cardiac events (MACE) were determined by reviewing records after 30 days. The sensitivity and negative predictive values for MACE at 30 days also were calculated.

The study showed that a prospective application of the prehospital modified HEART Pathway, including measurement of troponin levels completed by paramedics during ambulance transport, achieved high sensitivity, specificity and negative predictive value for 30-day MACE. A high-risk assessment resulted in a specificity of 96% and positive predictive value of 61%. A low-risk assessment was associated with a negative predictive value of 94% and a specificity of 90%.

"This teamwork between emergency medicine researchers and our local EMS agencies is so valuable," Stopyra said. "Our study showed that paramedics have the professional clinical ability to effectively assess patients' cardiac risk using this protocol before the patient ever gets to the hospital. We hope this approach will allow patients to receive faster, more focused care."

###

The study was limited in that it was observational, and no treatment decisions were made based on the PMHP made by the paramedics.

The i-STAT device used in this study was manufactured by Abbott Point of Care in Princeton, N.J., which also funded the study.
The European Union today demanded the UK finally 'put its cards on the table' during post-Brexit trade talks as the bloc said it wants a deal 'but not at any cost'.

Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, issued the demand following a phone call with Boris Johnson amid claims the Prime Minister is prepared to walk away from negotiations next week if there is not a visible path to a deal.

The UK Government has made clear it wants the broad outline of an agreement to be in place by the middle of October.

But sources told Bloomberg that Mr Johnson is planning to quit talks next week if an accord is not in sight.

Brussels is adamant it will not be pressured into doing a deal at the expense of its negotiating red lines - a stance made plain by Mr Michel following this afternoon's phone call.

He tweeted: 'The EU prefers a deal, but not at any cost. Time for the UK to put its cards on the table.'

A Downing Street spokeswoman said Mr Johnson had told Mr Michel that Britain wants a deal but 'nevertheless, the UK was prepared to end the transition period on Australia-style terms if an agreement could not be found'.

His intervention came as informal talks resumed in London today and as Michael Gove said the UK is stepping up preparations for splitting from the bloc at the end of the transition period in December without a trade deal.

The Minister for the Cabinet Office told a parliamentary committee the Government's aim is still to agree a deal with the bloc but he insisted the UK will not be 'held hostage'.

He said: 'No one would be happier than me if we could conclude an agreement, but we have an absolute obligation to ensure that the country is ready in the event that we don't.'

Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, today urged the UK to 'put its cards on the table' during post-Brexit trade talks

EU sources claimed talks could go on into November unless the PM (pictured today) took a more hands-on approach, branding him 'detached' from the process

Mr Johnson spoke to European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen (left) on Saturday but talks have been led by Lord Frost (right, today)

EU figures have lashed out at 'absent' Mr Johnson for failing to get more involved in the talks after months of slow progress and deadlock in key areas like fishing rights and state aid rules.

Mr Johnson spoke to European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday and they agreed to 'intensify' talks in the run up to a top-level EU meeting on October 15 and 16.

Mr Johnson has set an October 15 deadline for deciding whether a deal is possible, saying 'time is running out'.

However, EU sources claimed talks could go on into November unless the PM takes a more hands-on approach, branding him 'detached' from the process.

'Is he even interested? What does it say to the 27 leaders when an issue as important as this is only dealt with by (UK chief negotiator) David Frost?' they told the Telegraph.

'It's about time people higher up in the hierarchy start involving themselves if they want to achieve something.'

They also suggested that Mr Johnson's involvement was less than that of his predecessor Theresa May.

Yesterday the PM's official spokesman said Britain needs to know by October 15 if there is going to be a deal with the European Union because businesses need to prepare.

'We do need to be in a position where we're able to provide certainty to businesses as to what the terms of our future trading relationship with EU are going to be, and we do believe that we need to be able to give clarity on whether or not there's going to be a deal by the 15th of October,' the spokesman said.

But a top EU official dealing with the talks said that a cliff-edge rupture between the two without even a basic trade deal by the end of the year is becoming more likely by the day.

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic told the European Parliament that 'time is short' to reach a deal before the Brexit divorce transition period ends on December 31, effectively giving negotiators less than four weeks to broker a deal which must subsequently go through a lengthy approval process.

And he suggested Mr Johnson had made things even more difficult when he decided last month to introduce a bill that breaches the legally binding Withdrawal Agreement the UK struck with the bloc to make sure it could leave on January 31 this year.

Mr Sefcovic said it made Britain less trustworthy and called the plans 'a heavy blow to the British signature and reliability'.

'Respecting agreements is first a matter of law, but also of trust and in good faith,' he said.

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic told the European Parliament that 'time is short' to reach a deal before the Brexit divorce transition period ends on December 31

He said the plans left the EU with no choice but to launch legal action against Britain. If passed into law, the Internal Market Bill would undermine the EU's previously agreed oversight of trade to and from Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K and shares a border with EU member Ireland.

The bloc is furious that Britain plans to breach portions of the divorce accord which were put in place to maintain an open Irish border, which has underpinned peace since Northern Ireland's 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Mr Sefcovic said the EU would never change anything contained within the Brexit divorce deal.

Amid fears that Brussels will try to run down the clock on negotiations to secure concessions, Mr Johnson made clear in a phone call on Saturday that Britain is ready to trade on 'Australian' terms with the EU - without any framework in place.

Wrangling and rhetoric has escalated in recent weeks as the crunch moment in the trade discussions looms. The 'standstill' transition period is set to end on January 1 whether or not there is an agreement.
These are the affordable M&S items we're adding to our basket. (Products not pictured, Getty Image)

Yahoo Lifestyle is committed to finding you the best products at the best prices. We may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Prices were correct at the time of publication.

If you feel youve been caught unawares by the change of season and you cant think of any warmer items in your wardrobe that can replace the floaty dress and Birkenstocks youve been living in all summer, then we know just the place to go.

Weve been trawling the digital rails at Marks & Spencer to find the key items to carry us through until spring rears its blossomed head, and we have found a collection of pieces were keen to add to our own hangers.

However, with online shopping less is often more  and thats especially the case when youre trying to put together a capsule wardrobe, so weve been strict with ourselves and narrowed it down to just eight key pieces to shop for autumn.

From comfy trainers to a super-soft funnel neck jumper and a Holly Willoughby-approved pair of jeans, you neednt look anywhere else for your autumn staples this year.

8 affordable M&S favourites to shop for autumn

Cotton Funnel Neck Fitted Long Sleeve Top | 9.50

Not only are funnel neck tops flattering, theyre also the perfect middle-ground between a polo neck and a V-neck - keeping you warm and snug, but not leaving you constantly yanking down the material at your neck.

Lace Up Trainers | 19.50

A pair of white lace-up trainers is an essential wardrobe staple all year round, and these ones are a steal at under 20.

Ivy High Waisted Distressed Skinny Jeans | 25

Available in sizes 6 through to 22, and in all sorts of leg length, these versatile distressed jeans offer a flattering silhouette.

Cotton Long Sleeve Hoodie | 22.50

If you thought hoodies were just for university students, think again. Some of Instagrams most coveted fashion-forward influencers have added the humble hoodie to their wardrobes and are proving they can be worn with style.

Story continues

Jersey Floral Midi Skater Skirt | 25

This jersey skater skirt will add a touch of floral prettiness to your autumn wardrobe, plus - the elasticated waist means its the perfect piece in which to enjoy a Sunday roast.

The rose-print also comes in a midi dress, which is already proving to be popular. Pair with tights, ankle boots and a cashmere cardi for a chic day look.

Thermowarmth Quilted Puffer Jacket | 35

Nobody should be without a puffer jacket in the colder months and this one will keep you completely snug, without looking like a marshmallow.

Nobodys Child Floral Midi Smock Dress | 35

M&S recently chose Nobodys Child to be the first guest fashion brand stocked on its website and the collection is already proving popular. With stylish silhouettes and affordable prices, were sure the brands range of midi dresses under 40 wont be around for long.

Suede Chelsea Block Heel Ankle Boots | 29.50

A black ankle boot is an autumn/winter staple year in and year out. This affordable pair are a great pick for work or play, with an elasticated panel that makes them easy to slip on and off.

Watch: Everything you need to know about Amazon Prime Day 2020
Myntra announces YouTube sensation Bhuvan Bam as its first digital brand ambassador to further engage with the brands fashion-forward, and tech-savvy customers, starting this festive season. As part of this strategic association, Myntra and Bhuvan will co-ideate and create content that effectively communicates the brands uber proposition in an innovative, highly-relatable, and entertaining manner that goes beyond the traditional forms of communication.

Bhuvans journey to stardom perfectly exemplifies the rise of a new kind of digital celebrity that represents the interests of contemporary consumers. The inclusion of fashion and lifestyle conversation in his relatable yet creative content will accelerate Myntras efforts of tapping into the fashion-centric audiences and beyond.

Bhuvan burst into the limelight after he became the first Indian individual YouTube content creator to cross 10 million subscribers through his comedy channel, BB Ki Vines, in 2018. His content continues to resonate across millions of people, with BB Ki Vines garnering 19 million subscribers and 2.75 billion views. The multi-talented comedian and musicians army of social media followers is not limited to YouTube only. The 26-year-old Filmfare award winner is a roaring sensation on Instagram as well, with over 10.5 million followers.

Bhuvan is Indias first-ever digital star who has pioneered as an ambassador in online fashion space with Myntra. His engaging social media presence, high resonance with the people will help Myntra strike a chord with his strong fan base cutting across demographics.

Speaking after being named digital brand ambassador for Myntra, Bhuvan, said, I look forward to creating quirky yet relatable fashion-focused content with Myntra that will help countless young people comfortably and confidently express themselves through fashion. I am extremely proud to contribute to Myntras vision of powering the fashion tastes and preferences for an entire generation of people coming through.

Commenting on the association, Harish Narayanan, Head of Marketing, Myntra, said, Bhuvan is a welcome addition to Myntras efforts to reach out to the digital-savvy consumers in the most engaging way. There has been a shift in audience behavior in the new normal, leading to a discernible rise in digital content consumption. Bhuvans all-pervasive appeal will further complement our holistic approach towards dominating different mediums and cement Myntras position as Indias favorite fashion and lifestyle platform ahead of the eagerly-anticipated festive season.

With the addition of Bhuvan to the band of celebrity ambassadors, Myntra is now strongly positioned to reach fashion-forward target audiences across various cities and demographics, ahead of Big Fashion Festival.
Hacker Ardit Ferizi, 24, (pictured) who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for giving ISIS personal data of more than 1,300 US government and military employees has been denied release from jail over COVID-19 fears

A hacker serving a 20-year prison sentence for giving ISIS personal data of more than 1,300 US government and military employees has been denied release from jail over COVID-19 fears.

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected the request of Ardit Ferizi, 24, to be granted compassionate release from prison because he said his asthma and obesity put him at increased risk of contracting the virus.

Ferizi, who went by the online moniker Th3Dir3ctorY and ran a website that curated ISIS propaganda videos, was convicted in 2016 for hacking into a company database and handing over personal information on US government and military staff to an ISIS recruiter and attack organizer.

He was the first person convicted in the US on both computer hacking and terrorism charges.

Ferizi filed a handwritten motion asking a federal judge in Alexandria to release him from prison, saying he is at an increased risk of contracting COVID-19 because he suffers from asthma and is obese.

He also said special restrictions at the prison require him to check in with staff every two hours, increasing his contact with guards and his risk of being exposed to the deadly virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans.

Coronavirus infections have been rife among the American prison population, as high populations, cramped conditions and unsanitary environments are ideal breeding grounds for the deadly virus.

Several states have released low-risk inmates from custody to limit the risk of outbreaks.

Prosecutors opposed Ferizi's release, and US District Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected his request at a hearing Tuesday, citing concerns that he might resume hacking if released, among other issues.

Back in June 2015, Ferizi hacked into the server of an Illinois company, gaining access to its database containing personal data on tens of thousands of customers, including members of the US military and other government workers.

Ferizi, a Kosovo native who studied in Malaysia, then gathered the personal information belonging to US military and government workers - which amounted to around 1,300 people - and passed it to Junaid Hussain, a now-dead ISIS recruiter and attack facilitator, court records show.

The two men discussed publishing the personal information online in a hit list.

Hussain then posted a document on Twitter containing the personal information provided by Ferizi under the name the 'Islamic State Hacking Division.'

Ferizi went by the online moniker Th3Dir3ctorY (above) and ran a website that curated ISIS propaganda videos

The document read that 'we are in your emails and computer systems, watching and recording your every move, we have your names and addresses, we are in your emails and social media accounts, we are extracting confidential data and passing on your personal information to the soldiers of the khilafah, who soon with the permission of Allah will strike at your necks in your own lands!'

Ferizi was arrested by Malaysian authorities on behalf of the US in 2015 and extradited to America.

Ferizi was convicted in 2016 for hacking into a company database and handing over information to ISIS

He confessed to providing the information to the terrorist organization on the understanding that the group would use the list to 'hit them hard', court documents show.

He pleaded guilty in June 2016 and was sentenced on September 23 2016 to 20 years in prison.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin said at the time the landmark case was the first of its kind where terrorism and cyber attacks combined posed a major threat to national security.

'This case represents the first time we have seen the very real and dangerous national security cyber threat that results from the combination of terrorism and hacking,' said Carlin.

'This was a wake-up call not only to those of us in law enforcement, but also to those in private industry.

'This successful prosecution also sends a message to those around the world that, if you provide material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations and assist them with their deadly attack planning, you will have nowhere to hide.'

Ferizi is currently held at a federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and is scheduled for release in 2032 if he gets credit for good behavior.
ATHENS  In a landmark verdict in Greeces highest-profile political trial in decades, an Athens court on Wednesday found the neo-fascist party Golden Dawn guilty of running a criminal organization as it rose to prominence during the countrys financial crisis, systematically targeting migrants and left-wing critics.

The ruling came more than five years after the trial began in a makeshift courtroom in Greeces largest high-security prison near Athens, and as at the beginning of the trial, none of the party officials were in the courtroom where the verdict was announced.

But thousands of Greek citizens had gathered outside the court on Wednesday, waving banners reading, They are not innocent, Nazis out and Life terms to the murderers, as some 2,000 police officers patrolled the area and helicopters and drones circled above.

The three-judge criminal court tied the party to a string of attacks including the fatal stabbing in 2013 of a left-wing rapper, Pavlos Fyssas. The party member who stabbed Mr. Fyssas, Giorgos Roupakias, was found guilty of murder on Wednesday.
Efforts to drive development of interoperable software components gain support from largest telecom suppliers as the industry embraces digital collaboration

Digital Transformation World Series TM Forum, the industry association driving digital business transformation through collaboration, today announced that Ericsson, Huawei and Salesforce, three of the world's largest industry suppliers, have added their names to the already impressive list of communications service providers (CSPs), systems integrators and software vendors committing to collaboratively develop the Open Digital Architecture.

In addition, Beesion, Cognity, Incognito, Neustar, Nexign, NTT Group, ServiceNow, Global Wavenet and Whale Cloud now count themselves among the 42 total companies publicly committed to creating a market for standardized and interoperable software components.

By adding their names to TM Forum's Open API and Open Digital Architecture Manifesto, these companies are publicly demonstrating their dedication to creating a market for innovative, standardized and interoperable software components to run service provider businesses, enabling the industry to invest in IT for new and differentiated services instead of maintaining heavily customized legacy code.

The progress in developing the Open Digital Architecture and Open APIs is just one example of how TM Forum members have embraced remote methods to continue their collaborative work despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. As TM Forum's flagship Digital Transformation World Series begins online today with 8,000+ attendees, evidence of the support and need for collaboration is clear.

Another indication of the industry's commitment to the Forum's standards is the increasing demand for TM Forum's virtual Education and Development programs with over 4,000 member professionals from more than 260 companies completing 12,000 training courses in the last six months. Five companies have each completed more than 1,000 courses (AsiaInfo, China Telecom, ETIYA, Nokia and Tecnotree); and 2,350 professionals have achieved over 6,000 knowledge certifications.

Collaborating for transformation

"We see the TM Forum's Open Digital Architecture and Open APIs as important enablers for the industry wide transformation to software-based, automated, intelligent networks," said Jan Karlsson, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Area Digital Services, Ericsson. "We are pleased to be adding our name to the list of supporters of the Forum's manifesto and look forward to collaborating and defining future standards."

Haiping Che, Chief Digital Transformation Officer, Huawei, said, "A rapid and radical shift to an open, modern, service-based architecture that enables new business models and operational models and uses the Open Digital Architecture and Open APIs as guidelines is critical for digital transformation of the telco industry. The huge challenges and opportunities of 5G 2B scenarios require CSPs to have business capabilities such as flexible production and agile commercialization for new offerings like Connectivity-as-a-Service. We are committed to collaborating to build a new generation telecom software market that can support the CSPs of the future."

"Only through collaboration, can the industry can attain the knowledge and agree on common standards and assets such as Open APIs required to kindle a software marketplace," said John Carney, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Communications and Media at Industry, Salesforce. "We believe the shift to standardized, components-based, cloud native models will reduce barriers and make it easier to generate value around 5G."*

"We are delighted by the level of commitment the telecom industry is showing when it comes to building and supporting an Open Digital Architecture," said Nik Willetts, CEO, TM Forum. "Adding these new companies alongside our existing committed members demonstrates that the whole industry is now on board with the development of standardized plug-and-play components, data models and Open APIs. Now we must stay focused to turn the commitments into reality."

*Salesforce among others are trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.

Open API adoption increases

As part of the Open Digital Architecture, TM Forum members have collaborated to develop a suite of 50+ REST-based Open APIs that can be used in a range of business scenarios. CSPs are increasingly requiring that their suppliers support these Open APIs. As a result, each month 1,800 unique users from 350 different companies are downloading over 10,000 API assets from TM Forum, totaling 300,000+ downloads.

TM Forum has been conducting regular Open API Adoption Assessment surveys for CSPs and vendors to help them understand their progress in implementing Open APIs relative to their peers, and help the industry measure the overall adoption of Open APIs.

To date, 35 vendors and 14 CSPs have participated in the surveys. The industry's overall maturity score (now standing at 45%) has been increasing on average by one percentage point per month, demonstrating significant momentum in Open API adoption. The Forum will publish updated survey results at the end of Digital Transformation World Series on November 12.

In line with CSP requirements for Open APIs, vendor demand for the Forum's Open API Conformance Certification has more than doubled during 2020. Open API Conformance Certification helps build an open and dynamic market, enabling vendors to differentiate their products and solutions while proving alignment with industry best practices and standards.

About the Open API and Open Digital Architecture Manifesto

To datethe Open API and Open Digital Architecture Manifesto is supported by 42 companies, including 15 global service providers. A total of 69 companies have signed the Open API Manifesto to support TM Forum's Open APIs, a necessary first step on the path to Open Digital Architecture's standardized software component model.

To learn more about TM Forum's Open APIs, the Open API Manifesto, Open API and Open Digital Architecture Manifesto, contact info@tmforum.org.

About Digital Transformation World Series

TM Forum announced this news on the first day of its flagship Digital Transformation World Series which runs October 7 November 12. The digital conference agenda features sessions, masterclasses and panels discussing the importance of Open APIs and the Open Digital Architecture. Ericsson, Huawei, NTT and Salesforce, among other supporters of the manifesto, are among the speakers featured in these sessions.

Digital Transformation World Summit is supported by over 54 sponsors, including: Diamond Sponsor Amdocs; Platinum Sponsors: BearingPoint/Beyond, Ericsson; CSP Partners: Airtel, Axiata, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, STC, Telenor, Verizon; Gold Sponsors: Blue Prism, CSG, Huawei, Netcracker, Prodapt, VMware; Silver Sponsors: AWS, Blue Planet, a division of Ciena, Comarch, Hansen, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Nexign, Optiva, Oracle Communications, Red Hat, ServiceNow.

Digital Transformation World Series registration

Interested in joining the 8,000+ attendees for Digital Transformation World Series? Qualified CSPs, journalists and analysts may apply for complimentary passes. Register here: https://dtw.tmforum.org/passes.

About TM Forum

TM Forum is an alliance of 850+ global companies working together to break down technology and cultural barriers between digital service providers, technology suppliers, consultancies and systems integrators. Our work is defined by our members which include 10 of the world's top 10 network and communications providers and stretch across 180 countries. Our members tap into each other's collective experiences and abilities to collaboratively solve complex industry-wide challenges, deploy new services and create technology breakthroughs to accelerate change. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Learn more at www.tmforum.org.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005324/en/

Contacts:

Elizabeth Coyne

Vice President, Communications

TM Forum

ecoyne@tmforum.org
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 23:59:05|Editor: huaxia

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KIEV, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine has signed financing and investment agreements with the European Union (EU) and the European Investment Bank totaling 390 million euros (456 million U.S. dollars), local media reported Wednesday.

The deals, including three financing and three investment project agreements, were inked during the 22nd Ukraine-EU Summit held in Brussels, with the participation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and top EU officials, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency said.

According to the report, the EU will offer 30 million euros (35 million dollars) to help Ukraine counter threats like the COVID-19 pandemic and regional conflicts, as part of the deals. Enditem
The Greater Accra Regional Health Directorate, on Tuesday, said the second round of the phase three polio mass immunisation campaign, will start from 8 to 11, 2020.



The Directorate, in a press statement, signed by Dr Charity Sarpong, the Regional Director of Health Service, Greater Accra, said the objective of the continuous mass immunisation exercise was, to stop the transmission of the increasing numbers of confirmed polio cases in both human and environmental samples in some parts of the country.



It said the exercise was targeted at children under five years, and would be conducted by well-trained community health nurses, and urged caregivers to take note and allow their children to be vaccinated because the type of vaccine used in response to the outbreak was not available at regular Child Welfare Clinic (weighing).



The Directorate assured the public of the safety of the vaccine and

appealed to the media to throw more light on the exercise and encourage patronage.



The statement said even though Ghana had carried out two previous Reactive Campaigns, it failed to achieve the needed coverage to build the herd immune, because caregivers refused to avail the children for the vaccination, adding that this attitude had rendered the investment made to protect the future generation futile.



It said by the end of the just-ended phase three round one, about 51.72 percent of the districts in the Region would have achieved the expected coverage against 24.13 percent of districts in the previous rounds.



Africa was now free of wild poliovirus, which was one of the strains of the deadly virus, and the public health victory over the disease showed the effectiveness of the vaccine, yet the fight against polio in Africa was far from over, stating that another form of the poliovirus that occurred in under-immunised communities with poor hygiene and sanitation, continued to spread in 16 African counties and had paralysed over 170 children in 2020.



It said polio, which was a viral disease was transmitted mainly from person to person, through a faecal-oral route, and that while there was no cure, the disease could be prevented through the administration of a vaccine.



The statement said if the population was fully immunized, they would be protected against all forms of polioviruses, therefore in Ghana, two rounds of polio campaigns would be conducted in eight regions involving Ashanti, Eastern, Volta, Central, Western, Western North, Upper West, and Greater Accra.



It said Ghana would not stop until every child could live a life free of polio, and explained that doses given during the rounds were additional doses every child should receive even if they had already been immunised.



The statement urged the public to continue to observe all the COVID-19 safety protocols, including wearing of face masks, regular hand washing, and observing social distancing when in crowded places.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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S chitts Creek star Dan Levy has blasted Comedy Central India for censoring scenes depicting intimacy between two men in the acclaimed series.

Quote-retweeting a clip shared by the channel, Levy called Comedy Central India out for removing the same-sex kiss scene between his character David Rose and Ted Mullens (played by Dustin Milligan).

You showed the kiss between two women, you showed the kiss between a woman and a man, then removed the kiss between two men? he wrote.

This is a show about the power of inclusivity. The censorship of gay intimacy is making a harmful statement against that message, Levy concluded.

The scene shows a game of spin the bottle, in which Stevie (Emily Hampshire) is required to kiss Alexis (Annie Murphy), before Alexis is then asked to kiss her own boyfriend Ted.

Ted is then asked to kiss David, but the clip jumps before the kiss between the two men is depicted.

Schitt's Creek: Season 6 - In pictures 1 /8 Schitt's Creek: Season 6 - In pictures @SchittsCreek @SchittsCreek @SchittsCreek @SchittsCreek @SchittsCreek @SchittsCreek

Levy clarified in a follow-up tweet that the clip had not been censored by Comedy Central America.

I thought I made this pretty clear but for those who are confused, this is about a channel in India, he wrote.

@ComedyCentral in America is not censoring the show. They have been lovely and respectful. Thank you for your time.

Schitts Creek swept up all seven major comedy awards at the 2020 Emmys for its final season, with acting wins for all four lead stars.

The Canadian comedy series has been praised for its positive representation of LGBTQ+ communities.

Schitt's Creek seasons 1-6 are available to stream on Netflix UK now
In a United Nations speech on Tuesday supported by 38 other countries, Germany criticised China's human rights record and called on the world to accept persecuted Uygur Muslims as refugees.

The group of mostly Western countries, represented by Berlin's ambassador to the United Nations, Christoph Heusgen, also expressed "deep concerns" over the national security law Beijing has imposed in Hong Kong, which allows people to be sent to mainland China for trials.

Beijing and its UN allies fired back, rejecting what they deemed interference in "China's internal affairs".

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

A million Uygurs are in Chinese detention in the far western region of Xinjiang, according to UN findings. President Xi Jinping, however, has defended the "anti-terror" practice of "vocational training" as "totally correct".

"We are gravely concerned about the human rights situation in Xinjiang and the recent developments in Hong Kong," Heusgen said in a UN general debate.

"In view of our concerns about the human rights situation in Xinjiang, we call on all countries to respect the principle of non-refoulement," he added.

The principle of non-refoulement forms an essential protection under international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law, according to the UN.

It prohibits states from transferring or removing individuals from their jurisdiction when there are substantial grounds for believing that the person would be at risk of irreparable harm upon return, including persecution, torture or other serious human rights violations.

The German envoy said: "Widespread surveillance disproportionately continues to target Uygurs and other minorities and more reports are emerging of forced labour and forced birth control including sterilisation.

"We call on China to allow immediate, meaningful and unfettered access to Xinjiang for independent observers including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and her office."

Story continues

Germany - and a range of other countries including EU member states, the US and Britain - also expressed worry about the situation in Hong Kong.

A protester demonstrates in front of the Chinese consulate general office in Los Angeles on Thursday. Photo: ZUMA Wire/dpa alt=A protester demonstrates in front of the Chinese consulate general office in Los Angeles on Thursday. Photo: ZUMA Wire/dpa

"We have deep concerns about elements of the national security law that allow for certain cases to be transferred for prosecution to the Chinese mainland," Heusgen said.

"We urge the relevant authorities to guarantee the rights which are protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Sino-British Joint Declaration, including freedoms of speech, the press and assembly."

China, for its part, lambasted the US for violations of human rights. Its ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, spoke on behalf of 26 other nations, including Belarus, North Korea, Iran, Syria and Venezuela.

"The death of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake are still happening," Zhang said. "These incidents show the long-standing and deep-seated racism, police brutality and social inequality."

Cuba led a group of 45 countries in praising China's actions in Xinjiang.

The joint statement "noted with appreciation that China has undertaken a series of measures in response to threats of terrorism and extremism in accordance with the law to safeguard the human rights of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang", according to Chinese state media Xinhua.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
" " Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (right) is seen here next to his secretary and the communes de facto leader, India-born Ma Anand Sheela. Netflix

Spoiler alert: If you're looking for answers at the end of "Wild Wild Country," Netflix's ambitious, outrageous, engrossing docuseries about the rise and fall of a love-and-guns commune in Oregon in the 1980s, here's a tip: You're going to have to come up with your own.

The directors of the six-part, six-hour series that premiered on Netflix in March 2018 spent the better part of four years neck deep in the story of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers. In 1981, Rajneesh and his clan alighted on a 64,000-acre (25,900-hectare) ranch in Wasco County, Oregon with the idea of building a utopian city, only to run spectacularly afoul of the local citizens, the state and, ultimately, the United States government.

Director brothers Chapman and Maclain Way slogged through more than 300 hours of original footage to unearth this truly bizarre story. They conducted dozens of interviews, spent more than a year researching it and another year and a half editing the documentary. They also sat down for five days in Switzerland interviewing one of the most fascinating and complex characters of this or most any other documentary, Bhagwan's secretary and the commune's de facto leader, 68-year-old India-born Ma Anand Sheela.

After all that, if the brothers Way couldn't tie up this sprawling story for you in a nice neat little "The End" type of way, it clearly can't be done. And that's OK. It's better this way.

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The Complicated Tale

"The hardest part is just getting the story to make sense. Just making sure it's coherent," Chapman Way says. "Especially with this story, with the complex issues. There's land-use law, separation of church and state and the Constitution, immigration law ... there were so many complex components of this that almost 90 percent of your time was spent just making it understandable for an audience."

The documentary is eminently gettable, even if the actions of those in it are often anything but. "Wild Wild Country" is a winding true tale of a clash between insiders and outsiders, church and state, freedom and tyranny, young and old, arrogance and modesty. For many, to be sure, it's a story that comes down to simple right and wrong. And the wrong is pretty easy to see.

But, amazingly, more than 30 years after the story behind "Wild Wild Country" came to a head, exactly who was right and wrong is still hard to pin down.

" " The hippie-like, maroon-clad Rajneeshees (seen with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) practiced open sex and held wild ceremonies at Rancho Rajneesh" in Oregon. Netflix

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Who Was Right? Who Was Wrong?

Who's to blame for all the problems that almost immediately beset Rajneeshpuram, the commune  yes, some call it a cult  that rose outside of tiny Antelope, in north-central Oregon? Were the hippie-like, maroon-clad Rajneeshees, who practiced open sex and held wild ceremonies at "Rancho Rajneesh," trampling on the rights of those already there in trying to build their city? Did they threaten the local folks' way of life? Or could the townspeople of Antelope have been a little more accommodating, a little less wary, a tad more accepting?

Did the Rajneeshees' fear of someone taking their Oregon ranch or refusing to let them build justify its purchase of a virtual cache of assault rifles? "I will paint the bulldozers with my blood," the always-quotable Sheela told hungry journalists early on.

What can possibly explain the Rajneeshees' lawlessness  bombings, wiretapping, immigration fraud, assassination plots, arson, attempted murder and what was labeled as the largest bioterror attack in the nation's history? (Another spoiler: The Rajneeshees poisoned the food at local restaurants.) No amount of sugar can coat that. Crimes were committed. People paid for those crimes. Sheela paid.

But, maybe, it was the Rajneeshees who were being persecuted for their way of life. They certainly felt that way. And they weren't about to take it sitting down.

"Jesus said, 'Turn the other cheek,'" Sheela says in footage used early on in the documentary. "Well, we say take both cheeks."

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The Need for Balance

The story that played out in Oregon in the early '80s was a tangled one, and one that the Way brothers felt compelled, from the start, to play down the middle.

"What we found was that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," Maclain says. "You talk to Rajneeshees and Sannyasins [another name for the followers of the Bhagwan] who will absolutely, horribly disagree with the actions that Sheela took, [but] they feel empathy for her and understand that she was doing the best job that she could to protect her community and to protect her master.

"On the flip side of that, there are a lot of Oregonians who see the actions that Sheela did and they will categorize them as  quote  pure evil. Part of the challenging part of the series is that the audience is going to have to decide for themselves."

The directors play up the rival sides through the use of that 300-plus hours of news footage and current-day interviews with a handful of key players. The story portrays the Rajneeshees, on one hand, as peaceful leftovers from so many Summers of Love, and on the other as gun-toting, sex-happy devotees of a bearded Rolls Royce-loving guru. (Bhagwan, almost a bit player in "Wild Wild Country," had more than 90 Rolls Royces at Rajneeshpuram at one time, along with two jets and a private airstrip.)

The Oregonians are seen as older white people just trying to live out retirement in the open spaces of their home in peace and quiet ... and as gun-toting, small-minded, overalls-wearing hicks with bad hairdos. "Conservative cowboys," one outlet called them.

Also playing a part in the story: A handful of federal officials. They're either government thugs or the great upholders of the American way, depending on who you ask.

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Who Is Ma Anand Sheela?

No single person embodies the dichotomy that viewers of "Wild Wild Country" must embrace more than Sheela, who manages to be alarmingly combative and disarmingly charming in both the footage from the '80s and in the Ways' extensive interviews with her. Sheela was, all agree, the principal architect of Rajneeshpuram's rise and probably the one most instrumental in its fall. She almost literally sat at the right hand of Rajneesh. She later spent 29 months in prison for her crimes.

Today, Sheela Birnstiel lives serenely as head of another commune; she runs two homes in Maisprach, Switzerland for the mentally and physically disabled.

"We spent a lot of time with Sheela, even when the cameras weren't rolling," Chapman says. "Sheela is incredibly dedicated to her patients and to her clients. Her clients love her very much, and she's very involved in their care and their rehab and their lives. I think this story asks very important questions of, 'Does everyone deserve second opportunities? Who deserves a redemption story?'"

Who knows? The questions just keep coming in "Wild Wild Country." And that's OK. It's better that way.

Now That's a Wrap "Wild Wild Country" is filled with interesting characters, but the Way brothers couldn't convince one of the key players to sit down for an interview. David Knapp, the mayor of Rajneeshpuram, flipped from devoted follower to FBI informant in the '80s, and it was his testimony that led to many jail sentences for Rajneeshees. Knapp, known then as Swami Krishna Deva, didn't escape untouched. Despite his cooperation with authorities, a judge went against recommendations and sentenced Knapp to two years in prison for his part in immigration fraud. His whereabouts now are unknown.
Companies will be required to make investments aimed at achieving energy efficiency targets set by the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority or face penalties should proposals contained in the Energy (Energy management Regulations) 2020 pass.

The draft law currently gathering public opinion will also require companies to employ qualified energy managers, audit power consumption every four years and spell out plans to achieve efficiency in their premises as the country pushes for better use in business premises.

The proposed regulations will also allow Epra officers to access business premises and conduct energy audits to push them into implementing conservation measures.

Any attempts to deny officials access will be punishable by fines including Sh10 million for lying to auditors.

"Provision of false information to the authority will be punishable by a fine not exceeding 10 million Kenya shillings or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both," read the proposed regulations.

Best practices

The sector regulator will also be required to publish the minimum energy performance benchmarks for sectors of the economy based on existing best practices against which companies will be audited by the accredited personnel.

Power consumption indices will be reviewed every year and published by Epra, which will also classify facilities by energy consumption into high, medium and low users.

Companies found to be consuming energy above the benchmarks established will be compelled to submit a detailed audit report compiled by an accredited energy auditor and a detailed remedial plan of action to reduce use to acceptable levels.

Businesses will be required to maintain records relating to energy consumption at their facilities including their monthly use, fuel (including biomass and petroleum products), and water. The reports will have to be submitted every financial year before the end of June.

Failure to keep the information will attract a fine of up to Sh1 million, a year in jail or both.

Energy savings certificates

After energy audits, Epra will then issue businesses with energy savings certificates categorised as white, green for those who exceed and meet standards respectively

Energy auditors who will require authorisation from Epra to have their details maintained on the website where energy managers, audit firms and service companies, and the status of their accreditation certificates will be displayed.

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Regulations according to some manufacturers will create an additional cost of doing business with the investments expected to be made on buying modern and energy efficient facilities.

It will also involve mandatory employment of an accredited energy manager responsible for co-ordination and promotion of energy efficiency and conservation programmes.

"While there is no motivation to drive businesses into these energy efficiency investments, we see this as an increase to the cost of doing business and an addition to the pile of regulations we already have in the market. We all want to be energy efficient but this should be a business-driven strategy supported by government, not one forced down on companies with threats of fines," said a chief executive officer of a manufacturing firm based on Nairobi who did not want her identity revealed not to be seen as preempting the industry response set to be presented to Epra.
Women, particularly those aged over 35, were big losers in the federal budget, which labour market experts said had bypassed the childcare needs of women wanting to return to the workforce.

University of NSW professor of economics Richard Holden said it was "striking there was so little in the budget for women".

University of NSW economics professor Richard Holden says there was no good news in the federal budget for women.

"I think childcare is the most notable thing out of that," he said.

"We've already seen female labour-force participation drop from around 61 per cent back in the high 50s since the start of COVID.
BERLIN - A Russian accused of killing a Georgian man in broad daylight in downtown Berlin on Moscows orders went on trial for murder Wednesday, in a case that has contributed to growing frictions between Germany and Russia.

The defendant Vadim Krasikov, using the alias Vadim Solokov, travelled to the German capital last August on the orders of the Russian government to kill a Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity who fought Russian troops in Chechnya, prosecutor Ronald Georg said.

State agencies of the central government of the Russian Federation gave the defendant the contract to liquidate the Georgian citizen with Chechen roots, Georg told the court, reading the indictment.

The defendant took the contract, either for an unknown sum of money or because he shared the motive of those who gave the contract to liquidate the (victim) as a political enemy in revenge for his role in the second Chechen war and participation in other armed conflict against the Russian Federation.

No pleas are entered in the German trial system, and the defendant made only a short statement as the trial began under tight security and coronavirus precautions, saying that he had been misidentified and was a 50-year-old born in Russia, not a 55-year-old born in Kazakhstan as alleged.

I am Vadim Adreyevich Sokolov, not Vadim Nikolayevich Krasikov, he said through his attorney Robert Unger. Such a person is not known to me.

Presiding Judge Olaf Arnoldi took the unusual step of advising Krasikov of his right to remain silent before asking him basic personal details, saying that in this case even those statements could be self-incriminating.

After the Aug. 23, 2019 killing, Germany expelled two Russian diplomats last December over the case, prompting Russia to oust two German diplomats in retaliation.

If the allegations against the suspect are proved in court, the case has the potential to exacerbate tensions between Moscow and Berlin, which have also been fueled by allegations of Russian involvement in the 2015 hacking of the German parliament and the theft of documents from Chancellor Angela Merkels own office, as well as the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Navalny fell ill on a flight in Russia on Aug. 20, landing in a Siberian hospital. Two days later, he was transferred on Merkels personal invitation to Berlins Charite hospital, where doctors concluded he had been poisoned by a Soviet-era nerve agent.

Moscow has dismissed accusations of involvement in the Navalny case and denied ties in the parliamentary hacking, even though Merkel herself said there was hard evidence of the latter.

Russian President Vladimir Putins spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has also called the allegations of Russian involvement in the Berlin killing absolutely groundless.

After Merkel confronted Putin about the killing at a meeting in Paris in December, the Russian leader called the victim, Zelimkhan Tornike Khangoshvili, a bandit and a murderer, accusing him of killing scores of people during fighting in the Caucasus.

The growing acrimony between the two countries comes at a delicate time, as Germany and Russia work towards the completion of a joint pipeline project to bring Russian gas directly to Germany under the Baltic, and work to try and salvage a nuclear deal with Iran that has been unraveling since President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of it in 2018.

Khangoshvili, 40, was a Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity who fought Russian troops in Chechnya. He had also volunteered to fight for a Georgian unit against the Russians in South Ossetia in 2008, but peace was negotiated before he took part. He had previously survived multiple assassination attempts and continued to receive threats after fleeing in 2016 to Germany, where he had been granted asylum.

Prosecutors allege the killer approached Khangoshvili from behind on a bicycle in the small Kleiner Tiergarten park, shooting him twice in the torso with a silencer-fitted handgun and knocking him to the ground with the force of the bullets.

The defendant fell off his bike and then went directly to (the victim) on the ground and fired two shots into his head to ensure he was killed, Georg told the court.

Witnesses saw the suspect disposing of the bike, weapon and a wig in the Spree River near the scene and alerted police, who quickly identified and arrested him before he could flee on an electric scooter he had waiting in a doorway.

He had around 3,700 euros ($3,350) and about 110 Polish zlotys ($30) on him that Georg said was to pay his expenses in Berlin and aid in his flight after the crime.

In their indictment, prosecutors allege there is ample evidence indicating official Russian involvement in the crime.

German investigators used facial recognition to match the suspect to a photograph Russia had sent partner agencies in 2014 as it sought help finding Vadim Krasikov in connection with a killing in Moscow. That request was cancelled on July 7, 2015, and a person with the identity of Vadim Sokolov first appears on Sept. 3, 2015, with a Russian passport.

On July 18, 2019, Vadim Sokolov obtained a new passport from an official office in the Russian city of Bryansk, which he used to apply for a French visa at the general consulate in Moscow, prosecutors said.

Russian authorities confirmed the suspects passport, found on him at the time of his arrest, was valid, prosecutors said.

He was granted the visa and flew on Aug. 17, 2019, from Moscow to Paris. In his visa application, prosecutors said the suspect claimed to work for a St. Petersburg firm known as Zao Rust.

Investigators found that Zao Rust had only one employee in 2018 and on April 10, 2019, was listed as being in reorganization. The companys fax number was one used by two firms that are operated by the Russian Defence Ministry, prosecutors said.

He left Paris on Aug. 20 and flew to Warsaw where he had a hotel booked until Aug. 25. Upon arrival, he extended his room to Aug. 26, but left at 8 a.m. on Aug. 22 and never returned, prosecutors said.

It wasnt clear, they said, what he did between his departure from the hotel and the killing in Berlin at 11:55 a.m. on Aug. 23.

The trial continues with the first witnesses Thursday and is scheduled to run through Jan. 27.

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Criminal justice reform advocates whove spent years calling for the end of cash bail are now split over a statewide ballot measure that would do precisely that.

The disagreement over Proposition 25, however, is rooted not in its core component  doing away with a system in which people can be kept behind bars if they cannot afford bail. Instead, the debate has arisen out of the measures controversial plan for replacing the bail system.

Theres a real concern that (the measure) could be worse than the system its trying to fix, said San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. He opposed the bill upon which the proposition is based, but now is neutral.

If Prop. 25 passes, it would uphold SB10, a cash-bail elimination measure that then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in 2018. That bill made California the first state in the nation to wipe out cash bail entirely, but included a few eleventh-hour changes that blunted what was on track to be a monumental win for reform advocates.

It was the bail bond industry and its insurers who got Prop. 25 on the 2020 ballot through a signature-gathering campaign, which kept SB10 from taking effect until voters could weigh in. Theyve since quietly bankrolled the Prop. 25 opposition campaign, allowing the bail debate to play out largely between two sides that want bail eliminated.

Prop. 25 supporters say they share some of its critics concerns, but that theyre outweighed by its potential landmark gains.

Im a firm believer this is a step in the right direction, said Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton, who, along with Boudin, recently formed a lobbying organization for progressive prosecutors. Theres no proposition that takes care of every issue money bail has, but I think it really is time to change the entire paradigm of our criminal justice system.

The main critique in SB10 is its requirement that all superior courts use a risk-assessment tool to determine which pretrial suspects should be freed or remain behind bars. Such systems are already in place in San Francisco and several other counties, but are garnering increased scrutiny as they become more prevalent. They use algorithms intended to predict which suspects are more likely to flee or commit other crimes based on historical factors about the suspect including criminal history.

But the data-based tools have come under increased scrutiny in recent years, with critics saying they simply regurgitate long-held biases against the poor and people of color: Black and brown people are disproportionately stopped and arrested more than their white counterparts, and are therefore more likely to have a rap sheet. That information can lead the algorithm to flag people of color as higher flight risks if released.

The Human Rights Watch nonprofit, along with other civil rights groups, initially backed SB10 in 2018, but pulled their support and strongly opposed it after the risk assessment tool and other changes were swapped in just days before the vote.

What makes (the tool) worse than the bias that we already have is its given this veneer of science and objectivity thats just false, and its harder to challenge, said John Raphling, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch.

The ACLU of Northern California, which was once a sponsor of SB10, also opposed it in its final form, saying it no longer aligned with our goals and values. But the organization has softened its stance on Prop. 25 to neutral.

Another concern is that the measure will make pretrial diversion services an arm of county probation departments, effectively investing hundreds of millions in law enforcement at a moment when activists are calling to defund police. Diversion programs were created as an alternative to jail, allowing misdemeanor and low-level felony suspects to get their charges dismissed upon the programs completion.

This component is particularly troubling in San Francisco, critics say, where a unique nonprofit program has boasted more than four decades of success at keeping people out of jail. The program links its clients to mental health, education and employment services, each year sparing thousands of individuals from time behind bars.

David Mauroff, CEO of the San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project, said the organizations ethos is fundamentally different than a probation department, where officers monitor a person after theyre convicted.

If a client is struggling to fulfill the obligations of the treatment plan, we support them to get them back on track, Mauroff said. But in probation, they have the authority to arrest if the individual violates the terms of their agreement.

Mauroff offered a hypothetical scenario: A person charged with a crime, but still presumed innocent, has to take their child to the hospital, and they miss a court date. If probation is running the pretrial program, he said, that individual could be put in jail.

Im not implying every probation department is going to arrest and jail everyone, Mauroff said. Its the reality of how the system functions. Managing pretrial services will require a seismic shift in their law enforcement culture.

San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju, who opposes the measure, echoed Mauroffs sentiments.

He said a new, probation-run system could pounce on the same sorts of technical violations like missing appointments or failing a drug test that send thousands of parolees back to prison.

Probation departments have historically been viewing our clients through the lens of people who have already been convicted of crimes, Raju said. The fear is there will be may more technical violations that are going to be leading to more people being incarcerated.

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.

Other reform leaders, however, say none of the measures imperfections justify killing it altogether.

John Bauters, budget advocacy director of the Californians for Safety and Justice nonprofit, said running diversion programs through probation departments is a compromised decision. While many chafed at the idea of sheriffs offices operating them, others insisted on using agencies with experience in public safety tools.

The goal is to have statewide accountability, consistent rules and expectations, said Bauters, whose organization supports Prop. 25.

Sam Lewis, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Anti-Recidivism Coalition, said reform advocates know that we can continue to tweak this piece of legislation to make it what we want it to be.

Lewis pointed to the 2019 passage of SB36, which requires all risk-assessment tools be flagged for biases and validated at least every three years.

Lewis, himself a former life prisoner, said the stakes are too high to delay ending to cash bail. Those who cant afford pretrial freedom can have their lives upended, losing jobs, wages or their ability to care for dependents.

Looking at the big picture, Lewis said, advocates wont be able to continue passing the strong criminal justice reforms without supporting their allied elected officials.

In other words, they did their part, Lewis said. Its our turn to do our part.

(Editors note: this article was updated to clarify the position of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.)

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
Vice President Mike Pence, set to take the stage Wednesday night in a debate against Senator Kamala Harris, has largely been a background figure in the national discussion over Donald Trumps presidency. But that may be more about his style than his substance.

Pence played a pivotal role in the administrations first legislative victory, working out the deal that got the fighting factions of Republicans in the House and the White House to agree to pass the American Health Care Act, which would partially repeal and replace Obamacare.

Then, at the last moment, he had a condition of his own. The Pence Amendmentan idea hed proposed for state-based waiverscouldnt be called that. He didnt want to take any credit. Tim Alberta, the conservative political reporter for National Review and Politico, sees this as a quintessential Mike Pence moment.

The vice presidents personathe wholesome, aw-shucks, milk-drinking Midwesternermasks the skill set of a savvy political operator, Alberta wrote. The former governor of Indiana will get the job done, and avoid all acclaim in the process.

Pence is the 24-karat-gold model of what politically conservative evangelicals want in a politician, according to Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in North Carolina and former head of the Southern Baptist Conventions Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

I dont know anyone whos more consistent in bringing his evangelical-Christian worldview to public policy, Land said in 2018.

Pence was raised Catholic and had a born-again experience as a freshman in college, making a personal decision to accept Jesus as his Savior. For a while, he called himself an "evangelical Catholic." In Indiana his family attended an Evangelical Free church.

Im a pretty ordinary Christian, Pence once told a reporter, trying to make that faith real every day.

Political scientists say that the vice presidential candidate rarely moves more than a few votersbut the choice determines who will be next in line if the president dies, and says something about the future of the party and the future of the country. In 2016, the VP debate was watched by about 37 million people.

On Wednesday night, Pence will square up with Harris at the University of Utah. According to a recent YouGov poll, 40 percent of Americans say they have a favorable opinion of Pence. Hes more popular than Harris among white people, men, and Americans over the age of 65. About 14 percent of the public, however, has no opinion of the vice president.

As Pence makes his case for four more years for Trump, here are five significant things hes done so far as his No. 2:

1. Vouch for Trump

Pence was picked as a running mate at least partly to reassure conservative evangelicals that they could trust Trump.

Mike Pence is there praying over the White House every day, said Mark Burns, an African American pastor and televangelist who decided to support Trump in 2016, although he had previously voted for Barack Obama. It takes somebody who knows when youre headed toward a storm to be there praying for you.

The prominence of this role has faded somewhat in four years, as Trump has developed his own relationships with a team of evangelical advisersled by Paula White-Cainand depended less on Pence to play intermediary.

Yet Pence still serves an evangelical outreach role, joining Franklin Graham at a prayer march in Washington, DC, last month to say, Thank you for your prayers, and traveling to Texas last summer to appear at Robert Jeffresss First Baptist Church of Dallas.

Of all the people President Trump could have chosen to stand by his side and work with him, he chose a man like Mike Pencea man of great faith and a man who believes in the power of prayer, Jeffress said.

2. Provide a Steady Presence

Where Trump seems to love the excitement of chaosan asset, according to supporters, and a threat, detractors sayPence has remained steady and calm. When Trump was impeached and faced removal from office, the vice president didnt do anything to make that moment more exciting, continuing to stand behind the president.

Last weekend, as Trump tested positive for COVID-19 and was moved to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Pence was similarly ready to step in if needed, but it was clear he wouldnt overstep.

3. Break Tie Votes

When the Senate is deadlocked 50 to 50, the vice president casts the deciding vote. Pence has tipped the balance 13 times, more than any other VP since Schuyler Colfax, who served as No. 2 for Ulysses S. Grant. Pence cast the deciding vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as head of the Department of Education and the vote to allow 13 states to block federal money from going to Planned Parenthood.

As a congressman, Pence was the first to propose legislation that would defund Planned Parenthood. If you follow the money, you can actually take the funding supports out of abortion, Pence said. We then have a much better opportunity to move forward to be a society that says yes to life.

4. Advocate for Persecuted Christians

Pence steered US aid to Iraqi Christian minorities persecuted by Islamic State. He has been criticized for not doing enough, and for interfering where he shouldnt have, but the vice presidents commitment is clear. Pence wants America to take a leading role in advocating for religious freedom in the world and aiding Christians who suffer violence and loss of liberty for their faith.

In more than 100 countries spread to every corner of the globefrom Iran to Eritrea, Nigeria to North Koreaover 215 million Christians confront intimidation, imprisonment, forced conversion, abuse, assault, or worse, for holding to the truths of the gospel, Pence said. America will stand by followers of Christ in this hour of need.

Pence also pushed for diplomatic pressure to be applied to Turkey to get the government to release captive American pastor Andrew Brunson, and he condemned Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro for persecuting Catholic clergy.

5. Champion a Mission to Mars

In addition to his passion for religious conservative causes, one of Pence's main policy focuses has been the heavens. The vice president has taken the lead on rebuilding the nations space program, according to Indiana reporter Adam Wren. He helped reinstitute the group of experts who advise the president about space policy and now chairs the National Space Council. Pence has pushed funding for the Space Force, saying American military security should be as important in space as it is on Earth.

Pence is an active proponent of the plan to return to the moon by 2024, before forging on to Mars. NASA is currently working to establish a permanent presence on the lunar surface, where astronauts can live for months at a time and develop the technologies to take the next big leap to land humans on another planet.

While the tasks before us involve hardship and hazard, sacrifice and perseverance, we know what the men and women of Apollo 11 knew 50 years ago, and that is simply this, Pence said in 2019. Americans can accomplish anything we set our minds to. And America will lead the world back into the vast expanse of space.
Uttar Pradesh police on Wednesday booked four persons including Kerala Siddique Kappan on and other charges at Maant police station in Mathura, two days after they were held while on their way to Hathras.

According to the FIR, charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the IT Act have also been filed against the four, who were accused by the state police of having links with the alleged radical group Popular Front of India and its affiliates.

The four were identified as Kappan, a of Malapuram in Kerala, Atiq-ur-Rehman of Muzaffarnagar, Masood Ahmad of Bahraich and Alam of Rampur.

They were on Wednesday booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including 124A (sedition), 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 295A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belie), according to the FIR.

The PFI has been accused of funding protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act across the country earlier this year and the had sought a ban on the outfit.

The four were held when, according to the police, they were on their way to Hathras were a Dalit woman had died after allegedly being gang-raped.

(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 Charger Blog

Byungik Chang, Ph.D., P.E., MBA has been recognized by the Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers for his commitment to his students success, dedication to civil engineering, and ability to inspire the fields next leaders. By Renee Chmiel, Office of Marketing & Communications

Dr. Chang took students in his senior design class bowling in early 2017.

Byungik Chang, Ph.D., P.E., MBA believes, in addition to being knowledgeable, educators must be patient, compassionate, and committed. These are all qualities he strives to embody in and out of the classroom.

This dedication to his students has led to Dr. Chang being named the Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers Educator of the Year. He also received an Achievement in Civil Engineering award from the organization.

Byungik Chang, Ph.D., P.E., MBA

I was ecstatic when I saw my name on the list of award recipients, said Dr. Chang, an associate professor of civil engineering and chair of the Universitys Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. I am very proud to be a professor at the University of New Haven.

The CSCE praised Dr. Changs hard work and dedication to civil engineering, applauding his commitment to his students success and the growth of the Universitys Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The organization also commended his contributions to his community and the state of Connecticut, as well as his ability to inspire students to become the leaders of the future.

Dr. Changs contributions to everyone and everything in his community and state has made him flourish among other scholars, the organization wrote.

Award recipients are typically honored at a ceremony each year. Due to the coronavirus global pandemic the newest honorees will be recognized at next years ACE Awards dinner.

"My philosophy on teaching is to stand in my students shoes." Byungik Chang, Ph.D., P.E., MBA

My philosophy on teaching is to stand in my students shoes, said Dr. Chang, who serves as an editorial board member of the peer-reviewed journals Renewable Energy and Sustainability. I always teach my students based on my own experiences. I still look at my notes, exams, and homework from when I was a student to better understand my own learning process.

In addition to teaching four courses this semester, Dr. Chang, who earned his Ph.D. in civil engineering at Iowa State, is conducting research with two graduate students, focusing on wind turbine erection analysis and the design of concrete cut-out abutments for safety.

As an educator, Dr. Chang strives to bring his passion for engineering into the classroom and to be available to students outside of the classroom. His students have recognized his enthusiasm, accessibility, and responsiveness.

One of the most rewarding aspects of teaching is when alumni contact me after they get a job, he said. I want my students to have confidence that they will contribute meaningfully to society after graduating.
JERUSALEM - Relatives and supporters of a Palestinian man held without charge by Israel said he was in critical condition in an Israeli hospital Wednesday following a hunger strike of more than 70 days.

Maher al-Akhras, 49, began his hunger strike after he was arrested and placed into administrative detention in late July. Administrative detention is an Israeli policy that allows it to detain suspected militants without filing charges, sometimes for months at a time with multiple extensions.

Al-Akhras wife, Taghreed, told The Associated Press that her husband has survived on water alone while he demands his release. Speaking from his room at Kaplan Hospital in central Israel, she said al-Akhras has been hospitalized since Sept. 6 and he was too weak to speak or get up to go to the bathroom.

He lost half of his weight. He suffers spasms, she said. He has a constant strong headache and constant buzzing in the ears, fatigue, with no energy to talk to me.

A medical official declined to provide details on his condition, saying only that it was stable. The official, citing confidential medical information, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Israels Shin Bet security agency said al-Akhras was arrested on July 27 based on information that he is active in the Islamic Jihad militant group and was involved in activities that endanger public safety. It said he has been arrested five previous times for involvement in militant activities.

But al-Akhras wife said he is not an activist in any group, and only has campaigned for the rights of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

His lawyer, Ahlam Haddad, said her client rejected an offer to be released at the end of his current administrative detention on Nov. 26 and demands to be let go immediately.

His wife said al-Akhras knows his life is in danger. He says this is the only way he can achieve justice, she said.

The Palestinians and human rights groups say administrative detention violates the right to due process, since evidence is withheld from the prisoner while they are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried or convicted.

Qadoura Fares, the head of the Palestinian prisoners association, said: Administrative detention is a crime and should end. We hold Israel fully responsible for his life and call for his immediate release.

___

Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed reporting.

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After the gradual withdrawal of lockdown restrictions, economic activities have slowly picked up pace, and the countrys largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), is currently witnessing credit growth of 6-7 per cent.

Although there are concerns in some sub-segments, the public sector lender has said it is back to 70-80 per cent of pre-Covid levels. Addressing his first press conference after taking over as chairman of SBI, Dinesh Kumar Khara said retail credit growth has been good. But when it comes to corporate credit growth, we have to be mindful of the fact that many of the ...
Dancing with the Stars Tyra Banks

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Firefighters perform structure protection against the Glass fire in Napa County on Thursday along Highway 29 just past Old Lawley Toll Road in Calistoga. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

A firefighter battling the Glass fire was transported to a Santa Rosa-area hospital Tuesday afternoon after potential exposure to carbon monoxide poisoning, officials said.

The firefighter, who was not identified, was one of 16 initially examined for possible exposure to the odorless gas Tuesday morning, said Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The initial assessments were made at a Cal Fire base camp set up at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa. The other 15 firefighters were released back to the fire line after being cleared for duty.

Time will tell, McLean said of the hospitalized firefighters condition.

McClean said the exposure did not happen while battling the blaze and occurred outside of base camp, but he did not provide further details.

Common symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are headache, dizziness, weakness, upset stomach, vomiting, chest pain and confusion. Theyre often described as flu-like, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Inhaling a large amount of the gas can be deadly.

As of Tuesday, the Glass fire had scorched more than 66,000 acres in Napa and Sonoma counties, among the most destructive fires to hit the wine-making region. It has damaged or destroyed structures at 20 wineries in the area.

Theyre making some really good headway on the fire, which has blazed for eight days, McLean said. It is 50% contained.

Evacuation orders remain fluid, he said. A local assistance center opened Monday at the Napa County Health and Human Services campus.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
A study of online behavior by the University of Michigan concluded that conspiracy theories suggesting that Mr. Rajput was murdered were amplified by members the ruling B.J.P. and the TV networks that operate as extensions of the Hindu nationalist establishment. Leaders and allies of the B.J.P. supported a demand by the deceased actors family that a federal agency probe his death.

There was a method to the madness: Mr. Rajputs native state of Bihar, which sends 40 representatives to the Indian Parliament, is scheduled for state elections in October. Mr. Modis B.J.P., hoping to strengthen its grip on power in Bihar, positioned itself as fighting for justice for a son of the soil who was murdered. We havent forgotten. We wont let you forget, reads a B.J.P. poster with the partys electoral symbol and Mr. Rajputs smiling face on it.

All this, as the pandemic was raging, the economy was tanking and about 2.5 million migrant workers from Bihar who had lost their jobs in Indian cities had returned to their villages.

On Aug. 19, federal investigators took over the case. Two other top agencies were brought in to investigate murder and money laundering. Nothing came out of it.

That is when, in late August, some old WhatsApp messages between Ms. Chakraborty and Mr. Rajputs staff and friends, suggesting she procured marijuana for him, were broadcast by the right-wing television networks.

The Narcotics Control Bureau opened an investigation. The agency arrested Ms. Chakraborty and claimed that she was actively running a drug syndicate. She denied the charges, was refused bail and was sent to prison. (Last week, a top government medical board confirmed Mr. Rajputs death was a suicide, and on Wednesday morning, after almost a month in prison, she was granted bail by a court.)

Social media accounts affiliated with the Hindu right and TV networks, which essentially work as extensions of Mr. Modis party, started frothing about the wild, wild ways of the film industry and its copious consumption of drugs. Beyond distraction, the assault on Bollywood, the most powerful cultural force in India, had a clear purpose: to force the film industry into complete silence and submission, and line up behind the B.J.P.s Hindu majoritarian project.
The Maharishi Dayanand University (MDU) is struggling to pay salaries to its teaching and non-teaching staff due to shortage of funds amid the pandemic.

The employees have now threatened to shut down the varsity if their salaries are not paid by October 14.

Vikas Siwach, president of MDU Teachers Association, said, The MDU employees have to bear all expenses but the varsity has failed to give this months salary to its employees. We have decided to lock the university if the authorities fail to give us our salary by October 14.

How will this varsity run if it doesnt have funds to give salary to employees. This year seems to be very challenging for the authorities and they will have to reduce their expenses, or else the situation will get worse, he said.

A professor, on condition of anonymity, said it is absolutely inhuman that they were forced to hold protest to get their monthly salary. Over the years many courses through distance learning, which were also a major source of generating the revenue, were closed due to the varsitys lackadaisical approach. The state varsities like MDU and Kurukshetra are grappling with financial crisis since long but the authorities and government is in deep slumber.

Why have the varsity authorities not taken measures to reduce their expenses and increase sources of income. The next three months are very crucial and challenging for the authorities, he said, adding that besides salaries, the varsity is also struggling to maintain infrastructure and other facilities.

MDU registrar Gulshan Taneja said their monthly expenditure on salary payment is 12 crore.

There are nearly 1,100 non-teaching employees and over 350 teaching employees. The government has approved our annual assistance fund of 103 crore but we are yet to receive it. Within two days, we will deposit salary in the accounts of C and D group employees by adjusting from other funds. The remaining employees salary will be disbursed by October 14. We have written a letter to the state government urging them to release the fund at the earliest, he said.

He added that they have formed a committee to take proactive measures to reduce the varsitys expenses and increase its income.
The Global Pandemic App Watch, an AI + Society Initiative at the University of Ottawa, will track the uptake of COVID-19 contact-tracing and exposure-notification apps around the world. Credit: University of Ottawa

Contact-tracing and exposure-notification apps are a new technology rapidly developed and launched to respond to the COVID-19 global health crisis. The development of such applications is placing governments, corporations, and citizens around the world into an ongoing ethical design experiment resulting in potentially life-saving outcomes but also potential risks. During the summer of 2020, design teams and technology corporations presented governments with a variety of technological solutions in the form of those apps. Government leaders and ordinary citizens have needed to make decisions about which options to endorse and how to govern their use.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, as discussions swirled around the adoption of exposure notification or contact-tracing apps, Dr. Teresa Scassa, Dr. Jason Millar, and Dr. Kelly Bronson, and Scotiabank AI + Society Fellows, Tommy Friedlich and Ryan Mosoff, began to explore the privacy and socio-ethical implications related to the creation, adoption and deployment of these apps. As part of this research they gathered data about contact-tracing and exposure-notification apps-and decision-making-around the world.

The website, which was launched today, hosts three main maps; each focuses on different issues: app classification; uptake; voluntariness. There is also a series of country pages providing additional information about contact-tracing and exposure-notification apps adopted in different countries.

The maps are part of a broader research project on the law, policy and socio-ethics aspects of technological response to the pandemic.

App developers and governments need to determine the minimum amount of information to make publicly available regarding app uptake, use and efficacy; such information will influence research like this website but also everyday decisions about downloading and using apps. Considerations include the privacy-preserving aspects of the app, which have technical, legal, and socio-ethical dimensions.

Explore further As Europe faces 2nd wave of virus, tracing apps lack impact
The bad news is the chance for rain in the Bay Area this weekend is diminishing, with the latest forecast showing a storm dropping down from the Gulf of Alaska will remain offshore.

The good news is fog is pushing into inland valleys and lowering temperatures, and this should help firefighters battle flames.

Earlier in the week, the forecast put the chance for rain at 40% in the North Bay and 30% in San Francisco and the central Bay Area. The possibility of wet weather has now decreased to 30% for the North Bay and 20% for S.F., with the probability being lower on Friday than Saturday.

"It's far less than the computer models were initially expecting just a few days ago," said Steve Anderson, a forecaster with the NWS. "This is typical for this time of year, which is a transition period, so the weather models don't know which way to go. The models are less reliable."

After a long period of dry, hot weather, a cooling and moistening trend is expanding into the interior Bay Area Wednesday. The marine layer was around 1,000 feet deep this morning, "penetrating well inland into the valleys of Sonoma County, through the Golden Gate, and into the Salinas

Valley," according to the National Weather Service.

Humidity levels have increased and temperatures have cooled on ridge tops that had been whipped by desiccating winds last week, heightening wildfire risk.

Wednesday through Saturday temperatures are forecast to be in the 70s inland and 60s along the coast.

On Sunday, the weather shifts to a slight warming trend with the mercury rising into the high-70s to low-80s inland and into the 70s on the coast.
Chef Jose Andres and his army of volunteers have been quite busy this year.

They have prepared millions of meals to feed people across the United States and the world.

Andres runs World Central Kitchen, an organization that creates community "kitchens" in places struck by catastrophes, such as a hurricane or earthquake. With pans and pots, its volunteers go to the disaster zones ready to cook for hundreds and sometimes thousands of people. This year, they have provided more than 25 million meals to people affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

They have also cooked for firefighters trying to control wildfires in the Northwest part of the United States and for residents displaced by hurricanes in the Gulf Coast region. And they have fed people injured from a blast in Lebanon and survivors of bush fires in Australia. At the United States-Mexico border, they cooked for refugees living in tents.

In each mission, Andres said, kids have stepped up to help.

They show up with a grown-up attitude of "I'm going to help my community," Andres said.

When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico three years ago, downing trees and destroying homes, then 10-year-old Lola was one of many helpers. She worked tirelessly preparing sandwiches and Puerto Rican sancocho - a traditional beef stew.

"By the time we moved to a bigger operation, she was not only making sandwiches, she was in charge of a line of 40 volunteers," Andres recalls. They helped distribute 100,000 meals daily in cities and remote areas of the island.

Some kids who volunteer are from the communities that are affected. Other times, they aren't part of the affected community, but they go to help with their parents, just as Andres's three daughters have done. Andres says that while kids don't travel to disaster zones where it is unsafe to help, children across the United States are finding other ways to help to make this a better world. Some children raise money for charities such as World Central Kitchen, or their schools, or they help their neighbors.

"So many children are willing to take care of others," Andres said. "It is amazing to see the children so active."

During most emergencies that World Central Kitchen responds to with feeding missions, the volunteers cook food from the region. Andres also likes to share some of the food he grew up eating in his native Spain.

His favorite part is making a fire outdoors for cooking. He makes paella, a classic Spanish rice dish (pronounced pah-EH-yah), in a gigantic pan that starts with 200 pounds of uncooked rice and turns into 400 pounds of food that can feed more than 400 people.

Growing up in northern Spain's Asturias region, Andres spent many Sundays helping his father make paella. They made enough for as many as 100 people on some weekends. His father loved sharing food, he said.

"He always said, 'It only takes an extra handful of rice, and that's it,' " Andres said. "Some of the big problems have very simple solutions."

That's a lesson Andres said he remembers during his missions. He said he knows there is always enough food to help others in need.

Andres, 51, came to the United States when he was 21 years old to work at a restaurant in New York City. Two years later, he opened Jaleo, his first restaurant in Washington. He is now the chef and owner of more than 30 restaurants, has competed in cooking shows and is a best-selling author. He was nominated for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for his disaster relief efforts.

His passion for food began as a boy. He had barely learned to walk when his mother allowed him to help mix eggs, milk and flour for pancakes. By the time he was 7 years old he was making bizcocho (a cake).

"I remember going early in the morning to pick up the bread," Andres recalls. His mother would give him a grocery list, and he would walk or bike to a bakery and to a fruit stand each morning. "That was almost a daily ritual."

He still cooks some of the dishes he learned as a teenager, such as Arroz a la Cubana, one of his favorite meals as a kid. It includes fluffy rice, with tomato sauce on top, fried eggs and sweet plantains on the side.

"I serve it in some of my restaurants because it brings so many memories of my childhood," Andres said.

His mission, he said, is to help build a world where no child is hungry and where there is always a warm meal and a helping hand in hard times.

"There is no reason why we have in this pandemic children waiting in line to get food for their families," Andres said. "Every child in America should have a plate of food every day."

This year, 18 million children - or 1 in every 4 kids - may not know where they will get their next meal, according to the nonprofit Feeding America.

Andres said he is encouraged that he has a lot of young people helping to end that.

"There is a lot of good in children," he said. "We need to listen more to them."

- - -

Glossary - glosario

Chef - chef

Volunteers - voluntarios

Feed - alimentar

Catastrophe - catastrofe

Cook - cocinar

Mission - mision

Help - ayuda/ayudar

Kids - ninos

Food - comida

Fire - fuego

Rice - arroz

Lesson - leccion

Restaurants - restaurantes

Bakery - panaderia

Dishes - platos

Hungry - hambre

- - -

HOW TO HELP

Kids are welcome to help some World Central Kitchen missions, but they must register at wck.org and participate with an adult.

Here are other ways you can help in your community:

- Bring nonperishables to a local food bank, help in community cleanups, raise money for important causes or help a younger buddy with homework.

- Send a letter of encouragement to a member of the military, a sick person or workers helping others during the pandemic. After the pandemic, when it will be safer to socialize, carry groceries for your older neighbors or bring them food.

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CELEBRATING HISPANIC AMERICANS

This month the United States is celebrating Hispanic cultures and the contributions of Hispanic and Latino Americans in the nation.

National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, is a good time to learn about Hispanic trailblazers, such as chef Jose Andres.

Did you know, for example, that Jose Hernandez was a farmworker before he became an astronaut? Or that Ellen Ochoa was the first Latina to go to space when she served on a mission aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1993?

Naibe Reynoso, a journalist and author, recently wrote about them in two books highlighting some Latinos and Latinas who have made history. She said she hopes kids will learn and be inspired by their stories.

Her books "Be Bold! Be Brave!" and "Fearless Trailblazers" also feature scientist Albert Baez, who developed a microscope, and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, who fought for better wages for farmworkers and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

"They are heroes and role models," said Reynoso, who is Mexican American.They also are inventors, artists, actors and athletes.

Their stories are told in English and Spanish and in rhyming verse, so they are fun to read.

With nearly 60 million Hispanic residents in the United States, the influence of Hispanic music, food, dance and art is visible almost everywhere.

"We are almost 20 percent of the entire United States population, so everyone should learn more about who we are and all of our accomplishments," Reynoso said.
Police have arrested a man allegedly trying to flee Spain after a fellow Briton was stabbed to death.

A 21-year-old British man, named in reports as Ben Nesbitt, from Merseyside, died after being stabbed in the neck in the town of Rojales, in Alicante, on Thursday.

Spanish police believe the victim was at a house with a 38-year-old British man, who has not been named, and two others when a fight broke out.

The older Brit is suspected of knifing the victim in the neck, which caused a haemorrhage that led to his death.

Nearby residents raised the alarm after seeing the man calling for help and bleeding profusely before he sadly collapsed and died.

The Spanish Civil Guard have revealed the 38-year-old suspect was arrested near the Spanish-French border in Girona, about 400 miles north of the murder scene, after a surveillance operation.

Video footage of the arrest shows the handcuffed man being escorted out of a property by three police officers towards a waiting car.

He was arrested on Friday, the day after the murder, but police only reported the update on Wednesday.

The suspect appeared at Torrevieja Court, in Alicante, before being taken into custody.

The Civil Guard said in a statement: The Civil Guard of Alicante has arrested the suspect of an intentional homicide that occurred on 1 October in Rojales.

At about 2.30am on 1 October, residents in the town of Rojales raised the alarm because a man called for help while bleeding profusely.

When they tried to phone to request an ambulance, the man fainted, lost consciousness and collapsed on the sidewalk.

As [investigators] have been able to verify, the two implicated were meeting with two other people inside a house in the town of Rojales, Alicante.

During the meeting, an argument broke out between them, the [suspected killer] stabbing the victim in the neck, causing a haemorrhage that led to his death.

Subsequently, the suspect fled in a vehicle with the intention of leaving the country.
US District Judge Esther Salas (Good Morning America)

The federal judge targeted by an anti-feminist lawyer has spoken of the moment she watched her son die in the doorway of her family home.

As her husband keeled over with a gunshot wound, US District Judge Esther Salas got to the floor next to her 20-year-old son, Daniel Anderl, when she lifted his shirt and saw the bullet hole.

"Mark managed to crawl back and we were both just watching him fade away," she said in an interview with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts.

Ms Salas and her husband Mark Anderl, who is expected to make a full recovery, said they have forgiven the man who killed their only child.

Disgruntled men's rights attorney Roy Den Hollander is suspected of intending to kill Ms Salas when her son answered the door of their New Brunswick, New Jersey, home on 19 July.

The 72-year-old, who is believed to have been hunting down his enemies after a cancer diagnosis, was found dead in an apparent suicide a short time after going to Ms Salas' home disguised as a FedEx driver.

"Danny was downstairs talking to me. He said, 'keep talking to me mom, I love talking to you.' And it was at that exact second that the doorbell rang,' Ms Salas said.

"Before I could tell him, 'let Dad handle it', he shot up the stairs. And the next thing I hear is, 'boom'. Then I hear, 'no'. Then I hear a series of bullets."

After running upstairs, she saw her son lying by the door holding his chest and her husband on his hands and knees out on the front porch, where he had crawled to see the licence plate of the gunman.

It was at that moment they watched their son fade away.

"Danny was the love of our life from the moment he was born. We struggled to have a baby. I had four miscarriages, three before him. One after him. From the moment that little boy came to this world, he was the centre of our universe," Ms Salas said.

That universe was destroyed by Mr Den Hollander.

Story continues

Hollander may be tied to a murder in California of another men's rights attorney.

A men's rights attorney who once sued bars and nightclubs for offering "ladies' nights", Mr Hollander previously had a case before Ms Salas in the US District Court challenging the military's male-only draft.

In 2019, Ms Salas dismissed the argument that a male-only draft requirement deprived women of due process, but allowed another one  that a male-only draft deprives women of "equal protection of the law" -- to proceed, but with Mr Den Hollander removed from the case.

He ranted about Ms Salas in his online manifestos - calling her a hot, lazy and incompetent "Latina Judge" appointed by Barack Obama - before he went on his quest for revenge, which investigators believe included the murder of a rival attorney in California.

"I know that he hated me because I was a woman. He hated me because I was Latina. And that was the source of hate. I had the 'nerve' to become a judge," Ms Salas said.

"We play it back. 'What if I would've stopped him?' The what-ifs. But after that FBI debriefing, there's peace. If he didn't do it that day, he was going to do it."

Ms Salas wants her son's death to have meaning, and in August released a video statement calling for better protections as she campaigns for a solution to safeguard the privacy of federal judges.

As for Mr Den Hollander, he has been forgiven.

"From the moment I did that, I felt lighter. You know, hate is heavy. Love is light," Ms Salas said.

"I can't let him take anything else. I know that I'm going to strive every morning to be the best person that I can be. My son gave his life for his father and I."

Read more

Lawyer who killed Judge Salas' son may have been targeting enemies

Son of US federal judge killed and husband wounded in attack by gunman

FBI links suspected shooter of judge's son to murder of rival lawyer

Who was the 'anti-feminist' lawyer suspect in murder of judge's son?
WESTPORT  The Representative Town Meeting unanimously approved a sense of the meeting resolution denouncing racism on Tuesday, classifying racism as a crisis.

The statement came as an amendment to a resolution proposed by RTM members Amy Kaplan, Harris Falk and Sal Liccione to declare racism a public health crisis.

Although all RTM members agreed they opposed racism, the four-hour debate largely surrounded how broad or narrow the statement should be, its sincerity, and the limits of the RTM. Members instead went with a broader crisis classification and essentially changed the entire original resolution, except for denouncing racism.

I thought in this moment of time as divisions and inequalities are racking the country that this is the right time to make this statement, Kaplan said. I perhaps naively thought that this would not be controversial.

The original proposal asserted people of color experienced poor health outcomes as a consequence of inequities in economic stability, education, food and access to health care.

Kaplan said the resolution was brought before the RTM because it was a non-partisan body.

I dont believe this is about politics its about humanity, she said.

It was introduced largely due to the national conversation on racism, but Kaplan said there were also some local instances including a black Starbucks worker claiming he was harassed at work this past summer.

The RTM typically focuses on local matters, but similar sense of the meeting resolutions have been passed in the past. Some examples include a demand of immediate withdrawal from Vietnam in 1972 and supporting a nuclear arms freeze in 1982, according to RTM moderator Velma Heller.

While such resolutions represent a statement of agreement or accord among members they are non-binding and do not require any specific action by the town, Heller said.

The focus on solely racism raised concern for some RTM members due to its exclusion of other acts of discrimination. Other members also pointed out the lengthy proposal may have questionable sources.

RTM member Kristan Hamlin proposed an amendment to stand against all acts of discrimination citing the hardships faced by women like single motherhood, as well as challenges other ethnic and religious groups face.

Its very important that we be inclusive and we actually talk about the real causes of poverty, she said. If were going to do something here then lets get it right.

But several members of the public raised concern of changing the resolutions intent.

The original resolution was proposed now and written in this way because of the moment we are in as a country  and Westport is part of that moment, Michael Kaplan, a Westport resident, said. This isnt about politics and it isnt about sexism, it is about racism that is real and more present than we like to admit.

TEAM Westport Chairman Harold Bailey Jr. shared similar sentiments.

The subject for consideration this evening is race, he said. This discussion should be addressed fully head on and not diluted by an expansion of scope to discrimination in general.

The final amendment was then fine-tuned to pinpoint the message the RTM was trying to get across.

The Westport RTM condemns racism in all its forms and hereby commits to actively working toward combating racism and valuing all people as deserving of equitable treatment, the statement reads. We see the world around us and recognize racism as a crisis, having negative effects on the public health, welfare and lives of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color.

Racism diminishes us all, it continues. Therefore, we ask the town of Westport to commit to continue work already begun, and we ask the town of Westport to develop means to evaluate our communitys progress in the areas of racial equity and justice.

While the resolution is non-binding it symbolizes the RTMs stance.

Heller said she was proud of the healthy dialogue and the effort to make something positive happen.

This is a very complicated issue to deal with, she said. To be able to deal with it on the floor of the RTM is challenging and I think that you all really rose to the occasion.

dj.simmons@hearstmediact.com
A month after actor Rhea Chakraborty was arrested, the Bombay high court on Wednesday granted her bail in a drug abuse case linked to actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death case. Rhea was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on September 8 for her alleged involvement in procuring marijuana for Rajput, also her boyfriend.

Rheas brother Showik will, however, continue to remain behind bars after his bail plea was rejected. The court also refused to grant bail to Abdel Basit Parihar, a final year student of architecture, who is accused of supplying narcotics to Sushant Singh Rajput, allegedly through Showik.

Justice Kotwal granted bail to Rhea on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and one or two sureties in the same amount. She has, however, been granted time to furnish sureties, paving the way for the immediate release of the 28-year-old actress.

ALSO WATCH | Sushant case drugs angle: Rhea Chakraborty gets bail; no relief for Showik

The high court has directed Rhea to surrender her passport to the investigating officer and not to leave India. She is also restrained from leaving the jurisdiction of the special NDPS court in Mumbai without submitting itinerary to the special court. She will also have to report to the NCB office on the first Monday of every month for the next six months.

After the order was pronounced, additional solicitor general Anil Singh sought a stay on the order for at least one week. This matter involves a number of questions of law and therefore we want to test this order (before the Supreme Court), said Singh.

Justice Sarang V Kotwal refused to stay the order. What do you want to test, the judge asked Singh. I have held that all offences under the NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act are non-bailable, the judge added while rejecting the request.

Also Read: In Sushant Singh Rajput case, CBI to summon eyewitness who saw him with Rhea Chakraborty on June 13

After Singhs request, HC ordered Rhea to visit the nearest police station everyday for the next ten days, so that she is easily available for re-arrest in case the NCB succeeds in its challenge to the order.

We are delighted by the order of the Honble Bombay High Court granting bail to Rhea Chakraborty. Truth and Justice have prevailed and ultimately the submissions on facts and law have been accepted by Justice Sarang V Kotwal, said advocate Satish Maneshinde, who represented Rhea.

The arrest and custody of Rhea was totally unwarranted and beyond the reach of law. The hounding and witch hunt by three central agencies.. the CBI, ED and NCB, of Rhea should come to an end said Maneshinde. We remain committed to Truth. Satya Meva Jayate.

Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajput death probe: No, I am not examining the case, says Harsh Vardhan

Justice Kotwal on Wednesday also granted bail to two ex-staffers of Rajput - his house manager Samuel Miranda and Dipesh Sawant, both of whom were also arrested by NCB on similar charges.

Both of them are ordered to be released on personal bonds of Rs 50,000 each and one or two sureties in the same amount. They too are ordered to surrender their passports and not to leave the jurisdiction of the special NDPS court in Mumbai.

NCB had started investigation into the drug angle to Rajputs suicide after a trail of WhatsApp chats came to the fore revealing sale and purchase of drugs.

Arrested on September 4, Showik was accused of being in regular touch with two drug peddlers, Abdul Basit Parihar and Kaizan Ebrahim, from whom he allegedly procured contraband material for consumption of the deceased actor. Rhea too was accused of procuring drugs and at times paying for the contraband material as well.

The siblings were, however, booked under stringent provisions like sections 8(c) read with 20(b)(ii) (produce, manufacture, possess, sell, purchase, transport, ware-house, use, consume, import, export or tranship cannabis other than ganja), 27A (financing illicit trafficking into drugs and harbouring offenders), 28 (attempt to commit offences under the Act) and 29 (abetment) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
Michigan lawmakers plan to begin passing COVID-19-related bills as soon as Thursday in response to the state Supreme Courts ruling invalidating Gov. Gretchen Whitmers ability to continue a state of emergency without the legislatures approval.

The courts Friday ruling  which found neither of the states emergency statutes gave Whitmer the authority to unilaterally continue the COVID-19 state of emergency after the legislature declined to extend it on April 30  threw scores of pandemic-related executive orders issued in recent months into legal limbo.

In a Tuesday evening statement, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clark Lake, and House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, said the Senate would meet Oct. 8 and the House would meet Oct. 13 to take up time-sensitive issues that will require legislative action.

We are meeting as soon as possible to take that action to keep Michigan families safe from COVID-19 and the effect it has had on our state, they said in the statement. The exact legislative agenda has yet to be determined, but the Senate and House are working together right now to review the governors numerous executive orders and determine which issues require immediate attention.

Although its unclear what the Senate might take up Thursday, the bills arent likely to include any statewide mandate to wear masks, which public health experts have described as an effective way to limit COVID-19 spread.

Over the weekend, Shirkey said he would not support codifying Whitmers executive order requiring face coverings in indoor public places and outdoor places where people cant maintain six feet of distance from each other. Asked about whether hed support a mask mandate Monday during a call with reporters, Chatfield said he wasnt certain the question has much merit after Shirkeys comments.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services issued an emergency public health order under a different statute that requires mask-wearing and limits the number of people allowed at public gatherings. Shirkey slammed that order as an effort by the Whitmer administration to attempt an end-run around the Supreme Court.

At a Tuesday press conference, Whitmer referred to Shirkey as an anti-masker," calling it concerning that Republicans werent supportive of requiring masks even after President Donald Trump was admitted to the hospital for COVID-19.

Whitmer and others have called on the legislature to start by codifying Executive Order 2020-76, which extended the length of time people could collect unemployment benefits and allowed more people to obtain them.

Related coverage:

Anti-masker Republicans in Legislature wont make Whitmer hold back on fighting COVID-19, she says

Unemployment could become a mess in Michigan without executive orders

Read the full order that DHHS is using to replace 40+ Whitmer rules

How the Supreme Court ruling on COVID-19 executive orders may affect Michigan schools
Paras Griffin/Getty ImagesThis Friday, Grammy-nominated gospel legend Marvin Sapp will release his 12th studio album, Chosen Vessel.

He tells ABC Audio it's "great" knowing his music still touches people after over three decades in the music industry.

"It feels great. I've been around this industry a very, very long time," says Marvin. "I started when I was 22, and I'm going into my 32nd second year of being in the gospel industry. It's been great to still be relevant."

"And I think that that's the thing because sometimes in this industry we can become so locked into a particular mindset and a particular mode that we don't listen to what's happening in the world around us," he continues.

For Chosen Vessel, Marvin focuses on praise and worship to give listeners a different sound they didn't know they needed. With this masterpiece album, named after the 100-year-old church he was purposed with taking over in Fort Worth, Texas, the Michigan native taps into other soulful, funky sounds on vibrant tracks such as, "Say Yeah" and "Praise Everyday," which may come off like a remix to Michael Jacksons 1987 single, "Bad."

The album's lead single, "Thank You For It All," mirrors Marvin's triumphing 2007 classic, "Never Would Have Made It," which he performed during Swizz Beats and Timbaland's "Healing" Verzuz battle in May.

"So the fact that people, again, are still embracing my music some 30 plus years later, it's a great feeling," Marvin added.

Chosen Vessel arrives on October 9th.

By Rachel George

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump called on Congress to approve federal economic relief late Tuesday night mere hours after publicly terminating negotiations with Democrats, posting tweets that appeared to contradict his own declarations from earlier the same day.

Trump had on Tuesday afternoon instructed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to abandon bipartisan talks over a stimulus package, complaining that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was making unreasonable demands in negotiations. "I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election," the president said.

About seven hours later, Trump appeared to reverse himself in a new string of tweets.

After canceling talks, he publicly urged members of his own administration to work with congressional Democrats to approve additional federal stimulus measures.

At 9:54 p.m., he called on the House and Senate to "IMMEDIATELY" approve $25 billion in new aid for the airline industry, which has already begun laying off thousands of employees after federal aid programs expired last week.

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At 10:18 p.m., he called for Congress to direct $1,200 payments to millions of Americans and said he wanted immediate aid for small businesses.

"I am ready to sign right now," he wrote. "Are you listening Nancy?"

He was referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., though he "tagged" his chief of staff Mark Meadows and other congressional leaders in the Twitter post.

All of these new positions unfolded through Trump's Twitter account and not in any public statements.

He hasn't made a public appearance since returning to the White House Monday evening from the hospital, where he was being treated for coronavirus. During his hospital stay, he called on Congress to join together to pass a stimulus deal, a viewpoint that he seemed to shift away from Tuesday only to shift back to it again in the evening.

Trump's initial effort to cancel the talks on Tuesday sent the stock market sharply lower. His push late Tuesday evening to revive stimulus talks sent stock market futures sharply higher.

Democrats have for months rejected the idea of passing stimulus funding on a piecemeal basis, instead insisting on one comprehensive package to aid the economy, although Pelosi has suggested Congress could act first to help the airline industry. The president's demands Tuesday night also left out addressing the expiration of additional federal unemployment benefits for tens of millions of jobless Americans.

ELECTION 2020: Get the Houston Chronicle's latest news and analysis on the upcoming election

The president's sudden whiplash over the stimulus package followed the widespread backlash to his decision to abruptly end talks with Pelosi, which startled even some congressional Republicans and led to a dip in the stock market. The Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group that proposed a $1.5 trillion stimulus package, called for a resumption in negotiations, while Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., a vulnerable House member in a difficult reelection race, said he disagreed with the president and "strongly urge" Trump to rethink the decision.

The president has long sought an additional stimulus package ahead of the Nov. 3 election, and it remained unclear exactly why he suddenly gave up on talks. During a call Tuesday with the president, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., suggested to Trump that Pelosi was stringing him along and no deal she cut with Mnuchin would command broad GOP support to pass in the Senate, according to two people with knowledge of the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it.

Trump has also long claimed that good negotiators must know "when to walk away from the table," and frequently boasts at campaign rallies that his hard-line negotiating style produces major concessions from his opponents. That approach appears unlikely to yield a successful stimulus package in time for the election. Pelosi speculated to other congressional Democrats Tuesday that the steroid medication the president is taking to recover from the coronavirus could be altering his thinking.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who is facing re-election next week, called the reopening a validation of the countrys go hard, go early response. However, experts warned that an elimination strategy may not be viable in the absence of a vaccine

The first time that New Zealand thought it had eliminated the coronavirus from its isolated shores, a mysterious outbreak in its largest city shattered any sense of victory over a tenacious foe.

Now, after a second round of strict lockdown, the country believes  if a bit more tentatively this time  that it has effectively stamped out the virus once again.

On Wednesday, New Zealand moved to lift the last of its restrictions in Auckland after 10 days with no new cases linked to a cluster that first surfaced in August. The government will now allow unrestricted gatherings, and trips on public transit without social distancing or masks, in the city of 1.6 million people.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who is facing re-election next week, called the reopening a validation of the countrys go hard, go early response. The strategy is aimed at eradicating the virus with a swift, science-based policy, one that trades weeks of lockdown and sacrifice for an emergence to full economic activity.

Our team of 5 million, a little more battle-weary this time, did what national teams do so often. We put our heads down, and we got on with it, Ardern told reporters in Christchurch on Monday as she announced that the restrictions would be loosened, referring to the total number of people in New Zealand.

You only had to look around the world to see the alternative to our approach here in New Zealand, she said, adding that there was a 95 percent probability that the country had eliminated local transmission of the virus.

Experts cautioned that New Zealands small population and isolation meant it was uniquely positioned to manage the disease. But its success presents a stark contrast to many other parts of the world as deaths from the pandemic have surpassed 1 million.

India is being devastated by the virus after proceeding with its economic reopening even as a second wave washed over the country. In the United States and Brazil, leaders have continued to play down the pandemics dangers even as they themselves have been infected.

The word elimination in relation to the virus, said Michael Baker, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago, might stick in the throat for some politicians, because it seems too tough, but as we found in New Zealand, its a goal you aim for, and you accept you might have outbreaks.

Baker helped devise the countrys elimination strategy. He said that despite early fears that severe lockdowns would irreparably damage the economy, New Zealands approach had proved that the best economic response was a strong public health response, including a blitz of testing, contact tracing and quarantining.

Much of the rest of the Western world, Baker added, has adopted the approach of complacent exceptionalism  that they wouldnt get the virus, or it wouldnt be as severe as they thought, and the pandemic has proved them wrong.

In Auckland, where gatherings had been restricted to 100 people and masks had been mandated on public transport, the rules were eased at 11.59 pm (local time) on Wednesday. People are no longer required to wear masks in public but must continue to sign in at and keep records of locations they visit, maintain good hygiene practices and, if unwell, remain at home and get tested for the virus. The national border remains closed to almost all travelers except New Zealand citizens and permanent residents.

While residents said they were relieved, they did not expect an immediate return to normal life.

People have stayed in their suburbs and supported their local restaurants, so where in the past I was in a really good spot, now not so much, said Yael Shochat, who has run Ima Cuisine, a restaurant in downtown Auckland, for almost two decades.

But the most important thing is we have eliminated the virus again, and that makes people confident to come out, Shochat said. Im hoping that as Christmas comes, people will really want to go out and party  its been a horrible year.

Others said they had been frustrated at restrictions that seemed too stringent, preventing them from applying for visas or doing work considered nonessential by the government. And some who acknowledged that the measures were necessary said they felt that not enough had been done to assist them.

I cant get any help from the government, said Sherrie Edwards, 51, who after losing her job as an importer in recent months said she feared that she might have to sell her home to make ends meet. Edwards said she was feeling quite depressed.

While the economic pain has been acute for many, New Zealand has kept the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus low. The country has had 1,505 confirmed cases and 25 deaths in total, and as of Wednesday, just three new cases of the virus had been recorded, all of them people still in quarantine after arriving from overseas.

The numbers have worked in Arderns favor, placing her ahead in the polls before the countrys elections on 17 October.

I was always leaning toward Labor, but this has well and truly solidified it for me, said Christopher Carroll, a 31-year-old primary school teacher in Auckland, referring to the party that Ardern leads.

I feel like were in a better situation than in other parts of the world, where this thing is going on and on.

Two months ago, however, many in the country wondered whether that success would continue.

The Auckland cluster, the countrys largest, involved 179 cases. At the same time in neighboring Australia, its second-largest city, Melbourne, was in the grip of a severe second wave from which it is only now emerging. And although disease detectives struggled to pin down the origins of the Auckland outbreak, the country was ultimately able to quash it through a citywide lockdown that began the day after the first cases emerged.

New Zealand is not alone in successfully pursuing an elimination strategy, with Taiwan among those following the model. And other places, including Hong Kong and Vietnam, have stamped out second or third waves. But experts said this approach would not necessarily work everywhere.

Theyve never had a major outbreak where the number of cases have overwhelmed their public health capacity, Adam Kamradt-Scott, an associate professor of global health at the University of Sydney, said of New Zealand.

He added that even though the countrys size, isolation and disaster preparedness gave it distinct advantages, an elimination strategy may not be viable in the absence of a vaccine.

Michael Plank, a mathematics and statistics professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, said that until that time, it would be wise for New Zealanders to continue wearing masks  even if the virus appeared to have been defeated.

We need to be really careful not to let our guard down, Plank said. We think weve got a high chance now that weve eliminated community transmission of the virus. But that doesnt mean it wont come back.

Livia Albeck-Ripka c.2020 The New York Times Company
Company set to grow Denver, CO headquarters, increasing office space with plans to hire



Top agents and their clients flock to cash offer service that gives homebuyers and sellers certainty during market turmoil and increased competition

DENVER, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BoardRE, a fintech lender leveling the playing field for homebuyers by upgrading any offer to an all-cash offer, today announced that it has changed its name to Accept.inc. The name change reflects the companys mission to give buyers a better chance at having their offers accepted and help them become more competitive in a housing market that increasingly presents multi-offer situations.

Accept.inc believes every homebuyer should have equal access to the home of their dreams, without needing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank. The value in its service is in enabling homebuyers to make cash offers, giving them a leg up in highly-competitive housing markets and offering them significant discounts off list price in single-offer situations.

Were solving a two-sided problem for consumers, said Adam Pollack, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Accept.inc. Home sellers crave the speed and certainty of all-cash deals. Homebuyers can typically afford a loan, but often dont have the cash to purchase the home outright. Our mission is to give homebuyers a better shot at having their offers accepted and ensure home sellers dont need to accept anything less than a cash offer for the most important transaction of their lives.

Weve seen it all with our service: from first-time homebuyers beating out more than 20 offers to VA (Veterans Affairs) buyers winning against other cash buyers. Home has never been more important than right now during COVID-19 and, therefore, our commitment to leveling the playing field is even more critical, said Nick Friedman, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Accept.inc. And we believe the new company name better reflects that.

The company also announced it is expanding its headquarters location in the Cherry Creek neighborhood of Denver, CO. The new location boasts nearly 6,000 square feet of office space and will accommodate the companys expanding workforce, which has already grown to more than 34 full-time employees (a five-fold increase year-over-year) and will increase further as the company plans to hire in the near-term, including experienced loan officers, transaction managers, software engineers, and more. The companys founders chose to build and grow their business in Denver not only to support their mission of creating a truly universal cash offer that could serve a wide range of buyers and price points, but also because of its rapidly growing technology and venture ecosystem.

Accept.inc has bought and sold over $100 million worth of homes on its platform and its business is on pace for well over a thousand percent growth year-over-year, making it one of the fastest growing mortgage companies in Colorado. Accept.inc uses its cash to buy homes on behalf of buyers. Once a buyers loan with Accept.inc is ready to close, Accept.inc sells the home to them at the price it was purchased for, typically in two weeks or less. Because Accept.inc generates revenue as the mortgage lender, it does not add costs to buyers, sellers, or real estate agents who leverage its cash offer service. In enabling homebuyers to give all-cash offers, Accept.inc also offers homebuyers an average discount off list price three to four times the average discount of buyers submitting mortgage offers in single-offer situations.

If I can come in with cash and offer the seller a seven-day guaranteed close in the middle of COVID-19, Im not just winning the deal, but I am locking down the lowest price, building instant equity for my buyers, said Taylor Wilson, a real estate agent featured recently as part of the #1 producing small team in Denver at Compass. Once you do this, the value and benefit of a cash offer becomes so clear. This service is spreading like wildfire throughout Denver metro and beyond.

Homebuyers, sellers, and agents who want to learn more about the power of making cash offers with Accept.inc can visit www.accept.inc.

About Accept.inc

Accept.inc is a fintech lender that seeks to level the playing field for homebuyers by upgrading any offer into an all-cash offer. Accept.inc purchases homes for all cash on behalf of buyers the company has approved for a mortgage. Once the buyers loan with Accept.inc is ready to close, it sells the home back to the buyer at the exact same price it bought it for. Accept.inc is currently operating in the state of Colorado. Accept.inc is a Y Combinator-backed company, with the company founders participating in the esteemed accelerators Winter 2019 cohort. The company is venture-backed by some of the most notable investors in the U.S., including Global Founders Capital (GFC), DN Capital, Ilya Kirnos (Founding Partner, SignalFire), and Silicon Valleys 1517 Fund, which is backed by Peter Thiel. For more information go to www.accept.inc.

About Adam Pollack

Mr. Pollack is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Accept.inc. In this role, he is responsible for shaping the companys strategy and product development for consumers and valued agent partners. Mr. Pollack participated in the Winter 2019 Y Combinator program for entrepreneurs and won financing by the esteemed accelerator. He was also recently named a Thiel Fellow as part of the prestigious Thiel Fellowship, awarded to young entrepreneurs who leave college to pursue disruptive ventures. Prior to founding Accept.inc, Mr. Pollack was a student at Harvard College, where he pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Theory and Spanish. Adam is also a licensed loan officer in the states of Colorado and Texas. Mr. Pollack began his entrepreneurial career at a young age, having started a successful cargo transportation business at the age of 11 with his twin brother Benjamin on Fire Island, NY. Their business was the topic of a feature story in the Wall Street Journal in 2012.

About Nick Friedman

Mr. Friedman is Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Accept.inc. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing internal and external business development and managing the companys lending and purchasing operations. Mr. Friedman participated in the Winter 2019 Y Combinator program for entrepreneurs and won financing by the esteemed accelerator. Prior to founding Accept.inc, Mr. Friedman was a student at Williams College, where he was on the Deans List and pursued a bachelors degree in Economics and Mathematics before leaving to start Accept.inc. Mr. Friedman is an accomplished TEDx Speaker and also a licensed loan officer in the state of Colorado.

About Ian Perrex

Mr. Perrex is Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Accept.inc. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing the companys underwriting platform, customer experience, and automation. Prior to joining Accept.inc, Mr. Perrex was the Chief Executive Officer of Oneiros, Inc., a firm he founded in 1994 to provide systems development, research, and consultancy services. In this capacity, Mr. Perrex worked with an esteemed group of clients, including The Gap, Ancestry.com, Orbitz, Fidelity Investments, and Fox Sports, among others. Mr. Perrex is an expert in the field of evolutionary computation and artificial intelligence, as well as engineering design, analysis, and manufacturing. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas in Arlington, TX and a masters degree in Computer Science with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence from Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. He is also a licensed loan officer in the state of Colorado.

Safe Harbor Statement

The information posted in this release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by use of the words "may," "will," "should," "plans," "explores," "expects," "anticipates," "continues," "estimates," "projects," "intends," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in methods of marketing, delays in manufacturing or distribution, changes in customer order patterns, changes in customer offering mix, and various other factors beyond the company's control.
VANCOUVER, BC, and BREDA, NETHERLANDS / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Organto Foods Inc. (TSXV:OGO)(OTC PINK:OGOFF)(FSE:OGF) ("Organto" or "the Company"), an integrated provider of organic and value-added organic fruits and vegetables today is pleased to announce that Ana Cristina De la Campa has joined the Company as General Manager of LATAM Operations and On-Line Business Development Manager.

Ms. De la Campa brings a unique skill set and background to this position having both direct foods and on-line marketing experience. Born and raised in Mexico City, Ana Cristina graduated with honors in Chemical Engineering, with a focus on food science, from the Universidad Iberoamericana. She began her career with Kraft Foods as a R&D Scientist, followed by three years with Walmart Mexico and USA as a Business Analyst. Following this experience, she moved to Europe and completed an International Master's Degree in Project Management, with distinction, from the Universities of Edinburgh, Politecnico de Milano and UMEA. Upon graduation, she was hired as Project Manager for Media Markt-Saturn, the biggest consumer electronics retailer in Europe, leading strategic programs on e-commerce and supply chain, based in Germany.

In her new role, Ms. De la Campa will lead the Company's Latin American operations, working with current team members, focusing on expanding organic sourcing and supply from this important region, enhancing operations, logistics and administration, and strategically developing local go-to-market options. In addition, she will lead the development of the Company's on-line global distribution strategy with the objective of increasing Organto's presence in this fast-growing market segment. She will be based in Germany.

"We are extremely pleased to have Ana Cristina join us at this exciting time in Organto's history. Latin America is a key sourcing and supply region for our business and her in-depth foods and local knowledge will be invaluable as we both build supply and develop our go-to-market options for this region. With the onset of COVID-19, the acceptance of on-line food options has grown dramatically and presents a unique opportunity for Organto. Ana Cris's extensive knowledge of e-commerce and online marketing will open up exciting new possibilities for Organto in this fast-growing segment." commented Rients van der Wal, Co-CEO of Organto."

Investor Relations

Organto also announces that it has engaged Relations Publiques Paradox Inc. ("Paradox") to provide investor relations services to Organto with the objective of increasing visibility in the financial community and identifying potential investors through the use of their contacts and proprietary database. Paradox is a Montreal-based investor relations consultancy firm that has been in business for over 18 years. Paradox's extensive experience is expected to provide a full-service, results-driven approach to Organto's investor relations program. Under the terms of Paradox's engagement, Organto will pay Paradox a monthly service fee of CDN $10,000 and issue 1,000,000 options (the "IR Options") with an exercise price of $0.10, vesting 25% immediately and each six-month period thereafter. Paradox's engagement will be for a 24-month term, subject to termination by either party with 30 days written notice. Upon termination of the engagement, any unexercised options will expire after 30 days, as per TSXV policy. The agreement with Paradox, as well as the grant of the IR Options, is subject to the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange.

Carl Desjardins, Principal with Paradox commented, "We are extremely pleased to be working with the Organto team given their positioning in fast growing healthy foods markets and solid track record having realized five consecutive quarters of record revenue and margin growth. We believe the Company is well-positioned for exciting shareholder value creation and look forward to working with them to bring their story to a wide audience."

Stock Option Grants

Organto also announced that it has granted 200,000 stock options to service providers as per the terms of the Company's Share Option Plan. These options have an exercise price of CDN $0.10 with a term of five years, vesting 20% immediately and 20% on each anniversary thereafter.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD,

Steve Bromley

Chair and Interim Chief Executive Officer

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

For more information contact:

Investor Relations

604-634-0970

1-888-818-1364

info@organto.com

ABOUT ORGANTO

Organto's business model is rooted in its commitment to sustainable business practices focused on environmental responsibility and a commitment to the communities where it operates, its people and its shareholders. Organto is an integrated provider of branded, private label and bulk distributed organic and specialty fruit and vegetable products using an asset-light business model to serve a growing socially responsible and health conscious consumer.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release may include certain forward-looking information and statements, as defined by law including without limitation Canadian securities laws and the "safe harbor" provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("forward-looking statements"). In particular, and without limitation, this news release contains forward-looking statements respecting Organto's business model and markets; Organto's vison of being a leading global provider of fresh organic fruits and vegetables utilizing an integrated business model, trusted for driving equitable returns to all parties in the value chain; Organto's belief that Ana Cristina De la Campa's in-depth foods and local Latin America knowledge will be invaluable; Organto's belief that Ana Cristina De la Campa's knowledge of e-commerce and on-line marketing will position Organto to address this market opportunity; Organto's belief that Paradox will provide a full-service, results-driven approach to investor relations; management's beliefs, assumptions and expectations; and general business and economic conditions. Forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions that may prove to be incorrect, including without limitation assumptions about the following: the ability and time frame within which Organto's business model will be implemented and product supply will be increased; cost increases; dependence on suppliers, partners and contractual counter-parties; changes in the business or prospects of Organto; unforeseen circumstances; risks associated with the organic produce business generally, including inclement weather, unfavorable growing conditions, low crop yields, variations in crop quality, spoilage, import and export laws and similar risks; transportation costs and risks; general business and economic conditions; and ongoing relations with distributors, customers, employees, suppliers, consultants, contractors and partners. The foregoing list is not exhaustive and Organto undertakes no obligation to update any of the foregoing except as required by law.

SOURCE: Organto Foods Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609422/Organto-Adds-Organizational-Depth-to-Lead-Latin-American-Operations-and-On-Line-Business-Development
Durham, NC - A study released today in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine points the way to a possible new avenue of treatment for ischemic stroke. The study, led by Annamaria Cimini, Ph.D., of the University of L'Aquila, and Liborio Stuppia, M.D., of D'Annunzio University, Italy, reveals how the secretome of amniotic fluid stem cells can restore neuronal plasticity (the brain's capacity to change and adapt), improve cognition, and replace neurons damaged or lost due to an ischemic stroke.

Their finding may lead to a more broadly applicable stroke therapy that is not hindered by a narrow treatment window or pre-existing conditions.

Each year, 5.5 million people across the world die from stroke, and more than 116 million years of healthy life are lost due to stroke-related death and disabilities, according to the World Stroke Organization. Most strokes - an estimated 87 percent - are the ischemic type, which occur when a vessel supplying blood to the brain becomes obstructed.

The most effective treatment currently in use is a clot-busting drug known as a tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA). However, to be effective the t-PA must be given within three hours after the onset of stroke symptoms, and even then the cure rate is just one in 10 patients. t-PAs also have their own risks, especially for people who have a history of bleeding problems, uncontrolled high blood pressure, or recent surgery or trauma.

"Thrombolytic therapy itself can lead to brain injuries, namely cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. I/R injury is one of the major reasons for disability, high morbidity, and mortality worldwide," Dr. Cimini said. (Reperfusion refers to the act of restoring the flow of blood to an organ or tissue, typically after a heart attack or stroke.)

In the search for better treatment options, stem cells have emerged as a possible candidate due to their regenerative abilities. Human amniotic fluid stem cells (hAFSCs) in particular are interesting, as adult stem cells - even after reprogramming - might pass along any pre-existing genetic conditions, thus representing a limitation in their application.

On the other hand, hAFSCs offer a clean therapeutic slate. A novel class of pluripotent stem cells with intermediate characteristics between embryonic and adult stem cells, hAFSCs are able to safely differentiate into all types of tissue. Furthermore, ethical issues related to their use are minimal, as they are collected during routine amniocentesis, third-trimester amnio-reduction or Cesarean section.

The growing interest in hAFSCs over the past decade has led researchers to also investigate the cells' secretome - which encompasses the complete set of proteins expressed by cells and secreted into the extracellular space - and its potential neuroprotective mechanisms.

In their current study, the Cimini- Stuppia team wanted to determine which signal transduction pathways might be activated by hAFSC-derived secretome during a stroke. (Signal transduction is how signals are transferred through a cell via proteins - a process necessary for healing.) They also wanted to analyze miRNA expression in the conditioned medium. miRNAs found in exosomes are key regulators of the immune response that affect maturation, proliferation, differentiation and activation of immune cells, as well as antibody secretion and release of inflammatory mediators.

"Thus, exosomes offer an alternative therapeutic approach as a substitute for cell transplantation," Dr. Cimini said.

The team began by first devising an in vitro stroke model. To do this, they deprived hAFSCs of oxygen and glucose for a three hour period after testing several different time windows - at three hours, the cells showed a reduction in viability of about 50 percent. Then, 24 hours later, they treated the oxygen/glucose depleted cells with several different percentages of hAFSC-conditioned medium.

"When we examined the results, we found that the hAFSC-derived secretome had activated pro-survival pathways, as well as pathways that halted apoptosis (programmed cell death). Furthermore, microRNA analysis in the exosomal component revealed an abundance of miRNAs involved in protecting neurons and controlling neuronal cell death," Dr. Stuppia reported.

"In light of the data obtained, we believe that the use of conditioned medium and, in particular, exosomes may represent a suitable treatment for I/R injury," he concluded.

"These early pre-clinical results are certainly encouraging and demonstrate the need to further pursue human amniotic fluid stem cells-derived secretome as a regenerative cell therapy," said Anthony Atala, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. "These outcomes suggest a potential approach that could change the outcome for millions of patients who suffer a stroke."

###

The full article, "Neuroprotective Effects of Human Amniotic Fluid Stem Cells-Derived Secretome in an Ischemia/Reperfusion Model," can be accessed at https://stemcellsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/sctm.20-0268.

About STEM CELLS Translational Medicine: STEM CELLS Translational Medicine (SCTM), co-published by AlphaMed Press and Wiley, is a monthly peer-reviewed publication dedicated to significantly advancing the clinical utilization of stem cell molecular and cellular biology. By bridging stem cell research and clinical trials, SCTM will help move applications of these critical investigations closer to accepted best practices. SCTM is the official journal partner of Regenerative Medicine Foundation.

About AlphaMed Press: Established in 1983, AlphaMed Press with offices in Durham, NC, San Francisco, CA, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, publishes two other internationally renowned peer-reviewed journals: STEM CELLS (http://www.StemCells.com), celebrating its 38th year, is the world's first journal devoted to this fast paced field of research. The Oncologist (http://www.TheOncologist.com), also a monthly peer-reviewed publication, entering its 25th year, is devoted to community and hospital-based oncologists and physicians entrusted with cancer patient care. All three journals are premier periodicals with globally recognized editorial boards dedicated to advancing knowledge and education in their focused disciplines.

About Wiley: Wiley, a global company, helps people and organizations develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Our online scientific, technical, medical and scholarly journals, combined with our digital learning, assessment and certification solutions, help universities, learned societies, businesses, governments and individuals increase the academic and professional impact of their work. For more than 200 years, we have delivered consistent performance to our stakeholders. The company's website can be accessed at http://www.wiley.com.

About Regenerative Medicine Foundation (RMF): The non-profit Regenerative Medicine Foundation fosters strategic collaborations to accelerate the development of regenerative medicine to improve health and deliver cures. RMF pursues its mission by producing its flagship World Stem Cell Summit, honouring leaders through the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Action Awards, and promoting educational initiatives.
Indian bankers fear the government's decision to waive some interest payments on loans under a COVID-19 support plan will create unnecessary work for lenders and lead to more litigation, without providing much of a boost for the sagging economy.

In an October 2 filing with the Supreme Court, seen by Reuters, the government said it is amending a controversial clause in a relief plan that allowed distressed borrowers to skip repayments for six months but then charged them "interest-on-interest" on the delayed payments, putting them deeper in debt.

The change will waive the compounded interest component on small business loans and some personal debts from March to August.

The government will bear the cost, which could be as high as $1 billion, according to analysts.

But for Indian lenders saddled with over $120 billion of bad loans and a coronavirus-induced collapse in demand, the move will further pressure already stressed balance sheets.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

In the case of a similar scheme for farm loans, banks typically need to wait nine to 24 months to get the funds from the government, two bankers said.

Lenders also will need to recalculate millions of loans, according to interviews with four bankers and a lawyer.

"Getting the money back from the government is a painful exercise," said a senior banker at one of India's shadow banks.

"At the end, a lot of work will happen, nobody will be happier and the government will be poorer."

A finance ministry spokesman declined to comment, citing ongoing legal proceedings.

Banks' legal costs are also on the rise as lawsuits pile up.

"The state-owned banks may show government support, but the private lenders are in it for the profit. They will have different calculations and those calculations will be challenged by the government," said the lawyer.

A banker at a private lender added: "That is the problem with such waivers, because where does it end?"

Bankers are also concerned about that waivers may distort the culture of lending in India and argue that there are other ways to help borrowers who are in need, such as providing subsidies or loan restructuring.

"Now, in case of a flood or any other situation, even borrowers who can pay may not be keen to do so because they know the government will step in to rescue them," said a senior banker at a public sector lender.
(Newser)  For better or worse has veered into "worse" territory for a Pennsylvania woman, with her husband of nearly three decades now facing charges for attempted murder. "I'm a mess," 59-year-old Laura Dankesreiter tells Fox News. "You don't plan on your husband of 27 years trying to kill you." How William Joseph Dankesreiter Jr., 60, of Derry Township allegedly tried to off his spouse: by placing a tripwire at the top of the 10 wooden stairs leading to the basement, hoping she'd take an "accidental" tumble onto the concrete floor below. Pennsylvania State Police say he attached fishing line to eye hooks about 3 inches above the floor at the basement's entrance, and that his wife was his intended victim. She nearly was: Laura Dankesreiter says she actually did trip over the wire on Saturday, as she went to get something out of the freezer for breakfast, but she fell backward instead of forward.

story continues below

"If I went forward I probably wouldn't be here today," she notes. Per WPXI, she reportedly told police she's long been the victim of both verbal and physical abuse from her husband. William Dankesreiter was arrested as he arrived home while his wife was talking to police, whom she'd called to the house after she'd tripped. "It's kind of mind-boggling someone would do something so deviant," a PSP rep says. "I don't know how long he was thinking this through, but you could definitely see there was line tied acrossthere was nothing accidental about this." William Dankesreiter has been charged with attempted homicide, assault, and reckless endangerment, per TribLIVE. He's being held at Westmoreland County Prison on a $500,000 bond. Meanwhile, per KDKA, his wife has filed a protection from abuse order against him in case he gets out. (Read more attempted murder stories.)
The government on Wednesday said it plans to purchase rice and cotton worth almost Rs 175,000 crore in the next few months, speaking out ahead of its proposed meeting with 31 Punjab farmer organisations protesting against new laws freeing up agriculture trade. Punjab along with Haryana, together contribute around 40 per cent of the rice and wheat procured for the Central pool, agriculture secretary Sanjay Agarwal told reporters in a briefing attended by his counterparts from the ministry of food and consumer affairs, textiles and the Chairman of Food Corporation of India ...

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Digital Editor
Market-leading incident and crisis management technology provider opens Canadian satellite office led by key hire

ATLANTA and VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Juvare, the leader in incident and crisis management and response technology, and maker of WebEOC, announced today that the company will significantly expand its presence in Canada with a key hire and satellite office in Vancouver, BC.

Following a string of key client partnerships in Canada including British Columbia Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office, as well as building on its longstanding work with Manitoba Emergency Measures Organization and the City of Ottawa, Juvare will increase its focus on the Canadian market by establishing an additional office in the region. Juvare's Canadian sales will be led by Mike Morrow, Director of Business Development, Juvare Canada, who brings more than 30 years of emergency management and operations experience in Canada to the Juvare team.

"I have been working with Juvare for a very long time as both a user and reseller of WebEOC," remarked Morrow. "Juvare places the same value that I do on building collaborative customer relationships, creating world class solutions that are proven effective during disasters, and being nimble in its approach, so it is only fitting that I join the team and continue to help serve and grow the Canadian emergency management market that I am very passionate about."

Juvare already supports the preparedness and response efforts of civilian authorities and provincial agencies charged with protecting more than 11 million Canadian citizens. Additionally, Juvare supports federal agencies and private corporations across the country.

Juvare will offer its complete product line including its industry-leading emergency management platform, WebEOC, and Juvare Exchange. The company will continue its Canadian expansion through direct sales and by leveraging strategic partnerships in the region. Morrow will be a part of the expanding worldwide sales team, led by Sam Klietz, Chief Client Officer, based in Juvare's Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. headquarters.

"We look forward to deepening our commitment to the Canadian market," Klietz said. "We are confident that Juvare will continue to deliver superior incident and crisis management technology to help make the region better prepared, connected and effective in responding to and recovering from natural and man-made disasters."

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Juvare currently has an additional U.S. office in Washington D.C., a European office in Kaunas, Lithuania, and an Asia-Pacific office in Wellington, New Zealand.

"Emergency preparedness is a global initiative," said Juvare Chief Executive Officer Bob Watson. "The Canadian market offers a tremendous opportunity to provide the most advanced emergency management and situational awareness technology available today to government agencies, healthcare facilities, corporations, and higher education institutions."

ABOUT JUVARE:

Juvare is a worldwide leader in emergency preparedness and incident management and response technology. Juvare solutions empower government agencies, corporations, healthcare facilities, academic institutions, and volunteer organizations to leverage real-time data to manage incidents faster and more efficiently, protecting people, property, and brands. For more information, visit www.juvare.com/ca.

PRESS CONTACT | Josh Byrd | VP, Marketing | Juvare | [email protected]

SOURCE Juvare
We will continue to deal with Chinese PLA in firm, resolute manner: Army chief

Follow 'one China policy': Chinese embassy diktat to Indian media

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Oct 07: Ahead of National Day of Taiwan, the Chinese Embassy in India has asked Indian media to follow "One-China" policy and not refer to Taiwan as a "nation".

"Regarding the so-called forthcoming "National Day of Taiwan", the Chinese Embassy in India would like to remind our media friends that there is only one China in the world, and the Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China, the embassy said in a statement.

"Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory. These facts are recognized by UN resolution and constitute the universal consensus of the international community," it added.

"All countries that have diplomatic relations with China should firmly honor their commitment to the One-China policy, which is also the long-standing official position of the Indian government," the statement further said.

India expects China to come up with perception on LAC during next commander level talks

"We hope Indian media can stick to Indian government's position on Taiwan question and do not violate the One-China principle," it said.

"In particular, Taiwan shall not be referred to as a "country(nation)" or "Republic of China" or the leader of China's Taiwan region as "President", so as not to send the wrong signals to the general public, it added.

India and Japan finalise an ambitious agreement on cyber-security|Oneindia News

"The Chinese Embassy in India appreciates the good faith and efforts by friends from the media. We are willing to maintain communication with media friends on China-related reports," the letter concluded.

October 10, 2011, marks the start of Wuchang Uprising leading to the end of China's Qing Dynasty and establishment of the Republic of China. This day is marked in Taiwan amid celebrated even tension between China and Taiwan continues.
WASHINGTON - Most of the crises I've lived through during my more than 50 years on this planet haven't really ended.

The AIDS pandemic of the 1980s and '90s continues, especially among populations without access to expensive, lifesaving treatments. The moral crisis of the Vietnam War and the political crises of the Nixon years now seem mere tributaries to a wider flood of contemporary political division and cynicism. The gas crisis and environmental anxieties of the 1970s still haunt us, given our continuing dependence on a commodity that is killing the planet.

And even if we find a workable vaccine for the coronavirus, it isn't likely there will be some triumphant moment when the pandemic is over, with church bells ringing and Ewoks dancing by the light of fireworks. Crises leave scars, alter habits and deepen other fissures. Recently walking through the National Gallery of Art for the first time since early March made me realize that hard truth more fully, more viscerally, with more than a little despair around the edges.

I had thought I might escape the outside world for a few hours, shut out the chaos and crisis. But in room after room, the vasty majority of the objects were mute and meaningless, and only those that somehow referenced other periods of crisis spoke with clarity. I had entirely lost my ability to experience art as escape.

The museum's partial reopening is limited to rooms on the ground floor devoted to sculpture, metal work, furniture and special exhibitions. For many visitors, Rodin and Degas are the most popular artists in these permanent collection galleries, with Degas's plaintive plaster cast, "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen," dressed in her shabby tutu, always drawing at least a little crowd. For me, a visit to this lower floor requires at least a brief pilgrimage to the glass case containing small bronze busts, based on caricatures by Honore Daumier, of the rogues and crooks who dominated French political life during a period known as the July Monarchy.

It was an ugly, tumultuous age of French history, with economic growth and vast inequality, colonial expansion, a cholera epidemic and, more than anything else, a corrupt government dominated by ruthless self-dealers and profiteers. It's one thing to have an intellectual understanding of the historical facts of this period. But I also know the July Monarchy through the novels of Balzac and Hugo, the music of Chopin and Berlioz, and the paintings of Delacroix.

Neither the relatively conservative Balzac nor the more radical Hugo skimp on the ugly side of French life during this period. There are dark shadows everywhere in Chopin and rumbles of discontent throughout the works of Berlioz, and of course Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People" captures the revolutionary fervor and squandered promise of these decades, from 1830 to 1848.

This period of French life left us one of the richest psychological, visual, emotional and aural legacies of any age of human creativity - and that richness is so absorbing that the cruelty and venality of civic life often fade into the background, details in the larger and ever beguiling panoply. Strangely, on my return to the National Gallery, the novelistic richness of the age faded, and the tougher sinews of the political crisis and despair were more ineluctably obvious.

Daumier made dozens of clay caricature busts of some of the worst ghouls and grifters of his age, using these painted, unfired figures as the basis for masterful, widely circulated lithographs. One of his most famous lithographs, depicting the so-called "citizen king" Louis-Philippe as the grotesquely rapacious Gargantua, was so inflammatory it landed the artist in prison for six months. The clay busts he made to parody lesser figures - legislators and aristocrats and even his own publisher - were fragile and at some point in the 20th century they were cast in bronze. The National Gallery has a complete set of 36 of them.

Every previous visit I've made to see these busts ended in laughter. The range of faces and the virtuosity of the caricatures always delighted me. Not everyone in the group is treated mercilessly, and not everyone deserved to be treated mercilessly. But Daumier always finds some element of the ridiculous, the fatuous, the smug, even in the poets, writers and critics among his subjects. He indulges the usual technique of exaggeration, often of prominent physical characteristics, but this is in service to character and expression rather than simple mockery of a big nose or wide mouth. His figures are ugly not because of their physiognomy, but because they behave in ugly ways: They don't look, they leer; they don't smile, they smirk.

The overriding sense is one of collective self-satisfaction. They know they're hypocrites and crooks, with their hands deep in the cookie jar, and they're amused to do it so blatantly and get away with it so flagrantly. But this time, amid a pandemic greatly exacerbated by government incompetence and venal leadership, nothing seemed funny. Daumier's anger shone through more blindingly than his wit and satire. The villainy and callousness of these buffoons felt palpable across almost two centuries.

French history, especially during the 18th and 19th centuries, is an object lesson in the interconnection of calamities. The July Monarchy began with hope and ended with disgust and revolution. Opportunities were squandered, and the hope of radical change only led to more deeply entrenched social fault lines. Follow the thread of history from Daumier's busts in the 1830s and you will eventually arrive at another classic work in the National Gallery's lower-floor rooms, from the mid-1870s: Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercie's "Gloria Victis," a winged figure of fame carrying a dead soldier, created to honor and celebrate French soldiers killed in the humiliating French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.

Curiously, "Gloria Victis" is by the same sculptor who created the equestrian figure of Robert E. Lee, still standing in Richmond, still bearing witness to this country's inability to sever the chains of cruelty and injustice that bind our 19th century history to our 21st century political crises. And so, again, another reminder of how history is never discrete or contained within easy chapters. Wars don't end, but go underground; loss leads to resentment and then retrenchment, and a century and a half later, the conflict returns in new forms.

Satire can seem old fashioned and impotent today, when there is little if anything funny about the degradation of American political culture. But satire likely seemed just as impotent when Duamier was lampooning cultural leaders in the 1830s. The problem is our misconception about how satire accomplishes its ends. It doesn't shame the shameless, and its inherent mean streak isn't a rational form of argument. It isn't designed to convince people to change their views of the satirical target.

Rather, it operates across the ages, indicting and memorializing villains who might otherwise lead out their lives and die happy, soon to be forgotten and historically anonymous despite their skulduggery. As one conservative critic of satire, Hans Sedlmayr, pointed out, satire is akin to "a form of capital punishment in effigy." Like the resentment of lost causes or the despair of squandered revolutions, satire breaks with the chapter divisions of history, too, and works across longer arcs of time.

It is a truism to say that history is written by the victors. But Daumier's busts, in some small way, stand as an exception to that rule. The satire of today, circulating most visibly on social media and late-night television, will do its work tomorrow, and the next day, even if the United States settles into a long period of decline, kleptocracy and authoritarianism.

As I stood looking at the case full of Daumier's vitriolic inventions, I was aware that I was also surrounded by invitations to escape our current moment, to think other kinds of thoughts, perhaps even indulge loftier ideals. These galleries are full of things that are meant to delight, to appeal to aesthetic receptors independent of politics. But all those invitations, all those works of isolated beauty, felt hollow. Daumier had quickened my anger, my urgent need to see justice done now, to hold terrible people accountable for the terrible things they are doing.

I had so wanted this first visit back to an art museum to bring with it some return of what I used to think of as normal life. But that normality never existed, that time before the pandemic was always woven into a web of continuing crises that the pandemic only underscored and inflamed, but didn't create.

So I left with a greater gift than a return to or taste of an idealized past. I departed more urgently aware of the current crisis as a form of connection, to the reality of social injustice and misery that has been with us, decade after decade, unbroken since the first artists daubed on the walls of a cave. I left with my priorities in order, and the whole idea of art as pleasure more problematic than it has ever been.
The police in Ekiti State have declared a man, Omotoyinbo Samuel, wanted for allegedly masterminding the Friday robbery attack on Wema Bank in Iyin-Ekiti, Irepodun/Ifelodun Local Government Area of the state.

The Commissioner of Police in the state, Tunde Mobayo, also announced a N5 million bounty on the wanted man.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how 10 armed robbers on Friday raided the bank between 3:30 p.m. and 4:10 p.m.

Shooting into the air sporadically, the robbers overpowered the police officers on duty and broke the banks security doors with explosives suspected to be dynamite.

The police spokesperson in Ekiti, Sunday Abutu, confirmed, in a statement on Saturday, that the robbers overpowered the mobile policemen posted to the bank. He also said there was no casualty.

In another statement on Tuesday, the police commissioner said Mr Samuel, who had earlier been declared wanted over a series of robbery attacks in Ondo and Ekiti states, masterminded the latest operation.

Mr Abutu said: The Ekiti State Police Command wishes to inform the general public that one Omotoyinbo Samuel has again been declared wanted by the Nigeria Police.

He is suspected to have led the gang of armed robbers who recently attacked the branch of Wema Bank in Iyin-Ekiti. His real name is Omotoyinbo Samuel, but popularly called 11 in Ekiti State and Bado in Ondo State. He is an indigene of Iyin Ekiti, Ekiti State, where the recent bank robbery incident took place.

He is suspected to have masterminded different bank robberies and kidnapping incidents in Ekiti and Ondo states.

The police announced a reward of N5 million for information that leads to his arrest.

The command implores any person with useful information that could lead to his arrest to please contact the nearest police station or the SARS Department on 07031620186 or the PPRO on 09064050086.
By Jamie Mountain

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

OREGON  A local man was among those from Canada who were recently deployed to help their American counterparts battle wildfires in Oregon.

Chuck Ingleton of New Liskeard is currently a fire crew leader with Parks Canada, an organization he has been a part of for six years, and is among a crew that was dispatched by the Province of Ontario to help fight the Lionshead Fire on September 18.

Parks Canada sent some individual positions as well as a 20-person fire crew and thats what Im part of, Ingleton explained in a telephone interview.

They have me actually leading the 20-person fire crew down here.

The fire was sparked by lightning and started on August 16 in Lionshead Canyon on the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation, about 14 miles (22.5 kilometres) west of the Warm Springs community.

A historic windstorm then arrived in the area on Monday, September 7, which caused the fire to rapidly spread west to the Willamette, Deschutes and Mt. Hood National Forests.

The fire has heavily impacted several communities in the Santiam drainage and Breitenbush area, including the loss of 264 residential homes in Detroit, Oregon.

Highly valued natural and cultural resources also have been threatened.

Its very massive, I think its listed at 205,000 acres, Ingleton said of the blaze.

Its very uncommon for them to get fires of this size here. Its been a real challenge just because of the size of the fire, so theyve been daily trying to prioritize where best to put the resources to try to stop the spread so that it doesnt push out and threaten any more structures and homes and peoples livelihoods.

As of October 1, the fire was listed as 204,367 acres in size and had been 35 per cent contained.

CHALLENGES

This fire has grown into some communities, theres been some structures lost, Ingleton noted.

Quite a bit of devastation to the area. Its been a challenge, its a little bit different from us being here from Parks Canada. A lot of us are used to having water to use on fires and pumps and hoses, whereas here its a bit more of a challenge just with the mountains. Theres not near as much water (we can use), so its a lot of hand tool work, working alongside with engines to supply us water, digging up the ground with hand tools. The fire is burning extremely deep, its following roots and some places its two to three feet underground, so trying to dig that up to stop the fire from popping up and taking off again. Its been a real struggle, for sure.

WORKING IN UNISON

Ingleton, who has been fighting forest fires for 26 years in total, said that since being deployed his fire crew has worked in partnership with their American colleagues.

Theyve found the relationship to be very rewarding.

Weve had the opportunity to work with Americans from all over the United States because its been a real struggle for them here the last month, he remarked.

Oregon, Washington and California have all had major fires take off in the last month and this time of year typically some of the firefighting staff are students going back to school, some have other winter jobs and stuff. Theyre kind of losing some of their numbers and now they got these major fires, they just didnt have the resources to deal with it properly and man-up these fires but its been great meeting some of the Americans from different parts of the U.S., theyre all so grateful.

Ingleton said that even when his crew is grabbing a coffee on their way out to the fire in the morning, or if they have to stop somewhere in a parking lot, the locals and American firefighters are very grateful for their help.

We get thanked daily from the public to the firefighters and from the incident command staff. Its been overwhelming, just the positivity and support for us being down here, he said.

Its been great.

Hed been to the United States about 10 years ago to help with other fires but he and the crew didnt really know what to anticipate in Oregon.

We were kind of uncertain what to expect but once we got here and got into the system and got on the ground working, we fit in very well, he noted.

Its been very rewarding. Like even today (October 1) at the morning briefing they were taking their hats off to us and just thanking us so much for our hard work.

COMING BACK HOME

While his crew has enjoyed their time helping to fight the Lionshead Fire, Ingleton said that they are looking forward to coming back home to Canada.

Some of us are flying out tomorrow (October 2), he said.

By Saturday all of the Canadian resources should be back across the border.

From there the crew members will go into a 14-day quarantine, but it will be made a little easier by being able to see their families again.

It was neat to have all these different fire crews come together from across the country and work together as one unit, Ingleton enthused.

Its just great to see how we all came together to achieve some great positive work down here and we felt proud we had the opportunity to do it.
Six Montgomery Independent School District Board of Trustees candidates dove into the issues on Tuesday night at forum held in Lake Creek High School.

The forum was held by the Voter Awareness Council in partnership with the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce to engage and equip voters.

Sitting in the cafeteria with more than 20 people wearing masks, including the candidates, were Position 1 incumbent and the school boards current president, Jim Dossey, and challenger Mike Hopkins. The boards vice president Adam Simmons, who ran unopposed for Position 2 in 2017, also attended with challenger Shawn Denison. David Eargle, who has held Position 3 since 2017 and did not file, will be replaced by one of two new candidates, Laurie Turner and Ron Herridge, who are in the race for his seat and were also present at the forum.

The candidates acknowledged and at times commended the school boards handling of challenges faced throughout the past year. The district faced an alleged hazing incident investigation in 2019 that was closed with no charges and passing a $$77.8 million budget with a $1.7 million deficit for 2020-21.

Only a few months into the new year, the novel coronavirus pandemic hit the nation and would later shutter classes and businesses across the country. The district felt the impact as positive cases appeared in Montgomery County, including Lake Creek High Schools Principal Phil Eaton, who survived his battle after being hospitalized for 51 days, and stood in attendance at the forum Tuesday.

The districts longtime Superintendent Dr. Beau Rees was also announced as a lone finalist in April for the Weatherford Independent School District. The board was tasked with not only finding a new superintendent, including through virtual meetings, while also pursuing a balanced budget that prompted painful cuts across 1,000 different areas this year, including stipends, and held off on raises.

Dossey described an interesting last year listing accomplishments of the board, including hiring Heath Morrison as its new superintendent, closing and reopening schools, balancing the budget, and lowering tax rates for the first time in over five years  which Denison credited to House Bill 3  and helping lead the board to resetting goals and setting measures to gage those statistics.

Now that the goals are set, the board is aiming to make the district the premiere school district and that the teachers are the highest paid in the state of Texas.

Dossey, whose term began in 2017, is hoping for a chance to prove he is the right candidate to remain in his position. The April Sound resident, whose family teaches and attends the school district, has deep roots in the district where his father served on the school board and where he attended before growth blossomed more campuses.

The Montgomery High School graduate obtained degrees in mechanical engineering, business administration and law, including from the University of Texas and MIT, to become an attorney and Certified Public Accountant. He believes his legal and accounting skills have been valuable, especially in the last year.

 Who would have even known that we would have had to deal with COVID this year? Not me, I certainly did not know that, Dossey said during his closing statement. So, when you think about who you want to serve as your board members  experience matters. You need to think about: who do you want in that position to make a decision you dont even know about yet?

The forum did not conclude without criticism, including as to how the district could allocate $1 million that was intended for the Career and Technology Education program.

Dossey stressed this was not a misappropriation as the funds stayed within the district and went towards teaching students. Simmons described the boards faces of shock when they learned of the oversight but said he was glad the board was able to catch it because of it going through the process of balancing the budget.

The candidates weighed the pros and cons of having an in-house police department or contracting with local law enforcement agencies, noting the districts police chief made his exit with the former superintendent and that the district is currently without a police chief. And, gave their priorities and plans for the future of the district.

Hopkins, a local business owner who served 23 years in the U.S. Air Force before he retired, previously worked for United Airlines and has experience managing large organizations. He believes some of the national issues start at the local level and wants to bring his talent to the table to serve the MISD community, including making sure students and teachers are provided for, balancing the budget, and ensuring the board is communicating.

When you lose a $1 million within an organization, youre not planning your organization the right way , Hopkins said.

Community response

Montgomery resident Amber Crupper, 45, has two children that attend schools at the district.

I thought it was great, I wish there would have been more people here  its important issues, especially not just the issues we have had in the past, Crupper said. Some of the new candidates I think will bring a fresh perspective and accountability to the board that has been needed for a few years.

The most important issue to her was her concern about over $1 million of misallocated funds.

I dont think there was checks and balances in the past, obviously, if there is $1 million that is not in the right place, Crupper said. I think with the new CFO (Chief Financial Officer Kris Lynn who replaced Kristy Conrad in the past year) and new superintendent, hopefully the checks and balances will now be put in place so that never happens again. Thats pretty big. Thats taxpayer money and its important that it goes where it is supposed to go.

Montgomery resident Linda Mock attended as a member of the community and believes it is important to be informed.

It was very good overview and I think they are all very qualified, Mock said. I am very interested in the career and technology education program, school safety and hiring teachers and accountability. Those are my top issues and that is why I came to see who the best candidate would be.

Some educators in attendance say they are planning to vote.

I found it to be very informative and I thought that the friendliness of the responses was good, and everything was well-thought out. We have a tough election on our hands, Parent and Education Support Center Executive Director Meredith Burg, who believes common goals are best for the district, said.

Early voting is set for Oct. 13-30 ahead of Election Day on Nov. 3. Lake Creek High School, which is a polling place, is located at 20639 FM 2854 Road in Montgomery.

mellsworth@hcnonline.com
In a bid to woo Brahmins ahead of 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, the Bahujan Samaj Party will be launching a campaign on Navratri festival. The campaign which seeks to attract Brahmin voters will be spearheaded by Satish Chandra Mishra who has been holding district-wise meetings for the last two months.

A few days ago, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati had said that Brahmins would be included in the core BSPs core organisational structure as well as at the zonal level. The National General Secretary of the BSP SC Mishra has been holding district-wise meetings of Brahmin leaders at his residence in Lucknow. Every day, representatives from at least one or two districts are meeting Mishra. On Tuesday, 73rd such meeting was held in the state capital.

According to a senior BSP leader, the party aims to conclude all district-wise meetings before Navratri as it plans to hold conferences. The responsibility of trying to win over Brahmin voters has been given to the partys old guards. The entire campaign is being monitored and executed by BSP National General Secretary SC Mishra, while former minister Anant Mishra Antu, Nakul Dubey and Rangnath Mishra will be working with him in the team.

The decision to woo the Brahmin voters was taken after the recent encounter of notorious gangster Vikas Dubey led to a palpable discontent in the community, with some voters feeling unhappy with the state government over its perceived neglect of the Brahmin community. Looking to capitalise on the sentiment, Mayawati made announcements promising the construction of hospitals in the name of Brahmin icons once elected to power.

Keeping in mind the shortcomings of the state and central governments amid Covid-19 pandemic, if BSP comes to power, we will create hospitals with modern facilities in the name of great saints. The BSP government during its tenure had launched several public interest schemes in the name of great saints of all classes and also named districts after them, which were later changed by the Samajwadi Party government due to their casteist mentality. This will be reinstated after we come to power, news agency ANI quoted the BSP supremo as saying.
Figures compiled in a Northeastern Univerity-Harvard Universary data-driven study of shooting deaths by police across 27 states in 2014-15, based on details culled from police and medical-examiner reports compiled by the National Violent Death Reporting System show that a Black pearson is disproportinatley more likely to be killed by a police officer than a white person, a situation panelists believe could be improved by getting the Fraternal Order of Police involved in community conversations.
TORONTO - Hundreds of elementary school teachers will trade the chalkboard for the keyboard next week as Canadas largest school district adjusts to soaring enrolment in online education.

The Toronto District School Board plans to reassign about 570 teachers to its Virtual School platform as it tries to ensure all students taking classes online have access to a full-time teacher, a spokesman said Wednesday.

More than 63,000 elementary students have opted for virtual learning this year, according to a statement the board sent to parents on Tuesday. Many still havent been assigned a teacher, instead learning through asynchronous material provided by the board.

At the same time, we also have significantly lower class sizes in our in-person, or bricks-and-mortar schools, spokesman Ryan Bird said, noting some classes designed for 24 students have as few as eight or 10.

I recognize (that) is ideal when it comes to physical distancing, but ... we just dont have enough money to be able to staff those for the remainder of the year at those significantly lower numbers.

Bird said such classes will be collapsed into others, without exceeding the boards targets for class sizes: 24 students in junior and senior kindergarten, 20 students in grades 1 to 3, and 27 in grades 4 to 8. In certain higher-risk communities, the targets are lower: 15 students in both kindergarten levels and 20 in grades 1 to 8.

Because the reorganization will have students interacting with new cohorts, the board said it will also take a number of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including enhanced cleaning and retaining details for contact tracing.

Bird said the majority of elementary schools will not see significant changes, but a handful will lose more than four teachers. A detailed breakdown of the changes was not available Wednesday, Bird said, as the board was still informing parents of the impact to their kids schools.

Lisa Parker, the head of a parents group from North Toronto, said two teachers at her sons school were being moved to online learning. As a result, she said, dozens of students will have to switch classrooms, working with a new teacher and interacting with new cohorts after just two weeks of relative stability.

Theyve just started to feel normal and things are getting back to normal and now, you know, another upheaval, said Parker, the chair of the Allenby Parents Association.

The local teachers union said that upheaval is a direct result of the Ministry of Education not taking proper measures early on in the pandemic.

The government has set this up to fail. They have not funded a proper return to school. They have neglected their duties, Jennifer Brown, president of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto, said in an interview.

Brown called on the government to overhaul the school funding formula, in which enrolment is the primary factor.

Other school boards are also grappling with the demands created by the combination of online and in-person classes, said Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards Association.

Thats not a Toronto-only issue, though its a bigger challenge for larger boards like the TDSB, she said.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said Wednesday that the province is providing school boards with the funding they need to safely deliver a quality educational experience to all students, pointing specifically to more than $12 million the government allocated this week to school boards in Toronto.

Our commitment is just to do whatever we can to ensure they succeed, Lecce told reporters.

Thats why weve given (boards) more funding for staffing  more funding for custodians and teachers  and as well, to strengthen their virtual learning experience.

 with files from Paola Loriggio.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 7, 2020.
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To America's Governors,Over the last seven months, my Administration has worked tirelessly with Governors to respond to COVID-19. Through our work together, we have built a robust COVID-19 testing ecosystem, and I am pleased to be providing additional rapid point-of-care tests to continue to enhance our Nation's testing system.In March, I challenged American biotechnology companies to develop a rapid, inexpensive, and accurate test. Abbott Laboratories has now delivered. My Administration recently announced the purchase of 150 million Abbott Laboratories BinaxNOWTM rapid point-of-care tests. I am especially proud these tests are being Made in America, by Americans, and for Americans. Moreover, the swabs used for this test are available because of my Administration's use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to invest in domestic manufacturing. This is a major development that will help save more lives by further protecting America's most vulnerable and allowing our country to get Americans back to work and children back to school.Last week, we began deploying BinaxNOWTM rapid point-of-care tests to our Nation's higher-risk, vulnerable populations. This included distributing tests to those impacted by natural disasters as well as to assisted living centers, nursing homes, HBCUs, and Native American communities. We will provide you a list of previous distribution locations in your state this week. My Administration will provide continual supplies of BinaxNOWTM tests for vulnerable populations through the end of the year.In addition, we will be deploying 100 million tests to our Nation's Governors free of charge between now and the end of the year. The tests will begin deploying this week, and States will be responsible for distributing and administering them. We hope you will use them in ways to further open up your states by protecting vulnerable people. For example, we all want our children to be physically back in school, so we are encouraged that many States are considering prioritizing these tests to support in-person education by testing teachers, aides, and administrators, particularly those at high-risk. Tests can also be used for frontline healthcare workers, those living in households with high-risk individuals, emergency responders, and those in high-risk communities, including African American and Hispanic American communities, or in any other way your States deem to be appropriate.The United States is leading the world in testing, and we will continue to take a whole-of-America approach that harnesses industry and innovation to ensure America continues to save as many lives as possible. My Administration will continue to collaborate with States in our battle to defeat the virus until we have complete victory.Thank you for your partnership to serve our fellow citizens.Sincerely,
The Kwara State House of Assembly has invited stakeholders and general public to the public hearing of a bill titled Kwara State Consolidated Revenue Codes and Rates Bill, 2020.

The bill proposed by the state governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, on September 24, seeks the review of the revenue rates and to provide for the effective and transparent collection of revenue in the state.

It also seeks the disintegration of the revenue codes and rates from the Kwara State Revenue Administration Law passed in 2015.

The bill, which was referred to the Rules and Business Committee of the Assembly on same day, has passed the first and second reading.

According to the public announcement made by the clerk of the assembly, Halima Kperogi, on Tuesday, the public hearing has been scheduled for Monday, October 12, in the Kwara State House of Assembly Complex, Ilorin, the state capital.

Invited Stakeholders and General Public are to submit (10 ) copies of their position papers on the Bill to Room 114 on or before 8th October, 2020 to the Assembly Complex. Your submission can also be forwarded to kwaraparliament@gmail.com and visit www.kwha.gov.ng for more information, the statement read.

Suspicion

The public announcement comes a week after the assembly approved a regulation which detailed the review of the revenue codes and rates, a major component of the new bill.

The governor requested for the approval of the regulation on September 28, four days after the bill was sent, because the state government wanted to access a sum of 2 million naira grant from the World Bank.

The grant is to promote transparency and accountability through the international banks States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability (SFTAS)  Program-for-Results (PforR) project.

The project is also aimed at strengthening the fiscal transparency, accountability, and sustainability in the participating states in Nigeria.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the approval of the revenue code and rates bill or a similar regulation is one of the criteria for the grant, hence the need for a hasty approval.

The approval was conveyed in a letter sent by the clerk of the Assembly to the Governor on September 29.

This Hon. House hereby approves the Kwara State Consolidated Revenue Codes and Rates in accordance with the provisions of Sections 21 and 81 (2) of the Kwara State Revenue Administration Law, 2015 to enhance and strengthen fiscal transparency and accountability in the collection and administration of tax revenue the State, a copy obtained by PREMIUM TIMES read.

Reacting to this, Executive Director, Brain Builders Youth Development Initiative, Abideen Olasupo, questioned the transparency and accountability of the lawmakers since the approval came a day after the request.

While it is a good one to access the World Bank grant, it is important to ask salient questions. If this is done in less than 24 hours, when did the members of the parliament consult their constituents? It was hurriedly done. The highest office in the land is the office of the citizens and the lawmakers must realise that.

A part of the new bill was drafted out for approval which means the opinion of the people wont even count at the public hearing, Mr Olasupo told PREMIUM TIMES.

Speaker reacts

Meanwhile, the special assistant to the Speaker of the Assembly on media, Ibrahim Sheriff, said the state government has nothing to hide.

If the government does not want to be transparent, it would have back-dated the letters which are in the public domain, he said.

Mr Sheriff agreed that the approval was to access the World Banks grant and that the regulation was solely for that purpose.

The Governor was afraid that if we wait for the passage of the bill, it is a longer process and we may not be able to access the grant. That was why we settled for the regulation.

He also defended that the approval will not affect the public hearing or the passage of the bill.
Turkey tries to become a key player by weakening the region, said MEP Idoia Villanueva-Ruiz.

"Please resume the talks without preconditions," she said during a debate on the Artsakh war in the European Parliament.

According to her, this conflict in the South Caucasus has been going on for 3 decades.

The Nagorno Karabakh is an enclave and this is a zone where there are energy pipelines, where Russia supplies weapons, and Turkey is trying to become a key player, weakening the region, she added.

She calls for return to peace talks under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group without preconditions as such a conflict could cause thousands of refugees,.
In a recent development, starting today, Google Chrome on Android or iOS is getting a new password alert feature that will alert the users when their passwords are compromised. This is to up the security and usefulness of the browser up a notch.

Google has been one of the tech giants that has focussed majorly on providing security-related features to its users. And the latest feature aims in providing to quickly take action when your passwords are compromised.

Notably, this Chrome password alert feature will also help the users to fix them. This will not only get the users on their feet to change their passwords, but it will also tell the users which service has compromised your password.

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This Google Chrome password alert feature is very effective for modern-day users. Moreover, in order to check if your passwords are compromised, Chrome will send Google a special form of encryption.

Besides, Google will not be able to figure out what your usernames or password are. But it can be a bit time-consuming to check how to change your password.

Additionally, Google will be adding support for .well-known/change-password URLs, which takes the users directly to the change password form to quickly take action.

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Safety Check will also be coming to Google Chrome mobile on Android or iOS

Google will also push the Safety Check feature for Google Chrome mobile browser. This will be available on both, Android and iOS devices.

The feature of a Safety Check is to check for compromised passwords. It will also let you know if Safe Browsing is enabled on your Chrome browser or not.

Moreover, the Safety Check feature will also remind you to update your Chrome browser with the latest security protections. The good thing for iOS users is that they will be able to use Chrome to autofill saved login details as well.

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And to take the security protection up a bit, iOS users will get a biometric authentication prompt before Chrome fills any passwords.

Well, not only iOS, Google Chrome for Android is also getting updated in terms of security. Enhanced Safe Browsing will soon make its way to the Chrome Android browser.

This feature protects your phone from phishing, malware, and other dangerous sites. It achieves it by sharing real-time data with Googles Safe Browsing service.

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Apparently, Google Chrome 86 will also help in blocking infected downloads. Besides, Chrome 86 will also alert and warn its users before submitting any non-secure form on an HTTPS page.

The Google Chrome password alert features will come to the Android or iOS devices gradually starting today. For more information on this, you can head over here to read the official blog.
Temagami Seelster may have seen her win streak stop at five races, but she will look to reignite the flame in the Thursday evening (Oct. 8) feature at Red Shores Racetrack and Casino at the Charlottetown Driving Park.

The 12-dash Thursday presentation has a 6 p.m. opening post time, and the featured pacing fillies and mares are set to face the starting gate for Race 11. Brodie MacPhee will steer Temagami Seelster in the field of eight from the Tom Weatherbie stable for Nova Scotia owners David Mercer, Wayne McGean and Joseph Lewis.

The three-year-old daughter of Sunshine Beach was undefeated in her first five starts on 'red soil' before finally being defeated on September 24. Set to start from Post 4, Temagami Seelster will face some rugged company again on Thursday, including 1:54.4 winner Miss Kabana (to be driven by Vincent Poulton) from Post 3 and $400,000 earner Much Adoo (Gilles Barrieau) from Post 7.

Peter MacPhee with the Post Time Picks sees a return to Temagami Seelsters winning ways. Temagami Seelster was a bang-up third to Filly Forty Seven last week closing in a snappy :28.3. She should get another good trip from here and with the way she can fire home she could hit the wire first.

The other entries in the field of featured pacers are Collective Wisdom (Kenny Arsenault), Better Be In Love (Jason Hughes), Tell Me Why (Corey MacPherson), Miss Sangria (Adam Merner) and Traces Of Purple (Marc Campbell).

The lone trotting class of the evening will line up for Race 6. Banker Twentyfive will be making his east coast debut for trainer-driver Campbell and owner Charles Symes of Springhill, N.S. A seven-time winner, the five-year-old son of Break The Bank K boasts over $106,000 in career earnings and a 1:55.4 record taken at the Meadows in Pennsylvania. His last start was also in Pennsylvania, where he made a break at Pocono Downs. Banker Twentyfives top rivals on the Thursday card are Majian Chester (Ken Murphy) and Professor Gordon (Merner).

Catch all the action on the worldwide broadcast at Redshores.ca and wager online at HPIBet.com.

To view the harness racing entries for Thursday at the CDP, click the following link: Thursday Entries - Charlottetown Driving Park.

(Red Shores)
??? Premier Walter Martos: Cifras de la pandemia estan bajando gracias a la responsabilidad de peruanos https://t.co/EXAJGjJASB
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate challenged world leaders to wake up and recognize climate change as a crisis as she tied it to poverty, hunger, disease, conflict and violence against women and girls in a speech broadcast Wednesday as part of the Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture.

Nakate, who has demonstrated alongside other young activists including Greta Thunberg, urged leaders to see the danger we are in.

Niclas Kjellstrom-Matseke, the chairman of the Tutu Legacy Foundation, said in comments introducing the lecture that our indecisiveness expedites inequality, it enables injustice, it facilitates the destruction of critical biodiversity and it empowers the richest nation on earth to walk out on a global climate agreement and to suspend funding to the World Health Organization during a global pandemic.

He was referring to President Donald Trumps announcement in 2017 that the U.S. would withdraw from the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change, and the decision this year to remove U.S. funding for the WHO in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 1 million people worldwide.

Thunberg was due to speak alongside Nakate but withdrew last week without giving a reason. She was replaced by Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and a key figure in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

The Tutu peace lecture is given every year to coincide with the South African Nobel Peace Prize winners birthday. Tutu turned 89 on Wednesday. The pre-recorded speeches, not given in person this year because of the pandemic, called for climate justice globally.

The destruction of the Earths environment is the human rights challenge of our time, said Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town who was awarded the Nobel for his fight against South Africas racist system of apartheid, which ended in 1994.

The speakers called on the world to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and cut emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

The main goal of the Paris climate accord is to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, but scientists say the world is on track to soar past that.

Nakates speech focused on the African continent, which contributes the least to climate change but stands to suffer its effects the most.

She said flooding and drought have destroyed crops and caused hunger for millions, while flooding has increased the prevalence of deadly diseases like malaria and cholera, and conflicts can arise when resources are diminished.

Climate change is a nightmare that affects every sector of our lives, she said. How can we eradicate poverty without looking at this crisis? How can we achieve zero hunger if climate change is leaving millions of people with nothing to eat? We are going to see disaster after disaster, challenge after challenge, suffering after suffering ... if nothing is done about this.

She called for leaders to leave their comfort zones and see the danger we are in and do something about it. This is a matter of life and death.

There were also messages from South African climate activist Ayakha Melithafa and former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, who praised the younger generations work.

Although sometimes change can come from the top, more often the biggest changes start at the grassroots level because political leaders start paying attention if the calls for action are loud and persistent and unyielding, Gore said.

Figueres warned that the world is entering the decisive decade for climate and environment, when the quality of life for hundreds of years could be decided.

That may sound like an exaggeration, but its not, she said.
The Justin Trudeau government in Canada has survived a confidence vote in parliament after garnering support from the New Democratic Party, while every other opposition group voted against it.

In the House of Commons, 177 voted in favour of the Throne Speech, the policy programme of the government presented by the Governor General when the session commenced. That was 25 more than the 152 MPs who voted against the Liberal Party government.

This will also mean that the possibility of a snap election in autumn has receded.

Jagmeet Singh, leader of the NDP, instructed members of his caucus to support the government after it made a pair of concessions in the benefits package that will come into effect to counter the impact of Covid-19 pandemic.

Among these are a national sickness benefit that will be available to those who are not covered by their employers, and an increase in the weekly payment from the proposed $400 to $500 to those rendered unemployed or underemployed due to the coronavirus crisis under the Canada Recovery Benefit.

After the count was announced, leader of the government in the House Pablo Rodriguez tweeted, The House just voted in favour of the Speech from the Throne. We are moving forward with our plan to protect the health and safety of Canadians while creating good jobs.

The two largest opposition parties in the House, the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois, voted against the government. They were joined by the Green Party, which had usually sided with the Liberals in recent times. Newly elected Green leader Annamie Paul, who recently became the first Black permanent leader of a federal party, described the governments schemes as platitudes.

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Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty Kundra is proud of her eight-year-old son Viaan, who paid tribute to actor Sonu Sood with his school project.

Taking to Instagram, Shilpa shared how Viaan created an animated video for Sonu after seeing him helping thousands of migrant workers during the Covid-19 induced lockdown.

Kids are keen observers of all that happens around them. Watching Viaan work on his recent school project reiterated this The topic for his project was to talk about people who made a difference. With all that has happened in these past few months, hes been observing and admiring all the work that my dear friend @sonu_sood has put in selflessly for the people in need. In times when everyone stayed at home with fear, he decided to be brave and put others pain before his feelings," Shilpa wrote.

Viaans project shows the animated version of Sonu making arrangements for two migrant workers to help them reach home.

His brave and relentless service towards migrants who reached out to him really struck a chord with Viaan. So, he worked on this lovely animated video that he conceptualised, wrote, dubbed for, and edited as an ode to this hero (Viaans choice completely). I take immense pride in sharing this one with you all - a proud mommy moment (Remember hes only 8)," she added.

Shilpa is currently in Manali for the shoot of Hungama 2, which also features Paresh Rawal, Meezaan and Pranitha Subhash.
Security minister James Brokenshire defending the bill on Monday. (parliamentlive.tv)

MPs have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a new security bill despite human rights charities warning it risks authorising crimes like torture and killing.

The Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill was passed at second reading in the House of Commons on Monday night, with 182 voting in favour and just 20 voting against.

A total of 19 Labour MPs voted against the bill despite being issued with a one-line whip from the partys leadership instructing them to abstain from voting.

The bill seeks to legitimise the controversial MI5 practice of allowing officers and informants to participate in criminal activity if the offences involved are proportionate to the evidence gained.

Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said that the bill would protect agents seeking to uncover the most vile crimes imaginable. (Getty)

But its critics, including human rights charity Amnesty International, say the bill could end up providing informers and agents with a licence to kill.

It is deeply alarming that the proposed law does not explicitly prohibit MI5 and other agencies from authorising crimes like torture and killing. It must be amended to do so, Grainne Teggart, Amnesty International UKs Northern Ireland campaigns manager, said.

In Northern Ireland, we have seen the consequences of undercover agents in paramilitary organisations operating with apparent impunity whilst committing grave human rights abuses, including murder.

Such criminal acts do not become any less serious when placed on a legal footing.

The government claims the bill will be compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights, and its passage has been supported by Labour.

Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds wrote in The Independent last week that the bill would protect agents seeking to uncover the most vile crimes imaginable such as terrorism, drug gangs, and organised crime.

In the course of these operations, it is inevitable that to maintain cover, covert human intelligence sources will at times need to transgress existing laws, he added.

Story continues

A number of Labour MPs broke with their partys stance on the bill in recent days to publicly declare their opposition to the bill, including Jeremy Corbyn who said it facilitated unnecessary and unlawful interference in the work of human rights groups.

I have grave concerns regarding the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill, Corbyn tweeted.

It could enable unnecessary and unlawful interference with the legitimate activities of trade unions, environmentalists, anti-racists & other campaigners. We must always stand up for human rights.

Dawn Butler tweeted: Tonight I voted against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill. We need sufficient safeguards in the bill. It's obvious, why hasn't it been done? We have an unaccountable Government that continues to show it cannot be trusted.

Tonight I voted against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill.



We need sufficient safeguards in the bill. It's obvious, why hasn't it been done?



We have an unaccountable Government that continues to show it cannot be trusted.



My full statement https://t.co/nIijEGB3gh pic.twitter.com/Be0zzuAJ56  Dawn Butler MP (@DawnButlerBrent) October 5, 2020

Olivia Blake MP wrote: I'm deeply concerned about the Tories' Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill. Giving government bodies the power to authorise criminal conduct without judicial oversight would undermine the rule of law and erode civil liberties.

And Zarah Sultana said: This evening I voted against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill. I can't support legislation that could give undercover state agents the licence to murder, torture and commit sexual violence.

While Nadia Whittome tweeted: Tonight I voted against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill. Breaking the whip is a difficult decision which I do not take lightly. I did not become a Labour MP to break the whip; I came here to represent my constituents and that is what I did today.
BETHESDA, Md.  President Donald Trump staged a dramatic return to the White House Monday night after leaving the military hospital where he was receiving an unprecedented level of care for COVID-19. He immediately ignited a new controversy by declaring that despite his illness the nation should not fear the virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans  and then he entered the White House without a protective mask.

Trumps message alarmed infectious disease experts and suggested the presidents own illness had not caused him to rethink his often-cavalier attitude toward the disease, which has also infected the first lady and several White House aides, including new cases revealed Monday.

Landing at the White House on Marine One, Trump gingerly climbed the South Portico steps, removed his mask and declared, I feel good. He gave a double thumbs-up to the departing helicopter from the portico terrace, where aides had arranged American flags for the sunset occasion. He entered the White House, where aides were visible milling about the Blue Room, without wearing a face covering.

The president left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where his doctor, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, said earlier Monday that the president remains contagious and would not be fully out of the woods for another week but that Trump had met or exceeded standards for discharge from the hospital. Trump is expected to continue his recovery at the White House, where the reach of the outbreak that has infected the highest levels of the U.S. government is still being uncovered.

Still, just a month before the election and anxious to project strength, Trump tweeted before leaving the hospital, Will be back on the Campaign Trail soon!!! And in case anyone missed his dont-worry message earlier, he rushed out a new video from the White House.

Dont be afraid of it, Trump said of the virus. Youre going to beat it. We have the best medical equipment, we have the best medicines. His remarks were strong, but he was taking deeper breaths than usual as he delivered them.

Trumps nonchalant message about not fearing the virus comes as his own administration has encouraged Americans to be very careful and take precautions to avoid contracting and spreading the disease as cases continue to spike across the country. For more than eight months, Trumps efforts to play down the threat of the virus in hopes of propping up the economy ahead of the election have drawn bipartisan criticism.

We have to be realistic in this: COVID is a complete threat to the American population, Dr. David Nace of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said of Trumps comment.

Most of the people arent so lucky as the president, with an in-house medical unit and access to experimental treatments, added Nace, an expert on infections in older adults.

Its an unconscionable message, agreed Dr. Sadiya Khan of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. I would go so far as to say that it may precipitate or worsen spread.

Likewise, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who spent more than 90 minutes on the debate stage with Trump last week, said during an NBC town hall Monday night that he was glad Trump seemed to be recovering well, but theres a lot to be concerned about  210,000 people have died. I hope no one walks away with the message that its not a problem. Biden tested negative for the virus on Sunday.

There was pushback from a prominent Trump political supporter as well.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told the Houston Chronicle editorial board that Trump had let his guard down in his effort to show that the country was moving beyond the virus and had created confusion about how to stay safe.

Conley said that because of Trumps unusual level of treatment so early after discovery of his illness he was in uncharted territory. But the doctor also was upbeat at an afternoon briefing and said the president could resume his normal schedule once there is no evidence of live virus still present.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those with mild to moderate symptoms of COVID-19 can be contagious for as many as  and should isolate for at least  10 days.

Trumps arrival back at the White House raised new questions about how the administration was going to protect other officials from a disease that remains rampant in the presidents body. Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced she had tested positive for the virus Monday morning and was entering quarantine.

There were also lingering questions about potential long-term effects to the president  and even when he first came down with the virus.

Conley repeatedly declined to share results of medical scans of Trumps lungs, saying he was not at liberty to discuss the information because Trump did not waive doctor-patient confidentiality on the subject. COVID-19 has been known to cause significant damage to the lungs of some patients. Conley also declined to share the date of Trumps most recent negative test for the virus  a critical point for contact tracing and understanding where Trump was in the course of the disease.

Only a day earlier, Trump suggested he had finally grasped the true nature of the virus, saying in a video, I get it. But on Sunday afternoon, he ventured out of the hospital while contagious to salute cheering supporters by motorcade  an outing that disregarded precautions meant to contain the virus.

At the hospital, doctors revealed that his blood oxygen level had dropped suddenly twice in recent days and that they gave him a steroid typically only recommended for the very sick.

Trumps experience with the disease has been dramatically different from most Americans, who do not have access to the same kind of monitoring and care. While most must cope with their symptoms  and fear of whether theyll take a turn for the worse  at home and alone, Trump has been staying in the presidential suite of one of the nations best hospitals and has been given experimental drugs not readily available to the public. He returns to the White House, where there is a team of doctors on call with 24-hour monitoring.

Trump was leaving the hospital after receiving a fourth dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir Monday evening, Conley said. He will receive the fifth and final dose Tuesday at the White House.

Vice President Mike Pence returned to the campaign trail moments after Trump announced he would soon leave the hospital. The vice president boarded Air Force Two to fly to Salt Lake City, where he is to face off against Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris on Wednesday.

Trump, in his new video, defended his decision to repeatedly flout his own administrations guidelines to slow the spread of the virus, including by holding rallies with thousands of mostly maskless supporters.

Apparently referring to any potential danger to himself rather than others, he said: I stood out front. I led. Nobody thats a leader would not do what I did. He added: And I know theres a risk, theres a danger. But thats OK. And now Im better. And maybe Im immune, I dont know.

Even before Trumps motorcade outing Sunday, some Secret Service agents had expressed concern about the lackadaisical attitude toward masks and social distancing inside the White House, but there isnt much they can do, according to agents and officials who spoke to The Associated Press.

Trumps aggressive course of treatment included the steroid dexamethasone and the single dose he was given Friday of an experimental drug from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. that supplies antibodies to help the immune system fight the virus. Trump on Friday also 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 viruss ability to multiply.

___

Miller and Colvin reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard and Jonathan Lemire in Washington, and Bill Barrow in Wilmington, Delaware, contributed to this report.
Italy prepares to issue new decree making masks obligatory at all times.

A new decree in Italy, expected on the morning of 7 October, is set to make the wearing of protective face masks outdoors obligatory at all times of the day, across the country, with heavy penalties for those who fail to comply.

People caught not wearing masks in public can expect to receive fines from 400 to 1,000, according to Italian news agency ANSA and other media outlets.

The order is expected to exempt children under the age of six as well as people with disabilities preventing them from wearing masks, and those engaged in physical exercise or sport.

The order to wear masks outdoors is already in place in several regions of Italy including Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Lazio, Le Marche, Piemonte and Sicily.

The decree will contain measures aimed at combating Italy's rising number of covid-19 infections however the government has denied that there will be new restrictions forcing the early closure of bars, pubs and restaurants, as speculated in recent days.

The government is also expected to announce today an extension of the nation's existing state of emergency - which comes to an end next week - until 31 January 2021, exactly a year after it was first introduced.

Highlighting the fact that both the national and international covid-19 situation has changed in recent months, health minister Roberto Speranza said on 6 October: "Italy is holding up better in the second wave, but we must not be under any illusions."

Italy's premier Giuseppe Conte also warned yesterday that "the battle is not won" and that the country must remain on "maximum alert" in the coming weeks and months.

Photo Il Mattino
The Sea Cargo Charter sets a new benchmark for responsible shipping, transparent climate reporting, and improved decision making in line with United Nations decarbonization targets.

Regulatory News:

Total (Paris:FP) (LSE:TTA) (NYSE:TOT):

A group of the world's largest energy, agriculture, mining, and commodity trading companies will for the first time assess and disclose the climate alignment of their shipping activities. United Nations agencies estimate the international shipping industry to carry around 80% of world trade flows and to be responsible for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions annually.

Large industrial corporations are significant users of international shipping services. The shipping of crude oil, coal, iron ore, grain and other bulk commodities used worldwide make up over 80% of global seaborne trade. The Sea Cargo Charter is a global framework that allows for the integration of climate considerations into chartering decisions to favor climate-aligned maritime transport.

The Sea Cargo Charter establishes a common baseline to quantitatively assess and disclose whether shipping activities are aligned with adopted climate goals. The Sea Cargo Charter is consistent with the policies and ambitions adopted by member states of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for regulating shipping. This includes its ambition for greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping to peak as soon as possible and to reduce shipping's total annual greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% of 2008 levels by 2050, with a strong emphasis on zero emissions.

"Total shares the ambition to get to net-zero emissions by 2050, together with society, for its global operations. As a broad energy company, we are actively working on improving the environmental footprint of the maritime industry. By becoming today a founding member of the Sea Cargo Charter, we reaffirm our support to this key sector. This pioneering initiative will provide a transparent standard emissions reporting approach and will pave the way for a sustainable shipping industry." underlines Luc Gillet, Senior Vice President Shipping, Total Trading Shipping.

"A standard greenhouse gas emissions reporting process will simplify some of the complexities often associated with reporting. It will encourage a more transparent and consistent approach to tracking emissions, which will be a critical part of making shipping more sustainable," says Jan Dieleman Chair of the Sea Cargo Charter drafting group

The 17 Founding Signatories of the Sea Cargo Charter include Anglo American, ADM, Bunge, Cargill Ocean Transportation, COFCO International, Dow, Equinor, Gunvor Group, Klaveness Combination Carriers, Louis Dreyfus Company, Norden, Occidental, Shell, Torvald Klaveness, Total, Trafigura, and rsted. All other responsible shippers are invited to join the initiative.

"The Sea Cargo Charter enables leaders from diverse industry sectors to use their influence to drive change and promote shipping's green transition by choosing maritime transport that is aligned with agreed climate targets over that which is not," says Johannah Christensen, Managing Director, Head of Projects Programmes at international non-profit, Global Maritime Forum

The Sea Cargo Charter is intended to evolve over time as the IMO adjusts its policies and regulations and when further adverse environmental and social impacts are identified for inclusion. They also aim to support other initiatives developed to address climate, environment, and social risks in shipping, such as the Poseidon Principles.

The Sea Cargo Charter is applicable to bulk charterers with interest in the cargo on board; those who simply charter out the vessels they charter in; as well as the disponent owners and all charterers in a charterparty chain. They apply globally, to all chartering activities where a vessel or vessels fall under the purview of the IMO.

The development of the Sea Cargo Charter has been led by global shippers Anglo American, Cargill Ocean Transportation, Dow, Norden, Total, Trafigura - and leading industry players Euronav, Gorrissen Federspiel, Stena Bulk - with expert support provided by the Global Maritime Forum, Smart Freight Centre, University College London Energy Institute/UMAS, and Stephenson Harwood

About Total

Total is a broad energy company that produces and markets fuels, natural gas and electricity. Our 100,000 employees are committed to better energy that is more affordable, more reliable, cleaner and accessible to as many people as possible. Active in more than 130 countries, our ambition is to become the responsible energy major.

Cautionary Note

This press release, from which no legal consequences may be drawn, is for information purposes only. The entities in which TOTAL SE directly or indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. TOTAL SE has no liability for their acts or omissions. In this document, the terms "Total", "Total Group" and Group are sometimes used for convenience. Likewise, the words "we", "us" and "our" may also be used to refer to subsidiaries in general or to those who work for them.

This document may contain forward-looking information and statements that are based on a number of economic data and assumptions made in a given economic, competitive and regulatory environment. They may prove to be inaccurate in the future and are subject to a number of risk factors. Neither TOTAL SE nor any of its subsidiaries assumes any obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information or statement, objectives or trends contained in this document whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005423/en/

Contacts:

Sea Cargo Charter Contacts:

Torben Vemmelund, head of Communications l +45 2224 1446 l tve@globalmaritimeforum.org

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Media Relations: +33 1 47 44 46 99 l presse@total.com l Twitter: @TotalPress

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Health Minister Robin Swann has condemned what he described as the "two-fingered salute" given by those who do not comply with coronavirus regulations after 828 new cases were confirmed on Wednesday.

Mr Swann hit out at those he said had decided to ignore the rules after deciding in a display of "willful complacency" that the risk the virus posed to them personally was low.

And he questioned why those who are not wearing face coverings in shops had decided to ignore health advice. "It beggars belief that some people object to wearing a face covering in shops - it's just a piece of cloth," he said.

It comes as 9,794 tests were carried out in the 24 hours from 10am on Tuesday in the highest daily count of tests here, outstripping rates of our closest neighbours in the Republic and mainland Britain. Some 4,417 people have tested positive in the last seven days.

Mr Swann warned: "The increase in infections is outpacing the increase in testing and the situation is still on track to become much worse."

If we want to be in a better place by Christmas, we have to cut down on our contacts, he said, amid an upsurge in hospital admissions.

There are currently 106 Covid patients in hospitals across Northern Ireland, with 14 patients now in intensive care.

The last time NI had 14 confirmed Covid occupied intensive care beds was May 19. Eleven of the 14 critically ill patients have been ventilated - meaning a machine handles their breathing - according to the latest figures, which is the highest since May.

One further person in Northern Ireland has also died after testing positive for Covid-19 and 828 new case of the virus have been reported, the Department of Health confirmed on Wednesday.

The death toll in the region is now 586, while the total number of cases diagnosed since the outbreak is 16,187.

The fatality was a man aged between 60 and 79 who died in a hospital in Belfast on Tuesday.

A total of 34 care homes are dealing with outbreaks of the virus.

Read More

Here's how Wednesday unfolded:
Getting online voting information in these communities is a challenge when an estimated 35 percent of Americans living on tribal lands lacked broadband service in 2018, compared to 8 percent of all Americans, according to a report from the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO). It urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to improve tribal access.

Many Native Americans do not have traditional street addresses, instead relying on postal boxes or geographic descriptors. That can be a problem if a state requires a residential address for voting, which North Dakota did in 2018.

But help for American Indian voters is coming to a corner of the massive Navajo Nation, which totals over 27,000 square miles in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. It includes 50,000 unaddressed homes and businesses.

In Utah, the tech giant Google agreed to help by assigning codes to 2,500 buildings that can be used as addresses for voting. The expected result: easier voting for some residents.

A number of energized groups have launched efforts this year to register American Indian and Alaska Native voters, buoyed by predictions that they could help swing seven battleground states.

Older voters should keep in mind that the election will affect the future of Social Security and Medicare, said Larry Curley of the Navajo Nation, executive director of the National Indian Council on Aging, based in Albuquerque.

"We have over half a million, 500,000-some older Indians out there. If every one of them voted, imagine the impact that would have, not only on Indian Country, but at your state elections, and who will represent you, and who will talk on your behalf, Curley said during an Oct. 1 online seminar sponsored by his group and AARP.
The lack of support measures for the independent cultural sector of the performing arts is a condemnation to extinction, reads a press release of the Apollo111 Theatre sent on Wednesday to AGERPRES.

"We are closing theatres and cinema halls again without a plan to support the independent cultural sector, however precarious and ignored, which is now facing disaster. We let it go because we do not understand it anyway, although we have had meetings with its representatives and they explained to us how it works, and although this sector has built remarkable cultural spaces and shows in the past 30 years, educated and created new audiences, created jobs, paid taxes, innovated, was at the forefront of Romanian culture. We are closing the independent theatres and cinema halls again and we are not offering them any support to make it to next year, we are closing the door of culture again, in Romania in 2020, part of the European Union, because even now we do not understand what this means for the people. Good night," shows the press release.

According to the press release, at the beginning of September, approximately 40 cultural spaces in the country made a public appeal to the Romanian Government explaining the situation of the independent theatres and requesting financial aid to be able to make it to next year.

"We remind you that, at the beginning of September, around 40 cultural spaces in the country made a public appeal to the Romanian Government, explaining the situation in which they find themselves and proving that, without financial aid, they will not survive until next year. There were also meetings with Deputy Prime Minister Raluca Turcan and the Minister of Culture, Bogdan Gheorghiu, on this subject, where they were offered concrete proposals for support, but no action was taken in this direction by the authorities," reads the same press release.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) planning to hold its biggest agitation this year by marching to Nabanna, the main secretariat in Howrah district, on Thursday; the state government declared that all offices in the building will remain closed for two days for sanitisation.

The announcement was made shortly before working hours came to an end on Wednesday. Writers Building, the old secretariat in Kolkata, will also remain shut for sanitisation on Thursday and Friday, the government said.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic started in March, the secretariats are sanitized mostly during the weekends barring a few exceptions.

Thursdays agitation has been organised by the BJPs youth wing. BJP leaders said Union home minister Amit Shah and party president JP Nadda showed interest when they were informed about the programme during a recent party meeting in Delhi.

In a parallel development, the Kolkata Police did not give permission to the BJP to take out processions from Central Avenue and Hastings. The party had planned to approach the secretariat from four directions. Short videos were aired on local television channels to create awareness about the agitation.

It seems the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has already realised that its days are numbered. Our programme will be held peacefully as planned. We are not going to Nabanna to take over the building, said BJP state president Dilip Ghosh.

The Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the youth wing of the party, has planned and organised the Nabanna Chalo (March to Nabanna) programme with a seven-point agenda to highlight various issues ranging from lack from employment in Bengal to law and order problem.

Thousands of party workers from Kolkata and the districts are supposed to take part in it. Several central leaders, including BJYM national president Tejasvi Surya arrived in Kolkata on Tuesday.

The government has suffered a nervous breakdown. It does not want to face the masses, said BJP state general secretary Sayantan Basu.

TMC leaders did not comment on the state governments decision but CPI (M) legislator and central committee member Sujan Chakraborty took at a jibe at the government.

When Left parties and their youth organisations held a similar agitation in 2017 the police showered batons and teargas shells on our people. Mamata Banerjee is keeping the coast clear for the BJP by shutting down the secretariat. BJP workers can freely march to Nabanna. They seem to have reached an understanding, quipped Chakraborty.
New York, US (PANA) - Thousands of children continue to suffer grievously as unrelenting violence persists across eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday, expressing deep concern
The Berejiklian government will increase the amount of vegetation that landowners can clear around their fire-prone homes with new laws to be in place for this bushfire season.

NSW cabinet on Tuesday agreed to amend the Rural Fires Act to allow rural landowners to clear up to 25 metres on their property from fence lines without "onerous" approvals.

Laws will be changed in time for this fire season to make it easier for rural landowners to clear fire-prone land. Credit:Nick Moir

The buffer of 25 metres around boundaries is less than some senior ministers wanted but more than double the 10 metres proposed by some Nationals ministers.

Cabinet also agreed that a new code should be developed for clearing endangered and threatened species habitat as well as clearing that is not intended for bushfire risk mitigation.
Farming bosses have been crying out for workers to take on key roles as the industry finally looks set for a bumper season.

But despite offering high paying jobs with sweet perks - such as free accommodation and cars - very few Australians are willing to take on those roles.

Sam Heagney, a farm manager in Mungindi on the Queensland  New South Wales border, has been struggling to attract enough staff for this year's crop.

He's hoping those affected by the coronavirus pandemic will start to look towards the industry, which he says can be 'very lucrative'.

'An entry level farm hand could be looking at $60,000-$80,000 a year. And its all upwards from there with a manager of a property on $100,000-$150,000,' he told news.com.au.

'On top of that you get housing, many get a vehicle, and we have high speed internet on the farm so we can watch Netflix quicker than the city; no problems there.'

Farming bosses have been crying out for workers to take on key roles as the industry finally looks set for a bumper season (stock image pictured)

But despite offering high paying jobs with sweet perks - such as free accommodation and cars - very few Australians are willing to take on those roles (stock image pictured)

Workers don't need to be highly skilled, they simply need a good attitude, Mr Heagney said.

Farmers are predicting they will struggle to fill the estimated 40,000 harvest positions with less than 8,000 seasonal workers in the country and barely any backpacker arrivals since March.

When the coronavirus pandemic struck in March, labour companies and farmers reported a rise in Australians contacting them for work - but that dropped off as soon as the government announced JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments.

Many organisations have been working hard to find a solution to attract more Australians into the industry after travel restrictions and border closures created major problems with sourcing workers.

Industry leaders have been looking outside the box to fill key roles with some turning to airline pilots who can operate the heavy machinery.

A parliamentary inquiry has proposed 'Australia Needs You', a campaign which would offer school leavers discounts on university fees for doing farm work (stock image)

The coronavirus pandemic means Australia needs at least 70,000 foreign backpackers to work on regional farms during harvest season (stock image)

A parliamentary inquiry set up to replenish the casual workforce has suggested school leavers work as fruit pickers in exchange for a discount on university fees.

Chair of the inquiry, New South Wales Liberal MP Julian Leeser, released an interim parliamentary report in September with the ambitious recommendations, which are supported by both sides of parliament.

Mr Leeser said if the 40,000 young Australians who have a gap year in the UK, US and Canada worked on farms instead, it would fill the labour shortfall.

'Young Australians love adventure, they want to meet other Australians,' he said.

'They want to make some money at a time when a lot of jobs they would otherwise do in hospitality and retail aren't there.'

The interim report recommends the government offer a discount on university HECS fees but has left the final figures up to the Treasurer and Education Minister.

During the consultation, Mr Leeser heard concerns that travels costs would be to high so the committee suggested a travel and accommodation allowance as well.

Mr Leeser warned action needs to be taken to support farmers who are facing the prospect of not being able to harvest fruit from their trees.
AMBLER  As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact schools, Wissahickon School District took another step this week toward a more traditional environment.

During Monday nights school board meeting, the Wissahickon School Board unanimously authorized a revision to the existing teaching and learning plan, providing for hybrid instruction for middle and high school students.

According to Assistant Superintendent Gary Abbamont, parents will have the opportunity to choose either a hybrid or virtual option for their childrens second marking period.

So this decision  will be for second quarter, Nov. 9-Jan. 21, and at that time in January well give the parents an option to change that again, but we do want people to know the planning behind this is such that we cant be making changes during the interim that this is a decision now and that will hold us through second quarter, Abbamont said.

This change came after the updated planning document was presented during a special work session last month.

School district officials had initially approved a teaching and learning plan on July 22 following a 6-3 vote. The policies had accounted for in-person, hybrid and online options.

In August, Superintendent James Crisfield urged board members to opt for a solely virtual model, but his proposal was rejected in a 6-2 vote after a roughly 3.5-hour special board meeting on Aug. 6.

About a week later, Crisfield addressed the ongoing situation in a digital letter to parents and community members, stressing that students in sixth through 12th grades would be taught only online.

After carefully examining the latest staffing data yesterday, I had to invoke a contingency strand of the approved plan due to the unique nature of staffing at the secondary level, Crisfield said in the Aug. 14 letter.

While the revision applied to the first marking period, Crisfield cited staffing issues due to the fact that secondary teachers must be certificated in specific subject areas in order to be legally allowed to teach classes, and with more surrounding districts moving to 100 [percent] virtual, we are unable at this time to staff the secondary schools to open as planned.

There have been 12,240 COVID-19 cases and 840 deaths in Montgomery County since the pandemic began here in early March, according to the countys COVID-19 resources page.

Most recently, three COVID-19 cases were disclosed within Wissahickon School District last month, according to a Sept. 18 letter from Crisfield: A student at Lower Gwynedd Elementary School in Ambler attending in-person, a teacher from Stony Creek Elementary School teaching in-person and a Wissahickon High School student taking classes virtually.

No additional cases were reported during Monday nights meeting, according to School Board Member Zeffy Karagiannakis.

Wissahickon Middle and High schools have been completely virtual since the start of the school year on Aug. 31, and they will remain so until Nov. 8. However, Crisfield assured school board members that the staffing constraints had been addressed and mostly taken care of.

Sixth through 12th graders will have the option for the second marking period to attend classes alternating between in-person and virtual, or continue with virtual learning every day, according to the plan.

The revised plan below reflects for the period 11/9/20 through the balance of the 2020-21 school year, as long as allowed by county/state health officials, the plan states.

The main difference is the structuring of classes, according to Abbamont, explaining that the middle school will run eight classes throughout the school day, while the high school will have four classes as part of block scheduling.

All of our teachers at this point who will be teaching from Nov. 9 for second quarter will be present on site and teaching from their on-site location both to students who are virtually at home as well as those who are present in their room, Abbamont said.

Additional information regarding cohorts and hybrid groups for student assignments is forthcoming, according to an Oct. 6 district update.

Students in WMS and WHS from the same household will be assigned to the same cohort, the update states. We are designing our plan to maximize social distancing for our students.

Additionally, high school students with study hall in the first or last period of the day will have the opportunity to come to school late or leave early if they can secure their own transportation, according to an Oct. 6 district update.

A permission slip will be shared with students in the coming weeks about this, the update states. We are allowing this during the hybrid return to school to minimize our number of students in a classroom; this is not a forever change.

Abbamont said during Mondays school board meeting that parents would receive the updated information, as well as a survey on Oct. 8. From that date, families will have until Oct. 14 to make a decision on a hybrid or virtual setting for the second marking period.

When addressing a question related to the potential increase in in-person attendance, Abbamont estimated that thered be roughly 80 percent going to school while 20 percent learned at home.

That is of course speculation on our part, and we cant be absolutely sure, but if we do in fact get an overwhelming number who want to return, and on an alternating pattern we are unable to maintain social distancing, we will have to revisit that and to see if we have to do something to alter that option for second quarter, Abbamont said. I dont think were going to be in that position but we certainly are not going to go forward less than six-foot social distancing where weve agreed to do that.

Wissahickon High School students attending Monday nights meeting appeared to have mixed feelings about their preferences. Would they like to return to school or take classes online?

I actually really enjoy virtual school, said Paige Benning, the school boards student representative.

I would love to be back in school, and Im so excited to go back in a month. So hoping all of that goes well, said Wissahickon High School Senior Matt Fritz.

Educational leaders emphasized the importance of implementing health and saftey guidelines to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus, including wearing a mask, directing hallway and stairway traffic, amending protocols in order to discourage gathering, as well as sanitizing high contact areas, bathrooms and other rooms in buildings with hospital grade disinfectant.

The proposal mainly applied to Wissahickon Middle and High schools as the existing plans for the districts four elementary schools will remain unchanged. However, families can update their preference for in-person or virtual instruction for Jan. 11, 2021, according to the plan.

The Elementary K-5 plan, as shown below, went into effect on 8/31/2020 and will remain in effect for the balance of the 2020-2021 school year, as long as allowed by county/state health officials, the plan states.

Crisfield took a moment to address the differences within the elementary, middle and high school plans as it relates to capacity.

So I just wanted to be sure we didnt think it was going to be the same thing for the different levels, and were confident about the 6-12 plan, and thats why  the switchover can be offered to six [to] 12 students every quarter because really nothing different than just being virtual or in-person, Crisfield said. Its not going to be a problem.

K [to] five [is a] rather massive dislocation anytime we change and we did want to offer a change, he continued. We know its important to have that opportunity, but its just significantly different.

The next Wissahickon School District Board of Directors work session is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Oct. 26. The next meeting will take place at 7 p.m. on Nov. 2.
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Competitive Dashboard:

DowDuPont (U.S.), BASF SE (Germany), and Evonik Industries (Germany) are some of the noted participants of the Global Transparent Plastics Market Size expected to contribute substantially to its development in the upcoming years. Other key players profiled for the share analysis of the market are LyondellBasell Industries Holdings B.V. (Netherlands), Covestro AG (Germany), INEOS (U.K), LANXESS (Germany), PPG Industries, Inc. (U.S.), TEIJIN LIMITED (Japan), Asahi Kasei Corporation (Japan), Denka Company Limited (Japan), LG Chem (South Korea), Trinseo (U.S.), SABIC (Saudi Arabia), and Eastman Chemical Company (U.S).

The market is anticipated to remain highly lucrative in the years to come. Some of the key trends supporting the growth of the market participants are mergers & acquisitions, facility expansion, research & development, partnerships, etc. Case to the point is, in February 2019, the U.S. based Aurora Plastics has completed the upgradation and expansion of its Texas compounding facility.

In March 2019, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC), a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation based out of Japan, has announced the acquisition of Welset Plast Extrusions Private Limiteds PVC compound business in India.

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Market Synopsis:

The properties of Transparent Plastics that are expected to facilitate the generation of demand over the next few years are resistance to corrosion and chemicals, low thermal conductivity, durability, micro-organisms repelling, etc. Global Transparent Plastics Market has been studied in details by Market Research Future in its latest report. It unveils that the market is projected to exhibit a healthy CAGR over the assessment period 2018 to 2023.

The growth of the market is expected to be driven primarily by the demand for packaging in the food industry. Also, the product has penetrated the booming industries such as pharmaceuticals, automotive, consumer goods, electrical & electronics, etc. This, in turn, is poised to catalyze expansion of the Transparent Plastics Market in the years to come.

Market Segmentation:

The Segments of the Global Transparent Plastics Market, based on Type, are Rigid and Flexible.

The Different Types of polymer identified in this MRFR report are polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polystyrene (PS), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polycarbonate (PC), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), and others.

The important End-Users assessed for a detailed segmental analysis of the Global Transparent Plastics Market are building & construction, packaging, electrical & electronics, consumer goods, automotive, and others.

Browse Key Industry Insights spread across 100 pages with 47 market data tables & 12 figures & charts from the report, Transparent Plastics Market Information: By Type (Rigid, Flexible), Polymer Type (Pet, PVC, PP, Ps, Pc, Abs, and Others), End-Use Industry (Packaging, Building & Construction, Electrical & Electronics, Automotive) and Region  Growth Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast 2023 in detail along with the table of contents: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/transparent-plastics-market-6077

Regional Analysis:

For an in-depth geographic assessment of the Global Transparent Plastics Market, it has been segmented into five regions namely Latin America, Asia Pacific, the Middle East & Africa (MEA), Europe, and North America. Asia Pacific is assessed to be dictating the growth of the global market in 2016. It has been projected that the regional segment is likely to retain its forefront position in the global marketplace over the next couple of years. Rapid industrialization being observed in the region has led to exponential developments in the end-user industries such as automotive, consumer goods, packaging, etc. This, in turn, is likely to fuel demand for Transparent Plastics, thus, expediting the expansion of the regional market. In addition, the rising standards of living, in conjunction with the increasing purchasing power of the population, is also poised to catapult the Transparent Plastics Market in the region on an upward trajectory.

North America, which was the second leading regional market in 2016, is prognosticated to expand at a substantial pace in the forthcoming years. The growth can be ascribed to rising demand from the food packaging industry. In addition, the investments injected for revamping the construction industry is further expected to accelerate revenue generation for the participants of the Transparent Plastics Market in the upcoming years. Europe is forecasted to exhibit a similar growth trend in the nearby future. The key players in the Transparent Plastics Market in the region are expected to capitalize on the increasing demand from the automotive industry.

COVID-19 Study in Detail:

Impact of COVID-19 on Iso-Propyl Alcohol Market @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-iso-propyl-alcohol-industry

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Corona virus Outbreak and Plastic Films Market @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-plastic-films-market

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The Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday extended time given to the special investigation team, constituted to probe the Hathras incident, to submit its report by 10 days.

IMAGE: An activist holds a placard during a protest against the Hathras victim outside Chaitya Bhoomi in Mumbai. Photograph: Mitesh Bhuvad/PTI Photo

The Uttar Pradesh government has given an additional 10 days to the three-member special investigation team investigating the alleged gang rape and killing of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras as the "probe is not complete", a senior official said Wednesday.

The special investigation team, constituted on September 30 and led by home secretary Bhagwan Swarup, was initially given seven days to submit its report.

But the UP government later sought a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the case and the criminal conspiracy to spread caste conflict it has suspected.

On Tuesday, it told the Supreme Court it wanted an apex court-monitored CBI inquiry into the incident to ensure "no vested interests will be able to create fake, false narrative with oblique motives".

"Yes...the time for submitting report for the SIT has been extended by 10 days," additional chief secretary-home Awanish Kumar Awasthi said.

Asked about the reasons for the extension, he added, "The reason is one. The probe is not complete."

The Yogi Adityanath government is fighting severe criticism for its handling of the case, particularly after the local police burnt the woman's body at night without the family's approval. However, officials said the cremation was done "as per the wishes of the family".

The government has claimed that some people were trying to foment caste tensions in the aftermath of the alleged rape of the woman by four "upper caste" men on September 14.

Quoting an FSL report, it has denied the rape charge.

Referring to "recent incidents, Chief Minister Adityanath has said that anarchist elements were trying to trigger communal and caste violence in the state.

In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court in response to a PIL, the government said there have been "orchestrated efforts to malign the image of government on social media by attributing baseless comments and building up a distorted narrative on the Hathras case.

The woman died on September 29 of the grievous injuries she suffered during the assault.
Minneapolis: Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was filmed with his knee on George Floyd's neck and who is now facing murder charges for Floyd's death, posted bond and was released from jail on Wednesday morning, local time.

State correctional records show Chauvin was transferred from a state prison facility in Oak Park Heights, Minneapolis, where he had been held since he was arrested in May, to the Hennepin County Jail in Minneapolis early Wednesday. Court records show he posted a conditional $US1 million bond ($1.4 million) and was released from custody just before noon.

Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, who was arrested for the May 25 death of George Floyd, has been released. Credit:AP

Eric Nelson, Chauvin's attorney, confirmed his client was no longer in custody, but he declined to comment further.

Chauvin, 44, was the last of the four former Minneapolis police officers charged in Floyd's killing to be released from jail as the court case is pending. A 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department before he was fired in May, Chauvin is facing second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in Floyd's death. Three other officers on the scene - J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas K. Lane and Tou Thao - are charged with aiding and abetting.
Manchester United failed to bring in any of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's top targets in the transfer window, according to reports.

The Red Devils frustrated fans this summer by managing just three major signings as Donny van de Beek joined from Ajax, Alex Telles arrived from Porto and Edinson Cavani was snapped up on a free transfer.

But according to ESPN, none of those players had been on Solskjaer's shortlist of stars he hoped would turn the team into title challengers. The Norwegian had made Dortmund winger Jadon Sancho a priority, while Aston Villa midfielder Jack Grealish and Leipzig centre-back Dayot Upamecano were also on his agenda.

Manchester United reportedly failed to bring in any of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's targets

Jadon Sancho (L) and Jack Grealish were high up on the Norwegian's transfer wishlist

Edinson Cavani joined on a free transfer, but he was not on Solskjaer's list of possible signings

United have been trying to secure the signature of Sancho for the last few months but reached a sticking point with the Bundesliga side, who would not budge on their 108million asking price. The club also had difficulties in talks with his agents.

Meanwhile, Grealish ended up signing a new contract at Villa Park, with United instead splashing out 40m on van de Beek - who has not yet started a Premier League game since his arrival.

Supporters had to wait until deadline day for the second and third recruits, with Telles adding a solid option at left-back and Cavani a proven goalscorer at the top level and providing competition to Marcus Rashford.

United CEO Ed Woodward has come under fire from fans for failing to strengthen key areas

Leipzig centre-back Dayot Upamecano is said to have been another player Solskjaer was after

All three players that were brought in were given the green light by Solskjaer before signing, the report adds, even if they hadn't been earmarked by him initially.

But the club were still unable to strengthen a key area that has been highlighted as a weakness in each of United's league games this season - centre-back. The team have conceded 11 goals already this term - six of which came in a humiliating 6-1 defeat at home to Tottenham on Sunday.

Solskjaer had hoped to secure a top class defender to partner Harry Maguire this season, eyeing up Upamecano as the perfect option, while Nathan Ake was also identified before he ended up joining their rivals Manchester City, ESPN says.

United had also been in for Barcelona's Ousmane Dembele as an alternative to Sancho, but the Frenchman decided to stay at the Nou Camp.
President Donald Trump poses on the Truman Balcony of the White House after returning from being hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center for COVID-19 treatment in Washington on Oct. 5, 2020. (Erin Scott/Reuters)

Trump Says He Will Back Specific Relief Measures, Including Airline Aid

President Donald Trump again called for Congress to pass a spending bill that provides aid for airlines in the midst of layoffs, coming hours after he stopped talks with Democrats over a broader stimulus bill following a several-month-long stalemate.

The House & Senate should IMMEDIATELY Approve 25 Billion Dollars for Airline Payroll Support, Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. At around the same time, he also called on Congress to pass a bill that authorizes $1,200 direct payments to individuals.

Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she would provide more support for airlines. An attempt by a key House Democrat to get aid passed failed in the lower chamber, however.

American Airlines, United Airlines, and other airlines announced they would furlough or eliminate tens of thousands of workers. The airlines agreed not to cut any jobs until Oct. 1 under a bill that was passed in March.

Some airline companies said they would reverse furloughing their workers if Congress approves more aid.

Time already ran out for U.S. airlines and many of our employees, yet there is a glimmer of hope that our leaders in Washington will act and save these jobs before its too late to turn back the clock, Airlines for America, a lobbying group, said in a statement. Some U.S. airlines may be able to reinstate employees if they receive direct payroll assistance from the federal government soon, but that becomes increasingly challenging with each passing day.

Regarding the broader stimulus measures, its not clear why Trump made his sudden reversal on Tuesday night. Pelosi had been negotiating primarily with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and the two both expressed optimism that negotiations were progressing.

Since the outbreak of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, governors in numerous states as well as many mayors have implemented lockdown measures, closing businesses, and services in the process. Tens of millions of jobs have been lost so far, and while the United States has successfully regained millions of jobs, the recovery has somewhat slowed in recent weeks. More than 660,000 jobs were added in September, when some economists projected that 800,000 jobs would be added.

Trump, in another Twitter post, said he would sign a standalone bill for stimulus payments.

If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy? he wrote, referring to Pelosi while also tagging White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Scott Morrison has slammed ABC journalist Leigh Sales for asking him to take a stance on the US Presidential election.

The prime minister butted heads with Sales during a live interview on the 7.30 program on Wednesday night.

Sales made the suggestion that Australia may prefer Democratic candidate Joe Biden to win the November election instead of 'four more years of Trump'.

But Mr Morrison refused to make comment on either presidential candidate, saying it wasn't his place to cast judgement on another world leader.

'Would Australia, prefer a Biden presidency to four more years of Trump?' Sales asked.

The prime minister quickly hit back at the presenter, saying: 'Well Leigh, you would you know there is an election on in the United States. To ask me to commentate on candidates in a US election, it is a bit of an irresponsible question.'

'It is not for me to engage in commentary on other world leaders. It is for me to work with them and the Australian-US relationship couldn't be in a more strong state.'

Sales quickly pointed out that there was precedent to her question, saying: 'When the same question was asked of John Howard in 2007 of McCain versus Obama. He said terrorists in Iraq would be praying for a Obama victor. What is in Australia's best interests?'

Mr Morrison (pictured, left) refused to make comment on either presidential candidate when asked by Leigh Sales (right)

'What is in Australia's interests is we have a good relationship. And I'll have that with whoever they chose to elect,' Mr Morrison said.

'I have demonstrated that with leaders around the world of various political persuasions. I focus on Australia's national interests. I don't get involved in the politics of other countries and don't commentate on that.'

Mr Howard refused to apologise over his comments which were widely condemned at the time.

Then-opposition leader Kevin Rudd even accused Mr Howard of acting against Australia's interest.

President Donald Trump receives Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison at the White House in Washington in September 2019 (pictured) with the pair having a good relationship

During the tense interview Sales also grilled the prime minister for 'failing' to prevent a 'tragedy' when it came to nation's elderly.

'Three-quarters of the COVID-19 deaths have been in this country, in aged care facilities, that is 673 people. Those facilities are the responsibility of the Federal Government,' Sales said.

But Mr Morrison argued the government had done everything it could to keep deaths low in the aged care system.

He pointed to the death toll in the United Kingdom as evidence the Coalition had shown strong leadership in Australia's aged care sector.

'In comparison to what we have seen around the world, 8 per cent of Australia's aged care facilities had COVID-19 cases, that compares to 56 per cent in the UK,' he said.

'There have been half a dozen cases where I would agree that the failings were acute, but they were not system-wide.

'In the vast majority of aged care facilities, what we saw is the system actually deal with the pandemic and prevent that horrific result that we are seeing all around the rest of the world.'
Its been six months since a Connecticut woman disappeared and her family is worried that something has happened to her.

Monica Decker, 53, was last seen leaving her house in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on April 8, 2020, where she lived with her adult son, according to Bridgeport Police Detective Kenneth McKenna.

Two days later, Monicas place of work, Norwalk Transit, called police to perform a welfare check at her home, stating that Monica had failed to show up for work the prior two days, which was uncharacteristic of her.

Police responded to Monicas house on Beechmont Avenue where they discovered her locked 2016 Honda Civic parked outside and her personal belongings, including her cell phone, located inside the house. Monica was nowhere to be found, Det. McKenna told Dateline. He added that Monicas son told police that he hadnt seen his mother in two days and that he assumed she was at work.

Monicas daughter, Sheila Yasin, who lives in West Haven, Connecticut, last saw her mother a week before she disappeared.

She came by my house to visit, as she often does on the weekends, Sheila told Dateline. She made bread and everything was normal. She wasnt sad or acting weird. And she certainly didnt act like she was leaving.

Sheila added that her son, who is autistic, is extremely close with his grandmother.

Shes his number one advocate, Sheila said tearfully. My mom would never just walk away from him and not contact us. Its been six months. This is just not like her at all. Were crushed.

An investigation by the Bridgeport Police led investigators to believe that Monica left the area with a man named Toby Roberts, according to Det. McKenna. In early May 2020, Monicas daughters were alerted by the bank that she had accessed her account at an ATM in Wilmington, Vermont. The detective told Dateline that Monica had checked the account balance, but did not withdraw any cash.

Detective McKenna told Dateline that investigators obtained the security footage from the Merchants bank ATM in Wilmington and confirmed the image was Monica. The video also showed Monica getting into a green Honda CR-V with an unknown male.

Story continues

We do believe that Monica Decker is in the Wilmington, Vermont area with this man, Toby Roberts, Det. McKenna said. At this time, we have no reason to suspect foul play. But we havent given up searching for her. This is still an open, active missing persons case.

He added that Monicas disappearance remains a missing persons case and they continue to search for her because her family and her work colleagues believe this is out-of-character behavior on her part and are concerned for her safety.

Detective McKenna told Dateline that theyve made multiple attempts to contact both Monica and Toby Roberts, but have been unsuccessful. He encouraged anyone who may have information on their whereabouts to contact police.

Last known image of Monica Decker. (Bridgeport Police Department)

Monicas daughter, Sheila, told Dateline that shes frustrated with the lack of answers in her mothers case.

I understand that shes an adult and can just leave if she wants, Sheila said. But thats just not her. And she left everything behind. All her belongings. It just doesnt make sense.

And now that Monica hasnt been seen or hear from since being seen on that ATM security video five months ago, Sheila just wants to make sure her mother has disappeared of her own free will.

I feel like my mother is not safe, she said. I feel like I'm in a movie I never wanted to be part of. I just want to know that my mother is not dead. I need to know that shes OK.

Monica, who was 52 years old at the time of her disappearance, is now 53. She is described as being between 53- 55" tall and weighing approximately 185-195 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes.

Anyone who may have information about Monicas whereabouts is asked to contact Detective Kenneth McKenna at the Bridgeport Police Department in Connecticut at 203-581-5245.
G eorge Clooney has spoken out about some of the unique challenges of being an actor-director.

The two-time Oscar winner, who has starred in all seven films he has directed to date, said the experience can lead to horrible moments.

Clooney, 59, said the situation only works if the director has a real and honest relationship his or her fellow actors.

Speaking during an 80-minute virtual talk held on Tuesday night to mark the launch of the BFI London Film Festival 2020, he said: "What a horrible, egotistical thing to have to do.

The actor with wife Amal Clooney, 42, at a premiere pre-pandemic / Dave Benett

"If you and I were doing a scene as an actor and actress, and we are talking and doing the scene, it would be a horrible thing for me to say 'maybe you should say your line a little faster next time, and do it with a little more sadness at the end'.

"It's a terrible thing for an actor to say to another actor, and yet I would be doing a scene with an actress [as director on set] and be talking and then go 'cut.

It's a wall you really hate to break, so you have to have a really have a solid understanding with the actors."

The star told the Q+A host, presenter Edith Bowman, that he was initially drawn to the idea of directing because he "always liked the idea of having more control over everything".

His directorial projects have largely been critically acclaimed, with the exception of 2008 flop, Leatherheads.

The self-penned McCarthy-era set film, Good Night and Good Luck, was nominated for six Academy Awards in 2005, and Clooney and his co-writers were nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay of 2011 political drama The Ides of March.

Clooney, 59, is a two-time Oscar winner / AFP via Getty Images

But despite worldwide fame and success, Clooney said he still gets nervous on set - and to this day attempts not to take himself too seriously.

Everybody always says take your work seriously but dont take yourself seriously, he said. Any part of you taking yourself too seriously is actually almost always a mistake.

The actor Zoomed in from Los Angeles - where he, his human rights lawyer wife Amal Clooney and their twins have been stuck all summer due to Covid-19 - to discuss his decades-long film career.

He lamented not being able to hold the discussion on stage, as the London Film Festival is such a beautiful event.

The Hollywood icon also shared insights into his latest directorial project, The Midnight Sky, set for release on Netflix in December.

Clooney re-wrote the script of his latest film, The Midnight Sky, to accommodate Felicity Jones' pregnancy (Getty Images ) / Getty Images

Clooney directs and stars as Augustine, a lone 70-year-old scientist living in the Arctic, and working to stop a group of astronauts from returning home following a global catastrophe.

The film, shot at London's Shepperton Studios and on location in Iceland, also stars Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo.

Clooney said that a last-minute rewriting of the film's script to accommodate the Jones real-life pregnancy turned out to be a "bonus".

He said: "Eventually we just sat down with her and said: 'You know, people go away for two years on a flight to another planet, they have sex. It happens, and you're pregnant'.

"And it changed everything for us. It actually gave us something to lean into for the end of the movie, and I think it ends us being a real bonus for us."

Jones, 36, welcomed a baby with her husband Charles Guard in early September.
For Jenna Cohan, 32, who does advocacy work against domestic and sexual violence in Portland, Ore., the reminders were continual. She would see dogs walking by outside her window, and realize constantly that she couldnt be outside and petting them.

Dr. Bright said its not rare to see the children of her colleagues and students venture into a Zoom screen and casually touch or embrace a parent. Recently, when a colleagues 5-year-old child did that, Dr. Bright reflexively grabbed her own.

In the beginning of the pandemic, she found herself high-fiving low-hanging tree branches in a nearby park where she takes her daily walks, she said. She even has a favorite tree in her neighborhood park because it was often the only living thing she saw every day.

It is the same body sensation that I would have in high-fiving a human, she said.

How to cope with touch deprivation

Dr. Neel Burton, a psychiatrist and the author of the books Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking and Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions, believes touch is the most neglected of our senses.

In 2017, Dr. Burton, who lives in Oxford, England, wrote an article in Psychology Today about where that neglect comes from and the sometimes-cultural aversion to touch. This aversion can also dictate, he said, when and how intensely touch hunger may kick in for someone: age, genetics, coping mechanisms and the frequency of touch pre-pandemic are the other determining factors.

Some people may feel it within a week, others may never feel it at all, Dr. Burton said. No doubt the thought that you cannot hypothetically access touch  for example, by seeing a friend, or booking a massage  makes the craving worse than it would otherwise be.
HUDSON  Four people were arraigned for gang assault Wednesday in Columbia County Court for allegedly attacking a man during a late-night Fourth of July party at a Kinderhook home that raised questions in the community about how the sheriffs office handled the investigation before an elite State Police unit took over the case.

Alex Rosenstrach, 37, a gym owner, his wife Deputy Kelly Rosenstrach, Bryan Haag, 37, an IRS law enforcement agent, and Cory Galord, 31, a contractor, were each indicted on felony counts of second-degree gang assault and first-degree unlawful imprisonment, accused of restraining and attacking Harold Handy during the party. All four face additional charges.

The Rosenstrachs hosted the party at their home at 3193 County Route 21 where the fighting broke out. Columbia County 911 was called at about 1:27 a.m. July 5, which led to the dispatching of deputies and an ambulance to the residence.

Handy was considered seriously injured and was taken by ambulance to Albany Medical Center Hospital. He was hospitalized and eventually released.

Residents feared a coverup was under way as Rosenstrachs wife Kelly is a county sheriffs deputy and with their ties to local law enforcement. The community lit up with social media chatter that other deputies were at the party and involved in the assault. Sheriff David Bartlett repeatedly said that none of his deputies were involved and that he asked for the State Police to investigate.

Among the charges filed against Kelly Rosenstrach were official misconduct for unauthorized use of the sheriffs computer system to access records related to the case on July 6 and 7. Then seven months pregnant, she was placed by the sheriffs office on administrative leave.

Alex Rosenstrach, 36, owns ClubLife Health and Fitness. Rosenstrach was in the news in May when he reopened his independent gym in defiance of the state's mandate for gyms to be shut during the coronavirus pandemic.

Many residents supported Handy, who owns Handy Repairs, a local auto repair business. Rallies were held and signs dotted the area calling for Justice for Harold.

Defense attorneys said the case would show that Handy provoked the fights at the party. William Roberts, the attorney representing Kelly Rosenstrach, said it would be shown that Handy was the aggressor.

Handy attacked Haag, according to Haags attorney Paul DerOhannesian. He did what anybody else would do. He defended himself.

Michael Howard, the attorney for Galord, said gang assault is rarely charged and didnt fit in this case.

The story hasnt been told yet, Mark Portin, the attorney for Alex Rosenstrach, said.

Handys attorney, Paul Freeman of Hudson, could not be reached for comment.

The State Police Special Investigations Unit eventually took over the case working, closely with District Attorney Paul Czajka.

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.

The case remains under investigation and investigators are examining collateral issues that have been discussed in the public domain, Czajka said in a statement. The district attorney praised the responding deputies and investigators for their professionalism.

Judge Richard Koweek opened the sealed indictment at the county courthouse and signed an order of protection for Handy. The defendants were released on their own recognizance.

The defendants also were indicted on additional charges.

Alex Rosenstrach faces felony second-degree assault and three misdemeanors counts of third-degree assault, a count of third-degree coercion and second-degree reckless endangerment.

Kelly Rosenstrach faces three misdemeanor counts of official misconduct and one misdemeanor count of third-degree coercion.

Haag of Kinderhook faces a charge of felony second-degree assault and three misdemeanor counts of third-degree assault.

Galord of Craryville also faces three misdemeanor counts of third-degree assault and a misdemeanor count of third-degree coercion.
The annual Peace Bell ceremony was held at UN headquarters in observance of the International Day of Peace (21 September). The theme of the International Day of Peace of 2020 was "Shaping Peace Together".

opinion

United Nations  COVID-19 has shifted our world. Over the last six months, no matter where we live, our lives, assumptions, and relationships have changed. Now, more than ever, we have witnessed people from all backgrounds and all ages rise to assist each other.

While communities have formed networks of mutual support, many of the institutions mandated to support them have failed to fully harness and amplify the wealth of capacities and support structures that already exist.

In international development in particular, a key blind spot that limits the effectiveness of our work exists in the rhetoric we use to understand the communities we work with.

UNDP, along with many other partners, continues to advance new approaches to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, but our continued use of terminology that fails to fully embrace the power of people impedes the transformative potential of our work.

This can also lead to inadequate policy and programming, or to insufficient - or inappropriate - action. One of the most prominent examples of this is our tendency to target support to individuals and communities facing poverty, conflict, or other sources of instability by identifying them as 'vulnerable' people.

For example, the problem with categorizing women as vulnerable group project women's passivity and helplessness, denying them agency and power in the processes of change. A radical reaction to portraying women as vulnerable in recent years has been an over glorification of women's role as fighters in support of violent extremist groups, hindering their capacity and role as peacebuilders.

Words matter. They shape mindsets, and mindsets shapes approaches and outcomes. There is an important distinction between a vulnerable person and a person living in a vulnerable circumstance.

When we define people by their circumstances, we fail to engage with them as multidimensional beings. It's time for UNDP to move from using 'vulnerability' as a means of defining the people it supports, to considering all people as protagonists for change.

This might allow us to meet people's aspirations and assist us in assessment and conceptualization of where inequality stems from and who has a role in combating it.

By moving away from a deprivation perspective, which leads to divisive mentalities about the capacity of particular groups of people, we are better positioned to recognize the reality of humanity's common journey in building a peaceful world, and the role of each individual as a protagonist in it.

We can start this journey by changing the words we use and therefore the whole narrative from vulnerability to empowerment and constructive resilience.

Whether this reconceptualization of what unites us to be reached only after a global crisis such as this pandemic has revealed the cost of humanity's stubborn clinging to old patterns of behaviour, or is to be reached through consultation and dialogue, is the choice before all.

We can choose to graduate from the idea of labeling women, youth, racial, religious and ethnic minorities as 'vulnerable groups in the discussions that guide our decision-making. We can embark on a journey with greater clarity of vision and determination to question and reflect on how our policy and programming promote the nobility of them and draw on their experience.

To accept that the individual, the community, and the institutions of society are the protagonists of civilization building, and to act accordingly, opens up great possibilities for human happiness and allows for the creation of environments in which the true powers of the human spirit can be released.

Several opportunities to enhance our work with peacebuilders, activists, and other populations in bringing about sustainable change and to ensure we recognize and articulate with greater clarity their latent capacity may include the following:

To stand with women peacebuilders to ensure they are recognized for their work and courage, have full inclusion and representation in local and global peace and recovery processes and are protected against threats and are receiving the resources to carry out their work. This year will mark the 20th anniversary of WPS, and UNDP is proud to join the International Civil Society Action Network(ICAN) and the Women's Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL) as they launch the global #shebuildspeace call to action and campaign building on our partnership on Invisible Women.

To recognize the powers endowed in people of faith, especially women of faith, at all levels. Women of faith are actively engaging in the local peace process and they are advocating against hate speech, initiatives addressing issues connected to the environment, like climate. UNDP and UN Women report on Conicting Identities: The Nexus between Masculinities, Femininities and Violent Extremism in Asia recommend Programming take a whole-of-family and hole-of-community approach when designing interventions.

To recognize the essentiality of community-based peacebuilding as parallel or pre-requisite to high-level negotiations. The effects of COVID-19 proved that local trust, access and resilience is essential part of social cohesion.

To include and appreciate young climate change advocates, environmental defenders and environmental journalists who have recognized that creation is an organic whole and they are promoting systems required to respect the earth and to organize and fully utilize its raw materials. Their inclusion in essential in programs that promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies.

To acknowledge the role of storytellers who provoke conversations, initiate reflections and ; and work of volunteer online defenders from across the globe combating trolls who spread hate speech.

To show gratitude to the unique contribution of Indigenous peoples to our planet and our common future.

To recognize persons with disabilities as having significant experience and innovative approaches to navigating barriers in their daily lives.

To learn how people make decisions and act on them, how they think about, influence, and relate to one another, and how they develop beliefs and attitudes. We are working with young people to apply behavioral insights to address violent extremism in countries such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

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The innovation and resilience shown by communities amidst the pandemic have underscored the need for more expansive understandings of human relationships, and to place more emphasis on identifying the latent capacities and desires of those we hope to serve.

This means believing in people and their desires to be sources of peace and justice. This means opening our eyes to the extent of people's capacity so that we can see more peacebuilders and changemakers in more places.

This means embracing the oneness of humankind and human nobility as a foundation for how we develop our policies and programmes.

Nika Saeedi is Team Leader a.i., Prevention of Violent Extremism, Crisis Bureau, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 12:53:28|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement on halting COVID-19 relief talks with Democrats until after the presidential election has drawn criticism from both parties.

"I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business," Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon, claiming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not negotiating in good faith.

"Nancy Pelosi is asking for $2.4 Trillion Dollars to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States, money that is in no way related to COVID-19. We made a very generous offer of $1.6 Trillion Dollars and, as usual, she is not negotiating in good faith," he tweeted.

In a statement responding to Trump's tweets, Pelosi said "walking away from coronavirus talks demonstrates that President Trump is unwilling to crush the virus."

"Once again, President Trump showed his true colors: putting himself first at the expense of the country, with the full complicity of the GOP Members of Congress," she said, adding the White House is rejecting the urgent warnings from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Speaking at a virtual annual meeting held earlier on Tuesday by the National Association for Business Economics, Powell urged policymakers to provide more relief to households and businesses hurt by the pandemic, warning a prolonged slowing economic recovery could trigger typical recessionary dynamics.

"At this early stage, I would argue that the risks of policy intervention are still asymmetric. Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses," he said.

"Over time, household insolvencies and business bankruptcies would rise, harming the productive capacity of the economy, and holding back wage growth," said the Fed chief.

Joe Biden, 2020 Democratic nominee and former U.S. vice president, also slammed on Tuesday Trump's decision to suspend talks on COVID-19 relief, saying the president "never even really tried to get a deal" for the struggling Americans amid the pandemic.

"Make no mistake: if you are out of work, if your business is closed, if your child's school is shut down, if you are seeing layoffs in your community, Donald Trump decided today that none of that -- none of it -- matters to him," Biden said in a statement.

Apart from Democrats, at least three Republican members of Congress have immediately blasted Trump's announcement.

Republican John Katko from New York said he strongly urges Trump to rethink the move.

"I disagree with the President. With lives at stake, we cannot afford to stop negotiations on a relief package. The Problem Solvers Caucus has a proposal that both sides agreed on and can bring negotiators back to the table," he tweeted.

Senator Susan Collins from Maine in a statement published Tuesday called Trump's decision "a huge mistake," saying she has already been in touch with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, one of the chief negotiators, and with several of her Senate colleagues.

Also on Tuesday, Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska tweeted that she strongly believes "negotiations should continue."

"We all need to keep working until we reach a bipartisan agreement that can pass both chambers and be signed by the President," she said.

Mnuchin and Pelosi have resumed negotiations over the relief package in recent days, but the talks have so far yielded no deal, with significant differences remaining in key areas such as aid to state and local governments.

The Democrats-controlled House last week passed a 2.2-trillion-U.S.-dollar COVID-19 relief bill. However, some Senate Republicans previously signaled that they are not willing to support any package that costs over 1.5 trillion dollars to salvage the economy reeling from the pandemic.

Economists, as well as Federal Reserve officials, have argued that more fiscal relief is needed to sustain the economic recovery, warning of dire consequences if further fiscal support is not provided in time. Enditem
New Delhi, Oct 7 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday wished Russian President Vladimir Putin on his 68th birthday and appreciated his contribution in strengthening the strategic partnership between the two countries.

In a telephonic conversation that lasted around 20 minutes, both leaders discussed various issues.

The Prime Minister shared the information on Twitter after his conversation with the Russian President. "Spoke to my friend President Vladimir Putin @KremlinRussia_E to greet him on his birthday today. Appreciated his immense personal contribution to strengthening the special and privileged strategic partnership between India and Russia." To celebrate Putin's birthday, Russia had on Tuesday tested its Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile and successfully hit a target in the Barents Sea -- a step that comes amid tensions over arms control between Russia and the United States. Putin praised the test launch on Wednesday.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
About 9 per cent of all housing loans were subject to repayment deferrals at the end of August, raising fears that once government coronavirus relief tapers off, a flood of homeowners could be forced to sell, putting more pressure on declining property prices.

Government support packages have provided support to workers, who have been stood down or lost their jobs because of the pandemic, as well as businesses that have seen their sales plunge.

Bank support for customers in need of assistance if they run into financial difficulty repaying their mortgage is coming to an end. Credit:

The government has extended JobKeeper payments for a further six months until March 28, 2021. However, from September 28, eligibility was changed to be based on actual business turnover in relevant periods, with payments stepped down and paid at two rates (for full-time and part-time workers). The rates will step down again from January 4.

Martin North, founder of Digital Finance Analytics, says he expects mortgage defaults in the months ahead, given unemployment rates are likely to stay high, perhaps for years before the full economic effects of COVID-19 are behind us. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said earlier this month the national jobless rate stood at 6.8 per cent.
Hathras case: SIT gets 10 more days to submit investigation report

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

New Delhi, Oct 07: In a recent development, the three-member special investigation team (SIT) which was set up to probe into the alleged gang-rape of a 19-year-old Dalit woman was scheduled to submit its report on Wednesday. But the government has extended the deadline by 10 more days.

Based on the recent finding of the SIT, the Uttar Pradesh government suspended Hathras SP and four other police officers for their 'handling' of the case. The SIT also recommended lie-detector tests for all those who are involved, including the family members of the victim.

Amid Chinas growing assertiveness, India US Japan Australia agree to step up coordination

On September 14, a 19-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped and assaulted. She was taken to Aligarh Muslim University's Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College for where she was shifted to Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital after her condition worsened. On September 29, she succumbed to her injuries in Delhi.

Later, the deceased victim's body was hurriedly cremated at night with nobody from her family being present, though Hathras police denied all charges. The brutality of the crime and rushed action of the Hathras police drew nationwide criticism while the police proceeded to sequester the village - no politicians were being allowed, the family members were barred from talking to media.

Former BJP MLA, 100 others booked for organising crowd in support of Hathras accused

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government took some 'corrective measures' and relaxed the restrictions. On Tuesday, the SIT team went to the village, examined the spot where the women was cremated.

The Yogi Adityanath government has asked the Supreme Court to order a court-monitored CBI probe into the gang-rape case. It has also said the midnight cremation was done to avoid large-scale violence, which was apprehended next morning.

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 9:17 [IST]
WATERLOO REGION  Community groups still have a month to apply for $50,000 of funding for shoreline projects.

Last month the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks announced $1.67 million available in a newly created Great Lakes Local Action Fund.

The funding is for small-scale community groups, non-profits, First Nations groups, small businesses, conservation authorities and municipalities to complete small-scale projects to improve the health of shorelines.

Groups protecting shoreline within Ontarios entire portion of the Great Lakes Basin can apply. This includes groups protecting rivers that run into the Great Lakes, including the Grand River, which drains into Lake Erie.

Applications can be submitted at Ontario.ca and are due Nov. 2.

The focus on local on-the-ground projects delivered by community partners is welcomed, said Kelsey Scarfone, water program manager at Environmental Defence.

Citing the previous dismantling of much environmental legislation, Scarfone said we hope (this) announcement represents a change of heart and a new approach to protecting Ontarios environment.

Grand River Environmental Network vice-chair Kevin Thomason is skeptical of the funding.

Im questioning the provincial governments commitment to environment given their track record, he said. Theyve proactively tried to work against everything.

Not only against the environment but trampling public process and engagement.

Jeff Yurek, minister of environment, conservation and parks, said the funding is part of his governments promise to protect the Great Lakes, and runs in tandem with a larger Great Lakes funding initiative of $5.8 million for 65 already selected projects across the province.

LG Leah Gerber s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows her to report on stories about the Grand River Watershed. Email lgerber@therecord.com
The extension will allow the World Bank to strengthen cooperation in new priority areas for Egypt amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which will lead to building a resilient economy

Egypt and the World Bank have agreed on extending their strategic partnership which paves the way for entering a new phase to expand the cooperation portfolio in a number of sectors, and meets Egypts future development priorities.

On Wednesday, Minister of International Cooperation and Governor of Egypt at the World Bank Rania Al Mashat, held a meeting with Marina Weiss, regional director for Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti at the World Bank, prior to the start of the annual meetings of the World Bank Board of Governors, which is scheduled to start on Thursday.

The annual meetings of the World Bank are expected to witness the participation of David Malpass, President of the World Bank Group, Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Axel Van Trotsenburg, Managing Director of Operations at the World Bank, and Stephanie von Friedeburg, Chief Operating Officer for International Finance Corporation.



This partnership builds on the 2015-2019 Country Partnership Framework between the World Bank and Egypt, which focuses on improving opportunities for private sector led job creation, social inclusion, and improving governance.

The extension will allow the World Bank Group to strengthen cooperation in high priority areas amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which include investing in human capital development, reducing debt burdens to attract effective investment and facilitate the changes needed for an inclusive and resilient recovery.

Focused on strengthening economic diplomacy, Al Mashat noted that the ministry of international cooperation is keen on enhancing dialogue, coordination, and regular monitoring to drive economic recovery and foster trust between development partners and the government.

The current cooperation portfolio between Egypt and the World Bank Group amounts to around $8 billion in a variety of sectors.

Most recently, Al Mashat announced that the World Bank approved a new $200 million project to improve air quality, combat climate change, reduce emissions, and improve solid waste management in Greater Cairo.

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Today, SOURCE Global, PBC and Conservation International announced their third successful collaboration, which will deliver sustainable, clean drinking water -- and accelerate the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6) -- to the Bintat Karis Indigenous peoples of Iraan, Rizal, Palawan.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201006006119/en/

Palawan, Philippines (Photo: Business Wire)

The SOURCE Hydropanel array will create more than 40,000 liters of renewable drinking water each year, powered only by sunshine, for the 100 students, teachers and their families at the Bintat Karis Elementary School. This will offset more than two million plastic water bottles, and will markedly improve the health and quality of life for local residents, as demonstrated by two earlier collaborations between SOURCE and Conservation International, in Bahia Hondita, Colombia and Atauro Island in Timor Leste. Global nonprofit climate-tech accelerator Elemental Excelerator funded the grant supporting the effort, and both the United States Embassy, Manila and the Philippines government were instrumental in expediting the installation.

Remote locations -- otherwise nearly impossible to serve -- are where SOURCE Hydropanels shine; and this Palawan indigenous community now has renewable, cost-efficient, and clean drinking water that will improve their lives, said Cody Friesen, Founder and CEO of SOURCE. Access to safe drinking water is fundamental to students learning and thriving as they grow. Our partnership with Conservation International is focused on delivering this basic human right, even in the hardest-to-reach locations.

The community of Bintat Karis is approximately a five hour drive from the nearest major city, and located in the protected area of Mount Mantalingahan, the highest point on the Philippines fifth largest island. The area has limited water infrastructure, most of which is powered by gravity to reach communities at the base of the mountains. This does not serve the Bintat Karis, who live at a higher elevation. Now, families and students at Bintat Karis Elementary School will have access to safe, potable water for drinking, cooking and sanitation.

The lack of a reliable and clean water source, and the sicknesses this caused, has troubled this school and their community greatly over the years. Now, community members don't have to dig out the river banks for water, or carry it in heavy containers to their homes. And this summer when the river dries up, there wont be worry about where they can get drinking water as there is an accessible and consistently available source of clean water, said Ma. Pearl Lagrada, community administrator. This project is a substantial gift to Bintat Karis Iskulat Palawan and to the whole Palawano tribal community. We are thankful for SOURCE and for CI for making this happen despite the difficulty and distance of our location.

In Palawan's highlands, access to basic water services for the indigenous communities is poor and water-borne diseases remain prevalent, said Enrique Nunez, Country Executive Director, CI Philippines. Providing clean, healthy freshwater that is easy to access will improve health, and will allow those who previously dedicated time to collecting water, predominantly mothers and teenagers, to focus on other activities that benefit themselves and their families.

The project complements Conservation Internationals long standing partnership with the Philippines government to identify and implement sustainable solutions with the highest potential for positive impacts on Palawans highland communities, rich biodiversity, and for our global climate. In 2016, Conservation International helped develop and implement the integrated management plan of Palawans Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape (MMPL) and supported the establishment of the nations first conservation trust fund to ensure long-term financing for the sustainable landscape. Building on this, Conservation International and partners aim to develop natural climate solutions in the MMPL that conserve and restore critical ecosystems while also supporting economic growth for poverty reduction. The MMPL contains 120,000 hectares that provide more than $5.5 billion in ecosystem services including a vital watershed for 200,000 people.

It is mission-critical at Elemental to fund companies like SOURCE that are leading the way in creating alternative solutions to our already strained ground and surface water bodies," said Kim Baker, Director of Water Innovation at Elemental Excelerator. The decentralization of water infrastructure is a pivotal trend, particularly in locations where the time and capital required for centralized piping to reach the full population aren't readily available, and grid-tied services are simply not an option. This project is proof we can quickly and cost-effectively expand clean water access to communities across the world.

For photography of this installation, visit SOURCE Palawan Photos, and for videos visit SOURCE Palawan Video.

About SOURCE Global, PBC

SOURCE Global, PBCs mission is to make drinking water an unlimited resource. SOURCE Hydropanels create drinking water simply, using sunlight and air, and a combination of thermodynamics, materials science, and controls technology. SOURCE puts the power of safe, high-quality water production into the hands of every person in nearly every climate and corner of the world. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, SOURCE operates across 45 countries and five continents. SOURCE is a registered trademark of SOURCE Global, PBC. For more information, visit www.source.co and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

About Conservation International

Conservation International works to protect the critical benefits that nature provides to people. Through science, partnerships and fieldwork, Conservation International is driving innovation and investments in nature-based solutions to the climate crisis, supporting protections for critical habitats, and fostering economic development that is grounded in the conservation of nature. We work in 30 countries around the world, empowering societies at all levels to create a cleaner, healthier and more sustainable planet. Follow Conservation International's work on Conservation News, Facebook, Twitter,Instagram and YouTube.

About Elemental Excelerator

Elemental Excelerator advances solutions to climate change and deploys them in the communities that need them the most. Each year, it finds 15-20 companies that best fit its mission and funds each company up to $1 million to improve systems that impact people's lives: energy, mobility, water, agriculture, and beyond. To date, it has awarded over $36 million to 99 companies. For more information, please visit elementalexcelerator.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201006006119/en/
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7, 2020 07:20 473 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c498cd5b 1 National coronavirus,#covid19taskforce,#mothermessage,#wearmask,#keepyourdistance,#washyourhand,#socialdistance,#avoidcrowd,#usesoap,pandemic Free

A number of COVID-19 clusters have emerged at pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Central Java.

As many as 200 students of the Quranic Studies Institute (PTIQ) in Cilandak, South Jakarta, have tested positive for COVID-19.

The students were transported by bus to isolation facilities at the Kemayoran athletes village and Pademangan Tower in Central Jakarta, without notifying their parents, wartakota.tribunnews.com reported on Monday.

The institute has yet to inform me of anything. I dont even know in which tower my child is staying, said one of the parents who was not identified.

It was previously reported that a student staying in the schools dormitory had contracted COVID-19. The school has continued to hold in-person classes, despite the reimposition of large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) in Jakarta since Sept. 14.

Number of COVID-19 clusters at Islamic boarding schools. (JP/Swi)

Meanwhile, in Yogyakarta, more than 100 students from two pesantren in Ngaglik and Prambanan have also contracted COVID-19.

There are an additional 38 students [from Ngaglik], said Sleman Health Agency Head Joko Hastaryo over the weekend.

Initially, 41 COVID-19 cases were reported at a pesantren in Ngaglik. After the students contacts were traced, an additional 14 students were added to the figure, prior to the announcement of another 38 new cases. In total, the Ngaglik pesantren has recorded 93 COVID-19 cases, kompas.com reported.

Meanwhile, another pesantren in Prambanan reported one confirmed COVID-19 case and after tracing, an additional 10 were added to the list. In total, 104 COVID-19 cases have been recorded from the two pesantren.

Read also: All COVID-19 patients in W. Java military academy have recovered: TNI

A large number of COVID-19 cases were also detected at a pesantren in Banyumas, Central Java.

We have gathered and tested 631 samples, 328 of which come out positive, Banyumas administration secretary Wahyu Budi Saptono said as reported by Antara newswire.

The COVID-19 patients who showed symptoms were treated at Prof. DR, Margono Soekarjo Purwanegara Regional Hospital, while asymptomatic patients were transported to a quarantine facility in Baturaden.

Aside from the boarding school in Purwanegara, another pesantren in Karanggintung village in Sumbang district of Banyumas reported that 11 of its students had also contracted COVID-19.

Separately, Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo said that collaboration between the government, clerics and school managements was necessary to contain COVID-19 infection clusters at pesantren.

All stakeholders from clerics to school management and the government must work together to set health protocols at boarding schools, he said as quoted by tempo.co.

Ganjar said virus mitigation measures must be implemented at boarding schools immediately, given the high risk of infection.

Central Java Deputy Governor Taj Yasin Maimoen also promoted Gerakan Jogo Santri, a movement to protect Islamic school students.

Taj Yasin, also known as Gus Yasin, asked school managements not to send students back home.

Read also: Schools could become new clusters of COVID-19 transmission: Indonesian Red Cross

It is feared they may spread the virus in their neighborhoods, he said.

Central Java has recorded COVID-19 infection clusters at several pesantren, including in Batang, Kendal, Kebumen and Banyumas.

On Tuesday, Central Java recorded additional 721 confirmed COVID-19 cases, adding to the total tally of 24,165, with an additional 11 fatalities taking the death toll to 2,046.

The Health Ministry announced 4,056 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to 311,176.

According to data released by the ministry on Tuesday, 121 more people have died of the disease, bringing the death toll to 11,374. (iwa)

Editors note: This article is part of a public campaign by the COVID-19 task force (Satgas COVID-19) to raise awareness about the pandemic.
If an older one- or 1-level home existed there when Healy bought the property, that could explain why the smokehouse and dairy, which flank the main house, are much older, as indicated by the brickwork on the outside of those buildings. That also means there could be much more to Woodstocks history than meets the eye.

The house is just a very interesting evolved house, [and] theres still a lot to try to figure out there, Lipford said. We left feeling that there was an earlier house on the property somewhere in the same vicinity as the current home, she said. Perhaps Healy was already there and an earlier home burned, and he rebuilt the current house on its foundation or over the raised basement.

That and its proximity to the water and a nearby boat landing for shipping access mean the home was likely important for commerce and trade.

For all those reasons, theres potential for lots of archaeology all over the place, Lipford said.
OTTAWA COUNTY, MI  The two people found dead Friday inside a Crockery Township home were identified as a married couple with individual health problems, police said, and no foul play is suspected.

Following a forensic investigation, the Ottawa County sheriffs office said that the two people found dead in a home near Nunica last week were Michael Jon Morrison, 74, and Sharon Ann Morrison, 75.

Police were called for a wellness check on Friday, Oct. 2, at the residence, at the 13000 block of State Road, where they found the Morrisons dead.

The forensic examination took place the following day, on Saturday, Oct 3, when it was determined that the couple died of natural causes.

Police said the couple had likely been dead for several weeks. Each had an extensive medical related history, according to a release.

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The Bay Areas hopes for weekend rains to help snuff the Glass Fire and dampen the parched hills seem to be evaporating.

Rain could still fall, probably north of the Golden Gate, on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service, but a Friday storm will head far north and miss the Bay Area. Saturdays storm could deliver a tenth of an inch of precipitation, said Anna Schneider, a National Weather Service meteorologist, and still looks likely to hit the North Bay, including the areas where the Glass Fire is still burning.

Well get a little bit of rain, she said. But not a lot.

Forecasters never expected enough precipitation to extinguish the fire, which has burned more than more than 67,000 acres, pushed by hot dry winds, and is 58% contained. But the fading promises of rainfall are a disappointment for firefighters eager for some assistance from Mother Nature.

Our meteorologist said not to expect much so we werent planning on it, said Dave Lauchner, a spokesman for Cal Fire. Its definitely a disappointment. Rain really would have helped.

Forecasts last weekend held out the possibility of wet weather smashing through the high pressure ridge late this week and delivering perhaps as much of an inch of widespread rain over three or four days into the coming weekend. But those prognostications seemed increasingly less likely, with the amount of precipitation predicted gradually diminishing.

Brittany Hosea-Small / Special to The Chronicle

Still, the incoming weather fronts are expected to deliver a reprieve from the hot, dry offshore winds that increase fire danger and can whip wildfires out of control. Temperatures around the region, including the fire zone, are expected to plunge by about 10 degrees Wednesday, dropping a couple of degrees more on Thursday then rising slightly over the weekend.

Warmer temperatures are expected to return next week, along with fire danger.

Were hoping we get control of it before then, Lauchner said of the Glass Fire.

High temperatures on Wednesday are expected to be in the 60s along the coast and in San Francisco, the 70s around the bay and the 80s inland. Air quality. A Spare the Air alert remains in effect through Thursday but air quality index readings were in the moderate range Thursday morning except in the northern Napa Valley, where the Glass Fire is burning.

The weather systems arriving Friday and Saturday could still deliver a quarter to half an inch of rain in the northern Sacramento Valley, where it could help snuff the deadly Zogg Fire outside Redding, which is 86% contained after burning through more than 56,000 acres, killing four people and destroying more than 200 structures.

Rain could also dampen the hills where the August Complex Fire, the largest in state history has burned through more than 1 million acres and is 60% contained.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan
The son of former MP Daryl Maguire rang the Wagga Wagga electorate office in 2018 to raise the alarm that a search warrant by the corruption watchdog could be imminent.

A corruption inquiry on Wednesday heard James Maguire allegedly called his father's former office to warn staff to destroy or remove documents, after officers began raiding the Maguire home.

Sarah Vasey (right) leaves the ICAC inquiry after giving evidence. Credit:Nick Moir

Former electorate office staffer Sarah Vasey said she took the office call in September 2018 from James Maguire, and was left panicked when he used words to the effect of, "They're here, they're in the house."

She said she understood him to be referring to officers of the Independent Commission Against Corruption and that they could therefore be headed for the electorate office.
FRANKLIN LAKES, N.J., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (NYSE: BDX), a leading global medical technology company, this year celebrates its 25 year of philanthropic partnership with the global nonprofit, Mercy Ships, by announcing its donation of $1 million in cash and product to support the construction and launch of the world's largest non-governmental organization (NGO) hospital ship, which plans to sail to Africa in late 2021 under the name, Global Mercy.

Over the course of the 25-year partnership, BD has donated more than $1.5 million in cash and products to support Mercy Ships in its charitable mission of providing free, world-class surgical care to those in need. Today's announcement brings BD's total philanthropic investment in Mercy Ships to $2.5 million.

The organization's new, custom-built hospital ship, Global Mercy, features six operating rooms, state-of-the-art technology, the highly-trained medical talent of a modern hospital, and the capacity to house more than 600 volunteers.

Each year, 18.6 million people die due to lack of access to surgical care, 93% of whom are in Africa. As COVID-19 threatens the stability of already fragile healthcare systems globally, the need to provide basic life-saving care is greater than ever, especially in low-to-middle income countries. The Global Mercy will deliver a safe and clean environment to various African nations, providing help and resources from some of the most well-trained physicians in the world.

"The high quality, compassionate surgical care that Mercy Ships provides to patients has transformed nearly three million lives over four decades," said BD CEO and President, Tom Polen. "It's been a privilege for BD to support the Mercy Ships mission over the past 25 years, and with this newest philanthropic commitment, we look forward to being part of the life-saving medical treatment that the Global Mercy will bring to millions of vulnerable patients."

Upon joining the Mercy Ships current flagship, Africa Mercy, the 174-meter, 37,000-ton Global Mercy will more than double the impact of volunteers and services provided by the charity. For more information about Mercy Ships, updates on Global Mercy or how to volunteer or donate, please visit: www.mercyships.org

About BD

BD is one of the largest global medical technology companies in the world and is advancing the world of health by improving medical discovery, diagnostics and the delivery of care. The company supports the heroes on the frontlines of health care by developing innovative technology, services and solutions that help advance both clinical therapy for patients and clinical process for health care providers. BD and its 65,000 employees have a passion and commitment to help enhance the safety and efficiency of clinicians' care delivery process, enable laboratory scientists to accurately detect disease and advance researchers' capabilities to develop the next generation of diagnostics and therapeutics. BD has a presence in virtually every country and partners with organizations around the world to address some of the most challenging global health issues. By working in close collaboration with customers, BD can help enhance outcomes, lower costs, increase efficiencies, improve safety and expand access to health care. For more information on BD, please visit bd.com .

ABOUT MERCY SHIPS:

Mercy Ships uses hospital ships to deliver free, world-class healthcare services, capacity building, and sustainable development to those with little access in the developing world. Founded in 1978 by Don and Deyon Stephens, Mercy Ships has worked in more than 55 developing countries, providing services valued at more than $1.7 billion and directly benefitting more than 2.8 million people. Our ships are crewed by volunteers from over 50 nations, with an average of over 2000 volunteers each year. Professionals including surgeons, dentists, nurses, healthcare trainers, teachers, cooks, seamen, engineers, and agriculturalists donate their time and skills. With 16 national offices and an Africa Bureau, Mercy Ships seeks to transform individuals and serve nations one at a time. For more information click on www.mercyships.org

Kristen Stewart

BD Investor Relations

845-642-1256

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Jessica Offerjost

BD Public Relations

201-258-0964

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COLUMBIA  The design at the recently opened Front Coffee and Tap could hardly be more minimal. The libation and caffeination spot in the CanalSide development on the banks of the Congaree River is marked by a clean white interior, with little other color aside from modern furnishings and wall canvas art that is white and blue.

Owner Sean Powers told Free Times it has had at least one pronounced impact: Its conducive for people who want to take social media pictures of their purchases, and otherwise browse during their visit.

I think its a combination of versatility and design, Powers said, describing the concept as modern and noting the lighter color palette opens the door for more creative interior design down the line. Also, its just what is generally accepted.  Its the trend right now.

Indeed, a wave of restaurants and other hospitality businesses with minimalist designs and neutral palettes have opened in recent years throughout the country. Columbia is no stranger to this trend.

From downtown in the Vista to out the suburbs, many businesses have adopted such style, seizing on what academics say is a new generations tastes and habits  and potentially helping to redefine the aesthetic of cozy.

On the industry website Restaurant Development and Design, one of the top article topics is neutral palettes. Exploring this topic brings up stories on new restaurants, mostly chains, that prominently feature the minimalist, neutral design trend.

The trend of minimal neutrality, it has arrived, its been here, said Meena Khalili, assistant professor of design at the University of South Carolina. Going forward, this will make sense. Nods towards safety and hygienic features will be key in all features of hospitality, retail and dining.

She said this trend is explainable in two ways  data and theory.

The data, she explained, describes the trend as it is, marked by clean looks, clean lines, neutral palettes and, perhaps, a pop of color or letting against stark neutrals.

The theory goes like this  as people have grown more and more entrenched in a world dominated by mobile technology and constant notifications, they subconsciously yearn for less stimuli. Khalili said its an extension of a theory that famed Japanese graphic designer Kenya Ahara crafted to describe how technology and culture develop in tandem with one another.

Were seeing the spaces we inhabit reflect our behaviors, she elaborated. That space, to be most enticing for us to spend time in, might be the antithesis of the overload were experiencing daily from the overload of the screen.

A forthcoming outpost of the rapidly growing Crumbl Cookie fits into the minimalist model. A company photo of a different store showed stark white walls, with pops of cream pink packaging that stands out. Stencil-like outlines of cookies dot a portion of one wall.

Local franchise partner Tyler Hinckley described the stores as an experience and nodded to the way people live alongside technology.

(It) appeals to people that like to post on their social media and Instagram, to influencer-type people, he said in August.

The current design trend differs starkly from previous ones, particularly more cluttered ones from the 80s, said Robin DiPietro, a USC professor and director of the International Institute for Foodservice Research and Education.

She pointed to casual sit-down chains like TGI Fridays, Applebees and Chilis, which aimed to generate a party-like atmosphere in their bars through their decor and their menus in those years. Independent restaurants were also louder than they are now, with more lighting and decor. Some could be considered tacky by todays standards, she said.

DiPietro theorized that restaurants noticed that consumers, particularly millennials, wanted their dining experience to reflect something more akin to home, while also remaining compatible with their social media usage.

it was really a millennials desire to be in a more simplified environment, not have too much getting in the way, she said. When you talk about social media, its much easier to take pictures (in this design).

Khalili speculated the minimalist trend fits snugly into our pandemic-infected world as well. She pointed to the openness of the spaces, which provide the visual ability to see everything, and thus provide security.

Spaces that have a nod towards those safety measures... its a trust mechanism, protection of ourselves, she said. If were feeling that were walking into an interior space and we see lots of draperies  were going to see it put upon to protect ourselves in spaces like this.

Further she wondered if the new trend is emblematic of people feeling that neutrals may soothe people more than warmer colors.

Does cozy really mean smaller and more refined now? Khalili concluded. Or does it mean more open and airy?
I didnt know her name. We hadnt spoken. We hadnt even met. And yet, the minute I saw her, I just knew.

I knew wed be great mates.

If I didnt know better, Id say this was friendship at first sight. But is that an actual social phenomenon, or a fallacy?

Writer Gary Nunn and his friend Nat.

Our initial meeting was after shed volunteered to be hypnotised at a show at my universitys student union. As soon as Nat strolled onto stage, I thought: Im going to make that woman my friend.
Today the Justice Department announced that a 2016 US presidential candidate has been indicted for tax evasion. After John McAfee was arrested in Spain, the Tax Division unsealed an indictment from June 15th claiming that he failed to file tax returns from 2014 to 2018 despite earning millions in income from promoting cryptocurrencies, consulting work, speaking engagements, and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary.

Beyond that indictment, McAfee is also facing charges from the SEC for that cryptocurrency promotion. In a press release, the SEC explains that the charges are for McAfee promotion initial coin offerings (ICOs) via Twitter without admitting that he was getting paid as much as $23 million for it. It details the alleged scheme, as McAfee publicly promoted coin offerings for years while claiming he wasnt being paid until admitting in 2018 that hed received compensation. His body guard, Jimmy Watson Jr., is also facing charges for helping transfer and convert the cryptocurrency McAfee received as payment.

The Tax Division indictment specifically mentions that it doesnt allege McAfee received any income from the anti-virus company that shares his name, which is also the same one he rather flamboyantly distanced himself from a few years ago. If convicted, McAfee faces up to five years in jail on each of the five counts of tax evasion, as well as one year and a fine of $100,000 for failing to file.
India insisted on 'complete disengagement' in all its talks with China on eastern Ladakh row: Govt

India expects China to come up with perception on LAC during next commander level talks

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Oct 07: In the next round of military commander level talks, India expects China to come up with its position on the perception on the Line of Control. This would be crucial to resolving the stand off at the six friction points.

The situation on the ground remains the same. There is no change a top official told OneIndia. Both armies continue to face each other at the contested points and there has been no pull back, the official also confirmed.

The Chinese side it may be recalled had raised the 1959 LAC claim. India had however rejected China's position that it abides by its 1959 stand on the perception of the Line of Actual Control(LAC), and asked the neighbouring country to refrain from advancing an "untenable unilateral" interpretation of the de-facto border.

The stand by China spelt out by its foreign ministry insisting that it takes the 1959 line on perception of the LAC amid a nearly five-month-long border standoff in eastern Ladakh triggered a strong reaction from India.

Also Read:

India has never accepted the so-called unilaterally defined 1959 Line of Actual Control (LAC). This position has been consistent and well known, including to the Chinese side," MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said in response to a question by the media on the issue.

India and China will hold the 7th round of military commander level talks on October 12.

Incidentally these rounds of talks would the last for Lt Gen Harinder Singh.

Lt. General P G K Menon will take over the Fire and Fury Corps on October 14. The Fire and Fury Corps is responsible for the operations in Ladakh. Lt. Gen Menon is currently posted as the Additional Director of the Complaint Advisor Board at the Army Headquarters.

Officials familiar with the developments say that the situation remains complex. While there are hopes on the military commander level talks, the official says that the problem is that China is asking India to disengage first from the southern bank of Pangong Tso and the Rezlang La Ridgeline before the Chinese could go back from Finger Four on the northern bank of the lake.

The Indian Army continues to hold its ground on its perception of the Line of Actual Control. The Chinese on the other hand believe that the Indian forces have transgressed into their perception of the LAC.

During the military commander level talks India has insisted that the PLA withdraws from the Finger Four spur on the northern bank and also restore the status quo ante by going back to Finger Eight. This was the position as on April 2020 and India insists that the same be restored.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

The PLA troop deployment continues to remain deployed in full strength. However, the Air Force activity has come down. The Indian Army continues to remain in a high state of alert as it suspects a Chinese move to transgress into the Indian side of the LAC post October 15, when the snowfall begins.
Anunt de selectare a participantilor si participantelor la cel de-al doilea curs de instruire din cadrul Programului educational pentru dezvoltarea competentelor lucratorilor de tineret
THIRTY cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed at a nursing home in east Donegal.

It's understood that the outbreak is among both residents and staff at Brindley Manor Nursing Home in Convoy.

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It comes a day after 31 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed at a home in Co. Laois, among residents and staff.

In a statement issued this morning, Brindley Manor Nursing home confirmed that the family members of residents have been contacted and informed of the situation.

The nursing home cannot comment on the status of these cases as they are personal health related matters.

A Family Liaison Officer has also been appointed and will be engaging with the relatives of residents to provide regular status updates on the health, welfare and care of their loved ones.

In line with Public Health protocols and guidelines, residents who have tested positive for the virus are isolating in their rooms.

Their Director of Nursing is leading the care team at the nursing home and is working closely with Public Health and our Medical Director to ensure all appropriate measures are put in place to contain the virus.

Brindley Manor Nursing Home remains fully operational but is closed to non-essential visitors in line with Level 3 government restrictions.

The statement said: "Our director of nursing is leading the care team at the nursing home and is working closely with Public Health and our medical director to ensure all appropriate measures are put in place to contain the virus.

"We would like to thank all our staff for their dedication, selfless efforts, and tireless work. We would also like to acknowledge the tremendous support given by Public Health, the HSE, Infection Control, and our lead inspector at HIQA."

There are growing concerns about the rising number of Covid-19 cases in Irish nursing homes.

On Tuesday, 31 cases were confirmed among staff and residents in a nursing home in Co Laois.

Kilminchy Lodge Nursing Home in Portlaoise, which is owned by the same operator that runs the home in Donegal, said 21 residents and 10 staff had tested positive.

Seven clusters associated with nursing homes were confirmed last week are a worrying development, the CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland, has warned.

A letter sent on Sunday by the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) to Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly points to 31 open outbreaks in nursing homes, seven of which have been reported in the last week.

Its a worrying development, said Tadgh Daly, CEO of Nursing homes Ireland (NHI).

We have seen it all the way through, and all the leading health experts have agreed, that if there is a spike in community transmission in a particular community then it increases the likelihood of an outbreak in any health facility, nursing homes and hospitals.

Mr Daly said he was also concerned that the current trend in nursing homes was mentioned in the latest letter from Nphet to government.

Mr Daly said he was in contact with the owners of the Nursing homes involved and support is being offered from Nursing Homes Ireland.

He added: Serial testing is detecting cases and its important that this continues so that we can take staff off rosters, isolate staff and test residents where needed.

Serial testing of staff in nursing homes is talking place every two weeks. Mr Daly referred to the increasing rates of community transmission in Donegal as a possible contributing factor to the outbreak in the nursing home in Convoy.

When the cases were supressed in July and August there were very few cases in nursing homes and in fact, clusters were closing, he said.

Now we are seeing increasing cases in the community and there is a knock-on effect in nursing homes.
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday asserted that India remains committed to peace and stability across the world and also to the belief that self-reliance and indigenous defence capabilities are the foundations for enduring peace.

Addressing the Ambassadors` Round Table Conference on Aero India 2021 through video conference, Singh called India a peace-loving country. "I am feeling really glad to share with you all, India has one of the largest defence industrial eco-systems in Asia and we aspire to build further on our strengths," he said.

"The Private sector and Public-Private partnerships through Joint Ventures / Foreign Direct Investment have also joined the national effort in building the domestic defence and aerospace industry. Aero India 2021, is our platform to showcase this intent. Since its inception, Aero India has carved out a place for itself and has become a leading international event in the area of showcasing the capabilities of Indian Defence and aerospace industry," he added.

"Aero India 2021, the 13th edition of the biennial air show and aviation exhibition is scheduled to be held from 03-07 February 2021 in Bengaluru, the capital of the state of Karnataka. Aero India provides an ideal platform for businesses, decision-makers and policymakers to interact to address common concerns and contribute to global defence and aerospace ecosystem and position India as a defence manufacturing hub," Singh said.

"With numerous business events and large number of participants, Aero India will provide the intellectuals and industry new meeting grounds for developing military-industrial enterprise. India has one of the world's largest technically qualified manpower and we do claim to be a force to reckon with in the field of Information Technology," he added.

Singh said, "With this infrastructure and human resource, India can prove to be an excellent base for the defence and aerospace industry, for provision of repair, overhaul, maintenance and servicing facilities. It can also become a center for regional distribution and services. This would provide an excellent opportunity for leading companies worldwide to enter into partnerships with established Indian companies for repair, overhaul, maintenance and other services.

"Aatmanirbhar Bharat' or Self Reliant India was the centrepiece of Prime Minister Narendra Modi Independence Day address. There are numerous government reforms which have been announced for ease of business It has been endeavour of our Government to constantly undertake policy initiatives to attract investments in Defence and Aerospace Industry," he said.

"A new category of Buy (global -manufacture in India) has been further introduced in DAP. The new category incorporates `manufacture of the equipment or (Maintenance Repair and Overall) facility for equipment, through foreign companys subsidiary in India. From design to production, we are trying to make India one of the leading countries of the world in the Defence, Aerospace and Naval Shipbuilding sectors with active participation of public and private sector," the Defence Minister said.

"For fulfilling the twin objectives of self-reliance and exports Ministry of Defence (MoD) has formulated a draft Defence Production and Export Promotion Policy 2020 (DPEPP 2020). I would like to assure you that we will be strictly adhering to all the requisite protocols to tackle COVID-19. In view of the ongoing pandemic, it has been decided that emphasis will be laid on contactless experience to all exhibitors and visitors," he added.

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Singh said, "Great opportunities for a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership between the defence and aerospace industries of the world and India exist. We need to remove impediments coming in the way of our natural alliance in a purposeful and progressive manner and join hands to make this world a more secure, peaceful and prosperous place."

"The Aero India 2021 can also be utilized for Government to Government level discussions to express concerns and challenges encountered by your Industry. Therefore, I would urge you to spread the awareness on Aero India 2021 and encourage your industry and research organisations to participate in this event and exploit the opportunities," he concluded.
Canada's ministers for immigration, health, and public safety announced new travel measures for families and students on Friday, October 2nd.

Students and families allowed to travel to Canada Canada's ministers for immigration, health, and public safety announced new travel measures for families and students on Friday, October 2nd.

Students and families allowed to travel to Canada Canada's ministers for immigration, health, and public safety announced new travel measures for families and students on Friday, October 2nd.

Students and families allowed to travel to Canada Canada's ministers for immigration, health, and public safety announced new travel measures for families and students on Friday, October 2nd. Kareem El-Assal Shelby Thevenot Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

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Canada is easing travel restrictions on family members, study permit holders, and people entering on compassionate grounds.

This was just announced in a press conference in Ottawa by Canadas ministers responsible for immigration, health, and public safety.

Canadas immigration minister Marco Mendicino stated that extended family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be able to enter Canada beginning on October 8th.

Effective October 20th, international students enrolled at a Canadian designated learning institution will be able to enter Canada so long as their DLI has a COVID-19 readiness plan that has been vetted by the province or territory that the DLI is located in. DLIs are universities, colleges, and other education institutions approved by the government to welcome international students.

Foreign nationals will be able to apply to enter for compassionate reasons. Such examples include travelling to Canada to attend a funeral, among various other reasons one will be able to apply for a travel exemption on compassionate grounds.

As is the case for all incoming travellers, those exempt must self-quarantine for 14 days upon entering Canada.

Marco Mendicino on Twitter: Starting in late October, international students attending a designated learning institution that has been identified by their provincial or territorial government as having a COVID19 readiness plan will also be able to enter Canada. / Twitter Starting in late October, international students attending a designated learning institution that has been identified by their provincial or territorial government as having a COVID19 readiness plan will also be able to enter Canada.

Eligible extended family include those who are in exclusive long-term relationships, dependent children, adult children, siblings, and grandparents.

A press release from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) stated that detailed information will be provided on its website on October 8th. It said that there will be a robust process in place for extended family members and they must apply for authorization and obtain it before they can enter Canada.

Before todays announcement, Canada exempted the following immediate family members:

spouses or common-law partners;

dependent children;

dependent children of dependent children;

parents and step-parents, including in-laws; and

guardians or tutors.

Last week, Canada announced that spousal sponsorship applications will be expedited, ramping up processing to 6,000 applications per month.

When travel restrictions initially went into place, students could only come to Canada if they had their study permits approved before March 18. Canada also exempts students from restrictions if they are coming from the U.S. However until October 20th, students are only allowed to travel to Canada if their program requires in-class participation, such as labs or workshops.

Canada first closed its borders between March 18 and June 30. Travel restrictions have since been extended each month. Currently, travellers from the U.S. are barred from non-essential travel until October 21, and travel restrictions on other countries extend until October 31.

Some individuals continue to be exempt from the coronavirus travel restrictions so long as they are coming to Canada for essential reasons such as working in Canada or to reunite with a close family member such as their partner.

Following initial success in reducing its COVID-19 cases, Canada has seen a substantial increase in its daily cases over the past month. Quebec, which is Canadas second-largest province by population, reported over 1,000 new COVID-19 infections today, which is its largest total since May. Canadas largest province, Ontario, is also experiencing surging numbers with over 700 new infections reported today, its highest since April.

Find out if you are eligible for Canadian immigration

Canadas immigration system continues to operate

Canada continues to hold Express Entry, Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), and Quebec draws so that immigrants can arrive to Canada after the pandemic to support the economy.

Canadas last three Express Entry draws, which took place during bi-weekly intervals in September, were tied for the second largest in history. A total of 12,600 immigration invitations were issued to successful candidates. B.C. and Quebec also held their biggest draws of 2020 earlier this week.

In a speech last week, Canadas federal government announced it plans to continue to welcome more immigrants to fuel economic growth.

Two additional major events this month will offer clarity on how the federal government aims to proceed with its immigration policies after the pandemic.

Minister Mendicino is likely to announce Canadas Canadas Immigration Levels Plan 2021-2023 by Friday, October 30th. Mendicino will also receive a new mandate letter from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau which will contain guidance on what immigration policy issues to prioritize over the coming years.

Find out if you are eligible for Canadian immigration

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NEW YORK - President Donald Trumps accountant must turn over his tax records to a New York state prosecutor, an appeals court ruled Wednesday in a decision that likely sets up a second trip to the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 7/10/2020 (472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

President Donald Trump stands on the balcony outside of the Blue Room as returns to the White House Monday, Oct. 5, 2020, in Washington, after leaving Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md. A federal appeals court says Trump's accountant must turn over his tax records to a New York state prosecutor. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled Wednesday, Oct. 7. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

NEW YORK - President Donald Trumps accountant must turn over his tax records to a New York state prosecutor, an appeals court ruled Wednesday in a decision that likely sets up a second trip to the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said in a written decision that a stay of a lower-court decision will remain in effect so Trumps lawyers can appeal the ruling to the high court.

In August, a district court judge had rejected their renewed efforts to invalidate a subpoena that the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. issued to Trumps accounting firm last year.

Part of Vance's probe pertains to an investigation related to payoffs to two women  porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal  to keep them quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign about alleged extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.

Vance is seeking more than eight years of the Republican presidents personal and corporate tax records, but has disclosed little about what prompted him to request the records. In one recent court filing, Vance's lawyers have said he was justified in demanding them because of public reports of extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department was reviewing the ruling.

The Supreme Court in July ruled 7-2 against the president, rejecting Trumps arguments that he cant even be investigated, let alone charged with any crime, while he is in office. But the court said Trump can challenge the subpoena on other grounds, like anyone else who receives a subpoena.

The likelihood that the taxes would be released was unlikely to be resolved before the November election, especially since the high court is down to eight justices after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And any release would not result in immediate public disclosures, since grand jury proceedings are secret.

Through his lawyers, Trump argued that the subpoena was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and amounted to harassment of him, especially since the wording copied the language in congressional subpoenas. The lawyers also maintained that seeking tax records dating back to 2011 was a fishing expedition" and the overbroad request should be rejected.

In its decision, the 2nd Circuit disagreed.

"We hold that none of the Presidents allegations, taken together or separately, are sufficient to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued out of malice or an intent to harass,' the appeals court said.

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In filings with the 2nd Circuit, Vance's lawyers cited public reports including news accounts and Congressional testimony by former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen saying it was common for the Trump Organization to submit falsified financial records when the company applied for loans.

Vance's lawyers wrote that if Trump and his entities made misstatements about business properties, wherever located, to New York-based business partners, insurers, potential lenders, or tax authorities, those misstatements could establish crimes including falsifying business records, insurance and tax fraud and scheming to defraud.

Last month, The New York Times reported that it had obtained over two decades of tax return data for Trump and hundreds of his companies. It said he paid just $750 in federal income tax the year he entered the White House and no income tax at all in 11 of 18 years it reviewed.

At the time, Trump dismissed the report as fake news and maintained he has paid taxes, but he provided no specifics.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.
The chances are you are reading these words on a smartphone or computer screen. For around the last 10 years, these types of screens have been based on a display technology composed of so-called thin film transistors. These are inorganic transistors which require very little power, and they have proven themselves very capable given their widespread adoption. But they have some limits which researchers have been busy trying to overcome.

"We explore new ways to improve upon thin film transistors, such as new designs or new methods of manufacture," said Gyo Kitahara, a Ph.D. student from the Department of Applied Physics. "Organic thin film transistors, for example, have a bright future in LCD screen devices. Compared to the inorganic kind currently used, we expect the organic kind to be useful in low-cost, large-area, lightweight and wearable electronic products, especially by using printing-based production technologies."

The idea of organic thin film transistors itself is not new, but the ability to print such devices, which would allow for a design revolution, has eluded industry and academics, until now. Professor Tatsuo Hasegawa of the Department of Applied Physics, Kitahara and their team came up with a way to print organic semiconductor films, the basis of these transistors, on a special surface that is highly solution-repellent, or lyophobic. This means ordinarily the surface would repel the materials required to print the structure of the transistor, which seems counterintuitive as to why such a surface would be useful at all. But lyophobic surfaces are responsible for creating transistor structures that are finely tuned for high performance. So how did the researchers overcome their repellent nature?

"We made use of a fluidic property you probably see every time you wash your hands with soap," said Kitahara. "Soap bubbles can hold a shape by lowering the surface tension of liquid. We presume that the soap-film mechanism should be effective for formation of a thin liquid layer on lyophobic surfaces in spite of the repellent forces. Solid semiconductor films can be formed and grown via the formation of thin liquid layers during the printing processes."

With this hurdle of how to print organic transistors overcome, other researchers can build on the team's findings and find ways to scale this method up. With a proliferation of large, flexible or wearable devices, Hasegawa's team dreams of seeing a convergence between the real world and virtual world in ways we've never seen before.

"After having experimented by trial and error, we eventually found that the use of a special U-shaped metal-film pattern seems to be effective for uniform film growth thanks to the way it creates a thin liquid layer on lyophobic surfaces," said Kitahara. "We anticipated the results beforehand to some extent, but the success of these findings was finally demonstrated and obtained after overcoming several difficulties, which brought great pleasure and happiness to me."

###

Journal article

Gyo Kitahara, Satoru Inoue, Toshiki Higashino, Mitsuhiro Ikawa, Taichi Hayashi, Satoshi Matsuoka, Shunto Arai, Tatsuo Hasegawa. "Meniscus-controlled printing of single-crystal interfaces showing extremely sharp-switching transistor operation", Science Advances in press.

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abc8847

http://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc8847

Useful links

Hasegawa-Arai Lab - http://hsgw.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/english/index.html

Department of Applied Physics - http://www.ap.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/

Graduate School of Engineering - https://www.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/soee/

This work was supported by JST CREST Grant No. JPMJCR18J2, JST A-STEP Grant No. JPMJTR1923, JSPS KAKENHI Grants No. JP18H03875, and Leadership Development Program for Ph.D. (LDPP) in the University of Tokyo.

Research Contact

Gyo Kitahara

Department of Applied Physics, Graduate School of Engineering,

The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, JAPAN

Email: kitahara@hsgw.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Press Contact

Mr. Rohan Mehra

Division for Strategic Public Relations, The University of Tokyo

7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8654, JAPAN

Email: press-releases.adm@gs.mail.u-tokyo.ac.jp

About the University of Tokyo

The University of Tokyo is Japan's leading university and one of the world's top research universities. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world's top journals across the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of around 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 4,000 international students. Find out more at http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on Twitter at @UTokyo_News_en.
The U.S. Postal Service will deliver completed absentee ballots to vote counters in Alabama even if they are mailed with insufficient postage, a postal spokeswoman said. But the safest plan is to put three First Class stamps on the ballot before you drop it in the mail box.

If a return ballot is ... entered into the mainstream with insufficient or unpaid postage, it is the Postal Services policy not to delay the delivery of completed balloting materials, said Debra J. Fetterly, spokesperson for the Alabama District of the United States Postal Service. In cases where a ballot enters the mainstream without the proper amount of postage, the Postal Service will attempt to collect postage from the appropriate Board of Elections.

The Postal Service is fully committed to delivering the nations election mail securely and on-time, Fetterly said, and doing so is our number one priority between now and Election Day.

The issue of postage has arisen in Alabama because the envelope the state provides to mail in an absentee ballot does not say how much postage is needed. Madison County tells residents to put at least $1.20 in postage on a completed absentee ballot they are mailing to be counted. Three First Class stamps will more than cover that. Weve seen them (arrive at the office) without that, Circuit Clerk Deborah Kizer confirmed.

Secretary of State John Merrills office also recommended three First Class stamps today. We are encouraging three stamps, a spokeswoman said.

The Postal Service is also recommending voters put their completed ballots in the mail at least one week (before) to their states deadline. Alabama absentee ballots must legally be postmarked no later than the day before the election (Nov. 2) and received by the Absentee Election Manager no later than noon Election Day (Nov. 3), Merrills office says. If hand-delivered, the ballot must be in the office of the Absentee Election Manager by the close of business (no later than 5 p.m.) the day before to the election.

Follow this link to see more information about voting absentee in Alabama.
Interested home shoppers are invited to visit Lennar.com/OH to join an interest list, get pre-qualified, then set up a VIP appointment with Lennar's Internet Sales team  a group of experts dedicated to guiding homebuyers through Lennar's "Safe & Simple" homebuying process. This includes providing buyers with step-by-step assistance with the prequalification process, selecting a homesite, reserving and purchasing their home.

"We recognize that the need for safe and affordable housing exists in the Orlando market," said Brock Nicholas, Orlando Division President for Lennar. "We are proud to test these floorplans at Old Hickory and provide families an opportunity to establish themselves and build a future in their very own Lennar dream home."

These three brand new, exclusive floorplans range from 1,266 to 1,313 square feet and include three bedrooms, two baths and one-and-a-half to two-car garages. Each home design features spacious living areas, center-island kitchens and spa-inspired owner's suites.

Through Lennar's Everything's Included program, these limited release homes offer today's most popular options and upgrades built into the base price of the home. This includes GE stainless steel appliances, custom-fit blinds, quartz countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms, LED lighting throughout the home, a Honeywell Programmable T6 Pro thermostat and other carefully selected design upgrades that make a house a home, so that homeowners can focus on enjoying time with friends and loved ones.

The new affordable and attainable pricing home collection is located in the new Lennar community of Old Hickory, a master planned neighborhood offering a resort-style swimming pool, shaded cabana, children's playground, landscaped walking trails and a dog park. The community is surrounded by more than 20 acres of wetlands, placing wildlife preserves and hiking trails minutes from every home doorstep in the collection.

The Old Hickory community is minutes from the Florida Turnpike, a close drive to Kissimmee and Orlando, and less than an hour from Florida's famed beaches. Locally, residents will enjoy neighborhood shopping and dining, the recreation of East Lake Tohopekaliga, the technology of the 500-acre NeoCity and hometown weekend attractions like the Harmony Farmers Market.

Children living in the Old Hickory community will have the opportunity to attend Hickory Tree Elementary School, St. Cloud Middle School and Harmony High School, all part of Osceola County Schools.

For more information, call 866-645-8411or visit us online at Lennar.com/OH.

About Lennar Corporation

Lennar Corporation, founded in 1954, is one of the nation's leading builders of quality homes for all generations. Lennar builds affordable, move-up and active adult homes primarily under the Lennar brand name. Lennar's Financial Services segment provides mortgage financing, title and closing services primarily for buyers of Lennar's homes and, through LMF Commercial, originates mortgage loans secured primarily by commercial real estate properties throughout the United States. Lennar's Multifamily segment is a nationwide developer of high-quality multifamily rental properties. LenX drives Lennar's technology, innovation and strategic investments. For more information about Lennar, please visit www.lennar.com.

Media Contact: Danielle Tocco

Vice President Communications

Lennar Corporation

[email protected]

Direct Line: 949.789.1633

SOURCE Lennar

Related Links

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PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of VROMI Egbert Jurendy Doran confirmed on Wednesday that the selection process for the management board of GEBE has been completed. He said the shareholder already selected the three candidates and the Supervisory Board of Directors are in the process of making contact with the selected candidates. Doran said after that the screening process should begin as long as the three candidates accept the positions.

Last week the Council of Ministers selected Robert Jan James for the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Randel Hato for Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Merril Jimmy Timmer for Chief Operations Officer.

While the Minister of VROMI said the process is nearing its ending phase the Supervisory Board of Directors of NV GEBE still has to cross the threshold of discussing the salaries with the incoming candidates.

It is clear that the discussions with the incoming candidates and the screening will not be completed by October 31st and the SBOD of NV GEBE will have to install interim management while the process continues.

One of the bigger questions is if the selected candidates for the position of CEO and CFO both of whom are working in the private sector as permanent employees will leave their positions will they are earning over NAF 20,000.00 monthly for a lesser amount for a period of 3 to 5 years.

Asked by SMN News if the government as the Shareholder representative will ensure that the Government Owned companies go along with the 12.5% cut in salaries as demanded by the Dutch Government, Doran said that the 12.5% cut in salaries will be a point of discussion with the SOBOD of NV GEBE.

Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs said in her response to the question that the government already applied the 25% cut in salaries as demanded by the Dutch for personnel costs. She said the Minister of Finance is in discussion with the Government-owned companies on the 12.5% cut with government-owned companies but that discussion is not yet finalized.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: In a major haul, the city police seized 550-kg ganja worth several lakhs, which was being smuggled from Visakhapatnam to Tiruchy in a tanker lorry. Based on a tip-off, a team led by Madhavaram Deputy Commissioner Balakrishanan and inspector Jawahar Peter intercepted the lorry at the checkpost in Padianallur near Red Hills in the wee hours of Tuesday.

While three cabins were filled with coal tar, two empty cabins had ganja concealed in gunny bags, said a police officer. The driver Sachin Narayanan (35) of Visakhapatnam and helper Sundar (50) of Shenoy Nagar were arrested.

The duo was remanded in judicial custody and further investigation is on to find out the source and the customer. City Police Commissioner Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal who inspected the seized contraband said about 1,500-kg ganja has been seized during the lockdown and 369 persons have been arrested. A total of 68 vehicles used for smuggling has also been seized.
No permanent judgeship for Justice Ganediwala over her skin-to-skin contact judgment

Bombay HC grants bail to Rhea Chakraborty, rejects bail plea of her brother Showik Chakraborty

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Mumbai, Oct 07: The Bombay high court on Wednesdaygranted bail plea to actor Rhea Chakraborty and rejected bail plea of her brother Showik Chakraborty..

Rhea Chakraborty granted bail by Bombay HC in drugs case in Sushant's death|Oneindia News

The bench granted bail to Rhea on furnishing a personal bond of 1 lakh.

"Rhea should mark her presence for 10 days in the police station after release, deposit her passport, not travel abroad without court permission and inform the investigating officer if she has to leave Greater Mumbai," the bench said.

Bombay High Court has trashed the charges of financing drugs or harbouring offenders against Rhea Chakraborty, stating that the actress can't be charged under Section 27A of NDPS.

No evidence of commercial quantity of drug involved and Rhea has not forwarded drugs allegedly procured by her to some else for monetary gain, the Bombay High Court said.

I reject the argument that celebrities and role models should be treated harshly so that it sets an example. Everyone is equal before the law.

The court also asked Rhea to mark her presence for 10 days at the police station. She has also been asked to deposit her passport and not travel abroad without the permission of the court.

The Special NDPS Court on Tuesday extended the judicial custody of the brother-sister duo and 18 others, arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau, till October 20. The actor had moved the high court in September after her first bail plea was denied by a special court in Mumbai on September 11.

Rhea Chakraborty, who had a relationship with actor Sushant Singh Rajput, was arrested on September 8 by the Narcotics Control Bureau.

Sushant Singh Rajput death: Rhea Chakaborty's judicial custody extended till October 20

The NCB is probing the drug angle in this case under criminal sections of the NDPS Act after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) shared with it a report following the cloning of two mobile phones of Rhea.

Various angles surrounding the death of the Sushant Singh Rajput are being probed by three federal agencies- the NCB, the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Besides her, 19 others including her brother Showik Chakraborty, drug peddlers, suppliers, and persons linked with the film industry have also been arrested so far, and several top actresses have been questioned.

Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, 34, was found dead at his Mumbai apartment on June 14. The Mumbai police's conclusion that it was a case of suicide was contested by many and with murder theories mushrooming on social media.

Meanwhile, 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.
The Public Health Agency of Canada issued a notice on September 29th saying dog owners should not feed their pets the Paws Up! and Western Family brands of pig ear dog treats, which are sold nationally at Canadian Tire and Save-On-Foods. It said eight people have become sick with salmonella after handling the treats: five in British Columbia, two in Alberta, and one in Yukon.

The illnesses were reported between late February and early August, and have sent three people to hospital. The age of people affected has ranged between seven and 95. Health officials did not release the age or location of the person who died.

The supplier, Masters Best Friend, voluntarily issued an order Wednesday to stop the sale of the two brands. While the products can no longer be purchased in stores, they may still be in peoples homes, the agency said.

Symptoms of salmonella include fever, chills, diarrhea, abdominal cramps and vomiting, and typically last between four to seven days. The infection usually clears up without treatment in healthy people, but can lead to severe illness and hospitalization in some cases.

Always wash your hands right after handling dog treats, and ensure that all areas the treats have come in contact with are properly cleaned and sanitized, the agency said on its website.

Read more about:
This is the comical moment a groom catches a 36-inch northern pike and soaks his suit just 15 minutes before walking down the aisle.

Footage shows Tim Skrip hook the large fish as he waits for his bride Michelle to arrive to their downsized wedding at Bald Eagle Marina, on Lake Ontario in Kendall, New York.

However within seconds of hooking the pike, the fish begins to thrash in the water and leaves Mr Skrip with a rather wet suit.

Tim Skrip tries to grab hold of the slippery fish just minutes before his wedding at the Bald Eagle Marina, on Lake Ontario in Kendall, New York

The groom manages to hook the 36-inch northern pike and begins to reel it in

During the clip, which was filmed on October 2, the groom hooks the large fish and clambers over rocks to pull it out of the water.

The fish then begins to splash around in the water as Mr Skrip tells his friend: 'It's hysterical!'

As the battle ensues, the groom's friend calls out: 'I told you man. I said, ''What are you going to do if you catch one?'''

With his wedding suit now soaked, Mr Skrip manages to scoop the fish from the water and poses for a picture with it at the altar.

Mr Skrip draws to the edge of the lake before eventually managing to pull the fish out of the water

The groom scoops the fish from the water and poses for a picture with it at the altar

He later explained that he released the fish back into the water and had 'just enough' time to clean himself up before his bride arrived.

He told ViralHog: 'My wife Michelle and I got married at the Bald Eagle Marina. I keep my salmon fishing boat there and due to Covid we had to have a smaller downsized wedding.

'We got married right on the water and when I was waiting for Michelle to come down from the marina I took a cast and hooked it into a northern pike on a moonshine salmon spoon.

'I landed it on the altar and released it back into the water. Had just enough time to wash my hands before she came down the aisle and said ''yes''.

'I told her the entire fish story standing at the altar.'
- Lupita continues to rise up the ladder in the Hollywood film industry and her latest feature might just be the best we have seen from her

- Watching The 355 movie trailer gives you an idea of how she, playing the role of a British secret agent, shows an impeccable level of skill we have not seen before

- The actress will also change characters inside the same movie which will bring out the best of her

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It is clear to see that Lupita Nyong'o has now become a force to be reckoned with in the Hollywood setup.

Lupita Nyongo's latest movie comes out in January 2021 Photo: zimbio.com

Source: UGC

The Kenyan actress continues to show her diversity, mastery, and perfect execution of various characters in a way that is pleasing to watch.

And yet, Kenyans and the world at large might have not even seen the best of her work in front of a screen which we could finally get to watch in her upcoming film, The 355.

The actress has joined other incredible female stars like Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Diane Krugar and Fan Bingbing in a film that they all play female secret agents.

They join hands to stop a global organisation from gaining a weapon that could lead to global unrest.

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Impeccable skills

We have seen Lupita pick up different characters in movies but it's the first time we will get to see her as a spy and a badass at that.

Watching the trailer gives you an idea of how she, playing the role of a British secret agent, shows an impeccable level of skills, for example, speaking in a perfect English accent.

Lupita will also have to change characters in the same movie which is something that will bring out the best of the lady from Kisumu city.

Fans will also get to see the emotional side of the actress as her boyfriend, in the film, is captured by the same people she's going against and if you know Lupita, then you know how convincing she is when it comes to moving pieces.

Former MI6 ally

We definitely cannot wait for this one and three months have never seemed longer.

TUKO.co.ke earlier reported about the excitement that came with the release of the trailer.

At the time of publishing this story, it had gained 2.5 million views and 13.5k likes with everyone sharing how much they could not wait to watch it.

Lupita will be playing the role of Khadijah, a former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist.

The film was directed by Simon Kinberg from a screenplay and co-written with Theresa Rebeck.

According to reports, The 355 is set to be released on January 15, 2021, by Universal Pictures.

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 wanted to kill my twins- Rose Nambia | My Story | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
I do not use the term fascist lightly, but when even the liberal Los Angeles Times opens an article with a paragraph like the one that follows, I think fascist is apt:

California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris is drawing fire from supporters of an anti-abortion activist whose undercover videos and identity cards were seized by the state Department of Justice this week after Harris political campaign sought to drum up support for Planned Parenthood.

The activist is David Daleiden, 27 at the time of the April 2016 raid on his Huntington Beach apartment. In 2016, Harris was running for Californias open U.S. Senate seat. At the time of the raid, Harriss campaign website was asking supporters to take a stand and join Kamala in defending Planned Parenthood.

In the course of Planned Parenthoods history, no one had presented a greater threat to the organizations federal funding than the young journalist whose apartment Harriss agents had just raided.

In the way of background, Daleiden and his partner Sandra Merritt had gone undercover for two years posing as the brokers in the fetal tissue market.

In July 2015 Daleiden started dropping the undercover videos the pair had shot at Planned Parenthood clinics in several states, including California.

The combination of callow words and cruel images, repeated in one video after another, rocked Washington. The timing was good. The 2016 presidential campaigns were revving up, and many Republicans spoke out about what they saw.

The out-of-sight, out-of-mind mantra that propelled the pro-choice movement for decades is forever gone, Kellyanne Conway, then a Republican pollster, told the New York Times. Reeling from the blow, even the Times had to wonder whether the new offensive will succeed in crippling Planned Parenthood.

Obama, the first president to speak at Planned Parenthoods national convention, kept his distance from the hubbub. An indifferent media got no closer to the president than his press secretary, Josh Earnest.

On July 30, 2015, a young reporter asked Earnest if Obama had seen the video that was released on that day. The video in question begins with interview footage of harried Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards insisting, Its not a fee. Its not a fee. Its just the cost of trans- mitting this material. The undercover footage that follows undercuts everything Richards said.

A doctor at a Planned Parenthood megaclinic in Colorado is seen explaining the clinics traffic in body parts. Aware that it is illegal to transfer human fetal tissue for valuable consideration, the doctor plays semantic games with the would-be purchasers.

We dont want to get called on, you know, selling fetal parts across states, she jokes, unaware she is being recorded. This interview is followed by an on-site review of actual body parts with the doctor and a clinician.

What is impressive is how well Daleiden and Merritt play their roles as buyers. What is unnerving is how casually the doctor and clinician pick through trays of baby parts -- a heart, a brain, a lung -- while talking about the commercial viability of the fetal cadaver.

Running for president at the time, Hillary Clinton could not afford to be so dismissive. Although her first instinct was to attack the video producers, Clinton herself began to waver as each new video dropped.

I have seen pictures from [the videos] and obviously find them dis- turbing, Clinton told the New Hampshire Union Leader late that July. No one knew better than Clinton, however, what overwhelming force Planned Parenthood and its allies in the Democratic-media complex could bring to bear against a pair of citizen journalists.

For immediate assistance, Planned Parenthood turned to the well-connected fixers at -- where else? -- Fusion GPS. The beleaguered organization contracted with Fusion to review the unedited footage Daleiden had posted online.

Armed with a ten-page report from Fusion, Richards went on the offensive. Convincing people they did not see what they saw would not be easy, but the networks made the task possible by refusing to show the actual videos.

As to the newspapers and online journals, they did their bit by leaving the assessment of the videos to Fusion GPS. Faced with real journalists doing real work, the Obama courtiers reflexively turned stenographer. They welcomed this forensic study as heartily as they would Fusion GPSs notorious Steele dossier a year later.

To complete the rout, the ambitious Harris had her agents seize Daleidens multiple computers and hard drives as well as the materials he had gathered from Planned Parenthood conferences.

Alexandra Snyder, the director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, told the Los Angeles Times that Harriss loyalty to Planned Parenthood required her to turn a blind eye to the organizations criminal activities. Harris did more than turn a blind eye. Instead, said Snyder, she has launched an inquisition into David Daleiden.

In 2017, Harriss successor as attorney general, Xavier Becerra, filed 15 felony charges against Daleiden and Merritt and has tied them up in court ever since.

In May 2020, Daleiden filed suit against Becerra and Harris, claiming Harris violated his civil rights by conspiring with Planned Parenthood to silence him.

In Kamalas America, killing and dismembering unborn babies and marketing their body parts is perfectly acceptable. Reporting on the practice is criminal. If that is not fascistic, I am not sure I know what is.

Jack Cashills new book, Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency, is widely available. See also www.cashill.com.

Image: California National Guard
BJPs newly appointed Yuva Morcha chief Tejasvi Surya will on Thursday lead a rally Nabanna Chalo, a protest march to gherao West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees office, demanding justice for the youth of the state. He will be joined by Bengal Yuva Morcha chief Saumitra Khan. The two leaders will then march from Howrah to Banerjees office at around 10am on Thursday.

This will be Tejasvis first protest rally as the president of Yuva Morcha, to which he was appointed 15 days ago. BJP has prepared a seven-point agenda targeting the Bengal government over issues, including corruption and lack of transparency in SSC/TET recruitment process, inability to ensure jobs for unemployed youth, failure in increasing the upper age limit for various exams, not being able to free PSC from corruption and simplify the recruitment process. A range of issues revolving around the targeting and killing of BJP workers, including that of Manish Shukla would feature on the list as BJP sharpens its attack against the state government.

Bengals youth are losing out on great opportunities because of Mamta dis misruleIts time to reclaim that rich legacy of Bengal. Bengal wants paribartan (change) and BJP is that voice for the youth," Surya told CNN-News18.

Protests will take place in other key locations across the state. Santragachi will see State General Secretaries, including MP Locket Chatterjee, Sayantan Basu, Jyotirmoy Mahato among others. Meanwhile, from Hastings, BJP office state in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya will lead the demonstration and from the state headquarters, state president Dilip Ghosh will take charge along with a host of leaders.

Close to two lakh people are expected to be part of these protests despite public transportation like trains and buses running with limited capacity. Each mandal has been assigned the task of deploying 10 buses to bring workers to the protest venue.

Our founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee came from Bengal. We owe a lot to the youth in Bengal. We will put an end to Mamata Didis tyrannical rule and herald a new beginning for Bengal and its talented youth," Tejasvi added.

Notably, this rally is a precursor to Home Minister Amit Shahs visit to Bengal in mid-October. Shah is likely to meet and address party workers in North Bengals Siliguri and will officially launch the campaign for BJP in Bengal where Assembly elections are due next year.
07.10.2020 LISTEN

David Tamakloe, the Managing Editor of Whatsup News, a virtual newspaper has been picked up by the police.

He was arrested this afternoon from his office.

David Tamakloe who is an executive member of the Private Newspaper and Online Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG) is currently detained at the Tesano Police station.

One of his workers who is also at the police station confirmed to ModernGhana News.

Another worker told ModernGhana News that his arrest is in connection with a publication.

ModernGhana's editor Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri who stormed the Tesano Police said David Tamakloe has bee taken away to New Edubiase in the Ashanti Region even before he arrived.

According to him, a briefing by David Tamakloe's lawyer, lawyer Edudzi Tamakloe who was also present at the police station indicated that the New Edubiase District Court issued a bench warrant for his (David) arrest over a publication.

The said publication which alleges police intimidation against Ewes and northerners in New Edubiase during the voter registration exercise was a press conference held by the opposition NDC in July in which the allegations were made.

After several invitations, the police after security a bench warrant drove all the way from New Edubiase to arrest him in Accra, Ajarfor narrated.

He added that even before he and other journalists arrived at the Tesano Police station David Tamakloe had been driven away by the police tonight.

More soon...
This announcement marks the second time a member of Texas' highest court has joined the firm. Former Texas Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson joined the firm's Austin office in 2013, becoming a named partner. The appellate boutique also includes Woodie Jones , the former Chief Justice of the Third Court of Appeals, and just last year, ADJ announced the addition of former Justice Bill Boyce of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals to its Houston office.

Elected to the Supreme Court of Texas in 2004, Justice Green became the second longest-running justice on the court before announcing his retirement in July. During his 15-year tenure, he authored 99 majority opinions along with several concurrences and dissents in some of the most important cases in the state. Justice Green's most cited opinion is Italian Cowboy Partners v. Prudential, which protects victims of fraudulent inducement. The case has been cited in 572 judicial opinions since it was issued in 2011.

"It is quite an honor to have Justice Green joining our firm. He is a treasured member of the Supreme Court with a superb reputation and strong work ethic. His extensive involvement in the Texas judiciary will provide us with a unique lens that will greatly enhance the work we do for clients. And his deep roots in San Antonio make him ideal for this new role," said Marcy Hogan Greer, managing partner of Alexander Dubose & Jefferson.

Prior to his time at the Supreme Court of Texas, Justice Green spent 10 years as a judge on the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio. He served as president of the San Antonio Bar Association, director of the State Bar of Texas, and as a member of the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association. In addition, he is a member of The American Law Institute and is a Life Fellow of the Austin, San Antonio, Texas, and American bar foundations.

"It was an honor and privilege to serve the court, and I'm certainly grateful to everyone who has supported me along the way. This next step in my career is going to be an exciting journey as I now get to work alongside great friends and some of the finest appellate lawyers in the state," said Justice Green.

A native of San Antonio, Justice Green is a third-generation lawyer who earned his law degree from St. Mary's University School of Law. The university later honored him as a distinguished law graduate and recipient of the Rosewood Gavel Award for achievement in the judiciary.

About Alexander Dubose & Jefferson

Attorneys at Alexander Dubose & Jefferson LLP collaborate closely with clients at all stages of litigation, including: pretrial strategy to maximize the odds of a favorable outcome at trial; in-trial support including preserving error, issue identification, and trial briefing; and post-trial management of all aspects of the appeal. The firm has offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Our lawyers include a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, a former Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, a former Chief Justice of the Austin Court of Appeals, a former Justice of the Houston (14th) Court of Appeals, and multiple former staff attorneys and law clerks of the Supreme Court of Texas and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Sixth Circuits. We also have numerous lawyers recognized for excellence in Texas appellate law by Chambers USA, America's Leading Lawyers for Business, Best Lawyers in America, and Texas Super Lawyers. To learn more about Alexander Dubose & Jefferson, visit https://www.adjtlaw.com .

Media Contact:

Jennie Bui-McCoy

800-559-4534

[email protected]rovett.com

SOURCE Alexander Dubose & Jefferson LLP

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Two British men who were dubbed 'the Beatles' and accused of helping the Islamic State militant group torture and murder captives in Syria  including four Americans  were brought to the United States on Wednesday to face terrorism and murder conspiracy charges.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh were expected to appear in the Alexandria, Virginia federal court remotely via video conference. U.S. authorities said they were involved in the kidnappings of international hostages, including U.S. aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig and U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

Mueller was tortured and sexually abused before her death in 2015. The two British men admitted their involvement in holding her captive in an interview obtained by NBC News, which aired in July. They also admitted beating Foley.

"This feels miraculous," James' mother Diane Foley told British press on Wednesday.

"This is a huge step forward and hopefully these men will implicate others and give us information about where the remains of our children are," she said, thanking governments "on all sides of the Atlantic" for pursuing this "first step in justice."

Image: Alexandar Amon Kotey, El Shafee Elsheikh (Hussein Malla / AP file)

Court documents said that throughout the captivity of the Americans and others, "Kotey and Elsheikh supervised detention facilities holding the hostages and were responsible for transferring them between detention facilities." The men engaged "in a prolonged pattern of physical and psychological violence against hostages."

Zach Terwilliger, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said they inflicted pain, suffering and cruelty, including forced witnessing of murders, mock executions and shocks to the body with an electrical device.

The two were part of a group of four British men, authorities said, led by Mohammed Emwazi, who is believed to have murdered Foley in a beheading recorded on video. Emwazi  who was dubbed "Jihadi John"  was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a CIA drone in 2015.

Story continues

Image: James Foley (Nicole Tung / AP file)

Some of the ISIS hostages who managed to escape said they named the four men "The Beatles" because of their British accents. The fourth, Aine Lesley Davis, was sentenced to serve seven and a half years in a Turkish prison in 2017.

American and British authorities said the men were responsible for 27 killings, including the beheadings of Foley, Sotloff and Kassig, as well as of British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.

Kotey and Elsheikh have denied involvement in the killings and torture in previous interviews, describing themselves as "liaisons" between the hostages and more senior members of ISIS, like Emwazi.

In the interviews obtained by NBC News, Kotey and Elsheikh gave new details about Mueller's time in captivity. "I took an email from her myself." Officials said it was used to send a ransom demand to her family.

Image: Kayla Mueller, 26, an American humanitarian worker from Prescott, Arizona is pictured in this undated handout photo (Family photo via Reuters)

"She was in a large room, it was dark and she was alone, and ... she was very scared," Elsheikh said in the interview.

Captured by Kurdish forces in 2018, Kotey and Elsheikh were turned over to the American military last year and have been in U.S. custody in Iraq amid questions over how and when they will face justice.

The families of the Americans killed by ISIS said in a joint statement Wednesday they were relieved that the two men have been brought to the U.S. for trial.

"James, Peter, Kayla, and Steven were kidnapped, tortured, beaten, starved, and murdered by members of the Islamic State in Syria. Now our families can pursue accountability for these crimes against our children in U.S. court," their statement said.

The transfer of the men to the U.S. for trial was delayed by legal proceedings in the United Kingdom. British authorities said they were barred from turning evidence over to the U.S. that was obtained by their investigators. A U.K. judge lifted the ban on sharing information, paving the way for prosecution in the U.S.
Transmission volumes from European countries are 62% higher than the average values over the same periods in 2016-2019.

Over the nine months of 2020, gas supplies from Europe to Ukraine set a record high at 14.8 billion cubic meters, which is 28% more on year, Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine says.

"For 9 months of 2020, LLC Gas TSO of Ukraine transmitted 14.8 billion cubic meters of gas from Europe to Ukraine as booked by Network Users. This is 28% (3.2 bcm) more than in the same period last year. Transmission volumes from European countries are 62% higher than the average values over the same periods in 2016-2019," the company press service reports.

Ukraine imports only a third of supplied gas amounts, the report says, adding that the rest goes at the request of traders for the intake to underground gas storage facilities.

Read alsoUkrainian gas stocks grow by 1.4% to 28.1 bcm over weekSince year-start, 9.8 billion cubic meters of import volumes have been transmitted to underground storage facilities in the customs warehouse mode. Of these volumes, some 62% (or 6.1 bcm) came in the shorthaul  customs warehouse mode and 38% (3.8 bcm) in the border  customs warehouse mode.

Over the nine months of 2020, imports from Slovakia amounted to almost 9.7 bcm (+ 33% on year), from Hungary  almost 3.7 bcm (+14%), and from Poland  almost 1.5 bcm (+33%).

Seventy-two traders have booked transmission from the EU to Ukraine in January-September, including 45 Ukrainian companies and 27 foreign ones. Also, more than 50 companies, mostly non-residents, used shorthaul services and the customs warehouse mode.
MINNEAPOLIS - The former Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in the death of George Floyd posted bail Wednesday and was released from state prison, leading Minnesotas governor to activate the National Guard to help keep the peace in the event of protests.

According to court documents, Derek Chauvin posted a $1 million bond and was released from the states facility in Oak Park Heights, where he had been detained. Hennepin County jail records show he was released shortly before 11:30 a.m.

Floyd, a Black man in handcuffs, died May 25 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against Floyds neck for several minutes as Floyd said he couldnt breathe. Floyds death was captured in widely seen bystander video that set off protests around the world. Chauvin and three other officers were fired. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter; Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Upon news of Chauvins release, Gov. Tim Walz activated the National Guard to help local law enforcement. Walz said the Guard was mobilizing 100 soldiers and providing equipment and facilities out of an abundance of caution in light of public safety concerns. Walz said 100 state troopers and 75 Department of Natural Resources conservation officers were also mobilized to help local authorities.

As darkness fell Wednesday evening, hundreds of people took to the streets in south Minneapolis where protests were centred in the days after George Floyds death. They marched several blocks and blocked an intersection for a time, with chants including, No Justice, No Peace  Prosecute the Police.

Floyd family attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci released a statement saying Chauvins release is a painful reminder that the family is far from getting justice.

The system of due process worked for Chauvin and afforded him his freedom while he awaits trial. In contrast, George Floyd was denied due process, when his life was ended over a $20 bill. There was no charge, no arrest, no hearing, no bail. Just execution, the attorneys wrote.

Floyds aunt, Angela Harrelson, told FOX-9 that she was still trying to process the news.

Its something that Im not happy with. Im not pleased with it. But I know I have to accept it because this is what the judge allowed to happen. ... I know our family is not happy with this decision, Harrelson said.

It was not immediately clear where Chauvin got the money to pay his bond. In Minnesota, someone who posts bond is required to pay 10%, in this case $100,000, to the bail bond company. Then, the company and the defendant work out an arrangement for collateral to back all or part of the rest of the bond amount, said Mike Brandt, a criminal defence attorney who is not connected to the case.

A message left with the company that posted the bond, Allegheny Casualty Company, was not immediately returned.

The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, which has a legal defence fund, did not provide any money for bail, a spokeswoman said. Bob Kroll, president of the Minneapolis Police Officers Federation, said his union was not involved.

The website GiveSendGo.com, which says it is a free Christian crowdfunding site, has a Derek Chauvin Bail Fund that says it was created by his family. According to the site, as of midday Wednesday that fund raised $4,198 of its $125,000 goal, with donations from more than 35 people. A posting on the site dated Sept. 12 said it took time to set up a fundraising effort due to the high-profile nature of the case.

Chauvin had the option of posting bail for $1.25 million without conditions or $1 million with conditions. Under the conditions of his release, he must attend all court appearances, cannot have any direct or indirect contact  including social media contact  with any members of Floyds family, cannot work in law enforcement or security, and must not possess any firearms or ammunition.

Chauvins attorney had no comment Wednesday.

Chauvins wife, Kellie Chauvin, filed for divorce shortly after Floyds death. The records in that case have since been sealed and Kellie Chauvins divorce attorney didnt immediately reply to a message seeking comment.

In July, the Chauvins were charged with multiple felony counts of tax evasion for allegedly failing to report income from various jobs, including more than $95,000 from Derek Chauvins off-duty security work. The criminal complaints in that case allege that from 2014 through 2019, the Chauvins underreported their joint income by $464,433 and owe the state $37,868 in unpaid taxes, interest and fees.

The tax evasion case also listed other assets, including the couples second home in Florida and a $100,000 BMW.

The Chauvin home in the St. Paul suburb of Oakdale was sold on Aug. 28 for $279,000, which was $26,000 less than the price it was listed at a month after Floyds death, according to online real estate records. It was not clear where Chauvin was staying after his release, but one of the conditions of his bail was that he not leave Minnesota without permission.

The other three officers charged in Floyds death had previously posted bond amounts of $750,000 and have been free pending trial. Currently, all four men are scheduled to face trial together in March, but the judge is weighing a request to have them tried separately.

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Follow Amy Forliti on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amyforliti

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This story has been corrected to show that Chauvin was released from state prison, not jail.
BENZIE COUNTY, MI  A Benzie County Sheriffs deputy was injured when another vehicle sideswiped his parked patrol car on Tuesday afternoon.

The deputy was running radar while parked on the shoulder of US-31 in the Northern Michigan county the crash occurred, 9&10 News reports. The other vehicle sideswiped the patrol car and then rolled into the ditch.

The deputy had minor injuries, the TV station reports. The people inside the other vehicle were not hurt.

Michigan State Police are investigating the crash, the report said.

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Busy squirrels, thick-skinned onions are signs of bad winter ahead, folklore says
(Alliance News) - Pub operator Greene King PLC plans to close dozens of its venues and is in consultation with 800 employees over redundancy, Sky News reported Wednesday, citing sources close to the company.

Sources informed Sky that Greene King "would seek to redeploy affected staff wherever possible despite the continuing Covid-19 crisis".

Sky reported that 79 Green King pubs and restaurants are to close, with around a third of these to be permanent.

"Greene King's venue closures include 11 Loch Fyne restaurants signalled several days ago, while other pub groups including Young's and Fullers are also in the process of cutting substantial numbers of jobs," Sky noted.

https://news.sky.com/story/greene-king-to-close-pubs-and-axe-800-jobs-as-curfew-hammers-industry-12098226

Greene King has almost 1,700 managed pubs and 1,000 tenanted venues in Britain, with a workforce of 38,000. It is in the process of being acquired by Hong Kong-listed property developer CK Asset Holdings Ltd, with the deal now subject to being sanctioned by the High Court of Justice in England & Wales, the hearing for which will take place on October 29.

Should the court sanction the scheme, it will become effective on October 30, with Greene King's shares being cancelled the day after.

By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
DETROIT, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Stratview Research announces the launch of a new research report on Microsphere Market in the Composites Industry by Type (Glass Bubble, Expanded Polymers and Others), by Process Type (Injection Molding, Compression Molding, Hand Lay-Up, Spray-Up, Pultrusion, and Others), by End-Use Industry (Transportation, Electricals & Electronics, Building & Construction, Consumer Goods, and Others), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World), Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2021-2026.

This strategic assessment report, from Stratview Research, provides a comprehensive analysis that reflects today's microsphere market realities and future possibilities in the composites industry for the forecast period of 2021 to 2026. The report estimates the short- as well as long-term repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on the demand for fillers at the global-, regional-, as well as country-level. Also, the report provides the possible loss that the industry will register by comparing pre-COVID and post-COVID scenario. The vital data/information provided in the report can play a crucial role for the market participants as well as investors in the identification of low-hanging fruits available in the market as well as formulate growth strategies.

Microsphere Market in the Composites Industry: Highlights from the Report

Microspheres are small spherical particles, generally ranging from 12 to 300 m in diameter. In the global composites industry, microspheres are gradually gaining traction as lightweight fillers as they provide both product enhancement and process improvements. Integration of microspheres in composite parts delivers low density, improved dimensional stability, increased impact strength, smoother surface finish, greater thermal insulation, easier machinability, faster cycle times, and cost savings.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Fillers Market in the Composites Industry

The outbreak of Covid-19 has devastated the growth trajectory of all the major end-use industries. Composite materials are proving to be another victim of it; however, the impact is relatively lower than other traditional materials. In Q1 2020, the Composites Index fell sharply to an all-time low of 38.4 as new orders, production, employment, and exports recorded historic low readings. As the production and demand dried out in all the major markets due to pandemic, the domino effect has also been witnessed in the demand for raw materials such as fiber, resin, fillers, and additives. Microsphere, a category of high-performance lightweight fillers, is no exception and is witnessing a huge plunge in demand during the same period. Furthermore, supply chain disruption, labor shortage, and sagging business confidence are estimated to crush the demand for microspheres in the composites industry to the 2015-market level in 2020.

Despite the short-term demand fiasco, the long-term outlook for microspheres in the composites industry is still promising. The market is anticipated to log a speedy recovery from 2021 onwards, considering the revival of all the major markets including transportation, building & construction, electricals & electronics, consumer goods, etc. and reach US$ 557.6 million in 2026. Furthermore, an expected increase in the penetration of composite materials in the transportation and building & construction industries to act as a catalyst towards the market growth.

Click Here and Run Through the TOC of the Report: https://www.stratviewresearch.com/toc/1055/microsphere-market-in-composites-industry.html

Based on the type, glass bubble is expected to remain the dominant filler type during the forecast period. Glass microspheres are available as commercial products and in large quantities with a relatively low price compared to other microspheres. Glass microsphere features low density and low thermal conductivity; hence, are increasingly preferred as fillers in composite part fabrication for the transportation and building & construction industries. Glass bubbles play a vital role in reducing the weight and cost of composite parts without compromising other properties required for different applications.

Based on the end-use industry type, the market is segmented into transportation, electricals & electronics, building & construction, consumer goods, and others. Transportation is expected to maintain its lead in the market over the next five years. Automakers around the globe are continuously making efforts to reduce the weight of the vehicle to achieve better fuel efficiency. Lower carbon emissions have been the top priority due to rising pollution concerns coupled with stringent regulations, such as CAFE 2025. Increasing demand for lightweight vehicles is likely to push the demand for composite materials with greater use of lightweight fillers, especially microspheres.

Register Here for a Free Sample of the Detailed Report: https://www.stratviewresearch.com/Request-Sample/1055/microsphere-market-in-composites-industry.html

In terms of regions, all the markets are expected to mark a colossal decline in 2020 in the wake of rapid spread of the pandemic. However, Europe is estimated to comfortably maintain its leading position in the microsphere market during the forecast period. The automotive industry plays a crucial role in the European economy, alone contributing ~7% of the region's GDP. Stringent regulation related to carbon emission and high investment towards R&D has led to greater penetration of composite materials in European vehicles than that of other regional markets with increased penetration of microspheres as fillers. Furthermore, rising penetration of composites in a wide array of industries is likely to reinforce the demand for microspheres in the European market.

Asia-Pacific is expected to heal up with the fastest pace from 2021 onwards. China, India, Japan, and South Korea are estimated to remain the major markets for microspheres in the region, owing to their dominance in the region's transportation, building & construction, and consumer goods industries. Furthermore, significant economic development in the region along with a huge consumer base, rising disposable income, and changing lifestyle are likely to act as a catalyst towards the region's market growth.

The supply chain of this market comprises raw material suppliers, microsphere manufacturers, compounders, part fabricators, tier players, OEMs, and end users. The market is marked by the presence of more than 50 microsphere manufacturers, equitably present across regions. Key players in the market are The 3M Company, Nouryon, PQ Corporation, Matsumoto Yushi-Seiyaku Co. Ltd., Sinosteel Maanshan New Material Technology Co., Ltd., Omya, Chase Corporation, Sekisui Chemical Co., Ltd., and Trelleborg AB.

Report Features

This report provides market intelligence in the most comprehensive way. The report structure has been kept such that it offers maximum business value. It provides critical insights on the market dynamics and will enable strategic decision making for the existing market players as well as those willing to enter the market. The following are the key features of the report:

Market structure: Overview, industry life cycle analysis, supply chain analysis.

Market environment analysis: Growth drivers and constraints, Porter's five forces analysis, SWOT analysis.

Market trend and forecast analysis.

Market segment trend and forecast.

Competitive landscape and dynamics: Market share, product portfolio, product launches, etc.

Attractive market segments and associated growth opportunities.

Emerging trends.

Strategic growth opportunities for the existing and new players.

Key success factors.

This report studies the microsphere market in the composites industry and has segmented the market in four ways, keeping in mind the interest of all the stakeholders across the value chain. Following are the four ways in which the market is segmented:

Microsphere Market in the Composites Industry, By Type:

Glass Bubble (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Expanded Polymers (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Others (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Microsphere Market in the Composites Industry, By Process Type:

Injection Molding (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Compression Molding (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Hand Lay-Up (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Spray-Up (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Pultrusion (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Others (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Microsphere Market in the Composites Industry, By End-Use Industry:

Transportation (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

E&E (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Building & Construction (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Consumer Goods (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Others (Regional Analysis: North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , and Rest of the World)

Microsphere Market in the Composites Industry, By Region:

North America (Country Analysis: The USA , Canada , and Mexico )

Europe (Country Analysis: France , The UK, Germany , Russia , and Rest of Europe )

Asia-Pacific (Country Analysis: China , Japan , India , South Korea and Rest of Asia-pacific )

Rest of the World (Country Analysis: Brazil , Turkey , and Others)

Stratview Research has several high value market reports in the advanced materials industry. Please refer to the following link to browse through our reports:

https://www.stratviewresearch.com/market-reports/Advanced-Materials.html

Related premium market reports in the advanced materials industry are:

Fillers Market in the Composites Industry by Filler Type (Calcium Carbonate, ATH, Talc, Sand, Clay, Microsphere, and Others), by Process Type (Injection Molding, Compression Molding, Hand Lay-Up, Spray-Up, Filament Winding, Pultrusion, and Others), by End-Use Industry Type (Transportation, Electricals & Electronics, Building & Construction, Pipes & Tanks, Consumer Goods, Marine, and Others), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World), Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2021-2026.

Microspheres Market by Microsphere Type (Hollow Microspheres and Solid Microspheres), by Material Type (Hollow Glass Microspheres, Foam Glass Granulates, Cenosphere, Perlite Microspheres, Expanded Polymer Microspheres, Ceramic Microspheres, Solid Glass Microspheres, Solid Polymer Microspheres, and Metallic Microspheres,), by Application Type (Paints & Coatings, Plastics & Rubber, Construction Materials, Life Sciences & Pharmaceutical, Agriculture Materials, and Others), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World), Trend, Forecast, Competitive Analysis, and Growth Opportunity: 2021-2026.

About Stratview Research

Stratview Research is a global market intelligence firm providing wide range of services including syndicated market reports, custom research and sourcing intelligence across industries, such as Advanced Materials, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive & Mass Transportation, Consumer Goods, Construction & Equipment, Electronics and Semiconductors, Energy & Utility, Healthcare & Life Sciences, and Oil & Gas.

We have a strong team of industry veterans and analysts with an extensive experience in executing custom research projects for mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies, in the areas of Market Assessment, Opportunity Screening, Competitive Intelligence, Due Diligence, Target Screening, Market Entry Strategy, Go to Market Strategy, and Voice of Customer studies.

Stratview Research is a trusted brand globally, providing high quality research and strategic insights that help companies worldwide in effective decision making.

Stratview Research has launched 'Composights', an online portal which offers free thought leadership reports, whitepapers, market report synopsis and much more for Composites and allied industries, worth US$ 20,000 every year.

Click here to sign up (No costs involved): https://www.stratviewresearch.com/composights/sign-in

For enquiries, please contact:

Stratview Research

E-mail: [email protected]

Direct: +1-313-307-4176

SOURCE Stratview Research
Health officials in New South Wales have been given a 48 hour countdown to trace three new COVID-19 infections, or risk Queensland pushing back the reopening of its border.

The state announced the new infections, all in Sydney's south and south west, on Wednesday, after enjoying 12 days with no new community cases.

The surprise new cases have dashed hopes that Queensland will reopen its border with NSW as planned on November 1.

Deputy premier Steven Miles has confirmed NSW contact tracers will have just 48 hours to track the source of all three infections to known clusters.

If they fail, Queensland will 'consider' pushing back the opening date, dashing interstate holiday hopes for millions of Australians and ending months of turmoil.

Police speak to drivers attempting to cross into Queensland at the Coolangatta border check point on October 1 (pictured), with the border intended to be open on November 1

Locals in New South Wales had been looking forward to holidays in Queensland (pictured, Surfers Paradise Beach) but those hopes have now been dashed

'I dont want to get ahead of ourselves,' the health minister said on Wednesday.

'The contact tracers in NSW have been doing a really great job. So I hope that they can identify how these are linked to a cluster.

'But if theyre not, then thats very concerning and so we would need to take that into account.'

The three new people infected with COVID-19 in Sydney visited Kmart, Westfield and Fitness First, sparking fears they may have spread the disease further.

NSW Health are currently contact tracing new cases and issued a public warning on Tuesday, saying people who visited the same locations as the infected people should get tested and isolate.

One of the infected people attended a pilates class at Fitness First in Carlingford from 8.15am to 9.15am on Saturday.

All those who attended the same class are considered close contacts and must immediately get tested and isolate for 14 days from the class.

One of the infected people attended a pilates class at Fitness First in Carlingford (pictured) from 8.15am to 9.15am on Saturday. All those who attended the same class are considered close contacts and must immediately get tested and isolate for 14 days from the class

NSW Health is directly contacting those who attended.

Anyone else who went to Fitness First at the same time but didn't attend the pilates class are still considered casual contacts and should still get tested.

People who attended six other venues in Sydney's west, south west and north west are also considered casual contacts and should be tested.

Another infected person went to Kmart in Narellan in Sydney's south west from 6pm to 7pm on Friday.

An infected person also went to the popular Westfield in Parramatta (pictured) in Sydney's west on Monday between 9.30am and 11am. All those who attended within these hours are considered casual contacts and should be tested for COVID-19

Those who attended Guzman y Gomez in Penrith (pictured) between 1.30pm and 2pm are considered casual contacts to an infected person and should be tested

Three businesses in Penrith in Sydney's west have also been put on alert.

Those who attended Penrith Homemaker Centre from 11am to 1pm on Sunday should get tested as well as those who went to Guzman y Gomez between 1:30pm and 2pm.

The final Penrith business is Home Co, where shoppers who attended between 2pm and 2:30pm on Sunday should also be tested.

An infected person also went to the popular Westfield in Parramatta in Sydney's west on Monday between 9:30am and 11am.

Another infected person went to Kmart in Narellan (pictured) in Sydney's south west from 6pm to 7pm on Friday. Those who attended are considered casual contacts and should be tested

The last location on alert is Castle Towers Shopping Centre in the city's north west, where an infected person was shopping for an hour from 12pm to 1pm on Monday.

The state health department is 'concerned' that testing numbers have dropped recently and is encouraging increased testing across Sydney.

NSW Health said it is 'especially important for people across West and South West Sydney' to get tested since the new cases are located there.

The state ended its 12-day streak without a locally acquired case as it recorded three locally acquired cases on Wednesday.

There were another three were from overseas travellers in hotel quarantine, bringing the Wednesday's total to six.

Meanwhile, Victoria recorded only six additional cases of COVID-19 overnight and two more deaths from the virus.

Shoppers from two Coles supermarkets, in Williamstown and Cheltenham (pictured), as well as customer from the Keysborough Aldi have been put on high alert after another customer tested positive to COVID-19

The 14-day rolling average in metropolitan Melbourne decreased to 9.9 from 10.6 on Wednesday, while the number of cases with an unknown source fell from 13 to 12.

The Andrews government has set an ambitious target of a rolling two-week average of just five cases a day if lockdown is to be eased by October 19.

Aldi and Coles customers in Melbourne have also been put on high alert after two shoppers and an employee tested positive to COVID-19.

Anyone who was at the Coles store in Williamstown on September 30, between 7pm and 10pm, and the Coles at Westfield Southland in Cheltenham on October 2, between 4.45pm-5.15pm should look out for symptoms.

People who shopped at the Keysborough Aldi between 3.45pm and 4pm on October 1 have also been put on high alert.
As the world braces for a second wave of coronavirus, in Egypt people are adopting an increasingly cavalier attitude to preventative measures

People wore face masks in the summer out of anxiety and fear, Yasmine Mohamed, 41, told Al-Ahram Weekly. But once infections began to tail off, she, like many others, dropped the habit.

Few places insist you wear a mask nowadays, says Salma Tawfik, 30. Rather than wearing a mask, now I keep it in my pocket just in case I need it.

On Monday Egypt reported 98 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 103,781 since the first case was reported on 14 February. It is a far cry from the 1,774 infections recorded on 19 June, Egypts highest daily toll.

Four months ago, following Eid Al-Fitr, the feast that marks the end of Ramadan and which is usually celebrated with family gatherings, coronavirus infection rates increased noticeably. Officials at the time blamed the hike on reckless behaviour and a disregard of protective measures.

Speaking on TV on Sunday, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar underlined that Egypt is still in the first wave of the pandemic, albeit one in steep decline.

Countries have been re-imposing lockdown measures to suppress the spread of infection as a second wave of the virus began to emerge.

It is very possible that a similar second wave scenario will occur in Egypt. There is also a possibility that there will be spikes in numbers within the first wave Egypt is still experiencing. The most important thing for the public now is to adhere to preventative measures, maintain social distancing, and wear face masks, said Abdel-Ghaffar.

Since 30 May face masks have been mandatory in Egypt on public transport, in shops, banks, government offices and private businesses, with violators facing fines of up to LE4,000.

If we strictly adhere to the precautionary measures, another scenario may happen. Infection rates could remain at the same level as now or for another six months or a year, said Abdel-Ghaffar.

Adel Khattab, professor of chest diseases and a member of the Supreme Committee for Virology at the Ministry of Higher Education, said that the current cavalier attitude to preventive measures was unacceptable.

He also debunked the common perception that infections are almost always accompanied by a fever.

Thirty-five per cent of infected patients display no significant increase in body temperature, Khattab said during a webinar on the coronavirus pandemic held by the Future University on Sunday.

Underlining the importance of precautionary measures, Khattab added that many people who contract the virus are asymptomatic, with some discovering their status only after having a PCR swab test before travelling abroad.

Though the number of new coronavirus cases has been hovering around 150 a day nationwide since August, the government has repeatedly urged caution to avoid a second wave of the pandemic, particularly with the advent of autumn and the beginning of the new academic year.

Islam Anan, a pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoeconomics lecturer at Misr International University (MIU), told the Weekly that a false sense of security among the public has led to non-compliance with preventative measures. With the relaxing of lockdown measures and relatively low and stable infection rates, people are taking less care than they should.

Egypt began the move towards a gradual reopening of the economy in June, lifting the night-time curfew, reopening restaurants and places of worship, and resuming regular international flights as part of its plans to coexist with the virus.

On 21 September, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli announced a further easing of restrictions by allowing open-air funerals, wedding ceremonies, film festivals and conferences. The cabinet has warned, however, that strict restrictions will be re-imposed should infection rates rise.

On face masks, Abdel-Ghaffar stressed that the degree of protection they offered could well be similar to that afforded by a vaccine.

There have been global reports suggesting a vaccine is likely to offer 60 to 75 per cent protection which is the same as wearing a mask, he said.

Khattab also stressed that those who have recovered from Covid-19 should continue to adhere to precautionary measures given that immunity is not guaranteed after recovery and there are Egyptian doctors who have been infected twice.

Ten months into the Covid-19 pandemic, scientists and drug companies worldwide are scrambling to come up with a vaccine. Sherif Wadie, emergency and intensive care consultant to the minister of health, says there are 2,400 ongoing programmes to produce a vaccine, of which just 240 are in an advanced phase.

Wadie told the Future Universitys webinar that three phase-three clinical vaccine trials were being carried out in Egypt, two of them Chinese and one Russian.

On 28 September, as she urged Egyptians to take part in the trials for the sake of humanity, Health Minister Hala Zayed was injected with one of the Chinese-made coronavirus vaccines at the Egyptian Holding Company for Biopharmaceuticals and Vaccines (VACSERA).

On 30 September Reuters reported that Russia has clinched a deal to supply 25 million doses of its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to Egyptian drug-maker Pharco.

Meanwhile, Abdel-Ghaffar said on Sunday that Egypt is developing four locally-made vaccines, two of which are soon to enter clinical trials.

The World Health Organisations (WHO) list of candidate vaccines in global pre-clinical evaluation includes four local products, said Abdel-Ghaffar, a DNA plasmid, inactivated-whole virus, influenza A H1N1 vector, and protein subunit vaccines. Though none of them have been approved for human clinical trials, he expects two of the four to gain approval in a matter of weeks.

Until a coronavirus vaccine is available, Khattab advises taking a seasonal flu vaccine to strengthen immunity and decrease the risk of coronavirus infection.

On Saturday, Egypts presidential adviser for health affairs Mohamed Awad Tageddin echoed the advice. The elderly, children, people suffering from chronic diseases in the respiratory system, heart or kidneys, or those suffering from immune system diseases, are strongly advised to get the flu vaccine, he said.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Vice-President Mike Pence. Credit:AP Loading Harris, a 55-year-old California senator, is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She is also a former prosecutor whose pointed questioning of Trumps appointees and court nominees helped make her a Democratic star. Pence is a 61-year-old former Indiana governor and ex-radio host, an evangelical Christian known for his folksy charm and unwavering loyalty to Trump. And while he is Trump's biggest public defender, the Vice-President does not share the President's brash tone or undisciplined style. Just eight days ago, Trump set the tone for the opening presidential debate, which was perhaps the ugliest in modern history. Today's affair is expected to be far more respectful.

Harris advisers say she does not plan to constantly fact-check Pence on stage and will instead spend her time making the case directly to the American people about what a Biden-Harris administration would offer. Shes not there to eviscerate Mike Pence, said Symone Sanders, an adviser who has been in Harris debate prep. She is there to really talk to people at home. Harris' team predicted she would focus on Trumps yearlong efforts to downplay the pandemic, the fact that many schools are still closed and Trumps declaration this week that he would end talks on a fresh coronavirus economic relief package until after the election. Harris will also have the chance to explain her views on law enforcement, an area in which she's irked some progressives, given her past as a prosecutor. Meanwhile, Pence aims to highlight the administration's economic record and attempt to portray the Democratic ticket as beholden to the "radical left, former GOP Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who is helping the vice president prepare for the debate, said on Fox & Friends.

Just as Harris will likely speak directly to Trump at times, Pence is likely to speak at Biden and progressives, who have called for a government run health care system known as Medicare for All" and sweeping environmental reforms to combat climate change called the Green New Deal. Biden opposes both plans in favour of more moderate steps that would still be among the most significant changes for health care and environmental policy in the modern era. Loading Pence will be joined in the debate hall by several guests, including the parents of Kayla Mueller, a humanitarian aid worker who was killed in 2015 by Islamic State militants. Their presence is intended to highlight Trump's record on national security, including the killing of the groups leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

While the debate will cover a range of topics, the virus will be at the forefront. Pence serves as chair of the presidents coronavirus task force, which has failed to implement a comprehensive national strategy even as Trump himself recovers from the disease and the national death toll surges past 210,000 with no end in sight. The candidates will appear on stage exactly 3.7 metres apart and separated by plexiglass barriers. Both candidates released updated coronavirus test results ahead of the debate proving they were negative as of Tuesday. Critics suggested that Pence should not be at the debate at all. The Vice-President attended an event last week at the White House with Trump and others who have since tested positive, but Pence's staff and doctors insist he does not need to quarantine under Centres for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. The CDC defines risky close contact as being within 1.8 metres of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from two days before the onset of symptoms or a positive test.
Do you favor de-funding the Rio Rancho Police Department?

I stared at my email screen in disbelief. Seldom has a sales pitch so badly misread its audience.

In fact, Id be willing to bet that no more than a dozen Rio Rancho residents would answer in the affirmative.

But this encounter did get me thinking about Rio Ranchos long-standing love affair with its police department, which contrasts so dramatically with the current divisions in some communities between police departments and the populations they serve.

Just last week, someone attending Rio Ranchos Sept. 12 Black Lives Matter rally wrote in the Observer that when armed counter-protesters began menacing the BLM group, responding Rio Rancho police were professional in their actions, quickly assessing the situation, and brought order to this gathering. The writer added that Rio Rancho Police actually enabled some pro- and con- demonstrators to discuss their differences.

The biggest law enforcement issue I can remember during the 17 years Ive lived here centered on automated traffic enforcement (red light cameras). The publics beef then was that an electronic device had replaced a police officer in apprehending offenders.

Rio Rancho has lost three officers in the last 15 years to duty-related deaths. Two were traffic accidents, and the third was a traffic-stop shooting (by a fleeing Albuquerque felon) that shook the community to its core.

I do get it that Black Lives Matter  and brown lives, red lives, White lives, yellow lives. And Rio Rancho is no wealthy white enclave.

Census numbers show our city is 49 percent White, 43 percent Hispanic, 3 percent Black and 2 percent Native American. Over 40 percent of our average annual household income is under $50,000.

Are there racial under-currents in Rio Rancho? Of course.

But under-currents are not driving forces in our town. Here the bonds between police and citizens are holding fast during trying times.

One Rio Rancho police officer put it this way: Our agency was built around the people, and we strive to continue to serve them, side by side. We encourage community engagement and know that without our citizens, we would never be able to our jobs well.

And he meant it.

But there is no magic pill that can be dispensed around the country to achieve the same results.

Yes, there are community engagement activities like Coffee with a Cop. And we support our officers and their families with one-of-a-kind services that address the dangers of police work.

Certainly at some point in our past, RRPD recruiters began consciously targeting the cream of local police academy crops. Now the excellence of our officers and command staff attracts more of the same.

Summing up, a Rio Rancho officer recently told me, Trust is long established and easy to break. We wave at citizens as we drive by; we share laughs and smiles. We are an established part of our community, nothing more or less.

So do I support de-funding the Rio Rancho Police Department? Id sooner defund our water supply or the air we breathe.

(Cheryl Everett is a Rio Rancho resident and former city councilor.)
HOUSTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Lawmakers, leaders in legal education, and legal professionals serving in a variety of roles will gather for a day-long virtual symposium titled, "Black Lawyers Matter: Strategies to Enhance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion." The event will be held via Zoom on Oct. 30. Co-conveners are the University of Houston Law Center and SMU Dedman School of Law.

The event's opening speaker will be U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of the 18th Congressional District of Texas. Topics throughout the conference include increasing Black enrollment in law schools; the role of historically Black law schools; the LSAT, socioeconomics and U.S. News & World Report; hiring for firms and corporate positions; and increasing diversity in law faculty hiring, the judiciary and judicial clerkships.

"I am delighted to co-convene this important conference with my friend and colleague Dean Jennifer Collins of SMU Dedman School of Law," said UH Law Center Dean Leonard M. Baynes. "Although the legal profession has made much progress in diversity and inclusion, there is still significant underrepresentation of African American lawyers in every aspect  students, faculty, judges, law clerks and lawyers, especially those working as prosecutors and in corporate law firms. This conference is designed to provide strategies to improve this representation."

"It has been such an honor to work on this critically important endeavor with Dean Leonard Baynes and the wonderful team at the University of Houston Law Center," added SMU Dedman School of Law Dean Jennifer Collins. "We have so much work to do as a profession, and we hope this conference will provide participants with concrete strategies and takeaways to increase access and equity in every aspect of our work."

The Bracewell LLP Distinguished Lecture in Racial and Social Justice Keynote Speaker is David B. Wilkins, the Lester Kissel Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession and the Center for Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry.

"Bracewell is proud to sponsor the Black Lawyers Matter conference and the inaugural Bracewell LLP Lecture in Racial and Social Justice," said Bracewell Managing Partner Gregory M. Bopp. "This important conference is an opportunity for our profession to hear and learn from each other about the ways we can work together to increase the representation of Black lawyers in the legal profession."

The Zoom webinar is sponsored by Law School Admission Council.

For questions about the event, please email Sondra Tennessee, UH Law Center Associate Dean of Alumni and Community Relations, at [email protected].

Click here for more information, including how to register.

Click here for an agenda and complete list of speakers.

UHLC media contacts: Carrie Anna Criado, UH Law Center Assistant Dean of Communications and Marketing, 713-743-2184, [email protected]; Elena Hawthorne, Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing, 713-743-1125, [email protected]; and John Brannen, Media Relations Rep, 713-743-3055, [email protected].

SMU Dedman School of Law media contact: Lynn Dempsey, Director of External Relations, 214-768-8617, [email protected].

About the University of Houston

The University of Houston is a Carnegie-designated Tier One public research university recognized with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter for excellence in undergraduate education. UH serves the globally competitive Houston and Gulf Coast Region by providing world-class faculty, experiential learning and strategic industry partnerships. Located in the nation's fourth-largest city and one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse regions in the country, UH is a federally designated Hispanic- and Asian-American-Serving institution with enrollment of more than 46,000 students.

About the University of Houston Law Center

The University of Houston Law Center (UHLC) is a dynamic, top tier law school located in the nation's 4th largest city. UHLC's Health Law, and Intellectual Property Law programs rank in the U.S. News Top 10. Its awards Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) and Master of Laws (LL.M.) degrees, through its academic branch, the College of Law. The Law Center is more than just a law school. It is a powerful hub of intellectual activity with more than 11 centers and institutes which fuel its educational mission and national reputation. UHLC is fully accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools.

About Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law

The School of Law at SMU was founded in 1925. It was named Dedman School of Law in 2001 in honor of Dallas benefactors Nancy and Robert H. Dedman, Sr., and their family. SMU Dedman Law enjoys a national and international reputation of distinction. It is among the most competitive law schools in the country for admission, as well as one of the most successful in the placement of its graduates.

About SMU

SMU is the nationally ranked global research university in the dynamic city of Dallas. SMU's alumni, faculty and nearly 12,000 students in eight degree-granting schools demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit as they lead change in their professions, communities and the world.

SOURCE University of Houston Law Center

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After its success across North America, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent, Locus is now looking to offer its smart logistics solutions to customers in Europe



SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 7, 2020/PRNewswire/ -- Locus, a global B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company that automates human decisions in logistics, announced that it is investing 2 million in Europe for product and business development. The company's smart logistics solutions will help reduce carbon emissions and increase operational efficiency.

Locus uses deep machine learning and proprietary algorithms to offer smart logistics solutions like route optimization, real-time tracking, insights and analytics, beat optimization, and vehicle allocation and utilization. Locus also helps companies optimize their end-to-end supply chain network with its strategic consulting offering.

"Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chains in Europe have become more dynamic than ever before and different legs of the supply chain have become more interconnected. Companies need high-frequency automated decision making to efficiently fulfill such dynamic demand," said Nishith Rastogi, Chief Executive Officer, Locus. "I have shifted my base to London from India as Europe is going to be a major focus for us, and we are investing 2 million to bring our smart logistics solutions to the market. For example, with Locus, you can deliver e-commerce packages with 20% lesser carbon emissions. I am really excited about the impact we can create here."

The company presently works with top clients across Southeast Asia, North America, Europe, and the Indian Subcontinent. The company's top management includes executives from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Barclays Capital, Google, and BlueDart (a DHL company), and data scientists with PhDs from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Illinois, among others.

Locus has raised $29 million from tier-1 investors like Falcon Edge, Tiger Global, Blume Ventures, Exfinity Venture Partners, & growX ventures.

"Globally, there is a massive spurt in e-commerce and omnichannel experience. The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated it. It is no different in Europe. A decision-making platform like Locus can add immense value to companies that are looking for logistics solutions to bring in operational flexibility and enhance customer delight. Moreover, Locus's solutions will aid companies in reducing their carbon footprint. Locus's cutting-edge technology solutions are truly geography-agnostic. We are looking to make a real difference in Europe," said Krishna Khandelwal, Chief Business Officer, Locus.

Gartner recently recognized Locus as a Sample Vendor within the Last-Mile Delivery Solutions category in its "Hype Cycle for Transportation Industry, 20201". Previously, it was identified as a Representative Vendor in the Gartner "Market Guide for Vehicle Routing and Scheduling" report.2

1Gartner, "Hype Cycle for Transportation Industry, 2020," Ivar Berntz, Venecia Liu, Thierry Kuperman Le Bihan, Pedro Pacheco, 13 August 2020.

2Gartner, "Market Guide for Vehicle Routing and Scheduling," Oscar Sanchez Duran, Bart De Muynck, 23 June 2020.

About Locus

Locus is a deep technology platform to automate logistics decisions, providing total operational flexibility & end-customer delight.

The platform uses deep machine learning and proprietary algorithms to offer smart logistics solutions to customers. Locus powers more than two million deliveries daily across Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, Europe, and North America. Visit Locus to know more.

Media contact:

marketing@locus.sh

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1197609/Locus_Logo.jpg
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are calling on the Justice Department to provide any missing materials from a questionnaire completed by Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Barrett, who was nominated to the high court last month by President Donald Trump, signed a 2006 newspaper ad sponsored by an anti-abortion group in which she said she opposed abortion on demand and defended the right to life from fertilization to the end of natural life.

The ad was not included in materials Barrett provided to the Judiciary Committee for her pending Supreme Court nomination, nor in 2017, when she was nominated to the job she holds as a Chicago-based federal appeals court judge.

In a letter Tuesday signed by all 10 Democrats on the Judiciary panel, lawmakers asked the Justice Department to explain the omission and confirm whether any other materials have been left out from the Senate questionnaire. If so, the department should immediately provide the materials for committee review, the senators said.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said the department has received the letter and is reviewing it.

Democrats dont have the votes to block Barretts nomination, but they are trying to slow it down as Republicans speed ahead with an aggressive timetable, starting with hearings next week, aimed at confirming her before the election. Trump backs moving ahead quickly and on Tuesday called off negotiations on further coronavirus relief, saying Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should focus full time on confirming Barrett.

The 2006 ad, an open letter signed by Barrett and others, opposed womens reproductive freedoms and explicitly called for overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision on abortion, senators wrote. The ad also referred to the barbaric legacy of Roe v. Wade.

The ad, which had more than 1,200 names attached to it, appears to be the most direct expression of Barretts opposition to abortion and has intensified debate over whether she would vote to restrict, if not overturn, abortion rights if confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Barretts failure to disclose the 2006 letter leads to additional questions about other potentially missing materials, the Democratic senators wrote in the letter.

It also raises concerns that the process of collecting materials responsive to the Senate questionnaire, like the nomination process itself, has been rushed, for no legitimate reason, the senators wrote. The letter was signed by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, and nine other Democrats.

White House spokesperson Judd Deere said last week that Barrett, who is Catholic, has distinguished her personal views from her responsibilities as a judge. As Judge Barrett said on the day she was nominated, A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policymakers, and they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold,  Deere said in an email.

Meanwhile, an outside group advocating for conservative judges announced on Tuesday a 15-member team of pro bono legal professionals who will be conducting rapid response and other campaign-style support for Barretts confirmation.

The confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett is the opportunity of more than a lifetime to create the first true conservative majority on the Supreme Court in over 80 years, said Mike Davis, a former chief counsel to Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who now heads the Article Three Project. He said the group is prepared to do whatever it takes to push Judge Barretts nomination over the finish line by the end of October.

At a separate news conference Tuesday, several Senate Democrats said Barrett has a clear record of opposing abortion rights.

Judge Barrett has shown by her past writings and by passing the Trump test (for a Supreme Court nominee) that she would overturn Roe v. Wade, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, another committee member, also attended the news conference, which focused on abortion rights and included advocacy groups.
A former National First Vice Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Stephen Ntim has launched a campaign to support President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the NPP to emerge victors in the upcoming elections in December.



The Campaign dubbed Stephen Ntim Says 4 More For Nana is to rally massive support for the President to continue his good policies.



Speaking in an interview at the launch of the campaign, he noted that the NPP led by President Akufo-Addo in 2016 made lots of promises to Ghanaians of which the opposition saw as unachievable promises but have been achieved under the current administration.



 . . we are all living witnesses to what President Akufo-Addo has achieved so far. I cannot sit down and watch the opposition NDC and John Mahama who has proven to be incompetent to come back and reverse the progress we have made so far as a country under President Akufo-Addo, he said.



Stephen Ntim also averred that the mantra in Ghana now is ''4More4Nana'' and that everyone must be part of that agenda and push the competent NPP government for another four-year term.



He mentioned that the NPP government under Akufo-Addo has successfully restored teachers and nurses trainees allowances which was cancelled by the NDC government, implemented the 1D1F, Planting for Foods and Jobs, One Constituency One million Dollars among other policies which are positively impacting in the lives of Ghanaians.



He further pledged the commitment of the Stephen Ntim Says 4 More For Nana agenda supporters to campaign in all Regional Capitals, showcasing the good policies and achievements of the NPP till the day of elections.



He advised Ghanaians not to allow John Mahama to come back and destroy the gains made by Nana Akufo-Addo, urging all and sundry to spread the gospel of ''4More4Nana'' to do more.





Source: Josephine Acheampomaa/[email protected]









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David Hobbs, a former massive drug addict comes before God and recovers from his addiction.

After breaking into the backyard shed of a former Marine, Hobbs was arrested in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Wearing costumes such as Captain America and fairy wings, his mugshots went viral and drew attention. Hobbs mentioned he already had several run-ins with the law and was on probation for a grand larceny conviction. Charged with burglary and held on a $25,000 bond, Hobbs also carried 4 DUIs.

Christian Post reported that Hobbs is a new healthy man who doesn't recognize himself from a year ago. Hobbs told Christian Post, "I never thought I would get out of addiction. I thought it was going to be my life. But God has shown me I'm not just a society throw away. It is all worth it for all of us to strive to have a better life. If I can do it, anybody can do it."

After being set free from his addictions, Hobbs' life has done a complete 180 turn around. Hobs has completely gone in the other direction as he decided to open an inpatient residential treatment facility to help others struggling as he did. Hobbs immediately started helping people who were unable to overcome their trials and constantly followed up with people who were just like him from before. One of the incidents, Lewis( This is the second time incident has been used when introducing a person, what are you trying to say here? Patient?), stated Hobbs made a remarkable comeback story and had strong leadership, purpose, and focus.

Coming back as a hero, Hobbs drew much' attention and encouraged those who also struggled through an addiction. He told Christian Post he renewed his relationship with God and learned how to process his emotions and feelings, and overcome his battle with addiction.

"God's timing is always perfect. I don't think good landing is just any rehab; it's a rehab where God's at the center of everything they do. That was the thing that really changed it for me. Putting God at the center of my heart and in the center of my life is really what kept me sober. That is what the enemy tells us. But we all deserve a good sober life and a good relationship with God. These are the things that I've been taught since I've been here at Good Landing."

"It doesn't matter how far you have fallen, there's always a path of sobriety and redemption. You just have to be willing to get clean and have an open heart and mind to the people that are speaking into your life. Getting sober and changing your life is possible. You're never too far gone."
Dubai, Oct 7 : An Indian woman's Covid-19 suffering and resulting near-death experience has healed after she gave birth to a boy here.

Asfia Samreen delivered the baby in September, after having contracted the virus in May, Gulf News reported.

"Congratulations to Asfia Samreen, who after a long and difficult battle with Covid-19 in the final trimester of her pregnancy, delivered a healthy baby boy," the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (Seha) announced on its social media platforms on Wednesday.

It was a miraculous recovery for the Indian homemaker after a series of problems starting with her expired medical insurance, the much-needed protection during the pregnancy. Her husband, an electrical engineer, could not get his family's medical insurance renewed as his employer was going through a financial crisis, reported WAM.

"This was all possible thanks to Samreen's perseverance, and the hard work, dedication and care of the medical teams at both Corniche Hospital and Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City (SSMC)," Abu Dhabi's public health provider added.

Samreen was in the 24th week of her pregnancy when she tested positive on May 6. She was admitted to Cornich Hospital, the capital's premier public maternity hospital, on May 7.

"At one point, the doctors had thought of inducing an early delivery of the baby as they were not sure of saving my life," Samreen said.

Saleema Wani, senior obstetrician and gynaecology consultant at Corniche Hospital, said Samreen was gravely unwell.

"She was in critical condition. We had to discuss with the family whether to induce an early delivery. We agreed to let the pregnancy progress normally," Wani said.

Samreen was eventually moved to SSMC as her condition worsened, and remained unconscious for five days. She finally regained consciousness on May 18, and was discharged in the first week of June.

According to the WAM report, she had to pay for regular check-ups at a private hospital, adding to the financial burden on her husband who was not getting a regular salary because of the crisis at the workplace. He was struggling to take care of the five-member family, including three children aged 7, 6 and 3.

During a regular check-up, the doctor asked Samreen to test for Covid-19 for having some symptoms and she was shocked to get a positive result on May 6. Subsequently, her husband also tested positive for the disease, added the woman from the south Indian city of Hyderabad.

On May 7, Samreen suffered from multiple ailments and got admitted to the Corniche Hospital in Abu Dhabi. Although she did not have a medical insurance, the hospital under SEHA, offered her all necessary treatment.

"I had severe cough, diarrhea and breathing problems and could not speak at all. They immediately put an oxygen mask on me. I was conscious but I had no idea about what was going on," Samreen said.

"Only one thing I clearly remember is the love and care of Saleema Wani and a team of nurses. They comforted and supported me and instilled confidence and hope in me." Later, they told her that she was continuously asking to meet her husband but it was impossible, as he was also a Covid patient. He was asymptomatic and hence quarantined at home.

Samreen says she still feels the painful sufferings of Covid. "Apparently it severely affected my lungs. I had a high fever as well."

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

During the current pandemic, we've all been advised to protect ourselves from infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 by masking, physical distancing and frequent hand-washing. In the Sept. 17 issue of JAMA Ophthalmology, a research team in China suggests that a fourth defensive measure also might be helpful: eye protection.

However, according to an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins Medicine, the team's findings don't yet mean everyone should don a pair of Clark Kent spectacles to enhance their "superpowers" during a coronavirus attack.

In their paper, published online Sept. 16, Weibiao Zeng, M.S., at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, and colleagues at three other Chinese medical institutions describe a retrospective study of 276 people in China's Hubei Province who tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus at the beginning of the pandemic. The researchers found that the proportion of patients who wore eyeglasses more than eight hours per day was significantly lower than in the general population.

From these data, the researchers claim that wearing eyeglasses more than a third of the day may provide some protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection, and that eyeglasses may act as a partial barrier to help keep people from touching their eyes.

"The findings, although intriguing, should not be considered as conclusive proof that the general public should begin wearing face shields, goggles or other ocular personal protective equipmentalong with wearing masks and not touching their eyesto obtain any substantial protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection," says Lisa Maragakis, M.D., M.P.H., senior director of infection prevention at the Johns Hopkins Health System, associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and author of a commentary on the study that appears in the same issue of JAMA Ophthalmology.

Maragakis says there are several reasons for her caution.

"The study looks at a time very early in the pandemic before universal masking and physical distancing became common prevention practices. There may be confounding variables or an alternate explanation for the apparent protective effect of eyeglasses, and the data on the general populationagainst which the eyeglasses-wearing habits of the study patients are comparedwere collected years ago in a different region of China," she explains.

However, Maragakis says more studiesusing data from both people who previously had COVID-19 and from patients newly diagnosed with the diseasewould be valuable to confirm the study's findings and to better define any benefit for the general public by adding eye protection as a defensive practice.

Explore further Do ordinary eyeglasses offer protection against COVID-19?
- Singapore has for years been struggling with a low population; a development attributed to low fertility and ageing population

- The country currently pays new parents KSh 1 million in baby support; a move aimed at increasing the Southeast Asia country's population

- Singapore Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said most people had suspended their parenthood dreams due to destitution and uncertainty caused by COVID-19

- In 1964, when Kenya had about 9.2 million people, Singapore had 1.8 million people at the same time

- Fast forward to 2020, Kenya's population has multiplied to 47.6 million while that of Singapore has only crawled to 5.85 million

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The government of Singapore has announced that it will be giving a one-time additional payment to people aspiring to be parents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Singapore Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat. Photo: Heng Swee Keat.

Source: Facebook

While appearing before parliament on Monday, October 5, Singapore Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said the payment will go a long way in increasing the Southeast Asia country's population and birthrate that has for years been at an all-time low.

According to Heng, the COVID-19 pandemic had threatened to exuberate the situation since most people aspiring to be parents had suspended the plans owing to dwindling income and job insecurity occasioned by the scourge.

"We have received feedback that COVID-19 has caused some aspiring parents to postpone their parenthood plans. This is fully understandable, especially when they face uncertainty with their income.

Hence, to help with expenses during this period, we will introduce a one-off additional support for newborns," the Prime Minister told lawmakers.

The new kitty will be on top of KSh 1 million new parents are already enjoying as child support.

Heng, however, did not indicate how much will be wired to new parents under the new arrangement.

"This will be on top of the Baby Bonus Cash Gift, which provides eligible parents up to $10,000 in benefits. Minister Indranee will share more details on the additional support soon," he added.

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Currently, Singapore has a population of about 5.85 million people and a birthrate of 1.14 per woman.

A 2011 report by the Singaporean government blamed the low population on low fertility and an aging population.

In 1964, when Kenya gained independence, the country had about 9.2 million people while Singapore's population stood at 1.8 million at that time.

Fast forward to 2020, Kenya's population has rapidly multiplied to 47.6 million, according to the national population and housing census report released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) in November 2019, while that of Singapore has only crawled to 5.85 million.

As of Wednesday, October 7, some 57,840 people had contracted the coronavirus in Singapore out of which 27 had died and 57,612 had recovered.

In Kenya, the disease had been contracted by 39,586 people as of Tuesday, October 6, which included 27,331 recoveries and 743 deaths.

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.

My father-in-law won't let me bury my wife of 16 years or see my two children- Victor Odonda Tuko TV.

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Refugees arrive on the Island of Lesvos, Greece, March 2 2020.  Image Eurokinissi via ZUMA Wire),Image Eurokinissi via ZUMA Wire),Ritzau Scanpix,

International standards of refugee protection have been severely tested in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agencys, international protection chief said today.

In a key annual address to UNHCRs annual Executive Committee meeting in Geneva, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Gillian Triggs, said measures enacted by governments in response to the pandemic ranged from some of the most humane through to blanket denials of access to asylum and forced returns to danger.

At the height of the pandemic, 168 countries fully or partially closed their borders with about 90 making no exception for people seeking asylum, seriously limiting access to international protection, Triggs said.

Some also returned asylum seekers to their country of origin during this period, risking refoulement of many in need of protection, while others increasingly resorted to the disproportionate use of immigration detention.

Particularly shocking has been the denial of disembarkation of boats carrying asylum seekers adrift in the Mediterranean and Andaman Sea  contrary of course to that maritime tradition of rescues of those at peril, said Triggs.

Triggs also cautioned against efforts by some countries to externalize their asylum processes to third countries.

Externalization can amount to warehousing asylum seekers indefinitely in isolated places, out of sight and out of mind, exposing them to danger and chain refoulement. The abdication of responsibility in this way presents a threat to the global asylum system and should be challenged.

Other states, however, managed to ensure access to their territory despite the pandemic for refugees fleeing to safety.

Today, 113 countries have shown that there are ways to resume their asylum systems, said Triggs, adding that more than 100 countries have also been creative in enabling asylum claims by adopting remote technologies in the processing of claims.

UNHCR has been clear: it is possible to protect against the pandemic and to ensure access to fair and speedy asylum processes. One does not exclude the other. While it is encouraging to see so many countries finding space for asylum seekers despite COVID-19, we urge that all states follow their lead and do so as well.

In addition to health and protection challenges, the pandemic also threatened social and economic rights for those forcibly displaced, with many vulnerable to the vagaries of the informal economy.

They have been among the first to feel the economic impact of lockdowns. Many have lost their jobs, been evicted from their homes and their children have been out of school for many months, said Triggs.

Pressingly, refugees and those displaced have also been at heightened risk of gender-based violence during the pandemic, with some forced into survival sex or child marriages.

Lockdowns and increased family tensions have led to spikes in gender-based violence across the world, with some UNHCR offices receiving 10 times the usual number of calls for protection. In a timely response to the shocking global spikes of this phenomena, Triggs advised the Executive Committee that UNHCR will shortly issue its first ever policy on Gender-Based Violence.

UNHCR offices also reported increasing incidents of discrimination, stigmatization or xenophobia against refugees and displaced people, further exacerbating tensions with local communities. The levels of desperation among those displaced as a result of the pandemic also led to unpredictable pendular movements with some leaving and returning to their countries of origin.

While the pandemic tested global commitment to protecting the forcibly displaced, Triggs said that the response to COVID-19 highlighted the importance of the values of solidarity and inclusion, enshrined in the Global Compact on Refugees, in meeting these challenges.

The virus does not distinguish between legal status or nationality. Access to health services cannot depend on citizenship or visa conditions, Triggs said. Another lesson learned over these last few months is that we know the pandemic will affect all of us. We can no longer exclude people on the basis of their legal status. The future must be one of inclusion and shared responsibility, said Triggs.

The Global Compact on Refugees has provided us with a vision and the strategies to meet these challenges.

Agreed by 181 states in 2018, the Compact promotes the principle of solidarity sharing in the responsibility to protect refugees and those forcibly displaced. More than 1,400 pledges were made by states, civil society, NGOs, refugees, businesses and others at the Global Refugee Forum in December last year, to translate it into action.

With COVID-19 further impacting the already scarce number of refugee resettlement places, and with voluntary repatriation prospects limited, Triggs also urged more international support for social inclusion in refugee hosting countries, including in social services, education systems and employment markets.

For more information on this topic, please contact:
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Press secretary of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia Anna Naghdalayan has denied the information that tomorrow a meeting will be held between the Armenian and Azerbaijan Foreign Ministers, ARMENPRESS reports Nanghdalyan wrote on her Facebook page.

The information spread in the media that tomorrow, on October 8, there will be a meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan do not correspond to the reality. No such meeting is scheduled.

Armenia has a firm position that there cannot be a situation when negotiations are held at the same time of when military operations are underway against Artsakh and Armenia. The imperative for this moment is the cessation of the large-scale military aggression of Azerbaijan against Artsakh, Naghdalyan wrote, adding that the Foreign Minister of Armenia is in permanent contact with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs and the representatives of the Co-chair countries.

Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey , unleashed war against Artsakh on September 27. Turkey, in addition to various types of assistance to Azerbaijan, including using Turkish air force against Artsakh and Armenia, has also deployed thousands of mercenaries and terrorists from Syria in Azerbaijan to fight against Artsakh.

So far the Armenian side has reported 320 casualties among the military and 21 civilians, Azerbaijans manpower losses are nearly 4000, which includes both servicemen from the regular Azerbaijani army and terrorists.

President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan called for an new coalition against international terrorism on October 6.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
07.10.2020 LISTEN

Some Civil Society Organizations opposed to the controversial Agyapa Royalties deal have welcomed government's decision to suspend the deal's Initial Public Offering (IPO).

This comes after the Finance Ministry served notice that government will not proceed with the IPO until the Special Prosecutor concludes the ongoing corruption risk assessment on the deal.

Agyapa Royalties was supposed to have been listed on the London Stock Exchange in September 2020.

Commenting on the latest development, leader of the Alliance of Civil Society Organizations working in Extractive, Anti-Corruption and Good Governance, Dr Steve Manteaw, told Citi Business News the decision is a step in the right direction.

The announcement of the suspension of the attempt to list Agyapa on the London Stock Exchange through an IPO is welcoming. Its a step in the right direction. Its a victory for Ghana in the sense that a lot of the times, when we set up institutions of state, particularly the accountability institutions and expect them to fulfil their mandate, they will often sit aloof and not act when they need to act unless theyve been ordered to do so by a higher authority. But in this particular case, we find that the Special Prosecutor out of his own initiative has intervened to investigate the numerous corruption risk allegations being raised by citizens. That is quite proactive on his part and is commendable, he said.

Despite the turn of events, the CSOs insist government must engage a lot more on the deal.

But going forward, the issues to be investigated by the Special Prosecutor are not all the concerns that we have as citizens. Our concern was on some of the corruption risks; but also, on the basis of the valuation of the mineral royalty that lies at the heart of this transaction. And we think that the royalty has been undervalued so this requires some engagement to come to what will represent a fair value of our mineral royalties. Theres also the issue about the choice to this model to optimize our value from our mineral royalties. We dont think this is the most prudent model to go for.

IPO put on hold

The Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, wrote to the Finance Ministry urging it to suspend the issuance of the IPO pending the receipt of crucial documents to assist with the corruption risk assessment.

The Ministry of Finance, in agreement that more transparency is necessary to bolster the integrity of the already controversial deal, served notice that government will not proceed with the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the Agyapa Royalties deal until the Special Prosecutor concludes the assessment on it.

In a letter signed by Deputy Finance Minister, Charles Adu Boahene, and sighted by Citi Business News, the Ministry said the initial plan to launch the IPO in September is currently on hold.

The Finance Ministry further assured that it was ready to cooperate with the anti-graft office.

Meanwhile, the Alliance of Civil Society Organisations working in Extractive, Anti-Corruption and Good Governance had earlier pledged that it will continue to kick against the deal despite the move by the Special Prosecutor to get the implementation process suspended.

---citinewsroom
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is 'trying to reinstate the Turkish empire' with 'terrorist attacks' supporting Azerbaijan in Karabakh, Armenia's Prime Minister has claimed.

Nikol Pashinyan said the actions of Turkey and Azerbaijan in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region formed part of the continuation of Armenian genocide.

More than 300 have now died in the renewed fighting in and around the mountain enclave, which under international law belongs to Azerbaijan but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.

Azerbaijan says Azeri cities outside the conflict zone have also been attacked in the deadliest flare up in more than 25 years, taking the fighting closer to territory from which pipelines carry Azeri gas and oil to Europe.

'What we are facing is an Azeri-Turkish international terroristic attack,' Pashinyan said today.

'To me there is no doubt that this is a policy of continuing the Armenian genocide and a policy of reinstating the Turkish empire.'

The Armenian genocide refers to the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has accused Turkey of 'international terrorism' in its support for Azerbaijan in the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Pashinyan claimed Turkey had a policy of continuing the Armenian genocide and was trying to reinstate its empire

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has changed the dynamic of the international response to the conflict by taking a more active role. Previously, Russia was the main player, which along with the UK, US and France, is a guarantor of the 1994 ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One.

However, it contests the figures and denies that the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.

The fresh clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan broke out on September 27, re-igniting a decades-old conflict between the ex-Soviet neighbours over Karabakh and drawing in powerful regional players Russia and Turkey.

Karabakh, a region within Azerbaijan, has been under the control of ethnic Armenians since a full-scale separatist conflict ended in 1994.

Some 30,000 people were killed and one million more displaced during that time.

Since the September flare up, neither side has shown any sign of backing down.

Both countries seem to be ignoring international calls for a ceasefire and a return to long-stalled negotiations on the region.

Pashinyan also accused Turkey of 'encouraging and inciting' the conflict in a recent interview with Sky News.

Prior to this most recent flare up, Russia was the main international force involved in the conflict but Turkey - which actively supports Azerbaijan and has a long history of bad blood with Armenia - has taken a greater interest.

On Wednesday, Iran, which neighbours both Armenia and Azerbaijan, warned that the fighting could trigger a regional war.

A man walks among debris from damaged buildings from recent shelling during a military conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, in the city of Ganja, Azerbaijan

Shelling from the most recent flare-up has damaged buildings and killed civilians in the region. More than 300 people are reported to have been killed though the real number of deaths is thought to be higher

Pashinyan's claims of 'international terrorism' relate to reports that Turkey has transported mercenaries from Syria to support Azerbaijan in the conflict.

Turkey denies the reports.

The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh dates back to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly muslim Azerbaijani's boiled over as the republics became independent nations.

A 1994 cease-fire left Armenian and Azeri forces facing each other across a demilitarised zone, where clashes were frequently reported.

International mediation efforts have brought little visible progress since then.

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.

An Armenian soldier fires an artillery piece during fighting with Azerbaijan's forces in self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh

Karabakh, a region within Azerbaijan, has been under the control of ethnic Armenians since a full-scale separatist conflict ended in 1994. Each side blames the other for the inability to resolve the conflict in the region, which is within Azerbaijan

Fighting periodically breaks out around Nagorno-Karabakh's borders.

The clashes are often deadly, notably in 2016 and this July.

Since the new fighting erupted last month, dozens have been killed and wounded in apparent shelling by both sides.

Each country blames the other for the failure to resolve the conflict.

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 the Azeris, fellow Muslims and ethnic brethren to Turks.

Iran has been calling for calm.

Meanwhile, the United States, France and Russia are intended be guarantors of the long-stalled peace process, under the auspices of the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
AzureSeq-200 CE In our lab the AzureSeq-200 CE test provided fully concordant results with those obtained with classic qPCR tests. If we implement it, the turnaround time for reports will be shortened significantly.

Global molecular diagnostics company Omixon, headquartered in Budapest with US offices in Cambridge, MA, announce the launch of Omixon AzureSeq-200 CE IVD kit for the detection of novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR. The AzureSeq-200 CE IVD technology uses a revolutionary workflow that detects viral RNA without RNA-extraction. To our knowledge, this is the first CE-marked, qPCR method clinically validated for direct viral detection without RNA extraction and without any specialized closed system.

Omixon signed an exclusive licensing agreement with SeqOnce Biosciences to CE-mark and distribute the AzureSeq-200 CE IVD RT-PCR kit in Europe, Middle East and Africa. The AzureSeq-200 CE IVD is the first in vitro diagnostic kit introduced to the European, Middle Eastern and African market that does not require RNA extraction without proprietary closed systems. Omixon carried out the validation of the AzureSeq-200 CE IVD kit to determine its sensitivity, specificity and limit of detection to conform to the conformity assessment for in vitro diagnostic use.

The standard way of PCR, generally applied for the identification of SARS-CoV-2 virus detects

RNA extracted from the sample. RNA extraction is time consuming (takes several hours) thus requiring a greater amount of human resources, as well as being reagent intensive and expensive. Specific reagents are required, which are expensive and often in short supply these days. For these reasons, there is an urgent need for a qPCR method using original specimens without RNA extraction. In our lab the AzureSeq-200 CE IVD test provided fully concordant results with those obtained with classic qPCR tests. If we implement it, the turnaround time for reports will be shortened significantly, says Professor dr. Barna Vasarhelyi, Director of the Institute for Laboratory Medicine at Semmelweis University.

While Omixon maintains its focus on transplant patients, we felt that we had the competence to bring the benefits of innovation by SeqOnce to the EMEA market in the form of a regulatory compliant product. Curbing coronavirus transmission is vital for both transplant recipients and as well as for the general population, said Attila Berces, CEO of Omixon.

Read more:

Czech version

Dutch version

French version

German version

Hungarian version

Slovakian version

Contacts at Omixon

Attila Berces, PhD

Chief Executive Officer

attila.berces@omixon.com

+36 70 574 8001

Nora Nagy, MBA

Head of Market Development and Marketing

nora.nagy@omixon.com

+36 30 633 3050

About Omixon

Omixon is a global molecular diagnostics company, headquartered in Budapest, Hungary, with US offices in Cambridge, MA that commercializes disruptive technologies for clinical and research laboratories. Omixons flagship product, Holotype HLA, is the worlds leading NGS-based HLA genotyping product that delivers the most accurate high-resolution HLA genotyping available, and is used in more than 50 hospitals worldwide. Omixons research software, HLA Explore analyzes data from any sequencing technology and determines HLA genotypes from Whole Exome/Genome Sequencing experiments. Omixon maintains an active grant-funded research program with a product pipeline focused on pre- and post-transplantation, and HLA genotyping applications beyond transplantation. For more information, visit http://www.omixon.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 19:54:16|Editor: huaxia

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Image provided by the White House shows U.S. President Donald Trump participating in a phone call with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley from a conference room at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, the United States, on Oct. 4, 2020. (Tia Dufour/The White House/Handout via Xinhua)

"We all need to keep working until we reach a bipartisan agreement that can pass both chambers and be signed by the President," says Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska.



WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement on halting COVID-19 relief talks with Democrats until after the presidential election has drawn criticism from both parties.

"I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business," Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon, claiming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not negotiating in good faith.

"Nancy Pelosi is asking for $2.4 Trillion Dollars to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States, money that is in no way related to COVID-19. We made a very generous offer of $1.6 Trillion Dollars and, as usual, she is not negotiating in good faith," he tweeted.

In a statement responding to Trump's tweets, Pelosi said "walking away from coronavirus talks demonstrates that President Trump is unwilling to crush the virus."

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Oct. 1, 2020. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

"Once again, President Trump showed his true colors: putting himself first at the expense of the country, with the full complicity of the GOP Members of Congress," she said, adding the White House is rejecting the urgent warnings from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Speaking at a virtual annual meeting held earlier on Tuesday by the National Association for Business Economics, Powell urged policymakers to provide more relief to households and businesses hurt by the pandemic, warning a prolonged slowing economic recovery could trigger typical recessionary dynamics.

"At this early stage, I would argue that the risks of policy intervention are still asymmetric. Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses," he said.

"Over time, household insolvencies and business bankruptcies would rise, harming the productive capacity of the economy, and holding back wage growth," said the Fed chief.

Joe Biden, 2020 Democratic nominee and former U.S. vice president, also slammed on Tuesday Trump's decision to suspend talks on COVID-19 relief, saying the president "never even really tried to get a deal" for the struggling Americans amid the pandemic.

U.S. Democratic presidential nominee and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (2nd R) and his wife Jill Biden pay their respects to the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as her casket lies in state in the Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Sept. 25, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Pool via Xinhua)

"Make no mistake: if you are out of work, if your business is closed, if your child's school is shut down, if you are seeing layoffs in your community, Donald Trump decided today that none of that -- none of it -- matters to him," Biden said in a statement.

Apart from Democrats, at least three Republican members of Congress have immediately blasted Trump's announcement.

Republican John Katko from New York said he strongly urges Trump to rethink the move.

"I disagree with the President. With lives at stake, we cannot afford to stop negotiations on a relief package. The Problem Solvers Caucus has a proposal that both sides agreed on and can bring negotiators back to the table," he tweeted.

Senator Susan Collins from Maine in a statement published Tuesday called Trump's decision "a huge mistake," saying she has already been in touch with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, one of the chief negotiators, and with several of her Senate colleagues.

Photo taken on Sept. 9, 2020 shows the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Also on Tuesday, Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska tweeted that she strongly believes "negotiations should continue."

"We all need to keep working until we reach a bipartisan agreement that can pass both chambers and be signed by the President," she said.

Mnuchin and Pelosi have resumed negotiations over the relief package in recent days, but the talks have so far yielded no deal, with significant differences remaining in key areas such as aid to state and local governments.

The Democrats-controlled House last week passed a 2.2-trillion-U.S.-dollar COVID-19 relief bill. However, some Senate Republicans previously signaled that they are not willing to support any package that costs over 1.5 trillion dollars to salvage the economy reeling from the pandemic.

Economists, as well as Federal Reserve officials, have argued that more fiscal relief is needed to sustain the economic recovery, warning of dire consequences if further fiscal support is not provided in time. 
Residential buildings were damaged by Azerbaijans shelling of Stepanakert, the capital of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

Photos of these buildings were posted on the Facebook page of the Armenian Unified Infocenter.

"Stepanakert, 06.10.2020. Stepanakert is continuously being shelled by the Azerbaijan|i Armed Forces. These photos were taken minutes ago. A 2-story residential house has been completely turned into ruins, it added.

Earlier, Artsrun Hovhannisyan, a representative of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia, said that the adversary was shelling Artsakhs Stepanakert and Shushi.

On September 27, the Azerbaijani armed forces launched a large-scale attack against Artsakh, targeting the civilian population, too.

On the same day, martial law was declared both in Armenia and Artsakh.
The National Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Samuel Ofosu Ampofo says the NDC will initiate processes to review sentences of jailed illegal miners and pardon those who merit it.



Hundreds of illegal miners mostly Ghanaians were thrown into jail in the heat of the governments fight against illegal mining in the country. Some families contended their relatives were wrongfully jailed having been rounded up in a swoop by Operation Vanguard Taskforce, a joint security body tasked to clamp down on culprits.



In May 2019 for instance, family members of four (4) illegal miners  Kwaku Ampaabeng,32, Kwabena Apaw,39, Evans Ahenkorah,33, and Yaw Effah Boateng,51  all residents of Akim Oda Nkwanta and Akim Apinamang jailed four years each and fined Ghc24,000 by the Koforidua Circuit Court accused government of discrimination in punishing illegal miners as Chinese culprits are left off the hook.



Beatrice Kwakyewaa, wife of one of the convicts told Starr News whiles in tears at the Court that my husband whom I have five children with is among those jailed. He was not even mining. Government has left the Chinese to go free while he jails his own citizens. We are heartbroken on our own land.



Addressing a mini durbar at Akyem Takorase in the Akwatia Constituency as part of the NDCs runningmate tour of the Eastern Region, Mr Ofosu Ampofo criticised the Akufo-Addo-led government for the discriminatory approach in handling the galamsey issue.



He assured NDC government will look into cases of all jailed illegal miners, review and grant Presidential pardon to those who deserve it.



Ofosu Ampofo stated the NDC will also ensure that portions of large mining concessions given to individuals who are not ready to mine are released to eligible small scale miners in various mining communities to mine in adherence to safe environmental protocols.



The Vice-Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang on Monday begun a five-day campaign tour of the Eastern Region.

She started the tour at Asuogyaman, Lower Manya Krobo, Upper Manya Krobo and Yilo Krobo and Okere constituencies on the first day.



On Tuesday she continued to Asene-Manso-Akroso, Kade, Akwatia, Lower West Akim, and ended in Koforidua where she met some queen mothers.



She will proceed Wednesday to Abirem, Atiwa East, Fanteakwa North, Abuakwa North,.



She will round up the tour in New Juaben South, New Juaben North, Ayensuano, Upper West Akim and Nsawam-Adoagyiri.





Source: starrfmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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In the United States, one in eight women will develop breast cancer during her lifetime, the National Breast Cancer Foundation reports.

While it is not possible to prevent cancer, there are things you can do to lower the risk of developing it. You can also arm yourself with knowledge about how to catch and suppress it at an early stage.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Health expert shares tips for socially distanced Halloween festivities

Ana Barrera, director of medical imaging for St. Lukes Health-Sugar Land Hospital, recently discussed some warning signs and symptoms. Barrera, who has been in the imaging field for 30 years, said breast cancer awareness has improved significantly through the years.

Its very comforting to know that there are many resources out there for patients now, she said.

Healthy habits

Limiting alcohol consumption, staying active, drinking plenty of water throughout the day, not smoking and keeping a healthy weight will lower the risk of developing breast cancer.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Community leaders launch initiative to promote diversity through art, education

When you lower the risk of breast cancer, the survival percentage goes up considerably as well, Barrera said. Research found that lifestyle changes can decrease the risk of breast cancer, even women in high risk groups.

Age and gender are among the strongest risk factors for breast cancer, with most cases occurring in women more than 50. Family history is another; women with close female relatives with breast cancer have a greater than 50 percent chance of developing breast cancer.

If there's any type of family history of cancer on the maternal or paternal side, its always good to be hyper vigilant, Barrera said. Yes, it is more of a prevalence on the maternal side. But you cant dismiss any history on the paternal side either.

Women with no family history of cancer should start getting regular mammograms after the age of 40.

It is not uncommon to have mammograms before the age of 40 if you have a family history of breast cancer, she said. So, 40 is a starting guideline for women. And if in between the annual screening mammograms, you feel something is not right, don't wait. Come in, see your clinician and work that up.

Barrera reiterated the importance of keeping appointments and performing breast self-exams at home. Many have been putting off scheduled mammograms and screenings in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Sugar Land area is very blessed to have many wonderful clinicians, Barrera said. At CHI St. Luke's Health, we're taking extraordinary measures for the safety of the patients as well.

Early detection

When cancer is caught early, there are more treatment options available and a higher chance of survival. The point of screening for breast cancer is to detect it before it causes symptoms, like a lumps, pain or discoloration. Most women go to a doctor after they start noticing abnormalities.

Different people have different symptoms of breast cancer, said Barrera. Some people do not have any signs or symptoms at all. It is important to pay attention to the warning signs of breast cancer.

Abnormalities include lumps, hardness, redness, dimpling, dry or flaky skin, nipple retraction, pain, nipple discharge or any kind of swelling or irritation.

If you feel a lump in your breast, you should call your doctor and make an appointment if needed, Barrera said. You shouldnt wait or put it off out of fears of contracting the virus.

juhi.varma@hcnonline.com
MUMBAI: Maharashtras ruling party Shiv Sena has announced that it will field a candidate to take on former Bihar police chief Gupteshwar Pandey in the upcoming Bihar assembly election 2020.

It may be recalled that Pandey had raised questions over Mumbai Polices probe into Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death and later joined the ruling Janata Dal (United) after taking voluntary retirement from the service.

Talking to reporters, Shiv Sena leader Anil Desai alleged that Pandey used Sushant Singh Rajputs death case for political advantage.

Not just Maharashtra but the entire nation saw his theatrics [in the Rajput case]. Now he has joined JD (U) and is going to contest from Buxar. Our simple Shiv Sainik who will contest against him will give him a tough fight, the Shiv Sena leader said.

Live TV

Pandey is expected to contest the elections on a JDU ticket. Desai further said that the party has begun its preparations for the Bihar assembly elections after getting a nod from party chief Uddhav Thackeray.

The Maharashtra-based party is likely to contest on 50 assembly seats in Bihar that go to the polls in three phases from October 28.

Though Uddhav Thackerays party does not have a formidable voter base outside Maharashtra, the party has been contesting elections in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar, and Goa.

Bihar with 243 assembly seats will go to polls in three phases: October 28, November 3 and November 7. The results will be declared on November 10.
TAIPEI (dpa-AFX) - Taiwan's trade surplus increased in September as exports rose and imports declined, figures from the Ministry of Finance showed on Wednesday. The trade surplus increased to US$7.136 billion in September from US$3.151 billion in last year. Economists had expected a surplus of $5.20 billion. In July, the trade surplus was $6.466 billion. Exports rose 9.4 percent year-on-year in September, following an 8.3 percent growth in August. Economists had expected an increase 6.6 percent. Imports declined 5.4 percent annually in September, after a 8.6 increase in the preceding month. Economists had forecast a rise of 3.0 percent. Exports of parts of electronic products, information, communication and audio-video products, plastic and rubber, and articles thereof grew in September, while those of base metals and related products, and machinery declined. Imports of parts of electronic product gained in September, while those of machinery, chemicals, information, communication and audio-video products decreased. Exports to Mainland China and Hong Kong and U.S.A. increased, while shipments to ASEAN, Japan and Europe declined in September. In the January to September period, exports rose 2.4 percent, while imports fell 0.7 percent from a year ago. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
The Democratic candidate for Senate from North Carolina, Cal Cunningham, sent repeated suggestive texts and held at least one intimate encounter in an extramarital relationship that continued through at least July, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.

Cunningham, a married father of two and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, has been locked in a tight race with current North Carolina senator Thom Tillis, a Republican, as Democrats attempt to flip the Senate in their favor. Cunningham is currently leading in polls by over five points, according to RealClearPolitics polling averages.

However, the race was upended last week after the conservative publication NationalFile.com reported that Cunningham exchanged extramarital sexts with Arlene Guzman Todd, a public relations strategist from California. This story broke shortly before Tillis announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

The two engaged in an intimate encounter in July, Guzman Todd confirmed in an interview with the AP. The outlet also reported previously undisclosed messages between them.

Guzman Todd texted friends to say she had the intimate encounter with Cunningham at his home in North Carolina, and that the experience was weird. She also complained that the candidate paid her too little attention.

Im just going to send his opponent his naked photos. That will teach him, Guzman Todd wrote. In another message, she wrote He knows [that I] can tank his campaign.

Other messages obtained by a North Carolina NBC affiliate, WRAL News, were more explicit.

I just want to [expletive] him one last time and break his heart, Guzman Todd wrote.

A few months back, I displayed a lapse in judgment by engaging in a relationship with Cal Cunningham during a period of marital separation, Guzman Todd said in a statement. She apologized for the pain and embarrassment, and disrespect Ive caused to my immediate family, loved ones, and everyone affected by this situation.

Story continues

Senator Tillis told WRAL that Cunningham should explain his actions.

Im sad for his wife and his teenage children, Tillis said. Cal Cunningham owes everybody an explanation for two revelations over the past week. I think North Carolinians deserve it.

Cunningham did not immediately react to the new details revealed about his relationship. On Friday, Cunningham said he would take complete responsibility for sending sexually suggestive text messages to Guzman Todd.

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. I ask that my familys privacy be respected in this personal matter, the candidate said.

The Cunningham campaign confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that the candidate would remain in the race, although he canceled a planned town-hall meeting and has not posted on social media since news of the extramarital relationship broke.

Since testing positive, Senator Tillis has continued to campaign and give interviews remotely.

More from National Review
Tanaiste Leo Varadkar was recently lobbied during a visit to Naas on the vital role that gyms play in the physical and mental well-being of a community and that they must be prioritised during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Noel Murphy, who is Group Operations Manager of K Leisure in Naas, Newbridge and Athy, said he impressed upon the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment that the importance of the fitness and leisure sector must be considered when imposing further public health restrictions.

Mr Varadkar visited Kildare on September 14 to announce new business supports and to declare the county was open for business after it exited a second lockdown period due to an increase in Covid-19 cases.



Mr Varadkar announced a new scheme  the Micro-Enterprise Assistance Fund to help businesses with fewer than 10 employees, which are ineligible for existing grants.

Mr Murphy said: We were delighted to have the Tanaiste. He has an interest in gyms and the technology involved in the equipment and K Leisure would be considered cutting edge in that regard.

But I took the opportunity to lobby hard on behalf of the fitness industry because were a unique sector compared to other sectors.

Gyms contribute to maintaining the physical and mental well-being of the community.

Mr Murphy said that there have been no Covid-19 clusters in Irish gyms which by their nature are a controlled environment and users are very responsible in terms of hygiene etiquette.

He added: I said to the Tanaiste that if any further restrictions are being planned, that gyms should have a special exemption given their importance compared to other sectors or industries.

Gym members tend to take ownership of their own behaviour and clean and sanitize as they go.

There have been no significant clusters in gyms in Ireland and the experience in the UK is similar.

K Leisure has been reduced to between 30% and 40% of its business since the first national lockdown in March.

The membership accounts of many members have been frozen but these account can be reactivated as soon as they wish to come back and consumer confidence returns to the economy.

Speaking from K Leisure in Naas, Kildare, the Tanaiste said: The past few months have been extremely difficult for businesses across the country and especially for the people of Kildare who have had to endure further restrictions.

Those actions were necessary at the time.

They helped turn the tide against the spread of the virus.

Open for Business

I know they also came with an economic impact and that businesses have been under serious pressure over the past few weeks.

Kildare is fully open for business, in line with public health guidelines.

Today were announcing a Fund which will help businesses, not eligible under our other schemes with the costs of re-opening.

While many businesses have benefitted from the Restart Grant Plus and other government schemes, this is for small businesses with up to 10 staff that have not been eligible to any scheme to date.

It is recognition of the difficulties in adapting to Covid-19 that they have had. Now is the time to shop local and I encourage everyone to think of their local business owner when doing their weekly shop or looking to buy something.

As part of the July Stimulus, funding is also being increased to local enterprise offices to extend existing programmes, such as the Lean for Micro programme to all businesses employing less than 10.

This scheme is designed to encourage Local Enterprise Office clients to adopt Lean business principles in their businesses to increase performance and competitiveness.

Interested businesses can apply directly to their Local Enterprise Office.

Applications from Kildare, Laois and Offaly are already prioritised for funding under all existing Schemes.

Eligibility criteria

The initial 2m for the Micro-Enterprise Assistance Fund is being provided under the July Stimulus for LEO clients that meet strict criteria.

Businesses impacted by a 30% reduction in turnover due to Covid-19 restrictions or downturn in trade will be eligible provided they commit to reopening and to hiring and sustaining employment.

The grant will be based on the amount of vouched additional expenditure from the 14th of September.

Employers will be eligible if they have between one and up to 10 full-time employees or have a commercial focus, have an up to date tax compliance certificate and within eligible sectors.

Businesses already in receipt of the Governments Restart/Restart Plus Grant, Failte Ireland Restart Plus scheme or the DEASP Enterprise Support Grant for Small Business are excluded from the scheme.
The Government is drafting second economic relief packages aimed at assisting the national economy, especially businesses, in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Many businesses complain they have failed to have an acess to the first economic relief package.





The resurgence of the SARS-COV-2 virus in late July dealt a blow to production and business, as well as tourism services. According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), the disease will continue to be complicated in its nature and it remains unknown when the global economy will completely recover.

Therefore, it is currently very important to propose swift solutions and policies in order to cushion the impact of COVID-19, maintain production, and take advantage of opportunities in an effort to reboot the economy in a rapid manner and at a low cost.

First packages prove unsatisfactory

Following the introduction of the first wave of relief packages several months ago, the Government has been drafting a series of second packages aimed at assisting local businesses amid the current crisis.

During the first COVID-19 outbreak that hit Vietnam earlier this year, the Government endorsed three aid packages worth approximately VND500 trillion, with a specific focus on financial and monetary policies, tax cuts, and social welfare.

Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung, a senior economic expert, saying the Governments policies are appropriate, they are fragmented





Despite this, experts say the disbursement of the three packages has been at a snails pace, affecting the recovery plans of local enterprises. Statistics indicate that only VND17 trillion out of the VND62 trillion social welfare relief package has been disbursed so far.

Businesses have welcomed the Governments VND180 trillion tax cut relief package, but have noted that the package is essentially meaningless as it only applies to businesses that operate at a profit.

Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung, former director of the Central Institute of Economic Management, a member of the Prime Ministers Economic Advisory Group, says that although the Governments policies are appropriate, they are fragmented.

In fact the number of businesses benefitting from the relief package is limited. For example, only businesses that have still operated profitably are eligible for the tax deferral policy. By contrast it does not help those operating without profit, or even those facing losses, he explains.

What conditions matter?

Businesses are in dire need to weather the COVID-19 crisis





According to the expert, although the policies are very good ethically, the conditions necessary to enjoy the policies are impractical, to the point they may even have a negative effect. For example, with regard to firms that have laid off 50% of their workforce or lose 50% of their assets, it will take plenty of time in order to evaluate their status, when they are in dire need of immediate support to recover.

Our main goal is to help businesses maintain operation, but with such conditions, businesses might try to downsize their workforce to take advantage of the policy, Dr. Cung notes.

Sharing Dr. Cungs view, To Hoai Nam, Secretary General and Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Association, points out that the Governments policies are correct, although it is dependent on the ministries to set relevant conditions.

For example, the State Bank has issued Circular 01, assigning commercial banks to implement business support policies. However, banks are independent legal entities, whose credit ratings and operations are different, so the application of the Circular is also different. Therefore, some banks have followed instructions well while some others have not, Nam elaborates.

Second wave of relief packages

According to Dr. Cung, in order to build a second wave of economic support packages, the Government should review the implementation of the first round of packages and take into account the years major economic indicators.

This time the Government is expected to offer tax exemptions and this will definitely cause a large budget deficit. There are two ways to do this. Firstly, the Government should calculate the total support amount for the economy, then determine an appropriate level of budget deficit. Secondly, the Government should determine the ratio of budget deficit and then consider the level of support, Dr. Cung articulates.

Dr. Vo Tri Thanh, a senior economic expert, suggests that the second economic relief packages should be quickly introduced and implemented to benefit all but some as in the previous packages.





Dr. Vo Tri Thanh, a member of the National Advisory Council on Financial - Monetary Policies, suggests the new wave of support packages should benefit all businesses, regardless of their size or status, and they should be quickly issued and drastically implemented.

The new policy should be introduced quickly, otherwise it does not help, Dr. Thanh stresses.

Business sector set to be prioritised

Many businesses believe they will soon benefit from the government's latest economic relief packages.





Nguyen Bich Lam, former General Director of the General Statistics Office, says the second relief packages should be introduced in a way that ensures socio-economic stability and creates stable conditions for the economy to recover in a rapid manner in the post-COVID-19 period. Indeed, the primary focus should be on State businesses.

Priority should be given to supporting State-owned businesses that make up more than 60% of the countrys GDP, Lam says. Therefore, the State businesses that amount to 756,000 at present should be given special attention to help them maintain production and weather the crisis.

The veteran statistical expert suggests that authorities should fine-tune conditions for local enterprises to access the credit package. In addition, he says the Government should continue to extend the deadline for corporate income tax and land rent payment, as well as reducing electricity bills for State businesses. VOV

Ministry proposes loosened conditions for access to support package 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.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-08 00:25:22|Editor: huaxia

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LAGOS, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian Navy on Wednesday deployed six warships and 65 gunboats in a joint multinational maritime exercise comprising navies from 16 countries.

The participating countries are the U.S., France, Italy, Brazil, Angola, Benin, Cameroon, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Others are Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Republic of Congo, and Sao Tome and Principe.

Perry Onwuzulike, the Fleet Commander, Eastern Naval Command of the Nigerian Navy, flagged off the four-day exercise tagged "Exercise Grand Africa Nemo 2020".

Onwuzulike said the exercise was aimed at developing the capacity of the various navies for maritime security operations within the Gulf of Guinea countries.

He added that the Exercise Grand Africa Nemo 2020 is a yearly ritual that is organized by the French government in collaboration with the United States and European Union, among others.

The objective of the exercise, according to the naval officer, is for capacity development toward maritime interdiction operations and security operations in the area.

"The exercise is a continuous exercise toward securing the nation's territorial waters and the Gulf of Guinea," he said.

According to Onwuzulike, the exercise would also be used to train troops on the use of the nation's maritime domain awareness infrastructure for surveillance and threat assessment. Enditem
ATLANTA, GA / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Sustainability in business has no doubt become a hot topic over the last decade. Companies who have addressed the need for sustainable business practices have been more positively positioned by their customers and the general public. Those that lag behind can be criticized by those in the public and often feel pressure from the public to adapt their practices and play catch-up. But what exactly does it mean to be a sustainable business?

For Deepak Agarwal, business founder and retail industry leader, business sustainability means committing to integrating a socially and environmentally sustainable mindset into the company strategy.

"No matter the size, it is possible for all businesses to lessen their impact on the environment by deploying a few small but impactful strategies," explained Dee Agarwal.

Formalize Remote Working

The hours employees spend commuting contribute to damaging emissions and negative environmental outcomes. While some companies have pursued work-from-home policies as a way to offer work-life balance and reduce the company's carbon footprint, this focus has been accelerated as a result of the global pandemic.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most companies have made the shift to virtual meetings and work arrangements. The benefits of virtual meetings and working hours on the environment mean less CO2 emissions from transportation. In addition, employees experience benefits including no commute and more time for family or hobbies. Employers also experience benefits from this virtual work environment. For example, with fewer employees in offices, office spaces require less energy and can save the business money on utility costs. As the world finds its new normal, companies should evaluate how virtual meetings and remote working policies can support the brand's sustainability goals.

Offer sustainable products and services

One of the most important ways that retail companies can operate in a sustainable manner is by offering eco-friendly products and services. By making sustainable products easy to find, retailers can play their part in improving environmental conditions.

For example, a few years ago, PETA exposed the practice of dog slaughter to produce leather gloves in China. This led many companies and leaders to take action, including Deepak Agarwal, who made the swift decision to immediately remove the sale of leather gloves and other animal-derived products from his online retailer, Choxi.com.

"After listening to activists speak out about inhumane business practices, we made the decision to pull all animal-derived products from Choxi. These products were not made sustainably or ethically, and it's important that as a brand we provided options consumers could feel good about and that did not harm our natural resources."

Be intentional about sustainability

Lastly, it is most important to be intentional about sustainability in all facets of your business. From the lighting in the office to large-scale operational plans, all parts are equally important in establishing a sustainable business and operating in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner.

Every company will have a different perspective and approach to sustainability. For some, it could be leveraging packaging that is only made from recyclables. For others it could be investing in cleaner energy transport options. Others may find that using their business as a tool of philanthropy can promote both environmental and social sustainability.

"Make sure that sustainability is woven into your business development from inception. If you are intentional at every step, it becomes ingrained in the way you conduct your business, and it becomes easier to continue these practices as your business grows."

Contact:

Andrew Mitchell

Email: media@cambridgeglobalmedia.com

Phone: 404-955-7133

SOURCE: Deepak Agarwal

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609570/Deepak-Agarwal-on-Sustainable-Business-Practices
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Pope Francis mingled with his flock and kissed the hand of a newly-ordained priest while not wearing a mask at a service today.

The 83-year-old pontiff has gone without a face covering during his Wednesday general audiences at the Vatican since they resumed at the start of September.

Francis posed for selfies with followers, chatted intimately with newlywed brides and kissed the hand of one of his brethren as he walked among the masses in the Paul VI Hall.

The limited congregation sat in socially-distanced seating but scrummed against each other for a chance to greet the head of the Catholic church.

Pope Francis kisses the hand of a newly-ordained priest at Paul VI Hall on Wednesday for his weekly general audience

The 83-year-old pontiff wipes his face while chatting to a member of the flock whose mask is slung around her chin

Francis blesses newlyweds who wear protective masks during the general audience - the weekly sermons resumed at the start of September after a pause due to the coronavirus pandemic

The pope chats warmly with newlyweds at the general audience on Wednesday

Faithful Catholics crowd around the pope at the hall in Vatican City on Wednesday

The sermon, given inside due to the rain, was on the theme of prayer which the pope said was not about closing oneself in a room without God 'to put makeup on your soul - that's not prayer, that's fake praying; to pray is to face God and allow yourself to be sent by him to help a brother or sister.'

Francis recalled the story of Elijah, a prophet whose faith was sustained through prayer in the face of great adversity.

Francis said that Elijah 'shows us that there should be no dichotomy in the life of those who pray: one stands before the Lord and goes towards the brothers and sisters to whom He sends us. The proof of prayer is the real love of one's neighbour.'

On Sunday, Pope Francis published his third encyclical, an open-letter to the patriarchs, primates, archbishops and bishops, titled Fratelli Tutti ('All Brothers'), which offered guidance in a world going through the coronavirus crisis.

In one passage he discussed the 'throwaway world' in which we live, where we are too focused on the individual and allow the elderly to be cast aside, relegating them 'to a sad and lonely existence.'

The pope wrote: 'We have seen what happened with the elderly in certain places in our world as a result of the coronavirus. They did not have to die that way. Yet something similar had long been occurring during heat waves and in other situations: older people found themselves cruelly abandoned.

'We fail to realise that, by isolating the elderly and leaving them in the care of others without the closeness and concern of family members, we disfigure and impoverish the family itself. We also end up depriving young people of a necessary connection to their roots and a wisdom that the young cannot achieve on their own.'

Francis greets faithful all wearing protective masks during the General Papal audience, Paul VI Hall, Vatican City

The pope inspects an ornament handed to him by an elderly woman on Wednesday

A nun with her mask draped around her chin takes a selfie a few feet away from the pope as the faithful crowd around

Pope Francis is cheered by faithful as he arrives in the Paul VI hall on the occasion of his weekly general audience at the Vatican, Wednesday

Francis arrives to attend the general audience in the Paul VI hall, in Vatican City on Wednesday

Francis arrives to attend the general audience in the Paul VI hall, in Vatican City

Francis is surrounded by his followers on Wednesday

Pope Francis shakes hands with cardinals as he arrives at the general audience in Paul VI hall

The Pope's weekly audience resumed on September 2, the first since March due to coronavirus.

At previous Wednesday audiences visitors have had their temperatures checked before entering the hall and the audience has been limited to 500.

It is not clear if temperatures were check today, but photos showed that masks were not used by everyone.

The pope arrives accompanied by the guards with the commander of the Swiss guards Christoph Graf and the commander of the Gendarmerie Corps and director of the Security Services Directorate Gianluca Gauzzi Broccoletti
KITCHENER  A Kitchener man has been charged with two counts of possession of child pornography, making child pornography available and voyeurism.

Police launched an investigation in August after receiving information from the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre about a person uploading child pornography.

On Tuesday Waterloo Regional Police executed a search warrant at a Kitchener residence and charged a man, 39.
Thu Duc city

The government has agreed in principle to a Ho Chi Minh City proposal to merge its three eastern districts of Thu Duc, 2, and 9 into one administrative unit, temporarily called Thu Duc city.

To build this city within a city, an unprecedented move in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City was assigned by the government to take cautious step-by-step preparations for the merger.

A public vote was held October 3 and its results will be handed to the committee on October 7 to define how local people think and what they suggest about the plan.

If more than 50 per cent of the local residents say yes to the proposals, local district Peoples Councils will present the result to the City Committee for further process.

According to Huynh Thanh Nhan, director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Home Affairs, the new Thu Duc city will be located across more than 210 sq.km and home more than one million of population. Being the first city of its type in Vietnam, the administrative level of Thu Duc city will also be different from others, said Nhan.

The new city will not have district-level leadership, but instead move down directly to commune level, Nhan added.

Local people meanwhile are expressing their opinion via forms sent to every family, focusing on their vote of agreeing or disagreeing with the merger of the three districts, the name of the new city itself, and their additional suggestions and expectations of the area.

According to Tran Van Bay, Chairman of the Peoples Committee of District 9, many different methods are being carried out in order to ensure local people know about the issue, such as posting the information on local websites and fan pages, and utilising the public radio system.

Nguyen Manh Thi, a 65-year-old living in Thu Duc district, said that the new city will be shaped into an innovative and high-tech city and this format will be a crucial opportunity for the development of the younger generations.

I highly appreciate the plan to set up Thu Duc city. This is a correct policy for Ho Chi Minh City leaders. In order to make this plan come true, firstly, the living standards for local people must be improved, and especially serious issues such as pollution, traffic jams, and flooding must be solved, Thi added.

The plan to combine districts 2, 9 and Thu Duc into one administrative unit and make it an innovative urban area was submitted in May by Ho Chi Minh City Home Affairs Department to the citys Peoples Committee.

It would encompass the hi-tech park in District 9, the university precinct in Thu Duc district, and the new urban area and financial centre on the Thu Thiem Peninsula in District 2, propelling the citys plan to turn itself into a smart city.

At a May meeting with the city, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc had endorsed the project in principle and assigned the Ministry of Justice to guide the city in the next steps to take.

The new combined area is expected to contribute 30 per cent of Ho Chi Minh Citys economic growth, and 7 per cent of Vietnams economic growth.
Military officials in Yerevan said Karabakhs Armenian-backed army repelled another large-scale Azerbaijani attack on its positions at the southernmost section of the Karabakh line of contact. The area bordering Iran has been the epicenter of hostilities in recent days.

Shushan Stepanian, a spokeswoman for Armenias Defense Ministry, said Karabakh Armenian forces killed scores of Azerbaijani soldiers and destroyed two dozen tanks and other armored vehicles with heavy artillery fire.

At 6:30 a.m., after another rocket-artillery fire, the remnants of three oversized enemy brigades fled the battlefield in panic, Stepanian wrote on Facebook.

Azerbaijans Defense Ministry also reported overnight fighting and exchanges of artillery fire along the entire frontline. It said Azerbaijani troops sought to build on successes achieved in previous days.

The reported fighting was accompanied by renewed Azerbaijani shelling of the Karabakh capital Stepanakert which continued through the night. An RFE/RL correspondent in the region reported that the city was again rocked by powerful explosions.

Dozens of rockets had already landed in Stepanakert as well as the nearby town of Shushi earlier this week, causing more deaths and devastation.

According to local officials, 19 Karabakh civilians have been killed and 80 others wounded since the September 27 outbreak of the large-scale hostilities. The fighting has also left two residents of Armenian villages close to the Azerbaijani border dead.

For its part, Azerbaijan has reported extensive Armenian shelling of Azerbaijani cities and villages. Authorities in Baku said on Tuesday that 27 Azerbaijani civilians have died as a result.
A two-page document listing names and addresses of at least 15 protected witnesses, who have given evidence against those arrested for alleged conspiracy in Februarys Delhi riots cases, have inadvertently been included in the polices charge sheet filed in a city court last month.

HT has seen the document but is not revealing the names of the witnesses to protect their identity. The document contains the names and address of protected witness otherwise referred to only by their pseudonyms such as Alpha, Beta, Hector, Delta, Echo, Mike, and others. News of the document was first reported by The Wire on Wednesday.

Pramod Kuswah, the special cells deputy commissioner of police who prepared and submitted the charge sheet, did not respond to repeated calls and text messages from HT. Kuswah is heading the investigation behind the alleged conspiracy. Delhi Police released a statement on Wednesday evening that a court-related document containing the identities of the witnesses was inadvertently included and that they are taking steps for the security and safety of the witnesses.

Other than in this two-page document, these protected witnesses in the 17,000-page charge sheet have been referred to by their pseudonyms in their statements before police and court. Police have claimed that these protected witnesses were insiders/eyewitnesses who saw some of the accused persons such as Pinjra Tod activists Natasha Narwal and Devanagana Kalita, and former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain mobilising the rioters. The accused have denied any wrongdoing. Police had told the court that there was a threat to the witnesses life, hence their identities were protected.

Though the charge sheet is not a public statement, its copies are with the lawyers of the arrested persons since September 21. The copies are also with journalists, and the contents were widely circulated on social media.

The statements were recorded before different judges between March and August, and are admissible evidence during trial. These witnesses appear to hold the key to the polices narrative that the riots were planned at anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protest sites. The accused have maintained that there was no conspiracy.

Experts say the disclosure of the identities of such protected witnesses would not only harm the outcome of the cases but also pose a threat to their lives.

Former top of Uttar Pradesh police, Vikram Singh who was the states director general of police between 2007 and 2008, said: I would not call this inadvertent error. This is the callousness by one of the officers, who was involved in preparing the charge sheet. Too many cooks spoil the broth. When there are too many officers as part of the probe or preparing a document, the weakest one ends up making such a costly mistake. I hope that Delhi Police have taken adequate steps and ensured the protection of those people because they are a part of an important investigation. Their security is polices responsibility now. If anything untoward happens to them, it will be a blot on Delhi Police.

Singh said the police must quickly find a legal recourse and get the witnesses examined. God forbid, even if anything happens to them or they turn hostile, police must quickly find a way to ensure that the case is not affected. Police must fix accountability and find the officer who fumbled and made this mistake.

Advocate Mehmood Pracha, representing Gulfisha Khatoon (one of the arrested persons) in the riot cases, said this was a Himalayan blunder by the police even as he disapproved the statements made by those protected witnesses. First, let me say that this is a biased investigation and the witnesses are fake. They have misused the use of protected witnesses, which will not pass muster during trial. The witnesses will be cross-examined during trial. Secondly, it is a lapse on their part to reveal the names of their so called protected witnesses, he said.

Delhi Police in their statement said, During the course of investigation, it was deemed necessary that the identities of some witnesses should not be disclosed in the public domain. However, a court-related document containing the identities of some of these witnesses has been inadvertently included in the copies of the charge sheet provided to the accused persons as part of compliance of judicial orders. Since the witnesses are court-protected, their identities should not be published. Media is requested to cooperate in this matter. Steps are being taken to ensure the safety and security of these witnesses and to address all concerns in this regard.

At least 53 persons died while 400 others were injured in the 2020 Delhi riots. The clashes started when groups of people -- one supporting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and another opposing it -- clashed near the Jafrabad metro station on the evening of February 23. It snowballed into large-scale Hindu-Muslims clashes in parts of north east Delhi between February 23 and 27. Delhi police have arrested at least 21 persons for conspiring to orchestrate the riots. The arrested persons include prominent faces of the anti-CAA protests such as former JNU student leader Umar Khalid, student activists Sharjeel Imam, Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Safoora Zargar. They have all denied any role in inciting the riots.
"We are pleased to welcome Wingz to Ontario," said Atif Elkadi, ONT's deputy chief executive officer. "We work hard to understand and meet the needs of our customers and the new Wingz service adds nicely to our efforts to deliver a positive, stress-free customer service experience for leisure and business travelers."

Ontario Airport customers can make a Wingz reservation up to two months in advance at a fixed rate and request a driver of their choice.

In addition to California, the San Francisco-based company serves major airports in Florida, Texas, Arizona, Oregon and Washington. Wingz joins Lyft Inc. in providing app-based transportation service at ONT.

About Ontario International Airport

Ontario International Airport (ONT) is the fastest growing airport in the United States, according to Global Traveler, a leading publication for frequent fliers. Located in the Inland Empire, ONT is approximately 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in the center of Southern California. It is a full-service airport which, before the coronavirus pandemic, offered nonstop commercial jet service to 26 major airports in the U.S., Mexico and Taiwan. More information is available at www.flyOntario.com. Follow @flyONT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

About the Ontario International Airport Authority (OIAA)

The OIAA was formed in August 2012 by a Joint Powers Agreement between the City of Ontario and the County of San Bernardino to provide overall direction for the management, operations, development and marketing of ONT for the benefit of the Southern California economy and the residents of the airport's four-county catchment area. OIAA Commissioners are Ontario City Council Member Alan D. Wapner (President), Retired Riverside Mayor Ronald O. Loveridge (Vice President), Ontario City Council Member Jim W. Bowman (Secretary), San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman (Commissioner) and retired business executive Julia Gouw (Commissioner).

OIAA Media Contact:

Steve Lambert, (909) 841-7527 [email protected]

SOURCE Ontario International Airport

Related Links

www.flyontario.com


The global automotive exhaust system market size is expected to grow by USD 5.89 billion during 2020-2024. The report also provides the market impact and new opportunities created due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect the impact to be significant in the first quarter but gradually lessen in subsequent quarters with a limited impact on the full-year economic growth.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005554/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Automotive Exhaust System Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

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The adoption of hybrid vehicles is increasing significantly across the world owing to growing stringency of regulations pertaining to fuel emissions and fuel efficiency. Hybrid vehicles are increasingly becoming popular with many automobile manufacturers launching new hybrid models with advanced technologies. Factors such as economic stability in the US, China, and Europe and the rising demand for alternative fuel vehicles in India, South Korea, and the Middle-East countries have further increased their adoption rates. Hybrid vehicles are prominent adopters of advanced technologies such as exhaust gas recovery systems. Their growing demand is expected to drive the global automotive exhaust system market growth during the forecast period.

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=IRTNTR44780

As per Technavio, the increasing adoption of active exhaust by automotive OEMs will have a positive impact on the market and contribute to its growth significantly over the forecast period. This research report also analyzes other significant trends and market drivers that will influence market growth over 2020-2024.

Automotive Exhaust System Market: Increasing Adoption of Active Exhaust by Automotive OEMs

Automotive OEMs are focusing on the development of active exhaust system technology for high-performance vehicles to enhance exhaust sounds without compromising on regulatory standards. For instance, in 2018, Ford Motor Company introduced the active exhaust system in its model Ford Mustang, which allows the driver to adjust the volume of the exhaust system from mild to moderately loud. During the forecast period, automobile OEMs are expected to expand the availability of such exhaust systems for other models due to growing consumer demand for sophisticated exhaust systems. This trend is expected to boost the growth of the global automotive exhaust system market.

"Other factors such as the growing adoption of advanced Euro standards in emerging economies, and the developments in the field of the automotive catalytic converter will have a significant impact on the growth of the automotive exhaust system market value during the forecast period," says a senior analyst at Technavio.

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Automotive Exhaust System Market: Segmentation Analysis

This market research report segments the automotive exhaust system market by application (passenger cars and commercial vehicles) and geography (APAC, Europe, North America, South America, and MEA).

The APAC region led the automotive exhaust system market share in 2019, followed by Europe, North America, South America, and MEA respectively. During the forecast period, the APAC region is expected to register the highest incremental growth due to the growing penetration of automobiles in countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, ASEAN, and India and revision of emission standards.

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report, such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Request a free sample report

Some of the key topics covered in the report include:

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Competitive scenario

About Technavio

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Opposition politician Tundu Lissu is cheered by supporters upon his arrival at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam yesterday. Mr Lissu spent nearly three years outside the country following the attempt on his life in 2017 in Dodoma.

analysis

Having suppressed the usual channels for expressing grievances, would President Magufuli know if he was unpopular before it's too late?

For many political observers, the outcome of Tanzania's 28 October general election is already known. President John Magufuli will win a second term in office, bolstered by the benefits of incumbency and supported by the country's best-resourced political party, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM).

This confidence derives from the fact that since winning the 2015 election with 58.46%, Magufuli has progressively consolidated his grip on power. His administration has targeted opposition members with intimidation, concocted charges and jail sentences. It has excluded critical voices within the ruling CCM. And, apart from the security forces, it has repressed or co-opted every significant centre of power in the country. As such, the political arena has become so skewed that only one outcome this October seems feasible.

Many of Tanzania's opposition politicians, however, argue otherwise. They insist that, against all the odds, there is still the possibility of a shock result.

Is this merely part of their election strategy or are there convincing reasons behind their notes of caution?

The case for an upset

The premise for the argument that the opposition could win is that the current regime is deeply unpopular but that it remains oblivious of this fact because it has silenced critical views, devalued advice, and restricted the publication of independent statistics such as opinion polls. This view holds that large swathes of the population are quietly frustrated but that having suppressed the usual channels for expressing grievances, the government will only realise this when it is already too late.

Opposition figures also add that there have been some rifts within the CCM and point out that they have enjoyed high attendance at their own rallies. Tundu Lissu, the leading presidential challenger, has been drawing large crowds on the campaign trail even in the northern Lake Zone from which Magufuli hails.

Among other things, the opposition suggests that voters are dissatisfied with the government over its economic policies. During his time in office, President Magufuli has focused on major infrastructure projects. His administration has invested in a standard gauge railway, a 2,115-megawatt hydropower project, the Ubungo flyover and attempted to revive the national airline Air Tanzania. While these projects may yield long-term benefits, the trade-off is that they divert resources from more immediate priorities in the short-term, as the IMF has repeatedly advised the government.

Some opposition figures are therefore presenting the government's investment record as an electoral weakness. Zitto Kabwe, for instance, recently explained that the opposition would be "telling the people that they should let bridges, planes, and flyovers vote for [Magufuli]. Citizens should vote for people who will look after their welfare."

If voters heed this message and take the opportunity of the vote to express their silent discontentment, the argument goes, Tanzania is in for a shock opposition victory.

The case against an upset

While there may be some truth to the opposition's claims, there are perhaps many more reasons to doubt the possibility they can win.

To begin with, the opposition remains fragmented. Despite months of talks, the two leading parties - Chadema and ACT-Wazalendo - have struggled to agree on the nature and scale of their cooperation. As such, both Chadema's Tundu Lissu and ACT's Bernard Membe spent weeks - in September - running separate campaigns. Membe has now gone underground but has not yet endorsed Lissu. Lissu is the most popular and charismatic of the two, but he would need ACT votes, especially in the southern and coastal regions, to strengthen his challenge to Magufuli.

One reason cooperation has proven difficult is a historic mistrust between the two parties' leaders. Another is that both parties need votes to qualify for financial support. In Tanzania, political parties that secure at least 5% of parliamentary votes in all constituencies receive a government subsidy. This support is a lifeline for opposition parties. Two years ago, the main opposition Chadema was receiving around $150,000 a month through this measure, which allowed it to maintain a strong grassroots network.

Although the two parties are expected to formally endorse each other's candidates in the coming weeks, they still face huge obstacles. The National Electoral Commission (NEC) has already disqualified many opposition candidates from running. According to the commission, 160 of parliamentary contestants have now appealed and 66 have had their disqualifications overturned. Nonetheless, this process has skewed the playing field. The ruling CCM did not have any problems registering candidates - including one who was recently convicted of economic crimes. 20 of its nominees will now run unopposed, including Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa.

The CCM also has the advantage of having total control of local leadership following the 2019 local elections. In that ballot, most opposition candidates were similarly disqualified, prompting the opposition to boycott the vote. The ruling party won with 99.9%.

Finally, President Magufuli has all the advantages of incumbency and of commanding Tanzania's biggest political party. He has used these resources to involve popular local musicians such as Ali Kiba and Diamond Platnumz in his rallies, helping increase turnout. And he has included a broad range of party mandarins in his campaign, some of whom belong to powerful peripheral factions. While it is true that some CCM figures have felt marginalised under Magufuli, this suggests there have been some efforts towards reconciliation in time for the October vote.

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Five years ago

In Tanzania's 2015 elections, some people predicted that the CCM was set for an unprecedented defeat. That year, four opposition parties had formed a coalition. They had united behind the well-known figure of Edward Lowassa and had access to significant financial resources.

Ahead of the 2020 elections, the opposition looks significantly weaker, the incumbent's grip on power is tighter, and the freeness and fairness of the poll more threatened. It may be the case that the CCM is less popular than it believes and that the vote will be a surprise to them. But the playing field is so heavily balanced in its favour that the chances of anything but a Magufuli victory are hard to imagine.

Dastan Kweka is a political analyst and development specialist based in Dar es Salaam.
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Linkedin Arya Dipa and Agustinus Hari (The Jakarta Post) Bandung/Manado  Wed, October 7, 2020 21:07 472 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49b2d05 1 National Jobs-law,Omnibus-Law-on-Job-Creation,omnibus-law,protest,omnibus,omnibus-bill Free

Protests over the past few days against the recently passed Job Creation Law have turned violent with clashes between protestors and the police in several regions.

When police attempted to disperse a demonstration on Monday held by hundreds of university students in an industrial area in Cikarang, West Java, the students, mostly from nearby Pelita Bangsa University purportedly struck back using stones and bamboo sticks, tribunnews.com reported.

Cikarang Police chief Adj. Comr. Sukadi said the police had not granted permission for any mass rallies because of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. But they opted to carry on with the protest, thus [the clash happened].

Similar scenes also occurred in Bandung, West Java, on Tuesday where hundreds of people staged a protest in front of the West Java Legislative Council (DPRD) office.

Chaos broke out as protesters managed to knock down the offices front gate and throw stones at the police, who responded with water cannon and tear gas.

Thousands of workers and students across the country have decided to carry on with the protests against the contentious law, despite many arrests.

Scores of protesters from Samarinda and Kutai Kertanegara in East Kalimantan blocked Samarindas main thoroughfare, the Lembuswana intersection, on Wednesday, forcing authorities to divert traffic.

Rally participants, comprising workers and students from at least eight universities in the two cities, called on the government to revoke and reevaluate the law.

A similar mass demonstration was held in Pasar Rebo, East Jakarta. Hundreds of students took to the street to burn tires and wave banners expressing opposition to the law.

The protests were a part of a three-day national strike against the Job Creation Law, which started on Tuesday.

At least nine people were arrested during Tuesdays protest in Bandung for allegedly attacking police personnel.

Weve arrested nine people, in total, from yesterdays incident. They are all students, West Java Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Erdi A. Chaniago told kompas.com on Wednesday.

Fourteen people have also been detained by the Banten Police following a similar protest on Tuesday. They threw stones at our personnel when asked to bring the rally to an end, Banten Police chief Insp. Gen. Fiandar said.

Seventeen Manado State University students were also arrested in Manado, North Sulawesi, on Wednesday, while staging a protest against the Job Creation Law on campus grounds.

From The Jakarta Posts observations, a clash broke out when the Minahasa Police barred students from leaving their campus. The police then appeared to take several of the students into custody.

Minahasa Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Denny Situmorang, however, claimed that no such clash occurred and that the students were not actually arrested.

The 17 students were not arrested, its just part of Operation Yustisi, Denny said, referring to an ongoing joint National Police-Indonesian Military (TNI) operation aimed at monitoring and disciplining the public in relation to health protocols. They have all been let go.

The House of Representatives and the government passed the contentious omnibus bill on job creation into law on Monday, sooner that its original plan to pass the bill on Thursday.

Despite mounting opposition over fears that it will negatively impact the environment and labor rights, the government has insisted that the law is necessary to improve bureaucratic efficiency and to boost business and investment. (vny)
Trudeau, who was on the defensive for much of the summer during an ethics controversy that had pushed down his approval ratings, made the controversial decision in August to seek the suspension of Parliament. He pledged to return with a bold plan for getting through the pandemic and accelerating the economic recovery, which he said he would put to a confidence vote.
The on Wednesday permitted reopening of cinemas, theatres and multiplexes with up to 50 per cent of their seating capacity from October 15.

According to an order issued by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), such establishments will remain closed in COVID-19 containment zones in the city.

The DDMA also allowed all weekly markets to function with immediate effect.

Until now, only two such markets were being allowed in every municipal zone every day.

Taking to Twitter, Chief Minister Arvind Kejrjiwal said that cinema halls will be allowed to reopen from October 15 and they will have to follow all guidelines issued by the central government.

The coronavirus-induced countrywide lockdown was first announced from March 25 and it was extended in phases till May 31. The Unlock process in the country had begun on June 1 with the graded reopening of commercial, social, religious and other activities.

(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.)
Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Chinese foreign ministry both said on Wednesday they are concerned by political unrest taking place in neighboring Kyrgyzstan and hoped for a swift return to stability.

The government there has been toppled in the civil unrest that started Monday.

Russia also gave assurances it was in touch with all the sides in the conflict and hoped that democratic process would be restored.

Those announcements came as the prime minister was forced to quit and recent parliamentary elections were annulled.

Protesters had earlier broken into a hotel where parliament was meeting, resulting the man who could be the next prime minister to flee.

Sadyr Zhaparov had only been freed from prison hours earlier by protesters representing one group to assume the role, but he later confirmed on television he did not yet have the backing of all parties.

?

Cracks have also started to appear in the opposition parties. Those recent elections results sparked their protests -- but now at least three distinct groups have attempted to claim leadership, potentially sparking further tensions.

Kyrgyzstan borders China and also hosts a Russian military base.

There were further scuffles overnight between vigilantes and protesters in the capital Bishkek. They again tried to force their way into government buildings or attacked shops and restaurants, according to local news reports.
RSS affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) has asked Narendra Modi government to cancel the patent granted to Gilead Sciences for Remdesivir, a medicine used for treatment of critical COVID-19 patients, to further reduce its price through generic competition.

The demand from the political and cultural organisation that promotes national self-reliance has come at a time when India and South Africa are seeking waiver of certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement of World Trade Organisation (WTO) to facilitate availability of affordable medical products for effective prevention, containment, and treatment of COVID-19.

Stating that the position taken by India and South Africa at the WTO is the need of the hour, SJM said humanity needs access to affordable medical products to effectively respond to COVID-19.

"India has been a victim of such greed. Gilead Sciences using its wrongly obtained patent to control the competition for Remedsivir. Though Gilead granted seven voluntary licenses to Indian generic companies there is no substantial reduction of prices," says Ashwani Mahajan, national co-convenor, SJM . He complains that as against an estimated cost for a single vial of Remedesivir of less than $1 or Rs 75, the prices in India are between Rs 4,000 and 5,400. "Intellectual Property (IP) protection is the primary reason for this. Further such licenses also incapacitate Indian companies to supply in middle-income countries," Mahajan points out.

In a congratulatory letter to Prime Minister Modi for moving the WTO proposal, SJM says that "various initiatives to facilitate access to medical products for COVID-19 responses such as ACT-Accelerator, COVAX facility or CTAP so far failed to ensure technology transfer and local production." Instead of facilitating technology transfer ACT-Accelerator and COVAX Facility reinforce the IP regime and delay the disseminating of technology, the organisation complains.

Parallel to the WTO proposal, SJM wants India to initiate measures under Section 66 of the Patents Act for the cancelation of the patent on Remdesivir , which it alleges was granted against the provisions of the Indian Patents Act.

"Though so much public money has been channelised for the development of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, the companies who are developing these products are not ready to share the know-how and other IP rights to facilitate generic production. In absence of a large number of manufacturers, it would be impossible to meet the needs of the medical products required for the COVID-19 response. The government should act to put an end to the greed of pharmaceutical transnational corporations," Mahajan stated in his letter to PM.

"SJM urges you to take all the necessary steps for adoption of proposal at the WTO General Council. Towards this purpose, we request you to reach out to all like-minded countries for support and create a broad coalition for adoption of the waiver of certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement," he adds.

Mahajan quotes the Doha Declaration of the WTO to affirm that the TRIPS Agreement does not and should not prevent WTO members from taking measures to protect public health.

The TRIPS flexibilities provided under the Doha Declaration allow member countries "the right to grant compulsory licenses and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which licences are granted, the right to determine what constitutes a national emergency and circumstances of extreme urgency, and the freedom to establish the regime of exhaustion of intellectual property rights".
News Release

From Mental Health Commission of Canada

OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A new national standard championed by the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) to guide policies, procedures, and practices that promote positive student mental health and well-being has been developed for use by post-secondary institutions, starting today.

The National Standard of Canada for Mental Health and Well-Being for Post-Secondary Students is the first framework of its kind in the world. It is designed to enhance and expand strategies already put in place by Canada's universities, colleges, institutes, CEGEPs, and polytechnics as they work to foster positive mental health for students.

"We recognize that the majority of mental illnesses are first diagnosed between the ages of 16 and 24, when many are in or just out of post-secondary education," said Louise Bradley, president and CEO of the MHCC. "Students may be experiencing even higher levels of stress and anxiety as the pandemic unfolds. There is a clear and pressing need. This new national Standard will help post-secondary institutions address this critical societal issue for our young people."

The Standard, which is being released during Mental Illness Awareness Week, is a voluntary set of guidelines created and published by CSA Group, a global leader in standards development, with the support of the MHCC and its funding partners - Bell Let's Talk, The Rossy Foundation, RBC Foundation, and Health Canada.

The evidence-based framework was developed over two years by CSA's expert technical committee and was informed by extensive dialogues from across the country with students, administrators, service providers, health agencies, governments, and individuals with lived experience of mental illness.

The voluntary Standard supports five key outcomes:

greater awareness and reduced stigma around mental health

increased access to student supports, on and off campus

better life and resiliency skills that students can use at school, at work, and in their daily lives

healthier and safer institutional environments

improved opportunities for student success

"Supporting the mental health of Canada's young people is a priority for Bell Let's Talk," said Mary Deacon, chair of Bell Let's Talk. "We're confident the National Standard of Canada for Mental Health and Well-Being for Post-Secondary Students will advance the great work already under way by universities and colleges to provide healthy and safe environments that support student success."

"It's the first national set of guidelines to support good mental health practices on college and university campuses across Canada," added Stephanie Rossy, vice-chair of The Rossy Foundation. "The Standard breaks new ground as institutions work toward the shared goal of better mental health and well-being for all of our students."

"Our commitment to youth mental well-being is focused on prevention and early intervention programs that help provide young people timely access to knowledge, supports, and care - when and where they need it," said Valerie Chort, vice-president of corporate citizenship at RBC. "Through our support of this new national standard, we are proud to be helping post-secondary institutions continue to develop these important resources and supports for students' mental health."

The Standard follows the success of the National Standard on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace, a framework developed by the MHCC and its partners in 2013 to provide a systemic approach to supporting positive mental health in the workplace.

The Standard is based on the firm belief that all of Canada's post-secondary institutions can be change agents in mental health - an objective they are already working toward.

Of the more than 2 million people enrolled in Canadian post-secondary institutions, almost 70% are 24 or under, a demographic particularly susceptible to developing mental health issues.

More than 60 per cent of students felt "more than average" to "tremendous" stress, according to the 2019 National College Health Assessment. More than half felt so depressed they had a hard time functioning, and 16 per cent had seriously considered suicide. Three in four mental illnesses are first diagnosed between the ages of 16 and 24, when many people are in or just out of post-secondary education.

Read what people are saying:

"It's wonderful to see all the initiatives and best practices that we have implemented at Carleton over the years be captured in The National Standard of Canada for Mental Health and Well-Being for Post-Secondary Students. More than ever, mental health and wellness need to be at the core of University life. We would like to thank everyone involved in the development of this national standard as we all work together across the country to enhance the mental health and well-being of our students." -Suzanne Blanchard, vice-president (students and enrolment) at Carleton University.

"Canada's universities are dedicated to supporting the mental health and wellness of their students and are committed to working in partnership to tackle this complex and pervasive issue. We welcome this national Standard as a valuable new tool to help institutions and front-line staff continue their essential work to support student well-being." -Paul Davidson, president of Universities Canada.

"The mental health and well-being of students is of utmost importance to colleges and institutes. We welcome the national Standard as an additional tool to support the existing post-secondary practices and services that help students flourish and be successful." -Denise Amyot, president and CEO of Colleges and Institutes Canada.

"Adapting to post-secondary is challenging under usual circumstances. Creating new relationships, dealing with ongoing financial strain, and constantly being evaluated are a few of the difficulties students can face. The added dynamic of the COVID-19 learning environment adds another layer of stress and uncertainty for students across the country. Now more than ever, we need a cohesive movement to ensure the mental health and well-being of students are considered and supported at every level." -Daniel Major, post-secondary student at Mount Royal University and member of the Standard Technical Committee.

To read the National Standard of Canada, CSA Z2003:20, for Mental health and well-being for post-secondary students, visit https://www.mentalhealthcommission.ca/English/studentstandard.

Related Products

Download the Starter Kit

Watch this video for more information about the Standard

Learn how the Standard was developed

Associated Links

Join the community to access supportive resources available in the Centre for Outreach, Resources, and Engagement (CORE).

About the Mental Health Commission of Canada

The Mental Health Commission of Canada is a catalyst for change. We are collaborating with hundreds of partners to change the attitudes of Canadians toward mental health problems and to improve services and support. Our goal is to help people who live with mental health problems and illnesses lead meaningful and productive lives. Together we create change. The Mental Health Commission of Canada is funded by Health Canada.

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Media Relations: Mental Health Commission of Canada, 613-683-3748, media@mentalhealthcommission.ca
The U.S.-Colombia relationship is vital to the Western Hemisphere and its security and the freedom of all peoples in the region, said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on a recent visit to Colombia.

Colombia has played a critical role in caring for refugees from Venezuela during the difficult days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Your support of Interim President Juan Guaido and a democratic transition for a sovereign Venezuela free of malign influence from Cuba, from Russia, from Iran, is incredibly valued, stated Secretary Pompeo.

The Colombian people desire a lasting and just peace in their nation. The violence on the part of FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] dissidents, the ELN [National Liberation Army], or any other terrorist or criminal group is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated, nor can the actions of regimes like Maduros, which provide safe haven, aid and indeed comfort to those terrorists, said Secretary Pompeo.

Colombia has demonstrated leadership on confronting the dangers posed by Hezbollah by designating it as a foreign terrorist organization. Such designations give governments the power to arrest members, freeze their assets, restrict their freedom of movement, and to make it harder to plot and carry out terrorist attacks. Putting maximum pressure on Iran and its proxies is essential to peace and security for free peoples everywhere, emphasized Secretary Pompeo.

The United States and Colombia are also united in their fight against illegal narcotics, said Secretary Pompeo:

Colombian law enforcement, even in these difficult times, has stepped up cocaine interdiction and eradication. You manually cleared 57 percent more coca fields in 2019 than in the year prior, 2018.The U.S. is here to help by sharing resources, expertise, and we applaud the work that you have done.

The United States is Colombias largest trading partner, accounting for 34 percent of Colombias total trade. The U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement aims to improve the investment environment, eliminate tariffs and other barriers to U.S. exports, expand trade, and promote economic growth for both countries .Secretary Pompeo announced that the U.S. will expand its private sector investment in rural Colombia, including through the U.S. Development Finance Corporation. He said, We want to make sure there is a solution, an alternative to coca crops.

Secretary Pompeo confirmed that the U.S. and Colombia are powerful forces for good in the Americas.
Helen Mirren won an Oscar for her portrayal of the sovereign in The Queen while Claire Foy and Olivia Colman both took home Golden Globe trophies for their portraits of Her Majesty in The Crown.

However, British director Roger Michell, who won awards for directing Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in Notting Hill  and acclaim at the recent Venice Film Festival for The Duke starring Mirren and Jim Broadbent  has begun work on Elizabeth, what he termed a 'celebratory, irreverent collage of her extraordinary life', using archive footage to chronicle the 94-year-old monarch's life.

'It's a truly cinematic mystery tour, up and down the decades; playful, poetic, funny, disobedient, ungovernable, affectionate, inappropriate and mischievous,' he said.

But,'in awe,' he added.

British director Roger Michell is appealing to the public to contribute footage of the Queen for a new film about her life. Pictured: Queen with Prince Charles at Windsor Castle in 1969

Award-winning director Michell said he's especially looking for forgotten reels of film taken on Super-8 cameras. Pictured: Princess Diana, the King of Malaysia and the Queen in 1993

Michell explained that the film is looking to show the people's view of the 94-year-old monarch. Pictured: The Queen and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1999

Michell with producer Kevin Loader, have signed top editor Joanna Crickmay and archivist Emily Thomas, who will spend the next six months with Michell poring over reels of film.

'It's a lovely thing to do for the next several months,' said Michell, whose mini-series The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies garnered top prizes at the 2015 BAFTA TV Awards.

Michell said he welcomed help from the public as well.

'We want to appeal for any footage that quote unquote "ordinary" people have of their Queen. Footage particularly on Super-8 cameras ; those forgotten reels of film in your loft with a bit of footage of the Queen as she came to open your local whatever it was,' he told Mail Online today.

'The people's view of the Queen is what we're looking for,' said Michell. 'She is, after all, the people's Queen.'

Work on the Elizabeth documentary has already unearthed a treasure, Michell added.

'It's about 93 years old and it shows her dad (Prince Albert, the Duke of York before he took the throne as King George VI) bringing little baby Elizabeth out for the movie cameras. She's a very young, sweet looking bundle. It feels as old as cinema  it's not  but it's fabulous.'

Michell said the Queen has done brilliantly in retaining a 'special place' for people to project their deep-seated feelings. Pictured: Former British Prime Minister Baroness Margaret Thatcher and the Queen in 2005

Michell continued: 'She has been our constant. I think she's drilled into our subconscious. I think we dream about her!

Warming to his theme, he added: 'I think that her impact on our waking and dreaming moments is enormous, and very hard to over-estimate.'

But, he believed that the Queen's successors  Prince Charles and then the Duke of Cambridge - would not enjoy the same level of respect and adulation, partly because of their gender.

'I think it's important that she's a woman. Her successors won't have the same impact on our collective consciousness, partly because they're men, but it's also partly because in some ways we've had too much access to them.

'We know too many things about Prince Charles's love life for us to ever really consider him totemic. Obviously, the whole royalty game is this balance between knowing just enough, but not too much.'

Producer Kevin Loader revealed composer George Fenton will be creating an original score for the film. Pictured: The Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Elizabeth II in 2017

Citing the Cambridge's along with Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex, he said: 'There's far too much about all these people who all have great strengths but they don't have that special space that you fill-in yourself, that the Queen allows you to do.

'The Queen is a sort of Queen-shaped gap in a way, into which we can project so many of our deep-seated feelings,' said Michell, while acknowledging that there have been 'a few moments where she's nearly tripped off the tightrope.'

'She's done brilliantly to retain that special place' and says that he's 'moved by the enormity of the arc of her life' and her sixty-eight year reign.

'She's like the world's biggest movie star. How much do you reveal and how do you keep the sizzle n the steak,' explained Michell, who admitted that while he's not a monarchist, he nonetheless finds the Queen 'absolutely phenomenal.'

The filmmaker said he'll let the footage do the talking.

Michell said the Queen has been our constant and her impact on our waking and dreaming moments is enormous. Pictured: Duchess of Sussex and the Queen in 2018

'There will be no talking heads and no pundits', just the documentary footage.

Producer Kevin Loader said composer George Fenton has been signed to create an original score, adding 'we're going to punch the gears with a bit of pop music as well.'

Echoing what Michell observed earlier, Loader said that Elizabeth, due to be completed in time for the 2021 Autumn film festivals, will be 'a totally playful tribute to this woman who is our collective Mother. It's about her, not about the scandals.

'Who is this woman? Every time you post a letter or buy a newspaper you're handling her', he remarked. 'You don't have to be a royalist to be amazed by her.'

Loader reiterated that 'we want footage that we can get people to lend us.'

He asked that those with film of the Queen to share should contact him via: Frangefilms@gmail.com.
Profits have surged at Tesco after the UK's biggest supermarket chain enjoyed a 90 per cent rise in online sales during lockdown.

Tesco has also increased the dividend it pays to shareholders after pre-tax profits jumped 29 per cent to 551million in the first half. The supermarket's chief financial officer Alan Stewart has defended the decision saying the board felt paying the dividend was 'the right thing to do'.

It comes after the supermarket faced some criticism in April when it unveiled its full year numbers and announced it would be paying a dividend at a time when it was benefiting from a business rates tax cut.

Online sales boom: Tesco online sales surged 69% in the first half

But Tesco's new chief executive Ken Murphy, who took over the reins at the UK's biggest supermarket last week, said he was 'really happy' with the 'strategy and direction' of the supermarket after unveiling the results.

Like-for-like sales at supermarkets in the UK and Ireland rose 7.2 per cent to 24.3billion in the first half to the end of August, with smaller Express stores seeing 'particularity strong' growth as people shopped more locally.

While pre-tax profits surged, a rise in costs linked to Covid mean Tesco's profits before adjustments fell 15.6 per cent to 1.04billion. However investors took the results positively with shares rising 2 per cent in early morning trade.

Strong demand for home delivery of groceries accelerated even after the lockdown restrictions were eased as shopping habits changed due to the pandemic.

Online sales jumped as much as 90 per cent in the second quarter and 69 per cent in the first half overall.

Online delivery capacity is now at 1.5million orders per week, as compared to 600,000 just a few months ago, Tesco said.

As people took fewer trips to big stores but bought more when they were there, the average basket size increased by 56 per cent and the number of visits dropped by a third. In large stores, sales grew by 1.4 per cent.

However, the pandemic had its pros and its cons for Tesco, like for other supermarkets, as it also meant a rise in costs.

Strong demand for home delivery of groceries accelerated even after the lockdown restrictions were eased, with online sales jumping 90 per cent in the second quarter

Costs incurred because of Covid came in at 533million, largely due to the employment of extra staff to cope with the additional volumes and payment of sick pay to a significant number of employees.

However, that is more or less balanced out by the business rates relief, which is expected to amount to around 530million.

Martin Maloney, an analyst at Killik & Co commented: 'This is a positive update from Tesco as the UK grocery industry continues to face significant headwinds. The company posted impressive sales growth, particularly in the strategically important channels of online and convenience.'

'Booker has maintained its strengthened competitive position as 'out of home' consumption returned to growth. Although group profits declined, results handily beat consensus expectations.

'We look forward to hearing more from the new management team on the strategic direction of the company as it faces challenges from COVID-19, an economic recession, and the UK leaving the EU.'

Smaller Express stores saw 'particularity strong' growth as people shopped more locally

In light of the results, Tesco said it will pay investors a 3.2p interim dividend, up 21 per cent compared with last year. Shareholders can also expect to a share of a 5billion payout after the sale of Tesco's Asian arm completes at the end of the year.

In March, the global chain sold off its Thai and Malaysian arm consisting of about 2,000 shops for 8billion.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: 'Despite the investment required for hygiene measures, distancing and an expansion of its online delivery capacity, the company still reported an impressive advance in first half profit.'

'A big rise in the dividend is also welcome but it is worth remembering the scale of the increase reflects a shift in dividend policy rather than significantly more generous payout.'
US President Donald Trump was high on theatrics during his return to the White House from the hospital where he spent three nights after he tested positive for coronavirus. His over-the-top antics ended up reminding Bollywood fans of a scene from 2001s blockbuster Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.

Donning a navy blue suit and a white cloth mask, Trump gave several thumbs up and a fist bump as he walked down the hospitals front steps toward his waiting helicopter. He would not answer when asked how many of his staffers had tested positive.

After a flight over Washington, Trump landed on the South Lawn and proceeded in an unusual route up a set of stairs to the first-floor balcony, where aides had positioned a row of American flags.

Also Read: Donald Trump Testing Positive for Coronavirus Has Only One Lesson: Wear a Mask

Peeling off his mask, Trump posed in salute as his helicopter departed before walking inside. The building hes returning to has become a center for viral contagion  in part because of disregard for mitigation measures.

Trump later shared a video of his arrival at the White House from his Twitter account. Right from slow-mo shots of the chopper to close-ups mixed with intense background score, Trump (perhaps his team) ensured he received a Hollywood entry.

Also Read: Blood on Your Hands: Salman Rushdie, Chris Evans Furious After Trump Took Off Mask Despite Having Covid-19

This is where the desis and Bollywood fans made their entry as Trumps dramatic return reminded them of the iconic scene from Karan Johars Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham wherein Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) returns home to his family (Jaya Bachchan with thali, you remember) in a helicopter after completing his education.

Did Trump just recreate the SRK entry scene? Wondered many.

So there is a Bollywood Movie called "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham" where the son of a rich family returns home to India after studing in London and I swear Trumps return to the White House looks just like the one in the movie pic.twitter.com/UX01z0DonI Dilek (@OeDilek) October 6, 2020

ahhhh aahhaaa aa kabhi khushi kabhi trump https://t.co/f870VwvGlS (@uffooh) October 6, 2020

Also Read: Schadenfreude: Why This Word Has Been Trending Since Donald Trump Tested Positive for Covid-19

Inspired by that in Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham scene where SRK returns from London? https://t.co/fRThKv45GW Jahanzeb Sukhera (@J_Sukhera) October 6, 2020

Finally, Trump got the Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham vibes lol. https://t.co/yf6PX5ECNz Zebochehra (@zebochehra) October 7, 2020

Trump later shared a video in which he said: Were going back. Were going back to work. Were gonna be out front. As your leader I had to do that. I knew theres danger to it but I had to do it," Trump says in the video. I stood out front. I led. Nobody thats a leader would not do what I did. I know theres a risk theres a danger. Thats OK. And now Im better, and maybe Im immune? I dont know. But dont let it dominate your lives. Get out there, be careful."

(With CNN inputs)
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan says fierce and heavy battles continue along the entire line of contact with Azerbaijan.

The Defense Army of Artsakh is constantly inflicting new and painful losses to enemy troops, whose goal of attack is clear to the whole world, he said on social media.

The terrorist gang called Bakus military-political leadership and its overtly supporter Turkey are attempting by all means to invade the territory of the Republic of Artsakh with the purpose of occupying it entirely and physically exterminating the Armenian people. I am sure that there is no one around the world who hasnt already been convinced in this truth. Today, the force that is preventing this inhumane crime is our army, which is displaying heroism on the battlefield, forcing our enemy to reckon with the total failure of the myths they created. Our soldiers are waging a heroic fight for every inch of our land. All our compatriots, both in Artsakh, in Mother Armenia and in the Diaspora are distinguishing themselves. Even at these victorious times we shouldnt let our guard down, we must continue acting soberly and firmly, with having the realization of our national aspirations as the purpose.

I am sure that all future generations of our nation will worthily appreciate this liberation war. I assure you that we will be united in doing everything for realizing our pan-national goals and yearnings.

With our united feat we once again prove that our freedom and independence cant be bargained, and we once again stated that Artsakh is eternal. Long live our army, long live our people, long live our national unity, the president said.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Voters will cast ballots in the 2020 presidential race in the fall, but primary elections across the US to select the Democratic nominee, along with a host of local elections, have been postponed or moved or held under potentially dangerous conditions as the coronavirus pandemic has altered the course of candidates' campaigns.

Following those contests and nomination convention, the Democratic nominee will participate in presidential debates against Donald Trump this fall.

Republican parties in several states have cancelled their party primaries, presuming the incumbent will be on the ballot.

Here's an amended schedule of key election events  and a recap of what has happened so far  in the 2020 race.

14 January

Five candidates qualified for the seventh Democratic debate, which will be hosted by CNN and The Des Moines Register at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. On the stage will be Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

3 February

Bernie Sanders won the largest share of votes but was narrowly defeated by Pete Buttigieg for state delegate equivalents in the Iowa caucus, which captured the first votes cast in the Democratic primary race. After a chaotic release of the vote totals that ultimately led to the resignation of the state's Democratic party chair, there was heavy scrutiny over the results of the primary season's opening contest, leading to speculation for the candidates' futures as larger state primaries followed, and as the campaigns  and donors  strategised ahead of the election's crucial next few months.

7 February

ABC, WMUR and Apple News at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire hosted the eighth Democratic primary debate.

11 February

After winning the state in a landslide in 2016, Senator Sanders won the popular vote in the New Hampshire primary, followed by a second-place finish from Pete Buttigieg and a surprise third from Amy Klobuchar. Andrew Yang, Michael Bennett and Deval Patrick later dropped out.

19 February

NBC News, MSNBC and The Nevada Independent hosted the ninth Democratic primary debate in Las Vegas, Nevada.

22 February

Senator Sanders won the Nevada Democratic caucus, which offered a glimpse of candidates' success outside the East Coast in a key state with a large Latino voting population. The senator received 24 delegates to the former vice president's nine. No other candidate passed the threshold for delegate consideration.

25 February

CBS News, Twitter and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute at The Gaillard Center hosted the 10th Democratic debate in Charleston, South Carolina.

29 February

Joe Biden won nearly 49 per cent of the popular vote in South Carolina, the first southern state to enter the primary contest, serving as a test of the strength of African-American support among the Democratic candidates. The former vice president captured 39 delegates to Senator Sanders 15. Following the primary, Tom Steyer  who came in third place  dropped out of the race. Republicans cancelled their party's primary in the state, with the incumbent president as the presumed nominee.

3 March

Fifteen states across the US held primary contests on Super Tuesday, including California, which has the largest delegate count in the US, with 415 delegates pledged to the Democratic nominee, and Texas, the second-largest delegate trove, with 228 delegates pledged to the Democratic nominee. After Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar withdrew from the race and endorsed Joe Biden, his resurgent campaign won nine states, including Texas, while Bernie Sanders won California and three other states. After disappointing finishes throughout the primary, including no victories on Super Tuesday, Elizabeth Warren ended her campaign two days later. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg also dropped out and endorsed Biden.

3-10 March

US citizens living abroad cast their votes in the Democrats Abroad primary. Bernie Sanders received nearly 60 per cent of the vote, securing nine delegates. Joe Biden received 22 per cent of the vote and four delegates.

10 March

As the coronavirus pandemic gripped the US, campaign events and rallies were cancelled, though voting was still on in in Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Washington and Michigan, a crucial battleground state for the two-man race. While Bernie Sanders won North Dakota, Joe Biden won the remaining states, with a narrow victory in Washington state.

15 March

The public health crisis framed the election's unprecedented 11th debate, hosted by CNN and Univision and giving Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders and audience-free platform from Phoenix.

17 March

Ohio postponed its primary to 2 June as Arizona, Florida and Illinois held their elections as states across the US began ordering residents to stay at home and public health warnings urged people to avoid crowds, beginning a series of controversial election events in the thick of the crisis.

Joe Biden ultimately won 296 delegates by sweeping the three states. Tulsi Gabbard ended her campaign two days later.

7 April

Wisconsin held its Democratic party despite calls from voters and the state's governor to postpone. Republican lawmakers and conservative majorities on the state and US supreme courts ultimately blocked those efforts, which also prevented absentee or mail-in ballots from being cast at a later date, forcing thousands of voters into a small number of open polling sites during the pandemic.

Joe Biden ultimately won in the state, as Bernie Sanders's supporters and other critics painted the election as illegitimate. The next day, the senator announced he was suspending his campaign.

10 April

Alaska moved its primary from 4 April with candidates competing for a share of 19 delegates. Joe Biden received 55 per cent of the vote and eight delegates, while Bernie Sanders received 45 per cent and seven delegates.

17 April

Wyoming moved its primary from 4 April with candidates competing for a share of 18 delegates. Joe Biden received more than 72 per cent of the vote and 10 delegates.

2 May

Joe Biden received more than 76 per cent of the vote in the Kansas primary, with all Democrat voters participating by mail using a ranked-choice method.

12 May

Joe Biden also received more than 76 per cent of the vote in the Nebraska primary.

19 May

Joe Biden received 67 per cent of votes in Oregon's primary, followed by Bernie Sanders, who received 20 per cent.

22-24 May

The Libertarian Party had planned to host its convention in Austin, Texas from 22-25 May as delegates selected their candidate for the ballot from among the party's declared candidates.

The convention has instead held virtually, with Jo Jorgensen emerging as the nominee  the first woman in the party's history to receive the nomination. Spike Cohen was selected as the nominee for vice president.

23 May

In Hawaii's primary, Joe Biden received 63 per cent of the vote, followed by Bernie Sanders, who received nearly 37 per cent. Biden received 16 pledged delegates. Sanders received eight.

2 June

Several primaries scheduled across the US came on the heels of growing protests against racial injustice and policy brutality as well as renewed fears of coronavirus and spikes in cases as states began to reopen.

Joe Biden won each primary in Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota and Washington DC, as well as in Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, which had initially postponed their elections due to the coronavirus crisis.

Controversial Republican congressman Steve King of Iowa also lost to Randy Feenstra in a primary for his House.

5 June

The former vice president clinched the Democratic Party nomination, with delayed delegate tallies pushing him past the 1,991 delegates needed to become the nominee.

6 June

Joe Biden won nominating contests in the US Virgin Islands and Guam, which participate in the primary process but not the general election.

9 June

West Virginia held its primary, originally scheduled for 12 May. Joe Biden received 65 per cent of the vote and 28 delegates.

23 June

Joe Biden received 67 per cent of the vote in New York, one of the largest delegate states behind California and Texas.

Democratic Commissioners on the state's Board of Elections initially sought to strip non-campaigning nominees from the ballots, effectively cancelling the election, but a federal judge halted the decision.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Queens and The Bronx handily defeated Democratic primary challengers in her House district and is likely to win in a re-election bid.

In Kentucky, the former vice president received 68 per cent of the vote.

30 June

Amid a wave of progressive candidates holding primary challenges against moderate Democrats, Jamaal Bowman defeated longtime New York Democrat Elliot Engel, pending absentee ballot counts.

Following mail-in ballots in Kentucky, Amy McGrath  with a slim lead over progressive challenger Charles Booker  has secured the Democratic slot to face against Republican incumbent Mitch McConnell.

7 July

Joe Biden took nearly 90 per cent of the vote from his home state of Delaware, and he received more than 86 per cent of the vote in New Jersey. Both states moved their election dates a second time from 2 June.

9-12 July

Green Party co-founder Howie Hawkins and running mate Angela Nicole Walker were selected as the third party's nominees at its convention, which was held virtually after an initial plan to hold its event in Detroit, Michigan.

11 July

Joe Biden received nearly 80 per cent of the vote in Louisiana, after election officials postponed the date a second time from April to 20 June.

12 July

Puerto Rico's primary was postponed twice over coronavirus concerns. Joe Biden collected 56 per cent of the vote.

17-20 August

Democratic delegates were scheduled to convene in Milwaukee for 2020's Democratic National Convention, where presumptive nominee Joe Biden was officially selected as the party's nominee to face Donald Trump in November. The event was originally scheduled for July but was postponed due to the coronavirus crisis. Most the event was held virtually.

11 August

Joe Biden received more than 84 per cent of the vote in Connecticut's primary, rescheduled twice following the pandemic. It was the last state to hold a presidential primary.

24-27 August

Republicans initially planned to hold the party's nominating convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, but the party moved the event to Jacksonville, Florida over social distancing disputes. As cases surged, officials in Jacksonville announced they would require attendees to wear masks indoors after the president and his campaign sought to avoid similar precautions. That prompted GOP officials and the president to announced that the Florida event will be cancelled  all convention events will remain in Charlotte, while the president and campaign used the White House as a backdrop for partisan speeches, flouting federal law.

1 September

In Massachusetts, a heavily scrutinised primary challenge to incumbent Democratic senator Ed Markey from Joseph Kennedy III ultimately failed, with an incumbent win buoyed by progressive support.

29 September

The University of Notre Dame was scheduled to host the first 2020 presidential debate, but the university withdrew from the event over health concerns. The debate is now scheduled for Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

7 October

Republican and Democratic nominees for vice president will debate at the University of Utah, which hosts the only debate between the running mates.

15 October

The second presidential debate will take place at the Adrienne Arsht Centre for the Performing Arts in Miami.

22 October

Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee will host the third and final presidential debate.

3 November

Election Day  voters across the US will participate in a general election to select the next president, along with other candidates that appear on local ballots.

14 December

Electoral college representatives meet in state capitols to formally cast votes.

6 January 2021

Congress enters electoral votes into the record, and the Senate president announces vote tallies.

20 January 2021

Inauguration Day  the president-elect will be formally sworn into office.
Vazquez said he supports strong border enforcement because allowing people to live in the country illegally leaves them open to being exploited for their labor. He would like to see an immigration overhaul that includes a pathway to citizenship for those who are already in the country. Asked whether he is bothered by Trumps dark rhetoric about immigrants, Vazquez said politicians on the left also use illegal immigration to rile up political passions without doing anything to help those migrants.
The Alberta government has stepped up to help fund a major expansion at one of the provinces premier Indigenous tourism sites.

It was announced at a ground-breaking ceremony on Monday that the provincial government would be providing a $1 million investment for another significant addition at Metis Crossing, situated in Smoky Lake.

The facility, a Metis cultural interpretive centre, will soon be expanding to include a 40-room lodge.

This news comes not long after Metis Crossing opened its Cultural Gathering Centre last December.

It is meant to complement our existing offerings, said Juanita Marois, Metis Crossings executive director.

Instead of having Metis Crossing visitors stay for a few hours while touring the facility, she is hoping the sleeping accommodations that will soon be provided will mean people will perhaps stick around two or three days.

Construction has started for the lodge and foundations will soon be poured. The lodge is expected to be opened by early fall of 2021.

Marois said the addition of the lodge will cost about $9 million. Shes pleased the Alberta government will provide a portion of the funding required.

It was pretty awesome, she said of Mondays announcement.

Marois added one of her favourite parts of the announcement was seeing the expression and awe on the face of Rick Wilson, the provinces minister of Indigenous Relations, who was on site for the first time since the opening of the Cultural Gathering Centre.

Wilson is confident Metis Crossing will become an even more popular tourist attraction following its upcoming expansion.

Metis Crossing is an important gathering place that showcases the history of a proud peoplethe Metis Nation of Alberta, he said. Adding a 40-room boutique-style lodge to Metis Crossing means more visitors will be able to enjoy the cultural activities.

The expansion is expected to provide many new employment opportunities for the region.

It also means more jobs for the local economy, helping grow Albertas tourism industry and boost year-round visits across the province, Wilson said.

Metis Crossing officials have worked with representatives from the provincial government and Smoky Lake region on their economic development strategies.

Early projections are the Metis Crossing expansion will translate into anywhere between 300 and 700 new jobs for the region in the coming decade.

Shae Bird, the executive director for Indigenous Tourism Alberta, also attended Mondays news conference. He was pleased to see both Wilson and the provincial government backing the Metis Crossing expansion.

It really identifies the support for Indigenous tourism in the province, he said.

Bird believes Metis Crossings popularity will increase substantially, not only with last years expansion but also with the soon-to-be-built lodge.

It had its smaller homestead and one-off heritage pieces before, Bird said. But its really shifting from a cultural centre to an extremely important Indigenous tourism centre in the province.

Audrey Poitras, the president of the Metis Nation of Alberta, also speaks highly not only of the existing facility but also of the pending expansion.

Metis Crossing has been a dream of Albertas Metis for decades, she said. With support from Alberta and other partners, we have built a place where Albertans and tourists can experience the exciting culture of Albertas Metis. With this new lodge, Metis Crossing elevates the Indigenous tourism experience in our province.

The lodge expansion at Metis Crossing is being built with the hopes that the facility will become an international travel destination.

But because of the safety and health regulations caused by the COVID-19pandemic, Marois said that might not be able to happen as soon as the lodge is completed.

Our international visitors will be limited, she said.

Marois said shes hoping the lodge will attract those who will be attending government and corporate meetings.

Metis Crossing visits have been greatly affected this year. After shutting its doors when the pandemic was spreading in March, the facility did not reopen until July 2.

Even now there are modified regulations, as those looking to travel to Metis Crossing must pre-book their visits online.

Metis Crossing is situated on 512 acres of land. The facility is comprised of river lot titles from the original Metis settlers in the area, dating back to the late 1800s.

The Metis Nation of Alberta purchased the site about 20 years ago. Metis Crossing operates as a Metis Nation of Alberta affiliate.

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(Newser)  After months in a state correctional facility, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of murdering George Floyd was released from custody Wednesday morning. Records show that Derek Chauvin was freed after posting $1 million bond ahead of a trial expected to start in March, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Under his bail conditions, the 44-year-old is not allowed to leave Minnesota, work in law enforcement or security, or contact Floyd's family. He will also be required to surrender any guns he owns.

story continues below

Chauvinwho was filmed kneeling on Floyd's neck for nine minutes as the Black man struggled to breathefaces charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. He has been in custody since May 31, six days after Floyd's death, the New York Daily News notes. Three other former officers accused of aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter in the case, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao, were released on bond months ago. (Chauvin also faces unrelated tax evasion charges.)
Zelensky expressed his conviction Ukraine would again have a strong Navy.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine and Great Britain will sign a memorandum on developing the Ukrainian Army's naval forces.

"The second question is the signing of a memorandum on developing the Navy  an important strategic document. We will be at the naval base and sign this memorandum worth GBP 1.25 billion," he said in a comment on his official visit to the UK, which has been transmitted to UNIAN.

Zelensky expressed his conviction Ukraine would again have a strong Navy.

"It seems to me this is an important, first and important step," he added.

On October 7, Zelensky started a two-day official visit to the UK.

More news reports
CCM presidential running mate, Ms Samia Suluhu Hassan, has pledged great fertilizers price drop and prosperity to tobacco and maize farmers in Katavi region once her party becomes re-elected.

She made the announcement while addressing an election campaign rally at small town of Inyonga in Mlele District, Rukwa Region, saying: "The price of tobacco will be around 1.65 US dollars (about 3,795/-) per kilogramme from 1.45 US dollars (about 3,335/-) and fertilizers' prices will be slashed from 120,000/- per bag to 75,000/-."

On unpaid dues, CCM presidential running mate assured the farmers that by next week, Tanzania Tobacco Board (TTB) Director General will arrive in Katavi to ensure all farmers are paid accordingly.

"TTB Director General will arrive here by next week to ensure that all tobacco farmers are paid their dues. Also, the high rate of loans of fertilizers given to farmers will now be reduced from 11 to 7.5 per cent," she said.

On the tobacco put aside as rejects and previously destroyed, she said they will now be purchased at 500/- per kilogramme.

The Vice-President further noted that the fifth phase government has negotiated with several tobacco companies to increase purchasing tonnes of local tobacco from farmers, adding that even the grades produced will change.

In a related development, she noted that previously maize seeds sold to farmers at 120,000/- per bag will now be purchased at 75,500/-.

While recommending the farmers for realising big and surplus harvests and being marketed, also outside the country, she said: "For instance, during 2017/18 season farmers in the region realized 1,085,000 tonnes different types of food out of which 676,629 tonnes were cereals like maize, rice and millet, and cash crops' production also increased from 55,129 to 66,736 tonnes."

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She attributed that to the fifth phase government, having put a friendly environment for farmers to ensure they practise productive farming, adding that the same will be for their markets.

Ms Samia said that in the next five years if elected, they will increase land suitable for irrigation size and encourage farming schemes and infrastructures.

"Katavi region currently is accommodating 99,050 hectares of land suitable for irrigation farming, but only 23,113 ha has been utilized which is equivalent to 23 per cent," she explained.

Earlier, Katavi constituency parliamentary seat aspirant on the CCM ticket, Engineer Issac Kamwelwe told Ms Suluhu that over 18bn/- has been spent on the implementation of development projects in Mlele District.

In the course, Eng Kamwelwe has sailed unopposed in the area since 2015 taking over from former Prime Minister, Mizengo Pinda, who also was their MP for two consecutive terms.
In a major relief to city restaurants amid COVID-19 outbreak, the on Wednesday said they will be allowed to operate round-the-clock and the requirement of tourism licenses will be removed.

Setting an example of Delhi Model' of ease of doing business, the government also announced other measures such as initiation of a process to abolish police licenses and health trade licenses from local bodies for restaurants, an official statement said.

The decisions were taken at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The meeting was also attended by restaurants owners of the national capital.

The government said such steps will help the industry generate more employment in the city through higher demand, adding that this will set an example for the Delhi Model of ease of doing business.

"On the request of restaurateurs to allow 24x7 business, it was agreed that the restaurants will be allowed to operate at all hours subject to the condition that they submit an undertaking that they will take care of the health and security of their entire staff," the statement stated.

The chief minister also instructed that the health trade licenses issued by municipal corporations to the restaurant industries be abolished within 10 days, it said.

During the meeting, the excise department agreed to review the existing policy of a 10 per cent automatic increase in the license fees every year.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also attended the meeting, called for the restaurants to be able to pay their excise by March 31 from the existing deadline of February 28, and for them to make quarterly license fee payments without any interest, the statement added.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi, Oct 7 : Taking strong objection to cases being registered against third parties, the Congress has lashed out at the Uttar Pradesh government and demanded a probe by a sitting Supreme Court judge in the Hathras incident to get the truth out, alleging that the state government is only trying to cover up the case which is evident from statements of the government and BJP leaders.

Addressing a press Conference in Delhi on Wednesday, Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, "More than 21 charges have been registered on those who are raising the issue including sedition charges, which is more than the cases registered against the accused." "There should be a probe by a sitting Supreme Court or High Court judge" as he alleged that since 2014 number of sedition cases have increased manifold.

All cases against third parties should be withdrawn, demanded Singhvi, and alleged that those who are against the BJP are booked in fake cases including against political leaders, journalists and civil society members.

The Uttar Pradesh Police have arrested four men, allegedly linked to the Popular Front of India (PFI) and an associated outfit. The four men were arrested from Mathura on Monday night while they were on their way to Hathras from Delhi.

The police added that acting on a tip-off some suspicious persons were on their way to Hathras from Delhi, they intercepted a car at a toll plaza. The four occupants were interrogated and taken into custody at the Math toll plaza. The four have been identified as Atiq-ur Rehman of Muzaffarnagar, Siddique of Malappuram, Masood Ahmed of Bahraich and Alam of Rampur.

The Kerala journalists' organisation has moved the Supreme Court, challenging the "illegal detention" of its Delhi unit secretary in Uttar Pradesh while on the way to report on the Hathras incident.

The Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) has filed a habeas corpus petition seeking immediate release of journalist Siddique Kappan.

It contended that it has filed the petition after being seriously aggrieved by the violation of the Constitution's Articles 14, 19 and 21. It said Kappan was arrested on Monday while on his way to report on the alleged gang-rape and subsequent death of the 19-year-old girl in Hathras.

The plea, filed through advocate Wills Mathews, termed the arrest illegal and unconstitutional, and urged the apex court to issue directions for Kappan's production and also his release from "illegal detention".
Not only does the data guide our team to deliver the greatest possible results in each campaign, it creates an incredibly high level of transparency with our clients and fosters trust. We are a smaller company and those kinds of relationships are very important to us. Past News Releases RSS

At AC Creative Content, everything revolves around data. After implementing a completely data-based approach to providing services and reporting to clients, the company has seen a spike in incoming clientele as well as positive feedback from existing clients.

The company features Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as their primary service, including a variety of reporting measures with every plan. The reports include comprehensive detail and analysis on every aspect of the clients website and campaign. The data itself includes everything from traffic to keywords and backlinks to page heatmaps, which allow the viewer to track the user experience.

AC Creative Content offers a free comprehensive site audit and strategy session on their website to companies and website owners. The idea behind the offer is to build trusting and transparent relationships by reviewing the audit report with a strategist one on one. These audits are run on a regular basis for each client, reporting in great detail the progress of every facet of the website and campaign.

The company and its team are very proud of the attention to detail and proof of concept that they provide despite offering an online service, and they feel it makes them stand out.
BRUSSELS - Europes treatment of its Roma people has been inexcusable over the past decade, a top European Union official said Wednesday as she presented a 10-year plan to improve life for the large ethnic minority.

Around 6 million Roma live in the 27-nation bloc, where the European Commission said 41% experienced discrimination over the past five years and where 85% of Roma children are at risk of poverty compared to 20% of children overall in the EU.

Simply put, over the last 10 years, we have not done enough to support the Roma population in the EU. This is inexcusable, European Union Vice-President Vera Jourova said.

We cannot accept it, Jourova said as she presented a 10-year plan to improve the plight of Roma, who are among the poorest and least educated in Central Europe and have been discriminated against for centuries.

Under the plan, EU nations will have to submit national strategies by September 2021 and the European Commission will monitor progress toward the 2030 targets, which centre on reducing discrimination, improving jobs access for Roma, reducing poverty and improving the quality of education for Roma children.

Equality Commissioner Helena Dalli said the plan sought to tackle the inexcusable discrimination facing far too many today, and also to change our mindsets, to change the stereotypes which we have in our minds when we look at Roma people.

This year, the coronavirus pandemic has even worsened the situation for Romas. A commission report said that Roma children living in marginalized communities are among the hardest hit by the pandemic. Distance learning has been impossible for too many Roma children living in households without IT facilities or electricity.

It also said that the community was disproportionally hit by the pandemic since many often live without basic hygiene and sanitary facilities available to almost all EU citizens. It said they also often live in overcrowded homes and segregated camps.

The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights reported last year that 80% of the Roma population in Europe is at risk of living in poverty, and that hate-motivated crime and harassment were preventing their inclusion in society.

The Roma are Europes largest ethnic minority, and in many member states, they constitute a significant part of the population. But many continue to face discrimination and racism, Jourova said. The lack of inclusion of Roma communities in our societies is a scar on Europeans conscious.

___

Follow all AP stories about racial injustice at https://apnews.com/Racialinjustice
An investigating judge at Spains High Court (Audiencia Nacional) has called on the Supreme Court to investigate Pablo Iglesias, who is one of Spains deputy prime ministers in the coalition government and a co-founder of political party Podemos. The move comes after the magistrates investigation into the so-called Dina case, which involves a cellphone that was stolen from Dina Bousselham, a colleague of the Podemos politician, and the subsequent publication of information that was stored on the handsets memory card. Judge Manuel Garcia-Castellon believes Iglesias may have committed unlawful acts such as filing a false crime report, disclosure of secrets and computer-related crimes. Iglesias can only be tried in the Supreme Court given his status as a minister grants him immunity in the lower courts.

According to the investigating judges findings, on January 20, 2016, Iglesias was given a mini-SD memory card that came from the cellphone of Dina Bousselham, a political scientist of Moroccan origin who is now the editor of left-wing online news site La Ultima Hora! He received the item from Antonio Asensio, the chairman of the media group Grupo Zeta, which owned the now-defunct publication Interviu. The card, which contained information about Podemoss finances and personal files that were of a highly personal nature, had come into the possession of staff at Interviu from an anonymous source.

Despite this, the judges writ explains, [Iglesias] kept it in his possession, without informing its owner, despite both of them being close to one another (she had been his advisor) and the knowledge he had of the disappearance of Dinas objects since November 2015.

This action, the judge continued, could be linked to the fact that the Podemos leader was able to see that the said item contained screenshots that Bousselham had saved of conversations in group cellphone chats in which Iglesias had participated. Interviu opted not to publish any of the contents of the card, and also handed a pendrive with its contents over to a then-police commissioner named Jose Manuel Villarejo, who is currently at the heart of a major judicial investigation into an alleged espionage network spanning two decades' worth of phone taps, undercover recordings and other invasions of privacy against scores of politicians, business leaders, judges and journalists. The Dina case is in fact an offshoot of the larger Villarejo case.'

Although Interviu declined to publish the contents of the memory card, some of the cellphone screenshots were later published by Spanish daily OKDiario, and contained a series of sexist comments made by the now-deputy prime minister.

The judge also points to the fact that, when Iglesias returned the card to Bousselham, it was inoperative, suggesting it may have been tampered with. The magistrate also accuses Iglesias of calling on the partys legal team to widen Bousselhams initial legal complaint in order to falsely feign a connection between the images of the material published by OKDiario and the theft itself on November 1, 2015. These actions had an objective that was strictly one of political opportunism, according to the judge, with Iglesias seeking some kind of electoral advantage.

The leader of the opposition, Pablo Casado of the conservative Popular Party (PP), reacted to todays news within minutes of it breaking. Sanchez should immediately sack his Deputy Prime Minister Iglesias, he wrote on Twitter, in reference to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of the Socialist Party (PSOE). He should meet the same standards that he demanded in his motion of no-confidence, Casado added, in reference to the successful bid by the PSOE to oust former PP Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy from power in 2018 after yet another corruption scandal dealt a blow to the partys reputation.

Podemos, meanwhile, expressed surprise at the judges decision, pointing out that the criminal division of the High Court had, just three weeks ago, ruled that Iglesias was in fact an affected party in the investigation, rejecting Judge Garcia-Castellons decision on July 17 to remove the status of victim from the party leader.

English version by Simon Hunter.
This national recognition, decided by an online public voting competition, includes a $25,000 grant from Coors Light for Montez to implement a project with his nonprofit, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU). Richard is committed to cultivating Hispanic talent and success by developing creative and innovative practices currently implemented by college campuses across the nation through HACU. He is also committed to helping break cycles of poverty. Among his many other services to his community, he is chairperson of Inner City Development, an organization that serves the most economically marginalized neighborhood in Bexar County, San Antonio, an area where he grew up. For years, Richard has participated in Thanksgiving 365, and along with other Inner City Development volunteers, he fasts until the organization raises its $30,000 goal, which is used to keep the food pantry stocked all year long.

"The leader in the room is not always the one at the head of the table or the one with the fancy title. The true leader is the one pursuing an end goal with love, compassion and integrity in their heart. The true leader is the one others follow, because they feel compelled to serve in the same way. Always look to those leaders," stated Montez.

"We were impressed by Richard's passion for his work at HACU, as well as his dedication to several programs in San Antonio that help his community reach a better quality of life," said Kayla Garcia, manager of community affairs for Molson Coors Beverage Company. "This year, with Latinos being one of the groups most impacted by COVID-19, the work Richard is doing is more important than ever."

For the first time this year, Coors Light is also awarding a $2,500 grant to the second-place finalist, Michelle Labrador Casiano, from Orocovis, Puerto Rico. "Beyond the work she does through HEART 9/11 (Healing Emergency Aid Response Team), a nonprofit with the mission to respond immediately to natural and man-made disasters, Michelle finds the time to volunteer with other nonprofits to help her community," stated Garcia.

The Coors Light Lideres Program helps leaders enhance their networks and professional growth. Past Coors Light Lideres of the Year and their nonprofits have used the $25,000 grants on transformative initiatives in a myriad of areas, such as skill training workshops, educational and mentoring resources, entrepreneurship support and helping people with disabilities become financially independent through entrepreneurial activities.

For more information visit www.CoorsLightLideres.com . Join the #CoorsLightLideres conversation on Facebook and Instagram at @CoorsLightLideres and on Twitter at @CoorsLightLider.

About Molson Coors Beverage Company

For over two centuries Molson Coors has been brewing beverages that unite people for all of life's moments. From Coors Light, Miller Lite, Molson Canadian, Carling, and Staropramen to Coors Banquet, Blue Moon Belgian White, Saint Archer Gold, Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy, Creemore Springs and more, Molson Coors produces some of the most beloved and iconic beer brands ever made. While the company's history is rooted in beer, Molson Coors offers a modern portfolio that expands beyond the beer aisle with sparkling cocktails, hard coffee, canned wine, kombucha, cider and more. Molson Coors Beverage Company is a publicly traded company that operates through Molson Coors North America and Molson Coors Europe, and is traded on the New York and Canadian Stock Exchange. The company's commitment to raising industry standards and leaving a positive imprint on our employees, consumers, communities and the environment is reflected in Our Beer Print and our 2025 sustainability targets. To learn more about Molson Coors Beverage Company, visit molsoncoors.com.

SOURCE Coors Light

Related Links

http://www.CoorsLightLideres.com


No human cell can function without these tiny machines, which cause disease when they go haywire and offer potential targets for therapeutic drugs

All cells with nuclei, from yeast to humans, are organized like cities, with a variety of small compartments - organelles - that serve as factories where various types of work are done. Some of those factories, like the ones that break down and recycle molecules, need to continually pump in protons - hydrogen atoms with their electrons stripped off - to maintain the acidic environment they need to do their job. For this they rely on molecular Ferris wheels.

Embedded in the organelle's fatty outer membrane, these microscopic machines have rotors that spin 100 times per second, picking up protons from outside the organelle and dropping them off on the inside.

Now scientists have figured out a key step in how these Ferris wheels work in a yeast proton pump known as vacuolar ATPase (V-ATPase). The results of their study, which combined high-resolution images made at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory with supercomputer simulations, were published in Science Advances today, giving scientists insight into a fundamental process that could potentially be harnessed to thwart disease.

"The V-ATPase proton pumps perform a wide range of functions, from helping transmit nerve signals to helping specialized cells secrete acid for maintaining bone," said Stephan Wilkens, a biochemist at SUNY Upstate Medical University and study co-author. "Malfunctions in these molecular machines contribute to diseases such as osteoporosis, neurodegeneration, diabetes, cancer and AIDS, so understanding them is important for human health."

Wah Chiu, a professor at SLAC and Stanford and co-director of the Stanford-SLAC Cryo-EM Facilities where the imaging was done, said scientists are already investigating how these pumps in human cells might affect replication of the COVID-19-causing virus in patients. "It turns out the majority of therapeutic drugs on the market target molecular machines like this one that sit in cell membranes," he added.

Watching the wheel go round

No human cell can function without proton pumps, which among other things help organelles intercept viruses and other pathogens and divert them to cellular trash bins.

While previous studies had determined the molecular structure and basic function of V-ATPases in a number of organisms, Wilkens said, "the big question was how do they work? To explain the mechanism it's helpful to see it in action, just like the first serial snapshots of a galloping horse finally settled the question of whether it always had at least one hoof on the ground. The answer was no."

In earlier cryo-EM research, Chiu, Wilkens, SLAC/ Stanford postdoctoral researcher Soung-Hun Roh and others produced high-resolution images that allowed them to identify the 10 amino acid "seats" on the yeast Ferris wheel that bind protons and carry them through the membrane to the organelle's interior, as well as other amino acids that catch them when they arrive. Based on that picture, they suggested that the proton drop-off might be aided by water molecules, but their images were not sharp enough to confirm that the water molecules were there.

In the current study, thanks to another round of even higher resolution cryo-EM imaging at SLAC they were able to locate the water molecules around the suspected proton path. To make the proton pump motor come to life, a research group led by Abhishek Singharoy at the Arizona State University Biodesign Institute developed computer simulations of the process and ran them on a DOE supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The simulations, which incorporated cryo-EM structures derived from images of the yeast Ferris wheel captured at two different points in its rotation, confirmed the experimentally observed water molecules lining up to form "wires" at the proton drop-off point. These wires convey protons from their seats on the Ferris wheel to landing spots inside the organelle, like a fire brigade passing buckets hand to hand, bridging a gap they couldn't navigate on their own.

Going forward, Chiu said, recent advances in cryo-EM that allow imaging of individual particles at atomic resolution - even when they take slightly different shapes - will open new opportunities for using it as a tool to discover effective drugs for illnesses involving proton pumps.

###

Soung-Hun Roh is now an assistant professor at Seoul National University. Scientists from the University of Lorraine in France and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign also contributed to this research, which was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Korean National Research Foundation. The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility is supported by the DOE Office of Science.

Citation: Soung-Hun Roh et al., Science Advances, 7 October 2020 (10.1126/sciadv.abb9605)

SLAC is a vibrant multiprogram laboratory that explores how the universe works at the biggest, smallest and fastest scales and invents powerful tools used by scientists around the globe. With research spanning particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, materials, chemistry, bio- and energy sciences and scientific computing, we help solve real-world problems and advance the interests of the nation.

SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences.
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / WheelHouse IT has become a common name in the Managed Services industry over the last several years. While the company has primarily operated in South Florida and New York, its extended branches are working to cover more ground for the businesses that they serve while offering the same quality services.

Under the banner of WheelHouse IT, AE Technology Group and 4 Corner IT have acquired several awards for their long-standing commitment to excellence as a Managed Services Provider (MSP).

Chiefly among them is the Microsoft Southeast Partner of the Year, which was awarded to WheelHouse IT and its associated branches for mastering Microsoft services and capably providing them to their clients. The partnership with Microsoft has yielded other awards such as becoming a Microsoft Gold Partner with 4 Competencies:

Gold Cloud Platform

Gold Cloud Productivity

Gold Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions

Gold Enterprise Mobility Management

As if that was not enough, this year the company has made it on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing companies, received a Compliancy Group HIPAA Seal of Compliance, and lands at #94 on ChannelFutures MSP 501.

No company should worry about finding another revered IT support system for Florida and New York- the WheelHouse IT branches provide quality services in a variety of areas.

AE Technology Group Provides IT Support in New York City and Long Island

Whether a company is seeking IT support in Long Island or the Big Apple, AE Technology Group (AETG) is prepared to offer their services. As an award-winning MSP branch of the WheelHouse IT group, AETG offers local, dedicated, and experienced support.

Serving Long Island since 2010, AETG offers managed services, IT support, cloud services, project management, and disaster recovery outcomes for businesses that operate in this highly competitive area. As a provider for small and mid-sized companies, AETG offers support for communications and IT help every day of the year.

AETG has embraced the ideology of the city that never sleeps, offering 24/7/365 support to businesses with diverse requirements. The company's proximity to Long Island and NYC businesses allows them to provide local, on-site, and off-site services.

Obtain IT Support in Miami and Fort Lauderdale with 4 Corner IT

Another WheelHouse IT MSP branch offers IT support in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, providing various solutions for companies operating in this growing area. 4 Corner IT (4CIT) is a very familiar business in this area, having operated in the Marina Mile business park for 20 years. 4CIT understands the unique challenges of working in Florida, which is why their Managed Services, IT support, disaster preparedness and disaster recovery solutions are such popular choices for local companies.

Every small and medium-sized business owner understands the necessity of having a third-party company in place for maintaining its informational infrastructure through good times and in emergencies. That is just part of the service that 4CIT proudly provides to South Florida.

Finding the right company to provide locally Managed Services and IT needs has never been easier for companies based in the New York Metro area and South Florida. WheelHouse IT and its associated companies provide award-winning services in challenging markets, and they have thrived among some of the most severe competition on the planet.

CONTACT:

Rory Cooksey

news@wheelhouseit.com

877.771.2384 x 2

SOURCE: WheelHouse IT

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609630/WheelHouse-IT-Branches-Provide-Local-Award-Winning-Services
SIUE School of Nursing Dean Laura Bernaix. We pride ourselves with having the pulse of what prospective students want and what our clinical agency partners need.

The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Nursing (SON) saw record enrollment for the second consecutive year in fall 2020 with a 5% increase (1,877 students) from fall 2019. With the new Health Sciences Complex on the horizon for the SIUE campus, the foundation is in place for continued growth.

SON Dean Laura Bernaix, PhD, RN, points to the SONs faculty as the secret to their success. Great faculty, who not only are great educators in the classroom but also experts at curriculum design, are the key, she said. We pride ourselves with having the pulse of what prospective students want and what our clinical agency partners need.

That high-quality faculty instruction and student preparation led to a 94% pass rate in the School of Nursing National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) for undergraduate students during the 2020 second quarter. In addition, the SONs Family Nurse Practitioner Doctor of Nursing Practice graduate students scored a perfect 100% first-time pass rate on their national board exams.

Meanwhile at the graduate level, the SON broke fall 2019s record of 372 students with 437 graduate nursing students, an increase of almost 20%.

Considering these record numbers along with recent regional and national accolades, I believe the future is extremely bright, said SON Assistant Dean for Graduate Programs Andrew Griffin, PhD, CRNA, APRN. I am additionally encouraged by early applications for the 2021 spring and fall semesters. We are well ahead of last years pace.

Undergraduate student enrollment in the traditional accelerated bachelor of science (ABS) program grew from 872 students in fall 2019 to 905 in fall 2020 (+3.6%). The accelerated Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Science (RN to BS) program added 17 students from its fall 2019 total to reach 549 students enrolled in fall 2020.

Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs Ann Popkess, PhD, RN, CNE, points to a variety of factors for their growth. We have an excellent reputation with southern Illinois regional agencies who hire and request our students practice in their organizations, she said. Our exceptional faculty are masters and doctorate prepared, and most are certified in a specialty area. Combining this caliber of faculty with high-quality programs and curriculum, and our state-of-the-art simulation lab and virtual learning lab/experiences, highly prepares our students to excel in nursing as a career.

Popkess sees opportunity to continue the momentum. In January 2021, we are piloting a spring ABS enrollment option, she said. This is a 15-month program for students who have earned a bachelors in another field to be able to earn a bachelors in nursing. Additionally, an accelerated undergraduate to graduate option for qualified students is also proving to be attractive.

Applications for the spring ABS option are due Nov 1. For more information or to apply, contact Sarah Anderson at saander@siue.edu.

RN to BS Program Director Sheri Compton-McBride, DNP, RN, notes that the SON continues to work diligently with its community college and agency partners to increase the number of bachelors prepared nurses in the workforce. Our advantages have been our flexible 8-week course format, rolling enrollment with six enrollment entry points annually, and on-going evaluation of our curriculum and course content, she said.

According to Compton-McBride, the SON also adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic environment. Even prior to COVID, we supplemented our recruitment activity with virtual sessions, the next of which is Thursday, Oct. 22 and we varied modalities for advising opportunities and addressing questions. Routine touchpoints with our internal and external partners assess how we can best meet the needs of those nurses who are interested in obtaining a bachelors degree, she said.

Bernaix looks forward to the new $105 million Health Sciences Complex as a key component to sustained growth. The complex will include approximately 221,000 square feet, making it the largest building on the SIUE campus.

Along with the SON, SIUE operates a School of Pharmacy (SOP), and the School of Dental Medicine (SDM) in Alton, and related health sciences programs in various disciplines serving central and southern Illinois. Currently, the SOP is primarily located in three buildings in University Park, while the SON is housed in Alumni Hall within the campus core. The SDM will remain in Alton.

The Health Sciences Complex will definitely attract future students for the SON and the other health sciences on campus, Bernaix said. It emphasizes a highly dedicated and comprehensive University mission for the preparation of nurses and other future healthcare providers.

For nursing, it will offer a full spectrum of state-of-the-art primary care and advanced practice nursing clinical simulation programs that will prepare undergraduate and graduate nursing students, and returning nurse professionals, to provide high-tech, high-quality patient care throughout their careers.

SIUEs location and affordability will also continue to positively impact the SONs future.

The SIUE School of Nursings programs are committed to creating excellence in nursing leadership through innovative teaching, evidence-based practice, quality research, patient advocacy and community service. Enrolling more than 1,800 students in its baccalaureate, masters and doctoral programs, the School develops leaders in pursuit of shaping the nursing profession and impacting the health care environment. SIUEs undergraduate nursing programs on the Edwardsville campus and the regional campus in Carbondale help to solve the regions shortage of baccalaureate-prepared nurses and enhance the quality of nursing practice within all patient service venues. The Schools graduate programs prepare nurses for advanced roles in clinical practice, administration and education.
Western Australia is full and could not accommodate tourists from the eastern states even if the border was opened, WA's tourism minister Paul Papalia has claimed.

When asked whether WA borders would be open to interstate tourists by the end of the year at a press conference on Tuesday, Mr Papalia said: 'Right now in the regions there wouldn't be any rooms for them'.

He said regional tourism providers in the state were experiencing their biggest months ever with bookings well over what they would see in their peak season.

His comments go against many business owners and tourism operators who say the industry has been crippled by closed borders.

Beach goers are seen walking past a sign reminding the public about the 2 meter Social Distancing rules at Cottesloe Beach in Perth

Perth hotels have reportedly been sitting at less than 20 per cent capacity on weekdays since WA borders were closed to other states.

Tourism and hospitality staff are also on JobKeeper in droves with many concerned about their employment when the subsidy scheme winds up in March, according to The West Australian.

According to Tourism Research Australia, the state had lost $286million in interstate tourist revenue in July 2020 compared to July last year,

International visitor dollars were also down $193million for the same month.

While there was an upswing in Western Australians spending their holiday budgets within their own state to the tune of $70million, the WA tourist industry was still down about $400million for the month of July alone.

The Western Australian government has also announced subsidised flights to Broome, Exmouth and Kununurra in the state's north in 2021 to encourage local tourism.

Tourism Council of WA chief Evan Hall disagreed with Mr Papalia, saying the state's tourism industry depends on visitors to metropolitan hotels.

'There is no way that intrastate visitor spending can make up for the loss of interstate spending, let alone what was been lost through the lack of international visitors,' Mr Hall said.

One new case of COVID-19 was recorded in WA on Wednesday and they were in hotel quarantine.

Despite low cases numbers an indicative date for opening the border has not been released.
The company has signed an MoU with Bangalore Kidney Foundation

Muthoot Finance Ltd, India's largest gold-loan company's Corporate Social Responsibility Wing, Muthoot M George Foundation has extended its Dialysis support project to Karnataka.

The company has signed an MoU with Bangalore Kidney Foundation (BKF), an NGO based in Bangalore for supporting patients for their Dialysis.

The official MOU exchange was held at Corporate office, Bangalore between George M Alexander, Executive Director, The Muthoot Group and Kartik Sriram, Trustee, Bangalore Kidney Foundation. George Alexander Muthoot, Managing Director, George Thomas Muthoot, Joint Managing Director, The Muthoot Group and the CSR committee members have joined this ceremony through video conferencing.

Muthoot M George Foundation, has been involved in the care and assistance activities for Kidney patients for a number of years. Every year, company has been providing a substantial amount for dialysis & treatment of renal patients. So far company has provided support for 2 lakh dialysis.

Speaking on this occasion, George M Alexander, Executive Director, Muthoot Finance Ltd. said, "The number of patients undergoing dialysis in India is increasing by 10-15 per cent every year. We believe, our association with BKF will provide additional care & comfort to the financially deprived patients. We at Muthoot Finance are committed to give back to the society through our various CSR initiatives, we will continue to remain duly committed towards our society with the vision to enhance the quality of life of communities that we serve.
T hirty nine migrants made desperate attempts to call for help as they were starved of oxygen and died in the back of a lorry while being smuggled into the UK, the Old Bailey heard today.

The Vietnamese victims, including three children, were all found dead after spending nearly 12 hours sealed inside a refrigerated container which had become their tomb.

Temperatures soared to an unbearable 38.5 degrees inside the pitch-black container, jurors heard this morning, as they made the perilous trip across Europe.

The court heard occupants tried in vain to call for help, while one victim, 28 year old Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh, penned a text message that could not be sent saying: Maybe going to die in the container, cant breathe any more dear.

Opening the case, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones said the victims, aged from 15 to 44, were loaded into the container in northern Europe and driven by Eamonn Harrison to Zeebrugge in Belgium, before it was loaded on to a cargo ship bound for the UK.

Maurice Robinson collected the container just after midnight on October 23 last year in Purfleet, Essex, and found the occupants dead when he stopped to give the migrants some air.

Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of Christopher Kennedy (left) and Valentin Calota (right) / PA

By then, it was getting on for 12 hours  at least  since any meaningful amount of fresh air had been let into the sealed container, said Mr Emlyn Jones.

Robinson knew he had to check on the occupants  hed been sent a message by his boss telling him what to do as soon as the lorry was in his control: Give them air quickly, but dont let them out.

Robinson drove out of Purfleet port, pulling that trailer on the back of his lorry, and almost immediately stopped and opened the doors of the trailer at the back. What he found must haunt him still. For the 39 men and women inside, that trailer had become their tomb.

The 28 men, eight women and three children, two of them just 15 years old, had been sealed into that airtight container, they had been in pitch darkness for at least 11 and three quarter hours.

The trailer in question was a refrigerator unit, but the refrigerator had not been turned on at any point while the victims were inside. Recovered temperature readings from the unit indicate that the temperature inside that trailer rose to what must have been an unbearable 38.5 degrees Celsius, more than 101 degree Fahrenheit.

There were no survivors in the container, as the victims had been starved of oxygen and suffocated.

Gheorghe Nica, 43, of Basildon, Essex, and lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 23, of Mayobridge, Co Down, Northern Ireland, both deny 39 counts of manslaughter and a people-smuggling charge.

They are on trial alongside Valentin Calota, 37, of Birmingham, and Christopher Kennedy, 24, of Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, who both deny a conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration between May 1 2018 and October 24 2019.

Mr Emlyn Jones said the trial will hear evidence of more than 10,000 being paid by each migrant to be smuggled into the UK.

Illegal immigration into the United Kingdom has been a hot topic over the last few years, making headlines, and dominating domestic and European politics, he told the court.

Amidst all the sound and fury generated by the media, and amidst all the statistics, numbers and debate about the causes of illegal immigration and its consequences, it is perhaps easy to lose sight of the fact that behind each story, and behind each number on a graph, there is a human being.

Police and forensic officers investigating the lorry / Getty Images

It is a sad and unavoidable truth that people from other parts of the world, perhaps from countries less secure or less affluent than our own, have shown themselves prepared to go to great lengths to come to the UK, looking for a better life.

The risks involved, and the costs involved, not just financial and personal costs, can be enormous, because people leave behind their families behind. They might spend everything they have to fund the trip, they might leave their families saddled with debt to fund the journey, and all because they are prepared to take extraordinary risks involved in exchange for the chance of a brighter future.

They do it because they are desperate.

It is said the people smuggling operation had already made successful trips fraught with danger through Europe to the UK, with lorry-loads of migrants left for hours and hours with no means of escape and no means of communication with the outside world.

Kennedy is said to have driven on two previous trips but was not involved in the fatal journey. Asked by a friend what had happened on October 23, he is said to have replied: Must have been 2 many and run out of air.

What it must have been like inside that lorry does not bear thinking about, added Mr Emlyn Jones.

We do have some direct evidence of what the victims were going through, recovered from some of their mobile phones. They had no signal inside the container, so could not call for help or alert the outside world to their plight.

But naturally, in desperation, they tried. In the phone of one of the deceased, 28 year old Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh, a text message was found which read maybe going to die in the container, cant breathe any more dear. It was found in her mobile phone marked unsent.

Maurice Robinson and his boss, haulage company owner Ronan Hughes, have already admitted 39 counts of manslaughter and involvement in the people smuggling operation.

A man called Alexandru Hanga has pleaded guilty to collecting migrants from the lorry on a previous trip, on October 11 last year. Another driver, Gazmir Nuzi, has admitted collecting his nephew and another individual on that same smuggling operation.

The victims have been named as: Dinh Dinh Binh, 15, Nguyen Minh Quang, 20, Nguyen Huy Phong, 35, Le Van Ha, 30, Nguyen Van Hiep, 24, Bui Phan Thang, 37, Nguyen Van Hung, 33, Nguyen Huy Hung, 15, Nguyen Tien Dung, 33, Pham Thi Tra My, 26, Tran Khanh Tho, 18, Nguyen Van Nhan, 33, Vo Ngoc Nam, 28, Vo Van Linh, 25, Nguyen Ba Vu Hung, 34, Vo Nhan Du, 19, Tran Hai Loc, 35, Tran Manh Hung, 37, Nguyen Thi Van, 35, Bui Thi Nhung, 19, Hoang Van Tiep, 18, Tran Thi Ngoc, 19, Phan Thi Thanh, 41, Tran Thi Tho, 21, Duong Minh Tuan, 27, Pham Thi Ngoc Oanh, 28, Tran Thi Mai Nhung, 18, Le Trong Thanh, 44, Nguyen Ngoc Ha, 32, Hoang Van Hoi, 24, Tran Ngoc Hieu, 17, Cao Tien Dung, 37, Dinh Dinh Thai Quyen, 18, Dong Huu Tuyen, 22, Nguyen Dinh Luong, 20, Cao Huy Thanh, 37, Nguyen Trong Thai, 26, Nguyen Tho Tuan, 25, and Nguyen Dinh Tu, 26.

The six-week trial is being conducted across two courtrooms at the Old Bailey to accommodate everyone within social distancing guidelines.

Two of the defendants are in a dock next door to the courtroom where the jury are sitting and evidence is due to be heard, watching proceedings via videolink.

The trial continues.
Without a clear strategy that enables and encourages small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Eurasia to adopt Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies (4IR), post-pandemic economic recovery will not be sustainable.

Since the beginning of the crisis, 75% of global SMEs have been forced to let employees go, whilst 70% have seen revenues fall and 40% suffer from liquidity issues as a result of the pandemic, according to data from the OECD.

Whilst the situation appears grim, experts on the latest Digital Series from the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summits #GMIS2020 believe that SMEs must maximise their ability to be flexible by embracing digitalisation and cutting-edge technologies in order to enable an inclusive and sustainable recovery.

Experts that participated in the discussion include Taras Kachka, Deputy Minister for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture, Ukraine; Naira Margaryan, Deputy Minister of Economy, Republic of Armenia; Maja Tomanic Vidovic, Director of the Slovenian Enterprise Fund; Milena Angelova, Vice President of the European Economic and Social Committee and Secretary-General of the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA); and Jacek Cukrowski, Chief Regional Coordination Division for Europe and Central Asia, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).

The panel agreed that central to the importance of building a sustainable recovery for SMEs and micro business is building digital ecosystems that operate across borders to help overcome any potential future lockdowns.

To do this, the experts are calling upon regional governments to work together to offer capacity building and technical support to SMEs through extensive training and upskilling programmes, so that SMEs can join the digital revolution and survive the crisis.

Kachka, Deputy Minister for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine said the Covid-19 crisis has negatively affected the economic integration of SMEs on both a regional and global level. SMEs are the key drivers of regional economic growth but the lockdown measures put in place in every country has impacted their ability to produce, trade and serve their communities as supply chains were disrupted.

To ensure recovery is sustainable and given that this virus isnt going away anytime soon - there is a balance to be struck between adhering to lockdown measures to prevent the spread of the virus and supporting economic activity. The movement of goods between markets should be supported, as should protecting employment  these were the main lessons we learnt in Ukraine during the height of the crisis.

Vidovic discussed the financial difficulties faced by micro companies and SMEs across Eurasia during the pandemic explaining that solid management of financial incentives could improve regional economic and investment stability. SMEs are more vulnerable to shocks such as Covid-19 than big businesses and therefore, the pandemic has shown how important digitalisation has become for protecting the stability of our economies.

The pandemic forced businesses to change how they interact with customers and suppliers, and to do this, digital transformation was made necessary overnight. Once the crisis passes, it is vital that governments put in place programmes to support digital development and innovation not only to survive but to emerge stronger from this crisis. Financial support is critical, but the focus should be on close cooperation and exchange of information and building partnerships, knowledge and skill development that will deliver a sustainable future.

Margaryan explained that capacity building in terms of upscaling and upskilling women throughout the SME workforce is vital to helping economies foster entrepreneurialism and ignite job creation. The recovery process could become a transformative platform for the inclusion of women and young people in the manufacturing sector.

Although the crisis has been devastating for some, for other businesses, it creates new employment and self-employment opportunities. In Armenia, we are seeing women embrace this as an opportunity to step up so to support their efforts, we in the government are working to provide better access for women to enter business networks and supporting capacity and skill-building, particularly in the manufacturing sector.

Angelova discussed how to formulate national and regional response measures with due consideration of the interests of the business community  including SMEs and micro businesses in particular. The main challenge is to prevent any loss of industrial production but to do this, we need to map out the impact of the pandemic on individual sectors and countries to identify where support is needed the most. Until now, much of the business communitys response to the crisis has been on a local level. This approach will not deliver a sustainable recovery. To do so, we need to draw these efforts together, to form a network across Europe and Asia to build cohesion and a multiplier effect.

The European Union has already begun this endeavour with the ambitious recovery strategy outlined in March, which including unprecedented and ambitious financial and solvency support mechanisms, along with pledges to contribute educational and skills support in the form of innovation hub and facilitation of the free movement of data.

The panel, entitled Industrial recovery in Europe and Central Asia: Accelerating digital transformation for MSMEs explored the likelihood that Europe and Central Asia, in particular, the Western Balkans, South Caucasus and Central Asia, will experience the biggest slump in terms of remittances, as a result of Covid-19, with the World Bank projecting a decrease of around 28% in 2020.

Cukrowski moderated the session, concluding that focusing on the importance of supporting SMEs is central to global economic recovery. Small and medium sized enterprises are the backbone of the regional Eurasian economy. Ensuring their resilience is key to creating a more inclusive and resilient, human-centreed future and a thriving global economy, he said.

The virtual panel discussion was the latest in a new sequence of weekly sessions held by the #GMIS2020 Digital Series, following the Virtual Summit that was held on September 4-5, 2020. -- Tradearabia News Service
A DOCTOR who accused Nphet of spreading fear around the coronavirus has been removed from his position as chairman of out-of-hours GP service, Shannondoc.

Dr Pat Morrissey sparked controversy after speaking at a rally in Dublin last weekend where he railed against fear-mongering propaganda.

A Shannondoc spokesman said: Shannondoc can confirm that Dr Pat Morrissey is no longer its chairperson or a member of the board.

As a frontline healthcare service provider, Shannondoc fully supports and follows public health guidance.

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Shannondoc has put in place best practice procedures and protocols in order protect both patients and our staff from the coronavirus.

We wish to assure our patients that we will continue to uphold and implement these practices and the directives as issued by public health authorities.

These directives have and continue to offer the best protective environment for both patients and medical staff.

We wish to thank Dr Morrissey for his significant contribution to the development of the cooperative during his tenure. We will embark on the process of appointing Dr Morrisseys successor with immediate effect.

In a video circulated on social media, Dr Morrissey told protestors that Covid-19 was for many, a mild illness, although he also acknowledged for some I accept that it can be quiet serious.

In defiance of guidelines from the HSE, I used Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, Azithromycin, and readily available Vitamin D, in combination, (on) high risk patients that got sick with Covid in my patient population, Dr Morrisey told the rally.

Dr Morrissey cited a 2005 study which he claimed showed the drug Hydroxychloroquine was very effective against the first Sars virus.

The US President Donald Trump, who was self-isolating at the White House after a spell in hospital having tested positive for Covid-19, has also promoted the use of Hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of Covid patients.

In response to Dr Morriseys comments about treating his patients who had tested positive for Covid-19, with Hydroxychloroquine, a HSE spokeswoman said: Hydroxychloroquine is not used as a treatment for Covid-19.

It has been removed from clinical recommendations due to evidence indicating a lack of benefit in patients hospitalised with Covid-19.

The most important action we can take is to protect ourselves and others from Covid-19. You can do this through regular hand washing, practising good respiratory hygiene, keeping two metres between yourself and other people, avoiding touching your eyes nose or mouth and wearing a mask where indicated in indoor public spaces.

Dr Morrissey added: The daily case numbers must stop being pushed by the media in our face, on a people that are suffering more from covid fatigue than Covid itself.

The lockdowns must stop. People miss the camaraderie of sport and the arts and music. Its time to stop existing and to start living again.

Ireland under Nphets fear-mongering propaganda is getting sicker by the day, he added.

Separately, in an interview with the Limerick Leader, Dr Morrisey claimed Ireland is practically at the level of herd immunity now.

People die everyday, I was at the bedside of a patient who died yesterday, I see death all the time, he said.

Dr Morrisey said, in his opinion, the public presently have a death phobia.

Death is part of life, and the government and Nphet are using peoples fear of death-irrational fear of death-as a hammer to beat them.

In response to his removal as Shannondoc chairperson and director he said: I think its a sad indictment of a country that we live in, and the time we live in, that things are so polarised and there isnt room for free speech, and that I would be penalised because of that.

But I respect the boards integrity and they have made a judgement, he added.

Dr Morrisey could not be reached for comment this afternoon, but a message was left at his clinic for a response.
Watch: Rhea Chakraborty exits jail in car with covered windows | Drugs case

Actor Rhea Chakraborty was released from Mumbai's Byculla jail, hours after she was granted bail by the Bombay High Court. She was arrested on September 8 by the Narcotics Control Bureau in a banned drugs case arising out of the investigation into the death of her boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput. The High Court granted bail to Rhea a day after a lower court had extended her custody to October 20. Her brother Showik continues to be in custody. After the HC's order, Rhea's lawyer Satish Maneshinde was seen at Byculla jail, following which Rhea left in her car. The windows of the vehicle were covered with paper as mediapersons crowded around it to catch a glimpse of the actor. Watch the full video for more. ...read more
WINCHESTER  Scott County Health Department will host adult flu vaccine drive-through clinics from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. Monday at Manchester Baptist Church, 2 to 4 p.m. Monday at Bluffs Senior Center and noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Nimrod Funk Building.

Those who attend are asked to bring their Medicare or insurance card.
President Donald Trump has ordered the military, the Department of Veterans Affairs and other government agencies to come up with a plan within 45 days to address mental health issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that may lead to suicide.

In an executive order issued Monday, Trump, now a coronavirus patient himself, said the COVID-19 outbreak, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans, has "exacerbated mental and behavioral health conditions as a result of stress from prolonged lockdown orders, lost employment and social isolation."

Read Next: Trump's Former Lawyer Vows to Help in Air Force Vet Reality Winner's Appeal

"We must enhance the ability of the federal government, as well as its state, local and tribal partners" to join in an all-of-government effort "to appropriately address these ongoing mental and behavioral health concerns," Trump said.

He ordered the establishment of a "Coronavirus Mental Health Working Group" to develop a plan within 45 days to "prevent suicides, drug-related deaths, and poor behavioral-health outcomes, particularly those that are induced or made worse by prolonged state and local COVID-19 shutdown orders."

The Cabinet-level working group will be led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, or his designate, and Brooke Rollins, the acting director of the White House Domestic Policy Council office, or her designate, according to the order.

The working group will include representatives from the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Justice, Labor and other government agencies with a mandate to focus on vulnerable populations and "individuals potentially affected by domestic violence or physical abuse."

On Tuesday, the VA said that Dr. Richard Stone, the executive in charge of the Veterans Health Administration, will serve as its representative on the working group. Other agencies have yet to name their representatives.

The executive order was dated Oct. 3, while Trump was being treated for COVID-19 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. It was issued Monday before he left Walter Reed to return to the White House.

The VA and DoD already have the President's Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide (PREVENTS) task force, led by VA Secretary Robert Wilkie, aimed at curbing the estimated 20 veteran suicides each day.

Trump's executive order followed a Sept. 27 Associated Press report that suicides in the military had increased by as much as 20% this year compared to the same period in 2019.

In its annual report on suicides in the military for 2019, the DoD reported Oct. 1 that the suicide rate for service members in 2019 -- 25.9 per 100,000 troops -- reached the highest level since the Pentagon first began closely monitoring self-inflicted deaths in 2000.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and professional health care organizations have issued warnings and reports on potential links between the mental stress brought on by the pandemic and the increased risk of suicide.

In August, the CDC warned that the pandemic "has been associated with mental health challenges related to the morbidity and mortality caused by the disease and to mitigation activities, including the impact of physical distancing and stay-at-home orders."

"Symptoms of anxiety disorder and depressive disorder increased considerably in the United States during April-June of 2020, compared with the same period in 2019," it added.

In the last week of June, an estimated 40% of U.S. adults reported struggling with mental health or substance use, the CDC said.

Also in August, the Mayo Clinic reported that "the emotional and psychological impacts of the pandemic can lead to feelings of hopelessness and thoughts about suicide."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related: Military Leaders in Quarantine After Coast Guard's No. 2 Admiral Tests Positive for COVID-19
Honestly, we thank you all. Let no one be offended by my word because Artsakh is equally our homeland. Vahram Poghosyan, spokesperson for the President of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), on Tuesday night wrote this on Facebook, and he posted a photo of the Hayastan All Armenian Fund raising US$70 million.

But after the victory, there will be a lot of concerns, too. We need to restore the ruins quickly. After the victory, we will have a brand new and thriving Artsakh, Poghosyan added.

On September 27, the Azerbaijani armed forces launched a large-scale attack against Artsakh, targeting the civilian population, too.

On the same day, martial law was declared both in Armenia and Artsakh.
Panaji, Oct 7 : Goa will not compromise on the ongoing Mhadei river water sharing row with Karnataka and the state is on the right track, especially with the filing of a contempt petition against the neighbouring state for violation of apex court's orders, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said on Wednesday.

"There is no compromise. We are strong in that regard. We have taken a stand. We are very much clear. We have filed a contempt petition. We are strong on that and we will follow the matter in the Supreme Court. We are on the right track," Sawant said.

The Chief Minister was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a function organised by a government corporation in Panaji.

The Goa government on Tuesday filed the contempt petition against Karnataka in the apex court alleging that the southern state is illegally diverting water from the Mhadei river basin via the newly constructed Kalasa-Banduri canal, despite a special leave petition filed by the Goa government in the apex court vis a vis the contentious issue.

The SLP, which was filed in July last year, also challenged the Mhadei Water Dispute Tribunal award in 2018, which allowed Karnataka to divert 13.42 TMC water from the river basin.

The SLP had also said that Karnataka was diverting more water than what was awarded.

Meanwhile, members of a civil society group Progressive Front of Goa were arrested after they staged a protest outside the Chief Minister's official residence in Panaji, demanding justice to Goa over the Mhadei dispute.

"The Goa government is compromising with Karnataka on the issue. We demand that the Chief Minister face the people of the state and explain the state's position and why it has lagged when it comes to defending the interests of the state and its people when it comes to the Mhadei river," Hridaynath Shriodkar of the Front said.

Goa Bharatiya Janata Party president Sadanand Shet Tanavade however told reporters, that allegations that the central National Democratic Alliance government was backing Karnataka over the Mhadei issue was wrong.

"I can tell you, it not true that the central government is supporting Karnataka. The Goa government is doing all it can to protect the state's interests," Tanavade said.

Mhadei also known as the Mandovi river in Goa and Mahadayi in Karnataka, is considered as a lifeline in the northern parts of Goa.

It originates in Karnataka and meets the Arabian Sea in Panaji in Goa, while briefly flowing through Maharashtra.

While the river runs 28.8 km in Karnataka, it is over 50 km in length in the state Goa.

Goa and Karnataka are battling out a two decade-long dispute over the sharing of the Mhadei waters.
Health care, abortion, taxes, and campaign money were among topics about which U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis and his Democratic challenger, Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, debated Monday night.

The hour-long showdown, held in Champaign and broadcast on television and radio, was sponsored by Illinois Public Media, WCIA-TV and the League of Women Voters of Champaign County.

As in their 2018 13th Congressional District race in which Davis, a Republican from Taylorville, narrowly defeated Londrigan, a Springfield Democrat, the candidates repeatedly argued about health care. Londrigan said Davis voted 11 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement a claim Davis denied.

Davis said some votes Londrigan cites were procedural. "The one vote that counted protected pre-existing conditions," he said of a GOP-backed bill that passed the House but not the Senate.

"Unless somebody walked up and pressed the (voting) button when you weren't looking, every one of those 11 times, that was you -- 11 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act with no replacement," Londrigan said.

Each candidate accused the other of backing plans that would damage rural hospitals. Londrigan said Davis' votes would have cut Medicaid, hurting those hospitals, while Davis said Londrigan supports a public option insurance plan that would lead to closure of many rural hospitals through less reimbursement for care. Londrigan said she would work with the hospitals to make sure they could maintain their standard of care.

On abortion, the candidates were asked how they would deal with the issue if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn the Roe vs. Wade decision that made the procedure legal.

"I'm proudly able to stand here and say , outside the cases of rape, incest or death of the mother, I want to protect the unborn," Davis said.

"I trust women to make their own decisions about their own bodies without the government interfering in those very personal medical decisions, period," Londrigan said. She said overturning the Affordable Care Act would "put women back into the dark ages."

On taxes, Davis said he was glad to vote for the bill, signed by President Donald Trump, that he said lowered taxes, brought jobs back to the United States from overseas, and got the economy moving

"My opponent clearly doesn't like our tax cut bill that put money in your pockets, so she wants to raise your taxes," Davis said, noting that Londrigan is also for the state of Illinois constitutional amendment that would allow a graduated income tax, which Davis opposes.

But Londrigan called the tax bill signed by President Trump in 2017 a "tax scam" that "resulted in companies like Amazon and Netflix paying nothing."

Asked about the New York Times report that Trump paid no income taxes in several years, and $750 in a couple of recent years, Davis, who is an honorary co-chair of the Trump campaign in Illinois, said more should be disclosed about the newspaper's information.

"The president, his team have said that what is being reported is not true," Davis said.

"It is ridiculous that a millionaire or billionaire is paying $750 a year in taxes," Londrigan said. "The system is broken."

Asked if she would return any funding she has received from Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, Londrigan discussed allegations involving Madigan and Commonwealth Edison. The utility has admitted giving jobs and contracts to people close to Madigan to curry favor with him. Madigan has said he did nothing wrong, and has not been charged with a crime.

I have said all along... nobody is above the law," said Londrigan. "Anyone proved to be involved in this bribery scheme has got to step aside immediately."

Madigan also chairs the Democratic Party of Illinois. Londrigan has received help from the party.

In her response, Londrigan noted that officials and the political action committee of Exelon, the parent company of ComEd, have donated thousands of dollars to Davis.

"ComEd is not Exelon. ... Exelon is not under a plea agreement," Davis said. "It's your supporters and the ... tens of thousands of dollars that you took directly from ComEd lobbyists who have been implicated. You need to stand up to Speaker Madigan and you won't."

Londrigan fired back. "Exelon owns ComEd, Congressman, but you know that. You accepted money both from Exelon's PAC and from the ComEd Excelon CEO and executives. I know it's a drop in the bucket compared to the over $3 million that you have taken from corporate PACS, but it is significant."

The candidates are scheduled to spar again Oct. 13 at Illinois State University.

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Midland Pastor Bob Fu, who received political asylum in the U.S. following persecution in China, said he was shocked to learn an exiled Chinese billionaire had accused him of being a spy for the Chinese Communist Party.

Fu and his family were evacuated from their home Monday morning and moved to a safe location after a group of about 50 protesters arrived on a bus outside their residence. Midland Mayor Patrick Payton said during a press conference that afternoon that local and federal agencies were investigating alleged threats on Fus life.

In an interview with the Reporter-Telegram, Fu said he was being targeted by Chinese businessman Miles Guo, who recently made headlines as the owner of the yacht Steve Bannon was arrested on when he was charged in the Build the Wall scheme.

Guo, who also goes by the names Miles Kwok and Guo Wengui, established GTV Media Group after fleeing China following bribery charges. Bannon, up until his arrest, was the director of the company, which markets itself as a news organization exposing corruption within the Chinese government.

However, Guos status as a whistleblower has come under scrutiny and he is currently the subject of a federal fraud investigation, according to news reports.

RELATED: Payton: Federal agencies are investigating threats against Bob Fu

On the GTV website, Guo has accused Fu of being a fake priest, a spy for the CCP and the leader of a human trafficking ring.

Why Guo has launched a campaign against Fu is a mystery, especially to Fu.

Its like a rollercoaster, Fu said of the last week, in a phone interview from an undisclosed location. We never imagined this would happen in a West Texas city.

Fu first became aware of the allegations against him last Saturday, when a handful of protesters came to his home, he said. Those demonstrations escalated Monday morning when a much larger group arrived with signs and pamphlets that they passed out to Fus neighbors and left on car windshields.

When interviewed by reporters, the protesters declined to provide their names and denied being members of any organization. Fu said he believes they were either followers of Guo or actors paid to harass his family.

Guo has posted several videos to GTVs social media pages exposing Fu and others he claims are working with the CCP. English subtitles of some of the videos provided by ChinaAid, a nonprofit founded by Fu, show Guo telling his followers about a global kill cheaters campaign, which includes Fu.

We will fully support our comrades who take actions to kill those cheaters, Guo says in one video, according to the subtitles.

The accuracy of the subtitles was verified for the Reporter-Telegram by a third-party Mandarin speaker.

In another video, Guo refers to those he has launched campaigns against and allegedly says, How can we kill CCP if we cannot kill them first?

Fu said hes never met Guo and believes he might be a target because of his work with ChinaAid, which provides legal assistance to Christians who have been arrested in China. There are estimated to be over 1 million people from religious or ethnic minorities currently in Chinese internment camps.

The alleged threats against Fu are being investigated by the FBI and CIA, Payton said Monday.

I think that this is a wake-up call for us, Fu said. Knowing that we need to be vigilant and not take our freedom for granted.

Fu thanked Midlanders for supporting him and said he and his family are safe. For those who have asked how to help, he urged community members to learn more about the CCP and persecution by the Chinese government.

The ChinaAid office has been closed as a precaution but staff are continuing to work remotely, Fu said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS

The governments intention to tax big tech is positive but that it will be challenging to fit many promises in one piece of legislation, critics say, adding that there is a lot riding on Justin Trudeaus proposals to tax big tech giants.

The government suggested in its throne speech coming legislation or new regulations for companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and Netflix.

Web giants are taking Canadians money while imposing their own priorities Things must change, and will change, Governor General Julie Payette read in the speech.

But Trudeaus government has touted the idea of reining in tech giants since before the 2019 Federal Election, New Democrat MP Charlie Angus said, adding that its time the government did something.

The digital giants have not been paying anywhere close to a reasonable rate of tax in Canada and thats a problem. Were seeing the Liberals now acknowledge that, but theyve acknowledged that many times and have done nothing on it. I think theyre deeply in awe of the power of Silicon Valley to the detriment of Canada, he said in an interview.

Angus noted that taxing big tech would mean being able to reinvest in Canada and put money into projects that benefit local companies. That could mean reinvesting in digital startups or supporting Canadian entrepreneurs or artists.

Conservative MP James Cumming, who is the innovation shadow cabinet minister, said in an interview that it was hard to comment on something when the Liberals had yet to put out any kind of legislation.

From a principle basis we want to see tech companies pay their fair share, but we also dont want to discourage investment and access to information and to the services that Canadians would see, he said.

Technology is changing all the time and from my perspective, it looks like the Liberals have just been postponing the problem.

Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, who sits on the industry committee, said in an interview that the government was committed to creating legislation and that there were three areas the government is focused on. That includes creating a revenue tax based on what the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has recommended, a fair share of revenue between big tech and news media outlets, and ensuring that digital platforms are paying towards creating Canadian content.

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In May 2019, the government announced the Digital Charter, a 10-point principled plan to guide policy on future legislation of digital platforms; it did not include specific regulations.

Trudeaus 2019 election platform suggested imposing a three per cent tax on the revenue generated in Canada by large technology companies through online advertising by collecting Canadian user data.

Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault has also suggested introducing legislation targeting streaming services and possibly forcing social media giants like Facebook to pay news outlets for content.

Tackling big tech in legislation will be difficult, long overdue

Rohinton Medhora, president of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), said in an interview, that while news of the government intending to introduce legislation is positive, it was overdue.

It almost left us thinking, what took us so long to get to this space, but Im glad weve gotten to this place, he said, adding that the Liberals are going to have a challenging time trying to fit so many promises in a single legislative act.

Youre never going to tackle any big complex problem through one piece of legislation only, Medhora said. In other words, not everything could be in one big bill this fall. Moving from a piece-by-piece provincial approach to taxing streaming services to a federal approach is a fairly straightforward thing that could be done. But then youve got complex things like the revenue tax.

He noted that one main issue that has crippled the government when trying to enforce legislation on tech giants is that theyre too powerful. However, he noted that change is possible if enough countries wake up and do it jointly, then companies do have to sit up and listen.

Ben Bergen, executive director of the Council of Canadian Innovators, said in an interview that the government shouldnt impose a tax if its for the purpose of a short-term goal to pay for social programs.

The real focus should be, how do we create a prosperity strategy using innovation as a way to actually tax and pay for programs we as Canadians care about? he said.

More recently, the CCI released a report highlighting eight recommendations from the tech sector on how to give a boost to Canadas economy. Bergen highlighted at the time that Canada needs to reconsider its approach to foreign direct investment in the innovation sector as part of that COVID-19 recovery plan.

He said ultimately the CCI will pay attention to how the country spends money on technology infrastructure.

The government is going to be spending billions of dollars on infrastructure, so were looking at those procurement models. Wheres that technology coming from? Is it coming from domestic innovators? Or is it coming from foreign firms?

Thats really where companies are able to thrive and grow, is when they get a purchase order. If you look at South Korea or some of the Nordic countries, theyre really good at playing in these spaces by supporting domestic building capacity and then ultimately selling those products globally, he said.

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For the cardinal, Fratelli Tutti is a call "to live in peace and put aside enmities" and for charity and brotherhood. Christians can pass on brotherhood and mercy to Muslims "for a radical change". Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus have been affected by secularisation. The encyclical must be presented in a more user-friendly way to facilitate its dissemination.

Baghdad (AsiaNews)  Card Louis Raphael Sako spoke to AsiaNews about Pope Franciss encyclical Fratelli Tutti and its close link to the document on fraternity the pontiff signed in Abu Dhabi in February 2019 along with the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyeb.

For the Chaldean patriarch, the encyclical comes "at a time of total confusion, wars and tensions, sectarianism and persecution" to bring light, adding that the Gospel says that "we are all brothers and we must work together on a plan of solidarity. This text urges us to live in peace, joy, and dignity, putting aside enmities and private interests.

For the Chaldean primate, the reference "to charity, brotherhood, justice and forgiveness, love for the poor" is essential. This is "a basic text for countries with wars and devastation like Iraq itself, Syria, Lebanon, Libya and Yemen. It makes clear that the solution is never military, but diplomatic to put an end to the deaths of so many people.

The call for mercy, the parable of the Good Samaritan whose figure is also appreciated by the believers of other religions, is a call to redistribute wealth according to a standard of justice", so that "it is not only for me, but also for the benefit of others.

This reference comes from the Bible. The pope speaks in a prophetic voice in a dark world. The Grand Imam of al-Azhar said as much, noting that this encyclical has come because today the world is going through a dark phase.

Brotherhood is one of Christianitys highest traits. Muslims speak of brotherhood among themselves, a human brotherhood. The pontiff's reference is broader, as in the Gospel when it calls to love one's enemies.

This is a peculiar aspect of Christianity and, starting from this element, we must help others to learn to forgive, to be reconciled, to understand that revenge is bad. This would be a radical change for Muslims as well.

According to the cardinal, "Today there is an urgent need for a spiritual awakening, not only for Christians but also for Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. Because of globalisation and growing secularisation, accentuated by social media, we have neglected these values.

We must contribute to a spiritual awakening, which is a duty for us Christians. The Pope asks us to do all this, urging us to think of different policies, different strategies because the current ones have been wiped out by wars, violence and, ultimately, the new coronavirus pandemic.

The encyclical has a major section dedicated to migrants. Iraqi Christians know very well what migration means since their ranks were more than halved due to a massive exodus in the last 20 years.

"If, on the one hand, it is a duty to provide hospitality; on the other, it is important to eliminate the causes that drive people away, said the cardinal. Today there are economic and political problems and the international community must create the conditions for decent living conditions at home, and not force people to leave. Everyone must contribute to the development of the country.

Finally, Card Sako underlines the need to make it easier to read the encyclical, and not end up on library shelves". It should become "a living thing, part of everyday life, helping people to understand it by giving them the necessary tools.

To this end, the Chaldean patriarchate "has published excerpts in Arabic" but, the cardinal wants the Roman Curia to "develop synopses and explanatory videos so that it can also be understood and read by Muslim authorities and government leaders here in Iraq as well.

At a time in history when people are struggling to read, it is important to provide new ways for it [the encyclical] to circulate.

Justice, migration, redistribution of assets and wealth are current issues for everyone. We must spread the word like the Church Fathers did because the Pope speaks to everyone, not only Christians.
Saltability founder and CEO Ann Brown is honored to be recognized in the category of Philanthropist by American Spa magazine. "I am honored to receive this award and be included in this group of amazing women  thank you to American Spa for this recognition, said Brown. Serving my local community and industry is deeply important to me. Helping others is at the heart of what we do in the spa and massage industry!"

Saltability founder and CEO Ann Brown has been named Top Philanthropist by American Spas fourth annual Women in Wellness awards. The category of philanthropist honors a woman who is making an altruistic impact on a charity or cause within the spa and wellness industry. A spa and massage industry veteran, Brown introduced a more eco-friendly stone massage through Saltability's innovative Himalayan salt stone massage warmers.

I am honored to receive this award and be included in this group of amazing women  thank you to American Spa for this recognition, said Brown. Serving my local community and industry is deeply important to me. Helping others is at the heart of what we do in the spa and massage industry!

Committed to educating others about the value of spa wellness and salt therapy, Brown serves as vice chair of the Global Wellness Salt & Halotherapy Initiative and is involved in the Global Wellness Institute Mentorship Program. She was also a founding member of the American Spa Therapy Education and Certification Council and a former member of the International Spa Association Board of Directors.

Brown has made giving back and support of key nonprofit organizations a guiding principle of her company, Saltability. Through Citizens Foundation USA and the Hunar Foundation, she supports education and work opportunities for the people of Pakistan, particularly women and children, to give back to the area where Saltability sources its pure Himalayan salt. By partnering with Seagull Services, Saltability supports its mission to provide meaningful employment for individuals with disabilities.

In addition, Brown serves her South Florida community in several ways, including service through Rotary International, the YMCA, Habitat for Humanity, and the Alzheimers Association. In 2018, Brown served as event chair for the Alzheimers Associations 2018 Walk to End Alzheimers in Boca Raton, Florida drew a record-breaking 2,600 participants and raised nearly $340,000. For her work to raise money and awareness in the fight against Alzheimers Disease, Brown was honored with a 2019 ISPA Innovate Award in the Leadership & Philanthropy category. Currently, Brown is the head ambassador for Downtown Boca Raton Rotary Club's CHOW (Children's Health on the Weekends) initiative.

At this time, Brown has chosen to work with the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton, Florida, in support of sea turtle conservation by adopting a sea turtle hatchling for every Himalayan salt stone warmer purchased by a new Saltability professional account. As a business that uses socially and environmentally responsible manufacturing, Saltability understands the importance of a healthy ecosystem, and recognizes this as a tremendous way to make a local difference by protecting the delicate beauty and balance of Boca Ratons beaches.

To learn more about Saltability, visit saltability.com. To see all this years winners, visit americanspa.com.
The judicial custody of actor Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik Chakaborty, and 18 others arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), in connection with its probe into the drug angle to late actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death, ends Tuesday.

Their judicial custody is most likely to be extended for another 14 days considering their bail pleas before the Bombay High Court have been heard, and a single bench has reserved its order.

Chakraborty and her brother were arrested by NCB after WhatsApp chats regarding the alleged use of drugs surfaced during the investigation into Rajputs untimely death. Chakraborty was arrested after being interrogated by an NCB team for three consecutive days, on September 6, 7 and 8. According to NCB, the actor was involved in illicit trafficking of drug and she financed drugs for Sushant Singh Rajput. Similar allegations were levelled against Showik Chakraborty and stringent conditions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985 were slapped against the two.

Also Read: End the conspiracy theories, now | HT Editorial

Their bail applications were turned down by a special NDPS court on September 11, 2020. Following this, Chakraborty and her brother had moved the Bombay high court for bail and had refuted the allegation of financing narcotic drugs for the consumption of the deceased actor.

Arguing their bail applications before the Bombay high court, advocate Satish Maneshinde said Rajput was in no dearth of funds. His house manager Samuel Miranda used to take care of all household expenses, and there was no question of Chakraborty financing drug purchases for the deceased actor.

Responding to NCBs accusation that Chakraborty was part of a drug syndicate, Maneshinde said the allegations was merely on the basis of a solitary incident of March 17, 2020 when she gave her credit card to Rajputs house manager Samuel Miranda, who withdrew Rs 10,000 using the card and purchased some contraband material for the deceased actor.

Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajputs sister demands probe into AIIMS Dr Sudhir Gupta, cites flip-flop as he rules out murder

He maintained that no amount was paid directly using Chakrabortys card to any of the alleged peddlers for procuring drugs and therefore she cant be said to be associated with any drug ring. It was an admitted fact that Rajput was consuming drugs even before Chakraborty became acquainted with him in April 2019, and two of Rajputs co-stars, Sara Ali Khan and Shraddha Kapoor, have reportedly told NCB that he was consuming drugs for quite a while.

Maneshinde said Showik Chakraborty too was accused of being part of a drug syndicate for allegedly paying petty amounts on three occasions in April 2020 to purchase minuscule amounts of hashish and marijuana.

The lawyer had added that stringent provisions contained in 27A of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 for financing illicit trafficking of drugs or harbouring offenders were not at all applicable to Rhea Chakraborty or Showik Chakraborty, even if one went by the allegations levelled by NCB.

NCB also alleged that Rhea Chakraborty had harboured Rajput. Maneshinde had argued that during the relevant period, Chakraborty was residing with Rajput in his house and questioned how she could have harboured the late actor in his own house.

Advocate Taraq Sayed, who had argued the bail plea of another man accused in the case, Abdel Basit Parihar, submitted that NCB has been claiming to have busted a major drug ring by arresting 18/19 college students. He claimed that almost all the persons arrested by NCB in this case come from well-to-do families and cannot by any stretch of imagination be termed as drug peddlers or suppliers.

Sayed submitted that the arrests were made only on the basis of statements recorded under Section 67 of the NDPS Act, especially when there was hardly any recovery from most of them. He said the statements under Section 67 can at the most be used to corroborate recovery from an accused, and not otherwise.

Sayed said Parihar is a final-year student of architecture and had missed his examination as he had been arrested by NCB. He added that though a moralistic argument was being advanced by NCB as to how society, especially the younger generation, was affected by the menace of narcotic drugs, in India, more people die due to smoking than by drug abuse.

Maintaining that all alleged transactions involve small quantities of drugs and therefore were bailable, Sayed said all five applicants before the high courtRhea Chakraborty, Showik Chakraborty, Miranda, other Rajput staffers Dipesh Sawant and Pariharwere entitled to bail as a matter of right.

In support of his submission that the offences alleged were bailable, he relied on a 2010 judgment of Bombay high court holding that all offences under NDPS Act involving small quantities were bailable.

Additional solicitor general Anil Singh, who opposed the bail applications on behalf of NCB, however submitted that the applicants were under a wrong assumption that all offences under the NDPS Act involving small quantity of drugs were bailable. Singh submitted that NDPS Act nowhere states that certain offences were bailable and claimed that all offences under the Act were non-bailable.

Justice Sarang Kotwal had agreed with his submission. The judge referred to a 1999 judgement of a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court, observing that all offences under the NDPS Act were non-bailable, and no other court was therefore authorised to take a different view of the issue.

The judge had then reserved the order on September 29.

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Jana Duggar is proving yet again that she cares little what her critics think. The Counting On alum started making headlines in October after posting a video of her brother, James, using a weed whacker to spell out the slogan Trump 2020 in the familys front yard. After receiving tons of backlash and losing some followers, Duggar responded by sharing yet another photo.

This one wasnt overtly political. But it did prove that Jana is unconcerned with negative comments on Instagram.

Jana Duggar has conservative values like her family

The Duggar family | D Dipasupil/Getty Images for Extra

Though the Duggar children dont follow all the strict rules they had since childhood, like never wearing pants or watching television, theyve all mostly remained conservative when it comes to their lifestyle. The Duggars are part of a fundamentalist Christian religion that does not follow mainstream society when it comes to raising children. The adult Duggar kids are still sticking with some version of that.

Family patriarch Jim Bob Duggar served as a Republican in the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1999 to 2002 and his son Jedidiah is running for office in the same party. The other Duggars frequently post on social media supporting conservative values, including pro-life causes. So its no surprise they also advocate for President Trumps reelection.

Her fans flooded Janas Instagram with negative comments

RELATED: Counting On: The 1 Thing Everyone Gets Wrong About Jana Duggar

After Jana posted the yard artwork video, fans reacted strongly in the comments section, expressing their disgust that she was supporting Trump for president in 2020. Some chose to unfollow Jana because of her post.

But instead of removing her previous post or apologizing, Jana doubled down by posting another photo shortly after. This one wasnt political, but it did highlight some of the Counting On stars values.

Jana Duggar shared a photo of herself at Magnolia Market at the Silos

Despite all the negativity on her Instagram, Jana followed up her lawn video with a picture of herself standing in front of an inspirational quote. Her caption echoed the same message, saying: Where you are today matters for who youll be tomorrow.

Fans instantly recognized the setting as Magnolia Market at the Silos, Joanna Gaines famous retail emporium in Waco, Texas. Its unclear whether Jana was posting the photo from a previous visit or if shed headed there recently. But her post proved she didnt care about getting slammed by negative comments.

As expected, even this seemingly innocent snapshot unleashed a torrent of accusatory reactions from her followers. The Magnolia photo inspired Janas followers to ask how she or her family could support Trump. Again, Jana didnt reply with any defenses or retorts, but some other followers chided the naysayers for attacking Janas beliefs.

The Duggars state will probably go to Trump

Tensions are high in the upcoming election. However, the Duggars personally wont affect the election too much, at least when it comes to electoral votes. Arkansas is a solidly Republican state and almost all models predict that their 6 electoral votes will go to Trump. Meanwhile, her sister Jinger Vuolo will almost certainly see her home state of California go to Joe Biden.

Jana has supporters from both sides of the political aisle and would offend someone no matter what she posts.
Mr Solomon Tesfamariam, The Country Director Plan International Ghana, has advised Women Right Organisations (WROs) to be innovative to make lasting impacts in the lives of women and girls in the country.



He said there the need for WROs to challenge the system to assist women and girls who were the most vulnerable in society.



Mr Tesfamariam gave the advice when he spoke at the orientation and signing event for the 14 selected Grantees of the Womens Voice Leadership- Ghana (WVL Ghana) initiative under the COVID-19 Flexible Response Funding Mechanism (FRFM) Grant.



He said the initiative recognizes the leadership and tenacity that women's rights organizations have demonstrated over decades in the fight for gender equality.



The Country Director advised the beneficiaries to use the grants for its intended purpose to maximize the impact of development to help eradicate poverty.



The WVL Ghana is a five-year initiative being carried out by Plan International Ghana, Plan International Canada, NETRIGHT, and Women in Law and Development Africa (WiLDAF) through the support of Global Affairs Canada (GAC).



It seeks to support the capacity and activities of local, regional, and national WROs to empower women and girls, advance protection of womens and girls rights, and achieve gender equality in Ghana.



Ms Patricia Essel, the Project Lead-WVL Ghana, highlighting the objectives of the project noted that the project would support up to 87 local, regional and national WROs and networks to enhance their institutional capacity, deliver gender-transformative, and innovative programming, and lead collective action and advocacy.



She said the total budget for the WVL Ghana was 5,191,804 dollars but due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, an additional $500,000 has been added to aid the activities WROs under the COVID-19 FRFM Grant.



Ms Essel urged the grantees to always respect the feminist principles by ensuring full and meaningful participation and influence on all project processes as well as respect WROs agency, acknowledge their expertise and knowledge of their issues and context.



She expressed appreciation to Global Affairs Canada for their support to the project and their quest to promote gender equality work.



Ms Melody Darkey, WiLDAF Director, speaking at the event also urged the WROs to apply the funds for the intended purpose to be able to provide accountability when the need arises.



The Women's Voice and Leadership initiative was launched in 2017.

Source: GNA









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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan says the war unleashed by Azerbaijan on Artsakh was not unexpected, but Azerbaijans involvement of militants from terrorist organizations in the attacks was unexpected, and that this changes the context of what is happening.

For a long time now belligerent rhetoric was being voiced by Azerbaijan, rhetoric of hate against Armenians and everything that is related to Armenians, Pashinyan told the Russian First Channel in an interview.

And it has become usual for us that Azerbaijan is speaking in the language of threats. The involvement of militants from terrorist organizations in this conflict was unexpected for us. And I believe this changes the entire context of whats happening. Because already yesterday the Russian special services confirmed that militants from some terror groups are involved in the military operations in Nagorno Karabakh, meaning the attacks on Nagorno Karabakh. And I think that now Nagorno Karabakh is fighting against international terrorism. And this changes a lot of things, he said.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
The news comes on the eve of a court ruling sought by Google whether France's competition authority overstepped its jurisdiction in ordering the tech firm to negotiate with French media groups

Google said on Wednesday it was close to a digital copyright deal with French newspapers, which would be the first under EU rules aimed at ensuring news publishers are paid for content displayed in search results.

The main points of a deal have been hammered out, including Google's agreement to share ad revenue generated from displaying news results, the firm said in a joint statement with an association representing French newspaper publishers.

The news comes on the eve of a court ruling sought by Google whether France's competition authority overstepped its jurisdiction in ordering the tech firm to negotiate with French media groups.

The US internet giant is in a standoff with European media groups including Agence France-Presse over its refusal to comply with a new European Union "neighbouring rights" law.

The law seeks to give some copyright protection to media firms when their work features on websites, search engines and social media platforms.

France was the first European country to ratify the law in 2019 and in April this year the French competition authority ordered Google to open talks about compensating news publishers.

But Google, which dominates internet searches, had insisted that articles, pictures and videos would be shown in search results only if media groups consent to let the tech giant use them for free.

The firm says it should not have to pay to display items produced by news companies since they benefit from seeing hundreds of millions of visits to their websites.

"Google's offer covers neighbouring rights as defined by the law," said the statement.

The head of the Les Echos - Le Parisien newspaper group, Pierre Louette said the talks "have clarified numerous points and confirmed that Google accepts the principle of remuneration for newspapers".

If a deal is finalised it will be the first time Google has acknowledged it must pay media firms under the EU law and could have huge repercussions for the future of the press as it grapples with the decline in traditional print sales.

Story continues

The statement said the deal also foresees the participation of the French newspapers in News Showcase, a project where Google will invest $1 billion in media, which will then put original reporting on a new Google app.

Google is holding separate talks with French magazine publishers and Agence France-Presse.

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Health Minister Nelu Tataru on Wednesday again urged the public to follow the COVID-19 health rules, emphasising that the COVID-19 pandemic is not sorted out in hospitals.

"Let's try at this point, let's call it a crossroad, to re-establish an approach to everything that means following certain rules. The system is the one that will give us the capacity. We, the healthcare professionals, are often asked what the limits would be. We have received 200 patients, we are receiving 1,000, we are receiving 2,000, we are receiving 3,000 patients a day, but let's see if that component of prevention is what can make the difference. Once again the COVID-19 pandemic is not sorted out in hospitals. This pandemic is being sorted out in pre-hospital settings,"Tataru said at the Government House.

He added that by following with rules, the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections will be reduced as community transmission decreases.

"There are really outbreaks in nursing homes, in children's centers, there are even outbreaks in healthcare facilities, there are really outbreaks say in businesses (...) but let's see where those outbreaks come from. There are events that are not completely supervised or certain rules are not followed; there is the public transport where we can see the rules are not followed either. Those are the infectious areas; let's take these things a little more seriously and we will see a decrease in the number of new cases."

According to Tataru, the restrictions re-imposed by the authorities in some counties and Bucharest City will show their effects in 10-14 days, provided that the public follow the rules.

"This number of cases - almost 3,000 cases - did not appear in September, it did not appear in August. There have been seven months in which we have been using certain rules in an attempt to manage an ongoing pandemic, to contain community transmission. The government, the healthcare system, the ministries are the ones that manage the pandemic from an administrative point of view, together with the local administrations. The civilian population is the one who prevents, having to follow rules and take some precautions. This is a moment that each of us have to manage in a particular way, this is the time when each of us has to be aware that the future health of this nation depends on us alone," said Tataru.

Romania's COVID-19 case count jumped by 2,958 in the last 24 hours as resulting from tests performed nationwide, the Strategic Communication Group (GCS), the official novel coronavirus communication task force, reported on Wednesday.
Five deaths and a further 611 new cases of Covid-19 have been notified today.

Laois is not listed today but 204 cases are spread across 21 counties. The latest full county by county breakdown recorded on Monday shows a rise of just one new case in the county. Details at bottom of this story.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 5 additional deaths related to COVID-19.

There has been a total of 1,816 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

As of midnight Tuesday 6th October the HPSC has been notified of 611 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 39,584 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Of the cases notified today;

303 are men / 305 are women

59% are under 45 years of age

50% are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case

83 cases have been identified as community transmission

218 in Dublin, 63 in Cork, 60 in Donegal, 35 in Galway, 31 in Kildare and the remaining 204 are located across 21 counties.

Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said; All key indicators of the disease have deteriorated further in the three days since the last meeting of NPHET on Sunday 4th October. COVID-19 is spreading in our community in a very worrying manner. We have to break these chains of transmission.

80 COVID-19 cases were hospitalised in August, 206 in September and 77 so far in October.

In August, 4 COVID-19 related deaths in total were reported, 34 in September and today on the 7th of October we report 8 COVID-19 related deaths this month.

Dr. Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said; Trends in case numbers and incidence are now being reflected in indicators of disease severity. The number of people in hospital has increased from 122 last Thursday to 156 this afternoon. There are currently 25 people in critical care compared to 20 one week ago.

Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said Case numbers and hospitalisations are growing exponentially. The Reproductive number is now estimated at 1.2. If we fail to reduce viral transmission nationwide immediately, we could see 1,100  1,500 cases per day and 300-450 people in hospital by November 7th.

Dr Siobhan Ni Bhriain, Consultant Psychiatrist and HSE Integrated Care Lead; I urge everyone to remind themselves of what they can do on an individual level to suppress the virus and prevent a surge on hospital demands. Currently, the average length of stay of a COVID-19 patient is 20 days in hospital and 14 days in ICU.

ICU is the last stop in the care pathway for any illness. Focus on prevention and follow public health advice to ensure care pathways are available to as many people and treatments as possible.

The latest county total figures for Laois and neighbouring counties refer to Moday, October 5. The rise is not as big in these counties as experienced on Sunday.

Laois 509 - 1 up from the previous day.

Offaly 778 - up 6.

Kildare 2,691 - up 13.

Carlow 301 - no change.

Kilkenny 486 - up 2.

Tipperary 844 - up 8.

Dublin 18,061. - up 110

The HSE is working to identify any contacts the patients may have had to provide them with information and advice to prevent further spread.

The COVID-19 Dashboard provides up-to-date information on the key indicators of COVID-19 in the community. The revised figure for Laois is contained in the Covid-19 section of the Government's website.
We welcome the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries aimed at immediate cessation of hostilities unleashed by Azerbaijan, threatening regional security and stability. In this context, we note the statement by Foreign Ministers of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair states strongly condemning the unprecedented and dangerous escalation of violence in the conflict zone. The Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Ministry of Foreign Affairs has noted this in a statement it has released.

We emphasize the central role of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship as the only agreed format which carries out mediation in the process of the peaceful settlement of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict. At the same time, we reiterate the principled position of the Republic of Artsakh on the inadmissibility of Turkeys participation in any form in international mediation efforts within the framework of the peaceful settlement of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict. The criminal conduct of Turkey, which exercises command and control of the armed aggression against the Republic of Artsakh, supplies weapons to Azerbaijan for waging the war and recruits fighters from terrorist organizations in the Middle East to participate in the hostilities, make its further membership in the OSCE Minsk Group impossible.

The Republic of Artsakh has repeatedly stressed that the effectiveness of mediation efforts is directly contingent on the ability to ensure the irreversibility of the settlement process, and the introduction of effective mechanisms for non-resumption of hostilities. Two large-scale armed attacks by Azerbaijan on the Republic of Artsakh over the past four years clearly demonstrate that the previous concepts of the mediators proved to be ineffective against Azerbaijans flagrant disrespect not only for its international obligations, but also for the norms of international law, and have been nullified by the internationally wrongful acts of Baku.

In current situation, international recognition of the Republic of Artsakh is the most effective means of ensuring peace and security in the region, which will guarantee a solid basis for the negotiated settlement of the conflict, the Artsakh MFA statement also reads.
The Nigerian government is rolling out innovative strategies to optimise services at primary healthcare centres across the country as part of the response to the coronavirus pandemic and possible situations of public emergency, an official has said.

This is geared towards Nigerias quest for achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC), Faisal Shuaib, the executive director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), said.

This is contained in an overview of the agencys activities in the past four years and its plans for the next 10 years shared to a host of health editors on Tuesday after a meeting with the NPHCDA head in Abuja.

The document provided updates on the progress across the agencys key cardinal areas of focus in the last four years which includes upscaling routine immunisation and the fight to end polio.

The overview also gave insight on plans for strengthening PHCs towards achieving UHC in a Post-Polio, Peri-COVID19 Era (2021-2030).

The achievements, successes, lessons learned and challenges over the last four years have provided a foundation for driving a strategic 10 years roadmap for Primary Healthcare System Strengthening by convening a 2020 PHC Summit, the official said.

He said the NPHCDA, with support from the government and partners, successfully achieved its target of eradicating Wild Polio Virus in Nigeria.

This was made possible through concerted efforts towards improving routine immunisation that saw the establishment of the national emergency routine immunisation coordination centre, he noted. This brought about a drastic improvement in immunisation coverage.

Under the 10-year plan, immunisation rates will be improved up to 80 per cent by 2028.

Response to COVID-19

According to the document, the agency had set up command centres at national and state level to work collaboratively with Nigerias infectious disease outfit, NCDC and other partner agencies to manage and respond to COVID-19 pandemic

The Agency facilitated training of over 220,000 healthcare workers and community volunteers at National and sub-national levels on best practices during routine operations and service delivery.

The NPHCDA supported the procurement and distribution of PPE to health care workers to ensure their safety during the training and immediate routine operations and service delivery.

There has been a consistent decline in the number of daily infections and fatalities recorded from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the past three days, no deaths have been recorded with daily cases stuck under 300 in the past six weeks even as hospital admissions have continuously declined since peaking at over 20, 000 in mid-July. On the other hand, recoveries have improved significantly.

Of the nearly 60, 000 total COVID-19 infections so far, over 51, 000 persons have been discharged from hospitals after treatment while a little over 7, 000 active cases remain in the country.

While these are considered a welcome development, dropping the ball now can be dangerous if it breeds a false sense of security, health experts say.

They, in fact, believe the steady decline in infections and deaths poses, more questions than answers.

A few weeks ago, 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 agency said it is only when more persons are tested that the spread of the deadly disease can be addressed.

Specifics

The 2021  2030 NPHCDA road is aimed at strengthening Nigerias quest of achieving UHC.

UHC which entails providing effective access  including financial risk protection  to at least essential healthcare for even the poorest and the most vulnerable population, is key to achieving the worlds Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

It is the central target of the SDG 3, one of the 17 goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 for the year 2030.

A viable and people-oriented PHC system will be key in the achievement of Universal Health Coverage, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

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Going by the agencys blueprint, a PHC should have at least one or more doctors, a pharmacist, a staff nurse and other paramedical support staff (community health workers).

It should also be well-equipped for deliveries, immunisation, preventive and basic curative care, coupled with an ambulance for referrals.

Challenges

But the PHC system in Nigeria is dogged by multiple challenges despite concerted efforts. This is largely because billions of naira, reportedly spent over the decades on health facilities by the government at different levels, were mismanaged.

Again, there is an element of misplaced priority.

While thousands of PHCs lie in waste, governments have continued to build more across the country without any plan for sustaining and equipping them.

Because of such shortfalls, President Muhammadu Buhari, in January 2017 flagged-off a scheme to revitalise about 10,000 PHCs across Nigeria.

But little work has been done as many PHCs still lack basic needs.

In the 10-year plan, the NPHCDA said it would focus efforts on developing a pragmatic PHC delivery model that will ensure coverage for the poor and vulnerable and reduce maternal and child deaths which is the key targets of UHC.
John J. Flynn, the Erie County district attorney, said he believed the confrontation between Sapienza and Lewinski  who apparently had exchanged terse words before the shove  was one of the first in New York state that had led to someones death. He said preliminary autopsy results showed that Sapienza died from blunt force trauma to the head.
This figure depicts the two major T-cell co-stimulation pathways, ICOS and CD28, targeted by the new drug candidate ALPN-101 as compared to CTLA-4-Fc CD28/B7 pathway inhibitors (abatacept and belatacept) for the treatment of graft-versus-host disease. Credit: Alpine Immune Sciences

A recent report published in Science Translational Medicine by MUSC Hollings Cancer Center investigator Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D., sheds light on immune cell biomarkers that may reveal which patients are most at risk for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a life-threatening condition that can arise after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for treatment of liquid cancers such as leukemia.

"Allogeneic HSCT remains the only validated treatment to cure leukemia," explained Paczesny, chairwoman of the MUSC Department of Microbiology and Immunology. "In HSCT, donor-matched cells are infused into the bloodstream of sick patients and ultimately travel to the bone marrow. Some of these cells are immune cells, which help eliminate residual leukemic cells not killed by chemotherapy. Yet despite careful donor-recipient matching and use of immunosuppressive therapies following transplantation, some of the donor's immune cells may begin to attack the patient's tissues, which is called graft-versus-host disease."

GVHD impacts up to 50% of patients receiving HSCT and can manifest in multiple organs. About a third of those with GVHD experience localized effects within the gastrointestinal tract (GI-GVHD), which carries the highest risk for fatality.

Paczesny described the phenomenon further. "For patients with leukemia, you are providing donor cells that have a different biological, or antigen, signature as compared to the recipient. That is how these immune cells recognize the leukemia and destroy it. However, these antigens are also present in normal tissue, particularly in areas of the body with the most microbiota, like the gut. So that is where the donor immune cells attack and where symptoms are the hardest to treat."

A biomarker story

Bone marrow-derived stem cells are referred to as multipotent, meaning they can mature into many different types of cells. This includes red and white blood cells as well as other immune cell types such as dendritic cells and T-cells that are responsible for balancing immunity and tolerance.

Dendritic cells exchange messages with T-cells by displaying short protein chains on the cell surface, called antigens. T-cells, which become activated when they recognize "non-self" antigens, then play a key role in triggering the body's other defense systems against foreign invaders that can include transplanted cells from a different host.

Previous work from the Paczesny laboratory has shown that immune cell signaling pathways in GI-GVHD increased numbers of "super activated" pathogenic T-cells (Th17 cells) in the blood of these patients. The presence of these aggressive T-cells correlated with lower survival as compared to patients either lacking GVHD or those with less severe forms of GVHD in the skin. These cells were also unique in their ability to be induced by a T-cell signaling receptor called ICOS, short for "inducible T-cell co-stimulator."

"This started as a biomarker story," Paczesny said. "We were trying to understand where the activation of these T-cells was coming from. What was the antigen presenting cell? If you have markers of ICOS signaling on the T-cell side, there should be an ICOS ligand somewhere on the antigen presenting cell in that same cohort of patients."

ALPN-101 suppresses inflammation by blocking two key T cell costimulatior pathways. Credit: Alpine Immune Sciences, Inc.

Because ICOS ligand is located on the surface of antigen-presenting cells, such as dendritic cells, it can easily be detected using existing technologies like flow cytometry that can scan for these external markers on cells in the blood. In this way, individuals who are actively developing symptoms of GI-GVHD following HSCT could potentially be flagged.

Paczesny's group showed that levels of dendritic cells (specifically a population known as plasmacytoid dendritic cells) expressing the ICOS ligand were increased in patients with GI-GVHD as compared to controls. Critically, patients with high levels of these cells had significantly lower three-year survival outcomes compared to those with low levels.

Djamilatou Adom, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow working with Paczesny, further explored the role of ICOS signaling in GI-GVHD using mice. First, they showed that genetic elimination of ICOS ligand production in donor-mouse bone marrow cells prior to transplanting them into recipient mice protected the recipient mice from GVHD-related death. Also, using "humanized" mice with nonfunctional immune systems, the researchers discovered that transplanting human ICOS ligand-expressing plasmacytoid dendritic cells into these mice (whose own bone marrow had been destroyed through radiation) led to GVHD with increased levels of Th17 cells within the intestines.

The involvement of plasmacytoid dendritic cells in GVHD was an interesting finding, said Paczesny. "If these cells are not stimulated, they are usually considered more tolerogenic. In other words, they are the good guys. They lessen the severity of GVHD. However, if they become T-cell activatingfor instance the ICOS ligand is one of the factors that will activate them by binding ICOSthen they become more toxic and might drive the development of GVHD. This point has previously been controversial in the field; however, past studies have only looked at overall numbers of plasmacytoid dendritic cells in these patients, not the activation status of these cells."

A new drug target in GVHD

Next, Paczesny explored whether targeting cell-to-cell ICOSL-ICOS signaling might prevent GI-GVHD. Classical T-cell activation is induced by the CD28/B7 co-stimulation pathway, in concert with the recognition of foreign antigens by the T-cell receptor. The CD28/B7pathway can be disrupted by the currently approved drugs abatacept and belatacept (Figure 1). However, through mechanisms that are still not well understood, immune cells can escape the CD28/B7 pathway blockade by rerouting or reinforcing their activation through alternative costimulatory pathways like ICOS/ICOSL.

In collaboration with researchers at Alpine Immune Sciences in Seattle, Washington, Paczesny's team found that dosing mice with the drug candidate ALPN-101, a recombinant human Fc fusion molecule that binds and blocks both ICOS and CD28 on T-cells, conferred complete protection from GVHD while also preserving anti-tumor effects of the transplant. It also performed better than drugs targeting CD28 (belatacept) or ICOS pathways individually.

"This is the first time I've seen a drug work as a treatment for GVHD that also preserves anti-leukemic activity of HSCT. This is new," explained Paczesny. "What's also interesting is that the drug was effective when we provided it early, directly after transplantation, and also when we provided it as a later treatment, after disease had already built up. This is important because most of the time GVHD symptoms appear much later, and that's when we need to intervene."

Clinical trials with ALPN-101 have begun, and Paczesny hopes that her biomarker research, which was supported by more than $1.5 million in funding from the National Cancer Institute, will open doors for the treatment of GVHD and other immune-related diseases such as lupus.

"There has been a big jump in the number of transplantations recently because clinicians have improved their HSCT technique and expanded its applications. There is now also more demand for mitigation of allogeneic responses and more need because cellular therapies with third-party donors are also expanding. Therefore, GVHD will continue to be an issue. But now, we have a biomarker that, when it is elevated, will help us know when to begin a specifically targeted treatment."

Explore further Immune cell subset is associated with development of gastrointestinal GVHD after HSCT

More information: D. Adom el al., "ICOSL+ plasmacytoid dendritic cells as inducer of graft-versus-host disease, responsive to a dual ICOS/CD28 antagonist," Science Translational Medicine (2020). Journal information: Science Translational Medicine D. Adom el al., "ICOSL+ plasmacytoid dendritic cells as inducer of graft-versus-host disease, responsive to a dual ICOS/CD28 antagonist,"(2020). stm.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/  scitranslmed.aay4799
Sarasas teachers set to face charges

BANGKOK: Police say 13 teachers and teaching assistants in 10 Sarasas-affiliated schools have been found to have physically abused their students and will face criminal charges.

crime

By Bangkok Post

Wednesday 7 October 2020, 09:25AM

Two Sarasas Witaed Ratchaphruek School teaching assistants leave Nonthaburi Provincial Court on Tuesday after being granted bail in a case where they are accused of abusing students. Photo: Pattarapong Chatpattarasill / Bangkok Post

Pol Lt Gen Amphol Buarapporn, commissioner of Provincial Police Region 1, which is responsible for crime suppression and prevention in some Central Plains provinces, said the 10 Sarasas schools were involved in 54 abuse allegations, affecting about 30 children, reports the Bangkok Post.

All 13 teachers and their assistants on Tuesday (Oct 6) were questioned by police and later released on B8,000 bail by the Nonthaburi Provincial Court.

Pol Lt Gen Amphol said he had instructed investigators to talk to the abused students with the help of a multidisciplinary team, insisting that justice must be done for all involved.

The abuse of kindergarten students at Sarasas-affiliated schools has sparked a public outcry and led to calls for tough legal action against the abusive teachers and schools for ignoring the abuse and allowing many teachers without teaching licences to teach young kids.

Parents of children who reported abuse in one of the classes have threatened to sue the teachers for B5 million each.

In a related development, the Teachers Council of Thailand has filed complaints against the principal and executives of Sarasas Ratchaphruek School in Nonthaburi province for violating the Teachers and Educational Personnel Council Act.

A spokesperson for the ruling Palang Pracharath Party, Patcharin Samsiripong, said a House committee on youth met on Tuesday to discuss the abuse of children at many Sarasas schools.

Representatives of the police and the Ministries of Education, Public Health and Social Development and Human Security would be invited to a meeting scheduled for Oct 21 to speak about measures to rehabilitate the abused children and legal action against the guilty teachers, said the spokesperson.

Education Minister Nataphol Teepsuwan said his deputy, Kanokwan Vilawan who is responsible for the Office of the Private Education Commission, was looking into the specific case of Sarasas Witaed Ratchaphruek School.

Asked about calls to close down the school, the minister said such a measure would force thousands of students to find a new school.

Sarasas Witaed Ratchaphruek must be given a chance to solve its problems first, he said, and the immediate priority was to take care of the abused students.






In Michigan, two coronavirus infections in the same workplace constitutes an outbreak. In New York City, public school buildings must close when two people in two different classrooms catch the virus. But Iowa will not announce coronavirus outbreaks at many businesses unless 10% of employees are actively infected, and even 10% of students becoming ill may not be enough to close a school.

The nation's patchwork pandemic response has led to wide disparities in data reporting, and even in definitions for basic medical concepts. In the absence of federal standards, states have adopted divergent and sometimes scientifically questionable approaches to disease control, which experts say have allowed the virus to spread.

"If I get things under control but my neighbor is using different criteria and allows more disease, then I'm still in trouble," said epidemiologist Cyrus Shahpar, chief science officer for coronavirus response at the nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives. "We're never going to get past this unless we get on the same page."

A Washington Post investigation last month revealed that Iowa used its loose definition of a workplace outbreak to justify withholding evidence that at least 117 people at the Agri Star Meat and Poultry plant in Postville had been sickened with the coronavirus.

In an email Tuesday, Iowa Department of Health spokeswoman Amy McCoy said, "The definition of outbreak in workplaces is an example of how states can come together to share experiences and provide suggestions for how to approach these issues, but each state still may need to adapt depending on public health needs, state laws, and population sizes and settings."

McCoy said the state is "balancing what's happening within critical workforces such as meatpacking and food processing where a large number of Iowans work to help feed the world."

Critics say the state is also relying on questionable metrics to keep schools open.

Iowa requires schools to conduct at least half of its classes in person unless 15% of all tests in the community are positive and at least 10% of students call in sick. This threshold is among the highest in the nation. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a community test positivity rate of 5% suggests that there is a "high risk" of transmission in school buildings.

"We have moved our schools into a situation where it may not be as safe and healthy as recommended by medical professionals," said Mike Beranek, president of the Iowa State Educators Association.

Beranek, who is on leave from his job as a third-grade teacher in West De Moines while working for the union, said the rules make it difficult to control outbreaks among students and staff members. Although Iowa does not track or report coronavirus cases in schools, an independent effort led by a couple from Ames has found hundreds of positive diagnoses across the system. In some districts, schools remain open, although dozens of students are in quarantine.

To Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Tom Ahart, the danger was too great. When the Education Department denied the district's request to delay in-person classes, Ahart filed a lawsuit and ignored the state's order. Classes in Des Moines have been online-only since early September.

But, under threat of losing accreditation or being forced to add days to the school year, the Des Moines school board voted last week to move to a hybrid model in which students could be in classrooms up to three days a week.

McCoy said that the state's protocol for determining closures and reporting cases is based on long-standing practices for handling outbreaks of diseases such as the flu, and that schools can apply for waivers to close.

But the coronavirus is far more infectious and dangerous than the flu. Epidemiologists consulted by The Washington Post said keeping kids in classrooms in communities with test positivity rates as high as 14% is a recipe for disease spread, especially in a state like Iowa, which does not require people to wear masks indoors.

And a White House Coronavirus Task Force report obtained by The Post warned that Iowa is in the "red zone" for new cases and advised the state to adopt new metrics for reopening schools. The report pointed to West Virginia's system, which advises schools to go remote if at least two outbreaks occur within two classrooms and requires that all school buildings in a county close when the test positivity rate reaches 5% - the threshold recommended by the CDC.

Iowa is among a shrinking number of states that do not report case counts by ZIP code - data that is especially useful in sparsely populated areas where counties can encompass wide geographic regions.

"Every jurisdiction choosing its own indicators makes it really hard for community members to understand what's happening with their outbreak and compare," Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, told reporters this summer.

Iowa's threshold for reporting a workplace outbreak - at least 10% of employees infected for certain types of businesses - is unusually lenient. For large businesses such as meatpacking plants and warehouses, that could amount to more than 100 people infected before the public is notified.

In the case of Agri Star Meat and Poultry, an outbreak was never reported even though genetic analysis showed the plant had probably been a nexus of spread. In denying a Freedom of Information Act request from The Post, the Iowa Department of Public Health said it was obligated to report only "active" outbreaks; because of a delay in testing, the majority of positive tests at Agri Star were serology tests, which indicate past infection.

"Using a percentage rather than a number to define an outbreak displays a poor understanding of both public health and mathematics," said David Michaels, who headed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the Obama administration.

Generally, an outbreak is defined as the occurrence of disease beyond the normal background level, said Tara Smith, an epidemiologist at Kent State University in Ohio; the newer or rarer the disease, the lower the threshold.

The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, to which Iowa state epidemiologist Caitlin Pedati belongs, provides a stringent definition for workplace coronavirus outbreaks: "two or more laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases among workers at a facility with onset of illness within a 14-day period, who are epidemiologically linked, do not share a household, and are not a close contact of each other outside of the workplace during standard case investigation or contact tracing."

Iowa's 10% threshold "seems like an unbelievably high bar," acknowledged Jeff Engel, a former executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists who now serves as its senior adviser for coronavirus response.

But Engel noted that state epidemiologists often have to negotiate political pressures, and that Iowa is a state that is highly dependent on its meat industry.

"It's a constant tension between keeping the economy going and protecting the public health," he said.

McCoy, from the Iowa Department of Public Health, said that the definition from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists "came out after Iowa had developed its own definition and was already reporting on outbreaks," and that Pedati herself had been involved in the group's workshop in which workplace outbreak definitions were proposed.

A spokesman for Iowa's Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds declined to comment.

Iowa sits at the extreme end of a vast spectrum of approaches to the coronavirus, Shahpar said. A review of state policies found that the same set of statistics would invoke wildly different responses depending on where they occur. A case rate of nine diagnoses per 100,000 residents per day would be considered "very high" in Michigan, triggering the closure of bars and restaurants, a switch to remote learning and a ban on in-person gatherings. But Oklahoma deems that same case rate to be "low," and simply suggests that businesses and schools utilize heightened hygiene measures.

Shahpar said states are deciding how they want to approach the pandemic and then setting standards that justify their decision.

"It ultimately means that the amount of risk that you have to live with depends on where you are in the U.S.," he said.

Policies around school closures are similarly varied. In Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis cautioned schools against "sweeping" responses to new infections, classes remain in person even in districts that report dozens of new infections every day. New York City, on the other hand, posts daily "report cards" for every school in the system and requires schools to move online if they see at least two cases in two classrooms.

Setting safety standards and tracking cases in school systems should be a federal responsibility, said Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers. Without guidance from the CDC, she argued, reopening policies are being set according to state officials' political preferences. The governors of all four states that have ordered schools to reopen are Republicans. Of the nine jurisdictions with state-ordered closures, all but West Virginia have Democratic governors.

The lack of CDC guidance has also put the onus of developing a pandemic response on local health departments, most of which have far less expertise than the federal agency.

Jennifer Rombalksi, public health director for La Crosse, Wis., said her staff members spent the first few months of the pandemic developing their own guidelines for nursing homes, tools for business and dashboards for reporting coronavirus data.

"In a time like covid-19," she said, "for us to be all working on creating guidance materials at the same time when it should just be so much more coordinated has been really frustrating."

Even in California, where three confirmed coronavirus infections in a workplace count as an outbreak, this information doesn't always become public.

Foster Farms, a major poultry processing plant in the Central Valley, started reporting coronavirus infections among its workers to the Merced County Department of Public Health in April, but it took more than two months for the department's officers to inspect the 1,400-person facility, Director Rebecca Nanyonjo-Kemp said. The department has not listed precise case counts at the plant or other specific facilities since July. And the company's practice of reporting deaths as "resolved" cases meant that the county was not aware of the true number of fatalities until seven people had died.

Nanyonjo-Kemp said that her office received support from California's attorney general and other state authorities, but that it was difficult to navigate unfamiliar terrain without clear federal guidance.

Except for a partial shutdown between Aug. 1 and 7, the plant has remained open throughout the outbreak. A total of 396 workers have become infected with the virus and nine have died.

All the while, Foster Farms' workers were never informed about the cases among their colleagues or the health department's determination of an outbreak, said United Farm Workers organizer Elizabeth Strater, whose union represents some of the company's employees.

"Looking back," she said, "it's like a horror movie, and we just weren't aware of the other scenes."

- - -

The Washington Post's Desmond Butler contributed to this report.
On October 6, the adversary [(Azerbaijani army)] took advantage of the relative calm following the statement by the Foreign Ministers of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries to regroup and move in the northern and southern directions of the attack front. The adversary's actions also posed a threat to the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Defense Army on Wednesday morning noted this in a statement, which also reads as follows:

The Defense Army fighters have neutralized with strong counterattacks all the attempts of the Azerbaijani armed forces to advance. During the battles, a large number of [military] manpower, armored vehicles, artillery, other weapons and military equipment were destroyed.

The units of the Defense Army also managed to considerably improve their own combat procedures. During the night, the adversary made an attempt to advance in a southeastern direction, too. The adversarys attacking units were destroyed by missile and artillery fire.

At around 06:30 in the morning, another missile and artillery strike by the Defense Army units led to the demoralization and panicked fleeing of the adversary group. The adversary left more than 60 casualties, several dozen hit and functional equipment on the battlefield. A large warehouse of adversarys fuel and lubricants was also hit.

The Defense Army confidently masters the operative-tactical situation and is ready for any development of the situation.
Caterpillar, a leading global manufacturer of construction equipment with a major presence in the Mena region, has signed an agreement to acquire the Oil & Gas Division ((Weir Oil & Gas) of the Weir Group, a Scotland-based global engineering business.

Headquartered near Fort Worth, Texas, Weir Oil & Gas produces a full line of pumps, flow iron, consumable parts, wellhead and pressure control products that are serviced via an extensive global network of service centers located near customer operations.

Combining Weir Oil & Gass established pressure pumping and pressure control portfolio with Cats engines and transmissions enables us to create additional value for customers, said Joe Creed, Vice President of Caterpillars Oil & Gas and Marine Division. This acquisition will expand our offerings to one of the broadest product lines in the well service industry.

The purchase price of $405 million is to be paid in cash at closing. The acquisition requires approval by Weir shareholders and is subject to review by various regulatory authorities as well as customary closing conditions. The transaction includes more than 40 Weir Oil & Gas manufacturing and services locations and approximately 2,000 employees, said a statement.

We are pleased to have reached this agreement. Caterpillar is a great new home for Weir Oil & Gas, its world-class people, products and services, said Jon Stanton, Weir Group CEO. It will enable Weir Oil & Gas to continue to flourish, ensuring the business remains at the forefront of innovation and customer service in the future.

This acquisition is consistent with Caterpillars strategy to invest for long-term, profitable growth through operational excellence, expanded offerings and services. Caterpillar is taking advantage of its strong balance sheet to complete this acquisition that supports the enterprise strategy. - TradeArabia News Service
This summer, there was an event that was supposed to take place in Japan that not only people across the nation, but all around the world were looking forward to.

It was supposed to be the culmination of years of preparation, and a chance to turn dreams that began in childhood into reality, until the coronavirus derailed those plans. Whatas that? The Tokyo Olympics? Oh, yeah, those got delayed too, and sure, itas a bummer. But what weare talking about today is Universal Studios Japanas gigantic Super Nintendo World expansion, which was supposed to open in early summer but was delayed indefinitely due to pandemic-related reasons. But now, after months of waiting, USJ, as the Osaka theme park is also known, has announced when weall finally get to visit Super Nintendo World: Spring 2021! Universal Studios Japan has yet to give Super Nintendo World than a more specific grand opening date than asometime next spring,a but thatas still a lot better than the previous asometimeaperiod.a With Japanas Golden Week spring vacation period straddling the end of April and start of May, it seems like USJ would obviously be aiming for sometime before then, and with international tourist travel to Japan hopefully resuming in the spring as well, it looks like thereas going to be a lot to be happy about once winter ends. - soranews24.com
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Tuesday that Turkey's encouragement of Azerbaijan was to blame for the outbreak of fighting over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Ankara renewed its support for Baku.

"Without Turkey's active engagement this would not have begun," Pashinyan told AFP in an interview in Yerevan, after a tenth day of fighting over a decades-long territorial dispute that has claimed nearly 300 lives.

"The decision to unleash a war was motivated by Turkey's full support," he said.

Earlier Tuesday, Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu urged world leaders to back Azerbaijan, questioning the point of a new ceasefire during a visit to Baku. Armenian officials meanwhile reported further shelling of Karabakh's regional capital, Stepanakert.

AFP journalists heard explosions in the city after days of intermittent shelling and saw residents walking past an unexploded shell wedged in a street in the city centre, which was strewn with glass and debris.

Cavusoglu's comments came a day after Russia, the United States and France urged an "unconditional" halt to the fighting, calls echoed Tuesday by Britain and Canada, which voiced particular concern over the shelling of civilian areas.

The fierce clashes that erupted on September 27 between Armenian-backed separatists and Azerbaijani forces over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region show no sign of letting up, with both sides vowing to continue the fight.

'Those who are right'

Western powers are urging Turkey, a longstanding ally of Azerbaijan, to use its influence to restore calm, but Cavusoglu said world leaders should instead throw their weight behind Azerbaijan.

"To put these two countries on equal footing means rewarding the occupier," the Turkish foreign minister said. "The world must be on the side of those who are right, namely on the side of Azerbaijan."

The territorial dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh dates back to the 1990s when the ethnic-Armenian enclave broke away from Azerbaijan, sparking a brutal conflict that has never been fully resolved.

Neither side has shown any inclination to slow the recent hostilities despite mounting civilian deaths.

Azerbaijan has repeatedly said it will not agree to a ceasefire until Armenia withdraws its troops, a line reiterated Tuesday by Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov who added: "We will be fighting until the end."

'Fighting until the end'

As Azerbaijan heard supportive rhetoric from its loyal patron Turkey on Tuesday, Pashinyan said he was confident that his country's longtime backer Russia would rally if fighting escalated.

Christian-majority Armenia is in a military alliance of former Soviet states led by Moscow, which has a permanent base in the country, but Russia has shown no appetite for military escalation.

Pashinyan told AFP he was sure Russia would come to Armenia's defence if necessary and that "Russia will uphold its treaty obligations".

On Tuesday, Azerbaijan's defence ministry and Karabakh's foreign ministry both said fighting was continuing on several fronts on Tuesday.

During a call with Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev claimed his forces had captured territory bordering Iran and planned soon to set up border posts and deploy frontier troops.

Both sides continued to claim to have inflicted heavy losses in manpower and equipment, and to accuse each of other of targeting civilian areas.

The conflict has expanded in the last few days with the shelling of big cities, including the regional capital Stepanakert and Azerbaijan's second-largest city, Ganja.

Azerbaijan's defence ministry claimed the separatists had incurred major losses and been forced to retreat.

It said its forces had destroyed an ammunition depot near Stepanakert as well as rocket launchers and artillery.

Rising deaths

The two sides have reported a total of 286 deaths since the fighting erupted, including 46 civilians -- but the real total is expected to be much higher.

Most of the confirmed deaths are from the Armenian side, which has reported 240 fatalities among separatist fighters. Azerbaijan is not releasing any figures on its military deaths.

Turkey is a loyal ally of Azerbaijan, a fellow Muslim and Turkic country, and has been accused of dispatching mercenaries from Syria and Libya to join the fighting.

Moscow and leaders in several Western capitals have condemned the reported deployment of foreign fighters via Turkey and urged Ankara to work instead towards a political settlement to the fighting.

The director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, said that fighters from terror groups including Al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra were fighting in Karabakh while the Kremlin said the situation was deteriorating.

"People are still getting killed, which is absolutely unacceptable," Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Karabakh's declaration of independence from Azerbaijan during the collapse of the Soviet Union sparked a war in the early 1990s that claimed 30,000 lives.

Talks to resolve the conflict -- mediated by Russia, the United States and France -- have made little progress since a 1994 ceasefire agreement.

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By Marisa Martinez, Paula Kiley, and Rachel Barnes

EdSource

As universities transitioned to online-learning to slow the spread of COVID-19, thousands of California college students flocked to their dorms, apartments or parents' homes to continue their studies from the comfort of their bedrooms, wherever those were located.

Homeless students had nowhere to go.

The pandemic piled onto an already overwhelming stack of problems that still remained as students returned for a new semester of distance learning. When campuses closed in mid-March, college students who rely on their campuses for food, Wi-Fi and, in some cases, shelter, realized these necessities were becoming even harder to come by.

Emergency resource centers on their campuses and cities became beacons of hope for some to find refuge during the ongoing pandemic.

There are many reasons why students could find themselves being homeless during the pandemic, experts say. The results have led to an increase in students reaching out for assistance, says Henoc Preciado, who oversees the California State University's Basic Needs Initiative.

"I think with the pandemic, the needs for students have only been exacerbated a little bit more with the loss of income, loss of home, loss of stable food," Preciado said. "The increase is certainly a result of what not only our students are facing, but of what all of humanity is facing."

In the midst of stay-at-home orders, Joshua Passamore, an applied economics major at University of the Pacific in Stockton, was forced to leave his apartment after a rent increase meant that his food delivery job could no cover the rent on the apartment he shared with roommates.

"You're kind of just stuck in a perpetual hole," the 21-year-old said. "It just keeps getting worse and worse. Money grows tighter. Then, increasing credit card debt to survive and having to make a lot of tough decisions at the margin based on survivability."

Crystal Peralta, a 32-year-old music major at California State University, Long Beach, says switching from in-person classes to online learning meant reluctantly moving into her grandmother's home -- in order to stay in California to finish college and keep her job at a local pre-school -- and being belittled on a daily basis by her grandmother with whom Peralta had a difficult relationship.

Spending more time there started to take a toll on her mental health, Peralta said, which prompted her to make a change even if it made her housing situation more uncertain.

"I avoided her as much as I could because everything I did was just another reason for her to say something," Peralta said of her grandmother. "I would cry the first two weeks of quarantine. Oh my god, I was depressed."

Chaffey College student David Leon, 24, moved from his 2003 Chevy Silverado into a motel room at the Ontario Airport Inn in March just before the pandemic impacted his school. For now, he remains safe inside his motel room, thanks to emergency aid from his community college and a local community center called the One Stop Transitional Age Youth Center.

However, Leon will have to move out by Oct. 20, his 25th birthday, when the business administration major ages out of the One Stop Tay Center's emergency housing program. If he can't afford to rent a private room in a home or apartment, as stipulated by the program, it's back to the truck for Leon.

"It wouldn't be as good as it is right now," Leon said, "but I wouldn't let it hold me down."

Leon attributes his newfound stable housing, in part, to campus staff like Albert Rodriguez, manager of Chaffey College's student resource program called Panther Care.

"There are not a lot of resources in the community, and our students would really have to dig to find them," Rodriguez said. "My approach to the work is that this is not only Chaffey College's work, but this is a community effort. So I tried to make as many connections to community resources, so that I can always have a soft hand-off for students. I just don't want to say, 'Well, here's a website and go check it out.'"

His school's connection to the community housing program made it possible for Leon to live in a motel in nearby Ontario. The motel stay made working on his summer statistics and political science classes easier for Leon. Prior to the pandemic, he studied regularly in his truck when he wasn't at the Chaffey College Library. The front cab functioned as a workspace and a bedroom.

"I kept it really clean. I think it's probably more dirty now than when I was living in it," Leon said. "I didn't want it to look dirty. Your vehicle shows who a person is. If you keep it dirty you're probably unorganized. If you keep it clean, you're probably organized."

While sleeping in the clutter-free truck, Leon said the front seats of the cab would only allow him to rest in one position. He had to adjust seat belt buckles that would otherwise "stab into my side."

Safety was a regular concern of Leon's while living in his truck. He worried a passerby might break into the lidded bed of his truck where he kept the bulk of his belongings. He cited a time when a man flashed a knife at him, but he managed to drive away unharmed.

"Even when I was asleep, I would have to sleep with one eye open, watching my surroundings, making sure no one's trying to break in while I'm asleep," Leon said.

A room at the motel allows him to sleep peacefully at night. "The best thing for me is just having peace of mind," he said.

Meanwhile, at Long Beach State, when Crystal Peralta's mother and the rest of her family decided to move to Florida, she chose to stay behind to earn her diploma with no choice but to move in with her grandmother with whom every day seemed to bring another verbal altercation.

When she wasn't at work, Peralta said she did her college homework at Starbucks or spent time with her former fiance to avoid going home. She and her grandmother would argue about her time away with her fiance, who is now her husband.

"She just made me feel like I was a street worker, like I was just out dancing on tables," Peralta said.

Eventually, after constantly hearing her grandmother talk about her on the phone with other family members, Peralta finally had it. She told her grandmother she no longer cared to hear her opinion. Her grandmother responded by telling Peralta to leave.

To stay informed about resources available to students, Peralta constantly scrolled through Instagram for accounts associated with Cal State Long Beach, posted by students and the administration. Peralta said she was "blessed" to one day find a post about Cal State Long Beach's Basic Needs Program.

The program is offered throughout the CSU system and provides services to housing and food insecure students, such as financial aid and where available, as is the case at Long Beach, access to a campus food pantry.

Before moving out of her grandmother's house, Peralta reached out to the program. That was in part because she was tired of sometimes spending nights sleeping in her car in the parking lot of the preschool where she works as a health monitor checking their temperatures and giving them the green light to come into the school.

At CSU Long Beach, Student Emergency Intervention and Wellness Program applications for housing, emergency grants and meals assistance increased from 230 last year to about 1,300, according to Kenneth Kelly, director of the Basic Needs Program at CSULB.

Like Peralta, getting support and shelter from her his family was also off the table for Joshua Passamore at the University of the Pacific.

Born in Guatemala, Passamore was later adopted as a child by his parents, who reside in Oregon, but always felt like a burden. Last fall, he says, his parents cut financial and emotional support, leaving Passamore to fend for himself.

When the pandemic sent students home to learn remotely, Passamore's sister was allowed by the family to return home in Oregon. But the invitation was not extended to Passamore.

When students realize that moving back home with family or friends is not an option, campus resources become lifeboats. Learning to tap into those resources by any means available becomes a crucial life skill for such students.

Passamore also lived and worked out of his vehicle, a 2017 black Toyota Corolla. He removed the back seats to make room for a makeshift bed - a piece of plywood topped with a foam mattress. But, the climate in Victorville is harsh with temperatures as high as 100 degrees this summer.

"When living in your car, there's never a break from your reality," Passamore said. "It's hot and you've got to have AC in your car. You work all day just to be able to survive and you never get a break and it just becomes overwhelming."

He spent the entire summer bouncing from city to city living and working out of his 2017 black Toyota Corolla, searching for job opportunities while delivering food to afford gas and feed himself. His journey started in San Francisco and Oakland, then down to Fontana and eventually Victorville, where he recently found temporary shelter with friends.

Because of his housing insecurity, Passamore withdrew from his summer and fall classes at the University of the Pacific, delaying his graduation date, which would have been spring 2021. Passamore is currently considering transferring to a school located in a city that he hopes yields more opportunity. One of his considerations is California State University, Northridge.

"I think it might be a better fit for me," Passamore said. "And I'll have more opportunity and actually be able to do the one thing I've always wanted to do my whole life - just be able to be a student."

Marisa Martinez is a senior at California State University, Los Angeles studying journalism and was an intern with EdSource's California Student Journalism Corps. Paula Kiley is a senior at California State University, Long Beach studying journalism and was an intern with EdSource's California Student Journalism Corps. Rachel Barnes is a senior at California State University, Long Beach studying journalism and an intern with EdSource's California Student Journalism Corps. Hannah Getahun, a senior at California State University, Long Beach studying journalism and was an intern with EdSource's California Student Journalism Corps, was a contributing reporter to this story.

Copyright  2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
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Anyone who throws stones at billionaire atheist George Soros can expect to be shunned or censored by his protectors in the media. Just ask top Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

A veteran journalist, Kass blasted Soros for bankrolling the election of soft-on-crime prosecutors. His Tribune colleagues accused him of publishing an odious anti-Semitic conspiracy theory and demanded an apology. But Kass refused to grovel, pointing out he was only repeating widely reported facts.

Gingrich charged on Fox that the "number one problem" behind riots and looting in big cities is "George-Soros-elected Left-wing, anti-police, pro-criminal district attorneys." That triggered a Fox host who interjected, "I'm not sure we need to bring George Soros into this."

"Okay, so it's verboten?" asked a surprised Gingrich. Five painful seconds of silence followed.

Despite media censors, the truth is that George Soros is bringing chaos to American cities. He's using his millions to purchase district attorneys who refuse to prosecute low-level crimes and practice revolving-door-justice  releasing offenders back into the community with no-cash bail and lenient sentences.

In 2017, the Hungarian-born hedge-fund mogul spent $1.7 million to elect social justice warrior Larry Krasner as Philadelphia's district attorney. Krasner smiled on election night as supporters chanted, No good cops in a racist system! and f--- the FOP! (the Fraternal Order of Police).

Crime has since soared in Philadelphia. U.S. District Attorney William McSwain hammered Krasner recently for creating a "culture of lawlessness." McSwain charged that the staggering homicide and shooting rates in Philadelphia are proof that the district attorneys radical experiment has failed.

In Los Angeles, Soros is waging war on law and order by giving $1 million, so far, to make George Gascon LA's next district attorney. As San Francisco DA, Gascon helped make his city a haven for the homeless and increasingly unlivable. He refused to prosecute camping on city sidewalks, public urination, soliciting sex and other crimes.

And in violence-riddled Chicago, Soros has spent $2 million this year to help keep State's Attorney Kim Foxx in office. Under her watch, violent crime in Chicago is way up, with 290 murders and 1,480 shootings in the first seven months of 2020.

But funding progressive prosecutors is just the tip of the Soros iceberg. The 90-year-old radical is spending billions on a laundry list of liberal causes including abortion, LGBT activism, open borders, euthanasia, legalization of prostitution and drugs, judicial "reform," gun control, defunding police, climate alarmism, erosion of U.S. support for Israel, and more.

Soros funnels his largesse through his Open Society Foundations which spends $1 billion annually and is active in 120 nations. Every year, OSF brags, it gives thousands of grants to groups and individuals who promote our values."

In 2018 alone, Soros poured $708 million into American politics, according to Capital Research Center president Scott Walter. The money, Walter writes, "went into politicized groups like Planned Parenthood, to fight for abortion; the Brennan Center, to tear down voter ID laws; and to all-purpose left-of-center powerhouses like the ACLU and John Podestas Center for American Progress."

By comparison, Walter notes, the total combined revenue in 2017 and 2018 of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee was $502 million.

Soros is also targeting his arch-nemesis, Donald Trump, for defeat in November, spending $52 million through June of this year to elect Joe Biden and other Democrats.

Soros rails at Trump, calling him a "con man," a "would-be dictator," and "the ultimate narcissist." The "fate of the world" Soros insists, hinges on the defeat of Trump, whom Soros likens to brutal North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-Un.

With his vast wealth and destructive agenda, Soros is one of the most dangerously influential people in America today. And that's especially true because of Soros's self-admitted "messianic fantasies."

How's this for a jaw-dropping admission: It is a sort of a disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything. But I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.

And that's not a random remark. Say what you will about George Soros, he thinks big. Here's a sampling of his grandiose ambitions:

"My goal is to be the conscience of the world."

"Many people have messianic visions. The difference is, Ive actually lived out my visions.

"The arc of history doesnt follow its own course. It needs to be bent. I am really engaged in trying to bend it in the right direction.

But former Leftist David Horowitz warns that what Soros really wants is to "make America a one-party state and to silence people like myself. At present, Soros and his allies have plenty of help from some in the media who censor inquiries into what Soros himself calls his political philanthropy.

Yet it's ludicrous to suppress and censor discussion of Soros when he's such a huge player on the American political scene. George Soros and his radical agenda is a story America needs to know. Which is why D. James Kennedy Ministries just aired on nationwide television the new documentary, Billionaire Radical: George Soros and the Scheme to Remake America.

Its fallen to us, as a Christian media ministry, to do the medias job for them. To watch, click here.
The dailies on Wednesday, October 7, reported majorly on the Ministry of Education's abrupt decision to reopen schools and the impact of that on learners and parents.

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Kenyan newspapers for October 7. Photo: UGC.

Source: UGC

The newspapers have also reported on the ongoing political tension in the country emanating from highly emotive premature 2022 campaigns.

The Star

President Uhuru Kenyatta's allies are banking on the presidential bid of Opposition Raila Odinga to scuttle William Ruto's 2022 State House race.

Nominated MP Maina Kamanda who is one of Uhuru's close allies became the latest politician from that fold to endorse Raila's bid in the next General Election.

Kamanda said Mt Kenya region is ready to back the ODM leader's quest to succeed Uhuru in 2022 dismissing the growing popularity of Ruto in the region.

Jubilee vice chairman David Murathe and Kirinyaga governor Anne Waiguru have previously shared the same sentiments.

The Star newspaper for October 7. Photo: UGC.

Source: UGC

Daily Nation

The Ministry of Education's abrupt announcement to reopen for Grade 4 and Form Four learners caught many parents by surprise and now questions are lingering on how they will raise the school fees within the short period of five days given to them.

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The ministry said the decision to reopen schools is meant to ease the transition of learners from one class to another and avoid the mess and backlog that would have been caused by learner repeating classes.

Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha said the decision was also based on the rationale that there was no better time to reopen schools since nobody has an idea when coronavirus pandemic will go away.

Daily Nation newspaper for October 7. Photo: UGC.

Source: UGC

The Standard

Police officers in Murang'a were aware of the chaotic scenes that were going to happen at Kenol town on Sunday, October 7, but their efforts to intervene and restore order were scuttled by a phone call "from above".

A senior state officer is said to have ordered the police who were going to stop the impending storm to leave the scene and let things unfold as they were supposed to.

The violence commenced just a few hours to Deputy President William Ruto's visit to Kenol town for a church fundraiser.

The ugly confrontations resulted in the loss of two lives and left many youths with injuries.

The Standard newspaper for October 7. Photo: UGC.

Source: UGC

Taifa Leo

Registrar of political parties Anne Nderitu has refused to enlist Jubilee Asili and Hustler as new political outfits in the country.

Nderitu said Jubilee Asili has a close resemblance with Jubilee Party thus does not meet the requirements to be registered as a party according to Article 8(c) of the political parties act.

For the Hustler party, the registrar noted the name "Hustler" is discriminative in a sense that only a certain class of individuals would be allowed to be members of that party if registered.

Taifa Leo newspaper for October 7. Photo: UGC.

Source: UGC

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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
- Joel E. Nettey, a top Ghanaian professional, has become the 1st African to be appointed as the president of the International Advertising Association (IAA)

- The CEO of Innova DDB, Ghana, is now to lead the entire global compass for marketing and communications

- Before his recent appointment, Joel Nettey also served as the president for the IAAs chapter in Ghana for some time

Trending topics on the go: How we write news at YEN.com.gh

A Ghanaian professional named Joel E. Nettey has been appointed as the world president and chairman of the renowned International Advertising Association (IAA).

According to reports sighted by YEN.com.gh on myjoyonline.com and 3news.com, Joel Nettey has become the very first African to hold the highly coveted position.

Srinivasan Swamy, the former world president, handed over the baton to Joel at a world board meeting of the IAA held virtually on October 5, 2020.

Joel Nettey: Ghanaian becomes 1st African world president of International Advertising Association (IAA) Source: Ghanaweb.com, 3news.com

Source: UGC

Joel Nettey, who is the CEO of Innova DDB, Ghana, is now to lead the entire global compass for marketing and communications.

It is indicated that the marketing communications professional, has over twenty years of experience leading, creating and shaping campaigns for some of the most iconic brands.

Joel has also been chief executive of various multinational marketing communications agency affiliates in Ghana including DDB, Saatchi & Saatchi and Publicis.

Joel Nettey, before his recent appointment, also served as the president for the IAAs chapter in Ghana for some time.

In a separate report by YEN.com.gh, two women who have been captured dancing wildly to a campaign song by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are fast going viral on social media.

In a video spotted by YEN.com.gh on the personal Facebook handle of Mina Vich More, a branded NDC vehicle had speakers that played the campaign song and the ladies decided to turn the street into a serious dancefloor.

However, it was not the manner in which they danced energetically that was the most intriguing part of the show they put up.

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Source: YEN.com.gh
WILLIMANIC  State Police have identified the couple they said were found dead in a murder-suicide on Tuesday.

Police said Edgardo Figueroa, 67, fatally stabbed his wife, Luz Figueroa, 68, before killing himself.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  United Parcel Service plans to hire 834 temporary workers in the Grand Rapids area for the upcoming holiday season, the company announced.

Openings include package car drivers, package handlers and personal vehicle drivers.

Were preparing for a record peak holiday season. The COVID-19 pandemic has made our services more important than ever, Charlene Thomas, chief human resources officer at UPS, said in a statement.

Nationwide, the company will hire over 100,000 people for UPSs traditional seasonal jobs, and anticipate a large number will move into permanent roles after the holidays," she said.

Hourly pay for the jobs is as follows: $21 for tractor-trailer and package care drivers,$14.50 for package handlers, $16.80 for driver-helpers, and $21 for personal vehicle drivers (plus 57.5 cents per mile or current IRS rate," UPS said in a news release.

The Grand Rapids area UPS facility is located at 5757 Clyde Park SW. in Wyoming.

To find out more about the openings, click here.

The openings in the Grand Rapids area call for 154 package car drivers, 334 package handlers and 100 personal vehicle drivers. In a statement, the company said it would hire an additional 254 drivers beyond that, brining the total number of UPS seasonal hires in Grand Rapids to nearly 850 positions.

Read more:

Lawmakers now have more say in Michigans coronavirus response. Can they find common ground with Whitmer?

Marijuana grower buys 5-acre industrial site in Bay Citys South End, plans to create 100 jobs

Bicyclist struck, killed by vehicle on US 10
A man jailed over the manslaughter of his stepson claims the boy's own mother waited hours to seek medical attention when the boy fractured his arm because she was buying drugs.

Matthew Scown was jailed for four years over the tragic May 2009 death of four-year-old Tyrell Cobb.

Tyrell's mother Heidi Strbak is being re-sentenced in Brisbane Supreme Court for her role in the manslaughter after she successfully appealed her nine-year sentence.

Scown on Wednesday told the court that just weeks before Tyrell's death, he suffered a nasty fall at daycare and Strbak was called to pick him up.

He was clearly in a lot of pain, but rather than rush to the hospital, Strbak kept Tyrell at home so that she could 'score pot', the court heard.

Matthew Scown was jailed for four years over the tragic May 2009 death of four-year-old Tyrell Cobb (pictured)

Scown (left) on Wednesday told the court that just weeks before Tyrell's death, he suffered a nasty fall at daycare and Strbak (right) was called to pick him up

'I made a sling from a pillow case (for Tyrell),' Scown said. 'I thought it was a bit weird.'

Scown testified that he tried to encourage Strbak to take Tyrell to a doctor, but that she refused because she needed marijuana and her drug dealer wouldn't be available later in the day.

He said he called Jason Cobb, Strbak's ex and Tyrell's biological father, to help sway her, but that it only made her angrier.

Strbak interrupted the phone call and hung up on Mr Cobb, the court heard.

'I think scoring pot or taking your son to the doctors is a no-brainer,' Scown said.

The court also heard that Strbak was violent toward Tyrell in the days leading to his death on May 24, 2009.

Scown claimed that he witnessed Strbak hit him across the face at the dinner table the day before his death, causing bruising under his eye.

He claimed that she was angry that Tyrell had vomited at the dinner table.

On another occasion, Scown claims Strbak struck the four-year-old across the side of his ribs.

'She just marched him to his room and smacked him... on his right side,' he said.

After his death, Strbak pleaded guilty to Tyrell's manslaughter.

Medical officials determined he died from blunt force injuries to his abdomen which had caused a leakage to his stomach and internal bleeding.

Scown claimed that he witnessed Strbak hit Tyrell (pictured together) across the face at the dinner table the day before his death, causing bruising under his eye

Medical officials determined he died from blunt force injuries to his abdomen which had caused a leakage to his stomach and internal bleeding

Strbak, who remains in custody, will be re-sentenced over the evidence heard during this trial

Scown was sentenced to four years behind bars for his role in Tyrell's death, but walked free from sentencing after already serving two years and eight months behind bars.

He found himself back in custody in early 2019 after committing close to 30 drug and fraud related offences, breaching the sentence.

He was released again, but the court heard that he is in jail again after breaching parole in October and failing a drug test.

The court heard that he is due to be released in January.

The Brisbane Supreme Court is hoping to determine whether Strbak or Scown inflicted the final blow which cost little Tyrell his life.

Strbak, who remains in custody, will be re-sentenced over the evidence heard during this trial.

The trial continues.
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Since its launch in November 2019, SoloQi-a unique charging system that keeps phones fully functional and charged anywhere at any time-has never disappointed both consumers, investors, and tech enthusiasts alike. Having recently just entered an $11 billion industry, which is set to continue to grow exponentially in the coming years, SoloQi's groundbreaking solutions are poised to further dominate the ever-expanding wireless charging industry.

SoloQi has been a well-known consistent best seller in b8ta stores. It sold out at all the trade shows. It comes as no surprise that the product is being sought out for partnerships and distribution opportunities from the likes of Costco and Apple.

There is a growing demand for SoloQi from different regions, including Australia, the Middle East, Japan, Europe, and Latin America. This demand is prodding the company to seek out additional funds to be able to increase manufacturing and meet the demand.

SoloQi bears a groundbreaking patent of being the first to combine magnetics with wireless technology, in addition to their unique, customizable features made possible using the Mag Pads. The Mag Pad is the secret to the effortless charging experience offered by SoloQi. As it is completely integrated into the wireless technology, the pad ensures proper alignment of a phone unit to the charging spot. It promises to keep phones connected and charged at all times.

Interestingly, the wireless charging market size exceeded USD 11 billion in 2019 and is expected to continue to grow at 14.5% CAGR between 2020 and 2026. This was motivated by the global increase in sales of wearable devices and top-of-the-line smartphones. Additionally, SoloQi is expected to revolutionize the future of wireless charging technology that will completely change the way consumers perceive this groundbreaking tech achievement.

The SoloQi management team is always finding ways to establish local and global distribution deals to give numerous people access to this technology wherever in the world they may be. Product customization is also expected from local distributors who collaborate with brands to add value to products. At present, the company is strengthening partnerships and licensing deals to get ready for when world events are allowed to resume.

It's not a common practice to get people hyped about chargers, but SoloQi is a rare breed. Users who experience these new wireless chargers are raving about the level of convenience and comfort they get to experience as SoloQi users. This company has gained a fluctuation of positive reviews from their community of supporters, as seen on their website and their campaign page on the crowdfunding platform StartEngine, which is why they are offering a "Try Before You Buy" model on their website, claiming that once you try it, you'll understand.

Company: SoloQi

Email: Studio@soloqi.com

Phone number: 415-231-8586

Website: www.soloqi.com

SOURCE: SoloQi

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609513/Meet-the-Worlds-First-Charging-Ecosystem-SoloQi
A new election is upon the nation. A nation that faces a lot of uncertainty and tremendous, complex choices is certainly in need of measured, wise leadership and self-reflection. Whether it's dealing with crippling national debt, unsustainable social welfare programs, intricate foreign policy, or even domestic education, these issues can seem overwhelming. A look at the wisdom of former presidents, facing their own crises during their own times, may prove a worthwhile study not just for elected officials, but for all citizens who most hold those officials accountable.

1. In the wake of the struggling public school system and national universities mired in controversies of suppressing speech, promoting indoctrination, and even legally discriminating against Asian and other students in regards to admittance, it may be useful to recall the nation's first president, George Washington. In President Washington's farewell address, he states, "Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened" (Gunn, 425). What does this mean? An unenlightened mass of people cannot be trusted to rule themselves or maintain property or even law and order. To alleviate that, the nation must have a deep rooted understanding of our Greek, Roman, and European forefathers; must thoroughly know the nation's founding and Constitution; and must promote a university system that promotes knowledge, wisdom, and discovery over ideology, groupthink, and control. Without this foundation, the nation becomes perched on a foundation of sand instead of solid rock.

2. For a nation experiencing 27 trillion dollars of national debt, fiscal responsibility is on the mind of many. President Jefferson said fiscal irresponsibility is "so contrary to the principles of our government, which make the representatives of the people sole arbiters of the public expense, and do not permit any work to be forced upon them on a large scale than their judgement deems adapted to the circumstances of the nation" (Mapp, 167). Jefferson proceeded to cut the national debt in half. Now, realistically, the current staggering national debt cannot be halved within the next four years. Likely, far from it. However, building from an enhanced educational base in point 1, we are reminded that the federal government was meant to be frugal  to provide security, roads, and courts, with the rest essentially being delegated to the state and local governments via the 10th Amendment. Certainly, it becomes possible to consolidate the various defense and intelligence agencies into a leaner, more cost-efficient machine; to roll back federal overreach in a myriad of sectors; to privatize services like Amtrak; and even to address foreign aid. At worst, the ball could begin to head in the right direction.

3. For foes domestic and abroad, let us hear the words of Andrew Jackson: "A million of armed freemen possessed of the means of war can never be conquered by a foreign foe ... which in the present state of our intelligence and population must render us invincible as long as our government is administered for the good of the people and is regulated by their will" (Brands, 410). As entire cities have been set ablaze by mobs attacking both people and property, the necessity of self-defense becomes all the clearer. We must allow people to have the means to protect themselves against those who would loot and harm otherwise defenseless, peaceful citizens. To rely solely on the protection of the state would be a matter of folly that any who had even a cursory knowledge in point number 1 would recognize.

4. In an era of ultra-partisan, hyperbolic media more focused on their own ideology and power than objectivity and the needs of the public, we may consult President Cleveland. When confronted with a divisive political issue, an adviser told President Cleveland he could be assured they could muster public support behind them. President Cleveland responded, "That has nothing to do with it. We must find out what is right and do it regardless of the result" (Nevins, 240). It's no secret: people are anxious to act, or even speak, truthfully in fear of what may happen to them socially, financially, and even from a security standpoint. Many among the media, sadly, have not only done little to alleviate it, but have in fact promoted such a climate. President Cleveland reminds us that even if there are repercussions, right is right, and we must act accordingly. Appeasement, as the 20th-century Europeans learned the hard way, is never a viable strategy for those who want a peaceful and prosperous nation.

5. For a country that, at times, seems to have forgotten or disregarded its roots, the words of President Coolidge stand out with regard to principle. Coolidge said, "I believe in the American Constitution. I favor the system of individual enterprise, and I am opposed to any general extension of government ownership and control. ... I am opposed to aggressive war" (Sobel, 292). In the broadest sense, Coolidge understood that allowing men to venture into business without cumbersome government interference; allowing them to keep the fruits of their labor; and sending them to war, risking blood and treasure, only when the defense of the nation was at stake were what made a nation both peaceful and powerful. It's worth noting that "Coolidge Prosperity" affects all: African-American literacy during his administration skyrocketed to over 80% and net worth to over 1.1 billion dollars. In the end, Coolidge understood that all rights are individual rights, not state-provided group rights. No other philosophy can generate lasting peace and prosperity.

While this wisdom may seem simple and obvious to some, it should be noted that for many, the ideas of these great former presidents have never been heard. In some cases, only demonized caricatures of them have been presented to students. If taught properly, we may be surprised at the progress our nation could achieve even within one simple election cycle.

Bibliography

Brands, H.W. Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times. Anchor Books, 2005.

Mapp, Jr, Alf. Thomas Jefferson: Passionate Pilgrim. Rowman & Littlefield, 1991.

Nevins, Allan. Grover Cleveland: A study in Courage. American Political Biography Press, 1932.

Sobel, Robert. Coolidge: An American Enigma. Regnery, 1998.

Washington, George. Early American Writing: Washington's Farewell Address. Edited by Giles Gunn, Penguin Classics, 1994.
FILE PHOTO: Joint press conference on the EU's climate ambition for 2030 at the EU headquarters in Brussels

By Kate Abnett and Vera Eckert

BERLIN (Reuters) - The European Union will seek to establish rules to trade hydrogen with countries including Morocco and Ukraine, as part of plans to use the low-carbon fuel to cut emissions, the EU's energy commissioner said on Monday.

"To trade renewable and low-carbon hydrogen reliably across borders, we will need proper rules," Kadri Simson said, pointing to the two countries as a first step for establishing them.

The EU will also put hydrogen on the agenda in energy talks with the United States, Japan and South Korea, Simson said in a webcast.

In its hydrogen strategy published in July, the Commission, the EU executive, laid out targets to scale up renewable hydrogen projects to meet the EU's net-zero emissions goal by 2050.

By 2024, it wants to have 6 gigawatts (GW) of green hydrogen capacity produced from wind and solar power and 40 GW by the end of the decade for use in sectors that are hard to decarbonise, or where electrification is difficult, including chemicals and steel.

Both public and private investors must have confidence in the business model to get involved, the conference heard.

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier cited Germany's provision of 2 billion euros (1.82 billion pounds) for the international sourcing of hydrogen announced in its national strategy passed in June.

"We are considering regions with high solar intensity and wind speeds," he said, naming parts of Asia and Africa, the Middle East and South America. He said two trade agreements were under discussion.

The chief executive of Siemens Energy <SIEGn.DE> supported import strategies while the head of Danish wind company Orsted <ORSTED.CO> said converted offshore wind could also fuel large-scale hydrogen flows.

(Reporting by Vera Eckert and Kate Abnett, editing by Riham Alkousaa and Barbara Lewis)
A relieved man has been reunited with his wedding ring after he lost it during a family outing at a Gold Coast beach.

The father-of-two and his young family spent hours desperately hunting for the solid gold band after he lost it at Burleigh Beach on Monday and thought they would never see it again.

Treasure hunter Karen 'Kazz' Preston discovered the ring buried 20 centimetres deep in the sand with her metal detector later that day, which has been returned to its owner thanks to sheer luck and the power of social media.

'I do a lot of metal detecting and got a good signal but thought it was a $2 coin at first until I saw this big, heavy gold band,' Ms Preston told Daily Mail Australia.

'I showed it to my partner and thought, wouldn't it be great it we could return it to its owner.'

Metal detecting treasure hunter Karen Preston (right) returned the lost wedding ring to the man's grateful wife Kate and children Charlotte and Cooper on Tuesday

Ms Preston was reading a post about the recovery job of another metal detecting treasure hunter on Monday night when one of the comments stuck out.

'A friend of his mentioned his mate had lost his wedding ring at Burleigh and was shattered,' she posted on the Detecting Downunder Group Facebook page.

'My reply was 'hey I found a ring at Burleigh today maybe this one is it!'

Ms Preston was immediately put in contact with the ring's ecstatic owner, who confirmed the jewellery was his.

'If he would have jumped through the phone if he could,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

The solid gold wedding ring (pictured) was buried 20 centimetres deep into the sand

'The ring had fallen off at the water's edge and they spent an hour searching for it before coming back in the afternoon. The ring had sank into the sand because it was so heavy.'

'It was the best feeling in the world to find the ring's owner.'

The man was reunited with his ring the next day after his wife and two children met with Ms Preston while he was at work.

Ms Preston received flowers, chocolates and a card containing $50 from the grateful family.

'This hobby is absolutely amazing and seeing how happy the family was is absolutely priceless,' she posted on Facebook.

'The power of social media and pure luck!'

Karen 'Kazz' Preston (pictured) took up metal detecting as a hobby four years ago

Ms Preston shared the happy outcome on the Detecting Downunder Group Facebook page.

Ms Preston first took up metal detecting as a hobby four years ago and now runs the Gold Coast Treasure Hunters Facebook page.

She's often inundated with requests to do recovery jobs for keys and jewellery lost by lifesavers, surfers and other beach goers.

'It's rare for a recovery job to have a unsuccessful outcome but I have had them,' Ms Preston said.

'Metal detecting often gets a bad name. A lot of people don't realise that we're also cleaning up the beaches at the same time.'

Last December, Ms Preston reunited a bride with her $20,000 engagement ring just hours after the woman expressed her heartache on social media over the missing custom-made jewellery lost on a Gold Coast beach.

The ring was lost at Burleigh Beach (pictured) and picked up by a metal detector hours later

Earlier this year, Glenda O'Brien was reunited with a friendship ring given to her by teenage sweetheart Phillip almost 50 years ago.

The couple later married and are still together, 46 years after Glenda lost the beloved ring while washing the car at the Gold Coast block of units where they lived in 1974.

It was never seen again until Jason Kemp's metal detector picked up the ring 20 centimetres deep in the ground earlier this year at the spot where Ms O'Brien lost it.

The precious ring, which cost $38 in 1971 took Mr O'Brien about two weeks to pay off will be passed onto their granddaughter.
The Nigerian government has approved over N650 million (N653,886,584) for the purchase of hi-tech equipment to monitor frequencies in the country, especially in the Southeastern part.

This was disclosed by the communication minister, Isa Pantami, at the end of Wednesdays Federal Executive Council meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, sort the approval of council for deploying hybrid spectrum monitoring system, most importantly to focus on the south eastern zone of the country, he said.

From January to August 2020, within the period of eight months, we discovered 320 frequencies being used all over the country and of this 320, one hundred and six were illegal.

Mr Pantami said the need to buy the monitoring equipment was also informed by security considerations.

This is very worrisome because the usage of this illegal spectrum or frequencies will compromise our security and safety in the country.

It is because of the agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari, on promoting security that we came up with this initiative of monitoring the usage of frequencies and uncover the legal and the illegal ones.

For the legal ones, it is to ensure they renew their licenses annually and for the illegal ones, necessary actions are being taken according to the gravity of the offense.

Mr Pantami said the focus on the Southeast was because it is the least monitored part of the country.

We discovered that our monitoring did not cover Southeast part of the country. It covered five zones  Northeast, Northwest, Northcentral, Southwest and Southsouth. However, Southeast has not been covered.

It is because of this that we presented our memo, seeking for councils approval of N653,886,584 to procure and deploy hybrid spectrum monitoring system that will cover the southern part of the country, most importantly the south east.

So council approved for the deployment and this project will go along way in promoting safety and security and secondly, identify the usage of illegal spectrum and thirdly, enhance revenue for the federal government and fourthly, in the long run it will create many jobs for the citizens.

The minister also provided more information on institutions allowed to deploy or license spectrum use.

Like I said it will go along way in promoting safety and security. In the National Frequencies Management Council of which I am the chair, it has been established by law under NCA 2003 Section 31, security institutions are presented in that council in addition to other institutions that deploy spectrum like ministries of transportation and aviation (they use frequency in the aircraft), Office of the National Security Adviser, and Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC), as a regulator of broadcasting are also a member of the council.

It is in the council that each sector that feels that the council will add value to its activities, they will come up with measures on how to use the council to promote what they need. So, it is because of this that we deploy this and security institutions are represented and whatever we do is in agreement with the law.

So if there is any question with regards to security, it is important to reach out to the security institutions. For your information, they have never requested anything from us that will promote security through intelligence that we have not provided. But I am not in the position to answer question on security particularly outside the mandate given to me.

For those we have investigated so far, there is a process. When we discover the usage of illegal frequency, a letter will be written to that institution to draw their attention to it. When they admit, if it is a government institution, there is a process of investigation, there is also a process if it is a private one. Sometimes it will take up to litigation and we are in the process right now.

I had a meeting with the attorney general of the federation and minister of justice on how to facilitate the process, so we are in the process of doing that.
LONG BEACH, Calif., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Halbert Hargrove, a fiduciary investment management and wealth advisory firm with approximately $2.5B in assets under management (AUM), has been recognized by CNBC as one of 2020's top 100 financial advisory firms for the second year in a row. This marks the third time the firm was recognized, as they were also named to the list in 2015. Adding to the accolades, last quarter, the Long Beach-based RIA was named one of the best places to work by both the Los Angeles Business Journal and InvestmentNews.

"At Halbert Hargrove, we strive for excellence in all aspects of our business  whether that be client relationships, the expertise of our advisors, or the thoughtfulness of our leadership team," said JC Abusaid, President, Halbert Hargrove. "Being recognized by CNBC for the third time is incredibly humbling and a true honor. We are dedicated to being client's guides, gurus, and gladiators as they plan for and meet financial goals, and we are thrilled to continually be recognized for our efforts on behalf of our clients."

The rankings were based on data culled from thousands of advisory firms and provided by AccuPoint Solutions. Factors included in the rankings were disclosures, years in business, average account size, total accounts under management, number of investment advisors, the ratio of investment advisors to the total number of employees, and discretionary and total AUM. The goal of the CNBC top 100 financial advisory firms list is to provide investors with a ranking of firms that offer the highest quality financial planning and wealth management service to their clients. The firms recognized provide their clients with personalized financial advice to help investors attain wealth over time. This list gives investors access to the best of the best advisory firms.

"As a company that has been in the industry for decades, we are grateful for the trust and dedication we have developed, and truly value our client relationships that often go beyond finances," said Russ Hill, Chairman and CEO, Halbert Hargrove. "We operate as a team at Halbert Hargrove, and are very pleased that CNBC has again recognized us for this mindset."

Halbert Hargrove is headquartered in Long Beach, California, and has eight offices across the country, with a total of 43 employees. In addition to the Long Beach office, locations include San Diego and Costa Mesa, California; Denver, Colorado; Bellevue, Washington; Scottsdale, Arizona; The Woodlands and Houston, Texas.

About Halbert Hargrove

Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors, LLC, is a fiduciary investment management and wealth advisory firm that provides investment management, wealth advisory, financial planning, and consulting services to individuals, families, charitable organizations, and trusts. Founded in 1933, Halbert Hargrove is headquartered in Long Beach, CA, and has approximately $2.5B assets under management. For more information, please visit www.halberthargrove.com.

SOURCE Halbert Hargrove

Related Links

http://www.halberthargrove.com


Letitia Wright joined director Steve McQueen for the photocall of his film Mangrove, which opens the BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday.

The Black Panther star, 26, and 12 Years A Slave filmmaker, 50, enjoyed a socially distanced red carpet alongside fellow stars Shaun Parkes, Rochenda Sandall, and Malachi Kirby, as well as producer Tracey Scoffield, and festival director Tricia Tuttle.

Putting on a stylish display, Letitia slipped into a bright pink co-ordinated suit that paired a chic jacket with bell-bottom trousers.

Chic: Letitia Wright put on a stylish display in a pink co-ord suit as she joined Steve McQueen and her co-stars at socially-distanced photocall for Mangrove at the BFI London Film Festival

Letitia, who portrays Black Panther member Altheia Jones-Lecointe in the film, boosted her height in a pair of white heels that had black toe caps, and she added a glittering touch to her look with a pair of gold hoop earrings.

Her raven tresses were pulled back into a tight bun, while she wore a light palette of make-up to accentuate her pretty features.

Steve, meanwhile, wrapped up warm in a black coat that he shrugged on over a green shirt and loose-fitting denim plaid trousers.

Letitia and Steve posed together on the red carpet, keeping a safe 2 metre distance away from each other as they smiled at one another.

Fashionista: Letitia's raven tresses were pulled back into a tight bun, while she wore a light palette of make-up to accentuate her pretty features

Stylish: Letitia boosted her height in a pair of white heels that had black toe caps, and she added a glittering touch to her look with a pair of gold hoop earrings

Joking around: Letitia and Steve posed together on the red carpet, keeping a safe 2 metre distance away from each other as they smiled at one another

Casual: The Oscar-winning director wrapped up warm in a black coat that he shrugged on over a green shirt and loose-fitting denim plaid trousers

Delighted: Letitia and Steve seemed delighted to be in each others company, even if they had to remain apart due to social distancing measures

Rochenda takes the role of Barbara Beese in the drama, and she looked sensational on the red carpet in a white power suit that she paired with a black lace top.

She paired her ensemble with open-toe heels, and accessorised her chic look with a Leo With Love necklace and Sif Jakobs Jewellery earrings.

Shaun, who plays Mangrove restaurant owner Frank Crichlow, put on a dapper display in a navy blue coat that he wore over a light blue button-up shirt and jeans.

Malachi also looked sharp in a black suit and matching shirt as he made his way onto the red carpet for the event.

Distanced: Steve and Letitia were joined by Shaun Parkes, Rochenda Sandall, and Malachi Kirby at the event, and they posed together while remaining far apart amid the COVID-19 crisis

Wow! Rochenda takes the role of Barbara Beese in the drama, and she looked sensational on the red carpet in a white power suit that she paired with a black lace top

Attention to detail: The Line Of Duty star accessorised her chic look with a Leo With Love necklace and Sif Jakobs Jewellery earrings

Looking sharp: Shaun, who plays Mangrove restaurant owner Frank Crichlow, put on a dapper display in a navy blue coat that he wore over a light blue button-up shirt and jeans

Leading man: Shaun covered his locks with a baker boy cap during the photocall

Steve has created the five-part anthology Small Axe, which documents the lives of West Indians during the mid-20th Century, and pinpoints certain historic moments including the 1981 Brixton Uprising.

The series features five individual stories about the hardships West Indians faced, and features stars including John Boyega and Letitia.

Mangrove tells the story of the trial on the Mangrove nine in 1970, a group of activists who clashed with police and tried to get the first judicial acknowledgement of racial hatred within the Metropolitan Police.

Suited and booted: Malachi also looked sharp in a black suit and matching shirt as he made his way onto the red carpet for the event

Safety first: Steve held out a surgical mask in his hands as he posed for photos

All that glitters: Malachi wore a silver rose pin on his lapel for the ceremony

Exciting: Mangrove is part of Steve's anthology Small Axe, and while there are five parts to it only Mangrove and Lovers Rock are being screened as part of the festival

While there are five parts to Small Axe, only Mangrove and Lovers Rock are being screened as part of the festival, and the other films will be broadcast on BBC One in the Autumn.

Speaking to Esquire Magazine earlier this month, Steve said the stories featured in the series still resonate today, especially given the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.

'These stories are as relevant now as they were then. It's only now that people are waking up to the fact that there's been injustices against black people for decades in this country, and centuries elsewhere. It took a pandemic,' he said.

Stars: Mangrove tells the story of the trial on the Mangrove nine in 1970, a group of activists who got the first judicial acknowledgement of racial hatred within the Metropolitan Police

Star power: Malachi takes on the role of activist and powerful orator Darcus Howe in the drama

Supportive: The film's executive producer Tracey Scoffield also made an appearance

Important: Speaking to Esquire Magazine earlier this month, Steve said the stories featured in the series still resonate today, especially given the Black Lives Matter movement

'It took a brutal killing. It took millions marching. For people to think, ''Possibly I should think in a different way.'' And only possibly, it's not actually done yet.

'Millions of people on the street before change can even be considered, before people can think that even possibly something could be wrong!

'The world is not a healthy place. If you really want change, if you are really serious about it then, hey, it starts from the beginning. Education.'

Candid: Steve said, 'These stories are as relevant now as they were then. It's only now that people are waking up to the fact that there's been injustices against black people for decades'

In charge: BFI Film Festival director Tricia Tuttle was also at the photocall
The two countries have been cooperating as close partners against common threats.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov says Ukraine and Britain will develop a joint plan to counter Russia's hybrid aggression.

Issues of countering hybrid threats coming from Russia, terrorist attacks in eastern Ukraine, and information warfare were on the agenda of a meeting between Avakov and British Prime Minister's International Affairs Advisor David Quarrey, the interior ministry's press service reports.

Read alsoUkraine, Britain to sign memo on developing Ukrainian Navy  ZelenskyThe parties discussed "a plan for cooperation and information exchange to counter the hybrid war waged by the Russian Federation," Interior Ministr Avakov said. "We cooperate as close partners against common threats."

Separately, the parties touched upon issues of cooperation on migration and the implementation of the project on psychological rehabilitation of war veterans.

Russia's hybrid aggression: Other stories
Too much is never enough.

That appears to be what the New York Yankees were thinking Monday, when shortstop Gleyber Torres stole second base with his team holding a six-run lead over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 1 of the American League Division Series.

Introducing Yankees Insider: Get exclusive news, behind-the-scenes observations and the ability to text message directly with beat writers

And that didnt sit well with Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez, who blasted Torres Monday night on TBS postgame show for breaking one of MLBs unwritten rules. Per WEEI:

You respect the opposition, because you expect them to respect you, Martinez said. And what you do is you add fuel to the fire, and later on if they bust you back, dont think that they dont respect you or they dont like you. It was just that, that was a terrible mistake. I hope you learn and the next time just dont do that.

Buy Gleyber Torres Yankees gear: Fanatics.com, MLBShop.com, Lids

What Martinez failed to mention is the fact that Rays pitcher John Curtiss had delivered some chin music to Torres and Gio Urhsela following Giancarlo Stantons game-sealing grand slam earlier in the inning.

The Rays' revenge for the stolen base came in the form of a 7-5 win in Game 2 on Tuesday. Game 3 is Wednesday night at Petco Park in San Diego, Calif.

Get Yankees text messages: Cut through the clutter of social media and text during games with beat writers and columnists. Plus, exclusive news and analysis every day. Sign up now.

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

Mike Rosenstein may be reached at mrosenstein@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 19:11:07|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Wednesday inaugurated a Chinese-built industrial park constructed at a cost of 60 million U.S. dollars.

The Bahir Dar Industrial Park (BIP), located 552 km north of Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa was constructed by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC).

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, the Ethiopian PM said the industrial park will help in knowledge transfer and boost the science capacity of Ethiopia in addition to creating job opportunities for thousands of Ethiopians.

"Bahir Dar Industrial Park is not only a production space but also a place where local employees gain knowledge and even can serve as a recreational space for the general public," said Ahmed.

"Ethiopia has so far commissioned 13 industrial parks which have been crucial in the country's efforts to achieve prosperity and boost economic development," he further said.

The Ethiopian PM also said the BIP and other industrial parks are expected to create linkages with agro-industrial parks, as part of efforts to transform Ethiopia's agricultural sector.

Amhara Regional President, Temesgen Tiruneh, said the construction and commissioning of the Bahir Dar Industrial Park, will help Ethiopia earn much needed foreign exchange from exports.

"Textile exports from Bahir Dar Industrial Park will earn Ethiopia much needed foreign currency, in addition to contributing to the overall economic development of the country," said Tiruneh.

Sandokan Debebe, CEO of Ethiopia Industrial Park Development Corporation disclosed Ethiopia has already managed to start operating 10 of the 13 industrial parks it has commissioned.

"The commissioning of Bahir Dar Industrial Park will play a crucial part to boost the economic development of Amhara regional state. BIP is the third industrial park to be inaugurated in the Amhara region," Debebe said. Enditem
STORY LINK Pound Euro Exchange Rate News: GBP/EUR Steady Following Shock Slump in German Industrial Production

Euro (EUR) Undermined by Surprise Slump in Germany Industrial Production

Pound (GBP) Muted as Fisheries Dispute Stalls Brexit Talks

GBP/EUR Exchange Rate Forecast: Dovish Lagarde to Put More Pressure on the Euro?

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The Euro (EUR) is struggling to find support this morning after Germany reported a shock fall in industrial production.According to data published by German statistics agency, Destatis, domestic factory output contracted 0.2% in August having expanded 1.4% in July.This missed expectations for a 1.5% expansion and was the first slump in production since April, at the height of the coronavirus crisis.While the disappointing result is unlikely to significantly impact Germanys economic rebound in the third quarter, todays figures are likely to add to concerns that the recovery will not be sustained through to the end of 2020.Carsten Brzeski, Global Head of Macro for ING Research, comments:Disappointing industrial production data will not stop the German economy's surge in the third quarter, but it illustrates the difference between rebound and recover.In fact assessing this kind of backward-looking data is currently like looking at pictures of a great summer holiday, the economic prospects for the final quarter resemble the current view out of the window at 8am in the morning: grey and rainy.While yesterdays industrial orders data gave hope that the manufacturing rebound could last into the final quarter, new restrictions on the back of an increasing number of new infections dont bode well for the service sector.The fact that fewer activities can be organised outside should also leave its mark on consumption and services. Winter is coming.At the same time, the Pound (GBP) is also rangebound this morning amidst ongoing concerns over the state of Brexit talks.While media reports suggest that positive progress has been made on a number of outstanding issues in recent days, it appears that the dispute over post-Brexit fishing rights could still torpedo talks.This comes as French President Emmanuel Macron refuses to give an inch in his demand that the French fishing industry retains the same access to UK fishing waters as it enjoys today.Jean-Pierre Pont, a lawmaker within Macrons party, La Republique En Marche, said:Fishing shouldnt be sacrificed or used for bartering. Every time Barnier speaks he tells us there will be no agreement if theres no agreement on fishing. For now this position is defended by the whole EU. A no-deal would be a disaster -- but also for the U.K.While the fishing industry is of little economic significance to either the UK or France, but fishing rights are a highly politicised issue and neither side looks willing to budge on the issue.With time quickly running out before the EU summit on Brexit on 15 October, the continued deadlock in talks threatens to put some considerable pressure on Sterling.Still to come today will be a speech by European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde.Lagarde has struck a notable cautious tone in recent weeks and this is not expected to change today, with the ECB president likely to make calls for more fiscal stimulus, while also potentially hinting at more monetary easing from the bank as well.Meanwhile, influencing the Pound Euro (GBP/EUR) exchange rate in the second half of the week will be the publication of the UKs latest monthly GDP release.Will the UK economy have continued to expand at a healthy pace in August or will a slowing of growth undermine Sterling sentiment?

International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements.

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Rhea Chakraborty gets bail and Showik`s plea rejected, 5 bail conditions for her



Bombay high court on Wednesday granted bail to Rhea Chakraborty but rejected her brother Showiks bail plea in drug case being investigated by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).The HC refused bail to one more co-accused and alleged peddler, Abdel Basit Parihar, 23, while granting it to Samuel Miranda, house manager of the late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput and Dipesh Samant, Rajputs personal staff.



Rhea has been asked to inform the investigating officer if she plans to leave Greater Mumbai. The High Court ordered Rhea to mark her presence for ten days in the nearest police station after release. She should deposit her passport and should not travel outside the country without the prior permission of the court, and pay a surety of Rs 1 lakh. She cannot meet with any other witness.



The bail pleas of Dipesh Sawant and Samuel Miranda have been allowed on furnishing of PR bond of Rs.50,000/- each, the HC noted. Their passports have also been impounded.



Bollywood actor Rhea Chakraborty, who was in a relationship with actor Sushant Singh Rajput, was arrested by the NCB on September 8, on charges of being an active member of a drug syndicate operating in Mumbai. Her brother Showik was arrested on September 4.



Read More...


Overnight reports from Jacksonville police:

 A resident of the 1000 block of East Morton Avenue told police juveniles knocked on her window about 6 p.m. Tuesday, opened it and ripped her blanket in half. When she locked the window, they shattered it with rocks, she told police.
By THE REDIFF NEWS BUREAU

The Indian Air Force will celebrates its 88th anniversary on October 8.

This year, the newly-inducted Rafale fighter aircraft will feature in the Indian Air Force Day parade.

Apart form Rafale, the Tejas LCA, Jaguar, Mig-29, Mig-21 and Sukhoi-30 aircraft will display India's air power at the Hindon Air Force Station in Ghaziabad.

Air Force Day is celebrated to mark the day the IAF was established in 1932.

Ahead of the air show, a full dress rehearsal held at the air base in Ghaziabad.

Here are some of the glimpses.

Photographs: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo

Indian Air Force's CH 47 Chinook helicopters display their load carrying skills during a full dress rehearsal for the 88th Indian Air Force Day celebrations at Hindon Airbase in Ghaziabad.

Newly-inducted Rafale jet flies past during a full dress rehearsal.

Indian Air Force's Surya Kiran aerobatics display team performs.

IAF's Dhruv Advance light helicopters (ALH) show their skills.

Chinook helicopter carries a howitzer during a full dress rehearsal.

Indian Air Force paratroopers perform.

IAF personnel march past during a full dress rehearsal.

Indian Air Force's helicopter air display team, Sarang performs.

Visitors have a view of Rafale fighter jet on display at Hindon Airbase in Ghaziabad.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 21:27:29|Editor: huaxia

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Video: China's permanent representative to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, on Oct. 6, 2020 refutes groundless accusations against China on issues related to Xinjiang and Hong Kong by the United States and a few other countries. (Xinhua)

Zhang Jun accuses these countries, represented by the United Sates, Germany and the United Kingdom, of abusing the UN platform by politicizing human rights issues, provoking political confrontation, spreading misinformation and interfering with China's internal affairs.



UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The attempt of the United States and some other countries to smear China's human rights record failed again on Tuesday after numerous countries spoke in support of China at the General Debate of the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly.

The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and some other countries made unfounded accusations against China on issues related to Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, refuted their statements and acts of interfering in China's internal affairs with the excuse of human rights and provoking confrontation among member states.

Nearly 70 countries echoed China's position. In support of China, Pakistan, Cuba and Kuwait made joint statements each representing numerous countries on Xinjiang, Hong Kong and human rights issues. A large number of countries supported China in their own national statements.

These countries spoke highly of China's progress in human rights and showed support for China's efforts to safeguard national sovereignty, security and unity, denouncing the politicization of human rights issues, double standards and political confrontation.

Video: Pakistan on Oct. 6, 2020 makes a joint statement on behalf of 55 countries at the General Debate of the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly, opposing interference in China's internal affairs under the pretext of Hong Kong. (Xinhua)

REGRESSIVE STEP TO CONFRONTATION

Speaking at the General Debate of the Third Committee, Zhang said the practice of provoking confrontation is against the trend of time.

The world today is at a critical juncture with major challenges, said Zhang, reminding the Committee that the United Nations has just commemorated its 75th anniversary, when world leaders have agreed to fight COVID-19 and address other global challenges with solidarity and cooperation.

Regrettably, some countries, represented by the United Sates, Germany and the United Kingdom, have ignored the collective call and insisted on provoking antagonism, he said.

Zhang accused these countries of abusing the UN platform by politicizing human rights issues, provoking political confrontation, spreading misinformation and interfering with China's internal affairs.

These deeds are firmly opposed and rejected by China, said Zhang.

The behaviors of these countries, he said, are completely against the trend of history, as the world and its people want solidarity, not division; they want cooperation, not confrontation; they want mutual benefit, not zero-sum game.

The United States is on the wrong side of history and is going against the international community, he said.

Video: Cuba on Oct. 6, 2020 makes a joint statement on behalf of 45 countries at the General Debate of the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly in support of China's counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang. (Xinhua)

HUMBLE YOURSELF, BEFORE PASSING JUDGMENT

China's achievements in human rights development are widely recognized and not to be denied by lies and deception, Zhang said.

He mentioned China's adoption of effective measures in combating terrorism and promoting economic development, which has been supported by Chinese people and stood the test of time and history.

On the other hand, Zhang criticized the United States for its own human rights record, saying the United States should better take a good look at itself in the mirror before making accusations against others.

Pointing to the over 200,000 American lives lost in the COVID-19 pandemic, he advised the U.S. government need to treat the sick and save lives, not to spread "political virus" and to stir up troubles.

He also called for attention to the existing systematic racial discrimination in the United States, the belligerent nature of the country and the frequent, crude political decisions unilaterally made by the country to evade its human rights obligations.

Germany, the United Kingdom and some other countries, having been practicing selective blindness and double-standards, should put away arrogance and prejudice, and pull back from the brink, said Zhang.

Video: China's permanent representative to the UN on Oct. 5, 2020 makes a joint statement on behalf of 26 countries, criticizing the U.S. and other Western countries for violating human rights. (Xinhua)

VOICES OF SUPPORT

In Tuesday's debate, Pakistan made a joint statement on behalf of 55 countries, opposing interference with China's internal affairs under the pretext of Hong Kong-related issues.

The principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states should be upheld, the statement said, adding that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is an inalienable part of China whose affairs brook no foreign interference.

In any country, the legislative power on national security issues rests with the state, and the legitimate rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents can be better exercised with the national security law, the statement added.

Cuba made a joint statement on behalf of 45 countries in support of China's counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang.

The statement underscores the fact that terrorist attacks have not been seen in Xinjiang for the past three years thanks to China's measures in response to the threat of local terrorism and extremism.

Noting that China maintains openness and transparency by, among other things, inviting diplomats, officials, journalists and religious personages to visit Xinjiang, the statement criticized the unfounded allegations against China and interference out of political motivation and bias.

Kuwait made a joint statement on behalf of three Gulf states, opposing the politicization of human rights issues and interference in others' internal affairs with the excuse of human rights.

"Because we are committed to the provisions of the UN Charter, including equality and sovereignty for all member states of the organization, we would also like to stress that the deliberation of matters related to human rights at the United Nations must be objective, constructive, transparent, non-selective and non-politicized. It should also respect the sovereignty of countries and should not interfere in the internal affairs of countries," said the joint statement.

The statement emphasizes the right of all countries to development and to eradication of poverty, ignorance and disease, arguing that these are among the most important human rights.

This is the second bungled attempt of the United States to foment opposition to China under the pretext of human rights. In October 2019, the United States rallied some countries to do the same, which failed due to the oppositon by a vast majority of countries.

The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly is the main committee that deliberates on human rights, and social and humanitarian affairs. 
Regulatory News:

Press Release

Total (Paris:FP) (LSE:TTA) (NYSE:TOT) becomes a 20% shareholder in the Eolmed floating wind farm pilot project, located in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Gruissan and near Port-La-Nouvelle (Occitan region).

Attributed in July 2016, this 30 megawatts (MW) project will accelerate the development of a floating wind technology. Together with Qair, the historical developer and majority shareholder of the project, and its local partners, Total brings its experience in the conception, deployment and exploitation of offshore installations throughout their life cycle.

Total is thus continuing to reinforce its position in the emerging sector of floating offshore wind, in which it wants to be one of the world leaders. Today, the Group is present in South Korea with a portfolio of 2 gigawatts and in the United Kingdom with the 100 MW Erebus project, which has just been granted exclusive development rights for its area.

Julien Pouget, Director Renewables of Total, stated: "This announcement once again demonstrates the Group's ambition and willingness to innovate in the field of renewable energies. Floating offshore wind is a very promising segment in which Total notably brings its extensive experience in offshore projects. Together with our partner Qair, we have the necessary resources to meet the technological and financial challenges that will determine our future success. I am delighted that Total can contribute to the emergence of this new sector in France.

"The Eolmed project is at the heart of the Occitanie Region's strategy for the development of renewable energies, actively supported by local partners. It also demonstrates Qair's ambition to become a major player in floating offshore wind energy in Europe. By joining forces with a renowned French industrial partner for this innovative project developed by our teams since 2016, Qair is strengthening its technical expertise for the realisation of the Eolmed project and for future floating wind projects." adds Louis Blanchard, CEO of Qair.

Total, renewables and electricity

As part of its ambition to get to net zero by 2050,Total is building a portfolio of activities in electricity, renewable in particular, that could account for up to 40% of its sales by 2050. By the end of 2020, Total's gross power generation capacity worldwide will be around 12 gigawatts, including about 7 gigawatts of renewable energy. With the objective of reaching 35 GW of production capacity from renewable sources by 2025, Total will continue to expand its business to become one of the world leaders in renewable energies.

About Total

Total is a broad energy company that produces and markets fuels, natural gas and electricity. Our 100,000 employees are committed to better energy that is more affordable, more reliable, cleaner and accessible to as many people as possible. Active in more than 130 countries, our ambition is to become the responsible energy major.

Cautionary Note

This press release, from which no legal consequences may be drawn, is for information purposes only. The entities in which TOTAL SE directly or indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. TOTAL SE has no liability for their acts or omissions. In this document, the terms "Total", "Total Group" and Group are sometimes used for convenience. Likewise, the words "we", "us" and "our" may also be used to refer to subsidiaries in general or to those who work for them.

This document may contain forward-looking information and statements that are based on a number of economic data and assumptions made in a given economic, competitive and regulatory environment. They may prove to be inaccurate in the future and are subject to a number of risk factors. Neither TOTAL SE nor any of its subsidiaries assumes any obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information or statement, objectives or trends contained in this document whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201006006158/en/

Contacts:

Total

Media Relations: +33 1 47 44 46 99 l presse@total.com l @TotalPress

Investor Relations: +44 (0)207 719 7962 l ir@total.com
A police officer points a pistol at protesters during a rally in Hong Kong in December 2019 to show support for the Uighur Muslim minority in China - Dale de la Rey/AFP

The Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has suggested Britain may boycott the Olympics for the first time ever, over China's treatment of the Uighur Muslims.

He told MPs at a Foreign Affairs Select Committee it was clear that there is evidence of serious and egregious human rights violations of the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province and did not rule out boycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 as a consequence.

Mr Raab said: "Generally speaking, my instinct is to separate sport from diplomacy and politics, but there comes a point where that may not be possible.

I would say let's gather the evidence, work with our international partners and consider in the round what further action we need to take.

The UK has never before boycotted an Olympic Games, despite pressure not to participate in the 1936 Berlin Olympics produced under the Nazi regime in Germany, and in the Moscow Games in 1980 following Russias invasion of Afghanistan.

During the committee hearing Labour MP Graham Stringer said he wished to remind Mr Raab of Margaret Thatcher's problems of the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow.

She failed, he said.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab did not rule out boycotting the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics - Stefan Rousseau/PA

Mr Raab added that the detention, the mistreatment, the forced sterilisation of the Uighur Muslim people was something the UK can't just turn away from".

Obviously we'll want to gather the evidence and work very closely with our international partners, he said.

We need to be making the point to China that this is at odds with the responsibilities that come with a leading member of the international community."

Asked if he would advise the Duke of Cambridge against attending the Olympics, Mr Raab said: "That would be a corollary of the wider process of evaluating evidence and working with our international partners and whatever further decisions we come to.

It comes as the UK has sought to increase international pressure on China over human rights abuses, with the UK becoming home to a number of Uighur Muslim dissidents, such as as Aziz Isa Elkun, below.

Story continues

Aziz Isa Elkun is one of many Uighur Muslims living in London who have been cut off from contacting their families based in Xinjiang. He alleges he has received threatening text messages from the Chinese state . The last time Aziz Isa Elkun saw his elderly mother and father in the disputed Chinese province of Xinjiang was more than two years ago. Since then, his father has died and he has no idea about the safety go his mother and cousins , after China launched a brutal crackdown on its Muslim Uighur population. London 11August 2020 - Heathcliff O'Malley/Heathcliff O'Malley

At the United Nations, the UK was one of 39 countries to raise concerns about the abuse of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, as well as the security crackdown in Hong Kong.

The UK and its allies, including Germany, France and the US, have agreed a statement in which they said they were "gravely concerned about the existence of a large network of 'political re-education' camps" in Xinjiang, where "credible reports indicated that over a million people have been arbitrarily detained".

It is believed the Chinese government has detained up to one million of the Uighur Muslim population in re-education camps in the region.

The Chinese Ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, has previously called allegations about human rights abuses in Xinjiang the lies of the century.
When the groundbreaking Olmos Park Mexican restaurant Mixtli announced in July that it would be moving to Southtown, speculation swirled on what would move into the converted boxcar where it all started.

The answer is Kumo, another modernist Mexican concept from Mixtli chefs Rico Torres and Diego Galicia, where theyll adapt the Japanese concept of omakase, a multicourse meal where the chef decides what to serve, to tacos and other handheld creations beginning Nov. 4.
Image Nevada has suspended the use of two companies rapid coronavirus testing in nursing homes. Credit... Julia Rendleman for The New York Times

The coronavirus tests kits are small and fast  they produce results in as a little as 15 minutes  and when they were first distributed to nursing homes around the country in August by the federal government, they were welcomed with open arms.

At last it seemed, there was a solution to the delays and equipment shortages that had stymied efforts to use laboratory-based tests to curb outbreaks.

But now Nevada has ordered its nursing facilities to immediately suspend the use of two of the rapid virus tests after their performance was found to be lacking, according to a directive issued by the states department of health.

The order was prompted by a spate of false-positive results, in which the tests mistakenly found that healthy people were infected. The state directed that use of the kits be discontinued until the accuracy of the tests can be further evaluated, the Nevada document said.

The rapid tests are manufactured by two companies: Quidel, and Becton, Dickinson and Company, Representatives for the companies defended their products and said they were conducting investigations into the reports of false positives in Nevada.

Lisa Sanders, director of media relations at LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit providers of aging services, said that several nursing homes in other states had been experiencing issues with BD and Quidels tests and reporting them to her organization and the American Health Care Association in recent weeks.

In submitting their applications to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency clearance, both BD and Quidel declared that their tests had no false positives.

But shortly after the tests were rolled out across the state this summer, nursing homes began to report that people who had been evaluated by both the rapid tests and a slower but highly reliable laboratory test, called P.C.R., were getting conflicting results. Among 39 positive antigen test results from both BD and Quidel, 23 were found by P.C.R. to be negative  an error rate of nearly 60 percent.

The results, which were collected from a dozen facilities where thousands of tests had been performed, prompted the state to pivot away from antigen tests like BDs and Quintels to viral RNA tests such as P.C.R., according to the directive.

Susan Butler-Wu, a clinical microbiologist at the University of Southern California, said the findings in Nevada could be emblematic of a larger issue: the use of tests in ways for which they were not designed or validated.

Both BDs and Quidels tests received F.D.A. clearance for use within the first five days of the onset of symptoms. The instructions that come with BDs test have noted that the performance of this test has not been evaluated for use in patients without signs and symptoms of respiratory infection and performance may differ in asymptomatic individuals.

Shannon Litz, a spokeswoman for Nevadas department of health and human services, said in an email that the agency would be re-evaluating the tests performance before resuming their use.
The International Air Transport Association (Iata) said that its 76th Annual General Meeting (AGM) will take place November 24, 2020 as a virtual event and that the accompanying World Air Transport Summit (WATS) has been cancelled for 2020.



All member airlines, invited industry partners/stakeholders and media will be able to participate virtually in the AGM to be hosted by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines from Amsterdam, the Netherlands.



The decision to cancel the in-person AGM has not been taken lightly and in no way is a reflection on the hospitality of the Netherlands, nor our host carrier, KLM. When we postponed this years AGM from June until November, it was with the expectation that government restrictions on travel would have been sufficiently eased to enable a physical meeting. That now seems unlikely and alternative plans for a virtual event are being activated, said Alexandre de Juniac, Iatas Director General and CEO.



This will be one of our most important AGMs. The industry is in the deepest crisis in its history. And it is more important than ever for the industry to have this meeting serve as a rallying call of resilience as we find solutions to safely open borders and re-establish global connectivity, ensure vital cargo lanes; and build a sustainable future from the destruction of the virus, said de Juniac.  TradeArabia News Service
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Greece's neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has been classified as a criminal organisation in an historic ruling that leaves the party leadership facing lengthy jail terms for running a gang.

The five-year legal battle was sparked by the murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas, 34, who performed under the name Killah P, who was stabbed to death by Golden Dawn members in Athens in 2013.

The court found seven of Golden Dawn's 18 former MPs, including party founder Nikos Michaloliakos, guilty of running the criminal enterprise, leaving them facing up to 15 years each in jail.

Presiding judge Maria Lepenioti announced that other members of the party were guilty of being part of the gang, a sentence which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years. In total, there are 68 defendants.

The sentences due to be handed down at a separate hearing and none of the party leaders were present on Wednesday. All have vociferously denied the allegations, saying they are victims of political persecution.

Prosecutors had argued that Golden Dawn operated under a military-style leadership that encouraged intimidation, beatings, and even killings

Judge Maria Lepenioti (centre) today ruled the Greece's neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is a criminal organisation in an historic ruling that leaves party leadership facing lengthy jail terms

A crowd of demonstrators, which included former Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras, gathered outside court - where he accused Golden Dawn of 'poisoning society'

Demonstrators gather to witness the end of a five-year legal battle that has seen Greece's Golden Dawn party declared a criminal organsation, that used violence to intimidate its rivals

The case was sparked after anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas was stabbed to death in Athens in 2013. His mother, Magda (pictured), was in court to hear the verdict - and celebrated after it was read out

Magda (left) and Dimitris Fyssas (right), the parents of murdered anti-fascist rapper Pavlos, celebrated in front of demonstrators outside court after the verdict was handed down

Pavlos, who performed under the name Killah P (pictured at a gig in 2011) was chased down and stabbed to death by a gang of Golden Dawn supporters in Athens in 2013 - an attack that party leadership were aware of

Nikos Michaloliakos, the founder of Golden Dawn and a former MP, is now facing up to 15 years in jail for running the gang alongside six of his senior leaders, while 61 others are facing up to 10 years for being part of the enterprise

A crowd of 15,000 anti-fascist demonstrators had gathered outside the Athens' courthouse to hear the verdict, waving banners that read 'the people want Nazis in jail!' as scuffles broke out with police.

Magda Fyssas, the mother of Pavlos, was seen cheering in court as the verdict was read out, before celebrating outside in front of the crowds. 'Pavlos did it. My son,' she shouted.

Hundreds of police were deployed around the court, just a few miles from the historic centre of Athens, in order to keep the peace.

Fyssas's murderer, truck driver and senior Golden Dawn operative Yiorgos Roupakias, was officially convicted at the same hearing, having previously confessed to the crime. He is now facing life in prison.

The court also handed down sentences to 15 party members accused of being accomplices in Fyssas's killing.

Judges also found five people guilty of attempted murder for attacks on Egyptian migrant fisherman in 2011, and found four people guilty of bodily harm for attacks on left-wing activists in 2013.

The party was accused of using beatings, intimidation and murder as tactics to quash opposition, all with the knowledge of senior party members.

In total, 68 members of the party have been on trial, including Michaloliakos and more than a dozen other former MPs like him who were elected in 2012 as the openly xenophobic group capitalised on discontent over joblessness and migration.

15,000 left-wing and anti-fascist demonstrators gathered outside the court to hear the verdict, before a small group threw Molotovs and rocks at police, who responded with tear gas

A protesters appears to aim a can of mace spray at police officers as clashes break out outside the court in Athens

Left-wing activists waving banners that read 'the people want Nazis in jail' march through the streets of Athens, ahead of the end of a five-year court battle which saw Golden Dawn ruled a criminal gang

Protesters carry banners bearing the face of Pavlos Fyssas, also known as Killah P, an anti-fascist rapper whose stabbing death in 2013 sparked the case against Golden Dawn

Demonstrators shout slogans as they march along the streets outside Athens' central court, ahead of a verdict that ruled Gold Dawn is a criminal gang masquerading as a political party

Protesters wave banners denouncing fascism and Nazism as they march through the streets of Athens on Wednesday

As well as delivering a verdict in the murder trial for Fyssas and the trial of senior leaders of Golden Dawn, the court was also to hand down judgements for two other assault cases allegedly involving Golden Dawn members.

An Egyptian fisherman was left with broken teeth and head injuries after being beaten with clubs and metal bars in June 2012 as he slept.

Just over a year later, Communists putting up posters were attacked with nail-studded clubs.

Golden Dawn was at its political peak at the time of Fyssas's murder, having won 18 seats in the 300-seat parliament in 2012 amid anger over a financial crisis in Greece that discredited mainstream political parties.

Three years later, it also sent three deputies to the European parliament in another strong showing.

But the investigation took its toll, causing a number of senior members to defect. In the last election in 2019, the party failed to win a single seat.

Golden Dawn was founded by Michaloliakos in the 1980s, with the aim of bringing military dictatorship back to Greece. At the time Michaloliakos described it as a patriotic party of ultra-nationalists.

The party has denied being neo-Nazi or fascist, thought Michaloliakos has admitted to being a Holocaust denier and admirer of Hitler.
World Trade Organisation (WTO) is a global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. China now said that the US banning two of its mobile apps -TikTok and WeChat violates the rules set by WTO. This happened in a WTO meeting on Friday, as told by a trade official and reported by Reuters.

US President Donald Trump's administration has imposed restrictions on the two Chinese mobile apps. The Trump administration has ordered download blocks on both TikTok and WeChat, and instructed the parent company of TikTok, known as ByteDance, to sell its operations to the US company over security concerns.

The China representative at the WTO meeting said, "are clearly inconsistent with WTO rules, restrict cross-border trading services and violate the basic principles and objectives of the multilateral trading system." The official said that the US has failed to give solid reasons/ or proof for banning the apps, which is a "clear abuse" of rules.

In the same meeting, the US defended its actions by saying they are intended to mitigate national security risks. The US government has previously said that the data from American users is being accessed by the Chinese government.

The office of the US Trade Representative had no immediate comment. An official at the Chinese mission to the WTO did not immediately respond to a request for comment as well.

Tellingly, TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service which is popular for its short video format. Whereas, WeChat is a multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app developed by Tencent.

(with agency inputs)
(TNS) - New COVID-19 tests that can produce results in as little as 15 minutes are expected to become available in the United States as soon as this month, a development that would help could help companies bring workers back to the office and schools bring students into the classroom safely, doctors said.The rapid tests manufactured by medical device companies such as Abbott Labs show promise for accurate, widespread testing, according to researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas A&M. The federal government, which bought the first 150 million tests produced by Abbott, plan to distribute it to states in hope of reopening schools, allowing visitors back to nursing home and making it safer for employees in the workplace.Houstons medical offices and labs would be able to process the rapid tests, which cost as little as $5.Where this is going to be extremely helpful are congregant settings where we can test people very often, said Chris Amos, director of the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Baylor College of Medicine. Then we could nip any emerging outbreak immediately.Its unclear when the tests might become available in Texas. Neither the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services nor Texas Department of Emergency Management responded to requests for comment.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Abbott Labs BinaxNOW COVID-19 test for emergency use in late August. It consists of a nasal swab that does not need to touch the upper throat.Abbott Labs will also offer a mobile app to check results. If a person tests negative, Abbott will create a digital pass as a clean bill of health. Workplaces and schools can set an expiration date for each pass and require people to get retested.If a person tests positive, theyre told to quarantine and talk to their doctor in a message sent through the app.The appeal is twofold. Any doctor, school nurse or occupational health specialist can be trained to take samples. And labs dont need as much expensive equipment and supplies to run the tests, said Jeffrey Cirillo, a Texas A&M Health Science Center professor of microbial pathogenesis and immunology.Its got a lot of potential, Cirillo said, for making things more rapid and simple for less technically skilled labs, where they maybe dont have a highly skilled diagnostician, but somebody who could just follow instructions.Abbotts rapid tests are antigen tests, meaning they look for pieces of proteins that make up the virus, said Joseph Petrosino, director of Baylor College of Medicines Alkek Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research.Theyre not as sensitive as molecular tests, the so-called gold standard tests, that require medical professionals to take the swab samples and take longer to process, but produce more accurate results.Antigen tests run a higher chance of a false negative than the molecular tests, but the frequency with which the tests can be administered provides a level of protection, Petrosino said. In addition, the antigen tests can be followed up with molecular tests if patients with negative results exhibit symptoms.The key to the efficacy of these tests is that youre taking it more than once, so the statistics work in your favor, Petrosino said. If youre symptomatic and test negative, they tell you to follow up with the gold-standard tests.Abbott Labs, which said it would manufacture and ship 50 million tests a month by October, is charging $5. Thats not the final billing price for patients, but even after the costs of labor and personal protective equipment, the rapid antigen tests would still cost less than the $40 to $70 base cost for the molecular tests.Other rapid tests are also making their ways onto the market. A 15-minute COVID-19 diagnostic test produced by medical technology company Becton Dickinson and Co. was approved by the European Union at the end of September. A molecular rapid test manufactured by a Sugar Land company, DetectaChem, was recently cleared by the FDA for emergency use.The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it purchased the kits from Abbott to distribute to states to streamline the process and avoid having state governments compete for the available stocks, as they did for ventilators and other equipment early in the pandemic.Hospitals and workplaces cant purchase the tests yet. Local hospitals have inquired about buying tests, but, Amos said, theyve been told it could be a three month wait.What we hear is that the government bought up the supplies and that is appropriate, actually, he said. But itd be helpful to know what the governments plans are for the use.Companies in the Houston area arent confident that the rapid tests will arrive anytime soon. Employers who are testing workers rely on molecular tests that take a day or more to turn around, said Chris Skisak, executive director of the Houston Business Coalition on Health, a nonprofit representing employers who purchase health insurance plans.Even though scientists say that the rapid tests are good, employers are still skeptical that theyll detect every COVID-19 case and prevent breakouts. The rapid tests approved earlier in the year  and in May, used by the White House to screen employees  had high rates of false negatives, with as many as half of tests missing infections.Few are doing rapid testing because concerns about accuracy are just as great as how quickly they can get results, Skisak said.Abbott says its tests are highly accurate, but not a complete replacement for the molecular tests. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends that patients who test negative but have COVID-19 symptoms confirm the results with molecular tests.Rapid tests are just one component of good practices for returning to work or school, said, Petrosino, one of the Baylor researchers. You still need to have social distance and wear masks for the time being as long as the virus is prevalent in the community.gwendolyn.wu@chron.comtwitter.com/gwendolynawu2020 the Houston ChronicleVisit the Houston Chronicle at www.chron.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
WATERLOO  A Manchester sex offender has been arrested for allegedly abusing a girl in Waterloo earlier this year.

Eric John Norelius, 38, was arrested Tuesday on a warrant for one count of lascivious acts with a child. He was being held without bond in the Black Hawk County Jail in Waterloo as of Wednesday morning.

Authorities allege Norelius touched a 6-year-old girl while he was visiting Waterloo in February. Waterloo police were notified of the allegation in March, and investigators obtained an arrest warrant in September.

Also in March, Delaware County authorities filed sexual abuse charges for allegations he abused a girl in Manchester in 2019, according to court records. It wasn't immediately clear if both allegations involve the same victim.

While Norelius was jail for the Manchester case in May, he allegedly exposed his genitals to female staff at the Delaware County Jail and was charged with indecent exposure.

Norelius is currently on the state sex offender registry for a 2003 lascivious acts conviction in connection with a Linn County incident involving a girl under age 14.

Corrections records show Norelius is on parole in connection with a 2017 police chase in Waterloo where a sheriffs deputy fired at his pickup truck and sex offender registration violations.

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Releasing a documentary about the COVID-19 pandemic in October of 2020 feels a little bit like putting out one of those Hey! Remember the 90s? shows in 1995. The first twoAi Weiweis Coronation, which was released by Alamo Drafthouse in late August, and 76 Days, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in Septemberhad the benefit, at least for American viewers, of focusing on an environment wed only seen in passing on the news: the city of Wuhan. But Totally Under Control, which devotes the bulk of its two-hour running time to the first two months of the pandemic in the U.S., risks a worst-case scenario for an investigative documentary, revisiting history thats too recent to be forgotten without the insight that comes from the passage of time.

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What Totally Under Control ends up doing, though, is allowing us passage to a foreign countrynot China, but the U.S. before the storm, or at least when it was only raining and not pouring. The movie, which was directed by Alex Gibney, Suzanne Hillinger, and Ophelia Harutyunyan, begins just after the new year, when word of an aggressive, fast-moving virus first began to reach U.S. health officials. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, spoke with his Chinese counterpart on Jan. 3, and for a while, things seem to have progressed as they should. The right alarms were sounded, the right wheels began to turn. We know what happened after thatwhat is still happening, to the extent that the movie ends with a caption informing us that it was completed the day before Donald Trump announced that he had tested positive for COVID. But after seven months adjusting to the idea that the disease is now part of our everyday lives, its instructive to return to a time when it didnt have to be that way. This isnt the story of an inevitable tragedy. Its the story of a disaster that everyone saw coming and let happen anyway.

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Interviewing scientists, journalists, and whistleblowersno current members of the Trump administration, the CDC, or the Food and Drug Administration agreed or were allowed to speakthe movie assembles a meticulous, inch-by-inch timeline of the first two months of the U.S. response, or lack of response. Rick Bright, the former head of the branch of the Department of Health and Human Services specifically tasked with handling pandemics, sent an email in mid-January stressing the need to urgently formulate a plan, and he was told in response that it didnt seem like a time sensitive urgency. Alex Greninger, a clinical virologist at the University of Washington, marvels at how quickly the CDC was able to start manufacturing testing kits, just 10 days after Chinese scientists posted the viruss genetic code online. The playbook for dealing with a potential pandemic, Alex Azar explained in January, is relatively simple and multitiered, and up until the first week in February, journalist Caroline Chen says, according to the playbook, everything was going perfect.

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No one in Totally Under Control can explain why the CDCs test kits included a component that tested for the presence of any coronavirus, and not specifically COVID-19, but the result was an immediate standstill, followed by an excruciating weekslong standstill that the New York Times described as the lost month. Without insights from inside the administration, the movie is helpless to explain why a White House that has taken pride in running roughshod over government regulation let bureaucratic bottlenecks slow testing to a trickle: fewer than 100 on an average day, while smaller countries were testing 100 times that or more. The mystery, Gibney says in voice-over, is why those in charge of the bureaucracy didnt press for a solution. And the movie essentially leaves it at that, gesturing toward a black box that no one else has been able to open either.

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This isnt the story of an inevitable tragedy. Its the story of a disaster that everyone saw coming and let happen anyway.

Both Coronation and 76 Days took their cameras into the field and made use of crowdsourced footage on top of that, so to an extent they abandon perspective in favor of immediacy. (Ai at least shifts locations enough to give you a broader sense of how the Chinese governments lockdown protocols can be both a public health measure and an instrument of authoritarian repression.) But Totally Under Control stays inside its COVID-safe box. The movie opens by giving us a glimpse of its pandemic shooting protocols, which largely involved dropping off cameras that the subjects could use themselves while taking questions from their remote directors. (If you notice an upgrade in aesthetics for South Korean subjects, its because the country has controlled the outbreak to the extent that the production could employ a 10-person crew.) The moments of greatest emotion in Totally Under Control are when lifelong institutionalists like Bright confront the failure of the systems theyve invested so much faith in; he comes near tears recalling how he ended his political career by blowing the whistle on the fast-tracked approval of hydroxychloroquine. Its frustrating to feel as if youre stuck in that box with them, but thats something Americans have had to learn to live with, having our human interactions parceled out in rectangular doses with unvarying views. Even our documentaries feel like theyre still in lockdown.
Ray Wise/Getty Images

Be awestruck by the park's famed geysers and thermal features: Two favorites are Old Faithful, of course, and Grand Prismatic Spring.



Old Faithful, on the Lower Loop's eastern side, is the park's tallest predictable geyser, spewing superheated water up to 180 feet into the air for up to five minutes every 60 to 110 minutes. Every eruption can draw more than 2,000 spectators in July and August; boardwalk bleachers fill up, with people standing behind them. To avoid the masses, Olson recommends coming before 9 a.m. Getting up early has its rewards, she says.

Another insider viewing tip: Venture up to the second-floor deck at the nearby Old Faithful Inn, even if you're not a hotel guest. No, you're not as close to the geyser, but the deck still offers a good vantage point with far fewer people jockeying for viewing spots. Plus, there's often a staffer selling espresso drinks.

In winter, when you can get to Old Faithful via snowcoach or snowmobile, a big crowd might be just several dozen people. Guided snowmobile tours leave from the east, south and west entrances (advance reservations required).

If the Old Faithful area is crowded, minimize your time there (check geysertimes.org for predicted eruption times) and then head to the otherworldly Norris Geyser Basin for less-crowded geyser viewing.

There's also Grand Prismatic Spring in the park's Midway Geyser Basin, just north of Old Faithful on the Lower Loop. It's the country's largest hot spring  about 121 feet deep and bigger than a football field. Thanks to microbial mats that can grow in extreme heat, the spring's pool showcases a rainbow of colors  blue, green, orange, red and yellow  making the spring one of the park's most popular photo ops. Grand Prismatic never feels as crowded as Old Faithful because its colors don't come and go like the eruptions do.

Marvel at the power of moving water: In the early 1800s, mountain man Jim Bridger reported finding a canyon so big and deep that you could shout into it at night and be awoken the next morning by your echo. Welcome to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone  20 miles long, more than 1,000 feet deep in some places, and home to three waterfalls, including the 308-foot-tall Lower Falls, the park's tallest. At the eastern meeting point of the Upper and Lower loops, the canyon has multiple good viewing points. A tip for shutterbugs: At Artist Point on South Rim Scenic Drive, catch the morning light of the rising sun on the Lower Falls and the canyon's pastel-colored walls.

View wildlife: Yellowstone is often called America's Serengeti for its abundant wildlife. Lamar Valley and Hayden Valley are both good wildlife-watching areas, says park spokeswoman Linda Veress. Some things commonly seen in both valleys are bison and pronghorn, and possibly wolves and grizzly bears."

It's easy to do your watching from the comfort of your car. The Lower Loop passes through Hayden Valley; the Upper Loop through Lamar Valley. No doubt, you'll sometimes want to get out to take photos, but take note: It's not unusual for bison to gore several visitors every year. Give the wildlife space, advises Veress. Wildlife is unpredictable and walking by a bison that's just standing there quietly grazing  that can change very quickly if you approach the animal. If you cause an animal to move, you're too close."

Park rules mandate visitors stay 25 yards away from bighorn sheep, bison and elk, and 100 yards from bears and wolves.

Honor Yellowstone's importance as the country's first national park: Don't miss the 50-foot-tall Roosevelt Arch at the park's north entrance in Gardiner. Made from locally quarried basalt, the arch bears the inscription For the benefit and enjoyment of the people  a line from the 1872 Act that established Yellowstone (and all of the subsequent national parks)  and President Theodore Roosevelt laid its cornerstone in 1903.

Go hiking, with caution: Yellowstone has 900-plus miles of hiking trails that few people use. Regardless of your fitness level, don't just charge off down a trail. Remember, black bears and grizzly bears roam here, plus most of the park lies more than a mile above sea level, so give yourself time to adjust to the elevation, says Veress. We recommend everyone know how to hike in bear country and to carry bear spray. (Watch a video on Yellowstone's website to learn how to use the spray. Some tourists have mistakenly thought that they needed to spray themselves with bear spray, as they would with insect repellant. Bad idea!)

Close to Old Faithful, the 4.7-mile Lone Star Trail is a mostly flat out-and-back hike on an old service road along the Firehole River to the Lone Star Geyser, which erupts about every three hours. Just south of Grand Prismatic Spring, start up the Fairy Falls Trail to the Grand Prismatic Spring Overlook, 0.6 miles from the parking lot and a spur off the main trail. The overlook showcases spring's vivid colors. Note that the elevation gain to the overlook is only about 100 feet, but high altitude makes the hike more work than it sounds. Back on the trail, continue two flat miles farther to the 200-foot-tall falls. Stand on the shore of the pool at its base and see rainbows in its mist. In winter, you can cross-country ski or snowshoe to both attractions.

Take a soak: Just inside the park's north entrance, a flat, half-mile gravel path along the Gardner River brings you to the mouth of the Boiling River. Where the two waterways meet, you'll find a 150-foot-long band of natural soaking pools with water temperatures ranging from 80 to 110 degrees. This is the park's only thermal feature where visitors can go for a soak, so wade in. The pools are open daily dawn to dusk but close during periods of high water (usually in late spring or early summer). Bathing suits required; you can change in the parking lot's vault toilets.

Get off the beaten path: With its density of waterfalls, Yellowstone's southwest corner is known as Cascade Corner. Most require a substantial hike to see, but you can drive to Cave Falls  it's only 20 feet tall but spans 200 feet across the Falls River  and you'll likely have the view to yourself, since this park section attracts fewer than 1 percent of Yellowstone visitors. But be aware that the 90-mile drive from Old Faithful takes almost four hours because you travel on roads with low speed limits, including the 19-mile Cave Falls Road, a dirt road passable by any passenger car.

Gateway Towns
The International University-Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City has decided to pay doctoral students VND10 million (US$430) for monthly living expenses and waive tuition fees of up to 100 per cent in the 2020-21 academic year.

Students of International University do research.  Photo Courtesy of the university

The students will be asked to spend their time in research and teach at the university.

Le Dinh Minh Tri, head of its postgraduate training division, said: Candidates will have to meet the universitys criteria on maintaining this payment and work full time at it.

They should have one published research paper. They will have to take part sufficiently in the activities of the faculty, department or centres where they work. VNS

Students at teacher training universities to be supported VND3.63m a month Students at teacher training universities will get financial support of VND3.63m (USD156) a month from the government from November 15.
This article will reflect on the compensation paid to Peter Ho who has served as CEO of Bank of Hawaii Corporation (NYSE:BOH) since 2010. This analysis will also look to assess whether the CEO is appropriately paid, considering recent earnings growth and investor returns for Bank of Hawaii.

View our latest analysis for Bank of Hawaii

How Does Total Compensation For Peter Ho Compare With Other Companies In The Industry?

According to our data, Bank of Hawaii Corporation has a market capitalization of US$2.1b, and paid its CEO total annual compensation worth US$5.3m over the year to December 2019. That's mostly flat as compared to the prior year's compensation. While we always look at total compensation first, our analysis shows that the salary component is less, at US$818k.

In comparison with other companies in the industry with market capitalizations ranging from US$1.0b to US$3.2b, the reported median CEO total compensation was US$3.2m. Accordingly, our analysis reveals that Bank of Hawaii Corporation pays Peter Ho north of the industry median. Moreover, Peter Ho also holds US$11m worth of Bank of Hawaii stock directly under their own name, which reveals to us that they have a significant personal stake in the company.

Component 2019 2018 Proportion (2019) Salary US$818k US$795k 15% Other US$4.5m US$4.4m 85% Total Compensation US$5.3m US$5.2m 100%

Talking in terms of the industry, salary represented approximately 43% of total compensation out of all the companies we analyzed, while other remuneration made up 57% of the pie. Bank of Hawaii sets aside a smaller share of compensation for salary, in comparison to the overall industry. If non-salary compensation dominates total pay, it's an indicator that the executive's salary is tied to company performance.

A Look at Bank of Hawaii Corporation's Growth Numbers

Bank of Hawaii Corporation has seen its earnings per share (EPS) increase by 2.3% a year over the past three years. In the last year, its revenue is down 6.7%.

Story continues

We would prefer it if there was revenue growth, but it is good to see a modest EPS growth at least. These two metrics are moving in different directions, so while it's hard to be confident judging performance, we think the stock is worth watching. Looking ahead, you might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for the company's future earnings..

Has Bank of Hawaii Corporation Been A Good Investment?

Given the total shareholder loss of 31% over three years, many shareholders in Bank of Hawaii Corporation are probably rather dissatisfied, to say the least. Therefore, it might be upsetting for shareholders if the CEO were paid generously.

In Summary...

As we noted earlier, Bank of Hawaii pays its CEO higher than the norm for similar-sized companies belonging to the same industry. Over the last three years, shareholder returns have been downright disappointing for Bank of Hawaii, and although EPS growth is steady, it hasn't set the world on fire. This doesn't look great when you consider Peter is taking home compensation north of the industry average. All things considered, we believe shareholders would be disappointed to see Peter's compensation grow without first seeing an improvement in the performance of the company.

Shareholders may want to check for free if Bank of Hawaii insiders are buying or selling shares.

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.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : The huge nationwide uproar over the alleged gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit girl in Hathras and the subsequent Congress demand for justice and support to her family generated a lot of social media traction for party leader Rahul Gandhi even as other Congress leaders and workers kept up the pressure on the Uttar Pradesh government in the virtual world.

The social media response to Rahul Gandhi crossed that of many other Indian politicians as the death of the victim on September 29 and her hurried cremation on September 30 by the Hathras police stoked public anger.

The Congress ratcheted up the pressure after Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were initially prevented from visiting Hathras to meet the victim's family and were even detained on October 1.

On Wednesday too, Congress leaders continued to raise the issue on various platforms, with the party's women leaders Rajni Patil, Supriya Shrinate and Sushmita Dev even addressing the media in Lucknow on the issue.

Sources at Rahul Gandhi's office claimed that from September 25 to October 2, live videos and pictures when Rahul Gandhi was not allowed to visit Hathras got phenomenal response, eliciting 4,87,45,354 views/likes/comments. Live engagements totalled more than 1,06,97,008 while video viewship was 1,89,89,400. Two of the video clips were shot by Rahul Gandhi himself for his social media pages.

Sources in the Congress social media department said that from September 25 to October 2, Rahul Gandhi's Facebook page's engagement clocked 11.5 million users and the party's 3.4 million users.

Rahul and Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, along with three other party leaders were finally allowed to meet the victim's family on October 3.

During the said period, Rahul Gandhi's FB page views increased 712 per cent, page likes 1,130 per cent, posts 524 per cent, post engagement 752 per cent, video views 5,355 per cent, and page followers 1,449 per cent.

The Congress leader has 3.5 million followers on Facebook, 16.4 million on Twitter, and 1.1 million on Instagram.

"His fight is touching a chord with the masses," said one of his close aides.
Scranton, PA (18503)

Today

Cloudy skies with afternoon snow showers. High 26F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 50%..

Tonight

Snow showers this evening. Becoming partly cloudy later. Low 7F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 50%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.
ALBANY  As critics jumped on President Donald Trump's "don't be afraid" comment about COVID-19 after his infection and hospitalization for the respiratory disease that has killed more than 200,000 Americans, local Republicans said the president was simply trying to give people hope in the ongoing fight against the virus.

But not everyone was so accepting of the president's comments.

Be afraid of COVID. It can kill you. Dont be cavalier. This is just more denial. This is where it started," Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a Tuesday press conference as he addressed Trump's statement. "The president was saying when it started, 'It's a hoax. Itll be gone by Easter. Its going to disappear like a miracle.' Yeah, none of that was true. None of that was true. He knew it wasnt true. And its not true now to say: Dont be afraid of COVID.

The president's most recent COVID-19 comments were posted from his Twitter account after being released from the hospital Monday: "Dont be afraid of COVID. Dont let it dominate your life ... I feel better than I did 20 years ago!

"Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!" he also wrote. He was pictured on video at the White House on Monday in a brief moment in which many social media observers believe he was taking deep breaths.

Trump tested positive for the virus last week. He announced the positive test at 1 a.m. on Friday, three days after his debate with Democratic challenger Joe Biden, where he had mocked Biden for wearing a mask too often. Contact tracing has identified dozens of people, including military members, U.S. senators and White House aides, who may have exposed to the virus at events where Trump was in attendance.

You can survive it. He has survived it, and we still have to go on with our lives during this pandemic. I feel this way personally. We have to obviously take calculated risks. We dont want to be naive to the virus," state Assembly Minority Leader William Barclay said. "We also cant shut ourselves up in our house and have no kind of exposure to anything.

Rich Crist, a Republican strategist and the operations director for Rensselaer County, agreed.

I dont think hes as guilty as downplaying the effects of COVID as he has been accused of," Crist said. I think what the president was trying to do was strike a hopeful tone for those who are struggling with the economic and emotional impacts of COVID."
'STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Did you hear the one about the busloads of kids who got dropped off at the city public school that was closed the other day?

You simply cannot make this stuff up as Mayor Bill de Blasio, Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza and the Department of Education continue to fumble the reopening of public schools after the coronavirus pandemic.

The school bus screwup happened at PS 373 in Sunnyside on Monday. Busloads of kids arrived at the school only to find that PS 373 had been closed because of a single positive virus case in the school community.

What about notifying the parents, you say? An email apparently did go out. At close to midnight on Sunday night.

I know that were in a pandemic and information could come at any moment. But I dont know too many people who are checking their emails at that hour on a Sunday night.

Couldnt the DOE have arranged for phone calls to go out?

My son goes to Catholic school here on the Island. We get a text and a follow-up phone call every time an email is sent. The home phone as well as our cellphones. The phone constantly going off is tedious sometimes, but theres no excuse for missing a communication. And these days, we need more communication, not less.

And if the PS 373 parents didnt get a call, how about somebody at least letting the bus company know that the school was closed that day? The kids were lucky that the drivers stuck around to take them back home.

Can you imagine the liability issue if some kid had wandered off from the shuttered school and went missing? What about kids who had to return home to empty houses because their parents were at work?

The DOE said that the buses werent canceled because they also carried students bound for other schools. Even more reason to make sure that the parents got the message about the school closure.

Theres one thing that the DOE can never say with a budget upwards of $35 billion: We dont have the money. Its shocking that a system so flush with cash cant put a communication system in place to ensure that parents know that a school is being closed. Sending an email these days is like sending a fax back in the 1990s: Tough to know that the message sent actually got through.

Then again, the DOE couldnt even ensure that kids learning remotely had the necessary equipment in order to do so. Even though Catholic and private schools have provided the needed technology to kids for remote learning.

The whole reopening has been a mess, and nowhere is that seen more than in the lack of a guaranteed live teacher on the line for kids learning remotely.

Again, Catholic schools have been able to keep their kids in the curriculum flow when theyre home. There are cameras in the classrooms and the kids all learn the same material from the same teacher at the same time, whether theyre remote or in the classroom.

At Tottenville and Susan Wagner public high schools, kids go into the classroom on their designated days but receive instruction from off-site teachers via computer. How backward is that?

No wonder that Catholic and private schools here have seen some increased enrollments and inquiries from parents who want to get their kids out of the public schools. Parents are fed up with the shifting sands of remote learning and arent happy about the random COVID testing requirements either.

Parents at other schools in the city have taken more direct action.

At the ritzy Spence School, a prep school for girls in Manhattan, parents demanded that teachers who were initially slated to teach remotely get into the classroom, according to the New York Post. For $54,000 a year, the parents said that their kids deserved in-person teaching. The administration eventually relented.

Public school parents may similarly reach their limit.
Is there Karnataka weekend lockdowns or night curfew? Here's what minister has to say

Karnataka government slashes fine on not wearing face masks to Rs 250 from Rs 1,000

India

pti-Madhuri Adnal

Bengaluru, Oct 7: Days after imposing hefty penalties, the Karnataka government on Wednesday reduced the fine on people not wearing masks from Rs 1,000 to Rs 250 in urban areas and from Rs 500 to Rs 100 in rural parts of the state.

The government had come under sharp criticism from various quarters not only for the exorbitant penalty amount but also policemen reportedly going on a fine collection spree at public places.

"In its recent order the government had fixed a fine of Rs 1000 in the urban areas and Rs 500 in the rural areas on those not wearing the masks," Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said in a press release.

SOPs for cinema halls: From Face masks to one-seat distance, all details here

"Against the background of the public outrage and experts' opinion, it has been decided to reduce the fine from Rs 1,000 to Rs 250 in the urban areas and from Rs 500 to Rs 100 in the rural areas," he added.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

Yediyurappa maintained that ever since the outbreak of COVID-19 the government had initiated several measures including lockdown, mandatory wearing of masks and usage of sanitisers. Since there is no vaccine for coronavirus, masks, sanitisers and social distancing is the only way to contain the spread of the disease, he added.

The state government had announced the hefty fine under its fresh norms for 'reopening' effective from October 1 as part of enforcing wearing mask in public and workplaces.
German developer Clean Power Generation will build three PV plants in two different parts of the West African nation. All of the projects will sell electricity to state-owned utility Electricite De Guinee.Danish investment firm Frontier Investment Management ApS has agreed to provide an undisclosed amount of financing for three PV projects in Guinea with a combined capacity of around 82 MW. "We are planning to invest between 65 million ($76.5 million) and 70 million in these projects," Clean Power Generation CEO Marcus Miller told pv magazine. The project includes the construction of two PV ...

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.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : At least 42 per cent of the air travellers in the past three months had a comfortable and safe in-flight experience and are ready to travel again, a report said on Wednesday.

The survey was conducted by online travel aggregator ixigo, with a sample of 5000 users also known as 'Early travellers' - a group of flyers who have travelled in July-August-September and are ready to travel again in the next three months.

The survey results show that as travellers return to the skies, the confidence in air travel is rising.

According to the report, the likelihood of the respondents to take another domestic trip during the next three months (42 per cent) is the highest it has been as compared to an earlier sentiment survey done in May (16 per cent).

"As travel demand recovers, we want our users to feel confident and safe and give them a flexible, stress-free booking experience," Rajnish Kumar, Co-Founder & CTO, ixigo, said in a statement.

The report revealed that safety and hygiene measures being adopted by airlines and various properties is the most important aspect for travellers during Covid-19.

The survey showed that queuing during check-in/security (64 per cent) and in-flight social distancing (51 per cent) feature amongst the top apprehensions of air passengers who have travelled recently.

Travellers were also concerned about eating on the plane (9 per cent), cleanliness of common areas and washrooms (24 per cent) and arranging travel from the arrival airport (22 per cent).

The data showed that 46 per cent respondents say fully refundable bookings for travel and accommodation will be the top priority for them while making bookings in the future.
I have seen several LGBTQ themed websites call her "ex-lesbian" over the years.

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OOF

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it doesn't help that some people seem to avoid calling themselves bisexual at all costs. idg how bisexuality got such a bad rap.

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Yea people have always talked about it very oddly, like people were so confused when she married a man.

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bisexual erasure causes this kind of thing

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bi-sexual erasure is real. T_T





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We are either just confused/exploring or nymphos apparently. It's annoying.

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Pretty much word for word what I was going to comment. It's scary how bad things were so recently. Same with women's rights to an extent, like marital rape only becoming a crime in the last few decades (depending on where you live)

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it's so many reasons why i can't stand the "homophobia is over!!!" crowd, which sadly isn't limited to straight people. Like I can remember all the reasons why being called the word "queer" scared the shit out of me as a youth and I'm only 33.

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Like I can remember all the reasons why being called the word "queer" scared the shit out of me as a youth and I'm only 33.



YUP

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i vaguely remember their breakup painting her in a horrible light, but i can't remmeber any of the details

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Ann left Ellen for the cameraman that was working on Ellen's stand-up special. Ann had his child the next year. 7 years later he files from divorce and Ann gives birth to her second child with her TV Co star. they divorced 2 years ago. Ann also dated Steve Martin in the early 90's and said he would lie out her clothes for her to wear.

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this is all wild

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Her and James Tupper were ever married.

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he would lie out her clothes for her to wear.



WTF

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I also read somewhere where Ann supposedly said they the acting jobs didn't dry up because she was dating a woman, but more so that Ellen doesn't like her partners working. When you look at Ann's IMDB, she worked every year after she broke up with ellen . Portia basically stopped working a year after they got married.

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I remember something happening where she stopped at a strangers house in the middle of nowhere and something about aliens?

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I know it was the 90s and there was still a lot of work to be done, but damn, its really fucked up how they were able to fired her over it.

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okay what is up with gay white couples looking like twins

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i know, it made me laugh too. they look the most like twins in that photo. identical hair and all.

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the women aren't as bas about it as white gay men are.



they straight up seek out their clones. It's peak narcissistic behavior.

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as a white gay woman who is constantly asked if I'm my partner's twin (we both have short brown hair and are white. that's it. totally different face and body types.) I have no idea. I just ended up with the first person who expressed any positive affection for me.

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I just ended up with the first person who expressed any positive affection for me



lol name this and i will claim it as a sexuality

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honestly I think straight couples do the same but because they're different genders/conforming to different gender norms, it's not as obvious at first glance but they absolutely do start looking like each other lmao

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After the dance, Heche proclaimed, "I feel redeemed."



She was eliminated later that night.



Damn

Damn

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conservative viewers who vote on these shows heard her story and said "no!"



the same viewers who voted for bobby bones and he won his season.



Edited at 2020-10-07 07:14 pm (UTC)

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lmaooo

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The way she was dragged and mocked for being bisexual and being mentally ill has always bothered me.



I think she was permanently estranged from homophobic mother for her relationship with Ellen plus it damaged her career so it has always upset me when she was mocked. I specifically remember a Church Lady sketch on SNL



I've watched her old sitcom and she's actually really funny.

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I read her wiki page and apparently she's estranged from her entire family because she said her father abused her and both her mom and sister have denied it publically.

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wow, she was really brave. i can't imagine. i'm sure i would be too afraid to jeopardize my career like that, and i'm bisexual too.

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Why did windupbarbie give this a thumbs down?

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i don't know! my comment feels straightforward, and very tame. ha ha.

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I have turned down opportunities over this and I just think of everyone who paved the way before me, who were willing to die to be themselves rather than to spend another minute of their lives pretending they're someone they are not. I'm not going to have hets dictate my life based on what I'm supposed to be ashamed of when it's what I am proud of. I can't imagine staying quiet unless it's putting me in danger.



Edit: I think a good number of lesbians, gays and trans people are annoyed by the fact that so many bisexuals just opt to be quiet and passing as heteros instead of joining the fight.



Edited at 2020-10-07 06:34 pm (UTC)

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I know she took the biggest bullet for the same sex relationship, but I feel like there was really bizarre behavior and suspected drug use around that time which also didn't help her career.

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Do we know what Ellen's response was on Heche's breakdown?

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Edited at 2020-10-07 05:20 pm (UTC) She had a mental breakdown right after the breakup with Ellen.

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:( this is a really sad story. i'm glad she knocked on that woman's door. my dad had done super similar things to this when he was going through psychosis.

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fresno represent!!



how nice of the woman to extend her home to her tho.

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I really loved her presence on the show. What a ball of energy!

Disappointed that she got sent home ... especially after such a personal story reveal.



This is the first time I've ever watched Dancing with the Stars! LOL

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Right! And love how she called Keno a king =)

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That is awesome of her! Also Im completely ugly cry laughing at the last two lines of this post. 

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lol @ "she was eliminated later that night" like the delivery of that line op!



I was a bit too young to follow the whole Ellen thing in the late 90s so I totally forgot her and Anne were a thing. And now that shitty volcano movie my mother watched to death has a whole new sad meaning for me! yay!

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She knew there would be backlash after she started dating Ellen & waited until after she got the deal for Six Days, Seven Nights to announce it.

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This sux



Edited at 2020-10-08 03:40 am (UTC)

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FOX9 is the local FOX channel in the Twin Cities. Its not an affiliate. FOX owns it. Tom Lyden works as an investigative reporter on the news side of the operation. I have a healthy respect for Toms work and, in one case involving a story on Ilhan Omar that FOX9 deposited down the memory hole, even stood up for its accuracy when he has stood down. Tom got the story right, but the force exerts magical powers to protect Ilhan Omar. Thats the way it goes in Minnesota.

Tom has now taken on the Project Veritas investigation of voter fraud in Minneapoliss Ward 6. We posted the Project Veritas videos here (part 1) and here (part 2). Tom swings wildly at the Project Veritas investigation in Subject of Project Veritas voter fraud story says he was offered bribe (video below).

Yesterday afternoon Project Veritas sent me the following message:

We are reacting to an outrageous story out of Minneapolis Fox9they literally left the truth on the cutting room floor. We are going nuclear on these guyswe want you to be a part of this. Fox9 ignored our statements to them about their hit piece on the First Amendment. Before the story aired [on Monday night], we talked to the reporter Tom Lyden. We told him there was no $10,000 bribe offered to Liban Mohamed, also known as Liban Osman. We told Tom Lyden our Project Veritas Insider Omar Jamal did not recant or backpedal away from the video of cash for ballot documents exchange. In fact, we told Lyden that our court-certified translator verified that Jamal did not recanthe told us that he did not have his own translator. In the Fox9 report, Liban admits to having 20 ballots in his car, instead of 300that is still more than six times the legal limit. We told Tom Lyden Minnesotas ban on individuals handling more than three ballots was not suspendedhe even acknowledged to us that he understood that enforcement of the three-ballot rule was suspended pending a court-challenge, but it was not overturned. Lyden also acknowledged to us that when Minnesotas high court Sept. 4 affirmed the three-ballot limit that any violations were open for prosecutionall of this was left on the cutting room floor.

James OKeefe responds in the video below.

Toms concluding remarks about Project Veritass disinformation campaign are particularly rich. Like Mike Lindell, I was contacted by Project Veritas in advance of the release of the videos to let me know that they were coming. OKeefe is skilled in the public relations necessary to support a maverick media operation. The accusation of disinformation (via the New York Times) based on these pre-release contacts represents a classic case of projection.

I will only say based on my own work that the Project Veritas videos barely scratch the surface of the corruption in Minnesotas Fifth Congressional District. Tom Lyden could dig into that story if he wanted to, but for some reason in this case he prefers to attack the messenger.
(Natural News) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sentenced a Chinese Christian online bookstore to seven years in prison and ordered him pay a 200,000 RMB ($29,450) fine for illegal business operations on Sept. 27. In addition, authorities confiscated Chens iPhone and the Linhai City Public Security Bureau is set to destroy 12,864 books seized from his bookstore, according to a document obtained by Father Francis Liu of the Chinese Christian Fellowship of Righteousness.

Authorities previously detained Chen in September of 2019 for selling unapproved religious publications imported from the U.S., Taiwan and other countries. Following his arrest, authorities conducted a nationwide investigation to track down buyers who purchased Christian, resulting in the confiscation of books from customers who purchased from his online shop.

Chens sentencing is the latest in the CCPs large-scale crackdown on Christian book sellers. Authorities also took Wheat Bookstore owner Zhang Xiaomai into custody over suspected illegal business operations in September 2019. Local security bureaus tracked customers who purchased Christian books from her and seized these illegal publications.

The CCP previously banned the sale of bibles in Chinese e-commerce platforms. Following that, it announced that the Bible would be reinterpreted to conform to Chinese-style Christianity, in line with Chinese President Xi Jinpings goal to sinicize religion.

International Christian Concern regional manager for Southeast Asia Gina Goh said: The sentence for Mr. Chen Yu shows how the Chinese government is increasingly frightened by all things religious. From religious symbols, Chinese couplets, to Christian books, anything that features religious elements is no longer tolerated.

CCP fears Christians have greater allegiance to Jesus Christ than the Party

Open Doors USA President and CEO David Curry spoke out against the persecution experienced by Chinese Christians in a January 2020 blog entry. He mentioned that the tightening on the Christian community in China stemmed from the fear that Chinese Christians who follow Jesus have a greater allegiance to Him than the CCP.

Every once in a while, the Chinese government will arrest some pastors, or shut down churches, or do something aggressive like take down crosses from steeples, he said. But more often, the way they squeeze the church is quieter  and perhaps deadlier.

He further remarked that Jesus doesnt fit nicely with a government such as that of Chinas, which mandates allegiance to a Communist state above everything.

In an interview with Bitter Winter, a Shenzhen pastor who was summoned by the local security bureau for buying from Wheat Bookstore said that people who buy Christian books are practicing believers, so the government looks into them to determine how dangerous they are to the stability of a regime. The Shenzhen pastor leads a house church, a group of worshippers unaffiliated with Chinese state-approved Christian organizations. (Related: Communist Chinese government announces bounty rewards for informants who identify Christians to be disappeared by the regime.)

Strict religious controls now applied online as well

The CCPs crackdown on Christianity is not just limited to restricting the circulation of books and other print media. It has also extended online, with the so-called Great Firewall of China banning online Christian content. A September 2018 report by The Straits Times mentioned new regulations being enforced by the Chinese government over the kinds of religious content being posted online  including Christianity.

The new rules drafted by the Chinese religious affairs bureau state that members of officially licensed organizations are the only ones allowed to post-religious content online; overseas individuals or groups are proscribed to propagate religious information in China. Furthermore, individuals are not allowed to post links, videos, photos and text related to preaching and other religious activities  with violations to be handled according to law.

The rules on religious content aimed to promote social stability and stop religious fraud, cults and appeals to extremism.

Read more news about the CCPs suppression of Christianity through confiscating bibles and Christian books at Banned.news.

Sources include:

WesternJournal.com 1

ChinaAid.org

WesternJournal.com 2

Persecution.org

OpenDoorsUSA.org

BitterWinter.org

StraitsTimes.com
The charges against the protesters include conspiracy, treason and abetting enmity between communities and castes

The confusion behind the aggressive response by UP chief minister Yogi Adityanaths government to the alleged gangrape-murder of a 19-year-old dalit girl in a village near Hathras is screamingly clear in the 21 cases filed against those who have protested, raised their voices against the venal crime against a member of an oppressed community.

The charges against the protesters include conspiracy, treason and abetting enmity between communities and castes. The chief minister had earlier said that those who are raising a hue and cry against the alleged rape-murder want to create obstacles in Uttar Pradeshs progress on the economic front. The ironies and the half-truths and lies embedded in the argument against the alleged conspirators are much too obvious to have to be spelt out.

Apart from those who have been accused of the alleged rape-and-murder crime, the police had mishandled the case from day one. When the victim was taken to the hospital in Hathras first, then to the one in Aligarh, the medical reports from these two places should have immediately been dispatched for forensic examination, instead of waiting to do so for nearly two weeks.

The police had waited till the victims declaration before her death was recorded by a magistrate. And a heinous crime was committed by the police in hurriedly, and furtively, cremating the body in the dead of the night under the false presumption that a daytime funeral would create law and order problems.

The police making a statement based on the forensic report that there was no rape was a clumsy, shoddy attempt to play down the magnitude of the crime.

Chief minister Adityanath, along with so many of his colleagues in the ruling BJP in the state, at the Centre and in the country at large, believe that they do not owe any apology to the people when horrible crimes are committed against the weak and the innocent.

They have this misplaced notion of masculinity that expressing sympathy for the victims of crime, especially where the party is in power, is a sign of weakness and a confession of failure. This is a weakness that pervades across all BJP ranks, starting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and chief minister Adityanath. It must be stated point blank that an expression of compassion and admitting to failure and mistakes is sign of strong people, and not of the weak. The aggression of the BJP leader is a symptom of cowardice, more than anything else.

The UP polices counter-aggression carries signs of the BJPs pathological belligerence. This is evident in the manner that the Delhi police, which functions under the control of Union home ministry, and therefore directed by Union home minister Amit Shah, approached the East Delhi communal riots at the end of February this year.

There was not a word of sympathy from Shah or anyone else for those killed in the riots and who suffered huge losses to property. The relentless attempt was to go after the supposed conspirators.

Though Shah, at the all-party meeting he convened soon after the riots, called for the setting up of peace committees, he is loath to voice concern and sympathy for the victims of the riots because a majority of the victims of the Delhi riots were Muslims.

What Modi, Shah and Adityanath need to do is to get rid of this macho attitude towards violence and reach out to the victims. Most of the protests by the Opposition parties over the Hathras case would have lost their credibility if the UP police and the

Adityanath administration had reached out to the family of the dalit victim. The Olympian attitude that the BJP does not look to the caste and community marker of the victim and that it treats all crime as just crime is simply hollow.

It is a good principle in the abstract, but in certain situations, it does not help in ensuring redressal when it comes to caste and gender. A dalit family in most parts of India is at a terrible disadvantage because of the upper caste bias of the police and the administration.

It is futile to pretend that there is no such bias. It is better to acknowledge the bias so that a conscious attempt is made to dealing with crimes against certain castes and communities. And it is the leaders at the top who should be taking the lead in the matter.

The only BJP leader who took a sensible and mature stance in the Hathras case was Uma Bharti, who wrote to chief minister Adityanath to allow Opposition party leaders to go to Hathras and meet the dalit family of the victim.

There are then two major blunders that the Adityanath government has committed. The first is the attempt to play down the magnitude of the crime. The first was the police statement based on the forensic report about it not being a rape, as though the brutal assault on a teenage girl which resulted in her death was no serious matter.

The murder does not become less of a heinous crime because the medical report found no traces of rape. The second folly of the police was to rush through the cremation, which should be treated as a crime because it was an attempt to suppress and destroy evidence.

Filing cases against those who protested, whether it was their business to protest or not, or whether they indulged in hyperbole or not, is an attempt take the focus away from the basic fact that a 19-year-old was assaulted and killed.

That the girl belonged to a dalit family is not an extraneous factor, given the caste animosities in an Indian village, where all castes, including the dalits, are engaged in a power tussle. And in most of these cases of power tussle, dalits are at a disadvantage though there is more talk about the exploitation of dalits from all around and there is little action to do away with the exploitation.

The Adityanath government can hope to win over the dalits by protecting them rather than filing cases against those who spoke out in support of the murdered dalit girl and her family.
The race for Edenville Township Supervisor features Terrance Hall Jr., a Sanford Republican, and Jennifer Page, a Hope Democrat.

The candidates participated in the following Q&As, which will be featured in Saturday's Midland Daily News print and e-editions, along with the League of Women Voters' voter's guide.

Terrance (Terry) Allen Hall Jr, 51 of Sanford, is medically retired from the U.S. Army.

1. What would you say are the main jobs and duties of the Edenville Township Supervisor?

To be the point man for all things government concerning Edenville Township as a whole.

Gather information and build consensus on issues that are important to our citizens.

Oversee budgeting process; ensuring monies are allocated in the manner that creates the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens.

Maintaining and recruiting qualified committee members for the various township committees.

Overseeing the certified township assessor: with the new landscape changes this will be a major challenge over the next township supervisors tenure.

My ideal function would be to maintain the pre-existing trajectory of growth relying on the officers and trustees to ensure the continuity of our current spirit of governance. I will encourage a spirit of community and unity that exemplifies our American Heritage and the Founding Patrons of Edenville Township. We have a right to take pride in our citizens, businesses, and our township community.

2. As Edenville Township Supervisor, how would you accomplish the above duties?

With my knowledge gained through experience on planning and zoning committees of Cedar Creek Township, (Wexford County), my B.S from Northern Michigan University, J.D. from Thomas Cooley Law School, and leadership experience from 21 years in the Army and Michigan National Guard, I believe I possess the skill and knowledge to provide the guidance and ensure diligence needed to maintain and improve existing township operations.

Some may say the medical issues brought home from two combat tours will limit my effectiveness. I answer this by saying on behalf of all veterans, do not mistake lack of decorum for lack of ability.

Living on N. Fox road and directly affected by the dam failures, I assure you that it is no exaggeration to say that parts of our township look like a war zone.

Furthermore, some may argue that because I am a transplant, I may not be in touch enough to represent this township.

I chose this area to live out my retirement happily fishing our wonderful lake.

I am not going anywhere.

Excepting military service, I lived my whole life throughout Michigan. Born in Pontiac, Graduating high school from Manton (Wexford County), attending undergrad in Sault Ste Marie, Big Rapids and finally Marquette. Then Living in Lansing, Grand Rapids and Mt. Pleasant before establishing my final residence in Edenville Township.

My experience and belief is that Edenville Township exemplifies my personal small town American values. I will be honored if I am chosen to be the next township supervisor.

3. What, if any, changes would you make as Edenville Township Supervisor?

With the recent challenges that have been forced upon the township some unforeseen changes will and must occur. The process to rebuild is not simple. Hardships will have to be mitigated or in worst cases endured for a period of time.

We will rise above this challenge. It has already been happening, but the fact remains there will be certain budget shortfalls for the foreseeable future. One minor thing I can accomplish is an increase in per diem/pay for the township first responders. This will be done by lowering the township supervisor salary to per diem and reallocating the difference where needed.

In short, I am not seeking this job for a paycheck.

I do not have as much money as our president, so I cant donate the entire salary.

I would accept an offset for gas and required travel.

Change is not what is needed at this time. Unity and a return to a semblance of normalcy is key. We will adapt to the current situation and overcome it with resourcefulness, hard work, tough choices and the love and assistance of our citizens and neighbors.

4. What challenges do you anticipate the Edenville Township supervisor will encounter?

Flood concerns.

Recovery and rebuilding; answers need to be had.

Aggressive support for the flood victims in whatever manner possible.

Possible temporary waivers of certain zoning and planning regulations.

Tax assessment will be an ongoing challenge that can not be avoided.

Budgeting short falls due to the disaster will need to be addressed.

Pursing and proper use of any emergency management grant(s) that may be made available.

There will be many challenges that arise as we work through this historic situation. I can not begin to process them all. I do know that the current officers, trustees and committee members are very effective and knowledgeable. Working closely with them and leveraging their group and individual talents and skill sets, I firmly believe we will come through this as a family. Perhaps some may even find themselves in a better position than a year ago.

That is my fervent hope; without regard to present circumstances or what the future brings we will rise above and ultimately find ourselves on better footing.

Jennifer Page, 37, of Midland (Edenville Township), is the executive director of R.I.S.E. Advocacy, Inc.

1. What would you say are the main jobs and duties of the Edenville Township Supervisor?

As an elected official, the township supervisor is a leader for the community, and the person chosen to communicate both the needs of the community and the decisions and policies of the township board. The supervisor is a voting member of the township board and the chairman for all township meetings. Other primary duties include proposing the township budget and its administration; serving as the township's legal agent and negotiating contracts, the appointment of committees, serving as the secretary for the Board of Review, and acting as a point of contact for ordinance issues.

2. As Edenville Township Supervisor, how would you accomplish the above duties?

At its core, the supervisor role is administrative, and the best candidate has the leadership skills and education to perform that function. I have a master's degree in public administration from Central Michigan University, and 12-plus years of nonprofit administration experience. I've served on multiple nonprofit and philanthropic boards, and worked with varied and diverse populations of people. The supervisor role requires strong people skills in order to effectively communicate the policies and goals of the township as an entity. As the executive director of a social services nonprofit, I have strongly developed skills in board development, human resources, multi-department budgeting, program management, and contract negotiation. My current role requires me to mediate and problem solve across a variety of issues in ways that are person-centric, creative, and fair. I strongly believe that I will be able to apply those same skills to be an effective leader for the township.

3. What, if any, changes would you make as Edenville Township Supervisor?

I have no intention of going into this role to making sweeping changes in Edenville Township. I moved to the township a little over a year ago, and I plan to embrace that newness with a fresh perspective on the current situation and the potential of the area. Outside of the recent dam failure and subsequent interest and coverage, Edenville is not an area that generally attracts a lot of attention. I've always found the vast history of the township and its natural resources and scenic views to be some of the best in the county, and I'd love to explore ways to better utilize those to the advantage of the community and its residents.

4. What challenges do you anticipate the Edenville Township supervisor will encounter?

The challenges that Edenville is facing now have changed vastly in the last couple weeks. The failure of the dam caused extensive damage to homes and businesses in our township. Many residents are concerned about the future of the dams, the loss of both Wixom and Sanford lakes, and the economic challenges that come with all of that. The township supervisor is going to be responsible for effectively communicating with our community during the upcoming months by answering questions, addressing concerns, and actively participating in the decisions that affect our community.
New Delhi: After several delays owing to flight restrictions and the novel coronavirus pandemic in the country, the Noida International Airport Limited and Zurich Airport International AG on Wednesday signed a 'concession agreement' that would allow the Swiss developer to begin work at the site of the upcoming Jewar airport near Delhi, officials said.

Under the development agreement, the Noida airport will initially have one runway and around 90 per cent of the air traffic in the initial years will be domestic only, said a top official of Zurich Airport International, according to news agency PTI.

Here are 10 updates on the upcoming Noida International Airport:

1) "We will obviously work with the local construction partners to build it (Noida airport) but we will be the main investor at the moment," Daniel Bircher, Chief Executive Officer, Zurich Airport International (Asia) told PTI in an interview. He said the company might get another financial investor at a later stage to develop the airport further.

2) "As a strategic objective, we are looking at building a platform of airports in India in the mid-term. So, it could be that we will join hands with a financial investor in a later stage to make this platform (Noida airport) grow. At this stage of the development phase (of Noida airport), we will do it ourselves," he added.

3) Zurich Airport International currently holds 100 per cent shareholding in the Noida airport project. It had outbid the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), Adani Enterprises and Anchorage Infrastructure Investments Holdings Limited to win the 40-year concession for the Noida airport. The GMR group-led DIAL operates the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in Delhi.

4)"What we know today is that the Delhi airport (IGIA) has natural limitations in the peak hours, so the airlines that want to operate during the peak hours will find ways to operate. So, there will be a shift of these airlines," Bircher told PTI.

"So, will the same airline also use the airport to do international flights? That is up to the airline to decide. I do not see this (Noida) airport to be the competition to the international traffic at the existing airport (IGIA). That will not change for some time," he added.

5) When asked if the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has changed its air traffic projections at the Noida airport, Bircher said," Today, there is an impact (due to the pandemic) but we are very confident that India with such a large domestic market...will very strongly rebound as we have seen in 2011-12."

6) In the last 5-6 years, a growth rate of 20 per cent plus has been observed for some airports in India so any substantial changes in traffic projections are not seen, he added.

Bircher told the PTI, "Domestic travel, I have no doubt, will rebound very quickly. Since, we are going to have 90 per cent domestic traffic in the initial years...I think that our assumption still holds true."

7)When asked if the government has informed the company by when the construction of metro -- connecting the airport with the wider Delhi region -- will happen, he replied, "Our understanding is that the planning has been completed and the government is looking at starting the execution soon to bring it to the airport by the time we start operating."

The Noida airport site is around 70 km from the main Delhi region.

He said the company has a total of three and half years to build the Noida airport.

8) "We have three and half years, so we have six months to do financial closure, and the concession starts then and we have three years to build the airport," Bircher mentioned.

He said they were working hard now in the planning stage.

"We are looking at 4,500 crore of investment for the first phase. This is in an area of 1,334 hectares of land that has been given to be developed. This includes one runway, apron space, this includes 12 boarding bridges for the terminal, and it also includes cargo catering space," he said.

He said that in the planning stage, they were focusing on digitisation so as to give contactless services to passengers.

"We are focusing on short connecting times....We want to make it easier for the passenger to connect (for the other flight) and also for the airline to reduce the time the aircraft is on ground so that reduces the cost for the airline," Bircher said.

9)Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (YIAPL) is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Zurich Airport International which has been incorporated to develop the greenfield Noida airport in Jewar.

The YIAPL will implement the public private partnership (PPP) for the Noida airport project together with the Uttar Pradesh government, New Delhi Okhla Industrial Development Authority and Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority.

10) Bircher said, "We see a good potential in developing this airport into a logistics hub with all the adjacent logistics development and planned projects. It also includes 74 hectares of cityside area that can be developed."

"This we will take in a phase-wise approach, initially most likely a hotel and the rest we are still studying. This includes also a metro station on our land," he added.

The Noida International Airport Limited and Zurich Airport International AG agreement:

The Noida International Airport Limited and Zurich Airport International AG 'concession agreement' would allow the Switzerland-headquartered company to construct and maintain the airport that is being built on the public-private partnership (PPP) model and is billed to be the biggest in India upon completion, said NIAL's Nodal officer for Jewar airport Shailendra Bhatia said, according to news agency PTI.

The agreement was supposed to be signed by July 2 as per the earlier schedule. However, on June 10, the UP government postponed the agreement signing date to August 17 in view of the pandemic. Later, in August, the enterprise was given time till October 15 for the signing due to restrictions on air travel.

On November 29 last year, Swiss firm Zurich Airport emerged as the highest bidder to develop the Jewar airport, outbidding competitors like Adani Enterprises, DIAL and Anchorage Infrastructure Investments Holding.

The project will be spread over 5,000 hectares. When completed, the airport, which will be the third in the national capital region after Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport and Ghaziabad's Hindon Airport, is likely to have six to eight runways, the most in India, according to officials.

Work is underway for the first phase of the airport, expected to be completed by 2023.





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When asked about how their plan to preserve the recreational Lake Michigan lakefront and prevent toxic materials from the industrial park from entering the lake, Leyva said it is not a federal issue and should be up to state legislators to come up with solutions on a local issue, a state issue.
Like many people, I was glued to the television watching the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Across political lines, most people can agree it was a spectacle unbefitting of a presidential debate.

Of the many low points of the debate, one moment especially stood out. When the moderator asked Trump whether he was willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to tell them to stand down and not add to the violence in the cities, Trump responded by saying sure.

When pressed to actually say the words, Trump struggled and wanted to know a specific name to address, to which Biden said, Proud Boys. The strongest denunciation that Trump could muster about a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group was to say stand back and stand by.

If there was ever any doubt that Trump flirts with the racist rhetoric of extremists and white supremacists, all doubt should now be removed. Its true Trump may not publicly utter racist expletives and may not publicly spout racist dogma  although he did refer to Haiti and African nations as an expletive  but his equivocation about white supremacists speaks volumes about his racial attitudes.

On ExpressNews.com: Far-right groups gain mainstream momentum in crusade against anti-fascist movement

With the nation on edge regarding concerns about racism, we need a president who is resolute and unequivocal in condemning white supremacy. Trumps failure to give a full-throated, unsolicited repudiation of racism signals to those who harbor these beliefs that they are supported. Imagine being an educator and trying to explain to students why the president appears to support individuals whose beliefs go against Americas foundational belief that all men are created equal.

Trump has always employed the defense of plausible deniability. He denies any knowledge or responsibility of the words, beliefs or actions of known racists and white supremacists. Not surprisingly, he denied knowing who the Proud Boys are.

But his defense rings hollow. Remember in 2016 when he denied knowing anything about former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who endorsed his presidential candidacy? It turned out that he was familiar with Duke, as he announced in 2000 that he would not seek the nomination of the Reform Party because of Duke, whom he called a racist.

When the riots happened in Charlottesville, Va., Trump responded that there were very fine people on both sides. We must remember that he was equating protesters in the Unite the Right Rally (white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen and other far-right extremists who were opposed to the removal of Robert E. Lees statue) with counterprotesters. No rhetorical sleight of hand can make these two groups morally equivalent.

It is a damning indictment that white supremacists and similarly minded groups celebrate Trump whenever he fails to strongly condemn them. The Proud Boys celebrated Trumps comments as historic, and their private social media channels were abuzz with excitement.

These far-right extremist groups typically operate in the shadows, and they are considered fringe groups for a reason. Trumps refusal to strongly condemn them only serves to invigorate them, as evidenced by reports of increased retail opportunities and emboldening supporters to attack protesters.

If Trump wins the election, white supremacists  both here and abroad  will consider it a victory for their cause. They will know they can continue promoting anti-Muslim, misogynistic and racist rhetoric, and the selling of T-shirts and hoodies with the words PROUD BOYS STANDING BY, suggesting an imminent threat of violence.

Why do people continue to be surprised and angered by Trumps tepid disavowal of racists and white supremacists? If he really wanted to stop far-right extremism, he would dedicate the same amount of energy he dedicates to far-left extremism.

Maya Angelou once famously said that when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Trump long ago told us who he is. Election Day will be the time for the country to tell him who we are.

Kevin Cokley is the Oscar and Anne Mauzy Regents Professor of Educational Research and Development, professor of African and African diaspora studies, and director of the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis at the University of Texas at Austin.
Elections in History Myanmars 1990 Election: Born of a Democratic Uprising, Ignored by the Military

Myanmar citizens cast their votes in the 1990 election.

YANGONThe first Myanmar election that arose as a response to a popular uprising was the general election of 1990. It was held two years after people around the country rose up against the repressive socialist regime of Myanmar military dictator General Ne Win, whose mismanagement had thrown the country into absolute poverty during his 26 years of rule.

The military had responded to pro-democracy protests with a brutal and violent crackdown in 1988. But the violence and bloodshed failed to shake the peoples desire for democracy, and the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) government was forced to propose the first multiparty democratic election since 1960.

Democratic forces, because of their lack of trust in the socialist government, wanted an interim government formed to organize the election. However, with behind the scenes help from Gen. Ne Win, Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services General Saw Maung seized power, claiming that the military had to step in.

Five days after staging the coup, Gen. Saw Maung, who ran the interim military government from the War Office, said he would have the army return to its barracks after handing power over to the newly elected government. He called for all parties to cooperate in order to hold the election as early as possible. But people doubted that the military strongman was as good as his word.

The military regime, which called itself the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), tasked an election commission that had been formed during the time of President Dr. Maung Maung with organizing the electoral process. That commission was led by retired financial commissioner U Ba Htay.

On Sept. 27, 1988, the Political Parties Registration Law was enacted, enabling new political parties to register in the country, which had been under a single-party dictatorship for decades. Political parties began to register on Sept. 30.

The election commission announced on Feb. 16, 1989 that the election would be held on May 27, 1990. Meanwhile, the SLORC government had arrested and imprisoned countless democracy activists and dissidents.

Senior leaders Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin Oo of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which was born out of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, were detained and placed under house arrest under the State Protection Act on July 20, 1989.

The multiparty democratic election, which was the outcome of the sacrifices of tens of thousands of lives a year earlier, was successfully held on schedule in 1990. It was the first-ever election provoked by the uprising of people from all walks of life in Myanmars history.

A total of 93 parties competed at the polls in 485 of 492 constituencies.

The NLD, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmars independence hero General Aung San, won over 90 percent of the seats, securing victory in 392 constituencies. The National Unity Party, the proxy of Gen. Ne Wins BSPP, secured just 10 seats.

Breaking its promise to return to the barracks and ignoring the wishes of more than 15 million voters, the SLORC government refused to hand over power to the NLD.

As a result, for the next 20 years, Myanmar remained under military rule and democracy remained in darkness. The military government organized a general election in 2010, but the NLD boycotted the vote, saying that it had no trust in any election organized by the military.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko

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"I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions" Trump said in a tweet Tuesday night.

New Delhi : United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered 'total declassification' of all the documents related to the alleged interference of Russia in the 2016 presidential elections, which he described as a hoax.

The announcement came hours after the Director of National Intelligence declassified some of the documents.

The handwritten documents revealed former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Barack Obama on the purported plan of Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, to tie Trump to Russia as "a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server", Fox News said.

Tim Murtaugh, Trump 2020 communications director, in a statement said now it is known that Hillary Clinton hatched a plan to divert attention away from her use of a private email server by falsely tying then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia.

"We also know that former CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on that plot. It is imperative that the American people now learn what then-Vice President Joe Biden knew about this conspiracy and when he knew it," Murtaugh said.

"What did Biden know about Clinton's plan to use the Russia hoax to try to smear her political opponent? Did Biden condone the plan? Did he express any misgivings about it or remain silent? Biden must give a full accounting of his knowledge and his conversations about Clinton's scheme, which was known to the highest reaches of his administration," he said.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe in a statement to Fox News said the declassified documents were transmitted to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees Tuesday afternoon.

These documents explained that Brennan's handwritten notes were taken after briefing Obama on the matter, the news channel said.

"We're getting additional insight into Russian activities from (REDACTED)," Brennan notes read.

"CITE (summarizing) alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service," Brennan's notes read Fox News said.
China has some 1.4 million bpd in new refinery capacity under construction, to be completed by the time peak fuel demand occurs in about five years, Bloomberg has reported, citing forecasts by CNPC.

The 1.4 million bpd, distributed among four refinery projects, will add to more than 1 million bpd in new capacity already added since last year, the report also notes. This means billions of dollars spent on refining capacity that may never come to be used as China works on its shift to a more renewable energy mix and EV dominance.

So far this year, China has been a beacon of hope for the fuels industry thanks to its quick recovery from the coronavirus pandemic that ensured the equally quick recovery in oil demand near pre-pandemic levels. But a lot of that recovery in demand for crude oil was driven by nothing else but record low prices. China simply stocked up on crude while prices stayed low.

Refinery runs increased in tune with the economys recovery. In fact, in June refinery runs hit an all-time high of 14.08 million bpd, after in February they fell to a six-year low at the height of the pandemic in the country. But the cracks may begin to show soon: fuel exports from China are weak, unsurprisingly, and refinery runs are starting to dip, albeit slowly for now.

In late September, Reuters reported that Chinese state refiners were cutting their runs, with PetroChina alone slashing 5 to 10 percent during that month. Private refiners are not doing much better, fighting slim margins for months with the outlook still grim.

The impacts of COVID-19...are putting extreme pressures on the refining business that we have not experienced before and are not sustainable over the longer term, an analyst from Australian Viva Energy Group told Reuters in September.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
HACKENSACK, N.J., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Flora Plant Butter, a vegan plant butter wrapped in plastic free, paper packaging, today announced a campaign to raise consumer awareness about the importance of sustaining natural resources through a tree planting partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation. Flora Plant's social media-based initiative aims to spur its consumers into action with a pledge to support the planting of up to 14,000 trees for reforestation in three Florida State Parks previously used for mining, agriculture, and timber operations. Flora Plant Butter will support the planting of one tree for each new follower on the @FloraPlantUS Instagram account. The campaign kicks off today.

"We are excited to work with Flora Plant Butter to plant much needed trees across Florida," said Dan Lambe, president of the Arbor Day Foundation. "Record wildfires, pests and disease and natural disasters have destroyed millions of trees in forests across the country. The Arbor Day Foundation launched the Time for Trees initiative in 2019, committing to plant 100 million trees by 2022, the 150th anniversary of Arbor Day. The initiative has a further call to action to inspire five million tree planters to advance the mission by this date. The trees funded by Flora Plant in Florida's state parks will work toward this goal."

The new Flora Plant Butter was introduced to U.S. consumers in August and is a dairy free butter made with plant-based ingredients which comes wrapped in 100% plastic-free paper. The paper is an environmentally responsible packaging choice, sourced from certified, responsibly managed forests.

"The Flora Plant Butter brand aims to raise consumers' environmental consciousness and choice by promoting plant-based eating and driving awareness about preserving and renewing earth's natural resources, like trees," said Bernice Chao, Brand Manager, Flora Plant Butter. "Our paper packaging comes from trees grown in responsibly managed forests, and we recognize there is a need to restore forests right here in the U.S. which is why we are pleased to do our part by partnering with the Arbor Day Foundation. And we're excited to invite consumers to be a part of this reforestation project through our new social media campaign."

This restoration project will plant longleaf pines in three Florida state parks to return the area to native landscape that will help improve wildlife habitat for endangered and threatened species in the area, including the Florida panther, gopher tortoise and Sherman's fox squirrel. Planting of the trees will be managed by the Florida State Park Service and is currently set to start in December 2020.

Created for home cooks and professional chefs, Flora Plant Butter is a vegan, dairy free, gluten free, and non-GMO plant butter that delivers a rich and creamy taste. Made with a blend of plant-based ingredients, and free of artificial flavors and preservatives, it can be used in cooking, baking, or spreading, without compromising on buttery taste or performance. Flora Plant Butter is a product of Upfield.

To learn more about Flora Plant Butter, visit www.flora.com/en-us/floraplant and follow the brand on Instagram (@FloraPlantUS) for more program details.

About Upfield North America

At Upfield, our mission is to make people healthier and happier with great tasting, plant-based nutrition products that are better for the planet. Upfield is the leading producer of plant-based spreads in the U.S., with iconic brands such as Country Crock, Country Crock Plant Butter, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!, Flora, and Imperial; and plant-based margarines and spreads in Canada with brands such as Becel, Becel Plant Based Bricks, and Imperial. The company is introducing its vegan cheese, Violife 100% vegan following its acquisition of Arivia in 2020. Upfield is leading in delivering better-for-you products that are great tasting and have superior quality helping it to create a "Better Plant-based Future. For more information, visit www.Upfield.com.

About the Arbor Day Foundation:

Founded in 1972, the Arbor Day Foundation has grown to become the largest nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees, with more than one million members, supporters and valued partners. Since 1972, more than 400 million Arbor Day Foundation trees have been planted in neighborhoods, communities, cities and forests throughout the world. Our vision is to help others understand and use trees as a solution to many of the global issues we face today, including air quality, water quality, climate change, deforestation, poverty and hunger.

As one of the world's largest operating conservation foundations, the Arbor Day Foundation, through its members, partners and programs, educates and engages stakeholders and communities across the globe to involve themselves in its mission of planting, nurturing and celebrating trees. More information is available at arborday.org.

SOURCE Upfield

Related Links

www.upfield.com


Aprio, LLP, a nationally-recognized top 50 CPA-led business advisory firm, announced today that it has acquired Relevant Data Technologies (RDT), a provider of electronic discovery (e-discovery) and data management services to law firms and general counsel.

The Relevant Data Technologies team will join Aprio as part of the Litigation Support and Forensic Accounting practice, led by Chris Grippa. RDT augments the teams capabilities with innovative technology solutions, and RDT founder and President Robert Draper brings more than 20 years of experience leading some of the most sensitive and complex e-discovery matters.

We are committed to providing our legal clients with the most comprehensive and innovative litigation support and forensic accounting services, so they can focus on case strategy, said Richard Kopelman, Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Aprio. As we look for ways to better service our clients, the addition of RDT will allow us to offer a full spectrum of services on matters of all sizes."

Founded in 2016, Relevant Data Technologies specializes in helping domestic and global clients lower the cost of legal discovery by leveraging technology to surface relevant data efficiently, quickly and with greater accuracy.

In todays business environment, clients want a full-service provider for their forensic accounting and litigation support needs, said Robert Draper. By joining Aprio, our team members and clients will gain access to more service offerings and resources to efficiently address all matters related to litigation, and internal investigations, as well as general data management and security.

Since 2013, Aprio has combined with eight strategically chosen firms as part of their initiative focusing on targeted expansion, and the firm plans to continue to make strategic combinations in the years ahead.

About Aprio

Aprio is a premier full-service, CPA-led business advisory firm based in Atlanta, Georgia, that advises clients and associates on how to achieve whats next. Aprios associates work as integrated teams across advisory, assurance, tax, outsourced accounting solutions and private client services, bringing the best thinking and personal commitment to each client. Across practices, Aprio brings together proven expertise, deep understanding and strategic foresight for industries including Manufacturing and Distribution; Non-Profit and Education; Professional Services; Real Estate and Construction; Retail, Franchise and Hospitality; and Technology and Biosciences. In 65 years, Aprio has grown to over 575 team members. To serve clients wherever life or business may take them, Aprios teams speak more than 30 languages and work with clients in over 40 countries. In addition to its Atlanta headquarters, Aprio also operates in Birmingham, Ala. and Charlotte, Greensboro, Mt. Airy and Asheboro N.C. For more, visit https://www.aprio.com.
A 61-year-old man serving life for a 1994 murder died Tuesday at William Donaldson Correctional Facility in Jefferson County.

Bobby Joe Wideman was discovered unresponsive on his bed at the facility at 4:21 p.m. He was pronounced dead at 4:35 p.m.

According to the Jefferson County Coroners Office, there was no evidence to suggest trauma or foul play. An autopsy will determine to the cause and manner of his death.

An investigation is ongoing by the Alabama Department of Corrections' Intelligence and Investigations.

Wideman was charged with capital murder during a robbery in the Oct. 11, 1994 shooting death of David Wesley Meeks. Meeks' was found dead from a gunshot wound to the chest inside his 18-wheeler at a Cullman County truck stop. A gold and diamond ring had been taken from him.

Wideman in 1995 pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of felony murder.
When Portland Public Schools set out to pitch voters on a billion-dollar bond earlier this year, the district was doing so under very different circumstances.

Back in January, nobody in the city had heard the name George Floyd. Oregon wouldnt see its first coronavirus case for another month. And district officials were considering how best to spend $39 million in new state tax revenue.
On Wednesday (7 October), the vice president of the United States Mike Pence and VP candidate Kamala Harris will face each other in a debate that has been highly anticipated by voters.

The debate will kick off at 9pm East Coast time and run for 90 minutes, until 10:30. Moderator Susan Page will choose six debate topics and each one will be given 15 minutes to be debated. All the major news channels, including NBC, ABC, C-SPAN, CBS, Fox News, Fox News Business and Spectrum Networks will show the debate without commercial interruption. YouTube, Apple TV and Amazon Prime are among the online services expected to stream the debate.

Who: Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris

What: 2020 Vice Presidential debate

Where: University of Utah, Salt Lake City

When: 7 October 2020

Timings:

7pm-8:30 MDT (Salt Lake City, Utah)

9pm EST to 10:30 EST (New York, New York)

6pm-7:30 PDT (LA California)

2am-3:30 BST (London England)

What: 90 minute debate, hosted by USA Todays Susan Page. Topics TBD

After the 29 September debate between President Donald Trump and candidate Joe Biden, changes in the debate format have been flouted by the Commission on Presidential Debates., but no formal changes to the Vice Presidential debate has been yet announced. The debate was originally to be held at the University of Notre Dame, but the location was moved to Salt Lake Citys University of Utah after a coronavirus outbreak was reported at Notre Dame, including the schools president Rev. John Jenkins, who attended a White House function without a face mask.

Interest is high for this debate, as the two candidates could not be more dissimilar. Former prosecutor Kamala Harris is known for her fierce rhetorical skills and direct lines of questioning. She was widely seen as the winner of her primary debate against now-running mate Joe Biden.

Mike Pence is the former governor of Indiana, House Representative and a former conservative radio show host. He is known for a staid demeanor that doesnt crack under pressure, as evidenced by his performance in the 2016 debate against former VP candidate Tim Kaine.

Furthermore, the two candidates disagree on multiple hot-button issues including abortion, the Supreme Court, climate change and the White Houses handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Mike Pence is a Evangelical, conserative Christian whose beliefs infamously do not allow him to spend any time alone with a woman who is not his wife, Karen Pence. He wrote in a 1999 op-ed on the animated Disney film Mulan: "Moral of story: women in military, bad idea."

Kamala Harris public persona is steeped in an image of modern independence. Hers is a career defined by firsts, including first woman and first person of colour to be San Franciscos District Attorney, first South Asian woman to serve as a congressional senator and first WOC to run for vice president on a major ticket. Recently, footage of Harris walking to a campaign event dressed in slacks, a blazer and Chuck Taylor sneakers went viral and has since been used in a campaign ad encouraging young leaders of the future.

Debate moderator Susan Page has not yet released the debate topics. This may be related to a breakneck news cycle that included a rash of coronavirus diagnosis in the White House, including the President, the First Lady, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and the Presidents personal aide Nick Luna.
Hamiltons Catholic school board has reported a modest overall decline in the number of students enrolled in its virtual school program.

In an interview with The Spectator on Tuesday, chair Pat Daly said that a net increase of 175 elementary students have opted to move from online schooling to in-class attendance on Oct. 19.

In contrast, a net decrease of 98 high school students have decided to leave in-person classes and attend virtual schooling starting Oct. 14, Daly said.

Students across the board were given the opportunity early in October to rethink their enrolment in online or in-person classes and decide if they wanted to switch their program for the remainder of the semester.

The vast majority of students opted to stay where they are. In late August, the board reported that approximately 19.6 per cent would learn remotely.

The number of virtual learners dropped slightly to 19.3 per cent following the enrolment changes this month.

Im pleased, for sure, because I think this shows a high degree of satisfaction by parents in both our in-school and virtual school programs, which I credit to our staff and our leadership in our schools, said Daly.

I wouldnt have been surprised were there more movement from the virtual schools to in-person classes, but I think this shows an appreciation for the good work everyones doing.

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Daly said there will likely be teachers transferring from in-person to online teaching, and vice versa, to accommodate the new changes.

It is likely that some high school teachers will move online and some elementary teachers will go back to in-person classes once the students start their new classes this month.

Hamiltons public school, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB), has pushed its deadline for families to re-register their children to later in October.

Students who have opted to switch their programs will start their in-person or online classes on Nov. 3, said Alex Johnstone, chair of the HWDSB.

With the delayed reopening of our schools and all the transitions taking place, we needed additional time in order to give families an opportunity to experience what they initially opted for before through another significant change, Johnstone said.

Some elementary students at the HWDSB started their classes as late as the last week of September due to a delay in hiring teachers for the virtual school.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7, 2020 15:12 473 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49a7962 1 National #covid19taskforce,#mothermessage,#wearmask,#keepyourdistance,#washyourhand,#socialdistance,#avoidcrowd,#usesoap Free

With the rainy season approaching as the country deals with the pandemic, COVID-19 task force spokesperson Wiku Adisasmito reminded the public, especially those affected by flooding, of the importance to adhere to health protocols while staying in temporary shelters as they could potentially become infection clusters.

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) predicted the rainy season  which often brings floods  will begin in late October or early November, but several regions have already reported torrential rain during the transition from the dry season to the wet season.

Heavy rainfall caused flooding in several regions, including Jakarta and West Java late in September.

Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan have declared a 14-day state of emergency in response to massive flooding that inundated dozens of districts in the two provinces and displaced thousands late last month.

Moreover, the BMKG predicted that the country would experience the impact of La Nina until at least February 2021.

Read also: Extreme weather to occur during seasonal transition period, BMKG warns

La Nina is a meteorological phenomenon where surface water temperatures in the equatorial band of the Pacific Ocean become abnormally low. It is believed to occur every two to seven years and brings heavy rainfall to the Indonesian archipelago, which tends to trigger natural disasters such as floods and landslides.

The La Nina weather phenomenon would also increase rainfall intensity in some parts of the country as it tends to cause extreme weather in the archipelago.

Regional administrations need to anticipate the impact of flooding on residents staying at shelters, especially considering that it may be difficult to maintain strict health protocols at the shelters, Wiku said on Tuesday.

The shelters would accommodate many people, therefore they were at high risk of becoming COVID-19 clusters if we do not anticipate the issue early on, he added.

A way of preventing that from happening was adherence to health protocols, including wearing masks, physical distancing and washing hands, Wiku said.

Read also: Double disaster

He also noted the importance of maintaining the cleanliness of the shelters and providing sufficient air circulation and sunlight to protect the people from common rainy season diseases such as dengue fever, diarrhea, leprosy, typhus and skin disease.

Therefore, he urged regional administrations to plan better and map locations and worthiness of the shelters to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

Previously, Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan had also urged stakeholders to prepare for potentially hazardous flooding.

We need to be ready because were not just facing flooding but also the COVID-19 outbreak. These conditions require special care, the governor said during an event to prepare for the rainy season in Jakarta late last month.

He said disaster mitigation efforts should adhere to strict health protocols to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during evacuations. We need to set up more [flood shelter] tents so health protocols and physical distancing can be better applied, Anies added. (iwa)

Editors note: This article is part of a public campaign by the COVID-19 task force (Satgas COVID-19) to raise peoples awareness about the pandemic.
Leaders of Greece's far-right Golden Dawn, the country's third most popular party in parliament during the debt crisis, were guilty of running a criminal group, a Greek appeals court ruled on Wednesday.

The court found that seven former Golden Dawn MPs, including its leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, were guilty of leading a criminal organisation, while the others were found guilty of participation in one.

Earlier, the court found Golden Dawn sympathiser Yiorgos Roupakias guilty of killing 34-year old anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas in 2013.

Roupakias confessed to the stabbing, which triggered Golden Dawns demise as public outrage reached a tipping point and prompted a crackdown against the party.

More than 15,000 people gathered for an anti-fascist rally outside the Athens courthouse on Wednesday. Applause broke out inside and outside the courtroom as Roupakias, who was found to have delivered the final stab wounds, was found guilty.

Some 2,000 police officers have been brought into the city over fears that violence would break out between anti-fascists and Golden Dawn supporters.

Riot police fired teargas into the crowds as people chanted anti-fascist slogans, with observers from Amnesty International describing police use of the chemical weapon as indiscriminate".

Nils Muiznieks, Amnesty Internationals Europe director, said the ruling sends a message that violence and hate crimes will not go unpunished.

Todays landmark ruling is a recognition of the systemic threat posed to our societies by a violent, racist group and a commitment that this threat must not be allowed to continue.

Mr Muiznieks added: This verdict is the first step to deliver justice for the victims of hate crimes and discriminatory attacks, and must serve as a stark reminder of the dangers of demonising and scapegoating entire populations.

The director said he hopes the judgment will mark a turning point to deter future racist violence and hate crimes.

The trial, which has stretched on for five and a half years, is the biggest trial of neo-fascists since the prosecution of Nazis at Nuremberg. It saw 68 people, including the partys entire leadership, face multiple charges as the court assessed allegations including attacks on communist trade unionists and the attempted murder of Abouzid Embarak, an Egyptian fisherman, as well as the murder of Fyssas and the broader accusation of the party being a criminal organisation.

Protesters hit a police vehicle during clashes outside a court in Athens (Reuters)

The leaders who have been charged with controlling the criminal organisation could face up to 15 years in prison.

The 62-year-old Michaloliakos, who is a Holocaust denier, claims the party has been the victim of political persecution. His political origins can be traced back to Greeces 1967-74 military dictatorship.

Manos Moschopoulos, senior programme officer with Open Society Initiative for Europe (OSIFE), hailed the verdict as historic and cautioned against any complacency against fascism.

He said: For all of us Greeks, this is a historic day. For those of us at the receiving end of their death threats: a victory. For the loved ones of those murdered in the name of their sick ideology: justice.

Todays verdict should be a rallying cry for everyone who believes in democracy and human dignity, to stand up against the politics of hate that poison our societies and threaten our lives. We cannot afford to let down our guard while we celebrate this historic moment.

At Golden Dawns peak following the May 2012 election, it won more than 7 per cent of the vote and had 21 lawmakers in Greeces parliament. However, its presence in parliament was wiped out in the July 2019 elections.
On Wednesday, the Bombay High Court granted bail to actor Rhea Chakraborty, who had been arrested in September over charges of procuring banned drugs for late Sushant Singh Rajput. Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha and actor Soni Razdan took to Twitter to express their happiness.

Anubhav wrote: Finally!!! She gets bail. #RHEACHAKRABORTY Soni retweeted a tweet by journalist Barkha Dutt and later followed it up by expressing her gratitude to the honourable court.

#RheaChakraborty finally gets bail after a month. She has been the subject of utmost misogynistic vilification, led by some of our major TV news channels ( some of whom tried and trying to change track midway).  barkha dutt (@BDUTT) October 7, 2020

Reacting to the news, actor Taapsee Pannu wrote on Twitter: Hope her time in jail has sufficed the egos of a lot of people out there who in the name of justice for Sushant fulfilled their personal/professional agendas.Praying she doesnt become bitter towards the life she has ahead of her. Life is Unfair but Atleast its not over as yet.

Hope her time in jail has sufficed the egos of a lot of people out there who in the name of justice for Sushant fulfilled their personal/professional agendas.Praying she doesnt become bitter towards the life she has ahead of her.

Life is Unfair but Atleast its not over as yet. https://t.co/TGnbRZSL83  taapsee pannu (@taapsee) October 7, 2020

A bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal also granted bail to Sushant Singh Rajputs aides Dipesh Sawant and Samuel Miranda, but rejected the bail plea of Rheas brother Showik Chakraborty, who is also an accused in the case. The court also rejected the bail plea of alleged drug peddler Abdel Basit Parihar.

Also read: Im disgusted: Simi Garewal seems to have changed her opinion on Kangana Ranauts fight for Sushant Singh Rajput

Rhea and her brother were arrested last month by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with its drugs probe related to the case of Sushants death.

A number of Bollywood personalities including Swara Bhasker and writer Kanika Dhillon had called for the release of the actor. Rhea has been incarcerated in Mumbais Byculla jail. Their call came in the wake of a report by a panel of forensic doctors from AIIMS, who had ruled out murder angle in the death of Sushant and called it a case of suicide.

On October 4, in a tweet supporting Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha, Adhir Chowdhurys calls for Rheas release, Swara wrote, Well done sir! She also added applause emojis, using the hashtag Release Rhea Chakraborty.

While d conspiracy theories r being mulled over- A young woman is still in Jail #rheachakroborty @Tweet2Rhea CBI has clearly stated no foul play... how long n under what charges can she be kept in jail- And denied bail?? @NCWIndia can anyone give some answers pls?!  Kanika Dhillon (@KanikaDhillon) October 5, 2020

Kanika too took to Twitter on Monday and wrote: While d conspiracy theories r being mulled over- A young woman is still in Jail #rheachakroborty @Tweet2Rhea CBI has clearly stated no foul play... how long n under what charges can she be kept in jail- And denied bail?? @NCWIndia can anyone give some answers pls?!

(With PTI inputs)

Follow @htshowbiz on Twitter
Communications and financial services firms have for the first time in at least three years overtaken betting and gambling companies as the biggest buyers of media space and airtime, the latest analysis shows.

Data by Marketing Society of Kenya and ReelAnalytics, a media intelligence firm, suggests that betting firms cut advertisement expenditure by about 160 percent during the first half of the year.

This came on the back of stringent rules on gaming advertisements which was compounded by the suspension of sporting events -- a major driver of betting activity -- in the second quarter of the year due to global coronavirus pandemic.

Expenditure by betting firms plunged to Sh5 billion from Sh13 billion in the first half of 2019, according to the data based on monitoring of advertorial on television, radio and print media.

Betting Control and Licensing Board in rules issued on April 30, 2019 barred betting firms from running outdoor and social media adverts, using celebrities to market products and banning adverts on TV between 6 am and 10 pm.

Top spender

The directives were aimed at protecting the youth from betting addiction. In the same period big spenders such as Sportpesa ceased operations after a protracted tax row.

Telecommunications firms such as Safaricom and Airtel have, as a result, become the biggest buyers of media space, splashing an estimated Sh7 billion on advertisement budgets in the first half of the year.

Telcos were followed by financial services firms, dominated by banks, which spent Sh6 billion on advertisements, according to the analysis.

"The betting and gambling industry is the hardest hit as their contribution to the total advertising spend dropped from 19 percent to 11 percent in 2020 due to changes in regulation made by the government," ReelAnalytics marketing manager Irene Chelimo said in a statement.

"The communication industry was the top spender, accounting for 14 percent of the total adverts spend followed by the financial sector with 13 percent."

Overall, expenditure on commercial advertisement was estimated at Sh51 billion compared with Sh67 billion a year earlier, reflecting a soft economy largely battered by Covid-19.


State Street doesn't normally keep pickled brains on bar. NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  Those missing their favorite watering hole during the COVID-19 shutdown will be able to catch a glimpse of it in the upcoming horror film "Cryptid."

A New York-based film crew was on site late morning Tuesday prepping the State Street Tavern for filming, and Assistant Director Andrew Fitzgerald said the local bar was just what they were looking for.

"We were looking for a hole in the wall so this is the perfect bar," he said. "It is already set with all of the pictures, all of the old wood, it is just perfect. If you had an empty set and wanted to make it look old this is what you would go for."

The film, directed by Brad Rego, takes place in a rural town in Maine. A mysterious animal is brutally attacking residents. Deemed to be a random bear attack by town officials, an investigative journalist suspects it might be more.

Fitzgerald said the movie is an "old-school style creature-feature" about a creature that comes out when it rains. He said the movie will feature no CGI and will be made in the spirit of low-budget horror films.

Originally, he said they planned to film in April, but with the pandemic, were forced to delay the project.

"We were all set up, that is why we sort of scrambled a little bit for the past six months," he said.

Fitzgerald, who has family in the area, said they needed a location to film their bar scenes, and their line producer, who had been to the State Street Tavern before, knew the perfect location.

Dennis St. Pierre, who owns the tavern with longtime friend Bobby Cellana, said the crew reached out to them and wanted to arrange a visit.

"They looked us up and wanted to check it out," said St. Pierre, who was there Tuesday to watch the action. "They wanted to come down and take a look."

The State Street Tavern has been closed since March and is unable to open under the COVID-19 guidelines because of its small size and lack of food service.

Before the shutdown, the bar was a daily meeting place for many and acted as a hub for a generational community.

St. Pierre, who essentially put the bar into hibernation, said it was a welcoming sight to see some life there.

"It's nice to see some action here," he said. "I wanted to crack open a beer."

Fitzgerald said the crew is in week two of a three-week shooting schedule. They are shooting throughout Western Massachusetts but planned to do all of the bar scenes Tuesday at the tavern.

He said they would have been unable to film in the winter, and he was happy for the overcast day that could possibly supply some rain to awaken the creature.

A large box truck was parked outside of the bar, and the small masked crew spent the morning unloading lighting equipment and cameras.

Fitzgerald said they are filming night scenes and planned to block out the windows so they could film during the day. Inside the bar, the crew was setting up more equipment and actors were preparing for the shoot.

"We are a small crew of about 14 or 15," he said. "We are just blocking out all of the light so we can light it ourselves ... the limited amount of windows is good."

Fitzgerald said it is not easy making a movie, especially during a pandemic. He said the crew has to be regularly tested, and it is difficult finding locations where they have permission to shoot.

He said they "lucked out" with the State Street Tavern.

"It can be a struggle to get everything rolling," he said. "Everyone here has been super welcoming which is nice for a small film crew."
With her health on a swift decline, newly appointed East Baton Rouge Parish School Superintendent Leslie Brown has decided to resign from the job shes held for just two months.

In a sign of how bad things have gone, Browns resignation letter, dated Wednesday, was not even written by her, but by her husband, Bill.

Today, it is with great sadness I write to you, as her husband and as her power of attorney, to report her health has continued to deteriorate, leaving her unable to pen this letter herself and forcing her to tender her resignation, her husband wrote.

The letter is signed by her and her husband.

New East Baton Rouge Parish school superintendent goes on emergency medical leave Less than two months on the job, East Baton Rouge Parish School Superintendent Leslie M. Brown is taking immediate, emergency medical leave.

It was barely two weeks ago that Brown, 62, unexpectedly went on emergency medical leave for an unspecified reason.

Her resignation is effective Thursday.

We are deeply saddened by her departure, and our thoughts and prayers are with Ms. Brown, her husband Bill and her children during these trying times. Ms. Brown has chosen not to disclose the nature of her illness, and we respect her right to privacy, the school system said in a statement Wednesday afternoon announcing Brown's resignation.

The 62-year-old Brown first disclosed her illness on Sept. 21, surprising the Baton Rouge community.

"This is certainly not how I had hoped to start this school year and my time in East Baton Rouge," Brown wrote at the time. "Yet, as we know, life doesnt always go as planned."

Brown has not spoken publicly about her situation since. In the resignation letter, Brown's husband said, "This medical emergency was completely unforeseen and unexpected."

Brown took over as superintendent for the school district on Aug. 3. She replaced Warren Drake, who retired in July.

Brown named two designees to take her place during her medical leave: associate superintendents Ben Necaise and Adam Smith. Both held those same positions under Drake.

At first, just Necaise was her acting replacement, but two days later, Brown elevated Smith to her designee as well. Necaise is overseeing primarily secondary grades while Smith is focusing on elementary grades.

Smith, along with Brown, were semifinalists this past spring during the search to replace Drake. Brown and Nakia Towns, chief of staff for Hamilton County, Tennessee, schools, were named finalists. On June 18, Brown ended up winning the job with a bare majority of five votes, while Towns received four votes.

School Board President Mike Gaudet said he hasnt spoken with Brown directly since she went on leave on Sept. 21, but has been in touch with her attorneys.

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The whole thing is a surprise, Gaudet said. It is just the last day or so that weve been trying to work out the details.

Now, the state's second-largest traditional school district will have to look for a new school chief twice in the same year.

The School Board plans to start discussing determining who will replace Brown in the short term and the long term when it holds its regular meeting on Oct. 15. Gaudet said hes not sure yet how the board will proceed. He said the Austin, Texas-based search firm that led the search resulting in Browns hiring offers clients to do a second search for free if the superintendent selected doesnt work out, but he said hes not sure if that applies to a medical resignation.

Im sure well be able to work something out (with them), if we chose to go that route, he said.

Gaudet also said hes sad about the turn of events.

I feel really sorry for her family and her, but also my impression was she was doing an excellent job, she had gotten the staff behind her, he said. Its a loss for the district but like everything, we have to move up and move on.

Board Vice President Tramelle Howard said that while he didnt agree with Brown on some things, she was a good listener, especially on his concerns about fairness and equity in the school system.

She was very open to those conservations, Howard said.

Howard said hes still figuring out how best to replace Brown.

Its unfortunate we find ourselves in this position as a district, but thats what we have to figure out, and its our job to do whats right for kids, Howard said.

In its statement Wednesday, the school system said that during her short time in Baton Rouge, Brown demonstrated a passion for education and students (that) was evident in every decision she made.

We have nothing but the deepest respect for Ms. Brown, and we are appreciative of her service to this community, the statement says. While no longer an employee of this system, she will always be considered a member of this family.

+4 What's next for Baton Rouge's new school leader? Reopening schools, equity issues Watching online from her parents home on Lake Sherwood in Baton Rouge, Leslie Brown had to wait more than seven hours, until early Friday mor

Prior to coming to Baton Rouge, Brown had spent seven years as chief of portfolio services for Broward County public schools in Florida. Brown has more than 41 years of experience in education, almost all of it in Florida.

Brown has said she considers Baton Rouge to be a second home. Her ties go back to when her parents, Robert and Gerry Marks, moved here in the 1970s and later retired. They both died within the past year, but her sister Chris still lives here. Brown moved back this summer to the familys home on Lake Sherwood.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  From funding habitat acquisition and restoration to keeping an excess of deer off the roads, where they may cause fatal accidents, regulated hunting plays a critical role in wildlife management.

Purdue Universitys Department of Forestry and Natural Resources is teaming with Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow and the Max McGraw Foundation on a new online course that delves into the cultural, biological, economic and policy aspects of hunting.

Overall, the course, called Hunting for Conservation, provides a detailed look at the unique North American (U.S. and Canada) system of public lands and wildlife resources, their management as a public trust resource and hunting's place in a system that sustains wildlife diversity.

Purdue wildlife majors take Hunting for Conservation as part of their major's requirements. But the partners are making the new online version available to colleges and universities around the country. Even before an on-campus version of the course was offered, Purdue sent top wildlife students to Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow workshops covering the material, and Purdue faculty members often served as instructors at those sessions.

The new online version was in the works before COVID-19, with the goal of making the material more widely available than possible with in-person classes and workshops.

The pandemic thrust us into pushing ahead, said Zachary Lowe, national coordinator for Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow. The partnership with Purdue was a natural fit. There's no way we could have done this without Purdue's expertise in distance learning.

Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow worked with Purdue Online, which offers corporate and organizational partners expertise in both the educational and technological aspects of developing custom training content, as well as content hosting and e-commerce services.

Institutions interested in using the online Hunting for Conservation course can contact noncredit@purdue.edu. For information on partnering with Purdue Online on custom content contact PUcorporateonline@purdue.edu.

Beyond wildlife students, the course is useful for students in natural resources, conservation, forestry, biology, agriculture  almost anyone interested in hunting, the outdoors, or land management, said Lowe, who also is an adjunct assistant professor in Purdues Forestry and Natural Resources Department.

It makes people who are going out to manage our natural resources aware of hunters and how they interact with those resources, said Andrew DeWoody, a Purdue forestry and natural resources and biology professor whos taught the course in person and will teach some of modules in the online version. If it were up to me, any student who was going to manage natural resources would take this.

The course highlights core functions of wildlife management, among them keeping the number of animals in balance with their habitat and maintaining sustainable populations not only for today but the future as well.

Hunting is one tool in that effort and not simply because hunters assist with population control. For example, fees from hunting (as well as fishing) permits provide a substantial amount of funding for agencies such as the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and for wildlife conservation activities, including habitat restoration and programs to restore threatened species.

In addition to wildlife management, legal policy development and the role hunting plays in society, the course covers a range of hunting-related topics, from how firearms work and hunting safety principles; to hunting basics such as what makes a good shot and field dressing game; to hunting ethics like never allowing edible meat to go to waste, leaving the land where a hunt took place in good condition and understanding how hunters and hunting organizations interact in natural resources management.

Writer: Greg Kline, 765-494-8167, gkline@purdue.edu

Sources: Zach Lowe, zach@clft.org

Andrew DeWoody, dewoody@purdue.edu
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New: Hope and Trust Rosary CD -- Prayers for a Pandemic Inspire the Overwhelmed and Discouraged

NEWS PROVIDED BY

Saint Luke Productions

Oct. 7, 2020



VANCOUVER, Wash., Oct. 7, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- Saint Luke Productions has created a new audio meditation to help those suffering during the pandemic. The Hope and Trust Rosary CD and download will be released on October 7, 2020, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.



Patti Defilippis, who wrote the reflections for this rosary, was inspired to produce it for all those affected by the months of pandemic lockdown and political turmoil.



"If you're like me," she shares, "when you pray you don't always know how to articulate the fear and anxiety that is gripping you. I figured if I could express, honestly and prayerfully, my deepest fears and weaknesses, they'd resonate with a lot of people."



As the mother of seven children, Defilippis is intimately aware of the great need for spiritual encouragement for today's families. "So many of us feel confused, scared, and maybe a little depressed by our current situation. When we bring our fears out of the shadows and into the light, they lose the power they have over us."



Listen to samples here.

Sample reflection: The Scourging at the Pillar "By his stripes we were healed." (Is 53:5)



Jesus, the suffering of our world overwhelms me. Give me the courage to perform acts of charity, but also the trust that prayer can transform lives. Lord, may I see wounded humanity through Your eyes, and may the stripes of Your scourging heal our wounds. Give us all hope!

All four Mysteries are on the 2-disc CD set and the MP3 download, with short Bible passages and reflections tailored for each. The cover art for the Hope and Trust Rosary is a new icon of Our Lady of Hope, by Seattle artist Deborah Anderson. All are exclusively available at: https://store.stlukeproductions.com/



The Hope and Trust Rosary is the latest in Saint Luke Productions' series of audio meditations, many of which are broadcast daily throughout the English-speaking world.



About Saint Luke Productions

Patti and Leonardo Defilippis are the founders of Saint Luke Productions, a Catholic theater and media company. It produces powerful works on Christ and His saints for millions of people worldwide. It is best known for its film Therese and its traveling stage productions on Saints Therese, Maximilian, Vianney, Faustina, and Venerable Father Tolton, the first Black priest in the US.



SOURCE Saint Luke Productions



CONTACT: Lisa Meany, 360-487-9979, pr@stlukeproductions.com


The near halt of Libyas oil production and exportation amid the civil war could cause the countrys economic collapse, the head of the Tripoli-based Central Bank of Libya warned on Tuesday.

Al-Saddiq al-Kabir told Tripolis parliament that shutdown of the countrys oil production and exportation since 2013 has cost Libya some $180 billion in losses, which he called a bullet in the head to the countrys economy.

Al-Kabir said Libya needs to produce 1.7 million barrels per day to compensate for current spending levels. He also said the countrys debt had reached 270% of gross domestic product, The Libyan Observer reported.

Gen. Khalifa Hifter, leader of the rival military forces of eastern Libya, halted oil operations in areas under his control in January.

Hifter agreed last month to lift the blockade for 30 days, leading the Tripoli-based National Oil Corporation to lift its force majeure on crude oil operations at certain facilities.

Hifters blockade has cost Libya at least $9 billion in revenue, the Tripoli-based Central Bank said last month. The country is currently producing roughly 120,000 barrels per day, compared to more than a million before the blockade began in January.

Hifter-aligned forces control a majority of the countrys oil-producing territory but his side cannot access petroleum revenues, which are managed by the National Oil Corporation via the central bank in Tripoli.

Al-Kabir criticized the eastern Libyan movement on Tuesday, saying 15 billion Libyan dinars printed in Russia have propped up the Tobruk-based government.

Libya has been racked by warfare since the overthrow of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 by a popular uprising aided by NATO air power.

Last April, Hifter made a push to seize Tripoli, the seat of Libyas UN-backed government. Hifter and the Tobruk-based government with which he is affiliated have received support from Russia, the United Arab Emirates, France and Egypt.

Turkeys deployment of armed drones, military advisers and Syrian mercenaries is believed to have helped turned the offensive back on Hifters forces.

The United States and United Nations are leading a push to solidify the a quiet along the Sirte-Jufra line in an effort to establish a lasting cease-fire in the country.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Parliament adopted the bill submitted by the government which proposes to enable the government with the authority to confirm the mobilization plan of the economy in its defense sector powers.

Deputy defense minister Gabriel Balayan introduced the bill on making amendment to the Law on Defense during the Parliaments session.

The deputy minister said the bill will allow to approve a new mobilization economy plan by the decision of the government, in light of the current military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan and Turkey.

The deputy defense minister also informed that the bill is already drafted and agreed with the ministry of economy. It will be submitted for the governments approval immediately after its adoption.

87 MPs unanimously voted in favor of the bill.

Reporting by Norayr Shoghikyan; Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
TOKYO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Animal Rights Center Japan has exposed the hidden reality behind Japan's broiler poultry farming for the first time, and has published the "50DAYS" website to inform the consumers, compiling videos and reports following the 50-day life of a broiler chicken from August 18 to October 7, 2020. Today is the final day, when all 50 days of their lives have been revealed.

Videos and photos for the press (please use freely for the purpose of reporting)https://50days.jp/media/

The world viewed by Mei the broiler

"Mei, a baby chicken, was born at a hatchery and was trucked to a farm. Mei and her mates were roughly tossed to the floor of the poultry shack. This was the day they were born.

Employees make rounds through the shack daily looking for carcasses and weakened chicks. Sometimes employees step on them. Internal organs would pop out from the buttocks and they flap their wings and crawl away. Dragging their damaged internal organs, they die."

Daily report on their lives for 50 days till slaughter

The source and intent of the internal survey

Information within 50DAYS is all factual. It is based on a detailed report from a former employee who worked at a poultry farm in Japan. This individual and we believe that knowing the truth is the first step toward a solution. This survey is not intended to criticize a single farm or company, and neither the farm nor the informant is identified. This is because what is shown here are breeding densities and methods typical within Japan.

Problems with economic use of animals

The reality behind chicken meat production in Japan had not been revealed before. Now that it has been exposed, the hope is that the viewers realize that our consumption behavior, and the production methods, must be improved.

The former employee who has seen the suffering of the chickens first-hand says, "After all, as long as this poultry system exists, the problem will not be solved."

Those who work in poultry farms are not the bad people. However, when a single person tries to manage tens of thousands of chicks at a price of US$5 per bird, the conditions will necessarily be terrible. In fact, an employee said, "During the limited working hours, no matter how careful I was, I couldn't move forward without kicking the chicks." Chicks who have been selectively bred to grow rapidly will suffer and die in any condition.

Such a system of poultry is currently allowed because of the discriminatory preconception that chickens are ok to torture

Accelerate the transition to alternative meat

The one who funded the first cultured meat (clean meat) produced in the world was Google's co-founder Sergey Brin. The reason he invested in clean meat was for animal welfare. The world is now beginning to transition from animal-based protein to plant-based protein. Japanese meat and food companies are also following the lead.

Better Chicken initiative: progress overseas while Japan stalls

The breeding environment in Japan is clearly inferior compared to Europe, the US, Brazil, or Thailand. The average breeding density of broilers in Japan is 50-56 kg/ (50-56 kg worth of chicks per ). Broilers in Europe/USA are slaughtered when they reach 2 kg after 42 days, while broilers in Japan are slaughtered at 3 kg after 50 days. This 8-day difference is significant; they would spend the final days in overcrowdedness, on filthy ground, and with worsening physical abnormalities.

In Europe and America, already 345 companies have made the "Better Chicken commitment", promising to reduce the breeding density to 30 kg/, switch to slow-growing species, provide enrichment like perches and pecking materials, and adopt gas stunning for slaughter. They are to switch by 2026, while in Japan there is no prospect for improvement. This is not just an animal issue however.

Deep connection to drug-resistant bacteria

Animal welfare is directly linked to the prevention of the outbreak of bacteria resistant to antibiotics. On 25 October 2018, the EU made a resolution on "Animal welfare, antimicrobial use and the environmental impact of industrial broiler farming", concluding that animal welfare itself will lead to the prevention of drug-resistant bacteria.

A survey by Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has shown that Japanese chicken has a higher detection rate of drug-resistant bacteria than imported chicken. The situation has reached the point where drug-resistant bacteria are detected in over half of the Japanese chicken sold on the market.

With 10 million people expected to die from drug-resistant bacteria by 2050, improving farm animal welfare and raising animals in environments where they can maintain their own immunity is essential for the sustainability of society. However, the Japanese government does not recognize the connection between farm animal welfare and drug-resistant bacteria.

Demanding improvements in broiler poultry

We demand that broiler poultry that forces such cruel rearing and continues severe selective breeding be ended as soon as possible, that companies shift to alternative meat, and at the same time rapidly shift to Better Chicken that accounts for animal welfare.

Although not completely at the level of Better Chicken, Japan's "jidori" chicken is one of our recommendations because of its regulation on the breeding density.

This campaign lasted 50 days. Someone who watched their short lives said, "I wished they could be put to death soon." However, 695 million chicks under similar captivity are born and killed every year in Japan.

We sincerely hope that their situations get improved as soon as possible.

Endorsing organizations:Albert Schweitzer Foundation, Animal Equality, Djurens Ratt, EAST Taiwan, L214

Contact:

Chihiro Okada (Director)

[email protected]

+81-3-3770-0720

Photos:

https://www.prlog.org/12841140

SOURCE Animal Rights Center Japan
Davina Kelly, 39, knew she was taking a risk when she left her Florida home to see her daughter in Ohio at the start of a pandemic. She never expected it would leave her homeless.

The downward spiral began in late March, with a text message from her daughter threatening to commit suicide because of an abusive relationship. That sent Kelly scrambling to find a one-way Greyhound bus ticket from Jacksonville, Florida, to Youngstown, Ohio.

Within days of her arrival, non-essential businesses were shut down. Travel was dramatically scaled back, effectively stranding her there. With Kellys daughter and her two infant grandkids fearful of returning to an abusive home, the family opted to move into a nearby hotel, where they hoped to ride out the pandemic.

Davina Kelly, her two grandchildren, and her daughter.

The stimulus check is what got us through those two months. Its why we could stay in the hotel, because I received one and my daughter received one. And that's the only way we actually survived, Kelly said.

By July, those reserves had dried up. A local church raised money to buy train tickets for her family to return to Florida.

But that only proved to be a temporary fix. By the time she returned to Jacksonville, Kellys job at Honeybaked Ham had been eliminated. Health concerns from the pandemic severely limited her options for emergency shelter, while friends politely declined her familys requests to stay with them at the height of COVID-19 infections. She turned to the only certain choice in front of her  living on the street.

We would just spend all day with our stuff, walking around until we just couldn't do it anymore, Kelly said. Then we would just find where it looked to be a safe spot to sleep, mainly for my daughter and the babies. I couldn't sleep knowing that, you know, somebody can just come up [to us].

Housing advocates worry Kellys story is becoming an increasingly familiar one, with the government now in its third month without additional fiscal bill. A report published by the National Economic Bureau of Research estimates enhanced unemployment insurance and stimulus checks distributed at the start of the pandemic effectively staved off an additional 13.2 million people from falling into poverty.

Story continues

While federal and statewide eviction moratoriums have largely kept the most vulnerable families in their homes, advocates worry that has only masked the extent of poverty brought on by the crisis. Those like Kelly, who had little savings at the start of the pandemic, relied on government stimulus to make ends meet. With a challenging job market, and prospects of additional fiscal stimulus before the November election waning in Congress, those most in need are faced with a reality void of that lifeline.

So many of our clients were not working. They were crossing our threshold, virtually during this time, excited to work and they're facing all these additional barriers to work because of COVID, said Aaryn Manning, executive director of Project Place in Boston, a non-profit group that provides job training and related services to low-income and homeless individuals. Now transportation is so difficult. Then there's all of these additional health barriers in order for them to be working in, in many of the types of positions that they would be working in.

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 24: Steven T. Mnuchin, Secretary, Department of the Treasury during the Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing examining the quarterly CARES Act report to Congress n September 24, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Toni L. Sandys-Pool/Getty Images)

One paycheck away from tragedy

The eviction moratorium didnt protect Lakisha Cohen in Galveston, Texas, but government funds did help keep the 43-year-old mother of five in her temporary home  a 2006 Buick Rendezvous.

In April, her landlord kicked her family out of their house, claiming he was selling the home.

Cohen was out within three weeks, loading her youngest kids, 7- and 9-year-old boys into the old clunker to map out her next course of action.

I didn't sleep because my brain was going a million miles a second, trying to figure out, trying to pinpoint the moment everything turned wrong, Cohen said. Then I had to figure out okay, how do I get out of this. Because I have my babies now. There's no school, there's no nothing.

For months, she took her young kids with her to work at Long John Silvers, where they had access to free internet to conduct their remote classes. When her car broke down, Lakisha tapped into her stimulus funds to fix the vehicle and search for a new place to live.

She visited more than a dozen apartments, but no landlord wanted to take the risk of moving a family in when concerns about COVID-19 infections were so high. So, Lakisha moved her family into a hotel temporarily, until her stimulus funds dried up.

Pre-pandemic, I was pretty much like everybody else. I had a little bit of money in the bank. I worked. I paid my bills. But I was one paycheck away from being in a tragedy ... If the powers that be had to live a day in the lives of people like me, then their argument wouldn't be so great, Cohen said, referring to lawmakers pushing back against a larger stimulus package.

We are real people

With President Trump stamping out any hopes of additional fiscal stimulus until after the November election, the burden to help is increasingly falling on non-profit groups like Family Promise.

CEO Claas Ehlers says the needs vary widely, from housing assistance to internet connectivity, particularly for families with school-age children. Affiliated organizations have responded by turning buses into internet hot spots in low-income communities, setting up learning centers for parents who cannot tend to their children, while working to make ends meet.

The parents of children in poverty are actually demonstrably more invested in their children's remote education than affluent parents are, but the resource gap is so profound, it obliterates that extra concern on the part of the parents, Ehlers said. Add to the fact that you have single parents who are working long hours. You've got all of those stresses and everything. We have just accelerated that divide between affluence and poverty among children.

Kelly and Cohen credit Family Promise for taking their families off the streets. Since the organization took on their cases this summer, both have found temporary homes. Kelly still lives in a hotel, though her daughter and grandkids are now in a house. Cohen recently moved from a temporary church shelter into a new apartment.

With plans to return to school in hopes of finding a more stable job, Cohen is more optimistic about her future than she was in May. But she has a message for lawmakers whom she says are dragging their feet on additional funding for people like her.

It's not not a waste of money because we are real people. My children are real children who don't have [a lot]. And it's not from a lack of me trying, it is not from me being too lazy to want to get up and go to work, she said. I've worked every day that I could possibly work during this pandemic.

Akiko Fujita is an anchor and reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @AkikoFujita
The international technology holding TECHIIA plans to build an Ecotechnopark in Kherson region, which will include a data center and an agricultural farm to utilize its thermal radiation.

"Ecotechnopark is a new niche for large-scale investments in the Ukrainian IT industry. For this we have everything: convenient geography for large foreign clients between Asia and Europe, cheap electricity, fast and high-quality Internet," the managing partner of TECHIIA holding, Yuriy Lazebnikov, said in a press release distributed before the press conference in Kyiv.

Cooperation between TECHIIA and the Ministry of Digital Transformation provides for the implementation of the Ecotechnopark project in Kherson region. It is planned to build a data center with a capacity of up to 500 MW, which will perform the functions of storage, data processing and 3D rendering. The data center is planned to be built using modern technologies and taking into account environmental concerns. The heat, which will be generated by the data center, is planned to be utilized in an agricultural farm, which will also be part of Ecotechnopark.

For the implementation of the first stage of the project, it is planned to attract at least $200 million in infrastructure investments. The data center will service equipment worth about $1 billion.

The facility, according to TECHIIA, will create at least 200 jobs.

It is planned that the construction of the data center with a capacity of 500 MW will allow loading all six power units of Zaporizhia NPP.

Other strategic areas of cooperation between TECHIIA and the Ministry of Digital Transformation include the construction of e-sports infrastructure, in particular, e-sports arenas and hotels, the development of STEM education in Ukraine and the implementation of corporate social responsibility projects.
Phoenix, Arizona--(Newsfile Corp. - October 7, 2020) - The Stock Day Podcast welcomed OPTEC International, Inc. (OPTI) ("the Company"), a developer and manufacturer of electronic LED, Ultraviolet (UV) & UV-C safety products and related advanced technologies and PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) products. CEO of the Company, Roger Pawson, joined Stock Day host Everett Jolly.

Jolly began the interview by asking about the Company's background and current projects. Pawson explained that the Company currently has two locations in Southern California, including a 22,000 square foot facility designed for production and manufacturing. "We produce and distribute UV and UV-C products, PPE products, and our commercial version of UV-C sterilization and sanitation, which is the OPTEC Rover line," explained Pawson. "These products basically use UV and UV-C light to sterilize and disinfect in lieu of toxic chemicals and traditional cleaning," he added. "This is the new now."

"What makes the iWand special?", asked Jolly. Pawson elaborated on the Company's portable UV-C disinfection wand, which is a reliable and efficient device for eliminating harmful bacteria. "Almost anything that can transfer bacteria to your hands you can sterilize," said Pawson, noting that UV-C light should not be used on the skin.

The conversation then turned to the Company's distributors. "We actually have a number of new distributors both here and internationally," shared Pawson, adding that the Company is working on including the full distribution list on their website.

"Has anyone asked you to do a white label yet?", asked Jolly. "Yes, our Greek distributor has asked about that, as well as our Israeli distributor," said Pawson. "Most of the international distributors that we've signed or are in discussions with are looking for white labels, and we can accommodate that."

Pawson then updated listeners on the release of the Company's financial statements. He shared that the Company will be releasing its Q1 interim financial statement this week, and is due to release its full financial statement by November 15th on the OTC markets.

Jolly then asked about the Company's recent announcement regarding a $5 million financing deal. ""It was acquired through RB Capital," explained Pawson. "They saw the potential that we have," he added, noting that the agreement includes up to $5 million which can be tranched when required.

"Will there be a continued need for your products after COVID-19?", asked Jolly. "I think this is the new now," said Pawson. "I think this is absolutely here to stay from a standpoint of preemptive precautionary solutions," he continued. "This is a game changer for the world."

To close the interview, Pawson discussed the potential and value of the Company as they continue to develop and manufacture safe and innovative technologies that have the power to make a positive impact nationally and internationally.

To hear Roger Pawson's entire interview, follow the link to the podcast here: https://audioboom.com/posts/7699811-optec-international-inc-discusses-the-future-of-ppe-products-with-the-stock-day-podcast.

Investors Hangout is a proud sponsor of "Stock Day," and Stock Day Media encourages listeners to visit the company's message board at https://investorshangout.com/.

About OPTEC International, Inc.

With Locations in Carlsbad and Vista, California, OPTEC International is a developer and manufacturer of electronic LED, Ultraviolet (UV) & UV-C safety products and related advanced technologies and PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) products. The company's Safe-Scan product line is being launched at a time when HR directors and facilities managers are experiencing extreme concern with respect to keeping environments safe during the global pandemic crisis and the safe reopening of the U.S. economy. For more information visit: www.optecuvc.com.

Safe Harbor Statement: Safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by phrases such as Opti, OPTEC or its management "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "foresees," "forecasts," "estimates" or other words or phrases of similar import. Similarly, statements herein that describe the Company's business strategy, outlook, objectives, plans, intentions, or goals also are forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. OPTEC International Inc.

Contact: info@optecintl.com

Investor Relations: 442-222-0550

About The "Stock Day" Podcast

Founded in 2013, Stock Day is the fastest growing media outlet for Nano-Cap and Micro-Cap companies. It educates investors while simultaneously working with penny stock and OTC companies, providing transparency and clarification of under-valued, under-sold Micro-Cap stocks of the market. Stock Day provides companies with customized solutions to their news distribution in both national and international media outlets. The Stock Day Podcast is the number one radio show of its kind in America. Stock Day recently launched its Video Interview Studio located in Phoenix, Arizona.

SOURCE:

Stock Day Media

(602) 821-1102

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/65424
The Batman is the latest blockbuster to be delayed because of coronavirus, raising fresh doubts over the future of hundreds of UK cinemas.

Yesterday, Warner Brothers said it would push back the release of the superhero epic, starring Twilight actor Robert Pattinson, from October 2021 until spring 2022.

It also revealed that sci-fi film Dune, has been postponed from December to October next year. Cinemas now face an existential threat from a drought of big releases.

Warner Brothers said it would push back the release of the latest Batman film, starring Twilight actor Robert Pattinson (pictured), from October 2021 until spring 2022

On Monday Cineworld shut all its 128 UK cinemas, putting 5,500 jobs at risk, until the spring after the release of the latest James Bond movie, No Time to Die, was postponed.

Odeon has said it will only open 30 of 120 sites at weekends. Social distancing coupled with peoples fears of catching the virus mean most viewers are staying at home.

Tenet, directed by Christopher Nolan, took $300million (228million)  much less than his previous film Dunkirk, which took 400million.

The subdued response spooked executives and sparked a rash of postponements.
IN 2018, the insurance company, CLICO submitted a $11 billion claim to its parent company, CL Financial (CLF) which is in liquidation.

The liquidation is being managed by Grant Thornton.

To date, CLF has only repaid $335,317,275 of the claim.
By Jonathan Allen and Maria Caspani

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City will begin enforcing new shutdown rules on businesses and schools in coronavirus hot spots on Thursday that have already triggered angry protests from a small contingent of Orthodox Jews in one of the affected areas.

Mayor Bill de Blasio first announced his plan to tamp down outbreaks in parts of Brooklyn and Queens on Sunday after the rate of positive coronavirus tests in some neighborhoods exceeded 3% for seven straight days.

The data has worried health officials who fear a second wave in a city that endured what at one point in the spring was the world's most rampant outbreak of COVID-19. Citywide the latest positive rate stood at 1.39% on Wednesday.

De Blasio's decision to delineate the neighborhoods where closures would be enforced using postal ZIP codes drew scorn from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democrat with whom he has often feuded. New York is one of about 30 out of 50 U.S. states were cases have risen over the past two weeks, according to a Reuters analysis. (Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR)

By Tuesday, Cuomo, who has ultimate authority over shutdown measures, had released new color-coded maps that created confusion in part with their diagonal lines bisecting city blocks, leaving it unclear which non-essential businesses on many streets would have to close.

De Blasio promised to bring clarity before enforcement began on Thursday morning and lasted at least 14 days.

"We're working with the state to get very clear the exact boundaries," he told reporters. "I thought that the ZIP codes were clearer."

In some predominantly Hasidic Jewish areas of Brooklyn's Borough Park, which will face the most stringent closures and where religious gatherings must not exceed 10 people, hundreds of protesters gathered on Tuesday night to assail restrictions coming into effect during Jewish religious holidays. In that area, more than 8% of coronavirus tests have come back positive this week.

Story continues

After midnight, hundreds of Hasidic men, mostly unmasked, gathered round a bonfire of burning face masks in the middle of an avenue, according to videos circulated online and local media. Some protesters can be seen in videos badly beating at least one Orthodox Jewish man they perceived to be a "snitch," and heckled and chased away local law enforcement officials and journalists.

Four state and city elected officials representing Orthodox Jewish communities released a letter that castigated Cuomo, a Catholic, for what they described as singling out a religious community with insufficient consultation.

"Even worse, his rhetoric in recent days has been irresponsible and pejorative, particularly to a community of Holocaust survivors and their descendants, for whom his language was reminiscent of past verbal attacks on Jewish communities," the letter said. It was signed by New York state Senator Simcha Felder, Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein and city council members Chaim Deutsch and Kalman Yeger.

On Wednesday, Cuomo defended the restrictions, which will also be enforced outside the city in Rockland and Orange counties, also home to large Orthodox Jewish communities.

"To the extent there are communities that are upset, that's because they hadn't been following the original rules," he told reporters. "And that's why the infection spread."

The backlash has spread beyond Hasidic Jewish residents. The bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Brooklyn, Nicholas DiMarzio, issued a statement on Tuesday opposing the new rules, saying they had successfully been adhering to the prior ones.

The New York Police Department did not respond to questions about the overnight protests and violence.

De Blasio said the protesters did not represent the majority of New Yorkers and called for unity, calling on New Yorkers to stand up to "coronavirus denialists."

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Maria Caspani in New York; Additional reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
For the first time in three decades, an assembly election in Bihar will almost certainly be fought without Lalu Prasad, former chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief whose characteristic rustic campaigning style and charisma created a solid support base among rural and backward caste population.

The mercurial former Union minister is currently in jail in Ranchi on corruption charges. He was convicted in December 2017 in three separate fodder scam cases.

Prasad has secured bail in only one of the three cases and even by the most optimistic calculations by his lawyer  which include multiple high court decisions in their favour -- Prasad can hope to walk out of jail only after November 10, the day votes are counted.

Elections are scheduled to be held in three phases, on October 28, November 3 and 7.

The high court has set a precedent that either the convict of fodder scam convicts will be granted bail on completion of half sentence or on merit, said advocate Sameer Saurav of the high court.

Last year, Prasad got bail in one of the cases after completing half of the 3.5 years jail term.

His second bail application is under consideration in the Jharkhand high court and the next date of hearing is October 9. His sentence in that particular case is five years, and half of that term is over this month.

But in the third case, the RJD chief is facing 14 years in prison  seven under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections and another seven under Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act. The court expressly said both sentences would run consecutively.

Prasads lawyers hope that the high court will strike down this decision, and let the two sentences run simultaneously. If that happens, half that seven-year sentence would be completed by November 10.

Prasads lawyer Prabhat Kumar said, The high court in matters of other convicts in the same case suspended the sentence and considered maximum seven years imprisonment for reckoning the half sentence for bail purposes. In such a situation, he is completing half custody on November 10.

We are expecting Prasads release from jail after November 10, he added.

The lawyer said Prasads bail application in the third case will be filed in the second week of November  so it is impossible for the leader to be released from jail in time for campaigning.

RJD spokesperson Mritunjay Tiwari said, Prasads popular saying--Jab tak Samosa mein rahega aalu, Bihar mein rahega Lalu--is still valid and true. He may be in Ranchi for some reason, but our workers and supporters are electrified. He lives in peoples heart.

RJD and other political leaders have repeatedly visited Kellys bungalow--the official residence of Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) director--where Prasad was temporarily shifted on August 5 due to Covid-19 threat.

The Bharatiya Janata Party alleged the Jharkhand government was providing undue favour to a prisoner.

He is holding political darbar (meeting) there and people are meeting him even in night. He has virtually running RJDs campaign from that bungalow, which lacked CCTVs. No body knows what happening there but we have videos to prove that people met him late till 11 pm in night. These are flagrant violation of jail manual, said BJPs state spokesperson Pratul Shahdeo.

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In a split vote, Northside Independent School District trustees voted Tuesday to name its newest high school after U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina to sit on the countrys highest court.

The new name was not the first choice of students who will be among the first to graduate there. Board members approved it on a 4-3 vote after a long process in which Americas partisan divide occasionally intruded.

But when Sotomayor High School opens in the fall of 2022 west of Loop 1604 in the Galm Road area, it will be only the second comprehensive public high school in Bexar County to be named for a person of color.

The other is Wagner High School in Judson ISD, named for Army Lt. Col. Karen Wagner, a Black woman from San Antonio who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon. Some alternative schools are named for Latinos, such as Frank M. Tejeda Academy in Harlandale ISD and Irene L. Chavez Excel Academy in Northside ISD.

Required Reading: Get San Antonio education news sent directly to your inbox

Northside names its high schools for U.S. Supreme Court justices. It asks middle school students who will be in the first graduating class to research alternatives and submit essays for the board to consider. Trustees acknowledged Tuesday that for this school, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the clear front runner, but other factors were at work.

Trustees selected Ginsburg and Sotomayor in February from the essays, making finalists of two justices on the courts liberal wing who had been nominated by Democratic presidents.

They had planned to name the school at their Sept. 22 meeting, but delayed the vote because of Ginsburgs death just four days earlier. At that meeting, the board rejected a motion by Trustee MLissa Chumbley to consider a third justice  she said she struggled to vote for either Sotomayor or Ginsburg, citing her religious beliefs against abortion.

On Tuesday, Chumbley decided to vote for Sotomayor, noting that she was first nominated to a federal judgeship by Republican President George H.W. Bush. Trustees Gerald Lopez, Joseph Medina and Bobby Blount also picked Sotomayor.

Trustees Katie Reed, Karen Freeman and Carole Harle voted in favor of Ginsburg, citing the majority student support.

On ExpressNews.com: Justice Sotomayor wows crowd at UTSA

Lopez spoke of a need to choose a name that represents the districts diverse population. More than 60 percent of Northside students are Hispanic, he pointed out. Sotomayor, who was born and raised in New York City, is the daughter of Puerto Rican-born parents.

Students today are looking for someone to model after and they want someone to look at who looks like them, Lopez said.

He said trustees would be making history by naming the school for Sotomayor during Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Northsides surging growth makes it possible the board might be considering Ginsburg again within a few years.

Sotomayor will be the districts 12th high school. Its most recent to open was Harlan High Shool in 2017, named for Justice John M. Harlan. Sotomayor High School is expected to help relieve enrollment pressure on Harlan and Sandra Day OConnor high schools.

Krista Torralva covers several school districts and public universities in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Krista, become a subscriber. Krista.Torralva@express-news.net | Twitter: @KMTorralva
A town in New York has paid tribute to Gandhi's global role promoting non-violence and peace by installing his bust even as memorials to the Mahatma have come under attack in some places in the US from radical groups.

Amherst received the message of peace embodied in the statue put up through community initiative on Gandhi Jayanti joining several places across the US that have statues honouring the Mahatma.

India's Consul General in New York Randhir Jaiswal, State Assemblywoman Karen McMahon, county head Mark Poloncarz and Brian Kulpa, who is the equivalent of town mayor, jointly unveiled the bust.

The Council of Heritage and Arts of India (CHAI) spearheaded the effort for installing the bust sculpted by Ram Sutar, well known for his portrayals of Gandhi.

The organisation raised $40,000 for the statue, some of it through GoFundMe, the digital fundraising site.

CHAI Executive Director Sibu Nair told IANS he decided to bring the statue to Amherst because Gandhi's undying ideology that transcends the physical is important at a time when the US and the world are divided by hate and violence.

"I thought of taking a small step in our town by making a Gandhi monument" because, he said, "Gandhi is not just the name of a person but it's an ideology or way of life which never dies. In the current world his message is very important. World is full of hate and violence."

That message has a special resonance because Gandhi has been drawn into the hate and violence roiling the US and the addition of a statue in Amherst defies the attacks on his image.

Vandals took advantage of protests against brutality in Washington to deface Gandhi's statues with personal hate messages in June.

Another statue of Gandhi was vandalised in Davies in California.

Petitions have been circulated by radicals and extremists to have the statues on Davies and in Fresno removed.

President Donald Trump's Spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany has denounced what she said were efforts by "radical left-wing mobs" to tear down statues of Gandhi and of American leaders like George Washington.
Since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been much debate about the danger to hospital staff from anesthetic procedures. Concerns include that placing a tube in the patient's airway (intubation) before surgery or removing it at the end (extubation) may produce a fine mist of small particles (called aerosols) and spread the COVID-19 virus to nearby staff.

This risk was judged so high that the procedures are classified 'aerosol generating procedures' (AGPs) for which respirators and high level personal protective equipment (PPE) are worn routinely, and after which surgery stops while the operating room is cleared of aerosols and special cleaning is undertaken.

These requirements have dramatically slowed surgery and contributed to enormous waiting lists for surgery in the UK National Health Service (NHS), as well as similar problems in hospitals worldwide. Despite the presumed risk, no direct measurements of aerosols have ever been made during anesthetic care in a hospital.

New research published in Anaesthesia (a journal of the Association of Anaesthetists) shows that these procedures may only produce a fraction of the aerosols previously thought, much less than would be produced during a single regular cough.

This brings into question whether the procedures should be designated AGPs and provides an opportunity to dramatically speed up surgery.

The study is by Dr Jules Brown (North Bristol NHS Trust, Bristol, UK) working with Professor Jonathan Reid (Bristol Aerosol Research Centre, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol), Professor Tim Cook (Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust, Bath, UK, and School of Medicine, University of Bristol, UK) and Professor Tony Pickering, (School of Physiology, Pharmacology & Neuroscience, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK), and colleagues.

To address this lack of evidence, the authors conducted real-time, high-resolution environmental monitoring in ultraclean ventilation operating theatres during anaesthesia procedures for insertion and removal of the tube from the patient's airway.

The authors also studied procedures such as suction of the airway and 'mask ventilation' when the anaesthetist takes over the patients breathing before tube insertion.

Put simply, they were able to quantify the aerosols generated during all these procedures, in a real clinical setting, and compare this to the aerosols produced by a single cough. Recordings were made of 19 tube insertions and 14 tube removals.

Against expectations, the authors found that tube insertion generated approximately one thousandth of the aerosol generated by a single cough. Tube removal produced more aerosol, especially when accompanied by a weak cough, but still less than 25% of that produced by a voluntary cough.

"These findings should trigger a re-evaluation of when it is necessary to use specific measures to protect against viral transmission by aerosol in operating rooms. De-escalation of these high-level protective measures would have a substantial impact on our ability to deliver healthcare to patients within the NHS and internationally," explain the authors.

"If we can agree these procedures do not generate aerosols we can reduce the PPE we wear and we can eliminate the major delays that currently exist between one patient leaving the operating room and starting the next case," they add.

"The results suggest that during anaesthesia tube insertion should not be considered a high-risk procedure," say the authors. "We detected no increases in aerosolised particles during face-mask ventilation, airway suction or repeated attempts at intubation. This reflects typical clinical practice by anaesthetists with a range of experience, providing further reassurance regarding the low level of aerosol generation."

The authors explain that with tube removal, a cough can occur as the patient's natural breathing reflexes return, and this does produce aerosols that are detectable for around five seconds.

They say: "The risk of aerosol exposure for staff can be further reduced by using techniques that reduce coughing or by the anaesthetist simply stepping away, as our study showed much reduced particle numbers behind the patient's head compared to above their face."

The authors note some limitations to their study. "It should be acknowledged that while we have provided reassuring evidence around aerosol generation during these procedures, we have not directly studied the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and our interpretation rests on the widely accepted link between aerosol generation and infection risk," they explain.

For safety reasons, this study was not performed on patients with COVID-19, but on other patients to demonstrate the aerosols actually produced during these procedures which are common during anaesthesia and in intensive care.

They conclude: "The precautions many hospitals worldwide have introduced to mitigate the risks posed by viral aerosols have reduced operating theatre turnover, decreased hospital productivity and increased waiting times for elective and cancer surgery."

"A further important consideration relates to the cost and limited supply of PPE which has to be targeted to appropriate healthcare settings on the basis of risk. Our results raise important questions about the need for these precautions at the start and end of anaesthesia. These results should help inform future PPE guidelines by providing evidence on the relative risk of aerosol generation associated with tracheal intubation and extubation."
The chief executives of some of Australia's largest retailers have praised the government's budget for its job-making measures and income tax cuts, with the nation's shopkeepers likely to be some of the largest beneficiaries of the new spending plan.

On Tuesday night, the Morrison government announced billions in budget measures which are set to directly benefit businesses, including massive asset tax breaks, wage subsidies for young employees, and accelerated income tax cuts which are set to spur spending in the retail sector.

Premier Investments chief Solomon Lew said the budget was one of the best he's ever seen. Credit:Eddie Jim

Solomon Lew, the billionaire founder of retail company Premier Investments, said the budget was one of the best he'd seen in his career and was set to benefit "nearly every single business in the country".

"It cannot be understated just how much this will provide a shot in the arm to employment, youth job creation, consumer confidence and spending. This budget will help bring the Australian economy out of the doldrums and back to where it needs to be," Mr Lew said.
President Donald Trump has returned to the Oval Office just days after contracting the novel coronavirus to be briefed on congressional stimulus negotiations and the threat posed by Hurricane Delta, according to a White House spokesperson.

The president could have continued to be briefed on both issues outside of the Oval Office: he had not stopped working throughout his diagnosis, according to White House officials, even during his extended stay at Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland during the weekend.

But by Wednesday afternoon, it was confirmed he had returned to the Oval Office to conduct the business of the presidency behind the Resolute Desk.

Though he was back to business as usual, questions still lingered surrounding the presidents health and coronavirus diagnosis.

It remained unclear when exactly Mr Trump tested positive for Covid-19, with reports stating White House officials were aware of his exposure to the virus responsible for more than 200,000 deaths nationwide before he travelled to a fundraiser event last week.

Mr Trump flew on Air Force One to New Jersey for a campaign fundraiser before eventually travelling back to the White House.

At least 14 people within the presidents orbit have tested positive for the coronavirus following his controversial  and largely mask-less  White House event announcing the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court following the passing of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

While White House physician Sean Conley attempted to provide a positive spin on Mr Trumps health during a Saturday press conference outside of the medical center where he was staying, he refused to answer multiple questions about whether the president ever required supplemental oxygen throughout his diagnosis.

The briefing directly contradicted statements White House chief of staff Mark Meadows gave to media discussing a concerning period in which the presidents oxygen levels fell on Friday before he was flown to Walter Reed.

The presidents doctors later confirmed that he suffered multiple bouts of low oxygen levels and said they were not trying to conceal facts about Mr Trumps diagnosis.

The White House nor Mr Trumps doctors have not revealed when exactly the president first tested positive for Covid-19.

There has also been mixed statements and confusion surrounding Mr Trumps whereabouts, with his economic adviser Larry Kudlow telling media outlets he showed up in the Oval Office yesterday with extra precautions with respect to his Covid-19 in interviews on Wednesday.

Those statements contradicted comments from Mr Meadows, who said Mr Kudlow was mistaken and that Mr Trump actually remained in the White House residency until Wednesday afternoon.

By Wednesday, Dr Conley said in a memo the president had been fever-free for more than four days while declining to indicate whether he was taking fever-reducing medications.

Mr Trumps doctors have noted his symptoms could worsen at the seven to ten day mark in his diagnosis, and said he received multiple drugs that potentially combat the virus, including an experimental cocktail of medications and a treatment known as Regeneren.
7 October 2020

Early Equity PLC

("Early Equity" or "the Company")

Issue of Equity

Early Equity Plc (AQSE: EEQP), is pleased to announce that it has raised 94,000 by way of a subscription for 18,800,000 new ordinary shares of 0.1p at a price of 0.5p per share ("the Subscription"). The proceeds of the Subscription will be used to provide the Company with additional working capital.

The Company incurred expenses in connection with the Subscription of 4,700 which have been settled by the issue of 940,000 new ordinary shares of 0.1p.

As a result, the Company has issued a total of 19,740,000 new ordinary shares and application will be made for them to be admitted to trading on AQSE, which is expected to be on or around 13 October 2020.

The new ordinary shares will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares of the Company. Following the issue of the new ordinary shares, the Company's issued share capital will comprise 958,114,784 ordinary shares of 0.1p (including the 19,740,000 new ordinary shares).

The above figure of 958,114,784 should be used by shareholders in the Company as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.

This announcement contains information which, prior to its disclosure, was inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014.

The directors of Early Equity Plc accept responsibility for this announcement.

Enquiries:

Early Equity Plc

Greg Collier

Tel: +44 (0)7830 182501

Novum Securities Limited

AQSE Corporate Adviser

David Coffman / Daphne Zhang

Tel: +44 (0)207 399 9400

About Early Equity plc:

Early Equity is an e-commerce focused group based in Malaysia whose Ordinary Shares are admitted to trading on the AQSE Growth Market in London with the trading symbol EEQP.
WASHINGTON: The Federal Communications Commission has given no indication it will move quickly on an effort by President Donald Trump to narrow the ability of social media companies to remove objectionable content and require new transparency rules.

The Republican president in May directed the U.S. Commerce Department to file the petition after Twitter Inc warned readers to fact-check his posts about unsubstantiated claims of fraud in mail-in voting.

Since then, Trumps social media posts have repeatedly been sanctioned. On Tuesday, Facebook Inc and Twitter took action on posts from Trump for violating their rules against coronavirus misinformation by suggesting that COVID-19 was just like the flu with Facebook taking the post down.

After the FCC received the Commerce Department petition July 27, it opened it for public comment for 45 days, which expired in mid-September. The proceeding has received more than 20,000 comments.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said last week during a call with reporters that commission staff are currently reviewing the public comments, declining to say how long that may last.

I look forward to receiving the results of that review, Pai said. Ill make my decision based on the law and the facts. So Im not going to reach a conclusion until we have finished our review of the record.

On Monday, Pai released his agenda for the Oct. 27 FCC meeting without proposing any action on the petition. It can take the FCC a year to propose and then finalize new regulations. A spokesman for Pai declined to comment.

In August, the White House abruptly pulled the nomination of Republican FCC Commissioner Mike ORielly to serve another term days after he expressed skepticism about whether the commission had authority to issue new regulations covering social media companies.

The two Democrats on the five-member FCC both strongly oppose the petition.

Last month, Trump nominated Nathan Simington, a senior administration official who has been involved in the social media petition. Republicans need to get smart and confirm Nate Simington to the FCC ASAP! Trump wrote on Twitter Tuesday.

The petition asks the FCC to limit protections for social media companies under Section 230, a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that shields them from liability for content posted by their users and allows them to remove lawful but objectionable posts.

On Tuesday, Trump tweeted: REPEAL SECTION 230!!! reiterating his previously articulated view.

A group representing major internet companies including Facebook, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Incs Google urged the FCC to reject the petition, saying it is misguided, while it won the backing of four Republican state attorneys general.
Maria Vircikova from Matsuko eyes up Silicon Valley with game-changer holographic communication.

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She was one of only two girls in the cybernetics and artificial intelligence class at the Technical University of Kosice, eastern Slovakia, in the early 2010s. Surrounded by thirty wannabe programmers, the Spanish bilingual high school graduate seemed slightly out of place in the binary world of ones and zeroes.

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Maria Vircikova (34) was born in Kosice and is the CEO and Co-founder of MATSUKO, a deep tech company that aims to revolutionise the way people communicate and collaborate through holograms. She holds a doctorate in artificial intelligence. Her doctoral thesis contributed to the discovery of computational models of empathy for social robots. She lectured at several universities in Japan and at conferences around the world. She worked as an external consultant for Google and has given several TEDx talks. She was twice selected by Forbes for the prestigious 30 under 30 list. In September 2020 she received the inaugural European Women in Tech Award.

Yet,Maria Vircikova didnt feel intimidated. She stuck to her guns and today shes an award-winning innovator heading a revolution in human communication. With herteam at Matsuko,the Kosice- and Paris-baseddeep tech company that she co-founded, she is bringing virtual teleports to the everyday office space.

They are currently developing holographic software that will soon allow people on the opposing ends of the world to meet as holograms. The special mixed reality glasses they are working on should allow users to see the entire person they are talking to and feel like they are standing right next to them, regardless of the actual physical distance in between.

I always wanted to create technology that could be both cool and essential for the whole world and know no borders, Vircikova told The Slovak Spectator.

Her efforts and accomplishments were recently awarded by the United Kingdoms Department for International Trade. In September 2020, she stood on the virtual stage among 24 women as one of two Slovaks who received the European Tech Women Awards.

We managed to show Europe that women can succeed in the Slovak tech field, she said. And that highlights that were a modern country.
TikTok could end up being banned in the US after all. A US judge will hold a hearing on November 4 regarding the issue. It will decide whether to allow the US government to ban TikTok.

In other words, it will decide whether to bar transactions with TikTok. That would basically ban the use of the app in the States. As most of you know by now, TikTok was supposed to be banned last month, but a US judge stopped it.

A US District Judge Carl Nichols issued a preliminary injunction on September 27 that prevented the US Commerce Department from ordering Apple and Google app stores to remove TikTok for download for new users.

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TikTok could be banned in the US after all, well know more after November 4 hearing

That very same judge now has to decide whether to block the other aspects of the US Commerce Department order or not. Those orders are set to take effect on November 12, which is why this hearing will take place before then.

Thats not all, though. Some of you already know that Walmart and Oracle are trying to take stakes in a new company, TikTok Global. That company would oversee US operations of TikTok, after the US President, Donald Trump, gave its blessing for such a deal.

The thing is, this deal would also require Chinas approval, said ByteDance, a company that owns TikTok. It will be interesting to see what happens next, thats for sure.

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The upcoming hearing will probably set a course for further actions from both sides. It is unlikely that there will be any progress from Walmart and Oracle before that hearing.

If the US District Judge decides to block the other aspects of the US Commerce Department order, the need for TikTok Global may not be necessary at all. There are several scenarios that could take place here, thats for sure. Well know a lot more after November 4 hearing takes place.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 7)  The Philippines faces a rocky path towards growth recovery as it continues to struggle with COVID-19 infections, with the tally still rising by the thousands daily, Moody's Analytics said.

The research arm of Moody's Investors Service said the Philippines and India have a chance to tally the fastest growth rates in 2021, but only because they are coming from severe downturns this year.

Moody's Analytics sees the Philippine economy shrinking by 9.2 percent before recovering by 7.8 percent in 2021  merely offsetting where it was pre-pandemic. India's economy is also expected to contract by more than 12 percent this year before growing by nearly 10 percent in 2021.

"These forecasts are perhaps the most uncertain, since neither country has clearly shown that it has effectively controlled the virus, nor has either committed fiscal resources toward recovery to the degree seen elsewhere in the region," it said in a report published Wednesday.

In 2019, the Philippine economy grew by 6 percent.

RELATED: PH economy may not return to 6% growth post-pandemic  analyst

The Philippines continues to grapple with rising COVID-19 infections, with confirmed cases approaching 330,000 as of Wednesday afternoon. The World Bank earlier warned that the risk of another surge of infections could keep weighing down economic activity.

"The greatest need for further fiscal support is in India, Indonesia and the Philippines," the report added.

The government has so far allotted 389.2 billion for COVID-19 response. This is followed by the passage of the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act which releases 140 billion in subsidies and credit lines to ailing industries, particularly for small businesses.

The economic team has rejected Congress proposals for stimulus measures worth more than 1 trillion, with Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III citing the need for fiscal prudence to maintain the country's debt level and credit rating steady.

The Moody's unit said Asia Pacific is leading the global recovery from the coronavirus and the subsequent economic downturn as most nations have been able to control the spread of infections. However, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia "continue to struggle," noting that quarantine rules remain in Metro Manila, the country's main business hub and original hotspot.

The ability to win back foreign investors relies heavily on managing the local outbreak, Moody's Analytics chief APAC economist Steven Cochrane said.

"As industries seek locations to complement production in China or expand supply chains, they will not only be seeking locations with affordable labor markets, good transport and power infrastructure, and stable economic and geopolitical conditions," Cochrane said.

"They will also be seeking places where policymakers have proven their ability to react quickly and effectively to unforeseen events such as COVID-19. Many, but not all, of Asias economies have illustrated this capability," he added.

READ: Duterte to meet full Cabinet to discuss ways to further open the economy

Global trade and factory output have improved since a huge slump earlier this year when lockdowns were rampant, with the think tank noting that the turnaround was faster than during the 2009 global financial crisis.

However, Moody's Analytics warned that a global resurgence of COVID-19 cases, together with the lack of a vaccine beyond mid-2021 pose as risks to the outlook, alongside the possible withdrawal of fiscal support from governments.

READ: Longer, larger COVID-19 impact to dim PH economic prospects  IMF
CreplaceENNE, Wyo.  Two big Rocky Mountain wildfires flared up again Monday as dry, gusty winds blew embers past areas where firefighters had been making progress.

Firefighters at the Mullen Fire on the Wyoming-Colorado line and the Cameron Peak Fire in northern Colorado struggled as winds picked up in the afternoon as expected. Firefighters also battled another blaze near Reno, Nevada.

No more structures were reported lost, however. Over 100 mainly recreational cabins and other structures have burned since the fires began.

The Mullen Fire 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Cheyenne was especially active Monday on its northern flanks, forcing firefighters to fall back and reassess in places, fire operations section chief trainee Deon Steinle said in a news conference.

Areas of concern included Albany, a cabin community of 55 people at a popular access point for Medicine Bow National Forest.

Firefighters are working hard  really hard  to keep things contained. Not a lot of luck this afternoon, Steinle said.

The Mullen Fire also remained active to the south but still contained behind two Colorado state highways. Firefighters last week took advantage of calmer weather to intentionally burn out timber and brush along the highways, creating wider barriers to fire than just the pavement.

A drone flying with an infrared camera has been helping firefighters at night find and put out small spot fires ahead of the main fire.

The almost 240-square-mile (620-square-kilometer) fire was 14% contained, while the nearly 200-square-mile (510-square-kilometer) Cameron Peak Fire 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of Fort Collins, Colorado was 42% contained.

Gusty wind was also putting firefighters on the defensive against the fire burning through the Cache la Poudre River drainage north of and partly inside Rocky Mountain National Park, Cameron Peak Fire operations trainee John Norton-Jensen said in a Monday briefing.

About 25 miles (40 kilometers) of mountainous forest with little human development separated the fires. Firefighters didnt expect the fires to connect but evacuation orders were in place for large areas of Medicine Bow, Routt, and Arapaho and Roosevelt national forests.

The Cameron Peak Fire was first reported Aug. 13, followed by the Mullen Fire on Sept. 17.

The fires were unusually intense for October, when cold temperatures and snow have usually brought fire season to an end.

Also on Monday in Nevada, five aircraft were helping firefighters battle a wildland blaze that forced evacuations in rugged terrain north of Reno.

No structures have been damaged and no injuries reported so far at the brush fire north of Cold Springs near the California-Nevada line.

Authorities say it has burned an estimated 12 square miles (31 square kilometers) since it broke out Sunday evening. Theres still no containment.

About 75 residences were evacuated early Monday in areas along the Petersen mountain range between Columbia Hill and Chuckwagon roads.

An evacuation shelter has been established at the Washoe County Senior Services center north of downtown. An evacuation center for livestock and other large animals has opened nearby at the Livestock Events Center.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Employee Stock Award (stock awards), is a key compensation reward component introduced by many organisations for their employees. The stock award derives its value from the price of underlying instrument (which are shares of the company). Stock awards have many fold long-term benefits like employee retention, motivation, immediate cash conservation for the employer and a sense of ownership and wealth maximisation for the employee.

With the COVID-19 pandemic presenting unprecedented business disruption, stock awards could be an effective tool for motivating and retaining key talent while deferring immediate cash outflow.

While most awards are primarily linked to employee performance and the performance of the company, they can also be linked to tenure of employment, seniority, experience, criticality of the role etc.

Further, as part of the award plan, the employer can consider granting instruments such as equity shares, preference shares, debentures, etc.

Also Read: Dr Reddy's Laboratories allots 14,284 equity shares worth Rs 7.3 crore to employees under ESOP

While designing the plan, it is critical to ensure that the objectives of the company, the projections, and the long-term plans are aligned with the performance metrics of the employees to ensure that there is alignment and clarity. Further, the employer also needs to take cognisance of several regulations that need to be complied with.

The popular stock awards schemes are:

Employee Stock Option Scheme (ESOS) - This is a scheme under which a company grants an employee stock option directly or through a Trust. Here an option is given to an employee which gives him the right to purchase or subscribe at a future date, the shares offered by the company, directly or indirectly, at a pre-determined price.

Employee Stock Purchase Scheme (ESPS) - This is a scheme under which a company offers shares to employees at a discounted rate.

Stock Appreciation Right (SAR) - This is an appreciation in the value of shares (i.e. difference between the market price of shares on exercise/vesting of the SAR and base price defined on the grant date) that may be settled in shares or cash.

While drafting a stock award scheme, it is also necessary to look at regulatory framework that needs to be complied with. In India, one needs to abide by the provisions in the Companies Act, SEBI regulation (if the company is listed), Income-tax Act and the Foreign Exchange Management Act (if awards are to overseas employees).

The Companies Act and the SEBI Regulations provide a broad framework or the design and implementation of the stock option scheme like to whom should the scheme apply to, what approvals are necessary, and how the scheme will be executed.

Also Read: OYO to make every employee a shareholder; offers 'deeply discounted ESOPs'

This is to ensure that the scheme is framed in a manner that is fair and equitable and is not detrimental to the interests of stakeholders, such as employees or shareholders. Illustratively, the promoter and promoter groups are excluded from benefiting from the scheme. An exception to this is the issuance of stock options by eligible start-ups for the first 10 years subject to conditions being met.

For unlisted companies, as there is no ready market to sell the shares, a trust route provides a good exit mechanism. The SEBI Regulations, which are applicable to listed companies, provide guidelines for executing the scheme through a Trust.

It may be noted that as per SEBI regulations, a trust would be necessary for a listed company that seeks to use secondary acquisition as a settlement of stock options. The SEBI regulations ensure that the trust set-up is used for the objectives of ESOP execution and avoid any abuse.

Along with regulatory considerations, it is also important to note income-tax implications for stock options. Stock options are taxable at two stages. First, the point of taxation is when shares are allotted/transferred to employees under ESOS and second stage of taxation is when the employees sell the shares allotted.

However, some relaxation (i.e. deferral of taxes due on exercise of shares under ESOS) is available to employees of specified start-ups that meet the required conditions such as those recognised by the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

It may be noted that for determination of fair market value for the purposes of perquisite taxation, for listed shares the price quoted on the recognised stock exchange can be used, while for unlisted shares, a valuation by the merchant banker would be necessary.

While we have provided a few highlights of what regulations would apply to a stock plan of an Indian company, it is necessary that when the employer designs and executes a plan, all regulatory aspects are looked at to ensure a smooth and effective reward scheme for the employees which is not marred with disputes.

(Information for the editor for reference purposes only)

(Aarti Raote is Partner with Deloitte India, Jimish Vakharia, is Senior Manager, Reena Poddar, is Manager and Kejal Punamiya, is Tax Senior, with Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP)
Chinas insects and other invertebrates are spoilt for choice with the countrys array of deserts, rainforests, mountains and tropical coastlines. The winning photographs of the Wild China Biodiversity Photography Contest hosted by Wild China Film present the countrys sweeping lands and rare plants from unexpected perspectives. Here is a pick of the crop

Jan 21, 2022 06:20 PM
- Abdullah Mohammed, a young man in Ghana, has revealed he spent 11 years in prison for a minor crime he did not even commit

- According to him, he was only besieged one evening by some men who said, "he is one of them," and simply started beating him

- Abdullah was then sent to the police station and subsequently sentenced to 25 years in prison but spent 11 years behind bars

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A young Ghanaian named Abdullah Mohammed has narrated how he was sentenced to 25 years in prison but ended up spending 11 years behind bars over a crime he did not commit.

Ghanaian narrates how he spent 11 years in jail after wrongly accused of stealing GHc10 Source: YouTube, SV TV

Source: UGC

In an interview with SV TV, Adbullah indicated that the unfortunate ordeal befell him on June 3, 2009, at Aboabo.

Abdullah recounts that he was only 15 years old at the time when he was walking with a young girl who was his age mate around eight o'clock in the evening when he was besieged by a group of men.

After besieging him, the men said, "he is one of them" and beat him mercilessly until the 15-year-old was extremely weak and then sent him to the Zongo Police Station where he was convicted.

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According to him, it took about five days for the CID in charge to come and question him, and even then, he was beaten to confess his crime but he had no idea what he was even supposed to confess.

Following that moment, the gentleman, who was only living with his blind grandmother, was sent to court and jailed, although the judge admitted that he did not have a strong basis to imprison him.

Abdullah Mohammed was sentenced to 25 years in prison but released on parole after 11 years of being in jail.

Meanwhile, TUKO.co.ke reported of a UK-based Kenyan man who was jailed for 15 years for stealing KSh 55 million jewellery.

The man who was to be deported 10 years ago from England was being sentenced following a second robbery he carried out on March 11, 2019.

Victor Okumu, 38, is reported to have been issued with a deportation notice at the end of a 13-year sentence for robbing a woman at gunpoint in her home.

Reports by British Media showed Okumu, however, remained in the country after his release in March 2014 and five years later, carried out another robbery at a jewellery store in North Yorkshire.

According to CCTV footage, he was seen storming the shop wearing a helmet and a blue suit where he then forced the staff to hand over the jewellery.

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.

Heroine ruined my life and put my children at risk - Whitney Wanjiku | Tuko TV

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WASHINGTON - Vulnerable Republicans are increasingly taking careful, but clear, steps to distance themselves from President Donald Trump, one sign of a new wave of GOP anxiety that the presidents crisis-to-crisis reelection bid could bring down Senate candidates across the country.

In key races from Arizona to Texas, Kansas and Maine, Republican senators long afraid of the presidents power to strike back at his critics are starting to break with the president  particularly over his handling of the pandemic  in the final stretch of the election. GOP strategists say the distancing reflects a startling erosion of support over a brutal 10-day stretch for Trump, starting with his seething debate performance when he did not clearly denounce a white supremacist group through his hospitalization with COVID-19 and attempts to downplay the viruss danger.

Even the somewhat subtle moves away from Trump are notable. For years, Republican lawmakers have been loath to criticize the president  and have gone to great lengths to dodge questions  fearful of angering Trump supporters they need to win. But with control of the Senate in the balance, GOP lawmakers appear to be shifting quickly to do whats necessary to save their seats.

The Senate map is looking exceedingly grim, said one major GOP donor, Dan Eberhart.

Republican prospects for holding its 53-47 majority have been darkening for months. But recent upheaval at the White House has accelerated the trend, according to conversations with a half-dozen GOP strategists and campaign advisers, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose internal deliberations.

The strategists noted the decision to rush to fill the Supreme Court vacancy with conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett has not swung voters toward the GOP as hoped. Several noted internal polls suggested Republican-leaning, undecided voters were particularly turned off by the presidents debate performance and his conduct since being diagnosed with the coronavirus. It wasnt clear that these voters would cast a ballot for Democrat Joe Biden, but they might stay home out of what one strategist described as a feeling of Trump fatigue.

Public polling shows Trump trailing Biden nationally but typically by smaller numbers in key battleground states.

I think a lot of Republicans are worried that this is a jailbreak moment, and people who have been sitting on the fence looking for a rationale to stick with the president are instead abandoning the ship, said Rory Cooper, a Republican strategist and frequent Trump critic.

To be sure, Trump has a history of political resilience. Wednesday marked the four year anniversary of the release of the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump boasted of sexually assaulting women. Republicans quickly abandoned him then, and his poll numbers sunk, but he still won weeks later.

Trumps behaviour this week hasnt prompted that sort of GOP rebuke. But Republicans expressed clear frustration with Trumps erratic approach to negotiations on a stimulus bill aimed at mitigating the economic toll of the pandemic. Trump abruptly called off talks, then tried to restart them Wednesday, causing the stock market to plummet and then somewhat recover.

On Monday, as he returned from the hospital, a still-contagious Trump paused for a photo op at the White House, removed his mask and later tweeted that people should not fear the virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans.

I couldnt help but think that sent the wrong signal, said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, whose tight race is among a handful that could cost Republicans control of the Senate. I did not think that it set a good example at all.

Collins began airing an ad this week that urges voters to vote for her no matter who youre voting for for president.

In Arizona, another endangered Republican, Sen. Martha McSally, struggled when asked whether she was proud to serve under the president during her Air Force career.

Im proud that Im fighting for Arizonans on things like cutting your taxes, McSally replied during a debate against Mark Kelly, one of multiple Democrats who have bested their Republican incumbents in fundraising.

Democrats have long considered Maine and Arizona, along with Colorado and North Carolina, top targets in their effort to gain the four seats they need to win Senate control. (Its only three if Biden wins the White House.) But the race for Senate majority has been widening into reliably Republican states, now including Iowa, Alaska, Kansas and Montana. In North Carolina, meanwhile, Democrat Cal Cunninghams recent sexting scandal has complicated his drive against Republican incumbent Thom Tillis.

Even South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, is suddenly scrambling.

Trump won the state by 14 percentage points in 2016. Still, a major Republican political committee aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell began spending nearly $10 million on TV and radio ads this week attacking Grahams Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison.

Donors have not given up on trying to hold the Senate. As Trumps fundraising has plateaued in recent months, it has spiked for Republican outside groups that are supporting House and Senate candidates.

The massive influx of new money for House and Senate committee will enable them to flood competitive races with advertising that embraces conventional Republican themes. (The South Carolina TV ad by the Senate Leadership Fund shows pictures of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and says, Liberal Jaime Harrison is their guy, not ours.)

The intention is to extend a lifeline to candidates who otherwise would have relied on the presidents political operation for support, according to two Republican strategists with direct knowledge of the House and Senate campaign plans.

Still, theres little doubt Republican senators fortunes are linked to the president and his volatile political instincts. In the highly partisan environment, ticket-splitting  voting for one party for president and another for Senate, say  has become increasingly rare. In 2016, Republican Senate candidates lost in every state Trump lost and won where Trump won.

One GOP adviser said most Republican candidates are not running ahead of Trump in polling their states. And when his support drops, their support usually does, too.

Even in red states, Republicans are starting to make clear they arent following Trump when it comes to the pandemic.

Sen. John Cornyn told the Houston Chronicle editorial board on Monday that Trump let his guard down and said his diagnosis should be a reminder to exercise self-discipline.

In another GOP bastion, Republican Senate nominee Roger Marshall borrowed Trumps slogan for a Keep Kansas Great bus tour on Tuesday, but not his health advice.

Of course, I think everyone should respect the virus, said Marshall, a doctor. Im really encouraging everyone to wear a mask when they can, to keep their physical distance, wash their hands, all those types of things.

Marshall was quickly reminded of his partys competing forces. As he spoke, he was briefly interrupted by a woman who appeared to be a opponent of wearing masks, yelling, Stop telling people that!

___

Associated Press writers David Sharp in Portland, Maine, John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix, and Brian Slodysko in Washington contributed to this report.
Closing theaters and performance halls is "a nightmare", especially since the decision was taken overnight, Cristian Sofron, the manager of the Odeon Theater, told AGERPRES on Wednesday.

"It's a nightmare, just as everything that is happening to all of us is a nightmare, and what happens to theaters seems to be even more so. It's mind-boggling to close theaters overnight, it's impossible to open overnight another theaters. I am almost speechless, there are almost incomprehensible things," Cristian Sofron declared for AGERPRES.

"Nobody knows anything. In fact, no one assumes a responsibility to say clearly: this or that. For example, in what we read in last night's statement, it is quite ambiguous if the activity with the public is stopped, all the activity is halted, the rehearsals also stop ... They let us interpret these things, which is not correct, it is not correct and it is not normal, in my opinion. Nothing is known for sure at this time, we are going to meet and we will see what we're going to do: we stop the rehearsals as well, we only stop the shows, what happens to the other employees in the theaters, nobody actually says anything. They just administer the blow and that's it!" said the manager.

Sofron said that now, after the reopening of the halls in September, the theaters have sold tickets for the next shows, and now they have to explain to the spectators why they need to be refunded.

The prefect of the capital, Gheorghe Cojanu, announced on Tuesday that during the meeting of the Bucharest Municipality Committee for Emergency Situations it was decided that, starting Wednesday, restaurants will be able to serve products indoors only for people who benefit from accommodation in hotels or guest houses. Also, the activity of performance halls and concerts, including theaters and cinemas, will be prohibited.
T he Governments vaccines advisory panel last week set out a priority list of who should be first in line for the Covid vaccine.

This sets 11 categories  with top priority given to care home residents and staff. Those under 50 without known health problems come last. The guidance makes clear the pecking order could change if the first available vaccines were not considered suitable for, or effective in, older adults.

Q: Will the vaccines work in everybody?

Probably not. However, according to Dr Nuria Martinez-Alier, a consultant in childrens infectious disease and immunology at Guys and St Thomas NHS trust, the efficacy of any vaccine  or how well it works  should be at least 50 per cent before it is rolled out.

Speaking to the Standard in a personal capacity, she said: If you go into the doctors and get the vaccine, you have got a one in two chance of it working, which is quite good. There is a good chance within 18 months that there will be a first generation vaccine, with hopefully better than 50 per cent efficacy for those at high risk. It would be fantastic if we have a vaccine that prevents infection and therefore interrupts transmission. If the first generation vaccine doesnt give sterile immunity, as its called, but can attenuate or reduce the disease, that should be good enough. If what you prevent is hospitalisation, then that is very positive.

Its like an orchestra. We might have a conductor and we might have violins and a few drums to start with, but that doesnt really make Beethovens Fifth Symphony. If were aiming for a fantastic system, then we will be waiting for many years. If we can have a vaccine that at least starts playing a tune, then that is a good start.

Dr Nuria Martinez-Alier / NIGEL HOWARD A

The Government has six vaccine candidates in its portfolio being worked on, including the one produced by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

Q: Is there good scientific evidence for prioritising the elderly?

Yes, old age is the single most important risk factor for severe disease in this pandemic. Its true that currently in the UK, and in many countries, where the elderly and at-risk population is effectively shielding, the virus is transmitted among the younger circulating pool of the population  particularly those who are mingling more, the 18-25 year-olds or teenagers struggling not to meet their friends.

But we do not have it as a fact yet that they are the lead transmitters within the Covid pandemic. For other diseases, for example pneumococcal disease, when we first introduced pneumococcal vaccine, and we immunised infants, that had a significant impact reducing disease in the elderly population.

So, for pneumococcal vaccine, knowing that it was infants and toddlers that are at high risk of severe disease and were the main transmitters of infection, it makes sense to first vaccinate that age group.

We target flu vaccination to the under-fives and to the over 65s and high-risk groups. If resources were infinite and vaccine uptake were enthusiastic, it may be that we should vaccinate the whole population against flu.

Recommendations are driven by science, and in part a question of resources while keeping the population on board with what the purpose of vaccination is, while at the same time targeting the highest risk group.

Q: Why not vaccinate the entire population, from all infectious diseases?

It may that, within our lifetime, we will have a regime of cradle to grave vaccination, where everybody is vaccinated at several time-points to keep the population healthy, Dr Martinez-Alier said.

There is a good chance of a first generation vaccine within 18 months, Dr Nuria Martinez-Alier said / PA

For somebody who has seen the terrible effects of a lack of vaccination in Africa, its a terribly attractive proposition  prevention rather than cure.

But in the context of vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy theories and all sorts of anti-vaxx sentiment against the vaccines that we do have, if we start to walk in with the concept of cradle to grave, which means infants all the way to the very elderly, it may backfire.

Q: Is it correct that older people are more at risk from Covid?

In terms of Covid, from age 50 the risk of serious disease rapidly rises, with co-morbidities adding additional risk.

Its a scientific and logistical decision [on who to vaccinate], not so much a political decision.

Q: Is a vaccine worth using if it works in less than 50 per cent of people?

There is a pilot malaria vaccine implementation trial in Africa with a vaccine that has a reported efficacy around 40 per cent. It's the first generation malaria vaccine, the best we have at the moment, despite decades of research.

Much like malaria, the first vaccines we will have in Covid will may not be 95 per cent efficacious. We could be lucky nobody has totally extinguished the glimmer of hope of something amazing.

Q: Are there risks with vaccinating everybody against Covid?

If the first generation vaccines have less than 98% efficacy and do not provide sterile immunity and then in six months or 12 months we have a more efficacious vaccine and then maybe everybody is vaccinated again, and then in three years time we have an even more effective vaccine and everybodys vaccinated again, people would say: Your vaccines dont work. Why do they keep getting us all to get vaccinated again? There is also the huge logistical and financial investment.

Loading....

Q: How hopeful are you of a Covid vaccine being available soon?

Im being cautious. Its not as simple with Covid as preventing infection  its about preventing disease. The triggers for disease, now that we understand the immunology better, are so much more complex than just infection.

On an optimistic note, we have never had as many vaccine platforms as we have.

I think its worth being optimistic, but rolling out the vaccine needs to be managed very carefully. The expectations have to be realistic. If there ever was a chance, this is it, but I think it may be some time still.
The view of Tesla Inc's U.S. vehicle factory in Freemont, California Reuters

Tesla said it caught an employee attempting to sabotage part of its Fremont factory, according to company email obtained by Bloomberg News.

Tesla's acting legal chief told workers the alleged incident affected "a few hours" of factory run time and that the employee had been fired, according to the report.

Earlier this year, the FBI foiled an alleged ransomware attempt by a Russian national who attempted to recruit a worker with a $1 billion bribe.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla said it caught a worker in the act of malicious sabotage at its main Fremont factory, according to company email obtained by Bloomberg News.

"Two weeks ago, our IT and InfoSec teams determined than [sic] an employee had maliciously sabotaged a part of the Factory," Tesla's acting legal chief, Al Prescott, wrote in the email, Bloomberg said. "Their quick actions prevented further damage and production was running smoothly again a few hours later."

Tesla alleged in the email that the unnamed worker was eventually caught trying to cover his tracks and admitted his scheme to company investigators, according to the report. Prescott wrote in the email that the worker had been fired as a result of the investigation, according to Bloomberg.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment about the alleged incident. It's not clear if the company flagged the incident to law enforcement. At press time, a spokesperson for the Fremont Police Department could not confirm that law enforcement was called to the scene. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's San Francisco office did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.

In August, Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla was the target of a foiled Russian ransomware attack. Russian national Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov was accused by US officials of recruiting a Tesla worker to infect the company's computer systems for a $1 million bribe. He was later arrested as he attempted to leave the country, according to officials.

Story continues

"We place tremendous trust in our employees and value everyone's contribution," Prescott's Tuesday email continued, according to Bloomberg. "However, whatever the personal motivations of the attacker were, these are crimes, violations of our code of conduct, and are unfair to other employees. We will take aggressive action to defend the company and our people."

Read the original article on Business Insider
OTTAWA (dpa-AFX) - Accenture plc (ACN) said Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire Avenai, an Ottawa-based provider of consulting and technology services. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Accenture noted that Avenai has a significant focus on the public sector market and acquisition will enhance Accenture's capacity to drive the technology transformation taking place across the public sector in Canada. Since its establishment in 2012, Avenai has built a strong reputation with government and commercial clients in the Ottawa and Toronto regions, growing from four to more than 70 employees. Avenai supports key aspects of business change, including strategy development, process improvement, IT-enabled business transformation, and organization culture transformation. 'COVID-19 is leading many Canadian organizations to accelerate their technology transformations to ensure they come out ahead in this new reality, and that's why we are adding significantly to our team of experts in Ottawa. We look forward to working with the Avenai team to help our clients transform to meet the challenges of today and the future,' said Jeffrey Russell, president of Accenture in Canada. 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.
Kolkata: In a significant political development ahead of the West Bengal assembly polls in 2021, Lok Sabha lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisis All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is getting support from an influential Muslim cleric in the state, Abbas Siddiqui.

Analysts say the AIMIM and Abbas Siddiqui congruity spells trouble for chief minister Mamata Banerjee as the Muslim vote share, which helped her oust the Left Front in 2011, is inevitably going to be divided.

Both Owaisi and Siddiqui have decided to contest the polls. While Siddiqui is reportedly going to fight on nearly 50 assembly seats, the AIMIM is yet to decide on the number of seats it plans to contest.

Siddiqui is an influential cleric of the Furfura Darbar Sharif located in Jangipara in Hooghly district and his decision to contest the 2021 state elections and extending support to Owaisi is a concern for the ruling Trinamool Congress due to inevitable division in Muslim votes, political observers say.

Siddiqui in some public meetings said he is a fan" of Asaduddin Owaisi. Though he has been critical of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), his decision to contest the assembly polls is likely to help the saffron brigade.

Speaking to the News18, a madrasa teacher close to Siddiqui said, We are in talks with several ground leaders and we have decided to contest the polls in at least 50 seats. It could be more as the final decision is yet to be taken.

On the matter of Asaduddin Owaisi, he said, Yes, we are supporting him and trying to work out some political formula to contest the polls. We have decided to contest because we thought that it is the only way to fight against those who are trying to create a division in our society on the basis of religion.

With a more than 31 per cent vote share, Muslims are undeniably a crucial factor in West Bengal.

They were decisive in continuation of the Left rule till TMC chief Mamata Banerjee came to power in 2011.

Mamata knows well that any significant division in the Muslim vote share  a deciding factor in nearly 90 assembly seats out of the 294 in the state  could jeopardise her Mission 2021.

Abbas Siddiqui is an influential leader among the Muslim community and on many occasions he has openly supported AIMIM. Now, if both of them (Abbas and AIMIM) will contest then our vote share will reduce to insignificance. It is going to be a big headache for us, a senior TMC leader said.

Owaisi sees huge political opportunity in Bengal and since 2011 his party has slowly been working in the areas of the state bordering Bangladesh where the Muslim population is high.

After winning the Kishanganj assembly seat in Bihar for the first time during a bypoll last year, Owaisi paid more attention towards Bengal. Though he is yet to launch AIMIM officially in the state, Owaisi has already engaging with the local youths to spread AIMIMs ideology and the partys stand towards Muslims mainly in Kolkata, North Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Jalpaiguri and Nadia districts.

When contacted, AIMIMs West Bengal head Jamirul Hassan said, We are certainly going to contest the elections in Bengal but the number of seats will be decided only after the Bihar polls. There are some influential Muslim clerics in Bengal who are extending their support to us. We are also in talks with a mainstream political party to contest the polls together in Bengal. We will announce our decision at an appropriate time.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the state witnessed polarised two-way voting. The BJP made a Hindutva push, while the TMC banked on Muslims. Such was the polarisation that even the Matuas, strong supporters of the TMC till then, voted for the BJP for raising the issue of citizenship.

While the schism came as concern for the Trinamool with Hindu votes gravitating towards the BJP, Abbas Siddiqui and AIMIMs plan to contest next years assembly polls could be a boon for the saffron party due to the imminent splintering of Muslim votes.

In 2019, the TMC got 43 per cent votes despite losing 12 seats, which is 5 per cent more, because of Muslim support, as compared to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. In 2014, the TMC got 34 seats, while in 2019 it could secure only 22.

On the other hand, in the 2016 assembly elections, the BJPs vote share was 12 per cent and in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls it went up to 39 per cent, mainly because of Hindus gravitating towards it.

In West Bengal, Kolkata city has a nearly 22 per cent Muslim population while the highest, nearly 67 per cent, is in Murshidabad district. The second and third highest Muslim populations are in Malda (52 per cent) and North Dinajpur (51 per cent).

West Bengal accounts for the second highest Muslim population in India, which is nearly 2.47 crore, or about 27.5 per cent of residents.

In the 2016 assembly polls, the TMC was ahead in nearly 90 minority-dominated assembly segments. In densely Muslim- populated areas, comprising more than 40 per cent of the electorate, the Trinamool was ahead in nearly 60 out of 65 such constituencies.
The Orissa high court on Wednesday asked the state government to open the temples in a graded manner in accordance with the modalities after assessing the Covid-19 situation.

The order of the high court came while disposing of two writ petitions that sought direction to extend financial relief to priests of registered temples for the lockdown period. The petitions were filed by a priest of Dadhibaman Dev temple of Nayagarh district and an organisation of priests of the same district.

Taking a view on the grievances of the petitioners with regard to (providing) financial assistance or ration kits, or in the alternative for the opening of temples, as expeditiously as possible, but not later than eight weeks from the date of copy of this order is produced before the authority, the HC said.

All the temples in Odisha, including Jagannath temple in Puri, are closed since the nationwide lockdown was imposed in March. In the Jagannath temples, more than 450 servitors have tested positive for Covid-19, affecting the temples daily activities.

The court order came on the day many priests and devotees across the state beat gongs, rang bells and blew conches urging the Odisha government to reopen the temples.

The priests of Odisha Mandira Sebayat Sangha began their protest at 9 am for nine minutes demanding that the temples should open soon as their livelihood is at stake.

The livelihoods of temple priests have been hit hard due to closure of temples since March. Most of the priests are going through severe financial constraint. They have no alternative to earn their livelihood. Our families are suffering. We had requested the government but no one addressed our issues. That is why we had to ring bells and blow conches to draw the attention of the government towards our plight, said a member of OMSS.
The difficult position Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian faces in relations with the Kremlin is highlighted by the fighting that broke out on September 27 between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces over Baku's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pashinian told the BBC on October 6 that President Vladimir Putin has vowed in telephone conversations that if Azerbaijani forces attack Armenia, Russia will uphold certain security commitments and aid Yerevan as a military ally in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

Putin concurred a day later, saying in an interview on Russian state television that Russia will continue to fulfill its CSTO obligations toward Armenia.

Putin added he is in constant contact with Pashinian about the conflict and that Armenia has not indicated it is unhappy with the Kremlins actions on the matter.

The Russian president also said a cease-fire must be agreed upon quickly, even if a resolution to the decades-old conflict takes longer.

But the lack of any real action or tough statements from the Kremlin has definitely disappointed many Armenians.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev told Russian state television on October 7 that Baku would return to talks with Armenia when the current fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh is no longer raging.

The Kremlin said Aliyev and Putin had spoken for the first time about the situation the same day.

Russian Objectives

Experts on the South Caucasus say Russia wants to maintain a neutral position as a mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan in order to gain more regional influence.

William Hill, a global fellow of the Kennan Institute, notes that Russia has had close relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan -- exemplified by its weapons sales and energy-sector deals with the countries.

Recently, Moscows relationship has been much closer to Yerevan, as reflected in Armenias membership in the [CSTO] and frequent participation in Russian military exercises in the region, Hill said.

As a CSTO member, Armenia in theory has the right to call on Russia for support should the current conflict threaten its security -- which could force Moscow to choose between its role as ally or mediator, Hill concluded.

Richard Giragosian, director of the Yerevan-based Regional Studies Center (RSC), told RFE/RL that the passivity of Russia in terms of failing to adequately counter Turkish support for Azerbaijan or a failure to more vocally support Armenia has led to "some speculation" about the opportunities Putin sees to maximize Russian power and influence over Armenia in the long term by withholding crucial support at a critical time.

In this context, despite the risk for Russia, this may be an opportunity for garnering even greater power and influence over Armenia and over Azerbaijan regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Giragosian said. Thats because Russia is the top arms provider to all sides in this conflict. But more specifically, Russia may be able to capitalize on the vulnerability of the Armenian government today.

Now into this wartime leadership, Pashinian is emerging Churchillian-style in terms of leadership that is rewarded with even higher levels of popularity..."

Matthew Bryza was the U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan from 2010-12 and served as U.S. co-chair of the OSCEs Minsk Group for Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations. He told RFE/RL that he thinks a key Kremlin objective is to get Russian troops deployed in the area as "peacekeepers."

In my book, Russia has no interest in getting involved militarily in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It wants to be seen as an impartial mediator, said Bryza, who is based in Istanbul and is on the board of a Turkish oil company affiliated with Azerbaijans state-oil firm SOCAR.

At the end of all this, I think what Moscow really wants is to have Azerbaijan agree to peacekeepers -- Russian peacekeepers -- which will give Russia a chance in the years and decades to come to exert much more influence in the entire region, he said.

'Moscow-Orchestrated Uprising'

Bryza also said Moscow doesnt want Pashinian around at all and would like to see him out of power.

He argues that the potential loss of territory under the control of Nagorno-Karabakhs ethnic Armenian, de facto government since a shaky 1994 cease-fire would anger Armenian nationalists and could create an opening for Pashinians rivals to move against him.

I would not be overly surprised to see some sort of an uprising against him, perhaps orchestrated by Moscow, out of all of this, Bryza said. In other words, I think Moscow is playing an even harder version of hard ball than suggested.

Giragosian disagrees, saying that despite the underlying tension and division between Putin and Pashinian, there is little likelihood of any Russian-inspired change of government in Armenia.

There are two significant aspects to Russian objectives in the current situation in the South Caucasus, Giragosian explained. First of all, its an old game of maintaining and, at times, maximizing Russian power and position -- especially over Armenia and Azerbaijan at the same time.

The second element is something new, Giragosian said. Its a Russian response and defensive reaction to Turkeys attempt at pushing out Russia from the region.

One of the driving motivations for the government of President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan of Turkey in its military backing of Azerbaijan has been a desire for Turkey to regain its lost role as the primary military patron for Azerbaijan, he said.

Turkey in many ways is frustrated, having lost the primary role as military partner for Azerbaijan to both Russia, through arms sales, and to Israel -- which is especially aggravating to President Erdogan, Giragosian added. Russia, therefore, is reacting and responding to this Turkish attempt and will fight even harder diplomatically to push back against Turkish encroachment in the region.

Pashinian' s Popular Support

Giragosian rejects the idea of an uprising against Pashinian if Nagorno-Karabakhs ethnic Armenia forces lose territory as a result of the ongoing fighting.

He argues that Pashinians popularity has soared in Armenia since fighting against Azerbaijan's military broke out around Nagorno-Karabakh on September 27.

Even prior to this military offensive, Pashinian had overwhelming popular support, he said. The absence of any viable, credible political alternative and the marginal opposition that is largely discredited has led to overwhelming displays and demonstrations of popularity.

Now into this wartime leadership, Pashinian is emerging Churchillian-style in terms of leadership that is rewarded with even higher levels of popularity, based on national unity and the fact that the Armenian government has been especially prudent and cautious, said Giragosian.

They are not fully engaged in the fighting, he said. The fighting in combat operations is largely limited to Nagorno-Karabakh forces against Azerbaijani attackers. What this means is, whatever happens on the battlefield, it will be mainly to the credit -- or the responsibility of -- the Nagorno-Karabakh forces where Armenia proper is not directly engaged.

[Pashinian] had people in the streets demanding democracy and rooting for him, but he didnt have a political machine. And so, that old political machine is reactive. Its squeezing him now. Theyre still there. And Pashinian is weak.

In fact, the Armenia public has so far been firmly behind Pashinian since his government came to power in May 2018 after mass demonstrations forced the resignation of Prime Minster Serzh Sarkisian.

Sarkisian had previously led Armenia as a close Russian ally in the post-Soviet era while serving two terms as president.

The rapid turn of events in Armenia shook up Russian interests in the region -- with Pashinian seen in Moscow as being more pro-Western than his predecessors.

Nevertheless, Pashinians government has continued to cooperate with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and as a member of the CSTO. Under Pashinians leadership, Yerevan also has continued to allow the Russian Army to operate its 102 Military Base in Armenias second-largest city, Gyumri.

Giragosian said Pashinian has shown a careful geopolitical prudence as prime minister and been careful to recognize the limits with Russia in terms of his foreign policy orientation.

But Bryza argued that Pashinian has done so because he is weak, saying he has never really consolidated his political strength since taking over from the previous pro-Russian leadership.

He had people in the streets demanding democracy and rooting for him, but he didnt have a political machine, Bryza said. And so, that old political machine is reactive. Its squeezing him now. Theyre still there. And Pashinian is weak.

Theyve forced him out of his more conciliatory and pro-Western approach toward a more pro-Russian line -- but also to a hard line with Azerbaijan, Bryza continued. "This is also driven by Armenian nationalists who dont want a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement.

"They want a conflict, and then, to eventually recapture lands that are now in Turkey to re-create a 'greater Armenia.'"

Other analysts say Pashinian also tried to break with a tradition of previous Armenian leaders of doing whatever Russia wants.

Instead, they say he sought to be more of an equal partner with Moscow -- using his support from the Armenian people to protect his policy on Russia and calling for relations with the Kremlin to be more strategic, much more cooperative, and much more brotherly.

In many ways, the emergence of Pashinian as the leader of a more democratic Armenia stands in the face of the Kremlins preference, Giragosian said. Armenias nonviolent victory of people power is an inherent threat to what Russia prefers in the near abroad or its sphere of influence.

This is manifested to a consistent and well-established demonstrable series of moves by Russia to pressure the Armenian government, he said. There is a natural division and divide between Moscow and Yerevan because of the nature of a democratic, more pro-Western Armenia.

Bryza agrees on that point.

If you are Vladimir Putin, Pashinian is everything that you hate or fear -- meaning, hes from outside the system, Bryza said. He came to power in a popular uprising, peaceful street protests, and hes his own person.

These are all Putins greatest fears about his own political survivability in Russia. His great fear is that [Russian opposition leader Aleksei] Navalny and everybody else will launch street protests that could lead to some sort of a revolution. So Pashinian, a priori, is somebody that Putin is never going to trust, or like, or want around.
By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, Oct 6 (Reuters) - A vaccine against COVID-19 may be ready by year-end, the head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for solidarity and political commitment by all leaders to ensure equal distribution of vaccines when they become available.

"We will need vaccines and there is hope that by the end of this year we may have a vaccine. There is hope," Tedros said in final remarks to the WHO's Executive Board, without elaborating.

Nine experimental vaccines are in the pipeline of the WHO's COVAX global vaccine facility that aims to distribute 2 billion doses by the end of 2021.

The two-day board meeting, which examined the global response to the pandemic, heard calls from countries including Germany, Britain and Australia for reforms to strengthen the U.N. agency.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has strongly criticised the WHO's role in the crisis, accusing it of being too close to China and not doing enough to question Beijing's actions late last year when the virus first emerged in Wuhan.

Tedros has dismissed the suggestions and said his agency has kept the world informed.

Three independent panels reviewing WHO performance including its 2005 International Health Regulations - which set guidelines on trade and travel restrictions imposed during health emergencies - gave updates on their work.

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, met for the first time last month.

"We hope to get the real lessons that we can implement and prevent the same thing from happening," Tedros said. "But I would like to assure you that WHO is ready to learn from this and change this organisation.

"During our transformation we promised this, we promised to keep change as a constant," he said, referring to his programme since taking the helm in 2017.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Michael Shields, Alexandra Hudson and Giles Elgood)
BC Web Wise, Indias leading digital marketing company has won the social media mandate for SBI General Insurance Company Limited, one of the premier general insurance companies in India.

As per the mandate, the agency will be focusing on providing a new look to their social media. Additionally, the agency will create content strategies that are highly relatable & engaging to its audience. This will take the digital community for the brand up a notch!

Commenting on the win Chaaya Baradhwaaj, Founder & MD, BC Web Wise said, SBI General Insurance is a very prestigious account for us. We are of course excited, and also to work with Shefali who is a very savvy digital marketer. What we are looking forward to is being able to develop strategic communication that connects with audience at every phase of their journey where social media has a role to play. Essential optimising the full-funnel marketing relevant within social.

Shefali Khalsa  Head Brand, Corporate Communications and Online Sales of SBI General Insurance Company said, We are glad to onboard BC Web Wise to manage the social media strategy. With the strong domain of digital marketing, BC Web Wise will bring-in newer approach and innovations to elevate SBI Generals social media presence.

Further Khalsa added, In todays extra-ordinary times, digital space has become very important platform for brands, to capture audience attention. Funneling to which, social media has become the face that reflects a brands persona.
Two days after six Richmond-area post offices reported tampered mailboxes, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service is offering a reward up to $10,000 for anyone who can provide information or evidence about Mondays events.

An additional post office, Genito Station, located on 3530 Post Office Road in Midlothian, reported on Monday that its outside mailboxes were compromised, said Michael Romano, a U.S. Postal Service inspector.

When the reported thefts came in Monday morning, it marked the third week of early voting for the upcoming presidential election, including mail-in absentee ballots. It still is unclear if any election mail was in the mailboxes.

Virginia voters have until Friday, Oct. 23 at 5 p.m. to request an absentee ballot. All absentee ballots submitted by mail must be postmarked by Election Day, Nov. 3, and received by noon on Nov. 6 to be counted.

A criminal investigation is ongoing. Mail theft, while typically uncommon, is a federal felony punishable by up to five years in prison per count of theft, Romano has said.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A father accused of fatally shooting his 34-year-old son with a shotgun told authorities that he and his wife felt threatened, court records show.

Joseph Smith, 68, was arraigned Friday in Richmond County Criminal Court on charges of second-degree murder and possession of ammunition in connection with the Sept. 27 incident. A judge ordered he be remanded without bail.

Following the shooting, Smith told members of law enforcement that his son, also named Joseph Smith, showed up to his Beverly Road home in Grasmere and threatened him and his wife, court records show.

Smith allegedly told police that he thought his guns safety was on and that he accidentally shot his son, court records show. Smith said he no longer had a license for the gun, according to the criminal complaint.

Police responded to the home around 12:30 p.m. The younger Smith was transported to Staten Island University Hospital in Ocean Breeze where he was later pronounced dead. Authorities indicated a second son, 32, also was at the home when the shooting occurred.

Smith was taken into custody without incident. Prior to being arraigned, he spent several days at a nearby hospital for unknown reasons.

Police executed a search warrant at the home and recovered several rounds of ammunition, including a box of shotgun shells on a bedroom dresser, two boxes of shotgun ammunition on the floor next to a night stand and single shell on a desk, the criminal complaint alleges.

An attorney representing Smith did not return a request for comment Monday.
The Russian troll farm central to Moscow's 2016 U.S. election interference campaign appears to be behind a new operation targeting U.S. voters on Gab and Parler, social media platforms favored by the far right.

Why it matters: The shift by Russia's Internet Research Agency to more marginal platforms may signal that the techniques and strategies that paid off for Russia in 2016 are seeing declining returns. If Moscow is trying to influence a broad swath of U.S. voters, being relegated to platforms unknown to 99% of Americans simply wont get the job done.

Driving the news: The move to Gab and Parler was documented in a report from social media analytics firm Graphika and an accompanying Reuters investigation late last week. This is Russia's first known use of these platforms.

Details: The fake network described by Graphika revolved around an ostensibly Europe-based website called the Newsroom for American and European Based Citizens (NAEBC).

NAEBCs stated purpose was to provide news and commentary about Europe and North America from a conservative perspective, but the vast majority of its content was U.S.-oriented and "focused on racial tensions and violence and always presented minorities and liberals in a negative light," says Graphika.

Stymied by more robust enforcement regarding disinformation operations on mainstream platforms, the IRA operators sought to build profiles and followings on alternative platforms favored by the far right, such as Gab and Parler.

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have all taken down NAEBC-linked content on their site, while Gab and Parler have not.

Of note: To create believable identities for the fake editors and writers for the site, the Russian intelligence operatives created LinkedIn and other social media profiles and used AI-generated fake profile photos, employing technology known as Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN), a technique that has become increasingly popular among information operations since 2019.

By the numbers: The disinformation operation, which went public in June, failed to take hold in any meaningful way on mainstream platforms. For example, by the time its main account was removed from Twitter in late September, it had fewer than 200 followers.

Though still relatively small, its greatest success was on the far-right platforms: By late September, accounts associated with NAEBC had 14,000 followers on Parler and 3,000 on Gab.

The intrigue: Investigators believe that the IRA operation that created NAEBC was also responsible for the fake Peace Data website and organization, which focused on left-wing voters and engaged in anti-Biden messaging.

As in 2016, the Russians' 2020 strategy seems to be in increasing societal tensions through targeting both ends of the political spectrum with divisive and hyper-partisan content, says Graphika.

The Peace Data network involved 13 Facebook accounts and two pages, with 14,000 followers for one of these pages, Facebook disclosed in August. But the English-language page only had roughly 200 followers, and the sites had only invested $480 in advertising. Before it was taken down, Peace Datas Twitter account had only 3,000 followers.

Between the lines: The alternative, ideologically driven social networks cropping up on the right have no equivalent on the left. Unless active-measures campaigns manage to infiltrate private left-leaning groups on platforms like WhatsApp, Discord or Telegram, inflaming tensions on the left side of U.S. politics via certain techniques may become increasingly hard to pull off as mainstream platforms get wiser to disinformation.

The bottom line: Focusing on niche platforms could help Russia and other hostile powers further radicalize a small sliver of the American electorate. The IRA's activities on Parler and Gab may augur a turn to a less visible, and more targeted, approach to ratcheting up domestic U.S. tensions.
Two years ago, Helen Branswell wrote for STAT that When Towns Lose Their Newspapers, Disease Detectives are Left Flying Blind. Epidemiologists depend on regional outlets in monitoring outbreaks, Branswell explained, and in 2018, they were concerned about increasing threats to an important resource. Two years after the publication of Branswells article, even more towns have lost their newspapers, and the onslaught of a worldwide pandemic casts the essential role of disease surveillance into hyper-focused relief. Heres the irony: our society is better positioned to recognize the value of monitoring local journalism for viral warning signsbut the local news ecosystem is more beleaguered than ever. The current pandemics effects on local media could make it even harder for us to detect the next infectious disease outbreak.

Many disease-monitoring resources around the world rely on data from local newsrooms. HealthMap is one such resource, an epidemiological web-crawling tool that monitors emerging infectious diseases across the globe, providing data to healthcare workers, students, researchers, epidemiologists, and governments. Local news is an important source for us, says Autumn Gertz, HealthMaps program coordinator.

As local newsrooms shrink amid a pandemic, the ironic and troubling implications for disease surveillance are difficult to quantify, but easy to observe. David Scales, a clinician and professor of medicine who was a research fellow at HealthMap from 2010 to 2013, explains the role local news can play in tracking disease, noting that shoe-leather reporting is a tool for gathering public health data just as it is a journalistic mechanism; it can provide clues for epidemiologists to interpret. Journalists dont necessarily have to connect the dots, Scales says. If a journalist in, say, Fall River, Massachusetts is saying, Weve had a couple of people end up in the hospital because of food poisoning, and then a reporter says that in Providence, Rhode Island, and then another in Newport, Rhode Islandall of a sudden, someone sitting at the State Department of Health in Rhode Island is asking, Why do we have a sudden spike in food poisoning? In 2011, Scales and colleagues studied how decreased news coverage can lead to gaps in disease surveillance, demonstrating a correlation between diminished reporting resourcesbecause of attention to other major outbreaks, for example, or coverage reductions on holidaysand decreased disease alerts. Though the small drop that the researchers measured didnt upset the system, it raises questions about how large a drop the system can sustain.

ProMEDone of the largest resources reporting infectious disease outbreaks in the world, now familiar for its frequent citations in national reporting on COVID-19also depends on journalism. Media reports are one of our best and earliest sources of outbreak information, says Larry Madoff, Editor at ProMED.

Though its difficult to quantify the effect of declining local news coverage on our capacity to monitor infectious disease, its clear that local information is best positioned to prevent outbreaks. A pandemic starts at the local level, Madoff says. The closer you can get to identifying a cluster and outbreak at its origin, the better. The further you get from the local, the bigger an outbreak needs to be before it gets noticed or picked up and the more likely it is to spread.

The implications of local news decline can be both immediate and enduring. When Maia Majumder, a computational epidemiologist, saw CJRs news desert map back in 2018, she warned Helen Branswell of a disaster for infectious disease surveillance. After working with HealthMap for four years, Majumder went on to a post-doctoral research fellowship, then a full-time research and teaching position. Today, her epidemiological work focuses more on the long-term: her team is studying the influence of media on emerging infectious diseases. Over the past months, Majumders team has faced setbacks corresponding to the disappearance of local news archives and entire newsrooms. Sometimes, when you try to click on the link that you saved a couple of months ago, it doesnt exist, Majumder says. This creates a lot of problems for historical analysis and longitudinal studies.

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The pandemic begets a troubling cycle: a worldwide disease outbreak has hurt local newsroomsthe same local newsrooms that will provide an important line of defense in predicting, preventing, and understanding the next outbreak. As regional news outlets weaken and dwindle, so does that first line of epidemiological defense, and were caught in an increasingly murky feedback loop that leaves us more aware of the systems limitationsbut less prepared to address them.

The Journalism Crisis Project aims to train our focus on the present crisis, tallying lost jobs and outlets and fostering a conversation about what comes next. We hope youll join us (click to subscribe).



EXPLORE THE TOW CENTERS COVID-19 CUTBACK TRACKER: Over the past six months, researchers at the Tow Center have collected reports of a wide range of cutbacks amid the pandemic. Now theres an interactive map and searchable database. You can find it here.

CONTRIBUTE TO OUR DATABASE: If youre aware of a newsroom experiencing layoffs, cutbacks, furloughs, print reductions, or any fundamental change as a result of covid-19, let us know by submitting information here. (Personal information will be kept secure by the Tow Center and will not be shared.)

Below, more on recent changes in newsrooms across the world:

JOURNALISM JOBS AND OPPORTUNITIES: MediaGazer has been maintaining a list of media companies that are currently hiring. You can find it here. The Deez Links newsletter, in partnership with Study Hall, offers media classifieds for both job seekers and job providers. The Ida B. Wells Society announced that its micro-loan program for journalists would no longer require recipients to repay their loansyou can apply here and donate here. The Successful Pitches database offers resources for freelancers. The International Journalists Network lists international job opportunities alongside opportunities for funding and further education. And The Lenfest Institute has begun the Lenfest News Philanthropy Network, which offers training and support for news publishers of many sizes and business models.

NOTE: A previous version of this newsletter cited Helen Branswells piece in Scientific American. The piece was originally published in STAT, then later licensed by Scientific American for use.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Lauren Harris is a freelance journalist. She writes CJR's weekly newsletter for the Journalism Crisis Project. Follow her on Twitter @LHarrisWrites.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : Two BJP MPs have approached the Punjab National Bank (PNB) and the IBBI, questioning the role of a resolution professional in Topworth Steels and Power Pvt Ltd process, alleging that he has been committing fraud on the corporate debtor who he represents and creditors whose interest he is supposed to protect while running the process as per the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.

On September 23, BJP MP from Jharkhand's Koderma, Annapurna Devi and Uttar Pradesh's Banda R.K. Singh Patel wrote to authorities concerned, alleging that Sanjay Gupta, who has been appointed as Resolution Professional for Chhattisgarh-based Topworth Steels and Power, has been involved in malpractice and siphoning money from the company.

The two MPs also accused Gupta of introduced his own suppliers and vendors, who are helping him siphon the money and that he is purchasing raw materials at a higher price (up to Rs 500-1,00 per MT) and selling finished goods at a cheaper price to the local market price, thereby causing loss to the firm and in turn, to its creditors.

According to a whistleblower in Topworth Steels and Power, Gupta adopts the measure of an extremely low assignment fee to get selected as Resolution Professional, and after his selection, introduces new suppliers and vendors to work along with existing business partners.

"He (Gupta) only conducts business with the suppliers and vendors who are ready to help him siphon off money and bleed the corporate debtor as he purchases raw materials at a higher price and sells the finished goods at lower price," the whistleblower said.

He said that in his assignment as Resolution Professional at the company, the fee quoted by Gupta was Rs 5.5 lakh which includes remuneration for legal and technical experts, noting that for a company like Topworth Steels and Power, the fee for such a job would vary between Rs 12 to 15 lakh.

He said that Gupta, after being appointed, started replacing auditors and appointing his loyalists as consultants at the company, and even his employee as a legal advisor at Rs 3 lakh per month, in addition to fees for appearance and drafting equivalent to a good counsel.

He further said that the Resolution Professional also changed the cost auditors without any explanation at a very high fee.

Citing the alleged irregularities by Gupta, the whistleblower said that he has instructed for issuing a purchase order of raw material at a higher price.

"The cost of raw material purchased were higher by Rs 300 to Rs 800 per Metric Tonne to the local price. He also sold finished goods at discounts of up to Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,100 per metric tonne on the market price on the basis of immediate cash being paid by the purchaser," he said.

Sharing some of such purchase and sale orders, the whistleblower said that Gupta issued a purchase order on August 6 for 3,000 metric tonne of iron ore pellets, at Rs 7,465 per metric tonne, to Laxmi Steel Industries from Bhilai, whereas the same quality iron ore pellet was available at Rs 7,000 per MT.

Similarly, a purchase order to procure 4,000 MT of South African coal at Rs 6,090 per MT from Raipur-based Animesh Ispat Pvt Ltd was issued on August 11, whereas the same non-coking coal was available in the market at Rs 5,200 per MT on the said date.

The whistleblower also shared 6 more purchase orders between August 12 to August 25, saying that a full transaction audit will unearth more wrongdoings.

He alleged that Gupta's actions have resulted in leading to the ultimate demise of the corporate debtor, thereby defeating the purpose of the IBC code.

The revelations come almost 45 days after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided Resolution Professional in the Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd (BPSL) matter, Mahender Kumar Khandelwal, for allegedly helping the former promoters of the company in "clandestinely" clearing finished goods for which he was paid in cash.

The ED, in a statement on August 20, had said that the BPSL had engaged in clandestine clearances of finished goods from its Odisha plant to its plants at Kolkata and Chandigarh, with goods valued at Rs 700 crore being cleared without payment of applicable taxes and duties and without issuance of any statutory invoice.

".. this practice which was resorted to by the erstwhile management of the company had continued even after initiation of CIRP (company insolvency resolution process) and some irregularities on part of Resolution Professional M.K. Khandelwal were also revealed", it said.

Similarly, the ED on Tuesday said that it arrested Cox and Kings Group's internal auditor Naresh Jain for siphoning and diverting money in the Yes Bank case.

(Anand Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in)
INDIANAPOLIS - A federal appeals court has rejected a lawsuit that aimed to make mail-in ballots available to all Indiana voters for the November election because of the coronavirus pandemic, ruling that the limits included in state law dont violate voters constitutional rights.

The record number of Indiana residents voting by mail this fall were warned to return their ballots in time to meet a noon Election Day deadline to be counted as a judge in a separate lawsuit put an extension she had ordered on hold.

A three-judge panel of 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a judges August ruling that state officials had discretion in how to allow mail voting and that voters not wanting to cast ballots on Election Day could go to early voting sites for nearly a month before then.

The court recognizes the difficulties that might accompany in-person voting during this time, the ruling said. But Indianas absentee-voting laws are not to blame. Its the pandemic, not the State, that might affect Plaintiffs determination to cast a ballot.

Voting rights groups and both political parties have contested election rules in many states, with many lawsuits over expanding access to mail-in voting. More than 200 lawsuits have been filed across the country over voting procedures.

The group Indiana Vote By Mail and several voters concerned about the risks of COVID-19 exposure at polling stations sued elections officials in April, seeking a court order to extend the no-excuse mail-in balloting that Indiana allowed for the spring primary to the general election.

Indianas mail-in voting limits allow people to vote by mail only if they fall into one of several categories, including being 65 or older or being absent from their home counties on Election Day.

The appeals court rejected arguments that the Indiana law wrongly forced residents under 65 to risk their health to vote.

Barbara Tully, the president of Indiana Vote By Mail, criticized the appeals court for endangering voters even as its judges hold hearings remotely.

Yesterdays ruling is the latest in a growing number of federal court decisions in which judges, sitting in the comfort and safety of their own homes, have refused to acknowledge the substantial burdens imposed on voters by the pandemic or require the states to make adjustments in state election laws to alleviate those burdens, Tully said.

In the separate lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker halted implementation Tuesday of an order she issued last week telling state election officials to count mail-in ballots if they are postmarked on or before Nov. 3 and received by voting offices no later than Nov. 13.

Barker wrote that she didnt want to give voters a false sense of security as state officials are asking the federal appeals court to overturn her decision against the noon Election Day deadline for mail-in ballots to arrive at county election offices.

Indiana voters eligible to and desirous of voting by absentee ballot are encouraged to submit their applications well in advance of Indianas October 22, 2020 deadline, and, upon receipt, to promptly complete and return their absentee ballots without delay, Barker wrote.

In a similar Wisconsin lawsuit, a three-judge panel of the same appeals court last week upheld a judges decision ordering a six-day extension for counting absentee ballots, meaning that ballots postmarked on or before Nov. 3 will be counted as long as they are received by Nov. 9. Republicans have asked the full 11-member court to review the ruling.

___

APs Advance Voting guide brings you the facts about voting early, by mail or absentee from each state: https://interactives.ap.org/advance-voting-2020/
Eco Eye

RTE One, 7.30pm

A repeat of Duncan Stewart's show on the plans for flood defences in Cork, and the controversy that has waged about the best way of protecting the city.

Ar Lorg Annie

TG4, 9.30pm

Kevin Magee goes in search of the lost Irish paintings of American artist Rockwell Kent, who spent four months in the Donegal Gaeltacht in 1926. We hear how, in later decades he wanted to return to Ireland, but fell foul of the anti-communist McCarthy hearings in the US.

Grayson Perry's Big American Road Trip

Channel 4, 10pm

The artist reaches the end of his Harley ride through America with a visit to the predominantly white and rural state of Wisconsin. He meets various participants in the country's fractious culture wars, including a group of fellow-motorcycle enthusiasts who call themselves 'Bikers For Trump'.

In Bruges

Film4, 11pm

An impressive Irish effort has Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell playing a pair of hitmen in Martin McDonagh's black comedy set in Belgium.
The Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Ministry of Defense has released a video showing the destroyed Azerbaijan- oil product depot and the Azerbaijani military units fleeing from Jebrail.

Earlier, Shushan Stepanyan, spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense of Armenia, informed that the Artsakh Defense Army had destroyed three Azerbaijani army brigades. "At 06:30 in the morning, after another missile-artillery strike, the remnants of three extremely huge brigades of the adversary fled in panic, leaving 60 more casualties as well as 22 units hit, several dozen functioning equipment on the battlefield. The video is available, "Stepanyan had written on Facebook.
Dinesh Khara took charge as the new Chairman of State Bank of India (SBI), with effect from October 7, 2020, for a three-year term. Prior to his new role, Mr. Khara was serving the bank as Managing Director, Global Banking & Subsidiaries. He succeeds Mr. Rajnish Kumar, who demitted office on October 6, 2020.

Khara has over three and a half decades of rich and diverse experience in all facets of banking such as Retail, Corporate Credit, and International Banking. As Managing Director, Khara was instrumental in successfully executing the merger of SBI with its five Associate Banks and Bhartiya Mahila Bank that made the bank join the league of top 50 banks globally.

"The Central Government, hereby appoints Dinesh Kumar Khara (date of birth: 28.8.1961), Managing Director, State Bank of India as Chairman, State Bank of India for a period of three years with effect from the date of his taking over charge of the post on or after 7.10.2020, or until further orders, whichever is earlier," a notification by the Department of Financial Services said.

Live TV

He has also served SBI Funds Management Pvt. Ltd. (SBIMF) as MD and CEO prior to his appointment as Managing Director at SBI. Under his leadership, SBI MF went on to become the 5th largest Mutual Fund company in India.

Joined as a Probationary Officer in 1984 Mr. Khara has held several key positions at SBI. As Chief General Manager - Bhopal Circle, Mr. Khara managed around 1400 branches and handled deposits and advances portfolio of over Rs 1.5 lakh crores. He has also had a stint in the Overseas Expansion wing of International Banking Group where he worked at SBIs Chicago office and was associated with the overseas acquisition of Indian Ocean International Bank Mauritius (now SBI Mauritius) and PT Bank Indomonex( now SBI Indonesia)

Another crucial position held by him includes General Manager in Associates and Subsidiaries department of SBI Corporate Centre, where Mr. Khara worked closely on operational and strategic issues of various non-banking subsidiaries of SBI.

Mr. Khara holds a Masters in Business Administration and is a post-graduate in Commerce. He is also a Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB).
The head of an international fraternity said the organization has no tolerance for hazing and plans to take its own action against members of a local chapter that has been banned from the University of Connecticut for a pledge event that led to one student hospitalized with alcohol poisoning.

Rob Caudill, executive director for The International Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta, said the organization has only recently been made aware of the details of the investigation.

The incident occurred on Feb. 24 when a student participating in the pledge event was taken to the hospital after reaching four times the legal limit of intoxication, according to a letter obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media summarizing part of that investigation.

The letter stated the fraternity was permanently banned from campus. The organization has until 5 p.m. Wednesday to appeal that decision.

Caudill, who is based in Lexington, Ky., said the fraternity has begun its disciplinary process to take our own action and hold the University of Connecticut Chapter accountable.

The university's decision to permanently expel Phi Gamma Delta is unfortunate, but we're committed to demonstrating that this violation is not indicative of who we are as an organization, Caudill said.

University police and EMS services were not called to the event, UConn spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz said Tuesday. The student with alcohol poisoning was taken for medical treatment by other students, she said.

The UConn letter also states fraternity members tried to interfere with the schools investigation into the incident.

Four of the violations of the student code cited in the letter as reasons for the ban involve lying to investigators, trying to influence someone to abuse the student conduct system or tempting to discourage or retaliate against a person involved in the disciplinary process.

Earlier this year, the university also banned Zeta Beta Tau for an incident that occurred in October 2019 when a student fell from a three-story window at a residence hall in the Northwest complex.

Two UConn students were hospitalized in that incident, one of whom was hurt in the fall, the other was in the room above who needed medical attention, university officials said at the time.

The fraternity was suspended following the incident and was permanently banned in April. The fraternity lost its appeal of that decision, Reitz said.
Toby Antony By

Express News Service

KOCHI: Almost four months after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) launched a probe into the smuggling of gold through the diplomatic channel, the agency has not yet determined that the gold was brought in for financing terrorism activities. When the bail petitions of eight accused persons came up for consideration on Tuesday, the NIA Court in Kochi again sought a clarification from the agency on whether it had evidence that the gold was smuggled for terrorism activities as charged in the FIR.

On Monday, the court, after hearing the counsel of eight accused persons including prime accused Muhammad Shafi, had decided to hear NIA on Tuesday. However, Assistant Solicitor General (ASG) P Vijayakumar who appeared for NIA via Google Meet asked for more time as an advocate in his office turned Covid positive.

He said he could not go through the Case Dairy to prepare arguments and sought time till Friday. However, NIA Court judge P Krishnakumar said he will hear the case at 3pm on Wednesday as the bail petitions were filed around a month back. The NIA submitted the Case Dairy to the court and it was returned after the judge went through the findings made by the agency till now.

The court asked the ASG to clarify on Wednesday whether the agency maintains the charges invoking Sections 16 (punishment for terrorist activities), 17 (funding terrorist activities), and 18 (conspiracy for terrorist activities) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). As asked to the prosecutor on Monday, it has to be clarified whether NIA sticks to its charges against the accused as stated in the FIR. Has NIA found any new case against them by now? the court asked the ASG.

The NIA, in the counter-affidavit filed opposing the bail plea, did not point out whether the smuggled gold was intended to support terrorist activities in the country. Instead, it maintained that gold smuggling will destabilise the economic security of the nation which is also a terrorist activity under Section 15 of UAPA.

The defence counsel pointed out on Monday that the NIA did not specify that proceeds of the smuggled gold were to be used for financing terrorism in India as stated in the FIR registered on July 10. The NIA countered this argument claiming that the accused persons intentionally wanted to destabilise economic security of the nation which itself is an act of terrorism under Section 15 of UAPA.

It is revealed during the investigation that the accused persons had knowledge that their act would threaten the security including economy security and affect the monetary stability of India. They had, in fact, discussed about the prospect of smuggling in large quantities of gold despite this. This clearly shows their intention and motive to destabilise the country, the counter-affidavit stated.

On the other hand, the counsel of a key accused, who demanded anonymity as the case is in a crucial stage, said that all gold smuggling cases affect the economic stability of the nation. After this case was detected in July, around 50kg of gold was seized by the Customs from various airports in Kerala alone. Has NIA registered an FIR in any of those smuggling incidents? he said.
South Africa: President pays tribute to teachers

President Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to South Africas educators for their role in teaching young minds.

The Presidents remarks came during his keynote address at the South African Democratic Teachers Unions (SADTU) virtual 30th anniversary event on Tuesday.

We can all be proud that 30 years later SADTU remains strong, united and cohesive. I cannot overemphasise the importance of organised formations of workers in a country with a history such as ours.

The workers organised by SADTU, our educators, are key to the reconstruction and development of our country, said the President.

Highlighting challenges faced by the education sector, the President assured teachers that government is hard at work to resolve problems in schools with regard to infrastructure, namely - sanitation, water, electricity, proper and safe classrooms, as well as access to adequate learning materials.

In addition, the President urged SADTU to play a decisive role in the development and implementation of a comprehensive strategy to eradicate violence in schools.

We must work together to rid our schools of violence that threatens the safety, not only of learners but also of our educators, he said.

The Presidents address comes just a day after countries around the globe marked World Teachers Day.

President Ramaphosa applauded teachers for their dedication and hard work.

You are true nation-builders, and the work you do is greatly appreciated. Your dedication to the success of our children and the future of our country has been proven time and again, but more so during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the sake of our children and their academic progress, you braved the dangers and risks posed by COVID-19 and returned to the classroom when asked to do so, said the President.

With the country still battling the pandemic, the President assured teachers that government is committed to the safety of all our educators and learners, as well as of all the support staff in our school environment.

We will continue to provide our teachers with personal protective equipment and all the other support that they need to teach successfully and safely

At the same time, I urge you to continue to be vigilant. We must keep ourselves and others safe by continuing to observe the regulations around social distancing and good hygiene protocols at all times, said the President.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-10-07. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
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Linkedin Josa Lukman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7, 2020 14:38 473 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49a5ab1 1 Art & Culture #art,#culture,#profile,#people,#artist,#transgender,#performance,#painting,#Tamarra Free

For artist Tamarra Pertamina, home is where she can find acceptance, wherever in the world that may be; not about a buildings facade or condition.

Only when I am accepted by my neighbors, then I could truly feel like I have a home. I think of my current rented abode as my home because I am in good terms with my neighbors [...] Its different when I lived in a rooming house because it was a mens only place, so I didnt feel at home because I couldnt be myself, she recounts.

Identifying as a transwoman, Tamarra was born in 1989 in Tasikmalaya, West Java, to a traditional Muslim family who enrolled her into a pesantren (Islamic boarding school) at the age of 7.

Struggling with her identity, she found herself in Jakarta at the age of 15, taking on sex work and becoming active in campaigning for transgender rights.

The moniker Tamarra Pertamina, derived from the state-owned oil and gas company, is both a symbol of hope and a reminder for herself.

In a 2018 interview with Hyperallergic, Tamarra said almost every Indonesian needed Pertamina and she hoped she could fulfill the needs of many through her work.

On one hand, Pertamina is the fuel that keeps her fire alive, but that fire can also burn her, so the name serves as a reminder to find her balance in confronting the social issues in her work.

Interestingly, Tamarra identifies as a waria (a portmanteau of wanita and pria  woman and man respectively) instead of the increasingly popular term transpuan (transwoman).

Her reason for this is simple: It is an identity recognized by the state, born during then-Jakarta governor Ali Sadikins term in 1968.

First recognized as wadam (wanita and adam), the term waria replaced it in 1978 due to objections by some religious leaders as well as the then-religious affairs minister of Alamsyah Ratu Prawiranegara, who proposed the new term.

That has become my point of reference when people  or even my friends  say that waria arent accepted by society, then I can proudly state that it is an identity accepted by the state, she told The Jakarta Post by phone after an Instagram Live session hosted by Goethe-Institut Indonesien.

As for acceptance, it is only up to a certain part. Even the president is elected by some 50 percent of adults, so its impossible to be liked and accepted by everyone, especially myself as someone who is considered very different by the public.

Because of the terms history, Tamarra said she was much more comfortable in being referred to as a waria, a much preferred term over transgender jokes like being called TransYogya or TransJakarta.

Symbolic: Tamarra performs the monologue 'Poo poo poo' in 2017 at Kedai Kebun Forum. (Courtesy of Agnes Christina/-)

Tamarras jump into the art world was not because she wanted to create art per se but from a desire to create.

In 2008, Tamarra moved to Yogyakarta to study at Gajah Mada University. However, the tuition fee was high, so she had to find a way to survive. From that point, she found a community of waria who taught her busking, and she also took up sex work.

In 2012, she met a group of artists  Ferial Afiff, Lashita Situmorang and Jimmy Ong  through their Makcik Project, which worked actively with waria across Yogyakarta.

From there, she learned a lot about the arts, including words she did not understand but thought as cool. By asking questions to established artists, she finally found the desire to create.

She then decided to stop busking and sex work entirely and offered the artists whose numbers she had gathered to clean their homes as a way to get into their studios.

By coming into the studios, she learned and understood how the artists creative and creation process unfolded. From the unused art supplies she gathered, she would learn these processes herself.

That year, Tamarra was also invited to her first public performance as an artist: a performance art piece that she didnt even understand at the time near the Indonesian Arts Institute of Yogyakartas postgraduate building.

During the piece, her performance was a response to several trees that had been cut down by force, which the students were displeased about.

For my first performance, I positioned my body as a tree that is being cut down. Coincidentally, my hair was quite long at the time, and I held a pair of scissors in front of my chest, wrapped my body in barbed wire and requested to be thrown into a burning pile of wood, she recalled.

The people in attendance kept trying to discourage her to do so, but Tamarra noted that she was trying to express her similarity to the trees  cut down by force, like the lives of many waria who did not receive the opportunity to live humanely.

Reflection: The piece is meant to be reflective piece on identity and the artificiality of one's appearance. (Courtesy of Yulian Ardhi/-)

From then on, her work has been exhibited in various venues and exhibitions, including the Jogja Biennale; Shout! in Melbourne, Australia; as well as a sponsorship from the British Council.

With the pandemic still in full swing, Tamarras planned solo exhibition at Rubanah has been put on hold until next year. In the meantime, she is staying in Jakarta to volunteer at mental health, environmental and animal rights nonprofit group Kopi Panas Foundation while still studying at Sanata Dharma through the internet.

The upcoming exhibition centers on home, in this case, her mothers womb. The idea originated from her prior research on the bissu of the Bugis tribe in South Sulawesi.

The Bugis tradition recognizes five distinct genders, in which the bissu embodies both masculine and feminine traits and take on revered roles such as community priests, seen as the intermediary between humans and the gods.

Tamarra said one of the reasons she wanted to return to her mothers womb was to find out whether she would face resistance in there and she wanted her audience to be more involved in the goings-on of the womb as well as encouraging them to reflect.

I first researched about the bissu because of my feelings of disappointment for my partner, who left me after 10 years together. The reason was absurd  just because of a woman  to me, but it may have been a sound reason to him, she said.

The [upcoming] exhibition is my effort in recreating my mothers womb, because I feel the urge to return there. I wonder whats inside there that made me born weird like this. (ste)
Deputy President William Ruto's campaign targeting jobless youth, characterised with generous donations and parading of defectors appears to replay strategies of the Youth for Kanu (YK '92) used to promote the ruling party in 1992.

With President Moi and Kanu's grip on power threatened, young leaders led by Cyrus Jirongo and Mr Ruto, fresh out of university, would also join the group that had massive State resources at its disposal to counter the opposition.

YK '92 promised opportunities for unemployed youth and other marginalised groups and backed this rhetoric with massive resources to counter the growing militancy against Kanu's rule.

Then, as is the case now, the scramble was for the massive numbers of unemployed youth, the workers and small business people in the informal sector -- a group Dr Ruto is courting with the 'hustler' narrative.

"The YK '92 mobilised the youth all over the country, promising a Kanu change from within and opportunities for unemployed youth and other marginalised groups. A lot of resources backed this rhetoric," political analysts Karuti Kanyinga and Murimi Njoka wrote in The Role of Youth in Politics: The Social Praxis of Party Politics Among the Urban Lumpen in Kenya.

It is a strategy that Dr Ruto seems to have embraced, hosting numerous delegations of youth at his Karen home to donate things like car wash machines and promoting their businesses on his various campaign stops across the country, with the promise of better days should he win power.

And the DP's generous donations, particularly during church functions, have infuriated his rivals, who accuse him of attempting to buy his way to the top seat.

YK '92 splashed cash at the grassroots to the extent that the Sh500 note dished out during campaigns for the first multi-party election came to be known as the "Jirongo," after the group's leader.

Moi support

The group zoned Kanu strongholds, mobilised support in opposition areas and capitalised on defections to give the impression more people were trooping to President Moi's corner.

Just like in 1992, Dr Ruto has snatched some leaders previously allied to his rivals including Eliud Owalo, who was Raila Odinga's campaign manager; a long-time ally of Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka, Johnstone Muthama; Dr Boni Kwalwale, who deputised Musalia Mudavadi in Amani National Congress and Omar Hassan.

Admitted into the ranks of YK '92 as a 25-year-old for his shrewdness and impeccable oratory skills, Dr Ruto is drawing from the lessons of this political movement 28 years ago by reenacting its grassroots networks to popularise himself in every corner of the country.

And his skills are paying off, given for so long no politician other than Mr Odinga has been able to pull masses wherever he went.

His recent public appearances in Kisii, Kajiado, Ziwani and Bungoma have attracted massive crowds , thrilled by his message that a hustler also has a chance of becoming the country's chief executive.

Like the YK '92 recruitment drives, his strategy is not only to solidify his hold on his Rift Valley backyard - and keep Mt Kenya in his corner, but to also spread his tentacles to opposition areas, where he is working to gain traction in Nyanza and Western regions.

And just like YK '92 worked to reverse the demonising of then-President Moi by the opposition, the DP's camp is working to counter his unflattering portrayal.

Mr Jirongo refused to comment on the DP's moves, saying the YK '92 is an old story.

Bring more

Political analyst Edward Kisiang'ani believes the new friends the DP is courting will bring more to the movement.

Prof Kisiang'ani, however, sought to differentiate the YK '92 tactics, which he said had no values, from the current hustler movement, which he said resonates with the needs of the common mwananchi.

"The Ruto of 2018 was a very weak and cornered man. But the Ruto of 2020 is very influential and powerful. Right now, he is very different. The Raila of 2017 was very strong, but if you pit him against the new Ruto now, he will be defeated resoundingly," Prof Kisiang'ani argued.

"Whereas Raila severed his ties with Rift Valley in 2013 and has already burned his bridges with Nasa co-principals in Western Kenya, DP Ruto's tactics are giving him inroads to these areas and winning over new friends every day," he reckoned.

However, political analyst Herman Manyora dismissed the numerous defections as window-dressing exercises.

"Ruto's moves are more perceptional, the movement of Owalo to his team will not bring anything to him. It is all about creating a narrative that people are moving to Ruto," explained Mr Manyora. "DP Ruto is trying to send signals and pass the message that he is not a weak man. He is trying to psychologically position himself and prevent his supporters from aligning themselves to other people. His show of might is more for his people than for his political enemies."

He's playing classic Moi tactics.

Whereas Dr Ruto's strategy may be seen to be working, political analyst Mark Bichache believes that the narrative the DP is using is weak and can be deconstructed with relative ease.

Drawing from Ruto's history, he questioned how the DP could call himself a hustler yet he was already absorbed in YK '92 at a very young age and has since been in appointive or elective positions.

"If you look at most of the tribes in Kenya, you see them saying, we eat at so and so, but vote for so and so. He's playing classic Moi tactics, his hustler nation is same to the Moi slogan of siasa mbaya, maisha mbaya.

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"He has borrowed from Moi by trying to use money to buy people and borrowed from Odinga in that he is trying to predict his loss earlier and blaming the deep state for rigging him out. He is simply doing things that have been done before. Eventually they did not ultimately work for these who used them," Mr Bichache said.

Charged climate

The run-up to the 1992 elections was marred by an economy in turmoil, corruption, constant riots, a highly charged political climate and police brutality.

Prof Kanyinga reckoned the downfall of Dr Ruto will be that he is the "most contradictory politician" of the times.

"DP Ruto has been very silent on matters of gender, he was also a big opponent to the current constitution before he got into government yet he is now strongly defending it. Had he been an honest man, he would never have vied in the 2013 polls.

"He cannot convince anyone with his track record. He is simply mobilising and strategising for the short term basis by looking at the most elaborate gaps and seeking how to fill them in the most convincing manner. It is all a short-term strategy to get him to office and it does not have to be a measure of stability," argued Prof Kanyinga.

In an interview in 2016, Prof Macharia Munene remarked: "It (YK-92) is a study case that people should pay attention to but not replicate".
BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - German stocks edged lower on Wednesday after data showed the country's industrial output fell unexpectedly in August, indicating the recovery from the coronavirus recession is likely to be gradual and uneven. Meanwhile, after U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly ended talks on a stimulus bill, investors are now pinning hopes on a major stimulus package after the election. National opinion polls show Biden with a consistent lead on Trump ahead of the Nov 3 Election Day, helping limit the downside to some extent. The benchmark DAX was marginally lower at 12,899 in early trade after rising 0.6 percent in the previous session. TUI AG shares tumbled 5 percent. The travel and tourism company said Birgit Conix, a member of the Executive Board and Chief Financial Officer, will leave the company as of 31 December 2020. Deutsche Telekom dropped half a percent. The German telecommunications company and Telefonica Deutschland have signed a ten-year contingent contract for an early extension of existing cooperation in the fixed network. Luxury car maker BMW edged down 0.3 percent. The company reported that its third-quarter total vehicle sales increased 8.6 percent from last year. Dialog Semiconductor rallied 2.8 percent after saying it expects to report higher than anticipated revenue in its third quarter. In economic releases, German industrial production dropped 0.2 percent on a monthly basis in August, in contrast to a 1.4 percent rise posted in July, data from Destatis revealed. Economists had forecast an increase of 1.5 percent. On a yearly basis, industrial production decreased 9.6 percent following a 10 percent drop in July. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Photo: 2.bp.blogspot.com/

Celebrate B.C. Wine Harvest Month

Even in abnormal times, we can count on fall to be a spectacular time in Okanagan vineyards and orchards.

The grapes are starting to come in for the 2020 vintage, apples are being harvested for the wonderful craft ciders produced in the province, and there is much activity in the vineyards and on the crush pads.

Some grapes are a little behind, but ultimately 2020 is shaping up to be a good vintage.

And heck, a decade or two from now, one wonders what well think when we grab a bottle from the 2020 vintage and say, Wow, remember that year?

I hope well remember it as the year the BC Wine Institute declared October to be B.C. Wine Harvest Month to celebrate all things harvest, and we took a short, safe trip to support the hospitality and local producers  the year we truly drank and ate local.

How can you create a memory youll want to savour years from now?

Option one:

Use the new Wines of BC Explorer website and downloadable app to plan your experiences and local getaway this month.

On the app you'll find curated wine routes, along with a listing of participating B.C. restaurants, retail stores, hotels and the various promotions being offered. Its an easy and user-friendly way to explore, discover and support all that our incredible province offers.

Option two:

Take in a small event. While the large events usually happening in early October for Fall Wine Festival are postponed, there are a number of activities suitable for you and your bubble (do check in advance for last minute changes though).

A few suggestions:

Wines and Bites at Off The Grid Organic Winery, West Kelowna, through Oct. 18

Riesling Vertical Tasting, Township 7, Naramata, Oct. 9-12

Uniquely Canadian Food and Wine Pairing, House of Rose Winery, Kelowna, Oct. 10 and 11

Thirsty Thursdays, The Vibrant Vine, Kelowna, Thursdays to Nov. 26

Be sure to check out the Thanksgiving dine-in or dine-at-home options from Time Winery and Kitchen or BRODO Kitchen in Penticton, Hillside Bistro on the Naramata Bench, or pick up harvest box from your favourite fruit and veggie stand and create your own feast.

Cross your fingers that well have some vibrant weekends for the rest of the month, and we can raise a glass of something bottled in B.C. while enjoying a fall barbecue dinner on the patio, just a few more times.
Planning, Paying for an ADU

Most new homes are built by developers, entire subdivisions at a time. Apartments are also built by pros.

The vast majority of ADUs are created by homeowners..

An ADU may present the ultimate chance for a do-it-yourselfer to build his or her small dream home. More often, homeowners bring in a combination of architects, designers and construction contractors to do the work, much as they would for a home addition or major kitchen remodeling. The local municipalitys planning department can provide guidance on the rules for ADUs and information about what permits, utility connections and fees are involved.

ADUs arent cheap, and they are often the most significant home improvement project a homeowner will undertake.

Although internal ADUs can be built for about $50,000, new detached ADUs often exceed $150,000. Most ADUs are financed through some combination of savings, second mortgages, home equity lines of credit and/or funds from family members (perhaps a relative who ends up living in it).

In some areas, the cost of building an ADU can be recouped after a few years of renting it. If thats the plan, its worth estimating the expenses versus the potential income before undertaking an ADU project.

A few cities, nonprofits and start-ups are experimenting with creative financing options that could put ADUs within reach for more homeowners and their families, as well as prospective renters.
Launch and pricing by Eutelsat S.A. of a 600 million 1.500 per cent Eurobond due 2028 to refinance its bonds due June 2021

Regulatory News:

Not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States, Canada, Australia or Japan. The distribution of this document may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions. Persons into whose possession this document comes are required to inform themselves about and to observe any such restrictions.

Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) (Paris:ETL) today announced the successful issue by Eutelsat S.A., of 8-year senior unsecured bonds (the "Bonds") for a total of 600 million.

Eutelsat has taken advantage of the current competitive market environment to raise long-term financing with an 8-year maturity on attractive terms. The transaction was well received by a diversified investor base, demonstrating the market's confidence in Eutelsat's long-term business model.

The Bonds will be issued at 99.619 per cent and will be redeemed at 100 per cent of their principal amount at maturity. They will have a coupon of 1.500 per cent per annum and will be cleared through Euroclear France, Clearstream and Euroclear. An application will be made for the Bonds to be listed on the Official List, and admitted to trading on the regulated market, of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. The Bonds will mature on 13 October 2028. Delivery and settlement are expected on 13 October 2020.

The Bonds will be used to fully redeem the 500 million principal amount bonds issued in June 2016 at a fixed rate of 1.125 per cent per annum and due June 2021, as well as for general corporate purposes. The net proceeds of the Bonds will be temporarily invested in short-term, low-risk, liquid investments until they are used for their stated purpose.

This transaction allows Eutelsat to extend its debt maturity profile at compelling conditions.

Global Coordinators: MUFG, Credit Agricole CIB

Joint-bookrunners: Helaba, IMI Intesa Sanpaolo, SMBC Nikko

About the Bonds:

Issuer: Eutelsat S.A.

Amount: 600 million

Coupon: 1.500 per cent

Maturity: 13 October 2028

Settlement Date: 13 October 2020

Market: Official List and Regulated Market of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.

About Eutelsat Communications

Founded in 1977, Eutelsat Communications is one of the world's leading satellite operators. With a global fleet of satellites and associated ground infrastructure, Eutelsat enables clients across Video, Data, Government, Fixed and Mobile Broadband markets to communicate effectively to their customers, irrespective of their location. Around 7,000 television channels operated by leading media groups are broadcast by Eutelsat to one billion viewers equipped for DTH reception or connected to terrestrial networks. Headquartered in Paris, with offices and teleports around the globe, Eutelsat assembles 1,000 men and women from 46 countries who are dedicated to delivering the highest quality of service

For more about Eutelsat go to www.eutelsat.com

Prohibition of sales to European Economic Area and United Kingdom retail investors

No action has been undertaken or will be undertaken to make available any Bonds to any retail investor in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom. For the purposes of this provision:

(a) the expression "retail investor" means a person who is one (or more) of the following:

(i) a retail client as defined in point (11) of Article 4(1) of Directive 2014/65/EU (as amended, "MiFID II"); or

(ii) a customer within the meaning of Directive 2016/97/EU, where that customer would not qualify as a professional client as defined in point (10) of Article 4(1) of MiFID II; and

(b) the expression an "offer" includes the communication in any form and by any means of sufficient information on the terms of the offer and the Bonds to be offered so as to enable an investor to decide to purchase or subscribe the bonds.

Consequently no key information document required by Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014 (as amended, the "PRIIPs Regulation") for offering or selling the Bonds or otherwise making them available to retail investors in the EEA has been prepared and therefore offering or selling the Bonds or otherwise making them available to any retail investor in the EEA may be unlawful under the PRIIPs Regulation.

France

The Bonds have only been and will only be offered or sold or cause to be offered or sold, directly or indirectly to and distribution of any offering material relating to the Bonds have been and will be made in France only to qualified investors (investisseurs qualifies) pursuant to the Prospectus Regulation and Article L.411-2 I of the French Code monetaire et financier.

United States of America

Neither this document nor any copy of it may be taken, transmitted or distributed, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States its territories or possessions or to any US person (as defined in Regulation S under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act")). This document does not constitute or form part of any offer or solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for securities in the United States. The Bonds may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act The Bonds have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act and Eutelsat S.A. does not intend to make a public offer of the Bonds in the United States. Any failure to comply with these restrictions may constitute a violation of United States securities law and other applicable laws.

United Kingdom

This document is distributed only to, and is directed only at persons who (i) have professional experience in matters relating to investments falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, as amended (the "Order"), (ii) fall within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) ("high net worth companies, unincorporated associations etc.") of the Order, or (iii) are outside the United Kingdom and to whom it may otherwise lawfully be communicated, (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). Neither this document nor any of its contents must be acted on or relied on by persons who are not relevant persons. Any investment or investment activity to which this document relates is available to relevant persons only and will be engaged in only with relevant persons.

Republic of Italy

The offering of the Bonds has not been registered with the Commissione Nazionale per le Societa e la Borsa pursuant to Italian securities legislation and this document shall not be distributed in the Republic of Italy (Italy) except (i) to qualified investors (investitori qualificati), as defined pursuant to Article 2 of Regulation (EU) No. 1129 of 14 June 2017 (the "PD Regulation") and any applicable provision of Legislative Decree No. 58 of 24 February 1998, as amended (the "Financial Services Act") and/or Italian CONSOB regulations; or in other circumstances which are exempted from the rules on public offerings pursuant to Article 1 of the PD Regulation, Article 34-ter of CONSOB Regulation No. 11971 of 14 May 1999, as amended from time to time, and the applicable Italian laws. The distribution of copies of this document or any other document relating to the Bonds in the Republic of Italy under (i) or (ii) above must (a) be made by an investment firm, bank or financial intermediary permitted to conduct such activities in the Republic of Italy in accordance with the Italian Financial Services Act, CONSOB Regulation No.20307 of 15 February 2018 (as amended from time to time) and Legislative Decree No. 385 of 1 September 1993, as amended (the "Banking Act") and (b) comply with any other applicable laws and regulations or requirement imposed by CONSOB, the Bank of Italy (including the reporting requirements, where applicable, pursuant to Article 129 of the Banking Act and the implementing guidelines of the Bank of Italy, as amended from time to time) and/or any other Italian authority.

This announcement may include projections and other "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Any such projections or statements reflect the current views of Eutelsat Communications or its subsidiaries about future events and financial performance. No assurance can be given that such events or performance will occur as projected or at all and actual results may differ materially from these projections.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005818/en/

Contacts:

Media

Joanna Darlington

Tel.: +33 1 53 98 35 30

jdarlington@eutelsat.com

Investors

Joanna Darlington

Tel.: +33 1 53 98 35 30

jdarlington@eutelsat.com

Cedric Pugni

Tel.: +33 1 53 98 31 54

cpugni@eutelsat.com
Gettysburg: Joe Biden has made an impassioned plea for national unity and bipartisan co-operation in a speech casting the 2020 election as a "battle for the soul of the nation," with the Civil War's most famous battlefield as his backdrop.

"There's no more fitting place than here today in Gettysburg to talk about the cost of division, about how much it has cost America in the past, about how much it is costing us now, and why I believe in this moment we must come together," Biden said to a small, socially distanced crowd. "Today, once again, we are a house divided, but that, my friends, can no longer be. We are facing too many crises. We have too much work to do. We have too bright a future."

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at Gettysburg National Military Park on Tuesday, October 6. Credit:AP

In the speech, Biden sought to place himself above the fray, spending more time discussing universal American values than levelling attacks on President Donald Trump. He layered a presidential tone over his Scranton-bred everyman persona.
2020 has been an exciting year for Takis, with explosive double-digit growth for the brand. Takis kicked off the year with a dynamic campaign featuring a celebrity that lives and breathes intensity  WWE Superstar, John Cena. That intensity and passion for the famous Takis rolled snack has carried through to today with the launch of Takis Hot Nuts, a unique snack featuring double crunch technology that brings Takis signature spicy intensity to each peanut-filled bite. Perfect for on-the-go snacking, fans can enjoy Takis Hot Nuts in three unique varieties:

Fuego  : Takis signature hot chili pepper and lime variety! The heat is on with this fiery, crunchy snack  each bite is like eating fire

 Takis signature hot chili pepper and lime variety! The heat is on with this fiery, crunchy snack  each bite is like eating fire Flare: The perfect savory snack with just a spark of heat, this chili pepper lime variety provides the right amount of spice with every bite

The perfect savory snack with just a spark of heat, this chili pepper lime variety provides the right amount of spice with every bite Smokin' Lime: Smoky chipotle flavoring meets a hint of lime for an intensely tasty snack

"The opportunity to once again disrupt the market of salty snacks by bringing Takis unmatched intensity and flavor to the snack nuts category is something we could not pass up," said Sandra Peregrina, Marketing Manager for Takis snacks. "We know Takis brings excitement through intensity for our fans looking for an explosion of flavor, so we're thrilled that our iconic brand can continue to satisfy snacking needs in an entirely new way."

Takis snacks, best known for Fuego, its hot chili pepper & lime flavored variety, is one of the fastest growing brands in the tortilla snacking category. The brand currently offers six intense options to suit every snacking occasion including: Fuego, Nitro, Crunchy Fajitas, Wild, Guacamole and Blue Heat. Fans looking to face the intensity can challenge themselves to the full-on flavor of each variety by looking for Takis snacks in their favorite store or online.

Takis Hot Nuts are available at retailers nationwide. For more information about Takis, visit https://barcel-usa.com

SOURCE Barcel USA
Swaraj India party president Yogendra Yadav and nearly 100 farmers were taken into preventive custody in Haryanas Sirsa on Wednesday after a group of agriculturists agitating against the Centres new farm laws were evicted by the police from their dharna site on a busy road. Besides Yadav, Haryana Kisan Manch chief Prahalad Singh was also taken into preventive custody and detained, Sirsa DSP Kuldeep Singh said.

Singh said that farmers were holding dharna on a busy highway in Sirsa where the administration had not given them the permission. The farmers had been allowed to hold their dharna on Dussehra grounds and we had asked them to move there and also had given them a choice to go to another site near Deputy Commissioners office. However, they did not agree after which we took them into preventive custody, Singh said.

He said commuters were facing difficulty as the peasants were holding dharna in the middle of a busy road. The farmers were put on buses and other vehicles arranged by the administration and taken to a nearby police station.

Along with protesting farmers, I have been detained from farmers protest site in Sirsa Been taken to Police Thana Sadar, Sirsa, Yadav, who lent support to the peasants agitation against the new farm bills, posted on Twitter. Yadav claimed that the Haryana government is rattled by farmers questions and is bent upon using brutal force to prevent dissent.

I have been detained by Haryana Police for joining a peaceful dharna at Sirsa. Dharna site demolished. About 100 farmers and leaders arrested. Clearly, Haryana govt is rattled by farmers questions, bent upon using brutal force to prevent dissent, Yadav said in another tweet.

He said the farmers fight will only get bigger from here. Police had on Tuesday used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the agitating farmers who tried to cross barricades and proceed towards the residences of Dushyant Chautala and his grand uncle and Power Minister Ranjit Singh Chautala in Sirsa, barely 200 metres away from their protest site. The farmers were seeking resignations of Dushyant, a JJP leader, and Ranjit, an independent legislator, from the Manohar Lal Khatar government over the recently enacted three farm legislations.

While farmers belonging to 17 different organisations were part of the protest held on Tuesday, only a few continued to hold dharna near the residences of the Chautalas a day later. The protest site lies on Sirsa-Barnala highway on the busy Baba Bhumman Shah Chowk.

The farmers said they will carry on with their dharna for an indefinite period and force the Centre to roll back the new farm legislations, which they dubbed anti-farmers. The police or administration cannot suppress the voice of farmers. They may ask us to clear this protest site, but our agitation against the farm legislations will continue and we will not rest the till we force the government to revoke these laws, said a farmer, who was at the protest site.

Sirsa police officials this morning made announcements over loudspeaker asking farmers to clear the protest site. Sirsa Police DSP, Kuldeep Singh told reporters at the protest site that farmers were holding dharna on a busy road where the administration had not given them the permission.

The farmers had been allowed to hold their dharna in Dussehra ground and we asked them to move there he said. The agitating farmers, however, remained adamant after which they were evicted from the site by the police.

Earlier, Haryana Bhartiya Kisan Union chief Gurnam Singh had lamented that while late Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal always fought for farmers, both Ranjit Chautala and Dushyant Chautala were busy enjoying pleasures of power, ignoring farmers interests. Both Dushyant and Ranjit Chautala are bringing disrespect to the name of farmers messiahDevi Lal by misusing his name in the garb of the peasantry, Haryana Kisan Manch president Prahalad Singh said earlier.

Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala and INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala had condemned the use of tear gas shells and water cannons on protesting farmers by the police.
Two-thirds of the active ingredients needed to make generic drugs are manufactured in Asia, a study showed on Wednesday, the latest evidence to underscore Europe's reliance on foreign imports for its medicines.

European governments were rattled at the start of the coronavirus outbreak when India, one of the biggest producers of drug ingredients, banned exports of certain products relevant to the pandemic, prompting concerns about disruptions to supply chains and a shortage of medicines.

Although those fears were largely unfounded, European Union health ministers have vowed to boost local drug production to safeguard against future bottlenecks.

The study by German generics lobby group Pro Generika analysed the global production of 565 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and found 63% of the quality certificates, which grant them suitable for use in medicinal products, were held in Asia, up from around 31% in 2000.

Price pressure and lower regulatory requirements have led to a shift in drug production from Europe to Asia over the past two decades, Pro Generika said.

More than 80% of Asia's certificates are held by manufacturers in India and China where the majority of producers are concentrated in just a few states and provinces, the study found. For more than half of the APIs, there are only a handful of manufacturers worldwide.

Europe holds 31% of API certificates, down from 59% in 2000 with producers mainly in Italy, Germany, Spain, and France focussing on ingredients with low sales volumes that are complex to manufacture.

Spooked by the pandemic, France in June announced plans to bolster domestic production of medicines with President Emmanuel Macron pledging 200 million euros ($236 million) to help domestic research and manufacturing of medicine.

Austria is also investing money to shore up production at an antibiotics plant owned by Swiss drugmaker Novartis's Sandoz division in Tyrol.

Industry players warn bringing production home may be a complicated process, saying higher labor costs and tougher environmental standards make it impossible to compete with Asian suppliers on price.

Merck KgaA Chief Executive Stefan Oschmann told Reuter's drug shortages at the start of the pandemic were minimal and it was "unrealistic" to repatriate large parts of the production chain to Europe.
First Liberty Institute defending church from the City of Duncanvilles attempt to seize church property using eminent domain

Members of Canaan Baptist Church participate in a clothing drive on property owned by the church.

Photo credit: First Liberty Institute. May be republished.

Photo credit: First Liberty Institute. May be republished.

DALLAS, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, First Liberty Institute and Winston & Strawn LLP filed a motion to dismiss the City of Duncanvilles condemnation petition seeking to seize Canaan Baptist Churchs property through eminent domain.



You can read the motion here.

Canaan Baptist Church believes that God gave the Church this property to fulfill its religious mission to minister to and serve the local community, said Keisha Russell, Counsel for First Liberty Institute. The City cannot interfere with the Churchs religious exercise by taking the Churchs property when the City has many other options. The Church is determined to fight the City and win.

Canaan Baptist is a small, Christian church founded in 1969 that ministers to the Duncanville and South Dallas community. The Church owns property in Duncanville on which it will build a new facility. Currently, the Church uses the property to serve the local community by holding, among other events, clothing drives, movie nights, and youth activity days. On August 28, 2020, the City of Duncanville filed a Petition for Condemnation in Dallas County court against the church, pastored by Dr. Jarvis Baker. The City is seeking to acquire the property to build a fire station, public safety facility and/or other related improvements. The City has a fire station across the street from the Churchs property.

First Libertys motion argues that all government actions, including eminent domain proceedings, must comport with Texas laws protecting the free exercise of religion. The motion states, The Churchs acquisition of the Property, its investment in plans to construct a house of worship on the Property, its current use of the Property for religious activities, and its desire to expand its ministry to those within the community from a centrally-located and heavily trafficked location, are unequivocally motivated by its members sincerely held religious beliefs. It continues, Here, the Citys seizure of the Property would meaningfully curtail Canaan Baptists free exercise of religion. If the Property were seized, Canaan Baptists ongoing ministry and other religious activities on its consecrated Property would immediately halt.

Story continues

About First Liberty Institute

First Liberty Institute is a non-profit public interest law firm and the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom for all Americans.

To arrange an interview, contact Lacey McNiel at media@firstliberty.org or by calling 972-941-4453.

Contact: Lacey McNiel, media@firstliberty.org

Direct: 972-941-4453

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9e4641c2-a292-4cc3-8ec4-48ae1e17d58a




Fifty-year-old retired Indian Navy officer Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017. (PTI File)

Islamabad: A Pakistani court was on Tuesday informed that India has failed to appoint a lawyer to represent death-row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav in the case of the review of his death sentence by a military court in this country.

This comes after Pakistan on Thursday once again rejected India's demand that an Indian lawyer or a Queen's counsel should be appointed for Jadhav to ensure a free and fair trial in the case.

Fifty-year-old retired Indian Navy officer Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism in April 2017.

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) had last month set a new deadline for India to appoint a legal representative for Jadhav.

The three-member bench headed by IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah, while hearing the law ministry's request on Tuesday to provide a counsel to Jadhav was informed that India had failed to appoint a lawyer by October 6 as was instructed by the court despite it being conveyed for the second time to do so.

Justice Minallah then asked the Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Khalid Javed Khan to help determine if the court can appoint a legal representative for Jadhav without India's approval and what consequences such a move would have.

He also asked the AGP if the appointment of a lawyer by the court would provide a satisfactory mechanism for an effective implementation of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment in the case.

Later, the court adjourned the hearing in the case till November 9.

In 2017, India approached the ICJ against Pakistan for denial of consular access to Jadhav and challenging the death sentence handed to him by a military court.

The Hague-based ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan must undertake an "effective review and reconsideration" of the conviction and sentence of Jadhav and also to grant consular access to India without further delay.

India has slammed Pakistan for adopting a "farcical" approach in denying available legal remedies to Jadhav against his death sentence in contravention of the ICJ order.

India's Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava last month said the government of Pakistan has not been able to fulfil its obligations on implementation of the ICJ judgment in letter and spirit.

"It has not yet addressed the core issues, which include provision of all documents related to the case, providing unconditional and unimpeded consular access to Kulbhusan Jadhav and appointment of an Indian lawyer or a Queen's counsel to ensure a free and fair trial," he said.

Meanwhile, two eminent lawyers nominated as amicus curiae excused themselves to help the court in the case. Abid Hassan Manto said he was ill, while Makhdoom Ali Khan excused himself from appearing on professional grounds.

But the two lawyers submitted a reply to the court saying that it was a matter of honour for them to be appointed as judicial assistants.
Hundreds of thousands of workers who received unemployment benefits through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program are on the hook to repay some of the money they've received since March.

States including North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio and Texas, among others, are asking for refunds of unemployment payments after determining that they overpaid some workers, local news outlets are reporting.

The Texas Workforce Commission overpaid 185,000 people about $203 million between March 1 and Sept. 15, according to the Dallas Morning News, accounting for less than 1% of benefits paid out. Job Force North Dakota says just 0.48% of benefits were overpayments, KFYR-TV in Bismarck reported.

In Ohio, the Department of Job and Family Services told the Wall Street Journal that up to Aug. 31, about 20% of PUA claimants  108,000 people  had been overpaid.

Workers will likely have no idea that they were overpaid until they receive a notice from the state. State unemployment insurance equations are opaque, and because some workers waited weeks and even months to receive benefits, they might believe a large check simply included all of the backpay they were owed.

States can typically waive repayments of most unemployment insurance. But the PUA program, which was established to extend benefits to gig workers, contractors and others who typically don't qualify for unemployment insurance under the CARES Act, is administered differently than other types of UI, Michele Evermore, senior policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project, tells CNBC Make It. Overpayments will need to be refunded.

"I think it was just an oversight because [the CARES Act] was written in a week or two," Evermore says. Still, "people are going to wake up to a bill for six months of PUA at some point."

Evermore says more states are going to start reviewing the claims they rushed out at the beginning of the pandemic, meaning more people will owe money in the coming weeks.

House Democrats introduced a new version of the HEROES Act in September which would allow states to waive the PUA overpayments. But with President Donald Trump announcing yesterday that stimulus talks are off for now, it is not clear if workers who need to repay the benefit will see any relief any time soon.

There are other reasons workers may be on the hook to repay some of their benefits, though. In Pennsylvania, a computer error on the part of the state's Department of Labor & Industry made "duplicate payments" to about 30,000 benefit recipients, Sarah DeSantis, the department's press secretary, tells CNBC Make It in a statement. To make up the money, it cut checks in half for weeks.

"We apologize to the claimants who received the extra payment and appreciate their understanding as we return their benefit to the accurate amount," says DeSantis.

How much a worker will owe depends on how much they received in benefits. Some states, including North Carolina, are already docking unemployment benefit checks to make up for overpayments, workers tell CNBC Make It.

Check out: Trump says stimulus talks are off 'until after the election.' Economists say that would be a mistake

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Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill during the funeral of Bobby Storey at Milltown Cemetery in west Belfast (Liam McBurney/PA)

Michelle ONeill said she has not yet been interviewed by police over her attendance at the funeral of a senior republican in west Belfast.

Events around the funeral of Bobby Storey are being investigated by the Police Service of Northern Ireland for possible breaches of the coronavirus regulations.

The deputy First Minister was among crowds who gathered for the send-off in June.

The mass gathering on the streets of West Belfast and at Milltown Cemetery, before Mr Storeys remains were transported across the city to Roselawn for cremation, sparked outrage.

There was further hurt expressed by grieving families who were denied entry to Roselawn on the same day that Mr Storeys family were allowed to attend his cremation.

Expand Close (left to right) Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, and Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill arrive at St Agnes Church in west Belfast for the funeral of Bobby Storey (Liam McBurney/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp (left to right) Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, and Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill arrive at St Agnes Church in west Belfast for the funeral of Bobby Storey (Liam McBurney/PA)

Belfast City Council issued an apology to those families.

A total of 24 individuals have received letters inviting them for police interview over the funeral.

Ms ONeill previously confirmed she was among those who received a letter.

While giving evidence to her departments Stormont oversight committee on Wednesday, she was asked by vice chairman Doug Beattie whether she had been interviewed yet.

She responded simply: No.

First Minister Arlene Foster refused to stand alongside Ms ONeill to deliver public health messages after the incident, saying she was waiting for an apology.

Last month Ms ONeill stated she regretted what happened.

On Wednesday, DUP MLA Trevor Clarke put to her that her actions had damaged the public health message over coronavirus, and asked her would she consider issuing a public apology.

Ms ONeill responded saying she and Mrs Foster never stopped working together.

My commitment to the public the whole way through this is unquestionable, she said.

I feel that I have answered this question that you have raised again today, at previous committee meetings, on maybe one, two or three occasions.

I have been before the Assembly chamber, I have spoken to all MLAs queries and questions.

I have said publicly that I regret that the public health message was in any way jeopardised.

So I think what is important is that we focus on where we are today where we are here and now is in a very difficult position, we have increased numbers of people in hospital, increased positive cases and we are going in the wrong direction.

What we have to focus on, all of us in political leadership, is getting us through this next period.
If you really want to honour him, implement his inclusive ideology: SC Bose's grandnephew

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At DMs meets, PM calls for direct, emotional connect between administration and public for good governance

PM Modi to launch 'Jan Andolan' campaign for Covid-19 appropriate behaviour

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Oct 07: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch a 'jan andolan' campaign for COVID appropriate behaviour on Thursday in view of upcoming festivals, winter season and opening up of the economy.

The prime minister will launch the campaign by way of a tweet, a release issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said.

The campaign will be launched with the aim to encourage people's participation (Jan Andolan) and it endeavours to be a low-cost high-intensity campaign with the key message of 'wear mask, follow physical distancing, maintain hand hygiene'.

The campaign will be launched in view of the upcoming festivals and winter season as well as the opening up of the economy, the statement said.

A COVID-19 pledge will be taken by all and a concerted action plan will be implemented by central government ministries, departments, state governments and Union Territories.

The highlights of the campaign include region-specific targeted communication in high case-load districts, simple and easily understandable messages to reach every citizen, dissemination throughout the country using all media platforms, banners and posters at public places involving frontline workers, and targeting beneficiaries of government schemes.

PM Modi greets Putin on his birthday

India and Japan finalise an ambitious agreement on cyber-security|Oneindia News

The campaign also involves putting up of hoardings, wall paintings, electronic display boards in government premises, involvement of local and national influencers to drive home the message, running mobile vans for regular awareness generation, audio messages, pamphlets and brochures for awareness.

It would also involve seeking support of local cable operators for running COVID messages and coordinated media campaign across platforms for effective outreach and impact.

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 21:00 [IST]
It has taken longer than expected, as things do during a pandemic, but Hamilton-based Collective Arts have finally opened their new brewery and taproom at 777 Dundas Street West. Located in the Trinity-Bellwoods neighbourhood, craft beer lovers now have another downtown option for fresh beer in a cool setting.

For now, they are open for retail sales and eventually there will be a full rollout of an eating area and bar. The food service is on hold as they do not want to rush the process. In the meantime, there will be small-batch beers available such as the newly launched and limited-release Origin of Darkness series, which consists of 4 barrel-aged beers using Rye Whiskey and Cognac barrels and flavours such as maple syrup, marshmallows, plums and a vegan-latte inspired brew.

Cider drinkers can enjoy Circling The Sun Apple & Cherry cider along with canned gin products such as Pink Gin & Soda with Raspberry and Bitter Orange. Brewmaster Ryan Morrow is well-known for fruit-flavoured sours as well as IPAs, such as Ransack The Universe, Radio the Mothership and their experimental series Project IPA. They won't confirm what the first Toronto batch brewed will be.

The company is waiting on some final brewing licenses before brewing will begin on-site. Innovation in our beer making is something weve always taken pride in, and this facility will allow Ryan Morrow and his team to truly experiment with small-batch brews, said Co-founder Matt Johnston. Collective Arts Toronto will be the innovation centre for Collective Arts Brewing, creating experimental brews as well as collaboration beers with brewers from around the world.

Youll not only find creativity and inspiration in the brew kettle but also on the brewerys walls. Collective Arts previously commissioned Montreal artist Ola Volo to do some mural work at the Hamilton location and they knew she was the right choice for Toronto due to her unique artistic voice. We love Olas nod to traditional folk art reinterpreted as modern street art, Toni Shelton, Director of Marketing and Communications explained. They are also incorporating her artwork on an upcoming label for gin. Collective Arts is famous for their artist-rendered beer can labels and to date have commissioned over 2,000 pieces of work from artists spanning 40 countries.

The company had been looking for the right site in Toronto and eventually took over an existing brewpub (The Six Brewhouse). Weve always looked to Toronto as another home for us. Were inspired by the vibrant culture and arts community that the city brings; we believe that this location is an ideal spot for us to be, explained Collective Arts co-founder, Bob Russell.

The support of the arts community continues on the interior walls of the taproom with a rotating gallery of emerging artists. At the moment, the work of Toronto graphic artist Blake Stevenson (@jetpacksandrollerskates) is featured.

Supporting local music also plays a large role in Collective Arts mission. Prior to COVID-19 they regularly held concerts at the Hamilton brewery, which theyve now moved online. COVID has made it really difficult for musicians and concert venues to survive, were trying to keep some of that magic alive through online concert streams. Well be doing these once a month (or more) moving forward, Shelton said.

Mackenzie Putici of tour company Eating Through TO says its a great addition to the neighbourhood. He says, This particular stretch of Dundas West is in the middle of a rebirth with chef-driven restaurants, wine bars, and boutique shops taking over the strip. Im certain theyll be one of the highlights.

It is hard to believe that Collective Arts Brewing has been around for only 7 years. They have become a major figure in the Ontario craft beer scene on account of their consistently solid brewing and thriving engagement with their customers. This has allowed them to expand quickly and they now sell their beers to 20 countries in North America, Europe and Asia. They are continuing with plans for their brewery in Brooklyn, N.Y., but things are delayed due to COVID-19. They are estimating the American opening sometime early next year but for now, all focus is on Toronto.
Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

E Palaniswami to be AIADMKs CM candidate for Tamil Nadu assembly election 2021

Tamil Nadu chief minister E Palaniswami will be All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagams (AIADMK) chief ministerial candidate for state elections next year, party leader and deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam said on Wednesday. Read more

Bombay HC grants bail to Rhea Chakraborty, rejects bail plea of her brother Showik in drugs probe

Actor Rhea Chakraborty, arrested in drugs case linked to Sushant Singh Rajputs death case, was granted bail by the Bombay High Court on Wednesday. Her brother Showik Chakrabortys bail plea was rejected. Read more

Occupying public place for protests not acceptable: Supreme Court on petitions on Shaheen Bagh protests

The right to protest in public places is not absolute and public places cannot be occupied indefinitely for such protests, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in a case highlighting the troubles faced by general public due to the road blockade at Shaheen Bagh in south Delhi by protestors who were opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Read more

Fashion brand Givenchys new three-toed sandals and socks are reminding tweeple of Scooby Doo

French luxury brand Givenchy recently launched their Spring Summer 2021 collection. As people have taken to social media to discuss the collection, some have found a rather bizarre comparison to items in the collection. Read more

Suzuki Access 125, Burgman Street updated with Bluetooth enabled digital console

Suzuki Motorcycle India on Wednesday launched the Access 125 and Burgman Street with Bluetooth enabled digital console. Read more

The signs of hope on the coronavirus in India

Hindustan Times National Political Editor, Sunetra Choudhury brings you the top stories you need to know. Sunetra talks about the number of Covid-19 cases in India so far; dip in 7 day daily average. Watch
DAKAR (Reuters) - Armed assailants have killed 25 displaced people in northern Burkina Faso as their convoy tried to make its way home, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Wednesday.

The gunmen, who carried out the attack near the town of Pissila in the Center-North region on the night of Oct. 4, separated the men from the group and shot them. The women and children were let go, UNHCR said in a statement based on survivors' testimony.

"The attack on the (internally displaced people) occurred as they were returning to their homes from Pissila, hoping for an improved security situation there," the U.N. said.

Long an island of calm in a restive region, Burkina Faso has descended into violent chaos since 2018 as Islamist groups sowed ethnic discord and carried out multiple attacks.

This year alone, hundreds of people have been killed in dozens of attacks on civilians. Over 1 million people are displaced, more than one in every 20 inhabitants, the UN says.

(Reporting by Edward McAllister; Editing by Hereward Holland and Alexandra Hudson)
CHICAGO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Performance testing is a form of software testing that makes sure software applications function appropriately under their required workload. It is a type of testing technique conducted to define system performance in terms of stability, reactivity, and sensitivity under a specific workload. Performance Testing is the approach of evaluating the quality and capability of a product. It is a testing technique to define system performance based on speed, stability, and reliability under differing workloads. Performance Testing is also commonly known as Perf Testing.

360Quadrants has published some of the best performance testing software vendors after an extensive vendor analysis that helps business organizations select appropriate Performance Testing Softwareaccording to their requirements. The shortlisted vendors were mapped on a quadrant after extensive analysis and assessment on two broad categories, product maturity and company maturity.

To enable service providers to better know about new growth opportunities and areas of improvement, 360Quadrants also offers an in-depth SWOT analysis.

Performance Testing Software Vendor Evaluation

360Quadrants has evaluated 30+ companies offering performance testing software which were analyzed, of which the top 10 software vendors were shortlisted and mapped on a quadrant based on their overall offerings and the growth strategies adopted and then recognized as Visionary Leaders, Innovators, Dynamic Differentiators, and Emerging Leaders.

Eggplant, UbikLoadPack, RedLine13, NeoLoad, and LoadUI Pro have been recognized as the Visionary Leaders in the performance testing software space. Visionary leaders generally possess extensive product range and strong global presence.

BlazeMeter Performance Testing, Health Stream Learning Center, and Sauce Labs Performance Testing Software have been recognized as Innovators in the performance testing software space. Innovators are known to possess innovative product portfolios and modest business strategies.

Appium has been identified as an emerging player in the performance testing software space. Emerging players are generally growing players who create and market niche products.

AppAchhi has been identified as a Dynamic Differentiatorin the performance testing software space. Dynamic Differentiatorsusually have niche product ranges and very strong business strategies, which helps them in expanding continuously.

360Quadrants Assessment

A team of analysts assesses the top performance testing software providers on various evaluation criteria such as product maturity, company maturity, and key insights from industry experts and clients. Factors included under product maturity are-breadth and depth of product offerings, core features & functions, support services, and mode of deployment. Factors included under company maturity are-regional presence, marketing network, organic growth strategies, industry verticals catered, and in organic growth strategies such as mergers & acquisitions and partnerships & collaborations. Each factor is assigned a particular weightage according to its importance and industry demand. Lastly, the vendor is rated based on the factors submitted, and then an algorithm is processed, which then generates a quadrant.

About 360Quadrants

360Quadrants is the largest marketplace looking to disrupt USD3.7 trillion of technology spend and is the only rating platform for vendors in the technology space. The platform provides users access to unbiased information that helps them make qualified business decisions. The platform facilitates deeper insights using direct engagement with 650+ industry experts and analysts and allows buyers to discuss their requirements with 7,500 vendors. Companies get to win ideal new customers, customize their quadrants, decide key parameters, and position themselves strategically in niche spaces, to be consumed by giants and startups alike. Experts get to grow their brand and increase their thought leadership. The platform targets the building of a social network that links industry experts with companies worldwide.

360Quadrants will also be launching quadrants in fields such as Language Learning Software, Mind Mapping Software, and CRM Software.

Contact:

Mr. Agney Sugla

agney@marketsandmarkets.com

630 Dundee Road, Suite 430

Northbrook, IL 60062

USA: +1-888-600-6441
In a new twist in the probe into Sushant Singh Rajput death, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will summon an eyewitness who claims to have seen Sushant drop Rhea Chakraborty at her apartment on June 13, a day before he died.

Sushant was found dead in his Mumbai apartment on June 14. Three central agencies - CBI, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and Enforcement Directorate are probing the case from three different angles. Rhea was arrested in September over charges of procuring of banned drugs for the late actor.

According to a report in Republic TV, Rheas Prim Rose Apartment neighbour had claimed that she had been informed by an eyewitness that Sushant and Rhea were seen together on June 13. Rheas neighbour mentioned that the witness saw Sushant and Rhea on the evening of June 13, when Sushant had dropped her off around 6-6:30 pm and that Sushant was driving alone and there was no driver.

Quoting the neighbour, the report said: The person told me this in June itself before any of this had gone to CBI or even before Rhea had said anything. The person had said, Oh! he passed away, I had just seen him drop her off on 13th evening. Nothing was known at that time that what else will come up. I have not seen anything and yes, I am Rheas neighbour.

Also read: What Akshaye Khanna said about Vinod Khanna leaving family for Osho: Something must have moved him so deeply inside

After Sushants death, the Mumbai Police began investigating the case. Later in July, the father of the late actor filed a FIR in Patna, accusing Rhea of abetting his suicide, misappropriating his funds and keeping him away from his family. The CBI began looking into the case after a Supreme Court verdict. Meanwhile, the ED and NCB began probing financial irregularities and a drugs angle in the case.

In September, Rhea, her brother Showik and Sushants house help, Samuel Miranda were arrested by NCB for links with drug peddlers. Rhea and Showiks judicial custody, which was to end on Tuesday, has been extended till October 20.

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An aerial view of oil tankers anchored near the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles amid the coronavirus pandemic on April 28, 2020 off the coast of Long Beach, California.

Oil prices fell nearly 2% on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump dashed hopes for another stimulus package to boost the coronavirus-hit economy and after U.S. crude inventories rose in the most recent week.

Brent crude futures were down $1.15, or 2.7%, to $41.51 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled 72 cents, or 1.8% lower at $39.95 per barrel.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Wednesday said he was not optimistic that a comprehensive deal could be reached on further COVID-19 financial aid and that the Trump administration backed a more piecemeal approach.

"Trump pulling out of relief negotiations generates a lot of uncertainty about the economy," said Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodities research at BNP Paribas.

Oil prices were also hit by a slightly larger-than-expected build in U.S. crude inventories. Crude inventories rose by 501,000 barrels in the week to Oct. 2 to 492.9 million barrels, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 294,000-barrel rise.

Both gasoline and distillate inventories fell.

"The inability to coordinate another stimulus package is having a negative impact on demand sentiment, but the data shows that we perhaps have something to be encouraged about," said Tony Headrick, energy market analyst at CHS Hedging.

Energy companies secured offshore platforms and evacuated workers on Tuesday, some for the sixth time this year, as Hurricane Delta threatened U.S. oil output in the Gulf of Mexico.

The storm has shut 29% of offshore oil production in the Gulf, which accounts for 17% of total U.S. crude output.

In Norway, the Lederne labour union said on Tuesday that it will expand oil strike from Oct. 10 unless a wage deal can be reached. Six offshore oil and gas fields shut down on Monday because of the strike, cutting Norway's output capacity by 8%.
A United Airlines pilot and his wife, who also worked for the airline, died in a private plane crash in Telluride, Colorado, on the way back from their honeymoon.

Costas John Sivyllis, 30, who also worked as a flight instructor, had just eloped with wife, Lindsey Vogelaar, 33, on Oct. 1.

The couple was flying home to Orlando in a small Beechcraft Bonanza when they crashed Monday afternoon shortly after taking off from Telluride Airport, the San Miguel County Sheriffs Office told CBS Denver and Orlando's News 6. They were the only two people on board.

They had eloped to Telluride for a small wedding and adventure-filled honeymoon that they were documenting online for friends and families to follow, the sheriffs office told the news outlets in a statement.

United spokesperson Leslie Scott told USA TODAY, the airline is "deeply saddened to learn of this tragedy involving two members of the United Airlines family. We have reached out to their families to offer any assistance and express our heartfelt condolences."

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, and the San Miguel County Sheriffs Office did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: United pilot dies in private plane crash while on honeymoon
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / In highly competitive industries, some aspirants can turn to their networks to help establish their names -- a reality that can be disheartening for those who do not have the connections. And while this is a real problem that people have to contend with, it is also true that success can still be possible for beginners who have nothing but their dedication and passion. Jessilyn Chen, a specialist in NYC luxury properties, is out to prove that humble beginnings can be the seeding ground for future successes.

Born in China, Jessilyn Chen marveled at the ancient structures and decorative buildings heavily featured in Chinese architecture. Her interest in this particular area evolved, and she eventually developed a keen insight into structural details, identifying the actual worth of real estate properties. At fifteen, this industry leader moved to the US and earned a degree in communication design, which further refined her aesthetic ability.

Drawing power from both her personal knowledge and professional background, Jessilyn Chen started a career as a real estate agent at Douglas Elliman, the largest brokerage in the New York Metropolitan area.

It has not been smooth sailing for this multi-awarded agent. She came to New York without knowing anyone and started as an assistant with an $800 per month salary, living in the basement of an apartment in Queens. But she persevered and surmounted every obstacle. And the past five years spent at the powerhouse company not only honed her skills but also exposed her to growth-promoting opportunities. She had the chance to organize significant events with two top real estate development companies-Macklow Properties and Extell-for years. She also had a chance to travel back to Shanghai, China for a real estate showcase and forum back in 2017.

This passion-driven personality, who used to manage the Douglas Elliman's top-producing team, left the said team at the beginning of 2020 and joined 111 Fifth Avenue as an individual agent. 111 Fifth Avenue is the new state of the art downtown office that brings together some of Douglas Elliman's most outstanding agents under one roof. And by becoming part of its impressive roster, Jessilyn Chen will get to further cement her reputation in the industry while she delivers a whole new level of service, experience, and industry knowledge.

In the face of the competitive nature of the real estate sector, Jessilyn Chen managed to amass numerous achievements. She is credited for nearly winning a contract worth $30 million at the 111 West 57th Street building and had the honor of bagging a place among the elites in New York City, ranking 38th out of 50 individual agents during the March to August 2020 period. Considering how COVID-19 has impacted every imaginable commercial space globally, this multifaceted and inspirational icon feels ecstatic about the career milestones under her belt.

Armed with a multi-cultural background and fluency in English and Chinese, it is no wonder why Jessilyn Chen is the go-to agent for many individuals. Known for her ability to deal with local and international clients effectively, she also stands out due to her work ethic, hands-on approach to closing transactions, and refreshing eagerness to help people find their dream homes.

On top of committing to lending clients a hand as they navigate their way through the complex real estate world, this emerging authority is dedicated, as well, to serving as an inspiration to others. Demonstrating the heights one can reach when they step out of their comfort zone and go all-out in chasing their dreams, Jessilyn Chen is an example to follow.

Learn more about Jessilyn Chen by visiting her website and Instagram page.

Company: Douglas Elliman

Phone number: 646.925.0605

Email: jessilyn.chen@elliman.com

Website: jessilynchen.elliman.com

SOURCE: Douglas Elliman

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609527/NYC-Luxury-Properties-Specialist-Jessilyn-Chen-Proves-That-Humble-Beginnings-Can-Lead-to-Success
LONDON and SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital Shadows , the leader in digital risk protection, has today announced the ability to detect exposed access keys. A combination of misconfiguration, inexperience, and laziness means that software developers are exposing access keys at an alarming rate. With threat actors routinely scouring code repositories for leaked keys, security teams need a fast, scalable solution to monitor these sites for their exposed technical assets.

Customers of Digital Shadows will now be able to identify in near real-time where these keys have been exposed. Most leakage is accidental, due to poor security practices  such as sensitive data being committed to public repositories, rather than private ones. SearchLight users will be notified when an access key has been detected on a public code repository or paste site, complete with a risk score for prioritization, source file, and matched assets. This means that remediation is quick and simple: either revoke the credential or tweak the configuration settings.

Russell Bentley, VP of Product at Digital Shadows, comments: "As software development has become increasingly distributed between in-house and outsourced teams it has become increasingly challenging to monitor the exposure of sensitive information. Every day, sensitive technical information like keys and secrets are exposed online to code collaboration platforms. Normally this is accidental, but we have seen evidence that threat actors are scouring public repositories and looking to use it in order to access sensitive data and infiltrate organizations. This new functionality within SearchLight will make it quick and simple to stop attackers in their tracks."

SearchLight's new access key alerting helps organizations monitor for access keys and secret exposure, providing Digital Shadows customers with complete visibility and minimal effort. This includes the ability to:

Identify near real-time who has exposed technical data: Each alert is tailored to an organization and built-in configuration minimizes false positives and increases relevance.

Built-in 'playbooks' enable organizations to learn how to reduce exposure and remediate risks

Comprehensive coverage, for increased visibility: Automated detection of access keys across the broadest set of sources.

Build a clear picture with enriched data: As Shadow Search is built-in to the alert, users can have a succinct view of the historical activity related to that alert, building a richer picture, and helping security teams to make decisions quicker.

ABOUT DIGITAL SHADOWS

Digital Shadows minimizes digital risk by identifying unwanted exposure and protecting against external threats. Organizations can suffer regulatory fines, loss of intellectual property, and reputational damage when digital risk is left unmanaged. Digital Shadows SearchLight helps you minimize these risks by detecting data loss, securing your online brand, and reducing your attack surface. To learn more, visit www.digitalshadows.com .

Dex Polizzi

Lumina Communications

646-741-8358

[email protected]

SOURCE Digital Shadows
At a time, when wearing mask is considered to be one of the most useful ways to keep coronavirus at bay, there have been multiple reported cases of people, who think that this covid safety rule has no efficacy because masks are of little use in the fight against COVID-19.

Shopkeepers especially have to often deal with covidiots, requesting them to wear a mask time and again.

In an attempt to improve the situation, a shop in Thailand has made the utmost use of technology to ensure that every customer is permitted inside its premises only if that person has their masks on.

A viral video on Twitter shows that the shop has automatic doors at the entrance and it is fitted with a face detector, that scans your face for masks and then quickly checks your temperature.

A person is permitted inside if only these two criteria are fulfilled.

ALSO READ: Inside Indias Anti-Mask Movements: Why These People Dont Believe in Masks, Vaccine for Coronavirus

The video was shared by Niall Harbison, a media investor from the UK who lives on Koh Samu. Taking to the social media site, he said, My local shops in Thailand. In 2 seconds scans my temperature and to see if wearing mask. Doors dont open if not. 3 cases in 100+ days here. Removes awkward mask arguments for staff as well."

In another subsequent tweet he said, Thailand (and many Asian countries) have lots of amazing solutions like this. Will share more on Instagram as well to show there is hope ahead. Im here"

My local shops in Thailand. In 2 seconds scans my temperature and to see if wearing mask. Doors dont open if not. 3 cases in 100+ days here. Removes awkward mask arguments for staff as well. pic.twitter.com/4Eac5fMsLR Niall Harbison (@NiallHarbison) October 4, 2020

Thailand (and many Asian countries) have lots of amazing solutions like this. Will share more on Instagram as well to show there is hope ahead. Im here https://t.co/rwBscKD2Dy Niall Harbison (@NiallHarbison) October 4, 2020

The video went viral with many people lauding the wisdom of the shop management in their efforts to implement the strict coronavirus guidelines.

Thats really brilliant but Ive seen people walk into shops here with their masks on only to take them off or put them under their chin .. what happens then ?? Do you know? Are they asked to leave or put masks back on? Loulabell #WearaMask (@lightnessalways) October 4, 2020

My store should be doing this Justin Root-Rizzuto  (@Justabossman12) October 6, 2020

Totally agree with no mask no entry Caroline McInerney (@CaroMcMc72) October 4, 2020

Speaking to LADbible, Niall explained: The technology is really amazing and the respect and culture helps with ensuring people all follow regulations.

He further explained that unlike scenes in the UK, where people believe wearing a mask is an infringement on their rights, in South East Asian countries like Thailand its never questioned.
Bintai Kinden Corporation Berhad (www.bintai.com.my), an investment holding company headquartered in Malaysia will fund the U.S. Clinical Trials for the Ii-Key-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine against COVID-19



NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology has received the upfront licensing fee of $2.625 million

Bintai obtains the exclusive license to distribute the Ii-Key-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines

Bintai receives an option with first right of refusal for distribution in Australia and New Zealand

Bintai will provide 100% funding for U.S. clinical development, manufacturing and commercial registration of Ii-Key- SARS-CoV-2 prophylactic vaccine against COVID-19 in international markets

Price set at $3 per dose for governments and $4.50 on commercial sales

Potential $1 billion in GNBT revenues for vaccine sales in Southeast Asia



MIRAMAR, Fla., Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology (NGIO), a subsidiary of Generex Biotechnology Corporation (www.generex.com) (OTCQB:GNBT) (http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GNBT/quote) is pleased to announce the closing of a Licensing & Distribution Agreement with Bintai Kinden Corporation of Malaysia for the development and commercialization of the Ii-Key-SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus vaccine. Under the terms of the Agreement, Bintai will have an exclusive license to distribute the Ii-Key-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia (pop. 32.4 million), Vietnam (pop. 95.5 million), Indonesia, (pop. 69.4 million) and the Philippines (pop. 106.7 million). Additionally, Bintai has been given an option, with right of first refusal for distribution in Australia (pop. 25.5 million) and New Zealand (pop. 4.8 million) using its extensive connections to secure contracts in the region.

In exchange for the license and distribution exclusivity, Bintai has paid an up-front licensing fee of $2.625 million and has committed to funding 100% of the commercial development costs for the Ii-Key-CoV-2 vaccine including laboratory and pre-clinical work, GMP manufacturing in the U.S., U.S. and global Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III clinical trials, and all clinical and regulatory work required for approval in each of the licensed Australasian countries.

NGIO will earn $3 per dose on sales to governments and $4.50 on commercial sales. Targeting a population of nearly 300 million people, the potential revenues for NGIO exceed $1 billion.

Generex CEO, Joseph Moscato said, With the closing of this Licensing and Distribution Agreement, we have secured the funding to complete the clinical development and regulatory work we need for approval of the Ii-Key- SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Under the terms of the final agreement, we will conduct our Ii-Key-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine clinical trials here in the United States, and the U.S. data will support regulatory filings and commercialization in Southeast Asia that includes nearly 300 million people. The agreement allows NGIO to maintain its full, global intellectual property and manufacturing rights, and provides Bintai with exclusive distribution rights in the region thereby leveraging both companies' strengths for a truly successful partnership that could be worth over $1 billion in licensing and royalty payments to NGIO and Generex, the parent company. Plus, with Bintais connections in Australia and New Zealand, we hope to expand our exclusive distribution agreement in these countries, which will bring additional licensing and royalty fees to NGIO and Generex.

Mr. Moscato continued, I would like to personally thank the Bintai organization for their belief in Generex and commitment to develop a safe, effective, and universal vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 for the benefit of the world. As we prepare to launch the clinical trial program for our Ii-Key-SARS-CoV-2 with a target date in early 2021, we are happy to announce plans to develop our vaccine for the benefit of the pediatric population  adolescents, children and infants  who have been neglected by other vaccine development efforts. Given the demonstrated safety profile of our other Ii-Key vaccines that has been recognized by the FDA, and upon advice from our KOL advisors, we believe that our Ii-Key peptide vaccine technology can fill the unmet medical need and offer a better approach to developing a COVID-19 vaccine that can be safely and confidently used not only in adults, but also in children. Especially on the safety front, we are confident that our highly specific and targeted Ii-Key-SARS-CoV-2 complete vaccine presents a superior alternative to the RNA and DNA vaccines that are delivered through gene therapy vectors and recombinant vaccine products that utilize the entire spike protein, which may elicit off target immune reactions and adverse antibody responses. We are extremely excited to deliver on the promise of our Ii-Key COVID-19 vaccine.

Dr. Jonathan Davis, Chief of Newborn Medicine at Tufts Childrens Hospital and a Professor of Pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston who is leading the scientific and clinical advisory board for NuGenerex said, Once safety is established in adults, it will be important to quickly initiate trials in children and pregnant women. Although children do not become critically ill as frequently as adults, they can still transmit the virus to other children and adults. If we want to fully reopen daycare settings and schools and get parents back to work, immunization of children should be a top priority.

Pregnant women who develop COVID-19 can also become quite ill, deliver prematurely, and/or transmit the virus to their newborn, added Dr. Davis. Since studies have shown this Ii-Key peptide technology to be safe and effective in adults with cancer, there is optimism that it will also be well tolerated in these vulnerable populations.

About Generex Biotechnology Corp.

Generex Biotechnology is an integrated healthcare holding company with end-to-end solutions for patient centric care from rapid diagnosis through delivery of personalized therapies. Generex is building a new kind of healthcare company that extends beyond traditional models providing support to physicians in an MSO network, and ongoing relationships with patients to improve the patient experience and access to optimal care.

About NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology

NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology, a subsidiary of Generex Biotechnology, is a clinical stage oncology company developing immunotherapeutic peptide vaccines for cancer and infectious disease based on the CD4 T-Cell activation platform, Ii-Key. NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology (NGIO) has been spun out of Generex as a separate public company to advance the platform Ii-Key technology, particularly in combination with the immune checkpoint inhibitors for the treatment of cancer. NGIO is currently engaged in a Phase II clinical trial of its lead cancer immunotherapeutic vaccine AE37 in combination with pembrolizumab (Mercks Keytruda) for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer. The company has also turned its Ii-Key technology on infectious disease, responding to the coronavirus pandemic with a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development program.

About Bintai Kinden

With over 40 years of specialist engineering and construction experience, Bintais unique combination of extensive regional experience and local knowledge has made them the regions international contractor of choice. Headquartered in Malaysia, Bintai Kinden has expanded operations regionally throughout South-East Asia, China and the Arabian Gulf region.

As multi-disciplined, building and industrial service engineers and specialists, Bintai works in all the major market sectors, from commercial buildings to industrial complexes, designing, installing and commissioning systems that include the full range of engineering services.

Looking beyond todays frontiers, Bintai Kinden is confident that it has the resources, technical expertise and progressive mindset to consolidate its position globally. The integration of research, management, marketing and sales that transcends organizational borders enables Bintai Kinden to capitalize on synergistic potential and benefits of scale.

References

1Perez et al. Cancer Immunol Immunother (2013) 62: 1599-1608

2Brown et al Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. 22 April 2020.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements



This release and oral statements made from time to time by Generex representatives in respect of the same subject matter may contain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements can be identified by introductory words such as "expects," "plan," "believes," "will," "achieve," "anticipate," "would," "should," "subject to" or words of similar meaning, and by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. Forward-looking statements frequently are used in discussing potential product applications, potential collaborations, product development activities, clinical studies, regulatory submissions and approvals, and similar operating matters. Many factors may cause actual results to differ from forward-looking statements, including inaccurate assumptions and a broad variety of risks and uncertainties, some of which are known and others of which are not. Known risks and uncertainties include those identified from time to time in the reports filed by Generex with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which should be considered together with any forward-looking statement. No forward-looking statement is a guarantee of future results or events, and one should avoid placing undue reliance on such statements. Generex undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Generex claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements that is contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.



Generex Contact:



Generex Biotechnology Corporation

Joseph Moscato

646-599-6222

Todd Falls

1-800-391-6755 Extension 222

investor@generex.com
TEL AVIV - Several incidents were reported last night in two areas populated by Orthodox Jews when police entered to impose limitations and avoid crowds as part of lockdown restrictions.



In the area of Mea Shearim - according to Orthodox website Kikar ha-Shabat - clashes between police and demonstrators lasted for hours. The protesters were trying to stop the shutdown of a synagogue which had remained open despite restrictions to contain the spread of coronavirus. Police sources reported that demonstrators threw at officers objects including stones and dirty diapers. Police arrested a reported 20 people.



Similar episodes were registered last night also in the Jewish settlement of Modiin Illit (West Bank). The officers were surrounded by hundreds of demonstrators who fired fireworks against them. Four officers were wounded.



The rate of coronavirus infections among Orthodox Jews is very high but in several areas religious leaders refuse to cooperate with Israeli health authorities.
BOSTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Jenzabar, Inc., a leading technology innovator in higher education serving the new student, today announced critical enhancements to Jenzabar Financial Aid, a comprehensive automation, packaging, and reporting system that helps institutions to deliver smarter, faster financial aid offerings. Jenzabar's latest release enables greater operational efficiency by allowing group processing, group billing, and group communications. It also features enhanced usability functions like the option to streamline IPEDS reporting and queries across databases. With more sophisticated student support capabilities, such as the flexibility to calculate expected family contributions (EFC) on the fly, financial aid departments can spend more time meeting with students and supporting their institution's enrollment and retention goals.

"The new database query function in Jenzabar Financial Aid will allow for additional ad-hoc reporting and data mining of financial aid and student data," said Diane M Smith, Systems Analyst at Pennsylvania Highlands Community College. "We can join our Jenzabar Financial Aid data with information in our ERP. The new database query function in Jenzabar Financial Aid allows us to have access to the financial aid data which may not be possible with other financial aid systems."

Jenzabar Financial Aid enables higher education institutions to be more agile and responsive in helping students understand their short- and long-term financial options and obligations. With resources stretched thin due to the unpredictable economy and the COVID-19 pandemic, institutions need easy to use, efficient financial aid systems that allow counselors and staff to work directly with students and their families.

"In today's tech-savvy world, students and parents should be able to access and even update financial aid information in real time through user-friendly, mobile platforms. Jenzabar Financial Aid addresses these modern needs while opening the door for students to have more meaningful, impactful discussions with financial aid staff," said Ed Colestock, Financial Aid Product Manager at Jenzabar. "We are excited to unveil these new capabilities within Jenzabar Financial Aid, which were specifically designed to make students' lives and institutional operations easier."

With this upgrade, Jenzabar Financial Aid enables institutions to:

Deliver group billing and anticipated aid . Institutions can bill students in batches and show anticipated aid, which gives students an accurate picture of their financial responsibilities after projected financial aid. Institutions also have the flexibility to choose how this is reflected in student bills.

. Institutions can bill students in batches and show anticipated aid, which gives students an accurate picture of their financial responsibilities after projected financial aid. Institutions also have the flexibility to choose how this is reflected in student bills. Send automated group communications . Jenzabar Financial Aid was enhanced with new usability features including a more uniform scheduling functionality. Additional options within the scheduler can automate packaging, student billing, email notifications, nudges, ISIR imports, and more.

. Jenzabar Financial Aid was enhanced with new usability features including a more uniform scheduling functionality. Additional options within the scheduler can automate packaging, student billing, email notifications, nudges, ISIR imports, and more. Generate alternate EFC . Jenzabar Financial Aid now includes flexibility around entering and managing FAFSA information, state, or institutional application information for financial aid. This allows institutions to manually enter financial information to package for aid so staff can generate an EFC on the fly.

. Jenzabar Financial Aid now includes flexibility around entering and managing FAFSA information, state, or institutional application information for financial aid. This allows institutions to manually enter financial information to package for aid so staff can generate an EFC on the fly. Create IPEDS reports . Jenzabar Financial Aid simplifies and streamlines the complex process of creating an IPEDS report. It ensures accuracy, compliance, and confidence in the reporting while saving time so resources can be spent supporting students.

. Jenzabar Financial Aid simplifies and streamlines the complex process of creating an IPEDS report. It ensures accuracy, compliance, and confidence in the reporting while saving time so resources can be spent supporting students. Simplify database queries. With a new, user-friendly interface, Jenzabar Financial Aid allows users to access database queries, lists, exports, and reports with just a few clicks. Institutions can pull data in any format, allowing data to move between Jenzabar Financial Aid and any ERP or SIS. It also enables users to query across databases.

For more information, visit https://jenzabar.com/product/financial-aid.

About Jenzabar

Created out of a passion for education and a vision for technology, Jenzabar offers disruptive, innovative software solutions and services that empower students' success and help higher education institutions meet the demands of the modern student. Over 1,350 higher educational campuses harness Jenzabar solutions for improved performance across campus and a more personalized and connected experience for the student. For further information, please visit www.jenzabar.com or on Twitter @Jenzabar or LinkedIn.

SOURCE Jenzabar, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.jenzabar.com


The Kyrgyzstan Health Ministry on October 7 came up with a new update saying that the number of people injured in the protest in Kyrgyzstan has now reached 911. Earlier, the Ministry had said that a total of 686 people were injured due to clashes between protesters and law enforcement agents. However, in a statement issued on October 7, the ministry said, According to the latest information available as of 12:30 [06:30 GMT] of October 7, 2020, a total of 911 people (169 over the past 24 hours) sought medical assistance at healthcare facilities. Of them, 705 people were discharged after receiving urgent assistance, and 205 people were hospitalized with different injuries, five of them are in intensive care units. One injured person died. The gathered crowd was protesting over allegations of rigged elections that handed victories to parties close to pro-Russian President Sooronbai Jeenbekov.

Read: Kyrgyzstan Unrest: 686 People Injured In Clashes Between Protestors And Police

(Image Credits: AP)

(Image Credits: AP)

(Image Credits: AP)

Election results nullified

According to reports by local media, a total of 4,000 people took part in the rally in Bishkek. As per reports by AP, the Birimdik party received over 26 per cent of the votes. The Mekenim Kyrgyzstan party won over 24 per cent of the votes. Also, 3 more parties have passed the 7 per cent threshold to gain seats in the parliament. Due to the mass protests, officials in Kyrgyzstan nullified the results of a weekend parliamentary election, reports AP. Central Election Commission head Nurzhan Shaildabekova told the Interfax news agency that the decision to cancel the results of Sundays vote was made in order to prevent tension.

Read: Kyrgyzstan: Widespread Protests Erupt Over Claims Of Rigged Elections

A group of military and law enforcement officials said that they will urge the police and other security officials not to be brutal against people. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reportedly backed the opposition claiming that the Kyrgyz elections were held in a unfair manner by "credible allegations of vote-buying. Klara Sooronkulova, leader of the Reforma opposition party, said We all have witnessed a true lawlessness during the election campaign and the election day yesterday ... Pressure on the voters, intimidation of the voters, bribing.

Read: Putin Supports Kyrgyzstan Leader Ahead Of Election

Also Read: Tear Gas, Water Cannon Used On Bishkek Protesters

(Image Credits: AP)
Rolled back in Libya and Syria, and facing censure in the East Mediterranean, Turkey has turned to the Caucasus to stage a regional show of power

Turkey has intervened so far in Syria, Iraq and Libya, while in the past it also meddled in the interior of other countries supporting terrorist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. Turkey occupies the northern part of Cyprus and has exerted military pressure against Greece, a fellow NATO member, although to no avail. Now Turkey turns its attention to its eastern backyard, in the Caucasus region, where over the last week a frozen conflict has resurfaced.

Since 27 September there is an ongoing military confrontation between Azerbaijan and the self-proclaimed Armenian-speaking Republic of Artsakh. This is the latest dramatic episode in the still unresolved historic Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that entails long-term cultural memories, historical enmities, regional geopolitics and energy concerns. The conflict shows the primacy of state interest over religious affiliations, although patterns of ethnic affiliation and the strategic use of foreign fighters in proxy wars are also visible.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a land-locked breakaway state historically populated by Armenians in the South Caucasus, and internationally recognised as a part of Azerbaijan. This region was claimed in 1918 by the newly founded Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and the First Republic of Armenia after the dissolution of the Russian Empire in 1917.

The Soviet Union regained control in the Caucasus and established the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within the territorial limits of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic in 1923. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the region became the focus of heated dispute and armed violent clashes between Armenians and Azeris. The 1991-1994 hostilities ended with a ceasefire along roughly the current borders, as the better-equipped Armenians gained total control of the enclave and of the surrounding territory linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. The Republic of Artsakh has not been recognised by other states, including Armenia.

Turkey has declared its unequivocal support for Azerbaijan offering all means to reclaim the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory. President Erdogan rushed to declare: I condemn Armenia once again for attacking Azerbaijani lands. Turkey continues to stand with the friendly and brotherly Azerbaijan with all its facilities and heart.

Turkey supplies Azerbaijan with military intelligence, weapons and training, while Turkish military personnel are present in the territory of Azerbaijan. The Turkish policy of using Islamist fighters in proxy wars, as manifested in Syria and in Libya, repeats itself. There are increasing credible reports that Turkey has been transferring Islamist fighters from the parts of Syria it controls to the Nagorno-Karabakh front. These include both experienced fighters and untrained personnel. The reports have appeared in multiple respected newspapers, media networks and have also been verified by independent researchers and journalists.

French President Emmanuel Macron attacked Turkey over its interference in the Caucasus: We now have information which indicates that Syrian fighters from jihadist groups have transitted through Gaziantep (Southeast Turkey) to reach the Nagorno-Karabakh theatre of operations. It is a very serious new fact, which changes the situation. I urge all NATO partners to face up to the behaviour of a NATO member.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged third parties to stay out of the conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region and said he hoped reports of Syrian fighters arriving in Azerbaijan via Turkey were not accurate. The Russian Foreign Ministry claimed that Syrian and Libyan fighters from illegal armed groups were being sent to the region and called on the countries involved to prevent the use of foreign terrorists and mercenaries in the conflict.

So far, Russias stance vis-a-vis the conflict has been rather slow; Russia shares ties with Armenia in the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), the Russian-led Eurasian security network that also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Belarus, while in the past it had also included Azerbaijan for a period.

Armenia has declared that Russia should intervene militarily according to the provisions of the CSTO; still, so far, Russia has avoided any participation thus allowing Turkey to forward its ambitions. Iran is supporting Armenia, as it does not want to see an overextension of Turkish influence in the Caucasus. An upset of the existing equilibrium would create a new front: Turkey and Azerbaijan projecting influence at the expense of Iran using the demographic card, as Iran includes large Azeri populations in its western provinces.

Turkish interference on multiple fronts is receding rapidly both in Libya and in Syria, while in the seas of the Eastern Mediterranean Turkey faced the diplomatic network of Egypt and Greece. Now Turkey attempts to regain some of its lost credibility by meddling in another conflict, this time in the Caucasus, as the countrys economy has entered a downward spiral.

Strategic overextension has failed in the recent past and now Turkey sees the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a prospect for a regional demonstration of power.

*The writer is a lecturer in geopolitics at the University of Athens.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7, 2020 16:47 472 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49ab600 1 National COVID-19-in-Indonesia,Bogor-city,#usesoap,Depok,Bekasi,West-Java,governor,ridwan-kamil,family-cluster,klaster-keluarga,#covid19taskforce,#mothermessage,#wearmask,#keepyourdistance,#washyourhand,#socialdistance,#avoidcrowd Free

West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil has said that at least three regions in the province are facing a spike in family COVID-19 clusters.

Ridwan, who has opened an office in Depok to monitor the governments COVID-19 response, said the pandemic remained in an alarming state because Bogor, Bekasi and particularly Depok were still recording rising confirmed cases.

This is my second week working from Depok, and Ive been closely coordinating with the leaders of Bogor, Depok and Bekasi to make sure that we are all on the same page.

What Ive received so far is that were having a spike in family clusters. For example, out of 200 families [that have confirmed COVID-19 cases] in Bogor, three members, on average, of each family have the virus. A similar situation is occurring in Bekasi, Ridwan said as quoted by kompas.com on Tuesday.

He added that according to the contact tracing performed, the family clusters were connected to office clusters. He said he did not yet have information on the locations of the office clusters.

Were still looking into the matter of whether the source of transmission was from a certain office in Jakarta or from the Bogor residents themselves, who happen to also work in Jakarta, added Ridwan.

As of Tuesday, West Java had recorded 24,910 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 15,128 recoveries and 511 deaths.

Read also: Danger at home: Families urged to avoid gatherings as new clusters emerge

Of the more than 24,000 cases in the province, Depok contributed the most with 5,013. Some 1,416 of the patients are in isolation, 3,454 have recovered and 143 have died.

As of Tuesday, Bogor had recorded 1,413 confirmed cases with 961 recoveries and 52 fatalities, while Bogor regency had seen 2,022 confirmed cases with 1,338 recoveries and 56 deaths.

As of Monday, Bekasi had recorded 1,753 confirmed cases with 1,607 recoveries and 104 fatalities.

On Tuesday, national COVID-19 task force spokesman Wiku Adisasmito said he hoped more people would be willing to opt for individual polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, also known as swab tests, as the government had set a price cap, kompas.com reported.

Experts agree that PCR tests remain the best available method of COVID-19 testing.

Read also: PCR tests remain gold standard, but factors affect results

The government has set a price ceiling of Rp 900,000 (US$60.6) for individually requested swab tests to eliminate price disparities following concerns over the high cost of tests at private laboratories.

The Health Ministry has said that the price ceiling will be evaluated periodically.

Prior to the policy, the national COVID-19 task force said several hospitals were charging more than Rp 2.5 million for a single swab test. (nkn)

Editors note: The following is part a campaign by the governments COVID-19 task force to raise public awareness about the pandemic.
According to The Bombay High Court ruling rejecting the bail plea, there was a feeling amongst the judiciary that Showik, "appears to be an important link in the chain of drug dealers. While rejecting his bail plea, Justice Kotwal further wrote, "He was in touch with different dealers. He had monetary transactions with them. Disclosure by each of them has led to the discovery of the involvement of others."

The High Court felt the NCB was empowered to investigate the case further based on the findings so far.

The news of Sushant Singh Rajputs demise caused massive outrage among his fans. The mysterious circumstances surrounding his death forced the Supreme Court to order the CBI probe. Ever since the CBIs involvement, several other claims such as money laundering and drug nexus came up which has involved other agencies like ED and NCB in the investigation. While Rhea Chakraborty was granted bail earlier today, her brother Showik Chakraborty still remains in custody.
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Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Market was value US$ 66.12Mn in 2017 and is expected to reach US$ 142.01Mn by 2026 at a CAGR of 10.04 %.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is also known as the CPR which is a combination of techniques with chest compressions. CPR is designed to pump the heart to get deliver oxygen and blood circulating to the brain until definitive treatment can stimulate the heart to start working again.



Increased frequency of cardiac arrests owing to cardiovascular diseases and physical traumas are expected to augment the growth of CPR devices market over the years to come. The prevalence of lifestyle disease has been reported to be high in high-income countries, particularly owing to a sedentary lifestyle. So, in turn, is expected to have a positive impact on the CPR devices market. Moreover, lack of awareness and the high cost of devices may hinder the growth of CPR market. Technological advancements in CPR devices are expected to present profitable opportunities to the leading players over the upcoming years.

Request for Report Sample: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/4058

The number of cardiac-related diseases is increasing due to the growing obsessed population and unhealthy living lifestyle is contributing majorly for cardiac disease. According to the report published by the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2016, around 17.8 million people died from CVDs that represent 30% of all global deaths. Of these deaths, an estimated 7.5 million were owing to coronary heart disease and 6.5 million were due to stroke.

The mechanical pistons segment dominate the market owing to ease of use and features, such as lightweight, of these devices. Mechanical resuscitations in the department were performed using a piston-type pneumatic device containing a backboard and one major unit that included the pneumatic piston providing ventilation function.

In terms of region, North America followed by Europe account for the largest market share of cardiopulmonary resuscitation market due to upcoming new technologies, high disposable income, growing geriatric population and favourable regulatory framework. Though, Asia Pacific market is also witnessing a very positive growth due to the growing unmet medical and healthcare needs, the growing prevalence of chronic diseases, encouraging reimbursement scenarios and high adoption rate of precise medical instruments.

Global cardiopulmonary resuscitation market report includes PESTLE analysis, competitive landscape, and Porteras five force model. Market attractive analysis wherein all the segments are benchmarked based on the market size, growth rate, and general attractiveness.

Some of the key players operating in global cardiopulmonary resuscitation market, hysio-Control, Michigan Instruments, ZOLL, Resuscitation International, and Schiller.



Scope of Global Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Market



Global Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Market, by Device type



Mechanical Piston Device



Active Compression-Decompression (ACD) Devices



Impedance Threshold Device

Load-Distributing Band CPR or Vest CPR

Extracorporeal Techniques

Invasive Perfusion Devices



Global Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Market, by End user



Ambulances

Pre-hospital

Coronary & Intensive Care Units

Cardiac Catheterization Labs

Organ Transplant Facilities

Air Medevac Units

EMT Rescue Units

Hospital

Request for Report Discount: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/discount/4058





Global Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Market, by Region



North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Middle East and Africa

South America



Key players operating in Global Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Market



Hysio-Control

Michigan Instruments

ZOLL

Resuscitation International

Schiller

Brunswick Biomedical Technologies

Brunswick Biomedical Technologies

Huazhong Medical

Tianjin AnBei

Bangvo

Purui

Huanyu Medical

SunLife

More Info of Impact Covid19@ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/covid-19-analysis/4058
In an interview with CBS published on Monday, Wolf defended the assessment, noting that the Russia threat was mentioned multiple times. But he also asserted that the most long-term strategic threat to Americans, to the homeland and really to our way of life would be the threat from China, a position that mirrors Trumps. Wolf has faced criticism for refusing to single out the threat from Russia but rather placing it on the same level as Iran and China.
Trust in public institutions is linked to fewer COVID-19 deaths, but trust and belonging to groups is associated with more deaths, according to a wide-ranging, McGill-led study of 30-day COVID-19 mortality rates in 84 countries. Greater economic inequality is also associated with COVID-19 mortality.

The study led by McGill researchers published in Social Science & Medicine, is the first to show how global differences in COVID-19 mortality relate to income inequality. It also includes surveys on social trust and confidence in public institutions representing 86% of the global population.

The trouble with trust

The analysis reveals that COVID-19 mortality is linked to differences in trust. A lack of confidence in state institutions was associated with more deaths - consistent with research during the SARS and H1N1 pandemics. Surprisingly, however, the researchers found that social trust and belonging is also associated with mortality. While connecting with friends and family is a natural response in times of crisis, in some countries, this trust and the desire to socialize may be interfering with efforts to contain transmission through physical distancing.

Moreover, strong group bonds can sometimes reinforce risky health behaviours, so that high-trusting societies may be more susceptible to misinformation about the severity of COVID-19, bogus treatments, or dismissive attitudes towards physical distancing. "People expect there are health benefits to trusting others and belonging to groups - and there usually are. But in the context of a pandemic, when you need people to self-isolate, blind trust in others can get in the way," says lead author Frank Elgar, a professor at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in Social Inequality in Child Health.

On the other hand, confidence in public institutions and civic participation were linked to fewer deaths, possibly because they mobilise people to wear masks, wash their hands, and practice physical distancing. The researchers note that being engaged in the community is particularly beneficial when groups are asked to compromise some personal freedom for the common good, like wearing a mask in public.

"Governments and other organisations can capitalise on this engagement during a pandemic by supporting safe ways for people to socialise and remain involved in their communities and cultural activities."

Inequality, not just poverty, a health problem during the pandemic

The researchers also found that income inequality is associated with more deaths, even after accounting for other social factors like national wealth and population age. "Countries with a larger gap between rich and poor, like the United States, Russia, and Brazil are experiencing a more deadly pandemic," says Elgar, who is also a member of the Department of Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine.

"In many countries, lower-wage workers are over-represented among the essential workers in retail, public transit, and health care settings who cannot easily practice physical distancing," says Elgar. Greater exposure to the virus and less access to health services among the poor could explain why more economically unequal countries - not necessarily the poorest countries - experienced significantly higher mortality rates. The researchers note, however, that wealthier countries may also have more accurate data or shorter lags in supplying death counts to health officials.

"There is a serious message here about the new challenges we will likely face in this second wave of the pandemic, and our capacity to mount a defense," says Elgar.

###

About the study

"The trouble with trust: Time-series analysis of social capital, income inequality, and COVID-19 deaths in 84 countries" by Frank Elgar, Anna Stefaniak, and Michael Wohl is published in Social Science & Medicine.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113365

About McGill University

Founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1821, McGill University is Canada's top ranked medical doctoral university. McGill is consistently ranked as one of the top universities, both nationally and internationally. Itis a world-renownedinstitution of higher learning with research activities spanning two campuses, 11 faculties, 13 professional schools, 300 programs of study and over 40,000 students, including more than 10,200 graduate students. McGill attracts students from over 150 countries around the world, its 12,800 international students making up 31% of the student body. Over half of McGill students claim a first language other than English, including approximately 19% of our students who say French is their mother tongue.

http://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan is constantly shelling Artsakhs civilian population and the city of Stepanakert, villages and so on, and, in fact, what we have also recorded it is the activity of thousands of mujahideen terrorists, and we have also recorded basically Turkish F-16 being involved and their drones being massively involved, President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian said in an interview to CNN.

Armenpress presents the Presidents full interview:

Becky Anderson: So, to know about the conflict we now joined the Armenian president Armen Sarkissian, he is speaking from Armenia's capital Yerevan. He is talking about the attacks against its cities regionating from Armenia itself to Nagorno-Karabakh.

President Sarkissian: Well, unfortunately, this is a war started by Azerbaijan against the people of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh [Artsakh] and this is not a usual war we are seeing. I mean, these are not short conflicts for a day or two or three or four that have been happening during 26 years after the first war on Nagorno-Karabakh, which ended with a ceasefire in 1994. What is different here is the scale and it is already on the seventh day (it is coming the eight day) of the conflict because a week ago Azerbaijan started a war on Sunday, and there are already some clear results of that. First of all, this conflict of seventh days has shown that Azerbaijan is not gaining anything strategically, except creating a big mess and thousands of people that are killed on both sides. Secondly, this conflict is dramatically different from the previous clashes, which were happening between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh, supported by Armenia. It is now happening with the open support by Turkey with its military officers, generals, mercenaries, and terroristic Jihadists who are brought in thousands to Azerbaijan to fight against Nagorno-Karabakh, and Turkey with its military might is pretending that they are there just to protect some international, logistic structures.

Becky Anderson: We will get to Turkey and I just wanted to establish what is going on, even if the entire responsibilities falls on Azerbaijan, many people disagree and say that Armenia provoked them.

President Sarkissian: I think there is no logic in saying that Armenia has provoked it because in 1994 the people of Nagorno-Karabakh basically won the war and claimed again for our independence that was taken from us for 70 years of the Soviet rule by forcefully connecting us to Azerbaijan by Josef Stalin. And then, with the breakdown of the Soviet Union we started to claim, similar to many other nations, our self-determination to rule our own life. Since then, there were negotiations for 26 years after the ceasefire and the platform of that negotiations was one of the best or the highest in the world; this is the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France. These peaceful negotiations were basically creating some trust between the sides and eventually talking about the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, a week ago for this or that reason, the Azerbaijani side is claiming that they see no progress in negotiations and claim that this is about the territorial integrity. What is a territorial integrity for a piece of land that was given to them by the Soviet Union to keep it for 70 years, while Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh lived there for thousands of years? For people of Nagorno-Karabakh this is a fight for life because they have been fighting against Genghis Khan, Lenk Timur and the others for thousands of years, now it is about having a peaceful life on their own land.

Becky Anderson: How about that the Azerbaijani president said just yesterday "Azerbaijan will not let anyone to conquer Nagorno Karabakh, which is an Azeri territory, we must return, we will return it from Armenian occupation. He says "Azerbaijan will not cease military actions until you don't set a timetable for withdrawing frits". Are you willing to do that?

President Sarkissian: Well, I think, first of all, addressing it to the Republic of Armenia is a wrong appeal as they have to appeal to Nagorno-Karabakh or Artsakh as we call it, because their dispute is with this people. Now, this is not about Armenia occupying a territory. This is a territory that even under the Soviet rule, when it was part of Soviet Azerbaijan for 70 years, the absolute majority, I mean 95% of the population, were Armenians because they have been living there for thousands of years. How can anybody occupy a territory that you are living for thousands of years? So, this is not the right appeal...

Becky Anderson: Azerbaijan's Military Defense said today that they have recorded rockets at Azerbaijan from starting positions of Armenia. How would you explain this, sir?

President Sarkissian: I don't have to explain because that is not true, and in reality, the radar systems, computers and everything have been recording all the time how they were shelling the civilian population and the city of Stepanakert, villages and so on, from the Azerbaijani territory, and, in fact, what we have also recorded it is the activity of thousands of mujahideen terrorists, and we have also recorded basically Turkish F-16 being involved and their drones being massively involved. So, the short answer is that this is fake news.

Becky Anderson: Your Prime Minister spoke with the US national security advisor Robert O'Brien on Thursday about Turkey's role in the intensifying conflict. What was the outcome of that talk and is the US offering any support?

President Sarkissian: Well, there was a call, as you know, by the three Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group on the presidential level of relevant countries: the President of the United States, the President of France and the President of the Russian Federation who called upon the sides for a ceasefire. I fully support this call of the three Presidents but the key issue here is that if there were only these two sides-the Azeri side and the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh with its population plus Armenia that is supporting Nagorno-Karabakh-then there would be a chance for future ceasefire and coming to the negotiating table. But as we have the Turkish component, it destroys everything.

Becky Anderson: The New York Times is reporting that the Prime Minister of the US says that nothing is being done to stop Turkey from American-made F-16 against ethnic Armenians. So, what is the response from Washington?

President Sarkissian: You are asking me something that is probably up to the US Presidents National Security Advisor to answer this question. I openly spoke about this to the big multinational community, to many Presidents, Prime Ministers of different countries, asking them to interfere and put pressure on Turkey to stop it to interfere in the region because their interference is leveling the conflict up in magnitude, in complexity, and also creating something that eventually will become another Syria of Caucasus. If it becomes a place like Syria, then God help everybody. God help Europe, God help Central Asia. It will affect everybody including Turkey, Iran and Russia. So, my plea is if Turkey is restrained with the help of Russia, US and France, then we have a chance of a ceasefire and further negotiations, maybe peacekeepers, and a chance to going back to the negotiation table. Because there is no military solution to this conflict, there can only be peaceful, and diplomatic solution. To be honest, the Turkish involvement in this gives feeling to everyone not only in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia but everywhere where are Armenians, and those people who are close to the Armenians, that Turkey wants to repeat something that happened 105 years ago-ethnic cleansings of Armenians from their homeland-and creating another genocide.

Becky Anderson: Turkey is denying the genocide. I wonder you asked US for help on Thursday just before Trump was tested positive for COVID-19, do you think he wants his eyes off of this conflict? Does that worry you?

President Sarkissian: I don't believe that Washington has its eye off of what is happening in the Caucasus because this is a crucial area. It is not only an important crossroad for many things but also in terms of a supply of hydrocarbons and the humanitarian side, and contains vital interests of many states. You spoke about the COVID-19 in the context of the President of the United States. So, let me take this opportunity to wish the President and the first lady good health and quick recovery because that is very is important not only for the Armenians but also for the elections in the US. By whishing health, we are hoping the US pays very serious attention to what is happening in the region. When you say Turkey is denying the genocide you can just look what the US Senate has decided, and countries like France, Russia and many other countries who have acknowledged what historically has happened. But also look at what is happening in the region; Turkey is involved in Libya, it was involved in Egypt, it has crossed the border and invaded Iraq and Syria, it is bullying people and countries in the Mediterranean, it has now tensions with Greece and Cyprus and now it is Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia. The presence of Turkey in Azerbaijan and its involvement make a big change.

Becky Anderson: Turkey's foreign minister said that Armenia should immediately withdraw from this region. Will NATO be on the side of the Armenian forces? You have accused Turkey in bringing Syrian fighters to fight on Azerbaijani side, what evidence do you have about that, sir?

President Sarkissian: I am asking my colleagues both in NATO and also NATO member Turkey, when they were signing an agreement to join NATO, did that agreement allow Turkey to interfere in third party conflict regardless the reason they claim: ethnicity, [alleged] PKK fighters or protection of international energy pipelines? This is a nonsense, because Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh never have hit it. If they wanted to do so, they could have done this 20 years ago by stopping Azerbaijan to make billions of dollars, which were then used to buy armaments with which they now kill Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. That is one point. Secondly, I think we have to appeal, first of all, to bring this conflict back to the table of negotiations and to have a peaceful resolution. And the table of negotiations should not have Turkey around it. Turkey should withdraw from Azerbaijan and stop supporting them, because it becomes just another side of the conflict. Is NATO ready to accept that a NATO member is in war against Armenia? Neither Armenia, nor Azerbaijan are NATO members. We have a sort of partnership with NATO. And a NATO member is interfering.

Becky Anderson: What about evidence regarding sending Syrian fighters?

President Sarkissian: The evidence about Syrian fighters is open, it is on the internet, and the Government has provided all the necessary information. If you want, I can ask the Government to physically send it to you or your representative, if you have not seen them. It is obvious, there are video and audio recordings, captured people, and many other things. What else one needs to consider it as a clear evidence? And also, they did not come on their own.

Becky Anderson: What about Russia? What can Russia do?

President Sarkissian: Russia has allied relations both with Armenia and Azerbaijan. And again, we hope that Russia as a key member of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs will exercise a pressure first of all on Turkey. My formula is pretty simple: we need to exclude Turkey from this conflict militarily and politically. I do not know how on earth, there is shelling, there is fighting and Turkey is giving a sort of responses, organizing press-conferences, as if they are a side of the conflict. If Russia can put pressure, and then after that, the three Co-Chairs advising Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia to stop hostilities, I think it will work, and I hope it will work, and we will go back to the negotiations.

Becky Anderson: Thank you so much, sir. This was a very important speech.
The Centre on Tuesday appointed Dinesh Kumar Khara as the new Chairman of State Bank of India (SBI). Khara's appointment comes into effect from October 7, for a period of three years.

"The Central Government, hereby appoints Dinesh Kumar Khara (date of birth: 28.8.1961), Managing Director, State Bank of India as Chairman, State Bank of India for a period of three years with effect from the date of his taking over charge of the post on or after 7.10.2020, or until further orders, whichever is earlier," a notification by the Department of Financial Services said.

Prior to being appointed as Chairman of the bank, Khara was the Managing Director (Global Banking & Subsidiaries) of the bank, and in this role, led and steered the International Banking Group, Corporate and Treasury operations of the bank.

"As Managing Director (Associates & Subsidiaries), Khara successfully accomplished merging of five Associate Banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank with SBI," the state-run bank said in a regulatory filing.

Earlier he was also the MD and CEO of SBI Funds Management Pvt Ltd (SBIMF).

Khara, 59, did his Masters in Business Administration from FMS New Delhi and is a post-graduate in Commerce from Delhi School of Economics. He joined the SBI as a probationary officer in 1984 and has over 36 years of rich experience in all facets of banking.

He will replace incumbent Rajnish Kumar, whose three-year term comes to an end on October 7.

In August, the Banks Board Bureau had recommended Khara as the next Chairman of India's largest public sector bank.

Separately, it had recommended the names of Swaminthan Janakiraman and Ashwini Kumar Tewari for the posts of MD in SBI.
Shaun Donovan, Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) The CSU Awards Gala celebrates the engagement and collaboration of its partners and allied organizations in promoting a better understanding of the role of sustainable urbanization and resilient design in the planning of our cities.

The Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization (CSU) announces its second Gala Award celebration to honor the work of four eminent personalities whose actions have influenced how we plan, design and manage our cities:



Shaun Donovan, Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Helena Durst, Principal of the Durst Organization

Alexandria Villasenor, Fridays for Future Leading Organizer & Founder of Earth Uprising

Claire Weisz, FAIA, Principal-in-Charge, WXY architecture + urban design, New York.

All award citations can be found at the bottom of this press release.

Past honorees have included economist and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs; Dianne Davis, founder and president of International Council of Caring Communities; Princeton Professor Emeriti Robert Geddes, FAIA; Jonathan Marvel, FAIA of Marvel Architects; and H.E. Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, founder of TAG Global and Chairman of the CSU Advisory Committee.



With the support of long-time partners UN-Habitat, and the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter, the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization award ceremony included an opening presentation by Maimunah Mohd Sharif, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN-Habitat -- introduced by Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, President of CSU -- and with the attendance of renowned design professionals in New York, government officials, UN representatives, NGOs and academics.

CSU has been actively engaged in the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in New York in 2015 and the New Urban Agenda at the Habitat III Conference in Quito in 2015. CSU remains instrumental in providing key recommendations and ideas to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable and to implement the New Urban Agenda, as well as the Paris Agreement.

The Gala Award celebration provides momentum for CSU to congratulate and recognize the engagement and collaboration of its partners and allied organizations in promoting a better understanding of the role of sustainable urbanization and resilient design in the planning of our cities.

As a continuation of the Galas festivities, Champion Award honoree Claire Weisz, FAIA, will deliver the CSUs inaugural H.E. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Lecture on 7 October 2020. The title of her lecture is "Millenial Thinking: Reflections on our Designed Future." Registration is free on the CSU Website.

ABOUT CSU

The Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization is a New York-based non-for-profit organization, accredited by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Its purpose is to advocate for responsible and enlightened planning and design. Since 2010, CSU has actively participated in building bridges between the design community, the general public and the United Nations to foster exchange of best practices and innovations on sustainable urbanization. CSU organizes and participates in conferences globally at UN Headquarters, UN-Habitat World Urban Forum, Habitat III and the Center for Architecture of New York. Based on those conferences, CSU publishes books that provide strategic inputs and solutions in the development of effective urban policies that respect our environment and the quality of life for all. An integrated holistic approach across all sectors is an essential prerequisite for the cities of tomorrow.

http://www.CSU.global



For more information, contact:

Lance Jay Brown, President, CSU

lbrown147@gmail.com, or 646-898-7083

Aliye P. Celik, Chair, CSU

aliyepcelik@gmail.com

Award Citations:

PRESIDENTS AWARD

We honor Shaun Donovan for his dedication to the principles and underlying values of sustainable urbanization and environmental quality in our cities. He has proven this dedication in his extraordinary support of affordable housing, his national leadership in response to natural disasters related to the effects of climate change, and his commitment to broadly addressing our nations pressing urban issues. Shauns work supports the high goals of the United Nations New Urban Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals and we welcome his continued leadership locally and globally.

SUSTAINABILITY AWARD

We honor Helena Rose Durst for her enormous commitment to building innovative and sustainable buildings, creating cohesive communities, and raising the standard of living and working. Her contributions and leadership have touched upon an ecosystem of urban life both practical and inspirational: Her involvement spans from an alternative mass transit and waste solutions to her educational role in organic farming and her support of the arts. She continues to use her multidisciplinary involvement to create new standards for improving quality of life and sustainability in cities.

VISIONARY AWARD

We honor Alexandria Villasenors passion and for using her time to fight for all of us and for who will join us in the future to be able to experience and enjoy a world in balance, a world that can nourish humanity, a world that is equitable, resilient, sustainable, and beautiful. She represents the desires and the voice of youth and we honor her climate activism, her energy, her founding of climate movements, and for inspiring others to take action at this critical time on earth.

CHAMPION AWARD

We honor Claire Weisz, FAIA, for her contributions to the civic realm and public space, for her planning and design works from street furniture and a joyful carousel to waterfront parks and sophisticated, collaborative, and visionary strategies for ensuring regional coastal resiliency. She has founded and leads civic organizations that preserve and enrich our civic realm, leading by voice and action to serve all our citizens. Her innovative work at multiple scales deserves her recognition as a true and heroic architectural and environmental champion.
Only one urban school division has an equity employment program  and the remaining ones arent ready to commit to making their own just yet  despite calls for their creation in a new report that highlights a shortage of Indigenous teachers in Winnipeg.

The Winnipeg Indigenous Executive Circle has issued 10 recommendations to help divisions and education partners ensure teaching and school leadership teams better reflect student populations. On the list is a call on all city divisions to establish Indigenous hiring targets and monitor results through an employment equity policy and program.

Heather McCormick, co-author of the report and chairwoman of the circles education committee, said she was shocked to learn only the Winnipeg School Division has a formal equity employment program.

Im not sure how you accurately address shortages of Indigenous people, people of colour, racialized communities, if youre not actually keeping track of whos in your schools, McCormick said at the report launch Tuesday at Neeginan Centre.

The goal of such programs is to promote equality in the workforce and remove barriers for candidates who are Indigenous, visible minorities, women or have a disability  groups that are typically underrepresented.

At the most basic level, its an audit of your workforce, said Maureen Kilgour, a business professor at the University of Winnipeg who researches equality in the workplace.

Kilgour said equity programs are typically three-pronged and require: employers commit to making their workforce representative of their community; a collection of self-identification employee information; and a review of everything from recruitment strategies to hiring committees. Employers then create a strategy to monitor and evaluate progress, she said.

Alternatively, Kilgour noted there is a provision to do targeted hiring in the Manitoba Human Rights Code. Divisions could set immediate goals to hire only disadvantaged individuals, under section 11 of the code.

Superintendent Brian OLeary said Seven Oaks has a goal of ensuring 50 per cent of its hires in the upcoming year are Indigenous or belong to another diverse group. While noting teacher self-identification isnt tracked, OLeary said the division has a good track record, citing partnerships with the U of W faculty of education.

The equity report suggests a shortage of nearly 600 Indigenous teachers in Winnipeg, given the population of Indigenous students. At the same time, the authors acknowledge significant reporting gaps.

Only the WSD provided 2017-18 Indigenous self-identification figures; data show Indigenous students accounted for 27.2 per cent of the student population, while 8.5 per cent of permanent teaching staff identified as Indigenous.

While the River East Transcona, Louis Riel, Pembina Trails, St. James-Assiniboia and Seven Oaks divisions did not confirm Tuesday if they would start to collect such data or create new equity policies, each division expressed a goal to have its workforce reflect the diversity of its community.

Superintendent Christian Michalik said Louis Riel needs to collect teacher data, and the pandemic cannot be an excuse for delays.

Read more about:
What just happened? Google's latest version of the world's most popular browser has arrived, and with it comes a slew of new safety-focused features and tools. Chrome 86 is designed to protect users on both desktop and mobile with better password security, protection from dangerous downloads, and more.

The highlight feature is support for the '.well-known/change-password' file. Should Google detect that one of your saved passwords was part of a security breach, you'll be prompted to change it. Not only are you informed of the danger, but Google will also redirect you to the site in question's password protection page so you can change your credentials. Any sites that don't support the change-password file will redirect users to its homepage.

As reported by Bleeping Computer, Google is continuing to block mixed content downloads. In Chrome 86, downloads for executables and archives (.exe, .apk, .zip, etc.) will be blocked if a download is initiated over a secure HTTPS connection but completes using an insecure HTTP connection. The browser will also warn users if they submit forms that use a mixture of HTTP and HTTPS. It also disables the autofill feature in these cases.

Chrome 86 adds Background Tab Throttling, which will throttle background tabs to a maximum of 1 percent CPU usage after they've been inactive for five minutes or more, and limits wake up to once per minute.

For mobile users, Chrome 86 brings the Safety Check feature from the desktop version to Android and iOS. It essentially checks the browser and its saved data to make sure it's secure. The Enhanced Safe Browser feature is also hitting handsets, which sees Chrome share information about visited URLs and download links with Google Safe Browsing in real-time to ensure they are not malicious. iOS users, meanwhile, can now use biometric authentication (Face ID, Touch ID, or phone passcode) when auto-filling saved passwords into login forms.

Elsewhere, the latest version of Chrome includes a number of security patches and bug fixes. There are also new flags for testing its experimental features, such as editing saved passwords.

To check your version of Chrome/install the latest update, go to Menu > Help > About Google Chrome.
Further proof that vitamin D could protect people from coronavirus emerged today after another study found adults deficient in the nutrient are more at risk of catching the disease.

Seventy-two per cent of NHS workers who were lacking in the 'sunshine vitamin' also tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies  a sign of previous infection. This compared to just 51 per cent for those who had a sufficient amount.

The difference was even greater among those of a Black, Asian or ethnic minority, who may be more likely to have a deficiency because people with darker skin find it harder to obtain it from the sun.

A mountain of studies carried out since the pandemic began have found an people who test positive for Covid-19 do not have enough vitamin D in their bodies, and the sickest of patients are often deficient.

It's led to calls for doctors to dish out cheap vitamin D supplements  which cost as little as 3p a day and have no dangerous side effects  to fight the disease, rather than waiting for a vaccine which may never be found.

It comes after Matt Hancock wrongly told the House of Commons last week that a Government-funded 'trial' investigating vitamin D showed it did not 'appear to have any impact'.

The Health Secretary was told to 'get his facts straight' because there is a wealth of research in favour of the 'sunshine vitamin'  nicknamed so because it is made in the body when our skin is exposed to the sun.

Mr Hancock has now agreed to meet experts to to hear the growing case for the vitamin. Scientists have not yet been able to pin down whether the nutrient deficiency is making people more vulnerable to the disease or whether becoming unwell causes vitamin D levels to crash.

Officials estimate one in five Britons are deficient in vitamin D  the equivalent of 13million Britons. But the rate is up to 90 per cent in people with darker skin, such as BAME populations who are known to be at greater risk from Covid-19.

A total of 72 per cent of NHS workers in Birmingham who were lacking in the 'sunshine vitamin' (left column) also tested positive for coronavirus antibodies in the blood  a sign of previous infection. This compared to just 51 per cent for those who had a sufficient amount (right column)

What have just some of the DOZENS of studies into vitamin D and Covid-19 shown? When? September. By who? Cordoba University in Spain. What did scientists study? 50 Covid-19 hospital patients with Covid-19 were given vitamin D. Their health outcomes were compared with 26 volunteers in a control group who were not given the tablets. What did they find? Only one of the 50 patients needed intensive care and none died. Half of 26 virus sufferers who did not take vitamin D were later admitted to intensive care and two died. What were the study's limitations? Small pool of volunteers. Patients' vitamin D levels were not checked before admission. Comorbidities were not taken into consideration. When? September. By Who? University of Chicago. What did scientists study? 500 Americans' vitamin D levels were tested. Researchers then compared volunteers' levels with how many caught coronavirus. What did they find? 60 per cent higher rates of Covid-19 among people with low levels of the 'sunshine vitamin'. What were the study's limitations? Researchers did not check for other compounding factors. Unclear whether or not volunteers were vitamin D deficient at the time of their coronavirus tests. People's age, job and where they lived - factors which greatly increase the chance of contracting the virus - were not considered. When? September. By Who? Tehran University, in Iran, and Boston University. What did scientists study? Analysed data from 235 hospitalized patients with Covid-19. What did they find? Patients who had sufficient vitamin D - of at least 30 ng/mL were 51.5 per cent less likely to die from the disease. They also had a significantly lower risk of falling seriously ill or needing ventilation. Patients who had plenty of the nutrient also had less inflammation - often a deadly side effect of Covid-19. What were the study's limitations? Confounding factors, such as smoking, and social economic status were not recorded for all patients and could have an impact on illness severity. When? July. By Who? Tel Aviv University, Israel. What did scientists study? 782 people who tested positive for coronavirus had their vitamin d levels prior to infection assessed retrospectively and compared to healthy people. What did they find? People with vitamin D levels below 30 ng/ml - optimal - were 45 per cent more likely to test positive and 95 per cent more likely to be hospitalised. What were the study's limitations? Did not look at underlying health conditions and did not check vitamin D levels at the time of infection. When? June. By Who? Brussels Free University. What did scientists study? Compared vitamin D levels in almost 200 Covid-19 hospital patients with a control group of more than 2,000 healthy people. What did they find? Men who were hospitalised with the infection were significantly more likely to have a vitamin D deficiency than healthy men of the same age. Deficiency rates were 67 per cent in the COVID-19 patient group, and 49 per cent in the control group. The same was not found for women. What were the study's limitations? Independent scientists say blood vitamin D levels go down when people develop serious illness, which the study did not take into consideration. This suggests that it is the illness that is leading to lower blood vitamin D levels in this study, and not the other way around. When? June. By who? Inha University in Incheon, South Korea. What did scientists study? 50 hospital patients with Covid-19 were checked for levels of all vital vitamins and compared to a control group. What did they find? 76 per cent of them were deficient in vitamin D, and a severe vitamin D deficiency (<10 ng/dl) was found in 24 per cent of Covid-19 patients and just 7 per cent in the control group. What were the study's limitations? Small sample size and researchers never accounted for vitamin levels dropping when they fall ill. When? June. By Who?. Independent scientists in Indonesia. What did scientists study? Checked vitamin D levels in 780 Covid-19 hospital patients. What did they find? Almost 99% of patients who died had vitamin D deficiency. Of patients with vitamin D levels higher than 30 ng/ml - considered optimal - only per cent died. What were the study's limitations? It was not peer-reviewed by fellow scientists, a process that often uncovers flaws in studies. When? May. By Who? University of Glasgow. What did scientists study? Vitamin D levels in 449 people from the UK Biobank who had confirmed Covid-19 infection. What did they find? Vitamin D deficiency was associated with an increased risk in infection - but not after adjustment for con-founders such as ethnicity. It led to the team to conclude their 'findings do not support a potential link between vitamin D concentrations and risk of Covid-19 infection.' What were the study's limitations? Vitamin D levels were taken 10 to 14 years beforehand. When? May. By Who? University of East Anglia. What did scientists study? Average levels of vitamin D in populations of 20 European countries were compared with Covid-19 infection and death rates at the time. What did they find? The mean level of vitamin D in each country was 'strongly associated' with higher levels of Covid-19 cases and deaths. The authors said at the time: 'The most vulnerable group of population for Covid-19 is also the one that has the most deficit in vitamin D.' What were the study's limitations? The number of cases in each country was affected by the number of tests performed, as well as the different measures taken by each country to prevent the spread of infection. And it only looked at correlation, not causation. When? May. By Who? Northwestern University. What did scientists study? Crunched data from dozens of studies around the world that included vitamin D levels among Covid-19 patients. What did they find? Patients with a severe deficiency are twice as likely to experience major complications and die. What were the study's limitations? Cases and deaths in each country was affected by the number of tests performed. Advertisement

Scientists have theorised that this could be why BAME groups have higher odds of getting Covid-19 and have been investigating further. But it has yet to be proven.

The latest study adds fuel to the fire. It was conducted by the University of Birmingham on NHS staff at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust - one of the British hospitals that took the most Covid-19 patients.

Researchers analysed blood samples from 392 healthcare workers in a two-week period in May  towards the end of the first surge of the Covid-19 pandemic.

They included junior doctors and nurses, consultants, physiotherapists, lab workers, secretaries, theatre staff and radiologists.

Samples were first tested for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies - proteins in the blood which show a person has built an immune response to the infection during previous illness.

They also underwent testing to establish their levels of vitamin D, which is known to help boost the immune system and protect against the common cold.

Adequate levels are usually over 50 ng/mL, with anything below that a concern. In the new study, 'deficiency' was defined as a measure below 30 ng/mL.

The NHS says the general consensus is levels of below 25nmol/L  the equivalent of 10ng/ml  in the blood indicate vitamin D deficiency. This is thought to be the equivalent of taking around 10 micrograms of vitamin D a day, the amount found in one small salmon fillet.

The overall average levels of vitamin D in the sample was 55.5 ng/mL. But a total of 61 (or 15.6 per cent) were deficient.

Vitamin D deficiency was more prevalent in those of a BAME ethnic group and in a junior doctor job role. And men, younger workers and those with a higher BMI showed lower Vitamin D levels.

Over half (55 per cent) of the workers had SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, which is significantly high because they work in a hospital in close proximity with Covid-19 patients.

There was an increase in detectable SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in staff with vitamin D deficiency (72 per cent) compared to those without a deficiency (51 per cent), suggesting that lower vitamin D levels could increase susceptibility to the virus.

This was particularly prevalent in BAME men. A whopping 94 per cent who were vitamin D deficient had antibodies, compared to 52 per cent in those who were not.

Results also showed that staff who were vitamin D deficient were more likely to report symptoms of body aches and pains.

Vitamin levels were also lower in staff who reported symptoms of fever  but not for those who had a cough or had suffered from breathlessness.

Professor David Thickett, from the University of Birmingham's Institute of Inflammation and Ageing, said: 'Our study has shown that there is an increased risk of Covid-19 infection in healthcare workers who are deficient in vitamin D.

'Our data adds to the emerging evidence from studies in the UK and globally that individuals with severe Covid-19 are more Vitamin D deficient than those with mild disease.

'Our results, combined with existing evidence further demonstrates the potential benefits of vitamin D supplementation in individuals at risk of vitamin D deficiency or who are shown to be deficient as a way to potentially alleviate the impact of Covid-19.'

Researchers from Brussels Free University, Belgium, have also claimed giving out vitamin D supplements could be an 'inexpensive mitigation strategy'.

In June, they found the risk of men being hospitalised with coronavirus was a fifth higher in those who were deficient in the 'sunshine vitamin'.

Currently the NHS recommends Brits take 10 micrograms of the 'sunshine' nutrient each day 'to keep your bones and muscles healthy'.

Previously it only gave this advise during the winter, because between October and early March there is a lack of sunlight. But it changed its guidance to include all seasons because lockdown was forcing people to spend more time indoors.

But it says on its website that 'there is currently not enough evidence to support' claims that the immune system-boosting nutrient reduces the risk of coronavirus.

As well as darker-skinned people, the elderly  the most vulnerable to Covid-19  are also in danger because the body gets less efficient at producing the vitamin with age.

The findings, published today as a pre-print paper, echo those of at least three other studies which have found a link between infection and vitamin D levels.

The first, published online in July by Tel Aviv University, Israel, looked retrospectively at vitamin D levels in 782 people who tested positive for coronavirus and compared them with healthy people.

People with vitamin D deficiency  below 30 ng/ml  were 45 per cent more likely to test positive and 95 per cent more likely to be hospitalised.

But the study's reliability was limited by the fact it did not check vitamin D levels at the time of infection. It used blood samples from before infection. It also did not take into consideration underlying health conditions of the patients, which can make the disease more serious.

Another study by the University of Chicago assessed 500 Americans' vitamin D levels before analysing their risk of catching Covid-19.

They found 60 per cent higher rates of Covid-19 among people with low levels of the 'sunshine vitamin', according to the paper published in the journal JAMA in September.

However the researchers did not check for other compounding factors. It is unclear whether or not volunteers were vitamin D deficient at the time of their coronavirus tests. People's age, job and where they lived  factors which greatly increase the chance of contracting the virus  were also not considered.

University of Glasgow academics refute the theory of vitamin D protection based on their own work, published in May.

They studied vitamin D levels in 449 people from the UK Biobank who had tested positive for Covid-19.

They found vitamin D deficiency was associated with an increased risk in infection  but not after adjustment for ethnicity.

It led to the team to conclude their 'findings do not support a potential link between vitamin D concentrations and risk of Covid-19 infection'.

Its important to note that although studies have frequently observed a link between the two conditions  Covid-19 and vitamin D deficiency  it does not prove causation.

Scientists have previously noted that vitamin D levels drop during illness, which may explain why Covid-19 patients studied when they are seriously ill appear to also inadequate levels.

Naveed Sattar, a professor of metabolic medicine at University of Glasgow, previously told MailOnline: 'Blood vitamin D levels go down when people develop serious illness.

'The same thing happens to other blood tests such as blood cholesterol, or blood zinc levels, which also fall when someone is sick. These changes are part of what is called the acute phase response. Moreover, the sicker people are, the more exaggerated are these changes.

'This means that it is likely the occurrence of illness that is leading to lower blood vitamin D levels... and not that low vitamin D levels, are causing Covid-19.'

Vitamin D levels were lower in the BAME ethnic group compared to the white ethnic group

In those with Vitamin D deficiency, levels were lower in BAME ethnicity compared to white ethnicity

As well as in supplements, vitamin D is also available through foods, including oily fish, red meat and eggs (right). A Singaporean study earlier in the year of nearly 800 people found almost 99% of Covid-19 patients who died had vitamin D deficiency (left)

A study by Tehran University, in Iran, and Boston University analysed data from 235 hospitalised patients with Covid-19. Patients who had sufficient vitamin D - of at least 30 ng/mL were 51.5 per cent less likely to die from the disease. Although no one in the study under age 40 died, fatalities (red) were more common among vitamin D deficient people (under the black line) of all ages

A correlation graph showing the relationship between levels of vitamin D (bottom, measured in nmol/l) compared to infection numbers of coronavirus by the University of East Anglia. Countries with low vitamin D levels tend to have the highest case rates per million - but the graph was from a study in May, when outbreaks looked very different to how they do now and testing was patchy in most countries

University of Chicago researchers studying 500 Americans' vitamin D levels found 60 per cent higher rates of Covid-19 among people with low levels of the 'sunshine vitamin'

Matt Hancock told the House of Commons last week he had green-lit a Government-funded 'trial' investigating vitamin D and that it did not 'appear to have any impact'

MATT HANCOCK BLASTS VITAMIN D AS USELESS, CAUSING ANGER AMONG SCIENTISTS Mr Hancock shot down vitamin D's potential last week in reply to a question from Dr Rupa Huq, the Labour MP for Ealing and Acton Central. He said: 'Vitamin D is one of the many things we have looked into, to see whether it reduces the incidence or impact of coronavirus. 'And I've seen reports that it does, so we therefore put it into a trial, and unfortunately the results were that it doesn't appear to have any impact. So that is the latest clinical advice, which, of course, is always kept under review.' Mr Hancock appeared to be referring to a review of evidence conducted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), an arm of the Department of Health. NICE conducted a review of a limited number of studies published by June. It noted that a stronger immune system provided greater protection against Covid-19 and admitted that vitamin D boosted immune function. But it was not convinced there was enough evidence to show that giving doses of the vitamin to already-sick Covid-19 patients provided any benefit. Officials have since admitted that no clinical trials had taken place and claim it was a slip of the tongue from the health secretary - who was also staunchly opposed to face masks in the spring and claimed they were 'extremely weak' in stopping Covid-19's spread. Experts said his comments 'displayed incredible ignorance', while Liberal Democrat MP Layla Morgan told MailOnline the secretary of state 'needs to be listening, not dismissing'. She added: 'I hope Matt Hancock will take a less flippant approach to potential treatments in future and get his facts straight before making such comments. We're in a crisis, it's time for politicians to stop playing science and listen to the experts.' Two leading doctors told MailOnline that politicians and scientists were so hellbent on getting a vaccine - the Government has pumped hundreds of millions into jab development projects - that they had overlooked the potential of vitamin D and boosting people's immune systems, which they say is a far less glamorous option. Mr Hancock has now agreed to meet experts to to hear the growing case for the vitamin, which the body produces when exposed to the sun. But his flippant dismissal of vitamin D has sparked fury among scientists and MPs who today said time is running out for ministers to act, as levels of the 'sunshine vitamin' drop dramatically in autumn and winter. Advertisement

Studies linking vitamin D deficiency to poorer health outcomes from Covid-19 have been piling up since the pandemic hit earlier in the year.

A study by Tehran University, in Iran, and Boston University, Massachusetts, found hospitalised Covid-19 patients who had sufficient vitamin D  of at least 30 ng/mL were 51.5 per cent less likely to die from the disease.

They also had a significantly lower risk of falling seriously ill or needing ventilation, and less inflammation  often a deadly side effect of Covid-19, the study in September revealed.

The University of East Anglia showed in May that average levels of vitamin D in populations of 20 European countries was 'strongly associated' with Covid-19 cases and deaths. The authors said at the time: 'The most vulnerable group of population for Covid-19 is also the one that has the most deficit in vitamin D.

But the most promising study into vitamin D's effects on Covid-19 was carried out by the University of Cordoba in Spain and published last month.

Researchers gave high doses of calcifediol  a type of vitamin D supplement  to 50 patients hospitalised with the disease.

Scientists compared the participants' health with 26 volunteers in a control group who were not given the tablets, which are normally prescribed to patients with thyroid or kidney problems.

There were no deaths among volunteers receiving the vitamin and all 50 patients were eventually discharged by the end of the study.

Just one patient given calcifediol fell ill enough to be admitted to intensive care, whereas half of the participants in the control group were taken to ICU and two died.

Independent scientists, including some from NICE, said the findings were promising but there were too many flaws in the study's methods.

For example, the experts did not measure vitamin D levels before or after administering the drug. And participants' underlying health conditions were not defined.

Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading, told MailOnline: 'My general view is that if there is no clear cut view on vitamin D after six months of debate then there is nothing in it.'

Scientists have yet to be able to conclusively say that the sunshine vitamin does help because of a lack of gold-standard trials.

Last week a doctor claimed more research would have been done into the link between vitamin D and Covid-19 if deficiency was a bigger problem for white people.

Dr Aseem Malhotra, one of Britain's leading anti-obesity campaigners and a former NHS cardiologist, told MailOnline 'underlying racism' is clearly to blame for the lack of clinical trials into vitamin D.

He said: 'Vitamin D plays an essential role in innate and adaptive immunity. Severe deficiency, which has been strongly correlated with adverse outcomes from Covid-19, also has a high prevalence among BAME groups in the UK.

'The majority of those from South Asian or black backgrounds are either deficient or severely deficient.

'This has been known for years yet little has been done to act on it, in part because of how endemic racism is in both medical research and practice.'

Dr Malhotra, author of Sunday Times best-seller 'The 21-Day Immunity Plan', added that everybody should consider taking vitamin D during the winter months.

He said: 'There is no significant harm from supplementing the public with vitamin D, and only likely a benefit.'

Dr Malhotra said he suspects ministers are so focused on a vaccine that they may be overlooking more simple treatment options, like promoting a healthy immune system and supplementing vitamin D.

He added: 'The current narrative of suggesting the best and only solution to beat Covid-19 is waiting for a vaccine plays into the Big Pharma narrative, who have too much influence over politicians.

'As one very senior politician once said to me, "the Department of Health is too close to industry"  we yet have no idea how effective a vaccine will be.

'For example the flu vaccine is largely ineffective for over 65s yet most doctors dont know this let alone patients. The focus needs to be advice and policies that help the population lead healthier lives, which wont only reduce the burden on the overstretched NHS but will also improve our resilience to infection.'
Weve previously detailed protests that have sprung up in various major cities across the Australian continent over authorities ultra-restrictive coronavirus lockdown measures, which are especially stringent and far-reaching in the southeast state of Victoria.

Theres been multiple instances caught on video of police cracking down on elderly people and even pregnant women for merely resting outside on park benches, supposedly in violation of coronavirus social distancing measures, even as case numbers have significantly dropped since August. And now heres the latest incident to go viral as citizens flock to newly reopened beaches, after Victoria slightly relaxed some of its more severe lockdown restrictions:

Video has emerged of police officers clashing with beachgoers in a dramatic arrest of a woman at a Melbourne beach as hordes of residents headed outdoors to enjoy the good weather over the weekend. Officers approached a group of people at Altona Beach, in the citys southwest, on Saturday evening after noticing they werent wearing masks, Victoria Police said.

And heres a description of how this mask enforcement unfolded, in which the police claim the group that included a pregnant woman acted aggressively:

Shes taken her kids for a swim and you f***ing arrest her for what? one person says. Youre f***ing pussies, a man can be heard shouting. One of the group then alleges an officer pushed a pregnant woman in the group as they try to control the volatile situation.

It also comes as Aussies are growing sick and tired of essentially being locked indoors and confined to their local areas under tight regulations, even as cases drop and the weather grows better.

Police were out in force this weekend looking for excessive crowds and mask rules violators. And more outrageous is that Victoria is currently enforcing a law that says citizens cannot venture five kilometers from their home.

Police in Melbourne have been accused of pushing a pregnant woman while arresting another woman who was allegedly breaching coronavirus rules. https://t.co/mvZRlkIyat  Sunrise (@sunriseon7) October 4, 2020

According to Yahoo News Australia:

Victoria Police confirmed the arrested woman was further than five kilometres from her home and was issued with three infringement notices. Other members of the group also received fines while police will continue investigations into activities to determine whether others had breached current coronavirus restrictions.

The detained woman received multiple citations and fines, according to Australian media.

Local Channel 7 News Australia also confirmed that Police took the woman into custody at Altona Beach on Saturday after she allegedly failed to wear a mask and travelled outside her permitted 5km radius.

Source: Zerohedge

Image: Spiro Skouras
It is fitting that National Newspaper Week and South Carolina Manufacturing Week fall during this same week in October.

Manufacturing is vital to South Carolina and Orangeburg. The purpose of South Carolina Manufacturing Week is to raise awareness of the achievements and opportunities that industry provides throughout the state.

"South Carolina's reputation as a location where manufacturing thrives is well known throughout the nation and world," Gov. Henry McMaster said in proclaiming the observance. "Our innovative manufacturers and exceptional workforce are key drivers in strengthening our economy and creating opportunities for South Carolinians."

Manufacturing and industry have always been a major component of Orangeburg County's economy. From aerospace to automobiles to lawn mowers to chemicals, Orangeburg County makes things.

The county boasts a diverse industrial landscape of more than 100 firms, with manufacturers employing more than 8,200. About 19% of the county's population works in manufacturing. Manufacturing is the largest sector of the county's workforce and the county is among the state leaders in the largest percentage of its workforce in manufacturing.

You may not consider it often, but this newspaper is a manufacturer. We create a daily product using heavy machinery, the printing press. And our product is shipped out daily directly to consumers.

While we do not manufacture the news that goes into our print and online products, we have journalists and others working hard on the content that is found in the daily in The Times and Democrat and at TheTandD.com.

And in a way unlike any other manufacturer, we play a unique role in the community, providing information about its people, its businesses, its health, its education, its activities  its successes and its failures. Without the local newspaper, there would be no reporters providing information on local government and the people we elect to lead us. There would be no reports on threats to public safety and how crimes are resolved by police and the courts.

A local newspaper such as The Times and Democrat is a vital player in the community. But these are tough times for local journalism. The pandemic has cut into primary revenue streams such as local advertising. At a time when news is needed more than ever, our ability to deliver it is being tested.

The loss of three local weekly newspapers in our region this past week is testament to what is happening. And though The T&D has a greater audience than ever via its print and online products, we face challenges and need support via print and online subscriptions and local advertising.

We are a healthy enterprise and work hard to stay that way. We plan to continue being a part of a community and region that we have served for nearly 140 years.

So join us in making a commitment to supporting local news during National Newspaper Week when we also say thank you to all manufacturers playing a vital role in our economy.

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Earlier this year, Darwin Otero Ingels, the son of Bjarke Ingels and Rut Otero, said his first word: agua, or water in his mothers native Spanish. That he should have H2O on the brain is no surprise. For much of his existence, this intrepid toddler, now almost two, has dropped anchor in Copenhagens harbor, cohabitating on a houseboat with his two architect parents. Imagine, among your earliest experiences, the sight of ducks swimming past porthole windows, the thrill of friends arriving by kayak, and the constant, calming churn of the tidesthats just an average day for young Darwin.

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

But life aboard the SS Ingels has not always been so charmed. When the Danish superstar bought the 126-foot-long vessel in late 2016, it was quite literally a shell of its present self: a decommissioned ferryboat that had been partly converted into a living quarters, with a container plopped on the roof for sleeping. It was docked then, as it is now, near a former industrial site that in recent years has evolved into a thriving hub of creativity. (His AD100 firm, BIGBjarke Ingels Group, has played its part, having completed a number of nearby projects, including the 2016 floating student-housing complex Urban Rigger; the new home of the restaurant Noma; and the innovative waste-to-energy plant Copenhill, cleverly topped by a ski slope.) Never mind that the houseboat was barely insulated. Ingels was sold. It has the past, present, and future of Copenhagen all in one glance, he says of the views. Look east and you can see the sun rising. Look west and you can see the sun setting over the queens palace.

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Those vistas may have distracted him from the enormity of the project at hand. People had warned me that living on a houseboat was simultaneously the best and worst thing, Ingels recalls. When its great, its epically great. When it sucks, it sucks so massively. So he and Otero discovered that first winter as they went without heat and running water at times, waking up to freezing temperatures and once resorting to bottles of San Pellegrino to bathe before a client meeting. But consider all that necessary hazing for the couple. You start understanding what the ship is, explains Ingels, noting that their survival skills and renovation plans were ultimately kicked into high gear by the prospect of Darwins arrival. As Otero puts it: Living on a boat is

a learning curve. Over time, it becomes clear what the spaces want to be.

Story continues

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Ingelss work, if at times hard to characterize by style, has long been defined by constraintsthe preexisting conditions that steer his designs toward sophisticated, often shipshape solutions. It is a boat, so it wants to be symmetrical, he notes matter-of-factly. Part of the project was restoring that symmetry along both axes. At each end of the main deck (what was essentially an open driveway for cars) they installed sliding window walls, creating a loftlike living space with terraces painted the color of the water. On the upper level, meanwhile, they took their cues from the two large chimney stacks and navigation bridges, constructing a glass-enclosed pavilion for the main bedroom suite among the original structures. Above it, a rooftop terrace affords 360-degree views. And below deck, they transformed the hull into a futuristic playroom for all ages, stripping away additions to reveal streamlined curves, adding porthole windows and

a circular skylight, and treating the walls, floors, and ceiling as a kind of continuous white surface.

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

We were given the gift of forms, Ingels says, adding that he might never have come up with the design in isolation. Its a creative shift, shaped by different forces. And while they took care to preserve the boats nautical quirksamong them the two captains cabins, with steering wheels for Darwins amusementthey have also incorporated mementos from their frequent peregrinations. (Travel is a major source of inspiration for both Ingels and Otero, whose namesake fashion line blends cultural references.) The couples bath, for instance, features a hinoki cypress soaking tub, sink, and shower that were inspired by their recent trip to Japans famous ryokans. And they found the playrooms Technicolor beanbags and pillows (handwoven by South African artisans out of scraps of T-shirt fabric) during a 2017 visit to Cape Town for the opening of the Thomas Heatherwickdesigned Zeitz MOCAA. These touches are joined by an array of Ingelss own designs, from the living rooms KiBiSi sofas to the recurring Artemide lights.

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

In ways big and small, the ship has been a chance for Ingels, who has long been a proponent of floating housing, to practice what he preaches. It is the most resilient architecture, he muses. As sea levels rise, so will houseboats. In addition to Urban Rigger, a system of standardized containers that helped address Copenhagens student-housing shortage, he has envisioned entire communities at sea. His Oceanix City concept proposes sustainable, modular structures for 10,000 people. On land, meanwhile, current projects such as The Big U (a protective coastal system for Lower Manhattan) and The Islais Hyper-Creek (a master plan for the southeast shoreline of San Francisco) address the realities of climate change.

See More of Bjarke Ingels's Houseboat

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Architecture traditionally is so static and permanent, says Ingels, reflecting on his interest in the waters edge. This is dynamic and mobile. As of late, of course, the houseboat has been not only a laboratory but a backdrop for virtual meetings. Reminiscing about a recent video call from below deck, he jokes, People asked if I was on a spaceship. At least, he was able to tell them, it was a ship.

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Pernille Loof & Thomas Loof

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
WASHINGTON  When President Donald Trump's doctors delivered an update on their patient's COVID-19 status Monday, the American public and scores of reporters were not the only ones hanging on every word.

Russia, China and other foreign adversaries were listening too. And they have almost certainly deployed every tool in their spy kits  from human sources to eavesdropping to determine how sick the president is and what it means for America's national security posture, according to former intelligence officials and other experts.

"They are looking and watching," said Carol "Rollie" Flynn, a 30-year CIA veteran who is now president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

White House physician Sean Conley has come under fire for refusing to answer key questions about the president's infection, including what Trump's lung scans show and when he first tested positive for COVID-19.

Trump's advisers, meanwhile, have sought to downplay his infection and portray the commander-in-chief as fully focused on his job.

"We have a government that is steady at the tiller," Robert O'Brien, Trump's national security adviser, said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation. "He's firmly in command."

But while the American public is relying on Conley and other White House officials to disclose the latest information about Trump's health, the Kremlin may be listening in on private conversations between the president and his outside advisers, as well as conversations among his family members and even his doctors. And with several top Trump staffers working from home after contracting COVID-19 or being exposed to the virus, the White House's communications may be particularly vulnerable, Flynn said.

"I would hope that ... the operational security of his doctors is good, and they're not chatting about his diagnosis on the telephones," Flynn said. "But if they are, it's very likely the Russian may know more than we do."

Story continues

'Don't be afraid of it': Trump returns to White House after hospitalization for COVID-19

Russian President Vladimir Putin's government is probably doing everything it can to pick up information about President Trump's health, experts say.

Steven L. Hall, a retired senior CIA leader who oversaw agency operations in former Soviet Union countries, said there is "no doubt" Russian intelligence services have information about Trump's condition.

"There is no doubt they are working to get more. Oh, and the White House is a counterintelligence nightmare," Hall tweeted Saturday when Trump was being treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

The Trump administration has been criticized in the past for lax security practices, including the president's habit of speaking with friends and outside advisers via unsecured cellphone lines. In one highly publicized incident, Trump's former ambassador to the EU spoke with Trump via cellphone while at a restaurant in Kyiv, Ukraine, where others could overhear the conversation.

"Its highly likely that (foreign) intelligence services know who the president's friends are that he talks to and are using all means at their disposal to listen in to that," said Peter Feaver, who served on the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration.

But he said the Kremlin and other foreign governments are also poring through the mountains of open source material on Trump's condition, including the viral video clip of Trump seemingly out of breath after he climbed the White House steps Monday after leaving the hospital.

"Im sure they were watching the video of the president on the portico and analyzing it frame by frame," said Feaver, now a professor at Duke University. He said Trump's illness is also a problem for American national security officials, whom he fears are distracted by the president's health status.

"This cuts to the very heart of them doing their job," he said. "I think there is a high likelihood that the system is distracted and is not functioning at a high level."

Those concerns were heightened Tuesday, when the Pentagon confirmed that most of the nation's top military leaders were quarantining after coming in contact with a senior officer who has COVID-19. Among those in self-isolation: Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Air Force Gen. John Hyten, along with service chiefs from the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Feaver and others said the U.S. government's continuity plans are sound, and the military is particularly well-prepared to handle disruptions.

"I think we can have high confidence that the chain of command is unbroken, and while it is stress-tested by these conditions, its nowhere close to be being broken," Feaver said.

But he is concerned about the president's focus and the ability of his national security team to keep tabs on global hot spots while the White House is engulfed with this crisis. In addition to Trump and the first lady, about a half-dozen other White House aides have tested positive for COVID-19, along with three Republican senators.

Trump has COVID: Here are administration officials, associates, who have been tested

President Donald Trump leaves the White House for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after testing positive for COVID-19.

"We keep hearing about individuals who are testing positive, and hopefully they're going to all fully recover," John Brennan, the former CIA director and Trump critic, told NPR in an interview Monday. "But who else is going to come down with this virus that has responsibilities in the government?"

Amid the disarray, Brennan said, Russia and China may be looking at ways to ratchet up their regional aggression and hoping the U.S. is too consumed with Trump's health to respond.

Feaver agreed that the trajectory of events is disconcerting.

"That doesnt mean were about to be attacked," Feaver said. "But its likely that were not making optimal moves across the geopolitical chessboard."

More: Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis raises national security concerns

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump's COVID diagnosis is likely under scrutiny by Russia, other foes
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So while this is all just a footnote in Trump's story now, it's a telling one. The amount of effort that Trump put into bringing this soap opera to life far surpasses the effort he's put into running a country, and it was just one plank in a broader soap and reality empire he dreamed of building. Helming a bunch of trashy television, where the only consequences befell people too rich or fictional to be hurt, feels like his dream career. Hell, based on his alleged tax returns, it was the only career he had any acumen for. But instead, he became President, a job he doesn't even appear to enjoy because he has to do more than deal contemptuous zingers from on high while everyone talks about how great he is.

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No one in Trump Tower does anything unless they get something in return, even if that something is the declaration that they've "gone to boob heaven." The thought of bringing good into the world even if it won't earn them a bonus, a blowjob, or a diamond bracelet is anathema, which is harmless for fiction but horrible for reality. Given that we've had four years of an emperor who isn't just naked but actively shitting on the pavement, maybe his dream of a soap empire should have been more of a warning sign to not treat elections like the greatest soap operas of all.

As inane as Trump Tower is to read, there's also a certain nostalgia because its occupants are all subjected to Trump's world by choice. Early in the novel, right after we're informed that Trump Tower is a nonstop source of gossip, Trump appears solely to contribute to it with a dirty joke about one of his residents. This fictional Trump appears to have more fun setting up his punchline than the real Trump has had as President, and it's certainly more fun to read his silly gag than to see the real deal wax about the joy of seeing a journalist assaulted while the COVID death count on his inept watch ticks ever upward. It's like a glimpse into an alternate 2020 where a happy, popular Trump is ripping into Mariah Carey's latest haircut, and fewer people are dying in lonely hospital rooms.

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If that's too speculative and high-minded, just know that one of Trump Tower's many subplots involves the search for L. Arthur Farmer, a reclusive, possibly dead mogul who cornered the rice market and used his riches to secure the first slot in Trump Tower, because in Trump's fantasy the men with the biggest bank accounts fawn over his work. Farmer's fate is investigated by a professional tennis player turned writer, at least when she's not busy bathing, trying on skimpy lingerie, and otherwise wearing so little clothing that you'd presume the Tower's air conditioners were broken. Farmer appears to have become involved with a fringe religious community called the "Finfolkmen," which our ace reporter tells her husband from the bathtub before clambering out to get "onto her knees" and declare "Let's finfuckman, instead." So he inflicted that on the world, and somehow people voted for him anyway.

Mark is on Twitter and wrote a book that doesn't include the word "finfuckman."

Top Image: Stacey Huggins/Wikimedia Commons, Stil/Unsplash
The Winnipeg Indigenous Executive Circle (WIEC) released its findings on the first annual State of Equity in Education Report on Tuesday.

The Report is based on a survey conducted in the spring of 2019 of the six school divisions in Winnipeg, as well as the faculties of education at the Universities of Manitoba, Winnipeg, St. Boniface and Brandon.

Its purpose is to promote evidence-based strategies for the development and implementation of equity-based education programs and policies in Winnipeg.

The WIEC has a mandate and a priority set out for the community, with education being one of those mandates. In our community-level sessions, we focus on the fact that Indigenous students are still graduating from regular school systems, said Heather McCormick, Chairperson of the Education Committee at WIEC on Tuesday.

We want everyone to take a look at why that is still happening and more importantly, what can we do to try to help address this situation. We want to come at it from another approach and see whether we can address these issues in a concrete way.

The WIEC will be calling upon the federal and provincial governments, school boards and faculties of education to address the 10 Calls to Action identified in the Report.

Currently, there is an underrepresentation of Indigenous peoples on school boards in Winnipeg, as noted in the Report. Only two of the 54 trustees in Winnipeg self-identify as Indigenous and only one of the six school divisions in Winnipeg have Indigenous representation on the school board.

The Report also identifies a shortage of 600 Indigenous teachers in Winnipeg based on the belief that the staff at schools need to be representative of the students being served.

To help solve this problem, the WIEC has a program called Building From Within, that provides Indigenous Grade 11 and 12 students with a pathway program to become a teacher. The program is made in partnership with the University of Winnipeg faculty of education and the Winnipeg School Division.

We know there are very few Indigenous teachers in Winnipeg. In my experience, it was very difficult to become a school trustee, and Indigenous people just do not get to that table, said Sonia Prevost-Derbecker, the creator of the Building From Within program.

Certainly, we will support all school divisions to have equity hiring policies and the methodical approach on how to use them. We would challenge that the Building From Within program should be in every school division. In order to have more Indigenous teachers in front of classrooms, we have to graduate them. The first step would be to sit down with school division and governments and come to a solution that will support that.

The Report also calls for all school divisions to develop and implement employment equity policies and programs, and release a report on results on an annual basis to the public to promote transparency and accountability.

A Manitoba government spokesperson told Winnipeg Sun that they are aware of the State of Equity in Education Report released by the WIEC and that the report is being reviewed by Manitoba Education and will be consulted with other departments where appropriate.

Nicole Wong is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

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In a development that is being watched closely by Beijing, foreign ministers of the Quad countries  India, the United States, Japan and Australia  met in Tokyo on Tuesday, with US secretary of state Michael R. Pompeo blasting Chinas exploitation, corruption, and coercion in South (China Sea), the East China Sea, the Mekong, the Himalayas and the Taiwan Straits. The US secretary of state also openly accused China of initially covering up the Coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan and silencing the very brave Chinese citizens who raised the alarm.

Representing India, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, in a veiled jibe at China, told the meeting that as vibrant and pluralistic democracies with shared values, our nations have collectively affirmed the importance of maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific and that we remain committed to upholding the rules-based international order, underpinned by the rule of law, transparency, freedom of navigation in the international seas, respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty and peaceful resolution of disputes.

EAM Jaishankar further said, Our objective remains advancing the security and the economic interests of all countries having legitimate and vital interests in the region. It is a matter of satisfaction that the Indo-Pacific concept has gained increasingly wider acceptance.

The Quad meeting is significant given the aggressive Chinese military posturing and tensions in the past few months in the South China Sea, Ladakh and the Taiwan Straits. It is being seen by observers as sending a strong message to Beijing that it will not be allowed to browbeat its neighbours, including India, Japan and the ASEAN nations. The Quad is officially an arrangement that aims to preserve a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region.
This article, Uber engineer speaks out on company's $186M campaign, says it'll hurt drivers, originally appeared on CNET.com.

As Uber has poured tens of millions of dollars into a California ballot measure to avoid classifying its drivers as employees, one engineer from inside the ride-hailing company spoke out against this campaign on Tuesday. In an op-ed published by TechCrunch, Kurt Nelson said Uber doesn't have drivers' interests in mind.

"Uber works because it's cheap and it's quick," Nelson wrote. "But it's become clear to me that this is only possible because countless drivers are spending their personal time sitting in their cars, waiting to pick up a ride, completely unpaid. Workers are subsidizing the product with their free labor."

Nelson is one of only a handful of gig economy company employees to speak out against Proposition 22. It's been historically rare to see tech workers criticize their employers' positions. But that's starting to change. Google employees organized walk-outs in 2018 over the company's handling of sexual harassment allegations and Facebook employees staged a virtual protest in June after the company refused to take down inflammatory posts by President Donald Trump.

Nelson said he's been a software engineer at Uber for two years, writing code for the company's Android app. But when he was in college, he drove for the ride-hailing company Lyft. He said that experience gave him insight into what it's like to be a driver and how difficult it can be when workers don't have benefits.

Uber, Lyft and other gig economy companies currently classify their drivers as independent contractors, which means the workers pay for their own expenses, such as gas, car maintenance and insurance. Drivers also don't have labor benefits like minimum wage, health insurance or paid sick leave. If they were to be classified as employees, many of those costs would then fall onto the companies.

In an effort to give gig workers more protections, California passed a law last year called Assembly Bill 5. Under the law, many companies that use independent contractors are now required to reclassify their workers as employees. Other states have begun to follow suit. Washington, Oregon, New York and New Jersey are now considering similar legislation.

Instead of reclassifying their drivers in California, however, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart and Postmates are bringing the issue to voters in November. They've contributed a total of $186 million to sponsor a ballot measure, Proposition 22, designed to create a carve-out to AB 5. Proposition 22 proposes establishing an alternative to the law that would maintain workers as independent contractors but add benefits such as expense reimbursement and a health care subsidy. It would not take into account the time drivers spend waiting for rides.

Alissa Orlando, a former Uber employee who worked as an operations manager onboarding drivers in East Africa in 2016 and 2017, has also criticized how the company handles drivers. She said she used to be opposed to AB 5, but after seeing how the novel coronavirus pandemic left workers without a safety net, she changed her mind and now she's opposed to Proposition 22.

"When we were developing prices models, we didn't care that drivers were earning less than grocery store clerks because we figured we could always recruit more supply," Orlando told CNET. "Uber and other gig platforms always advertise gross, rather than net wages, and once someone is on the platform, they're often shocked by the high cost of car depreciation, gas, commercial auto insurance, self employment taxes and countless other business expenses."

Since their inception, Uber and Lyft have struggled to become profitable. And managing a workforce of several thousand drivers could mean millions in added costs.

"At work, management tells us that passing Prop. 22 is for the best because it is critical for the company's bottom line," Nelson wrote in his op-ed. "Yet, a corporation's bottom line will not and should not influence my vote." Nelson asked other tech workers to research the ballot measures and consider whether their employer's interests align with what's good for them and society.

"We agree with Kurt that it's important for voters and employees alike to do their research and make their decisions based on facts. When they do, they'll find that 72% of drivers -- the vast majority -- support Prop. 22," an Uber spokesman said in an email to CNET, citing a survey commissioned by Uber that included responses from 718 gig workers. "That's why we have been advocating for Yes on 22, which will require Uber and other companies to provide health care benefits and earnings guarantees."

Uber's CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has made several media appearances over the last couple of months to lay out the company's plans with Proposition 22. He also wrote an op-ed in the New York Times with the same ideas, proposing a "third way" for the classification of gig workers. On Monday, Khosrowshahi wrote a blog post titled The High Cost of Making Drivers Employees, in which he said if reclassified as employees, "hundreds of thousands of drivers would lose work opportunities overnight."

In his op-ed, Nelson disputed that assertion.

"Were it not for my background as a Lyft driver, I would have accepted my employer's argument at face value," Nelson wrote. "Their business model is the same as any other company's -- cut costs no matter what in order to increase profits ... There's no way around it, Uber's Prop. 22 is a multimillion dollar effort to deny these workers their rights."
Top infections disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said the COVID-19 cases in the White House is "not a hoax," but could have been prevented.

Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

"It's an unfortunate situation when you see something like that because that could have been prevented," Fauci said in a report.

Many of those who attended an event last Saturday, wherein President Donald Trump announced Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his Supreme Court nominee, tested positive for COVID-19.

Photos of the event showed that people socialized without masks and social distancing protocols. These measures were done to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

In a virtual conversation with American University's students and families on Tuesday, Fauci answered a question raised by a student on handling family members who do not believe that the virus is real or serious.

"Right now we have 210,000 people who have died and 7.3 million people (who) have been infected. Globally, there are over 1 million people who have died. That is not a hoax," Fauci said.

He noted that no one could say that people worldwide and American allies are lying and calling it a hoax.

Downplaying COVID-19

A recent message from Trump downplaying COVID-19 in comparison to the flu was removed by Facebook.The post was also flagged by Twitter soon after the president posted it.

Trump's post claimed that sometimes "over 100,000" Americans die yearly from the flu - an overestimate on the average death toll from the flu.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 12,000 to 61,000 Americans died from influenza each year since 2010.

On the other hand, COVID-19 has killed more than 210,000 Americans over the last eight months, based on Johns Hopkins University data.

Twitter flagged the tweet with a message saying that the post violated "the Twitter Rules about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19." However, the president's tweet was not taken down as Twitter said it "may be in the public's interest."

White House COVID-19 Cases

Trump and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19 and the president announced it via Twitter.

The couple took COVID-19 tests just hours after the White House announced that senior aide Hope Hicks had been infected. Hicks has been traveling with the president recently. She traveled with him on Air Force One to and from the first presidential debate in Cleveland.

Trump held several campaign rallies across the country for months. Many of these rallies were outdoors, but some have been indoors. He also traveled to New Jersey for a fundraiser.

Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, and Former adviser Kellyanne Conway also tested positive for COVID-19.

Former N.J. Gov. Chris Christie, Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah., Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Senator Thom Tillis, R-N.C., were also diagnosed with coronavirus.

Officials who are also in the event but tested negative were Barrett, Vice President Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, and Atty. General William Barr.

Check these out:

Will Trump's COVID-19 Diagnosis Speeds Up Stimulus Deal? Pelosi Projects Optimism

Trump Signs 'Born Alive' Executive Order to Protect Infants That Survived Abortion

Fauci Says Take Vitamin D If You're Deficient. How to Know If You Are?
Kapsch TrafficCom acquired the remaining 35% interests in the German toll services provider tolltickets GmbH. Since July 2016, Kapsch has been holding a 65% stake in tolltickets.

"With the combination of the unique experience of Kapsch TrafficCom as a pioneer and technology leader in electronic toll collection and the know-how of tolltickets in delivering tolling services, we have been paving the way for an interoperable tolling services offering across Europe for more than four years," says Georg Kapsch, Chief Executive Officer of Kapsch TrafficCom. "Because of the high strategic importance of tolling services, we have decided to take over tolltickets completely. Our long-term goal is to establish ourselves among the leading EETS providers. Tolltickets will step-by-step expand its current portfolio to provide white-labeled tolling services for partner companies such as fleet card providers, vehicle manufacturers, or rental car companies."

Compliance check in Germany completed

In an important step forward on the way to expanding the services in Europe, tolltickets has successfully completed the so-called Compliance Checking Communication (CCC) in accordance with the specifications of the German Federal Office for Freight Transport (BAG). This confirms the prescribed functionality of the Kapsch on-board unit and clears the way for the following test phases. Passing these tests will ultimately allow Kapsch TrafficCom to offer toll services in Germany.

Nationwide in six European countries

Kapsch TrafficCom and tolltickets are continuously expanding their services across the continent. A Western connection covering the entire highway networks in France, Spain and Portugal as well as some tunnels and bridges is now effective. In Central Eastern Europe, tolltickets is the pioneer in providing tolling services for heavy-goods vehicles in Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria. The addition of Germany to this list would represent an important milestone on the way to providing full coverage of the corridors in Europe and delivering a unique customer experience. Belgium, Norway, Denmark and Sweden will follow.

European Electronic Toll Service (EETS)

The European Electronic Toll Service (EETS) supplements the national electronic tolling systems of the member states and simplifies cross-border mobility for road users: Vehicles operating internationally no longer have to be equipped with a separate on-board unit (OBU) for each country, and only one contract with an EETS provider is needed.

For additional information: www.kapsch.net/ktc?lang=en-us

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005344/en/

Contacts:

Press contact

Carolin Treichl

T +43 50 811 1710

carolin.treichl@kapsch.net
Republican Pete Flores pulled off a stunning upset in a 2018 special election, securing a seat in the Texas Senate representing District 19, a Democratic stronghold.

He now faces a stiff challenge from longtime Democratic state Rep. Roland Gutierrez.

District 19 is vast and complex. It stretches across 17 counties from the South and West sides of San Antonio to the U.S.-Mexico border. It includes Alpine, Fort Stockton and Del Rio.

We recommend Gutierrez for this seat because we think his policies and priorities better fit the district, but we make this recommendation with reservation. We remain troubled by a predatory lending bill he put forward last session, and we wonder if he has the relationships with other lawmakers, including those in his own party, to get things done in the state Senate.

But his political experience is undeniable and an asset. An immigration attorney, Gutierrez served on the San Antonio City Council from 2005 through 2008, when he jumped to the Texas House. A six-term member of the House, Gutierrez has been involved in a number of issues, and his push in 2017 to ensure cities can regulate land use within 5 miles of military bases was significant in helping insulate area installations from potential closures.

If elected, he would be a voice for Medicaid expansion and increased education funding. He has been a critic of deploying state troopers to the border. He has also spoken at length about legalizing marijuana as a way to generate additional state revenue  an idea that we see as politically impractical but worthy of study given shifting attitudes on both sides of the aisle.

Flores, a retired game warden, had a decent first session. He played a role in securing state funding to replace and update the crumbling San Antonio State Hospital  although additional funding will be needed next session to complete the project. He also gets along well with Democrats and his fellow Republicans.

But he has extreme views about property taxes  he likens property taxes to paying rent  opposes gay marriage and supports vouchers for private schools. Gutierrez is the better fit.

In District 21, we recommend state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, who has held her seat since 1987. She faces Republican Frank Pomeroy, pastor of First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, where 26 people were killed, including Pomeroys daughter, in a mass shooting in 2017.

This is a sprawling district that stretches from the Rio Grande Valley to southeast Travis County.

We see no reason for change. Zaffirini is an accomplished lawmaker with a long track record of pushing commonsense legislation, including citing drivers for texting while driving. She is the Senates second-highest ranking member, and a steady voice for education funding and greater access to health care.

Pomeroy has called for greater civility in politics, and he and his congregation will always be in our hearts. But we were troubled  and surprised  by his skepticism about the severity of COVID-19 and his concerns about mail-in voting contributing to fraud. COVID-19 almost overwhelmed hospitals in Bexar County this summer and has killed more than 16,100 Texans. There is no evidence of widespread fraud for voting by mail.

Zaffirini deserves another term.
Atheists sue Alabama over so help me God voter registration oath

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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.
VIENNAOn a recent Tuesday afternoon, students pored over laptops in the library, chatted in the hallways, and congregated after class in small groups outside a sleek, newly renovated former bank in Viennas southern Favoriten district. It was the second day of classes at Central European Universitys new home.

Yet despite the typical collegial atmosphere, signs of change were difficult to ignore. The entrance was plastered with current safety procedures, noting a requirement to wear masks and keep distance from others. A hand sanitizer station complemented newly unveiled temperature-taking machines. Inside classrooms, fewer students than usual occupied spaced-out desks, listening to professors and far-flung classmates joining via Zoom.

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Crisis and adaptability are nothing new for CEU, founded in Budapest in 1991 by the Hungarian American philanthropist George Soros. After becoming one of the Hungarian capitals important institutions, it was effectively forced out in 2017 amid authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbans anti-Semitic political vendetta against Soros. CEU opened its new Vienna campus in 2019, and while students and professors split time between both cities last year, nearly all its academic programs will now be taught here.

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But the already difficult and costly move has been complicated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has shut bordersincluding the one between Austria and Hungaryand posed significant challenges for universities worldwide. Even though CEU scored a major symbolic victory on Tuesday, when the European Court of Justice ruled against the law that drove it from Budapest, the current situation is all the more painful for a university founded with the mission of promoting open societies, and which prides itself on bringing together students and faculty from around the globe. The new class comprises 700 students from 90 different countries, but many are struggling to make it to Vienna under current travel restrictions.

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Thats surely a welcome development for Orban and other right-wing politicians across Europe, who earlier this year saw their dreams of closed borders and renewed emphasis on national interests realized practically overnight. They have used the pandemic to amass more power and target political enemies. Now, the crisis has provided nearly as big a challenge to the universitys core mission as Orbans efforts to demonize it. Its just a very unique situation, Michael Ignatieff, CEUs president and rector, told me by phone.

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The opening of classes in Vienna late last month is the culmination of years of uncertainty and legal battles launched by Orbans government. In the decade since he took office, hes strived to centralize control of nearly all aspects of life in Hungary: From sabotaging independent media to targeting nongovernmental organizations and demonizing migrants, he has reshaped the country into what he refers to as an illiberal democracy.

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As one of the worlds most prominent pro-democracy philanthropists, Soros was a perfect targetand so was CEU, which he founded to provide high-quality international education to students in ex-communist Europe. Going after the institution allowed Orban to extend his fight against Soros, since CEU received the vast majority of Hungarys allotted European Union funding for higher education.

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At issue was the universitys accreditation in the United States, since its degrees are recognized both there and in Hungary. In 2018, Hungarian lawmakers approved legislation requiring schools with foreign accreditation to have physical campuses in those countries, as well as a signed agreement between the Hungarian government and that of the accrediting country. CEU, which is registered in the state of New York, opened a small satellite campus at Bard College. Working with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, university officials raced to draw up the necessary agreements with the Hungarian government.

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But officials rejected CEUs effort. The university announced its move to Vienna in late 2018, and while it maintains a presence in Budapestwith several research institutes still based thereall but a few taught degree programs are now in Vienna.

The legal onslaught was characteristic of Orbans approach to governing, says Renata Uitz, a professor of law at CEU. He seeks out legal gray areas to force opponents to jump through daunting administrative hoops, theoretically in the name of transparency, fairness, or other ambiguous values. In CEUs case, Orban ostensibly wanted to level the playing field for universities accreditation and prevent fraudboth reasonable goals, had they been applied to more than just one university. What you actually see as the modus operandi of the regime is using smartly engineered legal rules to get to where they wish, Uitz told me.

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Although the battle has effectively ended, Orban has continued his assault on academic freedom and independent research. In 2018, for instance, he banned gender studies programs at universities. Last year, his government sparked renewed protests when it placed the Hungarian Academy of Sciences under its controla move members said would jeopardize their ability to conduct independent research. And just this summer, Orban proposed changes at the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest, announcing the state universitys ownership would be transferred to a private foundation in addition to appointing a new board of trustees. Nearly 100 students protested by barricading themselves in a campus building.

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References to those political developments and the pandemic were a frequent theme throughout CEUs virtual opening ceremony a few days before classes began. The values we believe in here are being challenged as never before, Ignatieff told students in his address, during which he also called for digital togetherness.

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As elsewhere around the world, social distancing makes building an academic community while keeping students safe a unique challenge. Its even more difficult when those students hail from as far away as Africa and South Asia. Traditional social events that would bring new students togetherespecially important for CEUs new undergraduate programare impossible under the current restrictions. COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Vienna, deemed a risk area by Germany and other nearby countries.

Chatting outside after class, Max and Joshua, two students in the comparative constitutional law program from Germany and the United Kingdom, respectively, told me they were happy to be able to study on campus, but said the dynamics of the famously international university just arent the same when more than half their class is joining via Zoom. Itll be interesting how many people come in the next weeks and months, Max said, adding that hes super impressed with the universitys handling of the situation.

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Its unclear how CEUs change of location will affect its identity and the experience it offers students. Some worry that moving from Budapest to Vienna, a more expensive city, could deter some from enrolling, or make life harder once theyre here. Ignatieff, for his part, said Vienna is a natural new home: A meeting point between the German-speaking world and Central and Eastern Europe, its diversity and range of international organizations will enrich the opportunities available to CEU students. We do not see ourselves as a refugee university or a university in exilewe see it as a new beginning, he told me. I dont think we will lose our Central European identityI think it will be reinforced and strengthened in Vienna.

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The start of classes in Vienna came with a welcome development: The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that Lex CEU, the law that ultimately forced the universitys move to Vienna, violates European Union law. The ruling brings a tremendous sense of vindication for the institution, Ignatieff told reporters Tuesday afternoon, adding it could mean CEU will be able to return some of its U.S.-accredited programs to Budapest in the future. Still, the favorable ruling came far too late to change CEUs current situation: The university has already signed a contract with the city of Vienna to develop a permanent campus at a former hospital complex, slated for launch in 2025. CEU considers Vienna our permanent home, Ignatieff said. The judgments not going to change that.

As for the universitys long-term future, and that of academic freedom in Budapest, observers like Janos Kertesz, a CEU professor of network science who moved to Vienna this summer with his wife, expressed a simple sentiment: No government lasts forever. The question is always: How long? 

Editors note: This story was adapted from a longer ICWA dispatch.
A young Texas doctor who died from coronavirus in September caught the infection after wearing the same N95 masks for weeks and maybe even months, her family claims.

Adeline Fagan, a 28-year-old OB/GYN doctor originally from LaFayette, New York, died after a two-month battle with COVID-19 that resulted in her suffering a 'massive brain bleed'.

Fagan had been treating positive patients in the emergency room at HCA Houston Healthcare West when she contracted the virus in July.

Her heartbroken family now say that the lack of PPE supplied played a role in her death. It is unclear how Fagan contracted coronavirus.

OB/GYN doctor Adeline Fagan, 28, died on September 19 after testing positive in July

She underwent a two-month battle with COVID-19 before suffering a 'massive brain bleed'

'Adeline had an N95 mask and had her name written on it,' her 23-year-old sister Maureen told the Guardian. 'Adeline wore the same N95 for weeks and weeks, if not months and months.'

According to CDC guidelines, a N95 mask should be reused at the most five times.

HCA Houston is part of the country's largest hospital chain, HCA Healthcare.

In recent months, a national nurses union has complained of the chain's 'willful violation' of workplace safety protocols that included pushing for staff infected with coronavirus to continue coming to work.

The hospital told the Guardian that they did not have a policy on constantly reusing masks.

'Our protocol, based on CDC guidance, includes colleagues turning in their N95 masks at the conclusion of each shift, and receiving another mask at the beginning of their next shift,' said the facility's chief medical officer, Dr Emily Sedgwick.

Fagan, the second of four sisters, was in her second year of residency at a hospital in Houston when she became sick.

The doctor, who had a history of asthma, worked in the OB/GYN unit delivering babies but was working shifts in the ER treating COVID-19 patients as the state's hospitals buckled under the weight of soaring cases and deaths.

Fagan didn't receive enough masks to protect her from the virus as she treated infected patients, her younger sister claims

During a 12-hour shift on July 8, Fagan began feeling 'under the weather' with flu-like symptoms, according to a GoFundMe page her family had established to help pay for her medical costs.

She tested positive for COVID-19 and her condition deteriorated, leading to her being hospitalized.

Fagan spent several weeks in hospital, with doctors giving her several drugs and respiratory therapies to help her overcome the virus.

She was intubated and placed on a ventilator on August 3 as her lungs could no longer support her, the GoFundMe post read.

The following day doctors 'took the last remaining step available' and placed Fagan on ECMO, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, to oxygenate her blood because she was 'not responding well to the ventilator'.

Her sister Maureen wrote on the GoFundMe that the family expected her to be on the ventilator and ECMO for at least six to eight weeks while her lungs healed from the virus.

Maureen described her sister as a 'fighter' who had 'set her mind to surviving this virus'.

Fagan, an OB/GYN doctor originally from LaFayette, New York, died last month, hours after a nurse found her unresponsive and she was rushed for emergency surgery

Fagan was working shifts in an ER in Texas treating COVID-19 patients as the state's hospitals buckled under the weight of soaring cases and deaths after quick reopenings in July

Brant, the doctor's dad, posted an update on the GoFundMe page on September 19 announcing Fagan had died early that morning.

He said his daughter had been 'doing wonderfully for the last few days' and the family got a 'good report' on her condition just minutes before she suddenly worsened.

'As we settled down for the night 30 minutes later, the phone rang - Houston, TX,' he wrote.

A nurse had found Fagan 'unresponsive' and she was rushed for a CT scan that showed she had suffered a 'massive brain bleed'.

She needed emergency surgery and doctors warned her chances of survival were limited.

'The neurosurgeon said it was a '1 in a million' chance she would even survive the procedure, but that Adeline would have several severe cognitive and sensory limitations if she did survive,' he wrote.

A brain bleed can be a side effect of the ECMO, he explained.

'Everyone was crushed by the events, the nurses, the doctors, and, of course, us. The doctor said they have seen this type of event in COVID patients that spend time on ECMO,' Brant wrote.

'The vascular system is also compromised by the virus, resulting in bleeds. We spent the remaining minutes hugging, comforting, and talking to Adeline. And then the world stopped.'

Brant wrote of the family's heartache when their 'world stopped' and paid tribute to his daughter, urging others to 'be an "Adeline" in the world'.

'The time the world stopped for a moment and will never be the same. Our beautiful daughter, sister, friend, physician, Adeline Marie Fagan, MD passed away,' he wrote.

'If you can do one thing, be an "Adeline" in the world. Be passionate about helping others less fortunate, have a smile on your face, a laugh in your heart, and a Disney tune on your lips,' he wrote.

Dori Marshall, associate dean at the University at Buffalo medical school, added that Fagan 'loved delivering babies, loved being part of the happy moment when a baby comes into the world, loved working with mothers'.

Fagan is one of 250 healthcare workers who has died of coronavirus in the US's southern and western hotspot states, according the Kaiser Health News.

In Texas, there were nine medical deaths in April but this soared to 33 in July as the outbreak in the state worsened.

The increase in cases came after Governor Greg Abbott hastily ended lockdown and stay-at-home measures.

According to the project Lost on the Frontline, the average age of medical worker deaths from coronavirus is younger than that among the average population.

The median age of death from COVID-19 for medical staff is 57, compared to 78 in the general population, it reports.

The project adds that around one-third of deaths among medical workers involve concerns over adequate PPE and healthcare workers are three times more likely than the general population.

Fagan's death comes as cases have topped 773,435 and the death toll reached 16,111 in hard-hit Texas.

Across America, the death toll has now topped 210,000 and more than 7.5million people have been infected.

Fagan's funeral took place on Saturday.
We learned last week that (a) Hillary Clinton approved of faking a Russia-Trump scandal to detract from her unsecured server; (b) that thenCIA director John Brennan briefed Obama and intelligence officials about the plan; and (c) that intelligence officials sent a memo to Peter Strzok tell him of Hillary's plan. The actual documents were made available on Tuesday. They revealed that Obama knew almost from the beginning that "Russian collusion" was a hoax, while the media's current cover-up of the newly released documents shows that the Russia hoax will live forever in their reporting.

Brennan's July 2016 notes of his meeting with Obama and other national security advisers are almost entirely blacked out. What remains, though, establishes that Obama knew as of July that Hillary intended to fake collusion between Trump and the Russians:

We're getting additional insight into Russian activities from [redacted]. Cite [?] alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on 28 July of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.

In the same notes, Brennan wrote 14 bullet point items, only one of which is unredacted. It states, "Any evidence of collaboration between Trump campaign and Russian." That language may or may not be related to the initials "POTUS" that appear one line above in the margin.

The other initials in the margin are JC (James Comey?), Denis (McDonough?), and Susan (Rice?).

A subsequent September 2016 memo from the White House's security officials to Peter Strzok addresses the already existing Crossfire Hurricane investigation. The relevant, unredacted information states:

3. [Redacted] Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date [Source revealing information redacted]: a. [Redacted] An exchange [redacted] discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server. [Redacted.] According to open sources, Guccifer 2.0 is an individual or group of hackers whom US officials believe is tied to Russian intelligence services. Also per open sources, Guccifer 2.0 claimed credit for hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) this year.

The myriad redactions are irksome, considering that they violate Trump's executive order demanding that agencies produce all relevant documents without redactions:

I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions! https://t.co/GgnHh9GOiq  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020

All Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country. Act!!!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020

Despite the redactions, the available material answers the famous Watergate question: "What did the President know and when did he know it?" President Obama knew in July that Hillary planned to frame Trump. He nevertheless colluded with the Deep State to spy on Trump's campaign and, after the election, to carry out a coup against Trump's presidency. Trump is right to call this "perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country."

Half of America, however, will never know about this scandalous crime. The mainstream media are either suppressing it or folding, spindling, and mutilating it beyond recognition.

As of 2 A.M. EDT on Wednesday, the New York Times made no mention of the newly released documents. However, it published an article accusing Trump of downplaying "Russian interference in the American political process."

The Washington Post referenced the documents, but only to accuse Trump of trusting Russian intelligence over American intelligence  even though the newly released materials show that it was Hillary who colluded with Russia.

CNN mentioned the document release but leapt to Brennan's defense: Brennan claims that director of National Intelligence Ratcliffe is selectively declassifying documents to help Trump. Considering that Trump is demanding that everything should be declassified and that CIA director Gina Haspel is refusing, that's a bizarre defense.

CNN's homepage, by the way, has abandoned any pretense of reporting news; it's purely a Democrat propaganda outlet:

Drilling down into the subtitles under the main headings, that page is, if anything, even worse than it was Tuesday morning, when Tom Bevan first commented upon it:

I've consumed a lot of media over the last 20 years since starting RCP. It's my job. But I have never seen anything as biased and one-sided from a major media outlet as CNN's front page this morning. pic.twitter.com/6spBXdtVlk  Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) October 6, 2020

What the newly released documents confirm is that Democrats are utterly corrupt. They have become a hard-left cabal of people who will do anything  lying, conniving, censoring, manipulating  to maintain political power. Any group of people who want power that much are the last people who should ever be trusted with it.

Image: Obama and Clinton 2016. YouTube screen grab.
It is a pleasant autumn evening in October. Seventy-year-old Medhat Mohieddin, a former soldier in the Egyptian army, is turning on his TV to follow the news and is somewhat taken aback to hear Sudanese officials defending a possible normalisation agreement between Khartoum and Tel Aviv.



He is not completely surprised, however, because it has been happening for over a month now  this would be the third deal in less than two months. I understand that things are going forward, but I am wondering if these normalisation agreements are fair to Arab rights or if Israel is getting too much in return for too little.



Mohieddin, who nearly died during his participation in the October 1973 War between Egypt and Israel, says he cannot help but ask whether the current normalisation deals with Israel are doing justice to the huge sacrifices that Egyptian soldiers have made to defend Egyptian and Arab rights.



I think of the many days and nights that we spent under Israeli siege in Kabrit, and I recall the brave men who died during this war, and I ask what they would say now if they were watching us. Would they say we were honouring their sacrifices, or would they say otherwise, Mohieddin asked.

Mohieddin was a soldier in Battalion 603 that endured a harsh Israeli siege for over four successive months after the UN Security Council announced a ceasefire in the 1973 War on 22 October 1973, a little over two weeks after Egyptian soldiers crossed from the west side of the Suez Canal to the east side, where they brought down the Bar Lev Line that Israel had earlier claimed was invincible.The bravery and resilience of this battalion, part of Brigade 130, was shown in its mission to control crucial points around the Bitter Lakes, through which the Suez Canal runs. It was tasked with stopping the Israeli army from carrying out a counter-attack that could have stopped the crossing of Egyptian soldiers that started on the afternoon of 6 October.The crossing of battalions 602 and 603 of Brigade 130, planned almost two years ahead of 6 October, was successful. However, controlling the crucial points around the Bitter Lakes proved more difficult, and the Israeli army managed a counter-offensive that harmed Battalion 602. Battalion 603 was instructed to take an Israeli strongpoint at Kabrit.Taking over Kabrit was not an easy mission, because just as Battalion 602 had sustained considerable damage, we in Battalion 603 had suffered damage too, though not as bad, said Khalil Al-Mahdi, lead military engineer in Battalion 603.According to Al-Mahdi, now in his mid-70s, a man conscripted after getting his engineering degree, it was the dedication and resolve of the men of the battalion and the tough training they had received since the brigade was established in January 1972 that made it possible for Egyptian soldiers to take control of the strongpoint and to hold Israeli soldiers hostage.Like Mohieddin, Al-Mahdi credits the military skills and bravery and dedication of leader of Battalion 603 Ibrahim Abdel-Tawab for helping the two-thirds of the battalion that survived the Israeli attack to take control of the strongpoint on 8 October just as the crossing was being secured.However, as Al-Mahdi recalls, getting hold of the Kabrit strongpoint was one thing, and keeping it was quite another, because the Israelis were really determined to regain it in view of its exceptional strategic importance, he said.It was a tough war, and we were short on military equipment, but we never lost our morale or resolve, and we were willing to do whatever it took to keep in control of this strongpoint. We knew that our presence there was essential to curbing the counter-offensive of the Israelis or at least to limiting it if it had to happen, Al-Mahdi said.The resolve of the soldiers of Battalion 603 was not undermined by the news that they received from headquarters about a breach the Israeli army had made on 16 October, then managing to cross to the western side of the canal and to encircle the Third Army.Al-Mahdi, being in a leadership position, was informed through the chain of command. Mohieddin learned about it from the radio.

The broadcaster was reading a statement from the Armed Forces, saying something to the effect that the Egyptian army was still in control of Ismailia. It was baffling  I was not sure what to think or what to believe because of the sad experience of the false news that the radio had broadcast during the early days of the 1967 War, suggesting a victory for the Egyptian army when the situation was in fact disastrous, he recalled.However, neither Al-Mahdi nor Mohieddin were prepared to entertain the remotest thought of surrender. Not at all  on the contrary, we were determined to prevail, and we knew that our resilience would help those officers and soldiers that had been encircled by the Israelis, Al-Mahdi said.

According to the testimony of both men and that of Ahmed Ali, another soldier in Battalion 603 now in his early 70s, with Abdel-Tawab in charge demoralisation was not something they ever considered.



Abdel-Tawab had taken control of the battalion after his senior officer Ahmed Shoeib was seriously wounded and had withdrawn from the line for treatment. Abdel-Tawab, Al-Mahdi said, knew that the battle was going to be long and tough, and he ordered the use of limited military resources to face up to possible Israeli attack.



One mission that Abdel-Tawab assigned to Al-Mahdi was to decide the extent of the landmines that Israeli soldiers had planted around the strongpoint, organise the escape of the soldiers of the battalion by a miracle, and replant the mines in a way that could help the Egyptian soldiers to defend it.



The plan worked  when the Israelis sent in their tanks to regain the strongpoint, they drove into the landmines. This helped us considerably in fighting back, Al-Mahdi recalled.



Demoralisation was not a possibility, not even when Israeli fighters bombarded the strongpoint with bombs, causing heavy causalties. We were committed to resilience. We would bury the martyrs, pray, and move on. There was no time to grieve and no time for us to think that we might also die soon. Even if we thought that death was near, our focus was not on how to live but on how to make sure the strongpoint was not lost to the Israelis, Al-Mahdi said.



By 22 October, Al-Mahdi added, the Israeli army had sent in enough soldiers to make it difficult for the members of the battalion to move.



There was little food and water, mostly taken from the strongpoint, and our military equipment was low. We were fully aware of the fact that at any minute things could take a disturbing turn, Al-Mahdi acknowledged. But somehow we did have the strong faith that we could prevail. We just thought that there was some power that was there for us, he said.



Clearly, the power of God was on our side  it must have been. How else could we have believed in the chances of survival for wounded soldiers that we had put on floating pieces of wood and put in the canal, hoping that the current would take their bodies in the direction of Suez where they would receive treatment, Al-Mahdi asked.



For close to three successive weeks, the members of Battalion 603 continued their fight, while observing the Ramadan fast and hoping for some sort of breakthrough. However, when successive resolutions of the UN Security Council failed to give them a clear exit plan, they knew that their ordeal was going to be much longer than they had at first thought.



The siege continued even after the signing of the first disengagement agreement between Egypt and Israel in Geneva on 18 January 1974. And the signing came just one day after Abdel-Tawab was killed in an Israeli attack.



This is not a moment that any of us will ever forget, no matter how long we live. Anyone who was alive then and saw the death of Abdel-Tawab will always remember that moment, Ali said.



Al-Mahdi and Mohieddin gave detailed accounts of the moment and recounted it with tears in their eyes. When the Israelis knew that they had got him, and when they saw that we had buried him, they fired 21 gunshots in honour of his exceptional military resilience, Al-Mahdi said.



Mohamed Al-Dessouki, the chief of operations, took over the battalion until an agreement was reached to end the siege on 22 February when the soldiers and officers started to move back. Our hearts were broken to be leaving the bodies of the great men whom we had lost, but we were very proud that we had never lost control of the strongpoint, no matter the pressure and no matter the difficulties, Mohieddin said.



When they got to Suez, the surviving members of the battalion took a train to Cairo and then on to Alexandria, the base of Brigade 130.



At every single station that the train stopped at we were cheered and welcomed by the people and by military commanders there to salute us, Al-Mahdi recalled. He added that when they got to Alexandria and off the train, the drivers of the military vehicles could barely make it through the streets as people were crowding around to salute the heroes.

When all the members of the battalion came together in Alexandria to be honoured by their commanders, they were pleasantly surprised to find that some of the wounded men that they had put on floating wooden boards had made it.



They had been rescued by the Red Cross, but only some of them, unfortunately. Some had also died, Al-Mahdi said.



We knew the details of the military situation when we got back. We had hoped that there would be no breach of the Canal, but we felt we had done everything we could to free our land that Israel had taken by military force, Mohieddin said.



According to Ali, there was also an impression that there would be no more wars. Im not sure how, but it was very clear in my mind at the time, he said. Ali was also not really surprised by the later decision of late president Anwar Al-Sadat to pursue a visit to Jerusalem and start peace talks with Israel in 1977.



I am not at all saying I expected this, or that I even thought it could happen, but Sadat was the king of surprises. He would always do the thing that nobody would think was going to happen, he said. When we went to war on 6 October 1973, we scarcely believed that it was happening because we had not believed it was going to happen, he added.



Ali said that he had never had any resentment of the decision by Sadat to pursue a negotiated settlement with Israel to regain the remainder of Egyptian territories. We went to war to get Sinai back, and when we were held under siege for over four consecutive months we were only thinking that we are there to help to regain Sinai. That was everything to us, he said.



Mohieddin is not willing to claim that he was neutral about Sadats decision to pursue a political settlement with Israel. However, he is willing to say that when all is said and done, it was Sadat who managed through war and through negotiations to bring back the land.



When I compare the deal that Sadat made in the late 1970s after the October War with the normalisation deals that Israel has been getting from several Arab countries over the past few weeks, I have to say that Sadats deal was much better, Mohieddin said.



The war was really very tough, and we had to prepare for it hard and long, Al-Mahdi recalled. It was not just tough for those on the front either, because we were there to die to get back the land. It was also very tough for the families of the soldiers and officers who were waiting and praying for their safety back home, he added.



Al-Mahdi himself was on the front line along with two other brothers who were also doing their military service. For his wife, to whom he had just got married before the war started, and for his parents, every day of the four plus months was one of endless pain.



Upon the return of the members of the battalion to Alexandria in February 1974, he said, there were families there waiting, hoping to see their loved ones even though they had already been notified that their sons had lost their lives during the war.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Khara, who joined SBI in 1984 as a Probationary Officer, was instrumental in merging five associate banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank with SBI in 2017

The Centre, on Tuesday, appointed State Bank of Indias senior-most managing director Dinesh Kumar Khara as the chairman of the countrys largest lender.

He replaced Rajnish Kumar, whose three-year term ended on Tuesday. His elevation was recommended by the Banks Board Bureau (BBB) on 28 August after consideration from among the pool of serving managing directors at the bank, comprising Arijit Basu, CS Shetty and Ashwani Bhatia. Khara was among the contenders for the chairman's post in 2017 as well.

Khara was appointed as managing director of SBI in August 2016 for a three-year term, but got a two-year extension in 2019 after review of his performance.

An alumnus of the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University and a post graduate in Commerce, Khara led the Global Banking division of SBI. He holds a board-level position and supervises the businesses of SBI's non-banking subsidiaries. Prior to being appointed managing director, he was the MD and CEO of SBI Funds Management Pvt Limited (SBIMF).

Khara is known as a general banking specialist within SBI circles. During his stint in the overseas expansion wing, Khara was posted at the banks Chicago office and was associated with the overseas acquisition of Indian Ocean International Bank Mauritius, according to a report.

Khara, who joined SBI in 1984 as a probationary officer, was instrumental in merging five associate banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank with SBI effective April 2017. He has over 35 years of experience in various verticals of commercial banking, such as retail credit, SME/corporate credit, deposit mobilisation, international banking operations and branch management. He is also a Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB).

Kharas assumes the top post in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which has spelt disaster for the banking sector. As on 30 June, SBI had made total provisions of Rs 3,000 crore to cover potential COVID-19 losses. The gross non-performing asset (NPA) ratio of 5.44 percent was lower than 6.15 percent in the March quarter.

Additionally, global rating agency Moodys downgraded SBIs standalone profile to ba2 to from ba1 reflecting Moody's view that the bank's asset quality and profitability will deteriorate. The resultant weakening in internal capital generation will reverse improvements in the bank's financial metrics achieved over the past two years, Moodys said. This makes regulating the quality of assets an uphill challenge for Khara, especially since the moratorium on loan repayments ended on 31 August and SBI is now tackling the loan restructuring proposal.

With inputs from PTI
After Waze broke down the audio controls on CarPlay or lost GPS connectivity on Android Auto, heres the same app breaking down music apps on mobile devices.Some users are reporting a weird Waze behavior that causes the music playback to automatically be paused whenever it needs to announce a turn or route information, only to forget to resume it when its over.The whole thing seems to be happening with Spotify and other media apps, and some claim that these could actually be the ones to blame because similar problems are also encountered on Google Maps.Whats worse, however, is that resuming the music playback when Waze suspends it is only possible with touch input on the phone screen, as the other controls, such as the dedicated buttons on the headphones, dont seem to work.I listen on my headphones. I dont have CarPlay or whatever. Not only does it require me to manually unpause, but it wont let me unpause by tapping the button in my headphones. I can ONLY unpause by tapping my screen, thus forcing me to take my eyes off the road. Its incredibly frustrating, one user explains One thing worth trying is to actually use the dedicated media apps and not the integration that is available in Waze. The Google-owned company has tried to make the music listening experience feel as native as possible, so the app currently supports multiple services, including Spotify, to play music right from the Waze UI.However, switching to the stand-alone apps for these services could prevent Waze from interfering with the playback, and according to some users, this is what brings things back to normal. In the meantime, however, theres no word from Waze as to whether this behavior is under investigation or not.
The Kremlin issued a new appeal for an end to hostilities in and around Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday after Moscow`s foreign intelligence chief said the mountain enclave could become a launch pad for Islamist militants to enter Russia.

Moscow expressed alarm after the deadliest fighting in more than 25 years between ethnic Armenian and Azeri forces entered a 10th day, though the French news agency AFP later said Armenia had offered concessions only if Azerbaijan was ready to do so.

AFP gave no details of the offer it said had been made by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Azerbaijan has said it will stop fighting only if Armenia sets a timetable to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh, which under international law belongs to Azerbaijan but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called for fighting to stop and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced "serious concern about the unprecedented escalation" in a phone call with Iran`s foreign minister,

Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia`s SVR Foreign Intelligence Service, said the conflict was attracting people he described as mercenaries and terrorists from the Middle East.

"We are talking about hundreds and already even thousands of radicals hoping to earn money in a new Karabakh war," Naryshkin said in a statement.

He warned that the South Caucasus region could become "a new launch pad for international terrorist organisations" from where militants could enter states including Russia.

His comments were released after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, whose country is a close ally of Azerbaijan, urged Moscow to be more active in peacemaking.

NEW FIGHTING

Mediation efforts led by Russia, France and the United States have failed to prevent intermittent flare-ups of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh despite a ceasefire which ended a 1991-94 war that killed about 30,000.

Renewed fighting since Sept. 27 has increased concern that Turkey and Russia, which has a defence pact with Armenia, could be sucked into the South Caucasus conflict.

Iran, which borders Azerbaijan and Armenia, is also worried about the conflict and President Hassan Rouhani underlined the importance of peace in the region in a phone call with Azeri leader Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday.

In the latest fighting, Armenia said Azerbaijan launched an attack with tanks and artillery on a southern part of the contact line that divides ethnic Armenian and Azeri forces.

Nagorno-Karabakh said four cluster bombs had exploded in the centre of Stepanakert, its main administrative centre.

Azerbaijan says Azeri cities outside the conflict zone have been struck, taking the fighting closer to territory from which pipelines carry Azeri gas and oil to Europe.

Both sides say the other has hit civilian areas. Each denies targeting civilians.

Nagorno-Karabakh said 244 of its servicemen and 19 civilians had been killed since Sept. 27 and many more wounded.

The Azeri prosecutor`s office said 27 Azeri civilians had been killed in the renewed fighting. Azerbaijan has not disclosed information about its military casualties.

In an interview with Russian news agency RIA, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad said Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was "the main instigator and the initiator of the recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia".

Reiterating accusations first levelled by French President Emmanuel Macron that Turkey has sent Syrian jihadists to fight in the conflict, Assad said: "Damascus can confirm this."

Assad offered no evidence for his allegation against Turkey, which backs rebels trying to oust him in Syria`s civil war.

Ankara did not immediately respond but has described similar accusations as part of attempts by Armenia to create "dark propaganda" about Turkey.
THE CHAIRPERSON of Shannondoc has been removed from his position, after he delivered a scathing anti-Covid restriction speech against Nphet and the Government at a rally in Dublin at the weekend.

Dr Patrick Morrissey, who operates a clinic in Adare, told the Limerick Leader that a meeting of the Shannondoc board on Monday night concluded that he was to be removed from the board as chairman and director.

In a lengthy speech that was widely circulated on social media, Dr Morrissey said that the National Public Health Emergency Team [Nphet] was completely out of touch and it should be scrapped.

In a long list of claims at the rally, hosted by the so-called Yellow Vest movement, he said that Nphet believe your health is determined by a stupid swab result and that it is meaningless data being used to subdue the people.

We must take back our country and our freedoms from these megalomaniac bureaucrats, he told a cheering crowd.

He told the Leader that evidence has mounted up to show that we are practically at the level of herd immunity now.

He told the rally that the pandemic is by any reasonable definition no longer a health emergency as it kills people with an average age of 84 and that 90% of deaths are in over-65s.

When asked about this view, Dr Morrissey said: People die every day. I was at the bedside of a patient who died yesterday. I see death all the time. People are abstracted. People dont understand theyve got a death phobia. Death is part of life. And the Government and Nphet are using peoples fear of deathirrational fear of deathas a hammer to beat them.

Dr Morrissey said on Tuesday he has treated around 60 patients, both at his clinic and at a Covid hub during the pandemic. He said in defiance of guidelines from the HSE, he has treated patients with hydroxychloroquine, zinc, Vitamin D and azithromycin.

During the rally, he hit out at Nphet, stating that their definition of health meant zero Covid.

I would argue that health is playing a match or cheering on your team from the stands. Health is getting married in and celebrating with those you love. Health is looking out on a sea of smiling maskless faces, he said.

Asked if he was anti-mask, the Limerick GP said: I am against mandatory masks in lower risk settings. So in clinical settings, I have no problem with masks. In places where there is unavoidable close contact over 15 minutes, I am okay with masks.

We must stop the Governments heavy handedness and suppression of our hard fought freedoms. It suits them not to give them back. We went along with the Government strategy in March when we saw the chaotic scenes in Spain and Italy.

Now we know so much more. The curve has been well and truly flattened. The current measures are way more damaging to health than the risk of Covid they pretend to be protecting us from.

Every day I see the negative physical and psychological fallout of these continuing restrictions. NPHET as it currently stands should be scrapped. Doctors should be allowed to treat high risk patients in the community. This way we can keep more of them out of hospital. The daily case numbers must stop being pushed by the media on a people suffering more from Covid fatigue than Covid.

Asked if it was fair that he was removed from his position at Shannondoc, Dr Morrissey said: I think its a sad indictment of a country that we live in and the time we live in, that things are so polarised and there isnt room for free speech, and that I would be penalised because of that. But I respect the boards integrity and they have made a judgement.

A spokesperson for Shannondoc said that Dr Morrissey is no longer its chairperson or a member of the board.

We wish to thank Dr Morrissey for his significant contribution to the development of the cooperative during his tenure. We will embark on the process of appointing Dr Morrisseys successor with immediate effect.

For more Limerick Leader news click here.
Water leaks cause over 10 billion of dollars in damages every year, more than fire damage and theft combined, and waste over 1.5 trillion gallons of water

Sunnyvale, CA, October 7, 2020  The Detection Groups Trident Wireless Water Leak Detection System, the market leader in wireless water leak detection for commercial buildings, has reached a milestone as the first and only company ever, under the stringent FM Approvals Standard 7745, to receive the FM Approvals certification mark for a wireless water leak detection system.

Trident Wireless Water Leak Detection System for commercial buildings is the first IoT system to receive the coveted FM Approval. Trident prevents millions of dollars in annual water damage losses for building owners and insurance companies alike.

Higher certification standards and product testing mean youll prevent more losses, said Brion Callori, FM Global Senior Vice-President, Engineering and Research. When you see a product or service with the FM APPROVED mark, youll know it meets our high property loss prevention product testing and certification standards.

Whether you are a building owner, property manager or corporation, you really cant afford to be without the Trident Wireless Water Leak Detection System installed in your buildings, said Laurie Conner, President & CEO of The Detection Group. In case after case we can demonstrate an exceptional ROI and millions of dollars in savings to building owners, which translates into very attractive loss ratios for insurance providers.

The Detection Group, www.thedetectiongroup.com leader in the growing wireless water security market, has installed the scalable, Trident Wireless Water Leak Detection System in over 400 buildings across the United States, monitoring over 50 million sq. ft. of Class-A Commercial Office, Medical, Hospitality and Corporate Real Estate. With nearly 6 million multi-story and high rise commercial real estate, corporate and residential buildings in the United States alone that need leak detection services, the future is bright for The Detection Group.

The Water Leakage Problem: Water leaks cause over $10 billion in damages every year, more than fire damage and theft combined. Left undetected, even slow drips can cause significant property damage and result in business interruption, insurance payments and even legal action. And the problem is prevalent, said Laurie Conner, President & CEO of The Detection Group. In the past 30 months Trident has identified 11,688 water leaks for our customers.

The Trident Solution: The Trident Wireless Water Leak Detection System (fondly referred to by customers as a smoke detector for water) monitors sources of potential water leaks 24/7/365 and reacts instantly to a water event by sounding a local alarm and notifying multiple designated individuals by email, text, or phone call. Then an optional automatic shut off valve will instantly shut off water supply to the leak. All focused on mitigating damage to reduce financial losses and produce a positive ROI for building owners and low loss ratios for insurance companies.

About The Detection Group: Headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA with regional offices in San Diego and Chicago. In addition to the Trident System, it has developed automatic water shut off valves for instant damage control and proprietary software for capturing leak event data that can be used to help customers and the building industry identify potential leak prone zones.

About FM Approvals

FM Approvals (www.fmapprovals.com) is an international leader in third-party testing and certification services backed by scientific research and over a century of experience. Its FM APPROVED mark on property loss prevention products and services indicates they meet the most rigorous loss prevention standards of quality, technical integrity and performance.

For Sales and Technical Information

Laurie Conner

President & CEO

650. 215. 7400

lconner@thedetectiongroup.com

Media ContactChris Barr

203. 858. 3628

cbarr@thedetectiongroup.com
Hurricane Delta restrengthened to a Category 2 storm early Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph as it charged toward the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Landfall is expected sometime Friday near the Louisiana coast, forecasters said.

The National Hurricane Center issued storm surge and hurricane watches Wednesday for portions of the northwestern and northern Gulf Coast ahead of Delta, which battered Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday, knocking down trees and power lines.

"Delta is expected to grow in size as it approaches the northern Gulf Coast, where there is an increasing likelihood of life-threatening storm surge and dangerous hurricane-force winds beginning Friday, particularly for portions of the Louisiana coast," the Hurricane Center warned.

Active hurricane season: Why is it happening?

In addition, Delta could bring 4 to 8 inches of rain, with isolated maximum amounts of 12 inches, to the central Gulf Coast through parts of the Lower Mississippi Valley. Heavy rainfall could result in flash, urban and small stream flooding along with minor river flooding, according to the hurricane center.

When Delta moves inland, heavy rain is expected in the Ohio Valley and mid-Atlantic region this weekend, the center said.

As of 2 a.m., EDT, Delta was moving west-northwest at 17 mph.. It was about 485 miles from Cameron, Louisiana.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Delta was expected to make landfall Friday night or Saturday morning and the entire state is in the storms possible path. State and local officials in coastal areas were shoring up levees, sandbagging and taking other protections measures, he said.

Louisiana is still recovering from Hurricane Laura, which ravaged the southwestern region as it roared ashore as a Category 4 storm in August. More than 6,600 Laura evacuees remain in hotels around the state, mainly in New Orleans, because their homes are too heavily damaged to return.

Dual disasters: How is climate change worsening wildfires and hurricanes?

Story continues

Edwards on Wednesday night announced that President Donald Trump approved his request for a pre-landfall disaster declaration.

"All who live in South Louisiana should be preparing for Hurricane #Delta and plan to be in place by Thursday evening as we prepare to weather yet another strong hurricane," Edwards said on Twitter.

Delta would be the 10th named storm to hit the U.S. in a single season, an all-time record. This year has tied 1916 for nine tropical systems that made landfall in the U.S., AccuWeather said.

Hurricane Delta knocked over power lines and trees in Cancun, Mexico, after making landfall on Wednesday along the Yucatan Peninsula.

Four of the landfalls so far in 2020 have been from hurricanes, including Hanna, Isaias, Laura and Sally, the Weather Channel said. Delta would be the fifth hurricane landfall of the year.

Delta hit Mexico on Wednesday morning as a Category 2 storm, coming ashore near Puerto Morelos along the northeastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. The center of Delta made landfall around 6:30 a.m. EDT, with top winds of 110 mph, the Hurricane Center said.

Fortunately, the most dangerous part of the hurricane has passed, said Quintana Roo Gov. Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez.

Civil defense official Luis Alberto Ortega Vazquez said there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries, but Delta had toppled about 95 trees and knocked out electricity to parts of Cancun and Cozumel.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hurricane Delta track: Louisiana, Mississippi in path after Mexico
The Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (YIAPL) on Wednesday signed a concession agreement with Zurich Airport International AG to allow the latter to start work for the development of an international airport at Jewar, around 100km from Delhi in the National Capital Region.

The signing was delayed as the Swiss companys officials could not travel to India for it in view of the ban on international flights because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Centre on May 19 granted Zurich Airport International AG the security clearance for the singing of the concession agreement.

The agreement was supposed to be signed by July 2 as per the earlier schedule. But on June 10, the Uttar Pradesh government postponed the agreement signing date to August 17 in view of the pandemic. On August 14, Zurich Airport International AG was given time till October 15 for the signing in view of restrictions on air travel.

Also Read: Due to pandemic, Yamuna authority keeps land allotment rates unchanged

YIAPL was formed as a special purpose vehicle in January this year for the development and the operations of the Noida International Greenfield Airport at Jewar.

Authorities have acquired 1,334 hectares of land under phase 1 out of the total 5,000 hectares required for the airport project.

Zurich Airport International AG is the owner of Switzerlands biggest airport. It emerged as the top bidder to design, build and develop the Jewar airport along the 165-kilometre Yamuna expressway in November last year.

The airport would be spread over 5,000 hectares and will be the biggest in India with eight runways. It is estimated to cater to 70 million passengers annually by 2040-50. The first phase of the project will be completed in 2023.
Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne reiterated in an interview on Wednesday the position he took before the budget committees on Aug. 18 after the governor presented his budget proposal: We do not need a new budget for financial purposes.

At Northams request, the assembly agreed in its reconvened session last April to freeze more than $2 billion in proposed spending in the budget adopted on March 12, the same day the governor declared a public health emergency. The administration had expected a revenue loss of up to $1 billion in the fiscal year that ended June 30, but instead collected about $234 million less than predicted.

I am writing today because it is important for Virginia to take emergency special-session budgetary actions now only if they reflect extensive public input that acknowledges the long-term consequences of those decisions, he said. Otherwise, we should preserve financial options for the 2021 regular session, when public health and economic conditions could allow us to make longer-term spending commitments that reflect the peoples input.
As the city hall front lawn protest continues, a prominent local activist shares some hard hitting questions about the mainstream narrative sold to the public.



To wit . . .



KANSAS CITY CRIME FIGHTER ALONZO WASHINGTON TALKS TACTICS AS THE CAMP OUT PROTEST PERSISTS!!!



As of this writing, protesters are not only demanding the removal of KCPD Chief Smith but also the reallocation of a significant portion of the police budget. The mayor and a council majority have quickly and unequivocally said that they're unwilling to support that agenda.

Accordingly . . .



Here's the no-hold-barred word from one of the very few INDEPENDENT anti-crime leaders in the Kansas City metro . . .



"The media is focusing on the requests that wont happen. So nothing will happen at all. If these protesters were a little more skilled they would be demanding what could possibly happen like the officer being fired or disciplined . . . Most people are not going to risk getting COVID or be in front of City Hall when it gets cold. However, they will send an email or sign a petition.

To be fair, Mr. Washington isn't the only voice that's sympathetic to protesters but has doubts about their tactics. From what we can decipher via social media comments, the camp out seems to be resonating mostly among the white Midtown protester class but without much support from a much broader coalition of East side voters who don't seem to be signing on to the radical agenda of camp out protesters that would effectively eliminate police from urban neighborhoods.

Big picture perspective that proves out this analysis . . .

NYP: Al Sharpton says latte liberals want to defund the police



Check the local links . . .



KCTV5: Kansas City activists camp at City Hall in police protest

KCUR: Protesters At City Hall Determined To Stay Until Their Demands Are Met

Developing . . .
Russian activist group Pussy Riot draped gay pride rainbow flags on Moscow government buildings to mark Vladimir Putin's 68th birthday on Wednesday.

Their stunt came as the Russian military staged its own birthday present for Putin with a 'successful' test launch of his new-age 6,000 mph hypersonic Zircon missile.

In a lengthy Facebook message accompanying pictures of the flags hanging from government buildings, Pussy Riot wrote: 'On Putin's birthday, Pussy Riot hung rainbow flags on the most important symbols of Russian statehood.

In an alternative celebration of Putin's 68th birthday, Russian activist group Pussy Riot unfurled rainbow flags on key Moscow government buildings to highlight LGBTQ issues

'The FSB on Lubyanka [square], the Presidential Administration, the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Culture and the Bassmanny district,' the group wrote, were all targets of their alternative birthday celebration.

They said that with their stunt came the demand to legalise 'same-sex partnerships' and for investigations to be undertaken 'into murders and kidnapping of gay, lesbians, transgender and queer people in Chechnya.'

'Today we give this rainbow as a symbol of missing love and freedom,' they said.

Putin has often been the target of criticism from LGBTQ and human rights activists, with such criticism getting louder in July 2020 when Russian voters approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Putin has said he is not prejudiced against gay people, but that he finds a Western willingness to embrace homosexuality and gender fluidity out of step with traditional Russian values.



Meanwhile, the Russian military celebrated Putin's birthday by testing The Zircon - or Tsirkon - missile.

The group said they attached flags to the FSB building on Lubyanka square, the Presidential Administration, the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Culture and the Bassmanny district

Putin has often been the target of criticism from LGBTQ and human rights activists, particularly after Russian voters approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in July

The missile has been identified by Moscow's state-controlled TV as Putin's weapon of choice to wipe out American cities in the event of nuclear war.

Putin called the launch 'a great event not only in the life of the Armed Forces, but also in the whole of Russia'.

The deadly missile is 'the newest, truly unparalleled weapon system in the world' ensuring 'the defence capability of our state'.

The Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missile is launched from the Russian guided missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov during a test in the White Sea on Wednesday

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Chief of the Russian Armed Forces' General Staff Valery Gerasimov, via a video conference call at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence, outside Moscow, on his 68th birthday, October 7

The missile was launched from the White Sea and successfully hit a target in the Barents Sea, claimed Russia's Chief of General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov.

He told birthday boy Putin the launch was from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate.

'The task was completed successfully, a direct hit was registered,' he said.

'The range of the flight reached 450 kilometres [280 miles], maximum altitude 28 kilometres [17 miles], the duration of the flight was 4.5 minutes.

'The missile developed the speed of over Mach 8.'

A radiation leak during a military accident which killed two and wounded six last year was seen as involving a testing on the missile.

Radiation levels temporarily soared 20 times above the normal level in Severodvinsk, a city lying some 18 miles from the weapons testing site at Nyonoksa / Nenoksa, according to Greenpeace citing the Russian Emergencies Ministry.

A clearly thrilled Putin today hailed the test and those who had worked on Zircon.

'This work - we know about it - is a huge work of our scientists, engineers, talented workers, military specialists.

'This is a big stage in equipping the Armed Forces with the latest systems.

The Zircon missile blasts out of the Admiral Gorshkov frigate in the White Sea today

The missile starts its rapid journey to a target 280 miles away - which the Russian defence ministry said it hit successfully

The Zircon missile blasts out of the Russian frigate on Wednesday

A flash of heat is seen on the deck of the Russian frigate as the missile lifts off

The missile is fired out of a hatch in the upper deck of the Russian frigate

'I would like to congratulate everyone who is involved in the work on Zircon.

'I want to thank the Minister of Defence (Sergei Shoigu) and you.

'I know that all of you act not only as customers, but also as full-fledged participants in the process of creating such modern systems.

'I would like to thank all of you for the work done, for its results and express my hope that in the future all the specialists involved in the rearmament of the Russian army will work as efficiently and as persistently as they have done so far.

'Once again, I congratulate you on this event and wish you continued success.'

Hypersonic cruise missile Zircon is designed to be used against ships or land-based targets, and to enter production in 2021, commencing service the following year.

Dmitry Kiselyov, presenter of Russia's main weekly TV news show Vesti Nedeli, last year showed on screen a map of the US identifying targets he claimed Moscow would want to hit in a nuclear war.

Kiselyov, seen as a top Putin propagandist, said the Zircon missile could hit the targets in less than five minutes.

Putin warned this year that the West is seeking to steal secrets relating to Zircon and other state-of-the-art Russian weapons such as the Avangard.

He told his FSB counterintelligence service: 'That means that your work should become even more effective.'

Last year radiation levels soared in settlements around the testing site at Nyonoksa (pictured) on the White Sea

The defence ministry said that the plan was to equip both warships and submarines with the Tsirkon.

Putin had revealed the development of the new weapon in a state of the nation address in February 2019, saying it could hit targets at sea and on land with a range of 620 miles and a speed of Mach 9.

Russia boasts of developing a number of 'invincible' weapons that surpass existing systems and include Sarmat intercontinental missiles and Burevestnik cruise missiles.

The first Avangard hypersonic missiles were put into service in December last year.

The programme is not without risks and seven people were killed in an explosion at a missile test site in August 2019. Western experts linked the blast to work on the Burevestnik.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) on October 4 against a website that published a list of journalists and activists allegedly funded by the Indian government to spread public anxiety. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its Indian affiliate the Indian Journalists Union (IJU) support this request and urge the public not to distribute propagandist and provocative material.

On October 1, a list containing the names of multiple Indian journalists and political activists, including several working for national news programs, was published through the Kashmirfight website. The Jammu and Kashmir Police issued a statement condemning the site for its creation of fear psychosis among the included individuals and propagating secessionist and terror related ideology to separate the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir from the Union of India.

A FIR, a document prepared by Indian police after the receipt of information regarding a cognisable offence, is now lodged against the URL handler for the circulation of content detrimental to sovereignty, integrity and the preservation of peace. The police statement called for the general public to ignore derogative or inflammatory posts or websites, and not partake in their further circulation or distribution, which may instigate legal consequences.

This comes amidst a turbulent period of journalistic repression in Indian-administered Kashmir, with the suspension of telecommunications, intimidation and censorship an enduring issue. The FIR has been registered under Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code.

The IJU president Geetartha Pathak said: The IJU condemns the vilification campaign against Journalists of the valley through some propaganda websites and other digital platforms.

The IFJ said:The ongoing restriction of press freedom in Kashmir have negatively impacted the ability of journalist to report and denigrated journalist safety. The IFJ calls on the local authorities to prosecute the distribution of propaganda and terror related materials for the purpose of provoking fear and violence, and protect the interests and freedoms of political journalists in the region.
A high ranking Army officer sexually assaulted a colleague's wife by squeezing her bottom while she was at hospital with her injured son, a court martial heard today.

Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Edwards is accused of 'trying his luck' with his friend's wife, believing he could 'get away with a quick grope'.

The respected officer, 59, was queuing with the woman at a hospital coffee shop when he allegedly ran his hand down her back 'over her left buttock, and squeezed her right buttock'.

Bulford Military Court, Wiltshire, today heard the woman and her husband - who Lt Col Edwards was friendly with - 'had a lot on their plate' already as their young son had been in a serious accident.

Bulford Military Court in Wiltshire today heard how Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Edwards allegedly sexually assaulted a colleague's wife by squeezing her bottom while she was in hospital tending to her seriously injured son (pictured: stock image of British soldiers)

Lt Col Edwards visited Bristol Children's Hospital in uniform to check on the family.

The alleged victim said his grope 'took advantage of my vulnerability.'

Giving evidence, the soldier's wife said: 'He ran his hand across the small of my back from left to right, down on my right bottom cheek and squeezed.

'It was a proper grope on my bottom... I was completely and utterly shocked.

'I was at my most vulnerable, my son had nearly been killed.

'It was not like I was at a party having a good time.

'I couldn't believe someone of that stature would do that at that time.

'My son was critically ill, I was in disbelief.'

When confronted by his colleague Lt Col Edwards said 'sorry mate I didn't mean anything by it'.

Bulford Military Court, Wiltshire, today heard the alleged grope led to a bitter and long-lasting row between the two soldiers, with 'public fallings out'.

Lt Col Edwards, of the Defence School of Electronic and Mechanical Engineering at MoD Lyneham, Wilts, denies one count of sexual assault following the incident in 2018.

Prosecutor William Peters today opened the trial at Bulford Military Court in front of a panel of five Army officers.

Mr Peters said: 'The prosecution's case here is all about the defendant taking a liberty with the wife of a colleague by intentionally squeezing her buttock in highly inappropriate circumstances.

'[The alleged victim] was visiting her young son in hospital.

'Lt Col Edwards knew them well and there was a working relationship with [the alleged victim's husband]. He visited the hospital on a welfare check and was in uniform.

'[The alleged victim] and Lt Col Edwards left the ward for a coffee and got a lift to the ground floor.

'While queuing, Lt Col Edwards took that liberty. While standing side by side, he ran his palm across the small of her back, over her left buttock, and squeezed her right buttock.

'She was wearing black leggings and felt every move. It was a deliberate touch.

'Feeling shocked and angry, she took a pace away from him. They went back to the ward and when the opportunity arose she told her husband what had happened.

'When Lt Col Edwards came back, [the husband] asked him what he thought he was up to. Lt Col Edwards brushed it off and said 'sorry mate I didn't mean to do it'.'

Mr Peters said the married couple were 'angry and confused', adding: 'They already had a lot on their plate with their son being in hospital.'

In cross-examination, barrister Naomi Gyane, defending Lt Col Edwards, suggested the woman was in a 'heightened emotional state' and 'confused' what actually happened.

But, the woman said: 'I was in full control of my mental state. He took advantage of my vulnerability.'

The court heard how Lt Col Edwards was visiting the couple in hospital while they tended to their 'critically ill' son (pictured: Bristol Children's Hospital)

The hearing was told the incident led to tensions spilling over at work in 'public fallings out'.

'This complicated the working relationship', Mr Peters said.

He said the officer didn't find the time to formally raise the complaint at work but the continued dispute between the pair led to the husband's behaviour being investigated.

His wife later reported it to a Captain at a military Christmas party and reported it to civilian police in April 2019.

When Lt Col Edwards was interviewed by Royal Military Police in June last year, he denied the allegation.

Mr Peters said: 'He said there was no way on earth that he touched her in the way she alleges.

'This was Lt Col Edwards trying his luck in the hospital thinking he could get away with a quick grope. She saw his actions for what they were.'

The Defence School of Electronic and Mechanical Engineering (DSEME), at MoD Lyneham, is part of the MoD's Defence College of Technical Training (DCTT).

The school gives soldiers technical training on a number of disciplines. Soldiers are trained to become recovery mechanics, armourers and metalsmiths.

The school moved onto the site in 2015 following a 121 million revamp.

MoD Lyneham had been closed for three years, having been used up until 2012 as RAF Lyneham.
London, Oct 7 : Scotland Yard in London launched a probe after three members of an Indian origin family were found dead in their flat at Golden Mile House on Clayponds Lane, Brentford.

The bodies of Poorna Kaameshwari Sivaraj, 36, and her three-year-old son Kailash Kuha Raj were found when officers from the Metropolitan Police entered their flat on Tuesday, as per media officials.

In a press statement, the police said the woman's husband, Kuha Raj Sithamparanathan was found with severe stab injuries and died at the spot soon after the officers forced entry.

The cops suspect it to be a case of murder-suicide, believing that 42-year-old Sithamparanathan fatally injured himself and killed his wife and child.

An autopsy of the bodies will be conducted on Thursday.

"Although we are in the infancy of this investigation, it appears that Poorna and Kailash had been dead for some time," Detective Chief Inspector Simon Harding, who is leading the investigation, said.

He said neighbours had not seen the family for some days, perhaps since September 21.

"We know the family often walked their dog, a poodle cross breed, in and around the local area and I would ask anyone who saw them at any time in the last month to contact police so we can begin to build a full picture of their lives," Harding said.

"I know I speak on behalf of all the officers in my team that words cannot sufficiently sum up the devastation that this horrific incident will have on the families of those involved." He said the incident had caused "enormous shock and concern" among local residents. Scotland Yard said officers initially received a phone call on October 4 from a family member raising concerns about the welfare of Sivaraj.

Officers went to the flat several times early on October 5 but were not able to contact anybody. Concerns heightened after speaking to neighbours and officers decided to force entry just after midnight on Tuesday.

"Local residents can expect to see officers at the scene and patrolling the local area to provide reassurance, and if they have any concerns, I would urge them to speak to our officers," Peter Gardner, the local area commander for the Metropolitan Police said.
Port Arthur residents will soon have an opportunity to determine whether the city should sell six municipal parks so it can spend more money on the remaining 29.

In addition to voting in November for the nations next president and many other races up and down the ballot, Port Arthur voters also will voice their opinion on three city propositions. One includes the sale of these parks.

As it stands, the Port Arthur Parks and Recreation Department oversees 35 parks. A number of these, according to Parks and Recreation Director Chandra Alpough, were included as part of land that was annexed into the city limits.

Because of this, the city now has too many parks to maintain at the level residents deserve, she said.

We think its important for the citizens to have decent and well-maintained parks and facilities to help with the quality of life for the city of Port Arthur, she said.

Top hits: Get Beaumont Enterprise stories sent directly to your inbox

The six parks proposed for sale are: Carver Terrace Park, 1100 W. Gulfway Drive; Civic Park, 2201 Lakeshore Drive; Hughen Park, 2749 Lakeshore Drive; Immigrant Park, 3355 Texas 73; Felix & Milton Barker Park, 4801 Sixth St.; and Montgomery Park, 900 Rev. Dr. Ransom Howard St.

Combined, those parks make up more than 6 acres of city land.

Alpough said parks were placed on the list based on underutilization and their proximity to another park with better attendance.

The land has not yet been appraised, City Attorney Val Tizeno said. That would be the first step should city residents vote in favor of selling the parks before following other typical process related to the sale of city property.

Because of strict laws regulating the ability for government agencies to advocate for or against a proposition, Alpough said she couldnt discuss plans for the proceeds from the sales should voters approve them.

Tizeno said it does not currently appear that the city would attach deed restrictions such as requiring the land to remain a green space.

kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/KaitlinBain
AIADMK calls Palaniswami as its chief ministerial candidate for Tamil Nadu polls

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Chennai, Oct 07: Amid the ongoing clash between the two factions of the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, Edappadi K Palaniswami was on Wednesday announced as the chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming election in Tamil Nadu. Interestingly, the announcement was made by Deputy CM O Panneerselvam.

EPS is AIADMK's CM candidate for Tamil Nadu assembly polls 2021|Oneindia News

The announcement comes amid the faction war between the two camps in AIADMK led by Palaniswami and Paneerselvam. OPS has been engaged in a standoff with EPS over the 11-member panel as well who will be the CM face for AIADMK with no Jayalalithaa at the helm.

Madhya Pradesh by-polls: Police file FIR against Kamal Nath, 8 others for violating COVID-19 rules

After the demise of former CM J Jayalalithaa, his close associate O Panneerselvam was made the CM, however, VK Sasikala soon started taking charge of the state affairs. In February 2017, Panneerselvam resigned citing personal reasons. It was assumed that Sasikala would be made the head of the state but O Paneersalvem sat on a Dharma Yuddham at Jayalalithaa's memorial, ultimately leading to his expulsion from the party.

As Sasikala was jailed for corruption, Palaniswami realised it was his best to bury the hatched and he joined hands with Panneerselvam, who was then appointed his deputy.

Hathras case: SIT gets 10 more days to submit investigation report

Now, with elections nearing in the state, once again there is a contest for the chief minister's post between the two. However, EPS being a shrewd politician has a clear edge over OPS.

EPS has ensured a smooth sailing for the Tamil Nadu government, preventing it from collapsing. Many of OPS supporters who backed him in the Dharma Yuddham have also sided with EPS. In terms of number, the EPS has a greater strength behind him.

However, to win over a powerful DMK, EPS and OPS will have to stay together and fight the opposition in the elections. For the AIADMK to win, EPS will have to ensure that OPS stays loyal to him.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday tweeted updates from his meeting with Australian counterpart Marise Payne, in which they reviewed bilateral ties between India and Australia on the sidelines of Quad foreign ministerial meet.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met his Australian counterpart, Marise Payne, on the sidelines of the Quad foreign ministerial meet and discussed expanding cooperation between New Delhi and Canberra in global affairs and regional issues.

Taking to Twitter on Wednesday, Jaishankar said he and Payne reviewed the progress in bilateral ties between the two countries after the June virtual summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison.

In June, PM Modi and Morrison participated in a virtual bilateral summit and signed multiple agreements to further reaffirm their commitment to an enduring interest in a free, open, inclusive, and rules-based Indo-Pacific region, mutual logistics support (MLSA).

Also Read: Afghanistans Abdullah Abdullah departs for New Delhi, says India role vital for peace in war-torn country

Also Read: Quad foreign ministers talk about special partnership in meeting with Japanese PM

Jaishankar and Payne visited Tokyo to participate in the India, Australia, Japan, and US foreign ministers meeting. The grouping of four countries is known as the Quad.

Warm meeting with my good friend FM @MarisePayne of Australia. Reviewed the progress in our bilateral ties after the Virtual Summit between our PMs. Discussed expanding our cooperation in global affairs & regional issues. Will work together more closely in multilateral forums, Jaishankar tweeted.

The Quad foreign ministers meeting in Tokyo took place on Tuesday during which the foreign ministers of Quad member countries called for a coordinated response to the challenges including financial problems emanating from the pandemic; need to share best practices to combat Covid-19; increasing the resilience of supply chains; and enhancing access to affordable vaccines, medicines, and medical equipment, according to the Ministry of External Affairs.

Also Read: Jaishankar meets Pompeo: India and US to work together for Indian Pacific stability, prosperity
Cydney Brown, an Abington Friends student from Northeast Philadelphia, is Philadelphia's new Youth Poet Laureate. Read more

Cydney Brown, a junior at Abington Friends, began writing poetry when she was in fifth grade, but never dreamed of publishing books or being recognized by city leaders. Still, thats just where she finds herself  at age 16.

Brown was named the Youth Poet Laureate in September, selected from a competitive pool of applicants from around the city. She succeeds Mia Concepcion, a recent graduate of Science Leadership Academy.

Forced by COVID-19 to spend months inside, Brown chose to focus on what came naturally to her  writing. She connected with other writers online, showcased her work via an Instagram page, and even published an e-book of her work.

And when Brown found out about the possibility of becoming the citys youth poetry voice, she jumped, moving through a tough interview process that ultimately resulted in her getting the good news of her appointment and, she said, jumping around her house, screaming with joy.

My family was praying the whole week, and it happened, said Brown.

Now, Brown has a citywide platform and plans to use it, through virtual readings and youth-led discussions. Shes passionate about social justice issues and wants to keep them front and center during her tenure.

I really want to make my voice heard and let young people know that we have the power to change things, said Brown. As youth, sometimes we think we cant do big things, we cant vote yet. But we do have power, and our voices are important.

Brown cut her teeth on the poetry of Maya Angelou and Robert Frost  Still I Rise and Nothing Gold Can Stay" are among the poems she cherishes most, but she feels shes still growing as a writer.

I want to give people the space to write more, and to learn more about themselves through poetry, she said. Everyone needs a space where they feel free."

Trapeta B. Mayson, Philadelphia poet laureate, said she is delighted for Brown.

Im looking forward to partnering with her to amplify the voices of young people, Mayson said. Cydney will be a great poetry ambassador for our city  not only is she a talented poet, she is also committed to community service.

A longtime Girl Scout, Brown launched a mentoring program as part of her Gold Award service project. Her Project GOOD  Girls Overcome Obstacles Daily  is a virtual space for middle and high school girls to connect, work through issues, and form and talk about healthy relationships.

Brown, whos attending classes at Abington Friends virtually these days, previously attended Holy Child School in Rosemont and a cyber charter. She lives with her parents and older sister and loves to bake and cook.

But writing will always be first in her heart, said Brown, who would like to eventually study business at the University of Pennsylvania or Howard University.

The power of poetry is so incredible, she said. It can help you heal.

In addition to announcing Brown as its top choice, the citys Poet Laureate Governing Committee, run by the Free Library of Philadelphia, also named Londyn Edwards, a junior at Science Leadership Academy, as finalist for the post.
ABB India announced the launch and listing of LV motors on its e-commerce marketplace, eMart. The portal is the first company-owned e-market place in India to host a wide range of made-in-India motors. In the launch phase, ABB's Motion business is listing LV motors upto 75kW and has partnered with select digitally-savvy channel partners to ensure delivery of its products across the country.

LV motors are used in various industries and applications across India. eMart will allow customers, both large and small, to access products that best suits their needs. The online portal provides detailed product specifications and photographs for each item and bridges the gap between the physical and digital buying experience.

Built entirely around the evolving requirements of the customers, ABB's eMart also allows customers to provide feedback on their specific requirements for products that are not listed on the eMart. The company aims to use these insights to further expand its product portfolio on the platform.

eMart was launched in July 2020 with the listing of over 6000 electrification products. It provides a userfriendly experience via desktop and mobile browsers and is supported by secure payment methods including net banking, e-Wallets, and UPI, also abiding by General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in terms of customer data.

ABB has been one of the first to launch digital solutions and services for the Indian motors and drives market, including the ABB Ability Smart Sensor for LV motors, remote digital commissioning and services for drives. This online presence adds to the digital experience eco-system for its customers and partners especially in the current times where virtual ways of doing business has gained importance.

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Southern Baptists call white supremacy scheme of the devil after Trumps stand back and stand by comment

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Senior officers of the Southern Baptist Convention reaffirmed the denominations repudiation of white supremacy as a scheme of the devil Wednesday after a controversial call by President Donald Trump to far-right activists to stand back and stand by during the presidential debate on Tuesday.

When asked to condemn white supremacy, every single one of us should be ready to do so. Racism is, sadly, not extinct, and we know from our Southern Baptist history the effects of the horrific sins of racism and hatred, SBC President J.D. Greear said on Twitter Wednesday afternoon.

We denounce and repudiate white supremacy and every form of racial and ethnic hatred as a scheme of the devil intended to bring suffering and division to our society. We re-affirm what Southern Baptists said to this in 2017.

I plead with White Evangelical leaders to make it clear today(even if you plan to vote for President Trump), please make it clear that you denounce White Supremacy & your support for Trump in no wise connected to his unwillingness to denounce White Supremacy. Please, my brethren! https://t.co/TaplsbhIOc  Dwight McKissic (@pastordmack) September 30, 2020

In addition to Greear, the statement was also endorsed by SBC senior officers: Marshal Ausberry, first vice president and president of the National African American Fellowship of the SBC; Noe Garcia, second vice president; Ronnie Floyd, president of the SBCs executive committee; John Yeats, executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention; and Alabama Baptist Kathy Litton, director of planter spouse development at the North American Mission Board.

The SBC statement came as prominent black Christian leaders reacted strongly to the presidents failure to clearly denounce the activists during his first presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and urged evangelicals to speak up.

During Tuesday's debate, moderator and "Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace asked Trump if he was "willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and we've seen in Portland?"

Trump said "sure" he was "willing to do that," but noted that "almost everything I see is from the left-wing."

Biden then mentioned the Proud Boys, a far-right group led by Enrique Tarrio who's half black and half Cuban, while Wallace said white supremacists.

"The Proud Boys," Trump replied. "Stand back and stand by. But I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem."

E. Dewey Smith Jr., senior pastor of The House of Hope Atlanta (Greater Travelers Rest) church in Decatur, Georgia, was one of the first prominent black Christian leaders to react when he pleaded with evangelicals on Twitter Tuesday night to say something.

To my white evangelical family..... what do you think about Trumps ABSOLUTE REFUSAL to denounce white supremacy???!!! PLEASE Say Something!! he wrote.

Hours later, on Wednesday morning, prominent black SBC Pastor Dwight McKissic echoed Smiths call.

I plead with White Evangelical leaders to make it clear today(even if you plan to vote for President Trump), please make it clear that you denounce White Supremacy & your support for Trump in no wise connected to his unwillingness to denounce White Supremacy. Please, my brethren! he wrote.

Kyle Howard, a preacher, theologian and Christian counselor, noted on Twitter: Yall have absolutely no idea what it feels like to watch your president tell white supremacists to stand back & stand by. Yall have no idea how terrifying that is, especially in this time.

The Rev. Mika Edmondson, planting and lead pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in greater Nashville, said the presidents failure to clearly denounce white supremacy during the debate made his family less safe.

However you feel about the President, his policies, and his intentions, his staunch refusal to clearly denounce white supremacy is deeply disturbing. His words last night made my family and many others less safe today, he noted on Twitter.

In his analysis of the debate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler called the presidents response to the question on white supremacy his lowest moment during the debate and said it was a failed opportunity.

The lowest moment for the incumbent president, Donald Trump, was when he did not give a clear answer when it came to the threat from the political right, from white supremacists and others in the United States. When called to condemn them, the President didn't exactly not answer the question, but he did answer the question in such a way that it was not very specific or comprehensive. I would score that as a failed opportunity, Mohler noted on his podcast, The Briefing.

In his first comment on the debate Wednesday, Trump said he did not know anything about the Proud Boys.

Trump has denounced the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists on several previous occasions, including in 2017, after a self-identified white supremacist drove his car into counter-protesters, killing one and injuring others, at a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
LONDON  A British businessman with suspected links to "serious criminals" has agreed to forfeit his property empire worth nearly 10 million ($12.9 million) in an out-of-court settlement after an investigation by the U.K.'s National Crime Agency.

The agency secured an "Unexplained Wealth Order" (UWO) against eight properties owned by 40-year-old Mansoor Mahmood Hussain, a businessman based in Leeds in northern England who reportedly flaunted his lavish lifestyle on social media.

A UWO can be secured by several bodies, such as the NCA or Serious Fraud Office, and compels an individual to reveal the source of their unexplained wealth. They are designed to tackle economic crime like money laundering, cybercrime and fraud.

Anyone subject to a UWO who fails to account for the source of their wealth is liable to have assets seized.

In this latest case, the NCA said businessman Hussain "submitted 127 lever arch folders and a 76-page statement to explain where his money came from for the properties  but he inadvertently gave NCA investigators clues to make a bigger case against him."

The agency also noted on its website that "Hussain had failed to fully comply with the requirements of the UWO, and his non-compliance provided a good case that a number of the properties were funded by criminal associates."

The agency alleged that Hussain, reported to have no criminal convictions, "has links to a murderer jailed for 26 years, an armed robber and a convicted fraudster who acted as his accountant," and used threats of violence and blackmail to buy his properties.

A freezing order was obtained stopping the sale or transfer of the original eight properties, plus a further nine that were identified.

Hussain agreed to settle the case and he handed over 45 properties in London, Cheshire and Leeds, four parcels of land, as well as other assets and 583,950 in cash, with a combined value of 9,802,828, the NCA said. If his case had gone to the high court in the U.K., he could have reportedly faced a much more severe penalty.

Various U.K. media report that Hussain's social media accounts showed him "living a luxury lifestyle, with high-performance cars, executive jets, super-yachts and appearances at VIP events attended by celebrities," although there is no suggestion that any of celebrities he posed with knew who he was.

CNBC has contacted Hussain's company, Zarina Capital, for comment but is yet to receive a response.

"This case is a milestone, demonstrating the power of Unexplained Wealth Orders, with significant implications for how we pursue illicit finance in the U.K.," Graeme Biggar, director general of the National Economic Crime Centre, said.

"This ground breaking investigation has recovered of millions of pounds worth of criminally obtained property. It is crucial for the economic health of local communities such as Leeds, and for the country as a whole, that we ensure property and other assets are held legitimately."

UWOs came into force in 2018 to combat illicit finance in the U.K. They are a relatively new weapon that authorities can use to tackle suspected fraud and money laundering.

The UWO issued by the crime agency in Hussain's case was the first one obtained solely on an individual's alleged involvement in serious organized crime, the NCA said Wednesday.

It is also the first UWO to successfully lead to the recovery of assets from an individual, with several other UWO cases ongoing.
The Colorado River flowing the Glen Canyon Dam just south of Lake Powell.

ST. GEORGE, UTAH  A 25-year-old Phoenix man has been found dead after falling off a cliff while overlooking the Colorado River near Page, Arizona.

While officials were working to recover the victim, they found bones of another "unrelated fatality," the Coconino County Sheriff's Office said in a press release.

On Sunday morning, Orlando Serrano-Arzola was on top of the rim overlooking the Colorado River in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area taking pictures when he fell about 100 feet and then slid approximately 150 feet further.

Serrano-Arzola showed no signs of life after falling, witnesses reported.

A Sheriff's Office Deputy rappelled to the victim and confirmed him dead at 9:27 a.m.

The Sheriff's Office, National Park Service, Page Police Department and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation recovered Serrano-Arzola and transported him to the Medical Examiners Office in Flagstaff for autopsy.

While recovering Serrano-Arzola on Sunday, officials also found bones determined to be human remains at the base of the Glen Canyon Dam Overlook.

Both incidents are currently under investigation by NPS, the Sheriff's Office and the Coconino Medical Examiner.

No other information was immediately available.

K. Sophie Will is the National Parks Reporter for The Spectrum & Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Network, through the Report for America initiative by The GroundTruth Project. Follow her on Twitter at @ksophiewill

This article originally appeared on St. George Spectrum & Daily News: Man, 25, dies from cliff fall while taking photos near Colorado River
New Delhi: The Central Cabinet gave the approval to complete the East-West Metro Corridor project worth Rs 8,575 crores to give a boost to the mass transit system, said Union Minister Piyush Goyal here on Wednesday (October 7). The project is being implemented by Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Limited, which is a CPSE under the Ministry of Railways.

Briefing media on cabinet decisions, Piyush Goyal said the total route length of the East-West Metro Corridor project is 16.6 km consisting of 12 stations, adding "The project will ease traffic congestion, enhance urban connectivity and provide a cleaner mobility solution to lakhs of daily commuters."

The Union minister said, "this 16.6 km East-West Corridor Metro project will be completed by December 2021. It will be beneficial for the people of Kolkata. As promised earlier to make Phoolbagan metro station functional by Durga Puja, we inaugurated the metro station on October 4."

The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the revised cost estimates for the construction of the Kolkata East-West Corridor project as per realigned route.

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The estimated completion cost of the project is - Rs 8575 crore with the Ministry of Railways share as Rs 3268.27 crore, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs share as Rs 1148.31 crore, and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) loan of Rs 4158.40 crore, according to the ministry.

Notably, 5.3 Km long elevated corridor is already commissioned since February 14, 2020. Further, it was commissioned 1.67 Km on October 5, 2020. The target date for the completion of the entire project is December 2021.



The mega project envisions the creation of efficient transit connectivity between the business district of Kolkata with the industrial city of Howrah in the west and Salt Lake City in the east through a safe, accessible, and comfortable mode of public transport.

It will integrate multiple modes of transport like the Metro, Sub-urban Railways, ferry, and bus transport by constructing interchange hubs. This will ensure smooth and seamless mode of transport to lakhs of daily commuters.

Benefits of the project are:

1. Benefit to people by providing a safe, efficient, and environment friendly transport system.

2. Reduction in commuting time; reduced fuel consumption

3. Reduction in capex on road infrastructure; reduction in pollution and accident

4. Increase in value of land bank in the corridor and generate additional revenue

5. Enhanced Transit-Oriented Development (TOD); creation of jobs

6. Incorporates the spirit of "Atmanirbhar Bharat" and "Vocal for Local"
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, most universities across the United States transitioned from face-to-face classes to remote learning, closed campuses and sent students home this past spring. Such changes, coupled with social distancing guidelines, have altered social interactions and limited our access to fitness facilities, parks and gymnasiums. This is concerning as positive social interaction and access to exercise facilities both promote physical activity.

Recently, a group of Kent State University researchers sought to examine the impact of these pandemic-related changes upon physical activity and sedentary behavior, specifically sitting, across the university population.

Kent State's College of Education, Health and Human Services professors Jacob Barkley, Ph.D., Andrew Lepp, Ph.D., and Ellen Glickman, Ph.D., along with current and former Kent State doctoral students Greg Farnell, Ph.D., Jake Beiting, Ryan Wiet and Bryan Dowdell, Ph.D., assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical activity and sedentary behavior. More than 400 college students, faculty, staff and administrators reported their typical physical activity and sedentary behavior before the COVID-19 pandemic and after the transition to remote learning and the closure of campus.

In this before-and-after comparison, participants reported nearly eight hours more sitting per week after transitioning from face-to-face classes to remote learning. Changes in physical activity were not so straightforward. Those participants who were not highly active before the pandemic actually increased physical activity after the closure of campus and the transition to remote learning, while participants who were highly active before the pandemic experienced a decrease in overall physical during the pandemic.

It appears that the participants who were most physically active before the pandemic may have been the most negatively affected. This makes sense as these active individuals are more likely to utilize the fitness facilities that were closed when the pandemic hit. However, the increases in physical activity in participants who were less active before the pandemic were surprising. Perhaps the elimination of a daily commute left them with more time for physical activity. Or perhaps, they started walking just to get out of the house for a bit. Independent of the changes in physical activity, the sample-wide increase in sitting by over an hour per day is concerning as excess sitting is associated with a variety of negative health outcomes, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and even a greater risk of dying earlier." Jacob Barkley, Ph.D., Professor, Kent State's College of Education, Health and Human Services

The authors suggest that while many, like those on university campuses, experienced and may continue to experience challenging, pandemic-related changes to their daily routines, it is important that we all work to maintain positive health behaviors despite these challenges. The Kent State researchers recommend the following:

Try to minimize sitting for extended periods of time, and when possible, add in some exercise at home or outside.

For those who are still working or taking classes remotely, try to incorporate a standing desk into your routine and/or plan breaks where you get up and move away from your computer. During those breaks, try to do some light activity, like taking a walk.

Breaking up your sedentary activity by adding some physical activity will not only benefit your physical health; it can improve cognition, productivity and reduce stress.

"There are likely lots of us that could use some stress relief right now," Barkley said. "Getting up and moving can provide just that."
As the governments quarantine-free list of countries grows ever smaller, it may be time for travellers to start setting their sights further afield.

With sun, sea and sand in plentiful supply, the Caribbean islands rely heavily on tourism  and a number of them have reopened their doors to holidaymakers (with various safety precautions in place, of course).

Here are some of the best to head to for an exotic getaway.

Petit St Vincent

This 115-acre private island resort in St Vincent and the Grenadines, accessed by private plane or via Barbados or St Lucia, reopened on 1 November.

With just 22 private cottages spread across the island, its an ideal spot to stay socially distanced from other guests, and does not require visitors to quarantine upon arrival.

In fact, PSV is one of a few designated bubble zones in St Vincent and the Grenadines, meaning there are fewer travel restrictions  for example, larger family groups can stay there together, making it an enticing prospect for Christmas or New Years gatherings.

Testing?

Those travelling to St Vincent and the Grenadines from the UK (a high risk country) must complete a pre-arrival questionnaire and arrive with a negative Covid-19 test dated no more than five days before arrival. Visitors will also be retested on arrival.

There are no direct commercial flights, with visitors advised to also check the entry requirements of the country theyre transiting through.

Quarantine on arrival?

Visitors to most of the SVG islands are required to quarantine for five days  but PSV has been quarantine-free from 1 November.

Quarantine on return?

No  the country is on the Department for Transports list of travel corridors, and is also deemed low risk by the Foreign Office.

Bermuda

Known for its pink sand beaches, diving-friendly reefs and balmy climate, Bermuda is so keen to attract international visitors back it introduced a brand new year-long remote working visa for digital nomads. For those not wanting to commit to such a lengthy stay, its tourist visa has also been extended from 90 to 180 days (around six months).

Bermuda is known for its pink sand beaches

Testing?

All visitors from a country classified by the WHO as having community transmission of Covid-19 (including the UK) need to apply for Travel Authorisation one to three days before departure and are required to have a pre-departure test, receiving a negative PCR test no more than five days before travel.

Upon arrival, visitors must show a copy of the Travel Authorisation and present a copy of the pre-departure PCR Covid-19 negative test result to health officers on request.

A further Covid-19 test needs to be done at Bermuda L.F. Wade International Airport, with travellers required to quarantine in their accommodation until the results are ready.

Quarantine on arrival?

Only until the airport test result becomes available (assuming its negative)  which only takes around 24 hours. After that, as of 8 December, all visitors to Bermuda are required to wear a Traveller Wristband for the first 14 days of their stay. Removal of the wristband is not permitted and can result in a fine of $500 and home quarantining with an electronic monitoring bracelet. Those who dont want to wear the Traveller Wristband have to quarantine at their accommodation for 14 days.

Quarantine on return?

No  the country is on the Department for Transports list of travel corridors, and is also deemed low risk by the Foreign Office.

Aruba

Aruba reopened its borders to travellers from Europe on 1 July 2020. UK travellers can reach the year-round temperate climate and white-sand beaches of the independent nation in the southern Caribbean by connecting flight via Miami.

Aruba reopened its borders to travellers from Europe on 1 July

Testing?

A negative Covid-19 test result must be provided, with the test carried out no more than 72 hours before departure for Aruba. Alternatively, visitors can take a test on arrival in Aruba (but this requires a mandatory 24-hour quarantine).

Tourists must also fill in an Embarkation/Disembarkation card online before arrival; purchase Arubas Covid-19 insurance for the duration of the trip; and undergo a health screening and temperature check, carried out on arrival.

Quarantine on arrival?

Only for those who opt to be tested on arrival  they must then quarantine until the results are issued, which normally takes 24 hours. You must also quarantine if you test positive for Covid at any point during your stay.

Quarantine on return?

No  after a few shuffles, the country is back on the Department for Transports list of travel corridors.

Dominican Republic

The Dominican authorities are so keen to entice tourists back, the island nation is offering free Covid insurance cover for all those staying at participating hotels until 31 December 2020.

It covers medical transfers, repatriation, medical care, flight change fees and daily expenses for those forced to stay longer to recover.

Dominican Republic is offering free Covid insurance at selected hotels

Testing?

The Dominican authorities will administer a rapid diagnostic test to a percentage of randomly-selected passengers on arrival. You dont have to provide your own negative test.

As of 29 November, passengers are required to complete an electronic entry and exit form, which combines the forms from the National Directorate of Migration, the National Directorate of Customs and the Ministry of Public Health.

Quarantine on arrival?

Not unless youre randomly selected for a test and the result is positive.

Quarantine on return?

Yes. The Dominican Republic is not on the travel corridors list, meaning travellers face 14 days of self-isolation upon their return; or, from 15 December, arrivals can opt to pay for a Lamp test five days after leaving the islands and stop quarantine early if the result is negative.

Anguilla

Anguilla was declared Covid-free by the WHO in June, but since its phased reopening there have been a small number of coronavirus cases - as of 7 December there were six active cases.

In November it launched a new island bubble concept  it means that, while visitors technically have to quarantine on arrival, they can enjoy a relatively normal holiday. Bubbles will be formed between hotels, resorts and villas, plus a selection of approved amenities, restaurants, bars, services and activity providers  such as watersports and beach yoga. Under current regulations, in force until at least 23 January 2021, entry to Anguilla is restricted and must be pre-approved.

Anguilla requires quarantine, but not as we know it (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Testing?

Under current regulations, in force until at least 23 January 2021, entry to Anguilla is restricted and must be pre-approved. If you wish to travel to Anguilla you will need prior approval from the Governments Health Team; you can apply for approval by completing an online form.

As part of the approval process you must provide evidence of a negative Covid-19 test taken three to five days before the planned date of your arrival. You will be subject to testing on arrival.

Quarantine on arrival?

Technically yes  all arrivals must quarantine for 10 days. However, the bubble concept means in practice tourists can still eat and drink out at approved places as well as participating in activities. Its quarantine, but not as we know it.

Quarantine on return?

No  the country is on the Department for Transports list of travel corridors, and is also deemed low risk by the Foreign Office.

Turks and Caicos Islands

Entry to the Turks and Caicos Islands has been permitted since 22 July 2020. Theres plenty of choice for holidaymakers, with the archipelago just east of Cuba made up of 40 coral islands.

Places you won't believe are in England Show all 12 1 /12 Places you won't believe are in England Places you won't believe are in England Minack Theatre, Porthcurno, Cornwall the Minack Theatre could have been hewn by ancient civilisations but in reality was built by a local theatre-loving woman, Rowena Cade, in the 1930s. Visit Britain Places you won't believe are in England Pedn Vounder Beach, Cornwall This sweeping beach with its turquoise water and white sand could be a Greek or Caribbean island, but is actually at the very tip of Cornwall. Visit Britain Places you won't believe are in England Cheddar Gorge, Somerset Cheddar Gorge is a natural rock formation in the Mendip Hills and is Britains highest inland limestone cliffs, rising 450ft. Visit Britain Places you won't believe are in England Rathfinny Wines, Alfriston, Sussex Sussex is perhaps not the first place you would associate with wine production, but this vineyard in the South Downs produces exemplary English sparkling wines thanks to a lucky combination of chalk soil, temperate climate and south facing slopes. Visit Britain Places you won't believe are in England Wastwater, Lake District, Cumbria This spectacular lake is half a mile wide and 260 feet deep, the deepest of all the lakes in the area. Visit Britain Places you won't believe are in England St Ives harbour, Cornwall Although this may look somewhere in the Mediterranean, it's actually in Cornwall's artistic hub, St Ives. Getty Places you won't believe are in England The Roman Baths, Bath, Somerset Set alongside a temple dedicated to the healing goddess Sulis-Minerva, the baths now form one of the world's best-preserved ancient Roman spas, and are encircled by beautiful 18th- and 19th-century buildings. Visit Britain Places you won't believe are in England The Painted Hall, Greenwich, London The Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich reopened in March after a two year conservation project to bring its magnificent ceiling back to life. The room has been referred to as the Sistine Chapel of the UK. Visit Britain Places you won't believe are in England Lavender fields, Gloucestershire It might look like the rolling hills of Provence, but these lavender fields are actually in Gloucestershire. Visit Britain Places you won't believe are in England Bowfell mountain, Lake District, Cumbria A casual observer could mistake the snowy peaks of Bowfell mountain for somewhere in the Alps. Visit Britain Places you won't believe are in England Cliftonwood, Bristol, North Somerset Just outside the centre of Bristol is Cliftonwood, an up-market enclave where many of the houses are painted in bright colours. Visit Britain Places you won't believe are in England Royal Pavilion, Brighton, Sussex This building wouldnt look out of place in India, but was actually built as a seaside retreat for George, Prince of Wales, later George IV, in the late 18th and early 19th century. Visit Britain

Testing?

Anyone arriving to the Turks and Caicos Islands is required to obtain pre-travel authorisation via the Turks and Caicos Islands Assured Portal. This requires evidence of a negative Covid-19 test from a reputable facility taken less than five days prior to arrival, proof of health/travel insurance with coronavirus cover and a completed health screening questionnaire.

Temperature checks and screening will be conducted upon arrival, and travellers may be subject to a spot check Covid-19 test.

Quarantine on arrival?

There is no mandatory quarantine for visitors.

Quarantine on return?

No  the country is on the Department for Transports list of travel corridors, and is also deemed low risk by the Foreign Office.

St Lucia

Saint Lucia began a phased reopening on 4 June and has been gradually reopening hotels and resorts in stages. Even more excursions are relaunching in time for tourists to catch some winter sun.

St Lucia says it has the lowest Covid rates across the region

Testing?

All travellers must complete a Pre-Arrival registration form, which can be found on the St Lucia Covid-19 page. Reservations at a Covid-19 certified property must be confirmed before travel.

All travellers must provide certified proof of a negative PCR coronavirus test taken seven days or less before travel to St Lucia. All arriving passengers will be screened, including temperature checks, at the airport.

Quarantine on arrival?

Yes and no. While all international visitors must stay at a Covid-certified property for the duration of their visit, there are 96 approved properties now open or scheduled to open within the next month. Guests are allowed to stay at two different hotels during their holiday, and are permitted to leave their accommodation to participate in 13 certified tours and excursions; from 15 December they can eat out at eight restaurants and choose between five operators for diving excursions.

Quarantine on return?

No  the country is on the Department for Transports list of travel corridors, and is also deemed low risk by the Foreign Office.

Antigua and Barbuda

Known for its white-pink sand beaches and miles of shoreline lapped by the Caribbean Sea, Antigua and Barbuda has finally reopened for international travellers.

Testing?

All passengers 12 years and older must provide evidence of a negative Covid-19 RT-PCR test taken no more than seven days before arrival. Only tests administered by health care professionals are valid (home tests are not permitted). Further health screening is in place at the airport, including temperature checks and spot testing. All arrivals must stay at government-approved hotel accommodation.

Quarantine on arrival?

Its likely not required. The Ministry of Health and Wellness of Antigua and Barbuda advise that all arrivals will be monitored for coronavirus for up to 14 days and that ultimately it is the decision of the Quarantine Authority on who must self-isolate or quarantine on arrival.

However, according to the Foreign Office, In practice, tourists arriving from outside the regions travel bubble with pre-booked hotel accommodation from the Government of Antigua and Barbudas Approved List will normally be permitted to travel to their accommodation after screening and be allowed to move around the country providing they adhere to local social distancing measures.

Quarantine on return?

No  the country is on the Department for Transports list of travel corridors, and is also deemed low risk by the Foreign Office.
Chennai, Oct 7 : The Income Tax (IT) Department has provisionally attached about 11 acres of land owned by V.N. Sudhakaran, the nephew of late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa's close aide V.K. Sasikala, in Siruthavoor village near here under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act.

The department also reportedly attached the properties of Sasikala and her relatives in Kodanad near Ooty.

However, IT officials declined to comment when contacted for confirming the development.

In the order provisionally attaching the 11 acre 53 cents land owned by Sudhakaran, the IT Department has said the action is being taken to prevent him from transferring the property to another person.

As per the provisional attachment order, Sudhakaran is restrained from transferring or charging the properties until further orders.

Sasikala, Sudhakaran and another of her relatives Illavarasi are in a Bengaluru jail after being convicted in a corruption case.

A copy of the provisional order attaching Sudhakaran's property in Siruthavoor has been sent to J. Deepak and J. Deepa, Jayalalihtaa's nephew and niece, respectively.

In August this year, the IT Department is said to have attached 65 properties of Sasikala and her associates.

In 2017, the IT Department had raided 187 properties said to be linked to Sasikala and her relatives and unearthed alleged tax evasion of about Rs 1,430 crore.
An elderly couple found dead suffering gunshot wounds near a hiking trail in Colorado over the weekend died in a 'suicide pact', it has been revealed.

Leroy 'Lee' Vigil, 73, shot his wife Stella Vigil, 72, before turning the gun on himself on Friday after they went on a hike in Colorado Springs, according to the autopsy revealed Tuesday.

Investigators said they found proof that the couple, from New Mexico, had an 'agreement' to take their own lives.

'Through the course of the investigation, detectives obtained evidence that supported an agreement between Mr. and Mrs. Vigil to end their lives together,' the Colorado Springs Police Department shared a press release.

Couple Leroy 'Lee' Vigil, 73, and Stella Vigil, 72, died in a suicide pact over the weekend in Colorado. Authorities revealed Tuesday the El Paso County Coroner's Office ruled Stella Vigil's death as a homicide and Lee Vigil's death was ruled a suicide

The El Paso County Coroner's Office ruled Stella Vigil's death as a homicide and Lee Vigil's death was ruled a suicide.

The couple was reported missing around 8.30pm on Friday after they didnt return from a hike near Edmundson trailhead on Woodmen Road.

When relatives of the Vigils and El Paso County Search and Rescue officers arrived to the trail, they found the couples car.

Around 12.30am officials found the couples bodies off the Santa Fe trail near Fountain Creek, about a three-hour walk away from where the couple first started the hike, suffering apparent gunshots wounds.

Detectives said Monday no arrests were expected in the case.

Police have not shared further details on the circumstances that led up to their deaths.

Around 12.30am Saturday officials found the couples bodies off the Santa Fe trail near Fountain Creek. A view of Fountain Creek above

Locals were shocked to learn of the Vigils' deaths in the hiking area frequented by couples and families, and at first there was speculation they could have been attacked.

'I don't want my wife to come here alone. She always has to come with me from now on, if we come back,' Morty Zand who was hiking near the trail on Saturday said to KRDO.

'Up until today I usually feel pretty good. You have to be a little careful, sometimes there are some sketchy people,' Michael Hollenbeck who recognized the couple said to the outlet.

'It's sad, it's upsetting, I think I've seen them on the trail before,' he added.

If you or anyone you know are experiencing suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255
Mo Salah defended a homeless man from a group of yobs before giving him 100 cash.

The Liverpool forward confronted a group of men who were heckling the victim at a petrol station after his team's 3-1 win against Arsenal on September 28.

The 28-year-old was captured on CCTV coming to the aid of David Craig, who sleeps rough around Liverpool's stadium.

The heartwarming moment came just three months after the Egyptian King paid for everyone's fuel at a petrol station.

The 28-year-old was captured on CCTV coming to the aid of David Craig, before giving him some cash

The 28-year-old was captured on CCTV coming to the aid of a homeless man

This comes after the Egyptian King paid for everyone's fuel at a petrol station in June (pictured)

CCTV footage from September 28 shows Salah pulling up at the station in his Bentley.

He then stands up for Mr Craig as he is harassed by the men walking past the forecourt.

The 50-year-old former labourer told The Sun: 'Mo was every bit as wonderful as he is for Liverpool on the pitch.

'He heard what a group of lads were saying to me, then turned to them and said, "That could be you in a few years".

'I only knew I wasn't hallucinating when Mo incredibly handed me 100. What a complete legend.'

In June, Liverpool fans lavished further praise on Mohamed Salah after a picture of him filling up his car at a petrol station while wearing training gear circulated on social media.

The star was said to have paid for everyone's fuel in the forecourt in a heart-warming gesture.

Salah, pictured on September 12, is known for his kind-hearted gestures towards fans

In June, Liverpool fans lavished further praise on Mohamed Salah after a picture of him filling up his car at a petrol station while wearing training gear circulated on social media

Salah was spotted wearing rubber gloves and holding disinfectant spray as he followed the strict coronavirus measures to ensure safety.

One person tweeted: 'Pull up to a petrol station in a Bentley, wearing Liverpool training kit and pay for everyone's petrol. My hero my mate.'

The Egypt international's club team-mate and close friend Dejan Lovren praised Salah but not without having a cheeky dig.

Lovren tweeted: 'I heard that @MoSalah paid couple of days ago the gas for everyone at the petrol station...Great gesture.

'But can you pay at least once for me the coffee?? Usually you are tight guy so I am surprised, but anyway well done.'
WHAUP plans to acquire three solar farms of 50-250MW in Vietnam

WHAUP chief executive Niphon Bundechanan said the company is approaching solar farm operators to negotiate deals to acquire their facilities for operations with capacities ranging from 50 to 250MW.

He did not disclose the ownership proportion of the new assets, saying only that his company plans to be a majority shareholder or full owner. Investment value was not revealed. The company expects to close the deals early next year.

These assets are excluded from WHAUP's capital expenditure figures, according to Bankok Post.

This year, WHAUP earmarked nearly 400 million ($12.47 million) in capital expenditure to expand capacity of its rooftop solar panels by 15MW, up from 50MW.

Niphon said that WHAUP is planning the second-phase development of its Chonburi Clean Energy (CCE), a developer and operator of waste-to-energy power plants, after seeing the growth of industrial areas in the Eastern Economic Corridor. The plant, which has operated since last November, has 8.6MW capacity.

For the water business, WHAUP is planning the second-phase development of two tap-water supply facilities in Hanoi and in Cua Lo, Vietnam. The company acquired these two assets last year.
Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Anna Naghdalyan has posted the following on her Facebook page:

The news disseminated by the presses according to which a meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan will be held in Geneva tomorrow is inaccurate. A meeting is not scheduled.

Armenias fundamental stance is that there cant be any situation where negotiations are held while there are hostilities between Artsakh and Armenia. The imperative of this moment is cessation of the large-scale military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh.

The foreign minister of Armenia is constantly in touch with the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and representatives of the co-chairing countries.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), yesterday came hard on the Minister of State for Education, Mr. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, urging him to resign as minister and engage in farming.

The union described the statement credited to the minister that striking lecturers should consider farming as an alternative profession as a reflection of his shallow understanding of the academic profession and the low premium that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration placed on education.

The minister while participating in a programme on ARISE NEWS Channel, the broadcast arm of THISDAY Newspaper, had suggested farming to the lecturers, who are currently on strike, insisting that they cannot dictate how they should be paid by their employers.

But ASUU Chairman, University of Ibadan chapter, Prof. Ayo Akinwole, in a statement issued yesterday, said the minister has displayed his naivety on educational matters.

He said the scarcity of farmers in the country is a reflection of the failure of the federal government he is part of to make farming secured for legitimate farmers, calling on Nwajiuba to resign his appointment and take to farming as a worthy national service.

The ASUU boss said the union is unlike the minister who pursues selfish agenda, maintaining that the union remained resolute not to pursue only the welfare of its members while downplaying the infrastructure collapse and underfunding of public universities but decided to continue to fight 'parasites' like Nwajiuba who preside over a ministry where no Nigerian university is in the top 100 in the world.

Akinwole stated that if the government of Buhari is not paying lip service to education, it would not have consistently reduced budgetary allocation and funding to education since the assumption of office.

He disclosed that public varsity lecturers are owed earned academic allowances from 2013 to date, challenging the minister to declare if he has been owed allowances and how much since he assumed office.

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He further maintained that available statistics showed that salaries of university lecturers are below what is paid to academics in Polytechnics and Colleges of Education.

According to him, "As scientists, experts in agriculture faculties continue to conduct research mainly with external funding or personal monies. But the Nigerian government who failed to protect farmers and exposed Nigerians to excruciating poverty is not making use of the research findings. If the Minister of State for Education is interested in farming, he should resign his appointment and stop displaying his cluelessness of the problems in the education sector. We are on a just fight to ensure that those in public offices become responsive and responsible to the masses they swore to serve. They must fund public education.

"We have been on the same salary since 2009. That is no longer sustainable. The universities are being run with personal sweats of lecturers while politicians siphon monies for personal aggrandisement. We cannot accept IPPIS that is against the laws of the land and which fails to recognise the uniqueness of the academic profession and culture. We have brought an alternative using our members' money. People like this Minister of State mirrors the disdain of ruling class for the workers and people of the country."
A search operation launched at Sugan village in Zainapora on Tuesday evening turned into an encounter after militants opened fire on security personnel, said police

Srinagar: Security forces killed three militants in a 12-hour encounter in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, police said.

Security forces launched a search operation at Sugan village in Zainapora Tuesday evening following information about the presence of militants, a police spokesman said.

He said the search turned into an encounter after militants opened fire on the security forces. Three militants were killed in the encounter that ended this morning.

He said the identity and group affiliation of the militants were being ascertained.
A video posted by Jake Offenhartz of Gothamist showed a horde of men, egged on by Heshy Tischler, a local activist, surrounding Mr. Kornbluh, pinning him to a wall and calling him a snitch before chasing him off.

I was just brutally assaulted, hit in the head, and kicked at by an angry crowd of hundreds of community members of the Boro Park protest, Mr. Kornbluh wrote on Twitter shortly after escaping the harrowing scene.

In a second message he said that he planned to pursue criminal charges against Mr. Tischler for incitement and physical assault as well as against any individual who hit me.

A Police Department spokesman confirmed that a complaint was being filed in connection with the incident.

The anger over the restrictions was not limited to the Orthodox Jewish community. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, which has 1.5 million followers and 210 churches in Brooklyn and Queens, said it had been taken by surprise by the governors announcement. Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn condemned the new rules as outrageous in a statement on Tuesday night.

We fervently object to being told to further reduce capacity, because we have strictly adhered to Covid-19 protocols, and the safety measures have been working, he said. The safety of parishioners is paramount for the Diocese of Brooklyn, but the religious freedomof our parishioners is being unjustly attacked.

It is outrageous that after incurring great expense to implement all the safety protocols, our parishes are being forced to reduce capacity to a maximum of 10 people in the red zone and 25 people in the orange zone, he added. A capacity range of 10 to 25 people is disrespectful to Catholics and to the clergy who all have followed the rules.
A man jailed for ten years for repeatedly indecently assaulting his toddler cousin has appealed against the severity of his sentence at the Court of Appeal on Tuesday.

The man, who cannot be named so that his victim cannot be identified, was sentenced in May of last year at Dublin Circuit Court for 56 counts of indecent assault on the child over a four-year period.

Following the trial last January, a jury convicted him of the 56 indecent assaults committed between January 1982 and August 1986 at a place in Dublin.

The man, now 53, began abusing his cousin when she was aged around two and a half. The abuse involved him forcing his penis into her mouth and he would place the child on a toilet seat to facilitate the assaults.

He was aged 15 when the abuse began and was under 18 for the majority of the assaults.

At the trial, the woman said she had no recollection of a time when she was not terrified. She said her abuser stole her ability to love and feel her home to be a place of refuge.

The trial heard she tried to kill herself at the age of 15 and later felt guilty during the trial itself about making a fuss.

The woman said she was stunned to hear the man take to the stand and deny the offending. She said this revealed the absence of any honesty in him.

Without that, a man is a monster and can do monstrous things, she told the trial.

At the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, Mr Paul Greene SC, for the appellant, said he was appealing the severity of the sentence, which he described as "too long".

Counsel said that the headline sentence of 14 years had been set "excessively high" before being mitigated to ten years by Judge Patricia Ryan.

Mr Greene said that in her victim impact statement the woman said the abuse began when she was a toddler and ended at "five or six years old".

Counsel said that if the abuse ended in August 1985, as per the victim impact statement, then the appellant would have only had eight months in adulthood at the time of the offences but added he was not basing his submission on that.

"The headline sentence is too high," said Mr Greene, outlining the main aspect of the appeal. He said that the importance of the age of his client at the time of the offending was "insufficiently taken into account in this sentence".

A second aspect, counsel said, was the "slew" of testimonials in his client's favour, including from family and an ex-employer who said he was "shocked" that the male had gone on trial for the offences.

Mr Greene said that the testimonials had "outstanding positivity" and referenced his client's generous nature, adding that he was considered a role model to his children and that he had a clean record for 37 years. He said his client's subsequent good character had not been fully taken into account.

Mr Greene said that the trial judge was not entitled to nominate a headline sentence of 14 years, before mitigation, unless consecutive sentencing was involved, which it was not.

Ms Diana Stuart BL, responding for the State, said that the trial judge dealt with the 56 offences, which each carried a maximum sentence of ten years, by applying a "global headline sentence" to take into account the number and nature of the charges, rather than apply consecutive sentences, which, she said, was an option.

Ms Stuart said that the trial judge had correctly taken into account the age of the male, among other factors, in her sentencing.

Mr Greene said: "I reiterate that the judge was not entitled to nominate the maximum sentence of 14 years in the absence of consecutive sentencing".

President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham, appearing by video-link at the three-judge court, adjourned the case to Friday, October 9, for judgement.
A Texas police officer has been arrested and charged with murder after shooting and killing Jonathan Price, a 31-year-old unarmed black man, in Wolfe City, a small town of 1,500 people 70 miles northeast of Dallas, last weekend.

The officer, 22-year-old Shaun Lucas, who is white, faces 5 to 99 years in prison if convicted, and has had his bail set at $1 million.

This marks a rare case in which a police officer has been charged over a shooting. On average 1,000 people are killed by police every year in the US, with criminal charges being brought less than 2 percent of the time, according to data compiled by Mapping Police Violence.

Wolfe City Police Officer Shaun Lucas(L) charged with murder of Jonathan Price(R). (Hunt County Sheriffs Office)

Lucas was responding to a possible fight in progress outside of a Kwik Chek convenience store on Saturday around 8:24 p.m. According to witnesses, Price had intervened in a possible domestic assault as another man allegedly attempted to assault a woman inside the store.

Prices intervention created a dispute between him and the other man, but the situation had calmed down and was resolved by the time Lucas arrived on the scene.

According to civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, Price put his hands up and attempted to explain the situation to the officers. Lucas then attempted to detain Price. Price reportedly refused to be arrested and resisted in a non-threatening posture and began walking away, according to a statement by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Lucas then drew his Taser and discharged it into Price, who was then standing eight yards from the officer and moving away. As Price convulsed from the electric shock, Lucas perceived a threat and drew his service weapon, firing three rounds into Prices chest. He then handcuffed Price as he lay bleeding on the ground. Price was taken to Hunt Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead later that night.

Merritt has stated that there is body and security camera footage that likely caught what happened but it has not been released to the public yet. However, the testimony gathered from witnesses appears to have been deemed satisfactory for the Texas Rangers to charge Lucas with murder. Whether or not this will be enough to convict Lucas remains to be seen. Cases in which police officers have been convicted for murder while on the job are exceedingly rare.

By all accounts, Price was a valued and respected member of the small community who will be dearly missed. He was an employee of the Wolfe City public works department and was described as a pillar of the community. Prices mother, Marcella Louis, told reporters from local news station WFAA that she was not surprised when she heard her son was attempting to break up a fight, adding thats what he always did, tried to help others. I taught him that all the years.

Price is another victim of police murder in a year that has seen three people killed every day. According to KilledByPolice.net there have been at least 742 victims of police shootings as of Oct. 1.

This year has also been marked by mass multiracial and multiethnic protests across the US and internationally demanding an end to police violence and racism. Triggered by the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the end of May, protests have spread even to small towns and rural areas of the US.

In some places like Portland, Oregon, and Louisville, Kentucky, protests have continued for months, where protesters have been assaulted by riot police with rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper spray. In Portland, demonstrators determined to end police violence have been detained by unmarked federal agents.

Merritt described the latest killing as beyond comprehension, but police brutality is a reality which workers in towns and cities across the country confront under conditions of unprecedented social inequality. The police are the armed appendage to the capitalist state, created and utilized for the purpose of repressing the working class and any sign of social opposition.

The militarization of the American police has been developing for decades, accelerated by the Obama administrations sale of surplus military equipment to police departments. Now President Donald Trump is working overtime to develop the police and right-wing militias as his private army as he plots a coup against the US Constitution.

Trumps calls during the presidential debate for the fascist Proud Boys militias to stand back and stand by have clearly resonated with certain sections of society. At least one man openly armed with a semi-automatic rifle tried to intimidate protesters at a vigil for Price Monday night, causing a confrontation that eventually ended with the man leaving after a conversation with police.
India and Japan have finalised text of the cybersecurity agreement that promotes cooperation in security and resilience in the areas of Critical Information Infrastructure, 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Earlier on Wednesday in Tokyo, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar met Japanese FM Motegi Toshimitsu for the 13th India-Japan Foreign Ministers Strategic Dialogue. EAM is on a two-day Japan visit, and on the first day participated in the Quad--India, Japan, US, Australia FMs meet.

During the meet, the Indian read out said, both the minsiters emphasized that a "free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region" must be premised on "diversified and resilient supply chains" and welcomed the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative between India, Japan, Australia agreed last month.

Both sides reaffirmed "similarities in their respective Indo-Pacific visions," that are based on "rule of law and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity". The calls for respect for territorial integrity comes amid Chinese aggressiveness, in South China sea, with India at Line of Actual control in Eastern Ladakh and with Japan in Senkaku Islands.

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Japan has agreed to be the "lead partner in the connectivity pillar" of the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI). The initiative was proposed by Indian PM in November at the East Asia Summit in Bangkok.

Other key issues discussed between the two foreign ministers were UN reforms and political developments in North Korea.
The Moscow City Court has upheld a lower court decision to extend the pretrial arrest of the former chief of the Moscow police's illegal drugs department, Igor Lyakhovets, one of several former police officers suspected in the illegal apprehension of investigative journalist Ivan Golunov last year.

The court ruling on October 7 upholds the Basmanny district court's September ruling to prolong Lyakhovets' pretrial detention until December 7.

Lyakhovets said at the hearing that his case was politically motivated and "there are no grounds to keep me in custody."

Lyakhovets and his four former subordinates -- Akbar Sergaliyev, Roman Feofanov, Maksim Umetbayev, and Denis Konovalov -- were arrested in late January.

They were charged with abuse of service duties, falsification of evidence, and the illegal handling of drugs.

Konovalov, who is charged with forging documents related to the probe, was transferred to house arrest from a detention center in February after he made a deal with investigators and testified in court that his former boss, Lyakhovets, had ordered him to plant drugs on the reporter.

Investigators said on September 2 that the suspects had been additionally charged with "committing a crime in an organized group," which may lead to even stricter sentences.

The 37-year-old Golunov, who works for the Latvia-based information outlet Meduza, was arrested in June 2019 in Moscow for allegedly attempting to sell illegal drugs.

He was released several days later after the charges were dropped following a public outcry. The case sparked an investigation into his detainment and also into why Golunov suffered bruises, cuts, a concussion, and a broken rib during the ordeal.

In mid-July, police officers who detained Golunov were fired, along with their supervisor, for violating the journalist's rights.

After Golunovs release, Russian President Vladimir Putin fired Major General Yury Devyatkin, the head of the Moscow police department's drug control directorate, and Major General Andrei Puchkov, the police chief in Moscow's West administrative region, over the case.

Authorities announced in November that the case had been classified, a decision harshly criticized by Golunov's lawyers, who called the move an attempt to cover up the "wrongful arrest" of their client.

In a rare move, the Prosecutor-General's Office of Moscow's Western District apologized to Golunov in February for his illegal prosecution.

With reporting by TASS and Kommersant
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong views products that use QD-LED technology at Samsung Display's plant in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, March 19. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics



By Baek Byung-yeul



Samsung and LG are scrambling to take the lead in the next-generation display technology sector and fighting to win the trademark rights for quantum dot nano-emitting diode (QNED) technology.



The two Korean tech giants have long been competing for global leadership in the TV market and it remains to be seen which one can take over the next-generation market.



According to industry officials Wednesday, Samsung Display, a display-making affiliate of Samsung Electronics, filed applications on Sept. 25 for trademark rights for QNED, NED and QDNED with the Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information Service (KIPRIS).



Samsung Display said its trademark rights can be applied to 20 kinds of products including TVs, signs, monitors and smartphones. It also applied for trademark rights for QNED in the United States, the European Union and Australia.



Samsung Display's action came after LG Electronics filed for trademark rights for QNED, QNLED and NQED with the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) on Sept. 7. LG also has filed applications for trademark rights for QNED in other countries.



Both companies said they filed applications for trademark registrations as part of their efforts to preemptively occupy the future technology.



"LG Electronics has been considering various future display technologies and has applied for an application to preemptively occupy the trademark," an LG Electronics official said.



Samsung Display also said it "has been conducting research and development activities of quantum-dot-based display technologies and filed an application for the trademark as part of our efforts."



Industry officials said Samsung and LG have been trying hard for the naming rights as QNED display technology is considered to be next-generation following quantum-dot technology and OLED technology, which Samsung and LG are mainly using in their premium TVs.



Samsung and LG announced their bids to exit the saturated traditional LCD market as the industry is rapidly worsening due to a significant influx of Chinese manufacturers. Samsung said in March that the company would stop producing LCD displays and focus on utilizing its advanced quantum dot technologies such as QNED.



QNED technology is known to be superior compared with other technologies as the display can use inkjet printing technology to produce nanorod LEDs, which reduce production costs and ensure longer lifespans and a larger color selection.



While Samsung and LG are reportedly expected to compete fiercely for QNED leadership, a TV industry official said both companies would be able to use QNED for their products as registration for trademark rights doesn't mean that other companies that don't have the rights will be prohibited from using the technology.



"Currently, both companies have filed trademark applications, but it is difficult to know when the patent offices will accept their applications. Even if their applications are accepted, this doesn't mean either one will monopolize the right to use QNED," the official, who asked to remain anonymous, said.



"Whichever gets first or second, both companies will be able to use QNED by calling it Samsung QNED or LG QNED. Applying for trademark rights seems closer to the ordinary business activities of the two companies."


A look at todays leading headlines.

Trump mounts bizarre and misleading White House return despite warnings A strongly medicated President Donald Trump bolted from his VIP hospital bubble Monday, staging a bizarre White House comeback that included an irresponsible mask removal and a reckless pronouncement there is nothing to fear from Covid-19, which has already killed 210,000 Americans.

How Trumps Covid-19 treatment is far different from what most American patients get Some of the treatment Trump has received isnt even available to the American public. But that fact may have been lost on Trump when he told millions of followers Dont be afraid of Covid.

Scientists find intact brain cells in skull of man killed in Vesuvius eruption The brain cells of a young man who died almost 2,000 years ago in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius have been found intact by a team of researchers in Italy.

Trump has ties to drugmaker Regeneron  and now its stock is surging President Trump received a high dose of an experimental antibody cocktail from Regeneron as part of his Covid-19 treatment. Now the drugmakers stock is up sharply  and questions are swirling about the presidents ties to Regenerons billionaire CEO.

TikToks US ban is on hold. What comes next? TikTok averted a ban in the United States last week when a federal judge ruled that Washington couldnt block it from app stores just yet.

Massive, 50-year-old great white shark dubbed Queen of the Ocean tagged Researchers working in the waters off Nova Scotia, Canada, have found a huge great white shark that weighs 3,541 pounds and measures 17 feet 2 inches in length.

Instagram will hide comments that could be considered offensive Instagram will begin automatically hiding potentially offensive comments as part of its ongoing attempt to address online bullying.

After nearly running out of water in 2018, Cape Town dams are now overflowing Cape Towns reservoirs have topped 100% for the first time in six years, a magnificent change in the Mother City compared to its dire situation just two years ago.

Tasmanian devils are returning to Australian mainland after 3,000 years Eleven Tasmanian devils have been reintroduced to mainland Australia, more than 3,000 years after they died out there.

Last ever Airbus A380 superjumbo assembled in France (CNN)  A magnificent beast made of four million parts from 30 different countries, the Airbus A380 is the worlds largest passenger airliner, and its era is almost at an end. Initial assembly has recently been completed on the last ever superjumbo, after it was announced in 2019 that the European airplane manufacturers were discontinuing the plane.

Shaqiri tests positive for coronavirus Shaqiri, 28, is is on international duty with Switzerland and is now self-isolating. He is the third Liverpool player to contract Covid-19 within a week, after Thiago Alcantara and Sadio Mane. Shaqiri has played once for the Reds this season, in the Carabao Cup at Lincoln on 24 September, and has not made a Premier League matchday squad.

Protesters storm parliament over Kyrgyzstan vote Protesters in Kyrgyzstan calling for the countrys parliamentary election to be annulled have broken into parliament in the capital, Bishkek. Footage showed people in the office of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, and throwing paper from windows. Parts of the building appeared to be on fire.

Trump, Still Infectious, Is Back At The White House  Without A Mask BETHESDA, Md. (AP)  President Donald Trump staged a dramatic return to the White House Monday night after leaving the military hospital where he was receiving an unprecedented level of care for COVID-19.

Trump Tells Nation Not To Fear Coronavirus He Let Kill 200,000 Americans All eyes have been on President Donald Trump as he battles COVID-19, the disease he has spent most of this year downplaying as hundreds of thousands of people died on his watch. But even while hes infected with the highly contagious virus, the president continues to gaslight a traumatized America by minimizing the pandemic.

GOP: Trump Is So Tough For Not Dying Of COVID-19 After Getting World-Class Medical Care Few things are more important to President Donald Trump s image than appearing to be strong. That image was punctured last week when Trump, 74, tested positive for the coronavirus after months of refusing to take COVID-19 seriously.

Kamala Harris And Mike Pence To Be Separated By Plexiglass During Debate WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters)  Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic challenger Kamala Harris will be separated by a plexiglass barrier during their debate on Wednesday, a source familiar with the matter said, in an effort to lower the risk of coronavirus transmission.

Why Earths ozone hole is pretty big this year The ozone hole grew pretty large this year  but thats expected. Researchers from the European Unions Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service announced Tuesday that the ozone hole  a big zone of depleted ozone over the Antarctic region  reached its maximum extent for the year.

Apple offers fixes for battery drain and missing data in iOS 14 and WatchOS 7 If youve been struggling with a fresh set of technical issues since the mid-September launch of iOS 14 and WatchOS 7, Apples got some potential fixes for you to try. In a newly published support article, Apple runs through a list of issues that users of the new operating system updates have faced in recent weeks.

Trump tweets Dont be afraid of Covid, despite 209,000 American deaths With a single tweet, Donald Trump has blatantly put the lives of the American people at risk. On Monday afternoon, Trump tweeted to announce that he will be leaving Walter Reed Medical Center at 6:30 p.m. ET, and then proceeded to tell his 86.9 million followers not to fear COVID-19, the deadly virus that has already killed 209,199 Americans.
Samsungs official S-View Flip Cover might not be the protective case youd want to put on your brand new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra right now. The case is causing screen burn-in for many Note 20 Ultra owners, Android Police reports, compiling user complaints from the Samsung community forum and Reddit.

Affected units show discoloration along the right side of the screen, the area utilized by the cases transparent cover window to displays visuals. The discoloration is particularly noticeable at low brightness and in darker environments.

Its unclear whats causing the issue, though. For some users, the discoloration fades away after some time if they stop using the S-View Flip Cover. This suggests it could be a software bug where the device fails to turn off the portion of the screen utilized by the case, resulting in temporary image retention.

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However, it doesnt work as intended for everyone even if they remove the Flip Cover. So theres a concern that it could be permanent damage as OLED screens are particularly susceptible to burn-in issues.

Leaving a static image on the screen for longer periods may leave traces of it on the display. While those traces are usually temporary and go away after some time, theres also a chance of the screen retaining the image permanently. Hopefully, thats not the case here. OLED screens are also prone to UV damage from direct sunlight.

Galaxy Note 20 Ultra owners complain of screen burn-in issues with Samsungs S-View Flip Cover

The S-View Flip Cover is one of the best protective cases for Galaxy smartphones. It protects both the front and back of the phone while its transparent window lets you quickly access notifications, alarms, and events without opening the cover. You can also respond to incoming phone calls, control your music, and read important information like time, date, and battery level through this portion.

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However, this very functionality is turning out to be problematic in the case of the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. While the issue doesnt seem to be widespread, its rather unusual behavior. This is certainly not something you would expect to see on your ultra-expensive phone.

Samsung has yet to acknowledge the reports. Hopefully, the issue is fixable with a software update and the company will release a statement about it soon. For the time being, you might want to consider putting some other protective case on your Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. There are tons of options out there including many offerings from Samsung itself.
She's one of the world's top earning models.

And Emily Ratajkowski turned Tribeca into her own personal catwalk on Wednesday, when the 29-year-old prowled the New York City streets in a head-turning Nasty Girl outfit.

The all black ensemble paired a cropped blazer with high waisted pants.

Strut: Emily Ratajkowski turned Tribeca into her own personal catwalk on Wednesday, when the 29-year-old prowled the New York City streets in a head turning Nasty Girl outfit

The outfit's skimpy blazer showed off plenty of Ratajkowski's toned abs, as well as her famous cleavage.

The I Feel Pretty actress completed the look with white sneakers and dark Ray-Ban Wayfarer shades.

Emily wore her dyed auburn tresses loose and with a center part as she strolled the city streets.

Top of the crops! The outfit's skimpy blazer showed off plenty of Ratajkowski's toned abs, as well as her famous cleavage

Accessories: The I Feel Pretty actress completed the look with white sneakers and dark Ray-Ban Wayfarer shades

Recently, Ratajkowski sizzled in thigh-skimming dresses, sheer designs and cropped blazers in a new collaboration with Nasty Gal.

The American model flaunted her toned stomach and trim pins as the face of the top fashion brand's Fall/Winter 2020 campaign.

Looking sexy and confident in several seductive poses, Emily wowed in the eye-catching '90s-inspired power dressing ensembles.

Howdy! Emily Ratajkowski (pictured) channels retro glamour in sheer zebra print dresses and cropped blazers in her new collaboration with fashion brand Nasty Gal

It marked the second time Emily had collaborated with Nasty Gal.

Embracing her wild side, Emily was seen posing in a semi-sheer zebra-print dress that left little to the imagination.

The high-neck frock cinched in at her slender waist, and provided a glimpse of her toned abs and assets.

Wild thing! Embracing her wild side, Emily is seen posing in a semi-sheer zebra-print dress

Lying across a leather lounge, Emily stared seductively at the camera as she displayed her long legs in the short number.

The model has said that the zebra-print dress and matching cowboy hat are her favourite pieces from the collection by far.

In another shot, she posed in a purple wet-look trench coat while making a dramatic entrance down a staircase.

Leggy display: In another shot, she poses in a purple wet-look trench coat while making a dramatic entrance down a staircase

Thigh's the limit: Other bold looks in the campaign include a two-toned zebra-print sequinned mini dress with a white belt

Other bold looks in the campaign include a two-toned zebra-print sequinned mini dress with a white belt.

Adding to the retro feel of the collection, Emily also appeared in a cropped black blazer that shows off her taut stomach.

Speaking about her own love of fashion, Emily said: 'I feel like fashion can be a wonderful celebration of yourself! Choosing what you want to wear on a given day is such an empowering, exciting feeling. I love playing dress up and I think we all need to remember that fashion shouldnt be taken too seriously. It should be fun!'

The collection launches on Wednesday, October 7, with prices ranging from $12 to $306 and sizes running from US 0 to 20.

'Fashion shouldnt be taken too seriously. It should be fun!' said Emily

Work it! Adding to the retro feel of the collection, Emily also appears in a cropped black blazer that shows off her taut stomach

In a press release, Nasty Gal said that the 'global it girl' truly embodies the LA-based brand, originally founded by Sofia Amoruso.

'Emily Ratajkowski is not only known for her killer fashion game and boss babe entrepreneur status, but also for making serious waves when it comes to advocating for womens rights. Emily utilizes her platform to speak out against injustices, spread body positivity, and is a symbol of female empowerment.

'As Nasty Gal was built on the foundation of being unapologetically yourself, taking risks and living boldly, EMRATA embodies the brand to its core.'

'EMRATA embodies the brand to its core': In a release, Nasty Gal said that the 'global it girl' truly embodies the LA-based brand, originally founded by Sofia Amoruso

Netflix launched show, Girl Boss, based on Nasty Gal founder Sophia Amoruso in 2017, but it was cancelled after just one season.

It followed rebellious Amoruso (played by actress Britt Robertson) and her path to becoming an unlikely businesswoman after finding her passion of selling vintage clothes online.

Amoruso, 36, stepped down as CEO of fashion brand Nasty Gal in 2015. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy the following year and Amoruso resigned from the company.

Adorable: The Inamorata founder later took to her Instagram Stories to share videos of her fur baby, Colombo
Priti Patel today branded Britain's asylum system 'broken' after 20 migrants were taken off a new deportation flight to Germany.

The Home Secretary sent another handful of migrants back to mainland Europe, but was hit by a flurry of 11th-hour legal challenges.

An immigration enforcement charter flight yesterday flew three Iranians, two Eritreans, an Iraqi and a Kuwaiti back to Germany after they crossed the English Channel. Two of them sailed across the Narrow Sea in September.

Yesterday's flight also stopped in Hungary to deport five foreign criminals with a combined jail term of 20 years, whose crimes include robbery, Class-A drug dealing, theft and possession of a knife.

But the flight was once again bogged down in legal action that saw 20 scheduled deportees removed before the plane took off.

Ms Patel furiously said: 'As the issues we faced yesterday show, our asylum system is broken. That's why the new system I am introducing will be fairer and firmer.

Priti Patel today branded Britain's asylum system 'broken' after 20 migrants were taken off a new deportation flight to Germany. The Home Secretary sent another handful of small boat migrants back to mainland Europe, but was hit by a flurry of 11th-hour legal challenges

Ms Patel furiously said: 'As the issues we faced yesterday show, our asylum system is broken. That's why the new system I am introducing will be fairer and firmer'

'It will be compassionate towards those who need our help, welcoming people through safe and legal routes.

'But we will stop the exploitation of the broken system by those who come here illegally, asylum shop and make meritless claims to remain.'

A Home Office spokesman said: 'The Government's 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. This can effectively result in the timing out of a return due to stringent Dublin Regulations.

'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.'

The latest row comes after the Home Secretary blasted 'do gooders and lefty lawyers and the Labour Party' in her keynote speech to Tory conference this week.

Ms Patel vowed an end to people 'taking our country for a ride' by overhauling the 'broken' asylum system and cracking down on migrant crossings.

She pledged the 'biggest overhaul in decades' as she warned that the current arrangements are not 'firm or fair'.

Yesterday's flight also stopped in Hungary to deport five foreign criminals with a combined jail term of 20 years, whose crimes include robbery, Class-A drug dealing, theft and possession of a knife (pictured, migrants in a dinghy brought into Dover harbour in September)

The Home Secretary said that toughening enforcement and preventing abuse of the rules was the best way to 'protect the vulnerable'.

The Cabinet minister also lashed out at Labour MPs berating her over her strong stance on law and order issues, saying she would not change tack just because she did not 'conform' to their idea of the views ethnic minorities should hold.

Ms Patel told the conference, being held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic, that 'do gooders and lefty lawyers and the Labour Party' had to stop 'defending the indefensible' on asylum system.

'We will protect those most in need and put the rights of those who respect the rules above those who take our country for a ride,' she said.

The impassioned speech came after a furious row over the leaking of 'blue sky' ideas for reforming asylum arrangements and stemming migrant crossings.

2020 Channel migrant numbers hit 7,000 At least 7,000 migrants have managed to cross to the UK in small boats this year. Wednesday marked the 100th separate day when people have arrived in small boats in 2020, according to analysis by the PA news agency. Migrants crammed into unsafe dinghies have reached the UK from France on more than one in every three days, data shows. Immigration officials say screening centres are sometimes being 'overwhelmed' by the high numbers while staff remain conscious of the threat of Covid-19. Meanwhile, charities continue to call on the Home Office to provide safe and legal routes for asylum seekers to put an end to the perilous Channel crossings. In 2019, Home Secretary Priti Patel vowed to make such journeys an 'infrequent phenomenon', but UK law enforcement now believe the issue will be here for a while. A handful of people were seen arriving in Dover on Wednesday as migrants attempt the crossing before the weather worsens in autumn and winter. Wednesday marked the 100th separate day of 2020 where migrants have successfully crossed the Dover Strait to the UK in small boats, PA analysis shows. This means that people are successfully making the dangerous crossing more than once every three days. The number of migrants arriving each day is heavily weather-dependent, with fewer than 10 arrivals on some days and hundreds making it to Dover on others. In September alone, nearly 2,000 migrants reached the UK, more than the figure for the entirety of 2019. Immigration staff say the 'sheer volume' of migrant crossings in 2020 is 'unprecedented' and has presented significant challenges. Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover and Deal, said: 'More needs to be done to bring an end to illegal trafficking and illegal migration. All options must be on the table to close down the route itself. 'The French must stop boats leaving in the first place, boats should be returned to France instead of bringing them into Britain, and we should return people who come in through these illegal routes, no ifs or buts.' Advertisement

Proposals have been floated including introducing a processing centre on Ascension Island, 4,000 miles away, and even using wave machines in the Channel.

However, government sources have insisted the ideas were only ever considered in brainstorming sessions, and complained that they are being leaked to damage ministers.

Ms Patel said that under the Conservatives the UK 'has and always will provide sanctuary when the lights are being switched off on people's liberties'.

'A fair asylum system should provide safe haven to those fleeing persecution, oppression or tyranny,' she said.

'But ours doesn't. Because our asylum system is fundamentally broken. And we have a responsibility to act.'

Ms Patel said: 'From the expulsion of Ugandan Asians from a repressive regime, to proudly resettling more Syrian refugees than any other EU country, to supporting campaigners fleeing political persecution in Hong Kong.

'Under Conservative leadership, the United Kingdom has and always will provide sanctuary when the lights are being switched off on people's liberties.

'So, I will introduce a new system that is firm and fair.

'Fair and compassionate towards those who need our help. Fair by welcoming people through safe and legal routes.

'But firm because we will stop the abuse of the broken system.

'Firm, because we will stop those who come here illegally making endless legal claims to remain.

'And firm, because we will expedite the removal of those who have no claim for protection.

'After decades of inaction by successive governments, we will address the moral, legal, practical problems with this broken system. Because what exists now is neither firm nor fair.

'And I will bring forward legislation to deliver on that commitment. I will take every necessary step to fix this broken system. Amounting to the biggest overhaul of our asylum system in decades.'

The Home Secretary promised 'accelerate' the operational response to illegal migration.

She said: 'We will continue to hunt down the criminal gangs who traffic people into our country.

'I will continue to use the full force of our outstanding National Crime Agency and intelligence agencies to go after them.

'We will make more immediate returns of those who come here illegally and break our rules, every single week.

'And we will explore all practical measures and options to deter illegal migration.'

Ms Patel went on: 'As for those defending the broken system  the traffickers, the do gooders, the lefty lawyers, the Labour Party  they are defending the indefensible. And that is something I will never do.

If at times it means being unpopular on Twitter. I will bear it. If at times it means Tony Blair's spin doctor mocking my accent. So be it.

'And if at times it means Labour Members of Parliament attempting to silence me because I do not conform to their idea of what an ethnic minority woman should stand for. I will stomach it.

'Because as Conservatives, we do not measure the depth of our compassion in two hundred and eighty characters on Twitter, but in the actions we take and the choices we make.'

Boris Johnson yesterday claimed Britain's border policing is 'hamstrung by what the Home Secretary would doubtless and rightly call the lefty human rights lawyers and other do-gooders'.
Watch: PM and Starmers full exchange on local lockdowns

Labour leader Keir Starmer has attacked the prime minister over failing local lockdowns after coronavirus infections rose in 19 out of 20 areas under restrictions.

At Prime Ministers Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday, the opposition leader accused Boris Johnson of a lack of clarity regarding restrictions placed on different areas across the UK.

Labour analysis has revealed that infection rates are up in the majority of areas under local lockdown, with the biggest increase in Manchester, which rose from 36 cases per 100,000 to 552 since restrictions were implemented on 30 July.

The largest percentage increase in infections occurred in Wigan, which saw a 3,653% jump, while Rosendale had a 2,241% hike, according to the data.

A table from Labour showing a rise in infection rates in 19 out of 20 areas under local restrictions. (Twitter/Angela Rayner)

Starmer said local communities genuinely don't understand why some areas had been put under a local lockdown but others hadnt.

He said: For example, in the prime ministers own local authority Hillingdon, today there are 62 cases per 100,000 yet no local restrictions.

But in 20 local areas across England, restrictions were imposed when infection rates were much lower. In Kirklees it was just 29 per 100,000.

Local communities, prime minister, genuinely dont understand these differences. Can he please explain for them?

Boris Johnson replied: I wish I could pretend that everything was going to be rosy in the Midlands or indeed in London where, alas, we are also seeing infections rise.

Women wear face masks in Manchester. (Getty)

That is why we need a concerted national effort, we need to follow the guidance, we need hands, face, space, get a test if you have symptoms and obey the rule of six.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth subsequently accused Johnson of providing no answers to people living under lockdowns.

He tweeted: No answers from Johnson today for families living under restriction across areas like Bury, Bolton, Burnley, Hyndburn, Kirklees and of course Leicester now in 100th day of lockdown.

Story continues

Families making so many sacrifices across lockdown in North & Midlands deserve clarity. #PMQs

At PMQs Johnson also refused to commit to publishing the scientific basis behind the 10pm coronavirus curfew for pubs and restaurants.

A vote on whether to continue the curfew had been set to take place on Wednesday but has been delayed until next week.

Bolton is another area that was put in local lockdown. (Getty)

Starmer called for Johnson to commit to publishing the scientific basis for the curfew before next weeks vote in the House of Commons.

Johnson, however, refused to commit to doing so and instead focused on how Starmer accepted the rule when it was introduced as part of a raft of new restrictions on 22 September.

The Labour leader said he did support the rule of six.

Watch: Keir Starmer challenges PM on missing COVID tests

Coronavirus: what happened today

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PENNSYLVANIA  When times are tough, heroes emerge. Do you know a person in your community who's stepping up to make a difference?

Patch has partnered with Ring to shine a spotlight on the neighborhood heroes who are making a difference in their communities, whether it's the clerk at your local grocery store who went above and beyond to help you, the nurse who tended a sick family member or the stranger who showed you a moment of kindness.

We want you to tell us about them, so we can let the community know. Share their story here.

Here's a look at some of amazing Pennsylvania local heroes who have been recently nominated:

Chip Panico is "the single most selfless person in Lansdale, says Jane Friel, who nominated Panico for his work in organizing and giving food donations around the local area. "Chip has made sure that no child would go hungry during the pandemic. He has given thousands of meals to children who are normally fed through school program," she writes. Learn more here.

Marcella Sowell-Hemingway, a healthcare worker, is a COVID-19 survivor who spent 20 days in quarantine during her battle and recovery. After she recovered, she went right back to work helping others. Learn more here.



ICU nurse Tammy Nealy was nominated as a local hero by the family of a man who recently died from the coronavirus. "She held his hand for seven hours until he took his last breath. She's our hero," the Spitko family wrote. Learn more here.



Joe Gentile of Levittown was nominated by Rico Rodriguez. Gentile cared for Rodriguez when he was at St. Mary Medical Center for 51 days being treated for the coronavirus  37 of those days on a ventilator.

"He prayed with me and really comforted me emotionally through the most difficult time of my life," Rodriguez said. He called him the "Superman of nurses." Learn more here.

Heather Markland nominated her daughter Ella Markland, an eighth grader who is using her cupcake decorating lessons to raise money for a local food pantry. Learn more.



Story continues

Go here to see more inspiring stories about your Pennsylvania local heroes.

>>> Do YOU have a local hero you would like us to know about? Share their story here.

This article originally appeared on the Across Pennsylvania Patch
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Is the Angeles National Forest tweeting #BobcatFire updates at you? Have you stumbled across a YouTube tutorial on fire behavior or attended a community evacuation briefing on Zoom?

You're the beneficiary of a pandemic-caused pivot of fire agencies to put more communications online.

For decades, fire managers relied on in-person news briefings and community meetings in high school gyms to inform the public about big wildland fires. It was efficient -- for the fire agencies. But it was up to reporters and the public to show up and make sense of the fire talk to gauge the risk to homes.

In recent years, fire information officers had been experimenting with social media platforms to augment those in-person gatherings.

But now -- no more baby steps. This year, the pandemic made it impractical and potentially unsafe to pack a few hundred neighbors -- or a cluster of reporters -- into a small space for an update from fire managers.

Take just the example of the Bobcat Fire burning in the San Gabriel Mountains between Monrovia and the Antelope Valley, which began Sept. 6. Here are a few of the new ways pandemic-savvy public information officers have changed how they communicate:

COMMUNITY MEETINGS

Before: A restless crowd would pack in to hear officials update the progress of the fire and to answer questions about which homes had been lost, and when people could return home.

With children running around and snacks on tables, it was a communal affair. But often it doubled as a showcase for local elected officials to spend a lot of time thanking other agencies, when the attendees really just wanted solid, actionable information about the fire and plans to repopulate their neighborhoods.

L.A. County Fire Chief Daryl Osby speaks during a community meeting held on Zoom and YouTube to avoid public gatherings during the pandemic. (Screenshot via YouTube)

Now: Today, those meetings are happening on Zoom and YouTube, with all the good-to-terrible audio quality and "you're on mute" glitches that have become a staple of everyday pandemic life.

This kind of meeting can be good for the public, saving you a trip across town when air quality is poor and anxious family members might not all want to pile in the car.

It can also make the information accessible to many more people -- the above video was viewed more than 7,000 times.

But the format, where audience questions tend to be screened, can shield officials from criticism about how the fire, or evacuations, or repopulating the area are being handled.

JARGON-FILLED MEETINGS:

Before: Fire officials speaking to news reporters and the public have tried to make themselves understood, and some are better than others, but they are firefighters first and communicators second.

So you might have heard fire terms like:

diurnal winds

structure defense

initial attack

crowning

advancing fire

When you really wanted to know about morning and evening wind shifts (diurnal winds), protecting homes from fire (structure defense), the first efforts to stop the fire (initial attack), trees burning from the top (crowning) and fires moving very quickly (advancing fire).

Now: CalFire and the U.S. Forest Service are making short videos for social media, which explain some of the jargon they use. The videos are collected on the Bobcat Fire's Youtube channel.

Like this one, above, an explanation of "strategic firing," a tactic used by firefighters when they set fires to consume fuel in the path of a fire to slow its progress. The tactic was used recently (to good effect) to defend the Mount Wilson Observatory grounds. The video is closed-captioned, so the hearing-impaired can also understand.

INFORMATION UPDATES

Before: Major updates about a fire have typically been presented to the media and public twice a day, generally about an hour or so after they were shared among fire managers.

These updates would generally include new figures for acreage and homes burned, damage to other structures, the number of people working on a fire and whether any firefighters were injured.

Now: Twitter has become a default method for fire departments to get information out. It's quick and gets the job done. It's also fair because everybody who follows the account gets the info at the same time.

These tweets often link to deeper information -- like the fire's incident page (see Inciweb, below) a live briefing, or the most recent evacuation map and instructions. It makes it one of the most valuable tools for communicating.

But key information like acreage details and structural damage are still only updated twice a day. That's because it takes time and a team of experts to do the calculations and put together comprehensive reports.

RELIABLE FIRE MAPS

Before: Firefighters have had a variety of maps available to them to show the progress of a fire over each successive day, its perimeter (updated twice-daily) and the portions of the fire perimeter where the fire's advance had been contained. But generally most of them have not been readily available to the public.

Now: More types of maps are being posted online for the public to better understand where the fire is burning. The ESRI geographic information systems product called Storymaps is especially helpful because they combine information about where the fire has recently been flaring up, with evacuation maps, and many links to other information.

The Bobcat Fire link on the Inciweb website pulls together many maps, photos and other information about the fire. (Screenshot)

HARD-TO-MANAGE INFORMATION

Before: A website known as Inciweb has been around for a while, where different government agencies would post links to maps and information about large fires. It was a great idea, and generally helpful, but not particularly user-friendly.

Now: This may be the single best improvement for accessing fire information quickly. It's been updated in recent years to be even more complete -- and easy to use.

These days, it includes more of everything. More agencies contribute information, and there are more links to cities, counties and emergency services.

The easiest way to find the fire you're interested in is to search the keywords "inciweb" and the name of the fire, in this case "Bobcat." This is what you get.

Once you're on the website, you can zero in on the incident icon on the map, click it and see basic information, like the number of acres burned. Then, on the lower half of the web page there's more information about the fire, tabs to access videos, photos, and links from many local agencies that are working the fire or affected by it.

OLD STYLE "TRAP LINES"

A fire information board in Big Bear Lake during the 2017 Holcomb Fire. (Courtesy INCIWEB.NWCG.GOV via KCVR)

Before: Not everybody has high-speed internet, especially if they are in rural areas and have been asked to evacuate their homes. So information officers, in the style of old-time game trappers, set out a series of bulletin boards at grocery stores, post offices and other gathering places.

And every day, like a trapper checking the traps, they travelled from one bulletin board to the next, stapling the most recent map and information sheets to the boards.

Information officers would often hang around for an hour or so to answer questions from residents.

Now: Trap lines are still a thing -- but to avoid close contact with people, they post the latest maps and narratives along with links where residents can see video updates and other information.

LOOK -- UP IN THE SKY

Flight trackers like the phone app Flightradar24 show the flight path of a firefighting airplane over the Bobcat Fire. (Screenshot from Flightradar24 phone app)

Before: For people who live in areas that are frequently endangered by fire, there can be comfort in being able to see where the firefighting aircraft are in real time or listening to firefighters on a scanner. Flight trackers have been around for a while, but not one you could put in your pocket.

Now: A growing number of tools are coming from the private sector, not official fire departments.

A flight tracking app like Flightradar24 lets you click on an aircraft avatar on your phone or laptop screen and see a photograph of the actual plane or helicopter. Another click reveals the flight path. Sometimes it's a water-dropping helicopter that can be tracked back-and-forth between a water source to the fire. Other times, it's the circular path of a fire spotting aircraft.

Online scanner apps, like Broadcastify.com, relay real-time communications between firefighters, fire managers and aircraft overhead. The broadcasts are of limited help to the general public in understanding what's going on at a fire line, though. That's because they are only a partial slice of the overall communications between fire officials, and they use a lot of those specialized terms that aren't always clear to a layperson.

In recent years, cameras mounted on various local peaks across Southern California in cooperation with Southern California Edison have been used to spot fires, and they are accessible to the public to view.

This time-lapse animation shows the Bobcat Fire coming perilously close to the Mount Wilson Observatory.
Some of Australia's top employers have vowed to hire thousands more workers after the landmark budget handed down by the government on Tuesday included a range of incentives.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison called on Australian companies to start 'firing up again' as Australia tries to come to grips with the once-in-a-lifetime coronavirus crisis.

The lockdowns particularly affected the private sector, which employs eight in ten Australians.

The pandemic has left the unemployment rate at 6.8 percent and millions receiving government subsidies such as JobKeeper.

But under a new plan, eligible employers would be able to receive $200 a week for hiring a worker aged 16 to 29, or $100 a week for Australians aged 30 to 35.

Business can receive a maximum of $10,400 for every new employ they hire thanks to the new budget released on Tuesday (pictured, Sydney tradespeople on Sunday)

Employment fell dramatically due to coronavirus lockdowns. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a plan to hire 100,000 apprentices to 'get young people working again'

Business can receive a maximum of $10,400 for every new employ they hire.

On top of this, companies who take on new apprentices may be eligible for a 50 per cent wage subsidy aimed to create 100,000 trainee jobs.

Mr Morrison said apprenticeships are vital to get young people into jobs during the difficult time.

'Whether it's the manufacturing, housing and construction, arts or mining sectors - this new wage subsidy gives businesses certainty to hire and provides a career path to aspiring, young tradies,' he said.

Chefs will be in hot demand in coming years, according to Australian Hotels Association chief executive officer Stephen Ferguson

WHAT SHOULD I TRAIN IN? Some of the sector where jobs are expected to grow include: *Hospitality jobs, such as chefs *Agriculture and horticulture jobs *Automotive trades *Child care occupations *Construction sector trades *Manufacturing sector trades *Engineering and technician trades *Property sector jobs *Aged care sector jobs Advertisement

Another major move to cushion the blow of COVID for business was the announcement that companies with turnovers of up to $5billion can now write-off the full value of an asset in a single year.

Jayco caravans owner Gerry Ryan told The Australian the generous budget was a big boost to business confidence and should spur on investment in manufacturing and the property sector, and would encourage them to create more jobs.

'It allows business to keep people employed and put more people on, and then they spend more dollars out there, buy more goods and therefore GST gets paid. Companies make more profits and therefore pay more company tax and payroll tax,' he said.

Another Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt, who is the executive chairman of cardboard box maker Visy, also expects the a boom in jobs growth.

'It will be a real boost to Australian manufacturing. Reducing the cost of capital will spur capital formation and thereby create more jobs,' Mr Pratt said.

One of the biggest boom areas is expected to be the construction sector.

'As part of the COVID-19 economic recovery plan we have invested an additional $11.3billion focused on shovel-ready projects across the country,' Mr Morrison said.

Australians could soon have thousands more jobs to choose from thanks to incentives in the budget (pictured, workers outside the Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday)

'This investment through Tuesday's budget will boost the national economy and is part of our plan to support an estimated 30,000 direct and indirect jobs across the nation.'

Another major winner is predicted to be the struggling hospitality sector which has been decimated by ongoing lockdowns.

Australian Hotels Association chief executive officer Stephen Ferguson said the food service industry had 11,290 apprentices but needed thousands of new chefs over the next few years.

'This will be a massive benefit to us, whether it be for a junior apprentice or mature age worker wanting to re-skill, especially as the industry is projecting a need for 16,800 chefs over the next five years,' he told the Daily Telegraph.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison working on his pre-budget address on September 30. Budget 2020 has been flagged as a 'jobs budget' to pull Australia out of coronavirus recession
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's renouncement of their membership as senior working members of the royal family and quest for financial independence was denounced by many. This reportedly included a snub by Prince William and Kate Middleton at their last royal engagement.

Commonwealth Day Service

In March 2020, people saw glimpses of its footage making its rounds as the gloomy Duke and Duchess of Sussex were barely acknowledged by Prince William and Kate Middleton during the Commonwealth Day Service.

The Sussexes were excluded from walking in with Queen Elizabeth II and other senior members of the royal family at the royal engagement. The event was their last appearance as senior royals.

Declared Snub in the Program

The searing was evident on Prince Harry's face. Robert Lacey penned a new memoir entitled "Battle of Brothers" that provides additional information regarding the Sussexes' last royal engagement. Lacey wrote that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's snub in the programming during the procession had been declared to all people in the building prior to their arrival, reported The News International.

According to Lacey, "The only problem was that 2,000 orders of service had already been distributed round the Abbey, explaining that William and Kate would enter and process with the main royal party -- and making no mention at all of Harry and Meghan. So there was the snub in black and white -- set out for all to see," reported Cosmopolitan.

The initial plan was for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to walk into the event with Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, and Duchess Camilla. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were supposedly going to be seated in front of them. The Sussexes were quite emotional about it and that Prince William and Kate Middleton stepped in to mitigate the situation. The couple offered to join them in their seats instead of walking in with the Her Majesty which was a snubbing situation.

Also Read: Prince Harry Faces Monumental Tax Bill Unless He Takes Break From 11 Million Mansion

The Westminster Abbey event was their final taste of the life of a senior royal but it was not a happy occasion, according to the historian author. The couple was reportedly anticipating to joining the procession into the church behind the Queen, Prince Charles, and Prince William in acknowledgment of their status within the royal family notwithstanding stepping down.

According to observers, Prince Harry's face was quite strained and unsmiling and that when his older brother took his seat close to him, he barely greeted him. "Throughout the service, Meghan megawatted away with her best TV smile but, as the ceremony progressed, Harry appeared to grow gloomier."One observer noted that his faster blinking hinted that he might have been controlling tears, reported Marie Claire.

While the "Suits" actress channeled her former profession as an actress, Lacey divulged that Prince Harry was "fighting back tears" after the royal family along with Prince William and Kate Middleton snubbed them.

The couple formally renounced their titles as senior royals on March 31 and have since been living in a mansion in Santa Barbara, California.

Related Article: Prince William Not Pleased When Prince Harry Lied About Archie's Birth

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Republican lawmaker Martha McSally repeatedly refused to answer when quizzed about her support for president Donald Trump during a Senate debate on Tuesday night.

Ms McSally, 54, faced off against Democratic challenger Mark Kelly, 56, at Arizona University as the pair battle it out for votes ahead of November's poll.

The debate moderator pointed out to Ms McSally that she had supported the Trump administration on a number of key policy issues, before asking her: "Are you proud of your support for president Trump?"

Ms McSally, a former US representative and US Air Force combat pilot, immediately deflected the question and launched into a broadside on her opponent, who she accused of promoting the most radical agenda that weve seen.

Candidate Kelly says that hes an independent and a moderate  and lots of platitudes here. But the stakes could not be higher. If you want your tax cuts, Im your girl. If you want the largest tax increase in history, youve got somebody else over here, she added.

Determined to get an answer, the debate moderator cut back in to remind Ms McSally of the question. "Senator, the question was are you proud of your support for president Trump?" he said.

Trailing her rival in the polls, Ms McSally again refused to be drawn on her record of supporting Mr Trump, before repeating a GOP campaing pledge to cut taxes.

Im proud to be fighting for Arizona every single day," she added.

The response was much simpler for Mr Kelly - a first-time candidate - who called the president's overall behavior and actions in office "not acceptable."

During the debate, Ms McSally also unveiled a new nickname for her rival, branding him 'counterfeit Kelly - a phrase she used repeatedly as she made the case that the Democrats independent rhetoric would give way to a liberal voting record in Washington.

Ms McSally with president Trump at 2018 Arizona rally (Getty Images)

The pair also locked horns on the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare, the filibuster and GOP efforts to confirm a Supreme Court justice before election day.

The Arizona senate race is one of the tightest in the country and Democrats will need to win the seat to take back control of the upper chamber.

McSally has strong support among Trump supporters but she will also need to win over independent voters in a state that appears to have turned its back on the president.

Mr Kelly, a retired astronaut, is running on a more liberal platform than that of his rival. Throughout the campaign, he has held a consistent lead in the polls and has raised more money than his GOP opponent.
East Londoners can expect their water supply to return 'throughout the morning' after engineers worked overnight to fix a 100-year-old burst water pipe, according to Thames Water.

Supermarkets' bottled water aisles were stripped bare overnight after the problem was first reported on Tuesday afternoon at around 4.30pm.

Engineers couldn't find the source of the problem, a 'large water pipe' in the Hackney Marshes area, until nearly midnight because it had caused so much flooding.

A photograph of a submerged area at Wick Woodland, caused by the 42-inch pipe, was released by the water company.

It tweeted the image, adding: 'Most customers should have their water supply back.

'We're sorry to all impacted - the image shows where the burst occurred which flooded an area of woodland, which made it challenging for our team to find the exact location of the burst. Thank you for your patience.'

Engineers couldn't find the source of the problem, a 'large water pipe' in the Hackney Marshes area, until nearly midnight. Thames Water said the problem has now been fixed

Supermarkets' bottled water aisles were stripped bare overnight after taps stopped producing water in east London at around 4.30pm yesterday

The burst was in a heavily wooded area of Hackney Marshes at Wick Woodland, where Thames Water have had to block off flooded footpaths.

A spokesman told MailOnline customers could expect their water to return this morning after engineers worked overnight.

They said: 'The situation is improving. Our engineers have isolated the burst and customers should be experiencing a return to supply this morning.

'Our engineers have worked through the night and the situation is moving quite fast.

A supermarket aisle in Newham was left empty after Thames Water customers headed to the shops when they realised their taps had stopped working

A video circulating on social media showed a desperate scramble to buy water from a Tesco outlet in Leytonstone

A photograph of the large amount of flooding (pictured) caused by the 42-inch pipe was released by the water company. Affected paths have been shut off to the public

One social media user shared a screenshot from buying and selling website Ebay, as people with water tried to flog their supply to those living in the affected areas

Photographs shared on social media show there was a mad dash to the supermarket for bottled water. Shelves were quickly left bare in scenes last seen at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in the UK.

One affected resident, Gourav Sharma, 37, from Leytonstone, last night told MailOnline they were left without water from 4.30pm.

It meant he and his wife Meena were unable to make formula milk for their six-month-old baby, Ishan, and had to rush to a nearby B&M store to buy bottled water.

A video circulating on social media showed residents scrambling to buy water from a Tesco outlet in Leytonstone.

Despite the ongoing disruption, some light-hearted residents have joked about the issue online.

Thousands of people living in East London are without tap water after a 42-inch pipe burst, sending residents rushing to supermarkets to buy bottle supplies.

One image showed a 'jug of fresh water' being sold on Ebay for 100.

Another quoted Thames Water's tweet and joked, 'on today's episode of East London'.

A spokesman for Thames Water apologised for the inconvenience and added 'supplies should improve over the course of the morning'.

They said: 'It will take some time to fully recover as pressure in the network rebuilds, meaning some customers may experience an intermittent supply.

'Until things are back to normal were continuing to prioritise assistance for vulnerable customers and will ensure they have bottled water delivered to them.

'Overnight our engineers located and isolated the burst pipe thats causing the problem, and we brought tankers into the area to improve the situation by pumping water straight into our local supply network.'

One affected resident, Gourav Sharma, 37, from Leytonstone, told MailOnline they had no water from 4.30pm. It meant he and his wife Meena couldn't make formula milk for their eight-month-old baby, Ishan. Pictured: Mrs Sharma with Ishan

Thames Water said they were aware customers in postcodes E6, E7, E10, E11, E12, E13, E15, E16 and E20 had been affected.

The areas also included parts of Forest Gate, Leyton, Newham and Plaistow.

Residents first reported a problem just before 5pm yesterday afternoon.

Mr Sharma, who works as a consultant, said: 'The problems started at around 4.30pm. There was no water.

'It was a surprise, I've never seen it before. I've had no response from Thames Water. '

He said he had to rush to a shop to buy water to make milk for his baby son, Ihsan.

'We had no choice, we had to go to B&M and pick up some water bottles and there were not many.

'There's still no water to flush the toilets so we will probably go to our friends' house if this is not rectified in the morning.'

He added: 'I've been in the UK for the past 12 years, we do face these problems back in India but we use rooftop water tanks which help you survive but here if there's a problem you have no water at all for cleaning or flushing the toilet.'

Mr Sharma said he spent 30 minutes on the phone to Thames Water but hung up when he was unable to get through.

Another affected resident told the firm online, 'we currently have no water at all so please rectify the issue speedily & efficiently as you can.'

Thames Water earlier said they're of aware customers in postcodes E6, E7, E10, E11, E12, E13, E15, E16 and E20 being affected

Last night Thames Water tweeted to say 'specialist engineers' were working to resolve the problem

A third added: 'Can you please update us with what the issue is that caused such large scale disruption and when will this get fixed.

'Water is the basic necessity and we need know when can we have them running through our taps again.

A Thames Water spokesman said yesterday: 'We're really sorry to those customers affected by low pressure or no water.

'This has been caused by a burst on a large pipe in the Hackney Marshes area. We are deploying all resources possible to fix this as a priority.

'It's a complex job, but we're drafting in more staff and working as quickly as we can so that we can begin a repair as soon as we've pinpointed the damaged section.

'In the meantime, we've brought tankers into the area to improve the situation by pumping water into our local supply network and working as hard as we can to get things back to normal as quickly as possible.'
The race for the state Senate District 9 seat is one of the most heated campaigns in the entire state and could determine whether Democrats can draw nearly even with Republicans in the upper chamber of the Legislature.

Former state Rep. Jason Brodeur, a Republican, faces Democratic candidate Patricia Sigman to succeed outgoing GOP state Sen. David Simmons in the district, which includes Seminole County and parts of Volusia County.

Even before the primary, the race saw negative ads by Brodeur and two mysterious groups using a false claim that Sigman received Paycheck Protection Act money. Democrats have since attacked Brodeur and his affiliated PAC for paying $37,000 to companies owned by a blogger with ties to the far-right nationalist group the Proud Boys.

The race is one of two in the state, along with a South Florida district, that could determine if Democrats could reach 19 seats in the 40-seat Senate to have more leverage for the redistricting battles ahead.

Who they are

Jason Brodeur, 45, of Sanford, a former member of the Florida House from 2010 to 2018. /NEED MORE ON HIM/

Patricia Sigman, 53, of Longwood, a labor attorney. /NEED MORE ON HER/

Where they stand

In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board in September, Brodeur said he was very proud of the record that we have had in the last 10 years in the state of Florida.

We balanced our budget, Brodeur said. We have delivered for education for our children, and we have made sure that we have protected our most vulnerable. .. Our fiscal responsibility is helping us during this unprecedented global pandemic.

Brodeur called the COVID-19 pandemic a medical hurricane and said the state needs to continue to have the reserves necessary in order to withstand something like this.

He also cited the importance of flexibility in educational choices that include expanding school vouchers that allow children to attend private schools using diverted tax dollars. .

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/need a transition here about why we talking about this issue with both him and her/

Brodeur defended his vote in 2011 for the now-beleaguered state unemployment compensation system, saying, I voted for a system that was supposed to work and what the citizens received and what the state received was a lemon.  I would like to see us have a system that works.

As for raising benefits from the current $275 a week over 12 weeks, I would like to look at that and see whether or not thats meeting where we are today. ... Im always a proponent of making sure that we are matching our standards to what cost of living is today.

But, he added, in order to be fiscally responsible, we want to make sure that were able to continue to afford that.

In her interview with the editorial board, Sigman said the 2011 unemployment law needs to be totally overhauled, including higher benefits and more weeks.

Twelve weeks just isnt sufficient, Sigman said. Thats not consistent with how long it takes people to try to get back on their feet and find a job.  We have to have a way of making sure that were doing at least six months.

There were other problematic things in the unemployment bill, she added.

The law used to have a presumption, when you went up on an appeal, that you were entitled to the benefits, Sigman said. And in 2011, the bill that Mr. Brodeur voted for took that away.

In addition, she said, the law took away in-person hearings for unemployment problems, requiring everything to be done by phone.

And so now instead of a law thats designed to give benefits, what we have to do is a law thats designed not to give benefits, she said. "They need help from a real human being, they cant do battle with a broken computer system.

Brodeur said he didnt think expanding Medicaid would help Floridians, saying, what I want to do is achieve the same aims ... which is higher access and lower costs. But we want to do it through a structural framework change.

That //huh?// included a bill that created direct primary care, he said, where you can join a doctors office at a cost thats normally less than that of a cell phone every month. That way folks begin to inject consumerism into the healthcare market.

Sigman said she is absolutely and wholeheartedly behind expanding Medicaid.

Not only will it insure [about] 800,000 Floridians, and that includes about 40,000 veterans, it brings $14.3 billion in federal tax dollars back here into Florida over five years  [And it] creates thousands of good-paying health care jobs from the standpoint of economic recovery."

It is vital and it is necessary, and it helps stabilize insurance premiums for those lucky enough to have private insurance, she said, calling it one of her top priorities.

She said Democrats even getting a 19-21 split in the state Senate would help pass Medicaid expansion, citing Virginia, where the Legislature approved it despite the Democrats being one seat short of a tie.

The pressure thats put on the controlling party, when they see the enormous gains, and the chamber close to flipping makes a difference, she said. So we believe and I believe strongly that we can be very effective.

On the environment, Brodeur defended his relationship with developer Chris Dorworth, saying We have disagreements all the time, Ive been incredibly clear with him that I support the rural boundary dividing eastern Seminole County from the more developed central and western parts.

He said his vote in favor of Dorworths River Cross development was an errant button [that] got hit and was corrected immediately.

The original vote, however, is what counts, and switching afterward was a symbolic gesture that doesnt change his official vote.

Sigman said she was endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club, adding, the people of Seminole County voted overwhelmingly for the charter amendment here in Seminole County that established and protects that rural area beyond the rural boundary.  I absolutely will protect the rural boundary. It is one of our environmental treasures.

She also said Brodeur voted to basically eliminate the growth management protections that we had in the state law years ago.

Where they differ

Brodeur said that as somebody who was adopted shortly after Roe vs. Wade, I think the sanctity of life is a very big issue.

I disagree with my opponents stance that its only one persons decision, he said. There are two involved in that. As somebody who was adopted, I strongly identify with the child. And so I would be a strong defender of life.

Sigman said she supported a womans right to choose and opposed the parental consent bill passed this year.

A decision about a womans health care is a personal decision that a woman makes and she makes it in consultation with a doctor of her choice, she said. And the idea of our state interfering with that is not something that I have supported.  The [consent] law was simply a second run at doing something that was already ruled unconstitutional.

slemongello@orlandosentinel.com



2020 The Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Fla.)

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Union Minister on Wednesday said highway works worth Rs 11,000 crore were underway for Tamil Nadu- connectivity.

Dedicating to the nation Rs 35 crore road-over-bridge on NH 45-A at Puducherry, the minister said this will ease traffic congestion.

Inaugurating the one-kilometre long Road-Over-Bridge across Railway Level Crossing on NH 45-A at Arumparthapuram, Puducherry, built at a cost of Rs 35 crore, the minister said the project is envisaged to bring relief to public from traffic jam resulting in saving of time and fuel, safe commutation, reduction in pollution, closure of level crossing, and unhindered passage of railway traffic.

The Road Transport and Highways Minister said the work under progress is in an aggregate length of 287 km for an amount of about Rs 11,000 crore for - Connectivity.

The four-laning of NH-45 shall provide unhindered connectivity of with Karaikal port as well as the road which is leading up to Kanyakumari. This will also give impetus to agriculture and fishing, he said.

During the last six years, the minister said Rs 70 crore has been spent on highway construction in Puducherry. These include the Mahabalipuram to Mugaiyur section of NH-332 A, Mugaiyur to Marakkanam section of NH -332 A, Viluppuram to Puducherry section of NH -45A, Puducherry to Poondiyankuppam section of NH -45A, Poondiyankuppam to Sattanathapuram section of NH-45A, and Sattanathapuram to Nagapattinam section of NH-45A.

Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways V K Singh said the ministry is trying to provide full connectivity of Puducherry with and other regions of the country.

He said the work on strengthening of 8 km long road from Madagadipet state border to Ariyur Village at an expenditure of Rs 9 crore is likely to be completed by the coming December.

He further said detailed project report preparation is in progress for Marakkanam - Koonimedu Section of NH 332 A and Puducherry Bypass, construction of Grade separator at Rajiv Gandhi Square, and construction of Grade separator at Indira Gandhi Square, at a tentative cost of Rs 1,354 crore.

Lt Governor of the UT of Puducherry Kiran Bedi complemented the central government for fulfilling the aspirations of the people of the UT. She cautioned against the cost over-run of delayed projects, as it causes further delay. She proposed conducting refresher courses for road construction engineers, including PWD officers.

Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy and Minister for Public Works A Namassivayam also addressed the event.

(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 Mike Spector and Jessica DiNapoli

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Purdue Pharma LP, the OxyContin maker controlled by members of the wealthy Sackler family, is nearing an agreement to plead guilty to criminal charges as part of a broader deal to resolve U.S. Justice Department probes into its alleged role in fueling the nations opioid crisis, six people familiar with the matter said.

Purdue lawyers and federal prosecutors are brokering a plea deal that could be unveiled as soon as within the next two weeks and include billions of dollars of financial penalties, four of the people said. They stressed that talks are fluid and that some of the terms could change as discussions continue.

In addition to the criminal case, U.S. prosecutors are negotiating a settlement of civil claims also carrying a financial penalty that allege unlawful conduct in Purdue's handling of prescription painkillers, they said.

The Stamford, Connecticut-based company is expected to face penalties exceeding $8 billion. They consist of a roughly $3.54 billion criminal fine, $2 billion criminal forfeiture and $2.8 billion civil penalty, some of the people familiar with the negotiations said.

They are unlikely to be paid in the near term as the criminal fine and civil penalty are expected to be considered alongside other claims in Purdue's bankruptcy proceedings and the company lacks necessary funds to fully repay all creditors.

The tentative agreement would draw a line under Purdue's criminal exposure for what prosecutors and state attorneys general have described as aggressive marketing of a highly-addictive painkiller that minimized the drug's potential for abuse and overdosing.

Over the years, Purdue reaped billions of dollars in profits from its opioids, enriching Sackler family members and funneling illegal kickbacks to doctors and pharmacies, federal prosecutors and state attorneys general have alleged. The company now faces thousands of lawsuits seeking damages to address a public health crisis that has ravaged U.S. communities.

Story continues

Purdue said it is cooperating with the investigations and in discussions to resolve them, but declined further comment. Representatives of Sackler family members controlling Purdue had no immediate comment or did not immediately respond to a request for comment. They have denied allegations that they contributed to the opioid crisis.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said it does not generally comment on investigations or settlement discussions, but added that Reuters understanding of the situation "contains inaccuracies and is highly misleading" without elaborating further.

The Justice Department is prepared to waive a large portion of its $2 billion forfeiture claim as long as Purdue meets certain conditions. The first is that Purdue steer significant financial sums for combating the opioid epidemic to U.S. communities suing it over the crisis, two people said. The other is that it receive court approval for a reorganization plan transforming it into a "public benefit company" run on behalf of those communities and no longer controlled by the Sacklers.

Purdue, which filed for bankruptcy protection last year facing an onslaught of litigation, is in discussions to plead guilty to charges that include conspiracy, violations of an anti-kickback law and misbranding under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, two of the people said. A plea agreement would require approval of Purdue's bankruptcy judge. One of the negotiated terms of Purdue's proposal to settle thousands of other opioid lawsuits is that it resolve the Justice Department probes.

SACKLERS UNLIKELY TO FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES

Members of the Sackler family, many of whom previously served on Purdues board and also face lawsuits, will avoid criminal charges in the looming settlement, the two people said.

Certain family members are in discussions to pay a roughly $225 million civil penalty for allegedly causing false claims regarding Purdue's prescription painkillers to be filed with government healthcare programs, three people said. That would be on top of $3 billion the Sacklers have offered to settle other lawsuits.

The current settlement under discussion does not resolve any future criminal liability the Sacklers or other individuals may face.

The Justice Department is continuing a criminal probe of some Sackler family members and other individuals associated with Purdue, though it remains unclear whether charges will materialize, one person said.

Details of the Justice Department settlement, including when it will be unveiled and the financial penalties, also remain in flux. They hinge in part on the outcome of separate negotiations among Purdue, the Sacklers, state attorneys general and others to resolve widespread litigation as part of mediation in the companys bankruptcy proceedings, individuals familiar with the talks said.

Some state attorneys general, including those in Massachusetts and New York, have demanded the Sacklers disclose additional details of their finances and pay more than the $3 billion they offered to settle lawsuits.

They are likely to scrutinize the size of the family's Justice Department penalty. The Sacklers are poised to receive a legal release should a bankruptcy judge approve a broader settlement, shielding them from future civil, though not criminal, claims.

Purdue's bankruptcy has shielded, through an injunction, the company and Sackler family members until at least March 2021 from thousands of lawsuits brought by states, cities, counties and others seeking to hold them responsible for allegedly flooding communities with opioid painkillers that contributed to widespread addiction and fatal overdoses. The company and family deny the allegations.

The Sacklers controlling Purdue themselves have not filed for bankruptcy. That has drawn criticism from states arguing litigation against family members should proceed to hold them accountable for the opioid crisis.

The outcome of settlement talks among Purdue, its owners and litigants will help determine how much money U.S. communities receive to address the toll from opioids.

In earlier filings made as part of Purdue's bankruptcy case, federal prosecutors alleged the company at times paid doctors and pharmacies illegal kickbacks between 2010 and 2018 to encourage medically unnecessary opioid prescriptions, resulting in fraudulent claims to government healthcare programs, such as Medicare.

Purdue has offered to settle widespread litigation in a deal it values at more than $10 billion, much of it linked to drugs under development to treat addiction and combat overdoses. One contentious aspect of the proposal is that some of the funds would come from continued OxyContin sales.

(Reporting by Mike Spector and Jessica DiNapoli; Editing by Vanessa O'Connell, Bill Berkrot and Edward Tobin)
WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday entered the White House Oval Office for the first time since returning earlier this week from a military hospital where he was being treated for COVID-19, a White House spokesman said.

"Was just briefed on Hurricane Delta, and spoke with @GovAbbott of Texas and @LouisianaGov John Bel Edwards," Trump said in a tweet a short while later.

The Republican president announced last Friday that he had tested positive for the novel coronavirus amid a White House outbreak and was hospitalized in Maryland for three days receiving a variety of treatments. His doctor said on Wednesday Trump had no COVID-19 symptoms in the past 24 hours.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin has agreed to meet with the family of victims of the Glenanne gang (Tom Honan/PA)

Irelands premier has agreed to meet the daughter of a victim of the Glenanne gang.

Convicted killer Garfield Beattie was detained near Portadown in north Armagh last week on suspicion of threatening to kill one of his victims daughters.

The issue was raised in the Dail on Wednesday by Aontu leader Peadar Toibin, who identified the alleged victim as one of his party councillors, Denise Mullen.

Denise is the daughter of Denis Mullen, an SDLP activist who was shot dead at his home in September 1975.

Expand Close Aontu leader Peadar Toibin raised the case with the Taoiseach on Wednesday (Niall Carson/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Aontu leader Peadar Toibin raised the case with the Taoiseach on Wednesday (Niall Carson/PA)

Mr Toibin said: Denise Mullen is an Aontu councillor in Mid Ulster. Forty-six years ago, the Glenanne gang murdered her father in her family home.

Denise, then aged just four, discovered her fathers lifeless body and was forced to stay beside him for two hours over fears there was a bomb inside the family home. Garfield Beattie was convicted for the murder of Denises father.

Mr Toibin said the incident last week has caused shocking fear and anxiety for Denise and her family. Its also a threat to the peace process.

He added: The threat was signed in the name of the East Tyrone Ulster Volunteer Force and specifically threatened the peace process.

What the Glenanne gang did, we know, was the worst possible manifestation of evil by any gang Taoiseach Micheal Martin

Responding, Taoiseach Micheal Martin said: What the Glenanne gang did, we know, was the worst possible manifestation of evil by any gang, perpetrated on innocent people. I hold no truck with that sort of thing.

I share the deputys empathy with the Mullen family and I would be more than happy to meet with them.

Beattie was part of the Glenanne gang, which included members of the RUC, UDR and UVF.

He was released under the Good Friday Agreement.

The notorious gang was responsible for a sectarian murder campaign in the mid-1970s which is believed to have resulted in up to 120 deaths.
India's G20 priorities will be its own, but it will carry forward legacies of previous presidencies of the premier forum for international economic cooperation with renewed vigour, the country's Sherpa to G20 and G7 Suresh Prabhu said on Wednesday.

India, which will host the G20 presidency in 2022, would be interested in discussing environmental issues, he added. "Our G20 priorities will definitely be our own priorities. But we will also carry forward legacies of previous presidencies. We are not going to just dump it and say we have nothing to do with this," Prabhu said. He was addressing a virtual event organised by industry body CII. Currently, Saudi Arabia is holding the G20 presidency.

"We will make sure that the previous presidencies' priorities will be taken forward with renewed vigour," Prabhu said. He further noted that G20 countries will have to work on technology as it will be key to achieve success in future. Noting that millions of Indians work in Saudi Arabia and send remittances back home, he said, "Saudi Arabia is providing us energy security, so we will also provide food security to Saudi Arabia." Speaking at the event, Rahul Chhabra, economic relations secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said India has much to offer to the rest of the world in terms of generic drugs.

"India will inherit the G20 presidency in the times of COVID-19 uncertainty," Chhabra said. He also noted that Asia has been an engine of global growth for the last few years. "But RBI's growth figure for Indian economy looks disappointing (due to the impact COVID-19 pandemic)," Chhabra added. Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to India Saud bin Mohammed Alsati said in response to the prevailing COVID-19 situation in the world, G20 led by Saudi Arabia has taken extraordinary efforts to restart global growth and prioritise focus on health.

G20 members comprise Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK and the US. Collectively, the G20 economies account for nearly 90 per cent of the gross world product, 80 per cent of world trade, two-thirds of the global population, and approximately half of the world's land area.
A huge chicken factory in Norfolk where more than 130 workers tested positive for coronavirus has reopened with disinfectant spraying booths at its entrances.

Banham Poultry in Attleborough, which accounts for 7 per cent of UK chicken processing, closed its cutting room for two weeks from August 27 following an outbreak of the virus.

The shutdown cost the business around 2million a week, while factory owners had to cull 380,000 birds  a total stock loss of nearly 4million.

It has since reopened with additional safety measures, including five disinfectant machines at entrances to its factories and offices.

The walk-in booths are equipped with artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology to identify employees and check their body temperatures.

Users walk through the booth and their outer layers are covered in a fine mist of vaporised disinfectant before they enter the building. The site also uses portable hand-held machines that spray a fine mist of disinfectant.

Banham Poultry in Attleborough, which accounts for 7 per cent of UK chicken processing, closed its cutting room for two weeks from August 27 following an outbreak of the virus

It has since re-opened with additional safety measures, including five disinfectant machines at entrances to its factories and offices. The walk-in booths are equipped with AI and facial recognition technology to identify employees and check their body temperatures

All staff facilities are 'fogged' daily, with high-use areas such as the cafeteria and bathrooms sprayed three to four times per day.

Blaine van Rensburg, managing director of Banham Poultry, said: 'Only four of the staff who tested positive had coronavirus symptoms, and these developed after their positive tests, so we're determined to be on the front foot moving forward by ensuring we're detecting high-temperatures at the door of all our facilities and regularly sanitising and disinfecting all areas as frequently as possible.'

He said health inspectors described Banham Poultry's response, which involved a collaboration with sanitisation and disinfection specialist MYDIS, as 'innovative'.

Terri-Ann Boyle, director at MYDIS, said: 'Banham Poultry sets the tone for what a Covid-secure site should look like as we continue to battle the pandemic.

'We're constantly innovating to ensure we're providing the most advanced, convenient yet effective solutions to disinfect and sanitise sites, helping to combat coronaviruses.'

Banham Poultry has also implemented a one-way foot-traffic system throughout its three-storey building and its protective clothing is now single use.

It has also installed door handles which automatically dispense hand sanitiser when touched, and enhanced signage and screens.

The shutdown cost the business around 2million a week, while factory owners had to cull 380,000 birds  a total stock loss of nearly 4million

Staff continue to wear face coverings, a pre-existing policy.

During the outbreak, Norfolk public health director Dr Louise Smith said the 21.2 per cent infection rate was high and considered 'a significant national outbreak'.

It came as up to 10 new coronavirus cases were yesterday linked to a factory where employees claim they were told not to wear masks because they are food hazards.

The UK food factories ravaged by coronavirus outbreaks among workers October 6: Karro Food Group pork processing plant in Scunthorpe September 30: Pilgrim's Pride food factory in Pool, near Redruth, Cornwall September 23: Greggs factory in Newcastle September 11: Aunt Bessie's Yorkshire pudding factory in Hull September 2: Millers of Speyside in Scottish Highlands August 26: Food Standard's Authority reveal there are at least 40 active outbreaks at factories in the UK August 22: Banham Poultry in Attleborough, Norfolk August 21: Greencore in Northampton August 20: Cranswick in Ballymena, Northern Ireland August 18: Bakkavor in Newark August 17: 2 Sisters Food Group in Coupar Angus, Tayside August 17: Fyffes in Coventry, West Midlands August 13: Greencore in Northampton July 12: AS Green and Co, Herefordshire July 3: Walkers, Leicester June 26: Tulip, Tipton June 24: Kepak Food Group in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales June 23: Princes, Wisebech June 19: Asda, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire June 19: Rowan Foods in Wrexham, Wales June 17: 2 Sisters food factory in Anglesey, North Wales May 15: Cranswick, Barnsley May 11: Moy Park in Dungannon, Northern Ireland Advertisement

The Karro Food Group pork processing plant in Scunthorpe, one of the UK's largest food producers, has been criticised by employees for its coronavirus measures.

Workers have reported a spate of cases over the last week, though the company claims they were infected through 'community contact'. It also insists that it is following all government guidelines.

One employee at the factory, who wished to remain anonymous, said: 'Staff are dropping like flies and being sent home. There's around ten confirmed cases now.

'We have plastic screens up but that's about it. Staff have been trying to wear masks on the factory floor but been told to remove them or leave.

'Apparently face masks are classed as food hazards, but hair nets and snoods aren't.

The Karro Food Group pork processing plant in Scunthorpe has reported several cases of coronavirus in the last week.

'People are getting texts from Test and Trace now, telling them to get a test as they've been somewhere where people have tested positive,' the source said.

'The factory has worked all through lockdown and now people are going off with the virus, they still refuse to close. It is putting not only their staff at risk but their families too.'

The Karro Food Group, based in North Yorkshire, is one of the country's largest food processors. Along with Young's Seafood, it is owned by the Eight Fifty Group.

The Scunthorpe plant is a dedicated bacon and gammon slicing facility.

Another employee at the Foxhills factory said: 'People have been sent home when they were told that people close to them have been diagnosed with coronavirus.

'What they are doing to staff is unfair. On Friday, everyone was wearing masks on the floor  but that was the first time in nine months.

'A friend of mine wore a mask at one point, and was told he wasn't allowed  he needed to remove it or go home.'

A former employee who is still close with many people who work there said: 'A lot of staff are very worried at it is constantly being played down. They have heard there are at least ten cases now.'

North Lincolnshire has seen an increase in coronavirus cases over recent weeks, with public health officials warning people to take care both at work and home.

Earlier this year, Karro advertised for more than 100 roles in Scunthorpe to meet the demand from supermarkets during lockdown.

A Karro Food Limited spokesman said: 'We have a small number of unrelated Covid-19 cases which are as a result of community contact.

'The workers and close contacts are now self-isolating at home.

'We are continuing to follow government guidelines and doing everything possible to protect our people.'

The effects of the coronavirus pandemic has decimated food factories across the UK, with significant outbreaks seen in at least 22 and as many as 62.

Banham Poultry has also implemented a one-way foot-traffic system throughout its three-storey building and its protective clothing is now single use

Some of Britain's biggest food processing sites have been hit by Covid outbreaks during the pandemic, affecting giants such as Greggs and Marks and Spencer.

Experts have previously warned that outbreaks are common in factories as the virus thrives in cold, damp and indoor environments, particularly on cool surfaces and a lack of breeze or ultraviolet light from the sun means the moisture remains and can't be killed off.

Chilled and damp interior with ultraviolet light: Why meat plants are a hotbed for coronavirus outbreaks The virus thrives in cold, damp and indoor environments, particularly on cool surfaces. The lack of a breeze or ultraviolet light from the sun means the moisture remains and can't be killed off inside food processing plants. Furthermore, social distancing is particularly difficult in workplaces with a busy production line meaning the virus is likely to spread more easily. Loud machinery also forces people to raise their voices and researchers say situations where people have to shout result in an increased risk of projecting the virus to others. It's not just in the UK where a trend has been seen, either, after hundreds tested positive in a Berlin slaughterhouse, while a wet market in Wuhan is believed to have been at the heart of a huge number of infections early on in the crisis. Advertisement

In August, Marks and Spencer was hit with a sandwich shortage after its supplier was forced to close its factory amid a surge in coronavirus cases among workers.

Greencore, which manufactures own-label sandwiches for the retailer, announced a temporary closure of its Northampton plant for at least two weeks after 292 staff tested positive for the virus.

The move left refrigerated aisles empty of lunchtime favourites like prawn mayonnaise, BLT, and chicken salad for shoppers and office workers around the country.

It came as the Food Standards Agency revealed even at that stage that there were at least 40 active outbreaks in factories in England alone - with more recorded in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Dr Colin Sullivan, Chief Operating Officer at the FSA, admitted at the time the figure is not comprehensive, and may be higher, but said: 'The number that I mentioned, was one we are content to make public. It is a small number of a big total.'

The virus thrives in cold, damp and indoor environments, particularly on cool surfaces.

The lack of a breeze or ultraviolet light from the sun means the moisture remains and can't be killed off inside food processing plants.

Furthermore, social distancing is particularly difficult in workplaces with a busy production line meaning the virus is likely to spread more easily.

Loud machinery also forces people to raise their voices and researchers say situations where people have to shout result in an increased risk of projecting the virus to others.

It's not just in the UK where a trend has been seen, either, after hundreds tested positive in a Berlin slaughterhouse, while a wet market in Wuhan is believed to have been at the heart of a huge number of infections early on in the crisis.

Other major food producers, such as Cranswick and 2 Sisters Food Group, have also closed plants following a surge in cases among staff.

Experts have suggested the cold conditions inside the plants may be conducive to the spread of the virus.

Although the FSA's statement only mentions factories in England, there have already been cases of plants closes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

A chicken processing plant run by 2 Sisters in Coupar Angus, Scotland, has seen the number of cases among its staff pass well over 100, forcing it to close, while a facility run by Cranswick in County Antrim became the first in Northern Ireland to be shut down because of a surge in cases.

Plants in Anglesey and Wrexham in Wales were among the first in the UK to register a crisis in cases among staff, forcing them to close.

Dr Simon Clarke, a cellular microbiologist at the University of Reading, previously told MailOnline that it was notable that food factories seemed to have been the centre of outbreaks more than other factories where people might be close together.

He said: 'There are problems in this country, in Germany, in the United States. There is something common between them  it's not happening in engineering or clothing factories where you also might expect people to be in close proximity to one another.

'One assumes  but it's just an idea  that the cold environment makes people more susceptible to the virus.

'Cold weather irritates the airways and the cells become more susceptible to viral infection.'
The Government has committed Ireland to becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

The pledge was contained in new legislation unveiled by Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar and Climate Change Minister Eamon Ryan on Wednesday.

Mr Ryan described the legislation as a radical departure for Ireland.

He said: The target is clear that by 2050 were a carbon neutral economy. Net zero carbon. Thats the objective.

The Bill sets out steps we would need to take to get there and it sets out how we would manage taking those steps.

The draft #ClimateBill published today sets out actions which will help us on our journey to a climate resilient and neutral economy. It will enable us to reach climate targets while creating jobs and sustainable growth in new sectors. #ClimateActionIRL https://t.co/rS8O1Sgl9q pic.twitter.com/11pGEixHmC  Dept. Environment, Climate and Communications (@Dept_ECC) October 7, 2020

The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill defines how five-year carbon budgets will be set.

It seeks to ensure this Government and successive governments will be locked into achieving emissions reductions in five year plans up to 2050.

Every sector will contribute to meeting this target by implementing policy changes.

The new law would also see the formation of a Climate Advisory Council to oversee how carbon budgets will be achieved.

The legislation is a key part of the Governments climate change response.

The Taoiseach said the legacy of the government must be a dramatic step forward in reducing Irelands carbon emissions and protecting biodiversity.

Mr Martin said the carbon budget process contained in the legislation would see the Government set limits on Irelands total emissions.

The Govt has published the Climate Action Bill. This legislation is fundamental in ensuring that Ireland plays its part in meeting a defining challenge for this generation #ClimateBill #ClimateAction pic.twitter.com/hW9kOKJcZi  Micheal Martin (@MichealMartinTD) October 7, 2020

We will put meaningful plans in place to ensure these limits are not breached, he promised.

Putting these requirements in legislation places a clear obligation on this and future governments on sustained climate action.

He added: The impact of our actions on the planet is undeniable, the science is undisputed. Climate change is happening and we must act.

The Tanaiste said the Bill would create a better, more sustainable future for all.

I am confident that the decarbonisation of the economy will present significant opportunities for Irish business, Mr Varadkar said.

Whether that be in the huge expansion of entire industries, such as retrofitting or offshore wind, or in the creation of innovative solutions to the adaptations that will need to be made, the early movers with the most ambition will see the greatest opportunities.

Thousands of jobs will be created and we will need to ensure we have a strong pipeline of skills to respond.

The Bill was passed by Cabinet on Tuesday.

Mr Ryan said he hoped it would be through the Oireachtas by December 15.

It follows on from commitments in the Programme for Government to achieve an average 7% per annum reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade.

Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action Brian Leddin described the Bill as one of the most critically important steps in the governments response to the climate emergency.

He said the Bill provided the framework for sustained climate action.

It empowers the Oireachtas, and in particular the relevant Climate Committee, to hold the government of the day to account, Mr Leddin said.

It will force both the government and our local authorities to comprehensively plan and implement a pathway to an Ireland that will have net zero emissions by 2050.
GoodBody aims to shatter stereotypical beauty standards by giving clients hair that makes them feel as good as they looklemonade braids, anyone?in a space that's as jaw-dropping stylish as the 'dos.

Plus, check out The Lobby, a QVC-meets-TikTok video-shopping site based out of San Francisco, and get your fix of European fashion at The Bar Code's Maison Ullens pop-up.

Waves, curls and kinks: Oakland salon GoodBody celebrates hair diversity. See on Instagram What are you waiting for, sis? It's only days old but Uptown Oakland's GoodBody is already making waves. The space itself is gorgeous, sumptuous, and sereneand its hair-care/self-care philosophy is exactly the salve our tresses and fried brains need right now. GB is a modern beauty destination that specializes in services for all hair types. The salon's mission statement: to elevate and reimagine the textured hair-care experience. Whatever style you desire, they got you. The Girl Meets Curl (signature curly cut and style), Get It Twisted (twist out), You're So Knotty (Bantu knots), Flex on Them (flexi rod/spiral rod set), and more. An array of other beauty servicesbrows, lashes, facial waxingare also on the menu. Make an appointment. // 430 W. Grand Ave. (Oakland), goodbody.co

Get your paws on fashions from The Bar Code's pop-up and help local mutts. (Courtesy of Maison Ullens) We can't hop on a plane to Europe right now. The next best thing to ease our wanderlust? Shopping, obviously. The Bar Code fills the void with a month-long Maison Ullens pop-up in its Presidio Heights space. The Belgian brand is known for timeless, luxe pieces: sophisticated sweaters, effortless knit dresses, and seriously chic leather pants. The stylish essentials can dress up or down, and work outside or inside (raised eyebrow emoji). From Tuesday, October 13th to Monday, October 26th, 10 percent of all sales will benefit Muttville, a Bay Area nonprofit beloved for its groundbreaking approach to animal rescue. Entry is limited due to COVID so RSVP to aspen@maisonullens.com. // 11am to 6pm Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment Sunday and Monday; 3600 Sacramento St. (Presidio Heights), thebarcodesf.com
South Australia will suspend all red light camera fines after a driver managed to get out of a $496 penalty by arguing the system hadn't been properly tested.

David Woolmer, from Adelaide, originally contested the penalty dated from March 2018 in the magistrates court but when the fine was found to be valid, he fought on by launching an appeal.

South Australia's Supreme Court last week found in favour of Mr Woolmer, with Justice Greg Parker saying regulations requiring the cameras to be tested by cars going through red lights every month had not been followed.

Now once a month 134 intersections will be closed around the state so police can test the red light cameras - causing traffic chaos.

No new fines will be given out until the system is fixed.

South Australia will suspend any penalties issued for running a red light after it was found the cameras had not been tested properly (stock image)

Anybody who has already been issued with a fine will not have to pay it for the time being.

South Australia Police confirmed in a statement on Wednesday the penalties had been suspended but warned drivers of the consequences going through red lights held.

'Entering an intersection against a red light is one of the most dangerous actions a person can do on our roads,' a spokesperson said.

'All unpaid expiation notices issued prior to the judgement on October 2 2020 and any offences detected from the date of the judgement will be suspended pending the outcome of the advice.

'The Supreme Court judgement requires a testing process involving police vehicles activating the red light camera in controlled conditions.

'There are significant challenges in closing intersections to enable police vehicles to activate red light cameras in these circumstances.'

David Woolmer did not have to pay his fine after he was accused of running a red light on the corner of Portrush and Magill Roads (pictured), one of Adelaide's busiest freight intersections

SA Police said the closure of the intersections every 28 days would 'inevitably cause traffic obstruction' but was unavoidable.

Drivers were still able to be caught by red-light cameras but will not have to pay up just yet.

In Mr Woolmer's case, his lawyer Karen Stanley argued the red-light camera on the corner of Portrush and Magill Roads, one of Adelaide's busiest freight intersections, had not been tested properly, the ABC reported.

In the magistrate's court it was ruled that it was 'not surprising' that testing of 'exposures of a vehicle turning right contrary to a red arrow' was not conducted every 28 days considering the danger posed and the cost of having to shut-down the intersection.

Justice Parker disagreed with the lower court findings saying that the failure to test the system rendered the fines void.

'I uphold the appeal and quash the finding of the magistrate that the charge against the appellant of breaching Rule 60 of the Australian Road Rules on March 14, 2018, had been proven beyond reasonable doubt,' Justice Parker said.

'I quash the appellant's conviction.'
SEOUL, South Korea and LONDON and NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Motor Company announces the launch of Re:Style 2020, a creative approach to sustainable fashion by upcycling discarded materials from the automotive manufacturing and scrapping process into marketable products in collaboration with leading artists in ecofriendly design.

- Sales of the fashion products begin on Oct. 13 at London's Selfridges pop-up store and Selfridges online store

Experience the interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8786751-hyundai-launches-re-style-2020-fashion-collection/

Building on the success of its predecessor in 2019, the Re:Style 2020 capsule fashion collection has been created in partnership with renowned trendy fashion brands Alighieri, E.L.V. DENIM, Public School, pushBUTTON, Richard Quinn and Rosie Assoulin.These forward-thinking partners were selected as they share Hyundai's vision of finding more sustainable ways to create the products we love. Each one is joining in Hyundai's goal to collaborate across industries to drive innovation in sustainable design and lifestyle.

Hyundai Motor unveils the collection digitally to ensure the safety of people amid the global pandemic. The pieces are revealed on Hyundai's social media channels, as well as those of Selfridges and the participating brands from October 8.

Featuring a variety of products such as jewelry, jumpsuits, working vests, bags and various other clothing made with discarded materials from the automobile production and scrapping process, the event will kick-start sales on October 13 exclusively at London's Selfridges pop-up store and the Selfridges online store. The event will be also aligned with Project Earth, a symbolically sustainable campaign operated by Selfridges, a UK-based chain of high-end department stores and an online retailer. The sales will raise funds for the British Fashion Council's Institute of Positive Fashion. The IPF aims to create an industry blueprint by bringing together expertise from different areas to help brands in the industry navigate an often confusing to understand topic and kick-start a much-needed comprehensive step-change. It is informed by research, expert opinion, industry insights and the significant industry experience of individual businesses and organisations.

The participating brands and their items are:

Alighieri : a stunning collection of necklaces, chokers, bracelets and other items created with repurposed seatbelts, car glass and foam materials, as well as gold, silver, bronze and freshwater pearls

: a stunning collection of necklaces, chokers, bracelets and other items created with repurposed seatbelts, car glass and foam materials, as well as gold, silver, bronze and freshwater pearls E.L.V. DENIM : a jumpsuit created using upcycled denim and leather scraps from the car manufacturing process

: a jumpsuit created using upcycled denim and leather scraps from the car manufacturing process PUBLIC SCHOOL : a Fuji Technical Vest created out of discarded seatbelt webbings and airbag materials

: a Fuji Technical Vest created out of discarded seatbelt webbings and airbag materials pushBUTTON : a work vest with pockets using airbag materials that keeps the airbag's original details

: a work vest with pockets using airbag materials that keeps the airbag's original details Richard Quinn : a corset made of recycled airbag fabrics with a blue and white floral pattern

: a corset made of recycled airbag fabrics with a blue and white floral pattern Rosie Assoulin : a tote bag made of seatbelt webbings, carpet fabrics and foam repurposed from discarded automotive materials

Re:Style 2020 stems from the recognition that although most of the materials, such as iron and nonferrous metals, are currently recycled as part of the vehicle scrapping process, there are still some materials such as leather, glass and airbags that end up in landfill. For Re:Style 2020 as well as its past iteration in 2019, the company collected various leftover materials with the help of diverse partners and sent them to the collaborating designers.

"At Hyundai Motor, we understand that ethical consumption and caring for the environment are increasingly important considerations of our customers in the post COVID-19 world. Through Re:Style 2020 we want to offer another way Hyundai Motor can help customers enjoy the sustainable lifestyle they aspire to," said Wonhong Cho, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Marketing Officer of Hyundai Motor Company. "By demonstrating that discarded resources can be reimagined into valuable products, Hyundai Motor encourages more industries to see waste as a recreative opportunity and to work collaboratively toward an environmentally accountable and economically efficient future."

In line with the company's vision, "Progress for Humanity," Re:Style 2020 aims to encourage cross-industry collaboration to champion new thinking and innovation in sustainable design and lifestyle. By doing so, the company reimagines new possibilities for waste as an exemplar of global best practices in sustainability and the circular economy.

Under its Strategy 2025, Hyundai Motor aims to spearhead a global leadership in zero-emissions and clean mobility by becoming the world's third-largest automaker of eco-friendly vehicles by 2025, offering a new innovative lineup of battery electric vehicles and fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). The NEXO, Hyundai Motor's second-generation FCEV with a 609-kilometer range on a single charge (under Korean certification standards), emits only clean water vapor and purifies the air while driving, filtering 99.9 percent of ultra-fine particles in the process.

SOURCE Hyundai Motor
In March when everything shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the places where many would look to for solace in strange times were also forced to close: local churches. While churches quickly learned to stream and upload video of worship services, the absence of parishioners in pews impacted the financial health of many institutions. While some churches have reopened with reduced occupancy and other measures, financial concerns continue.

Last month St. Anns Parish in Guysborough published a Facebook post stating, Our weekly Sunday offerings are down considerably due to less than 40 regular contributing envelopes, and after six months of COVID-19 related concerns, we find ourselves in debt to the amount of $16,000. Unfortunately, we have limited ways of generating funds at this time, and coupled with fewer regular Sunday envelop offerings, the long-term outlook is concerningIn an attempt to help offset this debt load, the Parish Council has decided to begin a fundraising campaign.

Paul Long, a life-long member of the church and current chair of the Parish Council, spoke to The Journal about the fundraising campaign and the future of the parish last week.

Speaking to the current debt at St. Anns, Long said, It has to do with COVID where not as many people are attending mass on a regular basis. There are still a number of parishioners who will send money in, a weekly contribution type thing, to make sure they get it there but there are some that if they are not in church, sometimes they dont follow through with their weekly contributions. Couple that with the fact that we have an aging population; theres just not as many attending mass on a regular basis. Probably two or three years ago we had over 50 regular envelopes that were contributing. Now were down to probably mid-30sit started to get where financially we are in a bit of trouble.

Government money was available to faith organizations through the diocese said Long, but it was not enough to make a big difference. He added, The fact of the matter is, we were in trouble long before COVID. Just that COVID is taking it over the top a little bit. I think a lot of other churches whether they are Catholic or United, or whatever they are, there are just fewer people attending masses. And that translates into less money coming into the weekly coffers.

Long told The Journal that the fundraising letter has received a positive response and has started to generate some funds. I think it will make a difference but whether it is enough to keep us going for years and yearsI think maybe it is time to look at how we do business a little differently. Do we need four different churches in a small community? Could everybody use one? We have to start looking at alternatives, I think. There are fewer people attending and how do you keep these buildings going, he said.

The current cost St. Anns incurs on a monthly basis includes the priest salary and living expenses, as well as the general cost of maintaining the churches in the parish. Heading into winter, more money will be needed for heating.

While there are concerns about finances, Long said, Its not like in two months well close the doors, but I think if we dont look at trying to do things differently over the next couple of years, were going to be in a serious position where you have to think, can we keep it open during the winter time, keep it heated, that type of thing.

Long added, With COVID regulations youre only allowed so many people coming in and you have to keep socially distanced. Once people get away from something its hard to get the backWe have to try to find ways to make that happen.

St. Anns isnt the only church affected by the COVID-19 restrictions. Rev. Dr. Susan Slater, rector for the Anglican parishes of All Saints by the Sea and Strait-Chedabucto, told The Journal on Monday that COVID had first restricted people from coming to services and later reduced the number of people that could come to church in person.

The basic rhythm of church life for a long time has been we get together and when we get together, we make an offering  it is woven into the worship, she said. Were in a situation where its important to develop different patterns if we are going to be financially sustainable.

We are not in the habit of asking people for money, said Slater, it is something where it just happens. We are in a position here; we are in a change moment It is a challenge for lots of churches.

In addition to the loss of funds that generally came in as offerings during services, Slater points out that churches have also lost revenue through the suspension of fundraising activities such as the card plays formerly held in Half Way Cove and the Celtic Colours Breakfast the parish held annually in Port Hawkesbury.

Im mindful that the world is in convulsions. In Atlantic Canada were feeling more secure these days. Were fortunate in that regardbut there is a lot of instability around us, a lot of suffering and this is going to impact peoples lives going forward. So, yes, we have our challenges but there is a matter of perspective.

Rev. Heather Manuel, minister for the Eastern Guysborough Pastoral Charge, wrote in an online interview last week with The Journal that, people are continuing to mail in or sign up for PAR (pre-authorized remittance program through the United church of Canada). We miss not being able to have our fundraisers since they both offered income for the church and, more importantly, the social and community gathering.

Manuel went on to write that the Eastern Guysborough Pastoral Charge was not in a deficit position yet and thanked congregants for continuing to give during COVID-19.

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As COVID-19 surpasses the milestone of more than 1 million deaths globally, many families continue to grapple with the brutal reality of saying goodbye to dying loved ones over the phone or via an iPad. Two University of Illinois Chicago marketing professors investigated how service providers and families are using digital technologies to adapt to the disruptions in health care and death rituals the pandemic has created.

The paper, "'Don't give us death like this!' Commemorating Death in the Age of COVID-19," by Benet DeBerry-Spence, professor and head of the department of marketing, and Lez Trujillo Torres, assistant professor of marketing, both in the College of Business Administration, appeared recently in the Journal of the Association of Consumer Research.

Through an investigation of social and news media materials in nine countries, DeBerry-Spence and Trujillo Torres expand on previous research that looked at how commemoration is a means for consumers to honor and memorialize their loved ones after a traumatic event.

"For relatives of COVID victims, the pain is perhaps unlike any other. A loved one has died alone. If you are lucky, a health care professional has shared a video. Commemorating, then, becomes a key way to remember the dead," the authors write.

The authors highlight the important role that health care professionals take on when family members have limited access due to protocols that restrict physical contact with COVID-19 sufferers and the deceased. Digital technologies such as mobile phones, iPads and laptops may be the only means of sharing information with family members.

"Today, a variety of interactive social network sites allow consumers to honor the deceased through online memorialization," they write. Bereaved consumers use digital technologies to personalize funerals, livestream burial services and memorialize loved ones. As a result, their findings show that digital technology is both a "subject of consumer death memories and a means of managing COVID-19 related disruptions."

Yet, there are limits to how technology may be used to respond to the devastating consequences of the pandemic, the authors write. Digital technologies do not fully meet the needs of consumers when performing religious practices and rituals that involve directly interacting with and/or touching the deceased body. There are similar inadequacies when family members must deal with loss without the physical presence and comfort of family and friends.

"Surprisingly, despite the scale of the coronavirus pandemic, many feel COVID victims and bereaved have been made to feel invisible [and] charting deaths daily is not the same as mourning and honoring the dead," the authors remark. Consequently, the pandemic has resulted in a rise in consumer digital activism. Examples of this are found in a variety of social media campaigns and memorial sites like www.COVIDmemorial.online and www.mourningamerica.org. The authors also find consumers use virtual mourning in video games, like Animal Crossing, to publicly commemorate COVID-19 victims through personalized altars, shrines and cemeteries.

DeBerry-Spence has more than 20 years as a global business expert and has led global commercialization efforts for Fortune 200 companies. She also works extensively with African entrepreneurs and microbusinesses. DeBerry-Spence's research, which explores everyday life, race, Africa and markets, is featured on marketsengaged.com.

Trujillo Torres' research focuses on how consumers and institutions value ideas, products, people and experiences in the marketplace. Her research revolves around consumption topics with broad societal and public policy implications, such as marketplace disparities, health markets and social responsibility.

More information: Benet DeBerry-Spence et al. "Don't give us death like this!" Commemorating Death in the Age of COVID-19, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research (2020). Benet DeBerry-Spence et al. "Don't give us death like this!" Commemorating Death in the Age of COVID-19,(2020). DOI: 10.1086/711832
A 108-year-old Confederate monument removed from Wiess Park this summer could within a few months be on its way to a new permanent home. However, anyone interested in buying the statue will have to put up at least $50,000 and potentially comply with any purchase-related restrictions attached to the sale.

The Beaumont City Council on Tuesday morning revealed the statue dedicated to the deeds of valor, sacrifices and achievements of soldiers who fought for the South in the Civil War has been appraised at $150,000.

Despite being valued at three times the minimum bid, the council settled at $50,000 to recoup the citys cost to remove the anonymous Confederate soldier and 30-foot stone pedestal and any costs that will be associated with advertising the auction. The auctioneering service itself will not cost the city as a fee is paid by the buyer instead.

The body determined that the number also likely was still low enough that it could attract some interest.

We have to basically advertise the auction at least two weeks in a local newspaper, advertise it on our website also (on the auctioneers) website, Beaumont chief financial officer Todd Simoneaux said.

Related: Beaumont Confederate monument comes down

Before the consensus, Councilman Taylor Neild suggested setting the minimum bid at $20,000 to only ensure that the citys costs were covered. Councilman Audwin Samuel thought the city should try to get at least $75,000 - half the appraised value.

With so few such statues going to auction, it can be hard to predict how much theyll ultimately sell for. But there is some reason to hope the city could end up getting more than the asking price.

Lone Star Auctioneers, the Fort Worth-based company the city will work with in the sale, previously sold a statue of Robert E. Lee for the city of Dallas for $1.4 million. The statue had been appraised at only $950,000, and the minimum bid was set at half the appraised value.

How well a largely generic monument that sat in Beaumont will do remains to be seen.

Top hits: Get Beaumont Enterprise stories sent directly to your inbox

Any prospective buyer may also have to work based on conditions set forth with the sale, such as a promise not to destroy or deface the statue and not to display it in a residential front yard in Beaumont. City staff will explore the potential to attach such conditions. But Councilman Mike Getz said he didnt think the city has the ability, and City Manager Kyle Hayes said he isnt sure that would be in the citys best interest.

At that point its a done deal and the talk about restrictions on what can be done with it should drop off, Getz said. Its a done deal.

City staff will reach out to the auction house soon to officially get the process moving. No firm timeline has been established with the company.

The statue was removed in late June after a 6-1 City Council vote. The majority of the residents who spoke before the council took its vote were in favor of removing the statue.

Others suggested it could be relocated to a place where it could be presented in context.

kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/KaitlinBain
Newly released bodycam footage shows Breonna Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker crying 'my girlfriend's dead!' and telling cops the pair were 'in bed and scared' and that she fired the gun moments after she was shot dead in a bungled raid in March.

The footage was released to various outlets including WDRB and VICE. It shows the moments after Taylor was killed in the crossfire while her boyfriend and Louisville cops exchanged fire on March 13.

The cops were performing a no-knock warrant raid on her home in connection with a drug probe into her ex-boyfriend at the time.

In the video, Walker is shown outside the apartment with his arms behind his head. The cops yell at him not to move and threaten to set a barking German Shepherd on him. He is heard screaming: 'My girlfriend is dead!', asking what happened and asking what he'd done wrong.

'What happened? You're going to f****g prison for the rest of your life,' officer Brett Hankison replied to him.

When they put him in handcuffs, Walker told the cops again that Taylor was dead inside, something that surprised them.

'We were in bed, we were scared! We didn't know who it was!' She asked 10 times, "who's at the door?"

'There was banging at the door she said who is it and then they started shooting,' he said.

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Breonna Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker is seen crying and screaming that she is dead while cops put him in handcuffs on March 13

Walker outside the property with his hands behind his head in surrender. He yelled at the cops that Taylor was dead inside

One of the cops refuted him, saying: 'No. We said three times we had a search warrant'.

Another cop then interjected: 'There's somebody dead inside?' to which Walker replied: 'Yeah, my girlfriend. It's her house! She's on the ground in the hallway!'

Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in the crossfire between Kenneth Walker and the cops

The cops ask: 'What kind of gun did she shoot?'

He replied: 'It's a nine.. it's a regular 9mm.'

Another cop asked: 'Did she shoot or did you shoot?'

He replied: 'It was her! She was scared!'

The cops claim they announced themselves and knocked.

Their warrant didn't require them to, but the incident has called into question whether such warrants should be legal.

Because Walker fired the weapon first on the cops, the Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has ruled they were justified in returning fire and, although unintentional, killing Taylor.

That decision has triggered global outrage. Taylor's family, who won $12million from the city in a wrongful death lawsuit, are now demanding that Cameron be replaced by a special prosecutor.

Neither Jonathan Mattingly (left) nor Myles Cosgrove (right) have been charged over Taylor's death

Cameron is standing by his decision. On Tuesday night, he defended it in an interview with Fox and Friends and said he was being unfairly attacked by the left because he is a black Republican.

Brett Hankison is the only cop out of the three who was charged. He was charged with wanton endangerment for a bullet that went into Taylor's neighbor's home

'Because I am a black Republican, I've had to stand up for truth and justice and oppose to giving in to a mob mentality.

'Those are the sorts of things that will be hurled at me in this job, those are the sorts of things that I heard in college... again, because I identify with a different political philosophy.

'It doesn't hurt me but what it does, it exposes the type of intolerance and the hypocrisy... people preach about being tolerant.

'You see a lot of that from the left about being tolerant but what you saw there is inconsistent with tolerance,' he said.

Other recordings that have been released show the cops being interviewed in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

The only charge filed against any of the cops is one of wanton endangerment that was filed against Brett Hankison for firing into Taylor's neighbor's home.

Evidence photos show a glass sliding door was shattered by police bullets in the shooting
The protesting farmers also gave an ultimatum to Punjab CM Amarinder Singh to convene a special session of the Assembly for passing a resolution rejecting the new laws within a week

Chandigarh: Punjab's several farmers' bodies on Wednesday rejected the Union agriculture department's invitation for a meeting over the new farm laws, saying an officer does not have to tell them if these laws are beneficial for them.

The agitating farmers' bodies, however, said they are ready for talks if a proper invitation comes to them from the Central government.

The farmer organisations' representatives also announced to continue their 'rail roko' agitation against the three agriculture laws of the Centre despite an appeal by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to ease it to allow goods trains to pass through the state.

They also gave an ultimatum to the chief minister to convene a special session of the Punjab Assembly for passing a resolution to reject these farm-related laws within a week otherwise, they said, they would gherao Congress leaders and government representatives.

Different farmers' bodies have been holding state-wide protests against the new farm laws.

The farmers' oganisations rejected the Centre's invite to talk to it saying an officer does not have to tell them if the three Central laws are beneficial for them.

"We reject the letter of invitation for a meeting coming from an officer (Secretary) of the Agriculture Department. We are not going to talk to any officer. We are ready for talks provided a proper and written invitation comes from the Central government," said a representative of a farmers' organisation.

Farmers said a secretary-rank officer of the Union Agriculture Department had invited five to six farmers' leaders to participate in a conference to address their concerns on 8 October inDelhi.

"If an officer wants to tell us about the benefits of these laws, we are not going to hear it as we know these legislations are against the farming community," said Jagmohan Singh, general secretary of Bhartiya Kisan Union (Dakunda).

When asked about Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's appeal to ease their rail-roko' stir, farmers' leaders said they would continue with it.

"We are farmers and we know farming practices very well. We know when DAP or urea is needed," another farmers' leader said. Electricity is being purchased from outside and the paddy sowing season is already over, he added.

Farmers, however, said they would consider the CM's appeal in the next meeting on 15 October.

Amarinder had urged protesting farmers to ease their rail blockade to ensure that the state is able to meet its critical needs. Due to the prolonged blockade of goods trains, the situation at Punjab's coal plants was critical and they were left with only five to six days of coal, the chief minister had said.

He had also said that with not a single fertilizer rake entering Punjab for the past one week, there could be a severe shortage of fertilizer for the use by farmers for sowing the wheat crop.

Farmers asked the Amarinder to fulfil his promise of holding a special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha for passing a resolution against these legislations.

Giving an ultimatum to the chief minister, they said they would "gherao" Congress leaders and representatives of the government if the resolution is not passed within a week.

Farmers' leaders also announced to block roads for two hours on 9 October in protest against the lathi-charge on agitating farmers in Haryana.

Meanwhile, 30 different farmers' bodies asked BKU (Lakhowal) not to attend their joint meeting until they withdraw their writ petition filed against farm laws in the Supreme Court.

At present, farmers continued to block rail tracks at 33 places in the state. Besides, they have also staged sit-ins outside several petrol pumps, toll plazas, and shopping malls. They are also staging 'dharnas' outside the houses of some BJP leaders.

Farmers said they would continue their agitation till their demand for revocation of farm laws was not accepted.

Farmers have expressed apprehension that the Centre's farm reforms would pave a way for the dismantling of the minimum support price system, leaving them at the "mercy" of big corporates.

President Ram Nath Kovind had given assent to the three contentious bills the Farmers' 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.
TIRUPUR and KOLKATA, India, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dollar Industries Limited, one of the leading apparel brands in India, commissioned a 4 MW solar power plant at their manufacturing facility in Tirupur. The solar plant is a part of Dollar's 'Green Mission' initiative and has a capacity of generating 75 lakhs power units annually.

Dollar's objective for installing the solar plant is to not only reduce costs but also make the spinning unit at Tirupur sustainable and self-reliant. To produce 1kg of cotton yarn, the cost of power is approximately Rs. 27-28 which is expected to feed almost 50% of the daily consumption at the spinning unit. Moreover, the solar plant will help in curbing the CO2 emissions by 9000kgs/per day with a sustainable environment.

Sharing his thoughts about the initiative, Mr. Vinod Kumar Gupta, Managing Director, Dollar Industries Limited stated, "We have always been a responsible corporate with a substantial focus on environment friendly practices. With the current pandemic situation, it is imperative to reduce costs and at the same time also create a clean and eco-friendly manufacturing facility protecting the environment. We at Dollar have been making constant efforts to operate in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner."

"By keeping a close watch on the development process, we mainly maximize the utilization of water, energy and our natural resources, safeguarding the earth by reducing our carbon footprints. This project is in line with Dollar's commitment to develop renewable production capabilities to develop quality products for our consumers," added Mr. Vinod Kumar Gupta.

During the inauguration, Mr. Binay Kumar Gupta, Executive - Managing Director - Promoter stated, "The solar plant has been commissioned by Indway Power Energy Pvt. Ltd., who is the EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) partner from Coimbatore. The power generated from the solar plant will primarily used for our spinning unit. In case of excess power will be utilized to feed the dyeing unit, which is located at SIPCOT Industrial Park, Perundurai."

Mr. Bajrang Kumar Gupta, Executive - Whole Time Director - Promoter, Dollar Industries Limited said, "In the past, the company has invested in superior quality manufacturing assets and have utilized state-of-the-art technologies for developing environmentally sustainable work atmosphere. From installing a windmill for the energy needs of the manufacturing facility, utilizing Zero Discharge Water Treatment, to recycle and reuse the water waste from the facility, Dollar Industries Limited has always integrated the environmental friendly initiative in its business practices. These help us to not only reduce costs but also conserve the natural resources."

Dollar Industries Limited has invested INR 18 crores for the plant and the payback period is expected to be 5 years.

About Dollar Industries Limited

(https://www.dollarglobal.in/) (BSE: Scrip Code 541403) (NSE Scrip Code: DOLLAR)

From a humble beginning as a hosiery brand to a leading name in the innerwear segment, Dollar Industries Limited ranks among the top hosiery and garment manufacturing giants in India, covering entire range of knitted garments, from basic wear to outer wear. Behind its success lay a saga of business transformation, dedication, courage and confidence to swim against the tide and go beyond the call of duty. The focus has always remained on the demanding needs of a globalized world and end customer satisfaction. Today through its advanced quality products, Dollar has focused on achieving global excellence in cost, qualityand productivity. The styles introduced by Dollar have always stayed in tune with the latest fashion.

Identical with top quality and value for money products, brand Dollar enjoys the trust of millions satisfied consumers across globe leaving far reaching footprints in global market. The company has a substantial pan-India presence and has established its market abroad, in countries like UAE, Oman, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Iraq, Nepal, and Sudan in past few years. The Company has also been listed in NSE & BSE few years ago.

Dollar Industries Limited holds 15% of the total market share in the organized segment and is the first Indian innerwear company to have a fully integrated manufacturing unit which is equipped with all the latest processing technology and the top-most finishing range to produce finished raw material dyed in any possible color.

SOURCE Dollar Industries Limited
A Better Man; Michael Ian Black

A Better Man by Michael Ian Black Photo illustration by Salon/Martha Hagen-Black/Algonquin Books

Masculinity isn't inherently "toxic." Yet within the current necessary cultural reckoning about inequality and abuses of power, the complicated issues around what it means to be male right now have been harder to define and discuss. So when Michael Ian Black's son was preparing to leave for college, the actor, director and author decided to write him a message. The result is new book called "A Better Man: A Mostly Serious Letter to My Son."

You may know Black more for his roles in the "Wet Hot American Summer" series, "Burning Love," "Reno 911!" or maybe just his Twitter feed than his gender studies, but it's his experience as a dad that lends to his credentials.

Black recently appeared on "Salon Talks" to discuss the tragedy that inspired the book, feminism and being "a guy often known for talking about Cabbage Patch Dolls on VH1."

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This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You've written about your family and your experiences with fatherhood before. Now, as your son was turning 18, what made you say, "This is a moment where I want to tell a particular story right now"?

There were a lot of events leading up to it. He was in his senior year of high school. He was going to graduate. He was going to leave home. Like any dad, I was feeling somewhat sad about that, and hopeful about that. Then in the winter of that year, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting happened in Florida.

I'd been paying a lot of attention to gun violence over the last many years since Sandy Hook, which happened when my kids were in elementary school and happened about 10 miles from my house. When Marjory Stoneman Douglas happened, I just started asking the obvious question, which had never really occurred to me before: Why is it boys who are doing this? Not just these big, horrible shootings, but the day-to-day violence that we see so often in our lives. It's almost always boys. Why?

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You say that in the book, it's always someone's son, because it's always a boy. That's a very humanizing and empathetic way to come into this conversation.

It was hard to look at the faces of all these boys and young men who were committing these crimes, and not see the obvious parallel that I have a son who looks a lot like them. Most of these crimes, the big shootings like that, they're almost always white. Why? What is going on? I've wrestled for years with losing my own dad when I was 12. I never had conversations about manhood with him. I wanted to just give my son something that might be useful for him as he heads out into the world.

You bookend the book with these shootings, which is a powerful choice, because there are so many ways into a conversation about masculinity and manhood and boyhood. I guess it's because that is also what is now defining Gen Z, in a lot of ways.

These things are becoming a more common. We saw these sorts of shootings happen pre-COVID, on average, once a day. I say in the book, "They're as common as sunsets," and they are, in this country. It's inexplicable in so many ways, and also explicable in so many ways. A lot of it is rooted  in my opinion  in the way we think about boys and men and masculinity. This book isn't about gun violence, but it definitely relates to it.

You also go into a conversation that's hard for a lot of us to have, which is about the other side of that. What happens when we use phrases like "toxic masculinity"? What happens when we start demonizing an entire gender? You talk about your own experiences with that growing up. What effect did that have on you, hearing those kinds of messages as a kid, this implication that "male" is bad?

I grew up in a lesbian household. My mom and dad divorced when I was five or six, my mom was involved with another woman. They considered themselves pretty ardent, and at times strident, feminists. That phrase "toxic masculinity" didn't exist then, but the phrase that did was, "male chauvinist pig." They loved to describe pretty much all men as male chauvinist pigs, not realizing that between them they were raising three boys in the house, who were hearing this on a daily basis. Its effect was, for me, really corrosive. It made me mistrust men in general, but also kind of mistrust myself a little bit, and mistrust who I was as a boy, and then as a teenager, and young man. The effects of that were really lingering. On the flip side of it, it did force a kind of introspection about gender that I may not have had otherwise. Maybe I was more receptive to thinking about these topics than I might have been without that, but on balance, yeah, it was sh*tty.

It's not easy to bring up the problems that boys have, that white boys have, that white men have in our culture right now. There's not a lot of empathy in that regard. I love that you got blurbed by Peggy Orenstein who wrote a beautiful book that takes on a lot of the pressures and the problems, and the mental health issues that boys are facing right now.

An amazing book called "Boys & Sex." I'll plug her book. I'm happy to.

You've dealt with trolls before, you are not afraid of getting backlash on the internet. But to start that conversation where you say, "How can we have a more empathetic and kinder conversation around gender in general?" what were you thinking going into this?

I was very reluctant to go into it. I really was. Writing a book about this topic happened in a very organic way, and in a quick way, because it started with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting. I wrote a Twitter thread about it. Then the New York Times asked me to write an op-ed about it. Then a publisher asked me to write a book about it. It happened very quickly and I was very reluctant to do it for a lot of reasons. One, I didn't feel like I was qualified. I didn't feel like I had any business sticking my beak into this particular puddle. I'm not an academic, I'm not a historian. I'm not a gender theorist, but I felt like, you know what? I'm a dad. These things are important to me as a father, and as a man, and maybe I could contribute something just from the perspective of that. Of a kind of run of the mill, boring suburban dad.

But I didn't want to get on a soapbox. I didn't want to say that I'm a better dad than anybody, or certainly a better man than anybody. I'm very upfront in the book about my flaws and faults and the ways I struggle. And I worried about being serious. I'm a comedian by trade, and I worried about whether anybody would be receptive to hearing word one from me; a guy often known for talking about Cabbage Patch Dolls on VH1.

So for all those reasons, I was reluctant. I wasn't afraid of the Twitter trolls. I wasn't afraid of any of that. I was afraid that I would get enough things wrong, that I would upset the people that I really want to support. I was worried, and continue to be worried, that maybe I'm getting things about women wrong, or that I didn't include enough  hardly anything about the trans community, about people on sort of all parts of the gender spectrum. But I also didn't want it to be a kind of catch-all for everybody. It is a letter to my son. There's a lot that I worried about and a lot that I continue to worry about, but I'm getting more comfortable, having written the book, talking about these things and fully admitting, I don't know everything. And please tell me where you disagree with me.

Part of the book really is your own reckoning with yourself, with your father, with your own life. In doing that and going back and revisiting your own life, were there things about it that surprised you? Were there things that you then took a second look at it and said, "Oh, wait a minute. Now that I'm this age and I've reached this point in my life, I see things really differently"?

I came from a background that had no relationship to the arts or anything like that. I made a career for myself in the arts. I always sort of prided myself, stupidly, on being different because I was off being an actor and whatever. What really got driven home for me, in particular with writing this book, is how I am exactly like so many other men. In some ways, I'm exactly like my dad, who I always thought of myself as so different from. We share the same emotional reticence. We share the same difficulty, sometimes, in communicating who we are, and what we want. We have the same reticence asking for help. These are unfortunate cultural norms for all men. I stupidly thought I had kind of escaped them. I hadn't. That's just me. I'm that guy. I may be better at acknowledging it than other guys, but it's as embedded in my DNA as every other American dude.

When you were starting out, were you going to people you know and saying, "Who do I have to read? What do I have to understand? What is the beginning of this conversation for me, so that then I can have this conversation with my son?"

It was a wild goose chase of ordering things from bookstores, of casting a very wide net in the beginning, and just seeing what was out there. It was surprising to me how little there was, that was written from a kind of everyday perspective about masculinity. Things that weren't academic, things that weren't rooted in gender theory, for example, or sociology or history. There just wasn't. That conversation just wasn't happening in a kind of mainstream way. I read a lot of the history and the sociology and the gender theory, and loved it.

I feel so indebted to feminism, and I think I'm developing a much better sense of what it means. A richer sense of what it means. When I grew up in a feminist household, it meant something very different and it meant something very abrasive to me. I always thought of myself as a feminist, because it just felt like that's the right thing to be, you know? But it definitely came with a really hard tinge to it, and a kind of serrated edge that I felt like it was nicking me a lot of the time. And I think, in this broader cultural understanding of what feminism is, that's still true for a lot of people, which is why so many people reject it, men and women.

The antagonistic labeling that it has.

I think that's true. Any social movement that's bucking up against the status quo has to develop that edge, by necessity, because you're trying to cut away at something. It took me a long time, and I think I'm still wrestling with my relationship with feminism, to feel comfortable inhabiting it in a way that I feel like I do now. But I think for a lot of guys, that word, "feminism" immediately turns them off because it implies that to be a feminist, you therefore have to be feminine, and it doesn't allow guys to kind of step forward into really looking at what it means. What does it mean to ask for, or to demand equality? They don't tie that equality to say, the civil rights movement, or to any other movement for equality. Feminism is threatening to a lot of, I think, people who would be otherwise totally sympathetic to it.

You use the scarcity model. If there's "too much" feminism to go around, there's an implied scarcity for men. Those ideas about empathy and vulnerability you can find embedded in other books that are about empathy and vulnerability; they're not really male specific. It becomes very difficult to tease that out of where it is in the conversation.

The books that I found that are written on this subject are generally written by women. For good reason; women are crying out for men to be more empathetic, and to be more vulnerable for very good, pragmatic reasons: first and foremost, their own safety.

Your book is really about kind of the branding issue that we have around masculinity, and feminism. I'm curious now we're at this moment, where there are aspects of our culture that are really putting the "mask" in masculinity. What have you been watching and noticing during this pandemic, that you want to talk to your son about?

It's been amazing to watch the top leadership in our government fully embracing everything that I think is wrong about masculinity, spearheaded by the guy at the top. It comes down to this same argument that I talk in my book, about how masculinity is about creating a sense of invulnerability, because to allow yourself to be vulnerable is to demonstrate weakness. And weakness is traditionally antithetical to masculinity. Even when it comes to something as elemental as saving your own life, or saving the lives of people around you, the impulse is to reject the thing that is proven to be helpful in that regard. It's more masculine to go, "I don't give a sh*t about this plague" than to go, "I care about myself and my family and the well-being of others." The fact that those two thoughts should co-exist equally, and that one should be considered more masculine is ludicrous. But we've got the guy in charge who so fully inhabits that anachronistic sense of masculinity, that it's literally killing people. He's literally killing people. He's holding these rallies where he's basically saying, "If you wear a mask, you're kind of a pussy." It would be absurd if it wasn't so tragic.

When you're looking at these Gen Z kids going to vote in the presidential election this year, what is it about now, your son and your daughter, that gives you hope?

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So much. I'm somebody who believes that every generation is the same generation. We label generations, I think somewhat foolishly. Every generation has every kind of person in it.

What I see from kids in my children's generation is a lot of anxiety first and foremost, for good reason. But also a much greater awareness of the world and their place in the world than I had when I was their age. A lot of them, I think, are showing a tremendous desire to be helpful. Maybe that happens with every generation that the young people are idealists, and want to be helpful. At the very least, I see it with this generation too. I see a lot of good kids. I see a lot of young people who are really trying, and want to be good and are cognizant of the way that the culture is changing around them, and aren't resisting it as strenuously as maybe people in my generation and older are. Even if they're not leading the change  and my kids aren't thought leaders in any way, shape or form  they're aware of what's going on. And I think they want to be helpful.
In 2012, Vice President Joe Biden, left, speaks with Mexican presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto in Mexico City. (Yuri Cortez / AFP/Getty Images)

A Biden White House is likely to dramatically shift U.S. policy in Central and Latin America away from President Trump's laser focus on stopping immigration and return to the more traditional diplomatic tools of building democratic governments, fighting corruption and respecting human rights  changes that won't be welcomed by some of the region's leaders.

In contrast to Trump, Biden says that the best way to reduce illegal immigration to the U.S. is to fight the root causes, such as violence and poverty in countries to the south  problems that have only deepened because climate change is destroying crops and the coronavirus crisis is depleting economies.

Biden's plan, outlined in campaign documents, would do away with the harshest of Trump's immigration measures and instead rely on a four-year, $4-billion regional strategy to combat the "factors driving migration."

The plan would revive anti-corruption bodies launched during the Obama administration and dismantled under Trump, and create a verification system to make sure U.S. aid is going where it should. The plan would also require Central American countries to put up some of their own money for reform.

Daniel Erikson, who served in the White House as the former vice president's special advisor on Latin America, called Biden's plan a more "holistic vision to what relations can be." The strategy revives many of the themes that Biden pursued when he served as the Obama administrations envoy for the region and its policy maven.

It would mark an abrupt turnaround from the Trump administration, under which stopping the flow of migration over the U.S. southern border has dominated nearly all interactions with Mexico and Central America. In addition to his promises to build a wall along the southern border, Trump slashed aid to those countries and threatened to impose punishing tariffs unless they agreed to help stop migration to the United States.

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The three countries of the so-called Northern Triangle  Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador  along with Mexico, signed controversial agreements to hold back migrants, including those who were attempting to cross into the U.S. legally in pursuit of asylum. They also agreed to take asylum seekers from other countries whom the U.S. turned away.

In exchange, the administration turned a blind eye to those leaders' abuses, accepting the results of a 2017 Honduras presidential election that independent observers said was stolen, refusing to condemn power grabs by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, and allowing Guatemala and Honduras to dismantle two internationally acclaimed agencies battling corruption.

Biden supporters say the Trump approach has proved too narrow.

Latin America "is not a single-issue problem," said Julissa Reynoso, former U.S. ambassador to Uruguay and now a Biden advisor. The U.S. "should have a relationship based on development and progress, not punishment."

It remains to be seen how Latin American leaders will react to yet another shift in U.S. policy.

Even considering the extent to which Latin America has accommodated to Trump, they remain bothered by his unpredictability, said Michael Shifter, a veteran expert on the region and president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. To what extent will these governments accommodate themselves to a new agenda? Biden has a totally different style. Theyve all gotten free passes. They wont now."

Though the Biden approach on immigration contrasts sharply with that of Trump, the former vice president also relied on law enforcement measures and deportations as part of the Obama administration.

In 2014, President Obama deployed Biden to confront what was being called a crisis of unaccompanied minors. In 2012, roughly 24,000 lone children came to the U.S. southern border; by 2014, the number had tripled, and the chaotic influx was fast becoming a hot political issue in the 2016 presidential election.

Obama brought Biden on to help because while Central America may not have been a No. 1 focus for him, he had deep and broad experience in foreign affairs, Janet Napolitano, the former Homeland Security secretary who left government in early 2013 to become president of the University of California, said in an interview.

By the end of 2015, Biden had secured bipartisan U.S. congressional approval of a $750-million aid package called the Alliance for Prosperity that aimed to support training for police, courts and good-governance practices in the Northern Triangle. The record is mixed. There was considerable progress in some areas, most notably in the establishment of the anti-corruption agencies that Trump later allowed to be put out of business.

Critics said the alliance program placed too much emphasis on security over development. Some sky-high murder rates ebbed slightly, but human rights abuses, especially in Honduras, continued unabated. Longer-term assessment is impossible, however, as Trump killed the plan when he took office in January 2017.

Much of what Biden and the Obama administration enacted became the blueprint for measures Trump would adopt, though he took them much further.

The Obama administration also tied aid to immigration enforcement and persuaded Mexico's then-President Enrique Pena Nieto to stop migrants at Mexico's southern border with Guatemala, leading to bitter complaints among migrant rights advocates that Mexico was "doing Washington's dirty work."

The Obama-Biden team also dramatically increased deportations of Mexicans and Central Americans living in the U.S. illegally, although those with criminal records were prioritized. More miles of border barrier were built under Obama than any other president; Trump has added only about 10 new miles where there weren't any before he took office, according to the latest Department of Homeland Security report.

Resetting the relationship with Mexico may be especially complex for a President Biden.

To the astonishment of many, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador put aside his hostile rhetoric toward Trump and lavished the U.S. leader with praise in an effort to ward off tariffs and secure approval of an updated North American Free Trade Agreement. Lopez Obrador angered many Democrats when he traveled in July to the White House for a solicitous meeting with Trump.

"I dont think Biden will approach the relationship seeking to extract pain," Arturo Sarukhan, a career Mexican diplomat who served as ambassador to Washington from 2007 to 2013, said in an interview. However, "there will be a complete reset in discourse, narrative and engagement" in the U.S.-Mexico relationship.

Biden is likely to ease Trump-imposed restrictions targeting Cuba, especially those on travel and private business exchanges that have mostly hurt ordinary Cubans. It was the Obama-Biden team that ended more than half a century of cold war hostility in 2014 and opened ties with the Communist-ruled island. Trump sought to reverse most of those overtures.

A President Biden, however, would probably leave in place the numerous crippling economic sanctions imposed on the corrupt socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who has led his country into the hemisphere's worst humanitarian crisis. The sanctions began under Obama and were multiplied under Trump, whose administration has sought for the last 22 months to oust the Maduro government.

Biden's advisors say he would probably end the Trump rhetoric that "all options are on the table" to challenge Maduro because it created false hope within the Venezuelan opposition that a U.S. military invasion was possible. Instead Biden would focus on humanitarian needs and consolidating a broader opposition, although past efforts suggest that such a strategy may not succeed either. The former vice president recently said he'd grant so-called temporary protected status to Venezuelans in the U.S., now a top source of asylum claims; Trump, despite railing against Maduro, has refused to do so.

"A sanctions-only approach is really just theater, and it's really not something that is actually strengthening or supporting civil society or combating corruption," said Juan Gonzalez, a top Western Hemisphere official during the Obama administration who now advises the Biden campaign.

"There would be some continuity" with Biden, said Benjamin Gedan, a former National Security Council official specializing in Latin America. "A Biden administration would not pursue a rapprochement with the dictators in Havana, Managua or Caracas. But Biden would have far more credibility in his defense of democracy and human rights, and an easier time mobilizing support in the region and in Europe."

For the record:

5:45 PM, Oct. 08, 2020: A previous version of this story misspelled the last name of Julissa Reynoso, former U.S. ambassador to Uruguay.



This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 7, 2020) - SKRR Exploration Inc. (TSXV: SKRR) (OTC Pink: SKKRF) (FSE: B04Q) ("SKRR" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that its management and advisors recently met with Cal Huntley, the Mayor of Flin Flon. SKRR is actively drilling and exploring close to the Flin Flon area.

"We are extremely excited to have commenced our inaugural drilling program on the highly prospective Olson property," stated Sherman Dahl, Chief Executive Officer of SKRR. "Our team has a history of identifying world-class discoveries. We look forward to continuing their record in the gold producing Trans Hudson corridor. This drilling campaign follows a very successful fieldwork program in an underexplored property with multiple high-grade gold occurrences."

The four-week program is being supervised by Jarrod Brown, P.Geo, of Terralogic Exploration Services of Cranbrook, B.C., and will rely extensively on support services and personnel from the town of Deschambault Lake, Saskatchewan. Management of Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. ("Eagle Plains"), and SKRR would like to extend their thanks to the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation (PBCN) for their open communication and input, and would like to recognize the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment and its various agencies and contractors for their efforts in keeping this project moving amidst the challenges that COVID-19 has presented.

2020 Drill Targets

The Olson property has seen 4,500 metres of historic diamond drilling in 61 holes with the majority of the drilling in short holes focused on the Olson Lake and Dosco-Siskin zones, with the last drill program completed in 2008. The 2020 drilling will further test historically drilled zones, as well as previously undrilled and underexplored showings based on a current understanding of gold mineralization controls. The drill target modelling is based on a comprehensive integration of historical and recent geophysics and geochemical surveys as well as detailed mapping and sampling work. Numerous drill targets have been generated throughout the 5,835-hectare property, with the current program focused on the central part of the property. Under the terms of the option agreement with Eagle Plains, SKRR may earn-in up to a 75% interest in the Olson property.

Since staking the Olson project in 2017, Eagle Plains has carried out field programs in 2018 and 2020 which have identified new discoveries and refined the understanding of the nature of the gold mineralization. The 2020 phase one field program identified widespread gold mineralization in both soil samples and in rock channel samples (see SKRR's news releases dated September 29, 2020 and September 10, 2020). In addition, an induced polarization/DC resistivity survey defined a number of target areas coincident with anomalous geochemistry and favourable structural settings. IP resistivity has been used in the past to successfully identify drill targets at the Olson showing area with drill holes targeting a linear high chargeability and low conductivity feature with a magnetic high and flanking EM (electromagnetic) anomalies intersecting near-surface mineralization with grades up to 7.5 m at 2.07 g/t Au (SDMI No. 5093; DDH BL-2). Drilling activity is intended to test three separate target areas.

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Ross McElroy P.Geol, a director of the Company and a "Qualified Person" as defined in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. McElroy verified the data disclosed which includes a review of the sampling, analytical and test data underlying the information and opinions contained therein.

About SKRR Exploration Inc.:

SKRR is a Canadian-based precious metal explorer with properties in Saskatchewan - one of the world's highest ranked mining jurisdictions. The primary exploration focus is on the Trans-Hudson Corridor in Saskatchewan in search of world class precious metal deposits. The Trans-Hudson Orogen - although extremely well known in geological terms has been significantly under-explored in Saskatchewan. SKRR is committed to all stakeholders including shareholders, all its partners and the environment in which it operates.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Sherman Dahl

President & CEO

For further information contact:

Rich Matthews

Investor Relations

Integrous Communications

rmatthews@integcom.us

+1 6047577179

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 Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information or statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, which may include, without limitation, statements that address the drilling on the Olson property, work on other properties, other statements relating to the technical, financial and business prospects of the Company, its projects and other matters. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such statements and information are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the price of metals, the ability to achieve its goals, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms. Such forward-looking information reflects the Company's views with respect to future events and is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions, adverse weather conditions, decrease in the price of gold and other metals, equipment failures, failure to maintain all necessary government permits, approvals and authorizations, the impact of COVID-19 or other viruses and diseases on the Company's ability to operate, failure to maintain community acceptance (including First Nations), increase in costs, litigation, and failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations. The Company does not undertake to update forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, except as required by law.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/65449
Some 209 billionaires donated record amounts to tackle the pandemic, according to research by UBS and PwC. Credit: Getty.

Billionaires are giving more than at any time in history, committing $7.2bn (5.6bn) to global coronavirus efforts.

Some 209 billionaires have donated record amounts in just three months in a bid to tackle the pandemic, according to research by UBS and PwC.

The support between March and June 2020 came via financial donations, manufactured goods and equipment such as PPE and commitments to COVID-19 treatments.

Philanthropists in the US gave the greatest amount, handing over almost $4.6bn.

This was followed by Chinese billionaires who gave $678.8m.

READ MORE: Billionaire wealth smashes records during COVID-19

The biggest category of support was financial with 175 billionaires giving $5.5bn to support foundations, NGOs, hospitals, and hotels for emergency workers. They also donated money to buy face masks and ventilators.

Some 24 billionaires converted manufacturing production to make personal protective equipment and health devices to an estimated value of $1.4bn. Perfume and chemical factories switched to making hand sanitiser while car factories made ventilators.

Meanwhile 10 billionaires targeted impacts, such as building production facilities for vaccines, to the estimated value of $336.6m.

The report also noted a shift in billionaire behaviour with entrepreneurs turning into philanthropists earlier in their careers than previously.

READ MORE: Ifo: Global economy will shrink by more than 4% in 2020

There is also a drive for more strategic, goal orientated philanthropy, such as tackling disease, rather than concentrating on financial donations.

And billionaires are shifting toward sustainable business and investments as part of their philanthropic activity. This is largely being realised via investment in clean technology.

As well as being some of the most generous donors in the heat of the pandemic, they are bringing innovation to philanthropy to give it more strategic impact and raising their game on environmental and social responsibility, said report authors Josef Stadler and Marcel Tschanz.

Story continues

Examples include Azim Premji, chairman of Indian IT corporation Wipro (WIT) who is dedicated to education in India via his Azim Premji Foundation and American software entrepreneur David Duffield, the founder of animal welfare foundation Maddie's fund.

WATCH: What is a recession?
Hanoi launches Month for the Poor in 2020 (Source: VNA)

Hanoi  The Peoples Committee of Hanoi launched the Month for the Poor and Social Welfare in 2020 at a ceremony held at the Hanoi Opera on October 6.

The ceremony was attended by Politburo member and Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Vuong Dinh Hue, Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung, Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee Hau A Lenh, and Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee Chu Ngoc Anh.



At the event, the Fund for the Poor of Hanoi received over 28.2 billion VND (1.2 million USD) from a number of organisations and inpiduals. The organising board also honoured 90 organisations, businesses and inpiduals who have made great contributions to the citys social welfare activities, and inaugurated 90 Great Unity houses in celebration of the capital citys 17th Party Congress and the VFFs 90th traditional day.



Speaking at the launching ceremony, President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Hanoi Nguyen Lan Huong said that 2020 is a difficult and challenging year for Hanoi and Vietnam at large due to impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.



However, with the motto of No poor people left behind, the all-level Fatherland Fronts of the capital city have actively disseminated and encouraged local people to continue supporting its Fund for the Poor.



In the first nine months of this year, the municipal Fund for the Poor raised over 15 billion VND. Thanks to the mobilised capital, nearly 400 Great Unity houses, including 90 inaugurated this time, have been built, thousands of poor households have gain access to preferential loans, and healthcare services.



She appreciated valuable support by offices, organisations and inpiduals, and called for continued assistance for the municipal Fund for the Poor as well as social welfare programmes.



Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee Chu Ngoc Anh affirmed that over the past times, the capital city has paid special attention to directing and allocating resources for the implementation of poverty reduction and social welfare policies.



Implementing the national target programme on sustainable poverty reduction, Hanoi always follows closely policies of the Party Central Committee, the Government and the Prime Minister; has proactively made and issued specialised social policies and prioritised resources to promptly and fully carry out social policies and support rapid and sustainable poverty reduction.



As of late September 2020, the number of poor households in the capital city accounted for only 0.4 percent. Of note, 12 districts, namely Ba Dinh, Cau Giay, Tay Ho, Thanh Xuan, Hoan Kiem, Hai Ba Trung, Dong Da, Nam Tu Liem, Ha Dong, Dong Anh, Gia Lam and Hoai Duc, reported no poor households, with Cau Giay and Hai Ba Trung also having no near-poor households.



Together with policies of the municipal Peoples Committee, the Fatherland Fronts at all levels have carried out a lot of substantial activities to care for and support poor households, people living in difficult circumstances and policy beneficiaries.



Thanks to the Fund of the Poor, poor people have had firm houses, had tools and capital for production and business, had stable jobs, and gained access to health care. Specially, in the first nine months of 2020, the capital city promptly supported local people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and issued many support policies to help them in disease prevention and life stabilisation.



The city leader said that one of key tasks of the 17th municipal Party Congress is to harmonise economic growth with cultural development, promote social progress and equality, conduct social governance effectively, increase social welfare and the living conditions of local people, and reduce the gap between urban and rural areas.



At the launching ceremony, Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Vuong Dinh Hue presented gifts to seven underprivileged households in the city.
UC Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for her work helping to develop a genome-editing tool, a breakthrough in biomedicine.

Working with colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier, of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Doudna developed CRISPR-Cas9, which allows scientists to edit DNA strands with previously unfathomable precision.

The technology has opened up profound possibilities for new treatments of diseases as well as opportunities in agriculture and biology. The award marks the first time the Nobel Prize has been awarded to two women for accomplishments in the sciences.

Doudna will share with Charpentier a prize of 10 million Swedish krona, or about $1.12 million. But she also wins a cherished and traditional UC Berkeley award  a reserved parking place for life on the Cal campus.

What started as a curiosity-driven, fundamental discovery project has now become the breakthrough strategy used by countless researchers working to help improve the human condition, Doudna said in a statement released by Cal officials.

I encourage continued support of fundamental science as well as public discourse about the ethical uses and responsible regulation of CRISPR technology.

Doudna is the first woman to win a Nobel at Cal, and is the campus 25th Nobel laureate. She is the fifth woman to win a Nobel prize for chemistry.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

On Tuesday, Reinhard Genzel won the Nobel prize for physics for his work researching black holes. Research by Genzel, who shared the physics prize with UCLA professor Andrea Ghez, demonstrated the presence of an enormously dense object  a black hole  at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan
DALLAS, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Alternet Systems, Inc. (USOTC: ALYI) today released the first glimpse of the Retro ReVolt Electric Motorcycle. Separate from the company's all new electric motorcycle designed for commercial release in Africa to serve the motorcycle taxi industry (Boda), the Retro ReVolt Electric Motorcycle will be sold in North America. ALYI will sell both the completed motorcycle as well as conversion kits for the do-it-yourself market.

See the first image of the ReVolt Electric Motorcycle and sign up to be notified when we start taking orders:

www.revoltmotorbikes.com

The company plans to release more images over the next few weeks and start taking orders by the end of this year.

ALYI separately announced yesterday that the company anticipates finalizing details this week that will result in a major milestone event moving the company substantially forward toward realizing its electric mobility ecosystem vision.

The milestone anticipated this week represents a major step toward realizing the ultimate annual electric auto race event. ALYI management is optimistic that the company will be able to make a revealing announcement next week shedding light on the magnitude of the company's momentum toward introducing an all new and groundbreaking eclectic mobility ecosystem paradigm.

For more information and to stay up to date on ALYI's latest developments, please visit www.alternetsystemsinc.com.

Disclaimer/Safe Harbor: This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Among others, these risks include the expectation that any of the companies mentioned herein will achieve significant sales, the failure to meet schedule or performance requirements of the companies' contracts, the companies' liquidity position, the companies' ability to obtain new contracts, the emergence of competitors with greater financial resources and the impact of competitive pricing. In the light of these uncertainties, the forward-looking events referred to in this release might not occur.

Alternet Systems, Inc. Contact:

Randell Torno

[email protected]

+1-800-713-0297

SOURCE Alternet Systems, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.alternetsystemsinc.com


Paper Social Security Checks Still Out There

President Donald Trumps ongoing battle with the U.S. Postal Service and its funding has a small fraction of elderly Social Security recipients worried that there may be future disruptions to the delivery of their Social Security checks.

Wait a minute! I can hear many of you saying. What do you mean by delivery of their checks. Doesnt everybody get their Social Security benefits by direct deposit nowadays? Well, actually, no. And therein lies a story.

Direct deposit and other forms of electronic banking are so commonplace today that most of us hardly give the process a second thought. But more than a few of us are old enough to remember a time when all of this was a new fangled technology that we were not entirely sure we could trust.

I think back to my early days working for the Social Security Administration. Like all federal employees, we got a paycheck every two weeks. And for the first dozen or so years of my career, it was indeed a paycheck in the form of a paper check.

It was back in the very early 1980s that the SSA finally got around to sending our bimonthly salary to us via direct deposit. And I clearly remember more than a little anxiety when that happened. I was working in the local Social Security office in Boise, Idaho, at the time. On payday, a couple of my co-workers and I used to enjoy our twice-monthly stroll to the local bank. (That was primarily because the Boise Ballet Co., with huge street-side windows, was right next to the bank. After depositing our checks in the bank, we would go next door and stare through those big windows at the beautiful ballerinas like little boys with their noses pressed against the glass front of a candy store! Gosh, I loved going to cash my paycheck! But I digress!)

Anyway, this direct deposit stuff was new. And for the first couple of months after it started, I would very carefully check my bank account every two weeks to make sure that the mysterious process worked and my money really was there. Of course, over time, I (and millions of other people) learned that direct deposit was reliable and dependable.

Fast-forward a number of years later and the SSA, working with the Treasury Department, decided that all new Social Security claimants would be required to use direct deposit. And at the same time, they offered a direct deposit option to all existing Social Security beneficiaries.

So, why didnt they force it on everybody? After all, its simple and efficient. And it saves money. It costs almost nothing to push a button and have your money deposited into your bank account. But all the costs involved in printing, handling, and mailing a paper check come out to about 50 cents each. Multiply that by millions of Social Security beneficiaries and you can see why the government was encouraging direct deposit.

But one of the main reasons why direct deposit wasnt forced on everyone was that studies showed there was a hardcore group of people out there, mostly very old senior citizens, who just didnt trust the process. They either didnt like banks or they just were not comfortable with the idea of electronic money. They liked to see and feel that paper Social Security check in their hands every month.

You can still find some of these people. I doevery time I go to the grocery store. It always seems that I get stuck in the checkout line where there is a little old lady in front of me who is writing a check for her groceries. I mean, come on! Who writes checks for groceries anymore?

The point is those hardcore traditionalists are out there. Thats why they made direct deposit optional for existing Social Security beneficiaries. And thousands of old folks opted for the old fashioned snail mail delivery of their Social Security checks. Even today, there are still about 500,000 people who get paper checks. That sounds like a lot. But it is less than 1 percent of Social Securitys beneficiary base of 61 million recipients.

Still, there are a half-million pieces of U.S. Treasury Department paper going out in the mail every month to all these people. And as I said at the beginning, these folks are starting to worry that political problems at the postal service could lead to punctuality problems with their Social Security checks.

So, if you have a little old grandma out there who still gets a paper check, talk to her about the joys of electronic fund transfers and the ease of online banking. Oh, and also tell her to stop writing checks and start using a bankcard to pay for her groceries!

On a related note, heres a message to the guy who sends me emails all the time telling me to stop referring to Social Security payments as checks. For example, I might tell someone, You will get your first Social Security check in October.

Whenever I do that, he fires off an email to me yelling at me for using the word check. Hell say something like: People dont get checks. They get electronic payments sent to their bank account.

Initially, I replied saying that I really didnt mean to say check as in an actual paper check. And after a few more email exchanges, I started replying with a message along these lines: Cmon, buddy, get real. When I tell someone they will be getting a Social Security check next month, they totally understand that I do not mean they will get a paper check in the mail. They know I mean they will get their benefits deposited into their bank account.

But his emails keep coming. So, here is my new message: Hey, pal, enough already. From now on, when I say your Social Security check, lets just make believe Im talking to one of the 500,000 oldsters out there who actually get a paper check.

Tom Margenau worked for 32 years in a variety of positions for the Social Security Administration before retiring in 2005. He has served as the director of SSAs public information office, the chief editor of more than 100 SSA publications, a deputy press officer and spokesman, and a speechwriter for the commissioner of Social Security. For 12 years, he also wrote Social Security columns for local newspapers. If you have a Social Security question, contact him at thomas.margenau@comcast.net.
Starmer came out swinging from the start, flinging verbal haymakers and slashing strokes of sarcasm. But the best moment was when he pulled the pin out of a political hand grenade by challenging the 10pm rule  an issue where the PM faces defeat if Labour jumps ship to side with Tory rebels.

Starmer warmed up with a question about the 16,000 missing Covid-19 test results . Does the Prime Minister accept that this very basic mistake has put lives at risk? he asked.

The Prime Minister adopted a lofty pose, that of a statesman untroubled by something so minor. They had fixed the computer glitch and hired extra staff to catch up. He could reassure the House, nay the whole country, that the missing data points do not change in any way our assessment of the epidemiology.

Starmer replied with a bucket of battery acid. This isn't just a technical issue, it's a human issue, and the attempted reassurance by the Prime Minister just doesn't wash.

He needled the PM again, saying: 12 billion has been invested in the system and a basic Excel error brings it down. No wonder it's been described as intergalactic incompetence.

Keir Starmer grills Boris Johnson over test and trace IT error

Johnson glared back. You can't have it both ways: you cant call it a human error and a basic Excel error. His voice suddenly mellowed, as if remembering he was supposed to be exuding calm and statesmanship, making soothing noises about data points and a local-regional approach.

Starmer stepped things up. There's a pattern here - on care homes, protective equipment, exams, testing - the Prime Minister ignores the warning signs, hurtles towards a car crash, then looks in the rear mirror and says what's all that about? It's quite literally government in hindsight. Geddit? The man dubbed Captain Hindsight attacks Government in hindsight .

Rather than argue over the data points, the Labour leader simply demanded: Its obvious that something's gone wrong here. So what's the prime minister to do about it?

Johnson finally hit back. It was like that scene in The Krays film where Ronnie takes his hands out of his pockets to reveal shiny knuckledusters on each one. Last night, Mr. Speaker, the Labour Party abstained on the Rule of Six! (This said in a tone of shocked incredulity) He can't even be bothered to get his own side to support them himself.

It was a hefty slug but Starmer had a sarcy response ready: For the Prime Minister's benefit, let me take this slowly for him, he mocked as if addressing a village idiot. We want track and trace to work; but the government is messing it up and its it's our duty to point it out."

Johnson piled in again on Starmer for mysteriously changing position on something as fundamental as the Rule of Six, demanding: He cannot continue to have it both ways; does he support the Rule of Six? Yes or no?

Boris Johnson accuses Keir Starmer of backtracking on support of rule of six

Starmer replied Yes, which was better than having no answer but broke the cardinal rule that Opposition leaders do not get lured into answering questions at PMQs. As Tory MPs grew noisy he added spikily: If he actually listened to the question we might get on better. Ooh, said MPs.

For those who yearn for the old Punch & Judy style of question time this was turning into a treat.

Starmer pointed out that infections were lower in Johnsons own borough of Hillingdon (no restrictions) than in places like Kirklees (restrictions in place) and pleaded: Local communities genuinely don't understand these differences. Can he please explain for them? If the PM knew the answer, he did not bother trying to explain, which is exactly what the Labour leader hoped for.

This is getting ridiculous, said Starmer. Then he pulled out the 10pm hand grenade. Next week, this House will vote on whether to approve the 10pm rule. The Prime Minister knows that there are deeply held views across the country. One question is now screaming out - is there a scientific basis for the 10pm rule?

Boom. It was a superb question. Because as everyone in the House knows, there is no scientific basis for closing pubs at 10pm rather than, say, 10.15pm. Ten oclock was a muddy political compromise between scientists calling for pub closures and the Treasury begging to save the hospitality sector. More significantly, Starmer had sent a clear signal that despite backing the 10pm curfew three weeks ago he was willing to wriggle out of it and inflict a major defeat on the Government.

Johnson was furious and hit back as hard as he could. What kind of a signal does this send to the people of the country about the robustness of the Labour Party and their willingness to enforce the restrictions? That's not new leadership. That's no leadership.

Despite the PMs volley at the end, it was a clear victory for Starmer who made the weather and will now be free to claim credit for the inevitable ministerial retreat on the 10pm curfew.

And Boris Johnson knows, better than anyone, that voters dont give a stuff if Starmer is a political opportunist or not. After all, the PM has been accused of exactly that throughout his rise to the top.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : A day after holding a press conference with the Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister by his side, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi has been detected with COVID-19.

In a short tweet, Joshi informed, "I have tested positive for Covid-19. I am asymptomatic. As per doctor's advice I am in home quarantine." Just a day back he was at a public event in Karnataka's Belgaum district as part of the Centre's outreach on the recent farm Bills, along with Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Sangappa Savadi and Rajya Sabha member Iranna Kadadi.

Now with Joshi having tested COVID positive, the Karnataka Deputy CM and the Rajya Sabha member who were present become his recent contacts.

With 72,049 new coronavirus cases and 986 deaths in 24 hours, India's tally on Wednesday went past the 67-lakh-mark with a total of 67,57,131 cases.

Out of these, 9,07,883 are currently active, 57,44,693 have been discharged, while 1,04,555 have lost the battle against the virus.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
The United States has donated 200 new ventilators to Kenya for use in its fight against Covid-19.

The donation delivers on US President Donald Trump's offer of critically needed supplies and support for Kenya's response to the pandemic.

It was announced Monday by Kyle McCarter, the US Ambassador to Kenya, and visiting USAID Acting Administrator John Barsa.

The ventilators, produced in the United States and donated by USAID, are compact, deployable, and provide Kenya with flexibility in treating Covid-19 patients as well as those who require breathing support for other conditions.

"These ventilators are another example of American expertise and generosity in the global battle against Covid-19," Amb McCarter said.

USAID will deliver the ventilators directly to facilities selected by the Kenyan government and ensure they are recorded in the inventory books of the counties receiving them.

National and county government officials will also sign an implementation letter prohibiting sale or export of the ventilators.

Other assistance

In addition, USAID is funding a tailored package of support that includes accompanying equipment, service plans and technical assistance.

The agency will also train health care workers on how to use the ventilators and on critical care patient management.

The donation is in addition to Sh6 billion already committed to support Kenya's Covid-19 response through supply of equipment, testing, training and research.

There is also support for health, water and sanitation, education, employment and food security needs to help Kenya recover from the economic and other impacts of the virus.

"USAID continues to work closely with Kenya to curb the spread of Covid-19, maintain essential public health services and help Kenyans cope with the secondary impacts of the pandemic," said USAID Mission Director Mark Meassick.
Its Liberty16 open system RT-PCR offers rapid, mobile testing for COVID

New Zealand-based Ubiquitome is ramping up production of its mobile, real-time (RT) PCR technology with funding from the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative.

Ubiquitome is the only NZ private company to be accepted into the highly competitive RADx and to receive federal funding through the NIH in recent years. Ubiquitome will scale its Liberty16 mobile PCR technology to enable thousands of tests per day by the end of the year.

The Liberty16 will be targeted for use by rural and metropolitan hospitals and mobile labs to test for SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID-19. Ubiquitomes device can detect virus in 16 samples in 40 minutes or less. It reports positive or negative results via its proprietary iPhone app.

Battery-operated, less than the height of the latest iPhones and weighing only 2.5 kg, the Liberty16 is one of the smallest open system RT-PCR systems on the international market. It is being distributed in Asia Pacific by Swiss giant DKSH.

In the US initiative, Ubiquitome will be funded in part by the NIH Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADxSM) initiative with federal funds from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health. The current contract is funded from the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr Steven Kazmierczak, Professor of Pathology at Oregon Health & Science University, led clinical studies on the Liberty16 as part of Ubiquitomes FDA application
The Comptroller General, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Muhammad Babandede, has issued new visa regulations introduced by the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) authority in view of the current COVID-19 pandemic .

Babandede gave the advisory in a statement through the Service spokesperson, Sunday James, on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said that the directives were necessary to enable UAE Bound passengers to observe the required travel protocols as requested by the the country.

The statement quoted the Immigration boss as saying that UAE bound passengers are expected to be in possession of confirmed return ticket, confirmed hotel reservation for the duration of stay in UAE or address of residence in the UAE or address of relatives of the visitor playing host while in the UAE

The new travel advisory has it that all UAE bound passengers must ensure that a negative Polymerase Chain Reaction(PCR) test be taken within 96 hours before departure; have Valid Health Insurance ( VHI) covering the duration of stay; and copies of trade licenses in the UAE and Nigeria if applicable.

The statement however pointed out that : " Except the PCR test taken within 96hours before departure, the above requirements in 2 (i-v) are not applicable on official visits.

" The Nigeria Immigration Service hereby, advises all UAE bound passengers to avoid denial of departure from Nigeri
Kathmandu, Oct 7 : Three more Covid-19 infected persons undergoing treatment in different hospitals have succumbed to the virus in the last 24 hours in Butwal of Rupandehi district, health officials said on Wednesday.

Among them, two breathed their last during the course of treatment at Covid-19 Special hospital while another succumbed to the virus in course of the treatment at Lumbini Provincial hospital, the Himalayan times reported.

76-year-old man of Sunwal Municipality-5 in Nawalparasi passed away at 12:50 am on Wednesday. He was suffering from dry cough, high fever, hypertension, diabetes and asthma, said Bishnu Gautam, information officer at Covid Special hospital, Butwal.

Similalry, the 55-year-old woman of Butwal Sub-metropolitan City-9 died today at 5:30 am on Wednesday at the same hospital, added Gautam. The woman was suffering from dry cough, high fever, hypertension and respiratory ailment.

Meanwhile, 71-year-old woman from Rapti Rural Municipality-8 in Dang district passed away in Lumbini State hospital on at 6:30 pm on Tuesday, shared Gautam. She was also suffering from fever and respiratory-related complications.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Washington :

Go buy Ivankas stuff, a top White House adviser urged American shoppers on Friday, a day after President Donald Trump sharply criticised a department store for dropping his daughters clothing line.

I hate shopping, Kellyanne Conway told the Fox network in a televised interview, with the White House seal clearly visible over her left shoulder. But Im going to go get some myself today.

This is just a wonderful line, she added. I own some of it. I fullyIm going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online.

To Washington traditionalists, Conways direct pitch from the White House for a product line sold by the presidents child seemed a jaw-dropping use of presidential prestige.

But she was clearly channeling the anger expressed a day earlier by the president himself, when he tweeted that Ivanka had been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom, the upscale department store chain that dropped her line. Terrible, he added.

The message from the White House again fanned debate over the unprecedented level to which the new presidentdespite his protestations to the contraryhas mixed politics, business and family, raising questions about conflicts of interest.

After Trumps tweet, shares in Nordstrom briefly dropped, but by the end of the day they had more than made up their losses.

Since his election in November, Trump has targeted a series of American multinationals by name (General Motors, Ford, Boeing, Lockheed and others) for moving production overseas or for allegedly overcharging the government.

But this was the first time he had complained directly about the business interests of one of his adult children.

The Nordstrom group, with 350 stores in the United States and Canada, has repeatedly denied any political motive to its dropping of Ivanka Trumps clothing line, saying it was motivated purely by performance considerations. Sales had fallen, particularly in last years second half.

But products carrying a Trump brand, including Ivankas, have been boycotted by critics of the new president, leading to his complaint of a political motivation behind Nordstroms move.

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The Region of York wants the province to create a process that allows municipalities to convert protected Greenbelt-designated lands into those used for employment purposes, a move thats being lambasted by a coalition of environmental groups as an attack on the provincially significant lands.

Regional councillors will vote Thursday to ask the province to consider the request, in a response to resolutions from four local municipalities, including Richmond Hill and the town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, who say having access to those lands along the 400-series highways and near GO train stations would be a boost for the local economy.

Were unique. Almost 95 per cent of our municipality is in the Oak Ridges Moraine or the Greenbelt, so that leaves us very little developable land to expand our commercial and industrial tax base, said Iain Lovatt, the mayor of Whitchurch-Stouffville.

We arent asking for them to convert all of it, we are asking for four per cent of it  and all of it is countryside land that serves as a buffer to the Greenbelt, he said, adding that opening up the land would create 23,000 jobs in Stouffville.

The province needs to allow municipalities the opportunity to be prosperous, and when businesses that want to locate on a provincially significant artery like the 404 or 400, there should be opportunities to have discussions about it.

But environmental groups say this is merely an attempt from municipalities and developers to get access to the land that has been deemed off-limit to development since 2005.

There is a sense out there that this is the time to push, and maybe we can completely dismantle any kind of planning system in the region, and go back to the wild west of planning, said Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence.

Despite pressure from developers and the building industry, the province has reiterated on numerous occasions that it would not touch the Greenbelt.

The government remains fully committed to protecting the Greenbelt, and is not considering proposals to remove lands from the Greenbelt, said Conrad Spezowka, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. We look forward to continuing to work with York Region to accelerate opportunities that create jobs and housing, outside the Greenbelt and the Oak Ridges Moraine

In April 2020, the Region asked staff to examine the competitive benefits of opening up the Greenbelt lands along the highway for employment use. They determined that 33 per cent of land along the 400-series highways was Greenbelt land, according to the staff report.

But the same report also states that an assessment done in 2107 determined there are 2,400 hectares of vacant employment land in the Region. But York claims in order for it to effectively plan for the next 30 years, it needs to know if the employment lands will be available to them.

In terms of land scarcity for employment lands, there is just no basis for it. There is lots of land within the existing urban boundary that is serviced, that isnt being built on, and the rate of using up that supply is so low that it is not at risk of being used, said Gray, adding that speculators were to blame for the recent push.

Land may be worth a couple of million if its in the Greenbelt, but its worth 10 times as much if its not, because it can be turned into a subdivision, he said.

Gray says often employment lands become under-utilized and eventually are converted to subdivisions. If the province caves to these demands, it sets a precedent, and then its pretty much open season on the Greenbelt.

This isnt the first time the region has made this request, asking for a similar mechanism in 2005 and 2015.

In its staff report, it says it will continue to do so:

York Region will continue to advocate to the province for the ability to remove lands from the Greenbelt Plan for employment uses, when deemed necessary, while protecting natural heritage features. The 400-series highway corridors are significant connective infrastructure that promote and enhance the provincial, regional and local municipal economies.

And the request made by Richmond Hill, to allow for rezoning of protected land near Gormley GO station to allow for industrial uses was sent to the province earlier this year in the form of a municipal zoning request. At the time, the province said the Greenbelt was off the table.

The proposal would not only affect current lands, but also lands that flank planned highways such as the GTA West corridor and Bradford bypass. In August, the province announced the GTA West Corridor would run through northern Vaughan, generally north of Kirby Road and end at Highway 400.

Gray said the highway will already cut through forests, wetlands and natural habitats, but now they want all the land adjacent to it to be bulldozed too.

Lovatt said hes optimistic the province will consider the proposal  eventually.

I believe there is a path forward that the province can regulate it. If I was the premier, and I got a request to open up the Greenbelt to build houses, I would say no. Because houses wont solve the problem. Its the commercial and industrial tax base that will create jobs and boost the economy, he said.

What makes Stouffville so unique is the Greenbelt and the Oak Ridges Moraine and we have to celebrate that, he said. But we also need to take care of our own house.

Noor Javed is a Toronto-based reporter covering current affairs in the York region for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @njaved

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The Gates Foundation announced Wednesday it is launching a multimillion dollar grant program aimed at raising achievement in Algebra I for Black and Latino students, students in poverty, and English-language learners.

The goal is to engage students with more culturally relevant instructionincluding by redesigning courses so that they draw on students lived experiences, strengthen their math identities, and explore issues of social justice.

The grants will be awarded through the foundations Grand Challenge platform, an initiative that targets persistent challenges in global health and development. Funding will be awarded in two phases: 10 to 15 awardees will receive $100,000 each, and then those winners will be eligible to apply for $1 million grants. The foundation will select up to 10 recipients for up to $1 million grants, distributed over two years.

Entrants can propose solutions that would work during distance learningthe foundation notes that the classroom environment theyre designing for can be a physical or virtual spacebut the goal is to develop longterm systems for improving the quality of math education and removing systemic barriers for these student groups.

Were trying to look around the corner, while recognizing and appreciating the immediacy of the moment, said Henry Hipps, the deputy director of the K-12 education team at the Gates Foundation, on a press call Tuesday. And I think we have an opportunity during this time to think differently in order to address the persistent challenges in math, especially for students who are Black, Latino, experiencing poverty, and/or who speak a language other than English.

Algebra I is a gateway course: Students need to take it before they can access higher-level math, and passing it is considered critical to college readiness.

But Black and Latino students have less access, and later access, to Algebra 1 than their white and Asian peers, research shows. When Black students do have access to the course, it may be a watered-down version of the one that white students get. A study released this summer in the journal Educational Researcher found that, in majority-Black schools, 8th grade Algebra 1 teachers spent less time covering algebra and more time covering basic numeracy topics than teachers in majority-white schools.

In addition to having less access to rigorous Algebra 1 material, some experts say, Black and Latino students are also less likely to see themselves represented in the curriculum, making it harder for them to see math as relevant to their lives or to identify as math people. This is the problem that the Gates Foundation is trying to address.

Some districts have taken up similar work, combining math education with ethnic studies. In Seattle last year, the school district created a new framework designed to rehumanize math , which asks students to explore the histories of how empires of color created and used math in the past and investigate the racialized power dynamics of how math is taught in the classroom and used in society. The move received acclaim from some educators and scholars of mathematics education, but also faced pushback from conservative commentators.

The Gates Foundation grant proposal has five specific areas of focus:



Building out support systems

Improving relevance of algebra content

Elevating understanding of mathematical language

Empowering and strengthening teacher practices

Developing new or better feedback mechanisms

Examples of the kinds of proposals that might meet the criteria include developing lessons that reflect students cultures and communities, expanding opportunities for mathematical discussion, building new kinds of assessments that empower and humanize students, and creating professional development that asks teachers to reflect on their own biases.

Image: Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, gestures as he speaks at an event at the Lyons congress hall, central France in 2019. Ludovic Marin/Pool Photo via AP, File
[Follow our live coverage of the Biden inauguration.]

Annamarie Eggert has voted in every presidential election since 1948, when she cast her ballot for Harry S. Truman. Now she is 94 and ailing, but she is determined to vote in this one, too.

Mrs. Eggert, a Biden supporter in York, Maine, has expressive aphasia, a condition that has made it difficult for her to talk. We  need  to get Trump out of there, she said, each word painstakingly coaxed from her lips. Come hell  or high water, I will  vote.

In this most contentious of elections, in which the very act of voting has come under fierce national debate, the determination of many very old, ill and infirm Americans to cast what could be their last vote is profound.

Though aware that they might not live long enough to be affected by the results, they say they are voting for children, grandchildren and their future  a final heartfelt, empowering act as American citizens.
TOKYO, Oct.7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- To welcome the arrival of Halloween, today (10/7) Ruten Japan launched the "Halloween Shopping Event". Ruten Japan has the latest and hottest halloween products right here. All orders over USD $50 are eligible for free international shipping.

With over 60 million Japanese products, Ruten Japan currently provides online shopping services to 13 countries. Since Ruten Japan Global site launch, halloween goods have been one of the vastly searched items. Among them, consumers in Singapore, Canada, Vietnam, Hong Kong and other countries and regions are the most enthusiastic.

As the world adapts to the pandemic, Ruten has witnessed a dramatic shift from in-person to online shopping. Ruten's hottest halloween goods includes Japanese style decorations, anime character costumes, and halloween themed gift packages.

This year's Ruten Halloween shopping event will not only have interior and exterior halloween decorations but also include Halloween style masks and children's costumes for all international customers. Additionally, there is also a selection of Halloween themed snacks created by the variety of Japanese brands. In the spirit of halloween, costumers from all over the world will be able to enjoy delicious Japanese snacks from the comfort of their own home.

Ruten Japan : https://en.ruten.co.jp/

Halloween Shopping Event URL:

https://en.ruten.co.jp/campaign/halloween2020

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1307272/Ruten_s_hottest_Halloween_goods_includes_Japanese_style_decorations_anime_character.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1307274/Ruten_Japan_offers_free_shipping_Halloween_shopping.jpg
India and Pakistan are once again at loggerheads with each other over the Geographical Indication (GI) tagging of Basmati rice. Pakistan on Tuesday has decided to oppose Indias claim of GI tag for Basmati rice in the European Union (EU). The decision was taken during a meeting chaired by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce Razak Dawood on Monday. A Pakistani legal team will file its formal opposition with the EU, according to reports.

The Pakistan representatives are of the view that their country is a major grower and producer of basmati rice and Indias claim for exclusivity is unjustified. Hence Pakistan is planning to vehemently oppose Indias application in the European Union and restrain India from obtaining an exclusive GI tag of basmati rice, according to reports.

India submitted an application with the European Union claiming sole ownership of basmati rice in September. According to the Indian application, Basmati is special long grain aromatic rice grown and produced in a particular geographical region of the Indian sub-continent while adding that the region is a part of northern India, below the foothills of the Himalayas forming part of the Indo-Gangetic plain.

READ | Former Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari charged in corruption cases

READ | J-K Lt Guv pays tributes to soldier killed in Pakistani shelling

'Pakistan will vehemently oppose India's application'

The meeting to tackle Indian exclusivity over Basmati rice was attended by Secretary Commerce, Chairman, Intellectual Property Organisation (IPO-Pakistan), representatives of Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP), and the legal fraternity. During the meeting, the REAP representatives were of the view that Pakistan was a major grower and producer of Basmati rice and India's application for exclusivity is unjustified.

Dawood said that Pakistan will vehemently oppose India's application in the European Union and restrain New Delhi from obtaining an exclusive GI tag of Basmati rice, the report said. He further supported the concerns of REAP and relevant stakeholders and ensured that their claim for Basmati rice as GI will be protected, it added.

READ | Pakistan man arrested in killing of Ahmadi college professor

READ | Pakistan's Chaiwala now becomes a cafe owner; netizens offer their 'warmest wishes'

(With inputs from PTI)
New Delhi, Oct 7 : With love for reading augmented during the Covid-induced lockdown, heres an "immersive fiction" platform that marries the written word with multimedia elements to give one a real-life simulation on your smartphone -- an average 15-minute read that has fast overtaken ebooks and has clocked up over 500 writers, more than 1,000 stories and one lakh users in the past six months.

The four main genres of romance, horror, thriller and drama on the Plop Stories platform "bring you immersive fiction that goes beyond written content and merges with visual content, bypassing traditional book distributors. Writers can publish their interactive stories directly on Plop. Because Plop is mobile-first it provides writers a multitude of options to create highly immersive content," its cofounder Vineet Shetty, who has a degree in software engineering and is also an alumnus of the Indian School of Business, told IANS in an interview.

"The stories marry the written word with multimedia elements and give readers a real-life simulation on smartphones. Readers can take decisions and interact with the characters of the stories, making it an extremely immersive experience," Shetty added.

Thus, not only does Plop produce its own stories -- Plop Originals -- "but it also enables creators to dabble with interactive content gaming and create their own masterpieces. We have a platform. So people create the stories based on the capabilities and once it gets approved it's shown in the app.

"They come and freely produce content of their choice. Based on the number of stories unlocked the writers get paid. As of now there are writers who are making 400 dollars (Rs. 29,000) a month from Plop," Shetty explained.

Q: How does it work? A: Plop has a tool where anybody can log in and create their "own adventure" kind of stories.

"Initially the first few writers we had to speak to them to guide them. Since we were just born and quality is important. So it was important for us to do the primary check. But now we have a tool named writers' panel. So the first part tells them how to use the feature. And the mandate is the second part. The mandate gives them the framework like how can they make their stories stand out," Shetty said.

With the lockdown, as has been noticed with OTT players like Netflix. "we have seen over a 400 per cent rise in user activity especially from the United States and United Kingdom. And almost 800 per cent increase in in-app purchases. Similarly, there has been a massive growth in the number of writers/creators who have been on-boarded to the platform", he said.

Over 60 per cent of the users are from North America, and rest from Europe and Asia including India.

While it takes an average of 15 minutes to read a story, "power users are active for almost 45 minutes a day" Shetty noted, adding that "over 20 million minutes of engagement time" had been recorded till date.

Q: Can the publishing industry benefit from this? A: "We already have some publishers who are interested in exploring the Plop format. Just like the pandemic has made production houses warm up to OTT platforms like Netflix and Prime Video, publishing houses are warming up to the idea of alternate reading formats. Publishers can explore Plop as another way to adapt their existing books. Publishers sell the film rights of a book to a film production company, audio book rights to an audio publisher like Audible or Storytel, they could now sell the interactive fiction adaptation rights to Plop," Shetty said.

The platform has also seen a rather interesting fallout "We have emerged as a platform for Europeans, especially from Germany, Netherlands, and France, as also from countries like Russia and the Philippines, to learn conversational English. This is something very interesting and unexpected. I guess it's because of our focus on the quality of our content - and because most of the stories are written in a conversational style, which makes it easier for readers to relate to them," Shetty concluded.

(Vishnu Makhijani can be reached at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in)
The Global Cargo Insurance Market is poised to experience spend growth of more than USD 5 billion between 2019-2024 at a CAGR of over 2.00%. The report also provides the market impact and new opportunities created due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Request free sample pages

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005336/en/

SpendEdge has announced the release of its Global Cargo Insurance Market Procurement Intelligence Report (Graphic: Business Wire)

Read the 120-page research report with TOC and LOE on "Global Cargo Insurance Market Procurement Intelligence Report, Pricing Outlook in Geographies that include APAC, North America, South America, and MEA, and insights into best practices to optimize procurement spend."

SpendEdge's reports now include an in-depth complimentary analysis of the COVID-19 impact on procurement and the latest market data to help your company overcome sourcing challenges. Our Cargo Insurance Market procurement intelligence report offers actionable procurement intelligence insights, sourcing strategies, and action plans to mitigate risks arising out of the current pandemic situation. The insights offered by our reports will help procurement professionals streamline supply chain operations and gain insights into the best procurement practices to mitigate losses.

Information on Latest Trends and Supply Chain Market Information Knowledge center on COVID-19 impact assessment

Insights into the Market Price Trends

Suppliers in this market have moderate bargaining power owing to moderate pressure from substitutes and a moderate level of threat from new entrants.

Buyers can benchmark their preferred pricing models for Cargo Insurance Market the wider industry information and identify the cost-saving potential.

Insights to help buyers identify and shortlist the most suitable suppliers for their Cargo Insurance Market requirements. This procurement report answers the following questions:

Am I engaging with the right suppliers?

Which KPIs should I use to evaluate my incumbent suppliers?

Which supplier selection criteria are relevant for?

What are the Cargo Insurance Market category essentials in terms of SLAs and RFx?

To get instant access to over 1000 market-ready procurement intelligence reports without any additional costs or commitment, Subscribe Now for Free

Insights into strategies that will help buyers optimize their category management practices. The report answers the following questions:

What should be my strategic procurement objectives, activities, and enablers for the Cargo Insurance Market category?

What negotiation levers can I pull for cost-saving?

What are Cargo Insurance Market procurement best practices I should be promoting in my supply chain?

Some of the top Cargo Insurance Market suppliers enlisted in this report

This Cargo Insurance Market procurement intelligence report has enlisted the top suppliers and their cost structures, SLA terms, best selection criteria, and negotiation strategies.

American International Group Inc.

AXA Group

Allianz SE

Marsh McLennan Companies Inc.

Aon Plc

Chubb Ltd.

Get access to regular sourcing and procurement insights to our digital procurement platform- Contact Us

Table of Content

Executive Summary

Market Insights

Category Pricing Insights

Cost-saving Opportunities

Best Practices

Category Ecosystem

Category Management Strategy

Category Management Enablers

Suppliers Selection

Suppliers under Coverage

US Market Insights

Category scope

Appendix

About SpendEdge:

SpendEdge shares your passion for driving sourcing and procurement excellence. We are the preferred procurement market intelligence partner for 120+ Fortune 500 firms and other leading companies across numerous industries. Our strength lies in delivering robust, real-time procurement market intelligence reports and solutions. To know more https://www.spendedge.com/request-for-demo

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005336/en/

Contacts:

SpendEdge

Anirban Choudhury

Marketing Manager

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UK: +44 148 459 9299

https://www.spendedge.com/contact-us
The chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Gamji ward of Bakura Local Government Area of Zamfara State, Sani Dangwaggo, has been kidnapped.

Family sources said Mr Dangwaggo was abducted Tuesday night around 11:00 p.m. The gunmen reportedly whisked him away from his residence at Gamji community, in Bakura, during a downpour.

Shehu Isa, state publicity secretary for APC in Zamfara, confirmed the development to PREMIUM TIMES on Wednesday morning.

Mr Isa said the kidnappers had contacted the relatives of the captive, demanding N10 million ransom.

The police spokesperson for Zamfara State, Muhammad Shehu, also confirmed the incident to PREMIUM TIMES,

He explained that the abductee was also a representative of the district head of Gamji.

Mr Shehu said security personnel had been mobilised to trail the fleeing suspects to ensure the unconditional release of the captive soon

The incident is coming in less than a month to Bakura Local Government by-election for the state house of assembly holding on October 31

Gamji ward, in Bakura, is the hometown of the APC candidate for the election, Bello Dankande.

Several communities in Zamfara have suffered from attacks by bandits who kill residents and also kidnap others for ransom.

The identity of the Mr Dangwaggos kidnappers has not been determined to know if they are bandits or if the crime is politically motivated.
- A Cuban orthopaedic and physician who were kidnapped in Kenya by al-Shabaab are reported to have been released

- The two medics were released following months of negotiations between the Cuban government and the militia group

- Somali intelligence officials are reported to have done the negotiations on behalf of the Cuban government

- This was after they came across a video of the doctors in Somalia a couple of months ago

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Two Cuban doctors who were kidnapped in Kenya and held in Somali by extremist group al-Shabaab have been released following months of negotiations.

The two Cuban doctors were abducted in April 2019 while on their way to work in Mandera county. Photo: Daily Nation.

Source: UGC

According to a senior Somali intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity, Assel Herrera and Landy Rodriguez were released over the weekend.

A report by the ABC News showed the doctors were released after Somali intelligence who obtained a video of the medics negotiated on behalf of the Cuban government.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez later confirmed the release in a social media post and thanked the Somali government for its help.

Deployed to Kenya in 2018

He said he had spoken with Somalias foreign minister, Ahmed Isse Awad, but it was not immediately clear where the doctors were as of Wednesday, October 7.

The medics were kidnapped by the militia group in Mandera county in April 2019 while they were on their way to work and one of their bodyguards was killed during the attack.

The orthopaedic and physician had been deployed to Kenya in 2018 following an agreement between the Kenyan and Cuban governments.

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Vowed retribution

The extremist group had vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia to fight them.

TUKO.co.ke earlier reported Cuban Council of Ministers vice president, Ines Maria Chapman said the two doctors were doing fine and both governments were working towards rescuing them.

The vice president of the Cuban Council of Ministers, however, did not give details on the whereabouts nor the rescue operations of the doctors.

This comes months after Silvia Romano, the Italian aid volunteer who was kidnapped in 2018 in Kilifi county, was also released by the militia group.

Romano, a manager of a non-governmental organisation, African Milele Onlus, was kidnapped by unknown gunmen from Chakama area.

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A couple from Michigan on their honeymoon had to shelter in the lobby of their hotel in Cozumel as Hurricane Delta, a powerful Category 2, slammed Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula early Wednesday with heavy rain and winds.

Nicole and Jake Sinclair, both 26, from Grand Rapids, arrived on the island Monday afternoon for what they thought was going to be a relaxing getaway after getting married over the weekend. But that quickly changed as Delta strengthened.

On Tuesday morning, less than 24 hours into their trip, the newlyweds were called down to the lobby of the Fiesta Americana Cozumel hotel for a meeting with staff and other guests.

We got down there and they told us to put all of our nonessential stuff in our carry-ons and put them in the bathrooms of our rooms and just bring our essential stuff in a backpack downstairs," Nicole told NBC News in an interview Wednesday.

Tourists' personal items at the Fiesta Americana Cozumel All Inclusive during Hurricane Delta in Cozumel, Mexico, on Oct. 6, 2020. (Courtesy Nicole Sinclair)

Guests at the hotel were told that they would be sleeping in the lobby as the island prepared for the hurricane's arrival. The resort turned lawn chairs into makeshift beds for the guests and handed out towels, pillows and boxes with masks and hand sanitizer.

Nicole and Jake were among roughly 50 people in a downstairs lobby. Other guests were taken to an upstairs area while some sheltered in a hallway. Social distancing was not possible, Nicole said, adding that the hotel did take everyone's temperature before letting them into the lobby.

"Our chairs were very close together ... but they tried their best," she said. "They came around with hand sanitizer a lot and kept reminding people that were taking off their masks, they had to keep them on.

Another tourist, Nelson Perez, 34, described the moment he and his family were told they had to leave their room at Grand Resorts in Cancun.

"The evacuation yesterday was a little crazy but the hotel really took care of us," he told NBC News in an interview Wednesday.

Perez, who is from Colorado, said some people had to wait in line for nearly six hours to get a cot to sleep on. The hotel tried to keep guests entertained by setting up movies and arranging small group activities like dance classes.

Story continues

The hurricane made landfall about 23 miles south of Cancun around Puerto Morales, toppling trees and cutting electricity to parts of Cancun and Cozumel. Just prior to the storm reaching Mexico, it had increased in strength by 80 mph in just 24 hours, more than doubling from a 60 mph storm.

Perez said that since Delta has passed, things have calmed down.

The Sinclairs said they did not lose power during the hurricane, but flooding became an issue when rain started to pour inside an area of the lobby. Luckily, it didnt go through to where we were sitting or laying," Jake said.

The couple said they can't leave their hotel for at least the next two days because the island remains shut down, but they plan to make the most of their honeymoon before heading home on Monday.

Theres no flights, theres no ferries.  So we are stuck here," Nicole said.

"Well just take it one day at a time and depending on what happens and what they tell us is how well approach it," Jake added.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there were no reports of deaths or injuries in Mexico from the hurricane. By late morning, Delta had slightly weakened to maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, but it is expected to strengthen again to a Category 4 by Thursday evening.

The National Hurricane Center has already issued a hurricane watch for the Gulf Coast between High Island, Texas, and Grand Isle, Louisiana, and a tropical storm watch for areas farther west and east, including New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain.

States of emergency have been declared in Alabama and Louisiana ahead of the storm's arrival.

Delta is expected to make landfall along the central Gulf Coast late Friday or very early Saturday morning. It will be the 10th hurricane landfall on the mainland U.S. this season, setting a new record for the number of landfalls in a single season.
New Zealands sheep and beef sectors are close to becoming net-zero thanks to the woody vegetation on many of the country's farms, researchers say.

Woody vegetations have helped offset between 63% and 118% of on-farm agricultural emissions, a new study, led by Auckland University of Technology (AUT), says.

If the mid-point in the reports range is used, on average the woody vegetation on sheep and beef farms is absorbing about 90 percent of these emissions.

Beef + Lamb New Zealand CEO Sam McIvor said absolute greenhouse gas emissions from NZ sheep and beef production had reduced by 30% since 1990.

This research shows that of the remaining emissions, the vast majority are being offset by the trees on our farms and New Zealand sheep and beef farmers are well on the way to being carbon neutral by 2050.

The study should also reassure consumers that New Zealand beef and lamb is among the most sustainable in the world, and our farmers are making a significant contribution to addressing on-farm agricultural emissions."

According to the AUT report, the woody vegetation is made up of 1.52 million hectares of native forest and 0.48 million hectares of exotic vegetation.

In addition to sequestering carbon, this vegetation delivers wider benefits for New Zealands biodiversity and freshwater ecosystems.

The report identifies where sheep and beef farmers can focus on to continue to build the native vegetation and biodiversity on their farms, said Dr Bradley Case, of AUT.

The regional maps in the research indicate where management is most needed to ensure mature/old growth forests are managed to prevent them becoming sources of atmospheric carbon.

Importantly, the net carbon emissions estimation assumed a net-neutral rate for soil sequestration so the amount of sequestration happening could be even greater.

He added: While there is fairly good information about soil carbon stocks, there is not good data about yearly changes in soil sequestration and the science on this is still in development.

In the UK, the Committee on Climate Change has called for industries to drastically reduce its emissions to zero over the next three decades.

Its report, released last year, recommended emissions to fall by 80% what they were in 1990. But major changes were needed to meet the new target, it said.

These include a supply of low-carbon electricity, electric vehicles, stopping biodegradable waste going to landfill, increasing tree planting and measures to reduce farm emissions.

For the agricultural industry, farmers are striving to reach net zero across England and Wales by 2040 as a contribution to a new target of 2050 for the whole of the UK.
Throughout his 40 year tenure in advertising, Rishad has been a leader in next-generation trends and technology. Most notably, he founded Starcom IP and Giant Step, led innovation at VivaKi, helped launch SMG Search, Denuo, and Play, and ultimately served as Chief Growth Officer and Chief Strategist of Publicis Groupe, the world's third largest communication firm employing 80,000 people. Rishad has also been the Chairman of DigitasLBi and Razorfish, two of the premier marketing transformation agencies in the world, and has served as a member of the management committee and Directoire of Publicis Groupe. Since leaving his full-time post with Publicis Groupe earlier this year, he has transitioned to a Senior Advisor for the Groupe and shifted his focus to speaking and writing, notably, publishing his first book: Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data.

The addition of Tobaccowala to the advisory board validates and advances Popular Pays' vision of the future of marketing - a combination of workflow software, expert service, and a specialized and remote network of creators. As a champion for change, innovation, and re-invention and a firm believer in maintaining a humanistic approach in a digital culture, Tobaccowala is well aligned with Popular Pays' core values and will be an invaluable addition to the company.

"Popular Pays is an intriguing mix of a digital technology platform and a community of creative artists working on the most popular network of all time, which I call the People's Network," said Tobaccowala. "Today this network comprises major social media platforms, gaming platforms, YouTube and more. Popular Pays allows the power of an individual's creativity to be unleashed on the most scaled networks in ways that benefit both marketers and content creators."

Rishad is anchoring the Popular Pays advisory board, founded to help brands and agencies navigate the future of content creation and advertising. "We couldn't think of a better person to start it with" says CEO of Popular Pays Corbett Drummey. "We're entering a period of tremendous change for brands, agencies, and their communities. But as the consummate futurist, Rishad is always thinking about how to embrace change to secure positive outcomes, and he knows how to lead people and organizations through that process. Together we believe we can transform how the industry approaches content creation and distribution in this new agile and remote era."

Drummey is aiming to add at least two more industry leaders to the Popular Pays advisory board in the next year.

About Popular Pays

Making an impact means having great content, and lots of it. Popular Pays' software allows you to connect with creators, collaborate on content, and track your work one-to-one or at scale. Their solutions make it easy for brands to quickly and efficiently generate a library of high-quality authentic content for influencer marketing or for the brand's use in owned or paid advertising.

Popular Pays is the most popular software solution to collaborate with influencers and content creators as rated on G2 crowd. They are Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest Marketing Partners with access to first-party network data. They are headquartered in Chicago, with sister offices in New York City and Los Angeles.

SOURCE Popular Pays
On the cover of yesterdays New York Post, the presidents favorite paper, is a picture of Trump, looking regal, and peeling off his face mask. FACE OFF, the headline reads. Prez claims: Dont be afraid of COVID. Such a gesture is open to interpretation. Either, you might say, as some have, that Trump is emulating the kind of Gospel wisdom espoused by the likes of Pope John Paul II (Be not afraid), that what Trump means to say is that God is in His Heaven, thus, as Julian of Norwich put it, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things will be well. Alternatively, you might say that Trump is exhibiting the sort of reckless personal pride that typically precedes a gigantic tumble.

In either case, the headline does recall the fate of a certain prime minister of the United Kingdom, who at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis was quite adamant that human fearlessness was the way to go. This singularly cheerful chap boasted about his shaking hands with everybody at a hospital he visited  as if COVID-19 worked something like AIDS  including hands belonging to coronavirus patients. We all know how that turned out. Boris Johnson contracted the virus, was admitted to the hospital, and thereafter was moved to an intensive-care unit, where he now says that it could have gone either way. Having fallen gravely ill, Johnson grappled (with varying degrees of success) with the following issues which we might also consider in relation to Trump.

Transparency with the public.

As National Reviews editorial on the subject reads, at this sensitive moment, it is of the utmost important that the White House convey accurate information about the presidents condition. We opined that the initial talk of mild symptoms and Trumps going to hospital out of an abundance of caution was misleading, as was the White House physicians dancing around to avoid disclosing that the president had received supplemental oxygen.

Story continues

There was a very similar dancing around in Britain with regard to Johnsons diagnosis. When he was first admitted to the hospital, in April, Johnson tweeted that he was going in for some routine tests, since he was, after ten days, still experiencing coronavirus symptoms, though he assured the public that he was in good spirits. The BBCs political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, complained that after very, very little information was shared today, the prime minister was taken into intensive care at around 19:00 BST. The result of this strategy was more fear and distrust, not less.

An opportunity for political enemies to gain ground.

In response to the presidents positive coronavirus test, the Biden-Harris campaign removed all negative political ads, as well they should have. However, lest Trump think that the outpouring of love, which has been incredible, should serve his interests, he should consider the case of Johnson, whose national unity was short-lived and immediately followed by a major dive in the polls. As Johnson was on his back foot, fighting for his life, Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, emerged in the public eye as a compassionate and competent leader. Once the prime minister was back to work and floundering, Starmer was able to use his new image as leverage while savaging Johnson during the weekly debate sessions.

Johnson enjoys a comfortable majority in Parliament. Trump is just weeks before an election. He cant afford to cede any more ground in the polls to Biden.

Grandiose claims of personal strength.

When Johnson was sick, Trump described him as someone who is strong and doesnt give up. Perhaps he sees something of himself in him? Dominic Raab, the British foreign secretary and second in command, made similar remarks, noting that he knew Johnson would pull through because he was a fighter. Such rhetoric backfired. Is the implication (asked the indignant band of BBC journalists) that those who do succumb to the disease are weak and wimpy?

Regardless of how it was intended, many have also interpreted Trumps Dont be afraid of COVID, the disease that has killed over 200,000 Americans, as a personal insult. Johnson made up for this by, after his recovery, stressing his struggle with his weight, hence humbling himself as a man of ordinary vulnerability as well as the great physical strength for which he insists he is famed. (Johnson once told me that the most noteworthy thing about him is that hes immensely physically strong.)

From all this, Johnsons politics have sadly not recovered. Knocked down by the virus, the prime minister fell a liberal Tory and has risen a bumbling authoritarian. He has gone from not being cautious enough to being overly and arbitrarily micromanaging. Initially Johnsons popularity ratings soared. No longer. Of course, he can afford this setback (at least for now). Britain had its last election in December, when he swept up a massive parliamentary majority. The same cannot be said for Trump, whose health and political future have never looked more precarious.

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A man wanted for alleged child sex offences faces extradition from Italy to face a Western Australian court after authorities finally tracked him down, nine years after he left the country.

Charles Batham, 76, flew out of Australia in 2011 after he was charged with 31 child sex offences in the tourist town of Broome.

Having proclaimed his innocence to friends at the time, the former tour guide and light-plane operator in the remote Kimberley region flew to Malaysia and then moved on to Europe.

He was placed on Interpol's Red Notice list, as Australian authorities made fruitless efforts to try to locate him.

An ABC investigation in February this year prompted a series of tip-offs about Batham's whereabouts, and one of these bore fruit as he was arrested in March this year in an Italian coastal resort town.

Charles Batham (pictured) faces being extradited back to Australia to face child sex charges

The former tour guide (pictured above) denied the charges to friends before flying abroad

'Australia is seeking Mr Batham's extradition from Italy for prosecution in Western Australia for alleged child sexual offences,' the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department said in a statement provided to the ABC.

'Australian authorities will work with Italian authorities to make arrangements for his surrender  [while] Mr Batham remains in extradition custody in Italy.'

Batham was a well-known resident in Broome, running a highly successful small plane tour business.

In November of 2010, Batham appeared in the Broome Magistrates Court to answer charges of intent to expose a person under 13 to indecent matter and one count of possessing child exploitation material.

There were further charges, including 11 counts of indecently recording a child under 13, and six counts of sexual penetration of a child under 13.

Batham's victim accused him of molesting her after becoming friends with her parents when she was just ten years old.

In 2014 Batham, who had joint British and Australian citizenship, was issued a fresh passport in the United Kingdom despite being on the Interpol list.

He then reportedly lived in a villa in Turkey for two years before eventually moving to Italy.

His arrest was covered by Italian media, who recently revealed Batham was being held in a prison in the northern province of Pordenone.

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to see Batham's extradition delayed as travel restrictions mean WA police are unable to fly to Italy and Batham cannot be brought back into Australia.

With a backlogged court system in Italy and Batham having the right to appeal his extradition, the process will take time.

Batham's alleged victim said she was prepared for the wait to see him brought before an Australian court.

'There's still a long way to go, but it's better than the limbo I was living in before.

'It sounds like it could take quite a while to get him back to Australia, especially with everything going down with coronavirus over there, but I'm really hoping that it will happen.'
The international insurance broking group Howden recently announced that it has agreed to acquire A-Plan Group, one of the UKs largest personal and commercial lines insurance brokers.

The deal promises to create one of the UKs largest insurance brokers managing more than 4 billion of gross written premium for 1.5 million clients, and operating from more than 100 locations.

After the merger, Howdens parent company, Hyperion, will become the fifth largest employee-owned business headquartered in the UK with more than 8,000 employees, including 4,500 in the UK.

The acquisition remains subject to regulatory approval.

The new partnership will bring together Howdens specialty and reinsurance business and A-Plan Groups personal and commercial lines expertise, which it delivers via its established brands including A-Plan and Endsleigh.

For Howden the transaction means significantly broadening its retail distribution and specialist product capabilities in the UK and adding A-Plans distribution model of an office network and digital and online channels.

Carl Shuker will continue to lead A-Plan Group as CEO, reporting to Jose Manuel Gonzalez, CEO Howden Broking Group. Chris Evans will become chairman of A-Plan Group in addition to his role as deputy CEO, Howden UK. Max Carruthers, chairman, A-Plan Group, will continue to support the business after completion, the announcement said.

David Howden, CEO of Hyperion Insurance Group, said that both firms have a very strong culture of entrepreneurship with employee ownership at its heart and a relentless client focus.

Carl Shuker, CEO of A-Plan Group, said that the markets Howden and A-Plan serve are highly complementary.

Topics Mergers Agencies
The great Indian Festive season has started amid the COVID-19 pandemic. We all know what kind of a washout the first half of 2020 has been when it comes to businesses and even personal lives being completely disrupted. Given the strict Government directives on maintaining social distancing, the huge crowds of shoppers that usually throng the markets during this time might be a lot less this year.

In normal circumstances, brands look at the festive season as an opportunity to gain maximum ROI, leveraging the consumer sentiments during this time. However, the unprecedented conditions have dampened the economy so far. While some are sceptical about businesses picking up during the rest of the year, we are also seeing a general mood of optimism.

Amid such a scenario, Adgully has reached out to marketers and publishers across India to gauge the sentiments during the festive season this year as part of our special series on Festive Mood. Over the next few weeks, we will be bringing the views and insights from various markets on how marketers and publishers are endeavouring to trigger a revival and give a boost to festive sentiments.

Sidhant Bhutani, Head of Marketing, Simba, is optimistic about a business and sales picking up for the alco-bev industry as India Unlocks. In this interaction with Adgully, Bhutani talks about his companies plans this festive season.

How do you see the consumer sentiments across the nation this year? Which markets are seen as leading the rebound and how? What factors will drive growth this festive season? How much do you see festive sales getting impacted due to COVID-19 this year?

The current health crisis has impacted consumers across industries and alco-bev industry is no exception to the impact. The pandemic panic and looming uncertainty are prevalent and have forced people to stay at home, impacting businesses and sales for the alco-bev industry. However, the governments ease on restriction and clarity on movement have started to move things in a positive direction. As restaurants and bars begin to open up slowly and with the ease of restriction on serving liquor, people are finally mustering up the courage to slowly step out with increased safety and security.

Consumers are adapting to the new normal by integrating technology and online space into their lives at every step, one can see the rise of revenge consumption and festive season will be the perfect opportunity for consumers to return to their original buying behaviour. While earlier consumers were apprehensive of buying from online portals, the lockdown has definitely bridged that gap, even for liquor industry with the onset of online and home delivery.

This festive season will act as a good occasion for people to get together and spend time with their families and friends in smaller groups. It will be a period of indulgence post the lockdown, acting as a springboard for alco-bev and F&B industry. For the upcoming festive season, Simba will be introducing a slew of merchandise such as playing cards and chocolates with Paul and Mike, to offer our consumers something innovative and new. We will also continue our Roar from Home series  these cool virtual gigs with independent music artistes, giving people at home a reason to party and enjoy the festive season from the comfort of their homes.

What kind of integrated marketing activities are you planning for the festive season? On which platforms will you be investing your ad spends more and Why? What kind of digital push are you looking at?

Being a new-age brand, Simba has believed in and relied on the strength, impact and reach of digital media, especially social media to reach our target audience. As one of the leading craft beer brands in India, Simba is keeping a close watch on emerging consumer trends and their buying behaviour. Aligned with this, we are meeting our audiences where they are today, using multiple digital tools and speaking their language. As a responsible brand, we are also leveraging our owned assets to spread awareness, in light of the current health crisis.

The pandemic presented us with an opportunity to relook at and realign our existing strategies and norms to conceptualise creative ways of connecting with people and deliver enhanced consumer experience in the new normal. This led to the inception of Roar from Home  where we took our IP Simba Uproar to our consumers, while encouraging upcoming artistes from around the country to showcase their musical talent. We have planned a series of Roar from Home gigs with multiple artistes for the upcoming festive season.

We anticipate at-home consumption will peak during the festive season as people will continue to meet at each others houses. This will give a boost to sales as people will bulk buy for at-home gatherings.

To add to the festive cheer, this year Simba has forayed into a new segment and launched limited edition beer based chocolates in collaboration with another homegrown brand, Paul and Mike  countrys finest farm to bar chocolate makers.

Do you see retail footfalls increasing during the festive season, given that people are still not venturing out for shopping in a big way? What alternate routes are you looking at to shore up sales  such as e-commerce, online purchases, D2C initiatives?

Retail sales during festive season are looking up, considering its been a tough year. Given the current scenario, we have noticed consumers are bulk buying stock for the festive season to host people at home. Moreover, home delivery of alcohol as an alternative has given people the option to celebrate without stepping out of their houses. While restaurants and bars are slowly reopening across the country, retail will also begin to witness footfall with consumers taking necessary precautions.

At Simba, we have an array of interesting and cool merchandise for our consumers available on our own website. Aligned with the trend of online buying we are planning to expand our digital footprint and make our merchandise available on other e-commerce websites to ensure easy access.
Indias criminal justice system is struggling to deal with growing economic offences according to the latest Crime in India report released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which works under the Ministry of Home Affairs. The report has crime statistics for 2019. While the number of such offences has been increasing in the past few years, arrests and convictions have been coming down.

Annual growth in economic offences fastest since 2014

The number of reported economic offences in 2019 was 165,000, a growth of 6.1% over the 2018 number. This is the highest annual growth in the number of economic offences since 2014. These crimes grew at double-digit rates in 2013 and 2014. The NCRB classifies economic offences into three broad categories: criminal breach of trust; counterfeiting; and forgery, cheating and fraud. The third category has the largest share of economic offences.

Case pendency rising, arrests and convictions coming down

While the number of economic offence cases has been rising, the polices track record in dealing with them has been patchy. This is evident in a fall in the number of arrests and convictions, and a rise in pendency of cases. Even conviction rates, which rose in 2017 after a fall in 2016, have fallen for two consecutive years now. A report in this newspaper (https://bit.ly/3leQdUV) in January pointed to an increase in trial pendency in courts along with falling conviction rates for economic offences in recent years. The charge-sheeting rate  share of cases investigated by police in which charge sheets were filed  increased between 2014 and 2017, and has remained largely unchanged in the last three years.

The criminal justice system is wanting in terms of dealing with economic offences

A comparison of economic offences with other crimes in India shows that the criminal justice system is less capable when it comes to dealing with the former. In 2019, police investigation was pending in 54.6% of cases related to economic offences, compared to 29.3% of all cases registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). And the conviction rate was less than half the rate for all IPC crimes.

Why faster resolution of economic offence case is important

The Reserve Bank of India in its annual report for 2019-20 revealed that bank frauds amounting to 1.85 lakh crore were reported in the year 2019-20, an increase of over 159% from the previous year. This is in keeping with the recent rise in such frauds.

To be sure, bank fraud is only one of the 24 types of economic offences, a list that includes tax evasion, money laundering, insurance frauds, and stock market manipulation.

The increasing number of economic offences along with fewer arrests and poor conviction rate could encourage unscrupulous elements to indulge in more such activities. This will entail growing losses to both private and public wealth and erode Indias image as a rules-based economy.

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by Paul Wang

This is the first time that a teacher is subjected to this kind of punishment. The allegations date back to March 2019. The ban comes after the security law was imposed. Hong Kongs former chief executive Leung Chun-ying wants the names of the "guilty" made public.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews)  A primary school teacher lost his right to teach after he was accused of spreading pro-independence messages in class.

Unofficial sources say that the teacher (whose name has been withheld) worked at the Alliance Primary School in Kowloon Tong. The principal and vice principal were also reprimanded for lax monitoring.

This is the first time in the history of the territory that a teacher suffers such punishment for speaking about independence.

The Hong Kong Education Bureau claims that the teacher violated the Hong Kong constitution, which defines the territory as part of the People's Republic of China.

According to media reports, the teacher allegedly included the topic of freedom of speech in his lessons, and as an example he cited the independence proposals of the banned National Party of Hong Kong. He is also accused of discussing the situation in Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang.

About two hours out of 23 dedicated to life education were spent on these topics.

The teacher's ban is based on his lesson plan. The lessons were given in March 2019. The decision to deregister him stems from a complain to the Education Bureau filed the following September.

The severity of the measure taken two days ago can be explained by the atmosphere prevailing in the city

At the end of June, China imposed a National Security Law on Hong Kong that prohibits and prosecutes any act or activity of secession, subversion, terrorism and collaboration with foreign forces that endanger national security.

Any opinion that expresses support for Hong Kong's independence is deemed secession".

Last July, instructions were issued to schools not to sing hymns on Hong Kongs liberation, or shout slogans that could be construed as being pro-independence.

An opposition MP, Ip Kin-yuen, who represents the education constituency, criticised the Education Bureaus decision based only on the teachers lesson plan and not on what was actually said in the classroom.

Furthermore, the teacher was punished without having had the opportunity to explain himself.

Meanwhile, in what is effectively a return to the Cultural Revolution, former pro-Beijing chief executive Leung Chun-ying is leading a campaign to force the Education Bureau to release the names of teachers "guilty" of such professional misconduct.
Chandigarh, Oct 7 : Over 100 protesting farmers were taken into custody and detained from Haryana's Sirsa town on Wednesday for protesting against the contentious farm laws.

Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav was also taken into custody by the police.

However, farmer organisations said that they would continue with the protests.

"Why have you sunk to such incivility, my JJP friend?" Yadav tweeted.

He told the media he has been detained for joining a peaceful sit-in protest. Nearly 100 farmers and leaders were arrested.

The farmers had been squatting on a road close to Jannayak Janata Party leader and Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala's private residence, demanding his resignation from the post against the agricultural laws.

The police said the protesters were detained as the blockade was causing inconvenience to the public.

A day earlier, the police used water cannons to disperse groups of farmers as they were heading to Chautala's residence.

A stand-off between the police and protesters had continued for almost an hour near Chautala's residence. Later, the protesters were dispersed by the police.

"Dushyant Chautala has not spoken even a single word against the farm laws. We are protesting against the laws brought by the Centre to discontinue the MSP regime. His Jannayak Janta Party, which claims to be a party of farmers, is sitting on the BJP lap," protester Abhay Yadav had told the media.

Dushyant should either withdraw his party's support to the BJP government in the state or clear his stand on the issue, he had added.

Hundreds of farmers and arhtiyas (middlemen) have been protesting daily against the three laws across Haryana.
In the same way Hoover came to represent all products that suck up dirt and Google every internet search function, its no exaggeration to say that Van Halen was a byword for all that is awesome about hard rock.

Formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972 by guitarist Edward Lodewijk Van Halen and his older drummer brother Alex, Van Halen are a band as synonymous with the genre as denim and leather  to paraphrase British contemporaries Saxon. The death of their guitarist at the age of just 65 from throat cancer brings an end to a band that stood as a colossus of American pop culture for almost five decades. If you were a teenager in high school in the Seventies, the Eighties, maybe even beyond, its likely that you were a fan of the bands party rock'n'roll.

Eddie Van Halens only true peer passed away two years before the band Van Halen came to be. And yet its not Jimi Hendrix  an innovative player, yes, but a loose one  who sits parallel to Van Halen. Perhaps the Amsterdam-born virtuoso  who popularised the now-ubiquitous two-handed tapping technique  was closer in spirit and style to the great classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. When the Austrian died in 1791, his mentor Joseph Hayden was heard to exclaim that posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years. It took much longer than that.

Eddie Van Halen first heard music not long after hearing his father, a skilled clarinettist, saxophonist and pianist, speak. Indeed, upon moving to the United States in 1962, the two Van Halen brothers were given piano lessons by an elderly Lithuanian named Stasys Kalvaitis. Eddie was six. Between 1964 and 1967, Eddie consistently won first place in the yearly piano competition held at Long Beach City College, and yet his recitals of Bach, Mozart and other greats contained free-form elements, suggesting the younger Van Halen hadnt learnt to read the compositions as much as feel them.

Despite this, the instrument didnt take and the brothers grew bored of the piano. Alex bought a guitar. Eddie a drum set. They swapped after Alex developed a flair for performing the chaotic drum solo in The Surfaris 1963 hit Wipe Out. Years later, Eddie would claim he couldnt really read music and had never had a guitar lesson other than Eric Clapton off of records. Eddie always put in the work. If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, he said, then run down the street naked; youll make the news or something. If you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play. And eventually youll get to where you want to be.

Which is all too simplistic in explaining the guitarists talent. Sure, Eddie played the guitar like it was an extension of his own body  You have to be emotionally and spiritually connected to your instrument, he once said  but he possessed an ability that remains scarce in its distribution and beyond comprehension to those who dont possess it. Something that suggested Eddie could hear the notes that others could not. He had, it must be said, a strange relationship with music: in 2015, he claimed the last album hed purchased was Peter Gabriels So in 1986. He never listened to the radio in his car. I prefer the sound of the motor, he said. It was almost like the sounds inside his own mind were enough.

En route to rock stardom, Van Halen took on many forms. The Broken Combs. The Trojan Rubber Co. Then Genesis  news hadnt yet reached the Van Halens of the band Peter Gabriel then fronted across the pond. Then they rebranded with one of the greatest band names never to make it to mass usage, Mammoth. But it was in 1974 whereupon the bands singer, a charismatic young man named Dave Lee Roth who the Van Halens had met while hiring his sound system some years prior, suggested the name Van Halen.

Years later, a further name change was suggested by Gene Simmons as the KISS bassist produced Van Halens first demo tape. The name? Daddy Longlegs. Wisely, the band rejected the suggestion and remained Van Halen. In 1983, at the US Festival in California, playing in front of a backdrop that sported the bands iconic logo, the band entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest-paid single appearance of a band. The fee was $1.5m dollars. The idea of that band being named Daddy Longlegs is worthy of much mirth.

Ultimately, Van Halen wasnt as much a band as a brand (AP 2004)

There were many factors behind Van Halens era-defining success. There was the unrivalled ingenuity of the guitarist. Eddies scorching solo on Michael Jacksons 1983 hit Beat It, recorded in one take and for free, as a favour to producer Quincy Jones, is perhaps the most dangerous  no pun intended  that the pop icon ever sounded. Theres also the flamboyance of Dave Lee Roth, whose passion for glitz and showbiz often rubbed the workmanlike Eddie up the wrong way  Roth had stints in and out of the band, being either replaced by Sammy Hagar or Gary Cherone  despite the guitarists own penchant for partying, until he declared himself sober in 2008.

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There is the bands nous with melody and hooks. Its somewhat criminal, and bizarre, that 1984 synth-pop banger Jump was the bands only No 1 single, but when it came to the art of the long-player, few have done it better, delivering at least six classic albums; their self-titled debut (1978), breakthrough hit 1984 (in, um, 1984), Fair Warning (1981), Women and Children First (1980), Van Halen II (1979), and Sammy Hagars debut, 5150 (1986), the best they ever got without Roth fronting the band.

But ultimately, Van Halen wasnt as much a band as a brand. A brand you could trust. One that offered near constant quality, and fun, and volume and sass. Eddie Van Halen was that brands CEO. He presided over some of the biggest, boldest rock'n'roll ever committed to tape, and brought the genre to stadiums itd never leave. May he now rest forever at the head of the great big boardroom in the sky.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has so far issued refunds of over Rs 1.21 lakh crore to nearly 36 lakh taxpayers in the current financial year (2020-21).

It has issued income tax refunds of over Rs 33,000 crore in more than 34 lakh cases and corporate tax refund of more than Rs 88,000 crore in over 1.83 lakh cases.

"The CBDT issues refunds of over Rs 1,21,607 crore to more than 35.93 lakh taxpayers between April 1 and October 6. Income tax refunds of Rs 33,238 crore have been issued in 34,09,246 cases and corporate tax refunds of Rs 88,370 crore in 1,83,773 cases," the Income Tax Department said in a tweet on Wednesday.

The Finance Ministry had earlier said that in view of the issues arising out of the coronavirus pandemic, emphasis was on release of all refunds in the earliest possible time.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Foul smell and smoke emanating from the fire that broke out at the garbage dump in Dadumajra on Tuesday gave the residents living in the vicinity a sleepless night.

Fire tenders continued to control the fire even on Wednesday, but heaps of waste at the site kept smouldering.

Those living in Dadumajra, Sector 38 (West), Sector 25 and New Chandigarh complained of low visibility, thick smoke, foul smell filling up their homes, making it difficult to breathe, and irritation in throats.

Several complaints of burning sensation in the eyes due to thick smoke, which continues to engulf the surrounding areas, were also reported. Owing to poor visibility, commuters found it difficult to cross the stretch of road between Dadumajra and Mullanpur.

Fire officer Surjit Singh said, Two water boozers and four fire tenders deployed at the site are continually throwing water to douse the flames. Around 15 trucks are being used to throw mud on the heaps of garbage to prevent the flames from spreading.

Anil Kumar Garg, chief fire officer, said, The fire is under control and the smoke will also be curtailed soon. The cause of fire is yet to be ascertained. Presence of plastic and other synthetic compounds in the waste is prolonging the smoke and fire.

Cause of fire unclear, theories abundant

Though the exact cause of the fire is still unclear, the residents are blaming the municipal corporation (MC) and the authorities suspect it to be the work of scrap dealers.

ALSO READ: Fire erupts at Dadumajra dumping ground in Chandigarh

The scrap dealers burn the plastic coating to extract wires that could have led to the fire. As methane gas is emitted from the waste material, the fire spread over a large area, said a fire official on the ground.

The fire may have been caused by a stray burning bidi or cigarette, added another official.

In violation of the norms of the NGT, the height of the garbage dump is increasing so those responsible for dumping the garbage here sometimes burn heaps, said Dyal Krishan, president, Dadumajra Dumping Site Joint Action Committee.

Solid waste management is an albatross around the neck for Chandigarh. During one of its hearings, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had observed: We are sorry to observe that the municipal corporation, Chandigarh, and the project proponent both have left no stone unturned to ensure that the most beautiful city is converted into a junkyard.

Dr PS Bhatti, former medical officer of health (MOH), Chandigarh, who visited the site, said, At present, only 50 metric tonne (MT) of municipal solid waste (MSW) is being processed. Rest of the 550 MT is being directly thrown in the dumping ground. Methane gas is constantly generated from the unprocessed garbage, leading to frequent fires.

Authorities have failed us: Residents

Residents took to social media to share videos of the fire at the dumpsite, in an attempt to highlight their plight. Authorities have completely failed us, said Dyal Krishan.

Last night, many residents of the surrounding areas reported difficulty in breathing, choking of throat, irritation in eyes, chest congestion and sleeplessness as the smoke entered their houses. The authorities had planned to shift the dumpsite, but no concrete step was taken, he added.

Major DP Singh, patron of Chandigarh Residents Association Welfare Federation (CRAWFED), said, Residents of all nearby sectors such as 14, 24, 25, 37, 38, 38W, 39 and surrounding colonies live at the mercy of the wind directions. The fires at the dumping ground have become a regular feature.

Vinod Vashisht, convener of City Forum of Residents Welfare Organisations (CFORWO), said, Ever since the MC took over the plant in June, waste processing has become worse. The plant is not operating to its optimal capacity. He added that solid waste incineration at the thermax furnace of the plant had not been done for the last six months.

Baljinder Singh Bittu, chairman of Federation of Sectors Welfare Association Chandigarh (FOSWAC), said, How long can we keep on suffering? If need be, our federation will knock the doors of the high court and the National Green Tribunal.

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Updated Oct 7., 2020, 6:58 AM Hurricane Delta weakened to a Category 3 storm just before slamming into the coast of Mexico, but remains life-threatening.

Delta came ashore along the northeastern Yucatan Peninsula near Puerto Morelos, the National Hurricane Center said at 6:49 a.m. in New York. Maximum sustained winds were near 115 miles per hour (185 kilometers per hour) and the storm surge will raise water levels by as much as 8-12 feet along the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, the center said earlier Wednesday. The hurricane is predicted to strengthen again to Category 4 as it moves over the Gulf of Mexico toward the U.S. in the coming days.

Little change in strength is expected before the center reaches the coast of the Yucatan peninsula during the next few hours, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Although some weakening is likely when Delta moves over the Yucatan peninsula, re-strengthening is forecast when the hurricane moves over the southern Gulf of Mexico Wednesday night and Thursday.

The hurricane is forecast to churn through the energy-producing region of the Gulf before likely hitting Louisiana, which has been struck twice already this year, on Saturday.

Deltas winds can snap trees, flatten houses and cause power outages lasting weeks.

Extremely dangerous storm surge and hurricane conditions are expected within portions of the northern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, said Dan Brown, a meteorologist with the center.

Delta threatens to become the latest in a string of deadly natural disasters in 2020, a year that has been marked by a hyperactive hurricane season, devastating wildfires and a derecho that wreaked havoc across the U.S. Midwest. It will be the record 10th tropical storm or hurricane to hit the U.S. in a year. So many have formed that the hurricane center has used up all the names on its official list and has resorted to the Greek alphabet to designate systems.

Deltas winds grew from 70 mph to 110 mph in 24 hours, which is the fastest intensification for an October storm since Hurricane Wilma in 2005, Colorado State Universitys Klotzbach said in a Tweet.

Cancun and the nearby island of Cozumel are poised to get hit hard, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research. Delta could cause $12 billion to $16 billion in damage and losses to Mexico and another $2 billion to the U.S. coast later this week, depending on its exact path, he said.

Mexico has started to evacuate the hotel zone in Cancun and the island of Holbox as the Yucatan readies for the impact of Delta, Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquin said in a tweet. Meanwhile, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday hes sending 5,000 members of Mexicos armed forces to the Yucatan for prevention efforts.

Hurricane Wilma forced 70,000 people to flee and left 300,000 homeless after it struck the Yucatan in October 2005, according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information. The storm came ashore with winds of 130 mph near Playa del Carmen on Oct. 22.

Oil and gas producers including Enbridge Inc., BHP Group and Royal Dutch Shell Plc were evacuating or preparing to evacuate workers from Gulf platforms ahead of Delta. Operators had shut about 29% of crude production and 8.6% of gas output, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said. The hurricane is poised to clip the Cameron liquefied natural gas plant, which had just resumed exports after being shut in late-August.

After Delta loses power over the Yucatan, its expected to return briefly to Category 4 strength in the Gulf as it moves toward Louisiana, which was struck by Hurricane Laura in August. Cool water and wind shear in the northern Gulf could weaken Delta, but it will likely make landfall again as a hurricane, said Rob Miller, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.

There is an increasing likelihood of life-threatening storm surge and dangerous hurricane-force winds, especially along the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi, beginning on Friday, the hurricane centers Brown said in an advisory.

New Orleans urged residents to gather food, water & medication for at least three days in a text via its emergency alert system on Tuesday.

Miller said he expects the storm to strike somewhere west of New Orleans, but storm surge, heavy rains and winds could reach as far east as the Florida Panhandle.

This region of the county is the magnet for hurricanes this year, Miller said.

The Atlantic has spawned 25 storms this year, the second most on record after 2005, when deadly Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans.

With assistance from Joe Carroll, Lorena Rios, Cyntia Barrera Diaz, Stephen Cunningham, Sheela Tobben, Serene Cheong and Ben Sharples.

Top photo: Workers remove a sunshide in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Delta, in Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo state, Mexico on October 6, 2020. Photographer: Elizabeth Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Louisiana USA Hurricane Mexico
Extending their gaining streak into the fifth session in a row, the benchmark indices ended over half a per cent higher on Wednesday, led by buying in Reliance Industries (RIL) and HDFC Bank.

Among the headline indices, the S&P BSE Sensex ended 304 points, or 0.77 per cent higher at 39,879 levels and the Nifty50 index settled above the 11,700-mark at 11,739, up 76 points, or 0.66 per cent. India VIX rose over 2 per cent to 20 levels.

RIL gained over 2 per cent to Rs 2,257 after the company said Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) will invest Rs 5,512.50 crore into the company's subsidiary Reliance Retail Ventures (RRVL) for 1.2-per cent stake.

Titan (up 4.5 per cent) ended as the biggest gainer on the Sensex after the company said its jewellery business did very well in the September quarter (Q2FY21), with a recovery rate of around 98 per cent (excluding sale of raw gold), compared to the revenue of the corresponding quarter in the last year.

Shares of Solara Active Pharma Sciences hit a record high of Rs 1,245 on the BSE, in the intra-day trade on the back of heavy volumes. The stock eventually settled at Rs 1,166, up 11 per cent.

The trend among Nifty sectoral indices was mixed. Nifty Auto gained the most - up 1.4 per cent while Nifty Media was the biggest loser (down over 2.5 per cent).

The broader market, meanwhile, underperformed. The S&P BSE MidCap index slipped 0.6 per cent while the S&P BSE SmallCap index ended 0.4 per cent lower at 15,049 levels.

Now, let's take a look at the global

European shares rose on Wednesday, as initial dismay at US President Donald Trumps decision to cancel fiscal stimulus negotiations with lawmakers in Washington was replaced by optimism about an aid package after the US elections.

Asian stocks hit two-week highs.

In commodities, oil prices extended their decline after US President Donald Trump dashed hopes for a fourth stimulus package to boost the coronavirus-hit economy and on a larger-than-expected increase in US crude inventories.
A Jacksonville High School students project to sell bracelets to raise money for the Mia Ware Foundation will get a boost from a farms annual pumpkin patch.

Breast cancer awareness hits close to home for Addy Blimling, 14. Her mother, Sam Blimling, survived a bout of breast cancer a few years ago.

To raise money for the Mia Ware Foundation, Addy started selling hand-made pink bracelets at the Murrayville farmers market  where she set up a station to sell them and take other donations, she said.

I want to raise awareness and support our local Mia Ware Foundation, since my mom is a breast cancer survivor, Addy said.

The bracelets are made of bright pink rubber bands  the color of breast cancer awareness  and sell for $2 each. Addy already has sold around 100 bracelets  well more than her original goal of making 50.

Addy will have the opportunity to sell even more bracelets this weekend. She has teamed up with Keithley Farms to sell her bracelets at their popular pumpkin patch.

Keithley Farms owner Kendric Keithley has been friends with Addys family for years  including going to school with Addys father, Jared. After seeing that Addy was selling bracelets, Keithley told the family he could help them out.

Along with money from the bracelets and other donations, 20% of the farms proceeds this Friday, Saturday and Sunday will go to the Mia Ware Ware Foundation, donated in Addys name.

Weve had some breast cancer close to our family, Keithley said. To a certain extent I know what they had to deal with, and I think what Addy is doing is absolutely remarkable.

For this weekends event, Addy is planning on selling 100 bracelets, she said.

The support Addy saw friends and family offer her mother in the wake of her breast cancer diagnosis rubbed off on Addy, Sam Blimling said.

It was a really difficult time, Addy said. All the support from family and friends really helped us through that time in our lives.

Addy said she is grateful for the donation Keithley is making in her name.

It is super-amazing and they are really good people for letting me do this, Addy said.

Sam Blimling said the support made the difficult time easier for her family, noting her family also was fortunate to have health insurance through her husbands job  something that not every family dealing with a cancer diagnosis has.

The Mia Ware Foundation can help families in a tough financial situation during a battle with cancer, she said.

Keithley also is planning to auction products such as pumpkins that have been painted pink with the money going to the foundation. The farm will be open from 3:30 to 6 p.m. Friday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. The farm is at 2355 Illinois Route 78.
While the health crisis has dealt a serious blow to the economy, a new study by 'Fondation Idea' shows that the labour market has already recovered.

According to data from Statec, the number of salaried jobs in August exceeded the figure recorded in February of this year. In absolute terms, the "job creation machine" has thus already compensated for the losses caused by the coronavirus.

Fondation Idea noted that these new jobs benefit both residents and cross-border workers. However, due to the nature of the sectors in which many cross-border workers are employed (shops, catering, etc.), the latter's return to work has on average been slower than that of residents.

 Fondation Idea

Despite the loss of 9,055 jobs in march and April, the Grand Duchy has since seen the creation of 9,761 positions. This is all the more impressive when compared to neighbouring countries: even during the first half of the year, employment in Luxembourg fell by just 0.3%, compared to 1.1% in Belgium, 1.4% in Germany, and 2.8% in France.

Luxembourg is also one of the only European countries to have gained jobs between the 2nd quarter of 2019 and the 2nd quarter of 2020 (+ 1.4%). "This resilience of employment confirms that the partial unemployment scheme set up to protect businesses and help households has allowed significant labour retention," according to Fondation Idea.

Luxembourg has been resilient, however..

Even though Luxembourg is a "job creating machine", it has not been unharmed by the crisis, according to Fondation Idea. It could have done much better.

At the end of June, more than 471,700 people were working in Luxembourg. That is 6,560 more than a year ago. But referring to the trend of recent years, without the crisis, "the country would have had 7,530 additional jobs". Beyond the exact number, the distribution of "missing" jobs bust be kept in mind. According to Fondation Idea's calculations, these josb would been in the sectors of trade, transport, housing hospitality, and specialised activities or administrative services.

Support as much as possible, save as much as necessary!

In August, the country still had nearly 1,900 more unemployed people than before the confinement (6.4% unemployment in August compared to 5.5% in February). Although the general trend is downward, long-term unemployment has increased: in August, Adem registered a 29% increase in those registered for more than a year.

For Fondation Idea, emphasis should now be placed on supporting the economy. "Support as much as possible, save as much as necessary!". Despite the impossibility of predicting which health measures will be taken in the coming months, the government must "avoid cascading bankruptcies and layoffs". Above all, it will have to prevent the recovery from being split in two, with on the one hand solid sectors which have rebounded (administration and public services, finance and insurance, construction, etc.) and others unable to recover ( shops, catering, industry...). This will notably involve the integration of young people and the fight against unemployment of senior workers, who are particularly affected. It will also be a question of encouraging consumers to spend the money saved during the containment, and which companies today badly need.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan gave an interview to Russias First Channel. The questions and answers are provided below.

Question: Were you surprised by the Azerbaijani offensive as to the intensity of fire and the military equipment being used, in particular, I mean the widespread use of drones?

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan - To be honest, it was not unexpected, as Azerbaijan had been using warlike rhetoric, hate speech against Armenians and everything related to Armenians for a long time. We had got accustomed to the language of threats.

What came as a surprise was the use of terrorist groups involved in this conflict. I think this changes the whole context of what is happening, because yesterday Russia, the Russian special services officially confirmed that fighters from some cross-border terrorist groups are involved in the hostilities, that is, in the attack on Nagorno-Karabakh.

I think that Nagorno-Karabakh is practically fighting against international terrorism, which makes great difference in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Question: The day before yesterday, you went to Stepanakert for the first time since the flare-up, where you met with the military, you probably saw a lot with your own eyes. The Azerbaijani armys tactics most likely consists in the use of high-precision weapons with a view to hitting Armenian logistics units. What do you oppose to that tactics?

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan - The Nagorno-Karabakh army opposes the mobility of its units and preventive strikes. It turned out to be quite effective. Besides, the troops of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army are successfully destroying their drones.

Question: The Azerbaijani leadership says they are prepared to halt the fire in case you recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as the territory of Azerbaijan; there are even demands to present a timetable for the withdrawal of Armenian troops from Nagorno-Karabakh. You take the opposite position. And this is like a dead end. What is the compromise acceptable for you? What compromises are unacceptable?

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan - You know, it would be inappropriate to talk about details in this atmosphere. As for the settlement, it seems to be obvious that compromise is needed to resolve a conflict. The Armenian side has always been ready for compromise. If Azerbaijan is prepared for compromise, too, it will change the situation.

Question: Baku blames you for violating the UN Security Council resolution on Karabakh. Which is your response to those accusations? And also, did those resolutions somehow manage to resolve the controversy?

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan - You know, the UN Security Council resolutions should not be taken out of context and presented in a different light. They need an in-depth analysis to understand what is stated there. They do not say anything about Armenias military operations at all.

The latest resolution states that Azerbaijan has violated the international ceasefire agreement, as a result of which it has lost territories, and those territories have been taken over by the self-defense forces of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia is referred to in a different context. Armenia is urged to use its ties with the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to somehow stabilize the situation. The last of those resolutions was adopted in 1993, at a time when there was a specific operational situation. I mean that those resolutions should not be cut out of context.

Question: Can the contradictions between Azerbaijan and Armenia spill over the borders of bilateral relations, or go beyond the boundaries of a bilateral conflict? You say that the Turkish military is actually leading the operation. What kind of international support do you expect if the war spills over the borders of the region?

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan - The situation has already gone beyond the borders of the region. I mean the borders of the Karabakh conflict zone, considering that radical elements and international terrorists are there. It already poses a threat to the security of all countries in the greater region. And this is a threat to global security. In other words, this has already gone beyond the borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

And, of course, Turkeys involvement is changing the context, too. I talked about it many times during the past week, during the last ten days. Why did Turkey return to the South Caucasus a hundred years later? For two reasons: to follow up the policy of genocide and to push ahead with its drive for expansion to the north, east and south. All this should be viewed in the context of the policy that Turkey is pursuing in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, with regard to Greece and Cyprus, and so on. This is a policy of restoring the Turkish Empire. This is a threat not only to our region in the narrow sense, but also to global security in the broadest sense.

And I am convinced that international partners should draw specific conclusions from this, as this is no longer a question of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenias security. This is a matter of security for many countries, and even for a wide range of superpowers.

Question: Nagorno-Karabakh has not yet been recognized by Armenia. Nevertheless, in recent days both you and the President of Armenia spoke about such an opportunity. Do you think that the recognition can help Karabakh in any way, or will it aggravate the situation?

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan - You asked the most important question, at least one of the most important questions. The question is that if our analysis shows that it will help Karabakh resolve the issue, we will take such a step; if not, we will refrain from making such a decision. We are holding discussions to that effect. In addition, we take into account the fact that we must act as a constructive member of the international community.

Question: The present confrontation is the deadliest one in the last quarter of a century. But sooner or later any war ends. What is your vision of peace?

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan - It is just necessary to cease the fire; the aggression against Karabakh should be stopped; we need to halt the terrorists because I consider this an international act of terrorism against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ahead of Bihar Assembly election 2020, former Director-General of Police (DGP) Gupteshwar Pandey on Wednesday made a major announcement, explaining his role in the upcoming polls. The former IPS officer, who had served as an outspoken DGP of Bihar until taking voluntary retirement, followed it up with a formal induction into the JD(U).

Pandey has been denied assembly ticket and following this, he took to a social media platform and posted about his major decision. In a Hindi post, he said, "I am upset with the phone of many of my well-wishers. I also understand their concern and problems. After my retirement, everyone expected that I would contest the election but this time I am not contesting the assembly elections."

He added, "There is nothing to be disappointed Be patient. My life has been spent in struggle. I will be in service of the public all my life. Please be patient and do not call me. My life is dedicated to the people of Bihar. I salute all the big brothers and sisters, mothers and youth of my native land Buxar, and all the elders and siblings of this place of religion. Keep your love and blessings!"

The BJP on Wednesday cleared names of two more candidates, including for the Buxar seat where speculations were rife that former DGP Gupteshwar Pandey may contest the state elections. The party gave a ticket to Parshuram Chaturvedi from Buxar constituency and Deepak Sharma from Arwal seat, a BJP statement said.

The saffron party had issued a list of 27 candidates for the first phase on Tuesday.

Declaration of name from the Buxar seat ends all speculations of the former state police chief being fielded in the October-November polls. Media reports suggested that Pandey, who took VRS in September and later joined the JD(U), could enter the poll fray from his native Buxar seat or Shahpur in the same district.

Both the seats went to the saffron party under the seat-sharing formula in the NDA. The BJP has already named Munni Devi from Shahpur assembly seat. Bihar BJP media department member Ashok Bhat said that Chaturvedi is presently a member of the state executive committee and has been a committed party member.

Both Buxar and Arwal seats will witness voting in the first phase on October 28 along with 69 other constituencies.

The Buxar seat was won by Sanjay Kumar Tiwari of the Congress in 2015 state elections while in Shahpur RJD'S Rahul Tiwari had defeated BJP's Visheshwar Ojha then.

Pandey, who made headlines for his 'aukaat' remark on actor Rhea Chakraborty, joined the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) on September 27. The former top cop came into limelight for his role in Bihar Police's investigation in the death case of Sushant Singh Rajput.

Pandey joined the party in the presence of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is also the JD(U) president, less than a week after taking voluntary retirement from service. Pandey's application for VRS was accepted by Governor Fagu Chauhan on September 21, five months before the 1987 batch IPS officer was to superannuate, and in a rare gesture, a three-month cooling-off period applicable to bureaucrats was waived in his case.

His much-anticipated induction took place a day after he met Kumar and insisted there was nothing political in their conversation. The 1987 batch IPS officer had strongly defended Kumar on the issue of institution of a CBI probe into the mysterious death of Sushant Singh Rajput, the Patna-born talented filmstar.

The voluble officer had reminded actor Rhea Chakraborty, Rajput's girlfriend and the main accused in the abetment to suicide case being probed by the CBI, of her 'aukaat' (status) to question Nitish Kumar, when she suggested that there was politics behind the Bihar government's decision to push for a CBI probe.

Bihar ke mukhyamantri pe comment karne ki aukaat Rhea Chakraborty ki nahi hai (Rhea Chakraborty does not have the status to comment on Bihar Chief Minister), he had remarked.

Pandey had said that he was asked to join the party by Nitish Kumar which he accepted. "I was called by the CM himself and asked to join the party and whatever the party asks me to do, I will do. I don't understand politics. I am a simple person who has spent his time working for the downtrodden section of society," he said.

"I have a long, loving association with Nitish Kumar. He personally called me and offered party membership. I have a public profile and connect with people...People love me. But I don't know anything about politics. I will do what I am asked to do," he added.

When asked about his possibility of contesting the upcoming assembly polls, Pandey had replied, "This is not a decision I have to take. I shall work as a disciplined soldier of the party. Whatever role the party leadership deems fit for me, I will be happy to play. When reporters persisted with the query, Nitish Kumars close aide Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh interjected, remarking in jocular vein "he has not yet submitted his biodata. Let him evince interest (in contesting the polls). Due consideration will be given".

Known for speaking his mind notwithstanding the constraints that came with the rules governing civil servants, Pandey was in the headlines while the governments of Maharashtra and Bihar were engaged in a tug of war over the investigation in Rajput's death case.

The Bihar DGP had publicly denounced the Mumbai municipal authorities for quarantining IPS officer Vinay Tiwari, who had landed in the western metropolis for heading the investigation after an FIR was lodged by Rajput's father, accusing Rhea Chakraborty and some others of abetting the actor's suicide.

The Shiv Sena, which heads the ruling coalition in Maharashtra, had accused Pandey of acting as a political pawn of the ruling dispensation in Bihar ahead of the assembly elections. Shiv Sena spokesman Sanjay Raut on the former DGP's VRS said, he was running a political agenda with his statements on the Mumbai case and now he is going to receive his award.

Maharashtra Home minister and NCP leader Anil Deshmukh had said that Pandey's quitting the job confirmed his doubts that in Rajput's death case he was making comments not as a DGP but as a BJP leader. Pandey has earlier brushed aside criticism from the Shiv Sena, saying "they keep saying many things, I don't give much credence to it."

Meanwhile, Pandey, who had famously resigned in 2009 to contest the Lok Sabha polls but returned to his job after his resignation was not accepted by the state government, got a thumbs up from the BJP. Union minister Giriraj Singh told reporters in his Lok Sabha constituency Begusarai that Pandey has always been hugely popular with the masses.

Live TV

"If he contests an election, he will win hands down, no matter whether he fights from Begusarai or anywhere else in Bihar, he said. Pandey has spent a significant part of his career in districts like Begusarai and Muzaffarpur.

The 243-member legislative assembly will be held in three phases -- the first phase on October 28, the second on November 3, and the third on November 7, while the counting of votes and results declaration will be held on November 10.
'There can be no dispute over the adverse impact such a policy will surely have on India's manufacturing competitiveness,' notes A K Bhattacharya.

Photograph: PTI Photo IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi, who entered his 20th year of public service on October 7, 2020.

On February 1, 2018, the Union Budget raised Customs duty on as many as 46 items in a bid to 'provide adequate protection to the domestic industry'.

This was the fifth and last full Budget of the Narendra Modi government in its first term.

But that was not the first time the Modi government betrayed its protectionist tendencies.

In the earlier four Budgets, presented by then finance minister Arun Jaitley, Customs duty was raised, but on only a few items.

In the first three Budgets, the reasons cited for the duty increases ranged between 'boosting domestic production' and 'incentivising domestic value addition' along with promoting 'Make in India.

The fourth Budget was a little more upfront by saying that the duty increase was necessary to 'provide adequate protection to the domestic industry'.

What made the fifth Budget in February 2018 a watershed in terms of the Modi government's love for protectionism was the huge increase in the number of items whose Customs duty was raised with immediate effect.

That this happened just about a year before the general election and that the subsequent Budgets of 2019 and 2020 have maintained the policy of raising tariffs are no less significant.

The logic or economic illogicality of raising Customs duty on a host of items in the name of protecting the domestic industry stems from the politics of nurturing domestic corporate and trade lobbies.

The Bombay Club of the 1990s had lost its battle against the Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh duo's tariff reduction policy, but it has bounced back with greater energy now, thanks largely to the political support it gets from the current ruling dispensation.

But how effective was the policy of increasing tariffs in 2018? Two years is a reasonably long period to assess the impact of any such tariff increases.

Import data for 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 are available and it would be instructive to see the impact those tariff measures of 2018 had on imports in the following two years.

Remember that the 46 items, whose Customs duty was raised from February 2018, accounted for 22-23 per cent of India's total imports in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017, the period immediately before 2018-2019 when the higher duty was levied.

The trajectory of imports of these 46 items was also significant.

In 2016-2017, their imports at $84 billion was a little less than the $88 billion of imports in 2015-2016.

So, why were these items chosen for the levy of higher import tariffs?

Of course, the April-January 2017-2018 period had showed a spike in their imports to about $94 billion and this could have triggered the action for higher import duties.

For the full year of 2017-2018, imports of these 46 items had risen to $112 billion.

But this surge in imports was largely in keeping with the overall increase in imports that year.

India's total imports in 2017-2018 rose by 21 per cent to $465 billion.

This increase was also facilitated by an appreciation of the Indian rupee against the US dollar.

The rupee's average exchange rate for the US dollar in 2017-2018 appreciated by about 4 per cent to Rs 64, compared to Rs 67 a year ago.

The troubling question is why the government did not rely on a more realistic and market-driven exchange rate management mechanism by allowing the rupee's depreciation and, thereby, checking a rise in India's imports.

It should have been clear to the policymakers that a 4 per cent appreciation in the rupee's value in one year was one of the key factors responsible for a surge in imports.

Instead, the government opted for a discretionary regime by increasing the Customs duty on over 46 items, thereby picking winners and losers in the name of protecting the domestic industry.

Quite ironically, the Indian rupee depreciated sharply by 8.5 per cent in 2018-2019.

The following year also saw another depreciation of 1.4 per cent.

Thus, in the two years after the Customs duty hike in February 2018, the rupee depreciated by about 10 per cent.

The promised protection to the domestic industry, by raising tariffs on those 46 items, became more than adequate.

In addition to the depreciation burden of 10 per cent, the tariff increase ranged between 5 and 10 percentage points for most items.

While the increase for food processing items was higher at 20 to 40 percentage points, the duty on diamonds and precious stones had been doubled to 5 per cent.

In spite of that, however, imports of these 46 items have not seen any collapse in the two years since the increase in the Customs duty.

Quite to the contrary, imports of footwear, watches and clocks, food processing items (mainly fruit juice) and perfumes and toiletry preparations have increased in the last two years over what these were in 2017-2018.

The impact of the tariff hike on electronics and hardware (mobile phones and smart watches included), automobile and automobile parts, diamonds, precious stones and jewellery, furniture, toys and games, silk fabrics and miscellaneous items like kites, sunglasses, cigarette lighters and scent sprays has been quite small.

It is possible to argue that the impact of the duty hike on imports would be seen over a longer period of time and the trend in the last two years is not a reliable indicator.

But the larger question is whether domestic manufacturers have been offering indigenous substitutes for the items, whose imports have now become costlier.

Or whether imports are continuing to take place, though at a slower pace, but with the added cost of imports being passed on to the consumer, making Indian manufacturing even more uncompetitive in terms of costs and efficiency.

That the government continues to rely on the flawed policy of raising tariffs in the name of providing protection to the domestic industry is evident from the two Budgets that were presented in the last two years.

In July 2019 and again in February 2020, import duties were raised on 37 and 16 more items, respectively, in order to 'provide a level playing field to domestic producers' and to promote Make in India.

The duty on some items such as footwear and toys was further raised, indicating that the February 2018 duty hikes were not adequate to provide protection to the domestic industry.

Discretion, it seems, will continue to rule India's tariff regime, irrespective of whether these lead to a significant curtailment in imports in the short run.

And whether they can lead to an increase in domestic manufacturing capacity to substitute imports of such items, only time will tell.

But there can be no dispute over the adverse impact such a policy will surely have on India's manufacturing competitiveness.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
CEDAR FALLS -- Most people know that I am a Republican. What might surprise some is the fact that I am not a straight party voter. Especially when it comes to local politics. I have had the privilege of working with several great local officials across Iowa and naturally not all of them affiliate with my party of choice. Some of you might call me a traitor. Some of you might call me a RINO (Republican in name only). I like to think Im just a guy who desperately wants us to return to a more bipartisan government.
Suzuki Motorcycle India on Wednesday said it currently has no plans to enter two-wheeler commuter segment in the country.

The company, which on Wednesday introduced its Access 125 and Burgman Street scooters with bluetooth-enabled digital console priced at Rs 78,600 and Rs 84,600, respectively (ex-showroom Delhi), would continue to focus on 125 cc scooter and above 150 cc bike segments in the country.

"As a policy, we are concentrating on 125 cc scooter market and in motorcycle segment over 150 cc segment only, so we don''t have any plan to bring a commuter scooter or 100 cc motorcycle. We don''t have any plan right now," Suzuki Motorcycle India Pvt Ltd (SMIPL) Managing Director Koichiro Hirao told reporters.

Commuter segment bikes and scooters usually come with smaller capacity engines with focus on fuel efficiency rather than out-and-out performance.

Suzuki Motorcycle currently sells bikes in above 150 cc category and two 125 cc scooter models in the country.

SMIPL Vice-President (sales, marketing and aftersales) Devashish Handa said the company is looking to expand its sales network by just around 1 per cent this fiscal.

"It is very much by choice. After having improved our pecking order in the domestic two-wheeler industry from number seven in 2018-19 to number five now, we have realised that in order to secure our aspirations we need to start focusing on quality as much as we have focused on quantity," Handa noted.

The company expanded its sales network by 8 per cent in 2018-19, which was reduced to just 2 per cent in 2019-20.

The company''s entire network initiative this year would be on ensuring that its secondary network policy, which was initiated last year, gets completed on ground, he added.

The company currently has over 530 dealerships across the country.

SMIPL, however, aims to expand its pre-owned business vertical across the country, Handa said.

"In phase one we were present in one location, in second phase we added five more locations and now in third phase we plan to further scale it up and consolidate this initiative. We have now understood nuts and bolts of pre-owned vehicle business," he added.

Commenting on the upcoming festive season, Handa said the company remains optimistic about sales performance during the period stretching from middle of this month to November-end.

"We have witnessed improvement in sales over the last few months. In September, we even performed better than same month last year. In line with this, we are optimistic about festive season as well," Handa said.

Commenting on the new launches, Hirao said bluetooth console on both the models can be paired with smartphone thus, enabling turn by turn navigation and other features like call and SMS alert display, WhatsApp alert, estimated time of arrival alerts, missed call alert and caller id, over-speed warning and phone battery level display.

"The technology has been developed keeping the requirements of today''s young customer in mind who always wants to stay connected, but doesn''t want to compromise on his/her safety by using a phone while riding a two-wheeler," he added.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), right, speaks as Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham listens during a televised debate in Raleigh, N.C., Oct. 1, 2020. (Gerry Broome, Pool/AP Photo)

Army Reserve Launches Investigation Into Senate Democrat Nominee Cunningham

The U.S. Army Reserve is probing the actions of James Cal Cunningham, the Democrat nominee for one of two U.S. Senate seats representing North Carolina.

The Army Reserve is investigating the matters involving Lt. Col. James Cunningham. As such, we are unable to provide further details at this time, Army Reserve spokesman Lt. Col. Simon Flake said in a statement to The Epoch Times on Oct. 7.

Rachel Petri, a spokeswoman for Cunninghams campaign, told The Epoch Times via email, Cal will participate in this process, but it does not change the stakes of this election or the need for new leaders who will fight for the issues North Carolinians care about instead of caving to the corporate special interestswhich is exactly what Senator Tillis has done in his years in Washington.

Cunningham, 47, sent sexually suggestive text messages to a woman that is not his wife, he admitted last week.

I have hurt my family, disappointed my friends, and am deeply sorry, Cunningham said in a statement to news outlets. 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.

The woman, Arlene Guzman Todd, a public relations strategist based in California, told the Associated Press on Monday that she met with Cunningham in Los Angeles in March and in North Carolina in July. She said they had an affair.

Guzman Todd said in a statement to the outlet that she wanted to apologize for the pain and embarrassment, and disrespect Ive caused to my immediate family, loved ones, and everyone affected by this situation.

A few months back, I displayed a lapse in judgment by engaging in a relationship with Cal Cunningham during a period of marital separation, Guzman Todd said. The relationship spanned several months and consisted primarily of a series of text exchanges and an in-person encounter. She did not elaborate, but her text messages described the intimacy.

Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham speaks during a televised debate with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), in Raleigh, N.C., Oct. 1, 2020. (Gerry Broome, Pool/AP Photo)

Cunningham told a local broadcaster on Wednesday that he wanted to focus on issues, not his personal life.

Ive made it clear that Ive hurt my family and that Ive disappointed my supporters. And Im taking responsibility for that, Cunningham told CBS 17. Im very clear that this campaign isnt about my personal life, its about the people of North Carolina, its about the issues that are important for North Carolinians.

He said his campaign would be happy to cooperate with the U.S. Army Reserve investigation.

He then declined to say when the affair had started.

Cunningham has declined to drop out of the race.

Cunningham is trying to unseat first-term Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

Tillis, 60, said Tuesday that Cunningham owes voters a detailed explanation of his affair.

In a statement Wednesday, he noted the new investigation.

Cal Cunningham is now under investigation by the U.S. Army Reserve. He owes North Carolinians a full explanation. The truth still matters in North Carolina, Cal, Tillis said on Twitter.

Its not clear how the situation will influence voters one way or another.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents to a poll conducted this week said they had heard of Cunningham having a relationship with his woman who is not his wife. Thirty-seven percent of respondents said the information made them less likely to vote for him. Another 58 percent said it doesnt make a difference.
US President on Tuesday ordered total declassification of all the documents related to the alleged interference of in the 2016 presidential elections, which he described as a hoax.

I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions! Trump said in a tweet Tuesday night.

The announcement came hours after the Director of National Intelligence declassified some of the documents.

The handwritten documents revealed former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Barack Obama on the purported plan of Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, to tie Trump to as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server, Fox News said.

Tim Murtaugh, Trump 2020 communications director, in a statement said now it is known that Hillary Clinton hatched a plan to divert attention away from her use of a private email server by falsely tying then-candidate to Russia.

We also know that former CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on that plot. It is imperative that the American people now learn what then-Vice President Joe Biden knew about this conspiracy and when he knew it, Murtaugh said.

What did Biden know about Clinton's plan to use the Russia hoax to try to smear her political opponent? Did Biden condone the plan? Did he express any misgivings about it or remain silent? Biden must give a full accounting of his knowledge and his conversations about Clinton's scheme, which was known to the highest reaches of his administration," he said.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe in a statement to Fox News said the declassified documents were transmitted to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees Tuesday afternoon.

These documents explained that Brennan's handwritten notes were taken after briefing Obama on the matter, the news channel said.

We're getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED], Brennan notes read. CITE [summarizing] alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service, Brennan's notes read Fox News 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 Tullamore Court Hotel has announced it is closing its doors until December 3, well beyond the current proposed imposition of Level 3 restrictions in Ireland. Those restrictions will be in place for three weeks, according to the government.

"Our hotel doors are now closed until Thursday, December 3, in a disappointing but necessary move as part of the introduction of Level 3 restrictions across Ireland," a statement read.

"The Fitness Club, however, remains open to our members, with our Caring for You programme in place and pre-booking essential as before.

"We are saddened to see so many local businesses and cultural attractions lower their shutters here in Tullamore for a third time. The impact on our team, our hotel, our industry and on Offaly will be devastating, but as always, our priority must be the safety of all," the hotel continued.

Those with bookings between now and December 3 will be contacted by the hotel.

"We would like to thank you all for your support and loyalty, especially through these past few months. We wish you the very best for the difficult weeks ahead. Stay positive, stay healthy, and stay safe," general manager Philip OBrien concluded.




But whether or not Trump is reelected, whether the liberals regain power, something irrevocable has happened. The liberal elites, the so-called best and the brightest in our foreign and domestic policy, seem to have lost their moral authority over the people. This is why the media high priests are so angry with Trump, why theyve always been angry since 2016 and why they cannot forgive.
Plans to axe 900 jobs at Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands airports have been announced as fall out from coronavirus batters the travel industry.

Manchester Airports Group (MAG) - which owns hubs at Manchester, Stansted and the East Midlands - said it is having to take action because there simply isn't the demand in travel.

They added the lack of progress on testing had discouraged people from travelling because the prospect of a two-week quarantine was not practical.

Manchester Airports Group (MAG) - which owns hubs at Manchester, Stansted and the East Midlands - plans to axe 900 jobs (pictured Manchester Airport)

The group said it was proposing to cut 465 jobs at Manchester, 376 at Stansted and 51 at East Midlands. Other employment changes such as shift patterns will also be made.

The announcement was made as the Department for Transport revealed a new taskforce would be recruited to help the industry to minimise 14-day quarantine times through testing.

However, this was little consolation for the aviation industry as no timeframe was given to implement the new regime.

MAG said demand was down by 90 per cent since March and chances of an increase were slim until at least 2023-24.

It added the resurgence in coronavirus cases across the UK and Europe wasn't helping matters either.

The group said: 'Meanwhile, the absence of dedicated support for the aviation sector, coupled with a lack of progress in introducing testing for UK passengers to date, has continued to undermine consumer confidence in air travel for next year.'

The company said it had taken every measure possible to minimise job cuts making use of the government's job retention scheme, cutting salaries by 10 per cent and freezing spending plans.

MAG said the absence of dedicated support for the aviation sector, coupled with a lack of progress in introducing testing for UK passengers to date, has continued to undermine consumer confidence in air travel

But with the generous furlough subsidy coming to an end and being replaced by a much smaller contribution to meeting payroll costs' from November, has led the company to act.

'The reduction in government financial support, combined with a more challenging outlook, means that MAG now needs to propose further steps to reduce the size of its workforce to secure the long-term future of the business,' the company said in a statement.

Chief executive Charlie Cornish said: 'By now, we would have hoped to see a strong and sustained recovery in demand.

'Unfortunately, the resurgence of the virus across Europe and the reintroduction of travel restrictions have meant this has not happened.

'With uncertainty about when a vaccine will be widely available, we need to be realistic about when demand is likely to recover.'

Lawrence Chapple-Gill from the Unite trade union said: 'These job losses are an inevitable consequence of the government's failure to provide sector specific support to the aviation industry, the sector which has been most heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.'

Since the summer, the aviation industry has been urging the government to ' introduce a testing regime to try to shorten the two-week quarantine period for passengers arriving from countries not on the UK's safe list.

Launching the government's coronavirus testing taskforce, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: 'The current measures at the border have saved lives.

MAG said it had taken every measure possible to minimise job cuts making use of the government's job retention scheme, cutting salaries by 10 per cent and freezing spending plans. (Pictured Stansted Airport)

'Our understanding of the science now means we can intensify efforts to develop options for a testing regime and help reinvigorate our world-leading travel sector.'

The DfT said the taskforce would look at the possibility of 'proposals based on a single test taken after a period of self-isolation, provided by the private sector and at the cost of the passenger'.

The chief executives of Heathrow Airport, Manchester Airports Group, easyJet and Virgin Atlantic said in a joint statement that it was a 'step in the right direction... to restart the economy and protect thousands of jobs'.

They added: 'We support the decision to opt for a single test, private sector-led, passenger-funded approach, that does not impact on the NHS in any way.

'But travellers need a firm commitment that a comprehensive testing regime will be implemented in early November.'

The International Air Transport Association, an industry body, said: 'The proposals on the table do not go as far as we had hoped.

'A reduction in the length of quarantine is the very minimum needed to restart travel demand.'
Hathras (UP): Delhi AAP MLA Kuldeep Kumar was on Wednesday booked for meeting Hathras victims family even after being tested positive for coronavirus in violation of the COVID-19 protocol, police said. The FIR was registered against the Kondli MLA under the Epidemic Diseases Act at Chandpa Police Station here, they said.

According to the MLAs Twitter account, he tested positive for the disease on September 29 and met the victims family on October 4. The police said the legislator should have followed 14 days of isolation norms, adding that he would be sent a notice in this regard.

A 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped by four upper-caste men on September 14 in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras. She was found beaten and tortured, her tongue cut as she bit it when the accused attempted to strangle her, police said. She died a fortnight later at a Delhi hospital.

The woman was cremated in the dead of night near her home on September 30. Her family alleged they were forced by local police to hurriedly conduct her last rites, triggering outrage nationwide and protests in several places. The state government has sought an apex court-monitored CBI inquiry into the incident.

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BOSTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In this first part of a series of articles from IDTechEx, an overview of the flow batteries characteristics is provided, extrapolated from IDTechEx's recent report "Redox Flow Battery 2020-2030: Forecast, Challenges, Opportunities".

While Li-ion batteries are dominating the stationary energy storage sector, a growing number of companies are developing different technologies to be competitive in the future and bring to the market a more competitive energy storage system. Among the Li-ion batteries competitors, the Redox Flow Battery (RFB) is one of the main competitors currently approaching the market.

Recently IDTechEx performed an in-depth analysis of redox flow batteries from a technical and market aspect, evaluating their potential to address the evolving stationary energy storage market.

While it is clear that Li-ion batteries will dominate the scene for the near future, this promising competitor has already shown its capability to gain its portion of the energy storage market, pushing the ES industry toward new horizons.

The extensive volumetric (Wh/L) and gravimetric (Wh/kg) energy density of Li-ion batteries make this technology well suited to address the EV market. Pushed by the cost decreasing from the EV market, this technology started to also be competitive in the stationary energy storage market, for front-of-meter (FTM), and behind-the-meter (BTM) applications. The capability to address the complete spectrum of the energy storage market is translated in a power range of few kWs for behind-the-meter use, to MWs power output for front-of-meter applications.

These properties make Li-ion batteries extremely competitive and difficult to be challenged, although other technologies are starting to appear in the market.

Besides the great advantage of Li-ion batteries, the hazardous materials adopted make them prone to ignite, if not carefully handled. In addition, once ignited these systems are very difficult to extinguish. PSA Group, in collaboration with the firefighter department, designed a specific solution to flood the battery stack and easily extinguish the fire, in case of ignition.

Besides the risk of ignition, for stationary energy storage applications, Li-ion batteries offer a reduced cycle life (ca. 10,000 cycles) in comparison to other devices, such as RFBs which offer more than 20,000 cycles.

Therefore, the larger cycle life and the safer chemistry adopted in redox flow batteries, despite the lower energy density, make this technology well suited for stationary applications.

Differently from the Li-ion batteries, the redox flow batteries working principle is based on flowing two liquids, the electrolytes, across the electrode. In this way, the electroactive species contained in the electrolyte react on the electrode surface generating electricity. Therefore, the larger the amount of electrolyte, the bigger the amount of energy is stored in the battery. The power output of an RFB is instead defined by the size of the electrode stack, and the kinetic of the chemical reaction.

Therefore, a further advantage of redox flow batteries is provided by the decoupled energy, and power capacity, which allows simpler customization of this kind of system.

Moreover, RFBs present longer cycle-life (RFB >25,000 cycles; Li-ion < 10,000), which is then reflected in a much lower levelized cost of storage, in comparison to Li-ion batteries.

Although promising, the high technology capital cost is still the major limitation for this technology to enter the market.

In March 2020, IDTechEx performed an in-depth analysis, from a technical and market aspect of Redox Flow Batteries, to understand the current status of development of the redox flow batteries and their possibilities to address the market.

The results of this analysis, published in the report titled: "Redox Flow Battery 2020-2030: Forecast, Challenges, Opportunities", have shown a CAGR of 30% in the next 10 years, pushed by the large interest in energy storage systems, to support the electricity grid.

Redox flow batteries are expected to be the direct competitor of Li-ion batteries for stationary energy storage applications for front-of-meter and behind-the-meter applications.

In fact, from the analysis conducted by IDTechEx, a considerable amount of companies manufacturing RFBs are developing large scale systems for Front-of-Meter applications, while a solid, but smaller amount of companies are addressing the development of smaller-scale systems, addressing the Behind-the-Meter applications.

Among the different chemistries present on the market, the Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries (VRFB) is currently the most adopted type of chemistry, also due to its long historical development from the 1980s. Although this chemistry is currently the most investigated and adopted, other chemistries are also approaching the market, such as the all-iron RFB developed by ESS inc., the Zinc/Bromine flow batteries (ZBB), and the organic flow batteries.



For more information on this report, please visit www.IDTechEx.com/Redox or for the full portfolio of Energy Storage research available from IDTechEx please visit www.IDTechEx.com/Research/ES.

IDTechEx guides your strategic business decisions through its Research, Consultancy and Event products, helping you profit from emerging technologies. For more information on IDTechEx Research and Consultancy, contact research@IDTechEx.com or visit www.IDTechEx.com.

Media Contact:

Natalie Moreton

Digital Marketing Manager

press@IDTechEx.com

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SNYDER Western Texas College announced today that the Snyder College Fair will happen virtually this year.

We hold our college fairs in partnership with the Texas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (TACRAO), said Isrell Lawson, College Relations Coordinator & Recruiter. For everyones health and safety, we decided that all of the college fairs would be virtual this year.

The 2020 Snyder College Fair is scheduled for Thursday, October 15, 2020, from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

The process has been streamlined to make this years fair easier for students and parents to navigate, Lawson added.

Lawson went on to say that the virtual college fair offers some valuable benefits to students. The website allows students to register once so they dont have to fill out a prospect card for each school that piques their interest. It also gives students a better opportunity to communicate with recruiters one-on-one.

Students will also notice a wider variety of colleges, universities, trade schools, and other opportunities to continue their education.

In addition, students and parents can:

Visit College and University Booths

Chat with Admission Representatives

Schedule a Virtual Appointment to ask additional questions

View Info Sessions on Understanding the Admissions Process, Scholarships, and Financial Aid, and How to Start Your College Search.

Students and parents interested in attending the 2020 Snyder Virtual College Fair will need to create a free account at https://falltacrao.swoogo.com/2020virtual/. After creating an account, students and parents will be able to immediately begin looking at colleges and universities.

For more information, contact Lawson at 325-574-7945 or email isrell.lawson@wtc.edu.
On Monday morning, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito reminded Americans that marriage equality is in imminent peril at the Supreme Court. Thomas, joined by Alito, wrote a screed in defense of Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, painting her as a modern-day martyr. The two justices suggested that SCOTUS must overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, which recognized same-sex couples right to marry, in order to preserve religious liberty in the United States. Davis may have been one of the first victims of this Courts cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, Thomas warned, but she will not be the last.

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Its no secret that Thomas and Alito oppose equal rights for LGBTQ Americans. But their Monday opinion is still profoundly alarming. These two justices did not simply state that marriage equality has no basis in the Constitution. They wrote that marriage equality is an affront to the Constitution, one that trammels the First Amendment rights of Christians. And they did so just weeks before Election Day, as Donald Trump attempts to ram another far-right conservative onto the Supreme Court, creating a 63 conservative supermajority. Their message is clear: If Trump installs Amy Coney Barrett, the Supreme Court will take aim at marriage equality.

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The Kim Davis saga began in July 2015 when two men walked into the clerks office in Rowan County, Kentucky, seeking a marriage license. SCOTUS had granted same-sex couples the right to marry in every state less than two weeks earlier. Davis refused to give the men a marriage license on Gods authority. They sued her, and the lower courts found that Davis was, indeed, liable for violating their constitutional rights. Davis asked the Supreme Court to throw out the case, which the justices unanimously declined to do on Monday.

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But Thomas and Alito made it clear that they only declined to take Davis case because it does not cleanly raise religious freedom challenges to the scope of our decision in Obergefell. (This is a euphemistic way to say that Davis attorneys at Liberty Counsel, a fringe anti-LGBTQ law firm, failed to present a First Amendment claim.) In a separate opinion, the two justices mounted a strenuous defense of Davis while belittling same-sex couples constitutional right to wed. Thomas wrote that this right does not actually existand that, in recognizing it, the court implied that those with sincerely held religious objections to same-sex marriage  espoused a bigoted worldview.

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The Supreme Court, Thomas continued, forced same-sex marriage upon society through its creation of atextual constitutional rights, which enabled courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots. In Davis case, Obergefell was read to suggest that being a public official with traditional Christian values was legally tantamount to invidious discrimination toward homosexuals. Thomas concluded, By choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment, and by doing so undemocratically, the Court has created a problem that only it can fix.

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Theres a lot of unpack in this cri de coeur of aggrieved victimhood. The ominous closing passage indicates that Thomas and Alito are eager to abolish the right to marriage equality altogether to save religious freedom. At a minimum, it demonstrates that both justices want to carve huge loopholes in Obergefell that legalize discrimination against same-sex couples. Thomas and Alito find Obergefell to be so egregiously wrong that they demand heavy-handed intervention on behalf of anti-gay religious liberty. They think the court has an obligation to make up new First Amendment rights for anti-gay Americans to balance out the rights enshrined in Obergefell. (SCOTUS will have an opportunity to do that later this term, when the justices will decide whether the First Amendment requires Philadelphia to fund foster care agencies that will not work with same-sex couples.)

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While Thomas spilled much ink complaining that Kim Davis was persecuted by the government, he never grappled with the fact that Kim Davis was the government.

While Thomas spilled much ink complaining that Kim Davis was persecuted by the government, he never grappled with the fact that Kim Davis was the government. As a county clerk, Davis had a responsibility to perform her official duties, which included providing marriage licenses. She was not persecuted for private beliefs but for her failure to do her job. Thomas warned of Obergefells ruinous consequences for religious freedom, fretting that anti-gay Americans will no longer be able to participate in society. But his real fear seems to be that Americansincluding judges and voterswill criticize opponents of marriage equality who transform their religious views into official discrimination. (Davis lost reelection in 2018.)

There may soon be a conservative majority willing to overturn Obergefell. Justice Neil Gorsuch previously wrote a dissent opposing equal rights for same-sex parents, and joined an earlier Thomas opinion that bashed marriage equality. Chief Justice John Roberts outraged dissent in Obergefell raises the very real possibility that he will roll back or reverse that precedent if he gets the opportunity. Justice Brett Kavanaugh hasnt taken a clear position on the issue, but his recent vote against LGBTQ civil rights signals hostility to same-sex marriage. Barrett, meanwhile, has extremely conservative personal and public views on gay rights. In a 2016 speech, Barrett said Obergefell was about who gets to decide whether we have same-sex marriage or not. The dissenting justices werent anti-gay, Barrett explained, but rather believed that it wasnt for the court to decide whether they should be allowed to marry. She called Obergefell a who decides question.

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Barretts phrasing is almost identical to Kavanaughs dissent in Junes LGBTQ civil rights decision, in which he wrote that this case boils down to one fundamental question: Who decides? Over the past few years, conservative judges have adopted this phrasing to defend their anti-LGBTQ jurisprudence as principled judicial restraint. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Barrett might not adopt the fire-breathing tone that Thomas and Alito prefer. But if Barrett is confirmed and Democrats do not expand the court, there will almost certainly be at least five justices, maybe even six, eager to erode or abolish marriage equality.

They will have a chance to begin soon. Indiana has asked the court to uphold a law that discriminates against same-sex parents by refusing to place both of them on their childs birth certificate. (Opposite-sex parents are placed on their childs birth certificate even when they lack a biological connection.) SCOTUS struck down a virtually identical law in 2017, but the court has changed since then, and Indiana wants to try its luck. Republicans, whose party platform still opposes same-sex marriage, smell blood: Theyre hungry for the right case to let them destroy Obergefell, either piece by piece or all at once. Marriage equality is already in real jeopardy. If Barrett joins the court, it could soon be dead in the water.
Under pressure to offer solutions as Chicago reeled from days of widespread looting earlier this summer, Mayor Lori Lightfoot promised help was on the way for small businesses that had been ransacked. City Hall would spend $10 million to create the Together Now fund, ask philanthropists to chip in more and funnel the cash to shop owners. But records obtained by the Tribune show the Lightfoot administration only paid out a fraction of what the mayor promised to businesses damaged during civil unrest. Read more here
STRATFORD  A couple was arrested and illegal weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammo and drugs were seized Tuesday in a raid of a Columbus Avenue home, police said.

Kevin Lopez, 26, and Stephanie Gonzalez, 33, were each charged with numerous firearm violations, possession with intent to sell, operating a drug factory and risk of injury to a minor.
Retired IPS officer Ashwani Kumar was found dead at his home in Shimla on Wednesday. Kumar, 69, had served as the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation and Governor of Nagaland. Reports suggest that he had been depressed for the past few weeks. A suicide note has been found.

Local police team and medical personnel from Shimla's Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital have rushed to Kumar's house.

Kumar, a retired IPS officer of 1973 batch from Himachal Pradesh cadre, served as Assistant Superintendent of Police in the districts of Mandi and Kangra from 1975 to 1977. He later posted as Superintendent of Police in the tribal districts of Kinnaur and Lahaul and Spiti and later at Solan and Shimla.

In 1985, Kumar was selected for induction in the Special Protection Group (SPG) responsible for the security of the Prime Minister of India. He worked in the SPG from 1985 to 1990 in various capacities including that of Assistant Director in the Prime Minister's Office.

In August 2006, Kumar was appointed as the Director General of Police of the State of Himachal Pradesh. After two years, in July 2008, he was appointed as the CBI Director. He retired from CBI in November 2010 and went into academics.As an academician, Kumar was a visiting faculty to many universities, colleges and institutions where he instructed on Human Resources Management, Organizational Behavior and Leadership at the Jindal Global Business School to MBA students. He also provided guidance to the Research Centre for Penology, Criminal Justice and Police Studies in the Jindal Global Law School and the Research Centre for Leadership and Change in the Jindal Global Business School. He also was associated with National Police Academy, Hyderabad.

On March 21, 2013, Kumar was sworn in as the 29th Governor of Nagaland. He held the office till 2014. He also briefly served as the Governor of Manipur.
IHG Hotel & Resort, one of the worlds leading hotel groups, has signed a management agreement with Redhat Al Jabal to debut its global upscale boutique brand Hotel Indigo in Oman.



A new built property, Hotel Indigo Jabal Al Akhdar will feature 176 design-led rooms and will open its doors to guests in early 2022.



Hotel Indigo Jabal Al Akhdar will be located in Nizwa, in Ad Dakhliyah Governorate, and will be in proximity to the most scenic mountains in the country encompassing Jabal Akhdar. Situated at 2,000 meters above sea level, the hotel will offer 360 degrees uninterrupted views of the mountains in a calm environment.



With access to a wide range of leisure and cultural activities such as mountain biking, hiking, cave exploring, and visits to the Fort and Souq of Nizwa, the location is an excellent destination for leisure tourism, including wellness retreats and sightseeing.



Pascal Gauvin, Managing Director, India, Middle East & Africa, IHG, said: We are pleased to announce the signing of our first Hotel Indigo in Oman in partnership with an esteemed company such as Redhat Al Jabal. Hotel Indigo is a unique brand that allows every individual property to draw inspiration from the local surroundings and offer an immersive and authentic experience to guests.



Combined with an excellent location, I am confident Hotel Indigo Jabal Al Akhdar will be a destination on its own and will be a popular choice amongst international, regional and domestic visitors alike .This month, we are also opening doors to Hotel Indigo Dubai Downtown  the first Hotel Indigo in GCC. The brand is a great fit for the region - it caters to new guest segments that are visiting the Middle East and are looking for a more individualistic experience and want to feel immersed in the destination they are visiting.



He added: The hospitality industry has faced the biggest challenge in its history following the global outbreak of Covid-19. Underscoring industry confidence, this signing is an encouraging sign and reaffirms a strong mid to long term outlook for the sector. Oman has always been known for its hospitality and we remain committed to meaningfully grow our footprint here and bring more hotels and brands to key locations in the country to offer world-class hospitality to guests coming to the region.



Ammar Al Suleimani, Executive Director, Redhat Al Jabal, said: We are pleased to bring the first ever global boutique hotel brand, Hotel Indigo, to a distinct location in the Sultanate of Oman. In addition to the brands uniqueness, freshness and appeal for the market, our confidence in this project comes from IHGs wide experience, expertise in the industry and reputation as one of the leading and most trusted hotel companies in the world. We are excited to open our doors in early 2022 and look forward to offering a combination of authentic, unique and safe experiences to our guests visiting from all parts of the world.



Hotel Indigo Jabal Al Akhdar is situated 80km from the city and is a 2-hour drive from Muscat International Airport and a 6-hour drive from Dubai. Offering a wide range of dining options, including local flavours and specialties, the hotel will feature three F&B outlets. The hotel will also feature outdoor and indoor pools, 2,200 sq m spa for guests to relax and rejuvenate and two meeting rooms.



Established in 2004, Hotel Indigo now has a presence in more than 20 countries with over 120 hotels, andover100 hotels in the pipeline. Just as no two neighbourhoods are alike, no two Hotel Indigo properties are the same, taking inspiration from the area around each hotel to touch all aspects of the guest experience, from the boutique design to locally-inspired restaurants and cafes.



IHG currently operates 96 hotels across 7 brands in the Middle East, including: InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites, voco and Six Senses with a further 41 in the development pipeline due to open within the next three to five years.  TradeArabia News Service
NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Fear of COVID-19 lawsuits and potential business liability has pushed a number of states to provide employers with some degree of immunity, according to experts from Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. In light of sometimes confusing federal government guidance on pandemic safety rules, the continuing spread of pandemic infections that may be traceable to workplaces, and the lack of federal law giving businesses immunity from pandemic-inspired lawsuits, a handful of states have enacted their own legislation to constrict business liability as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

In recent months, at least a dozen states have provided immunity for businesses from exposure to lawsuits alleging COVID-19-related injuries. These protections were spurred by fears of lawsuits that employers may face when tasked with protecting workers while still moving forward with business operations in the face of the continuing pandemic. Thus far, however, lawsuits filed over COVID-19 workplace injuries have remained relatively low.

"While there have been concerns about a wave of COVID-19-related employer liability lawsuits, the predicted huge number of cases has failed to materialize," said Pamela Wolf, J.D., Legal Analyst at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. "Some employers in certain states now have a level of protection from COVID-19 liability lawsuits, but how the courts will interpret these new limited immunity laws is still unknown.

"Given that the SAFE TO WORK Act, federal legislation that would provide limited liability for business that comply with certain guidance by federal, state, and local governments, has failed to advance or become part of a COVID-19 relief bill, we expect to see more states taking action. Unfortunately, the pandemic will likely continue at least for several more months, and the likelihood of federal liability protection in the near future seems remote."

The following chart outlines state actions to limit the risk of businesses to liability for injuries related to COVID-19.

State Date Signed into Law Legislation Type Details Alabama May 8 Proclamation Alabama Governor Kay Ivey issued a Proclamation under which businesses and other covered entities are not liable for COVID-19-related death, injury, or property damage unless it is shown by "clear and convincing evidence" that the death, injury, or property loss was caused by the covered entity's wanton, reckless, willful, or intentional misconduct. Where there is liability, but no "serious physical injury," the covered entity is only liable for "actual economic compensatory damages" (not non-economic or punitive damages). A person asserting a wrongful death claim is only entitled to punitive damages. Arkansas June 15 Executive Order 20-33 Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson issued an Executive Order that provides all businesses and their employees are immune from civil liability because of exposure to COVID-19. However, the immunity does not apply to willful, reckless or intentional misconduct. There is a presumption that the actions are not willful or reckless if the business owner substantially complies with public health directives. Iowa June 18 S.F. 2338 Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law S.F. 2338, the "COVID-19 Response and Back-to-Business Limited Liability Act," which provides limited liability to business owners. A person who possesses or is in control of a premises, including a tenant, lessee, or occupant of a premises, who directly or indirectly invites or permits an individual onto a premises, is not liable for civil damages for any injuries sustained from the individual's exposure to COVID-19 unless the person who possesses or is in control of the premises: Recklessly disregards a substantial and unnecessary risk that the individual would be exposed to COVID-19;

Exposes the individual to COVID-19 through an act that constitutes actual malice; or

Intentionally exposes the individual to COVID-19. There is also a safe harbor for compliance with regulations, executive orders, or public health guidance. A person is not liable for civil damages for any injuries sustained from exposure or potential exposure to COVID-19 if the act or omission alleged to violate a duty of care was in substantial compliance or was consistent with any federal or state statute, regulation, order, or public health guidance related to COVID-19 that was applicable to the person or activity at issue at the time of the alleged exposure or potential exposure. Kansas June 8 H.B. 2016 Signed into law by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly on June 8, H.B. 2016 creates the "COVID-19 Response and Reopening for Business Liability Protection Act." A person, or agent of such person, conducting business in Kansas is immune from liability in a civil action for a COVID-19 claim if such person was acting pursuant to and in substantial compliance with public health directives applicable to the activity giving rise to the cause of action when the cause of action accrued. This protection expires on January 26, 2021 and applies retroactively to any cause of action accruing on or after March 12, 2020. Louisiana June 13 H.B. 826 Under H.B. 826, signed by Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards on June 13, no person or local or state government or political subdivision is liable for civil damages for injury or death resulting from exposure to COVID-19 in the course of, or through the performance of, a person's business operations unless it is proven that the person, government, or political subdivision was not in substantial compliance with applicable COVID-19 procedures, and unless the damage was caused by gross negligence or wanton or reckless misconduct. Nevada August 11 S.B. 4 On August 11, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak signed into law S.B. 4, which limits the civil liability of certain businesses conducted for profit, governmental entities, and private nonprofit organizations for personal injury or death resulting from exposure to COVID-19if the business, governmental entity, or private nonprofit organization substantially complied with controlling health standards. This immunity does not apply where the business, governmental entity, or private nonprofit organization violated controlling health standards with gross negligence and the gross negligence was the proximate cause of the personal injury or death. Any complaint in a civil action must be pled with particularity. The court is required, as a matter of law, to determine substantial compliance with controlling health standards. North Carolina July 2 H.B. 118 On July 2, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed into law H.B. 118, which gives individuals and private, nonprofit, government, and other entities limited liability from claims arising from acts or omissions alleged to have resulted in COVID-19 infection that do not amount to gross negligence, willful or wanton conduct, or intentional wrongdoing. Individuals or entities who own or have in their possession, control, or custody a premises must provide reasonable notice of actions taken for the purpose of reducing the risk of COVID19 transmission to individuals who are present on the premises, and will not be held liable for the failure of any individual to comply with rules, policies, or guidelines contained in the required notice. This provision does not apply to premises owned by an individual, other than premises that are used in the operation of a sole proprietorship, or to claims before the Industrial Commission seeking benefits payable under the Workers' Compensation Act, Article 1 of Chapter 97 of the General Statutes. Ohio September 14 H.B. 606 Signed by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on September 14, H.B. 606 bars any action for damages for injury, death, or loss to person or property against any "person" (which includes a school, for-profit or nonprofit entity, governmental entity, religious entity, or state institution of higher education) when the civil cause of action is based, in whole or in part on "the exposure to, or the transmission or contraction of, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, or SARS-CoV-2, or any mutation thereof," unless it is established that the exposure to or transmission or contraction of virus or mutation was by: Reckless conduct;

Intentional misconduct; or

Willful or wanton misconduct on the part of the "person" against whom the action is brought. Where the immunity provided in this section does not apply, no class action can be brought against any "person" alleging liability for damages for injury, death, or loss to person or property on a cause of action specified in this section. A government order, recommendation, or guideline does not create, nor can it be construed as creating a duty of care upon any person that may be enforced in a cause of action, or that may create a new cause of action or substantive legal right against any person as to matters contained in the government order, recommendation, or guideline. There is a presumption that any such government order, recommendation, or guideline is not admissible as evidence that a duty of care, a new cause of action, or a substantive legal right has been established. There are separate provisions for health care providers. Oklahoma May 21 S.B. 1946 On May 21, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed into law S.B. 1946, under which a person or agent of the person who conducts business in the state is not liable in a civil action for an injury from exposure or potential exposure to COVID-19 if the act or omission alleged to violate a duty of care was in compliance or consistent with federal or state regulations, a Presidential or Gubernatorial Executive Order, or guidance applicable at the time of the alleged exposure. Where two or more sources of guidance are applicable to the conduct or risk at the time of the alleged exposure, there is no liability if the conduct is consistent with any applicable guidance. Tennessee August 17 S.B. 8002 S.B. 8002, signed into law by Governor Bill Lee on August 17, limits liability related to loss, damage, injury, or death due to COVID-19. In a claim against an individual or legal entity for loss, damage, injury, or death arising from COVID-19, the claimant must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the individual or legal entity "proximately caused the loss, damage, injury, or death by an act or omission constituting gross negligence or willful misconduct." The new law does not create a cause of action or eliminate any required element of any existing cause of action. It also does not affect workers' compensation claims. Further, it does not amend, repeal, alter, or affect any immunity or limitation of liability available under current law or contract. Utah May 4 S.B. 3007 Under S.B. 3007, signed by Utah Governor Gary Herbert on May 4, individuals, companies, and other covered entities are immune from civil liability for damages or an injury resulting from exposure of an individual to COVID-19 on the premises they owned or operated or during an activity they managed, except where there is willful misconduct, or reckless or intentional infliction of harm. The liability does not apply to Utah's Workers' Compensation Act, Occupational Disease Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act, or Governmental Immunity Act of Utah. Wyoming May 20 S.F. 1002 Signed by Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon on May 20, S.F. 1002 provides that when a business or other covered entity in good faith follows the instructions of a state, city, town, or county health officer, or who acts in good faith in responding to the public health emergency, they are immune from any liability arising from complying with those instructions or acting in good faith. However, the immunity does not apply to acts or omissions constituting gross negligence or willful or wanton misconduct.

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Hyderabad, Oct 7 : Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Wednesday called for coordination between the Police and Forest Departments to check plundering of forest wealth.

He directed them to take stern action taken against those resorting to smuggling of forest wealth.

At a meeting with ministers and senior officials, he said due to the negligent attitude of the past rulers, timber smuggling became an easy business for some but the Telangana government had taken a serious note of it.

He said in order to put an end to smuggling of forest wealth, the police should join hands with the forest officers, and actively participate in programmes like "Haritha Haram" to develop awareness about forests and effectively control the smuggling of forest wealth.

KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, also asked the forest officials to have coordination with the local police to control the smuggling activities. He suggested that higher officials from both the departments should have regular coordination meetings and prepare an action plan to curb timber smuggling. Only through such coordinated efforts a good service can be rendered to the society, he added.

Home Minister Mehmood Ali, Forest Minister Indrakaran Reddy, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, DGP Mahender Reddy, Government's Chief Advisor Rajiv Sharma, Advisor Anurag Sharma, CM's Principal Secretary S. Narsing Rao, CM Secretary Smita Sabharwal, OSD Priyanka Varghese, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest Shobha and other officials attended the meeting.

The Chief Minister also asked the police officials to ensure that those retiring from their service should get their pension settlement on their day of retirement and they should be respectfully sent to their homes the same day.

He said for those who have served their major part of life in the department should be dropped in a vehicle till their residence on the day of their retirement. This tradition should continue, the CM said.

KCR said there should not be any delay in making the appointments on the compassionate grounds in the Police Department. He said every eligible family member of the deceased employee should be given jobs based on their eligible qualification and an immediate action plan should be put in place for this.

He suggested to the DGP to find out if there were vacancies in other departments and fill them up with the candidates in the wait list.

The Chief Minister also felt that more effort should be put in the Police Department for the welfare of women employees. Since 33 per cent reservation for women is being implemented in the Police Department, the number of women employees is on the rise. Hence at all the police offices, police stations and other wings where women are employed, rest rooms and other facilities for them should be created, he said.
By PTI

CHANDIGARH: Swaraj India party president Yogendra Yadav and nearly 100 farmers were taken into preventive custody in Haryana's Sirsa on Wednesday after a group of agriculturists agitating against the Centre's new farm laws were evicted by the police from their dharna site on a busy road.

Besides Yadav, Haryana Kisan Manch chief Prahalad Singh was also taken into preventive custody and detained, Sirsa DSP Kuldeep Singh said.

Singh said that farmers were holding dharna on a busy highway in Sirsa where the administration had not given them the permission.

A glimpse of police action on farmers protesting in Haryana (yesterday) https://t.co/23X3ImHLWI  Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) October 7, 2020

"The farmers had been allowed to hold their dharna on Dussehra grounds and we had asked them to move there and also had given them a choice to go to another site near Deputy Commissioner's office. However, they did not agree after which we took them into preventive custody," Singh said.

He said commuters were facing difficulty as the peasants were holding dharna in the middle of a busy road.

The farmers were put on buses and other vehicles arranged by the administration and taken to a nearby police station.

ALSO READ: Agitating farmers tear-gassed on way to Haryana Deputy CM's residence, pressure builds up on JJP

"Along with protesting farmers, I have been detained from farmers' protest site in Sirsa Been taken to Police Thana Sadar, Sirsa," Yadav, who lent support to the peasants' agitation against the new farm bills, posted on Twitter.

Yadav claimed that the Haryana government is rattled by farmers' questions and is bent upon using "brutal force to prevent dissent".

"I have been detained by Haryana Police for joining a peaceful dharna at Sirsa. Dharna site demolished. About 100 farmers and leaders arrested. Clearly, Haryana govt is rattled by farmers' questions, bent upon using brutal force to prevent dissent," Yadav said in another tweet.

He said the farmers' fight will only get bigger from here.

ALSO READ: Entire Congress stands behind farmers in fight against new farm laws, says Rahul in Haryana

Police had on Tuesday used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the agitating farmers who tried to cross barricades and proceed towards the residences of Dushyant Chautala and his grand uncle and Power Minister Ranjit Singh Chautala in Sirsa, barely 200 metres away from their protest site.

The farmers were seeking resignations of Dushyant, a JJP leader, and Ranjit, an independent legislator, from the Manohar Lal Khatar government over the recently enacted three farm legislations.

While farmers belonging to 17 different organisations were part of the protest held on Tuesday, only a few continued to hold dharna near the residences of the Chautalas a day later.

The protest site lies on Sirsa-Barnala highway on the busy Baba Bhumman Shah Chowk.

The farmers said they will carry on with their dharna for an indefinite period and force the Centre to roll back the new farm legislations, which they dubbed "anti-farmers".

ALSO READ: Farmers' bodies in Sirsa launch indefinite protest, demand Haryana Dy CM's resignation

The police or administration cannot suppress the voice of farmers.

They may ask us to clear this protest site, but our agitation against the farm legislations will continue and we will not rest the till we force the government to revoke these laws, said a farmer, who was at the protest site.

Sirsa police officials this morning made announcements over loudspeaker asking farmers to clear the protest site.

Sirsa Police DSP, Kuldeep Singh told reporters at the protest site that farmers were holding dharna on a busy road where the administration had not given them the permission.

"The farmers had been allowed to hold their dharna in Dussehra ground and we asked them to move there," he said.

The agitating farmers, however, remained adamant after which they were evicted from the site by the police.

Earlier, Haryana Bhartiya Kisan Union chief Gurnam Singh had lamented that while late Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal always fought for farmers, both Ranjit Chautala and Dushyant Chautala were busy "enjoying pleasures of power", "ignoring" farmers' interests.

"Both Dushyant and Ranjit Chautala are bringing disrespect to the name of farmers messiah Devi Lal by misusing his name in the garb of the peasantry," Haryana Kisan Manch president Prahalad Singh said earlier.

Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala and INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala had condemned the use of tear gas shells and water cannons on protesting farmers by the police.
With a spike of 72,049 new cases and 986 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, Indias COVID-19 count on Wednesday reached 67,57,132, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW). As per the MoHFW, the count includes 9,07,883 active cases, and 57,44,694 cured and discharged or migrated cases. With 986 deaths, the toll due to the disease in the country now stands at 1,04,555.

Maharashtra continues to be the worst affected by the pandemic with 2,47,468 active cases, 11,79,726 cured and discharged cases and 38,717 deaths. Karnataka with 1,15,170 active cases is the next on the list. While 5,33,074 patients have been cured in the State, the disease has claimed 9,461 lives so far.

Kerala, with 87,823 active cases, is also severely affected. However, 1,54,092 patients have been cured in the State and 884 people have died due to COVID-19. In Andhra Pradesh, there are 50,776 active cases while 6,72,479 patients have been cured of the disease. Moreover, 6,052 people have succumbed to the virus in the State.

Also Read: Wouldve thrown out China in less than 15 minutes if Congress was in power: Rahul Gandhi

Also Read: Hathras rape case: SIT gets 10 more days to submit probe report

As many as 2,66,935 COVID-19 patients have been cured and discharged in the national capital, which has reported 5,581 deaths so far. Delhi currently has 22,720 active cases. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 8,22,71,654 samples have been tested up to October 6 for COVID-19 in the country. Out of these 11,99,857 samples were tested on Tuesday.

Also Read: Congress cheating farmers for political gain: Sitharaman on Anti-Farm law protests
Hate, to me, means wishing ill on people, hoping bad things happen to them, believing the Earth would be better without them, he said. This is just my personal view, but it has a lot to do with redemption. When I say I hate Trump, I am saying he has done damage to me and the people/things I love and is simply irredeemable.
Irina Shayk looks every bit the supermodel even when in mom mode.

The 34-year-old Russian beauty was spotted walking in New York City on Wednesday, with her three-year-old daughter, Lea, whom she shares with 45-year-old ex-partner, Bradley Cooper.

Pushing her adorable daughter in a stroller with just one hand, Irina flashed a huge smile as she showed off her statuesque figure in a matching tie-dye outfit.

Mom mode: Irina Shayk, 34, looked happy to be home with her daughter, Lea, three, as the two went for a walk in NYC. The international supermodel, who has been traveling for fashion week, flashed a huge smile as she pushed her daughter in a stroller

The international stunner, who has been modeling up a storm during various fashion weeks, seemed happy to be home and spending time with Lea.

Irina looked like a cotton candy dream in her oversized blue and pink tie-dye sweatshirt, and matching bike shorts from athleisure designer Danzy.

She showed off her enviable legs, adding another pop of color with a pair of hot pink Ugg ankle booties.

Keeping it natural, Irina was makeup free as she strolled around the city, throwing on a pair of large gold hoops and layered necklaces.

Cotton candy: The Russian beauty looked like a snack in a cotton candy sweatshirt and matching bike shorts, topping the cozy look off with a pair of hot pink Ugg booties

She flashed a hint of her piercing green eyes in stylish micro-sunglasses, appearing mask free for the casual venture, despite the ongoing pandemic that has ravaged the world.

Daughter Lea, looked like a style star in her own right as she was dressed up in a pair of heart-printed tights and a black dress.

The blonde toddler had her hair up in pigtails, looking so content to be with her mom as she ate from a Thermos.

The tot was clearly expressing herself in outfit form, pairing the dark look with a baby pink jacket while she wore a butterfly bib.

Savage: Irina appeared in Rihanna's Savage x Fenty fashion show in Milan last week. The striking Russian beauty rocked a pair of sequined hot pants and a black lace bra for her runway look

Last week, Irina joined other coveted models and celebrities in Los Angeles for Rihanna's Savage x Fenty show, an extravagant event that was streamed on Amazon prime.

An intersection of celebrities, musicians and models, Irina joined Cara Delevingne, Bella Hadid, Lizzo, Paris Hilton and more, for an otherworldly experience that was rich in fantastic lingerie.

For one of her looks, Irina wore an all black ensemble that featured a pair of sequined hot pants and a lacy black bra, leaving lots to the imagination.

The five-foot-ten beauty also donned a silky black robe, as she modeled up a storm with dramatic eyeliner and dark acrylic nails for the event.

Versacepolis: The five-foot-ten stunner walked for fashion houses Versace and Hugo Boss as part of Milan Fashion Week; pictured backstage for Versace in late September

In addition to walking for Rihanna's show - which has completely obliterated competitor Victoria's Secret in the lingerie space - Irina also flew overseas for Milan Fashion week, modeling for Versace and Hugo Boss.

Taking to Instagram to give a glimpse at one of her looks for 'Versacepolis', Irina showed off her ample assets in a tangerine mermaid dress, while rocking slicked wet hair.

Traveling between Los Angeles and New York, Irina has been co-parenting Lea with ex-partner of four years, Bradley, recently reuniting in the city for a family outing.

The former pair seem to be on good terms, and have made Lea a priority, as they navigate raising a toddler during the pandemic.

Former flame: Irina and Bradley were married from 2014 to 2019. The pair who oscillate between Los Angeles and NYC while co-parenting their toddler, appear to have become friends despite their separation; seen in 2019

In recent months, the charitable model - who works closely with the Food Bank For NYC - has been linked to art dealer and ex to Heidi Klum, Vito Schnabel, 34.

The new couple appear to be going from strength to strength as Vito has even been seen dropping Lea off at school.

Talking to British Vogue back in January, Irina shared, 'I have a strong personality and I definitely know what I want, and I think some men are scared of that,' adding that, 'Two great people dont have to make a good couple,' while touching on her breakup from Cooper.
JOHNSTON  Health care was a central issue in their campaign two years ago, and in their rematch, Cindy Axne and David Young once again aired their disagreements over health care policy during Monday nights debate.

Axne, the Democratic first-term incumbent in central and southwestern Iowas 3rd Congressional District, and Young, a Republican former Congressman, participated in a live debate broadcast Monday night by Iowa PBS.

Axne and Young are squaring off in a rematch of their 2018 race, when Young was a two-term incumbent. Axne unseated Young two years ago by 2.1 percentage points.

The 3rd District race is expected to be close again this year. The district has political balance: 34% of active voters in the district are registered as Democrats, 32% are Republicans, and 27% claim no party.

During Monday nights debate, Axne and Young squared off over their disagreements on health care policy. While both insisted they wish to provide protections for individuals with pre-existing health conditions, they disagree about the proper way to provide those protections.

Axne hammered on Youngs votes in Congress to repeal the federal and Democrat-written Affordable Care Act. Young defend his votes, saying despite his desire to repeal the federal health care law  which includes protections for people with pre-existing conditions  he also worked to maintain those protections by introducing legislation.

I have always supported those with pre-existing conditions. I have two cousins who died of cancer. My uncle is missing two legs from diabetes. I have an aunt with (multiple sclerosis). To think that Im not going to act in their best interest, and all Iowans who are suffering the same, is despicable, Young said. These charges that just because you have a criticism of a current law that is failing  just goes to show how Iowans hate it when their health care is politicized. You did it in 2018, youre doing it again. Its a broken record. Its not going to work.

Axne stood firm in her criticism of Youngs ACA repeal votes.

You can slice and dice this any way that you would want to, but thats what you did. You voted against Iowans, and theres no way to erase that history, Axne said.

On the topic of federal COVID-19 relief, Axne said she opposed a proposal that was written and approved by her party because it had no chance of being approved by majority Republicans in the U.S. Senate, or the White House under Republican President Donald Trump.

I knew that that deal was going nowhere. It was just something to make people feel good about going home and saying they did something, when the Senate wasnt even going to vote for it. They told us that, Axne said. Im out there to get things done, not to put in votes just to make people feel good, but to actually put forth policy that improves their lives.

On the topic of keeping Social Security solvent, both candidates said they do not think the retirement age should be raised, and both said they would be open to raising the ceiling on taxing high wage earners.

Young said he does not support privatizing the Social Security program, and said lawmakers must recognize its long-term funding issues and work across political boundaries to devise a solution.

First of all, it has to be done in a bipartisan way. This cannot be a partisan approach. It has to be done in a way that is very, very transparent, take it to the American people, to the committee process, on the floor of the House and Senate, and also you have to get the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue (the White House) invested in this to do this, Young said. Its happened before, and we can do it again. But it takes guts. I want to be at the table to help do that. But first of all we have to admit that theres a problem.
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Author Neal Owens released the sequel to his groundbreaking multiple Award-Winning debut novel. Mirrors of Life Part 2: The Fight for Political Power is an insightful and chilling political thriller set in today's political climate. This timely fictional tale with true implications teaches the reader that everything in life has to do with politics.

Author Neal Owens Mirrors of Life Part 2: The Fight for Political Power book cover

Derrick, the young black venture capitalist, learns political strength is needed to sustain his civic-minded conglomerate and finances a nationwide grassroots voting initiative to change the leadership in Congress.

Erich Hornsby, the narcissistic and Neo-Nazi chairman of the business powers in America, plots Derrick's murder and manipulates the voters to elect his puppet, John Donaldson, president. In full control of the White House, Hornsby attempts to raise The Fourth Reich.

While set in a quasi-fictional America, there is too much truth in this book that you can't and shouldn't ignore.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Neal Owens was born and reared in Washington, DC. He currently resides in Alexandria, Virginia, and High Point, North Carolina.

After 33 years of service for at-risk youth, Mr. Owens resigned as Director of Operations for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washingtonand decided to pursue his passion for writing novels and short stories. Gifted with the art of storytelling, Mr. Owens took online novel courses and joined writing communities to learn the technical aspects of creative writing and sharpen his craft.

Five years later, he self-published his debut novel, Mirrors of Life. The Literary/Contemporary novel won the Bronze Medal from Readers Favorite, the Silver Book Award from Literary Titan, and Finalist for The 2020 International Book Awards.

His new release, Mirrors of Life Part 2: The Fight for Political Power is gripping, intense, intriguing, and chilling.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Neal Owens

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.owenspublishing.com

Phone: (336) 781-3302

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Mr. Richard O. Opoku, Project Director of Special Attention Project (SAP) Ghana emerged an award winner at the Humanitarian Awards Ghana 2020.

The award was in recognition of Mr. Opokus dedicated and meritorious services to children with learning difficulties and their families in Ghana.

For his prize, Mr. Opoku received a plague and certificate, part of which read: In recognition of your outstanding work and commitment to humanitarian activities to make this world a better place.

The awards night held at the Labadi Beach Hotel on Saturday, October 3, 2020, was under the theme: Celebrating Change Makers.

It seeks to recognize and celebrate the exceptional contributions of change-makers in promoting transformation in the lives of people, especially the vulnerable in society.

Speaking after the receiving the award, Mr. Opoku expressed excitement, saying Im pleased and honoured. He said the award was in recognition of the important work his team members and organisation do in improving learning outcomes of children with learning disabilities and in promoting quality and inclusion education.

Touching on Ghanas upcoming elections in December 2020, Mr. Opoku asked Ghanaians to uphold the aura of peace the country enjoys.

For some of us who havent experienced political instability before, let the COVID-19 lockdown serves as a salutary lesson to us. Only two to three weeks stay-at-home order, we became restive and felt like a huge millstone hanged around our necks.

This should tell us that we cannot sacrifice the peace and freedom we have on the altar of political expediency. The resounding call I want to make is that all of us must value the one life that we have to live, Mr. Opoku emphasised.

Mr. Opoku is a communication and development practitioner, rights and inclusive education advocate. He has achieved creditable results, creating innovative learning solutions for children with learning difficulties, such as Dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

He has an unparalleled record of raising awareness about learning difficulties and inclusive education in Ghana. He is a regular panelist and presenter on media and national programmes on learning difficulties and inclusive education, and his work has gained steam in Ghana and beyond.

In recognition of his dedicated services and work, Mr. Opoku was invited by Dyslexia Nigeria as a panelist in November 2019 at the First Annual Africa Dyslexia Dialogue, held at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Lagos, Nigeria.
The Bombay high court (HC) has refused to accept that the spread of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic in the country is a valid ground to allow a Thai national and a person of Indian origin (PIO), who is engaged in a legal battle with her estranged husband, to relocate her son (12) to Bangkok.

This ground of Covid-19 pandemic for relocation does not appeal to us at all, said the two-member HC division bench, comprising Justices Amjad Sayed and Abhay Abuja, on October 1, while dismissing the petition filed by the woman, who is married to a Mumbaikar.

The woman, who has been estranged from her husband since 2012, had moved the HC in June, seeking urgent orders to allow her to relocate her son to Bangkok until the time the petition for his custody was decided by the family court at Bandra.

The petitioner had contended that in view of the rapid spread of Covid-19 pandemic in India, we (the mother and the son) urgently want to relocate to our home country, Thailand, where my parents live, until the time the family court at Bandra decides on my sons custody.

She had stated that she and her son were leading a lonely life in India without any basic medical and financial assistance, maintenance and insurance.

She had claimed that the Covid-19 curve had flattened in Thailand and the South-east Asian country had become one of the safest places on the earth amid the pandemic crises.

She had drawn a parallel between the viral outbreak in her native Thailand and India and also had given the example of June 18 in a bid to bolster her argument.

She had pointed out that on that day Thailand had reported 3,290 Covid-19 and 58 deaths. On the contrary, India had reported 1.44 million and 32,063 Covid-19 cases and deaths, respectively, on the same day, she had added.

However, the contentions failed to impress upon the court.

The bench noted that the boy is studying in a reputed international school in Mumbai. In our view, it would not be proper to disrupt the studies of the boy in the middle of the academic year, classes of which are being conducted online, said the bench.

The bench also thought it improper to uproot the teenager at this stage in his life because he has lived in Mumbai all along.

The bench also rejected the petitioners contention that courts had allowed her nine times earlier to travel to Thailand along with her son.

It said previous concessions would not work in her favour. It certainly cannot be equated to relocating the boy to Bangkok pending disposal of the Bandra family courts proceedings, it added.
One of the new cases was potentially behind the traces of the coronavirus found in sewage testing, in a woman in her 50s from Camden, who lives within the West Camden catchment area. The other two cases were in a man in his 50s from Wollondilly and a woman in her 50s from Parramatta. On Wednesday afternoon, a public health alert was issued for a Fitness First Carlingford pilates class on Saturday, October 3 from 8.15 am to 9.15 am. People who attended that class were considered close contacts of a case, NSW Health said, and must get tested immediately and self isolate for 14 days regardless of their symptoms. People who attended several other venues between Friday and Sunday in the south-west, west and north-west Sydney areas  including Westfield Parramatta between 9.30am to 11am on Monday  were considered casual contacts. On Wednesday evening, NSW Health said that one of the new cases had attended Ripples restaurant in Milsons Point on Saturday, October 3, from 8pm to 10.30pm.

Contact tracing has commenced, after a small number of walk-in diners did not have their presence recorded. "All diners who were in this restaurant at that time are considered close contacts and must immediately get tested and isolate for 14 days since they were there, and stay isolated for the entire period, even if a negative test result is received," the department said. Anyone who attended the following venues at these times is considered a casual contact and should immediately isolate and get tested even if any symptoms develop. Friday 2 October: Kmart, Narellan Town Centre, Narellan  6pm to 7pm

Friday 2 October: Mazda Artarmon repair centre on Campbell Street, Artarmon  7.30am to 9.30am

Saturday 3 October: Fitness First, Carlingford (all attendees other than those in the pilates class): 8am to 9.15am

Sunday 4 October: Penrith Homemaker Centre, Penrith  11am to 1pm

Sunday 4 October: Guzman y Gomez, Penrith  1.30pm to 2pm

Sunday 4 October: Home Co, Penrith  2pm to 2.30pm

Monday 5 October: Westfield Parramatta  9.30 am to 11am

Monday 5 October: Castle Towers Shopping Centre, Castle Hill  12pm to 1pm Under Queensland's rules, NSW must go 28 days without community transmission before the border can be reopened. NSW Health authorities must also be able to trace the cases within 48 hours, otherwise the cases with unknown sources will reset the border clock to zero.

On Wednesday afternoon, Queensland Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles said he remained hopeful the border could reopen as soon as November 1, but warned that situation could still change at any time. "The contact tracers in NSW will have 48 hours to see if they can scientifically link these cases to existing clusters, I really hope that they can. If they can that won't have any effect on our timeline," he said. "As far as we know, for now, we are still on track for that review toward the end of the month." Earlier on Wednesday Ms Berejiklian said Queensland's definition of what would be safe enough to reopen the border was "unrealistic". "I will put to you that until the end of the pandemic, it's highly unlikely, highly improbable that NSW will ever get to 28 days of no community transmission, because that is not how a pandemic works," she said.

Testing numbers remain low in NSW with 5970 tests confirmed in the last reporting period. However, Dr Chant expected the number to rise, after NSW Health urged people living in the Hawkesbury and south-west Sydney regions to come forward for testing on Tuesday when the states sewage surveillance system picked up fragments of the virus at the North Richmond and West Camden treatment plants. Victoria recorded just six COVID-19 cases and two further deaths, as Premier Daniel Andrews said there was flexibility around criteria for easing lockdown restrictions in that state on October 19. Ms Berejiklian said, besides Victoria, there wasn't a case for keeping the state borders up. "I would hope that the federal government's intention to have all those borders coming down by Christmas is actually acted upon," she said.
If you're looking at a mature business that's past the growth phase, what are some of the underlying trends that pop up? Typically, we'll see the trend of both return on capital employed (ROCE) declining and this usually coincides with a decreasing amount of capital employed. This reveals that the company isn't compounding shareholder wealth because returns are falling and its net asset base is shrinking. On that note, looking into Aggreko (LON:AGK), we weren't too upbeat about how things were going.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

For those who don't know, ROCE is a measure of a company's yearly pre-tax profit (its return), relative to the capital employed in the business. To calculate this metric for Aggreko, this is the formula:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT)  (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.13 = UK214m  (UK2.3b - UK669m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2020).

So, Aggreko has an ROCE of 13%. In absolute terms, that's a pretty normal return, and it's somewhat close to the Commercial Services industry average of 11%.

View our latest analysis for Aggreko

roce

In the above chart we have measured Aggreko's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

So How Is Aggreko's ROCE Trending?

In terms of Aggreko's historical ROCE movements, the trend doesn't inspire confidence. Unfortunately the returns on capital have diminished from the 18% that they were earning five years ago. And on the capital employed front, the business is utilizing roughly the same amount of capital as it was back then. This combination can be indicative of a mature business that still has areas to deploy capital, but the returns received aren't as high due potentially to new competition or smaller margins. So because these trends aren't typically conducive to creating a multi-bagger, we wouldn't hold our breath on Aggreko becoming one if things continue as they have.

Story continues

What We Can Learn From Aggreko's ROCE

All in all, the lower returns from the same amount of capital employed aren't exactly signs of a compounding machine. Long term shareholders who've owned the stock over the last five years have experienced a 55% depreciation in their investment, so it appears the market might not like these trends either. With underlying trends that aren't great in these areas, we'd consider looking elsewhere.

Aggreko does have some risks, we noticed 2 warning signs (and 1 which shouldn't be ignored) we think you should know about.

For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity.

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.
Company Announcement

Copenhagen, 7 October 2020

No. 18/2020

Lord Charles Allen of Kensington, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ISS A/S since August 2013, has today informed the Board of Directors that he does not intend to seek re-election at the Annual General Meeting in April 2021 at which time he will have served on the Board for more than eight years.

Lord Allen of Kensington, Chairman of the Board of ISS A/S, said:

I have really enjoyed my time at ISS working with some very talented people, developing a clear strategy, with good governance and building a strong and diverse Board. I am confident that our recently appointed CEO Jacob Aarup-Andersen together with the team will deliver for our customers, colleagues and shareholders.

Henrik Poulsen, Deputy Chairman of the Board of ISS A/S, said:

On behalf of the Board and the company, I would like to express our sincere gratitude to Charles for his significant and dedicated efforts over many years. He has been a valued and respected Chairman and we wish him all the best with his future endeavours.

The timing of Lord Charles Allen of Kensingtons announcement gives the Board time to identify a successor and have an orderly handover, and an ad hoc Chairman selection committee has been established to identify the new Chairman of ISS. The recommended candidate is expected to be nominated for election at the Annual General Meeting in April 2021. The ad hoc selection committee will be chaired by Deputy Chairman Henrik Poulsen.

Henrik Poulsen, Deputy Chairman of the Board of ISS A/S, said:

I became Deputy Chairman earlier this year with the intention of supporting ISS through a period of challenging circumstances and change. I am not a candidate for the Chairman role, but I intend to stay on as the Deputy Chairman and work with the new Chairman, the rest of the Board and Jacob Aarup-Andersen and his team to bring ISS onto a strong performance trajectory.

For investor enquiries

Martin Kjr Hansen, Head of Group Investor Relations, +45 38 17 64 31

Louisa Baruch Larsson, Senior Investor Relations Manager, +45 38 17 63 38

For media enquiries

Rajiv Arvind, Communications Director, +45 24 90 07 47







About ISS

ISS is a leading workplace experience and facility management company. In partnership with customers, ISS drives the engagement and well-being of people, minimises the impact on the environment, and protects and maintains property. ISS brings all of this to life through a unique combination of data, insight and service excellence at offices, factories, airports, hospitals and other locations across the globe. In 2019, ISS Groups global revenue amounted to DKK 76.6 billion. For more information on the ISS Group, visit www.issworld.com



ISS A/S, ISIN DK0060542181, ISIN US4651472056

ISS Global A/S, ISIN XS2013618421, ISIN XS1330300341, ISIN XS1145526825, ISIN XS1673102734

ISS Finance B.V., ISIN XS2199343513

Attachment
Vanessa George, 50, (pictured) took photos of herself abusing up to 30 infants at Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth, Devon

Parents have made fresh demands for Britain's worst female paedophile to name her victims after 11 years of agony.

Vanessa George, 50, was jailed for a minimum of seven years in 2009 after she took photos of herself abusing up to 30 infants at Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth, Devon.

Parents of nursery children under the care of say they have felt continuously tortured at never knowing if they were among those she abused.

The mother-of-two was freed last year after the Parole Board said she no longer posed a 'significant risk' to the public.

But her victims were never formally identified in court, leaving many parents uncertain as to whether their children had been abused.

Plymouth MP Luke Pollard told the House of Commons that her silence has allowed her to 'maintain a power' over her victims.

Police are pictured outside Little Ted's nursery after George's arrest in June 2009

His plea came as a new piece of legislation, known as 'Helen's Law', moved a step closer to becoming law.

During the debate, Mr Pollard said: 'We don't believe every child at Little Ted's Nursery was abused by Vanessa George but we don't know which child was.

He added that families were 'living with the uncertainty whether it was their child that was abused or not'.

The mother-of-two (pictured) was freed last year after the Parole Board said she no longer posed a 'significant risk' to the public

He said: 'That is a cancer that eats away at you and the courage and determination of the families throughout this has been a real source of strength to me.

Plymouth MP Luke Pollard (pictured) told the House of Commons that her silence has allowed her to 'maintain a power' over her victims.

'The final remark on this is to Vanessa George herself. She maintains a power over the victims by withholding the names.

'She will know the names of some of the children she abused and photographed and shared the images of.

'Wherever she is in Britain at this point, she could help those families relieve part of their suffering and uncertainty by naming some of the children she abused.'

He added that she 'must know the names' of the children and that naming them would 'enormously help the healing process'.

Mr Pollard added that he appeals to her to disclose the names because 'for as long as she holds those names, those families will not have peace'.

The Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill is named after Helen McCourt, whose murderer Ian Simms was released from prison earlier this year despite never revealing where her remains are.

The Bill now requires final approval from the Lords and, if no further amendments are made, it will progress towards receiving royal assent.
BRIDGEPORT  City police say they have confiscated more than 30 firearms leading to 20 arrests in the past month.

The latest arrest occurred Monday night when the Bridgeport Police Strategic Enforcement Detail was patrolling the area of Lennox Avenue following an alert from the ShotSpotter activation system.

Bridgeport Police photo

Patrolling officers observed a motor vehicle violation when the driver failed to stop at a stop sign, units conducted a vehicle stop in the 1100 block of Howard Avenue and found that the vehicle was operating with an expired registration. When officers requested a drivers license, the driver indicated that it has been expired for years, police said in a release.

Police said the driver, Michael Hudson, 22, of Norwalk, attempted to hide a handgun and narcotics. During a full search of Hudson, he was found to be in possession of narcotics, cocaine, crack and marijuana, police said.

Hudson, who was on parole, was charged with illegal operation of a motor vehicle under suspension, failure to obey a stop sign, possession with intent to sell, illegal possession of narcotics, possession of a controlled substance, carrying a pistol without a permit, illegal possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle and criminal possession of a firearm. He was held on $100,000 bond.

In addition to other strategic measures, officers are patrolling hot spots, responding to ShotSpotter notifications to mitigate violent crimes throughout the city, police said.

Anyone that has a weapon and the intent to cause harm to another person will be caught. This is not OK, and we need everyone in Bridgeport to say the same thing and mean it  this is not OK,Acting Police Chief Rebeca Garcia said in a statement.

Well do our part, but we need full engagement of friends, family members, the entire community  to report any illegal guns or provide an anonymous tip  and well get them off the street.
The Narcotics Control Bureau will challenge Bollywood actor Rhea Chakrabortys bail in the Supreme Court, it said after the Bombay high court pronounced its verdict on Wednesday granting bail to the actor. Additional solicitor general Anil Singh said, This matter involves a number of questions of law and therefore we want to test this order before the Supreme Court.

The NCB arrested Rhea Chakraborty on September 8 in a drug-related case that the agency in probing related to Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajpurts death. Rheas brother Showik was arrested before her. Rhea moved a bail plea to the Bombay high court after her bail plea was rejected by a special court on September 11. The high court on Wednesday granted bail only to the actor. Showik will stay in jail as his bail plea was rejected.

Also Read: Rhea Chakraborty gets bail but high court sets 4 key conditions; her brother stays in jail

In all the previous hearings of the case, NCB had contested that the accused (Rhea) has actively aided, abetted, and financed other accused person for the drug transaction in pursuance criminal conspiracy. On Tuesday, as a special NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) court was hearing the case, NCB said the NDPS Act does not state that offences are bailable based on the quantity of drugs involved. The NDPS court extended the judicial custody of Rhea, Showik and 18 others till October 20. But now after high courts verdict, Rhea will be walking out of the Byculla prison after a month.

Meanwhile, Sushant Singh Rajputs family lawyer Vikas Singh has written to the CBI seeking the setting up of a fresh forensic team to look into the actors autopsy report.
Housing sales across seven major cities in the country fell 35 per cent year-on-year to 50,983 units during the July-September period even as the demand recovered post lockdown, according to data analytics firm PropEquity.

Sales stood at 78,472 units in the year-ago period in seven cities -- Delhi-NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune.

On sequential basis, however, sales jumped over two-fold from 24,936 units in the April-June quarter of this year, PropEquity said.

Last week, property consultant Anarock reported 46 per cent year-on-year (YoY) drop in sales of residential properties during July-September quarter at 29,520 units in these seven cities.

"The Indian real estate sector is showing some recovery as many projects were launched in the last quarter; and with various schemes and offers, developers were able to clear significant inventory," PropEquity founder and MD Samir Jasuja said.

"As we move into the festive season, we forecast this recovery to continue with more offers, discounts and attractive payments schemes to attract customers, Jasuja added.

According to the PropEquity data, housing sales declined in all seven cities during July-September 2020 compared to same period last year.

In Bengaluru, sales fell 44 per cent to 6,098 units from 10,878 units.

Chennai saw 36 per cent fall in sales at 2,403 units during July-September quarter from 3,749 units in the year-ago period.

Sales of residential properties went down by 32 per cent in Hyderabad at 4,677 units from 6,924 units.

Kolkata witnessed 44 per cent decline in sales to 2,239 units during July-September from 4,023 units in the year-ago period.

Housing sales in MMR dipped 30 per cent to 16,652 units from 23,719 units, while demand fell 23 per cent in the NCR to 9,375 units from 12,237 units.

In Pune, sales decreased 44 per cent to 9,539 units during July-September 2020 from 16,942 units in the same period last year.

PropEquity, which is owned and operated by P E Analytics, is an online real estate data and analytics platform covering over 1,18,010 projects of 34,217 developers across 44 cities.

Photograph: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters
Lyonsdale, N.Y.  A Lewis County teenager was airlifted to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse after the truck he was riding in went off the road and struck a tree Tuesday afternoon.

The crash happened around 1:58 p.m. on Kosterville Road in the town of Lyonsdale in Lewis County.

State police said 22-year-old Mitchell Fruin, of Lyons Falls, was driving a 2004 GMC pickup truck west on Kosterville Road when he lost control, went off the south shoulder of the road and struck a tree.

A passenger in the truck, identified by police as 15-year-old Jordan Rogers, of Port Leyden, was airlifted by Mercy Flight to Upstate University Hospital. He is currently listed in stable condition, according to police.

Police said Fruin suffered non-life-threatening injuries. He was taken to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Utica for treatment.

Contact Jacob Pucci at jpucci@syracuse.com or find him on Twitter at @JacobPucci.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has moved to pre-empt cracks from surfacing in its alliance with the Janata Dal (United), or JD (U), ahead of the Bihar elections by allotting 11 seats out of its quota to a smaller ally and issuing a clear directive to the Lok Janshakti Party not to use Prime Minister Narendra Modis images and speeches and central government policies in the poll campaign.

Giving up the 11 seats to the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) means the BJP will contest 110 seats in the 243-member Bihar assembly; chief minister Nitish Kumars JD (U), which has allotted seven seats out of its 122 to Jitan Ram Manjhis Hindustan Awam Morcha (Secular), will be in the fray for 115 seats.

The BJP initially wanted to contest the same number of seats as the JD (U) before agreeing to settle for less.

According to two BJP functionaries.LJP chief Chirag Paswans sharp remarks against the JD(U) and chief minister Nitish Kumar after deciding not to contest the Bihar elections as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) while simultaneously heaping praise on the Prime Minister was seen as an attempt to create friction between the alliance partners.

Subsequent speculation that the LJPs decision had the tacit approval of the BJP and that the latter wanted to emerge from the elections as the single-largest party in the assembly and lay claim to the CMs post also upset the JD(U).

The LJPs decision to oppose the JD(U) has raised fears hat it could play spoiler in seats where Lalu Prasads Rashtriya Janata Dal and the JD(U) were set for a direct contest.

The LJP seems to think it holds the key to the election, said a BJP functionary who asked not to be named.

In the 2005 assembly Bihar assembly elections, the LJP, citing differences with the RJD, fielded candidates against it and not against the Congress. All three parties were allies and part of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA).

The LJP won 29 seats and considered itself as the kingmaker, but the state went for a re-election later in the year and the LJP failed to get as many seats, the BJP functionary added.

On the assumption that the LJP could dent the JD (U)s vote bank, something that will work in favour of the BJP, a second party functionary said the BJP expects the NDA to win over 200 seats in the elections.

Between Jitan Ram Manjhis HAM and the VIP, which counts the most backward communities as its support base, we do not foresee the LJP damaging the NDA or playing a spoiler. We will honour our pre-poll alliances, the second functionary said.

Analyst Shankar Dutt of Patna University said the LJPs decision to go it alone, oppose the JD (U) and possibly dent the formers vote bank may have affected the NDAs prospects

It is quite possible that the post- poll scenario that will emerge may force a new alliance and also that a lot of pre-poll arrangements may not last, Dutt said.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Smriti Kak Ramachandran Smriti covers an intersection of politics and governance. Having spent over a decade in journalism, she combines old fashioned leg work with modern story telling tools. ...view detail
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron speaks during a press conference to announce a grand jury's decision to indict one of three Louisville Metro Police Department officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor (Getty Images)

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has hit back at Megan Thee Stallions criticism of his decision not to bring charges in the case of the shooting of Breonna Taylor.

The heated comments come in response to the rapper's Saturday Night Live performance when she launched an attack against Mr Cameron for this role in Ms Taylors case.

During the opening episode of NBC late-night sketch series on Saturday, Stallion used the stage during her performance of hit Savage to draw attention to her message to protect black men and women.

She then played an audio clip of social justice activist Tamika Mallory saying: "Daniel Cameron is no different than the sellout Negroes that sold our people into slavery."

In an interview with Fox and Friends on Tuesday Mr Cameron agreed that we need to love and protect our black women but then hit out at Stallions disparaging comments calling them disgusting.

"The fact that a celebrity that I've never met before wants to make those sorts of statements  they don't hurt me, but what it does is it exposes the type of intolerance that people, and the hypocrisy," he said.

"Obviously people preach about being tolerant. You've seen a lot of that from the left about being tolerant. But what you saw there is inconsistent with tolerance. In fact, it's her espousing intolerance."

Ms Taylor, a 26-year-old Louisville emergency medical tech was shot dead by police during a drugs raid on her home in March.

The warrant to search her apartment was approved as part of a narcotics investigation into a suspect who lived across town, and no drugs were found at her home.

Mr Cameron, the first African American elected to the job in Kentucky, has been criticised by many for his decision not to directly charge any officers with Ms Taylor's killing.

The decision has sparked widespread outrage and protests in Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

Read more

Story continues

Recordings reveal confusion behind Breonna Taylor's death

Breonna Taylor: Audio released from grand jury hearings

'This could have been a Breonna Taylor: Police storm black students dorm after false report

Breonna Taylor case: Attorney general Daniel Cameron accused of deception by juror over charging decision


By Ngaire Woods





OXFORD  At the recent opening of the United Nations General Assembly, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the United States and China could "split the globe" into separate trade and financial blocs with diverging internet and artificial-intelligence capacities. Moreover, he said, such a "Great Fracture" between the world's two largest economies could become a geostrategic and military divide.



The emerging Sino-American tensions in international organizations are indeed alarming. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, having previously accused the World Health Organization of cozying up to China, has announced its intention to withdraw the U.S. from the agency and is withholding funding, thus depriving the WHO of its largest single financial contributor. The U.S. has also stalled the World Trade Organization's dispute-settlement system by vetoing the appointment of new judges to its appellate body.



Fortunately, however, three strands of multilateralism will contain the risk of a great superpower fracture.



First, multilateral organizations are changing, not collapsing. China is not seeking to destroy the international institutions that America established and led in the aftermath of World War II. On the contrary, China is seeking to increase its influence within these organizations, not least because it is thriving within the system they uphold.



After the U.S. announced that it was withdrawing from the WHO, China pledged to give it $2 billion over two years to help it fight the COVID-19 pandemic. And after the U.S. sought to prevent the WTO's appellate body from functioning, China circulated a reform proposal aimed at strengthening the organization.



In the U.N., China is now the second-largest contributor to the general budget and to the peacekeeping budget. Chinese officials now head four of the U.N.'s 15 specialized agencies. And in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, China is now the third most powerful member state, with its own seat on the executive board and a Chinese official in the senior management team.



We are thus witnessing two economic superpowers competing for positions within agencies that set and monitor global rules. Whereas China, the newcomer, is using carrots to advance its position, the U.S. (not for the first time) is using sticks  threats of disengagement and defunding  to get its way.



The key for other countries will be the quality of these international organizations' leadership  as was the case during the Cold War, when the U.S. dominated such institutions. In that era, for example, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold neatly sidestepped the U.S.-Soviet stalemate by introducing international peacekeeping overseen by the U.N., while World Bank President Robert McNamara used his authority and mandate to expand the Bank's membership and activities.



Countering the Great Fracture will require leaders who can mobilize coalitions of countries other than China or the U.S. to counter a dominant member's view, and who can maximize the impact of their organizations' resources, staff, and policies. Without such leaders, rival superpowers' vetoes are almost certain to paralyze or marginalize international organizations. These considerations will be vital in the upcoming choice of a new WTO director-general to succeed Roberto Azevedo, who recently stepped down a year before his current term was due to end.



A second reason to think multilateralism will survive is that, like the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, both China and America are using multilateral arrangements to cement relations with their respective allies. Each superpower uses institutions that it dominates, such as the Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank (where the U.S. has 30 percent of the voting power and China has 0.004 percent), and the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (where China has 29 percent of the voting power and the U.S. is not a member).



Classical realists would argue that such balance-of-power politics necessarily sacrifices the sovereignty of small states, as superpowers strong-arm them into joining their alliances to fight the existential threat posed by their rival. But the history of the Cold War shows that formal institutions within each side's alliance can give smaller states some influence over the rules, which can in turn moderate superpower competition.



For example, America's traditional dominance of the IMF resulted in lending practices and policies that were tightly aligned with U.S. national security priorities. But formal and informal agenda-setting and decision-making power within the IMF in the 1980s offered opportunities for European and other states to influence the rules. Likewise, multilateralism within today's U.S. and China-led alliances could moderate the current superpower rivalry.



The third strand of multilateralism that mitigates the risks posed by the Sino-American rivalry recalls the early 19th-century Concert of Europe, whereby the great powers of the time sought to resolve matters of mutual interest through multilateral consultations. The effectiveness of this arrangement lay in its members' shared interest in preserving the status quo.



Today, the leaders of the world's largest economies have a similar common interest in preventing either the pandemic or a global financial crisis from disrupting the international status quo. At this April's summit of G20 leaders  principally a crisis-management committee  they pledged collectively not only to use formal international institutions to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, but also to coordinate some of their own fiscal and monetary-policy responses, and to work to resolve trade disputes. G20 leaders will meet again in November to consider further possible steps.



Although China and the U.S. are strategic rivals, each depends on global markets, finance, and innovation, and needs to co-opt other countries and regions in order to sustain its own power. For this reason, both will use multilateralism, formal and informal, to protect the system within which they have flourished and to solidify the alliances with which they intend to chart their future course.





Ngaire Woods is dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. This article was distributed by Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).




The actors who became part of cinematic history when they were cast as the von Trapp children in The Sound Of Music have reunited online to promote face masks inspired by the 'patterned curtain' ensembles they sported in the film.

Debbie Turner, the American actress who played Marta von Trapp, has created a line of face coverings in fabric reminiscent of the drapes-turned-clothes worn by the youngsters in the 1965 classic.

The designer's surviving on-screen siblings shared their support for the product by each posing in the masks for a photo on the 64-year-old's website, which was then shared on Twitter by Kym Karath, who played the youngest von Trapp, Gretl.

In the film, governess Maria (portrayed by Julie Andrews) used her green patterned curtains to make outfits for the sheltered von Trapp children to play in.

Social media users rejoiced at the virtual reunion, with one labelling it a 'great photo', while others praised the masks as 'cute'.

The actors who became part of cinematic history when they were cast as the von Trapp children in The Sound Of Music have reunited online to promote face masks inspired by the 'patterned curtain' ensembles they sported in the film (pictured)

Debbie Turner, the American actress who played Marta von Trapp, has created a line of face coverings in fabric reminiscent of the drapes-turned-clothes worn by the youngsters in the 1965 classic. Pictured, her on-screen siblings sporting the coverings

The designer's surviving on-screen siblings shared their support for the product by each posing in the masks for a photo on the 64-year-old's website, which was then shared on Twitter by Kym Karath (above), who played the youngest von Trapp, Gretl

'Film Von Trapps wearing curtain masks. Our family wears masks, what about yours?' Kym captioned the image this week.

Kym and Turner were captured alongside Angela Cartwright (who played Brigitta), Nicholas Hammond (who played Friedrich) and Duane Chase (who played Kurt).

Sadly, Heather Menzies-Urich, who portrayed Louisa, and Charmian Carr, who played Liesl, died in 2017 and 2016 respectively.

Twitter users were keen to share their delight regarding the photograph, calling it 'great' and 'such cuteness'.

Debbie (pictured), who runs an eponymous event design company, is selling the 'Masks Made From Drapes' on her website, although they are currently sold out

Social media users (above) rejoiced at the virtual reunion, with one labelling it a 'great photo', while others praised the masks as 'cute'

Debbie, who runs an eponymous event design company, is selling the 'Masks Made From Drapes' on her website, although they are currently sold out.

Headbands and masquerade masks also available in the green patterned fabric.

'Own a piece of nostalgia! Limited Edition,' Debbie wrote on her website. 'My masks are hand made with similar fabrics to The Sound of Music von Trapp kids' curtain play clothes as seen in the movie.

'Adjustable elastic for an excellent fit. Made in the USA. Look for "Debbie Turner" on the tag.'

In the film, governess Maria (portrayed by Julie Andrews) used her green patterned curtains to make outfits for the sheltered von Trapp children to play in (pictured)

Due to overwhelming demand, my von Trapp fingers are sewing as fast as they can. Please be patient and your order will go out as soon as possible!

Known as The SoM 7, the group formed their own sort of family over the months of making the musical.

Their parents befriended one another as the young performers travelled to Austria for filming, and the actors themselves have remained close for decades.

'We're beyond friends. We're second family,' said Kym previously. 'As adults, we were deeply bonded, so our lives have really interwoven with each other.'
New Delhi, Oct 7 : As the work-life balance get blurred globally in the pandemic times, India came out top with over 41 per cent of workers citing the lack of separation between work and personal life negatively impacting their wellbeing, resulting in increased stress levels, a Microsoft study revealed on Wednesday.

Close to one third of workers in India (29 per cent) cited increased rates of burnout over the past six months, according to Microsoft's latest 'Work Trend Index' report.

"As businesses adapt to a new way of working, it is important to examine the multifaceted impact that the new working conditions are having on employees. This is helping us provide relevant and timely solutions to all our customers and users," said Samik Roy, Country Head, Modern Work, Microsoft India.

Surveying over 6,000 information and first-line workers across eight countries globally including Australia, Japan, India and Singapore, the study found that India had the second highest percentage of workers facing increased burnout in Asia, at 29 per cent.

The findings showed that no commute may be hurting, not helping, remote worker productivity.

A massive 92 per cent those surveyed said meditation can decrease work-related stress.

Microsoft recently announced a series of updates within Teams to support employee wellbeing, including virtual commute experience and a curated set of mindfulness and meditation experiences.

The study found that 29 per cent of workers in India are experiencing increased burnout at work, owing to its increase in workday span by one hour.

"While workers in Australia saw the highest increase in workday span in Microsoft Teams at 45 percent, with a medium increase in burnout, India had the longest workday span of surveyed markets".

The top stressors shared by workers in India was the worry about contracting Covid-19 at work and feeling isolated or disconnected from co-workers, at 42 and 35 per cent respectively.

The study also found that 19 percent of workers have not been provided the tech or protective equipment they need to effectively socially distance by their company, contributing to increased stress levels.

"In the last six months, we have seen how Covid-19 has created an era of remote everywhere. It has led to the evolution of a new workplace -- from a physical space to one residing in a virtual world," Roy said.

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are, in effect, web applications that can be downloaded and installed from Google Chrome and run like native apps. But learning how to download or install a PWA in Chrome isnt necessarily the most intuitive process. Even if it is easy once learned.

Now, PWAs come with a whole lot of benefits. Most of those will be for developers but that has a knock-on effect for users. Not least of all, it gives users ready offline access to information and web-built tools. Those function like native apps and do so across any platform Chrome can be installed on.

For instance, Google has shown how a PWA can replace a basic image compressor and editor with its web-based Squoosh app. The company built it as a PWA. So the tool can be used either online or off. And it functions just like downloaded software should. Users can just as easily access Squoosh on Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebooks, Android, or iOS.

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Of course, it isnt just basic tools like a photo editor that can take the form of a PWA. Google has also demonstrated drawing tools as PWAs, websites, word editors, chat apps, and more.

The possibilities are, in effect, only limited by developers imaginations. So the platform has grown significantly since its 2019 introduction. And its going to get bigger thanks to a recent team-up between Google and Microsoft aimed at making creating them even easier. All of that makes learning how to install a PWA in Chrome more pressing than ever before.

To download a PWA in Google Chrome

The how when it comes time to download or install a PWA via Google Chrome really couldnt be a much easier process. In fact, it can easily be summarized in just a few steps. And thats because Google has stopped just short of tossing in a pop-up message to inform users that a site can be installed as a PWA.

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It goes without saying that there may, at any given point, be some differences between how different operating systems install PWAs. Or whether or not they can be installed at all. On Android, for example, installing a PWA doesnt seem to follow the process below at all, at least for now.

This guide will use a Chromebook but the UI should stay the same across Windows, Mac, and Linux too  for the Chrome browser. It could potentially stay the same on iOS but well discuss Android just below the steps.

Open Google Chrome. Using the URL Omnibox, navigate to the page you would like to download from Google Chrome as a PWA. For this example, were using Googles image compression and light editing app Squoosh Click or Tap on the URL Omnibox once the page loads. If the site is downloadable as a PWA, a new install icon will appear on the right-hand side of the Omnibox. Google shaped the install icon like a plus symbol inside of a circle and typically just to the left of the star-shaped bookmark icon. To begin with, the word Install should also appear there briefly, before sliding back out of view. Tap or click the install icon. Click or Tap Install in the resulting pop-out to install the PWA. Once installed, the PWA will be presented in its own native-like window. Chrome places an appropriate icon alongside other installed applications and software. On Chromebooks, thats in the app launcher, as shown in the images below, while on Windows that should be within the start menu.

On Android devices, the current state of affairs seems to be that theres no native Chrome UI telling users how to install a PWA. Instead, web apps apparently need to include their own install button. For Squoosh, for instance, the purple-colored Install button shown in the above sample images also appears on Android. And tapping that, as with desktop Chrome, results in a pop-up.

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The key difference is that the pop-up asks users to add the Squoosh PWA to their home screen. Thats similar to how the Google app, when weather is searched, presents users with that option. Choosing to add the Squoosh PWA to the home screen wont cause it to appear in the app drawer on Android. It can be found on the home screen instead.

Keeping PWAs up-to-date

Now, after installing a PWA from Google Chrome, theres really no need to worry about keeping the app up-to-date. Thats not because they dont need to be updated, of course. But, for the most part, PWAs will keep themselves up-to-date. In fact, they update in a few different ways but always when the installed device is connected to the internet.

For example, the Squoosh app used in our example doesnt update as often as a typical PWA. Thats because it is, under the hood, a basic photo editing application. Explicitly meant for compressing, resizing, and otherwise shrinking down image file sizes. So there isnt a lot in terms of user-facing details that need to change.

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Instead, it will periodically receive improvements via an update when the Chromebook its installed on is connected. When that does happen, a pop-up appears, telling users theres a new version. Tapping the update button relaunches Squoosh, a lot like reloading a website.

Things are different when a website is installed as a PWA that does have a lot of user-facing details that need to update. For instance, a news site PWA will effectively update every time its opened, as long as a connection is available. And itll do that in the background just like a native app for the service in question would. Google worked to ensure that no user interaction is needed. When connected, it simply pulls down the update while its opening.

All of that means that, like a native app, unless theres a big change to functionality, users wont need to do much at all to keep things up-to-date.

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Not every site or service is available as a Progressive Web App

One final note to be made on progressive web apps is that not every website or service is going to be available. At least not yet. As noted above, Google only just introduced PWAs in 2019. The goal, of course, was to get everybody involved and building the apps so that sites and services would work on any platform. In effect, it was to create a code once, release everywhere platform. But not everybody has gotten on board with that. At least not yet.

Equally important, not every company that has built a PWA, such as Pandora, works with Chrome. The music streaming service does allow the use of Pandora as a PWA in the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser. That requires users to navigate to Pandora, tap or click the three-dot context menu, scroll down to apps, and then select an Install option. So not every instance of a web app is going to work the same either.

With all of that said, more PWAs are being added on a regular basis. So, where available, the process of installing them on Chrome should stay the same.
Just as the pandemic has hit Manitobans differently, based on income, ethnicity, gender and more, the recovery also stands to be inequitable as it unfolds  unless governments take action.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 7/10/2020 (472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Just as the pandemic has hit Manitobans differently, based on income, ethnicity, gender and more, the recovery also stands to be inequitable as it unfolds  unless governments take action.

For Brian Pallisters Progressive Conservative government, the return to the Legislature on Wednesday with a speech from the throne is a chance to make sure the recovery goes better than the shutdown. I have to say, however, Im not optimistic. He has let Manitobans down too often the past, and his actions on so many fronts throughout his time in government give little reason for hope.

Take, for example, child care: even before the pandemic, child care was not meeting the need, with spaces for just 18.8 per cent of children under 12, well below the Canadian average of 27.2 per cent.

At the end of August, Families Minister Heather Stefanson announced the governments second action plan for early learning and child care, reporting that that 21,000 spaces are currently operational. This is a huge drop from the 37,459 spaces operating pre-pandemic  a cut of 16,459 spaces in just a few months.

Every missing space means another family hurting, and probably another woman forced, once again, to decide between her job and child-care needs. The fortunate ones can work from home and try to juggle it all. Many  often, those weve come to call COVID-19 heroes  dont have that choice.

Unifor urges Pallister to work with the federal government to attain a national, universal child-care system, and abandon his ill-considered scheme to hand over child-care dollars to chambers of commerce.

As this new legislative session opens, working Manitobans are still feeling the sting from Pallisters austerity measures. Even as COVID-19 puts workers in precarious economic circumstances, the PC government has only piled on.

Manitobas universities have seen an increase in enrolment, but that didnt stop the Pallister government from cutting funding to universities. Our members in Local 3007 at the University of Manitoba have seen hundreds of layoffs in maintenance and food services. While some of that is because there are so few students on campus, others have been idled by funding cuts.

Pallister once again raises the spectre of Manitoba Hydro privatization as he hovers over the Hydro subsidiary Manitoba Hydro International, while hampering the profitable venture by ordering it not to aggressively pursue new work. The throne speech gives him a chance to reverse this wrong-headed scheme.

This is the thin edge of the wedge, and identical to the carving up of utilities we have seen across Canada. Hundreds of workers have been laid off since Pallister came to office, resulting in service delays and raising safety concerns. It is imperative that Manitoba Hydro, which Manitobans built for Manitoba, remain in public hands.

Going after working Manitobans is nothing new to Manitobas premier for the wealthy. His Public Services Sustainability Act, designed to freeze the wages of public-sector workers, was overturned on June 11 by Justice Joan McKelvey, who declared parts of it unconstitutional and a "draconian measure which limits and reduces a unions bargaining power." Pallister continues to waste taxpayer money appealing the decision.

All this, of course, plays into Pallisters ill-advised pursuit of balancing the budget. Pallisters kitchen-table economic approach to running the province has stripped funding from health care, education, the civil service, public transit and infrastructure. At a time when Manitoba needs more public investment, this government has seen fit to starve the province. We deserve better in this throne speech.

And while we applaud Pallister demanding the federal government put more money into health care and pay its fair share under the Canada Health Act, such a demand is disingenuous, considering how hard the Pallister government has hit health care in this province.

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The new throne speech will mean that all bills on the previous order paper will die, giving Pallister a chance to reconsider his attacks on labour  including Bill 16, which would privatize the conciliation process. The bill would have effectively killed conciliation by allowing companies to refuse to pay for it. Without conciliation  currently a free service that brings parties together to achieve a resolution  labour stoppages will increase.

We would prefer to see the government abandon its anti-worker stance and instead, deliver a new throne speech that outlines a positive view of our province. Help Manitobans thrive during COVID-19. Abandon attacks on workers, and focus on building Manitoba and building up Manitobans.

Gavin McGarrigle is the Western Regional Director for Unifor.
Bhubaneswar, Oct 7 : Odisha has reported as many as 2,995 new Covid-19 cases and 18 deaths in the last 24 hours, informed the state Health Department on Wednesday.

The total count of people infected with the virus in the state rose to 2,40,998. The death toll due to Coronavirus climbed to 958.

Four deaths were reported from Balasore district and two each from Nayagarh, Puri and Sundergarh districts. One death each was reported from the districts of Boudh, Deogarh, Jajpur, Kandhamal, Khordha, Koraput, Mayurbhanj and Sambalpur.

Among the new cases, 1,737 have been kept under quarantine, while 1,258 are local contacts.

Khordha recorded the highest 568 fresh cases followed by Cuttack (166) and Angul (142).

Angul recorded 142 cases, followed by Balasore (121), Balangir (94), Bargarh (93) and Bhadrak (28). At present, there are 29,770 active Covid-19 cases in the state with 958 fatalities.

With the new cases, the number of active cases in the state rose to 29,770. A total of 2,10,217 people have recovered from the virus in the state.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Welcome to Trumps America. While on a run a few miles from our house, in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Bena gets stoped by men whos badges said ICE asking for ID (which he doesnt carry on runs). The video is only a short clip of a longer interaction but they immediately backed down when he started recording and let him go, thankfully. He was stopped for running while black in a predominantly white neighborhood. This isnt something you can ignore and say it doesnt happen here, it does. It happens to your neighbors, friends, and family. This blatant display of racism is a direct result of the elected officials we give power to and the man in office turning a blind eye and helpful hand to formerly closeted racists who now have an open forum to degrade and dehumanize others. Please, if you care about me, B, our daughter, other families affected by whats happening in our country, VOTE! Posted by Michelle Lynne on Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Bena Apreala, who is Black, was out running Tuesday afternoon in West Roxbury, only a few miles from his home, when he was stopped by multiple men with Immigration and Customs Enforcement badges.

They were asking for his identification.

He was on the VFW Parkway when the men, driving in two SUVs with tinted windows, approached and blocked the sidewalk in front of him, WBUR reported.

The news outlet reported that the men, all of whom were white and dressed in camouflage, identified themselves as law enforcement and questioned Apreala about his identity.

The alleged law enforcement officers immediately backed down when Apreala, who does not carry his ID on runs, started recording the encounter.

The men let him go, with Apreala asking them if they were all set. They answered yes but then asked him if he has any tattoos on his arms.

He responded, If Im free to go, Im not showing you anything. Thank you. Have a great day, guys.

The feds tried to stop me. ICE tried to stop me in my own neighborhood," Apreala can be heard saying after the encounter. This s*** is crazy.

He proceeded to tell someone across the street, who was recording the stop, to keep the camera on, just in case.

The incident, which was uploaded to Facebook on Tuesday and has been viewed by thousands of people, has sparked widespread outrage and claims of racial profiling, with multiple Boston city councilors demanding answers.

Councilors Michelle Wu and Matt OMalley both called the encounter unacceptable."

Wu, who announced earlier this year she would be running for mayor of the city, noted Boston deserves full transparency about the identities of the men who stopped Apreala and about how such an incident can be prevented from happening again.

Ill be following up with our federal representatives to investigate further, she tweeted.

This is unacceptable & Boston deserves full transparency about who these men were & how we will ensure this doesnt happen again.



Ill be following up with our federal representatives to investigate further. https://t.co/QpW1CgwWqg  Michelle Wu  (@wutrain) October 6, 2020

OMalley added that as someone who frequently jogs along the parkway, Aprealas encounter with the alleged officers hit particularly hard.

This unlawful stop was outrageous and unacceptable. Racial profiling should not happen here or anywhere else. I am working to follow up w/the victim and will address this issue immediately w/ federal reps, he tweeted.

The Boston ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations office declined to talk about the interaction with WBUR. They also did not say whether the men were officers with the federal agency.

A Boston Police Department spokesman told the news outlet the officers are not members of the department.

The encounter is one of several incidents involving Black individuals going about innocuous tasks - driving home after picking up dog food, birdwatching, selling lemonade, barbecuing and many more - only to be stopped by law enforcement or have police be called on them.

He was stopped for running while Black in a predominantly white neighborhood, the caption of the video of Aprealas encounter says. This isnt something you can ignore and say, It doesnt happen here. It does. It happens to your neighbors, friends, and family.

Related Content:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled against the legality of the Shaheen Bagh protest, saying public spaces cannot be occupied indefinitely by protesters.

A bench, headed by Justice Sanjay K Kaul, held that occupation of public roads and public spaces in exercise of the right to protest is not permissible under the law.

Public spaces and places cant be occupied indefinitely whether in Shaheen Bagh or elsewhere," said the judge, reading out the operative part of the judgment.

The bench added that notwithstanding right to protest is a right guaranteed under the Constitution, protests have to be in designated areas after due approvals from the authorities concerned.

The bench was delivering its judgment on a petition by advocate Amit Sahni, who alleged inaction on the part of the Delhi Police and administration in clearing the public road along the Shaheen Bagh area in Delhi.

Sahni pointed out the sheer inconvenience faced by lakhs of commuters because of blocking of the arterial road that connected Delhi with other cities in the National Capital Region (NCR).

The bench, in its judgment, also pulled up the Delhi Police for not doing anything even after the High Court asked it to act within its authority to clear the road.

It said that administration must keep public spaces free from obstructions and that they cannot wait either for an order from the court or go on having endless talks with the protesters.
EDWARDSVILLE  The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) St. Louis Chapter awarded 7 of its 11 scholarships to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Mechanical Engineering students at its annual awards ceremony. The scholarship assistance totaled $12,500.

SIUE School of Engineering (SOE) students competed against students from such schools as Saint Louis University, Washington University in St. Louis, SIU Carbondale, and Missouri Science and Technology.

ASHRAE Student Advisor Serdar Celik, PhD, professor in the SIUE Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, believes this award recognition reflects well on SIUEs student involvement in the St. Louis region.

Celik has enjoyed enthusiastic responses from St. Louis professionals about not only SIUE student participation in ASHRAE events and community engagement, but also with the engineering background and technical knowledge of SIUE alumni who have been hired as engineers in the HVAC field.

Lawrence Gilmore, of Collinsville, received the P. Gordon Glunt Memorial Scholarship worth $3,000 and an additional $1,000 General Scholarship. Gilmore was involved in the SIUE ASHRAE Student Chapter throughout his college career and served as vice president during the 2019-20 academic year. He earned a bachelors in mechanical engineering in May 2020 and joined Icon Mechanical as a project manager following graduation.

Landon Skelly, of Chatham, received an ASHRAE General Scholarship valued at $2,500. Quintin Dial, of Grafton, and Nicholas Mensing, of Breese, received $1,500 General Scholarships.

General Scholarships worth $1,000 were awarded to Derek Robson, of Girard, Ethan Schumacher, of Breese, and Mohammed Abdul Raheem Jafery, of India.

Skelly earned a bachelors in mechanical engineering in May 2020. He contributed to the SIUE ASHRAE Student Chapters being honored as a finalist for Outstanding Student Organization of the Year. He is currently pursuing a masters at SIUE while working part-time at Hanson Professional Services in Springfield.

Robson earned a bachelors in mechanical engineering in May 2020. He served the SIUE ASHRAE Student Chapter as treasurer. He seeks a career as an HVAC design engineer or a sustainable energy engineer.

Dial expects to earn a bachelors in mechanical engineering in May 2021. He seeks a career in the design and construction industry in the St. Louis area after commencement.

Mensing is on track to earn a bachelors in mechanical engineering in May 2021. His career focus will be on system efficiency, net-zero energy buildings and renewable energy technologies.

Schumacher will earn a bachelors in mechanical engineering in May 2021 with a focus in evaporative cooling.

Abdul Raheem Jafery is slated to earn a bachelors in mechanical engineering in December 2021. With a passion for energy efficiency and sustainability, he will seek a career in the HVAC industry with a focus on sustainable, efficient buildings.
When it comes to Korean drama addiction, we're sure everyone has experienced falling in love with the second lead, or it's what we call "the second-lead syndrome." What's more addicting than the second-lead syndrome is their own mini-love stories withing the drama - sometimes even more swoon-able than the main leads.

Sometimes, it's also upsetting how the second leads don't get that much screen time. Plus, they're often involved in forbidden love and unfortunate endings, even if some of them ends up on a happy note. Either way, if you've experienced this, you know how it feels, right?

That's why we gathered the 5 best second-lead couples in K-drama according to viewers!

Sun Hee (Yoo I Na ) and Grim Reaper (Lee Dong Wook ) in Goblin

In the hit drama Goblin, aside from titular Goblin Kim Shin's (Gong Yoo) romance with his bride Erin (Kim Go-Eun), that makes us all thrilled in every episode, we also anticipate the unconventional love story of Sun Hee and Grim Reaper. From meeting in their past life to Sun Hee being reincarnated and King Wang Yeo paying for his sins as a Grim Reaper, this couple has been through a lot, and they truly deserve their happy ending.

ALSO READ: Upcoming Drama "The Spies Who Loved Me" Unveils Posters of Eric Mun, Yoo In Na, and Im Ju Hwan!

Myeong Joo (Kim Ji Won) and Dae Young (Jin Goo ) in Descendants of the Sun

First Lieutenant Myeong Joo has deep feelings for Master Sergeant Dae Young and wants him to stand and fight for his feelings towards her, even if it means going against her father, who is a Special Forces commander that doesn't approve of Dae Young, thinking that he is not good enough for his daughter. We all know that the feelings of love cannot be forever hidden, right? Well, think we won this fight when Dae Young finds it in him to stand up for his true love.

Soo Yeon (Lee Da In) and Ban Ryu ( Do Ji Han ) from Hwarang

These two-second lead couples are the total opposites. One is sweet, while the other one is cold. However, when their worlds meet, everything changes. Soo Yeon's love managed to change the personality of Ban Ryu into the sweetest man we've all come to love. Wouldn't it be great to witness their love story even more?

Bo Na (Krystal Jung) and Chan Young (Kang Min Hyuk ) from The Heirs

Chan Young may not be a clingy boyfriend, but we all know that he deeply adores Lee Bo Na. Their opposite personalities balanced the relationship, and kudos to Chan Young, who knows when to meet Lee Bo Na's effort halfway. Remember that paintball scene? It's like they created their own drama story! So funny and romantic.

ALSO READ: Krystal All Geared Up for Her Role in Upcoming OCN's "Search"

Seo Dan (Seo Ji Hye) and Seung Jung (Kim Jung Hyun ) in Crash Landing On You

Okay, if you don't remember this couple in Crash Landing On You, then it's a shame! CLOY is a series about sweet star-crossed lovers, and that involves Seo Dan and Seung Jun. The part where Seo Dan is crying for her man who loves her more than his own life. They were a match made in heaven, and we don't deserve this heartbreaking ending for them. Just unacceptable!

Some of these second lead couples didn't end up the way we hoped they would, but somehow they just made the story even more interesting, and who knows, they might star in a sequel where they can continue to pull at our heartstrings and get a chance at a happy ending!
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece has recalled its ambassador to Azerbaijan after what it said were 'unfounded and offensive' claims by the Azeri government that Greece tolerated militants on its soil, Athens said on Wednesday.

The Greek foreign ministry said it had filed a protest with the ambassador of Azerbaijan to Greece. The Greek ambassador to Azerbaijan had been recalled to Athens for consultations, it said.

(Reporting by Michele Kambas)
Despite the global COVID-19 pandemic, Ukraine remains a reliable trading partner for EU member states.

The steps of the Government of Ukraine are now aimed at improving access to finance, access to markets, improving regulation, promoting modernization, sustainable development of industries and combating unemployment, in particular, by stimulating business development through the improvement of the Affordable Loans 5-7-9% program, saving jobs through the partial unemployment assistance program, and investment incentives, Minister of Economic Development, Trade, and Agriculture of Ukraine Ihor Petrashko said at the 22nd EU-Ukraine Summit on October 6, the Ministrys press service informs.

The minister also stressed that Ukraine is ready to continue to confirm its status of a reliable player in international food markets.

"In the medium and long term, Ukraine will continue to move towards integration into Europe's economic system. We must use all the opportunities being created in course of transformation of the global economic system, Petrashko added.

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When considering stocks suitable for Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) investing, a strong and reliable dividend is one of the most important traits. This is especially true for long investment horizons, where the power of compounding and tax savings help dividend stocks shine.

Given that investors have limited TFSA contribution room, taking a safer long-term approach is a prudent move. Taking too many risks in a TFSA can be very detrimental, as once a loss is realized that initial contribution room is gone for good.

As such, dependable stocks with proven track records for stability and dividend growth are ideal for TFSA investing. Today, well look at two such TSX blue-chip stocks.

TD Bank

Toronto-Dominion Bank (TSX:TD)(NYSE:TD) is one of Canadas largest banks and offers a multitude of financial services and products to its customers.

TD has long been a hallmark for dividend reliability and growth over the years. In fact, TD has been consistently paying a dividend to investors since 1857. That means through all the ups and downs of the economy since then, TD has stuck by its approach to deliver solid dividends to its investors.

Now, the economy today is certainly presenting unique challenges to all types of businesses, and TD is no exception. Revenue growth has slowed this year and the stock is down nearly 14% year to date as of this writing.

However, this TFSA investing star has shown time and time again that its a resilient stock, and it easily has strong enough financials to weather this storm  not to mention that it has access to tons of support and liquidity, if need be.

Plus, while TDs strong presence in the U.S., it might create some uncertainty in the short run  a huge source of potential revenue going forward.

Of course, there could be more hiccups on the way in the short run, especially with cases spiking once more in Canada. However, those focused on long-term TFSA investing should be more than comfortable picking up shares of TD, which has a 4.98% yield as of this writing.

Story continues

Telus

Telus (TSX:T)(NYSE:TU) is a massive Canadian telecommunications company. It offers a diverse set of products and services, including internet, TV, mobile phone, and even healthcare.

As with TD and practically every other blue-chip TSX stock, Telus has had a rough 2020 so far. However, its most recent earnings report indicated that year-over-year quarterly revenue growth is already positive.

Telus has long been a great example of a blue-chip stock offering steadily growing dividends. Over time, it has remained committed to providing investors with great yields.

As of this writing, this TFSA investing giant is yielding 4.87%. This exceeds the five-year average yield, but only by a small margin. Its also important to note that Telus payout ratio is quite high as it comes in at 98.72%.

However, these short-term issues should subside and so Telus is still a good long-term TFSA investing play. With more focus on its digital healthcare division and the advent of 5G in Canada, theres lots to be positive about when it comes to Telus.

TFSA investing strategy

When it comes to TFSA investing, both TD and Telus offer investors solid and reliable yields. These stocks are poised to deliver great results over a long enough investment horizon.

Of course, things could still get worse before they get better but investors with their eyes set years down the road should be keeping tabs on these TSX superstars.

The post TFSA Investing: 2 Dividend Superstars to Watch appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

More reading

Fool contributor Jared Seguin has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2020
Frankie A. Rodriguez as Carlos in "High School Musical: The Musical: The Series." (Fred Hayes / Disney+)

You've heard of "High School Musical: The Musical: The Series." Now get ready for "High School Musical: The Musical: The Holiday Special."

After the COVID-19 pandemic halted production on its sophomore season, the spinoff TV series of the hit Disney Channel movie franchise is returning to Disney+ in December with a standalone, unscripted episode featuring stars Olivia Rodrigo (Nini), Joshua Bassett (Ricky), Matt Cornett (EJ), Sofia Wylie (Gina), Larry Saperstein (Big Red), Julia Lester (Ashlyn), Dara Renee (Kourtney), Frankie Rodriguez (Carlos), Joe Serafini (Seb), Mark St. Cyr (Mr. Mazzara) and Kate Reinders (Miss Jenn).

Announced Wednesday, the 45-minute show will unite cast members to sing classic Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year's tunes between exchanging holiday memories  including gifts, traditions and family photos  and resolutions for the coming year.

A tandem album, "High School Musical: The Musical: The Holiday Special: The Soundtrack," is also coming to major music vendors and streaming platforms on Nov. 20.

"The holidays remind us of the universal importance of family and loved ones," said series creator Tim Federle, executive producer and director of the special, in a statement. "The cast of 'High School Musical: The Musical: The Series' is its own kind of family, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to share their favorite holiday music and traditions with our viewers."

Bassett will also perform an acoustic version of a new song he penned for the second season of the show, which started  and stopped  filming in Salt Lake City earlier this year. The actor and recording artist previously co-wrote a Season 1 duet with his onscreen love interest, Rodrigo.

Season 2 of "High School Musical: The Musical: The Series," originally set to premiere this year on Disney+, will see its theater-loving teens tackle their next Disney production: "Beauty and the Beast." New episodes will feature cast covers of tracks from both "Beauty and the Beast" and the "High School Musical" films, as well as original music.

"High School Musical: The Musical: The Holiday Special," which will also include a sneak peek of Season 2, arrives on Disney+ on Dec. 11.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
A San Francisco firefighter died Wednesday morning in a training accident in the city, the San Francisco Fire Department announced.

Firefighter-paramedic Jason Cortez, 42, was participating in a training exercise at 19th and Folsom when he suffered an unspecified injury around 10 a.m. He was given medical attention at the scene before being transferred to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where he later died. KTVU reports the accident involved a fall "from an elevated position."

Cortez, the son of a retired San Francisco firefighter, leaves behind a wife and two children, Lt. Jonathan Baxter of the San Francisco Fire Department confirmed Wednesday afternoon.

"This is a very trying time as Jason was well-liked in our department," Baxter said.

Cortez joined the San Francisco Fire Department in 2007 as a paramedic and recently graduated from the fire academy as a firefighter-paramedic. He was assigned to "the busiest station in America," Station 3 in the Tenderloin, Baxter said.

Members of the fire and police departments are currently gathered at the hospital awaiting a procession to the medical examiner's office. San Francisco Mayor London Breed is also in attendance.

"At this time, we have a number of staff who are paying respects along with his family," Baxter said. "We are thankful for all for the showing of support that has already come in."

This is a breaking news story and more information will be added as it becomes available.
Worldwide smartphone sales suffered a hit during the second quarter of 2020, dropping by 20.4%. In total, 294.7 million units were sold during the three-month period compared with 370.3 million units in Q2 2019.

According to data analysed by ComprarAcciones.com, this was a slight improvement on Q1 2020, when 272.5 million units were sold. It marked a drop of 13% from Q4 2019 and was the biggest drop ever witnessed in the smartphone market. It was also the lowest level of sales since 2013.

Among the top five smartphone vendors, Samsung had the highest decline despite selling the highest number of units. It sold a total of 54.7 million units in Q2 2020 compared with 75.1 million units during the same period the previous year. This was a drop of 27.1% year-on-year (YoY). Comparatively, in Q1 2020, Samsung had reported 60 million units sold, marking a 17% drop from Q4 2019.

A key reason for the decline  which stretched across the industry - was the fact that its core markets, Latin America, the US, India and Europe were still struggling from the effects of the pandemic and resulting lockdowns.

In second place, Huawei sold 54.1 million units in Q2 2020, a drop of 6.8% year-on-year.

Apple saw the least decline in sales during the period and was the third top-selling brand globally. The iPhone maker sold 38.3 million units in Q2 2020 compared to 38.5 million units in Q2 2019. This resulted in a drop of 0.4%. According to Gartner, the main reason for this performance was the improved business environment in China.

Realme was the only big brand that reported double-digit growth. It came in seventh in terms of total sales and grew 11% year-on-year during the period.

In the US, sell-through dropped by 25% YoY but online sales grew from 14% in Q2 2019 to 31%. Samsung and Apple performed better than the overall market thanks to their strong presence online.

While Samsung declined by 10%, Apple tumbled by 25%. April was the worst month, with a 50% drop in sell-through.
RACINE  Six candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot to represent areas of Racine County in the state Legislature met with voters via Zoom to discuss their positions on mental health care.

The event was hosted Monday by the National Alliance on Mental Illness during National Mental Illness Awareness Week. Stephanie Jones, managing editor of the Journal Times, moderated the event.

The six legislative candidates who took part were: District 62 Rep. Robert Wittke, R-Wind Point, and his challenger, Democrat August Schutz; District 63 Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and his challenger, Democrat Joel Jacobsen; and District 66 Rep. Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, and her challenger, Republican Will Leverson.

On the issue of expanding access and additional resources, especially since demand has increased in the time of COVID, across the board the candidates were supportive of telehealth.

Neubauer explained the real challenge with telehealth was ensuring that it was covered under private and public insurance plans. She later added that it would be important to ensure everyone had access to the Internet as the public comes to rely more on telehealth for their medical and mental health needs.

Services are never going to look the same after COVID and many of us are going to be using telehealth for services going forward, Neubauer said.

Wittke also noted that telehealth was a way to address the shortage of professionals in the mental health fields. There was a long discussion on addressing this shortage.

Wittke explained there were a number of different provisions passed in the last session to allow for reciprocity with other states to expand services, with special reference to telehealth, in order to provide services in a different format.

Schutz noted one of the reasons the profession struggled to attract a stronger workforce in the state was due to its historically low salary. In some of those professions, he noted, the starting salary is $40,000 for jobs that require a masters degree.

Schutz proposed incentivizing the profession by offering stronger student loan reimbursements for those graduating from the UW system of higher education, which had the added benefit of keeping young people in the state who might otherwise move out-of-state for the higher salary offerings.

Leverson drew on his experience working in the veteran-support system to note that not every job in the mental health field requires a college education.

He noted systems that put people to work in support positions, such as those who answered the phone and made referrals to community organizations committed to mental wellness, did not need a college education to do that work, which could offer people a living wage.

Vos took the opportunity to promote grants offered by the state to recruit more people specifically into the profession of psychiatry.

What we need are more folks in everything from intake to treatment, Vos said. But the most acute need is for more psychiatrists, people who have the technical training for long-term care that a lot of these people need.

The candidates broke along party lines on the topic of Medicaid expansion that would allow the state access to $300 million in additional revenue under the Affordable Care Act.

Neubauer and Schutz both argued the expansion would actually aid in Wisconsins efforts to fund mental health services and both supported the expansion.

Vos called Medicaid expansion a Ponzi scheme that would result in higher premiums for private insurance because the federal government does not reimburse 100 percent of cost, leading hospitals to charge private insurance holders more to make up the difference.

Wittke added one of the things people do not talk about is what happens if the federal government does not keep up its end of the bargain, which is that the state has to pick up the shortfall.

I dont believe in any type of plan that will switch people off private insurance to other programs, Wittke said. That is a recipe for disaster.

Leverson argued that money meant for health care should be spent on health care.

However, Jacobsen pointed out that the most significant fear and frustration mentioned by voters was the cost of health care. He noted countries that provided public health care did so at lower costs than paid by those in the U.S.

The system is horrendously broken, he said while promoting a single payer or universal health care option as the future for the U.S.

The candidates were in universal agreement about the need for expanded mental health care access in schools and early intervention for young people experiencing mental health issues.

Leverson expressed concern about the potential for funding to be directed disproportionately to population centers, at the expense of smaller communities.

He proposed a 72-county charter that would, among other things, ensure that funds for programs like youth mental wellness be distributed fairly. As an example, while he does not support law enforcement defunding, if it were to happen the 72-county charter would ensure that funds from such a move would be allocated back into the originating community.

The candidates were in general agreement that those with mental health issues should be diverted out of the criminal justice system through programs such as the Treatment Alternatives and Diversion program, with the goal of lowering Wisconsins incarceration rate.

The candidates were also generally in favor of legalizing medical marijuana.

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Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/07/2020 -- AMA Research added a comprehensive research document of 200+ pages on 'Connected Agriculture' market with detailed insights on growth factors and strategies. The study segments key regions that includes North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific with country level break-up and provide volume* and value related cross segmented information by each country. Some of the important players from a wide list of coverage used under bottom-up approach are IBM (United States), Microsoft (United States), AT&T (United States), Deere & Company (United States), SAP SE (Germany), Accenture (Ireland), Cisco (United States), Oracle (United States), Iteris (United States), Trimble (United States).



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Connected Agriculture is defined as technological solutions which define as smart farming. As the agriculture industry is witnessing another shift due to technologies of the industry 4.0. The farming is benefits from technology advancements from planting and watering to crop health and harvesting. These technologies fall into three categories such as autonomous robots, drones or UAVs, and sensors and the IoT. The developed countries are taking initiatives for improvement of the growth of the agriculture sector, Such as federal programs like the Canadian Agriculture Partnership, a five year deal with USD 3 billion investment program has been launched by the federal government as of March 2019.



Market Segmentation & Scope

Study by Type (Network Management, Smart Water Management, Others), Application (Farm Planning & Management, Agricultural Finance, Asset and Crop Monitoring, Yield and Disease Prediction, Irrigation Optimization, Precision Farming, Precision Livestock, Others), Components (Solutions, Platforms, Services {Consulting, Integration & Implementation, and Support & Maintenance}), Platforms (Device Management, Application Enablement, Connectivity Management)



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Market Influencing Trends:

Increase Adoption of Digital Farming Solution to Improve Risk Management and Value Chain Efficiency



Technology Advancement Such As Increase Broadband Connectivity in the United States



Growth Drivers:

Increase Demand of Linking Agriculture Value Chain by Agriculture Smart Holders Such As Banks, Insurance and Others



Increasing Government Initiatives from Developed Countries Including Australia and Canada in the Agriculture Sector



Challenges that Market May Face:

Lack of Skilled Manpower



Lack of Industrial Standards for Data Management Applications in Connected Agriculture



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Country level Break-up includes:

North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)

Europe (Germany, France, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, Nordic, Others)

Asia-Pacific (Japan, China, Australia, India, Taiwan, South Korea, Middle East & Africa, Others)



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Extracts from Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Connected Agriculture Market Overview

Chapter 2: Global Connected Agriculture Market Share and Market Overview

Chapter 3: Connected Agriculture Market Manufacturers/Players Analysis

3.1 Market Concentration Rate

3.2 Competition Scenario: BCG Matrix [Relative Market Share v/s Revenue Growth Rate]

3.3 Heat Map Analysis

3.4 FPNV Positioning Matrix

3.5 Comparative Market Share Analysis by Players (2018-2019) Rank, [% Market Share, Market Revenue]

3.6 Company Profile - Business Distribution by Region, Interview Record, Business Profile, Product/Service Specification, Price, Revenue and Gross profit 2017-2019

3.7 Price Benchmarking (2017-2019)

Chapter 4: Global Connected Agriculture Market Segmentation (Country Level Breakdown) (2014-2025)

- North America: United States, Canada, and Mexico.

- South & Central America: Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.

- Middle East & Africa: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa.

- Europe: United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland and Russia.

- Asia-Pacific: India, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia.

Chapter 5: Global Connected Agriculture Market Breakdown by Segments (Type (Network Management, Smart Water Management, Others), Application (Farm Planning & Management, Agricultural Finance, Asset and Crop Monitoring, Yield and Disease Prediction, Irrigation Optimization, Precision Farming, Precision Livestock, Others), Components (Solutions, Platforms, Services {Consulting, Integration & Implementation, and Support & Maintenance}), Platforms (Device Management, Application Enablement, Connectivity Management))

5.1 Global Connected Agriculture Market Segmentation (Product Type) Market Size 2014-2025

5.2 Different Connected Agriculture Price Analysis by Product Type (2014-2025)

5.3 Global Connected Agriculture Market Segmentation (Product Type) Analysis

5.4 Global Connected Agriculture Market by Application/End users Market Size 2014-2025

5.5 Global Connected Agriculture Market Segmentation (other segments) Analysis

Chapter 6: Methodology/Research Approach, Data Source, Disclaimer



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After more than a decade of civil war which destroyed much of its infrastructure, Liberia became a prime example of an almost entirely wireless telecommunications market.

There are two mobile operators  MTN Liberia, majority owned by MTN Group, and Orange Liberia, the local unit of Orange Group. Both have steadily invested in network infrastructure while MTN Liberia has been active in promoting its m-money services in a country where most people are un-banked.

Competition between these operators has led to a reduction in pricing for voice and data services, and since this impacted on tax revenue the regulator was prompted in mid-2019 to impose a tariff floor.

Internet services are available from a number of wireless ISPs as well as the mobile operators. The high cost and limited bandwidth of connections means that internet access is expensive and penetration rates are very low. Although additional bandwidth is available from an international submarine cable, considerable investment is still needed in domestic fixed-line infrastructure before end-users can make full use of the cable.

The harmonisation of a disorderly mobile licensing and spectrum allocation regime has caused some difficulties, and market penetration remains low compared to other countries in the region. Penetration has also been affected by SIM card registration requirements imposed in recent years.

The privatisation of the long neglected incumbent telco Liberia Telecommunications Corporation (Libtelco) failed in 2005 though efforts to resuscitate the company have continued. As part of the efforts, the government has proposed amendments to the Telecommunications Act which would enable the telco to enter the mobile market, though its potential effectiveness as a competitor to MTN and Orange is doubtful.

The market is ineffectively monitored by the telecom regulator, which lacks the resources, technical expertise and documentation to enforce its orders. As a result, a number of operators are able to avoid paying fees to the government and have continued to operate despite the regulators rulings that they must close down their services.

BuddeComm notes that the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2020 is having a significant impact on production and supply chains globally. During the coming year the telecoms sector to various degrees is likely to experience a downturn in mobile device production, while it may also be difficult for network operators to manage workflows when maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. Overall progress towards 5G may be postponed or slowed down in some countries.

On the consumer side, spending on telecoms services and devices is under pressure from the financial effect of large-scale job losses and the consequent restriction on disposable incomes. However, the crucial nature of telecom services, both for general communication as well as a tool for home-working, will offset such pressures. In many markets the net effect should be a steady though reduced increased in subscriber growth.

Although it is challenging to predict and interpret the long-term impacts of the crisis as it develops, these have been acknowledged in the industry forecasts contained in this report.

The report also covers the responses of the telecom operators as well as government agencies and regulators as they react to the crisis to ensure that citizens can continue to make optimum use of telecom services. This can be reflected in subsidy schemes and the promotion of tele-health and tele-education, among other solutions.

Key developments:

JamCell awarded Liberias third MNO licence;

Regulator tightens SIM card registration scheme, imposes price floor on mobile voice and data services;

Government preps to amend legislation to enable Libtelco to enter the mobile market;

MNOs again investigated for poor QoS;

Global Voice Group (GVG) delivers International Gateway Management System;

Regulator to receive portion of operator revenue under new payment regime;

Libtelco launches first phase of its fibre network in tie-up to the ACE cable system;

Report update includes telcos operating data to Q2 2020, Telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, assessment of the global impact of COVID-19 on the telecoms sector, recent market developments.

Get a Full Copy of this Report

Developing Telecoms market report summaries are produced in partnership with BuddeCom, the worlds largest continually updated online telecommunications research service.

The above article is a summary of the following BuddeCom report:

Report title: Liberia - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Edition: 17th (August 2020)

Analysts: Henry Lancaster, Peter Lange

Number of pages: 91

Companies mentioned in the report: Liberia Telecommunications Corporation (LTC, Libtelco), MTN Liberia (LoneStar), Cellcom, Comium (Novafone), LiberCell, Globacom, West Africa Telecom (WAT).

Single User PDF Licence Price: US$750

For more information or to purchase a copy of the full report please use the following link: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Liberia-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?r=83
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. UNICEF has made a statement on October 7 over the ongoing military operations in Nagorno Karabakh.

The statement says:

It is now 10 days since violence escalated dramatically in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone. There are already reports of four children killed and seven injured, and without an end to the fighting, these figures will tragically increase.

The fighting is destroying homes, and damaging schools and other essential infrastructure. We urge all parties to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure from further harm, in line with international and humanitarian law.

An immediate cessation of hostilities is in the best interest of every child.

On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale attack against the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), targeting also the civilian settlements, including the capital Stepanakert and the city of Shushi. In addition, the Azerbaijani armed forces have also targeted Armenias military and civilian infrastructures.

21 civilians in Artsakh and Armenia were killed, 80 were wounded as a result of the Azerbaijani aggression.

240 servicemen and volunteers have been killed in Artsakh from the Azerbaijani attacks.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / 1847 Holdings LLC (OTCQB:EFSH) (the "Company"), a publicly traded holding company platform that combines the attractive attributes of private, lower-middle market businesses with the liquidity and transparency of a publicly traded company, today announced the completion of its acquisition of Kyle's Custom Wood Shop, Inc. ("Kyle's"), a leading custom cabinetry maker servicing the direct-to-builder and new construction markets. Based in Boise, Idaho, Kyle's has designed, built, and installed custom cabinetry for new construction since 1976.

"We set out to complete this transaction within 60 days of when we announced it, and we delivered on that goal, completing the acquisition in just over 30 days," stated Ellery W. Roberts, the CEO of 1847 Holdings. "Kyle's is a great addition to our portfolio with strong positive cash flow, 30% operating margins, and a 7.1% CAGR on revenue over the past three years. It also has a clean capital structure with no debt, affording us substantial flexibility as we work to unlock value creation through participation in opportunities previously untouched by this regional operation. I look forward to working with the Kyle's team as we capitalize on these opportunities to accelerate growth and build lasting shareholder value."

The Company believes strong housing demand in the region is driven by out-of-state immigration into Idaho. Current operations are focused primarily in the Boise area, providing opportunities to capitalize on high-growth adjacent regions. In addition to regional expansion, 1847 Holdings plans to expand capacity by increasing the network of builders, participating in new bids, and investing in facilities and labor resources. Product line expansion and broadening sales channels to include multifamily housing, remodels, and DIY segments could further accelerate growth.

Idaho's population grew by 2.1% in 2019, faster than any other state, and the Boise Metro Area was the eighth fastest growing metro in the US, seeing a population increase of 2.8%. Driven by retirees and older workers attracted to lower home prices, shorter commutes, less natural disasters, and fewer taxes, the majority of inbound Idaho movers earn above the state income level.

The Company appointed Ken Yuan, an Operating Partner to 1847 Holdings, as CEO of Kyle's. Prior to working with 1847 Holdings, Yuan was the Head of Strategy at FedEx Supply Chain where he led a team of analysts and worked closely with the CEO office in developing growth strategies. Prior, Yuan was the president of American Plastics, a provider of medical-grade materials and services to the Orthotic & Prosthetic industry, where he led the company in developing new product-offerings and expanding its customer base. Because of Yuan's effort, American Plastics' sales grew by more than 10% and its EBITDA grew by more than 15% in less than two years. Ken successfully helped the owners of American Plastics exit the business by selling it to a strategic buyer.

Previously, Yuan was a Director with Alvarez & Marsal North America, LLC., a global professional services company. At Alvarez & Marsal, Yuan developed and executed a vendor management strategy for a $14 billion, tier-1 automotive supplier in securing a $135 million bankruptcy court vendor relief; negotiated a $120 million senior debt facility for a corrugated packaging company; and developed a POS system implementation play for a $300 million oil-&-lube franchisee for its bankruptcy restructuring.

Prior to Alvarez & Marsal, Yuan worked at TPG Capital, a global, large-cap private equity firm. His work at TPG focused on portfolio-company performance and operational analysis, and his operational portfolio included companies such as Neiman Marcus, Petco, and Debenham.

Craft Capital CEO Barry Kiront said "This transaction continues to follow 1847 Holdings model, and their CEO Ellery Roberts mission, of growing 1847 Holdings into a well-diversified company, that acquires strong businesses".

The Company raised the capital to fund this acquisition through the private placement of its Series A Senior Convertible Preferred Shares. The Series A Preferred Shares pay dividends on a quarterly basis at an annual rate of 14% and are redeemable, at the Company's option, at a redemption price equal to 115% of the stated value plus accrued but unpaid dividends. The securities of the Company issued in connection with the acquisition of Kyle's and the related financing transaction will not participate in the Company's recently announced special dividend of the common stock of its subsidiary, 1847 Goedeker Inc.

About 1847 Holdings LLC

1847 Holdings LLC (OTCQB: EFSH) is a publicly traded partnership that combines the most attractive attributes of owning private, lower-middle market businesses with the liquidity and transparency of a publicly traded company. 1847 Holdings seeks to generate returns for shareholders in the future through consistent, annual distributions of operating subsidiary income and capital appreciation resulting from the timely sale of operating subsidiaries.

About Craft Capital Management LLC

Craft Capital Management is a full-service broker dealer and investment bank. Areas of focus include numerous growth sectors such as biotechnology, consumer goods and services, retail, financial services and business, technology, healthcare, medical device, and other categories. Craft Capital Management assists companies with corporate finance services, including initial public offerings, follow-on offerings, private placements, registered direct offering, corporate notes, credit lines and financial advisory services. Additional information about Craft Capital Management LLC is available at www.craftcm.com. If you would like to inquire how Craft Capital may be able to assist with your company financial needs, please contact us at info@craftcm.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain information about 1847 Holdings' view of its future expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based on our management's beliefs, assumptions and expectations of our future economic performance, taking into account the information currently available to it. These statements are not statements of historical fact. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of factors, risks and uncertainties, some of which are not currently known to us, that may cause our actual results, performance or financial condition to be materially different from the expectations of future results, performance or financial position. Our actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such a difference include but are not limited to the risks set forth in "Risk Factors" included in our SEC filings.

Contact:

Craft Capital Management LLC

Barry Kiront-CEO

516-833-1325

SOURCE: Craft Capital Management LLC

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609583/Craft-Capital-Management-LLC-Advises-1847-Holdings-Acquisition-of-Direct-to-Builder-and-New-Construction-Custom-Cabinet-Maker-and-Closes-Preferred-Share-Financing-Transaction
A video of a BJP leader from Uttar Pradeshs Barabanki alleging that the 19-year-old Dalit woman who was allegedly gang-raped must have called her boyfriend to the field in Hathras and may have been caught has gone viral on social media.

Ranjeet Srivastava, 67, a former chairman of Nawabganj Nagar Palika (municipality), denied that there was a rape and questioned why such women are found in millet fields only. The Dalit woman was allegedly raped when she had gone to collect fodder with her mother in a field.

I think usually in such situations when girls are found in millet fields, they usually have an affair. This girl must have called her boyfriend to the fields, Srivastava is both heard and seen saying it on the video, which has since gone viral on social media. The BJP has so far maintained a studied silence on his remarks.

Yes, the video you are talking about is indeed by me. Several other videos of mine are running in various news channels, he said.

A father of three sons, with one of them being a member of UP BJPs youth wing, Srivastava on being asked about the reference to aisi ladkiyan bajre ke khet main hi kyun paayi jaati hai (why are such girls found in millet fields only), Srivastava said, I havent spoken of all the girls as many are believing. I merely said, iss tarah ki ladkiyan (such girls), he said.

Asked what he meant by iss tarah ki ladkiyan, he said, jis tarah ki wo ladki thee (the kind of girl that she was), before giving an elaborate, laboured explanation of his understanding of the situation that he maintained was largely driven by social media.

Also Watch l Inculcating good values in girls can stop rapes: UP BJP leader | Hathras case

Questioned further if it is okay to take social media seriously on an incident as barbaric as this, he said, I have also made a statement on social media. Then why are you giving so much importance to it.

See the point I am making is that one has to rely on circumstantial evidence, where there is no evidence. So I am asking, on the basis of what has been reported, both in local papers as well as in social media, as to what was this girl (referring to the victim), doing in millet fields? Because initial reports suggested that she had gone with her mother to cut grass but then millet fields have no grass. But, just assuming there was grass in the millet field in which she had gone, then please remember that millet fields arent very dense. If she had sensed danger, she should have raised an alarm, instead of surrendering. And if whatever act she was allegedly subjected to against her will, then there must have been some sign of struggle, which clearly there is not.

In between these remarks, he kept on saying, khair ab to jaanch ho hi rahi hai... (now, an inquiry is on anyway). A special investigation team has been constituted to probe the incident, the deadline to submit its report was extended by another 10 days today. A CBI inquiry in the case has been recommended.

Initially the FIR didnt mention rape? Why? Let me explain this. Thats because had rape been mentioned in the FIR, then her medical examination would have been necessary. So whatever the medical examination must have happened was primarily to verify the physical assault, not rape. The rape part emerged in the FIR lodged by a Congress leader, eight days after the incident, he said.

The BJP leader also refused to agree to the dying declaration made by the victim. I dont think her statement on rape before her death can be taken as dying declaration simply because a dying declaration has to be made before the magistrate, which I dont think had been done, so how can it be termed dying declaration, he said.

All this is planned, part of the opposition game plan to discredit our partys government, he said.

The Yogi Adityanath government is fighting severe criticism for its handling of the case, particularly after the local police burnt the womans body at night without the familys approval. However, officials said the cremation was done as per the wishes of the family.

Quoting an FSL report, the government has denied denied the rape charge and claimed that some people were trying to foment caste tensions in the aftermath of the incident. Four men from the so-called upper caste have been arrested in the incident.

Facing a battering to its image, the Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that it wanted an apex court-monitored CBI inquiry into the Hathras episode, which the SC described as horrible.
- President Uhuru Kenyatta said prayers would be observed from Friday, October 9, to Sunday, October 11

- On Saturday, October 10, the head of state will convene an inter-faith national prayer service at State House, Nairobi

- Kenyans took to Twitter to express their opinions on the matter with some agreeing with the call while others dismissed it asking the president to instead offer real solutions

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Kenyans have expressed mixed reactions following the declaration of a National Weekend of Prayer by President Uhuru Kenyatta amid the rising political tensions in the country.

President Uhuru Kenyatta and First Lady Margaret Kenyatta praying. Photo: State House.

Source: Facebook

The prayers will be held from Friday, October 9, to Sunday, October 11, with the climax expected to take place at State House on Saturday, October 10.

Following the announcement, State House trended for the better part of Wednesday, October 7, with netizens stating their views on the matter.

Comments sampled by TUKO.co.ke.

Abuga Makori: "State House should spare us theatrics. The national prayers are another avenue of wasting taxpayers money unnecessarily. It's the sand government that lobbed teargas into a church! The same gov't that stole KSh 2.3 billion COVID-19 funds. So what are we praying for? Do it individually!

Samuel Wanjohi: "Call Ruto. Sit down with him and find a solution. You both promised us peace and tranquility. It was you, Mr President and Ruto, not you and Raila. Put pride aside, we just want to see you working together as a team."

John Karanja: "Too many national prayers while we are conned and looted."

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Charles Mbugua: " We dont need prayers right now we want our money and country back."

Nanie Gabrie: "Hypocrisy of highest order."

Mercy Mutheu: "It is good to see the top office appreciate and support religion in our country. For those who are deep in faith...let us start fasting on Thursday."

Patrick Kahoto wondered: "There are a lot of prayers an nothing to show for it, it could be God has turned his ears away from Kenya? What we need is repenting and changing our ways."

The announcement to hold the prayers was made by State House Spokesperson Kanze Dena.

"On Saturday, October 10, the head of state will convene an inter-faith national prayer service at State House, Nairobi starting at 10am. The inter-faith prayer service will be broadcast live to the entire country on all leading television, radio and digital media platforms," part of her statement read.

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Several companies are considering acquiring Coal Creek Station and the transmission line that runs from the McLean County power plant to Minnesota, a state official told lawmakers Tuesday.

Two companies are very serious about purchasing both the plant and the line, North Dakota Transmission Authority Director John Weeda said to the interim Energy Development and Transmission Committee. Plans involve potentially building a system to capture the carbon emissions from Coal Creek, as well as constructing energy storage infrastructure and wind farms in the area.

Such an investment could total $2 billion, he said.

Its not just business as usual, Weeda said. Its business as usual, plus enhancements.

He said hes hopeful a new plant owner would retain most workers at the plant and adjacent Falkirk Mine, which feeds the facility with lignite coal. Great River Energy announced earlier this year that it intends to close the plant in 2022 unless it can find a new owner, an effort state officials are helping facilitate.

Coal Creek has faced financial woes for several years as its struggled to compete in a market saturated with cheap natural gas and renewable power.

Weeda said at least four companies are entertaining purchasing the high-voltage direct current power line alone, without Coal Creek. Such a prospect would involve new wind development that connects to the line, and Coal Creek would shut down, he said.

A new power line owner could potentially build a terminal along the line midway across the state, Weeda said. If that were to happen, it would allow wind farms east of North Dakotas coal country in the west central part of the state to connect to it.

Securing transmission space on the power grid is a problem that plagues the region's wind developers, who seek an outlet for the electricity generated by new wind farms. Congestion on the wires has stalled some proposed wind projects.

You can pretty much count on the fact that when we get some transmission, wind developers will be back, Weeda said.

One other possible fate for GREs transmission line, which underwent a $130 million upgrade several years ago, is that the state could become its owner. Weeda recently requested an attorney generals opinion on the matter, and Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem wrote back confirming that the state transmission authority has that ability.

Weeda told the Tribune on Tuesday that his office, however, is standing by to let commercial interests have that opportunity.

The head of GRE said last week that the Minnesota-based power cooperative has not received any offers for its Coal Creek assets but that discussions are underway with companies that could potentially acquire them. President and CEO David Saggau said GRE essentially is looking to give Coal Creek away for a dollar.

With a capacity of 1,100 megawatts, Coal Creek is North Dakotas largest coal-fired power plant.

Lawmakers on Tuesday also heard an update from McLean County States Attorney Ladd Erickson, who has led efforts in the region to enact moratoriums on renewable energy development in wake of the announcement about Coal Creeks impending closure. He spoke of a rush by wind and solar companies to lease land in the region, an effort to make use of GREs transmission line if Coal Creek closes.

He offered several suggestions for lawmakers to consider in the 2021 legislative session, including giving greater authority to the state Public Service Commission to address issues surrounding wind and coal, such as getting to the bottom of utilities motives for closing coal facilities. He also recommended lawmakers consider offering landowners greater protection should a piece of farming equipment damage a power line, so that farmers are not liable for a massive bill.

Coal Creek also came up Tuesday in a discussion about a new initiative of the EmPower Commission, a group established by the Legislature in 2007 and tasked with developing energy policy recommendations for the state.

Commission members have been working to develop a think tank or energy innovation center driven by the energy industry in partnership with the state and academic institutions, said James Leiman, economic development and finance director for the state Department of Commerce, which is involved with the commission.

The center would identify energy industry needs and find institutions to address them, whether its the Energy and Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota or other places throughout the world. The needs could have to do with research, policy solutions or economic development, Leiman told the Tribune.

Topics could include carbon capture, rare earth minerals, petrochemicals, renewables and energy transmission, among others, he said.

We would really go big and bold in developing solutions to challenges, Leiman said.

The EmPower Commission plans to seek $65 million from the Legislature in its initial effort to fund the initiative over a period of five years. Funding also could come from private industry sources, Leiman said.

The 2021 legislative session begins in January.

Reach Amy R. Sisk at 701-250-8252 or amy.sisk@bismarcktribune.com.

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Kombucha Market: Global Industry Analysis 2015-2019 & Opportunity Assessment 2020-2030

A recent market study published by Future Market Insights on the Kombucha Market offers global industry analysis for 2015-2019 & opportunity assessment for 2020-2030. The study offers a comprehensive assessment of the most important market dynamics. After conducting a thorough research on the historical and current growth parameters of the kombucha market, the growth prospects for the market are obtained with maximum precision.

Market Segmentation

The global kombucha market is segmented in detail to cover every aspect of the market and present complete market intelligence to readers.

Flavour

Regular

Herbs & Spices

Citrus

Berries

Apple

Coconut & Mangoes

Flowers

Others

Sample of Research Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7815

Sales Channel

Food and Drink Specialty Store

Hypermarket/Supermarket

Convenience Store

Online Retail

Packaging

Glass Bottles

Cans

Region

North America

Latin America

Europe

Japan

Asia Pacific Ex. Japan

Middle East and Africa

Report Chapters

Chapter 01 - Executive Summary

The executive summary of the kombucha market includes the market country analysis, demand-side and supply-side trends, opportunity assessment, and recommendations on the global kombucha market.

Chapter 02 - Market Introduction

Readers can find the detailed segmentation and definition of the kombucha market in this chapter, which will help them understand basic information about the kombucha market. This section also highlights the inclusions and exclusions, which helps the reader understand the scope of the kombucha market report.

Chapter 03 - Market Background

The associated industry assessment of the kombucha market is carried out in this section. The macroeconomic factors affecting growth of the kombucha market is provided in this section and the impact of these macroeconomic indicators on the kombucha market is analyzed. The processing overview and technological advancements in the kombucha market are provided.

Chapter 04 - Market Dynamics

Drivers and restraints impacting the growth of the kombucha market are explained in this chapter. Opportunities and ongoing trends in the kombucha market are also comprehensively discussed.

Chapter 05 - Consumer Sentiment Analysis

In this chapter, the readers can find a detailed analysis of demand and reactions of consumers regarding kombucha available in the market. Customer requirements are described in this section along with a brief segment on social media sentiments. This section also offers suggestions on marketing strategies for maximum coverage and impact.

Chapter 06 - Global Kombucha Market Value Chain

Profit margins at each level of the kombucha market are analyzed and readers can find detailed information on top importers and exporters as well as the value chain of the kombucha market.

Chapter 07 - Pricing Analysis

This section highlights the price point assessment by flavour, average price of different flavours of kombucha in different regions worldwide and its forecast till 2030. Main factors influencing the prices of kombucha are also explained in this section.

Chapter 08 - Global Kombucha Market Analysis and Forecast 2015 - 2030

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the historical kombucha market (2015-2019), along with an opportunity analysis of the future (2020-2030). Readers can also find the absolute $ opportunity for the current year (2020 - 2021) and incremental opportunity for the forecast period (2020-2030).

Chapter 09 - Global Kombucha Market Analysis 2015-2019 & Forecast 2020-2030, by Flavour

Based on flavour, the kombucha market is segmented into regular, herbs & spices, citrus, berries, apple, coconut & mangoes, flowers and others. In this chapter, readers can find information about key trends and developments in the kombucha market and market attractiveness analysis based on flavour.

Chapter 10 - Global Kombucha Market Analysis 2015-2019 & Forecast 2020-2030, by Sales Channel

Based on sales channel, the kombucha market is segmented into food and drink specialty store, hypermarket/supermarket, convenience store and online retail. This section also offers market attractiveness analysis based on sales channel.

Chapter 11 - Global Kombucha Market Analysis 2015-2019 & Forecast 2020-2030, by Packaging

This chapter provides details about the kombucha market on the basis of packaging, and has been classified into glass bottles and cans. In this chapter, readers can understand market attractive analysis based on packaging.

Chapter 12 - Global Kombucha Market Analysis 2015-2019 & Forecast 2020-2030 by Region

This chapter explains how the kombucha market is projected to grow across various geographic regions such as North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa (MEA).

Chapter 13 - North America Kombucha Market Analysis 2015-2019 & Forecast 2020-2030

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the kombucha market in the North America region, along with a country-wise assessment that includes the U.S. and Canada. Readers can also find regional trends, regulations, and market growth based on end users and countries in the North America region.

Chapter 14 - Latin America Kombucha Market Analysis 2015-2019 & Forecast 2020-2030

Readers can find detailed information about several factors, such as the pricing analysis and regional trends, which are impacting growth of the kombucha market in the Latin America region. This chapter also includes growth prospects of the kombucha market in leading LATAM countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and the Rest of Latin America.

Chapter 15 - Europe Kombucha Market Analysis 2015-2019 & Forecast 2020-2030

This chapter includes information on the factors driving the kombucha market in Europe. It studies in detail the growth trajectory exhibited by the market in various countries within Europe, including Germany, U.K., France, Italy, Spain, BENELUX, Nordic, Russia, Poland, and the Rest of Europe.

To Buy This Research Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/7815

Chapter 16 - Japan Kombucha Market Analysis 2015-2019 & Forecast 2020-2030

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth of the kombucha market in Japan. Readers can also find information on regional trends, regulations, and market growth based on end users and countries in Japan.

Chapter 17 - Asia Pacific Excluding Japan Kombucha Market Analysis 2015-2019 & Forecast 2020-2030

This chapter includes a detailed analysis of the growth exhibited by the kombucha market in Asia Pacific Excluding Japan along with a country-wise assessment that includes China, India ASEAN, Oceania and the Rest of Asia Pacific Excluding Japan. Readers can also find regional trends, regulations, and market growth based on end users and countries in the Asia Pacific Excluding Japan region.

Chapter 18 - The Middle East and Africa Kombucha Market Analysis 2015-2019 & Forecast 2020-2030

This chapter offers insights into how the kombucha market is expected to grow in major countries in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) such as GCC Countries, Turkey, South Africa, and rest of MEA, during the forecast period 2020-2030.

Chapter 19 - Competition Assessment

In this chapter, readers can find detailed information on tier analysis and concentration of the key players in the kombucha market along. The chapter also includes their market presence analysis by region and product portfolio.

Chapter 20- Competition Deep-Dive

In this chapter, readers can find a comprehensive list of leading manufacturers in the kombucha market, along with detailed information about each company, which includes the company overview, revenue shares, strategic overview, and recent company developments. Some of the market players profiled in the report are Makana Beverages LLC., Kombucha Wonder Drink, KeVita LLC, Humm Kombucha LLC., Townshends Tea Company, Reeds Inc., Red Bull GmbH, NessAlla Kombucha, Live Soda LLC, Kosmic Kombucha, Buchi Kombucha, GTs Living Foods, Hain Celestial and Hudson River Foods

Chapter 21 - Assumptions and Acronyms

This chapter includes a list of acronyms and assumptions that provides a base to the information and statistics included in the report on the kombucha market.

Chapter 22 - Research Methodology

This chapter helps readers understand the research methodology followed to obtain various conclusions and important qualitative and quantitative information on the kombucha market.

ABOUT US:

Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.

FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.

CONTACT US:

Mr. Abhishek Budholiya

Unit No: AU-01-H Gold Tower (AU), Plot No: JLT-PH1-I3A,

Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai,

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MARKET ACCESS DMCC Initiative

For Sales Enquiries: sales@futuremarketinsights.com

For Media Enquiries: press@futuremarketinsights.com
President Muhammadu Buhari has wished Rotimi Akeredolu well as he seeks second term re-election as the Governor of Ondo State.

Mr Buhari, in a short statement on his verified Twitter handle, on Wednesday, disclosed that Mr Akeredolus good work during his first term will ensure his emergence on Saturday.

The incumbent governor is contesting against his deputy and candidate of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), Agboola Ajayi, and the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Eyitayo Jegede, among others.

The Independent National Electoral Commission said that there are 17 political parties contesting for the governorship seat. They all signed a peace accord agreement on Tuesday.

PREMIUM TIMES has written various analyses projecting how the October election may look.

In one of the analyses, this newspaper examined why the elites may return Mr Akeredolu because of his infrastructural and industrialisation projects.The analysis also explained why the masses may reject him following a hike in school fees and health care services.

But on Wednesday, Mr Buhari said he was hopeful that the ruling partys candidate will emerge winner in the election.

I have no doubt that Governor Rotimi Akeredolu is a good brand for the APC to market. I am particularly delighted by his ingenious approach to governance. His performance within the limits of available resources is endearing.

Governor Akeredolu deserves to be re-elected to consolidate the good work he commenced in his first term. I am not just proud of his achievements; I am confident he will enjoy the mandate of the good people of Ondo State for the second term, the president said on Twitter.
"The Leadership Legacy Award sets a high bar for CEO performance and Ellen's track record of consistently delivering business results, developing strong cultures and cultivating leadership talent exemplifies the spirit of this recognition," said Professor and Director of the Center for Executive Succession Patrick Wright. "Ellen leads with integrity, inclusion and purpose and establishes the model for future leaders."

Alemany was honored at a virtual celebration with University of South Carolina students, faculty and staff, including Wright and Dean of the Darla Moore School of Business Peter Brews. She led a discussion on Resilient Leadership with students and participated in a town hall forum to discuss a range of topics from attendees.

"This recognition honors the most critical aspects of effective leadership  investing in human capital that can contribute to a strong culture and drive sustainable results," said Alemany. "It was my privilege to accept this award and to meet with the students, who will ultimately carry forward the mantle of leadership in their own way."

About CIT

CIT is a leading national bank focused on empowering businesses and personal savers with the financial agility to navigate their goals. CIT Group Inc. (NYSE: CIT) is a financial holding company with over a century of experience and operates a principal bank subsidiary, CIT Bank, N.A. (Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender). The company's commercial banking segment includes commercial financing, community association banking, middle market banking, equipment and vendor financing, factoring, railcar financing, treasury and payments services, and capital markets and asset management. CIT's consumer banking segment includes a national direct bank and regional branch network. Discover more at cit.com/about.

About the Darla Moore School of Business

The Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina is among the highest-ranked business schools in the world for international business education and research. Founded in 1919, the school has a history of innovative educational leadership, blending academic preparation with real-world experience through internships, consulting projects, study abroad programs and entrepreneurial opportunities. The Moore School offers undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees, as well as distinctive executive education programs. In 1998, the school was named for South Carolina native and New York financier Darla Moore, making the University of South Carolina the first major university to name its business school after a woman. Learn more at moore.sc.edu.

About the Center for Executive Succession

The Center for Executive Succession serves as an independent, objective source of knowledge regarding C-suite succession practices. The center provides a forum for corporate leaders to shape the future direction of succession practices, which are increasingly one of the board's top governance priorities. Our partners contribute to cutting edge research that challenges the status quo and is empirically driven to further success in C-suite succession planning. For more information or to inquire about potential membership, please visit our website moore.sc.edu/ces or contact us at [email protected].

Contact:

Gina Proia

[email protected]

212-771-6008

SOURCE CIT Group Inc.
Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is meeting top German officials on Wednesday, a day after sitting down with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

Shes been trying to lobby support for the Belarus opposition movement and is set to meet with Norbert Roettgen, a top lawmaker in Merkels conservative party.

The opposition leader of the ex-Soviet republic is the main opponent of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. Tsikhanouskaya went into exile in Lithuania after the Aug. 9 presidential election in Belarus, which election officials claimed that Lukashenko won in a landslide. Opposition figures and some poll workers say the results were fraudulent and tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest.

Late last month, Tsikhanouskaya met with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been pushing for European mediation in the Belarus political crisis. The European Union said last month it does not recognize Lukashenko as president of Belarus.

Lukashenko, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1994, has sought to crack down on protesters.
In most election years, Americas quadrennial vice-presidential debate  the sole matchup between the two politicians vying to spend the next four years as the worlds most famous second banana  is an afterthought. But this year? Not so much.

In 2008, 72-year-old Senator John McCains selection of the untested and largely unknown Alaska Governor Sarah Palin focused the eyes of the nation on her contest with then-Delaware Senator Joe Biden. Surprisingly large numbers of people watched the showdown. And Bidens selection of California Senator Kamala Harris to be the first African-American woman to appear on a major-party general election ticket has the potential to push ratings for her Wednesday night debate against Vice President Mike Pence past the 70 million viewers who watched the Biden-Palin event.

Another factor that could both juice ratings and raise the stakes for Wednesdays matchup? The fact that the two major party tickets are headed by Donald Trump  the oldest ever President of the United States  and Biden, the man who would supplant him as the oldest should he prevail in Novembers election. Trumps recent bout with Covid-19 could further focus voters attention on the match between Harris and Pence, the man who is currently one obese 74-year-old Covid patients heartbeat away from the presidency.

Unlike the last time a man and a woman squared off in a vice-presidential debate, both candidates go into this one with significant experience in such contests. Harris is a seasoned politician who has participated in multiple debates during her campaigns for local office, two different statewide offices in California, and her yearlong quest to place her name on the top of Democrats 2020 ticket. Pence is a veteran of his sole debate against 2016 Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine, as well as multiple debates during previous congressional and gubernatorial campaigns in his home state of Indiana.

The current Vice President was widely considered the winner of his matchup with Kaine, particularly because the junior senator from Virginia was seen as too hesitant to go on the attack against Pences record as Indianas governor  and because Pence could use Trumps alleged business experience as a theoretical strength for a candidate who had never held public office.

Not a single Biden-Harris campaign representative responded to queries on the campaigns expectations for Senator Harris performance. But the man who took on the role of Pence during Kaines debate preparation sessions, Washington uber-lawyer Robert Barnett, predicts that the Vice President's newest opponent will have a wide variety of rhetorical targets to choose from in formulating her plan of attack.

It's a whole different situation than 2016, because there's not going to be one moment of discussion of his Indiana record  the discussion is going to be of the President's record and his record over four years of incumbency," Barnett told me, adding that it is unlikely that there will be a quarter-inch of daylight between [Pence] and the President no matter what lines of inquiry Harris uses to try and impeach the Trump-Pence record.

Barnett opined that Pences matchup with Harris could be much harder for him because he has to defend a record that's largely compiled by another person this year. In 2016, he had to defend then-candidate Trump as a reality show host and a real estate developer. Now he's got to defend the top of the ticket as a four-year incumbent, and that's a very different burden," he explained.

The last person to debate Pence other than Senator Kaine  former Indiana House Speaker John R Gregg  predicted that Pences shoulders can bear that burden without much effort.

Hes the most disciplined debater and speaker I have ever seen, and Ive dealt in Indiana politics for 40 years, said Gregg, who debated Pence when he ran against him for Indianas governorship in 2012.

Gregg said Pences strengths as a debater are his ability to speak in short, short clips and soundbite readings that are ready to be printed as quotes or packaged in advertisements or social media videos. He also benefits from an almost preternatural ability to maintain message discipline no matter what.

Hell be a bastard at staying on message, Gregg explained. Whatever message it is that the Trump people want him to deliver that night, come hell or high water you wont get him off it.

Gregg added that Pences discipline means it is unlikely that he will be thrown off balance by pre-scripted attack lines, no matter how cleverly phrased. This could be a problem for Harris, who briefly surged in Democratic primary polls after she unveiled one such line against former Vice President Biden during the first Democratic primary debate.

Former Los Angeles County District Attorney Stephen Cooley, who squared off against Harris during his unsuccessful 2010 campaign to be Californias Attorney General, said the use of such prepared lines is one of her go-to debate tactics.

She will have some scripted zingers that she has memorized, that she will use if she can find an opportune moment, just like she did for Biden, he explained. Not always that true, but very dramatic, and gets a lot of coverage.

Another Harris debate tic, Cooley said, is a tendency to laugh as a placeholder when she is trying to gather her thoughts to answer a question, in the same way many speakers would use filler words like uh or um.

It's a habit she has when she's trying to formulate her thoughts  she will sort of laugh, and oftentimes it's inappropriate but it gives her a few moments to analyze the question, he said. If Pence is smart, hell spot it and bring it to the viewing audiences attention.

Cooley opined that Harris is unlikely to have changed such longstanding habits, but she will nevertheless arrive prepared to say what she wants to say and should not be underestimated.

When she takes to the debate stage on Wednesday, Harris will become just the third woman to appear in a vice-presidential debate, and the first African-American of either gender to appear in a vice-presidential general election debate.

Barnett, who helped prepare Geraldine Ferraro for her debate against George H W Bush in 1984 and assisted Hillary Clinton as she prepared for multiple debates over her primary and general election campaigns for the Senate and the presidency, said Harris gender will undoubtedly become a factor in Wednesdays contest, particularly given Pences well-known attitudes towards women.

If Pence makes any missteps that give Harris the sort of opening Ferraro used to chastise Bush for lecturing her about foreign policy in 1984, Barnett predicted that the women of America will take notice.

"By his own admission, he has certain ways that he deals with women. And those will undoubtedly affect his attitude towards debating a woman," he said. "The male-female dynamic always becomes relevant in these things. As for how it'll play out, time will tell, but that'll be something that women will be particularly watching.
This is in addition to the 12,000 mail-in ballots that were sent out to early voters, Schoon said.

Valparaiso resident Shirley Remijan said she showed up on the first day to cast a ballot in favor of Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, who faces a reelection battle against Democrat Joe Biden.

"Despite his personality, he has done a lot for the country," she said of Trump.

Remijan said she was also looking forward to casting her ballot in local races.

"I do my research," she said.

Valparaiso resident Denise Bequette said Tuesday marked the first time she cast an early ballot.

"I wasn't comfortable with the mail this year," she said of that option for voting. "I just wanted to come and get a head start."

Bequette said she expected there to be a line to vote and did not mind waiting considering Tuesday morning's mild temperatures and sunny skies.

"We knew it was going to be nice this week," she said. "We don't know what November will be like."
WOODS HOLE, Mass., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) were recently awarded a $500,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate Observations and Monitoring (COM) program to develop machine learning tools to improve estimates of air-sea heat exchange in the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas. These tools are expected to fill critical gaps in climate models, which currently show large disparities when simulating the rate of polar ice melt.

Recent advances in remote sensing technologies have provided researchers with the data they need to better understand the forces behind Arctic ice melt and the implications of that heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere. These real-world measurements will allow researchers to develop machine learning algorithms that will validate and improve satellite-based modeling of the Arctic and subarctic regions.

Lisan Yu, a WHOI senior scientist and the project's principal investigator, said a machine learning-based framework will improve the accuracy of ocean-surface forcing estimates used to model the global climate. She said it will also improve the accuracy of ice and weather forecasts in a region that is rapidly opening up to commercial exploration.

"Arctic surface air temperature is rising twice as fast as the rest of the world, and its sea ice is retreating up to three times faster than the rate projected by climate model simulations," said Yu. "The significant underestimate of Arctic sea-ice-loss in models underscores critical gaps in knowledge concerning interactions between the atmosphere, the polar ocean, and ice-covered regions. This project brings all available observations together in a consistent and comprehensive manner to help models make accurate predictions, which are vital for the development of effective policy responses to climate change."

Due to the difficulty of accessing the Arctic Ocean--especially during the stormy winter months--and the complexity of measuring air-sea heat exchanges, there has previously not been enough quality data to incorporate ice melt and seasonal changes into climate models. This challenge was overcome by recent advances in long-term remote data collection at high latitudes. For the first time in 2019, an Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) surface buoy in the Irminger Sea collected over a year's worth of sensor data, including icy and windy winter conditions. Located in an important area of ocean circulation, the data collected from the OOI surface buoy provides critical verification for satellite-based models.

The project also benefits from data collected over a wide area of the Arctic by Saildrone. From May to September 2019, six of the company's wind- and solar-powered unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) surveyed the Chukchi and Bering Seas, gathering data on air and sea conditions right up to the ice edge. In addition, new L-band radiometers on NASA and European Space Agency satellites have improved measurements of air-sea exchanges associated with cloud cover and storms in the Arctic region. The combination of sensors on the OOI surface buoy, saildrone USVs, and satellites will provide the long-term and highly detailed data researchers need to improve estimates of heat exchange between the ocean and atmosphere at high latitudes.

"Given that Arctic observations are extremely limited, we need to extract as much information from them as we possibly can to advance NOAA's modeling capabilities, such as those for sea ice prediction," said Virginia Selz, program manager for NOAA's Climate Program Office COM program. "Dr. Yu's work will leverage the nation's investments in long-term situ and satellite observations, as well as those from new technologies such as Saildrone, and utilize innovative artificial intelligence methods to ultimately help modelers better simulate the rapidly changing Arctic. This project furthers the goals of the COM program, in generating value-add algorithms and datasets to improve climate modeling, and entrains artificial intelligence expertise into NOAA."

The project also serves as a model for partnerships between government agencies and labs, a non-profit research institution, and private enterprise to address rapid changes in the turbulent Arctic Ocean. Additional WHOI collaborators include co-principal investigator Bob Weller, visiting investigator Hesam Salehipour, and senior scientist Al Plueddemann, as well as researchers at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, and Earth System Research Laboratories.

Key Takeaways

Due to the lack of quality long-term data on heat exchanges between the ocean and atmosphere at high latitudes, climate models currently show large disparities when simulating the rate of polar ice melt .

when simulating the . Recent advances in remote sensing technologies have provided researchers with the data they need to better understand the forces behind Arctic ice melt-- and its global implications.

In a partnership between WHOI, NOAA and Saildrone, Inc., researchers will use this remotely-collected oceanographic data to develop machine learning algorithms to validate and improve satellite-based modeling of the Arctic and subarctic regions.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate an understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment. WHOI's pioneering discoveries stem from an ideal combination of science and engineering--one that has made it one of the most trusted and technically advanced leaders in basic and applied ocean research and exploration anywhere. WHOI is known for its multidisciplinary approach, superior ship operations, and unparalleled deep-sea robotics capabilities. We play a leading role in ocean observation, and operate the most extensive suite of data-gathering platforms in the world. Top scientists, engineers, and students collaborate on more than 800 concurrent projects worldwide--both above and below the waves--pushing the boundaries of knowledge and possibility. For more information, please visit www.whoi.edu

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SOURCE Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

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Netflixs comedy-drama Emily in Paris is facing criticism following the news that popular shows GLOW and Teenage Bounty Hunters have been cancelled by the streaming service.

The TV series starring Lily Collins was released last week to negative reviews and a frosty reception by subscribers on social media.

In its one-star review, The Independent warned anybody who had ever been to the French capital to "steer clear" of the "dire" new show.

Meanwhile French critics have torn the show apart for its insulting depiction of Parisians.

Despite this, the show, which follows Collinss American expat who travels to the French capital for work, is currently one of Netflix's most-watched titles.

Some viewers have even admitted to "hate-watching" the show.

Although Netflixs latest cancellations were caused by the pandemic, the decision to air Emily in Paris has caused anger.

"Hard not to shake the idea that Netflix sees more of a future in consumers hate-watching Emily in Paris (which was all over my timeline this weekend) than sincerely watching something like GLOW," journalist Chris Mandle wrote on Twitter.

Netflix taking away GLOW and giving us Emily in Paris is a real 2020 move, one person added, with another stating: GLOW canceled, but they sincerely promote Emily in Paris like it's good? Like they're proud of it.
'We want the Commission to finish its work; the issue it is investigating is too crucial for its work to be left incomplete.'

Jyoti Punwani reports.

IMAGE: Protesters at Bhima Koregaon near Pune in Maharashtra. Photograph: PTI Photo

Once again, the Maharashtra government has shown how little the judicial commission set up to investigate the Bhima Koregaon violence matters to it.

The government announced on October 6 the final extension to the Commission, asking it to submit its report by December 31, 2020. The Commission's hearings began exactly two years ago, on September 5, 2018.

The government knows meeting this deadline is an impossible task.

On February this year, the Commission had told the government it would need at least six months to complete its work, as reported by Rediff.com.

After the March 24 lockdown was announced, no hearings have been held.

The two-member commission headed by retired Justice J N Patel, was set up to investigate the violence that broke out at Bhima Koregaon on January 1, 2018, the 200th anniversary of the historic battle between the British and the Peshwas, which the British won with the help of Mahar soldiers.

The violence claimed one life and enormous loss of property. 48 people were injured. A state-wide protest bandh called by Dalit groups on January 3 also saw violence.

News of the December 31, 2020 deadline was met with dismay by all those associated with the Commission.

The Commission, which has not been given premises of its own, functions from the office of the State Information Commission. State Chief Information Officer Sumit Mullick is the second member of the Commission.

The hearings are held in a small room in the office, which can barely accommodate 15 persons, excluding the two Commission members, the stenographer, and the witness.

With counsel for the Commission, the government, various Dalit victims and the Vivek Vichar Manch (a Hindutva think-tank and a party before the Commission) attending every hearing, junior lawyers and journalists have often had to stand due to lack of space.

Counsel for the government and police, Shishir Hiray, who lives in Malegaon, told Rediff.com: "I will, of course ,attend the hearings wherever they are held, even at risk to my health, as any Covid warrior would."

However, others were not willing to do so.

Across the board, Commission staffers and counsel are convinced that the present venue is too risky.

"If the hearings are held there, we will all be affected by COVID-19 within the first two days," said Advocate Kiran Channe, representing two Dalit victims of the violence at Bhima Koregaon, Ravindra Chandane and Amol Wankhede.

"Horrible thought!" were the words used by Vivek Vichar Manch Counsel Vijay Sawant when asked about hearings continuing at the present venue. Sawant lives in Pune.

IMAGE: Advocate Ashish Satpute, counsel for the commission, Sumit Mullick, member, Commission, Shishir Hiray, Maharashtra government counsel, Justice J N Patel, chairman of the commission. Photograph: Jyoti Punwani

The State Information Commission's office is in the New Administrative Building, opposite Mantralaya in south Mumbai.

Advocate Channe lives in Bhiwandi, Advocate B G Bansode, who also represents Dalit victims, lives in Badlapur and recently underwent heart surgery, and Advocate Ashish Satpute, counsel for the Commission, lives in Thane.

Apart from them, the Commission's staffers, such as its Superintendent Govind Dingankar, also live in far-off suburbs. Additionally, said V V Palnitkar, secretary to the Commission, except for the stenographer and advocate Satpute, everyone working for the Commission is over 60.

Justice Patel turned 70 this week.

Palnitkar also pointed out that witnesses may find it difficult to travel to Mumbai.

30-odd witnesses have still to depose. While most of them are policemen and bureaucrats, who would have government transport, there are still crucial testimonies awaited from public witnesses.

Among these is Rajendra Gaekwad, descendant of Govind Gopal Gaekwad, the Mahar who is said to have conducted the last rites of Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj in 1689. The Maratha ruler was killed by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, with a warning that no one should carry out his last rites.

The Marathas, however, claim that it was not Gaekwad, but a Maratha surnamed Shevale who defied Aurangzeb's diktat and cremated Sambhaji Maharaj.

This disputed history led to clashes at Vadhu Budruk, the village not far from Bhima Koregaon where the samadhis of both Sambhaji Maharaj and Govind Gopal Gaekwad are located. Dalits who go to Bhima Koregaon every year on January 1, 2018, also pay their respects at these samadhis.

This disputed history and these clashes have been a recurring theme during the Commission's hearings. Rajendra Gaekwad's testimony therefore is important.

"We want the Commission to finish its work; the issue it is investigating is too crucial for its work to be left incomplete," said Advocate Channe. "We also know that now, we have to live with COVID-19. Witnesses will willingly come to depose because now the fear of Covid is disappearing."

But this could only be possible if the government alloted a suitable venue where social distancing was possible, said Channe. Lodging and boarding arrangements for the staff also would have to be provided, he added.

Palnitkar said they had written to the government requesting it to keep the notification in abeyance till December and take a decision keeping the Covid situation in mind.

IMAGE: The Bhima-Koregaon commission in session. Photograph: Jyoti Punwani

This is the seventh extension to the Commission. Incidentally, the last extension granted to it on February 11 for two months, was also described as the final extension by the government.

That extension came in the wake oif an angry letter from the Commission's office to the government, expressing the Commission's unwillingness to continue working because the government had stopped paying salaries of Commission staffers.

Meanwhile, even as the Commission has been hearing testimonies of those injured in the Bhima Koregaon violence, arrests of intellectuals, lawyers and activists for the same violence have been continuing.

Early this month, three artists of the Kabir Kala Manch were arrested, bring the total number of arrests to 15.

The 15 arrests follow a conspiracy theory propounded first by the previous BJP government, which links the violence on January 1 to the Elgar Parishad held in Pune on December 31.

However, witnesses to and victims of the violence have not mentioned the Elgar Parishad. Most of them have recounted that Dalits on their way to Bhima Koregaon were attacked by mobs carrying saffron flags.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
Hyderabad: Telangana State Education Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy declared the results of the Telangana State Engineering Agricultural and Medical Common Entrance Test (TS EAMCET) 2020 on Tuesday, where over 75 percent of the candidates who appeared in the exam for the engineering stream have qualified.

As per the official data, of the total 1,19,183 aspirants for admissions to engineering courses who sat in the exam, 89,739 have qualified, for a pass percentage of 75.29%.

In the EAMCET (Engineering stream) exam results released on Tuesday, V Sai Teja bagged the first position with 147.29 EAMCET marks and a combined score of 93.37. K Yeshwanth Sai and T Venkata Krishna secured the second and third positions, respectively. The ranks are decided by adding the marks obtained by candidates in Class 12 board exams and the entrance test. The board exams are given 25 percent weightage and 72 percent weightage is given to the entrance test. However, no female candidate made it to the top 10 list this year.

Meanwhile, the authorities have also announced an admission counselling schedule for EAMCET. Candidates can book slots online from October 9 to 12. The verification of candidates' documents will be undertaken from October 12 to 18. Payment of tuition fees, self-reporting through the website, and reporting at the allotted Colleges will be conducted in the final phase from November 2 to November 5.

The EAMCET convener has also announced that students who could not write the test last month due to COVID-19, will get an opportunity to write the exam. Candidates who had tested corona positive between August 17 and September 14 will be eligible for a special test to be held on October 8.

Candidates can visit the official website, eamcet.tsche.ae.in, to check their results. Authorities have said that the results for the Agriculture and Medicine stream will be released next week.
Democrats from a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee issued a report on Tuesday detailing tactics it said four of the biggest technology companies used to gain dominant positioning in online search, advertising, social networking shopping and other businesses.

Here are notable findings.

AMAZON:

The issue: Amazon.com Inc sells its own products as well as goods from independent merchants on a single platform. The Congressional report alleged that Amazon has monopoly power over many of these merchants, which do not have a viable alternative to Amazon for reaching online consumers. The result, the report alleged, is a conflict of interest in which Amazon has an incentive to use competing merchants data and can advantage its own goods and services.

The fix: The report recommends Congress consider removing the conflict by preventing dominant firms  in this case, Amazon  from competing with others dependent on its infrastructure. In response, Amazon said any legislative proposal to separate retail sales from its third-party marketplace would bring consumers and sellers back to a model they rejected as inconvenient. Amazon also countered claims of its dominance by saying it represents less than 4 percent of US retail.

APPLE:

The issue: Lawmakers found that Apple has a monopoly on distributing software onto the iPhone. Apple used that monopoly power to charge above-market prices to developers in the form of a 30 percent commission on App Store sales, to exclude rival apps and services and to misappropriate data from developers and use it to create competing services and features.

A former App Store employee told lawmakers that the App Store costs Apple an estimated USD 100 million per year to run and generates billions of dollars in revenue.

The fix: The lawmakers proposals could force Apple to stop competing in markets where its rivals rely on its App Store to reach consumers. While the report has few details on how such rules would work, in theory they could force Apple to exit major businesses such streaming music, streaming television and cloud storage. Another proposal to create rules against self-preference could hamper Apples ability to remove apps from its App Store that compete with its own services.

Apple didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

FACEBOOK:

The issue: The panel found that Facebook holds monopoly power in the social networking market, which it distinguished from the market for more content-centric social media products like YouTube and TikTok.

Facebook secured its dominance in that highly concentrated market by identifying nascent rivals and copying, acquiring or killing them before they could mature into competitive threats, the report said.

Investigators said the companys two biggest acquisitions, of Instagram and WhatsApp, fit that pattern. They also accused Facebook of selectively enforcing its platform policies to defuse a threat from video-sharing app Vine, which Twitter shut down in 2016.

The fix: The report stopped short of recommending a breakup of Facebook, but proposed boosting the budgets of antitrust enforcers and allowing them more leeway to stop companies from purchasing would-be rivals.

That could strengthen regulators hands in current investigations into Facebooks alleged anti-competitive practices and make future transactions trickier.

Facebook did not immediately comment.

Google:

The issue: Investigators found Google has used restrictive customer and partner contracts and other means to ensure its own services are favored over those of competitors in search, phone and tablet software, advertising technology and mapping technology.

For instance, the committee found in internal Google documents that top executives such as now-Chief Executive Sundar Pichai approved stiff-arming partners to make sure Google search, in the companys own words, was front and center on mobile devices.

When one hardware manufacturer in 2014 complained about its devices being overloaded with required Google apps, the search giant blamed it for not making gadgets with more memory.

The fix: The committee called for Congress to pass nondiscrimination and bargaining laws requiring big service providers such as Google to provide fair access to their systems. Such a rule could give a leg up to device makers, ad tech companies and app developers that want to shift from Google tools.

Google did not immediately comment.
Pakistan funded Rs 80 crore to Hizbul to further terror activities in J&K

Hizbul terrorist Naikoos close aide deputed to attack BJP leader in J&K

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Oct 07: The close aide of slain terrorist Riyaz Naikoo was deputed to carry out the attack on BJP leader Ghulam Qadir in Ganderbal, Jammu and Kashmir's DGP Dilbag Singh said.

In the attack aa constable, Altaf Hussain was killed. On Tuesday terrorists shot at Ghulam Qadir, a district vice president of the BJP, near his residence at Nunner in Ganderbal, a police official said.

Terrorists open fire on BJP leader in Ganderbal, personal security guard killed; 1 ultra also dead

The injured security guard was rushed to SKIMS hospital at Soura for treatment, but he succumbed to injuries, the official said, adding the BJP leader was safe.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

In the retaliatory action by the security personnel, one militant was also killed, the official said.

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 17:02 [IST]
Fierce fighting started in the Caucasus region of South-Eastern Europe on Sunday, September 7, following an announcement by Armenia that it was declaring martial law and mobilising its army.

Trending topics on the go: How we write news at YEN.com.gh

A map of South-Eastern Europe. Photo: BBC.

Source: UGC

Since then Armenia and Azerbaijan forces have been engaged in fighting with dozens of deaths being reported among them, civilians.

It was reported At the heart of the conflict was a dispute over the control of the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh which has been internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.

Armenia claimed Azerbaijan had launched a military operation inside the breakaway region with the latter claiming it attacked only in response to Armenian shelling.

In a joint appeal, Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump and Macron urged the two sides to return to negotiations aimed at resolving their longstanding territorial dispute.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev have both rejected the idea of holding talks.

October 2: Armenia ready for truce talks as Nagorno-Karabakh capital is struck by missile

Armenia announced it was ready to engage with the United States, Russia and France on ending the six days of fighting with Azerbaijan that has left almost 100 people dead including civilians.

The three countries which co-chair the OSCE Minsk mediation group had called for a ceasefire, but so far Azerbaijan had not given a positive response to the proposed talks.

In the latest fighting, Azerbaijan forces said they had made further advances, but accused Armenia of artillery attacks on four villages, causing civilian casualties.

Armenia says it has shot down seven drones flying near the capital, Yerevan, but the claim was rejected by Azerbaijan.

The regional capital Stepanakert was struck by drones several times in the last few days which are said to have been identifying targets for artillery fire.

At regular intervals on October 2, there was a sound of missiles landing. A rocket was reported to have come down in front of a government building on the outskirts of the town. Enjoy reading our stories? Download YEN's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Ghana news!
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 12:10:05|Editor: huaxia

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BUENOS AIRES, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Argentinean government has arranged "to aid" provinces in the interior of the country given the exponential growth of COVID-19 cases in areas outside the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, President Alberto Fernandez said Tuesday.

"The pandemic is something that has hindered us a lot all this time from being able to develop and grow in the way we would have liked," the president said while visiting the province of La Rioja. "This has been our luck. I always say that we are a unique generation in history, the generation of the pandemic."

Fernandez signed in La Rioja several cooperation agreements with local authorities and announced the implementation of the program "Strategic Coronavirus Testing Mechanism in Argentina."

The program aims to strengthen government support in the face of rising COVID-19 cases, including sending work teams and health supplies to enhance field testing capabilities.

"What interests us most now is to aid the interior of the country, which is suffering an increase in infections, to isolate those who have been infected, and to guarantee that everyone who becomes ill has adequate medical attention," said the president.

With 809,728 cases and 21,468 deaths, the country ranks eighth and 13th respectively in the world in terms of COVID-19 cases and related deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Science and Systems Engineering.

Argentina registered its first case on March 3 and entered into quarantine to slow the spread of the pandemic on March 20, a measure that will continue until Oct. 11. Enditem
It's possible William Tyrrell's foster mother created a 'false memory' about seeing suspicious cars the day the young boy went missing, a memory expert has told an inquest.

Doubt was also cast over a witness's account about seeing the three-year-old boy standing unrestrained in the back of a four-wheel-drive being driven out of Kendall on the NSW mid-north coast in September 2014.

William hasn't been seen since disappearing from his foster grandmother's home in Kendall the morning of September 12, 2014.

It's possible William Tyrrell's foster mother created a 'false memory' about seeing suspicious cars the day the young boy went missing, a memory expert has told an inquest

Discussing the foster mother's account of seeing two cars parked in the street from where William went missing, forensic psychology academic Helen Paterson told the boy's inquest on Wednesday it was 'possibly' a false memory.

Dr Paterson said information learned after an event had the potential to cloud or distort future retellings of the event.

A leading question may have been asked about suspicious vehicles and prompted the woman to search her memory for pictures, the University of Sydney academic said.

'It could be there was a true event ... she saw those cars in that location at a different time,' Dr Paterson said.

'But then she mistakenly attributed it to the morning before William disappeared.'

Two days after William went missing, the foster mother told police she recalled seeing one white and one grey car parked between two driveways the morning of his disappearance.

She later said the memory of the cars was 'burnt into my brain'.

'I'm unable to say if it's a true or false memory,' Dr Paterson said.

The expert was also questioned over Kendall resident Ronald Chapman's account of seeing William dressed in a Spider-Man suit go by his home on September 12.

Doubt was also cast over a witness's account about seeing the three-year-old boy standing unrestrained in the back of a four-wheel-drive being driven out of Kendall on the NSW mid-north coast in September 2014. Police are seen searching in bushland in Kendall

Mr Chapman told the inquest in March 2020 that he was 'sure' the boy he saw in the back of a Toyota Landcruiser was William Tyrrell.

Dr Paterson said Mr Chapman's retelling of the memory changed over time, with an initial mention of a cape not appearing later and the later accounts told with more confidence and accuracy about key events.

The memory expert said it could be the case Mr Chapman was incorporating 'post-event information' such as news reports in his memory reconstruction.

She said her evidence assumed Mr Chapman and the foster mother were giving accounts in good faith.

'There are ways that people can report information that is not true but they are not lying,' Dr Paterson said.

The inquest also heard Detective Chief Inspector David Laidlaw, who replaced Gary Jubelin as supervisor of the William Tyrrell police investigation, never received a formal handover from his predecessor.

Det Chief Insp Laidlaw said that was because he'd found the discussion of the investigation 'wasn't at the fore' of numerous chats Jubelin had with him in early 2019.

'In my view, I was going to get more knowledge from all those who worked on it, not just one person,' he said.

Jubelin was sidelined after it emerged he'd illegally recorded a person of interest on four occasions in 2017 and 2018.

Coroner Harriet Grahame on Tuesday rejected a bid to have Jubelin, who quit the force in May 2019, give evidence at the inquest.

Det Chief Insp Laidlaw said a team of investigators were still working full time on the case, with officers to go back to the mid-north coast later this year.

'We never will (give up),' he said.
A County Derry man has said he was 'humbled' to be among the nominees for this year's Pride of Britain award, after helping to raise over 70,000 for frontline NHS staff.

Willy Darragh, from Magherafelt, harnessed the generosity of the angling community through a series of raffles and auctions to raise 72,600 for health care services throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

As well as raising money, Willy helped source Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for care homes, who he says were left behind a little as resources were channeled to the front line.

The Gracehill and Galgorm Angling Club member modestly tries to deflect attention from himself, preferring to praise the angling community's spirit.

"It's pretty humbling, to say the least. I was just the person behind the keyboard, but there was more than me involved in it," he told the County Derry Post.

"It puts the angling community out there and lets people see what they do, so they get the recognition for that. I've been involved in fishing all my life, I started when I was about seven."

The idea began following a conversation with Sam Glenn, a Belfast butcher and keen fisherman, who had asked Willy to organise and run a few raffles for fishing flies.

The fundraising effort soon took on a life of its own.

"He'd asked if I could run a few wee auctions or raffles," said Willy.

"So I said, 'no bother, that'll only take a few days'. Sixteen weeks later, here I am, still at it. It's been a nice journey.

The funds Willy helped to raise have gone a long way to helping those in need, with those inside and outside the local community benefiting from his work.

Willy appeared on UTV Live last week as one of the nominees.

Local care home owner Dr Marina Lupari, also from Magherafelt, told UTV Live, who helped facilitate the awards, that he was a phenomenal individual.

Willy in those very early days became a lifeline, not only for me but for other care home owners in my area, she said.

In those early days, we were just bombarded with requirements. We were trying to do what we never imagined we would have to do, and Willy came in and asked, 'what do you need?'

I don't know what the angling term is but our local term from Magherafelt is that he's like a dog with a bone. Willy just made it his priority to make it happen.

That became his reason for being, and he's still saying, 'what is it that I can do?', and that in my mind makes him a phenomenal individual.

Willy's desire to help meant that his method of fundraising and distribution of funds was always ready to adapt.

Social media has been fantastic. Sometimes it can go wrong, but it really worked well for something like this. Our finger was on the pulse from day one, he said.

We started raising money and then requests started to come in for PPE, especially when the care homes began to be left behind with everything being diverted to the NHS front line.

They couldn't source it, even to buy. I got involved and started looking at places you could buy PPE, starting off with the visors, which were made locally.

In the north west, we were in contact with a woman called Dawn Grieve went around asking hospitals and care homes what they needed. She then collected it and distributed it around the north west.

In the end, the award went to cycstic fibrosis campaigner Liam McHugh from Castlederg, who raised money and drove a campaign to have life-transforming drug, Orkambi, made available for eligible patients in Northern Ireland.

To be nominated for the Pride of Britain award is something that Willy welcomed, but the Magherafelt man says there is more work to be done amid the onset of a second Covid wave.

I have PPE at home still in stock, and funds there as well. We decided to hold back to see if it was needed again, but if it's not we'll distribute it between charities  most likely the hospices, he said.

It's been a nice journey, I've really enjoyed doing it. The satisfaction has been amazing. To see the generosity and compassion people have shown; it blew me away.
ST. JOHNS, N.L. - Premier Andrew Furey has won a seat in the Newfoundland and Labrador legislature with a decisive win in the Humber-Gros Morne byelection.

Unofficial results show the Liberal leader with 3,401 votes compared to his closest competitor, Progressive Conservative Mike Goosney, with 1,332.

Graydon Pelley, founder of the provincial NL Alliance party took 464 votes and NDP candidate Graham Downey-Sutton came in last with 121.

Furey was elected leader of the governing minority Liberals in August.

He announced he was running in rural riding in September, shortly after former premier Dwight Ball decided to give up his seat.

Goosney is deputy mayor of Deer Lake.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 6, 2020.
German car maker Volkswagen is contemplating the possibility of manufacturing natural gas-powered vehicles in Egypt, reports say.

Volkswagen, Arab Finance reports citing AI Mal News is in talks with Egypts Arab Organization for Industrialization for a seven-year deal partnership deal. The agreement will take hold once the Egyptian government gives the right incentives.

The incentives expected to spur the partnership include customs and tax reduction, as well as a relaxation of labor laws to attract more foreign staff.

The car maker giant would manufacture the natgas-backed versions of its Crafter and Caddy 5 cars for the local market in Egypt.

Crafter would replace microbuses used for public transportation, while the Caddy 5 would substitute old passenger cars and taxis, Egyptian Automotive and Trading Company CEO Karim Naggar told AI Mal News.

Egypt, Arab Finance reports, is looking to convert 147,000 vehicles to function by natural gas engines.
Sushant Singh Rajput case: Abetment to suicide not ruled out

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Oct 07: The Central Bureau of Investigation which is probing the Sushant Singh Rajput case has not ruled out abetment to suicide. It may be recalled that the AIIMS report had ruled out murder.

While foul play has been ruled out, the next angle that is being probed is abetment to suicide, an official told OneIndia. Rhea Chakraborty continues to remain under the scanner for abetment to suicide.

Sources say that the recreation of the crime scene fits the idea of suicide. No evidence of forced entry, signs of struggle during a scuffle have been found. Further poisoning or sedation has also not been found, the official also said.

Sushant Singh Rajput case: Maha govt orders inquiry into conspiracy to defame state

Further the CBI has also looked into the death of Disha Salian, Rajput's former manager. So far no evidence of any relation between the two deaths has not been found. The death of Salian had come under scanner of the CBI because Rajput had searched the incident relating to her death on Google, before he allegedly killed himself.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

Sources say that the investigators are also looking at the drug consumption. This is important to ascertain the impact it could have had on the late actor's mental health. While the agency is yet to question any producer, it is also looking into possible missed opportunities, which could have led to the death of the actor.

The AIIMS had earlier confirmed that there was no trace of poisoning. The AIIMS in its final report said that there was no foul play in his death. On his bank accounts, the CBI found that most of the financial dealings were towards purchase of property, bikes, cars and payment of salaries to his staff. Rajput's father in his FIR had alleged that Rs 15 crore had been siphoned off from his son's account. The probe has found that around Rs 55 lakh was associated with Rhea and this were expenses on travel, gifts and spas.

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 7:55 [IST]
The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District is seeing another leadership shakeup, as Assistant City Manager Colleen Bridger relinquishes control of the districts day-to-day operations to take on the role of whats essentially a coronavirus czar.

Bridger will retain the title of interim Metro Health director, which she has held since Dawn Emerick abruptly resigned the position in June, but will be responsible specifically for the citys public health response to the virus.

Dr. Sandra Guerra, previously Metro Healths assistant medical director, has been named interim deputy public health director and will take charge of all other operations.

The City Council and the community asked us to prioritize public health services in this years budget, said City Manager Erik Walsh, who made the changes and advised Mayor Ron Nirenberg and council members in a memo Tuesday. Dr. Guerra will provide additional leadership to carry out these vital services.

This will allow Dr. Bridger to continue her role as assistant city manager and manage the citys ongoing COVID-19 response.

After Emerick left, Bridger stepped in to lead the health department  the job she held before she was promoted to assistant city manager in March 2018.

Taking on the role, however, meant that Bridger was working three jobs: responding to the pandemic; managing Metro Healths normal operations; and overseeing three city departments  Metro Health, human services and parks and recreation.

I can honestly say that had I been in my previous job as Metro Health director when the pandemic started, I wouldve been able to do both running the health department and running point on the pandemic, Bridger said. What made it a little bit more difficult for me is adding in and assistant city manager.

Bridger had planned to leave the city and work as a consultant before Emerick resigned. She delayed her departure because of that resignation and the enduring nature of the virus, but she has said she will leave by the end of the year.

The city has not yet mounted a search to find a permanent replacement.

After Emerick resigned, District 7 Councilwoman Ana Sandoval, who chairs the councils Community Health and Equity committee, pitched the idea of naming a coronavirus czar who could manage the pandemic response while the Metro Health director handled the departments other functions, including tracking the spread of other diseases, administering immunizations and encouraging residents to adopt healthy habits.

Bridger expects that eventually the Metro Health director will resume oversight over both the agencys normal operations and the pandemic response  but not right this minute.

Joshua Fechter is a staff writer covering San Antonio government and politics. To read more from Joshua, become a subscriber. jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFReports
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 20:46:47|Editor: huaxia

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HANOI, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam reported a new case of COVID-19 infection on Wednesday, bringing its total confirmed cases to 1,099 with 35 deaths from the disease so far, according to its Ministry of Health.

The latest case is a 28-year-old Vietnamese woman who has recently entered the country from abroad and was quarantined upon arrival, according to the ministry.

The ministry also announced that 1,023 COVID-19 patients have been given all-clear as of Wednesday.

Meanwhile, as many as 14,550 people are being quarantined and monitored in the country, the ministry said.

Vietnam has gone through 35 straight days without any COVID-19 cases in the community, according to the ministry. Enditem
It's close to seven months since working from home has become a reality, and there are mixed opinions about its efficacy. While companies such as TCS have announced that 75 per cent of their 4.5 lakh employees would work from home (WFH) and the likes of Google and Facebook have said they would allow their employees to WFH till July 2021, not many are actually willing to keep working from home. Many are eagerly looking forward to get back to their respective offices. Contrary to the perception that women would embrace WFH with open arms because that would enable them to balance their work and family life better, women are actually the ones more desperate to get back to work. As Anjali Bansal, Founder, Avaana Capital, in a recent interview with Business Today, said, "The corporates may have embraced flexibility and WFH, but the attitude of the society hasn't changed." Women are over-worked than ever before thanks to the lockdown, as they need to deal with their jobs along with pressures on the home-front. From household chores to ensuring the smooth progress of children's online schooling, the pandemic has forced them to be on the toes 24/7.

In fact, Saundarya Rajesh, MD of diversity and inclusion firm, Avtar, says that the pandemic and the lockdown thereof, have resulted in a different form of burn-out among women. "They are depressed and feeling run-out. Many of them are fearing that they would lose their voice in their respective organisations, as they are dealing with domestic pressures and are hence not as participative as they would have been in office." While the negatives of the new work life reality have especially impacted women, Microsoft's latest Work Trend Report says that close to one-third (male and female) workers in India are facing increased rates of burnout over the past six months as they haven't been able to set boundaries between work and personal time. The report says that India has the second highest percentage of workers facing increased burn-out in Asia, at 29 per cent. Over 41 per cent Indians say that lack of separation between work and personal life has negatively impacted their well-being , resulting in increases stress levels. The fact that there is nothing called work-hours in the new normal has become a conversation starter in most meetings.

The Microsoft survey was done across eight countries including Australia, Japan, India and Singapore. The report says that there has been a 48 per cent increase in per-person chats on Microsoft Teams alone. These has been a 55 per cent increase in the number of meetings and calls per week and a 69 per cent rise in chats after office hours. Workers also cited differing factors contributing to work stress. The lack of separation between work and life was a prime stressor among 34 percent of workers, with unmanageable workload and/or work hours coming closely behind at 28 per cent. Nearly 23 per cent of workers cited too many meetings and not enough focus time as factors contributing to stress at work.

The high burn-out levels are not necessarily limited to WFH. Ever since the government has allowed the 'unlock' process, a significant number of people have returned to their physical work place, and the report revealed that the top stressors shared by them was the worry about contracting COVID-19 at work and feeling isolated or disconnected from co-workers, at 42 and 35 per cent respectively. The study also found that 19 per cent of workers have not been provided the tech or protective equipment by their compan to maintain social distance effectively, contributing to increased stress levels.

Prior to the lockdown, most people, especially those living in the metros complained about long hours of commute and wasting a significant amount of time in travel. The Microsoft report says that long hours of commute actually helped in improving productivity. An executive at a leading consulting company, agrees. "It's only after getting locked down at home for six months I have realised that the commute time was actually my 'me-time'."

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EDMONTON, Alberta, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As part of its commitment to provide $1.25 million to help uplift Edmontonians and revitalize our community, EPCOR is pleased to announce the first wave of Heart + Soul Fund recipients, which includes the Citadel Theatre, the Downtown Business Association, and seven other arts organizations.



Funding is being provided to help these organizations adjust to the changing landscape brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure they can continue offering world-class arts and cultural experiences that inspire and delight Edmontonians.

The arts are a vital part of who we are. They lift us up in challenging times, encourage us to explore the boundaries between the possible and the impossible, and connect us through unique experiences, said Jennifer Addison, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, EPCOR. EPCORs Heart + Soul Fund will support Edmontons arts community as it creates new opportunities to connect us  whether two metres or two devices apart  and continue injecting drama and joy in our lives.

With support from the Heart + Soul Fund, the Citadel Theatre is developing an online musical production of its annual holiday tradition, A Christmas Carol. The virtual production will go live in mid-December and run throughout the month. Funding for A Christmas Carol is in addition to EPCORs sponsorship of the Citadels Horizon Series, which shared conversations between BIPOC theatre industry leaders and the Citadel Associate Artist team: Helen Belay, Tai Amy Grauman, and Mieko Ouchi. For more information, visit citadeltheatre.com.

We are so excited to have EPCOR as our first community partner in the creation of an online version of A Christmas Carol for this holiday season, said Chantell Ghosh, Executive Director of the Citadel Theatre. For 20 years, Edmonton's families have shared this holiday tradition with their loved ones. Thanks to EPCORs Heart + Soul Fund, the early investment allows us to safely build something delightful, and encourage those in Edmonton and beyond to bring this story into their homes. It is our hope that Citadels A Christmas Carol will bring tidings of hope and joy to our community, while providing much-needed work opportunities to those working in the arts.

The Heart + Soul Fund will also help extend Downtown Live, an initiative created by the Downtown Business Association to draw visitors and promote business in downtown Edmonton. The initiative will directly fund artists to perform live at local businesses, fostering vibrancy, culture and connection in the heart of our city. An event schedule and further details can be found at edmontondowntown.com.

We have been overwhelmed by the excitement and joy generated by over 50 Downtown Live performances between August and September, said Nick Lilley, interim Executive Director of the Downtown Business Association. We are so grateful that EPCORs Heart + Soul Fund will allow us to continue showcasing our communitys talented artists and incredible businesses through this program, through the rest of fall and into winter.

Additional arts organizations and programs benefiting from the Heart + Soul Fund by EPCOR include:

Play the Fool Festival

Occurred September 24  26, 2020

Hit That Jive Productions creates opportunities for dance and theatre artists to develop their craft and perform their work. Its largest project is the annual Play the Fool Festival, which presents clown theatre and physical comedy performances. The Heart + Soul Fund supported an online edition of the festival. For more information, visit playthefool.ca.

Edmonton Musical Theatre

September 2020  March 2021

Edmonton Musical Theatre offers performances and high-quality instructional programs out of the Woodcroft Community Hall. The Heart + Soul Fund will help the organization adhere to health guidelines and implement safely protocols which will enable them to continue program development and rehearsals for the new season. For more information, visit edmontonmusicaltheatre.com.

SISTER: An Interactive Mystery

October 2  10, 2020

The Fox Den Collective is an entirely female-run Edmonton theatre collective specializing in highly interactive and site-specific work that celebrates areas around the city. In partnership with the non-profit Theatre Yes, and through support from the Heart + Soul Fund, the theatre collective has developed an all-new, interactive mystery play in which audience members participate as detectives via Zoom. For more information, visit thefoxdencollective.weebly.com.

2020 Edmonton Comedy Festival

October 14  17, 2020

Taking place at venues across the city, the Edmonton Comedy Festival stages world-class shows while supporting local talent. Funding provided by EPCOR will help ensure the show can go on with additional measures in place to protect festival goers. For more information, visit atbcomedy.com.

Schmoozy 2020

October 21  30, 2020

Latitude 53 Society of Artists is one of the largest and oldest artist-run centres in the Canadian Prairies, and serves as a major centre for contemporary art. The annual Schmoozy fundraiser supports artists to create exhibitions that are free and open to the public. EPCORs support will help the event adapt its in-person programming and develop new, online opportunities. For more information, visit latitude53.org.

Welcome Home

October 23, October 30, and November 6, 2020

Teatro La Quindicina is presenting a series of variety/concert events to bring people back to the Varscona Theatre in Edmonton. Through support from the Heart + Soul Fund, the Welcome Home events will merge music, comedy, and a few surprises to reintroduce the local community to the theatre and restore confidence by making live events safer to enjoy. For more information, visit teatroq.com.

Punctuate! Playwrights' Circle

October 2020  May 2021

Punctuate! Theatre helps provide exposure for local Edmonton artists and focuses on telling stories with Indigenous themes. With help from EPCOR, Punctuate! Theatre is launching Edmontons largest emerging playwrights circle for 14 artists to hone their craft and develop their theatrical works. For more information, visit punctuatetheatre.com.

Quick Facts:

EPCORs investment in COVID-19 pandemic relief and recovery totals $2 million in 2020. This includes: $1.25 million Heart + Soul Fund by EPCOR. $300,000 for the United Way and Edmonton Community Foundation. $82,000 for local Edmonton charities from employee matching campaign. More than $400,000 in top-up support for EPCORs existing Edmonton community partners and recovery efforts in the other jurisdictions EPCOR operates.

The $2 million for pandemic relief and recovery efforts is in addition to the $1 million EPCOR provides annually in community support.

For more information contact:

Adam Sidon

Media Relations

780-412-4962

epcormedia@epcor.com

About EPCOR

EPCOR, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, builds, owns and operates electrical, natural gas and water transmission and distribution networks, water and wastewater treatment facilities, sanitary and stormwater systems, and infrastructure in Canada and the United States. The Company also provides electricity, natural gas and water products and services to residential and commercial customers. EPCOR, headquartered in Edmonton, is an Alberta Top 75 employer.
ORANGE, Calif., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Since the onset of COVID-19, Amtrak has led the way in ushering a new standard of safe travel. Today, The Los Angeles  San Diego  San Luis Obispo (LOSSAN) Rail Corridor Agency, which manages the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner service, is building on its commitment to the safety and wellbeing of travelers by announcing a partnership with RB, the makers of Lysol. As part of this new partnership, germ-kill experts and microbiologists from RB will help Amtrak strengthen its comprehensive cleaning and disinfection protocols for Amtrak trains, stations and Metropolitan Lounges. The partnership will launch in stations served by Pacific Surfliner trains, before expanding across the Amtrak network.

"We're excited to be selected as one of Lysol's first rail partners as we roll out the use of their disinfection solutions in stations served by the Pacific Surfliner," said Donna DeMartino, Managing Director of the Los Angeles  San Diego  San Luis Obispo (LOSSAN) Rail Corridor Agency, which manages the Pacific Surfliner service. "This will enhance our efforts to provide a safe environment for crews and passengers."

In addition to helping strengthen Pacific Surfliner cleaning and disinfection protocols, RB will supply Amtrak EPA-approved disinfection solutions, including those proven to be effective against the SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The products are for use across high-touch and high-traffic areas, where germs are most prevalent.

Amtrak Pacific Surfliner travelers will notice enhanced protocols and processes put in place to help create a safer travel experience, including:

Face Coverings : To ensure the safety of passengers and employees, Amtrak requires face coverings in stations, on trains and Thruway Buses throughout the duration of their trip.

: To ensure the safety of passengers and employees, Amtrak requires face coverings in stations, on trains and Thruway Buses throughout the duration of their trip. Contact-free Travel : To limit interactions and encourage physical distancing at stations, travelers are encouraged to use the Amtrak app, which enables customers to board with eTickets. To reduce crowds at departure boards, travelers can receive gate and track information via push notifications at select stations.

: To limit interactions and encourage physical distancing at stations, travelers are encouraged to use the Amtrak app, which enables customers to board with eTickets. To reduce crowds at departure boards, travelers can receive gate and track information via push notifications at select stations. Onboard Safety : With the assistance of experts at RB, Amtrak will continue to evaluate cleaning and disinfection practices to support personal safety. All trains are currently equipped with onboard filtration systems with a fresh air exchange rate of every 4-5 minutes.

: With the assistance of experts at RB, Amtrak will continue to evaluate cleaning and disinfection practices to support personal safety. All trains are currently equipped with onboard filtration systems with a fresh air exchange rate of every 4-5 minutes. Utilizing EPA-Approved Disinfection Products: Lysol products will be used by Amtrak employees, cleaning crews and customers at select stations with plans to make it available onboard trains.

"We are proud to partner with Amtrak, to help provide a clean and hygienic travel experience," said Rahul Kadyan, EVP, Global Business Solutions at RB. "With each partnership RB enters, we are looking to help further RB's commitment to protect, heal and nurture in the relentless pursuit of a cleaner and healthier world."

For more information on Amtrak's new health and safety protocols, please visit: amtrak.com/coronavirus.

SOURCE Amtrak
The Electoral Commission (EC) has explained that copies of the final new voters register should be ready by November 11, 2020.



The EC is hoping that copies of the register would be made available to all political parties and candidates by that time.



The Director of Elections at the EC, Dr Serebour Quaicoe said this in a radio interview with Accra based Joy FM monitored by Graphic Online on Tuesday evening [October 6, 2020].



Read also: EC sets up two teams to vet 2020 presidential aspirants



Last week, the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for instance raised concerns that the final register was not ready, yet aspirants have been asked to file their nomination forms this week - October 5 to October 9, 2020.



What happens if someone assumed to be a registered voter endorses an aspirant's nomination forms and it turns out that the said person does not have his name in the final gazetted register, the General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia for instance questioned in a radio interview.



The Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) has also urged the EC to ensure that the final register is given out to all parties ahead of time.



Reacting in the radio interview, Dr Serebour Quaicoe said the EC plans to give the register out to the parties one month to the elections.



We could have even given them out earlier but because we should finish with the transfers and special voters compilation before we can give the register out, he said.







Source: graphic.com.gh









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The investigation into Jeffrey Epstein remains active, leading prosecutors said Tuesday, as they argued to keep 40 pages of photos and 40 pages of documents about his victims a secret from Ghislaine Maxwell.

Manhattan prosecutors say they want to delay giving materials from dozens of victims cooperating with the government and who will not testify at trial to lawyers for the British socialite.

They told a judge in a letter that they want to try to prevent lawyers for Epstein's incarcerated ex-girlfriend from learning too much about the files until two months before her criminal trial next summer.

The active probe leaves open the possibility of additional arrests. The files are said to include school pictures and bank and travel records.

The investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, left, remains active, leading prosecutors said Tuesday, as they argued to keep 40 pages of photos and 40 pages of documents about his victims a secret from Ghislaine Maxwell, right

Maxwell is seen in a court sketch from her July 14 arraignment in Manhattan Federal Court

Maxwell, 58, has been held without bail since her July arrest on charges that she recruited teenage girls for Epstein to abuse in the mid-1990s and sometimes joined the abuse. She has pleaded not guilty.

She has hired a New York-based lawyer who previously represented one of Osama bin Laden's henchmen, as she seeks to bolster her team ahead of her trial. Bobbi Sternheim is described on the website of her law firm, Fasulo Braverman & Di Maggio, as a 'recognized leader' in 'litigating difficult and complex cases'.

Epstein, 66, killed himself in August 2019 while he was housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal lockup adjacent to Manhattan federal courthouses.

At the time, he faced federal sex trafficking charges and was held without bail a month after his arrest.

Accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre, center, with attorneys David Boies, left, and Brad Edwards during a news conference outside Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse following a hearing in the Jeffrey Epstein case on Tuesday, August 27, 2019. Epstein, 66, killed himself in August 2019 while he was housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center

Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts, aged 17, and Ghislaine Maxwell at Maxwell's townhouse in London. Manhattan prosecutors say they want to delay giving materials from dozens of victims cooperating with the government and who will not testify at trial to lawyers for the British socialite

Prosecutors want to delay turning materials from some victims over to the defense until eight weeks before her trial scheduled for July.

A message seeking comment was left with lawyers for Maxwell. Prosecutors said defense lawyers have indicated they will oppose the secrecy request.

In its letter, prosecutors said revealing 40 pages of photographs and 40 pages of documents related to Epstein victims who were harmed after the time spanned by the charges against Maxwell could jeopardize the government's ongoing investigation and scare other victims from cooperating.

Prosecutors said charges against Maxwell pertain to illegal sex acts that occurred between 1994 and 1997, but the indictment emerged from a wider probe that went beyond that period.

As part of the broader probe, investigators have interviewed dozens of victims who were sexually abused by Epstein after 1997 and obtained a limited number of sensitive documents and photographs, including school pictures and bank and travel records, they said.

Prosecutors said they don't plan to offer the materials as evidence at trial and wanted to turn them over to the defense at the same time as materials related to other non-testifying witnesses.

To do otherwise, prosecutors said, would risk interfering with the ongoing investigation.

Jennifer Araoz, in white, an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein, pictured in 2019. Prosecutors want to delay turning materials from some victims, who have not been named, over to the defense until eight weeks before her trial scheduled for July

Jeffrey Epstein accusers Teala Davies, second from right, and a woman identified as Jane Doe, left, with attorney Gloria Allred in 2019. For now, prosecutors said they wanted to keep the scope of their probe secret, in part to encourage other victims, not named, to cooperate

For now, prosecutors said they wanted to keep the scope of their probe secret, in part to encourage other victims to cooperate.

Maxwell is appealing U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska's order to release other materials, including her April 2016 deposition and a deposition by a second Epstein accuser.

She has said her deposition contained 'intimate, sensitive, and personal information,' and whose release would cause irreversible, negative publicity.

The socialite said this would undermine her constitutional rights to remain silent and obtain a fair trial by an impartial jury, outweighing any presumption of public access.
Days after staff and union leaders of the Ghana Airport Company Limited hoisted red flags and banners at the company in demand for removal of their Managing Director for the company Yaw Kwakwa, their colleagues from the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority are also embarking on a protest over encroachment of their lands.

The GCAA staff are protesting what they term grabbing of lands of the authority. They warn the countrys Aviation sector risks shutdown if immediate steps are not taken to safeguard lands crucial for the operations of the GCAA.

The workers have been agitating over attempts to cede lands meant for their equipment for air traffic navigations among other activities to private developers. About 2 months ago the workers laid down their tools prompting intervention from National Security Minister Albert Kan Dapaah.

In a statement, the union leaders of the GCAA staff argued any attempt to give away lands of the authority will gravely affect the countrys Aviation sector.

The Aviation industry is dynamic and driven by technology. This means that new technology may spring up which requires a piece of land for its implementation. Some parcels of land must therefore be set aside for those purposes. Non-availability of land for these installations will mean there is no future for aviation in Ghana, the leaders warned.

The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has two parcels of land in Accra for aviation development. These are the about 90-acre land at Cantonments, mostly referred to as La wireless and the about 614-acre land at La Nkwantanang, popularly referred to as Aviation Lands.

The workers explain the La Nkwantanang land was acquired by an Executive Instrument for aviation purposes, while the La Wireless one was leased by the then governor for Radio and communication in aviation. The La Wireless lease will expire in 2047, but it is subject to renewal.

Government through the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has led renegotiations with the La Traditional Council to allocate the GCAA lands for private development. A move the workers have vowed to resist

It must be noted that as a coalition of Union and Profession Associations of GCAA we do not recognise any previous negotiations and agreements concerning Aviation lands entered into and consider such, as null and void, since key stakeholders were not involved.

The staff want the National Security Minister to take steps to secure the GCAA lands.

To avoid future encroachment and trespass, we kindly request that titles to these lands are duly regularised in the name of the Authority by assigning an Officer from the Ministry of National Security to assist in this regard.

According to the workers, the La Wireless land is housing our Transmitters and other auxiliary facilities, Engineering training school, The Office of the Independent Accident Investigation Bureau, staff bungalows for technical staff working on these facilities and Directors bungalows.

The statement further warned Ghanas neighbouring countries are laying in wait to further take advantage of any slip regarding the countrys air system navigation control.

Togo, Benin and Lagos are still monitoring our equipment to justify a takeover of Ghana Airspace given earlier challenges the GCAA had with the construction of the AU village on lands housing its critical equipment.

The workers have also expressed shock at attempts to eject technical staff living in bungalows on the GCAA lands ostensibly to allow for takeover of these lands.

On the La Wireless land, it is surprising to hear that our technical staff, who are called upon at odd times to attend to faults on these equipment, have been asked to vacate their premises and relocate to places far from these installations. Who will then attend to faults when they occur and what will be the response time? Ironically as our staff are being asked to vacate the place, provision is being made to build residential accommodation for private individuals.

The workers, therefore, appealed to government to halt the attempts to dissipate the lands of GCAA We are appealing to the government to intervene and stop Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and Lands Commission from supervising the sharing of aviation lands so that governments vision and policy on aviation can be achieved.

According to the union leaders, no concrete actions have been taken so far to address their concerns regarding the lands belonging to the authority hence their decision to protest today.

---Starrfm
President Akufo-Addo, has inspected the completed One-Village-One-Dam (1V1D) project constructed in Namoligo in the Talensi constituency of the Upper East Region.

Accompanied by the Upper East Regional Minister, Paulina Abayage, and the Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie-Akoto, President Akufo-Addo was told that the construction, in fulfilment of the 2016 manifesto pledge of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), was undertaken by the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA).

The Namoligo Dam is one of ten small dams that have been completed by the government through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

The contract for the construction of the dam was awarded in May 2019 and has been substantially completed.

With the project costing GH2.5 million, the Namoligo dam has a water storage capacity of 145,300 cubic meters and has a minimum dam life of 40 years.

The President was told that, for occasional supplementary irrigation, the cropping area for vegetables can increase to some 50 hectares, with optimum yields assured, since crops will always get the needed water required for healthy growth throughout the growth stages.

To facilitate water access for irrigation, two outlets, controlled by sluice valves, have been provided at vantage points to allow free flow of water on either side of the valley.

Indeed, GIDA has constructed 10 similar small dams with irrigation outlets in the Upper West Region, and the Northern Region, all in support of the 1V1D program.

The President urged members of the community to take very good care of the dam and hoped that the Namoligo community and the other 10 communities, that are beneficiaries of the dams, will use them for their own benefit.

Since 2017, the Government of President Akufo-Addo, in its bid to fulfill the 1V1D policy, has constructed a number of small-earth dams for water storage, irrigation, and for use by livestock. This is the largest stock of such small earth dams provided since independence.

Thus far, 439 small-earth dams are under construction, and 375 have been completed, and 64 are between 90-100% complete. Each dam provides water for up to 5 hectares of farmland.

Under the Akufo-Addo Government, the Tono irrigation dam has been rehabilitated and rehabilitation projects on both the left and right banks of Kpong are also in progress.
iWorld | OTT

GEMS: Designing the next level of gaming and e-sports in India The gaming and e-sports industry in India is quickly levelling up, Covid2019 possibly being the biggest booster augmenting its growing popularity amongst the masses and advertisers alike. Read More...

Television | TV Channels

IPL 13 grows and grabs television viewership Live telecast of the Indian Premier League (IPL) must seem an abomination for competitors' networks. Year in and year out, the period during which the cricketing bonanza is played. Read More...

Regulators | I&B Ministry

MIB issues SOPs for cinema halls After keeping industry stakeholders on tenterhooks for months, the ministry of information & broadcasting last week announced the opening of theatres across India from 15 October. As part of the government's Unlock 5.0 plan, cinema halls will operate at 50 per cent seating capacity. Read More...

Cable TV | MSO

Vynsley Fernandes becomes CEO NXT Digital Vynsley Fernandes has been known as the CEO of Hinduja group-owned Indusind Media & Communications which runs cable TV MSO InCable TV, a position he took up in August 2018 Read More...
Doha, Oct 7 : Qatar on Wednesday announced 238 new Covid-19 infections, raising the total number of cases in the Gulf state to 127,181, officials of Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.

Meanwhile, 215 more recovered from the virus, bringing the overall recoveries to 124,108, while the fatalities increased by two to 218, according to a ministry statement quoted by QNA.

The ministry reiterated the need to take preventive measures, including staying home and observing social distancing.

A total of 810,027 people in Qatar have taken lab tests for Covid-19 so far.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 19:55:07|Editor: huaxia

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Magda Fyssa (C), mother of Pavlos Fyssas, a 34-year-old Greek anti-fascist activist musician murdered by a supporter of ultra-right party Golden Dawn (GD-Chryssi Avghi in Greek) in autumn 2013, reacts after hearing the verdict of the court in Athens, Greece, on Oct. 7, 2020. The Greek court ruled on Wednesday that the leadership and members of GD, the third largest political party in the parliament until last year, are guilty of operating as a criminal organization, Greek national broadcaster ERT reported. TO GO WITH "Greek far-Right Golden Dawn party leaders found guilty of operating as criminal organization" (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

ATHENS, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- A Greek court ruled on Wednesday that the leadership and members of ultra-Right party Golden Dawn (GD-Chryssi Avghi in Greek), the third largest political party in the parliament until last year, are guilty of operating as a criminal organization, Greek national broadcaster ERT reported.

Presiding judge of the Athens Criminal Appeals Court Maria Lepeniotou announced that GD was running as a criminal gang, systematically attacking migrants and political opponents for years until the fatal stabbing of Pavlos Fyssas, a 34-year-old Greek anti-fascist activist musician, by Yorgos Roupakias, a GD supporter, at a Piraeus port suburb in autumn 2013.

The murder sent shockwaves across the country and triggered a judicial crackdown on Golden Dawn.

It is expected to take several hours to determine sentencing for the defendants, as 68 persons stood trial (one died during the process), including the party's leader and dozens of former MPs and leading members, as appeals for reduced terms will be made.

GD leader Nikos Michaloliakos and others face five to 15 years of imprisonment while other members' convictions are on charges ranging from murder to extortion.

The long-awaited verdict in the trial that started in the spring of 2015 is considered as historic, closing a painful chapter in the country's history, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and other political party leaders said in statements to Greek daily "Efimerida Syntakton" (Editors' Journal) a few days ago.

It is expected to determine the fate of a political party that was elected to the Greek and European parliaments many times since 2012, riding on the wave of discontent over harsh austerity imposed to address a severe debt crisis which brought Greece to the brink of bankruptcy.

Following Greece's exit from the harsh bailout period in 2018, the party, which was founded as a marginal group in the 1980s, failed to enter the parliament in the 2019 general elections and has been losing clout since then.

"The trial is one of the largest in Greece's recent history. It is of great importance. It revealed to Greek society how this neo-Nazi group was operating using systematically raw violence, behind the facade of a political party," Xenophon Contiades, professor of Public and Social Law at the University of Peloponnese, said on ERT Wednesday.

More than 2,000 police officers were deployed around the courthouse Wednesday as some 20,000 protestors joined rallies organized by Leftist parties, migrants' associations and trade unions, according to police estimates, awaiting the ruling, amidst concern that in case of an acquittal there could be violent incidents.

Minor scuffles between a small group of protesters and police were reported by ERT once the ruling was announced as the crowd was cheering for the verdict.

"It is time all neo-Nazi killers are imprisoned," people chanted. Enditem
Mike Pence vs Kamala Harris Debate Highlights: Harris condemned the police killings of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and George Floyd in Minnesota and spoke about the protests against racial injustice in policing

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With plexiglass and more than 12 feet of distance separating them, Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic nominee Sen. Kamala Harris of California will debate in Salt Lake City on Wednesday night in the first and only one-on-one matchup between the vice presidential candidates.

The debate's format will be divided into nine 10-minute sections with each candidate having two minutes to respond to the opening question in each segment and the remaining time allowed for follow ups.

The moderator for the vice-presidential debate between the incumbent Mike Pence and Kamala Harris is Washington bureau chief for USA Today, Susan Page. In her near half-century-long career, Page has covered 10 presidential campaigns.

The coronavirus hangs over the event as it has hung over all of American life for months. The candidates are seated 12 feet apart. Two plexiglass dividers stand between them, providing an illusion of protection.

Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris have taken the stage for the only vice-presidential debate of 2020, after what was an extraordinary week even by 2020 standards.

US Vice-President Mike Pence on Wednesday night said that the COVID-19 vaccine can be expected by the end of the year.

The coronavirus outbreak has infected "34 White House staffers and other contacts" in recent days, according to an internal government memo, an indication that the disease has spread among more people than previously known in the seat of American government.

I want the American people to know, from the very first day, President Trump has put the health of America first," Pence said, promising millions of doses of a yet-to-be-announced treatment before the end of the year.

Pence acknowledged that, "Our nations gone through a very challenging time this year."

"The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country," Harris charged as Pence, who leads the presidents coronavirus task force, shook his head.

Separated by plexiglass barriers, Republican Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic challenger Kamala Harris sparred over the Trump administrations handling of the pandemic in a debate Wednesday night that highlighted the parties sharply conflicting visions for a nation in crisis.

President Donald Trump did what no other American president had ever done. And that was, he suspended all travel from China, the second largest economy in the world, he said.

When the moderator, Susan Page, asked Pence to explain why the administration had not done more to prevent the deaths, Pence quickly pivoted to offense.

Harris shot back quickly, saying that Americans are looking at over 210,000 dead bodies as a result of their failure to confront the pandemic head-on.

Vice President Mike Pence tried to turn a question about the White House mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic into an attack on Joe Biden  accusing the Democratic presidential candidate of plagiarism for stealing Trumps plan to fight the virus.

Kamala Harris and Mike Pence discussed climate change. "We have cut CO2 emission more than countries that are still a part of the Paris deal," said Mike Pence on Wednesday's debate.

Ahead of the vice-presidential debate, Joe Biden tweeted about Democratic candidate: "Kamala Harris is showing the American people why I chose her as my running mate. Shes smart, shes experienced, shes a proven fighter for the middle class. Shell be an incredible Vice President."

Harris also accused the US president of taking the word of Russian President Vladimir Putin over that of American intelligence community. "Trump betrayed America's friends and embraced dictators around the world," said Harris.

Leaders of our allies say they have more respect for Xi Jinping than for Donald Trump, said Democratic VP nominee Kamala Harris on US' standing on world stage.

Harris castigated the Trump administration for the tariffs it has imposed on China, arguing that retaliatory measures China has placed on American goods have cost the United States 300,000 manufacturing jobs and forced farmers unable to sell their crops overseas into bankruptcy.

Senator Kamala Harris, on the attack against the Trump administration all night, launched an attack on one of the Trump administration's proudest achievements: "You lost that trade war," she told Vice President Mike Pence. You lost it.

Kamala Harris accused the Donald Trump administration of refusing to condemn white supremacists. "Strangers marched shoulder to shoulder after the George Floyd incident, said Harris.

Vice President Mike Pence was also asked if justice was done in the Taylor case. He says Taylors family has our sympathies, but I trust our justice system, a grand jury that reviews the evidence.

Addressing criminal justice reform at Wednesdays vice presidential debate, Harris says a Joe Biden administration would ban chokeholds and require a national registry for police officers who break the law. She says George Floyd would be alive if such a ban existed.

Taylor was shot multiple times in March after being roused from sleep by police at her door. A grand jury did not charge any officers for their role in Taylors death.

Democrat Kamala Harris says she doesnt believe justice has been done in the case of Breonna Taylor, who was killed in a police drug raid that went bad.

A black bug made its way onto Mike Pence's white hair during the debate on Wednesday and stayed there for about two minutes, unbeknownst to the vice president.

In tone and content, their debate was like an alternate universe from the one Americans saw little more than a week ago.

Pence's even temperament has been a signature of his political career and he has often served as a kind of translator for Trump's bombast. Harris had a long career as a prosecutor, comfortable arguing her case under pressure. Both played to type.

To be sure, there were sharp moments, some modest interruptions and violations of the debate clock. But the dynamics represented a rare 2020 return to some semblance of normal presidential politics.

The opening of Wednesdays undercard matchup made clear that Pence and Harris were set for a much different encounter  an actual debate.

Pence, in contrast, proclaimed his trust for the justice system and put the focus on incidents of violence, saying there was no excuse for the rioting and looting.

Still, she said, We are never going to condone violence.

Harris, the first Black woman on a presidential ticket, spoke passionately about "people around our country of every race, of every age, of every gender" who marched, shoulder to shoulder, arm and arm, fighting for us to finally achieve that ideal of equal justice under law.

Pence slammed Harris for her statements questioning whether a vaccine released under Trump could be trusted due to the intense pressure on the president to tame the pandemic.

The US death toll from the pandemic has exceeded 210,000, with over 7.5 million people infected, the highest reported totals in the world.

But Pence fired back by accusing Harris of undermining public confidence in a future coronavirus vaccine through her attacks on Trump's credibility. "The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country," Harris, running mate to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, said.

Senator Kamala Harris branded the response to the COVID-19 pandemic under Donald Trump as the "greatest failure" of any US administration, as the debate between her and Vice President Mike Pence opened on Wednesday.

"Mike Pence is doing GREAT! She is a gaffe machine," Trump chimed in on Twitter.

Trump, who is quarantining at the White House as he convalesces from COVID-19, took to Twitter to praise Pence and slam the Democratic vice presidential nominee less than an hour into Wednesday's debate in Salt Lake City.

President Donald Trump watched the vice presidential debate and thought Mike Pence was doing "great", but he's not so hot about the Democratic nominee or the moderator's performance.

Some joked about the need to test the fly for the coronavirus, as it had skirted the plexiglass partitions separating the candidates and moderator.

Conversation about the fly briefly dominated corners of Twitter, where debate watchers discussed their distraction and inability to focus on Pence and California Senator Kamala Harris' answers.

There was briefly another participant swooping into Wednesday night's vice presidential debate. For several minutes, a fly landed in Vice President Mike Pence's hair, not moving as he answered questions about racial injustice and whether justice has been done in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Harris castigated the Trump administration for the tariffs it has imposed on China, arguing that retaliatory measures China has placed on American goods have cost the United States 300,000 manufacturing jobs and forced farmers unable to sell their crops overseas into bankruptcy.

Senator Kamala Harris, on the attack against the Trump administration all night, launched an attack on one of the Trump administration's proudest achievements: "You lost that trade war," she told Vice President Mike Pence. You lost it.

Kamala Harris accused the Donald Trump administration of refusing to condemn white supremacists. "Strangers marched shoulder to shoulder after the George Floyd incident, said Harris.

Vice President Mike Pence was also asked if justice was done in the Taylor case. He says Taylors family has our sympathies, but I trust our justice system, a grand jury that reviews the evidence.

Addressing criminal justice reform at Wednesdays vice presidential debate, Harris says a Joe Biden administration would ban chokeholds and require a national registry for police officers who break the law. She says George Floyd would be alive if such a ban existed.

Taylor was shot multiple times in March after being roused from sleep by police at her door. A grand jury did not charge any officers for their role in Taylors death.

Democrat Kamala Harris says she doesnt believe justice has been done in the case of Breonna Taylor, who was killed in a police drug raid that went bad.

A black bug made its way onto Mike Pence's white hair during the debate on Wednesday and stayed there for about two minutes, unbeknownst to the vice president.

In tone and content, their debate was like an alternate universe from the one Americans saw little more than a week ago.

Pence's even temperament has been a signature of his political career and he has often served as a kind of translator for Trump's bombast. Harris had a long career as a prosecutor, comfortable arguing her case under pressure. Both played to type.

To be sure, there were sharp moments, some modest interruptions and violations of the debate clock. But the dynamics represented a rare 2020 return to some semblance of normal presidential politics.

The opening of Wednesdays undercard matchup made clear that Pence and Harris were set for a much different encounter  an actual debate.

Pence, in contrast, proclaimed his trust for the justice system and put the focus on incidents of violence, saying there was no excuse for the rioting and looting.

Still, she said, We are never going to condone violence.

Harris, the first Black woman on a presidential ticket, spoke passionately about "people around our country of every race, of every age, of every gender" who marched, shoulder to shoulder, arm and arm, fighting for us to finally achieve that ideal of equal justice under law.

Pence slammed Harris for her statements questioning whether a vaccine released under Trump could be trusted due to the intense pressure on the president to tame the pandemic.

The US death toll from the pandemic has exceeded 210,000, with over 7.5 million people infected, the highest reported totals in the world.

But Pence fired back by accusing Harris of undermining public confidence in a future coronavirus vaccine through her attacks on Trump's credibility. "The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country," Harris, running mate to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, said.

Senator Kamala Harris branded the response to the COVID-19 pandemic under Donald Trump as the "greatest failure" of any US administration, as the debate between her and Vice President Mike Pence opened on Wednesday.

"Mike Pence is doing GREAT! She is a gaffe machine," Trump chimed in on Twitter.

Trump, who is quarantining at the White House as he convalesces from COVID-19, took to Twitter to praise Pence and slam the Democratic vice presidential nominee less than an hour into Wednesday's debate in Salt Lake City.

President Donald Trump watched the vice presidential debate and thought Mike Pence was doing "great", but he's not so hot about the Democratic nominee or the moderator's performance.

Some joked about the need to test the fly for the coronavirus, as it had skirted the plexiglass partitions separating the candidates and moderator.

Conversation about the fly briefly dominated corners of Twitter, where debate watchers discussed their distraction and inability to focus on Pence and California Senator Kamala Harris' answers.

There was briefly another participant swooping into Wednesday night's vice presidential debate. For several minutes, a fly landed in Vice President Mike Pence's hair, not moving as he answered questions about racial injustice and whether justice has been done in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Mike Pence vs Kamala Harris Debate LATEST Updates: Harris condemned the police killings of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and George Floyd in Minnesota and spoke about the protests against racial injustice in policing.

Addressing criminal justice reform at Wednesdays vice presidential debate, Harris says a Joe Biden administration would ban chokeholds and require a national registry for police officers who break the law.

Leaders of our allies say they have more respect for Xi Jinping than for Donald Trump, said Democratic VP nominee Kamala Harris on US' standing on world stage.

Harris, in her debate debut as former Vice President Joseph Biden Jr.s running mate, accused Donald Trump and Mike Pence of hiding the truth of the pandemic from the American people.

Vice-President Mike Pence and his Democratic challenger Senator Kamala Harris are all set for a debate in the Salt Lake City of Utah today (Thursday, 8 October).

This will be the first time in American history that a person of Indian-origin will be at the podium in a vice-presidential debate.

Political analysts believe that an aggressive Harris, 55, will easily prevail over Pence, 61, and help her running mate Joe Biden widen his lead over the incumbent Donald Trump.

Biden, in the past few days, has increased the gap between himself and Trump by double-digits.

However, the Trump campaign believes that Pence could put on a stellar performance.

The debate gains added significance given that Trump is infected with COVID, which has triggered speculation that Pence may, at some point, take the reins of the country temporarily.

Both Pence and Harris have said that they are well prepared for the debate, which would be moderated by journalist Susan Page, Washington bureau chief, USA Today.

According to media reports, plexiglass will be installed between Pence and Harris on the debate stage.

"The debates are a crucial part of making our democracy work and I am honored to participate," Page said in a statement.

The debate will be divided into nine segments of approximately 10 minutes each, said the Commission on Presidential Debates. The moderator will ask an opening question after which each candidate will have two minutes to respond.

The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a deeper discussion of the topic, it said.

We're looking very much forward to the vice-presidential debate, Pence told reporters at the Andrews Joint Air Force Base.

The stakes in this election have never been higher, the choice has never been clearer, and I look forward to the opportunity to take our case to the American people for four more years for President Donald Trump in the White House, he said.

Pence spoke over the phone with Trump before boarding Air Force Two. "I spoke to the President a little while back and he sounded great. As the American people learned just a little while ago, President Trump is going home tonight. So, we're headed to Utah for the vice presidential debate," Pence said.

According to his aides, Pence has some debate preparations. Harris is already in Utah. On Sunday Harris toured This Is The Place Monument, the location marking the end of the 1,300-mile trek to Utah by the early Mormons.

Harris was led by former Utah Senator Scott Howell on the tour of the monument, which was erected in 1847 and also honours Native Americans, Mountain Men, and Spanish Catholic priests who explored the land before the settlement was established.

Vice-presidential debates can often be afterthoughts in a presidential race. But with President Trump in the hospital, Pence and Harris will now face an unusual amount of scrutiny and a tricky balancing act, The New York Times wrote.

Former pesidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who is helping Harris prepare, said it would be a real mistake to underestimate the skills of Pence.

He was very effective in 2016, Buttigieg told Indianapolis Monthly in an interview.

Largely because he doesn't seem to have any qualms about defending what many of us would consider indefensible, even if it flies in the face of his own professed values, he added.

Ajay Jain Bhutoria, member of the national finance committee, Biden campaign, said it will be an unprecedented debate in an unprecedented year.

This will be historic because Senator Kamala Harris is the first Black woman and person of the Indian descent nominated for vice-president by a major party and because of the circumstances facing the country, he said.

"Harris maintained an ability to excite Democratic voters across the country and for all age groups, especially Among African Americans, Latinos, and Indian Americans, her spirited interrogations of Trump appointees as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee," he said.

"She is more than prepared for the job as she's spent her career defending our Constitution and fighting for folks who need a fair shake," Bhutoria said.

She is tough on law and order and has fought inequality all her adult life, he said, adding that along with Biden, Harris will help India-US relations grow stronger than ever.
Coronavirus passport trials are taking place at Heathrow this week to test technology to let people travel the globe without risk of being quarantined.

Passengers on United Airlines and Cathay Pacific are trying out an app called the CommonPass.

The phone software is a digital health pass which can hold a certified COVID-19 test status or show someone has been vaccinated in future in a way designed to satisfy various governments' different regulations.

It has been launched by non-profit trust Commons Project Foundation, part of the World Economic Forum, in the hope of it will end the days of flyers producing bits of paper, often in different languages.

The tech is very much at the trial stage using volunteers on flights between London, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore under government observation.

But it is seen as a longer-term measure to allow air travel to return to something like pre-coronavirus levels.

However, it is reliant on Governments around the world accepting test results from 'certified' laboratories in other countries and allowing those with negative results to enter freely on their say-so.

Dr Bradley Perkins, chief medical officer of The Commons Project, said: 'Without the ability to trust COVID-19 tests  and eventually vaccine records  across international borders, many countries will feel compelled to retain full travel bans and mandatory quarantines for as long as the pandemic persists.

'With trusted individual health data, countries can implement more nuanced health screening requirements for entry.'

It comes as hopes for a UK airport testing breakthrough this week look set to be dashed after ministers decided to launch another review of the issue.

The aviation industry had hoped trials of new systems designed to cut travel quarantine times could begin as soon as tomorrow.

But Government sources said ministers were instead poised to launch a 'taskforce' to study the subject, delaying hopes of action for weeks.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said today: 'I will be making the announcement later today to Parliament but it involves a taskforce.

'So looking at the systems which would enable us to have testing.'

The new app lets you upload your Covid test securely to show different countries

The aviation industry had hoped trials of new systems designed to cut travel quarantine times could begin as soon as tomorrow. But Grant Shapps today said today he would launch a 'taskforce', delaying hopes of action for weeks

How CommonPass works: Step 1: Person gets tested at an approved lab in their home country, or gets vaccinated when one becomes available. Step 2: Results are sent to a local or national registry database or a 'personal health record' like Apple Health or Google's CommonHealth app. Step 3: App determines current entry rules for the destination, where the lab test was carried out and the result and whether the traveller meets the country's entry requirements. Step 4: Person sees if they will be cleared to travel/enter their destination country. Step 5: App generates a QR code that can be scanned by airline staff and border officials. Advertisement

The pass works by passengers taking a test at a certified lab before uploading it to their phone. It generates a QR code that can be scanned by airline staff and border officials.

David Evans, Joint CEO of traveller pass company Collinson, said the app could be a gamechanger.

He added: 'As we come to grips with living with COVID-19, testing is the safest scientific method to reopen countries and borders.

'However, as each country looks to find the right solution to protect their citizens, we know that the ability to demonstrate the validity of testing done upon arrival or before departure is key to reopening borders.

'The Collinson and Swissport dedicated COVID-19 testing facility at Heathrow will support the CommonPass' trial by testing United Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways volunteers.'

Heathrow's Process Improvement Director Mark Burgess said: 'For some time now, Heathrow has been calling for the creation of a Common International Standard and cross-border pilots such as these could help governments across the world and the industry to unlock the benefits of testing in aviation.

'We're looking forward to reviewing the findings of these trials and using the learnings to support the recovery of an industry that provides so many jobs and economic opportunities globally.'

CommonPass says it adheres to tight privacy principles and is designed to protect personal data in compliance with relevant privacy regulations, including GDPR.

It was launched by the World Economic Forum and The Commons Project, in collaboration with a broad coalition of public and private partners around the world

Passengers will be able to show the digital passport to authorities to give them assurance

Heathrow Airport is one of the locations for the testing of the new digital pass

Chaos as just 63 per cent of 16,000 virus carriers are traced The search for nearly 16,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus but were missed due to a computer glitch yesterday remained mired in confusion. Test and trace staff are still battling to catch up with the enormous backlog caused by officials opting to use an inadequate computer programme. Downing Street said 63 per cent of the positive cases had been contacted by 9.30am yesterday. But staff said there were still major problems with the system. One source added that a single household had been contacted 75 times over the weekend. Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted in the Commons he was unable to confirm how many people had been affected by the blunder. Labour asked how many of the estimated 48,000 contacts had now been traced, but Mr Hancock said the number would not be known until all those missed had been contacted. Meanwhile, charity boss Mark Adams told MPs and peers care home testing is stuck in the 'Dark Ages' with residents and staff waiting up to ten days for results. The All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus heard the testing system has 'gone backwards' since summer, putting thousands of residents at risk. Advertisement

Boris Johnson is understood to have asked ministers and officials to conduct a 'rapid review' into the feasibility of using testing to ease restrictions on travellers.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Health Secretary Matt Hancock are expected to lead the review, which will study the way other countries use testing to reduce quarantine times, and assess whether the UK has the capacity to follow suit.

The new body will also look at ways to breathe new life into the vital aviation sector.

Industry leaders are pushing for travellers to be tested at the airport and then re-tested a few days later in order to cut the current 14-day quarantine time which is crippling the sector and wrecking families' travel plans.

But a Government source said pressure on testing capacity meant ministers were likely to focus on a single-test solution, with travellers asked to quarantine for five or eight days before being tested.

They defended the controversial quarantine regime, saying as many as 10 per cent of new cases in the UK over the summer are thought to have been brought in from abroad.

The decision to launch a review will dismay the aviation industry, which has been campaigning for the change for months, and which has offered to trial its own systems.

It also comes as a blow to the Mail's Get Britain Flying campaign, launched last month to encourage the Prime Minister to lift the 'closed' sign hanging over the UK.

But a Government source last night insisted that the launch of the taskforce was a sign that ministers were finally taking the issue seriously.

'Everyone gets the importance of international travel to the economy and business, and to people's lives  that is why it is being looked at,' the source said.

'But we also have to recognise the constraints on testing capacity and come up with the most effective solution. That will take a little time.'

A Department for Transport spokesman insisted there was no delay over plans for airport testing, adding: 'As we've been clear, work is ongoing with clinicians and health experts on the practicalities of using testing to reduce the self-isolation period for international arrivals.'

The move comes amid growing Tory disquiet over the tough travel policy which requires people to quarantine for 14 days if arriving from a 'hotspot' country.

Italy, Sweden and Greece face possible restrictions later this week.

Meanwhile, a new study yesterday suggested that fewer than 1 per cent of air passengers test positive after seven days in quarantine.

Research commissioned by Air Canada and carried out by McMaster Health Labs and the University of Toronto, suggests a two-test regime could be a safe alternative.

Some 13,000 travellers arriving into Toronto Pearson International Airport were tested on arrival, and had a second swab after seven days in quarantine.

Fewer than 130 tested positive, with 80 per cent of cases picked up on arrival  suggesting a single-test could detect most cases.

The rest  a mere handful  were picked up seven days later.
An elephant tusks batch seized from traffickers in Ivory Coast in January 2018 as it was bound for Vietnam. Photo by Reuters/Luc Gnago.

The U.S. has said it will increase cooperation with Vietnam to address issues like global health security, unregulated fishing and wildlife trafficking.

At an online meeting Monday between Acting Assistant Secretary at the U.S.s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Jonathan Moore, Vietnamese Assistant Foreign Minister Nguyen Van Thao and the U.S.s ambassador to Vietnam, Daniel Kritenbrink, discussed strengthening of bilateral cooperation in environmental, science, health, and technology issues and building on the Mekong-U.S. Partnership Ministerial meeting held on September 11, a press release said.

The U.S. is expanding its engagement with the Mekong region and increasing cooperation with Vietnam to address global health security, illegal and unregulated fishing, combating wildlife trafficking, air quality, science and technology, environmental protection in the South China Sea and transboundary riverine governance.

It agreed that a prosperous and healthy Mekong region is fundamental to ASEANs overall prosperity.

Vietnam calls the South China Sea the East Sea.

The U.S. commended Vietnam for its openness to increasing data sharing on a variety of environmental issues, and would continue to support Vietnam's efforts to improve air quality and water management and manage marine debris by sharing satellite and remote sensing data.

Last month the U.S. Department of State had pledged $153.6 million for various projects across the Mekong region related to crime fighting, data sharing and disaster management.

Of this, $55 million would be used to combat cross-border crimes and $1.8 million to enable the Mekong River Commission to share hydrological data for policy planning.

The rest is meant for disaster management projects and facilitating multilateral policy dialogues for development across the region.
Content, services and operator customers of Telia Carrier account for 65% of global internet routes. Its network spans across Europe, North America, and Asia, connecting customers in more than 120 countries. At the same time, Telia has entered a long-term strategic partnership with Telia Carrier, to secure provision of network solutions to Telias customers.

In connection with the divestment and change of ownership, a strategic, long-term partnership between Telia Carrier and Telia Company has been established to safeguard the provision of services and to develop new solutions for Telias customers. The change of ownership will enable Telia Carrier, with its 530 employees, to drive a level of investment in network development, services and customer care programmes that brings benefits to content providers, operators and enterprises beyond that of any competitor.

The acquisition is Polhem Infras first investment in digital infrastructure. Polhem Infra is owned jointly owned by Swedish pension funds First AP Fund, Third AP Fund and Fourth AP Fund. The companys goal is to lay the best possible foundation for long-term investments in infrastructure to meet societys long-term needs.

Commenting on the acquisition, Polhem Infra CEO Mikael Lundin said: As an investor in Nordic infrastructure we will be a stable and long-term owner, committed to the company and its role in the transition towards sustainable and thriving societies globally. We will support the company with a thought-leading board of directors, and we will continue to invest in digital infrastructure, a core investment area for us.

Added Telia president and CEO Allison Kirkby: The divestment of Telia Carrier highlights the value Telia has built in its digital infrastructure - and today we are able to crystallise some of that value. As a consequence, we can now fully concentrate on our Nordic and Baltic footprint, while we at the same time have secured future access for our customers to Telia Carrier's world-leading solutions, through a long-term strategic partnership



I want to thank the whole Telia Carrier team for building such a strong customer centric business over many years... I am confident that under the continued leadership of Staffan Gojeryd [pictured], head of Telia Carrier, Polhem Infra will be an excellent owner for Telia Carrier and that it will continue to go from strength to strength under their stewardship.
The Old Library in Trinity College Dublin will undergo major reconstruction and redevelopment as Dublin City Council gives it the go ahead.

The Old Library in Trinity College Dublin is due to get a facelift as Dublin City Council has granted planning permission for major conservation and redevelopment of the iconic library.

Recognised globally as a cultural landmark and adored by the Irish and tourists alike, the redevelopment of the library follows last months historic unveiling of the new Book of Kells Treasury.

The library is home to 350,000 early printed books, and 20,000 manuscript and archive collections which have been collected over the course of 400 years.

However, external pollution and dust accumulation are taking their toll on the collections and the fabric of the Old Library building, which called for a need to modernise environmental control and fire protection measures.

According to a spokesperson for the library, recent fires in similar heritage sites across the globe sparked the idea for redevelopment and the devastating impacts that could happen without adequate fire protection measures.

Award-winning architects - Heneghan Peng, who successfully conserved and revitalised National Gallery of Ireland - will be leading the world-class design team in the transformative development.

It will include urgent structural and environmental upgrades; and the redevelopment of facilities in line with other library and museum experiences around the world.

Lead architect Roisin Heneghan said that The project highlights the Old Librarys position between the different characters of Library Square and Fellows Square making strategic interventions to allow the Old library to continue to be a space of knowledge and study for the 21st century student while welcoming visitors to share its stories.

Speaking about the renovations, Librarian and College Archivist, Helen Shenton said: We take our role as stewards of The Old Library very seriously. Its rare and important works have inspired generations of students, academics and visitors.

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This is a critically important redevelopment project that will safeguard it for future generations. It will enable us to both conserve this magnificent 18th building and its collections, as well as make it more accessible to our scholars and public in an historic building reinterpreted for the 21st century.

The Old Library redevelopment will also include a new Research Collections Study Centre for students and scholars both nationally and internationally, with a Virtual Trinity Library providing digital access to its unique and distinct collections across the world.
Jane Fonda has combined her passion for activism and her status as a fashion icon.

In the new issue of Interview the 82-year-old actress was ultra-chic in a photo-shoot that accompanied her discussion about politics with Indya Moore.

During her interview Jane, who racked up a string of high-profile arrests at climate protests last year, discussed the impact of her activism on her choice of clothes. 'We have to not waste so much. We have to be satisfied with less. Im trying to not buy anything new anymore, no new clothing,' she told Indya, 25.

Electrifying: Jane Fonda combined her passion for activism and her status as a fashion icon for a new article in Interview magazine

'But I also understand that I can say that because I still wear what I wore 30 years ago, and I have a lot of clothes, so its easy for me. Pay attention to what you buy.'

In one breathtaking snapshot she modeled a scarlet blazer and dress combo by Michael Kors and struck a power pose for the camera.

She teamed that ensemble with a pair of black leather stiletto boots from Saint Laurent By Vaccarello, plus Cartier hoop earrings.

The workout tape queen showed off her still enviably figure in a tight black Bottega Veneta dress as well as a pair of gloves from her own wardrobe in another snap.

Glamour: The 82-year-old was ultra-chic in a photo-shoot that accompanied her discussion about politics with Pose star Indya Moore

Jane also discussed her self-confessed 'privilege' while looking back on her political activism in the 1960s and 1970s.

Although she says she found herself on a 'gray list' where 'studios didnt really want to work with me' she was shielded to an extent by her background.

'I mean, look, I have to be very honest. I am Henry Fondas daughter. I have always had privilege. When it was very slow going in terms of my ability to earn a living, I had savings that I could fall back on,' she said.

Sensation: The workout tape queen showed off her still enviably figure in a tight black Bottega Veneta dress as well as a pair of gloves from her own wardrobe in another snap

'I dont want to pretend that I was scraping nickels and dimes together. I lived pretty close to the bone for quite a while, but I always knew I could make it. I have to say that. My privilege protected me a lot,' Jane shared.

'My home was broken into. I was followed for a number of years. We had a lot of death threats. We had to have someone turn on our car remotely before we would get in it, because we were afraid that bombs had been planted.'

She was then married to fellow activist Tom Hayden who was in the 'Chicago Seven' and was convicted of crossing state lines to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, although the conviction was later overturned.

While discussing the Black Lives Matter movement which she viewed 'from afar because of the pandemic,' Jane also chatted with Indya about her role as a celebrity supporter of the Black Panther Party decades ago.

Relationships: Jane discussed her advocacy for the Black Panthers and her adoption of her daughter Mary Luana 'Lulu' Williams (right) whose parents were in the organization

Although she praised the group in some respects she also said: 'I think because the Panthers were so out front about calling for armed revolution, it was almost impossible to build a strong, powerful, diverse support movement.'

Jane explained: 'They were influenced by Frantz Fanon and the Algerian war. They were influenced by a lot of foreign ideologies and uprisings. I think it was a flawed strategy - the armed-uprising part of it, not the helping communities and the educating children part,' she clarified.

'The U.S. Army and law enforcement were so utterly committed to destroying them that no matter how many white people or movie stars would have supported them, I dont think it would have saved them. I think nonviolence is the key.'

She remembered: 'I also had the opportunity to go to Oakland and see the Black Panther schools. Eventually, I adopted a girl, Lulu.'

Going strong: Jane is still hitting the headlines for her activism and racked up a string of arrests late last year while engaging in climate protests in Washington, D.C.; seen in 2019

Jane added: 'Shes now 51, but she was a young girl at the time who went through the school and the breakfast programs and grew up in Oakland. I know with absolute certainty that were it not for her growing up in the nest that was created in Oakland by the Black Panthers, she probably would not be alive today.'

As an antiwar activist in 1972 Jane was snapped in Hanoi sitting on a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun used against Americans.

That photo earned her lifelong infamy as 'Hanoi Jane,' and she has been protested by military veterans ever since, though some ex-military have also supported her.

During her 1972 trip to enemy territory, she also participated in propaganda broadcasts from the North Vietnamese Army's station Radio Hanoi.

Remember when: Jane drew global attention as an activist against the Vietnam War in the 1970s; she is pictured at a 1970 press conference in Denver

While speaking on Radio Hanoi she intimated that U.S. servicemen should disobey their orders - though she said on 60 Minutes decades later that she was merely 'asking them to consider it.'

After returning to the United States, she said in an 1973 interview quoted by the New York Times that the torture of American prisoners of war was 'understandable.'

She told KNBC-TV: 'These men were bombing and strafing and napalming the country. If a prisoner tried to escape, it is quite understandable that he would probably be beaten and tortured.'

Jane's only son Troy was named after Viet Cong bomber Nguyen Van Troi, who attempted to assassinate U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

'Hanoi Jane': As an antiwar activist in 1972 Jane was infamously snapped in Hanoi sitting on a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun used against Americans

In the 2018 documentary Jane Fonda In Five Acts she reflected on how her drug use and disordered eating influenced her political activities during the Vietnam War.

'I was alternately bulimic and anorexic. I would maybe eat one soft-boiled egg and spinach a day, period. I took Dexedrine, which is speed,' she said.

'So I was really speedy, and I was starving, along with like getting all of this new information coming in at a very rapid pace,' Jane explained.

'I mean, Im high-strung anyway, but me on Dexedrine without eating, and feeling like I have to say everything all at once, its like  Im amazed that anybody could receive what I was saying. It was like: "Wow! Who is this woman?"'
More than one dozen people who were treated at Devereux Foundation facilities in Chester County have sued the organization and several of its affiliates, saying they were sexually abused while they were under its care, according to a press release issued by a law firm.

The lawsuit, involving 12 women and one man, was filed Monday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. The complainants are residents of Pennsylvania and Delaware, although their specific addresses are not listed to protect their privacy.

The suit, brought by attorneys from Saltz Mongeluzzi and Bendesky and Helm Law Group, both Philadelphia firms, follows a similar action brought against Devereux by the West Chester firm of Goldberg, Goldberg, and Maloney. Both suits allege that the plaintiffs were preyed upon by staff workers at the Devereux facilities where they were housed, and that the organization failed to protect them, even though allegedly knew of the danger the youths faced.

The new suit charges the organization, headquartered in Villanova, with negligence, sexual assault, and child abuse claims.

These courageous plaintiffs put their trust, faith and confidence in Devereux and its employees to care for them, to help them rehabilitate, and instead they were horrifically brutalized sexually, physically and emotionally, said attorney Robert J. Mongeluzzi in the release. They are taking positive action to hold those who utterly failed to protect and care for them accountable and to prevent other vulnerable, innocent individuals from being victimized.

In a press statement, Devereux said that it had not seen the complaint and could not comment on its specifics. It noted that the organization had hired former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to conduct an investigation of the conditions at the facilities across the region and nation.

Kristen Feden, the attorney who heads the Salz firms sexual assault practice and was among the prosecutors in the Bill Cosby sex assault case in Montgomery County, ghastly crimes against children  one was eight-years-young  were committed on Devereux properties, by its employees, who in some instances injected their victims with sedatives before violating them. These children and their families, many from communities of color, were first betrayed and then abused.

Meanwhile, Devereux pocketed its compensation from the referring agency or government despite knowing that they were not placing these children in caring and enriching environments, she said.

According to the Associated Press in August, Philadelphia has stopped sending local children to facilities operated by a nonprofit health organization where at least 41 intellectually disabled children have reported sexual assaults over the past quarter-century.

Several Philadelphia City Council members have also demanded that officials remove all 62 local children from campuses of Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health facilities and cancel all contracts with the firm, including a $7.5 million agreement it holds with Philadelphias Department of Human Services.

Last month, it was reported that the city Department of Human Services had notified 53 children and their guardians currently placed at Devereux facilities that they would be removed from those campuses over safety concerns.

Chester Countys Department of Children, Youth and Families has conducted its own investigation into the condition of children under its supervision at Devereux facilities and has found no problem, the county said in a statement last month.

Devereux treats children with intellectual disabilities, mental disorders and trauma. It has been in existence for more than 100 years and is now the nations leading nonprofit health organization of its kind.

To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.
During these three years, however, we've heard quite a few things about Tesla 's reinterpretation of the model that started it all, the Roadster. Most notably - and you probably would have already heard about it - the fact it would get some SpaceX technology in the form of a yet undisclosed number of cold air thrusters.A lot has been said about these very un-car-like devices and for obvious reasons. You don't hear it every day that a production model is going to be fitted with thrusters of any kind straight out of the factory, so, yeah, the attention this piece of news got is 100 percent deserved.People went as far as to extrapolate how quickly the already lightning-fast Roadster would accelerate thanks to the cold air boost, and they came up with a number. Apparently, the 1.9 seconds the Roadster normally needs to reach 60 mph (97 km/h) will drop to 1.1 seconds once the compressed air is allowed to chip in.Considering how crazy all this sounds, would you really be that surprised if we told you the Roadster could also fly? Well, hopefully, you would, especially since these images we have to accompany our claim could hardly be described as realistic.They could if we lived inside a cyberpunk-themed comic, though. There is an inescapable Blade Runner feel to these renderings, even though you would never see a red car in Ridley Scott's movie. The entire scene is a lot less dark and monochrome than the ones Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer had to cope with, but you still wouldn't really want to live there.And that says something about how well the artist - a Norwegian called yvind Engevik - managed to put enough weight in that atmosphere so that even flying Tesla Roadsters aren't enough to make the place enticing. We don't know what it is exactly that gives us a slight sense of anxiety and dread, but there's definitely something.Maybe it's the fact the EVs keep their wheels despite having no problem flying, which suggests they're not yet free of scraping the asphalt down below, where all the bad stuff goes on. Or maybe it's the thought of how quickly those cables hanging would snatch on to something and snap as soon as the vehicles would actually make use of those wheels. Most likely, though, is the fact we'd still be driving/flying the Roadster by the time Norway would look like that - we know Tesla is slow to launch new models, but this is next level.
Pre-departure Covid-19 testing at Dublin and Cork airports could be made available to passengers by mid-October with government assistance, the Oireachtas Transport Committee has heard.

Dalton Philips, CEO of daa, which operates Dublin and Cork Airports, told the Oireachtas Transport Committee this morning that the airports have the capability to deliver up to 15,000 pre-departure PCR tests per day should the Government adopt the European Commissions traffic light system.

The proposed traffic light system would allow for the free movement of people travelling from green and orange coded areas, with a testing regime to be considered for countries coded red.

Mr Philips said daas research indicates that pre-departure testing reduces the risk of importation of the virus by more than 80%.

Dalton Philips said they have the capability to deliver up to 15,000 pre-departure PCR tests per day.

Ultimately however, Government needs to approve a rapid turnaround, low cost, scalable testing solution for use in Irish airports so that we can move quickly as the market introduces products better suited to airport operations, for example LAMP or antigen testing, he said.

This would allow work to begin on re-connecting Ireland to the world and re-building the businesses and livelihoods that depend on that connectivity he said.

Mary Considine, CEO of Shannon Group which operates Shannon Airport echoed the daa's calls stating: Testing instead of the restriction of movements has to be the way forward.

Minister of State for Transport Hildegarde Naughton said it is understandable the aviation sector is proposing antigen testing as the preferred option for testing given its relatively cheaper price and quicker turnaround time.

However antigen-based testing is not considered by the World Health Organization, to be suitable for an international travel testing context, she said.

While she acknowledged the daa has carried out research into other types of testing, she said their application is not yet fully validated.

Ms Naughton also referred to the fact the current advice is "not to travel outside your county."

She said the Government has to to be realistic in relation to where we stand at a health level" and declined to provide a date at which a testing regime could be introduced in any of Irelands airports.

Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan said while the latest information from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organisation is that antigen testing "may not yet be at the stage where it will give us real security in the international travel arena," should this information change "then we should use it."
The 2016 New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate hopeful for Klottey Korle constituency, Valentino Nii Noi Nortey has rendered an unqualified apology to the party, saying, his attitude might have contributed to their defeat in that electioneering season.



It would be recalled that Nii Noi won the 2016 parliamentary primaries but was subsequently disqualified to make way for the Pink Sheet Man (Lawyer Philip Addison) to contest. Following the processes that led to his disqualification, he left the party to go independent in the same constituency.



This gave the National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate, Dr. Zenator Rawlings, extra advantage to win the seat because it was already occupied by an NDC Member of Parliament, Nii Armah Ashietey.



During the fund-raising and outdooring of 2020 NPP parliamentary candidate for Klottey Korle constituency, Mr. Nortey, who through the intervention of party executives has rescinded his decision to quit the party rendered his apology, asking for pardon if their defeat in the election year was as a result of his moves and pledged to rally behind their elected candidate for 2020, Lawyer Prince Appiah Debrah to restore the seat, back to the NPP since 2004.



He is now the campaign director for Team Prince 2020 and has promised to do all it takes to secure victory for the Klottey Korle elephant family.



The candidate, Prince Appiah Debrah in his acceptance speech noted that there is a lot in store for the constituents once he is voted into power and it will only take a new direction to get them what they deserve.



He hints the NPP has over 55% of total registered voters of the constituency and it will demand only hard work to add more to that in ensuring victory to do more for the people.









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Police are using water cannons to try to disperse the protest that hundreds of Armenians have organized in front of the building of the European Union in Brussels to call on support to Armenia in the conflict in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

On September 27, the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan launched a large-scale offensive against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

The adversary is also targeting peaceful civilians and bombarding cities, including Stepanakert and Shushi.

As of October 7, the Defense Army of Artsakh has struck 16 helicopters, 17 planes, 126 UAVs, 379 armored vehicles, mainly tanks, 82 cars, 10 armored personnel carriers, one TOS-1A heavy artillery system, 4 Smerch multiple rocket launchers and 1 Uragan multiple rocket launcher of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan has suffered more than 3,154 casualties and more than 5,270 wounded servicemen, and the Armenian side has 331 casualties.

On September 27, both Armenia and Artsakh declared martial law.
Superannuation chiefs and industry heavyweights have thrown support behind the government's reform package, but have raised concerns about unintended consequences including trapping workers in under-performing funds.

The federal government introduced a raft of policies aimed to improve the superannuation sector, including pinning workers to funds, boosting transparency and improving performance by making it easier to compare funds.

Industry Super Australia chairman Greg Combet said more information was needed on super reforms. Credit:Rhett Wyman

Industry Super chairman Greg Combet welcomed the changes but said more information was needed.

"At a high level it's good. The government didn't seek to interfere in the super guarantee rise. It's good they didn't extend the early release scheme. They've taken further action on multiple accounts and it's good they're getting into performance and prepared to remove dud funds," Mr Combet said.
The first case of COVID-19 was reported back in December 2019. Fast forward more than 9 months, and there is a lot still unknown about the disease. We know that COVID-19 spreads through respiratory droplets but we dont know for sure how this disease emerged in the first place or if it can indeed spread through the air. Similarly, while immunocompromised people and those with chronic conditions are at high risk of severe disease, reports suggest that otherwise healthy people can also die of it. And then there is the curious case of immunity.

Studies show that people with the disease develop antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19. However, a lot of people have shown only low levels of neutralising antibodies and cases of reinfection have also been noted in some parts of the world.

On the other hand, antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 have been found in otherwise unexposed people, pointing to some sort of cross-reactivity with other related viruses.

All this data raises a lot of questions - who is actually immune to the disease and for how long - to name a few.

Serological data and herd immunity

Experts suggest that there are two main ways a pandemic can end - enough people get the disease and we generate herd immunity or the disease is eliminated with mass vaccination. A third way is to learn to live with the disease and follow proper precautionary measures to contain the spread.

While vaccine candidates are still in their development phases, serological data from Spain and Sweden suggests that herd immunity may not be a viable option either. Even without a timely lockdown and more cases and fatalities than other Scandinavian countries, Sweden only had 15 percent herd immunity by May 2020 as compared to the projected 40%. Serological testing in Spain early in July showed only 5 percent herd immunity, most of which was in the worst-hit areas like Madrid.

It has previously been suggested that immunity to COVID-19 may not last for more than six months and even if a vaccine comes out it may have to be taken twice a year. However, the cross-reactivity with common cold causing coronavirus antibodies and the resultant reduction in infection severity raises some hopes.

The complexity of the immune system

Over the last few months, several studies have indicated the presence of robust T-cell immunity against the COVID-19 causing virus in people even after their antibodies were depleted.

The human immune system is a complex machinery consisting of a variety of cells and compounds that work in tandem to fight a pathogen. Antibodies protect you from a microbe present outside the cells (like in blood) while T-cells handle intracellular pathogens like viruses.

Cytokines like interleukins help maintain communication between the various immune system cells so they can work together. A study done in the USA suggested that children have an entirely different response to COVID-19 and hence they dont get severe disease. Specifically, they have a stronger initial response to the virus including cytokines like IL-17A and IFN-gamma while the adult body depends on antibodies, which are formed much later.

Dr Karl Friston, a professor of imaging neuroscience at University College London has pointed out that there is some sort of preexisting immunity in a lot of people against COVID-19. He used the term immunological dark matter to explain this unknown. Though a lot of experts have criticized the concept, some researchers have indicated that we should look beyond antibodies to check for immunity against COVID-19.

Besides, some of the cases of reinfection that have been seen in the world have been from a different strain of the virus, which our immune system may take as an entirely new pathogen - different strains of flu do cause recurrent infections. Though researchers suggest that reinfection is rare, given only a few cases of it in the millions of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide. However, the concept of reinfection needs to be studied further to see any other possible causes.

For more information, read our article on Immunity to COVID-19.

Health articles in Firstpost are written by myUpchar.com, Indias first and biggest resource for verified medical information. At myUpchar, researchers and journalists work with doctors to bring you information on all things health.
ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images

Vice President Mike Pence and vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris will face off in a debate tonight after a "chaotic" first presidential debate last week.

USA Today's Washington bureau chief Susan Page will moderate. Topics were not disclosed ahead of the debate.
A displaced family leaves a UN protection camp in Juba to return to their home in the Jonglei region of South Sudan

Starvation is being intentionally used as a war tactic in South Sudan's brutal conflict, a UN-backed human rights panel said on Tuesday, releasing its latest report on the country.

South Sudan gained independence in July 2011 but descended into conflict roughly two-and-a-half years later, following irreconcilable tensions between President Salva Kiir and his deputy, Riek Machar.

The Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said the brutal fighting has caused incalculable suffering to civilians, and resulted in staggering levels of acute food insecurity and malnutrition.

Government and opposition culpable

"With 7.5 million South Sudanese currently requiring humanitarian assistance, we have found that food insecurity in Western Bahr el Ghazal, Jonglei, and Central Equatoria States is linked directly to the conflict and therefore almost entirely human-induced", said the Commission Chair, Yasmin Sooka.

"It is quite clear that both Government and opposition forces have deliberately used the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in these states, sometimes as an instrument to punish non-aligning communities, as in the case of Jonglei".

The report is the first of its kind by a UN panel, according to the Commission, which was established by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2016. Members are not UN staff, nor are they paid by the Organization.

Collective punishment and starvation

It documents how between January 2017 and December 2018, Government forces intentionally deprived Fertit and Luo communities living under opposition control in Western Bahr el Ghazal State of critical resources.

The Commission found that these acts amounted to collective punishment and starvation as a method of warfare, while Government commanders also authorised their soldiers to help themselves to items deemed to be indispensable to the survival of these populations, through pillaging.

"Sustained attacks were carried out against numerous towns and villages across Western Bahr el Ghazal State over a number of years, which resulted in significant numbers of deaths, rapes, and the destruction, arson, and looting of properties", Commissioner Andrew Clapham reported.

"The resultant food insecurity compounded the physical insecurity, leaving civilians with no alternative but to flee. These violations formed part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population in Western Bahr el Ghazal, and can amount to crimes against humanity."

Transitional justice and accountability

The Commission's mandate includes determining the facts and circumstances of alleged gross violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes in South Sudan.

Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines International Organisations South Sudan Food and Agriculture By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later.

Members are also tasked with collecting and preserving evidence, and clarifying responsibility for abuses, with the overall view to ending impunity and providing accountability.

To address the violations, the Commission has also released a report on transitional justice and accountability, describing it as "a roadmap to energise the overdue implementation of the key commitments made in Chapter V of the Revitalised Peace Agreement".

An elusive peace?

The 2018 accord provided for the establishment of a transitional unity government, now in place, and Chapter V covers transitional justice, including the creation of institutions such as a Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing.

"The on-going failure to address underlying causes of the conflict has fuelled the political competition for South Sudan's resources and corruption between political elites driving ethnic divisions and violence, and deepening impunity in the country", said Commissioner Barney Afako.

"Without the timely implementation of an inclusive and holistic transitional justice process, as envisioned in the Peace Agreement, sustainable peace for South Sudan will remain elusive."
BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - U.K. stocks edged lower on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned Covid-19 relief talks, saying they won't resume until after the election. The downside, however, remained capped amid expectations that whoever wins the November 3 presidential election will still introduce a fiscal stimulus bill. The benchmark FTSE 100 dropped 10 points, or 0.2 percent, to 5,939 after edging up 0.1 percent on Tuesday. Supermarket chain Tesco rallied 2.2 percent as it reported a higher pretax profit for the first half of fiscal 2021 on rising revenue. Sirius Real Estate was marginally lower after issuing a trading update for the six months to 30 September 2020. TUI AG slumped 5.4 percent. The travel and tourism company said Birgit Conix, a member of the Executive Board and Chief Financial Officer, will leave the company as of 31 December 2020. EasyJet lost nearly 5 percent. The low-cost airline announced that Moya Greene DBE, non-executive director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee, has notified the Board that she will not be standing for re-election at the company's next AGM. Security company G4S was slightly lower. The company said its Board of Directors unanimously rejected the takeover offer by GardaWorld Security Corp. as it continues to significantly undervalue the company. 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.
Steven Ferdman, Getty Images

Rihanna is apologizing to the Muslim community after receiving backlash for using a song that samples a sacred Islamic hadith at her second Savage X Fenty show. During the show, the 2016 song "Doom"which includes the sample and is recorded by non-Muslim artist Coucou Chloeplayed while models wearing the brand's lingerie performed. Rihanna shared an apology over her Instagram Story on Tuesday, which was also posted on the Savage X Fenty Instagram account.

A hadith is a record of the traditions or sayings of the prophet Muhammad and viewers quickly expressed criticism for the use of it in the lingerie show, writing on Twitter that it was "absolutely disrespectful" and was another example of artists and fashion brands "using Islam as an aesthetic."

"I'd like to thank the Muslim community for pointing out a huge oversight that was unintentionally offensive in our Savage X Fenty show," Rihanna wrote.

"I would more importantly like to apologize to you for this honest, yet careless mistake. We understand that we have hurt many of our Muslim brothers and sisters, and i'm incredibly disheartened by this!"

She continued, "I do not play with any kind of disrespect toward God or any religion and therefore the use of the song in our project was completely irresponsible! Moving forward we will make sure nothing like this ever happens again. Thank you for your forgiveness and understanding, Rih."

Coucou Chloe, the artist behind the song, also issued an apology via Twitter.

"I want to deeply apologize for the offense caused by the vocal samples used in my song 'DOOM,'" she wrote. "The song was created using samples from Baile Funk tracks I found online. At the time, I was not aware that these samples used text from an Islamic Hadith."

Story continues

Chloe continued in the thread, writing, "I take full responsibility for the fact I did not research these words properly and want to thank those of you who have taken the time to explain this to me." She added that the song is currently in the process of being removed from all streaming platforms.

I take full responsibility for the fact I did not research these words properly and want to thank those of you who have taken the time to explain this to me. We have been in the process of having the song urgently removed from all streaming platforms. 2/2  COUCOU CHLOE (@coucou_chloe) October 5, 2020

However, with or without the apologies, many members of the Muslim community are left hurt by this incident, and their critiques deserve to be heard.

okay the fact that rihannas show was supposed to be a keystone for inclusion while she completely alienated the Muslim community by disrespecting a Hadith recitation is the perfect showcase of how fashion brands & the media have never considered us as a part of their audience  myesha thee stallion (@myeshachou) October 5, 2020

Rihanna is messed up for using a song with a Hadith in it to play at her LINGERIE show. What is up with artists using Islam as an aesthetic?? Have some respect.  n (@nelirv_) October 4, 2020

like I LOVE IT when yall appreciate islam and use Arabic words but I am not okay with it being appropriated and belittled for things like this. The last thing yall should be doing is remixing versus of the quran for your music like wtf its absolutely disrespectful  . (@reversecocunut) October 4, 2020

Another Twitter user shared an important reminder that, "Unless youre muslim, no one can tell us lot what and how to feel about the rihanna situation. Even if she didnt pick the song, every smart person listens to it beforehand. So get educated, islam is not an 'aesthetic' its a religion."

Unless youre muslim, no one can tell us lot what and how to feel about the rihanna situation. Even if she didnt pick the song, every smart person listens to it beforehand. So get educated, islam is not an aesthetic its a religion. This isnt the first time. pic.twitter.com/l3mBr1tarE  Zahra (@zahrasg_) October 5, 2020

Twitter user Zahra also added that "this isn't the first time," sharing screenshots of news articles about a time in which Rihanna, wearing a hijab, was asked to leave a famous Abu Dhabi mosque complex after posing outside the building for an unauthorized photoshoot.

With Halloween just around the corner, let this news serve as an important reminder that a culture is not a costumeand to listen respectfully if you ever get called on cultural appropriation.
Two people have been arrested 13 months after a Jacksonville High School graduate was found dead in a wooded area off an Indiana road.

The badly decomposed body of Alexander Dashiell Jackson, 23, of Indianapolis was found Sept. 13, 2019, in Mooresville, Indiana. Police determined he had died of a gunshot wound.

Jacksons mother, LaLonna Jackson, told the Journal-Courier in 2019 that he had grown up in Jacksonville and graduated from Jacksonville High School in 2014. He was living and working in Indiana, where he also was studying environmental science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

For months, there seemed to be few developments in the case. On Monday, though, the Morgan County (Indiana) Sheriffs Office announced the arrests of two people, Justin M. Blake, 19, and Britney D. Overton, 26, both of Indianapolis. Blake was charged with two counts of murder and one count of robbery and Overton was charged with one count of murder and one count of robbery.

Indianapolis television station WTHR said court documents indicate the homicide might have involved a dispute over money Jackson was accused of taking from Overtons sister. Overton reportedly tried to get a gun a few days before Jackson was shot, and she removed him as a Facebook friend just minutes after police believe Jackson was killed, according to a probable cause affadvit released Monday. Her cellphone showed she was within a half-mile of the crime scene the day Jackson was killed, the station reported.

Blakes grandmother told authorities he had confided in her about shooting a man five times because he thought the man was going to kill him, according to court records.

He then showed his grandmother a news story about Jacksons body being found, according to WTHR.

Both are scheduled to go on trial in February.
JUNIOR Business Minister Robert Troy has told a private Fianna Fail meeting that off-licences should be closed for three weeks amid concerns over the spread of Covid-19.

His proposal goes further than Government plans to significantly reduced their opening hours in a bid to clamp down on house parties and large social gatherings.

The issue was discussed at Fianna Fail's parliamentary party meeting this evening.

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Sources said that Longford-Westmeath TD Mr Troy said off-licences should be closed outright for three weeks.

Dara Calleary did not go as far but said there needs to be a curtailment of discounting and special offers on alcohol in supermarkets.

The Mayo TD is said to have pointed out that it's hard for small businesses to close while supermarkets engage in the practice.

Dublin South-West's John Lahart made similar comments about the need to explore ways to reduce off-sales of alcohol including in supermarkets.

Sligo-Leitrim TD Marc MacSharry said he was totally against closing off-licences and called for the Government to scale up capacity in ICU and acute hospitals through using private hospitals.

Kildare North TD James Lawless said the Government needs to have a plan for Christmas and that people need to know sooner rather than later as to what will be safe and permissible, including whether family will be allowed home from abroad and whether get togethers in private houses will be allowed.

Mr Lawless said that whatever the rules are it was better to get it out now so people can plan ahead.

Longford-Westmeath TD Joe Flaherty called for bookmakers to close.

Mr Flaherty said people congregating in bookmakers' premises had become an issue for staff working there.

He claimed customers have had scant regard for public health and social distancing and pointed out that bookmakers are licenced premises and this had been overlooked in the move to Level 3.

Proposals to restrict off-licence opening hours were discussed at Monday's Cabinet meeting where ministers agreed to impose Level 3 restrictions on the entire country.

Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys was the first to raise the issue and was supported by Justice Minister Helen McEntee and Minister of State for Roads Hildegarde Naughton.

Ms Humphreys Monaghan constituency has seen a recent spike in Covid-19 and Ms Naughton is a Galway minister where a large gathering of students drinking in the city recently gained national headlines. The minister was furious about the street party in the Spanish Arch and said something should be done about the role off-licences play in such events.

It was noted at the meeting that reducing off-licence opening hours may also help pubs and restaurants as people may be more likely to go to regulated premises rather than house parties.

At Fine Gael's parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday junior minister Patrick O'Donovan called on the Government to crackdown on off-licences and what he said was the uncontrolled consumption and sale of alcohol.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 16:43:38|Editor: huaxia

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SANAA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- A woman was killed on Wednesday morning when a residential neighborhood was hit by artillery shelling in Yemen's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, medics told Xinhua.

The shelling in al-Shuhada neighborhood in the eastern part of the city also wounded a man, said the medics in Althawra hospital.

Several houses were damaged by the shelling, according to the residents.

It was the latest in a series of attacks on civilian neighbourhoods in the embattled city.

A day earlier, a man was killed and seven members of his family were injured in a shelling on the nearby neighborhood al-Rabasah in the southern part of the city.

Hodeidah has seen a shaky cease-fire between the government forces and the Houthi rebels since they reached a UN-sponsored truce in Stockholm in December 2018.

The port city is under the control of the Houthis, while the government forces have advanced to the southern and eastern districts.

Yemen has been mired in civil war since late 2014, when the Houthi militia seized control of several northern provinces and forced the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of the capital Sanaa.

The United Nations is trying to end the conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed the Arab country to the brink of famine. Enditem
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday greeted Russian President Vladimir Putin on his birthday and appreciated the personal role he has played in nurturing the special and privileged strategic partnership" between the two nations. In a telephonic conversation, Modi also conveyed his best wishes to Putin, who turned 68.

Spoke to my friend President Vladimir Putin @KremlinRussia_E to greet him on his birthday today. Appreciated his immense personal contribution to strengthening the Special & Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia, Modi tweeted. An official statement said the prime minister also recalled his long association and friendship with Putin and appreciated the personal role that the latter has played in nurturing the special and privileged strategic partnership between the two nations.

Spoke to my friend President Vladimir Putin @KremlinRussia_E to greet him on his birthday today. Appreciated his immense personal contribution to strengthening the Special & Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 7, 2020

Both leaders agreed to remain in touch over the coming days, including on the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The prime minister expressed his keenness to welcome President Putin in India, as soon as possible after the normalisation of the public health situation, the statement said.
As a brand, got2b products' mission is to enable its consumers to break free from society's expectations. The brand's selection of forward-thinking, trendy hair colors and styling products empower people to switch up their looks, self-experiment and self-express without limits so that they feel free to be whoever they want to be. Pauly has embodied this same way of life through his fashion, attitude and passion for music, making this a perfectly-paired partnership!

"We are so excited to work with Pauly D," said Nancy Lu, Brand Manager at Henkel. "Not only has he been using our glued products for years, but he also embodies the got2b brand ethos of self-expression through his positive attitude, passion for music and of course, his hair style! Collaborating with him has been an inspiring and energizing experience, and we hope everyone loves the limited-edition products we were able to create together."

Pauly added, "I'm extremely excited to be working with a brand so organically. The limited-edition products we created are two of my favorites from got2b that I use to perfect my blowout. I genuinely love the product and love my hair so for me it was a no brainer to work with a brand that shares the same vision."

got2b is excited to collaborate with DJ Pauly D across product innovation, digital and social brand activations.

Upon initial launch, both got2b glued Limited Edition Styling Spiking Glue and Blasting Freeze Spray by DJ Pauly D sold out within 24 hours, and are now back in stock and available exclusively on Amazon.com .

About Henkel in North America

In North America, Henkel operates across its three business units: Adhesive Technologies, Beauty Care, and Laundry & Home Care. Its portfolio of well-known consumer and industrial brands includes Schwarzkopf hair care, Dial soaps, Right Guard antiperspirants, Persil, Purex and all laundry detergents, Snuggle fabric softeners, as well as Loctite, Technomelt and Bonderite adhesives. With sales of around 6 billion US dollars (5 billion euros) in 2018, North America accounts for 25 percent of the company's global sales. Henkel employs approximately 9,000 people across the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. For more information, please visit www.henkel-northamerica.com .

About Henkel

Henkel operates globally with a well-balanced and diversified portfolio. The company holds leading positions with its three business units in both industrial and consumer businesses thanks to strong brands, innovations and technologies. Henkel Adhesive Technologies is the global leader in the adhesives market  across all industry segments worldwide. In its Laundry & Home Care and Beauty Care businesses, Henkel holds leading positions in many markets and categories around the world. Founded in 1876, Henkel looks back on more than 140 years of success. In 2018, Henkel reported sales of around 20 billion euros and adjusted operating profit of around 3.5 billion euros. Henkel employs around 53,000 people globally  a passionate and highly diverse team, united by a strong company culture, a common purpose to create sustainable value, and shared values. As a recognized leader in sustainability, Henkel holds top positions in many international indices and rankings. Henkel's preferred shares are listed in the German stock index DAX. For more information, please visit www.henkel.com .

SOURCE got2b

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The iconic fashion bible Grazia launches a USA edition today, strengthening the global media company's presence in the world's largest and most prominent fashion market

MILAN and NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In a landmark move, the Mondadori Group, the largest publishing house in Italy, today announced the launch of leading fashion brand Grazia in the United States. GraziaUSA launches with digital cover star, Kim Kardashian-West on the its website for the world launch, along with new dedicated US social platforms.

Grazia USAwill be published under a licensing agreement with Pantheon Media Group, LLC (PMG). The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The brand will establish significant presence in the American market, adopting an innovative digital-first business model and a strong new brand identity for the US consumer. Content will be distributed across a global multi-channel network with a focus on digital, video, and social, complemented by quarterly print editions beginning in 2021.

The birth of Grazia USA is crowned by an exclusive collaboration with Kim Kardashian-West. The American media personality turned fashion and beauty industry mogul and social justice advocate revealed 12 covers of various Grazia international editions on her social media Monday. The covers, interviews and exclusive shoots were published concurrently across a suite of Grazia markets; from the United States to the United Kingdom, Italy, India and Australia.

"The arrival of Grazia in the United States is a highly significant event, the first time an all-Italian fashion magazine lands on the US market with a formula that gives a perfect answer to the new needs of readers, users and businesses. In today's historical juncture, it bears witness to the strength of a brand that has always stood at the forefront, becoming an icon of international renown, leveraging on its authoritative content and incomparable identity," said Ernesto Mauri, CEO of the Mondadori Group.

"Grazia has been the authority on global fashion trends for more than 80 years, and we know that having editorial talent in the United States has the potential to have a material impact on the fashion world, with Grazia USA set to be the freshest and most energetic platform of telling those stories," added Daniela Sola, Managing Director International Business of Mondadori Media.

The United States is the leading fashion hub of the world, boasting a large economy and growing luxury industry. Of the $2.5 trillion global market, the United States represents nearly $308 billion alone.1 What's more, 1.8 million people are employed in the luxury industry in the US, and the country has around 18,000 fashion designers.2

In announcing the launch, PMG confirmed that Dylan Howard will serve as Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of GraziaUSA. Mr. Howard plans to focus the brand on extensive digital storytelling through the use of technology, along with live and immersive events to deliver original content geared to the modern consumer.

"The editorial mission of Grazia USA will focus on a blend of local and international content and the elevation of North American fashion and design talent. Grazia USA will set itself apart from the competitive set, and develop its own unique identity as a daring, innovative and sophisticated representative of the worldwide brand," said Mr. Howard.

Having undertaken extensive research into consumers' media consumption habits, the USA edition of Grazia aims to establish itself as the most prominent and influential guide to fashion, with a mission of crafting impactful visual storytelling and thought-provoking, top-tier journalism to empower, inspire, and intrigue readers. The 400+ page print product set to launch in 2021 will showcase feature-length, high-impact, and high dwell time content for the audience segment of users aged 18-35.

"Grazia USA is a transformative event that significantly reshapes the fashion and beauty landscape in the United States with a bold type of next-generation media organization, Pantheon Media Group," said Mr. Howard.

"Grazia has helped carve fashion's path to inclusivity to date, and the unveiling of USA edition gives rise to new opportunity for championing intersectional diversity. This will be reflected across the board; through editorial content, fashion brands, designers and models whom we give the spotlight to, and wider partnerships Pantheon Media Group pursues to break the traditional fashion media mold."

Mr. Howard will lead the strategic direction of Grazia USA. A prominent figure in the American media scene, Mr. Howard brings more than two decades of publishing experience to the role, having previously served as Chief Content Officer and Senior Vice President of Business Development at American Media, Inc., the largest publisher in Northern America. Modern Luxury Media and Mr. Howard's Empire Media Group, Inc. will offer Pantheon Media Group support, from production and circulation to sales and marketing.

"As a brand, Grazia is the undisputed authority on fashion and beauty in 23 markets worldwide. Now, in the United States, those global standards will appear through our digital platform, providing informed and stylish users with the next-generation luxury media brand," added Mr. Howard.

"Grazia USA will also provide strategic advertising solutions for brands seeking to reach a smart, savvy and stylish consumer set. Grazia USA will be known for elevating integrated marketing offerings in luxury and lifestyle publishing at a time when others are not."

Further news will follow regarding appointments to the editorial team of Grazia USA.

PRESS CONTACT:

Italy: The Mondadori Group, Media Relations, pressoffice@mondadori.it

United States: Pantheon Media Group

ADVERTISING advertising@graziausa.com

MEDIA ENQUIRIES press@graziausa.com

ABOUT GRAZIA:

Grazia is Italy's fashion bible, published by the Mondadori Group. For 80 years Grazia has remained in step with changing tastes season after season, style after style. At the top end of quality and design, Grazia is the most accomplished ambassador of the "Made in Italy" brand and is a preferred advertising vehicle for designer, fashion, and beauty companies. Thanks to its experience, excellence and brand value, Grazia is the first Italian weekly magazine to extend its successful formula abroad, creating the most dynamic magazine network on the market.

ABOUT PANTHEON MEDIA GROUP, LLC:

Pantheon Media Group (PMG) is an independent next-generation media company that brings one of the most prestigious European fashion magazines to the biggest fashion market in the world. PMG is the exclusive publisher of Grazia USA, the latest franchise of the iconic fashion bible, first launched in Italy in 1938. Also uniquely focused on beauty, culture, society, status, celebrity, and luxury, Grazia USA publishes digitally first and later in print, with the release of the first of its quarterly 400-page magazines in 2021. Grazia USA does more than just inform and inspire an educated audience of influential readers: It is unlike anything the fashion industry in the United States has ever seen. We do not serve readers, we serve users. PMG is a 360-degree media business that is poised for the future, broadening storytelling into virtual and augmented reality, video, television, audio, e-commerce, live events, branded content, innovative advertising solutions and beyond. Grazia USAwill be stewarded by the Empire Media Group and supported by shared services from Modern Luxury Media. PMG is headquartered in New York City.

1 https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/39201d61-aec8-4458-80e8-2fe26ee8a31e/economic-impact-of-the-fashion-industry.pdf

2 JEC Democratic staff calculations based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2017 National Industry Specific Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates (March 2018).

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1308140/Kim_Kardashian_West_Grazia_USA_Digital_Cover.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1308263/Grazia_Logo.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1308138/Pantheon_Media_Group_Logo.jpg




More than 500 law students across the country have written a letter to the Chief Justice of India demanding action against the negligence and irresponsible behaviour by the officials in the Hathras gang-rape case in which a Dalit woman died.

According to news agency ANI, the letter petition has been written by 510 students, who have called for appropriate guidelines on the rights of the family members over the womans body.

The Supreme Court should give appropriate directions to all states and union territories (UTs) to utilise the unused amount in Nirbhaya funds for ensuring the safety of women, students said in the letter.

The letter petition follows nationwide criticism sparked by the gang rape of the 19-year-old. After her death on September 29, the woman was cremated in the dead of the night. Her family accused the district authorities of performing the cremation forcefully. But, Hathras district administration has denied any wrongdoing and said that they had the familys consent.

The cremation in the middle of the night fuelled allegation that the state government is trying to bury evidence.

Currently, the case is being probed by a special investigation team constituted on the orders of chief minister Yogi Adityanath. The state has also called for a Supreme Court-monitored investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Meanwhile, Adityanath has accused opposition leaders who have been leading protests against the crime, of doing politics on the basis of case, religion and region.

He also said that the opposition parties are hatching conspiracies to malign the states image.
On Monday October 5, Bank of Kigali joined the rest of the world to celebrate the International Customer Service Week. This is an international event celebrated annually during the first full week of October.

During the ceremony, customer-oriented organizations and institutions around the world recognize the importance of customer service excellence to their organizations.

Bank of Kigali kicked off the week with several members of its executive team putting aside their supervisory roles to appreciate customers.

Diane Karusisi with other six members of the executive management were seen serving and interacting with clients at the lender's headquarters in Kigali.

Speaking to The New Times, the Executives said that the gesture was intended to put the management into the staff's shoes but also an opportunity to reach out to their clients and hear their feedback.

"Our message is one. We are appreciating our customers for choosing to bank with us," Karusisi said.

She also pointed out that the week provides an opportunity to get feedback from customers.

"This is entirely for our customers. We want to hear from them, mainly on the challenges they face especially concerning our digital platforms," added Karusisi.

Establishment of One-stop-centre digital booth

Karusisi urged the customers to continue pushing for the best service. She said it was the bank's mandate to ensure that the staff have all the necessary facilitation to deliver the best services.

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To ensure that, she said, the bank has established a one-stop-centre digital booth that will among others raise digital payment literacy among customers.

"Customers need the necessary equipment for digital payment adoption. Through this digital booth, our staff will be able to support our customers in terms of understanding how this works," she said.

According to Bank of Kigali's CEO, the development comes at a time the Bank has experienced growth in digital payment.

"Digital services have experienced at least a 30% increment compared to the previous year. And through the digital booth we want to keep this trend going up."

In addition to the Customer Service week celebrations, Karusisi pointed out that BK conducts annual surveys to understand customers' challenges and needs, which has continued to facilitate the institution to make decisions based on customers' feedback.
The Irish Heritage School is calling on Birr residents to send them their memories of John's Hall and the old Town Council offices building.

The IHS would like to collaborate with the people of Birr on piecing together the community use of both buildings to create a virtual exhibition.

John's Hall was built in 1833 with a design from the Temple at Illissus. This is a memorial building to honour John Clere Parsons, son to the 2nd Earl of Rosse. The IHS is currently renovating John's Hall and they are keeping as many of the original features as possible. But, they will have a number of questions around the buildings.

They are currently looking for photos and memories of both John's Hall and the Old Town Council buildings and are asking people to share them with the IHS.

You can watch 'John's Hall call out to Birr residents' on YouTube where you will get an insight into the restoration project of John's Hal while requests for any memories, images or social history can be sent to irishheritageschool@gmail.com.

Watch here for more information.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 23:20:03|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) issued Wednesday a new report on Iraq's economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, recommending the country to develop the non-oil private sector.

A statement by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq said that UNDP's report set out a number of policy recommendations that respond to challenges while ensuring continued progress towards the sustainable development goals.

"While Iraq's macroeconomic and fiscal conditions were broadly positive in the last few years, two major shocks have disrupted this progress including the oil crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic," the statement quoted UNDP's Resident Representative in Iraq Zena Ali Ahmad as saying.

The report said that Iraq's gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to reduce by nearly 10 percent in 2020, and the fiscal deficit is forecasted to reach the unprecedented level of nearly 30 percent of GDP this year, according to the statement.

It recommended that the Iraqi government rapidly identify additional financing options, avoid an unplanned monetary adjustment, and improve the quality and targeting of public expenditure.

The government should also support the non-oil private sector's economy to grow and reduce dependency on oil, while continuing to provide employment for a large number of the most vulnerable and low-income households by extending social assistance programs, the statement added.

Iraq is facing a severe economic hardship as more than 90 percent of its economy depends on revenues from selling crude oil, while the oil prices have plummeted amid the global recession due to the coronavirus pandemic. Enditem
The 16-year-old son of veteran eco-warrior 'Swampy' has joined his father in a sit-in protest against the HS2 rail line after the activist returned to the front line of environmental activism after a 'quiet ten years'.

The activist, real name Daniel Hooper, has teamed up with an HS2 rebellion group along with son Rory as it holds out against eviction from woodland marked out for clearance.

Swampy, 47 and eight other activists have been living in a tree, nicknamed 'The Beancan', in Jones' Hill Wood in Aylesbury, Bucks., since October 1.

Eleven protestors have so far been arrested at the ancient woodland site.

Father-of-four Swampy has remained firmly up the tree as the HS2 National Eviction Team have removed similar treehouse structures

Teenager Rory joined his father in occupying the tree in in Jones' Hill Wood, protesting against HS2

After 'a quiet ten years' Daniel Hooper is back, in a sit-in protest against the HS2 rail line

The woodland is one of 20 sites that have been identified as targets for clearance and ground works by HS2 from October 1st.

Father-of-four Swampy has remained firmly up the tree as the HS2 National Eviction Team have removed similar treehouse structures from the treetops around them.

Swampy has remained tight-lipped about his part in the HS2 rebellion protest.

He refused to talk to a reporterm telling another campaigner he did not like 'the cult of celebrity.'

But protestor Mark Keir, 59, who is one of 30 people camped on the ground in the woodland, said: 'His being up the tree is saying all that it needs to say.

'Everybody knows he is up there - and it's a great endorsement for us, because it's getting our campaign a lot of attention.

'It's been bringing lots of people down here, which really gives us a platform to spread our message as to why we are here.

'He is very welcome here.'

Swampy, son of middle-class Berkshire parents Peter and Jill, was first involved in environmentalism when he became the poster boy for protests against the A34 Newbury bypass in 1996.

He then spent seven days and seven nights living in a tunnel dug by campaigners to stop the 50 million A30 dual carriageway link road in Devon a year later.

He told ITV he didn't enjoy being seen as a figurehead when he was young.

He said then: 'I hated it, it wasn't what I wanted to do, and I don't think it did the movement much good.'

Swampy and eight other activists have occupied a tree in Jones' Hill Wood in Aylesbury, Bucks

The activist then disappeared from public view. In 2013 he was found working as a tree surgeon for the Forestry Commission while he lived with his four children including Rory in a yurt alongside 100 hippies, New Age travellers and nudists in a 200-acre stretch of farmland near Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire.

And although hie and his children were sleeping on sheepskins in the yurt, he had made sure the children do attend the local school each day, even dressed in traditional uniform.

The council used to sent a school bus up the dirt track to the commune to pick them up.

He said then: 'I've got a family now and a home. I can't run off for weeks at a time. But my views on the environment are just the same.

'There is part of me that misses that life. Spending a week up a crane in protest to the construction of Terminal 5 at Heathrow was something special, but I leave it to others at the moment.'

But last year he was out campaigning once more - fined for blockading one of Britain's largest oil refineries in an Extinction Rebellion protest by attaching himself to a concrete block at the entrance to the giant Valero plant in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

Hooper was fined 40 after he pleaded guilty at Haverfordwest magistrates' court in October 2019.

Swampy and son and the other activists who have now vowed to stay in the trees.

This is despite building pressure from the National Eviction Team (NET), dwindling supplies and the continuing storm that has battered England over the last five days.

Swampy was first involved in the protests against the A34 Newbury bypass in 1996

The group who have been occupying Jones' Hill Wood have declared part of their intention is to highlight the loss of habitat, and irreversible damage being done by HS2 across the line.

Lawyers for Nature yesterday released the following statement on Facebook: 'The scenes of destruction as HS2 begins to start felling woodlands along the route are heartbreaking.

'Over the last 24 hours, we've been working with independent ecologists who have recorded evidence of rare barbastelle bats in Jones Hill Woods near Wendover.

'Further enquiries suggest that HS2 does not have a licence from Natural England to disturb bats at the site, or to damage or destroy their roosts.

'Therefore, prima facie, it would spread that further work and/or felling at Jones Hill is illegal.

'We have helped to draft letters to both Natural England and HS2 pointing out the legal position and requesting that works at the site are halted pending further investigation into the existence of bats and bat roosts at the woods.

'We hope that HS2 will respect and obey the law and that, if not, Natural England will enforce it.

Hooper, was first involved in environmentalism when he got involved in protests against the A34 Newbury bypass in 1996. He is pictured in one of his tunnels in 1997

'If not, however, we need to bring public pressure to bear to stop wildlife crimes being committed by way of the destruction of this woodland.'

Despite the threat of violence and arrests, the remaining activists defending the trees within the threatened land are resolved to stay and they accept any and all consequences of their actions.

Mark Keir who has been live-streaming from the site, added: 'We're all feeling really good and really strong.

'We have lots of people here, both in the tree and on the ground, who every bit as much energy and as much skill for this cause as Swampy does.

'Ultimately, we just need to stop this thing, or slow it down so much that people will start really hearing what it is all about.

'We know that HS2 have none of the licences they need to work here.

'It's such a biodiverse piece of land, it's so beautiful here.

'They do not have the bat licence they need, or the dormouse licence, or anything. We're hoping that we can try and stop this on those grounds.

'We've had people who have been removed from the tree and taken to a cell - and then come straight back here after being released. We will stay here as long as it takes.'
A woman whose boyfriend died in a street fight joked with his alleged killer that her student partner 'fell like Deontay Wilder'.

Simran Nijher, 22, gave evidence as Liverpool Crown Court heard about laughing texts she exchanged with boxer Elvis Duruaku, 24 while her boyfriend Hassan Haadi, 22 was in a coma.

Prosecutors say Duruaku murdered student Hassan Haadi during a fight by knocking him out, then stomping on his head.

Simran Nijher, 22, told Liverpool Crown Court about laughing texts she exchanged with boxer Elvis Duruaku

They say the fight in Everton was sparked when Duruaku told Mr Haadi's girlfriend, Simran Nijher, that Mr Haadi was cheating on her.

Mr Haadi was put in a coma, from which he never woke up.

Judge Denis Watson, QC, asked her to clarify what was in her mind when she sent the text.

She replied: 'From my perspective I thought he was fine, and that's why I sent it.'

During a conversation with Duruaku Ms Nijher is said to have sent 'LMAO' and 'it's just so funny'.

When asked what she was laughing at she said: 'I just found the whole situation laughable.

'If you put Hassan and Elvis together, Hassan is a lot smaller height, a lot smaller stature, so I just thought it was kind of ridiculous he even wanted to try and fight him.'

One of Duruaku's texts read : 'So sorry for his dad, so that's why I hope he wakes with good health, but hopefully now he can stop putting my name in his mouth for no apparent reason. Going to try and squash it when he wakes, if not we can go to school again.'

Prosecutors say Elvis Duruaku (pictured) murdered student Hassan Haadi during a fight

Mr Storrie said: 'And then you responded 'man fell like Deontay Wilder'.

Ms Nijher agreed that Deontay Wilder was a boxer who got 'knocked out cold' and said her text was 'just a daft thing'.

She told the jury: 'I said it because I was really p***ed off by the whole situation, p***ed off that I had been mugged off and I didn't really care how Hassan was feeling about everything then, I was just p***ed off.'

Under questioning by Tim Storrie, QC, prosecuting, the student said Mr Haadi had grown to dislike Duruaku because of his friendship with her.

She said Duruaku texted her on March 21 this year, saying a woman called Gloria had been 'sleeping with Hassan or in a relationship with him'.

Ms Nijher, 22, said she was 'embarrassed' but 'didn't really believe it', so texted Mr Haadi, who said 'everyone is lying' and kept ringing her to deny it.

She said Mr Haadi was 'really angry', called Duruaku a 'f****t' and said he was going to 'beat him up'.

She said she later returned a missed call from Duruaku, who was 'quite panicked', said there had been a fight, and that he didn't know if Mr Haadi was OK.

Ms Nijher said she kept calling Mr Haadi but didn't receive an answer, so rang his friends, who said he was fine but that they had rung an ambulance to check.

She said she didn't know 'exactly' whether he was in a coma, before saying she 'felt like' she knew he was, but there was 'misinformation' going around.

She added: 'I was actually unsure until the day he passed away. Everyone was saying conflicting things.'

Ms Nijher joked that 'man fell like Deontay Wilder' while her boyfriend Hassan was in a coma. Above, Wilder (right) is stopped by Tyson Fury in November 2019

'So after that day we all thought Hassan was fine and he was just ignoring me.'

'I felt like he was just ignoring me and didn't want to talk to me, and if he doesn't want to talk to me, he will probably start talking to another girl. Basically I just felt mugged off.'

Mr Storrie said she replied 'LOL' to another message and asked what she meant by texting: 'My man gonna be with the angels.'

Ms Nijher said: 'I was just making a joke then, it's not a very nice joke.'

'Because Hassan died, passed away, so everything I said, nothing should have been said.'

Ms Nijher text Duruaku 'I don't even care what happens to him you know' and Duruaku replied 'hope he learns, if not class begins again, lecture two starts'.

She said Duruaku wasn't the sort of person to get in trouble and she didn't think he encouraged the fight, stating: 'He avoids confrontation, he doesn't like to fight or argue with people.'

Duruaku texted her on April 6 saying 'I don't know if I can live with another man's death', she said 'nah you can', and added: 'I know you care for people deeply, even the bad ones.'

Questioned again by Mr Storrie, she said she was inclined to believe Duruaku's account of the fight, because 'he doesn't lie'.

She said: 'I don't think he cared about going to prison, I think it was more that he killed someone and he couldn't live with it.'

Duruaku denies murder and manslaughter.
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A newlywed couple was left devastated after a heartless thief stole footage of their wedding day.

Matty and Jay-Louise Breen, of Palm Beach on the Gold Coast, filmed their October 4 wedding for family and friends who couldn't attend due to COVID-19 restrictions.

They paid wedding photographer James Connell to capture their special day, only for recordings of the ceremony - including the couple's vows - to be stolen by a thief who made of with $20,000 worth of camera gear while he packed it into his car.

Newlywed Queensland couple Matty and Jay-Louise Breen (pictured together) were heartbroken after $20,000 worth of camera equipment with their wedding footage on it was stolen

Mr and Mrs Breen (pictured on their wedding day) said the gear was stolen while photographer and friend James Connell was packing up, the equipment also had footage from a previous wedding

Mr Connell didn't want to ruin the reception so he waited until the following day to tell the newlyweds about the theft.

'He wanted us to have the night,' Mr Breen told Daily Mail Australia.

'After he posted it online I told Jay and she just broke down in tears.'

Mrs Breen said she also felt for another couple whose wedding footage was also on the memory cards.

The couple canvased local pawn shops for the camera equipment and staff told them they would be on the lookout.

'The community has really supported us,' Mrs Breen said.

'We are holding onto hope.'

Meanwhile Mr Connell took to social media and offered a $1,000 reward for the return of his memory cards.

'I do not care for any of the equipment, all I want back is the memory cards,' he said.

The photographer said it would be 'truly heartbreaking' if the footage was lost forever.

The theft was reported to police and the couple (pictured) are holding out hope of recovering the footage

Mr and Mrs Breen said they didn't blame Mr Connell at all for the theft.

'It's a chance taken up by a lowlife criminal,' Mr Breen said.

Their biggest fear is that the thief threw the memory cards into a bin.

The devastated couple's family and friends have rallied around them with hopes the footage of their special day will be found.

'I cant believe this has happened! What low life scum would do such a thing,' one friend wrote.

'Dirty rotten thieves. I'm sorry your beautiful memories of your special day has been stolen,' another added.

The theft was reported to Queensland Police who are investigating and urge anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers.
The Paris Opera could soon ban blackface after hundreds of staff demanded the practice be abolished, according to local reports.

The issue has come to a head since Benjamin Millepied, the Black Swan choreographer, first spoke out in 2015 about alleged racism at the company, where he was director for around a year before resigning.

Around 400 staff - approximately a quarter of the Operas workforce - in a joint letter called for an end to silence around race in the leading opera and ballet company, AFP reported earlier this week.

The group demanded an official and definitive end to blackface, as well as a ban on the use of the n-word in performances.

Employees also called for products, such as tights and point shoes, to match skin tones.

The director, Alexander Neef, has now reportedly asked experts to look into racial issues following a staff letter calling for more to be done.

Paris Opera told AFP: The tights we buy will soon have more nuanced shades. The company said point shoes had matched skin colours for years.

Ballet has long been beset with accusations of racism over its use of blackface, although the practise has largely been abandoned by most major companies in the West.

Several years ago, New Yorks Metropolitan Opera said it would no longer use blackface in its productions of Shakespeares Otello.

It is, however, still used in some performances in Russia. Misty Copeland, the first ever "principal dancer" at the American Ballet Theater, last year condemned the Bolshoi in Moscow for staging a blackface production.
SANTA ANA, Calif., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- VetCell Therapeutics USA, a clinical-stage, pet-focused cell therapy provider, announced today that it has entered the enrollment phase of its DentaHeal clinical trial. The company also announced the first four clinical sites authorized to qualify and treat FCGS patients with its DentaHeal investigational stem cell therapy. VetCell Therapeutics USA will cover the cost of its DentaHeal product for all enrolled patients.

This news builds upon last month's announcement of VetCell Therapeutics USA beginning a multi-centered, country-wide clinical trial to evaluate the safety, efficacy and potency of DentaHeal for the control of clinical signs related to feline chronic gingivostomatitis (FCGS).

"With the expert counsel from our partners at UC Davis, we have entered the patient enrollment stage of our DentaHeal clinical trial and are pleased to announce our first collaborating clinics," said Dr. Chad Maki, DVM, chief veterinary medical officer at VetCell Therapeutics USA. "FCGS is an awful, painful, and deadly disease that today has no cure. We firmly believe that DentaHeal can correct the cause of FCGS, allowing cats to lead happy and healthy lives and are incredibly thankful for all of the clinics reaching out to join our fight against this disease."

VetCell Therapeutics USA plans to cover several major metropolitan areas of the United States, with clinical sites being added to the trial regularly. The first DentaHeal clinical sites to sign up include:

Clinical Sites and Regional Coverage Address and Contact Info Doctors Involved Aggie Animal Dental Center

(Serving San Francisco Bay Area) 487 Miller Ave Mill Valley, CA 94941

www.aggievetdentist.com Phone: 415-389-5917 Dr. Amy Fulton Dr. Melinda Lommer Dog & Cat Dentist, Inc.

(Serving Greater Los Angeles Area) 9599 Jefferson Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 www.dogandcatdentist.com/stomatitis-clinical-trial/ Phone: 424-373-5002 Dr. Anson Tsugawa Dr. Jenna Winer Animal Dental Clinic

(Serving Portland Metropolitan Area) 15800 SW Upper Boones Ferry Rd. Suite 300 Lake Oswego, OR 97035 www.animaldentalclinicnw.com Phone: 503-292-4533 Dr. Jean Battig Dr. Randi Brannan Dr. Sarah Bonner College of Veterinary Medicine University of Minnesota

(Serving Minneapolis  Saint Paul Area) University of Minnesota https://vetmed.umn.edu/centers-programs/clinical-investigation-center/current-clinical-trials/dental-stem-cell-study Phone: 612-624-4723 Dr. Stephanie Goldschmidt

DentaHeal is an allogeneic, adipose-derived, mesenchymal stem cell treatment for FCGS. With this clinical trial, any cat with FCGS that has not responded to standard treatment options can be enrolled into this clinical trial.

According to published data, approximately 30 percent of FCGS patients do not respond to standard treatments and require life-long pain medication, antibiotics and immunosuppressive drugs. Sadly, the cats that do not improve, even with implementation of improved dental hygiene, medication, and oral surgery, are often euthanized.

For pet owners with cats diagnosed with FCGS, please read our blog post titled, 'What To Do if My Cat Has Been Diagnosed with FCGS,' to learn more about FCGS, stem cells and VetCell Therapeutics USA's DentaHeal clinical trial.

Veterinarians with patients suffering from FCGS whom are interested in enrolling their patient in the DentaHeal clinical trial are encouraged to contact the above four mentioned clinics for consultation. Interested veterinarians also may reach out to VetCell Therapeutics USA via email at [email protected], or fill by filling out the contact form at www.vetcelltherapeuticsusa.com/FCGS_Trial.

For more information about VetCell Therapeutics USA please visit www.vetcelltherapeuticsusa.com.

About VetCell Therapeutics USA:

VetCell Therapeutics USATM is on a mission to improve the quality of life for ailing pets through the development of cell therapy treatments for chronic and acute inflammatory diseases. We are clinically testing cell-based treatments for multiple unmet veterinary medical needs and are in the process of seeking FDA approval for DentaHeal to treat FCGS.

VetCell Therapeutics USA and DentaHeal are trademarks of PrimeGen US, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of PrimeGen Global, Inc.

Media Contact:

Michael Farino

New Era Communications

949-346-1984

[email protected]

SOURCE VetCell Therapeutics USA

Related Links

http://www.vetcelltherapeuticsusa.com


Convicted terrorist Bilal Khazal will be subject to a highly restrictive control order for a year after the Federal Court found he posed an ongoing risk to public safety following his release from prison at the end of August.

Khazal, a former baggage handler, served a 12-year sentence for compiling a do-it-yourself terrorism manual that was published online. Born in Lebanon, he trained with extremists in Afghanistan and was a contact of Osama bin Laden.

Convicted terrorist Bilal Khazal will be subject to extensive restrictions on his activities until August 2021. Credit:Nick Moir

Since his release from Goulburn Supermax, Khazal has been under an extensive interim control order requiring him to wear a tracking device and observe a 12am-6am curfew. Among the 19 conditions, he is also prevented from visiting Sydney Airport and other transport hubs, acquiring a vehicle weighing over 4.5 tonnes, and contacting people linked to terrorism activities.

The interim order was confirmed with minor variations in a Federal Court hearing on Wednesday, with judge Michael Wigney finding it was a necessary and reasonable measure to protect the public from terrorism and prevent Khazal providing support to terrorism or hostile activities overseas.
RTHK: Genome editing pair win Nobel chemistry prize

Scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of a method for genome editing, the award-giving body said on Wednesday.

"Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna have discovered one of gene technology's sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement on awarding the prize worth 10 million Swedish crown, or US$1.1 million.

"This technology has had a revolutionary impact on the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases come true."

"The ability to cut the DNA where you want has revolutionised the life sciences," Pernilla Wittung Stafshede, member of the academy of sciences, told reporters.

Charpentier, who is French, and Doudna, an American, become the sixth and seventh women to win a Nobel for chemistry, joining the likes of Marie Curie, who won in 1911, and more recently, Frances Arnold, in 2018.

In keeping with tradition, chemistry is the third prize announced every year and follows those for medicine and physics earlier this week.

The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were created and funded in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901, with the economics award a later addition.

Like so much else, the pandemic has redrawn the Nobels, with many of the traditional events, such as the grand banquet, cancelled or moved online even as research into the disease  above all the hunt for a vaccine  has dominated the scientific spotlight. (Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2020-10-07. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Even though the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said that 17 political parties will take part in the election, the race to the Alagbaka Government House is without a doubt between three major contenders.

The contenders are candidates of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Rotimi Akeredolu; the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Eyitayo Jegede; and the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), Agboola Ajayi.

The three are the major candidates with the requisite structure in place across the 18 local government areas of the state.

While the race would be a tight contest, political pundits have explained to PREMIUM TIMES why the elites in the state may go for Mr Akeredolu and why the governor may be rejected by the commoners.

Yes or No?

For elites in the state, Mr Akeredolu's performance in his first term in office is good enough to return him to office following infrastructural projects carried out in various communities.

Some of the elites and political analysts who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES said that many have benefited immensely from his infrastructure and industrialisation projects, such as roads, school buildings, industrial projects, among others across the three senatorial districts of the state.

"Basically when it comes to infrastructure in Ondo State, Akeredolu popularly referred to as Aketi has tried. The governor also came up with a few ideas like the Ore Industrial Hub where Ondo now has the opportunity to be producing thread."

"Aside from this, there are various roads that he completed in various senatorial districts of the state. So, for elites - he will have their pass mark," Steven Ajayi - a lecturer and political analyst told PREMIUM TIMES in an interview.

Many white-collar workers in the state, such as bankers and top officials of ministry parastatals, also spoke with PREMIUM TIMES' correspondent in the state last week.

Bimbo Fashoyin, a resident, described Mr Akeredolu's first term in office as "development" for the state.

"Arguably, Akeredolu will largely have the nod of the elites but not of the commoners. While he has tried in the aspect of infrastructure, such as roads linking many districts, he has only done little directly for the masses, which may really hurt him severely."

"The only reason that will make commoners go for a candidate is when they understand that they can benefit directly from his governance. For instance, Ondo residents are seriously wailing as far as healthcare system is concerned."

PREMIUM TIMES in an earlier analysis explained how opposition parties have continued to draw the attention of the people to the failure of Mr Akeredolu to allow residents enjoy free healthcare, which was one of the major achievements of his predecessor, Olusegun Mimiko.

Speaking on how this may shape the election, Mr Fashoyin, a community leader in Akungba-Akoko, told our correspondent that the grassroots see Mr Akeredolu as an anti-people governor.

"Mimiko gave Ondo people the Mother and Child Maternity Initiative, where delivery was free and the aged paid nothing when need be for them to visit hospitals for treatment.

"There used to be a time when pregnant women had free access to hospitals without any payment and that's no longer in place. Except you have your delivery materials, you won't be attended to. This is indeed anti-masses."

"An elite will not consider the payment as anything because he or she's rich enough to pay. Rather, elites will focus on the structures and facilities of the healthcare centre. That's not the case with the poor at the grassroots."

"It is good that there are good roads and industrialisation is fast-growing but only the elites know the essence of all these."

In addition to Mr Fashoyin's position on what the outcome of the election may look like, another political analyst, Raphael Williams, said the hike in school fees will also affect the governor's chances.

"The major strategy the opposition will use against him is the hike in school fees, especially that of the Adekunle Ajasin University. Parents and students paying over N250,000 will see no reason why they should vote for him for the second time. What about the cases of shuttle buses for school children - all of these will may make Akeredolu's chances slim on the part of the masses".

Although Mr Akeredolu in a television programme recently said the hike was due paucity of funds accruable to the state government and something similar was happening in other state-owned tertiary institutions, he recently announced that the hike will be reduced. However, that announcement was seen as a campaign strategy by many.

'Commoners will overpower elites'

A public affairs analyst and political commentator, Jide Ojo, in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES, said the masses have the power to re-elect or reject Mr Akeredolu.

"The masses will have the day. From latest developments, the election may be inconclusive because the masses are the voters, not the elites and the state may not want to accept defeat. The commoners will determine the outcome of the vote because elites often keep themselves and families at home during election period."

"If we go by history, it is only Mimiko from Central that has won re-election in the political history of Ondo State. From Ajasin to Adefarati to Agagu and all."

Mr Ojo also said political zones will have roles to play. He decried the failure of Mr Akeredolu to look into the total blackout in Ondo South.

"The governor should not expect anything from places like Ondo South when he never considered them during his term. They have been in blackout. The masses, also known as commoners, are very key to anybody's victory."

Inconclusive poll?

Speaking on why the election may be inconclusive, Mr Ojo stressed that, "unlike Edo, Ondo State is a three-horse race. While Eyitayo Jegede may have difficulties when zoning comes to place because he is from the same place with Mimiko, the North, South and the Central have equal numbers of local governments areas."

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"It is also about 25 per cent in two-thirds. If the South-South pitch their tent to Agboola Ajayi, he will also have the support of Mimiko in Central and the former governor remains influential in Ondo town where there are two local governments - Ondo East and Ondo West. Other places like Ifedore/Ile-Oluji/Oke-Igbo, also in the Central have the impact of Mimiko. So Akeredolu is likely out of the race except for power of incumbency."

"The APC should be comfortable if they are certain that all will be well and not be involved in attacks of other opposition parties. Ajayi and Jegede have good pedigree. We should not be surprised to see a repeat of the magic Mimiko was able to perform under the Labour Party. He could do the same with ZLP. It is more of a straight fight between Jegede and Ajayi."

"Unless federal might is used, we may have an inconclusive election and Ondo people have a history of resistance. Let's not also forget that APC lost the general election in the state. PDP is also controlling two out of the three senatorial districts and it then means the influence of the ruling party in the state is weak," he said.

With the election coming up in less than a week, a lot can change overnight. Especially where the majority of the masses decide to go is likely where the pendulum will swing.

"It is better to be in the good books of the commoners than the elites," Mr Ojo concluded.
Under President Donald Trump, a new "Cold War" is underway, at least according to hawks in Washington. Almost four years of Trump lobbing tariffs and tweeting threats at Beijing hardened geopolitical fault lines and set the stage for a great-power competition that may define the decades to come. On a host of global issues, China is the White House's preferred villain - its trade tactics seen as unfair and duplicitous, its opaque government cast as the incubator of a hideous pandemic, its tech companies Trojan horses and its oppression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong the emblems of the 21st century's authoritarian behemoth.

In the past decade, Chinese President Xi Jinping has taken his country in a more clearly repressive direction, purging political rivals, squeezing the already narrow space for civil society and tightening Beijing's grip over its restive periphery. At international forums, Xi presents his nation as a responsible stakeholder in the world order. But at home, an emerging vanguard of influential Chinese intellectuals now dismiss liberal ideas in favor of a clearer ideology of Chinese might.

On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly insisted that he will be the tougher of the two presidential candidates on China. He links his rival, former vice president Joe Biden, to an earlier era of Western foolhardiness, where leading U.S. politicians and their counterparts in the corporate sector eagerly sought to integrate Communist China into the world economy. In the White House's view, that phase of globalization thinned out American manufacturing and is broadly responsible for the country's economic woes.

Trump has spent the past few years claiming to redress that imbalance. He unleashed a trade war on Beijing that saw both sides slap protectionist duties on each other's goods. An initial deal hashed out between U.S. and Chinese negotiators in January saw some of those tariffs lifted, but has done little to calm hostilities. The substantial U.S. trade deficit with China - which Trump vowed to vastly reduce in 2016 - has hardly budged four years later.

All the while, tensions are mounting on other fronts. Trump and his allies, especially Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ramped up the sense of an ideological clash with Beijing, casting China in speeches as the great enemy of the age, a rival power bent on "Marxist hegemony." Both Republicans and Democrats have sought to punish China for its crackdowns in Xinjiang and Hong Kong with sanctions. With a degree of success, the Trump administration has convinced a number of European nations to keep Chinese tech giant Huawei at arm's length.

In a recent statement, a U.S. intelligence official suggested that China may want Trump to lose the election because of the "unpredictable" nature of his governing style. But Trump has hardly persuaded Xi to change course.

"Despite pressuring Beijing with a steady drumbeat of punishing policies that have not been seen in 40 years of formal relations under either Republican or Democratic administrations, Trump in some ways has offered Xi an opportunity on the world stage and in domestic politics," reported my Washington Post colleagues Gerry Shih and Eva Dou. "Previously under pressure at home from the slowing economy and popular disillusionment with the Chinese Communist Party, Xi has been able to blame Washington's 'suppression' for all of China's travails while casting himself as a defender against foreign bullying."

The Trump administration has "highlighted the problems we have with China," Paul Haenle, the director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, told the Financial Times. "They haven't tried to solve problems. I can't tell what their objective is. It's more of an attitude and less a policy. It's more of an emotion. It's not good for U.S. national security to have that kind of policy."

Biden has boasted of his significant experience meeting Xi while vice president, but his aides stress that a putative Biden administration would probably take as tough - and perhaps even tougher - a line on Beijing. That's also a reflection of a shifting bipartisan consensus in Washington.

"I think there is a broad recognition in the Democratic Party that Trump was largely accurate in diagnosing China's predatory practices," Kurt Campbell, the top Asia official in the Obama State Department, told the Wall Street Journal. Biden has also said he would center questions of human rights and democratic values to an extent that Trump never has.

And in China, numerous experts see a risk in Biden supplanting Trump. "If Biden is elected, I think this could be more dangerous for China, because he will work with allies to target China, whereas Trump is destroying U.S. alliances," Zhou Xiaoming, a former Chinese trade negotiator, told Bloomberg News in a piece that also anonymously cited four current officials who "echoed that sentiment."

"Biden would make the hard lines more effective and more efficient," Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, told the New York Times. "He might resort to more sophisticated and coordinated tactics against China."

The underlying assumption there is that a Biden White House would be less erratic than that of Trump and more capable of shoring up alliances with other Asian powers. But that's not the unanimous view in the rest of Asia, where some diplomats have enjoyed the refreshing clarity of Trump's animus toward Beijing and fear a return of the equivocating politics of the Obama era.

That era looks over, though, no matter who wins. "We're on the path to increase conflict with either Biden or Trump," Bruno Macaes, a former Portuguese politician and the author of "Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order," among other books, told Today's WorldView.

China's problems are hardly restricted to whoever the occupant of the White House is. New polling by the Pew Research Center found unfavorable views of China at "historic highs" in many countries - in part due to China's role in the coronavirus crisis, but also more broadly a reaction to Beijing's increasingly bullying behavior in various parts of the world.

"You don't grab the reins of global power by being nice," said Macaes. But, he added, "China has lost lots of hearts and minds over the last few years, probably more than the U.S."
By Chris Strohm, Bloomberg News (TNS)

WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump announced he has authorized the declassification of documents related to the FBIs Russia investigation and the probe into Hillary Clintons use of a private email account, part of his efforts to cast aspersions on his political enemies as he falls further behind in his bid for reelection.

I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax, Trump tweeted Tuesday.

Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions! Trump said.

Former FBI Director James Comey told a Senate committee last week that the inquiry into whether people close to Trump conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election was largely conducted by the book but that specific aspects of the inquiry fell short.

Pressed by Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, who said the probe was based on faulty assumptions and evidence tampering, Comey said he found the shortcomings  which included doctoring an email from the CIA  deeply disturbing. But he backed an inspector generals report that concluded that the probe was valid and not driven by bias in the bureaus leadership.

Senate Republicans are trying to put the spotlight back on what they said was a politically motivated probe meant to undermine Trumps candidacy in 2016 and, later, his presidency.

The debate comes after U.S. intelligence agencies have once again assessed that Russia is interfering again in the 2020 presidential race to aid Trump by denigrating his rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump has said U.S. officials should be more focused on China, not Russia.
The fog of lies clouding the current political climate has all but completely hidden the truth. Let's clear some things up so the American public can see what's going on. Here are just a few of the major lies and the issues that have been wildly distorted.

Trump is a liar: Rolling Stone claims that Trump is a "Hall of Fame" liar. Other leftists call him a "pathological liar." CNN says the "defining characteristic" of the Trump presidency is the "bombardment of lies." You can even buy T-shirts with that logo. The internet is full of references to the Washington Post's claim that President Trump has made more than 20,000 false claims, averaging 23 lies a day. A close look reveals that any generalized statement, any opinion some snowflake finds "hurtful," any rounded-off number, and anything the left disagrees with is ipso facto judged by these supposed fact-checkers to be a lie. Note that these "lies" include general statements like Trump saying he has "tremendous support" from blacks; the Washington Post deems this a lie because no poll had been taken to prove it.

When Trump said he was "ready to send the National Guard to Minneapolis and Seattle if local officials requested it," some local officials said he was lying. Trump claimed that Obama and Biden "spied" on his campaign and they "knew what was going on." This is repeatedly declared a vicious lie even though evidence has come to light showing that actually happened and that top officials knew it  including Numero Uno himself!

Unlike his predecessor, whom the press idolized, the current president's opinions and evaluations are considered lies  for instance when he claims something is "disgraceful" and the fact-checkers' subjective evaluation differs, it's deemed a lie. If the president rounds off a number into an approximation instead of giving the specific number, it's considered a lie. In fact, under the gotcha standards the media apply to Trump's comments, all public figures lie constantly. I'd go so far as to dare a fact-checker to examine any politician's rhetoric by that standard and find fewer such "lies."

Perhaps the most succinct summary of all this sturm und drang about Trump's propensity for hyperbole and exaggeration was laid out by Salena Zito, who presciently asserted before the 2016 election that "the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally."

Election results/Election integrity: The Democrats are stirring up crowds by conjuring up dark images of Trump of being unwilling to leave the White House if he is defeated. They vividly describe having to bring in troops to physically remove him. Such accusations continue even though Trump has said repeatedly he will accept the results of a fair election. That is a completely relevant caveat when there is abundant evidence that leftist groups are prepared to prevent his re-election by fair means or foul! Leading Democrats have openly said they cannot allow Trump to win. Hillary Clinton has gone so far as to publicly urge Joe Biden not to concede "under any circumstances."

The incessant drumbeat about Trump not accepting the results is really infantile projection. Which party, for the first time in history, refused to accept the results of the 2016 election? Which party has spent four years wailing from every rooftop that Hillary actually won the election and undermining or attacking the duly elected president at every opportunity? Which party is pushing hard to eliminate the Electoral College so the country will be ruled by New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco?

Before the impeachment proceedings in the House, the GOP argued that the American voters should decide Trump's fate at the ballot box in 2020. The Democrat Party, led by Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House and third in line for the presidency, called that "dangerous" and didn't want to take that chance. Since the impeachment failed in the Senate, the left has pushed for changes in the voting system that favors mail-in ballots and early voting  both measures that dilute bipartisan supervision of voting locations and threaten the integrity of the voting process. There are already numerous reports of households getting ballots addressed to previous occupants and deceased relatives and multiple ballots for the same person. There are also accounts of boxes of ballots being found in roadside ditches.

Michael Bloomberg, a Democrat billionaire, is giving $17 million to pay the fines and legal fees required to restore the voting franchise for 32,000 black and Hispanic felons (by the way, whites not considered smacks of racism to me) in Florida, a must-win state for Trump. After having spent a billion dollars on a failed attempt to win the democratic nomination, Bloomberg has, ironically, already pledged $100 million to help Biden win Florida.

Riots and looting/White supremacy: The media's whitewashing of the riots is mind-boggling. The words we use are important in accurately conveying a message; using words to sugarcoat reality is wrong. The left is using the phrase "peaceful protests" to describe burning down cities and bludgeoning business-owners who guard their stores from the looters. Commentators are earnestly lamenting the deprivations of poverty that supposedly are driving the poor to steal in order to be able to eat; actually, the visuals show footage of those stealing luxury items  everything from elite athletes' signature sneakers to big screen TVs  and partiers who are just grabbing whatever  frequently alcohol  for the bragging rights.

Then there are the serious analysts who are using the riots as a pretext to attack Trump. And for what? Blaming him for the failures of Democrat mayors and governors to maintain order because...Trump's hate-filled racist rhetoric caused the riots. The rioters are obviously left-wingers, out-of-work students intoxicated by Marxist rhetoric and bored inner-city kids being manipulated in anarchy by Antifa.

All the talk about "white supremacy" groups is a smokescreen and an insult to the viewers who can see what is actually happening despite all of the gaslighting about "mostly peaceful protests." All those internet scare posts about after-election rioting if Trump wins stem from the same groups. Ironically, nobody is seriously worried about Trump-supporters rioting.

Reporters have been  literally  harassing the president to deny that he supports "white supremacy." Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany recently embarrassed them by going through a litany of press interviews where the president clearly and unequivocally condemned white supremacists and white supremacist groups. Yet a Google search of "President White Supremacy" yields page after page of supposed "evidence." Click here to read some of the proof that Trump has, for years, denounced white supremacy without equivocation.

Trump was a bully in Debate One: In terms of policy points, the public agrees that Trump won Presidential Debate One, but many voters were disgusted by the "bullying" and raucous "tone" of the debates. Many blame Trump; not surprisingly, Chris Wallace, the supposedly objective and gentlemanly moderator, blames Trump.

But any clear-eyed viewer could see that the moderator quickly lost control of the debate as Wallace was setting up traps for the president by the slant of his questions. Trump got the first question with two minutes to answer. During those first two minutes, Biden interrupted, and Wallace did not call him on it. Things went downhill from there. Trump will not attack first, but if someone falsely accuses him, he definitely fights back.

The inestimable Victor Davis Hanson described Wallace's questions as "asymmetrical" and "prove you are not guilty" questioning with a "gotcha" technique. Any way you cut it, those are outright attacks and only toward one of the candidates: Trump.

Numerous professional observers described the debate as Trump facing two opponents. It quickly became obvious that questions were being phrased to put Trump on the defensive and Biden in a positive light. Trump was pressed on controversial issues, while Wallace tossed Biden softballs; Biden's numerous controversies were ignored. There were no questions about Biden's racial blunders, his condescending rudeness to elderly town hall questioners, or the financial benefits attained during Biden's vice presidency by his son and other relatives. More importantly, there were no questions about the recent revelation showing Obama and Biden's knowledge of the Russian hoax designed to destroy Trump's presidency. Those questions are far more important than Trump becoming aggressive over the constant attacks from both the moderator and his opponent.

Christians cannot support Trump's immorality: Throughout his presidency, the left and the NeverTrump conservatives have loudly rehearsed a litany of Trump's sins. The hatred toward him supposedly because of those sins and the virtue-signaling and judgmental attitudes are a curious thing to observe coming from the mouths of those who for years have lectured the nation that all truth and moral values are subjective and relative and that the one and only mortal sin is to be judgmental.

The country has been divided into two camps  those who support Trump and those who hate him with a passion so intense that it requires them to also hate anyone who dares to support the president. There is special hatred toward Christians who  whatever their reason  support Trump because according to these newly righteous ones, Trump voters (whatever their motive for not voting for Hillary or Biden) are tainted by Trump's "immorality," "lies," and unpresidential behavior. Absolutely nothing Trump does deserves approval.

Consider the following important questions: which is more "moral" or "presidential"?

Using a feature of the tax code designed and passed into law by Congress to stimulate business activity  otherwise known as a tax loophole  but still paying millions of dollars in taxes or enabling your son and brother to make millions from peddling influence to foreign sources?

Being a bawdy playboy for years before running for president or being a president who has sex with multiple actresses while in the W.H. (Kennedy), using crude language and vulgarity in presidential interviews (Johnson), sex with intern in Oval Office (Clinton), or frequently plagiarizing and lying about your accomplishments (Biden)?

Repeatedly denouncing white extremists while reporters ignore your answer and constantly badger you to say it again or avoiding criticism of leftist rioters and staying silent while cities burn, stores are looted, police are attacked, and mobs rule streets?

Enacting policies that provide unprecedented opportunities for minorities and including minorities in ceremonial and real leadership positions or, as Victor Davis Hanson put it, "habitually denigrating blacks, with [Biden's] riffs like 'you ain't black,' 'junkie,' and the Corn Pop yarns"?

Say you want fair elections in 2020 and will wait to see whether the elections are conducted fairly before saying you'll accept the results while stating clearly that if the results are fair, you'll accept them or fomenting resistance after 2016 to attack and undermine the elected president every possible way, planning a ruse about made-up Russian collusion to stir up public suspicion and division, and involving high-level government officials in an attempted coup against a legitimately elected president?

This will be a very consequential election. We've been told by the left exactly what its radical goals are and its plans to align with the radical, socialist wing of its party. We must clear the air of the fog of obfuscation and lies. When we go to cast our ballots in this election, I really like this Twitter reminder: "A vote is not a Valentine. You aren't confessing your love for the candidate. It's a chess move for the world you want to live in."
Sushant Singh Rajput's family wrote to the on Wednesday alleging "unprofessional conduct" by director Sudhir Gupta in leaking a forensic report of the late actor and sought a new panel for fair and proper assessment of his death.

The letter, sent through advocate Varun Singh, claimed that the leaked report, if correct, amounts to drawing a biased and boastful conclusion from insufficient evidence.

"I have been reading in the media about the report submitted by to with regard to the opinion expressed by in the matter of the death of on the June 14, 2020. I have also seen some doctors who were part of the Team come on TV and make statements with regard to the forensic examination done by the team," Varun said.

The letter, settled by Rajput's family lawyer, senior advocate Vikas Singh, stated that in spite of repeated efforts to get a copy of the report, there has been no response by Gupta.

The family has objected to the AIIMS report saying that Gupta-headed forensic team was not submitting a post-mortem report but was only to expressing its opinion on the findings of Cooper Hospital in Mumbai.

"Gupta has been giving media interviews about the sensitive case right from day one, questioning the Doctors of Cooper Hospital for dubious autopsy and Maharashtra Police for hurried post-mortem and contamination and non-preservation of scene of crime," the letter said, adding that there were several infirmities in the post-mortem report done at the Cooper Hospital.

Pointing infirmities, the letter said the post-mortem was done at night without there being any order of the Magistrate and the protocol was not followed as opined by several experts of forensic departments from all over the world.

"The videography of the post-mortem was not done. Sufficient viscera was not retained for future examination. The time of the death was not mentioned in the post-mortem report. The injuries on the body were not specified and thus there was no opinion expressed of the cause of such injuries.

"The leg which was fractured was not mentioned in the report. There were several other infirmities which could be pointed out by a genuine forensic examination but somehow the same have been left out by the AIIMS team as expressed by one of the doctors in his interview telecast by a TV channel," the letter alleged.

It contended that Gupta recently got the incriminating content of the report, submitted to the CBI, leaked selectively to a couple of media houses, and irresponsibly commenting that the death of Sushant isconclusively a case of suicide and there is no foul play.

"Clearly the said leak is aimed at creating doubts in the mind of people, bailing out agencies who have not done their job as per rules and standard protocols, benefitting the culprits and derailing the course of ongoing investigation.

"The conduct of Dr Sudhir Gupta is unethical, unprofessional, in contravention of government service conduct rules and MCI guidelines. This criminal misadventure on his part has undermined public trust in a premier institution like AIIMS. It has created doubts in the minds of millions of people about the fairness of investigation," the letter said.

It said the forensic team of AIIMS has not given a categorical opinion on the flaws of the post-mortem done at the Cooper Hospital and have given a report which they were not supposed to do.

Therefore, the matter needs to be referred to another forensic team to be constituted by CBI by picking up some of the best names in the field from different hospital so that a fair and proper assessment takes place, the letter said.

The AIIMS report, if at all, could have only specified the cause of death i.e. by hanging and could not have gone to say that it is a case of suicide because that is something which only the CBI can decide after a complete investigation in the matter.

The letter said that CBI may also inquire into the circumstances that led Gupta to indulge in such unprofessional conduct that threatens to jeopardise the course of investigation and help wrong-doers escape the clutches of law.

The AIIMS medical board has ruled out murder in the death of Rajput and termed it "a case of hanging and death by suicide," the premier institute's forensic chief Gupta said on Saturday.

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.

(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.)
MONROE, MI  A man accused of sexually assaulting a child younger than 14 years old eight years ago has been found guilty on multiple felony charges.

Martin Rodman Worley was convicted Tuesday, Oct. 6, on multiple criminal sexual assault charges arising from a series of sexual assaults committed in 2012 and 2013 in Bedford Township, according to the Monroe County Prosecutors Office.

After a two-day jury trial, Worley, 51, of Erie, Michigan, was convicted of five counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

The jury of eight women and four men rendered the guilty verdicts in less than two hours, officials said.

Charges were filed November 5, 2019, but Worley was not arrested as he could not be immediately located, records show.

U.S. Marshals located Worley 21 days later in North Carolina where he was arrested and later extradited back to Michigan, records show.

Worley is currently lodged in the Monroe County jail awaiting sentencing scheduled for Dec. 17 before Monroe County Circuit Judge Michael A. Weipert.

He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison, lifetime electronic monitoring and registration on the sex offender registry.

More from The Ann Arbor News:

Small clusters of COVID-19 cases identified at 3 University of Michigan residence halls

Ann Arbor accelerates plans for downtown central park as some argue its designed to fail

Some Michigan schools revert to no mask requirement for younger students after court ruling
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, people across the country have been moving to states with lower COVID numbers. Due to this, the Nutmeg State has seen an influx in the number of people moving into the state.

In a new report by United Van Lines, Connecticut is the third most-popular state for people to move into during the ongoing pandemic. Approximately 20 percent of all people who moved into Connecticut between March and August moved due to COVID-19 being an issue in their state, according to the report.

The current coronavirus positivity rate sits at 1.6 percent in Connecticut, while the national average hovers at 4.7 percent, which is a contributing factor to the number of people moving into the state.

On the other end of the spectrum, Washington D.C. and New York were the top two locations that saw the most migrations out due to COVID-19. In the nations capital, 37.5 percent of people saying that the virus was a major contributor, and in nearby New York, approximately 16 percent of the moves were attributed to the virus.

To determine which states were experiencing the highest and lowest migration patterns due to COVID-19, UniGroup, the parent company of United Van Lines, surveyed customers they helped move.

In the past several months, United Van Lines has not only seen shifting moving patterns due to the pandemic, but also listened to our customers to better understand their moving motivations and meet their needs throughout the moving process, said United Van Lines CEO Marc Rogers in the press release.

Among the top reasons for those moving due to COVID-19 were for personal health and well-being and to be closer to family members.

In nearby New York City, "outbound interest" jumped 55 percent above average in the month of May compared to the previous year. Last month, the "outbound interest" average sat at 52 percent higher than the previous year. The "outbound interest" average is the average number of people who are moving out of the state.

According to a USPS report from June, nearly 10,000 New Yorkers requested an address change to Connecticut between the months of March and June.
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"2020 is a wake up call for employers and employees alike," said Martin Fogelman III, CEO and Founder of Pluto. "Privacy and respect are no longer nice-to-have, they're essential. Essential for employees to come forward with important information and concerns that employers need to know and understand to see the full picture of their workforce. Essential for businesses to adapt quickly to an increasingly complex and interconnected world."

Pluto's suite of products has reimagined the way employee experiences are collected and analyzed, so that employees are empowered to provide quality data that employers use to continuously improve their work culture. With powerful privacy and communications tools, as well as a strong mission of advancing diversity, inclusion and equity, Pluto helps businesses navigate the ever-changing modern world to strengthen and sustain employee engagement and productivity. Pluto's latest products include the COVID-19 Dashboard (which empowers businesses to meaningfully support their employees by designing tailored remote work and return-to-work plans in pandemic-affected workplaces) and Anti-Racism Stories (which guide users to reflect on systemic racism and open thoughtful dialogue between team members and leadership).

Every year, Human Resource Executive reviews top HR products with a combination of staff reviews, outside experts, and analysts, to select winners for their innovative approaches to current HR needs and challenges. This year, HRE and HR Technology Conference merged their awards initiatives to honor the best new HR-Tech solutions.

"Diversity, inclusion, and belonging are primary concerns for every organization today," explained Steve Boese, Co-Chair of Human Resource Executive Magazine's HR Technology Conference. "Pluto has developed an innovative approach to better understand how employees feel about their organization's efforts to improve in these important areas. In particular, Pluto's user experience creates an environment where employees are encouraged and able to share their honest views on these issues and how the organization can improve."

Pluto will showcase their products in the 2020 Annual HR Technology Conference on October 28, 2020 from 4:45 PM ET. For more information, please visit: https://www.hrtechnologyconference.com/register

About Pluto

Pluto is a workforce analytics & communications platform that equips companies with the analytics and communication tools they need to build a diverse, inclusive and equitable organization. Pluto provides actionable insights through its comprehensive analytics, advanced data privacy and two-way messaging, allowing companies to assess their strengths, weaknesses and opportunities to more efficiently tailor their initiatives and measure impact over time.

Media Contact

Erica Lee | [email protected]

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Celebrity People

One source says of the couple: "She knows what Donald wants from her, but the rest of her life is dictated by her own interests. Each has come to respect what the other wants and needs"
Whats the one condition for socialising ever since the novel coronavirus wreaked havoc across the world? You would think it is to be testing negative for the virus. Well, you thought wrong!

University students who are staying locked up at the campuses are throwing what they call Covid-positive parties amid stringent lockdown measures, a Daily Mail UK report said. Students at the University of Manchester and Northumbria University have been throwing such 24*7 parties in the halls of the residential campuses ever since they returned to the campus after the lockdown.

According to a report with the Guardian, a student had confirmed that a party at their Fallowfield campus halls of residence was broken up by security on Saturday. This incident along with other related ones have highlighted the casual attitude of the students towards the coronavirus restrictions in place.

There were also reports of University of Exeter sending a number of students home for breaching Covid guidelines.

The Physics student, reportedly told the Guardian, There was a flat party a few days ago which had a policy that you could only get in if you were positive. It was like their health-and-safety measure.

Another students at the Northumbria University also said how students are sticking notes on their windows, flaunting how they have corona."

Parties at the Northumbria University are still rife in the halls, students say.

More than 50 universities have confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK, a report with the Evening Standard quoted a new analysis conducted by the Press Association. Around 2,600 students and staff have tested positive for Covid-19 after thousands of undergraduates returned to campus for the start of the autumn term.

Since September 21 Manchester University has reported 382 coronavirus cases has joined Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Sheffield in conducting online classes in order to arrest the spread of the coronavirus.

Since September a total of 1,041 University of Manchester students had tested positive, most of who were living in halls. A smaller outbreak at nearby Manchester Metropolitan University towards the end of last month also ensured 1,700 students go under a two-week quarantine.

Students have now turned the campus halls into party zones due to the restrictions put in place against going outside. Apart from the risk of coronavirus, authorities are also worried of risky behaviour causing more serious issues.

Newcastle University which reported more than 800 cases recently across its two campuses, also reported a tragic incident where two students died recently after apparently taking drugs in halls.

Students spoke of police called in a few days ago to break up a fight between students at a house party at a locked hall of residence at one of Manchester university campus.

A video showed police arriving at what looked like a late-night gathering at the universitys Birley Halls of residence.

However, such incidents of breaking quarantine rules are not specific to UK. According to a report in CBS News, more than 1,100 students at Miami University in Ohio have tested positive for coronavirus since mid-August. But even after that, a group of students were caught on camera hosting a large house party over Labor Day weekend.
While many people use social media to share idealised versions of their lives, new research suggests, it might be more beneficial to their mental health to share authentic posts that better reflect who they are.

According to a new study published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, sharing authentic posts on social media is better for our mental wellbeing.

For the study, researchers at New York's Columbia Business School and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Chicago analysed the data of 10,560 Facebook users, all of whom had completed life satisfaction and personality assessment surveys from 2007 to 2012.

They then compared this with predictions of users personalities based on their Facebook profiles to uncover the extent at which they represented the profiles represented their authentic selves.

The researchers found that those who presented themselves on Facebook in a way that closely resembled how they viewed themselves reported higher levels of life satisfaction, compared to those whose profiles did not closely resemble how they saw themselves.

In another part of the study, researchers recruited 90 students to post on Facebook in an authentic way for one week, and then to post in a self-idealised way for a week.

They then found that the students overall wellbeing was higher during the week they were asked to post authentically.

The authors concluded: our findings suggest that the extent to which social media use is related to well-being depends on how individuals use it.

Erica Bailey, a doctoral student in management at Columbia Business School and author of the study, added that the link between authenticity and wellbeing has been well-documented in previous scientific studies.

"However, in the case of social media, the opposite direction is also highly likely, that is people who are more well-adjusted or happier are also probably more likely to post authentically," she told CNN.

Bailey explained that an example of an inauthentic or self-idealised post would be one by a person who is introverted posting about how they were looking forward to going out that weekend.

"Given that it's hard to avoid social media these days, we wanted to know are there ways that we can use these tools to be more or less helpful to us psychologically," she added.

"One tension that users face is whether to present themselves in a way that's idealised or in a way that's authentic. Here we found that authentic social media use is associated with higher subjective well-being."
Pakistani Army fired mortars and small weapons across the Line of Control (LoC) in Uri on Wednesday which was retaliated, army spokesperson Col Rajesh Kalia said.

Col Kalia said Pakistan initiated an unprovoked ceasefire violation along the LoC in Uri, Baramulla. They fired mortars and other weapons. A befitting response was given, he said.

The exchange of fire continued for around 15 minutes, said Baramulla SSP Abdul Qayoom.

This year has seen a number of ceasefire violations by Pakistan, especially in north Kashmir. The army says unprovoked ceasefire violation is mainly aimed to facilitate infiltration of terrorists.

India and Pakistan, who have fought at least three wars since 1947, had agreed in 2003 to maintain peace along the border, but the violations intensified after bilateral relations plummeted in 2016.
In this article FB

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at an event at Facebook's Headquarters office in Menlo Park, California on January 15, 2012. Josh Edelson | AFP | Getty Images

The House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust determined Facebook wields monopoly powers in social network and has maintained its position by acquiring, copying or killing its competitors, according to a report the group released on Tuesday. The report from the Democratic majority staff, which also addresses antitrust concerns regarding Amazon, Apple, Google parent-company Alphabet, recommends that Congress review a series of potential remedies. This includes "structural separation," which could require the companies to split parts of their businesses. For instance, Facebook could be forced to divest or operationally separate photo-sharing service Instagram and messaging app WhatsApp, both of which it acquired. The report also recommends that Congress consider any acquisition by the big tech companies to be anticompetitive unless the companies can prove that the merger would be in the public's benefit and could not be otherwise achieved. Specific to Facebook, the report concluded "Facebook's monopoly power is firmly entrenched and unlikely to be eroded by competitive pressure from new entrants or existing firms." Facebook is entrenched as a monopoly due to its strong network effects, high switching costs for users and the company's significant data advantage.

In particular, the report noted that Facebook shores up its monopoly by identifying competitors that could pose a threat to the company and either acquiring them, copying them or killing them. One example of this presented by the report is a 2012 exchange between Zuckerberg and his chief financial officer at the time regarding the $1 billion Instagram acquisition. "One way of looking at this is that what we're really buying is time," Zuckerberg said, according to the report. "Even if some new competitors springs up, buying Instagram now ... will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again." A company spokesman told CNBC that "Facebook is an American success story." "We compete with a wide variety of services with millions, even billions, of people using them," the Facebook spokesman said in a statement. "Acquisitions are part of every industry, and just one way we innovate new technologies to deliver more value to people. Instagram and WhatsApp have reached new heights of success because Facebook has invested billions in those businesses. A strongly competitive landscape existed at the time of both acquisitions and exists today. Regulators thoroughly reviewed each deal and rightly did not see any reason to stop them at the time." SEE ALSO: Amazon bullies partners and vendors, says antitrust subcommittee Apples monopoly power over iPhone app distribution gives it outsized profits, Democrats say Google 'overwhelmingly' dominates search market, antitrust committee finds

Concern over stalling growth at core Facebook app

Among the findings was a 2018 internal company document titled the Cunningham Memo in which Facebook Senior Data Scientist Thomas Cunningham informed CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Vice President of Growth Javier Olivan that Instagram could hit a "tipping point" where its growth could ultimately come at the expense of all users leaving Facebook's blue app. "The question was how do we position Facebook and Instagram to not compete with each other," a former senior Instagram employee told the subcommittee (the report did not name this person). "It was collusion, but within an internal monopoly. If you own two social media utilities, they should not be allowed to shore each other up. It's unclear to me why this should not be illegal." The Cunningham Memo noted that "social apps have tipping points such that 'either everyone uses them, or no-one uses them.'" Another former employee told the subcommittee that at Facebook the only thing that matters is getting people to use the company's services just one minute longer. "Your only job is to get an extra minute," the former employee told the subcommittee. "It's immoral. They don't ask where it's coming from. They can monetize a minute of activity at a certain rate. So the only metric is getting another minute."

Veiled threats

In the negotiations of the deal, the report also notes a message exchange between Zuckerberg and Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom. The report describes the exchange as Zuckerberg suggesting that "refusing to enter into a partnership with Facebook, including an acquisition, would have consequences for Instagram." The report quotes Zuckerberg as saying: "At some point soon, you'll need to figure out how you actually want to work with us. This can be an acquisition, through a close relationship with Open Graph, through an arms length relationship using our traditional APIs, or perhaps not at all ... Of course, at the same time we're developing our own photos strategy, so how we engage now will determine how much we're partners vs. competitors down the line -- and I'd like to make sure we decide that thoughtfully as well." Zuckerberg made similar comments to Facebook's growth and product teams regarding WhatsApp, according to the report. WhatsApp posed a threat to the company's Messenger service, and in 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion. According to the report: "In the context of market strategies for Messenger competing with WhatsApp, Mr. Zuckerberg told the company's growth and product management teams that 'being first is how you build a brand and a network effect.' He also told them that Facebook has 'an opportunity to do this at scale, but that opportunity won't last forever. I doubt we have even a year before WhatsApp starts moving in this direction.'"

More users, more data
Washington: One of rock 'n' roll's singular and most gifted guitarists, Eddie Van Halen, has passed away aged 65.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Van Halen died "battling cancer". His son, Wolfgang, shared the news on Twitter.

"I can`t believe I`m having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning," he wrote.

"He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I`ve shared with him on stage and off stage was a gift," Wolf continued. "My heart is broken and I don`t think I`ll ever fully recover from this loss."

"I love you so much, Pop," he concluded.

The guitarist and bandleader had been the subject of near-death rumours for many years, some due to his documented substance-abuse issues but most stemming from the news of tongue cancer in 2000 -- which caused doctors to remove a third of his tongue, though Van Halen was declared cancer-free two years later. In recent months, however, reports stated that he was battling throat cancer and flying to Germany for specialised treatments.

In recent months, after a protracted period out of sight that led to more rumours of ill-health, Van Halen made a determined attempt at a public profile. During October he was photographed at a McLaren auto dealership in Beverly Hills, and shortly after that he attended Tool`s October concert in Los Angeles -- and even took a photo for a fan who didn`t recognise him.

In December, Van Halen posted holiday messages and celebrated the release of some new branded gear at this year`s NAMM Show and, most recently, wished his son a `happy birthday` on March 16.

"I feel like a 60-year-old punk kid who plays guitar in a rock band, and I am so blessed and so honoured to be able to do that, making music," Van Halen said during a 2017 public interview for whatitmeanstobeamerican.org at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Van Halen was born on January 26, 1955, in the Netherlands. His father, Jan Van Halen, was a classically trained clarinettist, saxophonist, and pianist.

"Music was a common thread throughout our lives ... ever since we were young," Van Halen said at the Smithsonian, adding, presciently, "We always liked things loud."

In 1962, the Van Halens moved to Pasadena, where Van Halen and his older brother Al took piano lessons and became contest-winning youth players - despite Eddie`s inability to read music.

But enamoured by rock `n` roll and, specifically, the Dave Clark Five`s `Glad All Over,` the younger Van Halen took up drums. "I never wanted to play the guitar," he said at the Smithsonian. But hearing Alex play his drum kit and realizing his brother was better, "I said, `Go ahead, take my drums and I`ll play your damn guitar ...`"By the time Van Halen`s debut album came out in 1978, Eddie had become an accomplished and innovative player as well as an avowed gearhead who experimented with instruments, amplifiers, and effects.

With the Van Halen instrumental `Eruption,` meanwhile, popularised the tapping technique that had been introduced by predecessors, advancing it by using both hands to on the guitar neck to blend percussive and melodic elements.

Van Halen told `Guitar World` during a concert at the Los Angeles Forum, "I think I got the idea of tapping watching Jimmy Page do his `Heartbreaker` solo back in 1971. He was doing a pull-off to an open string, and I thought, `Wait a minute, open string...pull off, I can do that, but what if I use my finger as the nut and move it around?` I just kind of took it and ran with it."

Acknowledging at the Smithsonian that he did not invent tapping, Van Halen added that, "I never really heard anybody do with it what I really did, which was actual pieces of music. The main reason I squeeze so many, you call them tricks, whatever, out of a guitar is out of necessity. I couldn`t afford the pedals, the fuzz box, and all the toys everybody else had. So, I did all I could to get all the sound I could out of my fingers."

The run included a dozen studio albums during the Van Halen band`s on-and-off run, adding synthesizers to the mix for hits such as `Jump` and `I`ll Wait.`

He also played the solo on Michael Jackson`s 1982 hit `Beat It` and made guest contributions to albums by onetime Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar, Queen`s Brian May, Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters and LL Cool J and David Garfield.

Meanwhile, Van Halen`s inventive streak led to a number of patents for guitar body technologies. Van Halen noted, "More is always better. The main thing is I always ask myself, `What if I do this? What`ll happen if I do this?`...through trial and error."

A perpetual winner of guitar polls -- he was voted No. 1 by readers of `Guitar World` in 2012 -- Van Halen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, though he did not attend the ceremony. The band also won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocal in 1992. The group has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide, the last of which, `A Different Kind of Truth`, came out in 2012, with `Tokyo Dome Live in Concert` following three years later.

Van Halen was married twice -- to actor Valerie Bertinelli from 1981-2007, and to Jane Liszewski since 2008. Wolfgang Van Halen, meanwhile, played bass in Van Halen from its 2006 reunion with original frontman David Lee Roth.The memorial arrangements for Van Halen are pending.


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Bengaluru, Oct 7 : The 10-day Dasara festival which was supposed to bring a smile to the faces of flower sellers and flower decorators of the iconic Krishna Rajendra Market in the heart of the city has failed to cheer them up so far.

K. R. Market (Krishna Rajendra Market), also known as City Market, is the largest wholesale market dealing in various commodities in Bengaluru.

It is named after Krishnarajendra Wodeyar, a former ruler of Mysuru. The market is located in the Kalasipalyam area, adjacent to the Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace.

K.R. Market was established in 1928. The location of the market is said to have been a water tank earlier and then a battlefield in the 18th century during the Anglo-Mysore Wars. Two buildings remain from the British era, at the front and back of the market area.

A riot of colours, countless baskets of flowers, haggling customers, and a chaotic madness which is surprisingly enjoyable, is what you will find in this market with numerous vendors lined up for business.

In this bustling market, the flower sellers are still sceptical about their business reaching the pre-Covid levels but many feel that this festival might at least help them reach a reasonable level of financial stability.

Most of the flower sellers say that their business has fallen by almost 65 to 70 per cent compared to the previous year. The worst affected in this segment are the flower decorators who say their business has fallen by 75 per cent to 80 per cent due to the closure of marriage halls, convention centres, schools and colleges.

Speaking to IANS, 45-year-old flower seller Shivarayappa said that people aren't buying flowers as much as they used to in the past.

"I sell garlands near temples but it has not picked up yet, I am waiting for Aayudha pooja to bring back my business to earlier levels. I used to sell a minimum of Rs 3000 to Rs 4500 worth of garlands but now I am not even reaching Rs 1000 to Rs 1500 per day. I strongly feel that is partially because of Adhika Masa (inauspicious month) followed by Pitrupaksha (another inauspicious fortnight), therefore, I might not have sold flowers as much as I used to sell last year," he explained.

According to him, Dasara is the only hope for the vendors to improve their business.

Another vendor Muniswamy who sells loose flowers said that rich shopkeepers and businessmen who used to buy truck loads of flowers every day to decorate the deities during the festival season, are not buying in such large quantities ever since the flower market reopened on September 1.

"I used to send huge quantities of flowers to Tirumala temple and Shirdi Sai Baba temple besides various other temples across the city, on the orders of businessmen to fulfil their vow to decorate such temples on a particular day of their choice," he said.

A flower decorator based in the City market, Nizmatulla Sharief, said "with no marriages, parties and corporate offices functioning with the lowest possible number of staff, people are not even thinking of celebrating Dasara in a big way this time. With less money in hand, flower decoration is the last priority for all, hence, no big decoration orders have come as yet." The owner of Maruti Flower shop in Indiranagar H. Pradeep who had come to purchase flowers in the wholesale market, said that his last satisfactory business was in February and thereafter due to the lockdown he could not carry out any business. "Unless schools, colleges and corporates start functioning to full capacity, the demand for flowers will continue to be sluggish." Bengaluru Flower Merchants Association president, G. M. Devaraj said that 2020 has been a very bad year for business. "City Market which thrives on customers is seeing very poor footfall. The current footfall is just 25 percent of what it used to be.

"Unless a Covid-19 vaccine is discovered, the market is likely to remain sluggish. Flower, vegetable and fruit sales go hand in hand. Until marriages and big conventions with large gatherings make a comeback, our business will remain dull," he added.

According to him it is a chain link -- marriages, gatherings, religious functions and political functions keep the kitchen fires burning.

"Perishable commodities largely depend on these and not home based customers. For instance, a person who works from home will always consume less in his/her house in comparison to when he/she goes out for work or attends public functions," he explained.

He added that the lockdown for nearly five months resulted in farmers who used to grow flowers opting for other crops. As a result of this, the quantity of flowers reaching the market has fallen to just 40 per cent compared to last year.

"Now again the same farmer will have to cultivate flowers once again and wait for them to bloom, which takes no less than three months from the day the farmer plants them. So for another four-five months, we may not get stocks like earlier," he said.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
A pregnant wife has sobbed in court as her husband was sentenced to six years behind bars for raping a teenage girl, and has even vowed to stand by him.

Tewuritai Karito, 29, carried out the sickening attack in Queensland last year, leaving the teenager traumatised.

The Maroochydore District Court heard the young woman yell 'get off me' and tried to fight off Karito before he put his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams.

His wife Kursty sat in the gallery as the disturbing details of the father-of-four's sexual assault were revealed.

In a letter to court, she claimed her husband was a 'selfless and caring' man who had an 'amazing bond' with their four sons, as the judge heard she was standing by him.

'She states that she has been by his side the entire time so she remains a support and lives in the household,' Mr Turner said.

Pregnant wife Kursty Karito (pictured, right) sobbed in court as her husband Tewuritai Karito (left) was sentenced to six years behind bars for raping a teenage girl

The ordeal began when the victim, who was asleep on a couch, awoke to Karito groping her and whispering in her ear, the Sunshine Coast Daily reported on Wednesday.

She elbowed Karito and told him to stop and then went back to sleep.

But the girl woke up a second time to find groping her once again, and pleaded with him to stop.

But on the third occasion she found Karito forcing his hand inside her underwear.

The court heard the victim cried and attempted to kick her attacker away.



'But he inserted two fingers inside her vagina and thrust them in and out,' crown prosecutor Christopher Cook told the court.

Karito (pictured) pleaded guilty after being charged with two counts of sexual assault and one count of rape

Karito (pictured) put his hand over the victim's mouth to muffle her screams

Karito then placed his hand over her mouth and continued the depraved assault, penetrating the girl's vagina with his penis and thrusting three times, Mr Cook added.

The girl eventually managed to break free and locked herself in the bathroom of the home.

In the moments that followed, Karito told her to keep the incident to herself.

Karito pleaded guilty after being charged with two counts of sexual assault and one count of rape.

His wife Kursty has continued to stand by Karito after he confessed to the crimes.

The court heard Karito is at risk of being deported following his sentence as he was born in the Cook Islands and is on a temporary visa.

'He stated that he is terribly sorry for causing this young woman and her family trauma, emotional pain and grief,' defence barrister Nathan Turner told the court.

Although Mr Turner said Karito holds himself 100 per cent accountable and doesn't make any excuses for his unacceptable behaviour, he added that alcohol was a contributing factor.

Judge Gary Long acknowledged that with strong support from his wife and family, Karito has promising prospects of rehabilitation.

But he ruled the offending was persistent and involved a betrayal of trust that would likely have an ongoing impact on the victim.

Karito will be eligible for parole in just 20 months.

If you or anyone you know is in need of sexual violence support, you can call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or MensLine on 1800 600 636.
DV20-211: 351 g/t silver over 12.75 meters, including 1083 g/t silver over 2.70 meters

including DV20-213: 135 g/t silver over 37.50 meters, including 906 g/t silver over 1.00 meter

Highlights from infill drilling within the deposit to delineate high grade zones:

DV20-217: 302 g/t silver over 31.95 meters, including 642 g/t silver over 4.00 meters

* The true width of intercepts are estimated to be 80-95% of the Core Length (m) reported using the current understanding of the three dimensional nature of the mineralization and grade models at Torbrit. Interval lengths are constrained by grade values within the mineralization envelope. Recoveries on the individual metals have not been applied to composite calculations which are reported at 100%. Silver equivalent for lead and zinc intercepts have not been included.

"We are pleased to see step out drill intercepts with consistent, strong silver mineralization, significant thickness, and areas of very high-grade silver. These results should support continued resource expansion and the growing potential for bulk underground mining around the past-producing Torbrit Silver Mine. We look forward to additional results as multiple high grade silver exploration and expansion targets are being drilled this season," said Shawn Khunkhun, President and CEO of Dolly Varden Silver."

The drilling completed at Torbrit stepped out in various directions from 20 to 50 meters from previous drilling intercepts. Infill drilling was also completed to better understand and strengthen the wide, higher grade silver areas within the current Mineral Resource at Torbrit. Hole DV20-217 is a 50 meter step-out from previous hole DV18-163 which intersected 419 g/t silver over 75 meters, including 1,240 g/t silver over 16 meters. This new intercept suggests that a higher-grade zone may be much larger than currently modeled within the current 43-101 Mineral Resource estimate.

Assays are currently pending from several drill holes at the Torbrit Deposit, with an additional 17 drill holes completed to-date from the property-wide exploration drilling program. Currently, there are two drills testing high priority exploration targets throughout the Dolly Varden property. A recently approved increase to the 2020 Exploration Budget has allowed the exploration team to continue drilling later into the fall, in excess of the original 10,000 meter program.

Table 1 Composite Silver, Lead and Zinc Results from Drill Core

Hole-ID From (m) To (m) Core Length (m) Ag (g/t) Pb (%) Zn (%) Mineralization DV20-209 109.00 114.00 5.00 158 0.15 0.03 Vein Breccia DV20-210 111.00 114.00 3.00 176 0.79 0.07 Vein Breccia

156.05 166.40 10.35 16 0.07 0.12 Torbrit East extend DV20-211 147.25 160.00 12.75 351 0.41 0.09 Torbrit East edge incl 147.25 150.60 3.35 951 0.39 0.16

incl 147.90 150.60 2.70 1083 0.39 0.19

DV20-212 132.75 133.75 1.00 227 2.30 0.09 Torbrit East edge DV20-213 129.00 166.50 37.50 134 0.45 0.28 Torbrit incl 129.00 145.45 12.85 191 0.30 0.41 Torbrit upper lens incl 129.00 130.00 1.00 906 2.40 2.48

incl 152.00 166.50 14.50 160 0.97 0.31 Torbrit lower lens DV20-214 117.00 121.00 4.00 185 0.48 0.07 Vein Breccia

151.50 174.15 22.65 56 0.27 0.09 Torbrit horizon incl 166.00 169.00 3.00 166 0.05 0.11

DV20-215 No significant results Torbrit edge DV20-216 112.00 115.66 3.66 134 0.23 0.34 Vein Breccia DV20-217 29.35 61.30 31.95 302 0.15 0.21 Torbrit horizon incl 47.00 51.00 4.00 642 0.24 0.10

DV20-217 77.00 79.15 2.15 515 8.57 5.90 Torbrit lower lens



*The true width of intercepts are estimated to be 80-95% of the Core Length (m) reported using the current understanding of the three dimensional nature of the mineralization and grade models at Torbrit. Interval lengths are constrained by grade values within the mineralization envelope. Recoveries on the individual metals have not been applied to composite calculations which are reported at 100%. Silver equivalent for lead and zinc intercepts have not been included.

Torbrit Deposit

The main Torbrit deposit hosts stratiform exhalative-style silver mineralization overprinted by epithermal vein mineralization, with associated lead and zinc. Additional technical information on Torbrit including drilling plan map can be found at https://www.dollyvardensilver.com/.

The locations of diamond drill holes reported in this release are shown in Table 2 below.

Table 2 Drillhole Locations

Hole ID Easting UTM83 (m) Northing UTM83 (m) Elev. (m) Azimuth Dip Length (m) DV20-209 468318 6171324 596 33 -45 203 DV20-210 468318 6171324 596 47 -50 302 DV20-211 468318 6171324 596 41 -83 215 DV20-212 468318 6171324 596 85 -72 200 DV20-213 468220 6171350 537 45 -54 400.5 DV20-214 468220 6171350 537 45 -45 195 DV20-215 468169 6171422 502 45 -68 242.5 DV20-216 468169 6171422 502 45 -45 199 DV20-217 468021 6171425 391 350 -63 254.5

Quality Assurance and Quality Control

Analytical testing was performed by ALS Canada Ltd. in Vancouver, British Columbia. The entire sample is crushed and a 500 gram split is pulverized. Multi-element analyses were determined by InductivelyCoupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) for 48 elements following a 4-acid digestion process. High grade silver testing was determined by Fire Assay with either an atomic absorption, or a gravimetric finish, depending on grade range. A QA/QC procedure is maintained through the insertion of certified reference material geo-standards provided by CDN Resource Laboratories Ltd. and WCM Minerals, as well as the insertion of blanks, in the sample stream. The QA/QC procedures are overseen by the Qualified Person, Rob van Egmond, P.Geo., Chief Geologist. The Company adheres to CIM Best Practices Guidelines for exploration related activities conducted on its property.

Qualified Person

Rob van Egmond, P.Geo, Chief Geologist for Dolly Varden Silver, is the "Qualified Person" as defined by NI43-101. He has reviewed, validated and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this news release and supervises the ongoing exploration program at Dolly Varden Silver.

About Dolly Varden Silver Corporation

Dolly Varden Silver Corporation is a mineral exploration company focused on exploration in northwestern British Columbia. Dolly Varden has two projects, the namesake Dolly Varden silver property and the nearby Big Bulk copper-gold property. The Dolly Varden property is considered to be highly prospective for hosting high-grade precious metal deposits, since it comprises the same structural and stratigraphic setting that host numerous other high-grade deposits (Eskay Creek, Brucejack). The Big Bulk property is prospective for porphyry and skarn style copper and gold mineralization similar to other such deposits in the region (Red Mountain, KSM, Red Chris).

Forward Looking Statements

This release may contain forward-looking statements or forward-looking information under applicable Canadian securities legislation that may not be based on historical fact, including, without limitation, statements containing the words "believe", "may", "plan", "will", "estimate", "continue", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "potential" and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of Dolly Varden to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements or information relates to, among other things, completion of the Offering, Exchange approval of the Offering, the use of proceeds with respect to the Offerings, the results of previous field work and programs and the continued operations of the current exploration program, interpretation of the nature of the mineralization at the project and that that the mineralization on the project is similar to Eskay and Brucejack, results of the mineral resource estimate on the project, the potential to grow the project, the potential to expand the mineralization, the planning for further exploration work, the ability to de-risk the potential exploration targets, and our beliefs about the unexplored portion of the property. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs but given the uncertainties, assumptions and risks, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements or information. The Company disclaims any obligation to update, or to publicly announce, any such statements, events or developments except as required by law.

For additional information on risks and uncertainties, see the Company's most recently filed annual management discussion & analysis ("MD&A"), which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The risk factors identified in the MD&A are not intended to represent a complete list of factors that could affect the Company.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

SOURCE Dolly Varden Silver Corp.
AndBeyond.Media, the new-age and tech-first ad solutions company, will host a virtual webinar in partnership with Quintype tomorrow. This is a joint initiative by both the businesses which has been especially designed for publishers and content creators to help them understand monetisation strategies to boost ad revenue on their websites. Pankil Mehta, Chief Business Officer, AndBeyond.Media & Alchemy Group will be taking the audience of over 150 attendees through a virtual tour of the know-how of programmatic ads.

In less than 30 minutes, the webinar will cover rudiments of programmatic ads, various options to monetize content, how to build a competent programmatic ad stack, how to navigate the complexities of the global pandemic and much more. The webinar called Programmatic Ads 101: Stop leaving money on the table is being held tomorrow i.e. October 8th 2020 at 1pm IST and is encouraged for anyone in the ads business who wants to stay ahead of the curve.

Commenting on this initiative, Pankil Mehta, Chief Business Officer, AndBeyond.Media said, Owing to the current pandemic, now more than ever, publishers need guidance in terms of navigating through the situation and maximising monetisation of their content. Our aim at AndBeyond.Media is to enable publishers and content creators globally to make the most of the content no matter the screen or format. By offering new age monetization solutions, we aim to bring a new revolution of scale via programmatic in our offerings backed by technological prowess to ensure that our clients reap the full benefits.

He further added, Over the past five years, our time and efforts have been focused on understanding and fine-tuning the essentials of adtech and today, we are proud to say that our business has grown exponentially and is catering to the last-mile needs of our publishers. Our partnership with Quintype is a testament of the fact that we are only thriving to better serve publishers and help them drive growth in new avenues of digital advertising.

Aditya Sanjit, Customer Success Manager, Quintype, commented on this partnership, "Helping publishers to build a sustainable digital business has always been a priority for us here at Quintype. Furthermore, in partnering with AndBeyond.Media for this webinar, we hope to discuss how publishers can improve their fill rates and increase RPM."

The webinar will be conducted via Zoom and there are limited slots available. Registration is free of cost and simple. More details can be sourced here.
Former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno was remembered on Wednesday as a fighter, whether in the boxing ring, at the state Capitol seeking to bring economic development to upstate New York or in the courtroom for his innocence.

Bruno, who grew up in Glens Falls, served as majority leader of the state Senate from 1994 to 2008. He grew up in the citys East End and graduated from the former St. Marys Academy in 1947.

Bruno was an avid boxer. He said previously he grew up in a tough neighborhood and took up the sport because he was a little guy, according to Post-Star archives. He boxed competitively and later while serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.

He lived in Brunswick in Rensselaer County and spent winters in Palm Beach, Florida.

Tributes poured in Wednesday as news of his death spread.

He was a great leader, because he always looked at both sides of an issue and thoroughly investigated and listened to peoples concerns and made a decision, said state Sen. Betty Little, R-Queensbury.

Little said Bruno considered Glens Falls almost his second district. He was always responsive and could be persuasive.

She recalled a time when Bruno supported a bill to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. Little was initially hesitant to vote for the legislation because in her district, bars and restaurants were often the only places to hang out.

Little said she told him she did not think she could support it.

You should be able to vote for it. Its a good thing, she said Bruno told her. Ultimately, she voted yes on the bill.

Getting the chip plant

Helping to bring the AMD computer chip manufacturing plant to Malta was one of Brunos economic accomplishments in the Legislature.

He really and truly believed in that company  what it could do for Malta and the surrounding area  more than any company than he had been working with, Little said.

She also recalled when Bruno helped obtain $5.5 million to connect the old and new portions of Gore Mountain Ski Area in Johnsburg.

It brings the mountain closer to the actual hamlet of North Creek, and that was what the community wanted, she said.

Little said Bruno was a strong family man.

Indicted, acquitted

Bruno resigned his Senate position in 2008 in the midst of an FBI investigation. He was indicted on eight counts of mail and wire fraud for trading on his political position to earn money as a consultant for businesses and unions.

He was convicted at trial in 2009, but the Supreme Court overturned the conviction. He was acquitted of the remaining counts at a retrial in 2014.

Little said Brunos fall from grace was sad.

The things they were trying to get him on were things maybe that somebody was thinking (he had done wrong), but there was no proof of anything, she said.

Gentleman

Moreau Town Supervisor Todd Kusnierz worked in Brunos office during his tenure as majority leader. Kusnierz called him the consummate gentleman who spent his life working to better peoples lives.

Bruno knew how to relate to people, Kusnierz said.

He had a knack for immediately connecting with everyone he came in contact with  whether it was one on one, or in a large group setting. He had this innate ability to make those he was talking with feel like they were the only one in the room, he said.

Bruno treated his colleagues with respect, Kusnierz said. He would reach out to every senator  even those who were not in the majority  to see if they or their constituents needed anything.

Bruno delivered a lot for his own constituents  including the expansion at Albany International Airport and renovation of the Rensselaer rail station.

Kusnierz said having a Senate majority leader from this area was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

He brought untold state funding and federal funding to the Capital District that otherwise never would have been accessible, he said.

Good at defusing

Bruno was a tough negotiator, but was always able to defuse a tense situation with wit and candor, Kusnierz said. He recalled a time when Bruno and then-Gov. George Pataki were not getting along during a tough budget season. When reporters asked about the dispute, Bruno offered this comment:

Its similar to having a squabble that is not unlike those that occur in marriages from time to time, but at the end of the day, you still love them.

Brunos word was his bond, Kusnierz said.

With Senator Bruno, all you had to hear was: Yes, he will do that, or yes he supports that and he will get it taken care of, he said.

At his criminal trial, Bruno was determined to fight for his innocence, Kusnierz said.

Ive been in politics for almost my entire adult life. Ive seen how those types of accusations can irrevocably destroy an individuals reputation, and he cared very much about his reputation, he said. I think the fact that he was vindicated in the end meant the world to him.

A voice for upstate

Assemblyman Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, did not serve with Bruno. But Brunos tenure as majority leader helped provide balance during a time of divided government, Stec said.

He was in a position to keep the state from falling into some of the pitfalls that it is now under (with) one-party rule, Stec said.

Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce President Michael Bittel, who served as chairman of the Washington County Republicans from 2005 to 2009, agreed that Bruno made sure upstate had a seat at the table in Albany. He recalled an appearance Bruno made at a Rensselaer County farm.

That farmer was saying, if it wasnt for Senator Bruno and all of his help and attention, the upstate economy would be vastly different than it is today, he said.

He always was a gentleman and treated everybody the same, Bittel said.

Bruno was also a snappy dresser. In 2002, he was voted The Best Groomed American in New York by the Neighborhood Cleaners Association  a dry cleaning industry trade group.

Bipartisan tributes

Other tributes poured in from both sides of the political aisle.

State Sen. Daphne Jordan, R-Halfmoon, called Bruno a true lion of the Senate, an incredible leader, public servant, father, fighter and friend who fought for upstate.

Senator Joe Bruno is forever the Capital Regions undefeated champion, his legacy of service, vision and record of achievement  from GlobalFoundries to the Rensselaer rail station to The Joe (a ballpark in Troy)  will live on for generations. God bless the memory of this great man who so faithfully served his community, state, and nation, she said in a news release.

State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, a Democrat, also issued a statement of condolences.

New York lost an icon today with the passing of former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. The senator served his community for over three decades, the last 14 as majority leader where he led the state through difficult times, he said. A tough negotiator and straight-talker, he was also beloved by so many for his kindness and great sense of humor. He was dedicated to the Capital Region and always 100% behind efforts to position this area for a better future.

Brunos funeral will take place on Friday at 1 p.m. at St. Pius X in Loudonville. Because of COVID-19, it will be livestreamed on the churchs website.

On the way to the church, Brunos body will be driven past Joseph L. Bruno stadium and, after the Mass, he will be driven past the state Capitol. A private burial service will take place at Oakwood Cemetery in Troy.

Donations in his memory may be made to the Alzheimers Center of Albany Medical Center at 47 New Scotland Ave., Albany NY 12208 or the Northeast Kidney Foundation at 22 Colvin Ave., Albany, NY 12206.

Reach Michael Goot at 518-742-3320 or mgoot@poststar.com and follow his blog poststar.com/blogs/michael_goot/.

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New Delhi: Bollywood actor Payal Ghosh on Wednesday met Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy and sought speedy justice, in the wake of her allegation of sexual misconduct against filmmaker Anurag Kashyap. Met up with Shri G Krishan Reddy who is the MOS of @AmitShah ji at @HMOIndia and also the minister of state of home ministry and had a very fruitful and forwarded conversation on the issue. Its an issue faced by many and now is the time to act (sic), she tweeted.

The meeting came about a fortnight after the Mumbai Police registered an FIR against Kashyap following Ghoshs accusation that he had sexually assaulted her in 2013. The filmmaker has dismissed the allegations as baseless.

Before meeting the union minister, Ghosh told reporters that she has come to seek speedy justice. I will ask for intervention of the home ministry, if required. I have already met the NCW (National Commission for Women), she said.

Ghosh, however, did not speak to journalists after meeting the minister. She had also tweeted in the morning: I am heading to @HMOIndia to meet the officials. Its a fight to the end and no fake agenda can deter me. Bring it on. #LetTruthComeOut.

The FIR was registered under the 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), police had said. In her complaint, the actor had alleged that Kashyap had raped her at a place on Yari Road in Versova in 2013.

Kashyap vehemently denied the actors allegation and termed it as an attempt to silence him for his outspoken views. Hehas also said that at the time of the alleged incident, he was in Sri Lanka and that he was actively pursuing legal options.

Kashyaps lawyer Priyanka Khimani said on October 2: Mr Kashyap has categorically denied that any such alleged incident ever took place and has also denied all allegations levelled against him".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended birthday wishes to his friend and Russian President Vladimir Putin on his 68th birthday on Wednesday. Both leaders held a telephonic conversation, where they discussed challenges, including those posed by Covid-19 pandemic. They also agreed to remain in touch over the coming days.

Spoke to my friend President Vladimir Putin to greet him on his birthday today. Appreciated his immense personal contribution to strengthening the special and privileged strategic partnership between India and Russia, said the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) in an official statement.

In the phone call, both leaders agreed to remain in touch over the coming days, including on the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, it also said.

PM Modi also expressed keenness to welcome President Putin in India, as soon as possible public health situation normalises, according to the statement.

India and Russia are old allies on the international forum. Since PM Modi came into power, both leaders have maintained constant touch and discussed ways to strengthen the bilateral relations.

In June this year, both leaders discussed strategy to jointly address the challenges of the post-Covid world. They also discussed strategy to strengthen the Indo-Russia ties.
Ever since the launch of the Pan-Canadian artificial intelligence (AI) Strategy in 2017  the first ever national AI strategy  Canada has been the focus of sustained attention from the academic, IT and business communities. So, what are the key objectives of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy? What progress has been made to date? What is the long-term potential for Canada to develop as a globally significant centre of expertise in AI? And how best can IT professionals contribute to this ongoing development?

National AI strategy

Founded in 2017, the pioneering CIFAR Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy (CIFAR) works in partnership with the country's three national AI Institutes - Amii in Alberta, Mila in Montreal, and the Vector Institute in Toronto - to achieve four key objectives. Firstly, to increase the number of outstanding artificial intelligence researchers and skilled graduates in Canada. Secondly, to establish interconnected nodes of scientific excellence in the countrys three major centres for artificial intelligence in Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto. Thirdly, to develop global thought leadership on the economic, ethical, policy and legal implications of advances in AI; and, fourthly, to support a national research community on artificial intelligence. As Elissa Strome, AVP Research and Executive Director - Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, explains, since its establishment three years ago, CIFAR has already made great progress towards its objectives.

The AI Institutes are all thriving hubs of their respective AI ecosystems, and there is a great deal of collaboration, exchange and training happening across all three Institutes, she says.
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Literacy serves as the foundation of education, and the ability to read and write well is critical to a child's success in school and beyond. As part of the Show Me Literacies Collaborative, University of Missouri researchers will collaborate with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to strengthen reading and writing skills for Missouri students in K-12 classrooms across the state.

The Missouri Language and Literacies Center, which will receive $2.75 million over 5 years to help early childhood educators extend family literacy practices into the classroom, is led by Angie Zapata, an associate professor in the MU College of Education.

"By partnering with teachers, students and their families, we want to tap into the languages and literacies that families already use in their homes as resources for learning to read and write," Zapata said. "Our goal is to enhance early childhood classrooms by being inclusive of the rich digital, visual and multilingual literacies our Missouri children and families bring."

A daughter of Peruvian immigrants, Zapata was an elementary school teacher of multilingual students in Texas before joining the MU College of Education in 2013. Her research aims to support early career teachers with reading and writing initiatives that incorporate the increasingly diverse backgrounds of students in Missouri classrooms.

"This work is both a professional passion and personal love for me, as I think of the children in my own life who I see functioning in this really dynamic landscape," Zapata said. "When I think of the 3-year old kids with an iPad in one hand and a crayon in the other, I realize they are living in an environment with so many language and literacy resources at their disposal. So, how can we leverage and integrate those resources into the classroom so that those languages and literacies are sustained in school as well?"

The Missouri Writing Projects Network, which will receive $2.7 million over 5 years to help elementary, middle and high school teachers develop and implement literacy plans, is led by Amy Lannin, an associate professor in the MU College of Education and director of MU's Campus Writing Program.

"Through professional development initiatives, we can provide reading and writing support for teachers, especially at the elementary, middle school and high school level," Lannin said. "By creating collaborative and sustained learning opportunities, we can help students engage in reading and writing practices every day that will help them as engaged citizens over the course of their lives."

Before coming to MU, Lannin spent 11 years as a middle and high school English teacher in Nebraska. Her passion for teaching and mentorship will help teachers feel more supported and improve both reading and writing skills for Missouri students.

"The programs from this grant project can help teachers expand their network and find those professional connections to support them," Lannin said. "By creating these programs to help teachers succeed, they will be more likely to stay with the profession and positively impact the students they mentor."

Funding for the grants was provided by the US Department of Education to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). The 5-year, $18 million project establishes a statewide partnership between DESE and the Show Me Literacies Collaborative, which includes MU's Missouri Language and Literacies Center, the Missouri Writing Project, the Missouri Reading Initiative, as well as teams from the University of Central Missouri and University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Note: MU will work in conjunction with DESE to provide services to schools who are awarded these services through a competitive sub-grant process. Missouri's public and charter schools may apply for grant services to be provided by DESE in partnership with the UM System.

###
A woman was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison for her role in a scheme to illegally smuggle millions of dollars worth of aircraft parts from her Morristown home to Iran, federal prosecutors said.

Joyce Marie Eliabachus, 53, pleaded guilty last year to one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for her role in sending at least 49 shipments containing more than 23,000 license-controlled aircraft parts worth over $2 million to Iran without the required licenses, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito.

The act grants the President permission to regulate international commerce due to a national security threat. For decades, the United States government has imposed sanctions by banning various dealings with the country.

Eliabachus ran Edsun Equipments LLC out of her home where she was a part of an international network that acquired large quantities of aircraft components from United States-based manufacturers and vendors before shipping them to Iran between May 2015 through October 2017, Carpenito said.

According to the U.S. Attorneys Office, she worked with others including Peyman Amiri Larijani, 34, of Iran, whose clients included Iranian airline companies, several of which have been deemed a national security threat to the United States. One of the companies Larijani worked with has been sanctioned by the United States government for providing financial, material and technological support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Charges against Larijani were still pending Tuesday, authorities said.

Eliabachus used her company to finalize the purchase and acquisition of requested components before repackaging and shipping them to shipping companies in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, where Larijani directed the parts to Iran, federal prosecutors

In an attempt to hide the network, Eliabachus falsified the destination of the components and the true value of them in order to avoid filing export control forms, Carpenito said.

The Iranian conspirators wired money to Eliabachus' Edsun Equipment accounts using Turkish bank accounts held in the names of shell companies, officials said.

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

Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
By PTI

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh police on Wednesday booked four persons including Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan on sedition and other charges at Maant police station in Mathura, two days after they were held while on their way to Hathras.

According to the FIR, charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the IT Act have also been filed against the four, who were accused by the state police of having links with the alleged radical group Popular Front of India and its affiliates.

The four were identified as Kappan, a journalist of Malapuram in Kerala, Atiq-ur-Rehman of Muzaffarnagar, Masood Ahmad of Bahraich and Alam of Rampur.

READ| AAP MLA booked for meeting kin of victim after testing COVID-19 positive

They were on Wednesday booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including 124A (sedition), 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 295A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belie), according to the FIR.

The PFI has been accused of funding protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act across the country earlier this year and the UP police had sought a ban on the outfit.

The four were held when, according to the police, they were on their way to Hathras were a Dalit woman had died after allegedly being gang-raped.
On This Day The Day When a US President Praised a Student From Myanmar

US president Andrew Johnson (left), Maung Shaw Loo (middle) and King Mindon (right)
New Delhi, Oct 7 : Dinesh Kumar Khara on Wednesday took charge as the new Chairman of the State Bank of India (SBI) for a period of three years.

He succeeds Rajnish Kumar, whose term ended on October 6.

Khara was appointed the Chairman on Tuesday. Prior to his new role, he was Managing Director, Global Banking & Subsidiaries at the SBI.

Khara has over three and a half decades of rich and diverse experience in all facets of banking such as retail, corporate credit, and international banking.

In a statement, the state-run bank on Wednesday said that as Managing Director, Khara was instrumental in successfully executing the merger of five associate banks and Bhartiya Mahila Bank with the SBI that made the bank join the league of top 50 banks globally.

Khara has also served SBI Funds Management Pvt. Ltd. (SBIMF) as MD and CEO prior to his appointment as Managing Director at SBI, and under his leadership, it went on to become the fifth largest mutual fund company in India.

In August, the Banks Board Bureau recommended his name to head to the country's largest public sector bank.
The Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF) will integrate human factors into its activities and contribute to making the industry progress on human factors.

In OCIMFs newly-released Human Factors Approach paper, the forum outlines its approach to human factors.

The organisations mission, which was updated at the beginning of 2020, promises that human factors will be considered in everything the organisation does.

OCIMF aims to improve safety and environmental protection in the maritime industry by considering human factors when providing guidance and recommendations.

It includes a set of principles that guide OCIMFs actions on human factors.

Besides it declares an overall goal for OCIMF; a framework to understand how human factors issues impact operations; and opportunities to take action.-- Tradearabia News Service
THE NIGHTWORKERS

By Brian Selfon

308 pp. MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $27.

Image

By the end of the first chapter of The Nightworkers, a painter and fentanyl dealer named Emil Scott is dead. To tell us how he ended up that way, Selfons thriller takes us back in time to describe a rogues gallery of ex-cons and petty crooks involved in or circling around a money-laundering operation in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

As a former chief investigative analyst for the Brooklyn District Attorneys Office, Selfon clearly knows his way around a criminal conspiracy. His ringleader here is Shecky Keenan, whose beloved niece Kerasha is newly out on parole. Along with Kerashas cousin Henry, they form a family business whose services include helping people avoid unnecessary entanglements with the I.R.S. or pay college tuitions in cash without raising eyebrows.

Some of the bank accounts Shecky relies on have closed for unknown reasons. Theres also a mysterious blue Chevy Impala parked on their street a bit too often. Perhaps its a hit man. To make matters worse, Kerashas kleptomaniacal habits threaten to cause her even more trouble, and Henry, straddled with some kind of debt, is keeping company with a nogoodnik murderer named Lipz.
An Australian company is determined to bring an end to the coronavirus pandemic, creating tests that can give results back in just 15 minutes - but the government hasn't bought a single unit.

Ellume, a Brisbane medical technology company received a $42million contract with the US government to roll out the testing kits, which are expected to be available in the country in the coming weeks.

The three COVID-19 tests can be used at home, by medical professionals and in areas with large crowds like airports and stadiums.

But while the tests are set to be available in America next month, the Australian government is yet to offer any interest, The Australian reported.

An Australian medical technology company has created coronavirus tests that can produce results in just 15 minutes (pictured, a man is tested at a Sydney pop up clinic)

Ellume's Chief executive and founder Sean Parsons said it was frustrating to receive no word about rolling out the tests locally.

'We have been having discussions with the Queensland state government, which have largely fallen on deaf ears,' Dr Parsons told newspaper.

'I'd be lying if I said it wasn't frustrating.

'We have unique technology that has been hard fought over a decade and it is a little bit disappointing the Australian government hasn't been interested and understood the value that could bring to COVID.'

Ellume is producing an at home coronavirus test (pictured) which allows patients to collect their own samples which are examined via a device connected to their smartphones

The second test rolled out by Ellume allows for up to eight samples to be examined at the same time giving results back in a matter of minutes (pictured)

The three tests under production by Ellume all involve devices that transmit patient samples digitally before the results appear on screen.

Ellume's at home test requires patients to take their own sample from their nostril.

The test then uses an analyser that's connected to their smartphone via Bluetooth which then digitally transmits the results onto the phone.

The second test allows for eight samples to be examined at the one time and will be a useful tool for laboratories.

The test is ran on Ellume's 'Access eHub' which is a portable, digital device that can give results back in just 15 minutes, while in strong positive cases results can appear in just three minutes.

Experts believe faster testing would encourage more people to take part as they wouldn't have to isolate for long while awaiting results.

Currently, Australians have to go to special COVID-19 testing clinics to be swabbed for the virus, one of which is taken up the nose and the other down the throat

Australians can go to a number of drive-in testing centres, like this one in Bondi Beach (pictured), but results can take up to 72 hours.

The last test is designed for healthcare professionals and involves a handheld device that can be connected to a smartphone and can examine two samples simultaneously.

These kits are recommended for doctors and provide clear instructions on how to be used.

Dr Parsons is hopeful the tests could be used in conjunction with the coronavirus vaccine which is expected to be released at the start of next year at the earliest.

Ellume are aiming to have the tests ready by the end of November in the US.

America has been severely impacted by the global health crisis with more than 7.5 million coronavirus cases and 211,000 related deaths.

Currently, COVID-19 test results in Australia take up to 72 hours, as they need to be posted off to specialist labs.
Another village, Wereng, in Riyom Local Government Area of Plateau State, has been attacked by hoodlums who killed the traditional ruler and five other members of the community.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the district head of Foron in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area (LGA) and some other persons, in Vwang District, Jos South LGA, were killed less than two weeks ago.

Also, this paper reported how a top official of the State Security Service (SSS), Muktar Modibbo, was killed during a raid of some hoodlums hideouts in Shendam Local Government Area of the state.

In the latest attack launched on Monday, PREMIUM TIMES learnt that apart from the village head, a prince and three members of the same family were among the victims.

One man identified as Francis was shot in the leg while two of his relatives  Mary and David  were shot in the thighs.

The state Commissioner of Police, Edward Egbuka, has lamented the spate of the attacks, describing the mayhem of Monday as an ugly incident.

In spite of a series of peace meetings we have been holding with the various parties in the communities, we are still experiencing this kind of ugly incident, thereby truncating the peace in the state, Mr Egbuka told TheNation.

However, Governor Simon Lalong has directed security agencies to do all that is necessary to apprehend the killers and also halt pockets of isolated attacks on innocent people.

Governor Lalong, in a statement issued by his spokesperson, Makut Macham, expressed fury over the killings, describing such recent attacks as worrisome and unacceptable which must be stopped immediately.

While sympathizing with families of the victims and survivors, Mr Lalong instructed security agencies to redouble their efforts in apprehending the attackers, having achieved some successes in other recent cases.

We will not allow these ugly incidences to return where helpless and innocent people are murdered in cold blood for no reason. These killers must be fished out at whatever cost and brought to justice. I urge the people to cooperate with the security agencies by providing useful information that will facilitate the arrest of the attackers.
Vice President Mike Pence and his Democratic challenger, California Sen. Kamala Harris, are poised to meet Wednesday for a debate that will offer starkly different visions for a country confronting escalating crises.

The faceoff in Salt Lake City is the most highly anticipated vice presidential debate in recent memory. It will unfold while President Donald Trump recovers at the White House after testing positive last week for the coronavirus and spending several days in the hospital, a serious setback for his campaign that adds pressure on Pence to defend the administrations handling of the pandemic.

For Harris, the debate is her highest-profile opportunity to vocalize how the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, would stabilize the U.S., especially when it comes to resolving the pandemic and addressing racial injustice. She will be able to explain her views on law enforcement, an area in which shes viewed warily by some progressives, given her past as a prosecutor.

Ultimately, the debate is a chance for voters to decide whether Pence and Harris are in a position to step into the presidency at a moments notice. Its hardly a theoretical question as the 74-year-old Trump combats the virus, and Biden, at 77, would become the oldest person to become president if hes elected.

While the debate will likely cover a range of topics, the virus will be at the forefront.

Pence and Harris will appear on stage exactly 12.25 feet (3.7 meters) apart separated by plexiglass barriers. Anyone in the small audience who refuses to wear a mask will be asked to leave.

Pence, who was with Trump and others last week who have since tested positive, has faced questions about whether he should be at the debate at all. The vice president has repeatedly tested negative for the virus, and his staff and doctors insist he does not need to quarantine under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

The CDC defines risky close contact as being within 6 feet (1.8 meters) of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from two days before the onset of symptoms or a positive test.

Pences team objected to Harris request for plexiglass barriers, arguing it was medically unnecessary. But the Commission on Presidential Debates had already agreed to the barriers, and Pences aides said their presence wouldnt dissuade him from attending the event.

Pences chief of staff, Marc Short, said there is zero risk of the vice president pulling out of the debate over the plexiglass spat. He said Pence will be there because its too important for the American people.

The hesitancy seems to be on other side, he added.

Sabrina Singh, a spokesperson for Harris, said the senator will be at the debate, respecting the protections that the Cleveland Clinic has put in place to promote safety for all concerned. The Cleveland Clinic serves as a health adviser to the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Despite the early sparring, the debate is unlikely to be a repeat of the chaotic debate between Trump and Biden last week.

Pence is eager to seize on Harris and Bidens liberal policies, but it may be difficult to shift the conversation away from the Republican administrations uneven handling of the pandemic. Pence serves as chair of the presidents coronavirus task force, which has failed to implement a comprehensive national strategy even as Trump himself recovers from the disease and the national death toll surges past 210,000 with no clear end in sight.

The vice president is a 61-year-old former Indiana governor and ex-radio host, an evangelical Christian known for his folksy charm and unwavering loyalty to Trump.

Harris is a 55-year-old California senator, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She is also a former prosecutor whose pointed questioning of Trumps Supreme Court nominees and cool charm on the campaign trail made her a Democratic star.

She will make history as the first Black woman to appear in a vice presidential debate. Democrats hope the historic nature of her candidacy will help energize key groups of likely Democratic voters African Americans and young people, in particular who have shown less excitement for Biden.

Its unclear how aggressive the candidates will be with each other.

Both have adopted a cautious approach on the trail, keeping in line with past running mates who, above all, are tasked with not hurting their partys ticket.

Some Harris allies fear that a conservative approach will prevent her from shining.

Overly scripting Kamala Harris is tantamount to removing five bullets out of her gun before you walk into a gun fight, said Nathan Barankin, who served as Harris chief of staff in the Senate and when she was California attorney general.

While some Democrats have set high expectations for the debate, Harris and her allies have been trying to keep them low. Last month, when Californias state Senate president told Harris on a Zoom call that home state fans were excited to watch her debate, Harris quickly interjected.

Hes a good debater, she said, laughing. Im just, Im so concerned, like I can only disappoint.

Gender will likely play a role in the debate, Hillary Clinton, the first woman to lead a presidential ticket, said during a recent fundraiser.

She suggested Pence would try to paint Harris as the inexperienced woman candidate. Harris will have to be mindful of the double standard for women in politics as she responds, Clinton said.

Shes got to be firm and effective in rebutting any implication that comes from the other side, but to do it in a way that doesnt, you know, scare or alienate voters, Clinton said.

Harris has been preparing for the debate in Salt Lake City since Saturday. Karen Dunn, a Washington lawyer who helped prepare Clinton for her 2016 debates against Trump, is leading Harris debate preparations.

Harris plans to focus on failures of leadership by the Trump-Pence administration but avoid personal attacks against Trump, as Biden has done since the president was hospitalized for the virus, according to a campaign aide who wasnt authorized to discuss debate planning publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pences team has been reluctant to discuss his strategy in debate preparations except to note that he is thorough in everything he does.

Pence has spent the last four years defending the president on a near-daily basis and mastered the art of turning Trumps chaotic rhetoric into more palatable, middle-of-the-road commentary.

Aides note that Pences criticism has focused almost exclusively on Biden and his record instead of Harris. Its likely to stay that way Wednesday, but he has not completely ignored Harris.

In an interview with a conservative talk show host in Iowa last week, the vice president cast the California senator as a left-wing extremist. Pence also said he was counting the days to the debate.

In Kamala Harris, you have someone who actually was the most liberal member of the United States Senate in 2019, Pence said.

While Im going to go there and make our case to the American people, and Im going to take the fight to Joe Biden and his agenda, were also going to make sure people know the record of his running mate, and the positions that shes taken.
What seems like a lifetime ago to Danny Morton  it was 1961  a journalist working as a correspondent for The Richmond News Leader visited the makeshift school Morton attended and took a picture of kids in the classroom.

Morton doesnt remember the details of that day and didnt even recall the picture until it surfaced in recent years and he looked at it and noticed the boy in the front looking straight at the camera.

I said, Durn, thats me!  Morton said.

Indeed, it is  and now its featured prominently on a new sign installed outside an old, two-story building in Prince Edward County where the picture was taken in March 1961. What went on inside the building is commemorated as a new stop along the Civil Rights in Education Heritage Trail, a self-guided driving tour through Southside Virginia that focuses on the struggle for equality among African Americans, women and Native Americans.

The building was used as a social hall by the Beneficial Benevolent Society of the Loving Sisters and Brothers of Hampden Sydney, a dues-paying safety net sort of organization established in the 1800s by and for the local African American community. The organization used the building as a training center for Black students after Prince Edward County closed its public schools in 1959 rather than follow federal law to integrate them. Many white students fled to a new whites-only private school in the county, but Black students had no such local option.

Morton, now 68, who still lives just down the road from the building on College Road, across from Mercy Seat Baptist Church and south of Hampden-Sydney College, was one of those students who attended school there. One of his most vivid memories is the potbellied stove that kept the classroom warm on cold winter days.

I tell the kids, You have made it today, Morton said with a laugh in a phone interview. So many people dont realize that we paved the way for them.

Morton was a student there for a couple of years before he started attending school in neighboring Appomattox County, where his grandmother, a schoolteacher, had taken a job. He later returned to attend school in Prince Edward when the county reopened its schools in 1964.

It was an experience going through something like that, which when youre young you really dont know what youre getting into.

The newly expanded Civil Rights Trail highlights sometimes little-known stories of people, places and groups such as the Beneficial Benevolent Society, which was phenomenal for that time in history, said Vicky Morton, Dannys wife, of the organization that financially assisted members of the community when they needed a helping hand through illness or a death in the family. She was a member of the board of the nonprofit organization.

The community was very, very close, and they looked out for each other, she said. They really cared for each other.

That caring extends to the societys annual homecoming each August, called The Turnout, which continues to this day, though this years event was canceled because of the pandemic.

The Beneficial Benevolent Society social hall is one of a dozen new sites along the trail, which was established in 2004 with 41 sites, including places such as the Robert Russa Moton Museum, housed in the former Robert Russa Moton High School, a National Historical Landmark in Farmville, where the 1951 strike by students sparked the modern civil rights movement. Some of the sites, such as the Moton Museum, are open for visiting, while others are merely interpretive signs that tell the stories of those locations.

Still very relevant

The expansion of the trail (and the updating of signage at the original sites) has been in the works for years, but the timing of its completion proved serendipitous, considering the news of recent months involving civil rights.

Its a now story if there ever was one, said Bobby Conner, of Brunswick County, who is connected to the trail through his involvement as vice-chairman of the James Solomon Russell-Saint Pauls College Museum in Lawrenceville, one of the new stops on the trail. (The previous sign had been on the campus of Saint Pauls College, which is no longer accessible, while the new one is at the museum, which moved to its new home in 2019.)

The story of Russell, who was born enslaved before the Civil War and later became an influential Episcopal priest and educator and founder of Saint Pauls College, is told at several stops along the trail.

We are telling so many untold stories that are important to the history of Virginia, Conner said. Most people would be amazed if they went through the whole trail and read all the signs and visited all the sites about all of the things that have gone on along the trail. Its just a hidden jewel.

The stories stitched together by the trail are as relevant today as they were at the time, said Magi Van Eps, tourism coordinator for Prince Edward County and chair for Virginias Crossroads, a tourism marketing consortium of Southside localities that owns and manages the trail. Rita McClenny, president of Virginia Tourism Corp., said in a press release the trail highlights authentic under-told and untold stories that helped shape the history of our country.

While tourism in general has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Civil Rights Trail driving tour is practical for these socially distancing times as many of the sites are outdoors and visitors can explore the trail at their own pace. Organizers hope the newly expanded trail could provide an economic boost to the 14 rural counties, as well as the cities of Emporia and Petersburg. Appomattox Court House National Historic Park is also part of the trail.

Separate lakes now one park

Another of the new stops along the trail is Twin Lakes State Park near Farmville, where the two lakes were actually centerpieces of separate parks during segregation: Goodwin Lake State Park for whites, Prince Edward State Park for Black people. A recreational trail served as the boundary between the two, and at times, current park manager Veronica Flick has heard, park rangers were stationed along the trail to make sure visitors stayed on their assigned sides.

Its pretty crazy to think about how recent the history is, she said.

Those days are an actual memory for Willie Bowen, now 82, who went to work as chief ranger at what was then officially called Prince Edward State Park for Negroes in 1968, beginning a long career with Virginia State Parks.

It was the park for Black people; they couldnt go anywhere else, Bowen said of the popular park, which routinely drew large crowds from all over the state. The park had opened in 1950 after a suit was filed challenging Virginias policy of providing parks only for whites. At the time, Prince Edward became Virginias eighth state park and the first for African Americans.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally ended segregation, but the adjacent parks continued to operate as segregated parks for several years longer. In 1976, the parks merged into one, and in 1986, it was renamed Twin Lakes State Park. A sign overlooking what was Prince Edward State Park, installed in recent weeks, commemorates the segregated history of the park with images and information from that era.

The way I see it, a lot of the younger people dont have any idea what went on back in those days, said Bowen, for whom a new waterfront lodge was named at Twin Lakes State Park in 2017. I think [the trail] will help.
Actor Payal Ghosh, who has accused film-maker Anurag Kashyap of raping her, on Wednesday told the Bombay high court that she regrets her statement about Richa Chadha, and tendered an unconditional apology.

Chadha's lawyers said she was ready to accept the apology.

Earlier this week, Chadha filed a defamation suit before the high court against Ghosh for making a "false, baseless, indecent and derogatory" statement and sought damages.

Ghosh, while making allegations against Kashyap, had also dragged Chadha and two other woman actors into the controversy.

Chadha also named actor Kamaal R Khan as a defendant in the suit.

On Wednesday, Ghosh's lawyer Nitin Satpute told Justice A K Menon that Ghosh regrets her statement, and it was not intended to defame Chadha.

"She (Ghosh) said it innocently. She is a big follower of the plaintiff (Chadha) and respects her. She is ready to withdraw the statement and tender apology," he said.

"She regrets whatever she said and her intention was never to defame any woman," advocate Satpute told the court.

Chadha's lawyers Veerendra Tulzapurkar and Saveena Bedi Sachar told the court that they are willing to accept the apology and would not claim damages.

The court then posted the plea for further hearing on October 12 when the parties will have to submit their 'consent terms' settling the matter.

Advocate Manoj Gadkari who appeared for Kamaal R Khan told the court that Khan was willing to assure that he will not post anything against Chadha on social media.



The court accepted the statement.

Justice Menon also passed an interim order restraining any person from making similar comments against Chadha, after observing that a "prima facie case was made out".



Ghosh on September 23 registered a First Information Report at suburban Versova police station, accusing Kashyap of raping her in 2013.

Kashyap, who was last week questioned by the police, denied the allegations and provided documentary evidence to show that he was shooting for a film in Sri Lanka when the alleged incident was said to have taken place.
Dangerous Hurricane Delta bears down on Mexicos Yucatan

by UIS ANDRES HENAO and GABRIEL ALCOCER

October 07,2020 | Source: AP

Hurricane Delta rapidly intensified into a dangerous Category 4 storm with 145 mph (230 kph) winds Tuesday while following a course to hammer southeastern Mexico and then continue on to the U.S. Gulf Coast later in the week.



The worst of the immediate impact was expected along the resort-studded northeastern tip of Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula, where hurricane conditions were expected Tuesday night and landfall early Wednesday.



From Tulum to Cancun, tourism-dependent communities still soaked by the remnants of Tropical Storm Gamma could bear the brunt of the storm.



In Cancun, long lines snaked from supermarkets, lumber yards and gas stations as people scrambled for provisions under mostly sunny skies. Officials warned that residents should have several days of water and food on hand. Boat owners lined up at public ramps to pull their craft out of the water.



Mexico evacuated thousands of tourists and residents from coastal areas along its Riviera Maya. Some 160 shelters were opened in Cancun alone.



Quintana Roo Gov. Carlos Joaquin said Tuesday night that the government had made preparations, but it is a strong, powerful hurricane. He said the area hadnt seen one like it since Hurricane Wilma in 2005.



Some hotels that had exemptions because their structures were rated for major hurricanes planned to shelter their guests in place and testing their emergency systems.



The official definition of rapid intensification of a hurricane is 35 mph in 24 hours. Delta increased in strength 80 mph, more than doubling from a 60 mph storm at 2 pm EDT Monday to 140 mph at 2 pm EDT Tuesday.



Delta was predicted to arrive with an extremely dangerous storm surge raising water levels by as much as 9 to 13 feet (2.7 to 4 meters), accompanied by large and dangerous waves and flash flooding inland.



The storm was centered about 180 miles (290 kilometers) east-southeast of Cozumel, Mexico, on Tuesday evening and it was moving west-northwest at 17 mph (28 kph).



Once Delta moves on from Mexico, it is expected to regain Category 4 strength over the Gulf of Mexico as it approaches the U.S. coast, where landfall around Friday would be followed by heavy rainfall across the southeastern United States.

 The Associated Press

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
Illustration for Eszter Gangl's tale about a brown skinned Snow White, named Leaf Brown Credit - Illustration by Lilla Bolecz for 'Meseorszag mindenkie', or 'A Fairy Tale for Everyone'

When Hungarys Dorottya Redai and Boldizsar Nagy released their new childrens book on Sept. 21, they did not expect their initial run of 1,500 copies to sell out within two weeks. Meseorszag mindenkie, or A Fairy Tale for Everyone, is an anthology of retellings of traditional fairy tales, updated with more diverse, inclusive and LGBTQ characters in contemporary settings. Among the new protagonists are a Roma Cinderella, a lesbian Snow Queen, and a gender non-conforming deer. Our aim was to make childrens literature more diverse in Hungary and show children how colorful and wonderful life is, says Nagy, the books editor. We wanted stories that reflect and honor the lives of all young people. A second edition run of 15,000 copies will be released next weeklarge figures for a childrens book in a relatively small market.

Illustration by Lilla Bolecz for 'Meseorszag mindenkie' or 'A Fairy Tale for Everyone'

Yet shortly after its release, A Fairy Tale for Everyone became the target of homophobic attacks by politicians, including the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and is facing a public boycott. On Sept. 25, the deputy leader of Hungarys far-right Mi Hazank party tore apart the books pages one by one during a press conference, calling it homosexual propaganda. The move was swiftly condemned by human rights activists and the Hungarian Publishers and Booksellers Association, who called the act reminiscent of Nazi book-burners and Communist book shredders. When questioned about the book during a radio interview on Oct. 4, Orban said Hungary is a patient, tolerant country as regards [to] homosexuality. But there is a red line that cannot be crossed, and this is how I would sum up my opinion: Leave our children alone. A co-ordinated petition and campaign organized by ultra-conservative campaign group CitizenGO demanding the books removal from bookstores has gained at least 85,000 signatures.

Story continues

Since Orban was elected to office in Hungary, in 2010, the LGBTQ community has come under increasing attack. A new constitution enacted in 2012 defined the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and the family as the basis of the survival of the nation, excluding same-sex couples. Earlier this year, the introduction of Article 33, which ended the legal recognition of transgender people, was another blow to the rights of LGBTQ people. Activists also say that public and political discourse around LGBTQ rights has become increasingly hostile over the past two yearsfor instance, in 2019, the speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly compared same-sex couples wanting to adopt a children to pedophiles.Weve seen an increase in what we call political homophobia and transphobia. Leading government officials have been saying quite nasty, very openly homophobic comments, says Tamas Dombos, board and staff member at Hungarian LGBTQ organization Hatter Society, referring to Orbans recent radio interview in particular as perpetuating harmful stereotypes. When you wake up in the morning, and see that yet another politician says something very bad about the LGBTQIA community, its really undermining the wellbeing and mental health of the community in Hungary. According to the second LGBTI Survey of the Fundamental Rights Agency, 81% of LGBTI Hungarians believe that negative stance and discourse by politicians and political parties is the main reason for the increase in prejudice, intolerance or violence against LGBTI people in the country.

This falls in a larger trend of official anti-LGBTI hate speech documented in other European countries, says Katrin Hugendubel, Advocacy Director at ILGA-Europe, as populist leaders seek to shore up support from voters by trying to appeal to family values. Ahead of Polands election earlier this summer, incumbent president Andrezj Duda called called the promotion of LGBT rights an ideology worse than Communism, running on a Family Charter campaign platform that included promises to prevent gay couples from marrying or adopting children and to ban teaching about LGBT issues in schools. Poland has also faced international criticism and EU funding withdrawal because of its LGBT free zones across the country. Similarly in Russia, a homophobic law banning gay propaganda has repeatedly been used to target activists, and in July, a draft bill to the countrys Family Code proposed a formal ban on gay marriage and adoption, including by transgender people, as well introducing a sex at birth indication on birth certificates which cannot be changed. Its not accidental, and its hard to deny the coordination between Russia, Poland and Hungary, says Viktoria Radvanyi, a staff member with Budapest Pride. Russia tries to reach post-Soviet countries in Europe to spread this anti-liberal agenda. Its not with tanks or armies. Its a geopolitical playground, and LGBTQ rights are in the crossfire.

In Hungary, that crossfire has affected Redai, the books project manager, through her work with Labrisz Lesbian Association, the organization that published A Fairy Tale for Everyone. Labrisz has run LGBT education programs mostly for high schools over the past two decades, but has faced hostility from far-right groups in recent years. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Redai and her colleagues decided to expand and adapt their education activitiesboth to respond to the crisis, and the growing hostility toward the LGBTQ community. Because of the current social situation in Hungary, theres lots of hatred and frustration, and children are growing up in this atmosphere, she says. We thought that it would be important to address children at an early age with issues of acceptance and diversity.

The book includes 17 stories, featuring characters that are gender-diverse and from ethnic, religious and socio-economic backgrounds not often represented in childrens stories. The stories touch on themes ranging from disability to poverty, and were written both by amateur and professional authors. With several contributions by LGBTQ authors, Nagy says that this is the very first childrens book about LGBTQ people in the Hungarian language. We wanted to give voice to the often voiceless, he says.

Illustration for Krisztina Rita Molnar's tale about the transgendered greek boy, Caenis, based on Ovid's story from the Metamorphoses Lilla Bolecz for 'Meseorszag mindenkie' or 'A Fairy Tale for Everyone'

And although controversy over inclusive and progressive books is not unique to Hungary, the fact that the book has come under fireand even been destroyedby politicians is particularly unnerving. We are fed up with being accused of harming children, says Redai. Its very problematic when a prime minister says something like this, because then others will think they can also say this. Redai and Nagy says Orbans comments have helped legitimize the backlash, as booksellers have been bombarded with phone calls from campaigners insisting they stop selling the book. Redai says on Oct. 6, an extreme right organization posted a large poster on a bookshop saying, In this bookshop a homosexual propaganda publication which is dangerous for children is sold. Its reminiscent of fascist times really.

Illustration for Efi's tale about the Roma, male, gay Cinderella Illustration by Lilla Bolecz for 'Meseorszag mindenkie' or 'A Fairy Tale for Everyone'

Nevertheless, A Fairy Tale for Everyone appears to have galvanized significant public support from parents, teachers and booksellers across Hungarywhich its publishers see as a small sign of hope amid a darker backdrop of LGBTQ rights in the country. It seems like the book is becoming a symbol of resistance against oppression and discrimination, says Nagy. Redai and Nagy say they have been inundated with responses and requests, including proposals to adapt the book into an audio book, eBook, a board game and potentially different translations too. It seems like a lot of people realized that this is important to have this kind of book, says Redai. She adds that a major bookshop chain donated funds to help the book reach disadvantaged children. And while Nagy says that Orbans political party has been able to take advantage of peoples fear and frustrations, the two are hopeful that this episode could help make Hungary a better place for the next generation.

This xenophobic, homophobic, anti-semitic, racist and sexist climate will probably end only when the rule of this government ends, not sooner says Redai. But its been challenged, and I hope it can inspire other people to make other challenges.

Correction, Oct. 8



The original version of this story misstated the language of the poster at the bookshop on Oct. 6. The poster said In this bookshop a homosexual propaganda publication which is dangerous for children is sold, not homophobic contents dangerous to children are sold here.




By Kang Seung-woo







A civilian contractor for the Korean Army is gaining respect after donating hematopoietic stem cells to a patient with leukemia.







Han Seoung-sik, who inspects procurement items at the Army Logistics Command in Daejeon, underwent a procedure in Busan last month to donate the cells to a patient, with whom he was not acquainted.







His decision came by chance in 2005 when he found a large number of patients waiting for the cell donation and registered as a donor at the Korea Marrow Donor Program (KMDP).







After 15 years, Han, 39, was informed by the KMDP in July that the organization had found a patient who was a match for a donation from him, and he agreed to without hesitation.







To comply with social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Han fully observed quarantine regulations and underwent additional genetic testing and a medical examination before the cells were extracted.







"Nothing is more important than saving someone's life," Han said.







"I hope the patient will make a quick recovery and become a hope for others battling leukemia."







Han is not a stranger to helping those in need.







Recognized as a model employee devoted to life-sharing, he has donated blood on 122 occasions. In addition, he registered in 2010 as an organ donor.







Han is also committed to his job, as evidenced by his more than 100 certificates in many areas, including electricity, electronics and communications, hoping that he will stand out in the military's electron optics division.


Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday took to Twitter to refute media reports that he has offered to take personal cognisance of actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death. Terming such claims made in certain sections of the media as "fake news", Vardhan urged people to refrain from believing any unverified statements.



#FakeNews



An INCORRECT claim is being made in a section of the media that I have offered to take personal cognisance of Sushant death case.



Ive NOT spoken to anyone nor offered to examine any case. Pls refrain from believing any unverified statements.#SushantSinghRajputCase Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) October 6, 2020

"An INCORRECT claim is being made in a section of the media that I have offered to take personal cognisance of actor Sushant Singh Rajput death case. I've NOT spoken to anyone nor offered to examine any case. Pls refrain from believing any unverified statements," he said a tweet.

The AIIMS on Monday said the medical board has submitted its report in connection with the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput to the CBI and any inputs on the report submitted by the panel would have to be obtained from the central probe agency. The AIIMS' medical board has ruled out murder as the cause of Rajput's death, terming it "a case of hanging and death by suicide," the premier institute's forensic chief Dr Sudhir Gupta had said late last week.

In its conclusive medico-legal opinion to the CBI, the six-member team dismissed the claims of "poisoning and strangling", with Dr Gupta saying the panel did not find any trace of poison and drugs in the viscera. "The Medical Board has submitted the report directly to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as required. Being a legal matter, any inputs on the report submitted by the Medical Board would have to be obtained from the CBI," the AIIMS said in a statement.

The statement follows certain media reports questioning the outcome of the medical board's examination and Gupta's comments ruling out murder. "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 had said on Saturday.

There was no injury on the body other than that of hanging. Also, there was no mark of struggle and scuffle. The ligature mark on the neck was consistent with hanging, he said The doctors' panel did not find any trace of poison and drugs in the viscera, Dr Gupta had told PTI, 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 K K Singh in Patna against Rajput's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family.
A grand jury in St. Louis returned an indictment on Tuesday against a white couple who brandished guns at Black protesters as they marched past their home in June in a menacing display caught on video that earned them a spotlight at the Republican National Convention and the admiration of President Trump.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey were charged with unlawful use of a weapon and evidence tampering, both felonies, the McCloskeys lawyer, Joel J. Schwartz, said in an interview.

The indictment records in the case were sealed and a spokeswoman for the circuit attorney in St. Louis, Kimberly M. Gardner, said that she could not comment on the case.

The decision to move forward with the prosecution came a few hours after the couple made a brief appearance in St. Louis Circuit Court, where a judge postponed a hearing in the case until next week.
President Trump apparently has a new ally in his long-running feud with the fake news media.

A CNN reporter shooed away a raccoon that was scurrying toward his direction on the North Lawn of the White House just as he was about to go live on the air before dawn on Wednesday.

Alisyn Camerota, the co-host of CNNs early morning program New Day, posted a hilarious outtake showing Joe Johns visibly irritated by the cunning creature.

Get! Johns is seen yelling at the menacing raccoon while he prepares to report from the White House.

This is what a consummate professional @joejohnscnn is. Seconds before his @NewDay live shot, he fends off a raccoon attack! Just another day in the nutty news cycle. #behindthescenes #whitehouseraccoon #wildlife pic.twitter.com/p13w3QICiD  Alisyn Camerota (@AlisynCamerota) October 7, 2020

Joe Johns, a White House correspondent for CNN, was about to report live on the air from the North Lawn early on Wednesday morning when he was menaced by a raccoon

Get! Johns is seen yelling at the menacing raccoon while he prepares to report from the White House

There he is! Johns says, in reference to the raccoon. The correspondent then threw an unidentified object at the animal before letting out a scream

Johns on Wednesday tweeted that he was once again victimized by a raccoon while preparing to go on television

There he is! Johns says, in reference to the raccoon. The correspondent then threw an unidentified object at the animal before letting out a scream.

In another clip, Johns lets out his frustration after the raccoon apparently re-emerges.

Fr***n raccoons, man, he says.

God, again. Thats the second time. Jesus.

He then walks further toward the lawn to try and chase the animal away.

It always comes around right about when Im gonna go on TV.

The Secret Service early on Wednesday was out on the White House grounds trying to catch the furry critter

Good morning from the White House, where Secret Service is trying to wrangle a raccoon. pic.twitter.com/JKT60Q1NO5  Elyse PG (@elysepg) October 7, 2020

Johns was praised by his colleagues for working under difficult circumstances.

This is what a consummate professional Joe Johns is, Camerota tweeted on Wednesday.

Seconds before his New Day live shot, he fends off a raccoon attack!

Just another day in the nutty news cycle.

Camerota ended the tweet with the hashtags #behindthescenes, #whitehouseraccoon, and #wildlife.

Johns on Wednesday tweeted that he was once again victimized by a raccoon while preparing to go on television.

So its the 2d time in two weeks a raccoon has shown up shortly after the New Day open, Johns tweeted.

I think theyre attracted to the lights. No animals were harmed.

I threw something to scare it off.

Johns is one of at least three White House correspondents who have reported being harassed by raccoons in recent days.

Peter Alexander of NBC News reported that he was told it was a family of raccoons - one of which walked under my legs right before my Today Show live shot [on Tuesday].

Last Monday, CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid reported that several journalists were attacked on the North Lawn by raccoons

White House personnel were asked to take care of the problem after the raccoons' behavior was described as 'aggressive'

As part of the effort to combat raccoons, White House personnel laid traps with marshmallows as bait

Last week, Paula Reid, a White House correspondent for CBS News, reported that multiple journalists were attacked on the North Lawn by a raccoon.

Strong Pawnee vibes at White House this morning as a raccoon attacked multiple news crews on North Lawn, Reid tweeted on September 28, referencing the fictional town of Pawnee from the hit sitcom Parks and Recreation.

In one of the shows most popular episodes, Pawnee was overrun by raccoons and possums.

According to Reid, a raccoon allegedly grabbed [the] pant leg of a photographer and then a correspondent before being fended off.

Reid then posted photos of a trap laid out by White House personnel.

Feds using marshmallows as bait, Reid tweeted.

On social media, Twitter users had a laugh about the raccoons, jokingly speculating that they were sent by the president to harass the news media

One Twitter user remarked that rabies 'is the less dangerous disease on the premises' - a reference to the coronavirus outbreak that has been reported among White House personnel as well as the president himself

Another Twitter user joked that the raccoon was 'Melania in disguise trying to claw her way out of the White House'

Another Twitter user remarked that the raccoons are punishment for the news media's reporting on the president's tax returns

One of the traps was shut and the marshmallow was missing, but there was no sign of a raccoon.

Reid then tweeted that CBS News spotted a raccoon roaming around this morning, but it had no comment on treats missing from the trap.

According to the Humane Society, raccoons are among several other animals, including foxes, skunks, and bats, that are primary carriers of rabies.

But the chances of a human ever being attacked by a rabies-stricken raccoon are slim.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that only one human has died after being infected with rabies transmitted by a raccoon.

Raccoons that are infected with rabies usually die within three days of contracting the disease.

Anyone who does get bitten by a rabid raccoon could still recover with prompt treatment.

On social media, Twitter users had a laugh about the raccoons, jokingly speculating that they were sent by the president to harass the news media.

One Twitter user remarked that rabies 'is the less dangerous disease on the premises' - a reference to the coronavirus outbreak that has been reported among White House personnel as well as the president himself.

Another Twitter user joked that the raccoon was First Lady Melania Trump 'in disguise trying to claw her way out of the White House.'

Another Twitter user remarked that the raccoons are punishment for the news media's reporting on the president's tax returns.
The Secretary of State with the MAE (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Dan Neculaescu, on Wednesday had consultations with the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vasyl Bodnar, discussing the perspectives of bilateral relations, and the situation of Romanian ethnics in Ukraine, Black Sea security and cooperation in regional formats.

According to a press release sent to AGERPRES, the consultations focused on the implementation of the decisions taken by the foreign ministers, Bogdan Aurescu and Dmytro Kuleba, on the occasion of the recent visit of the Ukrainian official to Bucharest.Secretary of State Dan Neculaescu reiterated the request that the rights of Romanian ethnics be respected according to the international obligations of Ukraine and expressed Romania's readiness to support obtaining sustainable and, at the same time, acceptable solutions for the Romanian minority in Ukraine.The Romanian official indicated in this sense the proposals sent by the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Bogdan Aurescu at the consultations with the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba, in Bucharest, from September 8, 2020.The two sides agreed to continue discussions as efficiently as possible within the Romanian-Ukrainian Joint Intergovernmental Commission on the Protection of the Rights of Persons Belonging to National Minorities, as well as to push for bilateral negotiations on the conclusion of the Protocol on Bilateral Cooperation in Education. The two officials also discussed the projects carried out in support of the Romanian community.Secretary of State Dan Neculaescu pointed out the importance of economic and sectoral cooperation, "with an emphasis on increasing physical connectivity by opening border crossing points and carrying out projects in the energy field," the MAE also mentions.Neculaescu reiterated Romania's support for Ukraine's European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations, as well as for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the neighboring state within the internationally recognized borders. He also stressed the importance of advancing the internal reform process in Ukraine, based on the obligations undertaken by the Association Agreement with the European Union.The two officials also agreed to strengthen the framework for regional cooperation in multilateral organizations, especially in the Organization for Black Sea Economic Cooperation, whose presidency is currently held by Romania, the source said.
The fighting has raged in the district of Hays and town of Durayhimi, just south of the strategic Hodeida port, which handles about 70% of Yemen's commercial and humanitarian imports, the officials said

Fierce clashes in Yemen's strategic port city of Hodeida between government forces and Houthi rebels continued for the fifth straight day Wednesday, leaving 52 people dead, including civilians, Yemeni officials said.

The fighting has raged in the district of Hays and town of Durayhimi, just south of the strategic Hodeida port, which handles about 70% of Yemen's commercial and humanitarian imports, the officials said.

The clashes marked the heaviest bout of violence in months between forces of President Abed-Rabu Mansour Hadi's government and the Iranian-backed Houthis in the contested city, they said.

Around 70 people, including over two dozen civilians, were also wounded, they said.

The officials, who are from both sides, said the Houthi rebels have attempted to break a siege on Durayhimi, laid by government-allied force known as the Giants Bridges for over two years.

The UN mission to Yemen on Monday voiced alarm over the recent escalation of violence in Hodeida. It urged the warring sides to ``immediately stop the fighting and return to the joint mechanisms established over the last two years so as not to put the population at further risk and jeopardize the delivery of humanitarian assistance.''

In 2018, heavy fighting erupted in Hodeida after government forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition moved in to wrest control of the strategic city from the Houthis.

After month of clashes, the warring sides signed a UN-brokered agreement in December that year that included a cease-fire in the port city and an exchange of more than 15,000 prisoners. The deal, seen as an important first step toward ending the conflict, was never fully implemented.

In oil-rich Marib province, officials said Wednesday that government forces reclaimed areas from the Houthis south of the province. The rebels have for months sought to take control of the province to strengthen their position in ongoing UN-mediated peace talks. Government forces also managed to push rebels out of areas in neighboring Jawf province, they said.

At least 28 people from both sides were killed and over 47 were wounded in Marib and Jawf in the past 24 hours, they said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes on the Houthi reinforcement in Jawf, leaving several rebels dead and military equipment damaged, according to Abdu Abdullah Magli, a spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces.

The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of the capital Sanaa by the Iranian-backed Houthis. A Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since March 2015.

The war in Yemen has spawned the world's worst humanitarian crisis, leaving millions suffering from food and medical shortages. It has killed over 112,000 people, including fighters and civilians, according to a database project that tracks violence.

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Trash collection workers are expected to return to work after reaching an agreement with City Hall, which guaranteed that workers would get mandatory labor benefits if their contracts were terminated by waste management firm Cintri Cambodia.

Trash has piled up on Phnom Penhs streets after workers at waste management firm Cintri Cambodia and City Hall were unable to reach an agreement over labor benefits, as the capital looks to restructure its garbage collection system.

Some 2,150 workers of Cintri Cambodia, a monopolistic waste collection service, went on strike late Friday evening, demanding that the company, which is facing overhauls due to poor service, pay them benefit packages before making any transition.

A statement released by City Hall and signed by Governor Khuong Sreng states that the municipal administration, worker representatives, and union members had reached an agreement that would see trash collection workers receive all benefits guaranteed to them under the Labor Law if they were terminated from service.

The Phnom Penh city administration ensures that workers will not lose their jobs in the future even if Cintri will win the bid or not, reads the note.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has complained of Cintris services in 2019, after which the waste collection firms license was revoked and it was put under state control. The city will have three or four trash collection service providers, according to comments made by the prime minister last year.

With Cintris monopoly heading to an end, workers are unsure if their benefits, like seniority payments, will be honored if they are laid off or have to move to another service provider.

Chhun Navann, a 62-year-old waste worker, said she had been informed of the agreement, but wasnt sure if she would return to work in time for her Thursday 4 a.m. shift.

I am now waiting for the information from [my seniors], said Chhun Navann, who has worked for Cintri since 2016, earning from $150 to $165 per month.

Workers want the company to provide us the work benefits now. Why do they need to keep this money without giving it to [us]? she said.

After threatening workers on Saturday, Khuong Sreng attempted to alleviate workers concerns on Tuesday, though without any concrete promises.

For example, if Cintri wins the right to collect waste from certain parts of the city and has a surplus of workers, the excess workers will be supported by the municipal administration and the seniority payments and other benefits shall not be lost.

I plead them to return to work, Khuong Sreng said.



The governors pleas revealed the extent of the trash problem facing the city. City officials said that around 3,000 tons of garbage were produced daily in Phnom Penh, most of which had not been collected for four days.



District administration deployed officials, security personnel, and trucks to collect garbage within their constituencies, but mounds of trash were still visible across the city, especially near busy markets.



Kao Sokvath, a unionist assisting the striking workers, said the workers had been kept in the dark about the bidding process, which is supposed to start in October, and that the strike was justified.



I find nothing illegal here with the strike, Kao Sokvath said. The procurement is set to take place and they have kept the information about the bidding for months.

Ou Sreypov, a 52-year-old waste worker, said she had worked for Cintri for six years, earning 600,000 riels a month, around $150. She said the conditions were taxing and that their leadership had failed to address their demands.

We face difficultly under the heat and rains, work with sewage and waste when there are floods, I suggest the people in the leadership pay attention to us, said Ou Sreypov.
South Africa: Senekal vandalism condemned

Police Minister Bheki Cele has expressed shock and disgust at the vandalism and arson of State infrastructure by a group of farmers during a demonstration at the Senekal Magistrate Court on Wednesday.

The events unfolded during a protest by farmers, who gathered outside the court, demanding justice for murdered farm manager, Brandon Horner.

Two suspects appeared in court on Tuesday for the brutal killing of the 21-year-old.

Police reports indicate that following the brief court appearance, around 100 demonstrators, among them armed farmers, stormed into the court building, demanding the suspects be handed over to them.

This violent act resulted in the vandalism of court property, and a police vehicle was also overturned and set alight.

Police had to use teargas to disperse the violent group.

Minister Cele is adamant that such criminal behaviour will never be tolerated. He has called on police to act swiftly and arrest those responsible.

While we all condemn the gruesome killing of this young man in Paul Roux, absolutely no one has the right to take the law into their own hands - no matter what the situation is. This type of lawlessness can't be justified or taken lightly," said Cele.

The Minister questioned the demonstrators motives for turning their anger towards the police.

There is no logic when these protestors burn a police van, which is the same resource that is meant to assist them. It is also baffling why the anger of this community is being directed towards the police, when arrests have been made by the police and the suspects are before the courts, said the Minister.

Cele reminded South Africans that the right to peaceful protest is part of any democratic society and is enshrined in our Constitution.

However, the right to protest is not absolute and it comes with responsibilities, the Minister said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-10-07. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
In addition to Anand Mahindra, the startup has two more investors, Unicorn Ventures which made the initial investment in 2018 and Sea Fund

Currently, Bandicoot robot is being used in 11 states in India for cleaning sewers

Kochi: Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group has made investment in Thiruvananthapuram  based startup Genrobotics Innovations Pvt Ltd which acclaimed widespread laurels for developing Bandicoot  the remotely controlled robot for cleaning sewers and manholes. The billionaire businessman will make an investment of Rs.2.5 crore in the startup.

We contacted Anand Mahindra after seeing his tweet on manual scavenging and Bandicoot. As mentioned in his tweet he offered investment to scale up the production and marketing of Bandicoot.

He is one of the best entrepreneurs and his experience and network will help us immensely in scaling up. His name itself is a recognition for the company, said Rashid K, co-founder of Genrobotics.

In addition to Anand Mahindra, the startup has two more investors, Unicorn Ventures which made the initial investment in 2018 and Sea Fund.

We have been getting several inquiries from other states and even from overseas. Recently, a memorandum of understating has been signed with Dubai municipality and talks are on with Sharjah and Qatar authorities on using Bandicoot for cleaning manholes. A private entity from the US has also approached us, added Rashid.

Currently, Bandicoot robot is being used in 11 states in India for cleaning sewers. Tamil Nadu government as part of its mission to make it a manual scavenging-free state is scaling up the use of Bandicoot.

It was in 2015 that a group of classmates from MES College, Kuttippuram in Malappuram district joined together with the idea of incubating a student startup. After two years, they started working on developing an automated scavenging machine with the support of Kerala Startup Mission and Kerala Water Authority. Bandicoot was introduced in 2018.

The robot can enter the manholes to unclog and clean the sewers, which is otherwise done by sanitation workers. Entering manholes to unclog waste water pipelines is very dangerous and several workers have lost their lives during the cleaning.

Noushad, an auto driver from Kozhikode who died while trying to save the lives of two sanitation workers after being trapped in a manhole in 2015 had hit the headlines. In fact, the unfortunate incident prompted the young engineers to turn their focus on developing robot to do cleaning and maintenance works of sewers.
A woman who was part of a 2018 robbery that left a man scared to return to Brandon has turned her life around since, a Brandon courtroom heard Tuesday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 7/10/2020 (472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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A woman who was part of a 2018 robbery that left a man scared to return to Brandon has turned her life around since, a Brandon courtroom heard Tuesday.

Britney Easter, 32, pleaded guilty for her role in an August 2018 incident where she and a group of people stormed into a mans residence, tied him up and robbed him.

Robyn Boersma, who Crown attorney Deidre Badcock said was the "ringleader" of the scheme, was sent to prison for eight years after she pleaded guilty to a wide swath of charges earlier this year.

Badcock said Easter was involved in the Aug. 26, 2018 incident, which started when a co-accused met a man playing VLTs at the Keystone Motor Inn. The woman invited herself over to the mans apartment to keep drinking and left with him at approximately 2 a.m., the court heard during Easters Tuesday afternoon sentencing hearing.

Once at the mans apartment, she asked the man if she could invite some friends over to party, and he agreed.

Boersma and Easter showed up a short time later, Badcock said, along with two masked men who stormed into the apartment with weapons.

Once inside, the men beat and tied up the victim with some of his own clothes and a cellphone charger. They threatened that if he called the police, they would come back and shoot him, Badcock said.

The women, including Easter, then started searching the apartment for valuables and took his wallet, which contained his work documents, approximately $750 in cash, food, beer and other valuables. Badcock said the victim begged them throughout the ordeal not to hurt him.

After all the accused left, the man managed to free himself and run to a neighbours for help. He called his bank to cancel his debit and credit card, but not before they bought approximately $30 worth of food from A&W.

When Boersma pleaded guilty in August, she agreed she was the mastermind behind the whole plot, the Crown said, but Easter nonetheless participated in it.

"Robbery is often a premeditated act involving some conscious preplanning. While there is no evidence Ms. Easter was involved in the preplanning  she was aware of the plan in advance and she decided to go with them," Badcock said.

Easter was afraid of her co-accused and what they might do to her if she refused her part in the plan, which was to drive the car. She was also involved with methamphetamine at the time, which Badcock described as a "plague" on society.

The impact on the victim of the robbery was severe as well and cant be understated, Badcock said. He has since moved away from Brandon and is fearful of coming back. The man also suffered financial consequences as his work permits were in the stolen wallet, so he lost his ability to work for a time.

"She accepted responsibility, there is, what appears to be, genuine remorse  and shes made some rehabilitative efforts," the Crown said.

Badcock said the primary consideration in the sentence for a robbery charge as to be deterrence and denunciation. She asked the judge to sentence her to two years less a day in jail for the charges.

Jeffrey Gindin, Easters defence lawyer, asked the judge to sentence her to a suspended sentence, followed by probation. He argued jail isnt needed for Easter and she has made great strides in turning her life around since the night of the robbery.

"Theres no question that the other people involved in this incident were involved in a more serious way  and clearly others who inflicted some harm and tied up this individual. I dont think Im exaggerating when I say (Easter) played the most minor role of anyone involved in this event," Gindin said.

While she did agree to go along with the plan, Gindin argued she had no idea there would be violence and the plan was hatched by the co-accused. Easter never touched the victim, didnt take anything for herself and was the first to leave. She also didnt go party with the stolen money afterward, and instead went home and later surrendered herself to police.

Easter tried to convince the other people involved that the plan was a bad idea, but she was in the midst of a drug addiction, which Gindin called a "powerful thing."

Since the incident, he said Easter has done many things to turn her life around, including getting sober and attending parenting courses. She has suffered many traumas in her past but has done an "exceptional job" at improving her life.

Speaking before the court, Easter apologized to the victim, saying she knows her actions will affect him, forever but hopes he can find peace.

"Since getting sober, I have realized the horrible things my addictions led me to and the situations it put me around I would never have been put around otherwise  I know I can never change what happened that day. All I can do is improve myself by becoming a better person, owning my mistakes and ensuring I have made the changes so that will never happen again," she said.

Judge John Combs reserved his decision in the case until early November, saying he needs to take time to consider all the information presented to him.

 dmay@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @DrewMay_
Thirty days after actor Rhea Chakraborty was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) over drug-related charges in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case, the Bombay high court (HC) on Wednesday granted bail to the 28-year-old actor, negating all major allegations levelled by the agency, including being a part of a drug syndicate or harbouring, financing drug activities.

A single bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal granted bail to Rhea, who walked out of Byculla jail at 5.30pm, on a personal bond of Rs1 lakh and one or two sureties of the same amount. She has, however, been granted time to furnish sureties, paving the way for the actor to come out of jail immediately.

By way of bail conditions, HC has directed her to surrender her passport to the investigation officer and not to leave India. She has also been restrained from leaving the jurisdiction of the special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) court in Mumbai without submitting itinerary to the special court, and asked to attend the NCB office on first Monday of every month.

However, Justice Kotwal rejected the bail pleas of Chakrabortys brother Showik, observing that he appeared to be an important link in the chain of drug dealers and alleged drug peddler Abdel Basit Parihar, while granting bail to Rajputs domestic aides Dipesh Sawant and Samuel Miranda.

On September 8, NCB, after three days of intense questioning, had arrested Chakraborty claiming that she was part of a drug syndicate, and that she financed to procure drugs for her boyfriend and late actor Sushant Singh Rajput under sections 8(C), read with 20(b)(ii) (produce, manufacture, possess, sell, purchase, transport, ware-house, use, consume, import, export or trans-ship cannabis other than ganja), 27A (financing illicit trafficking into drugs and harbouring offenders), 28 (attempt to commit offences under the Act) and 29 (abetment) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

I am unable to agree with the submission that giving money to another for consuming drug would mean encouraging such a habit, and would mean financing or harbouring, as envisaged under section 27A of the NDPS Act, noted Justice Kotwal in his 70-page order.

The allegations and material against Chakraborty are that on some occasions she had used her own money in procuring drugs. She facilitated procuring of drugs through her brother. For that purpose, employees of Rajput were also used. As discussed earlier, her acts would not fall under Section 27A of the NDPS Act, the order further noted, while it went on detail that the main section which could be attracted in Rheas case is violation of Section 8(C) of the NDPS Act, which is made punishable under Section 20 or Section 22.

In that case, it is necessary for the investigating agency to show that her activities or contravention involved commercial quantity of a narcotic drug or psychotropic substance, noted Justice Kotwal.

The investigation did not reveal any recovery either from Rhea or from the house of Rajput. It is their own case that the drugs were already consumed and hence there was no recovery. In that case, there is nothing at this stage to show that the applicant (Rhea) had committed any offence involving commercial quantity of contraband. The material at the highest shows that she has committed an offence involving contraband, but, the crucial element of incurring rigours of section 37 in respect of commercial quantity is missing, observed justice Kotwal.

Therefore, I am satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the applicant is not guilty of any offence punishable under sections 19, 24 or 27A or any other offence involving commercial quantity. There are no other criminal antecedents against her. She is not part of the chain of drug dealers. She has not forwarded the drugs allegedly procured by her to somebody else to earn monetary or other benefits. Since she has no criminal antecedents, there are reasonable grounds for believing that she is not likely to commit any offence while on bail, said Kotwal while granting Rhea bail.

The bail order went on to describe the importance, relevance and reasoning behind the incorporation of section 27A, stating that the section as introduced by the legislation India was facing a problem of transit traffic in illicit drugs. The spill-over from such traffic was causing problems of abuse and addiction. To control the traffic in illicit drugs as the spill over from such traffic was causing problems of abuse and addiction, a separate section 27A was introduced to check these activities, which were the root cause of illicit traffic. Financing and harbouring such activities were, therefore, specifically mentioned under Section 27A.

Section 27A is of significance because it is independent of the quantity involved. There is no mention of activities involving small, intermediate or commercial quantity in section 27 A, observed Justice Kotwal and noted that it has hence necessary to consider what financing and harbouring meant.

The financing and harbouring parts are specifically made punishable under Section 27A. Justice Kotwal noted that neither financing nor harbouring was defined under the NDPS Act, and the court chose to derive the meaning of financing through Concise Oxford Dictionary and Blacks Law Dictionary and found, The allegations against the Applicant (Rhea) of spending money in procuring drugs for Sushant Singh Rajput will not, therefore, mean that she had financed illicit traffic.

While it chose a Supreme Court order and Blacks Law Dictionary to define harbouring, the court found that Rheas act could not be termed as financing or harbouring. Section 52-A of IPC can be used for a limited purpose as mentioned by the Honble Supreme Court. The key words in that Section are to evade apprehension, noted Justice Kotwal and added, This only means that first of all there has to be another offender who has committed the offence. The person who is charged with harbouring the main offender should have supplied him with shelter, food etc.; and then the next requirement is that that second person should have done this to prevent the main offenders apprehension.

In the present case, no criminal case or FIR was pending against Rajput. He was residing in his own house and was spending for his own food and other necessities. At that point of time, he had no apprehension of any arrest. Therefore, the act on the part of the applicant (Chakraborty) cannot be stretched to attract the allegation of harbouring Rajput, observed the single bench.

Kotwal also refused to agree with the additional solicitor general Anil Singh who argued that the celebrities and role models should be treated harshly so that it sets an example for the young generation and they do not get encouraged to commit such offences.

I do not agree. Everybody is equal before law. No celebrity or role model enjoys any special privilege before the court of law, observed Justice Kotwal, while adding, Similarly, such person also does not incur any special liability when he faces law in the courts. Each case will have to be decided on its own merits, irrespective of the status of the accused.

The single bench also noted that the learned Special Judge under NDPS had observed that Chakraborty may alert others and evidence can be destroyed by them. There is no basis for such observation, observed justice Kotwal and went to write in the order that, It is also important to note that when the applicant was produced before the court for her first remand, the investigating agency did not seek her custody. That means, they are satisfied with her interrogation and she had cooperated in that investigation.

After the order was pronounced, additional solicitor general Anil Singh sought stay of the order for at least one week. This matter involves number of questions of law and therefore we want to test this order (before the Supreme Court), said Singh.

Justice Kotwal flatly rejected the request. What do you want to test, the judge asked Singh. I have accepted your contention and held that all offences under the NDPS Act are non-bailable, the judge added while rejecting the request.

After Singhs request, HC ordered Chakraborty to attend the nearest police station every day for ten days, so that she will easily available for re-arrest in case NCB succeeds in its challenge to the bail order.

Meanwhile, the judge said that allegations that Showik was in direct contact with drug dealers Ike Abdel Basit Parihar, a last year student of architecture, whose bail application was also rejected on Wednesday, and at lease three others.

Monetary transactions are reflected in his account. The applicant (Showik) was facilitating procurement of drugs from one party, for supplying them to Rajput said HC. He was clearly involved in illicit trafficking or illegal trade of drugs. The applicants case will have to be distinguished from that of a consumer or an end purchaser. Showik was arrested on September 4

We are delighted by the order of the Honble Bombay HC, granting bail to Rhea Chakraborty. Truth and justice have prevailed and ultimately the submissions on facts and law have been accepted by justice Sarang V Kotwal, said advocate Satish Maneshinde, who represented Rhea.

The arrest and custody of Rhea was totally unwarranted and beyond the reach of law. The hounding and witch hunt by three central agencies .. the CBI, ED and NCB of Rhea should come to an end said Maneshinde. We remain committed to Truth. Satya Meva Jayate.

Rajput, 34, was found hanging at his apartment in suburban Bandra on June 14. After a case of alleged abetment of suicide was registered against Rhea by Rajputs parents, a parallel probe into alleged drug procurement by her also began on the basis of her WhatsApp chats.
THE Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has been accused of washing his hands of a pay dispute involving workers providing essential services during the pandemic.

Hundreds of staff at HSE-funded health and social service organisations are planning to ramp up industrial action in a long-running row over their pay.

Staff at the so-called section 39 organisations held an emergency meeting today to agree their next steps in a campaign to have their wages restored.

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They took pay cuts similar to public servants during the recession but unlike state employees claim most have not had them reversed.

Concerns were raised at todays meeting that some of 50 organisations that were due restoration on October 1 under an agreement are claiming an inability to pay.

Siptu said in a statement that Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath, declined an invitation from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to intervene.

The decision of the minister to wash his hands of this dispute not only beggars belief but has left a bitter taste in the mouths of our members, said Siptu public administration and community division organiser, Adrian Kane.

These are the very same workers who made sure essential services have been maintained throughout this Covid-19 pandemic.

The appetite on the ground for a sustained period of targeted industrial action can no longer be wished away by the government.

Forsa official Catherine Keogh said the unions divisional executive sanctioned a ballot for industrial action at a number of organisations.

They include the National Council of the Blind, the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Ireland, National Guidedogs for the Blind, South Doc, and Western Alzheimers.

Independent.ie has contacted the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for a comment.
New Delhi: The Hathras Superintendent of Police (SP) on Wednesday (October 7, 2020) said that a case has been registered against Delhi Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Kuldeep Kumar for having met the Hathras victim`s family on October 4.

The case has been registered under the Epidemic Act. The AAP MLA from Delhi`s Kondli constituency was found to be in violation after he made a visit to the Hathras gang-rape victim's house on October 4, 2020 though he had tested positive for COVID-19 on September 29.

Kumar had announced on Twitter that "due to my mild fever for the last two days, today I got COVID-19 test done, the report of which has come out to be positive, due to which I will be at home in isolation. Whoever has met me in the last 2-3 days should also get his test done".

             #Covid19Test    postive        #HomeIsolation       2-3            !  MLA Kuldeep Kumar (@KuldeepKumarAAP) September 29, 2020

He went to meet the victim`s family six days after testing positive, though it is not known whether he has tested negative for COVID-19.

On October 5, he had posted a video after meeting the family of the Hathras victim and wrote: "I have just returned after meeting the family of the Hathras victim. An atmosphere of fear is being created in the family. This is a murder of democracy and the Constitution. There is no law in Yogi Raj in Uttar Pradesh, Jungle Raj is going on!"

It is to be noted that several political leaders went to meet the alleged rape victim's family after the Uttar Pradesh government lifted restrictions over the visit of the politicians. A delegation from Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) vice-president Jayant Chaudhary and Bhim Army chief Chandrashekar Azaad also met the victim's family and assured them of all possible help in order to get justice.

Meanwhile, following the directions of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the time given to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to submit their report on the Hathras incident to the CM has been extended by 10 days, said a government official.

A 19-year-old woman died at Delhi`s Safdarjung hospital on September 29 a week after she was allegedly gang-raped by four boys from her village in Hathras.

All four accused have been arrested.
Little Amal is 3.5 metres tall and will travel over 5,000 miles (Nick Wall/PA)

A giant puppet of a child refugee will walk from the Turkish-Syrian border to Manchester, symbolising millions of displaced children.

The puppet will travel almost 5,000 miles across Turkey and Europe in search of her mother.

Organisers say Little Amal, a 3.5-metre-tall puppet of a nine-year-old Syrian girl, is an emblem of the millions of displaced refugee children separated from their families.

Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry, one of the producers of The Walk, said the event was a travelling festival of art and hope in support of refugees and, in particular, children refugees.

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Amal will travel through Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and France to reach the UK.

The public artwork will culminate in a large-scale, outdoor participatory event at Manchester International Festival in July next year.

During its route, the puppet  created from a moulded cane body and carbon fibre head, arms and legs  will be met with Covid-safe street parades and music, dance and theatre events.

The puppet is operated by three people  one standing on a pair of stilts inside its body and two others beside moving its arms.

Syrian artists will create art installations on the theme of exile in many of the over 70 cities, towns and villages where it travels.

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Organisers say they want to highlight the millions of displaced children who are more vulnerable than ever during the global pandemic and a fundraising campaign to support refugees will take place during The Walk.

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The Walk is co-produced by Good Chance Theatre, which is known for staging plays in the Calais refugee camp and for its production depicting people living inside the camp, shown at The Young Vic.

Creators of the War Horse puppets, the Handspring Puppet Company, are also involved.

The projects artistic director Amir Nizar Zuabi said: She is walking through your town. The question is how would you like to welcome her?

John E McGrath, artistic director of the Manchester International Festival, said the puppet would travel through the Midlands, Yorkshire and the Peak District.

Manchester, as a city, has long welcomed a diverse and dynamic community of refugees and asylum seekers to the city, he said, adding the festival will provide an extraordinary welcome.

It comes after the Government faced criticism over a series of leaks on ideas of how to deal with asylum seekers.

Ministers and officials faced a backlash over reports on possible ideas for how to make changes to the asylum system.

Home Secretary Priti Patel later said the UKs asylum system is fundamentally broken. And we have a responsibility to act.

Tracey Seaward, one of the producers of the puppet event, said that the impact of Covid has made a really dire situation even worse than ever for the displaced.

She added: There are so many urgent issues fighting for all of our attention right now but for refugees and the displaced, they feel the impact on a greater, much more devastating scale.

The Walk takes place from April to July 2021.
Former President John Dramani Mahama has urged members of the party to guard every ballot during the December 7 elections.

Speaking during the launch of the NDCs 2020 national campaign in Sefwi Wiawso in the Western North Region, John Mahama said that despite expecting the EC to creditably discharge its duties as expected in accordance with the law, the NDC will still be extremely vigilant during the electoral processes.

He added that the NDC is determined to succeed and no one can stop the will of the people of Ghana.

We have had concerns to draw the Commissions attention to many instances of infraction and actions that have not satisfied us. While we are expecting the Commission to live above reproach, I want to assure you all that the NDC is very well-prepared, and we will police the ballots from all polling stations, through the constituencies to the regional and finally to the national collation centres.

Mr. Mahama added that the NDC is concerned for the future of Ghana and will fight for it to be great.

This is our battle for Ghanas future. Lets embrace it like our very lives depend on it because Ghana deserves to be in a better place where everyone has the chance to thrive and prosper.

The flagbearer of the NDC was confident that his party will win the 2020 polls.

I want to assure all the teaming supporters of the NDC, our sympathizers, well-wishers, and the millions of people waiting to vote for John Mahama, Naana Jane Opoku Agyeman, and the NDC that we are winning the election, he stated.

Mr. Mahama earlier stated that the NDC will not accept the results of an election it deems flawed.

---citinewsroom
NIE Networks is calling on customers in Derry who have installed, or plan to install, an electrical vehicle charger, to notify them.

It comes as statistics show that although there are almost 3,500 electric vehicles registered in Northern Ireland, NIE Networks have only received notification of one third of domestic charge points.

The utility needs to be notified if a customer plans to install a domestic charge point, or even if they just plan to charge the vehicle via a normal 13amp plug, so it can invest in the electricity network where needed and ensure the network has sufficient capacity. It is also critical for safety and ensuring a property does not exceed the supply capacity.

With the UK Government announcing a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035, and a similar target expected to apply in Northern Ireland, Ian Bailie, Network Development Manager at NIE Networks, wants to make sure the network remains fit for purpose as the uptake in electric vehicles rises.

There are approximately 3,446 electric vehicles on Northern Irelands roads, but we have only received notification of the installation of 1,298 charge points," he said.

"If we dont know where the new demand is being installed, then we cant plan or build the network capacity needed to serve customers.

We are therefore asking customers to notify us if they have installed a charge point or are planning too, if they havent already, so we can provide sufficient supply both today and in the future.

NIE Networks has led the way in connecting renewable generation to its network, with 23,000 customers in Northern Ireland now generating energy from renewable sources.

With 46% of the total annual electricity consumption in Northern Ireland now being generated from local renewable sources, NIE Networks has played a critical role in making that happen by providing the network connections for the renewable sources and investing 365 million in the network to facilitate the generation.

As Northern Ireland works towards the target of a net zero carbon economy by 2050 the electrification of transport will play a fundamental role in meeting that target. NIE Networks wants to ensure that through the right planning and investment, it can minimise costs for customers and support them in their efforts to cut emissions and live a more sustainable life.

Ian Bailie sees it as a vital part of developing the energy sector.

We want to see a continued rise in the uptake of electric vehicles and it is something which NIE Networks is very proud to play a role in facilitating. It is a crucial step towards building the energy sector of the future," he said.

At present we are able to make the financial investments needed and if the electricity supply isnt adequate for a domestic charger to an existing dwelling we will carry out network reinforcement for customers free of charge, so we arent asking customers to contribute.

"We simply need the information because the energy landscape is changing, this is a new demand on the network and we need to make sure we have the capacity required.

If customers have installed, or plan to install, an electrical vehicle charger, they can submit their notification to NIE Networks online in just a few minutes by visiting www.nienetworks.co.uk/connections/low-carbon-technologies.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 23:04:47|Editor: huaxia

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TAIPEI, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan's exports to the mainland and Hong Kong reached 108.09 billion U.S. dollars in the first nine months of this year, a new high for the same period, the island's finance department said on Wednesday.

The figure meant a 13.3-percent increase year on year, the department said in a press release.

In September alone, the island's exports to the mainland and Hong Kong reached 14.2 billion U.S. dollars, the second-highest monthly figure and up by 22.3 percent year on year, the statement said.

The number accounted for 46.24 percent of Taiwan's total exports in September.

The island's imports from the mainland and Hong Kong in the first nine months of this year increased by 7.9 percent year on year to 46.14 billion U.S. dollars.

In September, the island's imports from the mainland and Hong Kong dropped by 0.3 percent year on year to 5.37 billion U.S. dollars.

Taiwan's total exports in September reached 30.71 billion U.S. dollars, up by 9.4 percent year on year, and total imports declined by 5.4 percent year on year to 23.58 billion U.S. dollars.

The department attributed the increase of exports to expanding demand in the mainland market, the booming new technology industry, and the prime season for consumer electronics. Enditem
Said minister John Whittingdale, Unlike the BBC, Channel 4 survives as an advertising-funded model.  We do need to think about Channel 4 and whether there is still a need for a second publicly owned public service broadcaster, or what function it should fulfill. Founded in 1982 as a home for risky and experimental programming commissioned from independent producers, the station is currently best known for The Great British Bake-Off.  The Guardian
Britains home secretary Priti Patel has ordered a review of the intra-company transfer (ICT) visas mostly issued to Indian companies that transfer employees to UK offices for varying periods, ahead of a new points-based immigration regime that takes effect in January.

Official figures show that the ICT visa is mostly issued to Indians, reflecting the growing number of Indian software and other companies setting up base or servicing clients from a UK base.

In the year ending June 2020, 48% of Tier 2 visas were granted to Indian professionals.

The ICT visa is part of the Tier 2 visa route. Overall, there was a 20% fall in Tier 2 visas granted, and officials said that almost all of the fall was accounted for by a decrease in grants of ICT visas, which decreased by 38% (21,227) to 33,971 in the year ending June 2020.

Much of this decline is as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, they added.

Commissioning the review, Patel asked the Migration Advisory Committee to advise the Home Office on the salary threshold for entry to the ICT route; what elements, if any, beyond base salary should count towards meeting the salary requirement; whether different arrangements should apply to the very highly paid; what skills threshold for the route should be the conditions of the route, in particular those where it differs from the main Tier 2 route.

She wrote to MAC chair Brian Bell: It is our intention that the ICT route should sit alongside the new skilled worker route in the new points-based immigration system that we are launching in January and that the terms of the ICT route should, initially, be the same as now.

The ICT route currently has a different (and higher) salary threshold compared to the main Tier 2 route and different requirements, and the absence of any relating to English language. It also contains a sub-category for graduate trainees.

Indian stakeholders have been urging UK authorities to exclude ICT visa holders from paying the mandatory National Insurance contribution, since they do not stay long enough in the UK to be eligible for state pension. The NI contribution is paid along with income tax.

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Turkish authorities have seized possession of the countrys oldest and richest archaeobotanical and modern seed collections from the British Institute at Ankara, one of the most highly regarded foreign research institutes in Turkey, particularly in the field of archaeology. The move has sounded alarm bells among the foreign research community and is seen as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogans wider xenophobia-tinged campaign to inject Islamic nationalism into all aspects of Turkish life.

In a confidential letter dated Sept. 17 that was addressed to the institutes members, Chairman Stephen Mitchell described how on Sept. 3 the Ministry of Culture and Tourism had served notice that the collections belonged to the Turkish state and would be removed the same day.

Beginning that afternoon and continuing the following day, Mitchell wrote, staff from the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, the General Directorate for Museums and Heritage from the Ministry of Culture and the Turkish Presidency took away 108 boxes of archaeobotanical specimens and 4 cupboards comprising the modern seed reference collections to depots in a pair of government-run museums in Ankara. The institutes request for extra time to minimize the risk of damage or loss to the material was refused.

The institute's director, Lutgarde Vandeput, confirmed in emailed comments to Al-Monitor that the Ankara-based centers botanical collections had been seized. The British Embassy is aware of the issue and we are in contact with the relevant authorities in the Turkish government, she said. Vandeput declined to elaborate.

The British Embassy in Ankara confirmed in an email to Al-Monitor the issue had been raised with the Turkish government, but gave no further details. A British official speaking not for attribution said, We will continue to push for best practice when it comes to preserving the collection.

Firdevs Robinson, a London-based analyst who follows Turkey closely, said that Britain identifies Turkey as a strategic partner and with the UKs exit from the European Union, Turkey has gained additional value for securing a post-Brexit trade deal. Yet while Britain does not engage in megaphone diplomacy with Turkey, its envoys claim they do raise concerns and objections behind closed doors.

Coming on the heels of the controversial conversions of the Hagia Sophia and Chora Museum into full service mosques this summer, the seizure has left the research community in a state of shock, sources familiar with the affair said.

In hindsight, the writing was on the wall.

The formal justification for the raid was based on a decree issued on Sept. 3, 2019. It authorizes the government to assume control of local plants and seeds and to regulate their production and sales.

Two days after the decree was published in the official gazette, Turkeys first lady Emine Erdogan, a passionate advocate of herbal and organic food products, introduced the so-called Ata Tohum or Ancestral Seed project that envisages agriculture as the key to our national sovereignty. The scheme is aimed at collecting and storing genetically unmodified seeds from local farmers and to reproduce and plant them so as to grow fully indigenous aliments.

Our farmers opened their treasure chests. In order to ensure that the heritage of this soil is transferred to future generations they entrusted their seeds to the states care, the first lady said in a speech to mark the occasion. She said more than 1,000 different varieties had been donated since the projects initial launch in 2017 and 11 different fruits and vegetables, including cucumbers and melons, had been grown as a result.

Ata Tohum is thought to be the brainchild of Ibrahim Adnan Saracoglu, an Austrian-trained biochemist.

He is among Erdogans ever expanding legion of advisers. The 71-year old has written academic tracts about how broccoli consumption can prevent prostatitis. He was with the first lady at the Sept. 5 Ata Tohum event.

Saracoglu took the stage after her and made no bones about the ideological underpinnings of Ata Tohum.

The professor railed against assorted Westerners who had plundered Anatolias botanical wealth and carried it back home. The late American archaeobotanist Jack Harlan was among the top culprits. When the power that aimed to alter the genetic makeup of seeds and thereby bring humanity under its own control realized it was wrecking its own soil, it set its sights on Mesopotamia, Saracoglu noted, in a thinly veiled reference to the United States. Seeds he intoned, are the foundation of our national security.

James Ryan, associate director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University, described the Ata Tohum project as a classic nationalist move to dig deeper and deeper into the past for justification of the [nationalist] policies that you are currently putting in place. Ryan noted in an interview with Al-Monitor that these were nothing new.

He drew parallels with the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, who connected Turkish civilization back to the Phrygians and the Hittites as part of his nation-building project.

Erdogan and his Islamist predecessors on the other hand essentialize Turkish Islamic civilization as a competitor to the secular identity of the Kemalists.

The Ata Tohum project displays a similar kind of impetus, he added. You have these genetic ties to the land through these seeds as proof that our civilization belongs here and has been here since time immemorial. To want to have these [seeds] in the first place is part of the nationalist framework.

Saracoglu did not respond to Al-Monitor's request for comment.

Turkish officials told the British Institute that its seed collections would be added to the soon to be completed Ata Tohum seed bank that is to be under the authority of the Turkish presidency.

In his letter to board members, Mitchell said Turkish authorities had offered oral assurances that the collections would continue to be accessible to researchers, subject to necessary permissions being granted by the relevant authorities.

He said that the institute was in touch with other researchers and projects, whose work had been directly affected by the governments decision and that it was receiving legal advice on the matter.

Al-Monitor was unable to verify that other research centers had been subjected to similar confiscations. Bayram Balci, who heads the Istanbul-based French Institute of Anatolian Studies, told Al-Monitor that Turkish authorities had not removed any of its collections.

The ultimate fate of the British Institutes seeds remains a mystery. Its just as unclear what practical purpose they will serve. Dorian Fuller of the University College London Institute of Archaeology, who is counted among the worlds top archaeobotanists, has studied the institutes collections. He told Al-Monitor in an interview that the archaeology seeds are essentially charcoal, dead and inert. As for the modern reference collection we are talking about stuff that was collected 25 to 50 years ago and is not going to be able to germinate.

I dont know of any case where someone has taken a gene out of an extinct or ancient variety of seeds and put into a modern variety. Mummy seeds is all nonsense. Its all a marketing ploy, he said.

Fuller added, The obvious research purpose is that [the seeds] would tell us about lost variation in some of those species.

In that genetic diversity, Fuller explained, one might find genes for different forms of drought tolerance, disease tolerance or all sorts of things and that could be useful for future crop breeding.

But in order to get genomic information you only need one or two grains, not the whole collection. What [Turkish authorities] have done is theyve removed this research resource from the wider Turkish and international community of researchers. It was a nice, small research facility, open to anyone who wanted to use it. Now its all gone, he concluded.
IDLIB, Syria  Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey have been exchanging accusations about bringing Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan, as clashes have been escalating in recent days following the renewed fighting between the two neighboring countries over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh area.

Turkey stands by Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia for two reasons, mainly because Azeris belong to the same Turkish ethnicity or are the closest to Turks, and also due to the long-standing hostility between the Turks and Armenians against the background of the conflict between the Ottomans and the Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century and the accusations against Ottomans of committing genocide against Armenians.

For its part, Russia is backing Armenia due to the presence of an Armenian lobby in Russia and the traditional alliance between the Armenians and Russians during the founding of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Russia maintains military bases in Armenia.

On Sept. 28, the spokesman for the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense, Anar Iwazov, said in a press statement that Syrian mercenaries of Armenian origins were found among the bodies of the Armenian forces on the Karabakh front.

On the same day, Sept. 28, Russias Interfax news agency quoted Armenia's ambassador to Russia, Vardan Toganyan, as saying that Turkey had transferred about 4,000 fighters from northern Syria to Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Hikmat Hajiyev, head of the Department of Foreign Policy Affairs of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, responded to the Armenian accusations, denying all claims about his country bringing Syrian fighters.

On Oct. 2, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev denied that any Syrian fighters were taking part in the battles on the Artsakh front. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Aliyev said the news reported by Armenia regarding bringing Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan was false.

On Sept. 28, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar called on Armenia to immediately stop its attacks and withdraw the mercenaries brought in from abroad, while the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense said that Syrian mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of the Armenian army during the ongoing clashes on the Artsakh front.

In this context, Al-Monitor spoke via phone with Syrians who have joined the fight in Azerbaijan.

Khaled Saleh (a pseudonym), 25, from the northern countryside of Aleppo, told Al-Monitor, I work with the First Corps in the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The living situation in northern Syria and unemployment forced me to go to Libya before, and now I have decided to go to Azerbaijan for $1,500. I never thought that I would ever fight anyone other than the Syrian regime, and I was fighting it for free. But I had to fight in Libya in order to secure my familys income because we are poor and have nothing except what some humanitarian organizations in northern Syria provide us with.

Saleh added, By joining the fight against Armenia through Turkey, I will achieve two goals: The first is getting a financial income in light of the poverty we live in, and the second is to stand by Turkey, which stood by our side in the Syrian regimes war against us.

Jasim Himmish (a pseudonym), 35, an FSA leader from the city of Bazaa in northeastern Aleppo, told Al-Monitor, I have fought against the Syrian regime since the beginning of the revolution, then I fought against the Islamic State, and now we are fighting alongside Turkey in Libya and Azerbaijan. We owe it to Turkey, which has championed the Syrian people's revolution against the Syrian regime, as it has opened its borders to the Syrians fleeing the bombing of the regime, while other Arab countries did not. Turkey is now protecting us from the oppression of the Syrian regime and Russia, and the fight against Armenia is in the end a fight with Turkey against Russia, the main enemy of the Syrian people.

Bilal Hamdan (a pseudonym), 24, who lives in a displaced camp in the northern countryside of Idlib on the Turkish-Syrian border, told Al-Monitor, I never fought during the Syrian revolution, even though I am against the regime. My cousin is a soldier in the Sultan Murad Division (affiliated with the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army), and he told me to meet him in Afrin in order to register my name to join the fight in Azerbaijan. So I did and met the commander in charge, who told us that the salary will be between $150 and $2,000, and we would work as guards in oil facilities only. However, when we arrived in Turkey, we were transported by air to Azerbaijan, to an area where I could hear bombing sounds. It then became clear to me that we were in a war zone instead of an oil facility. I agreed to fight because of the tempting salary. I am the sole breadwinner in my family of eight, my father is deceased and we have no one to support us.

In this context, Ahmad Hassan, a Syrian journalist residing in Turkey, told Al-Monitor, Yes, some Syrians did go (to Azerbaijan), but they were only a few hundred. Some faction leaders misled them and claimed that they were going through official contracts, but it was not the case. They rather went through Turkish security companies that have projects in Azerbaijan with gas, oil and contracting companies. These Syrians only left for financial reasons and with the aim of working in security companies. When they first registered, no military operations were taking place there (in Artsakh).

He added, Those who are officially sent by Turkey are Syrians who hold Turkish citizenship and belong to the FSA. Meanwhile, those (Syrians) who were sent unofficially are members of groups that seek the return to the Turkish state, and most are Turkmen; they have no official cover and they are not given any travel documents. This is why they use illegal means through security companies.

Hassan noted, The participation (of Syrian fighters) does not affect the Syrian file, where the US, Turkey and Russia are heavily involved through military forces allowing them to act individually, while the Syrian parties have remained on the sidelines. Russia is adopting the same measures (when it comes to recruiting Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan) through security companies. The issue in Azerbaijan is not linked to the one in Syria; each region has its own nature, alliances and expectations.

FSA leader Capt. Abdul Salam Abdul Razzaq, who resides in the countryside of Idlib, told Al-Monitor, There is a strategic alliance imposed by geography, history, interests, and common objectives between the Syrian and Turkish people. This is why the Turkish leadership and the FSA military and civil institutions are in alliance. I do not get what this fuss is about; FSA factions will fight alongside our Turkish friend anywhere because Turkey is fighting alongside us in Syria. But so far, there is no intention to (officially) participate in the battles of the Caucasus or any other battle, even if there are Syrians there.

He added, All of the regions issues are politically and militarily interconnected, and Russia is losing its mind over the emergence of forces that will prevent it from committing more killings in Syria. These forces stand with oppressed peoples and even countries. I believe it is in the interest of the Syrian revolution to take away Russias areas of influence and break its might everywhere.
Shoppers queue to pay for their shopping in the Tesco Extra superstore on April 20, 2009 in New Malden, Surrey, England.

Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, saw underlying U.K. sales rise 8.7% in its first quarter to May 30, boosted by the coronavirus lockdown, but reiterated a flat profit outlook due to the costs of the crisis.

The supermarket group cautioned costs would be at the upper end of previous guidance and also said it had increased Tesco Bank's provision for potential bad debts, forecasting the division would make a loss of up to 200 million ($248 million) in 2020-21.

Shares in Tesco, which has a 27% share of Britain's grocery market, were up 1% at 0800 GMT, paring 2020 losses to 11%.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced England's lockdown on March 23, with grocery stores among the only shops allowed to remain open. That has since been eased, with all non-essential stores able to open from last week.

All of Britain's big four grocers  Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Asda  have seen sales boosted by the lockdown.

Tesco and Sainsbury's have particularly benefited, with their networks of superstores complemented by strong online and local convenience store businesses playing well with the changing shopping habits of the crisis.

Tesco's online sales in the U.K. and Ireland soared 48.5% in the quarter, while convenience store sales rose 9.5%.

"The results ... clearly show the impact of the pandemic and the unique competitive advantage of the Tesco business model," CEO Dave Lewis told reporters, noting Tesco saw net customer switching gains from discounter Aldi for the first time in a decade.

Growth in the U.K. was driven by a 12% increase in food sales, offset by discretionary categories such as clothing, which fell by around 20%.

But the boost in Tesco's sales has been counteracted by the increased costs of operating during the pandemic, and based on an assumption of a continued easing of lockdown restrictions it said 2020-21 retail operating profit was likely to be similar to the 2019-20 outcome.

Tesco's latest estimate of incremental costs from the crisis was 840 million, partly offset by business rates relief and increased sales.

Lewis is due to leave Tesco on Oct. 1 after a six-year tenure, handing over to Ken Murphy.
Germany and France have directly accused Russia of 'involvement and responsibility' in the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, adding that they will seek European Union sanctions over the case.

'No credible explanation has been provided by Russia so far,' a joint statement issued by the French and German foreign ministers on Wednesday said.

'In this context, we consider that there is no other plausible explanation for Mr Navalny's poisoning than Russian involvement and responsibility.'

Opposition figure Alexei Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia on August 20 and was later found to have been poisoned with Novichok - a Soviet nerve agent

Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia on August 20 and was later found to have been poisoned with Novichok - a Soviet nerve agent.

Supporters and family speculated that the poison was put into a tea Navalny drank at the airport before he boarded the plane.

He is currently recovering in Germany after being allowed to leave Russia for treatment there several days after the attack.

On Tuesday, the Kremlin critic appeared on video for the first time since being discharged from a hospital in Berlin, showing the effects of the poisoning.

Navalny held his trembling hand up to the camera in the footage, recorded just six days after he was released.

'My hands shake. If I were to drink water from a bottle it would be quite a sight right now,' he said in the video.

'I'm getting better with each day. I'm working with a physiotherapist.'

Navalny has been a thorn in Russian President Vladimir Putin's side for several years and is just the latest in a string of high-profile opponents to Putin's government to be attacked

Speaking on how long he will stay in Germany to work on his recovery, he said: 'It could very well be three weeks or two months. Definitely not a year,' adding that doctors have admitted they have little experience of such a case.

The video was released as a global chemical weapons watchdog confirmed that the presence of a nerve agent in the banned Novichok family had been found in blood samples taken from Navalny.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said in a statement that the biomarkers in his blood and urine had 'similar structural characteristics as the toxic chemicals belonging' to the Novichok group.

The findings confirmed results released earlier by Germany. Berlin asked the OPCW to take samples from Navalny and test them after German doctors concluded he had been poisoned with Novichok.

'No doubt Novichok nerve agent used to poison Alexey #Navalny,' Britain's delegation at the OPCW said on Twitter.

'Any use of a banned chemical weapon is a matter of great concern.'

The Kremlin has continuously denied any involvement in the incident and says it is yet to see any evidence that Navalny was poisoned.

A previously little-known substance, Novichok hit headlines worldwide in 2018 when five people in the English town of Salisbury were poisoned using the nerve agent.
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett served as a handmaid, the term then used for high-ranking female leaders in the People of Praise religious community, an old directory for the group's members shows .

Barrett has thus far refused to discuss her membership in the Christian organization, which opposes abortion and, according to former members, holds that men are divinely ordained as the head of both the family and faith, while it is the duty of wives to obey them.

Portions of two People of Praise directory pages for the South Bend, Indiana, branch were shared with The Associated Press by a former member of the community on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue and because this person still has family members in People of Praise. A second former member, Gene Stowe, who left the South Bend branch on good terms several years ago, confirmed the authenticity of the directory pages. He said he could not say precisely what year the directory was from, but that it had to be 2013 or earlier because one of the people listed had by then moved to another state.

All the top leaders within People of Praise are male, but in each of the group's 22 regional branches a select group of women is entrusted with mentoring and offering spiritual guidance to other female members. Until recently, these female leaders were called handmaids," a reference to Jesus mother Mary, who according to the Bible called herself the handmaid of the Lord. The organization recently changed the terminology to woman leader because it had newly negative connotations after Margaret Atwoods dystopian novel The Handmaids Tale was turned into a popular television show.

The leaders run weekly mens' or womens' groups of about half a dozen people where they pray and talk together, and where the leaders offer advice and guidance. They will also organize to help others in the community, such as providing meals when someone gets sick. Under the organization's rules, no female leader can provide pastoral supervision to a man, former members said.

People of Praises belief system is rooted in the Catholic Pentecostal movement, which emphasizes a personal relationship with Jesus and can include baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues and using prayer to heal the sick and cast out evil spirits.

Founded in 1971, the nonprofit organization has 22 branches across North America. It is not a church, but a faith community that includes people from several Christian denominations, though most of its roughly 1,800 adult members are Roman Catholic.

The existence of the directory listing Barrett's name as a handmaid was first reported by The Washington Post late Tuesday. The AP reported last week that a 2006 issue of the group's internal magazine, Vine & Branches, included a photograph showing that Barrett had attend a national conference reserved for top female leaders in People of Praise.

The group had deleted copies of that magazine and other back issues mentioning Barrett and her family from its website in 2017, when her name first emerged on President Donald Trump's short list for potential nomination to the Supreme Court.

Back issues of the magazine, tax returns and other documents showed Barrett's father served as the principal leader of People of Praises New Orleans branch and was on the groups all-male Board of Governors as recently as 2017. Her mother also served in the branch as a handmaid.

Other records uncovered this week also showed that both Barrett and her husband, lawyer Jesse M. Barrett, had lived in the home of two of the group's co-founders while they were young law students at Notre Dame in the 1990s.

Barrett did not disclose her decades-long affiliation with People of Praise on her voluminous Senate judiciary Committee questionnaires filed last month and three years ago, when the Notre Dame law professor was appointed by Trump to a seat on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

Barrett, 48, did not respond to a telephone message seeking comment. The White House press office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about why the mother of seven elected not to disclose her membership in People of Praise to the Senate.

Barrett also did not disclose that she had signed a 2006 newspaper ad sponsored by an anti-abortion group indicating she opposed abortion on demand and defended the right to life from fertilization to the end of natural life.

On Tuesday, all 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee issued a letter asking the Justice Department to explain the omissions and confirm whether any other materials have been left out from Barrett's Senate questionnaires. If so, the department should immediately provide the materials for committee review, the senators said.

Barrett's confirmation hearings are set to begin Monday as Republicans rush to approve her ascension to the Supreme Court before the Nov. 3 election.

___

Smith reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

___

Follow AP Investigative Reporter Michael Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck and Smith at http://twitter.com/MRSmithAP

___

Contact APs global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org
by Shafique Khokhar

The 38-year-old Christian was sentenced to death in 2014. A Muslim friend accused him of insulting the Prophet Mohammed as part of an attempt to drive out Christians and take over their land. Activist tells AsiaNews that blasphemy laws are used for vendettas or to settle personal disputes.

Lahore (AsiaNews)  After spending six years on death row, the Lahore High Court (Punjab) acquitted Sawan Masih, a 38-year-old Christian health worker, of blasphemy charges, which carry the death penalty.

The verdict validates the studies that show that blasphemy laws are misused to settle personal scores and land disputes, said human rights activist Suneel Malik speaking to AsiaNews.

On the basis of fabricated charges, Sawan Masih spent over seven years in prison even though he did not commit any offence.

Sawan Masih is married to Sobia and has three children: Noor (16), Saim (14) and Rebeca (12). On 8 March 2013, he was convicted of insulting the Prophet Muhammad during a conversation with a Muslim friend.

According to the accuser, Shahid Imran, Sawan allegedly said that "Jesus is genuine", that he was the "son of Allah, and that he would return, while your prophet is false. My Jesus is true and will give salvation.

The case triggered a violent anti-Christian campaign by Islamic extremist groups, with false accusations levelled against Christians pouring out of the loudspeakers of local mosques.

As a result, an angry mob of more than 3,000 people attacked Joseph Colony, a predominantly Christian enclave in Lahore, resulting in the destruction or torching of about 150 houses, 75 businesses and two churches, including Sawan Masihs own home,

For the High Court, Sawan Masih did not commit blasphemy; indeed, his accuser Shahid Imran could end up in jail for slander. A wealthy local businessman was behind the complaint in order to drive Christians out of Joseph Colony, which he wanted for industrial use.

The 38-year-old Christian held fast to his innocence but he was sentenced to death on 27 March 2014 under Article 295 C of the Pakistani Penal Code.

Three years later, in 2017, an anti-terrorism court acquitted more than 100 Muslims suspected of involvement in the attack against the Christian colony.

Rev Javed Bashir, of the Voice of Christ Pentecostal Church in Karachi, noted that in Pakistan false accusations of blasphemy are often motivated by personal vendettas or religious hatred.

The blasphemy laws are often used to settle personal disputes. However, the recent ruling by the Lahore Court restores justice for the defendant and honour to the country's judiciary.

From the false charges to the attack on the Joseph Colony, the 38-year-old Christian man had to pay a heavy price for a crime that never happened, said Suneel Malik

For this reason, it is "imperative for the government to prosecute and punish the complainant and witnesses for perjury and false accusations. These offences carry sentences ranging from six months to seven years.

Activist Shazia George notes that judges come under pressure from "by religious groups" to convict people in blasphemy cases.

"Data show that more than 80 people, including judges, lawyers and political leaders, were extra judicially killed for their support for the accused in blasphemy cases or for expressing their opposition to the blasphemy laws, she explained.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 18:34:41|Editor: huaxia

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-- The air was filled with joy once again during this year's National Day holiday in Hong Kong, in sharp contrast to the chaotic situation a year ago. "Now Hong Kong is safer and calmer thanks to the national security law," said a resident.

-- While violent social incidents and the COVID-19 epidemic plunged Hong Kong into a deep economic recession, observers believe the resumed peace and order will create a solid foundation for the "Pearl of the Orient" to recover quickly and regain its glory under "one country, two systems."

-- Backed by mainland's market and capital, Hong Kong will remain the financial center favored by international capital and talents, said a local economist.

HONG KONG, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Holding high a national flag, Carey Chan jogged down the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui on the afternoon of Oct. 1 to celebrate the National Day of the People's Republic of China, something he dared not do last year.

"I would have been 'lynched' by black-clad rioters then," he said. "But now I can express my opinions freely without the fear of being beaten up."

Chan's sense of freedom and safety is in sharp contrast to the situation a year ago when "people were jittery about simply going out." Chan said his memory of last year's National Day was rioters throwing petrol bombs, torching entrances of Mass Transit Railway stations, and vandalizing public and private properties. "But now Hong Kong is safer and calmer thanks to the national security law."

The Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on June 30 this year. It took effect at 11:00 p.m. local time the same day upon its promulgation by the HKSAR government in the Gazette.

Photo taken on June 29, 2020 shows a billboard about the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) in Central area in Hong Kong, south China. (Xinhua/Wang Shen)

Dan Albertson, a freelance writer and translator from the United States living in Hong Kong, recognized the beneficial significance of the national security law. "The law has made life much less unpredictable in Hong Kong," he said.

More than a year ago, Albertson, in his 30s, left Chicago to start a new life in Hong Kong, but only found himself unwittingly caught in violent protests and acts of destruction, vandalism and overall mayhem. His neighborhood was ransacked almost every weekend during the peak of the upheaval.

Order is "essential" and "always a good thing," Albertson said. "Now there's no need to worry about whether train services will suddenly stop or be altered, no need to fear being caught in the middle of something volatile."

With the National Day and the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival falling on the same day this year, celebrations were held across Hong Kong with parades of double-decker buses and fishing vessels. Festive banners were spotted hanging from small corner stores to grand skyscrapers. During the holiday, restaurants, wet markets, shopping malls and amusement parks were all packed with people and, once again, the air was filled with joy.

A junk boat with tourists sails to the Central piers in Hong Kong, south China, Oct. 3, 2020. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaochu)

The national security law has been effective in restoring stability so far, Chief Secretary for Administration of the HKSAR government Matthew Cheung Kin-chung said in a video message delivered to the 45th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council which was held in Geneva, Switzerland, on Sept. 15.

Advocacies of "Hong Kong independence" and collusion with external forces have visibly subsided, as have acts of violence and blatant defiance of law and order, he said.

While the Hong Kong police have taken resolute law enforcement actions against rioters, the daily lives of the vast majority of Hong Kong residents have remained unaffected.

"There are no mass arrests of dissidents and no shutting down of media ... People accused of committing crimes of rioting, unlawful assemblies and other public order offenses continue to be granted bail or acquitted by the courts," Ronny Tong, a member of the Executive Council of the HKSAR, said.

"There are no additional restrictions on marches, rallies or other protests save those necessarily imposed by reason of COVID-19," Tong said in an online article published by local media.

Hong Kong people continue to enjoy and exercise their rights and freedoms as guaranteed by the Basic Law just as before, he said.

A flag raising ceremony is held to mark the 71st anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, at Pui Kiu Primary School, south China's Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaochu)

While violent social incidents and the COVID-19 epidemic plunged Hong Kong into a deep economic recession, observers believe the resumed peace and order will create a solid foundation for Hong Kong, known as the "Pearl of the Orient", to recover quickly and regain its glory under "one country, two systems".

Hong Kong's gross domestic product (GDP) plummeted 9 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of this year. The jobless rate remained high at 6.1 percent during the June-August period.

In mid-September, the HKSAR government announced its third round of anti-epidemic fund worth about 24 billion Hong Kong dollars (about 3.1 billion U.S. dollars) in an effort to fight COVID-19 and bail out an economy reeling from the epidemic.

Taking into account the latest relief package, more than 300 billion Hong Kong dollars have been allocated this year to help businesses and residents weather out the hardships caused by months of social disturbances and the ongoing epidemic.

Financial Secretary of the HKSAR government Paul Chan predicted the new relief package will support the economic growth by more than 5 percentage points.

Customers visit Hysan Place in Causeway Bay in Hong Kong, south China, Sept. 28, 2020. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaochu)

Meanwhile, the third wave of the epidemic has largely been brought under control in Hong Kong thanks to the swift response of the HKSAR government, months of stringent social distancing policies among residents and restrictions on inbound visitors. Hong Kong's anti-epidemic efforts have also been underpinned by the support of the central authorities in launching mass COVID-19 screening and building new medical facilities.

As global tourists will no longer need to worry about their safety in Hong Kong, the tourism sector and the wider economy will gradually recover after the epidemic abates, said Yiu Si-wing, a Hong Kong lawmaker and tourism industry insider.

Hong Kong-based economist Liang Haiming, meanwhile, expects a stable Hong Kong to make better use of its unique advantages and blend in the national development opportunities, while the Belt and Road Initiative and the development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will provide incessant energy for Hong Kong's development.

Backed by mainland's market and capital, Hong Kong will remain the financial center favored by international capital and talents, Liang added.

Photo taken on Sept. 4, 2020 shows a COVID-19 testing center at a gymnasium in Hong Kong, south China. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaochu)

From April 21 to Sept. 19, Hong Kong witnessed a capital influx worth more than 140 billion Hong Kong dollars as investors cast a vote of confidence in the global financial center.

Hong Kong's equity market is still appealing to enterprises. Bottled water giant Nongfu Spring and restaurant company Yum China listed in Hong Kong in September, with more industry leaders expected to follow suit, including Ant Group, the parent company of China's leading mobile-payment business Alipay.

During a National Day celebration address, HKSAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam said social unrest hit Hong Kong's economic and social development but thanks to the support of the central government, Hong Kong is gradually getting back on track.

The HKSAR government still has a lot to do both in combating the epidemic and in restoring the economy in the coming year, but with the strong support of the central government and the concerted efforts of all sectors of the society, Hong Kong will surely meet the challenges, she said. (1 USD equals 7.75 HKD)

(Video reporters: Lin Ning, Qiu Bo, Wan Houde, Chen Qiman, Leung Ka Chun, Chau Kam-ming, Lau Chin Wai)

(Video editor: Hui Peipei) 
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KASZEWSKA WOLA, Poland  When the European Union condemned Polands government for demonizing gays and lesbians, the countrys governing coalition defiantly stood together. When state media was accused of spreading hate speech that fueled violence, the governing parties brushed off concerns. And when protests erupted against efforts to control the judicial system, they pressed ahead regardless.

Then came the minks.

Proposed legislation that would ban the farming of minks, semiaquatic mammals prized for their fur, and put in place a range of protections for other animals, opened deep divisions in the coalition that almost brought down the government.

It took the intervention of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the dominant Law and Justice Party, to quell the uprising for now by taking on a formal role that allowed him to act as a buffer between opposing factions.

The bill, which gained momentum after a documentary aired on Polish television showing minks living in deplorable conditions on one farm, has widespread public support and the leaders of the countrys foremost opposition party support the legislation.
Many of us have barely settled into pumpkin spice season and the rhythms of a pandemic school year. Thinking about the holidays might seem premature. But not if you're a small business with an online presence, according to Google.

In a recent blog post, Kim Spalding, the search giant's director of product management, small business ads, insisted small businesses need to start seasonal preparations before they start carving pumpkins, and even if it feels like there's no point planning for much of anything in the middle of the chaos that is 2020.

In fact, because of all the pandemic related disruption, fully 71 percent of American adults plan to do more than half of their shopping online this year, Spalding points out. And 66 percent plan to shop at more small businesses. That makes it even more important to get your online presence sorted out well ahead of peak shopping season.

Google is offering a small-business holiday hub to help. But Spalding also provides a checklist of basic preparations you should make to ensure your business is as visible as possible online.

1. Claim your business profile.

2. Compare yourself with the competition.

If someone searches for "best burgers in town" or "art supplies near me," will your relevant business come up? Google offers another tool to help you determine how your presence ranks vis-a-vis competing companies, and offer suggestions to boost your visibility.

"The Grow My Store tool will analyze your site's customer experience, show how your site performs relative to others in the same retail category, and offer tailored recommendations for improvements," notes Spalding.

3. List your products online.

Competing with the likes of Amazon and Walmart is hard enough for small businesses. Spalding insists that you give yourself the best chance of beating out the big guys if your products are readily visible to those searching online.

"We recently announced that retailers offering ecommerce can list their products for free on Google. This makes what you offer more accessible to the hundreds of millions of people who shop on Google each day, connecting you to more customers," she writes before listing several ways to connect your products to Google, including via platforms like Shopify or compatible point-of-sale systems.
Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett, center, meets with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), right, and Vice President Mike Pence, front left, on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 29, 2020. (Erin Schaff/Pool via Reuters)

McConnell Says Attacks on Judge Barretts Faith Are a Disgrace

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called out Senate Democrats and the media for discriminating against Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett and for suggesting that she would let her religious beliefs override her oath to defend the Constitution of the United States.

McConnell said Democrats, bolstered by liberal media outlets, have been attacking Barrett for her faith, instead of focusing on Barretts record as a judge.

These euphemisms fool no one. United States senators are suggesting that Judge Barrett is too Christian or the wrong kind of Christian to be a good Judge, McConnell wrote. The ongoing attacks by Senate Democrats and the media on Judge Barretts faith are a disgrace.

Every Supreme Court Justice in history has possessed personal views. Judges have a job to do and they swear to do it impartially. It is the definition of discrimination to assert that Justice Barretts particular faith makes her uniquely unqualified for this promotion.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also criticized Democrats for trying to discredit Barrett because of her Christian faith.

Democrats shameful attempts to discredit Judge Amy Coney Barrett as nominee for [the Supreme Court] because of her religion are wrong and unconstitutional, Cruz wrote.

He and other Republicans have pointed to Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution, which states that senators, representatives, and federal employees shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

The secular left says theyre for progress, but theyve just wandered back into the embarrassing tropes of the 1960s, when some argued John F. Kennedy would obey the Pope over the national interests, McConnell wrote.

During Barretts 2017 confirmation hearing for her current role on the 7th Circuit bench, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) questioned Barrett on her Catholic beliefs and how she could keep them out of her legal judgments.

Barrett responded that she was a faithful Catholic and that her religious beliefs wouldnt affect her decisions.

Since Barretts nomination to the Supreme Court, many newspapers and other media outlets, under headlines such as Amy Coney Barrett Served as Handmaid in Christian Group People of Praise from The Washington Post, have questioned her religious beliefs.

Democrats are continuing to call for Barretts nomination to be postponed until after the November elections, claiming that another conservative judge on the Supreme Court will allow Republicans to overturn the Affordable Care Act, Roe v. Wade, same-sex marriage, and immigration policies that were issued during the Obama administration, such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

I would discharge the judicial oath, which requires me to administer justice without respect to persons, do equal right to the poor and rich, and faithfully and impartially discharge my duties under the United States Constitution if confirmed to the Supreme Court, she said at her nomination ceremony at the White House.

Democrats should question Barrett on her legal record instead of her faith, McConnell said.

These disgraceful attacks only reinforce why it is crucial to confirm judges like Barrett who understand and respect our Constitution, including its protections for all Americans religious liberty, he said.
SPRINGFIELD - Baystate Health has named Richard Swift the president and CEO of Health New England. His appointment is effective immediately.

Swift served as Health New Englands interim chief financial officer since April 2020.

Maura C. McCaffrey, former president and CEO of Health New England and a member of the Baystate Health Presidents Cabinet, died in April after a long illness. She was 50.

A West Brookfield resident, McCaffery stepped down as head of the regional health insurance provider in 2018 to focus on health concerns.

According to Wednesdays announcement, Swift has experience as chief executive officer and chief financial officer for provider-owned health plans, and a senior healthcare executive with more than 30 years of leadership.

He has served as the President of Medwise Partners, a health insurance consulting company that he founded in 1996. In that capacity, he has served in numerous interim executive roles for regional health plans throughout the United States. He holds a bachelor of science degree from Mercer University and an MBA in Health Care Administration from the University of Miami of Florida.

As president and CEO, Swift will be responsible for driving growth across the organization including the development and execution of strategic plans; successful introduction of new programs and services; membership growth; operational, financial and service excellence; and continued improvements in clinical quality with a focus on lowering the cost of care in Western Massachusetts.

Health New England has about 161,000 members and a network of 11,000 providers. The billion-dollar insurer has about 365 employees.
Marie Neba (Courtesy of Claudel Tilong)

This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for The Marshall Projects newsletter or follow it on Facebook or Twitter.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Marie Neba feared dying in federal prison. The 56-year-old had stage 4 cancer  and three children waiting for her at home. Right now, I can barely walk around because of generalized body pain and feet numbness, she wrote, as she struggled through chemotherapy earlier this year. The way things are going regarding my treatments here at Carswell can lead me to my grave.

But last year when she tried to get a rare compassionate release from Carswell medical prison in North Texas, the warden denied her request. When Covid-19 hit, she tried again with a fresh request on March 30  and this time the warden ignored her altogether.

In total, 349 women, about a quarter of the prisons inmates, asked for compassionate release during the first three months of the pandemic. The warden denied or failed to respond to 346 of them, including Neba, who was in prison for Medicare fraud  even though federal guidelines allow compassionate release for terminally ill prisoners if they do not pose a danger to the community. In the months that followed, more than 500 women at Carswell fell ill with Covid-19 and six died. Neba was one of them.

Data recently obtained by The Marshall Project underscores what attorneys, advocates and experts have long suspected: As the pandemic ramped up, federal prison wardens denied or ignored more than 98 percent of compassionate release requests, including many from medically vulnerable prisoners like Neba. Wardens are the first line of review; ultimately, compassionate release petitions must be approved by a judge. Though the Bureau of Prisons has previously posted information about the number of people let out on compassionate release, it wasnt clear until now just how many prisoners applied for it or how frequently wardens denied these requests despite widespread calls to reduce the prison population in the face of the pandemic.

Story continues

Of the 10,940 federal prisoners who applied for compassionate release from March through May, wardens approved 156. Some wardens, including those at Seagoville in Texas and Oakdale in Louisiana, did not respond to any request in that time frame, according to the data, while others responded only to deny them all. Higher-ups in Washington, D.C., reviewed 84 of the warden approvals and overturned all but 11. Time and again, the only way prisoners were able to win compassionate release was to take the bureau to court to fight the wardens' denials.

For dozens of people stuck behind bars, the virus has proved fatal; so far, 134 federal prisoners have died of Covid-19, and more than 15,800 have fallen ill. A statement from the Bureau of Prisons did not address specific questions, including why some wardens failed to respond to release requests. The wardens referred questions to the bureau.

Agency officials declined to comment on Nebas case or her death. We do not comment on a specific inmate's conditions of confinement, spokesman Justin Long wrote in an email. However, we can share that the BOP has continued to process compassionate release requests as directed by the First Step Act and agency policy.

They said prison was going to be safer

There are currently two main ways to get out of federal prison early. One is known as home confinement, when prisoners are allowed to finish their sentences at home or in halfway houses. Theyre still considered in custody, and the decision to let them go is entirely up to the Bureau of Prisons, with no legal recourse in the courts. At the start of the pandemic, a federal coronavirus relief bill expanded the eligibility criteria, and the bureau has since sent more than 7,700 prisoners to home confinement, the equivalent of 4.6 percent of the prison population at the start of the pandemic.

The other way to get out of prison early is compassionate release, in which a judge agrees to reduce a prisoners sentence to time served. But first, the prisoner must ask the warden for approval. After a warden denies the request or 30 days pass with no response, the prisoner can take the case to court and ask for a judge to approve it. So far, more than 1,600 people have been let out on compassionate release since the start of the pandemic  many of them despite the bureaus best efforts to thwart them.

Initially, they just opposed them all, said Kevin Ring, president of the prisoner advocacy group FAMM. They thought Covid-19 was no reason to let people out. They said prison was going to be safer.

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

The Bureau of Prisons seems to have decided to rely on home confinement  where the bureau retains control over the person  rather than compassionate release, which reduces the sentence to zero, Ring said.

They think their job is to keep people in prison, not to let people out," he said. Jailers gonna jail.

Officials were slow to turn to home confinement, which didnt ramp up until May, and were resistant to compassionate release even as the virus spread through the prison system and prisoners began filing lawsuits over the bureaus refusal to send people home.

At Elkton, an early hot spot in Ohio where nine prisoners died of Covid-19 and more than 900 got sick beginning in March, the warden denied 866 out of 867 requests for compassionate release between March 1 and May 31.

In California, the prison at Terminal Island became the site of a major outbreak, with 694 prisoners testing positive by the end of May. But the warden only approved five of the 256 compassionate release requests filed by that time.

At Butner, a four-prison complex in North Carolina where 25 prisoners and one correctional officer died in May and June, officials approved 29 of 524 requests by the end of May.

At some prisons, the low number of requests raised questions about the bureaus recordkeeping. For example, at the Oakdale complex, an early hot spot in Louisiana where eight prisoners have died, officials reported just 95 compassionate release applications by the end of May out of a population of more than 1,700. The warden took action on none of them. At the same time, the prison racked up 191 positive cases.

Likewise at Forrest City, a two-prison complex in Arkansas where more than 700 men fell ill, officials reported only three applications by the end of May. All three were approved.

For more than a dozen institutions, including all 11 of the privately run federal prisons, the bureau listed no compassionate release requests at all.

The numbers seem incorrect, said Somil Trivedi, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, who has helped coordinate lawsuits against federal prisons. I just dont feel like theyre counting them all. This has to be an undercount because of the informal nature of the process.

A fight for freedom

From the Carswell prison, Marie Neba wrote letters to U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen complaining about poor medical care and her worsening health as the pandemic continued. She worried about who would support her 21-year-old daughter in caring for her 9-year-old twin boys if she died in prison. Her husband, who was indicted in the same Medicare fraud case, fled the country for their native Cameroon to avoid trial.

Federal guidelines say that terminal illness, including metastatic cancer, is grounds for compassionate release. But after the Carswell warden ignored Nebas request and she took her plea to court in April, federal prosecutors fought it aggressively, saying she didnt deserve a 70-year reduction in her 75-year sentence. They argued, despite widespread reports to the contrary, that the Bureau of Prisons was doing its best to limit the spread of disease behind bars.

In April, government lawyers claimed Nebas health wasnt really deteriorating. As evidence of that, prosecutor Catherine Wagner produced a video showing Neba walking on a treadmill and using small weights in the medical center gym, pointing out that she was well enough to be sweating and walking unassisted.

Nebas lawyer said she was only following her doctors orders.

He told her to exercise and eat right, Zachary Newland said. Making sure she took care of herself, Newland hoped, would keep her alive and free of Covid-19 until she could come home.

Wagner and Department of Justice officials declined to comment.

Federal officials push back against releases

The bureau took nearly three months to respond to The Marshall Projects request for data on applications for compassionate release and how wardens responded, so the information that the bureau produced only goes through the end of May.

But more people won compassionate release in recent months than at the start of the pandemic. The Marshall Projects tracking of publicly posted data shows that release numbers grew slowly in April, May and June before nearly doubling in August, when close to 500 people were freed. But those figures dropped in September, and attorneys and experts say that prison officials are still denying releases and that prosecutors are typically opposing the requests in court.

One recent release the bureau opposed was that of Juan Alberto Fernandez, whose diabetes and obesity led to end-stage renal failure, which qualifies for compassionate release under the guidelines. He was serving time on a meth charge, and the warden of FCI Phoenix gave him a rare release recommendation in July. But in August, bureau attorneys at the central office in Washington overturned the recommendation because they said Fernandez could take care of his daily needs such as bathing; dressing; grooming; feeding; transfers; ambulating; toileting. Ultimately, a federal judge granted him compassionate release in September.

Another recent case in which both the bureau and prosecutors opposed release was that of Jordan Jucutan, a former Army Reserve recruiter sentenced to 28 months in prison for claiming bonuses for soldiers he didnt really recruit. He was obese, asthmatic and needed two inhalers, but prosecutors claimed in court that he was actually much safer behind bars than he would be if he were released, because his home county  Thurston County in Washington  had more coronavirus cases than the prison did.

A federal judge found that argument unpersuasive: It makes little sense to compare a prison in Oregon with a whole county in another state, Judge Ramona Manglona wrote, before approving Jucutans release from FCI Sheridan in September.

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Even in the rare instances in which prison officials agree that someone deserves compassionate release, advocates say, theyre still not initiating the process; instead, its up to the prisoners to do that themselves.

We are not aware of a single BOP-initiated motion for compassionate release based on heightened risk of severe illness from COVID-19 infection, said Davina Chen, a senior federal defender in Los Angeles. Instead, the 1,600-plus prisoners granted compassionate release this year applied with the help of lawyers; a few filed requests in court on their own. Defense lawyers have a word to describe bureau-initiated compassionate release cases: unicorns.

Final moments

After months of warning prison officials that she was high-risk, Neba tested positive for the coronavirus in July. By August, prison medical staff thought she had recovered. But then, she developed shortness of breath. She was sent to a hospital in Fort Worth, where she was shackled to her bed and told that she still had Covid-19.

There, a nurse made a video call on FaceTime to show Neba to her 21-year-old daughter, Claudel Tilong, whom she hadnt seen since March, when the federal prison system cut off visits due to the pandemic. As Tilong struggled to recognize her dying mother, now a frail woman with ashen skin and vacant eyes, a correctional officer in the room interrupted and ended the call. Tilong recalled the words: Its not allowed.

With his client in worsening condition, Nebas lawyer again begged federal prosecutors to stop opposing her release.

This is not about Neba anymore, Newland wrote in an Aug. 17 email. She's dying and cannot speak to even make peace with her children if she wanted to do so.

Still, they refused. So on Aug. 26, Newland begged the judge to end Nebas sentence. Hours after filing that request, he learned it was too late.

Neba had died a day earlier. A nurse had called Tilong on FaceTime and, sitting in a parked car, Tilong and her 9-year-old twin brothers watched their comatose mother take her last breaths with ventilator tubes in her nose.

One son said goodbye; the other asked his mom to say hi to Moses in heaven.
07 Oct 2020, 10:31 AM

China not allowed! India approves 16 for incentive scheme, none from China

The government on Tuesday released the names of 16 applicants who have been found eligible for the product linked incentive scheme for large scale electronics manufacturing launched in April this year, including Samsung, Lava, Micromax, Dixon and contract manufacturers for Apple iPhone - Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron. None of the Chinese smartphone makers like Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, OnePlus or Realme figure in the list even though together they command over 70 per cent of the smartphone market in India.

Dinesh Kumar Khara appointed SBI Chairman for 3 years

Dinesh Kumar Khara has been appointed as the next Chairman of State Bank of India for a term of three years. He will succeed Rajnish Kumar, who completed his tenure as the head of the biggest lender in India on Tuesday.Khara will assume charge on October 7. He was one of the four managing directors of SBI and was in charge of global banking and subsidiaries of the bank.

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to invest Rs 5,512.50 crore in Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries on Tuesday said that a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) will invest Rs 5,512.50 crore into retail arm, Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL). This investment values Reliance Retail at a pre-money equity value of Rs 4.285 lakh crore.

COVID-19 vaccine may be ready by year-end, says WHO's Tedros

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for solidarity and political commitment by all leaders to ensure equal distribution of vaccines when they become available. "We will need vaccines and there is hope that by the end of this year we may have a vaccine. There is hope," Tedros said in final remarks to the WHO's Executive Board, without elaborating.

India's services sector slump eased in September, but job losses mount

The plunge in India's services sector activity eased considerably in September after the government lifted some coronavirus restrictions, but demand continued to contract, prompting firms to cut more jobs, a private business survey showed on Tuesday.

McDonald's reopens in Maharashtra after 6 months of lockdown

Westlife Development, the company that owns and operates McDonald's restaurants in West and South India, has reopened its restaurants in Maharashtra after a six-month-long COVID-19 led lockdown. The company will ensure a safe and hygienic experience for its employees and customers, Westlife Development said in a regulatory filing.
- Nigerian actor and comedian, John Okafor aka Mr Ibu, recently shared his close shave with death in an interview

- The comic film star recounted how he was poisoned by people close to him on different occasions

- According to the celebrity, his stomach became so big as a result of the poison to the point that he could not see his legs

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Veteran Nollywood actor and comedian, Mr Ibu, recently got social media buzzing after his revelation about his close shave with death on different occasions.

Veteran actor Mr Ibu revealed how he was poisoned. Photos: @Realmribu / IG.

Source: UGC

The film star recounted how he was poisoned by members of his staff and how they were paid to eliminate him perhaps because of envy.

In the interview with Nigezie, Ibu who is also known for his very big stomach disclosed that he does not take alcohol and that he eats very little but that his belly started to grow very big after he was poisoned.

The actor said that the belly eventually started to reduce after he took medicine and he was finally able to see his legs again.

He added he was very grateful to be alive said if not for God, he would have been a story.

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According to the film star, his staff members heard him falling around in his office but did not come to help because they were the ones responsible.

According to him, he also took their poison a second time because he never suspected them until God opened his eyes.

Mr Ibu said members of his staff had been paid handsomely to eliminate him probably because he was doing well with himself as he had built a house in his village and bought another in Lagos.

See the video below:

In other Mr Ibu related news, TUKO.co.ke Nigerian sister site,Legit.ng reported that a number of Nigerians expressed concern on social media after sighting the comic actor's huge pot belly.

Music producer, Samklef posted a photo of Mr Ibu on his official Instagram page and in the image shared, Mr Ibu was spotted shirtless as he displayed his massive potbelly.

The producer in the caption that accompanied the post wondered what the comic actor was consuming to make his stomach protrude so much.

Samklef who seemed to be dropping some indirect advice for the actor noted that health is wealth.

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I have infected multiple men with HIV, my entire family hates me -Kiki wa Nge'ndo | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
(L-R) Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe other law enforcement officials hold a news conference to announce an 'international cybercrime enforcement action' at the Department of Justice July 20, 2017 in Washington, DC.

Top former Justice Department officials, including U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy Rod Rosenstein, helped drive a Trump administration policy that resulted in the separation of children from their parents, a draft inspector general report shows.

The "zero tolerance" policy ultimately separated nearly 3,000 children from their parents for crossing the border illegally, which is a misdemeanor at the first offense.

Sessions announced the policy in April 2018, saying that every immigrant who crossed the U.S. border illegally would be prosecuted, including parents with young children. It resulted in children being separated from their parents and generated a huge public outcry.

Five U.S. prosecutors along the Mexican border in May 2018 pushed Sessions and Rosenstein to clarify the order with an age minimum, according to a draft report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

The New York Times first reported the details of the draft report. NBC News has reviewed the draft report, which has not been publicly released, and confirmed details in the Times story.

"We need to take away children," Sessions told the prosecutors in a conference call, according to participants' notes, the Times reported. One participant added in shorthand: "If care about kids, don't bring them in. Won't give amnesty to people with kids," the report said.

Rosenstein, in a second call about a week later, told the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were and that government lawyers should not have declined to prosecute two cases based on the fact the children were very young.

John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, wrote to his staff immediately after the call that "those two cases should not have been declined," referring to cases in his district that had been declined the day prior because the defendants had very young children, the report said. Rosenstein "instructed that, per the A.G.'s policy, should NOT be categorically declining immigration prosecutions of adults in family units because of the age of a child," according to the report.

Horowitz's draft report says that top Justice Department officials were "a driving force" of the family separation policy.

The report says that Sessions and others knew that the policy would result in family separations, and they wanted them because they believed that would deter illegal immigration, Horowitz reportedly wrote.

"The department's single-minded focus on increasing prosecutions came at the expense of careful and effective implementation of the policy, especially with regard to prosecution of family-unit adults and the resulting child separations," the draft report said.

The Department of Homeland Security, led then by Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, has taken much of the blame until now for the policy. But the report shows how officials at the Justice Department pushed the policy in meetings and directed its prosecutors to prosecute all parents, regardless of how young their children were.

Trump in June 2018 signed an executive order halting federal separations after widespread outrage.

NBC News has previously reported that in early May 2018, Trump Cabinet officials called to a meeting at the White House Situation Room were asked by a show-of-hands vote whether to move forward with the controversial policy, and they voted yes.

Nielsen kept her hand down, but she later signed a memo instructing DHS personnel to prosecute all migrants crossing the border illegally, including parents arriving with their children.

The draft report also had details on a 2017 policy in El Paso known as the "pilot program" for zero tolerance. It has previously been revealed that the Trump administration separated children from their parents before the "zero tolerance" policy was announced.

Horowitz's draft report says that in that program, one government lawyer wrote with alarm to superiors: "We have now heard of us taking breastfeeding defendant moms away from their infants," and added, "I did not believe this until I looked at the duty log."

A Justice Department spokeswoman, Alexa Vance, told The Times that the "The draft report relied on for this article contains numerous factual errors and inaccuracies."

"While D.O.J. is responsible for the prosecutions of defendants, it had no role in tracking or providing custodial care to the children of defendants," she told the newspaper. "Finally, both the timing and misleading content of this leak raise troubling questions about the motivations of those responsible for it."

Sessions and Rosenstein have since left the Trump administration. Bash announced this week that he would retire and enter the private sector.

Trump administration officials in 2018 claimed that the "zero tolerance" policy was not about separating children from their families as a policy goal of its own, but that it was a consequence of prosecuting people entering the country illegally.
Home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for beginning his twentieth year as a public representative.

In a seven-minute long video he posted on Twitter, Shah commemorated October 7, the date when Narendra Modi was elected as the chief minister of Gujarat for the first time in 2001.

In his video, Shah pointed out that PM Modis ascension in politics showed that single-party democracy is the only way to ensure that the dreams of the founders of this country are fulfilled. He said, Before BJP came to power, there was a culture of multiparty democracy and coalitions. These coalitions led to corruption across the nation, turned poor people into a vote bank and created an erroneous foreign policy.

Shah pointed out that as a chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi worked hard to develop the states infrastructure and ensured that people living in the state are safe and secure. Shah also highlighted that Modis performance as a chief minister was exemplary and hence he was chosen as BJPs prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 elections.

PM Modi lifted the incomes of the poor and farmers. He wanted reforms and ensured that the impoverished not only have benefits but also have belief in themselves as well as the government. He also made sure that the minimum support price is the same as recommended by the Swaminathan commission, said Shah.

Under his governance, the world realises that India, a nation of 130 crore people, is not to be taken lightly. We are a strong nation and the surgical strikes and airstrikes show that no one should take India lightly, he further added.
The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in Kano State has confirmed nine persons killed and three others injured in a ghastly motor accident on Kano-Zaria Road.

The Corps commander, Zubairu Mato, confirmed the incident in a statement issued to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Kano on Tuesday.

Mr Mato disclosed that the accident occurred when two vehicles collided at Imawa village in Kura Local Government Area of the state.

He said that the accident occurred at about 9 a.m. on Monday involving an articulated vehicle, a car and a tricycle.

The commandant said the accident involved a trailer with registration number KMC158XW; a car with registration number AE 884 GZW and a tricycle without registration number.

Mr Mato attributed the accident to reckless driving, adding that the trailer and the car collided while trying to dodge the tricycle coming from the other side of the road.

"We received a call at about 9:12 a.m. on October 6 and we dispatched rescue team to the scene of the accident to rescue the victims," he said.

The commander listed the deceased to include two male, six female and a child while three others sustained injuries.

Mr Mato added that the victims were referred to Kura General Hospital for treatment.

He urged motorists to observe traffic regulations to control road accidents.

(NAN)
The agreed criteria and mechanisms are provided for in Article 15 of the Skhirat Agreement, signed in Morocco in December 2015

Delegations from the Libyan High State Council and the House of Representatives who took part in the second round of inter-Libyan dialogue in Bouznika stressed late Tuesday that the round ended with comprehensive agreements on the criteria and mechanisms for filling sovereignty positions, the Moroccan official news agency MAP reported.

Sovereign positions include: the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya, Head of the Audit Bureau, Head of the Administrative Control Authority, Head of the Anti-Corruption Authority, President and members of the High Electoral Commission, the President of the Supreme Court, and the Attorney General

The agreed criteria and mechanisms are provided for in Article 15 of the Skhirat Agreement, signed in Morocco in December 2015.

The Skhirat agreement produced political entities whose composition and jurisdictions triggered bitter discord between the rival parties. The agreement was unanimously endorsed by the United Nations Security Council which has recognized that the Government of National Accord (GNA) is the sole legitimate government of Libya.

The Skhirat agreement gives executive authority to the GNA, while leaving legislative authority to the House of Representatives as it was following the June 2014 elections. It also establishes the High State Council a consultative body independent of the GNA.

The two Libyan delegations specified, in a final declaration issued at the end of the round, held from 2 to 6 October in the kingdom, that "the outcome of the dialogue between the two delegations constitutes a contribution on which it is possible to capitalise, to establish stability in the country and put an end to the institutional division."

In the final declaration read at a press conference by Driss Omran of the Libyan House of Representatives, both parties expressed "their determination to continue their consultative meetings in the Kingdom of Morocco, in order to coordinate the action of political, executive and control institutions, thus ensuring the end of the transitional period."

The Libyan delegations said that "the dialogue sessions were marked by a spirit of national responsibility that gave priority to the general interest, with the aim of overcoming the current political division."

Libya has been divided between two authorities in Tripoli and Tobruk for six years. While the GNA is based in the capital Tripoli, commander Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) controls the east and is allied to the Tobruk-based House of Representatives.

The LNA is backed by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, France and Russia, while the GNA is backed by Turkey, Qatar and thousands of Syrian mercenaries.

On 22 August, both parties declared a ceasefire that ended fears about possible GNA aggression against the port city of Sirte, 370 kilometres east of the capital Tripoli, and Jufra, which has a major military airbase.

These rounds of talks that concluded in Morocco aim at tackling preparations for mid-Octobers meetings in Geneva, which will include discussions on details of the post-conflict transitional period, including the restructuring of state institutions.

Moroccan support to resolve the crisis

Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Bourita welcomed the positive spirit that marked the second round of the inter-Libyan dialogue in Bouznika.

The minister cited the support of King Mohamed VI of Morocco for everything that contributes to the stability of Libya and allows the country to emerge from the crisis it has known for years, adding that the Royal Vision is based on the "unconditional support of the Libyan brothers and all their initiatives aimed at reaching consensus and resolving the crisis.

The dialogue relies on the legitimate institutions, namely the High State Council and the House of Representatives as the main foundations of any solution in Libya, based on legitimacy and accountability, he said.

Both delegations have put the best interest first and reacted responsibly in seeking consensus to all disputes, he added.

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At a time when the conversation around gender inclusion and equality is slowly gaining momentum in the country, it would be great to see powerful and prominent people come into the folds of the movement and help amplify the voice of the LGBTQ community.

This gets all the more significant when we have a prominent political party making an effort towards inclusivity and set an example for others to follow. The Nationalist Congress Party aka NCP has done just that by becoming the first political party in India to form an LGBT cell.

 Reuters

Launching the LGBT cell in Mumbai, MP Supriya Sule said, We must eliminate the prejudice that we have towards the queer community and be more inclusive towards alternative gender identities and gender expression.



Maharashtra NCP chief Jayant Patil announced the formation of the cell and appointed Priya Patil as its state unit head. As per reports, apart from Priya Patil there are expected to be another 13 office bearers in the cell which aims to work towards ensuring the LGBT community gets their rights.

 ANI

We felt the LGBT community needs equal rights, so we made a separate cell for them. The purpose of this cell is to solve the problems of the gay community, Sule told the media. Although this isnt the first time they have launched such an initiative, previously NCP had also launched the Yuvati cell for young women.



Now, this new announcement came bearing mixed reactions from people online and heres what they had to say.

Good job...they are not even thought

Of by https://t.co/XeJuU5pixF they have a platform in politics  Half Blood Prince (@nikstar2393) October 5, 2020

Well done. This is a progressive measure. Everyone deserves respect and representation.  Time Traveller (@TimeTra61352211) October 6, 2020

Mam you will change the Indian politics for good   Ashay Saw (@ashay_pasist) October 5, 2020

Very good initiative. Trying to bring them in mainstream society is welcome and progressive step  Tanmoy Sinha (@TanmoySinha1993) October 5, 2020

Some have also expressed problems with the arrangement.

Separate is not equal... you already discriminated them    (@MadhuriBorse1) October 5, 2020

Regressive step. If we respect them then we invite them in our fold rather than making a separate arrangement for them. They just told these guys 'you are outcasts'.  Deepak (@Deepak141323) October 5, 2020

Why a separate cell ? Thats segregation, apartheid !  Chaanakya 41 (@chaanakya41) October 5, 2020

What are your thoughts on the matter? Should this measure be celebrated without critique?
Three schoolgirls suffered cuts after the window of a school bus was smashed in north Belfast on Tuesday.

The bus, carrying pupils from Mercy College, was attacked by a male youth at around 2.30pm as it waited at lights at the junction of the Crumlin Road and Ligoneil Road.

Police confirmed they are treating the incident as a sectarian motivated hate crime. Mercy College is a Catholic secondary school based on north Belfast's Bilston Road.

Local Sinn Fein councillor Ryan Murphy said it was "hard to believe that incidents like this are still taking place in 2020".

Those responsible represent nobody and have nothing to offer society," he said.

School children have the right to live and go to school free from the fear of intimidation or violence.

Sectarianism has no place in our society and I call on all political and community leaders to show leadership and work to end these types of attacks.

I have been liaising with the police and the school regarding the incident and I would call on the PSNI to put in place measures to ensure no repeat of this incident.

I would call on anyone with any information to bring it forward to the PSNI.

PSNI Inspector Nick Browne said police believe at this stage that the male youth who threw the object at the bus was in the company of two others and was wearing a grey tracksuit with a black hoodie underneath.

"We are currently progressing a number of enquiries to identify the youths and would ask anyone who witnessed the incident to contact officers at Tennent Street on 101 quoting reference number 993 06/10/20, or submit a report online using our non-emergency reporting form via http://www.psni.police.uk/makeareport/," he said.

"You can also contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at http://crimestoppers-uk.org/."
Hill International, a global leader in managing construction risk, said it has secured a contract from Cairo University to provide project management services for the Kasr Al Ainy Hospitals Development project located in the Egyptian capital.

As per the deal, Hill International will provide project management services during the design, procurement, and execution stages of the project which involves the renovation of all existing Kasr Al-Ainy hospital buildings and facilities and construct any additional facility buildings if required. The ultimate goal of the EGP5 billion ($318 million) revamp project is to transform the hospital into a facility organized by specialist departments, rather than general care, and to increase hospital capacity by some 300%. This will allow Kasr Al-Ainy to serve more patients at a lower cost, while also improving educational and training capabilities for students and staff. Located in downtown Cairo on the Universitys Faculty of Medicine campus, the hospital currently holds 3,200 beds and, according to University officials, receives approximately 7.3 million patients annually, performing around 2.2 million X-rays, 80,000 CT scans, and 45,000 ultrasounds each year.

On the contract win, Hill Senior VP (North Africa) Waleed Abdel Fattah said: "Kasr Al Ainy is a landmark facility that traces its roots back to 1827. This legacy of healing continues today, and this project will enable the hospitals professionals to better serve their patients through dramatically improved efficiencies and expanded, customized facilities."

"Our team will bring Hills healthcare best practices from the region and around the world to help ensure the vision for Kasr Al-Ainy is realized safely, on time, and within budget," he added.

Hill CEO Raouf Ghali dubbed Kasr Al Ainy as the latest evidence of the strength of healthcare in Egypt specifically and of Egyptian economy in general.

"Our company continues to see mega-projects in healthcare and other sectors break ground after long periods of negotiation and coordination among various stakeholders. I expect similar progress on other healthcare projects across Mena region to continue for the foreseeable future," he stated.-TradeArabia News Service
A COURT has struck out the case against a Norwegian businessman who had been accused of taking a bin lorry on a naked, drink-fuelled road rampage in Dublin city centre.

It was alleged Rune Skinnarland (56) drove the truck drunk into the door of a shop and apartment building before waking up on a street with no memory of the events.

However, Judge Bryan Smyth struck all charges out after the gardai failed to provide the defence with video evidence purportedly showing the accused leaving his hotel naked in the early hours of the morning.

Mr Skinnarland was charged with unauthorised use of a truck belonging to a waste company on September 4 last year, drink driving in it and causing criminal damage to its passenger door, back bumper and front passenger side light.

He was charged with three other counts of criminal damage; to an electronic pedestrian gate at an apartment building, the front door of a Dealz shop, and a steel bollard.

The prosecution was ordered last November to disclose copies of all evidence being relied on to the defence.

Dublin District Court was told last month that two statements, video from a mobile phone and CCTV footage from Jurys Hotel on Parnell Street had not been provided.

It was argued last month by the prosecution that the CCTV was not of evidential value but Judge Smyth had again ordered full disclosure.

When the case came back before him, defence barrister John Griffin said all material except the hotel CCTV footage had been received.

The gardai had viewed this footage and it was mentioned in prosecution documents, he said.

Mr Griffin said his reading of it was that the prosecution was relying on the video for identification purposes. It purported to show the accused leaving the back entrance of the hotel naked at around 3.30am.

Judge Smyth said he was not satisfied there had been compliance with the order and struck the case out.

Previously, the court heard Mr Skinnarland, who was in Dublin on a business trip, maintained he was out consuming alcohol on the night, went back to his hotel and "next thing he wakes up naked on the street."

Mr Skinnarland thought "his drink may have been spiked" and was "shocked at what had been alleged against him," Mr Griffin had told the court.

The cost of the damage was around 4,000.
- A broadcast journalist with Kingdom FM in Accra, Nana Ama Owusuaa, has been reported dead

- News of the death of Nana Ama who is popularly known as Owusua Kotoko came up Wednesday, October 7, 2020

- According to reports sighted by YEN.com.gh, Nana Ama died as a result of complications which arose from a surgery she had

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Kingdom FM newscaster, Nana Ama Owusuaa, has passed away, information YEN.com.gh has sighted on social media indicates.

According to the reports, Nana Ama who is popularly known as Owusuaa Kotoko passed away in the early hours of Wednesday, October 7, 2020.

MynewsGh.com reports that she broadcast journalist died from complications from surgery had just had.

Photo source: Facebook/Nana Ama Owusuaa

Source: Instagram

The report sighted by YEN.com.gh indicated that Owusua Kotoko was operated on in private hospital at Adabraka in Accra.

The operation developed a complication leading the deceased to bleed to death.

News of Owusu Kotoko's death has been received with a lot of sadness by those who knew and followed her work.

Kennedy Mornah, a former colleague of Owusu Kotoko at Oman FM took to social media to eulogize her.

Sharing a photo of Owusu Kotoko, Mornah expressed his shock at her passing while describing her as kind and gentle. The journalist also prayed for her to be granted eternal rest.

This World indeed is never our home. Im still shocked and speechless after learning of your passing Nana Ama @Owusuaa Kotoko. May your kind, happy and gentle soul find rest in the bosom of the Lord Almighty until the last day of the resurrection when we shall meet again. RIP friend, already sorely missing you, Mornah's eulogy read.

Following Mornah's post, some of his social media friends have also expressed their surprise at the news.

For those who may not know, Owusu Kotoko was a broadcast journalist with considerable experience as a newscaster.

Before joining Kingdom FM, she had worked for Kennedy Agyapong's Oman FM and Class FM, both in Accra.

The news of Owusuaa Kotoko's death comes just four months after another young broadcaster, Kwadwo Wiafe passed away.

Wiafe who worked as a drive time host for Despite Media's Neat FM died at the Nyaho Medical Centre on Thursday, June 4, 2020, after a short illness.

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
Pakistan acquits Christian man sentenced to death for 'blasphemy,' but he remains in danger

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A Christian man sentenced to death has been acquitted by a Pakistani court six years after he was charged with blaspheming the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

On Tuesday, the Lahore High Court acquitted Sawan Masih, a street sweeper from the eastern city of Lahore who was sentenced to death in March 2014 under Pakistans notorious blasphemy laws, PTI reports.

A Lahore High Court division bench headed by Justice Syed Shehbaz Ali Rizvi acquitted Sawan Masih, a court official told PTI on Tuesday. The court official went on to say that the Lahore High Court also ordered Masih to be released from custody.

Masih, a father of three, was accused by his Muslim friend, Muhammad Shahid, of insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad during a conversation in the eastern Lahore city's Joseph Colony. According to Shahid, Masih said, My Jesus is genuine. He is the Son of Allah. He will return while your prophet is false. My Jesus is true and will give salvation.

However, Masih denied the charges and said the accusations were made due to a property dispute.

The following day, mosques recounted the accusation against Masih over their PA systems, prompting a mob of more than 3,000 Muslims to loot and burn 180 Christian homes, 75 shops, and at least two churches. Amid the violence, Christian families were forced to flee the area.

Masih was handed over to the police and was later charged under Section 295-C of Pakistans Penal Code. He was later sentenced to death under Section 295-C by Judge Chaudhry Ghulam Murtaza, saying he "must be hanged and fined," in a trial held in the Lahore Camp Jail due to security concerns.

The sentencing also included a fine of Rs.200,000 (roughly $2,050).

Masih filed an appeal against the death sentence, raising objections to the police investigation and prosecution, and pleading that the blasphemy charges were fabricated by individuals who wanted to occupy the property of the Joseph Colony.

"The trial had ignored the basic principles of criminal justice in general and principles of Islamic Justice in this case. It committed material irregularity in non-reading and misreading of the evidence on record that has caused serious miscarriage of justice.

"The trial court completely ignored a serious lapse in the prosecution case of 33 hours of un-explained ordinate delay in recording the FIR over such a sensitive issue by the complainant and also ignored, the case law of the superior courts cited at the Bar by the defense counsel," Masih said in his appeal.

The Lahore High Court decided that the prosecution had failed to establish that Masih had committed blasphemy and acquitted him reversing his death sentence.

However, PTI notes that though Masih will be freed soon, his family faces threats and is in hiding.

William Stark, persecution watchdog International Christian Concerns Regional Manager for South Asia, applauded the ruling, noting it is rare to see such a high profile blasphemy case against a Christian justly resolved at the High Court level in Pakistan.

However, Stark said ICC is deeply concerned for the safety of Sawan and his family, as extremists in Pakistan are known to target individuals accused of religious crimes, like blasphemy, even if they have been acquitted.

The abuse of Pakistans blasphemy laws must be curbed and false allegations must be rooted out and punished. Too often these laws have been a tool in the hands of extremists seeking to stir up religiously motivated violence against minority communities. Without real reform, religious minorities, including Christians, will face more false blasphemy accusations and the extreme violence that often accompanies these accusations.



Amnesty International notes that Pakistans notorious blasphemy laws are often used against religious minorities and others who are the target of false accusations. They also embolden vigilantes prepared to threaten or kill the accused, it says.

At the U.S. State Departments 2019 Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom last July, Pakistani human rights activist Shaan Taseer said there are as many as 200 people jailed in Pakistan on blasphemy charges.

In September, police in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province arrested a Christian man on charges of blasphemy after residents alleged they found pages torn from a Quran inside a drain. He now faces the death penalty.

In August, a Christian man was charged with blasphemy for making a theological argument on Facebook that Muslims deemed insulting toward the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He too is now facing a potential death sentence for the post.

In 2014, a Christian couple was burned to death inside of a brick kiln by an enraged Muslim mob after they were falsely accused of ripping pages out of a Quran.

Pakistan is ranked as the fifth-worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution on Open Doors USAs 2020 World Watch List.
Nicola Sturgeon's decree that pubs across Scotland must shut from Friday has sent drinkers into meltdown and led to wry predictions of supermarket stampedes, angry mobs and massive final booze-ups.

In a dramatic escalation of her war on the resurgent virus, the First Minister today announced that bars and restaurants across the country's central belt, including Edinburgh and Glasgow, must close for 16 days.

The Covid crackdown north of the border was immediately branded a 'prohibition' and saw Scots joking about entering underground speakeasies.

Others suggested that the announcement effectively fired the starting gun on an almighty drinking spree before Friday's 6pm deadline.

More forecast frenzied trolly dashes in shops as people stock up on alcohol ahead of last orders at pubs.

Ms Sturgeon also said that venues outside of the central belt will only be allowed to serve alcohol outside - leaving Scots fetching for their coats as the country braces for winter.

Hilarious Twitter reaction attempted to make light of the tightening of restrictions, but was mixed with genuine exasperation and sympathy for hard-up bushiness.

Scroll down for some of the best memes to flood social media in the wake of the First Minister's announcement.

The Covid crackdown north of the border was immediately branded a prohibition and saw Scots joking about entering underground speakeasies

Wry predictions of angry mobs breaking out across Scotland flooded social media in the wake of Ms Sturgeon's announcement

Others forecast frenzied trolly dashes in shops as people stock up on alcohol before pubs call last orders at 6pm on Friday

The announcement effectively fired the starting gun on an almighty drinking spree before Friday's 6pm deadline

One Twitter user suggested pubs would be rammed until Friday as people look to drink up

Best served chilled! Ms Sturgeon also said that venues outside of the central belt will only be allowed to serve alcohol outside - leaving Scots fetching for their coats as the country braces for winter

A mad dash to the shops to cram trolleys with booze was suggested, as people in the central belt will be denied going to the pub

With lockdown taking its toll, many have been treating themselves to get through the pandemic

Many Scots alluded to the Prohibition era in 1920s America to vent their frustration at the new rules

Fears of booze shortages were fanned after the announcement in the event of alcohol panic-buying

Hilarious Twitter reaction attempted to make light of the tightening of restrictions, but was mixed with genuine exasperation and sympathy for hard-up bushiness

Coronavirus laws are set by each of the UK's devolved governments and English pubs remain open for now
Former President John Mahama has said his next government, should he win the 7 December 2020 polls, has the intention to turn our economy into a 24-hour economy with factories and businesses working 24 hours a day, every day.

The flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has also reiterated his pledge to provide one million decent jobs for all Ghanaians.

Speaking at the virtual launch of the partys retail campaign in Sefwi Wiawso in the Western North region on Wednesday, 7 October 2020, Mr Mahama explained that when factories and businesses are made to run on a daily basis, production of goods for export and local consumption will create decent jobs with decent salaries and will allow people to live a dignified life.

He added that the 24-hour economy will bring about additional shifts that will create a significant number of new jobs.

We need to make Ghanaians hope again.

We need to make them feel they're listened to and taken care of.

We need to make Ghana work for everybody and not just a few people.

This is why in our manifesto we call the People's Manifesto, we pledged to create one million new decent jobs over the next four years.

We will do it and I guarantee you, he said.

After addressing party supporters in the Western-North region, Mr Mahama started a door-to-door campaign to randomly interact with people.

---Classfm
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan gave an interview to TIME, and spoke about the hostilities unleashed by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh and Turkey's movement of terrorist groups to the region.

"Armenia and Karabakh have now become a civilizational front line," Pashinyan told TIME by phone, accusing Erdogan of sending between 1,5002,000 Syrian terrorists to the region in support of Azerbaijan.

In concert with Turkeys military incursions into Syria and Libya and its volatile maritime standoff in the East Mediterranean, Pashinyan noted: "Turkeys action is nothing short of action aimed at reinstating the Ottoman empire."

According to The Time, "Asked whether his actions in the run-up to the conflict were provocative, Pahsinyan told TIME that when he came to power he made a historic call for a solution that met the needs of Azerbaijanis as well as Armenians. His subsequent statements came only in response to Aliyevs reiteration of Azerbaijans maximalist position, he said."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 14:23:56|Editor: huaxia

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People offer funeral prayers to a policeman in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Oct. 7, 2020. A policeman and a militant were killed in an attack on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activist in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said Wednesday. (Xinhua/Javed Dar)



SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- A policeman and a militant were killed in an attack on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activist in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said Wednesday.

However, the BJP activist survived the bid on his life.

The attack took place Tuesday late evening in Ganderbal district, about 20 km north of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"Late last evening militants attacked the house of BJP activist Ghulam Qadir at Nunar in Ganderbal but he survived the attack and is safe," a police official said. "However, the militant who carried out the attack was shot dead by policeman serving as his security guard in exchange of fire. In the line of his duty, the policeman was critically wounded and later succumbed at hospital."

On Monday two paramilitary troopers were killed and a few others wounded in a militant attack in Pampore area of Pulwama. The militants managed to escape following the attack.

In July this year, a young BJP leader along with his two family members were killed outside their residence in Bandipora town of the region.

Militants in the region usually target families and individuals for their possible links with police and defense agencies. Even people having associations with pro-India political parties and police are targeted at times.

Militant groups opposing New Delhi's rule are engaged in a guerilla war with Indian troops in the region since 1989.

Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan, is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir. Enditem
Press Release

7 October 2020

Tourism Ministers of the G20 nations have committed to stepping up their efforts to place sustainability and inclusion at the heart of tourism recovery and future growth. The implementation of the World Tourism Organization AlUla Framework for Inclusive Community Development Through Tourism, presented on the occasion of the Ministerial Meeting, was welcomed by the G20 Tourism Ministers as a tool for achieving a fairer and more inclusive sector.

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Under the leadership of the 2020 G20 Saudi Presidency, UNWTO and the G20 Tourism Working Group developed the AlUla Framework to further advance the contribution of the sector as an effective means towards fairer growth and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Framework provides specific recommendations and tools to support both governments as well as all other key stakeholders in the tourism sector - including regional and local governments, the private sector, industry associations, civil society, communities and tourists - fostering a truly holistic and integrated approach to inclusive community development through tourism.

G20 nations can set the example

UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said: "As we join forces to restart tourism, we must live up to our responsibility to ensure that tourism's benefits are shared by all. I congratulate the Saudi Presidency for placing inclusive community development through tourism at the heart of the G20 Agenda and I invite G20 countries to follow this vision and embrace tourism as an effective means for inclusion and sustainability."

As we join forces to restart tourism, we must live up to our responsibility to ensure that tourism's benefits are shared by all

His Excellency Ahmed Al Khateeb, Saudi Arabia's Minister for Tourism and Chair of the G20 Tourism Ministers' Meeting welcomed the AlUla Framework saying, "On behalf of the G20 Tourism Ministers, I commend the Tourism Working Group and the UNWTO for this initiative. The AlUla Framework - named after Saudi Arabia's first UNESCO world heritage site - demonstrates how the tourism sector can promote inclusive community development by highlighting practical examples and case studies that governments can emulate to protect local culture and the environment, while empowering local communities, especially women and young people. The Framework is a vital tool to be used as we work together to rebuild the tourism sector to be more sustainable, resilient and inclusive.

Placing tourism at the heart of development policies

Calling for a model of tourism development based on Public-Private-Community (PPC) partnerships, the Framework includes a set of concrete programmes and initiatives based around four pillars of action - empowerment, safeguarding, prosperity and collaboration. It further defines the key areas of measurement for the impact of tourism in the communities in line with the Measuring Sustainable Tourism Initiative, led by UNWTO.

Among the G20 Guidelines for Inclusive Community Development through Tourism endorsed at the meeting, is the importance of placing tourism at the heart of development policies at international, national and local level. The Guidelines further stress the importance of human capital development, inclusive labor markets, adequate social protection, and innovation and entrepreneurship as key contributors to travel and tourism as a human-centered sector, as well as to advancing women's empowerment and to create decent jobs for all.

Note:

The Framework was developed by UNWTO and the G20 Tourism Working Group in collaboration with the IE Center for the Governance of Change and the academic contribution of the University of Surrey. The Framework includes the contributions of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Bank Group and the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).RELATED LINKS
Two companies linked to a billionaire British steel magnate received tens of millions of pounds worth of emergency government Covid loans despite employing just 11 people in the UK.

London-based lender Greensill Capital, which employs former Prime Minister David Cameron as an adviser, provided funding to two metal trading businesses associated with Sanjeev Gupta, according to The Financial Times.

The money was provided through the UK's Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS), which offers firms up to 200m worth of debt, with the government liable to pay 80% of this in the event of a default.

Greensill Capital provided funding to two metal trading businesses associated with Sanjeev Gupta (pictured)

Cambridge-educated Mr Gupta is CEO and chairman of GFG Alliance, an international group of businesses in sectors ranging from metals to financial services and real estate with annual revenues of over 15bn.

Who is steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta? Sanjeev Gupta, 49, is an Indian-born British billionaire and one of the foremost figures in the UK's metals industry. He is the founder of Liberty House Group, Britain's third largest steel manufacturer, with nine sites across England, Scotland and Wales employing 3,000 people. He is also CEO and chairman of GFG Alliance, an international group of businesses in sectors ranging from metals to financial services and real estate with annual revenues of over 15bn. Mr Gupta was born in Ludhiana, Punjab and enrolled at St Edmund's School in Canterbury aged 13. After a gap year selling bicycles in Turkey, he studied Economics at Trinity College, Cambridge, which is where he founded Liberty House Group. In 2016 he was named as a potential buyer for the Port Talbot steelworks. Liberty House was named in the Panama Papers files in 2016, prompting awkward questions about its tax affairs. It used the services of Mossack Fonseca  the secretive law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers leak. When confronted about the revelations, Liberty told the Mail it had suspended plans to set up in Panama because of the increased reputational risk associated with the country. Advertisement

One of its members, a mining, metal trading and shipping company called Simec International, received a CLBILS loan from Greensill in July. Simec's chairman is Mr Gupta's father, Parduman.

The company has an annual turnover of 455m - enough to take it over the 45m threshold for applying for a payment through CLBILS rather than the Bounce Back Loan, which is for smaller companies.

The following month Greensill provided another government-backed loan to Aar Tee Commodities, another metals trader with close links to Mr Gupta's GFG Alliance.

It was founded by Ravi Trehan, who once sat on GFG's board, and he served as a director of Simec.

Greensill, which is backed by Japan's SoftBank, said it would not discuss the 'specifics' of the loans, but said the criteria for qualifying for CLBILS are 'tightly prescribed and regulated by the British Business Bank'.

GFG Alliance also refused to discuss specifics, but said: Proceeds from any Covid-related loans would go towards supporting businesses affected by Covid-19 and maintaining highly skilled jobs in industrial communities across our value chain.'

Aar Tee said it had 'business relationship' with GFG but considered itself a 'separate business'. It also refused to discuss its loan.

MailOnline has also contacted the British Business Bank for comment.

The news comes amid fears over the Government's Bounce Back Loans scheme, which unlike CLBILS is for smaller businesses.

Taxpayers are facing a 26billion shortfall made up of funds stolen by fraudsters and never repaid, according to the Government spending watchdog, the National Audit Office.

The scheme was rushed out by Chancellor Rishi Sunak in May after businesses complained banks were refusing to lend under the original emergency loan scheme.

The Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) was part of Rishi Sunak's (left) rescue package for the UK economy. David Cameron (right) is an adviser to Greensill Capital

What type of Covid loan did the companies receive? The firms were provided loans under the government's Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS). This provides debt to companies with annual revenues of at least 45m. The money is provided from a private lender but the government will pay 85% of the total sum in the event of a default. Smaller companies can apply for a Bounce Back Loan, which is a separate scheme. Advertisement

Mr Sunak promised they would provide a 'quick and easy' lifeline for small and medium-sized firms.

More than 1.2million firms have applied for loans of up to 50,000, which are offered via banks but are 100 per cent guaranteed by taxpayers and interest-free for the first year.

More than 38billion has been dished out so far, with officials expecting this to rise as high as 48billion by the time the scheme closes next month.

But last night the chairman of the Commons' public accounts committee warned that the 'hasty launch' of the lifeline means 'criminals may have helped themselves to billions of pounds at the taxpayer's expense'.

However, the Treasury hit back, saying it 'would not apologise' for trying to get cash to desperate firms as quickly as possible.

But an NAO probe has found this glut of easy money  with few checks imposed on borrowers  has left taxpayers dangerously exposed.

Government officials have warned that between 35 per cent and 60 per cent of these loans may never be repaid or handed to fraudsters.
To be sure, some Black cemeteries managed to hold on through the years of Jim Crow and the Great Migration as about 6 million Black people moved out of the South to places in the Northeast, West and Midwest and could no longer tend to or visit the old family plots. Laurel Grove South Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia, one of the biggest cemeteries in the South for free Black people before the end of slavery, is now operated by the city. At South-View Cemetery in Atlanta, chartered in 1886 by nine Black businessmen, current board members and staff are descendants of the founders. Rep. John Lewis was recently buried there.
She spares no expense on the details.

And Kylie Jenner was delighted to show off her impressive manicure to her nearly 200million followers on Instagram Wednesday morning.

The 23-year-old social media maven revealed that she paired her new digits with a pricey $80,000 Hermes Birkin bag for an upcoming photo shoot.

Bless: Kylie Jenner was delighted to show off her impressive manicure to her nearly 200million followers on Instagram Wednesday morning

'Had to get these for a shoot I can't function,' she told her followers while clicking her nails together. 'Lowkey love em @chaunlegend.'

Kylie also took to social media to celebrate the release of her skincare line in 'UK, Germany, France and Australia.'

And business never stops for the makeup mogul as she walked through a parking lot to get into the studio.

Bling: The 23-year-old social media maven revealed that she paired her new digits with a pricey $80,000 Hermes Birkin bag for an upcoming photo shoot

Busy: Business never stops for the makeup mogul as she walked through a parking lot to get into the studio

Jenner rocked a white cut-off tank top with a pair of grey sweats as she made her way around a parking lot.

Her chestnut brown hair was tied back into a bun and she rocked an orange pair of Nike's with a grey face covering.

Earlier in the week, Kylie put her focus on family while decorating Halloween cookies with daughter Stormi.

Casual: Jenner rocked a white cut-off tank top with a pair of grey sweats as she made her way around a parking lot

'Had to get these for a shoot I can't function,' she told her followers while clicking her nails together. 'Lowkey love em @chaunlegend'

So sweet! The pair looked simply adorable in matching Hanna Andersson Snoopy Orange Peanuts Halloween Printed PJ Sets

The pair looked simply adorable in matching Hanna Andersson Snoopy Orange Peanuts Halloween Printed PJ Sets.

The festive fun didn't stop there as she whisked her baby away to Underwood Family Farms to pick pumpkins with ex Travis Scott.

Travis and Kylie have maintained an amicable relationship for the sake of their daughter despite ending their romantic relationship in 2019.
UNION CITY, Calif., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Researched and prepared by Adelante SCM's analyst Adrian Gonzalez and presented by PINC, the publication's 2020 theme is The Impact Of Digital Yard Management on Enterprise Transportation Costs and Capacity. The report brings clarity to key industry questions such as how important is having digital yard management capabilities in helping you achieve transportation objectives? And how much do you estimate you would save annually in overall transportation costs by digitizing your yard operations?



The COVID-19 pandemic has made agility, flexibility, and responsiveness even more critical for supply chain success. Manufacturers, retailers, and distributors have been forced to quickly adapt their supply chain networks and processes to new market realities.



As the uncertainties with customer expectations, unstable freight capacity, and ever-changing guidance from governments and public health authorities continue, trailer and container yards at distribution centers and manufacturing plants are playing a vital role as mechanisms to expedite shipments, support corporate sustainability goals, and reduce costs.



Also, facilities continue to be forced to optimize driver and truck turnaround times and reduce costs while becoming a "Shipper of Choice" as hours of service constraints cause carriers to be more selective.



At the enterprise level, logistics executives are looking for ways to automatically optimize the flow of goods into and out of their facilities and to efficiently manage yard capacities, trailer pool availability, yard service providers, transportation contracts, and accessorial charges from an enterprise perspective.



"Across virtually all industries, transportation represents the lion's share of distribution costs. According to an industry leading consulting firm, transportation costs range from 60% of total distribution costs for High Tech companies to 88% for Food & Beverage companies. Therefore, compared with transportation and warehousing costs, it is easy to see why investing in digitizing yard management operations has not been a priority for CEOs, CFOs, and even supply chain executives," said Adrian Gonzalez, President of Adelante SCM and lead researcher. "There are many factors that influence transportation costs, but there is one that many companies overlook: the link between yard management, driver detention, and freight rates."



Adrian Gonzalez and PINC's CEO, Matt Yearling, will present and review the results of the report during the upcoming webinar, "The Impact Of Digital Yard Management on Enterprise Costs and Capacity" on Tuesday, October 28th at 12 p.m. PDT.



The 2020 State Of Yard Management Report will be shared with all online event attendees and will be available for download after the webinar.



About Adrian Gonzalez



Adrian Gonzalez is trusted advisor and leading industry analyst with more than 20 years of research experience in transportation management, logistics outsourcing, and other supply chain and logistics topics. He is the founder and president of Adelante SCM, a peer-to-peer learning, networking, and research community for supply chain and logistics professionals. Adelante's services include Talking Logistics, an online video talk show and blog featuring thought leaders and newsmakers in the supply chain and logistics industry, and Indago, a market research service that brings together a community of supply chain and logistics practitioners who share practical knowledge and advice with each other while giving back to charitable causes. Prior to his current roles, Adrian held various leadership positions at ARC Advisory Group, Motorola, Polaroid, and Clare. Adrian speaks frequently at industry events and conferences and is regularly quoted in industry publications. He is also a member of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals and a LinkedIn Influencer with more than 252,000 followers.



About PINC



PINC is the number one provider of digital yard management solutions to the world's leading brands. PINC provides scalable software, hardware, and services that enable companies to identify, locate, and orchestrate inventory throughout the supply chain predictably and cost-effectively. The company's cloud-based real-time tracking platform, powered by an Internet of Things (IoT) sensor network that includes passive RFID, GPS, computer vision, cellular, and other sensors, provides actionable insights and connected expert guidance that allow organizations to optimize their supply chain execution.



Photo(s):

https://www.prlog.org/12841392



Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE PINC

Related Links

https://www.pinc.com


The chronicle of a life split between urban Manhattan and rural Montana.
COLUMBUS, OhioOne of Ohios most conservative lawmakers isnt giving up his increasingly quixotic fight to see Gov. Mike DeWine pay a price for his coronavirus policies.

State Rep. John Becker, a term-limited Clermont County Republican, has asked a state appeals court to order the arrest of DeWine on 10 charges, including (among others) terrorism, inducing panic, conspiracy, bribery, and interfering with civil rights. Most of the charges are felonies.

Ohio law permits private citizens to submit an affidavit alleging a crime, though its up to a prosecutor to actually file charges. Last week, Becker unsuccessfully asked Clermont County Prosecutor Vince Faris to file such charges, leading the lawmaker to now ask the Twelfth District Court of Appeals to order Faris to prosecute DeWine.

Its the latest longshot attempt to unseat DeWine by Becker and a handful of other conservative state lawmakers who are unhappy about the governors coronavirus response, which has included closing schools and businesses for weeks, postponing Ohios March 17 primary election and requiring Ohioans to wear face masks.

In August, Becker introduced articles of impeachment against DeWine over the same issues, though that measure has so far gone nowhere.

In a statement released last week, Becker said some of his colleagues have been reluctant to sign on to his impeachment resolution when no criminal charges have been filed against DeWine.

The governor simply isnt getting the message that the peoples liberties need to be respected and a governor has no right to assume imperial and dictatorial powers without regard to any alleged emergency, Becker stated. Therefore, I filed this Private Citizen Affidavit for their benefit and for the benefit of the growing number of Ohioans who have been chanting, LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!

Attorney General Dave Yost, a Columbus Republican, ridiculed Beckers attempt to have DeWine arrested.

If the affidavit had said the governor turned into a werewolf at midnight and knocked over a liquor store, it should be dismissed on its face, Yost stated in a tweet. Representative Beckers affidavit is equally absurd  and warrants no expenditure of law enforcement resources.

If the affidavit had said the governor turned into a werewolf at midnight and knocked over a liquor store, it should be dismissed on its face.



Representative Beckers affidavit is equally absurd  and warrants no expenditure of law enforcement resources. https://t.co/u4mFIFepth  Dave Yost (@Yost4Ohio) October 7, 2020

DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney, asked by the Cincinnati Enquirer for comment last week about Beckers affidavit, replied: If this were serious, I would have a comment. Because it is patently absurd, I do not.

In a news release Tuesday night, Becker encouraged citizens across Ohio, who care about the rule of law and want their freedoms restored, to file their own private citizen affidavits against DeWine, a Greene County Republican.

However, Becker stated that hes received reports that some county clerk of court offices are refusing to accept such affidavits, saying something like We dont do that here.

It is likely that many customer service employees in the Clerks offices are not familiar with [such affidavits] and simply dont know what to do with them, Becker stated, adding that if court clerks' offices refuse to accept them, would-be filers should go directly to a judge or to the prosecutors office.

Read more Ohio politics and government stories:

Franklin County sends some absentee ballots to wrong voters; elections officials cite software error

Cleveland Clinic says Commission on Presidential Debates was responsible for enforcing coronavirus security protocols

Spectators at Browns home games will likely be capped at 12,000 this season: Gov. Mike DeWine

President Trumps coronavirus diagnosis offers enduring lessons for Ohioans, Gov. Mike DeWine says

Federal judge thinks LaRose has permitted off-site ballot collection sites in Ohio, dismisses drop box lawsuit. But is he right?
100 Years Ago  1920: Every property owner on Edgmont Avenue between Fifth and Sixth streets and on Sproul street between Edgmont Avenue and Sixth street has signed an agreement presented by the American Paving Company and approved by City Council, for the use of a top dressing different from that contracted for several weeks ago. The paving company has made all arrangements for the material but to date no apparent effort has been made to proceed with this important improvement, despite the fact that it was to be started within a weeks time after the agreement was entered into by Council and the contractor.

75 Years Ago  1945: Chester is mobilizing the largest number of Community Fund and War Chester volunteers in the history of the campaign to put over the 1946 quote of $300,000 to meet welfare, health and youth guidance needs. More than 700 workers will be ready for the opening of the drive Monday, Oct., 15, Judge Henry G. Sweney, general chairman, said today. The important Labor Division, with close to 100 members, under the co-chairmanship of Nicholas DiMeo, Frank E. Ritter and Thomas Dunn, will hold its kick-off dinner at the YWCA.

50 Years Ago  1970: House Minority Gerald R. Ford (R-Mich.), praised the Delaware County Chamber of Commerce Tuesday night for its splendid achievements in training disadvantaged persons and said that urban problems can best be solved through a partnership of business and government. Speaking before 600 persons at the chambers Salute to Industrial Progress dinner at the Log Cabin Inn, Ford also cited the superb accomplishments of the Franklin Mint, whose president received the chambers third annual Salute to Industry Award.

25 Years Ago  1995: Upper Darby has been awarded a $96,768 Key 93 state grant to make restorations to the historic Collenbrook Farmhouse. State Sen. F. Joseph Loeper (R-26), who worked to obtain the grant, said the funding was allocated through the states Keystone Historic Preservation Grant Program. Collenbrook Farmhouse dates back to 1794 and includes unique architecture from the 18th and 19th centuries. The grant will be matched with local funds to complete the project.

10 Years Ago  2010: A reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest of the suspects who broke into a Chester doctors office and stole a laptop computer. Burglars broke into the office of Chester Family Practice, located in the 500 block of East Ninth Street, twice over the weekend. Henrietta Mudrick, whose late husband started the practice more than 50 years ago, told police a laptop computer was stolen.

 COLIN AINSWORTH
President Trump has been given at least three potent drugs since announcing he tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday night: Regeneron's cocktail of lab-made antibodies, the antiviral remdesivir, and the steroid dexamethasone.

Two of those medications are still experimental for treating COVID-19, and have given emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

And White House physician Dr Sean Conley admitted on Monday that he would not disclose every single medication that the president is currently receiving (citing HIPAA patient privacy laws, which suggests that Trump himself gave Dr Conley permission to disclose some of his medications, but not all of them).

Remdesivir, dexamethasone and the antibody cocktail are all in ongoing trials - but it's unclear if anyone besides the US Commander-in-Chief has ever been treated with all three.

Those three drugs are 'as much as we know [about the president's treatment regimen] - but I found it all really confusing, based on the reports,' Dr Mark Poznansky, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital told DailyMail.com.

When asked if there was any precedent for treating a COVID-19 patient with all three drugs, Dr Poznansky replied, 'no.'

'But the individual decisions are based on the individual patient, and all bets are off when you're dealing with the president, the commander-in chief,' he added.

'The implication is that the doctors believe that the risk of using these is outweighed by the potential benefit.'

And while we have some clarity on the potential side effects of each of the drugs, how they might interact is a mystery, 'because they just haven't been used frequently enough...we don't know about the combination,' Dr Poznansky said.

But even on their own, the side effects of these drugs could be particularly concerning for the president, considering that the steroid can cause mood swings, confusion and aggression.

The drugs he was treated with and their potential side effects are:

REGENERON'S EXPERIMENTAL ANTIBODY COCKTAIL DRUG

WHEN HE GOT IT: Trump received a single 8 gram dose of Regeneron's cocktail of lab-made antibodies on Friday.

WHAT IT DOES: REGN-COV2 is a combination of two lab-made versions of antibodies that help block the coronavirus from entering cells.

One of the antibodies in the 'cocktail' is based on an antibody that mice produce in response to coronavirus, while the other is based on an antibody isolated from the one of the first US COVID-19 patients.

The hope is that the treatment drives down viral load, keeping it from overrunning the body and sending the immune system haywire, and preventing the infection from becoming severe.

WHAT THE DATA SAYS: REGN-COV2 is still in early trial phases, but the first data from its clinical trial found that it dramatically lowered viral load within a week and cut recovery time in half in patients that weren't sick enough to be hospitalized.

Regeneron has not yet studied the drug in severely ill patients.

THE POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS: The main concern is these types of treatment occasionally trigger 'antibody-dependent enhancement,' which means the intended therapeutic actually helps the virus invade cells.

So far, the trials don't suggest that REGN-COV2 is causing this phenomenon.

Antibody treatments can also cause allergic reactions including anaphylaxis, as well as fever, chills, nausea, diarrhea, weakness, headache and low blood pressure.

REMDESIVIR, GILEAD'S ANTIVIRAL DRUG

WHEN HE GOT IT: President Trump was given his first dose of a five-day treatment course on Friday evening, after he was transferred from the White House to Walter Reed National Medical Center.

He has since received his second and third dose of the drug.

WHAT IT DOES: Remdesivir is an antiviral therapy originally designed to treat Ebola.

Scientists are not entirely sure why, but it helps to prevent coronavirus from making more copies of itself.

WHAT THE DATA SAYS: Late-stage clinical trials of remdesivir found that patients treated with the drug were more likely to recover within 11 days than those who did not get the drug.

Their survival odds were about 40 percent better. In May, the drug became the first to get emergency use authorization from the FDA for treating severely ill patients. That approval has since been expanded to any hospitalized patients.

THE POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS: It can cause nausea, vomiting, chils, sweating or light-headedness. The drug also may harm liver function, meaning that patients have to be closely monitored.

There was some suggestion the Trump's liver and kidney function were suboptimal last night, but Dr Conley said Monday the president was just 'dehydrated.'

DEXAMETHASONE, THE $6 STEROID WITH COMMON PSYCHIATRIC SIDE EFFECTS

WHEN HE GOT IT: The president got a dose of dexamethasone on Saturday after he developed a high fever and his blood oxygen levels dropped below 94 percent on two occasions.

WHAT IT DOES: Dexamethasone is a cheap steroid known to tamp down inflammation. It's already approved for use in other conditions in the US.

WHAT THE DATA SAYS: Although it hasn't yet been given emergency approval in the US, dexamethasone is the most promising treatment yet for coronavirus.

In a major UK study, the steroid cut the risk of death by 36 percent for patients sick enough to need breathing machines and by 18 percent for patients needing just supplemental oxygen.

However, it seemed harmful at earlier stages or milder cases of illness: 18 percent of those on the drug died versus 14 percent of those given usual care.

For that reason, many doctors were alarmed to see President Trump treated with the drug because using it suggested either that he was very sick, or that doctors were taking a risk in giving it to him early.

THE POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS: The steroid is potent, and can cause swelling, headaches, stomach pain, nausea, weakness, dizziness sleep problems, vision changes, skin problems, severe allergic reactions including mood changes.

These mood changes include aggression, agitation and confusion.

'Steroids are always very dangerous medications to use,' Dr Edward Jones-Lopez, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, told Reuters.

'That is why it (dexamethasone) is used in severe to critical patients... There can be neuropsychiatric side effects. These are medications that we use very, very carefully.'
Candidates whose names will be mentioned in the allotment list will have to remit the fee shown in the allotment menu.

Kerala Engineering Architecture Medical (KEAM) 2020 exam first phase allotment will be released by the Commissioner of Entrance Examinations (CEE) today at 9 pm. Once released, candidates can check the allotment result online at cee.kerala.gov.in.

According to a report by Times of India, candidates whose names will be mentioned in the allotment list will have to remit the fee shown in the allotment menu. They have to make the payment at any of the Head/ Post Offices in Kerala via online mode.

Those who fail to remit the fee on or before the date prescribed will lose their allotment as well as all the existing options in the stream to which the allotment pertains. Once lost, the options will not be available in the subsequent phases.

A report by Hindustan Times said that the trial allotment was released by CEE 4 October and students were asked to add and arrange the course-college options by 6 October.

The KEAM 2020 rank list was released by CEE on 24 September. A total of 87 boys and 13 girls have made it to the top 100 ranks.

The result of KEAM 2020 was released on 9 September. The entrance examination was conducted on 16 July at various exam centres in Kerala, Delhi, Mumbai, and Dubai.

This year, 71,742 students had appeared for engineering paper of which 56,599 have qualified, while 52,145 students appeared in the pharmacy paper of which 44,390 have cleared.

The Indian Express reports that the total number of seats available for various courses will be released ahead of the commencement of the Common Admission Process (CAP) 2020.

Candidates will be categorised as Keralite and non-Keralite category. A student who is not of Kerala origin but has completed a qualifying course in Kerala or has been residing in the state for a period of five years is considered non-Keralite-I.

Steps to check KEAM first phase allotment result 2020:

Steps 1: Visit the official website cee.kerala.gov.in.

Step 2: Tap on the Candidate Portal on the homepage.

Step 3: You will be directed to a new page, once there, enter the application number, password, and access code as displayed on the page. After this press the login button.

Step 4: The allotment result will be displayed on the screen. Take a printout for future reference

Click here for the direct link.

KEAM is conducted in offline mode for admission into various professional degree courses in institutes in Kerala.
Any victory by Chinese-Australian businessman Chau Chak Wing in his defamation case against the ABC and Nine would be reported enthusiastically by the media outlets' rivals, the Federal Court was told.

On the second day of Mr Chau's defamation case against the outlets, barrister Matthew Collins, QC, for the ABC and Nine, said the likely publicity surrounding any victory by the businessman should be taken into account in assessing the size of any damages payout.

Chau Chak Wing outside the Federal Court in 2018. Credit:Chris Pavlich

A win for Mr Chau would be "gleefully reported by rival media organisations" as well as being reported by Nine, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and the ABC, Dr Collins said.

This would, in Dr Collins' submission, mitigate any damage suffered by Mr Chau by vindicating his reputation and support a lower award of damages than might otherwise be the case.
Voter Fraud Is Real, Elections Expert Says

Voter fraud isnt a myth, with nearly 1,300 proven instances, an elections expert told The Epoch Times.

Hans von Spakovsky, a lawyer who manages The Heritage Foundations Election Law Reform Initiative, pointed to a database managed by the foundation that has 1,298 proven instances of voter fraud.

And thats not a comprehensive list. Its just a sampling of cases, von Spakovsky told The Epoch Times this week.

The problem here is that many potential cases of fraud, nothing is done about them. Elected officials dont send them to law enforcement, law enforcement doesnt investigate them. And we know the potential cases out there is far, far larger than the proven cases we have in our database.

Recent additions to the list include Reginald Holman, a city council member in Ashtabula, Ohio, who pleaded guilty and resigned after an investigation confirmed he illegally registered at his parents address in Ashtabula rather than his actual residence in another town, and Courtney Rainey, a Mississippi resident who was found guilty of bribing and harassing individuals to win a municipal election.

Courtney Rainey in an undated mugshot. (Madison County District Attorneys Office)

The unprecedented increase in mail-in voting in this years primary elections and the record number projected for the Nov. 3 general election are concerning to some experts, who point out that in many cases, a larger percentage of mail-in ballots are rejected than in-person votes. Thats on top of the system being ripe for fraud, especially in states without signature requirements.

The problems dont only affect local and state elections.

One in five mail-in ballots cast by voters in New York City in the June Democratic presidential primary were rejected. California rejected more than 100,000 mail-in ballots in the March primary. In the 2018 general election, younger, newly registered, and minority voters who voted by mail in Florida and Georgia were more likely to see their ballots rejected.

This issue more disproportionately affects younger voters and voters who are persons of color than anyone else, Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) told The Epoch Times last month.

That year, the race for the U.S. House seat to represent North Carolinas Ninth Congressional District ended up with a 900-vote margin. Seven people were charged with allegedly tampering with absentee ballots in that election, and a judge ordered a new vote be held.

Other issues include votes cast by non-citizens and outdated voter rolls.

Nearly 350,000 dead registrants remain on voter rolls across 41 states, according to an audit published last month.

A roll of voter stickers at Santa Ana Downtown Plaza voting center in Santa Ana, Calif., on March 3, 2020. (Chris Karr/The Epoch Times)

The Public Interest Legal Foundation report found tens of thousands of people credited with voting after they were dead, tens of thousands of others who were registered in more than one state and voted in more than one state, and tens of thousands of voters who were registered more than once in the same state and cast more than one ballot.

The total potential cases of fraud that they uncovered is over 140,000 cases, just from the last two federal elections, von Spakovsky said.

People across the country have been receiving multiple ballots in the lead-up to this years presidential election, with photographs of the splayed out documents circulating widely on social media. That issue related to voter rolls.

The statewide voter registration lists are in notoriously bad shape. Election officials dont do a very good job of maintaining their accuracy. Theyre not good at taking people off after theyve moved away or taking people off after they have died, von Spakovsky said.

And because of that, those states that have made the decision, I think an unwise decision, to simply mail out an absentee ballot to all registered voters are guaranteeing that ballots are going to arrive at peoples homes for people for folks who dont live there anymore, or for individuals who have died, and the potential is there for others to gather up those ballots and to try to vote them.

And whether or not theyll pass election officials is going to depend on, how good are the election officials that at detecting fraudulent ballots? Past history shows theyre not very good at that.

Jan Jekielek contributed to this report.
Fox News Channels Special Report

October 6, 2020

6:08:06 p.m. Eastern

BRET BAIER: The director of national intelligence has declassified documents today revealing former CIA Director John Brennan brief then-President Obama on Hillary Clintons purported plan to smear then-candidate Trump in 2016, adding to what the national intelligence director has already declassified on this issue. And raising more questions tonight about how much more of this will come out before Election Day. Senior political correspondent Mike Emanuel is following the story tonight in Washington. Good evening, Mike.

MIKE EMANUEL: Bret, good evening. These are handwritten notes from former CIA Director John Brennan. Written, according to a source familiar, after Brennan briefed President Obama.

At one point he writes, quote, Approved by Hillary Clinton, a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal, claiming interference by the Russian security service.

The notes say, on 28 of July, in the margin, Brennan writes, POTUS but that section of the notes is redacted. Then it says, any evidence of collaboration between Trump campaign and Russia. The remainder of the notes are redacted, except in the margins where it says JC, Denis, and Susan. That could be referring to former FBI Director James Comey, former Obama Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice.

The CIA sent a memo to former FBI Director James Comey and Peter Strzok, writing, quote, The following information is provided for the exclusive use of your bureau for background investigative action or lead purposes as appropriate.

One example of the CIA includes, quote, an exchange  redacted  discussing U.S. presidential campaign candidate Hillary Clintons approval of a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.

At a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Comey was pressed with what he did with information provided by the CIA.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): Did you open an investigation?

JAMES COMEY: I dont know what that refers to. As I said, that does not ring any bells with me when I read that.

HAWLEY: Did you not receive any investigative referral of this nature?

COMEY: I dont remember it. I dont remember receiving anything that is described in that letter.

EMANUEL: Hillary Clintons spokesperson Nick Merrill has called the latest revelation, quote, baseless BS. Bret.

BAIER: All right, Mike. Thank you.

()

I want to start with this story that Mike just did, Mollie. Adding to what the national intelligence director has already put out on this story. What do you think this tells us and how it advances the ball ahead of maybe a John Durham report?

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Well, we already knew that Hillary Clinton did try to smear President Trump, then-candidate Trump, with this claim he was colluding with Russia. That was already known, we discover that over the course of years that she was the person behind that, that her campaign had purchased this operation from a group called Fusion GPS, which contracted with an unregistered foreign agent of a sanctioned Russian oligarch. He hired a suspected Russian spy to create that dossier.

What this is saying, is that Russia believed she had personally authorized this plan July 26 or so of 2016 and that U.S. intelligence officials took it so seriously that Russians believed it. They further believed it was done to distract from her own scandal. They brief President Obama about it early on in 2016. And so, he knew that this was part of what she was trying to do.

Everything we found out about this story in recent years has pointed in one direction, that intelligence agencies didnt really handle this very well. And yet, nobody seems to be held accountable except for the one Mueller attorney who falsified evidence to spy on the Trump team. So, were getting all this information but it seems like a lot of people are getting away with some seriously bad activity.

()
The outcome is anything but assured, but Alameda Countys top prosecutor is right to take a fresh look at the troubling circumstances of the death of Oscar Grant, fatally shot by a BART police officer 11 years ago.

That incident brought on protests, the conviction and imprisonment of the officer who pulled the trigger and even a movie. But it wasnt fully resolved. An investigation found another officer was at fault for escalating the Fruitvale Station encounter, roughing up Grant and lying about his actions. That second officer, Anthony Pirone, was eventually fired but never prosecuted.

Grants family has long pushed for a more complete answer, one that focused on Pirones role. This week District Attorney Nancy OMalley acquiesced and said a team of prosecutors would reexamine the case.

That turnabout isnt hard to understand. A wave of protests over police killings of Black suspects has swept across the country. The deaths of George Floyd in Minnesota, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and Rayshard Brooks in Georgia have led to demands for police reform and accountability. Grants death may date to 2009, but the questions about it have not gone away.

The renewed inquiry rests on an outside investigation of Grants death that showed how BART police practices were flawed and came down hard on Pirone whose actions and racial epithets inflamed the incident. OMalley made her announcement within hours of a news conference by Grants family demanding the case be reopened.

The district attorneys decision is only an opening. She didnt indicate what part of the case will be reviewed or if Pirones actions will be the focus. Reworking a decade-old killing comes with limitations.

But the incomplete results in which one officer went to prison and another only lost his job amounts to imperfect justice. The district attorney must be fully committed to going over the fatal mistakes that occurred when Grant was pinned down and shot on a BART platform.

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.
With so many young people today (and more than a few older people), their self-image is tied up in their social media presence.

How they appear to their friends and followers on Instagram matters more than how they feel about themselves.

Emily Butler wants to change that, and shes turned that goal into a business.

Butler, who just graduated from Trinitas Classical Academy, a Christian home-school co-op in Killen, is the founder of More Than The Reel, an online clothes seller with a positive spin.

More Than The Reels motto is Inspiring people to live for more than the highlight reel of social media.

Its products include the Conversation Starter Crewneck, which simply has the word More on the front.

"The statement is just enough to make people ask the question What does your shirt mean? says the description on Butlers website. We believe that conversations change minds, and changed minds change lives. With changed minds, we can join together to fight against the idea that what we see on Instagram is always the whole story.

The shirt is intended to get people to ask 'What does your shirt mean?'

Butler, now a student at Northwest Shoals Community College in Tuscumbia, decided to start her business after enrolling in YEA!, or Young Entrepreneurs Academy. The Cullman chapter of YEA!, Alabamas only chapter, has members across North Alabama.

YEA! Helps students develop business ideas, write business plans, do market research, pitch their plans to investors, and launch and run their companies and social movements. Its mission is teaching more students how to make a job, not just take a job.

Through YEA! I learned that business doesnt have to fit into a specific mold as I had assumed before. YEA! taught me what true entrepreneurship is, said Butler.

As part of the YEA! program, Butlers business plan won her a spot in the Americas Next Top Young Entrepreneur contest, which is part of YEA!'s 12th Annual Saunders Scholars National Competition.

The Shark Tank-style pitch competition will award more than $80,000 in cash prizes and scholarships to the Saunders College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.

Butler will compete in the semi-final round on Oct. 17, pitching her unique, More Than The Reel idea, which donates 10% of each purchase to the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit that provides tools to help protect the emotional wellbeing of teens and young adults.

Butler already has an impressive resume, having been named a Distinguished Young Woman of Lauderdale County and being selected for Youth Leadership Shoals. She was also selected for Girls State, where she was elected Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries.

This competition will help her and other young entrepreneurs launch their fresh ideas into the business world.

Just imagine what our world would look like if every student got the chance to bring their ideas to life, said Gayle Jagel, YEA! Founder and CEO.

Shelly Haskins writes about points of pride statewide. Email your suggestions to shaskins@al.com, or tweet them to @Shelly_Haskins using #AlabamaProud
The new season of The Bachelorette is set to premiere on Wednesday night on Channel 10.

But as Elly and Becky Miles begin their hunt for love, rumours have began to swirl about the contestants - and it appears not all may be there for the right reasons.

Property valuer Damien Stone is one such suitor, whose link with tons of reality stars - and even a rumour he's dating ex-Bachelor babe Paige Royal - have set off alarm bells that he may have joined the show for clout, rather than romance.

Spoiler! Property valuer Damien Stone (right) is a top contender on The Bachelorette starring Elly and Becky Miles. Pictured with best friend, Love Island star Todd Elton (left)

Damien is reportedly best friends with Love Island star Todd Elton, 26, who appeared on season two of Love Island Australia.

Damien regularly fraternises with stars from Todd's series, including Cartier Surjan, Jessie Wynter, Blake Williamson and winners Anna McEvoy and Josh Packham.

The pals have been spotted going to a string of festivals and events together, so it would come as no surprise if Damien would want a slice of the reality life himself.

Reality TV haven! Damien regularly fraternises with stars from Todd's Love Island series, including Cartier Surjan, Jessie Wynter, Blake Williamson and winners Anna McEvoy and Josh Packham

Rubbing shoulders with the stars! Damien is already close pals with a whole host of reality stars. (Pictured L-R Damien, Blake Williamson, Todd Elton and Jessie Wynter of Love Island fame)

Friends for life! Damien isn't shy about sharing snaps with his celebrity pals. Pictured with Todd and Love Island's Cartier Surjan (right)

Not only that, but rumours have emerged that he could be dating former Bachelor babe Paige Royal, who failed to win Locky Gilbert's heart in the 2020 season.

Daily Mail Australia have contacted Damien and Paige for further comment.

According to a well-placed source, Damien, who only recently returned to social media after a weeks-long blackout, 'makes it pretty close to the end'.

Rumours: It's also been reported that Damien may be dating former Bachelor star Paige Royal (pictured), who was very rapidly dumped by Locky Gilbert

Other contestants on The Bachelorette, include rugby player Joe Woodbury and cafe owner Pete Mann.

Channel 10 announced in July that sisters Elly and Becky would be looking for love on the show together, in a world-first for the dating franchise.

Elly, 25, was a popular contestant on Matt Agnew's season of The Bachelor last year, while Becky, 30, is new to television.
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Linkedin Diego Urdaneta (Agence France-Presse) Madrid, Spain  Wed, October 7, 2020 14:30 473 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49a586d 2 News Tourist,Spain,Madrid,tourism,coronavirus,COVID-19 Free

Taxis line up for hours at Madrid airport without picking up a single client while the square outside of the Royal Palace is deserted.

With the capital of the world's second largest tourist destination in partial lockdown since Friday night to fight a surge in coronavirus cases, visitors have vanished and the hospitality sector is fearing the worse.

"We barely registered occupancy in our hotels due to limitations on international mobility, and now we face hard restrictions that won't allow us to accommodate customers from other regions of Spain," said Gabriel Garcia Alonso, the head of Madrid hotels association AEHM.

Just when tourism -- a pillar of the Spanish economy which accounts for some 12 percent of its GDP -- was showing signs of picking up, "they create this confusion", he added.

Garcia Alonso was referring to lockdown measures adopted only grudgingly by Madrid's conservative regional leaders under pressure from Spain's leftist central government following a days-long standoff.

Under the terms of the lockdown which came into effect Friday night in Madrid and several satellite towns, the city's borders are closed to outsiders for non-essential visits although people are allowed to cross boundaries for work, school, doctors' visits or shopping.

The tourism ministry said that tourists are not allowed to spend the night in affected municipalities but can go though them if they are in transit to go elsewhere.

"I don't know if my boyfriend who is Italian will be able to come from Rome next week, because the rules are not clear," said Elisa Siam, a 24-year-old who lives in Madrid and just arrived from the Italian capital.

"I don't know when we will be able to see each other again," she added before recalling that during the first wave of the pandemic she was separated from her boyfriend for five months.

Read also: Spain foreign tourist arrivals plummet in July

Enter easily

Some tourists have still managed to get into the city due to lax controls, such as Mohamed Marcin who flew in from Cologne on Saturday to visit a friend.

"I didn't have a problem," the 26-year-old told AFP outside of the Royal Palace, one of the few people visiting the normally busy area.

He said he never thought of dropping the trip because he is "not afraid of the virus".

At Madrid airport, Spain's busiest which handled an average of around 5.5 million passengers per month before the pandemic, taxis formed a long queue waiting for clients.

There are far less flights and the few tourists who arrived were heading to other regions of Spain.

"Now you have to multiply the time you wait by three or four, in tens hours you might do two trips," said Teodoro Garcia, 68, who has worked as a taxi driver for 45 years.

"I have never seen anything like it."

Read also: Locked-down puppeteer brings her characters to life in Madrid flat

Job losses

In Madrid 70 percent of hotels were already closed and those still open where operating at around 20 percent capacity, said Garcia Alonso of hotel association AEHM.

With the new restrictions which will be in force for at least 14 days, hoteliers are resigned to more "job losses and business closures", he added.

October, which includes Spain's national day holiday, is traditionally the best month for the tourism sector in Madrid.

Of the 7.6 million visitors who came to the Madrid region last year, 1.2 million visited in October, according to Spain's INE statistics agency.

Between March, when Spain imposed a strict nationwide lockdown to fight the virus, and August, the region welcomed just 853,000 visitors.

"Health comes above all else, but the hotel sector is going to continue to be one of the worst affected," said Garcia Alonso.

He called for a government moratorium on tax payments for hotels as well as credits for the tourism sector.
Kristie Higgs has lost her tribunal case but said she will appeal. (PA)

A school worker who claimed she was sacked because of her Christian beliefs is to appeal after losing her employment tribunal case.

Kristie Higgs, 44, was dismissed for gross misconduct by Farmors School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, last year after sharing Facebook posts criticising plans to teach LGBT relationships in primary schools.

The mother-of-two, from Fairford, shared and commented on posts that raised concerns about relationship education at her sons Church of England primary school.

Students were to learn about the No Outsiders In Our School programme, which is a series of books teaching the Equality Act in primary schools.

Higgs, who was posting on Facebook under her maiden name, shared two posts in October 2018 to around 100 friends.

One of the posts referred to brainwashing our children and added: Children will be taught that all relationships are equally valid and normal, so that same sex marriage is exactly the same as traditional marriage, and gender is a matter of choice, not biology, so that its up to them what sex they are.

We say again this is a vicious form of totalitarianism aimed at suppressing Christianity and removing it from the public arena.

Kristie Higgs was dismissed for gross misconduct by Farmor's School in Gloucestershire last year. (PA/Christian Legal Centre)

The Christian Legal Centre said Higgs is set to appeal, and in a statement she said: Its hard to believe that the school would take one anonymous complaint and escalate it to all this.

Where was the schools tolerance and kindness to me? Where was the schools attempt to understand my point of view?

I shared these posts as a mother who was deeply concerned about the compulsory sex education being forced on my 9-year-old son at a Church of England primary school.

These views were compared to that of a pro-Nazi right wing extremist, which is highly offensive to me and millions of Christians across the world.

I want parents to have the freedom to bring their children up in line with their Christian beliefs, I want young children to be protected from this harmful ideology.

Story continues

An anonymous complaint made to the school led to Higgs being suspended and then dismissed after a disciplinary hearing.

She was supported by the Christian Legal Centre during her case, in which she argued she had been unlawfully discriminated against because of her Christian beliefs.

But employment judge Derek Reed said in his ruling: We concluded that not only the dismissal but the entire proceedings taken against Mrs Higgs were motivated by a concern on the part of the school that, by reason of her posts, she would be perceived as holding unacceptable views in relation to gay and trans people  views which in fact she vehemently denied that she did hold.

However, the tribunal also concluded her religion was a protected characteristic as defined in the Equality Act.

The judge added that the belief that sex and gender are set at birth might be upsetting to certain people, but if the relevant European Convention on Human Rights articles extended only to expressions that would not upset anyone they would be worthless.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: This judgment should concern all of us who care about the freedom to be a Christian believer in the UK.

Even though no one actually thinks or claimed that Kristie holds hateful views, she is being fired because one anonymous friend said they were and because others might think the same.

A spokesman for the school said: The school is pleased with the decision of the employment tribunal.

The school, at all times, has worked to ensure that all our pupils are treated with equality, so they can thrive in an inclusive environment.

We recognise and respect the rights of all our pupils, families and employees to hold and manifest their beliefs.

The schools actions were in response to the particular language used on social media, which was not reflective of our ethos as a school.

Watch: Dating at a Distance: boxing, LGBT and interracial relationships
Mina noted that the presidents medical team has many ways to determine the status of his infection. Beyond administering the PCR test, considered the most definitive way of assessing whether someone has the virus, he said doctors could ask him to cough onto a petri dish to see whether the virus grows, swab his nose to culture the specimen, or administer antigen tests to see whether he has the viruss protein in his nose.
Six years ago, when Taylor Frankel started Nudestix with her mom and sister, no-makeup makeup wasnt a thing. You did not hear less is more, says the Toronto native. Retailers thought we were crazy because they argued that more is more is how you sell products. But Frankel and her sister stuck to their instinct, convincing their mother, a chemical engineer who had been developing cosmetics for more than 20 years (you can thank her for M. A. Cs Lipglass) that their generation preferred to keep things simple.

She realized very quickly that how we saw beauty was very different from how her generation saw beauty, Frankel explains. She comes from the Sex and the City era where it was all about more hair, more makeup, more artistry, more colour, more everything. Then she had two teenage daughters who were like, We dont want to wake up an hour earlier to do our makeup. We thought that was an absurd concept.

Their hunch paid off. Nudestix is now available at Sephora in nearly 35 countries and has seduced fans the world over with its quick and easy ethos. The majority of women out there prioritize other things in their lives, but still want to look good and feel good in their skin. says Frankel. Nudestix is all about minimalist, simple, fast and effortless beauty products to just enhance your natural beauty. Here, Frankel, along with Jasmine Merinsky, lead makeup artist and diversity educator for the brand, spills sneaky tricks to achieve a gorgeous natural makeup look.

Prep your skin

A no-makeup makeup look should take five minutes, says Merinsky. And it should always start with skin care. She recommends kicking things off with a good cleanse, then toning and moisturizing before even opening up your makeup bag. Regular exfoliation can also help refine skins texture and help products go on smoother. And dont forget about your lips. Keeping them nice and hydrated is key, says Merinsky.

Lighten up

Even if youve got some stuff you want to camouflage, resist the urge to slather a heavy foundation, say Frankel and Merinsky. Hear them out: If you start with a luminous sheer base and then go in with something that is higher coverage to really pinpoint those more problematic areas, it tends to look more natural than when you just slap on a full-coverage foundation, says Frankel. The thing with higher coverage formulas is that they tend to make you look flat, which means you need to put more makeup on top to bring some dimension and life into the face. With a more translucent base, you dont have to cover everything and then add it back in, says Merinsky. Nudestix Tinted Cover Foundation, $43, sephora.ca

Cover strategically

Spot-concealing over a sheer foundation or tinted moisturizer or even a bare face calls for a particular formula. If your concealer is too thick or matte, it wont blend in with the rest of your skin and will only draw attention to the areas youre trying to cover. Nudestix spent two full years developing its new concealer to get it just right. We tried to make it as natural as possible when it comes to the finish on the skin and the coverage, says Frankel. The breakthrough was a super-gel technology, which allows the product to melt into the skin, making it totally undetectable. It also self-sets, so you dont have to use any powder to lock it in. This also helps preserve a natural effect. If you have oily skin, it will help regulate shine without drying your skin, says Frankel. It hugs and moves with your skin and never settles into lines or accentuates texture. Nudestix Cream Concealer, $37, sephora.ca

Stick to one colour

We believe the perfect no-makeup makeup look is monochromatic, says Frankel. When you use the same tone on the eyes, cheeks and lips, thats the perfect flush of colour for a natural makeup look. Opt for colours that flatter any part of the face  such as pink, peach, mauve and rust  and pick creams over powders. Cream products sit in the skin instead of on top, says Merinsky. They also look more natural because they dont take away from skins luminosity. For a healthy, harmonious effect, dab a bit of cream blush on the apples of your cheeks as well as on the bridge of your nose and across your temples. Thats where people get colour when theyre in the sun, says Merinsky. It makes your makeup indistinguishable. Nudestix Nudies Matte Blush & Bronze, $38, sephora.ca

Put the finishing touches

Once youve got your base done and youve added a bit of colour on your cheeks, nose, temples and maybe even your lids, all you need are few last details to bring it all together. Make sure to use a good brow gel, says Merinsky. This will help frame the entire face. Next is a coat of lengthening mascara. Look for one that wont clump or leave lashes stiff. A flexible, defining formula will look way more natural. Last but not least, says Merinsky, a nice hydrating lip colour and youll be rocking a great no-makeup makeup look. Nudestix Eyebrow Stylus Pencil & Gel, $32, sephora.ca

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 16:41:14|Editor: huaxia

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PHNOM PENH, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said on Wednesday that there will be no wage hikes for the civil servants and armed forces for the next year due to the impact of COVID-19.

"Due to the economic uncertainty, there will not be any 2021 salary increases for the civil servants and armed forces," he said during the inauguration ceremony of an amusement park in Kandal province.

However, they will still receive allowances for the Khmer New Year and the Pchum Ben Festival, or the Ancestor's Day, the prime minister said.

Hun Sen said due to the pandemic, the kingdom's economy is predicted to shrink 1.9 percent this year before rebounding to 3.5 percent growth next year thanks to the gradual recovery of global economy and external demand.

The Southeast Asian country has recorded a total of 280 confirmed COVID-19 cases to date, the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday, adding that none have died and 276 have recovered. Enditem
Hunterdon County Freeholder Matt Holt reported at a recent meeting the return of Personal Protective Equipment to county schools that stepped up after a call for help from first responders and medical providers facing a critical shortage of the necessary safety equipment at the beginning of the public health emergency.

Holt, Hunterdon County Public Safety liaison, said, Back in the darkest days of the pandemic, at the very beginning, when most of us had not heard of PPEs, the countys first responders and medical providers were desperately seeking this protective equipment so they could do their jobs saving lives. Several county schools came to the rescue, donating N95 and surgical masks, goggles, gowns, gloves and other equipment.

Donations of PPE and other equipment came in from schools in Califon, Flemington-Raritan, Clinton, Lebanon Borough, Alexandria and Hampton.

I can announce that through the efforts of the Countys Office of Emergency Management, all of the donated equipment has been replaced and returned to our schools for their use, as they now face a critical juncture, Holt said.

The school districts' quick response back in the spring, when most needed, is another example of the cooperation and compassion of the people of Hunterdon County, and I am proud to report on the reciprocation of those efforts, he concluded.
Another 733 cases of COVID-19 were reported Wednesday in Montana, breaking the single-day case reporting record set the day before by more than 200 cases.

The new cases were reflected in an update to the state's case mapping and information website, which relies on data from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.

DPHHS Wednesday afternoon published its latest interim analysis of COVID-19 cases in the state. The report, put together by the DPHHS Communicable Disease Epidemiology program uses data current as of Oct. 2.

It describes an 8% positive test rate in the state through the month of September, up from between 4 and 5% across the months of July and August. For the last week of September from Sept. 26 to Oct. 2, the statewide positivity rate for COVID-19 tests was at 10%.

The new cases reported Wednesday bring the state's active case total to its highest since the start of the pandemic, with 5,352 people considered to be in need of isolation, which taking recoveries into account is an overall increase of 369 people from Tuesday.

The state's active case total reported Wednesday is up from 3,635 active cases at the same time last week and 2,237 two weeks ago.

Missoula County added 211 cases Wednesday morning in an update to the state's case tracking and information website.

Missoula County's new cases numbers were more than any other county and bring the county's active case total to 401.

Some of the cases reported Wednesday had already been reported at the local level, according to the Missoula City-County Health Department. The public health agency posted on social media after the state published an update on its website.

According to the health department, the state is catching up on reconciling data Wednesday, resulting in the more than 200 cases reported for Missoula: "While this number appears alarming, please know that MCCHD has already accounted for and reported these cases at the local level on our local platforms."

Montana also reported another death, bringing the statewide death total to 193 people. The person who died was a Missoula County resident, described by the county's health department Tuesday as someone who was "middle-aged or older." They died "from complications due to COVID-19 infection," the health department said in an email Tuesday.

The person who died is the fourth person in Missoula County to die as a result of COVID-19.

Later in the afternoon Big Horn County announced the deaths of three more residents, bringing the death total in the county to 27 people, according to county information officer Rhonda Johnson. All three deaths happened since last Saturday.

In a press release, Johnson provided some additional information about the people who died and the circumstances of their deaths.

One person was a woman in her 80s who died last Saturday. She was not hospitalized prior to her death, according to Johnson.

The second person who died was a man in his 60s who had been hospitalized before he died Tuesday.

The third person who died was a woman in her 70s. She was hospitalized before she died Wednesday, according to the press release.

Hospitalizations, which have been of increasing concern to health professionals in the state, also increased by 19 people over the previous day, rising to 235 people actively hospitalized. That is the highest number of active COVID-19 hospitalizations the state has reported.

On Monday of this week Yellowstone County hospitals had 96 COVID-19 patients, surpassing its all-time high set the previous week when 90 people hospitalized. Of those people, 28 were in intensive care units and 19 were on ventilators. Of those hospitalized in Yellowstone County as of Monday, 43 were county residents.

Wednesday the county, which has hospitals serving an area with a population of about 650,000 people, had 85 people hospitalized. Of those people 25 were in intensive care units and 17 were on ventilators. Among those hospitalized Wednesday 40 were Yellowstone County residents.

Statewide a total of 820 people have been hospitalized because of COVID-19.

Since last Wednesday, Montana has reported on the state website a total of 2,992 additional cases.

The state has confirmed since March COVID-19 infections in 16,063 people, of whom 10,518 are considered recovered.

Another 3,456 tests were completed by Wednesday, bringing the state's total number of tests to 376,176.

Yellowstone County added 116 new cases, bringing its active case total to 1,137.

Ten other counties added double-digit numbers of cases Wednesday.

Counties reporting additional cases Wednesday include:

Glacier with 83 (420 active)

Flathead with 73 (799 active)

Gallatin with 48 (282 active)

Cascade with 21 (512 active)

Blaine with 18 (79 active)

Beaverhead with 17 (59 active)

Hill with 16 (113 active)

Roosevelt with 14 (259 active)

Deer Lodge with 13 (94 active)

Lake with 11 (68 active)

Lewis and Clark with nine (189 active)

Big Horn with seven (131 active)

Sanders with seven (17 active)

Valley with seven (39 active)

Daniels with six (seven active)

Rosebud with six (80 active)

Sheridan with six (10 active)

Stillwater with six (42 active)

Dawson with five (14 active)

Pondera with four (46 active)

Toole with four (49 active)

Lincoln with three (48 active)

Meagher with three (14 active)

Butte-Silver Bow with three (75 active)

Wibaux with three (15 active)

Custer with two (10 active)

Fergus with two (17 active)

Granite with two (10 active)

Madison with two (12 active)

Powder River with two (17 active)

Liberty with one (two active)

Mineral with one (five active)

Treasure with one (three active)

According to the state's Joint Information Center, county, gender, age range and date of recently reported cases is as follows:

County Gender Age Range Date Reported Beaverhead F 20-29 10/06/2020 Beaverhead F 10-19 10/06/2020 Beaverhead F 10-19 10/06/2020 Beaverhead F 40-49 10/06/2020 Beaverhead M 10-19 10/06/2020 Beaverhead M 20-29 10/06/2020 Beaverhead M 10-19 10/06/2020 Beaverhead F 20-29 10/06/2020 Beaverhead F 10-19 10/06/2020 Beaverhead M 50-59 10/06/2020 Beaverhead F 60-69 10/06/2020 Beaverhead M 50-59 10/06/2020 Beaverhead F 50-59 10/06/2020 Beaverhead F 20-29 10/06/2020 Beaverhead M 20-29 10/06/2020 Beaverhead M 30-39 10/06/2020 Beaverhead M 20-29 10/06/2020 Big Horn F 20-29 10/06/2020 Big Horn F 80-89 10/06/2020 Big Horn F 60-69 10/06/2020 Big Horn M 40-49 10/06/2020 Big Horn F 60-69 10/06/2020 Big Horn F 10-19 10/06/2020 Big Horn M 70-79 10/06/2020 Blaine F 20-29 10/06/2020 Blaine M 20-29 10/06/2020 Blaine M 10-19 10/06/2020 Blaine F 50-59 10/06/2020 Blaine M 10-19 10/06/2020 Blaine M 20-29 10/06/2020 Blaine M 20-29 10/06/2020 Blaine F 40-49 10/06/2020 Blaine M 30-39 10/06/2020 Blaine M 10-19 10/06/2020 Blaine M 40-49 10/06/2020 Blaine M 10-19 10/06/2020 Blaine M 10-19 10/06/2020 Blaine M 20-29 10/06/2020 Blaine M 40-49 10/06/2020 Blaine F 60-69 10/06/2020 Blaine F 20-29 10/06/2020 Blaine F 20-29 10/06/2020 Cascade F 80-89 10/06/2020 Cascade M 30-39 10/06/2020 Cascade F 80-89 10/06/2020 Cascade M 20-29 10/06/2020 Cascade F 30-39 10/06/2020 Cascade M 20-29 10/06/2020 Cascade F 10-19 10/06/2020 Cascade F 30-39 10/06/2020 Cascade F 30-39 10/06/2020 Cascade M 20-29 10/06/2020 Cascade M 0-9 10/06/2020 Cascade M 30-39 10/06/2020 Cascade F 60-69 10/06/2020 Cascade F 60-69 10/06/2020 Cascade M 50-59 10/06/2020 Cascade M 50-59 10/06/2020 Cascade F 50-59 10/06/2020 Cascade M 50-59 10/06/2020 Cascade F 70-79 10/06/2020 Cascade F 70-79 10/06/2020 Cascade F 0-9 10/06/2020 Custer M 40-49 10/06/2020 Custer M 30-39 10/06/2020 Daniels F 20-29 10/06/2020 Daniels F 10-19 10/06/2020 Daniels M 40-49 10/06/2020 Daniels M 30-39 10/06/2020 Daniels M 90-99 10/06/2020 Daniels F 10-19 10/06/2020 Dawson F 90-99 10/06/2020 Dawson M 20-29 10/06/2020 Dawson F 50-59 10/06/2020 Dawson F 60-69 10/06/2020 Dawson F 30-39 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge F 50-59 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge M 50-59 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge M 40-49 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge M 40-49 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge M 10-19 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge M 40-49 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge M 30-39 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge F 20-29 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge M 30-39 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge F 30-39 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge M 30-39 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge M 30-39 10/06/2020 Deer Lodge M 50-59 10/06/2020 Fergus M 70-79 10/06/2020 Fergus F 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead M 30-39 10/06/2020 Flathead F 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead F 30-39 10/06/2020 Flathead M 20-29 10/06/2020 Flathead M 10-19 10/06/2020 Flathead M 60-69 10/06/2020 Flathead F 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead F 0-9 10/06/2020 Flathead M 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead F 80-89 10/06/2020 Flathead M 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead M 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead M 10-19 10/06/2020 Flathead F 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead M 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead M 60-69 10/06/2020 Flathead M 20-29 10/06/2020 Flathead M 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead M 20-29 10/06/2020 Flathead F 30-39 10/06/2020 Flathead M 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead F 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead F 10-19 10/06/2020 Flathead F 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead F 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead F 20-29 10/06/2020 Flathead F 90-99 10/06/2020 Flathead F 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead F 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead M 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead M 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead F 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead F 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead M 60-69 10/06/2020 Flathead M 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead F 30-39 10/06/2020 Flathead M 60-69 10/06/2020 Flathead F 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead F 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead M 60-69 10/06/2020 Flathead M 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead F 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead M 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead F 30-39 10/06/2020 Flathead M 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead F 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead F 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead M 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead M 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead M 60-69 10/06/2020 Flathead F 80-89 10/06/2020 Flathead F 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead M 10-19 10/06/2020 Flathead F 20-29 10/06/2020 Flathead M 60-69 10/06/2020 Flathead F 30-39 10/06/2020 Flathead M 60-69 10/06/2020 Flathead F 30-39 10/06/2020 Flathead F 20-29 10/06/2020 Flathead F 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead M 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead F 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead F 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead M 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead M 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead F 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead M 10-19 10/06/2020 Flathead F 40-49 10/06/2020 Flathead F 50-59 10/06/2020 Flathead M 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead M 30-39 10/06/2020 Flathead M 70-79 10/06/2020 Flathead F 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 40-49 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 60-69 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 50-59 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 40-49 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 50-59 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 50-59 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 30-39 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 10-19 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 30-39 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 60-69 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 10-19 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 10-19 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 60-69 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 60-69 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 0-9 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 60-69 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 30-39 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 70-79 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 30-39 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 60-69 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 30-39 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 40-49 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 50-59 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 60-69 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 30-39 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 40-49 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 10-19 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 20-29 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 40-49 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 60-69 10/06/2020 Gallatin M 10-19 10/06/2020 Gallatin F 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier F 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier F 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier F 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier F 60-69 10/06/2020 Glacier M 70-79 10/06/2020 Glacier F 10-19 10/06/2020 Glacier F 0-9 10/06/2020 Glacier F 70-79 10/06/2020 Glacier F 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier F 70-79 10/06/2020 Glacier F 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier M 40-49 10/06/2020 Glacier F 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier F 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier M 60-69 10/06/2020 Glacier F 40-49 10/06/2020 Glacier F 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier F 10-19 10/06/2020 Glacier M 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier F 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier M 60-69 10/06/2020 Glacier F 0-9 10/06/2020 Glacier F 10-19 10/06/2020 Glacier F 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier F 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier M 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier F 70-79 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier F 0-9 10/06/2020 Glacier M 60-69 10/06/2020 Glacier F 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier F 10-19 10/06/2020 Glacier F 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier F 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier M 10-19 10/06/2020 Glacier F 0-9 10/06/2020 Glacier F 10-19 10/06/2020 Glacier F 60-69 10/06/2020 Glacier M 0-9 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier M 10-19 10/06/2020 Glacier F 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier F 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier M 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier F 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier M 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier M 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier M 0-9 10/06/2020 Glacier M 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier F 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier M 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier F 40-49 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier F 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier M 0-9 10/06/2020 Glacier F 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier M 60-69 10/06/2020 Glacier F 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier M 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier M 50-59 10/06/2020 Glacier F 40-49 10/06/2020 Glacier F 60-69 10/06/2020 Glacier F 30-39 10/06/2020 Glacier M 10-19 10/06/2020 Glacier F 60-69 10/06/2020 Glacier F 60-69 10/06/2020 Glacier M 40-49 10/06/2020 Glacier F 10-19 10/06/2020 Glacier F 40-49 10/06/2020 Glacier M 0-9 10/06/2020 Glacier F 60-69 10/06/2020 Glacier F 0-9 10/06/2020 Glacier F 20-29 10/06/2020 Glacier M 10-19 10/06/2020 Glacier F 40-49 10/06/2020 Granite M 30-39 10/06/2020 Granite M 70-79 10/06/2020 Hill M 30-39 10/06/2020 Hill F 50-59 10/06/2020 Hill F 20-29 10/06/2020 Hill F 40-49 10/06/2020 Hill M 50-59 10/06/2020 Hill F 40-49 10/06/2020 Hill F 90-99 10/06/2020 Hill M 30-39 10/06/2020 Hill F 30-39 10/06/2020 Hill F 20-29 10/06/2020 Hill F 0-9 10/06/2020 Hill F 30-39 10/06/2020 Hill F 30-39 10/06/2020 Hill M 30-39 10/06/2020 Hill F 50-59 10/06/2020 Hill F 30-39 10/06/2020 Lake F 10-19 10/06/2020 Lake M 10-19 10/06/2020 Lake M 30-39 10/06/2020 Lake M 0-9 10/06/2020 Lake F 0-9 10/06/2020 Lake M 80-89 10/06/2020 Lake M 40-49 10/06/2020 Lake F 70-79 10/06/2020 Lake M 40-49 10/06/2020 Lake F 10-19 10/06/2020 Lake F 40-49 10/06/2020 Lewis and Clark F 50-59 10/06/2020 Lewis and Clark M 70-79 10/06/2020 Lewis and Clark M 60-69 10/06/2020 Lewis and Clark F 60-69 10/06/2020 Lewis and Clark M 50-59 10/06/2020 Lewis and Clark M 30-39 10/06/2020 Lewis and Clark M 30-39 10/06/2020 Lewis and Clark F 20-29 10/06/2020 Lewis and Clark M 10-19 10/06/2020 Liberty F 70-79 10/06/2020 Lincoln F 70-79 10/06/2020 Lincoln F 40-49 10/06/2020 Lincoln F 70-79 10/06/2020 Madison M 70-79 10/06/2020 Madison F 70-79 10/06/2020 Meagher M 50-59 10/06/2020 Meagher M 40-49 10/06/2020 Meagher M 50-59 10/06/2020 Mineral F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 70-79 10/06/2020 Missoula M 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 70-79 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula M 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 90-99 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula M 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula M 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula M 70-79 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 70-79 10/06/2020 Missoula F 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula F 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula F 90-99 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula M 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula M 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula M 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula M 0-9 10/06/2020 Missoula F 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula M 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 70-79 10/06/2020 Missoula M 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula M 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula F 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula M 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula M 70-79 10/06/2020 Missoula F 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula M 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula F 70-79 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula M 70-79 10/06/2020 Missoula M 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula F 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 90-99 10/06/2020 Missoula M 70-79 10/06/2020 Missoula F 70-79 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 90-99 10/06/2020 Missoula M 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 50-59 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 90-99 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 60-69 10/06/2020 Missoula M 70-79 10/06/2020 Missoula M 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula M 10-19 10/06/2020 Missoula F 0-9 10/06/2020 Missoula F 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 30-39 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 40-49 10/06/2020 Missoula M 80-89 10/06/2020 Missoula M 20-29 10/06/2020 Missoula F 60-69 10/06/2020 Pondera M 50-59 10/06/2020 Pondera M 20-29 10/06/2020 Pondera M 60-69 10/06/2020 Pondera F 50-59 10/06/2020 Powder River F 100 10/06/2020 Powder River F 80-89 10/06/2020 Roosevelt F 60-69 10/06/2020 Roosevelt F 60-69 10/06/2020 Roosevelt M 60-69 10/06/2020 Roosevelt F 30-39 10/06/2020 Roosevelt M 0-9 10/06/2020 Roosevelt F 30-39 10/06/2020 Roosevelt F 40-49 10/06/2020 Roosevelt F 50-59 10/06/2020 Roosevelt F 50-59 10/06/2020 Roosevelt M 70-79 10/06/2020 Roosevelt M 50-59 10/06/2020 Roosevelt F 40-49 10/06/2020 Roosevelt M 50-59 10/06/2020 Roosevelt F 40-49 10/06/2020 Rosebud F 60-69 10/06/2020 Rosebud M 60-69 10/06/2020 Rosebud F 50-59 10/06/2020 Rosebud M 30-39 10/06/2020 Rosebud M 10-19 10/06/2020 Rosebud F 30-39 10/06/2020 Sanders M 50-59 10/06/2020 Sanders M 60-69 10/06/2020 Sanders F 30-39 10/06/2020 Sanders M 40-49 10/06/2020 Sanders F 20-29 10/06/2020 Sanders M 20-29 10/06/2020 Sanders M 70-79 10/06/2020 Sheridan M 50-59 10/06/2020 Sheridan M 40-49 10/06/2020 Sheridan F 30-39 10/06/2020 Sheridan F 10-19 10/06/2020 Sheridan F 30-39 10/06/2020 Sheridan F 40-49 10/06/2020 Silver Bow F 60-69 10/06/2020 Silver Bow F 50-59 10/06/2020 Silver Bow M 70-79 10/06/2020 Stillwater F 30-39 10/06/2020 Stillwater M 50-59 10/06/2020 Stillwater M 90-99 10/06/2020 Stillwater M 90-99 10/06/2020 Stillwater F 70-79 10/06/2020 Stillwater F 70-79 10/06/2020 Toole F 30-39 10/06/2020 Toole M 50-59 10/06/2020 Toole M 20-29 10/06/2020 Toole F 20-29 10/06/2020 Treasure M 20-29 10/06/2020 Valley F 40-49 10/06/2020 Valley F 60-69 10/06/2020 Valley M 40-49 10/06/2020 Valley F 20-29 10/06/2020 Valley F 10-19 10/06/2020 Valley F 70-79 10/06/2020 Valley F 50-59 10/06/2020 Wibaux M 60-69 10/06/2020 Wibaux M 30-39 10/06/2020 Wibaux F 60-69 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 70-79 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 30-39 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 20-29 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 60-69 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 80-89 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 70-79 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 70-79 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 10-19 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 20-29 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 40-49 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 30-39 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 20-29 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 20-29 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 30-39 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 40-49 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 30-39 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 10-19 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 10-19 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 40-49 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 20-29 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 30-39 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 40-49 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Yellowstone F 10-19 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 60-69 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 10-19 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 10-19 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 80-89 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 60-69 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 40-49 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 30-39 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 70-79 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 0-9 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 40-49 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 0-9 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 0-9 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 70-79 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 30-39 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 0-9 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 30-39 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 30-39 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 40-49 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 40-49 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 70-79 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 40-49 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 40-49 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 10-19 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 50-59 10/06/2020 Yellowstone M 10-19 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 30-39 10/06/2020 Yellowstone F 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Black and Latinx tech startup founders have made almost no progress in securing venture capital (VC) funding over the past seven years in the US, a Crunchbase study released today found. During that period, startups helmed by Black and Latinx founders received just 2.4% of VC investments; so far this year, that figure is slightly higher at 2.6%.

Reasons cited for the persistent low percentage derive from the greater poverty among those groups relative to the white population. Black and Latinx would-be founders have much less access to their own seed capital and to resources from family and community members to launch their firms, yet such bootstrapping is considered an essential first step before investors will join in. And they often lack the professional or college networks that can be crucial to connecting with initial angel investors or to the venture capital community that typically funds later rounds.

That reality exists for Black and Latinx business of all kinds, a separate McKinsey study found, and shows up as a lower percentage of loans approved to non-white-owned small businesses. Black-owned small businesses, in particular, struggle to get loans, according to McKinsey, with only 29% being approved. That compares to 50% approvals for Latinx applicants and 60% for white applicants. Only 1% of Black-owned small businesses get bank loans in their first year versus 7% of white-owned small businesses. As a result, Black-owned SMBs are typically two-thirds the size in terms of revenue as white-owned business, and they ted to hire fewer employees given their smaller scale.

The percent of VC funding for going to Black and Latinx founders has not changed significantly because of many reasons, several that extend beyond the technology industry and indicate a broader issue of systemic racism in our society, said Gene Teare, Crunchbases data evangelist.

The ability of Black and Latinx startups to get venture funding is also heavily influenced by where they are located. The San Francisco Bay Area, which absorbs about a third of venture funding nationally, is one of the worst places for Black and Latinx tech startups to get funding; only 1.8% of the $4.6 billion venture funding to Bay Area firms since 2014 has gone to Black and Latinx firms.

By comparison, its better for Black and Latinx tech startups to be in greater Atlanta or greater New York, where they've received 5.5% and 5.2% of VC funding, respectively, in the last six years. In that period, greater New York accounted for $4.4 billion in total funding, a close second to the San Francisco Bay Area; greater Atlanta saw only $400 million in VC funding over the same period.

Latinx-founded tech startups fare better than Black-founded ones; Latinx firms get about 65% of venture funds provided to the two groups. Still, that funding falls well below their populations  even in ethnically diverse states like California and New York.

In California, Black-founded firms have gotten 0.6% of VC funding since 2014, though Blacks are 5% of the population. Latinx-founded firms got 1.2% of VC funding over the same period, but are 39% of the population  an even smaller ratio than Blacks when population is factored in.

In New York state, Black-founded firms have received 3.1% of VC funding since 2014, while representing 14% of the population. Latinx-founded firms got 2.2% of VC funds, and are 19% of the population  again, doing less well proportionately than Blacks.

The best states for Black-founded tech startups are Georgia (4.9% of funding), the District of Columbia (3.5%), and New York (3.1%), though only New York has any significant level of VC funding available. All other states have insignificant percentages of VC funds going to Black founders.

The best states for Latinx-founded tech startups are Massachusetts (3.9%), New Jersey (3.7%), and Colorado (2.6%), with only Massachusetts having significant levels of funding available. New York, which does have significant funding available, comes in fourth at 2.2%. Florida comes in a close fifth at 1.9% but has little funding available. Funding-rich California is in sixth at 1.2%. All other states have insignificant percentages of VC funds going to Latinx founders.

If theres a bright spot in the Crunchbase data, its that Black and Latinx startups are more open to being led by women than white startups. Of Black and Latinx tech startups, 39% are led by women, compared to 21% of all firms. But that bright spot isnt that bright: just 4% of venture capital went to startups founded by women, and another 9% went to startups founded by both women and men. Women comprise 50.2% of the working-age US population.
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...
JAKARTA, Indonesia  Tasmanian devils, the carnivorous marsupials whose feisty, frenzied eating habits won the animals cartoon fame, have returned to mainland Australia for the first time in some 3,000 years.

Seeing those devils released into a wild landscape  its a really emotional moment, said Liz Gabriel, director of conservation group Aussie Ark, which led the release effort in partnership with other conservation groups.

The 11 most recently released devils began exploring their new home once they were freed from round, white cages at the nearly 1,000-acre Barrington Tops wildlife refuge in New South Wales state, about 190 kilometers (120 miles) north of Sydney.

Tasmanian devils, which were once called Sarcophilus satanicus or Satanic flesh-lover, went extinct in mainland Australia before the arrival of Europeans. Scientists believe the introduction of carnivorous dingoes, a surge in the indigenous human population, and a devastating dry season cause by a prolonged El Nino caused the devil to migrate to present-day Tasmania, said University of Tasmania ecologist Menna Jones.

I think any one of those three factors alone probably wouldnt have caused extinction  but the three of them together likely caused the devil to become extinct on the mainland, she said.

Devils have been protected in Australia since 1941, and conservationists have worked to bolster their populations for years, citing their importance as top predators who can suppress invasive species  like foxes and feral cats  and in turn protect smaller species and biodiversity.

One of the biggest blows to conservation efforts came in the 1990s when a communicable cancer called devil facial tumor disease  which passes between devils through their bites while mating and causes large tumors that prevent them from eating  reduced the population from some 140,000 to as few as 20,000.

In response, researchers established an insurance population of cancer-free devils in wild-type enclosures in Australias island state of Tasmania. But the releases in July and September are the first time the squat mammals  all of which have tested negative for the contagious cancer  have been released on the mainland in a protected wild landscape.

Gabriel said Aussie Ark aims for devils eventually to live in non-protected areas in mainland Australia, with the hope the devils will contribute to keeping cat and fox populations under control.

Some experts question whether the introduction would have that hoped-for level of impact.

Nick Mooney, an Australia conservationist who has worked with Tasmanian devils for some 40 years, said feral felines are likely to return to hunting for a food source rather than relying on carrion in competition with the devils.

There is an argument that by putting devils into a situation where you stop the other carnivores scavenging is that those animals, like cats and foxes, will simply start hunting. You could actually make a conservation problem where it didnt exist before, said Mooney.

Theres also a matter of reputation. While devils tend to feed on small mammals theyre also known to eat the carcasses of cattle and sheep, potentially making them a nuisance to farmers.

When you do big interventions like this, there needs to be buy-in from the community, particularly those who are affected in the community, said Jones. There needs to be consultation.

For now, the devils released this year and those expected to be released in coming years wont go into the wild just yet. Instead they will receive supplementary feedings and be monitored by remote cameras, with some devils tagged with GPS trackers to learn more about how they adjust in their new environment, said Gabriel.

We dream of many more sanctuaries with devils in them and really growing the numbers of the species to protect that species, but also the animals in the environment around them, she said. This is just the beginning.

___

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.
Novichok was also used in the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter two years ago in Salisbury, Britain. After Western intelligence linked that attack to Russian state security agents, the European Union sanctioned two Russian military intelligence chiefs and the two men Britain suspected of being responsible for carrying out the poisoning. The Trump administration imposed sanctions on a wide range of exports.
With cases of dengue and Covid-19 both on the rise, doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi say they have recorded at least 20 cases of co-infection of the two diseases  a situation that presents a problem for diagnosis and treatment.

With fever and cough the predominant symptoms for both diseases, diagnosing both infections has become a challenge, doctors from the hospital said on Wednesday at the National Grand Rounds, which virtually connects physicians from across the country to discuss Covid-19 management.

It also presents a challenge in treatment  Covid-19 patients are often given anti-coagulants to prevent clotting, but the medicine increases the risk of bleeding, which can lead to a shock in dengue patients with low platelet counts.

Delhi has reported 266 cases of dengue till October 3, according to data shared by the citys municipal corporations. Of these, 188 cases were reported in September alone.

Meanwhile, the Capital added 2,871 cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, which took the citys tally to 298,107.

Cases of vector-borne diseases like dengue go up after the monsoon, and we are seeing many cases of Covd-19 with dengue. Co-infection with both the viruses becomes challenging to manage  in one disease we have to give anti-coagulants, because the body is in a hypercoagulable state (tendency of clot formation); and in the other you are worried about the fall in the platelets and shock syndrome that might happen. What is important is that if there is an atypical presentation of Covid-19, the clinicians should have a high degree of suspicion for other infections, said Dr Randeep Guleria, director, AIIMS.

Of the 20 cases, nine were reported by the department of medicine from the main AIIMS campus, and the other were from their campus in Jhajjar. The analysis of the data of the first 4,200 Covid-19 patients from Jhajjar showed that the most common infection along with Covid-19 was tuberculosis, followed by HIV, and Hepatitis.

Data presented by Dr Pawan Tiwari, assistant professor of pulmonary medicine at AIIMS, showed that of the 4,200 patients with Covid-19, 32 had active tuberculosis (TB) and 35 had latent TB. There were 27 cases of HIV, 12 cases of Hepatitis B, and 11 cases of dengue.

From what we have seen over the years, about 25% of dengue patients come in with some upper respiratory symptoms. On the other hand, Covid-19 does not predominantly present as a respiratory infection when the patients first come in. This complicates diagnosis. Another challenge is that if a person who tests positive for Covid-19 is put in home isolation, early diagnosis of dengue might be missed, said Dr Tiwari.

Of the nine patients who came in with both the infections at the main campus, only three had moderate to severe dengue, and all but one had mild Covid-19. All of the patients recovered and were discharged, said Dr Ved Prakash Meena, assistant professor of the department of medicine.

At the Grand Rounds, Meena presented the case of a 22-year-old patient from Uttar Pradesh who tested positive for Covid-19 but not dengue initially. He was later diagnosed with the infection when his platelet count started dropping.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 18:23:45|Editor: huaxia

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BEIRUT, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Caretaker Lebanese Health Minister Hamad Hassan said on Wednesday that the number of beds will increase in seven public hospitals in Beirut, Mount Lebanon and the north in 10 days to receive more COVID-19 patients amid rising daily cases, Elnashra news website reported.

The number of hospital beds will also increase in three weeks in West Bekaa and the south for the same purpose, Hassan added.

Hassan's remarks came during his meeting with the country's committee in charge of fighting COVID-19.

The health ministry and the army, which have received foreign medical donations in the past couple of months, will distribute ventilators to hospitals, he noted.

Lebanon has seen a remarkable increase in daily COVID-19 cases in the past month. The daily death toll also increased compared to the number in the early stage of the outbreak.

Lebanon has so far reported more than 46,000 COVID-19 cases with 424 deaths, according to the health ministry. Enditem
A Sydney bikini lover has revealed the Calvin Klein two-piece that got her kicked out of her apartment complex's pool because security found it 'too cheeky'.

Kristy Miller, 39, was ordered by a security guard to leave the pool area at her Emerald Park building in Zetland earlier this week because her swimsuit 'wasn't to pool standards'.

The business development manager, who only recently moved into the complex, said she was outraged and humiliated after being told to cover up and instead put on a pair of shorts.

She said her bikini was 'normal' and not at all similar to a G-string, which are banned, and shared pictures of the black and white Calvin Klein two-piece.

Ms Miller is now hoping to get her revenge on the security guard by wearing an even 'skimpier' suit during her next visit to the pool.

Kristy Miller was told to leave her apartment complex swimming pool because her bikini bottoms (pictured) were 'too cheeky'

Kristy Miller (pictured) was mortified after she was ordered by security to put shorts on

'It's accepted at any major beach in Australia, so why wouldn't it be accepted here in Zetland in the middle of Sydney,' Kristy Miller told A Current Affair.

'I was in my bikini sunbathing when I was approached by security and told my swimwear wasn't appropriate and to go and put some shorts on if I wanted to stay at the pool.

'I thought it was a joke. I couldn't believe it.'

The 39-year-old, who pays $600 a week for her apartment, said the guard told her that she should be wearing a 'full brief' instead.

A sign attached to the pool gates clearly says residents aren't allowed to wear G-strings or tan topless and urges residents to dress 'adequately'.

But Ms Miller said her swimmers were no more revealing than what the men in her complex often wore.

'There are no rules for men, not once did they go and attack any man. Men were fine to wear speedos, but women's bikini bottoms are not okay,' she said.

Ms Miller said she felt intimidated by the guard who told her to put on shorts and that her bikini (pictured) wasn't up to pool standards

Ms Miller said several other women had similar experiences with one being banned from the complex pool (pictured)

'(The security) can't prey on women, they can't shame women, they can't victimise women. Who do they think they are? They won't go and say this to a man.

'Clearly they've come across the wrong person here, and I'm willing to go all the way with this, to stand up so women don't feel ashamed for what they're wearing and they can wear a bikini.'

Ms Miller said several other women in the Zetland apartment block had similar experiences within the last three years.

One woman had to move out of the complex while another had such a bad altercation with staff that she has been banned from the pool.

Another said they'd been told off three times in less than a year for not having appropriate swimwear on.

Ms Miller and some of her neighbours aren't giving up on their fight just yet and are even planning on doing a 'flash mob' in the pool to send a message.

Kristy Miller was enjoying the pool facilities at her new apartment complex (pictured) when she was told to leave because she was wearing a bikini

Speaking earlier to 2GB's Ben Fordham, the resident said she was intimidated by the guard.

'He was very aggressive and very loud. His exact words were I would need to put shorts on to be allowed in the pool area,' she said.

'It was a normal bikini, not a g-string bikini or anything like that.'

She also claimed several residents later told her the security guard was taking photos of all women at the pool on the day, as evidence, prompting a shocked response from Fordham.

Ms Miller was inundated with comments from other women who had similar stories after she recalled her mortifying ordeal on social media.

Kristy Miller (pictured) has since received an emailed apology from building management

'I was at the lap pool and was approached and told my bikini wasn't to pool standards and to go and put shorts on if I wanted to stay at the pool,' Ms Miller posted on a local community Facebook page.

'I was wearing a normal bikini that all the girls wear, a lovely man approached me after & let me know the same guard did the same thing to his girlfriend just prior.'

'Please get in touch with me as I'm appalled a male security guard thinks he has the right to tell females if their bikinis are appropriate,' her Facebook post continued.

'I've contacted my real estate and fair trading which have advised me this is not appropriate & to get legal advice which I'm in the process of doing.

'Please reach out if he also harassed you so we can ensure females aren't humiliated and degraded in the place they live.

Ms Miller insists she was wearing a normal bikini at the time (pictured, a sign in the pool area)

Ms Miller has received an emailed 'backhanded' apology from building management about the security guard's behaviour but was warned to wear appropriate attire when using the common pool areas.

New signs have since been erected in the complex pool areas.

'Please kindly read all the rules. If everyone follows the building rule, the guard will never bother anyone. I apologise for the incident but in the meantime, residents need to follow the rules as well,' the email states.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Emerald Park for further comment.
NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As Microsoft retires its Windows Embedded Standard 7 operating system, Cynerio is offering healthcare facilities in North America a free risk assessment until October 31 in support of CISA's National Cyber Awareness Month . Support for the operating system will end on Tuesday, October 13, leaving millions of healthcare IoT devices wide open to the rising tide of cyber attacks aimed at the notoriously vulnerable healthcare sector. The free risk assessment will provide healthcare organizations with a real-time inventory of devices running legacy operating systems and actionable recommendations on how to mitigate the risks .

A multitude of healthcare IoT and vital laboratory and imaging devices run the Windows Embedded Standard 7 OS, including X-Ray machines, DICOM workstations, and medicine dispensers provided by top-tier vendors like Philips, GE, and Hologic. Further, many of these devices cannot be upgraded, as many vendors do not release new OS versions. Due to the pervasive use of legacy OS, alongside medical devices' long life cycles, 40% of healthcare facilities have fallen victim to insidious cyber attacks in the last year, with the most recent ransomware attacks causing full facility shutdowns and the death of a patient.

The Cynerio platform leverages the power of AI to deliver actionable insights into medical devices, enterprise IoT, and OT systems. The full-suite platform automates asset discovery, anomaly detection, and risk scoring according to device criticality and clinical impact. Then, it ensures continuous operations and device functionality with robust security policies healthcare organizations can enforce with confidence.

"With the onslaught of cyber crimes directed at our medical facilities today, it's more important than ever to make sure our healthcare organizations are cyber-aware and cyber-secure," said Leon Lerman, CEO and co-founder of Cynerio. "Microsoft's retirement of the Windows Embedded Standard 7 operating system this month comes at a pivotal moment for healthcare. As a healthcare IoT cybersecurity provider, it's our duty to empower hospitals with the awareness, insights, and solutions to overcome the threat, secure their infrastructures, and protect the assets we rely on to save patient lives."

Contact us here to get your free risk assessment today.

About Cynerio

Cynerio is the one-stop-shop healthcare IoT security platform. With solutions that cater to healthcare's every IT need--from Enterprise IoT to OT and IoMT--we promote cross-organizational alignment and give hospitals the control, foresight, and adaptability they require to stay cyber-secure in a constantly evolving threatscape. We give you the power to stay compliant and proactively manage every connection on your own terms with powerful asset management, threat detection, and mitigation tools so you can put your focus on what matters most: your patients.

For media inquiries:

Vicki Michaeli

E: [email protected]

SOURCE Cynerio
Good morning, Bay Area. Its Wednesday, Oct. 7, and four Bay Area counties have missed the mark on a new coronavirus metric. Heres what you need to know to start your day.

Bobby Hougen cant do it anymore. Staying up all night during high fire danger. Trapped inside as smoke clogs the air. Living with go bags packed with pictures, diplomas and a memento from his late grandfather.

Between the fires and the rent costs, this place is uninhabitable for someone whos a single individual, says Hougen, who has lived his entire life in Santa Rosa. So the 26-year-old is doing what he never expected: Moving. He hopes to resettle in Sacramento, more affordable and less fire-prone, by the end of the year.

While many North Bay residents are vowing to stay and rebuild after another devastating fire season, this year has been a breaking point for others, Mallory Moench and J.K. Dineen write.

More:

 On tap to help those hit by the Glass Fire: building officials, food banks, Buddhist monks.

Your Bay Area voting guide

Todd Trumbull / The Chronicle

Just get your ballot? Overwhelmed by the number of propositions, measures and local races? The Chronicle has published our 2020 Voter Guide. The guide is built to be a one-stop reference for local and state ballot measures and races in the Bay Area  from president to state legislators to local supervisors and other elected officials.

In addition to the latest news, this year's voter guide includes frequently asked questions, key dates and stories that explain many of the issues on your ballot.

See the full voter guide here.

More local election coverage:

 S.F. small businesses are struggling. Heres how candidates for the Board of Supervisors propose helping them.

 Criminal justice reform advocates whove spent years calling for the end of cash bail are now split over a statewide ballot measure that would do precisely that.

 Prop. 23 would create new safety regulations for dialysis clinics, but some say patients could suffer.

Four Bay Area counties come up short on coronavirus equity measure

Amy Osborne / Special to The Chronicle

Four Bay Area counties failed to meet the states new health equity measure Tuesday, signaling ongoing disparities in coronavirus infection rates within some of the regions disadvantaged communities. Each county must ensure that positive test rates in its most disadvantaged neighborhoods do not significantly lag behind the countys overall positive rate.

Tatiana Sanchez reports on what this could mean for the counties in the near future.

Previously: Mixed reactions to states new health equity measures.

Just wrong: Bay Area health experts outraged by Trumps response to contracting COVID-19.

Around the Bay

 Destroyed by the Glass Fire: The Chronicles food team talked about the legacy of the Restaurant at Meadowood with more than 15 former staffers. Most had glowing reviews  but others said the restaurant's brilliance came at the cost of a toxic culture.

 Latest forecast: Is rain still on the way for the Bay Area?

 Narrowing specialty occupations: Trump administration rolls out more changes to H-1B visas.

 Claws out: Restaurant critic Soleil Ho shakes hands with a fried chicken sandwich  literally. More: Sign up for the Bite Curious newsletter.

 Low-stakes progress: Four things we learned from Warriors offseason minicamp.

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.

 Down two in best-of-five series: As lose Game 2 in ALDS as Sean Manaea has another rough postseason start.

 Salary disparities between executives and frontline staff: S.F.-Marin Food Bank ratifies union contract after yearlong battle in which workers alleged institutional racism.

 Behind blackouts: State energy officials say planning failures led to power shut-offs.

 Video footage expected to be released: Unarmed man in critical condition after being shot by Napa deputy.

Datebook

Lea Suzuki / San Francisco Chronicle

Eddie Van Halen was a guitar virtuoso whose blinding speed, control and innovation propelled his band Van Halen into one of hard rocks biggest acts. The man whose fiery playing also electrified Michael Jacksons hit Beat It has died. He was 65.

Read more about Van Halens career and how artists are remembering the musician.

More from Datebook:

 Joan Baez recalls draft-resistance movement in The Boys Who Said No!

 S.F.s David Ireland House reopens with guided tours, for two people at a time.

 Litquake 2020 looks to crack the boredom of life online.

Bay Briefing is written by Taylor Kate Brown and sent to readers email inboxes on weekday mornings. Sign up for the newsletter here, and contact Brown at taylor.brown@sfchronicle.com.
Massachusetts Democrats criticized President Donald Trump Tuesday for playing politics with the well-being of Americans after he told his negotiators to break off coronavirus stimulus negotiations until after the Nov. 3 election.

House Democrats are pushing for a $2.4 trillion relief package, compared to the $1.6 trillion offer from the White House. At present, 12.6 million Americans are out of work with a national unemployment rate of 7.9%.

I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business, Trump tweeted on Tuesday.

He noted the economy is improving and asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to instead focus full time on approving my outstanding nominee to the United States Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett.

The House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, issued a statement accusing Trump of abandoning struggling Americans.

With a tweet, the president just abandoned MILLIONS of struggling Americans who were counting on more government relief to pay rent and survive. History will remember the shameful lack of leadership this president and @SenateGOP have shown these past few months," the committee wrote.

Neal added in his own statement, "President Trump is turning his back on the American people in their hour of greatest need. Families are going hungry and losing their homes. More than 210,000 Americans have died of the virus, and cases are rising across the country. Our economy is in a deep recession. Yet the President is walking away from efforts to provide folks who are struggling with the relief they need to survive. This decision is a dangerous one, and I sincerely hope he will return to the table for the good of our nation.

The sentiment was echoed by U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Boston, who called the presidents decision to break off talks despicable.

This is despicable, she tweeted. 210,000 families have been robbed of their loved one. Donald Trump, you swore an oath to serve and protect. You dishonor and disregard that oath daily. You have failed the American people.

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Worcester, who chairs the House Rules and Regulations Committee, accused Trump of holding America hostage by refusing to act.

House Democrats passed two different versions of the Heroes Act. McGovern said in a social media post. Weve negotiated in good faith, cutting trillions from our package to reach a compromise.

In a broader attack, U.S. Sen Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., took aim at the GOP for failing to work on a relief package.

Warren stated that Trump, McConnell and Senate Republicans need to stop standing in the way of our economic recovery.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke for an hour about a relief package Monday and were slated to resume talks Tuesday.

Three days ago, the president had urged the sides to complete a deal.

In a statement released Tuesday, Pelosi said the president showed his true colors: putting himself first at the expense of the country, with the full complicity of the GOP Members of Congress.

Walking away from coronavirus talks demonstrates that President Trump is unwilling to crush the virus, as is required by the Heroes Act, Pelosi said. He shows his contempt for science, his disdain for our heroes  in health care, first responders, sanitation, transportation, food workers, teachers, teachers, teachers and others  and he refuses to put money in workers' pockets, unless his name is printed on the check.
ATLANTA, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- RPC, Inc. (NYSE: RES) announced today that it will release its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2020 on Wednesday, October 28, 2020 before the market opens. In conjunction with its earnings release, the Company will host a conference call to review the Company's financial and operating results on Wednesday, October 28, 2020 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

Individuals wishing to participate in the conference call should dial toll-free (833) 579-0910 or (778) 560-2620 for international callers, and use conference ID number 5646007. For interested individuals unable to join by telephone, the call also will be broadcast and archived for 90 days on the Company's investor website. Interested parties are encouraged to click on the webcast link 10-15 minutes prior to the start of the conference call.

RPC provides a broad range of specialized oilfield services and equipment primarily to independent and major oilfield companies engaged in the exploration, production and development of oil and gas properties throughout the United States, including the Gulf of Mexico, mid-continent, southwest, Appalachian and Rocky Mountain regions, and in selected international markets. RPC's investor website can be found on the internet at RPC.net.

For information about RPC, Inc. or this event, please contact:

Ben M. Palmer

Chief Financial Officer

(404) 321-2140

[email protected]

Jim Landers

Vice President Corporate Services

(404) 321-2162

[email protected]

SOURCE RPC, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.rpc.net


The Morrison government has slashed the maximum humanitarian intake by thousands on the basis it is too difficult to bring refugees into Australia in the same numbers as before the coronavirus pandemic.

The humanitarian intake was reduced from 18,750 places to 13,750 over the next four years in Tuesday's budget.

Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge says the change to the humanitarian intake is needed. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Asylum-seeker advocates have slammed the move, which is expected to save almost $1 billion, saying the country should be accepting more refugees at a time when its net overseas migration will drop by hundreds of thousands a year.

But the government insists the number of humanitarian places had to be slashed because of international travel grinding to a halt and refugee services around the world being significantly impacted.
Origin Energy has joined mining giant BHP in cutting ties with the Queensland Resources Council over the powerful lobby group's advertising campaign attacking the Greens ahead of the upcoming state election.

"If the Greens hold the balance of power after this election, Queensland jobs will go! Don't risk it," said one of the advertisements. "Put your job first, vote Greens last."

Origin, which runs power generation and gas drilling assets in the state, said the group's campaign overstepped the "clear boundary" between policy and politics.

Power giant Origin Energy part-owns the Asia Pacific LNG project in Queensland. Credit:

"We do not endorse this activity," a company spokeswoman said. "Origin expressed concerns about the campaign directly to the Queensland Resources Council, and we have since communicated our decision to suspend our membership."
(Natural News) Those on the left who bought into all the doomsday fear about the Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19) being an almost certain death sentence for the elderly are now experiencing extreme cognitive dissonance following President Trumps miraculous three-day recovery.

CBS This Morning host Gayle King, one of the latest Democrats to join the ranks of the covid conspiracy theorists, recently speculated that Trump must have faked his diagnosis because in her mind there is no way he could have recovered this quickly with minimal symptoms.

Speaking to failed presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, King stated that she has gotten calls from both Democrats and Republicans  who asked this question when the president first became ill: Do you really think he was ill?'

I was shocked so many people from both parties were asking that question, she added. What does that say about trust?

King went on to talk about one of Buttigiegs books in which he wrote that society works best when people trust. Since Democrats are unable to trust Trump, King has come to the conclusion that society is not working at its best, and will not work best, until Trump is removed from office.

Trump singlehandedly caused leftists to become anti-vaccine covid deniers

It would seem to be the case that Democrats are now in one of two camps. They either distrust Trump and believe he is lying about his diagnosis, or they are hoping he somehow dies from it, even though it appears that he has already recovered.

Almost nobody on the left has come to grips with the fact that the Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19) was not a death sentence for Trump, which reveals a whole lot about not just the virus but also about the way that leftists think.

Before Trump, it was considered an unpardonable sin to question the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Now with Trump in office, the left is doing just that by expressing anti-vaxxer sentiments about Operation Warp Speed.

For months, the left has also been accusing pandemic skeptics of denying science. Now that Trump tested positive and quickly recovered, however, the left has suddenly become a bunch of covid deniers.

The latest news about the Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19), by the way, can be found at Pandemic.news.

Los Angeles Times accuses Trumps personal doctor of lying about diagnosis

Not only is Trump supposedly lying about his positive Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19) diagnosis, but so is his personal physician, Dr. Sean Conley, according to the Los Angeles Times editorial board.

Calling Trump an overweight and at-risk senior citizen, the LA Times editorial board openly claims that Dr. Conley cannot be trusted because [h]is allegiance is clearly to the president, not the American public.

Even Conleys admonition that Trump may not entirely be out of the woods yet seems like so much spin, the editorial board adds, claiming that it knows better than the president is still grappling with a dangerous illness.

A return to the White House  where theres a 24-hour, fully equipped medical unit  does not signal a triumph over this insidious disease, the papers editors declare, assuming the role of Trumps physician.

The president may be doing better but he is definitely not out of the woods yet  and thats the kind of thing that the public deserves to know.

In other words, the left now knows better than even doctors about the true state of Trumps health. Trump either does not have the virus and is lying about it, or he does have the virus and will very soon die from it. A scenario where the Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19) is not as dangerous or as deadly as we have all been led to believe will never be accepted by the left.

Sources for this article include:

NewsBusters.org

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

LATimes.com
In an August post, I argued that shutdowns reduce coronavirus deaths significantly. I based my argument on common sense  the disease spreads through human contact so, up to a point, reducing human contact reduces the number of infections  and on comparisons between the experiences of neighboring jurisdictions that have taken different approaches to shutting down.

I thought it might be worthwhile to update the comparisons I made in the August post. As in that post, unless otherwise indicated, the figures I cite come from Worldometer.

The main comparison I discussed was between the experiences of Norway, which locked its economy in the face of the virus, and Sweden, which did not. When I wrote my post in late August, there had been only 49 deaths per one million people in Norway. In Sweden, there had been 575.

Where do things stand now? Fortunately, there have been few coronavirus deaths in either country since late August. In Norway, the number of deaths from the virus per one million people is virtually unchanged at 51. In Sweden, the number is 582.

There have been changes in both countries when it comes to infections. Sweden may have hoped to achieve herd immunity by not locking down. However, new reported cases of infection began rising in September. By the end of the month, new cases were at around 600 per day  up from around 300 in July. Fortunately, as noted, there has been no spike so far in the number of deaths attributed to the virus.

Norway has also had a spike in new cases. That spike is more pronounced than in Sweden  from about 10 new cases per day in July, to about 60 in August, to about 180 by the end of September. But even so, Norway is still reporting fewer new cases per day per capita than Sweden is. And like Sweden, Norway has not yet seen a spike in deaths attributed to the virus.

Denmark also went on lockdown, but the Danes reopened the economy earlier than Norway did. As might have been expected, Denmark had less success in preventing coronavirus deaths than Norway, but considerably more success than Sweden, which didnt shut down.

In August, the per capita number of deaths from the virus in Denmark was 107. Now, the number is 114.

Denmark, though, has had a larger spike in new cases than Sweden and Norway. In mid September, new reported cases in Denmark were around 600 per day, roughly the same as Sweden, but with a population only about half as large. Lately, the number of new cases in Denmark has fallen slightly to 400-500.

The total number of infections per capita in Denmark during the pandemic is roughly half of the number in Sweden. The total number of per capita deaths is about one-fifth of Swedens.

There are, of course, demographic differences between the three Scandinavian countries I am comparing. But Id be shocked if they can come close to explaining the dramatically different results between the three.

Its also worth noting that, before their policies diverged, the coronavirus health outcomes in Norway and Sweden were not very different.

My August post also compared coronavirus outcomes in several upper Midwest states. I compared South Dakota, which never shut down, with Wisconsin, which shut down until mid May when a court order reopened the economy, and Minnesota, whose shutdown wasnt lifted.

Per capita deaths attributed to the virus in South Dakota were almost identical to the number in Wisconsin. This, despite the fact that population density is greater in Wisconsin. South Dakota has no city remotely like Milwaukee. Thus, the fact that the per capita death numbers in the two states are similar suggested to me that Wisconsins shutdown for about a month and a half prevented loss of life due from the virus.

Since my last post on this subject, deaths from the coronavirus have spiked in both Wisconsin and South Dakota. However, the spike is greater in South Dakota. It now attributes 280 total deaths to the virus per capita compared to 240 such deaths in Wisconsin. Before, as noted, the numbers were almost identical.

Since Wisconsin has been off of lockdown since the late Spring, I dont think we can draw conclusions from this particular comparison with South Dakota. However, I think we can say that South Dakota hasnt achieved anything like herd immunity.

Now lets consider Minnesota. When I wrote my last post, it attributed 321 deaths per capita to the virus  a higher number than South Dakota, which never locked down, and Wisconsin, which locked down for a shorter period of time.

Today, Minnesota attributes 382 deaths to the virus. So its still doing worse, by this measure, than the two neighboring states.

However, in my August post, I took into account the fact that a very high percentage of all Minnesota deaths from the virus occurred in long term care facilities  a much high percentage than in South Dakota. This analysis seemed relevant to the question at hand because a lockdown isnt designed to prevent the virus from spreading among those confined in these facilities.

After taking long term care facilities into account, it appeared that Minnesota had fewer deaths per capita than South Dakota among those not trapped in these places, even though demographics and population densities would tend to make South Dakota a less deadly place than Minnesota in a normal pandemic.

The percentage of Minnesota deaths from the virus that occur in long tern care facilities has been trending downwards for some time. The trend has continued since my last post on this subject. However, at 71 percent, it still far exceeds the percentage in South Dakota (48 percent). Thus, its still true that Minnesota has fewer deaths per capita among the population outside of long term care facilities than South Dakota does.

This also appears to be true when one compares Minnesota and Wisconsin. However, the data on deaths from the virus in long term care facilities as a percentage of all deaths from the virus in Wisconsin arent robust.

Wisconsin offers another way of getting at the question of the effectiveness of lockdowns in reducing coronavirus infections and deaths. Wisconsin lifted its lockdown due to a court order issued in mid May.

What happened after the lockdown was lifted? Nothing much for a while. However, by mid July the number of new reported cases per day had doubled.

Since then, Wisconsin cases have spiked significantly. The state is now reporting six times as many new cases per day as it did when the lockdown was lifted.

Minnesota did not experience this trend. Between mid May and mid August the number of new reported cases per day remained roughly constant. Lately, the number has risen significantly, but there has been nothing like the Wisconsin spike. New cases per day in Minnesota are less than double what they were in mid May. In Wisconsin, as noted, they have increased by a factor of six.

Reported cases are, in part, a function of the number of tests administered. However, Minnesota does more testing per capita than Wisconsin, so the large spike in Wisconsin cases, as compared to Minnesota, probably cant be explained by the number of tests.

None of this analysis means that shutdowns are beneficial, on balance. There are costs associated with shutdowns that have to be considered. And even if shutdowns are beneficial on balance, thats not necessarily an argument for shutdowns of a very high level of severity. However, I believe relevant data comparisons continue to show that shutdowns significantly reduce coronavirus infections and deaths.

UPDATE: My original post on this subject didnt discuss North Dakota, so I didnt mention it above. However, its worth pointing out that North Dakota didnt issue a stay-at-home order. Per capita deaths from the virus in that state are roughly at the same level as in Minnesota, notwithstanding demographic differences that would cause one to expect a much lower number.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Saudi Space Commission organized 2020's first meeting of space agency leaders that belong to G20 countries. The meeting, hosted by the G20 Saudi Secretariat as part of The International Conferences Program honoring the Saudi G20 Presidency year 2020, is titled Space Economy Leader Meeting - 20. The purpose of the meeting was to facilitate a stage on which influential countries (who foster the common vision of elevating the space sector) could collaborate on future and existing projects revolving around peaceful space exploration, space industry investment, and space science innovation.

His Royal Highness Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Space Commission, stressed the importance of this first-of-its-kind meeting, which was initiated by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Not only did the meeting serve as a platform on which cooperation takes place, but also was a forum through which the Kingdom's political, economic, and scientific commitments to peace and international development were underscored.

The meeting was held virtually (via video broadcast) today, Wednesday, October 7, 2020, and involved space agency leaders, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and a number of other organizations, consulting firms, economic entities and experts in the fields of space.

The first Space Economy Leaders Meeting - 20 is expected to issue a final statement that will reveal recommendations to G20 Space Agency countries, all of which are in line with the United Nations' "Space2030" agenda.
Getty Images

A 30-year-old Norwich man has been sentenced to 65 months behind bars for illegally possessing firearms, federal officials said.

John H. Durham, U.S. Attorney for Connecticut, said Daniel Bear Francois was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven.
Doctors in France who provide so-called virginity certificates could face imprisonment and fines under legislation proposed by the Macron administration to fight what it describes as "Islamic separatism.

The bill, which will be presented to parliament in December, could see physicians face up to a year in jail and fine of 15,000 (14,000) for issuing a virginity certificate, which are sometimes requested for traditional religious marriages.

Nearly one in three French doctors say they have been asked to give out a certificate proving a womans virginity, and most refuse, according to France 3 TV news.

The World Health Organization says inspecting the hymen cannot prove whether a woman or girl has had vaginal intercourse, and condemns the process as a human rights violation.

It comes after Emmanuel Macron gave a speech on Friday where he said a minority of Frances six million Muslims were at risk of forming a "counter-society". Some accused the president of trying to repress Islam.

ANCIC, a French organisation that provides advice on abortion and contraception, says further educational work is needed to eliminate the practice, which the BBC reports as being most common in North Africa and the Middle East, India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and South Africa.

The association said that though it supports the government's position against "virginity tests", it warned that in some cases women were in real danger and "a ban would simply deny the existence of such community practices, without making them disappear".

"We think this question must be tackled quite differently, so that women and men free themselves and reject the weight of these traditions," ANCIC told the BBC.

"There needs to be educational provision, to inform, discuss, prevent and give support."

The groups stance is similar to the UNs, which in October 2018 called for awareness campaigns to accompany bans on the controversial tests.

Dr Ghada Hatem, a French gynaecologist, echoed some of ANCICs concerns, telling France Inter news that although she is only asked for at most three such certificates a year, she provides them to women and girls who fear violent retribution.

"If they say 'my brother will beat me up, my dad will strangle me, my in-laws will ruin my family's reputation' I have no reason to disbelieve them, Dr Hatem said.

Marlene Schiappa, the minister delegate in charge of citizenship, said the bill should also punish those who demand tests, such as parents or fiances.

The minister said the new legislation would also seek to deport polygamists from the country, and enforce stricter protections against forced marriages.
The journey of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as head of an elected government, started in 2001 under the trying circumstances of relief work for the Bhuj earthquake. Since then, Modi has not looked back, as he continues to tread the path of development for all. Undeterred by manufactured controversies and fabrications about him and his government, Modi let his work speak for himself. 2014 saw the birth of a New India with the Bharatiya Janata Party under Narendra Modi's stewardship getting its first-ever absolute majority. Since taking the oath, PM Modi has strived to stand by the ideals of India's Constitution in serving the poor and the needy and bringing a holistic approach of sustainable development to India that is united by its culture, its values and its ideals. Ever ready to take up a challenge, Modi has worked to enhance the image of India and give a glimpse of New India leading the world and reclaiming its position as the Vishwa Guru of the world. Backed by economic and social development revolutions within India, the country feels assured with his leadership at the helm on all fronts. Assurance of Modi towards India and Indians is what led people to vote him back to power with an even bigger majority. The task, however, is only half done, and the journey to fulfil the promise of building a New India continues. As Narendra Modi enters the twentieth consecutive year as head of the democratically elected government, we take a look at some of his iconic pictures.Swearing-in Ceremony of Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat for the first time in 2001. (Image: Special Arrangement)
Supplier News

7 October 2020

Infor today announced that French hotel group Suitcase Hospitality is continuing to deploy Infor's EzRMS revenue management solution across its properties to standardize its practices across all of its facilities. The cloud-based solution, based on AI (artificial intelligence) and its extensive learning capabilities, provides hospitality professionals with enhanced revenue management functionality and advanced tools to help improve customer service, in particular to better anticipate the commercial services to be offered to them.

Founded in 2015, Suitcase Hospitality Group develops, designs and operates its own hotels on a totally independent basis. Another of the group's distinctive features is that it owns a number of different brands and luxury hotels and boutique hotels (e.g. LAZ' Hotel & Spa) ranging from 2 to 5 stars, including Accor (Mercure, Ibis Styles and Ibis Budget), Best Western Hotels & Resorts, B&B Hotels and Marriott International. The group currently has five establishments in exploitation and aims to open three new ones per year.

Infor EzRMS enables Suitcase Hospitality to standardize processes across its various properties, automate revenue management, optimize room occupancy and independently analyze market data. The solution identifies its customers through the analysis of their purchasing behavior. Thus, each establishment of the Suitcase Hospitality group can better know and understand the specificities of its clientele and adapt its price offer accordingly.

Learn more about Infor EzRMS: https://www.infor.com/en-sg/products/ezrms

The project with Infor began in 2019, and the Infor EzRMS revenue optimization solution is being systematically installed in each of the group's new hotels. "Beyond the rich functionality and ease of use of its solution, Infor has also demonstrated an extraordinary flexibility in its approach, as our hotels all have different configurations, systems and work habits," says. Estelle Izard, Suitcase Hospitality Group's director of revenue management. "The EzRMS solution was easily integrated into each hotel and each context, providing us with valuable, real-time data and intelligent recommendations that support our decision-making at every stage."

In France, the hotel and tourism sector was put to the test since 2019 as a result of the social crisis  strikes and 'yellow vest' demonstrations  and then the global health crisis. "But what surprised us with Infor was that their development teams immediately integrated data and forecasting algorithms related to these exceptional situations, such as COVID-19, into the EzRMS solution, allowing us to make even better decisions with even more reliable data," Izard says.

"The partnership we have established with Suitcase Hospitality is a real opportunity for us to demonstrate that our solutions are constantly evolving to meet the needs of the hospitality industry," said Christophe Rigault, Infor director of hospitality for southern Europe. "The social and health crises have brought disruption to the industry, but with Infor EzRMS, professionals have been able to work more rationally with a focus on business continuity, data accuracy and customer service excellence."

Infor has been a true technology partner to hospitality industry professionals for more than 20 years. Today, the company has more than 20,000 customers in the industry, including nine of the world's top 10 hotel brands. Small individual hotels as well as large hotel groups rely on Infor's solutions to manage their operations, specifically: front- and back-office property management, revenue management, and sales and restaurant management. To learn more about Infor's offerings for the hotel, hospitality and restaurant industry, visit https://www.infor.com/en-sg/industries/hospitality.

About Suitcase Hospitality

Suitcase Hospitality is a hotel group that develops and operates 2- to 5-star hotels, with or without franchise, within Paris, in Ile-de-France, and in major French and European cities. Co-founded in 2015 by Jean-Baptiste Martin and Vincent Le Gendre, Suitcase Hospitality controls the entire hotel chain, thanks to its global expertise, which creates synergies:

Real estate development

The operation of its hotel portfolio

This integrated expertise allows it to design optimized hotel projects. Its tailor-made approach to the market and its rigorous selection of land thus promotes the long-term development of its assets and investments made (business premises and goodwill created or funds alone). Depending on the positioning of its hotels, Suitcase Hospitality develops hotels with their own concept and identity, or under franchise contracts with the largest global hotel brands such as AccorHotels, Marriott International, Best Western Hotels & Resorts, and B&B Hotels. Suitcase Hospitality currently has more than 1,900 rooms in development and operation, ranging from 2 to 5 stars, representing a hotel base of 15 hotels by 2024, which represents a forecast turnover of 47 million euros.
During his weekly press conference, Minister of Health and Welfare and CECC head Chen Shih-chung announced Japan recently reported three positive cases arriving from Taiwan, while France recorded one. Of the three cases in Japan, one is a Taiwanese citizen and two are Japanese nationals, taiwannews reported.

Taipei, Oct 7 (IANS) Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Centre (CECC) on Wednesday announced that it had received notifications via the World Health Organization's National IHR Focal Points in Japan and France that four passengers arriving from Taiwan recently tested positive for Covid-19.

All three cases in Japan are males ranging in age from their 50s to their 60s. The first case was asymptomatic before departure and a test for the coraonvirus came back negative on September 30, three days before his flight to Japan.

However, when he landed in Japan on October 2, the antigen test came back positive. The second case was also asymptomatic while in Taiwan, but tested positive on the antigen test when arriving in Japan on October 2.

The third case was a flight crew member who began experiencing chest pains on September 17.

When he arrived in Taiwan on September 18, he was admitted to a hospital. After he was discharged from the hospital on September 25, he stayed in a quarantine hotel until October 2.

During his stay in quarantine, he did not report experiencing any symptoms of the disease. When he arrived in Japan on October 3, an antigen test came back positive, but a nucleic acid test administered on Ocober. 4 yielded negative results.

Having begun contact tracing, the health department has thus far identified 74 people who came in contact with the three cases. Out of these contacts, 34 have taken the nucleic acid and serum antibody tests, all of which have come back negative.

As for the case reported in France, he is a French male in his 20s who entered Taiwan in February of this year and left the country on September 30. He was tested upon arrival in France on October 1, and the results came back positive on Oct. 2.

The man did not report experiencing any symptoms of the virus throughout his stay in Taiwan. The health department has currently identified nine people who came in contact with the man during his stay in Taiwan.

Of them, three have been tested, with the nucleic acid and serum antibody tests all yielding negative results.

--IANS

int/
Howard Jarvis, chief sponsor of Proposition 13, casts his ballot in Los Angeles on June 6, 1978. (Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: Columnist George Skelton tries to muddy the waters on Proposition 15, which would reform property taxes in California.

When Proposition 13 was on the ballot in 1978, all we heard about was those poor old people who were going to lose their homes because of property taxes going up. The proponents did not talk about all the apartment building and comercial property owners who would benefit.

I am happy that people got to hang onto their homes because of Proposition13, but I am certainly not happy that apartment building and commercial property owners got the same benefit. Those same owners have raised rents again and again without paying taxes based on market value.

As Skelton notes, California needs a tax overhaul bigger than what Proposition 15 would provide, but right now we have a chance to vote yes on this intitiatve and make commercial property owners pay their fair share for a change.

Dawn Sharp, Claremont

..

To the editor: Day after day the L.A. Times reports on how badly different industries are doing. Now it's movie theaters, recently it was bookstores, and last week it was the Walt Disney Co. having to lay off 28,000 employees largely because Disneyland is still closed.

Yet somehow, the L.A. Times Editorial Board endorsed Proposition 15, which will increase property taxes on commercial real estate.

If rent is not being paid, where is the money to pay the mortgage, insurance and property taxes going to come from? With the glut of restaurant, office and retail space getting larger, foreclosures are right around the corner.

William Toth, Studio City

..

To the editor: Business groups are making the specious argument that Proposition 15 will push up rents for small businesses. In reality, landlords cannot simply pass on unlimited costs beyond what the market will bear.

My business is in Glendale. Nearby shops are vacant, closing or struggling to survive. In this climate, my landlord, who had previously raised my rent several times, recently offered me a 35% rent reduction. She told me she did not want to lose any more tenants.

Story continues

Commercial and residential rents are likely to continue their downward trajectory. Furthermore, there is going to be less need for brick-and-mortar spaces. The immediate impact of all this will be increased building vacancies and significant downward pressure on rents.

Small businesses face difficulties today, but rent increases aren't one of them. In contrast, the rapid loss of tax revenue and the consequent painful cuts are real concerns. Businesses don't want to set up shop in a city with inadequate municipal services and poorly funded public schools.

John Ballon, Glendale

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
No casualties were reported in the past day.

Ukraine has reported two violations of the latest ceasefire agreement by Russia-controlled armed groups in the Donbas warzone on Tuesday, October 6.

"In the past day, October 6, the Russian Federation's armed formations twice violated the July 22 ceasefire agreements reached during a Trilateral Contact Group meeting," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) Command wrote on Facebook in an update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on October 7, 2020.

Read alsoImpossible to stop war without engaging with Putin, Zelensky claimsIn particular, the enemy fired an under-barrel grenade launcher near the village of Zaitseve, as well as rifles near the village of Vodiane.

The shots posed no threat to the lives and health of Ukrainian soldiers so Joint Forces did not return fire.

No casualties were reported in the past day.

Meanwhile, Joint Forces members jointly with State Emergency Service and forestry staff have been working to contain wildfires in Luhansk region.

Since Wednesday midnight, no attacks by Russia-controlled armed formations have been recorded, the JFO HQ said.

The situation is under full control of the Ukrainian military.

Donbas ceasefire: Background
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - October 7, 2020) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Nichola L. Timmons has been named Chief of the newly-formed Office of Bankruptcy, Collections, Distributions, and Receiverships in the Division of Enforcement.

This new office will centralize existing functions to continue to achieve efficiencies and maximize results for investors. Among other things, the office will oversee the process through which the SEC collects outstanding monetary judgments, both in district court and bankruptcy proceedings, and returns money to harmed investors through distributions and the work of court-appointed receivers. As Chief of the office, Ms. Timmons will oversee the bankruptcy, collection, distribution, and receivership functions and the staff currently dedicated to those functions.

Since 2018, Ms. Timmons has served as Supervisory Trial Counsel, leading the SEC's distribution function. Prior to this, Ms. Timmons was Assistant Director of Distributions, Logistics, and Services from 2013 to 2018, Assistant Chief Litigation Counsel in the Office of Distributions from 2011 to 2013, and Assistant Chief Litigation Counsel in the Office of Collections and Distributions from 2008 to 2011. Ms. Timmons joined the SEC as a staff attorney in 1998.

During her career with the SEC, Ms. Timmons has overseen numerous complex investigations and litigated matters related to distributions, collections, and receiverships, and is the agency's expert in distribution matters. Ms. Timmons spearheaded the centralization of the SEC's distribution function, building expertise and improving speed and efficiency in the distributions process. This focus resulted in the SEC returning over $3.6 billion to harmed investors over the past four years.

"Nichola is a strong leader who is widely respected across the Division and I am thrilled to welcome her into the Division's senior leadership," said Stephanie Avakian, Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement. "I am confident she will do an excellent job creating and leading this new office and that with her leadership we will achieve even greater results for investors."

Ms. Timmons said, "I am grateful for this opportunity and excited to be leading a team of highly talented and dedicated staff in the areas of bankruptcy, collections, distributions, and receiverships. I look forward to continuing to advance the SEC's mission of investor protection by ensuring funds are preserved, collected, and distributed to harmed investors in a fair and efficient manner."

Ms. Timmons earned her bachelor's degree magna cum laude in sociology from Wake Forest University in 1992, her master's degree in sociology from Northwestern University in 1994, and her law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1998.
British Airways - ANTONIO BRONIC

A pilot has been accused of falsifying his licence and log book to land a job at British Airways.

Craig Butfoy, 48, is said to have made similar false claims to get work with Irish regional airline Stobart Air.

He has been charged with eight counts of fraud by false representation between April 2016 and March 2017 in a prosecution brought by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

Five of the charges allege Butfoy committed fraud "intending to make a gain, namely obtaining a job with BA CityFlyer", a BA subsidiary which operates an Embraer 170 aircraft from London City airport to destinations in the UK and Europe.

Details outlined in court papers include an allegation he falsely claimed to have flown 1,610 hours as a captain in a job application submitted to the firm.

He is also accused of giving false details on his CV, including that he had held a private pilot's licence since 1998, and fabricating documents, including a training course certificate.

Butfoy, who lives in the village of Matfield, near Royal Tunbridge Wells, in Kent, is charged with three similar offences alleging fraud "intending to make a gain, namely obtaining a job with Stobart Air".

The airline runs flights in 11 European countries with Aer Lingus, according to the company's website.

Butfoy is alleged to have included false details on his CV, including a claim he had flown more than 650 hours as a private pilot, and fabricated references in support of a job application.

He is also accused of providing false entries in a logbook, including flying time when the flights had taken place in a simulator.

A BA spokesman said the company was unable to comment while court proceedings are ongoing.

Stobart Air has been approached for comment.

A CAA spokesman said: "We can confirm that the CAA is prosecuting Craig Butfoy.

"It would be inappropriate for us to say anything further until the case is concluded."

Butfoy's case was listed at east London's Thames Magistrates' Court on Tuesday for the case to be administratively adjourned to another date, without a hearing.
A lot of times, David Lettermans show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction is full of jokes and laughs. But an upcoming interview took more of a serious turn. In a newly released trailer for the third season, the famed television host sat down with KKW Beauty founder Kim Kardashian West for an interview that left her in tears.

Kim Kardashian West at a party in February 2020 in Beverly Hills, California | Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Kim Kardashian Wests interview with David Letterman left her in tears

Based on the trailer, it looks like the interview got off to a good start. Kardashian West and Letterman are first shown browsing the aisles at what appears to be a CVS. Amid the outing, Kardashian West pulled out her phone and started documenting the moment. Hey guys, she said as Letterman entered the frame, asking if he can be in the video.

She gave him the OK, saying, Thats great. Then I will Airdrop it to you. Do you know what Airdrop is? Letterman told her he does, though he made a face that suggests otherwise.

The clip then cuts to a sit-down between the two. Around the 0:40 mark, she was presumably answering a question when she started getting emotional. No, no, no, no, are you alright? the host asked as she started to break down. I wonder why Im crying? she replied, wiping away her tears. Ive talked about this before.

RELATED: How Much Money Does David Letterman Have, and What Does He Spend His Money On?

Unfortunately, the clip cuts after that

Though its not revealed what exactly made her cry, we know its been quite a hectic year for Kardashian West. Most recently, the 39-year-old business mogul announced that her familys show Keeping Up With the Kardashians is coming to an end after 14 years and 20 seasons.

She shared the news on Instagram on Sept. 8, writing in a statement, Our last season will air early next year in 2021. Without Keeping Up With the Kardashians, I wouldnt be where I am today. I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who has watched and supported me and my family these past 14 incredible years. This show made us who we are and I will be forever in debt to everyone who played a role in shaping our careers and changing our lives forever.

Kendall Jenner, Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner in 2014 | C Flanigan/Getty Images

RELATED: KUWTK: Why the Show Might Not Be Ending After All

Before that, she made global headlines after her husband Kanye West started airing out their personal business in public and on social media, including that they considering aborting their eldest daughter North, 7, and that he has been trying to get a divorce since 2018.

Weighing in on the drama, Kardashian West suggested in a statement shared on Instagram that she felt powerless to stop West. Later, she was seen crying while conversing with the ye rapper at his Wyoming ranch. But things seemed better a few days later when they went on vacation with their four kids: North, Saint, 5, Chicago, 2, and Psalm, 1.

Well see if she talks about this time in her life when Lettermans show begins airing on Oct. 21.
Wary of a potential backlash from ticket aspirants, the Congress delayed the release of its first list of candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Bihar with Thursday being the last date of filing nominations for the first phase of polling on October 28.

The other political parties such as the ruling Janata Dal (United), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) had already declared their candidates for the first phase.

A Congress functionary said the party released the names of 21 candidates for the first phase a few hours before the close of the nominations to avoid strong reactions from ticket aspirants.

Among the candidates are Shubhanand Mukesh, son of Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Sadhanand Singh, who has decided not to contest this time, from the Kahalgaoon seat and former Bihar Youth Congress president Lallan Yadav from Sultanganj.

The party also fielded Akhauri Onkar Nath from Gaya Town instead of a powerful local leader, who is facing alleged charges of rape.

The Congress list included seven Rajputs, four Bhumihars, four Dalits and two Brahmins. There is only one woman candidate in the first list.

Seventy one constituencies in 16 districts will go to polls in the first phase. Most of these constituencies fall in Left Wing Extremist affected districts.

In the second phase on November 3, polling will be held in 94 constituencies while 78 seats will go to polls in the third and final phase on November 7. Votes will be counted on November 10.

The Congress is contesting on 21 seats in the first phase. The names were cleared by the partys central election committee (CEC), headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, on Monday.

The functionary quoted above said the party candidates on these seats were individually informed about their selection and asked to submit their nomination papers.

This was done to avoid any backlash from the aspirants who have been denied party nomination, he added.

He further said the Congress had received 2700 applications on all the 243 seats but eventually had to accommodate only 70 contenders.

As per the seat-sharing deal finalised among the mahagathbandhan or Grand Alliance constituents, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is contesting on 144 seats, the Congress on 70 and the left parties on 29.

On Monday, the CEC had discussed 46 names and on October 12, the panel will select the party candidates for the remaining two phases.

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Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google engaged in anti-competitive, monopoly-style tactics to evolve into four of the world's most powerful corporate behemoths, according to US congressional investigators, who called in a wide-ranging report released on Wednesday AEDT for sweeping changes that regulators could bring Silicon Valley back in check.

The roughly 450-page report, capping a 15-month investigation by the House of Representatives' top antitrust committee, found the four tech giants relied on dubious, harmful means to solidify their dominance in search, smartphones, social networking and shopping; and in the process evaded the very regulators whose primary task it is to ensure that companies do not grow into such corporate titans.

Investigators faulted Facebook for gobbling up potential competitors with impunity, and they concluded Google had improperly scraped rivals' websites and forced its technology on others to reach its pole position in search and advertising. Lawmakers' report labelled both of those companies monopolies while faulting the US government for failing to crack down on them sooner.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg were subjected to a public grilling by US lawmakers in July. Credit:AP

Amazon and Apple, meanwhile, exerted "monopoly power" to protect and grow their own corporate footprints. As operators of two major online marketplaces  a world-leading shopping site for Amazon, and the powerful App Store for Apple  the two tech giants for years set rules that essentially put smaller, competing sellers and software developers at a disadvantage, the report found.
At the 6th edition of India Affiliate Summit (IAS) organized by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), Parul Bhargava, CEO, vCommission, in her welcome address, highlighted the Affiliate Trends During Covid times and spoke about how affiliate market has grown over in the last 5 years. She briefed the audience on Verticals to focus on for maximising the affiliate income and how the uptake of digital marketing recently has helped all the people in the business. She gave an insight into the challenges that industry has faced over the course of time and still has seen a tremendous growth.

There was a very interesting panel discussion on Impact of Influencer Marketing  Journey from Like to Sales. Speaker Aanchal Chauhan - Bira 91, Jahid Ahmed - HDFC Bank, Samriddh Dasgupta - Bombay Shaving Company & Prajakta Koli, Indian Youtuber were part of the panel discussion wherein they talked about various factors involved before choosing the influencer. Prajakta spoke about how to become influencer from nobody. They concluded the talk by comparing the difference of influencer marketing on YouTube and Instagram.

Taking the session forward Victoria Galperina, Head of Affiliate Marketing, Supermetrics spoke about Top 5 Reasons to Set Up an In-House Affiliate Program Right Now.

The two-day long summit will revolve around discussions like; The Growth and Proliferation of Coupons & Cashback, Changing Ad Fraud Detection Landscape, Dominate Ecommerce and Lead Generation with Google Ads, A 360-degree Approach to Perfecting an Affiliate Program etc.

This year the summit is expected to see about 3000+ delegates and more than 500+ companies who participated virtually.

The Summit speakers line-up included several high profile industry stalwarts like Anita Nayyar, Zee5, Rohan Bhargava - CashKaro, Archana Agarwal  Airtel, Anand Pathak  Netmeds, Stephan Spencer  SEO Expert, Depesh Mandalia  SM Commerce, Rahul Karthikeyan  upGrad, Manmeet Singh  NortonLifeLock, Kuntal Banerjee  Maruti India, Kaushik Mukherjee - SUGAR Cosmetics, Alex Brown - Ecommerce Rockstars, Lee-Ann Johnstone - Affiliate Insider amongst others.
To mark its 34th anniversary, the Royal Albert Hall staging of The Phantom of the Opera will be streamed online this weekend.

The 25th-anniversary concert production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's show was filmed at the Royal Albert Hall in 2011 and features Ramin Karimloo as the Phantom and Sierra Boggess as Christine. You can tune in on Friday for more.

Viewers are strongly encouraged to donate to theatre charities to help keep artists and venues afloat during the pandemic. You can find out more here.

The epic 2011 production, inspired by Hal Prince and Gillian Lynne's original staging and directed by Laurence Connor, featured a cast and orchestra of over 200, plus some special guest appearances.

It will be available from 7pm BST on Friday 9 October (for 24 hours only in the UK  so a Friday night / Saturday matinee is advised) on YouTube, replacing the previously scheduled Alfie Boe concert which will now be moved to next week.
AMRITSAR The Akal Takht-appointed panel that probed into the misappropriation of 328 saroops of Guru Granth Sahib points out that timely computerisation of the accounts by the private firm hired for the purpose could have averted the incident. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) uploaded the 1,100-page report on its website on Wednesday.

The SGPC had hired SS Kohli and Associates on a monthly fee of 3.5 lakh in January 2009 for conducting the annual internal audit. The probe penal found that the firm was allotted four key works  internal audit (pre/concurrent audit on daily basis), including stores etc. at all locations, computerisation of accounts on regular basis of all the location, implementation of internal control system as suggested by a renowned consultancy firm, and implementation of online system proposed and designed by the consultancy firm  at the time of the hiring.

Chartered accountant (CA) Satinder Singh Kohli did only one work, but he was given the fee for all the four works. One of the works was computerisation of the printing presss accounts. Had the timely computerisation been done, the misappropriation (of the saroops) could not have occurred, reads the report.

It further says: It was the responsibility of former SGPC chief secretary Roop Singh to get all the works done from the CA. The money which was paid to the CA was the donation of the devotees. Roop Singh had irresponsibly gave the money to the CA. So a departmental and criminal action is needed against Roop Singh.

Roop Singh had quit on moral and ethical grounds and his resignation was accepted by the SGPC executive on August 27. The report that was partially made public by the SGPC on August 27 had held Roop Singh and 13 other officials and staff members of the publication and allied departments responsible for the missing saroops. SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal had also taken departmental action against the erring officials, besides promising criminal action against some officials, barring Dr Roop Singh. The SGPC later took a U-turn on criminal action.

The probe panel in its report also pre-empts resignations from accused officials. Despite their resignations, the executive committee should take appropriate action against them, otherwise it will leave a leave a bad precedent for other employees, says the report.

A year after being picked by the SGPC, the audit firms monthly fee was increased by 75,000 per month in 2010. The probe team found that the SGPC increased the fee of the firm even as it did little to computerise the SGPC accounts and other records.

The SGPC had been paying the audit firm for the last 10 years for no work. If the mistake was committed by an official or an employee, he or she would have been sacked, but it is very unfortunate that the SGPCs executive committee, which has supreme rights, had been increasing the contract of the firm without reviewing Kohlis work, reads the report.

It further says, The money of the sangat and the misappropriation of the saroops of Guru Granth Sahib could have been stopped, if the printing presss record had been put online, besides conducting a regular audit. The firm is also a partner in the crime.


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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 21:33:18|Editor: huaxia

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LAGOS, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Five foreigners abducted earlier by unidentified gunmen have been rescued by Nigerian troops in the country's oil-rich Niger Delta region, the military announced in a statement reaching Xinhua on Wednesday.

The victims, comprising three Russians, one Ukranian and one Equatorial Guinean, were freed after troops raided the hideouts of armed groups in the region, said John Enenche, Nigeria's defense spokesperson in the statement.

Enenche said the expatriates were kidnapped by unknown militants group on May 9, 2020. And upon receipt of credible intelligence on the abduction, a joint team of naval operatives and troops of 146 Battalion combed the creeks in the region in search of the kidnapped victims.

After a thorough search and rescue operation, the troops raided and destroyed four identified "sea pirates/militants hideout", denying them freedom of action, said Enenche.

He said the gunmen were compelled to surrendered to the troops and handed over the 5 kidnapped foreign expatriates on the early hours of Tuesday.

The rescued foreigners are receiving medical attention at a military facility, said Enenche. Enditem
Most Americans  Republicans and Democrats alike  believe in fairness and democracy for our country. Is it fair if the Senate refuses to consider a Supreme Court justice nominated by a Democratic president eight months before the election in 2016 but hurries to confirm a judge nominated by a Republican president just 40 days before the election in 2020?

Is it fair for President Trump to select a Supreme Court Justice 40 days before a probably contentious election in which he foresees that the Supreme Court, including the new justice, will ultimately decide the winner of the presidential election? In fact, Trump admits he wants to rush the selection in order that he can assure that the Supreme Court will preside over the election in a way Trump approves. That will mean selecting himself for president.

This justice would make the third U.S. Supreme Court justice that Trump has chosen. Is it fair to have Trump-like justices dominate the court? The Supreme Court was always meant to be a third independent power in our democracy. Give the people a chance to vote for the president they choose. And let that president replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Sylvia Wiegand, Lincoln

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The death rate for Covid remains lower than for seasonal flu, but living with the virus is having a devasting effect on our quality of life.

I've got used to wearing a hot mask when shopping and at work. I never hugged much, certainly not strangers, but I miss all my friends terribly- and they are getting more scared about meeting for supper as the doom and gloom from Boris and co gradually brainwashes us into thinking life will NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN.

Restaurants are only taking orders up to 8pm and city streets are dead by 10. Having a laugh has almost become a criminal offence.

Lockdown in various forms around the UK has condemned millions of citizens to house arrest and when they do venture out, to family weddings and funerals, the health and safety monitors are in full control.

An Odeon employee in London's Leicester Square conducts deep clean of the auditorium

My ex-husband's funeral the other month was limited to just 30 people. It was unbearably sad not to be able to even hug each other.

The video of grieving sons being prevented from comforting their mother at dad's funeral this week were a shocking reminder that in a crisis it's the tosspots and bureaucrats who reign supreme.

Now, the grim news that one of our major cinema chains is to shut up is further proof that Covid is unnecessarily depriving us of life's simple pleasures. Cineworld is suspending operations in the UK and USA from this Thursday, putting thousands of jobs at risk. Odeon cinemas plan to close a quarter of their screens on weekdays and Vue are still deciding what action to take to survive the winter.

These drastic actions have been brought about because the producers and financiers of blockbuster movies do not want to release products into a market place where seating is restricted and audiences are smaller because they are cautious about venturing out.

These producers are gambling that one day we will return to normal and there will be queues of fans willing to sit with total strangers for a night out. But without a vaccine, that could be a year away - and what about our mental health right now?

The release of No Time to Die has been delayed yet again, this time to the spring of 2021

If ever there was a time we needed the escapism and joy of a James Bond film, this is it. And yet, the release of the latest opus in the franchise - No Time to Die - has been delayed yet again, this time to the spring of 2021. I wouldn't even bet on that date. The star, Daniel Craig, has spoken out in support of the decision on US television last weekend. He's wrong.

Other films whose release has been delayed because of Covid include Wonder Woman 1984, Top Gun Maverick, Venom 2, Godzilla v King Kong and the remake of West Side Story.

I passionately love the cinema, throughout my life it's been a place where I can cry, I can scream and laugh till I feel weak. I started as a child- spending every Saturday morning at the Regal in Fulham Broadway, West London singing the ABC Minors song at the top of my voice with hundreds of other working class scruffs -

'We are the boys and girls well known as

the Minors of the ABC

And every Saturday we line up

To see the films we like

And shout with joy and glee.'

A film fan carries popcorn through the foyer at the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square, London

I even sang the song again (still out of tune after all these decades) live on telly this week. The cinema was where I escaped mum and dad and their pointless rules and regulations. ABC Minors would rush into our seats at 10am (proudly wearing our metal badges) and spend the next two hours eating popcorn, shocking pink lollies and sherbet dabs. We would chuck stuff all over each other, god knows how the staff cleaned the place afterwards. The films were nothing special- black and white shorts about motor cycle racing, a bit about the royal family, a three D film for which we wore cardboard specs and screamed our heads off as we went up and down the big dipper. There were cartoons, Bugs Bunny was my favourite - then a cowboy film and something dreary about nature.

By 16 I'd caught the bug and was a fully fledged cinema buff, going to films with subtitles in small art houses and boasting to my friends at school that I didn't need them as my french was so good! By the time I arrived at college at 18 I could have chosen French New Wave cinema or Italian neorealism as my Mastermind subject.

Then I fell in love with trashy horror movies (Steve McQueen in the Blob) and grim English black and white dramas like A Taste of Honey.

These days, the biggest blockbusters cost an obscene amount of money, the special effects are jaw-dropping, the costumes and music truly awe-inspiring. The biggest budgets chase the biggest audiences. But actors complain the dialogue can be silly and they are reduced to acting in front of screens and not interacting with each other. The Superhero franchises are glossy, shallow films for grown-up children.

A Cineworld cinema in Ashford, Kent, is pictured with a poster for the new James Bond film

Independent movies remain where the most creative ideas are - films like Parasite, Lobster and the Favourite have been my favourites in recent years. But cinema must appeal to many audiences, not just one. It's somewhere we go to be inspired and moved - which is why the decision to close the Cineworld Group and the Picturehouse franchise is so wrong.

The producers of No Time to Die should accept that their audience is the same people who have been to every single Bond film over many years. These fans have invested a huge amount of money in their passion. In contrast, the producers are wealthy people - why can't they release the film before Christmas so that families can enjoy outings together during this miserable time?

Why aren't producers and film studios prepared to give something back to their loyal supporters? The Government say they have invested 30million towards saving local cinema - a pittance. If cinemas remain closed throughout the winter there isn't much hope they will re-open in the spring.

If cinemas go out of business during the epidemic it doesn't matter how many movies Hollywood churns out afterwards, there will be nowhere left to see them. Except Netflix.

From highly skilled technicians, makeup and costume designers to the people who show you to your seats and sell popcorn at your local Odeon, thousands of jobs will go, including 007's.

Wouldn't it be ironic if, having survived some of the most evil masterminds in history, James Bond was killed off by a coronavirus and his producers' greed?
A 25-year-old man fell more than 250 feet to his death after slipping while scaling rocks to take pictures of a scenic overlook at Arizona's Glen Canyon National Recreation Area over the weekend, officials revealed Tuesday.

While recovering the mans body, officials also found human remains belonging to another unrelated fatality at the foot of the canyon.

The discovery was made shortly after 9:04am on Sunday morning when the National Park Service Dispatch received a call reporting that a man had fallen off of a cliff to his death near Glen Canyon Dam Overlook.

The man, later identified to be 25-year-old Orlando Serrano-Arzola, of Phoenix, was standing at the top of the rim taking pictures of the Colorado River below when he fell around 100 feet, before sliding for approximately 150 feet.

The man, later identified to be 25-year-old Orlando Serrano-Arzola, of Phoenix, was standing at the top of the rim taking pictures of the Colorado River below when he fell around 100 feet, before sliding for approximately 150 feet

Serrano-Arzola suffered extreme trauma and showed no signs of life after the fall, the Coconino County Sheriffs Office said in a release.

The Sheriffs department arrived on the scene at 9:27am. A deputy rappelled down to Serrano-Azorla and confirmed he had died.

Jon Paxton, public information officer for the sheriffs office, said that before Serrano-Arzola fell, he was thought to be climbing rocks to get a better view.

When he tried to climb back out, evidently he lost his footing or rock hold, Paxton told NBC News.

A crew - made up of individuals from the CCSO, the National Park Service, the Page Police Department and the US Bureau of Reclamation  then worked to recover his body.

During the effort, officers from the sheriffs office and the recreation area discovered bones at the base of the outlook, which were determined to be human remains.

Jon Paxton, public information officer for the sheriffs office, said that before Serrano-Arzola fell, he was thought to be climbing rocks to get a better view of the river

The Sheriff's Office and National Park Service are conducting an investigation into the remains.

No information was provided as to how long the remains may have been there, whether or not investigators know who they belong to, and how they believe they got there in the first place.

The Coconino County Sheriffs Office and the National Park Service have not yet responded to a DailyMail.com request for further comment.

Serrano-Arzola's body, meanwhile, was taken to the Medical Examiner's Office in Flagstaff for an autopsy. The death is also under investigation by the Sheriffs Office and National Park Service.

The Glen Canyon National Recreation Area covers more than 1.25 million acres in Arizona and Utah. Serrano-Arzola fell near the city of Page, which is in northern Arizona.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : The Maharashtra government informed the Supreme Court on Wednesday that it has taken action against the erring policemen connected with the alleged lynching of two seers and another person in Palghar district in April.

The state government counsel contended before a bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, R. Subhash Reddy and M.R. Shah that action taken by the state has been placed on record before the court, and cited the affidavit filed last month.

In the affidavit, Maharashtra had told the top court that action, ranging from dismissal from service to salary cuts, has been taken against 18 personnel. One of the petitioners also pointed out that he has received around 1,000-page affidavit filed by the state on Tuesday night.

The bench queried, "Why is everybody filing reply at the last moment?" The top court emphasised that material in the case should have been filed earlier for the court to consider it. The bench noted that it has not read the affidavit yet. The bench said how it can decide the matter today and asked the petitioners to file their reply, and then the court will take up the matter.

The state government counsel informed the bench that a chargesheet has been filed in the case and action has also been taken against the policemen. The bench scheduled the matter for further hearing in the week commencing November 16.

"An affidavit has been filed by the state. Let the petitioners file a reply to the affidavit within two weeks," said the top court.

In the affidavit, the Maharashtra police had said 18 policemen have been given varied punishments and some of them have also been dismissed from service. Also, some of them have been made to compulsorily retire. "The police personnel have replied to the show cause notices. After considering their replies to the show cause notice and after hearing them, the Special Inspector General of Police, Konakan range has issued final orders on August 21 imposing punishment upon the delinquent police personnel...," the affidavit said.

The victims identified as Chikne Maharaj Kalpavrukshagiri, 70, Sushil Giri Maharaj, 35, and Nilesh Telgade, 30, who was driving the vehicle, were travelling from Mumbai in a car to attend a funeral at Surat in Gujarat amid the lockdown. They were attacked and killed by a mob in Gadchinchile village on April 16 in the presence of police. A PIL was filed by advocate Shashank Shekhar Jha seeking a CBI probe into the case.
PCR tests for COVID-19 look for the genetic material of SARS-CoV-2. Credit: Shutterstock

When we get a test result for a disease like COVID-19, we naturally expect it to be either positive or negative. But the results of these tests are not so black and white.

Polymerase chain reaction, or "PCR," is the most common test to detect the presence or absence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Recently, a "weak positive" case of COVID-19 was reported in the Northern Territory.

Let's take a look at why someone might get a weak positive result.

Shouldn't you just be positive or negative?

PCR tests are used to detect a range of viruses and pathogens. They look for viral genetic material in a respiratory sample, such as a nose or throat swab or a saliva sample.

We identify a sample to be positive or negative based on the number of times we need to amplify the small segments of genetic material to detect the virusand whether this number falls below or above a certain threshold.

When there's a lot of virus present, we only need a few cycles of amplification to detect it. When there isn't much virus, or there's none, we need to amplify the sample several more times until finally we cross the threshold and deem the sample negative.

So in this process we can see the potential for a weak positive result. It would generally be a reading at or just above the threshold. And that threshold varies depending on the test used.

Importantly, thresholds are just the point at which we believe we've detected something. They're not 100% precise. Sometimes results just above or below the threshold might be false negatives or false positives.

When might you have a weak positive result?

In most cases, the genetic material of a virus is only detectable when we're infected and the virus is still replicating and shedding into our respiratory passages.

But sometimes, even when the virus is no longer alive and replicating, it can hang around and be detectable by PCR. In these cases, it's unclear whether the virus is infectious.

In the case of the NT man, he had earlier tested positive for COVID-19 in Victoria and recovered. Although he recorded a negative test before traveling to the NT, it's likely he was still just shedding small amounts of the virus.

This may be more common among people with weaker immune systems, as it takes them longer to clear the virus from their system.

How do we handle weak positives?

A weak positive is treated as a "presumptive positive" resultwe presume it to be positive, and generally classify it as such, until we have information to suggest otherwise.

National testing guidelines for COVID-19 recommend weak positive results be checked by testing the same sample again. They also recommend collecting another sample.

In some cases, retesting the original sample may give more confidence of an infection with SARS-CoV-2. But collecting and testing another sample can offer further confirmation.

The subsequent test might target a different region of the virus' genetic material, or use a different type of test. Alternatively, the sample could be referred to a reference laboratory to verify the result using specialized tests.

We don't know of any publicly available data which indicate how common weak positive results are. But we don't think they're unusual.

It's one of the reasons the publicly reported case numbers for COVID-19 are sometimes revised downwards, as weak positives are later confirmed to be negative after retesting.

It's also not unique to COVID-19 or PCRmany different tests, for a variety of diseases, can produce weak positives.

But the phenomenon has a unique impact when the infection is part of a pandemic.

The danger of assumption

During a pandemic, there are implications not just for the person being tested, but for their contacts, their workplace, and the whole population.

Incorrectly assuming a weak positive result isn't COVID-19 could lead to a person continuing to transmit the disease to others. It could also prevent them receiving the proper monitoring and, if necessary, treatment.

Conversely, assuming a weak positive result is COVID-19 when it's actually negative could lead to the person being unnecessarily quarantined, which has potential personal, psychological and financial effects.

In the case in the NT, classifying this indeterminate result as a positive case would have meant the first COVID-19 infection in two months in that state.

While the man was isolated, NT authorities didn't count him as a case based on advice from the health department that the result was likely due to residual virus from his previous infection. They said he didn't have any symptoms and it was highly unlikely he was infectious.

When the elimination of community transmission is being used as a criteria for border closures, individual cases can have significant flow-on effects to the whole population.

For these reasons, it's important to appreciate the complexities of COVID-19 testing. It's not always as simple as "positive" or "negative."

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Illinois health officials Wednesday announced 2,630 new known cases of COVID-19 and 42 additional confirmed fatalities, bringing the total number of known infections in Illinois to 307,641 and the statewide death toll to 8,878 since the start of the pandemic.

Officials reported 58,820 new tests in the last 24 hours, as the state surpasses 6 million total COVID-19 tests. The seven-day statewide positivity rate is 3.5%.

The new statewide numbers come as Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday that the gains that most regions in Illinois had been making in bringing down COVID-19 positivity rates in recent weeks have cooled off a bit. The governor noted specifically that the northeastern region that includes Lake and McHenry counties has seen a reversal after a period of decline.

That progress has cooled off a bit, across Illinois, Pritzker said. We are seeing changes in positivity averages around the state level off, with three regions that were decreasing last week now sitting at a stable level.

Heres whats happening Wednesday with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:

7:15 p.m.: CPS says clerks must report to work in person, despite labor ruling that questions COVID-19 protections in schools. CTU says the action threatens jobs.

Despite an arbitrators ruling that certain Chicago Public Schools employees should be allowed to work from home when feasible during remote learning, the district is continuing to require them to work in person.

An email from Chief Talent Officer Matt Lyons sent late Tuesday told clerks, clerk assistants and technology coordinators that the expectations have not changed.

As critical members of our school community, you are integral in our collective work communicating and supporting families, staff, and students, the email states. "This means you will continue to be expected to report to work in person, unless you have an approved or pending request for a leave of absence or accommodation.

You may have received conflicting information recently on this reporting requirement, the email continued, but we are writing today to confirm CPS' expectation and directive to report to work onsite.

Without a leave of absence or accommodation request approved or pending, employees are not allowed to work from home, according to the email, which states that if employees dont show up in person, CPS will consider your absence unauthorized and proceed accordingly.

The Chicago Teachers Union is interpreting the email as a threat of discipline and an attempt to strongarm workers into schools in defiance of the ruling. The union also claims CPS is stalling on bargaining over remedies.

Read more here. Hannah Leone

6:55 p.m.: The Purple Pig employees hold protest over concerns of coronavirus safety negligence

After spending much of Tuesday night calling colleagues at The Purple Pig, Ryan Love felt upbeat about the five people who committed to picketing the Chicago restaurant Wednesday morning.

The protest, which ended up being four people greeting passersby with signs saying, 211K Americans dead. Tapas anyone? and No transparency, no accountability, was inspired by frustration over the perceived actions of restaurant chef and owner Jimmy Bannos Jr. and other members of management. Love contends they did not take appropriate steps to keep employees and guests safe after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19 on Sept. 24.

Love, a lead server and bartender, said a full week had passed before the restaurant was deep-cleaned and staff was notified about the employee who tested positive. And management didnt act until pushed, he said. He heard the news that a staff member had tested positive from other colleagues during his shift Sept. 26 and emailed management Sept. 28. There was no all-staff announcement before Love sent his email, he said.

That was basically the confirmation that theyre not taking this seriously and it is a serious situation, Love said. I was really, really mad that they would be so careless.

Read more here. Grace Wong

6:35 p.m.: Notre Dames president faces an angry campus after getting the coronavirus

As college leaders deliberated whether to bring students back to campus, none led the charge for reopening more forcefully than the president of the University of Notre Dame.

The Rev. John I. Jenkins, the universitys president and a 66-year-old Catholic priest with degrees in philosophy and divinity, was among the first to invite students back for dorm life, intercollegiate sports and face-to-face classes, arguing in a New York Times op-ed in May that the college had a moral obligation to not be crippled by fear. He also seemed humble about the challenge: When he forgot social distancing rules as he posed for pictures with students returning to campus in August, he issued a public apology.

But all the humility in the world might not have spared Jenkins from the storm of protest he now faces over the latest news from South Bend: that he not only violated his own health rules  appearing without a mask at a White House reception last month for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a Supreme Court nominee and former Notre Dame Law School professor  but also is infected with the coronavirus himself.

Students have petitioned for his resignation, angry over what they consider his hypocrisy as well as the rising tide of infections on campus. Others have reported him to a coronavirus hotline for violating his own mask mandate. The student newspaper called the affair embarrassing in an editorial. And the faculty senate stopped one vote short Tuesday night of considering a vote of no confidence in his leadership.

I havent seen people this outraged in my whole career and Ive been here since 2001, Eileen Hunt Botting, a political science professor, said.

Neither Jenkins nor the school spokesman, Paul Browne, responded to requests for comment.

Read more here. The New York Times

5:10 p.m.: Wisconsin is what happens when you politicize public health, Mayor Lori Lightfoot says

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot blamed Wisconsin Republicans for that states recent spike in coronavirus cases, saying Wisconsin is what happens when you politicize public health.

Lightfoot made her comments after Wisconsin health officials announced Wednesday that a field hospital will open next week at the state fairgrounds near Milwaukee as a surge in COVID-19 cases threatens to overwhelm hospitals.

Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has repeatedly clashed with Republicans in that state over measures to curb the coronavirus.

Conservative justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' monthslong stay-at-home order in May.

Referring to the field hospital, Lightfoot said, The fact that, in October, a state is having to open up a field hospital because of the stress on the healthcare system, because of the explosion in cases requiring hospitalizations, is a disgrace.

And alluding to the clashes between Evers and Republicans, Lightfoot said, Public health should never be politicized.

Only 16% of the states 11,452 hospital beds were available as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the DHS. The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients had grown to 853, its highest during the pandemic according to the COVID Tracking Project, with 216 in intensive care.

Read more here. Gregory Pratt; The Associated Press contributed

4:40 p.m.: Pritzker says states recent progress on COVID-19 has cooled off a bit

The gains that most regions in Illinois had been making in bringing down COVID-19 positivity rates in recent weeks have cooled off a bit, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday, noting specifically that the northeastern region that includes Lake and McHenry counties has seen a reversal after a period of decline.

Pritzker said last week that there were promising declines in nearly every region of the state, with the exception of the northwest region, where the state imposed more strict rules over the weekend due to the positivity rate there surpassing a threshold that triggers a scaled-back reopening.

That progress has cooled off a bit, across Illinois, Pritzker said Wednesday during a virtual news conference, as he continued to quarantine after one of his staff members tested positive for COVID-19. We are seeing changes in positivity averages around the state level off, with three regions that were decreasing last week now sitting at a stable level.

Read more here. Jamie Munks

3:24 p.m.: Wisconsin activates field hospital as surge in COVID-19 cases threatens to overwhelm hospitals

Wisconsin health officials announced Wednesday that theyve opened a field hospital at the state fairgrounds near Milwaukee as a surge in COVID-19 cases threatens to overwhelm hospitals.

Wisconsin has become a hot spot for the disease over the last month, ranking third nationwide this week in daily new cases per capita. Health experts have attributed the spike to the reopening of colleges and K-12 schools as well as general fatigue over wearing masks and socially distancing.

We hoped this day wouldnt come, but unfortunately, Wisconsin is in a much different, more dire place today and our healthcare systems are beginning to become overwhelmed by the surge of COVID-19 cases, said Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. This alternative care facility will take some of the pressure off our healthcare facilities while expanding the continuum of care for folks who have COVID-19.

Read more here. Associated Press

1:08 p.m.: Eli Lilly asks for emergency approval of COVID-19 antibody drug

Eli Lilly is asking the federal government for emergency approval of an antibody drug it says has shown success in early trials stopping some COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms from later needing hospitalization.

The Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant said Wednesday it would petition the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization, which could make the treatment more widely available to patients at high-risk for serious COVID-19 complications.

Its drug is similar to one that President Donald Trump received on Friday from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. These medicines supply concentrated versions of specific antibodies to help the immune system clear the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Theyre given as a one-time treatment through an IV.

Read more here. Meredith Colias-Pete

12:10 p.m.: 6 million total COVID-19 tests conducted; 2,630 new known COVID-19 cases and 42 additional deaths reported

Illinois has now conducted more than 6 million COVID-19 tests since the pandemic began earlier this year, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced on Wednesday.

The state passed the 6 million mark after recording 58,820 tests during the latest 24-hour period, which resulted in 2,630 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19. The state also reported 42 additional deaths of people with COVID-19.

The testing total is now 6,033,289. Illinois has seen a total of 307,641 known cases of coronavirus to date, and the state is reporting 8,878 deaths of people with COVID-19.

The states seven-day positivity rate is currently 3.5%. The rate was 4.2% a month earlier.

As of Tuesday night, 1,679 people with COVID-19 were hospitalized in Illinois. Of those patients, 372 patients were in an intensive care unit, and 165 were on ventilators.

Jamie Munks

12 p.m.: 900 children in suburban Cook County public housing to get free laptops as remote learning continues to present digital barriers

Hundreds of school-age children in suburban Cook County public housing will get free laptops paid for by federal coronavirus stimulus money starting Wednesday, as part of an ongoing effort to ensure digital access after the COVID-19 pandemic upended in-person learning.

About $270,000 of CARES Act money allocated to the Housing Authority of Cook County will be used to purchase laptops for 900 students who live in the public housing complexes to keep and otherwise would struggle to complete remote learning. The giveaway is part of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkles efforts to address long-standing racial inequities that have intensified under the grip of the coronavirus.

Read more here. Alice Yin

11:25 a.m.: Trump has COVID, but many supporters still eschew masks: The far-left liberals are causing this

On the day that President Donald Trump defiantly left the hospital where he was being treated for a coronavirus infection and returned to a White House that appears to be one of Washingtons most contagious hot spots, backers of the president in rural Pennsylvania showed no signs of questioning their own defiance of experts' advice on how to limit the viruss spread.

In the Lebanon Valley east of Harrisburg, where support for Trump remains particularly strong, the presidents failure to protect his family and inner circle from the virus was not seen as a reflection on his inability to protect Americans, as the death toll passed 210,000.

On the contrary, Trump loyalists echoed misinformation that the president has spread for much of the year, as he has sought to minimize the threat of the virus to aid his reelection.

Read more here. The New York Times

11:01 a.m.: How much would Trumps coronavirus treatment cost most Americans?

President Donald Trump spent three days in the hospital. He arrived and left by helicopter. And he received multiple coronavirus tests, oxygen, steroids and an experimental antibody treatment.

For someone who isnt president, that would cost more than $100,000 in the American health system. Patients could face significant surprise bills and medical debt even after health insurance paid its share.

Across the country, patients have struggled with both the long-term health and financial effects of contracting coronavirus. Nearly half a million have been hospitalized. Routine tests can result in thousands of dollars in uncovered charges; hospitalized patients have received bills upward of $400,000.

Trump did not have to worry about the costs of his care, which are covered by the federal government. Most Americans, including many who carry health coverage, do worry about receiving medical care they cannot afford.

Read more here. The New York Times

10:37 a.m.: Second stimulus check updates: After calling off negotiations in a tweet, Trump tries to pick and choose parts of COVID-19 relief

The White House on Wednesday tried to salvage its favorite items lost in the rubble of COVID-19 relief talks that President Donald Trump blew up, with his administration pressing for $1,200 stimulus checks and a new wave of aid for airlines and other businesses hard hit by the pandemic.

As part of a barrage of tweets and retweets, Trump pressed for passage of these chunks of assistance, an about-face from his abrupt and puzzling move on Tuesday afternoon to abandon talks with a longtime rival, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The California Democrat has rejected such piecemeal entreaties all along.

Trumps tweets amounted to him demanding his way in negotiations that he himself had ended.

He called on Congress to send him a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200)  a reference to a preelection batch of direct payments to most Americans that had been a central piece of negotiations between Pelosi and the White House.

Read more here. Associated Press

10:34 a.m.: Illinois gambling tax revenues fell 13.4% due to pandemic shutdown

When Illinois passed sweeping legislation last year to expand gambling in the state, it was envisioned as a way to generate increased tax revenue.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a much different result, with gambling tax revenue down by 13.4% for the first full year under the new law.

The states gambling tax revenue fell by nearly $200 million to $1.2 billion for fiscal year 2020, which ended June 30. Everything from horse racing to bingo took a hit, according to an annual wagering report by the state.

Illinois was on pace for a modest annual increase in tax revenues until gambling operators were shut down in mid-March, said Eric Noggle, a senior analyst with the states Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability who co-authored the study.

Read more here. Robert Channick

7:20 a.m.: County officials to announce program to distribute laptops for children still in need of online learning help

Cook County officials were scheduled Wednesday morning to announce a program to give laptops to school-age children who still need devices for online learning.

County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and the Housing Authority of Cook County were to distribute laptops Wednesday morning at the Richard Flowers Apartments in Robbins as part of Digital Inclusion Week, according to a release from Preckwinkles office.

Digital Inclusion Week seeks to increase online literacy, widen internet access to people with lower incomes and increase media literacy.

Chicago Tribune staff

5 a.m.: Coronavirus outbreak flares again at Jacksonville prison

A COVID-19 outbreak at Jacksonville Correctional Center that had remained stable for weeks is growing again.

Eight prisoners at the facility tested positive between Saturday and Monday, taking the total prisoner infections to 225. Fourteen staff members at the prison also have tested positive since the outbreak began.

A reinfection also was noted in a resident of Aperion Care in Jacksonville, where another resident also tested positive, according to a daily briefing by the Morgan County Department of Public Health, Jacksonville/Morgan County Emergency Management, Memorial Health System, county commissioners and the city of Jacksonville.

There have been 305,011 known coronavirus cases and 8,836 confirmed deaths in Illinois since the start of the pandemic.

Marco Cartolano, Jacksonville Journal-Courier, via Tribune Content Agency

In case you missed it
Nairobi  The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has welcomed the Ministry of Education's announcement o re-open schools from next week.

Schools in Kenya have remained closed since March when the first case of coronavirus was confirmed in the country.

Maniza Zaman, UNICEF Representative to Kenya said that the longer children are out of school, the greater the risk that the poorest among them will never return as some might get into child labour or get married off.

With an estimated child drop out of school at the primary level of 21 percent, Zaman says prolonged exposure means more children may drop out of the system.

"The closure of schools exposes adolescent girls to a higher risk of sexual abuse, HIV and teenage pregnancy," the UNICEF Representative to Kenya said.

The phased re-opening of school will see students in Grade 4, Class 8 and Form 4 resume learning.

UNICEF said the closure of schools in March this year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, interrupted learning for over 17 million students who missed more than six months of formal education.

"As part of the UN family, UNICEF reaffirms its commitment to supporting the Government of Kenya during this unprecedented and challenging time," Zaman said.

"As children return to school, we all need to come together to ensure that this transition is smooth for the learners, teachers and the wider school community. In addition to supporting water, sanitation and hygiene in schools, we will work with partners to provide parents with the reliable and accurate information they need. Finally, we hope that soon all learners can be safely back in school. "

Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. George Magoha announced the dates for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations will start on March 22, 2021 and end on March 24, 2021, while KCSE exams will start on March 25, 2021 and end on April 16, 2021.

All schools will be required to strictly adhere to COVID-19 containment protocols and guidelines, among them mandatory use of face masks, monitoring of body temperature and observance of high levels of hygiene.

"Although physical distancing will remain a challenge, it should not be used as a bottleneck to keep any child away from school," Magoha said.
Hey, Pranav! My screen-on time has increased considerably with the whole work-from-home setup and my smartphones battery drains very quickly. I am looking for a new phone under Rs 25,000 that offers great battery life but does not compromise on the performance.

Lucky for you, I am clicking photos of a smartphone you might just be looking for - Samsung Galaxy M51.

Samsung phones with a big battery!!?

Yes, Samsung Galaxy M-series has always been about great battery life. While the entry-level models focuses on decent performance and great battery life, this one primarily focuses on offering an all-round experience.

How big is the battery on Samsung Galaxy M51?

The phone wields a 7,000 mAh battery.

7,000 mAh?! I asked you for a phone, not a powerbank!

Haha! I get that a lot whenever someone asks for a big battery phone. This, by far, is the biggest battery on a Samsung smartphone. Surprisingly, the company has managed to keep the form factor under check despite its beefy battery.

How thick is the phone? And is it too heavy?

Well, with a battery that big, you will feel some weight. Galaxy M51 weighs 213 grams. However, it is only 9.5mm thick. I am saying only because the Poco X3 that I recently reviewed, weighs 225 grams and is 10.1mm thick. You get a slightly smaller 6,000 mAh battery on that one.

Okay but for how long does the battery last on a single charge?

During my Galaxy M51 review period, I got an average screen-on time of close to 10 hours. My use case is slightly heavy, which includes playing Call of Duty Mobile or Asphalt 8, consuming video content, attending webinars, and lots of scrolling on Twitter and Instagram. If you are not as much a power user, you won't need to charge the Galaxy M51 for a couple of days at least.

But it sure must be taking hours to charge, no?

During my Samsung Galaxy M51 review period, I charged the device only twice and it took about two hours to charge the 7,000 mAh battery. Samsung is shipping a 25W fast charger with the Galaxy M51. If you prefer overnight charging, disable the fast charging toggle inside the battery settings.

Our use case is quite similar. I wanted to know two things - What about playing games? How good is the performance? Second, does it have a 3.5mm headphone jack? I hate it when there is an audio lag while playing games.

Samsung Galaxy M51 is quite a performer when it comes to gaming and multitasking. Unlike other M-series Samsung phones, the Galaxy M51 comes with a Snapdragon 730G processor. I did not come across any major lag while playing CoD Mobile. Multitasking is also quite a breeze, thanks to the much improved One UI 2.1. My 8GB Samsung Galaxy M51 review unit loaded apps where I left them. The phone comes pre-installed with a bunch of third-party apps like Snapchat, Moj, MX Takatak, and some Microsoft apps. I deleted most of the bloatware immediately as I didnt want the app drawer to be filled with apps that I dont use.

Regarding the headphone jack, yes, the Galaxy M51 comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack. You are going to use it a lot cause the mono-speaker setup is not that loud. It is a bummer that a phone costing Rs 25,000 has a poor audio setup as rival phones like the Realme 7 Pro (Review) and Poco X3 (Review) feature a dual-speaker setup.

Important query about the display. Is it bright enough?

Galaxy M51 has a 6.7-inch display. Samsung is known to offer excellent quality AMOLED screens and the Galaxy M51 is no different. Yes, the display is bright even in outdoor conditions. Colours are vibrant and you get excellent viewing angles as well. The screen is surrounded by narrow bezels. Despite that, the phone feels very tall and you cannot use it single-handedly, even if you have big hands. Thankfully, Samsung has added a gesture that lets you pull the notification tray by swiping down on the side-mounted fingerprint scanner.

No refresh rate support?

Nope. Galaxy M51 comes with a 60Hz AMOLED. If you want a high refresh rate screen, check the Poco X3 (Review) for its 120Hz LCD or the OnePlus Nord (Review) for its 90Hz AMOLED.

Oh! By the way, is the front camera good for video-calls?

No doubts about it. Samsung Galaxy M51 features a 32MP front camera inside that circular cutout at the top of the display. The front cameras image quality is excellent for selfies, and not just for video calls. Yes, there is some amount of smoothening going on but the overall image is detailed. You click 8MP selfies by default or opt for a wider 12MP resolution in the camera app.

What about the four rear cameras? Are they any good?

Samsung Galaxy M51 has a 64MP primary camera, a 12MP ultra-wide camera, a 5MP macro lens and a 5MP depth sensor. The primary image captures well-saturated, detailed 16MP pixel-binned shots during the daylight. The shadows retain details while the highlights arent overexposed. Night mode offers better-detailed pictures but also introduces noise in the darker areas.

The camera UI too is quite simple and user friendly.

The 8MP ultra-wide camera is not as detailed as the main camera but clicks decent images during the day. There is some heavy barrel distortion at the corners. I often struggle to focus correctly when it comes to macro lenses and had a similar experience with the 5MP macro lens. Get the focus right and you are likely to get usable images in daylight. Here, tap on the photos below to see all the images shot on the Galaxy M51.

Is there anything specific that you did not like about the Galaxy M51?

A few things, actually. I am not a fan of the Galaxy M51s design. Samsung has opted for a glasstic rear panel that offers a mirror finish. I have had to clean the polycarbonate rear panel so many times while clicking photos of Galaxy M51 as it attracted too many fingerprints. You can slap a case but then that will add to the overall weight of the phone. The phone does offer a good grip though, courtesy of the curved rear panel.

I, for one, prefer a matte/ frosted design over glossy panels. Opinions over the design are subjective so its for you to decide. I would prefer the OnePlus Nords design over this.

The second thing is One UI throwing recommendations in the notifications tray. Yes, you can disable these using the toggle switch but thats an extra step.

The rear camera does not even offer 2x digital zoom and you are limited to choose between macro, ultrawide, and wide-angle photos. I have already informed you about the not-so-loud single speaker at the bottom edge.

Lastly, for reasons unknown, I failed to unlock the device using the side-mounted fingerprint scanner multiple times. Theres face unlock as an alternative but thats not going to work when you are wearing a mask.

Okay then, sum it up for me. Is Samsung Galaxy M51 the best smartphone under Rs 25,000 in India? Would you recommend me buying the phone?

If battery life is your priority, I would definitely recommend getting the Samsung Galaxy M51. The smartphone does not compromise on the performance bit too. Add the excellent AMOLED display and the capable main rear and front camera.

The design, again, a subjective matter, is something I am not a fan of.

Any alternatives within a similar price range?

There are plenty. You can opt for the OnePlus Nord (Review) that has a faster processor but offers relatively-lesser battery life. You can also check the Realme 7 Pro (Review). The battery is smaller but you get a 65W fast charger. It also has a slightly slower Snapdragon 720G processor.

Poco X3 (Review), which starts at Rs 16,999, offers a marginally-better Snapdragon 732G processor but again, the phone is heavier than the Galaxy M51. If you want a high refresh rate screen, Poco X3 has a 120Hz LCD.

As I said, there are plenty of options. It is up to you to decide which smartphone suits the best for your use case. Of course, check Moneycontrol's reviews before you make your purchase decision.

Samsung Galaxy M51 specifications

Display: 6.7-inch Super AMOLED Plus Infinity-O display.

Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G processor.

RAM/ Storage: 6GB + 128GB/ 8GB +128GB

Rear camera: 64MP main sensor, 12MP ultrawide lens, a 5MP macro lens, and a 5MP depth sensor.

Front camera: 32MP

Battery: 7,000 mAh with 25W fast charging.

OS: Android 10-based OneUI.

Price: Rs 24,999.
The pair first met in university overseas, where she quickly developed a crush on him but long kept it a secret. Years later, when they had sex and she got pregnant while on vacation together, the two decided to raise their child together.

By then, he had been granted asylum in Canada, so he filed to bring the woman and their child to join him and start their life together as a family.

There was just one issue: He's gay.

For many - including several immigration officials who heard his case - that might disqualify the couple from the process. But in a groundbreaking decision on their case late last month, Canada's federal court ruled that the pair, an unidentified couple known in court documents only as AP and AM, can meet the legal definition of a "conjugal relationship," a government designation for unmarried couples.

Canadian legal advocates and lawyers are now cheering the ruling as a major victory for the rights of what many have called "mixed-orientation couples," with some saying it validates experiences that have long been pushed to the margins of the law.

"Societally, we're so used to sex as the defining aspect of a relationship," the couple's lawyer, Athena Portokalidis, told The Washington Post. "But if a definition would fit for an opposite-sex that has been married for 50 years, why can't a same-sex couple or a mixed-orientation couple have it too?"

The ruling hinges on a particular part of the Canadian immigration and family law systems, which both tend to be more progressive and inclusive than their U.S. equivalents.

But it nonetheless casts a light on a family arrangement that is present - if equally unacknowledged - south of the border. The Straight Spouse Network, a Chicago-based organization that focuses exclusively on supporting the heterosexual partners in such marriages, estimates that there may be as many as 2 million such couples in the U.S., Vice reported in 2014.

Indeed, Portokalidis said the idea of mixed-orientation couples is nothing new: Any bisexual person dating or married to someone who is attracted to only one gender is in a mixed-orientation relationship. So is someone in a heterosexual marriage in which one spouse has just come out.

Yet, the idea of two adults entering into a partnership without some kind of sexual or romantic bond nonetheless challenges many conventional beliefs around what makes a partnership. It is on this logic that a lower court rejected AP and AM's spousal sponsorship application.

But in her Sept. 17 decision granting them an appeal, Justice Janet M. Fuhrer said Canada's Immigration Appeal Division had acted with a "reliance on stereotypes" in rejecting their case.

"The IAD's decision was based on a closed mind or bias," Fuhrer wrote, "resulting in an unreasonable assessment of the evidence."

Rather than considering the details at hand about their partnership, she added that the lower court "focused exclusively" on "predetermined conclusions about the ability of mixed-orientation couples to engage in sexual relations."

According to court documents, AP was granted asylum in Canada because he had been persecuted in his home country due to his sexual orientation. (That country is not specified in court documents, and Portokalidis declined to name it to protect her client's privacy.)

At that point, he reconnected with AM online. They went on vacation together about seven years ago and engaged in unprotected sex. She told him she was pregnant in January 2014.

From then on, with AP in Canada, they decided to raise the baby together despite the borders separating them. They went on two more trips: once during AM's pregnancy, and again once their child was 2 years old. The pair talks regularly over Skype, Portokalidis said, and - with AM's applications for a visa having twice been rejected - AP sends money to support AM and their child.

Under Canadian law, a conjugal relationship is a way of recognizing the bond between unmarried cohabitants, Nicholas Bala, a law professor at Queen's University in Ontario, told The Post. The concept can be used in the Canadian immigration system to reunite gay couples coming from countries where their sexual orientation is frowned upon or illegal.

Bala said that the ruling does not change or expand the definition. To meet the definition, a couple must prove that they rely on each other and maintain some degree of intimacy, but do not necessarily need to be sexually intimate. Unmarried seniors, for instance, can sometimes be considered conjugal partners.

Yet in June 2019 when deciding on AP and AM's case, immigration officials said they were not persuaded "a homosexual man and a heterosexual woman are able to meet the sexual component of conjugal partnership."

When the pair appealed their case, they were again rejected by the IAD. AM did not know enough about AP's prior relationships, the court said, and AP did not come out to AM until after their child was born - all signs that they did not maintain the kind of close, intimate communication necessary for a conjugal partnership.

But Portokalidis, who pointed to the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie" as an example of mixed-orientation partnerships, said she hopes the decision can create greater visibility for a group of people who are often unacknowledged.

"Hopefully, it gives couples the support or the affirmation that they might need to see that their form of relationship is recognized in the law," she said.
Chinas foreign exchange reserves shrank to USD 3.1426 trillion, a dip of USD 22 billion, last month compared with August due to a host of factors including the COVID-19 pandemic abroad, the official media here reported on Wednesday. Chinas foreign exchange reserves edged down in September, ending a five-month rising streak since April, though the countrys foreign exchange regulator said that supply and demand dynamics and cross-border capital flow remain stable, state-run Global Times reported.

The decrease, at USD 22 billion or 0.7 per cent month over month, was due to a rise in the US dollar index and exchange rates, changes in asset prices, as a result of a number of factors including the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic abroad and monetary and fiscal policies adopted by the worlds major economies, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said in a statement.

Chinas foreign exchange reserves stood at USD 3.1426 trillion at the end of September, down from USD 3.1646 trillion recorded at the end of August, the official data showed on Wednesday. However, Wang Chunying, a SAFE spokesperson, said the stable trend of Chinas foreign exchange reserve remains stable as the favourable conditions enjoyed by the Chinese economy were unchanged and its policymakers toolkit remained ample, despite the still-complex pandemic situation and rising uncertainties in the global economy.

Chinas gold reserves stood at 62.64 million ounces at the end of September, unchanged compared with that of the previous month, SAFE data showed.
California senator and vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris will walk onstage this evening with a critical task ahead of her: to make her case for the Biden presidency. Specifically, she will need to take the number-one issue on Americans minds  Covid-19  and use it t prove the Democratic case.

On the surface, it seems like that shouldnt be hard to do, given Trumps history of dismissing the lethality and seriousness of the virus and his recent Covid diagnosis. Indeed, what she should emphasize is even more alarming is how the President coped with his diagnosis: showing a radical disregard for the health of those around him by coming back to the White House mask-free while still presumably infectious, as well as going for a Sunday photo-op outside Walter Reed Hospital in a closed car and then tweeting to his followers that they shouldnt fear the virus. Nevertheless, sympathy among committed Trump voters is high and some conservative pundits have even begun to suggest that Trumps experience in having Covid might somehow make him and Pence a better-equipped team during the pandemic than Biden and Harris.

It still looks like coronavirus might be an easy-issue win for Harris. The second task facing the California senator is much harder, however, and thats to convince Trumplandia and other undecided subtly and not-so-subtly racist voters that a Black woman, however successful, intelligent and prepared, is just as capable as a white man of being vice president  or president, should the need arise.

Regardless of ones take on her decisions as a politician  first as Californias Attorney General and later as a senator, Democratic presidential candidate and then running-mate pick  Kamala Harris has always been treated differently because she is a Black, south Asian American woman. Recent studies showed that at least 25 percent of the media coverage about her is either racist or sexist. Anticipating the trolling, supporters long ago started an online campaign to defend Harris from attacks, with the hashtag #wehaveherback. The organization Times Up, led by former Michelle Obama chief of staff Tina Tchen, wrote in a tweet posted Tuesday: Sen. Harris is facing the kind of unfair coverage, double standards & coded language that has derailed the political ambitions of women, esp. WOC, for generations.

And thats just the more obvious attacks from the right. On the left, the angry Black woman trope is alive and well. In a recent BBC article which speculated about tonights event, for example, Harris was described as a hardened former lawyer who has left congressional witnesses bloodied after tearing into them in Senate hearings. Pence, on the other hand, was described in the same article as a softly spoken, deeply religious man. While Im sure the writers intentions were good, the framing was not. And for the record, Harris identifies as Baptist and attends a Baptist church in San Francisco.

In another CNN op-ed, Harris was warned to tone down the grandstanding, while Pence was lauded as solid, calm and reassuring. Personally, I would describe him as the man with so little self-control that he wont let himself have dinner with a woman if his wife isnt present, but hey, why be negative?

This is certainly a historic debate  with both presidential candidates over 70 years old (Biden is 77 and Trump is 74 and sick with Covid), even if we werent in the midst of a pandemic the winner's age would still present an issue. Harris has to convince Americans that shes up to the task of the presidency if Biden also was to get sick from Covid-19 or something else that rendered him unable to fulfill his executive duties. And Pence has to do the same, considering that long Covid is now an illness shown to have effects for months in some.

Convincing Democrats and undecided voters that Trump has no plan for the pandemic is an easy sell with over 200,000 dead and the President shamefully falling sick himself. But no matter how shiny and polished Senator Harriss debate performance is tonight, no matter how well she walks the line of smart but not too smart, assertive but not too assertive, informed and confident but without grandstanding, the bias was stacked against her long before she walked into the room. She walks in with a much lower presumption of competency than Pence because of such prejudice  and she will have to work twice as hard to look like that calm and reassuring presence.

What we know is that her debating style is honed by years in the legal system, and that tends to appear sharper and more intellectually rigorous than Pence. She should be able to knock it out the park  and if she does so, she could steal the election for Biden, whose own debating technique against Trump was left wanting (even if the President looked like the real fool overall.) We just have to hope that enough of those watching arent blinded by what she looks like.
At the 22nd Ukraine-EU Summit, Kyiv signed three agreements with the European Commission and three agreements with the European Investment Bank (EIB) aimed at financing various projects.

In particular, an agreement to finance the EU4ResilientRegions programme for EUR 30 million was signed between the Ukrainian government and the European Commission.

According to the document, the EU4ResilientRegions programme aims at enhancing the resilience of eastern and southern Ukraine to the negative impacts of the ongoing conflict, including to hybrid threats and other destabilizing factors. The action will also address most recent destabilization factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and its social and economic impact. In response to the conflict in eastern Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, this action will aim to enhance Ukraine's overall resilience, notably to hybrid threats.

The Civil Society Facility programme for EUR 20 million was also signed between the Ukrainian government and the European Commission. The programme focuses on social innovation and active citizenship as core principles for civic engagement and the premises for sustainable democratic societies. It aims to support the capacity of civil society organizations to engage in policy dialogue, to act as governance actors and to drive the country's social and economic development.

In addition, the Climate package for a sustainable economy (CASE) programme for EUR 10 million was signed between the Ukrainian government and the European Commission.

This programme supports Ukraine in the implementation of measures towards a climate neutral, clean and resource-efficient economy. This includes support in areas such as circular economy and waste management, energy efficiency, emission-free urban transport as well as support to climate mitigation and adaptation.

In addition, this agreement provides for the creation of a joint resource center for climate innovation between Ukraine and the EU and the implementation of "green" measures within the framework of the National Transport Strategy until 2030.

All three documents were signed by Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna and Member of the European Commission for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Oliver Varhelyi.

Three agreements with the EIB were signed.

Minister for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine Oleksiy Chernyshov and Vice-President of the European Investment Bank Teresa Czerwinska signed an Agreement between the Government of Ukraine and the EIB on financing the Energy Efficiency of Public Buildings in Ukraine project. The loan will enable the installation of modern equipment in buildings, such as meters and energy consumption control systems, the modernization of heating, ventilation and lighting systems, and upgrades to exterior surfaces (facades, roofs, slab insulation, basement ceilings, replacement of windows and doors).

Also a EUR 30 million loan provided for by the guarantee agreement Logistic Network (Ukrposhta modernization and digitalization) was signed by Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Krykliy, CEO of Ukrposhta JSC Ihor Smelyansky and Vice-President of the EIB Lilyana Pavlova.

The loan will allow Ukrposhta to start modernizing its logistics network with three new sorting hubs, 20 postal depots and IT infrastructure. The beneficiary is to return the loans within 20 years.
The Sauk County Health Department has reached crisis mode, as record COVID-19 numbers are preventing its staff from being able to inform all close contacts of positive cases.

According to a news release Tuesday morning, the department is still trying to contact anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 and their high-risk close contacts, but because of record high numbers in the last two weeks, they have reached capacity and may not be able to call all close contacts.

The countys positive cases rose by 38 over the weekend, bringing its total since March above 1,000 for the first time, according to its COVID-19 data. Hospitalizations caused by the disease also increased by three since Friday. As of Monday, there are 124 known active cases in Sauk County.

During the weekly COVID-19 conference call on Monday, Sauk County Health Officer Tim Lawther said most health departments in Wisconsin are approaching or are already in crisis mode.

And what that means is that we have to adjust and focus our priorities on the area where were going to have the biggest bang for our buck and reduce the transmission of this as much as we can, he said.
Bystanders filmed the moment police took down a masked man and kneed him in the ribs after he allegedly stormed into a tobacconist with a knife.

Horrified witnesses watched as officers entered the shop and tackled the man to the ground at the store at Condell Park in Sydney's western suburbs.

As the glass door slides open the man raises his hands before placing them behind his back.

Bystanders filmed the moment police take down a balaclava wearing man after storming a tobacconist (pictured, left and right, as police entered)

Police charge through the doors, with one of the officers throwing the masked man to the ground and repeatedly kneeing him in the ribs.

'They don't have to knock him. He's not resisting,' one woman is heard screaming.

The footage was filmed after an alleged armed robbery on Wednesday evening.

Police alleged a male, armed with a knife, entered the store, before threatening two staff members and demanding cash.

The employees and a customer managed to run outside, while holding the door to the shop closed.

Horrified witnesses watch as officers enter the shop and tackle the man to the ground (pictured) at the store at Condell Park in Sydney's western suburbs

Officers from Bankstown Police Area Command attended and found a 16-year-old boy being held inside.

A knife was also allegedly found at the store.

The teenager was arrested and taken to Bankstown Police Station.

Inquiries are continuing.
NORFOLK, Va., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- John M. Cooper and Jim Hurley came together to form Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers in 2011, and have since seen much success and rapid expansion in their practice. Voted as the Best Law Firm in Norfolk by Virginia Media in 2020, Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers has proven time and time again what makes them stand out from other personal injury firms.

John Cooper and Jim Hurley have over 50 combined years of experience handling personal injury cases. John Cooper is a native Virginian who earned his degree from the University of Virginia Law School before returning to his hometown of Norfolk where he began working in private practice. Jim Hurley received his degree cum laude from Thomas M. Cooley School of Law and subsequently began serving the Virginia Beach and Norfolk area in 1993. Both John Cooper and Jim Hurley have been named in Virginia SuperLawyers, and each have been given the rating of "AV", the highest rating for personal injury practice, by Martindale-Hubbell.

The attorneys at Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers solely focus on personal injury cases. They believe that putting all of their resources into personal injury law helps to create the best chance at a favorable outcome for their clients. Some of the cases they handle include auto accidents , motorcycle accidents , product liability , medical malpractice , and wrongful death lawsuits . Most importantly, Cooper, Hurley and the rest of their legal team help individuals fight against insurance companies in all of their cases.

Outside of practicing law, the firm has also created the Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers Cares Initiative to give back to their local community through fundraising, volunteering, and exposure. The initiative consists of their Focused Driver Scholarship program, annual food bank donations, and frequent support to local schools to name a few.

Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers is a personal injury firm based in Virginia Beach and Norfolk . The firm also has meeting locations in Chesapeake , Hampton , Newport News , Suffolk , Portsmouth , and Eastern Shore . Our clients hire us if they have been hurt as a result of someone else's negligence. We will fight tirelessly to get our clients the compensation they need to recover financially and physically. Call us today to set up a consultation or visit our website at cooperhurley.com or call us at (757) 309-4711.

SOURCE Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers

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(Photo : Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) A worker stands next to a sign that reads "Vice Presidential Debate 2020" outside of Kingsbury Hall ahead of the Vice Presidential debate at the University of Utah on October 06, 2020 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) are set to debate on Wednesday, October 7 (Photo : Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Newly installed plexiglass barriers are shown on the stage ahead of the vice presidential debate in Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah on October 06, 2020 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) are set to debate tomorrow night.

Hours from now, the much-awaited United States Vice Presidential Debate 2020 is about to happen. Republican Vice President Mike Pence and Democrat Senator Kamala Harris will have their very first and only debate, happening on Tuesday, Oct. 7 at the University of Utah. Here are the full details about the debate that you should know. Where, how, or when to watch the Pence vs. Harris debate.

VP Debate 2020: Everything you should know

After the first Presidential debate between President Donald Trump and candidate Joe Biden, it's now time for Vice President's candidates to take the stand.

Two prominent candidates on the position are the current Vice President Mike Pence of the Republican party, versus Senator Kamala Harris of the Democrat party.

The debate is happening at the University of Utah at exactly 9:00 p.m. E.T. / 6:00 p.m. P.T. on Tuesday, Oct. 7. It is expected to be within duration of 90 minutes, with nine 10-minute segments, and no commercial breaks in between.

The students from the University of Utah will be the audiences of the program. However, there is still no given number of how many students will be guests.

Compared to the first Trump vs. Biden debate, the USA Today's Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page will be the debate's moderator. She will be the one choosing the topics that both parties will argue about.

Unfortunately, until now, the chosen topics are still unannounced. But it could involve the same questions with the Presidential debate.

A COVID-19-friendly debate

Another thing that's different from this debate is that the stage will have more serious social distancing guidelines.

Plexiglass barriers will be put up between the two candidates and moderator Susan Page. They will also be sitting 13-feet apart from each other.

These changes were done in relation to the found COVID-19 positive attendees on the recent Presidential debate.

Where to watch online?

If you wanted to support your chosen candidate, here are the ways to watch the debate online via Tech Radar:

Cable or Indoor Antenna - If you live in the United States, this is the freeway to watch the debate. All channels of ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and C-Span will be showing the debate.

Hulu with Live TV - Just in case you own a Hulu account with Live TV, you could also try it.

SlingTV - This platform also serves cable channels that cater to the debate for only a $30 subscription.

Youtube TV - Of course, you can watch too on Youtube!

ALSO READ: 'How to move to Canada' Trends on Google Searches During Presidential Debate

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Jamie Pancho

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A father suspected of killing his wife and three-year-old son stabbed himself to death as police forced entry into the familys home, Scotland Yard said today.

The police watchdog has launched a formal investigation into the incident.

Officers had visited the flat in Brentford, west London, several times after a relative raised fears for their welfare on Sunday evening. They left on each occasion when no one came to the door.

It was not until just before 1am yesterday that police forced entry to the apartment in Golden Mile House, Clayponds Lane, and found Poorna Kaameshwari Sivaraj, 36, and her young son Kailash Kuha Raj. Both had been dead for some time.

The mother and child, who regularly walked their black cockapoo around the estate, had not been seen for more than two weeks. The dog was also dead.

The Met said that it believes her husband Kuha Raj Sithamparanathan, 42, fatally injured himself when officers entered the property. He was pronounced dead with stab wounds.

This morning the home was cordoned off with forensic officers at the scene. Detectives are not looking for anyone else in connection with the deaths.

Neighbours said the couple were heard arguing during lockdown.

Sheri Diba, 40, who lived on the sixth floor for seven years, said: From our point of view they were the perfect family. A loving family who always looked happy.

Fahad Alsharamy, who lives next door, said: In lockdown they fought a bit but its normal for families but for one week it has been very quiet. Id spoken to them and they were friendly.

Bala Ganesean, 40, said: They were a nice, very closely knit family. There was nothing that would suggest anything untoward. They were always together and looked like a loving, very normal family.

Police outside the block of flats in Brentford (John Dunne/Evening Standard) / John Dunne/Evenimg Standard

Detective Chief Inspector Simon Harding, of the Mets Specialist Crime Command, said: This is a murder investigation and my team will work diligently to establish the sequence of events that led to their murders and the death of Kuha Raj Sithamparanathan.

A Met spokesman said: Police initially received a call late on Sunday, October 4 from a family member raising concerns about the welfare of Poorna.

Officers attended the address several times in the early hours of Monday, October 5 but received no reply. From talking to neighbours as the day progressed, concerns heightened and a decision was made to force entry.

The Directorate of Professional Standards has made a referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct as it is believed the Kuha Raj Sithamparanathan fatally injured himself when officers entered the property. This meets the criteria of a mandatory referral.
A cash-strapped local council has confirmed plans to appoint a paid project co-ordinator for a series of events marking 100 years since the creation of Northern Ireland next year.

Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council has been under intense scrutiny following concerns raised over its financial position earlier this year.

Now they are set to be the only council in Northern Ireland planning to appoint a paid project co-ordinator to facilitate centenary events.

None of the other ten council areas in Northern Ireland have indicated that they will make a similar appointment.

Antrim and Newtownabbey and Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council confirmed their events would be carried out by current staff.

Both Mid and East Antrim Borough Council and Ards and North Down Borough Council said they had no plans to appoint a dedicated, full-time, paid events co-ordinator for NI centenary events.

Belfast City Council and Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council and Fermanagh and Omagh District Council also said they were not currently recruiting for such a role.

Cllr Sean Bateson, former Mayor of Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council, argued against the decision in the chamber, branding it 'wrong and divisive'.

This post is being created at a time when council has faced serious financial difficulties and begs questions as to the priorities of some councillors, he said.

At last nights full council meeting I re-iterated Sinn Feins position that the creation of a full time paid position is wrong and divisive. It will only lead to further lack of confidence from our ratepayers.

Partition will not be celebrated by the Republican and Nationalist citizens in this council area. The northern state was created out of oppression, discrimination and inequality.

It is clear that there will be a predetermined narrative which will be front and centre of these so called events and celebrations and one that will be clearly biased.

Indeed, its obvious the creation of the northern state was and remains a totally flawed and failed concept and it's only proper celebration will come with its eventual ending.

It would be much better if political representatives used their position to heal division within our community and not to create events and positions that will cause further hurt and division.

Council should reflect and represent all its citizens, he added.

A spokesperson for the council said the post would mark the centenary 'in an appropriate manner'.

The requirement for a dedicated project coordinator has been identified and agreed by Council's Centenary working group, and this has now been approved by full Council, they said.

The post will provide coordination, administration and project management support for events, initiatives and commemorative activity which will mark the centenary in an appropriate manner.

It is anticipated that this role will be offered as a redeployment opportunity in the first instance."

The Council have also failed to agree a budget for the role, with the minutes from the Leisure and Development Commitee meeting where it was proposed indicating it has yet to be finalised.
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar's new daughter-in-law, Fatima, has apologised over her choice of wedding dress.

The new bride, who is the daughter of the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu, got married to Mr Abubakar's son, Aliyu, over the weekend in Abuja.

Pictures of her wedding which shows her wedding gown drew a backlash from some social media users who said it was against the Islamic faith.

Fatima's wedding dress was made by a popular Dubai-based haute couture designer, Maison Yeya. The wedding gown, which is off Maison Yeya's bridal 2021 collection, was bashed.

A Kaduna APC chieftain, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, described Fatima's choice of wedding gown as "unbecoming of her faith and culture."

Also, when Mr Ribadu tweeted a photo of himself and his daughter, the comment thread was taken over by critics of her wedding dress.

I just dropped off my daughter, Fatima, in her new home. It's emotionally fulfilling exercise for a father.

I deeply appreciate the honour done to my family by those who attended the wedding Fatiha earlier today, and those who sent in their goodwill and prayers.

I thank you all. pic.twitter.com/XtThfiGrh2

- Nuhu Ribadu (@NuhuRibadu) October 3, 2020

The new bride succumbed to social media pressure and tendered an apology on her Instagram page on Tuesday.

She said she wore the dress indoors and that the colour of the dress was the same as her skin. According to her, it was the reason why people thought her skin was exposed.

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Fatima's apology

"I got married on Saturday 03/10/20 and some pictures of me that were taken inside our home got out and was shared on social media," she wrote.

"This is an action which I sincerely regret. I apologize to my friends and family for this mistake and want to sincerely thank each and everyone that has risen to my defense.

"My under dress, which was brownish, was mistaken for being my skin and exposing my body. I will never do such.

"However, I accept responsibility for causing my family and wellwishers this dismay and will learn from this going forward."

A similar incident occurred in March 2018, when some prominent Islamic preachers condemned the wedding dress of the daughter of Kano governor, Fatima Ganduje. Her dress was by Zuhair Murad, a Lebanese fashion designer.

The couple also attracted criticisms when a picture of the groom cuddling his wife surfaced on social media.
Students can learn better when their educators look like them. Children need role models in the schools and the sense their experience is understood.

Yet while more than 47 percent of Connecticuts students are people of color, only about 9.6 percent of teachers are. The disparity is neither new nor sudden and requires innovative action.

The state Department of Education is taking promising steps to address the gap by recruiting high school students to become teachers. A pilot program called Educators Rising that began in New Britain will be expanded, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, to 10 districts, including Danbury, Hamden, New Haven and Stamford, Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona and Gov. Ned Lamont announced Tuesday.

In the New Britain pilot program, more than 100 students have participated and more than half are students of color. With a generous grant from the Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation, the additional districts will receive curriculum, teacher training and Beginning to Teach micro-credentials for the teachers in training.

The exposure and encouragement have the potential to set students on a career path that can prove satisfying for them and significant for classrooms.

The program also makes the necessary leap from high school to college, which is important particularly for students who might be the first generation to attend a university. While in high school, participants can enroll in a course at Central Connecticut State University for free and earn credits toward a degree. With more cities in Educators Rising now, the free course work should be extended to the other three state universities.

To go one step further, we would like to see a statewide program that would forgive a portion of college debt for teachers who stay in the state after graduating and go to classrooms where the percentage of students of color is highest.

Though the number of teachers still lags, credit must be given to the state for the progress that has been made so far. In 2016, the state education department set a five-year goal of reaching 10 percent educators of color by 2021. The percentage for the 2019-20 school year reached 9.6 percent, up from 8.9 percent the year before. In a positive trend, of those 13.77 percent are administrators.

While the percentage of educators of color is rising, the state remains committed to increasing the racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of the educator workforce and diminishing the gap between educators and students of color beyond the established goal, Cardona said in a presentation to the state Board of Education Wednesday.

In recent years the education departments Talent Office has worked toward the five-year goal, for example, by increasing pathways to teacher certification, including veterans as a target group.

Now by expanding the focus to high school students and showing them a way to become teachers, Connecticut is moving in a positive direction to make classrooms more reflective of the global reality  and therefore a benefit to all students.
The global pandemic has significantly raised the security stakes for CIOs, CISOs and IT decision-makers. Unfortunately, bad actors know well that our workforce is now more vulnerable due to the increase in the number of remote workers, many of whom have never worked anywhere other than in the office. IT teams are stretched thin due to COVID-19 as we work around the clock to support remote users and urgent digital transformation, and even assist with pressing community needs such as digital inclusion. Various budgets are under pressure as revenues have fallen dramatically, and many expenses have increased. This moment calls for us as technology leaders to conduct a thorough review of our cybersecurity posture.One of the leading cybersecurity organizations available to government technology teams is the Center for Internet Security (CIS). Many people are familiar with the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), one of CISs key contributions. Another vital CIS program is its Top 20 Controls and Resources, a sort of cybersecurity version of Maslows hierarchy of needs for IT security staff. The 20 controls are organized into three categories: Basic, Foundational and Organizational. This framework provides a terrific starting point and checklist to ensure best practices.In the Basic category, IT teams should have full vision into all enterprise hardware and software. Weve witnessed both device and software sprawl over the past decade. We cannot keep our organization safe unless we have a complete inventory and accounting of our hardware and software. Are your technology assets logged, tagged and accurately assigned to staff? Do you utilize a mobile device management solution? Does your team employ a vulnerability scanner to search for weaknesses on at least a weekly basis? Are you leveraging automated software updates and patches where appropriate? Government agencies often lag behind the private sector on timely patching, and it is one of the best ways to harden our defenses.The Basic category also calls for a review of administrative privileges. Users and accounts with elevated permission levels offer an attractive target for hackers. Too much sharing of credentials and re-using passwords fosters a dangerous situation. Further, does your staff have a standardized, secure configuration for hardware and software systems? Are you running logging on all systems, and do the logs feed into a centralized system for review? Automation and AI can offer substantial improvements for teams already short staffed or underfunded.The next group of CIS controls is the Foundational category, which includes recommended protections for email, data and network devices. The controls provide guidance on email security, leveraging email security protocols to reduce spoofing and cyberattacks  especially critical these days. The controls also discuss automated port scanning and ensuring ports and protocols are only in use as business needs dictate. Another crucial element in this category is data protection. Does your organization have data governance practices in place? Has staff received appropriate training on HIPAA, CJIS and PCI compliance? These courses are often included with more extensive cybersecurity awareness training programs.The third group of CIS controls is the Organizational category. In addition to a cybersecurity awareness program, are you actively running simulated phishing tests? Have you considered social engineering and vishing tests? Do you have an incident response plan? Do you know whom to contact the moment you confirm your organization faces a severe attack? We need to work closely with our emergency management partners, as a cyberattack is probably more likely these days than some other traditional hazards.The overall scope and responsibility of cybersecurity operations can feel overwhelming and never-ending. However, many resources are available at the state, federal and nonprofit levels. Many services are subsidized or even free. There appears to be bipartisan support building in Washington for new funding for state and local cybersecurity needs. Now is a good time for us to collectively lobby our legislators to make this proposed funding a reality.
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Linkedin Ivany Atina Arbi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7 2020

Livable housing is essential for every human being as it serves as a fortress against various risks, including health risks like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, President Joko Jokowi Widodo said on Monday during a commemoration of World Habitat Day (WHD).

The President expressed his appreciation to the United Nations for promoting the theme Housing for All: A better Urban Future for this years celebration, which falls annually on the first Monday of October.

The virtual event brought together stakeholders on sustainable urbanization and settlement development. Indonesias second-largest city of Surabaya in East Java received the honor of hosting the Scroll of Honor Award ceremony on Monday.

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Live Q&A: Bruce Coville on igniting your childs love of reading Live: Were talking to Bruce Coville, a prolific writer of childrens books, about getting your kids away from screens and into a good book. Ask your questions in the comments! Posted by syracuse.com on Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Parents are a childs first teachers. Thats never been more true, as parents find themselves supervising their childs remote schooling during the coronavirus pandemic.

Could you use some advice to tear your kids away from screens and into a good book? Bruce Coville, a prolific writer of childrens books, will be our guest for a live Q&A at noon today on Syracuse.coms Facebook page as part of our Educating CNY coverage of school reopening.

Coville has written more than 125 books, including My Teacher is an Alien, Into the Land of Unicorns and Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. He also founded an audiobook company, Full Cast Audio.

If you dont know Coville, chances are your children do.

When theres not a pandemic on, you can find him visiting classrooms and sharing his infectious love of reading and writing with young people.

Each October, hundreds of Central New York schoolchildren finish a spooky story he begins. The winners of Syracuse.com/The Post-Standards Halloween writing contest get their work published in the newspaper. (Read more about this years contest here.)

Coville grew up on a dairy farm near Phoenix and has lived in Central New York for most of his life. He now lives in Syracuse. Before he was a full-time writer, Coville was a toymaker, a gravedigger, a cookware salesman, an assembly line worker, a magazine editor and an elementary school teacher.

Well ask Coville how parents can get kids to embrace and enjoy reading for pleasure and for learning.

What questions do you have for Bruce Coville? Head over to Syracuse.coms Facebook page at noon for the live Q&A. You can email questions in advance to mmorelli@syracuse.com, or ask a question in the comment feed on the video.

If you arent able to join us live, come back to Syracuse.com later for a replay.

Live Q&A (Part 2): Bruce Coville on igniting your childs love of reading Live (Part 2): Were talking to Bruce Coville, a prolific writer of childrens books, about getting your kids away from screens and into a good book. Ask your questions in the comments! Posted by syracuse.com on Wednesday, October 7, 2020

MORE STORIES ON EDUCATING CNY

Syracuse schools open to students after a long delay; time to make lemonade of lemons

Applying for college in a pandemic: Theres still plenty of time to make things work

7 F-M staff members got coronavirus through meetings, social interactions at school, county says

After long delays to schedule student coronavirus tests at NBT Stadium, Upstate adds online scheduling

Complete education coverage on syracuse.com
RTG Inspire, the marketing communications division of RTG Consulting Group (RTG), has been appointed by Italian luxury brand Furla to manage Strategic Public Relations in China. RTG Inspire will work with Furla to enhance their 2020 communications plan, including PR strategy, PR activation, PR media relations, production coordination, sample management, celebrity and KOL seating, and event support. I have known the leadership team at RTG Consulting Group for several years and am proud to announce that Furla 
Never Trump Republicans Are Providing Rhetorical Cover for Election Fraud

Commentary

The Never Trump Republicans are determined to help the Democratic Party win this Novembereven if it means supporting the most dangerous voting scheme and recipe for fraud in our countrys history.

In a recent op-ed for The Washington Post, Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a former establishment GOP lawyer, blithely dismissed the threat of widespread election fraud, insistingdespite millions of unverifiable mail-in ballots being distributed across the countrythat President Donald Trump is the real threat to the integrity of our democratic institutions.

The only people who refuse to admit the potential for fraud posed by these ballotswhich cant be identified, authenticated, or in many cases even received by the date of the electionare people who want to cause election chaos, uncertainty, and defeat Trump by any means possible, including illegal ones.

Ginsberg and his firm were hired by the Trump Campaign in 2017, raking in millions of dollars before Ginsbergs recent retirement just two months left until the election.

Ginsberg blatantly misrepresented Trumps recent remarks to voters in North Carolina, falsely claiming that the president had encouraged voters to break the law by double-voting. In reality, Trump questioned the reliability of the existing ballot verification system, urging voters to see whether or not your mail-in vote has been tabulated by showing up in person on Election Day and casting a provisional ballot in the event that poll workers have no record of the mail-in ballot.

Ginsberg claimed, The truth is that after decades of looking for illegal voting, theres no proof of widespread fraud, adding, At most, there are isolated incidentsby both Democrats and Republicans, and declaring emphatically that American elections are not rigged.

In retrospect, Ginsberg should have held off on publishing this nonsensical take on election fraud. Hours before the op-ed appeared in the Post, Georgias secretary of state announced an investigation into nearly 1,000 instances of double voting that allegedly occurred across 100 counties during the June primary election and August runoff election.

Georgia isnt alone. Wayne County, Michigan, also reported problems with mail-in ballots in its Aug. 4 primary election. In the recent Nevada primary, meanwhile, ballots were piling up on the sidewalk. New York City was forced to reject tens of thousands of ballots for various irregularities in its own primary elections over the summer.

More recently, authorities in both Minnesota and Texas have begun investigating allegations of systematic ballot fraudincluding vote-buying and forgerydesigned to benefit Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Ginsberg continues to insist that voter fraud is nothing but a mythan electoral bogeyman conjured up by Trump and other Republicansbut both facts and reason directly contradict him. Hes simply operating on the sick belief that if he repeats a lie often enough, people will believe it.

Only citizens are allowed to vote. Every fraudulent ballot cancels the vote of an American who was entitled to have his voice heard. Mail-in ballots can be filled out by anyone. The only secure vote is in personor by requesting a formal absentee ballot if necessary.

The Postal Service itself, no matter how good, creates a major chain of custody problem and adds a significant layer of delay and uncertainty even under the best of circumstances. In a normal election, a manageable number of voters request absentee ballots and submit them through the mail after taking action to request the ballot from their local board of elections.

The universal vote-by-mail system that many Democrats are pushing for, however, involves sending out ballots to every registered voter, whether they want one or notincluding non-citizens and voters who plan to vote in person on Election Day. If someone manages to obtain a generic ballot at any point during that process, however, they could fraudulently fill it out and return it, and the person whose vote was stolen in this way wouldnt find out until they were turned away from the polls on Nov. 3.

In this scenario, there can be no confidence that a legal voter completed the ballot at all.

The real reason for the mail-in ballot plan is to create distrust and uncertainty. This is a deliberate effort to taint the electionpushed only by Democrats and Never Trumpers who lost their gravy train when Trump started putting Americans first. We must #FightBack to protect the votes of American citizens.

Traditional mechanisms that safeguard our election process werent designed for a vote-from-home model, and our preliminary experience in 2020 suggests they are woefully inadequate to the task. Millions of mail-in ballot applications have been sent out by third-party groups, including hundreds of thousands sent with incorrect information, or even addressed to dead people and pets.

Crossing our fingers and hoping that nothing goes wrong in November is no way to conduct free and fair elections. The only responsible approach to protecting our democratic institutions requires aggressively closing off opportunities for fraud and manipulation to protect the sanctity of the vote of each citizen.

Unfortunately, Never Trump Republicans such as Ginsberg are perfectly happy to ignore glaring threats to our electoral process because they anticipate that malfeasance will serve to advance their desired political outcomes.

Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor and veteran of 500 federal appeals, is the author of Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice and co-author, with Harvey A. Silverglate, of Conviction Machine: Standing Up to Federal Prosecutorial Abuse. She is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Experts have cast doubt on the feasibility of a COVID-19 vaccine being rolled out to the entire Australian population by late next year, as the Morrison government's budget assumes, but Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says there is a chance it could come even earlier.

Doctors, epidemiologists and pharmaceutical experts say it is far from clear whether it will be possible to vaccinate 25 million Australians within the timeframe, with the government investing in two promising vaccine candidates without any guarantee they would be effective.

A failure to roll out a vaccine next year would result in a 1 per cent hit to gross domestic product, or $55 billion over two years. Credit:Bloomberg

Mr Frydenberg said on Wednesday a failure to roll out a vaccine next year could result in a 1 per cent hit to gross domestic product, or $55 billion over two years, but if a vaccine was approved six months earlier than expected "that would lead to a $34 billion increase".

"That is what's ahead of us, because there is a great deal of uncertainty in this pandemic," he told the National Press Club in Canberra.
| By Laura Lee

On the eve of a Kentucky court releasing the audio recordings of secret grand jury testimony related to the decision not to charge three Louisville officers for the death of 26-year-old emergency room technician Breonna Taylor, the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) took an unflinching look at the case from a legal perspective during a special edition of Virtual Face to Face with Dr. Bruce Jarrell.

While questions continue to swirl around the case, the basic facts are well known. Just before 1 a.m. March 13, Louisville police under the authority of a knock and announce warrant battered down the door and entered Breonna Taylors apartment. They were looking for her ex-boyfriend and another man who they believed used the apartment to receive packages of drugs.

Fearing a home invasion, Taylor's then-boyfriend Kenneth Walker says he fired one warning shot. Police fired back 32 times. They missed Walker, but Taylor was hit five times and died soon after.

At a press conference announcing the actions of the grand jury, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said the two officers whose bullets did strike and kill Taylor were justified in firing under Kentucky law because Walker fired at them first. A third officer is charged with three counts of wanton endangerment for recklessly firing into Taylor's apartment from outside.

Buoyed by the legal expertise of University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law professors David Gray, JD, PhD, Jacob A. France Professor of Law; Michael Pinard, JD, Francis & Harriet Iglehart Professor of Law and co-director, Clinical Law Program; and Maneka Sinha, JD, assistant professor, UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, led a thoughtful discussion about the legal implications of the case during a special edition of Face to Face.

Jarrell, who said he was concerned when he heard the deeply disturbing news that the grand jury had failed to criminally indict the three officers involved in Taylors death, vowed that he wanted to educate himself and the UMB community about the law.

The resulting conversation, titled "The Legal Lens of Social Justice: Breonna Taylor and Beyond," examined some of the broader social issues at play as well as the substantive and procedural law including no-knock warrants, the Fourth Amendment, and prosecutorial power, that led to Taylors death and the lack of an indictment.

Racial disparities in the justice system figured prominently in the discussion. Sinha, who was a supervising attorney at the District of Columbia Office of the Public Defender, is well aware of a double standard when it comes to dispensing justice to black and brown people. If one of my clients, who have been predominantly people of color, was shot at a single time and responded with the type of gunfire that we saw in this case, I feel supremely confident that an indictment could have been returned with much greater charges than were in this case, and the prosecutors' choices play a role in that, she noted.

Gray agreed, saying racism is ingrained in Americas criminal justice system, It's no accident that we get these horrific disparate outcomes, he said.

Pinard asked the 400 virtual attendees to put themselves in the shoes of Taylors boyfriend on the night of March 13. Imagine being asleep at midnight and all of a sudden you have three people who bust in your door, in plain clothes with guns, he said setting the scene.

When we talk about these no-knock warrants, continued Pinard, we have to talk about the dangerous circumstances, and quite honestly, the predictable results. Thats why weve had so many tragedies with no-knock warrants.

Heeding Jarrells call to determine what the UMB community can do to effect change, Gray encouraged attendees to reach out to lawmakers. Your primary target should be your state representatives, he said.

Sinha agreed, adding that grassroots advocacy is an important element of change. We need to reimagine what law enforcement looks like in our communities, she said. Advocacy on the ground can drive how law enforcement approaches these questions.

At the end of the hour, which included productive conversation and pointed questions from the audience, Pinard urged the UMB community to connect with local organizations working on criminal justice reform issues. I would strongly suggest that you all reach out and meet some of the folks in the communities who are doing this work and see if there are ways you can help support them.

Professors provided links to documents pertaining to the case and criminal justice reform:

Kentucky Criminal Procedure Rules (Grand Jury Proceedings)

Visibly (Un)Just: The Optics of Grand Jury Secrecy and Police Violence

Paul Butler Mock Prosecution Opening Statement

2021 Police Reform Demands, Ltr to the Maryland General Assembly

Campaign Zero, Proposed Policy Solutions on Policing

To watch the entire program, click the link at the top of the page.
A teenage girl left pregnant after being raped was strangled to death by her father who then mutilated her body in an honour killing in India.

The 16-year-old, who has not been named, is thought to have been killed on September 23 when she went missing from a village close to Shahjahanpur, in northern India.

Police believe the girl was beaten and strangled, before her dead body was decapitated and the headless corpse buried in a riverbed.

The case was only brought to light after the body was discovered on Tuesday, because her family did not report her as missing.

A 16-year-old girl who fell pregnant after being raped in northern India was then beaten and strangled to death by her father, who decapitated her corpse and buried the body (file image)

After discovering the body, detectives confronted the girl's father who admitted to the crime. Her brother has also been arrested and charged over the murder.

Police told the Times of India that the girl, who stayed with a relative away from her parents' house, had been raped and fallen pregnant several months ago.

The girl - who never went to school and was from the lowest Dalit class - hid the pregnancy, which was only discovered by her family after a bump began to show.

Police say the girl's family beat her, ordering her to reveal the name of her attacker, but she refused. She was then killed, and her body mutilated.

'The father has confessed to have killed his daughter because she was pregnant. People had started insulting him publicly,' investigators said.

Detectives are also trying to track down the girl's rapist.

The case comes amid outcry in Uttar Pradesh over another attack - a 19-year-old Dalit girl who was gang-raped and strangled by four upper-caste men.

It is thought the girl was killed on September 23, when she went missing from her village near the town of Shahjahanpur, but her family did not report this to police

The attack took place on September 19 in the Hathras district, and the girl was taken to hospital the same day.

She was later transferred to Delhi because of the severity of her injuries, but died two weeks later.

Police have arrested the accused men, who have been charged with murder.

More than 300 cases of honour killings were recorded in Indian between 2014 and 2016, the most recent years for which data is available.

However, campaigners warn the practice is likely far more common - and that many crimes go unreported.

India also does not have a separate offence for honour killings, meaning the crimes are difficult to identify from raw data.
Filming has begun for Coronation Street's 60th Anniversary, which is set to air later this year.

And Caroline Harding and David Neilson were seen arriving onto set as preparations got underway for the special in Media City, Manchester, on Wednesday.

The actor, 71, was seen wearing a face covering as the Dr. Howarth star opted to go without upon their arrival, where an array of marquees had been set up in the car part of the studios where the soap is filmed.

Exciting: Coronation Street stars Caroline Harding (pictured) and David Nielson arrived on set at Media City in Manchester on Tuesday as preparations got underway for 60th anniversary

It is unclear how the marquees will be used during production, but it may well be a spot for the whole cast to get checked for coronavirus.

Caroline put on an effortlessly chic display as she wrapped up in a grey longline coat that she wore over a black-and-white dress that had a lace trim.

She stepped out in sturdy black boots and she accessorised with a red tag necklace, while she wore her auburn locks in a half-back hairdo.

David, meanwhile, kept things casual as he buttoned up a grey coat over a plain white shirt and denim jeans.

Preparations: Marquees have been set up in the car part of the studios where the soap is filmed

Protective gear: The actor, who plays Roy Cropper, was seen wearing a face covering

On Tuesday, Sally Dynevor appeared on Lorraine to discuss the upcoming special, as she said: 'We've started filming on the 60th anniversary.

'It's great because it's a community story, everyone is involved which is perfect for Coronation Street.

'We're all coming together and it's a really lovely community story. We started filming this week so that will be out on December 9th which is really exciting.

'At least we'll be able to film something to put out for you for the 60th anniversary. 60 years of Coronation Street, that is amazing!'

Punk chic: Caroline put on an effortlessly chic display as she wrapped up in a grey longline coat that she wore over a black-and-white dress that had a lace trim

Use: It is unclear how the marquees will be used during production, but it may well be a spot for the whole cast to get checked for coronavirus

On Wedensday, Sally's eponymous character and Tim Metacafe were set to finally tie the knot, however, their plans could be scuppered by Tim's bitter dad Geoff.

After evil Geoff (Ian Bartholomew) was exposed over his horrendous treatment of long-suffering wife Yasmeen, Tim (Joe Duttine) and Sally (Sally Dynevor) have both washed their hands of him.

But the couple's plan to secretly get married without inviting Geoff looks set to be ruined as the police show up during their big day.

Wedding drama: On Wednesday, Coronation Street favourites Sally and Tim Metacafe finally tie the knot, however, their plans could be scuppered by Tim's bitter dad Geoff

The much-loved couple were originally set to become man and wife five years ago, but the marriage was declared null void after it turned out that Tim was still married to his first wife Charlie.

Then their attempt to tie the knot again went pear-shaped recently after Sally discovered the money that Geoff had given them for the wedding actually stolen from his now imprisoned wife Yasmeen (Shelley King).

But with Geoff's despicable behaviour now out in the open, Tim and Sally quietly make plans to hold a small ceremony without him - but Geoff soon gets wind of their idea.

After Tim's daughter Faye (Ellie Leach) accidentally lets the cat out the bag, Geoff begs his son to let him attend his big day, but a determined Tim rejects him.

Tim later reassures Sally that Geoff won't ruin their wedding day, but has he underestimated his twisted father?

With Geoff continuing to pester his son about the wedding, Tim confides in pal Abi (Sally Carmen) as he worries about his dad's intentions.

On the big day, as the small wedding party head to the cars, Abi takes it upon herself to deal with Geoff in her own way - but has she made a huge mistake?

After Sally and Tim successfully get married at the register office, they return to the street ready to celebrate at The Bistro.
Hizbul Mujahideen was involved in the Tuesday evening attack on a BJP leader in Ganderbal in which a police personnel and a militant were killed, J&K DGP Dilbag Singh said on Wednesday.

Singh also led the wreath-laying ceremony for constable Altaf Hussain who died after killing a militant during the attack outside the home of BJP leader Ghulam Qadir at Nunar Ganderbal.

The DGP said that the attack was on a protected person, someone who was accompanied by two personal security officers, including Hussain. They were going somewhere when they were fired upon. Our brave colleague Altaf Hussain retaliated and he was injured in the exchange of fire. He managed to kill the militant, he said.

Also read: Top Lashkar commander, involved in major attacks, gunned down in Kashmirs Samboora

Hussain, a resident of Eidgah Srinagar, had joined the police department in 2011 and was posted with Qadir for the past three months. He is survived by his parents, wife and a toddler son. A large number of people gathered for his funeral.

The slain militant has been identified as Shabir Ahmad, a resident of Awantipora, Pulwama. At one point, he was a close aide and over the ground worker (OGW) of (then Hizb commander) Riyaz Naikoo. He was especially prepared to be sent to Ganderbal for the attack and we are proud of our colleagues response, he said.

Riyaz Naikoo, 35, a top Hizbul militant, was killed in an exchange of fire with the security forces at his village in south Kashmirs Pulwama district in May.

Police suspect that another militant might have been also involved in Tuesdays attack. There are indications that another militant was injured in the Ganderbal attack. A trail of blood was detected there and we suspect there may be more than one militant involved, Singh said.

Blaming newly formed outfit, The Resistance Front (TRF), for this spurt in attacks on political leaders and panchayat members in the Valley, Singh said, The TRF is a mouthpiece of Pakistan which threatened 39 journalists here, those who are working honestly, and then targeting those who work for peace and development.

He was alluding to a recent viral blog post that named journalists, many of them working for national media outlets, and threatened them for working for India.

Unidentified gunmen shot dead a vocal Kashmiri lawyer, Babar Qadri, in Hawal area of Srinagar on September 24. A day before that, Khag BDC chairman Bopinder Singh was shot dead at Dalwach Khag in Budgam. Police suspect the involvement of LeT in his killing.

Assuring that each of these cases will be worked out, Singh said the police were investigating Mondays militant attack on the national highway in which two CRPF personnel were killed and three wounded. We will soon take it to court, he said.

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When the Yankees take the field Wednesday for Game 3 of the American League Division Series against the Tampa Bay Rays, New York will experience its first home game of the 2020 postseason.

Both of the Yankees' Wild Card Series wins against the Indians came in Cleveland, with New York visiting Progressive Field.

Introducing Yankees Insider: Get exclusive news, behind-the-scenes observations and the ability to text message directly with beat writers

The ALDS is being played in a neutral stadium: San Diegos Petco Park. But the Rays were technically the home team for the first two games since they are the higher-seeded team. Which means the Yankees are technically the home team for Games 3 and 4.

To mark the occasion, WFAN reports Suzyn Waldman will sing the national anthem Wednesday. But it wont be a live performance. Instead, her rendition from the Yankees' regular-season home opener on July 31 will be played in San Diego.

Tampa Bay was the home team for the first two games and had all their theatrics, and now its the Yankees' turn, Suzyn told Moose & Maggie on Wednesday, so tonight, theyre having Paul ONeill doing a virtual first pitch, and theyre using the recording of my anthem, like its a Yankees home game. Thats kind of cool, so I just texted someone out there and said dont mess with my recording!

Buy Gerrit Cole Yankees gear: Fanatics.com, MLBShop.com, Lids

As you may remember, Waldman told Gerrit Cole a few years ago when he was still with the Pittsburgh Pirates that the right-hander would be a great Yankee someday. Cole responded that if it ever happened, she has to sign the national anthem prior to his first Yankees home opener.

Well, nine years and $324 million later, Cole was on the mound in pinstripes and Waldman was belting out the anthem. During his introductory press conference at Yankee Stadium, Cole was approached by Waldman.

The first thing he said when I saw him was, Dont you forget you promised me. Waldman said.

(NJ Advance Medias Randy Miller contributed to this report.)

Get Yankees text messages: Cut through the clutter of social media and text during games with beat writers and columnists. Plus, exclusive news and analysis every day. Sign up now.

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

Mike Rosenstein may be reached at mrosenstein@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
People register for early voting inside of the of the Franklin County Board of Elections Office on Oct. 6, 2020 in Columbus, Ohio. (Ty Wright/Getty Images)

A Significant Number of Incorrect Absentee Ballots Mailed to Franklin County Voters

The Franklin County Board of Elections confirmed on Oct. 6 that a significant number of requested absentee ballots have been mailed to the wrong voters, as early voting began in Ohio state.

Elections Director Ed Leonard said that the Franklin County Board learned of the issues Tuesday, adding that the error was a result of a disabled setting in some of the boards software.

Some voters received the wrong ballots in their envelopes, with some Worthington voters receiving absentee ballots meant for Whitehall voters, for example, Leonard said.

They got a ballot that was intended for someone else. All our data is correct. The ballot would have been produced correctly it just got inserted into the wrong envelope. The system checks that would have prevented that were disabled, Leonard said, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

A spokesman for the board told 10TV that it is not yet clear how many requested absentee ballots were affected. Leonard said that Bluecrest, its software vendor, is confident that it will be able to trace the affected ballots.

The Epoch Times has contacted the Franklin County Board of Elections for comment.

Out of Franklin Countys more than 880,000 registered voters, more than 237,000 people request absentee ballots.

President Donald Trump won Ohio state in 2016 with a decisive 8-point victory, and polling indicates the state will again be in play. No president has been elected without carrying Ohio since 1960.

Officials are hoping Ohioans will take advantage of early voting opportunities between now and the Nov. 3 election day. Besides weekday voting, early voting will be available the last two weekends before the election. Officials also urge those voting by mail not to wait until the final days, risking their vote arriving on time to get counted if the postal service is running slowly.

Leonard said that individuals who believe they were mailed an incorrect absentee ballot can cast an in-person absentee ballot at the board of elections at 1700 Morse Road during the early voting hours before Nov. 3.

Weve begun to assess exactly how many voters were impacted and identifying what options well present for voters who did in fact get the wrong ballot, he said.

System checks are in place to make sure mistakes like the one made by the Franklin County Board of Elections dont happen  but they only work if the board properly executes those checks, Maggies Sheehan, a spokesperson with thee Ohio Secretary of States office told local news outlets in a statement.

When we became aware of the issue, we immediately notified the Franklin County Board of Elections and they began work to mitigate the issue with impacted voters.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sacha Baron Cohen is a popular artist known for his comic performances and portrayal of fictional characters such as Ali G, Borat, Nobby, to name a few. Over the years, the actor has been receiving immense love from his fans for his amazing performances. With growing popularity, the actor also gained a massive net worth. Take a look at how Sacha Baron Cohen made a fortune.

Sacha Baron Cohen's Net Worth

According to a report by Celebrity Net Worth, Sacha Baron Cohen's net worth is $160 million. The report also added that the actor bought a home worth $2.45 million in Hollywood Hills in 2005 and later listed the house for rent and then sold it for $2.5 million in 2016.

On the work front

Sacha Baron Cohen's movies

The comedian has essayed different roles in several movies namely The Dictator, Hugo, Grimsby, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, The Jolly Boys Last Stand, Punch, to name a few. Sacha Baron Cohen has also lent his voice to the character of King Julien XIII in the popular animated movie series, Madagascar.

Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G

Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G is a famous fictional character who is also the main character of the movie Ali G Indahouse. The comedian gained loads of appreciation from the audiences for his amazing portrayal of Ali G. Ali G is a character who imitates British and Jamaican hip hop culture. His character first appeared on The 11 OClock Show.

Also Read Re-imagining 'Borat' Cast In South Indian Films, Can You See Rana Daggubati As Borat? Read



Also Read Sacha Baron Cohen Risked His Life While Shooting For Borat 2, Shot In Dangerous Scenarios

Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat

Another fictional character created by Sacha Baron Cohen is Borat Sagdiyev, who appeared in the American comedy movie, Borat. The movie was produced and co-written by Sacha Baron. In the movie, his character Borat is a journalist from Kazakhstan who travels in the US to make documentaries by shooting his interactions with Americans. This movie was a huge hit among the audience and was also nominated for the Academy Awards. Sacha also received a Golden Globe award for his role in Borat.

Also Read Borat 2 Trailer Review: Sacha Baron Cohen Causes Mayhem Again With Impeccable Comic Timing

Also Read Sacha Baron Cohen Finds Himself As Hapless As Ever In 'Borat 2' Teaser

Image Source- Sacha Baron Cohen Instagram

(Disclaimer: The above information is sourced from various websites/ media reports. The website does not guarantee a 100% accuracy of the figures.)
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Key Players:

Some of the prominent market vendors present in the Global Bio-Based PET Market Size include Braskem (Brazil), Gevo, Inc. (U.S.), TEIJIN LIMITED (Japan), Anellotech, Inc. (U.S.), TORAY INDUSTRIES, INC. (Japan), Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (Thailand), M&G Chemicals (Italy), NatureWorks LLC (U.S.), Novamont S.p.A (Italy), Plastipak Holdings, Inc. (U.S.), Amyris (U.S.), and Toyota Tsusho Corporation (Japan).

Market Segmentation:

The report on Bio-Based Pet Market by Market Research Future (MRFR) includes a detailed analysis of various types of Raw Materials Used, Applications of Bio-Based PET, as well as specific regional analysis. The raw materials studied in the report include sugar, corn, and molasses. Alternatively, the applications of Bio-Based PET products, as included in the report are bottles, automotive, electronics, and consumer goods. Bio-Based PET is expected to garner the highest demand for the manufacture of bottles during the forecast period.

Industry Update:

September 2018: PepsiCo formed a partnership with NaturALL Bottle Alliance to develop packaging made from 100% sustainable and renewable sources. This partnership was established with the intention of creating beverage bottles that have a lower carbon footprint. Following this, the Alliance aims to make 95% Bio-Based PET bottles.

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Bio-Based PET Market Overview:

Bio-Based Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) is produced from ethylene glycol that is obtained from plants. These plant sources include non-toxicity, recyclability, reduced carbon footprint, and a high resistance to shattering. Market Research Future (MRFR) has reported that the Global Bio-Based PET Market is anticipated to expand at a significant rate through the conjecture period.

Attributable factors to the ascension of the Bio-Based PET Market include the increasing adoption of environment-friendly products to curb climate change and its impact on human health and the fluctuating cost of petroleum-based products. The hazardous nature of traditional plastics is pushing governments all over the world to introduce stringent regulations to curb carbon emissions and the usage of harmful plastic products. This is also estimated to provide momentum to the upscaling of the Global Bio-Based PET Market.

Moreover, rising demand for eco-friendly packaging in several end-use industries is leading to a surge in the consumption of Bio-Based PET products. Such industries include automotive, food & beverages, electrical & electronics, as well as consumer appliances. Such an upsurge in demand for Bio-Based PET products is expected to contribute significantly to market growth. Additionally, technological developments have allowed the production of 100% Bio-Based PET. For instance, the Plant PET Technology Collaborative (PTC) by Virent, Inc uses paraxylene using beet sugar instead of fossil fuels. These technological developments are anticipated to promote higher adoption of Bio-Based PET products, fueling growth in the market.

Browse Key Industry Insights spread across 100 pages with 37 market data tables & 12 figures & charts from the report, Bio-Based PET Market Information: By Raw Material Source (Sugar, Molasses, Corn), Application (Bottles, Consumer Goods, Automotive, Electronics, And Others) and Region  Growth Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast 2023 in detail along with the table of contents: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/bio-based-pet-market-5823

Detailed Regional Analysis:

MRFR has analyzed the Global Bio-Based PET Market for different regions for providing specific insights to its clientele. These regions include Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. Among these five regions, North America is leading the Global Bio-Based PET Market during the assessment period. Elevated consumption of polyethylene terephthalate for the manufacturing of bottles and other consumer goods is contributing to the burgeoning of the Bio-Based PET Market in North America. The U.S. is expected to spearhead the country-specific Bio-Based PET Market in the region. This can be attributed to the mounting demand for the same from the automotive sector residing in the country. Similarly, Canada is anticipated to consume higher Bio-Based PET to satiate the increasing demand from the countrys automotive industry.

Asia Pacific is assessed to witness the fastest CAGR in Bio-Based PET consumption. Raw material availability, lower cost of production, and rapid industrialization of the region are factors causative of accelerated growth in the region. Additionally, the production and exportation of consumer goods and automotive in various emerging economies such as India and China are anticipated to contribute to the augmentation of the market.

Europes Bio-Based PET Market is expected to ascend at a significant rate. This can be owed to the elevating demand for Bio-Based PET from automotive industries residing in the UK, France, and Germany.

Alternatively, the demand for Bio-Based PET in the Middle East & Africa is primarily driven by the growing environment safety issues and rapid industrialization witnessed by the region.

COVID-19 Study in Detail:

COVID-19 Impact Analysis on Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Market @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-pvc-market

COVID-19 Impact on 3D Printing Materials Market @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-3d-printing-materials-market

COVID-19 Outbreak Impact on Carbon Black Market @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-carbon-black-market

NOTE: Our teams of researchers are studying COVID-19 and its impact on various industry verticals and wherever required we will be considering COVID-19 footprints for a better analysis of markets and industries. Cordially get in touch for more details.

About Market Research Future:

At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.

MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Logistics and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.

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The Queen Reportedly Wanted Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to Move to South Africa

It would have been their "Malta moment."

The queen doesn't always get her way. According to a new book, she wanted Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to move to South Africa, not Santa Barbara. Robert Lacey's Battle of Brothers explains the situation, which would have had the Sussexes have more freedom and space, but not completely have them give up their duties as senior royals. Meghan and Harry famously stepped away from their posts in search of a more normal life for themselves and their son, Archie.

"[The Queen] had heard and read much of Harry and Meghan's wish to live an 'ordinary' existence," an excerpt from the book reads. It's currently being previewed in the Daily Mail and is set to be released on October 20. Queen Elizabeth imagined the couple heading to the Commonwealth country of South Africa, where they could experience a "Malta moment." Between 1949 and 1951, Elizabeth spent time in Malta with Prince Philip, who was a naval officer at the time. She took several trips to be with him and the experience gave her a look at life away from the palace.

Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

RELATED: Meghan Markle's Approach to Royal Life "Parallels" Princess Diana's, The Crown Creator Says

"In Malta, Elizabeth had tasted 'normal' life as a young naval officer's wife, not a king's daughter. It had set her up well to come back home and do her duty," Lacey wrote.

He continued to outline a few other reasons that South Africa would be the perfect place, including the fact that Harry and Meghan seemed receptive. Africa is a special place for the two of them.

"Modern South Africa, with its black-majority rule, could be just the spot  and the couple themselves seemed interested by the notion," he added. "Their relationship had taken flower in Africa after all, so maybe it, or somewhere else in the Commonwealth, might provide their next step. Johannesburg could be their Malta."

RELATED: Meghan Markle Reportedly Wanted to Keep Her American Citizenship So She Could Get Into Politics

Lacey didn't explain why the plan fell through, but Harry and Meghan's real-life fairy tale took them, as royal watchers know, to Canada and California, not South Africa.
The Houston Chronicles Live Updates blog documents the latest events in the coronavirus outbreak in the Houston area, the state of Texas and across the U.S. with a focus on health and economic impacts.

The Houston Chronicles ongoing coverage is available to subscribers. Subscribe now for full access and to support our work.

Total coronavirus cases:

 805,560 cases in Texas, including 16,573 deaths.

 206,067 in the Houston region, including 3,526 deaths.

 More than 7.5 million in the U.S., including 211,725 deaths. Click here to see a U.S. map with state-by-state death tolls and the latest coronavirus case counts.

 More than 36 million in the world, with more than 1 million deaths. More than 25.1 million people have recovered. You can view the worldwide totals here.

Resources on COVID-19 and Texas' reopening: Use our interactive page to track the spread of cases through Harris County and the rest of Texas. For a detailed look at our state, check out the Chronicle's Texas Coronavirus Map. To get regular updates on our coverage, sign up for our coronavirus newsletter.

Latest updates from today:

7:30 p.m. A backlog of COVID-19 cases were among 4,270 new infections reported Wednesday in Texas, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of state data.

The Department of State Health Services noted that the backlog comprised 342 old cases. The increase bought the statewide case total to 805,560.

Another 129 newly reported deaths brings the fatality count to 16,573. The new cases were higher than 60 percent of all other days in the pandemic, while deaths were higher than 78 percent.

The state's seven-day rolling average for new cases is now at 4440.4.

The Houston region's case count is 206,067, up 947 from yesterday. Harris County added 625 cases today, 434 of which were old cases, and is at 149,394 cases total. There have been 3,526 deaths in the Houston region, up 18 from yesterday.

The positive test rate is now at 6.73 percent. The rolling average of viral tests is now at 61,040.

Statewide, there were 3,519 patients hospitalized for lab-confirmed COVID-19. There are 60,578 total staffed hospital beds, 12,720 beds available and 1,216 ICU beds available. There are 7,446 ventilators available.

- Stephanie Lamm

6 p.m. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said she would not approve bar reopenings, citing the county's "Code Red" status in its own threat level system.

Red represents the highest threat level for the county. Key benchmarks that would allow for widespread business reopenings have not been met, she said.

.@LinaHidalgoTX says she will not approve bar reopenings, and takes a shot at @GovAbbott without mentioning him by name: "We would have gotten there long ago if Harris County had been able to take the aggressive measures we needed to take in April and again in June. #txlege pic.twitter.com/kl1mxNggDw  Jasper Scherer (@jaspscherer) October 7, 2020

"The sooner we can get this virus under control means the sooner we can return to some sense of normalcy and the stronger our local economy will be," she said in a statement. "We would have gotten there long ago if Harris County had been able to take the aggressive measures we needed to take in April and again in June.

5:30 p.m. Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday that bars will be allowed to reopen as early as next week, but with restrictions and only if first approved by a county judge, reports Jeremy Wallace.

The move amounts to a half-step after weeks of mounting political pressure from fellow Republicans, some of whom have accused the governor of running embattled bar owners out of business with draconian restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic. Now, the decision will be left to local officials.

"If we continue to contain COVID, then these businesses can continue to open.," Abbott said in a pre-recorded video message from Austin, noting what he said were several weeks of stable coronavirus trends.

3:54 p.m. A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the U.S. Census must continue counting through Oct. 31, dealing a loss to the Trump administration, Gabrielle Banks reports.

The original Census deadline was Sept. 30, but officials said delays from the pandemic made that difficult to meet, and so requested the extension. But then they backpedaled and had been seeking in court to end the count. They have indicated they will likely take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

1:40 p.m. President Trump remained out of sight, in quarantine in the White House with a coronavirus infection, but his presence was widely felt on Twitter as he posted dozens of tweets. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported, the West Wing was largely a ghost town, with White House aides either down sick with the virus or working remotely.

The president quote-tweeted thanks at a supporter who said she'd "wade through a sea of COVID infested water" to vote for him.

1:10 p.m. Texas A&M University will hold in-person graduation ceremonies starting in December, with at least 15 ceremonies, the university announced today. Brittany Britto reports:

"Provost and Executive Vice President Carol A. Fierke said in a letter to the university community the college will host multiple ceremonies in December and through the spring in the hope of giving the full graduation experience to students and to accommodate May and August 2020 graduates who had their commencements postponed due to COVID-19.

'Every graduate deserves an in-person opportunity to celebrate their achievement,' Fierke said in the letter. 'While we will continue to monitor the status of COVID-19 locally, we remain hopeful in the dates to follow and are excited to provide this information.'

About 4,200 students are expected to graduate, and no more than 324 will be part of each of the 15, the university said.

12:45 p.m. Tens of millions of people worldwide could fall into extreme poverty if the coronavirus pandemic continues to shrink economies, the World Bank warned today.

The World Bank put the number at 150 million, mostly living in middle-income countries such as India, Nigeria and Indonesia.

11:23 a.m. In an about-face, President Trump now says via Twitter that he'll sign parts of the stimulus package on which he'd earlier called a halt to negotiations. The Associated Press reports that the White House is now "pressing for $1,200 stimulus checks and a new wave of aid for airlines and other businesses hard hit by the pandemic."

And stock prices are up on the news.

11:08 a.m. When the pandemic hit, most comedy clubs shut their doors. So where can comedians ply their trade? Craig Lindsay writes that some have found a haven in front of the big screen  telling jokes before the movies start at pop-up drive-in theaters. From the story:

COVID happened and we did our best to pivot, and we just wanted to bring people a show in the safest way possible, and, due to a safety protocol, this is whats allowable, [comic Ileza Shlesinger] says. And I decided to really lean into it by calling it the Comedy Tailgate Tour.

Yes, Shlesinger has been hitting drive-ins all across the country and basically doing open-air, stand-up comedy. In fact, shell be doing two shows at the Moonstruck Drive-In on Oct. 9.

10:41 a.m. Kids have it tough in the pandemic, struggling with online learning, not being able to see friends, and stuck at home with a parent or parents. Lindsay Peyton reports that psychologist say the best way to help them is to help their parents. From her story:

"Parents were asked to expand their normal roles as caregivers and become teachers and playmates during the lockdown, while also juggling their own careers and schedules, [Seabrook therapist Helen] Humphries explained.

"Bringing in a therapist allows parents to get some relief, while children gain access to another adult to speak with about their emotions."

10:12 a.m. We now have our story on the Texas Supreme Court's ruling that Harris County cannot send ballot applications to all its registered voters. From Zach Despart's story:

"The court said Harris County Clerk Christopher Hollins had exceeded his authority by attempting to do so. Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the county in August, arguing that nothing in the Texas Election Code empowered county clerks to send applications to voters who had not requested them."

In addition, the court ruled against a GOP lawsuit to block Gov. Greg Abbott's extension of the early voting period.

9:57 a.m. The vice presidential between current U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic challenger U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris starts at 8 p.m. today, and both camps report that the two tested negative yesterday for the coronavirus.

9:45 a.m. Houston's theater companies have struggled mightily in the pandemic, and Andrew Dansby writes that, in a bid to survive, some are bringing the theater directly to you. The Catastrophic Theater got its inspiration from much earlier plagues:

When everything shut down, I thought, What did they do in Elizabethan times when there was a plague and the theater was dark? says Tamarie Cooper, co-artistic director at the Catastrophic. With dramatic flair, she answers her own question: The took to the wagons! I wanted to call these Wagon Shows.

Meanwhile, Houston's A.D. Players have restarted their season, but with 50 percent capacity, no intermissions and no concessions.

9:40 a.m. The coronavirus pandemic continues to keep many Texans off the road, as gasoline sales were down in the state by 15 percent in July compared to a year ago, says energy reporter Paul Takahashi. Nationally, sales were down 13. 6 percent.

9:18 a.m. - Breaking: The Texas Supreme Court rules Harris County can't send mail-in ballot applications to all registered voters, and also rules against a challenge to Gov. Greg Abbott's extension of the early-voting period. Full story soon.

9:10 a.m. The latest episode of the Looped In podcast with Nancy Sarnoff and R.A. Schuetz looks at the pause that's been placed on foreclosure auctions in Harris County by County Judge Lina Hidalgo. Her actions give beleaguered homeowners and commercial landlords some breathing room, but also create a backlog of properties in the queue to be foreclosed. Listen at the link above or the embedded player below.

8:55 a.m. Tests for COVID-19 that produce results in 15 minutes could be a game-changer in the fight against the coronavirus, writes business reporter Gwendolyn Wu.

The tests, which could become available later this month, could make it easier for employees to return to their workplaces and allow public health officials to nip an outbreak in the bud. The tests could cost as little as $5, Wu writes.

7:45 a.m. Texas saw an increase of 5,825 COVID-19 cases Tuesday, bringing the statewide total to 801,290, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of state data.

Another 109 deaths brings the statewide fatality count to 16,444. The new cases were higher than 75 percent of all other days in the pandemic, and deaths were higher than 74 percent.

The state's seven-day rolling average for new cases is now at 4,580.7.

The Houston region's case count is 205,120, up 887 from yesterday. Harris County added 534 cases today, and is at 148,769 cases total. There have been 3,508 deaths in the Houston region, up 7 from yesterday.

The positive test rate is now at 6.43 percent. The rolling average of viral tests is at 62,203.

Statewide, there were 3,394 patients hospitalized for lab-confirmed COVID-19. There are 58,969 total staffed hospital beds, 14,230 beds available and 1,358 ICU beds available. There are 7,366 ventilators available.

- Matt Dempsey
Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris face off Wednesday night in their first and only debate less than a month before the election, with coronavirus adding a sudden twist to the event.

The showdown between vice-presidential candidates is more often a sideshow of U.S. presidential elections, but this year the encounter between President Donald Trump's and Democrat Joe Biden's running mates takes on far greater significance with the economy staggered by the pandemic.

The virus hit home for the Republican ticket over the past week with Trump and a widening circle of his aides testing positive for the virus and the president eventually landing in a military hospital for three days.

The debate will be an opportunity for the American public to gauge whether Pence, 61, is ready to take over for the president. The debate will be a showcase as well for Harris, 55.

Even before the coronavirus swept the U.S., there were questions about the age of the candidates. Trump is 74 and Biden is 77, and either of them would be the oldest president in U.S. history if inaugurated. (Trump would hold that place twice, becoming in 2017 the oldest president inaugurated).

- When to watch: The candidates will meet in person at 9 p.m. New York time on Wednesday in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Commission on Presidential Debates has announced several measures intended to mitigate the risk of infection from the coronavirus. Although the candidates will not wear masks on stage, they will not shake hands and will be placed 12 feet apart rather than the planned 7 feet. There will be plexiglass barriers between the candidates, and the candidates and moderator Susan Page of USA Today. The Pence team had initially balked at allowing a divider next to him but agreed on Tuesday evening, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The audience is required to wear masks and the commission says it will remove anyone who refuses to wear one. The first family and accompanying staff refused offers of masks at the Cleveland Clinic for the Sept. 29 Trump-Biden debate.

The debate will last 90 minutes, divided into nine 10-minute segments. The organizers haven't released the list of topics.

- How to watch: The debate will be aired by all major broadcast and cable networks as well as live-streamed online on YouTube and most network news sites.

What to watch for:

- Harris, a former California attorney general, is known for her sharp questioning. She said ahead of the debate that she won't be fact-checking Pence.

- Pence is likely to face criticism of the Trump administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a prominent theme of the Biden campaign. Pence, who leads the administration's coronavirus task force, is likely to be asked about the way Trump has minimized the severity of the virus that has killed more than 210,000 people in the U.S., even after the president was released from the hospital.

- Pence is also likely to be asked to explain Trump's surprise announcement Tuesday that he was ending talks with Democratic leaders on a new stimulus package, hours after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell called for greater spending to avoid damaging the economic recovery.

- Another topic is likely to be the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Harris sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold confirmation hearings this month. As vice president, Pence would deliver the tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

- Harris is also likely to be asked about her views on law and order, in particular the movement to defund the police. Pence is known for his very conservative views, specifically his opposition to LGBTQ marriage.
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- New COVID-19 case projections released today by PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) show the resurgence risk blanketing much of the Midwest, Heartland, and Mountain States over the past few weeks has spread into the Northeast, where testing positivity rates have jumped and forecasts look worse for the next four weeks. The researchers believe weather-related impacts on the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and lack of vigilance to proven mitigation practices are contributing to more widespread transmission throughout the northern U.S., as well as concerning rises in hospitalization rates in states including Oregon and Wisconsin.

According to PolicyLab's forecasting model, much of the Northeast and New England is now expected to see rising infection rates over the next four weeks. Cases counts are projected to more than double in Boston by early November if social distancing and other conditions remain the same. Testing positivity rates are on the rise throughout Connecticut; New London County is already seeing 150 new cases a week per 100,000 residents. For the first time since the spring, forecasts are worse for all five New York City boroughs, and risk for widespread community transmission has increased in the entire area surrounding the Big Apple. Further south, case incidence is accelerating in Philadelphia and Wilmington, De., where weekly case counts rose to 90 and 160 per 100,000 residents, respectively. Case incidence levels in the large northeastern cities are now approaching those seen in similar-sized Midwestern cities.

Finally, the researchers consider forecasts for counties throughout Oregon to be some of the most concerning in the country, given explosive growth in case counts and quickly rising testing positivity rates that have more than doubled in some areas.

What differentiates the current growth in case incidence across the country from this summer's surge is the rise in hospitalization rates in many areas, including throughout the Midwest and Heartland, and now into the Northeast. Hospitalizations have doubled in Wisconsin in the last month and increased nearly 50% since mid-September in Massachusetts. There also appears to be a broadening age spectrum of those getting sickas infections shift from young adults to older, more high-risk individuals and childrenas well as an increased ability of this virus to spread more efficiently in colder temperatures, which the researchers showed in their July JAMA Network Open study and continue to find in their updated models. PolicyLab's researchers stress that prevention measures such as consistent mask use, social distancing, and hygiene/disinfection practices are more necessary than ever as temperatures drop and communities seek to keep children safely in school this fall.

"The resurgence of COVID-19 throughout the north and Midwest is occurring at a time when many children and adolescents are newly back in the classroom; yet, it is important to note that a link between these rising rates and evidence of in-school transmission of the virus has not been well established," said David Rubin, MD, MSCE, director of PolicyLab at CHOP and a professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. "The emerging evidence suggests that schools with strong, multilayered safety plans can and do protect students and teachers, minimizing the risk of spread substantially during the school day. However, as case incidence continues to rise in many locations over the coming weeks, school districts will need to rely more than ever on the expertise of their local health departments, who are doing the important work of contact tracing that will alert them if and when in-school transmission risk begins to rise, and how that might alter their plans for in-person vs. remote learning."

For additional comments from COVID-Lab's lead investigators and collaborators on their updated forecasts and findings, read this blog post: https://policylab.chop.edu/blog/covid-19-outlook-northeast-resurgence-has-begun-safe-school-reopenings-still-possible

Background

Researchers at PolicyLab at CHOP and the University of Pennsylvania developed the model, known as COVID-Lab: Mapping COVID-19 in Your Community, which tracks COVID-19 transmission and test positivity rates across all U.S. counties, and projects case counts for 817 counties with active outbreaks, representing 82% of the U.S. population and 87% of all identified coronavirus cases. The researchers built their model to observe how social distancing, population density, daily temperatures, and humidity affect the number and spread of COVID-19 infections over time across a county, accounting for test positivity rates and population characteristics such as age, insurance status, crowding within homes and diabetes prevalence. COVID-Lab's projections forecast the number of coronavirus cases communities could experience over the next four weeks based on a three-day average of their current social distancing practices, defined by the change in travel to non-essential businesses as compared to pre-epidemic. This is just one tool in a toolbox of resources policymakers and decision-makers can use as they manage their COVID-19 response efforts.

The application of this model, which focuses on time-varying transmission rates during the early months of the pandemic in the U.S., was released on July 23, following peer review, in JAMA Network Open. You can read more about how the team validates their models for accuracy in this blog post. The data are publicly available in the form of interactive maps and graphs.

About PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is dedicated to achieving optimal child health and well-being by informing program and policy changes through interdisciplinary research. Founded in 2008, PolicyLab is a Center of Emphasis within the CHOP Research Institute, one of the largest pediatric research institutes in the country. With more than 30 highly regarded faculty and 60 passionate staff who bring expertise from myriad of fields covering health, research and health policy, our work focuses on improving public systems, improving health care delivery and improving child health outcomes. For more information, visit http://www.policylab.chop.edu .

MEDIA CONTACT:

Lauren Walens, Strategic Ops & Comms Director

PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

[email protected] or (734) 904-2181

SOURCE PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Related Links

https://policylab.chop.edu


WASHINGTON - The FBI and the Department of Homeland Securitys cybersecurity agency have issued a series of advisories in recent weeks aimed at warning voters about problems that could surface in the election  as well as steps Americans can take to counter the foreign interference threat.

The issues identified in the public service announcements run the gamut from the spread of online disinformation about the electoral process to cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure. Taken together, the advisories make clear that American agencies are tracking a broad range of potential threats that they believe voters should know about  not just for transparencys sake but also so voters can be prepared.

The warnings come even though U.S. officials as recently as Tuesday expressed confidence in the integrity of the vote despite repeated efforts by President Donald Trump to denigrate it.

Some of the announcements from the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency:

DISINFORMATION THROUGH BOGUS INTERNET DOMAINS AND EMAIL ACCOUNTS

Its not hard to set up a fake, or spoofed, email account or website to closely resemble a legitimate one. Thats precisely what the FBI and CISA are warning may take place to trick Americans during the election.

Cybercriminals routinely forge websites with slight misspellings or other barely perceptible alterations to dupe internet users.

In the context of an election, for instance, a bogus website ending in .com instead of .gov that purports to have legitimate voting information or results could trick people who visit the page into thinking that what theyre reading is an authentic, trustworthy government source.

Besides spreading false information, officials say, such spoofed websites and email accounts can gather personally identifiable information and spread malicious software.

One precaution voters can take, officials say, is to verify the spelling of websites and email addresses that may at first glance look legitimate but are actually not.

DISINFORMATION THROUGH ONLINE JOURNALS

Foreign intelligence services could use websites like pseudo-academic online journals to cause confusion around the election and undermine confidence in the legitimacy of its results.

That could include promoting claims of voter suppression and ballot fraud, denigrating individual political candidates, disseminating information about cyberattacks  both real and alleged  and spreading otherwise misleading or unsubstantiated assertions to manipulate public opinion, cause divisions and discredit the election process.

U.S. officials are encouraging voters to rely on trustworthy sources of information, including state and local election officials, and to verify through credible channels reports about problems with voting before recirculating them online.

FALSE CLAIMS OF HACKED VOTER INFORMATION

How someone voted is private. But information about who is eligible to vote, how often a person votes and for which party is publicly available through a variety of sources.

Thats why authorities said there was nothing to be concerned about several weeks ago when Russian media reported that some U.S. voter registration information was available on a hackers forum.

The FBI and CISA issued a reminder not long after that unnamed foreign actors and cyber criminals are spreading false information intended to discredit the American electoral process, including by falsely claiming to have hacked and leaked voter information.

Even if those foreign actors or cyber criminals had such information, theres no indication it would do anything to stop an American from casting a ballot or provide a way to manipulate the vote. The U.S. agencies say they have no information that any attack targeting election infrastructure has compromised the integrity of election results or the accuracy of voter registration information, prevented a registered voter from casting a ballot, or prevented an election from occurring.

CYBER THREATS TO VOTING SYSTEMS

The advisories describe possible threats to election infrastructure that they say may slow voting, or impede access to voting information, but that should not compromise the integrity of the results.

One concern relates to so-called distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks in which a server gets knocked at least temporarily offline by a flood of requests, which could leave election-related websites inaccessible or slow access to voting information or results.

Even in such attacks, though, the underlying voting data should not be affected, according to federal officials who say theyve been working with their local election counterparts to make sure they can minimize the impact and recover quickly from such a disruption.

The FBI and CISA say in another of the recently issued warnings that cyber actors are continuing to try to break into voter registration and vote reporting systems. But the agencies say they havent identified any incidents that could prevent Americans from voting or that could change vote tallies.

In 2016, Russia searched for vulnerabilities in state elections systems across the U.S. and also breached the Illinois voter registration system. But there is no evidence that votes were changed, or that the Russian activity affected the outcome.

This year, the agencies say they believe it would be difficult to manipulate votes in a way that could affect the election on a grand scale, and that election officials have developed safeguards like provisional ballots, paper backups and backup pollbooks.
Vice President Mike Pence sent love and prayers to President Donald Trump and the First Lady Melania Trump for their full recovery.

Following the news regarding their 'positive' results, Pence shared on Twitter blessing the President with millions joining across America to pray for their health.

"Karen and I send out love and prayers to our dear friends President Donald Trump, and Melania Trump. We join millions across America praying for their full and swift recovery. We are grateful for the concern, support, and prayers from millions of Americans for President Trump and the First Lady. ""We believe it's emblematic of the love, care, and compassion that the American People have shown to all of those that have been impacted by the Coronavirus. I spoke to President Donald Trump a little while back and he sounded great! Trump will be going home tonight, so Karen and I are headed to Utah for the Vice Presidential Debate! See you there!" President Trump shared his experience at the Walter Reed Medical Center and updated his supporters. As shown on Twitter: "I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don't be afraid of COVID. Don't let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs and knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!"

The First Lady Melania Trump also shared on Twitter: "My family is grateful for all of the prayers and support! I am feeling good and will continue to rest at home. Thank you to medical staff and caretakers everywhere, and my continued prayers for those who are ill or have a family member impacted by the virus."


Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 14:24:48|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Australian universities are renowned for drawing millions of students from across Asia and the world, with overseas enrolments making up well over a quarter of Australia's higher education students.

COVID-19 and associated travel bans unexpectedly turned off the flow of international students and the vital revenue they bring to some of Australia's most prestigious institutions.

A billion-dollar cash injection announced as part of the federal government's big-spending pandemic budget was welcomed, but will it be enough to preserve what is great and highly sought after about Australia's universities?

News that a small number of international students would be allowed to return to Australia later in the month came as a ray of hope not just for the students eager to get back to their studies, but for the higher education system as a whole.

The pilot program by Charles Darwin University (CDU) in Australia's Northern Territory will allow up to 70 overseas students to travel from Singapore to Darwin, stemming from a range of source countries including China and Southeast Asia.

While health concerns were stressed as first and foremost, CDU Deputy Vice-Chancellor Global Strategy and Advancement, Andrew Everett also acknowledged the massive financial benefits that international students have brought to Australia, describing them as "critical to the university's growth."

In 2019, international students made up close to one third of those studying at Australian universities, with Chinese students accounting for 37.3 percent of all overseas enrolments with 164,458 students.

The year before, international students delivered around 9 billion (6.4 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue to Australian universities, according to modelling by Peter Hurley from Victoria University's Mitchell Institute.

Hurley's analysis showed international enrolments accounting for around 58 percent of total student revenue at two of Australia's most prestigious "sandstone" universities, the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney.

International enrolments also play a disproportionate role in the coffers of Aussie universities due to overseas students paying their fees up front, compared with domestic students who are able to defer payments free of interest on a government-run loan scheme.

Sector representatives, Universities Australia estimated that by 2023, COVID-19 could erode 16 billion Australian dollars worth of revenue (11.4 billion U.S. dollars) from institutions across the country.

"We can't pretend that won't have a big impact," Universities Australia Chief Executive Catriona Jackson said at the time.

"Not only does that revenue support the staff and facilities to educate the next generation of skilled workers, it also pays for much of the research and innovation that keeps Australia internationally competitive."

The total number of job cuts already announced this year has topped 11,000, according to the National Tertiary Education Union, not taking into account several thousand casual and fixed-term staff who have also seen their positions disappear.

Universities Australia predicted that the total number of jobs stripped from the sector could reach 21,000 by the end of the year, on top of potentially irreversible damage to universities' research capacity and reputation should the ban on international arrivals continue.

Popular estimates suggest up to 7.6 billion Australian dollars could be ripped from university research programs over the next four years due to the loss of international students fees.

Since the start of the pandemic, educators unions and sector representatives have repeatedly called for greater government assistance, but the plight of universities initially struggled to gain sympathy from everyday Australians.

This is partially due to the flawed view of universities as highly-profitable private businesses, and partly due to an enduring criticism that by garnering an overreliance on international students, the universities chose to compromise standards for revenue and brought the crisis on themselves.

Chief Executive of the Group of Eight (Go8), which represents Australia's eight most prestigious universities, Vicki Thomson said failing to support research and knowledge building institutions could have long term and wide reaching effects for the country.

"We have been quite desperate in the past months as researchers were being stood down and research programs faltered or halted all because we were missing the International student fees which previously paid for Australia's research," Thomson said.

"To fail to support Australia's globally ranked, research industry is to fail to support Australia's national interest... It is to fail to support our innovation and discovery-based industries, the industries that could lead Australia into the future."

In response, the federal government included an additional 1 billion Australian dollars (710.5 million U.S. dollars) to support university research programs in its COVID-focussed annual budget released Tuesday evening.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the funding would help back Australia's "best and brightest minds, whose ideas will help drive our recovery."

The government also said it will invest millions of dollars in creating a Strategic University Reform Fund (SURF), aimed at encouraging universities to undertake novel projects in areas of "government priority."

SURF aims to strengthen links between universities and the business world, better addressing issues of local concern, and improving the commercial potential of applied research.

Go8 representative Thomson welcomed the stimulus and thanked the government for acknowledging the important role that research plays for the country -- while others criticised it as insufficient and indifferent to the massive job losses being endured by the sector.

"With no idea when or even if that market will ever recover, the silver lining is that Australia can once again claim it is funding its own research. That will be welcomed much further afield than our university campuses," Thomson said.

A massive restructuring of Australian university course fees currently underway is also set to shake up university campuses indefinitely -- aimed at encouraging students to choose more "job-ready" subjects such as nursing and engineering over humanities and law.

The impacts on a system already in turmoil is yet to be seen, but with the demonstrable benefit international students bring to Australia and plans to drive enrolments back up as early as 2021, they will no doubt be felt around the world. Enditem
Former President and also the flagbearer of the largest opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has said that despite the happenings with the countrys electoral process, violence is not a way to go about to get the Electoral Commission (EC) to do the right thing.



He explained that, the country has rules and regulations that binds all and believes that, since the Commission also operates with regulations, it is appropriate to go through the right channels to get things straightened.



John Mahama made the above remarks to respond to party sympathizers who are bashing the flagbearer and the NDC for treating the Electoral Commission with kid gloves over the voter registration anomalies and some other flaws the EC has exhibited since the start of the compilation of the new voter register.



He, however, stated that, during the administration of former President Rawlings, former President Kuffour and his administration, it saw peace in most national occasion and also in electoral process but recently these same national occasion and electoral process are marred by violence even in voter register compilation.











Source: Salaamat Kukua Painstil/ Peace FM News









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A teenager with Tourette's syndrome has been left devastated after she was barred from a flight.

Jade O'Connell, 19, from Dunedin in New Zealand, had been booked to fly to Wellington for a camp for Tourette's sufferers - Camp Twitch - on Monday.

However, after arriving at the boarding gate with her mother, Ms O'Connell was told she would not be able to fly because of issues on a previous flight.

A teenager with Tourette's syndrome Jade O'Connell (pictured) has been left devastated after she was barred from a flight causing her to miss the first day of 'Camp Twitch'

Jade O'Connell (pictured), 19, from New Zealand,started to develop Tourette's syndrome at 14-years-old

'It's ridiculous. We've never had to do any of that before. It felt like it was about her Tourette's and this crew did not want to deal with her,' Jade's mother Teresa O'Connell told the Otago Daily Times.

The carrier, Air New Zealand, however, said the issue was a medical one and the decision to not allow her to board the plane was based on her safety.

The previous flight referred to was on Sunday when Ms O'Connell had an evening flight from Auckland to Dunedin.

Her mother said the 19-year-old had suffered a minor panic attack at Auckland airport and her legs went numb.

Airport staff fetched a wheelchair for Ms O'Connell and got her on the plane and her mother said once she picked her up and got her in the car, the feeling then returned to her legs.

The following day at Dunedin airport the youngster went to the help desk before her flight to the camp to let them know of her Tourette's and was told to head through security to the boarding gate.

However, the pair were then told the flight crew was the same as the night before and they had remembered Ms O'Connell as being disruptive.

'He said [Jade] had demanded to go to the toilet on the plane because she couldn't walk herself and that her not being able to use her legs was an issue,' Theresa said.

Ms O'Connell was barred from boarding the Air New Zealand flight from Dunedin (pictured) to Auckland for 'Camp Twitch'

Ms O'Connell has a large number of followers on TikTok where she frequently posts

She said she informed staff her daughter could walk normally but was told she would still need to get a medical certificate before she could board a flight - causing her to miss the first day of her camp.

'It really annoys me because there are so many people out there with Tourette's. Some of the stuff she says can be offensive, but we always tell people she's got Tourette's ... we don't blindside anyone,' Theresa said.

Ms O'Connell was diagnosed with Tourette's in January after suffering from increasing tics since 2016.

She has since started a TikTok account with the aim of shedding a light on some of the stigma surrounding the condition.

Her mother said the platform, where she has 975,000 followers, had helped her gain confidence while helping others.

Air New Zealand has previously said they had provided Ms O'Connell with forms for any upcoming flights to establish she is able to exit the aircraft unassisted in an emergency.

Ms O'Connell boarded another flight to the camp on Tuesday accompanied by her grandmother.

An Air New Zealand spokeswoman told the Herald: 'She has now been provided with documents to complete in order to get medical clearance to fly. We require this to establish that passengers are capable of exiting the aircraft unassisted in an emergency.

'As each person with Tourette's syndrome can present different characteristics it is important our team are informed.

'We are sorry to hear she missed the first day of camp. However, her safety is our first priority and our staff make decisions with this in mind.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Air New Zealand for further comment.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said the actions of Turkey and Azerbaijan amounted to a "terroristic attack" over Nagorno-Karabakh that formed part of the continuation of Armenian genocide.

"What we are facing is an Azeri-Turkish international terroristic attack," Pashinyan told Sky News. "To me there is no doubt that this is a policy of continuing the Armenian genocide and a policy of reinstating the Turkish empire."

The Armenian genocide refers to the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923.

Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One, but contests the figures and denies that the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.
They have put their security in our hands, said Mr. Haass, the author of The World: A Brief Introduction, and they are questioning that wisdom, at the same moment that our adversaries see us as divided and distracted.

It is a distinctive pattern that began in the Trump administrations first hours, when the new president bristled at photographs released by the National Park Service that suggested the crowds at his inauguration paled when compared with the turnouts for the swearing-in of some past presidents, including Barack Obama. Then came his search for three million fraudulent votes  all in the service of denying that he had lost the popular vote, even while winning the Electoral College.

Some of the moments were laughable, like the Sharpie used to alter National Weather Service maps of the course of Hurricane Dorian last year, all to justify Mr. Trumps erroneous declaration that the storm was headed to Alabama.

It was great fodder for late-night comedians. Then, in March, as the virus emptied out offices and began to strike American cities, denialism went from deadly serious to simply deadly.

Mr. Trumps own Department of Health and Human Services, with the help of the White House staff, had prepared for an influenza pandemic that many experts had viewed as inevitable. They had even run a monthslong exercise, code-named Crimson Contagion, that mapped out how the government needed to respond if a virus  somewhat different from the coronavirus  that originated in China came to American shores aboard direct flights, borne by tourists, students, business executives and returning Americans.

But the tabletop exercise missed one key element: a president who made it clear he didnt want to hear news that imperiled economic expansion, especially in an election year.

Nobody ever thought of numbers like this, Mr. Trump said in mid-March, as his early story that the virus was under control began to collapse around him.
By Express News Service

KOCHI: Nearly five months after the Abu Dhabi royal family bought a 20 per cent stake in Lulu Group International, the supermarket chain founded by Malayali businessman Yussuf Ali MA, the company is diluting its stake further.

On Wednesday, reports said the Public Investment Fund (PIF) - the Saudi Arabian sovereign fund -- is in talks to buy a minority stake in the USD 7.4 billion (Rs 55,800 crore) turnover Lulu Group, the largest retail business group in the Middle East. According to media reports, neither the deal amount nor the date of finalisation is clear.

Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, is the chairman of PIF which has an investment fund worth more than USD 360 billion (Rs 26 lakh crore) and has invested in many big companies including Noon.com

In April, the Abu Dhabi government-owned investment company, ADQ, had also invested USD 1.1 billion (Rs 8,000 crore) in Lulu Group businesses except its Indian and Qatar operations. This money is being used to expand Lulu businesses in the new markets of Jordan, Iraq and Morocco.

The Lulu Group spokesman in India confirmed the development but offered no further comment. ADQ, which is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoun Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (the brother of Abu Dhabi crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed), is one of the biggest investment companies in the region.

"These investments show the confidence the ruling families and big investment funds have in the strength of Lulu Group and its chairman Yusuff Ali MA Lulu operates shopping centres, hypermarkets and hospitality businesses around the world," said the report.

Lulu Group runs 194 hypermarkets, employs more than 55,000 people and serves more than 1.6 million customers daily with operations in 22 countries. Apart from retail, it has business interests in food processing and hospitality (Grand Hyatt and Marriott in India, Sheraton in Oman, and Great Scotland Yard, London).
'When you oppose a policy, you are labelled anti-government.'

'The problem is, the policymakers have never done any business in their lives.'

IMAGE: A traditional family-run store reopens in Kolkata after the lockdown was relaxed. Photograph: Satyajit Shaw/ ANI Photo

"The problem is, there is no one to show a mirror to the policymakers. Let them address the issues of those who are going to be affected by the policies. They should understand that every coin has two sides," Confederation of All India Traders President B C Bhartiya tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com in the concluding part of a two-part interview.

CAIT has been supporting the BJP all the time. Traders are supposed to be the BJP's support base...

It is true. But we do not support blindly. We go by the policies we make. When we are not heard, we raise our voice.

On April 19, 2019, we had a huge meeting of all traders at the Talkatora stadium in Delhi and the prime minister sat with us and listened to what we had to say.

We are happy that he listened to what we had to say. Whatever assurances he gave us that day, he followed them up.

So, why do you still feel neglected?

Yes, they have announced some good policies, but the problem lies on the implementation side. Policy making is one thing, monitoring the policy and punishing those who do not follow it up, is another thing.

What we feel is the government is coming out with policies, but they do not discuss whether they are implemented or not.

CAIT called the new FSSAI rules by the central government not allowing small shopkeepers to be near schools, a barbaric one. Why?

I will tell you why. The new rule says, nobody should sell anything that has salt and sugar within 250 metres from a school. It means you can't sell even biscuits or chocolates. We can't sell anything edible as every edible item has either sugar or salt.

What will happen to those small traders who were selling these things to school students?

They should first see whether a policy announced by them is going to pinch the common man.

The argument is that food items with added sugar and salt are unhealthy.

If they are unhealthy, why don't you stop the production? Why doN't you stop the advertisements of such products?

The shops near schools mainly have stationery items. Then they also have those food items which students like to eat. This gives a supplementary income to these shopkeepers.

What we are saying is, if you want to clean the Ganga, start from Gangotri! If you go on cleaning only the small rivulets and leave Gangotri dirty, they will continue to get dirty.

Why do you stop small traders from selling certain items when you can't stop the production?

What do traders sell? They sell those things that consumers demand. In order to create consumer demand, you have advertisements. When they see ads, consumers start demanding those items.

You mean, the real problem lies elsewhere.

Exactly. I will tell you one thing; no shop will be closed near the schools. Everything will continue as it is. All the products with salt and sugar will continue to be sold.

But what is going to come is, brashtachar (corruption) and inspector raj!

All these policies give rise to corruption and inspector raj. The inspector will come and ask the shopkeeper to close the shop.

The shopkeeper will say it is his livelihood. Then the inspector will ask for money to turn a blind eye.

When you oppose a policy, you are labelled anti-government.

The problem is, the policymakers have never done any business in their lives. Also, business people are not into the policymaking process.

CAIT also called the FSSAI an autocratic body. Do you feel there should have been a conversation before such policies are made?

Yes. But even if they want a discussion, they call only the corporate body of the retailers association, some wholesalers, etc.

The problem is, there is no one to show a mirror to the policymakers. Let them address the issues of those who are going to be affected by the policies. They should understand that every coin has two sides.

Just because the health ministry sees some problems, you cannot kill trade. And there is no ministry for trade. We are with good policies. But policies cannot be made at the expense of trade.

Similarly, online shopping has increased during the pandemic. You have always had problems with the e-commerce companies. How much has it affected small traders?

You will see a major decline of physical shops after the pandemic. People may not like to go to shops, especially those that are crowded. We see that a lot of business has shifted to online and it cannot be stopped.

What these e-commerce firms are doing is, they attract customers by giving huge discounts. In the process, they are killing other players. What we want from them is fair play.

Why did you say it results in crony capitalism?

They kill others, capture the market and then sell to multinationals. How can a company have Rs 4,000 crores loss in a year and still function? How are they funded?

You mean they are selling goods at a huge loss?

Of course. It is to kill competition. Can you call this fair play? For example, a branded product which I cannot sell below Rs 100, they are selling at Rs 90. How is it possible?

When you talk about crony capitalism, do you include Reliance also? They have been acquiring company after company to expand its e-commerce base.

Yes. We started by opposing Big Bazaar and Reliance when they entered the retail market. We said their core business was not retail. But they spread throughout the country saying they are local, and Indians.

Finally, they will sell themselves to multinationals. Their business is to sell their business and make a profit.

See what Reliance is doing now. They have their own shops but they have purchased Big Bazaar and their valuation has gone up.

See, they are not going to do retail business in the end. What they are doing is greed to earn more.

What will be the future of small traders be?

Those who have spent their entire life in retail business cannot do any other work. What will the old man who has spent 40 or 50 years of his life, do if he closes his shop?

So, the shop will be there till he is alive. His children and grandchildren will look for other employment. After his death, the shop will be closed. Similarly, with the death of every retailer, one shop will be closed.

With the corporatisation of the economy, traditional employment providers will go out of business.

You will see that the new members of the families that once provided employment will be seeking employment. This will result in more employment seekers; hence, unemployment in the country.

You may not see the effects immediately, but we will see the impact of corporatisation in five or 10 years from now.

I can only say that the situation is worrying.
By Online Desk

Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted bail to actress Rhea Chakraborty who was arrested in drugs case related to Sushant Singh Rajput's death.

Meanwhile, the court rejected the bail plea of her brother Showik Chakraborty and alleged drug dealer Abdul Bashit Parihar.

A bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal also granted bail to Rajput's aide Samuel Miranda and personal assistant Dipesh Sawant.

The HC, while granting bail to Rhea Chakraborty and two others, directed them to deposit their passports with the NCB and not to leave the country without permission of the special NDPS court.

The HC also directed Rhea to visit the nearest police station for the first 10 days after she gets out of jail.

It directed her not to leave Mumbai without the NCB's permission and to not tamper with evidence while out on bail.

Earlier, A Mumbai court on Tuesday extended the judicial custody of actress Rhea Chakraborty and her brother Showik Chakraborty till October 20.

Chakraborty was arrested on September 8 by the Narcotic Control Bureau (NCB).

She has been charged under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act for her alleged role in the drugs angle that has emerged during an investigation into the June 14 death of Sushant.

As per the remand copy of NCB, Rhea procured drugs for consumption. It was also stated that Rhea Chakraborty was also involved in financial dealings. The remand application also reads that Rhea's brother Showik was procuring drugs.

They have been booked by the NCB under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, including stringent sections pertaining to procurement of drugs, and financing of illicit trafficking of contrabands.

The court had posed a query to all parties on the application of the stringent section 27-A of the NDPS Act in the case.

The section deals with financing and harbouring drugs and its consumers, and entails a punishment of up to 10 years.

The NCB had questioned the actor based on WhatsApp chats retrieved from her phone, which revealed alleged conversations around procuring drugs.

Rhea Chakraborty's counsel Satish Maneshinde argued that the actress had only occasionally paid for Rajputs drugs and this did not amount to financing.

All the accused had also argued that the drugs seized by the NCB in the case was in small quantity, and did not qualify ascommercial quantity that could attract stringent sections under the NDPS Act.

Rajput, 34, was found dead at his Bandra apartment, Mumbai, on June 14.

(With agencies inputs)
Since the inception of the new Subchapter V program, only a small number of commercial filers have used the statute

Sub V and Chapter 11 Filing Data from AACER Epiq

Data range is February  September 2020

Data range is February  September 2020

NEW YORK, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Epiq, a global leader in legal services, released the first look at the results of the new Chapter 11, Subchapter V, U.S. Bankruptcy Court filings with a total of 923 new petitions year to date since the program commenced on February 19, 2020. Since then, while the market has been slow to embrace this new filing option, there has been a small but steady increase in month over month filings May to September.

The new statute was made possible by the bipartisan legislation known as the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (SBRA) and was designed to make it easier, faster, and less expensive for a small business debtor to file for bankruptcy in the U.S. However, the number of cases filed under Subchapter V represents only 20% of the 4,546 total new commercial Chapter 11 filings since the program commenced.

The top five industry sectors taking advantage of the benefits of Subchapter V represent approximately 40% of the total and include professional and technical services, health care, hospitality and food service, construction, and retail.

These are not the only small business sectors hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Chris Kruse, senior vice president of Epiq AACER. Even with aggressive support from the U.S. government in the form of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, it is still very tough out there for many in the small business community.

The new, Subchapter V, U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing option has not reached its full potential, as many small businesses have benefited from PPP funding to provide supplemental liquidity, said Deirdre OConnor, managing director of corporate restructuring at Epiq. If the financial effects of COVID outpace a companys liquidity runway, Subchapter V may serve as an efficient, viable alternative to keep employees, repay debt, and most importantly. retain ownership.

Story continues

About Epiq AACER

Epiq AACER provides a bankruptcy information services platform built with superior data, technology and expertise to create insights and mitigate risks for businesses impacted by bankruptcies. Learn more at http://www.aacer.com.

About Epiq

Epiq, a global leader in the legal services industry, takes on large-scale, increasingly complex tasks for corporate counsel, law firms, and business professionals with efficiency, clarity, and confidence. Clients rely on Epiq to streamline the administration of business operations, class action and mass tort, court reporting, eDiscovery, regulatory, compliance, restructuring, and bankruptcy matters. Epiq subject-matter experts and technologies create efficiency through expertise and deliver confidence to high-performing clients around the world. Learn more at https://www.epiqglobal.com.

Press Contact

Catherine Ostheimer

Epiq

+1 646 282 1800

costheimer@epiqglobal.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cb86ed19-1c6d-42af-90f0-aeff6faa3072




One of the most sought-after design awards in the industry, Innovation by Design is the only competition to honor creative work at the intersection of design, business and innovation. ZVerse's ZShields have disrupted traditional face shield design with their sleek, lightweight visors that clip around the wearer's neck, making it comfortable for all-day wear. The product is a testament to ZVerse's tech-enabled manufacturing process, which quickly takes a product from idea to production with less friction and less waste.

"We need innovative design more than ever, and the 2020 honorees have brought creativity, inventiveness, and humanity to address some of the world's most pressing problems, including the global pandemic, racial injustice, and economic inequality. Together these entries offer a glimpse into a future that is more inclusive, more accessible, and more just," said Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company.

The ZShield Flex is a winner in the Workplace category. The ZShield Flex also received an honorable mention in the Best Design of North America category alongside world-renowned companies such as Microsoft, Google and Logitech. Winners, finalists, and honorable mentions of Fast Company's Innovation by Design Awards are featured online and in the October/November issue of Fast Company magazine, on newsstands October 20. To see the complete list, go to: https://www.fastcompany.com/innovation-by-design/2020 .

In late March, 2020 ZVerse founder John Carrington recognized the immediate, growing need for personal protective equipment (PPE) and adapted the ZVerse business model to accelerate the mass production of face shields in response to a call for help from a healthcare community struggling to respond to COVID-19.

The company first focused on shielding frontline healthcare workers, and later expanded its offerings to serve other industries returning to work, such as food service, hospitality and education. The company partnered with one of the nation's top industrial designers, Scott Henderson, to design a new face shield for the "new normal."

"At the onset of the pandemic, we recognized our unique role in the world as great enablers of digital manufacturing, and we pivoted to become one of the largest producers of face shields to serve our country's urgent need for PPE," said John Carrington, founder and CEO of ZVerse. "After launching with ZShield Health, we brought on Scott Henderson to reimagine the traditional face shield design and create a product that would be comfortable for a variety of work environments, as well as everyday life. Going to market with such a novel design and seeing it in use by so many people and industries has been a humbling experience. We're honored to be recognized by Fast Company for our work; it's truly been a labor of love."

The team tested more than a dozen face shield designs before landing on the final product: the ZShield Flex, a modern, reusable face shield made in the U.S. In addition to its unique neck mount, the ZShield Flex has the ability to flip down for idle use, all without ever touching your face or masking your smile. The ultra-lightweight shield allows for all-day comfort and wear, ideal for long shifts and professions that require facial expressions, while shielding users from spray, splatter and the direct transfer of respiratory droplets.

"When ZVerse originally contacted me about collaborating, I immediately realized how historic this moment was and felt an urgent need to help with the project," said Scott Henderson, designer of the ZShield Flex. "Prior to COVID-19, face shields weren't considered an essential accessory outside of the healthcare and medical science industry. After a century of little innovation in regard to face shield design, I am so proud of our team for applying out-of-the-box critical thinking to create this new option for PPE."

ZVerse has produced more than four million face shields to date, making the company one of the largest face shield producers in the country. To meet the high demand, ZVerse has nearly tripled its workforce during the pandemic and supported the local South Carolina economy through job creation.

The ZShield product line has quickly grown to accommodate various industries ranging from hospitality to education to beauty to film. Most recently, the ZShield has caught the attention of major players in Hollywood, including the production teams and casts of Black-ish, The West Wing and The Last Duel , featuring Matt Damon and Jodie Comer. The contactless shield and neck mount allow actors and actresses to wear the shield during breaks without disturbing hair and makeup. Other recognized ZShield customers include: Chick-fil-A, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Great Clips, Kaiser Permanente, Walgreens and Disney.

To learn more about ZVerse, follow the company on Instagram , Facebook and Twitter or visit zverse.com . To try ZShield, visit tryzshield.com.

About ZVerse:

Founded by John Carrington in 2013, ZVerse is a digital manufacturing ecosystem, bridging the design gap for manufacturers at scale through its AI-enabled CAD as a Service (CADaaS) platform and certified designer network. Its modular solution of services, fully configurable to specific customer needs, disrupts the traditional manufacturing landscape with vast efficiency by providing the fastest path from idea to finished product.

In March 2020, ZVerse recognized its unique ability to mass produce face shields and contribute to the urgent need for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in response to the pandemic. The company has since launched a hugely successful line of face shield products, providing millions of ZShields to frontline workers, educators, restaurant owners and the community at large. ZVerse is based in Columbia, South Carolina with a network of world-class industrial engineers, suppliers and manufacturers across the U.S.

About Fast Company:

Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. The editor-in-chief is Stephanie Mehta. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication, Inc., and can be found online at fastcompany.com.

For more information, contact:

Britni Johnson

The Wilbert Group

912-580-7241 (M)

[email protected]

SOURCE ZVerse

Related Links

https://www.zverse.com


FORT LAUDERDALE, FL / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / WheelHouse IT continues to gain widespread recognition for its competence in Managed Services, winning several awards in its field for 2020. The company's variety of high-quality services serves multiple verticals in several locations allowing them to simultaneously offer Managed IT Services in Long Island, New York City, Los Angeles, South Florida, Iowa, and Arkansas. While more businesses are making use of their services, WheelHouse IT continues to build a reputation for their incredible line of amenities.

WheelHouse IT Has Gained Important Recognition and Awards

WheelHouse IT provides unique, quality Managed Services in South Florida and New York City, and the company's rapid growth has allowed them to obtain several awards that demonstrate a mastery of numerous services and competencies within a short time frame.

As a provider of Managed Services for New York City businesses, the company has ranked #94 on the ChannelFutures MSP 501, a leader in cataloging the most effective IT services in the entire world. This is an impressive feat for a relatively young company. The company's tenacity was also recognized by a place on the prestigious 2017 Inc. 500 List of America's Fastest-Growing Companies and continues to make the Inc. list year after year.

The rapid influx of customers and brand recognition is not the only thing that sets the company apart. The Managed Service Provider (MSP) in Fort Lauderdale has a broad vision that has helped them operate in numerous fields. Now, they have attained HIPAA Verified status with a Compliancy Group HIPAA Seal of Compliance, and as a Microsoft Partner were named a Microsoft Southeast Partner of the Year.

It is clear this company is broadening its horizons and working to meet the needs of a diverse customer base. The capability to provide expert services on indispensable brands sets WheelHouse IT apart from many other MSPs and has been crucial to their success.

How WheelHouse IT Developed as a Managed Service Provider

The history of WheelHouse IT begins as two companies merged, one provided Managed Services on Long Island and in New York City, and the other based in South Florida. Once AE Technology Group and 4 Corner IT had joined forces, the company quickly moved to advance the brand. Aligning with high-end brands such as Microsoft, Dell, Cisco, and Amazon, and creating an expansive service area, the company provides quality services and support for their clients that minimize threats to their business and allow them to confidently operate in an ever-changing world.

The companies that utilize WheelHouse IT receive enterprise-class IT support and custom services to suit each business' unique needs. Everything from risk assessment and Microsoft 365 implementation to disaster preparedness and recovery are valued services that the company provides.

While WheelHouse IT continues to gain steam, one thing is certain- this company is not finished winning awards and gaining recognition for their contributions to the field. The company's rise from two separate entities into a veritable IT powerhouse is the stuff about which case studies are made.

CONTACT:

Rory Cooksey

news@wheelhouseit.com

877.771.2384 x 2

SOURCE: WheelHouse IT

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609618/WheelHouse-IT-Managed-Service-Specialists-Recognized-for-2020-Achievements
A feared Dublin criminal who was convicted of dismembering a mans body and dumping it in a Dutch lake has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for drugs possession.

Philip County (33) of Pairc na hAbhainn, Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, was handed down the sentence by Judge Keenan Johnston after pleading guilty to possession of cocaine and MDMA with a total street value of 7,298.

It followed an armed raid at his home in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, in October 2017.

The Dubliner had previously been released on bail in May, where he was informed by Judge Johnston that he was facing a three year prison sentence with final two years suspended.

Countys bail was revoked just weeks later when it emerged he had a conviction at the Amsterdam Court of Appeal from May 2017.

The terms of that sentence involved him being a co-perpetrator in the concealment, removal and disposal of a corpse in Amsterdam and had been sentenced to 21 months in prison.

In May 2017, County and two other men were sentenced to two years in prison for hiding the dead mans body in 2009, but County had already served that time while on remand in a Dutch prison.

In light of the Amsterdam conviction, Judge Johnston remanded County in prison in June until his reappearance in court yesterday for sentencing.

The court was told that when gardai called to Countys home in Edgeworthstown at the time they found 71 grammes of cocaine, 33 grammes of MDMA and 30 MDMA tablets with an overall street value of 7,298.

Drug paraphernalia and evidence of drug dealing was also found on the premises.

The court heard a probation report carried out on County while in custody was not positive in its findings.

It found the accused to be at high risk of reoffending and detailed his criminal associations, attitude towards offending, substance misuse as well as emotional and personal issues.

Judge Johnston also referenced Countys previous conviction in Holland and noted how he told probation officers of the incident.

The accused was involved in a very serious crime in Holland in respect the body of a deceased person was dismembered by him with the help of some other associates, he said.

In the probation report, the accused indicated that the individual involved had been murdered while he was away from his apartment and when he came back he assisted the other parties in disposing of the body.

The court heard that County still had eight months left of a 21 month sentence to serve in the Netherlands for that incident - with Dutch law enforcement officials likely to seek his extradition to serve out the remainder of that sentence upon his release from Irish prison.

Judge Johnston referenced County's "prior convictions", of which he has over 50, including a number for drugs and firearms.

The court further heard how gardai have since warned County his life is under threat from unnamed criminals.

In mitigation, Judge Hughes said Mr Countys early guilty plea had saved the State the time, cost and expense of a criminal trial.

He consequently sentenced Mr County to five years in prison with the final two-and-a-half years suspended on condition he enter a 500 bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for ten years.

On release from prison, Mr County was also ordered to submit himself to probation services for a period of 18 months and to remain drug free for the duration of the suspended sentence.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 21:33:18|Editor: huaxia

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DHAKA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Bangladeshi government has decided to cancel one of the country's major public examinations this year amid COVID-19 fears.

Bangladeshi Education Minister Dipu Moni made the announcement at a press conference in Dhaka Wednesday.

She said that some 1.4 million candidates of this year's Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and its equivalent examinations will be evaluated based on their results in two of their previous public examinations -- Junior School Certificate (JSC) and Secondary School Certificate (SSC).

This year's HSC and equivalent exams slated for April 1 were postponed amid COVID-19 fears.

Since March 8, the virus has spread to nearly every Bangladeshi district and the total number rose to over 373,000 with 5,440 deaths so far.

Bangladesh last week again extended the time of educational institutions closure amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bangladesh's Ministry of Education said in a statement that the government extended the closure of all educational institutions till Oct. 31. Enditem
India came out top with over 41 per cent of workers citing the lack of separation between work and personal life as negatively impacting their well-being, resulting in increased stress levels.

Employees in India are facing increased burnout due to lack of separation between work and personal life as well as concerns of contracting COVID-19, a report said on Wednesday.

According to Microsoft's latest Work Trend Index, that surveyed over 6,000 information and first-line workers across eight countries globally, India had the second highest percentage of workers facing increased burnout in Asia at 29 per cent.

Moreover, India came out top with over 41 per cent of workers citing the lack of separation between work and personal life as negatively impacting their well-being, resulting in increased stress levels, the report said.

"In the last six months, we have seen how COVID-19 has created an era of remote anywhere.

It has led to the evolution of a new workplace  from a physical space to one residing in a virtual world," said Samik Roy, country head, Modern Work, Microsoft India.

Roy further noted that "as businesses adapt to a new way of working, it is important to examine the multifaceted impact that the new working conditions are having on employees. This is helping us provide relevant and timely solutions to all our customers and users".

The pandemic increased burnout at work, in some countries more than others.

In India, 29 per cent of workers are experiencing increased burnout at work, owing to its increase in workday span by 1 hour.

While, workers in Germany saw very little change to workday span or feelings of burnout, the report said.

Data showed that, globally, even six months past the first work-from-home orders, people are in significantly more meetings, taking more ad hoc calls and managing more incoming chats than they did before the pandemic.

"As people adjusted to remote working, after hours chats, or chats between 5 pm and midnight, have also increased," the report said.

Further, for remote workers in Asia, no commute is hurting and not helping productivity, the report said adding that for years, Microsoft's research group has been studying how commute has helped maintain work-life boundaries - and worker's productivity and wellbeing.

Microsoft said a series of updates have been launched within Microsoft Teams to support employee wellbeing.

These include a virtual commute experience that helps users prepare for the day and mindfully disconnect in the evening.

Microsoft has also partnered with Headspace to bring a curated set of mindfulness and meditation experiences into the Teams platform and launched new Teams experiences for first-line workers to support them with the tools they need to work more safely.

This Work Trend Index report looks at how the pandemic has impacted wellbeing at work globally.

It studied how productivity patterns in Microsoft Teams have shifted since early this year and surveyed over 6,000 information and first-line workers in eight countries including Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan, India, Singapore, the UK, and the US.
Washington :

The US will never win its fight against terrorism until Pakistan ends supporting the extremist groups operating in Afghanistan, according to top American Senators.

'Pakistani support for extremist groups operating in Afghanistan, whether it is passive or deliberate, must end if we and Afghanistan are to achieve necessary levels of security,' Senator Jack Reed, Ranking Member of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee said during a Congressional hearing here on Afghanistan.

He was joined by several other lawmakers in expressing their views on Pakistan not taking action against the Taliban and the Haqqani network.

Its very difficult to succeed on the battlefield when your enemy enjoys external support and safe haven. I think we need to continue to work closely with Pakistan, acknowledged General John Nicholson, Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

He was responding to a question from lawmakers on the safe havens inside Pakistan.

Whats your view of what we need to do concerning the safe haven issue in Pakistan? Senator John McCain, Chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee asked. We still have enemy sanctuary in areas like Quetta, like you mention, with the Taliban leadership, and other cities within the tribal areas for the Haqqani leadership, Nicholson said as he called for adopting a holistic approach in dealing with Pakistan.

Senator Reed alleged that Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), at times seemed to be aiding and assisting Haqqani Network and others. Maine Senator Angus King said the US will never win this fight as long as Pakistan is acting as a sanctuary.

What can we do to get Pakistan off the dime on these issues? They were good in Waziristan. But, theres plenty of areas theyve left untouched. What do we have to do? Cut off funding, have a summit or something? he said. Because were doing all of this work in Afghanistan which will never achieve final success as long as Pakistan sitting there enabling a lot of this activity, King said.

We need to do a holistic review of our Pakistan policy. And sit down Pakistan leaders. Of course, we have an opportunity for such a review; given the new administration and the new chain of command. We have many areas where we could be working together and our mutual benefit. I think this is a key to the future, Nicholson said.

Im personally committed to this and working with my Pakistani counterparts. President Ashraf Ghani wants to work with Pakistan towards a peaceful resolution. And, in my initial conversations with my chain of command, this is a high priority for all of us, he said.

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Linkedin Tri Indah Oktavianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, October 8 2020

Citing Indonesia as an example of a country that has seen success in handling the refugee crisis in Southeast Asia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and a non-state actor have called on the international community to take on a greater responsibility in dealing with refugee issues.

In 2019, the UNHCR reported that the number of global refugees and asylum seekers had reached more than 30.3 million people. Today, 84 percent of the world's refugees reside in low- and middle-income countries.

As a transit country for migration, Indonesia has hosted a total of 13,657 registered refugees from 45 countries up until 2019, according to the UNHCR.

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UBON, Indias leading Gadget Accessory & Consumer Electronics brand has roped in superstar Rana Daggubati as its brand ambassador to tap the Southern market. What makes Rana the best choice for this position is that he enjoys a massive appeal across the southern part of the Country. That brings immense value to us as one of the unique selling propositions of our brand lies in making cutting edge technology, fun, stylish, quality-driven products within everyone's reach and across all price segments.

Keeping up with the Ubon's tagline born to be free, Rana was a unanimous choice for brand ambassador. No-one can represent the true spirit and energy of UBON better than Rana in the South-Indian part of the country. Apart from being a powerhouse of acting, Rana is big-time tech-savvy and his philosophy inclines very well with the UBONs vision.

Commenting on the occasion, UBONs Managing Director Mandeep Arora said, Having Rana Daggubati on board with a mammoth fan following will help us reach and tap into that target audience of ours. He is young, dynamic and a very popular face in every household of South India. With our aim to tap the southern market none better than the versatile Rana Daggubati to stand for this thought.

Elated Brand Ambassador Rana Daggubati said, Tech and Trend go hand-in-hand when it comes to buying stylish consumer electronics and gadgets accessories jam-packed with modern technology, UBON is the first brand which strikes our mind. Being a tech-savvy myself, I am delighted with this new association. UBON is a brand that provides great audio quality in conjunction with trendy designs, also resonating with my personality, he further added.
President of the European Council Charles Michel claims that Kyiv and Brussels have agreed to assess the progress of the implementation of the Association Agreement in 2021.

"Today we discussed the next steps in the implementation of the Association Agreement, including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area. We discussed how to deepen our cooperation, and we will analyze our progress in 2021," Michel said at the final press conference, which took place after summit Ukraine-EU in Brussels.

According to the President of the European Council, the Association Agreement provides a framework for the continuation of political association, economic integration, which will lead to the gradual integration of Ukraine with the EU internal market.

"This agreement is the most ambitious agreement that the EU has with another country. Ukraine has reached a significant process in the implementation of the Agreement, and we welcome the impressive efforts led by Zelensky," Michel said.
Rumors have started spreading that the Android 10-based MIUI 12 update for the Redmi Note 8 and Redmi Note 8T could be just days away. However, Xiaomi seems to be teasing Redmi Note 8 owners at the moment by releasing an Android 9-based MIUI 11 global update for the popular smartphone.

Working For Notebookcheck Are you a techie who knows how to write? Then join our Team! English native speakers welcome! News Writer (AUS/NZL based) - Details here

The MIUI 12 saga has been going on some months now, and while certain Xiaomi and Redmi devices have managed to be updated smoothly and quickly, the same cannot be said for the Redmi Note 8. We recently reported that the MIUI 12 update for this smartphone had started rolling out in China, leaving Redmi Note 8 owners in other parts of the world excited about the prospect of getting a MIUI 12/Android 10 double whammy anytime soon.

However, Xiaomi has just released a software update for the Redmi Note 8, and it is based on Android 9 for MIUI 11. According to the official Mi community forum, the software contains some bug fixes and a security patch, but this has led some to speculate that Xiaomi is laying the groundwork for an impending MIUI 12 rollout. The new MIUI 11 update for the Redmi Note 8 is version V11.0.11.0.PCOMIXM.

There has been a report that MIUI 12 for Redmi Note 8 devices outside of China will start being rolled out before October 10; however, the source for this seems somewhat spurious in a friend of a friend told me kind of way, so take it with a pinch of salt. A Mi community feedback team member has simply offered no ETA for update, so once again Redmi Note 8 and Redmi Note 8T owners will have to wait and see if this new MIUI 11 update is a signpost for MIUI 12 or just a simple patch.
Fernando represents the future of conservation: Compassion, innovation, commitment, hard work, and the belief that his responsibility as an individual and his organizations obligation is to do all that they can to improve the lives of those in his community.

The Land Trust Alliance, a national land conservation organization working to save the places people need and love by strengthening land conservation across America, has awarded Fernando Lloveras San Miguel the distinguished Kingsbury Browne Conservation Leadership Award.

The award, presented virtually during Rally 2020: The National Land Conservation Conference, honors people who have enriched the conservation community with their outstanding leadership, innovation and creativity in land conservation. Named after the conservationist who inspired the Alliances founding in 1982, the award ranks among the organizations highest honors.

Lloveras has served as executive director at the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico since 2003 and president of Para la Naturaleza since 2012. In these roles, Lloveras has grown the relevance and success of land conservation across Puerto Rico, taking a community-first approach to his work and helping provide essential services during hurricane recoveries.

Ive seen firsthand how Fernando and his team have built deep connections with the people they serve, Andrew Bowman, the Land Trust Alliances president and CEO. Fernando represents the future of conservation: Compassion, innovation, commitment, hard work, and the belief that his responsibility as an individual and his organizations obligation is to do all that they can to improve the lives of those in his community. It is an honor to recognize Fernando Lloveras San Miguel as the 2020 recipient of the Kingsbury Browne Conservation Leadership Award.

Lloveras will serve as the Kingsbury Browne Fellow for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy for 2020-2021. Kingsbury Browne fellows engage in research, writing and mentoring, and facilitate a project that builds upon and shares their experience with the broader community.

Fernando is an important voice in our island  a very strong and gentle voice that inspires thousands of people to join the quest of protecting our planet, said Ana Maria Garcia Blanco, executive director of Instituto Nueva Escuela.

The Alliance has awarded the Kingsbury Browne Conservation Leadership Award annually since 2006. It is presented during Rally, the nations largest annual gathering of land conservation professionals. More information about Rally, which continues through Oct. 8, is available at alliancerally.org.

About the Land Trust Alliance

Founded in 1982, the Land Trust Alliance is a national land conservation organization that works to save the places people need and love by strengthening land conservation across America. The Alliance represents 1,000 member land trusts supported by more than 200,000 volunteers and 4.6 million members nationwide. The Alliance is based in Washington, D.C., and operates several regional offices. More information about the Alliance is available at http://www.landtrustalliance.org.

About the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy seeks to improve quality of life through the effective use, taxation, and stewardship of land. A nonprofit private operating foundation whose origins date to 1946, the Lincoln Institute researches and recommends creative approaches to land as a solution to economic, social, and environmental challenges. Through education, training, publications, and events, we integrate theory and practice to inform public policy decisions worldwide.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Thousands of people, including Armenians and foreigners, have gathered outside the European Parliament in Brussels on October 7, calling the EU to voice about the military actions unleashed by Azerbaijan and Turkey against Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) and to take immediate actions to prevent the bloodshed.

The protesters shout Erdogan is a terrorist, Azerbaijan is an aggressor. They are holding posters Recognize Artsakh, Stop Erdogan, Stop Aliyev, Artsakh is Armenia.

The protest took place while the European Parliament was discussing the aggression of Azerbaijan and Turkey against Artsakh.

On behalf of the whole Armenian people we are accusing the European structures of staying silent to the Azerbaijani aggression. Turkey is involved in this conflict for achieving its geographical goals, and Europe remains blind and dumb. Armenians warn that the real goal of this war is genocide, but Europe remains deaf, the protest participants said, reminding that Azerbaijan continues bombarding Artsakhs peaceful civilians.

Like this war, the July events as well took place during the pandemic, and we are accusing them. We are expecting very concrete actions from the European Parliament as it still is not acting in a way it can, they said.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
New Delhi:

Google has been monitoring many apps in the Play Store which handle personal or sensitive data but lack a privacy policy. The tech giant has sent notices to developers of these apps.

Google has asked developers to fix the issue with their apps by March 15 or has warned that administrative action will be taken. The company will remove those apps from Google Play if they violate Users data policy.

Google describes the Privacy Policy and Secure Transmission in User Data policy, If your app handles personal or sensitive user data (including personally identifiable information, financial and payment information, authentication information, phonebook or contact data, microphone and camera sensor data, and sensitive device data) then your app must:

1) Post a privacy policy in both the designated field in the Play Developer Console and from within the Play distributed app itself.

2) Handle the user data securely, including transmitting it using modern cryptography (for example, over HTTPS).

Android users confidence will get boosted by this move of Google to remove apps that do not follow the guidelines set by the company, as users struggle to find the right app due to the presence of fake ones.

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The feature is being integrated in its Discover Feed and will be launched in the US, Brazil and India

Google has come up with a dedicated web story carousel.

The feature is being integrated in its Discover Feed and will be launched in the US, Brazil and India.

Using this, users will be able to create their own stories with free tools from Google.

These posts can be monetised as well.

News creators can visit stories.google for creating Web Stories.

Google recently announced that it will be paying $1 billion for news content as part of a partnership programme agreement signed with around 200 publishers in five countries over the next three years.

Google has launched News Showcase in Brazil and Germany, comprising story panels where publishers can present news with features like timelines. It will first appear on Android Google News after which it will be rolled out on Apple iOS.

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The more mainstream media attacked him, more they looked like stooges of that Establishment, more discredited they stood, and stronger he grew

The 19-year-old from a tiny town of just 20,000-odd people had arrived in a bustling city for the first time. He took up work in his uncles canteen at Ahmedabads state bus depot, but his mission was altogether different.

At just 24, he was made an Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak (or spreader of the Sanghs worldview) for Ahmedabad.

Narendra Modi had set the course of his own destiny when he was just eight years old by joining the RSS as a child cadet in his hometown Vadnagar, while also helping at his fathers tea stall.

The PM completes 20 uninterrupted years in public office today. No other modern Indian, and few others across the world, has spent 20 more spectacular years in office at a stretch. Many thought Modis political career will never recover from the smear of the Gujarat riots just four months into his term as CM.

But he turned his worst into his biggest strength. He emerged as an incorruptible, uncompromising Hindu nationalist focused on reforms and development in sharp contrast to the entrenched, corrupt, elitist and dynastic Congress.

The more mainstream media attacked Modi, more they looked like stooges of that Establishment, more discredited they stood, and stronger he grew.

Besides extensive social, infrastructural and industrial growth he is credited with bringing to Gujarat as chief minister, Modi as PM unlocked a long-pending reforms agenda with Jan Dhan and other steps towards financial inclusion, Goods and Services Tax, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, digital payments and freeing farmers from middlemen. He has taken aggressive diplomacy to a whole new theatre.

There have been sweeping civilisational changes as well, from scrapping of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir to banning instant triple talaq, providing the executive push for Ram Mandir and bringing the Citizenship Amendment Bill.

But to understand Modis 20 years in office, one needs to closely look at what shaped Modis 50 years outside of it. At least three things stand out.

First, answer your inner calling

From when he was eight, living it small in an insignificant milieu, he clearly wanted to be part of a large scheme of things the universe had in store. He acted on it by joining the RSS, cleaning its rooms, serving activists, attending shakha, and eventually being spotted by one of Sanghs doyens, Lakshmanrao Inamdar or Vakil Saheb.

He never let anything in life distract or deter him. He chose public service above marriage, job or a fulfilling family life, trappings that ordinary beings fail to break out of to chase ones inner calling.

In 20 years in public office, Modi has not wavered in his ideology or ducked out of the most unpopular decisions like demonitisation.

Second, travel and see

The PMs opponents often mock his frenetic overseas calendar. But there is unlikely to be another politician who has travelled so much inside India.

He left home for the Himalayas when he was 17. He never stopped since. He travelled across India as an RSS pracharak and then in various organisational roles for the BJP since he was assigned to the party by Sangh in 1985.

He has seen India from the grassroots. Those who have closely followed his rise say that he has been to two-thirds of Indias 718 districts, lived in the humblest of conditions, shared meals with those who remain faceless for the rest of us.

Modi knows this nations pulse, its dreams and fears, its needs and aspirations because he travelled with his eyes and ears wide open.

Derive strength from enemies

Being thrown into the mid-ocean of politics at such an early age, he has developed uncanny instincts to pick up scent of predators, overpower adversaries and navigate storms. It is often told in Delhis power circles that Modi adds the strength of his adversaries to himself.

He patiently took the flogging and hounding from the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA for 12 years after the Gujurat riots. When time came, he cut the Congress to paralysing diminution. Under his PM-ship, an entire cropfield of anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva media outlets have sprung up.

He has watered them with his patience and a certain indifference, fully knowing that the more they demonise him, the bigger he becomes.

This sense of timing, stealth of striking, and a hyperformed, grounded worldview did not come to Modi in 20 years of office. These were painstakingly forged in the 50 years before he walked into the hallowed chambers of power.

The views expressed are personal
He's rumored to have recently rekindled a romance with an old flame, Bella Banos, following his high profile split from Sofia Richie.

But Scott Disick seemed to still be playing the field on Tuesday night, when the 37-year-old was spotted leaving a West Hollywood hotspot with two mystery blondes.

The former partner of Kourtney Kardashian went casual for the dinner at Catch in cargo pants and an oversize sweater.

Player: Scott Disick seemed to still be playing the field on Tuesday night, when the 37-year-old was spotted leaving a West Hollywood hotspot with two mystery blondes

The Talentless founder added a particularly carefree touch by sporting a backwards trucker cap as he left the venue.

The ladies -both of whom wore skintight jeans and leather jackets- followed Scott into the back of his waiting van.

A male friend completed the evening's quartet.

Mystery blondes: The ladies -both of whom wore skintight jeans and leather jackets- followed Scott into the back of his waiting van

Pals: A male friend completed the evening's quartet

Meanwhile Scott's ex Sofia shared a very smoldering portrait to her Instagram page on Tuesday.

The daughter of Stuck On You crooner Lionel Richie looked pouty as she modeled an unbuttoned shirt that was tied in front while in an outdoor setting.

The 22-year-old model seems to be showing her 37-year-old ex-boyfriend Scott Disick what he is missing after the two split earlier this year. He has since started dating model Bella Banos.

Pinup: Sofia Richie shared a very smoldering portrait to her Instagram page on Tuesday. The daughter of Stuck On You crooner Lionel Richie looked pouty as she modeled an unbuttoned shirt that was tied in front while in an outdoor setting

The ex factor: The 22-year-old model seems to be showing her ex-boyfriend Disick what he is missing after the two split earlier this year; seen on KUWTK on Sunday

The pretty photo which was captioned 'daily greens' as the silhouette of tree branches could be seen in shadow over her face.

Not only was the Cosmopolitan cover girl's top mint green but so was her skirt which clung to her hips.

This posting comes after she unfollowed the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star on Instagram after she first unfollowed his 41-year-old ex Kourtney Kardashian in February.

Scott seems happy with the 24-year-old leggy beauty Banos.

Bye! This posting comes after she unfollowed the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star on Instagram; shown in April 2019

A search of the accounts that Sofia follows confirms that Scott is no longer among them.

Sofia seems ready to move on and not be ambushed by photos of her ex. However, it seems Scott has already made the move to unfollow Sofia.

The exes first began their relationship in May 2017, and they managed to reach a detente with Kourtney and traveled together on family vacations with her and her three children with Scott: Mason, 10, Penelope, eight, and Reign, five.

But the relationship hit a speed bump in May when Scott briefly checked himself into a rehab facility, allegedly to work on issues related to the deaths of his parents.

Nothing to see here: A search of the accounts that Sofia follows confirmed that Scott was no longer among them

The reality star and Sofia split shortly after he checked himself out after less than a week, but the couple seemed to be on the men as they reunited in July and spent Independence Day together.

The relationship wasn't long for the world, though, and they separated later that month.

Since then, Sofia has been spotted being affectionate with a mystery man and hanging out with her old friend Jaden Smith, whom she has previously dated.

New woman: Recently, Scott has been spending time with another model, Bella Banos, 24, whom he briefly dated and traveled to Costa Rica with in 2017

The model has mainly been spending quality family time with her father Lionel Richie and her sister Nicole Richie amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile, Scott and Bella have a history going back to 2017, when they briefly dated and took a trip to Costa Rica, shortly before he began his relationship with Sofia.

Shortly afterward, Bella spoke to InTouch about her relationship the Talentless founder, saying: 'Scott calls me his girl and we have said "I love you."

'At first, Scott was just my friend. But he got to know me on a different level. We're super connected,' she added.

Sofia is done with both of these stars: Richie also unfollowed Scott's ex Kourtney Kardashian in February; seen here in 2015

'Scott will call and say, "I miss you. I want to see you." He always flies me to wherever he is. We spend so much time together.'

Like some of his trips with Sofia, the Flip It Like Disick star was vacationing with Kourtney and the kids, though Bella said the Poosh founder wasn't upset by her presence.

On a recent episode of KUWTK, Scott confessed that he was feeling exhausted after some family sports, prompting Kim Kardashian to urge him to get checked out by a doctor.

The former model, who was still dating Sofia when the episode was filmed, later learned his tiredness was due to low testosterone levels.
Jaipur, Oct 7 : The Rajasthan government on Wednesday issued an order to increase daily training allowance of 30,000 volunteers of Home Guards from Rs 100 to Rs 200. The decision has been taken to motivate and further boost the morale of the force.

"On March 6, 2020, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had announced in the Assembly to increase the training allowance of volunteers performing duties as Home Guards. The prompt decision will not only motivate the personnel, but would further elevate the interest of people to join the service," said Rajeev Dasot, Director General, Home Guards.

The Rajasthan government has not only increased the allowance, but has provided the volunteers with varied security schemes in the past like RFID Card that allows them travel by Rajasthan Roadways buses on 25 per cent concessional rates. Some months back, the government also gave a nod to the scholarship of 2 children of personnel, increasing it from one child. Now, when girls are already getting free education in state-run schools, they would also receive scholarships worth Rs 3,000 form Class 6, Rs 12,000 from 9th and Rs 30,000 if the child of Home Guard personnel gets admission in any premier Indian institute like IITs among others.

"We are running a huge force in Rajasthan and it becomes our responsibility to look after them and their family's welfare. The volunteers of Home Guards perform duties and face a lot of hardships during their tenure, finance being the primary one. 16,000 individuals of our department have served during COVID-19 times and at least 100 of them have been affected by the virus. We have provided relief to them as well," added Rajeev Dasot.

Notably, the volunteers who are affected with the virus are given Rs 5,000 apart from daily payment of their 14-day quarantine period, which is considered as on duty. Also, the treatment cost of the affected personnel is being borne by the Rajasthan government.

Latest updates on Diwali Festival 2020
The onset of Covid-19 gave rise to a dramatic, worldwide decline in IPOs, with April and May registering a 48% decrease in volume and a 67% drop in proceeds compared to the same period last year.

IPO activity in June remained muted in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. However, listings increased in Asia Pacific compared with the same year-to-date figures in 2019: volume was up 2% and proceeds were up 56%.

This boost  driven by new listings in Hong Kong and mainland China, as well as stirrings of renewed activity in India  was small, yet significant enough to reassure investors of the resilience of the business environment.

The South-east Asian IPO market stands out: there were $4.6bn worth of IPOs through August, up from $3.1bn in the same months of 2019, according to data from Refinitiv.

It is worth noting that the companies sparking the most interest are those that have expanded their operations in response to the pandemic, or are proving financially resilient despite it. In South-east Asia  as in the rest of the world  the technology, industrial and health care sectors are dominating the IPO scene.

ICT advances and improved connectivity, spurred by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, have helped financial markets sustain domestic and international operations despite quarantine restrictions, Emeterio Gonzales III, president of Philippine Equity Partners, told OBG.

Promising pipeline

A number of IPOs are set to take place in South-east Asia in the month of October. In late September the Philippines' Securities and Exchange Commission approved the P41.55bn ($872.6m) IPO of Converge Information and Communications Technology Solutions.

The firm has benefitted from the dramatic increase in remote working brought about by the pandemic, and anticipates continued strong demand for its services. The company says that 90% of the IPOs net proceeds will go towards accelerating the nationwide rollout of its fibre-optic network.

In Thailand, the IPO of SCG Packaging  the countrys biggest packaging company and a subsidiary of Siam Cement Group, a large industrial conglomerate  was initially approved in May but was paused during the height of the pandemic. It is now set to go ahead in October, and the company anticipates it could raise up to BT39.5bn ($1.3bn). That would make it Thailands second-largest IPO this year, after the $3bn raised by Central Retail in February.

The packaging business has become a crown jewel given the explosive growth of e-commerce and food delivery amid the pandemic, Tawatchai Asawapornchai, deputy managing director of ASL Securities, told local media in September.

That same month the IPO of PTT Oil and Retail Business, the retail arm of Thailands state-owned oil and gas giant, was given the green light after the company first petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission in April. The companys president told media that cash from the IPO will be used to hire new graduates as part of efforts to get the wider economy back on track.

Meanwhile, in Malaysia, home improvement retailer Mr DIY Group is set to launch its IPO in October after it was postponed twice, once at the end of 2019 and again as a result of Covid-19 this year. The renewed listing is slated to raise $500m.

Various smaller IPOs met with success in Malaysia in recent months, including those of construction firm TCS Group Holdings, jewellery brand Aurora Italia International, and energy companies Ocean Vantage Holdings and Reservoir Link Energy.

Looking forwards, there has been an increase in speculation that Indonesias Gojek might move ahead with its long-anticipated IPO in the remaining months of the year. The company dominates food and package delivery in the country  a segment that has seen considerable growth during the pandemic.

Supporting recovery

As the attention of South-east Asian governments turns from mitigating the worst effects of Covid-19 to combatting unemployment and stimulating growth  key to which will be the injection of liquidity into financial systems  conditions are increasingly favourable for IPOs. Businesses and governments alike have learned valuable lessons during this time.

The strong government drive towards digital solutions and infrastructure, together with the commitment to increase enforcement of related policies and regulation, are two of the most promising drivers of Indonesias economic recovery from Covid-19, Lamon Rutten, CEO of the Indonesia Commodity and Derivatives Exchange, told OBG.

October is set to be an important test case in the pandemic timeline, and investors from both the region and around the world will be paying close attention.

By Oxford Business Group

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On this years crowded ballot for the Texas House, one of the most compelling races is a rematch, pitting Republican state Rep. Steve Allison against Democratic challenger Celina Montoya in District 121.

These two exceptional candidates ran against one another in 2018, seeking to fill the seat long held by former Republican House Speaker Joe Straus. The margin was fairly narrow, about 8.5 points, and this rematch has long been viewed as a possible tipping point as Democrats seek to flip the Texas House from red to blue.

In 2018 we recommended Allison, and we do so again. Thats not a slight to Montoya, a former reporter who handles community and government relations for her familys business, Alamo Fireworks. If elected, Montoya will make her mark. We only have praise for her. She is a dynamic and impressive candidate.

But in Allison we see a much-needed pragmatic and moderate leader akin to Straus. Its a leadership style that would serve Texas well. Its also a leadership style that has come under fire  from the far right. Just look at the scandal that sank House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, who dangled press credential to Empower Texans in exchange for targeting moderates, including Allison. That was a disgrace.

Allison is a business lawyer and former school board president with the Alamo Heights Independent School District. He also served as a trustee for VIA Metropolitan Transit. The House would benefit from his school finance expertise and ability to navigate a challenging budget year. He is open to expanding Medicaid and increasing access to health insurance. Hes our pick for District 121.

For state representative in District 119  an open seat with state Rep. Roland Gutierrez running for the state Senate  we recommend Democrat Elizabeth Liz Campos. She faces Republican George Garza, a Marine veteran who advocates for 50/50 parenting bills and legalizing marijuana. We enjoyed our conversation with Garza, but Campos has a much deeper understanding of policy. Campos is a lifelong resident of the district who worked as chief of staff for former state Sen. Carlos Uresti, leaving in 2010. She is a paralegal and owner of a plumbing company.

Campos would be a voice for Medicaid expansion, addressing the root causes of homelessness, decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana and increasing education funding.

In District 122, which stretches across much of northern Bexar County, we recommend Republican state Rep. Lyle Larson. Just as in 2018, Larson faces Democrat Claire Barnett, who specializes in online adult education curriculum development. Barnett is a quality opponent with a strong understanding of policy and good ideas for governance, but this is a Sisyphean task.

Larson is a popular and respected local official, having served on San Antonio City Council and Bexar County Commissioners Court, where he never accepted a pay raise. Larson is chair of the House Natural Resources Committee and an expert on water policy. We recommend Larson for another term.

In District 120, we recommend state Democratic Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins. In yet another rematch, she faces Republican Ron Payne, who served almost 30 years in the U.S. military and has a strong libertarian perspective.

Weve had our differences with Gervin-Hawkins, but we believe she will be an important voice on police reform next session and we continue to hope she can find a way to effectively mandate trash service in unincorporated Bexar County.

Of the remaining state representative races featuring major party opponents, we recommend the incumbents: Democrat Trey Martinez Fischer in District 116; Democrat Philip Cortez in District 117; and Democrat Leo Pacheco in District 118. All three are effective and proven lawmakers facing marginal opponents.
After months of offering drive-thru service for prescriptions, Sean Simpson saw a benefit to customers getting influenza vaccinations in the same way.

The Niagara-on-the-Lake businessman is one only a handful of pharmacists across the country who will be offering people flu shots from the comfort and safety of their vehicles in the days to come, once the vaccination becomes available in the region.

Theres a wide range of perceptions out there about whether people want to be venturing out into the public, but a lot of people who are on the extra careful side are also wanting to protect themselves anyway they can, and getting the flu shot is one of those ways, he said.

Simpson said the drive-thru will be set up in the gravel parking lot behind his pharmacy at 1882 Niagara Stone Rd. in Virgil.

Well have some cones and tape out there and four dedicated (parking) spaces that people can pull into. Well station them there and, hopefully, theyll come with short sleeves on and we can make sure all the waivers and consents are taken care of and do our COVID screening, he said. And then we provide the vaccine and have them wait 10 to 15 minutes to make sure theres no ill effects and then we can send them on their way.

He said the pharmacy will be asking people to make an appointment before arriving.

Pharmasave told him Simpsons Pharmacy is its only affiliate in Niagara to offer drive-thru flu shots and one of only a handful of drug stores countrywide running similar initiatives.

CTV reported on Sunday a pharmacy in Moncton, N.B., provided 500 vaccinations per day in its first two days of operating a drive-thru service.

Simpson said there are still a few wrinkles to iron out before he can offer the service here.

The vaccine has been late to arrive and now were getting word that rather than getting a large shipment, were going to be getting a series of smaller shipments, which is going to make it more difficult to predict our supply, he said. Were struggling a little bit with that but were going to figure it out as we go along.

Although the province has promised to ramp up distribution of influenza vaccinations, Simpson said supplies might fall short of expectations.

Our understanding is were getting somewhere around 10 per cent above what we gave in flu shots last year, which was approximately 1,000 doses. So were anticipating 1,100.

RELATED STORIES Niagara Region Niagara pharmacists ready for role in major effort to control flu spread

He said the pharmacy will provide flu shots if more doses become available, but last year we were cut off basically in December  and we werent able to get a supply beyond that.

If we had access to more vaccine right up front, I think we could inoculate a whole lot more people, he said, adding interest in flu shots is a positive sign.

We certainly hope there will be enough vaccine around for people to get it.
Anticipating possible civil unrest, Gov. Tony Evers on Wednesday activated the Wisconsin National Guard to assist Wauwatosa law enforcement before a Milwaukee County District Attorney ultimately decided not to file charges against an officer charged in the shooting death of a Black teenager could lead to civil unrest in the area.

A statement issued Wednesday did not indicate how many Guard members will be deployed in Wauwatosa, but said local authorities requested the Guard's assistance in advance of the anticipated decision in the case involving Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah. Later that day, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm announced he would not bring charges against Mensah.

Mensah, who is Black, was one of the officers who responded to a mall last February for reports that a man was seen with a gun. Police say Alvin Cole ran from officers and fired a handgun before he was shot by Mensah.

Chisholm said Mensah had "an actual subjective belief that deadly force was necessary and that belief was objectively reasonable."

State Rep. David Bowen, D-Milwaukee, said in a statement he "was not surprised by this miscarriage of justice."
Abuja  As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to commemorate World Teachers' Day on October 5, 2020, a non-profit making organization, One Love Foundation, OLF, Tuesday, hailed the doggedness of Nigerian teachers at all levels despite challenges plaguing the profession and education sector.

The commendation and recognition were made by the Founder and President, One Love Foundation, Chief Patrick Eholor while appraising salient issues affecting their welfare and career.

Held annually on 5 October since 1994, World Teachers' Day commemorates the anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, with the theme, 'Teachers: Leading in crisis, reimagining the future'.

Eholor said: "I want to congratulate the able men and women who took teaching as a profession, whose dream was to teach others as they were also taught, and they want to give back to the society.

"Unfortunately, since we started electing politicians into various positions to make law for us or to govern us without them having certificates or formal education, they didn't see the need of investing in academic areas that include adequate salaries for teachers, good welfare packages, and incentives, free housing accommodations if possible, payment of salaries as when due, robust workers compensation. Imagine how many teachers have lost their lives to this Covid-19 around the world."

The Foundation boss also paid tribute to over 1000 teachers who have lost their lives to Boko Haram insurgency since 2007.

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"We have lost over 1000 teachers trying to help kids in the north due to Boko Haram insurgency. I have mentioned before that all our institutions in Nigeria have to be reformed, the TUC hasn't helped matters as regards protecting the rights of teachers or assisting them in this country, NLC has become an organized crime and a profit-making organization", he stated.

However, he suggested that the number of private schools and tertiary institutions is reduced because most of them promote quackery in the system, which has led to the near-collapse of the education system.

"I think we should reduce the number of private schools including tertiary institutions and secondary schools because it's killing our educational system and bringing a lot of brain drain and bringing in people who have no business in teaching arenas", he added.

Meanwhile, he (Eholor) pledged to support and commitment of his Foundation to support teachers and the profession in addressing some of the challenges they face.

"One love foundation will continue to support the teachers in Nigeria morally and give them kudos for being there to represent this country", he stated.
NEW YORK. NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / In today's world, it's hard to get attention without putting a whole lot of effort into it. Fit Legacy Marketing Agency is a full-fledged team that has flourished by giving any business the boost it needs to spring into the market with impact. The company has scaled dozens of small businesses since its inception in 2017, with sales shooting up to as much as $1 million.

A typical agency focuses on one main source of marketing as their specialty. Fit Legacy Marketing Agency is able to bring the specialties needed to the table to scale small businesses quickly and efficiently through social media advertising, affiliate programs, website optimization, graphics, email strategy, and more.

The company is run by Mike, Abbey, and Alex, who are themselves small business owners. Realizing the potential for successful business owners to help other small entrepreneurs scale their growing companies, the trio banded together to form Fit Legacy Marketing Agency. Mike, Abbey, and Alex all know how difficult it is to get a small business off the ground. Their experiences help them sympathize with the growth struggles that many entrepreneurs face and can even give them the connections that can help them in different aspects of a business.

Fit Legacy Marketing Agency typically works with small businesses generating at least $15,000 in sales monthly, offering a quality product or service that needs to scale. Many business owners often have little to no marketing experience and cannot invest in an in-house marketing team just yet. Fit Legacy Marketing Agency takes the daily marketing needs out of the entrepreneur's hands and scales the business while they focus on new products, expansion of operations, and more. This way, the CEO can focus on what they do best while Mike, Abbey, and Alex work their magic.

What started as a favor done for a friend has exploded into a full-blown agency. "My motivation now is to take care of my people-to make sure everyone not only eats but is fed. I have such high hopes for my team, and they drive me to show up every day. Oftentimes, I am the first one in and the last one to leave," said Mike Crowson, co-founder of Fit Legacy Marketing Agency.

In the future, the company looks forward to enjoying immense growth while working on a few select clients with a high retention rate. Because of their rapidly increasing clientele, the agency hopes to bring on more skill sets and expand their project teams so they can continue to produce more and do more for their clients.

Mike Crowson is the co-founder and owner of Fit Legacy Marketing Agency. An Alabama native, he decided to move to New York City to chase his dreams of becoming an entrepreneur when he was 22. In New York, he found an opportunity to join the marketing team of a flagship social media-based mega-monster. After gaining sufficient experience in the company, he set out to develop his own ventures. Aside from Fit Legacy, Mike also owns Coffee Over Cardio with his wife, Abbey Scott.

Learn more about the services that Fit Legacy Marketing Agency offers on their website.

Company: Fit Legacy Inc.

Email: Mike@myfitlegacy.com

Phone number: 2569753210

Website: www.bylagency.com

SOURCE: Fit Legacy Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609521/Fit-Legacy-Marketing-From-Small-Fry-to-Six-Figures
Contributed photo

One-year-old Cooper will make his new family very happy. Hes still a kitten at heart, and he will fall in love and have fun with kids, adults, and even other furry friends. Cooper doesnt have much experience with kids or with other cats or dogs, but he is interested in the world around him and will likely adjust to your set up. Apply to meet handsome Cooper in Waterford today. Remember, the Connecticut Humane Society has no time limits for adoption. Applications for adoption can be obtained at https://cthumane.org/adopt/all-adoptable-pets/. To learn more about operations during COVID-19, go to https://cthumane.org/adopt/adoption-process/.
A serious rift developed between William and Harry when the younger brother was pictured in a Nazi costume, according to a new book.

The siblings went to Maud's Cotswold Costumes in January 2005 and chose an animal outfit for William and, for Harry, a khaki-coloured uniform, in which the young duke was photographed while displaying an armband with a swastika.

The response to the incident prompted Harry to reconsider his older brother's involvement and the differing treatments of the pair, noted royal biographer Robert Lacey claims in Battle of Brothers, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail.

The book says Harry began to feel alienated from his family following the costume incident, with a former aide saying of the brothers: "For the first time, their relationship suffered and they barely spoke. Harry resented the fact that William got away so lightly."

Mr Lacey also claims the boys' nanny Barbara Barnes acted as a surrogate mother due to Diana's health concerns and humanitarian commitments, with Ms Barnes teaching them to walk, talk and read.

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She was later dismissed without being allowed to say farewell to the young princes.

Mr Lacey wrote: "Following the death of Diana, people remarked on how well the two young princes reacted to the unjust and unexpected removal of a mother figure from their lives - surprised, bewildered and distraught though they were.

"In fact, 10 years earlier, they'd had a little practice."

The book also alleges that the Queen felt the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were "erratic and impulsive" in making their departure;

It also claims the royal family were "hopping mad" over Harry and Meghan Markle's trademarking of Sussex Royal products and services, which was viewed as a "commercialising of the crown".

The Queen, Prince Charles and William were not consulted over the multiple legal actions taken by the couple against the media, according to the book.

It also alleges that a "powerful constituency" within the family felt Meghan's interview with ITV's Tom Bradby during last year's tour of Africa, in which she bemoaned her life, showed a "bizarre tone deafness" and was "miserably self-indulgent".
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 7/10/2020 (472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

"An unsung hero of Jewish community life in Winnipeg."

Thats how Sharon Graham describes Pearl Finkelstein, the woman who helped lay the foundation for Jewish social service work in Winnipeg in the early part of the last century.

SUPPLIED Pearl Finkelstein

Finkelsteins contribution to Jewish social work in the city is the subject of Grahams Oct. 15 presentation at the biennial Switzer-Cooperstock Lecture Series sponsored by the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada.

Titled "Pearl Finkelstein, Unknown Hero: the Winnipeg Jewish Orphanage and Social Work in the Winnipeg Jewish Community in the 1930s," the online lecture takes place at 7 p.m.

When Finkelstein was hired to work at the Jewish orphanage, which operated in the city from 1912 to 1948 on Matheson Avenue east of Main Street, she had no social work training, said Graham, who has a PhD in history from the University of Manitoba and describes herself as a Jewish historian.

But she quickly understood that helping children meant helping their families with a wide range of issues, such as employment, housing, medical care, food, education and even coal for heating their homes.

"She brought a holistic approach, helping families in all aspects of their lives," said Graham. "She could see the bigger picture."

Finkelstein was "a real doer," she added. "If she saw a problem, she set out to fix it. She was a really amazing woman."

She was also non-judgmental. When women in the city were suspected of being prostitutes "she didnt seem to care," Graham said. "She was more interested in helping them and their children."

Finkelstein, who died in 1991, worked at the orphanage until the late 1930s when she was married and, like many women at that time, stopped working.

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For Graham, Finkelstein was "a pioneer... a pivotal person for the well-being of Jewish families in Winnipeg. People like her usually dont make the history books, but its important we know more about her."

Belle Jarniewski, executive director of the Heritage Centre, agreed.

"Like many other unknown aspects of Jewish life in Western Canada, Pearl is someone many know nothing about. But she was very important in our communitys history," she said.

The Switzer-Cooperstock Prize in Western Canadian Jewish History was established by the Switzer family to honour their parents and grandparents. It is awarded every two years for scholarly research about the Jewish experience in the urban centres and rural communities of the Canadian Prairie provinces.

For more information, or to register for the online lecture, visit www.jhcwc.org/programs.

faith@freepress.mb.ca
Nashville's Big Back Yard (NBBY) is a region anchored by 100 miles of the scenic Natchez Trace Parkway that connects communities with populations under 5,000  from Leiper's Fork, Tenn., to The Shoals of Ala. In the age of coronavirus, small communities are seeing a surge of interest from people who are drawn to rural living, remote work, and an affordable lifestyle.

"This global pandemic is making folks rethink how and where they want to live and work," said Wolfe, a rural Williamson County resident who has traveled tens of thousands of miles and gained millions of fans as the star and creator of HISTORY's "American Pickers" series. "I know first-hand how much rural communities have to offer. Now is the perfect time to think about getting out of the cities, and back to small town Main Streets and open spaces. I'm honored to help shine a light on the communities in Nashville's Big Back Yard."

To help roll out Nashville's Big Back Yard, Wolfe produced social media content that is being used on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to promote the Middle Tennessee communities of Centerville, Clifton, Collinwood, Hampshire, Hohenwald, Leiper's Fork, Linden, Loretto, Mount Pleasant, Santa Fe, Summertown, and Waynesboro as well as The Shoals area of Northwest Alabama.

"We appreciate Mike's support of our movement to engage people who may be looking for a change of pace, including a more affordable lifestyle," said Lewis County Mayor Jonah Keltner.

Kevin Jackson, executive director of The Shoals Economic Development Authority, added, "The Shoals area is uniquely positioned for growth as people move from densely populated cities in search of a better quality of life."

NBBY is the result of lengthy conversations during COVID-19 spearheaded by Leiper's Fork philanthropist Aubrey Preston and led by community leaders.

"While COVID has dealt a devastating blow to our nation's public health and economy, it also has led people and communities to think about who we are and what we do," said Preston, who has spent more than 25 years working on rural preservation efforts including the popular Americana Music Triangle. "The land is calling people back, and Nashville's Big Back Yard has an abundance of land, water and world-class music. We're inviting folks to come and play in our big back yard."

The spring 2020 Harris Poll survey found nearly 40 percent of U.S. adults living in urban areas said they would consider moving "out of populated areas and toward rural areas."

According to data from the National Association of Realtors, median home prices in Nashville's Big Back Yard averaged less than $170,000 vs. the national median home price of $241,300.

Mike Wolfe NBBY Video: https://vimeo.com/465130577

For more information, visit nashvillesbigbackyard.org.

SOURCE Nashvilles Big Back Yard
The Justice Department announced charges Wednesday against two British nationals who joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), for their role in the torture and brutal killings of western hostages, including American citizens.

El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey are being held at the Alexandria Adult Detention Center in Virginia, the Alexandria Sheriff's Office confirmed to CBS News.

The charges against them include hostage-taking resulting in death, conspiracy to commit hostage taking resulting in death, and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists resulting in death.

The pair, part of a cell known as "The Beatles," made their first appearance in a U.S. courtroom on Wednesday via videoconference. They appeared before the court separately, and neither seemed to fully grasp the court proceedings.

When Magistrate Judge Theresa Carroll Buchanan read the charges against Elsheikh, he repeatedly looked askance, as if he wasn't listening. When asked if he would like her to appoint him an attorney, he said he didn't know how to answer the question, adding, "with all due respect, I just came off a military base in Iraq."

He then asked if he was under arrest, after Buchanan had already read the charges aloud.

A courtroom sketch of El Shafee Elsheikh speaking with the judge. / Credit: William Hennessy

When Buchanan asked Kotey if he would like to be appointed counsel, he said he had attorneys in the U.K. but had not spoken to them. He also seemed to not understand what was happening, saying he would "wait to actually be briefed on what is actually going on. This is all foreign to me."

Both men were appointed the same public defender. The pair's next hearing is scheduled for Friday, although their attorney has asked for more time. Both men were tested for the coronavirus, and the court is awaiting their results.

Elsheikh and Kotey are alleged to have been guards and interpreters for the ISIS cell, and to have participated in the mental and physical abuse of four Americans: James Wright Foley, Kayla Jean Mueller, Steven Joel Sotloff and Peter Edward Kassig. According to court documents, Kotey and Elsheikh were also responsible for coordinating the hostage ransom negotiations for Western prisoners conducted over email from November 2013 to February 2015.

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"These charges are the product of many years of hard work in pursuit of justice for our citizens slain by ISIS. Although we cannot bring them back, we can and will seek justice for them, their families, and for all Americans," Attorney General William P. Barr said in a statement. "Our message to other terrorists around the world is this  if you harm Americans, you will face American arms on the battlefield or American law in our courtrooms. Either way, you will be pursued to the ends of the earth until justice is done."

If convicted, both Kotey and Elsheikh face life in prison.

The men were transferred from Turkey, after they were originally captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in January 2018 during the collapse of ISIS in the region.

They make up one half of the notorious group dubbed "the Beatles" by the hostages they held captive due to their British accents. The men have been stripped of their U.K. citizenship. A third British national, Mohamed Emwazi, also known as "Jihadi John," was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Syria in November 2015.

Alexanda Amon Kotey appears in a courtroom sketch. / Credit: William Hennessy

The ISIS cell became infamous for releasing videos that showed Emwazi's grisly beheadings of prisoners, including those of American journalists Foley and Sotloff, and British citizens David Haines and Alan Henning in August-October 2014. Later, in November 2014, ISIS released a video depicting the decapitated head of Kassig, and in January 2015, ISIS released videos with images of two dead Japanese citizens.

"My message to other terrorists is thisif you harm an American, you will face the same fate as these men. You will face American arms on the battlefield, and if you survive, you will face American justice in an American courtroom with the prospect of many years in an American prison," said Assistant Attorney General John Demers of the Justice Department's National Security Division at a press conference Wednesday. "Either way, you will never live in peaceyou will be pursued to the ends of the earth. The reach of American law is long, but our memory is even longer. No matter how long it may take, we will never forget, and we will never quit."

Prosecutors allege that in April 2014 Kotey, Elsheikh, and Emwazi forcibly moved Western hostages, including Italian, Danish and German citizens, along with two other European humanitarian aid workers, two miles from their prison to see Emwazi execute a Syrian prisoner by shooting him in the back of the head and then numerous times in the torso. Elsheikh filmed the execution and the Western prisoners who were forced by Kotey to kneel at the gravesite were holding handmade signs pleading for their release.

Elsheikh told one hostage by name, "You're next."

In addition to the American hostages, Kotey and Elsheikh are accused of capturing two United Kingdom citizens, an Italian citizen, a Danish citizen, a German citizen, four French citizens, three Spanish citizens, a New Zealand citizen and a Russian citizen.

In an August letter to the U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel, Attorney General William Barr assured her that the U.S. government would not seek the death penalty in any prosecutions brought against the two terrorists in exchange for the British government's evidence that would help bolster the Americans' case. Last month, the U.K. Court ruled that the country would share its evidence on Kotey and Elsheikh with the U.S. government. On Wednesday, DOJ called that assistance "critical."

Tropical Storm Eta churns towards the Florida coast

GOP senators say they're unaware of fraud in their races as Trump disputes election

How Biden is expected to tackle issues with "Big Tech"
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 14:52:44|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- Members of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, including Chairman Mark Milley, are reportedly in quarantine after exposure to COVID-19, as infections linked to the White House continue to grow.

The news emerged Tuesday afternoon after the Coast Guard announced its vice commandant, Admiral Charles Ray, had tested positive for the virus and would be quarantining from home.

Ray attended meetings with other senior military leaders at the Pentagon last week, according to a spokesperson.

"Out of an abundance of caution, all potential close contacts from these meetings are self-quarantining and have been tested this morning," Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement. "No Pentagon contacts have exhibited symptoms and we have no additional positive tests to report at this time."

In addition to Milley, Vice Chairman John Hyten and several other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a panel of high-ranking U.S. military officers who advise the president and other civilian leaders on military issues, have also reportedly entered quarantine.

"There is no change to the operational readiness or mission capability of the US Armed Forces," Hoffman said. "Senior military leaders are able to remain fully mission capable and perform their duties from an alternative work location."

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller, senior advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, and several others have joined a growing list of individuals in the president's orbit known to have contracted COVID-19, which included his confidants, campaign and White House aides, allies on Capitol Hill, and journalists covering the White House.

"Over the last 5 days I have been working remotely and self-isolating, testing negative every day through yesterday," Miller said in a statement. "Today, I tested positive for COVID-19 and am in quarantine."

Miller's wife, Vice President Mike Pence's communications director Katie Miller, tested positive for COVID-19 in May.

She tested negative on Tuesday morning and traveled with Pence to Salt Lake City, Utah for the 2020 vice presidential debate scheduled for Wednesday but left the trip "out of an abundance of caution" as soon as she learned of her husband's diagnosis, according to an official.

Devin O'Malley, Pence's press secretary, tweeted Tuesday evening that the vice president had tested negative again in the afternoon.

"Vice President Mike Pence is encouraged to go about his normal activities and does not need to quarantine," according to a memo written by his doctor.

Democrats are demanding more information and transparency from the White House around details of recent events that may have led to the infection of Trump and others.

"The Trump White House's opaque, secretive handling of its super-spreader event is a public health threat," Senate Minority Leader and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer tweeted. "The outbreak which hospitalized Pres. Trump and infected numerous WH staff, 3 Senators, and more has yet to be fully contained."

A day after returning to the White House following a three-day hospitalization for COVID-19, Trump, who continues to receive treatment, has reported no symptoms, White House physician Sean Conley said in his memo Tuesday.

"He had a restful first night at home, and today he reports no symptoms. Vital signs and physical exam remain stable, with an ambulatory oxygen saturation level of 95-97 percent," Conley wrote. "Overall he continues to do extremely well."

Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning he was feeling "great" and looking forward to the next debate with 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in Miami, Florida on Oct. 15.

Hours earlier, Republicans again sought to downplay COVID-19 by comparing it to flu, which was later hidden by Twitter behind a label stating that it violated its rules "about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information" related to the virus.

Trump and Biden met for their first encounter in the 2020 race in Cleveland, Ohio on Sept. 29, two days before the incumbent's diagnosis. The presidential candidates did not shake hands that night, while there was a distance between their podiums with neither wearing masks on stage.

Biden has undergone four COVID-19 tests since Oct. 2 with all results returning negative, according to his campaign team.

Speaking to reporters after a campaign stop in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Tuesday evening, Biden said the next debate should not be held if Trump still has the virus.

"I think if he still has COVID, we shouldn't have a debate," Biden, who's leading his rival in national and battleground state polls, said. "I'm not sure what President Trump is all about now. I don't know what his status is. I'm looking forward to being able to debate him, but I just hope all the protocols are followed."

It is unclear if Trump, who may remain contagious, will be healthy enough to attend the matchup, as his doctors have warned he isn't out of the woods yet. Aged 74 and clinically obese, the president is at a higher risk of serious complications from the virus that has infected over 7.5 million people and killed more than 210,000 in the United States. Enditem
A staff member in California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office tested positive for the coronavirus this week but did not interact with the governor or his senior advisors, according to a spokesman. (Hector Amezcua / Pool Photo)

An intern in Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration and another state employee who interacted with members of the governor's staff have both tested positive for the coronavirus, though neither came in contact with Newsom or his top advisors, the governor and his spokesman said Wednesday.

"We are going through a contact-tracing process led by the Department of Public Health, and they have both been isolated and we are working back from that frame to make sure that everybody is appropriately tested," Newsom said during a briefing in Winters, Calif., on Wednesday.

The governor's spokesman, Nathan Click, said that whenever a state employee tests positive for the coronavirus and was in a government office, state policy requires that shared spaces be deep-cleaned  which was done where appropriate in these cases  and that employees who had contact with that person, or with the office, quarantine themselves and seek testing.

Click declined to identify the employees who tested positive or their office locations, citing privacy laws. Newsom identified the governor's office staff member as an intern and said the other employee worked for a separate state agency. Neither worked in the suite of Capitol offices occupied by Newsom and his senior staff, the governor said.

The governor's office was alerted about the state employee Monday and about the governor's office staff member "earlier this week," Click said. Once notified, the governor's office immediately began appropriate protocols such as contact tracing and asking employees to quarantine themselves if they had come in contact with the two people who tested positive.

"We wish both individuals who tested positive well in their recovery," Click said.

Newsom said Wednesday that he has been tested for the virus on multiple occasions when the circumstances warranted, including when he visited a state prison and when he met with President Trump in Sacramento in mid-September during a briefing on the deadly wildfires in the state.

Story continues

The last time he was tested was an hour before meeting with the president, and the results were negative, Newsom said. Neither state employee who tested positive attended the event with the president, Click said.

"I've never been tested positive. I've been tested negative on multiple times," Newsom said Wednesday.

Newsom's comments came almost a week after disclosures that Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, with the president requiring several days of hospitalization with COVID-19 symptoms. The White House is now grappling with an outbreak of the virus among senior advisors to Trump as well as support staff and others who came in contact with those infected.

During a news conference Monday, Newsom took a subtle jab at Trump and others for being dismissive about the use of masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

"We'll continue to maintain our vigilance. We'll continue not to send mixed messages as it relates to importance and imperative of wearing masks or minimize the impact of this disease on people's health, lives that are lost," Newsom said.

Click said that the governor's office has reduced staff levels at the Capitol, where Newsom and his senior advisors work, because of the pandemic and has scrapped most in-person meetings in favor of videoconference calls.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 14:39:47|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- The attempt of the United States and some other countries to smear China's human rights record failed again on Tuesday after numerous countries spoke in support of China at the General Debate of the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly.

The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and some other countries made unfounded accusations against China on issues related to Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, refuted their statements and acts of interfering in China's internal affairs with the excuse of human rights and provoking confrontation among member states.

Nearly 70 countries echoed China's position. In support of China, Pakistan, Cuba and Kuwait made joint statements each representing numerous countries on Xinjiang, Hong Kong and human rights issues. A large number of countries supported China in their own national statements.

These countries spoke highly of China's progress in human rights and showed support for China's efforts to safeguard national sovereignty, security and unity, denouncing the politicization of human rights issues, double standards and political confrontation.

REGRESSIVE STEP TO CONFRONTATION

Speaking at the General Debate of the Third Committee, Zhang said the practice of provoking confrontation is against the trend of time.

The world today is at a critical juncture with major challenges, said Zhang, reminding the Committee that the United Nations has just commemorated its 75th anniversary, when world leaders have agreed to fight COVID-19 and address other global challenges with solidarity and cooperation.

Regrettably, some countries, represented by the United Sates, Germany and the United Kingdom, have ignored the collective call and insisted on provoking antagonism, he said.

Zhang accused these countries of abusing the UN platform by politicizing human rights issues, provoking political confrontation, spreading misinformation and interfering with China's internal affairs.

These deeds are firmly opposed and rejected by China, said Zhang.

The behaviors of these countries, he said, are completely against the trend of history, as the world and its people want solidarity, not division; they want cooperation, not confrontation; they want mutual benefit, not zero-sum game.

The United States is on the wrong side of history and is going against the international community, he said.

HUMBLE YOURSELF, BEFORE PASSING JUDGMENT

China's achievements in human rights development are widely recognized and not to be denied by lies and deception, Zhang said.

He mentioned China's adoption of effective measures in combating terrorism and promoting economic development, which has been supported by Chinese people and stood the test of time and history.

On the other hand, Zhang criticized the United States for its own human rights record, saying the United States should better take a good look at itself in the mirror before making accusations against others.

Pointing to the over 200,000 American lives lost in the COVID-19 pandemic, he advised the U.S. government need to treat the sick and save lives, not to spread "political virus" and to stir up troubles.

He also called for attention to the existing systematic racial discrimination in the United States, the belligerent nature of the country and the frequent, crude political decisions unilaterally made by the country to evade its human rights obligations.

Germany, the United Kingdom and some other countries, having been practicing selective blindness and double-standards, should put away arrogance and prejudice, and pull back from the brink, said Zhang.

VOICES OF SUPPORT

In Tuesday's debate, Pakistan made a joint statement on behalf of 55 countries, opposing interference with China's internal affairs under the pretext of Hong Kong-related issues.

The principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states should be upheld, the statement said, adding that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is an inalienable part of China whose affairs brook no foreign interference.

In any country, the legislative power on national security issues rests with the state, and the legitimate rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents can be better exercised with the national security law, the statement added.

Cuba made a joint statement on behalf of 45 countries in support of China's counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang.

The statement underscores the fact that terrorist attacks have not been seen in Xinjiang for the past three years thanks to China's measures in response to the threat of local terrorism and extremism.

Noting that China maintains openness and transparency by, among other things, inviting diplomats, officials, journalists and religious personages to visit Xinjiang, the statement criticized the unfounded allegations against China and interference out of political motivation and bias.

Kuwait made a joint statement on behalf of three Gulf states, opposing the politicization of human rights issues and interference in others' internal affairs with the excuse of human rights.

"Because we are committed to the provisions of the UN Charter, including equality and sovereignty for all member states of the organization, we would also like to stress that the deliberation of matters related to human rights at the United Nations must be objective, constructive, transparent, non-selective and non-politicized. It should also respect the sovereignty of countries and should not interfere in the internal affairs of countries," said the joint statement.

The statement emphasizes the right of all countries to development and to eradication of poverty, ignorance and disease, arguing that these are among the most important human rights.

This is the second bungled attempt of the United States to foment opposition to China under the pretext of human rights. In October 2019, the United States rallied some countries to do the same, which failed due to the oppositon by a vast majority of countries.

The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly is the main committee that deliberates on human rights, and social and humanitarian affairs. Enditem
WASHINGTON - The Latest on President Donald Trumps health after his COVID-19 diagnosis, and that of other White House aides, officials (all times local):

7:05 p.m.

Stephen Miller, President Donald Trumps senior adviser and speechwriter, tested positive for the coronavirus Tuesday.

A senior administration official said Miller had previously tested negative as White House officials have tried to contain an outbreak on the complex that has infected Trump, the first lady and more than a dozen other aides and associates.

Miller is an architect of the presidents America First foreign policy and restrictive immigration measures.

His wife, Katie Miller, who serves as communications director to Vice-President Mike Pence, previously had the virus and tested negative after the last time she saw him. Katie Miller had been in Salt Lake City with Pence, where he is preparing to debate Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris, but she left as soon as she found out about her husbands diagnosis.

__

3:45 p.m.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says President Donald Trump is putting himself first at the expense of the country by halting negotiations over a new coronavirus aid package from Congress.

Pelosi said Tuesday that Trump showed his true colours in stopping the talks between congressional leaders and the White House that have been aimed at bringing some $2 trillion in new aid to fight the coronavirus.

The Democratic leader says by walking away, Trump is unwilling to crush the virus and is abandoning the needs of children and other Americans.

Trump announced the move less than 24 hours after he returned to the White House from a three-day hospital stay while fighting his own bout with the coronavirus.

Pelosi says the White House is clearly in disarray.

The speaker has been in talks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin trying to revive a massive new round of COVID-19 aid.

___

3:25 p.m.

President Donald Trump says he has instructed aides to stop negotiating on a coronavirus aid plan until after the election, roiling stock markets hoping for an economic boost for hard-hit industries such as the airlines.

Trump, who has the coronavirus himself, tweeted Tuesday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not negotiating in good faith. He says, I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business.

Trumps tweet comes the same day that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that a tentative recovery from the pandemic recession could falter unless the federal government supplies additional economic support.

The Democratic-led House passed a $2.2 trillion relief bill last week. The White House said at the time that it had raised the price tag on its own proposal to $1.6 trillion. But bridging that difference has proved difficult.

___

1:30 p.m.

Sen. Kamala Harris tested negative for the coronavirus on Monday, two days before her debate with Vice-President Mike Pence.

A campaign aide shared the results on Tuesday. The campaign did not respond to questions about if and when she would be tested again ahead of Wednesdays debate.

Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, and Pence will participate in a 90-minute debate at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. A plexiglass shield will be between them as a precaution against possible virus transmission. They will not wear masks on stage, nor will the moderator.

The Commission on Presidential Debates requires everyone accessing the debate site to have tested negative. Both Harris and Pence are currently in Utah preparing.

___

1:10 p.m.

Vice-President Mike Pences doctor says Pence does not need to quarantine and has continued to test negative for COVID-19 as he prepares for Wednesdays vice-presidential debate.

White House physician Dr. Jesse Taylor Schonau says in a memo released Tuesday that Pence has remained healthy, without any COVID-19 symptoms and has continued daily tests, which have all come back negative.

The doctor said Pence is not considered to have had close contact with anyone who has tested positive this week, including President Donald Trump and some of his senior aides, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

The CDC defines close contact as having been within six feet of someone for 15 minutes or more.

The memo says Pence is encouraged to go about his normal activities and does not need to quarantine.

___

12:55 p.m.

President Donald Trumps physician says the president is experiencing no symptoms of COVID-19 after returning home from the hospital Monday night.

His physician, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, says in a new memo released by the White House that the presidents medical team met with him in the residence Tuesday morning.

He says that Trump had a restful first night at home and that his vital signs remain stable, including his blood oxygen level.

The doctor did not provide any details on what medications the president is currently taking, including whether he has been administered additional steroids.

But he says, Overall he continued to do extremely well.
She has an enviable work wardrobe full of eclectic outfits.

And Myleene Klass displayed her versatile fashion sense once more on Wednesday as she walked through Leicester Square in London.

The radio host, 42, cut a demure figure in a checked suit and camel coat as she made her grand entrance at Global Radio studios to present her Smooth FM show.

Plaid's nice: Myleene Klass displayed her versatile fashion sense on Wednesday as she strutted through Leicester Square in London wearing a camel coat and checked suit

Myleene completed her stylish ensemble with a grey lace vest and white Alexandra Wang trainers.

She took her chic outfit up a notch with a Chanel black tote back which draped over her arm.

The mother-of-three accessorised with gold jewellery and a pair of oversized sunglasses.

She parted her caramel tresses to the side in a natural wave and opted for a soft make-up look.

Chic: The radio host, 42, cut a demure figure in her ensemble as she made her grand entrance at Global Radio studios to present her Smooth FM show

Myleene, who is of Filipino and Austrian descent, recently criticised wealthy middle class families for the way they talk about their Filipino members of staff.

The star admitted she was 'shocked' when she heard acquaintances talking in 'derogatory' terms about their South East Asian nannies.

Speaking to Charlotte Hawkins on the Last, Past and Blast podcast, she revealed she previously confronted pals on their prejudices.

All in the details: Myleene completed her stylish ensemble with a grey lace vest, white trainers and a Chanel tote bag that draped over her arm

She said: 'I'm shocked. People do it so easily. I live in north London and I've seen it a lot, you hear it a lot. And it's not seen as something that's even seen as offensive.

'You don't own someone, you can't say I'm going on holiday and say my Filipino girl is around for the summer, I've heard that so many times in some North London circles here.

'My jaw's just hit the floor. When I do say something it's questioned why I feel I can say something because [they say], "You're not like that."

'But I am like that, I have Filipino heritage and you don't own anybody and that kind of language is not appropriate any time.'
Facebook, Twitter Censor Trumps Post Comparing CCP Virus to Flu

Facebook removed one of President Donald Trumps posts, and Twitter censored it by adding a warning.

Trump wrote on Tuesday that the flu season is coming up.

Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!! the president wrote.

A Facebook spokesman confirmed the company removed Trumps post on the social media platform.

We remove incorrect information about the severity of COVID-19, and have now removed this post, Andy Stone said in a statement.

Twitter appended a warning that shielded the content from users unless they clicked view. The warning said Trumps tweet violated the Twitter Rules about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to COVID-19.

Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020

Neither company responded to a request for comment on how they decided to take action against Trumps post, and what evidence they used.

COVID-19 is a disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. The virus does affect different populations differently, according to federal health officials and data from the U.S. government and other health agencies around the world.

For instance, children are, for the most part, not severely affected by COVID-19. As of Aug. 13, just 90 children have died from COVID-19 complications, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (pdf). Influenza led to nearly 480 deaths in children during the 2018-19 flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Children are important drivers of influenza virus transmission but initial data shows they are both less affected than adults by COVID-19 and typically contract the new disease from adults, rather than vice versa, according to the World Health Organization (pdf).

The effects of both flu and COVID-19 increase in older people, and are the worst in elderly populations. The most deaths involving COVID-19 are among those 85 years of age or older, according to the CDC.

COVID-19 has struck the elderly in America much harder than the average flu strain. While 25,555 people 65 or older are estimated to have died from the flu during the 2018-19 flu season, according to the CDC, nearly 60,000 deaths among those 85 or older involving COVID-19 have been recorded from February through late September.

Outside of age groups, people with underlying medical conditions have a higher risk of requiring hospital care for COVID-19 than those without such conditions. For instance, diabetes increases the risk by three times; severe obesity increases it 4.5 times, according to the CDC.

Ambulances line up outside Maimonides Medical Center, as the spread of the CCP virus continues, in the Borough Park area of Brooklyn, New York, on Sept. 25, 2020. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

Overall, COVID-19 does appear to have led to more deaths than the flu.

Nearly 200,000 deaths in the United States involved COVID-19 as of Sept. 30, according to the CDC. The estimated deaths from influenza in 2018-19 were 34,157.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC that one claim in Trumps tweet wasnt quite correct.

You dont get a pandemic that kills a million people and it isnt even over yet within influenza, Fauci said. So it is not correct to say its the same as flu. It has some overlapping symptomatology early on. But flu doesnt do the things to you that COVID-19 can.

But he declined to comment further.

I have a job to do, and my personally contradicting the president of the United States publicly is not a good thing if I want to get my job done, Fauci added.

Dr. Ashish Kha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, added during a virtual appearance on CBS on Wednesday that COVID is about 5 to 10 times more deadly than the flu, for almost every age group.

So at this moment, comparing the two, I think, is irresponsible, he added.

Rep. Ralph Abraham (R-La.), a doctor, said in a social media statement that Twitter censored Trump for stating a fact.

Twitter censored @realDonaldTrump for suggesting children are far less susceptible to COVID-19 than adults  a well-known fact  because it goes against the left-wing agenda to keep schools closed, people out of work, and destroy our economy to influence the election, he said.

After Twitter and Facebook took action, Trump took to Twitter to urge a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act. The section currently protects platforms against lawsuits.

A Senate chairman was authorized this month to subpoena Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, and Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, to question them about their censorship of users as Congress considers altering Section 230.

BIG TECH MUST STOP THE BIAS! Trumps campaign added on Tuesday.
A felon who was recently released from prison is stunned by his fiancee blowing up at her family after her elderly relative let both of them move in with her while he is on probation.

Dylan, 30, from Chicago, Illinois, and his partner Heather barely knew each other before he went to jail. While she has stood by his side for the past five years, he is beginning to fear she is too much to handle now that he is no longer behind bars.

In a teaser from Friday night's episode of We TV's Love After Lockup, Heather's outburst leaves the senior citizen who is on oxygen fearing that the constant arguing and excitement will cause her to be hospitalized.

Drama: Dylan and Heather move in with her elderly relative on Friday night's episode of Love After Lockup, but instead of being grateful, she blows up after her family

It's unclear what happened to cause the drama, but the preview clip starts with Dylan telling Heather he wants to show her something on his cellphone.

Heather sarcastically calls his actions 'very nice' and 'so sweet' as she storms out of the room, away from him and her family.

Dylan follows her, awkwardly leaving her two female relatives  presumably her mother and grandmother  in the living room, where they can hear their entire argument.

'I really want to lay down. I don't feel good,' she insists.

As her family listens in, the senior citizen expresses her concerns about having the volatile couple live with her.

Enraged: Heather storms out of the room, telling Dylan she is tired and needs lie down

Awkward: Heather's elderly relative who is on oxygen fears the arguing will cause her to get excited and need to be hospitalized

Second thoughts: As they listen to Dylan try to calm Heather down in the hallway, the senior citizen expresses her concerns about having the volatile couple live with her

'I cannot have the aggravation,' she says. 'I'm not going to go to the hospital.'

Heather continues to justify her actions by insisting that she doesn't feel good.

'I know, okay?' Dylan says, trying to calm her down. 'We'll go in here and just chill and lay down for a second.'

'We're out there talking about you, babe,' he then assures her.

The woman who appears to be her mother gets up and asks her if she can get her anything, which only angers Heather even more.

'I would love to spend some time with my husband, ever in life, like just once, would be great,' Heather hits back before walking into another room for privacy.

Drama: 'I would love to spend some time with my husband, ever in life, like just once, would be great,' Heather tells a concerned family member before storming out of the hallway

'I'm absolutely speechless': Dylan admits in his testimonial that he is shocked by how rude and ungrateful Heather is being to her family after they generously let both of them move in

'Babe,' Dylan says, as he chases after her for a second time.

Dylan and Heather had only known each other for two weeks when he went to jail. They had never even had sex, but she faithfully stuck by his side for his entire sentence and visited him every weekend for five years.

Early on in their relationship, she revealed that she had gotten his name tattooed on her body in three different areas, which he found to be 'borderline obsessive.'

He admitted that he was worried about what their relationship would be like now that he was out of prison, and it looks like he has reasons to be concerned.

In his testimonial, Dylan admits he's appalled by his fiancee's rude behavior.

'Heather's lucky enough to have extended family members that are willing to take in not just her but her felon fiance,' he says. 'But instead of, you know, showing gratitude, she's talking in a way I would never talk to any of my family members.

'I'm absolutely speechless.'
When an employee takes advantage of an employers trust to steal for the employer, the consequences can have a trickle-down effect for the employer and the other employees, costing jobs and causing economic hardship, Kirsch said. My office is dedicated to prosecuting fraud schemes like this and will continuously work with our law enforcement partners on these investigations.
KYIV. Oct 7 (Interfax-Ukraine)  Chairperson of NGO Point of Growth, Education and Science, coordinator of the anti-plagiarism initiative Desergate, Svitlana Blahodeteleva-Vovk intends to ask law enforcement agencies to provide her with state protection in connection with her persecution by an unknown person.

"We will, I hope, with my lawyer, negotiate with the investigator so that I would be granted state protection [security]," said Blahodeteleva-Vovk at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.

She said that since mid-June of this year, after she turned to the Ministry of Education and Science about the revealed plagiarism in works of then rector of Chernihiv National Technological University Serhiy Shkarlet [acting Minister of Education and Science], they started "cyberbullying on Facebook" against her.

"Eleven times I have been banned, that is, I am constantly blocked for non-existent violations," the activist said.

According to her, since July, threats of sexual assault from an unknown person began to arrive at her email address, Telegram-channel. "After I blocked the Telegram channel [...] there were messages from different accounts with threats of sexual assault, they sent photos of my house and entrance. He [...] watches me, takes pictures. Leaves obscene notes at the door," she said.

Blahodeteleva-Vovk also said that recently false information appeared in electronic media that she allegedly had a criminal record.

"I will file a claim for the protection of honor, dignity and business reputation against everyone who took part in spreading lies," she said.

The coordinator of the Desergate initiative believes that "systemic activity" is being waged against her. At the same time, she said that she could not assert whether her public activities were related to the facts of persecution, and only representatives of law enforcement agencies could prove this or refute.

According to lawyer Lidiya Dmytrus, Blahodeteleva-Vovk reported to the national police on September 2 and only on September 13 it entered into the state register of pretrial investigations.
John Yima Sen, an activist and Director-General of the Northern Elders Forum, has passed away.

A brief statement issued by The Coalition of Northern Groups, where the deceased was a patron, said Mr Sen died on Tuesday evening at the age of 69.

He died at the Garki Hospital in Abuja, PREMIUM TIMES learnt.

The coalition wishes to extend its condolence to His family, The Northern Elders Forum, Baze University, the people of Benue and the country at large. His death has certainly created a huge vacuum in the hierarchy of northern mentorship and patriotism. As he sleeps on, we pray the family gets the fortitude to bear the pains of the loss, the statement read.

Also, former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on Wednesday, said he was deeply saddened by the demise of Mr Sen.

He was a fine intellectual who also dedicated his life to the pursuit of the development of the entire North Central Zone, moulding the minds of the next generation and the development of Nigeria as a nation. He will be sorely missed, he recounted in a statement issued via his verified Twitter account.

The deceased, from Benue state, was a senior academic at Baze University, Abuja, where he taught Mass Communications until his death.

Mr Sen studied Mass Communications at the University of Lagos, University of California in Los Angeles, United States of America and the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Over the years, the deceased served in different capacities including being the spokesperson to public officers and leading pressure groups.

In the second republic, he served as a Communications Assistant to Chuba Okadigbo, the Special Adviser on Political Affairs to the late President Shehu Shagari.

He was later appointed the Special Adviser on Political Affairs to the late Mr Shagari.

The deceased was a former Secretary General of Nigerias foremost pro-democracy movement, Campaign for Democracy (CD) and a notable figure in the agitation for minority rights.

Mr Sen had on several occasions condemned the leadership of the country, noting that the problem of Nigeria cannot be solved by true federalism or restructuring, but through commitment to development of infrastructure.
Omjasvin MD By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Close to 35 percent of Chennais population have attended the COVID-19 fever camps held by the city corporation.

Data revealed by the civic body shows that a total of 28,71,934 people have attended the 56,480 camps held in the city till October 6.

From those who attended, 1,61,494 swab samples were taken and about 26,000 people were found to be positive. The positivity rate stands at 16 percent.

Thiruvika Nagar and Teynampet are the only two corporation zones where more than three lakh people attended the fever camps.

ALSO READ: Inhaling steroids better way to reduce side-effects during Covid treatment?

A high of 3,21,607 people attended the 5322 camps held at Thiruvika Nagar followed by Teynampet, where 3,09,988 people attended the 5922 camps held there.

The most cases of Influenza Like Illnesses  24,395  were recorded in the Teynampet Corporation Zone, followed by 19,326 cases in the Tondiarpet zone.

Even as more than 28 lakh people have been to the fever camps, the number of people attending them has decreased compared to the figures in July and August.

While an average of 30,000 people attended the camps every day until the first week of August, it gradually declined by 50 percent in September to around just 13,000 people. However, on October 6th, 21,081 people attended 441 camps.

Corporation officials said that there has been a good response in testing workers at marketplaces. We have so far tested more than one lakh vendors from marketplaces. This testing will continue, the official said.

Officials with the Corporations Public Health Department said symptomatic cases have partially reduced in the fever camps.

"Symptomatic cases have partially reduced and since late September, we have been testing asymptomatic patients who voluntarily come to the camps," an official said.

Earlier, Corporation Commissioner G Prakash had said in a press meet that the fever camps would be extended at least until December.
"We have not compromised on its ambition. We have not let this period of closure be used as an excuse to dial down its reach or impact. We made sure it will be as powerful as it can possibly be."

American artist Tabor Robak in Times Square New York. Credit:Ashley Gilbertson

Tony Ellwood, director of the National Gallery of Victoria, is excited. In just two months, on December 19, NGV International will open its doors to Triennial 2020, featuring 86 projects from more than 100 artists from more than 30 countries, the sequel to the most-attended show in the gallery's history with 1.23 million visitors.

Towering, abstract animations and computer-generated megafauna will pulse and prowl on the gallery's walls. A 14m-wide mutant octopus constructed from cigarette butts awaits. A French street artist has captured the parched soul of the Darling River catchment in an arresting portrait series and a documentary film. Video birds will peck the grass on the St Kilda Road median strip.
Lubbock pulmonologist Cynthia A. Jumper, MD, was recognized by Texas medical students with the 2020 C. Frank Webber, MD, Award.

Jumper was honored with the award for her commitment to mentoring aspiring physicians. The award was announced by Texas Medical Association Medical School Section at the TMAs House of Delegates meeting that was held virtually earlier this month.

Jumper serves as vice president of health care policy and special health initiatives at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center-Lubbock and is also a former chair of internal medicine at the center. Shes an adjunct profession at Texas Tech University School of Law.

She supervises medical students at local flu clinics and health fairs, volunteers at Lubbock-area medical clinics serving homeless patients and participates in global health care electives in Nicaragua.

The C. Frank Webber, MD, Award was created in 1987 after the late Texas family physician and educator C. Frank Webber, MD, the former dean of McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston.
After months of warning signs, HubHaus, the co-living start-up that attempted to monetize group living in San Francisco and other major cities, has announced its closure to the outrage of stranded tenants and unpaid property owners.

The Los Altos company's business plan involved leasing large, single-family homes, dividing the properties into 10 rooms or more and subletting the rooms to young professionals at market-rate prices for each space.

Critics of the company say HubHaus inflated the cost of living in already expensive cities and acted as a modern-day slumlord, claiming the company neglected to pay utility bills, canceled cleaning services and even took double the monthly rent amounts from tenant's autopay accounts.

The company, founded in 2016 with $11 million in venture funding, was banking on the concept of shared living becoming the new normal. The start-up's site offers "Private Rooms in Beautiful Furnished Homes," adding, "We also fully furnish your common space areas  no heavy lifting with us!"

Last week tenants in San Francisco, L.A., Washington D.C. and other cities received letters informing them that HubHaus was in the process of "liquidation and closure."

The company blamed the pandemic on its failure, as it announced that there are "no funds available to pay any amounts that may be owed landlords, tenants, trade creditors or contractors. In two letters obtained by Mission Local, the company said they "realize that this news is discomforting."

Some tenants allege HubHaus stopped paying utilities months ago but power, water and other services were not stopped as utility companies paused on cutting off service for nonpayment due to the pandemic.

In one of the letters sent to tenants, HubHaus said they plan on transferring management of its rented properties back to the homeowners. In July it was reported that the company had already stopped making full and timely rent payments to homeowners, despite the homeowners claiming their tenants were all paying full rent.

The news has left many tenants facing an uncertain future. Some have taken to social media to vent their frustrations, with worries that that they may now face litigation after paying their rent because HubHaus allegedly didn't pay the owners. Others on social media compared HubHaus to "actual literal slumlords."

One former tenant  or "Hausmate" as the company refers to them  living in a San Carlos property is reportedly suing the company, alleging invasions of her privacy by HubHaus workers entering her room without notice and uninhabitable living conditions, per Mission Local.

Another tenant who was paying $1,580 a month for a room in a Victorian-style home in the Oakland Hills told the San Francisco Chronicle, Its been one of the most nightmarish experiences Ive had.

HubHaus is now run by Diablo Management Group, a company that helps troubled corporations with hands-on management and advisory services with the sole mission to increase the value of its clients' assets.

The group has not yet provided comment on the situation.
Another tunnel has been discovered below the fence along the Serbian border in Csongrad-Csanad County, in southern Hungary, local police said.

The 19-metre tunnel leading from Serbian territory to Hungary was discovered by a police patrol during a field search near the town of Asotthalom, on Monday afternoon, a police spokeswoman said.



Earlier in the day the Hungarian authorities halted four groups of border violators, altogether 74 illegal immigrants in the region.



Police officers will hold an on-site inspection at the tunnels entry and guard it until it is buried.

Photo: police.hu
The on Wednesday held the perhaps no longer remained the "sole and empowering voice of women", as the presence of various groups of protesters had possibly resulted in them acting at cross-purposes.

Citing the report of interlocutors, a bench comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Aniruddha Bose and Krishna Murari said that it appeared that an absence of leadership guiding the protest and the presence of various groups of protesters had resulted in many influencers who were acting possibly at cross-purposes with each other.

"Thus, the perhaps no longer remained the sole and empowering voice of women, who also appeared to no longer have the ability to call off the protest themselves," it said.

The top court had appointed two interlocutors - senior advocate Sanjay R. Hegde and Sadhana Ramachandran, who is a mediator trainer, to meet the protesters at the site.

According to their first report, the top court found that the nature of demands was very wide and that it did look difficult to find a middle path towards at least facilitating the opening of the blocked public way.

The second report of the interlocutors suggested that the views reflected in private conversations with the protesters were somewhat different from the public statements made to the media and to the crowd in attendance.

"While the women protesters had sat in protest inside the tent, there was a huge periphery comprising mainly of male protesters, volunteers and bystanders who all seemed to have a stake in the continuance of the blockade of the road," the bench said.

During the site visit on March 20, before the lockdown to control the outbreak of Covid-19 was imposed, it was revealed that there were about 35-40 'takhts' (platforms) inside the tent and each had 2-3 women occupying the space, resulting in a rough estimate of about 75-100 women inside the tent, as well as 200 or more outside the tent having a connection with the protest.

"While the tent was occupying half of the carriageway, the remaining half of the carriageway had been blocked by creating facilities such as a library, a large model of India Gate and a big metallic three-dimensional map of India located upon a very strong metal scaffolding and anchored by heavy stones, making its removal very difficult," the top court observed.

Noting that mediation through interlocutors did not produce a solution, the top court said a right to hold meetings on public streets was subject to the control of the appropriate authority regarding the time and place of the meeting and subject to considerations of public order.

"However, as the rule requiring prior permission of the concerned authority did not contain any guidance as to when such permission to hold a public meeting may be refused, it was found that the same conferred arbitrary powers and gave an unguided discretion to the concerned authority, and this was accordingly held to be ultra vires Article 19(1)(b) of the Constitution," it said.

--IANS

ss/vd

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
F acebook has banned all groups, pages and Instagram accounts linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory, as fears grow over online misinformation ahead of next months US election.

The social media giant said it had begun removing accounts representing QAnon on Tuesday, but warned that this work will take time and need to continue in the coming days and weeks.

It comes weeks after Facebook labelled the cult-like community  which claims that Donald Trump is waging secret warfare against a satanic child sex trafficking ring  a "militarised social movement" and banned QAnon groups that promote violence.

In a statement the company said it will consider a variety of factors to decide if a group meets its criteria for a ban, including its name, the biography or about section of the page, and discussions within the page, group or Instagram account.

Mentions of QAnon in a group focused on a different subject will not necessarily lead to a ban, Facebook said, though administrators of banned groups will have their personal accounts disabled as well.

Since Facebook first announced its clampdown in August, more than 1,500 QAnon pages and groups have been removed.

But some groups have added members, and others used coded language to evade detection, Other adherents have worked to integrate themselves in other groups, such as those concerned with child safety and those critical of restrictions on gatherings due to the coronavirus, according to researchers at Facebook and elsewhere.

While weve removed QAnon content that celebrates and supports violence, weve seen other QAnon content tied to different forms of real world harm, including recent claims that the west coast wildfires were started by certain groups, which diverted attention of local officials from fighting the fires and protecting the public, Facebook said in a blog post.

QAnon believes Mr Trump is on the front-line in a battle against enemies in the 'deep state' / AP

QAnon messaging changes very quickly and we see networks of supporters build an audience with one message and then quickly pivot to another.

Recent QAnon posts have spread false information about voting and about coronavirus, researchers said, even claiming that US President Donald Trump faked his Covid-19 diagnosis in order to orchestrate secret arrests.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said: Now that they have announced that they will treat the QAnon ideology like the very real threat that it is, we hope that they will follow up with some modicum of evidence showing how the ban is being enforced and whether it is fully effective.
Three terrorists were killed in a night-long encounter between terrorists and security forces in Sugan village of Shopian district in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday (October 7) morning.

IGP Kashmir confirmed the killing of terrorists and said three unidentified terrorists have been killed. He added that search operation is still going on. According to IGP Kashmir, the identity of the killed militants is being ascertained and security forces have recovered arms and ammunition from the site of encounter.

Talking to Zee Media, a Jammu and Kashmir police official said that terrorists were asked to surrender but they did not respond to the request and instead opened fire at the security forces, which forced the security forces to open fire at them.

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Meanwhile, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader named Ghulam Qadir was attacked on Tuesday by unidentified terrorists in Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir. However timely retaliation of his personal security officials (PSO) saved his life.

Unfortunately, police constable Mohd Altaf who was injured during the attack succumbed to injuries. Kashmir Zone Police tweeted, "Our critically injured colleague Ct Altaf (PSO) attained martyrdom. He set an example of professionalism & bravery. We are proud of him. May his soul Rest In Peace."
Rishi Sunak

Plans to give ministers the power to block foreign listings on the London Stock Exchange have been broadly welcomed by City figures including one of the country's leading retail investment entrepreneurs.

The Treasury is reportedly mulling the right to intervene in flotations on national security grounds.

Billionaire Peter Hargreaves, the co-founder of investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown, said he would support tougher rules as "one rotten apple in the barrel affects the whole barrel" .

He added: "We don't want our stock market clobbered with companies that have dubious reporting and dubious shareholders. The cleaner you can have the stock market the more appealing it is not just to UK investors but to foreign investors, so I overwhelmingly support this initiative."

His comments followed a report in The Times which revealed that the Treasury is set to open a consultation on new powers that could see companies blocked from listing in the UK under certain scenarios. This includes if the government believed a foreign state was trying to undermine the LSE's reputation or was after state secrets.

A senior executive, who did not want to be named, said a crackdown could make things clearer for companies looking to list on the stock exchange and therefore make the UK market more attractive.

Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the foreign affairs committee, told The Times : "Britain's markets underpin our economy and our global reach. That's why we need to be careful who uses them. Dirty money and asset stripping have become a new form of attack on our country."

However Nick O'Donnell, who advises companies on listings for Baker McKenzie, said that while there is an opportunity here to "enhance London's reputation" there are also risks that could do the opposite.

"There is a risk that very wide powers based on loose concepts of 'national security' could backfire," he said. "An outcome that meant well-run, quality companies shy away from seeking a listing because of concerns that they would be caught up in global politics would not be a win for anyone."

Story continues

The move follows the 2017 listing by Russian energy company EN+, which is associated with oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

The Financial Conduct Authority was powerless to stop the listing despite Mr Deripaska being subject to US sanctions and being accused of having close ties with President Putin.

A report by the Commons foreign affairs select committee criticised the Government for inaction, saying it was unfair to expect the financial watchdog to identify and prevent threats to national security.

EN+s float is Londons eighth biggest listing since 2015, with the recent debut of Hut Group the largest since 2017.

The Treasury's move comes in the wake of sanctions imposed on embattled Belarusian President Lukashenko and other senior members of his government following a rigged election in August.


BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - European stocks saw a choppy session on Wednesday as investors appeared somewhat clueless about a potential new coronavirus relief plan as they digested a couple of treats from U.S. President Donald Trump.



Markets were also reacting to updates about coronavirus spread. In France, new coronavirus cases continued to see a daily rise of over 10,000. The French government has placed Paris on maximum Covid-19 alert.



Trump had tweeted Tuesday afternoon that he has instructed his administration's negotiators to stop stimulus discussions with Democrats until after the presidential election, triggering heavy selling in the U.S. market.



Later on Tuesday, Trump indicated he would support individual stimulus measures after calling off negotiations over a broader relief package.



'The House & Senate should IMMEDIATELY Approve 25 Billion Dollars for Airline Payroll Support, & 135 Billion Dollars for Paycheck Protection Program for Small Business. Both of these will be fully paid for with unused funds from the Cares Act. Have this money. I will sign now!' Trump tweeted.



He later added, 'If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?'



The pan European Stoxx 600 ended down 0.12%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 edged down 0.06% and France's CAC 40 declined 0.27% and Germany's DAX moved up 0.17%. Switzerland's SMI ended lower by 0.44%.



Among other markets in Europe, Denmark, Iceland and Ireland closed higher. Belgium, Finland, Greece, Norway, Russia and Spain declined, while Austria, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Turkey ended flat.



In the UK market, Rolls-Royce gained more than 5%, rebounding strongly after losses in the previous session. CRH, Glencore, Kingfisher, Fresnillo, Ocado Group, Rio Tinto, Taylor Wimpey, Antofagasta and Melrose gained 2 to 3%.



Among the losers, TUI declined sharply after the company said Birgit Conix, a member of the Executive Board and Chief Financial Officer, will leave the company as of 31 December 2020.



M&G, EasyJet, Relx, BT Group, Avast, DCC, TUI, Rightmove and British Land Company declined 2 to 3.4%.



Supermarket chain Tesco rose sharply as it reported a higher pretax profit for the first half of fiscal 2021 on rising revenue. However, the stock pared its gains and ended lower by about 0.6%.



In the French market, ArcelorMittal, Publicis Groupe, Societe Generale, Valeo, Engie and Renault gained 2 to 3.2%, while Safran, Orange, Technip, Cap Gemini and Sanofi ended lower by 1.2 to 2%.



In Germany, Deutsche Post ended nearly 4% up. Covestro, BASF, HeidelbergCement, Continental, Infineon Technologies and Daimler gained 2 to 3%.



BMW shares ended on a firm note after the company reported that its third-quarter total vehicle sales increased 8.6% from last year. Lufthansa and Volkswagen also closed notably higher.



On the other hand, Bayer, Thyssenkrupp, Munich RE, Wirecard, Deutsche Telekom, Fresenius and Allianz lost 1 to 3%.



In economic releases, German industrial production dropped 0.2% on a monthly basis in August, in contrast to a 1.4% rise posted in July, data from Destatis revealed. Economists had forecast an increase of 1.5%.



On a yearly basis, industrial production decreased 9.6% following a 10% drop in July.



France's current account deficit narrowed in August from the previous month, the Bank of France's report said. According to data from the customs office, the trade deficit widened as exports decreased marginally amid an increase in imports in August. The current account deficit totaled EUR 4.7 billion in August versus a EUR 5.7 billion shortfall in July.



U.K. house prices increased at the fastest pace in more than four years in September, data from the Lloyds Bank subsidiary Halifax and IHS Markit showed.



House prices grew 7.3% on a yearly basis in three months to September, following a 5.2% rise in three months to August. On a monthly basis, house prices were up 1.6% but slightly slower than the 1.7% increase logged in August.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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(Newser)  The Justice Department unsealed charges Wednesday against two Islamic State militants from Britain, accusing them of carrying out a gruesome campaign of torture, beheadings, and other acts of violence against Western hostages they'd captured in Syria, including four Americans. El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are two of four men dubbed "the Beatles," due to their British accents, by the hostages they held captive. They're expected to make their first appearance Wednesday afternoon in federal court in Alexandria, Va., where a federal grand jury issued an eight-count indictment, per the AP. The charges are a milestone in a yearslong effort by US authorities to bring to justice members of the group known for beheadings and barbaric treatment of aid workers, journalists, and other hostages in Syria. Videos of the killings, released online, stunned the US government for their unflinching violence.

story continues below

The indictment describes Kotey and Elsheikh as "leading participants in a brutal hostage-taking scheme targeting American and European citizens" from 2012 through 2015. The State Department declared Elsheikh and Kotey as specially designated global terrorists in 2017 and accused them of holding captive and beheading approximately two dozen hostages, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and aid worker Peter Kassig. Elsheikh and Kotey have been held since October 2019 in US military custody after being captured in Syria one year earlier by the US-based Syrian Democratic Forces.

The other two Beatles included the most infamous member of the group, Mohammed Emwazi, known as "Jihadi John," who was killed in a 2015 drone strike. Emwazi appeared and spoke in the video of Foley's execution. The fourth member, Aine Lesley Davis, was sentenced to seven years in prison in Turkey in 2017.

(Read more Islamic State stories.)
Jerusalem, Oct 7 : Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed regional security issues over phone on Wednesday.

The two discussed "Iranian aggression and the situation in Syria," according to a Prime Minister's Office readout.

In addition, they talked about cooperation in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, reported Jerusalem Post.

Wednesday was Putin's 68th birthday, and Netanyahu wished him well.

Netanyahu and Putin are often in contact, in light of Israel's policy to block Iran from establishing bases close to Israel's northern border and transferring weapons to Hezbollah. Israeli moves to stop these actions are coordinated with Russia, which has a strong presence in Syria.
We had our first guests that arrived yesterday here in Namibia for a self-drive safari. They flew in with Ethiopian Airlines and the flight wasn't very full, so there was a lot of space for ever body on it. Once they arrived in Windhoek, the procedure was actually quite quick. They presented their negative Covid19 Test, health questionnaire, their pre-booked car hire and programme. That was all and they could go on their holiday. You have to get a local sim-card for your phone so you can be contacted.

These can be bought directly at the airport for NAD7.00 a card, so it is not very expensive. I recommend you get one from MTC as they have the best coverage in Namibia.

So overall it was not a hassle at all for them to arrive here in Namibia and they are very happy they are here.

As most of you know you need to be re-tested on day 5 at a local hospital, clinic or approved laboratory.

We can also organize that you can be tested at certain properties by healthcare professionals , so you don't need to leave your accommodation and can carry on with your holiday, except for the short swap. So with a bit of planning it should be quite a quick process. Your results will be ready within 2 days. Should you test positive, you need to isolate for 7 days in a Ministry of Health approved establishment or private hospital if that is necessary.

Clive - Suricate Safaris Namibia
With two presidential candidates over the age of 70 and Donald Trump currently sick with COVID-19, the stakes of the vice presidential debate on Wednesday are as high as for any in recent memory. Mike Pence and Kamala Harris will try to prove that, if necessary, they are each capable of stepping in to lead a country that in just a few months has seen a pandemic, a recession, and mass protests over racist police violence. But the past few months have also brought us a new Mulan movie, and Pence must be pressed about his bizarre reaction to the 1998 animated Disney original.

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Obviously, this is Walt Disneys attempt to add childhood expectation to the cultural debate over the role of women in the military, Pence, then a conservative radio host, wrote in an op-ed on his shows website at the time, apparently unaware that stories about Mulan date back like 1,500 years, and that adapting folk tales and fairy tales with songs and cute animal sidekicks is kind of Disneys whole thing. I suspect that some mischievous liberal at Disney assumes that Mulans story will cause a quiet change in the next generations attitude about women in combat and they just might be right. (Just think about how often we think of Bambi every time the subject of deer hunting comes into the mainstream media debate.)

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Actually, the filmmakers behind the live-action Mulan seem to have agreed with the vice president on one point. It is instructive that even in the Disney film, young Ms. Mulan falls in love with her superior officer! Pence wrote, complaining, Me thinks the politically correct Disney types completely missed the irony of this part of the story. The vice president concluded:

You see, now stay with me on this, many young men find many young women to be attractive sexually. Many young women find many young men to be attractive sexually. Put them together, in close quarters, for long periods of time, and things will get interesting. Just like they eventually did for young Mulan. Moral of story: women in military, bad idea.

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Sure enough, the new version omits Mulans love interest and captain, Li Shang, instead giving her a romantic prospect who is a fellow soldier rather than someone with authority over her. Thats just one of the several subjects of controversy that have plagued the remake, from Disneys decision to film partly in Xinjiang, where an estimated 1 million Muslim Uighurs and other minorities are being detained, to star Liu Yifeis support for the police taking on protesters in Hong Kong, to the movies overwhelmingly white creative team.

But now that Walt Disney has addressed one of the vice presidents principal criticisms of the original film, the American people must know: Are you happy now, Mike Pence?
WESTFIELD  A virtual community forum Tuesday evening, hosted by the Massachusetts Nurses Association and facilitated by state Sen. John Velis, D-Westfield, showcased widespread support for preserving inpatient services at Baystate Noble Hospital.

Speakers included former patients, current staff members, advocates for those struggling with behavioral health and substance use disorders, and those living in Western Massachusetts hilltowns with limited access to transportation.

The forum also called for the formation of an advisory board to educate the public and Baystate Health on how Noble has served Westfield and surrounding areas and how cutbacks are causing longer wait times for patients in the emergency department. Participants said closure of the hospitals intensive care unit is causing the Westfield Fire Department to make more frequent ambulance runs to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield with patients in need of that level of care.

Noble registered nurses say a recent survey they conducted, involving some 460 respondents, shows community opposition to the recent cutbacks in health care at Noble.

Working in the ER you see whatever comes through, said Mary Martin, an emergency department registered nurse of 20 years who was born at Noble.

When we have a staffing problem, like we do up on 2 North with the staffing cuts, we cant get the patients admitted up there. They have to stay in the emergency department until there is staff. We have had up to 10 patients in our ER waiting for beds that are available, but staffing is not.

She added, So, they stay in our emergency department until staffing becomes available up on our medical floor.

We have nine rooms in the emergency department that hold 10 stretchers, three hallway stretchers and three pod rooms for our psychiatric patients, Martin said.

So, with having 10 admitted patients waiting in our emergency department, it really decreases the amount of beds in which we can see the walk-in ER patients for treatment. This increases wait times."

Martin said caring for admitted patients in the ER means doing the best we can with the resources we have.

We have to implement their orders, any changes, we give meds, IVs, lab draws, any additional tests for treatments and we are not always stocked with this additional medical equipment because we are not a medical floor, Martin said.

We have to go and find what we need and do the treatment. Meanwhile, we have patients walking through our doors. This can range from a minor illness to the cardiac arrest to a drug overdose to a violent, combative patient whom we need to call the police to help with that situation. We can also have the homicidal or suicidal patient coming through. You have to prioritize treatment in the ER, and sometimes the admitted patients suffer because their treatments get delayed because they are considered our stabilized patients at that time.

The Massachusetts Nurses Association, which represents unionized nurses at Noble, is in contract negotiations with Baystate Health. As part of negotiations, Martin said, We are trying to bring back the staff and services that were eliminated in 2019 and give the community a greater voice in the hospitals future as well.

The closing of the intensive care and telemetry units means when we have critical patients, those patients get transferred to Baystate (Medical Center) and they have to wait until a bed becomes available, and now our ER becomes a mini-ICU, Martin said.

We really need community support to bring back and keep services here in our community and keep our patients at Baystate Noble and not have them have to go across the river. We need to get our staffing back up so we can admit our patients and see our ER patients and keep everything local.

Last year, Baystate closed Nobles telemetry unit as well as the hospitals six-bed intensive care unit, and converted those ICU beds to medical-surgical use. It also closed its six-bed pediatric unit. Some 20 jobs were cut in the process.

Baystate has proposed to build a 120-bed psychiatric hospital that will involve the consolidation of psychiatric beds at its hospitals in Palmer and Greenfield as well as at Noble, where the 20-bed psychiatric unit is slated to be closed when the new hospital opens.

Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse, whose late mother was treated for medical as well as mental health conditions at Noble, spoke of the importance of local access to behavioral health care, as did Lauren Woodard, program coordinator at Viabilitys Forum House, which works with individuals with mental health conditions.

Donna Stern, a nurse at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield and Nurses Association board member, said legislators need to enact proposed legislation to give the state Department of Public Health more authority in regulating what hospitals close and what services are consolidated.

Right now the DPH can only add conditions, but cannot prevent these closures and consolidations, Stern said.

Velis acknowledged that both community members as well as lawmakers have a role to play in how health care is delivered and regulated.

Paul Dubin, a registered nurse for 33 years at Noble and co-chair of the union bargaining committee, said contract negotiations are not going well and asked for public support for an informational picket Oct. 21 at noon outside the hospital at 115 West Silver St.

Other participants in the hour-long forum included Keith Supinski, president of the Westfield Firefighters Association; Mary Ann Babinski, former Westfield city councilor; and Tracy Opalinski, former Ware Select Board member and a leader of the Keep Care Local campaign at Baystate Mary Lane Outpatient Center in Ware.

According to the Nurses Association, more than 90% of respondents to the survey conducted by the Noble nurses support preserving and expanding inpatient mental health services and medical-surgical services at Noble and 89% support reopening the intensive care unit. Nearly 97% said the service should remain open if the Department of Public Health deems a Noble Hospital service essential.

Noble, once an independent hospital, became part of the Baystate Health system in 2015. The 85-bed hospital admits some 2,600 patients annually and employs 450, including 183 nurses and nursing supervisors.

Baystate issued a statement prior to the forum and said it would have no further comment on the event.

Many of the issues raised by the MNA at the forum are topics currently being discussed as part of contract negotiations, said Ron Bryant, president of Baystate Noble as well as Baystate Franklin Medical Center-Northern Region, in the statement.

As a matter of policy and labor law precedent and out of respect for our nurses, represented under this contract, we will continue to operate in good faith and engage in contract negotiations directly with the MNA, not in public settings.

He added, Now more than ever, it is critical that we come together as a community to manage the challenges that have been put before us.

Unfortunately, the MNAs attitude and approach is consistently confrontational and divisive, Bryant said.

Productive conversations are based on facts and a big picture perspective. Unfortunately, the recent MNA survey doesnt focus on healthcare investment, data on actual community use of Baystate Noble or community health outcomes. Instead, it relies on fearmongering and vague accusations.

Asked about Bryants statement, Joe Markman, union spokesperson, said Baystate is acting as it usually does, which is not engaging with the public around its service cuts until MNA nurses speak out, talk to the community and take action together.

We have seen no evidence that Baystate actually confers with community members before deciding to close services or make staffing cuts, Markman said.

Markman said there have been 12 negotiating sessions thus far with Baystate to replace an expired contract. The main issues include:

MNA Noble bargaining committee focusing on protecting hospitals future and making nurses' wages and differentials more competitive with surrounding hospitals.

MNA proposals include a guarantee of no further layoffs or service cuts (including no Fowler psychiatric closure), restoration of services and positions that were eliminated in 2019 (including re-open ICU and restore medical-surgical staff cuts from fall of 2019), a commitment to safe staffing for in-patient units and the emergency department, and expansion of services based on input from the community and staff.

MNA package of economic improvements includes across-the-board wage increases, differential improvements and retirement benefits.

Baystates proposals center around economic takeaways, such as removing overtime at the end of a shift (end-of-shift overtime is an MNA standard for nurses who often work non-standard schedules) and replacing with overtime after 40 hours in a week; reducing paid time off benefits; eliminating a health plan option for some nurses; and eliminating full-time benefits for night shift nurses working 32-hour weeks.

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One of Ireland's most important industries faces a reckoning that is fast approaching. An urgent response is needed. This response is even more urgent as the country moves to Level 3 of the Government's Covid-19 roadmap, while Dublin is set to remain at Level 3 for up to six weeks.

Nearly 8pc of the entire country is employed in what the Central Statistics Office (CSO) defines as the 'accommodation and food services' sector, which includes your local pub, restaurant, and hotel.

However, according to projections by the drinks and hospitality industry - based on the Department of Business, Enterprise, and Innovation's own analysis - almost two-thirds of those jobs, 114,000 in total, could be lost by the end of 2020 and early 2021 unless Government recognises and responds to the situation.

Some regions are particularly vulnerable. In the south-west, for example, as many as 19,000 jobs are at risk. In Kerry alone, the sector employs 10.5pc of workers.

Last week, updated forecasts by the Department of Finance substantiate these concerns. In a pre-Budget forecast, the Department signalled a looming jobs crisis in the domestic economy.

While the multinational sector is flourishing, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has acknowledged Ireland's "dual economy", which he says "has become even more apparent during this pandemic". CSO data for the first two quarters of 2020 hinted at its existence. In Q2 2020, the volume of total gross value added (which is similar to GDP) dropped by a modest 2.2pc compared with 2019, but the distribution, transport, hotels, bars, and restaurants sector dropped by 32pc.

Employment is the better indicator of the negative economic impact of Covid-19. A collapse of the hospitality industry will have a disproportionate effect on the economy and serve to widen this division, particularly among groups like our young workers.

Take, for example, the effect on the 15-24 age group, who make up nearly a third of all accommodation and food service employment. And on women, who make up more than half of employees (and more than two-thirds in the midlands and south-east).

In a typical recession, emigration can give younger people a second chance at a career and financial independence. But with travel restrictions and lockdowns, school leavers and university graduates are now effectively confined to home with few short-term prospects.

Everyone has felt the hardship of the last six months, socially, psychologically, and materially. Most businesses are worse off than they were in 2019, those in the drinks and hospitality industry especially. Pubs, hotels, and restaurants depend on the free movement and congregation of people, which are of course now greatly reduced, and on foreign tourism, which is practically non-existent.

Ireland's so-called 'wet pubs', the 60pc that do not serve food, have had it hardest of all. These businesses were shut - dependent on social welfare payments for a wage while still having to meet fixed costs - for over six months and are now reopening into a world of restrictions, reduced operating hours, and general uncertainty.

A recent survey of publicans showed that almost half took on 16,000 in debt during lockdown to cover staff and business costs, one in five as much as 30,000. Dublin publicans, whose businesses have been caught in the Government's costly and unpredictable stop-start lockdown strategy, will endure further financial strain for the next period of weeks. Or it could be months - no one knows.

The K-shaped recovery

Over the last year, you may have heard academics and politicians talk of L, U, V, and W-shaped economic recoveries, whereby lines on a graph indicating GDP dips and rises broadly take on these shapes.

But in a "K-shaped" recovery, where the K's strokes indicate divergent fortunes for different segments of the workforce. Workers on the upward stroke - those in professional services, technology, and online retail - recover to acceptable levels as lockdown restrictions are lifted. But those on the downward stroke, in industries like hospitality and tourism, do not.

While remote working has been a welcome revolution for many, not everyone can do their job from a laptop. The CSO's Q2 Labour Force Survey shows that the number of people in professional and technical occupations actually increased during lockdown compared to the same period in 2019, but "elementary" occupations, such as kitchen, and cleaning jobs, fell by a quarter.

There is much at stake. For many people, a job in the drinks and hospitality industry is a rewarding, lifelong career. For others, like students and homemakers, it offers flexibility to work part-time hours, providing an additional earnings opportunity that supports lifestyles and, in many cases, facilitates wider responsibilities. If a downturn in the industry means these people lose their jobs, we face years of increased economic inequality between the lower-skilled and the high-tech professional.

Regional inequality would deepen, too. In many places, especially small towns and villages, work in drinks and hospitality businesses is one of the few forms of employment available. If these business fold, their communities fold with them.

The fortunes of Ireland's pubs, hotels, and restaurants are inextricably wound up with those of the "experience economy", like live events and tourism. A fast recovery is good for both, while a slow decline will spread unemployment and bankruptcy on a much larger scale.

Make it easier for us to do business

Short of a time machine, no one single action, political or scientific, can undo the culmination of events of the last year. Drinks and hospitality business owners understand that they have a difficult period ahead of them. However, the Government can take direct, practical steps now to minimise economic hardship and save jobs. That means removing barriers to doing business.

Take excise. Ireland's consumers and drinks and hospitality businesses pay the second-highest excise tax on drinks in the EU. These rates are punitive, and they directly undermine a crucial employer, tourism product, and growing export business.

In a commercial environment where restaurants are operating at 60pc capacity, pubs at 50pc, and hotels at 25pc, every cent saved counts. With a reduction in costs, publicans, hoteliers, restaurateurs, brewers, and distillers can spend more money keeping staff employed, paying off debt accrued during lockdown, and preparing their business for a tough economic period.

None of us can take Covid-19 lightly. Face masks and Perspex screens are here to stay until there is a vaccine or some other effective therapy. Drinks and hospitality businesses know this, and that is why they have invested thousands of euro - some, tens of thousands - to protect their staff and customers and keep their doors open.

We must go on regardless. Businesses must stay open as much as possible and wages must be paid. What we need now is a clear plan, built in close collaboration with the Government. This plan must provide short-term support while the industry reopens and prioritise its medium and long-term recovery.

If the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste want to help our pubs, our restaurants, our hotels, our burgeoning micro-brewing and distilling industries, and all the jobs they support, then they must act now, in this Budget, and implement a package of consistent, predictable, and easily accessed business support measures. By next year it may be too late.

Tony Foley is an economist and lecturer at DCU Business School.
BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyde Engineering + Consulting, Inc. (Hyde) a worldwide partner for solution-based pharmaceutical design and consultant services, announced the appointment of Kalpesh Patel as Chief Operating Officer (COO). Patel will lead Hyde's growing global enterprise, translating the growth strategies set by Hyde's Board of Directors and CEO to maximize profitability.

"I'm embracing this role with the focused calm and practical ideology that led me here. As I accept this new challenge, I will be relying on my extremely capable colleagues to work towards Hyde's global integration, focusing on the consistency of operational processes and efficient utilization of our combined talents. I'm sincerely honored to be selected into this role and will put forth my best efforts to maintain company culture and sustainability, expanding that to Hyde's global entity," Kalpesh Patel, COO.

"From first joining the company in 2005, Kalpesh has been and continues to be a great contributor to our operations and culture. He provides both technical and managerial expertise as a subject matter expert and as a mentor and has become my great colleague and business partner. I congratulate Kalpesh on his promotion and look forward to accelerated growth of Hyde's domestic and international operations under his oversight," John Hyde, CEO. Having founded Hyde Engineering in 1993, John Hyde remains an industry leader, continuing to drive Hyde's U.S. and international business.

"Kalpesh has worked tirelessly during his 15-year tenure to contribute to Hyde's organizational growth and service excellence. His leadership, vision, technical expertise, and willingness to do whatever it takes, has greatly influenced our success. Kalpesh's new role as COO will allow him to impact Hyde's global operations and to implement global strategies. I am honored to have worked with Kalpesh for many years and it is exciting to see him take this next step in his career," Kerren Bergman, President.

Kalpesh Patel joined Hyde in 2005 as an Engineer I, advancing his career into executive positions as Regional Manager, V.P. of U.S. Strategic Operations and V.P. of International Operations. His expertise includes CIP, SIP, cleaning validation programs, commissioning qualifications, and project management with extensive experience in biopharma and vaccine manufacturing startups, qualification of process equipment and utilities, cycle optimization and troubleshooting for CIP and COP systems. Patel is known for providing strong leadership in building global client partnerships. With strategic collaboration and an entrepreneurial spirit, he has led multiple efforts to expand Hyde's service offerings to new international geographies.

Prior to joining Hyde, Patel worked with International Medication Systems Ltd. as a Validation Engineer, gaining extensive knowledge in validation activities. Patel earned a B.E. in Chemical Engineering from NIT Surat, India, and an M.S. in Chemical and Biomedical Engineering from Cleveland State University, OH. Visit http://www.hyde-ec.com for a full bio.

Hyde Engineering + Consulting's global network consists of 11 locations in 5 countries, engaging in projects around the globe while employing more than 200 people worldwide, providing process system design, commissioning and validation, FDA compliance, and state-of-the-art cleaning technologies to pharmaceutical, bioprocess and regulated process industries.

Contact:

Karrie Hogan  Director, Global Recruitment  [email protected]

SOURCE Hyde Engineering + Consulting, Inc.  (303) 577-1301  www.hyde-ec.com

SOURCE Hyde Engineering + Consulting, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.hyde-ec.com




WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump has ordered his negotiators to stop talks with congressional leaders on new legislation intended to help the economy recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.



Trump's abrupt decision comes after the two sides struggled for months to reach a deal.



The Democratic-led House of Representatives last week released a $2.2 trillion Covid-19 stimulus package, while the White House was ready to spend only less for economic rescue.



'Nancy Pelosi is asking for $2.4 Trillion Dollars to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States, money that is in no way related to COVID-19. We made a very generous offer of $1.6 Trillion Dollars and, as usual, she is not negotiating in good faith. I am rejecting their request, and looking to the future of our Country. I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election,' Trump said on Twitter.



He expressed confidence that he will win the election, immediately after which, 'a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and small business' will be passed.



Trump said he has asked Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell not to delay, but to focus full time on approving his nominee to the United States Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett.



'Our Economy is doing very well. The Stock Market is at record levels, jobs and unemployment also coming back in record numbers. We are leading the world in economic recovery, and the best is yet to come,' he tweeted.



Trump's surprise decision has apparently killed the prospects of Congress passing another round of Covid-19 relief package ahead of the presidential election.



Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said his Republican rival 'turned his back' on the voters.



'Make no mistake: if you are out of work, if your business is closed, if your child's school is shut down, if you are seeing layoffs in your community, Donald Trump decided today that none of that - none of it - matters to him,' he said in a statement.



The National Retail Federation expressed concern over President Trump's decision.



'The pandemic isn't over and neither is the economic crisis it has created,' NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said. 'There are many families still struggling to make ends meet and businesses facing obstacles to putting workers back on the payroll. We need a vaccine to ensure our personal health. And we need further stimulus to ensure we can fix an ailing economy, bring people back to work and spur growth in communities large and small.'



NRF has led the retail industry's call for economic relief, setting out priorities including expansion of the Paycheck Protection Program, tax credits for the cost of personal protective equipment and protection against lawsuits for businesses that follow safety guidelines set by public health agencies.



More than 200 trade associations, under the umbrella The COVID Relief Now coalition, had sent a letter to Congress last week urging immediate and meaningful economic support.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
West African regional body Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) announced it has lifted economic sanctions that were imposed on Mali after a military coup d'etat.

The punitive sanctions, put in place after the overthrow of president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita were lifted on Tuesday as a supportive measure following the

When we evaluated the situation, the act of the transition was effectively finalized. It was to have a civilian transition, with a civilian president, Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, president of ECOWAS commission told RFI's Bamako correspondent Serge Daniel.

Kassi Brou is referring to the retired Colonel Ban Ndaw, who was installed as interim president, as well as former foreign minister Moctar Ouane, who was named prime minister during the 18-month transition period.

Ndaw is expected to head the country with a view to go to elections at the end of the transition period.

While the stress was on placing civilians in government, four out of 25 posts in Ndaw's cabinet went to military officials, including defense minister portfolio, taken up by fellow coup leader Colonel Sadio Camara.

Colonel Modibo Kone was appointed security and civil protection portfolio, and Colonel Ismael Wague becomes national reconciliation minister.

Prominent Malians were also named to the new government, including former prosecutor Mohamed Sidda Dicko as justice minister, and former ambassador to Saudi Arabia Zeini Moulaye as foreign affairs minister.

Three people from the protest movement that helped to push president Keita out were given ministerial posts as well.

ECOWAS called on the transitional government to release all those who had been detained due to the 18 August coup.

It's been practically 48 days that they've been in detention, said Commission President Kassi Brou. We've had the privilege to meet with them, they're in good health, but obviously it is important that they are freed and can return to their own homes, he added.

Thousands of Malians took to the streets earlier this year to protest a controversial election, as well as the troubling security situation.

Mali has dealt with an eight-year conflict with rebel groups and separatists in the north and has spread into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

In a rare move, the new government ordered the release of 100 jihadist prisoners last weekend, reportedly in an effort to free opposition politician Soumila Cisse and Sophie Petronin, a 70-year-old French aid worker.
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / 01 Communique Laboratory Inc. (TSXV:ONE) (the "Company") has entered into a non-binding agreement for a drawdown equity facility (the "Draw Down Facility") of up to $5 million with Alumina Partners (Ontario) Ltd. ("Alumina Partners"), a subsidiary of Alumina Partners LLC, a New York-based private equity firm. The agreement provides for equity private placement offerings, to be conducted in drawdowns of up to $250,000 per tranche over a period of 24 months with the timing of each tranche to be made by the Company at its sole discretion. The amount and terms of each tranche will be subject to the mutual agreement of the Company and Alumina Partners.

"This financing has been structured to allow for quick access to capital for growth when it is required. We believe a financing along the lines of this equity facility provides us with the ability to access the capital we require when we need it while at the same time minimizing shareholder dilution," commented Andrew Cheung President and CEO for 01 Communique.

"We are delighted to support 01 Communique as they work to commercialize the next generation of encryption," added Adi Nahmani, Managing Member of Alumina Partners. "While conventional cryptographic techniques have carried us through the present day, they will no longer offer any protection in a post-Q-Day world. With daily progress announced by the global industry leaders in quantum computing, it is only a matter of time before quantum-grade encryption becomes mission critical for all secure computing use cases. 01 Communique's effective and resource-light solution is already available today across the IronCAP family of products. We look forward to watching management continue to improve their software offerings and expand their user base in preparation for Q-Day."

Neither TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V") 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.

About IronCAP and IronCAP X:

IronCAP is at the forefront of the cyber security market and is designed to protect our customers from cyber-attacks. IronCAP's patent-pending cryptographic system is designed to protect users and enterprises against the ever-evolving illegitimate and malicious means of gaining access to their data today as well as in the future with the introduction of powerful quantum computers. Based on improved Goppa code-based encryption it is designed to be faster and more secure than current standards. It operates on conventional computer systems, so users are protected today while being secure enough to safeguard against future attacks from the world of quantum computers. An IronCAP API is available which allows vendors of a wide variety of vertical applications to easily transform their products to ensure their customers are safe from cyber-attacks today and from quantum computers in the future.

IronCAP X, a new cybersecurity product for email/file encryption, incorporating our patent-pending technology was made available for commercial use on April 23, 2020. The new product has two major differentiations from what is in the market today. Firstly, many offerings in today's market store users secured emails on email-servers for recipients to read, making email-servers a central target of cyber-attack. Our new product, on the other hand, delivers each encrypted message end-to-end to the recipients such that only the intended recipients can decrypt and read the message. Consumer's individual messages are protected, eliminating the hackers' incentive to attack email servers of email providers. Secondly, powered by our patent-pending IronCAP technology, we believe our new product will be the world's first quantum-safe end-to-end email encryption system; secured against cyberattacks from today's systems and from quantum computers in the future. Consumers and businesses using our new products will have tomorrow's cybersecurity today.

About 01 Communique

Established in 1992, 01 Communique (TSX-V:ONE) has always been at the forefront of technology. The Company's cyber security business unit focuses on post-quantum cybersecurity with the development of its IronCAP technology. IronCAP's patent-pending cryptographic system is an advanced Goppa code-based post-quantum cryptographic technology that can be implemented on classical computer systems as we know them today while at the same time can also safeguard against attacks in the future post-quantum world of computing. The Company's remote access business unit provides its customers with a suite of secure remote access services and products under its I'm InTouch and I'm OnCall product offerings. The remote access offerings are protected in the U.S.A. by its patents #6,928,479 / #6,938,076 / #8,234,701; in Canada by its patents #2,309,398 / #2,524,039 and in Japan by its patent #4,875,094. For more information, visit the Company's web site at www.ironcap.ca and www.01com.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements.

Certain statements in this news release may constitute "forward-looking" statements which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. When used in this news release, such statements use such words as "may", "will", "expect", "believe", "plan", "intend", "are confident" and other similar terminology. Such statements include statements regarding the business prospects of IronCAP X, the future of quantum computers and their impact on the Company's product offering, the functionality of the Company's products and the intended product lines for the Company's technology. These statements reflect current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date of this news release. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed under "Risk and Uncertainties" in the company's Management's Discussion and Analysis document filed on SEDAR. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and the company assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.

INVESTOR CONTACT:

Brian Stringer

Chief Financial Officer

01 Communique

(905) 795-2888 x204

Brian.stringer@01com.com

SOURCE: 01 Communique Laboratory, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609209/01-Communique-Arranges-a-5-Million-Equity-Facility-with-Alumina-Partners
The Manhattan district attorney can enforce a subpoena seeking President Trumps personal and corporate tax returns, a federal appeals panel ruled on Wednesday, dealing yet another blow to the presidents yearlong battle to keep his financial records out of the hands of state prosecutors.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel in New York rejected the presidents arguments that the subpoena should be blocked because it was too broad and amounted to political harassment from the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat.

Grand juries must necessarily paint with a broad brush, the judges wrote.

They concluded that the president did not show that Mr. Vance had been driven by politics. None of the presidents allegations, taken together or separately, are sufficient to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued out of malice or an intent to harass, they wrote.

Mr. Trump is expected to try to appeal the decision in the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Vance has said that his office will not enforce the subpoena for 12 days in exchange for the presidents lawyers agreeing to move quickly.
A natural gas pipeline being built under the Baltic Sea from Russia to the German coast is shaking up geopolitics.

Nord Stream 2, as it's called, fuels worries in the U.S. and other countries that the link could give the Kremlin new leverage over Germany and other NATO allies. As the project neared completion, U.S. sanctions and calls for European restrictions, as well as a Polish move to fine Russia's Gazprom on antitrust grounds, have left the construction in limbo and ratcheted up political tensions.

1. What is Nord Stream 2?

It's a 764-mile (1,230-kilometer) gas pipeline that will double the capacity of the existing undersea route from Russian fields to Europe -- the original Nord Stream -- which opened in 2011. Gazprom owns the joint Russian-European venture, with Royal Dutch Shell and four other investors contributing half of the 9.5 billion-euro ($11.2 billion) cost. Initially expected to come online by the end of 2019, the link has been delayed by U.S. sanctions that forced Swiss contractor Allseas Group to withdraw its pipelaying vessels. The pipeline operator is looking for solutions to lay the remaining 6% of the pipe, which includes construction work in Denmark's waters.

2. Why is it important?

The pipeline will help Germany secure a relatively low-cost supply of gas amid falling European production. It's also part of Gazprom's decades-long effort to diversify its export options to Europe as the region moves away from nuclear and coal. Before the first Nord Stream opened, Russia was sending about two-thirds of its gas exports to Europe through pipelines in Ukraine. Their troubled relations since the Soviet Union collapsed left Gazprom exposed to disruptions: A pricing dispute halted gas flows through Ukraine for 13 days in 2009. Since then, relations between the two countries have worsened, culminating in the Ukrainian popular revolt that kicked out the country's pro-Russian president and led to Russia seizing the Crimean Peninsula.

3. Who's opposed to Nord Stream 2?

In August, Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration came under pressure from German lawmakers to back away from the project after the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny heightened diplomatic tensions. Merkel and her European allies were preparing to retaliate against Vladimir Putin's government, but their plans may not make much of an impression on the Kremlin.

Although countermeasures are all but inevitable, the European Union action may consist of asset freezes and travel bans for Russian officials, according to officials familiar with the discussions, who said Nord Stream 2 is likely to be spared. The Baltic pipeline has also been opposed by Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia -- countries that sit between Russia and Germany and collect transit fees on the natural gas that flows through their territories. Those concerns were partially alleviated after Gazprom reached a deal to continue gas transits via Ukraine through at least 2024.

4. What is Poland doing, and why?

Poland's antitrust watchdog slapped a $7.6 billion fine on Gazprom over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline on Oct. 7, opening a new front in the bitter political battle. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in September his government is stepping up pressure on Germany to halt the project following Navalny's poisoning. The country has long objected to the gas link, arguing it will deepen Europe's dependence on energy supplies from its neighbor and threaten the stability of Ukraine.

The Polish regulator said the Baltic pipeline impedes competition and "violates the interests of consumers," and gave Gazprom and its partners 30 days to terminate financing agreements to "restore" competition. Gazprom said it will appeal. While Nord Stream 2 is outside Polish territorial waters, Poland has leverage though its control of separate pipelines, notably the Yamal link carrying gas from giant fields in Siberia to Germany.

5. Why is the U.S. involved?

President Donald Trump and members of Congress say that Nord Stream 2 will make Europe overly dependent on Russia. Trump has said that Germany in particular will become "a captive to Russia." It's also clear that the U.S. is keen to increase its own sales to Europe of what it calls "freedom gas." In June, a bipartisan group of senators proposed expanding the current sanctions against Nord Stream 2 to include insurers, certifiers and other companies working on the project. Senator Ted Cruz, one of the lead sponsors of the legislation, said the pipeline poses "a critical threat to America's national security and must not be completed."

6. What do the obstacles mean for the project?

Gazprom said in October that it plans to finish Nord Stream 2 "as soon as possible" after saying in June it aimed to start gas shipments by early 2021. However, tighter U.S. sanctions could put that timetable in doubt. Work at the Nord Stream 2 offshore site halted in late 2019 and neither the pipeline operator, Nord Stream 2, nor its parent company Gazprom have announced a new construction plan. In August, Denmark's permission to use pipelaying vessels with anchors for construction of the link came into force. A Russian pipe-laying vessel and an assistant ship have visited the German port of Mukran, the logistics hub for Nord Stream 2, over the past several months yet they have not done any actual construction. Pressure testing, cleaning, and filling the link with buffer gas may take six to seven weeks after the link construction is completed, based on the schedule for building the original Nord Stream.

7. Is Europe really captive to Russian gas?

The European gas market has become more competitive as liquefied natural gas, or LNG, vies to replace declining local production from the North Sea and the Netherlands. Gazprom estimates that in 2019 its share of the European market was 35.5%. The company's domestic rival, Novatek, is also expanding its LNG sales in Europe. But not all countries are equally dependent on Russian imports. Gazprom remains the traditional key supplier for Finland, Latvia, Belarus and the Balkan countries, but western Europe gets gas from a wider range of sources, including Norway, Qatar, African nations and Trinidad. More nations, from Germany to Croatia, are seeking to build LNG import terminals to accept shipments from around the world.

8. Will the U.S. sell more gas to Europe?

Before the covid-19 pandemic slashed global fuel demand and sent prices to record lows, the U.S. was a significant supplier of tanker-borne gas to northwest Europe. But U.S. fuel must be chilled into a liquid form and shipped across the Atlantic at great cost. Russia is transporting its gas mostly through the world's largest network of pipelines that have been in place for decades. Over the summer of 2020, transatlantic LNG shipments became less economic but subsequently regained ground. U.S. suppliers are focused on long-term prospects, and have had some success securing deals with Poland. More broadly, they have to hope for a resolution of the trade war between the U.S. and China, whose imports of U.S. gas have slumped since the government in Beijing applied tariffs in retaliation to levies imposed by the White House. The International Energy Agency expects the U.S. to become the world's biggest LNG seller in 2025.
Uncertainty, something we are currently living with every day of our lives, at home, at work, at school and in business.

If you just stop for a second and think about the current status of the world with Covid-19, the upcoming US presidential election and Brexit, it points to a very unpredictable future. It is no surprise therefore, that Budget 2021 will be set against a backdrop of significant economic, political and societal uncertainty.

The impact of Covid-19 has been most severely felt among domestic Irish businesses, including those in Kilkenny which relies heavily on the tourist and retail sector for employment and income generation.

A glimmer of hope however, is that Budget 2021 is expected to contain targeted measures to support these sectors and reinforce the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), Tax Debt Warehousing and Accelerated Tax Loss Relief measures in the July 2020 stimulus package.

This is good news for the people and businesses of Kilkenny city and county worst affected by recent events. However, there is more needed.

It has already been widely reported that there will be no changes to income tax rates or thresholds. So what can we expect and hope for from Budget 2021?

The impact of Covid-19 has led to many employees working from home. This is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Relocating

From a regional perspective, it is thought that the flexibility and accessibility of working from home will result in many employees relocating to places like Kilkenny (a large number of employees already commute to Dublin from here on a daily basis) and this should help to boost the local economy.

However, working from home does involve increased costs, such as utilities and broadband. Current Revenue guidelines allow limited deductibility of such costs (up to 10% of utility costs for the days actually spent working from home) and only where formal arrangements are in place with employers.

Budget 2021 offers an opportunity to remove those requirements and allow a deduction for actual costs incurred instead. Other measures could include a tax deduction for upgrading or converting spaces in homes to offices. This could be akin to the Home Renovation Incentive scheme, which ended in 2018.

For employers, while the July Stimulus included a provision for the continuation of the reduced rate of employer PRSI for employers who qualify for the EWSS, that only applies to businesses that can show a 30% reduction in turnover/customer orders.

We would like to see the Budget include an extension of the PRSI reduced rate to other businesses that may not be able to meet the 30% test, but have been (and continue to be) adversely impacted by Covid-19.

In addition, in order to assist in incentivising and rewarding staff who have made big sacrifices through the Covid-19 period, an enhancement and increase to the Small Benefit Exemption would be a welcome step for both employers and employees. The Small Benefit Exemption allows employers to reward employees through the provision of tax free vouchers. A removal on the number of vouchers per employee and an increase in the value to 1,000 per employee would be welcome.

Increase

Previously planned measures will likely proceed including an increase in the Earned Credit for self-employed workers from 1,500 to 1,650, in line with the Employee Credit. An increase in the Home Care Credit to align with an increase in Childcare subsidies is also anticipated.

We expect that the reduced USC rate of 2% for certain medical card holders and those over 70 years (subject to income limits) will be extended post 2020.

At a minimum, Budget 2021 will likely see provisions to allow for the extension of the EWSS and the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) past March 2021, with possible rate increases.

Irish businesses face a defining moment. The fallout of Covid-19 and the uncertainty of Brexit will influence the shape of the land for Irish indigenous business for years to come.

Businesses in Ireland, including those in Kilkenny in the retail, hospitality and construction sectors, have undoubtedly been the worst hit as a result of Covid-19 and we have yet to see how Brexit will impact on the Agri-businesses in our locality. Therefore, these businesses will be hoping for some significant support packages to help steer them through this period of uncertainty.

We wait with bated breath for next Tuesday to see what the Government has in store to aid the people of Ireland and reduce the strain and anxiety most of us are feeling during this uncertain period.
A childrens song became an instrument of cruelty at an Oklahoma County jail, according to reports.

A report by The Oklahoman, said that on Monday, two former Oklahoma County jail guards and their supervisor were charged with several crimes for forcing inmates to stand for hours while listening to the popular childrens song Baby Shark, at loud volumes.

BuzzFeed News reported that according to probable cause affidavits provided to them, in November and December last year, guards Christian Miles and Greg Butler Jr., both 21, forced four inmates to listen to the song on repeat, while standing alone, handcuffed to a wall in rooms at the Oklahoma County Detention Center. According to the report, there were at least two inmates who were forced to stand for two hours, the report cited.

Investigators wrote that the song was put on a loop to play repetitively aloud...thus putting undue emotional stress on the inmates who were most likely already suffering from physical stressors, the report cited.

According to the investigators, The playing of the music was said to be a joke between the guards, the report cited, and its purpose was to try to discipline the inmates and teach them a lesson.

The BuzzFeed News report noted that this type of activity is a form of psychological torture. During the George W. Bush administration, music played on repeat for hours was used by CIA agents, according to a 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report.

The guards' shift commander failed to respond to complaints.

According to the affidavit, although the guards shift commander, Christopher Hendershott, 50, was reportedly aware of the guards practice, as well as many inmate complaints against them, he failed to discipline the pair or conduct any investigation, the report cited.

Hendershott, Miles and Butler have been charged with the misdemeanor offenses of cruelty to prisoners, corporal punishment to an inmate, and conspiracy, the report said.

According to the report, online court records revealed no attorneys were listed for the trio.

What action was taken by the Oklahoma County Sheriffs Office?

According to an Oklahoma County Sheriffs Office spokesperson, when officials learned of the allegations last December, the guards' contact with inmates was revoked, the report cited.

During the investigation, the report said all three guards voluntarily left the department.

The Oklahoman newspaper, which was first to report the charges, quoted Sheriff P.D. Taylor, who told them, We dont tolerate it, he said. We always did an excellent job policing ourselves."

--Linda Hasco/PennLive.com
LONDON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AVANT Communications ("AVANT"), a platform for IT decision-making, today announces that it has joined forces with INAP to bring hybrid infrastructure solutions, including high-density colocation, managed cloud and network services to the EMEA region following a successful partnership in the United States.

Through the expanded relationship, INAP seeks to grow the company's involvement in the channel through AVANT's network of Trusted Advisors. Replicating the successful model in North America, INAP is looking to AVANT's network of Trusted Advisors to provide industry leading expertise, state of the art tools and influence in the IT decision-making process for enterprise customers to drive success in the new region.

"We are thrilled to be able to offer INAP to our enterprise customers, and to continue innovating in the channel so that other channel leaders can find success as well," said AVANT PresidentDrew Lydecker. "As we strive to provide world class support to our agents and Trusted Advisors across the globe, companies like INAP help everyone push the envelope further."

Over the last decade, AVANT has grown its portfolio of partners, providers and Trusted Advisors. The company is now positioned as the global leader in distributing next-generation technologies and established a model for others in the agent community to follow when expanding their portfolios and widening their reach. The expansion of the partnership with INAP represents a further commitment to providing value and innovative solutions to the companies' mutual customers.

"Since launching our partnership with AVANT in the EMEA region, we have seen tremendous results and look forward to more opportunities to expand our relationship and grow our presence in the channel," said Raza Baloch, Director of UK&I at INAP. "Our focus in the coming year is to leverage INAP's hybrid infrastructure portfolio to simplify the cloud journey and enable innovation for enterprise customers, a goal that will only be strengthened by AVANT's team of expert Trusted Advisors."

On October 14, INAP and AVANT will host a webinar, "Simplifying the Cloud Journey," for EMEA partners. INAP's Joe Corvaia, CRO, and Jennifer Curry, SVP, Products and Technology will present.

"Expanding our partnership with AVANT to bring INAP's hybrid infrastructure solutions to the EMEA market underscores our commitment to invest in the channel in 2020 and beyond," said Joe Corvaia, CRO of INAP. "AVANT's leadership and extensive trusted advisor network has been an immense asset to INAP's success in North America and we look forward to duplicating those results internationally."

INAP's robust set of hybrid infrastructure solutions is now available to enterprises across the U.S. and Europe via AVANT's Trusted Advisor network. More information on AVANT's solutions is available here .

About AVANT Communications

AVANT Communications is a platform for IT decision-making and the nation's premier distributor for next-generation technologies. AVANT provides unique value to its extensive network of Trusted Advisors with original research, channel sales assistance, training, and tools to guide decision-making around IT services that promote business growth. From complex cloud designs to global wide-area network deployments to the latest in security services, AVANT sets the industry standard in enabling its partners and clients to make intelligent, data-driven decisions about services, technology and cost-effective communications. For more information, visit www.goavant.net, or connect on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About INAP

Internap Holding LLC (INAP) is a global provider of performance-driven, secure hybrid infrastructure solutions. INAP's expansive suite of multi-platform cloud, modern data center, optimized network and intelligent managed services solutions help businesses flexibly and reliably move workloads to the right destination at the right timereducing risk and maximizing value. For more information, visit www.inap.com.

SOURCE Internap Holding LLC

Related Links

http://www.inap.com


Spotting of socialite comes as two women sue Epstein estate for $100m

Ghislaine Maxwell, the alleged madam of Jeffrey Epstein, has hired a New York "super lawyer" who once argued one of Osama bin Ladens terror network henchmen was denied a fair trial.

Attorney Bobbi Sternheim is named in filings with a US District Court as counsel for Ms Maxwell, who is awaiting trial on charges of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse young girls, which she denies.

Law firm Fasulo Braverman & Di Maggio lists Ms Sternheim as a "super lawyer" who has tried death-eligible cases of organised crime, international terrorism, and capital murder, as well as civil cases against the US Bureau of Prisons, the Mission of Saudi Arabia, and former first lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos.

But she is best known for representing Khaled al-Fawwas, the London-based spokesman of bin Laden, in a 2015 trial over the 1998 bombings of two US embassies that killed 224 people - including a dozen Americans.

In defending Mr al-Fawaz, who was sentenced to life for the Tanzania bombing, Ms Sternheim said he was denied justice after being extradited to the US from London in 2012.

"Trying a pre-9/11 terrorism case in a post-9/11 era within blocks from the World Trade Center ensured that Mr al-Fawwaz could never receive a truly fair trial by a truly impartial jury," she said outside the court, according to contemporary reporting by the NY Post in 2015.

Ms Sternheim also represented Minh Quang Pham, who in 2016 was sentenced to 40 years prison for plotting to blow up London's Heathrow Airport.

Neither Ms Sternheim nor law firm FB&D immediately responded when contacted to comment on the appointment by Ms Maxwell, which was first reported in The Mirror.

Ms Sternheim is the former head of the New York Women's Bar Association, and remains the first and only female recipient of the New York Criminal Bar Association's Award for excellence, according to FB&D.

She holds "top secret" and "sensitive compartmented information" clearance for access to certain classified government information, and has represented defendants facing international extradition.

Story continues

Ms Maxwell, 58, is in custody in Brooklyn awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges due to take place next year.

She has also hired Christian Everdell, a former assistant US attorney who helped prosecute Mexican drug lord "El Chapo".

Read more

Ghislaine Maxwell gets first NY jail lawyer during pandemic

Ghislaine Maxwell to be kept away from jails general population

Ghislaine Maxwell secretly watched by psychologists  lawyers

Ghislaine Maxwell requests to be moved from onerous New York jail

Maxwell tried to recruit Paris Hilton for Epstein, new series claims
The IRS fines, city attorney Dan Whitten said, are a gift that keeps on giving. He noted that all of the outstanding debts were from the past administration  Rivas and Mayor Sue Lynch took office at the start of this year  and that he has been meeting with Porter County Treasurer Michelle Clancy and Scott McClure, the county attorney, to work on the outstanding tax bill.
By Nailia Bagirova, Nvard Hovhannisyan and John Irish

BAKU/YEREVAN/PARIS (Reuters) - France, the United States and Russia will step up efforts to end fighting between Azeri and ethnic Armenian forces in the South Caucasus by holding talks in Geneva on Thursday, as fears of a regional war grow.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Russian, French and U.S. representatives would also meet in Moscow on Monday to look at ways to persuade the warring sides to negotiate a ceasefire.

"We want everyone to understand that it's in their interest to immediately stop hostilities without conditions and that we start a negotiation," he told the French parliament's foreign affairs committee.

Le Drian did not make clear whether any Armenian and Azeri representatives would attend but Azerbaijan said its foreign minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, would visit Geneva on Thursday.

The Armenian foreign ministry said Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan would visit Moscow on Monday but gave no details. It ruled out a meeting with Bayramov.

The warring sides have so far ignored ceasefire calls by Paris, Washington and Moscow, which have mediated for nearly three decades in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountain enclave which under international law belongs to Azerbaijan but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.

The Azeri and Armenian leaders have also been at odds over their conditions for halting fighting that began on Sept. 27.

More than 360 people have been killed, including 320 military personnel and 19 civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh, and 28 Azeri civilians. They are the deadliest clashes since a 1991-94 war over Nagorno-Karabakh that killed about 30,000.

Azerbaijan says Azeri cities outside the conflict zone have also been attacked. This has taken fighting closer to territory from which pipelines carry Azeri gas and oil to Europe, and prompted British oil company BP <BP.L> to look at tightening security at its facilities in Azerbaijan.

Story continues

"We must be attentive that the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan does not become a regional war," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in televised remarks.

Iran, which borders both Armenia and Azerbaijan, has been talking to both the former Soviet republics as concern mounts that Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a defence pact with Armenia, could be sucked into the conflict.

CEASEFIRE CONDITIONS

France, the United States and Russia are co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk Group that mediates over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkey has accused the group of neglecting the conflict and said it should not be involved in mediation.

Le Drian hit back at Turkey, reiterating accusations - denied by Ankara - that it is involved militarily and saying this fuelled the "internationalisation" of the conflict.

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has said his country will hold talks with Armenia only after the acute phase of military conflict ends, and wants Turkey involved in mediation.

He also wants Armenia to set a timetable for a withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding Azeri territories.

Armenias ceasefire conditions are Turkey "discontinuing its engagement" and "the withdrawal of mercenaries and terrorists or their elimination", Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's press service quoted him as telling Time magazine.

In comments to Sky News, Pashinyan said Turkey and Azerbaijan were pursuing a policy of genocide and "reinstating the Turkish empire". Both have dismissed such accusations in the past.

Some 1.5 million Armenians were killed under Ottoman rule between 1915 and 1923. Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One, but contests the figures and denies the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.

(Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara, Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber, Dmitry Antonov and Maria Kiselyova in Moscow, Guy Faulconbridge in London and Michele Kambas in Athens, Writing by Margarita Antidze and Timothy Heritage; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Giles Elgood and Gareth Jones)
The American University of Ras Al Khaimah (AURAK) has signed a cooperation agreement with Wayne State University (WSU), a public research university in Detroit in the US state of Michigan.



Through this agreement, WSU and AURAK aim to establish a UAE  US Higher Education Collaboration Initiative. The funding provided by the US Mission Embassy to the UAE will help both universities expand current collaboration efforts, including student exchange and joint/dual degree programs, while pursuing new initiatives to further connect the campuses, such as joint research, faculty and staff cooperation, and non-degree programs.



WSU was represented by its president Roy Wilson, who attended the event virtually via video call and signed the agreement with Professor Hassan Hamdan Al Alkim, President of AURAK.



AURAK recently received an American delegation led by the US Ambassador to the UAE John Rakolta Jr., and US Consul General in Dubai Philip Frayne, to discuss different aspects of cooperation between the two sides in various academic, scientific, and research fields.



Professor Hassan Hamdan Al Alkim, President of the American University of Ras Al Khaimah (AURAK), presented the most important AURAK achievements during the last 10 years, as well as highlighting areas of cooperation between AURAK and other universities in the United States of America.



He also highlighted the accreditations, ratings and rankings that AURAK has recently gained. Professor Al Alkim called particular attention to the accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) in December 2018 and the overall 5 QS stars rating gained in 2020.



Regarding the cooperation agreement, John Rakolta Jr. Said: One of the most important factors that strengthen the relationship between two countries is promoting people-to-people communication, which can be achieved by creating channels of communication for dialogue to build trust, innovation, and creativity. Therefore, this agreement between the two universities will give students the opportunity to learn from one another and exchange experiences in order to build a sustainable future relationship, based on these principles.



In addition, it is very important that the cooperation between the two universities expand throughout the region, especially since the United States has hundreds of universities and colleges and we would love to share our expertise with the UAE, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
Health officials say political battles over emergency orders dont change the fact that wearing a mask in public will save lives during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services issued an emergency order Monday requiring face coverings in public spaces, restricting gatherings and limiting the capacity of bars and other venues. The order reaffirms a handful of Gov. Gretchen Whitmers executive orders that were invalidated by the Michigan Supreme Court last week for reasons unrelated to the orders ability to prevent COVID-19 spread.
Patna, Oct 7 : The Bihar Assembly election is witnessing different shades of politics as the same parties are allies at one place and opponents at another.

The Lok Janashakti Party which is part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre seems miffed with the leadership of JD-U supremo and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Bihar. On the other hand, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is enjoying the perks of power in Jharkhand in alliance with the Jharkhand Mukti Morch (JMM) but was reluctant to give seats to the JMM candidates in Bihar.

In such a situation, the LJP, the Janata Dal (United), the RJD and the JMM are facing off in Bihar.

In Jharkhand, the only winning candidate of the RJD was included in the Cabinet. But in the Bihar elections, the RJD apparently could not stomach the JMM's alliance and the JMM announced to go solo in the polls.

JMM general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya said the party cannot compromise on its honour. He added that the RJD was doing political manipulation, against which the party was forced to speak out.

Bhattacharya asked what was the status of the RJD in Jharkhand? Its poll symbol, the lantern, was flickering in Jharkhand only due to the JMM. Also, the JMM had given the RJD more than its due share of seats in the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha pollls.

He said that the JMM won in Jharkhand through its hard work and struggle and the victory was not a gift to it.

The party has decided to field candidates from Jhajha, Chakai, Katoriya, Dhamdaha, Manihari, Pirpaiti and Nathnagar in Bihar.

The LJP is in more or less the same situation. LJP chief Chirag Paswan likes the NDA at the Centre, but chose not to ally with it for the Bihar elections. He announced putting up candidates against NDA partner, the JD-U.

At the Centre, former LJP president Ramvilas Paswan is a minister. LJP chief Chirag also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is his ideal and he has learned to struggle from him, but still decided not to go with the NDA in Bihar.

The NDA is contesting the Bihar elections under the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

In a joint press conference of the NDA on Tuesday, BJP leaders made it clear that those who do not like the leadership of Nitish Kumar in Bihar cannot be with the NDA.

Now it is up to the voters how they like this 'friends here and opponents there' game.

(Manoj Pathak can be contacted at manoj.p@ians .in)
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If you want to know who really controls Michelmersh Brick Holdings plc (LON:MBH), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies. I quite like to see at least a little bit of insider ownership. As Charlie Munger said 'Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.

With a market capitalization of UK89m, Michelmersh Brick Holdings is a small cap stock, so it might not be well known by many institutional investors. Taking a look at our data on the ownership groups (below), it seems that institutions own shares in the company. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Michelmersh Brick Holdings.

View our latest analysis for Michelmersh Brick Holdings

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Michelmersh Brick Holdings?

Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index.

As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Michelmersh Brick Holdings. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Michelmersh Brick Holdings' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Institutional investors own over 50% of the company, so together than can probably strongly influence board decisions. We note that hedge funds don't have a meaningful investment in Michelmersh Brick Holdings. Our data shows that Eric Gadsden is the largest shareholder with 24% of shares outstanding. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 20% and 6.4%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. Furthermore, CEO Frank Hanna is the owner of 0.6% of the company's shares.

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After doing some more digging, we found that the top 3 shareholders collectively control more than half of the company's shares, implying that they have considerable power to influence the company's decisions.

Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage.

Insider Ownership Of Michelmersh Brick Holdings

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.

Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Michelmersh Brick Holdings plc. Insiders own UK26m worth of shares in the UK89m company. I would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

General Public Ownership

With a 13% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over Michelmersh Brick Holdings. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Michelmersh Brick Holdings you should know about.

But ultimately it is the future, not the past, that will determine how well the owners of this business will do. Therefore we think it advisable to take a look at this free report showing whether analysts are predicting a brighter future.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Fatima Ribadu-Abubakar, daughter of the former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)'s boss, Nuhu Ribadu, has apologised for her wedding dress which has caused a stir on social media particularly amongst adherents of the Islamic Faith.

The newly wedded bride, in a statement, has said she wore the dress inside the house, adding that the colour of the dress is same with that of her skin which made people think her skin was exposed.

She said: "I cannot expose my skin.

"My wedding dress has the same colour with that of my skin, but I still apologize to my friends and family who don't like what happened and I hope to learn from this."

Fatima got married to Atiku's son on Saturday in Abuja.

The event was attended by top political figures including Atiku Abubakar, the groom's father; Bola Ahmed Tinubu, National leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC); Mai Mala Buni, All Progressives Congress caretaker chairman and Governor of Yobe state as well as Bisi Akande, the former APC interim chairman.

The wedding also saw in attendance political figures from the two top political parties in the country with some state governors and their wives in attendance.

The Talking point

The talking points for the online community was the bride's wedding dress.

Pictures taken at the event showed an exposure of the bride's neck to shoulder partially covered by dress and a veil she adorned.

The social media stir

The stir began while Ribadu was being congratulated on his daughters wedding after he made a tweet.

"I just dropped off my daughter, Fatima, in her new home. It's emotionally fulfilling exercise for a father.

"I deeply appreciate the honour done to my family by those who attended the wedding Fatiha earlier today, and those who sent in their goodwill and prayers. I thank you all."

I just dropped off my daughter, Fatima, in her new home. It's emotionally fulfilling exercise for a father.

I deeply appreciate the honour done to my family by those who attended the wedding Fatiha earlier today, and those who sent in their goodwill and prayers.

I thank you all. pic.twitter.com/XtThfiGrh2

-- Nuhu Ribadu (@NuhuRibadu) October 3, 2020

However, the reactions that greeted the post showed how disappointed some Nigerians were with his daughter's outfit at the ocassion.

Here are some of them:

Congratulations for the effort.Please for subsequent weddings take great care in the manner of dressing of the bride.

That dress was so exposing.Congratulations once more

-- Engr.S.Ibrahim (@danyarosule) October 3, 2020

congratulations for marrying your daughter off, but I don't think you paid much attention in training her to be morally decent as her outing depicts.

-- Mustapha G Lawan (@mgajibe) October 3, 2020

Really emotional. But sir I was personally caught by surprise those improper attire she earlier wore. Sir may I remind you that death and judgment of Allah is certain. Let seek for Allah's forgiveness and we must be conscious of our act.

-- Comrade Makeri Kuta (@MakeriKuta) October 3, 2020

Malam the dressing of your daughter is an insult to the fulani Community and Muslims Ummah at Large. This is very unfortunate and terrible, even her fathers, in-laws, & bridegroom are there but they couldn't called her attention into order Ya Allah guide us and our Family pic.twitter.com/SaoBunXvNS

Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later.

-- MALAM_YOUSOUP (@yusufUtoncy) October 4, 2020

Today I saw pictures of a Muslim bride dressed in a manner totally unbecoming of her faith and her culture.Fewer things have made me sadder.I appeal to our young people and us parents to stop aping cultures that are not ours.

Please no names or insults in responses.Please

-- Nura Mahe (@Convener_) October 4, 2020

This is obviously not the first time children of high profile Northern Nigerians have been bashed on social media because of their wedding outfits.

Recall that Fatima Ganduje, daughter of Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano and Adama Indimi, daughter of Mohammed Indimi, also received the same bashing online after their wedding ceremony.
Portrait of smiling smart freelancer in casual clothes and spectacles enjoying his work at home

Six months after lockdown was first introduced, the novelty of working from home is beginning for wear off for some.

After the initial joy of ditching your commute, spending all day in your pyjamas and being able to work next to the fridge, the reality of working from home sets in. The line between work and not-work has become blurred  and each day seems to blend into the next in a never-ending stream of video calls.

However, for those of us who find it hard to switch off outside of office hours, Microsoft has the answer: Virtual commuting.

A virtual commute isnt about visualising the morning aroma of coffee breath, or hearing someone elses music blasting out from their headphones. Rather, its about giving people a period of time before and after work to transition into work mode.

READ MORE: Why working mothers are the first on the firing line for COVID-19 redundancies

The Teams update next year will let users schedule virtual commutes at the beginning and end of each shift, the Wall Street Journal reports. Instead of reliving 8am or 6pm packed subway rides or highway traffic jams in virtual reality, users will be prompted by the platform to set goals in the morning and reflect on the day in the evening.

Essentially, the virtual commute feature aims to help people bookmark the start and end of their working day  which is more difficult when working from home.

Rather than an extension of the work day, Microsoft hopes the update encourages employee wellness. They believe leaving space for individuals to let go of the working day and prep for the next will prevent people from checking in after hours.

According to the WSJ, the feature may also prompt workers to log how they are feeling too. If they are stressed, they may be able to block out certain times in the day to decompress or do a guided meditation with the popular Headspace app.

WATCH: How to answer difficult interview questions

It might sound gimmicky, but Microsoft may be onto something. Flexible working can provide huge benefits for employees, allowing us to avoid stressful commutes and work at times that fit around our lives and families. As many of us have realised though, working remotely comes with a whole host of additional challenges, especially during a pandemic.

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Coronavirus has turned homeworking into the new normal, but boundaries between our personal and professional lives are beginning to erode. According to a survey of 2,000 people by LinkedIn and the Mental Health Foundation earlier this year, working from home means the average Brit is putting in an extra 28 hours of overtime a month. For young workers aged 16-24, this figure increases to 35.1 hours a month.

Even before COVID-19, many of us found it harder to switch off when working remotely. A survey taken at the start of 2019 by the occupational health service BHSF found 92% of home-workers answered emails outside of working hours. Just 39% of home workers said that their employers had produced any sort of guidance around working remotely.

READ MORE: How to make friends when you are working remotely

Sending the odd email after hours is sometimes necessary, but frequently putting in extra hours can leave us at risk of stress, anxiety and burnout. Each person experiences burnout differently, but signs of this state of chronic stress can include exhaustion, racing thoughts, anxiety and feeling detached from work.

Its a growing problem among workers, so much so that the World Health Organisation labelled it an occupational phenomenon in 2019.

Microsofts virtual commute is certainly a novel solution to a serious problem, but whether it actually improves wellbeing among home-workers remains to be seen. Recognising the difficult elements associated with remote working may be progress, but asking employees to spend even longer on video calls and think about work tasks may not be the answer.

Instead, shutting down your laptop and going for a walk may be a more useful end to the working day. And perhaps even most importantly, employers should make sure they arent expecting too much of people  and ensure their staff dont feel pressured to be seen as always available.
"We found that the Field Guide for Barefoot Psychology improved mental health stigma, PTSD symptoms, and emotion regulation, with effects holding 3-months after completion. These findings are encouraging because the Field Guide can be shared with large numbers of people in low-resource settings by non-specialists with minimal training," explains Dr. Vivian Khedari DePierro, a clinical psychologist working with Beyond Conflict, a global non-profit organization leading the intervention deployment.

According to several studies, displaced populations face a higher risk of experiencing mental health challenges while also dealing with the stigma associated with discussing mental health illness and seeking care. Researchers approached this obstacle through the use of narrative storytelling combined with accessible explanations for mental health symptoms, and self-care exercises.



"Anyone is willing to read a story. The Field Guide narrates the journey of two young Syrians as they navigate unexpected conflict and forced displacement and all that experience entails. By using storytelling, we allow people who live in a culture of incredible stigma a useful and effective way forward," points out Mike Niconchuk, program director at Beyond Conflict.

The Field Guide was developed by researchers at Beyond Conflict , the New School for Social Research , and the University of California-Berkeley in conjunction with Syrian refugees in Jordan, whose experiences of forced displacement, trauma, and stress are featured in the narrative story and artwork of the book and online application.

Unfortunately, stigma is not the only barrier to mental health care. The novel coronavirus has proven to be another hurdle, alerts a recent WHO poll that shows how COVID-19 has disrupted mental health services in most countries around the world.

This new reality highlights the need for mental health interventions designed for large-scale implementation in humanitarian settings. "In Za'atari Camp, as in many refugee hotspots around the world, individuals' mental health has deteriorated in the past months. The system cannot accommodate the growing need for care, so we need to keep finding ways to deliver meaningful and useful care to people as this uncertainty continues unabated," says program director Mike Niconchuk.

SOURCE Beyond Conflict

Related Links

http://www.beyondconflictint.org


In the meeting, Ines Abdel-Dayem was presented with a commemorative medal of the French parliament

Egypts Minister of Culture Ines Abdel-Dayem received this week Ambassador of France to Egypt Stephane Romatet and representative of the French National Assembly and member of the French parliament Frederic Boutet to discuss means of enhancing cultural and artistic cooperation between the two countries.

Abdel-Dayem said soft power is one of the means of enhancing friendship, describing it as the bridge of communication between nations. She explained the strength and depth of relations between Egypt and France, pointing to the richness of creativity in European countries, past and present, which is the base of achieving cultural convergence between the two societies.

She assured of the need to strengthen intellectual and artistic exchange between the two countries in various creative fields, underlining the importance of expanding artistic and educational scholarships between the two countries.

Ambassador Romatet said his country hopes to participate in the creative movement happening in Egypt in all artistic and cultural fields. He referred to the pivotal cooperative role of French cultural centres in Egypt, expressing happiness at French participation in various international events organised by Egypt, including the Cairo International Book Fair and Cairo International Film Festival.

Romatet invited Abdel-Dayem to visit Paris and meet her French counterpart, Roselyne Bachelot, who is known for her passion for Egyptology and classical music.

At the end of the meeting, Boutet bestowed upon Abdel-Dayem the French parliament's commemorative medal. In return, Abdel-Dayem gave the French ambassador a collection of Ministry of Culture publications.

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The UAE has been named as the "model nation" to aspire to by Arab youth for the ninth consecutive year.



In the 12th Annual ASDAA BCW Arab Youth Survey, the country was voted for by young Arabs ahead of other Western and Eastern nations, underlining the UAEs reputation as one of the worlds top places to live, reported state-run news agency Wam.



The survey polled 4,000 young Arab nationals aged 18 to 24 from 17 Arab states in the Middle East and North Africa with a 50:50 male female split.



When asked which country in the world they would like to live in, nearly half (46 percent) of all young Arabs select the UAE as their country of choice, followed by the US (33 percent), Canada (27 percent), the UK (27 percent), and Germany (22 percent).



Asked specifically what they associate most with the UAE, young Arabs cited factors including safety and security (44 percent), wide range of work opportunities (36 percent), generous salary packages (32 percent), a growing economy (31 percent) and a good place to raise a family (25 percent) as the top five reasons.



Underlining the strong reputation of the UAE across the Arab world, a vast majority (89 percent) of Arab youth see it as an ally of their country, in addition to being regarded as one of the top three rising powers that have most increased their influence in the Arab world, alongside Saudi Arabia and the United States of America.



Sunil John, President - Middle East of BCW and founder of ASDAA BCW, said: "For years, the UAE has served as a beacon of hope in the region. The unique model of the nation, celebrating social, religious and cultural pluralism, continues to gain the admiration of young Arabs, who see the UAE as the top nation in the world, over Western and Eastern counterparts, to live in and emulate.



"This is a powerful statement on the positivity and progressive outlook of the UAE leadership and people."



John added: "In a defining year that witnessed the UAE marking historic firsts, including the first interplanetary mission from the Arab world to Mars with the successful launch of the Hope Probe, and signing the Peace Accord with Israel, the national pride of young Emiratis is surging, as our survey findings show.



This also reflects in other key findings of the survey in which Emirati youth express an almost diametrically opposed view to the majority  especially in relation to their confidence in their governments ability, desire to emigrate, and their nationality defines their personal identity, rather than religion."
Harish Murali By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Wednesday wondered how college students can be declared passed without clearing their exams. The two-member bench of Justices M Sathyanarayana and R Hemalatha made the oral observations when hearing a plea filed by former Vice-Chancellor of Anna University E Balagurusamy. The plea had challenged the Tamil Nadu government's decision to cancel the arrear exams for final year college students and award them degrees.

The court also said that there will be consequences if students come filing pleas supporting the government decision on the cancellation of arrears. The court said that in such a case, the list of arrears in all the semesters and their board exam marks will be sought from the students.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in its submissions stated that the exemption from arrear exams as granted by the state government is not as per the guidelines of the University Grants Commission.

The council also said, "The council has not issued any exemption for students from appearing for the examinations and pursuing their studies for the next year without being assessed by exams. Degrees cannot be awarded to a student who has failed to clear a large number of arrears. This is not acceptable in the industry too."

The court also observed that it cannot take a different stand from that of an expert body like the AICTE. The court, prior to adjourning the plea, also said it is saddening that several students who have passed engineering are working as food delivery agents.

The court issued a notice to the University Grants Commission to respond and adjourned the next hearing in the case to November 20.
Tribal chiefs and leaders in Zongo communities have been urged to brainstorm and come out with a comprehensive plan to develop Zongo communities.



Alhaji Usman Ahmed, Chief of the Fulani community in the Ashanti Region, who made the call, said it was time tribal leaders do away with parochial and sectional interest and come together to propose a master plan that would help promote the development of Zongo communities to political parties for implementation.



This, according to him, was the only way to stop the neglect of Zongos by successive governments.



Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi, Alhaji Ahmed, pointed out that the perceived divisions among tribal leaders and Imams in Zongo communities were the cause of neglect and abandonment of the Zongo communities over the years.



Alhaji Ahmed, who was reacting to the alleged recent tribal and political divisions amongst Zongo Chiefs and Imams in the Kumasi metropolis, said the perceived divisions had affected the development and improvement of the living conditions of the people in Zongo communities.



As tribal heads and Imams, our main focus should be the promotion of a development agenda that will help elevate our people from their present state of hopelessness and despair particularly among the youth, to a more secured and bright future for our people, he emphasized.



Alhaji Ahmed explained that tribal heads had the task of designing and supporting ideas that would help create jobs for the people in their communities, rather than seeking for political recognition and affiliations.



He said Zongo communities had brilliant and learned individuals who had the development of their communities at heart and were prepared to lead in coming out with ideas and suggestions that would propel Zongo communities to first-class societies.



What was needed was the initiative by tribal leaders to come together and forge a united front to present the Zongo development agenda to force governments to implement to help improve the living conditions in Zongo communities.

Source: GNA









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Here are some of the possible scenarios that the Bihar chief minister may find himself dealing with in the future

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday sent a message by proclaiming, yet again, Nitish Kumar as the leader of the NDA in poll-bound Bihar. This was after Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) announced that it will not contest the state elections along with the JD(U).

While it remains to be seen whether the BJP continues to back Nitish after the poll numbers are out, the LJP's decision certainly opens up several interesting possibilities. Here are some of the possible scenarios that the Bihar chief minister may find himself dealing with in the future:

What works in JD(U)'s favour



For now, Nitish is likely to draw some reassurance from the BJP's stance. On Tuesday, BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi emphatically said at a press conference, "Please rest assured. Nitish Kumar will be our chief minister irrespective of which party gets how many seats"

Also, Nitish is by far the most popular chief ministerial candidate in Bihar, if opinion polls are any indication. According to a CVoter opinion poll, 30.3 percent respondents want Nitish as the chief minister, as compared to Tejashwi Yadav, who is favoured by just 15.4 percent of the respondents.

The pollster has also predicted that the NDA could win a majority in the election, winning 141-161 seats as compared to 64-84 for the UPA.

The NDA did extremely well in the 2019 Lok Sabha election in Bihar, winning 39 out of 40 seats. If the JD(U)-BJP alliance sticks together in the coming days, Nitish could benefit from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity.

According to another CVoter survey, 48.8 percent of the respondents categorised Modi's performance as 'good', while only 29.2 percent believed that his performance was 'poor.'

What JD(U) would be wary of

While the BJP has repeatedly stated that Nitish is the face of the coalition, the JD(U) would be well aware that these statements mean little in the light of emerging political developments.

An instance of this was seen in Maharashtra last year. The BJP and Shiv Sena had contested the election in an alliance, but the Shiv Sena later broke away and formed a government with the NCP and Congress.

After the BJP briefly formed a government in alliance with NCP leader Ajit Pawar, former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was also trolled over his old statement that the BJP would "never, never, never" have any alliance with the NCP.

In the Bihar election, if the BJP wins more seats than the JD(U), then the latter party could well be in trouble. As an article in NDTV notes, the LJP could stage 'friendly fights' in several seats by putting up candidates who may not win the election but can eat into the vote share of the JD(U).

Under the seat-sharing agreement, the JD(U) has got 122 seats while the BJP has got 121 seats. The JD(U) has set aside seven seats for the Hindustani Awam Morcha, while the BJP will accommodate the new entrant Vikassheel Insaan Party.

Depending on the number of seats the BJP allots to VIP, the BJP could effectively contest in more seats than the JD(U).

Another worry for the JD(U) is anti-incumbency.

According to the CVoter survey, Nitish is facing massive anti-incumbency: perhaps for the first time since he was sworn in as chief minister fifteen years ago. As many as 56.7 percent of the respondents said that they are unhappy with him and want change. Further, 45.3 percent of the people surveyed rated his performance as 'poor.'

In this backdrop, if the BJP steals a march over the JD(U), Nitish could be in for tough days ahead.
SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Nascent Biotech, Inc. (OTCQB:NBIO) ("Nascent Biotech" or the "Company") announces today that the Company is in the process of making significant additions to its core team in order to prepare for the initiation of key Phase One clinical trials to study the safety and efficacy of the Company's flagship drug, Pritumumab (PTB), a monoclonal antibody, for the treatment of Brain Cancer.

Effective November 1, 2020, Douglas Karas, a board director of Nascent Biotech for the past four years, joins the Company's core team as Chief Operating Officer and head of Corporate Development and Dr. Ivan Babic, who has been involved with the Company since 2014, joins officially as Consulting Director of Research.

Sean Carrick, CEO of Nascent Biotech, commented, "As the Company moves into its clinical stage, personnel additions are necessary to support the transition of Nascent Biotech into a key player in the oncology arena by matching the caliber and promise of our intellectual property with an experienced, talented, and credible team."

Dr. Ivan Babic received his doctoral degree in biochemistry and cancer biology from the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and his post-doctoral training at UCLA, focusing on the link between oncogenic signaling and reprogramming of cancer cell metabolism. Dr. Babic's research experience includes the Pacific Neuroscience Institute and Research Center and the John Wayne Cancer Institute's Department of Translational Neurosciences and Neurotherapeutics.

Mr. Douglas Karas has extensive operations management, consulting, risk and regulatory compliance, re-engineering, project management, and system development experience that cuts across operations and applications. He previously spent 20 years at Franklin Templeton Investments, serving in multiple roles, including Vice President of Performance Analysis and Investment Risk, Director of Financial Business Processes & Systems, Senior Manager of Financial Operations, Manager of Financial Program Management Office, and Manager of Treasury Accounting Control Compliance. Mr. Karas has also held positions with Transamerica Life Companies and Federated Investors.

About Nascent Biotech

Nascent Biotech, Inc. (OTCQB:NBIO) is a clinical-stage biotech company pioneering the development of monoclonal antibodies to be used in the treatment of various cancers and viral infections helping millions of people worldwide. Our products are not commercially available. Our lead candidate, Pritumumab (PTB), is a monoclonal Antibody (Mab) that will be studied in Phase I clinical trial later this year for the treatment of Brain Cancer. Development for PTB as a treatment for COVID-19 has been initiated. For further information please visit our website www.nascentbiotech.com.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities nor will there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.

Forward Looking Statement Safe Harbor:

Statements in this press release about our future expectations constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and as that term is defined in the Private Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time, and our actual results could differ materially from expected results. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, Nascent Biotech Inc's ability to target the medical professionals; Nascent Biotech Inc's ability to raise capital; as well as other risks. Additional information about these and other factors may be described in the Nascent Biotech Inc's Form 10, filed on May 2, 2015, and future subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this statement or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.

Contact:

Sean Carrick

President | CEO

Nascent Biotech, Inc.

772.713.0541 Cell

sean.carrick@nascentbiotech.com

SOURCE: Nascent Biotech, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609390/Nascent-Biotech-Announces-Key-Personnel-Additions-in-Preparation-for-Coming-Phase-One-Clinical-Studies
Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump's top economic advisor, told CNBC on Wednesday the president returned to the Oval Office on Tuesday, a comment later denied by the White House.

"The president actually showed up in the Oval Office yesterday with extra precautions with respect to his Covid-19," Kudlow said. "And he's getting a lot better, he's much stronger. So there was some limited activity."

Asked by "Squawk Box" co-host Joe Kernen whether the president donned a mask while in the Oval Office, the Director of the National Economic Council said he "can't be specific, Joe. It's the work of the top rung of the federal government."

But Kudlow was quickly contradicted by the White House, which in a tweet said Trump had not visited the Oval Office.

"While the President wanted to be in the Oval Office yesterday, he was not therehe stayed back in the residence working from there," Ben Williamson, a White House spokesman, said in a tweet. "Safety preparations have been underway in the event he moves to working out of the Oval in the coming days."

The comments from Trump's top economic advisor came less than 48 hours after Trump was discharged from Walter Reed hospital, where the president spent the weekend being treated for the coronavirus.

"The president, as you've seen, has been masking quite a bit. And everyone else who comes into contact in the Oval  the traffic is limited as you might expect  but there are additional precautions, additional measures that have been taken," Kudlow said.

The White House said later Wednesday afternoon that Trump had finally returned to the Oval Office to be briefed on stimulus talks and hurricane developments.

Kudlow's remarks, though contested by the White House, rekindled concerns that Trump could pose a risk to others.

That caution was on full display Tuesday, when Trump's challenger in the 2020 election, former Vice President Joe Biden, said the two should hold off on their second scheduled debate if the president is still infectious.

"I think if he still has Covid, we shouldn't have a debate," Biden told reporters in Maryland. "I think we're going to have to follow very strict guidelines. Too many people have been infected and it's a very serious problem."

"I'll be guided by the guidelines of the Cleveland Clinic, and what the docs say is the right thing to do -- if and when he shows up for debate," the Democratic nominee added.

But concerns aren't isolated to the Biden campaign after more than a dozen Trump administration officials have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in the past week.

"In the White House, there's a good deal of contract tracing, and we're doing the absolute best we can," Kudlow told CNBC. "We've added additional precautions to try to protect against any further positive testing and so forth. So we'll see how that runs."

Someone is considered contagious for 10 to 20 days from onset of symptoms, depending on the severity of the infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The president's physicians are regularly testing him to determine his viral load, which can help determine when he's no longer contagious. Trump announced early Friday that he and his wife tested positive. Among the most recent White House staff members who have announced positive tests in top domestic aide Stephen Miller.

Editor's note: This article was updated to reflect the White House's assertion that while President Trump has returned to work, he has not returned to the Oval Office.
An MH-60 Black Hawk from 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment provides air support for Army Rangers during training at Camp Roberts in California, January 29, 2014. US Army/Pfc. Nathaniel Newkirk

The Army's elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment is the world's premier rotary-wing unit.

Since the unit's founding in the early 1980s, the Night Stalkers have participated in almost all of the US military's special-operations missions and campaigns.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Anytime, anywhere in the world, plus or minus 30 seconds.

This is what you expect when you get a ride from the Army's elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (160th SOAR), also known as the "Night Stalkers."

The 160th SOAR is the world's premier rotary-wing unit and specializes in transport, attack, and reconnaissance missions, with special-operations units being their main customers. These are the pilots and stealthy helicopters that flew SEAL Team 6 operators to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Born from disaster, forged in adversity

An MH-47G Chinook. US Army

It was Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, the failed attempt to rescue 66 American hostages held in Tehran, that led to the creation of the Night Stalkers. The hodgepodge of crews and aircraft used in that operation underscored the need for a dedicated special-operations helicopter unit.

Ever since, the Night Stalkers, who got their nickname from their affinity for darkness and unmatched night-time capabilities, have participated in almost all large- and small-scale special-operations missions and campaigns.

he Night Stalkers came to the limelight during the "Black Hawk Down" engagement in Mogadishu in 1993. During the fierce battle, the Night Stalkers lost two MH-60 Black Hawks and had numerous other aircraft seriously damaged. Five men were killed, several injured, and one captured.

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Greg Coker in Iraq in front of his AH-6 Little Bird. Courtesy image

"Everyone learned valuable lessons from the battle of the Black Sea

in Mogadishu," retired Chief Warrant Officer 4 Greg Coker, a distinguished AH-6 Little Bird pilot, told Insider. "Something good always comes out of something bad. One of the biggest was the weapon we carried at the time in our aircraft, the MP-5 sub-machine gun. The weapon was not suitable for our needs, and the 160th went to the M-4 carbine, a much better weapon for our use on the ground or engaging targets from the helo."

Story continues

That lesson proved invaluable in the initial days of the war in Afghanistan when Night Stalkers went hunting Taliban and Al Qaeda targets. Night Stalkers flying agile AH-6 Little Birds would run out of ammunition for their helicopters but go on fighting with their personal weapons and even lob grenades at the enemy.

During the Battle of Haditha Dam in 2003, a small element of Night Stalkers flying AH-6 and MH-6 Little Birds saved a Ranger company from being overrun by a large mechanized Iraqi force. The Night Stalkers killed hundreds of enemy soldiers and destroyed numerous tanks during the multi-day battle.

A day in the life

An AH-6 Little Bird during range day. Courtesy image

Composed of four battalions, the unit operates three helicopter platforms and about 140 aircraft total. These include the small and agile MH-6 (assault/transport) and AH-6 (attack) Little Birds, the medium-lift MH-60 (assault/transport) and MH-60 DAP (attack) Black Hawks, and the heavy-lift (assault/transport) MH-47 Chinook.

The Night Stalkers' newest addition, the secretive Echo Company, flies the MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft system. In 2015, E Company was credited with killing 340 Taliban and ISIS fighters in Afghanistan and Syria during 1,063 combat missions over an 11-month period, showcasing the effectiveness of drones when paired up with special-operations units.

"There is no such thing as a normal day, as there is always training for different scenarios and 'customers,'" Coker said. "We support special-operations forces with precision close air support (CAS). As an AH-6 light attack helicopter pilot, your primary duty is to learn the AH-6 helicopter and learn how to conduct surgical engagements with mini-guns and rockets. You may go to the aerial range and shoot three times a week if you are on base."

Coker, who wrote a thrilling account of a Night Stalker at war, participated in almost all major operations in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. He holds the unenviable distinction of getting shot down by insurgents in Iraq and then hunting them down alongside Delta Force operators minutes later.

Green Platoon

Night Stalkers officer candidates plot their points during a land navigation event in Green Platoon. US Army

To become a Night Stalker, a soldier must first pass Green Platoon, an assessment and selection course, with one version for officers and one for enlisted.

There is a thorough administrative and qualifications screening process that takes place before a soldier reaches Green Platoon. Officer and warrant officer candidates must have at least 1,000 hours of flight time and 100 hours of flying with night-vision goggles to even be considered.

A panel then reviews each candidate's package, which is like a college application but with a psychological evaluation. All the unit's senior leaders review every application, and the regimental commander must approve every officer candidate.

Insider has learned that two women pilots have successfully completed

Green Platoon and are flying with the unit. One flies an MH-60 Black Hawk and the other a MH-6 Little Bird.

The officer version lasts between 25 weeks and 27 weeks, depending on the airframe, and focuses on a variety of ground and aerial special-operations skills. The enlisted version is a six-week course that covers advanced weapons, land navigation, combatives, and first-responder training.

Candidates must pass increasingly difficult runs and ruck marches to graduate, while the arduous "team building" day tests their commitment and mental stamina.

US Army Rangers train with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, July 19, 2018. US Army/Staff Sgt. Iman Broady-Chin

The training that pilot candidates

go through includes desert, mountain, urban, and maritime flying; Forward Arming and Refueling Points (FARPs) and air-to-air refueling operations; and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear operations. They must excel in these skill sets during night and day.

The airframe-specific training lasts between 71 days and 85 days, depending on the aircraft, and it takes about two years for a new pilot to be fully mission qualified.

The officer version of Green Platoon has an attrition rate of 65% to 70%. The enlisted version has an average attrition rate of 40%. (Only officers and warrant officers can become pilots, though enlisted soldiers can technically be pilots if they fly UAVs with E Company.)

Upon completion of Green Platoon, enlisted soldiers undergo further training on their specialty before joining an operational battalion.

Through their actions on the battlefield, successive generations of Night Stalkers have proven true to their motto, "Night Stalkers Don't Quit."

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (National Service with the 575th Marine Battalion & Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.

Read the original article on Business Insider
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.
Coptic Solidarity Hosts Fifth Annual Modern Coptic Martyrs Remembrance Day on 9th Anniversary of Maspero Massacre





NEWS PROVIDED BY

Coptic Solidarity

Oct. 7, 2020



WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /Standard Newswire/ -- Coptic Solidarity's 5th Annual Modern Coptic Martyrs Day will be hosted on Zoom this Friday, October 9th at 2 PM, Eastern Standard Time. This year's event will be held on the ninth anniversary of the Maspero Massacre, when 27 Copts were brutally murdered by the Egyptian Army while they were peacefully protesting a church closure.







Numerous other Copts have also been killed for their faith in modern times, including large scale attacks, and many on individuals and their properties. Copts were murdered on the beach by ISIS, killed in church bombings, and murdered on the street or in their homes, such as Fr. Samaan Shehata, and Copts in el-Arish.



The Modern Coptic Martyrs Remembrance Day is a vital opportunity to ensure the world not forget about the numerous Copts who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for their faith and to seek justice for them, their families, and communities.



Advance registration is required. The login information for this Zoom event will be emailed to those who register, prior to the event.



Confirmed participants include:

Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Religion or Belief

Commissioner Frederick A. Davie, US Commission on International Religious Freedom



Commissioner Frederick A. Davie, US Commission on International Religious Freedom Lord David Alton of Liverpool, Independent Crossbench Life Peer in UK House of Lords



US Senator James Lankford (R - OK)



US Congressman Jim McGovern (D - MA), Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission



US Congressman Gus Biliriaks (R-FL)



US Congressman French Hill (R-AR)



Mr. Frank Wolf, Former US Congressman (R-VA)



Canadian MP Candice Bergen, MP for PortageLisgar in Manitoba



Canadian MP Garnett Genuis, MP for Sherwood ParkFort Saskatchewan, Alberta



Canadian MP Derek Sloan, MP for Hastings-Lennox & Addington in eastern Ontario



Mrs. Caroline Doss, Esq.,President, Coptic Solidarity



Ms. Erin Melek - Coptic musician



Ms. Monica Reyad - Coptic poet

Coptic Solidarity is an organization seeking to help minorities, particularly the Copts, of Egypt and we support those in Egypt working for democracy, freedom, and the protection of the fundamental rights of all Egyptian citizens. It advocates in cooperation with the affiliated organizations in Canada and in Europe (Solidarite Copte). For more information, contact Lindsay Griffin at 801-512-1713 or coptadvocacy@copticsolidarity.org



SOURCE Coptic Solidarity



CONTACT: Lindsay Griffin, 801-512-1713, coptadvocacy@copticsolidarity.org



Related Links



https://www.copticsolidarity.org/






Haiti - FLASH : Surprise announcement of an imminent drop in fuel prices





On Tuesday President Jovenel Moise announced "The competent authorities are working to achieve, as soon as possible, a downward adjustment in the price of petroleum products at the pump.



The Haitian State will do everything in its power to apply, in its entirety, the law of March 9, 1995, relating to petroleum products. For this purpose, prices must be displayed according to fluctuations in the international market.



At each arrival, the population will be informed, through the Ministry of the Economy and Finance [...]"



Tuesday evening the Head of State clarified "As I announced the fuel prices are going down. Gasoline will sell for 201 gourdes, diesel 174 gourdes at the pump [...]"



Recall that gasoline was sold before this announced drop at 224 Gourdes (-23 Gourdes) and Diesel at 179 Gourdes (-5 Gourdes).



Note that the price of Kerosene does not change for the moment and remains at 173 Gourdes.



Last minute : The new prices are now official, as confirmed in NOTICE 20 / 21-001 bearing the signature of Ministers Patrick Boisvert (Economy) and Jonas Coffy (Trade).



SL/ HaitiLibre


















The senior vaccine scientist who said in a whistleblower complaint last May that he was demoted for political reasons resigned from his position at the Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday, the New York Times reports.

Why it matters: Rick Bright, who was chief of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), told Congress in May he believes he was demoted after trying to limit the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus.

Context: President Trump and his allies in conservative media at the time promoted the antimalarial drug, despite a lack of evidence that it is an effective treatment for the virus.

In a new addendum to the complaint he filed in May, Brights lawyers wrote that National Institutes of Health officials rejected his idea for a national coronavirus testing strategy because of political considerations," according to the Times.

Bright also accused the officials of ignoring his request to join Operation Warp Speed, the program to fast-track a coronavirus vaccine.

Worth noting: One of Bright's lawyers said he remains very concerned about the politicization of science from the White House, specifically pointing to the appointment of neuroradiologist Scott Atlas as an adviser on the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
Hospitals near Alabamas two major universities are seeing an increase in COVID-19 in-patients as hospitalizations drop in many other parts of the state.

We had a bit of a jump, and weve been tracking that from there, trying to understand whats going on and just trying to make sure we are well prepared to handle it, said Tuscaloosas DCH spokesman Andy North.

Currently there are 69 COVID-19 patients at DCH hospital, a peak not seen at the hospital since August.

Most of the patients hospitalized are older than 65 with pre-existing conditions, according to North.

Its hard to pinpoint one cause for the jump, but students returned to the University of Alabama campus in August, and Labor Day celebrations may have contributed, North said.

A hospital near Auburn, East Alabama Medical Center, has also seen an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations in recent weeks. Its hospitals had 39 COVID patients as of October 6, more than double the number from a month prior but lower than its peak at 62 hospitalizations in July.

We expected to see an increase in both community cases and hospitalizations following Labor Day get-togethers, but the good news is that the number of new COVID-19 cases in the community has mostly dropped each week since Labor Day, stated John Atkinson, a hospital spokesman.

Meanwhile in several other parts of the state, COVID-19 hospitalizations are on the decline.

In total, COVID-19 in-patients at UAB in Birmingham dropped by more than half since hospitalizations peaked in August, although the strong decline in cases that began in August tapered off by early September when schools reopened.

At the Huntsville Hospital System, COVID-19 hospitalizations have declined since a peak of over 200 in late July.

Baptist Medical Center, with hospitals in Montgomery and Prattville, saw a similar trend.

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox says it is difficult to pinpoint a reason for the new increase at DCH without contact tracing.

He believes an outbreak at an area church may have added to the rise in patients at DCH and students are always a factor.

This is a dangerous virus, and its still a dangerous time, he said.

The increase in hospitalizations comes as the city ended a two-week closure of bars, which Maddox called a success. He says he does not plan to close bars again soon.

Maddox says he continues to urge local leaders and residents to resist complacency as the pandemic rolls into its seventh month.

Its just the nature of what we are trying to balance between living our lives and keeping our community and our health care system as safe as possible, he said.
Many trees are also stressed by bouts of drought or intense rain, by rising temperatures and changing season length, by extreme weather  by all the various manifestations of climate change  as well as by air pollution and by invasive plants choking or displacing them. The list of threats is long, synergistic, and growing rapidly, which means that trees do not have sufficient time to recover and adapt.

Even a quick tour of a New England-picturesque town common can reveal a lot about the deteriorating condition of the regions trees. On a morning in late summer, the LeVangies inspected several trees in Petersham, where, since 2014, Melissa LeVangie has been warden  a position every municipality in Massachusetts has been required to have since 1899. When she cant make it, her twin checks on the trees. Bear LeVangie works for Eversource, traveling a circuit of 35 towns in Connecticut, overseeing trimming and pruning crews and looking for hazard trees, including those that are dead or dying.

The two spent a long time with a maple they estimated was about 150 years old. It had two species of decay fungi blooming on its trunk, but Melissa LeVangie had decided to not cut it down. What I am doing is allowing it to have a slow death and have it be part of our community for as long as it can, she said.

It is important to cherish trees, even in their decline. They are our elders, Bear LeVangie said.

They visited an ash being treated for emerald ash borer, an invasive insect that has killed tens of millions of trees, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Bear LeVangie flipped over a leaf. More trouble: tussock moth larvae and two other pests.

They visited an oak that had put on scant growth this season, likely because of the drought. Now over four months long, the drought has led to increased wildland fire risk across the state.

And they visited a young maple with red and yellow leaves. People look at that and say Oh look, fall is coming early, it is going to be a colorful fall! No. This is happening early because the trees are very stressed out, said Bear LeVangie.
A Texas grand jury recently indicted Netflix for the film Cuties. The French film, which follows the story of an 11-year-old who joins a dance group, has received a large volume of controversy upon its release in September due to the sexual nature in which the cast of underage girls is presented.

Fox News reports that the complaint filed in Tyler County states that the streaming platform knowingly promoted visual material which depicts the lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 years of age at the time the visual material was created, and which appeals to the prurient interest in sex, and has no serious, literary, artistic political, or scientific value.

Netflix denies these allegations, standing by the film by claiming it is actually a social commentary against the sexualization of children. The company was served the summons on Oct. 1 by Texas Rangers.

Netflix, Inc. indicted by grand jury in Tyler Co., Tx for promoting material in Cuties film which depicts lewd exhibition of pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 yrs of age which appeals to the prurient interest in sex #Cuties #txlege pic.twitter.com/UJ1hY8XJ2l  Matt Schaefer (@RepMattSchaefer) October 6, 2020

Although Netflix has continued to support Cuties, the streaming giant admitted to using inappropriate materials for the promotion of the films release. The company apologized for the original description of the film and the poster used for marketing, which depicts the young cast in revealing clothing posed in suggestive dancing positions. Netflix only pulled the imagery after thousands of people signed one of many Change.org petitions in protest.

Representative Matt Schaefer (R-Texas), who has been publicly outspoken against Cuties since its release on Netflix, shared a photo of the official indictment on Tuesday. According to The Texan, Schaefer had stated that legal experts would find the film to be pornographic in nature, and could cause Netflix to also possibly face prosecution for the distribution of harmful material. Others calling for the removal of the film point to its possible promotion of pedophilia.

Statement released by Tyler County District Attorneys Office on #Cuties Netflix indictment: pic.twitter.com/D8uwHravdD  Matt Schaefer (@RepMattSchaefer) October 6, 2020

If Netflix is convicted, the company could potentially be fined and forced to remove Cuties from its platform.
A plan to use inmates to serve as role models for other prisoners at Rikers Island under a controversial mentor program has suddenly been rescinded by the Department of Corrections, DailyMail.com can disclose.

The proposal named three inmates, among them a Brooklyn man convicted of beating a gay man until he was partially paralyzed with brain damage, being granted special access to visit the Robert N. Davoren Complex at Rikers, which houses young men.

But following an inquiry from DailyMail.com about the thorny program aimed at reducing jail violence, the DOC quickly walked back on the plan, which had been announced in an internal memo dated October 2.

In a statement on Tuesday, Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Peter Thorne said: 'We are committed to implementing a variety of programs which provide people in custody with resources to help them gain the skills to be productive members of society and avoid future incarceration. These individuals were not approved for participation in any such program. This memo has been rescinded.'

The inmates in question were Steven Pomie, 38, a former member of the Crips gang who was found guilty of assaulting victim Dwan Prince after he flirted with him on the street in 2006.

Inmates Michael Ross and James Quadon, both of whom are being held at Rikers on charges of criminal possession of a weapon, were also selected to participate in the program.

A plan to use inmates to serve as role models for other prisoners at Rikers Island under a controversial mentor program has suddenly been rescinded by the Department of Corrections, DailyMail.com can disclose. Steven Pomie, 38, who was convicted of beating a gay man until he was partially paralyzed with brain damage, was named as a mentor

Pomie, a former member of the Crips gang, was found guilty of assaulting Dwan Prince (pictured) after the man flirted with him on the street in 2006. It left Prince partially paralyzed with brain damage

But following an inquiry from DailyMail.com about the thorny program aimed at reducing jail violence, the DOC quickly walked back on the plan, which had been announced in an internal memo dated October 2 (pictured)

The program was an 'attempt to keep violence down and make a safer environment for both inmates and staff,' according to a security memorandum and listed as 'effective immediately.'

The men were going to be allowed inside the young adult housing area to speak with younger inmates. They wouldn't have been allowed to enter the adult housing areas, but could've met with those inmates in a separate location, according to the memo.

'The escort officer in charge of escorting the mentor inmates will remain with them until they are returning to their housing area,' the memo stated.

'Moving forward as the mentor program progresses more inmates will be added to the list,' it added. 'If any inmates are added to the list it will be made known and also readily available to all staff.'

A New York Times article at the time about Pomie at the time of the attack on the gay man, described how Pomie shouted anti-gay slurs while beating the victim and kicking him in the head, leaving him in and out of a coma for weeks.

His initial conviction was reversed, but he pleaded guilty to the same assault in 2009 and was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Pomie was arrested again in June 2019 for allegedly prostituting two teenage girls out of a hotel in Jamaica, Queens.

He was charged with compelling prostitution and sex trafficking of a child for allegedly forcing two runaways to have sex with strangers over the course of three months beginning in November 2018.

He was arrested again in September 2019 while at Rikers, after he allegedly assaulted a female correction officer, breaking her arm after she ordered him to return to his housing area.

The 2019 cases are pending.

The program's announcement came amid a spike in violence in city jails. The mayor's office released statistics last month showing that assaults on staff, use of force by guards, and inmate attacks on inmates all increased in fiscal year 2019.

Pomie is a former member of the Crips gang also known as P Gutta. Sources told DailyMail.com he suffered injuries while in prison when a gang war broke out between Crips and Bloods

Correction officers at RNDC learned about the new initiative there late last week and were particularly startled to see who was on the list of mentors 'These are horrible inmates and the department knows this,' one said 'This is going to be dangerous for everyone,' another told DailyMail.com. Pictured: Rikers Island

The Department of Corrections introduced a mentor program last winter at Rikers' George R. Vierno Center, but the program was halted earlier this year, sources said.

Correction officers at RNDC learned about the new initiative there late last week and were particularly startled to see who was on the list of mentors.

'This is going to be dangerous for everyone,' one officer told DailyMail.com. 'Usually when you have these types of programs in the state penitentiary system, the people have been there for years and become role models and have been vetted.

'I don't know what they're thinking here. Who the h**l vetted these guys?'

'These are horrible inmates and the department knows this,' another correction officer said.

'How can you pick guys like this who are doing bad deeds, and have them go and tell other inmates 'don't do this, don't do that?' Give me a break.'

'There's already lawlessness in the jail,' the officer continued.

'There's constant fighting. I've been pushed and spat on, and I find contraband all the time, razor blades, drugs.

'Gang members are using the jail for recruitment. This (mentor) program is just a bad idea. I complained to my captain about this and was told to just follow orders.'

The Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Difficulties remain

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), the Index of Industrial Production in September rose 2.3% against August and 3.8% year-on-year, signifying a gradual recovery, albeit slow as many key manufacturing industries are still struggling.

Garment, footwear, aviation and tourism were the sectors hit hardest by the coronavirus.

Global textile demand in 2020 has fallen sharply. Last years global garment imports were estimated at US$775 billion but the coronavirus is expected to reduce the turnover by 15-20%, or even up to 25%, in 2020.

Unlike in previous years when most Vietnamese enterprises had already secured orders for the final months of the year and even the early months of next year, for now they only receive orders for the next month or even week.

Vietnams key products such as jackets and premium shirts have seen virtually no orders for the final quarter. The market for footwear products is also expected to continue facing difficulties as it is heavily affected by the pandemic situation in the US and Europe.

The largest driver for the sector is the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), which took effect in August. To capitalise on the trade pact, local companies have taken various measures, including restructuring their organisation, getting factories and materials ready and increasing investment in machinery to improve product quality.

Manufacturings rare bright spot is the production of computers, electronic and optical products, which maintained growth at 8.6%. In August alone phone exports brought in US$5.3 billion, up 23.7% from the previous month, raising the total export revenue in the first eight months of 2020 to US$31.5 billion.

But experts have predicted that the electronics industry could still be affected in the next quarter as the ongoing pandemic reduces demand for electronic products in the US and the EU.

Key measures

In order to remove difficulties for businesses and bolster the economy in the final months of 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has said it will continue to implement a wide range of measures to revive growth in industrial production.

Firstly, the ministry will focus on accelerating the progress of key industrial projects. Specifically, it will work with the Committee for the Management of State Capital at Enterprises to resolve the obstacles to major important power generation projects such as Long Phu 1, Song Hau 1 and Thai Binh 2.

The ministry will also work with local governments to develop production areas, industrial parks and economic zones in order to proactively secure the supply of materials at home. It will put forward appropriate incentive measures, especially for sectors hit hard by the coronavirus, and introduce policies to encourage the production of spare parts and intermediary products to replace imports.

For the textile industry, the MOIT has taken steps to encourage local manufacturers to switch from clothes to anti-droplet, antibacterial and common masks to meet the domestic demand for coronavirus prevention as well as for export, helping to maintain jobs for garment workers during the decline in orders for clothes.

At the same time, various measures are being implemented to promote the restructuring of industrial production, particularly supply chains for several key manufacturing sectors, in a more sustainable way with partners from Japan, India and the Republic of Korea in order to avoid heavy reliance on one or a few markets. The MOIT is cooperating closely with some multinational companies such as Samsung and Toyota to look for domestic enterprises capable of producing items to replace imports.

The Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency has said it will step up the implementation of online trade promotion activities to boost exports to markets likely to recover soon from the coronavirus, and to gradually expand to other markets depending on their virus situation. More research will also be conducted to gather information about new consumption trends in order to introduce appropriate measures.
Iran warned Wednesday it will not tolerate "terrorists" near its border with Azerbaijan, after France and Russia raised the alarm over the deployment of Syrian militants in the Karabakh conflict.

"It is unacceptable for us that some people want to send terrorists from Syria and other places towards regions near our frontiers," President Hassan Rouhani said, quoted on state television.

Iran borders Armenian-held areas of Azerbaijan near Nagorno-Karabakh that have seen fighting.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have for decades been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnically Armenian area which broke away from Baku in a 1990s war that cost about 30,000 lives.

Heavy fighting erupted on September 27 in one of the most combustible frozen conflicts left over from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Turkey has been accused of deploying fighters from Syria to support Azerbaijan in Karabakh.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Ankara had sent Syrian "jihadists" to the region, accusing Turkey of crossing a "red line".

Turkey has not responded publicly.

Russia and Armenia have also said that fighters from Syria and Libya are being deployed on the Azeri side in the conflict.

Rouhani, which has good relations with both Yerevan and Baku, reiterated Wednesday that "occupation is in no case acceptable".

"Everyone" must "accept the reality... and respect other countries' territorial integrity", he said.

Rouhani at the same time condemned "those who, on one side or the other, pour oil on the fire", without naming Turkey which has declared open support for Azeri military action to reclaim the enclave.

Iran has called on both Armenia and Azerbaijan to cease hostilities and offered to facilitate talks.

On Saturday, Tehran warned against any "intrusion" after mortar fire hit Iranian villages along the border.

Fars news agency reported last Thursday that police dispersed demonstrations in northwest Iran in support of Azerbaijan.

The Islamic republic is home to a large Azeri community, mainly in the northwest.

According to some estimates, Azeris make up 10 million of the 80-million population of Iran, which is also home to almost 100,000 Armenians.
By PTI

MUMBAI: Daniel Levy, the star and co-creator of the popular comedy show "Schitt's Creek", has criticized TV channel Comedy Central India for apparently censoring a kiss scene between two male characters from an episode of the multiple Emmy Award-winning series.

Levy took to Twitter on Tuesday and retweeted a post from March 19, 2019, on the channel's page on the microblogging site.

Last year, Comedy Central India had shared a three-minute-long clip on Twitter from one of the episodes of the show's fifth season. But apparently, a kissing scene between Levy's character David and actor Dustin Milligan's Ted had been edited from the clip.

IN PHOTOS | 'Schitt's Creek' sweeps Emmy 2020's Comedy category with seven big wins, here's what makes this Canadian gem click

Levy slammed the channel for removing the kiss, while retaining other kissing scenes, between Emily Hampshire's Stevie and Annie Murphy's Alexis from the same sequence.

"You showed the kiss between two women, you showed the kiss between a woman and a man, then removed the kiss between two men? "This is a show about the power of inclusivity. The censorship of gay intimacy is making a harmful statement against that message. #LoveIsLove," the 37-year-old actor tweeted.

You showed the kiss between two women, you showed the kiss between a woman and a man, then removed the kiss between two men? This is a show about the power of inclusivity. The censorship of gay intimacy is making a harmful statement against that message. #loveislove https://t.co/3ouNbuetq1  dan levy (@danjlevy) October 6, 2020

The Canadian television sitcom, created by Daniel Levy and his father, actor Eugene Levy, follows the trials and tribulations of the formerly wealthy Rose family when they are forced to relocate to Schitt's Creek, a rundown small town they once purchased as a joke.

While it wasn't known how a year-old tweet came to his attention, hours later Levy clarified that his post was directed towards the Indian arm of the channel and not the American one.

"I thought I made this pretty clear but for those who are confused, this is about a channel in India.@ComedyCentral in America is not censoring the show. They have been lovely and respectful. Thank you for your time," he added.

I thought I made this pretty clear but for those who are confused, this is about a channel in India. @ComedyCentral in America is not censoring the show. They have been lovely and respectful. Thank you for your time.  dan levy (@danjlevy) October 6, 2020

When contacted for a comment, no immediate response was available from the channel.

Last month, "Schitt's Creek" made a clean sweep in the comedy category at the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, with seven big wins.

The show bagged trophies in the outstanding comedy series, lead actor and actress for Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, and supporting actor and actress for Daniel Levy and Murphy.

"Schitt's Creek" was also awarded honor in the writing and directing categories, making it the first series to win all the top prizes in the section.
The Bombay high court on Wednesday granted bail to actor Rhea Chakraborty whoc was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with a drugs case linked to the death of Sushant Singh Rajput.

But the court did not accept the argument put forward by Chakrabortys lawyer Satish Maneshinde that the offences involving small quantities of contraband are bailable under the NDPS Act.

In a lengthy judgement, Justice Sarang V Kotwal delved deeper into the issue and highlighted two important judgements of the Supreme Court.

This issue is important and, therefore, I am examining this issue in detail. In support of his contention that the offences involving small quantities are bailable, Mr Maneshinde relied on a judgment of a single judge of this court in the case of Stefan Mueller vs State of Maharashtra. In this case, it was held that the offences involving small quantities of contraband were bailable offences, Justice Kotwal observed.

The language of Section 37 itself mentions that every offence punishable under this Act shall be cognizable, but, there is no such similar sentence mentioning that every offence punishable under NDPS Act shall be non-bailable, the judge further said.

Here is the observation made by Justice Kotwal in deciding Chakrabortys bail (from the court order):

Since this is an application for bail in respect of offences punishable under the NDPS Act, the provisions of that Act are required to be considered carefully. The bail provisions under the NDPS Act are mentioned under Section 37 of that Act. Section 37 reads thus:

Offences to be cognizable and non-bailable-

(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974)--

(a) every offence punishable under this Act shall be cognizable;

(b) no person accused of an offence punishable for offences under section 19 or section 24 or section 27A and

also for offences involving commercial quantity shall be released on bail or on his own bond unless--

(i) the Public Prosecutor has been given an opportunity to oppose the application for such release, and

(ii) where the Public Prosecutor opposes the application, the court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that he is not guilty of such offence and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail.

(2) The limitations on granting of bail specified in clause (b) of sub-section (1) are in addition to the limitations under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974) or any other law for the time being in force, on granting of bail.

As per requirements of this Section, the Court has to give opportunity to the Public Prosecutor to oppose the application for such relief. Such opportunity is given in the present case as I have heard learned ASG extensively. He has opposed this application. The second requirement is that, the Court should be satisfied about the two conditions. There should be reasonable grounds for believing that the Applicant is not guilty of such offence and the Applicant is not likely to commit any offence while on bail. Therefore, the Court will have to consider whether these two conditions are satisfied. However, these requirements are applicable only where the rigours of Section 37 mentioned in Clause (b) of Sub-Section (1) of Section 37 are applicable in the case. This view is consistently taken by the Honble Supreme Court. The Honble Supreme Court in the case of Union of India Vs. Rattan Mallik alias Habul2 has dealt with this aspect in Paragraphs-12, 13 & 14. They are as follows:

It is plain from a bare reading of the non obstante clause in Section 37 of the NDPS Act and subsection (2) thereof that the power to grant bail to a person accused of having committed offence under the NDPS Act is not only subject to the limitations imposed under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, it is also subject to the restrictions placed by clause (b) of sub-section (1) of Section 37 of the NDPS Act. Apart from giving an opportunity to the Public Prosecutor to oppose the application for such release, the other twin conditions viz. (i) the satisfaction of the court that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accused is not guilty of the alleged offence; and (ii) that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail, have to be satisfied. It is manifest that the conditions are cumulative and not alternative. The satisfaction contemplated regarding the accused being not guilty, has to be based on reasonable grounds.

The expression reasonable grounds has not been defined in the said Act but means something more than prima facie grounds. It connotes substantial probable causes for believing that the accused is not guilty of the offence he is charged with. The reasonable belief contemplated in turn, points to existence of such facts and circumstances as are sufficient in themselves to justify satisfaction that the accused is not guilty of the alleged offence (vide Union of India v. Shiv Shanker Kesari, (2007) 7 SCC 798). Thus, recording of satisfaction on both the aspects, noted above, is sine qua non for granting of bail under the NDPS Act.

We may, however, hasten to add that while considering an application for bail with reference to Section 37 of the NDPS Act, the court is not called upon to record a finding of not guilty. At this stage, it is neither necessary nor desirable to weigh the evidence meticulously to arrive at a positive finding as to whether or not the accused

has committed offence under the NDPS Act. What is to be seen is whether there is reasonable ground for believing that the accused is not guilty of the offence(s) he is charged with and further that he is not likely to commit an offence under the said Act while on hail. The satisfaction of the court about the existence of the said twin conditions is for a limited purpose and is confined to the question of releasing the accused on bail.

Based on these guidelines and observations, I am deciding the present application.

I need to decide following questions in this application.

I. Whether the offences alleged against the Applicant are bailable. This question needs to be decided because the

Applicant is claiming her release on bail as a matter of right.

II. If the offences are non-bailable, then, as to whether rigours mentioned in Section 37(1)(b) of NDPS Act are applicable.

III. If such rigours are not applicable and if the offences are non-bailable then whether the Court should exercise its discretion to grant or refuse bail.

WHETHER ALL THE OFFENCES UNDER NDPS ACT ARE NON-BAILABLE

The applicant has vehemently contended that the allegations, at the highest, show that the offence is a bailable offence and the Applicant could not have been detained in custody since the Applicant was ready and willing to furnish bail.

This issue is important and, therefore, I am examining this issue in detail. In support of his contention that the offences involving small quantities are bailable, Mr. Maneshinde relied on a judgment of a Single Judge of this Court in the case of Stefan Mueller Vs. State of Maharashtra. In this case, it was held that the offences involving small quantities of contraband were bailable offences.

. This judgment in the case of Stefan Mueller was relied on by a Division Bench of High Court of Delhi in the case of Minnie Khadim Ali Kuhn Vs. State NCT of Delhi and others. The learned Single Judge Bench of this Court in Stefan Mueller (supra) has observed that the heading or the marginal note of Section 37 reads as Offences to be cognizable and nonbailable.

However, the language of Section 37 itself mentions that every offence punishable under this Act shall be cognizable, but, there is no such similar sentence mentioning that every offence punishable under NDPS Act shall be non-bailable.

. The learned Single Judge referred to a few judgments explaining that marginal note, heading or title of a Section has a limited role to play in the construction of statutes. In cases of conflict between the plain language of the provisions and the meaning of the heading or title, the heading or title would not control the meaning which is clearly and plainly discernible from the language of the provision thereunder.

The learned Judge has observed that since the Legislature has not declared specifically under Section 37 that all the offences under the Act shall be non-bailable, the provisions of CrPC are required to be looked into to find out whether the offences under NDPS Act are bailable or not. The learned Single Judge thereafter referred to Part-II of the Schedule to the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short, CrPC), which gives classification of offences against other laws declaring them to be bailable or non-bailable. This classification under Part II of the Schedule to CrPC mentions that the offences in other laws are bailable if they are punishable with imprisonment for less than three years or with fine only. Therefore, according to the learned Judge, since the offences involving small quantity of the contraband were punishable for sentences less than three years, these offences would be bailable. In the same judgment, it was further held that in bailable offences, even conditions cannot be imposed on the accused in view of provisions of Section 436 of CrPC.

The judge then went on the describe the amendments brought in to the sections of NDPS Act in 1985 and 2001.

The situation has not changed since 1999 when these observations were made by the Honble Supreme Court. In fact, the situation has become worse. Therefore, these observations apply to todays scenario with more force, the judge said.

Further examining the provisions of Section 27A, Justice Kotwal said in his observation, The allegations and material against the present applicant are that on some occasions she had used her own money in procuring drugs. She facilitated procuring of drugs through her brother. For that purpose employees of Sushant Singh Rajput were also used. As discussed earlier, her acts would not fall under Section 27A of the NDPS Act.
Massachusetts could face a spending gap that falls anywhere from $2.7 billion to $5.33 billion, the Department of Revenue told lawmakers Wednesday.

The broad range  a $2.5 billion delta as Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues put it  makes it difficult for budget writers to determine how much of a budget shortfall the commonwealth faces as lawmakers draft a fiscal 2021 budget.

Three months after fiscal 2021 began, Massachusetts budget writers are still trying to nail down an estimate of how much revenue the commonwealth will collect, a figure thats crucial in determining what the full-year budget will look like. Until now, the state has been relying on partial budgets to keep the state operating.

Geoffrey Snyder, commissioner for the Department of Revenue, told the Joint Committee on Ways and Means he believes tax revenue collections will be in the range of $25.92 billion to $28.39 billion, a broad range but still notably lower than the benchmark of $31.15 billion set early in the year. Its also anywhere from 4.1% to 12.4% lower than fiscal 2020 tax revenue collections.

The challenge for the chairman and I is we need to select a finite number. We cant based a budget especially by variances that great, Rodrigues told Snyder during the economic roundtable. Why such a material difference? Ive never seen this large of a range before in a forecast.

Rodrigues asked Snyder to suggest a number within that range for budget writers to concentrate their efforts on, but Snyder said he couldnt provide one.

I appreciate the consternation, if you will, about such a wide range, but this is how the numbers fall out, Snyder said.

Eileen McAnneny, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, projected fiscal 2021 tax revenues will amount to $27.27 billion, about 3.9 billion - 12.5% less - than the commonwealths original benchmark set in January. Its lower than the $6 billion shortfall MTF projected in June.

McAnneny said she doesnt expect the fiscal situation to improve much.

Massachusetts' economy has been propped up by various forms of federal financial assistance, she said of the first quarter of the fiscal year. As these sources of income are exhausted amidst growing uncertainty, the states fiscal situation is expected to deteriorate.

David G. Tuerck, president of the Beacon Hill Institute, and Evan Horowitz, executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, projected smaller budget shortfalls. Horowitz estimated the state could raise $29.6 billion in tax revenue for fiscal 2021, while Tuerck suggested tax revenue could total $29.2 billion, resulting in spending gaps of nearly $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion, respectively.

Marie-Frances Rivera, president of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, did not give a revenue estimate. She said the center decided to hold off because so many variables are in flux, but she noted the pandemic-triggered recession is already hurting workers disparately.

Job losses have been far more pronounced in Lawrence and other gateway cities compared to cities like Wellesley, Rivera said. She suggested the state consider extending sick days, extending unemployment benefits, provide more funding to schools for socially distanced learning and issue stimulus payments for residents, regardless of immigration status.

There are things that we can do to improve the situations for people, Rivera said.

So much has happened since late June as legislative leaders decided to extend budget talks into the current fiscal year  federal stimulus talks resumed and stopped multiple times, the world surpassed 1 million coronavirus-related deaths, businesses across the state shut down, the president himself contracted COVID-19  and yet little has changed for budget writers in Massachusetts.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered White House negotiations over a stimulus bill to stop until after the election.

I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major stimulus bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and small business, the Republican president tweeted, claiming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, was not negotiating fairly.

Hours later, Trump said he would sign a stand-alone bill to send out stimulus checks to Americans.

If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy? @MarkMeadows @senatemajldr @kevinomccarthy @SpeakerPelosi @SenSchumer  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020

While tax revenue collections are up 1% so far, the fate of a federal relief package remains uncertain, as do the trajectory of the coronavirus pandemic, the job market and thus withholding tax revenue.

The question is, is it going to be sustainable? said Kazim Ozyurt, chief economist at the Department of Revenue. There are a lot of uncertainties on the withholding side because the job market, the labor market in general are really in a dire situation, and a recovery could take some time."

Massachusetts could draw money from the stabilization fund, known as the rainy day fund, to help cover some of the spending gaps. Economists and lawmakers, however, worry that could impact the states credit rating and drain the states resources early in what could be a multi-year recession.

Asked about the impact of pulling from the fund, Treasurer Deb Goldberg said the commonwealth likely wouldnt be dinged for using those funds as long as thats not the only course of action budget writers propose. The fiscal budget will likely need to include discretionary budget cuts, she added.

Clearly were in a rainy day, however we do not know how long that rainy day is going to last, she said. Thats the uncertainty the DOR folks were talking about.

Michael Goodman, a public policy professor at UMass Dartmouth, said a combination of solutions, such as tapping the rainy day fund, cutting spending and raising taxes, will help pull Massachusetts out of a recession sooner than later.

The longer were in this mess, the deeper our households are allowed to fall into distress and the balance sheets of our businesses fall into disrepair, the harder it will be to get back, Goodman said.

The Baker administration is keen on avoiding tax hikes to close the budget.

While were still working on the budget, right now, from what we see, we wont need to raise taxes, Administration and Finance Secretary Michael Heffernan told reporters after the roundtable.

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Catalin Raiu, the president of FoRB Romania, was welcomed by His Excellency, Mr. Andrew Noble, the Ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Romania, for a useful discussion on religious freedom in Romania and international cooperation on this issue.

Romania is encouraged to not only protect its existing diversity of religion and belief, but also to be an active promoter of this internationally, where it can provide a distinct perspective on preserving Freedom of Religion and Belief (FoRB) for all.

Catalin Raiu has briefly presented his work as a member of the panel of experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief at OSCE, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, and also the most important goals and objectives of FoRB Romania in the months ahead, stressing the importance of the promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief for any democratic political regime.
With special thanks to TOP ECHELON TKC TIPSTERS we want to share a quick FIRST PERSON story that offers a perspective on the hardships for deniens of the local airline industry.



Here's the word . . .



"TKC, I've been trying to finish all of my lawn work during this stretch of nice weather we've been lucky to have . . . Stopping by local hardware box store I was talking with one of the workers who was exceptionally helpful, knowledgeable and friendly. In passing, he said that he just started the job and so I asked where he worked previously . . . He told me, and I believe him, that he was formerly an international pilot for one of the big airlines. He didn't have any reason to lie to me and I hope my jaw didn't drop as he revealed his former profession. The guy deserves credit for staying busy but that is one HELL of a career transition and something that reminds me just how fundamentally the economy has changed."



Accordingly, here are just a few news items that confirm the trend despite hype from New KCI promoters given that the airline industry remains in trouble as the conronavirus pandemic persists . . . Read more:



The Cut: Tens of Thousands of Airline Workers Just Lost Their Jobs

Reuters: Trump urges Congress to provide $25 billion bailout for U.S. airlines

UST: 'Unacceptable': Travel industry groups react to stalled COVID-19 stimulus talks, hold out hope

Developing . . .
With the permission of deputy commissioner Mandip Singh Brar finally granted, the teachers of Panjab University (PU) will begin casting their votes on Thursday to elect the office bearers of the Panjab University Teachers Association (PUTA).

Over 600 teachers hold suffrage in this election, earlier scheduled for September 25 and 26. On Thursday, polling will be held in four slots, from 8.30am onwards, at the English Auditorium and the Evening Auditorium, and end at 5.30pm.

On Friday, Day 2 of polling (9am to 1pm at English Auditorium), an annual general body meeting will be held and results will be declared.

Two-cornered contest

The Sidhu-Khalid group will be contesting against the Mritunjay-Naura group, which is backed by the syndicates Goyal group. Mohammed Khalid of the department of evening studies will be contesting for the post of president against Mritunjay Kumar, who was the vice-president of PUTA for 2019-2020.

For the post of vice-president, Amit Chauhan of the University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET) has been fielded by the Khalid group against Supinder Kaur of the Mritunjay group.

SOPs for elections

The polling schedule will be staggered over two days, with time slots for voting groups of teachers. Wearing masks will be mandatory and every individual will undergo thermal screening at entry points. Two different venues have been selected for polling and voters are advised to bring their own pens; gloves will be provided to all.

The voters will need to comply with social distancing norms. The services of professional consultants had been procured for complete sanitisation and other precautions at venues. Those who tested positive for Covid-19, or are awaiting reports, or have been quarantined have been requested to refrain from voting.
October 07, 2020





If there are two things right now in the world that are impacting people on greater levels than ever before it is technology and COVID. Both of these things are spawning major changes in specific areas of life for certain individuals. Heck, not really even for certain individuals. For everyone! Whether you are a business owner or an employee, there is a good chance that your life has been impacted by COVID or technology.







Whats even more is, both of these technologies have gone hand in hand through this pandemic. Thats right, there have been certain key technologies that have reduced the spread of the COVID virus while also helping businesses stay active. These very same technologies have led to major technological trends. Trends that are shaping the world in a way you couldnt imagine!

Online Shopping And Robot Deliveries

Most people can remember back in 2002 when the SARA outbreak led to the tremendous growth of both business-to-business and business-to-consumer online marketplace platforms in China. Well, the world saw somewhat of a similar trend with the COVID outbreak. The only difference what that the COVID outbreak led to a major transformation in online shopping. More and more people are shopping online these days because they are afraid to leave their homes. Not only this, but many businesses have started adapting to the online trend as well.

For instance, going back to China, there is currently a popular and well-known bar in Beijing that has continued to promote their happy hour with online orders and deliveries. That being said, online shopping needs to be supported by a robust logistics system because in-person deliver just isnt safe or virus-proof. This is why many e-commerce stores and tech giants are starting to ramp up their efforts of utilizing robotic delivery systems to drop off and deliver goods. There is still, however, a large number of companies that are still relying on door-to-door no contact deliveries.

As online shopping explodes, more people are enjoying PGSLOT and other online games.

Digital And Contactless Payment Systems

If there is one thing in this world that is laden with germs and bacteria it is cash. Just think of all the people that handle cash and all the potentials that it could hold. While central banks in China, the US, and South Korea have done more than their part of implementing various measures to ensure that banknotes are clean before they go into circulation, they unfortunately just cannot prevent everything. This is exactly where contactless, digital payment systems come into play.

Cards and e-wallets are not only more than convenient and effective, but they are the number one way to prevent the further spread of the disease. These are the recommended payment methods for many businesses today. The only problem is that there are currently a reported 1.7 billion unbanked individuals who may or may not have access to such means of payment.

Remote Work Capabilities

As an employee or business owner, it is likely that youve noticed that more and more companies are asking people to work from home. Maybe you are currently working from work. Maybe you have asked your employees to work from the comfort and safety of their homes. Whatever the situation, there is no denying the fact that remote work is growing increasingly popular. This is something that has been made entirely possible through the use of technologies like virtual private networking, voice over internet protocols, virtual meetings, cloud technology, work collaboration tools, and even facial recognition technologies in some cases.

Remote work is not only something that makes work entirely possible during this pandemic, but it is something that prevents the spread of the virus while helping workers save on commute and adapt with more flexibility. That being said, this doesnt mean that it doesnt pose some potential problems as well. There are plenty of problems imposed with remote work. Some being information security, privacy, and timely tech support. These alone can no doubt be major problems, as some companies have already faced major class-action lawsuits pertaining to such subjects.

After Thoughts

There is simply no denying that technology and COVID will continue to shape the world as long as they both exist. And, since neither show a means of slowing down, the sky is the limit as to where these two lead the world. It is clear that they are working in conjunction to shape the world as many know it today.
More than a year after every leading politician and social agency in Peterborough city and county agreed opioid overdoses deaths had reached an emergency state, real steps are being taken to curb the crisis.

The federal government has committed more than $3 million over four years for two counselling and care services for opioid users.

Last week a group of public health agencies announced they had leased the former Greyhound bus station on Simcoe Street as an Opioid Response Hub.

While a permanent downtown site dedicated to working with addicts is great news, the agencies next step is at least as important.

They will apply to have the Hub registered as a safe injection and treatment site.

Other programs help people who have already overdosed and survived get off drugs or get their addictions under control.

Safe injection sites can prevent overdoses. They save lives in real time.

Safe injection, or safe consumption, is a crucial component of the Four Pillar strategy that various local agencies have adopted under the blanket title Peterborough Drug Strategy.

Its the one pillar been missing here, and in many Canadian municipalities.

Providing clean drugs and needles is a form of prevention  protection from the worst outcome of the disease of addiction  but isnt as publicly acceptable as conventional methods.

That is one reason safe injection sites are controversial, and therefore rare.

Another is fear that users congregate around the sites and bring aggressive behaviour, crime and health risks to the surrounding area.

Multiple studies in several countries have proven those fears to be false. Safe injection sites actually reduce crime and the likelihood that used needles will be found scattered like litter.

Establishing the Opioid Response Hub as a central location for existing treatment and counselling programs would seem to ensure a safe injection site will soon be added.

The federal government has indicated it is ready to broaden granting of exemptions from criminal drug laws so a licence should not be a problem.

The next step would be provincial funding.

That seems not to be an obstacle. MPP Dave Smith has said he has $1 million waiting when a location can be found, and support from his governments associate minister for mental health and addictions.

But then the picture gets fuzzy. Just days before the Hub announcement, Smith said local agencies are too small to run a centre individually and have not been able to agree on either how to get together to operate one or where it would be.

Those problems appear to have been solved. The Hub is supported by the two biggest local opiate counselling agencies, PARN and FourCast, Peterboroughs medical officer of health, the new federally funded service, Peterborough police and paramedics and several other agencies.

Representatives of those groups admit that working out an agreement was difficult, but they have gotten there.

Yet Smith seems unconvinced, perhaps because he has a different location in mind, one the agencies did not accept.

Nearly 60 people have died here from opioid overdoses in the past 20 months. Peterboroughs addiction rate is more than twice the provincial average.

Local agencies are organized and ready to operate a safe consumption and treatment centre. MPP Smith says he has the money. He needs to put his full support behind an application and deliver on his promise.
Scotlands First Minister is set to announce new coronavirus measures for the country, although she has assured the public that it will not amount to another full lockdown.

Nicola Sturgeon will set out further restrictions to the Scottish parliament on Wednesday afternoon, after receiving very strong public health advice in favour of new measures.

"The situation is not out of control, but it is a cause of increasing concern," she said, explaining that infections are beginning to spread from younger to older people.

The present situation is "the most difficult decision point we have faced so far", Ms Sturgeon said, though she has ruled out closing schools or imposing Scotland-wide travel restrictions.

Although residents in Scotland are currently under a ban on indoor household mixing, Ms Sturgeon has said it will not be extended to people being forced to stay at home at all times  though some stricter measures may be needed in the countrys hotspot areas.

The average number of daily cases is now 729  a significant increase from 285 two weeks ago, when the ban on indoor household visiting was brought in.

There are fears within the hospitality industry that the sector will be hit hard by the new restrictions.

Emma McClarkin, of the Scottish Beer and Pub Association, said: "If the Scottish government is to implement further harsh restrictive measures to our sector, it must include a dedicated package of support alongside it.

"Without it, the Scottish government will leave our pubs and thousands of jobs doomed to failure."

Professor Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, warned against further liberty-restricting measures that hurt the economy, advocating for a more targeted approach.

"At the moment we do not need to bring in any more rules that will hammer the hospitality sector, or the economy at large. There needs to be a razor-sharp focus on getting the current systems running smoothly and effectively," he wrote in The Sun.

We need to hold our nerve, rather than hitting the panic button.
The Hat Grannies for Africa are hosting an indoor sale this month to support the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign.

The local group is holding a Pop Up Quilting Fabric Sale on Oct. 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 617 Second St., downtown. There is a $1 admission fee.

The event is running as first come, first served and there will be a limit on how many people are allowed in at a time.

This is quilting fabric only with some cotton blend fabric, said spokesperson Joanie Gilchrist. The quilting fabric is $5 a metre and and the cotton blend is $2 a metre.

Strict COVID-19 protocols will be in place during the event.

Were going to be making sure everyone is distancing and everyone who comes in needs to wear a mask, she said. Well have two shoppers max at every table and well be making sure people sanitize when they come in and when they leave.

The event follows a successful yarn sale last month, which made the Grannies optimistic about hosting more during the pandemic.

All money raised at the sale will go to grandmothers in sub-Saharan Africa who are in charge of raising grandchildren during the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The same community groups in Africa are helping communities deal with COVID-19 and everything that comes with it.

There are more than 240 grandmother groups across Canada raising funds and awareness for grandmothers in Africa. The local Hat Grannies have raised more than $63,000 for the cause in more than a decade.

The Hat Grannies can be found and contacted on Facebook by searching Hat Grannies.

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Insights from hospitality insiders in Ho Chi Minh City has for the first time cleared the nagging question of why room rates for isolation are much higher than those at ordinary accommodations.

Though finally reopening its borders again in October to meet mounting traveling demand, Vietnam has acted cautiously and requires all passengers on commercial flights to Vietnam to acquire negative COVID-19 test results within three days of boarding. It is also compulsory for such passengers to submit information on their selected quarantine hotels.

Travelers can pick a hotel from a list of quarantine accommodations already approved by the Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Committee.

The rates range between VND1.25 million (US$54) and VND5 million ($216), including three meals a day, and might be hiked up depending on what extra service options the guests demand.

It costs hotels a great deal of resources, including personnel and expenses related to infrastructure and services, to act as quarantine facilities, said a hotel manager who called herself Ha.

Seemingly easy but a tough call

Ha is in charge of operations at an approved four-star quarantine hotel in Ho Chi Minh City.

Her hotel must follow through a set of strict criteria as per regulations by the municipal Department of Health, Ha said.

For example, it has to cease operating commercially and to serve quarantine purposes solely when a guest undergoing isolation there.

The hotel should meet certain conditions to facilitate the safe transport of quarantined guests and their waste, as well as setting up a 24/7 security booth and dedicating a whole floor to accommodating the quarantined guests.

Guests who check in on different days must stay on different floors, the hotel manager said.

Ha added that her hotel must also arrange the so-called buffer rooms, literally empty rooms staying in between quarantine rooms.

Service staff members who have direct contact with the guests must self-quarantine for 14 days and are allowed to only go home once their guests have tested negative at the end of their isolation.

A representative of the five-star quarantine hotel Holiday Inn seconded those requirements, adding that the hotel has had to add new infrastructure facilities, offer medical training to its staff, and follow the health departments strict criteria on hygiene standards, disinfection, and quarantine procedures.

Because of such stringent disease prevention measures, room prices at quarantine hotels are not as cheap as those charged by normal ones, Ha said.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism has acknowledged the efforts of the hotels to double as quarantine facilities.

Becoming a quarantine accommodation might sound easy enough but in reality it is a tough call for such hotels, said Nguyen Thi Anh Hoa, deputy director of the department.

If you want to service quarantined guests, you must abide by several medical requirements of the health department.

Expanding the network

Hoa said that the city currently has 10 hotels approved for quarantine purposes, of which two are specifically dedicated to cabin crews while the remaining eight are used for ordinary travelers permitted to enter Vietnam, with the number of rooms available totaling 940.

The department, however, has proposed adding another 16 hotels boasting 1,025 rooms, of which 15 are in the budget range with ratings of one or two stars, she revealed.

Authorities are calling on affordable hotels across the city to register as a quarantine facility.

That should offer travelers more options price-wise while balancing out the current list, which only comprises three- to five-star hotels.

Authorities are inspecting and reviewing these hotels on whether they can meet quarantine criteria on infrastructure, staff training, and medical care, Hoa said.

Once theyve met all conditions, we will submit a list to the municipal Peoples Committee to approve them as official quarantine facilities.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-05 19:37:21|Editor: huaxia

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SUVA, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- Fiji started on Monday its week-long celebrations to mark the island nation's 50th anniversary of independence from Britain.

Speaking at the launch of the official song "Children of Fiji" for the occasion, Fiji's Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said the song is an anthem of the moment which captures the spirit of courage and compassion in these difficult times.

The song, which is composed in collaboration with the government broadcaster, Fijian Broadcasting Corporation (FBC), is sung in English, iTaukei, Fiji-hindi and Rotuman languages.

Meanwhile, 32 Fijian people, including former Fijian President and now parliament speaker Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, were awarded on Monday the 50th anniversary of independence commemorative medals.

Fiji's President Jioji Konrote commended their contribution to moving the island nation forward over the years.

He noted that the week beginning Monday will be devoted to nationwide celebrations of the independence anniversary to mark Fiji's collective progress and development as one nation and people.

The week leading up to the Fiji Day, which falls on Oct. 10, is known as the Fiji Week -- a week full of events featured with the nation's cultural diversity.

During the week, people are expected to share traditional food such as the lovo with friends, pitch flags, plant trees, and decorate homes ahead of the Fiji Day when the military forces will stage parades at the Albert Park in the capital city of Suva.

As part of the celebrations, the Reserve Bank of Fiji, Fiji's central bank, has planned the issuance of commemorative currency while the Fiji Airways, the national carrier, will give a special Airbus flight around the country. Enditem
The beginning of the school year when you got to show off your new duds, new cars, new looks!

Sports! Playing, cheering, watching high school athletics.

The arts: Dramatic arts, musical groups and shows, graphic arts groups, debate, etc.

The prom! No dancing the night away or punch bowl antics.

The daily interactions. Just being with the group, hanging with friends and classmates.

Access to college recruiters and advisors  its harder to line up higher education.

Walking onstage to get a diploma while all the family is watching with everyone elses family.

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Syracuse, N.Y.  Mayor Ben Walsh will give an update on the fate of Syracuses Christopher Columbus statue this week, following months of intense discussion and debate from a committee tasked with guiding his decision.

Walshs update on the future of the towering statue in front of the county courthouse will come just days before Columbus Day, which is Monday, Oct. 12.

Earlier this year, Walsh promised change, saying the status quo at Columbus Circle is not acceptable. He formed a committee to recommend action on the statue and the site.

That committee submitted a report to Walsh last week. Walsh has reviewed that report, according to a spokesman, and will give an update before the end of the week.

At a briefing a month ago, Walsh said he wanted to engage the community in the decision on the statue. Though any change at Columbus Circle is within his authority, he said, hed like input on what should be done at the site.

Sometimes what people are looking for is that unilateral, authoritarian decision making, he said. And thats not my style.

The statue, erected in 1934, has been the subject of controversy and debate for years. For many Italian-Americans, its a symbol of pride and heritage and a celebration of a community that was itself once the target of anti-immigrant persecution.

For many indigenous people and activists, however, Columbus represents imperialism and genocide due to his treatment of the Native American population he encountered in the Americas.

Passions run strong on both sides of the debate, especially in a city like Syracuse with a large Italian-American community and a nearby Native nation.

In June, Walsh appointed an action group to meet and develop options for the future of the statue. The group consisted of elected officials, Italian-American leaders, Native American leaders and community activists.

That group met weekly for the past several months. Group members agreed not to discuss details of their conversations with the media, according to multiple members contacted this week. But several people involved said the discussions were very passionate.

Its the second time Walsh has formed such a committee to tackle the issue of how we remember and celebrate Christopher Columbus, who is often credited with discovering America.

In September 2018, Walsh convened a series of dialog circles led by InterFaith Works. The plan was to have a report with recommendations the following year. No action came out of that initial series of meetings.
Nothing quite went to plan.

Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg had just stepped into Wednesday morning to try to sell their record-busting Budget deficit.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrive for post-budget day interviews on a windy, rainy morning. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

With last year's promised surplus turned upside-down, Prime Minister Scott Morrison's umbrella blew inside-out.

It seemed a sign of the times.

Rain fell, forcing Frydenberg to cancel his planned jaunty early-morning walk to Parliament for the cameras.

The photo opportunity devolved into a mere step or two beyond the parliamentary portico beneath umbrellas.

And then came the wind.

An Extinction Rebellion protester spruiking the danger of climate change being restrained by police. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Not far away, a couple of Extinction Rebellion protesters turned up in white boiler suits. Keen on making loud arguments about the danger of climate change, they found themselves restrained by police.
Louth TD Peter Fitzpatrick has called for an all-Ireland approach to the Covid-19 crisis saying it is frustrating that people from Northern Ireland where there is an epidemic are coming into border counties.

The Dundalk TD said that people in border counties such as Louth are very concerned about people travelling across the border to communities here considering the high rates of positive coronavirus cases in the north.

The Independent TD said people are busting their backsides to control the pandemic here but every time he goes to Carlingford or Omeath there are people from the North there.

Deputy Fitzpatrick, speaking in the Dail as the country prepared to move to Level 3 restrictions, said: I come from a border county in Louth and we are very concerned about what is going to happen with the coronavirus.

It is okay for us in Southern Ireland doing our restrictions at Level 3 but are we going to work together as a united Ireland and get this sorted out once and for all?

As for this thing about bickering between NPHET and the Government, we all have to put our shoulder to the wheel and work together.

I am really frustrated.

Every time I go to Carlingford or Omeath, all I see is yellow number plates coming from the North.

We are busting our backsides in the South.

If we look at all the coronavirus in the North, they are having an epidemic there at the moment.

It is important that us in the South, us in the North, NPHET and the Government all put our shoulders to the wheel and work together to get it sorted out.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin, responding to Deputy Fitzpatrick, said it is a very fair point.

I spoke last evening with the First Minister, Arlene Foster, and the Deputy First Minister, Michelle O'Neill, the Taoiseach continued.

I went through what Level 3 meant in terms of movement across county borders.

I asked that perhaps they would look at how they could take corresponding measures that would harmonise with the kind of measures we are taking in County Donegal and now nationally.

They do not have the same schemes that we have here in terms of restart grants or wage subsidies. They have a wage subsidy scheme, a furlough scheme, but they do not necessarily have the financial firepower to underpin quite a number of the sectors.

That is an issue for them, and we will be keeping in touch with them on it.

There were 828 new cases of coronavirus recorded in Northern Ireland on Wednesday taking the number of cases to 16,187.

There was one more Covid-19 death reported, bringing the total number of deaths to 586.
A panel of US House of Representatives established earlier today that four major technology companies are abusing their market power to destroy rivals and force small businesses to their knees in the name of profit.

According to the antitrust subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook should not control and compete in the same business. The panel suggested these companies should be restructured but did not reveal whether a specific company should be broken up, as per the Reuters report.

The full report is 449 pages long and suggests expansive changes to antitrust law and described dozens of instances where companies misused their power. It also revealed how companies did everything they could to dominate over competitors in order to control large portions of the internet.

One example is Facebooks acquisition of Instagram back in 2012, when Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, noted the photo-sharing platform is building a competitive network that could be very disruptive to us, the report reads.

Changes suggested by the committee include stopping Google to both run the auctions for online ad space and participate in those auctions. Another suggestion is for Amazon to stop operating on markets where it also competes with other retailers, but the report also urged US Congress to act on allowing antitrust enforcers more freedom to stop purchases of potential rivals.

The report was published by a committee led by Democratic Congressman David Cicilline. Reuters noted that if the presidential elections are won by Joe Biden, the Democratic majority in the House might keep pressuring Congress to act on the findings and introduce a revamped antitrust law.

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A Dalit All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MLA's marriage to a 19-year-old Brahmin woman has met with staunch opposition from her father, who after a scuttled suicide attempt, alleged that the legislator abducted his daughter, a charge denied by both the bride and groom.





When the MLA, A Prabhu, tied the knot with S Soundarya athis residence at Thiyagadurugam in Kallakurichi district on Monday, her father Swaminathan, a temple priest, dropped in, police said.

He reportedly said he would "gift" the couple his "life" and attempted to set himself ablaze after pouring petrol on his body.



However, he was overpowered by police personnel and party workers.



At the local police station, the priest was advised against taking extreme steps and asked to give an undertaking thathe would not attempt to kill himself.



The priest said his objection to the marriage was not the caste factor, but the difference in age between his daughter and the MLA.



The legislator was 36 years old and his daughter was 19 and a groom who was 17 years older than the bride would not be a suitable match, he said.



Also, Swaminathan alleged that his daughter was abducted by the MLA and that she was "lured and diverted" and made to marry Prabhu against her wishes.



Soundarya, however, asserted that she married Prabhu out of her own volition, adding she was in love with the MLA for about four months.



In a video post, in which she appeared alongside her husband, the MLA, a B Tech graduate, too dismissed the claim of the priest that his daughter was kidnapped.



"We were in love for about four months and when I sought the permission of her parents to marry her they denied it," the MLA said.



Later, he said he married Soundarya only based on her wish and with her whole-hearted consent.



Swaminathan claimed that due to the influence of the legislator he could not lodge a complaint with police against him and alleged that he has received threats.



The MLA, however, dismissed the priest's claim as false. "I did not threaten or intimidate her family members or lure Soundarya. Our marriage was based on mutual consent," Prabhu said.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - A proposed amendment to Sri Lankas Constitution that would consolidate power in the presidents hands has raised concerns about the independence of the countrys institutions and the impact on ethnic minorities who fear their rights could be undermined by a nationalistic Sinhala Buddhist parliamentary majority.

If passed, the amendment will bring Parliament under the control of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who will have the power to dissolve the legislature, appoint top judges, have full immunity against any prosecution and make decisions critical for minorities, without checks.

The constitution now allows presidential decisions to be questioned in court, gives the prime minister the power to appoint Cabinet ministers, grants independent commissions power to appoint officials to key institutions and bars dual citizens from holding political office.

Rajapaksa renounced his dual U.S citizenship when he ran for president last year. The proposal allowing dual citizens to hold political office would further strengthen the Rajapaksa familys grip on political power by enabling another sibling who is a dual U.S. citizen to be appointed to Parliament.

Rajapaksas older brother, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is now prime minister. Another older brother and three nephews are also lawmakers  three of them ministers.

Rajapaksa was elected last November promising to be the guardian of the majority Buddhist-Sinhalese. His mandate was endorsed in August elections in which his party gained control of nearly two-thirds of the countrys 225-member Parliament.

His government is most likely to obtain the needed two-thirds support to pass the proposed amendment. However, several petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking an order that the amendment also be subject to a public referendum.

The constitution says certain provisions must be approved by a referendum.

The government is heading toward dictatorial governance by weakening checks and balances in the system, said lawyer and independent political columnist Subramanium Jothilingam.

The amendment would allow Rajapaksa to head any number of ministries, appoint and fire ministers and select the police chief and members of the elections, public service, bribery and human rights commissions at his discretion.

Jehan Perera from the independent National Peace Council think-tank said public institutions may become politicized and serve the interests of the majority Buddhist-Sinhalese community if they come under the authority of one person.

Rajapaksas election slogan of one country, one law is widely seen as a policy of centralized governance that rejects power sharing with the provinces, a long-standing demand of minority Tamils. Rajapaksa has rejected a Tamil demand for autonomy.

Sri Lankas Tamil community, concentrated mostly in the north and east, consider themselves a distinct nation, entitled to rule a traditional homeland. Tamil rebels fought a nearly three-decade separatist war accusing Sinhalese-controlled governments of systemic marginalization.

Government forces crushed the rebels in 2009, ending a war that claimed at least 100,000 lives.

Earlier this year, Rajapaksa withdrew Sri Lanka from a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution in which it had agreed to investigate allegations of wartime abuses by both government forces and Tamil rebels.

M.A. Sumanthiran, an ethnic Tamil lawmaker, said the weakening of Parliament would result in minority communities losing their voices.

There will be power changing hands from the legislature to the executive. In the legislature all sections of the polity have a say, however small they may be, he said. Even if presidents win election with votes from minority groups, past experience has shown that they will only look after the interests of the majority community, from whom they received most of their votes.

Many minority Tamils and Muslims say they are worried about the governments proposed actions.

On Sept. 29, the government announced it will ban cattle slaughter, a decision analysts say was politically motivated to please the majority Sinhala Buddhist constituency. Buddhists as well as minority Hindus avoid beef for religious and cultural reasons.

Many believe the decision was a direct affront to the Muslim community, which owns most of the slaughterhouses and beef stalls.

Fazal Samsudeen, an Islamic preacher, said he fears government interference in religious laws, such as Islamic courts and banking, in the name of establishing a unified national law.

Many majority Sinhalese find minority religious laws disconcerting because they help preserve the groups separate identities, and support their incorporation into a common national law, Perera said.

Jothilingam warned that a rise in nationalism could lead to conflicts with other countries, such as the United States and India, which have long called for power sharing with Tamil-majority provinces.

The government is becoming a prisoner of ultra-nationalists. When you try to satisfy them, they will keeping increasing their demands and someday the government wont be able to fulfil them without making enemies of powerful countries, he said.

A small country cant survive if it is isolated by the world community.

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Egypt is playing a key role in preparation for the anticipated comprehensive talks on Libya, scheduled for October in Geneva, based on the outcomes of the Berlin Conference.

For months, Egypt has been hosting preliminary Libyan meetings, the last of which took place in Hurghada in the attendance of the Libyan security committee charged with the ceasefire, military arrangements to unify the military institution and security apparatuses, and the security arrangements concerning moving the next Libyan government to Sirte, as a temporary capital.

In the near future Cairo will host other Libyan events, such as that of the constitutional committee, which will draft the framework of Libyas constitutional document. Libyas economic committee, delegations from east and west Libya, prime among whom are political, security, and military leaders, figureheads and diplomats from countries involved in the settlement process, and the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSML) will also converge in Cairo.

Egypts integral role in drawing a roadmap for the future of Libya post the Skhirat Agreement is a continuation of its efforts in the previous transitional phase, which were hampered by the complex crises Libya has endured since 2016. Flagrant foreign interventions fuelled political conflicts and military clashes during the Tripoli battle. These developments led Egypt to become more careful in dealing with the roots of the Libyan crisis through a set of basic principles based on the lessons learnt in the previous stage.

These principles include the fair distribution of wealth and power. Moreover, the Cairo Declaration, followed by the Sirte-Jufra announcement concerning the western military zone, have put an end to armed clashes between Libyan factions, putting on the table the political path as the only means to settle the crisis.

The UN Security Council, the UNSML, and the US have commended Cairos efforts in the Libyan file. The international communitys impression about Cairos role in settling the Libyan crisis reflects Egypts seriousness and ability to shift the course of events towards the internationally-agreed path  the Berlin Conference outcomes.

Egypt has been stressing joint coordination, which also reflects it is not seeking to achieve its own interests nor trying to impose a certain political authority on the Libyans. Egypt is seeking agreement between all the Libyan factions to stabilise the country torn by political and armed conflicts for a decade.

Cairo has dedicated all its political, diplomatic, and security resources to support a political settlement for Libya. The Egyptian leadership, represented by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, is paying attention to the minutest details concerning the Libyan file. Cairo has spared no effort, on the Libyan and international stages, to prevent obstacles aiming to hinder the political path.

A number of parties active in the Libyan scene are seeking their own benefits. Cairo doesnt oppose foreign parties trying to serve their interests in Libya. It objects, however, to the mechanisms they are using to claim their interests, either through moving mercenaries into Libya or being militarily present on the Libyan ground.

This is why Cairo, in coordination with other partners, is endeavouring to end these practices, highlighting this point at every event it hosts on Libya.

Egypt is fully aware its role is not limited to drawing a roadmap for Libyas future. More important are the implementation of the roadmaps recommendations and overcoming challenges on the Libyan stage in the next phase.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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School secretaries are to strike later this month in a long-standing dispute related to insecure employment and low pay.

Approximately 1,000 schools and the Department of Education next week are to be served with notices of industrial action following an escalation in the continued dispute.

Three-one-day strikes are planned, starting later this month, following by indefinite strike action in November.

According to Forsa, the union representing more than 1,000 school secretaries, a two-tier system leaves most earning just 12,500 a year, with irregular, short-term contracts that force them to sign on during school holidays.

The union has sought to have this group employed under public service terms, in line with their colleagues working for Educational Training Boards.

Talks between the union and the Department of Education at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) have failed to resolve the dispute.

A survey last weekend of Forsas school secretary members found that 80% backed strike action, including an indefinite strike.

Members were also surveyed on the resumption of industrial action during which school secretaries held a one-day strike in January, followed by low-level industrial action in February this year.

The decision to strike was taken because school secretaries exhausted all options available to bring the dispute to a satisfactory conclusion, according to Andy Pike, head of education at Forsa.

"This has been an especially challenging year for all school staff, students, and parents in the school community," Mr Pike said.

"It shouldnt have to come to this to deliver a fairer system of employment for school secretaries, but theyve been left with no other option but to take industrial action, and demonstrate their determination to achieve a fair outcome."
The infamous 'Cheers' replica bar in Boston closed during the pandemic, leaving world-class memorabilia from the 1980s sitcom behind. On Oct. 6 the bar auctioned off these keepsakes to the highest bidders. Not an item was left unsold.

The Cheers bar was one of many forced to close during the coronavirus pandemic because of suffering business. It shut down on Aug. 30 after serving Boston locals and tourists for 20 years in the Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

The original "Cheers" location, the Bull & Finch Pub in Beacon Hill, remains open. "Cheers," was inspired by that pub and eventually ran for 11 seasons on NBC.

Here are some of the items auctioned off and how much they went for.
It is difficult to fulfill the conditions that Azerbaijan puts forward for the resumption of negotiations with Armenia on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, noted about this while addressing the deputies of the European Parliament.

He also expressed concern over what was said in the conversation between him and the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister. My last talk with Azerbaijani Minister [Jeyhun Bayramov] was also very worrisome, because he was clearly saying that the fight will continue until Armenia accepts a concrete schedule for withdrawing from Nagorno-Karabakh, which is a precondition for conversation, for talks. It is very difficult. The situation is really becoming worse and worse, Borrell said.

Borrell also expressed concern over Turkeys full support for Azerbaijan.

Earlier in his remarks, the EU diplomacy chief spoke in favor of resuming the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks without preconditions.
J oe Biden suggested Donald Trump "get off Twitter" as he responded to the US President's flurry of tweets with a withering Gif.

Mr Trump posted more than 40 tweets and retweets on Tuesday evening, in which he publicly played down Covid-19 despite more of his aides - including one of his closest advisers Stephen Miller - testing positive.

He also hit out at "disgraceful" Mr Biden, criticised Hillary Clinton and tweeted that there would be no action before the election on economic-stimulus legislation.

The announcement came shortly after the Federal Reserve chairman said such help was essential for the country's post-pandemic recovery. Stocks fell after his announcement.

Following the flurry of tweets, Mr Biden shared a GIF which showed him saying "get off twitter". Along with the Gif, he wrote the caption: "Please".

His response received more than 100,000 likes.

Earlier, Mr Biden told reporters that he and Trump "shouldn't have a debate" as long as the president remains Covid positive.

Mr Trump continued to downplay the virus following his hospitalisation / AP

The democrat nominee told reporters in Pennsylvania that he was "looking forward to being able to debate him" but said "we're going to have to follow very strict guidelines."

Mr Trump returned to the White House on Monday after three days of treatment for Covid-19 at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre.

Mr Biden told reporters while boarding a plane to Delaware: "I think if he still has Covid, then we shouldn't have a debate." The next debate is scheduled for October 15, with a third due to take place on October 22.

Mr Biden's campaign says he tested negative for Covid-19 earlier on Tuesday.

Ms Harris will debate Mike Pence / AFP via Getty Images

Meanwhile, vice president Mike Pence and his Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris, are poised to meet for their own debate on Wednesday. They will offer starkly different visions for a country confronting escalating crises.

The face-off in Salt Lake City is the most highly anticipated vice presidential debate in recent memory.

The debate is a chance for voters to decide whether Mr Pence or Ms Harris are in a position to step into the presidency at a moment's notice.

The question has become more pressing as the 74-year-old Mr Trump combats the virus. Mr Biden, at 77, would become the oldest person to become president if he is elected.

The vice president is a 61-year-old former Indiana governor and ex-radio host, an evangelical Christian known for his folksy charm and unwavering loyalty to Mr Trump.

Ms Harris is a 55-year-old California senator, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She is also a former prosecutor whose pointed questioning of Mr Trump's appointees and court nominees and cool charm on the campaign trail made her a Democratic star.
Amid Chinas growing assertiveness, India US Japan Australia agree to step up coordination

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Oct 07: India, the US, Japan and Australia on Tuesday agreed to step up coordination in creating a free and open Indo-Pacific, amidst China's growing assertiveness in the strategically vital region.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne affirmed strengthening of a free, open and rules-based international order, the Japanese government said in a statement issued after a meeting in Tokyo.

The four major Indo-Pacific democracies, collectively known as the Quad, vowed to coordinate in ensuring peace and stability of the region, Kyodo news agency quoted the statement as saying.

India remains committed to upholding rules based international order: Jaishankar at Quad

The in-person meeting of the foreign ministers of the 'Quad' hosted by Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi took place in the backdrop of China's aggressive military behaviour in the Indo-Pacific, South China Sea and along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

Addressing the 2nd Quad ministerial meeting, Prime Minister Suga said a free and open Indo-Pacific is "widely recognised by the international community as a vision of peace and prosperity of this region," and that his government's basic policy is to "further continue advancing our members to this end."

Suga, who assumed the premiership last month, underscored the need to deepen quadrilateral ties, particularly as the novel coronavirus has spread globally.

"The international community is facing multiple and various challenges. This is exactly why right now is the time that we must further deepen our coordination with as many countries as possible that share our vision," he said.

In his opening remarks, Jaishankar said that as vibrant and pluralistic democracies with shared values, the four nations have collectively affirmed the importance of maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.

"We remain committed to upholding the rules-based international order, underpinned by the rule of law, transparency, freedom of navigation in the international seas, respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty and peaceful resolution of disputes," he said, amidst growing global concern over China's expansionist behaviour.

"Our objective remains advancing the security and the economic interests of all countries having legitimate and vital interests in the region," Jaishankar said.

China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years.

Beijing claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. But Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims. In the East China Sea, China has territorial disputes with Japan.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

The South China Sea and the East China Sea are stated to be rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources. They are also vital to global trade. Although the US lays no claims to the disputed waters, it has challenged China's growing territorial claims in the South China Sea by deploying warships and fighter jets to assert freedom of navigation and overflight patrols in the strategically vital region.

Meanwhile, Japan has lodged a protest against China's creation of a digital museum laying out its claims to a group of Japan-controlled islets in the East China Sea, the government's top spokesman said on Monday.

"The Senkaku Islands have been recognised historically and under international law as an inherent part of Japan's territory and we maintain effective control over them," Kyodo news agency quoted Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato as saying at a press conference.

China is "not in a position" to create such a website regarding the islets, Kato said, adding that Japan has demanded through diplomatic channels that it be taken down.

The dispute over ownership of the uninhabited islets, which China calls Diaoyu, has often strained Japan-China relations. China frequently sends coast guard or government ships to nearby waters in a bid to push its claims to them, the report said.
The amount that Georgia will lose due to an accounting software error that wasnt sending the correct amount of sales taxes to local governments. The one-time back-payment in September reduced state revenue by 3.6 percent compared to a year ago, dropping it into the red. ( AP News  October 7, 2020)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 20:59:36|Editor: huaxia

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A works at an olive oil mill in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, Oct. 7, 2020. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)



GAZA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian farmers on Wednesday started to reap olives amid precautions against the novel coronavirus imposed by local authorities.

Olive harvesting is popular among the Palestinians, especially given the fact that olive trees have been a symbol of peace and hope, said Adham al-Basiouny, spokesman of the Hamas-run agriculture ministry.

According to official data, there are about 3,300 hectares of lands of olive trees in Gaza, with an annual production of about 24,000 tons in normal weather conditions.

However, with drastic weather conditions, Gazan farmers expected 30 percent less produce this year, plunging many Gazans who rely on olives for income further into poverty, according to al-Basiouny.

Abdullah Abu Taima, a 32-year-old farmer who owns two hectares of oliver trees in Khan Younis, told Xinhua that he had faced many difficulties ahead of the harvest season, including the precautionary measures such as limiting the number of workers inside the farms and the weak purchasing power in markets.

Anti-virus measures were also imposed in olive oil mills, causing dozens of farmers and customers to wait for long to squeeze their olives.

The municipalities of the Gaza Strip "sterilized all the presses before receiving farmers to squeeze their crops for this year," explained Iman Abu Hassan, director of the internal control department in Abassan municipality. Enditem
Libya: migrants shot and killed in Sabratha, eye witnesses Officials said they detained 350 people trying to reach Europe

(ANSAmed) - SABRATHA, OCTOBER 7 - Two migrants were shot and killed by guards at a detention camp in Sabratha, Libya, hosting dozens of people in dire living conditions, eye witnesses have said. Trawaria, an 18-year-old migrant from the Ivory Coast, said she witnessed her 26-year-old being shot and killed on October 3.



Another migrant at the facility, Rukaia, said men, women and children were all detained at the camp for nine days, without clean water. She said men were locked up in part of the camp and started to fight for water when the guards opened fire and fled.



Rukaia and other migrants were reportedly taken to the center in Sabratha after the Joint Force of the interior ministry announced the detention of 350 African migrants who were about to leave for Europe through Ajilat and Jamil, 100 km west Tripoli.



''We asked for water, just water, their answer was 'wait, wait' with no action, everybody was very thirsty even me'', Rukaia said. ''That day I went to talk to the guards and I told them we needed to drink water, they promised to give us water but that wasn't true, I had to drink dirty water as I was dying of thirst.'' Rukaia went on to say that men were kept inside part of the facility in very hot weather: ''the temperature was boiling, they were very thirsty and they can't get outside not even to use toilets so they were doing everything inside. The guards passed over a tube through a little window to let the men drink water from''. She said men inside started to fight over the water: ''women were worried for their husbands inside so they started shouting to open the gate''. When a guard heard the noise ''he faced the gate and started shooting'', she said. ''He knew that there were people behind the door, he aimed at that door with his Kalashnikov and fired three times''. She said three people were shot ''including Trawaria's husband'' and two died.(ANSAmed). (ANSA).




Government-mandated 28-day quarantine period adhered to by Sri Lankan employees and families brought back via chartered flights

Following statement issued by the Bradix

Our organisation, Brandix, continues to face the challenge of navigating a COVID-19 crisis at our facility in Minuwangoda. Throughout this process, we will continue to keep you updated and clarify any concerns raised by the public, with the aim of being transparent.

File Photo: Mr. Basil Rajapaksa, Special Representative of the President and Head of the Presidential Task Force on Economic Revival and Poverty Eradication, symbolically handed over the first batch of face masks from a production of 200 million face masks for export by Brandix, to U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives Alaina B. Teplitz.

We understand that there have been concerns with regards to foreign nationals working at our facility in Minuwangoda and would like to clarify as follows. We can confirm that no parties from India or any other country have had access to the facility during this period. We would also like to clarify that our facility in Minuwangoda does not use any fabric from India nor has it taken in any orders from our facility in India as well.

With regards to concerns on employees returning to Sri Lanka from India through chartered flights, we can confirm as follows. We operated three chartered flights from Visakhapatnam, India for our Sri Lankan employees working in India and their families, who returned to Sri Lanka. We confirm that they, including their families, followed the Sri Lanka Government protocol for the prevention and control of COVID-19, which includes PCR testing and a 14-day mandatory quarantine at a government regulated quarantine facility, as well as the 14-day self-quarantine process done under the supervision of the respective PHIs. Further to this, it must also be noted that none of these Sri Lankans nor their family members visited the Minuwangoda manufacturing facility.

We have also noted the circulation of a video on social media that alleges that the company has requested employees to come into work, following the identification of the initial COVID-19 positive employee at the facility in Minuwangoda. We have identified that the primary female party is the owner of a hostel, while the two members occupying her hostel and the supervisor being referred to are employed by a third-party cleaning service provider contracted by the Brandix Minuwangoda facility. We confirm that none of these individuals are employees of Brandix.

As an organisation, we rally together to care for the affected employees and their families, whilst endeavouring to minimise the impact on our communities and our nation in a collective effort to emerge from this crisis.
Co-sponsors including BASF, HP, Khoan Nghi, MKVN, Nippon Paint, Tam Tran, and local authorities breaking ground on the new school facilities

The project will offer one new classroom, one toilet block, and one playground, with a total area of 357 square metres for the Kim Dong Primary School at Hoa Long B site, located in Kinh Cung township in Phung Hiep district.

Facilitated by Saigon Children's Charity CIO, the construction project will be completed in 2021. Over 90 schoolchildren will enjoy a cleaner, safer, and a more comfortable learning environment after completion of this fifth school project by BASF Vietnam, in close coordination with its partners.

The group photo of co-sponsors

BASF continuously supports local communities through a variety of programmes, including this school renovation to provide a healthy learning environment for schoolchildren. This initiative has also inspired our partners to jointly support the common cause of supporting remote communities get better access to quality education. With this project, we are also thrilled to celebrate the fifth school we have renovated with our partners, showing our long-term commitment to support Vietnams sustainable development, said Erick Contreras, managing director of BASF Vietnam.

Schoolkids were excited to receive gifts from the sponsors, including shoes donated by Khoan Nghi and made with BASF materials

The financial sponsors include MKVN Chemicals, a distributor of care chemicals, nutrition and health, and other functional products, and Tam Tran Company, a company specialising in supplying and making consignment sales of basic chemicals for paints, inks, and plastic, among others.The co-sponsors are donating cash and materials to renovate the school. For the fifth consecutive year, Nippon Paint Vietnam, a well-known paint and coatings manufacturer, is providing low odour products that meet Green Label Certification, made with BASF ingredients to reduce impact on human health and environment.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, a total of 300 pairs of shoes, made by Khoan Nghi, a manufacturer of shoes and slippers, were presented to all students from different sites of Kim Dong Primary School. The shoes made with BASF materials enhance the comfort and safety of children and adults.

Students learning at a temporary classroom in a local home  the new facility will give them better access to education

The one-classroom block will be renovated to a safer, more comfortable one for the schoolkids

The Hoa Long B satellite site of the school currently has four classrooms, three of which are for primary classes and one for kindergarten level. The classrooms were built in 1996 with basic structures and materials and for almost 25 years, the classrooms structures have been deteriorating. The condition gets even worse during the rainy season since the rusted corrugated iron roof leaks, creating noise and negatively affecting the learning environment.

Located over 270km away from Ho Chi Minh City, Phung Hiep is one of the poorest districts in a province where 11 per cent of households are classified as poor. A study conducted by the Ministry of Education and Training showed that less than 50 per cent of primary schools in Hau Giang were built with proper concrete structures.

Without stable foundations and a safe environment for learning, students safety is at risk. In 2017, BASF and its partners renovated two schools in the district, benefitting 140 students at Long Thanh 3 Primary School and Tan Long Kindergarten.

BASF Vietnam has been active in multiple community projects including the partnership with Saigon Childrens Charity to renovate schools. Moreover, BASF has also provided scholarships to disadvantaged university students for their four years of studies and held its interactive education programme BASF Kids Lab for 5,000 primary school students since 2011.

Additionally, BASF constructed four public playgrounds accessible to more than 12,000 children to promote a sense of exploration, inspire creativity, and develop different skills among children.
Batavia Downs has announced that there will be a guaranteed pool of $3,000 for its Pick-5 wager on Wednesday (Oct. 7).

The pool is part of the United States Trotting Associations Strategic Wagering Program, and, as such, free program pages are available courtesy of Trackmaster on the USTAs website or here: https://legacy.trackmaster.com/usta/btv1007x.pdf.

The Pick-5 wager begins in Race 1 and runs through Race 5. The Pick-5 is a 50-cent-base wager and if all five winners arent selected, any carryover pool will be moved to the Pick-5 wager on the Saturday (Oct. 10) program.

Batavia's first race will head behind the starter at 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

(Batavia Downs)
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Linkedin Leika Kihara (Reuters) Tokyo, Japan  Wed, October 7, 2020 10:45 473 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c499b402 2 Business Bank-of-Japan,digitalization,COVID-19,Reform,Asia Free

Asia must accelerate digitalisation and business reform to tackle challenges to achieve sustainable growth, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Wednesday, highlighting vulnerabilities in supply chains and social infrastructure.

Kuroda said Asias economic conditions remain severe as a full-fledged recovery in global growth following the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be much further down the road.

But the downturn in Asias economy has been moderate compared with other regions due partly to solid global demand for IT-related goods produced in the region, he said.

From a longer-term perspective, Asia must address its challenges in order to achieve sustainable economic growth such as its low service-sector productivity and ageing populations, Kuroda said. Digitalisation is among key factors in this, he added.

Japan is one of the most rapidly ageing societies and we have been discussing how to tackle the problems arising from an ageing society, Kuroda said.

Im not so pessimistic about the impact of population ageing on the society... Encouraging digitalisation will be a driving force for raising growth potential, he told a virtual meeting of the US National Association for Business Economics.

Japans new prime minister Yoshihide Suga has made digitalisation a key policy issue, as work-from-home and social distancing policies to prevent the spread of the virus heighten the need to speed up reform on that front.

The pandemic has also exposed vulnerabilities in Asias supply-chain networks, though many companies are already making efforts to diversify production and procurement, Kuroda said.

Business reform to adapt to changing consumer trends, such as increased demand for e-commerce and online healthcare services, may boost Asias service-sector productivity, said Kuroda, a former head of the Asian Development Bank.
San Antonio police have charged two teenagers with murder in connection with the death of a 20-year-old man who was shot and killed Wednesday while sleeping in his South Side home.

Police said the two 13-year-olds  one male and one female  shot and killed Rene Ray Rodriguez.

The teenagers were detained for questioning sometime before 4 p.m. Wednesday and charged Thursday morning. Police aren't releasing their names because they are juveniles.

RELATED: One dead after multi-motorcycle crash on South Side

Rodriguez was found dead inside the residence near the 2900 block of Lasses Boulevard just before 7 a.m. Wednesday. Investigators said at least one of the teens entered the residence, walked into Rodriguezs bedroom and shot him. Officials said there were no signs of forced entry.

The teens ran from the house. The department's Eagle helicopter and a K9 unit were used to search for the suspects, but werent located until several hours later.

Neighbors on Wednesday said shooting was devastating news to wake up to.

Its just a really sad situation and its crazy to think that it hits so close to home, said Tabitha Farris, who lives across the street from where the shooting took place.

Police didnt to say how many shots were fired or who delivered the fatal shot.
It was also difficult for women to find work in the field at that time, said Keane, 80. But she kept going, keeping the challenges of being a woman in the field on the periphery, despite some realizations along the way. At Lab, Keane was the only woman in the physical sciences. Ghez has said how important it was for her to see a woman in that role.
WASHINGTON, October 7, 2020 -- The American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society announce Joel Lebowitz, director of the Center for Mathematical Sciences Research at Rutgers University, as the recipient of the 2021 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics. The award is given annually to recognize significant contributions to the field.

"It gives me pleasure to receive the Heineman Prize, and I hope it encourages others to pursue this field," said Lebowitz, who cites his Brooklyn College teacher, Melba Phillips, and his Syracuse University thesis advisor, Peter Bergmann, as early influencers in his career.

"We are excited to present this year's Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics to Dr. Joel L. Lebowitz," said Michael Moloney, CEO of AIP. "His distinguished international career for six decades made a tremendous impact in the field of statistical mechanics and mathematical physics. We at AIP congratulate him on this win."

The citation on the award reads: "for seminal contributions to nonequilibrium and equilibrium statistical mechanics, in particular, studies of large deviations in nonequilibrium steady states and rigorous analysis of Gibbs equilibrium ensembles."

A native of Taceva in the former Czechoslovakia (now in Ukraine), Lebowitz was deported with his family to the Auschwitz concentration camp in May 1944. He was liberated one year later and moved to the United States, where he began his high school education at Yeshiva Torah Vodath in Brooklyn, New York.

"[Phillips and Bergmann] were both humanist scientists, caring about people and social justice," Lebowitz said. "As a college senior, I took a reading course with Phillips based on a book on statistical mechanics that was written by Bergmann, which led to my going to Syracuse to do my thesis with him."

After earning a bachelor's degree at Brooklyn College and master's and doctorate degrees from Syracuse University, Lebowitz became a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, where his mentor was Lars Onsager.

He worked at the Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, New Jersey, and Yeshiva University, in New York City, before joining Rutgers University in 1977, a position he currently holds.

Lebowitz was nominated for the Heineman Award by Elliott Lieb, an American mathematical physicist and professor of mathematics and physics at Princeton University who specializes in statistical mechanics, condensed matter theory, and functional analysis.

Lebowitz and Lieb worked together to prove "the existence of thermodynamics for ordinary matter with Coulomb interactions," the force between two electrically charged particles. It is an accomplishment that Lebowitz said was the most exciting moment of his career.

His work in nonequlibrium statistical mechanics investigates "how macroscopic systems, ranging in size and nature from living cells to galaxies, behave dynamically," he said.

"Everything alive or active is in a nonequilibrium state. Statistical mechanics tries to understand the properties of such systems in terms of the properties of their microscopic constituents. This leads to difficult mathematical problems, most of which are still unresolved at the present time."

Lebowitz became the editor in chief of the Journal of Statistical Physics in 1975, a position he held for 43 years. He also was editor/co-editor of the Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences, Collective Phenomena, for 12 years. He has received many well-deserved awards during his career, including, most recently, the "Grande Medaille" from the French Academy of Sciences in 2014.

In addition to his accomplished career as a researcher and published author of work in mathematical physics, Lebowitz is also involved in human rights work. Citing his time as an inmate in a Nazi concentration camp, he believes scientists "can and should strive to have a positive influence."

"By actively protesting against violations of human rights, in particular those of scientists, students, scholars, etc." he said. "They should join organizations like the Committee of Concerned Scientists, devoted to the defense of such people. I am a co-chair of that organization."

His current interests are in problems of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, a field mentioned in the citation for the Heineman Award.

"I am working on several problems in nonequilibrium involving heat conduction and entropy production in systems in contact with several heat reservoirs at different temperatures," Lebowitz said. "Problems quite close to what I worked on in my thesis about 65 years ago."

Once a mathematical physics researcher, always a mathematical physics researcher.

###

ABOUT THE HEINEMAN PRIZE

The Heineman Prize is named after Dannie N. Heineman, an engineer, business executive, and philanthropic sponsor of the sciences. The prize was established in 1959 by the Heineman Foundation for Research, Education, Charitable and Scientific Purposes, Inc. The prize will be presented by AIP and APS on behalf of the Heineman Foundation at a future APS meeting. A special ceremonial session will be held during the meeting, when Lebowitz will receive the $10,000 prize. http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/heineman.cfm

ABOUT AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

The American Institute of Physics advances, promotes and serves the physical sciences for the benefit of humanity. AIP offers authoritative information, services, and expertise in physics education and student programs, science communication, government relations, career services for science and engineering professionals, statistical research in physics employment and education, industrial outreach, and the history of physics and allied fields. http://www.aip.org

ABOUT AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY

The American Physical Society is a non-profit membership organization working to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research journals, scientific meetings, and education, outreach, advocacy, and international activities. APS represents over 53,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories and industry in the United States and throughout the world. Society offices are in College Park, Maryland (Headquarters), Ridge, New York, and Washington, DC.
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Austria's wholesale prices continued to decline in September, data from the from Statistics Austria showed on Wednesday. The wholesale price index fell 5.0 percent year-on-year in September, following a 4.0 percent drop in August. Prices for other mineral oil products declined 34.8 percent annually in September and those of fertilizers and agrochemical products decreased 8.3 percent. Meanwhile, prices of watches and jewelry grew 20.8 percent. On a month-on-month basis, the wholesale prices decreased 0.8 percent in September, after a 0.1 percent rise in the prior month. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Netflix said it is standing by the controversial film Cuties after it emerged the streaming giant is facing a criminal charge in Texas over the movies alleged lewd depiction of children (Netflix/PA)

Netflix has said it is standing by the controversial film Cuties after it emerged the streaming giant is facing a criminal charge in Texas over the movies alleged lewd depiction of children.

Cuties follows an 11-year-old Senegalese girl living in Paris who rebels against her conservative familys traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew.

Critics have accused the film, which is streaming on Netflix, of sexualising children. A petition was launched calling for people to boycott Netflix over the movie.

A grand jury in Tyler County, Texas, has indicted the company on the charge of promotion of lewd visual material depicting child.

The indictment says Cuties appeals to the prurient interest in sex and the material holds no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Netflix has once again defended the film. A representative told the PA news agency: Cuties is a social commentary against the sexualisation of young children. This charge is without merit and we stand by the film.

Following the initial backlash, the company encouraged people to watch the movie before passing judgment.

Writer-director Maimouna Doucoure said she considers it to be a deeply feminist film with an activist message that is a mirror of todays society, a mirror sometimes difficult to look into.

She said she got the idea after seeing a group of 11-year-old girls dancing in a way you would see in a video clip during a neighbourhood gathering in Paris.

The director said she spent the next year and a half meeting with hundreds of pre-teens to learn about how they felt about their femininity in todays society, and how they felt about their self-image in the era of social media.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019, where Doucoure won the world cinema dramatic directing award.
Two alleged members of the Isis Beatles cell involved in a series of hostage beheadings in Syria have been flown to the US to face prosecution.

The Department of Justice was expected to announce charges against Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh at a press conference later on Wednesday.

A source told the Associated Press they would appear at a court in Alexandria, Virginia.

The pair were captured in Syria in 2018 as Isis lost its last territory and were held abroad in US military custody.

Last month, Elsheikhs mother lost a court battle against the British governments decision to share evidence with American authorities. The ruling cleared the way for the pair to be transferred to the US and put on trial.

Kotey and Elsheikh became the subject of a legal dispute after the UK refused to prosecute them, having removed their British citizenship, despite pressure from Donald Trumps administration.

Ministers said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the pair in Britain and so the government decided to hand its information to the US.

The Supreme Court heard that American authorities refused to provide the normal assurance that it would not be used in a prosecution that could lead to the death penalty.

After many exchanges, the home secretary - then Sajid Javid - agreed to comply with the request without any assurances in June 2018.

He authorised the sharing of 600 witness statements gathered by the Metropolitan Police in a letter to then US attorney general Jeff Sessions.

When the case was first heard in the High Court lawyers representing Elsheikhs mother said Mr Javids actions were influenced by the anticipated outrage of members of the Trump administration if the mutual legal assistance request was refused.

Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh were stripped of their British citizenship

They had also pushed for the CPS to review claims that there was insufficient evidence for the men to be charged and tried in the UK.

In August, the US attorney general William Barr wrote to the British government providing assurances against the death penalty.

The United States will not seek the death penalty in any prosecutions it might bring against Alexanda Kotey or Shafee Elsheikh, and if imposed, the death penalty will not be carried out," the letter said.

Moreover, we will not transfer any evidence already or subsequently provided to us by the United Kingdom to third countries that might impose the death penalty upon Kotey or Elsheikh.

Elsheikh and Kotey were transferred into US military custody last October, following Turkeys invasion of the region of northern Syria where they were being held by Kurdish-led forces.

Originally from London, they were declared specially designated global terrorists by the US State Department ahead of their capture, with official documents naming them as members of The Beatles and saying the cell had beheaded more than 27 hostages and tortured many more.

The cell was dubbed the Beatles by victims because of their British accents.

Surviving captives have told of their brutality, which included waterboarding, electric shocks, mock executions and crucifixions.

Executioner Mohammed Emwazi, who became known as Jihadi John, was killed in a drone strike, while the remaining Beatle, Aine Davis, was imprisoned in Turkey.
Helix Dumper conceptual design. (Image reproduced with permission from RCR MT)

Helix Dumper conceptual design. (Image reproduced with permission from RCR MT)

Helix Dumper conceptual design. (Image reproduced with permission from RCR MT)

Conceptual example of Helix Dumper in operation. Image is not a representation of actual infrastructure at the Port of Esperance. (Image reproduced with permission from Kiruna Wagon & RCR MT)

Conceptual example of Helix Dumper in operation. Image is not a representation of actual infrastructure at the Port of Esperance. (Image reproduced with permission from Kiruna Wagon & RCR MT)

Conceptual example of Helix Dumper in operation. Image is not a representation of actual infrastructure at the Port of Esperance. (Image reproduced with permission from Kiruna Wagon & RCR MT)

Berth 3 Shiploader, Port of Esperance

Berth 3 Shiploader, Port of Esperance

Berth 3 Shiploader, Port of Esperance

Entrance to Port of Esperance

Entrance to Port of Esperance

Entrance to Port of Esperance

Port of Esperance: Berth 3 Shiploader

Port of Esperance: Berth 3 Shiploader

Port of Esperance: Berth 3 Shiploader

RCR Mining Technologies (  RCR MT ) completes engineering design report to support the potential development of a cutting-edge  Helix  rail car unloading solution (Helix Dumper) at the Port of Esperance

Process for selection of a preferred development option for the new rail unloading infrastructure system is now ready to advance

Proposal for development of a Commercial Track Access Agreement for below rail network paths to Port of Esperance received from Arc Infrastructure in July

Discussions progressing with above-rail service providers on indicative pricing for rail haulage services

Advancing with Crown Lease application to support previously announced proposal to develop a 93km haul road from the Project to a proposed rail siding adjacent to the Perth to Kalgoorlie rail line at Jaurdi

Macarthur now focused on advancing discussions with Southern Ports Authority to secure a pathway to conditional capacity allocation at Port of Esperance. This will be the final material piece of the rapidly emerging route to market solution for Macarthurs Lake Giles Iron Project

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Macarthur Minerals Limited (TSX-V: MMS) (ASX: MIO) (OTCQB: MMSDF) (the Company or Macarthur) is pleased to provide an update on the continued progress towards completion of route to market for its flagship Moonshine magnetite deposits at Macarthurs Lake Giles Iron Project (Project).

Story continues

ENGINEERING DESIGN REPORT FOR CUTTING EDGE HELIX RAIL UNLOADING SYSTEM COMPLETED

Following the recent engagement of RCR Mining Technologies Pty Ltd (RCR MT) to examine the potential to develop and utilise a cutting-edge rail unloading technology at Esperance Port (See the Companys recent announcements dated 29 July 2020 here and 2 September 2020 here), RCR MT has now completed its engineering design report.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b37fb508-4f02-488f-9a7e-ea0e5d388081

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f6eaea10-d102-4c44-a615-abcc22de319b

RCR MT, a subsidiary of NRW Holdings (ASX: NWH), holds an exclusive license to develop the Helix Dumper system in Australia and in combination with Kiruna Wagon, have the ability to manufacture both the dumper and wagons in Western Australia. RCR MT was engaged by Macarthur to examine the potential to utilise the cutting-edge rail unloading technology that has been successfully used in Scandinavian magnetite operations for several years.

RCR MTs Engineering Design Report has been provided to key stakeholders including Southern Ports Authority and Arc Infrastructure for review. Following completion of the review process, which is intended to bring clarity to a preferred infrastructure operating model that could potentially be adopted within the Port, Macarthur anticipates that an optimised rail unloading infrastructure solution is capable of being selected for development.

If constructed, the new Helix Dumper rail unloading system has the potential to optimise the existing capacity of the Berth 3 ship-loader enhancing its current performance from 2,200tph to approximately 4,500tph. With a design capacity potential of up to 25,000tph, RCR MT and Macarthur are confident that the Helix Dumper system can easily increase iron ore through-put at the Port.

Macarthurs proposal to develop the rail unloading infrastructure solution at Esperance Port:

does not require material capital contributions from the Port or the Western Australian State Government; and

is intended to permit third party access to latent capacity within the Helix Dumper system, supporting important principles of open access.

If constructed, the Helix Dumper system has a design capacity which will be capable of handling tonnages well in excess of Macarthurs immediate requirements for the Lake Giles Iron Project, thereby providing the potential for increased trade through Esperance, subject to capacity elsewhere within the Port.

PORT OF ESPERANCE  PATHWAY TO CAPACITY ALLOCATION

In parallel with the examination of a suitable infrastructure operating model at the Port, Macarthur is continuing to engage with Southern Ports Authority on its requirements for providing Macarthur with a staged pathway to securing a binding capacity allocation.

With the continued positive and collaborative engagement being provided by Southern Ports Authority, Macarthur has confidence in the potential to achieve a contractual pathway to a capacity allocation that will be sufficient to support the Companys current Feasibility Study for the Lake Giles Iron Project.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ddf82a81-7524-41eb-810d-fc9d6459af61

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6e798b75-cdbc-4f90-9bd9-bd3fbe898db6

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d292f8f9-cccb-4f41-adb4-95d9a14495df

ABOVE RAIL (RAIL HAULAGE) SERVICES

Macarthur is in advanced discussions with above rail service providers on indicative pricing for rail haulage services from its proposed rail siding to the Port of Esperance. The Company is confident that it can secure rail tasks and indicative pricing on competitive terms. This will enable Macarthur to select a preferred provider and seek to negotiate a binding rail haulage contract to support development of the Lake Giles Iron Project.

OTHER RECENT ROUTE TO MARKET PROGRESS

In addition to recent progress on the rail unloading solution and discussions with Southern Ports, Macarthur has recently advanced the following route-to-market successes:

The Company announced on 25 June 2020, details of applications lodged for haul road and rail loading tenure which maps out a solution to transport magnetite from the Lake Giles Iron Project to the existing rail network that connects to the Port of Esperance. The Company is advancing with the Crown Lease application in support of this process (see full release here).





The Company announced on 15 July 2020, it had received a Proposal for development of a Commercial Track Access Agreement from Arc Infrastructure, the owner of the below-rail network (see full release here).





Cameron McCall, President and Executive Chairman of Macarthur Minerals commented:

The successful completion of the RCR MT engineering design report for the Helix Dumper is an important development in Macarthurs progress to completing the route to market for its Lake Giles Iron Project.

We are delivering industry-led solutions that are committed to supporting the principles of open access. That is the right thing to do, but its also smart business in a region where we intend to be operating for a long time. Whilst we have our eyes firmly fixed on the delivered cost of our product, we also believe that its very important to build positive, mutually beneficial commercial relationships with our key service providers so that they can partner with us and help deliver future growth in our Lake Giles Iron Project for many years to come.

The continued, systematic progress Management is making on securing our route to market is strong, and the Board is pleased that the value the Lake Giles Iron Project can bring to the State of Western Australia is finally being recognised in its recent collaborative engagements with key port and rail service providers.

These positive steps support our belief that the time for the Lake Giles Iron Project has finally arrived. Macarthur has big plans, and more great things are yet to come.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, Mr Cameron McCall, Executive Chairman

For more information please contact: Joe Phillips

CEO & Director

+61 7 3221 1796

communications@macarthurminerals.com Investor Relations  Australia

Advisir

Sarah Lenard, Partner

sarah.lenard@advisir.com.au Investor Relations - Canada

Investor Cubed

Neil Simon, CEO

+1 647 258 3310

info@investor3.ca

About RCR MT



RCR MT is a subsidiary of ASX listed NRW Holdings (ASX: NWH), a leading provider of diversified services to the mining, energy and civil infrastructure sectors. RCR MT is a market leader in the design and manufacture of an extensive range of surface and bulk materials handling equipment with a reputation for delivering high quality mining technologies nationally and internationally. RCR MT holds an exclusive license to develop the Helix system in Australia and in combination with Kiruna Wagon have the ability to manufacture both the dumper and wagons in Western Australia.

Company profile

Macarthur is an iron ore development, gold and lithium exploration company that is focused on bringing to production its Western Australia iron ore projects. The Lake Giles Iron Project mineral resources include the Ularring hematite resource (approved for development) comprising Indicated resources of 54.5 million tonnes at 47.2% Fe and Inferred resources of 26 million tonnes at 45.4% Fe; and the Lake Giles magnetite resource of 53.9 million tonnes (Measured), 218.7 million tonnes (Indicated) and 997 million tonnes (Inferred). Macarthur has prominent (~721 square kilometer tenement area) gold, lithium and copper exploration interests in Pilbara region of Western Australia. In addition, Macarthur has lithium brine Claims in the emerging Railroad Valley region in Nevada, USA.

This news release is not for distribution to United States services or for dissemination in the United States

Caution Regarding Forward Looking Statements

Certain of the statements made and information contained in this press release may constitute forward-looking information and forward-looking statements (collectively, forward-looking statements) within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements herein, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including but not limited to statements regarding expected completion of the Feasibility Study; granting of mineral tenure to facilitate infrastructure proposed; the ability to enter into a commercial rail access agreement or the eventual mining of the Project, are forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release reflect the current expectations, assumptions or beliefs of the Company based upon information currently available to the Company. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct as actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include but are not limited to: unforeseen technology changes that results in a reduction in iron or magnetite demand or substitution by other metals or materials; the discovery of new large low cost deposits of iron magnetite; the general level of global economic activity; future changes in rail network capacity and demand; failure to complete the FS; failure to receive mineral tenure for infrastructure; and failure to obtain mining approvals under the Mining Act; inability to negotiate access to tenure at the Port of Esperance. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements due to the inherent uncertainty thereof. Such statements relate to future events and expectations and, as such, involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and except as may otherwise be required pursuant to applicable laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.








KABUL -- Mohammad Younas is nostalgic about his time fighting with Azerbaijani forces in the war against Armenians for the Nagorno-Karabakh territory in the early 1990s.

"If possible, I would again join the Muslims of Azerbaijan to defend them against non-Muslims," he said, alluding to the predominantly Muslim country in its battle with Armenian forces, who are mainly Orthodox Christians. The conflict between the South Caucasian neighbors has never been considered a religious one.

But Younas's real motivation was a mix of religious zeal and material gain. "My real motivation in going to Azerbaijan was participating in a jihad, but I also wanted to make some money," he told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan.

Younas was among the thousands of Afghan fighters that Hezb-e Islami, a major Afghan Islamist party, sent to Azerbaijan in the 1990s to bolster Baku in its war against Armenia. The conflict between the two Soviet republics mushroomed into a full-scale war after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, which preceded the demise of Afghanistan's communist regime in April 1992.

While far from being materially involved in the current war over Nagorno-Karabakh, Kabul still supports Baku's position, which sees Yerevan as occupying its territory -- a position also recognized internationally.

Afghanistan's declared support for Azerbaijan has prompted Armenia to push for an end to Kabul's observer status in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led regional alliance.

Sending Afghan Mujahedin

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an anti-Soviet guerrilla and Hezb-e Islami leader, celebrated the fall of his former enemies in Afghanistan in 1992.

But soon after he plunged his country into a civil war as he joined fighting against other Afghan Islamist and ex-communist factions. He eventually became the prime minister in a deeply divided regime in 1993 but failed to establish control over the capital.

Yet Hekmatyar still celebrates sending people like Younas and thousands more of his supporters to fight for Azerbaijan after it requested help. In a speech to his supporters last week, he said that in response to an Azerbaijani request he told Afghan refugees in Iran to join the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.

"A sizeable number of our mujahedin went there and scored numerous victories," he told supporters at a Kabul mosque. "They pushed back the Armenians within the initial days and captured many territories. Their advances continued until the Azerbaijani officials approached us ahead of impending talks that resulted in a cease-fire," he said, referring to an armistice in May 1994 that ended nearly six years of fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Well-Paid To Fight

In Kabul, Younas has vivid memories of the fighting.

He crossed into neighboring Iran from Pakistan after Hezb-e Islami leaders ordered him to go to Azerbaijan. He said he joined a group of 300 Afghans on a special flight from the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan to Baku in early 1994 from where they were soon deployed to the front lines.

"During one battle an Armenian tank column attacked us; our comrades attempted to target them with rockets," he said of a battle in the last days of winter in 1994. "One rocket hit our comrade Bashir, who was killed instantly, but we continued fighting."

Younas said that at the end of the battle they captured eight Armenian fighters. "We later exchanged them to free our comrades," he said. Upon his return to Afghanistan in June, Younas was paid more than $1,500 for his participation in the fighting by his party, which confirms speculation that Afghan fighters were recruited as mercenaries by Azerbaijan.

Humayun Jarir, Hekmatyar's son-in-law and a senior Hezb-e Islami leader, says nearly 70 Afghans among the estimated 5,000 fighters their party sent to Azerbaijan were killed in the fighting. He says Hezb-e Islami fighters ultimately contributed to forcing the Armenians to accept a cease-fire.

Beginning in late 1993, Armenian authorities protested the recruitment of Afghans by Azerbaijan. They had warned that the role of Muslim Afghan forces in Nagorno-Karabakh could turn the territorial conflict into a religious war between Muslim Azerbaijanis and the Christian Armenians.

Contrarian Kabul

Yerevan is upset by Kabul's current diplomatic support for Baku in the latest round of hostilities, which have killed hundreds and led to charges by Armenian officials of Baku receiving material support from Turkey, who Yerevan says has also recruited Syrians to fight in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Late last month, the Afghan government called for an end to the fighting between the two countries but reiterated its support for Azerbaijan.

"Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan," said a statement by the Afghan Foreign Ministry. "Afghanistan wants the end of the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and supports the efforts of Azerbaijan's people and other nations."

This prompted the Armenian parliament to call on the CSTO to move toward stripping Afghanistan of its observer status.

"In response to the statements supporting Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression by Afghanistan, the Republic of Armenia's National Assembly has officially appealed to the CSTO parliamentary assembly secretary to start the process of depriving Afghanistan of its observer status," Armenian parliament speaker Arat Miroyan said in a statement on October 2.

While suffering from a seemingly unending war for more than 40 years, Kabul has surprised many by adopting bold and controversial positions in faraway wars and territorial disputes.

In March 2104, Afghanistan joined Syria and Venezuela in backing Russia's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. The United States and its European allies, major donors to Afghanistan, had opposed the move and termed it a "land grab" by Moscow. More than 100 countries voted against Russia's takeover of Crimea in a UN General Assembly resolution.

Written by Abubakar Siddique based on reporting in Kabul by Khatir Pardes
New Delhi: Abdullah Abdullah, the chief negotiator with the Taliban in the intra-Afghan peace dialogue, met National Security Advisor Ajit Doval here on Wednesday (October 7) and discussed Afghan peace process. Addressing media, Abdullah Abdullah, who is on a five-day visit to India, said that he had a constructive discussion with NSA Ajit Doval.

He said, "Discussed the Afghan peace process and talks in Doha. He assured Indias full support for peace efforts and any peace settlement acceptable to Afghans, will have India's support."

The Chairman, High Council for National Reconciliation, stated that his country is in favour of an independent, democratic, sovereign, and peaceful Afghanistan, where no terrorists can operate.

He also thanked India for the invitation, its continued support for Afghanistan, and its constructive role in peace efforts.

Abdullah Abdullah, who arrived here on Tuesday, is also scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

Abdullah is here to exchange views on the negotiations between the Afghanistan government and the Taliban at Doha, Qatar, and bilateral relations."Arrived in New Delhi, India, to begin my official visit.

During my stay in New Delhi, I will meet the leadership of India, and exchange views on Afghan Peace Process, and bilateral relations," Abdullah Abdullah wrote in a tweet.

Abdullah, accompanied by a high-level delegation, is here on an invitation by the Government of India to discuss the peace efforts and the need for regional consensus and support for the Afghan peace process.

Live TV

Prior to his departure to India, Abdullah had said, "India is a strategic partner of AFG and has continuously supported the government and people of AFG. Our historical relations with India are very important to us, and the role of India in establishing lasting peace in AFG and the region is vital."

"I am visiting India upon an official invitation by the Gov. of #India to discuss the peace efforts, and the need for regional consensus & support for the #AfghanPeaceProcess," he added.

This is the first visit of Abdullah to India after the formation of a new government in Afghanistan.

(With Agency Inputs)
Australia has one of the highest rates in the world of deaths in residential aged care as a proportion of total COVID-19 deaths. So far, 663 residents in aged care homes have died; they are partners, siblings, parents, grandparents and friends.

At a Senate Select Committee on COVID hearing on September 29, secretary of the Department of Health Dr Brendan Murphy claimed the federal government was "not in a position to act earlier" to prevent the deaths in Victorian aged care homes.

Seventeen residents died from the coronavirus at Newmarch House in western Sydney. Credit:James Alcock

However, the heart-breaking tragedy in Victoria could have been prevented if the federal Health Minister Greg Hunt and Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians Richard Colbeck had listened to complaints from residents, relatives and staff, read the research evidence or acted on some of the recommendations made by coroners.

Eight years ago, for example, a coroner recommended aged-care homes appoint a designated infection control manager and that all aged-care homes develop a document outlining what must be done in the event of an outbreak.
Turkey's "full support" motivated its ally Azerbaijan to reignite fighting in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Tuesday in an interview with AFP, calling the escalating conflict a "war against terrorism".

"While it is true that the leadership of Azerbaijan has been actively promoting bellicose rhetoric for the last 15 years, now the decision to unleash a war was motivated by Turkey's full support," the 45-year-old premier said.

"Without Turkey's active engagement this war would have not begun," he added, speaking to AFP in a sumptuous room of the Government House in the heart of Armenian capital Yerevan.

The prime minister arrived in a motorcade with wailing sirens, while armed soldiers in combat gear manned the entrance to the imposing building, built in the era of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Pashinyan nevertheless projected an air of calm, speaking slowly and weighing every word as he condemned Azerbaijan for waging a "terrorist war against a people struggling for their freedom."

Pashinyan, a former newspaper editor, became prime minister in 2018 after leading tens of thousands in protests against the ruling party, channelling a widespread desire for change and calling for good relations with both Russia and the West.

He stressed that the latest fighting is "not simply a new escalation of the Karabakh conflict," a territorial decades-old dispute over the majority ethnic Armenian mountainous region between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a mainly Muslim Turkic country that is a close ally of Turkey.

The current conflict has seen the "active engagement of terrorist groups from the Middle East in the conflict zone," Pashinyan said, describing the role of Armenian forces as a "counter-terrorism operation."

Turkey has been accused of deploying fighters from Syria to support Azerbaijan in Karabakh. French President Emmanuel Macron claimed that "jihadists" had arrived in the region, accusing Turkey of crossing a "red line".

Story continues

Armenia also accuses Turkish forces of fighting directly in the region, and Pashinyan said Turkey's F-16 fighter jets were "actively engaged" in the conflict.

Turkey has denied this and no firm evidence has been presented.

- 'Policy of Armenian genocide' -

Pashinyan accused Turkey of involving itself in Nagorno-Karabakh as part of its "policy of Armenian genocide."

"Turkey has returned to the South Caucasus to continue the Armenian genocide," he said.

Armenians say that up to 1.5 million people were killed by Ottoman Turks during World War I in what amounted to genocide, a claim supported by some 30 countries. Turkey rejects the genocide label and says that Turks also died in civil strife.

Armenia has become "the last obstacle" to Turkish expansion, Pashinyan said.

He warned that if "Europe fails to properly call this situation by its name," it could see Turkish forces outside Vienna, referring to the Ottoman Empire laying siege to the city in the 17th century.

Yet if the current conflict deteriorates so far that Armenia experiences a direct attack on its territory, Pashinyan said he is sure that his nation's key ally Russia would come to its aid due to the two countries' membership in a military alliance.

"In case of a security threat to Armenia, Russia's engagement will be subject to our treaty framework. I am confident that as per the situation... Russia will uphold its treaty obligations," the prime minister said.

As for the international community and the European leaders with whom Pashinyan has been exchanging multiple phone calls in recent days, he said that "the best response ... to this terrorist operation would be to recognise the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh."

The region is not currently recognised by any UN member state -- not even Armenia.

Fierce fighting reignited in Karabakh 10 days ago and has caused at least 286 deaths according to confirmed tolls that are likely short of the real total. Neither side appears to have taken a decisive lead on the ground.

pop-am/dl
Blue-chip German companies have fewer women in board positions than a year ago. Photo: Daniel Roland/AFP via Getty Images

Unlike in the US, UK, and other developed economies, the number of women on the management and supervisory boards of DAX-listed German companies has fallen in the past year.

According to a study from the Swedish-German AllBright Foundation, there were only 23 female managers on the boards of the 30 companies that make up Germanys elite DAX index (^GDAXI)  down from 29 women a year ago  and a drop from 14.7% to 12.8% in the past year. This puts the number of women board-members back to the same level as in 2017.

The crisis has made it particularly clear that diversity at the corporate level of German companies is still not firmly anchored, said co-managing directors of the AllBright Foundation Wiebke Ankersen and Christian Berg.

The drop in women on executive boards was only observed in Germany, among the Western nations surveyed.

In the US, the proportion of women on leadership boards rose 0.8% in the past year to 28.6%. In the UK and Sweden, women make up over 24% of board members, recording a 2.2% increase. In France, 22.2% of board seats are occupied by women.

Watch: Helena Morrissey on how firms can begin to close the gender pay gap

READ MORE: Berlin mulls fresh restrictions as COVID-19 infections rise

Whatever prompts supervisory boards to increasingly rely on men on the executive boards during the crisis, it is a short-sighted reflex that shows how little the diversity of perspectives is anchored at German corporate heads, Ankersen said.

The study said that two distinct trends can be seen at the top levels of Germanys listed companies  an overall downsizing of executive boards, and a return to the familiar tried and tested pattern of men relying on men.

While a proportion of 30% of women on a companys board of directors is considered to the the critical mass in order to change its dynamics, not one single listed company in Germany has hit that amount. Almost half of those in the US are already at that percentage.

Story continues

The report said just two German companies  Deutsche Telekom (DTE.DE) and SAP (SAP) will hit a 33% share of female board members in the coming months. Meanwhile, 11 of the 30 DAX companies still have all-male boards.

Commenting on the AllBright report, Franziska Giffey, the federal family minister told German newspaper Handelsblatt that it is unacceptable that the majority of leading German companies do not use the potential of the many excellently qualified women on their management levels.

According to Germanys female quota law, which went into effect in 2016, the supervisory boards of big, listed companies (those with 2000+ employees) are required to be 30% female.

However, a survey in October last year found that women made up just 10% of the supervisory and management boards of the 185 largest listed firms.

Listen: A look into the challenges of diversity in the workplace
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Metallic Minerals Corp. (TSXV:MMG)(US OTC:MMNGF) ("Metallic Minerals" or the "Company") announces that it has engaged GoldSpot Discoveries Corp. (TSXV:SPOT) ("GoldSpot") to apply their proprietary machine learning technology and geoscience expertise on the Company's flagship Keno Silver project, located in Canada's Yukon Territory. GoldSpot will work closely with Metallic Minerals' technical team to analyze geological, geochemical, and geophysical data covering the company's advanced and early stage targets in the high-grade Keno Hill Silver District.

GoldSpot Discoveries Corp. is a mining-focused technology company that is working with some of the leading exploration and mining names in the industry to apply cutting edge Artificial Intelligence ("AI") algorithms to significantly increase the efficiency and success rate of mineral exploration. Recent successes by GoldSpot with both leading producers and explorer/developers have demonstrated the potential to expand resources and make new discoveries using this advanced analytical technology.

Denis Laviolette, Executive Chairman and President of GoldSpot, stated: "We are extremely pleased to be engaged again by the Metallic Group. Our teams have meshed very well in the ongoing collaboration with Group Ten Metals where our work is already delivering value to an exciting PGM and battery metals project. We look forward to continuing to build our relationship with Metallic Minerals and achieving exploration successes with them. We are excited to be working on a silver-focused project in a data-rich historic mining district that is a perfect fit for our cutting-edge technologies. We can't wait to get started."

Greg Johnson, Chairman and CEO of Metallic Minerals, commented: "We look forward to working with the Goldspot team on a second Metallic Group company. Goldspot's innovative AI techniques are particularly relevant to our Keno Silver project, as we have numerous target areas across a 35-kilometer-wide district with an extensive exploration database. Their work, in tandem with our technical team's extensive knowledge of the Keno Hill silver district and similar high-grade silver districts globally, should add to our ability to quickly and cost-effectively refine and prioritize existing exploration targets while driving new high-grade silver discoveries in less explored areas of this prolific and famously metal-rich mining region."

Mr. Johnson continued, "Our 2020 exploration program continues at the Keno Silver project, where a second drill has been added to the program that is currently core drilling at advanced targets in the West Keno area. This year's programs have been designed to expand areas of known silver mineralization in the advanced target areas, as well as to test a number of exciting new multi-kilometer-scale targets on the eastern part of the Keno Hill silver district, which have never been previously drilled. We look forward to providing more comprehensive updates and further information as we start to receive results from our on-going programs and begin our work with GoldSpot."

About Metallic Minerals

Metallic Minerals Corp. is a growth stage exploration company, focused on high-grade silver and gold in underexplored brownfields mining districts. Our objective is to create shareholder value through a systematic, entrepreneurial approach to exploration in the Keno Hill silver district, La Plata silver-gold-copper district, and Klondike gold district through new discoveries and advancing resources to development. All three districts have seen significant mineral production and have existing infrastructure, including power and road access. Metallic Minerals is led by a team with a track record of discovery and exploration success on several major precious and base metal deposits, as well as having large-scale development, permitting and project financing expertise.

About the Metallic Group of Companies

The Metallic Group is a collaboration of leading precious and base metals exploration companies, with a portfolio of large, brownfields assets in established mining districts adjacent to some of the industry's highest-grade producers of silver and gold, platinum and palladium, and copper. Member companies include Metallic Minerals in the Yukon's high-grade Keno Hill silver district and La Plata silver-gold-copper district of Colorado, Group Ten Metals in the Stillwater PGE-nickel-copper district of Montana, and Granite Creek Copper in the Yukon's Minto copper district. The founders and team members of the Metallic Group include highly successful explorationists formerly with some of the industry's leading explorer/developers and major producers. With this expertise, the companies are undertaking a systematic approach to exploration using new models and technologies to facilitate discoveries in these proven, but under-explored, mining districts. The Metallic Group is headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Canada and its member companies are listed on the Toronto Venture, US OTC, and Frankfurt stock exchanges.

The Company is monitoring recommendations and guidance for COVID-19 in all communities in which we operate and has implemented precautionary measures to reduce the risks associated with its spread.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Website: www.metallic-minerals.com

Email: chris.ackerman@metallic-minerals.com

Phone: 604-629-7800

Toll Free: 1-888-570-4420

Forward-Looking Statements

Forward Looking Statements: This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts including, without limitation, statements regarding including the closing date of the Offering and the use of proceeds of the Offering, risks relating to the ability of the Company to obtain required regulatory approvals, complete definitive documentation, fulfill all conditions precedent, complete the Offering on the terms announced, and future plans and objectives of the company are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. Although Metallic Minerals believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on a number of material factors and assumptions. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include failure to obtain necessary approvals, unsuccessful exploration results, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, results of future resource estimates, future metal prices, availability of capital and financing on acceptable terms, general economic, market or business conditions, risks associated with regulatory changes, defects in title, availability of personnel, materials and equipment on a timely basis, accidents or equipment breakdowns, uninsured risks, delays in receiving government approvals, unanticipated environmental impacts on operations and costs to remedy same, and other exploration or other risks detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the companies with securities regulators. Readers are cautioned that mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Mineral exploration and development of mines is an inherently risky business. Accordingly, the actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on Group Ten and the risks and challenges of their businesses, investors should review their annual filings that are available at www.sedar.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Metallic Minerals Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609579/Metallic-Minerals-Engages-GoldSpot-Discoveries-to-Apply-Machine-Learning-and-AI-Techniques-at-the-High-Grade-Keno-Silver-Project-in-Yukon-Canada
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: The doctors and health care workers have been on the frontline in the battle against Covid-19 pandemic, working day in and out to not only save lives from the virus but also ensuring that general health service doesnt collapse.

The foremost Covid warriors have been literally putting their lives on the line as they are the most exposed to the virus but despite tall claims of the Government, they are being left on their own when they get infected and need medical treatment.

The fact that, many doctors are not able to find beds in the Covid hospitals unless they are connected to the higher ups in the Government or can pull strings with the help of other authorities has begun to fuel great resentment in the ranks.

While the nationwide picture on vulnerability of doctors and medical professionals to Covid is grim with case fatality rate among them found to be as high as 17 per cent, the State Government has failed to prioritise medical care for them. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) in its recent report claimed that the risk of death due to infection is 17 times higher in doctors and 15 times more in healthcare workers.

Sources at the Odisha chapter of IMA said, while 19 practicing doctors have succumbed to Covid-19 in the State so far, hundreds of others have been infected. There is no count of other healthcare professionals like nurses, laboratory technicians, ANMs and other paramedics.

Not only the MBBS doctors, the AYUSH doctors deployed at Covid facilities are also equally suffering. While six have died so far, more than 100 have been infected.

The rising death figures notwithstanding, Odisha Government is yet to make any special provision for treating doctors. Though the Odisha Medical Services Association (OMSA) and IMA have been demanding a separate Covid care facility with ICUs and ventilators for health care professionals, the Government is yet to take a call.

Many states like West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh have already set up dedicated Covid hospitals for doctors and paramedics. We have been demanding similar facility in the State so that the health professionals, many of whom have serious comorbidities, can be provided specialised care without knocking doors, said IMA state president Dr Kamalakanta Panigrahi.

OMSA president Dr Narayan Rout also demanded special Covid hospitals for frontline Covid warriors. He alleged that the DCHs managed by mostly private doctors are not responding to the relatives and family members of doctors being treated there whenever they call to know their health status. They are not even divulging the names of treating doctors, he stated.

Doctors said they do not want the Government or public ring bells, beat drum, sing Bande Utkal Janani or lit diya in their honour. As doctors are getting infected more, what they need is timely hospitalisation and specialised care, which would be real honour for them.

It should be the duty of the Government to take care of the medical personnel who are getting afflicted while saving lives and ensure they get the dignity in treatment.

They deserve to be treated specially as they are the one who are risking their lives, said eminent medicine specialist and former Dean of SCB Medical College and Hospital Prof Siddhartha Das.The call for provisioning of dedicated medical facility for doctors is growing louder in different circles of the fraternity.

The sacrifice of the doctors and healthcare personnel should be recognised earnestly. The least, the Govt can do is to ensure they get priority in health care when they get infected. Hospital for doctors and health care personnel like other states have done is a step in the direction, Governing Council member of the Association of Surgeons of India Dr Sreejoy Patnaik said.

The health authorities, however, claimed, of the 63 Covid warriors died so far in the State, nine are doctors. Additional Chief Secretary PK Mohapatra said health professionals are being given priority whenever they get infected and seek specialised treatment. The Government will definitely take action if there is any specific complaint against any hospital denying or delaying treatment to doctors, he said adding there is no plan to set up dedicated facility for them or reserve beds in existing hospitals for them.
On 26 September, government procurement of food crops commenced across the country, five days in advance, following the enactment of three contentious farm bills. Under the new policy regime, farmers need not sell their produce through designated markets, and can sell to whoever they want to.

The same week, reports emerged that farmers from Uttar Pradesh wanting to sell their produce in Karnal, Haryana, were stopped at the Haryana border. Later, the Haryana government clarified there was no law barring farmers from other states from selling their produce in Haryana, and they could do so after registering on a portal. This begs the question, why would farmers from one region want to sell their produce elsewhere?

Monthly data collected on wholesale prices across 122 centres by the ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution shows wide geographical disparity in prices. We studied this data for six key agricultural commodities in 2019, covering foodgrains, pulses and vegetables. Three commodities (rice, wheat and tur dal) were among the 23 for which the government sets a minimum support price (MSP). The other three (potato, onion and tomato) didnt have MSP support. The largest price variation was seen for vegetables, where trade is mostly unregulated and there exists no government procurement.

So, what explains this wide geographical disparity in prices? Under the current policy regime, agricultural markets are the domain of state governments. All states that have notified the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act operate APMC mandis (markets) with specified geographical jurisdictions. Farmers are, therefore, required to sell their produce via auctions to licensed traders at the mandi in their region.

Most major states have implemented the APMC Act, with Kerala and Bihar being notable exceptions. However, there is large variation across states in terms of the scope and stringency of these APMC acts, wrote Sudha Narayanan, associate professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, in an article published by The India Forum. Such variations in APMC regulations have led to fragmented markets, and impeded the emergence of a single national market, according to Narayanan.

In rice, for instance, the monthly average price in 2019 ranged from 2,042 per quintal in Agra (Uttar Pradesh) to 5,102 in Gangtok (Sikkim). In vegetables, the variation is much greater. In tomatoes, for instance, the monthly average price in 2019 ranged from 985 per quintal in Udaipur (Rajasthan) to 7,605 in Mayabunder (Andaman & Nicobar Islands).

These prices offer an insight into the wide disparity in what farmers earn for their produce in different parts of the country. A quartile-wise distribution shows that in all six commodities, there are a sizeable number of centres where the wholesale prices vary sharply. In rice, for example, the average price in the bottom quartile (comprising 28 centers) was about 19% below the average for the 122 centers. In the top quartile, the average price was about 33% higher. This variance in vegetables is much higher.

To be sure, the difference in wholesale prices is also driven by transaction costs such as for transportation, and the relative demand and supply across regions. With agricultural production largely concentrated in the northern and western states, wholesale prices are relatively higher in other regions, which are net consumers of these products.

Yet, inter-state barriers do seem to play a role in driving up the price wedge across regions. An estimate by Shoumitro Chatterjee, a researcher at Princeton University, suggests that removal of inter-state barriers can increase prices accruing to farmers by up to 11%. The paper describes how restrictions on inter-state trade due to the APMC law undermine market power and, therefore, prices accruing to farmers. The author then models an alternative scenario where these restrictions dont exist.

In an emailed response, Sudha Narayanan explained how geographical disparities in prices can indicate the presence of barriers to trade as well as high transaction costs that can aggravate these disparities. In general, we would expect large disparities in prices to be arbitraged away by the free movement of produce to the point where any disparity is on account of just the transaction cost associated with moving the produce," she said.

Price variation is greatest in the case of vegetables, where government procurement is zero. The absence of MSP in vegetables means they lack a price floor. Since vegetables are mostly perishable, the lack of efficient storage and distribution networks inhibits long distance trade, and markets for vegetables remain largely localized. Their prices are therefore volatile, being prone to supply and demand shocks.





The full implication of the new farm policy regime is difficult to predict. In the absence of regulation, market forces will dictate that buyers will migrate to regions where prices are low. Farmers in regions that have a relative cost disadvantage might lose out. On the flip side, barrier-free trade and more supply chain investments can increase earnings for farmers. With the new farm bill, how this plays out will be keenly watched.

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SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- WIND Ventures , the newly formed corporate venture capital arm of Copec , a leading energy company throughout Latin America and the Southeast United States, today released the results of a survey on the venture capital community's view of global growth markets. The survey reveals that venture investors do not perceive Latin America as a high priority for startup expansion with just eight percent viewing the region as the largest growth market behind China (37 percent), Western Europe (29 percent), Southeast Asia (13 percent) and India (12 percent).

"Our research confirms a broad misconception about Latin America as an attractive growth market for startups," said Brian Walsh, head of WIND Ventures. "With double the population and equal urbanization to the United States, Latin America has a large concentrated population that has quickly become highly connected and prolific users of smartphones and digital platforms. The region is experiencing a very rapid cultural shift towards digitalization, which is only accelerating due to the pandemic. It is already a significant growth market for many tech companies, including Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Facebook, Coursera, and others."

In July of 2020, WIND Ventures surveyed over 50 venture capitalists from a diverse cross-section of professionals including traditional venture capitalists and Corporate venture capitalists. While the majority (70 percent) of those surveyed were early-stage investors, 19 percent were seed investors and 11 percent were growth-stage investors. The research made clear that venture capitalists are largely unaware of the compelling fundamentals of the Latin American market, creating the significant opportunity to correct this misconception and infuse more innovation into the up and coming region.

Additional findings include:

Market size and rate of tech adoption are top considerations for growth markets but Latin America's attributes are unrecognized: When asked how venture investors typically measure attractive growth markets for startup expansion, 38 percent surveyed chose market size first, while 23 percent ranked a high-rate of tech adoption as most important. Other key attributes include:

When asked how venture investors typically measure attractive growth markets for startup expansion, 38 percent surveyed chose market size first, while 23 percent ranked a high-rate of tech adoption as most important. Other key attributes include: Large and growing middle-class first (16 percent)



Supportive local partners first (16 percent)



High mobile adoption (six percent)



Large urban population (six percent)

Despite having many of these attractive market attributes, Latin America is not viewed as having the important elements to drive startup expansion with just six percent of investors associating the region with the above.

The misconception of the Latin American market presents an opportunity: While many venture capitalists did not understand the benefits of the region, a majority of those surveyed said they would view Latin America as an attractive growth market for startups if they knew it had all of the top attributes (100 percent of seed investors, 68 percent of early investors and 83 percent of growth investors surveyed agreed).

While many venture capitalists did not understand the benefits of the region, a majority of those surveyed said they would view as an attractive growth market for startups if they knew it had all of the top attributes (100 percent of seed investors, 68 percent of early investors and 83 percent of growth investors surveyed agreed). The primary perceived challenge for business building is political: Investors surveyed ranked the political climate (90 percent) as the biggest challenge for building a business in Latin America , followed by economic (54 percent), cultural (48 percent) hurdles and the impact of COVID-19 (15 percent).

"While enormous opportunity exists in Latin America, the political, economic and cultural landscape can be complicated given there are over 20 countries that make up the region," said Walsh. "Having a well regarded and trusted local partner to help navigate the market can mitigate much of these complexities and is key for startups when entering the region."

To see the full findings, please visit https://www.scribd.com/document/477062742/2020-WINDVentures-VC-SurveyonLatAm-Vf

About WIND Ventures

Based in San Francisco, WIND Ventures is the corporate venture capital (CVC) arm of Copec, one of the leading energy, mobility and retail companies in Central and South America and one of the most valued brands throughout Latin America. WIND Ventures leverages Copec's significant resources to accelerate growth, primarily within Latin America, for startups and scaleups across the world within the new mobility, energy and retail sectors. Visit windventures.vc or follow us on Linkedin and Twitter .

SOURCE WIND Ventures

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http://www.windventures.vc


- Kagwe in a letter to the PPB CEO Fred Siyoi on Wednesday, October 6, revoked Lyft's licensing saying it was contrary to the provisions of Section 25 of the Pharmacy and Poisons Act CAP 224.

- The CS added market surveillance done had revealed the product is dispensed in automatic vending machines contrary to the law

- Lyft is marketed by British American Tobacco and after being introduced in the market in 2019, it has steadily gained popularity

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Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has called for the immediate deregistering of nicotine pounces commonly known as Lyft after declaring them illegal.

Lyft is marketed by British American Tobacco and after being introduced in the market in 2019, it has steadily gained popularity. Photo: Mwakilishi

Source: UGC

The drug had been registered as a pharmaceutical drug by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB).

Kagwe in a letter to the PPB CEO Fred Siyoi on Wednesday, October 6 revoked its licensing saying it was contrary to the provisions of Section 25 of the Pharmacy and Poisons Act CAP 224.

" The nicotine pouches neither meet the descriptions of 'Part I Poison' nor "Part II poison' as prescribed in the Act," read the letter.

The CS added that market surveillance done had revealed the product is dispensed in automatic vending machines contrary to the law.

Health CS Mutahi Kagwe in a past briefing. Photo: Ministry of Health.

Source: Facebook

Further, the manner in which the product is sold to the public does not meet the provisions of Section 23 of CAP 244 as required, he added

He asked Siyoi to provide the ministry with details of how the substance was licensed.

"In view of the above, therefore, you are required to furnish the ministry with a comprehensive report on the criteria used and circumstances leading to the registration and licencing of the product under the Pharmacy and Poisons Act," Kagwe ordered.

What is Lyft?

Lyft is a nicotine pouch which is consumed by cigarette addicts as an alternative.

It is marketed by British American Tobacco and after being introduced in the market in late 2019, it has steadily gained popularity.

Lyft is a nicotine pouch which is consumed by cigarette addicts as an alternative. Photo: BAT

Source: UGC

Smokers use it as an alternative when battling cigarette addiction in an attempt to quit.

However, research has indicated it is still a highly addictive substance.

The users usually place the pouches in the mouth between the lip and the gum for extended periods.

Each pouch goes for KSh 20 and they are available in supermarket counters.

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Very addictive

BAT has always maintained that the product is a tobacco-free modern oral nicotine pouch and is meant for the adult population.

However, according to Nation, there has been intense lobbying by parents and anti-tobacco groups to have the Health Ministry ban the substance.

BAT has always maintained that the product is a tobacco-free modern oral nicotine pouch and is meant for the adult population. Photo: CBDVAPE

Source: UGC

The Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance (KeTCA) had earlier raised concerns about how Lyft was easily accessible in supermarkets and was being abused by minors.

According to KeTCA Chairman Joel Gitali, Lyft is very addictive and should be regulated.

"A product that is highly addictive, which poses health risks, should not be sold freely. We want the nicotine product heavily taxed and regulated, just as we handle other tobacco products," said Gitali.

Shisha banned

As earlier reported by TUKO.co.ke, Kenya banned the use of shisha and anyone who found enjoying the infamous water-pipe tobacco smoking faces punishment.

Through a legal notice published on Thursday, December 28, the Health CS declared that no person shall import, manufacture, sell, offer for sale, use, advertise, promote or distribute shisha in Kenya.

"No person shall allow, promote, facilitate or encourage, or do anything to allow, promote, facilitate or encourage shisha smoking in Kenya," the legal notice stated.

A woman smoking shisha. Kenya has banned the use of the infamous water-pipe tobacco. Photo: Getty Images

Source: Getty Images

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Heroine ruined my life and put my children at risk - Whitney Wanjiku | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
STORY LINK GBP to USD Exchange Rate Tumbles on Fears UK Government Could Pull Out of Brexit Talks

GBP Exchange Rate Appeal Dented by Britains Brexit and Coronavirus Woes

The market is quite nervous about the news coming out of Brexit negotiations,

Boris Johnson has said he wants the outlines of a deal to be clear by Oct. 15. EU officials, however, have said they wont be pressured into making concessions and are prepared to call the prime ministers bluff if he doesnt compromise, effectively daring Johnson to walk away.





A person familiar with the British position said Johnsons team would indeed pull the plug on talks if no clear landing zone for a deal has been identified by that date. The analysis adds to pressure on the talks which are resuming in London.

USD Exchange Rates Resilient as US Political Uncertainty Supports Safe Haven Currencies

for every day that lawmakers delay, there will be even less hiring, more layoffs and greater risk of corporate bankruptcies, especially among the growing number of companies whose financial resilience is eroding as they face tighter lending conditions and their cash burns continue. Accordingly, the longer the delay, the greater the problems that any future package will have to address and the harder it will be to design and implement.

GBP/USD Exchange Rate Forecast: US Vice-Presidential Debate Ahead

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Its already been a volatile week for the British Pound to US Dollar (GBP/USD) exchange rate, as political developments and expectations change from one minute to the next. Today, investors are once again selling the Pound on Brexit fears, after days of hopes that the chances of a Brexit deal were rising. The US Dollar has also been on standby, avoiding losses as US political uncertainties are keeping the US Dollar buoyed as a safe haven currency.Last week saw GBP/USD climb from the level of 1.2743 and gain over two cents before closing the week higher at the level of 1.2934. This was due to Brexit hopes and higher market sentiment for much of the week.This weeks movement has been narrower overall, amid uncertainty in both currencies. Still, GBP/USD did touch higher in the first half of the week, touching on a half-month best of 1.2994 before trending lower again today.At the time of writing on Wednesday, GBP/USD trended over half a cent lower in the region of 1.2878.In the first half of the week, the Pound saw a rise in demand as investors reacted to the latest Brexit developments and speculation.At the weekend, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen confirmed that Brexit negotiations would be extended a month. It boosted hopes that some kind of Brexit deal could still be secured.However, despite some reports this week that there had been major progress in talks, there have also been reports that it is possible negotiations will collapse any week now.Jane Foley, Head of FX Strategy at Rabobank, said:According to a Bloomberg report, the UK government could actually pull out of negotiations next week if progress has been unsatisfactory. The report said:The US Dollar has seen mixed movement this week. The US Dollar is a safe haven currency, which is often appealing in times of broad market uncertainty. This has kept it relatively buoyant in recent sessions, amid US political uncertainty.Safe haven demand has been highly volatile. Investors were more willing to take risks and sell the US Dollar when US President Donald Trump was discharged from hospital at the beginning of the week. However since then Trumps actions have concerned markets again.US President Trump told US Congress to leave fiscal policy negotiations until 2021. This worsened concerns about the US economic outlook which also boosted safe haven demand slightly.Concerns about this and US political uncertainty overall are supporting the US Dollar today. According to Mohamen El-Erian, Chief Economist Adviser at Allianz:US political developments are likely to remain the primary focus for the Pound to US Dollar exchange rates movement in the coming sessions. This could even overshadow this evenings Federal Reserve meeting minutes.Tonight, Vice President Mike Pence and Democrat Vice Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris will go head to head in a televised debate.While Vice-Presidential debates are typically seen as unsurprising and low-influence compared to the actions of Presidential candidates, this election race has been full of surprises already.Any shocks have the potential to influence global market sentiment and the safe haven US Dollar. For example, a rise in election uncertainty would boost safe haven demand.Reaction to the debate, as well as any surprise developments from US President Donald Trump, are likely to drive the Pound to US Dollar exchange rate tomorrow.Pound movement will remain focused on the Brexit process. If there are more signs the UK government could pull out of talks, the Pound could see further losses.In terms of data, tomorrows US jobless claims and Fridays UK growth data could also influence the Pound to US Dollar exchange rate.

International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements.

TAGS: Pound Dollar Forecasts
CHI Memorial Medical Group has added Bryn Meredith, DO, to CHI Memorial Pediatric Diagnostic Associates.

Dr. Meredith received his medical degree from Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in Blacksburg, Va. and completed his residency in pediatrics at Naval Medical Center in San Diego, Ca. Dr. Meredith is a retired lieutenant commander, Medical Corps, United States Navy and served as assistant professor of pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences. He has most recently served as a general pediatrician at United States Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, Japan. Dr. Meredith is board-certified in pediatrics and is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is a native of Chattanooga and son of Gary Meredith, MD, also a pediatrician at CHI Memorial Pediatric Diagnostic Associates.



Dr.

Bryn Meredith joins Richard Carroll, MD; Elizabeth Carter, MD; Tonia Cox, MD; Alicia Daniels, MD; Trey Dyer, MD; Anthony Friddell, MD; Gary Meredith, MD; Virginia Rodgers, MD; Josh Smith, MD; and Sarah Mian Trimiew, MD, MPH, at CHI Memorial Pediatric Diagnostic Associates.The practice has three locations:Downtown - 281 N. Lyerly St., Suite 100 in Chattanooga;East Brainerd - Atrium Medical Center, Bldg. 2, 7305 Jarnigan Road, Suite 125 in Chattanooga; andRinggold  CHI Memorial Parkway, 4700 Battlefield Pkwy., Suite 230 in Ringgold.Office hours are Monday  Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; and Saturday 9 a.m.-noon by appointment only. On Sunday, a physician is on-call and sees acutely ill patients only after the triage nurse has assessed the situation.Dr. Bryn Meredith welcomes new patients from newborns to young adults up to age 21. To schedule an appointment, or for more information about CHI Memorial Pediatric Diagnostic Associates, call 423-698-BABY (2229).
India and Japan have finalised an ambitious agreement on cyber-security to boost cooperation on 5G technology and critical information infrastructure, and the two countries pledged on Wednesday to work for a free and open Indo-Pacific with diversified supply chains.

The readouts issued by India and Japan after a meeting between external affairs minister S Jaishankar and foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi in Tokyo made no mention of China, though many of the issues discussed by them appeared to be a response to Beijings actions across the region.

The proposed cyber-security agreement will promote cooperation in capacity building, research and development, and security and resilience in critical information infrastructure, 5G, internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), the external affairs ministry said.

Recognising the increasing role being played by digital technologies, the two ministers highlighted the need for robust and resilient digital and cyber systems and in this context, welcomed the finalisation of the text of the cyber-security agreement, the ministry said.

ALSO WATCH l Amid tension with China, Jaishankar meets counterparts from Japan & Australia

A cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved the agreement, and an official statement said the two sides will also share information on countering cyber-security threats and develop joint mechanisms to mitigate threats to information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure. The two sides will also cooperate on cyber-security at international bodies such as the UN.

The ministers emphasised that a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region must be premised on diversified and resilient supply chains; and in this context, welcomed the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative between India, Japan, Australia and other like-minded countries, the ministry added.

The ministers met a day after they participated with their Australian and US counterparts in the second ministerial meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which pushed for a rules-based global order and peaceful resolution of disputes in the face of Chinas growing aggression across the Indo-Pacific.

Sameer Patil, fellow for international security studies at Gateway House, described the proposed cyber-security agreement as significant as it will build on an existing dialogue with Japan at a time when both countries face challenges from hacking and other threats emanating from countries such as China and North Korea.

The problems faced by Hitachi Payment Services in 2016, when malware caused the breach of financial data and comprised the data of 3.2 million debit cards in India, is one example that shows the challenge of cyber-security is a joint one and can only be tackled through joint collaboration, he said.

The proposed agreement is also important as it covers critical information infrastructure, including infrastructure for banks and payment systems, telecommunications and internet, nuclear reactors and energy transmission systems, transport systems such as air traffic control, and water supply systems. These are all essential for the functioning of the economy, polity and society, Patil said.

During their discussions, Jaishankar and Motegi agreed the Indo-Pacific had acquired greater salience in recent times and that India and Japan need to work together for the benefit of the region.

Reaffirming the similarities in their respective Indo-Pacific visions, that are based on rule of law and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, the Japanese side agreed to be the lead partner in the connectivity pillar of the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) and jointly take both countries respective visions for the Indo-Pacific forward, the external affairs ministry said.

IPOI, unveiled by Modi at the East Asia Summit in November 2019, has seven pillars  maritime security, trade and connectivity, disaster risk reduction and management, science and technology cooperation, reducing marine pollution, sustainable use of marine resources, and capacity building.

Motegi said Japan attaches importance to its strategic relations with India and referred to Tokyos Covid-19-related aid for New Delhi, including a 50-billion yen emergency assistance loan and a 1-billion yen grant for providing medical equipment.

A readout from the Japanese foreign ministry said the ministers reaffirmed the importance of implementing Japan-India cooperation in third countries such as ASEAN and Southwest Asian countries and making steady progress on the high-speed rail project.

Jaishankar also held a separate meeting with his Australian counterpart Marise Payne. Reviewed the progress in our bilateral ties after the Virtual Summit between our PMs. Discussed expanding our cooperation in global affairs & regional issues. Will work together more closely in multilateral forums, he tweeted.
A bizarre bikini ban at a Sydney inner city apartment complex has sparked outrage and left a resident humiliated.

Business development manager Kristy Miller, 39, has recalled her horror of being ordered by a security guard to leave the pool area at her Emerald Park complex in Zetland earlier this week because her swimsuit 'wasn't to pool standards'.

Ms Miller, who recently moved into the complex, described the ordeal as 'really humiliating and intimidating'.

'He was very aggressive and very loud. His exact words were I would need to put shorts on to be allowed in the pool area,' Ms Miller told 2GB breakfast host Ben Fordham on Wednesday.

Kristy Miller (pictured) was mortified after she was ordered by security to put shorts on

'It was a normal bikini, not a g-string bikini or anything like that.'

'If you go to Bondi Beach people are wearing a lot skimpier bikinis.'

She also claimed several residents later told her the security guard was taking photos of all women at the pool on the day, as evidence, prompting a shocked response from Fordham.

Ms Miller was inundated with comments from other women who had similar stories after she recalled her mortifying ordeal on social media.

'I was at the lap pool & was approached & told my bikini wasn't to pool standards & to go & put shorts on if I wanted to stay at the pool! I was wearing a normal bikini that all the girls wear, a lovely man approached me after & let me know the same guard did the same thing to his girlfriend just prior,' Ms Miller posted on a local community Facebook page.

Kristy Miller was enjoying the pool facilities at her new apartment complex (pictured) when she was told to leave because she was wearing a bikini

Kristy Miller (pictured) has since received an emailed apology from building management

Ms Miller hasn't ruled out taking the matter further.

'Please get in touch with me as I'm appalled a male security guard thinks he has the right to tell females if their bikinis are appropriate,' her Facebook post continued.

'I've contacted my real estate & Fair trading which have advised me this is not appropriate & to get legal advice which I'm in the process of doing.

'Please reach out if he also harassed you so we can ensure females aren't humiliated and degraded in the place they live.

Ms Miller insists she was wearing a normal bikini at the time. Pictured is a sign in the pool area

Ms Miller has received an emailed 'backhanded' apology from building management about the security guard's behaviour but was warned to wear appropriate attire when using the common pool areas.

New signs have since been erected in the complex pool areas.

'Please kindly read all the rules. If everyone follows the building rule, the guard will never bother anyone. I apologise for the incident but in the meantime, residents need to follow the rules as well,' the email states.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Emerald Park and Ms Miller for further comment.
Something is off about this new season of "Fargo."

Yes, I know the whole point of "Fargo" is for everything to feel very much off. When creator Noah Hawley introduced this series back in 2014, it became clear from that first batch of episodes that his adaptation of the Coen brothers 1996 masterpiece was gonna retain the FEEL of that film, but very little else. As with the movie, its first three seasons, each one a standalone story arc in a greater anthology, were set primarily in Minnesota, with an occasional excursion into the Dakotas, and featured characters who were as clueless as they were savage. As a native Minnesotan, you betcher ass I enjoyed how the "Fargo" universe gleefully roasted my home state like tots crowning a hotdish. Its what Minnesota consistently deserves.

This fourth season is different. Its set in Kansas City, which I assert is NOT the Midwest, no matter what the Census Bureau may claim. Its certainly not part of the Axis of Fake Nice that includes Minnesota, the Dakotas, and occasionally Wisconsin when Wisconsin isnt being an outright fascist state (which is happening more and more often). This season of "Fargo" also includes many well-developed Black characters: something the Coens filmography has glaringly lacked over the three-plus decades. All of these elements came off as refreshing in the premiere.

But there was no "Fargo"-ness in them. I watched that first episode as it traced the evolution of Kansas Citys gangland beefs, and then I watched Jason Schwartzman in a non-Wes Anderson joint for the first time ever (hes good), and then I watched Chris Rock get introduced to the mix in a dramatic role that he was clearly dying to nail, which he did. And I was like, well this is a fine show, but its not really Fargo now, is it? Despite that first episode having MULTIPLE massacre scenes at the top, it was still missing the bone dry, vicious absurdity of the previous three seasons.

Then along came that scary-ass nurse.

Thats Jessie Buckley as Oraetta Mayflower who, in her first scene, unloads a bunch of increasingly cringe-inducing racist observations. Watch the scene above and its easy to assume that Buckley, who herself is Irish, was airlifted into the show to give the proceedings a cursory Minnesota accent, just to keep things "Fargo"-y enough to feel like youre on familiar terrain. But then, SPOILER ALERT, Nurse Mayflower proceeds to do the following:

 Gifts Schwartzman some cocaine fresh from the hospital pharmacy, and then does a bump with him.

 Smothers Schwartzmans dad in his hospital bed to help make Schwartzman the de facto boss of the Italian KC mafia, seemingly just because Schwartzman asks her politely.

 Turns out to be an angel of death who kills ALL of her patients.

 Bakes Smutney and her family an apple pie laced with a horrifying amount of ipecac.

Trust me, all of that reads even creepier on screen than it does listed out in bullet points. Buckleys character is a Fargo universe unto herself. Its all there: the prim wardrobe, the quiet derangement, the ability to send people reeling when she breaks Minnesota kayfabe and turns snippy. I only needed two episodes to get what Hawley was trying to do with this new season, which resumed and finished production in the middle of the pandemic. Nurse Mayflower is gonna be the monkey wrench that continually f--ks with the best laid plans of every KC mob faction trying to out-muscle one another. Shes a gang of one, and shes gonna win wars that the enemy didnt even realize she was a participant in.

MORE DREW: 'Outer Banks' is the Show Of The Year whether you snotty bastards want it to be or not

Shes also genuinely terrifying. Thats a hallmark of both the Coens work and of this show: the part where the veneer of fake niceness drops, the blood starts spilling, and everything stops being funny for a moment. More than any other season of Fargo, this one feels like a horror movie. Its also Hawley exporting the "Fargo" tone to a new location and watching it wreak havoc on the unsuspecting citizens residing within.

Matthias Clamer/FX

Im from Minnesota, which is a clique of a state. But Im out of the clique, having not lived in Minnesota since 1991. So you wouldnt know from meeting me that I grew up there. I dont have the accent. I am not clad in Gore-Tex from head to toe. I will not bring you a Jell-O mold out of the blue just to be neighborly. I live along the East Coast and have had that regions mannerisms for the bulk of my adulthood.

That is to say: Im a prick. But I can be cheery and downright charming to people when the occasion presents itself, and I can also use that cheeriness to get things I want  a refund on a pair of broken earbuds, for instance. Ill also be very nice to your face and then talk s--t about you when you leave the room. I might even do a tweet about it. Im like a Minnesotan sleeper agent, which is a distressing notion to contemplate, even in a world as already distressed as this one.

Nurse Mayflower is a similar kind of sleeper agent, although much more homicidal in nature than I am. The turf war playing out in Kansas City this season falls between strict ethnic lines, even as the warring families trade sons with one another as a kind of living security deposit. The Polish make the city theirs first, then come the Irish, then the Italians, and then the Black folks. All of them are fighting not simply for money and power  although their desire for both is obvious in all the fun, mob movie ways  but for ownership of a citys identity.

Matthias Clamer/FX

This is America, so blood and theft are the two most proven ways to remodel any city/town/county/state in your own image. In your peoples own image. This season is about a struggle for the identity of a city as much as anything else.

And now here comes Fargo mastermind Noah Hawley, with his psycho nurse in tow (the ultimate twist would be her faking ever having been from Minnesota at all), ready to snatch the identity of Kansas City out from beneath the mafias feet. In both the Fargo movie and in the shows first and third seasons, kind-hearted but savvy policewomen served as the grounded center of the mayhem. But this time around, Oraetta Mayflower IS the mayhem, and shes f--king incredible to behold. Fargo is out of Fargo now, and theres no knowing where itll strike next.
MERIDEN  Police have identified the 20-year-old city man who was shot and killed early Saturday morning as Michael Joseph Brown.

Police responded to a report of gunshots on South Broad Street around 2:40 a.m. Saturday.

A short time after officers arrived, a local hospital contacted police reporting two gunshot victims arriving there.

One male suffered a single gunshot wound to his leg and was treated at the hospital, police said.

The second victim, who was identified as Brown, died from his injuries at the hospital, police said.

This incident involves individuals who have been identified as members of rival gangs and have targeted each other, police said after the shooting.

On Sunday morning, there was another homicide in the city. The victim was identified as Casey Eric Schoonover, 34.

Early Sunday morning, police said officers responded to Grove Street for a possible shots-fired complaint with two cars reportedly seen speeding away from the area. Officers found nothing to corroborate the report, police said.

Later in the morning, police said they were called for a reported body located on Foster Court.

Officers found a male victim who was fatally shot, police said.

Police said there is a very active investigation ongoing in Sundays homicide, adding they do not believe it was a random act of violence.

Anyone with information on Saturdays homicide is asked to contact Detective Simonson at esimonson@meridenct.gov or at 203-630-6318.

Anyone who may have any information regarding Sundays homicide is asked to contact Detective Visconti at 203-630-6252

Anyone with information can also call the Major Crimes Tip Line at 203-630-6253
SPRINGFIELD  More than 150 years after his death, Abraham Lincoln continues to inspire artists, from writers to filmmakers to painters.

A fascinating new example, 400 Split Rails for One Yard of Cloth, a painting by Donn Ziebell, was unveiled recently at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.

The artwork illustrates a story from Lincolns youth, when he needed a new pair of pants. But lacking money, he worked out an arrangement with a neighbor. He would split 400 fence rails for each yard of cloth needed for the pants.

The painting will hang in the presidential librarys atrium, where now many pieces of Lincoln art are on display.

The painting uses a seemingly crude outsider art style that captures the feel of life in a frontier village and Lincolns status as a raw young man still searching for his place in the world.

I describe it as an enhanced storybook painting, because I want young children to have a wonderful visual understanding about part of Abraham Lincolns life and work ethic, said Ziebell, 85, of Lake Barrington.

As a young grammar school kid, my family visited New Salem with its log houses and split rail fences and stories about Lincoln that fascinated me.

Ziebell began painting in 1955, when he was a , still in Rolla, Missouri student studying metallurgical engineering at the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy (1870-1964), later known as University of Missouri at Rolla (1964-1968), then University of Missouri - Rolla (1968-2008) and now as Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Ziebell had no particular interest in doing a Lincoln painting until recently, over the last few years, when he heard the anecdote about Lincoln trading fence rails for cloth.

It shouted to me, he said of the subject.

Ziebells 5-foot-by-7-foot oil painting required more than 500 hours of work over nine months.

We thank Mr. Ziebell for this generous donation, said the presidential librarys Ian Hunt, chief of acquisitions.

President Lincolns impact on American society can be seen in how much art is devoted to him, whether its formal statues, lighthearted movies or this stylized image of young Lincoln hard at work.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum uses a combination of rigorous scholarship and high-tech showmanship to immerse visitors in Lincolns life and times. The library holds an unparalleled collection of Lincoln books, documents, photographs, artifacts and art, as well as some 12 million items pertaining to all aspects of Illinois history.

For more information, visit www.presidentlincoln.illinois.gov and follow at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Two County Derry companies have been granted access to the US market for the first time in 20 years.

This historic moment for local farmers was marked by Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots, as he visited WD Meats in Coleraine, who have been granted access alongside Foyle Food Group, who have a site in Campsie.

The local meat processors were listed as meat plants eligible to export meat to the United States, alongside one other UK processor from Wales.

The first shipment of beef from the UK, was dispatched on 30 September, from Foyle Food Group, Foyle Campsie with further shipments from across the UK expected to commence in the coming weeks.

Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots welcomed the move with some pride.

I am very proud that the first shipment of UK beef to the USA came from a Northern Ireland beef processor," he said.

"It is a signal, loud and clear, of the quality of our produce, the standards of our animal health, welfare and of our care for the environment.

This opens up a massive opportunity for local farmers, the likes of which we havent had in two decades. Our local farmers are known and rightly credited for quality of the food they produce and its provenance.

"Ive no doubt that our food will speak for itself and we will see further opportunities down the line.

The UK food and farming industry estimates it will bring a 66 million boost to beef producers over the next five years alone and Northern Ireland too will receive part of that economic uplift.

This is fantastic news for Northern Irelands food industry, and I dont want it to stop there. I want to do all I can to promote Northern Irelands amazing food and its producers, both locally and at international level, and help build Northern Irelands reputation as a world class food region.

Id finally like to thank everyone involved behind the scenes, who have worked long and hard to get this deal done.
Businesses want out of downtown Portland, as soon as possible.

The amount of space available for sublease in downtown jumped by 36% in the spring as tenants sought to vacate offices and storefronts in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, according to data provided by real estate firm CBRE. Other firms have also reported an increase in the number of downtown businesses looking to leave.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 23:11:50|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- British government's Bounce Back Loan Scheme has succeeded in quickly supporting small businesses, but it now faces a potential loss of up to 26 billion pounds (about 33.5 billion U.S. dollars), the National Audit Office (NAO) scrutinising public spending warned Wednesday.

To improve quick access to finance for struggling smaller businesses, the government had imposed less strict eligibility criteria for the scheme than other COVID-19 related business loan schemes, said the NAO.

Launched on May 4 and open until Nov. 30 this year, the scheme provides loans of up to 50,000 pounds (64,385 dollars) to registered and unregistered small businesses to support their financial health during the pandemic.

Latest figures showed that as of Sept. 6, the scheme had delivered more than 1.2 million loans to British businesses totalling 36.9 billion pounds (47.5 billion dollars).

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the British Business Bank said as a result of credit and fraud risks, they have made a preliminary estimate that 35 percent to 60 percent of borrowers may default on the loans, said the NAO, calling on the government to implement a thorough debt-recovery process and consider how it might better prevent fraud in any future schemes.

The NAO scrutinises public spending for the British parliament and is independent from government and the civil service.

NAO's warning came as countries, such as Britain, China, Russia and the United States, are racing against time to develop coronavirus vaccines.

The British government's Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance has said that it is possible that some vaccine could be available in small amounts later this year, but it is more likely that a vaccine will be available early next year, although that is not guaranteed. Enditem
MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI  Concerns about voters and the coronavirus have prompted the removal of voting precincts from several schools and the Election Day closure of two others to students and staff.

Muskegon Township has moved three precincts and Laketon Township has moved one in time for Nov. 3 in-person voting.

When Norton Shores officials didnt act on a request to move two precincts, a decision was made to keep students and staff out of Mona Shores middle and high schools on Election Day.

Allowing voters into schools that normally are closed to visitors  and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic  seems counterintuitive, said Mona Shores Public Schools Superintendent Bill OBrien.

Voting precincts can only be in nonprofit buildings, and many are in schools, churches and government buildings.

Muskegon Township agreed to move three precincts, including its two largest, following a request from school superintendents, said township Clerk Ann D. Oakes.

The largest, Precinct 4, is moving from Orchard View High School to First Baptist Church at 1070 S. Quarterline Road, Oakes said. Precinct 6 is moving to the same church from the Orchard View Community Education Building, she said.

And the second-largest precinct in the township, Precinct 3, is moving from Reeths-Puffer Intermediate School to the building known as Unity United Methodist Church, 1600 N. Getty St., Oakes said. That building no longer holds religious services, she said.

The last minute changes were approved on Sept. 3, and notices to voters were sent on Monday, Oct. 5, Oakes said.

In Laketon Township, Precinct 3 is moving from Reeths-Puffers Central Elementary to Laketon Bethel Church, 1568 W. Giles Road, said township Clerk Christina Achterhoff. That church already is home to the townships Precinct 1, Achterhoff said.

The school did not want us to have it there, which was really disappointing to us, she said. They felt for security, and now with COVID, they didnt want people coming. I understand.

But Norton Shores was not able to accommodate a request from Mona Shores to move its precincts out of the middle and high schools, said city Clerk Shelly Stibitz.

We really were too close to the deadline, Stibitz said.

The decision to move precincts must be made 60 days before an election.

OBrien said he first sent an email to Stibitz on July 16 asking for a timeline for moving a polling location. He said it took 30 days to get a response, and he made a formal request to move the precincts on Aug. 24.

A Norton Shores City Council member asked for an update at its Sept. 1 meeting after OBrien had asked again that the polling places be moved, according to minutes of that meeting. Mayor Gary Nelund, city Administrator Mark Meyers and Stibitz each shared reasons the request was denied including Michigan law restrictions for polling place changes, the minutes state.

A further explanation was offered in a Sept. 3 memo to the council, in which Meyers indicated he had told the council at the Sept 1 meeting that the 60-day deadline "has lapsed. That deadline actually was the day Meyers sent the memo.

OBrien told MLive when the city didnt move the precincts, the decision was made to close the middle and high schools to students and staff on Nov. 3, which will be an at-home learning day.

Schools normally are closed to outside visitors due to security concerns, OBrien said. Now that theres a global pandemic, no outsiders  including parents  are allowed in the schools, he said.

We really had two main drivers for asking for that (precinct change), he said. "One was safety of kids  just the number of people expecting to be voting this year in and out of our schools. Obviously, we want to put students' safety first.

And with COVID-19, obviously we have a strict no-visitor policy this year for all of our schools as part of our mitigation policy.

But OBrien said we understand that the city didnt have a lot of options.

Stibitz told MLive that voters are kept away from middle and high school students. At the high school, the voting is done at the performing arts center, while at the middle school, the polling location is at the back of a building in a secondary gym, she said.

The city will clean and sanitize voting areas following the election, Stibitz added.

Finding suitable alternatives for precincts has proven difficult, she said, explaining that the middle school is in a residential area.

Trinity Lutheran Church is within a few blocks of the middle school, and St. Francis deSales Church is  mile away.

Two churches, St. Gregorys Episcopal Church and Breakwater Church of the Nazarene, are located across the street from the high school.

Probably as much as we get complaints about voters in the schools, we get complaints about voters in the churches and the separation of church and state, Stibitz said.

Also on MLive:

Muskegon Heights police chief leaving for new job

Lawmakers now have more say in Michigans coronavirus response. Can they find common ground with Whitmer?

West Michigan school district begins in-house coronavirus testing
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday said that a visionless opposition was engaged in propaganda in the state and urged party cadres to expose them.

Addressing a virtual meeting of party men in Ghatampur assembly constituency, where bypolls are due on November 3, Yogi continued to target the opposition and asked the cadres to expose the conspiracies against his government. Yogi had earlier accused the opposition of attempting to trigger caste and communal riots in the state.

He also tasked the cadres to market the governments achievements.

Its clear that the opposition can go to any extent for propaganda and the recent incidents are proof of this, the chief minister said even though he didnt name the incidents.

Also Read: Man booked for objectionable comment against CM Yogi Adityanath

The state government is under oppositions attack over the Hathras case, where a 19-year old Dalit girl was subjected to extreme brutality and eventually died at a Delhi hospital, sparking a national outrage.

Yogi told the party men that, while following the Covid protocol, they must also tell the people how his government had created jobs, which were being given to people not on the basis of caste or regional considerations but on merit.

Also Read: Hathras horror: India must wake up, repair its justice system

In past three-and-a-half years my government created jobs for 3.5 lakh youths and very soon an equal number of additional job opportunities would be created. Youths are getting jobs, criminals are running scared and investors and industrialists are coming to the state, he said.

Yogi also said that his government had worked on ensuring that the Ganga river flows clean in Kanpur.
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Remember when Vice President Mike Pence was put in charge of protecting the country from the coronavirus? As leader of the White Houses coronavirus task force, appointed right before states started closing down, Pence was entrusted by the government to help oversee the administrations response to COVID-19. Fast forward to now: 200,000 have died, and there has even been an outbreak at the White House. As Pence gets ready for the vice presidential debate Wednesday with Kamala Harrisand argues over safety precautions with herits worth considering the responsibility Pence carries for where were at now. On Wednesdays episode of What Next, I spoke with Dan Diamond, a reporter and newsletter writer at Politico, about how we got to this moment, and what Pence needs to be questioned about at the debate and afterward. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Mary Harris: Your reporting on Pences time leading the coronavirus task force had a pretty blunt headline: How Mike Pence Slowed Down the Coronavirus Response. Im wondering when it became clear that that was your takeaway.

Dan Diamond: When my colleague Adam Cancryn and I started reporting on Pence a few months ago, it seemed pretty clear that the coronavirus task force was going to rise and fall in large part, though not entirely, based on his leadership. He got installed in late February, and that was a frantic time. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar had been leading the task force for about a month. Pence came in and almost immediately things slowed down. So if youre asking when we knew things were going to be slowed under Pence, we knew that within a couple of days. There were a few decisions Azar and his team had been moving full steam ahead on that Pence essentially put the brakes on.

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I wonder if its worth comparing the way these two men led the group.

Azar had been a top health official during the George W. Bush administration. While there, he had worked on pandemic plans after 9/11. There was an effort across the Bush administration to be ready for a public health emergency, and as part of that, Azar spent a fair amount of time figuring out what the response should look like if there was an uncontrollable contagion rampaging across the United States. My understanding is that when this virus was first emerging in China at the end of last year and early this year, Azar and his team were alarmed and worried. And there has been a fair amount of reporting about efforts to warn the president. With that said, Azar, in trying to steer the early response, ran into a lot of roadblocks. He was not widely liked within the administration. It wasnt just Azar and the White House fighting, but Azar and his own deputies. That meant, in trying to marshal a response and lead this effort, he had very few allies. By the time Pence came in, abruptly installed by President Donald Trump, he was walking into a response that had been often consumed by infighting and also had been hampered by Trumps own unwillingness to move quickly to fight COVID. February was largely a lost month. Its hard to put that on Pence, specifically, because he wasnt involved in COVID-19 response before that point.

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When Pence came in, there was a reassessment, a need to figure out from the vice president and his team what had been done, what needed to be done, and the challenges of doing it. We were in the middle of what we now know was a silently spreading outbreak. Pence is not the kind of guy who is going to make big, bold decisions. And when facing a historic outbreak, those big and bold decisions were probably needed, especially in those early days, when he just wasnt ready to make them.

People from all points of the administration were coming in and weighing in on the coronavirus, and maybe they werent the people who should have been weighing in. Im thinking, for instance, about the debate over whether all of us should be wearing masks.

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Around the time Pence was installed as the leader of this task force, there was increasing evidence that masks were necessary to prevent transmission of this virus. There were some officialslike Bob Kadlec, who was in charge of emergency response at the health departmentwho were not only believers in the need for masks but started laying the groundwork for all Americans to get masks, to have them sent through the mail, and to have a supply of cloth masks that could be worn and reused. The thinking behind that plan was, if Americans were getting masks from the government, theyd understand the importance. Theyd also have protection: They wouldnt need to go out and shop. That plan was shot down in coronavirus task force meetings.

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Why?

The argument against it was it was too early, that the outbreak was limited only to a few parts of America, that it was going to be expensive to send masks to everybody, and that it was going to send the wrong signal and alarm Americans. This is the kind of thing where, in retrospect, the unpopular decision to spend a little bit more money upfront and make Americans more concerned about the threat of the virus early on almost certainly would have paid dividends. And perhaps we wouldnt have the issue we still have today, where mask-wearing is more partisan than it needs to be. If the Republican administration had sent out masks to everybody, how could Donald Trump then tell people that masks arent necessary? So I think thats another case of a lost opportunity under Pences watch.

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I wonder how different all of this would have been if we werent in an election year.  Dan Diamond

Pence is not the kind of guy who is going to break with Donald Trump in private or in public. What that meant was, this response that Pence was technically overseeing, Donald Trump really made it about himself. Pence and his team could come to conclusions, but if Trump didnt sign off on them when he was looped in, that made Pences job essentially supplemental to what the president wanted.

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There are also things that Pence just got dead wrong. In June, he wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal arguing that there was no second wave of the coronavirus, and all the while a second wave was reaching a swell. I wonder what that op-ed told you about Pences leadership.

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That story talks about hitting goals like 20,000 new cases per day. Thats a benchmark weve since left far behind: Were now at nearly 40,000 new cases per day. So Pence and his team were wrong to plant a flag declaring victory.

Pence and the White House wanted to get back out on the campaign trail. There were people involved in the task force who had started to disassociate. And the task force itself went from a daily affair to meeting two times, maybe three times, a week. That was the backdrop for Pence and his team wanting to move past the virus. But the virus wasnt ready to be passed. Within days, we saw surges in places like Texas and Georgia and states in the South that had moved quickly to reopen.

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Does the coronavirus task force still exist?

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It still does, but I think its an artifact of the earlier response. Theres an effort called Operation Warp Speed thats working to speed up a coronavirus vaccine and treatments. Its been set up more rigorously than the task force. The task force was this ad hoc body in many respects, with people from the economic branch of the government, from the national security branch, from the health branch, from staff who oversaw the border, which was also a controversial part of Pences tenure. All of these different officials around the table got an equal voice, and its clear that that wasnt the best way to respond to this virus. Operation Warp Speed, meanwhile, is much more regimented. Its clearer whos in charge of which part of developing a vaccine, of developing treatments. And thats where a lot of energy and focus now lies. But its hard to get rid of a coronavirus task force in the middle of an outbreak. So it still meets. Its still used as a forum to perhaps communicate within the government about these issues. But it is not the going concern it was at the beginning of the year.

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I feel like were in this moment where the presidents sick and we need the guidance of this kind of task force maybe more than ever. And yet were getting all these indications that the White House is doing the opposite of what you might think the task force would recommend.

I wonder, sometimes, how different all of this would have been if we werent in an election year, if Trump and Pence werent trying to win reelection in the middle of fighting this outbreak, or if the person in charge of the coronavirus task force wasnt a political appointee trying to also make the case why he should be reelected in a few weeks. The White House coronavirus response has been objectively bad. We are an outlier internationally in terms of the spread of the virus, the number of people sickened, and the fact that our own leader ended up in the hospital.

When you talk about the fingerprints of the White House on this response, its with the understanding that it wants to be as distant from coronavirus as possible. I think Pence and his team know the threats and risks of COVID-19, but theres fear that the more they sound alarms, especially this close to Election Day, the less likely it is that theyll be the ones running the country next year.

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President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said in Brussels that he does not affect the work of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and its Director Artem Sytnyk, and the new independent head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) will be selected in a transparent serious competition.

"Nobody changes the leadership of NABU, I am so sure. It seems to me that you were mistaken, you wanted to say exactly about the SAPO. This person [former Head of the SAPO Nazar Kholodnytsky], the anti-corruption prosecutor resigned. Then a commission was organized, absolutely independent. Yesterday was the first meeting, I know, the prosecutor general held the first meeting, there were representatives of our international partners. I think that in the coming months, because this is a big competition, there may even be several hundred people for this position, an independent anti-corruption prosecutor will be selected," he said at the final press conference after the end of the Ukraine-EU summit on Tuesday.

Zelensky also said that the Constitutional Court of Ukraine canceled the appointment of the director of NABU by the President of Ukraine.

"That is, the agency is independent, it works, all the rest will be corrected by law," he said.

The head of state recommended asking Director of NABU Artem Sytnyk a question about whether the President of Ukraine somehow influences him.

Speaking about judicial reform, Zelensky said that after the Constitutional Court canceled the previous bill, one of the first bills in the "big judicial reform" was written and submitted not only to the Verkhovna Rada, but primarily to the Venice Commission in order to obtain from her answer.

"This will be a serious fundamental argument later in a conversation with the MPs of Ukraine and with the Constitutional Court," he said.
The Serial Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist Also Receives GOLD CEO World Award for Entrepreneur of the Year

Julie M. Meyer, CEO ofVIVA Investment Partners (VIP), the Swiss private equity firm and renowned financier, has been honored by both the Stevie Award for Women in Business and the CEO World Awards with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her decades of successful entrepreneurship, global leadership and female mentorship. Meyer was also named Entrepreneur of the Year by the CEO World Awards for her accomplishments at the helm of VIP and her continued work as founder of EntrepreneurCountry (EC) and Follow the Entrepreneur (FTE).

"I'm proud to be honored by The Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the CEO World Awards for my life-long efforts to promote entrepreneurship throughout the globe, which includes furthering the role of women in that journey," said Julie M. Meyer, CEO of VIVA Investment Partners. "I look forward to continuing my journey to build system-level solutions that solve the challenges of society and industry by putting the entrepreneur at the heart of both."

Julie M. Meyer is a female business and entrepreneurial force and accomplished global business leader that has led successful investment activity in Europe and around the world creating game-changing, category-defining businesses. In addition to leading VIP, Meyer founded EntrepreneurCountry (EC), a global community of 325,000 digital citizens which enables individuals to build their personal economies. She is also the creator of the Ecosystem Economics Digital Playbook, for which she was honored with a prestigious honorary PhD from Warwick University.

Maggie Gallagher, president of the Stevie Awards, said, "In a year like no other in our lifetimes, we've produced a cohort of amazing, Stevie-winning women, organizations, and achievements like no other. We congratulate all winners."

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives, entrepreneurs, employees, and the companies they run worldwide. The Stevie Awards have been hailed as the world's premier business awards.

Winners will be celebrated during a virtual awards ceremony on Wednesday, December 9, 2020.

Details about the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the list of Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners in all categories are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

CEO World Awards celebrate the achievements of leaders, executives, and their management teams behind the year's most outstanding initiatives and achievements. This annual awards program recognizes individuals and teams who set industry benchmarks for excellence.

For a complete list of the 2020 CEO World Award winners announced today, visit https://ceoworldawards.com/winners/2020-business-awards-winners/

About VIVA Investment Partners:

VIVA Investment Partners was founded by successful entrepreneurs and venture capital investors to acquire equity stakes in and provide financing to established alternative asset managers (fund investments) and emerging growth companies (direct investments). To learn more about VIP, visit www.vivapartners.net/, or email Liz Whelan at liz@lwprconsulting.com.

About the Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East North Africa Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

About the CEO World Awards

CEO World Awards are an annual industry and peers recognition program honoring CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs, innovators and their management teams from organizations in every industry and of every size in Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the USA, Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean Central and South America, Middle East and Africa. The Annual CEO World Awards is part of the SVUS Awards recognition program from Silicon Valley in the United States of America. The coveted annual CEO World Awards program encompasses the world's best in leadership, innovation, organizational performance, new products and services, excellence studies, corporate social responsibility, and milestones from every major industry in the world. Organizations from all over the world are eligible to submit nominations including public and private, for-profit and non-profit, largest to smallest and new start-ups. Learn more about the CEO World Awards at https://ceoworldawards.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005799/en/

Contacts:

Liz Whelan

liz@lwprconsulting.com

+1 (312) 315-0160
ATHENS - The founder and leader of Golden Dawn, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, ''is the head of a criminal organization'', a court in Athens has ruled in the trial that convicted a member of the Greek neo-Nazi party for the 2013 murder of an antifascist rapper, among other things.



Michaloliakos, 62, a Holocaust denier and an admirer of Nazism, was sentenced with the charge of leading a ''criminal organization''. When the sentence was read in court, the public applauded and cheered while outside the building antifascist demonstrators clashed with police officers who fired teargas.



Over 15,000 people attended the demonstration, according to authorities. A group of demonstrators attacked police with molotov cocktails. The officers responded using tear gas and water cannons.



Michaloliakos was one of 68 defendants in the long trial of the neo-Nazi party involved in a murder and two attempted murders. A member of the party, Yorgos Roupakias, was found guilty of murdering the activist, left-wing rapper Pavlos Fyssas, which occurred in 2013 not far from Athens.



When the sentence was read the crowd inside and outside the court in Athens exulted. Fyssas, 34, was stabbed during the night of October 18, 2013 in front of a bar in his neighborhood of Keratsini, on the outskirts of Athens. The killer, who confessed to the murder, risks a life sentence.



The trial lasted five years and a half. Many in Greece had mobilized over the past few weeks, calling for the conviction of the entire movement.
If the atmosphere of Venus was at any point thin and similar to Earths, then ancient asteroid impacts transferred potentially detectable amounts of Venusian surface material to the Moon, according to new research from Yale University. Recovery and isotopic analyses of Venusian surface samples from the lunar surface would determine with high confidence both whether and when Venus harbored liquid oceans and/or a lower-mass atmosphere.

Asteroids and comets slamming into Venus may have dislodged as many as 10 billion rocks and sent them into an orbit that intersected with Earth and Earths Moon, said Yale University researchers Samuel Cabot and Gregory Laughlin.

Some of these rocks will eventually land on the Moon as Venusian meteorites, Cabot added.

Catastrophic impacts such as these only happen every hundred million years or so  and occurred more frequently billions of years ago.

The Moon offers safe keeping for these ancient rocks. Anything from Venus that landed on Earth is probably buried very deep, due to geological activity. These rocks would be much better preserved on the Moon.

Many scientists believe that Venus might have had an Earth-like atmosphere as recently as 700 million years ago.

After that, the planet experienced a runaway greenhouse effect and developed its current climate.

The Venusian atmosphere is so thick today that no rocks could possibly escape after an impact with an asteroid or comet, Cabot said.

The scientists cited two factors supporting their theory:

(i) asteroids hitting Venus are usually going faster than those that hit Earth, launching even more material;

(ii) a huge fraction of the ejected material from Venus would have come close to Earth and the Moon.

There is a commensurability between the orbits of Venus and Earth that provides a ready route for rocks blasted off Venus to travel to Earths vicinity, Professor Laughlin said.

The Moons gravity then aids in sweeping up some of these Venusian arrivals.

There are several standard chemical analyses that can pinpoint the origin of moon rocks, including any that came from Venus.

Different ratios of specific elements and isotopes offer a kind of fingerprint for each planet in the Solar System.

An ancient fragment of Venus would contain a wealth of information, Professor Laughlin said.

Venus history is closely tied to important topics in planetary science, including the past influx of asteroids and comets, atmospheric histories of the inner planets, and the abundance of liquid water.

The teams paper will be published in the Planetary Science Journal.

_____

Samuel H.C. Cabot & Gregory Laughlin. 2020. Lunar Exploration as a Probe of Ancient Venus. PSJ, in press; arXiv: 2010.02215
A re-creation from the FX documentary series "A Wilderness of Error." (FX/Blumhouse)

When The Thin Blue Line was released in 1988, members of the motion picture academys documentary committee were so put off by the films distinctive style  particularly director Errol Morris then-remarkable use of subjective reenactments, inspired by Rashomon  that they walked out of an official screening.

And though the landmark film, which investigates the 1976 murder of a Dallas police officer, ultimately led to the exoneration of a wrongfully convicted man on death row, it was controversial enough that it failed to receive an Academy Award nomination.

Once anathema, the brand of highly stylized re-creation Morris pioneered is now ubiquitous, particularly on the small screen. As long-form true crime docuseries have surged in popularity over the last half-decade, so has the use of impressionistic re-creations providing a fragmented look at the past rather than a literal retelling of events.

The device is central to The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, the 2015 HBO series that helped trigger a true-crime TV gold rush  a flurry of documentaries, including The Keepers, "McMillions," "Ill Be Gone in the Dark" and "The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez," that use cinematic flashbacks to piece together complicated events.

A scene from the 1988 documentary "The Thin Blue Line," directed by Errol Morris, available on the criterionchannel.com. (Courtesy of the Criterion Collection)

Unlike the hokey TV reenactments of yesteryear  with their wooden acting, bargain-basement production values and the disclaimer REENACTMENT often written across the bottom of the screen  these dramatizations feature lush cinematography, artful lighting, period-accurate costumes and meticulous production design. There is typically little or no audible dialogue. Faces are often obscured or out of the frame entirely, and, like the Burger King milkshake in The Thin Blue Line, crucial objects appear in close-up: a piano decorated with Christmas lights, a McDonalds game piece, a floppy wide-brimmed hat.

I like the idea that reenactments dont tell you what happened, they take you deeper and deeper into the mystery, said Morris, who is featured in the recent FX docuseries A Wilderness of Error, now streaming on Hulu. They give you a way of thinking about the mystery, not of resolving the mystery.

Story continues

Morris prefers what he calls an ironic use of reenactment to consider divergent perspectives of a particular event and question the accepted narrative. But, he continues, often, they are used in a much different way  to illustrate something the filmmaker believes is true. Its illustration rather than investigation. (He doesn't like the term "re-creation" either, because it sounds too biblical.)

In A Wilderness of Error, director Marc Smerling reexamines the notorious case of Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret who was convicted of killing his wife and two young daughters in 1970  a crime he blamed on a gang of acid-crazed hippies. The brutal triple murder has captivated numerous storytellers over the years, including authors Janet Malcolm, Joe McGinniss and even Morris himself, who wrote the book on which the series is based.

Smerling calls Morris the grandaddy of really high-end re-creations and recalls going to see a movie in college  either Halloween or Friday the 13th, he says  that was sold out. So he went next door to see The Thin Blue Line instead. (The film is available to stream via the Criterion Channel.)

I said, I want to do that.

Robert Durst, arrested on suspicion of murder just before the documentary finale about him aired. (HBO)

A producer and cinematographer on The Jinx, Smerling worked closely with director Andrew Jarecki on the sumptuous re-creations used throughout that series  including a slow-motion shot of Dursts mother, dressed in a stark white nightgown, plummeting to her death from the roof of the familys mansion.

Several scenes in The Jinx are right out of the Errol playbook, says Smerling, citing a scene, borrowed from "The Thin Blue Line," in which several women are seen through the window of a police precinct as they report the disappearance of Dursts first wife.

If The Thin Blue Line marked a turning point for feature documentaries, The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst was a watershed moment for nonfiction TV. While some critics felt the reenactments glamorized Dursts alleged crimes, many viewers found them utterly engrossing.

People had done re-creation [on TV] but not quite like that before, Smerling says. We really felt like we were doing something extraordinary. We put our backs into it. We spent some money to up the visual storytelling language that was consistent throughout the series, and unique.

A re-creation scene in "A Wilderness of Error." (FX/Blumhouse)

A Wilderness of Error includes archival footage and contemporary interviews with family members and investigators, but Smerling also makes liberal use of reenactments to depict various accounts of the crime and follow its long aftermath. (He estimates that about 30% to 40% of the series five episodes is re-creation.) We repeatedly see a blurry image of a woman in white ankle boots and a wide-brimmed floppy hat  one of the drugged-out hippies MacDonald says killed his family.

It felt like really smart people had looked at this crime post-conviction and theyd come down on both sides, Smerling says. "I thought if we could slow down and look at it over multiple episodes and put the viewer behind the camera, then maybe we could put all this conflict aside.

The images are seductive, but thats not the point, Smerling says. Its easy to be lulled into the trance of the story. But the stakes are high in something like The Jinx or A Wilderness of Error. You have to be really clear in your storytelling that what youre watching is an interpretation of reality  not reality. The use of re-creations is very powerful. It has to be wielded in a way that has respect for the viewer and allows them to make decisions on their own.

A scene from "Unsolved Mysteries" on Netflix.

As TV documentaries have grown more ambitious, audiences have become more sophisticated. Like sitcoms with laugh tracks, documentaries with literal re-creations now seem painfully hokey. Case in point: The recent reboot of Unsolved Mysteries, which returns to Netflix this month, replaces the creepy but corny reenactments of the original with something more contemporary.

I am not filming exactly whats being said, said Marcus A. Clarke, who directed several episodes of the series. Im not giving you the knock on the door  I am giving you the feet walking up to the door, and you see the crack under the door and a little dust falls down. It forces the viewers to think about whats actually happening and how the images theyre seeing relate to the story, versus spoon-feeding them the same thing theyre hearing. We dont do see-say.

When she was making the documentary series Ill Be Gone in the Dark, which follows the late author Michelle McNamara and her hunt for the Golden State Killer, director Liz Garbus and her team wanted a way to convey the suburban ideal that many of these homes represented  and evoke the twisted nature by which this predator disrupted those seemingly safe, wholesome spaces.

A scene from the 1988 documentary "The Thin Blue Line," directed by Errol Morris, available on the criterionchannel.com. (Courtesy of the Criterion Collection)

So in scenes where survivors recalled his attacks in the 70s and 80s, Garbus used subjective snapshots from the victims' perspectives: a flashlight beam moving across a family photo, a refrigerator door left ajar. I think traumatic experiences, its often those details that stick with you, that you focus on, to divert you from the horror at hand. We tried to evoke that, she said. We never wanted it to feel as though it was the [killers] POV on a victim, or in any way fetishizing his POV.

As radical as Morris re-creations seemed in 1988, they actually represented something of a throwback. It wasnt until 1960 that you could walk into a room with a camera and capture things that were happening, says Robert Greene, a documentary filmmaker and professor at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Most early nonfiction films  like Robert J. Flahertys Nanook of the North  were, by necessity, reenactments.

Greene is a skeptic when it comes to reenactments, which he feels all too often glamorize grisly events (he is decidedly not a fan of The Jinx.) In his own work, including Kate Plays Christine and Bisbee 17, he uses re-creations to comment on the limits of filmmaking, Greene says, and he prefers documentaries that use the device self-consciously  such as The Act of Killing or Casting JonBenet.

The best true-crime films," he says, "want you to read into the images. The worst make escapist sensationalized things that are made to put your hand over your mouth in shock.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Why Mewalal Choudhary, Bihars new education minister is in the eye of a storm

Bihar election 2020: Ex-DGP Gupteshwar Pandey political ambitions hit a hurdle

India

oi-Deepika S

Patna, Oct 07: Former Bihar DGP Gupteshwar Pandey's entry into active politics seems to have hit hurdle after the JD(U) and the BJP seat-sharing deal for the Bihar Assembly election.

Outspoken ex-DGP Pandey, who has taken voluntary retirement from service, to make a political plunge was planning to contest from Buxar, his hometown, but the constituency has gone to the BJP as part of the NDA seat-sharing agreement between the allies.

The situation has created a hurdle for top cop-turned-politician the BJP is reluctant to give him the ticket. If the BJP gives ticket to Pandey tt would lead to a rebellion in the ranks.

Pandey has become a rallying point for Marathi pride politics in Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena said that it will also field a candidate against the former Bihar police chief Gupteshwar Pandey who had questioned the Mumbai Police on its probe into the death of Sushant Singh Rajput.

Bihar Elections 2020: Assembly wise schedule, date of polling and counting

Also, senior Maharashtra BJP leader Fadnavis, partys poll in-charge in Bihar, where elections will be held in three phases on October 28, November 3 and November 7 will also be at the receiving end. The Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) is an ally of the BJP in that state.

The 1987 batch IPS officer had strongly defended Kumar on the issue of institution of a CBI probe into the mysterious death of Sushant Singh Rajput, the Patna-born talented filmstar.

The voluble officer had reminded actor Rhea Chakraborty, Rajput''s girlfriend and the main accused in the abetment to suicide case being probed by the CBI, of her "auqat" (status) to question Nitish Kumar, whe she suggested that there was politics behind the Bihar government''s decision to push for a CBI probe.

Pandeys application for VRS was accepted by Governor Fagu Chauhan on September 21, five months before the 1987 batch IPS officer was to superannuate, and in a rare gesture, a three-month cooling off period applicable to bureaucrats was waived in his case.

Known for speaking his mind notwithstanding the constraints that came with the rules governing civil servants, Pandey was in the headlines while the governments of Maharashtra and Bihar were engaged in a tug of war over the investigation in Rajput''s death case.

India and Japan finalise an ambitious agreement on cyber-security|Oneindia News

The Bihar DGP had publicly denounced the Mumbai municipal authorities for quarantining IPS officer Vinay Tiwari, who had landed in the western metropolis for heading the investigation after an FIR was lodged by Rajputs father, accusing Rhea Chakraborty and some others of abetting the actor''s suicide.

Meanwhile, Pandey, who had famously resigned in 2009 to contest the Lok Sabha polls but returned to his job after his resignation was not accepted by the state government, got a thumbs up from the BJP.

However, he BJP, in its first list of 27 candidates, did not announce nominees for two seats -- Buxar and Brahampur.

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 20:16 [IST]
SCUGOG: Scugog Mayor Bobbie Drew is calling on residents to act cautiously as a second wave of COVID-19 looms in Ontario.

At a meeting on Monday, September 28th, Mayor Drew asked people to take the ongoing pandemic seriously.

If you dont need to go out, stay at home as much as possible. This is really serious. Wear a mask, wash your hands. We all know these things. We need to comply, she emphasized.

In addition, the mayor asked residents to only go out for necessities and to keep in small groups, make your bubble smaller if possible.

Ward 1 Councillor Ian McDougall was also concerned about the recent rise in COVID-19 cases in the province.

I met some individuals on the weekend who were visibly ill and out in public. This is not acceptable, he stated, adding, if people do not feel well, they should stay home.
(Newser)  Jimmy Kimmel welcomed his first live guest in seven months on Tuesday, and Armie Hammer came protectedin a spacesuit. So perhaps he's missing acting a bit more than he's been letting on. The actor, who found work in construction during the pandemic, explained he's been busy renovating a rundown motel with a friend, per People. "I came back from the Cayman Islands where I was during quarantine and I was like, 'Dude, I have nothing to do.' He was like, 'Do you wanna come live with me in this abandoned motel and do construction with me?'" Hammer told Kimmel, who sat 8 feet away.

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"I was really out of options," added Hammer, who split with wife Elizabeth Chambers in July. "I was literally sitting at home picking boogers and seeing how far I could flick them." Hammer noted he's good with tools, "except a hammer. Just seemed too close to home." He said he'd mostly been sanding floors and replacing drywall at the motel in Twentynine Palms, Calif., near Joshua Tree National Park. "I have been productive. I've been really fortunate," he said. Hammer stars opposite Lily James in the romantic thriller Rebecca, to be released on Netflix on Oct. 21. Filming wrapped last August, per Film Stories. (Read more Armie Hammer stories.)
Bank chief executives have welcomed the business-focused federal budget, saying it will help rebuild the battered economy, but senior economists have cautioned the government's outlook may be overly optimistic.

The big four banks are among the businesses excluded from the $27 billion investment allowance, that allows businesses earning less than $5 billion per year to deduct the full cost of any asset worth up to $150,000.

The instant asset write-off scheme will cover 99 per cent of businesses employing 11.5 million people and National Australia Bank chief executive Ross McEwan said this will help drive the country's economic activity through the pandemic.

NAB chief Ross McEwan says it is imperative the private sector helps spur the economic recovery. Credit:Eddie Jim

"We must do everything we can to support and strengthen businesses right now and the budget measures announced by the government will certainly help to do that as we begin to transition from support to stimulus," Mr McEwan said.
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Experts today blamed the North of Englands rapidly rising coronavirus cases and hospital admissions on a number of factors unique to the region that have made it susceptible to a surge in the virus.

The region is facing the imposition of stricter lockdown restrictions soon as the Government tries to balance fears over a surge in infections and hospitalisations with a growing Tory revolt over the devastation being wreaked on the economy.

But the leaders of northern cities including Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle have written to Boris Johnson begging him not to ramp up coronavirus curbs again while sparing the South where the virus is relatively under control.

Some 70 per cent of new hospital admissions are happening in the North and 43 out of the 49 areas with local lockdown rules are in the North West, North East or Yorkshire and the Humber.

Experts told MailOnline the issue is complex and there can be no one definite reason for the disaster striking the region, but theories include:

More 'residual' infections after the first lockdown: Data suggests there may have been more cases of Covid-19 circulating in the North during July after the spring lockdown rules were lifted, meaning the region started the second wave from a higher baseline and hit worrying numbers faster;

Deprived residents more exposed to the virus: People working in worse-paid jobs in factories, pubs and shops, for example, are unable to work from home, putting them in harm's way when they leave the house every day, while less well-off families living in large multi-generational households mean each person who catches the illness may spread it further;

Large student populations fuel spread with active social lives: University students may be accelerating the spread of already-burgeoning outbreaks by socialising more, meaning the virus circulates at higher levels and is more likely to leak out into the vulnerable corners of society;

Cooler weather changing people's behaviour: Data shows that, during the summer and early autumn, average temperatures were lower and rainfall was higher in the North of England than it was in the South, which it is 'reasonable' to assume drove people indoors, where spread of the virus is more likely.

It comes as Nicola Sturgeon today banned pubs and restaurants from serving alcohol indoors in Scotland for at least 16 days from Friday and announced venues will be hit with a 6pm curfew, heaping pressure on Boris Johnson to follow suit to control the growing outbreak.

Scotland's First Minister told MSPs at Holyrood that the situation was 'better than March', but admitted she needed to take a 'backward step' as she unveiled a dramatic 'circuit breaker' squeeze to coincide with the school half-term north of the border.

Rates of coronavirus infection per person, calculated by the Press Association, suggest Manchester, Knowsley and Liverpool have the worst outbreaks in the country with more than 500 cases per 100,000, which equates to around 0.5 per cent of the population or one in every 200 people. All the 10 worst-affected areas are in the North of England

Of the 14,542 new positive tests that were announced yesterday, 4,441 were in the North West of the country (31 per cent), with another 3,670 in the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber (25 per cent). By comparison, there were 401 in the South West and 492 in the East of England

Positive tests and the numbers of people going into hospital with the illness are spiralling rapidly, particularly in urban areas around Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle, and pressure is growing on the Government to take tougher action as local lockdowns have not yet stopped the virus.

A lockdown for the region should now be given 'serious consideration', one disease expert warned, but wrapping the whole of England under the same rules would likely be 'overkill' with data in the south not justifying the same measures.

A partial lockdown would be unlikely to be welcomed, however. It would be an 'added level of unfairness' for people who already suffer the most financially when they can't work as normal, one scientist said, while another added there would be 'a lot of complaining' if rules were vastly different at opposing ends of M1.

But leaked documents seen by the Manchester Evening News have predicted that Greater Manchester could see hospital admissions hit the same level they did in April before the end of October if the city doesn't change tack.

Many politicians and business leaders are fiercely opposed to another full lockdown like the one in March, because it would have devastating financial consequences and could worsen the physical and mental health of millions.

Although the national economy is more heavily dependent on London than cities in the north, meaning a regional lockdown may be less damaging than a national one that might be needed later if the virus was left unchecked, even though local businesses could suffer heavily.

Local restrictions have been springing up across the top half of England for months but don't seem to be slowing the spread of the disease. With every week that it takes to toughen up the rules, more people get infected.

On Sunday the number of people admitted to hospital in England with Covid-19 soared by 25 per cent in a day to the highest level since the start of June, with 478 new patients, with 334 of them (70 per cent) in the North West and the North East & Yorkshire.

MANCHESTER HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS 'COULD HIT APRIL LEVELS THIS MONTH' Government data shows how the number of people being admitted to hospital with Covid-19 each day in the North West has changed over time The number of people needing hospital treatment for Covid-19 could hit the same level it did in April before the end of this month, officials warn. A leaked Public Health England document seen by the Manchester Evening News warned hospitals could be seeing 238 admissions per day by the end of October. At the peak of the outbreak on April 1, the local paper reported, there were 240 people per day being admitted or diagnosed while in hospital. The estimate was revealed at a meeting of council leaders and public health officials yesterday as the region grapples with an exploding coronavirus outbreak. The data reportedly caused concern at the meeting with one attendee describing it as 'quite worrying'. The North West region, which includes Manchester, is accounting for the bulk of the UK's outbreak at the moment, registering 40 per cent of the deaths announced today and 31 per cent of the cases announced yesterday. Tougher restrictions loom on the horizon for the area, with scientists admitting a full lockdown there is now worth 'serious consideration'. Advertisement

And of the 14,542 new positive tests that were announced yesterday, 4,441 were in the North West of the country (31 per cent), with another 3,670 in the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber (25 per cent). By comparison, there were 401 in the South West and 492 in the East of England.

Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at the University of Reading, said a lockdown for the North is looking increasingly likely.

'I think in the North West we will certainly see a tightening of restrictions,' he told MailOnline today. 'I think we're getting to the point where we need to give serious consideration to a regional lockdown  not across the country; that would be overkill.'

Explaining that the return of students to areas in the North  there are at least 60,000 students in the North East alone, as well as multiple universities in Liverpool and Manchester  could be driving up cases, Dr Clarke explained: 'Merseyside and Greater Manchester, for example, are densely populated.

'They have relatively large student populations; we know theres a problem at Manchester uni and, I believe, at Liverpool. Even if students as an age group arent generally one to be taken very ill, they can spread [the virus] to the rest of the communities.

'Those cities [Liverpool and Manchester] have large night-time economies as well. That's the thinking behind the 10pm curfew, that who wants to measure out two metres when you go to the pub with your friends? You forget [about social distancing] when you're talking and socialising.'

But, he said, students aren't entirely to blame, adding: 'It is largely out of people's control but students and young people get a lot of blame. There is evidence of rule-breaking but there isn't evidence that it's extensive enough to cause rising infections.'

More than 80 universities in the UK have reported at least 5,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among students and staff.

Manchester University, where there have been more than 1,000 cases since September 21, and Manchester Metropolitan University have today shifted to virtual learning.

The University of Sheffield, where more than 500 students and staff have tested positive since the start of term, will also move to online lectures from Friday.

And it comes as more than 300 students and eight members of staff at the University of Birmingham have tested positive for Covid, it was revealed today. More than 300 students and eight members of staff also tested positive for the virus between September 30 and October 6.

Following the revelation that almost 16,000 'missed' cases had been added to the system, infection rates spiralled in every authority of the country except four at the weekend  all of those unaffected were in the South. The cases were mostly added to the North West of the country, with other areas in the North East and Midlands also hit badly

NICOLA STURGEON BANS BOOZING INDOORS ACROSS THE WHOLE OF SCOTLAND The number of daily cases in Scotland has risen from under 300 two weeks ago  when a ban on households mixing indoors was introduced  to see 1,054 reported today Nicola Sturgeon warned that coronavirus cases have started to surge among the older generation today as she banned pubs and restaurants from serving alcohol indoors in Scotland for at least 16 days from Friday. The First Minister told MSPs at Holyrood that the situation was 'better than March', but admitted she needed to take a 'backward step' as she unveiled a dramatic 'circuit breaker' squeeze to coincide with the school half-term north of the border. As well as a ban on serving alcohol, hospitality venues will only be allowed to open from 6am to 6pm. In five 'hotspot' areas pubs will be closed altogether until October 26 and people will be advised against using public transport. Ms Sturgeon said that if it was 'a purely one dimensional decision' about public health there would be an even tougher lockdown, but she was considering the wider economy and wellbeing . The extraordinary step comes after Scotland reported more than 1,000 new infections in a day. It will heap pressure on Boris Johnson, who was confronted this afternoon with damning figures showing local restrictions in England are failing to curb cases, with ministers and advisers at war over what to do next. At a stormy PMQs session, Mr Johnson stressed the impact of the surge was being felt worst in the North, saying that showed that the government's mix of tough local lockdowns and national restrictions like the Rule of Six and 10pm pubs curfew was the right one. Advertisement

There have also been major outbreaks at universities in Liverpool, Salford, Newcastle and Northumbria, Leicester, Nottingham, Oxford and Kent, as well as in Swansea, Stirling, Glasgow and Belfast.

But while students may be fuelling the fire of local outbreaks, the normally resident populations also face higher risks of local outbreaks because of their living conditions, according to scientists.

Dr Gabriel Scally, a doctor and professor of public health at the University of Bristol, said worse-paid jobs and more cramped housing meant people were at higher risk of transmitting and catching the virus.

He explained that lower income areas have been repeatedly worst affected by the coronavirus and that the North has some of the least well-off areas in the country.

A report by the housing ministry last year found that 19 out of 20 of the most deprived council areas in England are in the North, with almost half of neighbourhoods in Middlesbrough classed as 'highly deprived'.

Eight of the 10 most deprived neighbourhoods in the country were all in Blackpool, the i newspaper reported, and Liverpool, Hull, Manchester and Knowsley in Merseyside were also home to some of the most deprived people in the country.

Dr Scally, who is a member of the Independent SAGE group of scientists, said: 'There are three key factors: the level of deprivation, secondly the level of over-crowding of domestic dwellings and, thirdly the proportion of people from BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] backgrounds.

'Deprivation is linked to not-very-good housing and along with that goes, often, multi-generational households where small children live in the same houses as their grandparents. We know that BAME communities are much more likely to be poor and marginalised. It seems to be the coalition of all three factors together that have led to the virus becoming endemic.'

He added that people are more likely to do poorly-paid jobs and those that cannot be done from home, which makes them less likely to get tested or to self-isolate if they're advised to do so, because they need the money.

Because of these problems, only a functioning test and trace system which can root out cases and their sources will work as a long-term solution, Dr Scally said. Ideally, such a system would be run by local councils who know the areas they work in, rather than call handlers employed by the central Government.

'If we continue the way we're going with no functioning test and trace system and a growth in numbers, I think it [a northern lockdown] is likely,' he told MailOnline.

'Will it work? To a certain extent but we now know that at the end of the last lockdown there were several local authorities in Greater Manchester, for example, that had endemic infections going on. It didn't solve the problem the first time so why do we think it will the second time?'

HOSPITALISATIONS AT 6% OF PEAK LEVELS IN THE SOUTH BUT 30% IN THE NORTH The numbers of people being admitted to hospital with Covid-19 have levelled off in huge areas of England as data suggests the country is being dragged into panic by an out-of-control outbreak in the north. In London, the South East and the South West  home to around half of the country's population of 55million  daily admissions appear to be plateauing after rising in line with cases during September from a low point over the summer. However, admissions are still accelerating in the North West, North East and Yorkshire, where new local lockdowns are springing up every week and positive tests are spiralling to record numbers. But as talk grows of a second national lockdown when winter hits, figures suggests the south faces being lumped under rules it doesn't need. The picture is more complex in the Midlands and the East of England  in the Midlands hospitalisations rose dramatically during September but there are signs they have peaked now, while admissions appear to still be rising slowly in the East, although at significantly lower levels than in the northern regions. Numbers of people in hospital in the worst affected areas have hit almost a third of what they were during the peak of the crisis in April, while in the south of the country they are still much lower at around six per cent. In the North West there are now an average of 107 people admitted to hospital with coronavirus every day, along with 94 per day in the North East. Both figures are the highest seen since May and do not show signs of slowing. For comparison, the rates at their peak for each region were around 2,900 and 2,600 per day, respectively. On the other hand in London, where officials are reportedly discussing tougher measures, there are just 34 admissions per day  down from an average 39 on September 25 and just 4.5 per cent of the level seen at the peak of the crisis in April. And in the South West, which has been least badly hit throughout the pandemic, just eight people are sent into hospital each day  six per cent of the peak number. Advertisement

If there was a lockdown specifically affecting the North, Reading's Dr Clarke said, there would be 'an awful lot of complaining'.

'It's quite clear that local authorities want greater powers to be able to react quickly, he added. 'Speed is of the essence... [Enforcing new rules] is where the Government in London can use these local politicians. Theyre all on board and its incumbent on them to justify the restrictions.'

Dr Ilan Kelman, a disaster reduction expert at University College London, added: 'A major challenge we face is that not everyone has the opportunities to stay at home a lot or to avoid indoor spaces. This is where, together, we can help each other by doing as much as we can based on our own circumstances.

'In this way, local lockdowns contribute to emphasising what we must do, but they also understandably seem unfair to those affected.

'These measures tend to hurt those already suffering the most and could lead to difficult backlashes. Especially when schools and travel can be made reasonably safe with full support from government and people following the rules.'

Another reason that the North is being hardest hit this time around could be that it had more 'residual' cases left over when the first lockdown ended.

Dr Andy Preston, a biologist at the University of Bath, told MailOnline the regions may have started the second wave from a higher baseline, meaning they hit worrying numbers of cases quicker than other places.

'It looks as if possibly there were still residual greater levels of infection in those areas  the trough, as it were,' he said.

'I think the lockdown did suppress the virus pretty well; it's clear that it did. But it's clear that it didn't eradicate it and, once we started to ease restrictions, the growth started.

'You tend to see a lag. It's still an exponential increase but you remain at relatively low numbers for a while. The rate of increase is probably reasonably similar nationally but we're not reaching the threshold at the same time. It may be that its a matter of time and if we continue the South West will [reach the same level].'

Data from the Covid Symptom Study, run by King's College London, suggests that there were an estimated 401 people catching Covid-19 every day in the North East & Yorkshire in the week up to July 16, and 321 per day in the North West.

This measure, taken around a week after 'Super Saturday' on July 4 when the last lockdown rules were lifted and pubs and restaurants reopened, shows that estimated cases then were higher than in any other region.

The second worst area was the Midlands, where there were an estimated 363 cases per day, but this dropped in the following week while the cases in the North continued to rise to higher than 430 in each area.

Dr Preston added that case rates may be especially high in areas that have large populations of people who are likely to get tested for the disease because they get symptoms.

Older people, those in poor health and people from non-white backgrounds all face a higher risk of severe illness with Covid-19 and are therefore more likely to get symptoms which would lead them to get a test.

Therefore, areas with large elderly populations and BAME groups are likely to see more people testing positive, whereas areas with younger, whiter communities might be less likely to get properly sick and to get swabbed. Tests are currently only available for people who develop a cough or fever or lose their sense of smell or taste.

'If you have large proportions of populations that tend to be more symptomatic you're likely to get more positive tests,' he added.

Department of Health data shows that the numbers of people in hospital in the North of England has hit around a third of the level it was at during the epidemic's peak in April. Meanwhile, admissions are surging in those regions while the rate of increase is much slower in most other areas (illustrated in the graphs)

UK IS NOW RECORDING MORE COVID-19 CASES PER DAY PER CAPITA THAN THE US The UK is recording more coronavirus cases relative to the size of its population than the US for the first time since March, data shows. There were 143 cases per million people on October 5, compared to America's rate of 130 per million The UK is recording more coronavirus cases relative to the size of its population than the US for the first time since March, data shows. In another grim milestone in Britain's second wave, there were 143 cases per million people on October 5, compared to America's rate of 130 per million. It's the first time Britain has recorded more infections per capita than the US since March, when the UK was bombarded with an influx of cases from western Europe. Yesterday the UK's case rate continued to trend in the wrong direction, with 161 per million people  20 per cent more than the 134 reported in the US. The last time the UK was experiencing a higher volume of cases than the US was on March 22, when it posted 11.6 cases per million compared to 10.3 across the Atlantic. The data is worrying because it suggests Britain's crisis is now worse than in the US, which has consistently reported the highest number of deaths and cases of anywhere in the world. Experts told MailOnline Britain's denser population and cold autumn weather driving more people indoors may have contributed to Britain surpassing the US's infection rate. The US is still recording almost three times the raw number of infections as the UK, but its population is more than quadruple the size of Britain's, which explains the lower case rate. In the last week there have been roughly 44,000 cases of the disease every day in the US, compared to nearly 12,000 in Britain. Overall, the US has recorded 7.5million infections compared to 532,000 in the UK, according to John Hopkins University estimates. Like all countries during the pandemic, Covid-19 has disproportionately affected major cities in America. But large swathes of the rural Mid West and West Coast have went unscathed through the crisis  for example, Wyoming has recorded fewer than 7,000 total cases compared to 840,000 in California. Advertisement

There have also been suggestions that the colder weather in the north of England could be affecting how the virus spreads by driving people indoors and depriving them of vitamin D.

Data shows a link between the weather and current Covid-19 outbreaks, with Manchester - the heart of spiralling cases in August - enduring twice as much rainfall as London, where cases barely ticked up as summer drew to a close.

Fast-forward to the end of September and the North West was recording twice as many infections as the next worst-hit region (1,595 cases in the week ending September 23), and was where all 10 of the worst cases-per-person hotspots were located.

Scientists admit it is 'entirely reasonable' to blame the weather because colder temperatures drive people indoors - and could also cut their time in sunlight and, hence, Vitamin D levels, which research says can protect them from the virus. People spending time close to one another is considered the biggest driver of Covid-19 transmission, where ventilation is poor and strangers touch the same surfaces regularly.

Studies have also suggested the coronavirus is less equipped to survive on surfaces outside in sunlight because the UV rays damage its genetic material, potentially meaning people are less likely to be infected.

The warm weather  which saw record-high temperatures of 37.8C in July and a heatwave  is one of the reasons why scientists think Britain was able to drive the virus down this summer, alongside the tough social distancing rules and the lasting effects of the lockdown.

But other scientists have warned it would be tricky to ever prove the regional differences in weather would be to blame, insisting it could actually be down to lower levels of population immunity or higher rates of deprivation in the North. One even simply suggested bad luck may have played a role.

Met Office data for August shows that the South saw the highest temperatures, longest hours of sunshine, and least rainfall in August.

It saw average temperatures at a warm 18.2C (64F), while in the North of England they hovered at 15.9C (60F) and in Scotland they plunged to 13.5C (56.3F).

The South also had at least 30mm less rainfall than the other regions, clocking 97.5mm, compared to 116.1mm in Scotland and 131.9mm in the North.

And on sunshine, Southerners saw an extra 40 hours of rays than Scotland throughout the month, and 20 hours more than the North of England.

The city of Manchester endured around 131.9mm of rain in August. It saw its coronavirus infection rate tick up to 40 cases per 100,000 every week by the end of August, up from 22 at the end of July.

The weather was similar in Bolton, which later became the epicentre of the UK's outbreak. At the start of August the town was recording 20.7 cases per 100,000, but by September 4 this had risen three-fold to 66.6.

Bath University's Dr Preston said last week: 'In terms of behaviour, one of the things we've been really fearing during winter is the move indoors and its clear role in transmission.

'There's still the unanswered question about the impact of climate humidity, UV light and temperature on survival of the virus but, again, I think that's probably going to be fairly minimal because it looks as if transmission is primarily indoors.

'The indoor environment tends to be relatively stable compared to the outdoors. Whereas outside you might go from -5 to plus 15 that doesn't happen indoors because we control the environment. So whereas outdoors there's a strong set of physical parameters, indoors it's flattened those differences that we control far more.'
AUBURN, Ala., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Chicken Salad Chick, the nation's only southern inspired, fast casual chicken salad restaurant concept, announced today it will be expanding in Mississippi with its newest restaurant in Madison. Following the brand's debut in Flowood in 2018, the Madison restaurant marks Chicken Salad Chick's second Jackson area location and ninth restaurant in Mississippi. Located at 1917 Main Street, Madison on Main will celebrate its grand opening on October 20 and will offer free chicken salad for a year to the first 100 guests. Those awarded will be properly distanced and will receive a designated return time upon arrival to spread out the number of guests at the restaurant throughout the day.

Chicken Salad Chick is closely following Mississippi's state and local guidelines for COVID-19 procedures and will open the Madison on Main restaurant at limited capacity with social distancing measures in place. All employees will be wearing masks and gloves, as well as practicing proper handwashing and food safety protocol, and all guests will be required to wear masks until seated for dining. For guests who prefer to take their chicken salad to-go, Madison on Main has a drive-thru for added convenience.

During grand opening week, guests will experience the southern hospitality that Chicken Salad Chick is known for, with modified giveaways and specials that include:

Tuesday, October 20  Free Chicken Salad for a Year  The first 100 guests will receive one large Quick Chick of chicken salad per month for an entire year, with one lucky guest randomly selected to win one large Quick Chick of chicken salad per week.* Any guest not part of the first 100 in line can make an in-store purchase and enter for a chance to win free chicken salad for a year.**

 Free Chicken Salad for a Year  The first 100 guests will receive one large Quick Chick of chicken salad per month for an entire year, with one lucky guest randomly selected to win one large Quick Chick of chicken salad per week.* Any guest not part of the first 100 in line can make an in-store purchase and enter for a chance to win free chicken salad for a year.** Wednesday, October 21  The first 50 guests to purchase three large Quick Chicks will receive a free Chick charcuterie board.

The first 50 guests to purchase three large Quick Chicks will receive a free Chick charcuterie board. Thursday, October 22  The first 100 guests to purchase a Chick Trio will receive a free Chick tumbler.

The first 100 guests to purchase a Chick Trio will receive a free Chick tumbler. Friday, October 23  The first 50 guests to purchase a Chick Special will receive a free Chick blanket.

The first 50 guests to purchase a Chick Special will receive a free Chick blanket. Saturday, October 24  The first 50 guests to purchase two large Quick Chicks will receive a free large Chick cooler.

The Madison restaurant is owned and operated by multi-unit franchise owners Blake and Shae Fuller of Taste and C, LLC. The pair opened their first Chicken Salad Chick restaurant in Flowood in 2018 and currently operate an additional location in Hattiesburg. Madison on Main marks the Fullers' third restaurant opening in just two years, and while spreading chicken salad to more communities around Mississippi excites the duo, it's the relationships they build with loyal guests that truly sweetens their expansion. During the COVID-19 restaurant closures, the Fullers noticed a need to feed the front line workers in the area and alongside restaurant guests, were able to donate nearly 300 meals to nurses, doctors and medical staff.

"Joining the Chicken Salad Chick family is about so much more than becoming a business owner. We have the opportunity to make an impact, both in the community and on a personal level, either through our kind, attentive service or giveback efforts," said Shae Fuller. "Blake and I have loved serving the Flowood and Hattiesburg communities and look forward to opening our Madison on Main location. The area has a vibrant culinary scene and we know we'll be a great next addition."

Chicken Salad Chick in Madison will be open Monday  Saturday from 10:30a.m. 8p.m. For more information, visit www.chickensaladchick.com. Follow Chicken Salad Chick on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest news and trends.

*Guests should arrive between 7-10am to get checked in, while maintaining social distancing. The first 100 guests will be assigned a number and designated return time between 10-11:15am. Upon return, guests will make a purchase of "The Chick Special" or anything of greater value and scan the code '1st 100 Spot' on the CravingCredits app to officially secure your spot. If you are late, or miss return time, your spot will be awarded to next in-line. Guests must be 16 years or older, redemption begins 10/26.

**Eligible winners must be 16 years or older, purchase a Chick Special and are required to download the Craving Credits app. 10 winners will be drawn at the end of the day. Redemption will start 10/26.

For more information on giveaways and specials, visit https://www.facebook.com/ChickenSaladChickMadisononMain/

About Chicken Salad Chick

Founded by Stacy Brown in Auburn, Alabama, in 2008, Chicken Salad Chick serves full-flavored, Southern-style chicken salad made from scratch and served from the heart. With more than a dozen original chicken salad flavors as well as fresh side salads, gourmet soups, signature sandwiches and delicious desserts, Chicken Salad Chick's robust menu is a perfect fit for any guest. Today, under the leadership of Scott Deviney and the Chicken Salad Chick team, the brand has more than 170 restaurants in 17 states and is continuing its rapid expansion with both franchise and company locations. Chicken Salad Chick has received numerous accolades including rankings in Franchise Times' Fast & Serious and Fast Casual.com's top Movers and Shakers for the third consecutive year, QSR's Best Franchise Deals for the second consecutive year and Franchise Business Review's Top Food Franchises in 2020. See www.chickensaladchick.com for additional information.

Contact:

Nikki Rode

Fish Consulting

954-893-9150

[email protected]

SOURCE Chicken Salad Chick

Related Links

http://www.chickensaladchick.com


Recognizing Ukraine's progress in legal reforms, participants in the 22nd EU-Ukraine Summit agreed on the need to speed up judicial reforms and step up the fight against corruption in Ukraine, ensuring strong and independent anti-corruption institutions.

This was said in a joint statement following the 22nd EU-Ukraine Summit held on October 6, 2020.

We welcomed the launch of the work of the High Anti-Corruption Court. We agreed on the importance of accelerating and reinforcing reform efforts, in particular on the judiciary (including reforming the High Council of Justice and the independent recruitment of judges with integrity) and in the fight against corruption, ensuring strong and independent anti-corruption institutions. We welcomed the renewed commitment of Ukraine to fight the influence of vested interests (de-oligarchisation). In this regard, we underlined the need to further strengthen media pluralism in Ukraine, reads the document.

As reported by Ukrinform, on the eve of the EU-Ukraine Summit, some MEPs expressed concern over the state of the fight against corruption in Ukraine and called for its strengthening as a prerequisite for sustainable democratic and economic development.

iy
DUBLIN, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Pulse Oximeter Market - Global Outlook and Forecast 2020-2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

In-depth Analysis and Data-driven Insights on the Impact of COVID-19 Included in this Global Pulse Oximeter Market Report

The pulse oximeter market by revenue is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 9% during the period 2019-2025.



The global pulse oximeter market is expected to grow at an absolute growth of over 70% during the forecast period. The market is growing due to the growing elderly population, which is prone to the risk of respiratory diseases, hypertension, CVD, diabetes, and other diseases that could affect oxygen levels (SpO2).



The increasing emphasis on patient safety during treatment in healthcare settings and the demand for consistent vital signs monitoring is expected to drive the growth of the market. The growing awareness of patient monitoring and an increase in target disease prevalence are further likely to boost market growth during the forecast period. Strong demand for pulse oximeters and increased end-users' spending sentiments on home patient monitoring devices worldwide is contributing to market growth.



The purchase of at-home pulse oximeters has spiked over 500% since the detection of COVID-19 cases in the US. The device can easily be purchased at drugstores and via online retailers. Several physicians observe pulse oximeters are an important device to identify declining lung function early and address the cause, including COVID-19. Hence, the rising adoption of these devices has boosted the demand for pulse oximeter on the global level, which is further expected to contribute to the market growth in upcoming years.



Global Pulse Oximeter Market Segmentation



The global pulse oximeter market research report includes a detailed segmentation by products, end-users, and geography. The fingertip segment dominated the industry with a market share of over 35% share in 2019.



Fingertip pulse oximeters are easy to operate and compact. The segment is experiencing high demand as these devices are non-invasive, which makes them a preferred option for infants and neonates. Technological advancements in fingertip models will drive the segment. The inclusion of features such as Bluetooth, alarm systems, extensive memory, and easy transfer of data is increasing the efficiency. The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the demand for fingertip devices in the global population.



Handheld devices were the second major segment with a market share of over 31% in 2019. They are preferred for long-term monitoring of the patient. The device is preferred in hospitals in developing countries, wherein the number of patients is high. They are used by adults and children suffering from chronic illnesses such as congestive heart failure, anemia, lung cancer, heart attacks, respiratory conditions such as COPD, asthma, and sleep apnea.



In 2019, the hospital end-user segment accounted for over 56% in the pulse oximeter market shares. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of hospital admissions with pneumonia and shortening of breath, and reduced oxygen levels in blood has increased. Hence, this has increased the demand for pulse oximeter in hospitals. Moreover, there is a growing demand for pulse oximeters in emergency care units and critical care units during operations to monitor SpO2. There is an increasing demand for standalone pulse oximeters in these settings to provide high-quality care to the patient population. In hospitals, there is a growing demand for standalone and handheld and fingertip pulse oximeters.



The clinic segment accounted for over 17% share in the market. The market is growing at a significant rate, with a CAGR during the forecast period. Due to the growth in the neonatal, pediatric, and adult patient population, there is an increasing number of visits to clinics. As there is the footfall in clinics is growing, there is a rising demand for several medical devices that can monitor patients' vital signs such as pulse oximeter. There is an increasing pediatric population, which is opting for clinics rather than hospitals due to low consultant fees and easy accessibility.



INSIGHTS BY GEOGRAPHY



North America represented the largest regional segment of the market in 2019. The increasing healthcare expenditure in the US and Canada and the growing prevalence of congenital heart defects (CHD) and other heart ailments and respiratory conditions are increasing the usage of pulse oximeters to check SpO2 and avoid heart stroke, thereby increasing the adoption of these devices. Moreover, in 2018, the number of adults with diagnosed chronic bronchitis was around 9 million.



Also, the number of emergency department visits with emphysema and other chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as the primary diagnosis was over 9 lakh. This increasing patient population and rising admission in emergency departments have increased the demand for pulse oximeters by the patient population individually to monitor health status at home as well as the emergency department. There is a demand for pulse oximeter separate from multi-parameters to check accurate oxygen concentration in the blood to provide high-quality care to patients in emergency centers.



INSIGHTS BY VENDORS



The global pulse oximeter market share is fairly fragmented with the presence of several global, regional, and local manufacturers. Masimo, Medtronic, Koninklijke Philips, Smiths Medical, Nonin Medical, and NIHON KOHDEN are the largest manufacturer of pulse oximeters. All these companies have a significant presence in major geographical regions such as North America, APAC, and Europe.



However, there are many local vendors providing products with similar specifications at lower prices, which have resulted in a price war among vendors. Major vendors are continuously competing among themselves for the leading position in the market, with occasional spurts of competition coming from other local vendors. The market potential of pulse oximeters due to ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is driving several vendors to expand their market share through acquisitions.



Prominent Vendors

Medtronic

Masimo

Koninklijke Philips

Nonin Medical

NIHON KOHDEN

Smiths Medical

Other Prominent Vendors

Acare Technology

Contec Medical Systems

COMED

MEDPLANT

Heal Force Bio-Meditech Holdings

medical Econet

Microlife

ARKY

Advanced Instrumentations

CA-MI

Meditech

Shanghai Berry Electronic Technology

AVI Healthcare

Recorders & Medicare Systems (RMS)

Shanxi Jerry Medical Instrument

Shenzhen Creative Industry

Devon Medical Products

Sunset Healthcare Solutions

Compass Health Brands

IN4 Technology

Progetti

Vyaire Medical

HUM Society for Homecare and Medical Technology

Oxitone Medical

Bitmos

Beijing Choice Electronic Technology

Mediaid

RADIMED

Shenzhen Unicare Electronic

COMDEK

Medlab Clinical

Charmcare

GETEMED Medical and Information Technology

Nureca

Maxtec

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/xy2wst

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



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Wednesday, October 7, 2020 at 11:00AM

by Nathaniel R

With most of this year's buzziest titles featuring large casts filled with men, and with the general shortage of movies, Supporting Actress is looking much less competitive than usual. At least so far. This is why we're feeling so confident that the one to watch is 12 year old Helena Zengel of the western drama News of the World. It's a large role -- she plays the kidnapped girl that Tom Hanks is out to rescue -- and just last year with Germany's Oscar submission System Crasher, she made international waves receiving a nomination for Best Actress at the European Film Awards. Of course the film might not open. Nothing is certain this season...

The general emptiness of the competition thus far also might be the ideal situation to finally get Glenn Close her Oscar as "Mawmaw" in Hillbilly Elegy. But Netflix has so far been concentrating on other movies. Will it be delayed? Do they lack faith in it? Or are they just saving the big gun to much closer to the nomination battle (which is still five months away in this delayed season)?

Natasha Lyonne and Andra Day as lovers Tallulah Bankhead and Billie Holliday in "United States vs Billie Holliday"

My father warned me about men and booze but he never said anything about women and cocaine.

-Tallulah Bankhead

Our WILD CARD choice at this point, since we haven't heard people discussing the possibility, is Natasha Lyonne as Tallulah Bankhead in The United States vs Billie Holiday. Director Lee Daniels makes uneven movies but the acting has generally been exciting and what better opportunity for Lyonne, whose career has been on a steady upswing. She could knock one out of the park playing this really flamboyant part of a true original and showbiz legend. Though the film centers on a black undercover agent (Moonlight's Trevante Rhodes) who romances and investigates Billie Holliday (Andra Day), Bankhead and Billie were lovers in real life and both struggled with addiction. The roles and the movie should be interesting.

OSCAR CHARTS

Index | Picture | Director | Supporting Actress -new! | Supporting Actor | International Feature | Screenplays | Visuals | Sound | Animation
Researchers at a nature reserve in Pennsylvania discovered a truly odd bird - one with both male and female feather coloring.

Rose-breasted grosbeaks are sexually dimorphic, meaning males and females have different color plumage.

Males have black wing feathers, pink wing pits and breast spots that give it its name, while females have brown wings, yellow wing pits and no patches on their chest.

But a grosbeak observed at Powdermill Nature Reserve was split right down the middle - pink on the right side, yellow on the left.

The condition, called bilateral gynandromorphism, means the bird is both male and female, with one ovary and one testis.

This occurs when two sperm fertilize an egg that has two nuclei instead of one, which results in the egg to develop a chromosome from each sex.

Scroll down for video

Conservationists at Powdermill Nature Reserve described finding a rose-breasted grosbeak with bilateral gynandromorphism like 'seeing a unicorn.' The bird was born with male and female plumage colors split down the center of its body

The phenomenon has been observed in less than ten birds since Powdermill's Avian Research Center began bird banding 64 years ago.

'The entire banding team was very excited to see such a rarity up close, and are riding the high of this once-in-a-lifetime experience,' said Annie Lindsay, bird banding program manager. 'One of them described it as "seeing a unicorn."'

A large, seed-eating member of the cardinal family, the rose-breasted grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus) is commonly found across eastern North America until about this time of year, when it migrates to Mexico or South America.

Since usually only the left ovary is functional in birds, and the left side of this bird is the female side, the bird could still theoretically lay eggs and reproduce.

Male red-breasted grosbeaks have larger black feathers, with pink wing pits and a pink splotch on their chest. Females have brown feather, with yellow wing pits and a thick white line above their eyes

The grosbeak's bilateral asymmetry is visible on its back, as well. The feathers on the right (male) side of the bird are black and larger than the brown (female) ones on the bird's left

Usually only the left ovary is functional in birds, so this bird could theoretically lay eggs and reproduce. It depends on if it sings like a male grosbeak, which would trigger an unfriendly response from other males

WHAT IS A GYNANDROMORPH? Gynandromorphs are not all that uncommon in the wild, though the coloration or markings of some species make the results more striking than others. A gynandromorph lobster with yellow (male) coloring on one side and brown (female) on the other A gynandromorph is an organism that has both male and female characteristics - or, a male-female chimera. It's often seen in insects, though gynandromorphic birds, snakes, lobsters and other animals have been observed, too. Advertisement

It would depend on whether it sang like a male grosbeak, Lindsay said, which would attract females and possibly trigger an unfriendly territorial response from other males.

'Bilateral gynandromorphism, while very uncommon, is normal and provides an excellent example of a fascinating genetic process that few people ever encounter,' she said.

The extremely rare phenomenon occurs when two sperm fertilize an egg that has two nuclei instead of one.

The egg can developed male sex chromosomes on one side and female on the other, leading to a bird with a testis and other male characteristics on one half of its body and an ovary and other female characteristics on the other.

Female red-breasted grosbeaks are brown, with a thick white line above their eyes, and wing pits that are yellow.

Males have larger black feathers, with pink wing pits and pink dots on their chest.

This asymmetrical flyer was found on September 24 toward the end of the day, 'so we almost missed it,' Lindsay said.

The bird had not yet developed its breeding plumage, she added, when 'it's going to be even more starkly male, female.'

The colors will become even more vibrant, and 'the line between the male and female side will be even more obvious.'

While rare, bilateral gynandromorphism has been observed in lobsters, crabs, snakes, butterflies, bees, chickens and other birds.

Lindsay has only seen one other grosbeak exhibit the usual trait 15 year ago, but its coloration was much less striking.

She brought this grosbeak back to her lab, where she took its measurements, plucked a few feathers for DNA testing and shot some TikTok videos, before letting it go.

'The black wing on this grosbeak also measured longer than the brown side,' she told the Allegheny Front, 'which is consistent with the male of the species.'

Located about an hour outside Pittsburgh, the Powdermill Nature Reserve is part of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

Cabinet gives nod to Rs 8,575 crore East-West Metro Corridor project in Kolkata

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to complete the Kolkata East-West Metro Corridor Project at the cost of Rs 8,575 crore. This will give a boost to mass transit system, said Union minister Piyush Goyal while briefing media on cabinet decisions today. Read more

Choose BJP or farmers: Yogendra Yadav, farmers protest near Chautalas house, detained

The Haryana police on Wednesday detained activist Yogendra Yadav and several farmers, protesting near the houses of deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala and power and jails minister Ranjit Chautala in Sirsa, seeking resignation of the duo from the Manohar Lal Khattar led government. Read more

Sushant Singh Rajput death: Mumbai Police to take action against journalists who chase vehicles

Soon after actor Rhea Chakraborty was granted bail by Bombay high court, Mumbai Police warned journalists that strict action will be taken against media representatives if they chased the vehicle of any celebrity, advocate or a person they wanted to interview. Read more

IPL 2020: KKRs Ali Khan ruled out of tournament due to injury

In a major blow to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), USA speedster Ali Khan has been ruled out the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) following an injury. Read more

Swara Bhasker takes dig at Kangana Ranaut after AIIMS says Sushant died by suicide: Werent some people going to return awards

Actor Swara Bhaskar took a dig at Kangana Ranaut after the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) confirmed that Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide and was not murdered. Read more

Los Angeles, Pic du Midi and the Atacama Desert: Worlds most extraordinary sites for stargazing

There are very few wonders in the world that can compare to the vast magnificence of the night sky. Read more

At UNGA, 39 countries slam China over Uyghur rights abuse, Hong Kong situation

At United Nations General Assembly third committee, 39 countries joined a call urging China to respect the human rights of minority Uyghurs and expressed concern about the situation in Hong Kong. Read more

Tata Motors launches more affordable Harrier Dark Edition XT

Tata Motors has recently introduced the Harrier Dark Edition XT variant at 16.50 lakh. Read more
The battle between G4S and its hostile bidder GardaWorld heated up again today as the scandal-hit British security giant rejected its suitor's claims as 'misleading'.

GardaWorld - the Canadian rival that last month made a formal 3billion hostile takeover bid - had questioned if G4S had enough cash to pay for litigation that was 'potentially crippling'.

It had also claimed that, on top of being subject to five legal cases, G4S had serious pension funding issues.

Takeover battle: G4S reiterated once again that GardaWorld's offer of 190 pence per share 'significantly' undervalued the company and its prospects

But G4S today said its rival's 'focus on legacy issues, which are now substantially resolved, and its misleading statements' were designed to support 'its opportunistic and clearly inadequate offer'.

It said they only served the interests of GardaWorld and its private equity backer, BC Partners, rather than the interests of G4S's 'shareholders, customers, employees and pension fund members'.

It also insisted its pension schemes are 'well funded' and that it has a plan for addressing the deficit with trustees. G4S's pension scheme has assets of 2.4billion and a funding gap of 300million, according to the group.

And it reiterated once again that GardaWorld's offer of 190 pence per share 'significantly' undervalued the company and its prospects.

Around a quarter of shareholders have publicly opposed the offer. Fund manager Schroders, the biggest shareholder in G4S with a 10.4 per cent stake, has already said it is open to a deal but only at a 'fair price'.

Last week Garda was also criticised for telling investors they needed 'educating' about G4S.

G4S said today: 'The board, once again, unanimously rejected this offer as it continues to significantly undervalue the company.

'GardaWorld clearly needs a transformative acquisition in order to realise its aspiration to be a global company and this is simply not reflected in its offer of 190 pence per share.'

G4S accused GardaWorld of being a loss-making company, claiming it has reported net losses of around 940million Canadian dollars (547million) in the past three years.

G4S provides security at NHS Nightingale hospitals and handles coronavirus testing sites across the UK

The latest shots fired in the tussle come after G4S announced yesterday it had won a ten-year contract to run Five Wells prison in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, which it said shows it had won back the Government's trust.

The deal to run the 1,680 category C prison will bring in 300million over the lifetime of the contract.

G4S, which provides security at NHS Nightingale hospitals and handles coronavirus testing sites across the UK, has been at the heart of several controversies over the years.

It failed to deliver the security contract for the London Olympics, leading to the British Army being brought in. Last year, it was also stripped of its contract for running Birmingham Prison seven years early.

Shares have bounced back above 200p since the takeover battle emerged, but they were trading at around 330p in June 2017  meaning many investors are still nursing heavy paper losses.

Shares were flat at 201.80p at around midday.
According to the study, 77% of parents think that hotels need to provide more healthy options on kids' menus. Meanwhile, 79% said that an attractive, varied and healthy menu for children would enhance their experience and give them peace of mind that even on holiday, they are making the right food choices. Parents also said that their children were most likely to eat junk food while on holiday, with the top three most eaten foods globally for young travellers being pizza  44%, chicken nuggets  35% and chips  32%. Despite the limited options often available, 58% of parents said they still try to ensure their kids eat well on holiday.

Commenting on the new FoodieKiDS menu, Jumeirah Group's Chief Culinary Officer Michael Ellis said: "Our talented chefs came up with an imaginative menu with a healthy twist that we know children will want to eat, because some little foodies helped us create it. We found that when prepared and presented in an appealing way, our dishes with more fruits and vegetables, wholemeal options and less salt were a huge hit. At Jumeirah, we like to do things differently when it comes to dining and always strive to meet the ever-evolving needs of our guests so they can make the most of their time with us. FoodieKiDS will not only give parents extra peace of mind, but also make their stay even more memorable."

FoodieKiDS will be piloted at flagship family resort, Jumeirah Beach Hotel, before being rolled out further. To celebrate, kids under 12 eat free when staying at the hotel with their parents until 31 October 2020 on the Ultimate Staycation package.

www.jumeirah.com/FoodieKiDS.

About Jumeirah Group:

Jumeirah Group, a member of Dubai Holding and a global luxury hotel company, operates a world-class 6,500+-key portfolio of 26 properties across the Middle East (including the flagship Burj Al Arab Jumeirah) Europe and Asia, with more properties currently under construction around the globe.

www.jumeirah.com / @Jumeirahgroup

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-2Mhv7I7_U

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1307945/Jumeirah__FoodieKiDS.jpg

Market specific results available  contact [email protected] for more information.

Contact: Reem Diab, [email protected], +97155 702 6267

SOURCE Jumeirah Hotels and Resorts
W Energy Software is proud to deepen our relationship further with Phillips 66 to make the future of measurement a reality

W Energy Software, the new leader in upstream and midstream accounting and transaction management solutions, announces that Phillips 66 Company has signed a contract for WE Measure and has become a member of its Measurement Product Consortium. Phillips 66 will deploy W Energy Softwares next generation measurement solution following the commercial release in 2021. As a member of the Measurement Product Consortium, Phillips 66 benefits from favorably priced software licenses, unlimited enterprise wide users and meter setup, and the opportunity to shape product direction and align industry needs with product development. This announcement follows on the heels of recent news in which W Energy Software announced the launch of WE Measure backed by the industry-led Measurement Product Consortium and the appointment of senior leadership to helm the product line.

Phillips 66s digital transformation efforts showcase their forward thinking and desire for modern, automated solutions and has led Phillips 66 to partner with us, said Pete Waldroop, CEO of W Energy Software. He continued, W Energy Software is proud to deepen our relationship further with Phillips 66 to make the future of measurement a reality.

Phillips 66 is a leading energy manufacturing and logistics company with global operations. It relies on an extensive measurement network to track hydrocarbon and refined products across its vast operational footprint, ranging from gathering and pipeline management to storage, processing, and marketing.

On track for its 2021 commercial release, W Energy Software's measurement solution will provide upstream and midstream companies with essential data management capabilities to monitor gas and liquid measurement data from the wellhead through production, storage, transportation, processing, and points of sale. The measurement solution provides much needed choice in the market and will enable existing W Energy Software clients to seamlessly integrate measurement data with their W Energy Software solutions and drive new operational and cost efficiencies. W Energy Softwares Measurement Product Consortium is open to all upstream and midstream companies who will align product development with industry requirements while benefiting from early access to WE Measure, product discounts, and flexible contracts.

Top reasons for selecting W Energy Software over the competition include:



Next generation measurement capabilities for centrally managing volume, energy, and product quality data in the cloud, integrating large numbers of SCADA data sources, streamlining meter data analysis, validating measurement data, providing volume balances, and ensuring compliance with energy industry, regulatory, and accounting standards.

Superior performance enables highly complex measurement processes to be run in minutes and builds confidence in results with end to end audit trails.

Attractive multi-year measurement software licensing enables customer to deploy WE Measure across its entire operation without restriction on metered locations or end users.

W Energy Softwares reputation for customer support and partnering with customers to ensure business results.

The industrys most comprehensive single platform, modern technology deployed in the cloud enables teams to reduce IT costs.

Excitement is really starting to build as WE Measure accelerates toward its commercial release in 2021 and with Phillips 66 now leading us out of the gate, I am confident that many more midstream and upstream companies will join us in the Measurement Product Consortium to drive the direction of product development while also locking in pricing on WE measure, said Stephen Anson, Director of Measurement for W Energy Software. Participating energy companies get to define the future of measurement  I warmly invite you to join us today on this exciting journey and look forward to announcing other Measurement Product Consortium members very soon, he said.

Upstream and midstream companies interested in joining the Measurement Product Consortium are encouraged to contact Mr. Anson and the W Energy Software team today.

About W Energy Software

Headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, W Energy Software (formerly Waterfield Energy) offers the oil & gas industrys only unified ERP solution built for the cloud that is relied on by more than 100 upstream and midstream companies to accelerate business performance, improve operational efficiency, and drive costs down. W Energy Software combines precision-built software in one extendable cloud-based workspace with an intimate understanding of the oil & gas business to deliver solutions that offer flexibility, affordability, and continuous upgrades. Unlike other ERP software that loosely ties together a mix of legacy solutions and fragmented technologies, W Energy Software designed a unified upstream and midstream ERP platform to seamlessly track oil, gas, and NGL from the wellhead through transportation and marketing, eliminating data silos as well as the burden and costs of maintaining multiple systems. With W Energy Software, oil & gas companies stay lean and agile with the tools they need to adapt to market changes and meet evolving customer needs head on, all while gaining the confidence that their business is running on the latest technology. For more information, please visit https://WEnergySoftware.com.
Foreign Hackers Threaten US Election Security

The FBI and yhe US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have issued an announcement to alert the public to the potential threat of foreign interference in reporting the 2020 US election results and other disinformation campaigns. According to these government agencies, foreign actors and cybercriminals will likely create or alter websites, and share or create false social media content that discredits the electoral process and undermines confidence in US democratic institutions.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, postal ballots will be widely used in the elections this year, leaving officials with an incomplete vote on election night. Foreign threat actors will likely take advantage of this if it occurs.

State and local elections typically take several days to certify election results, ensuring that every vote cast legally has been included in the results. Foreign actors and cybercriminals could use this time gap to their advantage, releasing fake reports that claim voter suppression, cyberattack targeting election infrastructure, ballot fraud, or other issues that it claims occurred to undermine the elections legitimacy.

The US government agencies are urging Americans to take extra care in ensuring the legitimacy of their information and seeking multiple sources.

One example recently is where voters and election administrators who emailed Leanne Jackson, the clerk of rural Hamilton County in central Texas, received bureaucratic-looking replies. Re: official precinct results. But Jackson didnt send the messages. Instead, they came from Sri Lankan and Congolese email addresses, and they cleverly hid malicious software inside a Microsoft Word attachment. By the time Jackson learned about the forgery, it was too late. Hackers continued to fire off look-alike replies. Jacksons three-person office, already grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, ground to a near standstill.

The type of malware deployed against Hamilton, called Emotet, often serves as a delivery mechanism for later ransomware attacks, in which swindlers commandeer a victims computer and freeze its files until a ransom is paid. Emotet tricks users into clicking on plausible-looking messages and following phony instructions that in reality disable security settings in Microsoft Office. If successful, the ruse allows the malware to hijack the victims email conversations and send phony replies from bogus accounts. Malware attached to the messages is primed for a new set of targets automatically selected from the victims inbox, further spreading the infection.

US officials have expressed concern that those attacks, which have paralysed government agencies, police departments, schools and hospitals, could potentially disrupt the election.

Harvards Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, which specializes in establishing best practices for political campaigns and election officials, said in a February 2018 report that election officials should create a proactive security culture. For political campaigns, the group suggested using cloud-based email and office software, which are more likely to neutralise threats like Emotet before they reach a users inbox. Experts said smaller governments with fewer resources should heed that advice.

The countys email system lacks two-factor authentication, a standard protection involving a second means of verifying a users identity. It also hasnt implemented DMARC, a system that helps organisations and businesses confirm that emails sent from their addresses are authentic.

The FBI and CISA urge the American public to critically evaluate the sources of the information they consume and to seek out reliable and verified information from trusted sources, such as state and local election officials. The US public should also be aware that if foreign actors or cyber criminals were able to successfully change an election-related website, the underlying data and internal systems would remain uncompromised.

IC3: ProPubica: DefenseOne: ProgExas: KXXV: GCN: Oodaloop:

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By Marc Jones LONDON (Reuters) - The COVID-19 shock will double company default rates across the United States and Europe over the next 9 months, ratings agency S&P Global said on Tuesday, although it noted that the record downgrade pace of recent months was now slowing. S&P predicted U.S. corporate default rates would rise to 12.5% from 6.2% and saw Europe's rate going to 8.5% from 3.8%. This year's crisis has already seen more than 2,000 companies' or countries' ratings or 'outlook' scores cut and nearly $400 billion worth of debt drop into ...
(Newser)  When US attorneys objected to orders to prosecute all undocumented immigrants in May 2018, then-attorney general Jeff Sessions made clear President Trump's intentions. "We need to take away children," he told the prosecutors, per the New York Times. A week later, then-deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein complained about two cases in which US attorneys had opted not to move against adults who were with essentially infants, saying a child's age didn't matter, the Times reports, confirming previous reporting by the Guardian. It was all part of a push by top Justice Department officials to expand the president's child separation policy across the southern border following a secret 2017 pilot program in Texas, in which infants were separated from breastfeeding mothers, according to a draft report from DOJ inspector general Michael E. Horowitz.

story continues below

The 86-page report, based on documents, emails, and more than 45 interviews, describes a "single-minded focus on increasing prosecutions" with the goal of deterring illegal immigration. Horowitz concluded officials knew the zero-tolerance policy "would result in children being separated from families." While Sessions declined to be interviewed, Rosenstein told investigators that he "never ordered anyone to prosecute a case." DOJ lawyer Gene Hamilton argued officials were acting on behalf of the president, who'd ordered as many prosecutions as possible. That order left Border Patrol overstretched and unable to keep up with felony cases, per the draft report. A prosecutor in Texas noted "sex offenders were released" as a result, per the Times. NBC News has confirmed the Times' reporting. A DOJ rep, however, claims the draft is full of errors. (Read more child separation stories.)
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday that charges will be filed against two ISIS fighters who were involved with the cell that committed the 2014 murders of journalists James Foley and Steven J. Sotloff in Syria.

DOJ officials held a press conference at 11 a.m. to announce charges are being filed against El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, two British citizens who joined the Islamic State group involved in the kidnapping and murder of Western hostages.

Elsheikh and Kotey were two of the four cell members who were dubbed the Beatles, by their hostages. The nickname referred to their British accents.

According to the Washington Post, they are begin flown to the United States from Iraq on Wednesday. Each was being held by the U.S. military there for the last several months after having been captured in Syria in 2018.

According to the Associated Press, their trial in the United States will cap an effort for the last six years to bring to justice those responsible for the beheadings of American aid workers, journalists and other hostages in Syria.

Videos of the killings, released online in the form of Islamic State group propaganda, stunned the U.S. government for their unflinching violence. The recordings routinely showed prisoners in orange jumpsuits on their knees beside a captor dressed in black whose native English drove home the global reach of a group that at its peak occupied vast swaths of Syria and Iraq.

The suspects' arrival in the U.S. sets the stage for arguably the most sensational terrorism trial since the 2014 criminal case against the suspected ringleader of a deadly attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

Foley was a student in the University of Massachusetts Amherst master of fine arts program from 1999-2003.

Foley worked for Teach for America in Arizona and Chicago and volunteered at the Care Center in Holyoke, where he helped young mothers earn GEDs.

He later became an embedded journalist with the Indiana National Guard, and then with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan and Iraq, before becoming a freelance journalist working in both Libya  where he was abducted and released  and in Syria.

In 2016, the university held a two-day symposium celebrating his life called The Task of Witnessing: A Symposium in Honor of James W. Foley.

Writers, journalists and former student colleagues and teachers all paid tribute, along with Foleys parents, Diane and John Foley.

Sotloff, 31, was a Miami native who reported from a number of Middle Eastern countries for publications such as Time, the Christian Science Monitor and Foreign Policy magazine, according to The Guardian. At the time of his abduction, he was planning to go to Aleppo, Syria, to report on the citys humanitarian crisis.

The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation on Wednesday issued a statement welcoming the news on behalf of Foleys family, and the families of Sotloff and other murdered hostages.

Kotey and ElSheikhs extradition and trial in the United States will be the first step in the pursuit of justice for the alleged horrific human rights crimes against these four young Americans, who saw the suffering of the Syrian people and wanted to help, whether by providing humanitarian aid or by telling the world about the evolving Syrian crisis, the statement read.

We are hopeful that the U.S. government will finally be able to send the important message that if you harm Americans, you will never escape justice. And when you are caught, you will face the full power of American law.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi told President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday that he was looking forward to receiving the Russian leader in India as soon as the public health situation becomes normal.

Modi made the remarks when he spoke on the phone with Putin to convey his greetings and best wishes to the Russian president on the occasion of his birthday.

Both leaders agreed to remain in touch over the coming days, including on the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the external affairs ministry said.

The Prime Minister expressed his keenness to welcome President Putin in India, as soon as possible after the normalisation of the public health situation, it added.

Modi also recalled his association and friendship with Putin, and appreciated the personal role that the Russian leader has played in nurturing the special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries.

The Prime Ministers planned visit to Russia for a summit with the president and meetings of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) didnt materialise because of the travel restrictions imposed worldwide following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 12th BRICS Summit will now be held on November 17 via video conference.

Russia has also played a role in facilitating meetings between the foreign and defence ministers of India and China on the margins of SCO meetings held in Moscow last month.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Mawson Gold Limited ("Mawson" or the "Company") (TSX:MAW)(Frankfurt:MXR)(OTC PINK:MWSNF) is pleased to announce assay results from the Company's first drill hole from the 100%-owned Sunday Creek project. Drilling is part of an ongoing 5 kilometre program in the Victorian Goldfields of Australia. The project is an epizonal-style gold prospect located 56 kilometres north of Melbourne and contained with 19,365 hectares of both granted and applied for exploration tenements.

Highlights:

Diamond drillhole MDDSC001 intersected 15.2 metres @ 3.7 g/t gold from surface including 0.6 metres at 17.9 g/t gold from 10.4 metres (Tables 1-2, Figures 1-2) while testing unmined extensions of the historic Apollo mine area;

from surface including from 10.4 metres (Tables 1-2, Figures 1-2) while testing unmined extensions of the historic Apollo mine area; This is the first diamond drilling of this mineralized horizon confirming the tenor of gold mineralization found within earlier reverse-circulation drill results, using orientated HQ-sized core;

Historic gold mining between 1880-1920 at Sunday Creek occurred over a greater than 11-kilometre trend. Drilling during 1990-2000s focussed on shallow, previously mined surface workings, covering an area of 100 metres in width, 800 metres length but, only to 80 metres depth. As such, the entire field remains open along strike and to depth;

Three initial drill holes (MDDSC001-003) have been completed at the Sunday Creek gold project in the Victorian Goldfields for 345 metres of drilling. Given the intensity, style and grade of mineralization observed in this drilling, a second drill-rig will return to Sunday Creek this week to continue to define the gold mineralized system to build volume and scale.

Mr. Hudson, Chairman and CEO, states, "A strong start to our initial drilling in Australia with good gold grades intersected from surface at our 100%-owned epizonal gold project at Sunday Creek. This result confirms the tenor of gold-mineralization found in poorly located reverse circulation drilling from the 1990s and tested what appears to be an unmined area immediately from the surface. Our drilling has opened up this goldfield once again, and given our developing understanding of the intensity, style, scale and grade of mineralization, we have re-mobilized a second rig back to Sunday Creek to continue to grow the project. Meanwhile one rig also continues to drill 7 days a week at the Redcastle project."

Three initial drill holes (MDDSC001-003) totaling 345 metres have now been completed at the Sunday Creek gold project in the Victorian Goldfields. The target was high-grade veining with associated mineralized halos, typical of epizonal-style gold mineralization. Given the intensity, style and grade of mineralization observed in this drilling, a drill has been remobilized back to Sunday Creek to continue to define the gold mineralized system to build volume and scale. A geophysical crew will mobilize soon to the Sunday Creek area to test the system along its strike and to depth by undertaking gradient IP, 3D IP, gravity and ground magnetics.

Mineralization at Sunday Creek is hosted in late-Silurian to early-Devonian-aged shales and siltstones containing a series of volcanic dykes of felsic-intermediate composition. Gold is concentrated in late-aged brittle structures and dominated by two styles: a fracture hosted quartz-stibnitearsenopyrite extensional-type vein-set, and a broader zone of brittle-fault/shear hosted sulphidic mineralization with more chaotic veining and brecciation. The fracture-hosted quartz-stibnite style of veining seems to have been the focus of historical mining at Sunday Creek, while the broader fault-hosted systems appears untouched. A series of felsic dykes are known over 2.5 kilometers strike and up to 100 metres width and appear to act as a favourable host-lithology for the higher-grade gold mineralization.

Technical and Environmental Background

The true thickness of the mineralized interval is interpreted to be approximately 70% of the sampled thickness. Gold-only intersections are reported with a lower-cut of 0.5 g/t gold over a 1 metre width. No upper cut-off was applied.

A drill rig from drilling contractor Starwest Pty Ltd was used in the drill program. Core diameter was HQ (63.5 mm) and oriented. Core recoveries are excellent and average close to 100% in both oxidized and fresh rock. After photographing and logging in Mawson's core logging facilities in Nagambie, core intervals were diamond sawn in half by Mawson personnel. Half core is retained for verification and reference purposes. Analytical samples are transported to On Site Laboratory Services' Bendigo facility which operates under both an ISO 9001 and NATA quality system. Samples were prepared and analyzed for gold using the fire assay technique (25 gram charge), followed by measuring the gold in solution with flame AAS equipment. Samples for multi-element analysis aqua regia digest and ICP-MS methods. The QA/QC program of Mawson consists of the systematic insertion of certified standards of known gold content, duplicate samples by quartering the core, and blanks within interpreted mineralized rock. In addition, On Site inserts blanks and standards into the analytical process.

Qualified Person

Mr. Michael Hudson (FAusMM), Chairman and CEO for the Company, is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure or Mineral Projects and has prepared or reviewed the preparation of the scientific and technical information in this press release.

About Mawson Gold Limited (TSX:MAW, FRANKFURT:MXR, OTCPINK:MWSNF)

Mawson Gold Limited is an exploration and development company. Mawson has distinguished itself as a leading Nordic Arctic exploration company with a focus on the flagship Rajapalot gold project in Finland. The Australian gold acquisition provides Mawson with a strategic and diversified portfolio of high-quality gold exploration assets in two safe jurisdictions.

On behalf of the Board,



"Michael Hudson" Michael Hudson, Chairman & CEO Further Information

www.mawsongold.com

1305 - 1090 West Georgia St., Vancouver, BC, V6E 3V7

Mariana Bermudez (Canada), Corporate Secretary,

+1 (604) 685 9316,

info@mawsongold.com

Forward-Looking Statement

This news release contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively, "forward-looking statements"). All statements herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. Although Mawson believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate, and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Mawson cautions investors that any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, timing and successful completion of the geophysics and drill programs planned at Redcastle and Sunday Creek, capital and other costs varying significantly from estimates, changes in world metal markets, changes in equity markets, the potential impact of epidemics, pandemics or other public health crises, including the current outbreak of the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 on the Company's business, planned drill programs and results varying from expectations, delays in obtaining results, equipment failure, unexpected geological conditions, local community relations, dealings with non-governmental organizations, delays in operations due to permit grants, environmental and safety risks, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" in Mawson's most recent Annual Information Form filed on www.sedar.com. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Mawson disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.

Figure 1: Plan location of the Sunday Creek Project showing 11 km trend of historic mines (bottom left) and location of current diamond drill with historic mines and drilling (top).

Figure 2: Annotated HQ drill core (63.5mm diameter) showing downhole depth and gold grades. Mineralization starts from surface and extends down to 15.2 metres down hole depth. Gold is hosted in both sediments from 0-10.42 metres and felsic dyke from 10.42-15.2 metres. Core is oxidized and weathered. High grade gold mineralization, as shown by other drillholes at Sunday Creek, continues to depth below the surface weathering.

Table 1: Collar information from Mawson's drilling at the Sunday Creek Project

Coordinate Reference System GDA94, Zone 55 (EPSG:28355)

Hole_Id Hole_diam Easting Northing Dip Azimuth RL_m EOH_m Date Reported MDDSC001 HQ 331079.6 5867769 -55 279 318.1 67 Here MDDSC002 HQ 331084.7 5867771 -65 250 317.6 150.3 TBA MDDSC003 HQ 330776.3 5867892 -65 240 294.9 127.7 TBA

Table 2: Individual assay data from drill holes reported in this press release.

Hole_Id From (m) To (m) Length (m) Sample ID Gold g/t MDDSC001 0 0.45 0.45 61000101 2.52 MDDSC001 0.45 1.2 0.75 61000102 0.75 MDDSC001 1.2 2.2 1 61000103 1.11 MDDSC001 2.2 2.95 0.75 61000104 9.38 MDDSC001 2.95 3.2 0.25 61000105 3.12 MDDSC001 3.2 3.68 0.48 61000106 2.00 MDDSC001 3.68 4.5 0.82 61000107 4.53 MDDSC001 4.5 5.3 0.8 61000108 2.01 MDDSC001 5.3 5.95 0.65 61000109 0.70 MDDSC001 5.95 6.1 0.15 61000110 15.80 MDDSC001 6.1 6.37 0.27 61000111 0.82 MDDSC001 6.37 6.63 0.26 61000112 0.54 MDDSC001 6.63 7.65 1.02 61000113 0.78 MDDSC001 7.65 8.3 0.65 61000114 5.73 MDDSC001 8.3 9 0.7 61000115 3.95 MDDSC001 9 10 1 61000116 2.03 MDDSC001 10 10.12 0.12 61000117 3.55 MDDSC001 10.12 10.42 0.3 61000118 2.70 MDDSC001 10.42 11 0.58 61000119 17.90 MDDSC001 11 12 1 61000121 7.43 MDDSC001 12 13 1 61000122 2.66 MDDSC001 13 14 1 61000123 0.76 MDDSC001 14 14.9 0.9 61000124 3.40 MDDSC001 14.9 15.1 0.2 61000125 3.65 MDDSC001 15.1 15.2 0.1 61000126 3.20 MDDSC001 15.2 16.2 1 61000127 0.15 MDDSC001 16.2 17.2 1 61000128 0.05 MDDSC001 17.2 18.2 1 61000129 <0.01 MDDSC001 18.2 19.2 1 61000130 <0.01 MDDSC001 19.2 20.2 1 61000131 <0.01 MDDSC001 20.2 21.2 1 61000132 <0.01 MDDSC001 21.2 22.2 1 61000133 0.01 MDDSC001 22.2 23.2 1 61000134 0.05 MDDSC001 23.2 24.2 1 61000135 0.19 MDDSC001 24.2 25.2 1 61000136 0.20 MDDSC001 25.2 26.2 1 61000137 <0.01 MDDSC001 26.2 27.2 1 61000138 0.01 MDDSC001 27.2 28.2 1 61000139 0.05 MDDSC001 28.2 29.2 1 61000141 0.08 MDDSC001 29.2 30.2 1 61000142 <0.01 MDDSC001 30.2 31.2 1 61000143 <0.01 MDDSC001 31.2 32.2 1 61000144 0.03 MDDSC001 32.2 33.2 1 61000145 0.01 MDDSC001 33.2 34.05 0.85 61000146 0.01 MDDSC001 34.05 34.85 0.8 61000147 0.01 MDDSC001 34.85 35.1 0.25 61000148 0.06 MDDSC001 35.1 36.1 1 61000149 0.04 MDDSC001 36.1 36.5 0.4 61000150 0.11 MDDSC001 36.5 37.35 0.85 61000151 0.14 MDDSC001 37.35 37.8 0.45 61000152 0.07 MDDSC001 37.8 38.45 0.65 61000153 0.18 MDDSC001 38.45 39.45 1 61000154 <0.01 MDDSC001 39.45 39.9 0.45 61000155 0.02 MDDSC001 39.9 40.35 0.45 61000156 0.06 MDDSC001 40.35 41.1 0.75 61000157 0.14 MDDSC001 41.1 41.33 0.23 61000158 0.03 MDDSC001 41.33 42 0.67 61000159 0.08 MDDSC001 42 43 1 61000161 0.09 MDDSC001 43 43.4 0.4 61000162 0.05 MDDSC001 43.4 44 0.6 61000163 0.21 MDDSC001 44 45 1 61000164 0.16 MDDSC001 45 45.7 0.7 61000165 0.14 MDDSC001 45.7 46.25 0.55 61000166 0.01 MDDSC001 46.25 46.4 0.15 61000167 0.03 MDDSC001 46.4 47.4 1 61000168 0.20 MDDSC001 47.4 47.75 0.35 61000169 0.22 MDDSC001 47.75 48.75 1 61000170 0.12 MDDSC001 48.75 49.75 1 61000171 0.18 MDDSC001 49.75 50.5 0.75 61000172 0.05 MDDSC001 50.5 51.5 1 61000173 0.08 MDDSC001 51.5 52.5 1 61000174 0.02 MDDSC001 52.5 53.5 1 61000175 0.04 MDDSC001 53.5 54.5 1 61000176 0.08 MDDSC001 54.5 55.5 1 61000177 0.08 MDDSC001 55.5 56.15 0.65 61000178 2.59 MDDSC001 56.15 56.4 0.25 61000179 1.01 MDDSC001 56.4 57.4 1 61000181 0.19 MDDSC001 57.4 58.4 1 61000182 0.01 MDDSC001 58.4 59.1 0.7 61000183 0.02 MDDSC001 59.1 60.1 1 61000184 0.06 MDDSC001 60.1 60.9 0.8 61000185 0.03 MDDSC001 60.9 61.1 0.2 61000186 0.02 MDDSC001 61.1 61.78 0.68 61000187 0.10 MDDSC001 61.78 62.2 0.42 61000188 0.25 MDDSC001 62.2 62.5 0.3 61000189 0.05 MDDSC001 62.5 62.75 0.25 61000190 0.18 MDDSC001 62.75 63.6 0.85 61000191 0.09 MDDSC001 63.6 64 0.4 61000192 0.58 MDDSC001 64 64.55 0.55 61000193 0.13 MDDSC001 64.55 64.72 0.17 61000194 2.02 MDDSC001 64.72 65 0.28 61000195 0.53 MDDSC001 65 66 1 61000196 0.22 MDDSC001 66 67 1 61000197 0.12

SOURCE: Mawson Gold Limited

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609497/Mawson-Drills-152-metres-at-37-gt-Gold-from-Surface-in-First-Hole-at-Sunday-Creek-in-Victoria-Australia
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted bail to actor Rhea Chakraborty in a drugs case related to her boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajputs death. The court rejected the argument that celebrities deserve specially harsh treatment in such cases so as to `send out a message.

After spending 28 days in jail, Rhea stepped out of the Byculla womens prison here around 5.30 pm amid a scrum of mediapersons. While granting her bail on a personal bond of Rs one lakh, the court asked the actor to appear before the Mumbai police for 10 days and before the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB, which had arrested her) once a month for the next six months.

Justice Sarang Kotwal of the HC also granted bail to Rajputs domestic aides Dipesh Sawant and Samuel Miranda, but rejected the bail plea of Rhea brother Showik Chakraborty. The court also rejected the bail plea of alleged drug peddler Abdel Basit Parihar.

The HC observed in its order that Rhea did not have any criminal antecedents, and it was unlikely that she would tamper with evidence or affect the probe while out on bail. Rhea, however, cant leave Mumbai without the NCBs permission and for traveling outside the country, she will need permission from the special NDPS court here, the HC said.

The NCB has charged Rhea under the stringent Section 27-A of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act that pertains to financing and harbouring illegal drug trafficking. It entails imprisonment up to 10 years in prison and a bar on the grant of bail. The HC said simply paying for a particular drug transaction does not qualify as financing drug traffic.

The allegations against the applicant of spending money in procuring drugs for Sushant Singh Rajput will not, therefore, mean that she had financed illicit traffic, the court said. It also noted that harbouring an offender as described under the Act would mean providing money for that persons drug consumption while also giving him shelter and food.

Rajput, for whom Rhea allegedly procured drugs, had no apprehension of arrest and therefore, the charge of harbouring too could not be applied, it said. The court also dismissed the argument that Rheas bail be rejected to `send out a strong message to society.

The learned ASG (additional solicitor general) had argued that celebrities and role models should be treated harshly so that it sets an example for the young generationI do not agree, Justice Kotwal said.

Everybody is equal before law. No celebrity or role model enjoys any special privilege before the court of law.Similarly, such person also does not incur any special liability when he faces law in the courts, he said.

The HC, however, rejected the bail plea of Rheas brother Showik. The applicant (Showik) was facilitating procurement of drugs from one party for supplying them to Sushant Singh Rajput. He was clearly involved in illicit trafficking or illegal trade of drugs, the court said.

The applicant appears to be an important link in the chain of drug dealers. He was in touch with different dealers.He had monetary transactions with the, the court said.

Justice Kotwal also held that a detailed interpretation of the NDPS Act and previous judgments of the Supreme Court showed that all offences under the Act were non-bailable. Also, section 27-A can be invoked even if quantity of the drug is not commercial, the judge said. However, in Rheas case, since there was no financing or harbouring (of drugs or its consumers), Section 27-A could not be applied, the HC said.

Granting bail to Miranda and Dipesh Sawant, the court said they had simply procured or collected drugs on directions of Rajput or Rhea. Rheas lawyer Satish Maneshinde said that truth and justice have prevailed. The hounding and witch-hunt by three central agenciesthe CBI, ED and NCB of Rhea should come to an end. We remain committed to truth, he said.

Rajput, 34, was found hanging at his apartment in suburban Bandra on June 14. After a case of alleged abetment of suicide was registered against Rhea by Rajputs parents, a parallel probe into alleged drug procurement by her also began on the basis of her WhatsApp chats.
The party expressed the fear that the Hathras issue might see the explosion of Dalit communitys anger

Mumbai: In a serious allegation, the Shiv Sena has indicated that the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government had a hand in the midnight cremation of the gangrape victim at Hathras. The UP government cremated the victims body and also tried to suppress her familys voice by using the police force, the Sena said.

The Yogi government has now recommended a CBI probe into the Hathras case even when the victims family has sought a judicial enquiry into the matter. But what will the CBI do when the government itself destroyed the evidence by cremating the victim. Did the Hathras Police do this without asking the higher authorities? All this has happened in connivance with each other, said Shiv Sena in an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamana on Tuesday.

The party expressed the fear that the Hathras issue might see the explosion of Dalit communitys anger. The Centre provided 'Y-plus' security to an actress from Mumbai, but the family of Hathras Dalit victim is receiving threats to life and is living under terror. This is not in line with Dr Ambedkars constitution based on equal justice, it added.

Chandrashekhar Azad, the chief of Bheem Army, has demanded that Dalits should get a weapon license for self-defense and also a fifty percent subsidy for buying weapons. This is the first spark (of their anger) and the government should not add fuel to it, the Sena said.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party also said that the Hathras incident has exposed masks of many pretentious people. Those who tried to defame Maharashtra in connection with actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death case have fallen into a pit themselves due to the Hathras episode, it said.
Mumbai, Oct 7 : The Maharashtra Congress on Wednesday alleged that some fake Twitter accounts posted 25 tweets per minute using the same hashtags, all on the topic of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput with deliberate intent to slander the Maharashtra government.

A delegation of state Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant along with party leaders Raju Waghmare, Ratnakar Singh, met Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh to submit evidence on the same and demanded setting up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter thoroughly.

"The Bharatiya Janata Party has unleashed a new wave of 'social media terror' by overnight launching thousands of Twitter and Facebook accounts through hired IT companies. This is a pre-planned conspiracy by BJP against democracy and must be exposed," Sawant later said in a statement.

He said that information collected from Twitter about this notorious social media campaign has been handed over to the Mumbai Police for further action.

"This includes the names of these hired (IT) companies, the fake and genuine accounts on social media and other details," Sawant said.

He claimed that thousands of such fake accounts were opened overnight using false identities and providing bogus details of the alleged users as part of the intrigue to tarnish the state government's image on social media.

"There is an unusual pattern noticed in this. Most of these Twitter handles seem to be tweeting at the rate of 25 per minute, on the same topic of Sushant, and all using common hashtags. No ordinary user of Facebook or Twitter can post or tweet 40,000 posts in just three months," Sawant pointed out to the police chief.

Going by the history, the kind and number of tweets and retweets on the same issue (Sushant), it is clearly a "deliberate and planned conspiracy" against the state government and the city police, he pointed out.

"It also appears that the sole purpose of the campaign was to paint a picture that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is allegedly trying to save his son and that is why the Mumbai Police was trying to suppress the (Sushant) case. Based on these fake tweets/posts, certain agenda-driven TV channels were seen spreading the propaganda," Sawant said.

The Congress delegation's visit came a day after Mumbai Police said that it has registered two specific cases on fake social media posts and were probing over 80,000 such fraudulent accounts that were used to viciously target and tarnish the state government and city police.

In this context, the delegation pointed out that the University of Michigan and US newspapers have exposed the issue of BJP's alleged links with the big social media players.

Sawant said a similar modus operandi was used in the Delhi riots and the lynching of two sadhus and their driver in Palghar in April, and a similar strategy could be deployed in future to spread social unrest and destabilise non-BJP state governments.
San Mateo County Sheriff's Office

On Tuesday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced that five suspects behind one of the biggest theft rings in state history were arrested in a multi-agency operation called Operation Proof of Purchase.

KPIX reported that over $8 million in household goods, including $1 million in razors, were recovered on a raid on September 30. They were stolen primarily from CVS retail stores, investigators said.
The freshers' week lockdown could have played a part in the deaths of four young people at Newcastle University, a professor has warned.

Jeni Larmour (18), from Newtownhamilton in Co Armagh, died suddenly at the weekend at university accommodation in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

Northumbria Police confirmed that 10 arrests had been made in relation to the deaths of four young people, three of them students, at the weekend.

An 18-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of supplying a class B drug. He was later released on bail.

Professor Fiona Measham, chair in criminology at Liverpool University and co-founder of The Loop - a harm reduction charity which promotes health and well-being in nightlife venues - said freshers' week in lockdown may have played a part in the deaths.

"There's no nightclubs, and pubs close at 10pm," she said.

"Nightclubs are a semi-safe space, they have registered door staff and security, the bigger clubs often have paramedics, they have chill out spaces.

"If you don't have nightclubs open, you lose that safety net."

But Newcastle University pro-vice chancellor Professor Chris Day disagreed, saying freshers' week had barely begun, and stressed that there are support services for new students.

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"Whatever difficulties you have gone through, we have ample support both at the university and in the city," he said.

"Whatever those problems are, please do not turn to excessive alcohol or drugs to solve them because you have seen the potential consequences."

Chief Inspector Steve Wykes said: "Illegal drugs are never safe and the danger that they pose cannot be under-estimated."

Jeni was found unconscious just after 6pm on Saturday at her halls of residence.

She was just weeks into her first year of studying architecture and urban planning.

Jeni was a past pupil of Armagh Royal School and was deputy head girl in her final year.

Emergency services were summoned to the scene at her student accommodation at Richardson Road in the city. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Officers said a large-scale investigation is under way, including searching student accommodation with drug dogs as they issued an urgent warning to the public about the dangers.
India's largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), on October 7 reported better-than-expected numbers as the company showed improvement on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis and beat market estimates on most parameters.

The company's profit after tax came at Rs 7,475 crore for the quarter ended September 2020 against Rs 7,008 crore in the previous quarter. A CNBC-TV18 poll had estimated it to be around Rs 6,744 crore.

Consolidated revenue from operations for the quarter stood at Rs 40,135 crore, higher than the Rs 38,322 crore reported in the June quarter of FY21 and a CNBC-TV18 poll of Rs 39,330 crore.

The company also announced the appointment of Samir Seksaria as Chief Financial Officer Designate. He would take over from Ramakrishnan V. as the Chief Financial Officer, effective May 1, 2021, the company said.

Read more: TCS Q2 profit grows 6.7% to Rs 7,475 crore QoQ

Here are ket 8 points of TCS Q2 scorecard:

The numbers: Revenue grew 4.7 percent QoQ and 3 percent YoY to Rs 40,135 crore while constant currency (CC) revenue rose 4.8 percent QoQ, but declined 3.2 percent YoY.

The company's net income came at Rs 8,433 crore, up 20.3 percent QoQ and 4.9 percent YoY. The company said its operating margin expanded 2.2 percent YoY to 26.2 percent while net margin came at 21 percent.

Provision of Rs 1,218 crore: The company's reported profit was impacted by the provision of Rs 1,218 crore in the EPIC Systems Corporation legal case.

However, adjusted profit was strongly led by revenue growth and margin expansion.

Growth drivers: "BFSI (up 6.2 percent), Retail and CPG (up 8.8 percent) and Life Sciences and Healthcare (up 6.9 percent) led the growth," TCS said.

Technology & Services grew 3.1 percent, Manufacturing 1.4 percent, while Communications & Media degrew by 2.4 percent, the company added.

TCS said all markets showed good sequential growth, with North America growing 3.6 percent, the UK at 3.8 percent and Continental Europe 6.1 percent.

As per the company, emerging markets also grew well, with India growing 20 percent, MEA 8 percent, Latin America 5.5 percent, and Asia Pacific 2.9 percent.

"A surge in future-focused discretionary investments for growth and transformation drove a strong, broad-based rebound in growth across industry verticals and geographies, led by Cloud & Security, Analytics and Cognitive Business Operations," TCS said.

Deals: The company sealed many deals in the September quarter.

As per the BSE filing, Albertsons, a leading food and drug retailer in the US, TPG Telecom, a full-service telecommunications provider in Australia, and Toyota Motors North America were some of the companies that collaborated with TCS to avail its services.

IT services attrition at an all-time low: In Q2, its IT services attrition rate (LTM) was at 8.9 percent, an all-time low, TCS said.

TCS' consolidated headcount stood at 4,53,540 as of September 30, 2020, with a diverse workforce comprising 147 nationalities, and women constituted 36.4 percent of the base, said the company.

Over 3,52,000 employees have been trained on multiple new technologies, and over 4,27,000 have been trained on Agile methods, TCS said.

Dividend: The company has announced a second interim dividend of Rs 12 per equity share of Rs 1 each of the company. The second interim dividend shall be paid on November 3, 2020.

Buyback: The company announced a share buyback proposal of Rs 16,000 crore.

The company said: "The board has approved a proposal to buy back up to 5,33,33,333 equity shares, being 1.42 percent of the total paid-up equity share capital, at Rs 3,000 per equity share for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 16,000 crore (excluding taxes and related expenses), on a proportionate basis under the tender offer route using the stock exchange mechanism, subject to the approval of the members by means of a special resolution through a postal ballot.

Management commentary: Rajesh Gopinathan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the company, said: "Driving accelerated business value realisation of our customers' digital investments has resulted in broad-based revenue growth. The strong order book, a very robust deal pipeline, and continued market share gains give us confidence for the future."

N Ganapathy Subramaniam, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Director, said: "Our all-round performance this quarter is a huge endorsement of the increased relevance of our services and solutions to our clients as they pivot from risk mitigation to long-term resilience powered by cloud, digital andsimplification of working methods."
BEARDSTOWN  Central Illinois Foodbank will be distributing food Thursday at the Beardstown Elks Lodge at 205 E. Second St.

Food will be available to anyone while supplies last. Registration is not required and there are no financial requirements. Those who take part are asked to wear a mask and clear a space in their trunk or back seat before they pick up food.
Gamers left in the dark for nearly two weeks after they tried to pre-order the new Microsoft Xbox using the 'buy now, pay later' service Klarna have now been told if they want the console, they will have to pay for it in one go on the day of its release after all.

And those who had hard credit checks run on them and were told a direct debit had been set up by Klarna to pay for the console over two years were emailed on Tuesday telling them their application had been unsuccessful and they'd missed out.

The Swedish firm said 'a small proportion' of customers had been affected, but the numbers likely run into the hundreds if not thousands after it said demand for the new Xbox had been 'ten times' what it forecast.

Klarna issued a 'final update' on the Xbox pre-order debacle at the end of last week. Thousands were likely left with hard credit checks for financing applications for a console they did not get

Customers on social media platform Twitter said their credit scores had been damaged by the credit check, which unlike a 'soft' search appears on a customer's credit file and is visible to other prospective lenders, for financing they have now not received.

And another group of customers previously told by Smyths Toys there would be a console available for them to pre-order, after a bungle between the retailer and Klarna saw it run out of stock, were emailed last week to say this had been sent by mistake 'to a very small number of customers'.

It said the email should only have been sent to those who had been approved for financing by Klarna, as opposed to those whose status was left in doubt after a 'technical error' left them unable to complete their purchase, even though they were told a direct debit had been set up with Klarna.

The retailer, which along with GAME offered two versions of the new console as part of a bundle costing either 20.99 or 28.99 a month for two years, said in its email last Wednesday that those wrongly told a console would be reserved for them would be able to get one.

However, they would have to purchase it in-store from Smyths Toys, would not include the add-ons featured in the 'All Access' offer, and would have to pay in full when they collected the console on release day on 10 November.

This has effectively left them in the exact same situation they would have been in had they not bothered trying to pre-order using Klarna, leaving them with hard credit checks on their file for no reason.

Customers told their applications for Klarna financing were unsuccessful still have 'hard' checks on their credit file, with some reporting their credit score had been hit

That email last Wednesday came eight days after the original mix-up between Klarna and Smyths, a period in which shoppers were promised an update on how to complete their pre-order which never came.

Those affected also missed out on the chance of trying to pre-order the console the next day or purchase it from elsewhere, as they were either told not to try again by Klarna's customer services team or were waiting on a response from the retailer.

Shoppers would likely have been more than happy to pay up in the first place, with the offer paid for through Klarna working out cheaper in the long run.

Shoppers were emailed by Klarna telling them a direct debit had been set up to pay for the Xbox. However it has since told people that their applications were actually unsuccessful

The Swedish company offers three ways for consumers to pay either in instalments or a month after ordering something, but only its financing agreement requires a hard credit check.

One customer caught up in the situation, Phil Lunt, previously told This is Money: 'I could've bought a Series X outright, the only reason I wanted to go down the All Access route was because I thought it was a good deal for the console plus Game Pass Ultimate in the long run.'

Klarna has been trying to get a grip on the situation since the debacle on 22 September. It published a post on its website last Friday in what it described as a 'final update'.

Klarna had partnered with Smyths Toys and GAME to offer a 24-month bundle for the new Xbox which is released next month

It said those who had applied for Klarna financing and had received an email confirming a direct debit had been set up had not had their applications completed after all.

'As a result', it said, 'you have not secured an Xbox All Access pre-order console. We realise that this will be a disappointment to you and we are truly sorry for the experience you have had trying to secure the latest Xbox console.

We will reserve an Xbox Series X or S console on release day available to be purchased by you from your chosen Smyths Toys Superstore. Please note, this will not be under Xbox All Access, and will need to be paid for in full when the console is collected Smyths Toys email on 30 September

'If you would like to receive updates when new stock becomes available, you can sign up for your retailers' newsletter on their websites. When new stock becomes available, you can apply again for the Xbox All Access package with Klarna Financing.'

An email sent by Smyths Toys to another person who tried to pre-order the Xbox and seen by This is Money said it 'expected there to be further stock available before Christmas, so we ask that you keep an eye on our website for further stock replenishments.'

It said it had cancelled customers' direct debits and would wipe all Klarna searches from applicants' credit reports by 16 October, as they had not required credit after all, which would hopefully reverse any damage to any credit scores.

Klarna refused to disclose how many shoppers had been affected but some people on Twitter said the hard search remained on their credit report for now and negatively impacted their score.

One customer, Jonny Archer, was even wrongly told on Tuesday by Klarna's customer services that he needed to contact the credit reference agency TransUnion to get the hard check removed.

One shopper who had a hard check Klarna was initially told he needed to ask the credit reference agency for it to be removed. However its customer services were subsequently corrected by its own Twitter account. Klarna is currently removing these hard checks

This message was subsquently corrected by Klarna's customer services Twitter account and it said this was an error.

The credit reference agency Experian previously told This is Money people who spot errors on their credit files should report them to the lender which made them.

It added: 'We have spent the last ten days analysing the opening of the pre-order window for the latest Xbox. There was huge demand, over ten times forecasts and we processed thousands of successful orders.

'Unfortunately, for a small proportion of customers, we are disappointed to say that their experience did not meet the expectations that we set ourselves.

'We have apologised before, and want to reiterate that for this group of customers we are aware that the experience was disappointing and frustrating.

'Whilst it is of limited comfort, we have learned from the experience and have already worked alongside our partners to put in place some changes to help make sure this does not happen in the future.'

It said those who still had questions or problems should contact its customer services.
With less than a month to go to the election, Michelle Obama released a 24-minute-long video in which she lectures her supporters to vote against Trump. While she found time to throw a few kind words to Biden, Michelle used the bulk of the video to call Trump a liar and racist. As always, Michelle's facts were false, while her words were intended to trigger people's irrational fears. Her performance was disgraceful  and was almost certainly intended to counteract Trump's rising popularity among blacks and Hispanics.

As you may have gathered, I dislike Michelle Obama, so let me get my biases out of the way. This is a woman who had every opportunity in life  a stable, two-parent upbringing; a middle-class lifestyle; Ivy League undergraduate and law school educations; high-paying jobs created specifically for her; eight years as the most worshiped, photographed woman in the world after Princess Diana; and an equally worshipful postWhite House life, complete with $65 million in her pocket.

But is Michelle happy? No. Has she ever been happy? No.

Michelle buys into Critical Race Theory. The result is that one of the most fortunate women in the world is constantly angry, embittered, and resentful. I suspect that part of her anger is because she knows, in her heart of hearts, that she's earned nothing that's come her way. Whatever Michelle has, she got because of her skin color, not because of any talent or skill. It cheapens her, and she knows it.

That's why it didn't surprise me that Michelle released a video attacking Trump. It was to be expected that she'd make what's now a common Democrat argument, which is that Trump killed 200,000 Americans. In essence, Democrats contend that Trump failed during the pandemic because he did not take dictatorial control over America. Instead, he callously allowed Democrat governors to bungle things, slaughtering tens of thousands of people in their states.

Michelle also spared a few kind words for Biden, whom she laughably described as a man of character and experience who can solve America's problems. This serial liar, plagiarizer, and China panderer has been in government for 47 years without acquiring wisdom.

Where Michelle outdid herself was in painting Trump as a race-hustler complete with dog whistles. Politico's summary is as good as any other:

Obama also excoriated Trump's response to nationwide protests against racial injustice and police brutality that emerged over the summer. She accused the president and his allies of "stoking fears about Black and Brown Americans," "lying about how minorities will destroy the suburbs," and "whipping up violence and intimidation" amid largely peaceful mass demonstrations.

"What the president is doing is, once again, patently false. It's morally wrong. And yes, it is racist," she said, warning that "racism, fear [and] division  are powerful weapons" that can "destroy this nation if we don't deal with them head-on."

Michelle's argument rests on the claim that 93% of the Black Lives Matter protests across American were peaceful. Playing this numbers game ignores that not all protests are created equal.

It doesn't matter that a march in Marin County or Cape Cod was polite. What matters is that the 7% of violent protests (with blacks and whites participating with equal enthusiasm) resulted in $2 billion in losses from looting, vandalism, and arson. And that doesn't even count the lives lost.

What matters is that the black community in Minneapolis may never recover. (South Los Angeles still hasn't recovered from capital flight following the 1992 Rodney King riots.) It matters that Chicago has a $1.2-billion budget deficit from lockdowns and looting. And tiny Kenosha saw its business district reduced to smoldering ruins in a matter of days. Lastly, Michelle's misleading statistic ignores the many lives lost during the rioting.

There's a reason Michelle is telling lies to attack Trump as a racist. The Blexit movement, led by rising stars like Brandon Tatum, Candace Owens, and stalwart conservatives like Larry Elder and Thomas Sowell, is breaking through to blacks. As of October 1, 15% of blacks supported Trump (as did 36.5% of Hispanics).

I'll end with three videos. The first is Michelle's harangue. The second puts Michelle's words side-by-side with the violence she denies. The third is a black man whose oration explains the fear driving Michelle's demagoguery.

WATCH: Michelle Obama says that protests aren't violent and Trump is lying about it... So I made a side-by-side video proving her VERY wrong. pic.twitter.com/cwC67ahBsx  Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) October 6, 2020

Image: Michelle Obama closing argument. YouTube screen grab.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 02:46:46|Editor: huaxia

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ADEN, Yemen, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- At least 12 members of the Houthi group were killed Tuesday as pro-government Yemeni forces repulsed a rebel attack in the country's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, a military official told Xinhua.

According to the military source who asked to remain anonymous, "the Houthi militia launched a large-scale armed attack against the government military locations in Tuhyata district."

"The government soldiers valiantly engaged in intense armed confrontations with the Houthis and aborted their assault," the source said.

He confirmed that the government forces killed around 12 Houthi attackers and injured several others during the fighting.

"Two military vehicles belonging to the Houthis were destroyed during the armed confrontations with the government forces," the source added.

Hodeidah has seen a shaky cease-fire between the government forces of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Houthi rebels since both sides reached a UN-sponsored truce in Stockholm in December 2018.

Part of the strategic port city is under control of the Houthi rebels, while the government forces have advanced to the southern and eastern outskirts.

Yemen has been mired in civil war since late 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi group seized control of much of the country's north and forced the Saudi-backed government of Hadi out of the capital Sanaa. Enditem
Grand jury indicts Netflix over 'lewd' depiction of children in 'Cuties'

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A grand jury in Texas has indicted Netflix on a criminal charge of promoting lewd depictions of children for offering the film Cuties on its streaming service.

Netflix has garnered controversy in recent months for its decision to carry the French film Cuties, which features 11-year-old girls dancing provocatively and simulating sex acts, and has been compared to child porn.

Texas state Rep. Matt Schaefer posted a photo on Twitter Tuesday of the first page of the indictment, made last month by a grand jury in Tyler County.

Tuesday's indictment said Netflix did knowingly promote visual material which depicts the lewd exhibition of the genitals or public area of a minor which has no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Tyler County Criminal District Attorney Lucas Babin said in a statement posted to social media on Tuesday that after watching Cuties, he believed there was probable cause to believe it was criminal under Section 43.262 of the Texas Penal Code.

The legislators of this state believe promoting certain lewd material of children has destructive consequences. If such material is distributed on a grand scale, isnt the need to prosecute more, not less? stated Babin.

A grand jury in Tyler county found probable cause for this felony, and my job is to uphold the laws of this State and see that justice is done.

Netflix, which has lost more than 2.5 million subscribers, defended its decision to release the film, also known as Mignonnes in French, arguing that the movie is meant to send a moral message against the sexualizing of children.

'Cuties' is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children, said Netflix in a statement given to NBC News on Tuesday. This charge is without merit and we stand by the film.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said in a statement that he had queried Netflix CEO Reed Hastings about concerns regarding the film, especially the potentially illegal content.

Asked whether the sexualization of young girls depicted in 'Cuties' constituted criminal conduct, Netflix offered only conclusory statements in denial. I am not convinced, said Lee.

Netflix itself acknowledges that the conduct of the young girls in 'Cuties' is inappropriate, shameful, and a hallmark of a cultural failing. I couldnt agree more. What I cannot understand, however, is how Netflix can condemn the conduct depicted in Cuties, while celebrating the film and filmmakers who asked several underage girls to stand in front of a camera and engage in that same inappropriate, shameful conduct for all the world to see.

Written and directed by Maimouna Doucoure, the film centers on an 11-year-old Senegalese Muslim girl who joins an all-girl dance team that engages in sexually-suggestive dance routines.

Doucoure told Medium that they "auditioned 700 girls" for the film. Questions have since been raised about the audition tapes and what the filmmakers asked each girl to do during the audition.

Last month, many urged former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama to speak out against "Cuties" since they signed a $50 million deal with Netflix. Viewers made similar demands of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who signed a $150 million deal with Netflix.

Netflix first garnered outrage over Cuties over its promotional artwork that showed the young girls, including the main character, in scantily clad outfits and posing suggestively.

While Netflix apologized for the artwork and changed its advertising for Cuties, many still called for users to cancel their accounts with the streaming service for carrying the film.

Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii was among the prominent political figures to condemn the film, taking to Twitter to call on people to cancel their subscriptions to Netflix.

[Netflixs] child porn Cuties will certainly whet the appetite of pedophiles & help fuel the child sex trafficking trade. 1 in 4 victims of trafficking are children. It happened to my friend's 13 year old daughter. Netflix, you are now complicit. #CancelNetflix, tweeted Gabbard.

Last month, the data analytics firm YipitData found that by Sept. 12, the cancellation rate for Netflix was eight times higher than the average daily levels recorded last month.
Low cost carrier easyJet will temporarily end all operations to Ljubljana at the start of the 2020/2021 winter season, with the carrier to suspend flights from London Gatwick to the Slovenian capital on October 23. It comes after Slovenia was recently removed from the United Kingdoms air corridor list, effectively becoming off-limits for British travellers. As a result, all passengers arriving from Slovenia to the UK are required to quarantine for fourteen days upon arrival. Furthermore, Slovenia itself has placed the UK on its red list, which requires ten days of quarantine for most arrivals from the country. easyJet previously discontinued flights from Stansted to Ljubljana, due to its base closure, and has also terminated operations from Berlin to the Slovenian capital until the 2021 summer season.





easyJet is expected to make its return to Ljubljana on December 11 when it inaugurates its new route from London Luton. Services from Gatwick are set to be restored a week later, on December 17. However, if travel restrictions persist on both sides, it is highly likely some or all flights may be cancelled. Prior to the pandemic and following the demise of Adria Airways late last year, easyJet was Slovenias largest carrier, while Stansted - Ljubljana was the busiest out of the three routes it maintained to the country. This November, for the first time in over a decade, Ljubljana will no longer be served by a single low cost carrier with Wizz Air and Transavia also having suspended their operations to the city.





easyJet is struggling under the strain of the ongoing pandemic. An airline union official said he believes the carrier is "hanging by a thread". In a leaked recording, Martin Entwisle said the company was in a "really, really dire situation". Mr Entwisle made the comment after a meeting with the airline's Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Findlay. Like all airlines, easyJet had to take drastic measures in response to the pandemic. It placed around 80% of its pilots on the UK government's furlough scheme and secured a 600 million pound loan from the states emergency coronavirus fund. In May it announced that it planned to lay off up to 4.500 staff across Europe. The airline, which at the start of the pandemic owned over 80% of its aircraft according to Mr Entwisle, has sold over 30% of them, and leased them back, to plough money into the company, and "more aircraft are about to be sold". Mr Entwisle also said the winter is looking "dire" and will result in the airline cutting back significantly on its schedule. He claims that peak flying each day during the winter "is not going to exceed ninety aircraft in the UK".
Massachusetts health officials reported 465 new coronavirus cases on Monday after seeing several days of daily reports reaching more than 600.

There are now 132,905 confirmed COVID cases in Massachusetts.

Mondays positive tests are based on 11,265 new molecular tests reported by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Health officials also announced another 20 COVID-related deaths, bringing the statewide death count to 9,315 since the pandemic began.

There are currently 473 people hospitalized with COVID-19, including 88 patients in intensive care.

The seven-day, weighted average of positive molecular tests remains at 1.1%. Massachusetts saw nearly all of September below 1%.

Nearly half of U.S. states are seeing a sustained rise in COVID-19 cases, including notably North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Utah, Iowa and Idaho, among others, according to a New York Times analysis. Those states have seen at least 15 new cases per 100,000 people on average each day over the past week.

Cases continue to climb in Massachusetts, where over the past week theres been an average of 615 cases per day, the Times reports. As of Sunday, that represents a 59% increase in daily cases from the average two weeks earlier.

The latest data comes the day Massachusetts enters Step 2 of Phase 3 of Gov. Charlie Bakers reopening plan, meaning, among other things, indoor and outdoor performance venues can scale up to 50% capacity, or to a maximum of 250 people, in lower-risk COVID communities.

Indoor and outdoor recreational facilities with trampolines, obstacle courses, roller rinks and laser tag will also be permitted to open and capacity will increase to 50%; fitting rooms can open in all types of retail stores; and gyms, museums, libraries and driving and flight schools can also scale up to 50% capacity.

The latest data also comes amid continued concerns over the health of President Donald Trump following mixed reports over the severity of his COVID illness after announcing Friday that he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for the virus.

On Monday, Trump tweeted that he plans to leave Walter Reed National Military Medical later in the evening. The president was hospitalized on Friday.

I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M., the president announced on Twitter. 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!

At least 11 people in Trumps inner circle have tested positive for coronavirus, including Nicholas Lunca, his assistant, U.S. Senators Mike Lee, Ron Jonson and Thom Tillis, former counselor to Trump, Kellyanne Conway, his campaign manager Bill Stepien, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Kayleigh McEnany, the presidents press secretary, is the latest White House staffer to test positive for COVID-19, she said in a statement on Monday. McEnany said she remains asymptomatic.

Here are the number of coronavirus cases in each Massachusetts county:

Barnstable County: 1,827

Berkshire County: 725

Bristol County: 10,340

Dukes County: 67

Essex County: 20,617

Franklin County: 421

Hampden County: 8,533

Hampshire County: 1,327

Middlesex County: 28,308

Nantucket County: 124

Norfolk County: 10,558

Plymouth County: 9,959

Suffolk County: 25,052

Worcester County: 14,740

Unknown location: 307

Related Content:
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani military is again firing at Stepanakert City and other civilian settlements of Artsakh, the Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson Artsrun Hovhannisyan said.

In turn, Artsakhs presidential spokesperson Vahram Poghosyan said that the terrorist army of the enemy is being mercilessly neutralized by the Artsakh Defense Army.

The information on Azeri forces hiring mercenaries from Syrian jihadist terror organizations through Turkey has already been confirmed by intelligence agencies from France, Russia, the US and others.

One of these mercenaries had personally spoken about it to the BBC earlier.

Artsakh's capital city Stepanakert and other towns have come under intense bombardment from Azerbaijan.

The Azeri forces have used cluster munitions, which resulted in over 20 civilian casualties and heavy damages.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
PFLUGERVILLE, Texas, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- COVID-19 testing startup Curative, Inc. today announced the opening of a new, CLIA-certified laboratory facility based in Pflugerville, Texas. The lab facility, which began operations in late September, processes COVID-19 test kits from across the State of Texas and provides patient results within 48-hours. The Pflugerville lab will significantly increase both availability and processing capacity for the state by 10,000 tests per day, using the company's FDA EUA authorized oral fluid-based COVID-19 test.

"We're excited to meet Texans wherever they are and provide innovative, reliable ways to get tested for COVID-19 through our easily accessible vans and walk-up kiosks," said Fred Turner, CEO and co-founder of Curative. "Our unique, self-administered oral fluid swab test offers a painless, simple option with quick 24- to 48-hour results to Texans across the state. We're also thrilled to set-up our third U.S. lab and bring new jobs to Pflugerville."

The lab opens following the recent deployment of mobile testing units, including test kiosks, vans and mobile trailers across Texas to improve accessibility to testing in remote areas and vulnerable populations. Curative keenly understands the benefits and limitations of stationary and drive-through testing sites. Accordingly, Curative worked with the Texas Department of Emergency Management to mobilize its innovative vans and kiosks to provide testing to communities who may not have close access to COVID-19 testing. By the end of October, Curative plans to have over 20 testing units across Texas staffed for appointments every day of the week. Texans who would like to be tested can make an appointment at curative.com.

"We are proud to support the opening of Curative's Pflugerville lab as our community plays a crucial role in increasing testing, making our region safer and bringing jobs to Pflugerville residents," said Pflugerville Mayor, Victor Gonzales.

Curative selected Pflugerville as the home of its third lab facility because the ready-made lab enabled Curative to quickly begin operations. The talent pool in the area also ensures that staffing of the lab and testing facilities can be scaled rapidly. Through the new lab and testing units, Curative expects to create 250 new jobs across Texas. Curative has already employed 170 new Texas-based staff. Those interested in applying for a position can find more information online here: Indeed.com.

"We look forward to a long-standing relationship with Curative, not just during a pandemic, but as they continue to deliver new options for testing and immunizations," said Amy Madison, executive director, Pflugerville Community Development Corporation. "Besides benefitting from the jobs and continued investment, Pflugerville will become the epicenter for rolling out fast, convenient and safe delivery options that contribute to a healthier Texas."

"Testing is a key component to saving lives and livelihoods, and we have already seen benefits from Curative's testing in Pflugerville," said Shontel Mays, president & CEO, Pflugerville Chamber of Commerce. "The opening of the testing kiosks amplifies their efforts and shows their commitment to keeping our community healthy and safe. We welcome Curative, Inc. to Pflugerville and are grateful they are providing this much-needed service to our community."

Since its founding in January, Curative has become one of the leading COVID-19 testing providers by testing over 4.5 million samples across the U.S. Curative also operates the country's largest COVID-19 testing site at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles, testing approximately 6,000 people per day.

The company's end-to-end COVID-19 testing solution is currently used by the Department of Defense, as well as the states of Alaska, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia (Atlanta and Savannah), Illinois (Chicago), Louisiana, Texas and Wyoming. With the opening of Curative's lab in Pflugerville, the company will have the capacity to test one million samples per week.

About Curative

Curative began COVID-19 testing in early March 2020 upon realizing the urgent need for test development and production in the United States. Curative is currently operational within a CLIA-certified lab in San Dimas CA, Pflugerville, Texas, and Washington, D.C. Co-founded by CEO Fred Turner and comprised of a team of doctors, scientists, engineers, and health industry experts, Curative is rapidly scaling its simple-to-use and painless oral fluid COVID-19 tests to reach the groups most in need of testing. For more details on Curative, please visit curative.com.

Media Contact

APCO Worldwide for Curative

[email protected]

SOURCE Curative, Inc.
Several Dalit leaders, meanwhile, have expressed concern over the course of investigation based on media reports and have demanded a court-monitored probe.

The claims and counterclaims in the Hathras gangrape and murder case has turned murkier with the Yogi Adityantah-led Uttar Pradesh government decrying 'politicisation' of the case while the Opposition continued to lambast the state for its actions.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday accused the Opposition of tryign to disturb the social harmony while doing politics over the "dead bodies of the poor".

Opposition Congress, on the other hand, held protests in various states including Gujarat, Arunachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

Several Dalit leaders, meanwhile, Wednesday expressed concern over the course of investigation based on media reports and have demanded a court-monitored probe.

Yogi slams Opposition for adding caste-religion angle to case

Speaking at a virtual meeting with BJP office-bearers, Adityanath said, "The faces of those doing politics on the dead bodies of the poor are getting exposed and the government will identify each one of them and deal with them with a heavy hand as per the law of the land."

"These are the ones for whom the poor have just been a vote bank and poverty alleviation is just another rhetorical political slogan with no heart for their uplift," the chief minister said.

He said for the opposition, politics is just a business and they can stoop to any low to run their business.

"They (opposition) view everything through the prism of caste, religion and regionalism. These disruptive elements may resort to any misdeed and disintegrate the social structure in order to keep their vote banks intact.

"We should assure people that we will not allow their evil designs to succeed," Adityanath added.

Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan charged with sedition

The UP chief minister's statement came even as the Uttar Pradesh police booked four persons Siddique Kappan, a journalist of Malapuram in Kerala, on sedition and other charges, two days after they were held while on their way to meet the victim's family in Hathras.

Charges under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the IT Act have also been filed against the four who were later remanded in judicial custody for 14 days by a Mathura court, officials said.

According to PTI, the police also claimed to have discovered that the accused "were going to Hathras with an intention to breach the peace as part of a conspiracy".

The three other accused have been identified as Atiq-ur-Rehman of Muzaffarnagar, Masood Ahmad of Bahraich and Alam of Rampur. The FIR claimed that police recovered pamphlets "Justice for Hathras victim", six mobiles and a laptop from them.

The police had earlier said that the four, inlcuding as Kappan, have links with the Popular Front of India and its affiliates.

Earlier, the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) had sent a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking Kappan's release and also filed a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court.

The Press Association and the Indian Women Press Corps on Wednesday described the journalist's arrest as the Uttar Pradesh government's attempt to "silence" the media and demanded his immediate release.

Dalit activists seek judicial probe into Hathras case

Activists of the Dalita Sangharsha Samithi (DSS) and various like-minded organisations demanded a judicial probe into the gangrape-murder case at Hathras in Uttar Pradesh.

The protestors staged the demonstration in front of the mini-Vidhana Saudha in Bengaluru seeking the enquiry by a Supreme Court judge anda compensation of Rs one crore to the family of the victim.

Congress leader PV Mohan, DYFI state president Muneer Katipalla and DSS leader Devadas took part in the protest.

Congress stages protests in various states

The Congress party held protests in Gujarat, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Arunachal Pradesh demanding justice for the Hathras gangrape victim.

Several Congress and MLAs leaders were detained in Gujarat before they could head to the protest venue. In Arunachal Pradesh, the party held a demonstration in Itanagar.

However, in Hathras, the Uttar Pradesh police has booked Shyoraj Jivan Valmiki, a local Congress leader from Dalit community accusing him of "hate mongering and disturbing peace in the region" based on some videos doing rounds on the social media.

According to a report in The New Indian Express, in the purported videos Jivan admitted that Congress used the Hathras case for furthering its politics as it had been devoid of issues for a long time.

A report in Times of India quoted Valmiki as threatening to "chop off hands" of anyone who "dared to look at a Dalit daughter".

SIT gets more time to submit report

Meanwhile, the UP government has given an additional 10 days to the three-member SIT investigating the gangrape and murder of the Dalit girl as the "probe is not complete", a senior official said Wednesday.

The special investigation team, constituted on 30 September and led by Home Secretary Bhagwan Swarup, was initially given seven days to submit its report.

But the UP government later sought a CBI probe into the case and the criminal conspiracy to spread caste conflict it has suspected.

On Tuesday, it had told the Supreme Court it wanted an apex court-monitored CBI inquiry into the incident to ensure "no vested interests will be able to create fake, false narrative with oblique motives".

The Yogi Adityanath government is facing severe criticism for its handling of the case, particularly after the local police burnt the gangrape victim's body at the dead of night without the family's approval.

However, officials said the cremation was done "as per the wishes of the family".

The state government has claimed that some people were trying to foment caste tensions in the aftermath of the alleged rape of the Dalit girl by four "upper caste" men on 14 September.

Quoting an forensic report, the police has also denied the rape charge.

In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court in response to a PIL, the government said there have been "orchestrated efforts to malign the image of the government on social media by attributing baseless comments and building up a distorted narrative on the Hathras case.

The gangrape victim died on 29 September of the grievous injuries she suffered during the assault.

With inputs from PTI
A Texas grand jury has indicted Netflix, prosecutors said Tuesday, on a charge of promoting lewdness in the French film Cuties, which has been maligned by some as child exploitation and defended by others as a complex coming-of-age story about preadolescent girls.

Netflix was served with a summons last week informing it that grand jurors in Tyler County, a county of about 21,600 people 115 miles northeast of Houston, had indicted the company for promotion of lewd visual material depicting a child, according to prosecutors.

County prosecutors said the charge was based on a Texas law that makes it illegal to knowingly promote material that depicts the genitals or the pubic area of a child, clothed or partially clothed, and which appeals to the prurient interest in sex and has no serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

The legislators of this state believe promoting certain lewd material of children has destructive consequences, Lucas Babin, the countys criminal district attorney, said in a statement. If such material is distributed on a grand scale, isnt the need to prosecute more, not less?
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 7) Malacanang on Wednesday expressed optimism there wont be any delays in the passage of the proposed 2021 national budget, despite concerns on the early suspension of the plenary session at the House of Representatives.

I dont think it will have any effect on passing the budget on time, because they have passed it on second reading, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque told CNN Philippines The Source, noting that the approved budget bill may already be seen as the final version up for printing and votation.

Roque also reiterated President Rodrigo Dutertes earlier appeal for Congressmen to ensure the timely passage of the 4.5 trillion budget, despite the heated leadership row in the chamber.

The message of the President to both speaker Alan Cayetano and (Marindique Rep.) Lord Allan Velasco is do what you may have to do, but the budget cannot be delayed. We cannot have a reenacted budget, Roque said.

This is the first budget that has built in measures intended to respond to COVID-19, and thats why this is probably the most important budget the president has proposed to houses of Congress, he stressed.

House session was officially suspended on Tuesday until Nov. 16, after Cayetano cut short deliberations on the 2021 General Appropriations Act, which hurdled the second reading.

The plenary debates were originally supposed to end on Friday, Oct. 9, followed by the period of amendments, then the voting on second reading. Final voting would have been conducted three days after.

Cayetano's move was met with a flurry of criticisms from netizens and fellow lawmakers including Velasco who slammed the supposed railroading of the budget process. Some also argued that the move shows how Cayetano has been hanging on to the speakership post.

RELATED: No chance for Velasco, allies to declare Speakership vacant as House suspends session until November

Despite this development, Roque said the Senate can still act and deliberate on the budget, even during the congressional break slated on Oct. 17.

Tight schedule

Senator Panfilo Ping Lacson, however, said he personally does not see the budget will be approved and passed on time, given the tight schedule left for lawmakers.

He added the 2021 budget is already as good as reenacted.

Senate President Vicente Tito Sotto III, for his part, said the upper chamber is willing to work even when Congress formally goes on a recess. He noted that the Palace can also call for a special session in a bid to prevent the delay of the budgets passage.
India's third Covid wave likely to peak on Jan 23, daily cases to stay below 4 lakh: IIT Kanpur scientist

India logs over 3.17 lakh new Covid cases in last 24 hours; daily positivity rate up at 16.41 per cent

India reports 3,33,533 new COVID cases in last 24 hours, recovery rate at 93.18 per cent

'Get lost': Taiwan reacts after Chinese embassy issues directives to Indian media

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Oct 07: Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu on Wednesday reacted sharply to the Chinese mission directive urging Indian media to follow "One China policy", and asked the latter to "get lost".

Taiwan's foreign minister Jaushieh Joseph Wu responded in a tweet: "India is the largest democracy on Earth with a vibrant press & freedom-loving people. But it looks like communist #China is hoping to march into the subcontinent by imposing censorship. Taiwan's Indian friends will have one reply: GET LOST! JW".

The Taiwan foreign ministry's Twitter bio states all tweets initialled "JW" are from the foreign minister.

#India is the largest democracy on Earth with a vibrant press & freedom-loving people. But it looks like communist #China is hoping to march into the subcontinent by imposing censorship. #Taiwan's Indian friends will have one reply: GET LOST! JW https://t.co/XxkSSxj5ms   Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ROC (Taiwan)  (@MOFA_Taiwan) October 7, 2020

Ahead of Taiwan's national day, the Chinese mission in India called upon Indian media to not refer to Taiwan as a "nation". Chinese mission in the letter said, "would like to remind our media friends that there is only one China in the world" and the "Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China."

Follow 'one China policy': Chinese embassy diktat to Indian media

India and Japan finalise an ambitious agreement on cyber-security|Oneindia News

It added, "Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory. All countries that have diplomatic relations with China should firmly honour their commitment to the One-China policy, which is also the long-standing official position of the Indian government."

China hoped that, "Indian media can stick to Indian government's position on Taiwan question and do not violate the One-China principle", asking the Indian media to not refer Taiwan as a "country" or "The Republic of China" or its Taiwan president Tsai ing-wen as President as it sends "wrong signals to the general public."
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted bail to actress Rhea Chakraborty in a drugs case in actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death, but with strict conditions including to appear before Mumbai Police for 10 days and before the NCB once in a month for next six months. It also directed her to submit a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and not to tamper with evidence while out on bail.

A bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal also granted bail to Rajputs aides Dipesh Sawant and Samuel Miranda, but rejected the bail plea of Rhea brother Showik Chakraborty, who is also an accused in the case being probed by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). The court also rejected the bail plea of alleged drug peddler Abdel Basit Parihar.

All these accused were arrested by the NCB last month. The court said Rhea Chakraborty could not be said to have financed or harboured illicit drug trafficking as alleged by the central agency.

The court also observed that she did not have any criminal antecedents, and it was unlikely that she could affect the probe or tamper with evidence while out on bail. The HC, however, said it was imposing sufficient stringent conditions" on her bail.

It directed her not to tamper evidence or interfere with the NCBs probe. It said Rhea will have to visit the nearest police station everyday at 11 am for the first 10 days after her release from judicial custody. The court also directed her to appear before the NCB on the first day of every month for the next six months.

Rhea also cant leave Mumbai without the NCBs permission and without giving her itinerary for such travel to the central agency. For travelling outside the country, she will need permission from special judge of the NDPS court here, it said.

The NCB has charged Rhea under the stringent Section 27-A of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act that pertains to the offence of financing andd harbouring illegal drug trafficking. The section entails imprisonment up to 10 years and also has a bar on the grant of bail.

The HC said simply paying for a particular drug transaction does not qualify as financing (illicit drug traffic), as described under the Act. The allegations against the applicant of spending money in procuring drugs for Sushant Singh Rajput will not, therefore, mean that she had financed illicit traffic," the court said.

It also noted that harbouring an offender as described under the Act would mean providing money for that persons drug consumption, while also giving him shelter and food. Rajput, however, had no apprehension of his arrest and therefore, the charge of harbouring too could not be applied in the present case, it said.

The court also dismissed the NCBs argument that Rheas bail be rejected to send out a strong message to the society. The NCB, through Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Anil Singh, had told the HC that a strong message needed to be sent out to the society, particularly youngsters, to ensure they did not consume drugs.

The learned ASG had argued that celebrities and role models should be treated harshly so that it sets an example for the young generation and they do not get encouraged to commit such offences. I do not agree," Justice Kotwal said. Everybody is equal before law. No celebrity or role model enjoys any special privilege before the court of law.

Similarly, such person also does not incur any special liability when he faces law in the courts," he said. Each case will have to be decided on its own merits irrespective of the status of the accused," the judge said.

The HC, however, rejected the bail plea of Rheas brother Showik, noting that he appears to be a part of the chain" and his case would have to be distinguished from that of a consumer or an end purchaser. The applicant (Showik) was facilitating procurement of drugs from one party for supplying them to Sushant Singh Rajput. He was clearly involved in illicit trafficking or illegal trade of drugs," the court said in its order.

It noted that the investigation in the case is at a preliminary stage. The applicant appears to be an important link in the chain of drug dealers. He was in touch with different dealers.

He had monetary transactions with the," the court said. Justice Kotwal refused to accept Showiks advocate Satish Maneshindes contention that the NCB does not have the jurisdiction to probe the matter as the case pertains to the death of Rajput and hence, the probe needs to be carried out by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Justice Kotwal also dealt with certain aspects of the NDPS Act that were contested during the bail hearings in the case. He held that a detailed interpretation of the Act and previous jugdements of the Supreme Court showed that all offences under the Act were non-bailable.

He also held that a prosecuting agency could apply Section 27-A of the NDPS Act in a case even if commercial quantity of drugs were not involved. However, in Rheas case, since there was no financing or harbouring (of drugs or its consumers), Section 27-A could not be applied, the HC said.

The court also granted bail to Rajputs aides Samuel Miranda and Dipesh Sawant, saying they had simply procured or collected the delivery of drugs on directions of Rajput or Rhea. Rheas lawyer Satish Maneshinde said they were are delighted by the high court order.

Truth and justice have prevailed and ultimately the submissions on facts and law have been accepted by Justice Sarang V Kotwal," he said. The arrest and custody of Rhea was totally unwarranted and beyond the reach of law", Maneshinde said.

The hounding and witch-hunt by three central agencies-the CBI, ED and NCB -of Rhea should come to an end.We remain committed to truth," he said.

Rajput, 34, was found hanging at his apartment in suburban Bandra on June 14 this year. Meanwhile, Mumbai Police asked mediapersons not to chase, intervene or stop the vehicle of Rhea Chakraborty or any other person after their release from jail.

It is a danger to the safety and security of the person himself, the person whom he or she is following and people who are driving vehicles on road," an official said. DCP (Zone-I) Sangramsingh Nishandar told reporters that stern action will be taken against those who instigate their drivers to chase or stop the vehicles of the accused.

Rhea was lodged in the Byculla womens jail here following her arrest.
She's had her breasts reduced to better complement her slimmed down frame after losing two stone.

And Chloe Ferry proudly showed off the results of her third boob job in a studded black bikini as she took to Instagram on Wednesday.

The Geordie Shore star, 25, appeared to be in good spirits as she flaunted her new smaller assets just two days after surgery in Turkey.

New look: Chloe Ferry proudly showed off the results of her third boob job in a studded black bikini as she took to Instagram on Wednesday (pictured Chloe two days after her surgery)

Revealing her new cleavage, Chloe said: 'It's two days after my surgery and these are my new smaller boobs, I've had an uplift, but look i can move around I'm so fine'

Chloe looked sensational in the studded swimwear, which she paired with a black mini skirt.

Small bandages could still be seen on Chloe's side but the media sensation was quick to reassure her followers that she was in no pain and recovering well.

On Tuesday Chloe revealed her old breast implants on Instagram as she compared them to 'dumplings'.

Changes: The Geordie Shore star decided to have her breasts reduced after losing two stone in weight (pictured one week ago)

Taking to her Instagram stories, she also gave another glimpse of her newly reduced assets, which were still bandages up following her surgery.

Chloe appeared in good spirits as she held the large implant in her hand while observing it closely. Her other implant was sealed in a plastic wrap.

Turning it around, Chloe told fans: 'Right so guys, I know this looks like a dumpling, but this is my old implant. Look at the size of that, it's the size of my hand!'

She then jokingly shared another snap in which she asked 'dumpling or implant'.

Downsizing: Chloe told her fans she was feeling great two days after surgery as she touched her new boobs and moved around

Celebrations: Chloe cut a fashionable figure as she enjoyed an evening out in Istanbul after revealing her new boobs

The beauty also gave another glimpse of her new smaller assets as she recovered from her operation in bed.

Chloe donned a black post-surgery compression bra and pink leopard print knickers as she panned the camera down her body.

The reality star underwent breast reduction surgery in Turkey to balance out her slimmer frame following a two stone weight loss.

Taking to Instagram on Monday, she unveiled the first look of her new appearance as she snapped a selfie of her bandaged chest.

Out with the old: Taking to Instagram stories on Tuesday, Chloe held the large implant in her hand while observing it closely. Her other implant was sealed in a plastic wrap

She explained: 'I've just woke up, guys, from my boob surgery.

'I'm not even in a lot of pain, and honestly, I can't tell you how well I have been looked after here. I can't wait to see them.'

Chloe then shared a boomerang video of her hand with a drip in before gushing, 'these nurses have made me feel so amazing they have looked after me so good @comfortzoneofficial'.

Chloe has swapped her implants for smaller ones and jetted to Turkey for the procedure.

Healing: She also gave another glimpse of her newly reduced assets, which were still bandages up following her surgery

Closer look: Turning it this way and that, Chloe told her fans: 'Right so guys, I know this looks like a dumpling, but this is my old implant. She then jokingly asked 'dumpling or implant'

Post-op: The beauty also gave another glimpse of her new smaller assets as she recovered from her operation in bed

Ahead of her operation, Chloe was keen to show off her figure as she shared a slew of sizzling bikini snaps on Saturday.

Chloe checked into the Comfort Zone surgery clinic in Istanbul on Saturday alongside twin sisters and Ex On The Beach stars Che and Leonie Mcsorley - who got matching nose jobs.

Addressing her followers on Sunday, Chloe revealed her boob job will take place on Monday as she mused: 'I'm actually not that nervous.

'In lockdown I lost a lot of weight and my boobs dropped a little bit and my other half is a bit more petite so i am going to get smaller implants.'

Under the knife: On Monday, Chloe gave fans a look at the results of her third boob job after she underwent breast reduction surgery in Turkey to balance out her slimmer frame

The reality personality will have time to rest upon her return to the UK, as the government has just announced there is no longer an air bridge between England and Turkey.

Earlier this week, a representative for Chloe told MailOnline: 'Following on from Chloe's dramatic 2 stone weight loss this year, Chloe will be flying to Turkey on Saturday 3rd October 2020 for a one week stay to have breast reduction surgery to suit her new slimmer figure.

'Chloe will be visiting the Comfort Zone surgery clinic in Istanbul to have reduction surgery as Chloe feels that a smaller implant will complement her new slimmer figure.

'Chloe has been training hard with a strong gym regime this year not only for weight purposes but to help maintain a healthy and positive mind-set.'

On the mend: Chloe then shared a boomerang video of her hand with a drip in before gushing, 'these nurses have made me feel so amazing they have looked after me so good'

She previously revealed she has spent over 50,000 on cosmetic procedures, which have included two nose jobs, liposuction and breast augmentation.

Less invasive procedures also include an eyebrow lift, dental veneers, dermal cheek fillers and Botox.

Chloe previously told told Closer magazine: 'Of course, it's a bit addictive. But I can stop myself, I'm happy with myself now.

'I've spent a lot of money, it's expensive. I've worked hard for my money and I want to spend it on this.

'My ideal body shape is a small waist with a big bum and hips ... But I think people believe I've had more surgery than I have.'
Head of Russian Human Rights Council calls to faster put SMA cure on essential drugs list

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

11:04 07/10/2020

MOSCOW, October 7 (RAPSI)  Chair of Russias Human Rights Council Valery Fadeyev has asked the Russian Government to faster include Spinraza medication on the list of vital and essential drugs, a statement on the advisory bodys website reads.

Accoring to the human rights advocates, adding Spinraza to this list is the best decision ensuring the safety of childrens life.

In August, the Health Ministry recommended that Spinraza, the trade name for Nusinersen medication, is to be put on this list next year.

Russian Childrens Rights Commissioner Anna Kuznetsova stated that it is to become an important step in treatment of children suffering from spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). She noted that this is positive news both for families where children suffer from SMA, and regional authorities currently financing procurement of expensive drugs for such children.

The Children Ombudsman Office press service informed earlier that although by now official SMA statistics in Russia had not been collected in full, charity SMA Families reported about 900 SMA patients in need of treatment at the total cost of 42.6 billion rubles (about $570 million at the current exchange rate). The Office, in turn, reported dozens applications a year from parents of children suffering from SMA claiming they could not get Spinraza. This year, there were registered 58 such applications.

The Health Ministrys recommendation to put Spinraza on the list, Kuznetsova noted, constituted an important stage of cooperation of her Office with relevant authorities, which is to result in a substantial reduction of the cost of the drug; the Spinraza manufacturer has already decided to fix the exchange rate at the average level for year 2019, what makes standard Spinraza package almost 500,000 rubles (about $6,800) cheaper; in total, the medication is to be procured at a price 25% below the current average price.
They've won almost every challenge so far on this year's season of The Block, and on Wednesday, Scott Cam invited Jimmy and Tam to his house for a private barbecue.

After visiting the Queensland couple in their house, the 57-year-old Block host extended an invitation for them to visit his home.

Notably, none of the other teams were invited, with the show's other contestants regularly venting their frustrations that Jimmy and Tam, 31, win so often.

Favourites: They've won almost every challenge so far on this year's season of The Block, and on Wednesday, Scott Cam invited Jimmy and Tam (both pictured) to his house for a private barbecue

Earlier in the episode, it was revealed the couple had amassed $42,500 in prize money on the show so far.

'So, you're actually going to be finished tonight, are you?' asked Scott as he inspected their newly renovated living and dining room.

Jimmy, 33, said they were just waiting on their curtains and blinds to arrive, and then the room would be completed.

Up close and personal: After visiting the Queensland couple in their house, Block host Scott Cam (pictured with co-host Shelley Craft) extended an invitation for them to visit his home

'If you finish tonight - bar curtains tomorrow morning - this will be the quickest room in Block history,' revealed a clearly impressed Scott.

He then invited Jimmy and Tam to a 'private, personal barbecue' at his house to celebrate.

'I will cook you lunch... I've got beautiful Scotch fillets,' he continued, as co-host Shelley Craft listened in with a look of surprise on her face.

Special treatment: Jimmy and Tam admitted they were ecstatic about the opportunity to spend time alone with Scott at his house

'I will cook you lunch... I've got beautiful Scotch fillets,' he continued, as Shelley listened in with a look of surprise on her face

And Jimmy and Tam admitted they were ecstatic about the opportunity to spend time alone with Scott at his house.

'A little private barbecue with Scott Cam. It doesn't get any better!' smiled Jimmy, as Tam excitedly clapped her hands together.

Added Scott before leaving their house: 'I will see you at midday tomorrow at my joint. See you later.'
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Monte Nido & Affiliates ("Monte Nido") a portfolio company of Levine Leichtman Capital Partners ("LLCP"), announced today that it has acquired Rosewood Ranch, L.P. ("Rosewood"), the operator of three eating disorder treatment facilities in the greater Phoenix, Arizona market. Founded in 1998, Rosewood is an industry pioneer, offering curated treatment modalities for both adolescent and adult patient populations.

Monte Nido is a market-leading eating disorder treatment platform now operating 29 facilities across eleven states nationwide. With a track record of clinical excellence, Monte Nido has successfully treated adult and adolescent patients since its founding in 1996. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Monte Nido now offers residential and outpatient services through four brands: Monte Nido, Oliver-Pyatt Centers, Clementine and Rosewood. This acquisition provides Monte Nido with an inpatient service offering, augmenting its comprehensive continuum of care.

Candy Henderson, CEO of Monte Nido, commented, "We are excited to add Rosewood to our national footprint of best-in-class treatment facilities. The acquisition expands Monte Nido's treatment offerings and geographic reach, enabling us to serve a greater portion of those seeking treatment."

Matthew Rich, a Senior Managing Director with LLCP, added, "We are pleased to demonstrate our continued support of Monte Nido through this acquisition. We see a powerful combination between the strong reputation Rosewood has built over its 22-year history and the strategic leadership of Candy and the Monte Nido team."

Monte Nido is an investment of Levine Leichtman Capital Partners Fund V, L.P.

About Levine Leichtman Capital Partners

Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, LLC is a middle-market private equity firm with a 37-year track record of successfully investing across various targeted sectors, including franchising, professional services, healthcare, education and engineered products. LLCP utilizes a differentiated Structured Private Equity investment strategy, combining debt and equity capital investments in portfolio companies. This unique structure provides a less dilutive solution for management teams and entrepreneurs, while delivering growth and income with a significantly lower risk profile.

LLCP's global team of dedicated investment professionals is led by seven partners who have worked together for an average of 21 years. Since inception, LLCP has managed approximately $11 billion of institutional capital across 14 investment funds and has invested in over 85 portfolio companies. LLCP currently manages approximately $7 billion of assets  including its most recent flagship fund, Levine Leichtman Capital Partners VI, L.P., which closed in 2018 with $2.5 billion of committed capital  and has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, London, Stockholm and The Hague.

Contact:

Mark Semer or Ross Lovern

Kekst CNC

(917) 439-3507 or (917) 842-7205

SOURCE Levine Leichtman Capital Partners
Beverages maker (HCCB) on Wednesday said it has introduced an option of permanent work-from-home for its employees whose physical presence in the office is not required as part of a new policy.

The policy provisions for employee safety, their emotional and physical well-being and also monetary support to make the work-home space ergonomics suitable, HCCB said in a statement.

The policy, which is built on the company's basic tenet of providing care and flexibility, will span the period post-pandemic that employees can choose to permanently work-from-home, provided they do not need to be physically present at the work location such as factory, or sales, it added.

"This policy is led by empathy and flexibility, ensuring employees and their dependents to feel safe and be at ease, regardless of their work location. The idea is to provide a seamless experience that is meaningful both for the company as well as the employees.

"The unique feature of the policy is that it has been co-created by our colleagues who we feel know their problems the best. The situation is evolving and hence we remain open and flexible to any modifications that the policy may need," HCCB CHRO Indrajeet Sengupta said.

Under the policy, HCCB said it has started delivering ergonomically designed chairs from its office to the eligible employees to their homes on request.

"Those working in other cities have the option to purchase work chairs. Recognising the need for uninterrupted internet connectivity, HCCB will provide monetary support for employees to install UPS for power back-up including monthly wi-fi expenses," the statement said.

Employees can also avail of monetary support to purchase tables, headphones, lamps, webcam, external microphone, even a coffee mug or flower arrangement, it added.

"To deal with physical and emotional challenges, the company has provisioned for telemedicine facility and wellness counselling through the organisation 1To1 HELP. An app available for an easy download, managed by a chatbot, will continue to be used by employees to update the company on their health and wellness," HCCB said.

The company has modified its health insurance policy with provisions to include parents and in-laws and 'top-up' cover for the immediate dependents, it added.

HCCB is among India's largest FMCG It manufactures, packages and sells beverages brands, including Minute Maid, Maaza, SmartWater, Kinley, Thums Up, Sprite, Coca-Cola, Limca, Fanta and Georgia, among others.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Last Thursday marked the opening of public schools in Boston, Massachusetts, for in-person learning for high-need students, despite rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in the city and state. Despite the reservations of teachers over school building safety, the Boston Teachers Union (BTU) joined with Mayor Marty Walsh, a Democrat, to open the schools.

This is a reckless policy that coincides with Massachusetts Governor Charlie Bakers order, which began Monday, for the state to move forward with Step 2, Phase 3 of its reopening plan in communities that have not been in the red zone (over 8 cases per 100,000) in three weeks. This permits restaurants to serve parties of up to 10 indoors and seat patrons at bars, as well as loosening restrictions on indoor gyms, libraries and performance venues, allowing for 50 percent capacity up to a maximum of 250 people.

Two epidemiologists have urged Baker, a Republican, to reconsider his reopening policies as cases and hospitalizations continue to increase across the state. While the virus has no respect for community boundaries, it is clear that even under the previous guidelines of Step 2, Phase 2, viral transmission had been quickly spiraling out of control.

Daily COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts surpassed 700 for two consecutive days last week, and the three-day average of hospitalized COVID patients increased from 308 on September 14 to 442 on October 4. Positivity rates, which have climbed to 5.4 percent of first-tested individuals and 1.7 percent of total tests, have been steadily increasing since late August, as colleges and now public schools have reopened.

In the weeks leading up to this resurgence of cases, tactics of misrepresenting data were used by Governor Baker, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Commissioner Jeff Riley, and the Boston Globe, among others, to push for schools to open despite knowing full well that another wave in cases was on the horizon.

An increase of new testing by private collegeswhich out-tested the state, more than doubling the total number of tests given, and testing students every few daysartificially lowered the overall positivity rate, even as cases began to increase. This allowed the troubling trend of an increasing positivity rate and the slow uptick in cases to fly under the radar, and was used as a bludgeon by Walsh, Baker, Riley and other officials to push for school and other business re-openings, regardless of the increasing cases.

The artificially low positivity rate of 0.81.1 percent, a key metric used by the state, and touted by the Globe as the lowest observed figure for that metric, was used as a counterweight to high absolute numbers of new cases.

Public schools will undoubtedly become a significant vector for transmission in the coming months. According to the Globe, between September 23 and 30, 63 students and 34 staff members who have been inside school buildings have already tested positive for COVID-19. These figures are an understatement of the real numbers, as they represent only cases reported to the state by school districts themselves, while state education officials are not tracking cases.

It was known in the very early stages of the pandemic, as well as from previous viral outbreaks, that only a comprehensive application of testing, contact tracing and social distancing measures in combination could effectively stop the virus. This can be seen, on the one hand, in the ineffectiveness in controlling the virus in locales that have locked down in some capacity, but invested next to nothing in testing, contact tracing and proper health care; and, on the other hand, in the situation at the most prestigious Boston-area colleges and universities, where despite investing in new facilities, robust testing and contact tracing, social distancing is not possible due to classroom and dorm conditions.

For example, the total number of cases at Boston College (BC) stood recently at 174 out of roughly 10,000 students reportedly on campus, meaning that 1.75 percent of the population has been infected since August 16, when testing began. If this percentage were applied to Massachusetts as a whole, with a population of 6.8 million, it would translate into nearly 120,000 cases in a 45-day period. In the microcosms of schools, even those with robust testing such as BC, transmission is occurring at a rate far above the state average as a whole.

Despite these facts, schools and businesses across the state are reopening, with cases poised to explode into the thousands within weeks. Wealthy universities such as Harvard and MIT, despite possessing billions of dollars in investments, are insisting on having some type of on-campus presence in order to keep the cash flowing.

DESE Commissioner Riley, who recently sent a threatening letter to 16 Massachusetts school districts demanding that they reopen for in-person learning, said in an interview last Friday, Were always going to be monitoring the trajectory of the virus and the data, and while were still low now, even with a recent uptick, well be monitoring the data throughout the year to see where we are and what [the] next steps [are].

Riley is expecting cases to surge at schools, but pushing them to open regardless. In the interview, he reiterated the guideline that DESE recommends remote learning only for municipalities receiving a red designation three weeks in a row on the color-coded metric unless other extenuating circumstances prevent in-person instruction (emphasis added).

He said the previously mentioned weekly summary of coronavirus cases at schools should not be used to decide whether to close or reopen schools. I dont think this data is used for decision-making purposes, he said. This is really used for just transparency purposes, so families know where cases are occurring, which means that the 63 students and 34 staff members already infected in one week of schools reopening should have no bearing on schools remaining open or shifting to remote learning.

With 92 total cases in the state in early March, Baker called a state of emergency, the state was shut down, schools were closed, and gatherings of 10 or more people were prohibited. With no serious investments made by state and federal authorities to do what was necessary to stop the virus, the ruling elite focused instead on bailing out the banks and bolstering the stock market. A policy of herd immunity has been implemented, with the aim of normalizing the virus so that days of 700-plus cases in Massachusetts warrant no cause for alarm while schools and businesses reopen. Workers, teachers and students do not support these policies, but are being systematically lied to by the Democrats and Republicans and their supporters in the media.

Teachers, workers and students, who are being forced into unsafe environments under conditions of growing cases, must organize independently of the two big business parties and the unions that have agreed to these conditions. The Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee is fighting to build a nationwide network of independent rank-and-file safety committees to stop these deadly policies from being implemented in every state and across the globe.

We urge you to contact us today to discuss the conditions and developments at your workplace, school and community, and to begin the process of forming a committee to unite workers across Massachusetts to stop the spread of the pandemic and save lives. Make plans to attend our next online call-in meeting at 3pm EDT this Saturday, October 10, and invite your coworkers and friends.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 19:58:53|Editor: huaxia

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MOSCOW, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Russia successfully test-fired a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile in the Arctic on Tuesday, Chief of the General Staff of Russia's Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov said Wednesday.

"The frigate Admiral Gorshkov deployed in the White Sea, for the first time, fired a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile at a sea target in the Barents Sea ... The missile destroyed the target in a direct hit," Gerasimov reported to President Vladimir Putin at an online meeting.

The missile covered a distance of 450 km with the maximum altitude of its trajectory at 28 km, he said, adding that the flight lasted 4.5 minutes and the missile reached a hypersonic speed of over Mach 8.

Following the state tests, the Tsirkon system will be deployed on Russian submarines and surface ships, Gerasimov said.

The Tsirkon project and the successful test flight of the missile are "a major event not only for the armed forces but also for the nation as a whole," Putin said.

Supplying the Russian military with the most advanced armaments that "have no analogues in the world" will ensure national defense for a long time to come, he said. Enditem
A coronavirus patient himself, President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Americans were learning to live with the pandemic, posting comments online that drew a rebuke from Facebook and Twitter for likening the COVID-19 death toll to that of the annual flu.

A day after leaving a nearby hospital for the White House, where he will receive intensive treatments unavailable to most people, the Republican, 74, again understated the effects of the virus on social media.

Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!! Trump wrote on Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter Inc responded by putting a warning label on the post, saying it included potentially misleading information. Facebook Inc removed the Trump post for breaking its rules on COVID-19 misinformation, according to CNN.

This is a lie. The flu doesnt kill 100,000 a year, Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, tweeted.

The United States has the worlds highest death toll from the pandemic, with more than 209,000 deaths. By comparison, influenza typically kills between some 22,000 and 64,000 people a year in the United States, U.S. government statistics show.

Trumps chances of winning Novembers election have taken a hit over the millions of jobs lost during coronavirus lockdowns, and he has frequently sought to encourage a return to work despite the pandemic.

Trumps doctor said on Tuesday he was doing extremely well and reporting no COVID-19 symptoms. Sean Conley, a Navy commander, said a team of physicians met with the president on Tuesday morning.

He had a restful first night at home, and today he reports no symptoms. Vital signs and physical exam remain stable, with an ambulatory oxygen saturation level of 95-97%, Conley said in a statement released by the White House. Overall he continues to do extremely well.

Trump had no public events listed for Tuesday and it was unclear when he would resume a full schedule of presidential duties and campaigning ahead of Election Day, Nov. 3.

He tweeted that he was looking forward to a scheduled second debate with Democratic election opponent Joe Biden on Oct. 15 and wrote that he was feeling great. He had yet to be seen in public or to release a new video since Monday night.

Trump spent three days at a military hospital and was due to receive further doses of the antiviral drug remdesivir and the steroid dexamethasone, which is normally used in the most severe cases.

CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Trailing Biden in opinion polls, Trumps campaign sought to project an image of a strong president who is overcoming his illness and planning to get back on the campaign circuit.

Were looking forward to him getting back on the trail when the doctors say its physically feasible for him to do so. Hes ready now, Trump campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley told Fox News.

A Twitter post by Biden showed images of himself donning a mask and Trump removing his. Masks Matter. They save lives, the caption read.

Trump returned to the White House on Monday in a made-for-television spectacle, descending from his Marine One helicopter wearing a white surgical mask, only to remove it as he posed, saluting and waving, on the mansions South Portico.

The severity of his illness has been the subject of intense speculation, with some experts noting that, as an overweight, elderly man, he was in a high risk category.

#GaspingForAir began trending on Twitter after video showed Trump appearing to take several deep breaths while standing on the White House balcony.

Dont let it dominate you. Dont be afraid of it, Trump said in a video after his return on Monday night. Im better, and maybe Im immune  I dont know, he added. Get out there. Be careful.

Trump mocked Biden at last Tuesdays presidential debate for wearing a mask when campaigning.

I was aghast when he said COVID should not be feared, said William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

Many Trump aides and confidants have been diagnosed with the disease since his announcement last week that he had tested positive, intensifying scrutiny and criticism of the administrations handling of the pandemic.

Media outlets reported two more White House staffers had tested positive for the disease. One was a Trump valet, an active member of the U.S. military who traveled with the president last week, a Bloomberg News reporter said on Twitter, citing unnamed sources. Bloomberg, CNN and NBC also reported that a military aide to Trump had COVID-19.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany, herself diagnosed with the virus, said the rise in COVID-19 cases at the White House and among some Republican senators was not disrupting the functioning of the U.S. government.

We are regularly meeting, although some staff must attend remotely, she told Fox Business Network.

The top U.S. military leaders are isolating after the Coast Guards No. 2 tested positive for the coronavirus, Pentagon officials said.
(Ross May / Los Angeles Times; Getty Images)

Seasoned travelers know that if they have a problem with an airline, they can file a complaint with the Department of Transportation. Have an issue with deceptive hotel pricing, resort fees or timeshares? The Federal Trade Commission is the place to explain your problem.

But if you have a problem with a cruise, you have a problem. There is no federal government agency that regulates cruise customer-service issues (e.g. itinerary changes, passenger cancellations, cabin concerns, etc.).

Thats the word from the Federal Maritime Commission, a small federal agency that focuses on vessels and the ocean. But dont get too excited. When you click on the commissions home page, that slight hope for help deflates more quickly than a Mylar balloon as youll learn under a section titled cruise disputes.

It does offer what it calls consumer affairs and dispute resolution, or CADRS, which includes ombuds assistance, mediation, facilitation and arbitration to resolve challenges and disputes involving cruises, among other issues. The service, referred to as alternative dispute resolution," is free.

The cruise in question must have more than 50 beds and must have originated from a U.S. port, which would include Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Diego, Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. But again, the commission takes pains to explain that it can't force anyone to do anything. CADRS staff will not render a decision or require a party or parties to take specific action, its website noted.

Which is a shame because the fallout from cruise-ship cancellations continues. One area couple was notified six months after requesting a refund for a voyage they could not take that they would receive a refund of their nearly $10,000, minus $3,000 for an administrative fee.

Other cruise passengers have been dismayed by the ponderous pace of refunds, the inability to contact a live human being or the complete silence in the tsunami that ensued when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued no-sail orders, recently extended until Oct. 31.

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Some cruise lines were (and are) overwhelmed with refund requests.

Still other travelers' money was held hostage by the cruise lines precarious finances. That includes Crystal Cruises, part of the Genting Group. The Miami Herald reported Aug. 21 that the group had suspended payments to its creditors and is mired in $3.4 billion in debt.

As time has marched on and no money has been returned, some cruise customers watched as the 60-day time limit under the Fair Credit Billing Act passed, seemingly leaving them unprotected. (Credit card customers must dispute the charge within that time limit.)

Depressed now? Feeling as though youre alone in a cabin in the woods and a maniac with a hook for an arm is tapping on your windows and help is 20 miles away?

There are glimmers of hope, both near and longer term.

 Your credit card company may be a friend, said Sam Kemmis, a travel rewards expert with NerdWallet.com, a personal finance website. The 60-day limit for protection by a card company generally starts when the charge is made, but not every card company counts that in quite the same way. Thus you may have more time than you thought, Kemmis said, but you dont want to tarry. Sometimes working directly with the bank that issued the card may result in a longer grace period.

 Would you settle for a credit instead of a full refund? Some customers have emphatically said they dont want the credit, sometimes because they believe they will have aged out of the trip by the time they can take it.

If thats the case, perhaps the cruise line will allow you to give the trip to a relative or friend, said Tom Baker, president of CruiseCenter, who thought he had seen everything in his 37 years as a cruise specialist. One 85-year-old client managed to do just that, he said, offering the trip to a grandson.

 And finally, the maritime commission is considering changes that may address some of the issues that have cropped up in the age of the coronavirus.

Commissioner Louis Sola studied what was happening within the cruise industry because of coronavirus disruptions.

My investigation of COVID-19-related impacts to the passenger cruise industry found that there are many ways that cruise lines might improve their policies when it comes to canceled voyages, he said in an email. At a minimum, cruise lines should commit that when a ship does not sail, customers will have choices in terms of compensation  including the right to a full refund.

The report I issued earlier this summer has a number of recommendations that strike the right balance between providing consumers more protections but not proposing new requirements that are so difficult or expensive to implement.

Among those in the report:

 Refunds should be provided within 60 days if boarding is delayed by a day or more. (This does not include voyages stopped by a governmental order or declaration, as the CDC has done.)

 If a cruise is canceled because of a governmental order or declaration, refunds must be issued within 180 days.

 Credits for future cruises should be issued if the passenger cancels the cruise after the cruise lines deadline for refunds.

 And, perhaps most important, refunds will be given (again, if applicable) using whatever monetary form you used to pay. In other words, if you paid cash, you get cash. If you paid with a card, the money goes back to the card.

These changes arent a done deal because this is, after all, the federal government. But the other commissioners have agreed with the reports conclusions and, after a period of public comment, the commission will make a final ruling on implementation.

Take a look at the findings of the report (bit.ly/cruisecomments); send your comments to secretary@fmc.gov. (Complaints about individual cruises go to complaints@FMC.gov.)

This may offer a solution to one of the two problems you have if youre frustrated about getting a refund. Sorry, but its not a big fat check. Its the chance to be heard at a time when many companies arent listening.

Have a travel problem, dilemma or question? Write to catharine@catharinehamm.com. We regret we cannot answer every inquiry.





This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
French President Emmanuel Macrons plans to promote greater Muslim integration in France can only solve part of the problem, with the other part lying in combating European hostility towards Muslims

French President Emmanuel Macron does not shy away from confrontations or controversies. His sometimes brutal exchanges with US President Donald Trump, among others, have been testimony to a man who often says what he thinks without equivocation.

Such words have sometimes got him into trouble, however, as for example when he described the NATO alliance as brain dead. Many Western leaders called on him to use his words more carefully, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a staunch ally, said that she disagreed with the French president.

Macron was also attacked by political opponents for describing French people as Gauls who are resistant to change during a trip to Denmark. Addressing a gathering of French expatriates, Macron expressed his admiration for Denmarks economic model before lamenting Frances resistance to it.

The Nordic system, which combines a welfare state with a flexible labour market where it is easier to hire and fire, has in part inspired Macrons loosening of French labour laws. But the French president said cultural differences between the Lutheran Danes and the French Gauls had made it difficult to adopt the Nordic system in France.

Macron now finds himself in the eye of another storm after he declared Islam to be a religion that is in crisis all over the world during a speech last week whose primary goal was to send a message to the Muslims of France that greater integration was the answer to their problems and announcing plans to promote integration to end social and cultural Muslim ghettos in the country.

Macrons speech was designed to address a deep-rooted problem in French society: its difficulty integrating significant parts of its large, non-white, Muslim population of immigrants and their descendants.

Many French Muslims agreed with Macrons plans, even if they criticised some of his words. In remarks delivered in the Paris suburb of Les Mureaux, Macron said Islam was a religion in crisis worldwide, even in countries where it was the majority religion, because of tensions between fundamentalism and political projects that lead to very strong radicalisation.

He said that in France there was a parallel society of radical Muslims outside the values of the French nation. Macron used the term separatism to describe an underworld in some neighbourhoods in France where Muslims with a radical vision of their religion allegedly take control of the local population to inculcate their beliefs.

Macron also stressed in his speech that stigmatising French Muslims would be falling into a trap laid by radicals. He emphasised that the French state shared in the blame for this so-called separatism, saying that we ourselves have built our own separatism, that of our neighbourhoods. This is the ghettoisation that our republic, initially with the best intentions in the world, allowed to take place.

He noted that Frances concentration of populations into districts according to their origins and religion also concentrated educational and economic difficulties. Macron said that where Frances secular society had failed Muslim youth, radicals had stepped in.

He stressed the importance of schools in instilling secular values in young people and said that his government would require private schools to agree to teach them. Beginning next year, with few exceptions, the 50,000 French children currently being educated at home would be required to attend school with their fellow students, he said.

The government would present legislation in December to reinforce secularism and consolidate republican principles, Macron said.

The proposed bill, which would go before parliament early next year, would require all children from the age of three to attend school and allow home-schooling only for medical reasons. NGOs that receive state funding would be made more accountable for their spending and their personnel, and they would be forced to reimburse any misused funds.

Macron called Frances schools the heart of secularism [where] children become citizens. The bill will include additional educational funding.

The proposed measures also address Frances mosques, which Macron said were sometimes subject to hostile takeovers, as well as imams, with the aim of keeping places of prayer and preachers out of the control of people who use religion for their own ends.

In a few days, you may see radical Islamists... take control of associations [running mosques] and all their finances. That wont happen again, the French president said. Were going to install an anti-putsch system, very robust, in the law, Macron said without elaborating.

The bill, which is to be sent to religious leaders in France for review this month, also includes putting an end to the long-standing French practice of importing imams from other countries, notably Turkey, Algeria, and Morocco, instead of training them in France. A French Muslim organisation that serves as an interlocutor to Frances political leaders is to take part in the project.

For Macron, a perverse version of the Muslim religion has penetrated French society, including public services like the transport system. He said that some bus drivers in France had been known to bar women with short skirts from getting aboard.

The proposed law would also ban certificates of virginity provided by doctors to some Muslim women ahead of marriage. Macron, who has made gender equality a priority of his presidency, said the documents were offensive to womens dignity.

He said the fight would be long because what took decades to build wont be put down in a day. But some in Frances Muslim community, Europes largest with up to five million members in a country where Islam is the second religion, worry that the new law could deepen anti-Islamic sentiments.

Many also criticised the use of the word separatism, warning that this could increase abuse against them. The rector of the Paris Mosque, Chems-Eddine Hafiz, said there was a danger of a slippery slope in using a word like separatism since it could mix all Muslims in France with the separatism question.

For those who let it be believed that Islam is Islamism, and the reverse, there is indeed a distinction between the Muslim religion and the Islamist ideology, he wrote in the French newspaper Le Monde. However, he also put his support behind the initiative, on condition that it was not used as a publicity gimmick to boost Macrons political fortunes.

Macron has been pushing for a French Islam for years, and the proposed law may give him the powers to see it happen. But he will need more than legal powers if he is to succeed in bringing French Muslims with him.

Muslims in France are not characterised by religion only, as there are also economic and educational gaps, cultural isolation, and a lack of opportunities for social mobility.

There is little doubt that in many Muslim neighbourhoods in France, religion may play a role in promoting a discourse of victimisation, but the exploitation of religion by some radicals should not diminish the impact of economic and social conditions in promoting the phenomenon of ghettos and the lack of civil and political participation.

In 2019, research conducted for the German Bertelsmann Stiftungs Religion Monitor confirmed widespread mistrust towards Muslims across Europe. In Germany and Switzerland, every second respondent in the survey said they perceived Islam to be a threat.

In the UK, two in five people share this perception. In Spain and France, about 60 per cent of those surveyed thought Islam was incompatible with the West. In Austria, one in three did not want to have Muslim neighbours.

As a result, few people would disagree with Macron that there is a Muslim problem in Europe that needs to be solved, though that problem may be with European attitudes rather than with Muslims themselves. The solution also cannot be new legislation alone, and there must be provision made for honest talk.

For years, many European Muslims have called for replacing the term Islamophobia with racism against Muslims. The logic has been that because there is no specific legal definition of Islamophobia, many forms of hatred of Islam and racism against Muslims go without legal challenge.

As a result, Macrons ambitious plans can only solve part of the problem. The other part lies in combating European hostility towards Islam and Muslims.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Amid a pall of gloom, the mortal remains of junior commissioned officer (JCO) Sukhdev Singh were cremated with full military honours at his native Peoni village in Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday evening.

The JCO was killed on Tuesday morning in Pakistani shelling along the Line of Control (LoC) in Nowshera sector of Rajouri. He is survived by his wife, and two children  a son and a daughter.

Younger brother of the deceased, Deepu, who is also in the army, said, I had informed him that only two days of my leave are left and I will resume my duties after that. He had inquired about the well being of his children and other family members. Then, at around 1:30am, we received a phone call informing us that my brother has martyred.

He was a gold medallist in shooting and had fought the Pakistani troops during Kargil war, he added.

District commissioner Dr Piyush Singla, J&K BJP president Ravinder Raina, former MLAs and other prominent citizens attended the funeral.

Also Read: 3 terrorists killed in encounter in J-Ks Shopian district

The JCO sacrificed his life in the line of duty in Pakistans ceasefire violation along the Nowshera sector in Rajouri, said defence spokesperson Lt Col Devender Anand.

India retaliated to Pakistans unprovoked act, he added.

Also Read: BJP worker escapes terror attack in Kashmir, PSO dies defending him

Late Monday, Pakistan Army resorted to unprovoked ceasefire violation on the line of control (LoC) in Nowshera sector, Rajouri. Indian troops responded strongly to the enemy fire. In the incident, Subedar Sukhdev Singh was critically injured and later succumbed to his injuries, he said.

Subedar Sukhdev Singh was a brave, highly motivated and a sincere soldier. The nation will always remain indebted to him for his supreme sacrifice and devotion to duty, added Col Anand.
F irst Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced circuit break restrictions for Scotland, but what does that mean for your half term holiday?

In today's daily briefing, Sturgeon announced that further restrictions will be put in place for 16 days, from this Friday, October 9 to Sunday October 25.

All pubs and restaurants in central Scotland - Greater Glasgow and Clyde region, Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Arran, Lothian and Forth Valley health board areas - will be closed completely.

In the rest of Scotland, pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes will be allowed to open from 6am to 6pm and will be able to serve food and non-alcoholic beverages. Alcohol can only be served outdoors.

The First Minister added that those with October half-term breaks should continue with their holiday, but said those in the five most affected regions as mentioned above should avoid travel where possible.

Hotels will remain open, and people in Scotland's central belt have been asked to avoid public transport unless necessary for the next two weeks.

The details of the new restrictions as announced by the First Minister this afternoon which will come into force in just two days time are nothing short of devastating for the majority of those operating in our hospitality industry. The sector has invested significantly in adapting premises to create a safe experience for customers, adhering to government guidance and many have gone beyond this to maintain confidence with visitors and staff," Marc Crothall, Chief Executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance, said in a statement.

"Whilst many people will be relieved that they can get away on a holiday over the half-term break, businesses have already reported they are taking cancellation calls and expect to see more over the coming days, impacting all areas of the sector, including the supply chain."

Why are tougher restrictions being implemented?

Like England, Scotland has seen a stark rise in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, rising from zero new infections reported on August 14 to over 1,000 new cases recorded in the last 24 hours. There has also been a rise in people being admitted to hospital in the last few days and 28 people have been admitted to intensive care.

In her briefing, Sturgeon said: There is a rising tide of infection across the country, albeit it is higher in some parts than in others. Part of our consideration of restrictions also requires to take account not just reacting to a problem that is already there, but also are we wiser to take preventative action in areas where it might not look as if there is as big a problem right now.

When will these restrictions be put in place?

The tougher restrictions will come into place this Friday, October 9 at 6pm and last for 16 days, until September 25.

The best Scottish road trips - in pictures 1 /21 The best Scottish road trips - in pictures Eilean Donan Castle Unsplash Scottish Highlands Shutterstock The Quiraing, Isle of Skye Shutterstock Cairngorms National Park Shutterstock Ruins of Urquhart Castle along Loch Ness Shutterstock The Quiraing, Isle of Skye Visit Scotland Trees and fern during autumn in front of Loch Lomond Shutterstock Old Man of Storr, Isle of Skye Shutterstock Cliffs near Kilt rock waterfall, Isle Of Skye Shutterstock Grampian mountains Shutterstock Glenfinnan Unsplash A picture postcard cottage at Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands Shutterstock A young couple pose at the filming location of James Bond's Skyfall, Glen Etive Shutterstock East Neuk Shutterstock Ben Nevis Shutterstock Culloden Moor Shutterstock

What do the new restrictions mean for my holiday?

While travel is still allowed, those looking to travel to Scotland in the next two weeks should check what the situation is with their hotel. It's also worth noting that anyone looking to go to Scotland during this time period will have to comply with the countrys regulations. Pubs and restaurants across central Scotland will be closed and in other parts of the country can only serve alcohol outdoors.

Can I get a refund if Ive booked a holiday to Scotland?

If you have been forced to cancel your holiday due to a government lockdown order, you should be entitled to a refund. However, as no restrictions on travel have been implemented and hotels will remain open, it will be up to you whether you visit or not. Most hotels have already introduced flexible booking schemes so its always best to check what the cancellation policies are like before you book.

Should I book a holiday to Scotland for later in the year?

Booking a holiday in 2020 is a gamble, and you have to be prepared for it to be cancelled at the last minute. But if you book a hotel with flexible policies or if you are forced to cancel due to lockdowns, you should be able to get your money back.
L.A. County sheriff's deputies outside Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where a patient allegedly destroying medical equipment was shot by a deputy Tuesday night. (KTLA)

A patient who was allegedly swinging a metal medical device at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center was in critical condition after being shot Tuesday night by a sheriff's deputy, officials said.

The patient, a man 30 to 40 years old who has not been identified, was using the metal device to break the window of a room containing two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies and another patient, said Sheriff's Lt. Derrick Alfred. One of the deputies then shot him.

Alfred said the device was "about the size of a shoebox but metal  all metal."

The patient, who was in the hospital being treated for injuries, became "agitated" at around 11:15 p.m. and attempted to break through the door of his room with the metal device, Alfred said.

The two deputies were guarding the other patient's room, and one of them came to investigate the commotion. She made sure the agitated patient's roommate was safe, then retreated to the first room, Alfred said.

The agitated patient followed her and began smashing the window with the metal device, according to Alfred's account.

"The deputy, trying to de-escalate the situation, backed into a room [and] shut the door," Alfred said. "Then the guy took to smashing the room."

It was not clear which of the deputies shot the patient. Alfred said of the metal device: "I wouldn't want to get hit with it."

In a news release, the Sheriff's Department said only that the patient "turned his attention on the deputy."

No other patients, medical staff or deputies were injured, but Alfred said the area was heavily damaged.

The hospital gave a similar account, saying the patient "became agitated" and tried to enter a neighboring patient's room.

"The patient became aggressive and was subsequently shot by the deputies," the hospital's communications manager, LaVasha Floyd, said in a statement.

Anish Mahajan, acting CEO and chief medical officer for Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, said in an email that the man was "shot by law enforcement in response to an attack on another patient."

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Hospital workers immediately began treating the man after the deputy shot him.

"I want to thank the staff caring for the patients in the area where this occurred for their swift response to care for the patient who had been shot and to ensure the physical and psychological safety of the other patients and each other on the unit," Mahajan wrote in an email to staff members.

In another law enforcement shooting at Harbor-UCLA five years ago, a Los Angeles police officer fatally shot a mentally ill patient, Ruben Herrera. Authorities said Herrera, 26, attacked officers and reached for their guns.

The officers knew that Herrera had bipolar disorder, and there were no fingerprints on the officers' guns, said an attorney for Herrera's parents, who won $3.5 million in a lawsuit against the city.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Microsoft Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Satya Nadella has said social media companies should pay more attention to internet safety.

Nadella said Microsoft would have applied some of its experience in internet safety to ByteDance's video-sharing app TikTok, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"What needs to happen is real reform in social media where internet safety is a top consideration," Nadella was quoted as saying by WSJ. Microsoft recently made an unsuccessful bid to invest in TikTok's US business.

TikTok, which was banned by India in June, has faced increased scrutiny over privacy and safety of user data.

Also read: India has tech smarts to build a rival app store, but platform monopoly will be hard to break

TikTok has previously been accused of privacy violations in the US. In February 2019, it paid $5.9 million to the Federal Trade Commission to settle allegations of collecting information of children.

Microsoft has experience of dealing with such content issues through its Xbox gaming platform, Nadella said.

Nadella is of the view that social media platforms should be better at self-regulation and be prepared for increased regulatory scrutiny.

"Regulation will never come fast enough to overcome some challenges," the Wall Street Journal quoted him as saying. "Any product at scale with unintended consequences will face regulatory scrutiny."

Oracle and Walmart have agreed to invest 12.5 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively, in TikTok Global, which would own the app in the US.

While US President Donald Trump has given the green signal to the deal, Beijing is yet to approve the transaction.
After 30 seasons, Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzukis famed experimental New York theater company will take its final bow in 2022.

The Saratoga International Theater Institute, better known as SITI Company, announced today that it will stop touring and performing shows after its 30th and final season, which it anticipates will run through Fall 2022. This was a very emotional and personal decision, Bogart, the companys co-artistic director, said in an interview on Tuesday. Some of the actors have been with the company for around 30 years.

But the company is far from finished, Bogart said. Training and teaching will continue after 2022, and some members, herself included, will continue to work on theatrical projects together. Theres an appetite for the classes like you wouldnt believe, she said.
In this March 14, 2016 file photo American biochemist Jennifer A. Doudna, left, and the French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier, right, pose for a photo in Frankfurt, Germany. They have won the Nobel Prize 2020 in chemistry for developing a method of genome editing likened to "molecular scissors" that offer the promise of one day curing genetic diseases. AP-Yonhap



Emmanuelle Charpentier of France and Jennifer Doudna of the United States on Wednesday won the Nobel Chemistry Prize for developing the gene-editing technique known as the CRISPR-Cas9 DNA snipping "scissors."



"Using these, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision," the Nobel jury said.



"This technology has had a revolutionary impact on the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases come true."



Charpentier, 51, and Doudna, 56, are just the sixth and seventh women to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The technique has been tipped for a Nobel nod several times in the past but speaking to reporters in Stockholm via telephone link Charpentier said the call was still a surprise.



"Strangely enough I was told a number of times (it might happen) but when it happens you are very surprised and you feel that it's not real," she said. "But obviously it is real so I have to get used to it now," she added.



Rewriting 'the code of life'



While researching a common harmful bacteria, Charpentier discovered a previously unknown molecule -- part of the bacteria's ancient immune system that disarms viruses by snipping off parts of their DNA.



After publishing her research in 2011, Charpentier worked with Doudna to recreate the bacteria's genetic scissors, simplifying the tool so it was easier to use and apply to other genetic material.



They then reprogrammed the scissors to cut any DNA molecule at a predetermined site -- paving the way for scientists to rewrite the code of life where the DNA is snipped.



The CRISPR/Cas9 tool has already contributed to significant gains in crop resilience, altering their genetic code to better withstand drought and pests.



The technology has also led to innovative cancer treatments, and many experts hope it could one day make inherited diseases curable through gene manipulation.



"There is enormous power in this genetic tool, which affects us all. It has not only revolutionized basic science, but also resulted in innovative crops and will lead to ground-breaking new medical treatments," Claes Gustafsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a statement.





Rogue practice



CRISPR's relative simplicity has however triggered the imaginations of rogue practitioners.



In 2018 in China, scientist He Jiankui triggered an international scandal -- and his excommunication from the scientific community -- when he used CRISPR to create what he called the first gene-edited humans.



The biophysicist said he had altered the DNA of human embryos that became twin girls Lulu and Nana.



His goal was to create a mutation that would prevent the girls from contracting HIV, even though there was no specific reason to put them through the process.



The first time a woman was honored with the chemistry prize was in 1911 when Marie Curie, who also took the physics prize in 1903, won after discovering the elements radium and polonium.



The pair will share 10 million Swedish kronor (about $1.1 million, 950,000 euros).



They would normally receive their Nobel from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of scientist Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his last will and testament.



But the in-person ceremony has been cancelled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and replaced with a televised ceremony showing the laureates receiving their awards in their home countries.



Last year, the chemistry prize went to John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for the development of lithium-ion batteries, paving the way for smartphones and a fossil fuel-free society. (AFP)


Available today for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and CarPlay, Google Maps 5.54.3 comes with a generic workaround, with the Mountain View-based search giant only saying the following:Thanks for using Google Maps! This release brings bug fixes that improve our product to help you discover new places and navigate to them, Google says This is actually a changelog that the company has been using on several occasions, so users are the only ones who can discover whats new in this update.On the other hand, what I noticed after installing this update is that the new layer that shows how each region is affected by the global health issue is finally available on my device too. Just make sure that you zoom out the map after enabling it from the layers screen.Most likely, this update also brings improvements under the hood, as Google itself seems to suggest in its changelog, and I can only hope that additional GPS refinements are available too.Google Maps is occasionally having a hard time figuring out where you are, and unfortunately for the app and its users, not being able to determine your location makes it pretty much useless. Similar issues have been happening on Android and Android Auto lately, so hopefully, the experience is a little bit more polished after this update.Everything seems to be running properly on CarPlay for me after installing this new version, but of course, I havent experienced any GPS problems before.Needless to say, if youre a Google Maps user too, you are recommended to install the new version as soon as possible. And of course, if you notice something new in this update, just make sure you let us know using the comment box after the jump.
Western University of Health Sciences has moved up the launch of its Doctor of Physical Therapy program in Lebanon.

Originally slated to begin in 2022, the first 60-student class will instead begin taking classes in July 2021.

There has also been a change in plans for the location of the program. Western University of Health Sciences originally proposed construction of a new building on the Samaritan Health Services campus in north Lebanon near the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, Northwest.

We are moving in another direction now. Our intent is to purchase and renovate an existing building in Lebanon, said Dr. Dee Schilling, Dean of the Western University College of Health Sciences.

The location of this building has not yet been announced, but Schilling confirmed that a large space is needed to fill all of the future needs. The physical therapy program will grow to 180 students at full capacity and in 2023 Western University plans to launch a Doctor of Occupational Therapy program in Lebanon, as well. This program will have the same structure as the school of physical therapy, with 60 students admitted each year to the three-year program.

So within a few years, there will be 360 new students, with the accompanying faculty and staff.

Dr. Chad Lairamore, the chair of Lebanons Doctor of the Physical Therapy program, said applications are currently being received for the inaugural class and there is great interest in the new school.

We have more applicants than we have spots, Lairamore said, adding that applications will continue to be accepted through February 1. But the priority deadline for admission was October 1 and interviews of prospective students will begin soon.

Unlike graduates of COMP-NW, graduates of the physical therapy program do not have to serve a residency. They do have to pass a national licensing exam and they serve multiple clinical rotations during their third year.

Both Schilling and Lairamore are convinced there is a need for more physical therapy training in the Pacific Northwest. Lairamore said there are just two programs currently in Oregon and there are no doctoral programs in California north of Sacramento.

We firmly believe there is an absence of enough physical therapists, and really healthcare workers across the board, who are really committed to the rural communities, the underserved communities, Schilling said. We are very committed to interviewing and accepting students who have a commitment to rural health issues.

As part of that commitment, the Lebanon program already has one fully endowed scholarship for mid-valley students. The scholarship is in honor of Corvallis physical therapist Margaret Bartlett, who died in 2019.

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Road To Refuge Animal Sanctuary JD the calf

A calf named JD is making progress in his road to recovery after he was found chained to a wall just days after his birth.

Road To Refuge Animal Sanctuary in North Haven, Connecticut, took in the calf at just 3 days old in mid-September from a "HORRIBLE situation" in which he was "tied up by a chain attached to a piece of bailing twine around his neck," according to a Facebook post from the rescue.

Since then, JD  named after Jack Daniels for being "as strong as whiskey"  faced numerous complications, but has somehow made overcame the odds.

"This little boy is flourishing like a beautiful little flower," the sanctuary shared in a Sept. 18 post. "His bloodwork came back mostly normal, his protein is a little low which insinuates he is likely a 'failure of passive transfer' calf. This means he was taken away from his mother too early, and didnt get enough colostrum from her. Colostrum is sooo important for babies to get because its what gives all of the mother's antibodies to the babies."

"But for now, lil JD is doing AMAZING," the rescue said.

However, JD's health took a turn for the worse days later when a staffer found him "laying down flat on his side and unresponsive," according to another Facebook post. After a thorough examination by a vet, the calf was determined to have likely started "to go septic from a respiratory infection" and went on antibiotics.

"Thats the life of a baby who didnt get any colostrum from momma, or quality colostrum for that matter," the rescue said in a Sept. 22 update. "Hes so young and trying desperately to build his own immune system and we have to support him every step of the way."

About a week later, JD hit another roadblock when he started suffering from bloody diarrhea, forcing him to go on yet another round of antibiotics and electrolytes.

Story continues

Road To Refuge Animal Sanctuary

Still, the calf persists and things have been getting "back to normal," according to the animal sanctuary.

"Hes really coming out of his shell and is the funniest little guy ever!" a Facebook post shared on Sunday read. "Hes getting stronger and SO much more lively. He wants to head butt and play and run around every morning. Hes really getting quite bored with quarantine, and he really cant wait to meet all his new friends."

Megan Pereira, the animal rescue's founder, recently told WTNH that JD will be "living at the farm forever in Sanctuary."

Road To Refuge Animal Sanctuary

Theres been a lot of animals that have come through our sanctuary," she said. "Unfortunately, some who have left us and some leave bigger marks than others, but he will certainly be one thats changed my life for the better."

The Road To Refuge Animal Sanctuary has set up a GoFundMe page for help to buy additional land to support JD and other rescue calves. As of Tuesday, it has raised $1,916 out of its $60,000 goal.
If you're planning to keep your next car for a few years, you should be considering an electric vehicle to save money, that's according to a new study.

Analysis of purchase prices and running costs found that family-size electric vehicles are now more cost competitive with petrol and diesel cars - and the longer you keep a battery-powered model the better it will be for your finances.

When taking into account the total cost of ownership, the research claimed the difference between a petrol and electric mid-size car is 132 a month in favour of plug-in models.

Electric family cars are cheaper to own, according to an annual report comparing the running costs of EVs and models with petrol and diesel engines

The claim that electric cars are now cheaper to own over an extended period has been made by LeasePlan in its latest annual Car Cost Index.

The report looks at the true cost of owning a car  including fuel, depreciation, taxes, insurance and maintenance  in 18 European countries.

It found that the common mid-size electric vehicle in the UK costs 918 (837) a month to own, while an equivalent petrol model would be 1,063 (969) - a cost difference of 145 (132).

Mid-sized models included in the review include the Tesla Model 3, which has become Britain's best-selling electric car this year, compared against the likes of the BMW 3 Series and Audi A4 with internal combustion engines.

The report claimed that smaller battery-powered cars - like the Nissan Leaf - remained more expensive than their fossil fuel counterparts due to their much higher purchase price.

However, the gap in ownership costs for this category of car diminishes after four years of ownership, with EVs becoming more affordable than petrol and diesel the longer you keep a car.

This is because owners of battery-powered cars have the financial benefit of far lower charging costs than refuelling a motor with an internal combustion engine, cheaper maintenance and tax bills and other subsidies linked to zero-emission vehicles.

Electric cars currently hold their value much better than models with internal combustion engines, which also has an impact on the long-term ownership costs.

The table shows that the cost of running an electric vehicle in the UK (far right chart) is much cheaper than an equivalent family model with a petrol engine - and also less expensive than a diesel car

For the study, LeasePlan used a Tesla Model 3 as an example of a mid-size family EV

The equivalent for cars with internal combustion engines were the BMW 3 Series (pictured) and Audi A4

Tex Gunning, chief executive of LeasePlan, said the cost of driving electric cars is now coming down, and motorists are seeing the 'development of a strong second-hand market for quality used EVs'.

This includes the introduction of the new Volkswagen ID.3 family hatchback with a 260-mile range, which first arrived in the UK a month ago and cheapest versions will cost from under 30,000.

A larger ID.4 SUV will also be sold from 2021 along with a plethora of new plug-in cars from rival brands.

Yet despite the availability of EVs expanding and prices beginning to fall closer in-line with models with internal combustion engines, Mr Gunning warned that governments are failing to provide the charging infrastructure necessary to satisfy market demand.

'National and local policymakers need to step up now and invest in a universal, affordable and sustainable charging infrastructure to enable everyone to make the switch to EV,' he said in the report.

'Supporting the transition to electric mobility is the best investment governments can make  EVs are good for drivers, good for air quality, and one of the most effective ways to fight climate change.'

Volkswagen's new ID.3 hatchback has arrived in the UK in recent week. The cheapest versions are due to cost less than 30,000

VW has also announced a larger ID.4 electric SUV, which will hit UK showroom in 2021

In the UK, the number of electric car rapid chargers is set to more than double between now and 2024 as a result of additional funding.

The Government confirmed last year that it will invest a total of 400million to help bolster the public charging network, with 70million used to fund the installation of 3,000 rapid chargers over the next five years.

The government has also this week announced plans to investigate how public chargepoints should be regulated in the UK, particularly regarding pricing and data.

A consultation will be launched later this year by transport secretary, Grant Shapps.

In a statement made during the online Conservative Party Conference, Mr Shapps said: 'As an EV driver myself, I know that it's vital that EV drivers can have confidence in the public charging network.

'That's why we're going to consult on regulating to improve the driver experience of use of electric vehicle chargepoints to make it as easy and hassle-free as it can possibly be.'

The government confirmed last year that it will invest a total of 400million to help bolster the public charging network between now and 2024

The government has yet to rubber-stamp plans for an accelerated ban on sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars, which is currently set for 2040.

It had been widely expected that the ban will be fast-tracked to 2035, but that date could be hauled forward to 2030 in order for the UK to achieve a target of being net-zero for carbon emissions by 2050 - a move that would be supported by many Tory MPs and the Labour Party.

Industry figures show that 66,611 battery electric cars - those that run entirely on electricity - have been registered so far in 2020.

These zero-emission cars account for one in 20 new models bought in Britain this year.

More than three times the number of pure electric vehicles have been sold in the first nine months on 2020 compared with the same period in 2019.

More than one in five UK motorists said they were unaware of the taxpayer-funded plug-in car grant offering up to 3,000 off an eligible electric vehicle

More needs to be done in terms of electric car incentives, industry insiders suggest

While subsidies and incentives for electric cars are one of the biggest attractions to make the switch to plug-in vehicles sooner, they are not working as hard as they could be, according to two new reports.

The first study, based on a poll of 4,000 motorists by consumer motoring website Honest John, found that two in five drivers are unaware of the taxpayer-funded Plug-in Car Grant.

The scheme offers buyers of electric cars up to 35 per cent off the purchase price of qualifying vehicles, up to a maximum of 3,000.

Dan Powell, managing editor of HonestJohn said: 'The Government has set itself an ambitious target of banning the sale of new petrol or diesel models, possibly as soon as 2030.

'That requires a much greater uptake of electric and alternative fuel vehicles than there currently is.

'While the Plug-in Car Grant is a great way to encourage this - from our research it's clear too few people know about it.

'The Government needs to do more to get the message out there and alert car-buyers to the help that is available for them as they go green.'

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has proposed for local authorities to paint parking spaces green in their busiest locations to reserved them exclusively for EVs

A separate report by The Motor Ombudsman found that the latest incentive for electric car owners - the introduction of green number plates - is doing very little to entice motorists.

A YouGov poll of 2,105 UK adults commissioned by organisation revealed that 88 per cent of UK drivers are not aware of the EV-specific number plates available form this autumn.

The scheme is designed to boost the profile of battery-powered cars and pave the way for future incentive schemes, which could allow them to use bus lanes and park free of charge in town centres in dedicated parking spaces that are painted green.

Almost three quarters of the panel polled by YouGov said they would be happy to have a green-marked plate fitted as standard if they were thinking of buying an EV.

However, only around a quarter of individuals thought that having dedicated green parking spaces for EVs would make them much more or a little more inclined to look at buying one, with 57 per cent being indifferent to the idea.

Commenting on the poll, Bill Fennell, chief ombudsman, said: 'Despite the results showing that consumer awareness of the arrival of the new green plates remains low, the findings nevertheless show a positive picture overall that drivers are happy to embrace them.

'However, when it comes to parking spaces being reserved solely for the use of EVs, its clear that the jurys still out as to whether this will have any bearing on an individuals decision to buy an electric vehicle.'

This month, a new comparison service has launched, helping electric car owners find the best tariffs, home charging and installation costs.

Rightcharge claims it can save bill payers more than 230 a year on their energy bills while drivers can also save more than 100 on the upfront cost of installing a charger.
(Photo : Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images) In this photo illustration, social media apps are seen on a mobile phone on July 29, 2020 in Istanbul, Turkey. Turkey's parliament passed a new law Wednesday, to regulate social media content. The law will require foreign social media companies to have an appointed Turkish-based representative to deal with any concerns authorities have over content. (Photo : Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images) Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a panel talk at the 2020 Munich Security Conference (MSC) on February 15, 2020 in Munich, Germany. The annual conference brings together global political, security and business leaders to discuss pressing issues, which this year include climate change, the US commitment to NATO and the spread of disinformation campaigns.

A television advertisement attacking Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg will air during the vice presidential debate, which is set on Wednesday, Oct. 7. The TV ad criticizes Facebook because of how it handles misinformation and hate on its platform, and the group behind it is called Accountable Tech, CNN Business reported.

Also Read: Hootsuite Fires Whistleblower Employee Who Revealed Its $1.5 Million Deal with ICE

Accountable Tech, an organization that advocates social media companies to strengthen the integrity of their platforms and democracy. In the video, Zuckerberg appears to speaking to Congress and telling them that his social media platform has a responsibility to be a "positive force" in the world.

Also Read: McAfee: Anna Kendrick Tops 'Most Dangerous Celebrities' to Search Online; Taylor Swift Joins the List for 2020

He also added that as a founder, he has "ultimate responsibility" for Facebook. After the CEO's speech, the ad then shows media headlines about Facebook's recent failures, including the page of a militia in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that was not removed.

The video also includes headlines about Facebook's struggle in handling QAnon, a conspiracy theory that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) labeled as a potential domestic terrorist threat.

"Our democracy is on the line. Hold Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg accountable," the message at the end of the video reads.

Accountable Tech buys six-figure ad-buy

Jesse Lehrich, Accountable Tech's other co-founder, said that the organization a six-figure ad-buy to air the advertisement during Fox News' morning show "Fox and Friends" on streaming services as during CNN's debate coverage on cable.

"This VP debate will draw the nation's attention to the precarious state of our democracy, from the erosion of truth to the extreme tribalism," said Nicole Gill, the organization's executive director, and co-founder.



She added that Zuckerberg and his social media platform need to be held accountable.



Accountable Tech didn't provide the names of its funders. CNN Business also stated that since it is a 501(c)(4) group, it is not required to make that information public.



For more news updates about the presidential and vice-presidential debate, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Also Read: Top Trump COVID-19 Claims Fact-Checked; 'I hope he dies' Trends on Twitter

This article is owned by TechTimes,

Written by: Giuliano de Leon.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Patna, Oct 7 : RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has urged Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to recommend a CBI inquiry in the murder case of Dalit leader Shakti Singh.

Yadav, his elder brother Tej Pratap Yadav and four others are facing murder charges in the case of Shakti Singh who was gunned down by three unknown assailants in Purnia on October 4. The FIR was registered on the statement of the deceased's wife Khusboo Devi.

With a request for recommendation of the case to the CBI, Tejashwi wants to take the moral high ground in the case. He also want to send a message among Dalits and Mahadalits about an alleged conspiracy by the ruling JD-U to defame the RJD and its top leadership.

In a letter to Nitish, Tejashwi said that he wants a fair and speedy inquiry into the murder case of Shakti Singh through any national or international investigating agency.

The murder has political implications ahead of the Bihar Assembly election. The leaders and spokespersons of JD-U and BJP are leveling allegations against Tejashwi Yadav and other RJD leaders for "humiliating" Dalits and Mahadalits.

"I learnt that the spokesperson of JD-U is making objectionable remarks against me and my elder brother using FIR in Shakti Singh murder case. As I was busy in election process, it has now come to my notice. We want a speedy investigation in this matter to find the actual culprits," he said.

"As Bihar police has no credibility and your own leaders have put a question mark on its working style, we request you to kindly recommend the case to CBI for a fair probe," Tejashwi said in the letter.

"As you are also the home minister of the state, you are free to arrest me before my nomination," he said.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 7, 2020) - TROUBADOUR RESOURCES INC. (TSXV: TR) (OTC Pink: TROUF) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an option agreement with 1218802 B.C. LTD. , an arm's length vendor (the "Vendor"), to acquire a 100% interest in the 1,766 ha Texas property located in the Greenwood Mining District in Southern B.C.

Key Project Highlights:

Located within the prolific Beaverdell mining camp 1 which was a center of activity in the area from the late 1890s to the early 1900s.

Two recent grab samples* from the Doorn vein assayed 241.96 g/t Au and 78.84 g/t Au, 319 g/t Ag and 8% Cu.

Recent analysis of wall rocks show gold mineralization over a much wider interval than previously thought.

Historic soil geochemistry outlines compelling gold trends that were never followed up on.

Drill permitting underway.

*Grab samples are by definition selective. Grab samples are solely designed to show the presence or absence of mineralization, and are not intended to provide nor should be construed as a representative indication of grade or mineralization at the Project. Refer below for fuller disclosure on the 2017 grab sampling program and results.

"We are very excited to be adding this quality gold asset to our portfolio. The consolidation of this land package that contains numerous historic gold showings and workings presents a unique opportunity for Troubadour shareholders to benefit from the rising gold market," states Geoff Schellenberg, Company President.

The road accessible Texas property covers historical mineral showings and is located 3 km southwest of the town of Beaverdell and in close proximity to the past producing Beaverdell Mine2 that was in operation from 1896 to 1991. The property covers ground prospective for vein hosted precious metal deposits, based on at least seven historical and newly discovered gold occurrences on the property and geological comparisons with the nearby Beaverdell Mine2. Several showings are present on the property, including two old mines and many older trenches, pits and adits that expose mineralized veins. The Beaverdell mining camp is predominately known for its silver production and the presence of high-grade gold occurrences makes the Texas property unique and significantly more attractive. The most notable polymetallic vein showings on the property are the Doorn, Cabin and Wombat with notable grab sample assay results from these listed in the table below:

Sample Number Lithology Location Au

g/t TX001 Quartz Vein Doorn 5.8 TX002 Quartz Vein Doorn 16.96 TX003 Granodiorite Doorn 0.12 TX004 Quartz Vein Doorn 241.96

Sample Number Lithology Location Au g/t Ag g/t Cu % 542451 Quartz Vein Doorn 78.84 317 8.43 542452 Quartz Vein Cabin 18.6 65.21 0.01 542453 Quartz Vein Cabin 2.8 8.64 0.01 542454 Granodiorite Wombat 1.11 3.46 0.39 542455 Quartz Vein Wombat 45.15 104 0.64 542456 Granodiorite Cabin 0.95 2.67 0.02 542457 Granodiorite Wombat 7.11 12.75 0.06 542459 Quartz Vein Wombat 13.96 26.12 1.45

Referenced nearby historic resources, deposits and mines provide geologic context for the Project, but are not necessarily indicative that the Project hosts similar potential, size or grades of mineralization. Camp refers to a colony of miners settled in proximity to a mine, or series of mines or workings.

Since 1975, when high grade gold was discovered in the T-1 (Doorn) trench in the Logan Creek area, a number of operators have conducted geochemical soil sampling and geophysical surveys over the area indicating possible extensions to the zone that remain untested. Exploration to date has focused solely on the high-grade veins themselves and recent sampling has determined that gold values extend well into the host rock. Host Granodiorite at Cabin, Doorn and Wombat showings returned assay values ranging from 0.12 g/t Au to 7.11 g/t Au and outline the potential for economical mineral grades to extend well beyond quartz vein boundaries.

The Company intends to mobilize a field crew in the coming weeks to complete detailed sampling and mapping in preparation for an inaugural drill program that will focus on the Doorn and Cabin targets. The field crew will also investigate other mineral occurrences on the property that were the subject of historical mining in order to generate new drill targets. Drill permitting was initiated by the property vendor and is well underway. The Phase 1 program is fully funded through a recent mineral exploration tax credit (METC) refund, relating to 2018 and 2019 exploration expenditures.







Figure 1: Texas Property Significant Mineral Showings

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/5941/65400_f903ff2e040cd9fb_001full.jpg

Rock samples were submitted to MSA Labs in Langley, BC (an ISO 17025 and ISO 9001 accredited facility). Sample numbers TX001-TX004 were each crushed and screened to 106 microns, then 50g of material was subjected to the MSC-550 metallics screening method, in which both the plus and minus fraction were assayed in duplicate using fire assay techniques with a gravimetric finish. Internal lab blanks and duplicates produced expected results. Samples 542541-542547 and 542549 were subjected to the MSC-550 method detailed above. In addition, samples were assayed with the IMS-130 method, a conventional 4 acid digestion ICP-MS analytical technique producing a suite of 51 elements. Samples which returned higher than 100 ppm Ag were rerun using fire assay techniques with a gravimetric finish. Internal lab blanks and duplicates returned expected results.

Patrick McLaughlin, P. Geo., a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, supervised all technical aspects of the work programs performed by the Vendor at the Project, has verified the exploration data disclosed, including sampling, analytical and test data contained in the written disclosure, and has reviewed and approved the contents of this news release.

Option Terms

Troubadour can acquire a 100% interest by paying the Vendor a total of $85,000 and issuing 3 million shares over a two-year period. Upon vesting the Vendor will retain a 1.5% NSR of which Troubadour can purchase 1% for $1 million anytime prior to commencement of commercial production.

About Troubadour

TROUBADOUR RESOURCES INC. (TSXV: TR) (OTC Pink: TROUF) is a public Canadian mining exploration company focused on copper and gold in British Columbia, Canada. The Company is managed by an experienced team consisting of youthful and seasoned professionals with proven track records as mine finders. The Company's flagship copper project, the Amarillo property, consists of 9 mineral claims covering 5,449 hectares and is located in the heart of a major mining district. The project is host to some of the more prospective targets developed in this world class southern BC porphyry belt in decades. The project is located 20km west of Peachland, with access along the Peachland FSR logging road from Highway 97.

For further information please contact:

Troubadour Resources Inc.

625 Howe Street, Suite 488

Vancouver, BC V6C 2T6

Geoff Schellenberg, President

Office: (604) 681-0221

geoff@troubadourresources.com

Forward Looking Information

Except for historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Except as required pursuant to applicable securities laws, the Company will not update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. More detailed information about potential factors that could affect financial results is included in the documents filed from time to time with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities by the Company. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward looking statements.

NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/65400
BRASILIA (dpa-AFX) - Allergan Aesthetics, a unit of AbbVie Inc. (ABBV) said Wednesday it has agreed to acquire the full dermal filler portfolio and R&D pipeline of Luminera, a privately-held, aesthetics company based in Israel. Allergan Aesthetics noted that the acquisition will enhance its dermal filler portfolio with its JUV DERM collection of fillers. According to the company, Luminera's key value driver for the future is HArmonyCa, a dermal filler intended for facial soft tissue augmentation comprised of a combination of cross-linked hyaluronic acid (HA) with embedded calcium hydroxyapatite (CaHA) microspheres. The combination of HA and CaHA in a single product is highly differentiated in the dermal filler category. HArmonyCa is currently commercially available in Israel and Brazil. Allergan Aesthetics said it will continue to develop this product for its International and U.S. markets. In addition, the Luminera dermal filler portfolio includes a line of HA dermal fillers, as well CaHA based fillers commercialised across several markets. Brands include Crystalys, Hydryalix and Hydryal. 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.
Keeping the messaging of a major university on an even keel during an unpredictable crisis is the subject of the latest PRs Top Pros Talk video, a conversation between D S Simon Media CEO Doug Simon and Michael Schoenfeld, the vice president for public affairs & government relations and chief communications officer at Duke University.

Schoenfeld tells Simon that Duke got a head start on negotiating the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to its partnership with Wuhan University in China. Had it happened in any other Chinese city, we might have been a little less vigilant about it, Schoenfeld says. We were able to get our systems and processes in place.

Those processes included such initiatives as testing regimens, de-densifying the Duke campus and planning for a mix of remote and in-person education.

Getting the message out was key to ensuring the success of the universitys efforts. We communicated the details repeatedly, Schoenfeld says, and while new channels such as video played an important role, it was an old standbyemailthat assumed a pivotal role. If people didnt get an email from us about whatever it was, he adds, they didnt believe it.

Schoenfeld stresses the importance of being able to work with a degree of uncertainty. Where we are today doesnt look anything like what we expected it was going to look like in March, April and May.

He also says that keeping all stakeholders in the loop is very importantand at Duke, of course, one of the major stakeholder groups is students. Our students were part of the planning process, and part of the whole effort.

View all of the interviews in the PR's Top Pros Talk series. Subscribe to get notified when new episodes are available.

Interested in taking part? Contact Doug Simon at dougs@dssimonmedia.com

D S Simon Media helps clients get their stories on television through satellite media tours and by producing and distributing content to the media. The company also produces live social media events.
Imagine being a reporter covering President Lyndon Baines Johnson as he boards Air Force One on a hot Texas day. As he talks to reporters on the plane, he slowly begins to shed his clothing. Soon, the president of the United States is as naked as a jaybird, waving a towel for emphasis.

It happened. In fact, a lot of history happens aboard the iconic blue and white aircraft. Its just the nature of being synonymous with the leader of the free world.

Operated by the 89th Airlift Wing out of Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, there are actually two specially modified military versions of the Boeing 747-200B, known as VC-25A.

But they earn the Air Force One call sign only while the president is aboard; in fact, any plane carrying the president will be designated as Air Force One, no matter what kind of aircraft it is. Planes carrying the vice president are designated as Air Force Two.

When VC-25A or the currently under development VC-25B, are in the air but not carrying the president, air traffic controllers may refer to them by their tail numbers, Special Air Missions (SAM) 28000 and 29000, or by a call sign of their choosing.

Related: Military Moves Forward with Plan to Make Air Force One Supersonic

As these two planes reach retirement age, the Air Force has already made plans for their replacements, converted Boeing 747-8 airliners. The VC-25A have one of the heaviest maximum takeoff weights of any Boeing airliner and are the longest in its fleet (until their replacements come along, that is).

The president and Air Force One: Name a more iconic duo. I'll wait. (U.S. Navy/PH3 B. Burdick)

The History of 'Air Force One'

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first sitting U.S. president to fly in a plane. During World War II, he flew on a special Pan Am flight to attend the first planning meeting between Allied powers in Casablanca, Morocco. The Secret Service was not thrilled to know the president of the United States was flying commercial.

By the time FDR flew again, it was 1945 and he was headed to the Yalta conference on a specially built Douglas VC-54C nicknamed "Sacred Cow." It wasnt until a near-tragic in-flight mix-up in 1953 that the Air Force decided to give the president's plane a special call sign. Thankfully, it opted against going with Sacred Cow.

And "Hell's Belle" was already taken, so they settled for Air Force One. (U.S. Army)

Eastern Airlines' Flight 8610 nearly collided with Air Force Flight 8610 over New York City. When air traffic controllers learned AF 8610 was carrying then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower -- and they had almost killed him -- they quickly decided a special name for any plane carrying the president was necessary. Air Force One was created.

Air Force One's Special Features

We can't list all of the special features of the president's plane here because a lot of them are classified. But the aircraft has come a long way since FDR's "Sacred Cow."

In 1959, Eisenhower commissioned three Boeing 707s to become the first jet aircraft designed for the president. Air Force One as we know it today began to take shape.

Ike had the interiors of these aircraft modified for comfort and advanced communications equipment, features included in later designs. In 1962, a C-137C specially purposed for regular use by the president -- and only the president -- entered service.

That plane was SAM 26000 and served the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations. In 1972, SAM 27000 entered service until it was retired by President George W. Bush in 2001.

All of the presidents planes are designed to be a "Flying White House."

President Trumps other plane might be bigger, but let's see it survive a nuclear blast like Air Force One. (White House)

The VC-25A planes used as Air Force One are the most well-equipped and well-defended aircraft flying. Ready for business (with 85 phone lines) or wartime (they really can withstand a nuclear blast on the ground), today's Air Force One planes have 4,000 square feet of space for up to 76 passengers and a crew of 26. They each boast two galleys, with stocked fridges; a medical department; a supply of blood; and a well-stocked pharmacy.

For the president, each plane is equipped with a private suite that has a small gym, bathroom, shower and sleeping quarters. Each has a flying Oval Office and its own situation room. Their defenses include electronic countermeasures, radar jamming and flares to confuse enemy missiles. They are also protected against electromagnetic pulses.

The planes even have their own side exit doors, so they don't have to rely on airport stair vehicles.

The Look of Air Force One

Until the delivery of SAM 26000 (pronounced "2-6-thousand" if you want to be down with the lingo), the president's plane was designed for any VIP, not just the president.

With the arrival of a plane that would be synonymous with the office, the sitting first family believed a few design changes were necessary for a democratically elected leader, meaning the Kennedys thought the red on the aircraft looked too "imperial."

The red Air Force One was like the rust-orange shag carpeting of airplanes. (U.S. Air Force)

The Kennedys commissioned designer Raymond Loewy (who also created the curved Coke bottle) to redesign the plane's exterior. The same design extends to today's VC-25A aircraft, as well as smaller aircraft acquired for runways too small to accommodate the primary presidential planes.

The new 747-8 planes being specially built for the president may look a little different. On Boeing's Air Force One website, the photo of the new 747-8 features a more subdued blue along with a return to red, albeit a different shade.

President Trump is not known for his subtlety, even when it comes to Air Force One. (Boeing)

The interiors have undergone a lot of changes as well. The interiors of todays Air Force One planes, SAM 28000 and 29000, were designed by first lady Nancy Reagan, who used the American Southwest for inspiration. The Reagans would not fly on the new planes as president and first lady, as the first was delivered to President George H.W. Bush in 1990.

Air Force One Facts

LBJ loved flying on SAM 26000, logging more than half a million miles all over the world as president. Stories about him, such as infamous naked press conference, abound:

After he complained about the cabin temperature too many times, the crew installed a fake thermostat for him to use. He stopped complaining.

Johnson had doggie doors installed for his dogs to come and go from the conference room.

He designed the office to have a giant leather chair surrounded by couches that people would gather around to work. Aides dubbed it "The Throne."

SAM 26000 delivered his remains to his Texas home after his death in 1973.

President Richard Nixon turned a United Airlines DC-10 into Air Force One when he took a commercial flight from Washington, D.C., to California in 1973 to save fuel during the gas crisis. He is also the only president to take off in Air Force One but land on SAM 27000. The VC-137C carrying Nixon took off as Air Force One but changed its designation to SAM-27000 somewhere over Kansas City, Missouri. It marked the moment his resignation went into effect, and the aircraft was no longer carrying the president of the United States.

Presidents will send SAM aircraft to ferry former presidents to special events as well. This can be for any state event or official function.

After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the crew refused to put the casket of the slain president in the cargo hold. Instead, they used a hacksaw to cut away part of a forward bulkhead along with four rows of seats so he could return home in the main cabin.

When President Gerald Ford sent SAM 26000 to pick up President-elect Jimmy Carter for his inauguration, Carter was so excited that he forgot to take his mother with him.

President Ronald Reagan sent three former presidents to Egypt on SAM 26000 for the funeral of Anwar Sadat. The old rivals got into a heated exchange on the flight. It was former President Nixon who finally calmed everyone down.

Reagan also sent Carter to Wiesbaden, Germany, aboard SAM 26000 to greet the hostages freed from captivity in Iran in 1981.

SAM 26000 carried President Nixon's remains to his childhood home in California after his death in 1994.

While the plane may seem like the lap of luxury for those aboard, it's not a free ride. Members of the media press pool traveling with the president must reimburse the government for the cost of travel. Secret Service rules also forbid anyone from going forward of their assigned seat. They can move freely only to the rear of the plane. To address the media aboard the plane, the president must walk back to them. Journalists board the plane in the rear.

There is a "Navy One" to go along with Air Force One and Marine One, the presidential helicopter. Navy One would be any Navy aircraft carrying the president. So far, the only Navy One aircraft was a Lockheed S-3 Viking transporting President George W. Bush to the USS Abraham Lincoln to give his now-famous "Mission Accomplished" speech.

It costs more than $200,000 per flight hour to fly the current planes because of their age. The new Air Force One program will cost the United States $3.9 billion but President Trump will never see his proposed design changes as president -- they aren't scheduled for delivery until 2024.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook.

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In recent years we have seen so many knock-down, drag-out court fights between Democrats and Republicans and their politically aligned stand in over election-related issues that weve become a little numb to it all.

Weve seen fights sail up and down through the courts  state, federal and both Supreme Courts  over disputes on voter I.D., early voting and, in the most recent round here, over a six-day extension to count absentee ballots if they are postmarked by Election Day. Oh, yes, and there is the surreal deal surrounding the Republican-backed last-minute attempt to get rapper Kanye West on Wisconsins presidential ballot, presumably in hopes of draining votes from former Vice President Joe Bidens candidacy.

We thought wed seen it all, but, of course, theres always something new to surprise us.

That came a couple of weeks ago when a conservative group, the Wisconsin Voters Alliance, went to federal court to block grants to five Wisconsin cities to modernize their election systems and make them more professional, inclusive and secure, according to news reports.

Racine stood to net $942,000 from the grant program, which was part of $250 million in aid to local election officials across the country that were announced last summer. Milwaukee stood to get $2.2 million to upgrade their election preparations; Madison, $1.3 million; Green Bay, $1.1 million and Kenosha, $863,000.

The grants came from a liberal group, the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, and were supported by Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

The Wisconsin Voters Alliance sought to block the grants, complaining that it was an impermissible public-private partnership and that the cities which were to receive the grants had high rates of progressive voters.

We dont know that there is any kind of partnership here  as far as we know these are just one-time grants and our guess is that election officials everywhere will gladly accept unencumbered cash to make their offices more efficient heading into Election Day.

When the grants were announced last summer, the CTCL said they were to expand voter education and outreach, recruit and train poll workers, support in-person and mail voting and maintain poll safety amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nothing on that list seems nefarious or partisan to us. Just the opposite  it seems very civic-minded.

What about the complaint that the grants were only being given to progressive cities? Was this some sort of bribe to increase voter turnout in those areas? Well, we suppose if election clerks get sufficient financial support to run smooth elections that will encourage people to vote. But thats something weve always advocated.

In situations like this, we sometimes give it a flip test to see how we could react if the identities of the participants were reversed.

In this case we asked ourselves what would our position be if Waukesha County, Brookfield and Elm Grove, Washington and Ozaukee  all Republican strongholds in the state  were to be named beneficiaries of like election grants from, say, the Koch brothers or the Bradley Foundation?

Our response would be the same: Take the money and send a nice thank-you note.

Particularly this year with the huge ramp up in mail-in voting and the precautions needed to prevent the spread of coronavirus, our election clerks need all the help, and funding, that they can get.

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New Delhi: India has briefed envoys of Nordic and Baltic countries in Delhi on the current situation with China, even as the situation at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) remains tensed due to the presence of China.

The ties between India and China have gone southward since May after the Chinese side tried to change the "patrolling pattern" at LAC, followed by Galwan incident in June in which India lost 20 of its soldiers.

During the meeting that happened on October 5, Secretary (Economic Relation) Rahul Chhabra and Secretary (West) Vikas Swarup were present, with the key focus on the further development of economic ties.

Nordic countries consist of countries of Northern Europe--Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden while Baltic countries consist of countries bordering Baltic sea--Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

In 2018, the first India-Nordic summit happened in Sweden, with plans underway to host the 2nd India Nordic summit in Denmark. Vice President had visited all 3 Baltic countries in 2019 as part of New Delhi's reach out.

Ministry of the External Affairs has been meeting envoys of various groupings, and in the past, a meet with ASEAN envoy happened.
U.S. President Donald Trump listens during a phone call with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, in his conference room at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Oct. 4, 2020. (Tia Dufour/The White House via AP)

Appeals Court Orders Trump to Turn Over Taxes to Prosecutor

President Donald Trumps accountant must turn over his tax records to a New York state prosecutor, an appeals court ruled Oct. 7 in a decision that likely sets up a second trip to the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan in a 30 ruling rejected the argument by Trumps lawyers that a subpoena issued by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. was overbroad and issued in bad faith.

We find that the claim of overbreadth is not plausibly alleged for two interrelated reasons. First, the Presidents bare assertion that the scope of the grand jurys investigation is limited only to certain payments made by Michael Cohen in 2016 amounts to nothing more than implausible speculation, the 35-page ruling states.

Second, without the benefit of this linchpin assumption, all other allegations of overbreadthbased on the types of documents sought, the types of entities covered, and the time period covered by the subpoena, as well as the subpoenas near identity to a prior Congressional subpoenafall short of meeting the plausibility standard. Similarly, the Presidents allegations of bad faith fail to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued out of malice or an intent to harass.

The judges issuing the ruling were Carter-appointee Pierre Leval, Clinton-appointee Robert Katzmann, and Obama-appointee Raymond Lohier Jr.

All were appointed by Democratic presidents.

Vance has been investigating the Trump Organization and related entities and persons since 2018.

An initial subpoena for some records was issued on Aug. 1, 2019.

The subpoena sought documents from 2015 to 2018 relating to payments made to certain individuals and for the work of Michael Cohen, Trumps one-time lawyer, for both Trump and the Trump Organization.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. speaks during a news conference in New York City, Sept. 25, 2019. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

The organization produced some records but refused to supply the tax returns, arguing the subpoena didnt encompass them. A second subpoena was issued on Aug. 29, 2019, to Mazars USA, Trumps accounting firm.

Since then, the sides have fought in court as Trump tries to keep his tax information private.

Vance is seeking eight years of the Republican presidents personal and corporate tax records, but has disclosed little about what prompted him to request them. In one recent court filing, Vances lawyers have said he was justified in demanding them because of public reports of extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department was reviewing the ruling. Trump had indicated he would appeal to the Supreme Court if he lost.

The ruling preserves the stay of the ruling, provided Trump issues the appeal.

The stay was granted by the same court on Sept. 1.

The Supreme Court in July ruled 72 against the president, rejecting Trumps arguments that he cant even be investigated, let alone charged with any crime, while he is in office. But the court said Trump can challenge the subpoena on other grounds like anyone else who receives a subpoena.

The question of whether the taxes would be released is unlikely to be resolved before the November election, especially since the high court is down to eight justices after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Janita Kan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A teenager was shot to death Tuesday afternoon in East Orange, a law enforcement official said.

Antoine Sanga-Niangara, 16, of East Orange, died at the scene of the crime on Lincoln Street, near Park Avenue, shortly before 2 p.m., according to Chief Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Fennelly, of the Essex County Prosecutors Office. The attack occurred around 1:30 p.m.

Fennelly said an investigation by the prosecutors Homicide Task Force, which includes city police, was ongoing late Tuesday. Authorities did not immediately release more details or announce any arrests in the killing.

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Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com.
The US tech major is planning to begin local production of its upcoming iPhone 12 by next April - within six months of its launch.

The Centre on Tuesday approved 16 proposals from marquee brands, including makers of Apple devices, under two new flagship schemes, in a move expected to fetch Rs 11,000-crore additional investments in local electronics manufacturing.

In turn, this would imply production worth Rs 10.5 trillion over the next five years, giving a fillip to Prime Minister Narendra Modis Make in India and Atma Nirbhar Bharat schemes.

A statement issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that of the total, Rs 6.5 trillion worth of electronic goods will be exported by 2025 under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) plan.

As part of the newly introduced PLI scheme, five applications have been approved from international electronics manufacturing majors Foxconn, Wistron, Pegatron (all three makers of Apple products besides other brands), Samsung and Rising Star.

These proposals are expected to translate into production of Rs 9 trillion worth of mobile phones priced above Rs 15,000.

Five proposals from Indian manufacturers - Micromax, Lava, Padget Electronics, UTL Neolyncs and Optiemus Electronics - have also been cleared.

These five are estimated to have a potential to manufacture Rs 1.25 trillion worth of handsets in the next five years.

In addition, proposals from AT&T, Ascent Circuits, Visicon, Walsin, Sahasra, and Neolync have got the go-ahead.

These firms are expected to manufacture electronic components worth Rs 15,000 crore in the country.

According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, once implemented the projects would generate over 200,000 direct and 600,000 indirect employment opportunities in the next five years.

We are optimistic and looking forward to building a strong ecosystem across the value chain and integrating with the global value chains, thereby strengthening electronics manufacturing ecosystem in the country, said Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister, Meity.

Apart from helping the overall electronics ecosystem in the country, this move will turn Apples fortunes in India, according to analysts.

This is a major boost for Apple. Now they will seriously consider higher volume production and exports from India, said Navkendar Singh, research director, IDC.

The US tech major is planning to begin local production of its upcoming iPhone 12 by next April - within six months of its launch.

Overall, this is a much needed boost and the governments intent is clear - to make India not only an alternative to China, when it comes to electronics manufacturing, but also an export hub in the coming years.

"This also ensures that manufacturing of higher value components like displays, among other items.

"Moving up the global value chain in manufacturing is critical for Indias positioning as a serious and viable alternative hub for global electronics players, said Singh.

Pankaj Mohindroo, president of industry body Indian Cellular and Electronics Association that lists leading players like Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi and Lava among its members, the move of attracting investment from global majors is on expected lines.

The challenge is whether the Indian companies (that have got approval) build core design and brand capabilities and also scale up to become globally competitive or some of them use it tactically and fade out with the PLI incentive, he said.

According to Faisal Kawoosa, lead analyst at TechArc, the complete absence of any Chinese OEM (original equipment manufacturer) in the list of projects approved definitely raises a question on the overall efficacy of the scheme in the domestic market as well as in many global markets.

Chinese OEMs are catching up fast in terms of market share.

"As the objective of the policy is also to bolster exports, not sure how that will result without involving Chinese brands, he said.

Also, a major chunk of the projects approved are dedicated towards production of smartphones priced above Rs 15,000 - still under 20 per cent of the market by volume.

For the local market, we have to look at how this scheme will help in boosting sales in the affordable segment and facilitate expansion of the smartphone base, which is stuck below the 500 million mark in a user base of over 1 billion, said Kawoosa.

Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters
President Lazarus Chakwera has hailed his day-return State visit to Tete, Mozambique describing it as a move to further cement the bilateral relationship between the two countries, saying talks with his counterpart Philip Nyusi also touched on the need to improve trade links between the two countries.

Chakwera, speaking to the press at Kamuzu International Airport, said Nyusi recognises the insecurity in his country and that they are working to resolve the issues.

Jihadists seized the key port town of Mocimboa da Praia in gas-rich Cabo Delgado province last month. The Mozambican army has not yet managed to regain control of the area, where attacks first began in 2017. But the violence has escalated dramatically this year, with insurgents brutally killing civilians and ambushing military and other key targets with frightening regularity.

Chakwera said they discussed the issues and sought guarantees from Nyusi that the fertiliser that Malawi is importing for Affordable Input Programme (AIP) will not be affected when passing through Mozambique.

"The Mozambican President has assured me that he will make sure that farm inputs, especially fertilizer will be transported into the country through Mozambique without any challenges," he said.

The President said he wants problems affecting any of the countries within the SADC region to be considered as shared problems to all member states.

"We need to join hands in dealing with such situations to ensure that people of those affected countries are helped accordingly," he said.

Chakwera also said President Nyusi assured him that Mozambique is very ready to work Malawi in areas of energy, agriculture, security and rail transport among others.

The Malawi leader said he pleased that President Nyusi gave him a warm reception and that he was quite aware of how strategic Beira and Nacala Ports are to Malawi, as a landlocked country.

Chakwera said Malawi was currently working with Zambia in the sector of energy noting that the two countries shared similar problem of black outs.

In a Joint Communique, the Malawi and Mozambique leaders agreed to work together in trying to create additional infrastructure along the development corridors with the aim of improving mobility of people and goods by prioritizing Malawi connection to the Sena rail line through Vila Nova de Fronteira de Marka.

"We are very willing to supply energy to Malawi; through the already existing projects such as the construction works for the 400KV electricity transmission line for Mozambique and Malawi interconnection. Connecting Matambo Substation in Tete Mozambique and Phombeya in Malawi," President Nyusi said after the bilateral talks with President Chakwera.

The two governments expressed satisfaction in the communique with the process of reaffirming of the common border that is taking place in accordance with the plan agreed between the technical teams of the two countries.

"There is a need to raise awareness among border communities in order to preserve the landmarks and avoid construction of new infrastrures on the affirmed borders as a way of ensuring peaceful co-existence among the local communities in the two countries," the Communique reads in part.

President Chakwera addressing the high level delegation after the private meeting with his counterpart, he said the two countries share common social statuses which need to be respected.

"Malawians and Mozambicans are all the same despite sharing the borders. We are all brothers and sisters," he pointed out.

During the President Chakwera's visit, with his Mozambican counterpart, appreciated Cahora Bassa hydro power dam where a Malawi-Mozambique transmission line is being constructed under the Malawi-Mozambique interconnector project.

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The Malawi Leader was companied by Minister of Transport and Public Works, Sidik Mia, Trade and Industry Sosten Gwengwe, Homeland Security, Richard Chimwendo Banda, Energy, Newton Kambala and Mining, Rashid Gaffar.

President Chakwera is using a chartered Malawian Airlines flight - the same he used on his visit to Zambia and Zimbabwe.

After an early departure in the morning, Chakwera arrived back at 4 :27pm and was welcomed by the State Vice President, Dr Saulos Klaus Chilima.

At the airport there were different political party colours of the Tonse Alliance member parties that include the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), UTM and Peoples Party (PP) among others.-Additional reporting by Martin Chiwanda & Mphatso Nkuonera, Mana

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A group of rival cartel sicarios were captured on video shooting at each other in broad daylight the middle of a street in Mexico.

The alarming incident took place Sunday in the central state of Guanajuato after alleged members of the Santa Rosa de Lima and Jalisco New Generation Cartel were involved in a nasty head-on collision.

A white sedan is seen on the surveillance footage transiting up Hidalgo Street in the municipality of Yuriria when it suddenly came to a stop as a woman driving a SUV crashed straight into it.

A surveillance camera in Yuriria, a town in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, captured the moment two vehicles crashed head-on before the incident turned into a shootout in broad daylight Sunday, leaving a female bystander wounded. No casualties and arrests were reported

A vehicle collision Sunday in Guanajuato, Mexico, immediately exploded into a shootout between alleged members of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel

The woman and a male passenger fled the SUV before she suddenly tripped and fell on the ground as the vehicle somehow rolled back down the street while in reverse gear.

Three men stepped out of the wrecked car and opened fired at the two rival cartel members before all of the cartel henchmen escaped from the scene.

Local media outlet Noticias Verspertinas reported that a female bystander was injured during the shootout.

Authorities have not announced any arrests linked to the shooting, which took place a day before the state of Guanajuato registered 32 murders, most of them linked to the ongoing war between cartels in the area.

A cartel sicario (left) runs after two rival cartel henchmen, including a woman (pictured behind the SUV on the ground), during a confrontation that left an innocent bystander wounded Sunday in Guanajuato, Mexico

The murders were the most in the state after 33 homicides were reported July 1. At least 27 people were murdered September 27, making it the third deadliest day of the year.

At least five people were murdered and four others were wounded outside a home where a funeral service was held Monday, marking it the second deadliest day in 2020.

In a separate incident, authorities discovered two mutilated bodies. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel reportedly claimed responsibility and placed a banner in the background, warning its rivals against the act of extorting local businesses throughout the state.

Guanajuato has been engulfed by non-stop fighting between the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, an organization which crime experts have coined as the most dynamic, since December 2017.

The criminal factions are involved in a tug of war over the lucrative drug trade and fuel theft businesses, and the battle has intensified since Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel leader, Jose Antonio 'El Marro' Yepez, was apprehended August 2.

Government data indicate homicides in Guanajuato increased by 222 percent in 2019 with 3,540 homicides after 1,096 were reported in 2016. At least 2,250 murders were registered through August 31, 2020.
By Kim Bo-eun





Financial Supervisory Service's logo on its building on Yeouido, Seoul / Korea Times file
The Bombay high court (HC) on Wednesday directed an actor and Richa Chadha to explore a settlement in the defamation suit filed by Chadha seeking compensation from the actor for making defamatory remarks against her while alleging sexual assault against film director Anurag Kashyap. The directions were issued after the actor informed the court through her lawyer that she was willing to retract her statements and apologise to Chadha. The court also restrained media channels from airing the content in dispute till the suit was decided.

A bench of justice AK Menon was hearing a defamation suit filed by Chadha seeking a compensation of 1.1 crore from the actor, another actor Kamal R Khan and a news channel for derogatory and defamatory comments made against her.

After hearing the submissions, the court asked advocate Nitin Satpute, who appeared for the actor, whether his client was willing to withdraw her statements against Chadha and apologise for the same.

While addressing the court, Satpute said that his client was willing to apologise and withdraw her statements against Chadha, and hence required time to speak to Chadhas lawyer to arrive at a settlement.

Senior advocate Veerendra Tulzapurkar, representing Chadha, along with advocate Saveena Bedi Sachar said they would work out a settlement by Monday and inform the court about the terms of settlement.

Advocate Manoj Gadkari, appearing for Khan, informed the court that his client had not made any derogatory comments against Chadha but had simply forwarded the comments made by the actor. Gadkari, however, assured the court that his client would refrain from sharing any content pertaining to Chadha or the current case till Monday.

After hearing all submissions, the court issued a temporary injunction against news channels and others from sharing or airing any content under dispute in the suit.
EBRD's 29th annual meeting for 2020 kicked off on Wednesday, lasting for two days, to discuss the impacts of COVID-19 on emerging economies and how to recover better

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has provided some 7 billion in assistance in 2020, until August, to countries it invests in to address the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and its related impacts on their economies; with a special focus on the private sector and small and medium-sized enterprises, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak unveiled.

Sunak's statements came during the opening of the EBRD's 29th annual meeting, kicked off virtually from London on Wednesday.

He assured that supporting the private sector, entrepreneurship, and a free market systemis crucial to growth from now on; adding that global collective and coordinated efforts are needed to speed up the recovery from the pandemic.

Acting President Jurgen Rigterink said the EBRDs immediate priority was to help the economies where it invests recover from the economic impact of COVID-19, with a focus on helping them build a resilient and more sustainable future.

Accordingly, the EBRD has launched a solidarity package worth 21 billion to back its member countries from 2020 to 2021, and to address the repercussions of COVID-19, said Rigterink.

He revealed that the banks revenues recorded 1.4 billion in 2019, the highest in a decade, while the total banks investments amount to 10 billion, 46 percent of which was centred on green and low-carbon investments.

He also added that during the first six months of 2020, the EBRD financed 1,000 trade deals worth 2 billion, the highest in the banks history.

For the EBRDs 2021-2025 strategy, that is expected to be approved during the meeting, the bank will accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy, through which green finance will be the majority of the banks business by 2025, according to Rigterink.

The EBRD also aims to promote equality of opportunity through access to skills and employment, finance and entrepreneurship; and support for women, young people, and under-served communities. It will also accelerate digitisation, unleashing the power of technology to bring about change for the better, Rigterink expounded.

The strategy affirms as well the EBRDs interest in a limited and incremental expansion of its activities to sub-Saharan Africa and Iraq during the next five-year period, he added.

The Prince of Wales, Charles, gave a speech during the opening meeting through a pre-recorded video message, urging business leaders to be even more ambitious, and even more radical in moving towards a low-carbon future, as time is rapidly running out.

International financial institutions and development banks such as the EBRD have an absolutely crucial role to play in this. After all, we know that it is not a lack of capital that is impeding our progress, but how we deploy it, he added.

Referring to the COVID-19 crisis, the Prince said it exemplifies the devastating impact global threats can pose to human and economic wellbeing.

Meanwhile, the EBRDs new Green Economy Transition approach for 2021-2025 is seeking majority green investment and is expected to be the banks new blueprint for supporting its countries of operation pursue a green, inclusive, and resilient recovery from the impact of the pandemic.

Moreover, an emergency support programme for infrastructure providers is helping ensure the provision of vital services and the continuation of sustainable infrastructure projects despite acute pressure from the pandemic.

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Update: Fire officials said the woman died of her injuries after arriving at a local hospital.

Three Cambridge firefighters and a woman living in the building that caught fire were hospitalized Wednesday morning after a three-alarm blaze on Buckingham Street, Fire Chief Gerard Mahoney told reporters.

Firefighters responded to a structure fire at 5:22 a.m. on Buckingham Street in Cambridge, the department said. By 6 a.m. the blaze grew to a three-alarm fire.

While battling the fire, crews found a woman in her 60s or 70s on the second floor suffering from cardiac arrest, according to WCVB.

The woman along with the three firefighters were taken to the hospital. Their injuries, according to Boston 25, do not appear to be life-threatening.
By PTI

LONDON: Scotland Yard has launched a murder investigation after three members of a Tamil-origin family were found dead in their flat in west London.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police forced entry into a block of flats in Brentford on Tuesday after concerns were raised for the well-being of Poorna Kaameshwari Sivaraj.

Inside, they discovered the body of the 36-year-old woman and her three-year-old son, Kailash Kuha Raj.

Her husband, Kuha Raj Sithamparanathan, was found with severe stab injuries and died at the scene soon after.

The police believe the 42-year-old fatally injured himself when officers entered the property.

While the police are yet to confirm their line of inquiry and a post-mortem on the bodies is scheduled for Thursday, it is suspected to be a case of murder-suicide.

"Although we are in the infancy of this investigation, it appears that Poorna and Kailash had been dead for some time.

"This is a murder investigation and my team will work diligently to establish the sequence of events that led to their murders and the death of Kuha Raj Sithamparanathan," said Detective Chief Inspector Simon Harding from the Met's Specialist Crime Command, who is leading the investigation.

He said that their initial enquiries had established that Poorna and Kailash had not been seen or heard from for some days, perhaps since around the September 21.

"We know the family often walked their dog, a poodle crossbreed, in and around the local area and I would ask anyone who saw them at any time in the last month to contact police so we can begin to build a full picture of their lives," said Harding.

"I know I speak on behalf of all the officers in my team that words cannot sufficiently sum up the devastation that this horrific incident will have on the families of those involved.

However, I can reassure them that we will do all we can to provide them with the answers they need about what has happened here," he said.

The police force also sought to reassure the neighbourhood following the deaths of family, from Malaysia and of Sri Lankan and Tamil heritage.

"This horrific incident has understandably caused enormous shock and concern among local residents and across the borough; all our thoughts are with the family and friends of those affected," said Peter Gardner, the local area commander for the Met Police.

He praised the London Ambulance Service (LAS) paramedics who rushed to the scene and worked "tirelessly and professionally under extremely traumatic circumstances" as they tried to save the life of Sithamparanathan.

"Our officers in the West Area Command Unit are doing everything they can to support colleagues in Specialist Crime as we work to understand what has led to this terrible incident.

Local residents can expect to see officers at the scene and patrolling the local area to provide reassurance, and if they have any concerns, I would urge them to speak to our officers," said Gardner.

The Met Police said it initially received a call late on Sunday from a family member raising concerns about the welfare of Poorna.

Officers attended the flat several times in the early hours of Monday but received no reply.

"From talking to neighbours as the day progressed, concerns heightened and a decision was made to force entry," the Met Police said.

The Directorate of Professional Standards has made a referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) as Sithamparanathan's self-inflicted fatal injury meets the criteria of a mandatory referral.

(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)
World Animal Day is an annual event that happens on the 4th October every year, in celebration and memory of the feast day of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.

The day is an international focus of efforts around the world to raise the status of animals in order to improve welfare standards. The celebration of World Animal Day has united the animal welfare movement, mobilising it into a global force to make the world a better place for all animals. It's celebrated in different ways in every country, irrespective of nationality, religion, faith or political ideology.

The aim is that through increased awareness and education we can together create a world where animals are always recognised as sentient beings and full regard is always paid to their welfare. This aligns completely with my own personal values.

Events are organised all around the world. Fundraisers, awareness raisers and just talking about animals happens online, on paper, on the radio, on tv and in real life. You can find out more at the World Animal Day website, at www.worldanimalday.org.uk.

There's another interesting happening that's linked to this celebration: the annual blessing of animals at many locations. This occurs across many different faiths. I've been to many blessings of animals in my own home town, and I have seen all sorts of creatures attend, from dogs and cats to hamsters and guinea pigs, rabbits and snakes, and even ducks and hens. The basic message is that animals are an important part of our human lives, and they deserve to be valued and appreciated.

There has been a transformation in how we see animals in my lifetime. When I trained as a vet, animals were seen as bundles of unthinking living tissue. The idea was that they were so different to us humans that we had the right to treat them utterly differently. Yes, we were bound to treat them with compassion, but still, they could not be seen in any way in the same light as humans. To treat them like humans was a step too far.

If people remarked how much animals seemed to be like us, they were told that they were being anthropomorphic, projecting human thoughts and emotions onto creatures that were not capable of such depth.

When I trained as a vet, it was acceptable to use animals as training models, taking their lives casually: I remember witnessing a dog being bled to death deliberately (under anaesthesia, so the dog did not suffer) in order to teach us students the physiological consequences of blood loss. My class of students was appalled at this: complaints were made, and the practice stopped from then on. But the fact that it happened at all says a lot about how animals were seen at that time, nearly forty years ago.

This casual attitude to the lives of animals had impacts in other areas too. In 1990, thirty years ago, around 30000 dogs - that's over 100 dogs every working day - were euthanased in Irish dog pounds. This happened simply because they were unwanted, and because it happened behind closed doors, most people knew nothing about it. One of the vets whose job it was to euthanase dogs in his local pound was so appalled at what was happening that he took steps towards setting up a national forum to tackle this.

The impact has been huge: these days, less than a thousand dogs - or four dogs every working day - are euthanased. We would all like this figure to be even lower, but the truth is that some stray dogs cannot be rehomed, for various reasons, from severe aggression to serious illness. My point this week is that the improved statistics directly reflect how our attitude to animals has changed: it is no longer acceptable to dispense with dogs' lives just because it's convenient to do so. We, rightly, now give the individual lives of dogs a greater value.

Over the same period, attitudes towards livestock farming have changed, with more attention given to ensuring that all animals have lives that are worth living. New legislation has been introduced in many countries (including Ireland) asserting that all animals must have five freedoms - freedom from fear and distress, freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort in their environment, freedom to avoid pain, injury and disease, and freedom to express natural behaviours. There are still many issues, of course, but our cultures around the world have all been moving towards better lives for animals.

This all ties in with an improved understanding of the consciousness of animals: through advanced dynamic imaging such as enhanced MRI studies, we now know that animals have neural activity in precisely the same parts of the brain as humans when they are happy, sad, excited or depressed. We now know, for sure, than animals are "sentient beings", sharing with us the capacity to experience sensations.

The prevailing scientific view now is that all higher members of the animal kingdom (above sponges) possess sentience. In 2012, the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, by the world's leading scientists, confirmed this global understanding. If an animal looks like it is feeling an emotion, then it almost certainly is.

During this World Animal Week, take a moment to value the animals in your life. They deserve our full appreciation.
The 2020 General Election will not be like past general elections, Gov. Phil Murphy said. Here is what you need to know about the upcoming election.

When is election day?

Nov. 3.

Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

What are the key dates for this year's election?

Vote-by-mail deadline: Nov. 3 (8 p.m.)

Ballots must be postmarked or placed in drop box.

Who is eligible to vote?

You have to register to vote before Election Day in New Jersey. (You can find the deadline to register to vote in the "Dates and deadlines" section.)

To register in New Jersey you must:

 be a citizen of the United States

 be at least 17 years old (you must be 18 to vote)

 be a resident of the State and county 30 days before the election

How do I receive a ballot if Im away at college or in the military?

If not living in your home county, contact your home county registrar to change your mailing address for vote-by-mail ballots. Previously, these would have been absentee ballots. The term absentee ballot was changed in July 2009 and was replaced by the vote-by-mail-ballot law that allowed a voter to request a ballot by mail for any reason.

For complete treatment of military voting, see fvap.gov/military-voter.

How can I vote?

By mail-in (VBM) ballot, or by a provisional ballot at the polls.

Who are the local candidates?

This year's election is highlighted by the Presidential race between incumbent Republican Donald J. Trump and challenger Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Democrat.

In the 2nd Congressional District, Republican incumbent Jeff Van Drew is being challenged by Democrat Amy Kennedy.

For a complete list of local races, click here: Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Southern Ocean.

To see what races for school board are happening in your community, go here.

What local ballot questions are there this year?

Voters in Margate will be asked if they want to build a new beachfront boardwalk. If voters decide to go forward with the project, the city could appropriate $285,000 for a feasibility study,

Voters in Cape May City will be asked to approve a new public safety building. A "yes" vote would approve the bond, and act as a referendum on the plans for a new building. But a second citizen group has gotten another question on the ballot, which would fund only the reconstruction of the firehouse, setting the stage for an unusual campaign running up to the election. That includes an estimated cost of $5 million.



Are there any statewide questions this year?

There are three statewide questions on the ballot in November, each asking:

1. Whether to legalize for recreational use a controlled form of marijuana called cannabis."

2. Whether to give a $250 property tax deduction to veterans who did not serve in time of war, and to give a 100% property tax exemption to certain totally disabled veterans who did not serve in time of war.

3. Whether to change when new legislative districts are created if the federal census data is delayed.

Will I be able to vote in person?

If you do vote in person, you will be given a provisional paper ballot.

Atlantic County will open a minimum of 50% of its regularly used polling places, the BOE must utilize schools or other large facilities to serve as large voting centers to accommodate more voting districts in one polling place.

Who can vote via machine at polling places?

Anyone who signs an affidavit stating he or she has a handicap that makes it impossible to vote using a paper ballot may use the machine.

Where can I find my polling place?

Registered voters will receive a postcard in the mail stating their polling place. The information also is available on your county clerk or board of elections websites. You can also visit, voter.svrs.nj.gov/polling-place-search

Am I required to wear a mask if I go to the polls?

All voters are asked to wear a mask and follow social-distancing guidelines.

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What if I need help voting at the polls?

You are permitted to bring someone of your choice into the voting booth to assist you with voting if you cannot read or write English or have a disability. You also can request special assistance from a poll worker.

How can you turn in your mail-in ballot?

 By mail: Postmarked by Nov. 3

 Secure drop box: Placed in a drop box at multiple locations in each county by 8 p.m. Nov. 3

 In person: Delivered to your countys board of elections by 8 p.m. Nov. 3

They also can be delivered to a poll worker on Election Day, but only if the voter goes to his/her assigned polling place and leaves only his/her personal ballot. Voters cannot drop off ballots for others at polling places.

Drop box locations in Atlantic County include:

Absecon Municipal Building, 500 Mill Road

Atlantic County Office Building (in Police & Firemen Plaza between City Hall and the County Office Building), 1333 Atlantic Ave., Atlantic City

Brigantine Municipal Hall, 1417 W. Brigantine Blvd.

Buena Vista Township Municipal Hall, 890 Harding Highway

Egg Harbor Township Municipal Hall, 3515 Bargaintown Road

Egg Harbor Township Community Center, 5045 English Creek Ave.

Galloway Township Municipal Hall (on court chambers side), 300 E. Jimmie Leeds Road

Historic Court House Complex, 5901 Main St., Mays Landing

Hammonton Municipal Hall, 100 Central Ave.

Northfield Municipal Hall, 1600 Shore Road

Pleasantville Municipal Hall, 18 N. First Street

Somers Point Municipal Hall, 1 W. New Jersey Ave.

Ventnor Municipal Hall, 6201 Atlantic Ave.

Drop box locations in Cape May County include:

Lower Township Public Safety Building (court entrance), 405 Breakwater Road, Erma

County Clerks Office, 7 N. Main St., Cape May Court House

County Public Works Building, 536 Woodbine-Ocean View Road

Sea Isle City Library, 4800 Central Ave.

Stone Harbor Library, 9516 2nd Ave.

Upper Twp. Municipal Hall, 2100 Tuckahoe Road, Petersburg

Wildwood Municipal Hall, 4400 New Jersey Ave.

Ocean City Municipal Hall, 861 Asbury Ave.

Cape May Municipal Hall, 643 Washington St.

Lower Township Municipal Hall, 2600 Bayshore Road, Villas

Martin Luther King Center, 207 W. Main St., Whitesboro

Drop box locations in Cumberland County include:

Bridgeton City Hall, 181 East Commerce St.

Cumberland County Library, 800 East Commerce Street, Bridgeton

Commercial Township Municipal Building, 1768 Main Street, Port Norris

Maurice River Municipal Building, 590 Main St., Leesburg

Millville Municipal Building, 12 S. High St.

Cumberland County Technical Education Center, 3400 College Drive, Vineland

Vineland City Hall, 640 E. Wood St.

Cumberland County Division of Social Services, 275 N. Delsea Drive, Vineland

Deerfield Municipal Building, 736 Landis Ave., Bridgeton

Hopewell Municipal Building, 590 Shiloh Pike, Bridgeton.

Drop box locations in Southern Ocean County include:

Ocean County Southern Service Center, 179 S. Main Street, Manahawkin

Can I take someone elses ballot to a drop box, post office or to the Board of Elections?

As a bearer, a voter may take up to three ballots for others to a drop box, post office or to the Board of Elections. New amendments to state law allow voters to act as bearers for up to five others, if they are immediate family members or are residing in the same household as the bearer.

How can I track my ballot?

Sign up for an account at nj.gov/state/elections/vote-track-my-ballot.shtml

What is the last day a postmarked vote-by-mail ballot may be accepted?

Nov. 10

What if I make a mistake on my ballot?

Contact your county clerk to request a replacement ballot.

What if I didnt receive my ballot?

Contact your county clerk to report it and request one be sent. If you are a registered voter and never received a vote-by-mail ballot, go to your designated polling place on Election Day and vote with a provisional paper ballot.

Where is my county board of elections?

Atlantic County: Historic Court House Complex, 5903 Main St., Mays Landing

Cape May County: 10 W. Mechanic St., Cape May Court House

Cumberland County: 555 Shiloh Pike, Bridgeton

Ocean County: 129 Hooper Ave., Toms River

Whats the difference between absentee and mail-in voting?

A ballot that has been sent to a voter and is voted outside of a polling place or election officials office has traditionally been referred to as an absentee ballot and the person who votes that ballot has been called an absentee voter. This terminology is common in state law and comes from the concept that voters would use this option only when they were absent from their neighborhood polling place on Election Day.

As time has gone on and more and more voters request a ballot in advance as their default voting method, and as states have begun offering more opportunities for voters to do so, the terminology has evolved. Some states refer to advance ballots, mailed ballots, by-mail ballots, mail ballots or vote-by-mail ballots.

Where can I receive additional information?

Visit Vote.NJ.Gov for full details, drop box and polling locations, and more answers to frequently asked questions. You may also contact your local election officials, or call the N.J. Voter Information and Assistance Line at 877-NJ-VOTER (877-658-6837).

Other information

 Voters may return only their own mail-in ballot to their designated polling place.

 All public primary and secondary schools will be closed to in-person instruction so the facilities can be used as polling places, if needed.

 Voters who appear at a polling place shall vote via a provisional ballot, and the board of elections must then make sure the voter did not also return a vote-by-mail ballot before counting the provisional ballot.

 Every vote-by-mail ballot that is postmarked on or before Nov. 3, and is received by 8 p.m. Nov. 10 shall be considered valid and shall be counted (assuming it meets all statutory requirements).

 Voters whose ballots are rejected for a missing or inconsistent signature will be sent a cure letter that gives them the chance to fix what is wrong so the ballot may be counted.

 Vote-by-mail ballots are two-sided. Remember to fill out both sides. And do not detach the perforated flap from the envelope for your filled out ballot! Election workers will need to verify the information on that flap to be sure your address and signature is valid. Then they will detach the flap before opening the envelope, so no one will be able to see how any individual votes.

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.

Nicholas Huba Sports Editor Started working in newsrooms when I was 17 years old. Spent 15 years working for Gannett New Jersey before coming to The Press of Atlantic City in April 2015. Follow Nicholas Huba Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today
It's no secret that reality stars are encouraged to keep a low profile while their season airs.

And this year, producers are going to extreme efforts to avoid contestants from the new season of The Bachelorette from spoiling the series.

Daily Mail Australia can reveal this season's Bachelorette stars have been warned to stay clear of Sydney's Bondi Beach, which is a known celebrity hotspot.

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros. reportedly warned its Bachelorette stars to stay clear Bondi hotspots after last year's contestants Timm Hanly and Ciarran Stott were 'living at the spot'. Pictured: Rudy El Kholti

'They've given us a list of places we can't be spotted at,' a contestant revealed.

'Bondi Beach, The Bucket List, Coogee Pavilion, and Bill's are all off-limits...,' the source claimed.

Last year, contestants Timm Hanly and Ciarran Stott, were 'pretty much living at the paparazzi spot' and frequently mingling with female tourists - seemingly spoiling that they didn't end up with Angie Kent.

'Bondi Beach, The Bucket List, Coogee Pavilion, and Bill's are all off-limits,' a contestant set to appear on this year's series told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday. Pictured Adam Todd (left)

But it seems the warnings aren't enough to stop this year's Bachelorette contestants from being spotted at the popular suburb.

'It won't work for many of us. I live around the corner, and others work close by,' the source added.

The warning comes just days after Sydney-based contestant Pascal Wallace was spotted enjoying a night out with Adelaide's Andrew Thomas at Tottis Bondi.

It's understood Andrew had flown down for the Labour Day weekend.

Hitting the town: The warning comes just days after Sydney based contestant Pascal Wallace was spotted enjoying a night out with Adelaide's Andrew Thomas at Tottis Bondi last week

Earlier this year, bookies favourite Bella Varelis proved she didn't win the series after she flaunted her friendship with fellow contestant Bec Cvilikas.

The pair were regularly spotted having brunch in Sydney's Bondi, which is hardly the sort of behaviour you'd expect from love rivals.

The Bachelorette premieres on TEN on Wednesday at 7.30pm

Who will win? Channel 10 recently revealed the men vying for Elly and Becky Miles' hearts, who include a dancer, Mr Italy, a geologist and a former rugby star
Deputy Prime Minister Raluca Turcan said on Tuesday evening that financing from European funds "has no political color", and in the case of local administrations led by Liberals having obtained larger amounts, this is due to their more efficient activity, according to Agerpres.

"I can tell you one very clear thing: financing from European funds neither had nor has political color. The proof is the 1.2 billion euros we have made available so far to health units and public local authorities that have under their command hospitals or other healthcare units, to buy medical equipment, medical devices, protective equipment. No political color. It is true, there are huge discrepancies between the amounts attracted and, yes, there are sums attracted to localities with Liberal administration, because they are more efficient. Not because someone would have handed out the money in a targeted way," Turcan told private broadcaster B1 TV, in the context in which she was told that, in the electoral campaign, some local elected officials accused the Orban government of directing money to Liberal administrations.Raluca Turcan emphasized that the rules for accessing European funds are the same for everyone, the management of the situation in schools and healthcare units not being conducted in a political direction."The site is the same, the conditions are the same, the rules are the same for everyone, all you need is determination and collaboration between the authorities and the medical units. The same is the case for schools, there is not the slightest political preference in giving this money, we are not playing with these things. Public health has no political color. And we, as a government, have not taken this debate on the management of the health crisis in a political direction for a second, just out of amateurism, to win a few votes in the elections," declared the Deputy Prime Minister.
Ryan Owen-Brewerton (pictured), 20, was speeding through Abingdon town centre, Oxfordshire

A drunk driver who knocked down and killed a tourist while speeding through a town centre at 78mph was jailed for seven years today.

Ryan Owen-Brewerton, 20, was speeding through Abingdon town centre, Oxfordshire, at almost 80mph, while almost three times over the drink-drive limit.

He struck a 20-year-old tourist Kacper Grzeszek who had been enjoying a gap-year holiday in the UK from his home in Poland.

A judge heard trainee carpenter Owen-Brewerton had an appalling driving record, having been caught speeding at almost 100mph at 18 years old.

He was only holding a provisional licence at the time.

He then lost his driving licence with more penalty points a year later when he lost control while driving too fast and hit a lamp-post.

Earlier this year he was given his licence back but seven months later knocked down and killed Mr Grzeszek.

Owen-Brewerton, of Abingdon, was sentenced to seven years in prison after he admitted causing death by dangerous driving.

20-year-old student Kacper Grzeszek (pictured left with sister Zuzanna right) had been on a gap-year holiday from Poland when he was hit by the car and died the next day

He was given a four month jail sentence to run concurrently for admitting a charge of driving with excess alcohol.

He will also be disqualified from driving for the next six-and-a-half years.

Judge Nigel Daley heard that at the scene of the tragedy, the defendant had only been interested in the damage caused to his red BMW car.

Terrifying footage of the modified car overtaking motorists in the town centre minutes before the fatal crash was shown at Oxford Crown Court on October 7.

The court heard how Owen-Brewerton jumped out of his car after sending the man flying at 9.30pm, and later blamed the accident on the victim.

Judge Daly said the thug had not immediately expressed remorse after the accident.

He said the racer had blamed the pedestrian 'for stepping out in front of you when you were said you were driving 30mph', calling it a 'selfish lie'.

The court heard how the tragic death was Owen-Brewerton's third driving conviction.

Prosecuting counsel Alan Blake said: 'He received his licence back in January this year, just seven months before the fatal collision.'

Mr Grzeszek was rushed to the major trauma unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford with life-threatening head injuries and died the next day.

In an emotional statement, the victim's mother Joanna Grzeszek, said she 'could not forgive' the thug's actions.

Defending him, barrister Jonathan Coode explained that Owen-Brewerton was 'irresponsible and reckless' but he did not intentionally take the life of another man.

In a letter he wrote to the judge, Owen-Brewerton expressed 'deep remorse' for his actions which lead to the death of a young man of the same age.

He wrote: 'I know I am fully to blame and I will never be able to forgive myself for the pain I have caused. There is no excuses for what I have done and I take full responsibility.'

The court also heard that he lost his temper after a shouting match at a pub and decided to drive to see his uncle a mile away.

Terrifying footage of the modified car overtaking motorists (pictured) in the town centre minutes before the fatal crash was shown at Oxford Crown Court on October 7.

CCTV footage (pictured) shows the motorist speeding at almost 80mph, while almost three times over the drink-drive limit

The defence counsel said that the defendant was 'diagnosed with autism at age 14 years' and became 'very, very angry inside after the confrontation'.

Judge Daly said: 'From statements I have read, it refers to the collision as a tragic accident but I do not consider it to be an accident.

'You deliberately drank a large amount of alcohol, you deliberately got into your car and drove it and you deliberately drove at a ridiculous speed through the town centre of Abingdon.

'It was arrogant and it was selfish. You had no consideration for anyone else.'
Manchester's HS2 stations are today at the centre of proposals to boost connections between the high-speed railway and Northern Powerhouse Rail.

Platforms at Manchester's Piccadilly and Airport stations could be expanded, with an extra northbound HS2 service from Crewe also up for consideration.

Two platforms were originally planned for Manchester Airport, but this could rise to four. Similarly, four platforms for Manchester Piccadilly could become six.

A public consultation was launched by HS2 Ltd on the proposed design changes to phase 2b - expected to come after phase 1, from London to Birmingham, is complete in 2026.

Platforms at Manchester's Piccadilly (pictured) and Airport stations could be expanded, with an extra northbound HS2 service from Crewe also up for consideration

HS2 Minister Andrew Stephenson said: 'HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail are an integral part of this country's future rail network, vital for improving connections between our biggest cities and regions, boosting jobs and kickstarting economic growth as we build back better.

'This consultation will ensure passengers and business have their say in delivering a rail network that meets their needs, providing better journeys across the Midlands and the North as quickly as possible.'

Introducing the consultation documents, he wrote: 'The Government is committed to taking forward High Speed Two (HS2) to transform our national rail network, bring our biggest cities closer together, boost productivity and level up opportunity fairly across the country.

Before: The original plan for HS2 (pictured) featured two platforms at Manchester Airport and four platforms for Manchester Piccadilly. The phase currently under construction, from London to Birmingham, is expected to be complete in 2026

After: Two platforms planned for Manchester Airport could rise to four. Similarly, four platforms for Manchester Piccadilly could become six

Options for the potential redesign, which aims to combine HS2 with Northern Powerhouse Rail, include possible platform layouts (pictured) at Manchester Piccadilly

'Legislation for Phase 2a, from Birmingham to Crewe, is currently being considered by Parliament and we hope for Royal Assent by the end of the year.'

Enhanced plans for Crewe station could allow it to be served by up to seven HS2 trains an hour.

HS2 Ltd is also consulting on building a new train depot at Annandale, in Dumfries and Galloway.

The consultation has been launched following recommendations from the Government-commissioned Oakervee Review, which said the development of HS2 should be better integrated with other schemes.

HS2 minister Andrew Stephenson said key decisions on the vital stretch would be deferred because ministers are prioritising the development of the western leg into Manchester.

A public consultation was launched by HS2 Ltd on the proposed design changes to phase 2b - expected to come after phase 1, from London to Birmingham, is complete in 2026. Pictured, the proposals affect Manchester Airport's HS2 station

Northern Powerhouse Rail is a project to improve rail links across the Pennines. Featuring new and significantly upgraded railway lines, it aims to transform rail services between the regions towns and cities.

What are the phases planned for HS2? HS2 is planned to be delivered in three phases: Phase 1 from London Euston to Birmingham Curzon Street and Lichfield with intermediate stations in West London (at old Oak Common) and at Birmingham Airport;

Phase 2a from the West Midlands to Crewe;

Phase 2b is an eastern leg from the West Midlands to Leeds New Lane with intermediate stations in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire; and a western leg from Crewe to Manchester with an intermediate station at Manchester Airport. In total, the Government has estimated that the scheme will cost 55.7 billion in 2015 prices (including rolling stock). Source: CommonsLibrary Advertisement

Leonie Dubois, HS2s Head of Consultation and Engagement said: 'Our latest consultation demonstrates that were a step closer to extending Britains new railway from Crewe to Manchester, improving connectivity to the North and delivering on the vision for a cleaner, greener transport network.

'Local communities have an important role to play in informing the final design of the railway and I encourage them to take the time to respond to these proposals.'

The consultation comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson heralded the rail link as an engine for jobs growth when construction finally began last month.

Given the go-ahead on January 10, 2012, Europe's largest infrastructure project moved from enabling works to full construction  with shovels finally going in the ground on September 4.

The Prime Minister said it would create 22,000 jobs.

But many of his own MPs  especially those with constituencies on the route  are deeply against the expensive project.

Its cost has already spiralled from the projected 36billion in 2012 to an estimated 106billion now.

And its chief executive, Mark Thurston, takes home more than four times the Prime Minister with 659,416.

Mr Thurston said: 'The reality of high-speed journeys joining up Britain's biggest cities in the North and Midlands and using that connectivity to help level up the country has just moved a step closer.'

Mr Johnson said: 'HS2 is at the heart of our plans to build back better  and with construction now formally under way, it's set to create around 22,000 new jobs.

'As the spine of our country's transport network, the project will be vital in boosting connectivity between our towns and cities.

'But HS2's transformational potential goes even further.

Enhanced plans for Crewe station (pictured, file image) could allow it to be served by up to seven HS2 trains an hour

Given the go-ahead on January 10, 2012, Europe's largest infrastructure project moved from enabling works to full construction  with shovels finally going in the ground on September 4

'By creating hundreds of apprenticeships and thousands of skilled jobs, HS2 will fire up economic growth and help to rebalance opportunity across this country for years to come.'

HS2 Ltd and its main contractors expect to recruit for around 22,000 roles in the coming years to build the phase one route.

These will include 7,000 jobs in the West Midlands, more than 4,000 building the section from the Long Itchsington Wood site in Warwickshire south to the Chilterns, and 10,000 in the Greater London area.

And HS2 Ltd itself is already directly recruiting for 500 roles over the next three months, with the majority based in Birmingham.
Delhis air quality entered the poor zone on Wednesday morning for first time since June this year. The air quality index (AQI) reading at 10 am was 207 (in the poor zone), as per Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data.

Till Tuesday, the air quality was in the higher end of the moderate category. Government agencies had warned of deterioration in air quality due to the change in weather conditions and fumes from farm fires in neighbouring Haryana and Punjab contributing to pollution in Delhi.

According to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (Safar), the Central governments air quality monitoring and forecasting wing, PM 2.5 is usually the main pollutant during winter. The nighttime calm surface wind condition prevailed yesterday and is likely to do so for the next two days. Further deterioration in air quality is expected by October 9 and 10 but the AQI reading will remain in the poor category. An increase in stubble-burning was observed on Tuesday around Punjab, Haryana, and the neighbouring border regions. The boundary-layer wind direction and speed are favourable for the transport and accumulation of pollutants in Delhi, and the worsening of air quality in the coming days is expected, the Safar bulletin read.

Also Read: Supreme Court summons chief secretaries in stubble-burning case

As per Safar, on October 6, synergised fire count was 336.

After January and February, which had several poor category days, only two poor category days were recorded each in March, May and June. April, July, August and September had only satisfactory and moderate days. August was the cleanest month since 2015 when four good air days were recorded.

According to scientists at India Meteorological Department (IMD), there has been a consistent dip in the night temperature over the last few days and the wind speed has also slowed down. Besides, the wind (whose direction changed to north-westerly) is bringing fumes from neighbouring states where stubble-burning has started.

On Tuesday, the night temperature was recorded at 18.6 degrees Celsius, three notches below normal while the maximum temperature settled at 36 degrees Celsius, three notches above normal.

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Ukraine will be able to receive up to eight million doses of the coronavirus vaccine as a participant in the initiative of the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX) fund, to which the EU has allocated EUR 400 million to purchase about two billion doses of the vaccine, according to Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna.

She wrote this in an article for the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (Mirror Weekly) newspaper.

Stefanishyna noted that the coronavirus pandemic not only significantly affected preparations for and the holding of the 22nd EU-Ukraine summit, but also became the first issue for discussion, as everyone is aware that ensuring rapid access to the vaccine is an important international task.

In this context, Stefanishyna recalled that on August 31, the European Union allocated 400 million euros to the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX) fund for the purchase of up to two billion doses of the vaccine by the end of 2021.

"Ukraine has been included in the list of participants in this initiative, so it will be able to receive up to eight million doses of the vaccine. At the same time, we are ready to contribute to the fight against coronavirus. We have the appropriate infrastructure, enterprises for the production of vaccines, and we are ready to participate in their mass production together with other EU countries," she said.

As the pandemic has shown, in addition to responding to large-scale challenges, attention should also be paid to systematic work to build a common system of sustainability, in particular in the field of health, both at the national and interstate levels, Stefanishyna said.

"We are grateful that the European Union has been and remains our reliable partner in implementing medical reform and capacity building of Ukrainian state institutions. For our part, we will continue to build cooperation between our and European institutions, especially with the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Commission's Joint Research Center (JRC)," she said.

Ukraine recorded 239,337 cases of COVID-19 as of October 7, including 4,753 new cases in the past 24 hours.

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BERLIN  The trial opened on Wednesday for a Russian man accused of murdering a former Chechen field commander in a Berlin park last year, allegedly at the behest of the Russian state.

The killing, which occurred in August 2019 in a park just over a mile away from Chancellor Angela Merkels office, occurred amid increasingly bold provocations from Russia. German investigators blame Moscow for a 2015 cyberattack on Parliament and for a disinformation campaign on German-language Russian news media targeting Berlins policy on refugees the following year.

This August, the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny arrived in Berlin for treatment after being poisoned with what German experts found to be a military-grade chemical substance. These events have led to a hardening of Germanys traditionally open stance toward Moscow.

In the indictment over the Berlin murder, federal prosecutors charged that the state agencies of the central government of the Russian Federation ordered the accused to liquidate the victim, a Georgian citizen of Chechen descent who was said to be an opponent of the Russian state.
Chester County Magisterial District Judge Michael J. Cabry III is accused of diverting more than $4,000 from a PAC formed during his 2017 re-election bid. Read more

A Chester County Magisterial District judge diverted nearly $4,000 in campaign donations for personal expenses, using the funds to prop up his six-figure gambling habit at casinos in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and along the Jersey Shore, state prosecutors said Wednesday.

Michael J. Cabry III, 59, was charged by a statewide grand jury with theft by unlawful taking, perjury, and election code violations.

Judge Cabry broke the law and undermined public trust in government by using campaign contributions for his own benefit, Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in announcing the charges.

Restricting how campaign money can be used helps prevent corruption," Shapiro said. "As a candidate and public official, Judge Cabry had a duty to serve with integrity and uphold the law. Instead he took advantage of the trust placed in him by supporters and the public.

Cabrys attorney, Dawson R. Muth, did not return a request for comment.

In an executive order issued Tuesday, Chester County President Judge John L. Hall stripped Cabry of his duties and barred him from entering the courthouse. His cases will be reassigned to other district judges.

Cabry, who first won his seat in 2000, has jurisdiction over municipalities in the northwestern portion of Chester County, including Elverson, Honey Brook, Wallace, West Brandywine, West Caln, and West Nantmeal. As a district judge, Cabry handled minor criminal and traffic offenses and oversaw preliminary hearings for cases later referred to county court.

The misuse of funds alleged by the grand jury took place during his reelection campaign in November 2017, when he ran unopposed. His current term ends in 2024.

In the run-up to the election, Cabry created Citizens for Cabry, a political action committee overseen by his niece, the grand jury said.

The committee only filed campaign finance reports for the first eight months of the year, signed and notarized by the judge, prosecutors said. Those reports, they said, reflected personal reimbursements to Cabry through debit cards linked to the committees bank account.

The reimbursements included ATM withdrawals at Delaware Park Casino, Dover Downs Casino, and Ballys Resort & Casino, as well as stays at hotels near those casinos, the grand jury said.

For the months not covered by finance reports, prosecutors obtained and reviewed the PACs bank records. The records showed that Cabry continued to frequent those casinos, especially Delaware Park, where investigators estimate the judge gambled at least once a week in 2017. He wagered more than $100,000 at that casino in that time, they said.

At the time Cabry withdrew the money from the PAC, his personal accounts were severely depleted, the grand jury presentment said.

Thus, Cabry chose to unlawfully use monies that campaign donors intended to be utilized for his political campaign to fund his personal expenses as he saw fit, the grand jury wrote.

Cabry remains free on the condition he appears for a preliminary hearing in the case scheduled for Oct. 26.
As a former NASA astronaut, he flew to space three times and was poised to make history as the first private citizen to fly to orbit on a commercially operated rocket. But Chris Ferguson, now a Boeing employee, announced on Wednesday he was pulling himself from the first crewed mission of the company's Starliner spacecraft.

In an interview, Ferguson said that after 26 years in the Navy, where he served as a fighter pilot, then as a NASA astronaut and now as a Boeing executive, his career has put a strain on his family and forced him to be away repeatedly. Going to space next year for an extended stay on the International Space Station would force him to miss "a lot of key family events. . . . The year 2021 is shaping up so far as one that I should not be off the planet."

NASA said he would be replaced by Barry "Butch" Wilmore, a veteran NASA astronaut who has flown to space twice and has been training on the Starliner spacecraft. He would join NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Michael Fincke, who had previously been assigned to the mission.

Boeing hopes to launch a test flight of its Starliner spacecraft with the three astronauts no earlier than June of next year, after suffering a setbacks and delays that pushed it from its original flight date in 2017. A test mission in December of the spacecraft without any crews on board went awry when the onboard computer was 11 hours off, thinking the spacecraft was at a wrong point in the mission.

Crews on the ground were able to fix the software problem, but the mission was cut short. The spacecraft never docked with the space station as intended. Boeing said it would rely the mission in December or January, delaying the first flight with astronauts on board until mid-2021.

In the interview, Ferguson said he did not want to discuss the impact the delay had on his decision to step down. And he said it had nothing to do with the Starliner's problems.

"I am passionately attached to this program. I have been dedicated from the very beginning. I absolutely love this team," he said. "I enjoy being a part of it, and I have full confidence it's going to be a robust and reliable vehicle for decades to come. This is no way a reflection of my belief in the vehicle."

But he did say the delay of the flight into 2021 forced him to make a gut-wrenching decision: fly as planned, or miss some important events, including a family wedding, scheduled for next year.

"It was one of the more challenging life decisions I had to make," he said in an interview. "It involved a little bit of staring in the mirror and saying, 'Do I really need to do this?' "

Had he flown, Ferguson would have become the world's first "corporate astronaut," flying not under the NASA banner but as a Boeing employee who helped design and build the capsule from scratch. Boeing had hoped his presence on the mission would not only serve as a hands-on guide to the spacecraft, but also open up a new era of human spaceflight, where private citizens go to space alongside professionally trained astronauts.

NASA has ended a prohibition against allowing civilians to fly on American rockets to the space station. Now Boeing and SpaceX, the other company under contract to fly people to the space station, have been working to sign up wealthy individuals who would pay tens of millions of dollars for trips to orbit.

Ferguson was seen as a symbol of that progress. He served as the commander of the very last space shuttle mission in 2011 and hoped to restore human spaceflight to United States soil for NASA.

But after Boeing stumbled badly, Elon Musk's SpaceX took the lead, and in May flew the first mission with astronauts to the space station since the shuttle retired.

"Having followed this vehicle along from the time it was just sketches on a drawing pad, to being able to sit in the real thing, but not being able to take it all the way, that's going to smart a bit," he said.

But he said he would be in mission control for the flight and that he would "live vicariously through this new crew."

He held out the possibility that he might find a way to return to orbit on the Starliner: "I'm staying with Boeing so I'm not going anywhere," he said. "I'm just not going to space next year."
The iconic fashion bible Grazia launches a USA edition today, strengthening the global media company's presence in the world's largest and most prominent fashion market

MILAN and NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In a landmark move, the Mondadori Group, the largest publishing house in Italy, today announced the launch of leading fashion brand Grazia in the United States. Grazia USA launches with digital cover star, Kim Kardashian-West on the its website for the world launch, along with new dedicated US social platforms.

Kim Kardashian-West Grazia USA Digital Cover Pantheon Media Group, LLC Logo

Grazia USA will be published under a licensing agreement with Pantheon Media Group, LLC (PMG). The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The brand will establish significant presence in the American market, adopting an innovative digital-first business model and a strong new brand identity for the US consumer. Content will be distributed across a global multi-channel network with a focus on digital, video, and social, complemented by quarterly print editions beginning in 2021.

The birth of Grazia USA is crowned by an exclusive collaboration with Kim Kardashian-West. The American media personality turned fashion and beauty industry mogul and social justice advocate revealed 12 covers of various Grazia international editions on her social media Monday. The covers, interviews and exclusive shoots were published concurrently across a suite of Grazia markets; from the United States to the United Kingdom, Italy, India and Australia.

"The arrival of Grazia in the United States is a highly significant event, the first time an all-Italian fashion magazine lands on the US market with a formula that gives a perfect answer to the new needs of readers, users and businesses. In today's historical juncture, it bears witness to the strength of a brand that has always stood at the forefront, becoming an icon of international renown, leveraging on its authoritative content and incomparable identity," said Ernesto Mauri, CEO of the Mondadori Group.

"Grazia has been the authority on global fashion trends for more than 80 years, and we know that having editorial talent in the United States has the potential to have a material impact on the fashion world, with Grazia USA set to be the freshest and most energetic platform of telling those stories," added Daniela Sola, Managing Director International Business of Mondadori Media.

The United States is the leading fashion hub of the world, boasting a large economy and growing luxury industry. Of the $2.5 trillion global market, the United States represents nearly $308 billion alone.1 What's more, 1.8 million people are employed in the luxury industry in the US, and the country has around 18,000 fashion designers.2

In announcing the launch, PMG confirmed that Dylan Howard will serve as Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of Grazia USA. Mr. Howard plans to focus the brand on extensive digital storytelling through the use of technology, along with live and immersive events to deliver original content geared to the modern consumer.

"The editorial mission of Grazia USA will focus on a blend of local and international content and the elevation of North American fashion and design talent. Grazia USA will set itself apart from the competitive set, and develop its own unique identity as a daring, innovative and sophisticated representative of the worldwide brand," said Mr. Howard.

Having undertaken extensive research into consumers' media consumption habits, the USA edition of Grazia aims to establish itself as the most prominent and influential guide to fashion, with a mission of crafting impactful visual storytelling and thought-provoking, top-tier journalism to empower, inspire, and intrigue readers. The 400+ page print product set to launch in 2021 will showcase feature-length, high-impact, and high dwell time content for the audience segment of users aged 18-35.

"Grazia USA is a transformative event that significantly reshapes the fashion and beauty landscape in the United States with a bold type of next-generation media organization, Pantheon Media Group," said Mr. Howard.

"Grazia has helped carve fashion's path to inclusivity to date, and the unveiling of USA edition gives rise to new opportunity for championing intersectional diversity. This will be reflected across the board; through editorial content, fashion brands, designers and models whom we give the spotlight to, and wider partnerships Pantheon Media Group pursues to break the traditional fashion media mold."

Mr. Howard will lead the strategic direction of Grazia USA. A prominent figure in the American media scene, Mr. Howard brings more than two decades of publishing experience to the role, having previously served as Chief Content Officer and Senior Vice President of Business Development at American Media, Inc., the largest publisher in Northern America. Modern Luxury Media and Mr. Howard's Empire Media Group, Inc. will offer Pantheon Media Group support, from production and circulation to sales and marketing.

"As a brand, Grazia is the undisputed authority on fashion and beauty in 23 markets worldwide. Now, in the United States, those global standards will appear through our digital platform, providing informed and stylish users with the next-generation luxury media brand," added Mr. Howard.

"Grazia USA will also provide strategic advertising solutions for brands seeking to reach a smart, savvy and stylish consumer set. Grazia USA will be known for elevating integrated marketing offerings in luxury and lifestyle publishing at a time when others are not."

Further news will follow regarding appointments to the editorial team of Grazia USA.

PRESS CONTACT:

Italy: The Mondadori Group, Media Relations, pressoffice@mondadori.it

United States: Pantheon Media Group

ADVERTISING advertising@graziausa.com

MEDIA ENQUIRIES press@graziausa.com

ABOUT GRAZIA:

Grazia is Italy's fashion bible, published by the Mondadori Group. For 80 years Grazia has remained in step with changing tastes season after season, style after style. At the top end of quality and design, Grazia is the most accomplished ambassador of the "Made in Italy" brand and is a preferred advertising vehicle for designer, fashion, and beauty companies. Thanks to its experience, excellence and brand value, Grazia is the first Italian weekly magazine to extend its successful formula abroad, creating the most dynamic magazine network on the market.

ABOUT PANTHEON MEDIA GROUP, LLC:

Pantheon Media Group (PMG) is an independent next-generation media company that brings one of the most prestigious European fashion magazines to the biggest fashion market in the world. PMG is the exclusive publisher of Grazia USA, the latest franchise of the iconic fashion bible, first launched in Italy in 1938. Also uniquely focused on beauty, culture, society, status, celebrity, and luxury, Grazia USA publishes digitally first and later in print, with the release of the first of its quarterly 400-page magazines in 2021. Grazia USA does more than just inform and inspire an educated audience of influential readers: It is unlike anything the fashion industry in the United States has ever seen. We do not serve readers, we serve users. PMG is a 360-degree media business that is poised for the future, broadening storytelling into virtual and augmented reality, video, television, audio, e-commerce, live events, branded content, innovative advertising solutions and beyond. Grazia USA will be stewarded by the Empire Media Group and supported by shared services from Modern Luxury Media. PMG is headquartered in New York City.

1 https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/39201d61-aec8-4458-80e8-2fe26ee8a31e/economic-impact-of-the-fashion-industry.pdf

2 JEC Democratic staff calculations based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2017 National Industry Specific Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates (March 2018).

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1308140/Kim_Kardashian_West_Grazia_USA_Digital_Cover.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1308263/Grazia_Logo.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1308138/Pantheon_Media_Group_Logo.jpg





Related Links

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SOURCE Pantheon Media Group
The outcome of Hamiltons longest domestic violence trial rests on the days of a calendar.

The question of whether the case exceeded the legal time limit of 30 months from arrest to resolution was the issue argued  virtually  at the Court of Appeal for Ontario on Monday.

It is a complicated matter, taking into account many factors including: new legislation which came into existence during the case; a severe lack of courtroom availability; the judges packed schedule and scheduling conflicts; a failure to estimate enough court time for the trial; multiple defendants needing to retain counsel; an illness that sidelined the Crown attorney; disclosure delays; unsubstantiated defence allegations of plagiarism against an expert witness; an interpreters need for everyone to speak slowly and often repeat themselves; and a bizarre case with complicated and highly conflicting evidence.

On Dec. 3, 2018, the day Justice Andrew Goodman was to deliver his trial verdict, he instead stayed the proceedings. He decided the rights of the three accused to a speedy trial had been denied.

That meant Adeel Safdar, his mother Shaheen and brother Aatif walked out of the courtroom that day and have been living in the community without criminal court restrictions ever since.

The controversial decision led Torontos Crown Law Office to appeal to Ontarios highest court. Justices Kathryn Feldman, Eileen Gillese and Bradley Miller, who heard the case via Zoom, have reserved judgment on whether the stay should be lifted. And if so, what should happen next.

This saga began in April 2015 when Hamilton police arrested the Safdars, who lived in the same Binbrook area home.

Adeel, a scientist, was charged with assault, assault with a weapon, assault bodily harm, threatening death and aggravated assault on his wife, Dr. Sara Salim, a physician. Theirs was an arranged marriage. Shaheen faced the same charges. Aatif was charged with assault bodily harm, assault with a weapon, assault and threatening death.

The Safdars were accused of branding Sara with an iron, breaking her jaw and forcing her to carve death threats against Adeel and their daughter into her own leg with a knife.

The Safdars refuted the allegations, saying Sara was mentally ill and caused all the injuries to herself. They said she invented stories of abuse to win back her daughter in a custody dispute.

(Sara has since won full custody and is now raising her daughter in New York state.)

In 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its Jordan Decision, establishing new timelines for trials. Just how the Safdar case  a so-called transitional case  is affected by that is part of the appeal. When did the 30 month clock begin ticking? What is the resolution of a trial? Is it the verdict? The sentencing?

From the start, the proceedings ran long. The preliminary hearing was over schedule. The trial, which began in September 2017, took more days than planned and was spread over 14 months due to scheduling issues.

There were more than 70 court appearances.

For the appeal, Crown counsel Tracy Kozlowski and Safdar lawyer Nader Hasan, each parsed out the delays and argued who was to blame. Was it a Crown delay, such as an unnecessarily long-winded cross-examination of a witness? Or a defence delay, such as not properly scheduling its Jordan application sooner? Was it an institutional delay due to lack of available court time? Or was it a neutral delay or exceptional circumstance such as the Crowns illness, which couldnt be helped?

If the Court of Appeal upholds the stay, the matter can be appealed by the Crown to the Supreme Court of Canada.

If the court overturns it, things get really interesting.

When he stayed the case, Goodman told the court he had finished writing his verdict. That decision  170 pages  is sealed in an envelope and locked away.

Hasan says if the stay is struck down, the Appeal Court should open the envelope. If the Safdars are not guilty, he would accept that. If they are guilty, he could then appeal the decision directly to the Supreme Court.

Kozlowski argues that the envelope should be opened in the lower Superior Court, which is where the trial took place. That would mean an appeal would take it back to the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and not all the way to the Supreme Court.

Neither side is calling for a new trial.

Which is a blessing. Because Hamiltons COVID-strapped courthouse cant handle another epic trial right now.
Despite the governments avowed intention to the contrary, there will still be thousands of unwilling unemployed when JobKeeper finishes in March. In the meantime, they will not have much security on the reduced JobSeeker and this affects not just the unemployed but also their families. It will even affect business people who barely kept and keep going because of the JobKeeper scheme. The budget supports big business, not the increasingly insecure individual. It should directly reassure those who are unemployed and who expect to be unemployed. Hugo Zweep, Austinmer Coalition's debt will come back to haunt the young The young people of Australia should be cautious about the overall benefit they will receive with job training support in the budget (''Jobs credit where it's due: young people'', October 7). They will be the generation that has to repay the huge debt the government is accumulating. There is no such thing as a free lunch anymore. Brian Jeffrey, Gunnedah Funding 100,000 apprenticeships sounds like a good idea. Itd be an even better idea if those young folks were going to be trained in the gold standard TAFE system so carefully constructed between the mid '70s and early '90s. Instead, theyll go to an emaciated, under-resourced, dodgily privatised VET catastrophe. Pearls and swine come to mind. Peter Russell, Coogee

Having a job means more than earning an income  it means security. Perhaps you havent noticed, Treasurer, but this hasnt been true for many decades, largely thanks to your mobs anti-worker policies. Alynn Pratt, Killara Women aged 35 or over who lose their jobs or JobKeeper support over coming months, who are offered little substantive support by their jobactive provider or cannot access training for secure, higher-skilled work, should make sure that their federal MP and the Minister for Jobs are made aware of the impact this is having on their lives and their future economic outlook (''Winners and losers in the federal budget'', October 7). Only then might the federal government wake up and get serious about addressing well-documented and worsening labour market deficits faced by older female workers who become unemployed, often for very long periods of time. The budget blather on this is underwhelming, disheartening and no doubt confidence-shattering for many thousands of women. Sue Dyer, Downer (ACT) Well, what did you expect? It's a blokes' budget. Carolyn Richard, Enmore The government had a choice  increase funding for labour intensive local needs such as aged care, home care packages and childcare, thus creating jobs and improving quality of life, or underwrite the purchase of imported physical assets such as tradies' utes. They chose the latter: good choice? Michael Berg, Randwick While it is good the budget announced 23,000 new HomeCare packages, it is also bad that only 2000 of those are at level four, the level required to keep people at home instead of being placed into residential aged care. It is also bad that the 23,000 packages are not available immediately, but instead will be rolled out over the next four years. Too little and too late. Karen Eldridge, Leichhardt

Budget poses taxing questions Tuesdays budget: eye-watering numbers and new jobs created at a rate that would have Reagan and Thatcher spinning. Tax cuts are our Treasurers big chance to join his heroes as the Trickle-down Kid (''Jobs plan key to conquer debt'', October 7). John Kingsmill, Fairlight Theres nothing like a bit of imagination and common sense when bringing down a federal budget and Josh Frydenbergs effort with its tax cuts obsession was nothing like it. John Byrne, Randwick Yay, Scotty and Joshy, another miracle, youse have done it again. How good is this budget? Rosemary O'Brien, Ashfield The more I see of Frydenberg, the more I see a great PM in the making, to take over when Scott Morrison retires. Ian Morison, Forrest (ACT)

From back in black in May to a massive deficit in October is a bit more than a recalibration, as all the unemployed can testify. Trevor Wilson, Chifley (ACT) Congratulations to the PM for taking government spin to "stratospheric levels". Meredith Williams, Northmead It's disappointing to see Anthony Albanese referring to the "Morrison recession" and deriding the government. We all know we are suffering the economic effects of the pandemic. The nation has grown weary of the juvenile attacks we witness regularly from our politicians. Noela Cole, Haberfield Treatment of humanities inhumane Thanks to Centre Alliance for putting the final nail in the coffin for thousands of 2020 year 12 students (''Fees for arts degrees to rise by 113 per cent as MPs back law change'', October 7).

Education Minister Dan Tehan must be celebrating the misfortune of this year 12 cohort as he happily secures the support he needs for his ridiculous reform. Year 12 students who want to study humanities courses in 2021 will not only be paying $14,500 a year for the privilege, they will be technically paying another STEM students fees. It is estimated it will take humanities students about 20 years to pay off this debt because of this extremely unjust reform. Tracey Galanos, Hunters Hill

The Morrison government thinks that doubling the price of less vocationally focused university courses is a good idea. Its like making medicine more expensive for sick people. Young people with the most difficult task of securing a job on graduating have the highest debt. Unbelievable logic. Eric Sekula, Turramurra The result of the government putting humanities degrees out of the reach of those pesky leftist young people is that in five years there will likely be a shortage of English, history and language teachers in our schools. Smart. Toni Lorentzen, Fennell Bay Pupils need safety To suspend or not to suspend? A vexed question (''Suspending children fixes nothing'', October 7). While the article itself deals predominantly with kindies, my duty of care as a secondary teacher demands that I provide a safe learning environment for all students. In classrooms, we talk of the rights and responsibilities of learners. It is the right of every student to learn in a violence-free environment. If that translates as time-out or in school suspension for some students, so be it. As a parent, I dont want my child on the receiving end of a punch in the shoulder, let alone a punch in the head. Diane Dennis, Epping

Magnate's misery That old saying "money can't buy you happiness " seems to be true of James Packer (''Packer poker-faced'', October 7). A life of privilege and wealth has made his life miserable. Ruth Dickman, Pymble Army not Trump's Bob Carr's concern about Donald Trump's potential refusal to transfer power is overblown (''Why the US election is so fraught'', October 7). The United States military swears an oath to the Constitution, not Trump. It's hard to imagine the army will continue to support Trump and defy the will of the voters, especially after the President's despicable treatment of the decorated generals serving in his cabinet. One of the few things Chairman Mao got right was "political power comes from the barrel of the gun". Han Yang, North Turramurra

Illustration: Matt Golding Credit: What a dilemma Trump's doctors face in determining if the medications they are giving him are causing mood swings, mania and hyper-excitability (''Some of POTUS's 'great drugs' unproven, may cause mania'', October 7). Thats just a normal day in the office for Donald. Shona Kirchen, Kiama Was there some religious significance in Trump's return to the White House after three days or am I reading too much into it (''Trump discharged after three days'', October 7)? Helen Bersten, Roseville Trumphalism: what doesn't kill you makes you stranger. Les Shearman, Darlington She may need a little help, or maybe not, but if Melania Trump has been filling in her time over the years writing a few notes about her life with Donald, what a book it would be. There has to be something to surprise us about Melania other than her looks. Megan Heaney, Kincumber

As an expat American, I have never seen an opposition so irresponsible as today's Democrats who refused to accept the legitimacy of Trump's election in a free and fair election, who trashed the US Constitution by voting to impeach the President in a straight party line vote, who threaten to stack the Supreme Court with left-wing judges, who defend rioters in cities like Minneapolis, Portland, and Louisville, who think the Iranian nuclear deal was terrific, who cozy up to the crooked regime in Cuba, and who have nominated for President a has-been 78-year-old with his token VP candidate (Letters, October 6). Michael Clarey, Pyrmont Best-sleighed plans Forget Trump. With deer on the run, it looks like Santa has caught the virus too (''Reined in: deer put to sleep after city jaunt'', October 7). Tough Christmas ahead.Megan Brock, Summer Hill Don't tell John Barilaro that feral deer have been sighted in the inner west or he'll have them declared a heritage species and Leichhardt considered a marginal Nationals seat. John Bailey, Canterbury

Protect natives Why is it so hard to understand that national parks should be for native animals and plants and not for invasive species (''Summer bushfires had little effect on rising number of feral horse numbers'', October 7)? Peter Olive, Marrickville Danger overblown Rarely does a day go by without someone warning us of the dangers of going to the beach (''How about timed tickets to the beach?'', October 7). By now anyone would think that we caught the virus from the Pacific Ocean. But I havent been deterred from my daily morning dip at Coogee. In the meantime, could someone please point to one case of contagion traced to an outdoor setting in the sunshine and a sea breeze? Just one, anywhere in the world would do. Russell Edwards, Randwick

Answer is outdoors I was struck while reading about the revival of the drive-in and open-air cinemas that this model could be used to get the flagging live entertainment scene back in action (''Drive-in revival brings safe fun for the family'', October 7). Why not create similar venues where people can watch and listen from their cars? Rather than watching reruns of ageing Hollywood blockbusters, wouldnt we rather support our local talent and see something new? Elizabeth Hadlow, Gymea Bay Mite be giants Vegemite may be the new WD40 due to the similarity in their taste (Letters, October 7). This is not the case with the ambrosia that is Promite - a much finer and tastier spread, which one would never sully with vile blue cheese. Bring on the war of the mite-ys. Russ Couch, Woonona We were so poor we didn't have bread. We sprinkled sugar over lettuce leaves. Alicia Dawson, Balmain
Amid mounting allusions to persecution because of the closure of churches on health grounds due to the pandemic, I want to provide some respectful perspective for my fellow American Christians.

Ive worked my entire 20-year career on international religious freedom, meeting persecuted Christians from around the world. Ive heard their stories, seen their tears and wounds, and lost friends. From those encounters, Ive learned persecution is intense, and it is violent.

Therefore, I hope Americans will set the term persecution aside, so it doesnt lose its intensity or veracity.

The United States is one of the most open and liberal countries for freedom of religion and belief. From our first settlers seeking freedom to practice their faith, to our founding values starting with the First Amendment and consequent laws and now a long-running string of Supreme Court victories, Americans of all faiths (and no faith) have become accustomed to ever-expanding religious liberties. Its part of American exceptionalism.

And this exceptionalism carries over into how our country promotes and protects religious freedom for all internationally. During my time at the State Department under both the Obama and Trump administrations, we helped carry this out, preaching the values of religious liberty as a social good as well as confronting persecutors. The US is the foremost advocate internationallyfull stop. Persecuted people of all faiths pray for our intervention and desire to flee to our shores.

With the pandemic, its been unsettling for Americans to see local and state governments direct the closure of churches (as well as synagogues, mosques, and temples) for health reasons. Its not something most of us have experienced before. However, I know many churches have found innovative new ways to gather virtually, or outdoors, for Sunday worship or fellowship. My church is no exception. Its better than nothing, and we benefit from our communities of faith during these challenging times.

While the temporary closures are jarring for Americans, foreign governments permanently shut down places of worship all the time. Sadly, it is not unusual, but common. Persecution levels are at all-time highs worldwide, with more than three quarters of the global community facing severe limitations on the free practice of faith. Consequently, Christians of every denomination, people of other traditions, and individuals practicing no faith face persecution every day for what they believe.

In my diplomatic work, Ive seen churches shuttered and worship criminalized. My bookshelf holds pieces of churches and mosques and synagogues torn down by authoritarian governments. Based on these experiences, I believe American Christians would be wise to avoid labeling the current situation as persecution for three reasons.

First, a significant difference is motive. From what Ive observed, most state and local officials are searching in good faith for the least-bad options during these uncertain times. For sure, there are some with an anti-religion or anti-Christian agenda. Ive seen frustrating decisions that appear inconsistent or arbitrary. But if their decisions are unconstitutional, our judicial system provides strong remedies. Most public servants are trying their level best to balance civil rights against concerns about public health, all with imperfect information while under a microscope in an unprecedented situation.

A second difference is duration. When churches are closed for health reasons, the move is temporary until conditions improve. When local officials make these decisions, our faith isnt banned or made illegal. In fact, Ive seen officials encourage worship, just online. In many jurisdictions, you can still gather in different ways or in smaller groups without consequence.

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Third, and most importantly, the biggest difference is that persecution is brutal and violent. Hebrews 11:3537 gives vivid examples of the persecution of the early church, which believers faced for centuries. In modern times, here are some examples that Ive grappled with:

Based on these examples, American Christians should be very careful about labeling our current situation as persecution. There is a continuum from administrative limitations to outright persecution. If there are problems, Americans of faith can petition the courts and fight like hell through any number of pro-bono groups well situated to argue their case. Or American believers can ask their elected representatives to change laws. But these strong tools are often unavailable in other countries.

In short, what is happening in the US is not persecution. Its disruptive. Its painful. Its inconvenient. Its possibly illegal in some cases. But its not persecution.

Americans often forget how blessed we are to enjoy tremendous religious freedom at home. We are not perfectanti-Semitism, anti-Muslim sentiment, racism, and other ills still existso we must continually strive for a more perfect union. At the same time, a bad day for religious freedom in the US still beats a good day just about anywhere else.

We therefore should retire the term persecution when talking about whats occurring in America during this tragic pandemic.

Knox Thames is the former special advisor for religious minorities at the US Department of State, serving in both the Obama and Trump administrations.

Speaking Out is Christianity Todays guest opinion column and (unlike an editorial) does not necessarily represent the opinion of the magazine.

[ This article is also available in , Indonesian, and . ]
Trump told Americans 'to get out there' and not fear COVID-19 as he returned to the White House on Monday after a three-night hospital stay to be treated for the virus

Washington: Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday said he is against participating in his second debate with Donald Trump next week if the president still suffers from COVID-19.

"I think if he still has COVID-19, we shouldn't have a debate," Biden, a former US vice-president, told reporters on his return from Gettysburg.

The first of the three presidential debates between Biden, 77, and Trump, 74, was held on 29 September. The second debate is scheduled for 15 October in Miami and the final one on 22 October in Nashville, Tennessee. Biden said they should follow very strict guidelines.

"Too many people have been infected. It's a very serious problem, so I will be guided by the guidelines of the Cleveland Clinic and what the doctors say is the right thing to do," he said.

"I'm not sure what President Donald Trump is all about now. I don't know what his status is. I'm looking forward to being able to debate him but I just hope all protocols are followed," Biden said.

Trump in a tweet on Tuesday said he is looking forward to the debate. "I am looking forward to the debate on the evening of Thursday, 15 October in Miami. It will be great!" said the president.

The only vice-presidential debate between Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris and Vice-President Mike Pence in scheduled for Wednesday in Salt Lake City, Utah.

"I think what they're doing at the Harris debate, I've been told, I don't know this for fact, they're using plexiglass, and are following what the Cleveland Clinic says," Biden told reporters in response to a question.
D onald Trump's doctor has said the president has been symptom-free for 24 hours and that antibodies have been detected in his blood.

The US president tested positive for coronavirus last week and has since insisted that he is "feeling good".

Mr Trump was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre but he staged a dramatic return to the White House, entering the building without a protective mask.

He immediately ignited a new controversy by declaring that, despite his illness, the nation should not fear the virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans.

The president remained out of sight for a second day on Wednesday as he continued his recovery but he made his presence known on social media as he tweeted broadsides against Democrats, floated false disease figures and pushed politicians to take up piecemeal economic aid proposals after ending negotiations on a broader assistance package.

White House aides said Mr Trump was itching to get back to the Oval Office and preparations are under way to allow him to do so while minimising risk to those around him.

In the latest update on Mr Trump's health, his doctor reported that the president continued to make progress in his recovery.

Dr Sean Conley said that Mr Trump had declared: "I feel great!" after his latest examination of the president.

Donald and Melania Trump - In pictures 1 /42 Donald and Melania Trump - In pictures President Donald Trump stands on stage with first lady Melania Trump after the first presidential debate with Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden on 29 September 2020 AP Donald Trump holds a replica of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as his wife Melania holds their son Barron in Los Angeles, January 16, 2007 Reuters 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 US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump return to the White House in Washington, DC on 11 September 2020 AFP via Getty Images Donald Trump and Melanie Knaus arrive for VH1's Divas Live concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City April 13, 1999 Getty Images Donald Trump and Melania toast the new year during Trump's 2000 gala bash The Sun-Sentinel/AP Donald Trump and Melania arrive for the 73rd Annual Academy Awards March 25, 2001 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Getty Images Donald Trump and Melania 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 Donald Trump and Melania attend the 56th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards on September 19, 2004 at the Shrine Auditorium, in Los Angeles Getty Images Donald Trump, his wife Melania Trump and their son Barron attend the Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's 16th Annual Bunny Hop at FAO toy store March 13, 2007 in New York City Getty Images Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, Melania Trump-Trump and Barron Trump attend the "The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life" book launch celebration at Trump Tower on October 14, 2009 in New York City Getty Images Donald Trump and Melania Trump attend the "Schiaparelli And Prada: Impossible Conversations" Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2012 Getty Images Eric Trump, Lara Yunaska Trump, Donald Trump, Barron Trump, Melania Trump, Vanessa Haydon Trump, Kai Madison Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Donald John Trump III, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and Tiffany Trump pose for photos on stage after Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015 in New York Cit Getty Images Donald Trump speaks with his wife Melania Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump after the third U.S. presidential debate at the Thomas & Mack Center on October 19, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Getty Images Former President Barack Obama (C) kisses the hand of former First Lady Michelle Obama (2R) beside US President Donald Trump (2L) and First Lady Melania Trump (L) before the Obama's departure from the US Capitol after Trump's inauguration ceremonies at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2017 AFP via Getty Images President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania arrive to attend an inauguration concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, on January 19, 2017 AFP/Getty Images President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump dance at the Freedom Ball on January 20, 2017 in Washington, D.C Getty Images President Donald Trump sings to the song "My Way" while dancing with first lady Melania Trump during the inaugural Liberty Ball at the Washington Convention Center January 20, 2017 Getty Images Pope Francis (R) walks along with US President Donald Trump and US First Lady Melania Trump during a private audience at the Vatican on May 24, 2017 AFP/Getty Images President Donald Trump and the first lady Melania Trump attend the 95th annual National Christmas Tree Lighting held by the National Park Service at the White House Ellipse in Washington, D.C., November 30, 2017 Getty Images Donald Trump and wife Melania being interviewed by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes 60 Minutes/CBS President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2019 after flying back from Atlanta, Georgia AFP/Getty Images President Donald Trump, Queen Elizabeth II, Melania Trump, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, during a group photo ahead of the State Banquet at Buckingham Palace, London PA President Donald Trump and US First Lady Melania Trump wait to greet Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and his wife Britain's Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall for a dinner at Winfield House in 2019 AFP/Getty Images President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive to their Christmas Eve party at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida in 2019 Reuters First Lady Melania Trump and U.S. President Donald Trump during the National Athem prior to the College Football Playoff National Championship game between the Clemson Tigers and the LSU Tigers at Mercedes Benz Superdome on January 13, 2020 in New Orleans, Louisiana Getty Images President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump pose as they visit the Taj Mahal in Agra on February 24, 2020 AFP via Getty Images President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump offer floral respects at Raj Ghat, the memorial for Mahatma Gandhi, in New Delhi, India, AP President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk down the steps of Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Sunday, Aug. 16, 2020 AP President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Barron Trump stand on the South Lawn of the White House on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020 AP US President Donald Trump embraces first lady Melania Trump after she addressed the Republican Convention AFP via Getty Images President Donald Trump waves next to first lady Melania Trump as they arrive for his first 2020 election debate with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., September 29, 2020 Reuters

Dr Conley added in a memo that the president had been symptom-free for over 24 hours and that his oxygen saturation level and respiratory rate were normal.

The memo also said that antibodies against the coronavirus were detected in blood drawn from Mr Trump on Monday, suggesting he may be fighting off the infection.

The Friday before, Mr Trump had been given an experimental treatment that contained manufactured antibodies.

Biden wants no debate if Trump still has Covid

On Wednesday, Mr Trump pushed out more than four dozen tweets by midday praising supporters and attacking his opponents.

He again publicly played down the virus on Twitter after his return from a three-day hospitalisation, though even more aides tested positive including one of his closest advisers, Stephen Miller.

More than a dozen White House staffers have now tested positive.

Elsewhere in the government, the scope of the outbreak was still being uncovered.

On Tuesday, the nation's top military leaders including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, and the vice chairman, General John Hyten, were in quarantine after exposure to Admiral Charles W Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard.
The United States has urged all stakeholders to continue to work toward free, fair, transparent, and peaceful elections in Ondo State.

The election is slated for this Saturday, October 10, 2020.

The US Embassy, in a statement, enjoined all participants in the democratic process, including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), political parties, and the security services, to take concrete steps to ensure a peaceful election that reflects the will of the people of Ondo.

"The United States remains committed to the U.S.-Nigeria partnership as we work together to achieve our mutual goals of peace and prosperity for the citizens of both our countries," it said.
B oris Johnson today flatly rejected the idea of letting Covid-19 sweep through Britain while protecting the vulnerable.

Downing Street made clear that such a policy, advocated by a group of academics, scientists and medics, could lead to young people infecting older generations who are at greater risk of being killed by coronavirus.

No10 said the idea, being promoted under the banner of the Great Barrington Declaration, was based on an unproven assumption that it was possible to stop the virus being passed between generations to more vulnerable people.

The Prime Ministers official spokesman said: We have considered the full range of scientific opinion throughout the course of this pandemic and will continue to do so.

However, he also stressed: Its not possible to rely on an unproven assumption that its possible for people who are at lower risk, should they they contract the virus, to avoid subsequently transmitting it to those who are at a higher risk and who would therefore subsequently face a greater chance of ending up in hospital or worse in an intensive care unit.

He added that the Governments Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty had also made clear that the strategy adopted to combat Covid took into account the impact of restrictions on peoples physical and mental health, as well as additional non-Covid deaths linked to the measures such as individuals not swiftly accessing cancer care.

However, a group of British and other experts are arguing that people who are less vulnerable to the effects of Covid-19 should be allowed to return to normal life.

The Great Barrington Declaration, which is earning thousands of signatures from medical professionals, academics and the general public, calls for a herd immunity approach to tackling the Covid-19 pandemic while protecting the most vulnerable populations.

WHO Chief: There is hope for coronavirus vaccine by end of year

Academics from the universities of Oxford, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Cambridge, Sussex, York, St Georges University of London, Strathclyde, Leicester, Queen Mary University of London and the University of East Anglia are among experts from around the world who have signed the document.

The declaration states: As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing Covid-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.

Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health - leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.

Coronavirus in numbers: UK death toll rises to 42,445

We know that vulnerability to death from Covid-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, Covid-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all - including the vulnerable - falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity - i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable - and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimise mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.

It adds: Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practised by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open.

Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.

Commenting on the declaration, Prof Rossman, honorary senior lecturer in virology at the University of Kent, said: Unfortunately, this declaration ignores three critical aspects that could result in significant impacts to health and lives.

Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures 1 /81 Coronavirus hits the UK - In pictures A deserted Westminster Bridge PA A man wearing a face mask or covering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, walks past customers sat outside a restaurant AFP via Getty Images Boris Johnson addresses the nation on the Coronavirus lockdown Andrew Parsons Runners pass cardboard cutouts of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William during the London Marathon in London AP An empty escalator at Charing Coss London Underground tube station Jeremy Selwyn Electronic bilboards displays a message warning people to stay home in Sheffield PA A sign is displayed in the window of a student accommodation building following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Mancheste Reuters People take part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions, in Londo AP People sing and dance in Leicester Square on the eve on the 10PM curfew Reuters Hearts painted by a team of artists from Upfest are seen in the grass at Queen Square, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Bristol Reuters Graffiti reads 'good luck and stay safe', as the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases grow around the world, under a bridge in London Reuters A sign is pictured in Soho, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London Reuters Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures, during a coronavirus briefing in Downing Street, London AP A person runs past posters with a message of hope, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Manchester REUTERS Riot police face protesters who took part in a 'We Do Not Consent' rally at Trafalgar Square, organised by Stop New Normal, to protest against coronavirus restrictions in London AP An image of The Queen eith quotes from her broadcast to the UK and the Commonwealth in relation to the Coronavirus epidemic are displayed on lights in London's Piccadilly Circus PA Military vehicles cross Westminster Bridge after members of the 101 Logistic Brigade delivered a consignment of medical masks to St Thomas' hospital Getty Images Durdle Door in Dorset Reuters Captain Tom Moore via Reuters Mia, aged 8, and Jack, aged 5, take part in "PE with Joe" a daily live workout with Joe Wicks on Youtube to help kids stay fit who have to stay indoors due to the Coronavirus outbreak PA An NHS worker reacts at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital during the Clap for our Carers campaign in support of the NHS Reuters Goats which have taken over the deserted streets of Llandudno @AndrewStuart via PA Tobias Weller PA Novikov restaurant in London with its shutters pulled down while the restaurant is closed London Landscapes: Hyde Park and the Serpentine, central London. Matt Writtle A newspaper vendor in Manchester city centre giving away free toilet rolls with every paper bought as shops run low on supplies due to fears over the spread of the coronavirus PA Theo Clay looks out of his window next to his hand-drawn picture of a rainbow in Liverpool, as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continue Reuters A young man cuts another man's hair on top of a closed hairdresser in Oxford Reuters General view of the new NHS Nightingale Hospital, built to fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London via Reuters Jason Baird is seen dressed as Spiderman during his daily exercise to cheer up local children in Stockport, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues Reuters A woman wearing a face mask walks past Buckingham Palace Getty Images A man holds mobile phone displaying a text message alert sent by the government warning that new rules are in force across the UK and people must stay at home PA Medical staff on the Covid-19 ward at the Neath Port Talbot Hospital, in Wales, as the health services continue their response to the coronavirus outbreak. PA Prime Minister Boris Johnson taking part in a virtual Cabinet meeting with his top team of ministers PA A shopper walks past empty shelves in a Lidl store on in Wallington. After spates of "panic buying" cleared supermarket shelves of items like toilet paper and cleaning products, stores across the UK have introduced limits on purchases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have also created special time slots for the elderly and other shoppers vulnerable to the new coronavirus. Getty Images People on a busy tube train in London at rush hour PA Mia, aged 8 and her brother Jack, aged 5 from Essex, continue their school work at home, after being sent home due to the coronavirus PA Children are painting 'Chase the rainbows' artwork and springing up in windows across the country Reuters Social distancing in Primrose Hill Jeremy Selwyn A general view of a locked gate at Anfield, Liverpool as The Premier League has been suspended PA Homeless people in London AFP via Getty Images A piece of art by the artist, known as the Rebel Bear has appeared on a wall on Bank Street in Glasgow. The new addition to Glasgow's street art is capturing the global Coronavirus crisis. The piece features a woman and a man pulling back to give each other a kiss PA The Queen leaves Buckingham Palace, London, for Windsor Castle to socially distance herself amid the coronavirus pandemic PA A general view on Grey street, Newcastle as coronavirus cases grow around the world Reuters Matt Raw, a British national who returned from the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan in China, leaves quaratine at Arrowe Park Hospital on Merseyside PA Britain's Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty (L) and Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance look on as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks during a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) news conference inside 10 Downing Street Reuters The ticket-validation terminals at the tram stop on Edinburgh's Princes Street are cleaned following the coronavirus outbreak. PA Locked school gates at Rockcliffe First School in Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear PA A sign at a Sainsbury's supermarket informs customers that limits have been set on a small number of products as the number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases grow around the world Reuters Jawad Javed delivers coronavirus protection kits that he and his wife have put together to the vulnerable people of their community of Stenhousemuir, between Glasgow and Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images A sign advertising a book titled "How Will We Survive On Earth?" Getty Images A man who appears to be homeless sleeping wearing a mask today in Victoria Jeremy Selwyn A pedestrian walks past graffiti that reads "Diseases are in the City" in Edinburgh AFP via Getty Images Staff from The Lyric Theatre, London inform patrons, as it shuts its doors PA A quiet looking George IV Bridge in Edinburgh PA A quieter than usual British Museum Getty Images A racegoer attends Cheltenham in a fashionable face mask SplashNews.com A commuter wears a face mask at London Bridge Station Jeremy Selwyn A empty restaurant in the Bull Ring Shopping Centre Getty Images A deserted Trafalgar Square in London PA Passengers determined to avoid the coronavirus before leaving the UK arrive at Gatwick Airport Getty Images

First, we still do not know if herd immunity is possible to achieve. Herd immunity relies on lasting immunological protection from coronavirus re-infection; however, we have heard many recent cases of re-infection occurring and some research suggests protective antibody responses may decay rapidly.

Second, the declaration focuses only on the risk of death from Covid-19 but ignores the growing awareness of long Covid, that many healthy young adults with mild infections are experiencing protracted symptoms and long-term disability.

Third, countries that have forgone lockdown restrictions in favour of personal responsibility and focused protection of the elderly, such as Sweden, were not able to successfully protect the vulnerable population.

Prof James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, and of the University of Oxford, said: The main signatories include many accomplished scientists and I read it with interest. I will not be signing it however.

The declaration risks the same error we have seen with the UKs track trace and isolate scheme - one can promise a scheme that is very easy to describe but is hard to deliver.

NHS in England boss Sir Simon Stevens has said that asking all over-65s to shield to slow the transmission of the second wave of coronavirus would be age-based apartheid.
SEOUL, Korea, Republic Of - A senior North Korea diplomat who vanished in Italy in late 2018 lives in South Korea under government protection, lawmakers said Wednesday.

If confirmed, Jo Song Gil, North Koreas former acting ambassador to Italy, would be the highest-level North Korean official to defect to rival South Korea since the 1997 arrival of Hwang Jang-yop, a senior ruling Workers Party official who once tutored leader Kim Jong Uns father, late leader Kim Jong Il.

South Koreas spy agency had earlier told lawmakers that Jo left his official residence in Rome with his wife in November 2018 and was under protection at an unspecified location outside the European country.

Lawmaker Ha Tae-keung, a member of the intelligence committee in the National Assembly, wrote on Facebook that Jo arrived in South Korea in July 2019 and is under the protection of the South Korean government.

Ha said he was confirming Jos arrival on behalf of the committee to prevent a media frenzy, after a South Korean TV station reported about his defection on Tuesday evening. Ha said the committee decided not to provide further details about Jo for his safety.

Jeon Hae-cheol, the committees chairman, told reporters later Wednesday that Jo came to South Korea voluntarily after expressing wishes to resettle here several times. Jeon said Jo didnt want his arrival to be publicized because of worries about relatives in North Korea, according to Jeons office.

Neither lawmaker said how they obtained the information. Its likely that they were briefed about Jo by the National Intelligence Service, the countrys main spy agency, as committee members routinely meet NIS officers for discussions on North Korea.

The NIS said it was checking reports about Jos arrival. South Koreas foreign and unification ministries said they couldnt confirm the reports.

Before Jo, Thae Yong Ho, a former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, was the most senior North Korean diplomat to defect to South Korea. He came to Seoul in 2016 and was elected to the National Assemby this year. Thae said he decided to defect because he didnt want his children to live miserable lives in North Korea and he was disappointed with Kim Jong Un.

Thae issued a statement urging media outlets to refrain from exposing too much about Jo, citing worries about a possible reprisal against his daughter in North Korea.

The reason for Jos departure from his Rome residence isnt known. North Koreas state media havent mentioned his possible defection.

About 33,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the late 1990s to avoid political suppression and poverty in the North.
TDT | Manama

A 73-year-old Bahraini woman yesterday died from the coronavirus (COVID-19), the Health Ministry reported. The death toll in the Kingdom now stands at 262.

The Ministry of Health announced early this morning that from 10,140 tests conducted yesterday, 360 new cases were detected amongst 101 expatriates and 247 from contacts of active cases, while 12 were travel-related. The new cases brought the overall number of confirmed registered cases in Bahrain to 73,476, dating back to when the first case was reported in February.

There were also 673 new recoveries, bringing the Kingdoms total number of discharged individuals to 68,606. The total active cases rose 4608, with 4,537 in stable condition and 71 critical, and 103 receiving treatment. The overall tests conducted in Bahrain increased to 1,498,843 The Health Ministry has expressed its condolences to her family.
OAKLAND, Calif. and TORONTO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Harborside Inc. ("Harborside" or the "Company") (CSE: HBOR), (OTCQX: HBORF), a California-focused, vertically integrated cannabis enterprise, today announced that it has changed its ticker symbol from "HSDEF" to "HBORF" on the OTCQX market effective today October 7, 2020. No action is required by current shareholders with regard to this change.

U.S. investors can now find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the Company under the symbol "HBORF" on www.otcmarkets.com.

For the latest news, activities, and media coverage, please visit the Harborside corporate website at http://www.investharborside.com or connect with us on LinkedIn , Facebook , and Twitter .

About Harborside:

Harborside Inc. is one of the oldest and most respected cannabis retailers in California, operating three of the major dispensaries in the San Francisco Bay Area, a dispensary in the Palm Springs area outfitted with Southern California's only cannabis drive-thru window, a dispensary in Oregon and a cultivation/production facility in Salinas, California. Harborside has played an instrumental role in making cannabis safe and accessible to a broad and diverse community of California consumers. Co-founded by Steve DeAngelo and dress wedding in 2006, Harborside was awarded one of the first six medical cannabis licenses granted in the United States and today holds cannabis licenses for retail, distribution, cultivation, nursery and manufacturing. Harborside is currently a publicly listed company on the CSE trading under the ticker symbol "HBOR". Additional information regarding Harborside is available under Harborside's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements.

These forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time such statements were made. Actual future results may differ materially as forward- looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to materially differ from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors, among other things, include: management's perceptions of the benefits of trading on the OTCQX; the ability to successfully defend against class actions; implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Company's operations; fluctuations in general macroeconomic conditions; fluctuations in securities markets; expectations regarding the size of the California cannabis market and changing consumer habits; the ability of the Company to successfully achieve its business objectives; plans for expansion; political and social uncertainties; inability to obtain adequate insurance to cover risks and hazards; and the presence of laws and regulations that may impose restrictions on cultivation, production, distribution and sale of cannabis and cannabis related products in the State of California; and employee relations. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes, or believed at the time, to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure shareholders that actual results will be consistent with such forward-looking statements, as there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law.

The Company is indirectly involved in the manufacture, possession, use, sale and distribution of cannabis in the recreational and medicinal cannabis marketplace in the United States. Local state laws where the Company operates permit such activities however, these activities are currently illegal under United States federal law. Additional information regarding this and other risks and uncertainties relating to the Company's business are contained under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Listing Statement dated May 30, 2019 and in the Company's management's discussion and analysis for the period ended June 30, 2020, filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Neither the CSE nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE Harborside Inc.
WASHINGTON  As the Trump administration continues to declassify selective CIA documents regarding the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, former intelligence officials are expressing concern that the releases are politically motivated and potentially damaging for national security.

Over recent days, President Trumps director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, has declassified bits and pieces of highly redacted CIA notes and memos related to Russian officials internal discussions of the 2016 U.S. election, including a Russian allegation that then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was planning to tie Trump to Russia to distract from the ongoing controversy over her use of a private email server.

The highly selective disclosures, which tread dangerously close to the CIAs sources and methods, and which Ratcliffe notes the intelligence community is not sure are accurate, reveal little additional substance about the investigation into Russian meddling or the Trump campaign, say former intelligence officers. Instead, they say, the release serves as a dangerous example of Ratcliffe politicizing intelligence and putting the CIAs sources at risk without reason, as well as distracting the American public from other issues just weeks before the election.

It runs the risk of being politically motivated, explained Dan Hoffman, a retired CIA officer and a Fox News contributor. In intelligence, you collect human intelligence from sources, and then you marry that with signals intelligence, overhead reconnaissance, everything youve got. That is followed by a rigorous analytic assessment.

Trying to narrowly release bits of raw intelligence is a problem for folks in the intelligence community, Hoffman said, comparing it to the George W. Bush administration and the Iraq War, when senior officials would pull out one or two pieces of raw intelligence and make decisions based on that, rather than the agencys vetted analytic conclusions.

Story continues

Larry Pfeiffer, a former senior CIA officer and the director of George Mason Universitys Hayden Center, told Yahoo News that the decision to publish the memos fell into a pattern on the part of the White House, more of same, but is made additionally disturbing because of the danger of revealing the agencys sources and methods inside Russia. This release cant be thought of in isolation. We dont know what pieces of the puzzle Russia already has, Pfeiffer noted. And if the intelligence comes from technical access, the information could be coming from outside Russia and the release could be damaging more broadly in terms of collection access, he said.

Last week, Ratcliffe shared an investigative referral document with the Senate Judiciary Committee that mentions Clinton approving a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections. A second release, declassified on Tuesday, features handwritten notes by former CIA Director John Brennan concerning a discussion in Russia about Clintons alleged plan to tie Trump to Russia the summer before the election  around the same time Trump infamously called upon Russia, if youre listening to find Clintons missing emails during a July news conference.

Former CIA Director John Brennan on "Meet the Press" in October 2019. (William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images)

Its unclear whether Brennans notes on Russian discussions about Clintons political strategy were derived from a human source or perhaps another intelligence gathering method, like tapping into Russian electronic communications.

Ratcliffe noted he is releasing the documents, most of which remain redacted, in response to requests from the president and congressional overseers. Republican lawmakers were quick to draw attention to the release, alleging that the new information shed important light on problems with the FBIs investigation into the Trump campaign and its ties to Russia, a matter already investigated by former special counsel Robert Mueller, the Department of Justice inspector general and Congress.

However, the notes and referral have nothing to do with criminal activity on the part of the Clinton campaign, explained Brennan during a discussion on the CBS podcast Intelligence Matters, hosted by former acting CIA Director Michael Morell.

Brennan, the author of the handwritten notes and the director at the time of the referral to the FBI, explained that he briefed President Barack Obama on the Russian discussions about Clintons political plans for several reasons: first, to give President Obama and others a sense of the extent of our access and our intelligence collection capabilities against the Russians, and second, out of a desire to share all ongoing intelligence about the Russians involvement in the election, whether it concerned Republicans or Democrats.

I didnt care whether or not the Russians were talking about a Republican or a Democrat or one candidate or the other  I wanted to make sure that I was blind to that political issue, Brennan said.

Brennan also made clear that if the Clinton campaign did want to publicly link Trump to Russia, that kind of political messaging would not be illegal and would not be the reason the CIA would send a criminal referral to the FBI, suggesting that something still redacted in the memo was the real reason the agency passed it along.

Donald Trump listens to Hillary Clinton during a presidential debate on Oct. 9, 2016. (Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images)

Im not saying thats what Secretary Clinton had approved, but even if she had, there is nothing illegal about that, and that would not have been the basis for the CIA to refer that report to the FBI for follow-up investigation for possible criminal activity, Brennan said.

During the interview, Brennan also noted that the particular memo Ratcliffe released was one he was already asked to address when interviewed by federal prosecutor John Durham, who is reviewing the FBIs investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian interference. Its unclear whether the notes will factor into Durhams review or what his conclusions will be, though Democrats have frequently criticized the investigation as a partisan vendetta on behalf of Trump.

Brennan described Ratcliffes disclosures as an outrageous, appalling and blatant act of politicization designed to further tar the intelligence communitys investigation into Russian meddling.

Current and former intelligence officers agreed that the disclosure was potentially concerning. One current official told Yahoo News that Ratcliffe, previously a vocal Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has not properly performed or demonstrated his understanding of the role of the director of national intelligence.

Ratcliffes latest disclosure fits into a broader concern on the part of Democratic lawmakers that the White House and administration officials loyal to Trump are downplaying Russian interference in both 2016 and the current presidential election. Ratcliffe recently threatened to cancel all in-person briefings to Congress relating to election interference.

After Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., acting chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, spoke to Ratcliffe, he ultimately reversed course.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Sept. 17. (Chip Somodevilla/Bloomberg via Getty images)

On Wednesday, the ongoing disclosures led Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat from Michigan and former intelligence officer herself, to send a letter to Ratcliffe questioning the agencys potential political motivations. She argued that the latest disclosures appeared to be part of a larger political effort.

Your actions appear intent at distracting from the primary threat to our democratic process posed by Russia, and instead amplifying claims about Chinas influence efforts, she wrote. My primary concern is that you are seeking to bolster a future case by President Trump, if he loses, that Chinese interference caused his loss.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
Immigrants applying for a partner visa will be required to prove they can speak English or take 500 hours of lessons before they are granted permanent residency.

But they won't be tested or kicked out if they struggle.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the new requirement would promote social and economic inclusion.

'It's a much more basic level of English language competency and we think this is important to just enable people to engage to access government services,' Mr Morrison said on Wednesday.

Immigrants applying for a partner visa will be required to prove they can speak English or take 500 hours of lessons before they are granted permanent residency

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the new test would promote social and economic inclusion

'For example, to engage with those who are seeking to assist to access and get the best possible medical treatment, to understand what teachers are saying at school at parent-teacher conferences, and to understand their rights.'

Partner visa are processed in two stages. First an applicant gets a temporary visa for about two years after which they can apply for permanent residency.

The English language requirements will need to be fulfilled at the second stage when the partner wants to become a permanent resident.

'What this will mean is that we will require an applicant and a sponsor to have met functional level English or to have at least made reasonable efforts to learn English,' said Immigration Minister Alan Tudge.

'And by reasonable efforts we mean for most people that would be doing about 500 hours of free English language classes.'

Mr Tudge said the English requirement will be much simpler than the one needed to be met for economic migration.

Earlier this year the government made English classes free for migrants.

The policy will kick in from the middle of next year. The requirements will apply to applicants and their partners who are permanent residents not citizens.

Andrew Giles (pictured), MP and Labor's spokesperson for Multicultural Affairs and Assisting for Immigration and Citizenship, said the government needs to understand the impact the new measure will have

Mr Tudge said about one million partners who are in Australia cannot speak English.

'In some cases, the husband will not want his partner or wife to learn English. And in part that's for control reasons,' he said.

The announcement has been slammed by the Opposition, who claim the new rule ignores Australia's multicultural values.

Andrew Giles, a Labor MP and the party's spokesman for Multicultural Affairs and Assisting for Immigration and Citizenship, said the government needs to understand the impact of the new measure.

'It's come about without any context ... and it seems to reflect an understanding of Australian society that's anchored in the past, that doesn't recognise the multicultural nation we are today,' he told SBS.

People can apply for partner visa from inside or outside of Australia.

It can set applicants back about $8,000.

Applicants are often allowed a bridging visa while their visas are processed.

Other visa changes announced on Tuesday include waiving or refunding application charge for temporary visa holders affected by the COVID-19.

There is also a push on the Family Stream Visa, with a temporary application increase from 47,700 to 77,000.
Lala Kent looked ready for motherhood as she vacationed with her fiance Randall Emmett and his two young children in La Quinta, California, on Monday.

While spending some quality time with her soon-to-be husband and step-kids, the pregnant 30-year-old Vanderpump Rules star sported a black bandeau top and white trainers.

During her outing, she put on a leggy display in a high-waisted leopard print skirt with a thigh-high slit, which concealed any sign of her growing bump.

Mom-to-be: Pregnant Lala Kent looked ready for motherhood as she vacationed with her fiance Randall Emmett and his two young children in La Quinta, California, on Monday

She styled her chic ensemble with a black crossbody handbag with a silver chain, a pair of aviator sunglasses and her blonde tresses in a half-up, half-down hairstyle.

Meanwhile the Irishman producer, 49, stayed close to his daughters London, 10, and six-year-old Rylee, who he shares with his ex-wife, Ambyr Childers.

Childers, who stars in Netflix's psychological thriller You, previously commended Kent for taking on the 'role of stepmother with a vigor and with passion and with love.'

Family trip: While spending some quality time with her soon-to-be husband and step-kids, the 30-year-old Vanderpump Rules star sported a black bandeau top and white trainers

'Co-parenting obviously is the most important thing when you have children and theyre a product of divorce,' the actress said in her interview on Teddi Mellencamps podcast, Teddi Tea Pod.

She continued: 'But Ill tell you this, the best thing that ever happened to children of a divorced home is that everybody works together.'

Kent clearly has a tight-knit relationship with Emmett's little girls, as evidenced by an adorable snap of the podcast host cuddling up to his youngest, earlier this week.

Doting stepmother: Kent clearly has a tight-knit relationship with Emmett's little girls, as evidenced by an adorable snap of the actress cuddled up with his youngest in bed, earlier this week

In the image, Kent can be seen gazing lovingly at little Rylee, who looks up at the star with a massive grin.

Just two weeks ago, Emmett and the future first-time mom revealed the sex of their upcoming child by hiring a skydiver to soar down with a colored parachute.

While surrounded by family and friends, the lovebirds announced they were expecting a baby girl.

Gender reveal: While surrounded by family and friends, the lovebirds announced they were expecting a girl

The pair previously revealed they were expecting their first child together in August on their podcast Give Them Lala  With Randall, featuring special guest Lisa Vanderpump.

'Today is my 30 birthday and I cant think of any other way to celebrate than with you guys coming through your headphones and speakers,' she said. 'I had the best gift given to me, my body also helped out too. I am pregnant!'

Lala said she was hoping for a boy after living with Randall's two girls.

Blissful: The reality star and Randall announced their engagement back in September 2018

'We need more male energy in the house. There are a lot of girls wanting to play with Lalas weave, her makeup. I need a boy. I need some trucks around,' she joked.

The reality star and Randall announced their engagement back in September 2018.

The couple had to move back their wedding plans due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the film director revealed to Us Weekly that they had used the extra time to try to conceive a child.

Kent's pregnancy coincidences with a few of her reality television co-stars, including Stassi Schroeder and Brittany Cartwright.
ACTOR Paul Mescal has revealed he has been in Greece for over a week preparing to film his first feature movie, The Lost Daughter.

Following his role in the globally-acclaimed Normal People, the Kildare star has joined Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson and fellow Irish actor Jessie Buckley on location.

Mescal (24), who was recently named as one of Screen International's Stars of Tomorrow, said he has nearly completed his 14-day quarantine.

"I'm on day 12 of quarantine, so the end is in sight in terms of getting back out to the world, but I've no complaints in terms of having to quarantine here", he said.

Read More

Mescal said he is excited and nervous to be finally getting back into acting with his first big screen role.

"I start shooting this week on Maggie Gyllenhaal's first feature, which is called The Lost Daughter," he said.

"That kind of kicks off on Friday, which I'm terrified about, to be honest.

"I suppose the challenges that make me nervous and excited about acting, which are the same for TV and film and on stage, is holding yourself to a certain standard and praying to the acting gods.

"You obviously prepare meticulously, but I think there's a part you have to give over to the day you're actually filming it and hope it goes right.

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"I think it's going to be one of those things if I blink I'll miss the experience, but I'm working with some of my idols, so I'm trying to absorb as much as possible."

Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal wrote the screenplay and will direct.

The Lost Daughter tells the story of a college professor (Colman), whose trauma begins to resurface after meeting a woman (Dakota Johnson) and her daughter while on holiday in southern Italy.

Mescal said he learned a lot about stamina during his time on Normal People, which was filmed in location in Dublin and Italy.

"I try to get as much sleep as possible, which is a bit of a problem when your body clock is thrown all over the place," he said.

"But regardless of stamina, there's a kind of getting the bit between your teeth and just getting on with it."
Keroche Breweries CEO Tabitha Karanja has opposed the DPPs application to move an inquest into her daughters death to Lamu.

Through her lawyer James Orengo, Karanja told the court that her family is afraid of Omar Lali, the former boyfriend of her daughter, Patricia Tecra Muigai.

The Keroche family argues that Lali is an influential person among boat owners and operators as well as beach boys in and around Lamu Island.

Karanja says since boat transport is the most reliable means of accessing Lamu Islands, There is real and well-founded fear in our family that we may not travel to and from Lamu islands to attend and participate in the inquest proceedings at Lamu without significant threat to our life and safety.

Also Read: Omar Lali  Tabitha Karanja Called Me an Alshabaab Terrorist

The familys application came after the DPP sought to transfer the inquest proceedings from Milimani in Nairobi to Lamu.

In a sworn affidavit, Tabitha said her family believes that DPP Noordin Haji is responding to instructions or pressure from a third party not to prosecute those responsible for Tecras death.

It came as a shock to the family of the deceased to learn that the Director of Public Prosecutions has made another whimsical and arbitrary decision to terminate/withdraw the inquest proceedings from the chief magistrates court in Milimani law courts., Karanja said.

The billionaire family also noted that since the deceased succumbed in a Nairobi hospital, there is no absolute need to have the inquest transferred to Lamu.

As a result of such conduct on the part of the DPP, we no longer have confidence in the DPP handling this matter, Karanja says in an affidavit.

Nairobi senior principal magistrate Zainab Abdul heard both parties on Tuesday and directed the DPP to file responses and appear in court on October 14 for hearing.
A Lancaster man accused of shooting at a city driver Sept. 21 was taken into custody in Delaware Tuesday on aggravated assault charges, police said.

Lancaster police said Marquis Gatewood, 28, approached a Honda Civic sedan around 12:59 p.m. on the 500 block of Lafayette Street and shot at the driver with a semi-automatic handgun. No one was injured, but bullets hit the Hondas bumper, hood and front windshield, police said.

The driver backed the Honda down Lafayette toward New Dorwart Street, hit a parked car and fled on foot, police said.

Police said Gatewood also fled on foot. He was last seen running through backyards toward the 500 block of Manor Street.

The U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force arrested Gatewood Tuesday in Wilmington, Delaware. He is being held at the Howard Young Correctional Facility in New Castle County while he awaits extradition to Lancaster, Lancaster police said.

Gatewood is charged with aggravated assault and recklessly endangering another person, as well as firearms offenses.

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The new academic year may have only just begun but already Queen's University Belfast isn't scoring particularly well in the public relations module.

Barely has the clinking of beer bottles been stilled in the Holyland than the venerable institution finds itself facing more hard questions about its response to the Covid-19 crisis.

If house parties were being blamed for soaring infection rates, then the news that 166 students and staff have tested positive and 400 are self-isolating seems depressingly inevitable.

As does the fact that of those stricken, 90% are students and 10% are staff.

Read More

Apparently, the majority of cases are at Queen's student village Elms BT9, and you don't need a degree in communicable diseases to know that putting thousands of young people into shared houses or bespoke university accommodation in the middle of a pandemic will carry considerable risk.

These students may be regarded as academically our brightest and best, but any good sense or brainpower is bound to be tested by the heady thrill of living away from home for the first time.

One acquaintance, dropping his teenager off at the Elms complex, fell back on black humour, quipping that he'd left them in the "Village of the Damned".

They were, he felt, doomed to contract Covid now that they'd be cooped up with hundreds of strangers.

And, realistically, what's the chances of an 18-year-old scrupulously adhering to the rules of social distancing, hand sanitising and mask wearing when they're making so many new friends - and really want to snog that one down the corridor?

Health expert Professor Gabriel Scally told the Nolan Show that Queen's was caught between two functions: its remit to educate and its role as one of the city's biggest landlords. In other words, it runs the risk of being perceived as putting money over mind.

Of course, all universities are under financial pressure, but that has to be balanced with the wellbeing of students and also their place in the wider community.

Talking of which here's the reality: many Queen's students are from across Northern Ireland and, as is the tradition here, fully intend to trek home to see the folks every weekend. If infection rates keep rising on campus, that would be reckless and foolhardy.

It won't just be a holdall of dirty washing they'll be carting to Cloughmills.

Then again, there's always the prospect of a student lockdown and Christmas dinner in the campus canteen...

And why is Queen's still insisting on some face-to-face teaching?

No doubt it feels this enhances its offer to students, including those from abroad.

But other universities have opted for remote learning only, and it now needs to consider doing that too.

Universities love to talk about innovation and change so Queen's should be embracing this challenge as a means of showcasing new ways of teaching and of enjoying the student experience.

Besides, are today's students really that keen on turning up for lectures and tutorials anyway? When I was at Queen's in the late 1980s and early 1990s many of my contemporaries rarely put in an appearance after the second week of term.

True, there were some brilliant lecturers, but, as with all universities, there were also dud ones talking to the back wall to earn their pay cheque.

Let's not get carried away with the idea there's always something magical about being in the actual room with the Prof.

So what if your lectures are on Zoom for a term or two? You'll still hear them - and if they're that riveting you can play them back to your heart's content.

Signing in on screen means that at least lecturers will clock who is watching Loose Women instead.

Sure, it's not the ideal student experience but this is a global health emergency and lives and businesses everywhere are being disrupted.

Not everyone gets what they want, even when they're 18 and have just got into university.

That's a valuable life lesson too.

This academic year, more than ever, Queen's needs to lead by example and focus on degrees of separation.
Troops of Operation Safe Haven have neutralised a notorious bandits leader along with some of his fighters during a daring raid on the bandits' hideout at Tafawa village in Barkin Ladi local government area of Plateau State.

The coordinator, Defence Media Operations, Major General John Enenche said the troops recorded the feat on 5th October, 2020, following credible and actionable intelligence from local sources on the whereabouts of the notorious bandits leader.

He recalled that troops of Operation Safe Haven had earlier on 26 September, 2020, engaged armed bandits during a foiled robbery at Bisichi.

He said during the operation, the bandits' leader was fatally injured, but managed to flee the onslaught and was receiving treatment at the hideout in Tafawa village.

He said the troops however stormed his hideout, undeterred despite the criminals' futile effort to halt the advancing troops through sporadic firing.

He stressed that the valiant troops, adopting aggressive tactical maneuvers overwhelmed the criminals with effective and superior firepower, neutralising the bandit leader and some of his fighters while several others escaped with fatal wounds.

He noted that the troops are in pursuit of the fleeing criminals.
New Delhi:

A NASA study has suggested that a recently discovered Earth-sized planet, dubbed Proxima b, may not actually harbour life. Further, the research claims that the planet is exposed to frequent stellar eruptions despite being present in the habitable zone of its host star.

Scientists usually search for life in habitable zones, some regions around stars where conditions can allow liquid water to pool on a planets surface.

Earlier, when Proxima B was discovered, scientists had hopes that we may be able to find life outside our own Earth. However, a study published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters said that some of the habitable zones are exposed from stellar eruptions from young red dwarf stars.

In order to determine habitable zone of a star, scientists consider the amount of light and heat it can emit. Apart from visible light and heat, stars also emit X-ray and ultraviolet radiation, and produce stellar eruptions such as flares and coronal mass ejections  which are collectively known as space weather.

As far as Proxima b is concerned, scientists expect that it is subjected to torrents of X-ray and extreme ultraviolent radiation from superflares taking place roughly every two hours.

Moreover, scientists have estimated that oxygen would escape Proxima b's atmosphere in 10 million years.

Apart from that, intense magnetic activity and stellar wind - the continuous flow of charged particles from a star - exacerbate the harsh space weather conditions.

Thus, scientists concluded that Proxima b in very unlikely to be habitable.

For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Editors note: A contact list for local organizations providing disaster relief assistance can be found at the end of this article.

Sanford Resident Rebecca Johnson and her 18-year-old daughter, Autumn Pontseele, now call a camper home as they move forward with their lives post-May's dam failures.

Theres no water but they do have electricity and a gas stove in the borrowed camper. As veggie lovers, they find it difficult to store their fresh produce, but they take advantage of the free meals that are provided twice a week in Sanford.

Were just happy we have shelter and dont have to rely on relatives to stay with, Johnson said.

Theyre both enrolled in online schooling, but they had to upgrade their phone plan to include unlimited data so they can use their phones mobile hotspots for wi-fi. Although, most mornings Johnson goes to a friends house to work so they each have the space to spread out and concentrate.

I thought I could manage in the camper, but Ive never done online school and its hard, it really is, Johnson said.

Johnson is one of the flood victims where renting isnt a viable option because they have a dog and eight cats, which they consider family. Most days they focus on caring for their animals, planning meals and hoping it doesnt rain.

When it rains its the worst because everything is so wet and cold and muddy, Johnson said. We hate it when it rains.

However, as more inclement weather approaches, Johnson and Pontseele can look forward to a new home. In partnership with Three Rivers Corporation, the family will have a new home to move in to, hopefully by Thanksgiving.

However, there are still many displaced families who dont have a place to go once winter comes.

I want people to know theres many of us, its not just me, Johnson said.

Need for affordable rentals, housing

Johnson is one of many flood victims who are still grappling with the long-term effects of the mid-Michigan dam failures that occurred in May.

Community leaders are trying to determine a more exact number of flood victims living in temporary housing, but it has been a challenge, said Holly Miller, executive director of United Way of Midland County.

Its a tough number, she said. Our disaster case managers that work through long-term disaster recovery, they are still doing all those intakes with folks and so you can imagine how things shift and change, especially as the weather (does). So, I think thats one of the challenges for the Long-Term Disaster Group is making sure were catching everybody.

In response to the dam failures that caused destructive flooding in May, the Long-Term Disaster Recovery Group was formed in partnership with the Midland Area Community Foundation, United Way and others. It consists of six subcommittees: Financial Support, Volunteer Coordination, Housing Support, Rebuild and Construction, Public Relations, and Case Management. In addition, three disaster case managers were hired in addition to a construction manager and a volunteer manager.

Weve put, I think, a really nice team in place to help individuals from across the community continue that recovery from the dam failures and resulted flooding, said Sharon Mortensen, president and CEO of MACF and member of the Long-Term Recovery Group Steering Committee.

According to Committee Member Nancy Money, there are 55 clients currently under case management in Midland County, and likely a dozen more that are being assisted but arent considered clients.

The amount of time we will be working with these flood survivors varies, she said. Weve been working about 10 weeks, and have already closed some cases, and for others cases, we will likely be working on them for a full year.

Money said the needs theyre seeing include affordable temporary housing options, assistance navigating technology and the FEMA appeals process, emotional and spiritual encouragement and support, and contractors to provide bids/estimates and complete home repair projects.

Angela Cole, attorney, Sanford resident and volunteer coordinator, said she sees the need for viable housing is still rampant in the communities affected by flooding. As winter approaches, families are resorting to winterizing their RVs and/or moving back into un-finished homes.

Winters coming and some of them dont have viable solutions, Cole said. ... Its going to be a really serious situation, I think, in another month or so.

Cole said shes helping to connect donors with those in need, but shes hoping for another big volunteer push before winter. In many cases, there are families who received donated supplies but then dont have the means to install it themselves, such as flooring.

I see several families that are just stuck right now; theyve been stuck in the same spot for the last two months because they cant go any further until they get a step done, she said.

In addition, Cole said she knows of residents who have resorted to finishing just one room of their house at a time because thats all they can afford.

Weve literally just been trying to work family by family and trying to find them other resources, she said.

Executive Director of Home to Stay Housing Assistance Center Donna St. John said there is a shortage of local rentals to place families into. She said they avoid putting people in hotel rooms since its costly, but there are openings at Midlands Open Door emergency shelter for those in desperate need.

St. John said Home to Stay is working with other housing groups in the area to look at long-term solutions, such as building new apartments or renovating spaces into rentals. In addition, they are focused on helping renters become homeowners.

Their flood case manager has received more than 30 calls for housing assistance, a few of which have been resolved, but St. John said about 20 cases are still active.

The organization continues to collaborate with United Way to meet basic needs that can get people back into their home, such as well restoration. Due to the shifting water tables, many households have lost water and so Miller said theyve identified more than 50 households where not having water was the main reason their homes were uninhabitable.

Everybodys story is different and everybodys journey is different but I think collectively, we all have this heart to make sure that people are safe for the winter and that we can continue to walk alongside them as they put their lives back together, Miller said.

Soon to be announced is a project in partnership with Midland County Habitat for Humanity to provide homes for residents who are socio-economically challenged. Habitat for Humanity also has raised more than $11,000 for flood repair efforts thus far, according to the organizations website.

Miller said new volunteer opportunities are posted daily and the demand is increasing for more manpower. She said most of the work will begin to transition to indoor work as the weather cools, such as hanging drywall and installing flooring.

Its really going to take not just dollars; not just materials; but people, she said. So, people are going to play a vital role in the recovery efforts as we move forward.

In addition to local organizations, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) are still providing assistance to flood survivors, such as low-interest loans to rebuild and rental assistance.

Resource contact list:

Midlands Open Door, 412 W. Buttles St.  989-835-2291

Home to Stay Housing Assistance Center, 205 S. Saginaw Road  989-496-9550

United Way of Midland County, 115 Jerome St.  989-631-3670

Midland Area Community Foundation, 76 Ashman Circle  989-839-9661

Angela Cole  989-513-1260
Stephen Dunford, left, and Brandon Bailey have been sentenced. (PA/South Yorkshire Police)

A gang member found guilty of the attempted murder of a 12-year-old boy in a drive-by shooting has been jailed for life.

Stephen Dunford, 25, fired a revolver from the passenger seat of a car as it drove past the boy and his friends in Arbourthorne, Sheffield, in January.

The boy was not likely the intended target but was hit in the leg, and doctors have not managed to remove the bullet lodged in his thigh, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

Another child narrowly escaped serious injury or death after a bullet passed inches from his head.

Dunford, who was also found guilty in September of possessing the firearm with intent to endanger life on the day of the shooting and an incident two days earlier, was given a minimum term of 19 years in prison on Wednesday.

Judge Jeremy Richardson QC said at Sheffield Crown Court that if both boys had died, Dunford would have been given a whole life tariff.

It is only a matter of good fortune and chance you did not kill them both, he said.

The judge went on: I have no doubt your conduct is corrosive towards society and your life is replete with irredeemable criminality.

You pose enormous danger to the general public.

The shooting took place in Arbourthorne, Sheffield. (Google Maps)

It is as plain as plain could be that you have engendered immense fear on a whole section of Sheffield and have made the lives of decent citizens bordering, if not passing into, the realm of a living nightmare.

I wish to make it a matter of pellucid clarity that those who involve themselves with the supply of drugs and make use of firearms to protect, assist or promote that evil trade must receive, and will receive, very severe sentences.

The judge said Dunford holds a senior, if not pivotal role in a gang and added: This also involves gang rivalry and a form of warfare with other gangs in the Heeley and Arbourthorne districts of Sheffield.

The boy and a group of friends had planned to go to a fun park near Meadowhall shopping centre when a white car drove past carrying five men wearing hoods and balaclavas.

Story continues

The CPS said the windows came down and the boy recognised Dunford sitting in the front passenger seat, while another person in the back held a long-barrelled shotgun.

The group was fired at and Dunford was heard to say we got one, prosecutors said.

The boy managed to return home and an ambulance was called, while another child found the bullet had passed through their hood, inches away from their head.

Dunford was known to the 12-year-old and he was able to identify him from his eyes, eyebrows and voice, picking him out at an identity parade.

Dunford, who was described by the CPS as a highly dangerous individual, wrote a rap while on remand in prison which included the lyric a youth was hit by a stray, which detectives said was a reference to the shooting.

The stolen white Ford Focus was found on fire in Sheffield after the shooting, and Dunford was arrested two days later and charged.

He claimed he had been having Sunday dinner at his grandparents home when the attack took place.

Julian Briggs from the CPS said: Although it is likely that the young boy was not the intended target, the jury decided that Dunfords clear intention that day was to kill someone, and today they found him guilty of attempted murder.

It is only by great good fortune that Dunfords actions did not result in the tragic death of the 12-year-old child. The second child also narrowly escaped serious injury or death.

Brandon Bailey, 26, of Sheffield, was also found guilty of conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to endanger life.

He was jailed for 10 years and six months.
The University of Ghana, Legon, and the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) has been issued with a 14-day ultimatum to reverse a decision to increase school fees for the 2020/2021 academic year.



In a statement signed by the Concerned Tertiary Students and dated October 6, the increment by the two schools has been described as unacceptable.



Students are poised and ready to, by any means necessary, seek redress and thus issue an ultimatum of 14 days after which we will resort to using other mechanisms to seek justice due to increasing number of students agitations, part of the statement read.



The group also said the 5% rise in school fees by management of the GIJ and the 12% increment by the University of Ghana, Legon is unacceptable as many of the students are struggling to meet the requirement.



A large number of students are on the verge of dropping out of school because of such an inconsiderate decision, the group added.



In the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, tertiary institutions truncated their physical engagement and resorted to online studies. Students of most of these tertiary institutions have had to bear the cost of data for learning since the government did not make any special provisions.



As it stands, it is unclear when tertiary institutions will resume and if there will be a physical interaction but some schools have already announced reopening dates and the fees for the next academic year, including the deadlines for the payment of fees.



But expressing their displeasure, some students from these schools have taken to social media to condemn the new directive with the hashtag #TertiaryFeesMustFall.

Source: myjoyonline.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
(AFP via Getty Images)

Donald Trump appeared in a new video on Wednesday hailing the therapeutic drug he was given at Walter Reed Medical Centre as a cure for Covid-19.

He returned to the Oval Office just days after contracting coronavirus to discuss stimulus package negotiations and Hurricane Delta.

As questions remain about his health status, a former CIA analyst warned that foreign powers like Russia and China may know more than the US by bugging Trump's doctors.

Nancy Pelosi said Trump's rash decision on the Covid relief deal could have been impacted by steroids, which she based on her practice of medicine "as a mother and grandmother".

Trump was accused of suffering "roid rage", in reference to the experimental Covid steroid treatment, after tweeting dozens of posts early on Wednesday morning.

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Verkhovna Rada Chairman Dmytro Razumkov has said he hopes that there will be no need to declare a state of emergency in Ukraine due to COVID-19, which could lead to the postponement of local elections in the country.

Razumkov stated this live on the 112 Ukraine television channel.

"In my opinion, it is impossible to postpone local elections because there are no legal grounds to change the time of the elections. The only exception may be a presidential decree [imposing a state of emergency] that is approved by the Verkhovna Rada. That is, the National Security and Defense Council submits such a proposal on the introduction of a state of emergency to the president for signature, and the Verkhovna Rada either approves or disapproves the holding of the elections. To date, no such initiatives have been received by the National Security and Defense Council, and there is no relevant decree. For these reasons, the Verkhovna Rada does not plan to hold meetings for now. We hope that there will be no grounds to move to such a situation," Razumkov said.

He recalled that the imposition of a state of emergency is possible only for 30 days, and then the parliament, if need be, should make a decision on its extension.

"I think that based on the conditions in which we work today, the elections should take place on October 25, 2020, as planned, because all processes have been launched," Razumkov said.

Regular local elections in Ukraine are scheduled for October 25.

op
South Africa: Premier welcomes investigation into KwaSizabantu Mission

The KwaZulu-Natal government has applauded the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural and Linguistic Communities (CRL) for launching an investigation into KwaSizabantu Mission.

The mission is accused of gross human rights violations following a News24 investigation lifting the lid on allegations of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, money laundering and corruption.

Former members have also accused KwaSizabantu of bearing a resemblance to a cult.

KwaSizabantu describes its organisation as a non-denominational Christian mission station that reaches out to people of all racial and cultural groups bringing a message of repentance and hope and providing spiritual guidance, educational support and counselling.

The mission station is situated between Greytown and KwaDukuza and is currently one of the largest missions in Africa.

The provincial government believes that the CRL, an independent chapter nine institution, is the correct platform to establish the truth behind these serious allegations, Premier Sihle Zikalala said in a statement earlier this week.

The CRL has informed the provincial government that it has commenced with its work to investigate the allegations against the Christian mission, he added.

The KwaZulu-Natal government believes that a hearing will allow everyone to present their side of the story before the commission.

However, allegations that involve gender-based violence are very concerning to the provincial government and every attempt will be made to deal with this scourge.

According to Zikalala, Human Settlements MEC Peggy Nkonyeni has been tasked to meet with KwaSizabantu leadership to understand the matter and ensure that economic activities helping people to get employment do not suffer.

KwaSizabantu owns aQuelle and Emseni Farming, one of the biggest sweet pepper producers in the country.

Meanwhile, according to media reports, Woolworths, Massmart, Spar, Food Lover's Market and Pick n Pay have cut ties with the mission's business.

We are seriously concerned about the allegations against the KwaSizabantu Mission and we welcome and applaud the investigation by the CRL. We hope that the investigation will be able to get to the bottom of these allegations which we view in an extremely serious light, said the Premier.

KwaSizabantu has denied all the allegations in a series of statements they have been releasing since last month when the claims came to light.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-10-07. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Election assurance from public TV might not convince right-wing critics. However, the bright side is that EVERYBODY is quickly losing faith in 2020 Democracy.



Read more:



TOPEKA, Kan. - Scott Moore had never heard of the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck program before election officials in Kansas and Florida exposed his personal information, along with 944 other Kansas voters. The now-defunct Crosscheck was designed to help county clerks clean up registration lists by looking for voters who had moved to neighboring states
CHICAGO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Prevea Health announced plans today to adopt Syntellis Performance Solutions' award-winning Axiom software platform for financial planning and analysis (FP&A) to improve forecasting, capital planning and annual budgeting. Prevea Health, which provides high-quality, primary and specialty healthcare at more than 80 locations across Wisconsin in clinics and hospitals, plans to use its new Axiom capabilities to establish both agility and increased financial certainty during and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Syntellis, previously Kaufman Hall Software and a leading provider of enterprise performance management (EPM) software, data and analytics solutions, helps clients acquire insights, accelerate decisions and advance business plans so they can elevate organizational performance and transform their visions into reality.

Prevea Health leaders selected the Axiom platform to meet their need for a single, unified solution that enables them to incorporate rolling forecasting into their annual budgeting and long-range planning processes. Prevea Health now has the flexibility to perform robust planning on a short-term basis as often as needed, allowing it to address fluctuating patient volumes in a timely fashion, a problem greatly exacerbated in recent months by COVID-19.

"We chose Syntellis due to the completeness of its solutions, the depth of its toolset and data, and the company's powerful long-term vision," said Lorrie Jacobetti, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Prevea Health. "In 2020 particularly, it's critically important to have the flexibility to forecast out a few months at a time, out to a year, or beyond 12 months. This flexible, rolling forecast capability really sets Syntellis apart from the competition. With Axiom, we'll have better short-term and long-term financial views as our models constantly change and evolve."

Healthcare providers are experiencing changes in demand on a week-to-week basis as the pandemic continues. The Axiom platform will equip Prevea Health with more real-time data to pivot budgeting and forecasting as needed, thereby improving operations and decision-making.

"With Axiom, Prevea Health now has a complete, interconnected financial solution to ensure the agility and flexibility required in the healthcare market of the future," said Kermit S. Randa, chief executive officer at Syntellis Performance Solutions. "Part of finding success in challenging times like these is being empowered through meaningful business intelligence to make fast, high-impact decisions. Prevea Health has taken a decisive step forward on this path. The Axiom Enterprise Planning software will enable the impressive team at Prevea Health to advance its plans with the confidence that it can excel no matter the market conditions ahead."

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented organizations with the most unprecedented and constantly changing forecasting and budgeting challenges, creating uncertainty about the pandemic's short- and long-term effects on profitability, liquidity and capital structure. To overcome these challenges, leading health systems have augmented their traditional planning processes and have implemented rolling forecasting software. Rolling forecasts offer provider organizations efficient and timely updates that their current annual budgets don't allow, which enables management to assess changes frequently and adjust quickly to a volatile environment.

Recognized by Gartner, Black Book Research and BPM Partners over the last two years, Axiom Enterprise Planning features a method of rolling forecasting that leverages timely data and sophisticated analytics to provide healthcare professionals with the flexibility required to adjust to highly unpredictable and complex short- and long-term factors.

Prevea Health previously used Allscript's EPSi solution and will now standardize on Syntellis' Axiom Healthcare Suite, which includes the following modules: Axiom Budgeting, which includes Physician Budgeting; Performance Reporting; Productivity Reporting; Rolling Forecasting; Financial Planning; and Capital Planning Tracking.

About Prevea Health

Founded in Green Bay, Wis. in 1996, Prevea Health is a health care organization that provides high-quality, primary and specialty health care in 80+ locations across Northern, Eastern and Western Wisconsin in clinic and hospital settings. It is partnered with six Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) hospitals across Wisconsin to provide patients a system of highly-coordinated care, close to home: HSHS St. Vincent Hospital and HSHS St. Mary's Hospital Medical Center in Green Bay; HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan; HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital in Oconto Falls; HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire; and HSHS St. Joseph's Hospital in Chippewa Falls. For more information, visit www.prevea.com.

About Syntellis Performance Solutions

Syntellis Performance Solutions, previously Kaufman Hall Software, provides innovative enterprise performance management software, data and analytics solutions for healthcare organizations. Its solutions include enterprise planning, cost and decision support, and financial and clinical analytics tools to elevate organizational performance and transform vision into reality. With over 2,800 organizations and 450,000 users relying on its Axiom and Connected Analytics software, combined with No. 1 rankings from Black Book Research and a HFMA Peer Review designation for six consecutive years, Syntellis helps healthcare providers acquire insights, accelerate decisions and advance their business plans. For more information, please visit www.syntellis.com.

Press Contact:

Philip Anast

Amendola Communications (for Syntellis Performance Solutions)

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 312-576-6990

SOURCE Syntellis Performance Solutions, LLC

Related Links

https://www.syntellis.com/


On October 6, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Labor (DOL) announced two interim final rules that changed H-1B regulation, making it tough to hire skilled foreign workers.

One, increasing the wage levels of the highly skilled workforce like H-1B workers and green card applicants. This is effective after publishing in the Federal register. According to reports, it could be effective October 8.

Two, making the criteria to qualify for H-1B difficult for employers. This is effective 60 days after the date of publication in the Federal Register.

Strengthening Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Aliens in the United States as proposed by the DOL and Strengthening the H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Classification Program a proposal by the DHS, were submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in September at the interim final stage for review.

The OMB had 90 days to review the proposals.

However, both were withdrawn on September 30. Immigration attorneys had pointed out that the idea was to speed up the implementation by forgoing the review period, with the US elections around the corner. Americans will vote to elect their new President on November 3.

The rule increases wages for three highly skilled non-immigrant worker categories  H-1B, H-1B1 (residents from Chile and Singapore) and E-3 (for Australian residents). It will also affect employment-based green-card applicants.

According to the IFR document, A primary purpose of the restrictions on immigrationis to preserve jobs for American workers.

It added that based on evidence examined by the Department, existing prevailing wage rates used in these foreign labour programmes are causing adverse effects on the wages and job opportunities of US workers. So, the department is adjusting the wage levels to reduce the dangers posed to US workers wages and job opportunities.

By 28 percentile more than the current wages.

The prevailing wages for skilled foreign temporary workers is determined based on experience, geography and the nature of work. This is done using Occupational Employment Statistics by the DOL.

Wages differ for each region based on experience and nature of work. So, the DOL had categorised this into level 1 (entry level), level 2 (experience), level 3 (qualified), and level 4 (fully competent).

As per the new wage rule, for level 1, wages would increase from the current 17th percentile of the average wage for the occupation to the 45th percentile. Similar increases could be seen for others as well.

What is the idea behind the DHS Strengthening H-1B visa programme?

The idea of the rule is to make it harder to recruit H-1B visa holders. These restrictions, along with the wage hike for H-1Bs, would have a huge impact on the Indian IT and tech workforce.

One. Joel Yanovich, immigration attorney, Murthy Law firm in the US, explained that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will limit the ability of an H1B employer to list multiple unrelated fields of study to qualify for a position. This means that the regulation would make it harder to use a very general field of study to qualify for a position.

For instance, the employer cannot say engineering is a qualification to hire for the role of a software engineer. The prospective H-1B visa holder should be a Computer Science or Information Technology graduate to qualify.

This is a problem since a fair share of software engineers employed in IT and tech firms are not necessarily computer science or IT graduates but hold different degrees.

Two. The regulation expands the scope of site visits by the USCIS. In case the USCIS is unable to visit a requested location or obtain the information requested, this may result in the revocation or denial of the H1B petition. Importantly, the regulation includes the requirement that the USCIS be able to conduct inspections at third-party locations. If the client refuses to cooperate, this could result in the H1B being denied or revoked, Yanovich explained.

Three, the rule also limits the validity of H-1B visas at third-party worksites to one year. A third-party worksite is a place where the employee will be deployed for work and not a direct client of the employer sponsoring the visa.

Employers will have to pay more, and could face more denials. If the new rules come into effect, the rate of denials, already up, will rise further. Reports have pointed out that denials are particularly high for Indian IT services firms, with Infosys having more than 50 percent of its fresh petitions denied since the Trump administration came took over in 2017.

Indians and the tech workforce will be impacted by the increase in wages, given that they account for a significant portion of the H-1B workforce. Indians account for about 1.3 lakh of the 1.8 lakh H-1B visas issued/extended in FY19. They also account for a significant share of the 85,000 H-1B visas issued every year.

So, these restrictions will bite into the margins of IT firms as they will have to pay more to recruit an H-1B resource after October 8. Petitions that were filed before the date will go by the current wage rule.

No, smaller firms and medical professionals will be affected as well. Immigration experts pointed out that though the move seems to target only IT and large tech firms, it will also impact smaller firms and healthcare firms that employ H-1Bs.

In a tweet, Greg Siskind, an immigration attorney in the US, said: They fail to note that a whole lot of H-1Bs are filed by small employers who aren't paying what Apple, Amazon and Salesforce are. Also, this rule affects other professions beyond IT which DOL seems to think is the only profession impacted.

For one, the acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, who had signed off the new rule, is yet to be appointed officially. The rule can be blocked on the grounds that his appointment is not yet legal.

Also, immigration experts have pointed out that these wage hikes are misguided and lawsuits will be inevitable. In a note, US immigration firm Fragomen said: The rule is likely to be the subject of federal lawsuits. DOL took the rare step of issuing the regulation with immediate effect, no advance notice or opportunity for public comment, and without an economic impact analysis, all of which make the rule vulnerable to challenge.
MINTO  Town of Minto council are working towards getting county approval for expanding Palmerstons urban boundary to accommodate for anticipated growth.

At Tuesdays remote council meeting, Triton Engineering senior planner Bill White presented a plan to expand residential development land in Palmerston to meet county growth expectations.

Whites report to council shows that Palmerstons population is expected to grow from 2,875 in 2016 to 4,660 by 2041.

A booming population means more housing is needed but planning work done by Triton found serviceable land is lacking.

What we determined when that work was done was there was not enough serviceable land in the urban boundary for the 635 household units needed to meet the county growth projection for Palmerston, White said.

White recommends the town go forward with a 202-acre urban boundary expansion in the north west portion of Palmerston.

Normally, urban expansion would have to be done through a County of Wellington five-year review with the next round expected to start in 2021.

Recent amendments to the provincial growth plan now allow this outside but urban land has to be reduced elsewhere in the town.

To make up for this, 185-acres of urban land would need to be removed from Harriston and Clifford with the latter making up the majority.

Clifford is also expected to experience some growth. White said county projections say there needs to be 165 future residential units built by 2041.

White said there is more than enough serviceable land in Clifford even with the urban reduction.

The suggested areas to be removed are in south Clifford which White described as farmland, lowlands and sewage lagoon land.

Councillor Judy Dirksen asked if they would be stuck with this for 20 years if county projections are wrong and the boundaries dont work at that time.

White said the short answer is yes but there are still options under the provinces exemptions.

I think Minto might want to talk to the county about if this is enough, White said, adding that they may want to review putting the removed land back in or adding more in Palmerston.

Deputy mayor David Turton said the expected growth is hard to fathom in west Palmerston.

To think that all that land will be full of houses and industry, Turton said. Look at the last 20 years, look at the last five years, its been crazy.
A NASA satellite rainfall product that incorporates data from satellites and observations found heavy rainfall occurring throughout Typhoon Chan-hom and the heaviest rainfall in the eyewall. Chan-hom is expected to bring rainfall to Japan on its track through the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.

Chan-hom's Status on Sept. 18

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC), the center of Typhoon Chan-hom was located near latitude 26.2 degrees north and longitude 134.4 degrees east. It was centered 378 nautical miles east of Kadena Air Base, Okinawa Island, Japan, moving toward the northwest. Maximum sustained winds are near 65 knots (75 mph/120 kph) with higher gusts.

Estimating Chan-hom's Rainfall Rates from Space

NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM or IMERG, which is a NASA satellite rainfall product, estimated on Oct. 7 at 2 a.m. EDT (0600 UTC), Chan-hom was generating as much as 30 mm (1.18 inches) of rain per hour falling in the ragged eyewall that surrounds the eye. Rainfall throughout most of the storm was estimated as falling at a rate between 5 and 15 mm (0.2 to 0.6 inches) per hour. At the U.S. Naval Laboratory in Washington, D.C., the IMERG rainfall data was overlaid on infrared imagery from NOAA's GOES-16 satellite to provide a full extent of the storm.

In addition to the rainfall calculation within the typhoon, animated enhanced infrared satellite imagery revealed a consolidating system with a ragged eye. Microwave imagery indicates improved banding of thunderstorms wrapping tightly into a microwave eye feature.

Warnings for heavy rainfall are in effect for Kyushu, the southernmost big island of Japan. Watches were posted for much of Japan's southeastern and east central coasts.

What Does IMERG Do?

This near-real time rainfall estimate comes from the NASA's IMERG, which combines observations from a fleet of satellites, in near-real time, to provide near-global estimates of precipitation every 30 minutes. By combining NASA precipitation estimates with other data sources, we can gain a greater understanding of major storms that affect our planet.

Instead, what the IMERG does is "morph" high-quality satellite observations along the direction of the steering winds to deliver information about rain at times and places where such satellite overflights did not occur. Information morphing is particularly important over the majority of the world's surface that lacks ground-radar coverage. Basically, IMERG fills in the blanks between weather observation stations.

Chan-hom's Forecast

Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) expect Chan-hom to track northwestward to northward through the next two days and closer to Japan. Chan-hom is forecast to make a slow track paralleling the coast of Japan from Oct. 8 through the 11, when it is expected to affect Tokyo before heading out to open waters.

JTWC expects Chan-hom to continue weakening over the next several days and begin transitioning to an extra-tropical storm.

NASA Researches Tropical Cyclones

Hurricanes/tropical cyclones are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

For more than five decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. Advancing knowledge of our home planet contributes directly to America's leadership in space and scientific exploration.

For more information about NASA's IMERG, visit: https://pmm.nasa.gov/gpm/imerg-global-image

For updated warnings from the Japan Meteorological Agency, visit: https://www.jma.go.jp/en/warn/

By Rob Gutro NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

###
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sea Cargo Charter sets a new benchmark for responsible shipping, transparent climate reporting, and improved decision making in line with United Nations decarbonization targets.

International non-profit organization, Global Maritime Forum, announced today that a group of the world's largest energy, agriculture, mining, and commodity trading companies will for the first time assess and disclose the climate alignment of their shipping activities.

United Nations agencies estimate the international shipping industry to carry around 80% of world trade flows and to be responsible for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions annually.

Large industrial corporations are significant users of international shipping services. The shipping of crude oil, coal, iron ore, grain and other bulk commodities used worldwide make up over 80% of global seaborne trade. The Sea Cargo Charter is a global framework that allows for the integration of climate considerations into chartering decisions to favor climate-aligned maritime transport.

The Sea Cargo Charter establishes a common baseline to quantitatively assess and disclose whether shipping activities are aligned with adopted climate goals. The Sea Cargo Charter is consistent with the policies and ambitions adopted by member states of the UN's International Maritime Organization, including its ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping by at least 50% by 2050.

"A standard greenhouse gas emissions reporting process will simplify some of the complexities often associated with reporting. It will encourage a more transparent and consistent approach to tracking emissions, which will be a critical part of making shipping more sustainable," says Jan Dieleman, President, Cargill Ocean Transportation and Chair of the Sea Cargo Charter drafting group.

"The shipping industry as a whole needs to adopt a transparent approach, advocated by the Sea Cargo Charter, in order to fully understand the sector's overall greenhouse gas footprint and for us to collectively rise to the challenges faced," says Rasmus Bach Nielsen, Global Head Fuel Decarbonisation, Trafigura.

"The Sea Cargo Charter is an important step in laying the foundations for a net-zero emissions shipping industry. Collaboration such as this, from across the sector, is vital to scale-up customer demand for low- or zero-emissions shipping. This same spirit of collaboration is also vital in the pursuit of the technological advances needed to unlock decarbonisation solutions, and in building industry support for regulation which can create an ambitious but level-playing field under which to invest. Building on this momentum we would like the IMO to use its 2023 strategy review to set the trajectory for the sector to move to net-zero emissions by 2050," says Grahaeme Henderson, Global Head, Shell Shipping & Maritime.

Founding Signatories of the Sea Cargo Charter include Anglo American, ADM, Bunge, Cargill Ocean Transportation, COFCO International, Dow, Equinor, Gunvor Group, Klaveness Combination Carriers, Louis Dreyfus Company, Norden, Occidental, Shell, Torvald Klaveness, and Trafigura.

"The Sea Cargo Charter enables leaders from diverse industry sectors to use their influence to drive change and promote shipping's green transition by choosing maritime transport that is aligned with agreed climate targets over that which is not," says Johannah Christensen, Managing Director, Head of Projects & Programmes at international non-profit, Global Maritime Forum.

The development of the Sea Cargo Charter has been led by global shippers - Anglo American, Cargill Ocean Transportation, Dow, Norden, Total, Trafigura - and leading industry players - Euronav, Gorrissen Federspiel, Stena Bulk - with expert support provided by the Global Maritime Forum, Smart Freight Centre, University College London Energy Institute/UMAS, and Stephenson Harwood.

For further information: Head of Communications, Torben Vemmelund at tve@globalmaritimeforum.org or +45 2224 1446.
The European Commission said on Wednesday it had agreed with U.S. company Gilead the supply of more than 20,000 additional doses of its Covid-19 drug Remdesivir, in a bid to tackle shortages of the medication in European countries.

A spokesman for the EU executive said Brussels had agreed with Gilead last Friday the supply of nearly 20,300 additional doses for the treatment of about 3,400 patients.

It said it had paid 7 million euros ($8.2 million) for the new supply, which is in addition to 30,000 courses of treatment it had bought at the end of July.
Actor Swara Bhaskar took a dig at Kangana Ranaut after the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) confirmed that Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide and was not murdered. Swara mentioned in a tweet how some people has proclaimed that they would return their awards of their claims in the Sushant death case were proven wrong.

Hey! Now that both CBI and AIIMS have concluded that #SushantSinghRajput tragically died by suicide... werent some people going to return their government bestowed awards???, Swara wrote in her tweet. Kangana had made claims that Sushant did not die by suicide but was murdered by the movie mafia.

In an interview with Republic TV, she had said, They (Mumbai Police) summoned me, and I asked them too, that Im in Manali, that you can send somebody to take my statement, but I have not received anything after that. I am telling you, if I have said anything, which I cant testify, which I cant prove, and which is not in public domain, I will return my Padma Shri.

Also read: Bobby Deol says he was supposed to play Akshay Kumars role in Ajnabee: This industry is ruthless

I dont deserve it. I am not that person who will go on record (to make such statements), and everything that I have said is in public domain, she had added.

The medical board of the AIIMS had earlier submitted a report on Sushants death case directly to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). They confirmed that actor Sushant died by suicide. We have concluded our conclusive report. It is a case of hanging and death by suicide, Dr Sudhir Gupta, AIIMS Forensic Head had told ANI last week.

Sushants family and their lawyer Vikas Singh have expressed disagreement with Dr Guptas report. Vikas wrote to the director of the CBI expressing doubt over the forensic report submitted by AIIMS Delhi team in the case and sought that matter be referred to another forensic team.

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Paramilitary police officers wearing face masks march next to the entrance of the Forbidden City in Beijing on Sept. 20, 2020. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images)

Negative Views of China Spike in 9 Countries Due to Pandemic, Pew Survey Shows

Negative views of China reached their highest levels in more than a decade in nine countries, according to a recent survey conducted by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center.

Of the nine, Sweden had the highest percentage of unfavorable views of China at 85 percent, followed by Australia (81 percent), South Korea (75 percent), United Kingdom (74 percent), the United States (73 percent), Canada (73 percent), the Netherlands (73 percent), Germany (71 percent), and Spain (63 percent).

Pew polled 14,276 adults in 14 countries from June 10 to Aug. 3 this year, and published its findings on Oct. 6.

Out of all countries, Japan had the highest percentage of respondents who view China negatively, at 86 percent, although thats not a historic high for the Asian country. Meanwhile, Australia saw the biggest jump in negative views of China, an increase of 24 percentage points from a year ago.

Meanwhile, negative views of China in the United States jumped 13 percentage points from last year. And the percentage has increased by 20 points since President Donald Trump took office in 2017.

The U.S.China relationship has deteriorated rapidly, as the Trump administration has turned up the heat on the regime in Beijing on a number of issues, including trade practices, intellectual property theft, and the current pandemic.

Pew also surveyed peoples views on how China has handled the COVID-19 pandemic, which is caused by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus. The virus, which originated in central Chinas Wuhan city, has infected over 7.5 million people and caused the deaths of more than 211,900 in the United States.

According to the survey, of all respondents, a median of 61 percent said China has done a bad job handling the outbreak. The three countries most critical of Chinas pandemic response are all in the Asia-Pacific: Japan and South Korea (both at 79 percent) and Australia (73 percent).

Meanwhile, 64 percent in the United States said China has done a bad job, three percentage points higher than Canada. Denmark led European countries with the most negative assessment of Chinas pandemic response at 72 percent.

The respondents were also asked their opinions on how the World Health Organization (WHO) has handled the outbreak, as well as their own country.

South Korea held the most negative view of the WHO at 80 percent, followed by Japan (67 percent), Italy (45 percent), the United States (44 percent), and Australia (43 percent).

Of the 14 countries, only the United States and the UK had a majority of respondentsover 50 percentsaying that their own government has done a bad job in dealing with the outbreak.

Beijing initially went to great lengths to conceal the spread of the CCP virus in China, silencing eight whistleblower doctorsamong them ophthalmologist Li Wenliangafter they warned on Chinese social media about a new form of pneumonia in late December 2019.

The WHO initially repeated Beijings claim that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission on Jan. 14. Beijing didnt concede that the virus was contagious until Jan. 20.

Beijings poor handling of the outbreak also colors peoples confidence in Chinese leader Xi Jinping, according to the Pew report.

A median of 78 percent across the 14 countries surveyed said they have no confidence or not much confidence in Xi in doing the right thing regarding world affairs.

In the United States, 55 percent said they have no confidence at all and 22 percent said they dont have much confidence in Xi.

Of the three Asian countries surveyed, Japan showed the least confidence in Xi, with 53 percent saying no confidence and 31 percent saying not much confidence.

In Europe, Sweden and France had the highest percentages of people saying no confidence at all, both with 56 percent.
Sumitomo Wiring Systems, a division of the Japanese Sumitomo Group, will launch in December a new factory to produce pigtail cables for used in cars to supply the Egyptian local market and to export to Europe, Arab Finance reports.

The factory, the third by the Japanese company, will require around $63 million and will generate 1,000 job opportunities, Arab Finance notes citing the statement by General Authority for Investment and Free Zones.

The future factory will be located 10th of Ramadan is a city located in the Sharqia Governorate, a first-generation new urban community, and one of the most industrialized.

It will be the third factory by the Japanese group, after two inaugurated last year in Port Said for about $200 million. Sumitomo, founded 400 years ago, has invested more $500 million in Egypt. It also operates 234 companies around the world.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 23:29:49|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- A total of six Islamic State (IS) militants were killed on Wednesday in an operation in Iraq's western province of Anbar, the Iraqi military said.

Backed by the Iraqi gunships, the security forces conducted an operation based on intelligence reports in Anbar desert, Yehia Rasool, spokesman of the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces said in a statement.

The operation resulted in the killing of six IS militants and the arrest of another, in addition to destroying two hideouts and a vehicle, the statement added.

IS militants are still active in the vast Anbar desert which stretches to the border with neighboring countries of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, as IS frequently infiltrated into Iraq in an attempt to regroup.

The security situation in Iraq has been dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces declared full liberation of Iraq from IS militants late in 2017, and the Iraqi forces repeatedly carry out operations to control the whole border areas with Syria and nearby desert in western Iraq. Enditem
When, just a few days ago, Pence seemed poised to take over the presidency (at least temporarily) when Trump fell ill with covid-19, the nation was suddenly forced to consider what that would be like. Given how things have gone these past days, perhaps they thought they could get used to it. On Monday, in one of his oddest performances to date (which is saying something), Trump stood at attention on the White House balcony and held a sustained military salute like something choreographed by Kim Jong Uns propaganda machine. This signified  what? That the commander in chief, newly home from the hospital, was reporting for duty?
Manchester Center, VT (05254)

Today

Cloudy with snow showers developing during the afternoon. High 24F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 40%. Snow accumulations less than one inch..

Tonight

Bitterly cold. Snow showers early. Breaks in the overcast later. Low near 0F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 40%.
Phuket tourists to arrive after Veg Fest, confirms Governor

PHUKET: The first tourists to arrive in the country since the COVID-19 lockdown began will not arrive tomorrow (Oct 8), the Phuket Governor has confirmed.

tourismCOVID-19Coronaviruseconomics

By The Phuket News

Wednesday 7 October 2020, 11:20AM

Governor Narong Woonciew broke the news this morning (Oct 7) during his daily video Facebook broadcast. Screenshot: PR Phuket / Facebook

Governor Narong Woonciew broke the news this morning (Oct 7) during his daily video Facebook broadcast.

The confirmation was obscured amid his promotion of the upcoming Vegetarian Festival and praise for the preparations made by officials and shrine administrators to ensure the festival complies with COVID-19 prevention measures.

Governor Narong said that the delay in allowing tourists to come was due to local peoples fears that foreign tourists will bring the COVID-19 virus to Phuket, and possibly spur a second wave of infections.

I have already requested that foreigners arrive after the Vegetarian Festival ends.

The decision was made to make people feel more comfortable [with tourists arriving], he said.

Governor Narong did not clarify when he requested the delay for foriegn tourists to be allowed to land in Phuket, and he did not confirm when the first tourists were expected to arrive.

However, sitting at the same table during the broadcast, Phuket Provincial Health Office (PPHO) deputy chief Dr Krit Sakulpat assured that when Phuket receives tourists, we will have the correct processes to prevent [COVID-19] from spreading.

He repeated this message several times.

Governor Narong explained that allowing the Vegetarian Festival to go ahead this year took a lot of discussion and was a decision not made lightly.

Many Thais from other provinces will come to the festival, and there were concerns that foreigners coming to watch the festival may bring the virus to Phuket, he said.

I thank the Phuket shrines for their efforts to comply with the health protection measures needed. The decision whether or not to hold the festival was reconsidered again and again. It took a long time to think about [whether or not to hold] the Vegetarian Festival this year, but it will go ahead because it is a part of Phukets traditions, Governor Narong said.

The news this morning follows Tourism Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn explaining to the press in Bangkok last Thursday (Oct 1) that a group of 150 Chinese nationals, all entering the country on the new Special Tourist Visa (STV), will be the first foreign tourists allowed into Thailand on a chartered flight under the conditional entry scheme for selected groups of foreigners, endorsed by the Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA).

Mr Phipat explained the group will fly directly to Phuket on a chartered Air Asia flight, adding that another, smaller, group of seven Chinese businessmen will arrive at Suvarnabhumi International Airport on a private jet on the same day, reported state news agency NNT, operated by the Public Relations Department of Thailand.

It also follows the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Phuket office coordinating with local airlines to provide more flights to Phuket during the coming Vegetarian Festival from Oct 17-25, with the hope of boosting the number of tourists coming to the island.

Under the new normal protocols, street processions during the festival will be held, but Mah Song spirit mediums are to travel in vehicles and crowd control will be enforced.

Also, some of the main ceremonies have been banned, Phuket Vice Governor Wongsakorn Nunchukan confirmed late last month.

Also banned this year will be many of the ceremonial ablutions of faith and flesh  including fire-walking, bladed-ladder climbing, hot oil bathing and nail-bridge crossing.
Expect to see more ads, as the industry has more money to play with during the upcoming holiday season. To introduce its new Sunnyside dispensaries, Cresco launched an Ask us anything ad campaign answering basic consumer questions like, what is CBD, or how many edibles should one consume?
Representatives of the Armenian diaspora in Poland, several non-governmental political organizations, representatives of the Polish-Armenian community, as well as a number of Poles, held a protest against the Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression against Karabakh.

A total of about 2,000 people marched in Warsaw in protest of the escalation.

In protest, the march participants gathered under the Armenian-Artsakh flags in the historical center of the Polish capital on the Castle Square. The posters contained calls in support of Artsakh.

The demonstrators also collected signatures on a petition addressed to Polish President Andrzej Duda, asking him to take an active part against the Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression and support the demands for a ceasefire.
By now, much of America has seen the horrifying video.

On June 28, 2020, an angry mob broke through a private, locked security gate, trespassing onto a private street in a St. Louis historic district where Mark and Patricia McCloskey live. The McCloskeys' home stood closer to the gate than any other on the street.

Every "protester" piling through that demolished security gate broke the law, either by demolishing the gate or trespassing onto private property. Some went farther, shouting felony threats of murder and arson at the top of their voices.

Set aflame by the original false narrative that Minneapolis police "murdered" George Floyd, when Floyd actually killed himself with a massive fentanyl overdose of four times the lethal amount, the cursing, salivating crowd didn't give a damn about the facts of the Floyd case, or of any other case, for that matter.

They never do.

They only want to destroy.

The McCloskeys sat there stunned, frightened, startled, thinking they were going to die.

They had one choice.

They grabbed their guns and rushed into their front yard to defend themselves.

They would not die without a fight.

It's the American way.

Afterward, St Louis's chief prosecutor, circuit attorney Kimberly Gardner, turned the case into a political firestorm by unleashing the power of the prosecutor's office against the homeowners.

Gardner, overseeing a train wreck of an office, and who is famous for her pitifully low conviction rate, spewed disparaging public comments, not against the mob, but against the McCloskeys.

"I am alarmed at the events that occurred over the weekend, where peaceful protesters were met by guns and a violent assault. We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation or threat of deadly force will not be tolerated."

Excuse me, Madame Prosecutor. "Peaceful protesters" don't break down iron gates, then trespass onto private property, then threaten to kill people and burn innocent citizens' homes.

But the vindictive Ms. Gardner, a Soros-funded Marxist prosecutor, launched a "Second Amendment be damned" political rampage by making an issue of this innocent couple. Her insidious goal: to intimidate and chill others from exercising the constitutional right to self-defense.

By the way, Soros has contributed $116,000 to a political action committee supporting Gardner: the "Missouri Justice and Public Safety PAC."

Perhaps Soros puppet Gardner wishes that the "peaceful protesters" had killed the McCloskeys and destroyed their home.

So bizarrely upside-down is Gardner's approach that we must ask these questions: is her attack against this couple racially motivated? In classic Marxian fashion, might she be seething because they appear to have succeeded economically? Because they live in a big house? Where is blind justice?

Now word comes that a St. Louis grand jury, at Gardner's urging, has indicted the McCloskeys on "weapons" charges, among other charges, and another left-wing political prosecution percolates into sick reality.

It's the Soros way.

In St. Louis, Gardner's grandstanding shenanigans go beyond the McCloskey case.

In 2018, she tried prosecuting the former Republican Missouri governor, Eric Greitens, for trumped up "felony invasion of privacy" charges after the state attorney general declined the case. Gardner dismissed the case only after a judge ruled that she had to testify as a witness for the defense and face cross-examination. The Missouri Ethics Commission later found that the governor had engaged in no wrongdoing. Gardner's prosecution of Greitens had been a clown show.

What a shame.

Gardner has weaponized her office for political purposes.

The Justice Department, under Obama, often investigated local law enforcement and prosecutors' offices who appeared, in the eyes of the Obama DOJ, to be violating the law or the Constitution.

Take for example the Ferguson Police Department in 2014, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in 2009, and the Missoula County Montana Attorney's Office. The DOJ investigated them all for alleged constitutional violations.

Now the Justice Department should investigate another prosecutor's office for abuse of power. This time, the DOJ should target the Circuit Attorney's Office for the City of St. Louis and its chief prosecutor, Kimberly M. Gardner.

The charges against Gardner? Political weaponization of her office, intimidating citizens from exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and to protect themselves, and engaging in other reckless, politically weaponized prosecutions.

Attorney General Barr should crack down on overreaching state prosecutors, like Gardner, who weaponize their offices for political shenanigans and who trash Americans' constitutional rights to advance their own leftist political agendas. The people of St. Louis deserve better. So does the nation.

Don Brown, a former U.S. Navy JAG officer, is the author of the book Travesty of Justice: The Shocking Prosecution of Lieutenant Clint Lorance. He was one of four former JAG officers serving on the Lorance legal team, securing a pardon from President Trump on November 15, 2019. He also served as a military prosecutor and special assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of California. He has authored 14 books on the U.S. military, including the national bestsellers Last Fighter Pilot and Treason. He can be reached at donbrownbooks@gmail.com or on Twitter at @donbrownbooks.

Image: ABC News via YouTube.
Pollution off the Pacific shoreline of the remote Kamchatka peninsula has caused the mass death of marine creatures, Russian scientists said Tuesday.

Locals sounded the alarm in late September as surfers experienced stinging eyes from the water and sea creatures including seals, octopuses and sea urchins washed up dead on the shore.

Coming on the heels of a massive oil leak in Siberia, the latest incident has sparked a large-scale investigation with fears that poisonous substances in underground storage since the Soviet era could have leaked into the water.

A team of divers from a state nature reserve found a mass death" of sea life at a depth of five to 10 metres (16-33 feet), Ivan Usatov of the Kronotsky Reserve said, adding that 95 percent are dead."

A few large fish, prawns and crabs are left, but only a very small number," the scientist said at a meeting with Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov.

WWF Russia said in a statement that the pollutant appears not to be oil, but a highly toxic transparent substance that is highly soluble in water."

Surfers suffered burns to their corneas after swimming in the water, the Kamchatka governor said earlier.

Kamchatka, renowned for its spectacular scenery and live volcanoes, teems with wildlife including brown bears. It is sparsely populated with just over 300,000 inhabitants.

Russian officials have launched a flurry of activity on President Vladimir Putins orders.

Putin in June publicly chided officials for being evasive and slow to act over a spill of thousands of tonnes of diesel into soil and waterways in Arctic Siberia.

Scientists are working to detect the source of the pollution, investigating theories including a natural effect from microscopic marine algae, but with a focus on potential manmade causes.

On Tuesday, experts took water and soil samples from a site called Kozelsky, used since the Soviet era to store poisonous substances deep in the ground.

The most obvious answer where the source of the pollution could be is the Kozelsky poisonous chemical site," said Solodov, after prosecutors, natural resources inspectors and criminal investigators visited the site and tested soil and water from a nearby river.

The site, opened in 1979 to store pesticides, today has no legal owner.

He said inspectors had found sections of barbed wire cut away and damage to a protective covering.

The unguarded site just by official accounts contains around 108 tonnes of pesticides and poisonous chemicals," Greenpeace Russia campaign director Ivan Blokov said in a statement. The group has a team at the scene testing the water nearby.
Acclaimed actor Shabana Azmi recently presented her brother Baba Azmis directorial Mee Raqsam, which is about a young motherless Muslim girl whose desire to learn Bharatnatyam creates ripples in her conservative community. It was also the opening film at the Coalition of South Asian Film Festivals (CoSAFF).

In this freewheeling chat, Shabana talks about the relevance of the film in these current times, what gives her strength to stand up for what she believes in, and Bollywoods present state.

Mee Raqsam beautifully depicts that a community looking inward is the only way to move forward

Absolutely! We grew up as children of parents who celebrate Indias pluralism and Indias culture. We grew up celebrating all the festivals, whether it was Holi, Diwali, or Christmas. For us (Shabana and Baba), thats the way we lived life. We dont know any other way. Hence, what we are saying is that there is a difference and we have to learn to make that out, between ones religion and ones cultural heritage. We belong to the parents who are artistes and who were surrounded by artistes, and art knows no barrier. The purpose of art is to feel. My father had written a song long ago- Todna apna kaam nahi hai, hum hain dilo ko jodne wale; Kya Hindu aur kya Muslim, kaise gore kaise kaale; Ek hi maala ke sab daane, hum deewane hum parwane." So my point is if you get into a slanging match, nothing will happen. You have to look inwards as to what are the changes that can be brought here and then have a sane debate. Its very important to have a sane debate and that space seems to be shrinking.

One of the most important scenes of the film is when Maryam (Aditi Subedi) performs Bharatnatyam on a Sufi song. It was a big statement

I was present at the shooting of the song. But when I first saw it in a theatre with people, there wasnt a single eye that was looking anywhere else but at the screen. All were moved and it gives a sense of healing. I think Baba (Azmi) along with his writer has proved that quiet determination goes a long way because it is not about dance, its about living life on your own terms and Baba said it with conviction.

Danish Hussains character Salim stood beside Maryam and her art like a rock throughout the movie. Did that character remind you of your father in any way because the film was also an ode to Kaifi Azmi?

Obviously, the values are quite strong and you can see that in the film. Its not a preachy film its a very emotional film but at a subliminal level, there are all these messages and celebrates the spirit of the common man who only wants to delve into the goodness in his life. The film is about a point of view. Its not pitting one community against another. It is a battle between a worldview that is progressive, liberal against a worldview that is intolerant unaccepting, and hateful.

Its hard to ignore the parallels to what we are seeing in the current political landscape while watching the constant othering of Maryam and her father, Salim, in the film

When Baba thought of making this film as a tribute to my fathers birth centenary, he was telling a story- the story between a father and daughter. And now it has become obviously extremely timely. But within that, its exactly this- are you willing to have a sane dialogue? Do you want to stand with the problem or the solution? What is the step forward that you want to choose for yourself? I think its up to each individual to make a choice.

Mee Raqsam is important also in the sense that it promotes the idea that art is beyond any boundaries and religion. What role do you see art playing in todays society?

It plays an extremely important role. What is it that has kept people sane even through this difficult pandemic? It is what they have as an audience received in terms of the films and series that they have been watching and music that they have been listening to and books that they have been reading. Art has softened the edges. Art has this ability to rise above barriers and to touch you at a level that is totally pure.

You have been someone who has constantly used her platform for addressing pressing issues, from the portrayal of women in the Hindi cinema to speaking up for minorities in the country. What gives you the greatest strength to continue to stand by your principles, come what may?

I think something that my father told me a long time ago and it has become my mantra. Hed said when you are working for a change, you have to build into the possibility that change might not occur within your lifetime, yet you have to have the conviction that if you carry on working sincerely then change will happen even if it does so after you are gone. When you see it in that perspective then theres no room for frustration because you are seeing it from a larger perspective. Transformation takes time. What you can do is to offer resistance and a different point of view.

What are the changes that you see in the Hindi cinema today?

The way films are made in the Hindi cinema has changed over the years and it has changed for the better and the fact that what OTT has done is also brought into focus the fact that content is king. And thats why different kinds of films are being made and different subjects are being tackled. There is no longer a desire to cater to only a handful of films. We have found that every kind of audience exists. Its the question of reaching out. People keep saying that parallel cinema is dead. I dont think its dead. I think it has rather taken on a different avatar.

Theres been so much happening in the film industry for the past three months. A lot of women in Bollywood have also been subjected to online abuse and death and rape threats for speaking up. How do you see this whole thing?

I feel very sorry for the trolls. Imagine, if your purpose in life is to get up in the morning and vomit out vile stuff. What a pathetic life it must be. To me, it reveals much more of the very shallow upbringing of people who use the anonymity to spew venom like this. It reveals more about them than the people towards who it is targeted.
FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Time4Learning, a national homeschooling platform , today announced that its 'Bring Your Artwork to Life' Contest is now accepting entries. Children can submit hand-drawn artwork for the chance to see their design come to life as a custom-made stuffed creation. The contest will run through Monday, November 2.

Parents may enter one drawing per child by uploading a picture of the artwork to the official entry website .

"It's important to educate and develop the whole child including learning art, creativity, and self-expression," says Time4Learning President and Founder John Edelson. "I find it demonstrates the possibilities seeing children's creative drawings becoming plush animals. The winners will probably remember this for a lifetime."

In its 2014 study, "Re-Investing in Arts Education: Winning America's Future Through Creative Schools," the National Endowment for the Arts reported that students who study art are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement and three times more likely to be awarded for school attendance.

Entries will be accepted until 11:59 pm EST on Monday, November 2. Two winners will be selected from three age categories, totaling six winners. Age categories include 6 and under; 7-12; and 13-18. Winners will be announced on Monday, November 9 and contacted by the Time4Learning team to coordinate the creation and delivery of their custom-made, stuffed work of art. Other terms and conditions may apply.

For more information, visit www.time4learning.com .

About Time4Learning

Time4Learning is an award-winning, online curriculum for PreK-12th grade that teaches math, language arts, science, social studies and more. The interactive, student-paced curriculum features thousands of multimedia-based lessons, activities, and printable worksheets. In addition to the Time4Learning curriculum, there's Time4Writing and Time4MathFacts to help with those skill areas.

SOURCE Time4Learning

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https://www.time4learning.com


A local Irish language campaigner has held a book signing following the release of the first major English-Irish dictionary since the 1950s.

Padraig O Mianain is Chief Editor of the Concise English-Irish Dictionary, which is based on the popular online dictionary focloir.ie.

The resource becomes the first English-Irish dictionary to be published since Tomas de Bhaldraithe's dictionary in 1959.

At the time of its publication, no official standard for the language was available, something O Mianain's contemporary dictionary will be able to address.

The new dictionary contains an extensive range of contemporary Irish language translations of modern English words and phrases, as well as thousands of technical terms.

A comprehensive style and grammar supplement is also included within the resource, and a book signing was held last week at the An Carn centre in Tirkane.

Copies of the dictionary can be purchased at Siopa an Carn, priced at 25, and a signed copy or personalised message can be requested by calling 028 7954 9978 or visiting www.siopaancarn.com.
Its almost as though no time has passed since 2018.

Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, is the incumbent running for reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives. His Democratic challenger is again Betsy Dirksen Londrigan. Their debate Monday and their ongoing series of commercials are classic examples of the trip back in time were taking with this race.

Health care remains a huge issue in the discussion, showing that the candidates at least have a grasp for the concerns of their constituency. But Davis has split hairs on his votes for and largely against the Affordable Care Act. Healthreformvotes.org gives Davis negative ratings on all of his ACA votes. He slides away from the absence of an alternative health care plan, but enjoys basking in the idea of widespread healthcare support.

Londrigans argument is as short of details as Davis is disingenuous. If a campaign can be built completely on attacking what the other candidate doesnt do, Londrigan will turn into the favorite in this race.

Even the subject of discussion different this year from 2018 ends up with the two quickly running to opposite sides. Davis opposes COVID19-related mask mandates and suggests citizens follow advice from the Centers for Disease Control. Londrigan backs mandates and complains about the lack of federal leadership in word and in finances. Davis blames Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for the lack of federal aid.

At least the two agree that the Supreme Court should not be expanded.

Meanwhile, the commercials being aired in the campaign are just as ludicrous and as uninformative as they were in the 2018 campaign. Instead, the message is how evil the opponent is. The spots are narrated, of course, with an ominous tone and feature frightful graphics taken either from the worst part of a large city or the set of a movie set in a dystopian future. The script of one even features a series of sinister s sounds, because nothing sounds quite that evil.

Given how that method of communication is unlikely to change  in fact, we probably couldnt tell if either campaign was re-using spots from the last campaign  debates are the best we have. Lets hope they provide more specifics in the next one.

Mondays debate was presented by WCIA and Illinois Public Media. Brain Mackey, host of The 21st moderated the event with questions from Mary Hansen, of NPR Illinois; Central Illinois Editor Chris Coates; and Mark Maxwell, of WCIA. A second debate is planned for 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 13.

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Vice President Mike Pence is known to rely on his wife Karen for support - the pair, married for 34 years, are inseparable.

Less, however, is known about their three children - all young adults, beginning to forge their paths independently, but who were all present on August 26 for Pences address to the Republican National Convention.

This has always been a family affair for us, from the very first campaign headed out to county fairs," Pence said several years ago.

While Karen and I would be shaking hands at the Republican tent, the kids would be standing out in front of the tent, handing out flyers and shaking hands.

Pence famously sparked fierce debate in Washington when he revealed that he would not dine alone with another woman, and would turn down an invitation to any function where alcohol was served if his wife was not with him.

The 61-year-old vice president met Karen while she was playing guitar at Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Indianapolis, a Catholic church they both attended. Both later became evangelicals.

"It's about building a zone around your marriage," he said in 2002.

Karen, an art teacher, currently has a part-time position at a private Christian school in Springfield, Virginia, that does not allow gay students and requires employees to affirm that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

She taught at the school, Immanuel Christian School, from 2001 to 2013, while her husband was a congressman, then returned to the job when he became vice president. Their daughter Charlotte graduated from the school, according to its website.

Their eldest child, Michael, 28, is a second lieutenant in the Marines, serving as a pilot.

Story continues

He attended Purdue University, where he met his wife Sarah - the pair married in December 2016, shortly before Pence became vice president.

"I learned about being a spouse from my daughter-in-law," Karen Pence said in May 2019.

"She insists that Michael has his responsibilities in the house and she has hers.

"And I tend to say, 'Oh, you know, the vice president is really busy, I'll do this for him,' and  really  it's better if you don't."

The Pences middle child, Charlotte, is a frequent presence on the campaign trail.

Hello Utah! Great to be here with @SecondLady @KarenPence for the Vice Presidential Debate! pic.twitter.com/LV1IROXMA0  Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) October 6, 2020

shoulda worn sunglasses ah well https://t.co/U5qh0rhOLx  Charlotte Pence Bond (@charlipence) September 18, 2020

The 27-year-old studied digital cinema and English at DePaul University, and has worked in documentaries.

With her mother, she wrote a childrens book about their rabbit, Marlon Bundo, showing Pences job from the animals perspective entitled A Day In The Life Of The Vice President. Comedian John Oliver then produced a wildly popular spoof, A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, in which the rabbit was gay.

Charlotte in December 2019 married Lt. Henry Bond, who is currently deployed and serving our nation in the United States Navy. The pair were introduced by Michael, who trained with Bond in Mississippi.

In September Charlotte launched her own podcast, Doubting It, which the producers say explores the issues of faith, culture and doubt, and poses some of the most essential questions about our faith journeys.

The youngest child of the Pences is Audrey, 25, whose summer wedding to her college boyfriend, Daniel Tomanelli, 24, had to be postponed due to COVID-19.

Audrey graduated in May with a law degree from Yale, and is the most liberal member of the deeply religious, conservative family.

Before attending Yale she studied international relations at Northeastern University, in Boston, and spent extended periods of time in Jordan and Turkey.

In her final year at Northeastern she worked at the Fuller Project for International Reporting to chronicle the under-represented role of women in the Middle East.

She describes herself as politically independent and socially liberal and is a member of the law schools Title IX Working Group, which advises on policies and efforts to address campus climate regarding sexual harassment or sexual assault, and comes up with educational initiatives around sexual harassment and assault.

Probably the person I get the most respect from is my dad on that," she told a local TV station in Indiana, WTHR.

He tells me so many times: I am proud of you for having your own opinions and looking into things.

Read more

VP debate: How to watch and when is the Kamala Harris and Mike Pence showdown

'Why would I want a guy like that to be my VP?': Trump called Pence a 'loser' before he joined 2016 ticket, new book claims

What to expect from the Mike Pence and Kamala Harris debate, according to people who know them well
Italy is set to make the wearing of face masks in outdoor spaces mandatory in an attempt to restrict the spread of coronavirus, as the number of Covid-19 infections continues to rise across Europe.

The new rule is scheduled to be introduced on Wednesday, the day after Roberto Speranza, the countrys health minister, said it was considering the measure.

"We are working on a proposal to make the use of masks compulsory," Mr Speranza told parliament on Tuesday.

"We have to make an extra effort, because (masks) must be used in any situation where there is a chance of people meeting who do not live together, he added.

There will be exemptions for children under the age of six, for those who have health conditions which prevent the wearing of masks and for people who are exercising.

Some regions in Italy already mandate the use of face masks outside, including Campania and Lazio, which introduced the restriction on Friday.

The nationwide measure comes shortly after Italy saw its highest number of daily cases since April, with 2,884 new infections recorded on Saturday.

Although this number is well below figures in other European countries including France and Spain, Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte told the country to stay vigilant.

"The battle is not won, and we will need to remain on maximum alert during the weeks and months to come," he said in Rome on Tuesday.

Mr Conte said last week that he would seek permission from parliament to extend the countrys Covid-19 state of emergency until the end of January.

Italy has so far had 36,030 deaths from the disease and 330,263 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The only country in Europe to have suffered more fatalities during the pandemic than Italy is the UK, which has recorded 42,535 deaths from Covid-19.

Additional reporting from Reuters
BENGALURU, India and ZURICH, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Infosys (NYSE: INFY), the global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, today announced that it has been selected by Mobile Health AG, a Switzerland-based Health Tech startup, to enhance the go-to-market (GTM) strategy for its electronically patient-reported outcomes (ePRO) platform, Consilium Care. Consilium Care helps in improving the outcome for patients undergoing cancer treatment through remote monitoring. Through this engagement, Infosys will set up and manage cloud and infrastructure services and support, security and monitoring, and platform management services for Mobile Health AG across multiple geographies.

Mobile Health AG selected Infosys as a partner for its strong domain expertise and experience in Oncology to support the commercial launch of Consilium Care through MS Azure. Infosys will help refine the quality of care for cancer patients and enable a value-based digital healthcare system through high-quality patient data and value-based pricing. This aligns with Mobile Health's key business strategy to improve the outcome for patients undergoing cancer treatment by strengthening the collaboration between patients and caregivers.

Infosys, backed by its large healthcare client base, will explore new partnership opportunities with Mobile Health AG to jointly market the Consilium Care platform in the US as part of the Infosys Health Platform (IHP).

Frank Gulitz, CIO, Mobile Health AG, said, "After a rigorous selection process we selected Infosys as strategic partner for our Cloud Provider Due Diligence, the global setup of Microsoft Azure, as well as partner for the Infrastructure Operation and Platform Application Managed Service. Infosys was leading against competitors by their well-established Cloud Management Services combined with strong Security Consulting Offerings and Health Industry Insight. We are looking forward to commonly develop new markets for Consilium Care, our award winning CE-marked platform."

Mohit Joshi, President Infosys, said, "Mobile Health's ePRO platform shows great potential in augmenting healthcare for cancer patients, and we look forward to being a part of this journey to optimize and standardize remote treatment leveraging technology. The partnership will streamline the public CSPs to Mobile Health AG's requirements while offering robust, cost efficient cloud services, support, and security. We will continue to leverage our talent pool and global presence to deliver superior experiences for Consilium Care users and patients, to make this platform true value generator in the healthcare space."

For more details, please watch these videos on InfyTV.

About Mobile Health AG

Mobile Health AG was founded in 2014 by three highly experienced key opinion leaders in Oncology, Healthcare Policy & Industry. The combination of study driven platform-development and the ability to minimize patient and care giver challenges along the cancer patient-journey makes the company unique. With consilium care the company develops the leading digital platform for ePROs, bringing benefits to patients, providers and practitioners. Several industry awards underline the unique approach to combine science with quality of care (Lohfert-Award 2017, Innovation Qualite 2020 by Swiss Medical Association FMH/SAQM).

Visit www.consilium.care to see how mobile Health AG is giving the patient a voice and why partners join the growing eco-system.

About Infosys

Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. We enable clients in 46 countries to navigate their digital transformation. With nearly four decades of experience in managing the systems and workings of global enterprises, we expertly steer our clients through their digital journey. We do it by enabling the enterprise with an AI-powered core that helps prioritize the execution of change. We also empower the business with agile digital at scale to deliver unprecedented levels of performance and customer delight. Our always-on learning agenda drives their continuous improvement through building and transferring digital skills, expertise, and ideas from our innovation ecosystem.

Visit www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next.

Safe Harbor

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects, financial expectations and plans for navigating the COVID-19 impact on our employees, clients and stakeholders are forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding COVID-19 and the effects of government and other measures seeking to contain its spread, risks related to an economic downturn or recession in India, the United States and other countries around the world, changes in political, business, and economic conditions, fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry and the outcome of pending litigation and government investigation. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company unless it is required by law.

SOURCE Infosys
(L-R) India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Japan's Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan's PM Yoshihide Suga, Australia's Foreign Minister Marise Payne and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pose for photographs before a Quad Indo-Pacific meeting at the prime minister's office in Tokyo on Oct. 6, 2020. (Nicolas Datiche/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

For China, the Quad Is a Diplomatic, Military Double Whammy

Commentary

This weeks Quadrilateral Security Dialogue foreign ministers meeting in Tokyo signals that the so-called Quad has arrived as a global diplomatic combination. The Quad is already an Indo-Pacific military power.

For Beijing, the Quads formation and solidification is a nightmareand Chinas communist government has only itself to blame.

In 2007, the Quad, at the behest of Japan, held its first informal meeting. At that meeting, Japan said all four nations regard China as a disruptive actor in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. This common concern should spur close cooperation to confront it.

For several reasons, India downplayed the initial meeting. Many Indians valued their nations Cold War-era non-alignment policy. Tight military cooperation with the United States might betray that legacy. Australia, the United States, and Japan have long-term bilateral and trilateral defense relationships. Indian and Australian military contacts are close, but India prized strategic autonomy and was suspicious of mutual defense commitments.

Moreover, in 2007, India carefully avoided the appearance of actively countering China. Economic cooperation with Beijing had potential benefits. Plus, New Delhi and Beijing were trying to peacefully resolve their border disputes in the Himalayas.

What a difference 13 years make, especially a bakers dozen scarred by Chinese imperialist territorial expansion, intellectual theft, military buildup, and lawless behavior. Chinas fake South China Sea islands bristle with weapons and violate the Philippines and Vietnams maritime zones. Beijing recently announced its new hypersonic missiles can smash Guam, a sovereign American territory. Human rights organizations accuse Beijing of genocide against Turkic Uighurs and ethnic Tibetans.

That border settlement in the Himalayas? Today, Indian and Chinese military forces clash in the mountains as China builds a transportation network capable of supporting a sustained ground offensive driving south into the subcontinent.

In the past 13 years, it looks as if Indias leaders have learned that Chinas dictators interpret avoiding the appearance of opposing them as recognition of their power and a form of appeasement.

But the United States had a learning curve. American optimism regarding Chinas future has turned to pushback pessimism. The militarization of the South China Sea and the demonization of the United States by Chinese military leaders soured the U.S.-China relationship. The last straw: Beijings deceit allowed COVID-19/the Wuhan virus to become a global pandemic.

Which takes us back to last weeks Tokyo conference, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo representing the United States.

In his initial remarks, Pompeo said the Quads democracies have chosen to cooperate. Then, he bluntly rebuked the Chinese Communist Party for covering up the epidemics outbreak.

The regimes authoritarian nature led its leaders to lock up and silence the very brave Chinese citizens who were raising the alarm.  As partners in this Quad, it is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the CCPs exploitation, corruption, and coercion. Weve seen it in the south, in the East China Sea, the Mekong, the Himalayas, the Taiwan Straits.

Today, Indian military forces routinely participate in Quad military exercises in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. Indian naval forces enter the South China Sea. Indian ships have exercised with Japanese air and naval forces in the East China Sea between Japans home islands and Okinawa. Much to the chagrin of Chinese admirals, Indian, U.S., Japanese, and Australian forces conduct coalition exercises in the Indian Ocean.

In December 2018, then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis told Indian media that the United States and India had overcome hesitations of history and made it clear there is no contradiction between strategic autonomy and strategic partnership.

India knows it confronts a powerful, hostile China that seeks domination. One against one, India is at a disadvantage. But as a combination, the Quad can penalize Chinese economic and criminal mischief, and punish Chinese military adventurism.

Austin Bay is a colonel (ret.) in the U.S. Army Reserve, author, syndicated columnist, and teacher of strategy and strategic theory at the University of TexasAustin. His latest book is Cocktails from Hell: Five Wars Shaping the 21st Century.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
In a major milestone for Gov. Kate Browns plan to protect seniors from coronavirus infections, each worker and consenting resident in Oregons 683 care homes has now been tested for the disease at least once, state officials said Tuesday.

More than 61,000 people work and live in Oregons nursing, assisted living and memory care homes. The state agency overseeing senior care does not yet know the results of all the tests, but of the 51,204 results it does have, 2.2% -- about 1,130 -- were positive, the Department of Human Services said.

The broad testing push is part of Oregons plan to help re-open the states nursing, assisted living and memory care facilities to visitors without risking further outbreaks.

We are one step closer to finding a way to strike the balance between keeping our long-term care facilities free of COVID-19," Brown said in a statement, "and making sure residents are able to have the family time that is so critical to their well-being and health.

The onus was originally on facilities to find and pay for testing. The state then started to look for contractors to do some of the work in July and also promised to reimburse the cost.

In the next phase, all 683 facilities in Oregon will have to test each worker at least once a month.

Senior care homes have continued to report coronavirus cases, among the most recent being Fernhill Estates, a Portland nursing home, which was ordered to stop accepting new residents Tuesday. Nearly 90 other facilities have at least one coronavirus case, according to state records.

Nearly 290 senior care residents have died after contracting the coronavirus since the pandemic started, accounting for half of the states 581 coronavirus deaths.

Data expert David Cansler contributed to this report.

-- Fedor Zarkhin

503-294-7674|fzarkhin@oregonian.com|@fedorzarkhin
Even a global pandemic can't keep international carriers away from San Francisco International and the booming Silicon Valley. After years of teasing its arrival, Qatar Airways will finally land at SFO on Dec. 15, 2020 with four weekly flights using a new Airbus A350-900.

The widebody jet will offer 247 economy class and 36 business class seats (no first class) on the 16-hour, 8,061-mile flight between SFO and Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar (DOH).

With the temporary shutdown of Emirates Airline's SFO-Dubai nonstops through at least this winter, Qatar Airways will be the only Middle East carrier serving SFO.

Flights will depart SFO at 2:55 p.m. and arrive in Doha at 5:15 p.m. the following day. On the return to SFO, flights depart Doha at 8:15 a.m., and arrive at 12:55 p.m. on the same day. Flights will operate on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

Checking Qatar Airways fares today for December, round trips between SFO and DOH in economy class are about $1,100, and business class is about $4,500. A large number of travelers will use Qatar to fly to India. We checked roundtrip fares between SFO and Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore for December trips and found $1,500 in economy and $4,500 in business class-- all flights had relatively short 2-3 hour layovers in Doha.

Qatar

Qatar Airways is known for having one of best business class seats, which it calls the Qsuite. Seats are configured 1-2-1, and include privacy doors with the option of using a "do not disturb" indicator. In its typically boastful style, the airline describes it as "the most spacious, fully private, comfortable and social distanced business class product in the sky." An airport spokesperson told SFGATE that business class lounge arrangements have yet to be confirmed for Qatar Airways passengers.

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Qatar Airways configures its A350-900 economy class seats 3-3-3 across with a relatively standard 18-inch wide seat with a pitch of 31-32 inches. See more about Qatar Airways A350-900 on Seatguru.com. Nice: Even in economy class, inflight wi-fi is free for all passengers through at least the end of January, according to the airline. (See more about economy class here.)

Some Americans got a taste of what flying Qatar Airways is like if they flew on Air Italy last year from several U.S. cities (including SFO) to Milan. The airline was partially owned by Qatar Airways which used its planes, and trained its cabin staff. (Read our MXP-SFO Trip Report here.) Air Italy dissolved earlier this year.

Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker, said: We are thrilled to welcome San Francisco as our newest destination, and our ninth current gateway in the U.S. As we navigate the crisis, we have made it a priority to not only reinstate our existing destinations and be the airline travellers can rely on, but to also grow our network and increase connectivity with new and relevant destinations for our customers to enjoy...As the gateway to Silicon Valley and the vibrant tech economy, the San Francisco Bay Area is a globally important destination, both from a business and leisure perspective."

Currently, Qatar Airways flies to Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. It's a member of the Oneworld Alliance, led by American and British Airways.

Like most carriers, Qatar Airways allows unlimited date and destination (within 5,000 miles) changes on tickets issued before Dec. 31, 2020. However, according to the US Embassy in Doha, Americans must provide a negative COVID-19 test, and quarantine for a week upon arrival-- a requirement that is subject to change-- you can monitor it on the US Embassy website.





Onboard, the airline said that it "has stringently implemented the most advanced safety and hygiene measures, including the provision of personal protective equipment for cabin crew and a complimentary protective kit and disposable face shields for passengers." Additionally, the carrier said that it recently became the first international carrier to use ultraviolet lights to sanitize plane interiors.

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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.
Business leaders across America expressed dismay after President Donald Trump announced that his team will halt stimulus talks until after next month's election, with executives from the retail and aviation industries saying more jobs will be lost if the economy doesn't get immediate aid.

"This is very unfortunate. The economy is not something that can be put on hold until a time that might be more convenient," Steve Lamar, the head of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, said in a statement to Bloomberg News. "People are suffering today."

US President Donald Trump's announcement that stimulus talks will be on hold until after the election has been slammed by US corporate leaders. Credit:AP

Delays in further stimulus measures are a blow to sectors such as retail, restaurants and air travel, which have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 economic downturn. Bankruptcies has swelled this year as consumers rapidly overhaul their spending and travel habits.

Stimulus efforts earlier in the pandemic helped soften the blow of widespread job losses and economic shutdowns, but the effects have faded. In September, the US unemployment rate was 7.9 per cent - more than double what it was this time last year, according to data from the Labor Department released on Friday.
Today in history, on October 7, 1571, one of the most cataclysmic clashes between Islam and the West  one where the latter for once crushed and humiliated the former  took place.

In 1570, Muslim Turks  in the guise of the Ottoman Empire  invaded the island of Cyprus, prompting Pope Pius V to call for and form a "Holy League" of maritime Catholic nation-states, spearheaded by the Spanish Empire, in 1571. Before they could reach and relieve Cyprus, its last stronghold at Famagusta was taken through treachery.

After promising the defenders safe passage if they surrendered, Ottoman commander Ali Pasha  known as Muezzinzade ("son of a muezzin") due to his pious background  had reneged and launched a wholesale slaughter. He ordered the nose and ears of Marco Antonio Bragadin, the fort commander, hacked off. Ali then invited the mutilated infidel to Islam and life: "I am a Christian and thus I want to live and die," Bragadin responded. "My body is yours. Torture it as you will."

So he was tied to a chair, repeatedly hoisted up the mast of a galley, and dropped into the sea, to taunts: "Look if you can see your fleet, great Christian, if you can see succor coming to Famagusta!" The mutilated and half-drowned man was then carried near to St. Nicholas Church  by now a mosque  and tied to a column, where he was slowly flayed alive. The skin was afterward stuffed with straw, sown back into a macabre effigy of the dead commander, and paraded in mockery before the jeering Muslims.

News of this and other ongoing atrocities and desecrations of churches in Cyprus and Corfu enraged the Holy League as it sailed east. A bloodbath followed when the two opposing fleets  carrying a combined total of 600 ships and 140,000 men, more of both on the Ottoman side  finally met and clashed on October 7, 1571, off the western coast of Greece, near Lepanto. According to one contemporary:

The greater fury of the battle lasted for four hours and was so bloody and horrendous that the sea and the fire seemed as one, many Turkish galleys burning down to the water, and the surface of the sea, red with blood, was covered with Moorish coats, turbans, quivers, arrows, bows, shields, oars, boxes, cases, and other spoils of war, and above all many human bodies, Christians as well as Turkish, some dead, some wounded, some torn apart, and some not yet resigned to their fate struggling in their death agony, their strength ebbing away with the blood flowing from their wounds in such quantity that the sea was entirely coloured by it, but despite all this misery our men were not moved to pity for the enemy. ... Although they begged for mercy they received instead arquebus shots and pike thrusts.

The pivotal point came when the flagships of the opposing fleets, the Ottoman Sultana and the Christian Real, crashed into and were boarded by one another. Chaos ensued as men everywhere grappled; even the grand admirals were seen in the fray, Ali Pasha firing arrows and Don Juan swinging broadsword and battle-axe, one in each hand.

In the end, "there was an infinite number of dead" on the Real, whereas "an enormous quantity of large turbans, which seemed to be as numerous as the enemy had been, [were seen in the Sultana] rolling on the deck with the heads inside them." The don emerged alive, but the pasha did not.

When the central Turkish fleets saw Ali's head on a pike in the Sultana and a crucifix where the flag of Islam once fluttered, mass demoralization set in, and the waterborne melee was soon over. The Holy League lost twelve galleys and ten thousand men, but the Ottomans lost 230 galleys  117 of which were captured by the Europeans  and thirty thousand men.

It was a victory of the first order, and Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestants rejoiced.

Practically speaking, however, little changed. Cyprus was not even liberated by the Holy League. "In wrestling Cyprus from you we have cut off an arm," the Ottomans painfully reminded the Venetian ambassador a year later. "In defeating our fleet [at Lepanto] you have shaved our beard. An arm once cut off will not grow again, but a shorn beard grows back all the better for the razor."

Even so, this victory proved that the relentless Turks, who in previous decades and centuries had conquered much of Eastern Europe, could be stopped. Lepanto suggested that the Turks could be defeated in a head-on clash  at least by sea, which of late had been the Islamic powers' latest hunting grounds. As Miguel Cervantes, who was at the battle, has the colorful Don Quixote say: "That day ... was so happy for Christendom, because all the world learned how mistaken it had been in believing that the Turks were invincible by sea."

Modern historians affirm this position. According to military historian Paul K. Davis, "More than a military victory, Lepanto was a moral one. For decades, the Ottoman Turks had terrified Europe, and the victories of Suleiman the Magnificent caused Christian Europe serious concern. ... Christians rejoiced at this setback for the Ottomans. The mystique of Ottoman power was tarnished significantly by this battle, and Christian Europe was heartened."

No matter how spectacular, however, defeat at sea could not shake what was first and foremost a land power  so that more than a century later, in 1683, some 200,000 armed Ottomans had penetrated as far as and besieged Vienna.

But that  to say nothing of Turkey's many other jihads down to the present  is another story.

Historical quotes in this article were excerpted from the author's Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West  a book that CAIR and its Islamist allies did everything they could to prevent the U.S. Army War College from learning about.

Image: Harrygouvas via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped).
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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan  Thu, October 8 2020

Febi Nur Amelia, a 29-year-old resident of North Sumatra, has been acquitted of all defamation charges after the Medan District Court found that her disputed Instagram post was simply an attempt to ask for her money back from an acquaintance who had yet to repay a Rp 70 million (US$4,710) debt.

Presiding judge Sri Wahyuni Batubara said the defendant had not been proven guilty of having defamed Fitriani Manurung, her former friend and the wife of a police officer, who had accused Febi of insulting her by writing a post about the debt on social media.

Sri said the defendant had resorted to publicly posting about the debt on Instagram because there was no other way of contacting Fitriani regarding the matter.

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Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said here on Wednesday that revival of the nations economy post-Covid lockdown was clearly visible and the indicators looked positive.

We are getting good positive marks from high frequency indicators.

And, indicators from all states show a revival, she pointed out.

I have been speaking with industry leaders directly who say we reached pre-Covid capacity utilisation.

So revival is clearly visible, Sitharaman told a press conference during a visit to Vijayawada.

On GST compensation that has become a contentious issue with some states, the Finance Minister said the GST Council would meet again on the 12th.

We had a seven-hour long discussion with all states.

Again we are going to meet on the 12th.

That will decide how things are on compensation related matters, she said.

The GST Council was already in agreement that the compensation cess collection should go beyond five years.

It was only meant to be collected for five yearsthe transition five years.

But the GST Council decided to continue collecting the cess. So that is very clear, Sitharaman noted.

On the three farm-related laws recently enacted by the Centre, Sitharaman said the protests being carried out in various states were based only on political motives.

They are opposing the laws only for politics, even forgetting their own promises made in their 2019 election manifesto, she said, referring to the Congress manifesto.

We feel they included that in their manifesto only to hoodwink the voters and grab votes.

Did you tell lies then or telling them now? she asked.

Sitharaman recalled that the BJP too made the promises in its election manifesto and fulfilled them as Prime Minister Narendra Modi desired those reforms for the benefit of the farmers.

The Finance Minister wondered why the opposition leaders did not speak in Parliament when the Bills were being discussed.

When the Bills came up for discussion in the Rajya Sabha, upon clearance in Lok Sabha, the opposition did not raise any questions.

They did not display their leadership and merrily sat behind some fringe groups that created trouble in the Rajya Sabha, or joined the ruckus in tearing off the Bills.

But they did not raise any questions, Sitharaman lashed out.

Asked if contract farmers would be brought under the Income Tax net, the Finance Minister said they had not given any such thought so far.

Please do not make any issue of it, she said.

Earlier in the day, Sitharaman interacted with farmers at a field in Jakkula Nekkalam village near Gannavaram airport and elicited feedback on various farm-related issues.

She took part in a programme in the evening, organised by the BJP to educate farmers on the new farm-related laws enacted by the Centre.
Sean Conley

Caught behind a rock and a hard place is president Trumps physician Sean Conley, who has been roundly criticized for his upbeat assessments of our COVID-19-stricken tweeter-in-chief.

The Financial Times ridiculed Conley as Trumps cheerleader-in-chief, who casts the president in an unflinchingly positive light.

Conley has been called a publicist in a white lab coat for saying, I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, over his course of illness, has had, or triumphantly announcing, Hes back."

As a US Navy trauma doctor, Conley served in Afghanistan, where he treated soldiers with life-threatening injuries.

The FT notes that as a military doctor Conley technically must defer to the president as commander-in-chief. The trauma doctor never could have imagined the drama involved in serving a patient as unhinged as Trump.

Goodbye. Ruby Tuesday. It didnt take a genius to know that headline writers would reference the Rolling Stones 1967 classic on stories about the casual dining restaurant chain going belly-up.

Thats why Ruby Tuesday CEO Shawn Lederman said in the company's Oct. 7 Chapter 11 press release: This announcement does not mean Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday.

He went on to say that the financial restructuring is a critical step in our transformation for long-term financial healththis is 'Hello,' to a stronger Ruby Tuesday.

Theres even a new logo with the tagline Hello, Ruby Tuesday: Restructuring to be Better than Ever.

Lederman was less upbeat in the court filing, saying that the 185 restaurants that were shut down during the pandemic are now permanently closed. That leaves about 235 company-owned and operated franchises.

About 7,000 of Ruby Tuesdays 7,300 employees have been temporarily furloughed.

The Maryville, TN-based company, which was founded in 1972, distributed a fact sheet to laid off team members informing them they are no longer Ruby Tuesday employees and will not be recalled to work.

It told them they will receive no further compensation from the company and advised them to file for unemployment benefits.

We also encourage team members to stay abreast of local news updates as some restaurants and school systems have committed to provide free meals for children during this time, says the fact sheet. Ruby Tuesday also provided a list of charities that offer free meals and rental assistance.

As the Stones sing: Aint life unkind. Amen to that, say Ruby Tuesday employees.

Elon Musk crashes Teslas PR department, according to the Electrek green energy blog, which reported that journalists havent received replies to their questions from the automaker in months.

But that doesnt mean that Tesla has pulled the plug on its communications outreach.

Tesla has paid five different lobbying firms to do its bidding in DC during 2020.

Musks company spent $210K on lobbying during the first half of 2020 at Fulcrum Public Affairs, Holland & Knight, Phoenix Global Organization Inc., Tai Ginsberg & Assocs. and West Front Strategies.

The powerful Cassidy & Assocs. joined the lobbying team on Sept. 29. Kai Anderson, deputy chief of staff to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, leads the push on issues such as tax credits and transportation electrification matters.

Tesla is no shrinking flower on Capitol Hill.
Australian Border Force officers have arrested and charged two Geraldton men for allegedly importing child-like sex dolls into Australia.

The men, aged 65 and 61, are not believed to be linked, and were targeted in separate investigations following the interception in Perth last month of two air cargo packages sent from Hong Kong.

One of the men arrested in Geraldton this week over the alleged importation of child-like sex dolls. Credit:ABF

Both parcels, which arrived in September, were described as containing a mannequin, but when ABF officers examined the contents they allegedly found a silicon child-like sex doll in each.

The 65-year-old was arrested on Monday after a search on his home saw officers seize electronic communication devices, sex doll accessories and parts belonging to an imported, infant-sized sex doll. Hes been charged with one count of importing a Tier 2 good.
The Real California Milk Snackcelerator taps into the $605 billion global snack food market 1 while combining two of California's great natural resources: High quality, sustainable dairy products and the insatiable California entrepreneurial spirit. The competition aims to inspire innovation and investment in dairy-based snack products, packaging and capacity within California by connecting the dots between processors, producers, investors, ideas and entrepreneurs.

"The purpose of this competition is to inspire new ideas integrating the natural ingredients, flavor and nutritional profile of milk and other dairy products and this year's entries certainly delivered," said John Talbot, CEO of the CMAB. "In fact, when the judging committee evaluated the applications, we saw so many unique ideas and scaleable opportunities to bring new products to market, it was clear that we needed to find a way to expand the program even further."

VentureFuel, Inc. , the leading corporate innovation consultancy, is partnering with CMAB to run the program and identified and recruited applicants from their global network of investors, founders and academics. "We saw a 153% increase in qualified applications from our first program with CMAB, which is a testament to the momentum we have been building together as well as the opportunity in marrying snacking innovation with dairy," said Fred Schonenberg, Founder of VentureFuel, Inc. "We saw applications from Ghana to Oakland that included personalized nutrition, functional foods as well as unique flavor-profiles inspired by cultures around the world. Now comes the fun part of helping accelerate these products so that they are ready to pitch at the semi-finals, the finals and ultimately get to market for consumers to enjoy."

The competition now moves to the Sweet & Savory 16 where semi-finalists will be broken into two groups, "Sweet" for those that cater to the sweet flavors and "Savory" for those palates that look for more salty and cooked flavors. The 16 semi-finalist applicants for the 2020 RCM Snackcelerator are:

Sweet

Peekaboo Ice Cream: The first and only organic ice cream with the added nutritional benefits of vegetables.

The first and only organic ice cream with the added nutritional benefits of vegetables. FitPro Heroes' Cookies: High quality lactose-free, shelf-stable protein cookies that deliver ingredients designed to support daily performance needs, including: mental acuity, healthy energy, joint support and inflammation relief, stress and anxiety relief, sleep aid, as well as offering traditional protein recovery benefits from premium milk proteins.

High quality lactose-free, shelf-stable protein cookies that deliver ingredients designed to support daily performance needs, including: mental acuity, healthy energy, joint support and inflammation relief, stress and anxiety relief, sleep aid, as well as offering traditional protein recovery benefits from premium milk proteins. Moody's Ice Cream: Mood-boosting ice creams. Moody's infuses ultra-premium ice cream with functional ingredients, adaptogens and herbalist blends to naturally boost mood and turn up the body's own superpowers.

Mood-boosting ice creams. Moody's infuses ultra-premium ice cream with functional ingredients, adaptogens and herbalist blends to naturally boost mood and turn up the body's own superpowers. Lucha Leche: Protein-rich yogurt drinks, in Latin-inspired flavors, fortified with pre- and probiotics and no added sugars. Provides a healthy, nutritional snacking option featuring a relatable cultural icon: The Luchador.

Protein-rich yogurt drinks, in Latin-inspired flavors, fortified with pre- and probiotics and no added sugars. Provides a healthy, nutritional snacking option featuring a relatable cultural icon: The Luchador. Frutero Ice Cream: Premium Latin-inspired ice cream made with 100% real tropical fruits and creamy butterfat. Flavors include Mango, Guava, Passion Fruit, Guanabana and Coconut.

Premium Latin-inspired ice cream made with 100% real tropical fruits and creamy butterfat. Flavors include Mango, Guava, Passion Fruit, Guanabana and Coconut. Optimized Foods: Functional Ice Cream Bars: Premium ice cream novelties that leverage innovative proprietary encapsulation technologies to deliver key functionally proven health ingredients (improved muscle performance, cognitive function, intestinal immunity, etc.) with better taste and greater bioavailability.

Premium ice cream novelties that leverage innovative proprietary encapsulation technologies to deliver key functionally proven health ingredients (improved muscle performance, cognitive function, intestinal immunity, etc.) with better taste and greater bioavailability. Petit Pot: The first brand to bring traditional French desserts to American grocery stores is developing a new indulgent chocolate dessert, perfect for family snacking, made with the best organic, local ingredients.

The first brand to bring traditional French desserts to American grocery stores is developing a new indulgent chocolate dessert, perfect for family snacking, made with the best organic, local ingredients. wunder Cheesecake Bites: A snackable, decadent, feel-good cheesecake that's high in protein and low in carbs. Ready to eat in a convenient, single-serve package.

Savory

Baozza : An entirely new snack category, combining two of the most consumed foods in Asian and gen pop culture - Bao buns and pizza.

: An entirely new snack category, combining two of the most consumed foods in Asian and gen pop culture - Bao buns and pizza. WheyUp Probiotic Kefir Krisps: Snack chips made from creme Kefir (Labne) with a 1-year shelf life while maintaining the active probiotic cultures in a cheese yogurt snack.

Snack chips made from creme Kefir (Labne) with a 1-year shelf life while maintaining the active probiotic cultures in a cheese yogurt snack. Whey Cool Kitchen Curd Cup: Whey Cool Kitchen Curd Cup is the first clean, mix-in dairy snack with savory flavors, high in protein, making it the perfect afternoon snack or lunchtime meal

Whey Cool Kitchen Curd Cup is the first clean, mix-in dairy snack with savory flavors, high in protein, making it the perfect afternoon snack or lunchtime meal Sach Foods Organic Paneer: The world's first flavored and artisanal paneer. Rooted in Indian cuisine, this is a snackable version of paneer, a time-tested, nutrient-rich food and a high-protein favorite for millions around the world.

The world's first flavored and artisanal paneer. Rooted in Indian cuisine, this is a snackable version of paneer, a time-tested, nutrient-rich food and a high-protein favorite for millions around the world. Fahris LLC: Yoghurt Chips: Inspired by a historical Mediterranean recipe, these chips are made from high quality California cow's milk, which first turns into prebiotic- rich yoghurt and then is mixed with crushed wheat and thyme. The final product is a hunger-satiating snack that is high in protein and rich in fiber, healthy enzymes, and probiotics.

Inspired by a historical Mediterranean recipe, these chips are made from high quality cow's milk, which first turns into prebiotic- rich yoghurt and then is mixed with crushed wheat and thyme. The final product is a hunger-satiating snack that is high in protein and rich in fiber, healthy enzymes, and probiotics. Saga Ventures Crispy Cheese Bar: A crispy cheese bar snack utilizing California cheese and other flavors for the perfect savory snacking option that is low carb and high in protein to provide a boost of sustainable energy.

A crispy cheese bar snack utilizing cheese and other flavors for the perfect savory snacking option that is low carb and high in protein to provide a boost of sustainable energy. Yummy Industries: Cheese Bits: An innovative line of all-natural, fresh and wood-smoked scamorza and chechil cheeses, conveniently shaped and packaged for snacking fun. Made in California from 100% local milk.

An innovative line of all-natural, fresh and wood-smoked scamorza and chechil cheeses, conveniently shaped and packaged for snacking fun. Made in from 100% local milk. Enrich Protein: Hispanic-style dairy snack chip containing innovative and novel enhanced dairy proteins to support greater health, body composition and exercise recovery.

Through the Real California Milk Snackcelerator, the CMAB sought high-growth potential snack product concepts, with cow's milk dairy as their first ingredient and making up at least 50% of their formula. The startups have committed to producing the product in California, with milk from California dairy farms, should they win the competition. The sixteen (16) startups accepted into the cohort will receive $10,000 worth of support each, to develop an edible prototype, while receiving a suite of resources including graphic design, lab or kitchen time and elite mentorship from global marketing, packaging, and distribution experts. They also will receive additional services and support via industry leaders to help drive success of their new venture.

Semi-finalists will compete in four (4) virtual events on November 10 and 11 followed by a final virtual public pitch event for the "Final Four" November 19th from 5  6:30 p.m. PT. The first-place winner will receive up to $200,000 worth of additional support and the second-place winner $100,000 worth of additional support to get their new product to market. The value of the competition prizing is over $800,000.

California, known for innovation, has a reputation for quality dairy products. As the number one producer of fluid milk in the nation, California also leads the nation in sustainable dairy farming practices. More than 1,200 family dairy farms produce the California milk found in fluid milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream and other dairy products identified by the Real California Milk seal.

About Real California Milk/California Milk Advisory Board

The California Milk Advisory Board (CMAB), an instrumentality of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, is funded by the state's dairy farm families who lead the nation in sustainable dairy farming practices. With a vision to nourish the world with the wholesome goodness of Real California Milk, the CMAB's programs focus on increasing demand for California's sustainable dairy products in the state, across the U.S. and around the world through advertising, public relations, research, and retail and foodservice promotional programs. For more information and to connect with the CMAB, visit RealCaliforniaMilk.com , Facebook , YouTube , Twitter , Instagram and Pinterest .

About VentureFuel, Inc.

VentureFuel helps established companies around the world unlock growth and discover efficiencies by partnering with emerging startups and breakthrough technologies. Our innovation programs solve specific challenges with tangible results, discover first-to-market opportunities and help large organizations develop a repeatable innovation mindset. We are 100% independent, sourcing from our global network of the best investors, scouts, founders and academics. Learn more at: www.venturefuel.net , Linked-In , Twitter and Instagram . You can hear The VentureFuel Podcast on Apple , Spotify or Messy.

1. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/citi-global-snack-market-110553461.html

SOURCE California Milk Advisory Board

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday expressed deep concern about vicious cycle of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh, saying that the conflict should come to an immediate end and not to spread to the region, IRNA reported.

Speaking during a cabinet session, Rouhani said that in his talks with the Armenian and Azeri officials, he had underlined the significance of protecting the Iranian security. "Nothing can be resolved by conflict and bloodshed," he said.

He cautioned those who fan the flames of war that this war would not favor anyone.

Rouhani said that Iran cannot tolerate the shelling of its soil by the warring sides. He noted that Tehran has asked Armenia and Azerbaijan to pay due attention to this issue.

It is not acceptable for Iran that certain countries are transferring terrorist elements from Syria and other places to this region which is close to the Iranian border, the president said, adding that Iran has conveyed this message to officials from both Azerbaijan and Armenia.

"There are other ways to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh problem that we are ready to help in this regard," Rouhani added, Mehr News Agency reported.

"We must be very careful. We must not let this war turn into a regional war. This war will not benefit anyone," he said.

"Everyone must accept the reality and everyone must accept the rights of nations. Everyone must respect territorial integrity and know that the solution to the problem is not war. Rather, political solution is the only solution for this issue, and of course every country must respect the rights of its neighbors," Rouhani highlighted.

Emphasizing that occupation and war are not acceptable to Iran at all, he said, "Peace is the basis for the Islamic Republic of Iran and is very important to us."
Donald Trump was not tested for coronavirus every day, an impression the White House created as part of its safety measures around the president, which has made it difficult to determine the point he was infected and how long he will be contagious.

White House officials and Dr. Sean Conley, Trump's personal physician, have refused to say the last time the president tested negative for the coronavirus.

And two officials admitted to The New York Times that Trump is not tested on a daily basis with a senior administration official only saying the president was tested 'regularly.'

But the officials also said Trump was tested before the presidential debate on Tuesday even though the White House has not said that publicly.

The date of the president's last known negative test would help establish the state of his health when he went to a fundraiser in Bedminister, N.J., on Thursday and the debate earlier that week.

It would also help narrow down where he was likely infected and the date his quarantine could end.

Donald Trump was not tested for coronavirus every day, an impression the White House created as part of its safety measures around the president

The White House used testing to create an aura of safety around the president - above a healthcare worker is tested in New York

The White House uses rapid testing - the Abbott test - which gives results in 15 minutes.

President Trump's diagnosis was announced shortly before 1 am on Friday night. Aides said he was originally tested with the Abbott test. When that result was positive, the president was given the PCR test, which is more accurate but its results take longer.

They have not said when that first positive result popped up for Trump.

The White House has said repeatedly that anyone getting close to the president - senior officials, those meeting with him, members of the press - are tested daily, using the aura of testing to create an impression of safety.

President Trump has used this himself. When asked why he doesn't wear a face mask, his response has been he is tested and people around him are testing, using the testing procedures are as argument for safety against the deadly virus.

Additionally, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and economic adviser Larry Kudlow both spoke to reporters on the White House drive way Friday, after Trump's positive diagnonsis, without wearing masks. Both said they had been tested that day.

And, in July, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEneny described Trump as the 'most tested man in America.'

'He's tested more than anyone, multiple times a day,' she said.

But later that July day, Trump himself contradicted her.

'I don't know about more than one,' he told a reporter who asked him why he was tested more than once a day. 'I do probably on average a test every two days, three days, and I don't know of any time I've taken two in one day, but I could see that happening.'

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, in July, described Trump as the most tested man in America; she is seen above with Trump aide Steven Miller in August - both have now tested positive for COVID

The White House changed its approach to COVID and upped its testing policy in May, when Katie Miller, a spokesperson for Vice President Mike Pence, tested positive for coronavirus as did a Navy valet who worked closely to the president.

Miller is married to Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Her diagnosis shook up the West Wing given her proximity to the president and to Pence.

'She's a wonderful young woman, Katie, she tested very good for a long period of time,' President Trump said at the time. 'And then all of the sudden today she tested positive.'

He continued: 'This is why the whole concept of tests aren't necessarily great. The tests are perfect, but something can happen between a test where it's good and then something happens.'

Stephen Miller announced Tuesday he tested positive for COVID.
Like board meetings, the notice of annual meeting will contain virtual video (or telephone) conferencing information and passwords. All annual meeting business will be handled virtually except for the short portion of the annual meeting when voting is opened to allow any condo owners who wish to vote in person to be allowed to do so, while practicing social distancing policies.
As the final phase of negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam begin, all those involved must hope that a just solution can be found that is satisfactory to all

The crisis surrounding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a product of the manipulations of the world powers, Ethiopias regional ambitions, and Egyptian miscalculations and mistakes.

The GERD crisis and other Nile Basin controversies always rear their head when Egypt is weak and recede when Egypt regains its strength and demonstrates its will and determination.

It is common knowledge that Egypt has long been coveted by international and regional powers because of its unique civilisational heritage and its strategic location at the juncture of continents and astride the most important waterway in the world.

If the historical record speaks of endless conspiracies and wars against Egypt, the present is not without collusions against Egyptian interests either, and the countrys future will be at risk unless we remain vigilant against such lurking dangers. Such is the fate of Egypt. It is either a defiant hero or a slave.

The current weakness in Egypt and the Arab world began in the 1990s. It has brought the destruction of Iraq and the Iraqi nation, the devastation of Syria and the largest displacement of people in history, the internal fragmentation of Lebanon, massive human and material destruction in Libya, the partition of Sudan, the collapse of Somalia and the near total collapse of Yemen.

Among the signs of Egypts weakness during the period have been the international adoption of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) at Egypts expense, resulting in the Entebbe Agreement, the execution of Ethiopian plans to construct dams on the Blue Nile, and various other designs on the Nile Basin. In the confusion and disarray that followed the January 2011 Revolution, Egypt made a number of mistakes that ultimately brought us to the stage we are at today: the near completion of the construction of the GERD, the first filling of the reservoir and a halt in the talks due to Ethiopian intransigence.

The collapse of the trilateral talks between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan was inevitable because of Addis Ababas constant shifting of the goalposts. At first, Ethiopia led us to believe that the purpose of the GERD was to serve its electricity needs for both domestic development and export. Cairo and Khartoum approved and welcomed this aim, and the three governments signed an agreement on a Declaration of Principles that called on them to agree terms on the filling and operation of the dam on the basis of joint studies that they would set in motion.

Their guiding principle was that Ethiopia should be able to produce the greatest amounts of electricity possible at the GERD without causing harm to the downstream nations of Egypt and Sudan. But then Addis Ababa created one problem after the next in order to evade its commitments under the terms of the agreement and to buy time. As a result, the years since the agreement was signed in 2015 passed by without the necessary studies being performed and without the hoped-for trilateral agreement on the rules for filling and operating the dam.

An outside party had to be called in to mediate, and in late 2019 Washington sponsored a series of intensive technical talks on the GERD also attended by World Bank experts. By February 2020, the three parties had overcome most of their differences and had agreed on most of the rules for filling and operating the GERD.

However, Ethiopia then withdrew from the talks on the eve of the day the three parties were due to sign an agreement in Washington. Moreover, it suddenly insisted on a quota of Blue Nile water and wanted Egypt and Sudan to agree to let it build whatever dams it wanted on the Blue Nile. It also refused to commit to a binding agreement on the rules for filling and operating the GERD and rejected the principle of the recourse to international arbitration in order to resolve any disputes that might arise between Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia over the interpretation or implementation of any agreements reached.

As all involved in the negotiations agree, Egypt is in a difficult situation regarding its water resources. The government has allocated over a trillion pounds over the past 20 years to raising the efficiency of our water network from 75 to 85 per cent by lining irrigation canals to prevent seepage, replacing outworn installations, modernising irrigation systems, improving agricultural runoff water treatment, and other such measures needed to meet our growing populations increasing demands on available water resources.

The government has also expanded water desalinisation projects along the Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts to meet the domestic and industrial water needs of the growing coastal urban areas and industrial zones. Given its already severe water deficit, any reduction in Egypts quota of Nile water could have grave economic, social and security impacts. Therefore, any agreement that is not legally binding on Ethiopia will not be worth the paper it is written on. In like manner, it will not be feasible to implement any agreement that lacks a provision for international arbitration because of the possible disputes that could arise.

On 29 September, the Ethiopian publication Ethiopian Insight featured an article by Raphael Lapin, a US-based law professor of South African origin, proposing a solution to the GERD dispute through trust, linkage and cooperation. Lapins suggestions included increased Egyptian investment in Ethiopia and in the GERD, expanding cultural, educational, technological and agricultural cooperation and exchanges, and signing more trade agreements as well as trilateral military and counterterrorism pacts between Cairo, Khartoum and Addis Ababa.

Lapin suggested a resolution to the crisis over the GERD in two phases. The first would result in an immediate interim agreement covering the most urgent issues and would be of limited duration, essentially just long enough to build trust and lay the foundations of cooperation between the three countries. This would pave the way to the second phase of a long-term joint accord. Towards this end, wide-ranging negotiations would aim at building a strong and sustainable collaborative relationship centering around the optimum utilisation of the Eastern Nile Basin.

Unfortunately, Lapin did not mention the details of his plan, which is where the devil lies, but it is clear that getting the parties to come to terms over them would be a formidable task. With regard to arbitration, which he says is at the core of the disagreement between Cairo and Addis Ababa, Lapin suggests that the three parties agree on an international mediator that in the event of a dispute would attempt to reconcile the differences between them amicably. If that failed, they would turn to international arbitration as the remaining recourse.

Lapins proposals merit consideration, even if they are not entirely new and even though Ethiopia has already rejected similar ideas. The very fact that his article appeared in an Ethiopian newspaper at this time is a sign that Ethiopia is keen to resolve this crisis that has been taking its toll on the government domestically. Egypt, too, would like to resolve this crisis with the least possible friction with fellow African countries, and it has been working hard to promote a fair, realistic, viable and sustainable solution through its communications with the international community, the world powers involved in the region, the East African governments, international observers from the African Union, and other parties.

Some voices in Egypt have called for a targeted military strike against the GERD as a solution to the problem. They have argued that the role of the Egyptian armed forces is to safeguard national security and the welfare of the people and that Egypts water quota is not just a matter of national interest but also a question of life and death.

But the decision to go to war is of course a serious business. This is not a decision that should be taken by armchair generals or in the heat of anger. Questions of war and peace require a cool head and need to be based on thorough and multifaceted strategic studies and not on opinions bandied around over social-networking platforms.

In my opinion, military action should not be ruled out as an option altogether. However, it should only be the very last resort after all other peaceful and rational avenues have been exhausted and then only if it can truly serve the higher interests of Egypt and the Egyptian people. Peace is the path of a rational people, and the pursuit of fairness and justice can offer solutions satisfactory to all.

In this spirit, as we stand at the threshold of the final episode in the GERD negotiations, we must hope that it will lead to solutions that ensure peaceful coexistence with our regional partners and that pave the way to development, progress and prosperity for all the peoples of the region.

The writer is former minister of water resources and irrigation and a professor of water resources at the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Case managers help students and employees navigate their way during quarantine and isolation

Isolation and quarantine housing: Residential students who require isolation or quarantine housing are taken to Richmond Hall. Thats where the Conference & Event Services staff is waiting. Jim Agnew

On-campus testing: W&M has developed a case management system for those in the university community who either have tested positive or been in close proximity of someone who has. Jim Agnew Photo - of - Hide Caption

As William & Marys chief technology officer, Corinne Picataggi describes herself as a process person and systems thinker. When it was time to help the university safely begin in-person classes amid COVID-19, she put those strengths to use.

The result was a case management system to help those in the W&M community who either have tested positive or been identified in close contact of someone who has. From the moment a case manager reaches out to a student or staff member, he or she becomes the main point of contact for any issues or questions that arise relating to the university.

For on-campus students, that includes connecting them with the Student Health Center, transportation and transition to isolation or quarantine housing, helping them shift to online classes, and identifying those who had been in close contact. Faculty and staff have different concerns, like converting to remote teaching, and navigating sick and leave policies.

Case managers also play a critical role in coordinating the universitys response by working with Environmental Health & Safety and Facilities Management on enhanced cleaning and disinfecting, limiting access to physical areas as needed, meeting notification requirements and collaborating with Virginia Department of Health officials.

Picataggi saw the need for comprehensive case management when she was asked to assist the universitys COVID-19 response plan.

Each team was primed and ready to go, she said. What was missing was this coordination of how it was all going to come together. The positive (tested) person or those in close contact would get hit by so many different people and not know who they were supposed to call. It would have been overwhelming.

So I had this idea that we should build a case management system where we could give concierge service to whoever needed it. Wed answer their questions and give them a point person for the university. And, on the administrative side, wed make sure all the boxes are checked.

The COVID-19 Response Team asked her to build an online reporting tool and coordinate the system of case managers  staff members working throughout the university  along with the Student Health Center, the testing group, the quarantine/isolation housing crew and university communications.

The system got its first test the weekend it went live as a residential student tested positive. Picataggi acted as the first case manager to make sure the protocols ran as planned.

The process is like this: After a student logs a positive test on ReportCOVID.wm.edu, a case manager  Picataggi said there are about 20  reviews the form and contacts the Student Health Center. A doctor then reaches out to the student, and then a case manager makes initial contact.

When an employee tests positive, the case manager usually is the first form of contact. The privacy of those who test positive is protected.

Most people, when they find out they are positive, have a lot of medical questions, said Andrea Harris, associate director of university events and a case manager. Were getting our rhythm.

Were all working together really well. We all work together as a team and a unit.

The system also allows William & Mary to provide a high level of personal care during a time when many students, faculty, staff members and their families are understandably stressed.

Residential students who require isolation or quarantine housing are taken to Richmond Hall. Thats where the Conference & Event Services staff  Logan Zumbrun, Madelyn Phillips, Todd Cooke and Director Mariellynn Maurer  are waiting.

For the isolation or quarantine period, they deliver meals and any packages that are sent. They even help find musical instruments to rent. Perhaps most important, they provide a friendly face  albeit masked and at least six feet away  for check-ins multiple times a day.

We want to make them feel as comfortable as possible under the circumstances that have landed them here, Maurer said. We knock on their doors when we deliver their meals to check in and ask Are you doing OK? Is there anything else we can get you?

Each room in Richmond Hall has a full bed, furniture, a mini-fridge, a microwave, and  of course  WiFi. W&M has an arrangement with two local hotels in case extra rooms are needed.

Those who test positive isolate for 10 days or longer if symptomatic at the direction of the Student Health Center. Those who have been potentially exposed to COVID-19 are quarantined for 14 days and tested about midway through to ensure they remain negative.

Student Health Center workers regularly check in. At least one Conference & Event Services staff member is on hand from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and someone is on call from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m.

Its not like theyre being brought to Richmond Hall and left there, Zumbrun said. We always try to provide that level of support by suggesting wellness classes through the student health center or we give them a number to the 24/7 counseling line.

We tell them were always available either by phone, text, Zoom, email  we keep all avenues of communication open while theyre here. Our primary duties are to do the day-to-day checks so they have a friendly face. We try to keep their spirits up.

Thats the goal.

Weve hopefully made it not an easy experience but a relatively comfortable one for them as much as possible, added Phillips, 19. Weve definitely had students say they appreciate all we do for them while theyre here. They seem as happy as they can be given the circumstances.

In addition to checking for physical symptoms, like fever and shortness of breath, case managers also are on the lookout for signs of mental strain.

This population is largely asymptomatic, so its not going to necessarily be fevers and sniffles and coughs, Maurer said. Its going to be anxiety and stress or lack of sleep. Its going to be more the mental side of being alone maybe for the first time, especially if youre a freshman who just came to the university.

Picataggi emphasizes any student or employee who tests positive for COVID-19 or is a close contact needs to notify the university by filling out the form at ReportCOVID.wm.edu. This includes those who have their tests done off campus.

Its a vital step that helps the university not only combat the virus but also assist those who contract it.

Whether theyre tested through William & Mary facilities or at their personal or third-party health care provider, ReportCOVID.wm.edu is how everyone should report a positive test or if theyre identified as a close contact, she said. That is critically important to William & Marys strategy for stopping the spread.

For further information on COVID-19-related issues, including how to be tested and log your results, please visit please visit https://www.wm.edu/about/administration/emergency/current_issues/coronavirus/index.php.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Mayor Bill de Blasio and city Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro will pay tribute to nearly two dozen members of the FDNY who died this year, including two borough residents.

The 113th Annual FDNY Memorial Service Wednesday will be different this year due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, in that it will be a closed ceremony at FDNY Headquarters  9 MetroTech Center in Brooklyn, according to a press release from the department.

The 4 p.m. event will be live-streamed, however, and available for viewing on the departments website.

Traditionally, the event takes place at the Firemens Monument in Manhattan, and is attended by thousands of active and retired FDNY members, along with the families of those who have died.

Among the 23 FDNY members to be honored Wednesday are two family men from Staten Island who were civilian members of the department and reportedly died of COVID-19.

Mark Remolino, 59, was a supervising fire protection inspector and smoke-alarm expert who served the city for 26 years.

He was a father of four, a grandfather, and a husband of 24 years, family told the Advance/SILive.com

James Villecco, 55, a Staten Islander, was an auto mechanic with the FDNY. (FDNY Facebook photo)

James Villecco, 55, was an auto mechanic who joined the FDNY Bureau of Fleet Services in 2014. He originally was assigned to the Coney Island repair facility and later the Review Avenue facility, where he worked in the ambulance repair shop, the FDNY said previously on Facebook.

At a press conference in March, de Blasio said Villecco was the kind of unsung hero who doesnt get the credit he deserves.

Among the other city officials slated to pay their respects Wednesday at the closed event will be Chief of Department John Sudnik, Chief of EMS Lillian Bonsignore and members of the FDNY Ceremonial Unit.
A 54-year-old Massachusetts man is accused of running a major illegal tobacco operation after authorities say he sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of untaxed tobacco products to retail stores in three counties in the state.

Ali Houdroge of Sharon was arrested Friday and charged with tax evasion and money laundering, according to the Massachusetts Attorney Generals office.

The AGs Office alleges that the defendant ran a criminal operation out of Norwood, whereby he weekly imported tens of thousands of dollars of tobacco products from out of state to sell to retail stores in Worcester, Norfolk and Plymouth counties, without paying any taxes, officials said.

The charges were part of an ongoing investigation into the unlicensed and illegal sale of tobacco products across the state, authorities said.

The attorney generals office highlighted the corporation of multiple state agencies working together on the Illegal Tobacco Task Force, which was created to combat contraband tobacco distribution throughout the state.

Houdroge was arraigned in Stoughton District Court on the charges. The case is still pending.

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Jacob Blake was shot in the back seven times Aug. 23 after walking away from the officer and two others who were trying to arrest him. The officer, Rusten Sheskey, shot Blake after Blake opened an SUVs driver-side door and leaned into the vehicle. Three of Blakes children were in the back seat. The shooting was captured on video that circulated quickly online, fueling protests hours later.
New York, Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In support of the rapidly growing humanitarian crisis in Armenia and Artsakh, the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) in coordination with the Hayastan All Armenian Fund announced the #Aid4Artsakh Matching Gift program, open for donations through November 15, 2020.

The matched funds will be used exclusively for humanitarian relief and emergency medical equipment in Armenia and Artsakh, urgently needed as a result of the full-scale war unleashed by Azerbaijan on September 27, 2020.

With over 5,000 Armenians already displaced, the mounting civilian casualties and the crippling damage to infrastructure, during a global pandemic, exacerbate the need for humanitarian relief.

To generate momentum behind this time-sensitive fundraising initiative, AGBU has already made available $1 million to the Hayastan All Armenian Fund with the commitment to make a matching contribution of up to $5 million, depending on total gifts received between now and the campaign deadline. AGBU will match up to $5 million raised during the campaign window, which will apply for any individual donation up to $100,000.

During this very critical stage, AGBUs matching gift opportunity will maximize funding when food and supplies for civilians and life-saving medical equipment for the injured are most needed, stated Hayastan All Armenian Fund Executive Director Haykak Arshamyan.

AGBUs Berge Setrakian described the initiative as a foregone conclusion. Considering the gravity and severity of the need among those in harms way, whether civilians confined to bomb shelters or soldiers in dire medical distress, there is no question about what we are called to do at this dark hour, he stated.

To rush support for emergency relief, donors are asked to give online to at agbu.org/aid4artsakh or giving@agbu.org for wire transfers. Donations may also be made to local AGBU offices. For more information about this limited-time matching program, contact giving@agbu.org.

Founded by the Armenian government in the early 1990s, the Hayastan All Armenia Fund is a non-profit organization supporting projects in Armenia with branches around the world.

Established in 1906, AGBU is the worlds largest non-profit organization devoted to upholding the Armenian heritage through educational, cultural and humanitarian programs. Each year, AGBU is committed to making a difference in the lives of 500,000 people across Armenia, Artsakh and the Armenian diaspora. For over a century, AGBU has remained true to one overarching goal: to create a foundation for the prosperity of all Armenians.

Attachment
President Donald Trump stands on the balcony outside the Blue Room after returning to the White House in Washington on Oct. 5, 2020. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

Trump Looking at 10 Piecemeal Aid Bills, White House Says

President Donald Trump is looking at about 10 stand-alone stimulus bills that would each target a single issue or sector, White House officials said.

Stimulus negotiations are off. Obviously, were looking at the potential for stand-alone bills. Theres about 10 things that we agree on, and if the speaker is willing to look at those things on a piece-by-piece basis, then were willing to look at it, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters on Oct. 7 outside the White House in Washington.

Trump late on Oct. 6 ordered his representatives to stop negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), accusing her of not negotiating in good faith. Pelosi said the order demonstrates that President Trump is unwilling to crush the virus, as is required by the Heroes Act.

Trump later said hed be willing to sign a stand-alone bill that provides a $1,200 stimulus check to Americans, as well as expressing support for stand-alone packages that would allocate funds to airlines and the Paycheck Protection Program.

The two sides remain about $800 billion apart. The White House put forth a $1.6 trillion proposal, while Pelosi wanted a $2.4 trillion package. A major sticking point is whether to include direct financial aid to states, which Democrats want but Republicans do not.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks during a press conference in Washington on Oct. 1, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Over the last several days, while we have been increasing our offers and actually looking at some of the ways to compromise, there hasnt been the same kind of effort on the other side of it from the speaker, Meadows told reporters, leading to Trumps order to stop negotiations.

And so to suggest, to continue to go on with conversations that wouldnt have the support in the Senate, was really something that we couldnt do.

A spokesman for Pelosi said in a statement Oct. 7 that she and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Trumps primary negotiator, spoke over the phone that morning.

The Secretary inquired about a stand-alone airlines bill. The Speaker reminded him that Republicans blocked that bill on Friday & asked him to review the DeFazio bill so that they could have an informed conversation, the spokesman said.

Rep. Peter DeFazios (D-Ore.) bill, H.R. 8504 (pdf), would have extended the payroll support program for airline workers.

While Democrats control the House, Republicans hold the Senate, and a number of GOP senators had said they didnt want another stimulus package, or were critical of the versions that the House has passed in recent months.

Larry Kudlow, a top White House economic adviser, said Oct. 7 that Republicans already made concessions by moving to $1.6 trillion from $1 trillion.

Trump cut off negotiations after Speaker Pelosi turned us down again, he said on CNBCs Squawk Box.

Kudlow said he doesnt see economic recovery depending on a massive assistance package, but targeted bills could help speed things along, including renewing or extending the paycheck program and approving billions for airlines.

With only four weeks until the election, theres not enough time to reach a final compromise on a bill that would pass both the House and the Senate, he added.
He is Putins most serious opponent and the worlds most famous poison victim: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

On 20 August, Navalny collapsed on a plane above Siberia. He was taken to a hospital in the city of Omsk. Two days later, he was flown to Berlin. A German army laboratory determined what the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed on Tuesday: the Kremlin critic was poisoned with the Russian nerve agent Novichok.

Navalny was in a coma for more than two weeks and remained at the Berlin Charite hospital for an entire month. BILD met the opposition politician for an extensive interview yesterday.

My last thought on the plane was that I would die

BILD: Mr. Navalny, a few weeks ago, you were still in a coma. Now you can be seen taking a stroll through Berlin with your family. How are you?

Alexei Navalny: I feel alive. I have been taking several steps to recover since I woke up from the coma. In hospital, I understood what had really happened. I saw my wife and my children again. After 28 days in hospital, I took my first walk in the park, in the rain. It was a feeling of being alive that probably only a few people are familiar with. People were running past me, and I wanted to join them  it was great. My last thought on the plane was that I would die. It is wonderful to talk to my wife, to see my children, and to know: I am alive.

Did you miss anything during your time in hospital?

Navalny: On Monday, I ate at a restaurant again for the first time. German cuisine, obviously. Eisbein. Maybe its a cliche, but I very much enjoyed it. I heard that Berlin is known for its street food. I am looking forward to just going out, sitting down somewhere, and ordering a kebab and a beer.

It is much more intimidating than just shooting someone

You have a wife and two children. Do you feel responsible for them? Have you considered staying here and not returning at all?

Navalny: Thats the most difficult issue for me. Of course I have a responsibility for my family, but I also have their support. I dont want to lie: of course Im wondering whether they might try to poison me in my apartment, where my wife and children are, instead of on a plane. However, my wife and I already made that decision years ago. There wasnt a single moment where we changed our minds. I am a Russian politician, a Russian citizen. I believe that I am doing something important, and many people in Russia support me. I have to share the risk with them. I have to stand on the street with them. This is the only way to gain peoples trust.

How does your wife cope with you being in constant danger to your life? How does she cope with the fact that she could lose you at any moment? Doesnt she say: Alexei, quit politics and do something safe?

Navalny: Nobody would be more disappointed by me than my wife if I were to leave politics behind. We never had such a conversation.

Did you ever expect that the nerve agent Novichok would be used against you?

Navalny: No way. Its crazy that I was poisoned with a military chemical weapon. If the results from the German army lab and the French and Swedish laboratories didnt exist, I wouldnt believe it myself. We know a lot about Putin and the Kremlin. But to poison a civilian with Novichok so he will die on a plane  thats something I wouldnt have thought even the Kremlin would do. But now its been proven without a doubt. Denying that I was poisoned with Novichok would be like denying chemistry itself. We have learned that Putins regime has now really gone insane. From the victims perspective, this is crazy. But maybe their primary goal was not to kill me, but to intimidate people in all of Russia. Sudden, mysterious deaths are incredibly intimidating, and people are afraid of this. It is much more intimidating than just shooting someone.

Auch Interessant



If there were fair elections tomorrow, we would beat Putin

Who was the first person to tell you that you were poisoned with Novichok?

Navalny: After I woke up, I had intense hallucinations for a while. Thats the worst thing about a coma. I cannot remember the moment when I understood what had really happened. My chief of staff, Leonid Volkov, later told me of an episode where I was just sitting there with an open mouth, staring in front of me. When he and Julia told me that I had been poisoned with Novichok, I startled and asked: What, Novichok? Then I continued to just stare.

Another big question is: why were you poisoned at the end of August? Do you think that the point of time had anything to do with the protests in Belarus?

Navalny: Its complex. There were the protests in Belarus and, at the same time, massive protests in Khabarovsk. The Kremlin is terribly afraid because our strategy is working and the approval rates for Putin and his party United Russia are dropping. And they have no idea what to do about it. Our organization has survived the pressure from the Kremlin. I think this was the last resort for them. They probably thought: Alexei, its your fault. We tried everything to intimidate you, but you have continued. Sorry, now we have to kill you. It was their last attempt to do something before it will get worse for them.

Will Putin fall?

Navalny: I am no political scientist and dont do prognoses. But if there were fair elections tomorrow, we would beat Putin. I have no doubt: when there are fair elections, well beat his government party. However, Putin is crazy for money and power. He will do anything to stay in power  anything.

Does that mean he will try again to kill you?

Navalny: Now thats very optimistic (laughs). I'm not naive. Some things I simply can't control. But I have no other country. I am Russian, not German. My country is Russia. I know that my country is ready to have a normal life. To be wealthy. The Russian people deserve to have happy, normal lives. The biggest obstacle to this is Putins goal to be the richest and most powerful man in the world. I oppose him and try to protect myself, my family, and my people.

The Kremlin has now frozen your bank accounts and seized your apartment. How do you want to carry on once youre back in Russia?

Navalny: Thats nothing new for me. My accounts were frozen several times before, and my apartment was also seized before. I got used to it  in contrast to Novichok and this coma thing (laughs). But I dont know what will happen when I return. Maybe theyll arrest me at the airport. I just dont know.

I have no doubt that Schroeder receives shadow payments

Former German chancellor Schroeder, who is working for Rosneft, among others, said that there are no facts yet and that so far everything is speculation. What would you tell him?

Navalny: Thats very disappointing. It is humiliating for the German people, and especially for the Bundeswehr laboratory. Is he saying that they forged the result of their examination? Gerhard Schroeder is being paid by Putin. But if he is now trying to deny the poison attack, this is really disappointing. Its one thing to be a lobbyist for Putin. But now hes trying to protect murderers. I know that even his own party has a very negative view of Schroeders work. Its simply humiliating to hear such words from a former chancellor.

Its also hard to understand for me. He is the former chancellor of the most powerful country in Europe, after all. Now Schroder is Putins errand boy, protecting murderers. I dont know which hidden shadow he received from Putin. There is an official payment, and I have no doubt that there are also shadow payments. Thats my personal opinion as a lawyer who has investigated Rosneft and Gazprom for several years. I dont have a document that says in black and white: Mister Schroeder, here is your suitcase full of money. But I have no doubt that Schroder receives shadow payments.

Schroeder and other Kremlin supporters say that they have a friendly relationship with Russia. Are they friends of Russia in your view?

Navalny: Are people friends of Russia if they steal money from the Russian population? I want the people in Russia to have the same access to medical care that I had in the Charite. But not even the richest people in Russia have such access, because there are no hospitals like this. And why is that? Because of Putin and his friends, people like Gerhard Schroder. They misappropriate Russian money and keep the Russians poor. Just think of space technology. When I was a child, we were so proud to be involved at the forefront of these developments. Thats over. The country is being degraded, and these people help to degrade my country. They are no friends of Russia.

You said you are used to harassment. Still, are you really not afraid?

Navalny: I am not afraid. I am not crazy, I understand the risks, but I cannot control them, after all. I have to live with that. Activists who are working in the regions, or independent journalists who report on the Caucasus  these are really brave people. Like the journalist Irina Slavina, who set herself on fire after having been harassed for years. She was brave. I am a famous guy, its easier for me. Even if someone tries to kill me, generous people help me organize a plane that brings me to Germany. But if youre an independent activist or journalist and you get murdered, nobody but your family will hear about it. If I were afraid, I would be ashamed of myself, because I know the people in the regions have to live with much more pressure than I do.

What does your son think, who is with you in Berlin at the moment? Does he also want to go back to Russia? Does he worry about you?

Navalny: My son is having the time of his life. He doesnt have to go to school and can play video games all day. But seriously: my children also support me. They know what its like when men with black masks search their childrens rooms, when they search their toys, allegedly to find something. My son has a childs bank account on which he saved money for a new laptop. His account was also frozen. We told him: sorry, Sachar, but this money now belongs to Putin. He understands that it cant be right if Putin needs his 300 dollars in order to be happy.

Prior to the poisoning: Navalny in 2018 at a rally with his wife Julia (right) and spokesperson Kira Yarmysh (left) Foto: MAXIM SHIPENKOV/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

We have no idea how many successful murders there have been

Do you think that the plan was for you to die on the plane from Tomsk to Moscow?

Navalny: Yes, I am alive because of fortunate coincidences. If the pilots hadnt made a stopover and if the ambulance hadnt come to the airport in Omsk, I would have died not even one and a half hours after collapsing on the plane.

There are German politicians who expect Russia to investigate the attack on you. What would you tell them?

Navalny: There is not even an attempt to make it look as if there were an investigation. So far, there hasnt been any investigation in Russia. I am not naive. I think that it was a direct order from Putin and I do not expect that there will ever be a real investigation. I also understand that there is not much you can do as a Western politician when a Russian is poisoned in Russia. However, the use of a chemical weapon is also relevant for the West. The OPCW must investigate this. Otherwise, it might be very tempting for a regime to use chemical weapons against its opponents. We only know of the failed poison attacks, but have no idea how many successful murders there have been.

Such people must be put under pressure

Chancellor Merkel has visited you in hospital  that was a very strong gesture. But what are the consequences for the Kremlin that should follow from the poison attack on you? What would you recommend the Chancellor should do?

Navalny: Lets look at what this is really about. They kill people because they want to stay in power. They embezzle money, steal billions, and over the weekend, they fly to Berlin or London, buy expensive apartments and sit in cafes. Sanctions against the entire country dont work. The most important thing is to ban the regimes profiteers from entering the country and to freeze their assets. Oligarchs and high officials, Putins closest circle.

Navalny is used to harassment. He was repeatedly arrested and had to, again and again, defend himself against politically motivated accusations at court  like here in 2017 Foto: ILNITSK/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

In a concrete case: how should the German government deal with Valery Gergiev, who has been a Putin supporter for years, and is now chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic?

Navalny: The government should give him a hard choice. Gergiev supported Putin at the elections. If he loves the regime so much and doesnt want Russia to go the European way, he must be told: you are a very talented musician, but we will no longer allow you to enter the EU. You can enjoy Putins regime in Russia. Or Gergiev changes his mind and stops support Putin at least publicly. There are many people like this in Russia. They are very talented and very hypocritical. They support Putin, they benefit from it, but they prefer to live in the West.

Im glad you mentioned Gergiev. He is a perfect example. Such people must be put under pressure. They must turn away from Putin, because they realize that Europe will no longer tolerate them claiming in Russia that Europe is so terrible, and at the same time, they live in Europe. Mister Gergiev will not try to poison me with Novichok, but he supports everything Putin does. People like him must be banned from entering the country. And you know what? 99 percent of all Russians will applause that.

In Russia, there are big differences between Moscow and Saint Petersburg and the regions. Whats the attitude of people far away from the metropolises towards Putin?

Navalny: We have proven that the people in the metropolises are critical of Putin, but the people outside support him or dont care. It was our most important aim to destroy this myth that the regions support Putin like a wall. The Kremlin is terribly afraid of that. Following the pension reform, after wages have dropped for seven years in a row, the Kremlin is worried that this myth will break down.

Mister Navalny, final question: do you think you will live long enough to see a Russia without Putin?

Navalny: I dont know. But Im doing everything I can so that my children will be able to see a Russia without Putin. A normal, wealthy, European Russia.
With contactless delivery to curb the spread of coronavirus, she added, you can't tell servers...
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LONDON: Britain said on Wednesday there was a 66% chance of a Brexit trade deal but sought to use Prime Minister Boris Johnsons deadline of Oct. 15 to hurry the blocs negotiators towards an agreement.

The two sides say they are inching towards a deal that would govern around $900 billion in trade after Dec. 31 - when the current transitional arrangements end - though sticking points remain on fishing, level playing field issues and governance.

The landing zone and the nature of the agreement is pretty clear if not exactly pinned down yet," David Frost, the UKs chief Brexit negotiator, told parliament. A deal is eminently achievable and could be achieved but equally it is possible that we wont get there."

When Johnsons Brexit supremo, Michael Gove, was asked by a Conservative lawmaker if the probability of a deal was still 66%, Gove said: I think thats about right."

Frost cautioned the EU that an Oct. 15 deadline set by Johnson on Sept. 7 remained a deadline. The EU is due to asses progress on a deal at an Oct. 15-16 summit.

He added that Britains door would never be closed" and that a huge amount of textual work would need to follow Oct. 15 if an outline deal was struck.

As we approach the 15th  and it is very close already  I will have to advise the prime minister on whether the conditions in his statement have been met or not, and we will have to consider the situation at that point," Frost said.

Sterling fell on a Bloomberg report that Britain would pull out of talks next week unless there was clear landing zone for a deal. Sources told Reuters the EU is gearing up to keep negotiating until as late as mid-November.

The United Kingdom formally left the EU on Jan. 31, more than three years after it voted 52%-48% for Brexit in a 2016 referendum. The two sides are now trying to work out how everything from cars to Camembert to whisky will trade.

Johnson told European Council President Charles Michel on Wednesday that some progress had been made but that significant differences remained.

NOT AT ANY PRICE"

Gove said no-deal preparations were intensifying so that if the EU was intransigent and no good deal was available, the United Kingdom would not be held hostage by the EU.

Those preparations are intensifying as we speak," Gove said. While we are obviously keen to get a deal, we will not do a deal at any price."

The EU replied to Gove within hours.

The EU prefers a deal, but not at any cost," said Michel. Time for the UK to put its cards on the table."

While many investment banks say their base case is that a deal will be done, some diplomats fear Johnson could ultimately decide that a no-deal is more attractive in domestic political terms than such a thin trade deal.

The EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier briefed EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday on the negotiations.

Barnier did not strike a particularly optimistic tone today," said one diplomat who attended the briefing, adding that expectations for the Brexit-focused EU summit next week were low and negotiations were expected to continue after that.

Emotive issues remain unresolved, such as fishing.

A French EU lawmaker who chairs the European Parliaments fisheries committee told Reuters there could be no annual quota negotiation in a trade deal with Britain, sticking to a tough line from Paris that could make a Brexit deal more difficult.

Britain could agree to a glide path" towards a suitable end point for a future fisheries agreement with the EU as long as it satisfied the countrys fishing communities, Frost said.

(Additional reporting by John Chalmers and Elizabeth Piper; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Catherine Evans, Gareth Jones and Alexandra Hudson)

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
The UK is recording more coronavirus cases relative to the size of its population than the US for the first time since March, data shows.

In another grim milestone in Britain's second wave, there were 143 cases per million people on October 5, compared to America's rate of 130 per million.

It's the first time Britain has recorded more infections per capita than the US since March, when the UK was bombarded with an influx of cases from western Europe.

Yesterday the UK's case rate continued to trend in the wrong direction, with 161 per million people  20 per cent more than the 134 reported in the US.

The last time the UK was experiencing a higher volume of cases than the US was on March 22, when it posted 11.6 cases per million compared to 10.3 across the Atlantic.

The data is worrying because it suggests Britain's crisis is now worse than in the US, which has consistently reported the highest number of deaths and cases of anywhere in the world.

Experts told MailOnline Britain's denser population and cold autumn weather driving more people indoors may have contributed to Britain surpassing the US's infection rate.

The US is still recording almost three times the raw number of infections as the UK, but its population is more than quadruple the size of Britain's, which explains the lower case rate.

In the last week there have been roughly 44,000 cases of the disease every day in the US, compared to nearly 12,000 in Britain. Overall, the US has recorded 7.5million infections compared to 532,000 in the UK, according to John Hopkins University estimates.

Like all countries during the pandemic, Covid-19 has disproportionately affected major cities in America. But large swathes of the rural Mid West and West Coast have went unscathed through the crisis  for example, Wyoming has recorded fewer than 7,000 total cases compared to 840,000 in California.

The UK is recording more coronavirus cases relative to the size of its population than the US for the first time since March, data shows. There were 143 cases per million people on October 5, compared to America's rate of 130 per million

Britain recorded 14,542 more coronavirus cases on Tuesday as the number of people testing positive for the virus every day triples in a fortnight

In the last week there have been roughly 44,000 cases of the disease every day in the US

Professor Paul Hunter, a medical expert and epidemiologist from the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline: 'All things being equal, the UK was probably always going to have a higher infection rate than the US because of our much greater population density, but of course other things are not equal.

'We had a much stronger population wide lock down from late March. It is too early to say what will happen in the US over then next couple of months.'

Britain's outbreak is quickly catching up with France and Spain, which have been hit hardest by the second wave of the virus rolling through Europe.

The most recent figures from October 7 show France is suffering about 184 cases per million. The rate is even higher in Spain, with 205 infections per 100,000, according to Our World In Data, a website which aggregates Covid-19 statistics from every corner of the globe.

Both countries have locked down their capital cities in a desperate bid to curtail their spiralling cases, which are still nowhere near the levels during the first wave of the crisis, when hundreds of thousands were catching the disease every day and millions went undiagnosed.

Spain has recorded 825,000 total cases, with Russia the only European country with more infections. France has recorded roughly 675,000.

The truth about England's second wave of Covid-19: Hospitalisations are 6% of peak levels in the South but 30% in the North The numbers of people being admitted to hospital with Covid-19 have levelled off in huge areas of England as data suggests the country is being dragged into panic by an out-of-control outbreak in the north. In London, the South East and the South West  home to around half of the country's population of 55million  daily admissions appear to be plateauing after rising in line with cases during September from a low point over the summer. However, admissions are still accelerating in the North West, North East and Yorkshire, where new local lockdowns are springing up every week and positive tests are spiralling to record numbers. But as talk grows of a second national lockdown when winter hits, figures suggests the south faces being lumped under rules it doesn't need. The picture is more complex in the Midlands and the East of England  in the Midlands hospitalisations rose dramatically during September but there are signs they have peaked now, while admissions appear to still be rising slowly in the East, although at significantly lower levels than in the northern regions. Numbers of people in hospital in the worst affected areas have hit almost a third of what they were during the peak of the crisis in April, while in the south of the country they are still much lower at around six per cent. In the North West there are now an average of 107 people admitted to hospital with coronavirus every day, along with 94 per day in the North East. Both figures are the highest seen since May and do not show signs of slowing. For comparison, the rates at their peak for each region were around 2,900 and 2,600 per day, respectively. On the other hand in London, where officials are reportedly discussing tougher measures, there are just 34 admissions per day  down from an average 39 on September 25 and just 4.5 per cent of the level seen at the peak of the crisis in April. And in the South West, which has been least badly hit throughout the pandemic, just eight people are sent into hospital each day  six per cent of the peak number. Advertisement

Spanish officials have enforced a lockdown in and around Madrid, with rules banning 160,000 a million people from leaving their districts.

Throughout Madrid and its surrounding region, gatherings are already limited to a maximum of six people.

Similarly to the UK, Spain struggled earlier this year to implement an effective 'find, test, trace, isolate and support system' before ending lockdown following the first wave of the pandemic, according to a team of experts who compared the strategies in nine Asian and European countries in an article published this week in the medical journal The Lancet.

Meanwhile French officials have imposed strict new regulations in Paris. Bars in the capital, along with Lyon and nine other hotspot cities now have to close at 10pm.

There is also a 10-person restriction at public gatherings with attendees at weddings and parties limited to 30.

Gyms and other indoor sporting facilities will also remain closed and it remains mandatory for all pedestrians to wear face masks in public areas in the capital.

The new measures introduced in Paris come as France is seeing a squeeze on its hospitals.

Medics in the capital, along with Marseille, have been forced to postpone scheduled surgeries to free up space.

Patients are still facing backlogs caused by the lockdown in March and April - and more than 6,000 coronavirus patients are now being treated in French hospitals. And at least 10 per cent of French intensive care beds are now occupied with Covid patients.

Meanwhile, Britain yesterday recorded 14,542 more coronavirus cases, with the number of people testing positive for the disease every day having tripled in a fortnight.

Last Tuesday's data, which would normally be used to measure how much the UK's outbreak has grown in the last week, is unreliable due to a catastrophic counting error at Public Health England. It means Tuesday September 22 is the most recent point of reference  there were just 4,926 cases on that date.

The extraordinary meltdown  caused by an Excel problem in outdated software at PHE  meant almost 16,000 cases went missing between September 25 and October 2, meaning the scale of the escalating crisis was vastly underestimated last week.

Health chiefs recorded 12,594 coronavirus cases on Monday, which was also triple the figure of 4,368 recorded a fortnight before.

The rolling seven-day average of daily infections  considered a more accurate measure because it takes into account day-to-day fluctuations  has also risen by a similar amount over the same time frame.

Another 76 coronavirus deaths were also recorded on Tuesday, up 7 per cent on last week's 71 fatalities and more than double the number of victims posted the Tuesday before, when there were 35. Data also shows the rolling seven-day average number of daily deaths is 53, up from a record-low of seven in mid-August.

Although the curves are clearly trending the wrong way, the number of Covid-19 deaths and infections are still a far-cry from levels seen during the darkest days of the pandemic in spring, when more than 1,000 patients were dying and at least 100,000 Britons were catching the disease every day.

The spiralling statistics come amid fears the UK could face draconian new lockdown measures within days under plans for a local 'Covid alert' system. Health Secretary Matt Hancock is expected to unveil details of the three-tier set-up as early as Thursday in an attempt to make the existing patchwork of restrictions easier to understand.

Government sources said the top tier would include tougher restrictions than those currently applied to millions of people living across the North and Midlands. A planned 'traffic light' system of measures will be redesigned after PHE's Excel bungle revealed that the virus was spreading much faster than previously thought in cities like Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield. Ministers will meet in the coming days to thrash out exactly how far to go.

Cities including Sheffield, Oxford and Nottingham are seemingly at risk of harsher restrictions as Boris Johnson tries to get a grip on local flare-ups. Options include the closure of pubs, restaurants and cinemas, a ban on social mixing outside household groups, and restrictions on overnight stays. Sources refused to rule out the possibility that some towns and cities could be placed immediately into the top tier, despite the fact that death rates remain low.
Gerry Kelly has said he is fully committed to the rule of law following calls for the Sinn Fein MLA to be removed from the Policing Board for posting a tweet celebrating the anniversary of the Maze Prison escape.

Mr Kelly took to social media on Wednesday to defend his record after UUP MLA Mike Nesbitt wrote to Justice Minister Naomi Long calling for her to remove the North Belfast MLA from the Policing Board for the tweet.

"As one of SFs Negotiating Team during and since the Good Friday Agreement, I was closely involved in delivering fundamental changes in policing and justice," Mr Kelly tweeted.

He added: "So I am fully committed to the rule of law, based on the principles of fairness, impartiality and democratic accountability."

As one of SFs Negotiating Team during and since the Good Friday Agreement, I was closely involved in delivering fundamental changes in policing and justice. So I am fully committed to the rule of law,based on the principles of fairness, impartiality and democratic accountability.  Gerry Kelly (@GerryKellyMLA) October 7, 2020

Read More

Mr Kelly claimed it was "ironic" that unionists demanding his removal were "gung ho" in their "support" of the British Government breaking international law on Brexit.

Mr Kelly was one of 38 IRA inmates who escaped from the Maze Prison in 1983.

I find it ironic that all those unionist DUP & UUP, demanding my removal from the Policing Board are among those who are gung ho in support of the British Government breaking International law around Brexit!  Gerry Kelly (@GerryKellyMLA) October 7, 2020

He described the breakout in a tweet last week as "one of Big Bob's best ops", referring to the late senior republican Bobby Storey.

"I had the privilege of the front passenger seat. Well someone had to check we were taking the right route out," he wrote.

After receiving Mr Nesbitt's letter, Justice Minister Naomi Long said she will not pre-empt the decision of the Northern Ireland Policing Board on whether to remove Mr Kelly from the public body.

Read More

She said she found the tweet "offensive and thoroughly inappropriate".

The Justice Minister said that if there is a breach or allegation of the code, it should be referred in the first instance to the vice chair of the board for informal resolution.

She added: "If informal resolution is not appropriate or does not prove possible the matter is referred to the Chair for consideration. I understand that process is underway."

Mr Nesbitt said he believed it was Mrs Long's "duty" to remove Mr Kelly from the body "with immediate effect".

Mrs Long said it would not be appropriate for her to offer a view until this process is exhausted.

During the escape prison officer James Ferris died of a heart attack after being stabbed while attempting to stop the breakout. Another officer survived being shot in the head.
EDWARDSVILLE  Voting is a sacred right in Madison County that no citizen should take for granted, according to Madison County Clerk Deborah Ming-Mendoza.

The Madison County Clerks Office has been busy since in-person voting start Sept. 24. As of Monday morning, approximately 2,600 people have voted in person at the Madison County Administration Building for the Nov. 3 election, Ming-Mendoza said. The average wait time has been between 30-40 minutes and at times the line extends outside the building.

Early voting at the administration building, 157 N. Main St., Edwardsville, will also be allowed 8:30 a.m to 4:30 p.m. Oct. 7-9 and Oct. 12-16.

In 2016, 9,900 mail-in ballots were requested, Ming-Mendoza said. This year, we have had over 31,000 mail-in ballots requested so far with more requests coming in every day because of COVID-19. The volume is astounding but my staff is on top of it. We have recruited experienced judges to come in and help match signatures on the envelope with signatures that we have on file.

To be counted, voters must sign the outside of the sealed envelope with their ballot enclosed before returning it. Election judges then compare the signature on the envelope to the signature on file in the County Clerks Office. If a voter received a mail-in ballot and wishes to vote in person instead, they must bring their ballot with them and surrender it at the polls, otherwise, they will not be allowed to vote.

I am audited, said Ming-Mendoza. I have to account for every ballot. We dont just throw them away. Ballots are kept for 21 months, she said.

Voter fraud is a serious offense in Illinois, according to Ming-Mendoza. She said anyone who attempts to vote twice or commits any kind of election fraud will be prosecuted.

According to Madison County Public Defender John Rekowski, there has been one case of known voter fraud in the last 10 years when an elderly woman voted for her husband who had recently died.

We want every American over the age of 18 to vote, Ming-Mendoza said. That is why in Illinois we will even allow people to register and vote on Election Day. You must bring two pieces of identification with you and one must have your current name and address on it.

Besides the Madison County Administration Building, 11 early voting sites will be opened later this month including Collinsville, Highland, Troy and SIUE.

We are very concerned about the safety of our voters and have taken every precaution we can think of, Ming-Mendoza said. Voters must wear masks to vote at any of the early voting sites and at the polls on Election Day. Voters who do not have masks will be given one. Instead of voting stickers, voters will receive a pen that says, I voted. We dont want people to be forced to use an ink pen that others have used. We will also mark off the polling sites so voters can social distance.

For a full list of early-voting locations visit the Madison County website:https://www.co.madison.il.us/departments/county_clerk/elections/early_voting.php
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Avinyan has expressed his concern over the drastic increase in the number of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) cases.

Its more than 10 days the Armenian Army is fighting against the Azerbaijani-Turkish aggressors and their mercenary-terrorists for the sake of the right of all of us to live and for the longevity of Armenia, Artsakh and the Diaspora. These days we need to support our hero soldiers in the frontline with all possible means.

I must state with an extreme concern that in recent days we have a drastic increase in the coronavirus infections. If this trend continues, our healthcare system will face serious problems.

As a result we will need medical servicing for both those wounded in the military operations and our numerous compatriots infected with COVID-19, which can lead to oversupply of healthcare resources. Our doctors are working day and night for several months aimed at best serving each patient.

Therefore, if you want that the wounded soldiers and citizens receive the best medical service, the coronavirus infected patients receive a proper service, the economy continue operating, everything should be done to avoid getting infected, that is to follow all the anti-coronavirus rules.

Therefore, I ask and urge you to be extremely vigilant and careful, continue wearing a face mask, keeping a social distance and regularly washing hands. Follow the anti-coronavirus rules, prevent the spread of the disease. Lets keep our back firm, the deputy PM said in a statement on Facebook.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
New York-based Delta Children, which makes cribs in China for retailers such as Walmart, briefly studied moving production to the United States as supply shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic added to its hefty bill from U.S. import tariffs.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross predicted in January the pandemic would "help accelerate" this type of re-shoring of jobs to the United States, while some policymakers even spoke of a wider retreat of globalization as companies retrenched to deal with severed supply chains.

But Delta chief executive Joe Shamie finally ruled out the move due to higher labor costs and a lack of suppliers. The company still plans to diversify its supply chain - but by moving some production to South East Asia.

"The Made-in-USA tag will work if the products are of the same quality and competitively priced, which is not case at the moment," Shamie told Reuters.

"I would diversify, not totally leave China."

While global trade volumes have inevitably fallen as the world plunged into recession and travel restrictions and social distancing curtailed the movement of people, the economic ties built up by successive waves of globalization are proving more resilient than some thought.

Trade in goods is set to decline by 9% this year, the World Trade Organization forecast on Tuesday, less severe than its April prediction of a 13-32% plunge. China's industrial sector is steadily recovering to pre-pandemic levels, with exports up 9.5% year-on-year in August, their sharpest rise in 18 months. Optimism among German exporters hit a two-year high in September.

From Washington to Wellington, politicians this year have preached self-sufficiency, urging firms to bring production home, particularly of "essential" products.

The pandemic has led to a record 235 export restrictions as countries hoarded protective equipment and medical supplies, according to monitoring service Global Trade Alert. The impact of trillions of dollars of subsidies is still unclear.

But despite the drum beat of protectionist rhetoric, there have been far fewer new import tariffs than in the past two peak years, and Pascal Lamy, who led the WTO from 2005 to 2013, believes re-shoring will be marginal.

"The reason there will be more talk than walk is simple  it's costly," said Lamy. "Globalisation is efficient and painful. De-globalization is inefficient and painful."

The only high-profile country to put up funds is Japan, with 220 billion yen earmarked for firms re-shoring production. In a first round, it paid 57.4 billion yen for 57 projects - less than $10 million per firm.

"Senior policymakers have made a whole range of strong statements, but it hasn't reached a stage yet where there's a lot of money on the table for repatriating factories," said Simon Evenett, Global Trade Alert founder and professor at Switzerland's University of St Gallen.

Even before COVID, a key aim of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff war on Chinese imports from 2018 was to repatriate production. Companies, on the other hand, were drawn from China to lower costs in Southeast Asia and adopted a "China Plus One" strategy to boost supply diversity.

"Whether or not (the pandemic) leads to much more re-shoring into the U.S. market itself remains to be seen," Michael Froman, U.S. Trade Representative in the Obama administration, told a webinar.

Consultants at McKinsey & Co say supply chain issues have grabbed the attention of chief executives and board rooms with COVID delivering the biggest and broadest value chain shock in memory, albeit only the latest in a series of disruptions.

Instead of focusing solely on procurement costs, companies are starting to consider stability and resilience.

"Supply chains were built to be just-in-time. Going forward they might be built for 'just-in-case'," said Susan Lund, a McKinsey partner leading research on globalization and trade.

McKinsey estimates 15-25% of world goods trade could shift location over next five years due to business arguments and non-economic factors such as regulation, compared to 8% during the past five.

Patrick Van den Bossche, a partner at consulting firm Kearney, which produces an annual re-shoring report, said it would at best be some time before the U.S. benefited from the supply chain diversification being forced by COVID-19 and the trade war.

"The big wave, if ever there is to be one, will be at a minimum five to 10 years away because the basic infrastructure to accommodate a big re-shoring wave is just not there," he said, adding this included sufficient skilled workers and suppliers.

Companies which have taken the plunge to shift some manufacturing to the United States in the past decade include General Electric in Kentucky and Starbucks in Ohio, according to the U.S. Reshoring Institute.

However, the WTO said on Tuesday that the share of intermediate goods in trade had been stable over the first half of 2020, at 52%, suggesting there was no major shift towards re-shoring this year. The U.S. August trade deficit also hit a 14-year high.

Last year, Mexico and low-cost Asian countries were the main beneficiaries of China's falling share of imports into the United States. Despite the pandemic, Vietnam's overall exports rose 4.2% in the first nine months of 2020, with the United States and China its top two markets.

Lamy says dealing with COVID-19 and preparing for a future pandemic will inevitably lead to more focus on protecting consumers, with greater insistence on precaution, safety, more checks and a different view of risk.

"The upwards re-pricing of risk will redistribute this multi-localisation. It's not going to be de-globalization, it's going to be another version of globalization. It's a new arrangement," he said. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
The Kenya Railways Corporation has announced the closure of the footbridge connecting Haile Selassie Avenue and Bunyala Road for two weeks ahead of planned refurbishment.

The footbridge is dilapidated after many years of use.

"Kenya Railways wishes to notify members of the public that the footbridge connecting Haile Selassie Avenue and Bunyala Road via Station Road and Workshop Road has been closed to traffic for 14 days to give room for refurbishment," Kenya Railways said in a public notice.

Security concerns

Members of the public have been advised to use alternative routes.

The bridge is mostly used by residents of South B estate and people crossing over from the CBD to Industrial Area and vice-versa.

In 2018, the footbridge witnessed congestion by pedestrians after Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko banned all Public Service Vehicles from accessing the CBD.

There have also been security concerns for pedestrians using the footbridge, especially at night, with seven fatalities reported in 2019 alone.

The steel and wooden footbridge can only support a maximum of five people per square meter.
UPPER THUMB  After Michigans Supreme Court essentially voided executive orders put in place by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, it left many people unsure about what they were allowed to do and what they weren't.

This was also the case with elementary schools across the Upper Thumb, which wondered how to move forward on issues like whether elementary students should wear masks within the classroom.

Many schools started the year requiring students in grades six through 12 to wear masks in the classroom, while elementary students could go without as long as they stayed within their class groups. These students were still expected to wear masks when in common areas of the school or transitioning between classes.

After about a month of students being back in class, Whitmer announced that elementary students would be required to wear masks in the classroom as of Monday Oct. 5. Before schools were able to enforce this executive order, Michigans Supreme Court stepped in to void all executive orders after April 30, 2020 with no word yet on what the fate of elementary masks shall be.

In various back-to-school updates, any Upper Thumb schools stood by their precautionary measures, feeling elementary students were adjusting well and staying safe despite not needing to wear their masks inside the classroom. Now, some schools would prefer to maintain their previous precautions until they are instructed otherwise.

However since the Supreme Courts ruling, the Huron County Health Department announced that it also recommended all students wear masks within the classroom. Schools, now divided on how to proceed, must choose between waiting for clarification and following the local health department's recommendation.

We will continue forward with K-12 masks until we receive more legal guidance on the timelines and authority of the former orders given by the governor, and new orders given by (the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services), said Laker Superintendent Brian Keim. It is our desire to return these choices to families as soon as possible.

The general consensus among many Thumb-Area schools is that whether masks should be worn by elementary students in a classroom setting should be made by the families. As seen through many coronavirus related conversations, there is a wide variety of opinions when it comes to the coronavirus and precautions taken against it.

We were confident in the implementation of multiple mitigation measures that allowed for K-5 students to remove their masks in class, said USA Superintendent George Rierson. Given that the first day of the governors new orders was Monday, and the Supreme Court ruled on Friday, I elected to maintain our plan as it was being implemented and wait for further guidance.

That being said, when the health department issued the order requiring masks in classrooms for all students, we issued a brief message to parents and complied with the health department order, he added. At this moment, we will comply with orders from the local health department regarding coronavirus mitigation measures in the classroom and we count on them, as public health experts, to guide us in maintaining the health and safety of our students, staff, and community.

Rierson went on to say that mask wearing has obviously become a polarizing issue, however children should not become pawns in a political battle.

We truly want only to care for and inspire the students who come to our school each day, Rierson said. Lets practice kindness and patience now and keep an eye on the future for our children with the hope and promise that is protected by an educated and informed citizenry.
Houston ISD Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan is asking the districts school board Thursday to authorize $17 million in additional spending for special education, a request that comes a week after her administration dismissed a state investigation sharply critical of HISDs support of students with disabilities.

HISD administrators said they plan to use the money to hire more speech language pathologists, mental health specialists, occupational and physical therapists, and assistive technology specialists, among others.

District officials have offered scant details on the request, other than listing the job titles in a press release. HISD administrators did not respond to questions Wednesday about the proposal, including how many employees would be hired and why they are needed.

HISD administrators listed the $17 million request as a line item in a budget document posted last week, but they offered no explanation of the request. Board members did not ask about the request during a public meeting last week, when trustees have the opportunity to question administrators about spending requests, though inquiries could arise during Thursdays meeting.

There are always questions when were spending large amounts of money, especially in a year when were now dipping into our savings to spend this money, Trustee Judith Cruz said. We want to make sure theres transparency and efficacy in how these dollars are spent.

HISD administrators typically do not ask for money to hire large numbers of new staff in the fall. Those requests often are made ahead of the boards vote to approve an annual budget, which occurs in June.

It is not immediately clear whether the COVID-19 pandemic has any influence on the desire for more employees dedicated to special education. HISDs press release stated the request has been under consideration since August of 2020.

Lathans appeal follows an 11-month Texas Education Agency investigation into HISDs long-maligned special education department, which has drawn criticism from parents, board members and outside organizations for several years.

State investigators concluded HISD has failed to fix significant, systemic and widespread issues with the delivery of special education services, warranting the appointment of a conservator who would oversee changes in the department. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath has not yet decided whether to follow the recommendation to appoint a conservator.

The investigators found HISD violated numerous federal laws and state regulations that help ensure students with disabilities receive needed support. The shortcomings included failing to identify all students entitled to special education services, implement individualized education programs or hold staff members accountable for their work.

In their 44-page report outlining their findings, state investigators referenced the need for appropriate campus staffing, though they more often cited HISD for poor leadership, organization and accountability.

TEA officials reached their conclusions after interviewing staff members, reviewing dozens of student files and analyzing thousands of pages of documents.

Lathans administration blasted the findings as factually and legally incorrect, arguing state investigators relied on outdated information. HISD administrators also noted that the state artificially capped the percentage of students eligible to receive special education services at 8.5 percent, a practice the TEA abandoned in 2017.

Cruz and Sung said the administrations $17 million request could be warranted, but they planned to seek more information before approving the spending increase.

I think the additional speech language pathologists are needed, and Im supportive of making sure that students who need these services can receive them, said Sung, who chaired a board ad hoc committee that examined HISDs special education practices in 2018.

HISD would dip into its rainy day fund to cover the $17 million in additional special education spending. Current projections show HISD with about $400 million in its rainy day fund at the end of fiscal 2020-21, though district officials have warned that budget estimates are changing often amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

HISD spent about $169 million on students with disabilities in 2018-19, the most recent year with available data, according to state financial reports.

HISD administrators also are asking trustees to approve a budget amendment that includes $24 million in added spending on technology, personal protective equipment, and cleaning services and supplies.

jacob.carpenter@chron.com
Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired photos of Chris Cuomo that appeared to show the CNN anchor in public without a mask.

According to Carlson, the images of Cuomo were taken over the weekend and showed him at a restaurant with a cigar in hand.

The photos are believed to have been taken on Long Island.

Carlson aired the images in a bid to call out Cuomo for his criticism of people who disobey the rules when it comes to following guidelines amid the pandemic.

'Chris Cuomo calls us immoral for doubting the rules,' Carlson said on his show. 'Again, we don't judge Chris Cuomo, Chris Cuomo judges us,' Carlson added.

Scroll down for video

Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired photos of Chris Cuomo that showed the CNN anchor in public without a mask

According to Carlson, the images of Cuomo were taken over the weekend and showed him at a restaurant with a cigar in hand. The photos are believed to have been taken on Long Island

Tucker Carlson shows a photo of CNN's @ChrisCuomo standing at a restaurant over the weekend on Long Island with a cigar and no mask pic.twitter.com/6WgLwDzJeV  Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 7, 2020

Carlson aired the images just hours after Cuomo was lampooned for labeling a video of President Donald Trump removing his face mask at the White House 'propaganda,' after he shared a similar video months ago.

Cuomo appeared on air shortly after Trump returned from Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, to the White House via Marine One on Monday evening.

Upon his arrival, an infected Trump walked up the steps of the South Portico, removed his face mask and stared over the balcony as photographers snapped his picture.

Trump then disappeared into the White House, where staffers were present, and briefly returned to the balcony. He did not put his face mask back on during this time.

CNN reported that Trump's ascent into the White House was for a reshoot as part of a potential campaign video, and Cuomo used this to level criticism at the president.

'There he is, hair blown majestically. Reshooting the scene for his own ad,' said Cuomo, adding 'What a bunch of bull****.'

Cuomo scrutinized Trump for flouting face masks after numerous members of his inner circle, White House staffers, journalists and workers at the Cleveland presidential debate contracted COVID-19 after his diagnosis.

Carlson aired the images just hours after Cuomo was lampooned for labeling a video of President Donald Trump removing his face mask at the White House 'propaganda'

Donald Trump, whose infection with COVID-19 was confirmed last week, removed his face mask on Monday night upon his arrival to the White House

'He didnt just walk in the White House one time with no mask tonight. He had his video crew capture that stupid scene again so he could put out propaganda,' he said.

But on social media, a number of people pointed out that Cuomo had shared a comparable video that was accused of being 'staged' in April.

Cuomo, who contracted COVID-19 in March, filmed a video of himself reuniting with his wife and three children after 'several weeks locked in his basement.'

Footage showed him walking up the stairs to greet his kids at his Hamptons mansion, three weeks after he went into 'quarantine' to recover from coronavirus.

'All right,' he said. 'Here it is. The official re-entry. From the basement. Cleared by CDC, a little sweaty, just worked out. It happens. This is what I have been dreaming of. Literally for weeks.'

'This is the dream. Just to be back up here doing normal things,' he said as he embraced his wife Christina, who has also since recovered from COVID-19.

But he faced backlash when confessed during a interview on his Sirius XM radio show on April 13 that he had broken quarantine and left his basement on Easter.

During that time, an infected Cuomo got into a verbal altercation with a cyclist who called him out for not quarantining.

But on social media, a number of people pointed out that Cuomo had shared a comparable video that was accused of being 'staged' in April. Cuomo, who contracted COVID-19 in March, filmed a video of himself reuniting with his wife and three children after quarantining

On his radio show, Cuomo said he didn't 'want some jack*** loser, fat tire biker being able to pull over and get in my face and in my space and talk bull**** to me,' said Cuomo. 'I dont want to hear it.'

The cyclist filed a police report against Cuomo and disparaged him on shows like 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' on Fox News.

Benny Johnson, Chief Creative Officer for Turning Point USA, noted that much of Cuomo's criticisms of Trump could be applied to him.

Johnson wrote: 'CNNs Chris Cuomo, who: broke quarantine while COVID positive, got into a fight with a biker without a mask, likely infected his family with the virus, faked his emergence from his basement on air...

'Is offended that President Trump took his mask off on his balcony.'

Others shared similar sentiments and wondered how Cuomo could be outraged.

'Chris Cuomo was out in public while infected with COVID, got into an altercation with someone, yelled at them WHILE COVID + and had a police report filed on him. Please tell us more you [clown],' one Twitter user wrote.

One man said he would 'pass' on Cuomo's 'holier than thou speech.'

Benny Johnson led critics on social media who recalled that Cuomo broke quarantine while infected with COVID-19 earlier this year

Caleb J. Hull, a communications strategist associated with the GOP, wrote: 'Chris Cuomo was diagnosed with COVID-19, broke quarantine, didnt wear a mask, put others in danger, got into a fight with a cyclist who called him out, then pretended nothing ever happened and threw a party when his quarantine was over.'

One person asked 'why is he lecturing the rest of use about social distancing, mask-wearing and credibility?'

Another user added: 'Remember when Chris Cuomo broke his quarantine while infected with COVID and went out into public and got in a heated altercation with a biker?? Mainstream was SILENT... '

On Monday, just four days after he tested positive with the deadly virus, he tweeted: 'I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don't be afraid of Covid.

'Don't 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!'

Shortly after his message, doctors appeared outside the hospital to say that while Trump was not 'out of the woods', they were satisfied he could go home.

They refused to share details of his health, like when he last tested negative, citing medical privacy laws as reasons not to share information like the results of a lung scan.
The Nigerian government on Tuesday announced that it has signed Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) with each of the United States, India, Morocco and Rwanda.

Hadi Sirika, Nigerias Minister of Aviation, made the disclosure via his official Twitter handle Tuesday night.

I am glad to announce that Mr. President has signed the instruments of ratification of the bilateral air service agreement between Nigeria and USA, India, Morocco and Rwanda, Mr Sirika said.

The new agreement is to enable free movement of commercial flights among the countries involved.

Airlines from all four countries operate in Nigeria, and the Nigerian Flag carrier, Air Peace, has been designated to reciprocate on both the American and Indian routes.

Nigeria has signed numerous BASAs in the past, with few reciprocated.

The US Delta Airlines already operates in Nigeria while United Airlines has announced its return to Lagos route after a voluntary exit in 2016.

Details of the instrument of ratification of the bilateral agreements showed that they were signed at different periods.

For instance, the pact with the Kingdom of Morocco was signed on December 2, 2016.

In the case of the agreement with Rwanda, it was signed on March 2, 2018.

Similarly, the pact between Nigeria and the United States was signed on August 26, 2000 while the agreement with India was signed on January 14, 2019.

In different articles of the agreements, it was stated that the agreement will operate according to the constitutional requirements of the countries involved in the pact.

However, the parties also stated that the agreements shall come into force on the day of exchange of diplomatic notes.
Mumbai: After spending 28 days in prison, actor Rhea Chakraborty, arrested in a drugs case related to her boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajputs death, was released on bail on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, the Bombay High Court granted her bail but rejected her brother Showik Chkrabortys bail plea.

Rhea stepped out of the Byculla prison here around 5.30 pm amid heavy police deployment, an official said. A police vehicle escorted her car as a large number of media persons had gathered outside the prison.

Rhea was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on September 9. The NCB has accused her of procuring drugs for Rajput.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 7)  The United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution seeking technical assistance to the Philippines amid the killings and alleged rights abuses under the Duterte administration.

This was announced by the UNHRC on the last day of its 45th regular session on Wednesday.

Local and international groups were quick to criticize the resolution, saying it falls short of repeated calls to launch an international, independent, and impartial investigation into the countrys worsening human rights situation.

The resolution was introduced by the Philippines, India, Nepal and non-member states Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Thailand, and Turkey. It requests the High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and her office to provide technical assistance and capacity-building to promote and protect human rights in the Philippines.

This includes support for investigative and accountability measures, data gathering on alleged police violations, engagement with civil society, national mechanism for reporting and follow-up, counterterrorism legislation, and human rights-based approaches to drug control.

While theres no mention of a probe, the resolution requests Bachelet to report to the council progress on the technical cooperation and capacity-building extended to the Philippines for the next two years. The updates should be presented during the councils 48th and 51st sessions in 2021 and 2022, and discussed in an enhanced interactive dialogue.

In a report to the council in June, Bachelet flagged the "widespread and systematic" killings in the bloody war on drugs which she said were "being carried out without due regard for the rule of law, due process, and the human rights of people who may be using or selling drugs."

At the opening of the councils 45th session in September, Bachelet called for an end to policies and rhetoric that were said to have led to the killings.

The latest resolution encouraged the Philippine government to address the issues raised in Bachelets report, and stressed the importance to ensure accountability by conducting independent, full, and transparent investigations.

Technical assistance not enough

This sends President Rodrigo Duterte a clear message that the international community is still watching, Amnesty International said in a statement, although calling the resolution weak.

The human rights situation in the Philippines warrants more than just technical assistance from the UN. A full international investigation to effectively address the pervasive impunity in the country is urgently needed, said Rachel Chhoa-Howard, Philippines Researcher at Amnesty International.

Local group Karapatan also said the resolution is not the decisive and adequate response to the urgent demands of alleged human rights victims, their families, and affected communities towards justice and accountability.

We strongly believe that technical cooperation and capacity-building activities would not stop the administrations human rights violations, Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said in a separate statement.

The Justice department said an inter-agency panel has been looking into all the 5,655 anti-drug operations that resulted in deaths. The government also said it has been working with its United Nations Resident Coordinator for a framework that will allow the UN to support national efforts to uphold the human rights-based approach in governance.

The Philippines is also facing possible trade sanctions from the European Union Parliament if it fails to cooperate and work on ending drug war killings and other human rights violations.
The Nobel Prize in chemistry was jointly awarded on Wednesday to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for their 2012 work on the development of CRISPR-Cas9, a method for genome editing. The announcement marks the first time a science Nobel has been awarded to two women.

This years prize is about rewriting the code of life, Goran K. Hansson, the secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said as he announced the names of the laureates.

Charpentier and Doudna, only the fifth and sixth women to win the chemistry prize, pioneered early work on CRISPR-Cas9, a kind of genetic scissors that allows researchers to alter the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision. Since then, it has been used in numerous scientific applications, from genetically modifying crops to developing cures-in-progress for conditions like sickle cell disease and hereditary blindness.

Claes Gustafsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said, There is enormous power in this genetic tool, which affects us all. It has not only revolutionized basic science, but also resulted in innovative crops and will lead to groundbreaking new medical treatments.

While the two scientists developed CRISPR for general use, some of the systems specific applications have become ensnared in thorny ethical debates around the genetic alteration of human embryos. In 2018, He Jiankui, a Chinese scientist, announced that he had used the technology to edit the genes of two babies in an attempt to make them resistant to HIV. Hes experiments were decried by many in the scientific community as irresponsible and dangerous because of the risk that the children may have suffered side effects from the procedure, as well as Hes lack of transparency.

Who are the winners?

Charpentier, who is French, is the director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin. Doudna (the first syllable rhymes with loud) is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. They are the third and fourth women to be awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in the 21st century, out of more than 50 recipients.

Charpentier said she was happy to be one of the few female recipients of the prize, and hoped the win would be inspiring to young women to follow the path of science. The joint win between two women in academic disciplines still dominated by men, she added, can provide a really strong message for young girls.

Charpentier, 51, and Doudna, 56, met at a cafe in Puerto Rico in 2011 on the margins of a conference they were both attending, the Nobel committee said. They first published their discovery of the CRISPR-Cas 9 genetic scissors in 2012.

Who else won a Nobel Prize this year?

 Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on Monday for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus, a breakthrough the Nobel committee said had made possible blood tests and new medicines that have saved millions of lives.

 Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez received the physics prize on Tuesday for their discoveries that have improved understanding of the universe, including work on black holes.

When will the other Nobel Prizes be announced?

 The Nobel Prizes in literature will be announced on Thursday in Sweden.

 The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday in Norway.

 The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science will be announced Monday next week in Sweden.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
India Inc witnesses a huge exodus of women employees from the workforce year-on-year. These women who typically exit the workforce due to a variety of reasons such as child birth, child-rearing, and to take care of elders in the family, often ask for flexible working hours and work from home options. As most organisations believed that work from home would hamper productivity, their women employees had little option but to quit the workforce. COVID-19 has razed to the ground the myth that working from home would impact productivity and has encouraged companies to accelerate their diversity agenda. While FMCG major, Hindustan Unilever aspires to have a gender balance of 50:50, consulting company, SAP India Labs is in the process of rolling out a shared work concept where a managerial role can be shared by two people. On the other hand, consulting company, Deloitte India, is trying hard to convince its former women colleagues to rejoin the workforce.

A recent report by diversity and inclusion company, Avtar Group says that diversity hiring in 2020 has gone up this year by 32 per cent as opposed to 23 per cent last year. Around 39 per cent of the positions closed in Avtar's list of 100 best companies for women (the Avtar best companies list includes Accenture, KPMG, Barclays and EY), are diversity positions. Diversity hiring as per the report is most prevalent in the consulting sector (44 per cent), followed by the IT/ITES sector (39 per cent)and BFSI sector (36 per cent). The diversity hires in the manufacturing and pharma sectors were at 29 per cent and 19 per cent respectively. Not only did these companies hire women, but also people with disabilities and the LGBTQ community.

The report also states that average representation of women in its list of 100 best companies for women has gone up from 33 per cent in 2019 to 34 per cent in 2020 (it was 25 per cent in 2016). Women representation on boards of companies has also increased to 27 per cent.

Not only are corporates hiring more women, they are also investing in mentoring them. The Avtar report says that the percentage of companies providing mentoring has moved up from 75 per cent in 2016 to 96 per cent in 2020. Apart from focusing on providing enablers for work-life integration (like child-care and flexible work support), companies are increasingly focusing on skill-building for women and creating a more gender balanced talent pipeline.

India currently has 78 lakh women who have taken a break from their career. Avtar MD, Saundarya Rajesh, says, "If corporates are able to bring to bring back even 50 per cent of these 78 lakh women into the workforce, we can easily touch a diversity rate of 50 per cent by 2027."

ALSO READ: Rebooting Economy 34: Temporary jobs hurt both workers and economy

ALSO READ: Rebooting Economy 33: Where have the good old full-time decent jobs gone?
Germany and France say they will seek European Union sanctions targeting individuals held responsible for the poisoning of Aleksei Navalny, after a global chemical watchdog confirmed that a banned nerve agent was used against the Russian opposition leader.

Navalny is recovering in Germany after he was poisoned in August with a chemical agent from the banned Novichok group. Russia has denied any involvement and resisted international pressure to launch a criminal investigation.

"No credible explanation has been provided by Russia so far. In this context, we consider that there is no other plausible explanation for Mr. Navalny's poisoning than Russian involvement and responsibility," the German and French foreign ministers said in a joint statement on October 7.

Heiko Maas and Jean-Yves Le Drian added that they would shortly share proposals for sanctions targets with their European partners.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the statement as "unacceptable in content and tone" and accused Germany and France of "threats and attempts to blackmail us."

The announcement by Berlin and Paris comes a day after The Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed that the biomarkers of the cholinesterase inhibitor found in Mr. Navalnys blood and urine samples have similar structural characteristics as the toxic chemicals belonging to the Novichok group.

The findings confirmed results released by Germany and corroborated by laboratories in France and Sweden that have sparked international condemnation and calls for sanctions against Moscow over the case.

Maas and Le Drian said the sanction proposals would "target individuals deemed responsible for this crime and breach of international norms, based on their official function, as well as an entity involved in the Novichok program."

Reuters quoted two diplomats as saying Russian GRU military intelligence officials would be among the individuals targeted.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said his country stands "side by side" with Germany and France and will work to secure sanctions against Russian officials and others who are considered responsible for this crime as well those involved in the development of the Novichok chemical weapon program."

Earlier in the day, Maas told parliament that without an explanation from Russia regarding the poisoning, "targeted and proportionate sanctions against those responsible are unavoidable."

"It would be possible to sanction very quickly individuals who, for example, are known to be involved in the development of chemical warfare agents - and that is a discussion we will have in the European Union in the coming days," the German minister said.

Meanwhile, Navalny suggested the EU get tougher on individuals close to the Kremlin, saying that sanctions against Russia as a whole dont work.

The most important thing is to impose entry bans against those who profit from the regime and freeze their assets," Navalny said in an interview with Germanys Bild newspaper, adding this includes oligarchs and high officials -- President Vladimir Putins inner circle.

"They embezzle money, steal billions, and at the weekend they fly to Berlin or London, buy expensive apartments, and sit in cafes," Navalny said in the interview.



He said the ban should extend to high-profile Russians such as Valery Gergiev, chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, who supported Putin in the last election.



If he loves the regime so much and wants Russia not to go the European route, then you have to tell him: You are a very talented musician, but we will no longer allow you to enter the EU," he said. "You can enjoy Putin's regime in Russia."



Navalny also singled out former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, a lobbyist for Russian energy firms, saying it was "very disappointing" to hear that Schroeder said there were "no facts" on his poisoning and everything thus far had been "speculation."



"He is the former chancellor of the most powerful country in Europe. Now Schroeder is Putin's errand boy who protects murderers," the Kremlin foe and anti-corruption campaigner said.

With reporting by Bild, AP, AFP, and Reuters
New Delhi: BJP leaders on Wednesday heaped praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his leadership as he entered his 20th year without a break as the head of an elected government, including close to 13 years as chief minister of Gujarat. Members of the Union Cabinet also congratulated the prime minister.

Party president J P Nadda said October 7, 2001, when Modi was sworn in as Gujarat chief minister for the first time, is a "milestone" in India's political history. Modi has since been notching up bigger victories and his popularity has only gone up, Nadda said on Twitter.

The party also tweeted details of many of Modi's key schemes during his 19 years as the head of a government. Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri lauded Modi for "20 years in service of humanity & Maa Bharati with dedication, vision & selflessness".

"Heartiest congratulations to PM @narendramodi Ji for becoming the only democratically elected world leader to serve the people continuously for 20 years since 2001," Puri said. Be it as chief minister of Gujarat or as prime minister of the world's largest democracy, Modi has always been a crusader for people's welfare, the party said.

"PM Sri @narendramodi Ji has completed 6941 successful days in total as CM of Gujarat & PM of India. One of the unblemished tenures ever seen. Kept public welfare as a priority and never worried about himself. Always kept sovereignty & pride of India intact," its spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi tweeted. Modi, who turned 70 last month, started as a volunteer of the RSS and then served in the BJP's organisation for many years before the party leadership sent him to Gujarat, his home state, as its chief minister in 2001.

Since then, he has never tasted electoral defeat and led the BJP to power in the state three straight times before steering the party to its biggest, until then, Lok Sabha poll win in 2014 and then scripting an even bigger win in the 2019 general elections. Briefing reporters on the decisions taken by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said as soon as the meeting of the Union Cabinet began this morning, ministers congratulated Modi.

He said the prime minister has brought reforms in governance and major sectors. The prime minister, Javadekar said, has given a government free of corruption and has completed various projects that had been languishing for many years.

He said the prime minister was also congratulated for the way he has raised the standards of living of the poor and the deprived. "That is a noteworthy work he has done," the Union minister said.

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COVID-19 In Canada

Quebecs health minister says its really hard to figure out where COVID-19 cases originated

As COVID-19 cases continue to reach record levels in Quebec, health minister Christian Dube continues to urge people to stay home as much as possible.

He explained that in the first wave of COVID-19, many cases were linked to travel and eventually brought into long-term care homes, and there was very little community transmission.

Its really hard to say, when you have a student being diagnosed at school, where he got it, Dube said. Did he get it from his parents, did he get it from his friends, from an uncle who who got it at work?

The health minister revealed that Quebec hospitals are ready for the hospitalization rates forecasted for the next month but stressed that people shouldnt test the hospital system and need to follow the public health measures in place.

Ontario hits COVID-19 testing milestone

Ontario surpassed four million COVID-19 test since the beginning of the pandemic, as the province shifts to appointment-based testing.

It's clear from today's milestone that we have the most robust, most comprehensive testing strategy in the entire country, and in fact, we have completed more tests than all the other provinces combined, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said in a statement. Having this critical capacity will ensure we are able to track, trace, and isolate the deadly invisible enemy we face through the second wave.

Despite reaching this testing milestone, the premier also recognized the recent information that reveals areas of Toronto, including his own neighbourhood, are seeing positivity rates exceeding 10 per cent.

Thats where we have to focus on, Ford said.

Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontarios associate chief medical officer of health, said this is very concerning information and these rates are too high. She also recommended that case follow-up be prioritized in these areas of Toronto.

Officials urge Ontarians to stick to their household for Thanksgiving celebrations

Story continues

Ford was asked at a press conference on Tuesday how restaurant settings differ from household gatherings, as public health officials continue to recommend Ontarians celebrate Thanksgiving with just their household.

Its like apples and bananas, the premier said, stressed that restaurants are taking down everyones name, limiting seating to six at a table, installing dividers and have protocols in place.

This year, Ontarians should celebrate #Thanksgiving with members of their household only. I just spoke with my wife Karla and well follow the same advice as we stick to our immediate household for Thanksgiving dinner.



I know its tough, we need to stop the spread of COVID-19.  Doug Ford (@fordnation) October 6, 2020

After some back and forth, Ford urged Ontarians to celebrate Thanksgiving with their household even though indoor gathering limits are set to 10 people.

That doesnt mean you should go to 10, Dr. Yaffe said, adding that if someone lives alone, they can join another household. She gave the example that her son, who lives alone, who will be joining her household for Thanksgiving.

More public health measures are needed

Dr. Howard Njoo, the deputy chief public health officer, and health minister Patty Hajdu commented on a recent report from the Toronto Star revealing that some areas of Toronto are seeing more than 10 per cent of COVID-19 tests coming back positive.

Dr. Njoo said this is a worrisome trend and highlighted that positivity rates should be kept under five per cent.

It is an indication that more public health measures are needed and there is uncontained community spread, Hajdu said.

She added that this is very alarming and especially concerning because although it is in certain areas of the city, we know that people dont just stay in their neighbourhoods.

As the COVID Alert app is now being adopted in Quebec, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canadas chief public health officer, said she wants to see more people who are positive keying in their unique code to better alert Canadians of possible exposures.

Thats not happening sufficiently, she said, admitting the app is not a perfect system but still a useful tool.

This illustration adapted from @SiouxsieW and @XTOTL shows us how quickly one #COVID19 case can become many in the absence of controls. It also shows us how the choices we make can have a big impact that will help to keep case numbers low. pic.twitter.com/E6EKZvWtzB  Dr. Theresa Tam (@CPHO_Canada) October 6, 2020

In advance of Thanksgiving, Dr. Tam urged Canadians to reduce the size of their gathering this year while COVID-19 continues to spread.

We will be able to return to these cozy indoor gatherings one day but while we live with COVID-19, we all need to think carefully about our Thanksgiving plans this year, she said.

Canada signs new agreement for COVID-19 rapid tests

The federal government has announced that a new agreement with Abbott Rapid Diagnostics has been signed to purchase up to 20.5 million Panbio COVID-19 Antigen rapid tests.

These tests are easier to perform with limited training, can be done at the point of care and results can come through in about 20 minutes.

Hajdu said these tests will be particularly helpful in more remote or isolated communities, or in particular settings where a quick test result is critical, like in situations where there is a large cluster of outbreaks.

Dr. Njoo said the PCR test is still be best option for accuracy, but this additional testing method still has its advantages, primarily its rapid results.

Nova Scotia introduces gargle sample collection for children

Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil announced the IWK Health Centre will begin using the gargle sample collection method for COVID-19 testing, beginning on Oct. 7. This was initially used and evaluated in B.C. and will be available to children between the ages of four and 18.

If the pilot is successful, we will soon be able to do this at all of our primary assessment centres, McNeil said.

Nova Scotia is also expanding its testing capacity and adding equipment in Sydney in early November so tests wont have to be sent to Halifax to be analyzed and processed.

14-day isolation rule will be in Atlantic provinces over the holidays, according to P.E.I.s top doctor

Dr. Heather Morrison, the chief public health officer of Prince Edward Island, revealed Tuesday that it is likely self-isolation rules for people outside of the Atlantic bubble will still be in place over Christmas.

For families who travel to P.E.I. from outside the Atlantic bubble, it is likely the requirement to self-isolate for 14 days will remain in place throughout the Christmas season, Dr. Morrison said. This is something that we will continue to look at over the next eight to ten weeks.

She added that any family members coming to the province must receive pre-approval from the family connection stream, but the requirement to isolate will remain.

We are paying close attention to what is happening in our other provinces, Dr. Morrison said. It is concerning to hear about the necessary but restrictive measures being reinstated, and health systems being overwhelmed.
After being rejected several times, Rhea Chakraborty has finally been granted bail by the Bombay High Court after close to a month-long stay in jail following her arrest by the Narcotics Control Bureau for alleged involvement with the drug cartel, in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.

While the actress' bail plea was accepted with a Rs 1 lakh bond, the court rejected her brother, Showik Chakraborty's plea. "We are delighted by the order. Truth and justice have prevailed and ultimately the submissions on facts and law have been accepted by Justice Sarang V Kotwal," said Rhea Chakraborty's lawyer Satish Maneshinde.

The arrest and custody of Rhea were totally unwarranted and beyond the reach of the law. The hounding and witch-hunt by three central agencies, the CBI, Enforcement Directorate, and the Narcotics Control Bureau should come to an end. We remain committed to truth. Satyameva Jayate," Maneshinde added.

Now that Rhea has been granted bail, people stand divided:

How can she get a bail ? #RheaChakraborthy

Is anything happening in Sushant's case? #302InSSRCaseNow  Sandeep j (@sarcasmsemarege) October 7, 2020

I have no longer trust on police and law! Criminals,rapists and druggists are protected in this country. Sad but true!#302ForSSRDishaKillers #RheaChakraborthy  Deepshikha Singh (@Deepshi00538110) October 7, 2020

Now let's see if #ArnabGoswami and the police investigate the issue behind fake accounts created to push agenda against #RheaChakraborthy and taking advantage of #SushantSinghRajput's death. I guess we will never know  pic.twitter.com/01VSzP2fRP  Nimisha Ahuja (@Nims_Ahuja) October 7, 2020

Some celebs have spoken in favour of Rhea getting the bail.

Hope her time in jail has sufficed the egos of a lot of people out there who in the name of justice for Sushant fulfilled their personal/professional agendas.Praying she doesnt become bitter towards the life she has ahead of her.

Life is Unfair but Atleast its not over as yet. https://t.co/TGnbRZSL83  taapsee pannu (@taapsee) October 7, 2020

#RheaChakraborty finally gets bail after a month. She has been the subject of utmost misogynistic vilification, led by some of our major TV news channels ( some of whom tried and trying to change track midway).  barkha dutt (@BDUTT) October 7, 2020

Any shrill anchors apologising for the hell they put #RheaChakraborty and her family through? Didnt think so. But watch them shift the goalpost now .. theyre notorious for that. https://t.co/4VGkKNn1GR  Farhan Akhtar (@FarOutAkhtar) October 7, 2020

However, the bail comes at a cost and here are the five conditions on which Rhea has been granted bail:

- Deposit passport

- Report every day for 10 days to Mumbai Police

- Furnish bail bond Rs 1 lakh

- Cannot leave the country

- Cannot meet with any other witness
(Natural News) CIA Director Gina Haspel is reportedly the individual who is holding up key Russia-gate documents from being released to the public, likely due to her own role in the entire sordid affair.

(Article by Shane Trejo republished from BigLeaguePolitics.com)

Multiple sources have told The Federalist that Haspel is hoping that President Donald Trump loses in Novembers election so these documents will never see the light of day. She served as the CIAs station chief in London in 2016 and 2017 in the Obama regime under CIA Director John Brennan, which is when the false Steele dossier was being commissioned in that same country.

Haspel and [FBI Director Christopher] Wray both want Trump to lose, because its the only chance they have of keeping their jobs, one senior intelligence official said. Theyre banking on Biden winning and keeping them where they are.

This veteran deep state spook is dedicated to making sure her agency avoids accountability and can continue operating illegal schemes unbeknownst to the American public.

Its far more important for Haspel to block any embarrassment of herself or her agency than to have full transparency and accountability, another senior intelligence official said. Shes just hoping she can get past the election so the documents will never come out.

This is not a source protection issue, its an embarrassment issue, the intelligence official added.

Haspel has reportedly lied to her boss throughout the scandal, which is why she has kept her job in spite of her underhanded behavior hurting the administration.

Haspel has repeatedly lied to the president about the status of documents to be declassified, an intelligence community source said. She will claim they dont know where they are, or which agency technically owns them, and then well find out she had them the entire time and just didnt want them to see the light of day.

The frustration with Haspel is reaching nuclear levels, another official said.

Big League Politics reported on Haspels intimate knowledge of the Russia-gate coup before she was even confirmed as CIA director:

President Donald J. Trumps appointee to head the CIA has faced fierce opposition from lawmakers who criticize her of being too harsh on terrorists while overseeing a black-ops site in Thailand in 2002. But that appears to be a pretext for opposing Gina Haspels appointment. After all, Democrats had no problem confirming John Brennan to head the CIA in 2013. He held a much higher position than Haspel in the agency when they were using enhanced interrogation on suspected al-Qaeda terrorists. The real reason that Democrats are attempting to block Haspels appointment is because she knows that Former FBI Director James Comey and Former CIA Director John Brennan worked together to set Trump up as a Russian stooge. Haspel was the Chief of Station, Europe Division for the CIA from 2014-2017. That division is located in London, which was the hub of activity for counterintelligence operations used against Trump. As Station Chief, Haspel would have had to sign off on any active operations in her division So Strzok met with Downer in London in 2016. Stefan Halper, a Cambridge professor connected to the CIA and its British counterpart, MI6, met with George Papadopoulos in London, and Carter Page in Cambridge during 2016. In April of 2016, Josef Misfud, a London-based professor with connections to the Russian government told Papadopoulos that the Russians had thousands of Clinton-related emails in their possession. This conversation was part of what sparked the Russian collusion investigation. All of this took place on Gina Haspels watch.

President Trump made a huge mistake pushing for Haspels confirmation and now he may be paying the price with these crucial Russia-gate documents never seeing the light of day.

Read more at: BigLeaguePolitics.com
LAGOS, Wednesday, October 7, 2020: Media Rights Agenda (MRA) today welcomed the October 6 resolution by the United Nations Human Rights Council on the safety of journalists and called on the Federal Government to give full effect to its provisions, including by bringing all its laws, policies and practices into compliance with its obligations under international human rights law, as required by the resolution.

The resolution, A/HRC/45/L.42/Rev.1, introduced by Austria, was adopted by consensus by the 47-member UN Human Rights Council at its 45th Regular Session, which ends today in Geneva, Switzerland.

In a statement in Lagos, MRAs Executive Director, Mr. Edetaen Ojo, urged the Federal Government to fully implement the resolution and, in particular, undertake a comprehensive review of all its laws, policies and practices and, where necessary, repeal or amend them so that they do not limit the ability of journalists and media workers to perform their work independently and without undue interference.

He said: This latest resolution by the Human Rights Council on the safety of journalists is a clear and comprehensive guidance to governments around the world, including the Nigerian Government, on the concrete actions they need to take to protect their journalists and media communities given the invaluable service they provide to their societies; to keep their citizens properly informed; and to fulfil their obligations under international human rights law as far as media freedom is concerned.

Mr. Ojo highlighted other aspects of the resolution, which he said the Nigerian Government must urgently implement in order to meet its international human rights obligations as outlined in the document, including:

 Establishing prevention mechanisms, such as an early warning and rapid response mechanism, to give journalists and media workers, when threatened, immediate access to authorities competent and adequately resourced to provide effective protective measures;

 Developing and implementing strategies for combating impunity for attacks and violence against journalists, including by creating special investigative units or independent commissions; appointing a specialized prosecutor; and adopting specific protocols and methods of investigation and prosecution;

 Ensuring accountability through the conduct of impartial, prompt, thorough, independent and effective investigations into all alleged violence, threats and attacks against journalists and media workers and bringing perpetrators, including those who command, conspire to commit, aid and abet or cover up such crimes to justice, and ensuring that victims and their families have access to appropriate restitution, compensation and assistance;

 Supporting capacity-building, training and awareness-raising in the judiciary and among law enforcement officers and military and security personnel, as well as among media organizations, journalists and civil society, regarding States international human rights and international humanitarian law obligations and commitments relating to the safety of journalists;

 Taking into account the specific role, exposure and vulnerability of journalists and media workers observing, monitoring, recording and reporting protests and assemblies, and protecting their safety;

 Ensuring that defamation and libel laws are not misused, in particular through excessive criminal sanctions, to illegitimately or arbitrarily censor journalists and interfere with their mission of informing the public, and where necessary revising and repealing such laws, in compliance with Nigerias obligations under international human rights law; and

 Cooperating with journalists, the media and civil society organizations to assess the damage that the COVID-19 pandemic is inflicting on the provision of vital information to the public and the sustainability of media environments, and to consider devising appropriate mechanisms to provide financial support to the media, including local journalism and investigative reporting, and to ensure that support is given without compromising editorial independence.

For further information, please contact:

Idowu Adewale

Communications Officer

Media Rights Agenda, Lagos

E-mail: [email protected]


O n British Airways coming back from Kalamata in Greece, a cheese sandwich made with sliced white, a slim excuse for taking off a mask.

Back home, straight into a nearby Chinese restaurant, Oriental Dragon in Cleveland Street, for Singapore noodles, hokey crispy beef and more.

Fantastic Jacobs Ladder beef with watercress salsa verde, pommes Anna and bone marrow sauce at the sainted Angela Hartnetts Murano in Mayfair.

I take NBF Daisy Finer for her first Korean meal  she lives in Gloucestershire  at Koba in Fitzrovia. Extra special on the table barbecue is spicy pork belly.

Kedgeree salad based on spelt and spices at the restaurant of the stylish Gallivant Hotel in Camber Sands where chef is Jamie Guy, previously group head for Mark Hix. Unmatchable range of revealing English wines.
When you buy shares in a company, it's worth keeping in mind the possibility that it could fail, and you could lose your money. But on a lighter note, a good company can see its share price rise well over 100%. For instance, the price of Judges Scientific plc (LON:JDG) stock is up an impressive 235% over the last five years. In the last week the share price is up 1.0%.

View our latest analysis for Judges Scientific

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

During the last half decade, Judges Scientific became profitable. That kind of transition can be an inflection point that justifies a strong share price gain, just as we have seen here. Since the company was unprofitable five years ago, but not three years ago, it's worth taking a look at the returns in the last three years, too. Indeed, the Judges Scientific share price has gained 148% in three years. Meanwhile, EPS is up 54% per year. This EPS growth is higher than the 35% average annual increase in the share price over the same three years. So you might conclude the market is a little more cautious about the stock, these days.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

It's probably worth noting that the CEO is paid less than the median at similar sized companies. But while CEO remuneration is always worth checking, the really important question is whether the company can grow earnings going forward. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Judges Scientific's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

What About Dividends?

When looking at investment returns, it is important to consider the difference between total shareholder return (TSR) and share price return. Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. As it happens, Judges Scientific's TSR for the last 5 years was 272%, which exceeds the share price return mentioned earlier. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

Story continues

A Different Perspective

We're pleased to report that Judges Scientific shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 19% over one year. Of course, that includes the dividend. Having said that, the five-year TSR of 30% a year, is even better. Potential buyers might understandably feel they've missed the opportunity, but it's always possible business is still firing on all cylinders. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 1 warning sign with Judges Scientific , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of companies we expect will grow earnings.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on GB exchanges.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
YEREVAN, Armenia  In Russias self-proclaimed sphere of influence, Russia is losing its influence.

Concurrent crises in Belarus, Central Asia and the Caucasus region have blindsided the Kremlin, leaving it scrambling to shore up Russian interests in former Soviet republics and undermining President Vladimir V. Putins image as a master tactician on the world stage.

There is nothing good about these conflicts for Moscow, Konstantin Zatulin, a senior Russian lawmaker and Putin ally who specializes in relations with what Russians call their near abroad.

Mr. Putin has spent years building up Russia as a global power, with a hand in hot spots from Latin America to the Middle East, and even meddling in presidential elections in the United States. But after working for years to destabilize the West, he suddenly finds himself surrounded by instability; once seen as sure-handed in foreign affairs, he seems to have lost his touch.

In Belarus, Mr. Putin responded to a street uprising in August by propping up the countrys unpopular autocrat, President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, turning public opinion against Russia in what had previously been Europes most Russia-friendly country.
RALEIGH, N.C.: The military is investigating North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham, an Army spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday, a day after The Associated Press reported that the Democratic contender appeared to have had an intimate encounter this summer with a public relations consultant.

Cunningham, a Raleigh-based attorney and lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve who is trying to unseat Republican Sen. Thom Tillis next month, acknowledged late last week that he and the woman both of whom are married had exchanged sexually suggestive text messages.

On Tuesday, the AP, citing previously undisclosed texts and additional interviews, reported the relationship appeared to extend beyond texts to an intimate encounter as recent as July,

The Army Reserve is investigating the matters involving (Lt. Col.) James Cunningham, Lt. Col. Simon Flake said in an emailed statement that cited Cunningham by his official first name. As such, we are unable to provide further details at this time.

Flake did not explain why the Army is investigating or how Cunninghams relationship with the woman might affect his military career. Adultery has long been a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Last year the wording was broadened to include any extramarital sexual contact. Service members can face a maximum penalty of dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and confinement for a year.

Cunningham campaign spokesperson Rachel Petri said in a news release that the candidate will participate in this process," but she indicated that he had no intention of backing away from the race.

It does not change the stakes of this election or the need for new leaders who will fight for the issues North Carolinians care about instead of caving to the corporate special interests which is exactly what Sen. Tillis has done in his years in Washington, Petri said.

Cunningham planned to make his first quasi-public appearance at an event since the news emerged. Hes scheduled to speak Wednesday night at an online environmental awards ceremony in which many others, including Gov. Roy Cooper and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker are also scheduled to participate.

Cunninghams campaign had been largely quiet since he acknowledged the texts last Friday night and apologized while seeking privacy for his family. Tillis and Cunningham already have completed three televised debates and no more are scheduled. Tillis said this week that North Carolina voters needed to hear from Cunningham.

He owes North Carolinians a full explanation, Tillis campaign account tweeted on Wednesday. The truth still matters in North Carolina, Cal.

Cunningham, who serves in a legal unit based at Fort Bragg, has made his military career a key element of his campaign. In television ads, he mentions his decision to volunteer for the Army Reserve in 2002 in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and has prosecuted military contractors for misconduct. He has said he would emphasize rooting out corruption from Washington if elected.

Ive always run to the fight, he says in a recent TV commercial, adding that in the military, Ive learned that our country comes before party.

The Tillis-Cunningham race is closely contested and the most expensive Senate race in the country in terms of campaign spending. Theres been $112 million spent for or against candidates by independent expenditure groups since the general election began in March, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Cunningham, who was recruited to run by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, has been his own fundraising powerhouse. Cunninghams campaign outraised Tillis during the first half of the year and announced last week it would report collecting a record-breaking $28.3 million during the third quarter.

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SAO PAULO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Qintess, Brazilian IT and digital transformation group, recognized as one of 100 most innovative companies in Brazil in 2020, has today announced a 12-month collaboration with Founders Factory, a leading global venture builder and investor. The agreement aims to bring Latin American corporates a globally proven program for discovering, scaling and co-creating new strategic technology startups.

The collaboration will start in October 2020, and will be the first time Founders Factory will be working with corporates in Latin America, having previously opened hubs in London, Johannesburg, New York, and Paris.

The union between Founders Factory and Qintess will provide an unprecedented opportunity for corporates in the region to gain access to the most innovative startups from around the world, identify opportunities to co-build new startups from scratch, and upskill internal teams with startup methodologies through workshops and collaborations. This will be additive to Qintess' expertise and experience in agile automation, analytics & decision science, and experience management.

According to Nana Baffour, CEO, Chairman & Chief Culture Officer of Qintess "At present, the growth of our tech ecosystem is hampered by a lack of connections between corporates and startups. They need each other to innovate industries and for startups, corporate partnerships are crucial to facilitate their growth. We want to break down the barriers and guarantee a more global perspective at local innovation initiatives. We aim to develop an ecosystem that puts Latin America at the forefront and consequently scale globally"

In this first program between Founders Factory and Qintess, Brazilian corporates enrolled on the programme will have access to workshops on venture building, connection and partnership with key startups in their sector, plus insights across key innovation trends in their sector. The members will also get to know in-depth cases of the union between global companies and startups and best practices in how to maximize success in collaboration.

Founders Factory is currently building over 20 new technology companies a year with its corporate partners. To validate ideas at scale it has honed a rapid Venture Design process matching corporate assets, insights and strategic priorities with large unmet market opportunities where transformational new businesses could be thrive.

Over the past four years Founders Factory has worked with its partners to build over 35 startups from scratch and to invest and scale a further 140 strategic early stage innovative technology businesses. This has been a model that Founders Factory has seen success in with partners including Aviva, Reckitt Benckiser, L'Oreal, Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JJDC, Inc., and Standard Bank.

Nick le Fevre, Director of Partnerships at Founders Factory, said:

"Brazil has been an exciting opportunity for technology and innovation, and we are eager to start work with Qintess to facilitate meaningful collaborations between Brazilian corporates and the most exciting startups in their industries.

We have good experience to lean on; to date we have facilitated over 200 partnerships between startups and our corporate partners, with 36% of these becoming long-term commercial engagements and we're excited to bring this expertise to the Brazilian market."

SOURCE Qintess
It has to be quite an honor for a young artist, in this case 2014 Cleveland High graduate R.R. Christensen, known by her classmates as Rachel Rounsville, to be selected by Southwest Art magazine as one of 21 artists under 31 in the U.S. to collect now.

The magazines September 2020 issue includes Christensen  noted on her website as fine artist and portraitist, and the daughter of Jared and Darlene Rounsville of Rio Rancho  and several of her beautiful paintings to highlight.

Southwest Art magazine has been published for over 40 years, with each issue providing readers with in-depth information about various styles, artists, pieces, galleries and more. There are articles about people who work with various media.

(Southwest Art magazine) is quite well-known, Christensen said. They feature either established or up-and-coming young folks.

Born in Utah, and then spending a few years living in Las Cruces, the Rounsvilles moved in 1999 to Rio Rancho, where their talented daughter attended Vista Grande Elementary, Mountain View Middle School and Cleveland High.

It was there that she found her niche, thanks, she says, to her visual arts and AP Art teacher, Michelle St. Andre.

It was in Argentina that she found her husband, Andrew, when they were serving on missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

We got to be good friends, she said, and that resulted in the two tying the knot in 2016.

Andrew is in the Marines  the couple initially lived at the USMC training base in Quantico, Va., before moving across the country to 29 Palms, Calif.

Were moving around a lot and Im teaching (on occasion). Its actually very lonely (at 29 Palms), Christensen said.

Christensen was initially inspired in the arts by her mother, who was trained as an artist, and, Over the summers we would do art lessons  it was always part of my life.

In high school, though, I thought about engineering, but she later decided she would prefer to have her hands stained by charcoal and oil paints.

Michelle St. Andre at Cleveland High, my AP Art teacher, was the first teacher that told me I had the potential to make a career out of something I love, Christensen said, then taking that advice to heart (er, art).

I studied realistic art at (Brigham Young University)  anatomy and drawing. I graduated in May 2019. Provo was inspiring, she said.

Also inspiring for Christensen was renowned master portrait artist Patricia McMahon Rice, an award-winning artist specializing in fine art oil paintings in the Classical Realist tradition.

She taught me a lot about skin tones and what makes a good portrait, Christensen said. Art is a thing where youre never done learning.

Being included in the artists under 31 to collect is a highlight in her young life.

I have had some awards from Portrait Society of America, she said. I teach by request; during COVID, its a lot more difficult. I had a couple of student shows (while at CHS)  an annual art show (staged on the fourth floor of City Hall).

Looking down the road, Christensen said shell expect to make more money from her work as she ages: Its a slow build, (but you) make more money at it when youre 40 or 60.

I count myself lucky I have such a supportive husband, she added, with a Utah event approaching, at which she hopes to display some pieces at St. Georges Arts Festival.

She said she does her best to return to Rio Rancho as often as I can, and is excited about a piece shes doing of the Sandia Mountains, which, when completed, she hopes to have it find a home.

You can see Christensens work at her website, rrchristensenfineart.com.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and the Financial Stimulus Accountability Group (FSAG) on Wednesday announced an initial $50 million in federal Coronavirus Relief Funds for the new Supplemental Employer Recovery Grant (SERG) program to provide additional relief to small businesses suffering during the COVID-19 pandemic. This new wave of funding includes specific support for minority-owned, women-owned and veteran-owned businesses, as well as businesses owned by disabled persons.

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and supporting them through these difficult times has been one of the core missions of the Financial Stimulus Accountability Group, said Governor Lee. The SERG program will provide further relief to small businesses, especially those who may not have been able to access previous federal and state relief funds.

The coronavirus has placed an inordinate burden on our small business owners. These businesses are critical economic drivers and the most vulnerable during times of crisis, said Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge). I was grateful for the opportunity to work with my colleagues on the Financial Stimulus Accountability Group to provide this relief to businesses in need.

We have stood with our businesses by initiating the Small Business Relief Program, and stabilizing the Unemployment Trust Fund, and todays announcement is yet another targeted solution to strengthen the Tennessee business communitys ongoing recovery efforts, said House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville). All of these programs support our minority, women, disabled and service-disabled veteran business owners who are suffering during these extraordinary times. We need them to remain open and to thrive, and I applaud our Stimulus Accountability Group for helping all Tennessee businesses get back up on their feet so they remain successful.

Small business owners and non-profit organizations can apply to receive reimbursement for eligible direct expenses or costs incurred as a result of business interruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The programs application window will open October 7, 2020 and remain open until December 29, 2020, or until all funds are depleted. Please note:

Funds will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis;

Awards are capped at $30,000. Businesses located in low to moderate income (LMI) census tracts, Opportunity zones, or Promise zones will receive an additional $500 added to the maximum allowable expenses;

10% of all funds distributed under this program will be reserved for eligible diversity business enterprises, classified as minority business enterprises, women business enterprises, or service-disabled veteran business enterprises, and enterprises owned by disabled persons.

The period for reimbursable expenses is May 1, 2020 through August 31, 2020. Eligible expenses and business interruption costs include but are not limited to:

Costs to create social distancing measures

Purchasing personal protective equipment for employees or customers

Contactless equipment

Payroll expenses

Mortgage interest

The SERG program follows the previously allocated $300 million for more than 40,000 qualifying businesses under the Tennessee Business Relief Program.
Women in El Fasher, North Darfur, march for 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, an annual campaign beginning on the International Day to End Violence Against Women.

analysis

The number of cases of sexualized violence and femicide in Africa has risen during the Covid-19 pandemic. Will those in power finally grow aware of the extent of the problem?

"I slept with a small knife, because I was afraid. I didn't even think about defending myself, because he was three times as strong as I am," said Cameroonian journalist Kitty Chrys-Tayl, recounting her experience. Having often been beaten and humiliated, she knows all about gender-based violence (GBV) firsthand.

The United Nations has called it the "shadow pandemic". Violence, sexual assault and femicide have all increased in the past months across Africa and the globe. The reasons of the spike are closely related to the coronavirus pandemic.

More sexual violence

Liberia recorded a 50 percent increase in gender-based violence in the first half of this year. Between January and June, there were more than 600 reported rape cases. The number for the whole of 2018 was 803.

Nigeria also saw an increase of sexual violence during the curfews. Two cases in June, in which young women were raped and killed, shocked the country. In Kenya, local media reported almost 4,000 schoolgirls becoming pregnant when school were closed during the lockdown. In most cases they had allegedly been raped by relatives or police officers.

The UN's MINUSCA mission in the Central African Republic reported another increase: 27 percent more instances of rape, and 69 percent more cases where women and children were hurt.

A clearly visible 'shadow pandemic'

"The situation was already bad for women before the pandemic. The pandemic merely lifted the veil from what was not being seen," Jean Paul Murunga of the women's' rights organization Equality Now told DW.

"It doesn't mean the problem wasn't there. It was there, and this helps open the government's eyes to the real situation."

In May, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said: "The scourge of gender-based violence continues to stalk our country, as the men of our country declared war on the women". According to the latest statistics from the South African Police Service, every three hours a woman is murdered in the country. The Gender-Based Violence Command Center in South Africa noticed a strong upward trend in violence against women during the lockdown from March 27 to April 16.

All words, no action

So far, the measures taken against gender-based violence have been ineffective, despite South Africa's National Strategic Plan. The strategy was implemented in May to address prevention, protection, accountability, support and healing.

The Nigerian State of Kaduna recently introduced a law which allows for rapists of children under the age of 14 to be chemically castrated. Following popular protests, all state governors declared a state of emergency due to gender-based violence.

Meanwhile, in Malawi, the Supreme Court ordered the police in a small town to compensate victims of sexual abuse by officers.

Cameroonian Kitty Chrys-Tayl launched an online campaign called "I Decided to Live" to force decision-makers to listen.

"The subject of sexism must be dealt with in schools," the journalist said. "For that, one needs political will, because it's about damage caused by gender-based violence and the rape culture."

In some countries, governments have created bodies or issued statements against gender-based violence. But government budgets rarely include money for concrete measures.

Women's subordinate role

Little has been done to eradicate the root of the problem.

"We've got driving factors such as alcohol and drug abuse, that's part of it. But the main reason we have violence against women in our country is the low status women have," says Lesley Ann Foster, chair of the Masimanyane Women's Rights International in South Africa. In the coronavirus pandemic, women are often at the mercy of their partners during curfews. The alcohol ban, temporarily in place in South Africa, did lead to a decrease in reported cases. Yet, this could also be explained by the lack of opportunity to report rapes.

"It's about patriarchy, it's about strength and power, it's about social norms and standards. The latter are so weak when it comes to women, that women are easily disposed of. They're killed, they're raped, they're beaten up. The country is not addressing this. There isn't enough of a push to advance gender equality," Foster told DW. "There's not enough respect for the dignity of women, for their life, their safety and protection."

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Patriarchal societies

This is also the opinion of Kenyan women's rights activist Murunga. "Historically, a lot of African countries are patriarchal in nature. For a long time, women and girls have been seen as unequal to the male gender. So issues affecting women and girls take a longer time to get onto the table."

Murunga says that one problem is the low representation of women in leadership. "Therefore, issues affecting women and girls don't get priority," he added. Often, the focus is on topics like infrastructure, roads and military, "but not on budgeting for health and family planning."

As long as governments consist only of men, gender-based violence will remain a "shadow pandemic". According to Murunga, one thing above all must change: African governments must include more women able to speak for and with other women.

Nafissa Amadou contributed to this report
DENVER, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Colorado Access, a nonprofit community-based health plan striving to improve the health and lives of the underserved, today awarded $1.83 million to 19 organizations across Colorado to support the transformation of a coordinated, accountable system of care that improves health delivery and reduces inequities exacerbated by COVID-19.

The Community Innovation Pool awards are part of a new program offered by Colorado Access that funds development and implementation of new models of care that are focused on two major goals:

Focus Area #1: Health inequities and social needs exacerbated by COVID-19

Funding Goals:

To support innovative initiatives, programs and/or services that aim to address and lessen health inequities and health disparities which are being exacerbated by COVID-19.

To identify innovative ideas addressing social determinants of health emphasizing diversity and inclusivity.

Focus Area #2: Telehealth

Funding Goals:

To support innovative access to telehealth for community member's physical, social and emotional health and well-being.

To expand health care provider capacity and capabilities to innovatively serve community members through telehealth.

To enhance community member participation in telehealth delivery through direct feedback.

The effort supports community collaboration, not just regionally, but across the state, said Marshall Thomas, MD, president and CEO at Colorado Access. "The people we serve are often overlooked in a typical medical setting, let alone a pandemic. We need to ensure we are networking our existing community resources around patients and communities in new ways to address the cognitive, social, behavioral and economic needs of each member of the community."

This funding will support advances underway throughout Colorado, allowing for more rapid care delivery transformation. Colorado Access supports more than 500,000 members who receive health care as part of Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+) and Health First Colorado (Colorado's Medicaid Program). It is the state's largest administrator of the two programs.

"Healthphysical, emotional and behavioralis a community resource that requires community-wide support. We take our commitment to our community very seriously," Thomas said. "The Community Innovation Pool grants will contribute to the creation of a statewide framework of community programs and supports that promote better integration and use of existing community resources."

More about the Community Innovation Pool and Colorado Access

Methodology

Programs were deemed "innovative" because the organization could demonstrate they provided a new alternative to problem solving; showed incremental improvements year over year, or created an entirely new program; and program leaders were taking a calculated risk while showing a system for creating learning opportunities. Focus areas were defined as (1) health inequities and social need exacerbated by COVID-19 and (2) telehealth programs. Forty-eight percent of the funding was awarded to programs focused on health inequities, while 23% of the funding went to telehealth programs. The remaining 29% of funding went to projects that worked to solve health inequities while also addressing telehealth. Awards were determined by deliberation through a review committee comprised of select members, providers and some Colorado Access employees.

About Colorado Access

Colorado Access is a local, nonprofit health plan that serves members throughout Colorado. The company's members receive health care as part of Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+) and Health First Colorado (Colorado's Medicaid Program). The company also provides care coordination services and administers behavioral and physical health benefits for two regions as part of the Accountable Care Collaborative Program through Health First Colorado. To learn more about Colorado Access, visit coaccess.com.

SOURCE Colorado Access

Related Links

www.coaccess.com


We have built an organization with smart, hard-working people that respect one another. Tweet this

According to the 2020 Great Place to Work survey, Liberty Advisor Group employees feel they work for a company that cares about their people, given a lot of responsibility and trusted by management. Employees highlighted a supportive environment that encourages personal growth and opportunities.

"We are proud to be Great Place to Work-Certified for the third year in a row," says Chad Smith, CEO and Founder at Liberty. "I am so proud to be working with a team of exceptionally talented people that consistently deliver high impact work for our clients. We have built an organization with smart, hard-working people that respect one another. We are a family that bands together when it matters most. We support each other in hard times and celebrate good times and successes."

"We congratulate Liberty Advisor Group, on their Certification," said Sarah Lewis-Kulin, Vice President of Best Workplace List Research at Great Place to Work. "Organizations that earn their employees' trust create great workplace cultures that deliver outstanding business results."

Great Place to Work is the global authority on workplace culture. Since 1992, they have surveyed more than 100 million employees around the world and used those deep insights to define what makes a great workplace: trust. Great Place to Work helps organizations quantify their culture and produce better business results by creating a high-trust work experience for all employees. Emprising, their culture management platform, empowers leaders with the surveys, real-time reporting, and insights they need to make data-driven people decisions. Their unparalleled benchmark data is used to recognize Great Place to Work-Certified companies and the Best Workplaces in the US and more than 60 countries, including the 100 Best Companies to Work For and World's Best list published annually in Fortune. Everything they do is driven by the mission to build a better world by helping every organization become a Great Place to Work For All.

To learn more, visit greatplacetowork.com, listen to the podcast Better by Great Place to Work, and read "A Great Place to Work for All." Join the community on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

ABOUT LIBERTY ADVISOR GROUP

Liberty Advisor Group is a goal-oriented, client-focused and results-driven consulting firm. We are a lean, hand-picked team of strategists, technologists and entrepreneurs  battle-tested experts with a steadfast, start-up attitude. A team with an average experience of 15+ years, that has delivered over $1 billion in operating income improvement and over 300 M&A deals for our clients. Liberty has a proven track record in Business and Technology Strategy, Transformation and Assurance, Data Analytics, Business Threat Intelligence, and Mergers and Acquisitions. We collaborate, integrate and ideate in real-time with our clients to deliver situation-specific solutions that work. Liberty has been awarded Best Place to Work by Crain's Chicago Business, Consulting Magazine, Great Place to Work, and Fortune; Fastest Growing Consulting Firm by Consulting Magazine; and Top BI and Analytics Company by CIO Applications.

libertyadvisorgroup.com

SOURCE Liberty Advisor Group

Related Links

http://libertyadvisorgroup.com/


Tossing something into your recycling bin that cant be processed does more harm than good.
Former Rep. Katie Hills old government Twitter account was commandeered Tuesday evening by former staff who expressed chagrin at an upcoming film adaptation of the disgraced congresswomans memoir and accused her of abuse.

The posters wrote that they are disappointed in so many folks including production company Blumhouse, writer Michael Seitzman, and The Handmaids Tale star Elisabeth Moss, who will play Hill in the movie based on the California Democrats memoir, She Will Rise: Becoming a Warrior in the Battle for True Equality.

What happened to Katie Hill shouldnt happen to anyone. But, this moment requires more nuance, as Katie Hills story  our story  is also one of workplace abuse and harassment, the posters wrote in a 10-tweet thread.

Hill, who was elected in 2018, resigned from Congress in October of last year after admitting that she engaged in an inappropriate relationship with an unnamed female campaign staffer and apologizing for her actions. A blog published a topless photo of Hill and the woman as a throuple with Hills husband, who Hill was in the process of divorcing and blamed for the release of the intimate photos as revenge porn. Hill said her husband was abusive to her during their marriage.

The Twitter posters acknowledged it is an incredibly sensitive situation and said they appreciate the instinct to defend our former boss, an LGBTQ+ woman who faced abuse from her husband, but added that Katie Hill can be both a victim and perpetrator.

Katie Hill is not a hero for women, the posters wrote, adding that Hill caused immense harm to the people who worked for her, many of whom were young women just beginning their careers in politics.

The Twitter thread noted that Hill was never investigated by the House Ethics Committee and has not been held accountable by anyone other than herself.

We encourage everyone to reflect deeply before taking her word at face value, the thread advised.

Story continues

While Katie is certainly the survivor of abuse, we are not confident that she sufficiently acted to end her own patterns of inappropriate and abusive behavior, the posters said. In order to advance the #MeToo movement, we must be willing to acknowledge the problematic behaviors among those in our own communities.

Hill quickly commented on the Twitter thread, saying her former government account was hacked and she had reported the matter to Twitter.

Control of my account was immediately handed back to the House Clerk when I resigned, including password changes and access restrictions. God knows who hacked it from there, Hill said.

More from National Review
BANJUL (Reuters) - The Gambian parliament's rejection this week of a new constitution that would have limited the number of presidential terms represents a "dark day" for democracy, the leader of the West African nation's main opposition party said on Wednesday.

The draft bill included a two-term limit, which would have applied retroactively, preventing President Adama Barrow from emulating other West African leaders who have used new charters as reset buttons on their mandates.

After days of intense debate, 31 lawmakers in Parliament voted to reject the bill on Tuesday, while 21 voted to approve it for a national referendum.

"Sept. 22 marks a very dark day in the post-dictatorship in Gambia," said Ousainou Darboe, who leads the United Democratic Party.

This decision "highlights the unwillingness of the Barrow-led administration to prioritise public and national interest," he said at a press conference.

Barrow came to power after a 2016 election, ending 22 years of authoritarian rule by Yahya Jammeh.

After winning plaudits for committing to respect rights and investigate abuses under Jammeh, Barrow has faced sometimes violent public protests since he reneged on a promise to step down after three years in office.

Gambia's next presidential election is scheduled for 2021. Unless a new constitution bill is proposed, Barrow will have no limits on how many five-year terms he can seek.

Other lawmakers said they rejected the new constitution because its laws would apply retroactively, which they said was unlawful under the existing constitution.

"We don't legally have the power to pass this draft constitution with a retroactive clause," said minority leader Samba Jallow, whose National Reconciliation Party backs Barrow's National People's Party.

(Reporting by Pap Saine and Lamin Jahateh; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Alex Richardson and Leslie Adler)
Shuttered: Lemon and Duke is one of the pubs taking action against FBD

FBD is considering an application for contempt of court over an alleged leaking of documents relating to a case being taken by four publicans against the insurer over its refusal to pay out for losses incurred by the Covid pandemic.

Dublin pubs Sinnotts, Lemon & Duke and The Leopardstown Inn, and Athlone-based Seans Bar are suing FBD in the Commercial Court as they believe their policies covered the disruptive impact of Covid-19 on their businesses.

Declan McGrath, a senior barrister representing FBD, raised the alleged contempt issue after Mr Justice Denis McDonald ruled in the publicans favour regarding the admissibility of documents concerning FBDs exposure in respect of the business interruption claims.

Mr McGrath said he was again seeking to have this evidence ruled inadmissible as he claimed that some of these documents had already found their way into the public domain and this should not have occurred as they were not opened in court.

Contents of the documents appeared in a number of media articles, he said.

Mr McGrath alleged this mounted to a breach of an undertaking.

Michael Cush SC, representing three of the Dublin pubs involved in the case, described it as a serious allegation.

Judge McDonald said that while he was not looking at any particular party, the matter needed to be investigated.

On day two of the hearing, the court heard how a side letter furnished on March 2 to Noel Anderson, co-owner of Lemon & Duke, stated: Our VFI/DPU policy which your policy will be written under is covering coronavirus and it is the amount specified in the policy, the pub must be forcibly shut down and cannot be voluntary.

The letter was sent by FBD employee Paul Shanahan after Mr Anderson sought assurances Lemon & Duke would be covered by coronavirus before taking out a policy with FBD. Mr Shanahan said he was not the type of person to pull the wool over anyones eyes, adding I had no reason to think that cover for Covid-19 was not available under the public house policy.

Counsel for FBD today said that no business in Ireland has ever asked for pandemic cover, nor has FBD ever provided it.

Judge McDonald interrupted to point out that The Inn on Hibernian Way, trading as Lemon & Duke, had sought it.

Mr Anderson can be complimented for his foresight, but it was foresight which arose after the commencement of the pandemic. It was after events in China and Europe, when he was seen what was happening around the world, that he asked about the cover, Mr McGrath said.

Evidence that nobody has ever asked for a policy that covers a pandemic would subsequently be provided to the court, he added.

FBD is arguing it should not have to payout as, in its view, the policy only covered local outbreaks of a disease and not a pandemic.

The insurer also believes it should not have to cover all losses related to Covid-19. FBDs position is that the closure of bars was not due to an outbreak of Covid on the premises or within 25 miles, but because of the national situation.

Eoin McCullough, a senior barrister representing Seans Bar, described this reasoning as wrong.

The policy is clear and unambiguous. The wording is entirely that of FBD, he said.

All of the pubs are arguing their policies have a clause which states they were to be indemnified if their premises were closed by order of a local authority or Government if there are outbreaks of a contagious or infectious disease on the premises or within 25 miles of same.

They alluded to a recent High Court decision in the UK where it was ruled that the pandemic should result in pay-outs to holders of business interruption policies.

The UKs Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) brought the case on behalf of policyholders across the country.

This decision is currently being appealed to the Supreme Court.

The hearing continues.
BENGALURU, India, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Infosys (NSE: INFY) (BSE: INFY) (NYSE: INFY), a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, will announce results for the second quarter ended September 30, 2020 on Wednesday, October 14, 2020 around 3:45 p.m. Indian Standard Time (IST) (6:15 a.m. US ET; 3:15 a.m. PST; 11:15 a.m. London time; 6:15 p.m. Singapore/Hong Kong time). The results will also be available on www.infosys.com.

Common press conference (Hosted virtually)

(4:30 p.m. IST; 7:00 a.m. ET)

Following the release, the leadership team will be part of a common press conference at 4:30 p.m. IST. The participating executives will address questions from the media during this interaction, which will be streamed live on the Investor Relations section of Infosys website, following which it will be archived at www.infosys.com. The archive will be available after 7:00 p.m. IST on October 14, 2020 (after 9:30 a.m. US ET on October 14, 2020). In addition, a transcript of the conference will be available at www.infosys.com.

Earnings call

(6:00 p.m. IST; 8:30 a.m. ET)

The company will conduct a single 60-minute conference call at 6:00 p.m. IST (8:30 a.m. US ET; 5:30 a.m. PST; 1:30 p.m. London time; 8:30 p.m. Singapore/Hong Kong time) on October 14, 2020 (open to investors/analysts in all regions), where the senior management will discuss company's performance and answer questions from participants. To participate in the conference call, please dial the numbers provided below 10  15 minutes before the scheduled start time of the call. During this time, the operator will provide instructions on how to ask questions. Alternatively, you can also pre-register yourself using the DiamondPass link provided below which will enable you to connect to the conference call without having to wait for an operator. As participation in the call is limited, early registration is encouraged.

This event will be webcast live on the Investor Relations section of Infosys website, following which it will be archived at www.infosys.com. The archive will be available after 8:30 p.m. IST on October 14, 2020 (after 11:00 a.m. US ET on October 14, 2020). In addition, a transcript of the conference call will be available at www.infosys.com.

Summary of events

Event Date and Time Web-site/ Region Telephone No. Earnings release over the wire services 3:45 p.m. IST 6:15 a.m. ET October 14, 2020 www.infosys.com

Common press conference (Hosted virtually) 4:30 p.m. IST 7:00 a.m. ET October 14, 2020 www.infosys.com Dial-in details to be shared with participants Event Date and Time Web-site/ Region Telephone No. Earnings conference call (open for questions from investors / analysts in all regions) 6:00 p.m. IST 8:30 a.m. ET October 14, 2020 Questions during the call can be addressed to [email protected] DiamondPass registration link https://services.choruscall.in/DiamondPassRegistration/register?confirmationNumber=4967121&linkSecurityString=dc290359a India Toll, Mumbai: +91 22 6280 1168 +91 22 7115 8069 Toll, Bangalore: +91 7045671221 US Toll-free: 1 866 746 2133 Toll Number: +1 323 386 8721 Singapore Toll-free:

800 101 2045 Toll-number:

+65 3157 5746 Hong Kong Toll-free:

800 964 448 Toll Number: +852 3018 6877 Japan Toll Free: 0053 116 1110 Toll Number: +81 3 4589 9421 UK Toll Free: 0 808 101 1573 Toll Number: +44 203 478 5524 Germany Toll-free:

00 8001 424 3444 Canada Toll- free: 011 8001 424 3444 France Toll-free:

0 800 914 745 Replay of conference call Till October 21, 2020 www.infosys.com Toll-free, USA: 1 833 289 8317 International toll: + 1 347 974 7488 Toll, Mumbai/India: +91 22 7194 5757 Playback code: 4637#

About Infosys Ltd.

Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. We enable clients in 46 countries to navigate their digital transformation. With nearly four decades of experience in managing the systems and workings of global enterprises, we expertly steer our clients through their digital journey. We do it by enabling the enterprise with an AI-powered core that helps prioritize the execution of change. We also empower the business with agile digital at scale to deliver unprecedented levels of performance and customer delight. Our always-on learning agenda drives their continuous improvement through building and transferring digital skills, expertise, and ideas from our innovation ecosystem.

Visit www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next.

SOURCE Infosys
Elisabeth Moss is set to portray former Congresswoman Katie Hill in an upcoming film adaptation of the 33-year-old's popular memoir.

The memoir - titled She Will Rise: Becoming A Warrior In The Battle For True Equality, - was quickly optioned by Blumhouse Television following its August publication.

The project is currently being 'developed as a movie for a streaming service' and Hill will act as an executive producer, as reported by Deadline on Tuesday.

Next role: Elisabeth Moss is set to portray former Congresswoman Katie Hill in an upcoming film adaptation of the 33-year-old's popular memoir

Aside from playing Hill, Elisabeth will also be producing the feature with Lindsey McManus under her production company Love & Squalor Pictures.

Michael Seitzman will be responsible for adapting the memoir's screenplay and he will also receive producer credit alongside Blumhouse's Jason Blum.

Jeremy Gold, who has produced the likes of HBO's mini series Sharp Objects, will be involved as an executive producer for Blumhouse Television.

'I wrote She Will Rise to try to take back my story from those who have exploited and twisted it.

'I also wanted to shine a light on the stories of women whose resilience and bravery gave me strength when I needed it most, and hopefully to provide inspiration to others,' said Hill in regards to the impending project.

Her side: Hill's memoir, titled She Will Rise: Becoming a Warrior In The Battle For True Equality, was quickly optioned by Blumhouse Television following its August release

Though she was able to gain some control over her narrative via her memoir, Katie emphasized that 'having this larger platform to tell this story' and 'working with the talented team at Blumhouse and Michael, and the incredible Elisabeth Moss as the lead is more than [she] ever could have imagined.'

'I am so grateful for the opportunity and look forward to collaborating on this project,' she concluded.

Elisabeth gushed that she is 'so honored to have the opportunity to portray Katie and to help tell her story.'

'Her strength and work to amplify women's voices is incredibly inspiring to me and her experiences could not be more important for us to magnify right now,' she said, before giving a nod to the Blumhouse team.

Incredible: Though she was able to gain some control over her narrative via her memoir, Katie emphasized that 'having this larger platform to tell this story' and 'working with the talented team at Blumhouse and Michael, and the incredible Elisabeth Moss as the lead is more than [she] ever could have imagined'; Katie pictured

Honored: Elisabeth gushed that she is 'so honored to have the opportunity to portray Katie and to help tell her story'; Elisabeth pictured in February

'As always, Jason and the Blumhouse team are such incredible partners and Lindsey and I are thrilled to make something powerful with them and Michael.'

Jason Blum, who founded Blumhouse in 2000, said that him and his team 'pursued this project because [they] believe in Katie and her message of empowering women and breaking the system.'

'And with Elisabeth and the force of what she brings on and off the camera, we hope this will be a powerful vehicle to inspire and for change,' concluded the 51-year-old producer.

She Will Rise: Becoming a Warrior in the Battle for True Equality, which hit shelves on August 11, details the former California Congresswoman's highly publicized fall from grace.

Breaking the system: Jason Blum, who founded Blumhouse in 2000, said that him and his team 'pursued this project because [they] believe in Katie and her message of empowering women and breaking the system'; Blum pictured in 2019

Hill's political profile found the national stage in 2018 when she put her homeless services career on hold to run for congress as a Democratic candidate in California's 25th Congressional District.

The 25th Congressional District is a historically Republican district, with the last Democrat - prior to Hill - having held the seat in 1990.

Aside from being a democrat, Hill was also openly bisexual and allowed Vice to thoroughly document her race.

Hill ran against Republican candidate Steve Knight, who had been the reigning congressman since 2014.

Rise: Hill's political profile found the national stage in 2018 when she put her homeless services career on hold to run for congress as a Democratic candidate in California's 25th Congressional District; Katie pictured in 2019

Winner: Katie, who earned endorsements from the likes of President Barack Obama and Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi, ended up dethroning Steve in the November 2018 election; Katie pictured in 2019

Katie, who earned endorsements from the likes of President Barack Obama and Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi, ended up dethroning Steve in the November 2018 election.

But, unfortunately, Hill's progressive congressional victory was short lived due to a scandal that emerged less than a year into her term.

In October of 2019, shocking photographs of Hill posing naked with a tattoo of what appeared to be a Nazi-era Iron Cross on her bikini line while smoking a bong and making out with her young female aide were obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.

The female aide was later identified by DailyMail.com as Morgan Desjardins, 24, from Santa Clarita, California.

According to reports, Hill and her now estranged husband Kenny Heslep were involved in a polyamorous relationship with Desjardins for approximately two years.

Scandal: In October of 2019, s hocking photographs of Hill posing naked with a tattoo of what appeared to be a Nazi-era Iron Cross on her bikini line while smoking a bong and making out with her young female aide were obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com; Katie and Morgan pictured

Polyamory: According to reports, Hill and her now estranged husband Kenny Heslep were involved in a polyamorous relationship with Desjardins for approximately two years; Katie, Morgan, and Kenny pictured

The relationship between Desjardins, Hill, and Heslep reportedly began when Desjardins started working for Hill's campaign in 2017.

At some point in 2019, Hill single-handedly put an end to the three-way relationship and even filed for divorce from Heslep approximately five-months before the scandalous photos were leaked.

Hill accused her estranged husband of orchestrating the leak and even claimed that he was 'abusive' and threatened to 'ruin her' if she ever left him, according to the New York Times.

Heslep vehemently denied Hill's claims and has continued to insist that his computer was 'hacked' and that hackers were behind the release of the former 'throuple's' private photos, as per Heslep's father Frank in a statement to Buzzfeed.

Resigning: An ethics investigation was quickly launched, but was never completed because Hill decided to resign; Katie pictured in 2019

While the lurid nature of the photos were shocking, revelations about her relationship with a subordinate put her personal - and political - ethics into question.

Hill insisted that her relationship with Desjardins happened prior to her congressional win, which would not violate House rules.

But another allegation regarding a supposed relationship between Hill and her legislative director, if proven true, would have been a direct violation. Both Hill and her legislative director have denied having romantic entanglements of any kind.

An ethics investigation was quickly launched, but was never completed because of Hill's decision to resign.

'To every little girl who looked up to me, I hope that one day you can forgive me...I am leaving now because of a double standard. I am leaving because I no longer want to be used as a bargaining chip,' said Katie in her memorable farewell speech on October 31 of 2019.
Mumbai: Several Bollywood personalities, including actors Farhan Akhtar, Taapsee Pannu and filmmaker Hansal Mehta, on Wednesday hailed the Bombay High Courts decision to grant bail to actor Rhea Chakraborty, who was arrested over drugs-related charges in her boyfriend, actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death case. Rhea Chakraborty and her brother, Showik Chakraborty, were arrested last month by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with its drugs probe in Rajputs death.

A bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal also granted bail to Rajputs aides Dipesh Sawant and Samuel Miranda, but rejected the bail plea of Showik Chakraborty, who is also an accused in the case. The development came days after the AIIMS medical board ruled out murder in the death of Rajput and termed it a case of hanging and death by suicide, which is currently being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Pannu took to Twitter and prayed for the 28-year-old actors well-being after her month-long jail term. Hope her time in jail has sufficed the egos of a lot of people out there who in the name of justice for Sushant fulfilled their personal/professional agendas.

Praying she doesnt become bitter towards the life she has ahead of her. Life is unfair but at least its not over as yet, she wrote. Akhtar criticised the viciousand insensitive TV media coverage around Rhea Chakraborty.

Any shrill anchors apologising for the hell they put #RheaChakraborty and her family through? Didnt think so. But watch them shift the goalpost now. Theyre notorious for that, the Bhaag Milkha Bhaag star tweeted. Mehta said elections needed to be fought on real issues, not at the altar of a girls life.

Now go fight elections on real issues, for the people and get elected by the people. Dont fight them at the altar of a girls life, a familys peace and by exploiting tragedy. Serve the people. Not your vested interests, he tweeted. Director Anubhav Sinha, tweeted a jubilant Finally! She gets bail. Actor Huma Qureshi said those who peddled murder conspiracy theories in case of Rajputs death should be thoroughly investigated.

Everyone owes #RheaChakraborty an apology. And there must be an investigation into people who started these murder conspiracy theories. Shame on you for destroying a girl and her familys life for your agendas, Qureshi said. Actor Swara Bhasker wrote, #rheagetsbail About time! Writer Kanika Dhillon thanked the court for restoring dignity and slammed the witch-hunt and media trial against Rhea Chakraborty.

Let your heads hang in shame and remember as we watched/enjoyed and gave TRPs to screaming anchors-spinning hysterical yarns-This innocent girl languished in jail, she said. While celebrating Rhea Chakrabortys release, director-writer Nupur Asthana said she hopes the young actor takes all those people to court who pronounced her guilty in a media trial.

Finally Rhea Chakravorty has gotten bail. She should never have been put in jail in the 1st place. Hope she sues all those vultures in high places that proclaimed her guilty for their own agendas and character assassinated her (sic) Asthana tweeted. The HC, while granting bail to Rhea Chakraborty and two others, directed them to deposit their passports with the NCB and not to leave the country without permission of the special NDPS court.

The HC also directed Rhea Chakraborty to visit the nearest police station for the first 10 days after she gets out of jail. It directed her not to leave Mumbai without the NCBs permission and to not tamper with evidence while out on bail.
Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion at 9 PM. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

Metal detectors, CCTVs, 3-layer police cover for Hathras familys security

Security has been beefed up for the family members of the 19-year-old Hathras Dalit woman, who died after being gang-raped and brutalised last month, even as the time given to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to submit its report on the incident was extended by 10 days, said government officials. Read more

Bengal logs spike in Covid-19 count as people flock to shops ahead of annual festival

With West Bengal entering the Durga Puja-mode and festive-season shopping going on in full swing, the state is witnessing a steady spike in Covid-19 numbers. Read more

Hina Khan brings her fashion A-game to the Bigg Boss 14 house

Hina Khan is easily one of the best dressed television stars, it is very rare that she doesnt sport the right look, and although the actor has returned to the Bigg Boss house for Season 14 as a mentor for the contestants, she is still doing us a solid and dropping snaps of her OOTD on her Instagram. Read more

Kangana Ranaut reacts to Swara Bhaskers jibe, says will return awards if proven wrong: Watch interview again if your memory is weak

Actor Kangana Ranaut is standing by her earlier statement, saying that she will return her awards if her accusations are found wrong in the Sushant Singh Rajput case. After Swara Bhasker tweeted a veiled comment at Kangana on Wednesday afternoon, the latter also shared a tweet in reply. Read more

Saree-clad dancer Eshna Kutty is back with two hoops. Video is absolutely stunning

Remember Eshna Kutty, the woman whose saree-clad hoop dancing video went all kinds of viral online? Well, she is back with a new video and this one is ever more amazing than the previous one. In the video, she dances to the song Chinnamma Chilakkamma from the 2004 film Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities using two hoops. Read more

IPL 2020: He should be No.1 - Brian Lara picks Dhonis successor among KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson

Who should replace MS Dhoni as a wicket-keeper batsman in the Indian limited-overs side among KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson? Its a question that has been doing the rounds ever since 2019 ODI World Cup, when Dhoni last donned the Indian blues. It gathered pace when the former India skipper decided to announce his retirement from international cricket in August this year. Read more
He has an unusually rich grasp of and experience in foreign policy, which, as traditionally understood, has not played a central role in the presidential race  though the pandemic, the climate crisis, a more assertive China and disinformation wars against the American public argue strongly that it should. The next president will face the task of repairing the enormous damage inflicted on Americas global reputation.

Mr. Biden has the necessary chops, having spent much of his career focused on global concerns. He not only took on thorny diplomatic missions as vice president, he also served more than three decades on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Aware that an America First approach in reality amounts to America alone, he would work to revive and refurbish damaged alliances. He has the respect and trust of Americas allies and would not be played for a fool by its adversaries.

Certainly, not all of Mr. Bidens foreign policy decisions through the decades look sage in hindsight, but he has shown foresight in key moments. He fought a rear-guard action in the Obama White House to limit the futile surge in Afghanistan. He was against the 2011 intervention in Libya and skeptical of committing American troops to Syria. He opposed renewing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2007 and 2008 because it gave the government too much power to spy on Americans. Hes supported closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Little wonder that he has the backing of a whos who of the foreign policy community and national security officials from both parties.

Mr. Biden is not an ideological purist or a bomb-thrower. Some will see this as a shortcoming or hopelessly naive. Certainly, its unlikely that if Republicans retain control of the Senate, their leader, Mitch McConnell, will abandon his policy of fanatical obstructionism of any Democratic president.

That said, as the emissary often dispatched by President Barack Obama to deal with Republican lawmakers during tough legislative fights, Mr. Biden has intimate experience with the partisan gridlock crippling Congress. He knows how the levers of power work on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and he has longstanding relationships with members from both parties. More than any of this cycles other presidential hopefuls, he offered weary voters a chance to see whether even a modicum of bipartisanship is possible.

He is also offering a glimpse of the Democratic Partys future in his choice of running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California. Ms. Harris would become a number of firsts  a woman, a Black person and an Asian-American  as vice president, adding history-making excitement to the ticket. A former prosecutor, she is tough, smart and can dismantle a faulty argument or political opponent. She is progressive, but not radical. In her own presidential campaign, she presented herself as a unifying leader with center-left policy proposals in a mold similar to Mr. Biden, albeit a generation younger. Mr. Biden is aware that he no longer qualifies as a fresh face and has said that he considers himself a bridge to the partys next generation of leaders. Ms. Harris is a promising step in that direction.
Scots are facing the prospect of even tougher restrictions on pubs and restaurants amid fears coronavirus is spiralling out of control.

Nicola Sturgeon is set to unveil a dramatic new squeeze this afternoon, expected to include swingeing curbs on the hospitality sector and local travel.

The move - which she has stressed will not amount to a full lockdown as happened in March - comes after the First Minister received 'very strong' advice about the need to respond to a surge in infections.

The action could be an indication of looming curbs in England, with Boris Johnson under huge pressure to tighten the rules despite a growing Tory revolt over civil liberties infringements and damage to the economy.

Experts have warned that the current outbreak across the UK could match the March peak by the end of October unless 'drastic' steps are taken. Some are pushing for a short 'circuit breaker' lockdown at school half-term or ban on households mixing to break the chains of transmission.

At her daily briefing yesterday, Ms Sturgeon said Infections were beginning to spread from younger sections of the population to older age groups.

The average number of daily cases has risen from 285 two weeks ago  when a ban on households mixing indoors was introduced  to 729.

Nicola Sturgeon (pictured at the Scottish Parliament last week) is set to unveil a dramatic new squeeze this afternoon, expected to include swingeing curbs on the hospitality sector and local travel

The average number of daily cases has risen from 285 two weeks ago  when a ban on households mixing indoors was introduced  to 729

The hospitality sector has voiced alarm at the idea of a crackdown, warning it could devastate jobs (Glasgow pub pictured this summer)

The First Minister has described the situation as 'the most difficult decision point we have faced so far'.

However, the closure of schools has been ruled out, as have Scotland-wide travel restrictions.

There will be no requirement for people to stay inside their homes most of the time, as was the case in March, though some additional measures in 'hotspot' areas might be necessary.

Speaking at the daily coronavirus briefing, the First Minister said she was receiving 'very strong' public health advice that new measures were needed in response to rising Covid-19 cases.

Ms Sturgeon added: 'The situation is not out of control, but it is a cause of increasing concern.'

The announcement will follow a cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning when details of the new restrictions will be decided.

The hospitality sector has voiced alarm at the idea of a crackdown, warning it could devastate jobs.

Emma McClarkin, of the Scottish Beer & Pub Association, said: 'If the Scottish Government is to implement further harsh restrictive measures to our sector, it must include a dedicated package of support alongside it.

'Without it, the Scottish Government will leave our pubs and thousands of jobs doomed to failure.'

Professor Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, said a targeted approach would work better than bringing in 'more draconian rules'.

'At the moment we do not need to bring in any more rules that will hammer the hospitality sector, or the economy at large. There needs to be a razor-sharp focus on getting the current systems running smoothly and effectively,' he wrote in The Sun.

'We need to hold our nerve, rather than hitting the panic button.'
Egypts first National Housing Strategy was launched in Cairo this week, with a view to guaranteeing everyone the right to adequate and safe housing

Everyone has the right to healthy, safe, and affordable shelter, which includes all basic services and facilities while allowing them freedom of choice without discrimination and ensuring the legal right to own their housing or be tenants without the threat of expulsion or forced eviction, said Nafisa Hashem, first undersecretary and head of the Housing and Utilities Department at the Ministry of Housing, during the online launch of the first National Housing Strategy for Egypt on Monday.

The unveiling of the strategy coincided with World Habitat Day, this year held under the slogan of Housing for All: A Better Urban Future.

The vision of the Ministry of Housing focused on enabling every citizen to exercise his or her right to live in a safe environment fully equipped with infrastructure and connected to employment opportunities and adequate services, with the state taking on the responsibility to provide a minimum standard of decent housing for all citizens, particularly low-income groups, those speaking at the launch webinar said.

The webinar cast light on the ministrys action plan for housing, which focuses on subsidised housing for low-income families, support for middle-class families, and making housing available for high-income segments of the population.

The new Housing Strategy is designed to clarify the national vision for the housing sector, raise the efficiency of achieving its objectives, provide a vehicle for linking and integrating its policies with other sectors, and enable all the parties to develop long-term plans that raise their efficiency and performance.

The strategy also aims to mark a shift from house construction alone to a larger concept of integrated urban development, emphasising the core role housing plays in achieving development, stimulating the economy, reducing poverty, and enhancing social inclusion, as those in the webinar explained.

Hashem pointed to several challenges that needed to be addressed in implementing the new Housing Strategy, including an unbalanced distribution of housing units, the reluctance of private capital to invest in rented housing and the increased emphasis on ownership, closed and vacant units, and rent controls for the privately rented housing stock.

The issue of housing has been an intractable one over recent years, with the new strategy noting that the high rate of population growth, the increase in migration from rural areas to cities, and the directing of available public funds to support the construction of new housing units have made it difficult to cope with the increase in population in urban areas.

It added that these factors and others had led to the emergence of informal areas in many cities and the growth of informal housing since the mid-1970s.

The new Housing Strategy was prepared by the Housing and Utilities Department at the Ministry of Housing, utilities and urban communities in cooperation with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme.

The need for developing new housing strategies in Egypt and worldwide has been prompted by the global increase in urbanisation rates and the consequent increase in demand for housing and basic urban services, especially as the population of informal and poorer areas in the world has increased from 725 million in 2000 to an estimated 889 million in 2020.

This increase has widened the gap between social groups and raised the vulnerability and deprivation of the poor.

The issue of adequate housing has topped international development agendas as a result, in particular the New Urban Agenda and UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially Goal 11 to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, and to upgrade slums by 2030.

In 2013, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme issued a Global Housing Strategy to assist member states in promoting the right to adequate housing. The Council of Arab Ministers of Housing and Reconstruction at its 30th session in December 2013 then decided to prepare an Arab Strategy for Housing and Sustainable Urban Development.

The Secretariat of the Arab League has assigned great importance to the development of strategies and programmes to achieve sustainable development in the Arab countries, including of housing, with the technical support of the UN Human Settlements Programme. It endorsed the strategy in 2016.

Egypt adopted the overall direction of the Global and Arab Housing Strategies by drawing up a roadmap towards achieving the goal of adequate housing for all. Before its development, the Ministry of Housing, with the participation of consultants, developed a Reference Document for Housing Strategies and Policies in 2013.

In 2014, the ministry prepared tools to monitor the current situation of housing in the country, ongoing programmes for housing, and other data related to the sector.

In cooperation with house builders and other stakeholders, as well as the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), and after workshops and discussions with housing experts, UN-Habitat in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing launched the Egypt Housing Profile in 2016.

This included an analysis of the housing sector in the country and focused on affordable housing polices, programmes, and projects. The profile is the core of Egypts new Housing Strategy and aims to provide the necessary support for comprehensive discussion and real understanding of the sector with a view to the effective direction of the new strategy.

Based on the profile and various international human-rights agreements and treaties, Egypt issued its new Housing Strategy this week, bringing together sectoral visions, Egypts 2030 Vision, and urban and economic development plans to enhance the relationships between housing and other development and service sectors and reinforce effectiveness and efficiency.

This strategy has become more pressing in the light of the spread of the global Covid-19 pandemic, which once again has stressed the importance of the right to adequate housing that is healthy and safe for all.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 8 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday filed a chargesheet against three main accused in the Kerala gold smuggling case while one of them Swapna Suresh stated that her appointment in the Space Park was known to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

She said she was asked to apply for the post by former secretary of the CM M Sivashankar and later he told her that he will discuss it with the CM and ensure her appointment. She also told the agency that she met the CM a number of times and she was also close to his secretary, the chargesheet indicated.

The ED also made it clear in the interim chargesheet that a detailed investigation was needed against Sivashankar and its personnel were in the process of collecting more digital evidence. It said a supplementary chargesheet will be filed later.

After the gold smuggling case surfaced, the CM reportedly distanced himself from his secretary saying he was not aware of the appointment of Suresh for the key post. Later, his secretary Sivashankar, a senior officer, was suspended from service. Opposition parties then alleged that the CM got away easily after sacrificing his secretary.

When Swapna Suresh resigned from the United Arab Emirates consulate she had applied for the job of Space Park Manager and she gave the reference of Sivashankar, the chargesheet said. And she applied for the job through consultant agency PricewaterCoopers as directed by Sivashankar. He also introduced chartered accountant Venugopal Iyer to her, the chargesheet said. During investigation, the ED had seized two kg gold and Rs one crore currency from the locker jointly operated by Iyer and Suresh. Later, it also came to light that some of the educational certificates of Suresh were fake.

The chargesheet also stated that the three main accused, Swapna Suresh, Sandeep Nair and Sarith, were involved in money-laundering and owned huge properties and their source of income was mysterious. The ED rushed with the chargesheet while all three got bail in the case registered by the Customs.

The gold smuggling case is being investigated by many agencies including the NIA. The current chargesheet was filed to avert the accused getting bail as they were under custody for more than 3 months.

At least 30 people were arrested in connection with the case which surfaced after the recovery of 30 kg gold from a consignment that came to the UAE consulate in the state capital camouflaged as diplomatic luggage. The court had criticized the NIA on Monday and sought evidence for terrorism charges against the accused. This is the first time UAPA was invoked in a smuggling case.

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A new COVID-19 testing centre will open at Mohawk College on the west Mountain but its not clear if it will bring any relief to continued high demand.

Opening Oct. 23 at 135 Fennell Ave. W., it will replace sites at Dave Andreychuk Mountain Arena and the West 5th campus of St. Josephs Healthcare.

Hamiltons assessment sites have been stretched to the limit. The provinces recent changes to testing have brought some relief, decreasing demand here by 15 per cent overall and 20 per cent among kids age nine and under.

Coun. Esther Pauls said theres widespread confusion about who should get tested at a general issues committee (GIC) meeting on Oct. 7.

The province has changed rules around testing three times in the last two weeks. On Sept. 23, Premier Doug Ford was urging everyone who wanted a test to get one only to put in restrictions the next day on those without symptoms who have no contact with a case, dont live or work in a place with an outbreak or arent part of a targeted testing initiative.

On Oct. 1, the province changed course again to allow kids who recover quickly from a runny nose, headache or upset stomach to return to school and child-care centres without a test. There is widespread disagreement about the change, although Hamilton public health welcomed it.

We are very supportive of the change in testing criteria for kids in order to focus on those that are more likely to have COVID, and hence less pressure on testing, or absences from school while awaiting testing, public health services said in a statement.

A third change to make testing by appointment only came into effect Oct. 6.

There have been a lot of changes of late so people are like, Which is the latest version, Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, medical officer of health, said at the GIC meeting.

The site at Mohawk will be staffed by St. Josephs in a self-contained building separate from the main college.

The Mountain arena drive-thru site will close Oct. 12. The West 5th campus will extend its hours starting Oct. 13 until it too closes when Mohawk opens. Hamiltons other sites at the West End Clinic and King Campus will continue to run unchanged.

Appointments can be booked at www.HamiltonCovidTest.ca or 905-974-9848.
Shoppers wearing protective masks exit from a Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) store in the Herald Square area of New York, U.S., on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2020. Nina Westervelt | Bloomberg | Getty Images

"Disaster" is one word being used to describe the potential fallout for the retail sector from on-again, off-again economic stimulus talks in Washington, D.C. "A total retail disaster is unfolding before our eyes that is completely avoidable," Andy Polk, a senior vice president at footwear industry trade group FDRA, told CNBC. "It is not an overstatement to say that pushing out any stimulus package until after the election is a disaster and may cause a shoe retail collapse again, both in terms of crashing sales and retail job losses at shoe stores going into the holiday season," he said. In a tweet Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump cast doubt about the timing of economic stimulus payments to consumers. He said the White House was halting talks with Democrats, and the news turned major stock averages sharply lower. But stocks were rising again by Wednesday morning, after Trump seemingly changed course, tweeting support for aid to airlines and other stimulus measures, stoking hopes that a smaller aid package could be passed by lawmakers. "Many consumers are relying on some level of stimulus, some level of support, this holiday season," said David Bassuk, global co-leader of the retail practice at AlixPartners. "Holiday is starting now. This is the time retailers need consumers to feel confidence."

The retail industry's leading trade group, the National Retail Federation, is among those pushing for additional stimulus to fuel business. "The pandemic isn't over and neither is the economic crisis it has created," NRF President and CEO Matt Shay said in a statement. Indeed, more than 7.5 million Americans have been diagnosed with Covid-19 since the pandemic began, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. On average, over the past seven days, the number of new U.S. cases is growing by nearly 44,000 each day, based on a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins' data. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in September was at 7.9%. "There are many families still struggling to make ends meet and businesses facing obstacles to putting workers back on the payroll," Shay said. "We need a vaccine to ensure our personal health. And we need further stimulus to ensure we can fix an ailing economy, bring people back to work and spur growth in communities large and small." The Business Roundtable, a group made up of CEOs from some of the country's largest corporations that is chaired by Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, has also called on the president and on Congress to get back to work on relief legislation. The group said "failure to reach a deal on additional relief would worsen and prolong the crisis for our country." Major retailers, including Apple, Best Buy and Home Depot, have already seen how government stimulus can benefit their bottom line. In the spring, they said they got a bounce in sales as Americans rushed to their stores and websites to spend extra money in their pockets. Some opted for discretionary items they'd previously skipped over, such as TVs and apparel, the companies said. The U.S. government issued millions of checks as part of a historic $2 trillion relief package Congress passed in March to try to rev up consumer spending again to spark economic recovery. Eligible adults received checks of up to $1,200, depending on income level. (Individuals making more than $99,000 a year, or joint filers making $198,000, didn't get a check at all.) Walmart said in August that its stimulus bump faded as shoppers spent that money. Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs said spending tapered off in July, and he declined to provide a financial outlook for the year, citing stimulus as a factor. "Stimulus was definitely impactful to the consumer in the second quarter, and we're watching what's going on in Washington, and how we're going to progress with a new stimulus package," Biggs said in an interview with CNBC in August. "I think certainly it would be helpful for consumers." Target CEO Brian Cornell said in August that he'd also like Congress to press forward with another stimulus package to create more certainty for consumers and businesses. Yet he credited most of the big-box retailer's strong sales last quarter to a shift in consumer spending, as families canceled summer vacations and couldn't go out to dinner or to the movies, rather than the government-issued checks.

More chaos

A breakdown of stimulus talks brings more chaos to an already chaotic holiday season pressured by a global health crisis and the distraction of a presidential election. Americans are coping with uncertainty as the holidays approach and they try to figure out how to safely celebrate, said Ashwani Monga, a Rutgers University-Newark marketing professor who studies consumer psychology. With no relief in sight from stimulus, cash-strapped consumers, in particular, won't feel comfortable going on a spending spree. "The worst part of this pandemic is we don't know if it's three more months," he said. "Is it 12 more months? Will it ever get over? Will we be wearing masks forever? No one knows. For the low-income consumer, you're even more focused on saving for these rainy days than a high-income consumer who has enough buffer to go through these times." He said whether Congress approves additional stimulus will have "tremendous implications for the economy overall," since families tight on funds tend to immediately spend that money. "You give them the money this week, and you'll see people spend more this week," he said.
NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Aetion and UCB announced a new agreement to advance UCB's use of real-world evidence (RWE) using rapid and robust analytics. The evidence generated will enhance the development and evolution of UCB's value proposition while providing key insights and data to support value-based contracting agreements across UCB's portfolio within the U.S. market.

The relationship informs health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) and U.S. market access strategy across both UCB's immunology and neurology teams to support patient access and will further the company's mission to transform the lives of people living with severe diseases by continuously working to advance science and embrace new knowledge, embodied by a patient value strategy. UCB is further embracing RWE as a core pillar of its market access strategy, in part by applying Aetion's analytics capabilities across multiple functions; the companies began working together in 2017 to explore real-world outcomes in immunology.

"As UCB goes through our digital business transformation, we believe that strategic partnerships will advance our capabilities for rapid analytics in assessing unmet patient needs in the real world to develop medicines for patients faster," said Emmanuel Caeymaex, Executive Vice President of Immunology Solutions & Head of U.S. at UCB. "Our agreement with Aetion has allowed us to expedite the time it takes to analyze available health data and generate critical insights so that we can better understand the value our solutions bring to patients and payers as we engage in value-based contracting."

This agreement enhances UCB's ambition to address the unmet needs of patients and caregivers, helping them to achieve their goals and to live the lives they want. UCB is on a journey to become the patient-preferred biopharma leader by delivering medicines and solutions that improve lives.

"Paying for value of medications has been slower to progress than value-based care in other health care contexts because it has been difficult for manufacturers and payers to align on key definitions and measurement," said Aetion CEO, Carolyn Magill. "UCB's embrace of RWE generated by the Aetion Evidence Platform brings a new level of transparency and scientific credibilityunlocking a tangible way to tie payment to outcomes."

The Aetion Evidence Platform (AEP) provides the RWE needed for biopharma and payers to align on value-based contracts. The technology analyzes real-world data to produce transparent, rapid, and scientifically validated answers on treatment effectiveness, safety, and value.

Disclosure

UCB is a strategic investor in Aetion, having joined the company's series B raise alongside other global leaders in biopharma and health care services.

About UCB

UCB, Brussels, Belgium (www.ucb.com) is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of innovative medicines and solutions to transform the lives of people living with severe diseases of the immune system or of the central nervous system. With more than 7 600 people in approximately 40 countries, the company generated revenue of  4.9 billion in 2019. UCB is listed on Euronext Brussels (symbol: UCB). Follow us on Twitter: @UCBUSA

About Aetion

Aetion is a health care analytics company that delivers real-world evidence for the manufacturers, purchasers, and regulators of medical technologies. The Aetion Evidence Platform analyzes data from the real world to produce transparent, rapid, and scientifically validated answers on safety, effectiveness, and value, across the product life cycle. Founded by Harvard Medical School faculty members with decades of experience in epidemiology and health outcomes research, Aetion informs health care's most critical decisions  what works best, for whom, and when  to guide product development, commercialization, and payment innovation into health care's modern era.

Aetion is based in New York City, and backed by investors including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Flare Capital Partners, Lakestar, Greenspring Associates, Town Hall Ventures, McKesson Ventures, Sanofi Ventures, EDBI, Amgen Ventures, Johnson & Johnson Innovation  JJDC, Inc., UCB, and Horizon Health Services, Inc. Learn more at aetion.com and follow us at @aetioninc.

SOURCE Aetion

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PARIS and BOSTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cardiologs , a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) for cardiac diagnostics, announced today that it has appointed two veteran medical device industry executives to the company's board of directors  Rick Anderson and Mark Toland.

"We are delighted and grateful that two proven leaders of this caliber share our passion and belief in the value of Cardiologs' AI platform and its tremendous potential to continue to transform and democratize cardiac care," said Yann Fleureau, Cardiologs' Co-Founder and CEO. "These are two visionaries who are revered for commercializing technologies around the world. Harnessing their strategic insight and vast knowledge, we are now well positioned to scale our platform and write the next chapter of growth for the benefit of patients around the globe."

Anderson brings more than three decades of experience as an executive, investor and board member for emerging growth and market leading healthcare technology companies, with a focus on cardiology. He currently serves as Chairman of Revival Healthcare Capital, a sustainable, high impact investment platform that specializes in medical devices and diagnostics. Prior to founding Revival, Anderson held roles as Managing Director at PTV Healthcare Capital and multiple executive leadership positions, including as Worldwide Franchise Chairman, Cordis Corporation and Company Group Chairman at Johnson & Johnson.

"Deep learning introduces extraordinary opportunities to elevate clinical practice, potentially in multiple specialties, and to benefit patients," said Anderson. "I see Cardiologs as a platform capable of going beyond the product offering they have today in cardiology. There are a broad range of capabilities resident in the company and its technology  whether they be in remote monitoring or electrophysiology or beyond. I think Cardiologs has a great opportunity to leverage its platform on an even larger scale."

Toland is the former CEO of Corindus Vascular Robotics, where he helped transform the company from an emerging startup with a struggling early generation product into the global leader in interventional robotics with indications for coronary, peripheral vascular, and neurovascular interventional procedures. In 2019, Siemens Healthineers paid $1.1 billion to acquire the company. Prior to Corindus, Toland served as Senior Vice President of Boston Scientific, leading BSC's growth and market-innovation initiatives across all business units. He recently joined BioStar Capital, a value-add investment firm focused on transformational medical device technologies that serve unmet patient needs in cardiovascular and orthopedic medicine.

"To me, this is a lifesaving journey," said Toland. "Throughout my career, I've seen firsthand the healthcare ecosystem's need for deep learning AI capabilities to support decision-making. If we can quantitatively analyze massive volumes of information and decipher exactly where patients are in their disease state  and where they need to go next  it's going to have a profound impact on patients, society and how we deliver healthcare. Bringing AI into the fold will enable physicians to make better decisions, faster and more efficiently, with greater accuracy. That shift will allow us to improve access to care and save lives."

Anderson and Toland were selected following an international search led by Roger Brooks, President and CEO of RBrooks Group. They join Cardiologs following a successful Series A fundraising round led by Alven Capital.

Tweet this: Two proven #medtech leaders join @Cardiologs' Board of Directors  Rick Anderson and Mark Toland. Hear what they have to say about the future of the company and potential impact of #AI in #Cardiology: https://bit.ly/30BkrJO

About Cardiologs

Cardiologs is a medical technology company committed to transforming cardiac diagnostics using medical-grade artificial intelligence and cloud technology. Developed in partnership with leading physicians, the Cardiologs ECG Analysis Solution empowers clinicians worldwide to deliver expert cardiac care faster and more efficiently. CE-Marked and FDA cleared for detection of 14 cardiac arrhythmias, the Cardiologs ECG Analysis Solution is built on a growing database of more than 4 million ECG recordings and is supported by a number of clinical publications.

Media Contact:

Andrea LePain

eMedia Junction

[email protected]

617-275-8112

SOURCE Cardiologs
You're not the only one rethinking your Thanksgiving this year.

Fewer people at Thanksgiving tables is going to mean many households are looking to buy smaller turkeys. And because no one can just press a button and make smaller turkeys, grocery stores, distributors and farmers are rethinking their own longstanding Thanksgiving traditions.

Chains like Giant Eagle and Stew Leonard's are buying smaller birds, and Walmart, the largest grocer in the United States, is increasing its availability of boneless and bone-in turkey breasts, which amount to less meat than a full bird. Meanwhile, farmers are making adjustments such as slaughtering birds earlier.

"The buying arms of the major retailers and distributors are definitely trying to slant their purchases toward smaller turkeys," said Russ Whitman, senior vice president at Urner Barry, a commodity market research firm. That also means buying more hens, which are smaller, and fewer toms, or male birds, he said.

Around 40 million turkeys are eaten around Thanksgiving annually, according to the National Turkey Federation, an industry trade group. The group does not expect that figure to change much this year, but the sizes and types of turkey will, said Beth Breeding, spokesperson for the National Turkey Federation.

"Our research does suggest that smaller birds will be in higher demand," said Tom Windish, Managing Director of Retail for Cargill's North American protein business, in an emailed statement. Cargill, a major meat producer, sells turkey under the Honeysuckle White, Shady Brook Farms and Honest Turkey brands.

'A wild turkey guess'

Stew Leonard Jr., chief executive of Stew Leonard's, a grocery chain in the Northeast, said he increased orders from a local supplier for birds weighing less than 16 pounds this year and decreased the number of heavier birds. The chain will also shrink the size of shrimp and sushi platters for the holiday.

Jack Gridley, vice president of meat and seafood at Dorothy Lane Market, a gourmet chain in Ohio, said the company is buying 15% more 10- to 16-pound birds compared with years past and buying fewer 20- to 24-pound birds from a local farm.

Dorothy Lane Market also increased its orders of turkey breasts, which are easier to cook, because "a lot of people not used to cooking this year are going to be cooking," Gridley said.

But the company still isn't quite sure what to expect this year. "None of it's science," Gridley said. "It's just a wild turkey guess."

Turkey farmers have been anticipating more demand for smaller birds, and have been making adjustments accordingly.

"We harvested the birds a little bit earlier this year," said Cody Hopkins, CEO of Grass Roots Farmers' Cooperative, a collection of about 40 small farms that sell meat directly to consumers online.

Typically, Grass Roots farmers slaughter birds between the ages of 14 and 16 weeks. This year, farmers harvested the birds at around 13 or 14 weeks to keep them smaller. They also adjusted some of the feed rations to slow growth, and raised more hens, which are naturally smaller.

In addition, farmers are "going to be doing different items like turkey breasts and smaller hams," Hopkins said, "to give folks plenty of options if they're looking for something a little bit smaller for their holiday."

Brock Stein, president of Lewistown Valley Enterprises, which operates Koch's Turkey Farm in Pennsylvania, said his team is producing some lighter turkeys this year. The group typically sells between 300,000 and 400,000 turkeys each Thanksgiving, and over 1.2 million turkeys annually.

But he isn't sure what exactly customers will do this year, so he's still producing plenty of regular-sized birds.

"No one really has the crystal ball yet," he said. "We're going to have to just be hopeful that even if families are at smaller gatherings they'll still be looking for a larger bird."

Why you might not be welcome at this years Thanksgiving table

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The Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) has allotted 140 acre land to for setting up theirlargest fulfilment centre in Asia, an official statement said on Wednesday.

The fulfilment centre will have a covered area of 3 million square feet at Patli Hazipur, Manesar in Gurugram district, the statement issued by the said.

Unlike traditional warehouses, fulfilment centres are equipped with highly automated pick, pack, and shipping processes to facilitate safe and timely processing of orders.

The allotmentwas approved by the Executive Empowered Committee of HSIIDC in its meeting heldhere on Wednesday under the Chairmanship of Principal Secretary to Haryana Chief Minister- cum- Chairman HSIIDC, Rajesh Khullar.

In view of the increasing demand of warehousing from e-commerce companies, HSIIDC has set up a warehousing hub over an area of 285 acre at Patli Hazipur.

He further said the land has been allotted at bare shell cost of Rs 3.09 crore per acre and all infrastructure facilities shall be laid by

This project shall give impetus to further investments in the region and shall be a prestigious project for Haryana, Khullar said.

will be setting up a logistics park in the said land parcel over the next 3 to 5 years which has a potential of a total built up area of 5 million square feet and shall be developed in 2 -3 phases. The first phase of the project shall be operational by 2022, the statement quoting a representative of Flipkart, further said.

The sustainable development of the park is expected to cost more than Rs 3,500 crore in capital investment and shall create more than 12,000 jobs in Haryana over these years and boost the infrastructure for the sellers, MSMEs, women entrepreneurs from the state and the region, as per the statement.

Flipkart shall be engaging closely with the sellers, MSMEsand 'kiranas' in the state to onboard them and provide market opportunity.Knight Frank were the advisors to Flipkart for this project, it said.

The statement quoting Rajneesh Kumar, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Flipkart, said Flipkart's focused investments in its supply chain have been pivotal to path-breaking, customer experience offerings that have helped build trust in e-commerce.

Today we have one of the strongest andresilient supply chain networks in the country, making over 40 million deliveries every month and employing more than 1,20,000 people across the country in the supply chain. We will continue to strengthen this infrastructure and create market opportunities for lakhs of sellers and MSMEs from the state while creating new livelihood opportunitiesand jobs, he said.

Flipkart already has 12 supply chain assets in Haryana, including supply chain infrastructure for large appliances, non-large (including mobiles, apparel), grocery and furniture. The company employs more than 10,000 people in Haryana across its supply chain.

(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.)
Ever since the film shoots were allowrd to resume, Taapsee has been a busy bee. The actress was in Jaipur recently where she shot for her upcoming Tamil film, alongside Vijay Sethupathi, which is being directed by Deepak Sundarrajan. Buzz is that the film has been titled as Anabelle Subramaniam.

As soon as she wrapped up the schedule, Taapsee flew to Maldives to spend some quality time, along with her sister Shagun. Over the past few years, Taapsee had made it a point to go on international trips along with her sister, and this year, everything got delayed due to the lockdown and Covid-19 pandemic which stopped all international air travel.

The actress is expected to shoot for her upcoming Hindi film, Loop Lapeta later this year, and she also has Shabash Mithu, a biopic on Mithali Raj, in her pipeline.

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Concerns have been raised over the supply of vital testing materials for a range of conditions, including Covid-19, following a supply chain problem with pharmaceutical giant Roche.

On Tuesday, Roche said it had experienced a 'very significant drop' in its processing capacity due to a problem with its Sussex distribution centre in Newhaven, the only one in the UK.

It has been reported that the shortage includes vital reagents, screening kits and swabs.

In addition to providing these chemicals and parts used in Covid-19 tests, Roche also provides materials for a wide range of procedures including blood and urine tests, as well as diabetic care.

It comes days after the Government confirmed a technical glitch meant 16,000 positive test results had been missed, leaving contract tracers chasing thousands of contacts who needed to self-isolate.

The Government is facing mounting pressure to increase coronavirus testing capacity as cases continue to rise, with 14,542 new cases recorded yesterday - meaning the number of people testing positive for Covid-19 every day has tripled in a fortnight.

Roche has warned hospital labs issues with its supply chain, which may result in a shortage of vital testing materials for conditions, including Covid-19, may not be solved for three weeks. Pictured: A lab tech holds a container of live Covid-19 samples at a new Lighthouse Lab facility dedicated to the testing for Covid-19, at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow

Roche warned the issues with the supply chain may not be resolved for two to three weeks, but is prioritising the dispatch of Covid-19 and antibody tests.

In a letter, the company told customers to activate their local contingency plans 'and recommend that you look to prioritise essential services only'.

The letter adds: 'In September we moved from our old warehouse to a new automated warehouse capable of much higher volumes.

'However, during the transition we encountered some unforeseen issues and a very significant drop in our processing capacity. Since then we have worked around the clock to prioritise and manage orders as well as increase this capacity'.

It is understood the issue has not had an impact on Covid-19 tests at this point.

However, concerns have been raised about the future supply of tests for the virus and the impact on making diagnoses and monitoring in other aspects of medicine.

The news has already sparked fears among NHS workers that supplies will impact patient care.

Allan Wilson, president of the Institute of Biomedical Science, told the Financial Times Roche had been 'unable to fulfil a broad range of orders across the testing range'.

He said: 'The slightly scary thing is we don't have an end date to it yet,' he added. 'If this isn't fixed within days there would be an impact on our ability to do not just Covid testing but a broad range of lab testing.'

Tom Lewis, lead clinician for pathology at North Devon District Hospital, told the Financial Times Roche provided the swabs used by his lab for Covid-19 testing.

He added: 'We have enough supply for another week or so but will run out if expected delivery doesn't happen,' he said.

A large number of NHS labs rely on Roche testing platforms to undertake conventional Covid-19 tests, known as PCR tests.

An NHS spokesperson said: 'Roche has alerted hospitals to an issue with their supply chain, and they will be working urgently to resolve this issue.'

A Roche spokesperson said: 'We deeply regret that there has been a delay in the dispatch of some products and apologise to any of our customers who have been impacted.

The lead clinician for pathology from North Devon District Hospital, which Roche supplies, says it has enough supplies for another week but could run out if the problem isn't solved soon

'As well as extending working hours, we have recruited extra staff and, where they can, our dedicated teams on the ground are working with customers to distribute products and minimise service disruption.

'We will continue to provide regular updates to our customers and we are doing everything possible to return to routine operations.

'We are prioritising the dispatch of Covid-19 PCR and antibody tests and doing everything we can to ensure there is no impact on the supply of these to the NHS.'

Munira Wilson, MP for Twickenham and health spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, expressed her concern about the impact of the issue while the healthcare system was under 'incredible strain'.

She said: 'These reports will leave many people incredibly anxious, and rightly so.

'This does not only have serious consequences for our ability to test for Covid-19, but others with potentially incredibly serious illnesses will also be unable to get the blood tests or screening they need.'

She added: 'Our NHS must be able to treat everyone, whatever their illness, and Ministers must do everything in their power to resolve this issue with the supply chain as quickly as possible.

'We cannot allow this virus to get further out of control, as well as further risking the health of thousands of individuals whose diagnosis of serious illness could either be delayed or go undetected.'

The latest disruption follows a technical glitch which meant 15,841 cases between September 25 and October 2 were left out of the reported daily coronavirus cases and were not referred to NHS Test and Trace, meaning potentially tens of thousands of infected Britons were allowed to roam the streets.

And in a slow recovery from Friday's Excel blunder almost 6,000 covid carriers are yet to be traced, some of whom were given their positive covid-19 diagnosis two weeks ago.

Each of those 6,000 carriers are expected to have made contact with three to four unwitting people before they begun isolating, that's an estimated 18,000 to 24,000 individuals who have not been informed that they should be isolating due to close contact with covid-19.

Roche was at the centre of controversy in July when the Government was accused of 'panic-buying' antibody tests before official reports into their effectiveness had been published

In July this year, the Government was accused of 'panic-buying' antibody tests from Roche because the 13.4 million purchase was made before official reports into their effectiveness had been published.

Officials spent 13.46million on the blood tests  now being used to tell which NHS staff have already had Covid-19  on May 15, government contracts show.

But Public Health England had not officially evaluated any other companies' tests before officials agreed to buy Roche's, so didn't know how good they were in comparison.

The Roche purchase was 10 days after scientists at PHE's Porton Down laboratory first started looking at the tests but three days before their report was released.

Results of PHE's tests were leaked to the press on May 13 and reports claimed it had achieved 100 per cent accuracy in the evaluations.

But this later turned out to be on only one of two measures and health chiefs actually deemed the test to be 84 per cent sensitive, meaning it could correctly detect past infection in around eight in 10 people.

In later evaluations other tests performed better than Roche's but contracts were not announced for those.

Ones made by Abbott Laboratories, which were 94 per cent accurate, were bought in the same week in May for an undisclosed price.

Another made by the German firm Siemens last month achieved 86 per cent sensitivity in PHE's evaluation. These were bought by officials but to no fanfare.

There was a prior understanding between Roche and the Government that its tests - which were the first to be evaluated - would be bought if PHE approved of them, MailOnline reported.

Yesterday, the Department of Health and Social Care announced the Government had purchased 1 million antibody tests from the UK Rapid Test Consortium (UK-RTC).

Rapid-use antibody tests have been shunned by the Government until now, with private firms struggling to get contracts from officials. The Rapid Test Consortium product is the first of its kind to be approved (stock image)

The home antibody tests will be rolled out as part of the governments COVID-19 surveillance studies to help build a picture of how the virus has spread across the country and further develop our understanding of how antibodies work.

The test uses a finger-prick device and provides a result within 20 minutes, without the need to be sent to a lab for analysis and therefore has no impact on testing lab capacity.

Jon Deeks, professor of biostatistics at Birmingham university and lead author of a continuing review into antibody testing by Cochrane, the independent global health organisation, criticised the lack of publicly available evidence on the new antibody test purchased by the government.

He said on Twitter: '1,000,000 Rapid Test Consortium AbC antibody tests have been purchased by the DHSC despite the complete lack of reliable public evidence.

'Mentions PHE report - but still no results. "Follow the science" RIP.'
Larry Kudlow contradicts president's claims about latest US manouvre

The White House denies claims that Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office on Tuesday with extra precautions, after the presidents economic advisor Larry Kudlow misspoke during an interview.

Mr Kudlow told CNBC that traffic was limited when the president worked in the Oval Office, but said he couldnt be specific when asked if Mr Trump wore a mask.

Moments earlier, the administrations chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters that Mr Trump wanted to go to the Oval Office yesterday and may do so today, according to White House press pool.

The White House says that Mr Kudlow misspoke when he said Oval Office, and rather meant the president was working from the residence. While preparations were reportedly made, Mr Trump did not end up going to the Oval Office on Tuesday.

While the president wanted to be in the Oval Office yesterday, he was not there  he stayed back in the residence working from there, said White House communications advisor Ben Williams.

Safety preparations have been underway in the event he moves to working out of the Oval in the coming days.

While the President wanted to be in the Oval Office yesterday, he was not therehe stayed back in the residence working from there. Safety preparations have been underway in the event he moves to working out of the Oval in the coming days.  Ben Williamson (@_WilliamsonBen) October 7, 2020

In the interview on CNBCs Squawk Box, Mr Kudlow said a lot of people were working from home after a bunch of folks had tested positive.

First of all, the government is functioning, the president actually showed up in the Oval Office yesterday, with extra precautions with respect to his Covid-19 and hes getting a lot better and hes much stronger so there was some limited activity, Mr Kudlow said.

"In the White House there is a good deal of contact tracing and we're doing the absolute best we can. We've added additional precautions to try to protect against any further positive testing," says Larry Kudlow on #COVID19 outbreak. "The President is recovering quite rapidly." pic.twitter.com/zEYtIuKUqD  Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) October 7, 2020

When asked directly if Mr Trump wears a mask in the Oval Office, and who was with him, Mr Kudlow said he cant be specific as that is the work of the top rung of government.

The president as youve seen has been masking quite a bit and everyone else who comes into contact in the Oval, the traffic is limited as you might expect, but there are addittional precautions, addittional measures that have been take much greater than simply masking, he added.
Over 300 unmasked people including college students were seen partying in Isla Vista, near the campus of UC Santa Barbara, on the evenings of Friday, Aug. 28 and Saturday, Aug. 29. Community members and university officials have been concerned about the spread of COVID-19 in Isla Vista, (Max Abrams/The Daily Nexus)

This fall, as colleges around the country wrestled with how to reopen amid the coronavirus crisis, officials in California required a cautious approach. Classes were put online, isolation rooms were set up on campus, and restrictions were placed on the number of students permitted to live in dormitories or come on campus.

But what deans and provosts couldn't control were the thousands of students who returned to fill apartments and houses in neighborhoods surrounding their schools, determined to salvage some semblance of a college experience.

Unchecked by campus rules and safeguards, these students became fertile ground for the virus, which has spread rapidly on and around several California campuses despite sparsely populated dormitories and classrooms. From San Diego to Chico, the outbreaks have thrown universities into crisis mode as they scramble to slow the virus' spread with tighter restrictions and attempts to cajole students into safer behavior.

With so many students living in close quarters and often pressing ahead with parties and other gatherings that disregard social distancing guidelines, some experts said school officials' hopes of keeping the virus at bay with remote learning were unrealistic.

Signage and banners hang from the light poles reminding students and staff to keep safe at UC San Diego. (Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

I think its inevitable that colleges are risky environments, said Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, chair of UC San Francisco's Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

One of the essential elements of college in general is that you have a bunch of people who have not been with each other, traveling and coming together in one location, living in an environment in close quarters and generally having an experience where interacting with one another is an essential feature, she said.

At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where more than 130 people have been infected with the virus since the start of the school year, officials last week were left pleading with students not to gather in large groups after video of a raucous and tightly packed beach party surfaced.

Story continues

Fewer than 2,500 students at San Diego State University were allowed to live in on-campus dorms and only about 6,240 students are taking in-person classes  slivers of the 35,485 students enrolled at the school. But while school administrators implemented a widespread testing strategy for students on campus, required anyone who tested positive to quarantine in isolation wards, and reorganized dorms to give everyone their own room, they were powerless to force students living off campus to participate in the safety requirements.

The virus took hold. University officials announced 120 new cases on Sept. 4 and in less than a week that number had more than quadrupled to 509 cases. The school paused in-person classes, but cases have continued to mount. As of Oct. 5, the university had reported more than 1,110 confirmed infections with more than 50% of them connected to students living off campus.

You cant isolate, as if its on an island, a campus community thats part of a larger community, Gov. Gavin Newsom said recently when asked whether the university's high number of infections should count against San Diego County's efforts to reopen.

It was a similar scene at Chico State University in Northern California, where officials cut the number of students living on campus from about 2,200 to 750 in hopes that returning students would not spread the illness in a county that had seen relatively few cases. But about 10,000 students took up residence in a one-mile radius around the school.

The first cases of the coronavirus among Chico students arose in early August before the start of classes, and the situation got worse from there. By the end of the month, in-person classes were halted and students were told to leave campus after 30 people contracted the virus. In the weeks since, the number of cases has ballooned to more than 190, with two-thirds linked to off-campus students.

Its such a wild card for us  its a wild card for any college town, Debra Larson, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Chico State, said of the thousands of students living off campus. You can tell them, Dont come,' of course. But they were coming.

In California, schools' reopening plans have been guided largely by a tiered rating system the state has devised to measure the prevalence of the virus in a particular county. A university in a county that remains mired in the first tier, where risk of infection remains high, would not be allowed to resume in-person classes  with the exception of certain classes such as labs or studio work  while a school in a county that had progressed to a higher tier could.

As schools reopen, the virus continues to hit campuses in waves. Cal State Long Beach recorded at least 22 cases more than a month after the school reopened. UC Berkeley, which has reported more than 225 cases, is considering a plan to more fully close off the campus from the public. Under the plan, university employees would monitor visitors and check their reasons for coming to the school.

Like other schools, USC has tried to wrangle the thousands of students living on the blocks around its campus south of downtown Los Angeles despite there being no in-person classes.

Were actively doing outreach to students living around campus to encourage them to get tested weekly, said Dr. Sarah Van Orman, associate vice provost for student affairs and chief health officer.

About 3,000 students have been tested weekly for the virus, and the university has a team of about 30 contact tracers working to identify close contacts of those who test positive.

The steps have failed to stop the virus. With more than 500 cases reported since early July, the school has had about 2,000 students living at some point in isolation facilities or quarantined. The infections among students have been linked largely to parties and other off-campus gatherings, and officials are trying to enforce restrictions beyond campus borders. Students who disobey rules prohibiting large gatherings, for example, face potential discipline, including expulsion.

But the assistant chief of the school's Department of Public Safety, David Carlisle, said the university has focused on offering students resources to correct risky behavior. Information about students who have reportedly hosted gatherings is typically sent to the Student Compliance Committee, which sends educational material to the individual in the form of a letter.

Young adults are most likely to develop asymptomatic cases of the coronavirus. In California, which has recorded more than 833,000 infections, college-age adults ages 18 to 22 have accounted for more than 77,100 of those infections, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Those numbers reflect a harsh reality for universities and colleges that outbreaks among college students may be nearly impossible to prevent. And while some schools elsewhere in the U.S. have opted to avoid the risk of outbreaks by remaining closed altogether and others have opened fully, in California schools have tried to strike a balance between opening and mitigating the risk posed by the virus.

"Colleges that were already at the edge of the financial precipice potentially could be pushed over the edge into permanent closure because of the pandemic," said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher and vice president of research at financial college guide Savingforcollege.com.

Peter Herman, an English professor at San Diego State, questioned the course the school has forged.

"Why did the university bring back students to campus in the first place, when an outbreak was obviously a possibility?" he wrote in a recent opinion column. "What safeguards did the university have in the dorms to ensure compliance? ... How is the university to control the behavior of students who do not live on campus?"

California has fared better than other states where university officials chose to reopen more fully and were quickly confronted with surges of cases, such as Georgia and South Carolina. Such campus reopenings drove a spike of about 3,000 new cases a day in the United States, according to a preliminary study posted this month.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, weekly reports of COVID-19 among people ages 18 to 22 rose by more than 55% from Aug. 2 to Sept. 5. The increases were greatest in the Northeast and the Midwest, aligned with several university reopenings throughout the country.

Bibbins-Domingo said that regular testing from the time a student arrives on campus is crucial. Reports of infection are likely, but the goal should be to mitigate the spread. "Your goal is to make sure those outbreaks are small enough to contain, she said, comparing it to the firefighting strategy of containing a brush fire before it explodes into a full-fledged blaze.

At UC Irvine, the 7,000 undergraduate and graduate students allowed to live on campus arrived in staggered waves last week in an attempt to minimize interactions. Their numbers are down 40% from a typical year.

School officials plan to test the on-campus students weekly for the virus, as well as anyone who visits campus. Interim Provost Hal Stern said the school was prepared to switch entirely to remote instruction if cases flared up. A team of 10 contact tracers has been deployed to track those at risk as soon as someone tests positive.

UCLA has similar plans in place, with only 700 students living on campus  5% of the normal capacity. They and the several thousand other students in off-campus housing owned by the university will be tested regularly. But the thousands of other students renting apartments in the hills around the campus are deciding for themselves how to live.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
A state funeral was held for Taiwan's former President Lee Teng-hui on Wednesday, attended by president Tsai Ing-wen and high-ranking government officials.

Lee was buried at the military cemetery in Taipei.

At the funeral service, Tsai paid her last respects and laid a white wreath before Lee's tomb while military honor guards fired a three-volley salute to bid a farewell to Lee.

National flags at government and public facilities are flying at half-mast.

Lee Teng-hui, the former president who led the island's transition to democracy, died at age 97 in July.

Lee had built a separate Taiwanese political identity, distinct from mainland China, which claims Taiwan as part of its own territory to be reunited by force if necessary.

Lee's carving out of a non-Chinese identity and insistence that the island be treated as an equal country brought him into direct conflict with Beijing.

This story has not been edited by www.republicworld.com and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.
A man was shot and killed Wednesday morning in a south Houston during what police believe was a robbery, officials said.

The man was changing a tire on his car with the help of two friends near 7110 Cullen St. when an unknown assailant approached from behind around 9:10 a.m., according to Houston police.
Y&R PR has changed its name to Goodfuse. Goodfuses capabilities span traditional, social and media relations, as well as such digital solutions as website and app development. The agency says that Goodfuse is focused on infusing humanity into communications. To 'goodfuse' communications means to make it humanit means that we can create programming that is strategic, emotional, and utterly differentiated, said Goodfuse CEO Olga Fleming. Our goal is that Goodfuse will be recognized not only as an agency, but as a new way of thinking about communications. As part of the rebrand, Goodfuse is bringing on Gregg Trueman, founder of digital and technology solutions firm Humanize, as executive vice president, creative + technology solutions. He will be based in San Francisco and establishes Goodfuse's footprint on the West Coast.

MWWPR is partnering with American University's School of Communication to launch the second year of the schools Z-Suite program, which is designed to empower students to think creatively about innovative solutions to the challenges facing brands in today's environment. In addition, the agency says that the research and insights program will allow it to bring true Gen Z perspective to client ideation and programming. Each month, the 15 students in the program, who represent a range of ethnicities, backgrounds and majors, will receive a series of creative briefs outlining an initiative or challenge for MWWPR clients. The challenge outputs will range from video content to product testing and written long and short-form insights. "The Z-Suite program will better enable our account teams to create disruptive campaigns for Generation Z, by Generation Z, said MWWPR chief executive officer Michael Kempner. This group of students will gain real-world experience in the PR industry and provide an entryway for more diverse PR professionals at the entry-level.

Claire Kaye

Pure Imagination PR, a new beauty and lifestyle agency, has been launched by Claire Kaye, who was previously chief operating officer of Siren Public Relations. The firms offerings include public relations & integrated marketing, social & influencer marketing, brand planning, sponsorships & sampling, thought leadership, content creation, events & production, media training and social media management. Its client roster includes companies in such market sectors as skincare, haircare, fragrance beauty tools and wellbeing.
Malayalam actor Tovino Thomas has suffered a critical injury while shooting for his upcoming film, Kala. As per television reports, he has been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a private hospital in Kochi.

Kala is being directed by Rohith VS. The injury happened when Tovino was shooting for an action sequence.

As per a report by Mathrubhumi, Tovino suffered an injury in his stomach. After he complained of severe pain, he was rushed to the hospital where he was shifted to the ICU with internal bleeding.

As per a report in The News Minute, Tovino has to be kept under observation for 24 hours in the ICU.

Best known for his work in films such as Godha, Maari 2, Abhiyum Anuvum and Mayanadhi among others, Tovino was last seen on screen in Malayalam film Forensic.

His upcoming release will be the superhero Malayalam film, Minnal Murali. The films teaser was released recently and it received unanimous appreciation from all quarters.

In May, Tovino lashed out at religious fanatics a day after they destroyed a church set that was erected for the shooting of Minnal Murali. Members of Antharashtra Hindu Parishad (AHP) and Bajrang Dal demolished the set as it was close to Adi Sankaracharya mutt in Kalady, Ernakulum. They even claimed responsibility for the vandalism via a social media post.

Tovino took to Facebook to share a long post on the incident and lashed out at the religious fanatics.

Minnal Muralis first schedule at Wayanad had been in progress when the set for the second schedule began construction at Kalady. It was carried out by art director Manu Jagad and team, under special instructions by stunt choreographer Vlad Rimburg.

Tovino said they had taken proper permissions from the concerned authorities.

Also read: Suhana Khan drops a gorgeous new pic, fans call her a beauty

And as we were about to start shooting in this set  which was built on a considerable cost, the whole country went into lockdown, following which our shoot was paused, just like all others, he wrote on his Facebook page.

It is during this prevailing uncertainty that this contractual set was destroyed by a group of racialists yesterday. The reasons they cite for this unceremonious act are not understood to our senses till now. Weve heard of movie sets being vandalized by religious fanatics in Northern parts of India. Now, its happening to us right here, he wrote.

Follow @htshowbiz on Twitter

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Indians have been known for their jugaad techniques, in ways thatll leave you amazed. The myriads of engineering skills including a man using a bike to separate corn from kernel to a man using a simple technique to sort fruits of various sizes, every day in the country is another tale of a new jugaad.

In another recent example to it, a viral video shows a volunteer in a Gurudwaras langarkhana distributing lassi/buttermilk in a unique way, to lessen human efforts.

ALSO READ: Anand Mahindra Impressed by Video of Bike Being Used to Separate Corn from Kernel, Twitter Divided

The video shows a young boy moving with a huge steel drum attached to a cart fixed with four wheels. The bottom-right side of the drum has a tap that dispenses the lassi in the empty katoris of the lines of devotees seated to have their meals. As the boy moves the device, which is operated with cycle brakes, and pulls the brakes, the liquid pours out of the tap.

In this way it becomes a swift task for the young fellow to dispense lassi to the devotees.

However, the location of the gurudwara has been unknown.

The video was initially sourced from a certain Vikram Kalra, who said, A unique way of serving lassi/butter milk in a Langarkhana of a Gurudwara. They have used the cycle handle and brakes to serve lassi,"

It was then shared on Twitter by an official of Amazon India, Amit Agarwal on Engineers Day. He said, To engineering innovations! Happy Engineers Day!"

To engineering innovations!Happy Engineers Day! pic.twitter.com/kAIKsYrG56 Amit Agarwal (@AmitAgarwal) September 16, 2020

ALSO READ: Watch: This Mans Simple Technique of Sorting Fruits by Size is Winning the Internet

The short clip went viral with netizens hailing such an invention that also ensures social distancing and hygiene amid a pandemic.

Super Innovative. Vishal Mehta (@vshalrmehta) September 16, 2020

Mind blowing simplified solution Sandeepan Das (@SandeepanDas4) September 16, 2020

Awsm Saurav Deore (@SauravDeore4) October 4, 2020

Innovation to serve harvinder singh (@harvinderjmu) October 6, 2020

Having this facility also on the left side of the device would be more time saving. ishirraj (@ishirraj) October 7, 2020

A couple of week back, a gurudwara in New Yorks Queen Village came to light for serving food to people who are protesting over the death of George Floyd.

The pictures from the langar seva were shared by Kalgidhar Trust - Baru Sahib on its official Facebook page.

There are few people who are risking their lives for the betterment of society. Gursikhs are one of those few people. Langar-Seva is one of the basic principles in Sikhism. And the Sikh community across the globe is doing the same in this need of the hour" read the caption of the post.

Praising the efforts of the gurudwara, the Kalgidhar Trust - Baru Sahib said they are trying their best to not let anyone sleep empty-stomach.

Read all the Latest News and Breaking News here
All civics classes should begin with the first principle of American Constitutionalism: Government has only that power granted to it by the Constitution. As Justice Hugo Black stated in Reid v. Covert in 1957, The United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source. It can only act in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution.

This foundational principle, set forth by the legendary Revolutionary War lawyer, James Otis Jr., in the landmark, Writs of Assistance Case in 1761, charted a distinctly American conception of what constitutes a constitution. Giants of the founding period  George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, among others  followed his path.

As the nations first president, Washington was at pains to explain in letters to friends that he sought to avoid being characterized as a usurper. Washington wrote, If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.

Hamilton  he of Broadway fame  observed that the branches of government possessed no authority to alter the Constitution, from which they derive their authority. An agent, he wrote, cannot new model his own commission and transfer the legislative power to the executive. Madison stated in the Constitutional Convention: It would be a novel & dangerous doctrine that a Legislature could change the constitution under which it held its existence.

Concerns among the founders about governmental officials acts of usurpation and revision of the constitutional allocation of power, reflect their understanding of the significance of the ratification of the Constitution by the American people. As Madison explained, if the people had not approved the proposed Constitution, it would have been stillborn. But their ratification of it, he declared, breathed life into the Constitution. Ratification, that is, approval of the Constitution by the sovereign people, represented the epitome of consent by the governed, which Thomas Jefferson referred to in the Declaration of Independence as an unalienable right.

The historic significance of the act of popular ratification of the supreme law of the land, an acknowledgment that the people alone could approve or reject the proposed Constitution, was captured by James Iredell, one of the most acute theorists of the founding generation and a member of the first body of Justices serving on the U.S. Supreme Court: The people have chosen to be governed under such and such principles. They have not chosen to be governed or promised to submit upon any other. In sum, the American people did not ratify a blank check of authority for the government, but rather a Constitution that carefully allocates limited powers that are confined at every turn.

The framers of the Constitution were entitled to believe that one of their most important, and hopefully enduring, achievements was the implementation of the rule of law the subordination of government to the law -- on a daily basis. Stated simply, this principle means that governmental officials have an absolute legal and moral responsibility to obey the Constitution from which they draw their authority and swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend. To disobey is to rebuke the very concept of constitutionalism.

The solemn oath to obey the Constitution was not taken for granted by delegates to the Constitutional Convention. The drafters of the Constitution were not naive; indeed, many were veterans of their state legislative bodies, colonial assemblies and Congress. A few were governors; some possessed considerable diplomatic experience. Most, moreover, were keen students of history, which informed their discussions and debates in Philadelphia. Their experience and reading taught them all an important lesson: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

That history lesson, a universal axiom, reminded the framers that those holding positions in the government that they were creating would, by virtue of their office and the power, attached it, be tempted to abuse their authority for variety of purposes  personal, political and financial. The key question for all those committed to the maintenance of the rule of law was, as Madison asked in Federalist No. 51, how to persuade government to obey the law.

That was the great challenge in 1787. It remains the great challenge in our time.

David Adler is president of The Alturas Institute, created to advance American Democracy through promotion of the Constitution, civic education, equal protection and gender equality. Send questions about the Constitution to letters@bismarcktribune.com and he will attempt to answer them in subsequent columns. This "We the People" series is provided by the North Dakota Newspaper Association and Humanities North Dakota.

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In many ways, it's challenging to define international development. What angle would you prioritise when you consider something so broad? Macroeconomics? Structural adjustment programmes? International trade policy? Or is it poverty reduction? All these are valid.

But no definition would be complete without considering it from the viewpoint of so called 'developed' and 'underdeveloped' nations. Despite multiple interpretations, the broader understanding of faith and religion in development are barely understood. Especially for African diaspora communities engaged in development work.

Religion has often been a key motivation for philanthropy and economic fairness. Sometimes, it's the Quranic requirement of alms-giving (Zakat). It can also take form as the Holy Bible-inspired Jubilee 2000 campaign advocating for the annulment of unjust debt for developing countries.

Until recently, faith was dismissed by academia and key international development players. This is due to the belief that the nature of religion comprises intolerant evangelism and regressive visions of the future.

This fundamentally makes it opposed to the material nature of economic progress. And that as societies modernise, religion will remain a private affair.

However, these doubts around religion have been critiqued and debunked by various academic disciplines. The significance of religion for development is widely recognised. Even though its role is complex and controversial.

Right now, religion is enjoying its new-found importance in development agendas. But there's very little consideration given to how African diaspora communities engage in development through a religious filter.

For my research, I explored this gap in knowledge. I asked a few questions. Are religious and faith identifications significant? Is there space for new faith-based interpretations of international development?

As a case study, I interviewed first and second generation London-based Christian and Muslim Nigerians. In doing that, I discovered that religious identities and 'narratives of faith' all play a role. They are important in understanding how these diaspora communities engage in international development.

The African diaspora approach to development can be understood by studying their motivations. Developmental work for them is often grounded in religious and moral assessments and obligations.

Their contributions are largely in the form of private cash remittances to the continent. Group non-monetary donations and services to Nigeria are also made via their places of worship.

Personal experience

My relationship with religion came from my family. I am a product of an interdenominational Christian marriage. My expatriate father was raised in Anglicanism via the Church Of Nigeria. My mother was born in the United Kingdom and partly Nigerian-raised. She was Roman Catholic.

Her father was an Oba (traditional ruler), who subscribed to the indigenous spiritualism and practices of Ifa, a Yoruba religion. Her grandfather, in contrast, was conferred Knight of the Papal Order of Sylvester by the Pope.

Growing up as a British Nigerian, I spent my formative years attending disproportionately white Anglican and Catholic churches. I later started travelling around numerous UK-based Nigerian and Black Majority Churches during adolescence and young adulthood.

Within this system, I discovered that getting spiritually closer to God was a currency that was routinely traded. However, I also saw charitable parishioners make personal sacrifices and contributions via the church, allied community and faith-based organisations.

These contributions were gathered and used to launch and support philanthropic poverty alleviation missions in Africa.

I also observed that traditions of transnational 'giving' among predominantly Nigerian congregations were incorporated as part of service. They were also encouraged as symbolic expressions of faith.

Engagement came in many ways: community potluck events, sponsored treks, or pay-to-watch talent showcases to raise donations.

Other avenues include voluntary church offerings, or shipping of second-hand apparel and toiletries to Nigerian orphanages and young women's refuges. Religion has often played its part.

Religious development

How did the philanthropic leanings of religion infiltrate the secular walls of international development?

For Nigerians, Christian and Muslim identities provide the blueprint through which they engage in international development.

Their expressions of development are organised around spiritually romanticised discourses of humanitarianism, stewardship, compassion, reconciliation and justice.

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Nigerians in the diaspora frame their development activities as consecrated acts. Many others see it as 'outward signs of an inward grace'. These acts are carried out within systems constituted by moral expectations, family and cultural obligations.

According to some participants, this also characterises their 'Nigerianness' or 'Africanness'.

New frames

Within this frame, development is understood by Nigerians in two ways. It's first seen as a practical performance of their faith. And also as actions that represent their religious identities.

Certainly, these communities conceive religion and their religious selves as development itself.

We need to redraft international development to accommodate faith. The revised version needs to accommodate Afro-religious performances of transnational giving.

Edward Ademolu, LSE Fellow in Qualitative Research Methodology, London School of Economics and Political Science
BOISE, Idaho, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Network software company Pingman Tools announced today the official release of CloudConnect, a remote network monitoring solution engineered for supporting work-from-home users and remote classrooms.

"So many network problems can only be understood from the point of view of the person experiencing them," said Pingman Tools Founder and CEO Pete Ness. "CloudConnect is a faster, simpler and privacy-friendly way for tech support to see what the end-user experiences."

The CloudConnect interface allows users to collect network diagnostic data from hundreds of locations and display them from a simple interface.

Businesses and schools around the world have traded in their meeting rooms for virtual spaces since the advent of COVID-19. Even with months to adjust, problems like bad Wi-Fi, unintelligible calls and random disconnections  much like the pandemic  refuse to go away.

CloudConnect helps IT technicians resolve these end-user network issues quickly and easily from anywhere in the world.

By distributing light, unobtrusive software agents to student laptops or employee workstations, support teams can use CloudConnect to test for network conditions like packet loss and connection jitter without interrupting class or work.

The primary advantage of CloudConnect is its ability to test multiple devices at once from their unique perspective. Many network tools test connections via external servers. CloudConnect traces the path data travels from the device itself to the website or server it's trying to access.

"If you can't connect to Zoom, we can show each step in the route between your laptop and Zoom's server to pinpoint the source of the issue. A support person can see if the problem is the Wi-Fi router, something with your internet provider, or Zoom itself," said Ness. "Then imagine being able to do the same test for hundreds of laptops at once. That's CloudConnect."

Another benefit of CloudConnect is privacy. Many remote employees have resorted to using personal devices to continue work, raising concerns about what employers might view or access.

Unlike remote desktop software, CloudConnect doesn't open an unnecessary back door into the device. A technician tells the remote machine which network connections to test, and the agent relays the results in real-time. Support can spot issues the moment they appear while normal network traffic stays protected.

CloudConnect is available now for both macOS and Windows. Classrooms, businesses, and service providers interested in learning more about CloudConnect can visit pingplotter.com/cloudconnect to schedule a live demo of the software.

About Pingman Tools

Pingman Tools is a Boise, ID-based software company that has been developing network diagnostic software since the days of dial-up. Our original product, PingPlotter, continues to be a go-to network testing tool even after 22 years and is trusted by ISPs, VoIP providers and NASA to give fast, accurate diagnostic data when it matters most. For more information, visit pingman.com or call (208)-345-0030.

Contact Information:

Nate Schoenfelder, Pingman Tools Marketing

[email protected]

(208)-345-0030

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CloudConnect brings devices together

The CloudConnect interface allows users to collect network diagnostic data from hundreds of locations and display them from a simple interface.

SOURCE Pingman Tools
Americans might not need to read a newspaper article to tell them how to vote in this presidential election. In fact, more than four million people have already cast their ballots. The grim reality of American life at this moment  the hundreds of thousands of coronavirus deaths, the financial struggles, the disinformation, the factionalism, the warming planet  makes the case for Joe Biden far more powerfully than any endorsement ever could. For many, the choice is as plain as the mask on Mr. Bidens face.

Still, we hope todays New York Times editorial board endorsement of Joe Biden will be clarifying and insightful to readers.

In January  several lifetimes ago, it seems  the editorial board wrote that choosing a Democratic nominee calls for a hefty dose of humility about anyones ability to foretell what voters want. In a departure from endorsements that have run on this page starting with Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the board picked two candidates, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar.

Enter that hefty dose of humility. Democratic primary voters had other ideas about what they wanted. They delivered the nomination decisively to Mr. Biden, based both on his ability to win the White House and his diagnosis of  and solutions for  the grave problems that face the United States in 2020.
South African unions representing workers across a range of industries staged a one-day national strike on Wednesday, dealing a further blow to an economy battered by the coronavirus.

The protest was called by the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the country's largest labor group, to highlight grievances including job losses, an inadequate public transport system, corruption and state spending curbs. The country's other three main labor associations endorsed the decision to stop work. Small protests were staged in several towns.

"The strike was very well supported," Cosatu spokesman Sizwe Pamla said by phone. "We are happy with the responses. It was beyond our expectations."

The Minerals Council South Africa, a lobby group for larger producers, said it was unaware of major disruptions, and only 6% of businesses surveyed by the 10,000-member National Employers Association of South Africa said they were affected by the stay-away.

"The strike failed to gain any real traction in the private sector," Gerhard Papenfus, Neasa's chief executive officer, said by phone. "Employees realize they need to retain their jobs and they need to earn an income."

Africa's most-industrialized economy shed 2.2 million jobs in the second quarter after a five-week lockdown shuttered most businesses, with the central bank expecting it to contract 8.2% this year.

The strike coincided with the start of a two-day cabinet meeting to discuss a revival plan for the economy. The government's priorities will include increasing infrastructure investment, promoting mass employment and clamping down on crime and corruption, Jackson Mthembu, the Minister in the Presidency, told reporters.

Outrage among workers who retained their jobs and face pressure to support those affected by the economic meltdown has been stoked by allegations that state contracts to provide protective equipment to tackle the coronavirus were tainted by graft.

"Both public and private sectors have demonstrated unbelievable levels of grand-scale corruption without regard for the suffering of our people," Cosatu said in its strike memorandum. "This is a struggle against greed, parasitism and institutionalized profiteering at the expense of poor people and workers."

Unions representing civil servants are also up in arms over the government's plans to renege on an undertaking made in 2018 to grant its more than 1.2 million workers pay increases that would lump the country with 37.8 billion rand ($2.3 billion) of additional debt.

About a third of South Africa's annual 1.95 trillion-rand national budget is dedicated to salaries and freezing civil servants' pay is critical to Finance Minister Tito Mboweni's plans to cut government spending by 230 billion rand over the next two years.

Mboweni's budgetary plans ran counter to measures announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa and agreed with business and labor groups to revive the economy, said Zingiswa Losi, Cosatu's president.
A 43-year-old Burkinabe has been arrested by the police for allegedly murdering his German partner and her 13-year-old daughter.

He is believed to have secretly buried them in a nearby bush in their house at Kokrobite.

The suspected has been identified as Boigouna Aloys.

According to residents, the two had been living together with the daughter of the deceased since January 2020 until their sudden disappearance.

A strong stench in the neighbourhood raised suspicions about the possible murder of the two by the suspect.

This led to the lodging a complaint with the Kokrobitey police for further investigation.

Police have since visited the scene where the two deceased persons were suspected to have been buried.

The police have begun investigations into the incident and plan to obtain an exhumation order from the court to exhume the suspected dead bodies as investigations continue.

---citinewsroom
Desde el distrito de Tambo, el presidente @MartinVizcarraC, junto al ministro Jorge Montenegro, entrega 498 titulos de propiedad a agricultores, brindandoles seguridad juridica sobre sus tierras y la posibilidad de acceso a creditos financieros.

En vivo: https://t.co/A7Rowe1T9c
Kangana Ranaut has been very vocal about the death of Sushant Singh Rajput. The actress had made many strong claims about the reason for his death, which many celebrities and netizens have viewed as being opportunistic and settling scores with whom she has personal vendettas.

In one of her earlier interview, Kangana had staked her Padma Shri on her claims on Sushant's death, and had said that she would return it if she could not prove anything. Recently, a forensics panel from AIIMS looking into Sushant's death ruled out murder and concluded that he died by suicide.

After conclusive statements were made by authorities investigating the actor's death, netizens remembered that Kangana had not provided any proof to back up her statements, and therefore demanded her to return her awards.

See what netizens had to say:

@PawanMe55211419: #KanganaAwardWapasKar Death of Sushant was, like any death, tragic indeed, particularly suicides. But the way he was dishonoured after death by media, Bhakts and BJP is unforgivable. @KanganaTeam was the most vile among them. She had gone promisimg return of her awards.

@Freak4Salman: "Kanagna & Arnab tried their best to defame Bwood & Mumbai police by using SSR's death.There is no doubt both r on payroll of BJP. After AIIMS & CBI reports both should apologise to Nation,also KR should return her Padma Shri as she promised."

@pachdagreat: Raise your hand if you want to see @KanganaTeam Returning padma shri on live tv since all of her conspiracies on shushant's death turn out to be a farce just like herself! #KanganaAwardWapasKar."

@Visionary_mind_: "Kangana. Will you?? #kanganaAwardWapasKar It's really disappointing to see that people don't miss chance to cash their opportunity even from someone's death. #Shameful @KanganaTeam."

Actor Swara Bhasker also took a dig at Kangana by tweeting, "Weren't some people going to return their government bestowed awards?"

Recently, Simi Garewal, who had supported Kangana on her fight for 'justice' for Sushant, seemed to have changed her opinion. Responding to a tweet, Simi wrote how everyone was just looking for clues as to what caused Sushant's death, but as abject motives of those who exploited the situation became clear, she felt disgusted by it.

ALSO READ: Simi Garewal Changes Opinion On Kangana Ranaut; 'Disgusted By Those Who Exploited Sushant's Death'

ALSO READ: Kangana Ranaut Claims She Never Starts A Fight; 'I Will Quit Twitter If Anyone Can Prove Otherwise'


3 1 of 3 Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 3 of 3





BRIDGEPORT  Volunteers will give away more than 3,000 boxes of food Saturday outside of Wades Dairy, 1316 Barnum Ave.

The supplies  meat, produce, dairy/milk  are provided through the federal Farmers to Families program in response to the economic chaos and joblessness caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Albertans are among the most resistant to the idea of being quickly vaccinated for COVID-19, according to a new poll. The Angus Reid Institute poll found more than one-in-four Albertans, 28 percent, say they would not get a vaccine for the novel coronavirus at all.

In Alberta, the number of respondents who said they would consider vaccination as soon as possible dropped 13 percentage points from July. Only 28 percent said they would get one as soon as it became available.

Eight-in-10 Albertans (79 percent) who responded to the survey said they are concerned about possible side-effects. This was the highest reported concern from citizens of any province.

Residents of Quebec also showed more concern about vaccine side effects, and fewer people said they would be willing to get vaccinated quickly. The poll notes Alberta and Quebec have among the highest per capita rates of COVID-19 infection in the country.

Nationally, only 39 percent of Canadians surveyed say they would be vaccinated as soon as one was widely available, while 38 percent say they would get one but will opt to wait and watch for side effects.

The rest of the respondents were split between taking an anti-vaccination stance (16 percent) and indecision (seven percent.)

The pollsters note the number of Canadians who would get inoculated early has dropped seven points since a similar poll mid-summer.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 7, 2020

Contact: Press@Michigan.gov

More than 26,000 jobs retained statewide

124 small farms receive $567,000 in MEDC Small Farm Safety Grants

Farms and food processors in 55 of 83 counties received grants

Funds used to cover testing costs, personal protection equipment, facility needs and more to help mitigate risks of COVID-19

LANSING, Mich. - A total of 177 farms and 159 food processors have been awarded $15 million in Michigan Agricultural Safety Grants to mitigate risks of the COVID-19 virus across the state's food production industry, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) announced today. Additionally, 124 small farms of less than 10 employees received $567,000 in grants for COVID-19 risk mitigation through the MEDC Small Farm Safety Grants.

"Michigan's food and agriculture sector has been hit particularly hard by COVID-19, and through the Michigan Agricultural Safety Grant program we were able to provide some relief to our farmers and food processors across the state while ensuring the safety of our agricultural workforce and food production," said Governor Gretchen Whitmer. "This program puts federal funding to work for Michigan's farms and builds on additional COVID-19 relief efforts led by MEDC and MDARD to create a strong foundation for Michigan's long-term economic recovery."

Approved in July, the Michigan Agricultural Safety Grant program allocated $15 million of federal CARES Act funding to provide much-needed funding to Michigan's agricultural processors and farms' COVID-19 mitigation efforts in support of this critical industry in the state. Awarded on a first come, first serve basis the Michigan Agricultural Safety Grants helped to retain 26,003 jobs with 26 percent of grants being awarded in geographically disadvantaged areas. Total Agricultural Safety Grants were divided between agricultural processors and farms with 10 or more employees as follows:

$10 million in grants to 159 processors statewide.

$5 million in grants to 177 farms statewide.

"When Michigan was hit with one crisis after another, and when there were some troubling trends in food and agriculture nationally, we worked to ensure that Michigan's food supply chain was safe and secure," said MDARD Director Gary McDowell. "And we all understood this could not be done if our essential workers became ill or felt unsafe in the workplace. We're incredibly thankful for the work of Governor Whitmer and our partners at MEDC and GreenStone not only for executing this program, but also for doing it quickly when Michigan businesses and residents needed it the most."

As a result of high demand for the Michigan Agricultural Safety Grant program, and a clear need to help small farms mitigate risks of the COVID-19 virus in their operation, MEDC launched the MEDC Small Farm Safety Grant program on July 21, 2020. MEDC Small Farm Safety Grants were available to farms with less than 10 employees to fund COVID-19 mitigation costs.

A full list of awardees for both programs is available at MichiganBusiness.org/AgSafety .

Applications for both programs were processed by East Lansing-based GreenStone Farm Credit Services, one of America's largest rural lenders, including 31 branches in Michigan. GreenStone has a 100-year track record providing financial services to the agricultural industry - including short, intermediate and long-term loans, equipment and building leases, life insurance, crop insurance, accounting and tax services. GreenStone completed initial screenings of all applications and supporting documentation and recommended applications to MEDC for final approval and disbursements of the grants awarded.

King Orchards in Central Lake was awarded a Michigan Agricultural Safety Grant utilized for PPE, sanitation supplies, quarantine housing and the implementation of COVID-19 testing for all workers.

"We are very grateful for the timely actions by the MEDC to make the Michigan Agricultural Safety Grant available to farmers," said Juliette King McAvoy, Food Safety Manager at King Orchards. "The application process was simple and funds were disbursed within 72 hours. The grant provided us with the support we needed to protect our workers and customers while simultaneously reducing the risk of detrimental disruptions to our operations and distribution of produce."

According to MDARD, food and agriculture contributes $104.7 billion annually to Michigan's economy, and represents 805,000 jobs statewide. Additionally, Michigan exports approximately $1.8 billion of food and agriculture products each year.

"This grant has been a big blessing to help offset the other expenses and losses we have experienced this year because of COVID-19," said Catherine Genovese, owner of Candy Cane Christmas Tree Farm who received an MEDC Small Farm Safety Grant. "It will ensure that we have necessary PPE going into our busiest season, including masks, wipes and plexiglass screens to ensure the safety of both our employees and our clients."

The authorizing legislation for the Michigan Agricultural Safety Grant program also requires reporting on the program's results by October 15, 2020 to the Legislature and State Budget Office. That report will be available on MichiganBusiness.org/AgSafety .

"Working in partnership with MDARD and GreenStone, we were able get this critical support into the hands of our farms and agricultural processors quickly and effectively to keep our workers and our food supply safe," said Mark A. Burton, CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. "The Michigan Agricultural Safety Grant program built on our efforts to ensure COVID-19 relief was felt by businesses and workers statewide and that we were setting a strong foundation for economic recovery looking forward."

To learn more about MEDC's COVID-19 response programs and the impact they are having on economic recovery efforts, visit MichiganBusiness.org/Covid19Response . Other resources for economic reopening efforts as well as businesses across Michigan struggling with economic losses as a result of the COVID-19 virus can be found online at MichiganBusiness.org/Covid19 .

About Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC)

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation is the state's marketing arm and lead advocate for business development, job awareness and community development with the focus on growing Michigan's economy. For more information on the MEDC and our initiatives, visit MichiganBusiness.org . For Pure Michigan tourism information, your trip begins at Michigan.org . Join the conversation on: Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , and Twitter .

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The Governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum, on Tuesday, listed some actions he believes the army can take to win the Boko Haram war.

The governor who was a special guest of honour at the 2020 joint Chief of Army Staff Conference held in Maiduguri, Borno State, said the Nigeria Army being the flagship of the nations military, has all it takes to win the war, only if it can review its fighting strategy.

While commending the military for what he said was the recent improvement in troops fighting spirit against the insurgents, the governor said the war could be ended in no time if the military especially the Nigeria Army can change the war narratives.

He said it is appropriate to commend the army when it has done well and we must also have the courage to tell each other the common truth and be critical of the troops operations when things go wrong.

He said his administration will not relent in giving the soldiers all the needed support to win the war.

As part of the ten-point agenda of this administration , the Borno state government shall sustain its role as a stakeholder in supporting the activities of the Nigerian army, through the provision of all the needed support and morale-boosting mechanism to all the security agencies to end the fight against Boko Haram crisis.

In this direction, I wish to ask the Nigeria army to change the war narratives all together in order to end the crisis.

Attack, they say, is the best form of defence. The Nigerian Army must have to take the war to all the hideouts of the Boko Haram.

You should not wait and give the terrorists an opportunity for the first attack. You should as a matter of policy, embark on critical clearance operation after successful execution of attacks.

He added that the army is finding it difficult to get the buy-in of the local populace, as partners in the counterinsurgency, because it has failed in the area of confidence-building.

The Nigerian Army must also embark on confidence-building and confidence sharing mechanism with the communities and civil authorities they found themselves, so as to expose the terrorists, their collaborates and sponsors, he said.

Governor Zulum also called on the chief of army staff to look at the issue of competence while deploying officers to command strategic military units, an area he said was not well explored.

He said the army authority should not emphasise loyalty of soldiers as criteria for postings to military commands.

Sir, in appraising the performance of the Nigerian Army, there is a need to look at the critical issues of competence, dedication and doggedness of officers and men of the Nigerian armed forces.

Let me re-emphasise the need for having competent and dedicated officers to head the military commands; because from my little observation, it is noted that all the locations headed by competent and dedicated officers hardly fall into the hands of the insurgents. Therefore we have to weigh the importance of loyalty and competence, which is very important.

Governor Zulum also mourned the death of Colonel Dahiru Bako, who died two weeks ago in an ambush by Boko Haram in Borno State.

He said the death of such gallant officers and soldiers was a set back in the fight against the insurgency.

Earlier, the army chief, Tukur Buratai, commended Nigerian troops for their sacrifices in the service of the nation.

The army chief had also commended the president and commander in chief, Muhammadu Buhari, for the support being given to the army. He equally thanked the government of Borno State for partnering with the army in most of its operations.

He said though the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the Nigerian armys focus of events for 2020, the army has been able to secure a new allowance.

He said the army has been able to procure and deploy PPEs to various formations to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the army has taken delivery of newly procured war equipment which officers and soldiers are being trained on how to handle.

He said the army had also been able to locally fabricate some of the military equipment that has been deployed in the front lines, even as he called on all commands to ensure judicious use of all the equipment in a manner that justifies the investment of the federal government.

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The army chief commended the conduct of soldiers during the Edo election even as he urged them to sustain that standard in the Ondo State governorship election holding on Saturday.

He said the Nigeria Army has rolled out plans to provide free housing programme for families of all soldiers that have been killed in action while prosecuting the war against Boko Haram.

The Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria has caused the death of thousands of people and displaced millions of others, mainly in Borno State.

The efforts of the Nigerian military and other security agencies have, since 2016, limited the insurgents to the three Northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.

However, the insurgents are still able to carry out attacks on civilians and security agencies in those three states.
New Delhi: A day after finalising the seat-sharing plan for the upcoming Bihar Assembly Elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday (October 7) decided to allotted 11 seats to Mukesh Sahani-led Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) from its quota. The BJP will no contest 110 seats in all.

VIP chief Mukesh Sahani, who dubbed his alliance with the BJP as `ghar wapsi`, said his party would fight under the leadership of Nitish Kumar. The VIP chief was expecting 25 seats from the Grand Alliance and the Deputy CM`s post which, he claimed, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav had promised him.

On Saturday, Mukesh Sahani left the Grand Alliance after the Rashtriya Janata Dal failed to allocate its seats during the announcement on seat-sharing in Patna. Former Bollywood set designer Sahani had walked off in a huff, leaving the RJD, Congress, and Left leaders stunned.

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BJP's state unit chief Sanjay Jaiswal announced the allocation of 11 seats to the VIP in Patna today. As per the seat-sharing formula in the National Democratic Alliance, the BJP was allocated 121 seats and the JD-U 122 seats.

BJP sources said that Sahani was allocated 11 seats as a reward by Union Home Minister Amit Shah as he had openly challenged Tejashwi and other Grand Alliance leaders during the press meet on Saturday.

"Being a son of the most backward class, I was back-stabbed by Tejashwi Yadav. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has put balm on my wound. I will contest the Assembly elections under the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar," Sahani told IANS.

The VIP chief further said, "I began my political career in 2015 with the BJP and was influenced by Modi. Due to some reasons, I switched to the Grand Alliance in search of social justice. It was a mistake. It is a `ghar wapsi` for me and I express my gratitude to the top leadership of the BJP, including Modi and Shah."

The Janata Dal-United has accommodated the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) led by former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi, who has already given seven seats.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi on Tuesday said that the NDA has four alliance partners in Bihar  BJP, Janata Dal (United), Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), and VIP.

In a joint press conference on Tuesday, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced that the BJP will have 121 seats while JD(U) has 122 seats, adding that the JD(U) has given 7 seats to Manjhi-led Hindustani Awam Morcha from its quota.
Two alleged Islamic State militants known as the 'Beatles' will arrive in the United States on Wednesday to face trial on US charges for their alleged involvement in beheadings of American hostages in Syria, the US Department of Justice said.

The alleged militants, Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, have been in US military custody abroad since they were captured in 2019. They grew up in Britain and were UK citizens, but the British government withdrew their citizenship.

The pair are suspected of membership in a four-strong Islamic State cell known as the 'Beatles' because of their British accents. The group is alleged to have detained or killed Western hostages in Syria, including US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig.

"These charges are the product of many years of hard work in pursuit of justice for our citizens slain by Isis. Although we cannot bring them back, we can and will seek justice for them, their families, and for all Americans," Attorney General William P. Barr said in a statement.

In order to secure British help in obtaining evidence on the pair, Barr agreed that US prosecutors would not seek the death penalty in any cases against them and would not carry out executions if they were imposed.

The pair were held in Iraq by the US military for around a year and are now in FBI custody, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers told a news conference.

"As for their ringleader, Mohamed Emwazi (infamously known as Jihadi John), he faced a different type of American resolve - the mighty reach of our military, which successfully targeted him in an airstrike several years ago," Demers said.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Islamic State is still trying to radicalize people in the United States and elsewhere.

"Their goal is to motivate people to launch attacks against Western targets wherever they are, using any means available," Wray said.

Wray and Demers said the support of the British government was critical to moving the investigation and prosecution forward.

The families of Foley, Kassig, Mueller and Sotloff welcomed the news.

"James, Peter, Kayla and Steven were kidnapped, tortured, beaten, starved, and murdered by members of the Islamic State in Syria," they said in a joint statement.

"Now our families can pursue accountability for these crimes against our children in a US court."

If convicted, Kotey and Elsheikh could face up to life in prison. The two are expected to appear in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.
British-born al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and his three aides - the main accused in the abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl  will remain in jail for another three months, according to an order issued by Pakistans Sindh government on Wednesday.

The announcement of extending their detention was made by prosecutors during a hearing of the Supreme Court, which was to decide on Sheikhs release. The apex court last week barred the government from releasing them.

Faisal Siddiqi, the lawyer representing Pearls family, told the media that the government prosecutor, Fiaz Shah, told the judges he needed more time for paperwork to prepare for the case.

The court accepted his argument and adjourned the hearing till October 21.

In April, a two-judge Sindh High Court bench commuted the death sentence of 46-year-old Sheikh, who was convicted in the abduction and murder of Pearl in 2002, to seven years. The court also acquitted his three aides who were serving life terms in the case  almost two decades after they were found guilty and jailed.

Two days after the Sindh High Court overturned Sheikhs conviction, the Sindh government invoked the Maintenance of Public Order to keep the four convicts in jail. The Sindh government filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the high court verdict. Pearls parents also filed an appeal to the Supreme Court against the judgment of the high court to release the accused.

Pearl, the 38-year-old South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was abducted and beheaded while he was in Pakistan investigating a story in 2002 on the alleged links between the countrys powerful spy agency ISI and al-Qaeda.
Highlights Apple is set to launch the new iPhone 12 series on October 13.

The iPhone 12 series will bring 4 new phones.

iPhone 12 series could start retail at Rs 60,000 in India.

Cupertino-based tech giant, Apple, is gearing up for its second big product event in the span of few weeks. With an invite shared with the media earlier in the day, Apple confirmed that it will host the "Hi, Speed" product event on October 13.

While the invite doesn't talk about what announcements that will be made at the event, there is a belief that the showstopper at the "Hi, Speed" event will be none other than the iPhone 12. With the new Apple Watch and iPad Air already announced during the "Time Flies" event in September, the iPhone 12 remains the only major product that's still under wraps. As such, it is safe to assume that it would be the new iPhone that would be launched at the October 13 event.

Ahead of the event, the iPhone 12 has seen itself leaked a number of times, with some exhaustive leaks revealing key details about the device. Here's everything we know about it so far.

iPhone 12: Four new devices this year

One of the most interesting rumours that have come in about the iPhone 12 series is that there could be as many as four new iPhones this year. However, there have been conflicting reports about the names of the phones. Earlier reports had suggested that these would be called as the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Max, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max.

But later on, reports started coming in that the phones will not be called by these names, and instead be called, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max. Reports suggest that the 5.4-inch iPhone 12 could be called the iPhone 12 mini. The 6.1-inch model would be the iPhone 12, the 6.1-inch one the iPhone 12 Pro while the 6.7-inch model would be called the iPhone 12 Pro Max.

iPhone 12 series: Specifications and display

Unlike the iPhone 11 series which featured a mix of display technologies, the iPhone 12 series is tipped to come with OLED panels across the board. However, reports suggest the panels will not support ultra-fast 120Hz refresh rates, and would max out at 60Hz. Noted tipster Ming-Chi Kuo suggests that this upgrade will only be introduced next year when Apple announces the iPhone 13.

Under the hood, all four iPhones are set to be powered by the company's new A14 Bionic chipset. This chipset is the fastest that Apple has created to date. However, leaked Geekbench scores have indicated that this chipset may still not make the iPhone 12 the fastest or most powerful in the business. Although, what we're mildly confident of is that the chipset will at least make it more power-efficient than previous iPhones, helping improve battery life on the iPhone 12.

The chipset is expected to be paired to ample amount of RAM. Barclays analyst Blayne Curtis has previously said the iPhone 12 Pro models will feature 6GB RAM, while the iPhone 12 will have 4GB RAM.

iPhone 12 series: Could be a camera beast

After making big changes to the iPhone 11 in 2019, Apple could now make bigger changes to the iPhone 12 line-up this year. Rumors claim that at least one of the phones could bring the 3D LiDAR Scanner that Apple added in the 2020 iPad Pro models.

As for the number of cameras, the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max are expected to get three rear camera lenses. One of which will be wide, the other an ultra-wide, and the third a telephoto lens. The iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 are expected tipped to feature dual-lens systems.

iPhone 12 series: Expected price

As for the price, there's no information about the pricing of the upcoming Apple phones in India. However, there have been reports about the US pricing for the device which has given us an idea about the iPhone 12 in our country. There's are reports that claim the iPhone 12 series could start retail at a price that's more aggressive than what we've seen before from the company, with the iPhone 12 series likely to begin retail in India at a price of around Rs 60,000.

As for the US pricing, leaks have suggested in the past that the iPhone 12 series could start retail at $649 for the iPhone 12 mini -- the most affordable for an iPhone in the recent past. The bigger, 6.1-inch iPhone 12 is expected to retail for a starting price of $749. The iPhone 12 Pro with a similar sized screen but with an extra camera and LiDAR sensor could retail for $999 while the iPhone 12 Pro Max will be slightly more expensive at $1,099.
In an extraordinary quirk of history in 1989, exactly 200 years after the French Revolution, a series of peaceful democratic revolutions transformed the map of Europe, marking the end of the Soviet Union's hegemony and the restoration of democracy in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland and Hungary, who were the least compliant of the Soviet Union's vassal states.

At the same time, a similar uprising took place in East Germany, where the fall of the Berlin Wall brought about the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the end of communist rule in that forlorn state.

On October 3 the following year, the actual political reunification of East Germany and West Germany took place. Last weekend, the German people celebrated the 30th anniversary of that momentous event.

Other European nations have warmly saluted the anniversary and wished the German people well, which is a reversal of their respective governments' positions in 1990, whenever the prospect of Germany's reunion was being considered.

The French, in particular, under President Francois Mitterrand, were unhappy about German reunification, as they feared a resurgence of German militarism that had led to two previous World Wars.

This opposition to German unity was shared by other European countries, including the Dutch, the Italians and, of course, the British.

The then-Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was extremely wary of a reunited German state and expressed her opposition privately. At a meeting of European leaders, she declared: "We defeated the Germans twice. And now they're back."

If any reunion was to take place, she wanted it delayed for at least five years, or even more.

One great exception in Europe was Ireland under Taoiseach, Charles J Haughey, who, as the President of the European Community, convened a special meeting in Dublin and won the backing of member states for German reunification. The German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, saluted Haughey's timely intervention by saying: "Germany will never forgot what you have done for us."

In any event, European and British objections did not prevail, as both the Soviet Union, under President Gorbachev, and the United States, under President George H W Bush, supported German reunification.

Gorbachev believed that it was in the interests of the now considerably weakened USSR to allow a new German state to emerge, because he hoped that it would leave NATO and become a neutral power in Europe.

President Bush simply felt that it was the democratic right of the Germans to unite within one state. President Bush's strong support was the really decisive factor in getting widespread international backing for German unity.

The reunification of Germany was unexpected, almost accidental. Although unplanned by the Germans themselves, the unification process was both peaceful and democratic.

Nonetheless, it was rushed and involved economic and social pain, particularly for those living in the East.

German unity went through a number of stages. There was monetary union, when the deutschemark replaced the East German currency at parity.

Economic and social union was rapidly introduced. Large subsidies for the GDR's budget and social security system were made available by West Germany.

West German laws came into force even before formal reunion. Finally, the East German Volkskammer voted by a two-third's majority to approve their accession to the West German state, thereby the GDR was absorbed into West Germany.

The achievement of German reunification was not just that it was peaceful and democratic, but also it successfully addressed the tricky task of integrating the German people themselves after four decades of separation under ideologically different political and social systems.

There is still some economic imbalance between the East and West and this has given rise to the process of what the Germans have called "inner reunification".

Ironically, the current Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was born and brought up in East Germany, the daughter of a Lutheran pastor. This former East German citizen succeeded in becoming leader of the Christian Democrats, in succession to Helmut Kohl, and also in dominating German and European politics over the past 15 years.

Despite her understated leadership, she has skilfully navigated the new Germany through the financial crash of 2008, the immigration crisis of 2015 and the vexatious issue of Brexit.

Remarkably, she has permitted over a million non-EU migrants to settle legally in Germany. At the same time, she has presided over the building and maintenance of a strong economy, which is the powerhouse of Europe.

The reunification of Germany was a huge demand unexpectedly thrust upon the German people by the unpredictable implosion of the Soviet Union. The positive response by the German people is a testimony to their innate political genius.

Perhaps we in Ireland, both nationalist and unionist, could learn from the German experience of reunification some 30 years ago.
The pandemic has represented many challenges for small and medium-sized companies (SMEs), all these events have led them to adapt and create new habits that include new technologies and sales through digital channels.

CONTPAQi, an electronic invoicing company, is aware of the challenge that adapting to the new reality has implied for SMEs and that is why from July 20 to 24 it organized a congress through videoconferences in which the points were presented from the point of view of various personalities in business, communication, tax regulation, marketing, human resources and innovation issues, all of the above in order to mitigate this complicated situation they are experiencing and strengthen their capacity to face new challenges.

You may be interested: Tips that you should put into practice if you are going to request a loan online at this time

The event called Profit has been held for the fourth consecutive year, but this is the first time virtually. Issues related to the crisis were addressed as a driver for the digital evolution of SMEs, on cybersecurity as well as the impact of the new reality on economic structures and the traditional culture of business productivity.

Think different to get different results

Rene Martin Torres Fragoso, general director and co-founder of CONTPAQi, indicates that today one of the most important challenges is not only technological innovation, since many of the technologies that we currently use already existed for years, rather it is innovation mental and administrative, the most relevant change is not that of companies or consumers but of oneself, to think differently to obtain different results.

Photo: Depositphotos.com

We organized a congress through videoconferences from Monday to Friday with consultancies that had to do with post-COVID management, what is going to happen with your company, with your organization, with your collaborators, with different topics. For example a motivational issue because they need to be motivated, one does not see when they return to the new normal, then how to give positive messages (to the collaborators) that everything is going to be fine in the end we are all going to get ahead and Everything is going to be fine, Torres says.

Solidarity and empathy, two important factors for a true transformation

Faced with complex moments full of uncertainty, Rene Torres conveys the message that solidarity and empathy are two elements that must be kept in mind.

The message I want to say is that the world has already changed, also business because each time they are being digitized in an important way, but the most relevant thing is not that the world changes or that your company changes, the most important thing is that you change, us, the people, the human beings, that we change our approach and that we realize that today a virus can end the human race. What requires the solidarity and empathy of people to realize how fragile we are , expressed Torres.

Photo: Depositphotos.com

The executive says that today is the time to change our mental structures as human beings to understand that we are all one and that we depend on others, for this reason empathy and solidarity are two values that must prevail forever. Likewise, it encourages those who need it to help as much as possible.

At the event inspiring lectures were presented for both personal and professional development by entrepreneurs, accountants, businessmen and even students, interested in having a greater knowledge of accounting.

In the tax area, a talk was held about the causes of why the SAT can suspend the Digital Seal Certificate (CSD), in the same way about the appropriate process to expedite the solution to problems. In the same way, related issues were discussed regarding regulations and technical standards to have the new complement of electronic platforms.

Among the speakers who shared their views and knowledge are: CONTPAQi's tax consultant, Benito Barragan. As well as the journalist Jesus Silva-Herzog, the Israeli consultant Mohanda AH Al-Madi, and the former Secretary of Health, Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos, spoke about the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To continue helping small entrepreneurs, this company launched Wopen. Here I explain a little more in depth what this initiative is about.

What is Wopen and what does it work for?

"Wopen is this initiative that we have been working on since 2019 in order to provide - especially micro-small businesses - the ability to have a virtual store and we believe that electronic commerce is now vital for companies, I say this was before the pandemic, to be inserted in the world through digital transformation. One of the first processes that must be digitized is your relationship with customers through an ecommerce platform. Wopen means We Are Open , explains Torres.

The application was launched on July 7, 2020, Torres claims that they took great care of the launch date so that the numbers were repeated 2020/07/07. One of the main objectives is to be able to have a free platform for users who have a Premium Commercial application and thus be able to offer them an outlet to the Internet.

"Today due to the pandemic, it was still vital because if your physical store is closed, at least because of your virtual electronic store on a platform that can continue to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year", Torres points out.

That said, they released two versions, a free one that has a series of very complete characteristics and a charged version that is the plus, since it has additional properties such as the fact that you can choose the template of your store, that is, How your business will look in the plus version, you select and accommodate it, customizing it to your liking with your own layout . While the standard version is free and goes with the Premium commercial applications, there you adjust to a single format of presenting information, in this way they are dedicated to a B2B and B2C relationship to facilitate transactions.

Another benefit of using Wopen are:

Considerable reduction in implementation and development time to have, in one hour, an online store ready to use.

E-commerce platform with free plan for life.

Cost reduction in implementation and development, compared to other similar solutions that are priced between 10 and 15% higher.

Greater profit in sales, with a preferential rate, in the services of the Envioclick platform.

Digitization and automation of commercial processes with the bidirectional integration with CONTPAQi Comercial Premium from the free version.

Customer service, at no additional cost, with an online chat.

"With Wopen we want SMEs to undertake a digital transformation, to use technology to better adapt to changes in consumer behavior, which are related to what the customer wants and needs today," adds Rene Torres Fragoso

The executive highlights that having an electronic store is only part of the solution, since the product is the complement and the most important thing for a merchant is the location, in this case the Internet. It is not only about having your store, but about generating traffic so that users can reach you.

We train all our distributors -around 500- with a diploma in digital marketing with the idea of preparing them so that they, in turn, can advise their client on the decisions they must make to generate that traffic to the store successfully Mentions Torres.

He also points out that by setting up a virtual store, you have the possibility of increasing sales, simply by being on the Internet, obviously generating traffic.

According to the Mexican Society of Online Sales, companies that set up a virtual store on the Internet increase their sales by around 19%, simply because of that presence, obviously generating that traffic. The first thing about an SME is that it transacts with its current clients and through the generation of traffic with new clients who are the ones that generate this growth in sales , explains Torres.

With this in mind, it is important to generate traffic to virtual stores so that they can increase their sales and also obtain more customers.

Photo: Depositphotos.com

As a result of the pandemic, it is calculated through the Mexican Society of Online Sales that electronic commerce will grow around 60%, that is, more and more sales by digital means than by physical means. Each time it is covering a greater percentage, online sales now represent around 15% of the total sales made in Mexico, but it has an annual growth of 60% and that is quite significant , says Torres.

About 30% of Mexicans already made transactions through the Internet. Now, the number of people who made a digital transaction increased to 50%. That means that the additional 20% are from people who for the first time entered an Internet page and made some type of purchase through this digital medium and these are very positive numbers for Mexico since it puts us on the path of digitizing the Business.

From the above, he emphasizes that both versions of their platforms are aimed at micro, small and medium-sized companies that want to have a space on the Internet with benefits of payment and shipping gateway with the possibility of choosing the courier company that transfers their products, be it Estafeta, FedEx, etc., Also, on the domain issue, you can have your own in the plus version which gives your store greater presence, unlike the standard, where the domain depends on Wopen.

In both versions, standard and plus, they coexist in a market place , which is equivalent to a shopping plaza, so Wopen seeks to attract traffic to your business through digital marketing. However, each store has the responsibility of making the digital marketing strategies that it deems appropriate - always accompanied and supported by its distributor - to generate its particular traffic in order to be very successful.

The choice of the platform will depend on your needs, since the free one has a limit on the number of products, while the charged one is unlimited. In both versions, no type of transaction fee is charged, in the case of the plus there is a single annual payment without any kind of restriction in transactions and with payments through credit card, the commissions generated by the processor payment does not go to Wopen, because they do not charge for the type of payment.

Results obtained so far

A great acceptance of the platform has been reported by its existing clients and those who are training in the digital marketing strategy. They have chosen to try the free version to have a better understanding of it.

We have more than 200 stores installed since July 7 and this is growing week after week. As the platform is known, the advantages and benefits are seen, as each time they go up more and more and more. We expect that by the end of this year we will have around 10,000 stores already uploaded in our marketplace and of which we expect 25% to be standard and 75% to be a plus version , commented the businessman.

Very dramatic changes have occurred in the aspect of the consumer, the executive calls them "prosumers", since they are now professional consumers. Previously, making a price comparison was almost impossible and tiring, it took a long time to do it in physical stores. Now, with digital stores, doing this task becomes simpler and faster, almost instantaneously, saving travel and making the purchase decision more informed.

Therefore, today it is very important that all SMEs are present in virtual media, which allows them to carry out transactions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If your client enters the Internet, looks for you and cannot find you, it is most likely that he will look for another provider and lose your client.

You may be interested: This is how some businesses have used WhatsApp Business to cope with COVID-19

That said, all those entrepreneurs, whether micro, small or medium, have the responsibility of making their conversion and uploading their products to the Internet, through a platform like Wopen and in this way have a presence on the Internet and begin to transact with your customers automating and digitizing from the beginning of the transaction. Keeping this in mind, it becomes a faster and more agile action, avoiding what happened in the physical world with telephone orders or through emails that slowed down the process.

Currently, to accelerate business cycles through the platforms, the sale is made at the time the customer places their order. Subsequently, the invoice is generated, the product and the invoice are sent digitally, therefore, the commercial cycle is shorter and more effective, generating greater wealth and prosperity through its electronic commerce platforms.

There are estimates from the Bank of Mexico that speak of a decrease in the Gross Domestic Product of 10%, which is brutal that the economy decreases by 10%, it really is very dramatic, we already saw the INEGI figures this quarter the Mexican economy decreased 18.9% and that means the mortality of companies and this mortality of companies means the loss of millions of jobs, at most millions of jobs does not say anything, but when you translate it to millions of families who are left without an income, now we do it makes all Mexicans think , adds Torres.

For this reason, the entrepreneur considers that the Wopen platform in its two versions is essential for all entrepreneurs and companies developing in electronic commerce. If you want to continue existing in this digital world, you have no other alternative to respond to changes in the consumer, who has been transformed throughout the pandemic, since that segment of consumers who resisted buying online because they thought it was unsafe and he felt vulnerable to identity theft, his money or any other problem, now he is totally convinced of the benefits of virtual purchases. For example, there are already many more security elements that try to protect consumers and that helps to make Internet transactions increasingly secure. There are also different payment methods, from credit card, deposit and that helps to have greater ease.

All our clients that have the platform of the premium commercial product is a software that manages your inventories, your clients, your accounts receivable, your accounts payable, etc., because all they need is a click and that's it, and at any day and time they will have all their products uploaded to their online store. So, it is not so far from having your electronic store, as one click and you start selling, that has been part of our success, it is because it is very easy to assemble your products on the platform , says Torres.

It is really simple, since it comes preconfigured and thus makes the work easier for the end user. In this way, they want to give access to millions of SMEs in Mexico so that they can continue to transact, not only in Mexico but in the world, for this reason they included shipping gateways so that they can send their products anywhere.

Short and long-term plans that your platform has

"There are always plans to continue growing. For example, connect it with Facebook, since it is important to link it with your social networks. Nowadays, you have to help companies to sell and continue selling. However, it is relevant to charge what you already have. They sold, because in the case of doing it through credit in a B2B relationship, that is, business to business. At cost they will release an application that is a collection platform that is paired with Wopen, what it does is automate this entire process and depersonalize it , since it is extremely difficult to collect, since it requires a lot of character. "I call those who charge, they are well charged," says Torres spontaneously.

Taking the above into account, the collection platform has the advantage of being fully automatic in terms of sending account statements, payment notices, and collection. For example, everything is handled through emails, messages, WhatsApp. Like credit and collection policy agreements, it depersonalizes this hard work.

We have detected that with this collection platform up to 30% more outstanding collections are recovered, thereby improving the liquidity of companies. We have realized, I say it seems a joke, but it is very true that many times companies do not pay because they do not charge them. This is the premise: If you don't charge me, I won't pay you. What they need is a call, a reminder message of the bill and soon they pay , explains Torres.

The importance of detecting the customer's need

Rene Martin Torres Fragoso concludes that it is truly simple, Wopen is a product that is already in the cloud and is preconfigured in this way, they facilitate the work of the end user. It continues to remind us that the Mexican distribution channel is undergoing a constant transformation based on the needs of consumers.

Related:

Tienes un Airbnb? Deberas seguir el Protocolo de Limpieza Avanzada para seguir operando

Do you have an Airbnb? You must follow the Advanced Cleaning Protocol to continue operating

Esta es la solucion de CONTPAQi para que las pymes enfrenten la pandemia



Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/07/2020 -- Transparency Market Research delivers key insights for the thermal transfer labels market in its published report, which includes global industry analysis, size, share, growth, trends, and forecast for 20192025. In terms of revenue, the global thermal transfer labels market is projected to register a CAGR of 5.5% during the forecast period.



Browse the Research Report@ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/thermal-transfer-label-market.html



The global thermal transfer labels market is driven by its extensive usage in tags, labels, receipts, and tickets. Growth of various end-use industries such as food and beverage, industrial goods, healthcare and products, tracking, logistics, and transportation, retail, and semiconductor and electronics offer a positive outlook for the global thermal transfer labels market. Currently, manufacturing accounts for the maximum demand for barcode printers, as this industry uses these printers for streamlining the processing and tracking of shipments.



Demand from the healthcare sector is increasing, attributable to the use of thermal transfer labels to print tags for patient ID systems, which increases accessibility of information to patients and reduces medical errors. The growing popularity of thermal spray coating in environments that are prone to moisture and other contamination is expected to open new opportunities for vendors operating in the global thermal transfer labels market. Rising number of retail outlets in vastly populated emerging economies such as China and India, and supportive policies by various governments are other factors that are expected to contribute to the growth of the market.



Thermal transfer labels companies need to target their customer base in emerging economies such as India & China, which have highly growing retail markets. India and China are expected to be attractive targets for thermal transfer labels manufacturers. The retail market in India has been experiencing healthy growth over the last decade, which creates opportunities for thermal transfer labels manufacturers to penetrate into this emerging market. Moreover, labor costs in China and India are less as compared to the developed countries of Europe, which compel manufacturers to set new plans for manufacturing units of thermal transfer labels.



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Increasing demand for logistics goods in these countries also creates significant opportunities for manufacturers. Moreover, rising focus on reducing food wastage and massive evolution in the pharmaceuticals industry creates major opportunities for multinational companies that aim to increase their penetration in the global thermal transfer labels market during the forecast period.



Stringent regulations are imposed on the use of BPA (bisphenol A), which are strongly challenging the true potential of the thermal transfer labels market in the food and beverage industry. Nevertheless, the late but eventual penetration of e-Commerce in the developing countries is expected to open new avenues for vendors in the thermal transfer labels market during the forecast period.



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Manufacturers can leverage the remunerative growth potential offered by the global thermal transfer labels market. To gain the most benefits the out of this scenario, key players in the thermal transfer labels market are strengthening their market presence by innovating their product offerings. The thermal transfer labels market is fragmented, with a significant share held by regional players. The TMR identifies Honeywell International Inc., Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, CCL Industries Inc., 3M Company, Constantia Flexibles Group GmbH, LINTEC Corporation Inland Label and Marketing Services LLC, WS Packaging Group, Inc. and Coveris Holdings S.A., as some the most prominent companies currently operating in the global thermal transfer labels market.
Helen Frankenthaler tips a can of paint onto a canvas on the floor. (Ernst Haas / Getty Images )

Joining the growing  and increasingly controversial  list of American art museums that have sold or are preparing to sell major paintings from their permanent collections, the Palm Springs Art Museum is finalizing discussions to bring Helen Frankenthalers monumental 1979 canvas Carousel to market, according to multiple people with knowledge of the plan.

A museum spokesman declined to speak about the proposed sale, which is expected to be announced soon.

Carousel is one of a number of large works Frankenthaler completed in the late 1960s and 1970s. Spanning more than 7 feet in height and 17 feet in width, it is among 132 works of art donated to the Palm Springs museum in 1994 by the late interior designer Steve Chase. The benefactor, one of the largest in the museums history, also pledged $1.5 million for a gallery expansion that was subsequently named in his honor.

Sales of important art from established museum collections have now caused controversy in San Francisco, Baltimore, New York and elsewhere recently, as institutions take advantage of a vigorous art market  especially for Modern and contemporary art. Amid growing concern last spring about effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on museum finances, the Assn. of Art Museum Directors made a debatable decision to loosen its restrictions on how income from such sales can be used by charitable institutions.

Few if any art museums now selling collection works have cited pandemic-pinched finances as the reason. Many have said the move is motivated by a desire to raise funds to diversify collections through acquisition of more works by women and people of color, who are typically under-represented in art museum collections.

In June, following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, an open letter circulated on social media sharply criticizing the Palm Springs museum for failing to take remedial action on social justice issues within the institution. That makes the planned sale of a work by Frankenthaler, a prominent female artist, especially surprising.

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Critics of the AAMDs loosened sale requirements worried that a selling spree would follow, with important works of art long in the public realm disappearing into private collections. On Tuesday, the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, N.Y., sold Jackson Pollocks rare and important 1946 Red Composition at auction for $13 million. The painting, arguably the most important one among the Everson's holdings in American art, had been in the museum's collection for nearly 30 years.

The Pollock sale will not be finalized until a legal challenge to the action, filed with the commissioner of the New York State Education Department, is resolved. The buyer has not been identified.

The reason for the Palm Springs sale is unclear. Museum Director Louis Grachos, in the post for just over 18 months, told the Palm Springs Desert Sun shortly after his hiring that his chief aim was to share the thrill of growing a collection. In 2007 Grachos ignited a firestorm when some 200 antiquities and pre-Modern works of art from the collection of Buffalos Albright-Knox Art Gallery, where he was director, were sent to the auction block.

Prices for paintings by female artists have historically lagged behind those of their male counterparts, but the gap is narrowing. Three monumental Frankenthaler canvases have sold at auction this year for $3 million or more  a significant jump in the established market for her works from the period. Royal Fireworks, a 1975 painting of comparable size to Carousel, fetched $7.9 million in June.

Those recent sales were all from private collections.

Carousel, soaked in big swaths of deep red with dark shadows and flashes of light glimpsed in between, is one of two by Frankenthaler in the desert museums collection; the other is a smaller 1972 canvas called April Screen. The museum's website describes both as major works in the collection painted by one of the great 20th century American artists.

A second-generation Abstract Expressionist, Frankenthaler died in 2011 at 83. Advancing a key strategy pioneered by Pollock, she poured pigment directly onto canvas laid out on the floor, using sponges to stain the canvas and spread the color into abstract fields.

Mountains and Sea (1952), painted when she was 23 and now on extended loan to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, was her first foray into what came to be called Lyrical Abstraction or Color Field painting. The stain technique was an influence on many other artists, especially Morris Louis.

Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein took a playful jab at Frankenthalers distinctive and widely remarked-upon method in 1962, painting a commercially derived image of an elegant womans hand swiping a sponge.





This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
MG Motor India (Image: Moneycontrol)

MG Motor has initiated talks with Volkswagen (VW) India and the Mahindra & MahindraFord (M&MFord) JV to lease their plants for contract manufacturing of its India vehicles.

MG Motor has initiated talks to source vehicles from other companies as part of a contract-manufacturing route, a source told The Economic Times.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.

This comes as the originally British brand, now owned by Chinas SAIC, is under increased scrutiny and fresh investment plans in India are threatened by the border tensions in Ladakh, The Economic Times reported.

MG Motor so far manufactured vehicles at its Halol facility  bought from General Motors (GM) when it exited the country, which has capacity of 1 lakh units per year.

The choice of companies to negotiate is based on where the synergies are deeper, one source noted.

VW Group is SAIC and MGs Chinese and European partner, and chances of a deal look stronger especially since VW is serious about joining hands with MG to help expand their international relationship to India and utilise idle production capacity at the Indian factories, one source said.

But separate talks have also been initiated with M&M-Ford and MG will go with only one partner, the source added.

MG Motor India and VW India did not answer questions, while a Mahindra Group spokesperson said there are no plans to contract manufacture for MG Motor, as per the report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 16:07:06|Editor: huaxia

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TASHKENT, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Uzbekistan will be one of only two states in Europe and Central Asia to demonstrate economic growth in 2020, according to the World Bank's Economic Update released Wednesday.

Despite the global economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Uzbekistan's annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth is projected to reach between 0.4 and 0.8 percent this year, which is considerably lower than that in 2019 when it reached 5.6 percent, the World Bank report said.

However, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are the only states among 23 countries in Europe and Central Asia that are expected to demonstrate growth in 2020, it added.

The COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected the country's GDP growth and led to a decrease in employment, welfare and incomes of citizens, according to the bank's experts.

"Despite the current challenges, the authorities have reconfirmed their strong commitment to continue reforms in key sectors of the economy to achieve stronger growth and improve wellbeing of citizens. This is very important to ensure a more resilient and inclusive post COVID-19 recovery," World Bank Country Manager for Uzbekistan Marco Mantovanelli noted in the statement.

The bank predicts between 4.8 and 5.0 percent GDP growth in 2021 in Uzbekistan, if lockdowns are not reintroduced across the country.

Uzbekistan has so far registered 59,579 COVID-19 cases, with 491 deaths and 56,165 recoveries. Enditem
New Delhi, Oct 7 : The Defence Ministry has not yet reached any conclusion over procurement of 30 armed drones from US-based General Atomics as the Indian Air Force has raised apprehensions over their usefulness. The deal is valued at approximately $3 billion.

With the disputed borders with China and Pakistan active at the same point of time, the Defence Ministry has clearly stated that they are not in a hurry to sanction procurement in the name of emergency.

During deliberations over the issue in the ministry, apprehensions were raised over the armed drones' efficacy in the current threat situation. Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, who has been tasked to look into inter-services defence acquisitions, was present during the discussion. Sources said that the Air Force has stated that drones even when armed would be ineffective in contested airspace.

India was earlier looking for procurement of 30 drones from General Atomics. The three services were expected to get 10+10+10 of the MQ-9 Reaper, which has already been approved by US President Donald Trump's administration.

The US administration had approved sale of armed drones to India equipped with missiles and other systems.

The Indian Navy was also looking for drones to expand its monitoring of the Indian Ocean and to further strengthen surveillance of its coastal boundaries. The drones which will be armed with missiles and radars will be used for maritime reconnaissance.

MQ-9 has an endurance of over 27 hours, speeds of 240 KTAS (knots true airspeed), can operate up to 50,000 feet, and has a 3,850 pound (1,746 kilogram) payload capacity that includes 3,000 pounds (1,361 kilograms) of external stores. The aircraft carries 500 per cent more payload and has nine times the horsepower. It provides a long-endurance, persistent surveillance or strike capability for the war fighter.

To date, the MQ-9 has been acquired by the US Air Force, US Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the Royal Air Force, the Italian Air Force, the French Air Force and the Spanish Air Force.

(Sumit Kumar Singh can be reached at sumit.k@ians.in)
(Newser)  Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham made a plea for donations last month, saying he was being "killed financially" in the tightening race with Democratic challenger Jaime Harrisonbut his situation has not improved since. The Cook Political Report has now shifted the race from "lean Republican" to a "toss-up," saying Harrison is a "fundraising behemoth" and perhaps the Democrats' "best recruit," the Hill reports. Jessica Taylor at Cook calls the South Carolina race the most surprising one on the map, noting that earlier this year, it appeared Graham, who has become one of President Trump's most stalwart defenders after strongly criticizing him in 2016, would "cruise to re-election."

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Multiple polls have shown Harrison, a 44-year-old former state party chairman, even or within striking distance of Graham, who is seeking a fourth term, CNN reports. Graham says he is confident of victory, but Harrison is continuing to outspend and outraise him. The Democrat said Sunday that he had raised $1.5 million in the hours after Saturday's debate when he had a plexiglass barrier set up between him and Graham. With other Senate races tightening, Cook gives Democrats a slightly better than 50/50 chance of retaking the chamber. "If this becomes a wave or a tsunami election, you have a lot of these states that get swept up in this," Taylor says, per the Wall Street Journal. (Read more South Carolina stories.)
The Turkish empire, more commonly known as the Ottoman Empire, was formed by tribes in Anatolia in 1299.

It eventually grew to become one of the most powerful states in the world during the 15th and 16th centuries.

The empire was characterised by territorial expansion and at its height encompassed most of southern Europe including present-day Hungary, Greece and the Balkans, as well as substantial portions of the Middle East and North Africa.

In the empire's early days, Islamic Turkish warriors fought against Christian crusaders from Byzantium for political, religious and economic dominance in the region.

Its golden age came under the rule of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-66) when most of its territory was amassed and at least 25 million people fell under Ottoman rule.

The Sultan is also notable for his reforms which increased the harmony between the empire's secular and religious laws.

Suleiman the Magnificent was the longest-serving ruler in the history of the Ottoman Empire. He presided over a period of territorial expansion and reform

The Battle of Lepanto in 1571 dealt a hammer blow to the empire. It had lost almost its entire navy in the clash with the Holy League - a coalition of Christian states organised by the Pope - and centuries of decline followed the defeat.

More than 600 years after its founding, the Ottoman Empire came to an end in 1922 after the strains of the First World War and the Balkan Wars.

The modern Turkish Republic was founded a year later under Mustafa Kemal, better known as Ataturk.

In more recent times, current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been accused of sharing the expansionist policies of the Ottomans through foreign policy.

Source: Britannica
by Sumon Corraya

Unproven accusations of blasphemy have led to extrajudicial killings, mob lynching and violent protests targeting minority community members, said a rights advocate. We believe the blasphemy law is in conflict with the fundamental rights of Pakistani citizens guaranteed in the constitution.

Dhaka (AsiaNews)  Members of some of Bangladeshs religious minorities staged a protest last month calling on Pakistan to repeal its blasphemy legislation.

About a hundred Christians along with a substantial number of Hindus and Buddhists went to the High Commission of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on 23 September, in Gulshan-2, Dhaka to deliver a memorandum for Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, with copies for Pakistani President Arif Alvi and Asad Qaiser, Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan.

The initiative was the brainchild of the Bangladesh Christian Association (BCA), a Christian rights group. Its president Nirmal Rozario told AsiaNews: We call upon the authorities in Pakistan to drop all fabricated blasphemy charges against Christians and members of minority communities and release them with dignity. We also urge clemency for those already sentenced to death for blasphemy

We are aware that blasphemy remains a contentious issue in Pakistan, Rozario explained. Hundreds of Pakistani Christians and members of other minorities have fled the country fearing for their lives over allegations of blasphemy. Unproven accusations of blasphemy have led to extrajudicial killings, mob lynching and violent protests targeting minority community members.

We believe the blasphemy law is in conflict with the fundamental rights of Pakistani citizens guaranteed in the constitution. The law is vague, arbitrary and leaves ample scope for misuse as evinced in cases where people use it for personal reasons and out of communal hatred, revenge and enmity against innocent people.

Thus, we would like to draw the attention of the Government of Pakistan as well as lawmakers, politicians, the judiciary, civil society and the people of Pakistan to the issue. We demand the repeal of the blasphemy law as early as possible to save minority people in Pakistan.

Nimchandra Bhowmick, a prominent Hindu leader, also noted that Religious minorities are persecuted in Pakistan. It seems to me that the purpose of the blasphemy law is to persecute minorities. For this reason, I urge that the law be changed so that Pakistan's minorities can live in peace.

For Sunandaprio Bhikhu, secretary general of the Bangladesh Buddhist Federation, if Pakistan repeals the blasphemy law, people around the world will appreciate its action. The blasphemy law is leading to the persecution of minorities with state power. It is not acceptable. I think, if Pakistan stops the blasphemy law, Pakistan will get more admiration worldwide.

The protesters handed their request to the Police Commissioner to ensure that it reaches Pakistani authorities. BCA leaders sent the same request by post.

Meanwhile, Asif Prevaiz, 37, a Pakistani Christian, is the latest victim of the blasphemy law. He was sentenced to three years in prison for "misusing" his phone to send a derogatory text message. Then the court ruled that he be hanged by the neck until death. He was also fined 50,000 rupees (about US$ 300).

Pervaiz worked at a textile factory in the Youhanabad, Lahore. He was arrested by police in 2013 after his supervisor falsely accused him of sending him a message with defamatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad.

His death sentence came just days after another Christian, David Masih, was accused of blasphemy following the discovery of pages from the Quran in a sewer in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
E-commerce has boomed this year, with more businesses and shoppers than ever before turning to websites and apps as a safer, socially distanced alternative during the current global health pandemic. Today, a startup that has built a platform to help individual companies and brands design better websites is announcing a round of growth funding to help them step up to that challenge with faster and better designed interfaces.

Shogun, which lets companies build sites that sit on top of e-commerce back-ends like Shopify, Big Commerce or Magento to let them sell goods and services, is today announcing that it has raised $35 million in funding after seeing its business grow 182% over the last year, with 15,000 companies -- including Leesa, MVMT, Timbuk2, Chubbies and K Swiss, as well as household Fortune 500 brands that it declines to name -- now using Shogun's tools, up 5,000 in the last eight months.

Finbarr Taylor, the CEO who co-founded the company with Nick Raushenbush, said that the startup plans to use the funding to continue enhancing its two main products -- Page Builder, a drag-and-drop page builder; and Frontend, an end-to-end "headless commerce" solution with faster page-load times and tools for enterprises to easily update pages -- and to help improve its market strategy.

Image Credits: Shogun

To date, much of the company's growth has been organic, with a marketing team of two, and also only two sales people. "So it will be about scaling up those teams as well as our engineer and design and product teams, to deliver on the promises we made to our customers," Taylor said.

The Series B is being led by Accel, with participation from Initialized Capital, VMG Partners and Y Combinator. The round also has a number of high-profile individuals in it, which speaks to Shogun's credibility in the worlds of e-commerce and web design. The list includes Bryant Chou (CTO at Webflow), Mark Lavelle and Mark Lenhard (former CEO and SVP of Strategy at Magento, respectively), Alex OByrne (CEO of We Make Websites, a leading Shopify agency), Brian Grady (CEO of Gorilla Group, a leading Magento agency) and Romain Lapeyre (CEO of Gorgias).

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Growth is one marker of how hot the market is for what Shogun is doing. In addition to Shogun's own expanding list of users, it's estimated by the company (citing figures from Adobe) that there has been some $94 billion in extra sales online (beyond original projections, that is) since March globally.

Another marker is the funding itself. This the second round that the startup has raised in the short span of eight months: Shogun closed a $10 million Series A in February of this year led by Initialized (with participation also from YC and VMG).

And a third marker is the valuation. Taylor said that the company is valued in the "solid nine figures" but declined to say where in the region of hundreds of millions of dollars that might be. For some context, the company was valued at $50 million in February, according to data from PitchBook.

Shogun's news comes at a key moment in the world of e-commerce, not just in terms of the wider macroeconomic trends, but in terms of who is making the wheels move.

Amazon and other marketplaces have come to dominate how a lot of people are shopping online: after all, they offer one-stop shops for whatever you might want or need, free shipping and a familiar interface. Similarly, social media platforms have made a play as a new kind of "store" of sorts, a place where brands already are interacting with would-be customers, and are now being given the tools to sell to them there as well.

But that doesn't tell the whole story: Brands and companies want to have their own space to present things how they want them to look, to better control the customer experience and to make sure that they are not beholden to a third party (both physically and financially) for their online survival.

Yes, some consumers might only care about where they can get what they want for the cheapest price, but others know exactly what they want, or feel loyal to a specific company, and want to shop there without the rest of the noise, and there will always be a business opportunity in building stores for them, too.

And the predictability of the interface of a marketplace like Amazon, or a "shoppable" photo on Instagram, belies how frustratingly oblique it can also be at times. I don't want to see 15 different Danish whisks at slightly different prices; I just want one that will arrive in one piece and not break after a month of use, leading me down a rabbit hole trying to find someone to provide a refund. Similarly, I may want to buy from a brand, but perhaps not the particular item that they're serving me in a Story or a Pin.

Shogun's proposition to the companies it works with is to give them more choice and better speed after they have already made the decision to build their own "real estate" online using backends like Shopify's.

The opportunity is that, even if an e-commerce business is seen as a "tech" play, that is not often its core competency.

"Merchants large and small are getting sick of maintaining their own tech stacks," said Ethan Choi, a partner at Accel. While the platforms are getting ever more sophisticated by moving into areas like shipping and logistics alongside payments and inventory ordering and so on, they have yet to extend into web design.

"Shopify only has like 15 templates," he said. "There is no design control and you look like 1 of one million other sites." At the same time, if you have the funds and energy to build a custom site, he added, "that is expensive and it can take a whole day to change just a piece of text."

The speed is an issue that Shogun has identified and fixed in another way: Taylor says that with site speed being the most important aspect of converting a browser to a buyer, it's providing the fastest page loading times to customers.

As with so many startup stories, Taylor and Raushenbush stumbled on their gap in the market by accident.

Taylor had been working at Y Combinator -- he is an engineer originally from Glasgow, Scotland, and his job was to help devise and build tools for YC to manage the huge inbound volume of applications it was receiving for its incubator. (Side note: One offshoot of that was the Startup School that the company created to better address working with startups on a more regional level: Taylor built that.)

As a side project, he and his friend Nick had come up with a page builder based on Ruby on Rails. It wasn't getting much traction, but a friend of Nick's, who worked for an e-commerce agency, said that if the two could tweak it for building e-commerce pages specifically, his agency would use it and even pay them.

"So we did," he said.

That eventually took off with more customers and more use, prompting them to eventually move to the other side of the organization, founding a startup based on the idea and becoming part of a YC cohort.

Looking ahead, one particular focus for Shogun, Taylor said, will be to build more tools to improve mobile commerce. Typically, mobile accounts for 80% of all e-commerce browsing but only some 20% of sales, he noted.
Kuwaits new Emir Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah has issued a decree recommending the nomination of Deputy National Guard Commander Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah as the candidate for countrys new Crown Prince. Sheikh Nawafs ascension as Kuwaits Emir after the death of Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah has left the position of Crown Prince vacant.

"The Al Sabah ruling family has blessed the recommendation of His Highness the Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah to appoint Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah as the Crown Prince," Minister of Royal Court Affairs Ali Jarrah Al-Sabah was quoted as saying by the state-run news agency KUNA.

The decree will now be sent to the National Assembly to pledge allegiance to the heir of the throne and if parliament rejects the name, the emir should offer three more names of potential heirs. National Assembly speaker had said that the parliament should be ready to vote on the matter the next day if Sheikh Nawaf recommends the name for the new Crown Prince on October 7.

Read: Kuwait Govt Submits Resignation, Emir Sheikh Nawaf Asks Cabinet To Carry On Duties

Read: India To Observe One-day State Mourning On October 4 On Death Of Kuwait's Emir

Cabinet resignation

This comes after the Kuwaiti government, headed by Prime Minister Sabah Al Khalid Al Sabah, submitted its resignation to the Emir in anticipation of the parliamentary elections scheduled for November. Sheikh Nawaf reportedly expressed his full confidence in the current cabinet and asked it to carry on its duties, including the preparation for the general elections. He also praised the efforts of the Prime Minister and his government in fulfilling their obligations.

Reports suggest that Sheikh Nawaf wanted to avoid difficulties of forming a new government when the current cabinet will get dissolved anyway ahead of elections. The resignation of the cabinet is not unusual in Kuwait as it occurs whenever lawmakers submit a no-confidence motion against top officials. Recently, 10 lawmakers had submitted a no-confidence motion against deputy prime minister and interior minister over COVID-19 response.

Read: Kuwait Swears In Sheikh Nawaf As New Ruling Emir After Sheikh Sabah's Demise

Read: Deeply Saddened By Demise Of Amir Of Kuwait, Close Friend Of India: Prez Kovind

(With ANI inputs | Image: AP)
Of paramount concern for the president during his hospital stay was his political standing. With the election now just four weeks away, Trump called allies on Monday to discuss the latest polls in various battleground states, what television advertisements his campaign has on the air, and which competitive states he could visit as soon as he can return to the campaign trail and again stage large in-person events.
Three former jail employees in Oklahoma are facing criminal charges after they forced inmates to listen repeatedly to Baby Shark, the wildly popular song beloved by children and despised by parents around the globe, according to court records.

Christian Miles and Gregory Butler, both former Oklahoma County Jail detention officers, as well as their former supervisor, Christopher Hendershott, were charged on Monday with cruelty to prisoners, corporal punishment to an inmate and conspiracy, Oklahoma County District Court records show.

On at least five occasions in November and December involving five inmates, each separately, Miles and Butler placed the inmate into an empty attorney visitation room, according to affidavits. The two then handcuffed the inmate against the wall, forcing him to stand for as long as two hours, an internal investigation preceding the charges found.

Baby Shark was played on repeat, through a computer, while the inmate was forced to listen to it.

The song was said to be a joke between Miles and Butler, Miles told investigators.

Recommended Baby Shark hand washing video helps teach children how to do it

David Prater, the Oklahoma County district attorney, said the three had acted conjointly, wilfully and wrongfully in a cruel or inhumane manner when they subjected inmates to the punishment.

Playing the song on repeat put undue emotional stress on the inmates who were most likely already suffering from being handcuffed to the wall, Mr Prater wrote.

And if listening to the song through a tinny computer speaker while being handcuffed to a wall wasnt bad enough, at least two inmates had their sleep disrupted. According to court records, one of the inmates was pulled into the room shortly after 3am, while another was subjected to the punishment shortly after 2am.

Hendershott failed to properly supervise and discipline Butler and Miles, the district attorney said. Butler and Miles were the subject of numerous inmate complaints that detailed their history of mistreatment, Mr Prater wrote.

Though the three charges are misdemeanors, Mr Prater told The Oklahoman newspaper that he would have preferred filing a felony on this behaviour.

It was unfortunate that I could not find a felony statute to fit this fact scenario, he said.

It was unclear on Tuesday night who was representing the three defendants. Butler and Miles resigned during the internal investigation, and Hendershott retired, the county sheriff, P D Taylor, told the paper.

Efforts to reach Mr Taylor on Tuesday evening were unsuccessful.

The song Baby Shark, which opens with the gripping lyric Baby shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, has captivated the attention of hordes of children, including the daughter of former Washington Nationals outfielder Gerardo Parra. The song rang from the speakers at the teams stadium throughout the 2019 season.

But, in addition to the episodes in Oklahoma, the tune has found more sinister uses. Last year, the city of West Palm Beach, Florida, blared Baby Shark to deter homeless people from sleeping outside an event center.

The New York Times
Udupi, Oct 7 : Leading fishermen bodies in Karnataka have highlighted the need for the adoption of new technologies in the states fishing sector.

They have also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi under the aegis of Indian Fishermen for Technology Adoption (IFTA), seeking his direct intervention to spur the adoption of new technologies in the sector.

Prominent boat owners and fishing community leaders in Gujarat had also written to the PM recently and highlighted similar issues.

Ganapati Mangre, Chairman of The North Kanara District Co-Operative Fish Marketing Federation Limited, elaborating on the community's challenges, said, "The lives of hundreds and thousands of fishermen are lost at sea every year due to the unavailability of modern connectivity technologies such as satellite based navigation systems that can connect Indian fishermen with mobile devices offering timely SoS alerts and harvesting predictions to ensure better catches and safety while at sea. We urge the government's help for the industry to adopt new technologies to address this great risk to our lives and livelihoods." Yashpal Suvarna, President South Kanara and Udupi district co operative Fish Marketing Federation Limited Mangalore said, "The incident involving four fishermen who went missing at Malpe recently and the loss of lives from the Suvarna Tribhuja incident last year remain painfully etched in our collective memory and made us realise that our usual methods of communication and warnings were not adequate to respond to tragedies like these. It is high time that India adopts the highly-advanced communications and connectivity technologies that are already available to ensure the fishing sector benefits from them in the longer term." "The Center must implement their adoption via standardising quality of technologies available across the states. We have tested BSNL's transponder, which has two-way data communication directly over satellite and works in the deep sea. We urge the Prime Minister's direct intervention and request his government to broadly deploy the latest technology immediately. We need a solution today as any delay will continue to endanger the safety and security of fishermen at sea," they added.

The adoption of next-generation digital and satellite communications technologies would raise productivity of fishing harvests, create world-class competitiveness, apart from addressing the immediate and urgent challenge to ensure the safety of the state's fishermen on the high seas.
One of the most complete T-Rex fossils in the world has been sold for a record $31.8 million, nearly quadrupling the previous highest price for a dinosaur at auction.

The fossil nicknamed Stan made mincemeat of an opening price of between six and eight million dollars at Christie's in New York Tuesday.

It shredded the previous record set by a fossil named Sue that was sold for $8.4 million in October 1997 by Sotheby's to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

Billed as the 'king of the dinosaurs' before the auction began, bids hit the $9 million mark in less than two minutes and by the 14 minute mark there were just three bidders left in the race.

One of the most complete T-Rex fossils in the world has been sold for a record $31.8 million in New York on Tuesday, nearly quadrupling the previous highest price for a dinosaur at auction

The hammer came down on an offer of $27.5 million from an unidentified bidder, to which were added costs and commissions.

The sale was organized in New York, where the expert assessor was located, but with lines open to Hong Kong and London, where Christie's specialists were taking calls from collectors.

Stan stands 13ft (four meters) high and 40ft long, with puncture marks in the skull and neck that experts believe show evidence of fights with fellow T-Rexes.

He would have weighed in at around eight tons when alive, some 67 million years ago.

Speaking at the auction, Christies deputy chairman Richard Lloyd said: I have to say, I was completely blown away by Stan.

I was not expecting to have such a visceral reaction when standing in front of him. Maybe Ive just watched Jurassic Park one too many times.

James Hyslop, head of Christie's scientific instruments, globes and natural history department, took the final bid on Stan in New York.

He said: 'There aren't very many very good complete skeletons out there. Any natural history museum would consider him the crown of their collection.'

The skeleton shredded the previous record set by a fossil named Sue that was sold for $8.4 million in October 1997 by Sotheby's to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago

Casts were then taken for dozens of museums around the world that wanted a copy of this exceptional specimen of Tyrannosaur, which experts believe was around 20 years old when it died

The fossil was discovered in South Dakota in 1987 and named after the amateur paleontologist who came across the remains, Stan Sacrison.

Hyslop said: '[Sacrison] showed it to scientists at the time who unfortunately misidentified it as a triceratops.'

Paleontologists from the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in South Dakota spent more than 30,000 hours excavating and then assembling the 188 bones of the skeleton.

Researchers there 'realized pretty quickly that they had something special in their hands,' said Hyslop.

Christie's live streamed the auction as one of many changes it had to make due to the coronavirus pandemic

James Hyslop (pictured), head of Christie's scientific instruments, globes and natural history department, took the final bid on Stan in New York

Casts were then taken for dozens of museums around the world that wanted a copy of this exceptional specimen of Tyrannosaur, which experts believe was around 20 years old when it died.

Ironically, the terms of the sale prevent the buyer from producing 3D models of the dinosaur.

By law, such specimens can only be sold if the fossil was discovered on private land, which in this case it was.

Only around 50 Tyrannosaurus fossils have been discovered since the first was unearthed in 1902.

The fossil was discovered in South Dakota in 1987 and named after the amateur paleontologist who came across the remains, Stan Sacrison

Stan is approximately 67 million years old. His head was on display at the Christie's flagship store before the auction, and his full skeleton will remain on show until October 21

Christie's live streamed the auction as one of many changes it had to make due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It also featured the dinosaur along with artworks by Picasso, Pollock and Monet and held the auction in October rather than November, breaking with tradition.

Christies chairman of global private sales Adrien Meyer told the New York Times: 'These are not temporary changes.

'When we go beyond our traditional values, its because there is a feeling that clients will respond.'

Stan will remain in Christie's flaghouse store overlooking the Rockefeller centre until October 21.
A woman sentenced to die by a Mobile County jury will be headed back to court later this month after her sentence was overturned.

Heather Leavell-Keaton, the first woman in Mobile County history to be sent to death row, will face a hearing Oct. 13 in Mobile County Circuit Court where she will be resentenced for her 2015 capital murder conviction.

Leavell-Keaton, along with her common-law husband John DeBlase, were convicted of torturing and killing his two children, four-year-old Natalie and three-year-old Chase, in 2010.

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals Tuesday ruled that Leavell-Keaton did not have a chance to address the court prior to her sentencing back in 2015. Leavell-Keaton displayed no emotion during her sentencing, according to a report at the time.

To be clear, the trial court is not to hold a full capital-conviction sentencing hearing, which has already occurred, the court ruled. Instead, the court will allow her to speak, take into consideration anything she may say, and sentence her to either death or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, the court ruled.

According to prosecutors, Natalie was choked to death in March 2010 after being duct-taped and placed in a suitcase which was set in a closet for 12 hours. Her body was later dumped in a wooded area near Citronelle.

Chase was choked to death in June 2010 when he was taped to a broom handle and left in the corner of the couples bedroom overnight. His body was found in the woods outside Vancleave, Miss.

Prosecutors claimed that Leavell-Keaton was jealous of Natalie and bristled when friends and family members called her a princess. Chase was killed when he asked where Natalie was.
It was a frosty October morning when Richard Desautel aimed his Mauser 98 bolt-action rifle at a cow elk in the Arrow Lakes area of British Columbia, shot the animal dead and phoned wildlife conservation officers to report what he'd done.

That call, made a decade ago this month, set into motion a plan that was years in the making. Authorities charged Desautel, a U.S. citizen and member of the Lakes Tribe of the Colville Confederated Tribes in Washington state, with hunting without a license and hunting big game while not a resident of British Columbia.

It was what Desautel wanted. It gave him the opportunity to argue that he was exercising his right under Canada's constitution to hunt for ceremonial purposes on the traditional land of his ancestors, the Sinixt, an Indigenous group that Canada declared extinct more than 60 years ago.

Now he'll argue his case before Canada's Supreme Court, in a proceeding that could have sweeping implications for Indigenous groups on both sides of the border. A victory could give more Native Americans in the United States the right to use their tribes' traditional lands in Canada.

The main question before the justices is whether protections afforded to "aboriginal peoples of Canada" by the Constitution Act can extend to groups that don't live in Canada. But for Desautel, who traveled to Ottawa for the hearing Thursday, it's about something larger.

"For the Sinixt people, this case - and it sounds almost corny to say - is about their very identity," said Mark Underhill, Desautel's lawyer. "Everything is at stake for them."

The lower courts considered centuries of history.

Desautel, 68, says he is a descendant of the Sinixt, an Indigenous group that hunted and fished in traditional lands that extended north and south of the 49th parallel before and after contact with Europeans in 1811.

British Columbia Provincial Court Judge Lisa Mrozinski wrote in a 2017 ruling that a "constellation of factors" eventually led the Sinixt to "more or less" live full-time in the southern part of their territory, which became part of the United States in 1846 when the Oregon Boundary Treaty established that section of the U.S.-Canada border.

Many of the Sinixt, who had become known as the Lakes Tribe, took up residence in the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington state, where Desautel lives. By the 1930s, they had stopped traveling north to hunt. The Sinixt in Canada were moved in 1902 to a reserve set up along the west side of the Upper Arrow Lake for the Arrow Lakes Band.

After the last member of the Arrow Lakes Band died, Canada in 1956 declared it "extinct" under the country's Indian Act.

Their descendants, including Desautel, contend that their very existence proves the opposite.

Crown prosecutors argued that Desautel doesn't hold a constitutionally protected right to hunt in Canada because he doesn't belong to one of the groups that make up the "aboriginal peoples of Canada" - and that granting him such a right would be incompatible with Canadian sovereignty.

The Crown also said Desautel failed to prove that the Sinixt people's tradition of hunting before contact was carried out by its modern-day successor group - a test for establishing a right under Canadian law. Prosecutors argued that they voluntarily drifted from their northern territory and traditional practices there.

Mrozinski disagreed and acquitted Desautel. Even if members of the Lakes Tribe moved south, she wrote, there's no evidence that they gave up their claim to the rest of their traditional territory or that their move was entirely voluntary.

"Whether or not the Sinixt, or Lakes Tribe as they are known, utilized their traditional territory north of the 49th parallel after the 1930s," she wrote, "I am left with no doubt that the land was not forgotten, that the traditions were not forgotten and that the connection to the land is ever present in the minds of the members of the Lakes Tribe."

British Columbia's Supreme Court and its Court of Appeal dismissed the Crown's appeals.

"Imposing a requirement that Indigenous peoples may only hold Aboriginal rights in Canada if they occupy the same geographical territory in which their ancestors exercised those rights," Court of Appeal Justice Daphne Smith wrote in the 2019 ruling, "ignores the Aboriginal perspective, the realities of colonization and does little towards achieving the ultimate goal of reconciliation."

The Crown appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the case is of national importance. Its ruling could have far-reaching ramifications.

In legal filings, prosecutors warned of "legal and practical difficulties" that could arise from a decision in Desautel's favor, including the possibility that other Indigenous groups in the United States with traditional territory divided by the border could be entitled to constitutional rights in Canada. The government would then have a duty to consult with them on projects impacting their traditional lands, such as pipelines.

Several such groups applied for and have been granted intervener status - comparable to amicus curiae, or "friend of the court," standing in the U.S. courts - in the appeal to the Supreme Court. The Peskotomuhkati Nation, which has communities in New Brunswick and Maine, said in legal filings that it's "dishonorable" to hold that U.S.-based Indigenous groups do not have rights in Canada.

"If you read the factum for the government, there's a fear of what we call the floodgates of law," said John Burrows, a professor of Indigenous law at the University of Victoria. "That if you allowed this example . . . then that unlocks the door to dominoes."

Many of the major rulings that have established Indigenous rights have arisen from defenses to criminal or regulatory charges. Burrows said it would be "much better to have this done through negotiation or some other dispute resolution process that [is] more systematic."

Shelly Boyd, a member of the Lakes Tribe who says she is descended from the Sinixt, remembers what it was like as a young girl to learn that Canada considered her "extinct."

"I thought, 'That doesn't make sense. That's what happens to dinosaurs. That's what happens to animals,' " Boyd said. "The reality is that we weren't thought of as human. . . . You're not just treated as if you're less than. You're actually, in this case, declared less than, declared nothing."

Desautel says a ruling in his favor would affirm that his decade-long battle was "a journey well spent."

"The court decision is something that's in the judicial system that has to be taken care of," he said. "As for me, being here in my traditional territory, the burial ground of my ancestors, walking the path of my ancestors . . .

"You can't take that away from me."
Sankrail:

A youth was arrested on Thursday after he stabbed and killed his grandmother, severed her head and threw it in the nearby jungle in a fit of rage, the police said.

The incident happened this evening in Noaga village within the jurisdiction of Sankrail police station in West Midnapore district.

Police officers probing the incident said Radha KantaBera, the grandson of Chenti Bera (60) suspected the elderly woman was practising witchcraft and there was altercation overthe issue between the two on Thursday.

In a fit of rage, Radha Kanta stabbed and killed his grandmother with a sharp weapon and later on severed her head from the body, the police said adding, when villagers tried to chase him, he ran inside the jungle close to the village and threw the severed head there.

District Superintendent of Police Bharati Ghosh said Radha Kanta was mentally deranged and has been arrested. The police are searching for the severed head in the jungle, she said.







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The leadership of Cambodia has announced that it will host a Chinese naval expansion that will have Chinese military assets using it soon. For the U.S., this represents a scenario that will be of great concern.

According to a top Royal Cambodian Navy official revealed to Nikkei Asia last Saturday that Beijing is working with Phnom Penh on a project. That project is increasing the size of the port area and building a shipyard for repairs on PLAN vessels. This base will be touching the Gulf of Thailand, reported Asian Nikkei.

Vann Bunlieng, a three-star vice-admiral mentioned that the plans include dredging to increase the water depth around the base. It is a requirement to allow larger ships to enter the waters. Only small ships can use it for now.

He added that Beijing is a partner in the building of the port and repair areas of the upgraded naval facility.

Stressing on such factors like helping Cambodia spend less money on ship repair if bigger ships are acquired later on. Other sources of revenue are getting into the repair and service of private vessels, cited Business Insider.

The Strategic and International Studies on Friday published recent satellite images of the site on Cambodia. It is alleged that the U.S. paid for those facilities that were destroyed. American military leaders and concerned officials are mulling over this development.

Changes in Cambodia and the allowed Chinese access may not be a rumor anymore. Seeing the demolition of the building signal an ominous change, said the CSIS.

It was addressed in a letter to Cambodia's Minister of Defense Tea Banh from Pentagon official Joseph Feather last year. He was concerned about the status of the facilities that are paid for by the US government, noted Reuters.

Also read: Pakistan's JF-17 Has One Best Advantage Over Stealth F-35

The U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia said that Cambodia's change of mind to choose the more lucrative hosting of the Ream base.

The Vice-Admiral denied the reports of the deal with the Chinese military. Even the Cambodia prime minister and Chinese officials have slammed it as rumors instead, mentioned Asia Times.

CSIS made a confirmation that the demolished building in the middle of September used to be the tactical headquarters of the National Committee of Maritime Security in Ream base.

One building funded by the U.S. that is not demolished has the smaller U.S. patrol boats given to the Cambodian Navy.

The New HQ is 20 kilometers from Ream, with the NCMS transferred from the base. It was done last May according to posts on Facebook.

Despite the denials, a Chinese Metallurgical Group Corporation and a state-owned enterprise published a previous report. This was not cited by either Cambodian or Chinese officials but kept under the radar.

Before the statement got taken down to avoid issues, it was captured and it read cooperation framework agreement with Cambodia's defense authorities for a Port Expansion Project.

Cambodian officials have not been reached for comment about the Cambodia Naval expansion deal with China.

Related article: India Deploys US Navy's Spy Planes in Ladakh

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : India and Australia will on Thursday discuss various issues related to mental health rehabilitation, particularly in the context of the situation arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Experts from India and Australia will touch upon issues such as stress management for frontline non-health workers; multicultural mental health; maintaining mental health: working from home; suicide and associated media reporting in India; mental health and human rights in India and Australia; and tools to build mental health resilience in people with disability.

The discussion will be held through a video conference here in which the Australian High Commissioner in New Delhi will also participate.

The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in association with the University of Melbourne, Australia, is organising the conference on 'Mental Health - Looking Beyond Covid-19'.

The conference will be inaugurated by Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot and will be co-chaired by Craig Jeffrey, Director, Australia-India Institute.

The DEPwD had signed an MoU with Australia in November 2019 for cooperation in the disability sector. The above conference is being organised as a joint initiative under that MoU.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - COVID-19 casualties and cases are on the rise for the third consecutive day in the United States. 714 new deaths and 43,267 new infections due to the coronavirus were reported in the country in the last 24 hours, taking the national total to 210909 and 7501816 respectively. Coronavirus death toll recorded in the U.S. Tuesday was more than double that was reported two days ago, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of White House staff who have tested positive for Covid is increasing day by day. White House adviser Stephen Miller, who writes the president's speeches, is the latest among them. Miller has been self-isolating since President Donald Trump was tested positive last week, and confirmed on Tuesday that he was infected with the killer bug. Coast Guard official Admiral Charles Ray also tested positive, forcing many of his colleagues to go into quarantine. The White House Office of the First Lady said in a press release that with the recent positive results of the First Couple, staff wear full PPE and continue to take all necessary precautions, which include updated procedures to protect against cross contamination. Democrat candidate Joe Biden made it clear that the second presidential debate, scheduled to be held in Miami on 15 October, should not proceed if his Republican rival is not recovered by that time. 'I think if he still has Covid, we shouldn't have a debate,' the former Vice President told reporters while returning from a campaign stop in Pennsylvania Tuesday. 'I think we're gonna have to follow very strict guidelines. Too many people have been infected and it's a very serious problem,' he added. But Trump said on Twitter that he is 'looking forward' to the debate. 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.
In fact, the United States was vulnerable in 2016. The Russian operation was sophisticated and audacious, but it took advantage of our mistakes and what Americans did to fellow Americans.

Russian operatives did not invent our crude tribal politics; they invented internet personas to whip them up. American politicians reduced the country to red and blue states; Russian operatives purchased online ads to target voters on both sides of the domestic divide. American commentators pinned vitriolic labels on our national leaders; Russian bots spread the offensive comments around.

I stressed in one side meeting that the Russian security services had taken things to a new level of dirty tricks. Their hack and release of the Democratic National Committees emails and efforts to penetrate Hillary Clintons emails were especially damaging. With an arch of the eyebrow, the Russian interlocutor pointed out that no Russian persuaded Mrs. Clinton to use a private server. She and the Democratic National Committee made themselves vulnerable to hackers by not taking proper precautions. He reminded me that it was the F.B.I. that reopened the investigation of Mrs. Clintons emails just before the election, because they were on Anthony Weiners computer when he was arrested. We didnt invent Anthony Weiner, he retorted.

He brushed off my further protests and objections at his cynicism. Perhaps you should direct your complaints elsewhere.

Moscow, like everyone else, expected Mrs. Clinton to win in 2016. Russian operatives wanted to weaken her, but they were surprised  and delighted  when she lost. They were even more delighted when many Americans exaggerated their role in the outcome. Some of my own foreign policy colleagues suggested the Russians had changed opinions on a mass scale as well as affected votes on the margins. American politicians and commentators declared President Trump illegitimate. They said Vladimir Putin elected him.

Truth is, the idea that Russia determined the election is overstated. It would never have resonated so loudly without our deep polarization  and our structural issues, including the vast discrepancy between the popular vote in favor of Mrs. Clinton and the narrow Electoral College win for Mr. Trump.

These issues were rooted in our system and had already played out in 2000. By overplaying Russias ability to influence the vote, American politicians and pundits conceded victory to Russia and its intelligence agencies. Instead, we should have focused on fixing our own faults.
"As a leader for data center backup and recovery solutions and majority market share holder, Veeam was the obvious partner choice for Leaseweba company which is devoted to helping organizations scale their businesses reliably and effectively."

Leaseweb Global, a leading hosting and cloud services provider, today announced the integration of Veeam-powered solutions with its Leaseweb Cloud Services. Veeam is the leader in Backup solutions that deliver Cloud Data Management. The new services are available in several Leaseweb locations across the globe: Amsterdam-1 and Amsterdam-2, London, Frankfurt, and will be available in Washington, D.C. before the end of the year. Organizations that trust Leaseweb to help them expand internationally are now able to enter into different regions knowing they have Veeams industry-leading solutions integrated with their Leaseweb cloud services.

This announcement comes on the heels of the recent market introduction of Leaseweb Cloud Connect, and further demonstrates the companys commitment to continued investment in its cloud portfolio. This announcement is in direct response to customer requests for cloud services to be accessible at each of their global entities.

Leaseweb and Veeam first partnered in 2018, when Leaseweb launched its Backup-as-a-Service offering at its first cloud data center facility in Amsterdam. Over that period, Leaseweb has grown its cloud services through a strong commitment to increasing and improving its high-performing cloud services while continuing to offer them at competitive pricing.

Through the success and growth of Leasewebs cloud offerings, the company learned its customers wanted to extend deployment of these same services into their global offices to ensure both a close proximity to their customers while also maintaining full controls of the data. Moreover, companies seeking to grow internationally requested that these solutions be available in additional strategic markets. The expansion of the partnership means that the service is now more widely available across Leasewebs network of entitieswith more locations planned for 2021.

One current market trend is the expansion of the as-a-service model. This is due to companies increasingly moving towards cloud solutions  be it private, public, or hybrid-or-multi cloud, observed Gonzalo de la Rocha, product manager at Leaseweb Global. The current global situation is a challenge for many companies. Most are feeling the need to both become more efficient while taking on the extra project of moving workloads to cloud models. At the same time, this large amount of data being moved to the cloud requires a leading technology to be properly managed and protected in terms of security and resiliency. Veeam allows us to offer the resiliency and control our customers need, available with no entry fees and under competitive OPEX models.

As a leader for data center backup and recovery solutions and majority market share holder, Veeam was the obvious partner choice for Leaseweba company which is devoted to helping organizations scale their businesses reliably and effectively. Veeam is a 100% channel-focused business and its customer-satisfaction scores are the highest in the industry at 3.5x the average with proven capabilities through upwards of 375,000 global customers.

This expansion of our Leaseweb partnership into new territories is taking place at a time when organizations need to guarantee the protection and management of their data more than ever before, commented Bert van Meel, senior territory manager, Cloud, Benelux, Veeam. Despite the circumstances, companies are continuing their digital transformation initiatives and have experienced the criticality of deploying cloud serviceswhich includes data protection through reliable and expedient backup services. We are pleased to partner with an organization so committed to their customers success.

For additional information, please visit Leaseweb Cloud Compute.

About Leaseweb

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OSLO, Norway, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of Asetek A/S hereby gives notice of an extraordinary general meeting to be held on October 29, 2020 at 09:30 AM in Aalborg, Denmark.

The purpose of the meeting is to increase the Company's long-term strategic flexibility by an amendment to the articles of association to authorize future share issues of up to 10% of the current capital during the coming five years.

The notice convening the general meeting, the agenda and the full text of the proposal can be downloaded from https://ir.asetek.com/EGM2020.

On the day of the notice of the extraordinary general meeting there are 26,432,195 shares and 26,432,195 voting rights in Asetek A/S.

For further information, please contact:

Peter Dam Madsen

Chief Financial Officer

Mobile: +45 2080 7200

e-mail: [email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/asetek/r/asetek---notice-of-extraordinary-general-meeting-october-29--2020,c3211979

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Main/6758/3211979/1316090.pdf Release https://mb.cision.com/Public/6758/3211979/a9331585588b844b.pdf Notice of extraordinary general meeting https://mb.cision.com/Public/6758/3211979/8edeb7726b5da1fd.pdf Proxy - Postal Vote - EGM

SOURCE Asetek
This article by David Roza originally appeared on Task & Purpose, a digital news and culture publication dedicated to military and veterans issues.

From nuclear-powered submarines to air-cushioned hovercraft, the Navy has a lot of strange boats and ships of all shapes and sizes. But one boat is notable not for its tonnage nor its speed, but for how insanely friggin' cute it is.

That's right, the vessel known as the Boomin Beaver doesn't launch helicopters off its deck, but it is still packed full of shock and 'awww.'

What is this adorable vessel, and why is it so small? Not to fear dear reader: you can't spell Task & Purpose without "ask," and boy did we ask the Navy.

As it turns out, the service's 19-foot mini tugboats play an important role in protecting their larger siblings. They deploy, operate, and maintain underwater barriers surrounding ships such as theUSS Constitution, the 223-year old wooden frigate berthed in Boston.

"It's the equivalent of opening the gate for cattle to go in and out," as one Reddit user put it back in August. "Unlock it, unlatch it, swing it open, and close it when the ship has passed."

The Beaver's small size makes it perfect for this kind of task, Colleen O'Rourke, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command, told Task & Purpose. The deck is also very low to the water, which allows the Beaver's two to five crew members to safely maintain and operate the barriers, she said.

The Boomin Beaver security tug boat rests on the finger pier next to USS Constitution. (U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Grant G. Grady)

That's wonderful, but where did this boat get the name 'Boomin Beaver?' Apparently, the name is a hand-me-down from the logging industry where the vessel first came from, O'Rourke explained.

According to a government auction website, the tugboats were originally designed to raft and pull floating logs, kind of like how beavers pull sticks down a stream.

The nickname is so widespread, sailors thought the "BB" in the Navy's official designation for the ship, "19BB" stood for Boomin Beaver, O'Rourke explained. It actually stands for barrier boat.

The Navy currently has 10 such tugboats, O'Rourke said. Besides the one berthed near the Constitution, there are other beavers berthed at Point Loma Sub Base in California, Naval Base Kitsap Bangor, and Naval Base San Diego, Popular Mechanics reported.

Still, one question remains: why is this the first time many readers are finding out about the Boomin' Beaver? Could it be a secret weapon in a potential fight against a near-peer adversary?

"Not really their lane," O'Rourke said.

Well, that's a shame, because when it comes to the domain of surface warfare cuteness, the Boomin' Beaver maintains total superiority.

More articles from Task & Purpose:

 Were still fighting in Afghanistan and no one cares 

 Cranberry juice and Fleetwood Mac may be our favorite military social media trend

 The Air Force is experimenting with a new way to put warheads on foreheads
At VMworld 2020, VMware announced updates to Tanzu support across VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure VMware Solution, and Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, and a partnership with GitLab. Introduced at VMworld 2019 US, VMware Tanzu is a portfolio of products and services for modernizing applications and infrastructure with a common goal: deliver better software to production, continuously. Over the last year, VMware has rapidly added to the Tanzu portfolio, expanded its partner ecosystem, and added new customers.

VMware Tanzu products include organic innovations and technologies acquired with Bitnami, Heptio, Pivotal, and Wavefront. VMware recently announced the packaging of these products into four simple Tanzu editions targeted directly at the most common application modernization challenges. The company has also embedded Kubernetes in the VMware vSphere control plane, as vSphere with Tanzuproviding customers with a single platform for all applications.

VMware Tanzu Builds Momentum Across Customers, Hyperscalers and ISVs

More than 75 independent software vendors (ISVs) are part of the VMware Tanzu community. Together, VMware and its partners are finding new and better ways to unite application developers and operations teams around the shared goal of faster release cycles. As a result, hundreds of customers now use Tanzu products and are running over one million containers in production. Plus, every minute an average of 36 new projects are initiated on start.spring.io. VMware now supports millions of developers every month as they start new projects using the Spring framework for microservices and the Bitnami community catalog for container images.

Tanzus year of achievements culminate today at VMworld 2020. VMware is announcing Tanzu support for VMware Cloud on AWS, and preview support for Oracle Cloud VMware Solution. VMware and Microsoft are also working closely together to make the preview available soon to early adopters. These updates provide customers with fast and more secure ways to extend workloads to the cloud, and further bolster VMwares ability to offer customers a ubiquitous platform for running applications on the infrastructure of their choice.

VMware is also announcing a partnership with GitLab, the DevOps platform delivered as a single application. VMware and GitLab are both committed to uniting application developers and operations teams around the shared goal of fast and more secure release cycles. To that end, GitLab with Tanzu helps customers streamline the development pipeline, and consistently get to production faster.

Organizations are evaluating the best paths forward for their applications, said Raghu Raghuram, chief operating officer, products and cloud services, VMware. VMware is an essential partner regardless of the path they choosewe have 85 million workloads running on premises, a fast and simple path to migration to any cloud, a unified platform for all applications, and powerful tools for refactoring existing applications and building new, modern ones.

At VMworld 2020, VMware is delivering a range of solutions and services to help customers survive and thrive in the most turbulent market in generations. VMwares cloud, app modernization, networking, security and digital workspace platforms form a flexible, consistent digital foundation on which to build, run, manage, connect and protect applications, anywhere.
As senior officers of the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) briefed a team of military experts from the Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism (EJVM), on October 5, a group of youthful individuals in their late twenties seated under eucalyptus trees looked on.

The individuals, dressed in ragged non-military uniforms with some possessing dreadlocks, are Burundian militants who were apprehended in September by Rwandan forces after illegally crossing into the country.

Giving the first detailed account of how the militants were captured on Tuesday, September 29, Major Alex Nkuranga, said the 19 armed Burundians had crossed into the Rwandan territory when the RDF forces on patrol captured them.

"It was in the morning hours at 10:00 on September 29," he narrated flanked by General Frank Mutembe, the commanding officer of the 307 Battalion, and other senior officers.

Nkuranga said it was during the normal patrol routines that the RDF soldiers saw a group of armed militants 600 metres into their territory.

"It was an ambush," he told a five-member team of EJVM military experts from Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda and Kenya.

The military experts then started posing questions to Nkuranga, ranging from when the Burundian fighters were captured, what they possessed, whether they tried to fight the Rwandan forces, and so on.

The Burundian officer, Alfred Mayuyu who was part of the expert team, then gave a short speech.

"On my behalf, and on behalf of Burundi, I want to thank the RDF for the job well done to apprehend these combatants."

He added: "These criminals have terrorized the region, killing innocent people. It (intercepting them) is a sign of hope of the cooperation between Burundi and Rwanda."

The team, led by Col. Rigobert Ibouanga of Congo-Brazzaville, then proceeded to talk to the seemingly tired fighters.

The mission leader informed them their aim and the task they came to carry out.

According to the RDF, the Burundian fighters, who claimed to be part of RED Tabara, had a machine gun, one RPG launcher, 17 SMGs (AK 47), and 2 walkie talkies of Motorola type.

Mouvement de la Resistance pour un Etat de Droit (RED) - Tabara is an armed group that has been fighting the Burundian government for some time now.

Investigation underway

Rwanda Defence Force had written to the Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism, asking them to investigate the circumstances under which the armed group crossed into Rwanda.

The mechanism works under the auspices of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) which brings together 12 countries from the region, including Rwanda.

Speaking to the media in Nyaruguru, Col. Ibouanga, the head of the team of experts, said their main role was to investigate the matter and make a report to military chiefs from the region.

"We have come here to verify what happens on the ground. We shall make a report by Wednesday, which will be submitted to the military chiefs of the Great Lakes region," he noted.

Ibouanga indicated that a meeting of chiefs of defence staff will take place October 13, during which the report that will have been submitted will be discussed.

That meeting will take the final decision about the incident.

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In any way, Ibouanga insists that they should surrender and put down weapons to bring lasting peace to the region.

Egide Nkurunziza, the leader of the seized armed group, admitted to being part of RED Tabara, saying they were captured after a month fighting Burundian government forces and Imbonerakure.

"We were fighting the enemy, when we unknowingly found ourselves into the Rwandan territory. We really had no idea because the forests from where we were fighting are almost similar," he told the media.

Nkurunziza, with dreadlocks, revealed that they started fighting the Burundian government from the eastern DR Congo.

He never mentioned the exact place from where they started their operations, but he highlighted that they acquired support from the region and bought weapons from DR Congo.

Nkurunziza said they fought in Burundian forests of Muruta, Kabarore, and Musigati.
After a bilateral meeting in Tokyo between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the two are set to meet again in New Delhi later this month. The two will meet in the last week of October as Pompeo travels to New Delhi for the 2+2 dialogue.

Two meetings in a span of 20 days and Pompeo travelling half way across the globe both times during a pandemic for an in-person engagement gives a sense of urgency of discussion, especially with regards to at least one issue.

China has emerged as a fulcrum between India and US under the current circumstances. While India has been dealing with the Line of Actual Control (LAC) friction for the last five months, China has been made an election issue by US President Donald Trump after the ongoing trade war leading to a full-blown diplomatic tussle during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Indo-Pacific strategy, too, is quite clearly evolving between the Quad countries keeping China at the centre of it all. If there was any doubt left, that was put to rest by a senior US State Department official who briefed the media after the ministerial meeting of the Quad in Tokyo. Theres no avoiding the fact that it is China and its actions in the region that make the Quad actually matter and function this time around," said the official.

On the sidelines of the Quad engagement was when Jaishankar also held a bilateral meeting with Pompeo in Tokyo. While the Indian press release just made a mention of the meeting having taken place amidst other engagements, the US State Department put out a separate press statement. It said that the two asserted the need to work together to advance peace, prosperity, and security in the Indo-Pacific and around the globe".

Since the Trump administration took over, trade issues between India and US have dominated the engagement between the two sides. Trumps tirade against India over what he believed were unfair tariffs took over the discourse. Issues related to sanctions on Iran and reducing oil imports to zero from Tehran, terrorism emanating from Pakistan, waiver on CAATSA sanctions on Russia and defence equipment purchases as well as the Afghan peace process figured in discussions over the last few years. However, Chinas aggression this time is likely to be the dominant theme.

The US has been alluding to the LAC situation as well in various briefings to press the point about the dangers the Chinese Communist Partys moves pose in the region. The US State Department official also said, I mean, if you look at the conflict in the Himalayas between China and India, something that has been in the past handled according to unspoken or unwritten rules in the past to prevent these things from getting out of control, and then you look at what happened here recently, where youve got actually people beating each other to death  no. We  its not  I mean, if you look at the single thing thats driving all this, its a sudden turn toward gross aggression by the Chinese government in its entire periphery."

Pompeos India visit will come just a week ahead of the US presidential election on November 3. The fact that despite the pandemic the Americans have chosen not to have a virtual engagement and travel for the 2+2 dialogue is also a reflection of perhaps their curiosity to access the situation more closely. A senior US official recently told News18.com that they are keeping a close watch on the situation as both sides make contesting claims. So, even though it appears that the anti-China narrative suits the US right now, they still want to make their own assessment sitting across the table in New Delhi.
Actress Payal Ghosh is ready to settle her legal matter with Richa Chadha and withdraw her statement, says her lawyer Nitin Satpute. Richa had taken legal action against Payal for taking her name in a defamatory manner in her Me Too allegations against filmmaker Anurag Kashyap.

In a report by India Today, Nitin Satpute told that Payal is ready to tender an apology, in the court hearing for the matter on Wednesday. He was quoted saying, She is ready to settle the matter."

He also said that Payal had innocently taken Richas name and had immense respect for the Masaan actor. Justice A K Menon also asked the advocate if Payal was ready to apologize and withdraw the statement.

Meanwhile, Richa has reportedly sought Rs 1.1 crore in damages. She has also demanded that Payal should not make any defamatory statements against her in the future. Furthermore, Richa demanded the defamatory video and tweets be pulled down and an official apology be provided on Twitter.

Earlier, Richa had announced that she will take legal action against Payal through a statement written by her advocate Saveena Bedi Sachar. The statement read, Our Client Ms. Richa Chadha, condemns the act of her name being unnecessarily and falsely dragged in a derogatory manner into controversies and allegations being recently raised by third parties. Though our Client believes that genuinely wronged women should get justice at all costs, there are legislations that are intended to ensure that women have an equal standing in their workplace and to ensure that they have a cordial workplace in which their dignity and self-respect is protected."

View this post on Instagram  A post shared by Richa Chadha (@therichachadha) on Sep 20, 2020 at 3:42pm PDT

No woman should misuse their liberties to harass other women with unsubstantiated or non-existent, false and baseless allegations. Our Client has initiated appropriate legal action and shall further pursue her legal rights and remedies in law as may be advised in her best interest. Sd/- Adv Saveena Bedi Sachar, Lawhive Associates," it further read.

Payal had also named Huma Qureshi and Mahie Gill in the matter. Meanwhile, she has filed a complaint against Anurag Kashyap in Versova police station, Mumbai.
A man accused of racially abusing and threatening to kill Tommy Robinson in two YouTube videos will face trial next March.

Muhammad Abdul Basir, 25, of Phipps Bridge Road, Mitcham, south London, is accused of uploading the videos on two occasions in September last year.

Mr Robinson, 37, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, co-founded the far-right EDL (English Defence League) in 2009 and has been active in far-right politics for many years.

Basir appeared at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, where he denied a charge of racially aggravated harassment involving fear of violence motivated by Mr Robinsons white English racial identity.

He further denied a charge of putting in fear of violence, which stated that he posted threatening videos and that he knew or ought to have known that it would cause Mr Robinson fear of violence.

Judge Mark Lucraft QC listed Basirs trial for March 8 2021, and warned him that if he fails to attend the case could go ahead in his absence.

Basir, who spoke only to enter his pleas, was granted bail until his trial date.

Additional reporting by PA Media
Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib today called for Jeff Sessions to be 'sent to the Hague' after claims that Donald Trump's former attorney general told prosecutors that 'we need to take away children' on the Mexican border.

Tlaib suggested Sessions should be prosecuted after the New York Times reported he had championed the family separation policy in meetings with US attorneys.

The report contradicted Sessions' claim at the height of the crisis in 2018 that 'we never really intended' to separate families.

Tlaib, a member of the 'Squad' of progressive congresswomen along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley, shared the NYT report with the caption: 'Send him to the Hague'.

The Dutch city is the seat of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (pictured) called for Donald Trump's former attorney general Jeff Sessions to be 'sent to the Hague' over the family separation policy

Tlaib was responding to a New York Times report which said that Sessions told prosecutors that 'we need to take away children'

Tlaib has previously spoken of a 'crisis of morality' at the border, where more than 2,000 children were separated from their families until Donald Trump abandoned the 'zero-tolerance' policy amid a public outcry.

The policy saw criminal cases launched against any adult who entered the country illegally, leading to separations because children could not be detained with their parents when the youngsters themselves were not charged with a crime.

Until the policy was announced, such families were usually referred for civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation.

According to the NYT, a draft report by the Justice Department's inspector general has found that the department's top officials were a 'driving force' behind the policy.

Sessions told a group of five prosecutors that 'we need to take away children', according to notes from the meeting.

'If [families] care about kids, don't bring them in. Won't give amnesty to people with kids,' one person wrote in their notes to describe what Sessions said.

Sessions' deputy Rod Rosenstein allegedly went even further by saying it did not matter how young the migrant children were.

Some government lawyers were criticized by a US attorney for failing to prosecute a case in which the children were barely more than infants, according to the report.

Sessions (pictured) claimed at the height of the crisis in 2018 that 'we never really intended' to separate families

Sessions did not respond to the claims, while Rosenstein defended his record and said he 'never ordered anyone to prosecute a case'.

Trump's hard line on immigration was a signature of his 2016 campaign, but Squad members have called the family separation policy 'dehumanizing'.

A report by House Democrats said at least 18 children under two were taken from their parents and held for up to half a year.

At least 241 children were held in Border Patrol stations beyond the 72-hour limit rather than being transferred to government shelters, the report said.

It added that some families were broken up even though the parents ended up not being prosecuted.

At the time, Sessions defended the policy by quoting Bible scripture and argued that having children should not give people immunity from prosecution.

'I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes,' Sessions said.

'Our policy that can result in short-term separation of families is not unusual or unjustified,' he said.

Migrant children sit in a caged facility in McAllen, Texas, in June 2018 at the height of the 'zero tolerance' policy

However, he also said in a radio interview that 'it hasn't been good and the American people don't like the idea that we are separating families... we never really intended to do that.'

Amid growing outrage, Trump finally changed course in June 2018 with an executive order which provided for families to be kept together while in custody.

Trump later defended the policy by saying that 'if you don't separate, far more people will come', while claiming it had been 'far worse' during the Obama years.

While family separation did begin before Trump was president, Obama officials mainly focused on parents who were arrested on drugs charges or suspected of human trafficking.

The bulk of the separations in 2018 involved Central Americans, who make up the majority of families crossing the southwest border.

Some were apprehended trying to cross the border illegally, while others crossed illegally and then presented themselves to border patrol agents asking for asylum.
The Bombay High Court granted bail to actress Rhea Chakraborty in connection with the drugs probe, an offshoot of the investigation into Sushant Singh Rajput's death. The court said that no drugs were recovered from the actress' or Rajput's residences. It added that she is not a part of the chain of drug dealers. The bail order said that in such a case there was no evidence to show that Chakraborty had committed any offence.

"The investigation did not reveal any recovery either from the Applicant or from the house of Sushant Singh Rajput. It is their own case that the drugs were already consumed and hence there was no recovery. In that case, there is nothing at this stage to show that the Applicant had committed any offence involving commercial quantity of contraband. The material at the highest shows that she has committed an offence involving contraband, but, the crucial element of incurring rigours of Section 37 in respect of commercial quantity is missing. Therefore, I am satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the Applicant is not guilty of any offence punishable under Sections 19, 24 or 27A or any other offence involving commercial quantity. There are no other criminal antecedents against her," stated the order.

The Bombay High Court also stated that Rhea Chakraborty was not part of the chain of drug dealers. It pointed out that she has no criminal antecedents and that she had not forwarded the drugs allegedly procured by her to earn monetary gain. "Since she has no criminal antecedents, there are reasonable grounds for believing that she is not likely to commit any offence while on bail," stated the court.

The bail order also disagreed with the Additional Solicitor General who argued that celebrities and role models should be treated harshly so that it sets an example for younger generations. The court said that everyone is equal before the law. "No celebrity or role model enjoys any special privilege before the Court of law. Similarly, such person also does not incur any special liability when he faces law in the Courts. Each case will have to be decided on its own merits irrespective of the status of the accused," it stated in the bail order.

The Bombay High Court also disagreed with the arguments that Rhea Chakraborty might alert others and destroy evidence. "There is no basis for such observation. It is also important to note that when the Applicant was produced before the Court for her first remand, the investigating agency did not seek her custody. That means, they are satisfied with her interrogation and she had cooperated in that investigation," stated the court in Rhea Chakraborty's bail order.

While this comes as a relief for the actress who was languishing behind bars for a month, it must be mentioned that her brother Showik Chakraborty who was also arrested has not been granted bail. Chakraborty will need to submit her passport and Rs 1 lakh bond for the bail.

Chakraborty's lawyer Satish Maneshinde said, "We are delighted by the order of the honourable Bombay High Court for granting bail to Rhea Chakraborty. Truth and justice have prevailed and ultimately the submissions on facts and law have been accepted by Justice Sarang V Kotwal." He said that her arrest was unwarranted and beyond reach of the law. Maneshinde alleged three central agencies, CBI, ED and NCB, of witch hunting the actress and asked them to lay it to rest.

Also read: Rhea Chakraborty gets bail in drugs case, Showik's bail rejected

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput case: Court extends judicial custody of Rhea Chakraborty, brother Showik till October 20
AUBURN  The Auburn Enlarged City School District plans to move forward with the next part of its phase-in reopening plan.

Superintendent Jeff Pirozzolo said at a board of education meeting Tuesday night that the district currently looks to continue with the next part of its strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The district announced in August that most students would begin the fall semester online-only at first as a part of its phased reopening approach. Grades will be phased in under a hybrid learning model, in which students will be in the buildings two days a week and have remote learning for the other three days.

The district's second phase began Sept. 28, with students in kindergarten to second grade, seventh grade, 11th and 12th grade being in school under the hybrid model. Every grade is set to be in school under the hybrid model by Oct. 13.

At Tuesday's meeting, Pirozzolo said the district is "right on schedule" for its reopening plan.

"We are doing well with what we're doing as far as getting our kids back in," he said. "There's things that we are continuing to improve upon, but on the 13th, we will be at our full hybrid cycle."

After the meeting, Pirozzolo said he felt good about how the district has been doing, such as its phase-in plan and sanitation of buildings. He said the district has not had any new positive COVID-19 cases. A staff member at Owasco Elementary School tested positive in September, but they did not have contact with students. That employee was placed in mandatory quarantine. Pirozzolo later said four other staff members went into 14-day quarantine because they had contact with the positive employee.

He said the district plans on going into other phases after Oct. 13. He also noted that after that day, the district will look at having students in buildings more than two days a week, but the district will have to monitor its progress, number of positive cases, its capacity, transportation and classroom sizes before making any determinations.

"The main thing is, once our schools are open, they are staying open. So we're going to do everything we possibly can to make sure those doors stay open," Pirozzolo said during the meeting.

Staff writer Kelly Rocheleau can be reached at (315) 282-2243 or kelly.rocheleau@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @KellyRocheleau.

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A Perth builder who made nine fake applications for the state government's $20,000 building bonus grant has pleaded guilty during his first court appearance.

Subiaco-based builder Alexander Gray admitted to successfully making four building grant applications, receiving $80,000, and lodging a further five  all on August 12, 2020.

Mr Gray will be sentenced at a later date. Credit:9 News Perth

The building bonus grants were introduced in June as part of an expedited scheme to stimulate Western Australia's building industry in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

A person is eligible for the grant if they are building a new home or entering an off-the-plan contract to purchase a new home.
By PTI

SHILLONG: With the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) withdrawing subsidy on testing kits, the Meghalaya government has announced that COVID-19 tests will be charged from next week, Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said on Wednesday.

The samples for COVID-19 test will be examined on payment from October 16.

The deputy chief minister also said that plans are afoot to charge inmates at government Corona Care Centres for meals.

The state government has initiated the process for identifying hotels and guest houses where people who are currently in institutional quarantine can be lodged, if they are willing to undergo paid isolation.

"Testing, be it RT-PCR, CBNAAT, Truenat or Rapid Antigen Test (RAT), will be done on payment from October 16.

BPL families or beneficiaries under National Food Security Act (NFSA) and high risk contacts are totally exempted," the deputy chief minister told PTI.

The Rapid Antigen Test for COVID-19 will be mandatory for all persons, including visitors, for an amount of Rs 500.

Rs 3,200 has been set as the capping charge for Truenat, CBNAAT and RT-PCR testing, but people under the BPL category and those carrying cartificates of having undergone the tests in the last 72 hours will be exempted, he said.

"We have already created an online facility at www.coronameg.in for those people coming to the state so that they can register for testing before entering Meghalaya," he said.

"Deputy commissioners have been asked to work out on the cost of food items provided to each person per day at government Corona Care Centres. BPL families and those who can get meals from home will be exempted from paying," Tynsong said.
How do you like your eggs in the morning?

Britons have revealed in a survey that their favourite style is soft boiled with soldiers, with 31 per cent voting the humble dippy egg with toast as the No1 method of egg consumption.

The classic fried egg came a close second (27 per cent), followed by scrambled (18 per cent) and then poached (16 per cent).

Britons have revealed in a survey that their favourite egg style is soft boiled with soldiers

According to the survey, as many as 65 per cent agree that the perfect boiled egg has a runny yolk and is served with toast cut into 'soldiers'.

It should be cooked in boiling water for exactly five minutes and ten seconds, with an overriding 77 per cent saying you simply cannot enjoy a boiled egg without cutting up strips of toast to dip into the yolk.

The egg-eating capital of the UK, according to the study, is Stoke-on-Trent, where residents enjoy an average of eight eggs every week, compared to the national average of six.

The survey of 2,000 Britons, by British Lion Eggs for British Egg Week, also found that how you like your eggs cooked may say more about you than you think.

The classic fried egg is the second-favourite way for Britons to enjoy eggs

HOW BRITONS LIKE THEIR EGGS 1. Boiled: 31 per cent 2. Fried: 27 per cent 3. Scrambled: 18 per cent 4. Poached: 16 per cent 5. Omelette: 9 per cent Source: British Lion Eggs Advertisement

Britons who prefer scrambled eggs are the most likely to be high-aiming go-getters, according to researchers, with 28 per cent of those surveyed saying they are ambitious, compared to an overall average of 22 per cent.

But suppose you prefer your eggs in an omelette. In that case, researchers say you're likely to be a passionate and generous lover, with 21 per cent of respondents claiming to be excellent between the sheets, compared to an overall average of 17 per cent.

The survey also found that people who like their eggs poached tend to be magnanimous folk with 53 per cent saying they are generous, compared to an overall average of 43 per cent.

The study also revealed that some egg cooking techniques might soon be consigned to the history books, with 38 per cent of 16 to 29-year-old's having never tried a souffle.

Yet half (50 per cent) of this age group regularly eat 'cloud eggs' - the Instagram breakfast trend involving whipped egg whites and a golden runny yolk.

And 91 per cent of Britons said they would always prefer to eat a British egg than an imported one.

Andrew Joret of British Lion Eggs said: 'Despite eggs playing a starring role in many different dishes, it seems that one of the simplest ways to enjoy them is still one of the best-loved.

'Quick, easy and with minimum effort required, perhaps it's not surprising that boiled egg and soldiers is still the nation's favourite way to cook eggs.'
Why Mewalal Choudhary, Bihars new education minister is in the eye of a storm

Bihar Elections 2020: 11 parties did not declare complete address of 5,815 donors

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Oct 07: Out of the 11 political parties contesting the Bihar assembly elections 2020 only 3 parties have submitted their donation reports to the Election Commission of India.

Under Section 29C (1) of the Representation of People's Act, 1951, all political parties are required to prepare a report providing details of contributions in excess of twenty thousand rupees from any donor in a financial year (between 1st April and 31st March) to the Election Commission of India, every year by September 30 to avail 100 per cent tax exemption.

The remaining 8 political parties have delayed their submission at least once during the five-year period, a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms Sais.

Bihar Elections 2020: Nominations of 3 Congress leaders on hold over charges of sexual exploitation

The total amount of donations, above Rs 20,000, declared by the eleven political parties analysed in their contribution reports was Rs 27,77.97 crore.

Between 2014-15 and 2018-19, 80.12 per cent or Rs 22,25.66 crore of the total donations were declared by the BJP followed by INC which received 13.64 per cent of the total contributions.

Between 2014-15 and 2018-19, the analysed political parties did not declare the donor's name in case of 217 donations. Of this, BJP declared the highest number of donations (175) without donor name.

The 11 political parties did not declare the complete address details of 5,815 donors - the address details were undeclared for 5,799 donors while they were incomplete for 16 of them. BJP and RLSP did not declare the address of a total of 4935 and 558 donors, respectively, for the period between 2014-15 and 2018-19.

From FY 2014-15 to 2018-19, PAN details of a total of 3468 donations were not declared while the details provided in case of 128 donations were incorrect. Highest number of such donations having undeclared or incorrect PAN details were declared by BJP (1,899) followed by INC (678) & RLSP (558).

Between 2014-15 and 2018-19, the 11 political parties analysed in this report declared 3468 donations of Rs 325.23 crore without declaration of PAN.

Bihar Assembly Elections 2020: BJPs first list of 27 candidates

BJP declared the highest donations (1,837) without PAN amounting to Rs 237.22 crore or 72.94 per cent of the total such donations followed by INC (Rs 81.87 crore) and CPI (Rs 5.04 crore).

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

The highest value of such donations were declared by these parties during the 2014-15 (the year of Parliamentary elections) of Rs 275.75 crore (705 donations).

The 11 political parties analysed in this report declared 128 donations worth Rs 15.75 crore with incorrect PAN between FY 2014-15 and FY 2018-19.

BJP constituted 60.19 per cent or Rs 9.48 crore of the total such donations followed by INC (Rs 5.88 crore) and CPM (Rs 35.70 lakhs).

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 13:05 [IST]
AMRITSAR The agitating members of Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC), the farmers body which is spearheading the agitation in Punjab against the central governments three contentious farm laws, on Wednesday demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after turning down the invitation for talks from Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

Hundreds of farmers, under the banner of KMSC, have been laying siege to Amritsar-Delhi railway tracks for the last 13 days.

The Union agriculture minister had invited the farmers for a meeting but he does not hold any power to revoke the new laws. If the government wants to explain the new laws to the farmers then they should know that we understand all the three farm laws. The BJP leaders are not serious and their motive appears clear that they would not revoke the new laws. The PM should conduct the meeting because only he has the power to revoke the laws, Sarvan Singh Pandher, the state secretary of the KMSC, said.

If any farmers union wishes to meet the Union minister, they are free to do so, Pandher said.

He also took cognisance of no such invite to the farmers of Haryana. Since the farmers of Haryana were assaulted, we should not meet the Union minister, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 17:59:38|Editor: huaxia

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Customers select products in a duty-free shopping mall in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, Oct. 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Pu Xiaoxu)

HAIKOU, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- China's island province of Hainan has become a hot destination for tourists across the country during the National Day holiday. They are swarming to the island not just for the sunshine and beaches but also for the duty-free shopping.

Inside a duty-free shopping mall in the resort city of Sanya, Shao Kehui, a tourist from east China's Zhejiang Province, lined up for more than 20 minutes before entering the Gucci store for a bag worth about 14,000 yuan (about 2,062 U.S. dollars).

"Due to the pandemic, we cannot go abroad, but it's a good choice to travel in Hainan and enjoy duty-free shopping here," said Shao, adding that it is more convenient and cheaper to travel in Hainan than going abroad. She also planned to buy some cosmetics and skincare products.

Starting July 1, Hainan has increased its annual tax-free shopping quota from 30,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan per person. The categories of duty-free goods have been expanded from 38 to 45, with electronic products such as mobile phones and laptops added to the duty-free list.

The previous tax-free limit of 8,000 yuan for a single product has been lifted, and the number of categories with a single-purchase quantity limit has been significantly reduced. The duty-free purchase limit for cosmetics has also been raised from 12 items to 30.

The perfume and makeup area of the duty-free shopping mall was quite crowded. Yang Yi, a tourist from Shanghai, picked a dozen skincare products at a counter. "There are plenty of brands, and the prices are also favorable," said Yang, noting that she could buy more products under the new policy.

According to a sample survey conducted by Sanya's tourism authorities, 80 percent of the tourists in the city prefer duty-free shopping after the adjustment of the duty-free shopping policy, which has made the duty-free store a popular tourist destination.

Official data shows the duty-free sales in Hainan topped 8.6 billion yuan from July 1 to Sept. 30, an increase of 227.5 percent year on year, with the sales of cosmetics landing on top. About 1.29 million customers purchased the duty-free products during the period, up 62 percent year on year.

Four offshore duty-free shops are currently in operation in Hainan, with two in Haikou, one in Qionghai and one in Sanya. The duty-free shop in Sanya is the largest one, covering about 120,000 square meters.

In a bid to improve the duty-free operation, the provincial government has recently approved two local enterprises to conduct offshore duty-free business.

Meanwhile, Hainan is expected to build three more duty-free shops in Sanya this year. To encourage moderate competition, the government will introduce an enterprise with duty-free business qualifications from other provinces to operate the business.

"Chinese people have great potential in consumption, "said Liu Feng, director of the Research Center for Free Trade Port with Chinese Characteristics of Hainan Normal University, noting that with more competitions introduced in the market, Hainan's duty-free shopping will provide more and better choices for consumers.

China released a master plan on June 1 for the Hainan free trade port, aiming to build the province into a globally-influential high-level free trade port by the middle of the century. Enditem
According to Blue Cross NC, social isolation was already a challenge among seniors, with 43% reporting feeling lonely on a regular basis. COVID-19 has only exacerbated that problem, as a pandemic study revealed that number has jumped to 72%.

Social isolation also can lead to physical health issues, including poor cardiovascular function, impaired immunity, cognitive decline and depression, according to Blue Cross NC, which is doing what it can to help.

In a typical year, Meals on Wheels serves 41,711 North Carolina seniors. This year, with the help of Blue Cross NC, that number will increase by 11%, so there has been a notable increase in the need of funds.

The funds will be used to purchase items like refrigerators, freezers, packaging and healthy food. Additionally, the investment will supplement delivery costs, personal protective equipment, temporary staffing support and anything else that will help Meals on Wheels meet the needs of North Carolinas seniors.

In Cabarrus County, Cabarrus Meals on Wheels used its funds to purchase PPE and hand sanitizer to ensure the safety of both its senior recipients and volunteers. The help has been well received across the state.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has had to pull down a post that showed a sea defence wall in Indonesia as one constructed by his administration, according to news website mynewsGH.



The post had to be deleted on every social handle of the President after opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporters provided proof that the picture of the sea defence wall was not a project in Ghana but in Jakarta, Indonesia.



Communicators for the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) had a difficult time justifying or explaining the obvious gaffe on the part of handlers of the Presidents Social media platforms.



They subsequently provided pictures of sea defence walls they claim have been built under the Akufo-Addo administration but this was again countered by the NDC supporters as projects executed under former president John Dramani Mahama.



The issue generated much discussion on social media, with some accusing the Government of seeking to deceive the populace while others see it as a mistake on the part of social media aides to the President.



Felix Ofosu Kwakye, a former Deputy Minister under John Mahamas Presidency and a communicator for the NDC lashed out saying: For a President who infamously and rather disingenuously disputed the incontestable content of the Green Book, it is surprising that he would post foreign projects and artists impressions of projects that are not in Ghana as evidence of achievement.



But Kofi Ofosu Nkansah argued that sea defence walls built under President Akufo-Addo exist.

Source: MynewsGh









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Chief of Wassa Atobiase, Nana Opia II, says the government of Nana Akufo-Addo has performed tremendously well in its first term of office and deserves commendation.



Addressing a durbar of Chiefs at Wassa Atobiase during the visit of Vice President Bawumia on Wednesday, October 7, 2020, the Chief said evidence of President Akufo-Addos good performance in government abounds and he is not the only one who has seen it.



"Frankly, the government of President Akufo-Addo has performed so well and their good works are there for all to see," Nana Opia II said.



"If I am to talk about the good works of this government, I will need about an hour to talk about them but we don't have much time so I will talk about just a few."



"I am not the only one who has seen it because evidence of the good works of his government are all over the country."



The Chief singled out President Akufo-Addos flagship education-for-all intervention, Free SHS, describing it as historic.



"The first thing I will like to highlight is the Free SHS policy, which has allowed our children to access senior secondary education for free.



"This is historic. I have never seen this in my life, and I believe our elders also never saw this in their time. This is the first time this is happening in our country where every child can access secondary education for free. Everybody is benefitting and the children of Atobiase and surrounding towns are also benefitting."



Nana Opia also commended President Akufo-Addos government for the manner the Coronavirus outbreak has been managed.



"We all saw how the Coronavirus devasted many countries around the world and we have seen how it has been managed here in our country.



"President Akufo-Addo and his government have done so well with the way they have managed the Coronavirus."



Touching on the Akufo-Addo government's inclusive development policies, Nana Opia said his community has received its share of development.



"Our school used to face serious challenges of congestion. But as I speak to you now, we have a new school block which is almost done. Now we are going to have A, B, and C classrooms for each level.



"Again, the government has rehabilitated our clinic by building a new OPD for us. We are grateful to the government."



Request for more development



While commending the government for its good works and the development in his community, the Chief appealed to the government to consider giving them more projects.



He said the area has only one senior high school in Daboase, and therefore, appealed to the government to consider building a senior high school in the area to ensure pupils from the area do not travel far to access senior high education.



The Chief also appealed for government to consider upgrading their roads.



Vice President Bawumia, who is on a two-day tour of the Western Region, thanked the Chief for acknowledging governments efforts and assured him that the request for a secondary school will receive consideration.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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WASHINGTON  MJ Hegar, the former Air Force pilot running as a Democrat against U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, voted for Republican presidential nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney in 2008 and 2012, she told Hearst Newspapers on Tuesday.

The revelation that she twice voted against former President Barack Obama  who has endorsed her in the senate race  comes after she was accused of being a Democrat In Name Only during a bitter primary runoff with longtime state Sen. Royce West, a Dallas Democrat.

Hegar, who grew up in conservative Williamson County and served in the military until 2012, said that year was a turning point in her political evolution and she has been a Democrat since. A spokeswoman for Hegar said she could not remember whether she voted for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2012, though she voted against him in 2018.

OVER HIS SKIS: Sen. John Cornyn says Trump 'let his guard down' on COVID

While I have been a Democrat for nearly a decade, like many of my fellow Texans, I've voted for candidates from both parties in the past, including voting Republican as late as 2012, Hegar said.

In 2012, Hegar was a lead plaintiff in a suit filed with the American Civil Liberties Union against the Pentagon challenging a rule known as the combat exclusion policy, which imposed restrictions on women in aviation units. A year later, those restrictions were canceled by the Obama administration.

My vote in 2012 served as a turning point for me, having just left the military and partnering with a coalition of female combat veterans that successfully opened up hundreds of thousands of jobs for women in the military, I realized the values I had always held were, in fact, more in line with Democratic priorities, Hegar said.

Hegar has said before that she voted for Cornyn in 2002 and for Carly Fiorina in the 2016 Republican primary, though she described the Fiorina vote as a protest against Trump. Hegar said she voted for Democrats Hillary Clinton in 2016, Beto ORourke in 2018 and Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 primary.

Despite voting against Obama, she later referred to his presidency as a golden age and was criticized for supporting the former president during her 2018 run against U.S. Rep. John Carter, a Williamson County Republican.

In her Senate campaign, she has the backing of the Democratic establishment, including former Vice President Joe Biden and the campaign arm of Senate Democrats.

My experience understanding both sides allowed me to put the politics and partisanship aside and successfully build a broad coalition to get an outdated policy overturned, she said. That is the type of experience we need more of in Washington, not more go along, get along career politicians like Senator Cornyn.

RAISING MONEY: Hegar brings in $13.5 million in bid to unseat Cornyn

Hegar is aiming to be the first Democrat to win a statewide race in decades. She raised $13.5 million after emerging in July as the Democratic nominee, though she has consistently trailed Cornyn in polling.

Democrats hope the decorated combat veteran and self-described motorcycle-riding badass will appeal to crossover voters, especially in the suburbs. She described herself in her interview with the editorial board on Tuesday as more moderate than some other Democrats, saying I disagree with wiping away all student loan debt and Medicare For All and the Green New Deal.

In the Democratic party you have so many people who disagree with each other that its hard to say what do you disagree with the party about. I disagree with certain elements of the party, Hegar said. In the Republican Party, its more, Get in lock step, you better do as youre told or youre not welcome here.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Hegar said she voted for McCain during a meeting with the Houston Chronicle editorial board on Tuesday. She detailed her voting record, including voting Republican in 2012, for Hearst Newspapers afterward.

When asked by the editorial board, Hegar offered McCain as one example of a senator she would seek to emulate.

I greatly respected John McCain and his ability to bring people together and his ability to stand up to his own party, Hegar said. I believe I stand up to my own party and I believe he was a servant leader.

Asked how she would work with Cruz, if elected, Hegar said she is really excited about working with Ted Cruz, because I keep hearing about how even Republicans dont like him.

He has a standing lunch date with me. Ill have lunch with him every day, Hegar said. I can work with people who I think I just disagree with, but who have the best interest of our citizens at heart.

Editors note: An earlier version of this story misstated the year Hegar voted for Cornyn.

ben.wermund@chron.com
Srinivasan Swamy has handed over the baton of the of the International Advertising Association Chairman and World President to Joel E. Nettey, CEO, Innova DDB, Ghana.

During the elections the following roles were also confirmed:

Senior Vice President: Sasan Saeidi, Global Client Leader for Nestle at Wunderman Thompson (London)

General Secretary: Carol Schuster, Business Information Advisor at Lafayette 148 New York (New York)

Treasurer: Venanzio Camarra, Venanzio Camarra & Partners (Milan)

Nettey has been Chief Executive of various multinational marketing communications agency affiliates in Ghana, including DDB, Saatchi & Saatchi and Publicis. His passion for building relationships and his penchant for achieving extraordinary marketing and communications goals have resulted in the agencies he has led being partners for a myriad of blue-chip companies, both multinational and indigenous.

Speaking after the election, Nettey outlined his plans for the two years ahead, "We will focus on four key pillars  Diversity & Inclusion, Creativity & Innovation, Regulatory Issues, and Education. Together, as a team, we will take the steps required to ensure that the IAA remains the most recognizable, relevant and impactful marketing and marketing communications association across the globe, while ensuring we attract and provide opportunities that engage and nourish the next generation of marketing game changers.

Srinivasan Swamy, the Immediate Past President and the Chairman of Presidents Council said, I have worked with Joel over the last two years when he was Senior Vice President at IAA. His understanding of the issues at IAA is amazing, as is his commitment level to deliver on what is required. I am sure IAA will flourish over the next two years under his stewardship, and I am happy to actively support his initiatives that will build IAA further.

Read more news about (internet advertising India, internet advertising, advertising India, digital advertising India, media advertising India)
The man who allegedly threatened to kill the Queensland premier and the chief health officer has appeared in court vowing to expose the 'truth' behind the case.

Aaron David Marriage, 43, was last month charged with one count of using a carriage service to make a threat to kill toward Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young.

Marriage represented himself in Southport Magistrates Court on Wednesday, and told the court he needed more time to prepare his defence.

Aaron David Marriage (pictured), 43, was last month charged with one count of using a carriage service to make a threat to kill

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is seen during a press conference at Queensland Parliament House in Brisbane, Tuesday, September 22

'A few things have been changed with what was actually written, Your Honour, the so-called email,' he told the court.

'At the end of the day I haven't seen my kid for a year, that's the whole reason why we are here.'

Magistrate Kerry Magee accepted his request for extra time, and adjourned the case until November 4, releasing the accused.

Outside court before his case began, Marriage blasted the media for invading his privacy and sitting outside his home.

'You have already breached the Privacy Act,' he said.

On his Instagram biography, Marriage describes himself as, 'Just an ex defence wolf trying to make it work in civilian life'.

Aaron David Marriage who allegedly threatened to kill Queensland Premier and the Chief Health Officer leaves court in Brisbane, Wednesday, October 7

Dr Young (pictured) was placed under police protection with officers stationed outside her home and shadowing her public appearances

A spokesman for Ms Palaszczuk declined to comment as the issue was before the courts.

Dr Young was placed under police protection with officers stationed outside her home and shadowing her public appearances.

The threats against the premier and health officer came amid a wave of criticism after 26-year-old Canberra nurse Sarah Caisip's plea to leave hotel quarantine to attend her father's funeral with her mother and sister.

'It has taken an enormous toll on me, but then this has taken an enormous toll on nearly every single person in our community,' Dr Young said at the time.

'This is a tough time for everyone, and I hope everyone has got a way of managing their mental health, of being able to talk to someone that they love, that they can work through issues with.'
Once, we were able to tell Democrats from Republicans. Dems were socially aware, labor friendly and ready to raise taxes; the GOP conservative, pro-business and primed to slash taxes. Those differences have been eclipsed in this plague year by those wearing masks, and those who want to be mask-free. Depending on your politics, you know which one you are.
DUBLIN, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AerCap Holdings N.V. ("AerCap" or the "Company") (NYSE: AER) announced today the early results of the previously announced offers by AerCap Global Aviation Trust ("AGAT," "we," "us" and "our"), a Delaware statutory trust and wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, for its own account and on behalf of AerCap Ireland Capital Designated Activity Company ("AICDAC" and, together with AGAT, the "Issuers"), to purchase for cash the notes listed in the table below (the "Notes") (i) in accordance with, and in the order of, the corresponding Acceptance Priority Levels and (ii) up to an aggregate purchase price (including principal and premium, but excluding Accrued Interest (as defined below)) of $1,500,000,000 (the "Maximum Tender Cap") and subject to possible pro rata allocation, upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase (as defined below), and our election, with respect to the Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn at or prior to the Early Tender Deadline (as defined below), to make payment for such Notes on October 8, 2020 (the "Early Settlement Date"). The offers to purchase with respect to each series of Notes are referred to herein as the "Offers" and each, an "Offer." Each Offer is made upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the offer to purchase, dated September 23, 2020 (as amended or supplemented from time to time, the "Offer to Purchase"), and the related Letter of Transmittal (the "Letter of Transmittal" and, together with the Offer to Purchase, the "Tender Offer Documents"). Capitalized terms used but not defined in this press release have the meanings given to them in the Offer to Purchase.

The withdrawal deadline of 5:00 P.M., New York City time, on October 6, 2020 has passed, and, accordingly, Notes validly tendered pursuant to the Offers may no longer be withdrawn, except in the limited circumstances described in the Offer to Purchase. As of 5:00 P.M., New York City time, on October 6, 2020 (the "Early Tender Deadline"), approximately $1,880,371,000 aggregate principal amount of the Notes were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn. The table below identifies the principal amount of each Series of Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn as of the Early Tender Deadline.

Issuers Title of Security Security Identifiers Principal Amount

Outstanding Prior to

the Offers Acceptance

Priority

Level Principal Amount

Tendered as of the

Early Tender Deadline AGAT & AICDAC 4.500% Notes

due 2021* CUSIP : 00772B AF8 /

00772B AE1 / G01080 AC7

ISIN : US00772BAF85 /

US00772BAE11 / USG01080AC74 $1,100,000,000 1 $555,971,000 AGAT & AICDAC 5.000% Notes due 2021* CUSIP : 00772B AM3

ISIN : US00772BAM37 $800,000,000 2 $513,690,000 AGAT & AICDAC 4.450% Notes due 2021* CUSIP : 00774M AH8

ISIN : US00774MAH88 $700,000,000 3 $398,913,000 AGAT & AICDAC 3.950% Notes due 2022* CUSIP : 00772B AR2

ISIN : US00772BAR24 $1,000,000,000 4 $411,797,000

________

* Admitted to trading on the Irish Stock Exchange plc, trading as Euronext Dublin.

Our obligation to accept for purchase, and to pay for, Notes that are validly tendered and not validly withdrawn pursuant to each Offer, up to the Maximum Tender Cap, is conditioned on the satisfaction or waiver by us of a number of conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase.

The applicable Total Consideration for each $1,000 in principal amount of Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn before the Early Tender Deadline and accepted for purchase pursuant to the Offers will be determined by reference to a fixed spread specified for each Series of Notes over the yield based on the bid price of the applicable Reference Security, as fully described in the Offer to Purchase. The consideration will be calculated by the Dealer Managers (as defined below) at 10:00 A.M., New York City time, today, October 7, 2020. In addition to the applicable Total Consideration, accrued and unpaid interest from the last interest payment date up to, but not including, the applicable Settlement Date will be paid in cash on all validly tendered Notes accepted for purchase in the Offers (the "Accrued Interest"). The Total Consideration, plus Accrued Interest, for Notes that are validly tendered and not validly withdrawn at or prior to the Early Tender Deadline and accepted for purchase will be paid by us in same-day funds on the Early Settlement Date.

The Offers will expire at 11:59 P.M., New York City time, on October 21, 2020 (as the same may be extended with respect to any Offer, the "Expiration Date"). Any Notes not accepted for purchase will be returned promptly to the tendering Holders (or, in the case of Notes tendered by book-entry transfer, such Notes will be promptly credited to the account maintained at The Depository Trust Company from which such Notes were delivered) and otherwise returned in accordance with the Tender Offer Documents.

We expressly continue to reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to further amend, extend or, upon failure of any condition described in the Offer to Purchase to be satisfied or waived, to terminate any of the Offers, including the right to further amend or eliminate the Maximum Tender Cap, at any time at or prior to the Expiration Date.

Barclays Capital Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC are serving as the Lead Dealer Managers, and BofA Securities, Inc., HSBC Securities (USA) Inc., RBC Capital Markets, LLC and SG Americas Securities, LLC are serving as Co-Dealer Managers, in connection with the Offers (collectively, the "Dealer Managers"). Questions regarding terms and conditions of the Offers should be directed to Barclays Capital Inc. by calling toll free at 800-438-3242 or collect at 212-528-7581, to Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. by calling toll free at 866-627-0391 or collect at 212-250-2955 or to Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC by calling toll free at 800-624-1808 or collect at 212-761-1057.

Global Bondholder Services Corporation was appointed as information agent and tender agent in connection with the Offers. Questions or requests for assistance in connection with the Offers or the delivery of tender instructions, or for additional copies of the Tender Offer Documents, may be directed to Global Bondholder Services Corporation by calling collect at 212-430-3774 (for banks and brokers) or toll free at 866-807-2200 (for all others) or via e-mail at [email protected]. You may also contact your broker, dealer, commercial bank, trust company or other nominee for assistance concerning the Offers. The Tender Offer Documents can also be accessed at the following website: http://www.gbsc-usa.com/aercap/.

None of AGAT, the Company, the Dealer Managers, Global Bondholder Services Corporation, the trustee under the indenture governing the Notes or any of their respective affiliates is making any recommendation as to whether Holders should tender any Notes in response to the Offers. Holders must make their own decision as to whether to tender any of their Notes and, if so, the principal amounts of Notes to tender.

This press release is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to purchase or sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase or sell with respect to any securities. Neither this press release nor the Offer to Purchase, or the electronic transmission thereof, constitutes an offer to purchase or sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase or sell with respect to any securities, as applicable, in any jurisdiction in which, or to or from any person to or from whom, it is unlawful to make such offer or solicitation under applicable securities laws or otherwise. The distribution of this press release in certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law. In those jurisdictions where the securities, blue sky or other laws require the Offers to be made by a licensed broker or dealer and the Dealer Managers or any of their respective affiliates is such a licensed broker or dealer in any such jurisdiction, the Offers shall be deemed to be made by the Dealer Managers or such affiliate, as the case may be, on behalf of AGAT in such jurisdiction.

About AerCap

AerCap is the global leader in aircraft leasing with one of the most attractive order books in the industry. AerCap serves approximately 200 customers in approximately 80 countries with comprehensive fleet solutions. AerCap is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (AER) and has its headquarters in Dublin with offices in Shannon, Los Angeles, Singapore, Amsterdam, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Seattle and Toulouse.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain statements, estimates and forecasts with respect to future performance and events. These statements, estimates and forecasts are "forward-looking statements". In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "might," "should," "expect," "plan," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe," "predict," "potential" or "continue" or the negatives thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release are forward-looking statements and are based on various underlying assumptions and expectations and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions, and may include projections of our future financial performance based on our growth strategies and anticipated trends in our business. These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. There are important factors, including the impacts of, and associated responses to, the Covid-19 pandemic, that could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results, level of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. As a result, we cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements included in this press release will prove to be accurate or correct. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the future performance or events described in the forward-looking statements in this press release might not occur. Accordingly, you should not rely upon forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results and we do not assume any responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any of these forward-looking statements. Except as required by applicable law, we do not undertake any obligation to, and will not, update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE AerCap Holdings N.V.
To solve the issue of a smaller number of doctors and availability of healthcare facilities

Telemedicine startup, Tattvan based out in Gurugram is planning to expand its operations in Rajasthan to provide advanced healthcare facilities to the people. Tattvan has announced the launch of its new e-clinics in the Khora Shyamdas village and Thikariya village of Jaipur district in Rajasthan, India.

These clinics will provide comprehensive and holistic healthcare solutions to the residents of the community as well as to solve the issue of availability of less number of healthcare professionals and facilities. Residents will enjoy the benefit of teleconsultations, diagnostic services, and access to a pharmacy.

Tattvan is Indias first-of-its-kind telemedicine company that established a widespread telemedicine business with its brick & mortar model that has a clear motto of providing the best medical diagnosis, prompt cure, right guidance, and best consultancy, anywhere.

With the help of Tattvans telemedicine platform, residents will receive the medical advice of healthcare professionals who are practicing in some of the leading hospitals nearby at an affordable price. Furthermore, Tattvan has already registered more than 100 specialist doctors from Jaipur alone, so that all sorts of diseases and issues can be addressed.

To ensure their well-being, periodic check-ups will be performed and diagnostic services will be available at the clinics. Tattvan is working towards the growth of the digital health system in India and will maintain electronic health records of the patients to keep them secure which will be accessible by patients and doctors from anywhere in the world.
Cal Cunningham, a Democrat, will run against Thom Tillis in the 2020 race for North Carolina US Senate.

They sighed and groaned, but didn't waver.

Democratic voters interviewed this week said they were perturbed by the news that Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham strayed outside his marriage, but they said they still support him. The first statewide poll conducted since the scandal broke seemed to validate their views, perhaps hinting at a lower level of concern modern voters place on extramarital transgressions.

Its a complete and utter annoyance, said Tara Hackett, a small business owner and registered Democrat in Asheville. But weve got bigger fish to fry. Weve got way too much riding on this race.

Cunningham, who is married with two children, apologized over the weekend for exchanging sexual text messages with another married woman, public relations strategist Arlene Todd Guzman. The story was initially reported by the conservative website National File.

On Tuesday, The Associated Press reported it had spoken with Guzman Todd, who confirmed she had intimate encounters with Cunningham in March and in July.

Tillis has seized on the revelations, arguing that Cunningham owes the people of North Carolina a full explanation for his extramarital activity. But he may be ill positioned to force the issue after disclosing hours before the text messages were made public that he has contracted the coronavirus.

More: Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham admits he sent sexual messages to woman who is not his wife

On the debate stage last week Cal said its about integrity  and I agree, Tillis said on Fox & Friends.

Both candidates are now on the sidelines. Tillis is self-isolating at his home, and his Charlotte campaign office is closed for the rest of the week. Cunningham pulled out of a previously planned online forum on Monday with the Libertarian candidate in the race. His campaign gave no reason for his decision.

In a statement Oct. 6 to the USA Today Network, Cunningham communications director Rachel Petri wrote, Senator Tillis and his allies are trying to exploit a personal matter and ignoring a familys request for privacy to make desperate attacks in hopes they can distract from Senator Tillis record of blocking Medicaid expansion, voting to take protections away from North Carolinians with pre-existing conditions, and failing to pass needed COVID-19 relief for our communities.

Story continues

'Who wouldn't be disappointed?'

The Tillis-Cunningham race could determine which political party controls the Senate. And Cunninghams sexts created questions  and plenty of frustration  among Democratic voters. Yet across the state, registered Democrats said theyre sticking by Cunningham, seeing the transgression as a blip that shouldnt overshadow their goal of flipping the Senate and expanding Medicaid.

Who wouldnt be disappointed? said Roberta Waddle, a former chair of the Cumberland County Democratic Party. I am disappointed. However, I would still support him for Senate. In fact, I have already voted and done so.

Waddle said she believes the Cunningham scandal could be buried in last weeks avalanche of news, including Tillis COVID-19 announcement and President Donald Trumps hospitalization and ongoing coronavirus treatment.

About 69% of North Carolina independent voters were aware of Cunningham's sexting scandal, according to the first poll conducted since the scandal broke.

Half-life of a scandal

In recent months, Cunningham has maintained a single-digit lead over Tillis in polls. Cunningham has also outraised the Republican incumbent. On Thursday, the Cunningham campaign reported it raised $28 million in the third quarter this year, a state record for a North Carolina politician.

The first poll since the sexting scandal shows Cunningham remaining the clear, if somewhat dented, frontrunner.

Public Policy Polling reached out to 911 North Carolina voters Oct. 4-5 and found Cunningham led Tillis 48% to 42%. More respondents held a negative view of Cunningham than a positive view, though his favorability still outpaced Tillis's net favorability rating by 21 points. Of non-Trump voters, only 12% said they're now less likely to support Cunningham.

Political experts say Cunninghams scandal  if limited to several romantic texts with one woman  isnt likely to jeopardize his campaign. But further allegations of infidelity could intensify the political damage.

This will have a short half-life, said Susan Roberts, a political science professor at Davidson College, before news of the second affair surfaced. If it gets worse, if it becomes more than just cuddling and wishing to kiss, I think then its more of a problem.

Cunningham could face another negative news cycle due to his military status.

Cunningham is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and the military can prosecute personnel for adultery, said Paul Dubbeling, a Chapel Hill-based lawyer and former military prosecutor. To be subject to prosecution, the adultery must include sexual intercourse and have occurred while on active duty.

On "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday, Tillis mentioned Cunningham could also be "subject to disciplinary action from the military.

Dubbeling, however, said personnel involved in extramarital affairs rarely face court-martial.

This tends to be career-ending but not prosecuted, he said.

This week, the Republican-aligned Super PAC, Results for NC, ran an ad featuring Cunninghams texts that tied the Democratic nominee to former North Carolina U.S. Sen. John Edwards, whose political career ended after a sex scandal in the 2000s.

Yet, the importance voters tie to political sex scandals, Roberts said, has diminished over time.

Voter dont expect their members of Congress to be: Church on Sunday, married to this woman from high school, been with her for 40 years, she said. I dont think this is as damning as it could have been in the past.

Several Democrats pointed out Cunninghams messages, while ill-advised, didnt reach the amorality of notorious past political affairs.

This is two adults consenting, Hackett said. So, I dont see it as 'Me Too.' I dont see it as John Edwards having a secret love-baby while his wife is dying. Its just not to that level for me. Its annoyance but not disgust.

Senate in the balance

Yet even minimal fallout from the Cunningham sexts could prove vital in a swing state like North Carolina, especially when Cunningham often highlights his probity in interviews and ads.

The small, but potentially decisive number of undecided voters in this race could be moved, however, said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. Part of Cunninghams appeal has been his character and his persona. Clearly, this story pierces that persona and may cause some voters to call into question whether there are other parts of his story that are similarly full of hot air.

In addition to polls, Cooper says future campaign contribution reports will help gauge whether Cunninghams texts dampened enthusiasm within his base.

Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham, left, and U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. greet each other after a televised debate Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, Pool)

If Joe Biden carries his lead in the polls through November and becomes president, Democrats would need to flip three Senate seats to control the upper chamber of the legislature. The website FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats a 66% chance of doing so, around the same odds the website gives to Cunningham winning in North Carolina. If Cunningham experiences any downward movement in polls before Election Day on Nov. 3, the probability the Democrats capture the Senate could dip, too.

Despite the developments, some state Democrats sought to keep supporting Cunningham for the seat, saying hes still right on the issues important to the party faithful and the country.

Cunningham had a critical lapse in judgement and morality. My prayers go out to his family as they work through healing, tweeted North Carolina state Sen. Erica Smith, who lost to Cunningham in the March Democratic primary. I ask our supporters to unite around our platform and stand with Cal for NC.

Michael Harf, a small business owner in Raleigh, said he sees politically minded people in both North Carolina and New York  where he spends part of the year  tracking the Tar Heel Senate race.

Like other Democrat voters throughout North Carolina, Harf sees Cunninghams flirtatious messages as a nuisance that wont impact his vote. He predicted any political damage Cunninghams texts cause could be balanced by the impact of Tillis coronavirus diagnosis.

It would have been nice if (Cunningham) couldve remained untarnished, but I dont know that it changes the dynamic, he said. I wont be shocked if theres frankly no movement in the polls because of the two incidents that occurred. People are going to say, Huh, he got COVID and Huh, he had an affair.'

Harf pointed out another reason why this weekend's news isn't likely to dictate the election's outcome: Mail-in voting is already underway.

As of Sunday evening, close to 360,000 North Carolinians had already mailed in their absentee ballots, 5% of all registered voters.

Contributing: Paul Woolverton, AP

Brian Gordon is the education and social issues reporter for the USA Today Network. Reach him at bgordon@gannett.com or on Twitter @briansamuel92.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Cal Cunningham, NC senate candidate, draws sexting scandal reactions
The Telangana government on Wednesday announced that it will purchase the entire stock of not only food grains like paddy and pulses, but also commercial crops like cotton, directly from farmers even as the Central government is going all out to educate the farmers about the benefits of the newly enacted farm laws.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao held a high-level review meeting with officials of the agriculture and marketing departments to discuss the procurement of agriculture produce from farmers this season.

While the new agriculture act enacted by the Centre says farmers can sell their produce wherever they wanted, the chief minister asked the farmers not to bring their paddy to the markets and face problems. He also assured that the government would ensure minimum support price to the farmers for their produce.

The entire quantity of paddy produced by farmers this Vanakalam (Kharif season) will be purchased by the government departments at the village-level itself. Since there is still Corona fear lingering, various government agencies would be sent to the villages to purchase the entire paddy produced by farmers, an official statement from the chief ministers office said, quoting the chief minister.

He instructed that officials purchase the entire paddy in the state by setting up 6,000 purchasing centres and ensure that every grain of paddy is purchased. He reiterated that the governments aim was to stand by farmers at every stage from extending financial assistance for crop investment to purchasing the produce.

He directed that paddy with less than 17 percent moisture would be purchased by the state government at Rs 1,888 per Quintal MSP for Grade A Variety and Rs 1,868 per Quintal MSP for the Grade B variety.

He instructed the agriculture, marketing and civil supplies department officials to take precautions at every point. He wanted the officials to make an estimate on how much paddy would be available and prepare a purchasing plan accordingly.

KCR also asked the officials to ensure that the farmers get their money on the sale of paddy immediately along with the Bank Guarantees.

Similarly, the chief minister also instructed the authorities to make arrangements for purchase of entire production of red gram (tur dal) from the farmers. He complimented the farmers for cultivating red gram in 10.78 lakh acres as directed under the Regulatory Farming policy of the government.

At the same time, the government would also make arrangements for procurement of cotton through Cotton Corporation of India. Continuous discussions are taking place with the CCI in this regard, the chief minister said.

This season, there was a record cultivation of crops in Telangana in 134.87 lakh acres. Of this, paddy was cultivated in 52.77 lakh acres, cotton in 60.36 Lakh acres and red gram in 10.78 lakh acres.

Meanwhile, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman paid a visit to Jakkula Nekkalam village of Gannavaram block in Andhra Pradeshs Krishna district and explained to local farmers about the benefits of the new agriculture acts enacted by the Centre.

Accompanied by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Sunil Deodhar, G V L Narasimha Rao, Kanna Lakshminarayana and P V N Madhav, the finance minister interacted with the farmers to know about their cropping pattern, remunerative price for their crops and the market situation.

The farmers told Sitaraman that they were not getting remunerative price for food grains and sugarcane. Stating that they were not getting bank loans for raising sugarcane, they requested that the government take steps for ensuring adequate prices for their crops.

The FM told the farmers that the new act enabled them to sell their produce wherever they get remunerative price. She suggested authorities educate the farmers about the new Acts.

It may be mentioned that the ruling YSR Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh is supporting the new legislation on agriculture and its MPs voted in favour of them in Parliament. On the other hand, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi strongly opposed the new acts.

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I have never met anyone like Addie LaRue. Actually, no one has. The main character of V.E. Schwabs new book, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, makes a deal with the devil for immortality, but it comes with a curse: No one will ever remember her, so she can never meet anyone. Still, its rare to encounter a character as stunningly, fiercely written as Addie, as she grows and changes over a span of 300 years. She is a high-wire act of a character in a high-wire act of a story, neither of whichdespite the devils best effortsI am likely to forget.

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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue marks the sixth adult novel for New York Timesbestselling author Schwab, who has also written nearly a dozen YA and middle-grade books, on top of some comics and short stories. Ive loved Schwabs work ever since I devoured her Shades of Magic series, a riveting fantasy about four magical, parallel Londons and the adventures of the rare race of magicians who can travel between them. Shades gorgeous writing, Schwabs knack for world building, and her ability to balance action with deeply drawn characterization and relationships made the series resonate with me like no other books have.

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I am pleased to say that much of what has made Schwabs previous work so successful can also be found in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Addies story begins in 1714, when 23-year-old Adeline LaRue, a young woman whose dreams surpass the boundaries of her small French town, flees into the woods to escape an unwanted marriage. There, Adeline makes a deal with a dark god who promises a life with more time and freedom in exchange for Addies soul when she decides she is done living. The undisclosed catch, which Addie discovers too late, is that no one will ever remember her. She can leave no explicit trace, record, or product of herself behind: a life free of constraints, but also free of connection.

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The book begins with Addie in New York City in the mid-2010s and cuts to flashbacks across three centuries worth of her exploits across continents. Along the way, an unlikely relationship unfolds between Addie and the devil (sometimes called the darkness or Luc) who cursed her, both her archenemy and her sole companion. But in New York, Addies life is forever altered yet again when she meets a mysterious young man named Henry Strauss who, somehow, remembers her.

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Addie incorporates many of Schwabs oft-explored themes, including the transformative effects of intense personal bonds and the relationship between life and death (and what exists somewhere in between them). As was particularly notable in Shades, her characters are queer unless stated otherwise, even more of a rarity in Addie given its historical elements. But the scope of Addie is unlike anything Schwab has written beforeepic yet intimate, sweeping but not sprawling. I often found myself wondering how various aspects of the book might translate cinematically, like how exactly the shadowy Luc might look in his chosen human-imitative form of less a man than a collection of featuresa query that will be answered thanks to an already-announced big-screen adaptation.

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Because Addie covers so much ground, it can be disappointing when stories are hinted at but never manifest (do I need to keep an eye out for her quickly mentioned time in Prague?), and one wonders why we hear so little about any travels the insatiably curious Addie makes beyond Europe and North America. But though Addies world may be vast, it is depicted with careful attention to detail, like the changes in her vocabulary that subtly signal times passage. (She describes a head full of muslin on a sleepy morning in 1806, but by 1899, Addie and other characters use the more popularized cotton when describing similar sensations.) Schwab uses Addies broad setting less as a destination in and of itself and more as a means to explore the ramifications of Addies deal, as she engineers a life within its confines and ekes out semblances of belonging, no matter how transient. Addie manipulates her curse to help her steal and spy, and learns to leave traces of herself behind in art and ideas throughout history, her contributions anonymous but visible nonetheless.

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Its that particular aspect of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue that keeps looping through my head in these days of the pandemic. Addie does not say much about physical illness, but it has a lot to say about how connection and love are always possible even in the face of isolation, how we inevitably leave our mark in the world and on the people who cross our paths even in the unlikeliest or most fleeting of circumstances. It is easy to feel that, in the absence of traditional, tangible moments of connection, no such connection could exist, no mark can be made. And yet, as an acquaintance advises Addie, there are many ways to matter. If Addie shows anything, its that the impact of our actions and interactions can be vaster and longer-lasting than we can predict. Much like the seven freckles that sprinkle Addies face, we create our own constellations, and as we live through these darkened days, I feel brighter for having added Addie to mine.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. MEPs urge the European Parliament to condemn Azerbaijans and Turkeys ongoing military actions against Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) in order to stop the hostilities and prevent another genocide against Armenians.

The MEPs delivered speeches during todays special session of the European Parliament dedicated to the Artsakh issue.

Meanwhile, thousands of Armenians and their supporters in Brussels have gathered outside the European Parliament, are holding protest against the Turkey-backed Azerbaijani aggression.

MEP Loucas Fourlas representing Greece stated that Turkey and jihadists are supporting Azerbaijan. We should not tolerate this. The Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh are being protected from aggression. Erdogan and Aliyev escalate the situation. We should stand by the people of Armenia. We should not forget that they have suffered from the terrible genocide. Time has come, and we should stand by the Armenian people condemning Turkey, the MEP said.

Another MEP representing France Sylvie Guillaume said the reaction of all international structures should be very clear, and the military operations should be condemned in a targeted manner. We should condemn the atrocities, the current tension is a threat to the whole region. We should focus on Turkey. They are provoking this conflict, she said, adding that active efforts should be made to stop the conflict in order not to witness another genocide of Armenians.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Anita Anand, Minister of Public Services and Procurement, and Patty Hajdu, Minister of Health, announced on September 29th that the Government of Canada has signed an agreement with U.S.-based Abbott Rapid Diagnostics ULC to purchase up to 7.9 million ID NOW rapid point-of-care tests. The tests were subsequently authorized for use by Health Canada on September 30th. These tests will be deployed to provinces and territories to support them in ramping up capacity for COVID-19 testing.

Under the agreement with Abbott, the Government of Canada is also purchasing up to 3,800 analyzers, which are the devices that perform the test and deliver the rapid results.

As cases of COVID-19 are rising, following public health measures is important to flatten the curve. Detecting cases of COVID-19 quickly is also critical to slow the spread of the virus and todays announcement will help increase Canadas capacity, should the tests be authorized by Health Canada, said Minister Hajdu.

Canada has been facing a surge of COVID-19 cases in the past month, with many hot spots emerging, straining hospitals and testing facilities. Tens of thousands of tests are being performed daily, but it can take days to get results back from a laboratory. While fast-acting tests can be more convenient and help identify outbreaks more quickly, they are known to produce more false positives and false negatives in about 30% of tests, which has delayed their approval in Canada and several other countries.

Read more about:
BOGOTA, Colombia: In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the harried health officials of Peru faced a quandary. They knew molecular tests for COVID-19 were the best option to detect the virus yet they didnt have the labs, the supplies, or the technicians to make them work.

But there was a cheaper alternative  antibody tests, mostly from China, that were flooding the market at a fraction of the price and could deliver a positive or negative result within minutes of a simple fingerstick.

In March, President Martin Vizcarra took the airwaves to announce hed signed off on a massive purchase of 1.6 million tests almost all of them for antibodies.

Now, interviews with experts, public purchase orders, import records, government resolutions, patients, and COVID-19 health reports show that the countrys bet on rapid antibody tests went dangerously off course.

Unlike almost every other nation, Peru is relying heavily on rapid antibody blood tests to diagnose active cases a purpose for which they are not designed. The tests cannot detect early COVID-19 infections, making it hard to quickly identify and isolate the sick. Epidemiologists interviewed by The Associated Press say their misuse is producing a sizable number of false positives and negatives, helping fuel one of the worlds worst COVID-19 outbreaks.

Whats more, a number of the antibody tests purchased for use in Peru have since been rejected by the United States after independent analysis found they did not meet standards for accurately detecting COVID-19.

Today the South American nation has the highest per capita COVID-19 mortality rate of any country across the globe, according to John Hopkins University and physicians there believe the countrys faulty testing approach is one reason why.

This was a multi-systemic failure, said Dr. Vctor Zamora, Perus former minister of health. We should have stopped the rapid tests by now.

___

As COVID-19 cases popped up across the globe, low- and middle-income nations found themselves in a dilemma.

The World Health Organization was calling on authorities to ramp up testing to prevent the virus from spreading out of control. One particular test a polymerase chain reaction exam was deemed the best option. Using a specimen collected from deep in the nose, the test is developed on specialized machines that can detect the genetic material of the virus within days of infection.

If COVID-19 cases are caught early, the sick can be isolated, their contacts traced, and the chain of contagion severed.

Within weeks of the initial outbreak in China, genome sequences for the virus were made available and specialists in Asia and Europe got to work creating their own tests. But in parts of the world like Africa and Latin America, there was no such option. They would have to wait for the tests to become available and when they did, the incredible demand meant most werent able to secure the number they required.

The collapse of global cooperation and a failure of international solidarity have shoved Africa out of the diagnostics market, Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa CDC, wrote in Nature magazine in April as the hunt was underway.

Nations that got an early jump start in preparing or had a relatively robust health care system already in place fared best. Two weeks after Colombia identified its first case, the country had 22 private and public laboratories signed up to do PCR testing. Peru, by contrast, relied on just one laboratory capable of 200 tests a day.

For years, Peru has invested a smaller part of its GDP on public health than others in the region. As COVID-19 approached, glaring deficiencies in Peru became evident. There were just 100 ICU beds available for COVID-19 patients, said Dr. Vctor Zamora, who was appointed to lead Perus Ministry of Health in March. Corruption scandals had left numerous hospital construction projects on pause. Peru also faced a significant shortage of doctors, forcing the state to embark on a massive hiring campaign.

Even now, months later, Perus needs are vastly under met. To date, the country has less than 2,000 ICU beds, compared to over 6,000 in the state of Florida, which has 10 million fewer inhabitants, according to official data.

High levels of poverty and people who depend on daily wages from informal work complicated the governments efforts to impose a strict quarantine, further challenging Perus ability to respond effectively to the virus.

When Zamora arrived, he said the government had already decided molecular tests werent a viable option. The nation didnt have the infrastructure needed to run the tests but also acted too slowly in trying to obtain what little was available on the market.

Peru didnt buy in time, he said. Everyone in Latin America bought before us even Cuba.

Antibody tests which detect proteins created by the immune system in response to a virus had numerous drawbacks. They had not been widely tested and their accuracy was in question. If taken too early, most people with the virus test negative. That could lead those infected to think they do not have COVID-19. False positives can be equally perilous, leading people to incorrectly believe they are immune.

Antibody tests didnt require high-skill training or even a lab; municipal workers with no medical education could be taught how to administer then.

For the time we were in, it was the right decision, Zamora said. We didnt know what we know about the virus today.

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
WATERLOO REGION  A grassroots organization believes Waterloo Region tech companies and employees can help change the lives of skilled tech workers living in conflict or disaster zones around the world.

Tech Beyond Boundaries is a team of nearly a dozen local tech workers and volunteers working to encourage technology companies in this region to hire more skilled workers from abroad and bring them to Canada.

I really think it defines who we are and sets our path for us as a community, said Kris Braun, a product manager at Google and one of the volunteers at Tech Beyond Boundaries.

If we welcome a generation of refugees to come and join our community to contribute both their skills and to rebuild their lives, it shapes our community now and for the next generation.

The initiative is part of the growing local movement that technology companies and their employees can do more than just enjoy great work perks and good salaries; they can also become an active force for good in the world.

The more we embrace that side of ourselves we can chart a path that looks pretty different from tech sectors elsewhere, Braun said.

Tech Beyond Boundaries is a localized version of the global organization Talent Beyond Boundaries, which helps refugees and other displaced people move internationally for work by leveraging their own professional skills not just in tech but in education, health care and more.

In 2019 local tech firm Bonfire Interactive became one of the first in the world to hire a refugee through the program. Mohammed Hakmi is a Syrian software developer who had lived in Lebanon for eight years before coming to Kitchener to work for Bonfire.

Braun was part of that hiring process while still an employee at Bonfire, and he hopes to replicate that success and believes companies in this region could hire as many as 10 refugees in 2021.

Theres always a mix of optimism and pragmatism, he said. Thats something that is within our grasp.

In June the Canadian government announced it would admit 500 refugees over the next two years through skilled pathways instead of humanitarian programs as part of the Economic Mobility Pathways Project, which launched in 2018 with the goal of bringing in 10 to 15 skilled refugees.

This 500 is over and above Canadas work to resettle refugees through the humanitarian stream.

Tech Beyond Boundaries is working to spread the word throughout the local tech sector and is raising funds to help pay for costs associated with resettling workers. The organization has also partnered with Sanctuary Refugee Health Centre, which provides primary health care to thousands of families arriving in Waterloo Region from around the world.

Tech Beyond Boundaries is selling reusable cloth tote bags and a pint of edible cookie dough in one of eight flavours for $20. The gift is then delivered throughout the region by local tech volunteers on bike.

Our goal is to get the community to rise up and say, This is what we want to be, said Braun.
Laredo City Council on Monday voted for the city to pause negotiations with the police union regarding possible changes to their salary, wage, overtime pay or anything else that would cost the city during this unstable time.

City administration has been meeting with the Laredo Police Officers Association for weeks to negotiate a new contract; the term of their previous contract, which spanned four years, ended Sept. 30.

The LPOA had proposed a three-year agreement with no salary adjustments in the first year, a 2% raise in the second and a 3.5% raise in the third. However, they also requested more steps within their rankings, where officers would receive an automatic pay bump after spending a certain number of years in a given rank.

The current contract has a step increase for patrol officers at year 10 in their career. This will cost the city about $350,000 to $400,000 this year, which is already budgeted, according to Budget Director Gilberto Sanchez.

But the union proposed to the city additional step increases  for patrol officers at 15 years, for investigators at five years, for sergeants at five years, and so on for every rank, LPOA President Rojelio Nevarez told LMT.

This restructuring would cost the city $1.8 million, and it would compound every year, Deputy City Manager Rosario Cabello told council.

Along with the 2% and 3.5% raises in years two and three, the unions proposed contract would cost the city $5.6 million.

Councilman George Altgelt made the case for waiting until after the pandemic to gauge what the city can afford in a renewed contract.

Sanchez noted that the city was able to balance its budget this year in part with a $4 million loan from the Solid Waste Department, which is an enterprise fund for the city, meaning it generates revenue outside of the General Fund. The General Fund operates on tax revenue and pays for essential services, namely fire and police.

The city is trying to minimize any spending in the General Fund that would eat into this $4 million loan so as to not affect Solid Wastes capacity to borrow money to purchase equipment in the future, Sanchez explained.

Altgelt has heard from one of the unions negotiators that the LPOAs contract is one of the best if not the best collective bargaining agreements in the state of Texas, which Cabello affirmed.

Altgelt argued that the police department is not having trouble retaining officers, and that it makes sense to hold off on increasing their pay during the pandemic.

Lets punt for a year and see how the economy turns around, he said.

City Manager Robert Eads, who spoke via video call from Mexico City, said it would be immensely difficult to say if they can afford any salary increases for officers next year or the year after, and he agreed with Altgelts idea to pause all negotiations that involved a financial impact.

Councilman Marte Martinez said its the wrong time to be increasing anything monetary and that the police understand that the whole city is hurting right now.

Council voted in favor of continuing to negotiate with the LPOA on the non-economic parts of the three-year collective bargaining agreement but to reopen discussions in a year on salary, wage, overtime and anything else that would have an economic impact.

Councilman Roberto Balli was the sole vote against the motion. He voiced that the city should continue to negotiate in good faith and that additional step increases may be something they should consider for their officers.

Nevarez, the LPOA president, told LMT that the union understands the difficulty the city is going through right now and that they dont want to hurt their budget, especially if it could cause furloughs or layoffs for civilian city employees.

It is what it is. Were in rough times right now, and its a hard pill to swallow for our members, he said.

The union president also took issue with Altgelts classification of their contract as the richest in the state and said the additional step increases they predicted are in line with what other law enforcement agencies in the state have implemented.

The picture painted at City Council was not fair to the union, Nevarez said. The police have been coming into work throughout the pandemic and exposing themselves to the potential of contracting COVID-19, he said.

Were not better than anyone else, were not more important than anyone else, but we do have a unique responsibility and a unique job, Nevarez said. ... To put us in a light that we look like were trying to take advantage of a situation or trying to squeeze juice out of a lemon that doesnt have any  thats not who we are.

Julia Wallace may be reached at 956-728-2543 or jwallace@lmtonline.com
The two moderate Republican leaders who steered the minority caucus in the Maryland Senate for the past six years have decided to step aside, making room for more outspoken conservative successors.

Minority Leader J.B. Jennings, R-Baltimore County, and Minority Whip Stephen Hershey Jr., R-Queen Anne's, announced late Tuesday that they would not seek their leadership posts when the 15-member caucus convenes on Saturday.

Their departure will end a record run that has overlapped with the tenure of two-term Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.

Sens. Bryan Simonaire, R-Anne Arundel, who is running for minority leader, and Michael Hough, R-Frederick, who is running for whip, are the only candidates for those positions. Each is viewed as more right-leaning than Jennings and Hershey.

Hough's tough-on-crime stances have helped reshape key criminal justice policies passed by the liberal legislature, and Simonaire vocally opposed a bill banning conversion therapy for gay people, even as his bisexual daughter - at the time a member of the House of Delegates - spoke out against him.

Hershey, meanwhile, had drawn private criticism from fellow Republicans in recent months for being critical of President Donald Trump, other lawmakers and General Assembly staffers said. Those tweets appear to have been deleted.

Saturday's caucus election will take place in a large conference room inside the Annapolis legislative complex, Hough said, with enough space for lawmakers to observe social distancing precautions because of the coronavirus pandemic.

"By gosh, we're Republicans," Hough said. "We're going to vote in person."

The impending leadership change coincides with a more dramatic leftward shift within the much larger Senate Democratic caucus over the past few years, which brought younger and more liberal leadership to the 47-member chamber.

The new GOP leaders will take over when the Maryland General Assembly reconvenes in January and tackles sweeping and costly education changes, police reform legislation and the possibility of deep budget cuts from the economic recession wrought by the pandemic.

They will also help lead Republican efforts in the next round of redistricting in Maryland, when lawmakers redraw Congressional and legislative maps to reflect the 2020 Census results. Political analysts consider Maryland's map among the gerrymandered in the country.

In recent years, the leadership job entailed raising cash to attempt to oust moderate Democrats in swing districts, championing Hogan's legislative agenda and negotiating to make Democratic policies more palatable to Republicans. Jennings noted his skill in that third area in a letter to his colleagues announcing he will step aside.

"We have worked together to amend bills to strip them of their worst components, and we have defeated a lot of reckless and irresponsible pieces of legislation that did not serve the best interests of this State," Jennings wrote. "Above all, despite the fact that we sit in the minority, we have made a major impact on legislation that affects the everyday lives of Marylanders."

Jennings and Hershey, according to GOP staffers, led the Senate minority caucus longer than any of their predecessors in state history.

"They were really known for being able to move the ball incrementally for Republicans," said Mileah Kromer, a political scientist and pollster at Goucher College. That's an accomplishment, she noted, given that most legislation could pass the chamber without a single GOP vote.

Hough, whose day job is chief of staff to Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., on Capitol Hill, said in an interview that he started reaching out to colleagues weeks ago about electing new leadership. Jennings, who has had two children since he took the job, said he had also been looking for a successor.

Jennings and Hough said some of Hershey's tweets about Trump contributed to friction with the party, but they were not the driving factor in the push for new leadership.

"We've all got to get along and work together," Hough said. "Hopefully it will be a harmonious kumbaya and we all stick together, because we have to."
Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 7 : The coming weeks are going to be crucial for late K.M. Mani's son Jose K.Mani, as the faction of the Kerala Congress (Mani) that he leads, is awaiting its entry into the ruling CPI-M led Left Democratic Front (LDF).

While the nod has come from the CPI-M, the ball is now in the court of Jose, whose crucial steering committee meeting of the party is meeting on Friday.

The Jose faction suffered a rude jolt, last month after one of its strong leaders, a former legislator Joseph M.Puthusserry decided to join the opposite faction led by veteran legislator P.J. Joseph. Jose is worried at more people leaving his flock as that could affect his 'bargaining power' with the LDF.

The CPI-M has asked Jose to make the first move to express his interest in joining the LDF. A similar situation had emerged when late K.M. Mani had decided to sit as an independent bloc in 2016 after breaking away from the Congress-led UDF. At that time, stiff opposition surfaced after the second biggest ally in the Left -- the CPI -- strongly opposed it. In 2018, K.M. Mani returned to the UDF after a Rajya Sabha seat was given to him. Quick to take up the offer, he asked Jose to resign from the Lok Sabha, a year before the term was to end, and contest the Rajya Sabha seat which he won.

After the death of K.M. Mani last year, the two factions emerged within the party -- one led by party veteran legislator P.J. Joseph and the other by Jose K. Mani. In the Joseph's faction, which had three legislators, the number came down to two after the death of veteran legislator C.F. Thomas last month, while his rival faction has also two.

Speaking to IANS, sitting legislator Roshy Augustine, who has been strongly rooted with Jose, denied all rumours that has started going around that he is not keen to join the LDF.

"All along I have been with our party chairman (Jose) and there is no basis in the present speculation that I will leave Jose. We have our party steering committee meeting on Friday," said Augustine.

Meanwhile, the LDF has come to a broad consensus on the seats that should be given to Jose, which is essentially a pre-condition to his entry into the LDF.

In the 2016 Assembly polls, the erstwhile Kerala Congress (Mani) -- the undivided party -- had contested 15 seats and they have now been offered 13 seats.

With CPI-M taking the lead to bring in Jose, even though the CPI and NCP had expressed their displeasure after a few of their seats, which they contested, might be given to Jose, the CPI-M is hopeful that all such issues will be amicably settled.

However, if it happens, the CPI-M will have some explaining to do, more than Jose.

When K.M. Mani presented his 13th state budget in 2015, the Kerala Assembly witnessed the worst ever scenes when the now present Left which was in the opposition, went on a rampage and threw away the Speaker's chair and damaged his computer.

The then Left opposition, in which Balakrishnan was the deputy leader of the opposition, had for months been demanding the resignation of K.M. Mani in the bar scam and had termed him as the most corrupt politician. The Left had vowed that they will not allow Mani to present the state Budget.

If Jose finally joins the LDF, it will prove again that in politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies.
Whether or not the Sinixt, or Lakes Tribe as they are known, utilized their traditional territory north of the 49th parallel after the 1930s, she wrote, I am left with no doubt that the land was not forgotten, that the traditions were not forgotten and that the connection to the land is ever present in the minds of the members of the Lakes Tribe.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. A first responder of Artsakhs Rescue Service has died from injuries he suffered on October 2 when the Azerbaijani forces bombarded Stepanakert City.

The headquarters of the Rescue Service was hit by Azeri missiles, gravely injuring rescuer Hovik Aghajanyan.

He was treated at the Stepanakert hospital and then transported to Yerevan, but doctors were unable to save his life.

The Armenian Ministry of Emergency Situations offered condolences to the family of the killed rescuer.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
The Broward County School Board has demanded that parents of victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting turn over psychiatric records to prove that they suffered trauma, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported on Wednesday.

Parents of victims have sued the school board and county sheriffs office following the 2018 shooting, which left 17 people dead and 17 injured, many of them students of the school. The shooting was perpetrated by a former student, and lawsuits have blamed the school board for neglecting to identify the threat that the student posed.

In order to claim damages, however, the school board has requested that parents of victims prove that they suffered trauma by presenting psychiatric records. The requests were filed as court documents in responses to various lawsuits against the board.

The school district wrote in one request filed October 1 that it recognizes the sensitive nature of these records, but that the records are necessary to prove plaintiffs experienced suffering. Robert Kelley, an attorney for Lori Alhadeff, herself a member of the school board whose daughter was killed in the shooting, said that the request was out of line and unnecessary.

I personally dont think the records are relevant, Kelley told the Sun-Sentinel. I dont think anyone is going to dispute that these families have suffered mental anguish.

While Kelley said that trauma in these kinds of lawsuits is generally proved via testimony, school board lawyer Eugene Pettis contended that the board had a legal obligation to make sure the trauma could be proved via records.

You always get the records, Pettis said. If there are claims, you get the records to support those claims. Its happened in every such case Ive tried.

The 2018 shooting also caused widespread anger towards the Broward County Sheriffs Department, which was accused of bungling its response to the attack. Four officers were fired after failing to enter the high school upon arrival at the scene. One of those officers, Seargent Brian Miller, was reinstated with back pay in May 2020 even though he hid behind his car for 10 minutes after arriving at the school.

Story continues

The Florida State Senate voted in 2019 to remove Sheriff Scott Israel, the former head of Browards police force, in the wake of the shooting. Governor Ron DeSantis replaced Israel with current Broward sheriff Gregory Tony.

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Jeon Hyun-heui, third from left, chairperson of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, poses with participants in its annual policy roundtable briefing with representatives of foreign chambers and companies in Korea at The Plaza Seoul, Wednesday. The commission has held the briefing to help foreign businesses better understand Korea's anti-corruption policy and to reach out to foreign businesses in Korea. / Yonhap
Main screen Upfront funding for landlords, repaid by their tenants. Tenants still pay monthly, landlords can choose to receive rent for any period.Longer-term rental arrangements, which further benefits both parties.

We all know landlords would like to protect their cash flow and minimise their own risks, which is why they often ask for deposits, insurance and several months of rent upfront. Meanwhile, tenants prefer to pay as they go without any significant funding peaks. The result? Tension between perfectly reasonable landlords and tenants, simply because both parties are seeking to lower their own financial risks.

Wectory is a mobile app that offers landlords several months of prepaid rent in advance, in exchange for a discount. Tenants still pay monthly, but landlords can choose to receive rent for any period of time they fancy (within reason, of course). Want six, 10 or even 12 months rent right now? Wectory will sort it for you.

How it works.

After registering, landlords can decide on the number of months theyd like upfront rent for, then send an invite to their tenants. This invite notifies tenants that they must make the requisite next number of rental payments via the Wectory app and they then pay rent on a monthly basis as they normally would. Following the initial prepaid period, landlords can choose whether to request another prepayment, or whether Wectory simply continues to collect monthly payments from tenants with immediate transfer to landlords accounts, minus a small fee. Its really that simple.

Whats in it for tenants?

The benefits for landlords are clear, but how easy will it be to encourage tenants to use Wectory?

The first and most obvious advantage of using Wectory for renters is the app itself. Tenants can log on to a clear, transparent and user-friendly app, with handy schedules, reminders and reports included. One-touch payment is available, as are automatic recurrent payments, so tenants never need to worry about forgetting to pay rent on time.

But Wectory will also roll out a feature offering renters short-term help if theyre running low on funds. So if a tenant needs to bridge a gap between rental payments, Wectory can step in and transfer the required amount directly to their landlord.

Better relationships.

Wectorys ability to deliver prepaid rent naturally makes landlords happy, while its easy-to-use payment app with the option of lack-of-cash assistance means happy tenants, too.

All of which helps eliminate so many of the tensions that can come to exist between landlords and tenants, and could well lead to longer-term rental arrangements, which further benefits both parties.

Wectory will launch in the UK without fanfare in invite-only mode in early November. This allows the team the time and space to give each individual customer the attention they deserve, rather than focusing on increasing the number of clients. You can request your invite at http://www.wectory.com
Medical staff wearing face masks in Madrid, Spain, where a partial lockdown is in place. (AP)

Europeans are suffering pandemic fatigue from the disruption caused by the spread of coronavirus, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

It said levels of pandemic fatigue had reached more than 60% in some countries.

The WHO said many people across Europe are less motivated about following COVID-19 guidelines after months of uncertainty.

The warning came as the WHO and scientists said face masks are less effective in the rain at halting the spread of coronavirus.

The organisation outlined three calls to action to help the continent get back on track in its battle against coronavirus.

Since the virus arrived in the European region eight months ago, citizens have made huge sacrifices to contain COVID-19, said Dr Hans Henri Kluge, the WHOs regional director for Europe.

It has come at an extraordinary cost, which has exhausted all of us, regardless of where we live, or what we do. In such circumstances it is easy and natural to feel apathetic and demotivated, to experience fatigue.

Watch: Madrid faces new lockdown, Europe cases rise

Dr Kluge said that, based on survey data from countries across Europe, pandemic fatigue is on the increase.

Although fatigue is measured in different ways, and levels vary per country, it is now estimated to have reached over 60% in some cases, he said.

Although we are all weary, I believe it is possible to reinvigorate and revive efforts to tackle the evolving COVID-19 challenges that we face.

He outlined three strategies for nations to get on the front foot in tackling coronavirus.

Firstly, he said policy must be driven by gathering evidence of peoples behaviours and experiences of fatigue, from young people returning to university to the elderly in care homes.

He said the WHO has worked with the 27 EU nations to gather data with a behavioural insights tool that measures pandemic fatigue.

Dr Kluge also cited the example of Hertfordshire in the UK, where health officials are tracking the communitys feelings on coronavirus restrictions through an online platform.

Story continues

The World Health Organization's regional director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri Kluge, said 'pandemic fatigue' has set in across the continent. (Getty Images)

The second call to action involves working with communities to co-create interventions.

He said: It is essential that we respond together and that communities own response policies with authorities.

Consultation, participation and an acknowledgement of the hardships that people are facing are key if we are to have truly effective policies. The community should be considered a resource, as well as a recipient or beneficiary.

Citizens are at the heart of a solution to the pandemic and policy-makers should treat them as such.

The third strategy involves meeting the needs of citizens in new, innovative ways.

He gave examples of floating cinemas and social bubbles as ways in which people can connect with others without breaking social distancing guidelines.

Watch: Paris bars to shut as French capital on max alert

In the UK, Manchester has the highest infection rate, with positive coronavirus tests doubling in one week.

A total of 2,927 new cases were recorded in Manchester in the seven days to October 2  the equivalent of 529.4 cases per 100,000, up from 246.4 in the previous week.

The updated figures followed a technical glitch which meant almost 16,000 positive tests went unreported.

In Spain, two more cities, Leon and Palencia, went into lockdown on Tuesday, following a number of other cities, including Madrid, which are facing some level of restrictions.

The country has had more than 813,000 coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In France, reinforced restrictions forced bars in Paris to close from Tuesday as the COVID-19 alert was raised to its maximum level. France reported more than 12,000 new coronavirus cases on Sunday.

In Germany, four out of 12 districts in Berlin are in the red zone, based on the last seven days new cases, meaning there have been more than 50 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants, as officials consider new restrictions in the capital.

Coronavirus: what happened today

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In the past six months, tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs because of the pandemic, and a large portion are still unemployed.

For those who still have jobs, most companies have successfully made the transition to remote-first work. That begs the question: What does this mean for company culture and employee engagement?

To find out, employee voice and recognition platform Achievers recently released its 2020 Culture Report, which surveyed more than 1,100 employed individuals, from junior contributors to the C-suite, in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia, to uncover how employers have reacted to the crisis and what factors organizations must adopt to continue adapting through the future.

The report found that nearly half (40 percent) of employees do not feel recognized for the work they have done during the pandemic. This could be why, according to Monster, 85 percent of currently employed Americans are still looking for a job amid the uncertainty of the pandemic.

So what can organizations do to make employees feel supported as the pandemic continues to take a toll on workplace culture?

Align decision making with company values

Cultural alignment, or decision making in alignment with company values, has decreased during the pandemic. According to the report, one-third of leaders found their strategic decisions were very aligned with company values pre-pandemic; however, that dropped an alarming 20 percent during Covid-19. The report uncovered a similar drop (23 percent) in alignment for budget decisions during the pandemic.

"The results of this study highlighted the reality that many companies have struggled with maintaining cultural alignment through the pandemic," said Natalie Baumgartner, chief workforce scientist at Achievers. "Without question, leaders have had to make many difficult business decisions over the past six months. Difficult decisions cannot be avoided during a crisis, but ensuring that employees understand how overarching company values have been incorporated during decision making, or acknowledging the lack of alignment and providing context as to why, serves to maintain employee engagement during challenging times. Navigating a clear path to decision making through shared company values allows leaders to create culturally consistent responses and actions that allow employees to feel more supported and better connected to their organization, regardless of the external forces at play."

The silver lining through the past six months is that work flexibility became 20 percent more aligned during the pandemic. The growth allows us to infer that remote and flexible work options have always been aligned with company values, but companies were not implementing them to the extent that employees needed.

Gather honest feedback

During times of crisis, strong leaders will look for ways to understand and address employee concerns. However, companies are not able to implement action plans that address real employee needs unless they truly understand employee concerns and feedback. Achievers' report found that three-quarters (77 percent) of employees would be more honest in a survey than in a conversation with a manager. However, just over one in five (21 percent) companies conduct an engagement survey more than once a year.

Organizations that only engage their employees in surveys once a year or less may be missing an opportunity to uncover how employees are feeling and the concerns that should be addressed within the company. Employee sentiment can change quickly, especially during a crisis, and without understanding where employees feel improvement is needed it's nearly impossible to create solutions that keep them feeling engaged and supported.

Prioritize what employees need most

According to the research, less than a quarter (23 percent) of employees reported feeling very well supported since the beginning of the outbreak. This is particularly true for managers, with less than one in five (19 percent) feeling very supported. When asked what would make employees feel more supported during Covid-19, these are the top three responses employees gave:

Appreciation for their contributions

Better work-life balance

Better support for health and well-being

More than a third (35 percent) of employees want more appreciation for their work. However, this appreciation does not only need to come in the form of manager recognition. The research proved peer-to-peer recognition has a clear tie to engagement. Nearly half (47 percent) of employees who had received peer-to-peer recognition in the previous week felt very engaged. This is compared with 30 percent of employees who had received peer-to-peer recognition in the past month and 17 percent of employees who had received peer-to-peer recognition in the past six months.
The offer received bids for 4.84 crore shares as against 51 lakh shares on offer.

The initial public offer (IPO) of Likhitha Infrastructure received bids for 4.84 crore shares on Wednesday, 7 October 2020, as against 51 lakh shares on offer, as per the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) website data at 17:00 IST. The issue was subscribed 9.51 times.

The issue opened for bidding on 29 September 2020. It was set to close on 1 October 2020. However, due to weak participation from the qualified institutional buyers (QIBs), the IPO was extended till 7 October 2020. The company also revised its price band to Rs 116-120 from Rs 117-120 set earlier.

The public issue comprised a fresh issue of 51 lakh equity shares, representing 25.86% of post issue paid up equity. The company proposes to utilize the IPO proceeds towards meeting the working capital requirements (Rs 47 crore), general corporate purposes and issue expenses.

The company recorded sales of Rs 161.24 crore and profit after tax of Rs 19.88 crore in the year ended on 31 March 2020.

Likhitha Infrastructure (LIL) is an oil & gas pipeline infrastructure service provider in India. Its operations include three principal business lines: (i) cross country pipelines and associated facilities; (ii) city gas distribution including CNG stations; and (iii) operation & maintenance of CNG/PNG services.

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Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday issued directions to allow restaurants to operate 24x7 with necessary safety measures in place and to do away with several licence-related restrictions, including those on service in open spaces such as balconies. The move was in keeping with promises that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) made ahead of assembly polls in February this year.

Currently, restaurants are allowed to operate from 11am to 11pm in the Capital. Those licensed to serve liquor can operate from 11am to 1am. There are roughly 20,000 registered restaurants in the city, of which nearly 650 are licensed to serve alcoholic beverages.

The relaxations initiated by the chief minister include doing away with the health-trade licence, a mandatory requirement for running a restaurant (and one that needs to be renewed periodically), from municipal corporations, and the tourism licence, apart from changes in excise rules to allow restaurants to store liquor anywhere in the premises and review of fire safety norms, especially in old and heritage markets such as Connaught Place and Khan Market, a senior official in the chief ministers office said.

The official said Kejriwal assured the business fraternity that he would soon chair another meeting to discuss the possibility of doing away with a licence that restaurant owners have to avail from the police.

The relaxations announced by the CM are covered under departments and agencies that include the municipal corporations, tourism, excise, fire and the police. Some of these could require a separate approval by the agencies concerned  including the police and the lieutenant governor, which report to the Centre.

Kejriwal announced the measures after a meeting with a delegation of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), which was also attended by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, chief secretary Vijay Dev and commissioners of the three municipal corporations, the official said.

Delhis restaurants are the pride of Delhi and provide employment to lakhs of people. I have directed all the respective departments to remove unnecessary hassles in the smooth running of restaurants in Delhi, said Kejriwal after the meeting, adding that a detailed representation was received from the NRAI to provide relief and ease regulations and the permit raj acting as hurdles in the growth of the industry in the Capital.

In its manifesto for the 2020 assembly elections, the AAP had promised to do away with permit raj in Delhi. During the poll campaign, it mentioned 24x7 markets in Delhi, including both shops and restaurants, in line with a similar decision by the Maharashtra government in January.

Also Read | Indias first Covid-19 wave finally recedes

On the request of restaurateurs to allow 24x7 business, it was agreed that the restaurants will be allowed to operate at all hours subject to the condition that they submit an undertaking that they will take care of the health and security of their entire staff. This will help the industry generate more employment in the national capital through higher demand. This will set an example for the Delhi Model of ease of doing business, the Delhi government said in a press statement.

The official in the chief ministers office said, The law does not prohibit round-the-clock operation of restaurants. There can be policy decisions that have been followed. That can be one reason why Delhi restaurants could never operate 24x7 despite the matter being on the table for several years now. That is going to change.

Another government official added that the police had opposed the 24x7 policy at several points in the past.

The police were opposed because 24x7 restaurants or bars would mean more patrolling and security during the night. The strength of the force was also not enough, which may be the reason for opposition to the plan. There are 24x7 outlets in five-star hotels in Delhi too. In my opinion, we can have round-the-clock restaurants but the plan needs to be carefully worked out. In a place like CP, which is a popular marketplace, having such restaurants wont be a problem but what happens if such a place is located in a residential colony. It cannot be a carte blanche, said former Delhi Police commissioner Neeraj Kumar.

In its statement, the Delhi government said, The CM instructed (on Wednesday) that health-trade licences, which are issued by the municipal corporations to restaurants should be abolished within 10 days.

The official in the CMO said, The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), a body operating under the Union government, already has a protocol for issuing safety and hygiene licences. So, health-trade licences of the MCDs would lead to duplication. Restaurant associations had requested the CMs intervention in this regard. There are other fees and charges which restaurants have to pay to MCDs; those can stay. But the health-trade licence can be done away with.

A spokesperson of the south municipal corporation said they will respond after getting an official communication. We shall examine the matter and respond accordingly. The municipal corporations are legally empowered to grant health-trade licences to eateries and such commercial establishments under sections 417 and 421 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act.

The government statement said: In addition, a decision was also taken to completely do away with licences from the tourism department to open or run a restaurant. Decisions were also taken in todays meeting to immediately amend excise rules to permit service in open areas, balconies, verandahs, etc, without any additional fee, to permit licences for all types of music, including DJs, live music bands, and karaoke, to abolish the requirement of a designated liquor store and to allow the stock to be kept anywhere in the licensed premises.

Excise and tourism departments come under the domain of the Delhi government.

A senior government official said since the police come under the domain of the central government, the CM would need further discussions with the stakeholders before taking any calls on licences and permissions issued by the police. Restaurant owners have urged intervention in this matter. Their argument is that restaurants are a part of the retail sector and no other retail establishment is required to obtain a licence from the police, the official said.

Dinesh Arora, a restaurateur and president of the Delhi restaurants and clubs association, said: Restaurants are not dealing with anything illegal so why do they need a special licence from the police. It never made any sense. Fire safety, food and hygiene-related licences are still understandable. As far as law and order issues are concerned, people in restaurants can always dial 100 like people in any other place in the city. These licence-related relaxations and the freedom to operate 24x7 are a welcome move.

Former commissioner Neeraj Kumar said the formula is followed in cities that follow the commisionerate system. Before granting the licence, officers check the safety plan, which is important during an emergency, he said. Another important aspect they look at is traffic and the parking management plan. It is important to check if the place could be a source of traffic hazard, Kumar said.

Police are the first responders and it is important that they have a look at the place before issuing the licence to operate, he said.

The government statement said, On the request of simplifying fire norms for restaurants situated in old and heritage sites such as CP, Khan Market, etc, it was decided that a technical committee would be constituted, which in 10 days will examine ways to enhance fire safety in such locations, without the need to make structural changes to the existing restaurants. Based on the recommendations of the committee, the CM will decide on the application of uniform fire safety norms in Delhi.

Navneet Kalra, owner of restaurants such as Khan Chacha and Townhall in Khan Market, said: Currently, structural changes are not allowed in heritage buildings. The law should provide room for certain measures which can ensure better compliance to fire safety rules. For instance, in Khan Market there is a proposal for a fire safety corridor. Such structural changes are necessary for ensuring safety. The directions of the chief minister, if implemented in time, can bring big relief to the industry.

Riyaaz Amlani, a restaurateur and member of the National Restaurants Association of India, said: Restaurants are one of the key sectors for employment generation in the city, with lakhs of people employed in the industry. It is currently one of the most overregulated industries, requiring multiple NOCs and duplication of licences. These measures will provide the necessary boost that the industry needs, unleash employment potential and help the tourism industry.
Then-London mayor Boris Johnson waves after speaking to the conference on the third day of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, England, on Oct. 6, 2015. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Johnson Vows to Transform Britain After CCP Virus Pandemic

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is promising increased public spending, reduced taxes and regulation, and fixing the housing market as he paints his vision for a future Britain transformed for the better.

Speaking to virtual audiences at the Conservative Party conference, Johnsons speech on Oct. 6 aimed to boost the morale of the Conservative Party and regain favor from the public. The comments follow a poll that showed Labour leader Keir Starmer overtaking Johnson as the person who would make a better prime minister amid the pandemic, and as Johnsons standing among Conservative Party members has plunged, according to research published Oct. 5 by former Conservative Deputy Chairman Michael Ashcroft.

Johnson said it isnt enough just to go back to normal after the pandemic, which he said can be a trigger for an acceleration of social and economic change.

Using his own experience of contracting COVID-19 as a metaphor, Johnson said the UK, seemingly healthy, has some chronic underlying problems, such as deficits in skills, inadequate infrastructure, and housing shortages.

Public Spending

To address these problems, he promised spending in public services such as hospitals and nurses, scientific research, care homes, policing, wind power, and education, which he said is the bedrock to boost national productivity, and the only way to ensure true resilience and long term prosperity.

Johnson also said his government will change the law to stop the early release of serious sexual and violent offenders.

He pledged to raise spending in schools to 4,000 ($5,150) per head in primary school, and 5,000 ($6,400) per head in secondary school, and to further explore the value of one-to-one teaching, both for pupils who are in danger of falling behind, and for those of exceptional abilities.

For adult education, Johnson said the government is offering every adult four years of funded education, either a training course or a university degree.

Johnson also said the government would upgrade infrastructure such as rail lines, and invest 160 million ($205 million) in manufacturing wind turbines, so that offshore wind will be powering every home in the country by 2030.

Cut Tax, Regulations

Despite the massive public spending Johnson had announced, he said not everything can be funded by Uncle Sugarthe taxpayer as he took a shot at the Labour Party, his main opposition.

Responding to criticism that his government spent the cupboard bare and encroached civil liberty, Johnson said there was simply no reasonable alternative. He said to keep doing what his government did at the beginning of the pandemicpreempting and spending almost half of the UKs national incomewould be disastrous.

Britain must be more competitive in tax and regulation, he said.

We must not draw the wrong economic conclusion from this crisis, Johnson said as he acknowledged the importance of the private sector driven by its rational interest in innovation, competition, market share, and sales.

2 Million New House Owners

England needs 340,000 new homesincluding 145,000 affordable homesuntil 2031, to meet current demand. This includes 90,000 for social rent and 25,000 for shared ownership, according to the National Housing Federation.

Johnson said his government will make it faster and easier to build new homes to ease the stress in the housing market.

He also said his government would need to deliver its campaign promises, giving young first-time buyers the chance to take out a long-term, fixed-rate mortgage of up to 95 percent of the value of the home.

Johnson said he believes his plan would deliver an ambitious result of creating 2 million more owner occupiers, the biggest expansion of homeownership since the 1980s.

Political Correctness

We arent embarrassed to sing old songs about how Britannia rules the waves, Johnson said.

The prime minister was referring to a recent controversy in which the British Broadcasting Corp. planned to omit the words from two patriotic songs at the pomp-laden climax of a traditional classical music festival, a decision the broadcaster later reversed.

Were proud of this countrys culture, and history, and traditions, Johnson said. They literally want to pull statues down, to rewrite the history of our country, to edit our national CV, to make it look more politically correct.

The issue of how Britain deals with the legacy of parts of its history, particularly its role in the transatlantic slave trade and the colonial period, has been hotly debated in recent months in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protest movement.

A statue of a slave trader was torn down by protesters in Bristol in June, while a range of venerable institutions such as Oxford University have grappled publicly with what they should do about controversial objects they own.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Karan Johar & Farah Khan have their own 'Weekend ka Vaar' going on social media with a fashion face-off and it's hilarious
SEOUL, South Korea and LUZERN, Switzerland, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Motor Company today delivered the first seven units of its XCIENT Fuel Cell, the world's first mass-produced fuel cell electric heavy-duty truck, to customers in Switzerland, with a total of 50 hitting the roads there this year. The delivery of XCIENT Fuel Cell marks the official entry of Hyundai's commercial vehicles in the European market, a touchstone for the company's expansion into the North American and Chinese commercial markets.

"The delivery of XCIENT Fuel Cell starts a new chapter not only for Hyundai's hydrogen push, but also the global community's use of hydrogen as a clean energy source," said In Cheol Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of Commercial Vehicle Division at Hyundai Motor. "Today's delivery is just a beginning as it opens endless possibilities for clean mobility. With successful delivery of the first XCIENT Fuel Cell trucks, we proudly announce our plan to expand beyond Europe to North America and China where we are already making great progress."

Production capacity of the XCIENT Fuel Cell will reach 2,000 units per year by 2021 to support its expansion into Europe, the U.S. and China as demand for clean mobility grows. The increase in capacity will be backed by a USD 1.3 billion investment in addition to a previously announced USD 6.4 billion stake in establishing a hydrogen ecosystem to support creation of a hydrogen society.

In the U.S., Hyundai is collaborating with logistics leaders to supply mass-produced fuel cell heavy-duty trucks. Hyundai revealed the fuel cell-powered HDC-6 NEPTUNE Concept Class 8 heavy-duty truck at the North American Commercial Vehicle (NACV) Show in October 2019, hinting at what the future holds and Hyundai's plans for it. To back this plan, Hyundai is partnering with companies to build a complete hydrogen value chain covering everything from hydrogen production and charging stations to service and maintenance. The North American market will also get a 6x4 tractor model. By 2030, Hyundai expects more than 12,000 fuel cell trucks to hit the U.S. roads.

Hyundai also is working with various parties in China, which aims to get 1 million hydrogen vehicles on its roads by 2030 as the country's hydrogen industry is on a sharp growth trend, creating massive potential. Initially, Hyundai will focus on China's four major hydrogen hubs: Jin-jin-ji, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong Province and Sichuan Province. It is currently discussing cooperative initiatives such as a joint venture with local partners.

Three fuel cell electric trucks are scheduled for launch in China: a medium-duty truck in 2022, a heavy-duty truck in in a couple of years, and another heavy-duty truck strategically designed for the China market. With these models, Hyundai's goal is to achieve aggregate sales volume of 27,000 units by 2030.

A key to Hyundai's global expansion of fuel cell trucks will be the successful launch of XCIENT Fuel Cell in Europe. The seven customers who received the first batch of XCIENT Fuel Cell trucks will haul payloads of consumer goods around Switzerland, emitting nothing but clean water. The operations will be backed by a robust green hydrogen ecosystem.

In 2019, Hyundai Motor Company formed Hyundai Hydrogen Mobility (HHM), a joint venture with Swiss company H2 Energy. HHM also is partnering with Hydrospider, a joint venture of H2 Energy, Alpiq and Linde. The customers will be leasing XCIENT Fuel Cell trucks from HHM on a pay-per-use basis that does not require an initial investment. Hyundai will take the success in Switzerland to broader European markets as Hyundai establishes solutions and partner networks in Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and Austria.

As part of its production expansion plan, Hyundai expects to supply 1,600 commercial fuel cell trucks by 2025. Currently, Coop, Migros, Traveco, Galliker Logistics, Camion Transport, F. Murpf AG and G. Leclerc Transport AG along with others have placed orders for XCIENT Fuel Cell. They will be utilizing the trucks to haul everything from food to cars around Europe.

To support the growing hydrogen ecosystem, Hyundai has a business case for more than 100 hydrogen fueling stations in Switzerland, which is enough not only for commercial vehicles, but also passenger fuel cell electric vehicles. Likewise, Hyundai plans to act as a sector coupler in bringing various players to the hydrogen value chain as part of its efforts to bring value.

XCIENT is powered by a 190-kW hydrogen fuel cell system with dual 95-kW fuel cell stacks. Seven large hydrogen tanks offer a combined storage capacity of around 32.09 kg of hydrogen. The driving range per charge for XCIENT Fuel Cell is about 400km*, which was developed with an optimal balance between the specific requirements from the potential commercial fleet customers and the charging infrastructure in Switzerland. Refueling time for each truck takes approximately 8~20 minutes.

Hyundai has been devoting itself to further develop fuel cell technology and establish the supply chain to realize a 'Hydrogen Economy' for a better and cleaner future, an effort receiving worldwide acclaim. Hyundai Motor's Hydrogen Mobility Solution won the Truck Innovation Award at the International Truck of the Year (IToY) last year, and XCIENT FC won the Innovation Award in hydrogen energy and fuel cell technology at the 5th Shanghai Forum held on September this year.

* Driving distance range around 400km in the 4X2 truck with refrigerated upfit configuration while operating 34ton truck + trailer combination

SOURCE Hyundai Motor Company
Former President Mahama is taking his campaign from road to people's homes.

The 2020 campaign spokesperson for the National Democratic Congress James Agyenim Boateng says their flagbearer will embark on a door to door campaign after their campaign launch today.

Just when Mr Mahama finishes his address at the launch, hell move straight into the communities and its going to be felt immediately. Its going to be a door to door campaign, he told Morning Starr host Francis Abban.

The NDC will today launch their campaign for the 2020 polls.

Meanwhile, the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress Johnson Asiedu Nketia will this morning lead a delegation to the Electoral Commission headquarters to file the nomination of former President John Mahama for the 2020 polls.

Mr Mahama on Tuesday stated on Facebook that he has already endorsed the relevant portions of the forms to be submitted on his behalf.

President Akufo-Addo has submitted his nomination to contest on the ticket of the ruling New Patriotic Party.

Submitting the forms, the President urged the EC to conduct free and fair polls.

I am not interested in any crooked results. I dont want to be President elected by deceit. I look forward to a contest that will be fairly conducted. So that if indeed by the grace of the Almighty, I am again the choice of the Ghanaian people, it will be one that was freely and openly demonstrated.

---with files from starrfmonline
Reading, PA (19601)

Today

Not as cold with limited sunshine. A flurry or snow shower late in the day can't entirely be ruled out, mainly north and west of the Lehigh Valley..

Tonight

A passing snow shower or flurry possible early; otherwise, clouds initially will give way to clearing late.
In bad news, some airlines are eliminating service to smaller cities. American, for instance, is ending service to 15 cities, including Dubuque, Iowa, and Roswell, N.M., leaving some of these markets without direct air service, which will hurt them economically. In other places, carriers are reducing flights rather than eliminating the routes.

In good news, the passenger pecking order has flipped. Airlines have traditionally catered to corporate passengers who fly often, pay higher average fares and benefit most from frequent flier programs. Those suits are now trapped in videoconferences, wishing they were in business class, going somewhere, anywhere.

Winning over leisure travelers, who have long been treated like revenue extraction objects, has become a quarterly goal and one reason some carriers have dropped those infuriating change fees. (Maybe checked luggage fees will follow.) The carriers have also granted status extensions in their frequent flier programs and removed award travel fees.

We now think about a customer as a customer, not as a series of transactions, said Vasu Raja, Americans chief revenue officer, in a recent presentation. (Well, thanks, Mr. Raja. I feel less like baggage already.) The shift to leisure customers also means more flights to vacation spots this winter. Jet Blue, for instance, added six new routes to the Caribbean. American just added Indianapolis to Cancun, Mexico.

None of this will matter if consumers continue to lack confidence in their safety and governments continue to erect a barrage of ever-changing quarantine screens. The World Economic Forum, in conjunction with The Commons Project, a nonprofit, has proposed a Covid-19 passport of sorts called CommonPass  a shared global framework to allow individuals to document their COVID-19 status electronically and present it when they board a plane or cross a border.

Heathrow Airport has begun a trial with several airlines. The initial goal is to create a Covid-tested corridor between London and New York to revive international travel. Thats no small challenge, since London-New York is the busiest air corridor on the planet. Speaking on a webcast for Travel Weekly, Heathrows chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, explained, If we cant make it work on that route, were not going to be able to make it work.

In the United States, where airlines struggled to get all passengers to wear masks, a mandatory preflight test might create more conflict, or even a disincentive for some. And the Federal Aviation Administration, which typically does everything it can to steer clear of controversy, is unlikely to push for a mandate.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Facebook (FB) is rolling out new features and services to its Portal devices, including support for Netflix and Zoom. Portal TV already offers a range of video streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video, SHOWTIME and SLING TV. And from now, subscribers can watch their favorite shows and movies on Netflix with Portal TV. A Netflix streaming subscription is required, the company said. Facebook also launched a new remote that features one-touch buttons for Prime Video, Facebook Watch and Netflix. The remote with Portal TV is now available at portal.facebook.com and will be in stores in the coming weeks. Facebook claims Zoom on Portal will help users get more from their meetings. Featuring high-fidelity sound and an AI-powered Smart Camera for hands-free video calling, Zoom on Portal can connect up to 25 people on a screen. Zoom on Portal is now available on Portal Mini, Portal and Portal+ in all regions where Portal is sold. At Facebook Connect, the company announced expansion of the Story Time library with a collection of stories that reflect and celebrate the diverse families that use Portal. 'The new stories are Thank You, Omu!, A Kids Book About Belonging, and Grandma's Purse. We're also bringing AR magic to four beloved Dr. Seuss classics: Hop on Pop, Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?, The Foot Book, and There's a Wocket in my Pocket! These stories will roll out on Portal this fall.' Also, Facebook added update to AR Effects in Photo Booth. Users will be able to control AR effects in Photo Booth using their voice with 'Hey Portal' command to create and send fun themed cards. One can also take photos and videos with AR effects to share with friends and family via Messenger. Currently, 'Hey Portal' voice control is available in Spanish (US) in addition to English, with more languages coming in the future. On-screen text on Portal can be displayed in French, Spanish, Italian and English. 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 family of an 81-year-old man, who was a supporter of Donald Trump, says their loved one contracted COVID-19 and died last week after refusing to wear a mask because the president downplayed the virus.

Stephanie Landaverde, 24, told the Boston Globe that her grandfather, Juan Ciprian, wasn't as cautious as he should have been while out and about in Massachusetts.

Landaverde said her grandfather, who died of COVID-19 last week, was a Trump supporter and refused to wear a mask.

She told the Globe that Ciprian was the only member of her family who didn't take their concerns seriously.

Scroll down for video

The family of Juan Ciprian (pictured) 81, of Massachusetts, says their loved one didn't wear a mask because the president downplayed the virus. Ciprian died last week from COVID-19

'He was the only one that wasn't complying. He was hearing all these conspiracy theories, and saying Trump said this or that,' she said. 'He didn't believe it was a real thing.'

Ciprian, who was described as not having any ailments, started experiencing COVID-10 symptoms on September 20. He was taken to a local hospital three days later.

Ciprian died from COVID-19 on September 29, according to his family. The 81-year-old's wife was also diagnosed with the virus and was hospitalized before being transferred to a rehabilitation home where she is still seeking treatment.

It was only a matter of time before Landaverde's parents caught the virus. Landaverde's grandparents live with her parents who were also hospitalized due to the virus.

Landaverde shared a message from her mother, Maria, with the Globe that reads: 'We, all the people who have been affected by COVID-19, lost their jobs, got sick, or even died from it, deserve to be heard. My heart is with President Trump and wish him the best but the country needs him to stop playing politics and remember we are people.'

In total, seven people in Landaverde's family were diagnosed with the virus, leading them to believe they contracted it from her grandfather.

Just a day after the family received Ciprian's ashes, they learned that Trump also had the virus.

Landaverde said the president's diagnosis devastated the family and 'brought some anger into our hearts'.

Trump takes off his mask as he arrives at the White House on Monday

Trump announced his diagnosis just days after the first presidential debate last week.

He spent three nights at the Walter Reed medical center in Bethesda, Maryland, before returning to the White House on Monday.

Trump staged a dramatic return to the White House after leaving the military hospital where he was receiving an unprecedented level of care for COVID-19.

He immediately ignited a new controversy by declaring that despite his illness the nation should not fear the virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans  and then he entered the White House without a protective mask.

'Don't let it dominate you. Don't be afraid of it,' Trump said in a video after his return from the Walter Reed Medical Center military hospital outside Washington where he was treated for COVID-19.

'I'm better, and maybe I'm immune - I don't know,' he added, flanked by American flags and with the Washington Monument in the background. 'Get out there. Be careful.'

Trump's message alarmed infectious disease experts and suggested the president's own illness had not caused him to rethink his often-cavalier attitude toward the disease, which has also infected the first lady and several White House aides, including new cases revealed Monday.

Landing at the White House on Marine One, Trump gingerly climbed the South Portico steps, removed his mask and declared: 'I feel good.'

He gave a double thumbs-up to the departing helicopter from the portico terrace, where aides had arranged American flags for the sunset occasion. He entered the White House, where aides were visible milling about the Blue Room, without wearing a face covering.

The president left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where his doctor, Navy Cmdr Sean Conley, said earlier Monday that the president remains contagious and would not be fully 'out of the woods' for another week but that Trump had met or exceeded standards for discharge from the hospital.

Trump is expected to continue his recovery at the White House, where the reach of the outbreak that has infected the highest levels of the US government is still being uncovered.

Still, just a month before the election and anxious to project strength, Trump tweeted before leaving the hospital: 'Will be back on the Campaign Trail soon!!!' And in case anyone missed his don't-worry message earlier, he rushed out a new video from the White House.

'You're going to beat it. We have the best medical equipment, we have the best medicines,' Trump said.

His remarks were strong, but he was taking deeper breaths than usual as he delivered them.

Trump's nonchalant message about not fearing the virus comes as his own administration has encouraged Americans to be very careful and take precautions to avoid contracting and spreading the disease as cases continue to spike across the country.

For more than eight months, Trump's efforts to play down the threat of the virus in hopes of propping up the economy ahead of the election have drawn bipartisan criticism.

'We have to be realistic in this: COVID is a complete threat to the American population,' Dr David Nace of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said of Trump's comment.
Mumbai, Oct 7 : Music composer Tanishk Bagchi is currently being lauded for his background score for the recently released teaser of the Akshay Kumar-starrer BellBottom.

Sharing his experience of working in the movie, Tanishk said: "Films that are set in the eighties uses a certain distinct sound with a lot of disco influence to it. But the background score of 'BellBottom' has a new age and international sound to it. It, being a retro film, I had to use a bass sound that belongs to that particular era. I have also incorporated musical elements from the South." Zara Khan has lent her vocals to the background music and the music has been supervised by Azeem Dayani.

"I composed it while I was homebound during the lockdown and it made for a rather unique experience. I am very happy with the positive response that the retro-themed music has been receiving," Tanishk added.

Speaking of 'BellBottom,' the film is a spy thriller. Ranjit M. Tewari has directed the project, which also stars Vaani Kapoor, Huma Qureshi and Lara Dutta.
Authorities in Addis Ababa on Monday shut down a part of the country's airspace in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, where the massive Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is being built.

Officials cited security reasons behind the closure of that region's airspace amid unresolved issues between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt on the use of the waters of the Nile and dam itself.

"The ban was imposed after consultations with the Air Force and other relevant government and security bodies," Wosenyeleh Hunegnaw, the Director- General of the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority, told the media.

As a result, he said, commercial or passenger flights, or any other types of flights, will not be allowed to fly through the area near the vicinity of the dam.

"Such restrictions are common in the international arena to ensure a country's security," the director-general said.

"Ethiopia has also imposed the restrictions to ensure the safety of the dam," he said.

However, he said that those with a special permit may be allowed to fly in the restricted airspace.

In an interview with the state-run Ethiopian News Agency, Ethiopian Air Force Commander Brigadier-General Yilma Merdasa, said the country's air force is fully prepared to prevent any enemy attacks targeting the Nile dam.

The air force is armed with fighter and patrol jets that can stay on air for more than four hours to defend any enemy actions, he said.

"The Ethiopian Air Force is providing a 24-hour air surveillance of the country's airspace and particularly for the Renaissance Dam."

"Any threat of an air strike against GERD is not a concern for Ethiopia," the military official said, citing the country's current air defence capabilities.

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It is not clear why the country would want to impose air space restrictions for the purpose of the dam's security if any potential air strike is not a concern at all.

The latest development comes two months after the Horn of Africa's nation filled the GERD reservoir in defiance of Sudan's and Egypt's warning not to fill the dam before a final deal is reached.

Khartoum and Cairo fear that Ethiopia's $4.8 billion mega dam project will eventually diminish their water share from the River Nile.

Addis Ababa, however, argues that its dam project, which will be Africa's largest, won't have any significant harm on the two countries.

Ethiopia further argues that the hydroelectric power plant project, being built some 30 km from the Sudanese border, will ease the severity of deadly flooding in Sudan.

The Africa Union (AU) brokered the last round of talks between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt which ended in August without any major breakthrough.

The three parties are yet to negotiate on the most outstanding issues -- rules for filling, particularly during drought season, and on the annual operation of the GERD.
Bold Penguin has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire RiskGenius, an insurance document-intelligence software firm. The acquisition will add RiskGeniuss data and analytics products and its team to Bold Penguins existing SaaS platform. This marks Bold Penguins second insurtech acquisition this year; the company acquired multi-quote platform xagent in January.

Bold Penguin is obsessed with reducing the time it takes to quote and bind commercial insurance, said Bold Penguin founder and CEO Ilya Bodner. Adding RiskGenius allows us to supercharge our data-analysis efforts. Their policy-level data approach helps our exchange grow and ultimately has a significant impact in the quoting process for our customers.
A travel writer has uncovered the 'world's best scones' in an unlikely coastal town on Australia's east coast, saying they are far better than anything she has ever had in the UK.

Andrea Black visited Ricardoes Tomatoes in Blackmans Point, 10 minutes north of Port Macquarie on the New South Wales coast, to pick up some fruit but was immediately sidetracked by the on-site cafe, Red.

'Can a scone melt in your mouth? Can a scone be light as a billowing cloud yet exude buttery tastiness? Can a scone be so delicious that days later you're planning a two-hour return trip to said farm for more? Yes, yes and yes,' she wrote for Escape.

Andrea Black visited Ricardoes Tomatoes in Blackmans Point to pick up some fruit but was immediately sidetracked by the on-site cafe, Red, and its scones (pictured)

The fresh scones come with a dollop of strawberry jam and cream on the side

The fresh scones come with a dollop of strawberry jam and cream on the side.

Scones are believed to have originated in Scotland in the early 1500s.

The most basic recipe is made using self-raising flour, cold butter and cold milk although there are a number of additions bakers use to perfect the fluffy texture.

'I don't claim to be a scone expert but have been a long-time fan. I've tasted scones at various morning and afternoon teas in England, sampled some of the best Scottish scones at my granny's home near Edinburgh, and afterwards saluted the statue of poet, Robert Burns in Leith who once wrote that scones were "the wale of food" - wale meaning simply "the best,"' Andrea said.

According to Webster's Dictionary, scones originated in Scotland in the early 1500s

'There is nothing as good as their scones anywhere,' one man wrote on social media

And she's not the only customer who visited Ricardoes Tomatoes for a taste of their legendary scones.

'There is nothing as good as their scones anywhere,' one man wrote on social media.

'Would you please share the recipe? International air travel out of Boston is a bit tough right now. Hope to visit when the pandemic is over,' said another.

A third added: 'Those scones are to die for!'

In a post on Instagram the famous fruit sellers said that the scone recipe was created by their 'Grandma Bertha' and it's not a secret they're willing to share

In a post on Instagram the famous fruit sellers said that the scone recipe was created by their 'Grandma Bertha' and it's not a secret they're willing to share.

'I bought jars of jam and another takeaway scone to enjoy fireside at the nearby Telegraph Retreat Cottages. I was so blown away by the experience I forgot to buy the tomatoes. Next time,' Andrea said.

Travellers can also pick their own strawberries to take home and sample the Sarks brothers' famous tomatoes.
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One in five Northern Ireland firms have concerns about being able to pay back crucial Government loans aimed at getting them through lockdown and the coronavirus crisis, a survey has shown.

And around 43% of firms quizzed said they had seen little to no signs of improvement over the last quarter, according to the latest survey from the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, along with professional services business BDO.

While there are some signs of improvement from quarter two, Northern Ireland remains one of the poorest performing UK regions, according to the latest findings.

Around half of members replying to the survey said they already have, or plan to, reduce staff.

And on Brexit, just 39% are currently making preparations, with many citing Covid-19 as having negatively impacted on their preparedness.

Just 7% believe they understand what will happen with trading arrangements to and from the rest of UK, after the end of Brexit transition period at the start of 2021.

Around 80% of those surveyed think a grace period of 12 months or more is needed after transition in order to allow for preparation and modification of processes before any changes take legal effect in terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Previous findings told us that Northern Irelands economy entered the Covid-19 crisis in an already fragile state, Ann McGregor, NI Chamber chief executive, said.

This report confirms that while many indicators have improved when compared to quarter two they remain negative, which tells us that business conditions among many local businesses continue to worsen.

Brian Murphy, managing partner, BDO NI, said: We cannot avoid the fact that every economic indicator is down from last year, with Covid-19 impacting many sectors in a way we have never seen before.
Nicolas Cage was joined by Pedro Pascal as he continued to shoot scenes for his new movie The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent in Croatia on Wednesday.

The actor, 56, who plays himself in the upcoming flick, could be seen getting behind the wheel of an open-top silver Porsche as his co-star sat beside him during filming.

Narcos star Pedro, 45, appeared to be passed out or sleeping in the passenger seat as he sat beside Nicolas while speeding through the streets of Dubrovnik.

Production: Nicolas Cage, right, was joined by Pedro Pascal, left, as he continued to shoot scenes for his new movie The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent in Croatia on Wednesday

In line with COVID-19 safety precautions, crew members were seen donning protective face masks as they hovered over the actors with umbrellas amid the rain.

Hollywood actor Nicolas cut a casual figure for his time before cameras, donning a short-sleeved striped shirt, while Pedro was seen wearing a brown shirt.

During filming on Monday, Pedro could be seen brandishing a gun which he held up in the air as Nicolas covered his ears to mask the sound of the gun shot.

Hot wheels: The actor, 56, who plays himself in the upcoming flick, could be seen getting behind the wheel of an open-top silver Porsche as his co-star sat beside him during filming

Asleep? Narcos star Pedro, 45, appeared to be passed out or sleeping in the passenger seat as he sat beside Nicolas while speeding through the streets of Dubrovnik

Suited and booted: Men were seen on the set wearing matching khaki-coloured beige suits

Lighting equipment could be seen nearby while crew members were on hand with sound equipment for the shoot.

The film, penned by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, finds a downcast Nicolas yearning for a lead role in a Quentin Tarantino film as well as reconciliation for a bruised relationship with his teenage daughter.

The actor also has a back-and-forth with a haughty 1990s persona of himself who chides him for a lacklustre list of recent credits and for letting his star burn out.

Also bridled with surmounting debt, Nicolas' character is pushed to appear at the birthday party of a Mexican billionaire who is also a fan of his work and wants to share a script he wrote with him.

Storyline: The film, penned by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, finds a downcast Nicolas yearning for a lead role in a Quentin Tarantino film

Downpour: In line with COVID-19 safety precautions, crew members were seen donning protective face masks as they hovered over the actors with umbrellas amid the rain

Lacklustre: In the film, the actor also has a back-and-forth with a haughty 1990s persona of himself who chides him for a lacklustre list of recent credits and for letting his star burn out

After spending time with the man, the CIA informs Cage that the billionaire is in reality a drug cartel kingpin who has kidnapped the daughter of a Mexican presidential nominee.

The US government then recruits him to gather intelligence on the kingpin.

This leads to a series of events including one in which the criminal brings over the actor's daughter and his ex-wife for a reconciliation - leading Nicolas to fight tooth and nail for their lives.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent will include references to the star's past films including Leaving Las Vegas, Face-Off and Gone in 60 Seconds.

Rain, rain go away: The weather appeared to prove problematic as cameras rolled on the day

Fan: In the film, Nicolas' character is pushed to appear at the birthday party of a Mexican billionaire who is also a fan of his work and wants to share a script he wrote with him

Cartel: After spending time with the man, the CIA informs Cage that the billionaire is in reality a drug cartel kingpin who has kidnapped the daughter of a Mexican presidential nominee

It will also bear a tone similar to that of his film Adaptation, Jean-Claude Van Damme's meta movie JCVD and John Travolta's Get Shorty.

Nicolas serves as a producer alongside Kevin Turen, who produced the recently released drama Waves as well as HBO's Euphoria.

According to sources via The Hollywood Reporter, the film's script was presented to Nicolas as a 'love letter' to him as opposed to a parody, making the actor enamoured with the idea.

The publication also reports that interest in the project was so high that Nicolas will likely be compensated at the level he was for his blockbusters like Con Air and National Treasure.

Producer: Nicolas serves as a producer alongside Kevin Turen, who produced the recently released drama Waves as well as HBO's Euphoria
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- State officials have told Cuyahoga County elections officials that they still cant proceed with their plan to set up ballot collection sites at county libraries, saying a federal judge in a written order incorrectly described a policy set by Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Dan Polster dismissed a lawsuit from voter rights' advocates who sought an expansion of ballot drop box sites in Ohio. His rationale was that LaRose had issued a written directive to county elections officials that said staffed, off-site ballot collection sites like the ones Cuyahoga County had planned were allowed, making the issue moot.

But thats not what LaRoses guidance actually said, Bridget Coontz, an assistant Ohio attorney general, said in a Wednesday email to a Cuyahoga County attorney.

"Contrary to the Courts statement in its Order, the Secretarys recent Directive ... did not authorize the portion of the Cuyahoga County Boards Plan to receive ballots at six public libraries, nor did the Directive authorize any other board in Ohio that votes to do so [to] deploy its staff to receive ballots off-site, Coontz wrote in her email, a copy of which was obtained by cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

As was widely reported in media outlets throughout Ohio, [LaRoses directive] informed all county boards of election that they, too, may have staffed, bipartisan teams outside their board offices for voters to deliver their absentee ballots to the director. [The directive] simply cannot be read any other way, she wrote.

But with the case closed, county boards of election should move forward by following LaRoses guidance, Coontz said, which limits ballot drop boxes or staffed ballot drop off locations to one site per county -- the property of each county board of elections headquarters.

Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Director Anthony Perlatti said elections workers are focusing on setting up a ballot collection site near the BOE headquarters. It will be ready on Tuesday, he said.

Were trying to get some final guidance," from the state, he said But no matter what, well be ready.

A LaRose spokeswoman said Tuesday that Ohioans are ready to move past lawsuits and begin voting early.

Polster was ruling on a lawsuit filed by voting-rights advocates, including the A. Philip Randolph Institute, which challenged an Aug. 11 directive from LaRose that required local elections offices to set up a secure drop box at their county elections office, but prohibited them from setting them up anywhere else. The Ohio Democratic Party filed a similar lawsuit in state courts.

A Franklin County judge and a state appellate court each ruled that LaRose could allow multiple drop box sites if he wanted. But the appellate court said LaRose didnt have to require them, overturning the Franklin County judges order that said LaRose did.

Cuyahoga County and other counties in recent years have offered a secure drop box where voters can drop off completed absentee ballots. But the state required drop boxes for the first time for the primary election earlier this year, and LaRose extended that requirement, although he limited it to one per county, saying more would be illegal under his understanding of state law.

Ballot drop protocols are among the hot-button issues in litigation for this years election, with Republicans generally pushing to limit them and Democrats pushing to expand them. Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic former Vice President Joe Bidens campaigns have been fighting in court over other elections procedures as states move to expand early voting in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

Early voting began in Ohio on Tuesday, with county boards of election opening to in-person voting and absentee ballots going out in the mail to more than 2 million voters who requested them.

Polster wrote in his order that he fervently hopes that now that voting has begun, the litigation over drop boxes and off-site ballot collection will come to an end.
LANSING, MI - Invasive pelvic exams on unconscious or anesthetized patients would require prior informed consent, according to a pair of Michigan bills.

House Bill 4958, sponsored by State Rep. Pamela Hornberger, R-Chesterfield Twp., would block health staff in training from having to perform a pelvic exam to earn a license, except in certain circumstances.

Senate Bill 1081, sponsored by Sen. Paul Wojno, D-Warren, would define invasive bodily examinations as contact with a pelvis or penetration of a vagina, rectum or prostate.

Both bills are headed to the Michigan Senate floor for a vote. Hornbergers bill was passed 108-0 on Nov. 5, 2019 and is now linked to Wojnos, which was introduced on Sep. 2 of this year. Both bills were approved by the Senate Health Policy and Human Services Committee in a Thursday, Oct. 7 hearing.

Wojno defended the bills in the committee on Oct. 1, saying the they would be in line with public health guidance that requires explicit consent prior to invasive examinations.

Im sure there have been times that someone has the feeling going through some sort of testing like this that they would have felt more comfortable granting permission beforehand, he said. God forbid, I cant imagine someone thats anesthetized, not giving consent, and they found some student or resident with their doctor performing an exam on them.

Invasive pelvic exams became a hot-button issue in Michigan in 2018 after the details emerged from the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal towards gymnasts for Michigan State and the U.S. Olympic team. However, the conversation on unconscious patient exams and consent stemmed from a 2018 paper by Phoebe Friesen, a professor of biomedical ethics at McGill University.

Friesen called the invasive practice immoral and indefensible without prior informed consent. The Association of American Medical Colleges calls invasive exams a necessary skill for doctors specializing in womens care, but stated that students performing the procedure need explicit consent" by the patient.

The two bills outline only a few circumstances where a student could perform an invasive exam on an unconscious or anesthetized patient. They are if:

The patient, guardian or authorized representative of the patient provided written consent prior to the exam.

The exam was necessary for preventative, diagnostic or treatment purposes.

The exam was necessary to ascertain a diagnosis or provide treatment, even if a patient was unconscious.

A court has ordered an exam to collect evidence.

The bills would align Michigan with other states who have set similar guidelines for invasive exams, such as Maryland, New York and Utah, said Wojno.

Eight states have already introduced legislation on this issue requiring explicit consent for examinations, he said on Oct. 1. Virginia, California, Hawaii and Iowa have all introduced legislation that is currently pending. I believe we had introduced a comprehensive package.

It is unclear when the two bills will receive a Senate floor vote. In the wake of the Michigan Supreme Courts revocation of Gov. Gretchen Whitmers COVID-19 emergency powers, the Senate agenda for Thursday, Oct. 8 is focused on COVID-19 protection and guidance legislation.

Read more:

Bipartisan bills aiming to boost child literacy introduced in Michigan Senate

Lawmakers now have more say in Michigans coronavirus response. Can they find common ground with Whitmer?

Unemployment could become a mess in Michigan without executive orders

As Gov. Whitmers coronavirus orders fizzle, health departments across Michigan consider their own

Michigan health department issues order requiring masks, limiting gathering sizes statewide

Read the full order that DHHS is using to replace 40+ Whitmer rules
Ghislaine Maxwell has hired a New York-based lawyer who previously represented one of Osama bin Laden's henchmen, as she seeks to bolster her team ahead of her sex trafficking trial next year.

Bobbi Sternheim is described on the website of her law firm, Fasulo Braverman & Di Maggio, as a 'recognized leader' in 'litigating difficult and complex cases'.

They say she holds Top Secret/SCI Clearance and has tried international organized crime and racketeering conspiracies, international terrorism offenses, international telemarketing fraud, capital murder, and interstate transport of pornographic media.

Bobbi Sternheim has been hired by Ghislaine Maxwell to help her defense in next year's trial

Sternheim has made a name for herself representing a series of Al Qaida terrorists

Among her most famous clients is Khaled al-Fawwaz, described by prosecutors as 'a top al-Qaida terrorist'.

She represented him during his 2015 trial on charges of conspiracy resulting in twin embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, which killed 224 people.

Manhattan prosecutors said that al-Fawwaz 'worked for years, directly and personally for Osama bin Laden. ... The defendant helped Osama bin Laden declare his bloody war on Americans.'

Al-Fawwaz was sentenced to life in prison.

Maxwell, pictured with her late pedophile ex Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested this summer

Maxwell, seen in July during her videoconference arraignment, is being held in jail

Charges against Maxwell were unsealed on July 2 by New York prosecutors

Sternheim, the former head of New York Women's Bar Association, also took on another high profile case involving a Vietnamese man who U.S. authorities say was instructed by a top figure with al Qaedas Yemen affiliate to carry out a suicide attack at Londons Heathrow Airport.

Minh Quang Pham, 33, was sentenced by a Manhattan judge to 40 years in March 2016, after pleading guilty to charges he provided material support to al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Pham, a graphic artist who left behind a pregnant wife in Britain to travel to Yemen in 2010, admitted he helped prepare the Islamist militant groups online propaganda magazine, Inspire, and received military-type training.

Prosecutors said Pham was trained on how to carry out the suicide attack on Heathrow by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric who became a leader in the group. Al-Awlaki was killed in a September 2011 U.S. drone attack.

Maxwell, 58, is currently in jail awaiting trial on grooming and abuse charges, which she denies, after being arrested in the US in July.

Papers filed at New York's Southern District Court, obtained by The Daily Mirror, said Sternheim 'hereby appears as counsel for defendant Ghislaine Maxwell'.
Boeing is lowering its expectations around demand for new planes over the next decade as the coronavirus pandemic continues to undercut air travel.

The company on Tuesday predicted that the world will need 18,350 new commercial airplanes in the next decade, a drop of 11% from its 2019 forecast. The value of that market will slide by about $200 billion from last year's forecast, to $2.9 trillion.

Boeing Co. largely stuck to its rosy forecast for long-term demand, predicting that increasing air travel in Asia will help create a market for more than 43,000 planes over the next 20 years, down about 1,000 from its 2019 outlook. The long-term optimism is based on history, including aviation's eventual recovery after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and other crises, said the company's vice president of commercial marketing, Darren Hulst.

Chicago-based Boeing, which along with Europe's Airbus dominates the aircraft-building industry, has seen orders and deliveries of new planes crumble this year. Boeing was already under pressure from the grounding last year of its best-selling plane, the 737 Max, after two deadly crashes.
The Governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum, on Tuesday, listed some actions he believes the army can take to win the Boko Haram war.

The governor who was a special guest of honour at the 2020 joint Chief of Army Staff Conference held in Maiduguri, Borno State, said the Nigeria Army being the flagship of the nation's military, has all it takes to win the war, only if it can review its fighting strategy.

While commending the military for what he said was the recent improvement in troops' fighting spirit against the insurgents, the governor said the war could be ended in no time if the military especially the Nigeria Army can "change the war narratives."

He said it is appropriate to commend the army when it has done well "and we must also have the courage to tell each other the common truth and be critical of the troops' operations when things go wrong."

He said his administration will not relent in giving the soldiers all the needed support to win the war.

"As part of the ten-point agenda of this administration ... , the Borno state government shall sustain its role as a stakeholder in supporting the activities of the Nigerian army, through the provision of all the needed support and morale-boosting mechanism to all the security agencies to end the fight against Boko Haram crisis."

"In this direction, I wish to ask the Nigeria army to change the war narratives all together in order to end the crisis.

"Attack, they say, is the best form of defence. The Nigerian Army must have to take the war to all the hideouts of the Boko Haram.

"You should not wait and give the terrorists an opportunity for the first attack. You should as a matter of policy, embark on critical clearance operation after successful execution of attacks."

He added that the army is finding it difficult to get the buy-in of the local populace, as partners in the counterinsurgency, because it has failed in the area of confidence-building.

"The Nigerian Army must also embark on confidence-building and confidence sharing mechanism with the communities and civil authorities they found themselves, so as to expose the terrorists, their collaborates and sponsors," he said.

Governor Zulum also called on the chief of army staff to look at the issue of competence while deploying officers to command strategic military units, an area he said was not well explored.

He said the army authority should not emphasise loyalty of soldiers as criteria for postings to military commands.

"Sir, in appraising the performance of the Nigerian Army, there is a need to look at the critical issues of competence, dedication and doggedness of officers and men of the Nigerian armed forces.

"Let me re-emphasise the need for having competent and dedicated officers to head the military commands; because from my little observation, it is noted that all the locations headed by competent and dedicated officers hardly fall into the hands of the insurgents. Therefore we have to weigh the importance of loyalty and competence, which is very important."

Governor Zulum also mourned the death of Colonel Dahiru Bako, who died two weeks ago in an ambush by Boko Haram in Borno State.

He said the death of such gallant officers and soldiers was "a set back" in the fight against the insurgency.

Earlier, the army chief, Tukur Buratai, commended Nigerian troops for their sacrifices in the service of the nation.

The army chief had also commended the president and commander in chief, Muhammadu Buhari, for the support being given to the army. He equally thanked the government of Borno State for partnering with the army in most of its operations.

He said though the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the Nigerian army's focus of events for 2020, the army has been able to secure a new allowance.

He said the army has been able to procure and deploy PPEs to various formations to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the army has taken delivery of newly procured war equipment which officers and soldiers are being trained on how to handle.

He said the army had also been able to locally fabricate some of the military equipment that has been deployed in the front lines, even as he called on all commands to ensure judicious use of all the equipment in a manner that justifies the investment of the federal government.

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The army chief commended the conduct of soldiers during the Edo election even as he urged them to sustain that standard in the Ondo State governorship election holding on Saturday.

He said the Nigeria Army has rolled out plans to provide free housing programme for families of all soldiers that have been killed in action while prosecuting the war against Boko Haram.

The Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria has caused the death of thousands of people and displaced millions of others, mainly in Borno State.

The efforts of the Nigerian military and other security agencies have, since 2016, limited the insurgents to the three Northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.

However, the insurgents are still able to carry out attacks on civilians and security agencies in those three states.
Wednesday, October 7, 2020 at 8:59AM

Source: Netflix

Netflix wants you to keep subscribing with a new tab it's introducing to its TV app. The new "Worth the Wait" row will show you content coming to the streaming service over at least the next 15 days and up to 365 days. Like the "Coming Soon" row, you can set reminders for the show or movie that catches your eye. The Coming Soon section shows content coming in the next week or two.

The addition of this new section might be Netflix's attempt to convince subscribers to keep their accounts, even if they aren't watching too many shows or movies at the moment. It's a way to let them know what's in the works and what you can look forward to. Perhaps it might keep you around even if Netflix increases its price. The new section is coming to the TV app first, but Netflix plans to test it out on the web later this year.

Source: Engadget
On paper, the federal republic of Nigeria is rated globally as one place whereby virtually its entire populace engage in one religion or the other with about the clear majority of the nearly 200m population identifying themselves as either Christians, Moslems or adherents of African traditional religions.

Of all these religious divides , there is however a nexus which links them together and this is the common belief in a common creator known as God and of course, these religions have ideologically ruled dishonesty as a fundamental vice that their members are asked to shun as a matter of practice.

Readers may be imagining the rationale for advancing religious arguments primarily in a piece that is set out to reflect on one of the most impactful physical infrastructures of the nation Nigeria in the 21th century especially because this singular project has lasted nearly 20yrs since inception but yet there is no end in sight for its completion.- the 2nd River Niger bridge.

The reason of course is that the writer is bewildered and astounded that a country that is known as one place whereby the clear majority of the human beings populating the geographical space are worshippers of God belonging to one theistic group or the other, it is expected that these persons must at all times elevate honesty as cardinal principle of politics.

This is because, the same people who identify themselves as adherents of the organised religions are the same persons holding political offices. But appearance is far different from reality when politicians of the Nigerian species are involved. The politicians tend to distance themselves from the centrality of honesty as ideologically brainwashed by their distinctive religions, but adopts the attitude of telling lies as a modus operandi and modus vivendi in politics.

A mystery amongst international scholars is the empirical evidence showing that Nigerians being some of the most well known religious adherents, are also some of the most depraved and unprincipled minds when politics is involved. Nigerian politicians tell lies to their commoners effortlessly even when Uthman Danfodio one of the most respected fathers of one of the dominant religions stated rightly that: " Conscience is an open wound which only truth can heal". Reverend Father George Ehusanmi, a former Secretary General of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria once stated that: "As a nation, we are abundantly blessed by the Creator in both human and material terms. Yet, despite our blessings, the truth is that we so shamefully and sekf consciously crippled in development because we will not face up to the realities on the ground. The truth of Nigeria is that we have been going around in circles in the cesspit of greed and selfish interests, in our tribal and clannish cocoons, and in fiery allegiance to our ethnic Cleavages". This self evident truth is exactly why the South East of Nigeria that has consistently being politically marginalised and has necer produced an executive President since 1960, is also marginalised in the distribution of national infrastructures and economic assets by the Federal government.

Coming down to the nitty gritty of the fundamental basis of the aforementioned facts, the history of the yet to be completed second Niger bridge which would cross many states in the South of Nigeria, is a good example of when persons parading about as adherents of one religion or the other , have made dishonesty their central political ideological character. The truth also is that, the more lies that are uttered by politicians in Abuja about the second Niger Bridge, the more it would seem that religion means nothing to the Political rulers of contemporary Nigerian society. Even some persons who are not seriously into religions, have started saying that religions are to be blamed for the widening chasm between the few affluent Nigerians and the millions of people are are absolutely poor.

The times of London reportedly wrote an editorial on the relationship between religion and wealth in which the United Kingdoms based medium tend to argue that the unprecedented rise in religiosity amongst Nigerians, signposted the rise in poverty amongst a clear majority of the people.

In the case of the second Niger bridge, it would seem that those who make policies in Abuja, often discard the notion of honesty and have embraced 'political voodooism' of anything but the truth as their ideology in seeking to circulate incoherent communications on issues about why the second Niger bridge has not being completed and why there is no end to the lies by politicians about it.

Beginning from the political eras of chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yaradua , Good luck Jonathan and now Muhammadu Buhari, it has being from one smooth lie to the other about the completion date of the second Niger bridge described by even the Government as one of the pressing needs of the people of southern Nigeria in the 21th century.

This is how one of the construction firms working for Nigerian Government described the second Niger bridge.

The writer of the brief history says that construction of the Second Niger Bridge project in Nigeria on track. The governor of Anambra state as would be seen in this piece is of a contrary opinion saying that the equipment to construct the second Niger Bridge are held up in Germany.

However, the official propagation is that construction of the Second Niger Bridge project in south-eastern Nigeria, is on track and progressing well.

The Federal Ministry of works in charge of Anambra state Engineer Adeyemo Ajani revealed the reports and said that the project is likely to be completed before the approved date.

The official said: "The Second Niger Bridge project was initiated by the former President Goodluck Jonathan, and the vision has been sustained by the present government of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The bridge is being constructed across Nigerias Niger River and is intended to ease traffic congestion and will span from Asaba to Ozubulu and Ogbaru areas. The project is undertaken on behalf of the Nigerian federal government by the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing jointly with the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority.

The Second Niger Bridge construction is a Nigerian federal government project that is 1.6 km-long and furnished with other ancillary infrastructure including a 10.3 km highway and a toll station.

The project is being developed through a Public Private Partnership involving Julius Berger NSIA Consortium as a Design, Finance, Build, Operate and Transfer (DFBOT) model to cost US $653m with the Federal Government contributing US $150m while the consortium will raise the rest of the funds.

To be sure, the construction of the Second Niger Bridge well-survives the delay in the approval of the Nigerian 2019 national budget, the government established a fund  Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) from where it finances the project.

Work capacity of the project has employed between 1000 and 1300 workers optimally engaged.. According to Engineer Adeyemo Ajani, the project is currently is 23% complete. The new Niger Bridge upon completion will also facilitate vibrant commercial exchanges especially in the host South-East region of the country, Nigeria." We will read up another propaganda by another official of government heading the Sovereign wealth fund office who gave a contradictory statements on this same bridge and asserted another exaggerated statistical data on the bridge.

However, an official literature gives us a bird's eye view on the project thus: "The Second Niger Bridge is a key national infrastructure, with immense socio-economic benefits for the contiguous states and indeed the entire nation.

Upon completion, the bridge will ease traffic flow, improve road safety, and create greater opportunities for local residents by advancing the commercial viability of the immediate area and regenerating economic life.

The scope of works include the construction of 1.6 km long bridge, 10.3 km Highway, Owerri interchange and a toll station."

Now here is another lying angle from the same government which had only few months back stated that the bridge was 23% completed in which another government official exaggerated the statistics regarding where the bridge is at the moment.

The Managing Director of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), Mr. Uche Orji recently disclosed that the ongoing construction of the Second Niger Bridge has achieved a completion rate of 47 per cent a clear contradiction from the position of the Federal director in charge of the ministry of works in the South East of Nigeria.

However, speaking during an interview at the weekend, he expressed optimism that the project would be completed in 2022..

Work is going on at the second Niger Bridge and it is over 47 per cent completed. It is a public-private partnership. The Ministry of Works awarded that contract, but the full concession agreement would be signed very soon that would hand it over to the NSIA, he explained.

According to him, the NSIA would also be fully involved in the proposed InfraCo by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which also would involve the Africa Finance Corporation.

Orji said the proposed infrastructure company which has been approved by the President, would be a vehicle to support the development of infrastructure in the country.

And then emerged a totally different angle to the stories about the second Niger Bridge with the revelation by the Anambra state governor that the equipment needed for the construction of the 2nd River Niger bridge are held up in Germany. He spoke about roads also and this reminds us of another lie told by the government that it has constructed 600 roads within five years.

Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State only Yesterday told President Muhammadu Buhari that construction work at the Onitsha-Enugu federal highway has slowed down to almost zero level.

The governor also begged the President to intervene in ensuring that the equipment purchased for the ongoing work at the Second Niger Bridge which are still in Germany are brought to Nigeria for the speedy completion of the project on record time.

Speaking with State House Correspondents after meeting behind closed-door with the President, Governor Obiano, who is the only governor on the platform of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, said he sought the assistance of the federal government for the settlement of about 5,000 displaced people from his state.

On the reason for the visit, he said: I come once in awhile to brief Mr. President on the developments we are having in Anambra State and we do have a lot of beautiful developments. We also have some that bothered me to come right now, which is the flood.

Four of my local governments, that is four out of 21 are under water now as we speak because of this flood and it affected a lot of things, properties which include farm produce and what have you.

So, I called on Mr. President to assist us at this very crucial time being a COVID-19 time and now, the flood we are experiencing this time around is like the one of 2012 which is terrible. So, he promised to do something immediately.

I did also told him about the progress so far made on the 2nd Niger Bridge. If you watch from their side, you will see that almost half of that bridge has been done.

But because the water level is very high, the contractor working in that bridge requires some equipment which theyve already purchased long ago sitting in Germany and requires some support from Central Bank to be able to be brought in. I did mention that to him and the President noted that and said he will do something about that.

We did discuss some other roads, federal roads that are in very bad shape, about six of them and I requested Mr. President to see if they can go into their budget as they prepare for the budget of next year.

As December is fast approaching meaning that over 40 million Nigerians that will travel to the South East of Nigeria will still confront the nightmares associated with poor federal roads infrastructures in that part of Nigeria and the only major bridge across the River Niger built since 1965 will be subjected to horrendous over use by these huge numbers of commuters who would travel to the South East of Nigeria and other Southern States such as Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross Rivers, and Bayelsa from across the Country. They may have to ply this rapidly collapsing first Niger bridge since the central government has been unable to deliver the second Niger Bridge since over a decade when the first construction work started and the people have been fed continuously with propaganda and political lies regarding the completion date for this critically important national asset East of the Niger.

Millions of road users in the East are already asking the critical question of when this jinx of the unending second Niger Bridge would be demystified.

*EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO is head of the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) and blogs @ www. huriwanigeria. com, www.thenigerianimsidernews.com .
Egypt's culture minister handed out certificates to winners and launched the official opening of the virtual exhibition of the competition

The National Organisation for Urban Harmony (NOUH) celebrated Sunday the fifth edition of the annual Turathi Photo and Arts Competition.

Ines Abdel-Dayem, Egypt's minister of culture, handed out certificates of honour to the winners and launched the official opening of the virtual exhibition of all artworks submitted to the competition.

This year, 314 photographs were submitted as well as 175 paintings, explained Mohamed Abu Saieda, chairman of NOUH.

The jury included prominent artist Mohamed Abla, Ahmed Hanno, dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, and prominent photographer Sherif Sonbol.

The winner of first prize in photography was Saad Al-Azhari.

This photograph is from inside the Mosque of Abou Hereba, in Al-Darb Al-Ahmar district. The same scene is printed on the Egypt's 50 pounds bill. This is where I saw this boy as if mesmerised by the light, at the meida of the mosque (where people wash up before prayers). I called it Getting Out Of the Light, he told Ahram Online.

In third place in photography was Lamia Sherif, with a photo of the statues carved at one of her favourite palaces of Downtown Cairo: Said Halim Palace, also known as Champollion Palace.

This is the third time for me to apply in this competition and the first time for me to win. It is a very exciting competition for me because I love to document the architectural designs of old buildings. I love details, but the existence of the Hoopoe by the statue made it really special, she told Ahram Online.

The event also honoured two great icons in the realm of heritage: archaeologist Ali Raswan, and Saleh Lamei, founder of the Centre for the Revival of Islamic Architecture.

Abdel-Dayem and NOUH also honoured the Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat for his efforts in supporting NOUH in its initiatives.

The celebration ended on a special note with the launch of the official website of Hekayet Share (Street Story) initiative by NOUH, where blue signs are put in several districts with a short history of the name of the streets.

This initiative comes in line with the Lived Here initiative that documented some 400 cultural figures and martyrs, adding signs on buildings where they lived with a QR code that opens to a mini biography of the figures.

These initiatives come under the umbrella of the Memory of the City project that aims to safeguard the intangible heritage of Egypt. This project started off by documenting the Island of Zamalek.

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An inaugural member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame; there is no debate that Jim Thorpe was one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century.
Enterprise's novel TMEM16A potentiator portfolio includes ETD002, a first in class compound which is currently in Phase 1

TMEM16A potentiation is a novel therapeutic approach applicable to all cystic fibrosis patients, independent of genotype, and may provide benefit in other respiratory diseases

Enterprise's shareholders received an upfront payment of 75 million

Forbion, a leading European life sciences venture capital firm, today announces that its portfolio company, Enterprise Therapeutics Ltd (Enterprise)'s novel TMEM16A potentiator portfolio has been fully acquired by Roche and will be developed by Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. The portfolio includes ETD002 which recently entered Phase 1 trials.

Enterprise's shareholders received an upfront payment of 75 million and are eligible to receive additional contingent payments, to be made based on the achievement of certain predetermined milestones.

The TMEM16A portfolio is focused toward treating all people with cystic fibrosis (CF), with potential to benefit people with other severe respiratory diseases characterised by excessive mucus congestion.

Dr John Ford, CEO, Enterprise Therapeutics, said: "Roche and Genentech have a proven track record of bringing new medicines to people with respiratory diseases, and have recognised the opportunity that our TMEM16A potentiator portfolio presents. I am very proud of the team at Enterprise for identifying and developing this innovative approach to treat patients, with ETD002 the first of our compounds to reach clinical stage. TMEM16A potentiation has the potential to significantly increase the quality of life for people living with cystic fibrosis, for many of whom existing therapies are not effective."

Geert-Jan Mulder, MD, Managing Partner and co-founder at Forbion, commented: "We have been investors in Enterprise Therapeutics since 2018, having recognized the critical importance of the work that John and the team were doing in respiratory diseases. We are delighted that Roche after its acquisition of Forbion's portfolio company Promedior has decided to acquire Enterprise's TMEM16A potentiator program, adding yet another exciting program to their respiratory portfolio. We expect to see further good progress of the company's remaining program, a potential best in class ENaC-blocker that targets to restore mucus hydration making it easier for the lungs to be cleared."

CF is estimated to affect 75,000 people globally. One of the main causes of difficulty in breathing and increased risk of infection is mucus congestion in the lungs. The ETD002 compound targets the underlying mechanisms of mucus congestion, and is expected to restore lung function, reduce the frequency of lung infections and improve patient quality of life. CF is caused by loss of function mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), an anion channel highly expressed by the airway epithelium. Increasing anion conductance via CFTR modulation is a clinically validated approach for treating CF, however it is not currently available or effective for all people with CF.

In pre-clinical models, Enterprise has demonstrated that ETD002 enhances the activity of TMEM16A, an alternative anion channel present in airway epithelial cells, and by doing so increases anion and fluid flow into the airways, thinning the mucus and increasing its clearance. As TMEM16A potentiation is independent of the mutational status of CFTR, this makes the approach potentially applicable to all people with CF, and perhaps patients with non-CF muco-obstructive lung disease.

Notes to Editors

About Forbion

Forbion is a dedicated life sciences venture capital firm with offices in The Netherlands, Germany and Singapore. Forbion invests in life sciences companies that are active in the (bio-) pharmaceutical space. Forbion's investment team has built an impressive performance track record since the late nineties with successful investments in over 66 companies. Forbion manages well over EUR 1.25 billion across ten funds. Forbion is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment. Besides financial objectives, Forbion selects investments that will positively affect the health and well-being of patients. Its investors include the EIF, through its European Recovery Programme (ERP), LfA, Dutch Venture Initiative (DVI), AMUF and EFSI facilities and KfW Capital through the Programme, "ERP Venture Capital Fondsinvestments". Forbion operates a joint venture with BGV, the manager of seed and early-stage funds, especially focused on Benelux and Germany. For more information, please visit: www.forbion.com.

About Enterprise Therapeutics www.enterprisetherapeutics.com

Enterprise Therapeutics is discovering and developing new therapies that target the underlying mechanisms of mucus congestion in the lungs, one of the main causes of difficulty in breathing and increased risk of infection in respiratory diseases such as cystic fibrosis and COPD. Reducing mucus congestion will reduce the frequency of lung infections and improve quality of life.

The Company's novel muco-regulatory therapies target ion channels TMEM16A and ENaC to increase the hydration and clearance of mucus. Enterprise has also identified novel targets and compounds that reduce mucus production, an approach that complements mucus hydration therapies.

The Enterprise Therapeutics management team has significant expertise in drug discovery, drug development, respiratory biology and ion channel pharmacology. The Company is backed by leading life science investors Epidarex Capital, Forbion, IP Group, Novartis Venture Fund and Versant Ventures. In 2019 the company received funding from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to advance TMEM16A through to clinical proof of concept in CF.

About Cystic Fibrosis (CF)

Cystic Fibrosis is the most common lethal genetic disease of Caucasians with more than 75,000 patients worldwide living with the disease. The average life expectancy of a CF patient, although improving, is approximately 40 years.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201006006162/en/

Contacts:

For more information, please contact:

Forbion:

Geert-Jan Mulder, MD, Managing Partner

T: +31 (0) 35 699 30 00

Instinctif Partners for Forbion

Melanie Toyne-Sewell/Phillip Marriage/Kiki Zaccagnini

Email: forbion@instinctif.com

Zyme Communications for Enterprise Therapeutics

Katie Odgaard

Tel: +44 (0)7787 502 947

Email: katie.odgaard@zymecommunications.com
Donald Trumps coronavirus infection sent presidential betting markets into a tizzy, shutting them down for a while. Joe Biden has consolidated his position at their head since their reopening.

From a shade of odds-on (so 5/6) when I last wrote, the Democrat has moved in to 1/2, which implies a victory probability of 67 per cent. Per Oddschecker, the best price youll get is 8/15. That still appears to represent very good value when set against Bidens increasingly strong poll lead.

The recent batch of post-debate surveys showed it extending into monster territory. A Wall Street Journal/NBS News poll, for example, had the president trailing his opponent by 14 points.

That may be an outlier. The various poll trackers have it at something more like 8.5, but thats good enough, especially with favourable findings from surveys conducted in the battleground states that the Democrat needs to carry to win the US electoral college. Biden, for example, has an eight-point lead in Arizona, per a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, a state that has been solidly Republican red since 2000.

The model created by Nate Silvers FiveThirtyEight, which crunches polling data and forecasts a range of scenarios based on what its saying, now has Biden winning in 83 out of 100 of them.

Based on that, the betting price should be closer to 1/5. One good reason why its not? Its 2020 and while you cant statistically calculate the potential for a WTF outcome, the chances of it happening would seem to be unusually strong. PS: in the unlikely event youre unaware of what that stands for you can get the answer on the internet. Be warned its NSFW.

In normal times, the US system produces a clear result. There was a bit of a WTF moment created by Ross Perots quixotic 1992 candidacy, in which he secured 19 per cent of the popular vote, a record for a third-party candidate, when facing off against the victorious Bill Clinton and George H W Bush. Thanks to a computer glitch, one of the UK networks projected him winning several states early on. In the end, he didnt carry any.

The real doozy came in 2000, when the world learned all about hanging chads on voting punch cards, and Al Gore officially lost despite being the first winner of the popular vote since 1888 to do so. A disputed result in Florida tipped the scales in favour of George W Bush and it all ended up in court, with Gore ultimately conceding, leaving it to historians to play what if. Some post-result analyses suggested he should have gone to the White House.

Those past controversies pale by comparison to whats been going on this year, what with the global pandemic and the identity of the current man in the White House.

WTF number one? What if one of the candidates dies. This has been much discussed in the wake of Trumps coronavirus infection. Its a legitimate concern given the pandemic and the fact that both candidates are well past retirement age.

A sitting president is replaced by the vice-president  so Mike Pence, per the US constitution. Its happened before, for example, when JFK was assassinated and when Richard Nixon resigned.

But candidate Pence doesnt automatically get to step into his bosss shoes on the same basis. The identity of a replacement for Trump, were one to be needed, is in the gift of the 168-member Republican National Committee, where politics would come into play before you even got to the question of altering the ballot. That may not be possible in some states and some Americans have, anyway, already voted.

If the winning candidate dies after the election but before the electoral college meets, you would think electors, usually party loyalists, would coalesce around the vice-presidential candidate, potentially good news for those backing them at long odds  Pence is available at 80-1, Kamala Harris at 100-1.

But its no certainty and it could, once again, get very messy. Betting on the winning party, as opposed to the identity of the next president, eliminates some of the uncertainty.

WTF number two comes into play if the election is close (or even if it is not) and Trump refuses to concede. Hes been preparing the ground with a series of baseless allegations about voter fraud, and has been stacking the Supreme Court with Conservative justices, so the potential for another almighty mess is clearly there.

Ladbrokes told me it will settle bets on the winner as declared after the US general election allowing for any relevant legal or constitutional challenges. In cases where there is any ambiguity relating to the result, it reserves the right to wait until its resolved. Betfairs US election market will be settled by whichever candidate wins the most electoral college votes.

Some bookies may, for PR purposes, choose to settle apparently winning bets if it does turn into a car crash, but that could prove very costly given the sheer size of a market which is shaping up to be a record breaker.

One way or another, Biden, whom I have money riding on, is a more of a risky bet than the polling implies.
Federal funding for advanced climate modelling has cheered scientists who say the investment will help refine predictions for everything from fire-generated thunderstorms to worsening urban heat islands.

Buried in this year's budget was the provision of $7.6 million to upgrade the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator, known as ACCESS, to increase the nation's "capacity to respond to future climate disasters and emergencies".

Understanding how a warming climate will affect weather down to a little as one-kilometre resolution may be one of the results of some timely investment from this year's budget. Credit:Wolter Peeters

While the funding is only for three years from 2020-21  rather than as long as 10 years recommended in a scoping study  the initial outlay means Australia's modelling capability can keep up with international advances, said Andy Pitman, head of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.

Current models developed over decades with millions of lines of code are being superseded by so-called exascale models capable of more precise prediction of extreme weather events as the climate warms.
Many continues to critique the department especially the chief for his autocratic behavior on social media.

by Udara Soysa

Kingsland Police arrested a youth for video recording despite the former being perfectly legal under first amendment of US constitution.

This all took place on Tuesday the 15th of January 2019. The family is pursuing all legal avenues. Please feel to reach out to the Kingsland Police Department; they can be reached at 912-729-8254. The officers involved are Brandon Todd badge #535 and Samantha Swartz Badge #539 , according to GA followers website. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxQr0oHMyOY

This small town in Georgia is becoming increasingly exposed for its continued violation of rights including blocking people who share criticisms on their Facebook site.

Recently the page posted an unconstitutional warning to those who criticize them with being blocked violating free speech.

Exercise your 1st amendment right in Kingsland and you get arrested. What a pathetic police department you have. Uneducated, blue line thugs is all you are. The two officers that arrested the photographer, who was in public, filming anything he can see, which is 100% legal, should be fired. But no all they will get is a paid vacation because the police will investigate themselves and determine the officers did nothing wrong. Absolutely disgusting. Qualified immunity should be abolished. Make the cops personally pay for violating people's rights, not the tax payers, according to Mike Altman who commented on KPD Facebook page.

Tom Warner who commented on the site stated Because you refuse to clean up your department; We, the people, can no longer trust or respect you. We will not be Ruled by public servants. https://youtu.be/VxQr0oHMyOY

Interestingly the police Chief Jones was also critiqued by many for his recent pro police ranting blaming prosecutors media and all yet unable to clean up his mess at the department.





Chief Jones is a failure  all he could do is to attack free speech while also using free speech to hide his own inability, according to Sam Brown who posted on Facebook.

You can visit their Facebook site at https://www.facebook.com/KingslandPD/

Many continues to critique the department especially the chief for his autocratic behavior on social media.

Udara Soysa is a Sri Lankan American legal practitioner based in Colombo, Sri Lanka
The Commissioner of Police in Lagos, Hakeem Odumosu, on Tuesday visited the family of an 11-year-old girl who was gang-raped to death in Ejigbo area of the state.

Favour Okechukwu was raped to death on September 30 by a gang of four men while running errands for her mother.

On a visit to the family, Mr Odumosu condoled with the members and assured them that justice will be served to the perpetrators of the dastardly act.

PREMIUM Times earlier reported how the young girl was allegedly gang-raped by four men and she died in the process.

The culprits are at large but the owner of the room where the alleged crime was committed and the nurse that attempted to save the girls life are in police custody.

Mr Odumosu said the police will do the needful to apprehend every culprit in the barbaric act and get justice for Favour.

While promising the family the polices constant support, he directed the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Criminal Investigation Department, Yetunde Longe, who accompanied him, to deploy additional detectives from her office after the fleeing culprits and prosecute them as soon as possible.

He further assured residents of the community of improved policing in the neighborhood and engagements that will guarantee security.
TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dynamic Communities, the community platform connecting the Microsoft user, ISV and partner ecosystem, announced the January 2021 launch of the Decision Acceleration Community, the March 2021 Global Digital Summit and the IMO Digital Camp to run in Q4 2020 focused on vertical industry cloud migration.

"We are playing catch up based on the hit we took from COVID-19 this year; that is not unique to Dynamic Communities, as all event-based businesses have struggled, said John Siefert, CEO of Dynamic Communities. "However, we have spent the last 50 days "hitting refresh" on who we are, why we exist and how we can serve our community, and I am thrilled to share these innovations at Summit North America this week."

Decision Acceleration Community (DAC)

The Decision Acceleration Community (DAC) is a reimagination of what to expect from a community platform. With a focus on putting the user in charge, the platform enables a single point of entry for a business technology professional to personalize a feed of curated user group, video, article, blog and podcast content around the topics (community tags) and user groups most important to them. As the user personalizes their feed, the platform is optimized around their interests, user groups and physical location, creating a scroll of other community members in their geography, aligned with the same user groups, and following similar community tags. The whole premise behind DAC is to decrease the amount of time it takes for an individual to make a business technology decision  and we're doing that through curated content, connections to others with expertise and streamlined access to solution providers.

"We stepped back and created a fresh user interface and modern user experience via personalization, localization, discussions and curated guidance to craft decisive action plans," said Steve Arend, Chief Technology and UX Officer at Dynamic Communities.

Check out our video overview of the platform here and our landing page for ISV Partners and Solution Providers to join us for our January 2021 launch.

Global DAC Digital Summit

Running in March 2021, the Global DAC Digital Summit will redefine the virtual event concept by creating shorter sessions (like Ted Talks) packed with strategy, tips, best practices, how-tos and more, all optimized to the Decision Acceleration Community. With thematic tracks including Cloud Migration, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotic Process Automation, Digital Transformation, Customer Experience & Service and BI & Analytics, we will recommend specific sessions to fill our audience's agenda based on the users groups and community tags they follow. To accommodate our global audience, we will be hosting each day of the event at unique times to align with local time zones of our global community.

"ISV Partners and Solution Providers can have a presence, create an experience, or build brand dominance based on their goals at the event and, as a 'for good' event, it will be free to all attendees, with the ability to purchase Academy classes available for deeper education," said Paul Alley, CRO at Dynamic Communities.

Impact, Metrics & Outcomes (IMO) Digital Camp

Organized by both business technology theme and vertical industry, the inaugural IMO Digital Camp will focus on the impact, metrics and outcomes of Cloud Migration running on November 17th, 2020. Starting with a keynote session from business technology visionary and founder of Cloud Wars, Bob Evans, the agenda will then segment into vertical market-specific tracks featuring two-hours of presentations, case studies and solution demonstrations across the financial, manufacturing & distribution and the public sector (and potentially others).

Also running as a "for good" event, this will be free to attendees and will feature the ability for ISV Partners and Solutions Providers to underwrite and share how their customers are applying cloud solutions in a real world environment.

"The IMO Digital Camp is a great example of aligning the needs of our audience in the decision making process with the programming we create through the communityimpact, metrics and outcomes, all delivered in short-form presentations to help decentralize community intelligence." said Rachel Fisher, Director of Programming and Academy at Dynamic Communities.

About Dynamic Communities

Dynamic Communities is the community platform connecting the Microsoft ecosystem of users, ISVs, MVPs and partners. Through curated community engagement, user groups, events, and Academy content, Dynamic Communities shortens the time it takes to make a business technology decision. https://www.dynamiccommunities.com

Press Contact:

Jenna Knoblauch

701-639-4479

SOURCE Dynamic Communities

Related Links

https://www.dynamiccommunities.com


THE Tullamore DEW visitor centre is closing today (Wednesday, October 7) in response to the Government decision to move the country to Level 3 coronavirus restrictions.

It appears to be one step forward two steps back for businesses in Offaly as the county along with the rest of Ireland moved to Level 3 restrictions at midnight, Tuesday October 6.

It was only at the end of August that a county-wide lock down was lifted and things began to return to some form of normality.

Under Level 3 rules, the hospitality industry is once again the hardest hit with bars, restaurants and hotels struggling for survival.

William Grant recently announced its intention to close the Tullamore DEW visitor centre at Bury Quay and open a new one at Tullamore Distillery but the latest Covid-19 restrictions have brought the closure date forward.

A spokesperson said the company will monitor the situation closely and added: As previously announced, we plan to reopen our Visitor Experience next summer at the Tullamore Distillery with a new and immersive tour offering, and our priority right now is to support affected staff through the ongoing consultation process, and to review all opportunities for redeployment.

The spokesperson concluded:We recognise the importance of the Bury Quay building to our neighbours and the local community, but we need to conclude the consultation process with our employees before being able to make any firm decisions relating to its future.

Meanwhile,Brian Reynolds manager of the Central Hotel on Main Street, Tullamore, said ''the impact on the hospitality business will be alarming'' and ''it will leave employment in a precarious position.''

Mr Reynolds said ''Covid level three restrictions with no one to travel outside their county, effectively closes the hospitality industry again. We have made huge sacrifices to keep this virus under control

Our industry is under so much pressure and unfortunately a lot of hotels, bars and restaurants will not be able to reopen,'' he said. ''We hope our sacrifice is recognised in the budget. Tourism provides vital jobs in towns and villages throughout this country. Our industry does not deserve to be destroyed by COVID,'' he stressed.

Mr Reynolds has called for 9% VAT, improved wage subsidies & commercial rates waivers this winter. ''Serious Government support is urgently needed to counteract NPHET and their proposals. Allow hospitality premises throughout the country a chance to stay open,'' he stressed.

Meanwhile what has become a source of comfort for many during these difficult times-the churches are also feeling the pressure of conforming to the rules and regulations.

All church services are to be cancelled and will revert to online viewing only. However, they are allowed to remain open during the day for private prayer.

''We are back to square one'' said Tullamore parish administrator, Tom Whelan.''We had our last Mass at 10 am this morning [Tuesday October 6]. We are allowed to live stream and people can come for private prayer. It's a safe outlet for them. But one thing I would say, the amount of work we have put into keeping people separated and yet they can still go into a pub and have a pint.''

All seating in the church has been sanitised between masses and Mr Whelan says they will continue to be sanitised ''Its for three weeks. The Government is doing its best to keep us all safe and that's what it's all about at the end of the day,'' he said.

Rashid at Mezzo restaurant, on Patrick street, said his business is down around 30 to 35%.

However, he will continue with take-aways. Rashid said during the local lockdown he placed a table at the door and handed out the food. But he said take-aways are different in that they have a faster turnaround and food has to be prepared quickly. He added it's a struggle but he will just keep his head down and keep working away.

The latest figures available on the Covid Tracker which is dated October 3 shows there were 66 confirmed cases in Offaly over the last two weeks.

90,199 tests have been completed nationwide. There has been a 3.6% positive rate.
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. The conflict with Azerbaijan, in fact, is becoming a struggle against international terrorism for Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview to Sky News.

Below is the article about the interview:

Faced with an intractable problem which long predates his time in office, and with rumours of Syrian mercenaries come to join the fighting, Mr Pashinyan is calling the latest explosion of hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan a civilizational issue.

He told Sky News: "Firstly, Turkey has become fully engaged, encouraging and inciting the conflict. Turkey has also transported mercenaries and terrorists from the territory of Syria to the conflict zone which is changing the whole context."

He added: "This is becoming essentially Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia's struggle against international terrorism."

Mr Pashinyan also accuses Turkey of backing Azerbaijan to pursue a genocidal policy against Armenians and further the country's expansionist ambitions.

He said: "Let us look at what Turkey is implementing in the Mediterranean in Libya in Syria, Iraq. To me there is no doubt that this is a policy of continuing the Armenian genocide and of reinstating the Turkish empire."

He repeated his negotiating stance that any peace settlement should be acceptable to the peoples of Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan.
Delegate Edith Patterson, Hospice of Charles County Board Chair, with Hospice of the Chesapeake leadership Mike Brady and Regina Moody in front of the Charles County Hospice House. We're grateful for the patience, dedication, and spirit of partnership that have led to this acquisition and expansion of care. Were also immensely proud to join a small, elite group of national hospice providers that care for over 600 individuals each day." Michael Brady, Acting HOC CEO

Hospice of the Chesapeake, one of the regions leading providers of hospice care, supportive care, and grief support, has finalized its acquisition of Hospice of Charles County, effective October 2, 2020. As the acquisition positions Hospice of the Chesapeake as one of the largest hospice care providers in the region, the organization has introduced a new brand identity to reflect both the physical growth and significant programmatic expansion that accompanies it.

We are grateful to the Hospice of Charles County Board of Directors and staff for their patience, dedication, and spirit of partnership that have led to this acquisition and our exciting expansion of care, said Michael Brady, Acting CEO for Hospice of the Chesapeake. Were also immensely proud that this new chapter which will position us among a small, elite group of national hospice providers that care for over 600 patients and families each day.

This growth comes at a time when the organization is significantly enhancing its care offerings. While weve expanded our reach of hospice care patients over the last several years, weve been simultaneously broadening the type of care that we provide through innovations in supportive care, said Brady. Were approaching a 30% increase in supportive care visits from 2019 to 2020 and earlier this year introduced primary complex illness care as an additional level of support for these patients.

Hospice of the Chesapeakes new brand identity, including redesigned program logos, imagery and key messaging, better reflects this modern, multi-directional expansion of care and signifies a new era of education and outreach within the community. Our new look is designed to evoke a feeling of comfort, calm and ever-present support for those who are living with illness and loss, said Chief Medical Officer Eric Bush, MD, RPh, MBA. Its a true representation of our evolution and recent milestones, such as our Chesapeake Supportive Care program earning The Joint Commissions Gold Seal of Approval for Community-Based Palliative Care Accreditation. Were truly honored to support and comfort even more Maryland families from our new home in Charles County.

To learn more about Hospice of the Chesapeake and its diverse programs, including: Chesapeake Supportive Care; Chesapeake Life Center; Chesapeake Kids; We Honor Veterans; and the John & Cathy Belcher Institute, visit https://www.hospicechesapeake.org/ or call 410-987-2003.

About Hospice of the Chesapeake:

For medical professionals and consumers seeking a responsive care provider, Hospice of the Chesapeake is a care organization offering hospice care, supportive care, special programs for children and Veterans and grief support services. We provide reliable, compassionate, expert care to patients and families in Anne Arundel, Charles, and Prince Georges counties in Maryland living with advanced illness and loss. Visit http://www.hospicechesapeake.org to learn more.

About Chesapeake Supportive Care:

Chesapeake Supportive Care, a program of Hospice of the Chesapeake, specializes in providing medical care that focuses on reducing the symptoms; pain and stress caused by serious illnesswhatever the diagnosis. It is appropriate at any age or stage of illness and can be provided alongside curative treatment. The goal of supportive care is to improve quality of life for both patient and family. To learn more visit http://www.chesapeakesupportivecare.org.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 10:44:38|Editor: huaxia

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CANBERRA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Treasurer Josh Frydenberg handed down the federal budget for the financial year 2020/21 on Tuesday night, declaring that COVID-19 will "not bring Australia to its knees."

Frydenberg announced the long-awaited budget, which was postponed about five months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

It includes 507 billion Australian dollars (about 360 billion U.S. dollars) in economic stimulus measures with tax cuts and wage subsidies as the government pushes to lead the economy out of its first recession since 1991.

In handing down one of the most consequential budgets in Australia since World War II, Frydenberg said it would rebuild the economy and "secure Australia's future."

"There is no budget recovery without a jobs recovery. This budget is all about jobs," he said. "Our plan will grow the economy. Our plan will create jobs. Our plan will continue to guarantee the essential services Australians rely on."

He said the crisis has revealed "the invisible strength" of Australians, declaring that the Great Depression and two world wars "did not bring Australia to its knees, and neither will COVID-19."

More than 11 million Australians will receive tax cuts worth thousands of dollars backdated to July 2020 while small and medium businesses will benefit from further tax exemptions.

The treasurer introduced the government's economic recovery plan, which includes a new JobMaker hiring credit to encourage businesses to hire younger Australians, record investments in skills and training, kick-starting investment with the incentives and infrastructure investment to drive jobs.

A total of 2.3 billion Australian dollars (1.6 billion U.S. dollars) will be invested in treatments and potential vaccines for COVID-19 and subsidizing other medications.

Universities will also receive 1 billion Australian dollars (710 million U.S. dollars) in funding for research.

As a result of the unprecedented spending, Australia's budget deficit will hit a record-high 213.7 billion Australian dollars (151.3 billion U.S. dollars) this financial year compared to an earlier projected surplus in the budget for 2019-20.

Net debt is forecast to peak in 2024 at 966 billion Australian dollars (686.4 billion U.S. dollars), 44 percent of the GDP.

"This is a heavy burden, but a necessary one to responsibly deal with the greatest challenge of our time," Frydenberg said.

Australia's unemployment rate is expected to peak at 8 percent in December, down from the 10 percent previously projected before falling to 6.5 percent by 2022 and 5.5 percent in 2024.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who preceded Frydenberg as the treasurer, said on Wednesday that the budget was focused on creating new jobs in the wake of the pandemic.

"That's to ensure the economy can move forward and there will be more jobs in the economy whether you're 55 or whether you're 25, or even 65," he added, saying that the budget has been "temporary and very targeted."

The projections in the budget are based on the government's assumption that a vaccine for COVID-19 will not be widely available until late 2021, until which time Australians will have to continue social distancing.

If a vaccine is rolled out before July 2021, economic activity in Australia could increase by 34 billion Australian dollars (24.1 billion U.S. dollars) but if there is no vaccine activity will be 55 billion Australian dollars (39.1 billion U.S. dollars) lower.

It expects that all domestic borders with the exception of Western Australia will be open by the end of 2020.

"There are always assumptions in the budget. There are assumptions about many things. But this budget is a plan and that plan is not dependent on those assumptions," Morrison said on Wednesday.

"This plan is dependent on doing the things we need to do to get the economy moving and get people back into jobs to cushion the blow of the COVID-19 recession."

Anthony Albanese, the leader of the Opposition Labor Party, on Wednesday said he liked the mental health support in it but the budget was "leaving too many people behind," including the elderly and woman.

"This is a grab bag of headlines but there is no comprehensive plan." Enditem
To the editor:

Annette Glenn needs to apologize to every law enforcement officer and black person in our community. She and her friends chose to knowingly tell lies about me in TV ads to score political points while using the police and black citizens as pawns. She doesn't care if police officers saw these lies and mistakenly thought I wanted to take their jobs. She doesn't care if black people saw these lies and felt portrayed (yet again) as dangerous and unwelcome in our community.

What matters to her and her friends is staying in power  no matter the cost and regardless of what is true. This is shameful. I have always supported our police officers. In fact, in 2018, I was one of only a few democratic candidates endorsed by the Police Officers Association of Michigan (2020 endorsement pending). Annette was not endorsed by them and yet falsely claimed to have the endorsement in mailers  another lie.

She owes them all an apology for using them. And because I know she won't, I'll say it. I'm sorry that dirty politics is creating this environment that is shutting down the conversations and the voices needed to find real solutions. I am sorry that the people who claim to be leaders show no signs of actual real leadership or integrity.

Annette, prove me wrong. Apologize for your lies and your ads and the hundreds of thousands of dollars you spent to propagate them and all the people you hurt. Don't apologize to me for lying about me, apologize to everyone who has been impacted.

Sarah Schulz

Midland
The Bombay high court on Wednesday granted bail to actor Rhea Chakraborty who was arrested by Narcotics Control Bureau on September 8 after the agency brought drug-related charges against her in the Sushant Singh Rajput death case. Rajput was found dead on June 14 in his Mumbai residence.

The verdict comes just a day after an NDPS court extended her judicial custody till October 20. Rhea Chakraborty is likely to walk out of the Byculla prison on Wednesday  after a month.

Here is what the high court observed in its verdict:

1. The Bombay HC said it doesnt think that celebrities and role models should be treated harshly so that it sets an example for the young generation.

2. I do not agree. Everybody in equal before law. No celebrity or role model enjoys any special privilege before the court of law. Similarly, such person also does not incur any special liability when he faces law in the courts. Each case will have to be decided on its own merits irrespective of the status of the accused, it said.

Also Watch: Rhea Chakraborty exits jail in car with covered windows | Drugs case

Also Read: Rhea Chakraborty gets bail but high court sets 4 key conditions; her brother stays in jail

3. She is not part of drug dealers. She has not forwarded the drugs allegedly procured by her to somebody else to earn monetary or other benefits, the high court observed.

4. Since she has no criminal antecedents, there are reasonable grounds for believing that she is not likely to commit any offence while on bail, the high court said.

5. There are reasonable grounds for believing that she is not guilty of any offence punishable under Sections 19, 24 or 27A(of NDPS Act) or any other offence involving commercial quantity, the high court noted.
Elsheikh and Kotey have been held since October 2019 in American military custody after being captured in Syria one year earlier by the U.S.-based Syrian Democratic Forces. The Justice Department has long wanted to put them on trial, but those efforts were complicated by wrangling over whether Britain, which does not have the death penalty, would share evidence that could be used in a death penalty prosecution.
WASHINGTON  Michael Flynn attorneys are seeking the recusal of U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan from his case, arguing the judge is "increasingly hostile" and "irreparably biased" against the former Army general.

"His continued presence in the case has become a national scandal undermining confidence in the impartiality of the federal judicial system and faith in the rule of law," Flynn's attorneys said in court papers Wednesday.

The move is the latest in the protracted and politically fraught prosecution of President Donald Trump's former national security adviser. Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a former Russian ambassador, is one of half a dozen former Trump aides and associates who were indicted as a result of the special counsel investigation on Russian election interference in 2016.

Sullivan has been presiding over the case since 2017. The motion asking for his recusal comes days after a heated court hearing during which Sullivan pressed Flynn's attorney, Sidney Powell, on whether she had briefed the president on the case. Powell was initially reluctant to discuss her conversations with Trump and tried to invoke executive privilege, even though she isn't a a White House employee. Powell later acknowledged that she updated Trump and requested that he not pardon Flynn.

President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn arrives for his sentencing at the U.S. District Court in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2018.

Powell, who has repeatedly cast the prosecution of Flynn as part of a politically motivated conspiracy involving Obama administration officials, also said during the hearing that Sullivan should recuse himself. In court papers, Powell claimed that Sullivan's "contempt and disdain" for Flynn was "palpable" during the hearing.

The Michael Flynn saga: Appeals court denies ex-Trump adviser Michael Flynn's request to force dismissal of case

Powell cited Sullivan's searing comments to Flynn during a 2018 sentencing hearing. "Arguably, you sold your country out," Sullivan told Flynn.

Story continues

Flynn's sentencing has since been postponed. He has since backtracked from his guilty plea, declaring his innocence and accusing the government of forcing him to admit to crimes he did not commit and then hiding evidence that would've exonerated him.

The Justice Department, under Attorney General William Barr, also reversed course and sought to dismiss the charges, arguing that the FBI interview during which Flynn made false statements was "unjustified."

Instead of dismissing the case, Sullivan appointed a third party, known as an amicus, to challenge the Justice Department's bid to drop the case and to examine whether Flynn had committed perjury for claiming to be innocent of a crime to which he had earlier pleaded guilty.

In court filings Wednesday, Powell cited Sullivan's decision to appoint an amicus as evidence that the judge has become personally invested in prosecuting Flynn. But federal appeals court judges in Washington, D.C. have already rejected that argument after Flynn's defense team asked them to force Sullivan to dismiss the case and to remove him from it.

The appeals court said in August that judges have the authority to appoint third parties as they decide on how to rule in cases. In Sullivan's case, his attorney argued that the judge was simply doing what judges do: seeking to hear both sides before ruling on the motion to dismiss.

The appeals court said that Sullivan may ultimately dismiss the case and that concerns over judicial overreach were "speculative." It also said there's no basis in removing Sullivan, saying opinions or statements judges make while presiding over a case don't indicate bias.

Contributing: Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY and the Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michael Flynn: Trump ally says Judge Sullivan should recuse himself
Workers make adjustments to newly installed plexiglass barriers on the stage ahead of the vice presidential debate in Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah on October 06, 2020 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Commission on Presidential Debates is taking extra precautions at Wednesday night's vice presidential debate given the coronavirus outbreak in the White House, but pictures of two curved plexiglass barriers they plan to use has some epidemiologists and airborne pathogen specialists scratching their heads.

Vice President Mike Pence, a Republican, and Sen. Kamala Harris, a Democrat, will be seated more than 12 feet apart and separated by two plexiglass barriers. But those barriers are "entirely symbolic," according to Dr. Bill Schaffner, an epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University.

The commission became worried after President Donald Trump and several White House staff contracted Covid-19 shortly after last Tuesday's presidential debate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Pence was not in "close contact" with Trump, who announced that he was infected with the virus early Friday morning.

Nonetheless, a person familiar with the debate planning told NBC News that Harris' campaign asked for the plexiglass to be used at the event at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

The plexiglass is "minimal protection," Schaffner said in a phone interview, adding that the barriers are mostly "cosmetic."

However, he added that barriers are one part of a "layered approach" that includes testing and distancing of everyone on stage. Those in the debate hall are required to wear a mask and there will be no handshake or physical greeting between Pence and Harris, according to the commission. Altogether, he said, the steps have likely reduced the risk of spread occurring.

The plexiglass barriers are just one "part of the CPD's overall approach to health and safety," according to a fact sheet distributed by the commission.

The debate is due to take place indoors and, of course, plenty of talking is expected. That's important because the CDC released new guidance on Monday that said the virus can spread through particles in the air between people who are further than 6 feet apart in certain environments. The CDC said the risk of that occurring increases indoors and when people are doing certain activities, including speaking.

Jeff Siegel, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Toronto and a specialist in indoor air quality, ventilation and filtration, said the risk of virus-carrying particles going airborne in an environment like a debate when people are talking loudly is "huge."

"On the plus side, it's a pretty big space, so there's a big dilution effect," he said over the phone, adding that Harris, Pence and the moderator, Susan Page, Washington bureau chief of USA Today, will be spaced out appropriately. The high ceiling and large room will also help to reduce risk, he said.

"But they're not addressing things like ventilation," Siegel said, adding that he hopes the debate hall has appropriately up-to-date air filtration and ventilation systems. "If I was Vice President Pence's staff or Harris' staff, I would certainly want to get a portable HEPA filter in there."

HEPA filters are high-performing air filters that capture very small particles in the air. The commission did not return CNBC's request for comment on the building's filtration and ventilation system.

Kimberly Prather, a distinguished professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of California at San Diego, said that if Pence is infectious right now, the risk of him spreading it to Harris will increase as the debate goes on.

"Imagine being in a room with one smoker," Prather, who has briefed White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci on the risk of airborne spread, said in a phone interview. "Over time, the longer you sit in that room, you just see the haze build up."

Prather explained that the risk of airborne spread is due to virus-carrying aerosols, very small particles that can remain suspended in the air and even travel by currents. The CDC maintains that most transmission occurs through larger respiratory droplets, but Prather has long warned of the risk of aerosol spread.

"The louder you talk, the more you produce," she said of aerosols, adding that without proper ventilation, those plexiglass barriers won't do much to stop the particles. "When I saw it I laughed, but it's not funny."

Prather added that she and her colleagues are concerned about what kind of message the barriers send to the public. She said people and businesses should focus more on air filtration and ventilation than on erecting barriers, though the two strategies can be implemented together. Prather hopes that Harris and Pence opt to wear a mask throughout the debate.

"There's no reason not to," she said.

Jose-Luis Jimenez, a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies how aerosols spread the virus, shared Prather's concern about what message this sends to the public. He said the debate should be moved outdoors to send the message that "every activity that can be moved outdoors, should be done outdoors, with enough distance."

"Perhaps the ventilation rate is very high in that debate hall, and thus the risk to the debate participants is low. But they are sending the message to millions of people that talking indoors without a mask is safe, as long as enough distance is kept," he said in an email. "Those barriers are a joke. It is just theater, to make it look like they are taking some precautions."
The All Progressives Congress (APC) says it will do all it can to win the two vacant senatorial seats in Bayelsa State, weeks after it lost the Edo election, its only political foothold in the South-south.

The partys caretaker committee chairman, Mala Buni, disclosed this on Tuesday, during the inauguration of an eleven-member reconciliatory/election committee in Abuja.

Mr Buni, in his address, said winning the two senatorial seats will aid the process of regaining the partys foothold in the South-south, a region where the APC currently has no sitting governor.

Our success in this election is very crucial and strategic because of the need to have more supporting hands in the National Assembly for improved collaboration and synergy with the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to successfully execute its policies and programmes to improve the lives of Nigerians.

It has become imperative for us as the leading political party in Nigeria to build a virile, strong, vibrant and more united APC that would serve beyond, two, three, four or even five terms of office to ensure continuity and consolidation of the gains the party has achieved. This remains the surest way to fully actualise our manifesto and improve the lives of Nigerians, he said.

Vacant seats

Two of the three senatorial seats for Bayelsa State became vacant following the resignation of both the governorship candidate of the PDP, Duoye Diri, and his deputy, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, as representatives of Bayelsa Central and West senatorial districts respectively at the Nigerian 9th National Assembly to contest the election.

Mr Diri was installed as the governor of the state after the Supreme Court sacked David Lyon of the APC, on the grounds that his deputy, Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo, presented false information to Nigerias electoral commission, INEC.

However, with the defeat of the APC in just concluded governorship election in Edo, which was its last foothold in the region before the incumbent governor, Godwin Obaseki, joined the PDP, the race to replace the two men in the red chamber has now intensified.

The newly inaugurated committee is led by the Gombe State governor, Inuwa Yahaya. Other members include Ovie Omo-Agege, Abdullahi Sahabi, Ali Ndume, Uba Sani, Fatima Goni, Chris Adegije, Yusuf Ocholi, Enyi Enyi, Ekebong Inwang, and Cletus Udoh.
Dhinesh Kallungal By

Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Though the influx of migrant workers to the state is yet to pick up momentum due to the absence of public transport, around 50 buses -- sponsored by various employers -- have been reaching Kerala from West Bengal daily.

Speaking to The New Indian Express, Liby Johnson, executive director of Gram Vikas, Odisha, said that the majority of the buses leaving West Bengal bear Kerala registration. It seems employers in Kerala are eager to bring back the workers to revive the sagging fortunes of key sectors impacted by the pandemic, he said.

According to contract carriage operators, since the resumption of limited train services, especially the Chennai-Thiruvananthapuram services, migrant workers prefer trains rather than buses. "Around 30-40 buses operate between Kerala and eastern states," said Binu John, president, Contract Carriage Operators' Association.

Operators used to charge Rs 2 lakh for a trip to Kerala from Murshidabad in West Bengal. However, with train services having begun, the operators are forced to conduct the same trip for Rs1.6 lakh. Also, since the ticket charge of one passenger costs around Rs 4,500, more employers have been bringing in migrant workers by flight, said bus operators.

The data compiled by the labour department, however, tells a different story. As per the data, on Sunday, only 9,717 migrants returned to the state, with Kannur registering the highest number of returnees of 4,627. But the data mostly comprised the details of migrant workers who reached the state by train.

Since the contractors have been directed to inform the details of migrant workers they bring back to the state, it seems many are yet to register the complete whereabouts of the workers with the department. According to the data, ever since the COVID restrictions were eased, only 663 migrants have reached Ernakulam, which has the highest concentration of migrant labourers in the state.

Ordinance against unobstructed entry likely

Meanwhile, the state is likely to move an ordinance against the unobstructed entry of migrant workers into the state as it could throw a spanner in its COVID control measures. The labour department has submitted a proposal to the state government in this regard. A senior labour department officer told The New Indian Express that the state government will soon launch an app for registering the details of migrant workers who reach the state.

According to experts who work at the field level, the data compiled by the labour department is not accurate. The data is based on train-bound migrants, which is limited as per the current scenario. There are no direct trains to Kerala from eastern states. The majority of migrants who reached the state have either arrived by bus or by flight, said Benoy Peter, executive director, Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development.
A kind-hearted pastor from Georgia recently surprised a pregnant waitress with a life-changing tip for a heartwarming reason.

When Bishop Eusebio Phelps visited Waffle House for an All-star breakfast and was touched by waitress Hannah Hill's kindness.

Facebook

On speaking to her, he learned that she was living out of a car while being pregnant.

What made him give her a more generous tip was the fact that she was coincidentally naming her unborn child Samuel, which happened to be the same name as Bishop Eusebio's late son. He died seven years ago.

Bishop went to eat at the Waffle House the night before. As he was paying for his food God spoke and said give the... Posted by New Faith Christian Church on Friday, October 2, 2020

"She was just so kind and she was so pleasant. She was a sweetheart and that just touched my heart, said Phelps, who leads New Faith Christian Church in Stockbridge. Following their encounter, the pastor sent out a call on Facebook asking others to donate. It did not take long for the money to start pouring in.

Also Read: Icons Of Humanity: Left Penniless Amid COVID Crisis, Migrant Wagers Donate Plasma To Save Lives



Well with the help of our entire Church family New Faith Christian Church and all the communities of social media and word of mouth $12,000 was raised and given to Hannah, the church said in a Facebook post on Friday.

Facebook

I went home, I told my wife what happened... I was like, 'Listen I wanna raise a thousand dollars to give to Hannah so she can buy whatever she needs for the baby," Eusebio told WXIA-TV.

Also Read: Humanity First: Chennai Policemen Arrange For Rs 5 lakh For 5-YO Girl's Open Heart Surgery

In a short span of time, he started receiving money from various people, who offered their help to Hannah. Clueless about the developments, Hannah was greeted by cheers from customers and a cheque of almost $12,000.

Life had just thrown me a curve ball, you know, its tough being a young mom. Lately, I have been praying just because Ive been really stressing lately. Im like, dang I want a place to live before this baby gets here," she said.

In addition to the money, the church gave Hill free child care for a year at its daycare and learning center.



Also Read: Humanity Wins Again! Punjab Gurudwara Provides Food To Madrasa Students Stuck Due To Lockdown
FRISCO, Texas, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Payrix, the acknowledged leader in embedded fintech, today announced its official launch into Australia and New Zealand - as it completed the acquisition of Brisbane-based payment service provider, IntegraPay. The company's expansion efforts will remove barriers, boost revenue and accelerate money movement for a network of growing software-as-a-service (SaaS) clients with operations overseas.

A digital payments trailblazer in infrastructure-as-a-service technology, Payrix is deeply client-focused, determined to fuel stickiness and monetization for vertically-focused SaaS providers. On the heels of the company's recent Series A extension , this acquisition positions Payrix as one of few truly independent payment technology providers supporting its clients as part of a global strategy, and will add an additional $1.75B in processing volume to the Payrix Platform.

As more vertical SaaS providers turn to embedded commerce to innovate their product, increase lifetime client value and build enterprise value - Payrix continues to have a laser focus on client success and demonstrate what it takes to reimagine the digital payments ecosystem, again and again.

"We've listened to our clients and many have exciting plans to expand globally - it became clear we needed to eliminate obstacles that were holding them back," said Payrix CEO, Eric Frazier . "We believe IntegraPay's market-leading technology, customer-centricity and local presence will deliver the seamless user experience and growth results our clients need to scale smart."

Operating in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom, IntegraPay is the region's leading independent payment services provider, processing more than a million transactions a month and delivering flexible solutions, local service and innovative technology to over 5,000 clients.

"We are delighted to have found a partner that shares both our growth ambitions and core values for serving clients," IntegraPay CEO, John De Stefani said.

The opportunity to monetize payments for growth today with global reach tomorrow is what attracted SaaS leaders like OpusXenta - Australia-based SaaS funeral management platform - and Storable's best-in-class tech brand in self-storage, to partner with Payrix.

"I wanted to help my customers accept payments, but also grow my company in the right way - thinking about my growth today, and tomorrow. Payrix's vision for expansion matched our plans, so it was the perfect fit," said Tony Lorge , Founder and President of OpusXenta .

"We were looking for a partner that could help us serve our global customer base and scale to billions of dollars in card volume," said Storable , CEO Chuck Gordon . "After an extensive review of our options, we chose Payrix because it was the right mix of technology, client focus and collaborative culture."

Payrix enables software companies to jump start a high-growth payments business, as well as those ready - to fully seize the embedded payments opportunity as a payment facilitator. Payrix's out-of-the box, full production platform is seamlessly layered into a client's platform, mobile app or marketplace. This creates a world-class customer experience and allows clients to tap into additional revenue streams that accelerate growth.

As clients continue to expand overseas, each will have broad, extensive needs with other forms of payment, in multiple currencies. Australia and New Zealand marks a major step forward for Payrix's client base, existing and prospective. With plans to expand to additional markets in 2021, Payrix will continue to open doors for its software clients to thrive around the world.

IntegraPay was represented by EY (M&A) for this transaction.

About Payrix

Payrix enables vertically-focused SaaS companies to embed and manage payments natively within their software, securing additional recurring revenue and creating an awesome experience. Payrix provides the tools to create a seamless, embedded user experience, and offers clients the choice of payment facilitation-as-a-service (PFaaS) or a full payment infrastructure (payment IaaS) product based on business appetite. Payrix is a cloud built, API-first platform that is highly flexible, customizable and scalable.

Created by payments and technology experts, Payrix is designed to seamlessly grow with tomorrow's innovative technology platforms. Payrix is a privately-held company, headquartered in Frisco, TX and backed by Blue Star Innovation Partners and Providence Strategic Growth.

For more information about Payrix, visit http://www.payrix.com .

About IntegraPay

Established in 2009, IntegraPay is an Australian-based, global integrated payments technology company that provides subscription, recurring and in-video payment solutions for businesses, business management software providers and banks. IntegraPay services clients that require ongoing payment solutions and operate in a range of industries, with a particular focus on the childcare, accounting/ bookkeeping, health and fitness and charity sectors.

IntegraPay processes around $2 billion dollars of payments annually. The company has offices located in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and the United States. For more information www.integrapay.com.au .

Media Contact:

Katie Wickham

Director - Marketing

[email protected]

404.904.4174

SOURCE Payrix

Related Links

http://www.payrix.com


Rome: A cardinal sacked by the Pope for alleged embezzlement has been accused of funnelling 500,000 to an Italian woman who spent some of the cash on luxury shoes, handbags and accessories.

Giovanni Angelo Becciu, stripped of his rights as a cardinal last month, allegedly paid the money from Vatican funds to Cecilia Marogna, who claims to be an intelligence operative with links to the Italian secret services.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu talks to journalists during press conference in Rome. Credit:AP

She reportedly spent it on shoes, clothes and luxury items, said newspaper Corriere della Sera, basing its report on leaked Vatican documents.

Marogna admitted receiving the 500,000 ($826,000) in Vatican funds through a company she runs that is based in Slovenia. But she said she had spent it on "diplomatic trips, paying sources for information, mediation and donations to humanitarian organisations".
To help commemorate this initiative, WORKPRO is featuring an assortment of their essential hand tools and accessories that are appropriately colored in pink. Available on amazon.com , a portion of the proceeds from each tool will go directly to NBCF. What's more, WORKPRO Tools is donating various gifts that allow volunteers to safely pack HOPE Kits during these challenging times. These thoughtful kits help comfort and encourage patients during their treatment.

In an effort to support those affected by breast cancer, WORKPRO Tools has pledged to donate $15,000 to NBCF this year.

"We hope our contribution helps the National Breast Cancer Foundation deliver resources to those who are in need," said Lily Chi, Executive Vice President of WORKPRO's parent company, GreatStar Industrial Co., Ltd. "WORKPRO is proud to support those stricken with breast cancer and we're very excited to become a force for good."

About National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc.

Recognized as one of the leading breast cancer organizations in the world, National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) is Helping Women Now by providing early detection, education and support services to those affected by breast cancer. A recipient of Charity Navigator's highest 4-star rating for 14 years, NBCF provides support through their National Mammography Program, Patient Navigation, breast health education, and patient support programs. For more information, please visit www.nationalbreastcancer.org .

About WORKPRO Tools:

Since 2009, WORKPRO Tools has been committed to leading the way with innovative tools for the home do-it-yourselfer. Developed by Hangzhou GreatStar Industrial Co., Ltd., the largest hand tool manufacturer in Asia, WORKPRO Tools deliver a diverse variety of hand tools, power tools and storage solutions. Sold in over 100 countries around the world, WORKPRO Tools strives to provide tools to those who pride themselves in completing a project themselves. For more information, visit www.workprotools.com .

SOURCE GreatStar Industrial USA, LLC

Related Links

http://www.workprotools.com


The flagbearer of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr John Dramani Mahama, has said Ghana is doomed if the citizens retained the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in office for another four years.



The NDC flagbearer was speaking at the launch of the partys campaign ahead of the December polls on Wednesday, 7 October 2020 at Sefwi-Wiaso in the Western-North Region.



Urging supporters of the party to go out and vote in the 7 December polls, Mr Mahama noted that it is the duty of the party to win the polls in order to bring true change to Ghanaians.



Mr Mahama said: The battle to transform our dear country starts now.



The change starts now, he stressed.



It is our sacred duty to win this battle to deliver true change, not for ourselves but for all Ghanaians who deserve to live a better and dignified life.



Mr Mahama further cautioned that with the high levels of unemployment and underdevelopment, the country will be doomed if the governing NPPs term of office is extended.



Ghana will be doomed if we stay four more years trapped within the fake reality where the NPP propaganda machine paints a rosy picture that everything is perfect while in reality, it is rampant corruption, collapsing businesses and never-before-seen levels of unemployment and underdevelopment, he stated.



The NDC flagbearer also reiterated his promise to create 1 million decent and sustainable jobs if elected as President.

Source: classfmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 07, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Electromedical Technologies, Inc. (OTCQB: EMED), a pioneer in the development and manufacturing of a bioelectronic FDA cleared device, is pleased to announce the completion of uplisting to the OTCQB. To retain our standing on this higher-tiered exchange, we are required to meet the standards set by OTCQB. This higher designation will allow us to appeal to family offices, institutional traders and numerous major hedge funds. Therefore, a higher tier will help provide shareholders with a transparent corporate update and full compliance in our financial disclosure.



The global market for pain management devices estimated to reach $11.3 billion by 2025, expanding at a CAGR of 12.5% over the forecast period, driven by increasing prevalence of chronic neuropathic pain among the growing elderly and obese populations.

Matthew Wolfson commented, There are other obvious market growth drivers, including the opioid crisis which is getting out of hand. The White House Council of Economic Advisors estimate that the opioid crisis costs the US Economy $504 billion a year. Now with the current lockdown orders in place and increased social isolation and medical distancing due to the Covid pandemic, the problem is only getting worse. For many struggling with chronic pain the possibility of addiction to opioids is real. Treatments and support systems have been disrupted which may increase the risk of overdose deaths. States are already seeing significant spikes in overdoses in the first half of this year, with an average 20% increase of overdose submissions since the first reported case that kicked off the pandemic lockdowns that hit US shores.

What does this all mean? People are desperately seeking new ways of treatment to alleviate their suffering other than drugs and medical professionals will need more tools and different treatment options. We have the options NOW.

Finally, Mr. Wolfson stated, We have expedited this uplist process in order to gain traction and compete in a rapidly growing industry. Opioids have become the leading cause in accidental death in the US and as a result life expectancy has begun to drop. We are extremely optimistic that our technology will help to improve the quality of life for millions of people while also preserving overall health and wellness. Bioelectronics will electrify medicine in the next 5 years and will be the norm in treatments of not only Chronic pain but will also open doors to other treatments that will improve human well-being without addictive and harmful side effects. Electromedical (EMED) is part of the wave of the future.

About Electromedical Technologies

Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Electromedical Technologies, Inc. is a commercial stage, FDA cleared, bioelectronic medical device manufacturing company initially focused on the treatment of various chronic, acute, intractable, and post-operative pain conditions. Through university collaboration agreements the company is working to develop a comprehensive research program in defining the effects of electro-modulation on the human body by studying the impacts of electrical fields in cell signaling and effects on virus assembly and immune responses with the goal of improving human wellbeing. The companys current cleared product indications are for chronic acute post traumatic and post-operative, intractable pain relief.

Our animal studies do not involve any human testing, and are not related to our current products. We are conducting this research to augment and advance the science of electro-modulation in healthcare. The United States Food and Drug Administration has not reviewed or approved our animal research studies.

For more information, visit www.electromedtech.com .

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements and the assumptions upon which they are based are reasonable, we can give no assurance or guarantee that such expectations and assumptions will prove to have been correct. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by the use of words like "may," "will," "should," "could," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "believe," "intend," or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. The reader is cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as these statements are subject to numerous factors and uncertainties, including but not limited to: adverse economic conditions, competition, adverse federal, state and local government regulation, international governmental regulation, inadequate capital, inability to carry out research, development and commercialization plans, loss or retirement of key executives and other specific risks. To the extent that statements in this press release are not strictly historical, including statements as to revenue projections, business strategy, outlook, objectives, future milestones, plans, intentions, goals, future financial conditions, events conditioned on stockholder or other approval, or otherwise as to future events, such statements are forward-looking, and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made.

Corporate Contact:

Electromedical Technologies, Inc.

Matthew Wolfson

Tel: 1.888.880.7888

email: ceo@electromedtech.com

https://electromedtech.com




Head Pastor of Christ Prayer Centre in Kumasi, Prophet Kusi Appiah says President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will be remembered for his excellent leadership after his eight years term in office.



He described the NPP flagbearer as the next Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana whose leadership is unmatchable.



President Akufo-Addo will emulate Kwame Nkrumah's name to become the best President ever after his 8 years term. Ghana will receive a lot of funds from the donor countries as a gift and some will cancel the debts which Ghana owes them because of the good leadership of our President, he noted.



Prophet Kusi Appiah who was speaking to his congregation during a prayer session last Sunday was very optimistic about the NPP winning the December 7, presidential polls.



NPP will get unprecedented votes from Oti region, the 5 northern regions and the Volta region. Ghanaians will enjoy the second term of Nana Addos government and the whole world will praise him, he claimed



Adding that, No human being can turn the defeat of former President Mahama because he has finished his work.



The prophet also urged Ghanaians to prayer to avert road accidents during the election period.



We must rise and pray, he admonished after calling on state security to be alert of evil-minded people.



According to Prophet Kusi Appiah, Chairman Wontumi will be three times Ashanti regional chairman of the NPP and he will become three times national chairman as same unprecedented

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Latinx designers have had manifold influences on fashion over the years, with some of the most renowned designers  Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera, Narciso Rodriguez and Maria Cornejo  helping to pave the way for up-and-coming designers looking to showcase their own creativity on the runway.

In some ways, the industrys long-standing emphasis on European designers has kept Latinx creators out of the spotlight, but theres a shift underway, according to Maria Cornejo.

Before there was just the usuals, Oscar de la Renta, Carolina and of course Narciso [Rodriguez] who I love, but now there seems to be a whole new wave of designers coming out of Latin America, she told WWD. When I was a child, everything was looking to Europe and looking to the States. I feel like as Latin countries take more pride in their own designers, then they would get noticed everywhere else.

Latinx designers work across a wide range of boundaries  cultural differences, language barriers and geographical constraints. These challenging juxtapositions and complexities often result in new perspectives to solving design problems. And despite the sluggishness to adapt Latinx designers into the current fashion industry in the U.S., the community is expected to wield increased influence in the coming years.

In looking at what has changed for Latinx designers over the years, WWD spoke to Cornejo, an established and sustainable fashion trailblazer and designer of Zero + Maria Cornejo, and emerging designer Barbara Sanchez-Kane of the binary defying brand Sanchez-Kane. Each offered unique views on the industry through a Latinx lens, as they tackled issues spanning the current racial climate, discrimination based on their ethnicities, and the opportunities for Latinx designers in the future of fashion.

Maria Cornejo

Brand: Zero + Maria Cornejo

Maria Cornejo was born in Chile and went to England as a political refugee in 1975. She studied fashion there before moving to Paris in 1988. Over the years, she worked in Japan, China and Italy, and ultimately moved to New York City in 1996 at age 35. Two years later, Cornejo started Zero + Maria Cornejo on Mott Street.

Story continues

WWD: What made you choose a career in fashion design and how did the journey begin for you?

Maria Cornejo: I chose to do fashion, when I first arrived in England I was 12 years old, I couldnt speak English, I felt like I was drowning. You know you cant speak the language, but visually I felt much more confident in doing things in art. My art teacher kept encouraging me to go into the arts, whereas my chemistry teacher kept encouraging me to go to chemistry. So I have a very mathematical mind, which I didnt realize at the time. I wasnt confident enough because my English wasnt good enough. But as I got older I realized that I ended up using math every day, calculation and the way I cut things is in the way of geometry. Its interesting how I ended up in fashion because when I was a child my grandmother and mother, they all made their clothes and I was taught to knit by my grandmother when I was seven on giant construction nails because, in those days there were no childrens knitting needles. I knitted my dolls, made them outfits like a typical kid who loves fashion. I didnt realize it could be a career, I just thought it was something that I always just did, and then as I got older I realized thats what I wanted to do.

WWD: Was there a key person who helped get you your first opportunity/took a chance on you in the industry?

M.C.: For me, I worked from the age of 15 in fashion stores in Manchester, and there was this amazing lady called Maureen Doherty, who used to run the stores called: Elle, Issey Miyake and Fiorucci. And so I was like a Saturday girl, she always encouraged me, with my mad outfits and she used to say to me, I dont care, go for a walk if youre bored, but you know just be interested in things, and she was really amazing and shes still going, shes got her own collection called Egg in London. She does really well and she was one of the first people to introduce Margiela into England and things like that, shes just really an interesting person because shes very creative and at the same time she had the eye, she had a great eye, and I think she saw that in me.

WWD: Not all designers are afforded the same opportunities. What have been some milestone moments for your brand and for you as a designer?

M.C.: I think for me a milestone was when I graduated from college. Joseph Ettedgui, who owns all the Joseph stores and this other store Whistles, bought my college collection, which was incredible, when I was 21. When I was 23, with my boyfriend at the time, John Richmond, we launched 20 of our stores in Japan, Richmond Cornejo, which is pretty amazing for a 23-year-old to have 20 own stores. We designed them, did everything in them, and I was shuffling between Tokyo and Milan all the time, and London. Winning the Cooper Hewitt design awards in 2006, in 2019 winning the Fashion Group Internationals sustainability award, and the CFDA Lexus Award years ago  all these things have been big milestones. Amazing things happening, like Michelle Obama wearing the clothes, and all these incredible women who support the brand.

WWD: Do you find your Latinx heritage influences your thought process when creating a collection?

M.C.: Yes, I definitely think it informs certain collections. Like one collection could be more colorful, and I think my Latin roots and my sense of joy and color come from South America. And fun, Latins are quite fun, we dont take ourselves too seriously. Even though people think Im very serious, Im not. I grew up all over the place and to me what I take away from being Latin is the heart, the color, the soul, things that are really important right now.

WWD: What are your thoughts on the current climate regarding race in the U.S. and how it impacts the Hispanic/Latinx community?

M.C.: Thats a big question, my gosh! For me, Ive always been a foreigner, one of the reasons I love New Yorkits such a mixed-race city, and its so diverse and dynamic because of that. You hear Spanish, you hear the bodegas, you hear the people, the music and everything. Whereas, when I lived in Europe, I was very exotic, I was the only Latin in art school in London, so coming here I felt like home, but yeah theres a lot of inequalities with women, people [of color]. I was saying to someone the other day, I am not only [a person of color], I am Hispanic, and Im a woman and Im also older, so theres so many disparities  financial and socio-economical. As immigrants we work harder than anybody else to make things work. Nothing was given to us.

WWD: Have you ever faced discrimination in your career because of your ethnicity?

M.C.: Ive had more discrimination because of being a girl. Some of the powers that be are not very girl-friendly, they would rather have a gay guy talking to them. And Im also very straight-forward, maybe thats just me, if anything itd be more about that. A lot of the people that have really supported me in this business, apart from a few female friends, and of course my business partner, have been male and they have been gay. I cant honestly say that Ive had real discrimination.

I never thought about it, i just thought maybe my limitations, I didnt arrive with a trust fund to start a business, I started it from scratch so it could only be what it could be, and it grew organically. Other people that came into this business have had financial backing, I decided not to have financial backing, I decided I wanted to keep control of what I was doing, so its hard for me to say that it was racial. I think its also having to do with my own path that I just took. But I think Latins, we definitely have been very quiet about our talents, and I think, more than ever now, its a good time to sort of speak up and be counted. Weve always apologized for walking through the room more or less.

WWD: How do you think things have or havent changed for Hispanic/Latinx designers in the last 10 or 20 years?

M.C.: Because of Karla Martinez going to Vogue Mexico, I think she did an amazing job and really spotlighted everything thats amazing about Latin culture in fashion, I think thats a big shift. Before there was just the usuals, Oscar de la Renta, Carolina and of course Narciso [Rodriguez] who I love, but now there seems to be a whole new wave of designers coming out of Latin America. When I was a child, everything was looking to Europe and looking to the States. I feel like as Latin countries take more pride in their own designers then they would get noticed everywhere else. The problem is a lot of Latin countries, the only people that would get a look in would be like Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera because they were based in New York, but [Latin countries] werent looking after their local talent, and with many local talents there wasnt enough of a business there to carry it. Of course they want fashion from everywhere but theyre also very aware of what theyll try and have back home.

To be honest, its so much about exposure, Instagram and the Internet have sort of evened out the playing field that everybody can have a voice somehow, it doesnt guarantee sales, but at least you can put your image out there and I think thats sort of given a lot of people and other designers more opportunity.

WWD: What do you see for the future of your brand?

M.C.: Its not an easy time right now, so we are trying to edit things down. We have our loyal clients that we are listening to and thats how we keep going, and being more and more sustainable every day. Thats all we can do for now. With me, Im a bit of a dreamer, I dream big but then expect the worst, so somewhere in the middle it will fold. Were really loving right now all the things that, originally, the brand started with, which is the denim, T-shirts, its going back to its roots, which im really excited about because that feels much more natural to me, to my way of lifestyle and of the women that I know, making interesting clothing that is for every day and its not just going to sit in their wardrobe two more months.

WWD: Do you have any words of wisdom that you can share for the next generation of Hispanic/Latinx designers who are trying to break into the industry?

M.C.: Keep it small, keep it real and keep it original. In order for anybody to survive you have to be an original right now because there are a lot of copies, they can make things cheaper, all the high street brands copy everything. So, in order to survive you need to have your own point of view and be creative with less, and be sustainable. Have passion for it, you have to be in it for the long haul and thats, I think, thats the thing. Everybody expects instant success, and theres no such thing. When you realize you spend most of your life, your awake life, whether its doing accounting, or a doctor, you have to be passionate about what you do, otherwise whats the point?

The older I get, the more Latin I feel, and I think one of the things I am is, Im very New York, Im very much a mutt after living everywhere and New York is the best place to be right now.

Barbara Sanchez-Kane

Brand: Sanchez-Kane

Barbara Sanchez-Kane was born in the south of Mexico, in Merida (Yucatan). The fashion designer and visual artist spent her whole life there before moving to Mexico City two years ago. In 2016, Sanchez-Kane started the namesake brand, which has now evolved beyond fashion to art installations, performances, painting, sculpting and poetry.

WWD: What made you choose a career in fashion design and how did the journey begin for you?

Barbara Sanchez-Kane: First of all, I studied industrial engineering in Mexico. You graduate when you are around 22 or 23 years old in Mexico, so six months after graduation I was feeling bad health wise, I was checked out by my doctor and they found out I had ovarian cancer when I was 22. That literally was the best thing that could happen to me  I know it sounds very strange saying it  but it was detected in time and just hearing that word for me was literally a slap in the face, like what am I doing with my life? In Mexico, artistic careers are not that well supported because [your parents] feel, well how are you going to make money? Nor fashion or art, they dont encourage that much those types of careers, so thats why I studied engineering. But that changed my life, its also when I told my parents that I was gay, I want to study fashion, lets change everything. With fashion, it made me feel more comfortable showing creativity at that point, and with fashion it led to discovering new mediums and thats how I keep doing it. I want to do or start things like welding, or painting, now I want to take ceramics. Prueba y error [trial and error], when you find a new medium it gives you different answers, maybe the same questions but different answers at a certain point in time. I think its very important to find what makes you tick.

WWD: Was there a key person who helped get you your first opportunity/took a chance on you in the industry?

B.S.K.: For me, the support of my parents has been the pivot point, if it wasnt for them I wouldnt be here talking to you about this. A very important person in my life that helped me develop the brand and the shows [which give you the DNA of Sanchez-Kane] is Monse Castera, a very good friend. Shes in Mexico, and is the producer of almost all my shows, she has trusted me since the start. When I moved to Mexico City, for me it was kind of backwards. A lot of people either think Im American or Im Mexican and they ask well do you live in New York or Mexico? Sometimes even the Mexicans think Im American, so you are sometimes floating in between, having to clarify that I grew up in Mexico and Ive lived in Merida. For me at the beginning in Mexico I remember I used to send mails when I graduated and nobody answered, but then I presented my collection in the States with V-Files, it was the first show I did in New York in September, and then after I have this Mexican star writing me back saying oh, youre Mexican, blah blah blah, but Monse Castera has trusted me since the start, and keeps pushing me. Every time I have an idea, even the craziest idea, she gets it. Sometimes creative people have ideas and she makes me create them and put them out into the world, shes very important.

WWD: Not all designers are afforded the same opportunities. What have been some milestone moments for your brand and for you as a designer?

B.S.K.: Presenting in New York with V-Files opened my eyes, in a good and bad way. The fashion industry is not the warmest place of all. I remember I was very anxious, I had just started the brand, sometimes you dont trust what you want to say because theres a lot of voices, and I remember when I was in New York it was very overwhelming. There was production and it was the first time I saw models, makeup themes, and here you are the designer and you have all these ideas, but people are going to try to change it. It was the first time I understood that I needed to put my feet on the ground and say, Im here because they saw something in me, so Im going to give you just that, dont try to change me.

WWD: Do you find your Latinx heritage influences your thought process when creating a collection?

B.S.K.: Completely. Its what I know, its not like I need to study it, its what I surround myself in, what I eat, what I smell. Its just a whole world and it keeps going. We have a lot of culture and heritage, for me its what I know, what I live, and for me its very important to be organic in the process. Ive never been interested to investigate another culture when my culture has so much to offer and beyond. I didnt even think it  its organic, thats the wordI remember in Los Angeles I went to the pinata district, and it looked more Mexican because they wanted to showcase it more, so this combination in Mexico its probably a bit more toned down, but in L.A. its known as the pinata district. I think Latino designers and the community  I was talking to Willy Chavarria last year in Las Vegas, and we talked about the Latino models in New York, its amazing, it gives you more power and more courage to show the colors of your skin, speak your voice, how not to hide your identity, that, too, is super important.

WWD: What are your thoughts on the current climate regarding race in the U.S. and how it impacts the Hispanic/Latinx community?

B.S.K.: Because there are a lot of hate crimes, the El Paso shooting, so many bad things that have happened in the past year, that the Latino community have been targeted, literally, for their heritage, there is a climate of fear. Imagine not wanting to speak Spanish in public because you are afraid someone will say, This is America, you speak English in this country. Its scary. I dont live in the U.S. but seeing the news, hearing stories from friends, Im not there and I cant say 100 percent, but hiding your identity and suppressing it, the ICE detention centers, the cages, it looks like a fking mad world. This has always happened, and with social media its good that its there to some degree, everyone can see whats happening in real time in the U.S. or in Mexico, Europe. Its not just a problem in the U.S., its a worldwide problem, hatred, a global fking pandemic.

WWD: Have you ever faced discrimination in your career because of your ethnicity?

B.S.K.: Not necessarily, maybe more because of my sexual orientation. Mexico is a very macho-dominated mentality, so having a woman designing mens clothes, it comes charged with a lot of rule breaking. We are a very religious country and here you are trying to break what I like to call The Macho Sentimental, a new human that is not afraid of speaking, being queer, feminine, or being more masculine above all. For this I have been criticized a little bit  more in Mexico because its a very conservative country.

WWD: How do you think things have or havent changed for Hispanic/Latinx designers in the last 10 or 20 years?

B.S.K.: Speaking with Willy Chavarria, we have a camaraderie, we support each other, since there are not millions of Latino designers, and again the visualization of the Latinx community in fashion shows, campaigns, has gone up in the past years. Body positiveness, its good that you can see a model and then a kid might go the color of my skin, my ethnicity, my background, is fucking amazing, instead of being ashamed of where you come from. Even if you are a third-generation Mexican in the U.S., you show it, youre proud of it. Its amazing, when a young kid came up to me in New York, he was about 17 or 18, he came to model, he didnt end up being in my show, but I remember him telling me It feels amazing that I can go and be casted for Sanchez-Kane, to feel identified. And, for me, that was amazing. When I do casting everyone sort of becomes like family, friends, and you see how it evolves. I like to keep it warm and familiar when it comes to my shows and the backstage.

WWD: What do you see for the future of your brand?

B.S.K.: Keep growing in different mediums, keep discovering myself, keep failing, too, to discover what Im going to like and what makes me succeed, and not in a monetary form, but just in different mediums overall. During COVID-19 I started painting, I went back to Merida for about five months and I spent a whole month not working. I was getting depressed and a friend recommended I do something creative. I started painting and literally it has been the best therapy at reach. Not being afraid, you dont need to be the perfect painter, as I told you before we put so much on our shoulders. Even when you see the new generation on Instagram, and they are like Im a photographer. Fuck yeah, you are a photographer. My generation, you need a degree, approval, and then you see all these kids at 17 already as photographers, artists in their bio. Yes, believe it. You are  who is going to say no?

WWD: Do you have any words of wisdom that you can share for the next generation of Hispanic/Latinx designers who are trying to break into the industry?

B.S.K.: Be true to yourself, and trust the process. You have to find yourself, too, your identity. And trial and error, thats the best medicine and best medium to discover. I remember when COVID-19 started, I put out on Instagram that if anyone wanted to send me their thesis, I would review them, because I can imagine that being in this environment of a pandemic and being a graduate, you must think about what is going to happen to the world.

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Food, Wine, & Dining, Arts & Culture

By Ls Cohen Published: October 07 2020

We picked our favorite things we thought you should know!

Still from Snapple commercial. Photo: YouTube

1. Snapples brand name came from a failed product offering - Snapple, which was headquartered on Long Island, adopted its brand name from a failed product flavor. The company was originally called Unadulterated Food Products. Snapple is an mashup of the words snappy and apple. (The name Snapple was already owned by a small company in Texas and the founders bought the name for $500.) The company had come out with a new drink called Snapple which was a carbonated apple flavor. Snapples apple soda drink caused the tops to pop off because of fermentation in the bottles. The company began to understand why their Snapple juice was so popular, it was unintendedly becoming alcoholic one of the owners said in an interview, Wed made Champagne.

Click here to read more crazy facts about Snapple.

Photo: Courtesy of Ed Wesnofske.

2. Almost 80% of all farmers on Long Island used to grow potatoes - The North and South Forks of Long Island were great for potato growing because of the sandy soil, climate and being close to New York City meant a huge marketplace to sell their crops. Potato farming reaches its apex after World War II. By the late 1940s there were over 70,000 acres of potato farms and 1,000 farmers on Long Island. By 1968 there were 12,450 acres of potato farm and in 1996, there were about 8,600 acres. Potatoes are still grown on Long Island and estimates range from 1,000 to 3,000 acres dedicated to potato farming.

Want more potato farming facts? Click here.

Photo: Shutterstock.

3. Four Peking ducks were imported for breeding purposes to Connecticut from China and then transported to Long Island where they sired an entire industry - Raising ducks became a full-time industry on Long Island around 1885. Before that, raising ducks was a supplemental activity to farming and fishing. Our terrain, climate and demand from New York City fueled Long Island duck farming boom. By the mid-1900s duck farms on Long Island produced about two-thirds of the duck consumed in the United States.

Get more crazy duck farm facts here.

Photo: Entenmann's Website.

4. Entenmann became a Long Island product when the founder relocated his bakery from Brooklyn to Bay Shore on a doctors advice after his son contracted rheumatic fever - In the 1950s Entenmanns changed the business from home delivery to supermarket sales. The famous see-through cake box was invented by Martha Entenmann in 1959. This design allowed customers to see the delicious bakery contents and boosted sales.

Click here to get more crazy facts about Entenmanns.

Photo: Shutterstock.

5. We have the best bagels but its not because of the water - Everyone thinks the water is the difference. The mineral content (low amounts of calcium and magnesium) makes our water softer than other places. This has been touted as a contributing factor to a superior bagel to the point where Florida bagel shops imported New York water or invented ways to mimic the water in New York trying to capture that distinct flavor. But, science says otherwise. Water quality has little to do with why our bagels are better.

What makes our bagels better? Read all about why Long Island does have the best bagels here.
Kochi, Oct 7 : The ED on Wednesday filed a charge sheet in a PMLA court in Ernakulam in its probe into the money trail in the gold smuggling case, triggering another slugfest in Kerala politics after it allegedly revealed that prime accused Swapna Suresh had met Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan six times.

The charge sheet was filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 against PS Sarith, Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair in the District and Sessions Court (PMLA) in Ernakulam in the gold smuggling case. All three accused are in judicial custody since July.

The ED charge sheet quoted Swapna as saying that she had met Vijayan on six occasions in the presence of now-suspended IAS officer M Sivasankar and that the CM knew about her appointment in the Space Park on a salary of over Rs 1.50 lakh per month.

The Congress and the BJP leadership in the southern state were up in arms and demanded the resignation of Vijayan.

"Vijayan had said he had no clue of how she got a job in the Space Park, but the ED charge sheet says he was aware. Vijayan then said his office is not a haven for such people. That statement has since fallen flat and the onus is now on him to come clean," state Congress President Mullapally Ramachandran said.

The over 300-page charge sheet includes Swapna's statement that following her resignation from the UAE Consulate, she approached Sivasankar, then Principal Secretary to Vijayan and also IT Secretary, for a job.

She was quoted as saying that he asked her to put in her CV with his reference to PriceWaterhouse Coopers and thereafter she went and met a top official of Space Park and soon got the job.

Swapna also allegedly said that Sivasankar had helped her financially and they were good friends and it was he who introduced her to chartered accountant Venugopal, who was asked to help her in financial dealings by opening fixed deposit accounts to the tune of Rs 20 lakh.

After the ED charge-sheeted Swapna Suresh and two others in a PMLA court in a money laundering case, state Congress President Mullapally Ramachandran on Wednesday demanded that Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan come clean on gold smuggling case prime accused Swapna.

Referring to the charge sheet, Ramachandran alleged that Vijayan was aware of her new job in the state-owned Space Park, which directly comes under the CM's charge.

"Vijayan had said he had no clue of how she got a job in the Space Park, but the ED charge sheet says he was aware. Vijayan then said his office is not a haven for such people. That statement has since fallen flat and the onus is now on him to come clean," said Ramachandran.

"The charge sheet also claimed that she had met Vijayan along with his now-suspended Principal Secretary M Sivasankar six times. It is very serious. Vijayan's credibility has taken a hit. So, one has to doubt if the so-called probe on how she got the job is in limbo due to such relations," the Congress leader remarked.

Swapna Suresh was arrested by the National Investigation Agency from Bengaluru in the gold smuggling case that surfaced in July.

Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said that Vijayan had "no moral right to continue as he has now been proved to be a Chief Minister who speaks lies only".

"A liar like him has no right to continue in office as that's what the statement says," said Chennithala.

State BJP President K Surendran said that as the truth was now out, Vijayan should quit immediately.

"Vijayan knew about her appointment in the Space Park and this clearly shows that he knew the accused in the gold smuggling case, contrary to what he said when the case first surfaced," said Surendran.

The case relates to the seizure of 30 kg gold worth Rs 14.82 crore seized by Customs at the Trivandrum International Airport in a diplomatic baggage addressed to the UAE Consulate office here on July 5. The consignment was allegedly to be received by accused Sarith, who had worked in the UAE Consulate earlier as Public Relations Officer.
Nairobi  The Council of Governors has called for the immediate suspension of the ongoing National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) registration in counties citing failure by the national health ministry to consult county health departments.

In a statement on Tuesday, Council of Governors Chairperson Wycliffe Oparanya said the crucial exercise should only be carried out after consultations between the Ministry of Health and the county governments.

Failure to consult and the lack of transparency in such processes, Governor Oparanya cautioned, will only breed mistrust among the two levels of government.

"County Governments are keen to ensure that all Kenyans, no matter their status, access affordable and quality healthcare. Further, County Governments are willing to partner with the National Government to deliver this promise," Governor Oparanya said.

"Nevertheless, the National Government has a duty to ensure that it respects functional integrity by consulting with County Governments before proceeding to undertake any health reforms at the County level."

With health being a devolved function, he said consultations are necessary. He noted the reform processes at the NHIF are yet to be finalized to ensure all services rendered by the state agency are beyond reproach.

"Of importance to note also is that NHIF is an agent of delivering health services and it is a shared institution serving both levels of government. NHIF cannot proceed to implement any health programs in the Counties without consultation with County Governments," he asserted.
Members of the White House press corps work outside the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020.

BuzzFeed News pulled its political reporter out of the White House press pool on Wednesday, saying that Trump administration aides in the facility have "largely not worn masks" or abided by other basic coronavirus protections.

The news site's decision to withdraw journalist Kadia Goba from the press pool came after images showed White House aides standing outside the White House not wearing masks. The pool is composed of a rotating group of journalists who share details of presidential and facility events with their White House colleagues.

"We will not put our reporters at needless risk of getting a deadly disease  and neither should anyone else," BuzzFeed Editor Mark Schoofs said in a Twitter post.

President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Trump aide Hope Hicks and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany all have tested positive for Covid-19 since last Thursday, along with multiple other people connected to the White House and the president.

Three White House journalists also have been diagnosed with the coronavirus since last week.

BuzzFeed News deputy editor-in-chief Tom Namako, in his own Twitter post wrote: "The Trump administration aides working in the White House have largely not worn masks or adhered to basic precautions around the coronavirus, including in their contacts with the press."

"The safety of our reporters is paramount," Namako added.

BuzzFeed spokesman Matt Mittenthal said that the news site is awaiting guidance from the White House Correspondents' Association on future pool duty rotations, and on how the health of reporters there would be protected.

Politico reporter Meridith McGraw was dispatched to the White House to replace Goba in the press pool.
Climate change is affecting the spread and severity of infectious diseases around the world -- and infectious diseases may in turn be contributing to climate change, according to a new paper in Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

The research, led by Vanessa Ezenwa, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, and funded by the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis, describes how parasites can cause animals to produce more methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

"There is evidence that climate change, and warming temperatures in particular, are impacting some infectious diseases and increasing their prevalence," Ezenwa said. "If that's happening for livestock diseases, and simultaneously higher prevalence is triggering increased methane release, you could end up with what we call a vicious cycle."

Methane is a greenhouse gas with an effect on global warming 28-36 times more potent than carbon dioxide. In the past 10 years, atmospheric methane concentrations have increased rapidly, with about half of the increase attributed to emissions from livestock.

Here, the researchers -- a team of ecologists, veterinarians and One Health experts -- formed a working group led by Amanda Koltz, senior scientist in biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, to study the effects of parasites on ecosystems -- including their impacts on climate.

"Infectious diseases impact all animals, but our understanding of how their effects extend to the broader ecosystem is still limited," Koltz said. "For example, parasite-host interactions can shape host physiology, behavior and population dynamics -- some of those impacts are likely to have widespread, cascading effects on ecosystem-level processes."

The review focused on ruminant livestock, a group that includes cows, sheep and goats. These animals are known to be major contributors to global methane emissions and host to many parasites and pathogens as well. They are also an important part of the global food supply.

The researchers examined data from studies of sheep that showed that animals infected with intestinal worms produced up to 33% more methane per kilogram of feed than uninfected animals. The methane is released through normal body functions of ruminants. Infection also causes sheep to grow more slowly, increasing the time to slaughter and thereby increasing total methane emitted by the infected animals.

They also reviewed studies of dairy cattle suffering from mastitis, a common disease caused by bacterial infections. These studies revealed that cows with mastitis release up to 8% more methane per kilogram of milk produced than uninfected cows.

The authors calculated that infectious diseases in ruminant livestock could lead to a sizable increase in methane released into the atmosphere.

For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations projects that global livestock production will increase by 2.7% annually, and that methane emissions will increase by more than 20%, from 2017 to 2050. But when the effects of parasitic worm infections are incorporated into these calculations, the study's authors estimate that methane emissions from livestock could increase instead by as much as 82% over the same period.

"With human consumption of meat increasing four- to five-fold since the 1960s along with the ever-increasing impacts from climate change, this vicious climate-disease cycle is one more example of the interconnection of our greatest planetary ills -- climate change and emerging infectious diseases," said Sharon Deem, the director of the Saint Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine and a co-author of the paper.

The team's findings highlight the need to take infectious diseases into account when modeling future climate scenarios to ensure that they don't underestimate methane emissions.

"The vicious cycle between climate impacts on disease and disease impacts on climate is striking," said co-author Aimee Classen, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and director of the University of Michigan Biological Station. "Our study highlights that scientists need to incorporate both animals and disease into the experiments and models used to predict future carbon emissions."

###

In addition to Ezenwa, Koltz, Deem and Classen, the study's co-authors are David J. Civitello and Matthew Malishev of Emory University; Brandon T. Barton and Zoe E. Johnson of Mississippi State University; Daniel J. Becker of Indiana University; Maris Brenn-White of the Saint Louis Zoo; Susan Kutz of the University of Calgary; Rachel M. Penczykowski of Washington University; Daniel L. Preston of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and J. Trevor Vannatta of Purdue University.
In June, as the U.S. was roiled by issues of racial inequality in policing and across wide swaths of American life, Microsoft, a leading American corporation, committed to do more to create a diverse workforce at the tech giant. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella pledged to double the number of Black managers at the company over the next five years, as well as to prioritize diversity and incentivize inclusive advancement by making it a point of assessment in senior leaders performance evaluation. It was a much-needed effort, considering Black employees make up just 4.5 percent of Microsofts workforce and only 3 percent of its senior ranks, according to the companys own 2019 diversity report. The company said it would also ask suppliers for diversity breakdowns so that Microsoft could include that information in its decisions about which suppliers it awards contracts to.

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The Trump administration, however, always on the lookout for a germ of white grievance, didnt like what it was hearing. On Tuesday, Microsoft disclosed the Labor Department had sent letters to the company questioning whether its diversity effort violated federal laws prohibiting race-based hiring practices. In a Sept. 29 letter to Microsoft, Craig Leen, director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, said this initiative appears to imply that employment action may be taken on the basis of race,  the Wall Street Journal reports. The letter asked Microsoft to prove the actions it is taking arent illegal race-based decisions.

Specifically, the [Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs] has focused on whether Microsofts commitment to double the number of Black and African American people managers, senior individual contributors and senior leaders in our U.S. workforce by 2025 could constitute unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, which would violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, Microsoft general counsel Dev Stahlkopf wrote in a company blog post.

We have every confidence that Microsofts diversity initiative complies fully with all U.S. employment laws, Stahlkopf continued. We are clear that the law prohibits us from discriminating on the basis of race. We also have affirmative obligations as a company that serves the federal government to continue to increase the diversity of our workforce, and we take those obligations very seriously.
Schitts Creek co-creator and actor Dan Levy hit out at Comedy Central India for cutting out a kiss between his character David and Dustin Milligans character Ted in the show. He shared the censored promo on Twitter and said that it was harmful to the message of inclusivity that the show advocates.

You showed the kiss between two women, you showed the kiss between a woman and a man, then removed the kiss between two men? This is a show about the power of inclusivity. The censorship of gay intimacy is making a harmful statement against that message. #loveislove, he wrote.

In the video shared by Comedy Central India, the characters of Schitts Creek are seen playing spin the bottle. While a kiss between Alexis (played by Annie Murphy) and Ted and a same-sex kiss between Alexis and Stevie (played by Emily Hampshire) are retained, the kiss between David and Ted is edited out.

You showed the kiss between two women, you showed the kiss between a woman and a man, then removed the kiss between two men? This is a show about the power of inclusivity. The censorship of gay intimacy is making a harmful statement against that message. #loveislove https://t.co/3ouNbuetq1  dan levy (@danjlevy) October 6, 2020

Levy clarified in another tweet that he was disappointed with Comedy Central India, not the one in the US. I thought I made this pretty clear but for those who are confused, this is about a channel in India. @ComedyCentral in America is not censoring the show. They have been lovely and respectful. Thank you for your time, he wrote.

I thought I made this pretty clear but for those who are confused, this is about a channel in India. @ComedyCentral in America is not censoring the show. They have been lovely and respectful. Thank you for your time.   dan levy (@danjlevy) October 6, 2020

Also read: Emilia Clarke had issues with sexual assault scene in Game of Thrones, George RR Martin slams change made to plot

Schitts Creek was lauded for its portrayal of same-sex relationships. The show made Emmy history earlier this year by winning nine trophies, including all four wins in the acting category. One of its protagonists, David, identifies as pansexual and enters into a relationship with another man named Patrick, whom he eventually marries.

In a 2015 interview with Flare, Levy opened up about the decision to show David as pansexual. The more that we started exploring David and delving into his past, and what his whole life had been prior to when the show starts, it just felt like an interesting fit for him. The show is a family comedy. We wanted to approach it from a way that was very sort of normal, and by that I mean that the family was aware of it, they had been for a while. It wasnt one of those, Lets teach a lesson about pansexuality episodes. It was just who he was and who his family had accepted him to be, he had said.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
A man allegedly stabbed a woman in the head with a syringe while he was 'off his face' on drugs.

Liam Keogh Drummond, 23, appeared before ACT Magistrates Court in Canberra charged with intentionally wounding the woman and illegally possessing an uncapped needle.

Prosecutor Juanita Zankin opposed bail at the hearing on the grounds Mr Drummond is likely to harass the alleged victim and try to obstruct the course of justice by interfering with witnesses.

But Mr Drummond, who works as a removalist, 'adamantly denies' the allegations and says CCTV footage will show he's innocent, the Canberra Times reported.

Liam Keogh Drummond, 23, (pictured) appeared before ACT Magistrates Court in Canberra charged with intentionally wounding the woman and illegally possessing an uncapped needle

The alleged incident unfolded at a unit complex in Belconnen on Tuesday when the woman's mother called triple 0.

Police arrived on the scene at about 4.35pm to find Mr Drummond sweating profusely in a stairwell, making erratic body movements and appearing extremely agitated, police documents tendered to the court said.

When officers tried to place handcuffs on Mr Drummond, he allegedly pulled a syringe from his pocket.

Police were forced to draw their tasers and called for Mr Drummond to put the needle down.

After repeating themselves several times, they allege he eventually complied.

Following the arrest, the officers entered the alleged victim's unit where they found her 'visibly distressed'.

Police body cam footage recorded the woman saying: 'He stabbed me in the head with a needle.'

She also said Mr Drummond arrived at the apartment 'off his face' and acting crazy.

Mr Drummond was refused bail

When the woman asked him to leave, he allegedly punched her in the head while holding an 11-centimetre needle.

Police documents say she felt 'funny' and said her head hurt all over.

She was taken to Calvary Hospital, and treated for a 'needle stick injury' that police described as 'a small puncture wound ... with blood surrounding it'.

Mr Drummond's Legal Aid lawyer Taden Kellihe, applied for his client to be released on bail, promising that he would stay away from the woman, abstain from drugs and follow any other conditions of the court.

But Magistrate James Stewart slapped down the application bid after the court heard Mr Drummond had phoned his mother in an attempt to contact the alleged victim through her while he was in custody at the ACT Watch House.

The court also heard Mr Drummond 'continually screamed' for the woman after he had been arrested at the unit.

Mr Kellihe said when his client reappears in court on November 3, he will plead not guilty to the charge of intentional wounding, adding that security camera footage at the building would exonerate him.

'I am instructed that a simple review of that CCTV footage will put the matter to bed very quickly,' the lawyer said.

Mr Drummond also claims the alleged victim was in the midst of a three-day drug bender and suffers from 'severe' schizophrenia, the court heard.
The district administration in Uttar Pradeshs Hathras has provided three-layered security to the family of a Dalit woman who died after being gang-raped by four men. The administrations decision comes two days after UP Police claimed apprehending four people linked with the Popular Front of India (PFI) in connection with the case.

The authorities have installed a metal detector and CCTV camera for the security of the family.

On Monday, four people were arrested in Mathura on suspicion of having links with PFI and its student wing - Campus Front of India (CFI) - while they were on their way to Hathras from Delhi. They were later sent to 14-days in preventive detention after being booked under Section 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) on Tuesday, police said.

As per the FIR registered against them, the men were going to Hathras to disrupt peace as part of larger conspiracy, news agency ANI reported on Wednesday.

Also Read | Hathras gang-rape case: Opposition hatching conspiracies, says Yogi Adityanath

Meanwhile, chief minister Yogi Adityanath had alleged that there is big international conspiracy to defame his government and attempts to spark caste and communal riots over the murder and gang-rape of the Dalit woman.

The 19-year-old succumbed to the injuries in Delhis Safdarjung hospital on September 29. Following this, the administration cremated the woman in the dead of the night, sparking nationwide outrage.

The police have imposed prohibitory measures under Section 144 (of the CrPC) to limit the visitors coming to meet the family.

Meanwhile, a three-member special investigation team (SIT) has been constituted by the state government to probe the case. The state has, on its part, recommended a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Also, the case will be tried in a fast-track court.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Brian Curel-Huerta was among those racing their motorcycles. Two other individuals were racing when they crashed into Curel-Huerta.

San Antonio police have arrested a 41-year-old man in connection with a motorcycle accident that left one dead and another hospitalized Monday night, an arrest affidavit said.

Orlando Martinez was charged with failure to stop and render aid resulting in death, failure to stop and render aid resulting in substantial bodily harm and two counts of racing on a highway resulting in substantial bodily harm or death.

Police said Martinez and Mario Garcia, 27, were racing their motorcycles around 11 p.m. near the 13000 block of SW Loop 410, between Palo Alto Road and S. Zarzamora Street. A witness said he saw Martinez and Garcia line up in the lane and begin the race, the affidavit said. Martinez later told police he was testing the physical stamina of the motorcycle over a long distance, according to the affidavit.

FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox

Soon after, police said the two collided, running into another motorcycle driven by 22-year-old Brian Curel-Huerta. Garcia crashed into a grassy median and died at the scene, while Curel-Huerta was hospitalized with serious injuries to his back and arms. The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office said Garcia died from multiple blunt force injuries and his death was ruled an accident.

Martinez crashed further east into a grassy median but took off without helping the others, the affidavit said.

RELATED: One dead after multi-motorcycle crash on South Side

At the hospital, Curel-Huerta told police that Martinez was texting him photos from a hospital, sending pictures of his injuries, the affidavit said. One of the nurses recognized the hospital gown and decor and told police Martinez was at Mission Trail Baptist Hospital.

He was arrested Tuesday afternoon, and his bail was set at $205,000.

Taylor Pettaway is a breaking news and general assignment reporter for MySA.com | taylor.pettaway@express-news.net | @TaylorPettaway
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to complete the Kolkata East-West Metro Corridor Project at the cost of 8,575 crore. This will give a boost to mass transit system, said Union minister Piyush Goyal while briefing media on cabinet decisions today.

The total length of the project is 16.6 km and it will consist of 12 stations. It will connect Howrah on the West bank of the river Hooghly with Salt Lake City on its east bank.

The metro corridor will ease traffic congestion, enhance urban connectivity and provide a cleaner mobility solution to lakhs of daily commuters, the minister added.

Goyal had on Sunday virtually inaugurated the Phoolbagan Station of Kolkatas East-West Metro corridor, describing the extension of the line from Salt Lake Stadium as a Durga Puja gift for the people of the metropolis.

He also flagged off the first train from the new station to Salt Lake Sector-V, and said the entire stretch of the corridor is likely to be completed by December 2021.

Phoolbagan is the first underground station to become operational on the East-West Metro corridor, which travels both below the surface and on elevated tracks, and also through underwater tunnels below River Hooghly.

M G Road in the north-south main line of Kolkata Metro was the last underground station to be commissioned back in September 1995. All metro stations to become functional after that are either elevated or at grade level.

Work on the East-West Metro corridor was also disrupted due to an accident caused by an aquifer burst in Bowbazar area in central Kolkata during drilling operations in August 2019.

It will take only 16 minutes to cover the 6.54-km distance between Sector-V and Phoolbagan. When complete, the East-West Metro will connect both Howrah and Sealdah stations, two of Railways busiest stations.

The first phase of the project, a 4.88-km stretch connecting Sector-V and Salt Lake Stadium, was inaugurated by Goyal on February 13.

(With inputs from PTI)
IIT-Bombay student jumps to death from 7th floor of hostel building, cites depression in 'suicide note'

Watch: Students speak in Japanese in Aurangabad's Gadiwat village

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

Mumbai, Oct 07: When student community of cities has almost taken all attention of smart education in the country, the students of a Zilla Parishad-run school in a remote village in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra have shown education is not at all about location.

The students of Gadiwat village, located 25 kilometres from Aurangabad city are learning and speaking Japanese and they have a fascination for robotics and technology.

The main aim of the initiative is to provide job-oriented education to students, said the District Education Officer (DEO) Suraj Prasad Jaiswal to ANI.

#WATCH | Students of a Zilla Parishad-run school in a village in Maharashtra's Aurangabad district speak Japanese language. (06.10.2020) pic.twitter.com/MtF774Euip  ANI (@ANI) October 6, 2020

"Under this initiative, a person takes online classes of the language. Many teachers of the school have also learnt Japanese. The main aim is to provide job-oriented education to students. A lot of Japanese tourists visit Ajanta and Ellora caves in the district. If the students can speak Japanese, they can become guides," Jaiswal said.

Covid-19: China asks Indian students to stay in touch with their Chinese colleges for info to return

The government-run school decided to launch a foreign language programme in September last year, under which students from Classes 4 to 8 were asked to choose a language they would like to learn.

This foreign language learning program motivates students to explore more about that country and push them towards rapid improvement.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

Sueeksha, a class 8th student said, "We enjoy learning the Japanese language. We have completed level 1. We can now talk in Japanese. I want to go to Japan and learn robotics."

Amrita Rajesh, another student of class 6th said, "Japan is a technology-driven country. I want to go there and learn about technology so that I can do the same in India."

The demand for Japanese linguistic skills is undoubtedly on the increase. Both globalizing Japanese and Indian corporations are looking for translators, interpreters, instructors and administrators.

Notably, Pune has grown to become a major centre of Japanese language education, surpassing the other larger cities in India.
More than six months into the pandemic, as we all adapt to live with the new-normal and hit the re-start pedal on our lives, our interactions have all become virtual. Communication happens through layers of masks and sanitizers. Social distancing can be tough for everyone, making it even more important to add that bit of cheer to our everyday lives. A new campaign launched by SBI Card, called Contactless Connections, tugs at your heartstrings as it portrays innovative, contactless ways of showing that you care for your loved ones in these rugged times. It shows us how small gestures without any physical contact can also go a long way in spreading joy and love.

The film opens with a doctor returning home at the end of a hard days work. She is surprised to find a bowl of food at her doorstep, a token of love from her elderly next-door neighbour. She returns the gesture by leaving flowers for the lady, bought using her Contactless SBI Card. With this contactless payment solution, even with social distancing, the doctor is able to express her gratitude in a heartfelt way.

Make Contactless Connections with your loved ones

You can also carry out a small gesture for your loved ones & bring a smile on their face, while using the safe way of making payments with SBI Credit Card. SBI Card offers three ways of making contactless payments, with which you can make purchases without the need of swiping the card or touching the Point of Sale (POS) Machine or even entering the credit card PIN. You can pay for almost everything with the convenience of making the whole payment process completely contactless.

Here are all the ways with which contactless payments using SBI Card can help you #StayContactlessStayHappy

Make Contactless Connections with your loved ones

Contactless SBI Credit Card: All you need to do is simply wave the Contactless Card on a Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled Point of Sale (POS) machine. This credit card allows you to pay for anything under 2,000 without punching your PIN or even physically handing over your card to the shopkeeper for a swipe. Only transaction amount of more than INR 2,000 requires the authentication by entering the card PIN.

SBI Card Pay: With SBI Card Pay, you can forget leaving your credit card at home and still make payments with your smartphone. All you need to do is tap your Android smartphone on the NFC-enabled POS machine, to make faster and secure payments of up to INR 2,000, without the need of entering the PIN (PIN is required for amount only greater than INR 2,000).

Scan & Pay: For those who are still not stepping out and relying more on online purchases, SBI Card offers Scan & Pay, a QR based convenient, safe and secure payment solution. You can simply scan the Bharat QR code using the Scan and Pay feature on the SBI Card Mobile App, to make payments at online portals or even brick and mortar retailers where you are place orders for home deliveries. For added safety, all such payments are authenticated using a One Time Password (OTP).

Needless to say, with an SBI Card you can keep all your worries at bay, making contactless connections with your near and dear ones & keep spreading #ContactlessKhushiyan.
While the recent surge in school-related COVID-19 cases in Ontario might seem alarming, infectious disease experts says it doesnt necessarily mean that school safeguards are lacking.

Instead, its more indicative of viral spread in the outside community.

Schools are trying to make the best of what they have with the limited resources available to prevent transmission within the school, Dr. Isaac Bogoch, with the University Health Network, told the Star in an interview.

Simply having people show up to school with COVID-19, it is important and it is unfortunate but it only tells part of the story.

Bogoch was commenting after the province reported that the number of new COVID-19 school-related cases in public schools jumped by 111 for a total of 722 cases  with 541 reported within the last 14 days.

According to its latest data, thats a 23.6 per cent jump in school-related cases from the previous day in the last two weeks, with most of the new cases among students.

There were 69 new COVID-19 cases identified in students, 325 of which were announced in the past two weeks. Theres been a total of 402 since school began last month.

Additionally, 15 staff members were diagnosed with the virus for a total of 75 in the last two weeks, and 117 overall after reopening.

There were 27 additional cases in individuals who werent identified for 141 in the last two weeks, and 203 overall.

Dr. Susy Hota, an epidemiologist with the University Health Network, agreed with Bogoch.

It really is about the overall context, she said to the Star. What really worries me, however, when we see numbers jump up, is that it reflects an exponential increase in the community.

Ontario reported 583 new cases overall Wednesday  173 in Toronto, 70 in Peel, 75 in York Region and 121 in Ottawa.

In a written statement to the Star, associate medical officer of health Dr. Vinita Dubey said the surge in new cases was the result of rising rates of infection throughout Ontario.

COVID-19 infections have recently dramatically risen in Toronto . . . This in turn has affected the rate of infections in schools in Toronto, said Dubey.

There is a lag between the daily provincial data at 10:30 a.m. and news reports about infections in schools. The provincial data on Wednesday is current as of 2 p.m. Tuesday. It also doesnt indicate where the place of transmission occurred.

Bogoch told the Star that the key thing to watch out for is how much infection is being transmitted within the school.

Obviously no one wants to have a case at school, but its not unexpected to have a case at school given the burden of infection in the community, he said.

Hota reassured parents that most of the spread is likely community based, that kids are attending school with COVID-19 and that they didnt get the virus because theyre at school.

These are kids who are attending school, she said. Its not necessarily that these numbers are (from) school.

Bogoch advised parents who may be concerned by the rising numbers to keep an eye on the infection rates in their communities, as well as the specific safeguards in place at their local schools.

Parents should constantly re-evaluate their unique situations to determine what approach works best for them.

For some parents, that might be carrying on sending their kids to school. For other parents, that might mean a pivot toward home learning, he said.

The latest report from the province shows 32 more schools with a reported case for a total of 379 schools. The province notes that it is 7.85 per cent of the 4,828 publicly funded schools in Ontario.

Two schools are currently closed, according to the Ministry of Health figures.

One of those is St. Charles Catholic School near Dufferin Street and Lawrence Avenue West in North York.

St. Charles closed Monday for a week after an itinerant music teacher, who tested positive for COVID-19, had contact with three classes in the school of 250. That staff member also had been assigned to four other schools  St. Demetrius, St. Mark, St. Roch and St. Ursula. But only St. Charles is closed.

Like many boards, the Toronto Catholic board has continued using travelling, or itinerant, teachers to instruct students in gym, music and French during the pandemic, a plan that was approved by the Ministry of Education.

Ottawas French Catholic School Boards Ecole elementaire catholique Horizon-Jeunesse is also closed.

The Toronto District School Board updates its information on current COVID-19 cases throughout the day on its website. As of 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, there were 103 TDSB schools with at least one case  103 students and 38 staff.

The Toronto Catholic District School Board also updates its information on its website. As of Wednesday at 11:45 a.m., there were 34 schools with a case, with 39 students and nine staff infected.

Kevin Jiang is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Reach him via email: kjiang@thestar.ca
Value + savings in the energy industry Weve always believed in a customer centric approach, and we strive to create always new solutions to better reward clients from every view point.

America Power & Gas partners with the biggest mastermind in the word for Amazon based businesses (Titans Network), to provide unique products and rewards to its customers. Over 400 Amazon Sellers currently involved.

Weve always believed in a customer centric approach, and we strive to create always new solutions to better reward clients from every view point. We already provide 100% green energy, and are deeply involved in low income communities providing so far over 1,500,000 meals through food banks across the United States and the Universal Church of God in Brooklyn. Our new Rewards Program fits perfectly with our philosophy and we are looking forward to release it to all our customers, says Andrea dAgostini Vice President PR & Marketing for American Power & Gas.

Too often retail energy players push the message of savings, when the truth is that value is much more important. Do the math how much are you actually saving? $30 every three months? Maybe.

This plan is quite different, in fact the company is offering $50 per month for each account enrolled, on top of 100% green energy and all the other perks of being a customer.

American Power & Gas finally brought some innovation to the customer experience moving past savings and diving into value added products, rewards and services that actually matter to the customer base. Savings are not enough.

This is how the future looks like.

The future belongs to those that can provide more value.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lambasted President Donald Trump during a Wednesday interview on ABCs The View, calling for White House staff to stage an "intervention" because "something's wrong."

Asked about her level of concern for Trump's health given her role as second in the line of succession behind Vice President Mike Pence, Pelosi said she was very concerned for both herself and others around the country suffering amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"That's why I think that there has to be an intervention in terms of people around him," she said, citing the need for a national plan to combat the pandemic.

The Speaker also criticized Trump for softening his stance on the halting of stimulus talks after outcry from lawmakers, business elites, the public and the stock market.

Trump made a terrible mistake" when the president tweeted his opposition to any further discussion of a coronavirus stimulus package, Pelosi said

The fact is that he saw the political downside of his statement of walking away from the negotiationshe walked away from the opportunity to crush the virus so that we could open our schools and our economy safely, he walked away from putting money in the pockets of the American people, Pelosi said.

More: Pelosi questions whether Trump taking steroids for COVID-19 impacted decision to halt coronavirus stimulus bill

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020.

Its interesting that he said hed send out those checks if we sent him that bill, because all hes ever wanted in the negotiation is to send out a check with his name on it. Forget about the virus, forget about our heroes, forget about our children and their need to go to school safely, she mused.

Pelosi on Tuesday questioned whether the presidents infection or side effects from his treatment (including a steroid) had impaired his decision-making abilities, during a conference call with fellow House Democrats Tuesday afternoon.

Stimulus talks have been stalled as Senate Republicans wary of government spending have yet to find a compromise with Pelosi and congressional Democrats' assertions that a piecemeal deal would be inadequate for the nation's current economic pain.

Story continues

More: Stocks rise as Trump tweets on stimulus keep market spinning

Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke on the phone Wednesday morning about aid for the ailing airline industry, despite the president ordering an end to stimulus talks.

"But I will say this, it is really important for us to come to this agreement. When the president just popped off and made that announcement without even informing us that that was the case, he insulted the Constitution of the United States," Pelosi concluded.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pelosi on 'The View': White House should stage a Trump 'intervention'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 22:45:25|Editor: huaxia

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VALLETTA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Responding to claims by local fishermen that they have to wage "wars" at sea with their Tunisian rivals, the Maltese government has decided to deploy the army to combat illegal fishing.

The patrols are being carried out by the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture together with the Armed Forces of Malta and involve surveillance in both territorial and international waters, the government said in a statement Wednesday.

The department said that the patrols are not targeted exclusively at any particular country. Their aim is to control the use of fish aggregating devices (FADs) in international waters. FADs are manmade objects used to lure and catch fish.

The Maltese fishermen have also been asked to report and provide any evidence -- photos, videos or GPS (global positioning system) coordinates -- of any such breaches.

The government said it had also reported the matter to the European Commission and had discussed the issue with the European Fisheries Control Agency. The Maltese Foreign Affairs Ministry had also reached out to Tunisia to solve the issue. Enditem
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- America meant more than just a flag to four Staten Island brothers who served in the armed forces during World War II.

The Hosmer brothers of Rosebank each did their part to ensure that the United States would emerge victorious during the second world war.

Frank, Felix, Mickey and Joey Hosmer believed that country came first and when the U.S. went to war, so did the siblings. They quickly enlisted in the U.S. Navy.

Mickey was the first to enlist and served on the USS Knight and USS Philadelphia; he earned four battle stars.

Frank was second to enlist and saw his fair share of battle as well.

Frank served in two operations in the Pacific and one Atlantic operation. He received three battle stars while on duty with the Navy Patrol Bombers.

Felix enlisted next and earned 15 battle stars while serving on the destroyer USS Lardner. Felix served in over 30 operations.

In September 1942, while the USS Lardner was escorting the third Marine division to bring reinforcements to Guadalcanal, they came under heavy fire from Japanese submarines.

Felix told relatives about a brush with death on the ship. A torpedo shot from a Japanese submarine went just under the USS Lardner, instead striking the USS North Carolina. What followed was one of the loudest explosions Felix ever heard, along with thick funnels of smoke rising into the atmosphere.

Felixs ship saved 300 sailors that day from the USS Wasp.

Felix was discharged a month prior to the Japanese surrender, which many of his crew mates were present for.

The youngest brother, Joey was the last to enlist. Joey went on to serve the country in Naval intelligence for over 25 years

In 1958, during the Taiwan Strait crisis, when China and the United States flirted with the idea of war, Joeys crew was less than 90 miles away from the mainland and the idea of an attack was more than just a possibility.

After the war, the three older brothers returned home to the support of millions of Americans. But most importantly, all four men formed an even tighter bond to their brothers.

Each of the brothers got married and had children. The brothers went on to serve their communities. Mickey opened up an HVAC company while Felix worked as a plumber. Frank went on to work as a Postal worker, plumber and HVAC technician.

The brothers eventually retired and were able to enjoy the rest of their time with their beloved children and grandchildren.

Ron Hosmer, the son of Felix, has been fascinated with the history of his father and uncles since the late 1990s.

I got involved in the late 90s, my father wasnt a big talker, I would have to discover things, do my research and talk to him about it. Thats when he would tell me his stories.

Ron has taken several trips to the South Pacific to try and retrace the steps of his father during World War II. Ron also continues to be an avid researcher when it comes to the war and the events that unfolded.

Ron says that he wants to educate future family members and younger people who dont know much about what people like his father and uncles went through.

All four brothers have since passed on. Frank died in 2005, Felix in 2007, Joseph in 2014 and Mickey in 2019.

The story of the Hosmer brothers will continue to be strong message to future generations of Americans and a real life story of selflessness and sacrifice.
Seventies bombshell Suzanne Somers, who is best known for her TV series Three's Company, has hurt her neck requiring surgery.

The 73-year-old blonde beauty took a fall down a flight of stairs with her 84-year-old husband Alan Hamel and Suzanne felt the pain the most, she shared with a Wednesday Instagram post.

After seeing a doctor the pinup realized she had two vertebrae out of place and went in for an operation.

Ouch: Seventies bombshell Suzanne Somers, who is best known for her TV series Three's Company, has hurt her neck requiring surgery. Seen with husband Alan Hamel in 2019

She explained how it went down: The personality shared the bad news with a Wednesday Instagram post

In the meantime, the couple is taking a break from their Facebook show.

Suzanne and Alan, who have been married since 1977, live in Palm Springs, California.

Somers is already recovering from a fractured hip from last year.

The TV star began: 'Thank you so much for all of your concern while Alan and I took a break from our normal schedule.'

Wedded bliss: Suzanne and Alan have been married since 1977, and live in Palm Springs, California. It does not seem he was hurt

She added: 'As most of you know, I have been struggling for the better part of the year with a fractured hip, and then Alan and I took an unfortunate fall while coming down the stairs at our home.

'I had an intense amount of pain after the fall that was not resolving  even after having tequila!'

After several scans, 'it was determined I had 2 vertebrae out of place which was causing pressure on nerves and creating that tremendous pain.'

A hit! She came to fame with John Ritter on Three's Company which debuted in 1976

Hot stuff: Here the siren is seen on the beach in LA in 1979. She has made a business of staying young looking

She said the good news was that she had neck surgery to correct the issues.

'And now I am on the mend! I need a bit more time to recover before I can join you again at the bar for our virtual cocktail parties.

'In the meantime, we will keep the sales going on our site. Watch for posts and special announcements on SuzanneSomers.com, and my accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. As always, I so appreciate your love and support. Be back soon! Love, Suzanne.'

Somers' most recent book is A New Way to Age: The Most Cutting-Edge Advances in Antiaging.
Williamson, WV (25661)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. A few flurries or snow showers possible. High 43F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Low 26F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.
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STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijani forces used the relative calm on October 6, that occurred following the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairing countries foreign ministerial statement, in order to regroup and launch a new attack from the northern and southern directions of the frontline, the Artsakh Defense Ministry said.

The adversarys actions also posed dangers to the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Defense Army troops have neutralized the Azerbaijani militarys all advancement attempts with powerful counterstrikes. Large numbers of Azerbaijani manpower, military hardware, artillery and other military equipment and ammunitions have been destroyed during the battles. The Defense Army units succeeded to significantly improve their own battle orders, the Artsakh Defense Ministry said.

The Defense Army is confidently in control of the tactical-strategic situation and is ready for any kind of developments.

Azerbaijani forces attempted to advance and reinforce overnight October 6-7 in the south-eastern direction (off Jebrayil), but Artsakhi forces delivered precision artillery strikes at the adversary attacking units.

The Azerbaijani forces are amassing in large numbers directly along the length of the Artsakh-Iranian border from the Artsakhi side (along the Araks (Araxes) River) in an attempt to take cover by the border and advance. The Azeris seek to provoke Artsakh to open fire in the direction of Iran, the Armenian Defense Ministry warned earlier.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
Chemotherapy-based cancer treatment has distressing side effects for patients and increases the risk of developing resistance to the treatment. In an attempt to solve these problems, scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have developed a technique for quickly identifying from a large number of existing drugs the optimal synergistic combination and dose of products that can kill the tumor cells without affecting healthy cells.

In partnership with the University Hospital of Geneva (HUG) and the University Medical Center in Amsterdam, they have demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach in colorectal cancer. The results are published in an article in the journal Molecular Oncology. The best drug combinations identified were assessed using in vitro tests and, for the first time, in vivo on mouse models. All the combinations were shown to be more effective than chemotherapy and did not cause any apparent toxicity in the healthy cells or in the animals. This study further paves the way for personalised, effective and safe cancer treatment.

The technique we've designed and patented is called TGMO, which stands for phenotypically-driven therapeutically guided multidrug optimisation. It combines testing and highly-advanced statistical analysis. It can be used to rapidly perform - in a few steps - simultaneous tests on cancerous and healthy cells (from the same patient), and evaluate all the possible combinations of drugs that we selected for the purpose. The positive synergies are preserved, while the antagonisms are rejected." Patrycja Nowak-Sliwinska, Professor, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of UNIGE's Faculty of Science

The experiment incorporated 12 drugs, all recently approved for commercialization or in the final phase of clinical trials. Colorectal cancer cell lines that had been perfectly characterised for the requirements of scientific studies were submitted to the TGMO-based "machinery". The aim of the search was to determine the combination of products closest to the desired outcome: the death of cancer cell together with an absence of effect on the healthy cell - and all using the lowest possible drug doses. The procedure resulted in multidrug combinations of three or four drugs, all slightly different from each other.

80% reduction of tumor growth

The activity of the combinations was then verified under somewhat more complex conditions than a single cell: first on a three-dimensional model of a human tumor containing cancer cells and other types, as is the case in reality, and finally on mice serving as an experimental model for colorectal cancer. The drug combinations reduced tumor growth by about 80% and consistently outperformed the effectiveness of chemotherapy. They revealed a total absence of toxicity in the healthy cells - unlike with chemotherapy - and significant activity on cancer cells freshly taken from current patients in Switzerland.

"It's the first time that in vivo tests have been carried out with drug combinations derived from our TGMO technology," enthuses Patrycja Nowak-Sliwinska. "The study shows that it is possible to efficiently identify low-dose synergistic and selective optimized drug combinations, regardless of the mutation status of the tumor, and which are more effective than conventional chemotherapy. We are currently discussing setting up a clinical study on patients so we can take things a stage further. But this stage, financing of which depends very much on the interest that a private sector might have in our approach, is first and foremost the work of clinical physicians."

Results in under two weeks

TGMO technology is designed in such a way that it achieves results in under two weeks, which is the same as the time that doctors take to determine the treatment to be administered to a patient as soon as a diagnosis has been made. "This approach clearly represents the future for oncology patients," continues Thibaud Koessler, head of Gastrointestinal Oncology in the HUG Oncology Department and one of the authors of the article. "The ability to test different drugs ex vivo and to select the combination for each patient that the cancer will be most sensitive to should increase the effectiveness of treatments while reducing the toxicity, two of the most problematic aspects in current therapies."
Philly-based geospatial technology startup Cesium has won three major awards in as many months. Tweet this

Cesium was recognized for "its end-to-end platform that unleashes the potential of 3D geospatial data," and its dedication to open standards. Cesium created 3D Tiles, the open specification that transforms massive 3D datasets into streamable 3D content.

Cesium CEO Patrick Cozzi, an expert in 3D graphics and mapping technology, open standards, and open-source software, accepted the award at a virtual ceremony on October 6. Cozzi is the creator of the Cesium WebGL engine and 3D Tiles, and co-creator of glTF.

"The widespread availability of 3D geospatial data combined with a countless number of industries that need to utilize these data has brought our work into the limelight," Cozzi said. "Cesium is thrilled to contribute the 3D platform that enables everyone to build applications with 3D geospatial data."

Cesium also took home the top prize at the GEOINT 2020 Innovative Tradecraft Competition. The inaugural competition was held by the Open Geospatial Consortium and the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) to address mission challenges through visualization, data sharing, and interoperability. That award celebrated 3D Tiles and Cesium's unique approach of applying computer graphics techniques to 3D geospatial problems.

Locally, Cesium was awarded the 2020 PACT Enterprise Award for Technology Startup by the Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies, which celebrates innovation in the Philadelphia region.

2020 Awards for Cesium:

GEOINT 2020 Innovative Tradecraft Competition, Grand Prize Winner.

2020 PACT Enterprise Award, Technology Startup.

Geospatial World Awards, 2020 Geospatial Startup of the Year.

About Cesium - The Platform for 3D Geospatial

As the foundational open platform for 3D geospatial data, Cesium makes the world's ever-growing collection of real-world 3D data more useful and accessible by enabling the creation of applications that visualize, analyze, and share this data on the web. Committed to openness, interoperability, and ease-of-use, Cesium powers solutions that create digital twins of the real world in industries such as AEC, aerospace, energy, commercial real estate, smart cities, autonomous driving, and defense. https://cesium.com.

SOURCE Cesium

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https://cesium.com/


Donald Trump; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Getty/Saul Loeb/Nicholas Kamm

While still battling COVID-19 himself, President Trump on Tuesday provoked fierce condemnation by announcing that the White House will no longer negotiate with Democratic congressional leaders on another coronavirus relief package  even though millions of Americans remain jobless, hungry and at risk of eviction.

In a series of tweets, Trump accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi  whose chamber passed one relief measure in May and another last week that were both rejected by Senate Republicans and the White House  of "not negotiating in good faith." Trump also claimed he will win the November election against Democratic nominee Joe Biden and then "immediately" work to pass a "major" stimulus bill.

Despite polling that shows three-quarters of Americans want lawmakers to prioritize pandemic relief, Trump also directed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to focus on confirming Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's controversial right-wing nominee to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was among those who responded to Trump on Twitter, asserting that the president and GOP are pursuing an "anti-everybody agenda" while attempting to push through a Supreme Court nominee whose positions could jeopardize health care for millions of people nationwide:

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1313564476390637568

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., also took to Twitter to call out Trump and the Republicans. Tying the move to the general election  for which early voting has already begun  she said, "The only logical response to this fuckery, is to vote them out."

https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1313574311098281985

Princeton University professor, writer and activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor declared: "We need more than an election; we need a revolution."

https://twitter.com/KeeangaYamahtta/status/1313563442717040645

Story continues

As Common Dreams reported earlier Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that insufficient stimulus action from the federal government "would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses."

Pelosi, who noted Powell's remarks in her statement responding to the news, said that "today, once again, President Trump showed his true colors: putting himself first at the expense of the country, with the full complicity of the GOP Members of Congress."

In walking away, Pelosi said, "he shows his contempt for science, his disdain for our heroes  in healthcare, first responders, sanitation, transportation, food workers, teachers, teachers, teachers and others  and he refuses to put money in workers' pockets, unless his name is printed on the check."

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., the top House member on Congress' Joint Economic Committee, warned in a statement responding to Trump on Tuesday that the president's decision imperils economic recovery from the crisis.

"President Trump's stunning reversal on stimulus negotiations could not have come at a worse time," Beyer said. "His tweets justifying this erratic about-face misstated Democrats' compromise position, formalized in recently passed legislation, by hundreds of billions of dollars, showing he is either unaware of what is happening with negotiations or deliberately trying to mislead the country."

"The U.S. economy needs this deal, and last month's alarming jobs report shows how urgent that need is. Tens of millions of unemployed workers, millions of public sector jobs, and vast numbers of small businesses are on the edge of disaster," he added. "Walking away from talks means walking away from protecting schools, walking away from a strong pandemic response, and walking away from American families that need help now. It is hard to comprehend such an irrational, reckless, and destructive act."

Main Street Alliance executive director Amanda Ballantyne said that "for Trump to stop negotiations on urgently needed relief, stating he will only resume negotiations after he 'wins' the election shows callous disregard for millions of Americans suffering extreme financial hardship. The president appears willing to take the economy down with him if he fails, at this point.

"Small businesses have waited far too long for needed relief, and the consequences of delay have meant hundreds of thousands of closures impacting the labor market and economy," she continued, urging lawmakers to defy Trump. "This is no time for political brinksmanship. Senate Republicans must come to the table and take action."

Washington Post White House economics reporter Jeff Stein detailed some of the anticipated consequences of the Senate GOP obeying Trump in a pair of tweets:

https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1313571350812987393

According to Stein, White House economic adviser Stephen Moore said of Trump's decision to ditch relief talks: "From a political and a policy standpoint, this was a shrewd move. ... A deal on the Pelosi plan would have completely divided the Republican Party on the eve of the election."

Noting the mounting U.S. death toll from the pandemic, Greenpeace USA program director Lindsey Allen accused the president of "playing games with the health and safety of millions of Americans" and said "his decision to postpone a stimulus that would help working families across the country will no doubt lead to more suffering."

"It is unconscionable to do anything other than fast-track the HEROES Act, which would provide critical relief but has been stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate for months," Allen said of the House-approved measure. "Trump knows he is losing support as Election Day draws near, so he's doing everything in his power to threaten our confidence in democracy through deception and disruption."

"His lies about election fraud and chaos are designed to discourage voting and encourage right-wing violence," she added. "But the people elect the president and if the people vote Trump out, he will go. We must count every vote  no matter how long it takes  because every vote counts."

Related Articles
As a lawyer, I get calls all the time from friends wondering how to get out of jury duty. The answer to these questions used to be simple: dont try to get out of jury duty. But, in a COVID-19 world, those calls have become a lot more complicated.

Recently, two of my family members received the jury questionnaire in the mail  a precursor to being called for jury duty. Both of their reactions were similar: a keen disinterest in participating.

Of course, the criminal defence lawyer in me implored the importance of members of the public performing this essential civic duty. OUR DEMOCRACY RELIES ON IT. But the ordinary human in me, going through this pandemic like everyone else, totally empathized with their hesitation.

Their reactions are not isolated. A recent survey conducted by the Canadian Juries Commission on COVID-19 and Jury Duty found that Canadians willingness to serve on a jury post-COVID-19 is pretty low. These days, the only thing Canadians want to do less than jury duty is volunteer at a hospital. This finding is telling. And it is concerning.

COVID-19 is threatening the integrity of the institution that is trial by jury. Of 14 criminal jury trials that have resumed in Ontario after the six-month COVID court hiatus, three have been or are likely to be mistried, all for COVID-19 related reasons.

In other words, the failure rate of the resumption of jury trials is high. While courts attempt to address an epic backlog in the system  between 800 and 900 jury trials that were set to take place during the first six months of COVID-19 had to be put on hold  another stoppage looms as we experience the second wave. Trial by jury, a representative and willing jury, is at risk.

Where a person accused of an offence could face a prison term of five years or more, they have a constitutionally protected right to a jury trial. A trial by jury means that members of your community will decide whether the Crown has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Juries hear the evidence and decide the facts in a given case. Juries have been described as the bulwark of individual liberty, and the ultimate protection against oppressive laws and oppressive law enforcement. Simply put, the jury trial is a hallmark of our constitutional democracy.

The answer to what the Department of Justice has called one of the greatest challenges facing criminal courts in the pandemic is not, as suggested by Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Richard Wagner, a reduction in the size of juries. It is not, as suggested by the Chief Justice of Albertas highest trial court, incentivizing accused persons to opt for a judge-alone trial. These so-called suggestions only serve to further erode a system under attack.

The solution lies in you, members of the public. (I would have said us because I truly believe we are all in this together, but as a lawyer, I am, for better or for worse, precluded from serving as a juror).

This is a call to action. It is time to reimagine the civic responsibility that is jury duty as an essential service; jurors as front-line workers. Just like other front-line workers, jurors need higher compensation. They require better health and safety measures in place to perform their job.

Most importantly, there needs to be buy-in from government and public institutions to reflect back to the general public the integral role that jurors play in keeping the wheels of justice turning. Our justice system, and indeed our democracy, depends on it.
BEIRUT - For the first time in eight years an Arab Gulf country is taking back its ambassador to war-torn Syria, according to Syrian and pan Arab media outlets. The reports said Oman has appointed and sent to Damascus an ambassador.



Over the past few weeks Oman had welcomed the normalization of the relations of Israel, an archenemy of Syria, with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Syrian government news agency Sana published photos of the official meeting on October 4 between Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al Muallim and Oman's new ambassador, Mahmud Mahmud Al Busaidi.



Oman and the other Arab Gulf countries left Syria in 2012 following the government's crackdown on an uprising in 2011.



Syria also lost its seat in the Arab League on that occasion.



However, its reintroduction within the pan Arab institution has been discussed for over a year. Oman has just gone through a peaceful transition after the death in January of Sultan Qaboos (50 years in power) and the succession of the new sultan, Haitham ben Tariq. The sultanate, which is at a crossroads between Iran, the Indian Ocean and the Middle East, traditionally tries to maintain an open policy towards all regional actors and the reopening of formal relations with Damascus is part of its efforts to normalize relations with all other countries in the region, including Israel.


Syracuse, N.Y.  Mayor Ben Walsh is endorsing Democrat John Mannion over Republican Angi Renna in a race for an open state Senate seat.

Its only the third time Walsh, who is not affiliated with a political party, has openly backed a candidate in a local election in his three years as mayor. In those local races, Walsh has thrown his support behind two Democrats and one Republican.

The mayor said in an interview with syracuse.com | The Post-Standard that his rare choice to endorse isnt about political party.

Rather, he said, his support for Mannion follows the same litmus test he always uses:

Do I think hes what best for the city of Syracuse for that position? Walsh said. I ultimately came to the conclusion that he is. So I agreed to endorse him.

Walsh said he and Mannion agree on the states proposal to tear down a portion of Interstate 81 and reroute highway traffic around the city. Walsh said he also liked that Mannion, a high school teacher, has made education policy a priority.

Plus, the mayor said, Mannion asked.

I asked if he would consider endorsing, Mannion said. And he agreed.

Still, the nod from the mayor could prove pivotal in a race between two people whove never held office. Mannion is outraising Renna 3 to 1 for a seat thats been held by Republicans for more than five decades.

Walsh said hes unlikely to take sides in the regions most competitive race, the rematch between Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus, and Democrat Dana Balter. A Siena/syracuse.com poll released Sunday shows the two in a dead heat.

I didnt weigh in the last time around, he said of their race in 2018, when Katko won by about 5 percentage points. I have a good relationship with both of them. And I havent been asked.

Choosing sides, the mayor said, is easier when theres no incumbent. Where I have existing relationships, he said, its better not to weigh in.

Walshs support for Mannion comes about three weeks after the mayor said he would vote for Democrat Joe Biden over President Donald Trump, a Republican.

Walsh dismissed any notion that he was trying to appeal to Democrats in the face of his re-election campaign next year.

People can come to their own conclusions, he said, noting hes also endorsed Republican Paula Engel in a four-way race for two seats on the Onondaga County Family Court.

Still, Walsh will need support from Democrats in his re-election campaign next year.

In 2017, he had little trouble winning over Democratic voters, who dominate Republicans in the city more than 4 to 1. Walsh beat Democrat Juanita Perez Williams in that race by nearly 4,000 votes, or 16 percentage points.

Walsh endorsed Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, in 2018 as he sought his third term. Last year Walsh endorsed Emad Rahim, a friend who was running in a Democratic primary for Common Council.

Mannion and Renna are competing to represent the 50th Senate District, which includes part of Syracuses North Side, about half of Onondaga County, and a portion of Cayuga County.

Walsh lives in the other Senate district that includes Syracuse, which is currently held by Sen. Rachel May, D-Syracuse. The district that May represents includes a larger part of the city. Walsh has not made any endorsement in that race, which pits May against Republican Sam Rodgers.

So far, Walshs endorsement of Mannion hasnt come with money.

Instead, Mannion asked Walsh to pose for campaign photos at Schiller Park in Syracuse. Mannion said he picked that spot because its in the district and because its where he met his wife, Jennifer.

Mannion said he had yet to decide how to use the images.

The mayor said hes open to making other endorsements in the Nov. 3 elections, even as thousands already have cast absentee ballots.

I have not ruled out making additional endorsements, he said. And so weve still got about a month until Election Day. I may do others.

MORE ON POLITICS IN CENTRAL NEW YORK

Onondaga County GOP has new leader

New Yorks voter registration deadline is later this week

Syracuses Howie Hawkins says his presidential bid is no spoiler

Got a story idea or news tip youd like to share? Please contact me through email, Twitter, Facebook or at 315-470-2274.
MADISON, Wis. - A Black Wisconsin police officer who fatally shot a Black teenager outside a suburban Milwaukee mall in February wont be charged because he had reasonable belief that deadly force was necessary, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Wauwatosa Officer Joseph Mensah shot 17-year-old Alvin Cole outside Mayfair Mall on Feb. 2 after police responded to a reported disturbance at the shopping centre.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, in a 14-page letter laying out his rationale, said evidence showed Cole fled from police carrying a stolen 9 mm handgun. He cited squad car audio evidence, along with testimony from Mensah and two fellow officers, that he said showed Cole had fired a shot while fleeing and refused commands to drop the gun.

He did not surrender the weapon and was fired upon by Officer Mensah causing his death, Chisholm wrote. He concluded: (T)here is sufficient evidence that Officer Mensah had an actual subjective belief that deadly force was necessary and that belief was objectively reasonable.

Cole was the third person Mensah has fatally shot since becoming an officer, and his death has sparked periodic protests in Wauwatosa and the Milwaukee area. Gov. Tony Evers announced earlier Wednesday that he had activated National Guard members as a precaution, though he didnt say how many or how they were being used. Guard spokesman Maj. Joe Trovato later said hundreds of troops were at the ready.

The city of Wauwatosa issued a nightly 7 p.m. curfew after Chisholms decision was announced, to run until next Monday. Many people ignored the curfew, marching peacefully in the city.

Late Wednesday evening and well past the curfew, a group of a few hundred protesters confronted a police line. Police said some in the group were throwing rocks at law enforcement and buildings and that they used tear gas to disperse the protesters. Footage posted on social media showed the gas and the crowd retreating.

WISN-TV reported windows broken at several businesses on the citys north side, including a pharmacy, coffee shop, wall coverings store, cleaners and fitness centre.

Scores of people surrounded the Milwaukee County Public Safety Building as Coles attorney and family members met with Chisholm, some chanting, Say his name! Alvin Cole! and Justice! When do we want it? Now!

Chisholms report noted that Coles gun had a spent round in the chamber  the one that investigators believe he fired while running, possibly striking himself in the arm  and that the magazine was recovered in his sling bag, meaning the gun had no more bullets in it when he was shot. Mensah and two other officers at the scene said Cole pointed the gun at them.

Coles sister, Taleavia Cole, insisted the shooting wasnt justified because her brother could not have fired at Mensah. She said he should not be allowed to continue working as an officer.

The fight continues. It doesnt end here, said his sister, Taleavia Cole. ... Its time for DA Chisholm to retire or step down.

Chisholm also said that he didnt believe the state had enough evidence to disprove that Mensah was defending himself or others, so he couldnt meet the burden required to bring charges. Kimberley Motley, a family attorney for the Coles, seized on Chisholms wording.

Chisholm did not say that the shooting was justified, Motley said. And thats really important.

Motley, who also represents the families of the two other people killed by Mensah, said if he had been fired earlier then Cole would still be alive.

We are not done fighting, she said. We are still going to fight for a conviction of Officer Joseph Mensah.

Chisholm told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview that he understood some people would be angry or disappointed by his decision, but he said he wouldnt change his objective review because of it. He said that although Mensah had been cleared in all three of his shootings, Chisholm was concerned about his involvement in so many.

This creates an incredible dilemma for the city of Wauwatosa and the Wauwatosa Police Department and the community, he told the newspaper. Ive never been cavalier about that. What is unique about this case is that it just creates such a liability for (shooting) number four. Everybody recognizes that.

The Wauwatosa Police and Fire Commission suspended Mensah with pay in July, and he has appealed that suspension. The commission hired former U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic to investigate the case with an eye toward what discipline Mensah might face. In a report released earlier Wednesday, Biskupic recommended that Mensah be fired, saying the risk he might shoot a fourth person is too great.

Biskupic also wrote that Mensah violated department policy when he spoke to the media about the shooting in July.

An attorney for Mensah didnt respond to a phone message from The Associated Press.

Theres no body-camera video of the Cole shooting because Wauwatosas officers arent equipped with them. The city did release squad car dashcam video that shed little light on what happened.

Coles death sparked protests in Wauwatosa throughout the summer, including in and around the mall and outside a house where Mensah was staying. Two men were charged in an August altercation at the house after a shotgun was fired.

Mensah was not charged in the 2016 death of Jay Anderson Jr. or the 2015 death of Antonio Gonzales. Police have said Mensah shot Gonzales eight times after he refused to drop a sword. In Andersons case, Mensah approached a parked car where Anderson was sleeping and said he saw a gun and thought Anderson was reaching for it, so he shot him six times.

Wauwatosa Police Chief Barry Webber said in a recorded message that his department concurs with the decision but hears the message from the public. He said the department has taken steps to improve policing, such as providing added training, posting department police and procedures online and requiring body cameras for all officers by January.

Evers also activated the states National Guard in August, the morning after a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back. The shooting sparked three days of protests over police actions and racism, and caused an estimated $50 million in damage to roughly 100 downtown businesses. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz also activated Guard members after George Floyds death in police custody in Minneapolis set off protests and damaging riots and arson in that state.

In anticipation of protests after the announcement of the charging decision, Wauwatosa officials shut down City Hall and the library for about three days, beginning at noon Wednesday. News of the decision comes after high-profile deaths of Black people during interactions with police sparked protests that spread around the world over the summer and led to a national reckoning on race in America.

___

(Correction: An earlier version of this story said Taleavia Cole disputed Chisholms conclusion that her brother had fired at Mensah. The district attorneys report did not assert that Cole fired at Mensah; only that Coles gun was fired as he was pursued by police and a security guard.)

___

Associated Press writers Amy Forliti, Steve Karnowski and Doug Glass in Minneapolis and Dave Kolpack in Fargo, North Dakota, contributed to this report.
Dr Eilis Ni Dhea, a lecturer in the Department of Language and Literary Education at Mary Immaculate College (MIC), has been awarded a Publication Scholarship by the Royal Irish Academy.

This prestigious scholarship was one of just two to be awarded nationally following a public competition open

to all lecturers in academic Irish throughout the country.

It will allow Dr Ni Dhea to devote her time to the completion of her new book entitled, Saothru an Leinn Ghaelaigh i gCo. an Chlair 1700 1900 / The Gaelic Manuscript Tradition of Co. Clare 1700  1900.

The awarding committee, under the chairpersonship of Professor Ciaran Mac Murchaidh from Dublin City University (DCU), were unanimous in their decision to grant Dr Ni Dhea this scholarship having been extremely impressed with the standard, scope and substance of her publication project.

Commenting on the scholarship, Dr Ni Dhea said: I am absolutely delighted to have received this prestigious scholarship from the Royal Irish Academy. This scholarship will be of great benefit to me and offers me the financial security to immerse fully in my research for the forthcoming semester.

Dr Ni Dhea added: An opportunity like this is invaluable for me as I will now have the time to investigate recently-found collections of manuscripts such as the McDonald manuscripts in Sussex, England and a small collection of Irish manuscripts discovered in Auxerre, France. The Royal Irish Academys Publication Committee has been to the forefront in promoting Irish scholarship and in particular, in assisting with the publication of scholarship of the highest academic quality. It is truly an honour for me to receive this award for the fruits of many years of painstaking research.

Congratulating Dr Ni Dhea on her achievement, Sean de Brun, Head of the Department of Language

and Literary Education at MIC, said: "It is a great achievement and honour for both Dr Eilis Ni Dhea and

the Department that Eilis was awarded one of the two publication scholarships offered by the Royal Irish Academy. I would like to congratulate Eilis on this great achievement and wish her every success as she prepares her scholarly monograph for publication. I am confident this work will contribute greatly to knowledge in the field and enhance Mary Immaculate

Colleges reputation.

Dr Ni Dheas scholarly monograph will give a comprehensive account and analysis of the Gaelic manuscript tradition of County. Clare during the 18th and 19th centuries with a focus on the scribes, who together with their patrons, were solely responsible for the written transmission of Irish literature prior to the era of printed books in Irish being made widely available.

"Information on the transmission of the Irish corpus of literature during these centuries is vital to the work of academic

staff in universities, both in Ireland and abroad, who are engaged in producing editions of Irish poetry. Scribal colophons yield a wealth of knowledge that is invaluable to the historian, the historical geographer, the educationalist and the sociologist alike," said Dr Ni Dhea.

The publication of this book will have an international reach and will greatly advance my own research profile and the research profile of MIC in all universities in Ireland and in the Departments of Celtic Studies in universities around the world, she added.

Dr Ni Dhea is also appealing to the Irish public for their assistance in her research. Some people may still have small manuscripts/copybooks in their possession written in the Irish language from the late 19th century. There are still Irish manuscripts/copybooks in homes around Ireland but people do not realise just how valuable these are to Irish researchers and historians. I would appeal to people to have a look in their attics or spare rooms and if you happen to discover one of these most valuable manuscripts, I would appeal to you to get in touch with by emailing me at Eilis.NiDhea@mic.ul.ie.

Dr Ni Dhea, who hails from Tulla, Co. Clare and is now living in Cratloe, has been a lecturer in Gaeilge at MIC since 1985 and will commence her second term of sabbatical leave in January under the merit-based Research Sabbatical Scheme offered by MIC for the year 2020-2021.

Her main area of research is Irish language and literature in the 18th and 19th centuries with special reference to the Gaelic

manuscript tradition. She holds a PhD from University College Cork (UCC) for her work on Irish language manuscripts and is widely recognised as an expert in the field.

She is a previous two-time recipient of the Government of Ireland Senior Scholarship from the Irish Research Council and also received a special award from the Irish Heritage Council for her work on Gaelic manuscripts in private possession.

She has published widely on the scribal tradition of County Clare and frequently gives public lectures on the subject.

The Royal Irish Academy (RIA) is Irelands leading body of experts in the sciences and humanities. The Academy champions Irish research by identifying, recognising and supporting Irelands world class researchers. Membership of the RIA is considered the highest academic honour in Ireland.
President of the BJP unit in Jammu and Kashmir Ravinder Raina said on Wednesday that there can never be any rehabilitation policy for the terrorists and that they will be paid back in the same coin.

Raina was reacting to Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinhas recent appeal to local militants to shun the path of violence. He had also promised to help them with jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.

A terrorist is a terrorist. This Pakistan-sponsored terrorism has bled Jammu and Kashmir for the past 30 years. They (terrorists) go to Pakistan for arms training, come back with arms and ammunition and then kill innocent people and security forces personnel. They can never be given any jobs. The only policy for them is a bullet, he said.

Our jawans of army, police and paramilitary forces are combating them 24x7. These terrorists are getting killed. Under PM Modis government there can never be any rehabilitation for terrorists in this country, he asserted.

Whosover picks up a gun against the nation will be eliminated, he added.

On the selection list of the Fire and Emergency Services department, Raina said that the list has several irregularities and was discriminatory.

I have brought the matter to the notice of the LG and urged him to quash this list and conduct the recruitment process afresh. Graduate and post-graduates have been excluded while 8th and 10th pass candidates have been selected. There is strong resentment among the youth of Kashmir as well. It is a big scam and a probe should be ordered, he said.

Raina said that if the list was not revoked then BJP will approach the court of law for an interim stay on it and then get it quashed.

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Members of the Orthodox Jewish community surround a rubbish fire in the street, - Joe Marino/New York Post

Angry protests erupted in Brooklyn as hundreds of members of the local orthodox Jewish community took to the streets to demonstrate against strict coronavirus restrictions imposed by New York's state governor, Andrew Cuomo.

At least one person was injured in chaotic scenes in the Borough Park neighbourhood in which Hasidic men, mainly without masks, started fires as the protests intensified around midnight.

Chanting "Jewish lives matter", the crowd chased away two sheriffs deputies. Shouting "snitch", the mob turned on a Hasidic man who was suspected of disloyalty; he was treated overnight at a nearby hospital,

A photographer was also knocked to the ground.

People walk along a street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park - Spencer Platt/Getty Images

One ringleader picked up a bullhorn and shouted: "You are my soldiers, we are at war."

The anger was fuelled by Mr Cuomo's decision to include houses of worship in the latest restrictions as he tried to crack down on large numbers of people gathering in one place in areas where the virus was spiking.

This is about mass gatherings, he said. And one of the prime places of mass gatherings are houses of worship.

Borough Park, where the protests erupted has been designated as being part of the "red zone", where the tightest restrictions are in place with a maximum of 10 worshippers - or 10 per cent of the establishment's capacity - permitted.

Schools have also been closed, intensifying problems in a community where many households do not have internet access required for remote learning.

New York's Hasidic community has been hit hard by the virus which claimed the lives of a number of religious leaders earlier this year.

Under the new rules, which will be in force for 14 days, sponsors of illegal mass gatherings face a $15,000 (11,619).

Tensions were exacerbated by the plans initially being announced by New York mayor, Bill de Blasio on the second day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot when many families would have been eschewing internet access.

Story continues

In a statement, four local Orthodox politicians condemned Mr Cuomo's crackdown. "He has chosen to pursue a scientifically and constitutionally questionable shutdown of our communities.

Similar disquiet was voiced by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, which encompasses 1.5 million followers and 210 churches in the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn described the curbs as "outrageous".

He added: We fervently object to being told to further reduce capacity, because we have strictly adhered to Covid-19 protocols, and the safety measures have been working. "
(Newser)  Netflix has been indicted by a Texas grand jury for allegedly promoting "lewd visual material depicting a child" in the controversial French movie Cuties. Netflix has said people should watch the coming-of-age drama before they attack, but Tyler County District Attorney Lucas Babin says that after watching it, he "knew there was probable cause to believe it was criminal," Fox News reports. "The legislators of this state believe promoting certain lewd material of children has destructive consequences, he said Tuesday. "If such material is distributed on a grand scale, isnt the need to prosecute more, not less?"

story continues below

The indictment on the felony charge alleges that Cuties appeals to a "prurient interest in sex" and holds "no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value," the Guardian reports. The film tells the story of an 11-year-old Senegalese immigrant in Paris who joins a group of young dancersand Netflix is standing by it. Cuties is "a social commentary against the sexualization of young children," a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement to Deadline. "This charge is without merit and we stand by the film." After the film's release in September caused a backlash and calls for a boycott, Netflix acknowledged that it had used "inappropriate artwork" in its original film poster. (Read more Netflix stories.)
Dora has a dream. In it, she walks out of the asylum seekers hostel where she lives in the Midlands to see three men with AK-47s. She starts to run when they open fire. Then she wakes up. Dora says she fled her home country after her father was executed by security forces who are now looking for the rest of her family in her home country. But her nightmare was not inspired by those experiences  it comes from her fears about what could happen to her in the UK.

Several weeks ago she came back from shopping to find red graffiti had been daubed on the building where she has been placed by the Home Office, including swastikas and threatening messages reading f*** off back and go home.

The Independent spoke to Dora, who is in her 20s as part of our series  funded by our Supporter Programme on asylum seekers looking for a new life in the UK as hotels housing migrants are increasingly targeted by the far-right.

I'm so scared, anything could happen, she told The Independent. All it takes is just one person to cause damage, so when I saw [the graffiti] I started panicking.

How to support truly independent investigations This article was funded by our supporters. If you would like to see more of this important work, please make a contribution at independent.co.uk/donations

Ive been here for six months, I don't know when Ive be leaving - anything could happen to me. I was really scared. I was thinking if I go outside, I need to watch my back, if I see anything suspicious Im running back in.

"All of those things play on my mind constantly, I cant sleep at night sometimes."

Dora said she felt traumatised after watching videos of far-right extremists from Britain First raiding hotels, including one that she was placed in for two months earlier this year.

The trend, which was publicised by Nigel Farage in the summer, has seen several far-right groups attempt to enter and film hotels used as emergency accommodation during the coronavirus pandemic.

Extremists have claimed that asylum seekers, who they describe as criminals, are being looked after in luxury but Dora said they dont know what really goes on.

She said that where she stayed, women were given 10 a week for toiletries, and men 5, and that if they could not eat the food offered they went hungry.

It feels like youre being controlled every second - where youre going, what youre eating, Dora added. Theres no real freedom  I felt lost in the hotel.

In June, a Sudanese asylum seeker stabbed six people at the Park Inn hotel in Glasgow before being shot dead by police.

 Nigel Farage claims illegal immigrants are staying at Bromsgrove Hotel & Spa

Badreddin Abadlla Adam had argued with other migrants held in the hotel and was reportedly frustrated about delays to his attempt to return to Sudan, after spending three weeks isolated in his room after suffering Covid-19 symptoms.

The mass stabbing drew national attention to the use of hotels to house asylum seekers and homeless people during the coronavirus pandemic, and fuelled far-right characterisations of migrants as dangerous and violent.

Bassam, an asylum seeker from Yemen who crossed the English Channel earlier this year, said he was afraid to leave the hotel he lives in after a visit from Britain First.

I feel that I might be attacked, he said. They are making people hate asylum seekers, I dont know why.

We are here to live in peace and dignity. We escaped from war and very bad lives.

Dora said: Nobody chooses to become a refugee. Life can change in a second, I never envisioned myself being in this position.

Britain First make videos saying all these people are criminals, they just come here to live off the state - they have no idea that a lot of people dont even want to be here.

Barriers and fences have been put in after migrants were filmed and harassed by groups including Britain First

Bassam, who is in his 30s, hopes to be granted leave to remain in the UK and complete the pharmacy degree he started in Yemen before the civil war.

Like Dora, he described a feeling or rootlessness and mounting despair while living in hotels.

Im not allowed to work, Im not allowed to study, Im not allowed to do anything, he said. I just sit in the hotel thinking about what will happen to me.

Dora, who was moved out of a hotel into a hostel in February, said she also wants to be able to work and use her qualifications.

I feel like Im slowly losing myself, Ive been here for six months now, she said.

Were so helpless here, we cant work. You wake up every day and you have no purpose in life, no purpose at all.

A charity worker, who did not want to be named, said there was a lot of frustration among asylum seekers stuck in limbo in hotels.

Before coronavirus, such accommodation would only be used for a short period in an emergency, before people were moved into shared homes.

Social distancing measures have stopped the vast majority of educational classes, activities and social events that would normally take place.

Visits have also been restricted because of coronavirus and security measures put in place because of far-right activity.

The Home Office has been offering premises housing asylum seekers assistance with physical security, such as barriers and hoarding, if they have concerns or have been visited by protesters.

A government spokesperson said security at asylum accommodation sites was continually reviewed.

The government takes the wellbeing of asylum seekers and the most vulnerable in society extremely seriously, and we have taken unprecedented action to support them during the pandemic," a statement added.

A screengrab from footage of Britain First activists trying to find asylum seekers in a hotel (VK)

Any attempts to fuel resentment towards asylum seekers and create community tension are completely unacceptable and all incidents at asylum accommodation sites are reported to the Home Office immediately. We then work with the provider to put in additional safety measures if required.

Serco, one of the largest accommodation providers, has put enhanced security in place at hotels used to house asylum seekers and given staff specialist training.

Jenni Halliday, its contract director for asylum seeker accommodation and support, said: Serco was shocked and appalled at this action at some of the hotels we are using, which have clearly been racially motivated.

Another accommodation provider, Mears, said it was taking all necessary and legal steps to protect the people in our care, adding: We regularly review security, report any incidents to the Home Office and police, and put in additional measures where required.

The Home Office said the government has a legal obligation to provide destitute asylum seekers with temporary accommodation and support while their applications are being considered.

It has been necessary to temporarily house a proportion of asylum seekers in hotels to make sure they are able to follow social distancing guidelines, a statement added.

As well as ensuring that people could comply with the health guidance in place at the time, this avoided placing pressure on local authorities, who were also procuring hotel accommodation for UK rough sleepers.

*names have been changed to protect anonymity

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A decision rendered by the Ontario Court of Justice on intermittent sentencing opens the door for the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) to look at transforming the justice system.

Judge David Gibsons ruling on Oct. 2 referred to the cases of six women from Pikangikum First Nation who pleaded guilty to charges of drinking and driving. The offences each carried a jail term of not more than 90 days. Such sentences are allowed to be served intermittently, usually on weekends.

However, because Pikangikum is an isolated fly-in community, 225 km northeast of Kenora where the jail is located, the intermittent option is both financially and logistically prohibitive and as such is not available to the women.

Gibson ruled that intermittent sentencing for Indigenous peoples living in remote locations violated Sect. 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he also called on work to be undertaken with Elders to arrive at a fit sentence.

The fact that Justice Gibson referenced the Elders, like Whitehead Moose, and some of the work thats been done before, I would say is significant. Thats pointing in the right direction in terms of where we need to go from here, said NAN Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler.

Fiddler said after NAN has studied the 36-page decision to identify a starting point, he will be engaging in talks with the Ontario government.

We cannot keep going with this present system. Clearly its not working. In fact, its creating harm to our communities. I would ask that the province, whether its the attorney general office or solicitor general office, to acknowledge, recognize what this means and to reach out to communities like Pikangikum or NAN to begin the process on how we can fix this, he said. We need to do it quickly.

Section 15 of the Charter states, in part, Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

John Bilton, legal counsel for four of the women, decided to argue the case based on a violation of equal protection under the law and that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

In an unusual move for a criminal court proceeding, Bilton approached Pikangikum First Nation and Ontario Aboriginal Legal Services to act as interveners in the case. Intervener status was granted by the court. Legal counsel for the other two women similarly charged asked Bilton to join his action. He agreed.

The question at the heart of this joint application, namely, whether particular Criminal Code provisions of general application have an unconstitutional impact on Pikangikum First Nation residents requires a close look at the history of the people of Pikangikum, their place in Canadian confederation and what it means for them to be equal under the law, wrote Gibson in his decision.

Gibson considered written documentation, as well as testimony from Pikangikum First Nation band members, including Chief Amanda Sainnawap. He observed that the impact of colonialism was not something only of the past, but something that was being felt now.

Gibson ruled that Charter Sect. 15 was violated as there were no practical application for serving intermittent sentences for a qualifying mandatory minimum punishment for on-reserve band members of Pikangikum First Nation.

I am further satisfied that being deprived of the opportunity to serve a jail sentence intermittently because of their status as on-reserve band members of the Pikangikum First Nation, constitutes the deprivation of a legal benefit. It also creates a distinction in law between themselves and other members of the general public, wrote Gibson.

Gibson asked Sainnawap what meaningful consequences would be put in place for the six women in place of the intermittent sentence.

I feel this is where Elders could be useful with their knowledge and their understanding of what justice, what governing justice practices they used before the current one was imposed on our community, responded Sainnawap.

This approach is what NAN nations need to return to, said Fiddler.

We need to work with our Elders, he said. The work that we do moving forward needs to reflect our own understanding of what that justice system should look like, to re-design and incorporate that into the work well do going forward.

For the six women in this case, Ontario offered to cover the travel costs for them to serve their intermittent sentences in the Kenora jail. However, said Bilton, given that remote First Nations have closed themselves off as a way to battle the coronavirus, the women will be serving their time in the community as part of the temporary absence pass process.

As Ontario offered to cover the travel cost of these particular Pikangikum band members, Gibson wrote he would not grant them their requests for constitutional exemptions. However, he viewed the action as an ad hoc measure by Ontario and not something that would be offered to everyone in this situation.

I would have, however, granted such an exemption to any other persons in the Applicants position at the time they brought their application who were not the beneficiary of a similar undertaking , wrote Gibson.

That ruling will have widespread implications, said Bilton.

The constitutional exemption will be available to all others in the north who are awaiting this decision. I have another client from Poplar Hill (First Nation), for instance, whose case has been adjourned waiting for this decision and the Crown has previously agreed that even though hes from Poplar Hill, the findings of the judge in this case, will be applied to his, he said.

Bilton also points out that yesterday he received a phone call from legal counsel in Manitoba who received a case from legal counsel in Quebec, and who will be looking to this decision as well.

As a direct consequence of the shocking numbers of Indigenous peoples being incarcerated and the statistical fact there are large numbers of people looking at sentences of 90 days and less, in light of this decision there will very likely be counsel in other provinces that will be inspired by the reasonable language of this judge, said Bilton.

Bilton called Gibsons decision a powerful call to action.

Gibson, a judge who regularly presides at the Pikangikum First Nation, was a lawyer who practised for years in the north.

I dont think that one judge alone can entirely shift the balance, but what His Honour did in not only eloquent fashion but quite intelligently invites a conversation based on facts, based on reality, said Bilton.

Windspeaker.com
The Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, on Wednesday, welcomed the judgment of a U.S.-based tribunal, which ordered InterOcean Oil Company to pay the federal government 660,129 dollars as reimbursement of its share of the arbitration costs.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the U.S.-Based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Dispute headed by William Park ordered InterOcean to pay the federal government $660,129.

The tribunal also absolved the Federal Government of Nigeria from any liability maintaining that Nigeria did not breach any of its obligations in the contract agreement with Interocean Development Company and Interocean Oil Exploration Company.

In a statement issued by Umar Gwandu, Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations, Office of the Minister of Justice in Abuja, Mr Malami described the judgment as an addition to the multiple success stories recorded in international litigations by the Federal Ministry of Justice.

Mr Malami, who renewed his commitment to patriotically and relentlessly discharge his constitutional mandates in the best interest of the nation and general public, said gone was such an era of connivance to deprive the nation of its resources for gratifying ulterior motives of vested interest at the expense of the Nigerian populace.

The tribunal held that the Federal Government of Nigeria did not breach its obligations towards the claimants under Nigerian law or under international law.

NAN reports that the oil companies that has among its legal team, Olasupo Shasore, SAN , requested, among others, relief from the Tribunal directing the Federal Government of Nigeria, its relevant privies and instrumentalities to pay aggravated damages in an amount to be proven during these arbitral proceedings which the claimants of 1.5 billion dollars.

The tribunal finds no liability on the part of Respondent in connection with Claimants loss of control over their investment, Pan Ocean, the judgment reads in part.
Upbeat economic projections made by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in Tuesdays federal budget, including for growth and unemployment, are at odds with those made by some of the nations leading forecasters.

An analysis of the budget by National Australia Bank described some of the governments economic assumptions as somewhat courageous considering the sharp decline in government spending next financial year after generous income support programs are withdrawn.

Some of Josh Frydenberg's budget forecasts have been described as "a bit optimistic." Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

We found the entire forecasting framework a bit optimistic, said NAB chief economist, Alan Oster.

Westpac is also less upbeat than the government saying, in a post-budget review, that its own economic forecasts give greater prominence to potential headwinds" and that "risks to the economic and fiscal forecasts abound."
(CNN)  India says it has successfully tested a missile armed with a torpedo that could in theory strike enemy submarines more than 400 miles (643 kilometers) away.

Dubbed the SMART (Supersonic Missile Assisted Release of Torpedo) system, the weapon was launched from Wheeler Island off the coast of India's Odisha state on Monday, the country's Defense Ministry said in a statement.

"This launch and demonstration is significant in establishing anti-submarine warfare capabilities." the statement said Monday. "All the mission objectives including missile flight up to the range and altitude, separation of the nose cone, release of Torpedo and deployment of Velocity Reduction Mechanism (VRM) have been met perfectly."

The use of the supersonic missile extends the range of the torpedo far beyond its normal parameters, the ministry said.

"This will be a major technology breakthrough for stand-off capability in anti-submarine warfare," Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said in a tweet.

The missile carries a battery-powered torpedo with a 110 pound (50 kilogram) warhead and a range of about 12.5 miles (20 kilometers), according to Indian defense industry reports. Using the missile to take it close to its target extends its range to more than 400 miles (643 kilometers) at three times the speed of sound, the reports say.

Other nations, including Russia, the United States and Japan, have missiles or rockets that can carry a lightweight torpedo, but none come close to the reported range of the Indian weapon.

India has been boosting its anti-submarine warfare capabilities in recent years, acquiring state-of-the-art aircraft such as US-made Boeing P-8 reconnaissance planes and MH-60R Seahawk helicopters. Those aircraft could be detecting enemy submarines operating far from the India warships armed with the SMART system and transmitting targeting information back to them, significantly expanding the range for each Indian vessel.

That ability could be significant, especially as China expands its presence in the Indian Ocean. Beijing has built a significant, modern fleet of 60 submarines and has been sending them farther from its shores, according to the US Defense Department.

China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has also been gaining port access around the Indian Ocean, including establishing its first overseas base in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa.

New attention has begin given to the decades-old rivalry between India and China in recent months after a deadly skirmish involving hand-to-hand combat between their forces along their border in the Himalayas earlier this year.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "India tests missile that launches a torpedo hundreds of miles away"
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Hurricane Delta has ruined dream vacations for thousands of tourists who were forced to pack into crowded emergency shelters rife with risk of spreading coronavirus as fierce winds and torrential rains battered Mexico's top resort destination in Cancun.

Delta made landfall at about 5.30am as an extremely dangerous category 2 hurricane with winds of up to 110mph downing nearly 100 trees and knocking out power along the northeastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.

The Hotel Association of Cancun said more than 40,000 tourists were evacuated from resorts in and around Cancun on Tuesday night as the hurricane's winds topped 145mph before it weakened as it approached land.

About 50 miles south of Cancun the four-star Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya was transformed into an emergency shelter as hundreds of guests were packed into common-area rooms like sardines.

Photos and videos posted to social media showed families sitting side-by-side on rows of sun loungers transformed into makeshift cots - with few masks and little social distancing despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

As of 1pm CDT Wednesday Delta was centered about 25 miles north of Cancun and was traveling northwest at a speed of between 15 and 20mph as wind speeds decreased slightly to about 100mph.

The US National Hurricane Center in Miami warned of a storm surge that could raise water levels up to 13 feet and bring flash flooding inland.

The storm is expected to continue affecting the Mexican coast through the end of the day before veering north toward the US Gulf Coast.

Residents living on the shore in west Texas and Louisiana have been told to brace for Delta to arrive as soon as Friday morning as forecasters warned that the storm could be reinvigorated on the trip across the Caribbean - potentially making landfall as a Category 3.

The Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya was transformed into an emergency shelter when Hurricane Delta approached Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Social media videos showed people packed into common rooms like sardines on small cots

A guest at the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya posted this photo on Instagram showing families sitting side-by-side on rows of sun loungers transformed into makeshift cots - with few masks and little social distancing despite the coronavirus pandemic

Hurricane Delta smashed into Mexico on Wednesday morning as thousands of residents and tourists hunkered down in emergency shelters to escape fierce winds and heavy rains battering the resort cities of Cancun and Cozumel. Pictured: A lifeguard tower lays on its side in the sand after it was topped by 110mph in Cancun

Delta toppled dozens of trees and knocked out power in parts of Cancun (pictured) and Cozumel on Wednesday morning

Firemen remove a tree that fell into a street when Hurricane Delta made landfall in Cancun on Wednesday morning

An uprooted tree is seen in the street in Cancun as Delta made landfall at about 5.30am on Wednesday

The hurricane's winds topped 145mph overnight before it weakened slightly as it approached land and continued moving northwest at about 16mph, according to the US National Hurricane Center in Miami

Forecasts warned of a storm surge that could raise water levels up to 13 feet and bring flash flooding inland. Pictured: A man walks down a beach with high tides on Wednesday morning in Cancun as Delta passed through

A tree lays on its side in the middle of a street after being toppled by Hurricane Delta in Cancun on Wednesday

This satellite image shows Hurricane Delta centered on the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula at 10.41am EDT on Wednesday

Pittsburgh couple's beach vacation is 'dampened' by Delta Richard Murray II and Priscilla Pham-Murray, both 33 and from Pittsburgh, spent one night of their dream honeymoon sleeping in the same room as about 500 strangers. The couple were married in September 2019 but decided to wait a year to enjoy their honeymoon to 'spread out the joy'. They arrived at the Hard Rock Riviera Maya on October 1 for their weeklong stay. 'We knew the weather forecast was rainy but did not expect what was to come,' Priscilla told DailyMail.com. 'There was a tropical storm Saturday and of course Hurricane Delta that hit early this morning. From what we've learned from staff, the area has not had a category 4 hurricane in about 15 years. 'This is the first time Hard Rock Riviera Maya executed this emergency protocol. Last night they relocated everyone to the convention center, building by building. Each building had a specific time frame to check-in to the convention center. People staying at Hard Rock Cancun were transferred here since that was the main target of Delta and the buildings there are mostly glass and very tall.' Richard Murray II and Priscilla Pham-Murray, both 33 and from Pittsburgh, spent one night of their dream honeymoon sleeping in the same room as about 500 strangers 'We were all seated in a large conference/banquet room and they set up a few activities,' Priscilla continued. 'They served snacks and also dinner. Afterwards, we were transferred to a large area where they had pool side lawn chairs set-up with blankets and sheets. They played movies on projector screens for kids and lights out was about 11:30pm. Unfortunately, I'm a light sleeper and there was tons of snoring. 'As it got closer to threat-time, they boarded up essential areas. The building is very solid so you could barely hear anything happening outside except maybe the rain. 'Breakfast and lunch have been served. A staff member informed us that the state needs to visit the hotel and give the all-clear before releasing us back to our rooms... so right now it's a waiting game. Our flight is scheduled for tomorrow so we'll cut our losses and just be happy to get back to Pittsburgh and see our dogs.' 'It didn't ruin our honeymoon but it dampened it,' Priscilla added. Advertisement

Thousands of Quintana Roo residents and tourists checked in to dozens of government shelters to wait out the storm after everyone the state was put under a 7pm curfew on Tuesday.

Civil defense official Luis Alberto Ortega Vazquez said there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries. He said about 39,000 people had been evacuated in the states of Quintana Roo and Yucatan, and that about 2,700 people had taken refuge in storm shelters in the two states.

Quintana Roo Gov Carlos Joaquin said the state government had prepared, but warned residents and tourists that 'it is a strong, powerful hurricane,' though he considered it a good sign that Delta had weakened a bit late Tuesday. He said the area hadn't seen a storm like it since Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

Throughout the day Tuesday evacuations of low lying areas, islands and the coastline expanded as Delta exploded over warm Caribbean waters, increasing in strength by 80mph in just 24 hours to become a major Category 4 hurricane.

Much of Cancun's hotel zone was cleared out as guests were bused to inland shelters. In Cancun alone, the government opened 160 shelters.

More than 40,000 tourists in Cancun and neighboring resorts were evacuated, the head of the area's hotel association, Roberto Citron, told AFP.

Early Wednesday, some 300 guests and nearly 200 staff from the Fiesta Americana Condesa hotel awoke in the sweltering classrooms of the Technological Institute of Cancun campus where they had been moved the day before.

All of the windows had been covered with plywood so they couldn't see what was happening, but they said the howling winds started around 2am and there had been heavy rain.

The power - and with it the air conditioning - had been knocked out early Wednesday so it was steamy as tourists awoke from theused their cell phone light to get up and make their way for a first cup of coffee.

'The hard part has been the waiting,' Ana Karen Rodriguez of Monterrey told the Associated Press. She and a friend arrived in Cancun Tuesday morning and by afternoon were shuttled to the shelter.

She said the hotel had planned well. 'It's been good. I feel comfortable actually.'

Photos showed the guests - all wearing masks - playing cards, watching videos on their phones and calling residents on Tuesday night as they tried to get comfortable in the less-than-ideal surroundings.

'The hotel has done a good job of making sure that we were provided for and that we're going to be safe here in this place, so we don't have any concerns at all,' said Shawn Sims, a tourist from Dallas sheltering with his wife, Rashonda Cooper, and their sons, seven-year-old Liam and four-year-old Easton.

'This is my first (hurricane) experience, but I see that these guys have a plan and they know what they're doing,' Sims said.

Other resorts took a different method of dealing with the weather, placing guests together in large event spaces for safety.

That's what happened at the Hard Rock Riviera Maya, where Richard Murray II and Priscilla Pham-Murray, both 33 and from Pittsburgh, spent one night of their dream honeymoon sleeping in the same room as about 500 strangers on Wednesday.

The couple were married in September 2019 but decided to wait a year to enjoy their honeymoon to 'spread out the joy'. They arrived at the Hard Rock Riviera Maya on October 1 for their weeklong stay.

'We knew the weather forecast was rainy but did not expect what was to come,' Priscilla told DailyMail.com on Wednesday.

'There was a tropical storm Saturday and of course Hurricane Delta that hit early this morning. From what we've learned from staff, the area has not had a category 4 hurricane in about 15 years.'

Tourists play cards in a shelter prior to the arrival of the Hurricane Delta, at the Technological Institute of Cancun

Tourists rest in a shelter prior to the arrival of Hurricane Delta, at the Technological Institute of Cancun on Tuesday night

Tourists sit on the floor of one of the 160 shelters set up in Cancun prior to Delta's arrival on Wednesday

Mexican officials said roughly 2,700 people checked into government shelters on Tuesday as Delta approached

As of 1pm CDT Wednesday Delta was centered about 25 miles north of Cancun and was traveling northwest at a speed of between 15 and 20mph as wind speeds decreased slightly to about 100mph

Delta is expected to continue affecting the Mexican coast through the end of the day before veering north toward the US

A damaged plaza is seen in Cancun as Hurricane Delta passed through on Wednesday morning

A damaged boat floats in a flooded marina after Hurricane Delta tore through Cancun on Wednesday morning

Priscilla said staff told her that Tuesday marked the first time the Hard Rock Riviera has executed this kind of emergency protocol.

'Last night they relocated everyone to the convention center, building by building,' she said. 'Each building had a specific time frame to check-in to the convention center. People staying at Hard Rock Cancun were transferred here since that was the main target of Delta and the buildings there are mostly glass and very tall.

'We were all seated in a large conference/banquet room and they set up a few activities. They served snacks and also dinner. Afterwards, we were transferred to a large area where they had pool side lawn chairs set-up with blankets and sheets. They played movies on projector screens for kids and lights out was about 11.30pm. Unfortunately, I'm a light sleeper and there was tons of snoring.

'As it got closer to threat-time, they boarded up essential areas. The building is very solid so you could barely hear anything happening outside except maybe the rain.

'Breakfast and lunch have been served. A staff member informed us that the state needs to visit the hotel and give the all-clear before releasing us back to our rooms... so right now it's a waiting game. Our flight is scheduled for tomorrow so we'll cut our losses and just be happy to get back to Pittsburgh and see our dogs.'

'It didn't ruin our honeymoon but it dampened it,' Priscilla added.

State tourism officials said more than 40,000 tourists were in Quintana Roo, a fraction of what would normally be there. Delta's damage comes on top of months of pandemic-induced lockdown that has devastated the state's tourism industry.

At the Cancun Convention Center, 400 tourists from hotels and rental properties bunked for the night.

'We hope that in this place we are surely much safer,' Quintana Roo Tourism Secretary Marisol Vanegas said. 'This is a structure that has withstood other hurricanes.'

Winds lash palm trees in a Cancun parking lot as Delta passed over the Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday morning

A soldier stands guard along an avenue in Tulum on Wednesday morning as Hurricane Delta carved a path to the northwest

A man takes pictures of the sea after Hurricane Delta caused tides to ride substantially on Wednesday morning in Cancun

Debris is seen strewn across an empty plaza in Cancun after Hurricane Delta tore through on Wednesday morning

A fallen power line rests against a wall in Cancun as thousands of people in the region lost electricity on Wednesday morning

Delta's winds of up to 110 miles per hour caused a sign to fly into a storefront, shattering its windows

A toppled tree rests on top of a car in a parking lot in Cancun on Wednesday morning as Hurricane Delta moved through

Winds bent a sign for a Starbucks coffee shop and left debris scattered across its deck on Wednesday morning

Delta was forecast to spend several hours lashing the Yucatan Peninsula before moving into the Gulf of Mexico and re-strengthening before a strike on the US Gulf Coast later in the week.

A hurricane watch is now effect from High Island, Texas, to Grand Isle, Louisiana. Such watches are typically issued 48 hours prior to the onset of tropical storm conditions which make preparations difficult or dangerous.

A storm surge watch is also in effect from High Island, Texas, to the Alabama-Florida border - meaning that life-threatening floods from rising water moving inward are possible within 48 hours.

Residents near the immediate coast and adjacent bays have been urged to have hurricane plans ready and to look out for any local evacuation orders.

Louisiana Gov John Bel Edwards said Delta was expected to make landfall there Friday night or Saturday morning and the entire state is in the storm's possible path. State and local officials in coastal areas were shoring up levees, sandbagging and taking other protections measures, he said.

Louisiana is still recovering from Hurricane Laura, which ravaged the southwestern region as it roared ashore as a Category 4 storm in August.

More than 6,600 Laura evacuees remain in hotels around the state, mainly in New Orleans, because their homes are too heavily damaged to return.

President Donald Trump said he was briefed Hurricane Delta in a tweet on Wednesday afternoon, urging residents of Texas and Louisiana to 'be prepared, be careful and be safe!'

A hurricane watch went into effect from High Island, Texas, to Grand Isle, Louisiana, on Wednesday afternoon - indicating that Delta is expected to arrive on the US Gulf Coast within the next 48 hours

A storm surge watch is also in effect from High Island, Texas, to the Alabama-Florida border - meaning that life-threatening floods from rising water moving inward are possible within 48 hours

Delta is expected to bring rainfall to nearly two dozen states by the end of the weekend, with the worst hitting Louisiana

Claire Byun and Olin Parker prepare sandbags at the Mid-City Library in New Orleans on Wednesday as Delta approaches

Residents load up on sand bags at the Mid-City Library in New Orleans on Wednesday ahead of Delta's arrival

Since Monday, local residents in the Yucatan Peninsula have formed long lines at supermarkets and hardware stores to load up on food and supplies to protect their homes.

Panic buying left some shelves empty of basic pantry goods, said Marian Castro, who lives in Cancun's hotel zone and recalls the destruction wrought by Category 5 Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

'I'm not scared, because after Hurricane Wilma ... destroyed my house, this time we're more prepared,' she said, pointing out her anti-cyclone windows.

Mexico put the commander of its Navy in charge of the federal response. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday that 5,000 federal troops and emergency personnel were being made available in Quintana Roo to aid in storm efforts.

Local and state officials urged residents to move to shelters.

Juan Carlos Avila arrived at the Technological Institute of Cancun shelter with his seven-months pregnant wife, Joselyn, and their 3-year-old-son, Alexander. He said the staff had made them comfortable and seemed well prepared.

The family, which lives in Miami, had been in Cancun a week and already went through Tropical Storm Gamma, which soaked the area over the weekend.

'We've practically lived in storms during our stay here in Cancun,' Avila said.

Business and hotel employees work to protect their businesses before the arrival of the Hurricane Delta, in Cancun, in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico yesterday

A hotel worker from the Fiesta Americana Condesa resort covers a window with plywood at a shelter set up at the Technological Institute of Cancun, as he prepares for the landfall of Hurricane Delta, in Cancun, Mexico yesterday

Tourists rests on the floor of the Cancun Convention Center, turned into an evacuation center, ahead of the arrival of Delta hurricane, in the touristic city of Cancun, Quintana Roo state, Mexico, late last night

People line up to buy gas prior to the arrival of Hurricane Delta in Cancun, Mexico yesterday

People rest in a shelter prior to the arrival of Hurricane Delta in Cancun, Mexico yesterday

Locals buy boards to protect their homes in preparation for the arrival of Delta Huracan in Cancun, Quintana Roo state, Mexico yesterday

A general view shows an empty beach as Hurricane Delta approaches Cancun, Mexico yesterday

Clouds over part of Cancun are seen from the window of an airplane, as Hurricane Delta approaches in Cancun, Mexico yesterday

People board up a restaurant in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Delta, in Cancun, Mexico yesterday

The Yucatan peninsula was hit on the weekend by Hurricane Gamma, a smaller storm that nonetheless damaged property and forced restaurants and attractions to close, including the famed Chichen Itza pyramids.

The region at the heart of Mexico's tourist industry has suffered various setbacks in recent years, most recently from the coronavirus pandemic.

Before that, the coast known as the Riviera Maya was affected by swaths of Sargasso seaweed on its pristine beaches.

Cuba's western province of Pinar del Rio and the Island of Youth also hunkered down ahead of tropical storm conditions, with schools closed and coastal areas evacuated.
Mirae Asset and Naver will inject $37 million in a warehouse in Bac Ninh

Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, a joint fund launched by Mirae Asset and Naver, bought the warehouse in the Southeast Asian country in partnership with another Korean financial firm Shinhan Investment Corporation in late September, the companies said on Monday.

Located in LogisValley logistics hub in Bac Ninh, northeast of Vietnams capital, Hanoi, the warehouse has cold storages used for storing fresh and frozen food products. The warehouse is reserved for cold chain service of Vincommerce, the supermarket chain operator under Vietnamese retail giant Masan Group.

Vietnam has been emerging as the post-China logistics hub in Asia with high growth potential, said Koh Joon-ho, Mirae Asset Daewoo official who has led the latest warehouse acquisition project.

Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund was created in 2018 for investments in emerging Asian economies, with a focus on e-commerce, healthcare, logistics, and other promising sectors. The joint growth fund has been actively investing in logistics services in Vietnam. It made its first investment in another warehouse in Vietnam in 2018 and is hunting for more in the Southeast Asian country.
Chinas actions across the region and its sudden turn toward gross aggression are the factors currently driving the members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad, a senior US state department official has said.

The officials remarks, made during a background media briefing, followed the meeting on Tuesday of the foreign ministers of the four countries in the informal groupingIndia, Australia, Japan and the US. The Quad members, during their discussions, pushed for a rules-based world order and the peaceful resolution of disputes.

Referring to the Quad ministerial meeting and secretary of state Mike Pompeos interactions with his counterparts from the three other countries, the state department official, who wasnt named, said that theres no avoiding the fact that its China and its actions in the region that make the Quad actually matter and function this time around.

Also Read: India makes China point, US hints at formal Quad

Asked by the media about the fact that Pompeo was the only one of the four foreign ministers who explicitly named China in his opening remarks at the meeting, the official responded by saying that the single thing thats driving all this [is] a sudden turn toward gross aggression by the Chinese government in its entire periphery.

The official referred to the five-month border standoff between India and China and said: I mean, if you look at the conflict...in the Himalayas between China and India, something that has been in the past handled according to unspoken or unwritten rules...to prevent these things from getting out of control, and then you look at what happened here recently, where youve got actually people beating each other to death...

The official was referring to the June 15 clash at Galwan Valley that left 20 Indian soldiers dead and resulted in unspecified Chinese casualties. The two sides have been unable to move forward with the disengagement of troops at friction points despite several rounds of diplomatic and military talks.

The official further said that Chinas aggressive activities were witnessed in many areas. I mean, you take it all the way around the Indo-Pacific and its western borders, youre seeing things that you havent seen before, and these are responding to that, he remarked.

Also Read: 4-nation Quad gets cemented at Tokyo meet, sends stern message to China

During their second ministerial meeting, external affairs minister S Jaishankar and his counterparts from Australia, Japan and the US discussed the post-Covid-19 world order and sought a coordinated response to challenges, including financial problems, emanating from the pandemic. They also focused on increasing the resilience of supply chains, and enhancing access to affordable vaccines.

The ministers also discussed connectivity, humanitarian assistance, maritime security, health security and counter-terrorism, and reiterated their support to the centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their readiness to work towards realising a common vision for the Indo-Pacific.

Pompeo said in an interview on Tuesday that the US wants to formalise and expand the Quad, with other countries joining the grouping at an appropriate time to counter the challenge that the Chinese Communist Party presents.

A second US state department official present at the briefing said Pompeo had spoken earlier about results-oriented multilateralism and voluntary groupings of like-minded nations [which] share common values of democracy, the rule of law, a respect for human rights and individual freedom.

So this is a piece of a much larger vision...for multilateralism that really workseffective multilateralism, the second official added.

The second official further said the issue has to be framed correctly: This isnt about a US-China dispute. This is about the free world versus Chinese authoritarianism. And [Pompeo] speaks frequently about that, and thats the way he framed his discussions, and there was a lot of agreement around that table.

The Quad remains a loose and informal grouping and there was no joint statement after Tuesdays meeting, with the four countries issuing separate read-outs on the discussions. This has raised questions among experts as to whether the Quad can effectively work as a counterweight to China.

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The Office of the Commissioner of the Chinese foreign ministry in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Tuesday firmly opposed and condemned the false accusations the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong made against China's legitimate and reasonable countermeasures applied to the U.S. embassy and consulates in China, including the Consulate General in Hong Kong.

The spokesperson of the commissioner's office said that both the United States and China shall accord full facilities for the performance of the functions of diplomatic and consular personnel of each other on their territory in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and the China-U.S. Consular Convention.

China has duly facilitated normal activities of the U.S. embassy, consulates and their personnel in China, the spokesperson said.

The U.S. side has nevertheless imposed rounds of restrictions on the normal performance of duties by the Chinese embassy, consulates and their personnel in the United States since October 2019 regardless of China's firm opposition and representations, requiring senior Chinese diplomats in the United States to receive Department of State approval to visit U.S. university campuses and meet with local government officials. The Chinese embassy and consular posts have also to seek approval for hosting cultural events with an audience larger than 50 people outside of mission properties, the spokesperson said.

Such unreasonable practice has severely violated international law and norms governing international relations, disrupted the relations and normal people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, and run counter to the values of openness and freedom the U.S. side claims to champion, the spokesperson added.

The spokesperson pointed out that the measures taken towards the U.S. embassy and consulates in China are China's reciprocal, necessary and legitimate response to the groundless restrictions and barriers imposed by the United States on the Chinese embassy, consulates and their personnel there.

According to the Basic Law of the HKSAR, the Central People's Government shall be responsible for the foreign affairs relating to the HKSAR. Accordingly, the agreement regarding the maintenance of the U.S. Consulate General in the HKSAR was signed between the government of the People's Republic of China and the government of the United States, which confers no special treatment on the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, said the spokesperson.

Therefore, the introduction and application of the relevant countermeasures to the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong are completely just and legitimate, and have fully embodied instead of violating the "one country, two systems" principle, said the spokesperson.

The spokesperson said that China's legitimate countermeasures against the erroneous U.S. moves are aimed to urge the United States to stop impeding bilateral exchanges and cooperation, and do not affect the lawful rights and freedoms enjoyed by the Hong Kong residents at all.

China will continue to support normal exchanges and cooperation between the communities of China and the United States, and between Hong Kong and the rest of the world, said the spokesperson.

"At the same time, we are firmly against any attempt by external forces to undermine China's sovereignty and security and Hong Kong's prosperity and stability on the pretext of human rights and freedoms."

The spokesperson urged the U.S. side to examine itself, immediately correct its mistakes, stop the clumsy performance of distorting the truth and blaming the victim, stop discrediting "one country, two systems" and meddling with Hong Kong affairs, and withdraw its unjustified restrictions on the activities of the Chinese embassy, consulates and their personnel in the United States.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-08 01:35:15|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Wednesday welcomed an agreement between representatives of the two rival legislatures of Libya over sovereign positions reached in Bouznika, Morocco.

"We welcome the understandings reached between members of the Libyan House of Representatives and the High State Council in Bouznika, Morocco, regarding the requirements and the appointment mechanism of the sovereign positions in accordance with the Libyan Political Agreement," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

"We appreciate all efforts that aim to bring Libyans together to address possible contentious issues, including these talks in Morocco as well as the talks that have taken place in Switzerland (in Montreux) and in Egypt (in Cairo and Hurghada)," he said.

The United Nations believes that all these efforts pave the way for convening the UN-facilitated Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, which the world body plans to hold in the coming few weeks, said the spokesman. Enditem
CAIRO: A migrant worker was burned to death in the Libyan capital, U.N. and government officials said Wednesday, the latest in abuses that migrants and refuges face in the conflict-stricken country.

The interior ministry of the U.N.-supported government said three Libyans on Tuesday stormed a factory in the Tripoli neighborhood of Tajoura, where African migrants were working. The Libyans detained one the workers, a Nigerian, poured gasoline on him and set him on fire, the ministry said in a statement. No motive for the shocking crime was given.

Three other migrants suffered burns and were being treated in a nearby hospital, the ministry said. The alleged perpetrators, all in their 30s, were arrested and referred to prosecutors for investigation, it said.

The young man was burned alive, in yet again another senseless crime against migrants in the country, tweeted Federico Soda, the chief in Libya for the International Organization for Migration.

The migrants death underscores the perils that migrants face in Libya, which has emerged as a major transit point for African and Arab migrants fleeing war and poverty to Europe amid years-long chaos following the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

In May, the family of a slain Libyan human trafficker attacked a group of migrants in the desert town of Mizdah, shooting and killing at least 30 migrants. mostly from Bangladesh, according to the U.N. migration agency.

In July, Libyan authorities shot dead three Sudanese migrants in the western coastal town of Khoms. The migrants were reportedly trying to escape after they were intercepted by the Libyan coast guard in the Mediterranean Sea and returned to shore.

Migrants typically pass through Libya on their way to Europe, departing from Tripolis rocky coastline in inflatable dinghies.

The Libyan coast guard, trained by the European Union to keep migrants from reaching European shores, intercepts boats at sea and returns them to Libya.

Rights groups say those efforts have left migrants at the mercy of brutal armed groups or confined in squalid and overcrowded detention centers that lack adequate food and water.

The EU agreed earlier this year to end an anti-migrant smuggler operation involving only surveillance aircraft and instead deploy military ships to concentrate on upholding a widely flouted U.N. arms embargo thats considered key to winding down Libyas relentless war.

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
MONTREAL, QC / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Sunshine Biopharma Inc. (OTC PINK:SBFM), a pharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and commercialization of oncology and antiviral drugs today announced that it has screened and subsequently identified a lead compound from its library of Coronavirus protease inhibitors. The screening which pinpointed the lead compound was performed at the University of Georgia, College of Pharmacy under the leadership of Dr. Scott D. Pegan, Director of the Center for Drug Discovery and Interim Associate Head of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences. The Company is currently looking into expanding its collaboration with the University of Georgia and will be seeking the University's assistance in advancing the development of the newly identified lead compound.

The compounds which were screened are based on the technology described in Sunshine Biopharma's recently filed patent application covering small molecules which can be used to treat Coronavirus infections. Next, Sunshine's lead compound will be put through a battery of in vitro tests to evaluate its specific inhibitory activity against the SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PLpro), one of two virus encoded proteases essential for viral replication. In addition to cleaving the virus encoded polyprotein at three different sites to generate mature virus proteins, PLpro also cleaves certain host proteins resulting in suppression of the host immune response and allowing virus replication to proceed unchecked which enhances the virus' ability to cause severe morbidity. Following the in vitro tests, the lead compound will be moved forward to the cell culture testing stage followed by mice studies before entering human clinical trials.

About Sunshine Biopharma's Coronavirus Treatment

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of COVID-19, the current ongoing pandemic that has claimed the lives of over 1,000,000 people worldwide since it first appeared in December 2019. There are currently no drugs that can effectively arrest replication of the virus in people who have contracted the illness. On May 22, 2020, Sunshine Biopharma filed a provisional patent application for a library of molecules which were designed to inhibit the Coronavirus proteases, thus shutting down the ability of the virus to multiply and cause illness.

About the University of Georgia

As part of its land grant tripartite mission, the University of Georgia is committed to creating and applying new knowledge for the public good. UGA's Center for Drug Discovery as well as the Colleges of Pharmacy are excited to be a part of this ground-breaking research related to discovery of new treatment options for COVID-19. Profs. Scott Pegan, and David Crich will be working with Sunshine Biopharma to spearhead the study of novel therapeutics for the prevention and spread of COVID-19. This interdisciplinary effort involves state of the art approaches in chemical synthesis and drug screening. This continues University of Georgia's long-standing tradition in translating scientific breakthroughs to address real world health concerns.

About Sunshine Biopharma

In addition, to working on the development of a treatment for COVID-19, Sunshine Biopharma is engaged in the development Adva-27a, a unique anticancer compound. Tests conducted to date have demonstrated the effectiveness of Adva-27a at destroying Multidrug Resistant Cancer Cells, including Pancreatic Cancer cells, Small-Cell Lung Cancer cells, Breast Cancer cells, and Uterine Sarcoma cells. Clinical trials for Pancreatic Cancer indication are planned to be conducted at McGill University's Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, Canada. Sunshine Biopharma is owner of all patents and intellectual property pertaining to Adva-27a.

Safe Harbor Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward looking statements which are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that involve risks as well as uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from those anticipated or expected, including statements related to the amount and timing of expected revenues statements related to our financial performance, expected income, distributions, and future growth for upcoming quarterly and annual periods. These risks and uncertainties are further defined in filings and reports by the Company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Actual results and the timing of certain events could differ materially from those projected in or contemplated by the forward-looking statements due to a number of factors detailed from time to time in our filings with the SEC. Among other matters, the Company may not be able to sustain growth or achieve profitability based upon many factors including but not limited to general stock market conditions. Reference is hereby made to cautionary statements set forth in the Company's most recent SEC filings. We have incurred and will continue to incur significant expenses in our expansion of our existing as well as new service lines noting there is no assurance that we will generate enough revenues to offset those costs in both the near and long term. Additional service offerings may expose us to additional legal and regulatory costs and unknown exposure(s) based upon the various geopolitical locations we will be providing services in, the impact of which cannot be predicted at this time.

For Additional Information:

Sunshine Biopharma, Inc.

Camille Sebaaly, CFO

Direct Line: 514-814-0464

camille.sebaaly@sunshinebiopharma.com

www.sunshinebiopharma.com

SOURCE: Sunshine Biopharma Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/609376/Sunshine-Biopharma-Identifies-a-Lead-Anti-Coronavirus-Compound
James Corden ridiculed Donald Trump on his show last night by singing a song called 'Maybe I'm Immune' in a parody of a Paul McCartney hit.

The British comedian made light of Trump's Covid-19 infection by replacing McCartney's lyrics with references to the president's heavy breathing, his reluctance to wear masks and his notorious comments about injecting people with bleach.

The satirical rewrite of the Beatles legend's 1970 hit Maybe I'm Amazed also poked fun at Trump's controversial car ride outside the Walter Reed military hospital and the perplexing statements issued by Trump's doctors during his stay there.

The adapted title referred to Trump's claim on Monday that he could even be immune from Covid-19 - despite his doctors' warnings that he may not be 'entirely out of the woods yet'.

Parody: James Corden sings a satirical number called Maybe I'm Immune on his show last night which poked fun at Donald Trump's Covid-19 infection

As Corden sang his song, clips of Trump's controversial moments played on screen, including the moment he removed his mask after returning to the White House on Monday

Corden's opening segment started with a clip from Trump's video message when he returned to the White House on Monday, including the president's comment that 'now I'm better... and maybe I'm immune, I don't know.'

Corden then launched into his song while sitting at a piano, beginning with: 'Maybe I'm immune 'cause today I'm feeling so alive... just don't be afraid of the way I'm breathing.

'Maybe I'm immune, it's OK to go out for a ride, with others trapped inside, maybe you're immune to the lies my doctors tell you.'

As Corden sang those lyrics, footage played of Trump waving to supporters from a sealed vehicle on Sunday and his physician Sean Conley insisting that Trump 'is doing really well'.

Corden, 42, continued: 'Maybe I'm a man and maybe I don't wear a mask 'cause I don't care about others, science I don't really understand.'

The entertainer then paused again for a clip of Trump's infamous remark that people could be injected with cleaning products, which would be highly dangerous.

One clip showed Trump's controversial car ride outside Walter Reed hospital to wave to Trump supporters who had gathered outside

Trump claimed in a Monday campaign video that he could be immune from Covid-19 and caused further controversy by telling Americans not to be 'afraid' of the disease

Referring to Trump's treatment, the song went on: 'Maybe I'm a man and maybe I'm just high from this experimental cocktail... maybe I just need some oxygen.

'Maybe I'm immune to the way the polls are looking now. Maybe I'm afraid that it's not fake news.

'Maybe I'm immune to all the lies that I have made... I shouldn't have downplayed.

'Maybe I'm afraid of the way that I might lose this... maybe on November 3 I just might lose this.'

Polls have consistently shown Joe Biden leading the race for the presidency, with voting already underway and less than four weeks left until polling day.

While Trump has dismissed them as 'fake polls', the surveys also show Biden with a small but persistent lead in key states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Corden posted the musical clip on his Twitter account last night, after a show in which he continued to ridicule Trump's demeanor in recent days.

The British comedian made light of Trump's Covid-19 infection by replacing McCartney's lyrics with references to the president's heavy breathing and controversial remarks

'He's a 74-year-old senior citizen returning from the hospital to receive at-home care, and they made it look like Arnold Schwarzenegger is dropping into Central America to fight the Predator,' he said of Trump's theatrical campaign video about his return.

While Trump insists he has no symptoms, medics have dodged questions about the details of his illness.

Dr Conley admitted that Trump was given oxygen on two occasions, but insisted that he was not short of breath.

However, doctors who watched Trump's return to the White House on Monday said he appeared to be taking labored breaths as he stood on the balcony.

The steroid Trump was given is only recommended for hospitalized patients who need extra oxygen, with studies suggesting it can be harmful in less sick patients.

Trump attracted further criticism on Monday with his remark that Americans should not be 'afraid' of a virus which has killed more than 200,000 people in the US alone.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in masks right before the market hit its Covid-19 bottom in late March 2020. Lucas Jackson | Reuters

A fiscal stimulus package is the one thing that could put the stock market on an upward trajectory into the election, but some strategists say the odds of that happening are still rather low. President Donald Trump, within hours Tuesday, both dashed hopes for a stimulus package by calling off administration talks with Democrats, and then rekindled them by tweeting about aid to airlines and other smaller targeted packages. The Dow was up 1.8% Wednesday after Trump triggered a sharp sell-off Tuesday. But that has not changed the dynamic for markets, and stocks are still expected to trade in a choppy, volatile fashion until the outcome of the election is clear.

"I'm surprised that everybody is all bulled up about it again," John Briggs, head of strategy at NatWest Markets. Some see the disagreement over what's in the package as insurmountable in the short-term, and they do not expect a compromise in Congress until after the election. One reason is Senate Republicans, who have sought a much smaller package than even the White House, have the Supreme Court nomination on their calendar and will be occupied. Democrats have sought a $2.2 trillion package that would provide funds for individuals, help businesses and provide aid to state and local governments. The White House has said it would agree to $1.6 trillion package. "Stimulus isn't not going to happen. It's just that the timing is not that clear. And that's a situation where I think the market is going to be able to look through it ultimately," said Tom Lee, founder of Fundstrat. "It's not like one side or the other doesn't want stimulus. The sticking point is the ultimate magnitude." Lee said the market would soar if the two sides were to come to an agreement on stimulus. But it would still be positive, if there were a successful piecemeal approach. "It shows a sense of urgency," he said. But no bill would be problematic. "I think the economy is in a rough spot right now because there are still a lot of restrictions, and I think people are pretty fearful of going out, so it's important to get some sort of bridge until the economy comes back,"uld also not be helpful if it took until next year. "First quarter would be really terrifying. I think equities aren't comfortable in the short term with uncertainty. That's why the election is creating a lot of turmoil as well," Lee said.
Saudi telecom giant, STC is the most valuable brand, worth $9.7 billion, topping the ranking due to its scale and strength, as well as bold new communications initiatives and a strong sense of brand purpose.

As per the inaugural BrandZ Top 30 Most Valuable Emirati and Saudi Brands 2020 ranking, in addition to providing telecom services, STC has made efforts to promote opportunities for women, young people and for people with determination.

With its focus on customer experience, Etisalat ($5.2 billion) is the second most valuable brand. The telecoms company focuses on how technology enriches peoples lives, communicated through its Together Matters tagline and Smiles loyalty scheme.Al Rajhi Bank ($4.7 billion) and FAB ($3.9 billion) are no. 3 and no. 4, out of the 13 banking brands in the Top 30.

Emirates ($3 billion) completes the top five with the highest brand equity of the Top 30 brands. The only airline in the ranking, Emirates has successfully integrated online and offline services for a seamless customer experience, while pioneering sustainable measures.

Identifying the most valuable brands in the region, the inaugural BrandZ Top 30 Most Valuable Emirati and Saudi Brands 2020 ranking was released by WPP and Kantar.

With a combined value of $50 billion, the ranking includes consumer-facing brands from across a range of categories, from food to energy, which reflect the changing lifestyles and attitudes within the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

The brands featured in the new BrandZ Top 30 Most Valuable Emirati and Saudi Brands ranking 2020 are based on the unique and objective BrandZ brand valuation methodology that combines extensive consumer insights with rigorous financial analysis.

For this study, over 12,000 consumers were interviewed about 300+ brands across19 categories.

Telecom providers and banks contribute 70% ($35 billion) of the combined brand value of the Top 30.

HungerStation(no. 25; $488 million) is the youngest brand in this inaugural ranking and the only lifestyle platform in the Top 30. Its success shows the importance of understanding the market, from what people eat to how they shop, as well as the effectiveness of targeting different consumer groups with different communications. During the coronavirus pandemic the brand offered free delivery of groceries and pharmacy products to its customers.

Knowing the importance of local cuisine in peoples lives has propelled two food brands, Almarai(no. 6; $2.8 billion) and Saudia(no. 30; $290 million) into the ranking. Accounting for 6% of the Top 30s value, both brands have expanded from their original dairy business, although this remains their primary focus because of its prominence in regional dishes.

Real estate brand Emaar (no. 9; $1.8 billion) has put innovation at the forefront of its customer experience by developing the Emaar ONE app to allow homeowners to fully manage their property from their phone. Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) (no. 11, $1.7 billion) has successfully expanded its oil and gas operations across the region to meet the challenges of an ever-changing energy market.

Many brands have adapted their communications to reflect the developing role of women in the region and in the corporate world. Banks in particular have placed women at the heart of their brand building efforts, including Riyad Bank (no. 13; $1.0 billion) which offers specialised banking services with professional women-only staff. Samba (no.15; $901 million) offers dedicated branches for women and became the first banking group with a female CEO in Saudi Arabia.

David Roth, CEO of The Store WPP, EMEA and Asia and Chairman of BrandZ, said: In this first BrandZ ranking to cover Emirati and Saudi brands, its clear that there are huge opportunities in the region for brands that can adapt to new and dynamic markets and meet fast-changing consumer needs.Creating value by developing meaningfully different, valuable and responsible brands in the region is good for consumers, economies, businesses, employers and shareholders alike.

Amol Ghate, CEO Middle East, Insights Division, Kantar: Our first Top 30 ranking is reflective of the diversity and dynamic nature of life within the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. We see brands that have a long history in the region, as well as new and upcoming brands that are influencing the way we live, shop, eat and travel. Its an exciting time as new innovative brands collide with old, but what they have in common is a desire to meet the demands of a changing society. At the same time, brands have had to adapt quickly during the global pandemic to meet customer needs and support local communities at a time of crisis.

Other key trends in the BrandZ Top 30 Most Valuable Emirati and Saudi Brands ranking:

 Closing the innovation gap  improving perceptions of innovation is a significant opportunity for brands to drive brand value growth and to connect with new generations of customers. With no pure-play technology companies in the Top 30, there is a big opportunity for brands to step into the breach and capitalise on digital connectivity and meet changing consumer behaviour, such as the move to online shopping;

Disruptive and emerging brands are knocking on the door of the Top 30, including challenger brand Noon, which uses innovative geo-tagging technology to deliver products to exactly the right place, adding grocery to its existing portfolio to expand its base during the pandemic. Ride-hailing app, Careem has evolved its range of services including online grocery, while CAFU, the most disruptive brand in the region and scoring high on difference, is offering the first petrol delivery application and has customised its offerings to different types of customers. In addition, Saudi brand Albaik is shaking up fast food with its must-have broasted chicken; and

Brand purpose is an opportunity for brands in the region to increase brand value further. Companies like Hunger Station, Emirates, Albaik and Almarai all score highly on the BrandZ Purpose Index. While purpose is not about saving the world, brands are recognising that even small steps can make a big difference with consumers.

The BrandZ strong brand portfolios have consistently outperformed the market, including the S&P 500 and MSCI World Index. This validates the role of marketing and brand-building investment to support recovery at a critical time for businesses. -- Tradearabia News Service
Almost 40 years ago to the day, as a young journalist, I watched Margaret Thatcher make her famous 'The lady's not for turning' speech at the Tory Party Conference in Brighton.

As she shot off the dais after the usual standing ovation, perspiring somewhat and in a state of high emotion, I was the first person she spotted. She looked into my eyes for signs of adulation, and for a horrified moment I thought she was going to kiss me. But she passed on.

People forget just how unpopular Thatcher then was, not just in the country but with many in her own party. She had triumphantly won an election 17 months earlier, but euphoria had sagged as unemployment soared. The so-called Tory wets were out to get her.

Dared

In the end, of course, she stuck to her guns and went on to win two more elections. She changed the face of Britain economically and socially to an extent that no one present in Brighton 40 years ago could have predicted.

Dare one draw parallels with Boris Johnson's virtual party conference speech yesterday? It was a virtuoso performance that in many respects surpassed Thatcher's.

Whereas she wrote little of her speech, the trademark vivid imagery and passionate eloquence of Boris's suggest he wrote nearly all of his. Like Thatcher in 1980, he is being sniped at by some in his own party.

They said she wasn't up to it, as they say Boris isn't. She was supposedly the wrong woman for the job, and many fear he is the wrong man. She was sinking in the polls, and so is he. Yesterday the old campaigning Boris was on show  the man who stormed to an 80- seat majority last December, and drove out Jeremy Corbyn and his Marxists.

He laid out a glorious vision for the future which will have left only flinty hearts untouched. His sheer verve and energy scotched any theory that he is still suffering from 'Long Covid'. He convincingly dismissed any suggestion that he had 'lost his mojo' as 'drivel'.

This vigorous, once-againoptimistic Boris was on our side. He hated the pandemic as much as we do, but foresaw a day when we 'will be back to normal' and 'hairdressers will no longer look as though they are handling radioactive isotopes'.

But he was looking beyond merely returning to normal. Just as the wartime government 'had sketched out a vision of a post-war new Jerusalem' at a time 'when just about everything had gone wrong', so he had set his sights on a fairer, more prosperous Britain.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivering his keynote speech to the virtual Conservative Party Conference in central London

Covid would be a 'catalyst for change'. It must be said that several aspects of this brave new world have previously been paraded before our eyes. The thousands of extra police and nurses, as well as dozens of spanking new hospitals, were recycled news. Sometimes, too, there was a vexing lack of detail.

He said, as he has before, that the 'injustice' of care home funding would be addressed, though didn't supply any further detail. 'One-to-one teaching' was extolled without any consideration of cost, or explanation as to how many children might benefit.

That said, there were bold new measures. Some 160million will be spent to develop offshore wind turbines and 'windmills that float on the sea'. Perhaps rather incredibly, these will produce '15 times as much [wind energy] as the rest of the world put together'.

When the PM boasted that in ten years' time 'your kettle, your washing machine, your cooker, your heating, your plug-in electric vehicle' will 'get their juice cleanly and without guilt from the breezes that blow around these islands', he brushed over our continuing dependence on nuclear power and gas.

Equally mind-boggling was his promise, intimated in the 2019 Conservative manifesto, that the Government will give young first-time buyers the chance to take out a long-term fixed-rate mortgage of up to 95 per cent of the value of a new home.

There was more than a whiff of Thatcherism about this exciting idea, as there was in his phrase about 'the fundamental, life-affirming power of home ownership, the power to decide what colour to paint your own front door'.

For the first time in ages, Boris Johnson sounded like a proper Tory, not only in championing people's right to own their own homes, but also in declaring 'there comes a moment when state must stand back and let the private sector get on with it'.

Virtues

Rousing stuff. But does he mean it? I think so, though one mustn't forget that he was addressing the party faithful, even if they weren't assembled in a hall. Their juices get going whenever there is mention of home ownership and the virtues of private enterprise.

The more intractable question is whether he can deliver even half his utopian dream. I began to have doubts when, having invited us to imagine arriving in this country in 2030, he spoke of 'your zerocarbon jet made in the UK'. Is that really likely?

We don't manufacture any large passenger aircraft as it is, and Rolls-Royce, one of the world's largest makers of aero engines, is battling to survive because of the pandemic.

I'll be astonished if anyone ever arrives in this country in a 'zero-carbon jet made in the UK'. Words can be inspiring and affecting, and Boris Johnson uses them extremely well. He is, after all, a very fine newspaper columnist.

But the trouble with columnists (I speak with some insight) is that they don't have to deliver what they promise. How good it was to see Boris back on form and free from the ill effects of Covid! It is wonderful to have a Tory prime minister with a grand vision. We haven't had one since Margaret Thatcher.

Almost 40 years ago to the day Margaret Thatcher made her famous 'The lady's not for turning' speech at the Tory Party Conference in Brighton

Grasp

But can Boris make these things happen? Or is it all talk? No one would pretend that he or the Government have had a distinguished pandemic. The PM was slow to grasp its seriousness, and has been too much in thrall to gloomster scientists.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has committed a roll call of errors. Yes, I know many other world leaders have struggled to cope with the disease. And it's easy for those on the sidelines to carp.

Maybe, too, Boris has learnt from his mistakes  the most recent one of which is to strangle the struggling economy with numerous (and confusing) regulations.

The fact remains that to deliver half of what he stirringly presented to us will require resoluteness and mastery of detail and a fair bit of good fortune. I'm not sure Boris can count on all those.

And yet I think back to Margaret Thatcher 40 years ago. Many wrote her off. They were as certain that she wasn't up to the job as people now are about Boris's capabilities.

He could still surprise us. I'm not convinced he was fashioned by his maker to be Prime Minister.

But that is what he is. Yesterday he delivered a humdinger of a speech which no one else in British politics would have been capable of. Surely the country should give him a chance.
Finance Minister Conor Murphy has today announced a grant scheme for hospitality businesses in the North West.

The scheme will see eligible businesses get up to 600 per week for the duration of the restrictions.

Making the announcement, Minister Murphy said: The restrictions imposed in Derry & Strabane are necessary to preserve lives, but they have a very damaging impact on the hospitality sector. Today I am introducing a Grant Support Scheme to assist those businesses forced to temporarily limit their operations.

Small businesses will receive 800 for every two weeks they are closed. Larger businesses will receive 1,200 for two weeks. This is above comparable schemes on these islands.

The grant scheme is in addition to the 12 months rates holiday which continues until the end of March 2021.

Minister Murphy continued: The Executive is doing its best to mitigate the economic impact of Covid-19. However, the main support needed for businesses which cannot trade fully is wage subsidy.

The end of the British Governments furlough scheme at the end of this month is therefore deeply worrying and I again call for this scheme to be extended, particularly for businesses forced to close.
Print Navigacia: > News > > Let There Be Light and Servants in EFA Feature Film Selection 2020

Let There Be Light and Servants in EFA Feature Film Selection 2020

The European Film Academy announced this year's selection of 38 films recommended for a nomination for the European Film Awards. The list includes four Slovak films: Let There Be Light (d. Marko Skop), Servants (d. Ivan Ostrochovsky) and two minority co-productions The Painted Bird (d. Vaclav Marhoul) and Charlatan (d. Agnieszka Holland).



Marko Skop's second fiction feature Let There Be Light world premiered at Karlovy Vary IFF 2019, where it received Crystal Globe for the Best Actor in a Leading Role (Milan Ondrik). The winner of five national awards, the Sun in the Net, examines the possible consequences of fathers' decision to be absent from their families in order to earn more money abroad.

"In the beginning, there was the topic of family, cold education and transgenerational mistakes. During the early phase of screenwriting, young paramilitary groups began to be widely publicized, and their very existence seemed interesting to me for a parallel comment. Indoctrination of young adults is one of the important storylines of the film," said director Marko Skop in the interview with Film.sk magazine.

The film Servants directed by Ivan Ostrochovsky, which reveals the untold history of the churchs involvement with the communist regime during the cold war, world premiered in February within brandnew Berlinale competition section Encounters.

We wanted to make a film about the socialist period in Czechoslovakia, but with an overlap with the present. One day, Slovak actor Vlado Zboron told us his story. He studied at the theological faculty under the communists, but he was expelled from the school. Subsequently, secret police agents came up with an offer  if he collaborates with them, he gets the chance to return to school. Zboron did not return and we had a nice theme. The story of coming of age and confrontation with reality, when one has to choose which side to take, is universal and always topical, " said director Ivan Ostrochovsky in an interview with Film.sk magazine.

In the coming weeks, the over 3,800 members of the European Film Academy will vote for the nominations in the categories European Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Costume Design, Make-up & Hair, Original Score, Sound and Visual Effects.



The nominations will be announced on 7 November at the Seville European Film Festival in Spain.



The 33rd European Film Awards with the presentation of the winners will take place on 12 December.

Related AIC articles:

Let There Be Light in Official Selection at 54th Karlovy Vary IFF

Interview with Marko Skop

Ivan Ostrochovsky's Servants at the brandnew Berlinale competition section Encounters.

Interview with Ivan Ostrochovsky

The Teacher selected for EFA Selection 2017


Delivered by: Chair of the EBRD Board of Governors Nadia Calvino Event: EBRD 2020 Annual Meeting

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Your Royal Highness, Chancellor, Your Excellencies, Governors, Acting President, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am delighted to welcome you all virtually to the 29th Annual Meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London.

It is a great pleasure for me to chair this Meeting of the EBRD during this critical and challenging time.

I am confident that, even though this is a most unconventional format, our Annual Meeting will be just another hurdle that this resilient institution will have overcome in this extraordinary year.

I am particularly pleased that we can continue with our important work and approve the Banks five-year Strategic and Capital Framework later today, with its strong focus on accelerating transition.

The current crisis has been energy consuming, but the events of 2020 should not overshadow the outstanding results achieved by the EBRD in 2019. It was a special year with record levels of investment, projects and green economy transition financing a successful legacy for our last President Suma Chakrabarti.

The Covid pandemic has hit all our countries of operations hard. Our priority now is on crisis response, on recovery, and on building back better to accelerate transition.

This challenge can only be tackled successfully through a collective and coordinated effort. The EBRD and the other international financial institutions must play a meaningful role in getting our countries, our world, back on track. It is therefore more important now than it ever has been, that we, as shareholders across these institutions, work together with the aim of promoting economic development and encourage them to be more efficient and avoid overlaps.

I would like to call your attention to the EBRDs prompt response in the last few months with two relevant crisis packages, targeted at addressing the most urgent needs: providing liquidity and working capital for the private sector and for vital infrastructure in our countries of operations. In these difficult times, the EBRD is delivering real benefits that we can all be proud of.

It is important that in all its work, the Bank continues to keep the bar high, ensure quality, and be guided by its mandate and the principles of transition impact, additionality and sound banking.

I am glad to say that these principles remain at the heart of the Banks Strategic and Capital Framework that we will be discussing later today and I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the key features of the Banks future strategy.

We, the shareholders, set the tone for the Banks investment and policy strategic directions when we agree the Strategic and Capital Framework. It is indeed timely, that under the current circumstances we have the opportunity today to send a strong signal about the EBRDs planned impact, and our aspirations for the Bank over the next five years.

The building block of this strategy is the Banks financial strength. There is sufficient capital for the Bank to be ambitious in developing its business model across our countries of operations, and also to eventually expand its regional footprint.

The EBRD purpose remains the fostering of transition towards open-market economies, and the promotion of private initiative in recipient countries, that are committed to and applying the principles of multiparty democracy, pluralism and market economy.

This political mandate is a strength amongst Multilateral Development Banks (MDB), and remains a crucial anchor for this Institution.

The ability to combine private sector finance, policy engagement and donor support in a wise and practical manner is an invaluable asset of the EBRD. This is a strength that the Bank should continue to deploy in all its countries of operations.

The Strategic and Capital Framework advocates a thoughtful distribution of the Banks toolkit. Our decisions should allow the Bank to set the path to increasing the proportion of its investment and policy activities in countries less advanced in transition.

Also, and as has always been the case in the EBRD, success in the transition journey is still marked when a country itself decides to graduate from the use of Bank resources.

Looking forward, the Banks successful experience in previous expansions has shown that its business model is complementary to other development finance actors. This gives us, as Governors, a starting point to decide on the possibility to expand the Banks transition mandate to sub-Saharan Africa and to Iraq during the Strategic and Capital Framework period, at the point when it makes sense and creates value.

This Strategy sets out the many ways in which the Bank will go from strength- to-strength. The Banks key focus of preserving and accelerating transition in its countries of operations will be underpinned by three strategic themes of:

Fostering the transition to a green, low carbon economy;

Promoting equal opportunities; and

Accelerating the digital transition.

I look forward to the new innovative approaches and strategies that will be crafted along these themes. I call on shareholders to support the Bank in these endeavours and the generosity of donor countries will be needed more in the coming years than ever before. I am confident that in this context the European Union will play as significant a role as it has done in the past.

Our approval of the Strategic and Capital Framework also aligns with the implementation of the Banks new Green Economy Transition Approach for the next five years. Part of building back better from the effects of the crisis will be a focus on green recovery. The Bank is ready to seize this opportunity and will no doubt do so in a determined and effective way. Reflecting its strong commitment to support the transition to a green, low carbon economy in its countries of operations, the Bank has set an ambitious target green finance ratio of more than 50 per cent by 2025. This is very much welcomed.

These are but a few of the many highlights, and I am very much looking forward to chairing the Plenary Session and hearing Governors views on areas important to them in the Strategic and Capital Framework, as we take this very important decision.

In my capacity as Chair of the Board of Governors, I would like to take this opportunity to convey Governors heartfelt thanks to all Staff for the outstanding results in 2019 and their readiness to keep the Bank going especially during these difficult months.

I would like to extend sincere thanks to former President Chakrabarti for his exceptional efforts, achievements and dedication to the institution and its mandate during his eight years at the helm.

And, on behalf of us all, I would also like to thank Acting President, Jurgen Rigterink, for stepping into the breach during the interim leadership period, and for his calm approach to navigating the Bank safely through the choppy waters of this most challenging of years.

This is already a momentous meeting in the Banks history. And there is more. At this Annual Meeting, we will be electing the Banks new President for the next four years. I am confident that with the candidates strong experience and leadership skills, the Bank will be in safe hands as we move into the future with confidence and ambition.

Moving to the institutional matters before us at this Annual Meeting, I look forward to Governors deciding on the application from Iraq. We have already approved Algerias membership application earlier this year, and I look forward to being able to welcome both of them as the 72nd and 73rd members of the EBRD. Since our last Annual Meeting in Sarajevo, the Bank has expanded its shareholder base, and so I would like to extend a warm welcome to San Marino as the newest member of the EBRD. Welcome

2020 has been a difficult year globally and the challenges ahead are unprecedent. For many of the EBRDs countries of operations, the road to recovery will be steep and rocky. But, with the ambitious Strategic and Capital Framework and the Banks strong capital base, ambitions on the green agenda, and commitment and active engagement in its regions of operations, and not forgetting its crisis response activities, the Bank is well equipped with the tools needed to help smooth and level that road towards recovery.

Thank you.

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New Delhi: As a part of Prime Minister Street Vendors AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Scheme, the Application Programming Interface (API) integration between the PM SVANidhi Portal and the State Bank of India (SBI) portal was launched on Wednesday.

Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs launched the Application Programming Interface.

This integration will facilitate seamless flow of data between the two portals i.e. PM SVANidhi Portal and SBI's eMudra Portal in a secure environment and expedite the loan sanctioning and disbursement process, which will benefit the street vendors seeking working capital loan under the Scheme. Ministry would be exploring similar integration with other banks as well for which a consultative meeting will be held shortly.

Live TV

The Ministry is implementing PM SVANidhi Scheme since June 01, 2020, for providing affordable working capital loan to street vendors to resume their livelihoods that have been adversely affected due to Covid-19 lockdown. This scheme targets to benefit over 50 lakh Street Vendors who had been vending on or before 24 March, 2020, in urban areas including those from surrounding peri-urban/ rural areas.

Under the Scheme, the vendors can avail a working capital loan of up to Rs. 10,000, which is repayable in monthly instalments in the tenure of one year. On timely/ early repayment of the loan, an interest subsidy of 7% per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer on quarterly basis. There will be no penalty on early repayment of loan. The scheme promotes digital transactions through cash-back incentives up to an amount of Rs. 1,200 per annum. The vendors can fulfil their aspiration of climbing up the economic ladder by availing the facility of enhanced credit limit on timely/ early repayment of loan.

As on October 6, 2020, over 20.50 lakh loan applications have been received under the PM SVANidhi Scheme. Out of these over 7.85 lakh loans have been sanctioned and over 2.40 lakh loans disbursed, an official release said.
B oris Johnson came under new pressure to order a circuit breaker social lockdown over half term as three senior scientists begged him not to squander a chance to arrest the spread of Covid-19.

However, there were signs that the Government was split, with Chancellor Rishi Sunak said to be among ministers opposing a national shutdown of pubs and restaurants at a time when Londons coronavirus case rates are only a fifth as high as those in northern hotspots such as Manchester.

With cases rising in all areas, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon became the first regional leader to concede that tougher restrictions were necessary.

Scottish ministers were meeting to consider closing the leisure sector temporarily while keeping schools and businesses open.

The three scientists stressed that they believed the Government needed to act firmly now rather than wait and risk levels returning by the end of October to those seen at the peak of the first wave, forcing a more serious national lockdown.

Circuit breakers are certainly something we should be thinking about on a national basis, Calum Semple, professor of child health and outbreak medicine at Liverpool University, told BBC Radio 4s Today programme.

The member of the Governments Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) committee, speaking in a personal capacity, said that a circuit breaker  a temporary social lockdown that kept schools and workplaces open  might have been a really good idea if imposed weeks ago.

Mr Johnson was spotted running with his personal trainer on Wednesday morning / Jeremy Selwyn

Its always easier to reduce an outbreak at the earlier stage than to let it run and then try to reduce it at a later stage, he said.

Professor Stephen Reicher of the University of St Andrews, who sits on the Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours which passes its advice to Sage, said: If you look at the figures at the moment, the level of infections is about 10 per cent of what it was at the peak in March. But at the rate of doubling it would probably be at the same as the peak in March by the end of October.

So the good news is we have a window of opportunity to do something. If we squander that window of opportunity then we really are in trouble and would be talking about going back to March in terms of full lockdown measures.

He said the point of a circuit breaker was to buy us the time to put other measures in place such as better testing.

London has about 60 cases per week of Covid-19 per 100,000 residents, but the rate is higher in some areas. Redbridge has the highest rate, at 96, followed by the Hackney and City of London area at 92.5.

But the capitals figures are dwarfed by Manchesters, where there were 561.6 cases per 100,000 people over seven days. In Liverpool the rate has also increased sharply, from 325.1 to 516.

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Other areas recording big jumps in their seven-day rates include Newcastle upon Tyne (up from 297.5 to 445.1, with 1,348 new cases); Nottingham (up from 71.2 to 440.1, with 1,465 new cases); Leeds (up from 154.6 to 346.6, with 2,749 new cases); and Sheffield (up from 112.3 to 320.4, with 1,874 new cases).

Local lockdown restrictions are already in areas across the country / Getty Images

Senior MPs say there is a clear divide in the Cabinet between ministers who take a safety first approach, led by Health Secretary Matt Hancock and occasionally supported by Michael Gove, and those who believe the strategy should be to live with the virus, led by Mr Sunak, and supported by Business Secretary Alok Sharma, Treasury Chief Secretary Stephen Barclay, International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

There is also a split in the scientific community about the best way to fight Covid. More than 4,000 medical experts worldwide have signed the Great Barrington Declaration stating grave concerns about the lockdown response to the crisis.

They instead advocated allowing herd immunity to build up among those who can best fight off the effects of coronavirus, while ensuring the most at risk are shielded.

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Ms Truss this morning stressed the importance of protecting peoples livelihoods but would not rule out a circuit breaker. The whole point is we are keeping this under review, she told Times Radio.
Renowned marketing communications expert, Mr. Joel Edmund Nettey has been sworn in as the new president and chairman of the International Advertising Association (IAA) at a beautiful ceremony in Accra, Ghana.

The immediate past President of the Advertising Association of Ghana was earlier this month approved by the board of the umbrella organization to be inducted as its new head.

At a ceremony at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra on Tuesday morning connected to top executives and board members via Zoom across the world, Mr. Joel Edmund Nettey was sworn in by Her Ladyship Justice Olivia Obeng to serve as the new President and Chairman of the IAA for the next two years.

Top IAA Executives joining the ceremony via Zoom

In his address after his induction, Mr. Joel Edmund Nettey who served as a Senior Vice President in the immediate past administration revealed plans to improve on the image of the IAA while increasing its relevance and impartibility.

Permit me to share with you the 3 key things I propose should guide everything we do in the medium to long-term and definitely the next two years. It is what I have termed our RRI approach; Making the IAA more recognizable, more relevant, and more impartible, he told the gathering and all executives that joined the ceremony via Zoom.

Mr. Joel Edmund Nettey further stressed, At the end of my tenure Im hoping that with your support we will be able to improve on the image of the IAA as the International Association that it is supposed to be and to be the true global compass or marketing communications across the world.

While paying tribute to all past executives who have contributed to making the International Advertising association what it is today, Mr. Joel Edmund Nettey also called on all members of the global organization to join him to take the IAA to the next level.

Mr. Joel Edmund Nettey with his wife

The new president has set his sight on imbibing diversity and inclusion as one of the values of the IAA and has also opened up embarking on initiatives to increase revenue to make the IAA more financially sound than it is currently.

In the immediacy, Mr. Joel Edmund Nettey is seeking approval from the board of the IAA to declare the 3rd of October as World Communications Day and says he is keen on seeing the United Nations (UN) approve the date on its calendar.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Norkor Duah, the Area Director for the IAA for Africa, has pledged continuous support for him as the first African to serve as the president and chairman of the IAA.

As the area director for the IAA representing the African continent, I am determined that within this period as President and World Chairman we will ensure that Africa receives its due quote, we will ensure that Africa makes him proud. We are behind you and wish you all the best, she stressed.
Muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) is commonly treated with radical cystectomy. Patients who require radical cystectomy are often frail, unwell, have multiple comorbidities, and can experience unmet supportive care needs. Due to these complexities, patients requiring radical cystectomy are often considered high risk for anesthetics, and therefore improving their physical and psychological well-being is crucial prior to radical surgery. Prehabilitation is the practice of enhancing a patient's functional and psychological capacity before surgery, with the aim of improving postoperative outcomes. This narrative review aims to identify and evaluate the role of physical exercise, nutritional intervention, and person-centered holistic approaches to prehabilitation in people affected by MIBC treated by radical cystectomy.

Electronic databases including CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsychINFO, Scopus, and grey literature were searched using Google scholar until June 2020.

Evidence to support specific prehabilitation clinical recommendations in people affected by MIBC is emerging. Prehabilitation including exercise prescription, nutritional intervention, and person-centered holistic support is an important part of the clinical pathway for people affected by MIBC. Individualized prehabilitation programs across the multidisciplinary team should be considered to provide specific individual recommendations to avoid "one size fits all". Given the limited research in this clinical area, future high-quality multi-center prospective trials are urgently needed.

People affected by MIBC can experience a range of unmet supportive care needs in routine clinical care delivery at the time of diagnosis and into survivorship. Evidence is emerging around the role of multidisciplinary interventions in the form of exercise, nutritional input, and holistic supportive care to improve physical and psychological well-being prior to major surgery. Specialist nurses are ideally placed to ensure that individual holistic care needs are addressed, and appropriate care and support is provided. Nurses can trigger timely referrals to members of the multidisciplinary team to coordinate an integrated person-centered approach to prehabilitation service provision to address the unmet needs of people undergoing treatment for MIBC.

Seminars in oncology nursing. 2020 Sep 30 [Epub ahead of print]

Irmina Nahon, Catherine Paterson, Alesha Sayner

Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, Canberra ACT, Australia; Prehabilitation, Activity, Cancer, Exercise and Survivorship (PACES) Research group, University of Canberra, Canberra ACT, Australia. Electronic address: ., Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, Canberra ACT, Australia; Prehabilitation, Activity, Cancer, Exercise and Survivorship (PACES) Research group, University of Canberra, Canberra ACT, Australia; School of Nursing, Midwifery and Public Health, University of Canberra, ACT, Australia; ACT Synergy Nursing and Midwifery Research Centre, Canberra Hospital, ACT, Australia., Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, Canberra ACT, Australia; Western Health, Chronic and Complex Care/Physiotherapy department, Melbourne VIC, Australia; Australian Prostate Centre, Melbourne VIC, Australia.

PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33010983
Researchers based at the University of Birmingham are starting a ground-breaking maternal health trial across 80 hospitals in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Sri Lanka.

The trial, called the E-MOTIVE study, aims to reduce severe bleeding after birth and ultimately reduce maternal deaths and complications due to bleeding by 25%.

Excessive bleeding after childbirth is the leading cause of maternal deaths worldwide, mainly in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Arri Coomarasamy, Professor of Gynaecology and Reproductive Medicine at the University of Birmingham commented: "Every six minutes a mother dies from childbirth-related bleeding in low-resource countries, often leaving behind a young family; her newborn infant has less than a 20% chance of surviving past the first month."

High quality childbirth care from expert healthcare professionals is available for all mothers in the UK. Tried and tested methods for dealing with severe bleeding after birth are applied consistently, if a new mother starts to bleed after childbirth.

Yet for women in LMICs, delayed detection and inconsistent treatment make excessive bleeding highly dangerous. Developing a package of care to help diagnose bleeding early, and treat women quickly can make the difference between life and death.

The study aims to generate the necessary evidence to give healthcare practitioners and policy-makers the confidence to implement and scale up the E-MOTIVE programme, moving us closer to having a solution for stopping mothers dying from bleeding after childbirth.

"Doctors and midwifes often do not realise that a woman is bleeding excessively - and thus the woman may not get life-saving treatment in time. The longer the delay in detection and treatment of the excessive bleeding, the greater the risk of her life being lost." said Dr Ioannis Gallos, Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Birmingham.

"Easy-to-implement interventions, that could be critical, are inconsistently used. Our programme intends to change practice so that women get the right treatment at the right time."

Led by Professor Arri Coomarasamy, a renowned Professor of Gynaecology and Reproductive Medicine and the Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Global Women's Health, and Dr Ioannis Gallos, Senior Clinical Lecturer, the University team will conduct a global study, E-MOTIVE, to better detect and treat mothers suffering excessive bleeding after childbirth. The E-MOTIVE study is supported by the Institute of Global Innovation of the University of Birmingham and a $10.9M grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

###

For more information and interviews, please contact Tony Moran, International Communications Manager, University of Birmingham on +44 (0) 121 414 8254 or +44 (0)782 783 2312 or t.moran@bham.ac.uk. For out-of-hours enquiries, please call +44 (0) 7789 921 165.

Notes to Editors

* The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world's top 100 institutions, its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 6,500 international students from over 150 countries.
One runway of the Noida international airport will be built during the first phase of construction and around 90 per cent of the air traffic in the initial years will be domestic only, said a top official of Zurich Airport International on Wednesday.

Officials of the Uttar Pradesh government and Zurich Airport International signed a concession agreement on Wednesday to begin the construction of the Noida airport in Jewar on the outskirts of Delhi.

We will obviously work with the local construction partners to build it (Noida airport) but we will be the main investor at the moment, Daniel Bircher, Chief Executive Officer, Zurich Airport International (Asia) told PTI in an interview.

He said the company might get another financial investor at a later stage to develop the airport further.

As a strategic objective, we are looking at building a platform of airports in India in the mid-term. So, it could be that we will join hands with a financial investor in a later stage to make this platform (Noida airport) grow. At this stage of the development phase (of Noida airport), we will do it ourselves, he added.

Zurich Airport International currently holds 100 per cent shareholding in the Noida airport project.

It had outbid the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), Adani Enterprises and Anchorage Infrastructure Investments Holdings Limited to win the 40-year concession for the Noida airport. The GMR group-led DIAL operates the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in Delhi.

What we know today is that the Delhi airport (IGIA) has natural limitations in the peak hours, so the airlines that want to operate during the peak hours will find ways to operate. So, there will be a shift of these airlines, Bircher noted. So, will the same airline also use the airport to do international flights? That is up to the airline to decide. I do not see this (Noida) airport to be the competition to the international traffic at the existing airport (IGIA). That will not change for some time, he said.

When asked if the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has changed its air traffic projections at the Noida airport, Bircher said, Today, there is an impact (due to the pandemic) but we are very confident that India with such a large domestic market...will very strongly rebound as we have seen in 2011-12. In the last 5-6 years, a growth rate of 20 per cent plus has been observed for some airports in India so any substantial changes in traffic projections are not seen, he added.

When it won the bid on November 29 last year to build and operate the Noida airport, the Swiss company had said the airport will be able to handle 12 million passengers per annum after the first phase of construction.

Bircher told the PTI, Domestic travel, I have no doubt, will rebound very quickly. Since, we are going to have 90 per cent domestic traffic in the initial years...I think that our assumption still holds true. When asked if the government has informed the company by when the construction of metro -- connecting the airport with the wider Delhi region -- will happen, he replied, Our understanding is that the planning has been completed and the government is looking at starting the execution soon to bring it to the airport by the time we start operating. The Noida airport site is around 70 km from the main Delhi region. He said the company has a total of three and half years to build the Noida airport.

We have three and half years, so we have six months to do financial closure, and the concession starts then and we have three years to build the airport, Bircher mentioned.

He said they were working hard now in the planning stage.

We are looking at Rs 4,500 crore of investment for the first phase. This is in an area of 1,334 hectares of land that has been given to be developed. This includes one runway, apron space, this includes 12 boarding bridges for the terminal, and it also includes cargo catering space, he said.

He said that in the planning stage, they were focusing on digitisation so as to give contactless services to passengers. We are focusing on short connecting times....We want to make it easier for the passenger to connect (for the other flight) and also for the airline to reduce the time the aircraft is on ground so that reduces the cost for the airline, Bircher said.

Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (YIAPL) is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Zurich Airport International which has been incorporated to develop the greenfield Noida airport in Jewar. The YIAPL will implement the public private partnership (PPP) for the Noida airport project together with the Uttar Pradesh government, New Delhi Okhla Industrial Development Authority and Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority. Bircher said, We see a good potential in developing this airport into a logistics hub with all the adjacent logistics development and planned projects. It also includes 74 hectares of cityside area that can be developed. This we will take in a phase-wise approach, initially most likely a hotel and the rest we are still studying. This includes also a metro station on our land, he added.
Human Resources is the brainchild of Sarah Lunnie, Stowe Nelson and Yuvika Tolani, the New York-based thespians who make up Telephonic Literary Union (TLU). Incorporating commissioned work by playwrights Brittany K. Allen, Christopher Chen and Hansol Jung and musical storyteller Zeniba Now, Human Resources is a maze of choices  selected by the numbers on your phone  that muse on existential and timely quandaries, from death to loneliness to how to keep your glasses from fogging when youre wearing a mask. Listeners select from quirky options (To file a claim for unhappiness, press one. For the Department of Conscious Rearrangement, press two. . . .) and encounter human and robotic voices.
Brown anything in a home has been labelled drab and outdated by some arbiters of decor. But, this fall, the hue is back  in part because of the unsettled, anxious state of the world.

Brown traditionally makes people feel comfortable and safe, and those are feelings that many of us are looking to our homes to provide, said interior designer Dawn Hamilton of Oakland Park, Fla.

The return of brown hues are among the trends in decor this season, when the pandemic has made home an even more essential space for living, working, studying and more. Also on the watch list: flexible rooms, indoor and out.

Cosy palette: Hamilton says todays brown palette is being used in new ways: as a neutral in all kinds of materials, and as an accent colour.

Brown feels very earthy and rich. Its warm and inviting, and has the same grounding properties as black, although its not quite as harsh, she said.

New York designer Becky Shea also cites browns organic versatility: Its a tone that works cohesively with neutrals as well as dark, bold tones like navy, graphite and black.

Eilyn Jimenez, of Sire Design in Miami, is adding a mocha brown vanity to the guest bathroom of a minimalist, French chateau-style home shes designing. It adds a layer of depth with a vintage feel, she said.

But dont overdo brown, she warns; blend it with modern materials, like marble, for beautiful juxtapositions.

Bringing it in with light woods, leathers and other natural materials can help make a space feel timeless, Jimenez added.

Lighter, yellowish browns, like caramel, often works well in leather.

In upholstery, we consider saddle leather to be a form of brown thats like a trusty pair of blue jeans  it goes with everything, says Chicago designer Brynn Olson.

As for furniture, Olson likes the effect of brown stains on walnut and white oak. Natural walnut will always feel fresh, and we love to pair it with bright white decor such as plaster vases, for a sophisticated pairing of textures, she said.

That brown-and-white combo has been a favourite of decorating icons including Billy Baldwin, said New York City designer Glenn Gissler. Inspired, Gissler recently painted a New York loft in a deep, rich brown, with columns and ceilings in crisp white. A long, tuxedo-style sofa in milk-chocolatey velvet anchors the space, along with tonal modern art.

Colours like purples and blues, of any intensity, also complement brown.

Comfort and flexibility: Home has always been a refuge for recharging and relaxing; its going to become even more so, said architect Jeffrey Dungan of Birmingham, Ala.

The ideal room now, he says, converts easily from family room to office, studio, guest room or self-quarantine space.

Some designers say that because of quarantining and the variety of uses expected from rooms, theyre getting requests for more self-contained rooms.

Well be saying goodbye to one of the main trends of recent years: open-plan spaces, with the entrance, living room, dining space and kitchen united, Ukrainian architect Sergey Makhno wrote recently in Dezeen magazine.
"As we all work to navigate one of the most complicated elections in history, theSkimm is thrilled to be teaming up with In Good Taste to help voters get informed and make their voices heard at the polls this year," said Jodi Patkin, VP of Brand Marketing at theSkimm. "After all, civic engagement and good wine are the perfect pairing."

Providing relevant and streamlined information for both new and experienced voters, theSkimm created a one-stop-shop to help voters get registered, request an absentee ballot, navigate their state's voting rules, and get informed with easy-to-use tools and non-partisan info all in one place leading up to election day on November 3rd.

"This is going to be one of the most important elections of our lifetime, and we want to help give Americans the tools to make voting as easy as enjoying a glass of wine," In Good Taste Co-founder, Zach Feinberg expressed. "With this kit, we wanted to showcase underrepresented regions across America, and help people discover unique wines that are being produced in their own backyards."

The launch of the United Grapes of America Flight comes as the 3rd kit release for the company; In Good Taste saw massive success with the launch of both the California Wine Mixer and Wild Child flights, paving the way for the timely release of UGA. This highly anticipated flight comes with eight, by-the-glass (187ml) wines, including a riesling from upstate New York, a pinot noir from Oregon, a roussanne from Texas and a petit verdot from Virginia, plus a few more surprises. As with all of their tasting flights, customers have the option to be led through a virtual tasting with one of In Good Taste's in-house wine experts.

In Good Taste, the world's leading producer of by-the-glass wines, brings the tasting room experience to your living room through guided, expert-led, virtual tastings. Their patented, 6 ounce mini bottles allow customers to taste a variety of high quality wines, before purchasing the full bottle. Unlike traditional wineries, In Good Taste purchases premium wine by the barrel from small family run vineyards around the world. In Good Taste believes uncovering new wines shouldn't be reserved for the experts, and that every glass is an opportunity for connection with people near and far. Headquartered in Los Angeles, In Good Taste Wines anticipates major expansion into eCommerce, retail, and subscription services in the next 12 months.

Skimm 2020 is a non-partisan initiative providing the information and tools millennial women need to cast their ballot with confidence. With millions of millennials relocated due to COVID-19 and election rules constantly changing, this voting bloc is facing one of the most complicated elections in history. And the stakes have never been higher: millennials are now the nation's largest living adult generation, and their voter turnout has been on the rise since 2014, especially among millennial women. If every millennial voted, they could decide the election. #WeCanDecide

SOURCE In Good Taste Wines

Related Links

https://ingoodtaste.com


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Boom, an aviation startup, has unveiled a full-scale prototype of its supersonic jet  the first of its kind to take flight in nearly 50 years.

Called XB-1, the sleek, white aircraft is capable of reaching speeds of Mach 1.3 using three J85-15 engines that are employed by the US military to power fighter jets.

The demonstrator is set for its first test flight next year and if successful, will pave the way for the full production model Overture to carry up to 88 passengers around the world by 2029.

Overture will stretch 199 feet long and travel at more than twice the sounds of speed, with a range of 5,180 miles per hour  the firm says it can soar from New York to London in just 3.5 hours.

Scroll down for video

Boom, an aerospace startup, has unveiled a full-scale prototype of its supersonic jet  the first of its kind to take flight in more than 50 years

Boom has been working on bringing supersonic travel back for nearly five years.

The firm first unveiled renders for XB-1 in 2016 and was original set for test flights a year later.

And although Boom has been plagued with delays, the reveal of the XB-1 suggests it is now on track.

Blake Scholl, Boom founder and CEO, said: 'Boom continues to make progress towards our founding missionmaking the world dramatically more accessible.'

Called XB-1, the sleek, white aircraft is capable of reaching speeds of Mach 1.3 using three J85-15 engines that are employed by the US military to power fighter jets

Blake Scholl (pictured), Boom founder and CEO, said: 'Boom continues to make progress towards our founding missionmaking the world dramatically more accessible'

About Boom's Founder Blake Scholl founded the Colorado-based company in 2014, with a vision to bring high-speed travel back to the world  an idea that was inspired by seeing the Concorde in a museum. Before he stepped in to the aviation space, the CEO help leadership roles at Amazon and Groupon, along with co-founding the mobile technology startup Kima Labs. Scholl started out as a software engineer at Amazon in 2001 and cofounded Kima Labs nine years later, which was acquired by Groupon in 2012. He has a BS in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. Advertisement

'XB-1 is an important milestone towards the development of our commercial airliner, Overture, making sustainable supersonic flight mainstream and fostering human connection

Boom unwrapped the prototype, dubbed 'Baby Boom',to the world Wednesday, revealing the supersonic jet with a 20-foot wingspan and its powerful engines made by General Electric that provide the plane with more than 12,000 pounds of thrust.

XB-1, however, is much smaller than its successor, as it only measures 71 feet long and has room for just a pilot.

The craft's frame is made of a carbon composite that makes it particularly heat resistant and is equipped with a feature made famous by the Concorde  the dropping nose.

However, Baby Boom includes high-resolution cameras in the nose that assist pilots with navigating through supersonic speeds, which the company says 'providing superior runway visibility for landing.'

And the firm says that the systems offers a 'virtual window through the nose.'

'XB-1 is the end-product of years of development effort, including multiple wind tunnel trials, dozens of structural tests, hundreds of simulation iterations, and tens of thousands of work hours,' Boom shared in a statement.

Boom has used a slew of modern technologies in designing the prototype, one being 3D printing  it partnered with VELO3D to design these parts.

Benny Buller, CEO and Founder of VELO3D, said: 'Aviation hardware is especially difficult to manufacture with 3D metal printing, due to challenging aerodynamic designs that must be balanced with superior durability and high temperature requirements.'

XB-1, however, is much smaller than its successor, as it only measures 71 feet long and has room for just a pilot

The craft's frame is made of a carbon composite that makes it particularly heat resistant and is equipped with a feature made famous by the Concorde (pictured)  the dropping nose

The demonstrator (pictured) is set for its first test flight next year and if successful, will pave the way for the full production model Overture to carry up to 88 passengers around the world by 2029

'VELO3D's technology allows the production of lightweight, complex designs for mission-critical applications in the toughest operating conditions. Our partnership with Boom is truly an advancement for the metal AM industry, and XB-1 supersonic aircraft is a game-changer for the aviation industry.'

The printed Titanium parts are used for engine hardware, the environmental control system, and structural components. Characteristics of the geometric designs include tall, thin walls with high aspect ratios, which are inherently difficult to manufacture with either traditional processes such as welding and casting, or even most existing 3D-printing technologies.

XB-1 will complete its ongoing, extensive ground test program before heading to Mojave, California in 2021 for flight test.

At the same time, the company will finalize Overture's propulsion system and conduct wind tunnel tests to validate aircraft design. When XB-1 breaks the sound barrier in flight, Boom will be finalizing the design of Overture, whose own rollout is on track for 2025.

Boom unwrapped the prototype, dubbed 'Baby Boom',to the world Wednesday, revealing the supersonic jet with a 20-foot wingspan and its powerful engines made by General Electric that provide the plane with more than 12,000 pounds of thrust

Boom has used a slew of modern technologies in designing the prototype, one being 3D printing  it partnered with VELO3D to design these parts

Overture is set to take to the sky by 2029 and with human passengers - depending on the success of XB-1's test flights.

Boom says Overture will accommodate the use of next-generation alternative fuels and have a carbon footprint comparable to that of present-day business-class travel.

It hopes the new craft will make supersonic travel affordable.
A man who broke into an abandoned Disney World attraction during the coronavirus lockdown and posted videos of it on YouTube will be fined just $100 and banned from the theme park for life.

Richard McGuire, 42, from Mobile, Alabama, was arrested after breaking into the Orlando theme park after a police manhunt on the Discovery Island attraction.

McGuire gained access to Disney World while it was closed during the coronavirus lockdown in April and used a motorised boat to get to the island, which has been closed to the public since 1999.

He stayed on the island in the middle of Disney's Bay Lake for two days before he was caught on CCTV footage and cops swarmed the 11-acre island.

Police bodycam video shows cops searching Disney World's shuttered Discovery Island in search of Richard McGuire, 42, from Mobile, Alabama, who made it his home during the coronavirus lockdown. He was arrested on May 1 and pled no contest to a trespassing charge last week, earning a $100 fine and lifetime ban from the park

McGuire posted an Escape From Discovery Island video (pictured) on his Southern Pirate Outdoors YouTube channel. The video shows McGuire trying to cover himself with leaves to hide from deputies

Since his arrest, McGuire (pictured in September) has continued to release videos on his channel

Body cam footage shows police searching the island on April 30 and they arrested him on the main land the following day after using a helicopter in the manhunt.

He told authorities he spent two days camping on the island, saying 'it looked like a tropical paradise' and he was unaware that he was trespassing.

Deputies asked McGuire why he didnt come out during the search and he said he was sleeping in a building and did not hear them.

He was released on bail and has continued to release videos on his Southern Pirate Outdoors YouTube channel, where he originally posted an Escape From Discovery Island video.

McGuire told authorities he spent two days camping on the island, saying 'it looked like a tropical paradise' and he was unaware that he was trespassing

The video shows McGuire trying to cover himself with leaves to hide from deputies.

Despite reportedly facing up to 12 months in jail for one count of trespassing, McGuire pled 'nolo contendere' or no contest in a plea agreement last week.

Orange County will withhold an adjudication of guilt in exchange for McGuires payment of a $100 fine and all court costs.

Discovery Island was once home to animal exhibits and popular walking trails, but is now full of overgrown foliage, decaying buildings and rusted-out cages.

Footage shows the cops wandering around the island with their guns drawn as they yell out to McGuire to surrender.

'This is the best game of hide-and-seek ever,' one officer says as he looks through empty animal enclosures.

'Dude, this is sketchy,' his partner replies.

However, police failed to locate McGuire on the island, but were waiting to apprehend him later that evening as he made his way back to the mainland.

Discovery Island, which is located in the middle of Disney's Bay Lake and only accessible by boat, was closed to the public in 1999

McGuire was able to gain access to the empty Disney World theme park, which has been closed during the entire coronavirus pandemic, under the cover of darkness by using a small motorized boat to reach the island.

He documented the adventure on his camera phone and posted several videos to his YouTube channel.

In one video, McGuire claims he has been a frequent visitor to the abandoned island for more than a decade.

'You guys, if you all ever do this, be respectful to the next people who are explorers,' he states.

Police pushed through overgrown foliage to search through decaying buildings and rusted-out cages on the 11-acre island

'This is the best game of hide-and-seek ever': Officers had their guns drawn as they searched the Disney property

'If you have a fire, make sure you put it out the next day. I've been doing this since 2004 and I've never caught anything on fire.'

McGuire also recorded police searching for him on the morning of April 30, with helicopters heard hovering overhead as cops combed the island to apprehend him.

'The island is surrounded,' he whispers to viewers in that clip.

Cops failed to find on the island, but he was detained late on the evening of April 30 after making his way back to the mainland, claiming he was 'flat wore out'.

McGuire claimed he planned to stay on the island 'for about a week' before his fatigue set in and he handed himself in.

He was taken into custody and charged with the misdemeanor offense before being released on bail.

McGuire is still taking to YouTube to talk to viewers about his time on the island.

Treasure Island was a popular attraction at Disney World prior to its closure in 1999. An old map is pictured

In a recent clip uploaded late last month he stated: 'Luckily, I've already taken my daughter Disney World before I got a life ban.

'Who wouldn't want to go and have it all to themselves?'

He later told local news network WESH that the manhunt to find him 'felt like a scene from the movie 'The Fugitive.

'I never expected it to be that intense," he stated.

Disney World was forced to shutter back in mid-March amid the COVID-19 outbreak, before it reopened to visitors at a reduced capacity in July.
85%

Website tokyo-zoo.net uses latest and advanced technologies. It is very popular on the web, it's within the 1 million most visited websites of the world at position 327614 by Alexa. It supports HTTPS. The main html page has a size of .

This CoolSocial report was updated on 2019-10-08, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want.
BROOMFIELD, Colo., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced Teen Hustl from Broomfield, Colorado as one of the finalists for its annual Dream Big Awards. The Awards, presented by Chase for Business with support from MetLife, celebrate the achievements of small businesses and honor their contributions to America's economic growth.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce - Young Entrepreneur Achievement Award Finalist Teen Hustl delivering from an Amazon Locker

"Over the last several months, small business owners have faced challenge after challenge. Yet, despite these challenges small business owners never stop innovating, pivoting, taking risks, working hard, and dreaming big," said Tom Sullivan, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Vice President of Small Business Policy. "Small businesses are a critical and vibrant sector of the U.S. economy. The U.S. Chamber is proud to celebrate the very best in American small business through our Dream Big Awards."

The Dream Big Awards program includes Business Achievement Awards to recognize excellence in eight categories and reflect the leading businesses in each of the following areas: community support and leadership, emerging, green/sustainable, minority-owned, veteran-owned, woman owned, young entrepreneur, and small business of the year. This year's finalists were selected from a record of over 700 applicants.

The Young Entrepreneur Business Achievement Award recognizes the success of one small business and honors its contributions to the growth and diversity of the American economy. This award recognizes small business owner, founder or co-founders, aged between 14 and 25 who have attained outstanding business achievement.

"I created Teen Hustl not only to provide a safer, eco-friendly, community-based delivery service by teenagers on bikes and electric scooters to local neighborhoods but to provide the same opportunities that millions of teenagers had decades ago across America delivering newspapers to their local neighborhoods," said Jack Bonneau, 14, Founder and Chief Evangelist of Teen Hustl. Teen Hustl offers teenagers the opportunity to experience and develop work, life, and social skills: while providing a great, community connected delivery service.

Award winners will be announced at the virtual Dream Big Awards program on Thursday, October 15 at 2:00pm ET.

About Teen Hustl

Teen Hustl's dual mission is to provide a safer, eco-friendly, community-based delivery service nationally while providing teenagers opportunities to experience and develop work, life, and socials skills that will benefit them their entire lives. Teen Hustl is expanding nationwide. For more information visit www.TeenHustl.com.

Teen Hustl

Media Contact

Steve Bonneau

720-663-9760

[email protected]



SOURCE Teen Hustl
The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Institute for Cognitive Modeling signed a memorandum of cooperation in the areas of digitalization, innovation, development of the digital economy and strategy of creating a digital state.

As reported in a message on the ministry's website, the team of the institute will work on strategic processes and building a successful brand of the Ministry of Digital Transformation in Ukraine and the world.

"The Institute for Cognitive Modeling and the Ministry of Digital Transformation will concentrate their efforts on creating a strategy for promoting the ideas of digital transformation, popularizing them, supporting achievements in the field of digitalization and forming a digital state," the message says.

The parties will also cooperate in organizing all-Ukrainian events, participating in international events aimed at creating a positive image of Ukraine in the world, attracting international partners, developing e-business in Ukraine, as well as accelerating the state's "digital breakthrough".

"We have already made a powerful breakthrough in the field of public services, we save time and money for Ukrainians when preparing documents, remove queues, bureaucratic processes and corruption schemes. In order for the digital transformation of Ukraine to go on more efficiently, and the products and services of the ministry are well recognized and comprehensive for people, we need communication at the strategic level," said Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.
The Russian military says it has successfully test-launched a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile off Russias northern coast, in what President Vladimir Putin hailed as a big event for the country.

Speaking to Putin by video conference on October 7, General Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov said the test launch took place from the Admiral Groshkov frigate located in the White Sea.

Gerasimov said that the hypersonic anti-ship missile flew at a speed more than eight times the speed of sound and hit its target 450 kilometers away in the Barents Sea.

Equipping our armed forces -- the army and the navy -- with the latest, truly unparalleled weapon systems will certainly ensure the defense capability of our country in the long term," said Putin, who was celebrating his 68th birthday.

Putin has repeatedly spoken about new weapons such as the Tsirkon, claiming that they have no foreign analogues and are impossible to intercept.

Last year, the Russian leader said the Tsirkon would be capable of flying at Mach 9 and have a range of 1,000 kilometers.

He has pledged to beef up Russia's military presence in the Arctic.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and TASS
NEW YORK and ALBANY, N.Y., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dandelion Energy, the nation's leading residential geothermal company, today announced Jeremy Smith as the company's Vice President of Drillings. Smith brings more than eighteen years of experience in the natural gas and oil industries to Dandelion's geothermal drilling operations. Smith will be a key part of the leadership team at the country's fastest-growing green home geothermal company.

Smith will oversee all drilling activities, including design, site survey, and permitting as well as installation, and supporting the customer through their experience. Before joining Dandelion, Smith was the Consulting Drilling Manager for Shale Petroleum Ltd. in Alberta, Canada. Prior to that, he worked in drilling operations leadership positions with various natural gas and oil extraction companies.

"I'm excited to have Jeremy join our growing team here at Dandelion Energy. Jeremy's extensive experience in drilling is perfect to help us drive growth while building on the approach that has made Dandelion the number one ranked customer service geothermal company," said Michael Sachse, CEO of Dandelion Energy. "As our country transitions away towards a greener, cleaner economy, geothermal offers a clear opportunity for fossil fuel workers to utilize their experience and expertise."

Dandelion's modern, clean, and green Home Geothermal Systems provide efficient heating, air conditioning, and warm water at significant savings over older fossil-fuel burning devices. Dandelion systems eliminate the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, improve indoor air quality, and allow people to reduce their home's largest source of harmful carbon pollution.

A Dandelion Home Geothermal System can be purchased for cash or with financing and can save homeowners up to 50% on their annual heating and cooling operating costs.

New York and Connecticut residents interested in learning more about clean home geothermal can visit: https://dandelionenergy.com/see-if-your-home-qualifies

About Dandelion

Dandelion's mission is to enable the widespread adoption of home geothermal. The company is ranked #1 in customer satisfaction in home geothermal. Home geothermal is a clean, safe, and affordable alternative to fuel heating and conventional air conditioning. Before launching as an independent company in 2017, Dandelion was a project at X, the research and development lab at Google's parent company Alphabet. To learn more, visit us at www.dandelionenergy.com.

SOURCE Dandelion Energy

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A staffer who put her hand on Joe Biden's shoulder as he left an event in Florida  has sparked concerns that the former Vice President's team isn't social distancing around him.

Biden gave a speech at the Little Haiti Cultural Center in Miami on Monday and his supporters were out in force waving banners and cheering for the presidential candidate.

But as he left the event Biden was greeted by his trips director Ashley Williams, who had worked as Jill Biden's aide when she was second lady.

In exclusive photos obtained by DailyMail.com, Williams is seen approaching Biden and, standing close to him, appeared to place a caring hand on the 77-year-old's shoulder while offering words of support.

Both Biden and Williams were wearing face masks but critics will likely jump on the incident and slam the Democratic candidate's team for not sticking to government social distancing guidelines of staying 6ft away.

A staffer who put her hand on Joe Biden 's shoulder as he left an event in Florida  has sparked concerns that the former Vice President's team isn't social distancing around him

In exclusive photos obtained by DailyMail.com, trips director Ashley Williams is seen approaching Biden and, standing close to him, appeared to place a caring hand on the 77-year-old's shoulder while offering words of support.

Biden gave a speech at the Little Haiti Cultural Center in Miami on Monday and his supporters were out in force waving banners and cheering for the presidential candidate. But as he left the event Biden was greeted by the aide in a long purple dress

Both Biden and the staffer were wearing face masks but critics will likely jump on the incident and slam the Democratic candidate for not sticking to government social distancing guidelines of staying 6ft away

An onlooker told DailyMail.com 'When this attractive young woman approached him he seemed more than happy to chat to her at close proximity. She was very close to him and put her arm on his shoulder'

An onlooker told DailyMail.com: 'Lots of people were approaching Biden and that morning his wife had pulled him away from getting too close.

'But when this attractive young woman approached him he seemed more than happy to chat to her at close proximity.

'She was very close to him and put her arm on his shoulder.'

Earlier that same day, Biden's wife Jill had to pull him back from reporters in Delaware when she felt he was not maintaining enough distance for safety.

The couple were headed for the campaign trail in Florida, and Joe stopped to talk to reporters before flying to Miami.

As he was speaking, Jill walked up behind him and grabbed his arms, pulling him away from the reporters.

'I'm sorry,' Joe said, as Jill repositioned him.

Biden visited several locations in Miami Monday under heavy police protection and ironically said he wasn't worried about contracting COVID-19 because he had been 'fastidious about the social distancing.'

His comments were made during a town hall meeting hosted that day by NBC's Lestor Holt.

Biden, who was with his wife Jill, said President Trump bore some responsibility for his positive coronavirus test because of the way he has ignored public health guidelines for months.

'Anybody who contracts the virus by essentially saying masks dont matter, social distancing doesnt matter, I think, is responsible for what happens to them,' he said.

Earlier that same day, Biden's wife Jill had to pull him back from reporters in Delaware when she felt he was not maintaining enough distance for safety. The couple were headed for the campaign trail in Florida, and Joe stopped to talk to reporters before flying to Miami. As he was speaking, Jill walked up behind him and grabbed his arms, pulling him away from the reporters. 'I'm sorry,' Joe said, as Jill repositioned him

During Biden's whistle-stop campaign visit to Little Haiti he courted Haitian-American voters and leaders on the last day to register to vote in Florida

Biden, dubbed 'Creepy Joe' in the past, closed his remarks by quipping to the crowd, 'the good news is, for me, I'm here. The bad news for you is I'm coming back.' He then spotted two young girls, who were wearing traditional Haitian clothing, sat to the side. 'And I want to see these beautiful young ladies - I want to see them dancing when they're four years older too,' Biden pointed

'Ive been fastidious about the social distancing. Ive been fastidious about wearing a mask.'

During Biden's whistle-stop campaign visit to Little Haiti he courted Haitian-American voters and leaders on the last day to register to vote in Florida.

'Its all about the spirit, the spirit of this community,' Biden said in a speech to a small crowd standing in social distanced circles painted on the ground. 'Theres no quit in America. 'Theres clearly no quit in the Haitian community, there is none. And I promise you there would be no quit on my part as your president making sure that the Haitian community has an even shot and back on its feet.'

He also raised some eyebrows towards the end of his speech with remarks he made to a group of 'beautiful young ladies'.

Biden, dubbed 'Creepy Joe' in the past, closed his remarks by quipping to the crowd, 'the good news is, for me, I'm here. The bad news for you is I'm coming back.'

He then spotted two young girls, who were wearing traditional Haitian clothing, sat to the side.

'And I want to see these beautiful young ladies - I want to see them dancing when they're four years older too,' Biden pointed.

Cell phone footage of the speech went viral, prompting some to hit out at his 'creepy' behavior.

Biden's campaign later clarified he was referring to the four year term a president holds office.

As well as Little Haiti, Biden also stopped in Little Havana before attending the town hall event near downtown Miami.
Staff at a national park in China have resorted to using slingshots to scare off macaques in order to protect the tourists from being attacked by the wild animals.

Social media footage shows one of the park rangers aiming the weapon at the woods, where the wild monkeys inhabit at the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in central Chinese province Hunan.

The scenic spot later confirmed the incident with reporters, adding that the measure was used to protect their visitors from the animals' attack, which had been happening regularly.

Social media footage shows one of the park rangers aiming the weapon at the woods, where the wild monkeys inhabit at the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in central China's Hunan

Staff at the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in central China's Hunan province has sparked outrage online after they used slingshots to scare off macaques in order to protect the tourists

The national park, covering 18.5 square miles of land, is famous for being home to more than 3000 distinct types of plants as well as diverse animal species.

Swarms of macaques can be spotted playing on the main trails while endangered species such as Chinese giant salamander, Chinese water deer and the elusive clouded leopard lurk deep in the park's wilderness.

But the popular tourist attraction has faced a fierce backlash after footage of its staff member driving the wild monkeys away on the site with a slingshot emerged on Chinese social media on Tuesday.

A tourist who filmed the video told the Chinese media that there were a couple of park rangers aiming the weapons at the macaques, a species listed under the second class of wildlife protection in China.

The visitor can be heard asking the staff member: 'I was wondering who ordered you guys to hit [the animals with slingshots]?'

The popular tourist attraction has faced a fierce backlash after footage of its staff member driving the wild monkeys away on the site with a slingshot emerged on Chinese social media

The national park, covering 18.5 square miles of land, is famous for being home to more than 3000 distinct types of plants as well as diverse animal species. The file photo shows a macaque monkey resting on a tree branch at the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park

The man replied: 'The environmental protection departments.'

A spokesperson from the national park later confirmed the incident, claiming that the measure was used to protect their visitors from being harmed by the monkeys.

'The monkeys at the park attack the tourists almost on a daily basis,' he told Chinese video news site Feidian.

He added that the slingshot bullets were made of plastic and had not 'actually harmed any monkeys'.

The incident has sparked anger online as many animal lovers slammed the park's approach outrageous.

One commenter wrote: 'This is too vicious! Who will pay for human cruelty towards wild animals? Animals have never violated humans! It is the endless development of mankind that has violated the homeland of wild animals!'

The national park is home to many endangered species such as Chinese giant salamander, Chinese water deer and the elusive clouded leopard which lurk deep in the park's wilderness

The scenic spot later confirmed the incident with reporters, adding that the measure was used to protect their visitors from the animals' attack, which had been happening regularly

Another one said: 'Does intimidation need to be used this way? Why are the monkeys punished already just because they could potentially hurt people? Tourists should not visit the park if they are afraid of being hurt. How can such an approach be considered protection?'

But other Chinese web users appeared to agree with the national park's measure, with many claimed to have previously visited the beauty spot and been attacked by the macaques.

One commenter said: 'I've been to Zhangjiajie in July. The monkeys there are really dangerous. I don't see why this is wrong.'

Another wrote: 'It's okay to just drive them away. Haven't we heard enough news about wild monkeys grabbing things and hurting people? No matter how cute a wild animal is, it's still a wild animal. It won't make sense with you. It's better to keep a distance between humans and monkeys.'

In a previous interview, the Zhangjiajie park said that the monkeys attacked the visitors mostly because people fed them food, which is forbidden on the site.

'We have received complaints from tourists that they were scratched by monkeys,' Zhang Li, a site manager told the local media.

'And 80 per cent of those tourists got scratched by monkeys because they teased or fed the monkeys. After these monkeys are fed, they often follow the feeders and even snatch food from tourists.'
The private prison near Shelby on Monday confirmed additional employees have tested positive for COVID-19 after a second round of testing last week.

CoreCivic, which operates Crossroads Correctional Center in Toole County, said a week ago 26 inmates and three employees had tested positive for the novel coronavirus during its first round of "targeted testing" on Sept. 24 and 25. In coordination with the Toole County Health Department and the Montana Department of Corrections, 196 tests were administered in that round.

Another eight cases were confirmed among staff in a second round of testing on Sept. 29 and 30, CoreCivic spokesman Ryan Gustin said in an email on Monday. Sixty-six tests were administered.

Last week's new cases make 17 confirmed cases among Crossroads Correctional Center staff.

"Of these cases, five employees have recovered from the virus and have been medically cleared to return to work," Gustin said. "Any of our employees that have not yet returned to work are recovering at home and are in regular communication with their healthcare providers."
Regulatory News:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (LN:PSHD) (NA:PSH) today released its regular weekly Net Asset Value ("NAV") and performance returns on its website, https://www.pershingsquareholdings.com/company-reports/weekly-navs/. The NAV and returns were computed as of the close of business on Tuesday, 6 October 2020.

PSH NAV per share as of close of business on 6 October 2020 was 39.62 USD 30.69 GBP and year-to-date performance was 48.2%.

Weekly net asset value ("NAV") is calculated as of the close of business on each Tuesday and posted on the following business day. In the event that Tuesday is not a business day, the Company will calculate the close-of-business NAV as of the business day immediately preceding that Tuesday. The end-of-month NAV is calculated as of the close of business on the last day of the month and posted on the following business day. For weeks that include a month-end NAV report, PSH will provide only the month-end NAV and not report the Tuesday NAV. Monthly NAVs are published in accordance with the Decree on Conduct of Business Supervision of Financial Undertakings under the Wft (Besluit Gedragstoezicht financiele ondernemingen Wft).

Performance is presented on a net-of-fees basis and reflects the deduction of, among other expenses: management fees, brokerage commissions, administrative fees and accrued performance fees, if any. The performance figure includes the reinvestment of all dividends, interest and capital gains. Depending on the timing of a specific investment, net performance for an individual investor may vary from the net performance as stated herein. Net performance is a geometrically linked time weighted calculation.

Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. All investments involve risk including the loss of principal.

About Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd.

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (LN:PSHD) (NA:PSH) is an investment holding company structured as a closed-ended fund that makes concentrated investments principally in North American companies.

Category: (PSH:WeeklyNAV)

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005991/en/

Contacts:

Media

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Ed Gascoigne-Pees Hazel Stevenson +44 020 3757 4989, media-pershingsquareholdings@camarco.co.uk
The court on October 6, 2020, considered the appeal filed by the defense.

Kyiv's Court of Appeals has left unchanged a previous court ruling on the arrest of former Donbas war volunteer and musician AKA 'Riffmaster' Andrii Antonenko, a suspect in the murder case of journalist Pavel Sheremet.

The court on October 6, 2020, considered the appeal filed by the defense against the decision of the jury of Kyiv's Shevchenkivsky district court to extend Antonenko's arrest, according to an UNIAN correspondent.

Read alsoSheremet case: Ankle monitor removed from suspect Kuzmenko

Addressing the appeals court, the lawyers emphasized that Antonenko was not going to hide from the investigation and the court, or flee abroad. They insisted on changing the preventive measure to any other that does not provide for detention and will allow Antonenko to be with his family.

In addition, the defenders said that due to the constant need to attend court hearings and other circumstances related to his imprisonment, Antonenko's wife lost her job, so his family was virtually left without means of subsistence.

The prosecutor dismissed the appeal and insisted that Antonenko allegedly could go into hiding, flee and put pressure on witnesses.

Having heard the parties and persons who are ready to put up Antonenko's bail, the panel of judges decided to dismiss the appeals of the defense.

Those present in the courtroom met the court's new decision with shouts: "Shame!" and "Freedom to Riffmaster!"

Sheremet murder case: Details
On Monday, the White House Management Office sent out an email to senior staff who routinely interact with Trump, aimed at protecting both the president and his advisers. The memo, obtained by The Washington Post, urges staffers to limit all foot traffic on the first floor of the West Wing as well as in the Residence and says that staff should only go to the Oval Office or the second floor Residence when they are requested and expected.
New Delhi: The Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL) and Zurich Airport International AG on Wednesday (October 7) signed a key agreement to allow the Swiss developer to begin work at the site of the upcoming Jewar airport.

The 'concession agreement' for the Greenfield airport, estimated to cost Rs 29,560 crore, was inked between the Uttar Pradesh government's agency and the Yamuna International Airport Private Limited (YIAPL), a special purpose vehicle floated by the Zurich Airport for the project.

The agreement was signed by Dr Arun Vir Singh, CEO, Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL), and Christoph Schnellmann, Chief Executive Officer, Noida International Airport.

Noida International Airport or Jewar Airport will be developed on the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

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The International Airport, which is scheduled to open in 2024, will merge Indian culture and hospitality with Swiss technology and efficiency to develop this airport.

Jewar Airport will operate as a fully digital airport, providing a safe and contactless travel experience and customized commercial offerings to passengers.

The Airport will be the first net-zero emissions airport in its class, setting a new standard for sustainable aviation.

Construction of Noida International Airport will support economic growth through job creation in the state, also a preferred destination for domestic as well as global investors in the upcoming years.

Daniel Bircher, Chief Executive Officer, Zurich Airport International (Asia) said, When phase 1 development is completed in 2024, we will provide capacity for 12m passengers per year.

Dr Arun Vir Singh, Chief Executive Officer, Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL) said, World-class airport will not only connect the western UP region with other domestic and international destinations but also provide additional capacity to Delhi NCR region.

In November last year, Zurich Airport International AG (ZAIA) won the contract to build and operate the airport in Greater Noida for a period of 40 years.

The ZAIA received the security clearance from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to develop the Noida International Airport at Jewar in May this year.
The Ukrainian leader is waiting when details of the case are disclosed by the German side.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that Ukraine is ready to join international partners' sanctions against the Russian Federation over the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

He announced this at a joint press conference with High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European Commission Josep Borrell in the wake of the 22nd Ukraine-EU summit in Brussels on October 6, according to an UNIAN correspondent.

Read alsoZelensky: European partners assure there's no threat to visa-free travel

"I have not yet seen the details of this case. First, I would like us to hear the details to be made public by the German side, and then Ukraine will, I am sure, join our international partners' sanctions," he said.

Navalny poisoning: Background
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-08 00:19:46|Editor: huaxia

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XINING, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the world's highest and longest railway, not only brings convenience for the residents on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to travel but also enormous wealth for them.

"Our life changed a lot since we moved to Chaka Township," said Shen Deping, a resident of the township's Bayin Village. Along with other villagers, Shen and her family moved to the township from mountainous areas to shake off poverty in 2016.

"Before moving here, I planted wheat, highland barley and other crops to make a living. We lived a hard life," she said. Thanks to the booming tourism brought by the railway, Shen, like many other villagers, now has bid farewell to poverty.

Bayin Village is located close to Chaka Salt Lake, a hot tourist attraction in northwest China's Qinghai Province. The local government also encouraged villagers to run hotels and provided subsidies for them.

In 2016, China Railway Qinghai-Tibet Group Co. Ltd. launched a tourist train service for the attraction, which has made more than 500,000 trips so far.

The hotel business of Shen's family is hot especially on the National Day holiday from Oct. 1 to Oct. 8. "Some customers had booked their orders more than a month in advance," she said. Since the launch of the train service, the family has doubled its income and can earn around 300,000 yuan (about 44,000 U.S. dollars) each year.

"I am planning to expand our business and hire more waiters. It is possible for us to double the income again," said Shen.

Besides tourism, the railway has also promoted the development of logistics on the plateau. More than 800 households in Sema Village in Lhasa City, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, have shaken off poverty in 2015 thanks to the industry.

"There was not even a decent electrical appliance in my house before the railway was open to traffic," said Nyimatserin, a villager in Sema. In 2007, the village established a logistics company with the support of the local government. Starting with 30 minivans, the company now has more than 100 large vans.

"The per capita income of villagers increased to 10,000 yuan in 2018 from the original 2,000 yuan," said Nyimatserin. "Our job in logistics is busier than before, but we are also happier than before." Enditem
Madam Maryam Amartey, a Human Rights Activist has cautioned community watchdog committees to desist from taking the laws into their own hands in their lines of duty.

She acknowledged the important roles being played by the watchdog committees in the various communities especially the Zongos to check crimes and other social vices.

The Human Rights Activist made the call during the occasion of a forum organised by the Friends Society at Fadama, a suburb of Accra to sensititise the Zongo youth on their rights and responsibilities as citizens of Ghana.

Madam Maryam Amartey pointed out that though the watchdog committees, which are popularly referred to as vigilante groups have helped in reducing crimes and bringing sanity amongst the Zongo youth, they sometimes go contrary to their mandates.

Through community vigilanteism in our communities, crimes such as homosexuality, armed robbery, prostitutions, pick pocketing amongst others have been brought under appreciable control.

She however mentioned that most at times when crime perpetrators are arrested, instead of handing them over to the police, they are treated harshly.

For instance, gay practitioners are the main perpetrators who received most harsh and inhumane treatments from such vigilante groups.

Most gay persons are stripped naked, tortured with iron rods, sticks, machetes and all kinds of offensive weapons, all in the name of punishing the perpetrators and to serve as warnings to those engaged in the act.

The worst of it all she said is that such infamous and inhumane treatments are filmed and posted on Facebook, WhatsApp as well as other social media handles.

This, she said is a big disgrace to human hood and must be stopped with immediate effect.

She mentioned that most people suspected to be homosexuals were forced to flee the Fadama community and Ghana at large for fear of torture and disgrace by the vigilante groups.

She cited an example when one Issah Iddrisu, an indigene of Fadama was publicly disgraced by the members of the Fadama youth because according to them, he was gay.

She mentioned that Issah was arrested together with his colleague when the group broke into his room and found both of them half-naked. The two were publicly stripped naked and tortured severely with some dangerous weapons.

For more than thirty minutes the two accused persons were subjected to severe beatings and no one came to their rescue simply because they were said to be gay persons.

She condemned how gays were been ill-treated and discriminated against in the respective Ghanaian communities.

Madam Maryam Amartey questioned why the group would take the laws into their own hands to subject the two suspects to such public ridicule. The actions of the group will have negative effects on the families of the accused persons.

She therefore advised community vigilante groups to conform to the laws of the country and not do things their own way in the discharge of their duties.

Many people especially the youth have been forced to flee their various communities because of the actions of community vigilante groups.

We all agree that homosexuality is illegal in our side of the world but let us do what the laws of the country say. If we arrest any person suspected to be a gay, the best thing to do is to hand over such persons to the law enforcing agencies.

One woman who spoke on condition of anonymity, admitted that incidences of gay attacks and tortures had happened on many occasions at Fadama and other Muslim communities in Ghana.

She added her voice to the call on the need for human rights bodies and activists to intensify education on how to end violence against gay practitioners in the country.

The anonymous speaker also urged the organisers of the Forum to extend the program to other parts of the country to help sensitise the people on their rights especially during this electioneering period.

In their response, the organisers, Friends Society, promised to organise similar programmes in other parts of the country, particularly the Zongo communities.

The one day public forum which was held under the theme: Our Zongo Our Future Must Rise Again" was also used to educate and advised the youth on the need to ensure violence-free general elections.
Congressman Tom McClintock recently spoke on the US House Floor to support a Resolution that condemns QAnon.

McClintock was Wednesdays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are his words:

I rise in strong support of this resolution, which condemns an extremist group known as QAnon. I must admit that I had only recently heard of this group but didnt know any details of their beliefs or tactics until this resolution was brought to us today.

From what I have read, they are a delusional group that began with an Internet post in 2017 and hold the bizarre belief that the federal government is infested with Satanic pedophiles who are busy running a global child sex-trafficking ring when they are not plotting against President Trump. Im tempted to say, You cant make this stuff up, but obviously somebody did make this up, and given the reach of the Internet, it is apparently being taken seriously by some extremists who are turning to violence.

Lest it get out of hand, it is appropriate for the House speak with one voice on behalf of all our communities across this great nation in condemnation of QAnon and its conspiracy theories. It should be clear to every man and woman of goodwill in this country that this group seeks only to further roil our society and divide our citizens along lines of race, religion and politics.

Even in this highly polarized political climate we can all agree on this.

Let me ask us all to do so without attempting to smear any party or candidate with the ravings from this, the lunatic fringe of our society.

That term  lunatic fringe  was popularized by Theodore Roosevelt. He wrote in his autobiography:

Then, among the wise and high-minded people who in self-respecting and genuine fashion strive earnestly for peace, there are the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting itthe men who form the lunatic fringe in all reform movements.

We have seen that borne out in the turbulent period of history we now occupy, and how we deal with it will determine whether we can calm the political waters and restore peace and tranquility to our cities and civil discourse to our conversations.

And in that regard, it is important to note that QAnon and the lunatic fringe on the right no more speak for the right than Antifa and the lunatic fringe on the left speaks for the left. Both are poisonous to our democratic institutions and both are destructive of what Lincoln called the mystic chords of memory that should unite us as a free people.

So, allow me to voice my hope that we will see similar condemnations of the lunatic fringe that has been given free rein to rampage, loot, vandalize and burn so many of our towns and cities across America. QAnon and its allied groups are real. Antifa and its allied groups are real. Both are direct threats to democracy because both threaten or employ violence for political ends and that is the very definition of terrorism. No free society can long endure if their acts of violence are excused, ignored or tolerated.

Lincoln said it best: There is no grievance that is fit object for redress by mob law.

To that, I would add this observation: without law enforcement, there is no law, and without law, there is no civilization.

I would express the fervent hope that before we adjourn, we will entertain condemnations of all groups on all sides that employ violence for political ends.

Wednesday night, the Rules Committee rejected a motion on a party-line vote that would have brought to the floor a resolution condemning Antifa and its allied groups concurrent with this resolution. That would demonstrate that this House speaks clearly and stand united against all such groups that have wrought such division and destruction to our communities.

That is especially important when we survey the violence perpetrated by the lunatic fringe in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, Washington, D.C., Louisville, Minneapolis and even Kenosha, Wisconsin. It is especially important when the mayors of these cities have withheld police protection from their own citizens, leaving innocent and peaceful shopkeepers and residents to the mercy of mob law, and when prosecutors have refused to hold accountable those who have perpetrated this violence upon the American people.

People can see with their own eyes where the violence on our streets is coming from  and I deeply regret that the majority is not willing to call out by name such groups as Antifa  or to acknowledge that such evil forces even exist. We must speak out together against all such groups  and I am deeply troubled that for some reason, we cannot.

We need to know who is funding these groups. We already can see with our own eyes who is encouraging them. We can see with our own eyes those mayors who have deliberately withheld police protection from their citizens as these extremist-driven mobs run rampant in our communities. We can see with our own eyes those politicians calling for defunding police departments that are the only means of defense that our citizens have. And we can see with our own eyes those prosecutors who have refused to hold accountable those who perpetrate violence in our communities and who instead prosecute citizens trying to defend themselves.

There is precious little time before the election for the House to take a stand clearly and unambiguously against all political violence, and, with one voice, to stand with the rule of law and not the rule of the mob. If we could speak together, on this most important issue, maybe we could start to find our way back to other fundamental principles and institutions that have always united us as a people and made America, in Lincolns words, the last best hope of mankind on this earth.

Please, my Democratic friends, do not squander this fleeting opportunity to turn back from the perilous road we are on and to re-claim the precious legacy our forefathers left us.

The Newsmaker of the Day is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML.
 Flash

U.S. President Donald Trump, who is undergoing COVID-19 treatment at the White House, said on Tuesday that he is looking forward to the next debate with 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

"It will be great," Trump tweeted, referring to the second face-off with Biden, scheduled for Oct. 15 in Miami, Florida, a key battleground state in the presidential race.

In another tweet, he again sought to downplay COVID-19 by comparing it to flu, which was later hidden by Twitter behind a label stating that it "violated the Twitter Rules about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information" related to the virus.

It is still unclear if Trump, who may remain contagious, will be healthy enough to show up for the debate.

Right now, the president is in quarantine at the White House after three-day hospitalization. Though his doctors have said the president's condition has continued to improve, they have also warned he is not out of the woods yet.

White House physician Sean Conley said in a new memo that the medical team met with Trump on Tuesday morning.

"He had a restful first night at home, and today he reports no symptoms. Vital signs and physical exam remain stable, with an ambulatory oxygen saturation level of 95-97 percent," Conley wrote. "Overall he continues to do extremely well."

The former U.S. vice president, Biden, who is leading Trump in national polls, has said that he will listen to experts on whether it is safe for him to have the next debate with the Republican.

The two candidates met in Cleveland, Ohio on Sept. 29 for the first 2020 presidential debate, two days before Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis.
Written by ACM





*Strasbourg/Angelo Marcopolo/- Incredible, but True : In Less than 3 Days at a Hospital, for an Infection by the Deadly Virus, of UnKnown yet Cause, embattled US President Don Trump (Aged 74 y.o., But Younger than his Competitor, Biden) has Already Returned Back to the White House, the 6 October !

Moreover, he astonishingly looks in a quite Good Shape, (Even if his Doctors Warned that he's Not Yet Entirely Out of Any Risk), Ostensibly Walking Fast, and withOut Holding Anywhere, down the long Staircase of the Hospital, Jumping in and out of an Helicopter, and Arriving at the Whire House, where he Immediately was Filmed, Gave Oraly a Strong and Energetic Message for the People, while Also Jumping Upstairs to be Photographed at Emblematic positions of the superb Washington Building...

Earlier, at the Hospital, Trump had, already, Filmed a 1st Strong Message to the American People, and, inter alia, Nominated 2 New Top Officers at his Administration, (including one from the Black Minority), Launched a Call to the Congress for a New "Stimulus" Plan to the Economy, "Bombarded" the Internet with More than Ever, Short but Sharp, "Twitter" Messages on the forthcoming Crucial Elections, (See Infra), and, Even, (Among Medical Treatments), Found the Time and Energy to get Out, (in a Long Car with Large Windows), in order to See, Greet and Exchange briefly with Many Simple People Gathered to express Support to the infected US Presidential Couple.



Even among his own most faithful Supporters, standing overNight out of the Hospital, they were Expecting that, if things went well, he would be Back in Office at about "7 Days" Later, just in Time for the Follow-up Debate with Biden...





By Breaking all Records of Speed, Eager to Engage asap in this "Hot" Electoral Fight, Crucial for USA's and even the World's forseable Future, (while Continuing Medical Therapy at the White House, in parallel with the Oval Office), Trump Obviously Takes Personal Risks, Firmly Believing that it's his Duty, as responsible Political Leader, and doesN't want to let anyone who might have Provoked, Suddenly, the Infections (from still Uknown Source : See http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/trumphitbyvirus.html , etc) Also of his Wife, his closest White House Advisor, his Electoral Campaign's Manager, his Press/SpokesWoman, (etc), to Hinder him to Fight.





+ Meanwhile, among Various coming and going Polls, Positive or Negative, (See, f.ex. : https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1343305/US-election-poll-donald-trump-coronavirus-covid-joe-biden-exclusive-polling, etc), Trump's Recent "Flow" of various Key Policy Issues at the Internet, through Short but Sharp Calls for the People to Vote, that he Launched already from the Hospital (sic !), has just Proved to be a Real Nature "Poll", among those who are Interested in, and Follow his Activities, about What Matters Most for them, and could make them Vote for Trump 2020 :





- F.ex., US Citizens are certainly Interested in "Regulation Cuts" (about 202.000 likes), But, Naturally, they Prefer a "Better and Cheaper HealthCare" (229.000 likes). However, they would rather Opt for "Tax Cuts" (231.000 likes), Considering, nevertheless, that "Law and Order" is More Important (238.000 likes). But they Value Health "Protection of Preexisting Conditions" Higher (249.000 likes), while, However, being clearly More Interested in "Religious Liberty" (252.000 likes). They understand that have the "Strongest Military" might have a Greater Importance (254.000 likes), nevertheless, Find, rather Better "Peace", and "Bringing Our Soldiers Home", (256.000 likes), while Appreciating even a little bit More a ..."High Stock Market", (257.000 likes). American People Believe, however, that Keep their Right to Bear Arms, is More Important (316.000 likes), almost Equal to having a ... "Space Force" (317.000 likes), Bypassed Only by the Right to Seek the Truth, with a necessary "Fight" against "the Corrupt" and "Fake News Media",... (381.000 likes). Unquestionably, Above All, by Very Far, comes the protection of Human "Life", from conception to natural death, (493.000 likes) !

-------------------



=> This Fact Timely Evokes, also, what has Become, probably, the Most Crucial Issue of Our Times : Protect the Human Embryos from Genetic Manipulations, Particularly Since the Technologies for "Gene-Editing" Affecting All Future Generations emerged, around 2018, opening UnPrecedented Dangers for Humanity, ... But, Also, Pointing at a Big, UnTapped Yet Electoral Potential for a Popular Conservative as Don Trump, (Similar to that which Made GWBush Suddenly Win Brillantly his own Re-Election Campaign, with a Crystal-Clear Advance of More than +3 Millions of Votes, Instead of a 50% - 50% "Pat" that All Establishment's Polls Erroneously Predicted then), which Includes Mainly a (quite well Known in America) Great ad Vibrant Portion of the Christian Community, But Also Other, Sincere and Conscious Humanists, that, precisely, petty Technocrats are Anxious, already Since 2016, that the embattled Trump Might, Eventualy, Decide to Set in Motion, at a moment or another, Thus Ensuring a Huge Sweeping Political Effect, Able to Mark History...



(../..)



("Draft-News")
The Justice Department unsealed charges Wednesday against two Islamic State militants from Britain, accusing them of carrying out a gruesome campaign of torture, beheadings and other acts of violence against Western hostages they had captured in Syria, including four Americans.

El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are two of four men dubbed the Beatles by the hostages they held captive because of their British accents. They are expected to make their first appearance in the afternoon in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, where a federal grand jury issued an eight-count indictment.

The charges are a milestone in a years-long effort by U.S. authorities to bring to justice members of the group known for beheadings and barbaric treatment of aid workers, journalists and other hostages in Syria. The mens arrival in the U.S. sets the stage for arguably the most sensational terrorism trial since the 2014 criminal case against the suspected ringleader of a deadly attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

Videos of the killings, released online in the form of Islamic State propaganda, stunned the U.S. government for their unflinching violence. The recordings routinely showed prisoners in orange jumpsuits on their knees beside a captor dressed in black whose native English drove home the global reach of a group that at its peak occupied vast swaths of Syria and Iraq.

Relatives of four of the slain hostages praised the Justice Department for transferring the men to the U.S. for trial, saying, Now our families can pursue accountability for these crimes against our children in a U.S. court.

The indictment describes Kotey and Elsheikh as leading participants in a brutal hostage-taking scheme targeting American and European citizens from 2012 through 2015.

In July 2014, according to the indictment, Elsheikh described to a family member his participation in an Islamic State attack on the Syrian Army. He sent the family member photos of decapitated heads and said in a voice message, Theres many heads, this is just a couple that I took a photo of.

Elsheikh and Kotey have been held since October 2019 in American military custody after being captured in Syria one year earlier by the U.S.-based Syrian Democratic Forces. The Justice Department has long wanted to put them on trial, but those efforts were complicated by wrangling over whether Britain, which does not have the death penalty, would share evidence that could be used in a death penalty prosecution.

Attorney General William Barr broke the diplomatic standoff earlier this year when he promised the men would not face the death penalty. That prompted British authorities to share evidence that U.S. prosecutors deemed crucial for obtaining convictions.

In interviews while in detention, the two men admitted they helped collect email addresses from Kayla Mueller that could be used to send out ransom demands. Mueller was killed in 2015 after 18 months in ISIS captivity.

The State Department described their conduct in terms not nearly so benign. The agency declared Elsheikh and Kotey as specially designated global terrorists in 2017 and accused them of holding captive and beheading approximately two dozen hostages, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and aid worker Peter Kassig.

Specifically, the State Department said Elsheikh was said to have earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions while serving as an ISIS jailer.

Kotey, according to the State Department, acted as an Islamic State recruiter and likely engaged in the groups executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods, including electronic shock and waterboarding.

In a statement, relatives of Mueller, Foley, Sotloff and Kassig said the transfer will be the first step in the pursuit of justice for the alleged horrific human rights crimes against these four young Americans.

We are hopeful that the U.S. government will finally be able to send the important message that if you harm Americans, you will never escape justice. And when you are caught, you will face the full power of American law, the statement said.

The other two Beatles included the most infamous member of the group, Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, who was killed in a 2015 drone strike. Emwazi appeared and spoke in the video of Foleys execution. The fourth member, Aine Lesley Davis, was sentenced to seven years in prison in Turkey in 2017.
HARTFORD, Conn., Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In recognition of World Mental Health Day this Saturday, October 10, the longest chain of carabiners  11,000 to be exact  will be assembled in a Guinness World Records attempt to raise awareness of the importance of mental health and suicide prevention. The sponsoring organization, Linked 4 Life, will kick off the attempt at 8:00 AM at Dunkin' Donuts Park in Hartford, Connecticut. The event will be livestreamed at www.linkedforlife.org. The current world record, 8,622 carabiners, was set in September 2019.

"The carabiner, a clip used to tether together climbers, is a visual reminder that we're linked together, and that it's OK to ask for help," said event organizer Cheryl Antoncic. "We're each other's safe space, creating a message of hope, one link at a time. Our pledge to be linked for life will break through the stigma that leaves too many people struggling in silence."

"We arrived at 11,000 in a show of solidarity for the estimated 1,100 college students that die by suicide each year in the U.S," Antoncic added. "That's 110 chains of 100 carabiners to break the world record and break the silence that prevents too many people from reaching out for help."

"Our mission is to link together one pledge, one person, one carabiner at a time," said Rachel Papke with the Jordan Porco Foundation, a partner in the effort. "We encourage people to speak openly about mental health issues while listening without judgment, to create safe spaces across the country, and to connect with those who need help the most." The Foundation, co-founded in 2011 by Marisa Giarnella-Porco and Erni Porco, based in Hartford, is named for their son, Jordan Porco, who died by suicide when he was a freshman in college.

The October 10 Linked 4 Life Guinness World Records attempt also serves as a launch for an ongoing national movement to build awareness of the importance of mental wellness and suicide prevention.

The pandemic has only exacerbated mental health issues. The Centers for Disease Control reported in August that adults in the United States experienced "considerably elevated adverse mental health conditions associated with COVID-19." Overall, 40.9% of respondents reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition. The percentage of respondents who reported having seriously considered suicide was significantly higher among respondents aged 1824 years, at 25.5%.

Fundraising for the Guinness World Records attempt continues. For every $3 donation to Linked 4 Life, donors will receive one Linked 4 Life carabiner. Donations can be made online at www.linkedforlife.org.

About Linked 4 Life

Lead partners Bear's Restaurant Group and the Jordan Porco Foundation established Linked 4 Life earlier this year. The Foundation's mission is to prevent suicide, promote mental health, and create a message of hope for young adults, helping over 40,000 young adults across the country every year. The Restaurant Group is comprised of five restaurants in Connecticut, including Bear's Smokehouse BBQ, supports a range of philanthropic initiatives locally and nationally.

SOURCE Linked 4 LIfe

Related Links

http://www.linked4life.org


Rapper King Kaka took the country by storm late last year after releasing a song that called out Kenyans for their foolishness.

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Deputy President William Ruto addressing a gathering during a rally in Kajiado county. Photo: William Ruto.

Source: UGC

In his thought-provoking Wajinga Nyinyi (you fools) song, the artist reminded us about the many hardships we face as a result of our thoughtlessness when electing leaders. He pointed out the folly of forgetful voters who myopically dance to the tunes of deceitful politicians, only to later sleep on empty stomachs.

Love him or hate, but King Kaka hit the nail on the head. His was not just a song but a call to action; free advice on how we can make our country great by our dropping our gullibility when it comes to electing leaders.

You should look no further than Deputy President William Rutos political campaigns to fully understand the deceitful politics King Kaka warned us about.

Deputy President William Ruto pushing a wheelbarrow during a youth empowerment function at his Karen residence. Photo: William Ruto.

Source: Facebook

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When Ruto passionately pleaded with Kenyans to give the Jubilee Coalition a chance to lead the country in 2013, youth empowerment was at the heart of his pledge to change Kenya forever.

Youth empowerment would become the fuel to drive the Jubilee Coalition agenda in our country 92% of young people who have no jobs have no skills. A Jubilee government will set up an institute of technology in every ward in this country, he promised at Kasarani.

Five years later, a similar promise would dominate Rutos vote-hunt ahead of the 2017 general elections.

We are focused on creating millions of jobs for our unemployed youth, he stated amid a pledge to create 1.5 million jobs annually.

There is no denying that the DP has done literally nothing noticeable to fulfil these promises. The second most powerful man in the country has grossly failed in using the government and state machinery to empower the youth.

He cant cite incapacity or alienation from the centre of power as excuses. It should not be lost on Kenyans that Ruto unmistakably operated as Uhuru Kenyattas co-president during their first term in office.

At the height of their bromance, the DP had unlimited powers and influence in government, even serving as the Acting President of Kenya for three days in October 2014 when Kenyatta was away at the Hague.

And rather than help President Kenyatta create the 1.5 million jobs per year among other Jubilee promises, the DP has spent the entire second term so far campaigning for his 2022 presidential bid.

Yet absurdly, Ruto has once again made youth empowerment the centre of his 2022 campaigns. He has been moving around shamelessly lamenting the high unemployment levels in the country.

Rather than use his position and influence to roll out government-funded programmes that would empower millions of youths using formal structures, he has unveiled his own ridiculous plan of giving mikokotenis, wheelbarrows, water tanks, sufurias and handouts to only a few young Kenyans.

The approach is unsustainable and wont address unemployment but only encourage dependence on handouts among the youth.

Given the current state of affairs, it is almost certain that Ruto will see out his 10 years as DP in the Jubilee government without the least of effort to officially address youth unemployment as earlier promised.

Kenyans, especially the youth, should prove they are not fools anymore by holding him to account for the broken promises.

Before you sit on that wheelbarrow, put Ruto to task about the jobs, stadiums and double-digit economy he promised earlier.

Before you cheer when he labels his rival lord of poverty, ask him what he has done to end this poverty in the eight years he has been the DP.

When he claims to be Kenyas saviour, dare to ask him what he will do to save the country after 2022 that he couldnt have done since 2013.

Similar hard questions should be directed at all other politicians out there bombarding voters with hot air.

It is the high time voters put their future in their own hands by saying an emphatic No to political conmanship.

The writer is Tom Juma, a regular commentator on social, economic and political affairs.

The views expressed here are his and d not represent the position of TUKO.co.ke in any way.

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.

Heroine ruined my life and put my children at risk - Whitney Wanjiku | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
India's rice exports in 2020 may rise by nearly 42% from a year ago to record highs because of reduced shipments from rival exporters and a depreciating rupee, industry officials said this week. Higher shipments from India, the world's biggest rice exporter, could cap global prices, reduce the country's bulging inventories and limit Indian state stockpiler purchases from farmers.

India's rice exports could jump to 14 million tonnes in 2020, up from last year's 9.9 million tonnes, the lowest in eight years, said B.V. Krishna Rao, president of the Rice Exporters Association. "Thailand's shipments are falling due to the drought. Vietnam is struggling because of lower crop. That share is naturally coming to India," Rao said.

Thailand, the world's second-largest rice exporter, suffered through a drought earlier this year that has affected the rice crop. Shipments in 2020 could fall to 6.5 million tonnes, the lowest in 20 years. Vietnam, the third-biggest global exporter, has contended with low water levels in the Mekong River Delta, the country's main rice growing region, that has limited supply.

India mainly exports non-basmati rice to Bangladesh, Nepal, Benin and Senegal, and premium basmati rice to Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. India's rice shipments in 2020 will rise because of robust demand for non-basmati rice from African countries, said Nitin Gupta, vice president for Olam India's rice business.

"Basmati rice demand is more-or-less stable, but in non-basmati we have seen a huge surge in demand due to attractive prices," Gupta said. India's non-basmati rice exports may double from a year ago to 9.5 million tonnes, while basmati rice exports would remain stable around 4.5 million tonnes, he said.

India was offering 5% broken parboiled rice at $380 per tonne on a free-on-board basis, while Thailand was offering the same grade at $490 per tonne, dealers said. Indian exporters have offered rice at lower prices at a time when global prices have jumped on limited supplies because of the rupee's depreciation, Rao said.

The rupee has declined 3% against the U.S. dollar so far this year. In addition to lower Southeast Asian sales, China has also cut exports to Africa after floods hit local crops, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm.

"Unlike other countries, India has massive surplus. Exports won't create shortage in the local market," the dealer said. Also, the higher exports should cut into Indian inventories and limit government purchases from farmers at minimum support prices, said Rao from the Rice Exporters Association.
Cherry St. SE, 100 block, 7 p.m. Sept. 26. A man verbally harassed juveniles and pushed one of them to the ground as he attempted to steal a Bluetooth speaker from a bicycle belonging to one of the juveniles. The man then tried to take another juveniles skateboard and made threats before fleeing from the area.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo Tuesday said he wants to win the December Presidential polls on merit and not through an election that did not reflect the will of Ghanaians.



I am not interested in any crooked results and I do not want to be a President elected by deceit, he said when he formally filed his nomination at the Electoral Commission (EC) Headquarters, Accra to contest the December 7, 2020 Presidential elections as the candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).



The President, 76, was acclaimed the NPPs flagbearer to seek another four-year mandate after he emerged the only personality to file for the slot when the party opened and closed nominations earlier in the year.



He will battle his main opponent and predecessor, John Mahama of the National Democratic Congress, for a third consecutive time. Mr Mahama has questioned consistently the ECs processes to conduct a credible election.



But filing his nomination on Tuesday, President Akufo-Addo said when Ghanaians decide to extend his mandate for another term in government, it should not be through a flawed process but upon an open clear statement of the choice and will of the people.



I look forward to a contest that would be fairly conducted so that if indeed by the grace of God Almighty that I am again the choice of the Ghanaian people, it will be one that would be freely and openly demonstrated, he stated.



The President expressed confidence in the work done so far by the Commission, saying its processes had given him and majority of Ghanaians considerable confidence that the new leadership of the EC was competent and committed to free, fair, credible and transparent elections.



He thanked the Commission for the expeditious process that he had been taken through in filing his nomination, and said the steps taken so far by the electoral body was important for democratic governance.





We are counting on you to be the arbiter that holds the scales evenly to all contestants. What the Ghanaian people are expecting is that the election in December 7 will be an election conducted in peace, freedom and security and in transparency so that the results of the elections will reflect the will of the people.



Elections are not meant to be decided by the EC, or the officials that work hereyou are the referees of the contest. Elections are to be decided by the people of Ghana and we are hoping that the arrangements that you have put in place will enable the Ghanaian people to manifest their will on December 7 and choose the next government, he said.



The President was accompanied by Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the Chief of Staff at the Presidency, Madam Frema Osei Opare, the NPPs Chairman Mr Freddie Blay, General Secretary John Boadu and Campaign Manager Peter Mac-Manu.

Source: GNA









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Company to Support Donations to Project Mission Green Through Co-Marketing and Discounts on Select Products for Participating Brands

CYPRESS AND LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / KushCo Holdings, Inc. (OTCQX:KSHB) ('KushCo' or the 'Company'), the premier provider of ancillary products and services to the legal cannabis and CBD industries, is proud to announce that it has partnered with Project Mission Green ("Mission Green"), an initiative of The Weldon Project that advocates on behalf of currently or formerly incarcerated cannabis offenders who were sentenced to prison for nonviolent cannabis offenses.

Project Mission Green founder Weldon Angelos and KushCo Holdings co-founder and CEO Nick Kovacevich

Mission Green works to address the injustices and the collateral consequences of cannabis arrests and convictions. The organization redresses these injustices and disparities through legislative advocacy and programs designed to both secure the release of nonviolent cannabis offenders from incarceration and to assist those coming out of prison in rebuilding their lives through re-entry programs.

Under the terms of the partnership, both parties will work together to raise awareness of-and to support- Mission Green's social justice and social equity initiatives. This includes co-marketing efforts as well as a commitment by KushCo to donate to Mission Green up to 50% of the proceeds from the sale of select KushCo products.

The partnership represents KushCo's latest efforts to create meaningful and lasting positive change against social injustice, following the Company's previously announced paid time off award to its employees on "Election Day," November 3, 2020. KushCo reaffirms its longstanding commitment to supporting the industry and affected communities against the decades-long "War on Drugs" and the deep-rooted racial profiling it has engendered. The Company is proud to be one of the founding sponsors of Mission Green and a long-time advocate of promoting social equity in the legal cannabis industry.

Leading up to the formation of the partnership, KushCo was instrumental in helping support REEForm Cannabis, a social equity-focused cannabis company founded by The Weldon Project's President Weldon Angelos. In 2019, KushCo provided REEForm Cannabis with preferred pricing and credit terms to purchase high-quality packaging, papers, and supplies, which helped accelerate the brand's growth. REEForm Cannabis pledges to provide monthly payments directly to commissary accounts of those needlessly suffering in prison for nonviolent cannabis possession. The brand has been financially supporting men and woman incarcerated for nonviolent cannabis-related offenses, while working tirelessly to ensure their personal freedom.

"We have always made it a priority to support our community, industry, and people, knowing full well that that there is a tremendous amount of work that still needs to be done to rectify the social injustices that have destroyed the lives of many," said Nick Kovacevich, KushCo's Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman. "We immediately were drawn and hurt by Weldon's tragic story of serving 13 years in prison for a low-level, first-time cannabis-related offense. But more than that, we knew that we could make a meaningful and lasting difference to right these wrongs, starting by supporting Mission Green's unique purpose and team, which is made up of people who have been personally impacted by the justice system and have lived through the issues that came with it. We will not stop in this endeavor until we can ensure the safe release of many more vulnerable, at-risk incarcerated individuals from prison, and we are proud to have Mission Green as our partner in this essential cause."

Angelos added: "While cannabis legalization has provided an opportunity for many to enrich themselves, those reaping the profits from the legal industry cannot forget those who have paid the ultimate price and whose suffering enabled them to be successful. KushCo is one of the few companies in our industry that truly understands that, and has never hesitated to support the cause, starting from the industry's early days up until now. Given their stellar reputation for quality, breadth of products, and a deep and loyal customer network, we realized early on that KushCo is the ideal partner for Mission Green. More importantly, it has been obvious to us during this entire process, starting with KushCo's first involvement with REEForm, that the people there, from the leadership on down, are truly committed to working towards clemency and criminal justice reform. It's personal to them in the same way it's personal to us, and we are thrilled to join forces, especially at this critical time where more new states are legalizing medical and/or adult recreational use cannabis, leaving many victims of the War on Drugs severely disadvantaged."

About KushCo Holdings

KushCo Holdings, Inc. (OTCQX:KSHB) (www.kushco.com) is the premier provider of ancillary products and services to the legal cannabis and CBD industries. KushCo Holdings' subsidiaries and brands provide product quality, exceptional customer service, compliance knowledge and a local presence in serving its diverse customer base.

Founded in 2010, KushCo Holdings has now sold more than 1 billion units to growers, processors and producers across North America, South America, and Europe. The Company has been featured in media nationwide, including CNBC, Fox News, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, Los Angeles Times, TheStreet.com, and Entrepreneur, Inc Magazine.

For more information, visit www.kushco.com or call (888) 920-5874.

About Project Mission Green

Project Mission Green ("Mission Green") is an initiative of The Weldon Project ("TWP") that brings together individuals impacted by the criminal justice system and unlikely allies from all sides of the political spectrum to push for criminal justice solutions. The organization works directly with lawmakers, celebrities, advocacy groups, incarcerated individuals, and the White House on a broad range of criminal justice issues. Notably, TWP helped pass the historic, bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation called the First Step Act which was signed into law in December 2018. TWP launched the Mission Green initiative ("Project Mission Green") to focus exclusively on individuals incarcerated for cannabis-related offenses in the criminal justice system. The Mission Green campaign is led by people who have been directly impacted by prohibition and have lived through the issues that advocacy organizations are working to address. The people most affected by the current justice system are in a unique position to bring about transformative change.

For more information, visit www.theweldonproject.org/missiongreen.

KushCo Holdings Contact

Investor Contact:

Najim Mostamand, CFA

Director of Investor Relations

714-539-7653

ir@kushco.com

Project Mission Green Contact

Weldon Angelos

President, The Weldon Project

weldon@theweldonproject.org

SOURCE: KushCo Holdings, Inc.

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Humidifiers adoption continues to surge as healthcare, residential and automotive industries refocus on healthy environment and air quality.

DUBAI, UAE / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / The humidifiers market is showing considerable amount of growth in healthcare sector due to inclination towards healthier environment and awareness regarding indoor air quality. According to new research market for humidifiers, this market is set to grow at a CAGR of 5.1% over the forecast period (2018-2028).Adoption of ultrasonic and HVAC integrated humidifiers is projected to grow with an impressive growth rate of over the forecast period with installation of system in automotive or healthcare industries.

"A significant growth with increasing demand for budget-friendly yet efficient management solutions in the healthcare and residential sector will be noticed to automatize the orders based on the percentage of usage, quality and portability," says the FMI Analyst.

Request a report sample to gain more market insights at https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5252

Humidifiers Market - Important Highlights

Humidifiers market will hit a CAGR of 5.1% through 2018-2028.

North America is the most lucrative region of this market, Canada will witness a surge in production of HVAC integrated humidifiers.

On the basis of types, ultrasonic humidifiers will experience greater production with profitable opportunities through the forecast period.

Online and e-commerce sales channel will witness heavy growth in the upcoming years, thereby, affecting the CAGR positively.

Humidifiers Market - Driving Factors

Rising demands for humidifiers in residential as well as industrial areas to maintain consistency and humidity, dominates the market scenario.

Continuous development in cloud technology, growing use of smart and ultrasonic humidifier in healthcare, pharmaceuticals and automotive sectors, is affecting the market positively.

Rapid industrialization, improved work environment and better regulations launched by the government propels market growth.

Increasing number of smart homes and adoption of smart appliances in North America requires a great deal of quality humidifiers which helps demand rise in this region.

For any Queries Linked with the Report, Ask an Analyst@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ask-question/rep-gb-5252

Humidifiers Market - Key Restraints

Budget management is a challenge because HVAC integrated humidifiers is usually not affordable.

Adopting online and e-commerce sales channel is posing major challenge to the offline markets.

Anticipated Market Impact by Coronavirus Outbreak

It's very clear that the pandemic has taken a toll on the market system. Social distancing measures and strict lockdowns have adversely affected the productions and disrupted operations of the end-use companies across the universe. Though the healthcare industry is experiencing an increasing demand for humidifiers yet automation and product/service work is at halt due to lockdown. This has definitely accounted for a decline in revenue of the humidifiers market. Though the market will experience comfort as the lockdown releases yet the losses can continue to hamper production.

Competition Landscape

Key players in the market include Guardian Technologies, Koninklijke Philips, Honeywell International Inc., Dyson Ltd., De'Longhi S.p.A., Condair Group, Boneco AG, CAREL INDUSTRIES S.p.A., LG Electronics, Neptronic, Smart Fog Manufacturing, DriSteem, HygroMatik GmbH. The companies are focussing on investment plans to improve the development of new products with better features. Apart from unique innovations, leaders are also working on acquisition of regional companies to strengthen global presence.

Taking into consideration, key companies are planning to expand the portfolio of portable devices. New players might find it difficult to make decisions due to limited resources but they can witness steady growth.

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More on the report

FMI market research report presents in-depth insights on the market. The foremost objective focusses on demand generators, and technological advancements in the market including humidity regulation and services. The report brings to our notice about the leading manufacturers who are involved in humidifiers market, along with their detailed profiles.

Essential and up-to-date data information related to key market players are principally engaged in the production of each type of humidifiers, have been brought with the help of a detailed dashboard view.

Explore Wide-ranging Coverage of FMI's Technology Landscape

Microdisplays Market Find insights on In-depth market segmentation, Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value with details about industry trends and developments.

Telehealth Software Market FMI's report on Telehealth Software Market throws light on market trends, global market insights, data and assumptions.

Data Vtualization Cloud Market Read an analysis on information according to market segments such as geographies, application and industry, trends etc.

About FMI

Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in Dubai, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India. FMI's latest market research reports and industry analysis help businesses navigate challenges and make critical decisions with confidence and clarity amidst breakneck competition. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. A team of expert-led analysts at FMI continuously tracks emerging trends and events in a broad range of industries to ensure that our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.

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B ritish suspected terrorists Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh  accused of being members of a cell of executioners known as The Beatles  are facing charges over the deaths of Western hostages.

John Demers, assistant attorney general for National Security, announced the charges during a press conference in the US on Wednesday.

The alleged militants have been in US military custody abroad since they were captured in 2019.

They grew up in Britain and were UK citizens, but the Government withdrew their citizenship.

Alexanda Amon Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh who were allegedly among four British jihadis who made up a brutal Islamic State cell dubbed "The Beatles," / AP

The group is alleged to have detained or killed Western hostages in Syria, including US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig.

Mr Demers said on Wednesday that the pair were held in Iraq by the US military for around a year and are now in FBI custody.

Meanwhile, the group ringleader Mohamed Emwazi, infamously known as Jihadi John, was killed in a US air strike in 2015.

Mr Demers said: Kotey and Elsheikh were members of the notoriously brutal Isis hostage-taking cell that became known as the Beatles  a name their captives gave to them because of their British accents.

The defendants are charged with terrorism offences related to hostage-taking and killing of four Americans, as well as citizens of Great Britain and Japan.

Awaiting their fate: alleged IS members Alexanda Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh / AP

He said he was pleased to confirm Kotey and Elsheikh are in FBI custody and are due to appear in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Meanwhile, Attorney General William P Barr said in a statement: "These charges are the product of many years of hard work in pursuit of justice for our citizens slain by ISIS. Although we cannot bring them back, we can and will seek justice for them, their families, and for all Americans,"

In order to secure British help in obtaining evidence on the pair, Mr Barr agreed that US prosecutors would not seek the death penalty in any cases against them and would not carry out executions if they were imposed.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Islamic State is still trying to radicalise people in the United States and elsewhere.

"Their goal is to motivate people to launch attacks against Western targets wherever they are, using any means available," Wray said.

Mohammed Emwazi, known as 'Jihadi John', shown in a 2014 Isis video brandishing a knife / Reuters

Mr Wray and Mr Demers said the support of the British government was critical to moving the investigation and prosecution forward.

The families of Mr Foley, Mr Kassig, Ms Mueller and Mr Sotloff welcomed the news.

"James, Peter, Kayla and Steven were kidnapped, tortured, beaten, starved, and murdered by members of the Islamic State in Syria," they said in a joint statement.

"Now our families can pursue accountability for these crimes against our children in a US court."

If convicted, Kotey and Elsheikh could face up to life in prison.

The two are expected to appear in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.
Donald Trump's tweet on Tuesday that he looks forward to next week's presidential debate alarmed some medical and public health experts, who warned that his coronavirus infection might still be contagious then and could endanger others.

A day after the president was discharged from a three-night hospital stay, during which time he was put on an aggressive mix of treatments usually reserved for the most severe cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, he continued to project an image of being fully in charge and able to conduct all his regular activities.

Some outside health experts, however, said Mr Trump's determination to attend the 15 October debate is part of a pattern of recklessness that has defined his response to the pandemic, with the president and his aides not wearing masks or observing social distancing. At least 19 people on his staff or his campaign, or who attended recent White House events, have tested positive for the virus in the past week.

On Tuesday, White House physician Sean Conley continued to give upbeat reports on Mr Trump's recovery, issuing a three-sentence memo saying the president "reports no symptoms" and has stable vital signs. "Overall, he continues to do extremely well," the memo said.

Neither Mr Conley nor other White House officials have said how they will determine when it might be safe for Mr Trump to go out in public - for his own health, or for others near him.

Recommended AOC slams Trump for axing Covid relief talks

Several outside medical experts suggested that the president's actions indicate he is unchastened by his own experience contracting a virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans - or by the spreading infections among his own staff and supporters.

Mr Trump's removal of his mask moments after returning to the White House on Monday evening, and his subsequent assertion that he would appear at the debate "is irresponsible and reckless, and frankly that borders on malicious," said Michael Mina, a physician and assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard's T H Chan School of Public Health.

"We should be throwing the kitchen sink at him, not just for treatment, but for ensuring that he is safe to be out in society and he is not imposing a risk to citizens of this country," Mr Mina said.

Mr Mina noted that the president's medical team has many ways to determine the status of his infection. Beyond administering the "PCR" test, considered the most definitive way of assessing whether someone has the virus, he said doctors could ask him to cough onto a petri dish to see whether the virus grows, swab his nose to culture the specimen, or administer antigen tests to see whether he has the virus's protein in his nose.

"The average American doesn't have tools to go through this," Mr Mina said, "but the president is a very special person. We have tools to do this."

Guidelines from the federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that Covid-19 patients self-isolate for 10 days after their symptoms begin. The CDC also said they should not go out unless they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours, and their other symptoms should be improving.

Covid-19 patients who were seriously ill may need to stay isolated for as long as 20 days after their first symptoms, the guidelines say.

The CDC does not define a serious case and Mr Trump's doctors have withheld certain information that would provide a clearer picture of his medical condition - for instance how low his blood-oxygen levels dropped on two occasions, or whether CT scans showed signs of pneumonia or lung damage.

Many officials feel the risk is too high as Trump might still be contagious (AFP via Getty Images)

If Mr Trump developed symptoms late last week, the 10-day window would end before the debate.

Outside doctors debated whether the 10-day period for mild and moderate cases should apply to the president and whether it would be premature for him to go out in public next week.

Thomas File Jr, an Akron, Ohio, infectious-disease specialist and president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said that Summa Health, the company for which he works, generally follows the CDC guidelines. In all but the most serious cases, he said: "We would allow someone to go into the general public within 10 days of their symptoms appearing."

Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said most patients are no longer infectious after 10 to 14 days. But given the known timing of when Mr Trump began feeling ill, "he'll be really close. All you have to do is be wrong within a day or two, and he could easily still be infected  it's going to be tight."

Rajesh Gandhi, an infectious-diseases physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, said the CDC guidelines make sense but emphasised that Covid-19 cases vary widely. About 80 per cent of people have no symptoms or are mildly to moderately ill. Another 15 per cent are hospitalised with serious cases like the president's, while the remaining 5 per cent become critically ill, Mr Gandhi said.

"I would reiterate on average that we are most cautious around the week or so after the onset of symptoms," Mr Gandhi said.

Mr Mina said the CDC guidelines are an average for a whole population, balancing risk of transmitting the virus with the desire for people to return to jobs and other aspects of their normal interactions.

"The president is in a position he should be serving as the absolute gold standard," he said, adding that Mr Trump should get every possible method of testing "given he is the president, given that he goes to things that have so many people and have so many opportunities for transmission to occur".

Despite some apparently laboured breathing by the president, experts saw little to be concerned about in Mr Trump's brief appearance at the White House.

"What I saw was that he took a couple of deep breaths standing up there. He had just climbed up two flights with a mask on his face," said David Hager a specialist in pulmonary and critical-care medicine at Johns Hopkins. "I think he looks well."

Other doctors thought it might be premature for Mr Trump to be making plans for his own health, simply because of the unpredictable course of the disease. John Zerlo, chief of the infectious-diseases division of Philadelphia-based Jefferson Health, said that any plans the president makes could change, depending on the progression of a disease that sometimes fools physicians and patients alike.

People who look and feel well can suddenly crash and need to be put on ventilators, Mr Zerlo said. "If [the president's doctors] are not waiting at the ready to do that, they would be foolish. This infection is pretty capricious."

Kevin Sheth, a critical-care neurologist at Yale Medicine, said that the president should be monitored and tested for cognitive issues. "You want to survive the respiratory piece," he said, "but we know there are neurological complications." Those can include problems such as stroke and inflammation and longer-term cognitive changes.

Biden has already spoken out to say he doesnt want to attend the debate if Trump still has Covid (Getty)

"For somebody in a leadership position, that's what I'd be concerned about," Mr Sheth said. "Clearly the virus in some patients is having effects on the brain."

Many public health officials and some physicians said they were angered by the symbolism of the president's tweets and actions since his diagnosis - and the damage they think he has inflicted on the safety messages they have been trying to convey to curb the nation's worst public health crisis in more than a century.

Hours before his discharge on Monday, Trump tweeted: "Don't be afraid of Covid. Don't let it dominate your life."

His tweet also said: "I feel better than I did 20 years ago!" Outside physicians noted that the treatment Mr Trump has been receiving includes dexamethasone, a steroid used to treat inflammation that has been shown to increase the survival rate among the sickest Covid-19 patients. The drug's side effects can include insomnia, irritability or a feeling of euphoria.

"He really probably does feel a lot better," said Keith Hamilton, an infectious-disease specialist and associate professor of Clinical Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "Steroids make everyone feel better."

Several physicians said they had seen patients on the steroid become angry, confused or manic, but that such instances were rare and typically occurred when people received high doses.

Al Sommer, former dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who has used the public health tools to wage global battles against diseases such as smallpox, said the president is thinking short term about his own recovery and reelection. "But the pandemic has far from run its course."

Mr Trump displays "an outrageous, irresponsible disregard of the advice of our best, most informed medical knowledge and public health practice," Mr Sommer contended.

Peter Beilenson, director of Sacramento County's Department of Health Services, where coronavirus cases have seesawed, called the president's actions "totally irresponsible" as he described his own efforts to counter people's desire to do away with public health measures as the dangers seem to wane.

"This is a guy who got taxpayer-funded world's best treatment, acting as if it were no big deal and we should deal with it," Mr Beilenson said. Beyond the 210,000 deaths, he noted, are countless patients known as long haulers - "people who have extensive problems, respiratory, cardiac, neurological, for months, maybe permanently. We don't know."

Josh Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said that even if the president wins his own battle against the virus, he is damaging Americans' wellbeing. The confusion he causes is to the benefit of the virus, Sharfstein said.

The Washington Post
A Myanmar border guard policeman stands near a group of Rohingya Muslims in front of a small store in a village during a government-organized visit for journalists in Buthidaung township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Jan. 25, 2019.

Two shooting incidents in western Myanmars Rakhine state have killed five members of the Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority, including two children slain in a firefight between rebels and government troops patrolling behind civilians forced to walk through mined territory, residents said Tuesday.

In an account from Buthidaung township that was disputed by the Myanmar military, an army column had conscripted 15 civilians to guide soldiers through terrain believed to be mined by the rebel Arakan Army (AA). The two young cattle herders were killed Monday when the column was ambushed by AA troops, the villagers said.

Later on Monday in the seat of Rakhines Minbya township, three Rohingya men were shot dead by government soldiers who fired on their boat from a bridge above a river next to the historic town market, residents said.

The five dead Rohingyas are the latest casualties in a war in the northern half of Rakhine state that has killed nearly 300 civilians and injured 657 others since December 2018, according to an RFA tally.

Another 220,000 civilians have been displaced by the governments conflict with the ethnic Rakhine AA, which erupted a year after a scorched-earth military crackdown drove 740,000 Rohingya Muslims from the same region to Bangladesh in response to militant attacks on Myanmar police and army posts that killed nine.

Mondays killings brought fresh reiterations of a longstanding charge that the Myanmar military conscripts civilians as human shields in its combat with ethnic armies.

They had taken a total of 15 villagers to use as local guides, said a resident of Pyin Shae village in Rakhines Buthidaung township, who requested anonymity for safety reasons.

The conscripted group of Rohingya included children who were herding cattle and an elderly man, the resident said.

The fighting erupted on the way, the resident said. Two were killed, and one got injured and is in the hospital.

I heard the military had taken children who were herding cattle and got into the combat on the way, said Aung Thaung Shwe, a lawmaker from Buthidaung township. The combat left two people dead, and another person was sent to Buthidaung Hospital.

The other dozen villagers escaped during the skirmish and returned to the community at about 8 p.m., residents said.

Military denies clash

Myanmar military spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun denied that shooting by government soldiers killed the two children and wounded the adult, instead blaming the AA for firing on the civilians.

He said that government soldiers heard light artillery blasts northeast of Pyin Shae village and went there to investigate. They discovered the bodies of two Rohingya villagers and a third person who was still alive but unconscious.

The dead boys were returned to their village, while the injured man was taken to a military hospital in Buthidaung township, the spokesman said.

The villagers said that residents who followed the military column collected the bodies of the two dead children and took the injured 32-year-old man back to their community.

It is not true that there was any combat with military, Zaw Min Tun told RFA Tuesday.

Our troops went there after they heard the blast. They [the AA] must have tried to kill all three of them, he said, who added that he was told that AA soldiers fired on the villagers as they were herding cattle in the area.

We are still investigating, said Zaw Min Tun when asked why the militarys account contradicted that of the villagers who said government forces were responsible for the deaths.

We have arrested three people who are not Bengalis for interrogation, he added, using a derogatory name for the Rohingya that implies they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

AA spokesman Khine Thukha told RFA that soldiers in the area said the shooting erupted as the military troops rounded up Pyin Shae villagers as forced laborers, though he could not confirm whether a clash with Myanmar troops had taken place.

Khine Thukha accused the military of trying to cover up the atrocity by fabricating a story that the civilians had been injured and killed by AA troops.

Rohingya children celebrating the Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha walk along a dirt road in Shwe Zar village during a government-organized visit for journalists in Maungdaw township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Aug. 23, 2018. Credit: AFP This is totally wrong

Myanmars government army has long been accused by human rights groups and ethnic armies of using local civilians as forced porters and human shields.

Aung Myo Min, executive director of the human rights group Equality Myanmar, said that Myanmars Child Rights Law prohibits the violation of childrens rights during armed conflict and makes it illegal for soldiers to use minors as forced laborers.

This is totally wrong, especially as armed groups are supposed to protect children during armed conflict, he told RFAs Myanmar Service. Instead, they are now using them in combat and getting them killed.

The three Rohingya men shot dead by soldiers on a bridge above them in central Minbya late Monday night were identified by residents as Nu Mahmad, 40; Noru Salam, 50; and Mar Dawlar, 45, from Latma village.

They fired the guns from the bridge, yelling, Shoot them, shoot them, said a local senior citizen who requested anonymity for safety reasons. Three Muslims were killed.

The three Rohingya men were rowing their boat in the morning in a creek near Myo Ma market, when the Myanmar soldiers fired, the resident said.

We dont know why they shot at them, he added.

Many local residents who live in the area said they heard the gunshots.

Some senior citizens of the town said authorities arrested three people  Maung Gyi, 29; Maung Maung Oo, 41; and Kyaw Min Soe, 25  after the shooting.

More and more of these incidents

A statement issued Tuesday by the Myanmar military said a combined team of soldiers and police officers saw two motorboats traveling along the creek around 10:45 p.m. during a nighttime curfew in northern Rakhine townships  a direct contradiction of the accounts given by residents who said the shooting occurred around 10 a.m.

Those who break the curfew that has been in place since April 2019 in Minbya, Kyauktaw, Rathedaung, Ponnagyun, and Mrauk-U townships are subject to arrest or worse if they are detected by security personnel.

The security forces ordered the men in the boats to stop for questioning, but they tried to flee. Warning shots were fired into the air, but when the vessels continued going, the soldiers and police fired directly at trio, according to the statement.

Authorities seized bodies of the three Rohingya along with two machetes, slingshots, and cell phones from their boats, and are now investigating whether the trio had connections to insurgent groups. Their bodies were taken to the mortuary after they were found, the statement said.

Myat Tun, director of the Arakan Human Rights Defenders and Promoters group, who checked the bodies Tuesday morning, said that the bullets had penetrated the mens backs.

This is not acceptable, he told RFA. If they didnt stop their boats as the security forces ordered, then they should have tried other ways to stop them.

We now are seeing more and more of these incidents, he added. The security forces are committing war crimes.

Maung Than Hlaing, the administrator of Latma village, told RFA that the three slain men from his community, whose bodies were transferred to their families by Minbya town police, had no connections to any rebel army.

Maung Thein Hlaing, the administrator of Latma village, said the police contacted him at about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday to verify the identities of the men.

All three villagers were day laborers, he said. They made a living by doing odd jobs. They were not associated with any armed groups.

Reported and edited by RFAs Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
New Delhi: As the nation enters the last two days of the Wildlife Week, an interesting video has gone viral on social media platforms. In a 32-second long clip, a Gir Forest employee is seen talking to a lion who's sitting in the middle of the road and tries to convince him to move away in the Gujarati language.

The employee told the lion in Gujarati that he has been working the whole day and requests to kindly let him go home.

What happened next in the video will SURPRISE you!

The king of jungle obliges and leaves the road.

"A beautiful example of harmonious co-existence," expressed Prakash Javadekar, the Union Minister of Environment, Forest & Climate Change and shared the clip.

Watch it yourself!

A Gir Forest employee finds a lion on road. He tries to explain in Gujarati, the lion that he has been working whole day and requests to now kindly let him go home.And,the King of Jungle obliges... A beautiful example of harmonious co-existence#wildlifeweek2020 pic.twitter.com/QptdL4bMla  Prakash Javadekar (@PrakashJavdekar) October 7, 2020

The incident comes to limelight a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared an inspirational message on the occasion of wildlife week 2020. He said that the country is now making efforts to conserve endangered species through dedicated projects such as Project Lion and Project Dolphin after the success of Project Tiger and Project Elephant.

The Prime Minster said, coinciding with the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace and non-violence, the celebration of Wildlife Week is an ideal occasion to reaffirm the commitment towards conservation of wildlife and harmonious co-existence of all living beings.

He expressed that today with a robust and wide network of protected areas, the commitment towards wildlife protection is as strong as ever. He also mentioned that the country hosts the last wild population of Asiatic lions and said that the resolve of doubling tiger numbers have been fulfilled well in advance.

On the occasion of #wildlifeweek2020 , the inspirational message of Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi will encourage us all to intensify wildlife conservation in the country, in order to make the planet Earth a better place to live in. pic.twitter.com/WjT1orQrEA  Prakash Javadekar (@PrakashJavdekar) October 6, 2020

Earlier on June 10, 2020, the Prime Minister took to social media and made the announcement that the Asiatic lions in the Gir forest as their population has increased

"Two very good news: Population of the majestic Asiatic Lion, living in Gujarats Gir Forest, is up by almost 29%. Geographically, distribution area is up by 36%. Kudos to the people of Gujarat and all those whose efforts have led to this excellent feat."

Two very good news: Population of the majestic Asiatic Lion, living in Gujarats Gir Forest, is up by almost 29%. Geographically, distribution area is up by 36%. Kudos to the people of Gujarat and all those whose efforts have led to this excellent feat.https://t.co/vUKngxOCa7 pic.twitter.com/TEIT2424vF  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 10, 2020

Also read | Centre planning to upgrade, expand zoos across India in PPP mode: Prakash Javadekar

As per the Gujarat government:

- The population of Asiatic Lions has thus shown a steady increase with a population of 674 individuals with an increased rate of 28.87% (one of the highest growth rate so far) from the previous growth of 27% during 2015 (523 lions).

- The distribution of the lions has increased from an area of 22000 sq. km in 2015 to 30000 sq km in 2020 thus increasing the distribution area by 36%.

- There has been a consistent increase in the population and distribution area of Asiatic Lions mainly owing to the effective conservation and management by the Gujarat Forest Department.

- Multiple strategies and interventions have been implemented in the Asiatic Lion landscape that has majorly contributed to the current conservation success of the Asiatic lions viz. peoples participation, use of modern technology, wildlife health care including as import of CDV vaccine, habitat management, increase in prey base, human-lion conflict mitigation, etc.

- The Gujarat Forest Department remains cognizant and committed for the long term conservation Asiatic Lions.

Notably, Gujarat's Forest department carried out a population estimation exercise on the night of June 5 and 6 in 2020 when there was full moon. The exercise was undertaken as the five yearly census could not be carried out in May due to the coronavirus outbreak and lockdown.
Searching for new ways to address the growing threat to drinking water in northwest Ohio and across the globe, Dr. Jason Huntley discovered that native freshwater bacteria can destroy toxins produced during harmful algal blooms.

The University of Toledo scientist has now received a $1.1 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to advance that research into real-world solutions.

Huntley, an associate professor in the UToledo Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, has already shown in lab experiments that biofilters using those Lake Erie bacteria can remove microcystin at levels exponentially above current exposure guidelines established by the World Health Organization.

This grant will enable us to extend our research to the next level. We did this successfully in the lab. Now we want to scale it up and put the bacteria to work in the water treatment plant." Dr. Jason Huntley, Associate Professor, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Toledo

The three-year research project will take a multifaceted approach to translate Huntley's earlier finding into technologies that safeguard the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of people.

"One of our big pushes here at UToledo is to not just do science for science's sake, but to ask questions about how it can improve human health," Huntley said. "This isn't just a Toledo problem. There are harmful algal blooms all across the country and all across the world. This is a solution to a global health problem."

Water treatment plants primarily use activated carbon to capture the microcystin toxins released during some harmful algal blooms. While effective, there are drawbacks. It can be expensive, there's a limit to how much toxin can be removed from the water and the process generates microcystin-laden waste products that have to be dealt with.

Huntley and his research team believe their bacteria could help address those issues. Biofilters could be used to treat drinking water before it reaches the tap, and the bacteria could be added to the treatment plant byproducts to degrade the lingering toxins.

It's also an inexpensive solution.

"It's not free, but it's really cheap to grow these bacteria that chew up and degrade the toxins. We grow them in water, that's it. We think we can use them to treat water coming into the treatment plant as well as eliminating toxins in the water treatment byproducts, eliminating the need to incinerate these waste products or send them to a landfill," Huntley said.

Prior to large-scale testing at the Toledo wastewater treatment plant, researchers will work to further develop and test the biofilters in a range of conditions, such as different water pressures and temperatures.

The research team also will work to isolate and identify the bacterial enzymes that break down microcystin, with a goal of being able to produce them on an industrial scale. Some of that work will be done in collaboration with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory -- a connection that was made during 2019's National Lab Day at UToledo.

The long-term goal is to develop water treatment tablets or droplet bottles that could be used to quickly detoxify water while boating, at family cabins or while hiking.

Huntley's early work on this issue was funded by the Ohio Department of Higher Education's Harmful Algal Bloom Research Initiative and the Ohio Sea Grant. The success of that research helped UToledo earn the NOAA grant.

"This is turning taxpayer money here in Ohio to federally funded grants that bring big money back to Ohio," Huntley said.
Ballots in Arizona that have missing signatures must be corrected by a voter before Election Day, rather than five days after, in order for their vote to count, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

The decision in Arizona affects what is known as the ballot curing process, in which a voter is contacted by an election official if there is an issue with their absentee ballot and given an opportunity to fix the issue. Not all states in the country offer ballot curing.

The ruling from the Ninth District Court of Appeals was a victory for Republicans, who had appealed a decision from a lower court that voters should be given five days after Election Day to fix missing signatures.

All ballots must have some deadline, and it is reasonable that Arizona has chosen to make that deadline Election Day itself so as to promote its unquestioned interest in administering an orderly election and to facilitate its already burdensome job of collecting, verifying, and counting all of the votes in timely fashion, the court said in its opinion.
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nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

Reliance Industries (RIL) share price gained in early trade on October 7 on investment by the ADIA into Reliance Retail Ventures.

A wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) will invest Rs 5,512.50 crore into the company's subsidiary Reliance Retail Ventures (RRVL), as per the press release.

This investment values RRVL at a pre-money equity value of Rs 4.285 lakh crore.

ADIAs investment will translate into a 1.20% equity stake in RRVL on a fully diluted basis.

With this investment, RRVL has raised Rs 37,710 crore from leading global investors including Silver Lake, KKR, General Atlantic, Mubadala, GIC, TPG and ADIA in less than four weeks, it added.

Also Read - ADIA-Reliance Retail Deal: Abu Dhabi's sovereign fund to invest Rs 5,512.5 crore in RIL's retail arm

We are delighted with ADIAs current investment and continued support and hope to benefit from its strong track record of over four decades of value creation globally," said Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries.

"The investment by ADIA is a further endorsement of Reliance Retails performance and potential and the inclusive and transformational New Commerce business model that it is rolling out," he added.

At 09:20 hrs Reliance Industries was quoting at Rs 2,229.50, up Rs 19.35, or 0.88 percent on the BSE.

Disclosure: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd. which published moneycontrol.com
Victoria Police has been accused of pursuing frivolous charges against the Porsche driver accused of filming a dying police officer after a horrific crash that killed four officers.

Millionaire businessman Richard Pusey, 41, appeared via videolink on Wednesday in a Melbourne court where he now faces 16 charges - one of which hasn't been used since the 1600s in England.

Police on Wednesday slapped yet another charge on Pusey, this time for using an anti-speed detection device.

Richard Pusey was arrested on April 23, one day after the fatal crash which killed four police officers

Pictured: Emergency services trying to remove a Porsche from the scene the day after a fatal crash on Eastern Highway in Kew

Pusey had avoided the crash that killed the officers after he jumped the fence to urinate.

'Amazing. Absolutely amazing. All I wanted to do was go home and eat my sushi and now you have f**ked my f**king car,' Pusey was allegedly heard to say as Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor lay dying.

Top Melbourne barrister Dermot Dann, QC, who appears for Pusey, claimed no jury could find his client guilty on most of the charges laid by police.

'On any objective basis at a matter of law ... this man has been seriously overcharged,' he said.

'This court in this committal process can't just be a rubber stamped sort of process where a person is seriously overcharged with charges that can't be made out legally or factually.'

In calling for a swag of charges against Pusey to be dumped, Mr Dann lashed out police and prosecutors for persisting with them, claiming they had no objective or lawful legal basis.

Pusey has been behind bars since April when a truck crashed into four officers after they pulled him over for allegedly driving at 149km/h in his Porsche 911 with cannabis and ice in his system.

The three male officers were already dead when Pusey allegedly began filming.

In June, police hit Pusey with an offence that has never been used in Australian history.

On Wednesday, the Melbourne Magistrates' Court heard police would continue to pursue the charge of 'outraging public decency' and every other charge against Pusey.

Although he never caused the crash, Pusey is charged with offences including reckless conduct endangering life, driving at a dangerous speed, failing to assist and perverting the course of justice.

The court heard police claimed a combination of speed, his decision to leave the scene of the crash, the removal of personal items from his wrecked car and deletion of the offending video justified those charges.

Mr Dann argued Pusey had only deleted the video after receiving legal advice to do so.

The mortgage broker (pictured in a court sketch) avoided being struck because he'd been urinating off to the side of the road

Top Melbourne barrister Dermot Dann, QC, (left) claims police have charged Richard Pusey with an offence that may not even exist in Australia.

By then, he had already provided it to a federal police officer.

Mr Dann said Pusey had only deleted the footage because he was ashamed and had been advised to do so.

The court heard several other people who took footage at the scene - including one who deleted the footage - had not been charged with any offences.

Magistrate Donna Bakos was told some of the charges related to evidence Pusey gave to police after they had told him it would be inadmissible in court.

'We can't use this against you in court,' Pusey was told.

At the time, Pusey was under the impression he was only to be interviewed as a witness to the crash rather than an offender.

Mr Dann argued the removal of a bag and mobile phone from Pusey's wrecked vehicle had nothing to do with an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

The charge holds a maximum prison sentence of 25 years if proven.

As it's put by police, a jury would need to find beyond reasonable doubt that Pusey took the items in an effort to hamper the case against the truck driver, rather than himself.

'It's so outside the box it should be put to one side,' Mr Dann argued.

The driver of the truck, Mohinder Singh, was charged with four counts of culpable driving and also remains behind bars.

Mr Dann previously said Pusey would likely plead guilty to charges if police withdrew some of them.

Pusey previous 12 charges include driving at a dangerous speed, reckless conduct endangering life, destruction of evidence, perverting the course of justice, failing to remain at the scene after a drug test and failing to render assistance

Senior Constable Kevin King (pictured, far left), Constable Glen Humphris (second from left), Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor (second from right) and and Constable Josh Prestney (far right) all died in the crash

The court previously heard Pusey had been co-operative with police after they pulled him over on April 22 on Melbourne's Eastern Freeway amid allegations he was speeding.

Mr Dann said Pusey's behaviour toward Leading Senior Constable Taylor had been conducted in a 'good natured way' before the truck hit.

'There was laughing between them. This can be seen. There is evidence of Mr Pusey describing Leading Senior Constable Taylor as being lovely and nice. And this is in the immediate aftermath of this filming,' Mr Dann said.

'It's no part of the defence case that there can be some kind of characterisation of this whole event as Mr Pusey being angry with the individual officers that he was dealing with at the scene. We say that's not part of our case and it's not the evidence.'

Mr Dann said his client had not argued with police and said the prosecution agreed too that Pusey had not taunted the dying officer.

'He cannot be described as taunting any of the police officers,' he said.

Mr Pusey himself sat quietly from a prison media room throughout the video hearing.

The court has heard the legal process could drag on for years if police pushed ahead with all of the charges currently hanging over Pusey's head.

He remans in protective custody at Melbourne Assessment Prison and did not apply for bail.

The case is scheduled to return to court next week.
NEW HAVEN  The Rev. Boise Kimber, senior pastor of First Calvary Baptist Church, says city residents deserve answers.

Kimber was speaking in reference to a matter involving Board of Education member Darnell Goldson, who has been under investigation by a Waterbury legal firm. The contract for the probe was advanced by district officials without a vote by the school board because its cost is limited to a maximum of $14,000  below the $20,000 threshold requiring a board vote.

Goldson, who said he is not participating with the investigation per his attorneys advice, said he does not know who has accused him or of what. Goldson was informed in a letter from the law firm that the investigation is looking into whether his conduct toward district staff constitutes harassment.

Kimber, with a few members of the Greater New Haven Clergy Association, held a press event Wednesday to share their disapproval of the ongoing investigation and to raise questions about why Goldson is being subjected to his second investigation by an outside law firm since joining the board in 2016.

Is it because they want to shut Mr. Goldson up? Or because Mr. Goldson reads their materials? Kimber said.

Superintendent of Schools Iline Tracey declined to comment Wednesday. Board of Education President Yesenia Rivera also declined to comment because the investigation is ongoing.

Goldson has questioned many of the decisions made by district staff in 2020.

Pastor John Lewis of Christ Chapel New Testament Church said Goldson is owed due process. The investigation is an attempt to divide the city, he said.

Is this money well spent? asked the Rev. Steven Cousin of Bethel AME Church. Could it be character assassination or to remove someone from a board because theyre asking difficult questions?

Goldson, who did not attend the event, said he agreed with the points made by the clergy.

This is an obvious attempt to silence my voice, he said, mentioning his advocacy for paraprofessionals and his opposition to reopening schools for the first marking period without more safety precautions than what the district was able to produce.

Goldson also said he doesnt believe the investigation was launched appropriately in the first place.

I dont know of any employee in any other organization who has the authority to launch an investigation against their boss, he said. If its an employee against the board, I assume the board would have some authority over how to investigate one of its members.

Although the investigation did not require a board vote to be initiated, Goldson said he does believe some of his colleagues would have the ability to stop the investigation if they disagreed with its intent.

Because its so mysterious Ive decided to let my lawyer figure out what the best action is on this at this point, he said.

Larry Conaway, a member of the boards finance committee that received the report notifying it of the investigation in July, said he finds the lack of information since then concerning.

We need to put this investigation to rest. Its unfair to Mr. Goldson, the board and the public, we all need an explanation, he said.

Kimber said the investigation against Goldson targets one of our elected officials that represents the Black community. He said the issue merits clergy involvement because we are a voice for this city and we are a voice for justice.

It affects our people, Kimber said.

Mayor Justin Elicker, who serves on the school board as part of his mayoral duties, said the investigation is a New Haven Public Schools-side issue and not a city initiative.

Whenever there is a complaint and an investigation, until that investigation takes its course its inappropriate to comment on it for the integrity of the investigation, he said.

In 2018, former Mayor Toni Harp authorized the hiring of an attorney to investigate whether Goldson had created a hostile work environment for former Superintendent of Schools Carol Birks. When the investigation concluded without finding Goldson to have harassed the superintendent, Birks apologized publicly for causing a distraction.

It didnt work the first time and it wont work this time, either, Goldson said.

brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the general director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), has revealed that a vaccine against COVID-19 may be ready by the end of 2020.

Adhanom Ghebreyesus is more confident than other WHO experts, who had previously stressed that a coronavirus vaccine may not be available until mid-2021.

"We will need vaccines and there is hope that by the end of this year we may have a vaccine," Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the WHO Executive Committee meeting.

"There is hope."

Last month, WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan warned that potential COVID-19 vaccines are not expected to be available to the general public within two years, although risk groups could use them sooner.

At the end of the two-day meeting, focused entirely on the fight against the pandemic, Adhanom Ghebreyesus concluded that scientists now know more about the virus and what helps COVID-19 to remain a threat.

The most important thing, he assured, is to use the tools that are currently available, such as prevention and hygiene measures, treatments, diagnosis as quickly as possible and contact tracing.

"We know the pandemic will continue to evolve," he added.

"But we also know we have the tools that work to suppress transmission and save lives right now, and they are at our disposal.

"Especially for the vaccines and other products which are in the pipeline, the most important tool is political commitment from our leaders especially in the equitable distribution of the vaccines.

"We need each other, we need solidarity and we need to use all the energy we have to fight the virus."

In total, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen 35.8 million cases around the world, with 1.05 million people sadly having lost their life.

Of those 35.8 million cases, 25 million people have recovered.

The countries that have been the worst affected by this virus are the United States (7.53m cases), India (6.76m), Brazil (4.97m), Russia (1.25m) and Colombia (870k).
Syracuse, N.Y.  Election Day comes early this year, but voters may have to wait until nearly Thanksgiving to find out who will represent them in Congress and other key seats.

Thats because this year is expected to set a record for absentee ballots, which are counted after Election Day, which falls on Nov. 3.
Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission today warned parents and caregivers to never let infants sleep on nursing pillows or other pillowlike products, such as lounging pads. These products pose a suffocation hazard for babies. The agency announced that it is investigating deaths associated with these products when children are left on or near pillows, and the child rolls over, rolls off, or falls asleep.

The warning applies to all nursing pillows and baby loungers, which are made by companies such as Boppy, Blessed Nest, Ergobaby, Leachco, Luna Lullaby, and Zenoff Products (maker of My Brest Friend). They are sold at major retailers such as Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, Buy Buy Baby, Pottery Barn Kids, and Target. Nursing pillows are meant to make breastfeeding easier; lounging pads are for babies to sit or lie on. Both are designed for babies to use while awake and supervised.

Consumer Reports analyzed data from the CPSC, including from its SaferProducts.gov public database of incidents, and found at least 28 infant deaths from 2012 to 2018 tied to nursing pillows and baby loungers.

Many of the reports were among data that the CPSC sent to CR in 2019, which mistakenly contained manufacturer and brand names. Normally, because of a controversial law unique to the agency, the CPSC redacts company information from those reports. This disclosure led to an ongoing investigation by CR into the dangers of inclined sleepers and other infant sleep products, which prompted the recall of at least 5.6 million inclined sleepers, including the Fisher-Price Rock n Play Sleeper.

While nursing pillows and lounging pads are not marketed for sleep, reports in the CPSC data show that caregivers sometimes use the products for that purpose, which can lead to suffocation in several ways. Babies may roll over onto their sides or stomachs and turn their heads into the soft fabric, blocking airflow. Or, when babies are propped up on an incline against the pillow or lounger, their heads can fall forward, blocking their airway. Thats why the American Academy of Pediatrics says infants should sleep alone, unrestrained, on their backs on a firm, flat surface that is free of soft padding and bedding.

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But that messaging, it seems, is lost in many cases. Specific instances from the CPSCs dataset show that babies are being placed on these pillows to sleep. For example, one incident describes a 2-month-old boy in New Jersey who died after being placed in a crib with a nursing pillow. The autopsy report notes that positional asphyxia was possible cause of death due to the baby pillow.

Positional asphyxia was also cited as the cause of death for a 3-month-old boy in Florida who had been placed in a bassinet on top of one of the pillows. His mother returned about 15 minutes later and found the infant had turned face down into the pillow, and suffocated, according to the report.

The data also included the incident of an almost 3-month-old girl in Oregon, a triplet, who was propped up in a baby pillow at home when she passed away during the night, according to the report. She was found face down on the pillow. The cause of death as determined by the medical examiner was positional asphyxia.

One fatality reported on SaferProducts.gov describes a 5-month-old infant positioned in a Boppy (a semicircular pillow) on a bed for a nap. Sixty to 90 minutes later, infant found in a prone position rather than on her side as initially positioned, unresponsive and not breathing.

In response, Boppy, a leader in the category, posted a comment on the report: The collective hearts of The Boppy Company team go out to the family of the infant whose tragic and Sudden Infant Death prompted the filing of this Report. The company emphasized that its product labels specifically warn against using the pillow for sleep, quoting the product packaging: Possible Suffocation Hazard. Never, ever allow baby to sleep on the Boppy pillow. Do not allow baby to lie face down on a Boppy pillow.

CR is reaching out to Boppy and other makers of nursing pillows and loungers for comment in light of the CPSC warning issued today.

The CPSC release notes that the agency is investigating the entire class of products and is not issuing a warning with regard to any specific brand at this time.

This is an essential warning about nursing pillows and baby loungers, says William Wallace, manager of safety policy at CR. Its rare for federal safety officials to make a public statement like this in the middle of an investigation. We commend the CPSC for alerting parents and caregivers to the danger while it works to get to the bottom of the issue.

Wallace says that federal law makes it extremely difficult for the CPSC to notify the public about specific product safety hazards prior to a recall, which has contributed to damaging delays and to dozens of infant deaths linked to Fisher-Price Rock n Play Sleepers remaining hidden for years.

Todays announcement is a step forward for transparency, but its critical for Congress to take action, too, Wallace says. The CPSC must be able to warn the public much more quickly and in much more specific terms when it knows a product puts people at risk of getting hurt or killed.

The government announcement today comes as the CPSC is reevaluating standards for infant sleep products. The agency stated in its release that each year, almost a thousand infants tragically suffocate in their sleep. The agency has long been concerned with infant deaths related to consumer products including inclined sleepers and padded crib bumpers. The CPSC proposed a rule last year that would ban all infant inclined sleepers and require that all products marketed for infant sleep conform to one of the current mandated standards for sleep-related productscribs, bassinets, play yards, or bedside sleepers. A task group convened through ASTM International (a standards-setting organization) is also set to meet to discuss safety standards for infant sleepers this week.

Like the American Academy of Pediatrics, CRs safety experts recommend that babies be put to bed only in products that meet federal safety requirements for infant sleep, such as a bassinet, bedside sleeper, crib, or play yard. If caregivers are having trouble with infant sleep, the best bet is to ask their pediatricians for help.

If you have had an incident with a pillowlike product or any other product, you can report it to the CPSC at SaferProducts.gov.
The Government of South Korea has donated five Hyundai Salon cars to Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration.

The donation includes four Hyundai Sonata and one Hyundai Genesis.

In a short statement to present the vehicles to the Ministry on Wednesday, October 7, 2020, the South Korean Ambassador to Ghana, Kim Sungsoo, said the donation was aimed at improving the operations of the Foreign Ministry.

According to him, the five vehicles cost the Korean government some $177,000.

He expressed the hope that the vehicles will be used in carrying out the activities of government.

He seized the opportunity to thank the government of Ghana for its continuous support to the government and people of South Korea.

He also praised the government of Ghana in its fight against Coronavirus, expressing the belief that Ghana will soon be able to effectively overcome the pandemic.

In a statement to receive the vehicles on behalf of the Ministry, Foreign Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, said the donation was very timely and very much welcomed.

She stated that it will go a long way to increase the fleet of the ministry.

On behalf of the people and government of Ghana, she thanked the government and people of Korea.

She said the Korean people have over the years taken keen interest in the socioeconomic development of Ghana.

The Korean government has over the years been supporting Ghana in critical areas such as agriculture, healthcare, fisheries, she indicated.
The scenario: You get a call from an unidentified local number and when you answer, the person on the other end of the line tells you that youve had close contact with someone whos tested positive for COVID-19. They ask you who you might have spent 15 minutes in close contact to.

Its part of a process called contact tracing. Someone tests positive for the disease and a public health nurse investigates, asking them who theyve been in close contact with.

Then, the nurse contacts those people to let them know to quarantine for two weeks and asks if theyve developed symptoms.

Some people share their information. Others respond differently.

Last month, Marcus Cheatum, health officer for Mid-Michigan District Health Department, told Gratiot County Chairman George Bailey that one of his nurses making these calls received so much abuse from the public that she asked to get shifted to other duties.

Angry responses are not uncommon, said Jonathan Warsh, chief of staff for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. He said he can understand it.

The nurses making the call is sharing sensitive, difficult information, he said. Due to privacy concerns, they also cant answer the biggest question people have  who infected them?

People are upset about that, he said, later in the conversation adding, These are stressful jobs, making stressful calls.

When it comes to school outbreaks, its even more difficult, Cheatum said. School outbreaks involve disease, but they also create disruptions for everyone involved.

The children need to learn and its hard for a lot of parents to juggle caring for a potentially sick child with the need to work, he said. And, the school needs to remain open to fulfill its function.

Thats just awful for the community, he said.

Cheatum said hes engaged in outreach with officials in a variety of government functions  from elected officials to education leaders  and asked them to express support for their work. The public health department is part of government, there to support other units of government and to try to protect the public.

Were doing what we need to be doing, he said. He said the response has been positive. It can also help health departments contain outbreaks.

When students returned to Central Michigan University in mid-August, some of them brought COVID-19 with them. Transmission at off-campus parties caused cases to explode in numbers. Students werent as forthcoming as they might have been with information.

CMU students have been great recently, said Steve Hall, CMDHD health officer. There were some bumps in the road initially, however CMU has been a great partner with us. If we have any issues, we are able to work with their Student Affairs office to get them taken care of.

CMDHD issued an order further limiting gatherings. The number of new cases started to rapidly decline, and as health departments servicing Michigan State University and Grand Valley State University took more drastic action, the back-to-campus outbreak had slowed dramatically.

While there is some animosity everywhere, it is especially high in communities with broken trust with government, Warsh said. These arent just political lyconservative areas, but also communities that have experienced years of poor treatment at the hands of government.

Its hard to quantify how much more difficult an uncooperative public is in contact tracing efforts, Warsh said. Still, he said, its the only way to stop the chains of transmission.

READ MORE:
As soon as Kenya reported its first case of the Covid-19 disease in March, one company saw an opportunity in the danger.

Bedi Investments, a fabric manufacturer in Nakuru County, quickly repurposed its lines to produce Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

The firm's textile mill manufactures synthetic yarns, woven fabrics and apparel for export to the US, Europe and other African countries.

Mr Jaswinder Bedi, its chief executive, told Powering SMEs that as the country stood helpless in the middle of the health crisis that was decimating the world's economy, he received a rare call from President Uhuru Kenyatta. Shortly after, Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe also followed up with another call.

The President and the CS had an urgent message for him that required immediate intervention -- the country needed a local solution to deal with the pandemic.

At the time, every country of the world was struggling to deal with the pandemic, meaning that importation of PPE was not a feasible idea. This, therefore, required a local solution that would intervene to check the spread of the disease.

Covid-19 infections

At this time, the number of infections in health care workers was increasing at an alarming rate and able countries were not ready to export as they focused on dealing with their internal situations.

Mr Bedi had to act. And fast. That is when he retooled his production line.

"We re-engineered the factory to purposely produce PPE. I looked at all the locally available materials, the machines and reinvented ourselves and our minds so that we could carter for the demand," Mr Bedi says.

When Mr Bedi took over the company from his father in 1980, its line of production was majorly fabric for export to the US and the UK. However, the business was brought to a standstill when the virus hit the world.

He exported 80 per cent of his produce leaving the remaining 20 per cent for the local market. However, this has since changed. The factory is now doing 80 per cent for the local market, hoping that things will change and get back to normal.

"Under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), I was exporting 80 per cent of our products to the outside world, but this has since changed. We needed to look at new ventures to keep our people in employment," he says.

In 2008, the company's export line grew exponentially and it was exporting 100,000 pairs of trousers per month to a US-based company. It is among six listed manufacturers by Kenya Manufacturers Association who have attained national and international quality standards for the medical-grade PPE.

With the restriction of exports and countries wanting to fulfil their demands for the commodities, the factory is currently supplying Kenya and Uganda with PPE, however, it is in talks with the African Union and West Africa to export as well.

In Kenya, the factory produces 25,000 sets of PPE in a day while in Uganda, it makes 300,000 face masks a day. It recently made a Sh4 billion ($40 million) investment in Uganda, acquiring two milling factories and signing up 6,000 cotton farmers.

Towards the school season, the factory is looking for an opportunity to make face masks for school-going children.

Frontline workers

"It has been a journey. I am very happy to say that as a company, we looked and ensured that our frontline workers are protected," he said.

Apart from the PPE, the factory has the capacity of producing 10,000 fabrics a day and also deals in school fabric and suits. It also supplies police uniforms in 11 countries in Africa.

It is also a major supplier of uniforms to government institutions and the military. The firm also supplies shell petrol uniforms in Africa.

"We are also in the African wear space in one of the leading online shops, Zuri, in the US and I must say that currently, online shopping is doing better than other sectors," he says.

The factory employed 850 people before covid-19 and with the virus, it increased the number of employees at its Nakuru factory by 300. Currently, the factory has 1,150 employees. This is in addition to 600 workers in the Nairobi-based Fine Spinners Factory.

"By the grace of God, this is one of the few companies that did not have a discussion with our unions on compensation reduction which a lot of companies have done," he says.

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Kemsa scandal

However, with a scandal erupting at the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa), the government is not placing any PPE orders. He says his stocks are now lying idle.

"The stocks should be supplied to various entities. They do no good to anybody here at the factory, but this will not happen until the Kemsa issue is resolved. We are affected and hoping that this will end soon," he adds.

He appealed to the government to continue supporting local manufacturers to make change in the country and at the same time creating employment opportunities for the youths.

"They have been supportive, but if we strictly go the local manufacturing way, we are going to save a lot of money that we incur from importation of these products," Mr Bedi says.

He plans to build a pan-African business with up to 10 factories in seven countries on the continent by 2025 when he hopes the firm will be listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Prince Harry could face a monumental tax bill unless he takes a breather from his 11 million home in the United States, according to an American top layer. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have relocated to Los Angeles in May following living in a rented mansion in Vancouver, Canada. The Sussexes were first reported to be residing in the United States at a mansion in Beverly Hills owned by Hollywood actor Tyler Perry.

The 183-Day Threshold

The prominent Los Angeles lawyer, David Holtz, stated that the duke would have to begin paying huge taxes once he has resided in Los Angeles for 183 days. The prince has been living in the US for at least 151 days since staying at the Hollywood mogul's mansion on May 7 and is now mere weeks away from reaching the 183-day mark.

According to Los Angeles tax lawyer David Holtz, "You can safely assume that someone at the Internal Revenue Service [IRS] is looking very closely at him. This is a big deal," reported Steve Gruber.

The former royal would be required to pay the United States federal and Californian state taxes imposed by the "substantial presence test." This requires any foreigner who spends 183 days in the US to pay US taxes on global earnings.

According to another tax expert, "Harry's bill could be monumental and could open up a can of worms for the Royal Family because the IRS will want to know all his sources of income. That's not just his Netflix deal, but any monies he might have received in gifts from Prince Charles and any trust funds, savings accounts or other assets he has in the UK. That means the Royal books will be open to scrutiny."

Also Read: Prince William Not Pleased When Prince Harry Lied About Archie's Birth

Meghan Markle a United States Taxpayer

Prince Harry and Markle have an estimated joint worth of 20 million. The Duchess of Sussex is a taxpayer of the country but Prince Harry would have to declare his income to the Inland Revenue Service (IRS).

The news that he is liable to US taxes arrives as he was criticized after negotiating a $203 million Netflix deal. Holtz described that once could presume that the IRS is overseeing him which is an important deal, reported Happy.

If he does not return to the United Kingdom, Prince Harry could face an appalling tax bill. Holtz stated that if he would stay in America for 183 days, he is done, reported Daily Star.

The tax expert noted that the tax bill could open up a can of worms for the British royal family because the IRS would want to probe into his sources of income.

Along with negotiating a multi-year deal with Netflix, it is believed that the couple received $1 million for an event speech earlier this 2020.

Prince Harry's Visa

Prince Harry's visa is a key factor as if he arrived in the United States on a diplomatic visa, he is exempt. However, if the visa was a 0-1 visa for individuals with "extraordinary abilities," then he will be accountable for the same taxes in the US as its citizens.

Related Article: Meghan Markle Subtly Confirms Prince William, Kate Middleton Reason for Megxit?

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
07.10.2020 LISTEN

David Tamakloe, the Managing Editor of Whatsup Newspaper, a virtual newspaper has been arrested.

He was picked up from his office in Accra today Wednesday over an alleged publication.

He was detained at the Tesano Police station.

ModernGhana's editor Emmanuel Ajarfor Abugri who is at the Tesano Police said David Tamakloe is being driven tonight to New Edubiase in the Ashanti Region.

According to him, a briefing by David Tamakloe's lawyer, lawyer Edudzi Tamakloe at the Police station indicated that the New Edubiase District Court issued a bench warrant for his (David) arrest over a publication regarding the voter registration exercise in July.

A further briefing by the President of the Private Newspapers Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG) Edwin Aurther who was earlier at the police station but also could not meet David Tamakloe before they left noted that the said publication which alleges some police intimidation against Ewes and northerners in the area was a press conference organized by the opposition NDC constituency executives during the voter registration exercise in July this year in which the allegations were made.

He added that David Tamakloe was later invited by the police over the said publication but failed to honour.

Ajarfor narrated from the account of Mr Aurther that the police drove all the way from New Edubiase with the bench warrant in their pocket to arrest him in Accra.

Ajarfor, who first broke the news about his arrest added that before he and other journalists arrived at the Tesano Police station, David Tamakloe had already been whisked into the police van and drove off tonight to New Edubiase to appear before the Court tomorrow Thursday.

More soon...
KITCHENER  A Kitchener man is facing three counts of indecent act charges after police say he exposed himself near trails around the city.

A Waterloo Regional Police investigation began on September 22 when officers were called to the area of Green Valley Drive in Kitchener for the report of a man exposing himself near a pathway behind a townhouse complex.

Two days later, police were called to Pinnacle Drive for the report of a man on a bike exposing himself near a trail.

On Sept. 25, officers were called to the area of Old Carriage Drive in Kitchener for the report of a man on a bicycle exposing himself near a pathway.

The investigation remains ongoing but on Monday, officers charged a 31-year-old Kitchener man with three counts of indecent act.

Anyone with information related to these incidents are asked to contact police at 519-570-9777, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
NEW YORK  President Donald Trumps accountant must turn over his tax records to a New York state prosecutor, an appeals court ruled Wednesday in a decision that likely sets up a second trip to the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said in a written decision that a stay of a lower-court decision will remain in effect so Trumps lawyers can appeal the ruling to the high court.

In August, a district court judge had rejected their renewed efforts to invalidate a subpoena that the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. issued to Trumps accounting firm last year.

Part of Vances probe pertains to an investigation related to payoffs to two women  porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal  to keep them quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign about alleged extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.

Vance is seeking more than eight years of the Republican presidents personal and corporate tax records, but has disclosed little about what prompted him to request the records. In one recent court filing, Vances lawyers have said he was justified in demanding them because of public reports of extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department was reviewing the ruling.

 READ MORE: Trump stays out of sight, with the White House providing few details about his recovery

The Supreme Court in July ruled 7-2 against the president, rejecting Trumps arguments that he cant even be investigated, let alone charged with any crime, while he is in office. But the court said Trump can challenge the subpoena on other grounds, like anyone else who receives a subpoena.

The likelihood that the taxes would be released was unlikely to be resolved before the November election, especially since the high court is down to eight justices after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And any release would not result in immediate public disclosures, since grand jury proceedings are secret.

Through his lawyers, Trump argued that the subpoena was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and amounted to harassment of him, especially since the wording copied the language in congressional subpoenas. The lawyers also maintained that seeking tax records dating back to 2011 was a fishing expedition and the overbroad request should be rejected.

In its decision, the 2nd Circuit disagreed.

We hold that none of the Presidents allegations, taken together or separately, are sufficient to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued out of malice or an intent to harass, the appeals court said.

In filings with the 2nd Circuit, Vances lawyers cited public reports including news accounts and Congressional testimony by former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen saying it was common for the Trump Organization to submit falsified financial records when the company applied for loans.

Vances lawyers wrote that if Trump and his entities made misstatements about business properties, wherever located, to New York-based business partners, insurers, potential lenders, or tax authorities, those misstatements could establish crimes including falsifying business records, insurance and tax fraud and scheming to defraud.

Last month, The New York Times reported that it had obtained over two decades of tax return data for Trump and hundreds of his companies. It said he paid just $750 in federal income tax the year he entered the White House and no income tax at all in 11 of 18 years it reviewed.

At the time, Trump dismissed the report as fake news and maintained he has paid taxes, but he provided no specifics.

_____

Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.
The push for the implementation of the two-thirds gender rule through the dissolution of Parliament has received backing from the National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC).

In a statement, Chairperson Dr Joyce Mutinda said the advisory by Chief Justice David Maraga to President Uhuru Kenya to dissolve Parliament for failing to enact a law for the realisation of the constitutional provision is legitimate, appropriate and consistent with the contemplated due process.

Dr Mutinda noted that having chaired a technical working group that brought a bi-partisan approach to develop a practical formula, the commission regrets that its efforts and those of other progressive stakeholders were neutered on the floor of the House multiple times when Parliament failed to raise quorum to vote for the previous bills on gender rule.

"Consequently, the provisions of Article 261 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 have come to crystallise in a dramatic and almost tragic fashion," Dr Mutinda's statement reads in part.

Constitutional crisis

The commission observed Parliament bears the responsibility of unlocking the stalemate that has now precipitated a constitutional crisis.

"We urge MPs to rise to the occasion and deliver a framework for the realisation of gender rule as a matter of national duty.

The Chairperson added a bipartisan political muscle is urgently needed to support Parliament in its effort towards providing our country with a legal framework to immediately guide the implementation of the gender rule.

The Commission, however, noted that it is deeply constrained in commenting on a matter that is already before the court after two Kenyans last week went to court to challenge the advisory by the Chief Justice.

Rights organisations

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A section of rights organisations have also supported the advisory saying the Constitution envisages an inclusive Kenya in which all citizens including women, youth, persons with disabilities and other marginalised categories have equal opportunity to socially, economically and politically participate fully in the affairs of the country.

The rights organisation which include Common Women Agenda (COWA), Echo Network Africa, SDG Kenya Forum, Centre for Multiparty Democracy Kenya, Nairobi City County Assembly Women Caucus, Community Advocacy and Awareness (CRAWNTrust) in a statement said it is the duty of every Kenyan to remain accountable to the Constitution and the rule of law.

The organisations further noted that Parliament has failed to reach a decision and demonstrated a lack of good will and respect to the rule of law.

"We note that by advising the president to dissolve parliament, the Chief Justice has acted within the bounds set out in the law and as espoused in Article 261(7) and in furtherance of our democracy and rule of law," reads part of the statement.The organisations further added that implementing the Constitution 2010 in its entirety including the gender rule is a matter of great interest to all Kenyans.

Hallmark of democracy

"We emphasise that the time has come for Kenya to entrench constitutionalism and the rule of law. The hallmark of democracy is its adherence and fidelity to the rule of law and separation of powers between various arms of government," the lobby groups noted.

Justice Maraga recently advised the President to dissolve Parliament in accordance with Article 261(7) for failing to enact the gender rule.
What's more satisfying on a cold fall or winter evening than a hearty, warm bowl of spicy beef with hand-pulled noodles?

Jason Wang, the CEO and owner of Xian Famous Foods, which has multiple locations across New York City, joined "Good Morning America" to talk about the hot spot's new cookbook, "Xi'an Famous Foods: The Cuisine of Western China, from New York's Favorite Noodle Shop" and shared a popular recipe to recreate at home.

PHOTO: Jason Wang demonstrates how to make hand-pulled noodles from Xi'an Famous Foods in New York City. (ABC News)

"We take great pride in being able to bring our culture into our cuisine," Wang said, adding that one of the most rewarding things for him is to see "a Chinese diner enjoying the food, someone who might know a little about the food already and wants a taste of home, eating alongside with people who may never have had the food before."

Wang also said he's "really excited" because the cookbook is the next step in making his food and culture even more accessible to people who want to learn more about it.

Spicy and Tingly Beef

PHOTO: Spicy tingly beef with hand pulled noodles by Jason Wang in the new Xi'an Famous Foods cookbook. (Jenny Huang)

"I like to think of this pairing as Chinas version of burgers and fries, a common, simple beef dish that everyone has had in their life," Wang writes in the book. "The depth of flavor is first developed from the red meat and the funky, soy-like Pixian bean sauce, but this dishs calling card is the ma la, or spicy and tingly qualities thanks to both heady chili peppers and fruity Sichuan peppercorns."

"And unlike many other dishes in this book, this recipe comes with a wallop of Sichuan peppercorn powder rather than an infused oil. Which is all to say, be careful when consuming this dish. At first, the heat might feel manageable, an undercurrent to the tender braised beef and fragrant garlic-onion mix, but several bites in and the pepper spice begins to build, your mouth starts to subtly vibrate, your tongue feels a familiar tingle and soon enough, youre experiencing the almost-euphoric brain-clearing high of a powerful ma la kick."

Story continues

Wang's favorite way to serve this beef is with biang biang noodles, another recipe featured in the new cookbook.

Ingredients

11 ounces (310 g) beef shank

1 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 green onions, trimmed and sliced

1-inch (4 cm) piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 garlic clove, peeled and sliced

 medium red onion, diced

1 star anise pod, broken

2 dried red chili peppers, cut into -inch segments

1 teaspoons Pixian bean sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoons Shaoxing cooking wine

 teaspoon sugar

 large tomato, diced

1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorn powder

1 teaspoon Red Chili Powder

Directions

In a large pot, submerge the beef in water. Set over high heat, cover the pot, and bring to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes, then turn off the heat.

Remove the meat to a cutting board to cool and discard the water. Once cool enough to handle, cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) cubes. In a large pot, heat the vegetable oil over medium heat for 1 minute.

Add the green onion, ginger, garlic, onion, star anise, and dried red chilis and saute for 30 seconds, or until fragrant. Reduce heat to medium, add the Pixian bean sauce, stir, and cook for 30 seconds, or until red oil is released and fragrant. Add beef and mix. Add the soy sauce, cooking wine, sugar and 2 cups (480 ml) water. Cover the pot, turn the heat up to high and bring to a boil. Once boiling, turn the heat down to medium.

Simmer for 30 minutes covered, then uncover the pot and cook at a low boil for an additional 20 minutes or until the meat is tender and the sauce is reduced.

Add the tomatoes, Sichuan peppercorn powder and red chili powder and stir to combine. Turn off the heat and let sit, covered, for 5 minutes before serving.



PHOTO: The new Xi'an Famous Foods cookbook cover. (Jenny Huang)

Chef's Tips

Blanching the beef rids it of impurities, which we do not want in our stew.

The main spices that give this dish its spicy and tingly flavors are the Pixian bean sauce, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, along with a trinity of fresh ginger, garlic and onions. Once the stew is added to noodles, the noodles are also tossed with a black rice vinegar and soy sauce mix along with our own proprietary chili oil to create the finished noodle dish.

Sichuan peppercorns typically work well together with Pixian bean sauce or red chili oil. They are natural matches and are prevalent in Sichuan cuisine, as well as Xi'an cuisine.

The type of noodles would be the type we are showing them, which are called biang biang noodles or hand-ripped noodles

Any knife works to cut the dough! We use a Chinese chef knife -- it's wide and cuts dough better than a skinnier regular chef's knife.

To prevent the dough from sticking while rolling it out, after it's mixed to the right consistency and rested, it's not that sticky to the touch at all -- more like Play-doh texture. Pieces of dough are kept separate from each other by lathering on vegetable oil to both keep them from sticking to each other and also from drying or crusting.

Reprinted from "Xian Famous Foods: The Cuisine of Western China," from New Yorks Favorite Noodle Shop. Copyright  2020 by Jason Wang with Jessica K. Chou. Photography  2020 by Jenny Huang. Published by ABRAMS.

How to make spicy, tingly beef with noodles from New York City's iconic Xi'an Famous Foods originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
Phuket hospital defends treatment of woman who died of horseshoe crab poisoning

PHUKET: The operators of Phuket Provincial Hospital have denied the allegation that they were negligent in the medical care provided to a 46-year-old woman who later died of poisoning from eating a young horseshoe crab.

death

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Wednesday 7 October 2020, 06:46PM

The medication administered to Ms Wanthana by medical staff at the hospital. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Ms Wanthanas mother, Somjai Kingwongsa, refuted the claim that her daughter had drunk alcohol before going to the hospital. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Speaking at Ms Wanathanas funeral, uncle Anukul Leng-ie said he wants justice for the death of his niece. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Wanthana Phutcho, 46, died on Sunday (Oct 4) after eating a horseshoe crab that she caught with a friend near Soi King Kaew, Rassada.

Speaking at her daughters funeral on Monday, Ms Wanthanas mother, Somjai Kingwongsa, 64, explained to reporters that she and her daughter went foraging for cockles in the mangroves on Sunday morning. While collecting the small clams, they also caught three horseshoe crabs and brought them home.

Ms Wanthana grilled one of the horseshoe crabs and ate it. Soon after, she started vomiting. She also developed a severe headache and dizziness.

Ms Somjai took Ms Wanthana to the Phuket Provincial Hospital in Rassada, but the hospital told her to take her daughter to Vachira Phuket Hospital, where Ms Wanthana was registered to receive state medical treatment.

Ms Somjai first took her daughter home, where Ms Wanthanas condition deteriorated quickly. She started turning green, prompting Ms Somjai to call the Narenthorn Emergency hotline 1669 for an ambulance.

By the time the ambulance had arrived, Ms Wanthana had already lost consciousness. Attempts to revive her failed.

Ms Wantanas family have now filed a complaint with the Phuket Provincial Ombudsmans Office, calling for the medical personnel to explain their actions.

Although Phuket Provincial Hospital, located in Rassada, occupies buildings owned by the Phuket Provincial Administration Organisation (PPAO, or OrBorJor in Thai), it is operated by private medical care provider Thonburi Hospital Public Co Ltd under a government concession.

Also, by law since 2017 any Thai citizens suffering from critical conditions can seek immediate medical treatment at any nearby hospital for 72 hours without paying for the costs, which will be later covered by state emergency medical care.

After 72 hours from admission of critical patients, hospitals may refer the patient to the hospital at which the patient is registered to receive treatment benefits. Patients are required to cover for their own expenses if they wish to continue receiving treatment at the hospital they are initially admitted, state news agency NNT confirmed when announcing the news.

Ms Wanthanas uncle, Anukul Leng-ie, yesterday (Oct 6) told reporters, We want to fight for Wanthanas life and justice. Our family has filed a complaint with the Phuket office of the Damrongdhama Center [Ombudsmans Office].

We want Phuket Provincial Hospital to be responsible for her death. While Wanthana was receiving medical treatment in the emergency room, the doctor ordered her to stay at the hospital for two hours. She was given three types of medicines and an injection, and then allowed her to return home, Mr Anukul said.

After she arrived home, she went into shock, so we called the 1669 emergency hotline. She was rushed to Vachira Phuket Hospital [but was pronounced dead]. Medical staff there asked us why we did not bring her earlier, he added.

We have to ask the medical staff at the Provincial Hospital whether they underestimated her symptoms and why they did not transfer her to another hospital or continue to provide treatment for a longer time, Mr Anukul said.

Dr Phanlop Thepwong, Head of Phuket Provincial Hospitals Medical Department, told the press yesterday, From questioning doctors and medical staff, I was told that she came to the hospital with the symptom of itching all over her body and that she had drunk some alcohol before coming.

Doctors checked and gave her treatment in accordance with their initial examination. After keeping her under observation for one hour and thirty minutes, her symptoms improved. Medical staff discussed with her relatives and concluded that they would take her home, Dr Panlop said.

Medical staff told them to keep watch for any deterioration in her condition and reminded them that if she had any strange symptoms, to please rush her to hospital, Dr Panlop added.

For the relatives concern, we did not ignore them, as we have already contacted them to explain what had happened and we sent some staff to console them, he said.

In response, Ms Wanthanas mother, Ms Somjai, told reporters, I assure you that my daughter did not drink any alcohol before going to the hospital. She only ate the horseshoe crab.

I dont understand why the medical staff did not transfer her to Vachira Phuket Hospital, instead of allowing us to take her home. I want the hospital staff to clarify the facts, she added.

Staff of the hospital came to the funeral and gave a wreath, but we did not have any conversation together while staff from Vachira Hospital told us that they are ready to help us, she said.

Ms Wanthanas funeral has been held at Samnaksong King Kaew in Rassada since Monday.

Her remains will be cremated at Wat Thaworn Khunaram (Wat Saensuk) in Phuket Town tomorrow (Oct 8), Ms Somjai said.

The Phuket Provincial Health Office (PPHO) is investigating the treatment provided and the decision to allow Ms Wanthana to be discharged from hospital care, PPHO Deputy Chief Dr Krit Sakulpat has confirmed.

I was informed that the woman received treatment at the Phuket Provincial Hospital and at Vachira Hospital. At this stage, PPHO officers are collecting information about this case and questioning medical staff in order to be fair for everyone, he said.

This is the first case in Phuket of someone dying from eating horseshoe crab, Dr Krit noted.

The symptoms from eating poisonous horseshoe crab are like normal food poisoning, but the poison will numb the tongue, hands, legs and cause breathing difficulty, leading to death, Dr Krit also noted.

At this stage, there is no antitoxin for ingesting the poison from a horseshoe crab. We can only treat the symptoms until the patients condition improves, he said.
BOSTON, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ThreeMain, a leader in sustainable and effective household and personal care products that ship directly to consumers, announced today they are on track to a significant milestone, eliminating 1 million plastic bottles among their customer base after one year.

ThreeMain set out on a mission to make the first household cleaning products that come in refillable "eternity" bottles made in the U.S. from aluminum. Each bottle is refilled using their pouch system which has 80% less plastic, oil and water. ThreeMain's quart-sized, spouted, stand-up pouches contain 364,000 pieces on 26 wooden pallets. By comparison, bottle or milk carton refills require nine truckloads of quart-size bottles containing 364,000 pieces on 234 wooden pallets  using an extra 1000 grams of CO2 per mile to carry the same amount of liquid. While ThreeMain is also carbon neutral, their refill model further exemplifies their sustainability. The pouch is also repurposed through their zero waste program at no cost to the customer or can be recycled through appropriate curbside programs.

While sustainable package design is a major focus at ThreeMain, so is innovating products that outperform others with a proprietary formulation process to achieve those results, using disinfecting ingredients like hydrogen peroxide, organic essential oils for aroma, and naturally derived coconut. "We spent over a year perfecting formulas people could trust. The word 'green' has been whitewashed in this industry and isn't getting the same notoriety it did over a decade ago," says Joe Budzienski, co-founder & CEO. "We focus on safe and sustainable. Ingredients you know and trust. It may be more expensive to use naturally derived ingredients that actually clean or disinfect, but we need to change consumer perception that sustainable CAN BE and IS effective if done right."

"We know there are still so many strides CPG can make to be more sustainable, and we are so excited to see many companies moving in the right direction. Nothing is perfect, and there are pros and cons to each model. In order to get people excited about sustainability, they need to trust the product  that's our first step and so far, it's working well," says Lauren Simonelli, co-founder & Head of Product.

In addition, ThreeMain has created a program to discount their product in bulk to schools and ensure that even those with limited budgets can get access. ThreeMain has already sold to several schools since launching this program in September.

About ThreeMain

ThreeMain is the premier eco-friendly, sustainable household cleaning product line on a mission to protect our oceans by reducing household plastic consumption. ThreeMain donates 3% of all sales to its non-profit partner, The Rozalia Project, an organization committed to protecting and cleaning the oceans. ThreeMain is available for subscription on their website www.threemain.com, on Walmart, Faire and plans to relaunch Amazon as they work to scale back the plastic being used to ship their product.

Media Contact:

Joe Budzienski

[email protected]

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ThreeMain

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Related Video

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SOURCE ThreeMain
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cannformatics, an early stage biotech startup focused on personalizing medical cannabis treatments through the identification and application of Cannabis-Responsive biomarkers found in saliva, today announced Canniatric and WPA4A as sponsors of their ASD pilot study.

The study is being conducted in conjunction with Dr. Bonni Goldstein, a Los Angeles-based pediatrician who specializes in cannabis medicine and is the Medical Director for Canna-Centers , a California-based medical practice devoted to educating patients about the use of cannabis for serious and chronic medical conditions.

"We are excited to have three medical cannabis trailblazers, who work tirelessly to help their children along with thousands of other families to effectively use medical cannabis. The three of them along with Dr. Goldstein are truly pioneers in using medical cannabis to treat ASD" said Ken Epstein, Chief Commercial Officer and co-founder of Cannformatics. "This study is the first step toward providing families and health care providers treating autism with recommendations that will provide predictable and repeatable outcomes while improving overall impact."

The study brings together medical cannabis industry leaders:

Ray Mirzabegian , Canniatric CEO and founder

, Canniatric CEO and founder Rhonda Moeller , WPA4A CEO and co-founder

, WPA4A CEO and co-founder Jenni Mai , WPA4A president and co-founder

Canniatric and WPA4A share a common mission of being a source of education and understanding for families looking for medical cannabis-based treatments for their loved ones with autism.

"As a leader in pediatric cannabis medicine Canniatric aims to develop products that treat specific symptoms in children suffering from a variety of pediatric medical conditions," said Mirzabegian. "We are proud to be sponsoring the Cannformatics study as we know increasing scientific understanding of the impact of cannabis treatment for ASD symptoms, is a step toward giving families greater peace-of-mind when deciding to treat their child with medical cannabis."

"WPA4A.org, is a source of education and community for over 25,000 families in the United States and around the world looking for support in helping their child with autism. What interests us about the Cannformatics' study is it contributes to the scientific validation of medical cannabis as a treatment for autism. It also lays the foundation for future studies that will ultimately lead to reducing the time and money families spend searching for the right product to help their child," said Moeller.

For more information go to: www.cannformatics.com

About Cannformatics, Inc:

Cannformatics is an early stage biotechnology startup focused on personalizing medical cannabis treatment through the identification and application of Cannabis-Responsive biomarkers found in saliva. The company's mission is to deliver predictable and repeatable science-based medical cannabis recommendations to improve health and quality of life. The company is now pursuing identifying biomarkers related to autism spectrum disorder in children. Follow us on Twitter @cannformatics. Cannformatics is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

About Canniatric, Inc.:

Canniatric is a leader in pediatric cannabis medicine, providing high-quality, consistent, and effective cannabis products to treat children suffering with epilepsy, autism, symptoms related to childhood cancers, and other pediatric medical conditions. Canniatric's products can be found at cannabis dispensaries across Southern California or online at www.canniatric.com

Canniatric is headquartered in San Fernando, CA.

About WPA4A, Inc.:

Founded in 2016, WPA4A is a nonprofit that works with families all over the world who have a loved one diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. WPA4A works with like-minded organizations, medical professionals, researchers, and the medical cannabis community, in order to bring awareness to others about plant-based options for treating autism related symptoms. Go to www.wpa4a.org to learn more. WPA4A is headquartered in Canyon Lake, CA.

SOURCE Cannformatics

Related Links

https://www.cannformatics.com/


She is adjusting to single life after splitting from her musician husband Winston Marshall in August following four years of marriage.

And Dianna Agron enjoyed a catch-up with a female friend as they grabbed lunch at Cafe Gitanne in the Nolita neighbourhood of New York on Tuesday.

The actress, 34, looked effortlessly stylish in a floral maxi-dress and tailored black blazer as the pair enjoyed a bite to eat at the French-Moroccan restaurant.

Lunch date: Dianna Agron enjoyed a catch-up with a female friend as they grabbed lunch at Cafe Gitanne in the Nolita neighbourhood of New York on Tuesday

The former Glee star kept comfortable in a pair of $743 Gucci leather slip-on loafers with a gold buckle and wore a black snakeskin bag draped over shoulder.

Dianna accessorised with gold jewellery and protected her eyes from the October sun with black cat-eye shades.

The actress opted for natural make-up and styled her blonde hair in an elegant low bun.

While Dianna and British Mumford and Sons rocker Winston, 32, are yet to confirm the split, multiple sources told Us Weekly in August that the pair have gone their separate ways.

Chic: The actress, 34, looked effortlessly stylish in a floral maxi-dress and tailored black blazer as the pair enjoyed a bite to eat at the French-Moroccan restaurant

A source told the publication that the incredibly private couple have been living separately since last year and that Dianna is dating once again.

Dianna tied the knot with Winston, 32, at the Beldi Country Club in Morocco in 2016, following a whirlwind romance.

She spent $20,500 on her brown embellished Valentino wedding gown which was hot off the runway.

The musician groom wore an embroidered jacket and silk turban, with a white unbuttoned shirt.

Stepping out in style: The former Glee star kept comfortable in a pair of $743 Gucci leather slip-on loafers with a gold buckle and wore a black snakeskin bag draped over shoulder

Riding on camels in traditional style, the pair spared no expense on their lavish ceremony.

Actress Carey Mulligan, 35, who is married to Winston's bandmate Marcus Mumford, 33, was in attendance and the entire event lasted three days.

The couple were first rumoured to be dating back in 2015 when Dianna was pictured holding hands with Winston when she joined his band on tour in Paris.

Before marrying Winston, Dianna dated fellow actors Alex Pettyfer, Sebastian Stan and Thomas Cocquerel.

Winston is rumoured to have dated Katy Perry just before she got together with Orlando Bloom.
The FTSE 100 closed down 3.69 points at 5946.25 and the pound was at $1.29 against the dollar.

Tesco marked the first week of Ken Murphy's outing as boss by saying it would increase the dividend to shareholders and make a one-off payment after pre-tax profits soared by over a quarters to 551million in the first half of the year.

The board of retail firm Frasers Group has recommended shareholders back a staff bonus scheme that could see employees awarded cash payments if the company's share price stays at 10 for 30 days.

Barclays' head of private banking in Europe has told Reuters that the firm plans to enter four new European private banking markets next year. Gerald Mathieu said the bank was looking to start up the business in France, Italy, Spain and Germany.
The sounds and culture of Haiti served as a colorful backdrop for former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Bidens visit to Little Haiti Monday as he courted Haitian-American voters and leaders on the last day to register to vote in Florida.

Its all about the spirit, the spirit of this community, Biden said. Theres no quit in America. Theres clearly no quit in the Haitian community, there is none. And I promise you there would be no quit on my part as your president making sure that the Haitian community has an even shot and back on its feet.

During an address lasting eight minutes, 46 seconds, Biden emphasized the need to have voters, including Haitian Americans, turn out and stressed issues that unite him and the crowd.

Biden told the small crowd if the turnout is the same as it was in 2016 when President Donald Trump, whose name he never once mentioned, ran against Democratic rival and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Haitian-American community in Florida by itself has the potential of determining the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential race.

Wouldnt it be an irony, an irony of all ironies, Biden said, if on election eve, it turned out Haitians literally delivered a coup de grace in this election?

Joe Biden, right, is ushered by his Secret Service detail as he leaves the Little Haiti Cultural Complex during a brief visit to Little Haiti on Monday, October 5, 2020.

Bidens campaign has emphasized that the race in Florida is critical and can be decided by just 1% of the vote.

You not only have an opportunity. I think you have an obligation to see to it you take care of the folks you care so much about, Biden said.

In addition to Little Haiti, Biden also stopped in Little Havana to meet with Cuban-Americans before attending an NBC town hall event near downtown Miami.

The Biden campaign has struggled with Haitian-American voters, who have felt neglected as Biden seeks to woo Hispanic voters and after his running mate, Kamala Harris, failed to meet with Haitian-American leaders during a September roundtable discussion with Black leaders at Florida Memorial University.

Story continues

On Monday, the campaign sought to make up for it. The invited guests, which were intentionally kept to a small number due to the COVID-19 pandemic, consisted of Haitian-American elected officials in Miami-Dade County as well as State Rep. Dotie Joseph, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, Dr. Larry Pierre and Dr. Jean-Philippe Austin and his wife Magalie. The Austins held a $35,800-a-plate 2011 fundraiser for President Barack Obama during his second presidential bid, and Austin and Pierre have also raised money for the Biden campaign.

Concerned about voter turnout among Haitian-American voters on Nov. 3, the Austins have organized a group independent of the campaign to promote voter engagement and outreach in the Haitian-American community.

Haitian American supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden lined the streets of Northeast Second Avenue and 59th Street in Little Haiti hoping to catch a glimpse of the visit of the candidate as he arrived at the Little Haiti Cultural Center on Monday. Biden courted Haitian-American leaders and voters on the last day to register to vote in Florida for the Nov. 3 presidential election on Monday, October 5, 2020.

Joseph said she hopes the Biden visit will resonate not just with Haitian-American voters, but all voters.

Our very democracy is on the line, she said as she alluded to Trumps Sunday motorcade photo op even as he continues to battle a positive COVID-19 diagnosis. When we look at what these people want to do and how they want to treat us ... A lot of us have came from countries where you have dictatorships and you have fascism and the things youre starting to see with this administration; things you would have never imagined, even when youre dealing with coronavirus; somebody who knows how to protect us and wants to protect us, and the other one just wants to go around exposing people.

As Biden spoke in the courtyard of the Little Haiti Cultural Center, Haitian-American voters lined up along two city blocks on Northeast Second Avenue and 59th Street hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Even without hearing him, however, some said they were ready to support his presidential bid.

Im happy for the visit, Franklyn Charleston, 60, said amid the waving Biden-Harris posters and traditional Haitian horns playing carnival music, known as rara. Since this government came into power, life here has just dropped. It was better with Obama and even better with [President Bill] Clinton. This president here has been a troublemaker and we cannot just let the country go flat.

Haitian American supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden dance and cheer as they lined the streets of Northeast Second Avenue and 59th Street in Little Haiti hoping to catch a glimpse of the visit of the candidate as he arrived at the Little Haiti Cultural Center on Monday. Biden courted Haitian-American leaders and voters on the last day to register to vote in Florida for the Nov. 3 presidential election on Monday, October 5, 2020.

Biden said a lot is at stake. The Nov. 3 presidential election, he said, will decide what kind of nation were going to be, who we are, what we stand for. Will we continue to reach out or whether continue to push people away like whats happened now? Or will we take care of those people, who, through no fault of their own, found themselves among those families, over 205,000 people who have died from COVID without much help at all. 

This is the most important election, Biden told the Haitian-American leaders. The character of the country is literally on the ballot.

Biden last visited Little Haiti in 2010 when he came to Miami to meet with Haitian community leaders after the January 12 earthquake in Haiti to announce the designation of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, by President Barack Obama for eligible Haitian nationals because of the disaster, which left more than 300,000 dead. Trump has since tried to terminate the status, which is now the subject of at least a half-dozen federal lawsuits.

Biden opened Mondays return visit by recalling that 2010 visit, during which a photo of him with Haitian community activist Marleine Bastien was taken. That photo was used during the recent Democratic National Convention.

This is not the time to lift it, Biden said of TPS. This is not the time to end it. 

A devout Roman Catholic, who in 2010 quietly stopped at nearby Notre Dame dHaiti Catholic Church to pray after meeting with the community, Biden stressed that like Haitians, he too was a man of faith and believed in honoring families.

Family first, he said, touching on a cultural heart-string of Haitians. What we need is faith. We need to have faith....Youve reached out, youve left nobody behind. You made sure that people know they have a home with you. Theres nothing more difficult to deal with, to experience, the loss of family.

Nancy St. Leger, left, and her NSL Danse Ensemble spill their performance into NE 2nd Avenue outside the Little Haiti Cultural Complexs Caribbean Marketplace as Haitian American supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden lined the streets of Northeast Second Avenue in Little Haiti hoping to catch a glimpse of the visit of the candidate as he arrived at the Little Haiti Cultural Center on Monday, October 5, 2020.

The Little Haiti Cultural Centers neighboring Caribbean Marketplace was the site of Trumps 2016 visit, and his promise to the community during his presidential bid to be its greatest champion if elected. That meeting was with a select group of Haitians, many of them at the time, frustrated and angry over the involvement of the Clintons in Haiti after the quake.

Biden steered clear of Haitian politics on Monday, and instead appealed to Haitians on whats happening in America, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, his campaigned emphasized a first by any U.S. presidential candidate: the outlining of specifics of how a Biden-Harris administration would benefit Haitians.

Ahead of Mondays meeting, the campaign issued a fact sheet on the former vice presidents commitment to Haitian Americans, if elected. President Trump, the campaign said, has abandoned and insulted Haiti and has pursued policies that undermine U.S. interests and hurt and disrespect millions of Haitian Americans in the United States.

The Biden campaign vows to halt deportations for Haitians during his first 100 days, immediately review the Trump administrations decision to terminate TPS, offer a path to citizenship for TPS holders, and reinstate the Haitian Family Reunification Parole program.

The campaigns commitments are among a list of priorities that more than 60 Florida-based organizations that service the Haitian-American community are also seeking to get from a Biden-Harris administration in a letter currently making the rounds before being sent off to the campaign.

The letter also requests support for United Nations compensation for cholera victims following the introduction of the deadly disease into Haiti by U.N. peacekeepers 10 years ago this month, and the reinstatement of Haitian eligibility for the H-2A and H-2B temporary worker visas, which Trump also ended.

In Haiti, where there has been frustration over U.S. foreign policy under Trump, the U.S. presidential election is being closely watched in the hopes that a change in administration in the U.S. will also mean a change in U.S. policy toward the country.

Haitian President Jovenel Moise has been ruling by executive order since Parliament became dysfunctional in January. The Trump administration has taken a hard-line stance against Haitian opposition parties and civil society, expressing concerns over credible elections taking place under Moise, and has called for elections to be held as soon as it is technically feasible.

Haitians, who have been holding out hope for support by Biden on a transitional Haitian government, may be disappointed to learn that under Bidens Haiti policy, he, like the current administration, also says he wants elections in Haiti as soon as possible.

Several Haitian-American leaders in attendance said they believe the visit will have a positive effect on undecided Haitian-American voters who this time around are not trying to decide whether to vote for a Democrat or Republican like in 2016, but whether to go vote.

I think whoever in the Haitian community was on the fence, [this] should help them get to the polls, Miami-Dade County Commissioner Jean Monestime said after the visit. The visit and Bidens promise to return, Monestime said, was a step in the right direction.

North Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Joseph also welcomed the Little Haiti stop. I believe we can work with this administration; they are looking out for our best interests, he said.

But Joseph also issued a warning: Hopefully we dont fall into the same mistakes as the past.
FRO  Transition of Chief Executive Officer

Frontline Ltd. (the "Company" or "Frontline") (NYSE: FRO) today announced that Robert Hvide Macleod, Chief Executive Officer of Frontline Management AS, has decided to step down from his position. The Board has appointed Lars H. Barstad, Frontlines Commercial Director, to take the role as Interim Chief Executive Officer of Frontline Management AS. With his solid background within the industry and his profound understanding of the Company and its organization the board is confident that this new appointment will ensure a successful and seamless transition of the role. Mr. Macleod will be available for the company till April 30th, 2021.

I would like to thank Robert for his contribution to Frontline. He has led the Company through a period of significant fleet growth and renewal, said John Fredriksen, Chairman of Frontline. I wish Robert continued success in his future endeavors.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the last six years at Frontline, working with a great team through often volatile market conditions, said Mr. Macleod. The organization is best-in-class, and Frontlines scale and presence in the tanker industry is unrivaled. I am grateful to the Board of Directors for the opportunity to lead the Company over the last six years and would like to express my sincere gratitude to my friends and colleagues who have contributed to Frontlines success during my tenure.

I am grateful that the board has given me the trust to take the role as Interim CEO of Frontline after having served with the company for five years in various positions. It is exciting times ahead in the tanker market in which I will do my utmost to make sure that Frontline continue building shareholders value said Lars H. Barstad.

October 6th, 2020

The Board of Directors

Frontline Ltd.

Hamilton, Bermuda

Questions should be directed to:

Lars H. Barstad: Interim Chief Executive Officer, Frontline Management AS

+47 23 11 40 37

Inger M. Klemp: Chief Financial Officer, Frontline Management AS

+47 23 11 40 76

About Frontline Ltd.

Frontline Ltd. (the Company) is a world leader in the seaborne transportation of crude oil and refined products. The Company owns and operates a large, modern fleet of vessels within the VLCC, Suezmax and Aframax/LR2 segments and is one of the largest listed tanker companies by carrying capacity. Due to Frontlines brand, financial flexibility, and significant scale, it holds a unique position among its peers. Frontline is listed on both the New York and Oslo Stock Exchanges under the symbol FRO.



Forward-Looking Statements

Matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts. Words, such as, but not limited to "believe," "anticipate," "intends," "estimate," "forecast," "project," "plan," "potential," "may," "should," "expect," "pending" and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions. Although Frontline believes that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies which are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond the control of Frontline, Frontline cannot assure you that they will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections. The information set forth herein speaks only as of the date hereof, and Frontline disclaims any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this communication.

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.
Severe weather could bring flash flooding to country Victoria over the next two days, with Premier Daniel Andrews urging residents to download the state's emergency alert app.

The warm spring weather that graced Victoria last weekend will abruptly shift to severe downpours and residents across much of the state's north face the prospect of flash flooding.

Between 30 and 50 millimetres of rain could be dumped over some areas in just six hours on Thursday, the weather bureau has warned.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued severe weather warnings for much of northern Victoria.

Melbourne will miss the worst of the wild weather, but the city is set to get enough rain this week to pass its average annual rainfall of 648 millimetres, Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Christie Johnson said.
Jeff Sessions. Associated Press/Vasha Hunt

A draft report from the Justice Department's inspector general said former Attorney General Jeff Session and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were "a driving force" behind President Donald Trump's child-separation policy at the US-Mexico border, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Sessions and Rosenstein called for the separation of children no matter how young they were, the draft report found, according to The Times.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Former Attorney General Jeff Session and other top Justice Department officials were "a driving force" behind President Donald Trump's child-separation policy at the US-Mexico border, a new draft report from the department's inspector general said, according to The New York Times.

The Times reported on Tuesday that the draft report on Michael Horowitz's investigation into the "zero tolerance" policy said Sessions and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein called for the separation of children no matter how young they were. The draft, which is being reviewed by officials, is subject to change, the newspaper said.

The Times said it reviewed the 86-page draft report  which cited "more than 45 interviews with key officials, emails and other documents"  and spoke with three government officials who had read it. MSNBC's Jacob Soboroff tweeted late Tuesday that NBC News had also seen the draft report and confirmed The Times' reporting.

The Times said five attorneys general had told Justice Department officials in May 2018 that they were "deeply concerned" about orders to prosecute immigrants at the border even if they had to separate kids from their parents.

"We need to take away children," Sessions reportedly told the prosecutors on a call that month.

The Times said a prosecutor described what Sessions said in a note: "If care about kids, don't bring them in. Won't give amnesty to people with kids."

Story continues

Sessions did not comment to The Times or for the inspector general's report.

Soon after that call, Rosenstein doubled down on Sessions' message, telling the prosecutors that they should not have refused to prosecute two cases because the kids were very young, The Times reported.

Rosenstein defended himself to investigators and told The Times: "If any United States attorney ever charged a defendant they did not personally believe warranted prosecution, they violated their oath of office. I never ordered anyone to prosecute a case."

The Times reported that after Rosenstein's call, John Bash, the US attorney in western Texas at the time, told his staff, "Per the AG's policy, we should NOT be categorically declining immigration prosecutions of adults in family units because of the age of a child."

The Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy led to thousands of migrant children being separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border.

In May 2018, Sessions said in a speech announcing the policy, "If you cross the border unlawfully, even a first offense, then we're going to prosecute you."

He added: "If you smuggle an illegal alien across the border, then we'll prosecute you for smuggling. If you're smuggling a child, then we're going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law. If you don't want your child to be separated, then don't bring them across the border illegally. It's not our fault that somebody does that."

Women who were breastfeeding have said immigration authorities separated them from their babies at the border. According to The Times, the draft report seemed to confirm this, with a prosecutor writing, "I did not believe this until I looked at the duty log."

Trump, Sessions, and other members of the administration tried to distance themselves from the child-separation policy after it came under intense criticism. Trump at one point falsely claimed that Democrats were behind the policy.

In the draft report, Horowitz wrote that while Sessions largely allowed the blame to fall on Trump and officials from the Department of Homeland Security, he understood that it entailed separating kids from their families and was on board because he thought it would deter illegal immigration.

"The department's single-minded focus on increasing prosecutions came at the expense of careful and effective implementation of the policy, especially with regard to prosecution of family-unit adults and the resulting child separations," the draft report said, according to The Times.

The news of Sessions' push for the policy led to sharp criticism.

"Send him to The Hague," Rep. Rashida Tlaib said in a tweet.

The DOJ did not reply to Business Insider's request for comment but told The Times: "The draft report relied on for this article contains numerous factual errors and inaccuracies. While DOJ is responsible for the prosecutions of defendants, it had no role in tracking or providing custodial care to the children of defendants. Finally, both the timing and misleading content of this leak raise troubling questions about the motivations of those responsible for it."

Read the original article on Business Insider
A study released today in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine points the way to a possible new avenue of treatment for ischemic stroke.

The study, led by Annamaria Cimini, Ph.D., of the University of L'Aquila, and Liborio Stuppia, M.D., of D'Annunzio University, Italy, reveals how the secretome of amniotic fluid stem cells can restore neuronal plasticity (the brain's capacity to change and adapt), improve cognition, and replace neurons damaged or lost due to an ischemic stroke.

Their finding may lead to a more broadly applicable stroke therapy that is not hindered by a narrow treatment window or pre-existing conditions.

Each year, 5.5 million people across the world die from stroke, and more than 116 million years of healthy life are lost due to stroke-related death and disabilities, according to the World Stroke Organization. Most strokes - an estimated 87 percent - are the ischemic type, which occur when a vessel supplying blood to the brain becomes obstructed.

The most effective treatment currently in use is a clot-busting drug known as a tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA). However, to be effective the t-PA must be given within three hours after the onset of stroke symptoms, and even then the cure rate is just one in 10 patients. t-PAs also have their own risks, especially for people who have a history of bleeding problems, uncontrolled high blood pressure, or recent surgery or trauma.

"Thrombolytic therapy itself can lead to brain injuries, namely cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. I/R injury is one of the major reasons for disability, high morbidity, and mortality worldwide," Dr. Cimini said. (Reperfusion refers to the act of restoring the flow of blood to an organ or tissue, typically after a heart attack or stroke.)

In the search for better treatment options, stem cells have emerged as a possible candidate due to their regenerative abilities. Human amniotic fluid stem cells (hAFSCs) in particular are interesting, as adult stem cells - even after reprogramming - might pass along any pre-existing genetic conditions, thus representing a limitation in their application.

On the other hand, hAFSCs offer a clean therapeutic slate. A novel class of pluripotent stem cells with intermediate characteristics between embryonic and adult stem cells, hAFSCs are able to safely differentiate into all types of tissue. Furthermore, ethical issues related to their use are minimal, as they are collected during routine amniocentesis, third-trimester amnio-reduction or Cesarean section.

The growing interest in hAFSCs over the past decade has led researchers to also investigate the cells' secretome - which encompasses the complete set of proteins expressed by cells and secreted into the extracellular space - and its potential neuroprotective mechanisms.

In their current study, the Cimini- Stuppia team wanted to determine which signal transduction pathways might be activated by hAFSC-derived secretome during a stroke. (Signal transduction is how signals are transferred through a cell via proteins - a process necessary for healing.)

They also wanted to analyze miRNA expression in the conditioned medium. miRNAs found in exosomes are key regulators of the immune response that affect maturation, proliferation, differentiation and activation of immune cells, as well as antibody secretion and release of inflammatory mediators.

"Thus, exosomes offer an alternative therapeutic approach as a substitute for cell transplantation," Dr. Cimini said.

The team began by first devising an in vitro stroke model. To do this, they deprived hAFSCs of oxygen and glucose for a three hour period after testing several different time windows - at three hours, the cells showed a reduction in viability of about 50 percent. Then, 24 hours later, they treated the oxygen/glucose depleted cells with several different percentages of hAFSC-conditioned medium.

When we examined the results, we found that the hAFSC-derived secretome had activated pro-survival pathways, as well as pathways that halted apoptosis (programmed cell death). Furthermore, microRNA analysis in the exosomal component revealed an abundance of miRNAs involved in protecting neurons and controlling neuronal cell death." Liborio Stuppia, M.D., D'Annunzio University, Italy

"In light of the data obtained, we believe that the use of conditioned medium and, in particular, exosomes may represent a suitable treatment for I/R injury," he concluded.

"These early pre-clinical results are certainly encouraging and demonstrate the need to further pursue human amniotic fluid stem cells-derived secretome as a regenerative cell therapy," said Anthony Atala, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. "These outcomes suggest a potential approach that could change the outcome for millions of patients who suffer a stroke."
Jacinda Ardern's fiance Clarke Gayford has revealed the cringeworthy gift that keeps him company while his partner is away campaigning for re-election.

The 43-year-old took to Twitter on Wednesday to share a picture of a pillow case adorned with Ms Ardern's face, two English roses and a silver fern.

'Amazing the curios picked up on the campaign trail,' Mr Gayford captioned the post.

'This wee gem of a gift was slipped onto my pillow so I won't miss her too much while she's out getting it done and I'm home stocking up on two litre milks.'

Clarke Gayford shared a picture of the pillowcase keeping him company (pictured) while Jacinda Ardern is campaigning for re-election on Twitter on Wednesday

Ms Ardern has been on the campaign trail for a number of weeks and outfoxed opposition leader Judith Collins with a stirring performance in the third leaders debate of the New Zealand election campaign.

After lacklustre efforts in previous outings, the Labour leader showed both her stately and relatable sides on stage at James Hay Theatre in Christchurch on Tuesday night.

On topics as varied as climate change and electric vehicles, youth dental care and the COVID-19 lockdown, Ms Ardern had Ms Collins' measure.

And in a 'The Price Is Right' round designed to test how in touch the two leaders are with everyday costs, Ms Ardern was able to name the cost of a Netflix plan.

The couple (pictured together) became engaged over Easter last year and share daughter Neve Te Aroha Ardern Gayford

'I believe it's about $11.99,' she said, naming the monthly price to the cent.

Ms Ardern blundered on the price of a 2kg leg of lamb - offering $20 to Ms Collins' $28 - when the actual price is $42.

Mr Gayford had a cheeky response for Ms Ardern's meat mistake.

'Owing to a freezer full of venison it's also my fault that no lamb has been purchased in a while,' he tweeted.

However, the error didn't dent a strong night for Ms Ardern, who is heavily favoured to win a second term as PM in the October 17 election.

The popular 40-year-old looked more comfortable in a raucous town hall setting, with a crowd tilted in her favour, after two debates in a TV studio.

On COVID-19, Ms Ardern hit out at National's run of three leaders since May, saying 'every leader we've have from National has had a different position and it's been wrong'.

Ms Collins erred by offering Samoa as a better example of a country which locked down 'hard and early', to use Ms Ardern's commonly uttered phrase.

Ms Ardern outfoxed opposition leader Judith Collins (pictured) with a stirring performance in the third leaders debate

The 40-year-old was able to name the exact cost of a Netflix plan during an election debate

The 61-year-old said the island nation, which has not recorded any cases of the virus, locked down a month earlier than New Zealand - in fact it locked down a day later.

Ms Ardern's best moment came while discussing poor dental outcomes for Kiwi kids.

Rather than attack her opponent, she accepted Ms Collins' point and then spelled out a specific policy prescription, leaving the otherwise-noisy opposition leader silent.

'We have to dig deeper about what is happening,' she said.

'Our children aren't accessing free dental care and instead are having to go under anaesthetic to have them removed ... we need extra dental buses (and) we want an extra 20 to get into those communities and make that difference.'

After the debate, Ms Ardern declined to declare victory, but said her showing was reflective of her government.

'What we're offering is a stable government with a plan and I think that was on display tonight,' she said.

The fourth and final debate will be hosted by TVNZ on Thursday, October 15, two days before the election.
Kabul, Oct 7 : Atiqullah Abdulrahimzai, head of Laghman's provincial council, was wounded in an explosion in eastern Laghman province, local officials said.

The incident took place in Qarghaee district on Tuesday when his vehicle struck a roadside mine. Four of his security guards were also wounded, according to officials.

However, no group, including the Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the blast, Tolo news reported.

The blast occurred a day after the convoy of Rahmatullah Yarmal, Governor of Laghman, was targeted by a blast in the centre of the province.

Asadullah Dawlatzai, the Governor's spokesperson, said the blast on Monday occurred as the Governor was travelling between his guest house and his office.

The Governor was not harmed, said the spokesperson, but the Ministry of Interior confirmed that four of the governor's guards were killed along with four civilians, and that 38 civilians were wounded.
Downing Street has rejected the call of the Great Barrington group of scientists for an end to lockdown measures, saying their argument rests on an unproven assumption that it would be possible to protect the most vulnerable.

The controversial Great Barrington Declaration, which has been signed by more than 7,000 scientists and medics worldwide, calls for a new strategy of allowing younger people to go about their lives as normal while offering focused protection to the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions who are most at risk from coronavirus.

It has won the support of UK scientists including Professor Karol Sikora, and Tory backbencher Steve Baker has urged MPs to offer it their backing, in a direct challenge to the governments strategy.

But Boris Johnsons official spokesman today made clear the prime minister does not accept the fundamental arguments behind the demand.

We have considered the full range of scientific opinion throughout the course of this pandemic and we will continue to do so, said the spokesman.

But what I would also say is that it is not possible to rely on an unproven assumption that it is possible for people who are at lower risk, should they contract the virus, to avoid subsequently transmitting it to those who are at a higher risk and would face a higher risks of ending up in hospital, or worse in an intensive care unit.

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. 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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

The Declaration warns of grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts caused by the restrictions imposed by governments around the world in an effort to bring Covid-19 under control.

It warns that lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health, through lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health. And it describes keeping students out of school as a grave injustice.

The declaration states that keeping lockdown measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed and calls for schools, shops, hospitality venues, entertainment and sports to open freely to allow herd immunity to develop.

But its arguments are not backed by mainstream medical authorities such as the World Health Organisation, and its conclusions have been challenged by many scientists.

Dr Rupert Beale, of the Francis Crick Institutes Cell Biology of Infection Laboratory, said it was not a helpful contribution to the debate.

This declaration prioritises just one aspect of a sensible strategy  protecting the vulnerable  and suggests we can safely build up herd immunity in the rest of the population, said Dr Beale.

"This is wishful thinking. It is not possible to fully identify vulnerable individuals, and it is not possible to fully isolate them.

Furthermore, we know that immunity to coronaviruses wanes over time, and re-infection is possible  so lasting protection of vulnerable individuals by establishing herd immunity is very unlikely to be achieved in the absence of a vaccine.

Mr Johnsons spokesman said that chief medical officer Chris Whitty had made clear throughout the crisis that the impact on non-Covid medical conditions was being taken into account when devising restrictions.
The 'desperate' Vietnamese migrants who suffocated to death in a chiller truck in Essex last year died after paying people smugglers up to 10,000 each for an illegal importation that went 'dreadfully wrong,' a court has heard.

Irish truck driver Eamonn Harrison, 23, and British-Romanian Gheorghe Nica, 43, are accused of killing the 39 victims who were found in a container near Grays, Essex on October 23 last year.

Valentin Calota, 37, and Christopher Kennedy, 24, are also said to have been linked to a global smuggling ring driving truckloads of foreign nationals into the UK.

The victims - including two 15-year-old boys and ten older teenagers - were found dead in the airtight trailer and were identified as coming from various provinces in Vietnam.

They allegedly paid thousands of pounds to be ferried into the country on a journey 'fraught with danger' in search of economic opportunity, the Old Bailey heard.

Nica, 43, of Basildon, Essex, and Harrison, 23, of Mayobridge, Co Down, Northern Ireland, are charged with their manslaughter.

The pair are also charged with conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration between May 1 2018 and October 24 2019, along with Calota, 37, of Birmingham, and Kennedy, 24, of Co Armagh, Northern Ireland.

On Tuesday, Nica pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge.

He and the other three defendants deny the other charges against them.

Last October, 39 bodies of Vietnamese migrants were found inside the lorry on an industrial estate in Purfleet, Essex

A court sketch of Gheorghe Nica (left) and Eamonn Harrison (right) in the dock at the Old Bailey this afternoon

The 39 migrants were prepared to take 'extraordinary risks' as they looked for a better life, the court heard.

Harrison drove the truck to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge before it boarded a ferry for the trip to Purfleet in Essex.

Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones told jurors today (weds) that victims were vulnerable to being 'exploited' by organised criminals looking to make money.

'Illegal immigration into the United Kingdom has been a hot topic over the last few years, making headlines, and dominating domestic and European politics.

'Amidst all the sound and fury about it generated by the media, and amidst all the statistics, numbers and debate about illegal immigration and its consequences, it is perhaps easy to lose sight of the fact that behind each story, and behind each number on a graph, there is a human being.

'It is a sad and unavoidable truth that people from other parts of the world, perhaps countries less secure or less affluent than our own, have shown themselves prepared to go to great lengths to come to the UK, looking for a better life.

'The risks involved, and the costs involved, financial and personal, can be enormous.

'People leave their families behind; they might spend everything they have to fund the trip, they might leave their families saddled with debt; all because they are prepared to take extraordinary risks involved in exchange for the chance of a brighter future.

'They do it because they are desperate. But being desperate makes them vulnerable.

'It makes them vulnerable to those who care nothing for immigration law, but who see for themselves an opportunity to make money from others by exploiting their desperation.

'People who are prepared to organise covert transport into the UK for those who have no right to be here, as long as they are prepared to pay to gain entry illegally.

Lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 23, of Mayobridge, Co Down, Northern Ireland, is charged with manslaughter

Gheorghe Nica (left) and Eamonn Harrison (right) two of four men to face trial, at the Old Bailey in London, for being part of an alleged people-smuggling ring linked to the death of 39 migrants in a lorry in Essex

'There are huge sums of money to be made - you will hear evidence of upwards of 10,000 per person being paid just to cross the English Channel in the back of a lorry.

'That kind of money attracts organised criminals, generally referred to as people smugglers.

'So this case is about people smuggling. But it is about more than that. It is also about one particular importation of people, smuggled into the back of a lorry, smuggled across the channel, which went dreadfully wrong.

'Obviously, any time you fill an airtight container with a large number of people, where they will be left for hours and hours, with no means of escape and no means of communication with the outside world - well, that is an exercise fraught with danger.

'On 22 October 2019, 39 Vietnamese nationals - men and women, aged between 15 and 44, some husbands and wives, some mothers and fathers, all of them sons and daughters themselves - were loaded into the back of a lorry in northern Europe.'

Truck driver Maurice Robinson was told by his boss: 'Give them air quickly, but don't let them out' before opening the lorry doors to find a 'tomb,' the court heard.

The 26-year-old, from County Armagh, collected the migrants in a sealed container at Purfleet, Essex, 12 hours into their journey, jurors heard.

They had sailed across the English Channel in a cargo ship after Harrison dropped them off at the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.

Robinson allegedly left the dock and 'almost immediately' opened the back of the lorry to the sight of eight women, two boys and 29 men lying dead in pitch darkness.

'What he found must haunt him still,' Mr Emlyn Jones said.

The prosecutor went on: 'Eamonn Harrison drove them to Zeebrugge in Belgium, and unhooked his trailer where it was loaded onto a cargo ship bound for Purfleet, in Essex.

'Another lorry driver, Maurice Robinson, collected the trailer from Purfleet when it arrived just after midnight on 23rd October.

'By then, it was getting on for 12 hours - at least - since any meaningful amount of fresh air had been let into the sealed container.

'Robinson knew he had to check on the occupants - he'd been sent a message from his boss telling him what to do as soon as the lorry was in his control. That message said: "Give them air quickly, but don't let them out".

'So Robinson drove out of Purfleet port, pulling that trailer on the back of his lorry, and almost immediately stopped, got out, and opened the doors of the trailer at the back.

'What he found must haunt him still. For the 39 men and women inside, that lorry had become their tomb.

'28 men, eight women and three children, two of them just 15 years old, had been sealed inside the airtight container, in pitch darkness, for at least 11 and three quarter hours or a little longer.'
He may be a perennial champ on Have You Been Paying Attention? but Ed Kavalee insists there are some logical reasons why he wins the 10 quiz most weeks.

Insisting he doesnt see the questions in advance, he tells TV Tonight he does have two advantages.

The first is that the others are morons, he jokes. The second is I do radio everyday. As you know, from reading things, you get an osmosis from looking things up to do on the radio.

If we just sat there, and no-one was answering any questions, wed have no quiz. So often my role is to help move it along a bit.

You may as well have a joke ready

Theres also a little bit of astute strategy on his part by thinking ahead.

When Djokovic hit that ball into a (ball boys) throat, you may as well have a joke ready for that. You know its coming up. The ones I like are the ones where I dont really know what the topic is.

Often I wont think of either the answer or a joke until someone else has said something. Something they say will trigger something in me. But there are also heaps of questions where not much happens, and we just chuck them out.

I dont mean to disappoint but its a pretty hollow victory. I love her to death but beating Kitty Flanagan in a news quiz is not the hardest thing in the world! And Sam as well, he jests.

Despite the wins, theres not much point in victory laps either. Alas, his trophy shelf remains bare.

I have never received a trophy.

People can say I win all the time. I have never received a trophy. That one that Tom (Gleisner) puts up on the desk that is Channel 10s again. Theres one of those and it goes into a cupboard every week. No one ever takes it home. Ive never received one which is hilarious!

Have You Been Paying Attention? recently marked its 200th show, not bad for a show that drew mediocre ratings of 301,000 in its original 30 minute Sunday slot. But 10 stuck with the show eventually settling into a one hour Monday slot it now consistently wins.

It started as an extension of a podcast that me, Santo & Sam were doing, where Tom would come in and ask us questions and we would make funny answers. Rob (Sitch) heard it and said Theres something here and went into the Working Dog brains trust.

Next thing I knew I was sitting on a set.

Im assuming their Tom is just Tony Mokbel in a bad wig.

Format rights for New Zealand, hosted by Hayley Sproull, and Cypriot versions have since been sold.

I cannot wait to see the Cypriot version. Im assuming their Tom is just Tony Mokbel in a bad wig. Ive got to see the Sam and the semi-me. Its sort of turned around on itself. Maybe we can do our segment where we identify popular versions of reality shows. That would be a meta moment.

Finally, I cant let Kavalee go without asking about his 2009 Seven series TV Burp, in which he cast his comedic eye over the week in television (Fun fact: Sam Pang was a writer on the show). He admits hed love to revisit it some day.

I havent heard from them recently and a number of those people are no longer at the network, he notes.

When Seven want to come back with the all-new Thursday night line-up of City Homicide into TV Burp, we are ready!

Have You Been Paying Attention? airs 8:40pm Monday on 10.
The fact that Tokyo meet of foreign ministers of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad)  comprising of the United States, Australia, India, and Japan  could not come out with a joint statement shows how their enthusiasm remains circumscribed by China's continuing influence delaying and dwarfing their ambitious initiative.

No doubt, the US wishes to set up Quad as an Asian Nato  the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that ensued US global leadership during second half of 20th century. However, the new leaders of its closest ally, Japan, do not wish to antagonise Beijing. Likewise, while Australia seems subdued by China's 'wolf warrior' diplomacy, India wishes to stick with its refrain of adding 'inclusive' to the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) narrative.

Of course, their immediate preoccupations with crafting shared strategies against COVID-19 may have also keyed away their deliberations on regional security.

To begin with, the expectation from this second, but first 'stand alone' meeting of Quad foreign ministers, was brimming with a game changing premise. While leaving for Tokyo, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo assured reporters of "significant achievements" to be clinched at this meeting; "something we've been working on for a long time" though without elaborating what it implied. This could have been part of his anti-China missionary zeal in recruiting new allies in the Indo-Pacific where China is viewed as the strongest adversary.

Last two years have witnessed US-China trade wars resulting in espionage arrests, travel advisories, visa denials and US expects all its friends and allies to follow that line. More recently, coronavirus and the US presidential elections have only further fuelled the Trump administrations anti-China vitriol.

In this backdrop, the first anticipated novelty in this FOIP was to see how Japan's post-Shinzo Abe leadership wishes to engage this narrative. Abe, Japan's longest-serving Prime Minister and strongest proponent of FOIP narrative, retiring in August has cast some doubts about it. Abe's successor, Yoshihide Suga, is not known for his foreign policy experience. On eve of hosting this Quad Ministerial on October 5, he told reports of his commitment to "promote a free and open Indo-Pacific" subjecting it to also "build[ing] stable relations with neighbouring countries including China and Russia." His vision of FOIP perhaps comes closer to India's narratives of building an 'inclusive' Indo-Pacific.

India has been the weakest link of the Quad; the only member without an alliance relationship and reluctant to compromise on its preoccupation with 'strategic autonomy' in foreign policy. This has often been expressed in seeking equidistance between Washington and Beijing. However, things have clearly changed lately. In spite of the much-hyped Modi-Xi informal summits, this equidistance had, for some time, witnessed India inching closer to the US and its friends and allies.

Yet, India had continued to harp on ensuring China becomes integral to Indo-Pacific discourses. Now in the face of an unprecedented China challenge involving continued border tensions has apparently cast a reset on its FOIP strategy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative proposal at the 14th East Asia Summit in November, for instance, omitted China while engaging Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and Vietnam in consultations on its draft paper while inviting others to join. Modi's engagements with world leaders since the onset of COVID-19 as also foreign policy narratives around External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's book The India Way have marked this changing tenor, especially a reset in India's China policy. It was India that had called for holding of this second Quad Foreign Ministers' meeting.

Speaking at Tokyo ministerial, Jaishankar underlined India's commitment to work with Quad comprising of "vibrant and plurilateral democracies with shared values" for not just "maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific" but to also for ensuring "rule of law, transparency, freedom of navigation in the international seas, respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty and peaceful resolution of disputes."

India has since dispatched ships to the South China Sea and there are reports about increased intelligence sharing as also of US firms negotiating sale of hundred-plus F-21 fighters that could change India's airpower profile. India perhaps expected this tenor of Quad support on its territorial sovereignty to be part of the joint statement that could not be.

Australia also showcased an assertive stance but the vision of host country perhaps modulated moderation instead of an assertive posturing. Canberra has since April faced China's verbose 'wolf warriors' as also cumbersome hurdles for all its major exports to Beijing. Last month China deported two Australia journalists, and this saw Australian foreign minister Marise Payne assert her country's belief in building FOIP as "a region governed by rules not power...[where] disputes are resolved in accordance with international law... [working] with no more important partners than Japan, the US and India." With Australia joining the Malabar naval exercises Quad has clearly strengthened its strategic linkages.

The Tokyo ministerial clearly missed Abes leadership. Indeed, this may even unfold a reset in Japan's FOIP policy. Meanwhile, with US remains determined to build Quad as an Asian Nato and the last few weeks have witnessed its friends and allies such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany committing to the FOIP narrative. Also the idea of an expanded FOIP, with Quad emerging as its critical centrepiece, has gained traction among other stakeholders across the Indo-Pacific.

However, the Quad surely missed its leapfrog moment at the Tokyo ministerial even though their shared challenge from COVID-19, which originated in China, will ensure that Quad unfolding a new regional security architecture for the Indo-Pacific will continue to grow, slow and steady.
PAC members have requested Department of Education officials answer questions over the contract awarded to Polymetrika (Stock photo)

The Dail's public spending watchdog has been warned that the error in the Leaving Cert calculated grades system is outside its remit.

Public Accounts Committee (PAC) members Marc MacSharry and Matt Carthy had requested that senior Department of Education officials be called before them to answer questions over the contract awarded to Polymetrika, the Canadian company at the centre of the controversy.

Mr MacSharry wrote to PAC chairman Brian Stanley last week calling for Department of Education secretary general Sean O Foghlu to face questions on the issue this week "in the interests of the tax-payer".

The normal procurement process was not followed when the Department of Education engaged the company to implement and deliver the calculated grades.

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The Department said there wasn't enough time to run the full process and instead it relied on an alternative, the Negotiated Procedure without Prior Publication, which "is used in circumstances where it is a case of extreme urgency"

Mr Stanley said the matter would be discussed at a PAC meeting today and he would be encouraging members to support a hearing.

However, the PAC secretariat has warned that such a meeting would not fall into the PAC's remit.

In correspondence it said that the PAC's role is to examine and report to the Dail on accounts audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG).

It adds: "As such, any examination of departmental expenditure not yet audited by the C&AG and presented to the Dail is outside the remit of the Committee."

The spending on the Leaving Cert calculated grades system occurred as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic this year and has not yet been audited by the C&AG.

The secretariat says that it's open to the PAC to invite Departments to meetings in relation to expenditure in its audited accounts.

It adds: "However, should the Committee then proceed to focus on matters not comprehended by the invitation and which relate to current expenditure, as was clear from the briefing received by the Committee on the 30th of September in relation to the Kerins judgment, the Committee would be operating outside the remit delegated to it by the House."

This is a reference to the legal action taken by former Rehab chief executive Angela Kerins against the Oireachtas after she appeared before the PAC in 2014.

The Supreme Court last year found that the PAC acted unlawfully in its treatment of Ms Kerins.

In its correspondence PAC secretariat said that the Oireachtas Education Committee has the remit in relation to the issues raised by Mr MacSharry and Mr Carthy and it has listed an examination of the calculated grades issue in its work programme.

The secretariat says that that the PAC can examine issues "of general public interest" relating to the use of public money outside of C&AG audited accounts subject to the Committee on Remit Oversight agreeing to a request.

The Dail must also approve a motion to instruct the committee in conducting its examination of the matter.

"This would be the appropriate mechanism for the Committee to seek to engage with the Department in relation to Calculated Grades," they add.

However, as the Committee on Remit Oversight has not yet been established so the secretariat suggests it would be open to the Committee to write to the Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail "to try to expedite its establishment or progress its request in another way."
GUYSBOROUGH  Water test results for the Strait Regional Centre for Education (SRCE) released last month report that recommended copper limits are exceeded in numerous fountains and taps at the Chedabucto Education Centre/Guysborough Academy in Guysborough. While these test results are new, water quality problems have been an issue at the pre-primary to Grade 12 school for several years.

Deanna Gillis, coordinator of communications for the SRCE, told The Journal in an email interview, In terms of the exceedances for copper at Chedabucto Education Centre/Guysborough Academy, copper levels in excess of the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality were described in a 2018 report commissioned on water at the school. This finding resulted in the installation of water coolers, changes to a water treatment system and implementation of a flushing and monitoring program. Follow-up testing after implementation showed a reduction in the amount of copper at the school as a result of these measures.

Health Canada updated its guidelines for lead and copper in drinking water in March of 2019. Gillis wrote that testing in SRCE schools was once again performed in accordance with the new guidelines in October 2019. Our response to the exceedances found in 2019 included turning off the water sources, posting appropriate signage, continuing to provide alternate sources of water, and notification of families and staff.

Gillis added, No source of water found to have exceeded the guidelines will be placed back into use unless the source has been remediated and testing has confirmed to be within the Health Canada Guidelines.

The health and safety of our students and staff is our top priority. There has been, and will continue to be, clean drinking water for students and staff at all SRCE schools, wrote Gillis noting that, As a result of the COVID-19 public health measures implemented at the start of this school year, there is no access to school water fountains at any of our schools. We have provided bottle filling stations and/or water coolers in all schools for students and staff.

The Water Test Results report states, Moving forward, schools will continue to receive bottled water until appropriate remediation is completed. Nova Scotias remediation plan for school water includes the following measures: ongoing remediation of water taps, plumbing and/or pipes; restrict access to water taps that do not meet Health Canada guidelines; and ongoing communication with students and staff about water safety efforts at their school.

The Water Test Results for the SRCE are available online at: https://www.ednet.ns.ca/sites/default/files/docs/watertestresults_srce.pdfor by searching: Water Test Results SRCE.

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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian community representatives of Norway will hold protests on October 7 and 8 against the ongoing Turkey-backed Azerbaijani aggression on the Republic of Artsakh.

The first protest, titled Solidarity with Armenia and Artsakh, will be held on October 7, and the second one  Protest against Azerbaijani aggression, will take place on October 8 outside the Norway Parliament.

Narine Harutyunyan, chair of the Armenian church community of Norway, told Armenpress that there will be a set number of participants in the protest due to the novel coronavirus (COVIUD-19).

The rally will take place at a time when the members of the foreign affairs and defense committee of Norway meet. We expect that they will not stay indifferent and will react to the Armenian community representatives, with this showing their support to the people of Armenia and Artsakh who seek peace. The mercenaries by Azerbaijan and Turkey have attacked and are trying to deport a nation who has lived and created on that land for centuries, she said.

The protest aims at drawing the attention of the Kingdom of Norway on what is happening in Artsakh for already 10 days. Before the protest Narine Harutyunyan and head of the culture community Liana Harutyunyan have addressed a call-letter to the prime minister of Norway, asking to make a statement, strongly condemn the Azerbaijani aggression, urge Baku to stop all attacks and sit around the negotiation table.

Harutyunyan said the Armenian community expects that Norway will support Armenia in the Council of Europe and other international organizations, seeking sanctions against Azerbaijan and Turkey.

The local media keep silence on the Azerbaijani-Turkish aggression which kills not only soldiers, but also civilian population, she said, adding that the Azerbaijani terrorism must be stopped.

Narine Harutyunyan also informed that the Armenian church community is organizing a fundraising to assist the Hayastan All Armenian Fund and the Military Insurance Fund to overcome this war situation.

On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale attack against the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabgakh), targeting also the civilian settlements, including the capital Stepanakert and the city of Shushi. In addition, the Azerbaijani armed forces have also targeted Armenias military and civilian infrastructures.

21 civilians in Artsakh and Armenia were killed, 80 were wounded as a result of the Azerbaijani aggression.

240 servicemen and volunteers have been killed in Artsakh from the Azerbaijani attacks.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Slovenias telecoms regulator AKOS has slammed the governments sudden decision to fold the organisation into a larger watchdog.

Under the plan, AKOS (Agency for Communications Networks & Services/Agencija za komunikacijska omrezja in storitve) will be combined with the Agency for Financial Markets into a new regulator called the Public Agency for Market and Consumers.

In a statement, AKOS noted its chagrin at being granted a single day to respond to the announcement and also argued that consolidating regulators for different sectors would slow down the performance of statutory tasks and responsiveness to market conditions.

The regulator complained that despite having the fourth lowest number of employees for any regulatory body in Europe, it has one of the widest remits, with TeleGeography noting that AKOS is responsible for electronic communications, radiocommunications, post, electronic media and railways.
What The Study Did: This case series of 192 patients positive for SARS-CoV-2 analyzes the transmission routes of SARS-CoV-2 to Southern California and explains local community spread within the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Authors: Jasmine T. Plummer, Ph.D., of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in West Hollywood, California, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.24191)

Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

###

Media advisory: The full study is linked to this news release.

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.24191?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=100720

About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is the new online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.
KERRVILLE, Texas, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- James Avery Artisan Jewelry, a family-owned jewelry retailer based in Texas, announces the opening today of its newest store in Lake Jackson, Texas at 204 Highway 332 West, Suite A.

"With the new store open in Lake Jackson Center, our Associates are eager to greet their first customers," says James Avery CEO John McCullough. "This beautiful new location offers timeless James Avery favorites, rooted in the heritage of our company, as well as all of our new designs in silver, bronze, gold and enamel."

Putting customer and associate safety first, the Lake Jackson Center store is following recommended COVID-19 health protocols and guidelines which have been implemented in all James Avery stores. Hand sanitizing stations are set up in store for customers and associates and all jewelry and high-touch areas of the store are regularly cleaned and sanitized. Additionally, the company asks customers to honor social distancing guidelines and to wear face coverings when in the store. James Avery associates undergo daily health screenings and wear facemasks.

The store is located next to Target in the Lake Jackson Center. Current operating hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday, 12 to 6 p.m. and are subject to change. Store Manager Sabrina Nix and her team are ready to welcome customers to shop in the new store or use the Contactless, Curbside Pickup or Buy Online, Pickup in Store options at JamesAvery.com. The James Avery team will announce plans for a grand opening celebration after regular store operations resume across the company.

About James Avery Artisan Jewelry James Avery is a vertically integrated, family-owned company located in the heart of the Texas Hill Country. We offer finely crafted jewelry designs for men and women in sterling silver, 14K and 18K gold, gemstones and leather handbags. James Avery jewelry is designed by our own skilled artisans in Kerrville, Texas. We are a multi-channel retailer with 97 James Avery stores in four states. Our jewelry is also available in more than 220 Dillard's stores in Texas and 28 additional states, airport stores in Austin and Houston, Army and Air Force Exchange Service locations at Fort Hood and Fort Belvoir and nationwide through JamesAvery.com. James Avery crafts jewelry in Texas workshops in Comfort, Hondo and Kerrville, made of the finest materials sourced worldwide. For more information, visit JamesAvery.com or facebook.com/JamesAvery.

SOURCE James Avery Artisan Jewelry

Related Links

https://www.jamesavery.com


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A drug has shown potential to improve heart function in women diagnosed with preeclampsia during their pregnancy, research carried out by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) and The University of Manchester (UoM) has found.

The results of the 'Postnatal enalapril to Improve Cardiovascular fUnction following preterm Preeclampsia' (PICk-UP) feasibility trial were published in the peer-reviewed journal Hypertension today.

Enalapril is a medicine already available on the NHS, and is used to reduce high blood pressure and to prevent or treat heart failure. Preeclampsia is a condition that affects some pregnant women, the main symptom of which is high blood pressure (hypertension).

High blood pressure in pregnancy is associated with future cardiovascular disease (CVD), a general term for conditions affecting the heart or blood vessels. Because of this, researchers from the Tommy's Manchester Maternal and Fetal Health Research Centre, at Saint Mary's Hospital, saw an opportunity to identify women who could benefit from targeted treatment at an early stage.

The PICk-UP study focused on the highest-risk groupwomen with pre-term preeclampsiawho have an eight-fold risk of developing serious CVD in future.

60 women receiving care at Saint Mary's Hospitalpart of MFTconsented to take part in the six-month pilot study, funded by the Medical Research Council. Results indicate that those who received enalapril showed improved heart function, compared with those receiving a placebo.

Enalapril was given to women after birth, as the drug is not safe to take during pregnancy, but is safe in breastfeeding mothers.

Dr. Laura Ormesher, a Clinical Research Fellow at the Tommy's Manchester Maternal and Fetal Health Research Centrea partnership between MFT and The University of Manchesteris the lead author of the PICk-UP study.

Dr. Ormesher said: "We are extremely grateful to the women who took part in PICk-UP. Our results have shown early potential to improve maternal health in the postnatal period, with a safe and affordable medicine.

"We now plan to take this further, aiming to expand the study across the UK and are very excited about the next steps."

Jenny Myers, Consultant Obstetrician at Saint Mary's Hospital, Professor of Obstetrics and Maternal Medicine at UoM and Chief Investigator of the study said: "This is fantastic work from Dr. Ormesher and the multidisciplinary team that delivered this study.

"Women diagnosed with preterm preeclampsia are eight times more likely to develop serious cardiovascular disease in futureto date there are no treatments which have been proven to reduce this risk. This study is the first step towards an acceptable treatment for women, which if shown to be effective in larger studies, could dramatically improve the long-term health of the women affected by this common pregnancy complication.

"This pilot has confirmed the feasibility of this treatment, and we are now ready to plan a larger clinical trial at other hospitals nationally, which is one of many great examples MFT leading the way with our cutting-edge research and innovation."

Explore further Pregnant women with very high blood pressure face greater heart disease risk

More information: Laura Ormesher et al. Postnatal Enalapril to Improve Cardiovascular Function Following Preterm Preeclampsia (PICk-UP):, Hypertension (2020). Journal information: Hypertension Laura Ormesher et al. Postnatal Enalapril to Improve Cardiovascular Function Following Preterm Preeclampsia (PICk-UP):,(2020). DOI: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.120.15875
A woman delivered a baby boy inside IndiGo's Delhi-Bengaluru flight on Wednesday, according to an official statement. In response to a query from PTI, IndiGo said: "We confirm that a baby boy was delivered prematurely on flight 6E 122 from Delhi to Bengaluru. There are no further details available." "A baby boy was born enroute on the Delhi-Bengaluru 6E 122 flight that landed at the Bengaluru airport around 7.30 PM today," an aviation industry source told PTI.

Both the mother and baby boy are healthy. People on Social Media are speculating if the baby boy will get a lifetime free air ticket in the IndiGo flights?

Its not something new, but is incredibly rare and depends from airline to airline. Back in 2017, Jet Airways gave free flight tickets for life to a boy born on one of its flights between Saudi Arabia and India.

The flight, which was bound for Kochi from Saudi Arabia was diverted to Mumbai, where the mother and baby were taken to a hospital.

In a similar move, budget carrier AirAsia, in 2009, did the same for a Malaysian mother and her son. Cebu Pacific, a Filipino airline gifted one million air miles to the baby girl born enroute Dubai to Manila flight.

However, not all airlines are generous and we have to wait to hear from Indigo for the same.

Further details are awaited.

With Inputs from PTI
US Vice President Mike Pence and his Democratic challenger, California Senator Kamala Harris, are set to face off in the vice presidential debate on Wednesday evening (US time). During the debate, Harris, a staunch critic of President Donald Trumps handling of Covid-19 crisis and Pence, administrations coronavirus task force head, are expected to present starkly different visions for a country confronting multiple crises.

The debate, scheduled to be broadcast at 9 pm EDT (6:30 am IST on Thursday) and hosted at the University of Utah, is being considered as one of the most highly anticipated vice presidential debates in recent memory. It will be 90 minutes long and divided into nine 10-minute segments.

Viewers can catch all the action live as all major networks will be broadcasting the debate. It will also be streaming live on social media platforms including YouTube.

Here is what to expect from the vice presidential debate:

Two versions of countrys Covid-19 battle

The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to dominate the proceedings as Pence is expected to defend the countrys fight led by Donald Trump during the debate. While Harris is expected to highlight the governments failure in endorsing face masks and how Trump constantly downplayed the pandemic.

The United States is still reeling under Covid-19, as many as 210,000 Americans have lost their lives to the deadly disease. The pandemic has also caused a massive economic crisis with millions of Americans filing for unemployment.

Too liberal Harris

A Joe Biden campaign official said Harris has prepared for Pence to attack her as too liberal, echoing Trumps assertion that the moderate Biden will advance a radical left-wing agenda if elected, news agency Reuters reported.

Lesser drama

Though this debate may not match the sheer chaos that took place in the presidential debate when Trump repeatedly interrupted Biden and the two traded insults. It is expected to be fiery as Pence, who once hosted a radio show as a congressman, will debate with Harris who is a former prosecutor and is known for sharp questioning during Senate hearings.

White supremacy

After Biden nomination, Harris became the first Black woman to appear on a major partys vice presidential ticket. As she faces off with Pence, who is white, Harris is expected grill Pence over Trumps comments at the last debate where he declined to denounce white supremacy groups. During the first debate, the moderator asked whether Trump would condemn white supremacy. Trump responded saying, he mostly sees violence from the left-wing.

Gender issues

Trump presidency has already been marred by criticism from various woman rights activists who accused the President of being sexist. Wednesdays debate is featuring Harris and another woman as the moderator as against to the last debate, gender dynamics are expected to take a fair share of spotlight.

Trump tweets

Trump who is known for his barrage of tweets, is expected to resume his habit as the debate will unfold in the evening.
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Linkedin Renaud Nicolle (The Jakarta Post) Singapore  Wed, October 7, 2020 14:10 473 e22cd4161040e111d73a5626c49a4f4a 3 Opinion travel,new-normal,new-normal-in-Indonesia,tourism-industry,tourism Free

Since the COVID-19 crisis closed national borders, the message from local travel and tourism providers and the government has been clear: plan a holiday at home. Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Wishnutama Kusubandio has urged Indonesians to support local businesses and rethink their domestic travel plans.

As authorities relax social distancing restrictions and Indonesia transitions to what the government calls a new normal, travel providers will need to win back the hearts and minds of travelers. As the industry contemplates and explores new ways to recover, we believe it will take a community response to get the world traveling again. Technology and innovation will be a powerful enabler of change.

As a travel technology provider, were committed to working together with our customers, partners and the wider industry to rethink travel ultimately ensuring it continues to be a key driver of global progress, positivity and prosperity.

Modern technology is giving the travel industry the opportunity to evolve at a pace that was never possible just a few decades ago. Flexible, scalable and cloud-enabled tools coupled with agile working practices allow companies to develop new innovations quickly. Data-led artificial intelligence and machine learning can speed up operational and commercial readiness at an unprecedented pace.

Here are some ways Indonesias travel industry can retool, reinvent and rebound higher than before.

Despite the unknowns that lie ahead, COVID-19 has not tempered our appetite for travel. Rather, it has changed our preferences. In Amadeus Destination X: Where to Next research, 72 percent of Asia Pacific travelers prefer domestic travel for their next holiday getaway, but more than one third of Asia Pacific travelers want upfront knowledge of COVID-19 prevention measures for air travel and hotels options.

Airports, airlines and travel providers in Indonesia should proactively implement strict safety and hygiene standards to ensure travelers can move swiftly and safely with minimal contact with other passengers. Airlines such as Garuda Indonesia and AirAsia currently require travelers to present negative COVID-19 test results, along with other documents such as valid health certificates, prior to departure.

There is also increasing demand for airports to provide rapid, automated testing services for travelers, particularly those located in tourist hot spots such as SoekarnoHatta Airport in Tangerang, Banten. As travelers reevaluate travel on cleanliness and hygiene factors, touchless check-in kiosks and facial recognition technology will become the norm, as well as offairport check-in to minimize overcrowding at airports. The ability to change travel plans last minute without incurring hefty change fees is also a high priority.

The gold standard for booking and purchasing travel will be the ability for travelers to defer to another date, with no expiry data, no penalty and no additional cost, within reason. Travel companies will need to plan for shorter booking windows with extra flexibility and relaxed cancellation fees to shore up consumer confidence.

Prior to COVID-19, over-tourism was a growing issue for popular tourist destinations in Indonesia, with the government forced to limit the number of visitors or even close sites to prevent over-crowding, pollution and other environmental impacts. The Sustainable Travel Report by Booking. com also reveals that more travelers are factoring in sustainability when choosing where, how and with whom to travel.

As restrictions begin to ease, now is a good time for the travel and tourism industry to not simply return to business as usual, but to shape a more sustainable future of travel in Indonesia. Travel companies and tour operators need to support consumers to make considered purchasing decisions and travel in more purposeful ways, such as visiting national parks during off-season or volunteering in local communities.

In a recent traveler survey by Amadeus, travelers most commonly defined sustainable and responsible travel as putting the locals first. Travel companies can provide resources to help travelers support local initiatives such as trekking with local guides, enrolling in a local language course or attending a local festival, and choose certified businesses with sustainable practices such as ecolodges and wildlife tours.

Guiding travelers to greener flights by giving them the option to compare emissions is another way to empower them to decrease their travel and tourism footprint. The United Nations has urged the travel sector to halve its combined carbon emissions by 2035 and we can expect more airlines to look at carbon offset projects that focus on renewable energy or CO2 capture as people demand cleaner air travel.

In order to rethink the future of travel, we must ask ourselves how we can rebuild in a way that was better than before. The travel industry has always been a driver of economic growth in Indonesia. Now is the time to form new partnerships and collaborations in the industry so that we can maximize the contribution of travel to the economic, social, and cultural well-being of the country  and the world.

To revitalize domestic demand, the Indonesian government recently ratified COVID-19 health protocols for the tourism sector. Developed by the health and tourism ministries and industry stakeholders, the Cleanliness, Health and Safety (CHS) protocol for accommodation, tourist attractions, transportation and events focus on health and hygiene to ensure a safe travel experience in Indonesia during COVID-19.

Recently, the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) and Indonesia National Air Carriers Association (INACA) announced a partnership to create attractive travel packages to boost domestic consumption. To provide affordable travel, both associations plan to create flight and hotel bundle packages for solo and group travelers, which would be accessible through the websites of all participating airlines and hotels.

There is no doubt that many people and businesses in Indonesia and beyond have suffered incredible losses over the last few months and there are tough times ahead. However, the coronavirus crisis offers us an unexpected opportunity to think imaginatively about how, together, we can recover better. By focusing on safety, sustainability and partnerships, we can start local first, to inspire the world to travel again.

***

Vice president, business travel in Asia Pacific at Amadeus. The views expressed are his own.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
MALAWI President Lazarus Chakwera is expected to arrive on Wednesday in Tanzania for a three-day state visit aimed at strengthening bilateral ties between the two nations.

According to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and East Africa Cooperation Prof Palamagamba Kabudi, the visiting Chakwera and his host President John Magufuli are expected to lay the foundation stone for Mbezi Luis Bus Terminal on the outskirts of the city.

Briefing reporters in Dar es Salaam, Prof Kabudi said the visit by President Chakwera is in fulfillment of President Magufuli's invitation extended to the Malawian leader.

This is President Chakwera's first state visit since he took over the high office in Malawi in June this year.

Prior to his visit to Tanzania, he conducted a one -day working visit in Zambia and Zimbabwe respectively.

Prof Kabudi said the laying of the foundation stone at the new bus terminal is part of the activities planned for the Malawian leader while in Tanzania.

"The laying of the foundation stone at the new bus terminal signifies the cooperation between the two countries in promoting development projects," Prof Kabudi said.

The 22million US dollars (about 51bn/-) modern bus terminal will have capacity to ac commodate 3,430 buses per day upon completion.

Upon his arrival in the country, President Chakwera will be received by his host Dr Magufuli and accorded a state reception.

"The president of Malawi will also have an opportunity to visit Dar es Salaam Port and Malawi Cargo Centre which has been an important mark for the cooperation between the two countries," Prof Kabudi said.

The minister recalled that Tanzania and Malawi have been cooperating in various fields including social, economic, political, security and defence and regional affairs, especially in the South African Development Community ( SADC) and African Union (AU).

The two countries have been cooperating in executing joint projects, including the construction of One Stop Border Post (OSBP) at Songwe/ Kasumulo Border and Songwe River Valley projects.

He added that Tanzania and Malawi are also cooperating in improving infrastructure in the Mtwara corridor.

Prof Kabudi further hinted out that the trade relations between the two countries was stronger, noting that Malawi is among the countries which have invested in Tanzania mainly focusing on various sectors including finance, manufacturing, transport, construction, agriculture and oil.

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According to Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) until September this year, there were eight registered projects from Malawi worth US dollars 30.11 million which provided employment to 390 Tanzanians.

He also noted that some companies from Tanzania have also invested in Malawi.

Prof Kabudi noted that statistics from Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) show that Tanzanian exports to Malawi has increased from 111,802.70m/- in 2015 to 130,758.10 in 2019 while imports have increased from 26,999.05m/- in 2015 to 55,263.70m/- in 2019.

He said the trade growth has been contributed by the efforts by two countries to improve the transport sector, increase production and continued efforts to minimize Non -Trade Barriers (NTBs).

Prof Kabudi noted that in the past five years Tanzania has continued to strengthen its relationship with her neighbours and other countries around the world.

"The relationship between Tanzania and her neighbours is excellent as ever, and indeed the state visit by the Malawian President is another milestone in demonstrating how Tanzania is cooperating with her neighbours," he said.

"The state visit by the Malawi President will strengthen and further elevate the cooperation between Malawi, Tanzania and countries that surround us."
Former California congresswoman Katie Hill says her old government Twitter account was hacked after someone claiming to an ex-staffer posted a series of tweets overnight accusing her of being a #MeToo perpetrator who caused 'immense harm' to her employees.

The alleged hacking occurred soon after news emerged on Tuesday that actress Elisabeth Moss was set to portray Hill in an upcoming film adaption of the ex-congresswoman's recent memoir.

Hill resigned last year after she was accused of having an affair with her male legislative director, her three-way relationship with her husband and a female staffer was made public and a series of nude photos were leaked.

She released a memoir title She Will Rise last month claiming her now estranged husband Kenny Heslep bullied her into having a throuple, emotionally abused her and told her to kill herself.

Someone claiming to a be a former staffer immediately started tweeting from Hill's government account, which hasn't been used since she resigned in October 2019, saying they were disappointed by the news of the upcoming biopic.

Former California congresswoman Katie Hill says her old government Twitter account was hacked after someone claiming to an ex-staffer posted a series of tweets overnight accusing her of being a #MeToo perpetrator

The staffer accused Hill of being both a victim and perpetrator who allegedly instigated workplace abuse and harassment.

While the staffer noted that Hill was a survivor of abuse, they claimed that she also caused 'immense harm' to those who worked for her.

'This is an incredibly sensitive situation. We appreciate the instinct to defend our former boss, an LGBTQ+ woman who faced abuse from her husband,' the first tweet read.

'What happened to Katie Hill shouldnt happen to anyone. But, this moment requires more nuance, as Katie Hills story - our story - is also one of workplace abuse and harassment.

'Katie Hill can be both a victim and perpetrator.'

The staffer said that employees could face 'severe consequences' for speaking out against their 'powerful' boss.

'No one should have to put themselves in harms way for the public to understand a simple truth: Katie Hill is not a hero for women. We deserve heroes who embody our values even in the most difficult moments,' the staffer wrote.

'Katie Hill was never investigated by the House Ethics Committee, nor has she been held accountable by anyone other than herself. We encourage everyone to reflect deeply before taking her word at face value.

'Katie took advantage of her subordinates. She caused immense harm to the people who worked for her, many of whom were young women just beginning their careers in politics.

'Workplace abuse and harassment can take many different forms, but one thing is certain: it is never okay, even if your boss is a woman and/or a survivor.

'Believe us when we say: its not only about who starts it, its also about who ends it. And, while Katie is certainly the survivor of abuse, we are not confident that she sufficiently acted to end her own patterns of inappropriate and abusive behavior.

'Enough is enough. In order to advance the #MeToo movement, we must be willing to acknowledge the problematic behaviors among those in our own communities. Only then will we see true progress. #TimesUp #MeToo'

Hill later tweeted from her personal account saying her old government account had been hacked by someone claiming to be a former staffer and that she had reported it to Twitter.

'Control of my account was immediately handed back to the House Clerk when I resigned, including password changes and access restrictions. God knows who hacked it from there,' Hill tweeted.

She did not address the allegations made by the former staffer.

Her memoir, which was only published in August, was optioned by Blumhouse Television for a biopic on a streaming service.

Hill will act as an executive producer on the project.

When news of the biopic was revealed, Moss - who will play Hill - said she was honored to help tell the former congresswoman's story.

'Her strength and work to amplify women's voices is incredibly inspiring to me and her experiences could not be more important for us to magnify right now,' Moss said.

Hill has said she wrote the memoir in a bid to 'take back my story from those who have exploited and twisted it'.

In the memoir, Hill said her husband bullied her into having a throuple, emotionally abused her and told her to kill herself.

Her estranged husband's claim that she was having an affair with her campaign finance director Graham Kelly sparked a House Ethics Committee Investigation.

Hill, who was at the time vice chair of the House Oversight Committee, denied the affair with Kelly but resigned three days later.

Hill resigned last year after her three-way relationship with her husband and a female staffer Morgan Desjardins was made public and a series of nude photos were leaked. The trio are pictured above together

She also opened up about bringing a then-22-year-old campaign staffer into her marriage and the political firestorm when the three-way relationship was discovered.

In her memoir, Hill wrote that it was her husband's idea to bring other women into their marriage and that he went on dating and other websites trying to recruit other women.

She admitted that her relationship with her young campaign staffer, who she named only as 'M', was 'inappropriate' and apologized for getting too close to her team.

The staffer was identified as Morgan Desjardins.

'Far too often, I saw and treated my staff as friends and peers when, in retrospect, they deserved clear boundaries rooted in professionalism and a boss who took personal responsibility for their professional well-being at all times,' Hill said.

'Worst of all, I had a relationship with a campaign staffer. I understand power dynamics. I know that having a relationship with someone on my staff is inappropriate. I know that especially in the era of #MeToo, there is a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to relationships like this.

'I had known for a long time that my relationship with my husband was bad. I knew that M, the woman who had worked on my campaign and with whom I had developed a relationship despite my better judgment, was sucked into it now and it was my fault for exposing her to it in the first place.'

Hill also detailed in the memoir that she contemplated committing suicide after quitting Congress and she had come close to killing herself a year earlier in an attempt to escape her allegedly abusive marriage.
Desde Ayacucho, el presidente @MartinVizcarraC, junto a los titulares del @MindefPeru y @minagriperu, inaugura el Centro de Asistencia y Aislamiento Temporal, instalacion que aumenta en 100 camas hospitalarias la atencion de pacientes COVID-19.

?? https://t.co/TaKjYADyqx
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have 'burnt significant bridges beyond repair' and the Duchess of Sussex 'won't ever want a way back after discovering that the royal family is no place for someone with political ambition', a royal expert has claimed.

The Duke, 36, and Duchess of Sussex, 39, who now live in a $14million mansion in Santa Barbara, with their son Archie, one, appear to 'not be bothered' by their decision to leave the Firm and move to the US, according to Penny Junor.

Writing in the Mirror, the biographer observed that while Prince Harry may improve his relationship with his brother Prince William - with the pair thought to not be as close as they once were, it's unlikely Meghan will ever want to return to the institution.

She suggested the former actress, who has been vocal in recent weeks in urging Americans to vote, couldn't achieve her desire to change the world while working as a senior member of the royal family.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry (pictured) have 'burnt significant bridges beyond repair' and the Duchess of Sussex 'won't ever want a way back after discovering that the royal family is no place for someone with political ambition', a royal expert has claimed

'In the past few months, Harry and Meghan have burnt some significant bridges that may be beyond repair,' Penny said.

'Right now, that doesn't seem to bother them. And I can't see Meghan ever wanting a way back. What she discovered in her brief spell as a working member, is the British royal family is no place for someone with political ambition.

'This centuries-old institution provides an unparalleled platform for charitable work  to change and improve people's lives  but it is not the springboard for changing the world  however burning and evident the need.'

However, Penny suggested that Harry doesn't have the same political ambitions and instead his passion lies with helping disadvantaged people.

She added that it's likely 'he will find his way back' one day as it took a long time for the prince to discover his talents.

The Duke, 36, and Duchess of Sussex, 39, who now live in Santa Barbara, with their son Archie, one, appear to 'not be bothered' by their decision to leave the Firm and move to the US, according to Penny Junor. Pictured: Meghan, Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate in March

Last month, a source close to Meghan claimed the royal would 'seriously consider running for president' if she and Prince Harry ever 'gave up their titles'.

It came after the duke and duchess recorded a video message for Times 100 urging Americans to vote, just weeks before the November 3 elections.

'One of the reasons she was so keen not to give up her American citizenship was so she had the option to go into politics,' a source close to the couple told Vanity Fair's Katie Nicholl.

'I think if Meghan and Harry ever gave up their titles she would seriously consider running for president.'

However, others working closely with the former Suits actress claimed she has no intentions of a career in politics.

'While there's no denying she is interested and engaged in politics as a topic, she harbours no ambition to enter a career in politics herself,' a well-placed source told the publication.

Harry and Meghan appeared in the Time 100 video to go with the publication's list of the most influential people in 2020, which does not include the royal couple.

During the video message, the duke urged people to 'reject hate speech' while the duchess called it the 'most important election of our lifetime' in remarks which made waves on both sides of the Atlantic.
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether to protect Alphabet Inc's Google from a long-running lawsuit by Oracle Corp accusing it of infringing Oracle copyrights to build the Android operating system that runs most of the world's smartphones. The shorthanded court, down one justice following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month, began hearing oral arguments in Google's appeal of a lower court ruling reviving the lawsuit in which Oracle has sought at least $8 billion in damages. The arguments were conducted by teleconference because of the coronavirus ...
Exploring regional initiative benefits to UK fishing: Webinar

October 07,2020 | Source: FiskerForum

An All Party Parliamentary Group on Fisheries webinar held last week was attended by a record number of attendees. Presented by an expert panel, and attended by interested MPs, Peers, and a range of stakeholders from the UK fishing industry, the event explored how regional decision-making was helping to improve fisheries management and the welfare of fishing communities across the country.



A panel representing a diverse range of fisheries initiatives presented case studies that explored the successes and challenges of local decision-making for UK fisheries management.



Leader of Plymouth City Council Tudor Evans actively engages with the citys fishing community, and shared some positive experiences from this close collaboration. Plymouth City Council have supported an initiative to increase use of lifejackets and are working with the fishing industry on a plan to build a world-class centre for fishing.



We hope that the models we have created in Plymouth could be utilised by other committees and organisations across the country, he said.



Fisheries management can be highly dynamic, and regional decision-making has allowed us to respond quickly to changes in fishing effort and sectoral conflicts, said Tim Smith, Senior Environmental and Scientific Officer for the North Eastern Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (NEIFCA). Local knowledge and industry research participation have been vital in addressing environmental concerns and the potential impacts of gear conflict.



He attributes NEIFCAs collaborative and consultative approach to helping Yorkshires inshore dredge scallop fishery to become sustainable and successful.



Management of the inshore Yorkshire dredge fishery has benefitted multiple fishery sectors and the coastal communities that rely on them. Through a collaborative and consultative approach NEIFCA has secured a sustainable scallop fishery that takes into account both the local environment and other sea users.,he said, adding that the approach adopted by NEIFCA has been praised as an example of best practice in scallop dredge management.



Assessing and establishing go fish areas that have been agreed on by all relevant parties increases stakeholder buy in and compliance, and is seen as preferable to more traditional management approaches, he said.



Considering whether localised successes could be replicated elsewhere around the UK coast, Chris Williams, Senior Programme Manager at the New Economic Foundation, cautioned; future funding should consider the capacity of fishing organisations to apply for funds and ensure that they are given the support they need to apply effectively.



He spoke about working with Graham Doswell and the Eastbourne Quay Project: a fisher-led programme that has overcome challenges brought on by contractors going into administration and the effects of the pandemic. The new Eastbourne fishing quay has now entered the first phase of construction  developing the quay and its facilities for the benefit of the fishermen who use it.



The first phase of the project is being built, it has created local employment throughout the construction as this was a planning condition that local labour must be used. Once the facility comes on-line in March/April 2021 it will create 4 FTE job in processing, ice production, running the CIC and Quay as well as the on-site fishmongers. Value addition through local retail will also increase prices for the local fishing fleet, he said, commenting that local context matters and not every port with a fishing fleet needs the same type of infrastructure.



The fleets, fishery and local markets are always different so the investment needs are also different. Building a Community Economic Development plan and working with the local authority as well as the County Council and LEP have been very important to ensure the development meets the current needs and opportunities., he said.



There are aspects of this project which are not replicable as they have been delivered by NEF and funded through a 3rd sector organisation. Future funding should consider the capacity of fishing organisations to apply for funds and ensure that they are given the support they need to apply effectively.



Mike Simmonds, a Fisheries Network Coordinator who has worked at national and regional levels, spoke about how more joined-up thinking could help streamline efforts between sectors and national and regional decision-makers for maximum effectiveness. He said that to make effective local decisions, every stage of the supply chain needs to be communicating effectively, and that local authorities and Local Enterprise Partnerships are best placed to determine local fishing industry needs.



APPG on Fisheries parliamentary member Peter Aldous MP shared insights into the work of the Renaissance of the East Anglian Fisheries (REAF), which  through support from all sectors  has developed the UKs first regional fishing strategy. Their recommendations include investment in a regional fishing port, so it can expand its capacity to accommodate landings and vessel activity. He said that their success can provide a template for similar efforts elsewhere in the UK, but agreed with earlier presenters when he emphasised that bespoke evidence-gathering and regionally-relevant approaches are necessary to ensure success.

  2004 - 2019 FiskerForum

Theme(s): Fisheries Development and Aquaculture.
Win McNamee

What if President Donald Trump refuses to go is the question comedian Bill Maher asked, as a joke, on his HBO program back on Jan 25. The same notion was mentioned in Alex Yatsevitchs letter "Valid concerns about transfer of power," Sept. 23, and David Brooks' column "If Trump won't go, then what?" Sept. 7). The idea, as a serious consideration, now has been the subject of commentary in various news media.

The 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states the presidents term ends at noon on Jan. 20. It also has provisions that determine what is to be done when there is no president-elect. If Trump decides to fight in court, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, would assume the office of the president under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947.
One of the most overlooked achievements of President Trumps nearly four years in office came recently, when the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain announced that they will normalize relations with Israel in a deal known as the Abraham Accords.

On one level, it is understandable that this story got lost in the news. The world is still fighting the greatest pandemic of our lifetimes, the West Coast is battling wildfires, and hurricane season is affecting the Gulf Coast. Even so, this is a momentous agreement.

In the deal, the UAE and Bahrain agreed to formally establish diplomatic relations with Israel. This makes them just the third and fourth Arab countries to do so, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.

While this deal doesnt guarantee peace in the Middle East, it does represent the end of an era of politics in the region. Since Israels establishment after World War II, most other countries in the Middle East have viewed them as an adversary rather than as a potential friend. Israel is the worlds only Jewish state, and they are the only democracy in the Middle East.
The Nai Harn Phuket rated No. 2 in Thailand in Conde Nast Readers Choice Award

PHUKET: Conde Nast Traveler has announced the results of its annual Readers Choice Awards with The Nai Harn Phuket recognised as the #2 Resort in Thailand.

tourism

By The Phuket News

Wednesday 7 October 2020, 10:07AM

In the popular survey, more than 715,000 Conde Nast Traveler readers submitted responses rating their travel experiences across the globe.

The results of this years survey, conducted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, are a testament to the lasting power of a meaningful travel experience, said Jesse Ashlock, US Editor of Conde Nast Traveler. The winners represent the best of the best for our audience and offer plenty of trip-planning inspiration for all the adventures we cant wait to have next.

The Conde Nast Traveler Readers Choice Awards are the longest-running and most prestigious recognition of excellence in the travel industry. The full list of winners can be found here.

"We are absolutely delighted," said The Nai Harn General Manager Frank Grassmann. It is always a great honour being on the list of the Top 20 Resorts in Thailand and to rub shoulders with the finest in the industry as we seek to set new levels of luxurious and unique experiences in Phuket.

"To be voted 2nd best resort in Thailand this year by the very cosmopolitan and travel experienced readership of Conde Nast Traveler is the accomplishment of great efforts from our entire team, and another step to promoting our iconic resort as a preferred destination in the beautiful south of Phuket.

Due to ongoing travel restrictions, we are currently focusing on welcoming our fellow Thailand Residents who can discover the property with exclusive promotions, he added.

The 2020 Readers Choice Awards are published on Conde Nast Travelers website at www.cntraveler.com/rca and celebrated in the November issue of Conde Nast Traveler US and UK print editions.
An attorney for the white Texas police officer charged for murder after fatally shooting a Black man outside a convenience store last weekend said his client discharged his weapon "in accordance with Texas law" after Jonathan Price tried to take away his taser.

The Texas Rangers charged Wolfe City officer Shaun Lucas with murder on Monday night. The 22-year-old was booked into the Hunt County Jail, where his bail was set at $1 million, according to jail records.

"Officer Lucas only discharged his weapon in accordance with Texas law when he was confronted with an aggressive assailant who was attempting to take his taser," Robert L. Rogers, the attorney, told USA TODAY in an emailed statement Tuesday.

Lucas shot Price after responding to a disturbance call Saturday night "for a possible fight in progress," officials said.

The officer tried to detain Price "who resisted in a non-threatening posture and began walking away," according to the Rangers' statement. Lucas then used a Taser on Price before shooting him with his service weapon, officials said.

"The preliminary investigation indicates that the actions of Officer Lucas were not objectionably reasonable," officials said.

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Lucas had been with the Wolfe City Police Department for less than six months, according to records from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. He previously worked as a jailer with the Hunt County's Sheriff's Office for about five months.

Price was a former Hardin-Simmons University student and football player. He worked in his hometown as a city employee and personal trainer.

Kyla Sanders, who was at a store across the street at the time of the shooting, told WFAA-TV that Price was a "pillar of the community."

The 31-year-old's mother, Marcella Louis, said she was able to sleep Monday night after learning of the officer's arrest.

Story continues

"My son didn't deserve this," she said. "He really didn't. He helped everybody in this community and had a big heart and spirit. I'm going to miss just seeing his smiling face."

Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who is representing Price's family, said the murder charge is a "step" toward justice.

"This is step one. Lets see it through to justice," Merritt said on Twitter.

Contributing: N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY; Jordan Hofeditz, Abilene (Texas) Reporter News; The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jonathan Price shooting: Texas officer followed the law, attorney says
Concerned over large gatherings during campaigning for the upcoming Bihar assembly elections and bypolls in several states amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Election Commission on Wednesday reduced the maximum number of 'star campaigners' for recognised national and state parties from 40 to 30.





For unrecognised registered political parties, the maximum number of star campaigners has been brought down to 15 in place of 20 "during the period of pandemic".

In a letter to all chief electoral officers, the Commission said the period of submission of the list of star campaigners has been extended from 7 days to 10 days from the date of notification for a particular phase of polling.



India has eight recognised national political parties -- Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Nationalist Congress Party, Trinamool Congress, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India-Marxist and National People's Party.

The Commission said it was informed during the visit to Bihar about the matter of large gatherings because of the presence of star campaigners.

During a press conference on October 1, clarifications were sought about the potential health concerns during such visits, especially huge crowds gathering during the landing of helicopters.



"The matter was further deliberated in the Commission today (Wednesday). After considering all facts and circumstances emerging due to pandemic and keeping a balance between the requirement of campaign by the political parties, (the) Commission has decided to revise the norms of star campaigners," the letter said.



The three-phased assembly elections in Bihar will be held on October 28, November 3 and November 7.



Various bypolls to vacant assembly seats across states will take place on November 3 and 7.



The Valmiki Nagar Lok Sabha seat in Bihar will also go for bypoll on November 7.



Political parties, which have already submitted a list of star campaigners, will have to resubmit a revised list with lesser number of such celebrity campaigners within the stipulated period.

"Request for permission for the campaigning by star campaigners shall be submitted to the district election authorities at least 48 hours before the start of campaign so that all necessary safety measures are put in place by all concerned stakeholders well in time," the letter said.
The city is woollier than its been in a while  everyone seems to be crimping the usual boundaries. E-bikes and scooters zip through the middle of the street, and restaurants have annexed the pavement outside their doors in hopes of keeping their businesses afloat. After a brutal spring and summer of pandemic uncertainty and economic instability, New York is doing its best to pass for its old self, but in truth, things havent felt this unsteady since right after 9/11.

In this context, shopping for anything other than essentials has felt foolish verging on irresponsible. Im still haunted by the last item of discretionary clothing I bought before quarantine  so much so that I wont share it here. Even now that stores are open, that humble jolt of electricity you feel when touching a new, covetable garment is almost always dampened by the rank sweat gathering beneath your mask.

I write this as very much an anxious skeptic who still rushes through the supermarket. Even as stores have reopened, Ive mostly avoided them, no matter that the scientifically driven portion of my brain understands that, in short bursts, its relatively safe.
TORONTO - The Second City comedy theatre  where comedy stars such as Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, John Candy, Bill Murray, Martin Short, Steve Carell, Mike Myers, Tina Fey and others got their start  has been put up for sale.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 7/10/2020 (472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO - The Second City comedy theatre  where comedy stars such as Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, John Candy, Bill Murray, Martin Short, Steve Carell, Mike Myers, Tina Fey and others got their start  has been put up for sale.

In a statement released Tuesday, co-owner Andrew Alexander said a sale presents the opportunity for Second City to succeed well into the future.

What we are seeking is critical re-investment in the business that will allow us to continue to grow in the right ways and with the right resources while remaining an oasis of speaking truth to power and providing vital human connection in an increasingly complex world, Alexander said in the statement released by Los Angeles investment bank, Houlihan Lokey, which is advising Second Citys owners on the sale.

The investment bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how the plans will impact operations in Toronto.

Levy and O'Hara appeared on the theatres television show, SCTV, long before sweeping this years Emmy awards for their work on Schitts Creek. Saturday Night Live trailblazer Gilda Radner is a Second City Toronto alumnus, as is Dan Aykroyd of The Blues Brothers and Ghost Busters fame, Waynes World and Austin Powers star Mike Myers, John Candy of Cool Runnings and Uncle Buck, and Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles of Whose Line is it Anyway?

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Before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company announced plans to open a new location in 2020 for its Toronto mainstage  touting the Second City as a 100 per cent Canadian-owned company," given its owners ties to Canada. The company has also held workshops in London, Ont. Developer Menkes Developments Ltd. was not immediately available to comment on the future of the Toronto mainstage move.

Privately held throughout its 61-year history, Second City suspended all its shows and classes in early March until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Second City also faced controversy in June when Alexander stepped down from the training and performance troupe due to allegations of racism within the company.

Second City is co-owned by Alexander and DArcy Stuart, although its president, Steve Johnston, also has a small equity share. When he stepped down, Alexander said he was going to sell his half of the theatre. The two decided rather than try to sell about half of the institution, it makes more sense to market the entire operation. The theatre was sold once before in the years after Bernie Sahlins, Howard Alk and Paul Sills launched the comedy theatre in 1959.

The theatre has several arms beyond its mainstage theatres, including a long-standing comedy training school, a film school and a corporate division that has maintained much of its revenue by offering online training and education to clients.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 7, 2020.

 With files from the Associated Press.
John Durham, left, is sworn in as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut by Chief U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall in New Haven, Conn., on Feb. 22, 2018. (Courtesy of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut)

The Silent Professionals Strike Again

Commentary

U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen has struck again. Like a silent assassin, you can forget hes out there until he suddenly hands off a fresh batch of newly declassified documents to Michael Flynns lead defense lawyer, Sidney Powell.

Several times now, Jensen has made documentary disclosures from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to the Flynn defense team as part of his investigation into how the FBI and the Mueller special counsel office handled their investigation of Flynn, and each time he has done so, its become increasingly apparent the criminal case against the retired three-star general was built based upon fraud, lies, and omissions.

The more documents Jensen has discovered, declassified, and disclosed, the more corrupt the FBI Crossfire Hurricane and Mueller special counsel teams end up looking.

All the exculpatory documents in the Flynn false statement case were classified to keep them out of the hands of his lawyers.

Not until Attorney General William Barr appointed Jensen to investigate the multiple strange irregularities surrounding the Flynn case did the truth emerge. The documents Jensen found, gave to Powell, and unsealed in court directly led to the DOJ filing to dismiss the case.

The long-hidden and previously classified documents demonstrated that Flynn had been the target of a criminal conspiracy to first get him fired as Trumps national security adviser, and then to prosecute him for a nonexistent crime.

A Stunning Revelation About Durham

From text messages contained in Powells explosive new filing, its been confirmed for the first time that U.S. Attorney John Durham had already conducted at least one interview with DOJ/FBI personnel in May 2017. And theres no doubt this interview was part of investigations into Spygate-related leaking campaigns.

In fact, text messages exchanged by FBI personnel in April 2017 show their concern that the leaking investigation they were discussing wasnt going to be handled by the DOJs internal National Security Division as they had expected. Instead, it turns out that then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions was giving that investigation to Durham.

And by May, these FBI officials were texting each other about their interviews with Durham, which demonstrates that Durham wasted no time in getting his investigation started.

Stunning Developments in the Past Week

The truth of when Durham first began investigating Spygate wasnt the only stunning recent development.

There was also:

The Senate Report (pdf)Hunter Biden allegedly had been handed millions of dollars from foreign sources while his father was vice president of the United States. While his position on the corporate board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had been widely discussed, this report contained much stunning new informationincluding how the younger Biden had been wired more than $3.5 million by a Putin associate.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) declassification letterFormer FBI Director James Comey was sent an investigative referral by the intelligence community in September 2016 regarding information that the Clinton campaign was preparing to launch a fake Russia scandal targeting the Trump campaign.

It should be noted with keen interest that Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe did this declassification just one day prior to Comeys scheduled testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Why Declassification Matters

According to former DNI Richard Grenell, the Spygate plotters and their enablers have long resorted to the tactic of classifying anything thats exculpatory or counts against the narrative they were pursuing.

Recall the loud complaining from people such as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) when Grenell declassified over 50 transcripts of congressional testimony from Spygate participants that had been held from public view for more than two years.

While these transcripts were hidden, Schiff and other Russiagate hoaxers were quite free to make extravagant claims about evidence they had supposedly seen of Trump/Russia collusion.

Once the public could see the transcripts for themselves, it became apparent that not only had none of those testifying ever seen any evidence of collusion, but Schiff and others had also been lying for more than two years.

It should be crystal clear by now to all but the most rabid of partisans, the Russiagate hoax was only advanced and sustained over the past four years by hiding information. The key tactic used to hide the key information from the public was to classify it.

The more that the carefully and selectively hidden information emerges, the more the Spygate scandal continues to grow. Because, as Ive often said, the Russiagate hoax was always 100 percent fake, and the ever-growing Spygate scandal is 100 percent real.

The Clinton Campaign Fully Exposed

The first major blow to the Russiagate hoax was the Mueller special counsel investigation coming to an end with a whimper and not the long-anticipated bang.

The second major blow was the release of DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitzs FISA abuse report in December 2019.

And the third major blowthe killing blow, as it wereis this latest declassification from Ratcliffe, which reveals that top law enforcement and intelligence agency officials enthusiastically pursuing the Trump campaign for supposed Russian collusion were aware all along that this was a fabrication of the Clinton campaign.

They suppressed key information by classifying it and continued their enthusiastic pursuit of the Trump team anyway.

And now theyre caught.

Brian Cates is a writer based in South Texas and the author of Nobody Asked For My Opinion  But Here It Is Anyway! He can be reached on Twitter @drawandstrike.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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The global Halal Pharmaceuticals Market is anticipated to reach USD 34.82 billion by 2026 according to a new study published by Polaris Market Research.

The significant growth in the Halal Pharmaceuticals Market is primarily due to the rapid increase in the Muslim population, along with their improving disposable income. Increasing purchasing power and deepening belief in Shariah law together is responsible for creating a surge in demand for halal pharmaceuticals. Shariah law is derived from the Quran and is basically a collection of practices, words, habits, and silent approvals. As per the law, products containing the discharge of human beings or animals, and in direct or indirect contact with non-halal items. Moreover, it must not contain traces of things that are unfit for human consumption such as poison, and toxic elements.

Halal pharmaceuticals are expected to be prepared under a controlled environment to avoid any cross-contamination with non-halal utilities, materials, and ingredient. Extra care is taken in the manufacturing of these pharmaceuticals as no contamination will be tolerated. Rapid growth in demand has encouraged the Halal Pharmaceuticals Market players to actively indulge in activities that are aimed at or new product development.

Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/halal-pharmaceuticals-market/request-for-sample

Growing Muslim population is showcasing a high interest in halal pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. This can be attributed to the increasing consumer awareness about the deepening beliefs and growing knowledge that pharmaceuticals contain alcohol, porcine-by products, and their derivatives, among other non-halal contents or ingredients that are against Islamic beliefs.

The Halal Pharmaceuticals Market experience tough challenge in defining proper regulation and standards. Recently, American pharmaceuticals companies expressed their concerns over the guidelines by Malaysias Ministry of Health (MOH). These guidelines were focused towards defining the permissible items in pharmaceuticals in accordance with Islam. The concern was highlighted in the annual submission to the United States Trade Representative by the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

The Halal Pharmaceuticals Market has been segregated based on drug class, type, end-use, and region. By drug class, the market has been divided into allergies, endocrine drugs, pain medications, respiratory drugs, and others. By type, the market has been bifurcated into capsule, syrup, and tablet. The industry experience high demand for end-use applications such as drugs, cosmetics, healthcare, and others.

The Middle East and the Asia Pacific regions Halal Pharmaceuticals Market are expected to witness significant growth in the next eight years due to the presence of a large population of Muslims. Majority of the Muslim population of the world lives in these regions, and they also comprise of emerging nations such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Pakistan that have a high population that follows Islamic beliefs.

Complete Summary with TOC Available @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/halal-pharmaceuticals-market

The list of key companies that are operating in the Halal Pharmaceuticals Market includes Chemical Company of Malaysia Berhad, Rosemont Pharmaceuticals, Bosch Pharmaceuticals, Noor Vitamins, EMBIL Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Nutramedica Incorporated, PharmaniagaBhd, and SimporPharmaSdnBhd, among others.

Halal Pharmaceuticals Market Size and Forecast by Product type Capsule Syrup Tablets

Halal Pharmaceuticals Market Size and Forecast by Regions North America US. Canada Europe Germany UK France Asia Pacific China India Pakistan Latin America Brazil Mexico Middle East & Africa



Avail discount on this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/halal-pharmaceuticals-market/request-for-discount-pricing

About Polaris Market Research

Polaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. We provide unmatched quality of offerings to our clients present globally. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises. We at Polaris are obliged to serve our diverse customer base present across the industries of healthcare, technology, semi-conductors and chemicals among various other industries present around the world. We strive to provide our customers with updated information on innovative technologies, high growth markets, emerging business environments and latest business-centric applications, thereby helping them always to make informed decisions and leverage new opportunities.

Contact us-

Polaris Market Research

Phone: 1-646-568-9980

Email: sales@polarismarketresearch.com

Web: www.polarismarketresearch.com
His partner works alongside him on Coronation Street as a storyline creator.

And Jack P. Shepherd and his girlfriend, Hanni Treweek, enjoyed some quality time together outside of work on Tuesday as they were seen departing San Carlo Italian restaurant in Manchester.

The Coronation Street actor, 32, and his love linked arms as they headed home following their romantic dinner.

Date night: Corrie's Jack P. Shepherd and his girlfriend, Hanni Treweek, enjoyed some quality time together on Tuesday as they were seen departing San Carlo restaurant in Manchester

Jack was seen sporting a black coat and a charcoal acid wash shirt. He paired the casual ensemble with black skinny jeans and Converse trainers.

The soap star sported a rugged stubble and coiffed hairstyle as he strolled through the city centre.

His partner, Hanni, donned white vinyl trousers and a graphic printed top.

Stylish: The Coronation Street actor, 32, was seen sporting a black coat and a charcoal acid wash shirt while his girlfriend opted for a printed top and white vinyl trousers

To keep herself warm from the chilly October weather, she wore a padded black jacket.

Hanni finished off the look with a YSL clutch bag and white heels adorned with gold chains.

The couple moved in together in 2019 in Manchester's Northern Quarter after they began dating in 2017.

Hanni and Jack were reportedly left 'on the edge' in September when their neighbour's house was raided by a 'gang of five' people during an evening burglary.

It is thought that the group managed to get into the home at around 7.30pm on Thursday with the neighbour climbing onto a roof to escape, reported The Sun.

Another neighbour said: 'It's terrifying. It has left everyone on edge. It's just not something that we are used to seeing around here.'

Police later confirmed to the publication that they were called and a man was taken to hospital with minor injuries.

They added: 'Unknown offenders attempted to gain entry to a property before leaving the scene. No arrests have been made and enquiries are ongoing.'
Sasikala to return on Feb 7, Dhinakaran sees changes in TN ahead of arrival

AIADMK goes to police again against Sasikala, alleges conspiracy to unleash violence in TN

Will Sasikala return to AIADMK: Certainly suggests this audio clip

Sasikala visits Jayalalithaa's memorial in Marina beach; first since release from prison

IT department freezes Sasikala's assets worth Rs 2,000 crores

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Oct 07: Income Tax Department on Wednesday froze assets worth Rs 2000 crores owned by late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa''s aide V K Sasikala, serving a four year-term in a corruption case here.

The frozen assets include two properties located in Siruthavur and Kodanadu worth Rs 300 crores.

"Income Tax Department today attached assets belonging to former CM J Jayalalithaa's aide Sasikala in Kodanad and Siruthavur areas of Tamil Nadu. Assets worth Rs 2000 crore frozen," the Income Tax Department said in a statement on Wednesday.

Sasikala, lodged at the Parappana Agrahara Prison here, was convicted and sentenced in February 2017 in the Rs 66 crore disporportionate assets case.

AIADMK calls Palaniswami as its chief ministerial candidate for Tamil Nadu polls

After the Supreme Court restored the trial court judgement in toto against Sasikala and two of her close relatives in the disproportionate assets case,(V N Sudhakaran and J Elavarasi), she surrendered before the court in Karnataka on February 15, 2017 and has been lodged in Parappana Agrahara Central Jail.

Her two relatives are also undergoing four years simple imprisonment and all three of them were slapped with a fine of Rs 10 crore each.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

Sasikala has already spent a total of 35 days in jail in 1997 and 2014 and availed a 17 day parole in 2017, which is deducted from the period she already served, he had said.
Wells Fargo has cut more than 700 commercial banking jobs as part of workforce reductions that could ultimately impact 'tens of thousands' of staff, according to a new report.

The San Francisco-based company has made layoffs for positions across the whole division, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

It comes after the bank became the first major lender to resume job cuts in early August after pausing layoffs in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A company spokesperson on Wednesday confirmed the commercial banking sector has seen 'job displacements' which are expected to extend to 'nearly all functions and business lines.'

Wells Fargo has cut more than 700 commercial banking jobs across the division in the first round of layoffs expected to affect 'tens of thousands' of employees

'We are at the beginning of a multiyear effort to build a stronger, more efficient company for our customers, employees, communities and shareholders,' spokeswoman Katie Ellis told the news outlet.

The cost-cutting effort will see the bank 'reduce the size of our workforce through a combination of attrition, the elimination of open roles and job displacements.'

Ellis said the company is yet to set a target for total number of job reductions.

Wells Fargo said in July it would launch a broad cost-cutting initiative this year as the bank braces for massive loan losses caused by the pandemic and continues to work through expensive regulatory and operational problems tied to a long-running sales scandal.

Layoffs, branch closures and cuts to third-party spending are on the table, the bank's executives had then said.

Big US banks had postponed decisions about staff cuts when the virus outbreak first began to take hold, with executives saying they were unsure how long the outbreak would hurt the economy and worried about being unprepared if business suddenly snapped back.

The coronavirus pandemic has affected major banking institutions across the globe, prompting many to make reductions to their workforce

Goldman Sachs Group Inc said last month it plans to move forward with 'a modest number of layoffs'.

Bloomberg reports about 68,000 job cuts are expected to take place at 30 banks across the world, the majority at London-based HSBC, which earlier this year announced plans to lay off 35,000 people.

At the end of the third quarter earlier this month, financial analysts were predicting big banks to report a 30 to 60 per cent plunge in profits on the year-ago period due to the pandemic-induced recession and near record low interest rates.

Citigroup Inc and Wells Fargo & Co, the third- and fourth-biggest US banks by assets respectively, were estimated to report net income down by about 60 per cent, according to I/B/E/S analyst survey data from Refinitiv.

JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America Corp, which rank first and second in assets respectively, were predicted to show profits down about 30 per cent.

Pandemic-driven lockdowns have put tens of millions of Americans out of work and plunged the US into a recession.

US output is forecast to fall 3.7 per cent in 2020, the Federal Reserve said.

Wells Fargo did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.
For Melbourne to move to step three of the state government's road map for easing restrictions on October 19, Victoria's 14-day average for new coronavirus cases has to be driven below five and there needs to have been five or fewer mystery cases, in total, over the previous 14 days. We are now within that crucial fortnight meaning that the case numbers we see every day are directly determining whether the targets are met and the lockdown is eased.

The graphics below chart how the numbers are tracking compared against the two-week reference period the government will use to make its decision on reopening.

The 14-day average target

The Department of Health and Human Services would not confirm precisely what reference period for the 14-day average it would use for making a decision on October 19. But government sources said the relevant period would be between October 5 and October 18. That means the states needs the total number of new cases to remain under 70 over that period.
MARION  Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sees no long-term impact on the presidency or the presidential campaign from President Donald Trump contracting COVID-19  as long as hes able to get back on the campaign trail by mid-October.

Trump is recovering at the White House after testing positive and being hospitalized for three days with the coronavirus that has so far killed more than 210,000 Americans. Trump has signaled he plans to return to the campaign trail soon.

If he can get out on the campaign trail in the next 11 or 12 days, I dont think it hurts at all, Grassley said Tuesday about Trumps re-election chances.

Grassley, who spoke to the East Side Cedar Rapids Rotary in Marion, predicted it would help the presidents campaign if he can participate in future debates in person rather than virtually, as some people have suggested.

Trump tweeted that he plans to debate Democratic challenger former Vice President Joe Biden in Miami next week.

Grassley, who called the first presidential debate a free-for-all, said Trump missed an opportunity to talk about his accomplishments over the past four years and his vision for the future. He would have liked to hear the president contrast his plans with Bidens plan to raise taxes, for example.

He hopes Vice President Mike Pence, who returned to the campaign trail as soon as Trump announced he would be leaving the hospital Monday, will make the case for four more years when he debates Democratic vice presidential candidate and California Sen. Kamala Harris on Wednesday night in Salt Lake City.

I think that Pence has a wonderful opportunity, because theres so much difference between where Harris and Biden come from, Grassley said. Pence needs to make clear to voters theres a dark line between what one candidate believes versus what the other believes and where theyre going to take the country over the next four years.

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The Assam cabinet on Wednesday decided to notify Bodo as an associate official language of the state.

The development comes nine months after signing of the Bodo Peace Accord among the Centre, the Assam government, four Bodo rebel groups and two Bodo organizations, which included declaring Bodo as associate official language as one of the clauses.

The state cabinet also decided to set up a Bodo Kachari autonomous welfare council for people belonging to Bodo community residing outside 6th Schedule areasanother clause mentioned in the accord signed in January.

The state cabinet has taken two important decisions. Bodo will be the associate official language for the state of Assam. (Setting up of) Bodo Kachari autonomous welfare council outside the 6th Schedule area for welfare of Bodo community, senior Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma tweeted.

The Bodo Peace Accord was signed in January by four militant factions of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) and United Bodo Peoples Organisation (UBPO) with the Centre and Assam government.

Last month, the Assam government announced setting up a commission to redraw the boundary of Bodoland Territorial Areas District (BTAD), which comprises Baksa, Kokrajhar, Udalguri and Chirang districts-one of the accords main clauses.

BTAD has since been named Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) as per another clause in the accord

Elections to Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), which was ruled by Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF), a partner in the BJP-led ruling coalition in the state, was scheduled in April this year, but the entire BTAD was placed under Governors rule the same month as polls couldnt be held due to the Covid-19 lockdown.

On Tuesday, the state government held an all-party meeting to discuss election to BTC where the state health department proposed holding the polls in December in view of the existing Covid-19 scenario.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Utpal Parashar Utpal is an assistant editor based in Guwahati. He covers all eight states of North-East and was previously based in Kathmandu, Dehradun and Delhi with Hindustan Times . ...view detail
Hamilton: The man accused of fatally shooting an Australian tourist in his camper van has pleaded guilty.

And the victim's fiancee  who saw him killed in front of her  said she was "glad he has finally stopped wasting everyones time".

Mark Robert Garson has pleaded guilty to the murder of Australian tourist Sean McKinnon near Raglan, and threatening to kill his fiancee, Bianca Buckley. Credit:Christel Yardley/Waikato Times

Mark Robert Garson was accused of fatally shooting Victorian Sean McKinnon, 33, in August last year, on the north-west coast of New Zealand's North Island.

He pleaded guilty in Hamilton High Court, before Justice Pheroze Jagose, on Wednesday.
- Senior Resident Magistrate Isaac Orenge said the withdrawal of Sudis security was an unfair administrative action in breach of natural rules of justice

- The tough-talking lawmaker in the petition claimed his life was in danger

- His security was withdrawn by the state after he delivered a highly polarising public polemic targeting President Uhuru Kenyatta and his mother Mama Ngina

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Kapseret Member of Parliament Oscar Sudi can now breathe a sigh of relief after a Nakuru Court directed the Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai to restore his security detail.

The tough-talking lawmaker in the petition claimed his life was in danger. Photo: Nation

Source: UGC

While delivering the ruling on Wednesday, October 6, Senior Resident Magistrate Isaac Orenge said the withdrawal of Sudis security was an unfair administrative action in breach of natural rules of justice.

According to Citizen, Sudi congratulated the court for the fair justice saying it provided hope for those subjected to unfair treatment.

Life in danger

As earlier reported by TUKO.co.ke, Sudi had filed a petition before a High Court in Nakuru seeking reinstatement of his security detail.

The tough-talking lawmaker in the petition claimed his life was in danger.

His security was withdrawn by the state after he delivered a highly polarising public polemic targetting President Uhuru Kenyatta and his mother Mama Ngina.

The sentiments rattled the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) officials who called for the arrest of the MP.

He was later arrested and charged with incitement.

Sudi was later released on a cash bail of KSh 500,000 returned to the court on Tuesday, October 6, to challenge the withdraw of his bodyguards.

Sudi's charges

On September 6, the Deputy President William Ruto's ally caused a stir after descending on the First Family with verbal insults that portrayed the two as the source of Kenya's problems.

Sudi blamed the first family for the frustrations the second in command is facing in the Jubilee government.

"We have a lot of pain and bitterness seeing how Ruto is being treated and humiliated by Uhuru Kenyatta. You have disrespected Ruto and the Kalenjin community. Kenya belongs to all Kenyans," Sudi ranted in a video clip that evoked emotions.

President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mama Ngina Kenyatta in a past event. Photo: The Standard.

Source: UGC

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His rant received mixed reactions from different political divides. He however clarified his statement insisting that all mothers were equal.

"I need to make a clarification here, I didn't insult anybody's mother. I just reiterated the fact that my mother, Mama Ngina and all other mothers are equal and they all deserve respect. However, my colleague Johanna Ng'eno was arrested because of mentioning Mama Ngina's name. No one's mother is more special than the other. That's my take," Sudi wrote on his Facebook page.

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Former President John Dramani Mahama has issued a stern warning to the Electoral Commission never to attempt to rig the December 7 elections.

He said no institution, including the Electoral Commission (EC) should try to subvert the will of Ghanaians in the upcoming elections.

Speaking at the launch of the partys election 2020 national campaign at Sefwi Wiawso in the Western North Region, John Mahama said the NDC will actively monitor the elections and related processes to ensure that nothing untoward happens.

We are determined and the Electoral Commission and no institution and anybody can or should try to subvert the will of the Ghanaian people. We have had the concerns to draw the Commissions attention to the many instances of infractions and actions that have not satisfied us, he said.

The former President also said the NDC will police ballots from the constituency to the national level in a bid to ensure that no vote is unaccounted for.

While we are expecting the Electoral Commission will live above reproach, I want to assure you all, that the NDC is very well-prepared, and we will police the ballots from all polling stations through the constituencies to the regional and finally to the national coalition centre, Mr. Mahama added.

John Mahama, who is seeking re-election said the Nana Akufo-Addo administration has worsened Ghanas economic fortunes.

He said, while his government was able to increase Ghanas GDP by over $40 billion within four years, the Akufo-Addo government has increased it by only $4 billion since 2017.

He further indicated that Ghanaians, particularly supporters of the NDC must see the 2020 election as a battle for the countrys future and so must work to vote the NDC government into power like our lives depend upon it.

This is our battle for Ghanas future. Lets embrace it, like our lives depend on it because Ghana deserved to be in a better place where everyone has the chance to thrive and prosper. We will rescue our country, John Mahama added.
New Delhi, Oct 7 : Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is bringing a positive change in the lives of millions of poor, farmers, women and deprived sections of society by empowering them with various historic schemes and initiatives.

He expressed the views while congratulating the Prime Minister on the beginning of his 20th year as a public representative.

In a series of tweets, Shah said "October 7 is a very important day in the history of our country. On this day in 2001, Narendra Modi was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, and from that day onwards, an unstoppable journey dedicated to the cause of the nation and public service was begun which has helped us in achieving new milestones in the country's development every day".

The Home Minister said that "Inspired by the thoughts, vision and charismatic personality of PM Modi, every Indian today is working towards re-establishing India as a 'Vishwa Guru'. It is a matter of great pride for me to work for the welfare of the nation under his extraordinary leadership and guidance".

He added that "if anyone can truly understand the aspirations of 130 crore Indians, then he is none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi". With his visionary thinking, PM Modi is working relentlessly towards creating an India that is strong, modern and self-reliant, said the Home Minister.

Shah said that "as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi brought a revolution of development in the state and now as Prime Minister, he is bringing a positive change in the lives of millions of poor, farmers, women and deprived sections of society by empowering them with various historic schemes and initiatives".

Shah said whether it was bringing Bhuj out from the catastrophic earthquake and placing it on the development path, or making Gujarat a symbol of peace and harmony, or providing the Gujarat model of development and progress to the country through hard work and visionary thinking, it is solely the result of the untiring commitment of Modi ji.
NORTH OLMSTED, Ohio -- Election Day voters in North Olmsted will be deciding four charter amendments, characterized as being mostly of the housekeeping variety.

Two of the charter amendments -- Issues 20 and 22 -- are tied directly to life in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic found City Council meeting electronically for the majority of the year.

Issue 20 and 22 fix some minor flaws in our charter and point us towards the future, City Council President Nicole Dailey Jones said.

Right now, our charter requires council to meet in chambers and does not provide any other alternative for us. Issue 20 gives us the ability to meet elsewhere -- or remotely -- if needed.

Considering that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWines order allowing city councils to meet remotely will expire at some point in the future, Jones said the city is taking a proactive approach in case of a future need to meet outside of council chambers.

She added that the passage of both Issue 20 and Issue 22 would give council the flexibility to meet remotely due to a pandemic or other emergency, such as City Hall construction or a fire.

Council would need to pass legislation that outlines the rules and regulations of how it would happen and would also need to approve that legislation with at least five votes out of the seven voting members, Jones said.

"Additionally, this could not be used to allow someone who is out of town on vacation to meet remotely while everyone else meets in person. It is required to be all or nothing.

This is an important issue, as we dont know what the future holds in terms of pandemics. This gives council -- along with other boards and commissions -- an ability to meet and keep city business moving," she said.

The remaining two charter amendments are truly simple housekeeping measures. This includes Issue 19, which if passed would eliminate procedures for detachment of lands that are in conflict with the general law procedures established in the Ohio Revised Code.

We have a portion of our charter that is in conflict with state law, Jones said. While it is unlikely we would ever need to worry about detachment, if the situation ever arose, it is important our laws are not in conflict with the state law.

Finally, Issue 21 involves the charter review commission convening in January to meet its six-month deadline to present charter amendment recommendations to council.

With council not appointing the charter review commission until sometime in January, by the time the commission gets started, the deadline to get amendments on the ballot is quickly approaching, Jones said.

This amendment will give the commission additional time, as they will be able to hit the ground running, and will allow for a much more detailed review," she said.

The recent North Olmsted Charter Review Commission included resident volunteers Jeff Sturgeon (chair), Jim Free, James Hammer, Jeffrey Haug (vice-chair), Beth Ann Roshetko, Elizabeth Supan and Mary Welch.

The commission did a great job under very challenging circumstances this year, Jones said. Overall, I support all of these amendments. I believe Issue 20 and 22 are extremely important to the city moving forward. I hope the voters agree.

Mayor Kevin Kennedy added: "I thought the charter review commission did a great job. I think they brought forward good charter changes. Im in favor of them all.

We need to make sure we stay up with the times. These charter amendments keep us there. I would urge the residents to support these charter amendments," he said.

Read more news from the Sun Post Herald.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 23:11:19|Editor: huaxia

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SINGAPORE, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The 5th ASEAN Ministerial Conference on Cybersecurity (AMCC) was convened virtually on Wednesday.

Singapore's Minister for Communications and Information S. Iswaran said at the opening ceremony that the ministers would discuss building a rules-based cyberspace and strengthening regional cyber resilience through Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) protection at the meeting.

When delivering his opening remarks, Iswaran said ASEAN member states face an unprecedented level of exposure to cyber threats today, as ASEAN's digital economy grows.

"It is more important than ever for ASEAN to tackle the challenge of cybersecurity together in a sustained, holistic and coordinated manner," he said.

The minister called on ASEAN member states to maintain a rules-based international order for a cyberspace that is open, secure, stable, accessible, and peaceful.

He said it will be increasingly challenging to do so, against the backdrop of a volatile and fractious global landscape caused by growing geopolitical tensions as well as rising protectionism.

"Therefore, we have to double down on efforts to create robust rules and engender international collaboration for greater cyber resilience and stability."

He said beyond protecting national CIIs, ASEAN can do more to strengthen regional cyber resilience by safeguarding CIIs with cross-border impact, such as common cloud and banking systems.

Iswaran also said Singapore continues to ramp up its cybersecurity in the areas of Operational Technology (OT) and the Internet of Things (IoT), which are fast-evolving and pose distinctive threats and risks.

He announced that the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA) will establish an OT Cybersecurity Expert Panel (OTCEP) comprising internationally renowned practitioners, to advise government agencies and stakeholders on strategies to enhance the resilience of OT systems.

The minister also announced the launch of the Cybersecurity Labelling Scheme (CLS) by CSA, to strengthen the IoT cybersecurity. The CLS scheme is the first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific.

Iswaran said CSA will work with ASEAN member states and other international partners to establish mutual recognition arrangements for the CLS to enhance security standards of the global IoT device market. Enditem
Humans arent the only ones being displaced by the Bay Areas devastating wildfires.

Firefighters battling the Glass Fire in Napa and Sonoma counties say they are seeing a surge in displaced wildlife prowling around evacuation zones  as their habitats, too, have been decimated by Californias record-shattering wildfire season.

Turkeys, ring-tailed cats, foxes, coyotes, deer, mountain lions and even bears have been spotted on the move as they attempt to find a safe place to shelter both from people and the wildfires, said Cal Fire Battalion Chief Sean Norman.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife

In the past few days alone, he said, hes seen more mountain lions than in his entire firefighting career. He suspects its because fire season has never been this bad, in both the wildfires number and their rapid spread.

Weve burned 4 million out of 40 million acres, Norman said. Thats a lot of their area thats no longer available to them.

The sheer number of acres destroyed has led to a historic shrinking of shared space for all habitats. Norman cautioned people returning to evacuation zones that they may be sharing the area with wildlife whose environments have been impacted just like their own.

Its a function of their habitat being smashed down into such a small footprint of area they have left to occupy, he said. They dont have apartments to live in.

In the coming weeks, people returning to fire zone areas where wildlife may be migrating should take precautions, said John Comisky, president of Napa Wildlife Rescue.

First, they may want to keep a closer eye on their pets, especially small cats and dogs, he said.

Oakland Zoo

Especially in riskier times like these, the organization advises people not to leave their animals outside all the time  cats in particular, because they are vulnerable to predators and in turn can injure wildlife.

The other basic rule is not to approach wildlife. Deer are especially important to avoid, Comisky said.

Full-grown deer are one of the most dangerous things in the forest, he said. Their front hooves are very sharp  with one slip, they can disembowel a human.

People need to understand that just as theyre displaced, that animal patterns may be a little different, said Dr. Deana Clifford, senior wildlife veterinarian for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. They need to give wildlife that space and be cognizant of that, and not have attractants around the house.

Dont leave pet food and water outside the house, because it could give wildlife an incentive to come close, Clifford said.

People should also carefully check open crawl spaces under their homes, as wildlife may have taken residence there. When spaces are cleared, be sure to seal them, Clifford said.

If you encounter wildlife, the best thing to do is to stay away. If its an emergency, call the hotline for your countys wildlife rescue department or the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

If an animal comes close to you, try to stay back and walk away slowly. Dont run.

For mountain lions:

 Do: Stop, look big, pick up any small children (put them on your shoulders) or animals, make loud noises, and back away slowly.

 Do not: Run away or move fast. Do not crouch down.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife

For bears:

 Do: Move very slowly, kind of to the side, and keep an eye on the bear. Try to increase the distance. If a predatory encounter is inevitable, spray the area around you with bear spray and be prepared to play dead  lie on your stomach with your hands clasped around your neck.

If you encounter an animal you think is in danger, call your countys wildlife hotline first to help determine whether its an animal that needs help or should just be left alone, Comisky said.

UC Davis Wildlife Disaster Network, a partnership between the school and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, has established a hotline for people to call if they encounter injured wildlife: 1-800-942-6459.

But spotting a baby animal by itself  like a fledgling bird or curled-up fawn  does not necessarily mean it needs rescuing, or is an orphan. Many wildlife parents leave their children alone during the day while they look for food, or watch them from a distance to protect them. Attempting to rescue them without calling a wildlife rescue center first could put them and yourself in more danger.

If an animal is bleeding, or has an obvious broken limb or wing, or trauma, that could be a sign that it needs help.

Annie Vainshtein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: avainshtein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annievain
However, it seems that some people get more satisfaction in creating turmoil rather than cultivating unity.

A few years ago, several churches in Florence, white and African American, paired to discuss in detail on six occasions Tony Evans book, Oneness Embrace. This initiative was sponsored by Helping Florence Flourishs Racial Bridging Subcommittee.

Too bad these conversations have not been continuous, because, thanks to all of the pastors and church members that participated, we made new friends across racial lines and had honest, open communications about the subject of race in America. Such actions are not to be infrequent, but intentional and regularly scheduled. Francis Marion University is to be commended for sponsoring an upcoming series that focuses on various racial topics.

Some people do not want us to get together  some white and some African American. Sometimes within each of our communities we have to figuratively fight for what is Godly. The fact of the matter is that if we all abided by The Golden Rule, no conflict of any nature would survive. But no, some of us would prefer to choose jealousy and hatred over love and truth.
Bengaluru, Oct 7 : Facing flak on social media and bowing to public pressure, Karnataka on Wednesday drastically reduced the fine for not wearing face masks to Rs 250 from Rs 1,000 in the urban areas (cities) and to Rs 100 from Rs 500 in the rural areas across the southern state.

"The fine for not wearing a face mask has been slashed to Rs 250 in cities and Rs 100 in villages due to public opposition and experts' opinion against the hefty penalty on the violators," an official statement said here.

Alarmed by the violation of the mandatory guidelines to wear a face mask and maintain physical distancing to contain the spread of coronavirus in the state, the Karnataka government had on September 30 slapped Rs 1,000 fine on mask violators in cities and Rs 500 in villages.

"Though the state government has been taking measures to contain the infection since mid-March when the virus entered the state, wearing a mask, maintaining social distancing and sanitising hands were made mandatory, and their violation led to Covid cases surging since June 1, when the state began to unlock," the statement noted.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa urged the citizens to wear face masks voluntarily, use hand sanitisers and maintain social distancing to prevent people from the virus attack.

Even as civic marshals and local police began to fine mask violators in cities and towns across the state, many were unable to pay the hefty amount and preferred to go to jail instead.

"The state government has been trying to balance life and livelihood by relaxing the Covid-induced lockdown and allowing many activities to resume with safety measures," said Yediyurappa.

With 10,947 new cases till Tuesday, the state's Covid tally rose to 6,68,652, including 1,16,153 active cases, while 5,42,906 people have been discharged so far, including 9,832 in the last 24 hours till Tuesday midnight.

With 113 more patients succumbing to the infection on Tuesday, the state's death toll mounted to 9,574.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
M ichelle Obama has condemned Donald Trump in a scathing new video that accuses him of racism and "wilful mismanagement" of the coronavirus crisis.

In the film, released on Tuesday by Joe Biden's campaign, the former first lady called on black and young voters not to "waste" their ballots in the November presidential election.

It comes after Mr Trump touted "law and order" amid the Black Lives Matter protests and has repeatedly attempted to downplay the pandemic.

The US president ignited a new controversy on Monday by declaring that, despite his illness, the nation should not fear the virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans.

He also said he was "looking forward" to the next debate with Mr Biden, scheduled for Thursday in Miami, despite doctors saying he is still contagious.

In her video, Mrs Obama, whose husband was the first black US president, accused Mr Trump of racism and doubling down "on division and resentment" during the pandemic.

Michelle Obama: yes, Trump is 'racist'

She also accused the president and his allies of stoking fears about black and brown Americans in order to distract from his breathtaking failures by giving folks someone to blame other than them.

The former First Lady said Mr Trumps approach was morally wrong, and yes, it is racist. But that doesnt mean it wont work.

In a direct appeal over racial injustice, she said: I want everyone who is still undecided to think about all those folks like me and my ancestors.

"The millions of folks who look like me and fought and died and toiled as slaves and soldiers and labourers to help build this country. Racism, fear, division, these are powerful weapons. And they can destroy this nation if we dont deal with them head on.

Donald Trump seen gasping for air as he returns back to the White House

Mrs Obama said that too many people in the US only see us as a threat to be restrained, and asked her fellow Americans to put themselves in the shoes of the minority populations for just a moment as she spoke of her personal experience of racism.

She urged any black and young voters who are considering sitting out the election to have a rethink, because "we don't have the luxury to assume that things are going to turn out OK".

On the coronavirus pandemic, she said that Covid-19 has killed more Americans than the Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Korean wars combined, adding: "Our commander in chief, sadly, has been missing in action."

She said: In the greatest crisis of our lifetimes, he doubled-down on division and resentment, railed against measures that could have mitigated the damage.

Seven months later, he still doesnt have a plan for this virus. Seven months later, he still wont wear a mask consistently and encourage others to do the same.

Instead, he continues to gaslight the American people by acting like this pandemic is not a real threat.
The coronavirus pandemic has put a lot of pressure on colleges and universities. Schools have been forced to close their campuses, move classes online and take on the responsibility of testing, quarantining and protecting students.

Now, some experts wonder if schools will also be forced to lower tuition.

Students have long raised concerns about rising college costs, which have steadily increased over the past several decades and increased by more than 25% over the past 10 years

And when colleges were forced to shift to remote learning in March, many students requested refunds. One survey of 13,606 U.S. college students found that more than 93% of students believe that if classes are fully held online, tuition should be lowered. Numerous students sued their schools for coronavirus-related refunds.

Nearly eight months into the pandemic, most schools are either completely or partially remote and students say they are not able to take advantage of the facilities, clubs and activities that once contributed to their college experiences. But school's and experts emphasize that offering online education is not necessarily cheaper to provide.

"Families are really upset, understandably, about being expected to pay pretty much the same expense for the online experience versus the traditional residential experience," says Kevin Walker, CEO of CollegeFinance.com. "Most schools that I know of are trying to do something, whether that's freezing tuition at last year's rates (which may not seem like much, but it's something) or in some cases, lowering tuition or lowering it on a credit-by-credit basis a little bit."

"But usually, students and families don't feel like it's enough."

Early data from the National Student Clearing House suggests that undergraduate college enrollment has decreased 2.5% this semester, and decreased most among students from low-income backgrounds as well as international students.
Tributes poured in for Eddie Van Halen Tuesday following the rock star's death at 65 from cancer.

Eddie's son Wolfgang, 29, confirmed his father's death as he took to social media with the emotional announcement.

'I can't believe I'm having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning,' Wolfgang said.

'He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I've shared with him on and off stage was a gift.

The latest: Tributes poured in for Eddie Van Halen Tuesday following the rock star's death at 65 from cancer. The rocker was snapped onstage in 2015 in NYC

'My heart is broken and I don't think I'll ever fully recover from this loss. I love you so much, Pop.'

Van Halen's Sammy Hagar said he was 'heartbroken and speechless,' adding, 'My love to the family,' while his predecessor in the band, David Lee Roth, reminisced on his time performing alongside the musical legend, writing, 'What a Long Great Trip It's Been.'

A tweet from Aerosmith's account read 'Rest In Peace,' with a shot of Steven Tyler and Joe Perry with Van Halen.

Ozzy Osbourne said that the late rocker's 'influence on musical and especially the guitar has been immeasurable', while Kiss alums Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley paid tribute to Van Halen.

Sad news: Eddie's son Wolfgang, 29, confirmed his father's death as he took to social media with the emotional announcement

Bandmates: Van Halen's Sammy Hagar said he was 'heartbroken and speechless'

Legend: Van Halen's fellow rock icon Ozzy Osbourne said that the late rocker's 'influence on musical and especially the guitar has been immeasurable'

A look back: David Lee Roth reminisced on his time performing alongside the musical legend

Tributes: Kind words poured in from a number of prominent celebs across show business

A tweet from Aerosmith's account read 'Rest In Peace,' with a shot of Steven Tyler and Joe Perry with Van Halen

Respect: Musical stalwarts such as Tommy Lee, Lenny Kravitz and Billy Idol paid memorial to the rock staple

'My heart is broken,' Simmons said. 'Eddie was not only a Guitar God, but a genuinely beautiful soul. Rest in peace, Eddie!'

Stanley said, 'Oh NO! Speechless. A trailblazer and someone who always gave everything to his music. A good soul. I remember first seeing him playing at the Starwood in 1976 and he WAS Eddie Van Halen. So shocked and sad. My condolences to Wolfie and the family.'

Van Halen bassist and back-up singer Michael Anthony (R) shared a couple snaps of him performing with his fallen bandmate.

The 66-year-old musician wrote on Instagram: 'No words...Heartbroken, my love to the family.'

Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee also paid tribute to the famed guitarist. Lee wrote, 'RIP to my friend and man who changed guitar playing forever ...F***!!! no words,' while Sixx called him the 'Mozart of rock guitar.'

Eddie's ex-wife Valerie Bertinelli used broken-heart emojis to express her grief and later left a detailed memorial

Admiration: A number of Van Halen's musical peers weighed in on the sad news

Brother from another mother: Van Halen bassist and back-up singer Michael Anthony (R) shared a couple snaps of him performing with his fallen bandmate (pictured in 1982)

The 66-year-old musician wrote on Instagram: 'No words...Heartbroken, my love to the family'

Sixx said he was 'so f***ing crushed,' adding, You changed our world. You were the Mozart of rock guitar. Travel safe rockstar.'

Late night host Jimmy Kimmel said, 'Two of the best hours of my life were spent chatting with Eddie Van Halen.

'A great musician, yes - also a funny and lovely guy who will be missed terribly. Sending love to Janie, Wolf, Alex & all those who loved him.'

Lenny Kravitz called Van Halen a 'legendary guitar and musical innovator,' adding that 'heaven will be electric tonight.'

Poison frontman Bret Michaels said that 'this goes beyond the passing of a great guitarist, but rather is a tremendous loss of a great man who truly helped to change my life and path with his guitar and sound.

'He helped forge the way for myself and many and will be deeply missed. Rest in peace, Eddie.'

Oscar-winner Viola Davis wrote: 'RIP Eddie Van Halen....legend...you influenced an entire generation with your amazing talent. Rest well'

Actor Ron Perlman weaved politics into his memorial amid the tumultuous time

Memories: Sarah Jessica Parker looked back on her fond recollections regarding Van Halen

Cultural impact: Darren Criss pointed out the huge impact Van Halen made in music

Mourning: A-list actor Robert Downey Jr. said he had 'no words' after Van Halen's death

Spiritual: Actor Mark Hamill paid his respects to Van Halen's family on the sad day

Actor Darren Criss said that 'the name Eddie Van Halen has always been synonymous with insane ability.'

He added: 'No matter what kind of style you play, no one can deny his colossal influence. To have a sound not only uniquely signature to the artist, but of an entire era.'

A number of fellow bands, including Metallica, Weezer and Ratt, chimed in with kind words for the late guitar ace.

Metallica said: 'We are enormously saddened to hear about the untimely passing of Eddie Van Halen. We considered him an inspiration, an idol, and after spending a summer together on the road in '88, a friend. Sending love to Alex, @wolfvanhalen & everyone in the greater VH family.'

Ratt called Van Halen 'a true legend' and 'one of the greatest musicians ever in rock' who 'left an indelible mark' on his craft.

Tribute: Ratt called Van Halen 'a true legend' and 'one of the greatest musicians ever in rock' who 'left an indelible mark' on his craft

A number of fellow bands, including Metallica, Duran Duran, Dio, Nickelback and Weezer, chimed in with kind words for the late guitar ace

Weezer members said: 'We're saddened to hear of Eddie Van Halen's untimely passing today. Given the news today, we want to dedicate our album Van Weezer to Eddie as a thank you for all the incredible music that soundtracked our youth and inspired the record. RIP EVH.'

Oscar-winner Viola Davis wrote: 'RIP Eddie Van Halen....legend...you influenced an entire generation with your amazing talent. Rest well.'

Actor Ron Perlman weaved politics into his memorial, writing, 'I think theres two things most sane people can agree on: 1. the worlds going to be a sadder place without Eddie Van Halens brilliant guitar playing and 2. Donald Trump is a deranged motherf***er who needs to have the keys to this country taken away.'

Mourner Daniel Gaither laid a bouquet of flowers below a banner featuring distinguished Pasadena City College alumnus Eddie Van Halen

Vivid: Fans decorated Eddie's handprints at Hollywood Guitar Center

A bandanna autographed by late rock legend Eddie Van Halen was placed on the Hollywood Rock Walk

Epicenter: An Eddie Van Halen memorial tribute and handprints were seen at Hollywood Guitar Center
AXIS Capital Holdings Limited ("AXIS Capital" or the "Company") (NYSE: AXS) today announced that it expects to release financial results for the second quarter ended September 30, 2020, on Wednesday, October 28, 2020, after the close of the financial markets.

Albert Benchimol, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Peter Vogt, Chief Financial Officer, will host an investor teleconference, including a question and answer period, on Thursday, October 29, 2020, at 9:30 a.m. EDT to discuss the second quarter results as well as related matters.

The teleconference can be accessed by dialing 1-877-883-0383 (U.S. callers), or 1-412-902-6506 (international callers), and entering the passcode 4617261 approximately 10 minutes in advance of the call. A live, listen-only webcast of the call will also be available via the Investor Information section of the Company's website at www.axiscapital.com.

A replay of the teleconference will be available for two weeks by dialing 1-877-344-7529 (U.S. callers), or 1-412-317-0088 (international callers), and entering the passcode 10148478. The webcast will be archived in the Investor Information section of the Company's website.

About AXIS Capital

AXIS Capital, through its operating subsidiaries, is a global provider of specialty lines insurance and treaty reinsurance with shareholders' equity at June 30, 2020 of $5.3 billion and locations in Bermuda, the United States, Europe, Singapore, Canada and the Middle East. Its operating subsidiaries have been assigned a rating of "A+" ("Strong") by Standard Poor's and "A" ("Excellent") by A.M. Best. For more information about AXIS Capital, visit our website at www.axiscapital.com. Follow AXIS Capital on LinkedIn and Twitter.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201007005729/en/

Contacts:

Investor Contact

Matt Rohrmann

AXIS Capital Holdings Limited

investorrelations@axiscapital.com

+1 212-940-3339

Media Contact

Anna Kukowski

AXIS Capital Holdings Limited

anna.kukowski@axiscapital.com

+1 212-715-3574
This part of the report covers mainly the Grand Teton portion of our trip (we saw 610 and her cubs!) and also a few final thoughts/comments/tips.

After driving the North and South Rim drives to see the canyon and waterfalls, we drove along the edge of Yellowstone Lake and out the south park entrance to Grand Teton National Park. We spent two full days in the Tetons and two half days. The area is absolutely gorgeous! We loved the beautiful mountains, and not just the Tetons - the whole area is surrounded by mountains. The aspens were changing color and the wildfire smoke had mostly cleared, it was just a bit hazy esp in the afternoons so we could appreciate the beautiful surroundings. I got some great photos, the hard part is deciding which are our favorites.

We had hoped to see Grizzly 399 and her cubs but we never did find them. We did however see 610 and her cubs one morning just south of the Moran Junction. I have to say it was a little unnerving to realize that something so big could be pretty well hidden just by the sagebrush! And then when they went up into the treeline just about 25 feet in front of our car, they completely disappeared. I had just watched three grizzly bears enter that treeline, but I couldn't see them, couldn't hear any branches or twigs snapping, no branches moving - they just vanished. So a big old bear could easily be just a few feet from you and you would never know it!

We saw some moose by the Gros Ventre campground and also a mama and two calves by the Jackson Lake dam, and a couple of big groups of pronghorn antelope along the 191 highway. There was a big herd of bison in that same area as well. We drove out the east park entrance a little way in search of grizzlies but didn't see any, although we did see some very pretty horses in the Pinto Ranch pasture.

Mormon Row, Schwabacher's Landing and the Snake River Overlook were on my photo stop list and I took a bunch photos there. We had lunch on the river's edge just a little distance below the dam a couple of days. It was really peaceful there, just a handful of people fishing and a few kayaks going by.

One sunny afternoon we took the shuttle boat across Jenny Lake and did the hike up to Hidden Falls. It's a short hike but fairly steep. It's a nice hike though with the stream and some smaller waterfalls to see on the way up. The falls are beautiful and if I hadn't hurt my knee on a hike a few weeks earlier, I would have been climbing on the rocks and dipping my feet in the water with all those other people! We opted to take the boat back rather than walking around the lake because of my knee, and I was grateful for that option. I could have managed the walk but I would have paid for it later. Jenny Lake is a really pretty lake and I think it's definitely worth more time than we had to explore it. It's on the list for our return trip because we're definitely going back sometime.

Some final thoughts:

Packing a cooler and keeping it in the car was a great tip on this forum. (That's a no-no at Yosemite which is about 4 hours from where we live. Those bears will tear open your car to get your cooler). The food offerings were limited in both parks and it was nice to not have to leave an area just to go in search of something to eat. I also took my hot water kettle to make tea, hot choc, and oatmeal so we didn't have to rely on the bagged breakfast options at some of our hotels and because we left super early some mornings. I bought a small folding table at REI and we brought camp chairs with us as well. Everything fit just fine in our SUV, except the cooler spent the trip riding in the back seat lol.

Gas prices in the park were very reasonable we thought.

We tried to pack light so we did do laundry one evening at Canyon Lodge and the laundry by the campground was super clean and well-maintained.

No cell service and very limited internet kind of forces you to just unwind and relax which was very nice. I only wished for service when I wanted to check for wildlife sightings, but it turns out that we did quite well without the help of the internet. The key really is getting out early and staying out til the end of the day, and having a general idea of where animals like to hang out.

Lodging- we spent two nights in YNP at Canyon Lodge and the rest outside the park. Canyon was more expensive than our lodging outside the park, but was definitely nicer so I think it was worth the money and saved on driving time. Canyon also had some hot food options, including a wok station that was pretty good. Staying in Gardiner was very handy for getting to Lamar Valley. I had looked at Mammoth but the only room available was $700 a night, so the motel in Gardiner was a decent alternative and half the price for two nights and there were several dining options in town.

For the Tetons, we stayed at a small place in Jackson that actually offered a hot breakfast served each morning. We did splurge and spent one night in Teton Village which was quite nice, super luxurious bed, etc that cost us $500 for the night but my husband said it was the best night's sleep he'd had all week.

Time allotted to each park- this is a tough one because each park has a lot to offer. We definitely would have liked more time, I think a couple of extra days in each park would have been nice. If the road between Tower and Canyon was open, we would have gone back to Lamar Valley at least once more. While we enjoyed the geysers and thermal features we saw in 1-1/2 days, I think other people who really love them might want to spend more time. For me, I would have preferred another day on the northern section of the park and I definitely would have liked another day or two in Grand Teton.

So thank you everyone for all your input and advice, it was super helpful! And for reading these rather lengthy trip reports lol! Yellowstone and Grand Teton are definitely on our list of places to visit again, I can see why people love it so much.
- The health-tech startup plans to leverage Infosys strong domain expertise to augment

patient reported outcome of cancer patients

BENGALURU, India and ZURICH, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Infosys (NYSE: INFY), the global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, today announced that it has been selected by Mobile Health AG, a Switzerland-based Health Tech startup, to enhance the go-to-market (GTM) strategy for its electronically patient-reported outcomes (ePRO) platform, Consilium Care. Consilium Care helps in improving the outcome for patients undergoing cancer treatment through remote monitoring. Through this engagement, Infosys will set up and manage cloud and infrastructure services and support, security and monitoring, and platform management services for Mobile Health AG across multiple geographies.

Mobile Health AG selected Infosys as a partner for its strong domain expertise and experience in Oncology to support the commercial launch of Consilium Care through MS Azure. Infosys will help refine the quality of care for cancer patients and enable a value-based digital healthcare system through high-quality patient data and value-based pricing. This aligns with Mobile Health's key business strategy to improve the outcome for patients undergoing cancer treatment by strengthening the collaboration between patients and caregivers.

Infosys, backed by its large healthcare client base, will explore new partnership opportunities with Mobile Health AG to jointly market the Consilium Care platform in the US as part of the Infosys Health Platform (IHP).

Frank Gulitz, CIO, Mobile Health AG, said, "After a rigorous selection process we selected Infosys as strategic partner for our Cloud Provider Due Diligence, the global setup of Microsoft Azure, as well as partner for the Infrastructure Operation and Platform Application Managed Service. Infosys was leading against competitors by their well-established Cloud Management Services combined with strong Security Consulting Offerings and Health Industry Insight. We are looking forward to commonly develop new markets for Consilium Care, our award winning CE-marked platform."

Mohit Joshi, President Infosys, said, "Mobile Health's ePRO platform shows great potential in augmenting healthcare for cancer patients, and we look forward to being a part of this journey to optimize and standardize remote treatment leveraging technology. The partnership will streamline the public CSPs to Mobile Health AG's requirements while offering robust, cost efficient cloud services, support, and security. We will continue to leverage our talent pool and global presence to deliver superior experiences for Consilium Care users and patients, to make this platform true value generator in the healthcare space."

For more details, please watch these videos on InfyTV.

About Mobile Health AG

Mobile Health AG was founded in 2014 by three highly experienced key opinion leaders in Oncology, Healthcare Policy & -Industry. The combination of study driven platform-development and the ability to minimize patient and care giver challenges along the cancer patient-journey makes the company unique. With consilium care the company develops the leading digital platform for ePROs, bringing benefits to patients, providers and practitioners. Several industry awards underline the unique approach to combine science with quality of care (Lohfert-Award 2017, Innovation Qualite 2020 by Swiss Medical Association FMH/SAQM).

Visit www.consilium.care to see how mobile Health AG is giving the patient a voice and why partners join the growing eco-system.

About Infosys

Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. We enable clients in 46 countries to navigate their digital transformation. With nearly four decades of experience in managing the systems and workings of global enterprises, we expertly steer our clients through their digital journey. We do it by enabling the enterprise with an AI-powered core that helps prioritize the execution of change. We also empower the business with agile digital at scale to deliver unprecedented levels of performance and customer delight. Our always-on learning agenda drives their continuous improvement through building and transferring digital skills, expertise, and ideas from our innovation ecosystem.

Visit www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next.

Safe Harbor

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects, financial expectations and plans for navigating the COVID-19 impact on our employees, clients and stakeholders are forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding COVID-19 and the effects of government and other measures seeking to contain its spread, risks related to an economic downturn or recession in India, the United States and other countries around the world, changes in political, business, and economic conditions, fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry and the outcome of pending litigation and government investigation. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company unless it is required by law.

LOGO: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/633365/Infosys_Logo.jpg
New Delhi:

A bill on addressing bankruptcy issues in the financial sector is ready and is likely to be introduced in Parliament soon, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said on Thursday.

While the Insolvency and Bankruptcy law that has been enacted deals with the corporate sector, LLPs and partnership firms, there is another world of financial firms like the banks, the mutual funds or the non banking finance companies, he said.

So as far as the financial sector entities are concerned, the Finance Minister has announced that the government will be introducing a Bill for resolution of financial firms...for which we have undertaken very extensive consultation the bill is ready, and it is ready to be introduced, he said.

Outlining the focus of the Budget 2017-18 at an event organised here by industry body Assocham, Das said, one of its objectives was strong fiscal focus.

Finding that right balance is very important. You find that right balance...by targeting those sectors of the economy where you need to spend more and you target a certain level of debt to GDP ratio, that is the Government of Indias borrowing or states borrowing should be this much by this year, he said.

The FRBM committee headed by former revenue secretary N K Singh has recommended that the fiscal deficit of both the centre and states put together should be 60 per cent in 2023.

So, although the committee had recommended 3 per cent for the next three years, the government decided to adopt 3.2 per cent and...is very much within the agenda of fiscal prudence because with 3.2 per cent the government will be able to reach 60 per cent debt to GDP ratio of the general government by 2023, he said.

Therefore, the government is very much within the fiscal path, he said but you have utilised whatever opportunities are available within that fiscal path to spend more in sectors like infrastructure, health, education, rural development and agriculture.

On the H1B visa issue, Das said that so far India is not impacted by it despite apprehensions expressed in some quarters.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-10-07 14:18:29|Editor: huaxia

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CANBERRA, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government has cut the nation's yearly humanitarian refugee intake by 5,000.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Tuesday night handed down the federal budget for 2020/21, which introduced a new cap of 13,750 places in Australia for humanitarian refugees every year, down more than a quarter from the previous cap of 18,750.

According to budget papers the move will save the government almost one billion Australian dollars (710.4 million U.S. dollars) at a time of unprecedented spending in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Over four years from 2020/21, this measure will result in an overall reduction in expenditure of 958.3 million AUD (680.8 million USD) and revenue reduction of 47 million AUD (33.3 million USD)," the papers said.

However, the decision has been slammed by refugee advocates who were hoping the budget would include additional support for asylum seekers amid the pandemic.

Jana Favero, director of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC), described the move as "a blow for the humane treatment of refugees."

"To see that not only is there no extension of support, but actually a cutting of humanitarian intake, is devastating," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

"It does seem very short-sighted, very senseless, and most of all cruel, because there's no reason to do this at all."

Paul Power, head of the Refugee Council of Australia, said the news was "shattering".

"What really shocked us...was the fact that this is a permanent cut to the refugee and humanitarian program. This isn't a government saying: 'We need to slow the program down because of the unusual situation that we're in'," he said.

"This is actually the Government using the pandemic to make a permanent cut to the program." Enditem
It will soon be normal to see a yellow jacket on the streets of Longford as local gardai announce plans to have a garda on the beat in the town in what has been dubbed Operation Phoenix.

At a meeting of Longford Joint Policing Committee last week, Inspector Frank Finn explained that gardai were preparing to target Ballymahon Street, Dublin Street and Main Street in particular, with the new operation being rolled out from the beginning of October.

CEO of Longford County Council Paddy Mahon explained that the move came in response to an increase in criminal behaviour in Longford town.

We should adopt an approach that would improve the experience of people who want to and need to use the centre of town, he said.

We cant do nothing. We need to work together with a focus to address what we perceive to be and what is an issue in Longford town.

Inspector Finn explained that An Garda Siochana would endeavour to have a garda on the beat in the Longford town centre every day and that people should start to think it normal to see a yellow jacket on the streets again.

(The garda) will target double parking, anti-social behaviour, loitering, public order offences, theft from shops, bikes on footpaths and the inappropriate use of motorised scooters, he explained.

Were targeting the quality of life issues affecting people using Longford town.

Were calling it Operation Phoenix and any interactions we take will be recorded and details be made available to the JPC.
Coca Cola, Disney, Ford, Abbott Labs, Tesla, and Home Depot are among the Thousands of Companies Suing the US Over Tariffs.

About 3,500 U.S. companies, including Tesla Inc, Ford Motor Co , Target Corp, Walgreen Co, and Home Depot have sued the Trump administration in the last two weeks over the imposition of tariffs on more than $300 billion in Chinese-made goods. The suits, filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, named U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and the Customs and Border Protection agency and challenge what they call the unlawful escalation of the U.S. trade war with China through the imposition of a third and fourth round of tariffs. The legal challenges from a wide variety of companies argue the Trump administration failed to impose tariffs within a required 12-month period and did not comply with administrative procedures.

Blown Away By the Number of Cases

The Financial Times cites Nasim Fussell, a lawyer who was the top trade counsel for the Republican-controlled senate finance committee until last month.

I am completely blown away by the number of cases being filed. I just think the sheer number is very descriptive of the pain that this has caused," said Fussell

Corporations No Longer Fear the Wrath of Trump

Corporations were once afraid of the wrath of Trump. Not any longer.

Those lawsuits came in the past few weeks.

Trade Wars are Good and Easy to Win

Trade wars are so good and so easy to win that over 3,500 companies filed suit against the US.

In case you forgot, please recall Trump Tweets "Trade Wars are Good and Easy to Win"

That was in 2018. Trump has made zero progress.

On September 29, I noted US Trade Deficit in Goods Swells to a Whopping $82.9 Billion

Also note that with only four months left to go, China is less than a third of the way towards meeting goals Trump insists are on track.

For details, please see How Well is China Honoring Its Trade Deal With Trump?
HOLYOKE  In a joint-virtual session, the City Councils Development and Government Relations Committee and Holyoke Redevelopment Authority examined amending the citys urban renewal plan while a property owner feared his building would be taken if added to the amended list.

Mondays session was a continuance of the Sept. 3 public hearing on the matter. John Jay Whelihan reopened the hearing on behalf of the Redevelopment Authority.

Ward 3 Councilor David Bartley, who chairs the Development and Government Relations Committee, said the Redevelopment Authority is granted permission to make minor, non-substantial changes to the urban renewal plan amendments if the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development deems necessary.

The changes sought by both boards expand the list of properties in the Urban Renewal Plan, many ripe for development, historic designation or other uses. Many of the neighborhoods in the plan have transformed its passage.

Lyman Terrace apartments' renovations are ongoing and represent $70 million of investments in the neighborhood, including sprucing up Veterans Park, road improvement and infrastructure projects, and a pedestrian plaza.

Marcos Marrero, the Planning and Economic Development director, gathered additional input on identifying and classifying properties in the Urban Renewal Plan, the City of Holyokes economic blueprint for the coming decade.

Marrero said 47 or 80 parcels in the plan are privately owned, broken down among lots or buildings in use, or hold some historical value. The Urban Renewal Plan was approved in 2012 guided by the principles of Connect, Construct and Create to build a vibrant and prosperous city.

According to Marrero, the proposed amendments to the Urban Renewal Plan remained unchanged since the Sept. 3 meeting. His office fielded minimum feedback from affected property owners.

The owners were contacted in writing or by phone, according to Marrero. Edward Owen, the owner of 120 Front St., said his building is 80% full and did not understand how his property wound up on the amended list and categorized as underused or blighted.

I dont understand how you guys are doing this? I understand the building next door is being renovated after 20 years of blight. Never once was it recorded as blighted. I dont get it, Owen said.

Marrero said, it might be a difference in criteria and that reasonable people can disagree about the assessment of Owens property. He referred to the Lyman Terrace renovations and adjacent public right of way improvements.

Were looking for development thats complementary to the neighborhood, Marrero said, including more office space and in keeping with the residential feel of Lyman Terrace. Its incongruent with the long-term plans of the city even before the Urban Renewal Plan.

Councilor Howard Greaney asked the committees how much taxes Owen paid over the years, and that a longtime Holyoke taxpayer should be accommodated.

Marrero added 120 Front St. resides in an Opportunity Zone, part of a 2007 federal tax overhaul. It brings interest and investments in the corridor, he said. Whether its privately or publicly funded, its a clear sign of where we want our investments to go.

He added that Owens property does not represent the City of Holyoke trying to take something away, but adding a building legally to an acquisition list. The Urban Renewal Plan helps investors identity properties primed for rehabilitation.

In response to Councilor Mike Sullivan, Marrero said Owens property functions and appears like an industrial building in a Residential and Downtown Business Corridor and was out of lockstep with the neighborhood.

Marrero said the Urban Renewal Plan stands as the seminal document that guides the citys future economic and development needs. He added the City Council delegates power to the Redevelopment Authority to amend the plan.

The power of acquiring real estate would be transferred onto the Holyoke Redevelopment Authority, Marrero said.

Councilor Joseph M. McGiverin said the original Urban Renewal Plan listed vacant or disrepair properties, for example, the former Habermans Hardware on High Street.

If we adopt this amended plan with these properties on it, we give the Redevelopment Authority the right to go forward and to use their eminent domain powers without coming back to the city, McGiverin said.

While McGiverin was not concerned about city-owned properties, he was troubled by the Redevelopment Authoritys eminent domain powers to control private property like Owens, which could trigger a court battle.

Owen believed his building was a staple in Holyoke for over 100 years, and 12 years ago, his building was initially put a list and then removed after his objections. He wondered why assistance wasnt offered by the city to pursue grants to rehab his building.

Owen said he was waiting for estimates on new windows and an access ramp for the buildings front. I have put my heart and soul and my money into this property, and I take care of this property, he said. It insults me for someone to put it on a blighted list.

Marrero said in 2012, not much in terms of development was happening in the neighborhood. Were revisiting it now because the neighborhood is different than it was eight years ago, he said.

Owen feared the city would take his building in the end.

Marrero said the city was trying to anticipate the needs of the community in the coming years and was not an exact science. He noted a high bar for acquiring a property, particularly when a building is occupied.

Councilor Peter Tallman requested holding off on a final vote as he wants to meet with the affected property owners. Bartley continued the public hearing to Oct. 2 at 6:30 p.m. The Holyoke Redevelopment Authority meets the third Wednesday of every month.

Related:
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Indian banks face a tough operating environment as stressed loans and write-offs increase on account of the fall-out of the pandemic, said Fitch Rating on Tuesday. The rating agency says the loan pile which would build up could be offset only by a quick recovery. While the Indian economy is expected to contract this year by a negative 10.5 per cent GDP by Fitch among others, there are expectations of a sharp rebound in 2021-22.

Banks have been permitted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to undertake a one-time restructuring of loans affected by the pandemic, which will provide relief in terms of bad loan recognition and provisioning. However, the exercise could leave the sector saddled with a high bad-loan burden over the next few years if restructured loans do not perform according to agreed milestones, warned the rating agency.

Fitch warned that though it has forecast a 11 per cent growth in 2021-22, there were downside risks - limited room for fiscal support, fragile financial system and a continued rise in Covid-19 cases which is hampering normalization. Fitch does not expect GDP to return to pre-pandemic levels until the first quarter of 2021-2022, report said.

RBI data shows that Indias banks wrote off nearly $ 85 billion over 2014-2019, of which state-run banks contributed nearly 80 per cent. The economic stress this time around is set to be deeper and more broad-based, which could make restructuring more challenging. Execution risk remains high, Fitch pointed out.

RBI has built in safeguards in terms of tighter timelines, penal provisioning and greater monitoring by an expert committee for loans beyond Rs 1,500 crore.
The investigation into the death of a man who was bludgeoned over the head before his body was discovered in a burnt-out car has been reopened.

Police say they have a 'significant' new lead in the murder case of George Tweedie.

The body of the 26-year-old from Bedworth in Warwickshire, was found on May 7 2002 in the boot of a car in Buxton, Derbyshire.

Three people were charged with preverting the course of justice in connection with Mr Tweedie's death after staging an elaborate cover-up, but no murder charges were ever brought.

Warwickshire Police have reopened the cold case investigation into the death of George Tweedie, 26, (pictured) following a 'significant' new lead. He was bludgeoned to death before his body was discovered in the boot of a burnt-out car in Buxton, Derbyshire

Coventry coroner David Sarginson found in 2004 that Mr Tweedie had been killed by a savage blow to the face with a blunt instrument.

The Crown Prosecution Service said at the time there was insufficient evidence to prosecute his suspected killer.

Warwickshire Police announced on Wedsnesday the case had been reopened due to a 'new line of enquiry', but did not disclose what the 'significant new lead' involves.

Coventry coroner David Sarginson found in 2004 that Mr Tweedie (pictured above) had been killed by a savage blow to the face with a blunt instrument

Detective Inspector Teresa McKenna from Warwickshire Police Major Investigation Unit said: 'As with all cold cases, we have kept this investigation under review.

'Now we have a significant new lead and have taken the decision to reopen it.

'Many people were spoken to as part of this investigation but we believe there may be evidence that was not disclosed to detectives.'

George's lover Karen Redshaw and her estranged husband Colin were jailed after admitting perverting the course of justice over Mr Tweedie's death.

Redshaw's son Christopher was also implicated, and was sentenced to two years in jail for perverting the course of justice.

A court was told how Redshaw recruited her estranged husband to dispose of the body then used her son to cover up the death.

The 17-year-old reportedly travelled to Amsterdam and Ibiza to send letters to Mr Tweedie's mother purporting to be from her son in the cover-up.

Det Insp McKenna added: 'Nobody has ever been brought to justice for Mr Tweedie's death and his family have had to live with this for 18 years.

'For their sake, I would urge anyone with information that could help with our investigation, no matter how small, to make contact with us. Your information could be the missing piece of the jigsaw.'

She urged anyone with information to come forward.
07.10.2020 LISTEN

The flagbearer of the Ghana Union Movement (GUM), Reverend Christian Kwabena Andrews, also known as Osofo Kyiri Abosom vows to pull a surprise win in the upcoming December 7 elections.

He says his party will beat the two dominant parties NPP and NDC to win the December 2020 polls with 65% votes.

We are on the ground. The elites are being deceived by what they see in the cities. This is the same mistakes Nkrumah's opponents made. They did not know Nkrumah had the masses until he took them by surprise. NPP started in the 90s, our party is only new but we are going to take them by surprise.

Osofo Kyirabosom made the remarks in a media interview after submitting his nomination form to the Electoral Commission (EC) on Tuesday, October 6.

He is expected to begin a two-day familiarisation tour of the Oti Region this coming Friday.

The flagbearer would visit the Buem, Nkwanta South, Nkwanta North and Kadjebi constituencies to interact with chiefs, imams and the clergy.

On Saturday, Osofo Kyiri Abosom would be in Krachi Nchumuru, Krachi West, Krachi East and WoraWora in the Biakoye constituency to also interact with opinion leaders and Zongo chiefs.

Mr Henry Awutwe, the parliamentary candidate for the Ghana Union Movement in the Krachi East Constituency said preparations were underway for the visit.
The appointments committee of the Cabinet has cleared the name of M Rajeswar Rao for the post of Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the government said in a release on October 7.

Rao is presently Executive Director at RBI, the release said.

The deputy governors post was lying vacant in RBI since the retirement of N S Vishwanathan, about six months ago.

Rajeshwar Rao is a seasoned central banker. His present responsibilities as executive director include financial markets operation department and international department, internal debt management department.

Prior to taking over as the ED, Rao was serving as the Chief General Manager, Financial Markets Operations Department.

According to RBI website, Rao has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Master of Business Administration from University of Cochin. He is also a Certificated Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers.

Rao joined the Reserve Bank in 1984 and as career central banker has exposure in various aspects of central bank functioning.

Previously, Rao has held charge of the risk monitoring department. He has also worked as the Banking Ombudsman, New Delhi and in the Reserve Banks regional offices at Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai and New Delhi.
Former President Chun Doo-hwan, center, leaves Gwangju District Court, April 27, after attending a hearing on defamation charges linked to the Gwangju Democratic Uprising that began on May 18, 1980. / Korea Times photo by Seo Jae-hoon



By Jun Ji-hye



District prosecutors in Gwangju sought an 18-month prison term, Monday, for former President Chun Doo-hwan, who has been indicted for defamation linked to the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising.



Gwangju District Court is expected to hand down the ruling at the end of the year at the earliest.



The former dictator, who rose to power through a military coup and led an authoritarian government from 1980 to 1988, was indicted without physical detention in May 2018 for "defamation of the dead." He allegedly made slanderous statements against a late activist priest who provided eyewitness accounts of the bloody military suppression of pro-democracy protesters.



In a controversial memoir released in April 2017, Chun described activist priest Cho Chul-hyun, also known as Cho Bi-oh, as "Satan wearing a mask."



Cho had earlier testified to witnessing helicopter fire on civilians during the military suppression of the May 18 uprising  a claim Chun called a lie.



Defamation of the dead is a crime when a person spreads false information and tarnishes the reputation of the deceased. Those who commit this crime can face up to two years in prison and up to 5 million won ($4,300) in fines.



Chun's trial has been focused on whether the military did shoot at citizens from helicopters during the uprising.



Witnesses for the prosecution have backed up the late priest's argument, while the National Forensic Service stated that bullet marks found on the wall of a building in Gwangju seemed to have been caused by gunfire coming from helicopters.



On the other hand, Chun, a former Army general, and defense witnesses have denied those claims.



"As far as I know, the military, at the time, did not open fire on civilians from helicopters. If the soldiers had shot from helicopters then that would have caused a lot of casualties," Chun said during a hearing on April 27.



Chun's lawyer has also claimed that prosecutors have failed to find clear, direct evidence.



During the May 18 uprising, thousands of Gwangju citizens rose up against the military junta led by Chun. According to official data, more than 200 people were killed, with 1,800 wounded.



Prosecutors began investigating Chun's controversial statements published in the memoir after a nephew of the late priest sued the authoritarian leader for defamation.


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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge welcomed the President and First Lady of Ukraine to Buckingham Palace today in their first audience since the start of lockdown.

Kate Middleton, 38, looked elegant in a cornflower blue belted dress as she joined Prince William, 38, for the meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife Olena in the opulent Throne Room.

The couples did not wear masks but observed social distancing and appeared in good spirits during the meeting, the first royal event to take place at Buckingham Palace since March.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge held the audience on behalf of the Queen, 94, who is staying at Windsor Castle and carrying out a limited number of engagements.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have welcomed the president and first lady of Ukraine to Buckingham Palace in their first audience since lockdown. The Cambridges did not shake hands but did stand up to greet the Ukrainian visitors, pictured

The Duchess of Cambridge looked elegant in a cornflower blue belted dress, thought to be by designer Emilia Wickstead

The couples did not wear masks but observed social distancing and appeared in good spirits during the meeting, the first royal event to take place at Buckingham Palace since March. The Duke and Duchess shared this photo of the meeting

William and Kate have taken part in a number of engagements since the easing of lockdown restrictions - including a visit by Kate Middleton to Derby University yesterday - but this is their first audience with a world leader in seven months.

The Cambridges did not shake hands with their guests, as would have been customary before lockdown, but did stand up to greet the Ukrainian visitors.

During the brief meeting, the couples stood socially distanced before moving to two separate ornate sofas to continue their conversation.

Kate, who was dressed in a cornflower blue belted dress, and William, in a suit and tie, were seen smiling broadly as they spoke to their guests.

Comedian-turned-politician Mr Zelenskyy has travelled to London with a ministerial delegation on a two-day visit.

He will also sign the Political, Free Trade and Strategic Partnership Agreement with Boris Johnson on Thursday.

The Duke of Cambridge looked animated as he spoke to the Ukrainian president and first lady in the Throne Room. The couple held the audience on behalf of the Queen who is staying at Windsor Castle and carrying out a limited number of engagements

During the brief meeting, the couples stood socially distanced in the Throne Room (pictured) before moving to two separate ornate sofas to continue their conversation. They did not shake hands as they would have done pre-lockdown

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge meet the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and his wife, Olena. The couple moved to the sofas (pictured) during the brief audience

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the agreement is a 'clear demonstration' of the UK's commitment to Ukraine's prosperity and security.

Mr Raab will meet Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba today to reaffirm support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of what the Foreign Office called 'malign behaviour from Russia'.

The Foreign Secretary will announce 5 million in humanitarian aid to support communities in eastern Ukraine who have been affected by conflict and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The aid will go towards the provision of food, water, medical supplies and psychosocial support for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, the Foreign Office said.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and his wife, Olena, are on a two-day visit to the UK. The president will also sign the Political, Free Trade and Strategic Partnership Agreement with Boris Johnson

Mr Raab said: 'Ukraine's stability is vital for Europe's security. Providing 5 million in humanitarian aid and signing the Political, Free Trade and Strategic Partnership Agreement is a clear demonstration of the UK's commitment to Ukraine's prosperity and security.'

Comedian-turned-politician Zelensky came to power last April promising to 'break the system' that had ruled Ukraine since independence in 1991.

Among his campaign promises were ending the conflict in the east, fighting corruption and reforming Ukraine's economy which is reliant on foreign aid.
A postal employee in New Jersey dumped more than 1,800 pieces of mail, including 99 ballots for the upcoming election, that were intended for households in heavily Democratic areas, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Nicholas Beauchene, 26, of Kearny, faced arraignment later on Wednesday in federal court in Newark on charges of delay, secretion or detention of mail and obstruction of mail.

If convicted of delay of mail, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

A conviction for obstruction of mail carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

It was not known if he had retained a lawyer. Beauchene has not responded to a request from DailyMail.com for comment.

Nicholas Beauchene, 26, of Kearny, New Jersey, is due to appear in federal court in Newark on Wednesday for an arraignment

Beauchene faces at least five years in prison if he is convicted on mail obstruction charges

Federal prosecutors allege that Beauchene dumped more than 1,800 pieces of mail, including 99 ballots for the upcoming election, that were intended for households in heavily Democratic areas

The approximately 1,875 pieces of discarded mail were recovered from trash dumpsters in North Arlington and West Orange on Friday and Monday, prosecutors said.

It had been scheduled to be delivered to addresses on certain postal routes in Orange and West Orange.

In addition to the election ballots for residents in West Orange, prosecutors said 276 campaign flyers from candidates for the West Orange Council and for the school board also were recovered.

Prosecutors said Beauchene was the only mail carrier assigned to deliver to the addresses on the delivery dates.

The recovered mail was placed back into the mail stream for delivery.

Orange and West Orange are suburban townships located in Essex County, New Jersey.

In 2016, Essex County voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, who received 240,837 votes.

Clinton's Republican opponent, Donald Trump, received just 63,176 votes in the county. Clinton won New Jersey by 55 per cent to 41 per cent for Trump.

Beauchene's Facebook page does not indicate any overt support for one political candidate.

New Jersey is one of many states that are allowing voters to mail in their ballots due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

New Jersey is one of several states that have expanded mail-in voting this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic

A federal judge in New Jersey declined on Tuesday to grant a preliminary injunction sought by the Trump campaign to stop New Jerseys mail-in ballot program.

In a filing last month, the campaign said the program violated the Constitution and would 'establish conditions likely to incentivize and facilitate the same kind of fraud and confusion that have plagued New Jersey elections for years.'

Democratic New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation in August that allowed election officials to begin counting mail-in ballots 10 days before Election Day and accept un-postmarked ballots up to two days afterward.

The GOP sued New Jersey in August, calling the states plan to send mail-in ballots to its more than 6 million registered voters 'a brazen power grab' by Murphy that created the possibility of widespread voter fraud.

The two major political parties are embroiled in dozens of lawsuits across the country over issues including mail-in ballots, ballot drop boxes, witness requirements and time extensions for voting and for counting ballots.


Tang Prize Laureates Doudna and Charpentier are Winners of 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

TAIPEI, TAIWAN, Oct 7, 2020 - (Media OutReach) - News broke today (October 7) that 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was jointly awarded to 2016 Tang Prize laureates, Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Dr. Jennifer Doudna for the development of a method for genome editing. It marked the second time that Tang Prize recipients became Nobel Prize winners, with the first time being 2014 Tang Prize winners Dr. James P. Allison and Dr. Tasuku Honjo awarded Nobel Prizes in 2018.Sharing the enormous pleasure brought by this glory, Dr. Jenn-Chuan Chern, CEO of the Tang Prize Foundation, immediately offered them his heartfelt congratulations, while also expressed his deep gratitude to the Tang Prize selection committee for having the great foresight to choose two laureates whose achievements are universally recognized.Though living in two continents far away from each other, France's leading microbiologist Dr. Charpentier and world-renown American RNA expert Dr. Dounda met in 2011 at a conference in Puerto Rico. This chance encounter heralded the beginning of their collaboration. Together, they successfully transform CRISPR/Cas (CRISPR-associated proteins), an adaptive immune defensive system originally found in bacteria and archaea, into a two component system (Cas9 and a single guide RNA). CRISPR/Cas9 is a simple, programmable and efficient genome-editing method that is able to deliver multiple single gRNAs simultaneously to target and remove unwanted genes.In comparison with the previous gene editing platforms such as TALEN (transcription activator-like effector nuclease) or ZFN (zinc finger nuclease), CRISPR/Cas9 gets the upper hand for being more cost-effective, simple, efficient, precise and sensitive. It changed the science of genetics, opened the floodgates for the discovery and development of new therapies that benefit human beings, and can even help enhance biofuel and agricultural production. The concerted effort they put into the research on CRISPR/Cas9 has improved this technology by leaps and bounds and earned them an array of international awards, among which is the 2016 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science, jointly awarded to Dr. Charpentier, Dr. Doudna and Chinese-American bioengineer Dr. Feng Zhang.To combat the coronavirus crisis, Dr. Doudna's team is also developing CRISPR-based rapid diagnostics for COVID-19. She pointed out that CRISPR can detect RNA from the viral genome itself, which to some degree transcended the limitations faced by many IgM/IgG antibody tests in that it can spot the virus before patients' immune cells start to produce antibodies. Moreover, CRISPR can easily be reprogrammed to search for different RNA or DNA sequences, therefore reducing the risk of failing to detect the novel coronavirus once it mutates.Dr. Charpentier decided to use the fund from the Tang Prize Foundation to further examine how our innate immune compartment responds to the infection of S. pyogenes, a Gram-positive bacterium. As outlined in her research proposal, innate immune cells "possess... a vast array of germline encoded Pathogen Recognition Receptors (PRRs), such as Toll Like Receptors (TLRs)" and because "ten human TLRs evolved to recognize specific Pathogen Associated Molecular Patterns (PAPMs) shared among different bacterial species," our body can promptly detect "microbial invaders albeit without the specificity characteristic of the adaptive immune system."Founded by Taiwanese entrepreneur Dr. Samuel Yin, the Tang Prize is aimed to draw the world's attention to the wisdom mankind needs in order to deal with issues unique to the 21st century. It consists of four categorizes (Sustainable Development, Biopharmaceutical Science, Sinology and Rule of Law). With NT $50 million allocated to winners in each category (40 million prize money and 10 million research grant), it hopes to encourage the world's top talent to work together for the betterment of human civilization. Awarded biannually since 2014, the Tang Prize announced its latest laureates in June 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Foundation decided to cancel this year's award ceremony and banquet but has planned to invite the 2020 laureates to deliver speeches at major international conferences and to travel to Taiwan to receive the award, when the pandemic is no longer considered a global health threat.About Tang PrizeDr. Samuel Yin, chairman of Ruentex Group, founded the Tang Prize in December of 2012 as an extension of the supreme value his family placed on education. Harkening back to the golden age of the Tang Dynasty in Chinese history, the Tang Prize seeks to be an inspiring force for people working in all corners of the world. For more information on the Tang Prize and its laureates, please visit www.tang-prize.orgSource: Tang Prize FoundationCopyright 2020 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
BAKU/YEREVAN -- Heavy fighting continued around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh on October 7 as international diplomacy to reach a cease-fire between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces intensified.

Military officials in Yerevan said Armenia-backed separatists repelled what they called a large-scale Azerbaijani attack on their positions at the southernmost section of the Nagorno-Karabakh "line of contact."

The area, which borders Iran, has been the epicenter of hostilities in recent days.

Since fighting erupted on September 27, the two sides have reported at least 300 deaths, including dozens of civilians. Azerbaijan has not released military casualties.

The actual toll is believed to be much higher as both sides claim to have inflicted heavy military casualties. Each side has accused the other of targeting civilians.

Shushan Stepanian, a spokeswoman for Armenias Defense Ministry, said on October 7 that separatist forces killed scores of Azerbaijani soldiers and destroyed two dozen tanks and other armored vehicles, while the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on the same day that its military has destroyed 250 Armenian tanks since the beginning of hostilities.

Neither claim could be independently confirmed. Both sides regularly exaggerate military successes against their opponent.

An RFE/RL Armenian Service crew working in Stepanakert, the breakaway region's largest city, reported another day of shelling on the urban area by Azerbaijani forces on October 7.

Stepanakert's deputy mayor, Suren Tamrazian, said that around half of the towns population of 50,000 had fled to safer rural areas or Armenia.

The hostilities have increased concern that a wider conflict could drag in regional power Turkey, which is Azerbaijan's closest ally, and Russia, which has a defense pact with Armenia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview with state-run television on October 7, called for an urgent cease-fire.

"Of course, this is a huge tragedy. People are dying. There are heavy losses on both sides," Putin said.

A cease-fire must be agreed "as quickly as possible," even if a resolution to the long-standing conflict takes much longer, Putin added.

Separately, Putin spoke with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev about the conflict over the phone, the Kremlin said on October 7.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the two leaders agreed to continue their dialogue on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, without giving details.

It was the first time Putin and Aliyev have spoken since fighting erupted.

Aliyev told Russian state television that his country would return to talks with Armenia after the acute phase of military conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region ends.

Aliyev said that Turkey had the right to participate in mediation, Russian news agency TASS reported. Turkey brushed off calls for a cease-fire and gave Azerbaijan its full backing.

Azerbaijan has demanded that Armenian forces withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding Azerbaijani territories as a condition for a cease-fire. Those conditions would be nearly impossible for Armenia to accept.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Russian, French, and U.S. representatives would also meet in Moscow on October 12 to find a way to get the warring sides to negotiate a cease-fire.

"We want everyone to understand that it's in their interest to immediately stop hostilities without conditions and that we start a negotiation," he told the French parliament's foreign affairs committee on October 7.

Armenian and Azeri representatives are not expected to meet.

Russia, France, and the United States co-chair the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) so-called Minsk Group, which has spearheaded on-and-off peace efforts over Nagorno-Karabakh since the early 1990s. The three powers have repeatedly called for an immediate cease-fire.

Azerbaijan said its foreign minister, Ceyhun Bayramov, would visit Geneva on October 8 to meet the leaders of the OSCE's Minsk Group.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry said Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian would visit Moscow on October 12 but gave no details.

The president of Iran, which borders both Armenia and Azerbaijan, said it had told both sides "clearly and precisely" that they must avoid turning their conflict into a regional war.

"We should be terribly careful this conflict does not turn into a regional war, because definitely nobody would profit from that," Hassan Rohani told state television on October 7.

Rohani, who spoke to Aliyev on October 6, said he had offered that Tehran could act as a mediator.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on October 6 in an interview with AFP that Turkey's "full support" had motivated Azerbaijan to reignite the fighting.

"While it is true that the leadership of Azerbaijan has been actively promoting bellicose rhetoric for the last 15 years, now the decision to unleash a war was motivated by Turkey's full support," Pashinian said.

In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also highlighted the risk of regional conflict. "The only solution is to go back to the negotiation table," he told the European Parliament on October 7. "But this negotiation table has been open for the last 30 years without any kind of advance," Borrell cautioned, adding, "War is not an alternative."

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.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, but it is controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists with close ties to Yerevan. Armenian forces also hold control over seven regions adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh.

With reporting by AFP, dpa, Interfax, TASS, and Reuters
Digital Transformation and Commercial Operations Director at Vodafone Ghana, Angela Mensah-Poku, has reaffirmed the Telcos' commitment to enhancing customer experience through innovation, creativity, and digital.

According to her, one of the core values at Vodafone is to continually deliver unmatched customer experience and innovation across all key touchpoints.



We are an organisation that prides itself of being customer-centric. Our customers are at the very heart of all that we do and we ensure that this mind-set runs across all departments within the organisation.



We ensure that no customer is left behind in the process and this is what has led to the birth of revolutionary initiatives such as Super Care and varied digital channels like My Vodafone App, she said.



She added Innovation, creativity, and digital are embedded in all we do. Our leadership in introducing new and modern trends in technology and digitalisation is unquestionable. We can cite several of these industry-leading products, campaigns, and initiatives.



Angela Mensah-Poku said this during her visit to the Vodafone Retail Shop at Cantonment to interact with some customers as part of Customer Care Month Celebration.



She indicated that Vodafone has outlined activities to celebrate and reward customers throughout the week.

We have dedicated the week to celebrate and reward our customers with a host of activities just to say thank you for staying with us. It is imperative to underscore the importance of our relationship. We want to thank our customers for giving us the opportunity to play a fundamental role in how they live, work, and play.



Vodafone customers will be rewarded and celebrated with exciting prizes such as Vodafone Cash, gift baskets, mifis with data, airtime and Vodafone souvenirs. Vodafone will also give away unique gift packs to customers during an unspecified hour within its shops. Vodafones Enterprise Customers will also get to use the Telcos Bulk SMS platform and Caller Ring Back Tune for promotional campaigns throughout the month, she highlighted.



She further assured customers of Vodafone commitment to live up to its standards of excellence in all interactions and across all touchpoints.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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As the economic situation gets worse the willingness to make peace grows. Yemen was in bad shape economically even before a 2011 Arab Spring uprising replaced a democratic dictator. Just before the 2011 uprising the Yemeni parliament approved changes in the constitution that would abolish term limits for the president, and allow the current president (Ali Abdullah Saleh) to rule for life if he could get the voters, one way or another, to regularly reelect him. Saleh hoped to use foreign aid and oil income to keep himself in power. Saleh had been in power since 1990 and was deposed in 2012 because he was unable to solve any of the chronic problems. New elections were held and a new president elected but that did not work. Iran recently admitted, during a boatful interview of a senior general on Iranian TV, that it had indeed encouraged the Shia rebels up north to exploit the post-Saleh chaos and move forces south into the capital Sanaa. Iran provided planning, some cash and weapons and encouragement. With the help of deposed president Saleh, who is a Shia, the Shia tribes did the unexpected and took control of most of the more populous north.

In response to that the Arab coalition, mainly Saudi Arabia and the UAE (United Arab Emirates), intervened in 2015 to save the recently elected Yemeni government. Over the last six years the rebels have grown weaker, in part because their patron Iran is no longer able to provide as much support as before. Iran has so far provided enough aid to keep the war going.

The Arab Coalition is less concerned with Yemeni unity and more about Iranian efforts to establish an autonomous or independent Shia Arab-dominated state in northern Yemen. This new state would depend on Iran for survival because Iran is the largest Shia majority nation in the world and currently a deadly rival of Saudi Arabia. While the UAE is less concerned about an autonomous Shia Arab entity in Yemen, the Saudis will not under any circumstances tolerate such an Iran-backed Shia presence on its southern border.

The basic problem is that too many Yemenis dont want to be Yemenis. The country was a patchwork of independent tribes and cities when the English East India Company took control of some Yemeni ports in the 1830s and 40s to support ships going from Britain to India. The Ottoman Turks still controlled most of northern Yemen until 1918, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed. Britain took over from the Ottomans and established the borders of modern Yemen. But Yemen was still not a unified country. When the British left Yemen in 1967, their former colony in Aden became one of two countries called Yemen. The two parts of Yemen finally united in 1990, with Saleh as president. A civil war in 1994 was needed to seal the deal. That fix didn't really take, and within a decade the north and south were pulling apart again.

The corruption and lack of unity is related to the fact that Yemen has always been a region, not a country. Like most of the rest of the Persian Gulf and Horn of Africa (northeast Africa) region, the normal form of government, until the last century or so, was wealthier coastal city states nervously coexisting with interior tribes that got by on herding or farming (or a little of both). This whole "nation" idea is still looked on with some suspicion throughout the region. This is why the most common forms of government are the more familiar ones of antiquity as in kingdom, emirate or modern variation in the form of a hereditary dictatorship.

Yemen is still all about the tribes. The national government is a bunch of guys who deal with foreigners, and try to maintain peace among the tribes. Controlling the national government is a source of much wealth, as officials can steal part of the foreign aid and taxes, mostly on imports or royalties from meager oil exports.

This lack of nationalism means a lack of cooperation or willingness to act in the national public interest. Much of the Yemeni agricultural crises is caused by the fact that Yemen's economic situation has been rapidly deteriorating since the late 20th century. This is largely because the government has done nothing to address the problems of over-population, water shortages and Khat. That last item is a narcotic plant that is chewed fresh, requires a lot of water to grow and is worth a lot of money when smuggled into Saudi Arabia where it is illegal.

Feuding, fighting and blaming others for the mess are the preferred methods for dealing with the problems. Before oil was discovered in Arabia nearly a century ago, Yemen had long been the most populous, powerful and populous part of Arabia because it was the only part of Arabia with dependable rainfall thanks to the annual monsoon. Most of the oil deposits were at the north end of the Persian Gulf and Yemen lost out there. Yemenis had long despised the less affluent Arabians to the north, but since oil arrived the Yemenis have become the despised and they did not take it well. Resentment, envy and a sense of entitlement combined with the lack of unity to produce Yemen that is a nation in name only. Few others in the region have much sympathy for the Yemenis, who are seen as the main cause of their own problems and the main obstacle to solving them. Since that is all you have to work with it is no wonder that Yemen came to be such a perennial disaster area.

The concept of a unified Yemen was largely created by Cold War politics and how Britain handled a threat to their seaborne trade in the early 19th century. That was when Britain took control of Aden. This was partly to shut down the many pirates operating out of there, and increasingly going after British ships travelling between Asia (India, Southeast Asia and China) and Britain. Only Aden was needed but the British made deals with the tribes that occupied most of southern Yemen coast, and had long depended on Aden and other southern ports for supplies and such. Britain made Aden and the smaller southern ports more prosperous with new trading opportunities and provided more benefits for the interior tribes. Most importantly the tribes still had their autonomy, as well as British protection from outsiders. The Suez Canal opened in 1869 and over the next few decades larger, more efficient, steam powered metal vessels supplanted and replaced wooden sailing ships. That meant a lot more trade moving past and Aden and South Yemen became more prosperous.

When the British left in 1967, as part of a widespread abandonment of colonies by European nations, there was some unrest and fighting in the newly independent South Yemen. This was because Aden was much less religious and traditional, with a better educated population. It was no surprise that Aden and some other South Yemen cities were dominated by local communists. From 1970 until the fall of European communism in 1989, South Yemen was a communist state, subsidized by the Soviet Union, and the only such one in the Arab world.

Most of that enthusiasm for communism was centered in Aden and its suburbs. This is where most of the South Yemen population lived and where an even larger proportion of its GDP came from. A few other coastal cities had the same type of population and political attitudes, giving the urban population control of politics as well as the economy. The tribal minority, out in the desert and semi-desert inland areas was much more religious and traditional. But over the centuries the urban and tribal populations had learned to get along and respect each others customs.

It was different in northern Yemen, where the urban population was not as dominant, the tribal population was economically better off, and about as religious and conservative as their southern tribal counterparts. The problem was the northern and southern tribes saw each other as foreigners. This is a common situation in tribal cultures, which includes the rest of the Arabian Peninsula. Yet even then there was some enthusiasm for a united Yemen in the north and south.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union (and European communism) in 1991 the Russian subsidies for the south stopped and unification was suddenly much more appealing. After a few years of haggling, and occasional fighting, Yemen was united by 1994. At that point there were still factions in the north and south who believed unity was overrated and two Yemens was the way to go. After a few years of recent fighting, with most of the population surviving on foreign food aid, regional autonomy and national unity no longer seem relevant. Many of those hungry Yemenis have to pay Shia rebels for this free food. The foreign aid NGOS and the UN complain about this but the Shia rebels are armed and dangerous and the UN is not. Not armed that is. That has led to foreign donors reducing their contributions. The aid-per Yemeni fell 50 percent between 2019 and 2020. Part of that was due to the covid19 economic recession but most of the decline was about the rebels using the aid as a source of income, plus using the threat of withholding all aid to Yemenis who did not cooperate.

There is resistance to admitting that Yemen is a failed state, one of those areas (like Somalia and Afghanistan) that were never united for long and are basically several smaller entities that are not really interested in unity with their neighbors who are supposed to be their countrymen. And then there is the corruption problem.

Most Iran-backed Shia rebels still believe time is their side as long as the Iranian support continues. Iran understands this as well and is willing to finance the expensive smuggling effort at a reduced level because of the distress it causes the Saudis. The problem with this strategy is that Iran can afford to abandon the Shia rebels while the Saudis cannot afford to have an Iranian ally on their southern border.

In response to this grim reality (for the rebels) the Saudis are trying to get the Yemeni government to grant the southern tribes autonomy and offer the northern tribes (both Shia and Sunni) a similar deal as long as Iranian influence was eliminated in the north. The UAE may have proposed this because the UAE has been in charge of security (and aid delivery) in the south since 2015 and has supported the formation of the STC (South Transitional Council). This group is composed of southern tribes that want autonomy but claim they are willing to fight and defeat the Islamic terrorists as well as the Shia rebels first. Aidarous al Zubaidi, the STC leader is seen as more popular in the south than Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, the last and current elected president of united Yemen. Hadi has only briefly visited Yemen a few times since 2015 and spends most of his time in the Saudi capital. This is for Hadis safety given the number of assassinations going on in Aden, where the Hadi government was moved to in 2015. The Saudis and the UAE do not agree on dividing Yemen again, but for the moment it is more convenient to support the STC and efforts to defeat the Iran backed Shia rebels

In the last two years the Arab Coalition lost most support from the UAE, its second-largest contributor. At the same time the Yemen government lost support from many of the southern Sunni tribes that, like the northern Shia tribes, want autonomy. This separatism has always been present in Yemen and is historically a collection of independent tribes and large coastal cities.

October 5, 2020: In the north (Amram province) the Shia rebels launched an explosives armed UAV towards the Saudi city of Najran. The UAV was shot down and there were no casualties.

In northwest ( Hodeida province) coalition troops found Shia rebel remote controlled boat filled with explosives near a small coastal village. The rebels send these boats out into the Red Sea to attack commercial traffic and disrupt the heavily used shipping lanes.

October 4, 2020: The Saudis claim the rebels suffered several thousand casualties in September, including a thousand dead. These are obviously estimates, because many of the casualties were inflicted from the air. Saudi pilots have become very proficient with their smart bombs and guided missiles as well as targeting pods to find military targets and hit them. There have been a lot fewer civilian casualties as a result. The rebels did not respond to the claim but there was a lot of fighting in central Yemen during September and the rebels suffered a lot of attacks from the air. In the last few days there was more fighting in central Yemen (Marib provice) and in the northwest ( Hodeida province) Shia rebels near the Red Sea port of Hodeida rebels continued firing into the city, especially the port areas. All this violence has left nearly a hundred dead or wounded.

October 3, 2020: Saudi Arabia and the UAE are hiring more African mercenaries. The pay is better that what the UN offers for peacekeepers and the job, while dangerous, is not a suicide mission. The UAE is using its mercs to guard its new electronic monitoring base on the Yemeni Socotra Islands off the southern coast.

October 2, 2020: In the southeast (Mahra province) coalition forces and some local tribal militia raided a house outside the provincial capital and found a suspected al Qaeda hideout. The Islamic terrorists resisted and locals reported hearing some large explosions and lots of gunfire. Three Islamic terrorists were killed and two wounded and captured. Earlier in the year there was violence involving local tribes. Several times Saudi troops clashed with armed members of the local Mahra tribe near the Oman border. Marah province borders Saudi Arabia in the north and Oman in the east. Saudi troops have been in Mahra province since 2017 to deal with the Iranian arms that were being smuggled to the Shia rebels via nearby ports in Mahra and Oman.

October 1, 2020: The Saudis have revealed details of the Iran smuggling operations. Interrogations of numerous captured smugglers revealed a lot of detail of how one smuggling network operates via a northern Somali port of Berbera. Yemeni fishermen from the Red Sea coast were recruited in 2015, after the Arab Coalition naval blockade went into effect. Key members of the smuggling teams were sent to Iran for a month or more of training (using GPS, maintaining engines, hiding arms cargo on fishing boats and tactics to evade the blockade. The smugglers were well paid but as time went by more and more of them were caught. This happened despite Iranian tactics that stressed team work and use of some fishing boats to deliberately act suspiciously and decoy the warships away from the boat carrying the weapons.

September 30, 2020: In northwest ( Hodeida province) Shia rebels near the Red Sea port of Hodeida fired several mortar shells into a residential neighborhood, killing two civilians and wounding several others. This sort of thing is usually done to punish neighborhoods that dont cooperate with the rebels. The rebel forces are still close enough to the port to fire on and hit ships trying to enter the port. The rebels are using this veto power over port access to try and extract more money from the UN, which now runs the port. Ships entering the port pay user fees and before the rebels were forced to withdraw from the port in May 2019, they considered the port user fees part of their income. The rebels also imposed many other fees on the foreign aid groups and paid for the supplies brought in as well as for moving these items, by truck, to areas where the food and other items were desperately needed.

The port fees and stolen aid supplies from controlling the largest Yemen port on the Red Sea was a great loss for the rebels. Hodeida is where most of the foreign aid comes in. The government and Arab Coalition finally broke rebel control of the port in late 2018 and negotiated a rebel withdrawal from the city in early 2919. The rebels can only raise the checkpoint fees so high before the traders realize that it would be cheaper to hire smugglers to get the shipments past the rebel toll keepers.

Further north some rebels fired a shell into a Saudi village in Jizan province. There were no casualties.

September 27, 2020: The Shia rebels and the Yemeni government have agreed to exchange prisoners, which will involve exchanging 1,081 prisoners. The UN and Red Cross will administer the exchange process although details have not yet been revealed. This prisoner exchange is a positive sign. Officially both sides are claiming progress in the fighting but both sides are exaggerating.

September 21, 2020: General Mutlaq bin Salim, the new Saudi commander of the Arab Coalition is expected to put a lot of time and effort into fixing the mess his predecessor created in central Yemen (Marib province) where government forces halted a rebel offensive through the effective and heavy use of airstrikes and aerial surveillance. Through most of August rebels kept attacking, or trying to, and finally ease up on the military offensive and concentrate on the successful effort to get Sunni tribes in central Yemen join the rebel coalition or become neutral. This trend played a large role in the Saudis replacing their commander. The Saudis had become more effective at interpreting aerial photos and videos to locate rebel leaders and headquarters than in building and maintaining relationships with local tribal leaders.

The Saudi Air Force was somewhat independent of the Arab Coalition commander. The Air Force provided air support for Arab Coalition forces and carried out separate attacks against military targets. Since the Air Force was also responsible for air defense inside Saudi Arabia, air operations in Yemen had to pay more attention to what the military high command in Saudi Arabia wanted. One side-effect of this was the more effective and frequent use of electronic surveillance with UAVs or manned aircraft. This greater success in finding and hitting targets with smart bombs and guided missiles led to a lot more rebel casualties. The number of rebel commanders killed has been particularly damaging. This appears to have resulted in more UAV and ballistic missile attacks against Saudi airbases near the Yemen border. These airbases are where the Saudi warplanes and UAVs operate from. So far none of the rebel air attacks have succeeded. General Salim has a background in intelligence and the use of aerial surveillance and reconnaissance. So Salim already had a lot of experience with what was going on in Yemen.

In Marib the coalition and government ground units eliminated rebel forces that had been blocking easy access to Marib. In the first few months of 2020 the rebels took advantage of the Arab coalition manpower shortage. This took place after the UAE withdrew most of its troops earlier in 2020 and a new government in Sudan withdrew all but 700 of the 15,000 mercenaries Saudi Arabia had hired. At this point the coalition was forced to depend more on their airpower advantage until their depleted ground forces could be redistributed. By June this had stopped the Shia advance and by the end of August the Shia advance had turned into a Shia retreat. The rebels see this as a temporary setback and still believe time is their side as long as the Iranian support continues. Iran understands this as well and is willing to finance the expensive smuggling effort at a reduced level because of the distress it causes the Saudis. But now there a new Saudi general in charge and if the new guy repairs relationships with the Sunni tribes in the area, the rebels will be in more trouble.

September 19, 2020: In the northwest (across the border in the Saudi province of Jizan) a village was hit by a rocket fired from Yemen by Shia rebels. Five civilians were wounded and there was damage to buildings and three cars.

September 6, 2020: In the north (Jawf province) government forces engaged in a particularly intense attack on rebel forces in an effort to regain key terrain lost to a Shia offensive earlier in 2020. The attack was only partially successful, with twenty rebels killed as well as eight of the tribal militiamen on the ground. Saudi air power was decisive in this operation and continues to be a major asset for coalition forces. This battle was part of a larger operation connected with rebel forces that had been blocking easy access to central Yemen (Marib province).

September 2, 2020: Saudi Arabia replaced Prince Fahd Bin Turki as commander of Saudi forces in Yemen. Prince Fahd and his son, also an army officer were both accused of corruption, along with four non-royal officers. The new commander of the Arab Coalition force is Mutlaq bin Salim, a commoner who achieved his high rank (as deputy chief of staff since 2017) via two decades of successful service in a number of difficult jobs. Prince Fahd was a mediocre military leader and a disaster when it came to negotiating with the various tribal and political factions in Yemen. His replacement is quite the opposite but he has to deal with five years of poor performance by Prince Fahd.
There have been five further deaths and 611 new cases of coronavirus confirmed by the Department of Health today.

This comes as the entire country is adjusting to Level 3 restrictions which came into effect at midnight last night, and as gardai roll out 132 checkpoints nationwide to urge compliance with public health guidelines.

Read More

This takes the death toll of the virus to 1,816 while the total case count is 39,584.

There have been 218 new cases in Dublin, 63 in Cork, 60 in Donegal, 35 in Galway, 31 in Kildare and the remaining

204 are located across 21 counties.

Of the cases notified today; 303 are men and 305 are women; 59pc are under 45 years of age; 50pc are confirmed to be associated with outbreaks or are close contacts of a confirmed case and 83 cases have been identified as community transmission.

The 14-day incidence of the virus nationally has increased from 92 per 100,000 to 124 per 100,000 since October 1, with the five-day average of new cases up from 370 to 506.

In the last seven days there have been 3,436 new cases, Dr Ronan Glynn confirmed.

The positivity rate of tests has risen from 3pc to 4pc in a week.

Hospitalisations from the virus have grown from 122 to 154 in just six days, the Deputy CMO confirmed.

In all of August there were five deaths from Covid-19, in September there were 34 and in just the first five days of October there have been eight deaths.

At least six new outbreaks have been confirmed in nursing homes this month and there are at least five outbreaks with more than 20 cases confirmed.

Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said: All key indicators of the disease have deteriorated further in the three days since the last meeting of Nphet on Sunday 4th October.

Covid-19 is spreading in our community in a very worrying manner. We have to break these chains of transmission.

80 Covid-19 cases were hospitalised in August, 206 in September and 77 so far in October.

In August, 4 Covid-19 related deaths in total were reported, 34 in September and today on the 7th of October we report 8 Covid-19 related deaths this month.

He added: I have to get across the seriousness of the situation we are in. We are now beginning to see exponential growth in case numbers. Unless we individually and collectively take the message that we are giving seriously, it will become inevitable.

Go back to the basics of hand washing and face masks. Of avoiding crowded places... We are trying to raise consciousness of the fact that we are at an early stage in the number of hospitalisations. We don't want the fact that hospital numbers are low compared to cases fool people.

If this disease continues on the trajectory that it is on, it will threaten the continuation of non-essential medical services being provided currently, Dr Holohan said as he also warned that the blame game of infection is the enemy of people coming forward and being tested.

Were at a different stage than Northern Ireland but were not much behind them, he said.

This disease does not respect borders.

If anything, the level of concern I had on Sunday is less than what I have now, Dr Holohan said of the rapid increase in cases across the country.

All indicators are going in the wrong direction.

Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the Nphet Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said: Its a rapidly deteriorating and precarious position we are in.

We will see case numbers and hospitalisations which will be a very significant challenge for us as a society.

Prof Nolan's projections earlier showed that if the spread of the virus continues unabated, we will see between 1,600 and 2,300 cases a day by November.

Its a long time since we have seen the numbers change so rapidly, he added.

Periods during the summer when we reported one death every five days at most, now on average we are reporting two deaths a day.

We saw an extra 1,000 cases per week in just one week.

Dr. Ronan Glynn, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said: Trends in case numbers and incidence are now being reflected in indicators of disease severity. The number of people in hospital has increased from 122 last Thursday to 156 this afternoon. There are currently 25 people in critical care compared to 20 one week ago.

Prof Nolan said: Case numbers and hospitalisations are growing exponentially. The Reproductive number is now estimated at 1.2.

If we fail to reduce viral transmission nationwide immediately, we could see 1,100  1,500 cases per day and 300-450 people in hospital by November 7th.

He added: Frankly the situation is somewhat worse than that. It's likely the R number in Dublin is less than 1.2 and the rest of the country is at 1.5.

The disease is spreading very rapidly and particularly outside Dublin... We simply cannot protect people in the older age bracket if the level of virus in the community continues to rise, and it is, as Dr Glynn has highlighted.

Dr Siobhan Ni Bhriain, Consultant Psychiatrist and HSE Integrated Care Lead: I urge everyone to remind themselves of what they can do on an individual level to suppress the virus and prevent a surge on hospital demands.

Currently, the average length of stay of a Covid-19 patient is 20 days in hospital and 14 days in ICU.

ICU is the last stop in the care pathway for any illness. Focus on prevention and follow public health advice to ensure care pathways are available to as many people and treatments as possible.

She added that the average length of stay in hospital for a non-Covid patient was 5.9 days pre-pandemic, highlighting the increased strain the virus causes on the health system.

Meanwhile, Dr Holohan said he and Leo Varadkar have spoken since Monday night.

We exchanged views and he and I have a good and long-standing relationship and we will continue to have, he explained.

Dr Holohan said he was absolutely satisfied that the air had been cleared with the Tanaiste.

On the Tanaistes comments that Nphet's advice was not thought-through, he said: In relation to the material we outlined in the letter on Sunday, the concern of where we are provided the basis for that letter. We gave that letter very careful consideration and felt we had to go to Level 5.

I dont have a view if the government got it right or wrong - I just look at the numbers, Prof Nolan said of the governments decision not to go to Level 5 as was recommended.
A new attack ad from the Lincoln Project that focuses on president Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic ((The Lincoln Project))

A Republican campaign group formed to get Donald Trump out of office, has released a new attack ad that criticises the presidents response to the coronavirus pandemic, as he continues to play down the seriousness of the virus.

Mr Trump was hospitalised at the Walter Reed Medical Centre on Friday evening, after he showed symptoms for coronavirus following a positive Covid-19 test result a few hours earlier.

After nearly three days at the facility, president Trump tweeted that he would be leaving the medical centre, and arrived back at the White House on Monday evening.

When he announced he was leaving, Mr Trump played down the seriousness of his condition, and wrote: Feeling really good! Dont be afraid of Covid. Dont let it dominate your life.

On Tuesday morning, The Lincoln Project, a Republican political action committee that is aiming to prevent the reelection of Mr Trump, released a new attack ad, titled Hospital, following the presidents release from the facility.

The ad starts with a blurry image of someone in a hospital bed, with the noise of a ventilator, a heart rate monitor and muffled speech from medical staff the only sound in the clip.

A death from Covid is the loneliest death imaginable, no husband or wife, flashes on the screen. No son or daughter by your side. No sister or brother. No extended family or lifelong friends, follows in the clip.

No one to hold your hand. No one to ease your passing. Just a cold lonely hospital room. For too many this is how it ends today. Over 200,000 Americans have lost their lives to Covid. We could have stopped it.

His lying is killing us. We have to stop it. Vote him out, the ad concludes, as the sound of the heart rate monitor increases in speed, before the screen fades to black.

On Tuesday morning, president Trump falsely claimed that 100,000 Americans die every year from the flu, as he continued to play down the seriousness of the virus following his release from hospital.

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Mr Trump tweeted: Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu.

Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020

Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!

Politico reported that the most deaths from flu in the last 10 years was around 61,000 in 2018, while According to Johns Hopkins University some 7.4m people have now tested positive for coronavirus in the US since March and the death toll has reached 210,195.

Last week, after Mr Trump announced he had tested positive for coronavirus, the campaign for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said it would stop airing attack ads. The Trump campaign said it would not do the same.

In response, The Lincoln Project said it would continue to air attack ads about Mr Trump, but the new video is the first to focus on coronavirus since the president tested positive for the virus.

The Lincoln Project's senior communications adviser Ryan Wiggins told Newsweek on Friday evening that the groups ads will stay up.

He added: We will continue to prosecute the campaign against a Trump second term and work to defeat the republicans senators who enable him.

Read more

Michelle Obama accuses Trump of racist policies in blistering closing argument ahead of presidential election

Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway says Donald Trump shows nine symptoms of mental illness in new video
Gov't starts work on "digital state"

19:20, 07.10.20 472

The Ministry of Digital Transformation has signed a cooperation memo with the Institute of Cognitive Modeling.
Jacob Blake is being treated at a spinal cord rehabilitation facility in Chicago.

Blake was left paralyzed from the waist down when he was shot by a Kenosha Police officer Aug. 23 after police were called to the street outside Blakes girlfriends home for a domestic dispute. Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey fired his weapon at Blake seven times at close range while holding Blake by his shirt.

The shooting, which kicked off widespread protests and two days of rioting in Kenosha, is under investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Federal investigators conducting a separate civil rights investigation.

Family members and protesters have called for criminal charges to be filed against Sheskey.

After the shooting, Blake was treated at Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa. Family members said he underwent more than one surgery at the hospital. He was moved from the hospital to a rehab facility in September.

Attorney Patrick Cafferty said Blake was transferred from the hospital to a rehabilitation facility in Chicago that specializes in treating people with spinal cord injuries. Cafferty said Blake is likely to be at the facility long term.

Along with shredding his spine, the gunfire damaged nerves and multiple organs. At an earlier press conference, family members said Blake suffered damage to his liver, kidneys and intestines.

In a video released by his lawyers in early September, Blake said he was in constant pain.

Every 24 hours, its pain, he said. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move from side to side, it hurts to eat.

As the state and federal agencies are investigating the shooting, Cafferty is representing Blake on the criminal charge that predated the shooting. At the time of the incident, Blake was wanted on a warrant for a past domestic incident with his girlfriend, who is the mother of his three children. He is charged with third-degree sexual assault, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct, all with domestic abuse enhancers. He is scheduled to have a court appearance on those charges Oct. 21.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 7)  One person was killed, while nine others sustained injuries in a road crash on Wednesday along Olalia Road in Antipolo City, Rizal, the city government said.

The city's public information officer, Reli Bernardo, told CNN Philippines that the driver of a 10-wheeler truck lost control of its brakes, causing a multiple collision with several cars and a tricycle.

He said the victims were brought to different hospitals in the city. The accident is now under police investigation.

This is a developing story.

CNN Philippines correspondent Paolo Barcelon contributed to this report.
This article will reflect on the compensation paid to Wendy Lawrence who has served as CEO of Totally plc (LON:TLY) since 2013. 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 Totally

How Does Total Compensation For Wendy Lawrence Compare With Other Companies In The Industry?

According to our data, Totally plc has a market capitalization of UK32m, and paid its CEO total annual compensation worth UK226k over the year to March 2020. That's a notable increase of 39% on last year. In particular, the salary of UK161.0k, 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 UK154m, we found that the median total CEO compensation was UK195k. So it looks like Totally compensates Wendy Lawrence in line with the median for the industry.

Component 2020 2019 Proportion (2020) Salary UK161k UK140k 71% Other UK65k UK23k 29% Total Compensation UK226k UK163k 100%

On an industry level, roughly 74% of total compensation represents salary and 26% is other remuneration. There isn't a significant difference between Totally and the broader market, in terms of salary allocation in the overall compensation package. If total compensation veers towards salary, it suggests that the variable portion - which is generally tied to performance, is lower.

Totally plc's Growth

Over the last three years, Totally plc has shrunk its earnings per share by 6.0% per year. In the last year, its revenue is up 36%.

The decrease in EPS could be a concern for some investors. But in contrast the revenue growth is strong, suggesting future potential for EPS growth. It's hard to reach a conclusion about business performance right now. This may be one to watch. While we don't have analyst forecasts for the company, shareholders might want to examine this detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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Has Totally plc Been A Good Investment?

Given the total shareholder loss of 68% over three years, many shareholders in Totally plc are probably rather dissatisfied, to say the least. Therefore, it might be upsetting for shareholders if the CEO were paid generously.

In Summary...

As we noted earlier, Totally pays its CEO in line with similar-sized companies belonging to the same industry. However, revenues have increased over the past year, a positive sign for the company. On the other hand, shareholder returns for Wendy are negative over the same period. EPS growth is bleak as well, adding fuel to the fire. We'd say CEO compensation isn't unfair, but shareholders may be wary of a bump in pay before the company substantially improves overall performance.

We can learn a lot about a company by studying its CEO compensation trends, along with looking at other aspects of the business. We did our research and identified 3 warning signs (and 1 which is potentially serious) in Totally we think you should know about.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking at a different set of stocks. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.

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.
"Helping to reshape the UN's approach to better serve the continent and merge the UN-led Sustainable Development Goals with Africa's own 2063 Agenda, are top priorities for the newly minted UN Special Adviser on Africa.

Cristina Duarte, who is also Under-Secretary-General on African Affairs, took up her position at the helm of the Office (OSAA), in August.

Previously, she had served as the Cape Verdean Minister of Finance, Planning and Public Administration, from 2006 to 2016.

Two months into her new role, Ms. Duarte spoke to UN News about the priorities and challenges her Office faces, aimed at bringing the UN family together with other systems and intergovernmental initiatives in Africa, so the continent can realize its full potential.

'Change leadership'

With a strong background in what she called "change leadership", the OSSA chief began by explaining that her Office consists of a "small and powerful" team of 30 people who work closely with the Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General, African Group - that compose 28 per cent of UN Members States - and other key strategic policy makers, including at the African Union (AU) and regional economic commissions.

Moreover, OSSA is the only UN special office on African affairs.

Ms. Duarte maintained that the combination of its strategic position and unique UN role enable the Office to be a part of Africa's "milestone" vision, strategy and action plan.

'Human capital' policy

Before sustainable development can be successful, the OSSA chief said that African policymaking must address sustainable financing.

"It's time for Africa to switch its mindset from managing poverty to managing development and adjusting policy making, accordingly", she stated.

Ms. Duarte advocated for policymakers in Africa to look ahead and "concentrate on fighting illicit financial flows", mobilizing domestic resources and "putting human capital at the centre of policy making".

"The idea is to set up a strategic agenda" so that all entities are purposefully guided "with a focus", she flagged, negating the approach in which everyone discusses everything because "at the end of the day we discuss nothing".

COVID on the continent

The OSSA Chief said that COVID-19 is a tragedy "not only from the health-dimension side", but also socio-economically.

The lockdowns have "pushed Africa into the first socio-economic crisis in 25 years", she stated, describing how COVID has upended life as the continent was moving towards the continent's agreed 2063 Agenda, which the AU describes as the continents "blueprint and master plan" for transformation into the powerhouse of the future.

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And yet, despite the "tragedy dimension", the coronavirus offers an opportunity for Africa to change its paradigm, Ms. Duarte told UN News, supporting a medium-term "development dimension" as it addresses the pandemic.

'Beyond courtesy calls'

Although she has been in post for just over two months, Ms. Duarte has already connected with the African Group and in 30 days, met more than 34 African Ambassadors on an individual basis in video calls.

Calling the meetings "outstanding", she said that they went "beyond courtesy calls" to discuss issues.

"I presented proposals, they made suggestions [and] advised me", the high-level official affirmed.

Moving towards success

Success for Ms. Duarte means eventually "delivering impact" to OSSA's partners.

However, she did point to some important early progress, including meeting virtually with the African Ambassadors and presenting concept notes to the African Group on how to set up a strategic agenda together.
A socially distanced presidential debate watch party at Temple University on Sept. 29. Fewer than than 30 students watched from a lecture hall that holds more than 600 people. Read more

Pennsylvanias 250 college campuses would normally be buzzing with political activity right now: student activists lining the quads passing out free lattes and T-shirts, mass voter registration drives, and auditoriums packed for televised debates.

But little is normal about the campus experience in a pandemic, and the 2020 election is no exception.

Just 30 students sat last week in a Temple University lecture hall that can hold 626, spaced six feet apart as President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden met for their first debate. One of them was Yu Chen, a Chinese American who covered his face in horror when Trump referred to the coronavirus  as he often does  as the China plague. Even though mail ballots are not susceptible to widespread fraud, Trumps false attacks otherwise have left Chen really nervous." So hes made a detailed plan to vote in person.

On my 18th birthday, I got my citizenship, said Chen, now 19. I want my vote to count.

The lack of in-person interaction on campuses and the isolation of students learning remotely means campaigns and political groups are upending their youth voter turnout playbooks and relying almost entirely on digital outreach. Every vote may count in Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state Trump won by less than 1% of the vote in 2016, and one where hundreds of thousands of college students typically reside.

But then theres the biggest difference with Pennsylvania college students this year: An ever-changing number of them dont even live here.

Its hard to stand next to somebody with a clipboard

On the front lines of voter outreach are usually the students themselves, tapped by campaigns, nonprofits, and campus organizations to use gentle peer pressure in getting their friends to the polls. But the pandemic has left many campuses largely idle, with few students living there and social interaction discouraged.

The outreach is largely online even on campuses that brought most students back, like at Haverford College, where students designed the website HaverVote.com to help voters check their registration and request a mail ballot.

We have to do it all digitally, which is so antithetical to a college campus  camaraderie, bumping into each other and that kind of thing, said Isabel Clements, 21, a political science major who leads Haverford Students for Biden.

 READ MORE: Everything you need to know about voting in Pennsylvania, by mail or in person

At the University of Pennsylvania, Eva Gonzalez, a junior political science major, said her group Penn Leads the Vote has employed a reverse door-knocking strategy  asking 60 campus organizations to provide information to their own members.

It also partnered with Motivote, a platform that helps organizations boost voter enthusiasm through gamification. Motivote is hosting competitions among college houses, schools, and athletes, awarding points for registering to vote and getting friends to do the same.

Almost 42% of Penn students voted in the 2018 midterm elections, double the percentage that voted in 2014, according to a national study that tracks college voting rates. Gonzalez expects that number to grow this year after some 300 students volunteered with her group, compared with about 25 in past years.

Administrators are also involved, including Wendell Pritchett, Penns provost, who encouraged voting in a recent email to 26,000 students, faculty, and staff.

At Temple  which transitioned to remote learning last month  officials with the schools Temple Votes initiative have provided premade presentations to faculty and student organizations to share. Chris Carey, senior associate dean of students, said the group had planned to hold three campus voter registration drives per month, but once the pandemic forced restrictions on crowd sizes, it abandoned the plan and bolstered digital advertising.

Its hard to stand next to somebody with a clipboard, he said, when were trying to keep a distance.

Enthusiastic voters are still very discouraged

Historically, the youngest voters also have some of the lowest turnout rates. But while people under 25 represent just 10% of Pennsylvania registered voters, their numbers are surging. Since early August, more than 50,000 young people registered in the state, the biggest total increase across all age groups, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees elections.

Nancy Thomas, director of the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts Universitys Tisch College, said signs point to a strong turnout among the countrys 18 million to 20 million college students. About 40% voted in the 2018 midterms, compared with about 19% in 2014, suggesting opposition to Trump is a mobilizing force, as young voters are disproportionately liberal and Democratic. Turnout among all voters younger than 30 hit a 100-year high in 2018 that helped Democrats take control of the House.

The question, Thomas said: Will they be able to overcome the technical barriers ... in order to actually vote?

 READ MORE: Another task for Biden: Winning Philly progressives who think the whole system needs to go down

In addition to grappling with whether to vote in-person or by mail and how to do so, college-age voters have questions about residency requirements. Many have Pennsylvania addresses but are transient this year because of the pandemic.

Pennsylvania says college students displaced from the voting district where their school is located can still cast a ballot there, by mail or in-person, as long as they were already registered there or register by Oct. 19, and intend to return. Freshmen or new students wouldnt qualify if theyre learning virtually and never resided in their schools voting district.

Ongoing lawsuits over the states voting rules only compound the anxiety, said Sunshine Hillygus, a political science professor at Duke University who wrote a book on young voters. She said low youth voter turnout wasnt historically because of political uninterest, but because of voting barriers.

In conducting interviews with students, Hillygus said, one told her its a mental shift to register to vote weeks in advance when this generation is used to ordering something on Amazon and getting it in the mail the next day.

Corey Barsky, vice president of the College Republicans at the University of Pittsburgh, said on his campus, students seem aware of mail voting options, but theres a lot of confusion.

You hear things every day like, they have to be postmarked or they dont, make sure you sign the envelope, he said, trailing off. Theres a big push for mail-in across the state. The message is there, but the procedure definitely can get muddled.

And so less than two weeks before Pennsylvanias Oct. 19 voter registration deadline, organizations, campaigns, and students are trying to fill the information gaps.

NextGen America, a progressive youth-focused super PAC, has shifted its strategy to entirely digital and has a network of Pennsylvania students sharing information with their peers about the process and residency requirements, said Larissa Sweitzer, the groups Pennsylvania director. So does the Biden campaign, which says its on-boarded more than 80 campus ambassadors in the state. The Trump campaign didnt respond to a request for information on its youth voter turnout strategy.

 READ MORE: Trump has put Philly on the front lines of his attack on voting

One of the Biden campaign ambassadors is Francois Barrilleaux, a Penn student who said he reaches out to at least 10 other students a week to talk about the election and help them make a voting plan.

Small barriers pile up. He said living in a group setting can complicate just retrieving the mail. And some young people have never even addressed an envelope.

Even the most enthusiastic voters are still very discouraged by all the hurdles to voting this year, said Clements, the Haverford student. Its more mail than anyone has sent, maybe in their lifetimes."

This is an emergency

Many college students preferred more liberal Democratic primary candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Clements concedes she initially favored Warren herself, but this is an emergency.

Thats a line of argument Bidens supporters often take with younger voters, who, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, are expected to widely vote for the Democratic nominee  as long as they actually vote. Registered Democrats in the state age 18 to 24 outnumber Republicans by about 100,000, and polling shows young people who are independents are more likely to vote for Democrats.

Some supporters worry the 77-year-old Biden hasnt generated enough enthusiasm among young voters. So Barrilleaux and others are centering the conversation around Trump, whom he called an existential threat.

The framing really is that Joe Biden is a necessary but not sufficient condition for change, Barrilleaux said. And people are more and more seeing how important it is that Biden gets elected if we want to see any progress on all the issues we care about, like racial division, climate change, and health care.

But Bidens message resonated with Shawn Aleong, a Temple sophomore from North Philadelphia who attended the debate watch party. Aleong is Black and was dismayed Trump didnt unequivocally condemn white supremacy when given the opportunity.

I liked that Joe Biden talked about police reform and protecting all people," he said. I am kind of on edge because of all the racial injustice. The current administration is instilling a lot of hate.
As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly made clear, it is a fiction to believe a difference exists between the military and political wings of the terrorist group Hezbollah.

This is a unitarian entity. This is a terrorist organization, he said. It is underwritten by the Islamic Republic of Iran. And it in its entirety must be designated as a terrorist entity, and we should make sure that all of those involved and connected to Hezbollah should fall under sanctions.

In the past several years, many nations in the international community, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Lithuania, Kosovo, Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay have recognized the whole of Hezbollah, and not just its military wing, as a terrorist organization.

Now another European country, Serbia, intends to join the growing list. As part of the historic agreement between Serbia and Kosovo to normalize economic ties, Serbia announced it will designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist entity. Kosovo did so in June. Unfortunately, other countries, as well as the European Union, have failed to do so, designating only Hezbollahs military wing.

The United States welcomed the commitment by Serbia. Secretary of State Pompeo called it another significant step limiting this Iranian-backed terrorist groups ability to operate in Europe.

Such limitation on what the U.S. State Department has called Irans primary terrorist proxy is needed, in light, for example, of the 2012 terrorist attack by Hezbollah in Bulgaria which killed six people, and a similar foiled plot in Cyprus the same year.

In addition, as the State Departments most recent annual terrorism report noted, As in past years, the Iranian government continued supporting terrorist plots to attack Iranian dissidents in several countries in continental Europe. In recent years, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Albania have all either arrested or expelled Iranian government officials implicated in various terrorist plots in their respective territories.

Hailing Serbias decision, Secretary of State Pompeo said, There is no doubt that the dominoes are falling on Hezbollahs European operations.

The United States continues to call on the European Union and European nations to designate or ban Hezbollah in its entirety, said Secretary Pompeo, and recognize the reality that it is a terrorist organization and branch with no distinctions between its so-called military and political wings. We urge all countries in Europe and elsewhere to take whatever action they can to prevent Hezbollah operatives, recruiters and financiers from operation on their territories.
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Between the riots, looting, and closed churches, many Christians are frightened about battle. I often get this surprised look on peoples faces when they see how outspoken I am since becoming a Christ-follower, after 20+ years as a devout Muslim. I know they are wondering why I am not afraid? Throughout my professional career, I survived being shot at on the streets of Damascus, the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon, the Tsunami in Southeast Asia, and direct confrontation with more than a few suspected terrorists. Yet, being battle-tested is not where I draw my strength. It is the Holy Spirits power within me that gives me the strength and courage I never experienced before salvation. Most importantly, that power is available to ALL those who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Alongside strength and courage, I am learning that a warrior for Christ must have the fruit of the Spirit, namely forbearance and self-control. Sometimes, the Lord signals us to stay quiet and let the storm pass. This concept was entirely new to me. Before my salvation, I was the first to retaliate for an offense, real or perceived. Now, I am waiting for a prompting from the Holy Spirit of how to respond. In this season of social and political unrest, the ability to hold my tongue has been incredibly valuable. So many people are reacting to world events based on their trauma, myself included. The Lord is teaching me not to react out of emotions. He is showing me through prayer and reading His Word, the reality of my situation, and how to respond with wisdom and guidance from the Holy Spirit.

With spiritual discernment, we can also determine who comes at us as an enemy and when its time to stand our ground. In Mathew 10, Jesus Christ said, Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. He warned us that we would face battles and hardships in our lives to prepare us, not scare us. We have many verses of the Bible that tell us how to protect ourselves when the enemy does come to attack. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds[1]. We learn to draw on the spirit realm for strength and defense in the battle against evil forces.

However, Christ also made it clear that physical trials may come to us as well. Starting with the disciples gruesome fate to the persecution of Christians today throughout China, Iran, and the Middle East. Jesus continues in Mathew:

For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a mans enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.[2]

I often worry that the American Christians who have enjoyed being the majority for centuries are not prepared for persecution and hardship. Those of us from the Middle East or Africa have lived through bloody civil wars and lawlessness. Surviving persecution is a way of life. It is fascinating that the Lord in His infinite wisdom is calling so many of us into salvation for such a time as this. I strongly believe they will help strengthen the brethren through their experiences.

In my career, I listened to many potential terrorists who had one thing in common  how they described Christians. They would say Christians are weak in spirit and discipline, or Christians dont know what it means to die for God. Now as a believer, I see how those words should NEVER be used to describe a follower of Christ!

Our courage comes from knowing that we have the Holy Spirits power[3] and that Christ lives within us to overcome any kind of obstacle. Every man dies but very few really live. That's the choice we have because Jesus Christ died for us to have life, and life more abundantly. We must choose to stand in the power of the Lord.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.[4]

Preaching the Gospel is giving the good news of salvation through Christ, with authority and power. We should not be concerned with popularity, polls, or politics but with Gods word going out to all his people. The great commission is a commandment for the believers to go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything He commanded [5]. There is no caveat that says we only do this when it is comfortable, or that it is merely a suggestion in a plethora of options. God's truth is binary  it's not a spectrum. There's good and evil, truth and falsehood. Saying that is not being judgmental, it's being honest. I lived under the oppression of a false religion for decades. I refuse to lie so I can spare someone's feelings because I want them to experience the love and freedom that comes from accepting Christ. People have problems. Jesus is the solution.

Whatever insults, ridicule, or intimidation they throw at us, we cannot waiver or change the Truth of the Gospel. Only faith in Christ saves, heals, and redeems. In this time of turmoil, the world needs Jesus more than ever.

So as a Christian, the next time you are frightened by the news reports or wonder whether you should defend our freedom to gather for worship or defend the Gospel, remember the words of Jesus in Mathew 10:

Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

[1] 2 Corinthians 10:4

[2] Mathew 10:34-39

[3] 2 Timothy 1:14

[4] Ephesians 6:10-11

[5] Mathew 28: 16-20
Tamil Nadu rains: 10 videos show how lives thrown out of gear due to floods, waterlogged roads

Corpses washed away from cemeteries in France, found in Italy due to floods

International

oi-Briti Roy Barman

Paris, Oct 07: Corpses from a cemetery in southern France were swept down a mountainous valley by a violent storm, with some believed to have washed up in Italy, officials said.

In the village of Saint-Dalmas-de-Tende, surging flood waters washed away dozens of graves and family tombs.

France sends ventilators, test kits to assist India in coronavirus fight

The corpses were in such an advanced state of decomposition that they were clearly distinguishable from recent storm victims, she added.

A spokeswoman for France's Alpes-Maritimes regional administration, badly hit by the storm along with the Italian regions of Liguria and Piedmont, said it was unclear where the bodies had come from but corpses unearthed from cemeteries had washed up on the Italian side.

Local authorities said cemeteries in the French towns of Saint-Martin-de-Vesubie and Tende were partially washed out by the floods.

The mayor of Tende, Jean-Pierre Vassallo, told Le Parisien newspaper that the village cemetery "was cut in two" and bodies even were unearthed.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

Twelve people have been killed in the storm in France and Italy, four on the French side, eight on the Italian. More than 600 rescuers and others are searching for about 20 people still unaccounted for.

Police are going door to door to check on people reported as missing in hamlets where roads, electricity, communications and water supplies were cut off by the storm.

Seven black Canadian wolves were also missing after a wildlife park north of the southern French Riviera city of Nice was left in rubble after the floods.

The French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) has warned that the wolves may starve to death if not found soon as they are used to being fed.
The Bachelor's Locklan 'Locky' Gilbert and his winner Irena Srbinovska recently revealed they are going to based in his hometown of Perth.

And on Tuesday night, Irena, 31, spoke about the sacrifices and changes she has made to her personal and professional life ahead of the relocation.

In an Instagram Q&A session, the former Melbourne nurse spoke about the challenges of progressing her romance with Locky, 30, interstate.

Scroll down for video

The Bachelor's Irena Srbinovska (right) has revealed the heartbreaking sacrifice she was forced to make ahead of moving to Perth with Locky Gilbert (left)

Irena, who has worked as a nurse for more than a decade, told fans she would put her career temporarily on hold as she settles into life with Locky in Western Australia.

'The plan is to continue nursing over in Perth, but for now I have taken a mental health break from work and am focusing on my relationship with Locky,' she said.

Irena explained that while nursing is a very rewarding, the career was also very tough on mental health and leads many professionals to 'burn out'.

'For now I have taken a mental health break from work': Irena will be temporarily put her career as a nurse on hold as she focuses on her relationship with Locky in Perth

So sad: Irena revealed a heartbreaking sacrifice she had been forced to make - leaving her two dogs behind in Melbourne as she moves to Perth

When probed more about her move by fans, Irena revealed a heartbreaking sacrifice she had been forced to make.

'Unfortunately, Leo and MaggIe will be staying in Melbourne,' she said of her two beloved dogs.

Irena continued in a separate post: 'The plan is once our permits to enter WA are approved, we will drive from Sydney to Perth, where we will be able to start our life together.'

The plan: Irena and Locky are waiting on their moving permits to be approved, and are hoping to drive from Sydney to Perth when they go through

The lovebirds first announced their plans to live together on The Project a day after their finale episode aired on Channel 10.

During the show's gut-wrenching finale, Locky told both Bella Varelis and Irena that he was in love with them - but then had the tricky task of sending one home.

After an emotional break-up with Bella, he composed himself and professed his love for Irena, telling her he couldn't wait to spend the rest of his life with her.
The first red light camera Luxembourg is currently under construction at Place de l'Etoile.

The new camera should be operational by early 2021 and is currently being installed at Place de l'Etoile as of Wednesday morning.

This new device serves the purpose of flashing drivers who drive through a red light. The test phase for the camera is set to start early next year, according to the Ministry of Mobility.
But Feldman also says the exhibition will probably happen sooner than 2024. Originally set to open in June, the museums announced then that the tour would be postponed to next year because of the pandemic, with the Tate planning to open it in February before it came to Washington in June 2021. When it became clear in recent weeks that ongoing travel restrictions would make it difficult to get the hundreds of works to London in time, Feldman said the museums rushed to agree on a target of four years out, when covid-19 probably would not be a factor and scheduling four stops would be easier.
- Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia turns 57 yars old.

- He was born in on October 7, 1963

- Ghanaians have wished him well on his special day

Our manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

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The Vice President, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, turns a year older today, October 7, 2020.

Even as he turns 57 years, he definitely looks like a 45 year old.

He looks nothing close to his age.

He was born in Tamale on October 7, 1963 to Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia and Hajia Mariama Bawumia.

He was born into a large family and is 12th of his father's 18 children and the second of his mother's five children.

In a post shared to celebrate the vice president, the minister of information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah thanked God for his life and how blessed the nation is to have him.

Happy Birthday Doc. We are proud of the impact you have made for the last 57years. We pray for Grace for you to continue making impact in the decades ahead.

Meanwhile, Bawumia has expressed his profound appreciation to members of his press corps for their thoughtfulness.

Ahead of his birthday, he received a portrait from the group.

In a report filed by peacefmonline.com Dr Bawumia said, "This is the mosttouchy gift I have received on my birthday, it's beautiful, it's fantastic, I will keep it in my office".

He is married to Samira Ramadan Bawumia and the union is blessed with four Children.

Ghanaians could not keep calm as they wished him well on his special day.

Abdul-Jalil Kangre Mahama wished him well.

Happy Birthday to the indefatigable Vice President Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia the economic Messiah of our time.

Emmanuel Kortugah Agbesi asked for God's strength and wisdom.

Happy birthday to the best veep. God bless him and give him more strength and wisdom to serve.

Joseph Owusu Koranteng prayed for protection.

Happy birthday Sir more protection, grace, wisdom and favor to you.

Nana Boateng believes he is a president in waiting.

Happy birthday October Giant Age with Grace future president of Our beloved Country #Ghana.

Touring Gh Nyab wished him many more years.

Wishing you many more years. Happy BIRTHDAY Sir.

In other news, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has finally paid a visit to the first president of the fourth republic, Jerry John Rawlings, to commiserate with him on the death of his mother.

He visited the family of the late Madam Victoria Agbotui in the company of some dignitaries including the chief of staff, Madam Frema Opare.

YEN is building a platform where Ghanaians can share local news and own experiences with each other. Witnessing an incident?

Want to tell about a local problem? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition?

Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via Instagram or on YENs official Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
President Trump literally saved Christianity by protecting the religion against a full-out war on faith by Democrats which has become the party of the atheist and wants to close churches, Eric Trump has said.

The presidents 36-year-old son gave an interview to a radio station in North Dakota on Friday in which he praised his fathers job performance.

Hes protected the Second Amendment, hes literally saved Christianity, Trumps second-oldest child told South Fargo-based WZFG radio.

I mean theres a full-out war on faith in this country by the other side.

I mean, the Democratic Party, the far left has become the party of the atheist.

I mean, they want to attack Christianity, they want to close churches theyre totally fine keeping liquor stores open.

Eric Trump, 36, said his father, President Trump, 'literally saved Christianity.' Eric Trump is seen above addressing the Republican National Convention in Washington, DC, on August 25

But they want to close churches all over the country.

Eric Trump, who along with his brother, Donald Trump Jr, has headed The Trump Organization while their father has been in the White House, gave the interview before it was learned that the president tested positive for COVID-19.

The president spent four days at Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, after experiencing symptoms of COVID-19.

He returned to the White House on Monday evening.

Since becoming president, Trump has relied heavily on his base of Evangelical Christian supporters, many of whom see the president as fighting for their causes.

Trump most recently named Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a devout Catholic, to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.

Ginsburg, widely regarded as a liberal feminist icon, died last month at the age of 87. Her passing will allow Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate to tilt the nations highest court more firmly into the conservative camp.

Barrett, who has faced scrutiny over her religious background and whether it has impacted her decisions as a judge, will in all likelihood be confirmed.

Last month, Trump hosted a reception for Barrett at the White House which was attended by hundreds of supporters. Several individuals who were present at that event, including the president, contracted coronavirus.

In his rise to the presidency, Trump has relied on his core base of Evangelical Christian supporters. The president is seen above with faith leaders during a prayer in the Oval Office in September 2017

The lack of mask-wearing and social distancing at the reception has led many to consider the reception a COVID-19 'super-spreader.'

Eric Trumps comments about closing churches while keeping liquor stores open is an apparent reference to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions that banned religious gatherings.

In several states, liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries were allowed to continue functioning since those businesses were viewed as essential.

But a more controversial move by some governors was to ban mass gatherings, including at churches and other houses of worship.

In states like Kentucky and Kansas, Democratic governors have been sued by religious organizations who claim that bans of group gatherings in churches were unconstitutional.

In August, churches in California and Minnesota, backed by a conservative legal group, filed lawsuits against the governors of their states challenging restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus outbreak that they contend are violations of religious liberty.

In Minnesota, a lawsuit was filed in federal court challenging Governor Tim Walzs executive orders requiring six-foot social distancing and the wearing of face masks at worship services.

Governor Walz, a former teacher, gets an F in religious liberties, said Erick Kaardal, special counsel for the Thomas More Society.

Other states, including Texas, Illinois and Ohio, have excluded churches from COVID-19 mask mandates.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison reiterated his defense of Walzs order, saying it was legally and constitutionally sound.

Walz had been embroiled in a battle with Roman Catholic and Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod congregations across Minnesota over restrictions he placed on gatherings of more than 10 people.

Several churches have filed lawsuits against Democrat-led states which have tried to impose limits on services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pastor John MacArthur (pictured) and Grace Community Church in Los Angeles have filed a lawsuit in August to challenge California's cap on church attendees

He relented and said they could hold services at 25 per cent of capacity if certain conditions were met after they made it clear they planned to defy the order.

Also in August, a pastor in Palmetto, Florida, filed a suit challenging Manatee Countys mask mandate.

The Reverend Joel Tillis of Suncoast Baptist Church said the order shouldnt extend to houses of worship because it hinders prayer.

Earlier this year the Supreme Court upheld state COVID-19 restrictions on religious gatherings in a suit filed by South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista, California.

Most recently, the Supreme Court rejected on July 24 an appeal by a rural Nevada church in a 5-4 decision joined by Chief Justice John Roberts but sharply criticized in three separate conservative dissents.

In addition to lax enforcement of social-distancing at protests, Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley argued Nevadas 50-person cap on worship services was unconstitutional because casinos and other businesses currently can operate at 50 per cent of capacity.

Justice Neil Gorscuch wrote, There is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel.

Religious plaintiffs have prevailed in some litigation, however.

In June, a federal judge blocked New York state from enforcing restrictions on indoor religious gatherings to 25 per cent capacity when other types of gatherings were limited to 50 per cent.

The plaintiffs, represented by the Thomas More Society, were two Catholic priests from Upstate New York and three Orthodox Jewish congregants from Brooklyn.

They argued that the restrictions violated their First Amendment rights to practice their religion.

The society also claimed a victory in May when Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker withdrew certain pandemic-related mandates on houses of worship.
Coastal towns in England and Wales had fewer coronavirus deaths

by George Martin

October 07,2020 | Source: Yahoo News UK

Coastal towns in England and Wales had fewer coronavirus deaths



George MartinYahoo News UK6 October 2020

BOUNEMOUTH,ENGLAND - JUNE 24: Members of the public enjoy the sunshine on Bournemouth Beach on June 24,2020 in Bournemouth,England.The UK is experiencing a summer heatwave, with temperatures in many parts of the country expected to rise above 30C and weather warnings in place for thunderstorms at the end of the week. (Photo by Chris Gorman/Getty Images)View photos

Members of the public enjoy the sunshine on Bournemouth Beach as lockdown eased in June. (Getty)

More





For many weeks during the height of summer, it appeared that the UKs coastal towns were likely to be at the sharp end of the battle against coronavirus.



As police and councils urged sunseekers to steer clear of their beaches, there were fears that the masses of people could spread the virus - including among the communities they were congregating in.



But recent data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests that coastal towns in England and Wales experienced far fewer coronavirus deaths proportionately than inland towns.



The study tracked the rate of COVID deaths among the 5.3 million people who live in coastal settlements in the two countries.



Up to 18 September they found mortality rates were far lower for large seaside towns compared to large non-coastal towns, 63.0 per 100,000 people compared with 102.2 per 100,000.



And in smaller coastal towns the death rate stood at 57.3 per 100,000, far lower than comparable small inland towns where 84.4 people per 100,000 died from the virus.



One of the key factors that determines an individuals risk to dying from the virus is age, with older people much more likely to die throughout the pandemic.



But scientists believe that the lower mortality rates could be partially due to the older populations found in such towns.



Dr Konstantin Blyuss, a Reader in Mathematics at the University of Sussex, said that the age breakdown of such towns could be playing a part, with an older population less likely to find themselves in large groups such as travelling to and from work.



With coastal towns having, on average, older population, who may not be doing so much commuting, combined with a smaller proportion of younger people, who are generally socialising more, this all results in reducing levels of people mixing for extended periods of times in close proximity of each other, he said.



That could be one of the reasons why coastal towns in England and Wales have so far experienced smaller rates of COVID-19 deaths.



Experts noted that the lower death rate would likely come as a relief to coastal residents who saw large crowds flock to the beaches as the lockdown was eased over the summer.

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 7) Congress wont likely see a showdown for the House speakership post on October 14 following the early suspension of plenary session at the chamber, Malacanang said Wednesday.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque told CNN Philippines he found nothing illegal with House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetanos move to suspend session on Tuesday, earlier than the scheduled Congressional recess on October 17.

However, he labeled it an astute political move, saying this would prevent intramurals that can possibly take place in Congress during the said date.

Its not illegal. But I would think its a very astute political move because it avoided intramurals that could have possibly happened (on) October 14, Roque, a former professor of constitutional law, said in an interview with The Source.

There was a plenary vote that they will go on break already. That means no one can question already the speakership on October 14. The earliest that they can do that is in November, he stressed.

Cayetanos controversial move gives no room for his slated successor, Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco, and his supporters to challenge the House leadership before session resumes on November 16.

This was widely criticized by netizens and his fellow government officials including Velasco who have denounced how the current speaker has been desperately hanging on to the highly-contested post.

Some lawmakers present during Tuesdays plenary debates via Zoom also questioned why they were put on mute, given that some of them were objecting to it.

Roque, for his part, noted it was not the first time that such incident happened in Congress.

Whether or not youre on Zoom or on live, that has been done by House leaderships, actually. Its not the first time in the history of either the House or the Senate that mics have been muted, said Roque, who also formerly served as a Deputy Minority Leader at the House.

Cayetano is under a term-sharing deal for the speakership with Velasco, who was expected to take over the reins this month. The incumbent speaker had offered to step down from the post, but this was rejected by majority of his colleagues in the chamber.
Jitendra Singh By

Political punditry in India works on the basis of set patterns. Narratives are made, debunked and re-served on the basis of either access or pre-conceived notions. For good or bad, Narendra Modi has never fitted in these conventional theories of branding leaders. His style and substance are unique, one that has no parallel in Indias political history.

No wonder, Modi is judged by his critics based on half-facts and cliches instead of a deeper dive, which would bring out the actual reason why Modi has become what he is today. The Modi phenomenon is a combination of various factors, each of which makes an important contribution to his persona and style of working.

First and foremost is direct contact with people. There are very few leaders with such extensive mass contact. The Modi way of solving problems is not to sit back in an air-conditioned room, closeted with officers but to take the bull by the horn, be among people and find solutions that are practical. Those who worked with Modi in Gujarat recall how he attained success in solving a major problem the state was facing when he took over as CM  that of girl child education.

He made his entire team from ministers, MLAs and senior officials visit the villages of Gujarat to mobilise parents to educate their girl child. In the gruelling summer months, the entire state machinery was among people, in the remotest areas, explaining the benefits of educating women. This movement, called Kanya Kelavani had two positive impacts  enrolment increased and dropouts reduced.

During the peak of the 2014 poll campaign, Modi critics pointed to the below-par social indicators in Gujarat, including girl-child education numbers. But none of that cut ice with the voters because they saw Modi working hard on the ground, initiating a credible mass movement. Before assuming chief ministership, Modi had spent a night in almost all districts of India. After becoming the CM, he had toured all districts of Gujarat and during his first term as PM, he had been among people of all states and UTs, something no Prime Minister has done previously.

During the pre-Covid times, PM Modi always had some or the other public programme across India on Friday and Saturday. When Parliament session is on, he is among the earliest to reach and last to leave. MPs cutting across party lines drop in, bring delegations from their constituencies and school children. PM Modi meets them all, happily obliging for an occasional selfie, too. The second factor is Modis quick response. The speed with which he reacts to situations, particularly unplanned emergencies, is worth learning from.

Recently, parts of West Bengal and Odisha were ravaged by rain and floods. The Covid threat was obviously looming large but the PM said it is essential to visit the two states and consult with the chief ministers on rehabilitation works. PM Modis hard work can be seen in the area of politics too. Old timers of Gujarat BJP and Congress would often joke with him  You have ruined everything; earlier, we never had to work this hard to win. A rally here, another one there, name in the newspapers and we were home. Modi, on the other hand, would work at the block level, engaging with as broad a spectrum as possible.

Delusional Modi critics have always attributed Modis electoral success to Hindu versus Muslim politics. But that is not his style. His speech analysis would show that he has the most positive discourse compared to his opponents, who only spew venom against him. During the 2017 UP polls, political pundits made it seem like the entire election was about Shamshan versus Kabristan when the truth is Modi uttered that merely once. Political commentators argued that he was communalising the election due to an underwhelming performance in the initial phases, covering western UP. When the results came, it was clear that the BJP sweep in those regions was overwhelming.

The same happens regarding the Ram Temple. There is disproportionate space given to the Ram Mandir and the BJPs politics. The Mandir does find a place of pride in the BJP manifesto but there are several other points as well. None of these self-proclaimed intellectuals have even bothered to look at that!

People who have worked closely with Modi describe him as a powerhouse of ideas. On one day it could be about making a government initiative more effective.

On the second day it could be about how to make the BJP organisation stronger. His desire to do more in less time makes it difficult for both colleagues and opponents to keep pace with him. There is always a premium on hard work  it keeps one grounded, endears the person to others and brings sincerity. By being hard-working himself, Modi has been able to have a positive impact on millions of others, who will remain eternally grateful to him for everything he has done for them.

Jitendra Singh

Union Minister of State for PMO, MoS (Ind charge), Development of NE
Jim Newell: Jordan. This afternoon, our president, a quasi-human sack of coronaviruses and steroids, tweeted that he had instructed his staff to stop negotiating with Democrats on a stimulus package until after the election and to instead focus on the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Heres the full thread:

Nancy Pelosi is asking for $2.4 Trillion Dollars to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States, money that is in no way related to COVID-19. We made a very generous offer of $1.6 Trillion Dollars and, as usual, she is not negotiating in good faith. I am rejecting their...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020

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...request, and looking to the future of our Country. I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business. I have asked...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020

...@senatemajldr Mitch McConnell not to delay, but to instead focus full time on approving my outstanding nominee to the United States Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett. Our Economy is doing very well. The Stock Market is at record levels, JOBS and unemployment...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020

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...also coming back in record numbers. We are leading the World in Economic Recovery, and THE BEST IS YET TO COME!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2020

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The stock market, which had been propped up by distant hopes of a stimulus deal, immediately plummeted. The malpractice, for a guy whos already facing the worst deficit in a presidential race since Bob Dole in 1996, is staggering to me. Its not like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin were on the precipice of a deal, but they were making marginal progress. I guess, what strikes you as most incredible here? That hes willingly crashing the stock market and the economy a few weeks before Election Day? That hes assigning himself direct blame for the collapse in negotiations by announcing that he has ended them? That hes boosting Democrats message that Republicans are too focused on ramming through a SCOTUS nominee instead of fixing the economy? That his tweet about the stock market being at record levels sent markets spiraling? Where do we begin with this?

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Jordan Weissmann: I think we need to begin by appreciating just what an utter disaster this could be for the country, if the president actually sticks to his guns once the dexamethasone wears off and Mnuchin gently tries to explain that hes just blasted another gaping hole into his reelection prospects. (I mean, whats the message here? DONT LOOK AT YOUR 401(K)! VOTE!)

Right now, Trump appears overwhelmingly likely to lose. And if he does, the chances of Republicans passing any sort of relief bill during the lame-duck session are roughly on par with the likelihood of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell breaking into song and performing the soundtrack of Dear Evan Hansen on the Senate floor. Its just a zero-probability event.

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Meanwhile, the economy is already running on fumes. Rehiring has slowed. Major companies like airlines and Disney are laying off thousands and thousands of workers. Small businesses are tapping out. Winter is coming, and when it does, its is going to kill outdoor dining and drinking in much of the country. Without more aid, we are potentially heading for a grinding, frigid, economically disastrous transition period that will leave the country with long-lasting, very gnarly scars.

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So, with those stakes in mind: The politics of this are just absolutely astounding to me. It seems like someone has decided that Trump is going to lose this race and wants to kneecap the Biden administration on its way in the door. But theres no conceivable way Trump himself has made that calculation, because he thinks hes indestructible. So what do you think is going on?

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Jim: Well, the last floated offer from the administration was $1.6 trillion, with Pelosi looking for about $2 trillion. Its unlikely McConnell had a majority of his Republicans on board for even the $1.6 trillion, because of both the price tag and the policy within. He certainly wouldnt have had it for $2 trillion. So theres been some speculation that maybe McConnell told Trump he wouldnt put a $1.6 to $2.0 trillion bill on the floor. What I dont understand about this theory, though, is why Trump would listen to McConnell. Tell him that hes going to cut a deal and if McConnell doesnt put it on the floor, hell blame McConnell for the inaction. It seems like the precise sort of move, for a popular piece of legislation, that a politician whos hemorrhaging swing voters could use.

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But Trump is hemorrhaging swing voters for a reason: Hes only capable of playing base politics, and he cant resist what he believes is a power move of sticking it to Pelosi and owning the libs by focusing on ACBs confirmation.

Do you think, though, once he sees the market, that hell find some way out of this and permit negotiations to continue?

Jordan: My concerns are twofold: One is that were assuming the market will keep dropping. That seems like the safe bet to me, but its always possible investors will find some optimistic narrative that stabilizes things a bit and the carnage wont be terrible enough to budge Trump. (I still think the politics would be pretty miserable for him, but not *as* miserable, and not in the visceral way he feels whenever the Dow drops.)

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My second fear is that ever since he returned from the hospital, Trump has been in single-minded own-the-libs mode. Its like he nearly died at Walter Reed and the doctors rebuilt him slower, dimmer, and more vindictive than ever before.

Do you see any indication that we are currently dealing with a rational actor?

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Jim: It seems like a more acute episode of the irrationality thats plagued his entire administration, which is that base politics alone is all he needs, since he won that way in 2016. It may not occur to him until too late that his 2016 model was a fluke. This is only rational if, as you said earlier, hes hoping to kneecap the Biden presidency. But, as you also said earlier, theres no way he thinks he can lose. It gives me a little trepidation about the transition period if he does lose, when hell openly announce his plan to kneecap the Biden presidency.

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Or maybe its simpler than that: Hes just trying to change the news cycle from him having COVID-19 because it makes him look weak, and hell do anything.

Jordan: Just to play devils advocate 

Over at the Washington Post, Erica Werner and Jeff Stein point out that Art Laffer visited Trump a week ago and told him more spending would be bad for the economy.*

We also know that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is essentially anti-stimulus. His stock might be down a bit after his communications screw-ups this weekend, but there are a lot of conservatives in Trumps orbit who genuinely oppose spending on ideological grounds. Maybe they just finally won him over? Or got lucky and were the last ones to talk to him before he decided to start tweeting?

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Jim: I understand the competing ideological voices in his ear. I just dont get how that is distilled into the horrendous message of I AM ENDING TALKS.

Jordan: He might as well have added I want you to use my words against me.

OK, heres another potential take (if you cant tell, my mind is racing a bit here): What if this is a bona fide negotiating strategy? What if Trump isnt roided up and flipping over a checkers board, but is genuinely trying to play chess?

A lot of Democrats (and liberal pundits like me) were convinced Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer could play hardball on stimulus, because there was no goddamn way Trump was going to imperil his reelection chances. Up until his brush with mortality, he seemed to get that spending was crucial for the economy (hence his decision to unsuccessfully MacGyver an unemployment program on the fly when the original $600 a week ran out).

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But now thats hes credibly threatening to incinerate the fields and salt the earth, even if it costs him votes, maybe Democrats will back down on their demands, and he can get a minimalist stimulus that doesnt require him to give money to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to fix their budget holes.

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Jim: Ha! If the election plays out the way its looking like it will, Pelosi and Schumer are going to write a $3 trillion bill on their own terms in January without Republican input. I dont think theyll cave to anything now, and I dont think they believe they messed up their strategy.

Jordan: Except for the fact that the country is about to experience four months of economic misery.

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Also, I know Democrats are feeling good right now, but imagine just for a second what happens if they dont take the Senate.

I mean, their chances at a majority at this point appear to hinge on a lamer, less sexy John Edwards.

Jim: What do you think Democrats should do right now? Take the $1.6 trillion?

I think that is a defensible position, and many Dems would be happy with that. I just dont know what other option Pelosi and Schumer have right now if the economic wreckage is too great to wait until January.

Jordan: Itd probably still depend a little on the specifics of the deal. But there are versions of a $1.6 trillion agreement that could probably work.

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One thing thats become apparent since May, when all this began, is that state and local governments are probably going to need less aid than people originally thought. They still need a bunch, but the numbers are much less gaudy than before, if you believe forecasts from folks like Brookings.

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Jim: But I do think hardball, if thats the thing that people are consistently asking Democratic leaders for more of, involves allowing your opponent to dig his own grave even if it comes with significant collateral damage.

Jordan: Democrats have wanted to paint Donald Trump as a dumber Herbert Hoover. And hes doing absolutely everything within his power to make that historical comparison accurate.

Update  October 6, 2020, 11:50 PM:

On Tuesday night, Trump seemed to reverse his stance a bit. First, he retweeted a CNBC article about Federal Reserve Chair Central Jerome Powells testimony before Congress, during which he urged additional relief spending, and told lawmakers there was little risk of overdoing it. True! the president added. Afterwards, Trump began frantically tweeting out individual pieces of the relief bill hed like Congress to pass, including money for airlines, extra paycheck protection program funding, and another round of $1,200 checks. Urging lawmakers to break up the legislation into individual pieces so the White House can pick the parts it wants to enact a la carte is a strategy Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has apparently advocated for a while, and its never been particularly realistic. Is Trump panicking? Is he trying to cover his ass politically? Is he in the midst of a steroid induced mania that hell remember as a faint dream come the morning? Who is to say.
No man is a saint but if a man does commendable deeds, be sure to give him his dues.

As a people, we are quick to criticise and condemn our leaders, and blatantly refuse to acknowledge their good deeds. You dont have to always agree with a person but look at the fruits (works) they are bearing or trying to bear and make an informed and balanced impression of that person.

The Ambassador of Ghana to China, Mr. Edward Boateng, deserves due recognition for the commendable works he has done and keeps doing for the Ghanaian diaspora in China.

Over my 5 years of stay in China, this is the first time Ive seen an ambassador come low to actively interact with students and participate in activities. Yes, he is appointed to be a father figure for Ghanaians in China and represent the country in a positive light. He chose the role of a responsible father and not a negligent one.

I first met Ambassador in Wuhan. I had no idea who he was. He is a gentle and unassuming man. You wouldnt know he is the ambassador if you arent told.

He has no pomposity or air about him. A humble and gentle fellow ready to render service when needed. I met him again in Beijing at a Duapa event where he was one of the speakers. From his speech, you could tell this is a man with a purpose. A man with drive.

A man who has the youth at heart. A man is interested in equipping the next generation of leaders to take the country and world to greater levels.

During the onset of the Covid-19, he helped organise a series of online events to engage students by inviting prominent speakers who addressed diverse topics ranging from entrepreneurship to nation-building. He duly participated in all events and even invited a few of his colleague ambassadors.

I dont know about the deeds of the ambassadors of other African centuries here in China but should they all have such drive and dedication, I believe Africa is well represented and with time their efforts will immensely contribute to creating a positive image of Africa in China.

I conclude with this statement by Nkrumah which aptly summarises my view of Ambassador Boateng or at least a glimpse of the man I hope he is by the fruits I have seen him bear.

To this end, Africa needs a new type of citizen, a dedicated, modest, honest, and informed man. A man submerges self in service to the nation and mankind. A man who abhors greed and detests vanity. A new type of man whose humility is his strength and whose integrity is his greatness  Kwame Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite.

Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/MIHZ7sBF5460KCfK_rtbKA

Blacklivitychina.com
The European Union is not a bank and does not give money without any conditions, and the EU's assistance to Ukraine is associated with the implementation of reforms, said Vice-President of the European Commission, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell.

"The help that the European Union is providing to Ukraine is not unconditional. We are not an NGO. We are not acting by just sharing. We are acting because it is in our own interests to help Ukraine to develop, and this is to be free, prosperous, and secure country. This is the purpose of our help. It is conditional to reforms. It is conditional to get some objective that we share," Borrell said at a press conference following the 22nd Ukraine-EU summit in Brussels on Tuesday.

At the same time, he noted that his words from an article on the results of a recent visit to Kyiv that Ukraine should not perceive the EU as a cash machine are "the words out of context."

Borrell added that when it comes to domestic transfers, the EU also imposes requirements on its own members to fulfill their obligations within the EU.

"This is what I wanted to say that this help is in our own interest and is part of a process of reform which is the condition for this help," he stressed.
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El Bryan returns to his political comic winning with a magnificent glimpse at the Mayor's current political predicament . . .



Take a look:


Ahead of the October 10 governorship polls in Ondo State, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Peter Fasua, has stepped down for the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.

Speaking on Tuesday in the state capital, Akure, Mr Fashua said he is convinced that Mr Akeredolu will help achieve his plans for the state.

Asides from mobilising his supporters for the incumbent governor, he also donated coaster buses for the effective running of Mr Akeredolus campaign organisation.

A twist

But the deputy governorship candidate of the SDP, Rachel Ajayi, announced support for the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Eyitayo Jegede.

She disclosed that her decision was in line with the position of the party.

The chairman of the party, Dele Ogunbameru, earlier on Monday announced the partys political support for Mr Jegede at the PDPs secretariat in Akure.

Meanwhile, Mrs Ajayi said her partner did not consult her.

I am a party person and I queue behind any position taken by my party and its leadership. The party has decided to support the Peoples Democratic Party as relayed by our state Chairman, Prince Dele Ogunbameru, and that is okay by me.

Fasua has never called me for once and he has not been carrying the party along in all his programmes. Everything about him is business, he is not prepared for this election and he has always been acting as an agent of the APC as revealed even during the governorship debate, she was quoted by the News Agency of Nigeria.

The decision by the duo has further strengthened the PDP and APC who are holding their grand finale campaigns today.
She's been on cloud nine ever since director Charlie McDowell popped the question during a romantic trip to Arizona late last month.

And on Monday, Lily Collins and her fiance Charlie McDowell showcased their love and connection in everyday life during a dog walk with their rescue pup, Redford.

As the newly-engaged couple strolled around their Los Angeles' neighborhood, the 31-year-old Emily in Paris Star donned a loose white t-shirt, Rothy's sneakers and long purple skirt from RESA.

Newly-engaged: Lily Collins and her fiance Charlie McDowell looked happy in love on a dog walk with their rescue pup, Redford

While the duo chatted away and soaked up the fresh air, the Golden Globe nominee took several steps ahead and held onto her phone during their stroll.

Like his bride-to-be, the director, 37, kept his look casual with a black graphic t-shirt, mustard-hued bandana mask and a pair of purple and yellow sneakers.

In addition to sporting a black 'Vote' face mask, the actress was seen wearing her massive engagement ring for the second time in public.

Effortlessly chic: As the newly-engaged couple strolled around their Los Angeles' neighborhood, the 31-year-old Emily in Paris Star sported a loose white t-shirt and long purple skirt from RESA

Just two weeks prior, Collins hailed her rose-cut diamond engagement ring as her 'favorite new accessory' on Instagram.

In her envy-inducing social media snap, the Les Miserables star was dressed in a black cold-shoulder top as she posed by a floral print wall.

The thespian held onto her the strands of her lightly-curled tresses to show off her stunning item of jewelry to her more than 19.6 million followers.

Dog walk: While the lovebirds walked chatted away, the Golden Globe nominee took several steps ahead and held onto her phone during their outing

'My favorite new accessory': Lily Collins took to Instagram to flaunt her rose-cut diamond engagement ring in a radiant snap, late last month

On Lily's striking ring, gemstone experts The Natural Diamond Council told MailOnline: 'Rose cut diamonds look like a flowerin fact, the cut resembles a spiral of petals in a rose bud. This diamond shape comes in two forms: single rose cut and a rose cut with additional layers of diamond facets.

'The rose cut is a fantastic option if you want more for your money: Its a great alternative to the popular round cut. Even better, they tend to have more spread, which means more of the carat weight faces up, making the diamonds appear larger than a brilliant cut of the same carat weight.

'The rose cut is a fantastic option if you want more for your money: Its a great alternative to the popular round cut. Even better, they tend to have more spread, which means more of the carat weight faces up, making the diamonds appear larger than a brilliant cut of the same carat weight.

Loved-up: The actress, 31, has been on cloud nine ever since director McDowell, 37, popped the question during a romantic trip to Arizona last week (pictured)

Dazzling: The Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile star's ring serves as her new statement piece of jewellery

'One of the appeals of rose cut diamonds is that they get very close to your skin. Rose cut diamonds are very sensual and tactile, more intimate.'

Lily is the latest in a long line of A-List partners for Charlie, who directed The One I Love and The Discovery.

The LA native has dated several high-profile actresses, including Emilia Clarke, 33, Hilary Duff, 32, and Rooney Mara, 35.

Charlie was in a relationship with Hilary for three months between September and December 2007.

The ring is reportedly worth $75,000 and $100,000, according to Business Insider.

Just the two of us: The thespian confirmed her romance with the LA native on Instagram last year when he flew out to the French capital to visit her on the set of Emily In Paris (pictured)

The Bye Bye Benjamin star then had a serious romance with Rooney for over six years starting in 2010, which came to an end in September 2016.

Charlie and Game Of Thrones star Emilia confirmed they were dating in October 2018, but the relationship fizzled out and they called it quits in February 2019.

Lily has also had her fair share of headline-grabbing relationships, including a brief romance with her Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile co-star Zac Efron, 32, in 2012.

Puppy love: Late last year, the pair took their relationship to the next level as they adopted their rescue dog (pictured in December)

Runs in the family: Charlie is the son of actor Malcolm McDowell (pictured in 2017) and actress Mary Steenburgen

The brunette had an on/off romance with British actor Jamie Campbell Bower, 31, for five years after meeting on the set of The Mortal Instruments, but the pair called it quits for good in 2018.

Lily and Charlie both have famous parents in common; Lily's dad is British musician Phil Collins, while Charlie is the son of actor Malcolm McDowell and actress Mary Steenburgen.

Late last year, the pair took their relationship to the next level as they adopted their rescue dog, and have been living together in LA amid the coronavirus pandemic.
After President Donald Trump revealed that he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19, a poll showed that one in every five Americans say they are more likely to wear a mask.

Wearing masks

About 21% of respondents in a new poll done by Axios-Ipsos said that they are now more likely to wear a face covering and maintain a physical distance of a least six feet from others, which are the rules set by the CDC during the height of the pandemic.

However, for the rest of the Americans, the news about the president and the first lady testing positive for COVID-19 has not changed their behaviors or their views about the pandemic.

These latest poll findings come from a survey of 405 adults in the United States, and it was conducted between October 2 to October 5 in the wake of President Trump's diagnosis and visit at the Walter Reed hospital.

Also Read: Public School Board Official Resigns After Comments About Trump Dying from COVID-19

The survey responses show that 77% of adults said that there had been no change in their likelihood to wear a mask or to physically distance themselves for up to six feet following the news about the President testing positive, and 2% said they are less likely.

Axios-Ipsos survey also found out that 12% of respondents said that they are more likely to wear gloves now, compared with 85% who said that there had been no change in their likelihood to wear gloves, and 3% said they are less likely.

In a separate poll conducted by SSRS in the days after the president announced that he had contracted the virus, two-thirds of Americans said President Donald Trump handled the risk of coronavirus infection to others around him irresponsibly.

The poll also found out that 69% of Americans said they trusted little of what they heard from the White House about the President's health, with only 12% saying that they trusted almost all of it.

Disapproval of the President's handling of the coronavirus outbreak stands at a new high in the survey, with 60% saying that they disapprove of how he handled the pandemic in the country. Additionally, 63% say that his own infection is unlikely to change anything about the way that he handles the pandemic.

President Trump returns to the White House

President Donald Trump was discharged just three days after he was treated in the hospital. He staged a departure from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 5, telling his supporters that the virus was "nothing to fear" despite the virus dangerously depriving him of oxygen and hospitalized him for 72 hours.

The president then posed for a mask-less photo-op on the White House balcony, and he shot his entrance into the White House twice photographers and cameramen around him, as reported by CNN.

According to his critics, it was his attempt to convert his still-ongoing disease into a show of strength. President Trump also said in his video message, "Don't be afraid of COVID. Don't let it dominate your life."

The coronavirus has now killed more than 215,000 Americans, and the number of cases continues to rise.

Related Article: White House Declines Offer of CDC to Help in Contact Tracing of Those Exposed to COVID-19

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Im Keith Radig, and I have lived in my district for the last 20 years. My wife, Meredith. and I have a dog, four children, and a grandchild. Our grandson, Noah, was born the day before my birthday this January. This life changing event has only reaffirmed my resolve to keep Woodbury County the best place to live, work, and raise a family. In order to do this, I have three main priorities as your county supervisor.

First, I will do my best to keep property taxes as low as possible. I have been dubbed the taxpayers watchdog because I have always worked hard on the budget. It is the only way to keep property tax levies down. Ive done this in a number of ways, consolidating positions, voting no to new spending requests, and working with other levels of government in order to share costs.

Next, I will work with developers that are willing to add affordable housing in Woodbury County. We need more than just apartments and half a million dollar houses to be built. We need to work with HUD, the state of Iowa, cities, and developers to be able to build more affordable housing.

Finally, I will continue to find opportunities for economic development. It is only through economic development that budgets can grow while taxes shrink. It is also the best way to raise wages, by getting employers to compete for labor. Woodbury County faces some challenges to economic development, a lack of willing sellers of land, and a lack of rural utilities. The county also lacks a comprehensive plan. Only after we have partnered with all our cities to complete their comprehensive plans will we be in a position to complete our planning. Although Im not waiting until after the election to get this funded, by the time you are reading this I should have a partnership in place to get this done.

I also would like to point out a few challenges that I helped to lead our county through over the last four years.

Woodbury County lost service from Siouxland Paramedics and had gaps in paramedic service county-wide. After months of planning, positions were cut, and paramedics added to provide 24 hour, county-wide paramedic service in Woodbury County.

State mandated changes to mental health services, problems with MCOs, and challenges with the mix of counties involved in our region, prompted us to change mental health regions. Over a year of meetings and planning took place, and we made the transition to the Rolling Hills region to successfully meet our needs and state mandates. Im very thankful for all of the top-notch mental health providers we have in Woodbury County!

The biggest challenge of all was our crumbling jail. We spent two years trying to figure out ways to finance all the repairs needed to keep it open. Unfortunately, all options would cost about the same, or more, as building a new law enforcement center. I led the planning and effort over the next year. I worked hard to get the support of Sioux City, and worked to create a joint authority. As your supervisor, I will keep my commitment to ensure that our new Law Enforcement Center is as efficient as possible.

I thank you for the hard work and love you share for Woodbury County. I am truly humbled and honored to have been able to work for you. My actions have proven I keep my promises, and that I can be trusted. I ask for your vote to support Keith Radig for Woodbury County Supervisor on Nov. 3.

Keith Radig is the Republican nominee for the District 1 seat on the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors in the Nov. 3 general election.

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Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is set to blast critics of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barretts religious views in planned remarks on the Senate floor on Wednesday, calling the medias attacks on her Catholic beliefs the definition of discrimination.

The Kentucky Republican plans to call the ongoing attacks by Senate Democrats and the media a disgrace, according to Politico Playbook.

Only our self-parodying liberal media would call it a scandal that a young person in graduate school found community in shared religious beliefs and met their future spouse, McConnells planned remarks say. Most Americans would call that a beautiful story.  Every Supreme Court Justice in history has possessed personal views. Judges have a job to do and they swear to do it impartially.

It is the definition of discrimination to assert that Justice Barretts particular faith makes her uniquely unqualified for this promotion, the statement concludes.

The 48-year-old Notre Dame law professor and conservative Catholic mother of seven children, including two adopted children from Haiti, has been repeatedly attacked by Democrats and the media over her Catholic beliefs. Some have compared her purported membership in People of Praise to the dystopian novel The Handmaids Tale.

Barretts religious background was also center-stage in her 2017 confirmation hearing for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals when Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) criticized her religious views.

Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that, you know, dogma and law are two different things? And I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma, Feinstein said. 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.

However, even some Democrats have criticized the partys scrutiny of Barretts beliefs, including Senator Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.) who has said religion should not enter into the conversation over who would fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He said its awful to bring in religion.

Story continues

In an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday, McConnell defended Barrett, as well as his decision to go forward with her confirmation hearing on October 12 amid Democrats calls to delay the hearing until it can be held in person.

Its about time we quit talking about the process and talk about the nominee herself, he said. [Barretts an absolute sterling choice. The president could not have picked a better nominee  Quintessentially American. Its a great success story.

Vice presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) called for the hearing to be delayed this week after a number of White House staff and Senate Republicans contracted the coronavirus.

McConnell accused Democrats of using the outbreak as another effort to delay the process on this outstanding Supreme Court nominee.

The Senate minority leader said there is nothing that he can foresee preventing Barretts confirmation ahead of the November 3 election.

Weve been operating successfully with masking and social distancing since May, he said. Were going to continue to operate. The American people are entitled to it and thats what we are going to do.

More from National Review
Employees of the HoReCa industry mobilized on Facebook to protest on Wednesday evening, starting 8:00 pm, in Victoriei Square, against the restrictions imposed by the authorities in Bucharest and in Ilfov County.

According to the announcement posted on the social network, more than 8,300 people are expected to participate in the protest."We are protesting against blaming HoReCa for the spread of Covid. We believe in the existence of this virus, we understand the seriousness of things, but we cannot agree with solving things with half measures or without a reasoned analysis of the outbreaks of infection," the organizers wrote.About 100,000 employees in the HoReCa sector will be laid off by the end of the year, and the industry will suffer losses of three billion euros, as a result of the restrictions decided by the Government in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, Calin Ile, head of the Romanian Hotel Industry Federation, told AGERPRES.He said that Tuesday's decision by the Bucharest City Emergency Situations Committee to close restaurants and cafes was taken without authorities providing any evidence that the sector had contributed to the spread of the infection."After this decision to close the restaurants without communication and without arguments presented logically, we will again have to furlough people whom with great difficulty we managed to keep in this difficult period. Until now we were talking about the fact that 40% of HoReCa employees will be laid off by the end of the year, and now, with this decision, another 10 percent will be added. Of 230,000 people employed in hotels and restaurants in Romania at the beginning of the year, we have estimated so far that 80,000 will be fired by the end of the year, but now I think we will reach 90-100,000. Which is a lot," Ile stressed.According to him, the sector has survived so far due to the decisions taken by the Government to ensure furlough and the compensation of 41.5% of the salary after the return to work of the people."We estimate that our industry will lose about 60% of its turnover in 2020. Last year we had five billion euros in revenue from HoReCa, and 60% means a loss of about three billion euros," the industry representative continued.The direct contribution to GDP of the HoReCa sector is 2.79%, and the total is 5.4%."Many restaurants will never open again, and those most at risk are those that pay rent for spaces such as malls or other shopping centers," Ile added.Sector officials will request a compensation plan from the Government in the near future. The first meeting is scheduled for Friday at the Ministry of Labor, and a discussion with Prime Minister Ludovic Orban is possible next week."The measures required by the HoReCa industry are aimed at three levels: compensatory measures for employees, cash infusion in our industry, by supplementing grants and amounts allocated to the sector, as well as reducing taxes and charges, such as those on buildings and land, according to the model in the Great Britain, where the decision was made to exempt the sector from paying taxes for a year," concluded Ile.
Blas na hEireann Chairperson Artie Clifford (left) with local award winners: Seamus Mac Gearailt of Micilin Muc; Master Distiller Graham Coull of Dingle Distillery; Butcher Jerry Kennedy; and Angela and Maryanne OHanlon of Dingle Goats Cheese

For the first time in 13 years Dingle was quiet during the first weekend in October. Normally the streets would be thronged with thousands of people enjoying the annual Food Festival, but the coronavirus pandemic put paid to all that this year.

However, the Blas na hEireann Food Awards overcame the challenges of the virus and continued with their mission of rewarding the country's best food producers for their work.

The 'Irish Food Oscars', as the Blas awards are fondly known, were announced at an online ceremony on Saturday, in place of the packed-to-the-door event that would normally be held in the Phoenix Cinema.

The pre-recorded video announcements marked the culmination of months of tireless work by Blas na hEireann organisers to ensure the standards of the awards were maintained, while meeting all the new public health requirements.

"The founding mission of Blas - establishing quality benchmarks for Irish produce on a level playing field - was strictly adhered to and measurably applied again this year despite the challenges we have all faced," said Blas Chairperson Artie Clifford.

"It was important, most of all, to have the awards for the sake of the producers as many of them are working in isolation and they might have needed a boost," he added.

Amongst the cream of the crop were some of Dingle's finest producers, with gold medals going to Jerry Kennedy's butchers, Micilin Muc, Dingle Distillery and Dingle Goat's Cheese. Other Kerry awards recipients included Kerry Kefir, Knockatee Natural Dairy, Muckross Creamery, Quinlan's Kerry Fish, Wellness Baking Listowel Ltd, Kerry Cow Farm Ltd. (Kells Bay Cheese), and O'Sullivan's Bakery. Kennedy's Butchers in Dingle also won the 'Best in County' award.

Full results are available at the Blas na hEireann website irishfoodawards.ie
DALLAS, Oct. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- New Look Laser College (NLLC) , the leading laser tattoo removal training program and training division of Astanza Laser, has announced the official course dates for 2021. Established in 2008, New Look Laser College has trained thousands of practitioners, medical professionals, tattoo artists, and entrepreneurs worldwide on how to safely perform tattoo removal and build their businesses using advanced Q-switched laser technology.

New Look Laser College is hosting 11 courses next year in various cities around the nation, including their Dallas, TX headquarters, Miami, New York, Orlando, and Las Vegas. See the full 2021 course schedule below:

February 5 & 6, 2021  Dallas, TX

March 26 & 27, 2021  Dallas, TX

April 30 & May 1, 2021  Miami, FL

May 14 & 15, 2021  Dallas, TX

June 4 & 5, 2021  New York City, NY

June 25 & 26, 2021  Dallas, TX

August 13 & 14, 2021  Dallas, TX

September 24 & 25, 2021  Dallas, TX

October 1 & 2, 2021  Orlando, TX

November 5 & 6, 2021  Dallas, TX

November 12 & 13, 2021  Las Vegas, NV

Each New Look Laser College tattoo removal training course is designed to educate students on how to perform safe and efficient laser tattoo removal treatments and, ultimately, start their own laser tattoo removal business. The two-day course covers many topics, including laser safety, patient consultation, laser physics, tattoo assessments, laser interaction with different skin types, detailed aftercare instructions, side effects and contraindications, and more. Students also receive extensive hands-on training and practice treating a group of diverse patients using Astanza Laser Q-switched technology.

Furthermore, NLLC offers an insightful Business Development and Marketing section to prepare students to run a successful tattoo removal business. Topics in this section include how to choose the right office space, the ins and outs of pay-per-click advertising and SEO, how to price treatments, and much more. Attendees will leave with the best business practices and strategies for opening a tattoo removal business or adding tattoo removal to their existing practice.

"Despite the many challenges 2020 sent our way, we're proud to say that New Look Laser College had another successful year of laser tattoo removal training and building businesses," said Justin Arnosky, Astanza VP of Clinical Education and Director of New Look Laser College. "We're continuously reviewing and updating our course curriculum to ensure our students are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to remove tattoos safely and effectively. I couldn't be more excited about the upcoming 2021 courses, and welcoming students who are ready to start their own laser tattoo removal businesses."

Upon course completion, NLLC students receive three certifications: Certified Laser Specialist (CLS) Certification, Laser Safety Officer (LSO) Certification, and Advanced Laser Tattoo Removal Certification.

All 2021 courses are now open for registration and expected to fill up quickly. Special early registration rates are available for students who register three months before each respective course date. Click here to view the full schedule and register for a 2021 New Look Laser College course. For specific training and course questions, email [email protected] or call/text (281) 846-5890.

About Astanza Laser

Astanza is the leader in lasers for tattoo removal, hair removal, and additional aesthetic procedures. In addition to delivering cutting-edge medical laser devices such as the Duality, EternityTSR, Trinity, MeDioStar, and DermaBlate systems, Astanza offers its customers a complete range of training, marketing, and business consulting services specific to achieving success in this growing field.

Astanza Laser is headquartered in Dallas, TX, with customers throughout North America and Europe. For product, investor, or press information, call (800) 364-9010, or visit https://astanzalaser.com/ .

SOURCE Astanza Laser

Related Links

http://www.AstanzaLaser.com


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Linkedin Ni Nyoman Wira (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 7 2020

In late September, seven students in Papua received smartphones to access online learning content as the COVID-19 pandemic had forced schools to close. They are among over 140 students in Indonesia who have received smartphones for their learning needs.

Equipped with registered SIM cards and internet quotas, the devices were distributed by the Wartawan Lintas Media (Cross-Media Journalists) group, which raised funds and collected secondhand smartphones from donors. With fundraising beginning in June, the group had collected Rp 534.8 million (US$35,959) by August.

Tsarina Rani Maharani, member of the group and a journalist for Kompas.com said that they were focusing on distribution of the smartphones. Were currently in our third batch and it may extend to the fifth or sixth batch with that amount of funding, Rani told The Jakarta Post on Sept. 24, adding that they planned to finish up the batches well and with transparency.

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The first deputy chair of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Sorin Grindeanu, presented on Wednesday the government programme of the party for the period 2021-2024, specifying that it was discussed with the unions and employers' associations and "has at its core the safety of jobs", according to Agerpres.

"This programme has the security of jobs at its core - it is an essential component of the government programme we present to the Romanians. From our point of view, this is essential. If we have secure and paid jobs, then we will be able to have economic growth, we can increase salaries, we can increase living standard," Grindeanu told a press conference.

He also specified that the PSD government programme addresses the stimulation and rewarding of work, the active force in society.

"We want to increase the minimum salary, and employers must understand that unless we do have decent salaries, they will no longer have workforce, because Romanians will choose to work abroad. It is mandatory to have workforce in the country, it is a priority objective. We have measures aimed at raising the birth rate because, if we do not do this now, we will soon have no more employees to pay the pensions of those who have retired. (...) Through this programme, we cover all types of capital, for it is important to produce added value in Romania.
When it opens this week, the new Hotel Zena in Washington, D.C., will make a powerful statement about powerful women. The groundbreaking hotel, part of the Viceroy Hotels & Resorts, has commissioned more than 60 works of art that celebrate female empowerment. Even before they step inside, guests will be greeted by colorful, seven-story-tall murals on the buildings facade, depicting enormous female warriors who keep watch over the hotel and its surrounding Logan Circle neighborhood. (The looming work was created by D.C.-based artist and designer Cita Sadeli, better known as Miss Chelove, who has previously collaborated with everyone from the Smithsonian Institute to Apple.)

In the hotel lobby, a dramatic portrait gallery honors 11 women whove led the fight for gender equality, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Rep. Shirley Chisholmthe first Black woman elected to Congress.

Photo: Mike Schwartz Photography

Many of the attention-grabbing works also incorporate provocative materials. The larger-than-life homage to Justice Ginsburg has been constructed using 20,000 hand-painted tampons, arranged on a pegboard to create a pointillist portrait (complete with the justices signature lace collar and her Notorious moniker). A 20-foot-long curving wall in the hotels restaurant evokes a glittering gown, adorned with 12,000 protest buttons from decades of feminist marches and events (a nod to the 100th anniversary of womens right to vote in the United States). And a hanging installation of painted folding chairs honors Chisholms famous advice: If they dont give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.

The intention is both to pay tribute to these courageous women and to provoke thoughtfuloccasionally uncomfortableconversations, explains curator Andrea Dawson Sheehan. She spent more than two-and-a-half years conceiving and developing the project as art director of Dawson Design Associates, which also handled the hotels interior architecture and design.

Story continues

Photo: Mike Schwartz Photography

People are really hungry to be treated with content that is challenging, that is authentic, that is memorable, she says. [Hotel Zena] is a celebration of women, an appreciation of the struggle that has been enduring forever in our history, from every culture, from every part of the world. We felt we could provide an environment to get people talking.

The designer and her co-curators tapped more than 50 feminist artists (both women and men) from around the globe to spark that conversation. Their immersive, site-specific pieces encompass a variety of media (textiles, sculpture, photography, origami, drawing, painting, found materials) and a range of moodsfrom reverent to rebellious, from solemn to humorous.

Photo: Mike Schwartz Photography

Sheehan says the idea for the project came to her as the #MeToo movement was grabbing headlines. A light just went off inside of me, she recalls. I think its time we do more than just a pretty face of a hotel, and [instead] take a stand in support for gender equality. Viceroy has been amazing; they jumped right on board and embraced it.

Were giving people the opportunity to share in the lives of some amazing women, she continues. Among the standout installations is a Wall of Honor, featuring 221 sketches of feminist heroes and iconoclasts. Spanning millennia, the honorees include Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut, civil-rights leader and NAACP cofounder Ida B. Wells, scientist Marie Curie, aviator Amelia Earhart, climate activist Greta Thunberg, and media mogul Oprah Winfrey.

Photo: Mike Schwartz Photography

Sheehan says the works are designed to explore different points of view and elicit different responses. The materials used in the Ginsburg work, for example, may not be obvious to everyone at first glance. I would guess that 80% of men will never get it, she says with a laugh. But women totally get it. Its so fun to watch their faces.

The art also spills into the hotels 191 guest rooms, where ethereal paintings of Greek goddesses serve as guardians over visitors. The theme continues inside Figleaf, the hotels art-filled restaurant and bar, which will pour cheeky cocktails named after game-changing women.

Photo: Mike Schwartz Photography

In the spring, guests and locals alike can wander up to Hedys Rooftop lounge, where theyll find D.C. skyline views, poolside cocktails, and, of course, more art celebrating the accomplishments of women. In the meantime, the hotellike all Viceroy propertieshas implemented a robust anti-COVID program to keep guests safe during the pandemic.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest




Haiti - UN : Helen La Lime statement on the situation in Haiti before the Security Council





Ms. Helen La Lime, Special Representative in Haiti of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, made a statement on Haiti during the Security Council session on the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) on October 5, 2020, statement that we publish in its entirety and that we invite you to share.



Statement by Helen La Lime :



"Mr. President, distinguished members of the Council,



1. It is an honour to have the opportunity to provide you with an update on the situation in Haiti, on the eve of the first anniversary of the departure of peacekeeping troops from the country and the creation of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti. During its first twelve months of operation, BINUH has strived to carry out its mandate by, among others actions, seeking to foster a conducive environment for key sectors of Haitian society to overcome the impasse in which the country is currently ensconced and set it on a path towards long-term stability and sustainable development.



2. Nevertheless, as we meet today, Haiti is once again struggling to avert the precipice of instability. Apprehension about the future has been increasingly palpable, but especially since the shocking assassination, on 28 August, of the president of the Port-au-Prince Bar Association, Monferrier Dorval  a respected scholar whose murder epitomizes for many the weak state of rule of law in the country. The slaying of Maitre Dorval constitutes a tragic loss for Haitian society as he represented an example of civic engagement and commitment to the promotion of the rule of law. In the past months, unrest  sometimes in the form of violent protests  has become increasingly prevalent, and perceptions of insecurity have grown ever more acute. Gangs continue to challenge the authority of the State, especially in the more populous neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, and a fringe group of disaffected police officers calling themselves Fantom 509 has, along with its followers, brought disorder to the capital on several occasions.



3. As the police and judicial authorities struggle to address their persistent challenges in meeting the Haitian populations legitimate demands for security and accountability, violence persists, and human rights violations continue to be committed. The widespread perception of impunity which these dynamics elicit can only be countervailed by ensuring that the rights of victims of human rights violations and abuses are upheld and that perpetrators are held to account.



4. Although the Haitian National Police has consistently proven its operational proficiency since assuming sole responsibility for providing security throughout Haitis territory, it would require at least an additional 10,000 well trained and equipped police officers to meet internationally accepted policing standards and cement its capacity to deliver professional, human rights compliant, police services to the population. While, over time, it has proven successful in reversing such negative trends as the sharp increases in homicides and kidnappings observed in the past months, the HNP needs to be adequately funded and equipped by its government to overcome its recurrent shortcomings and continue developing to meet those international standards.



5. Similarly, whereas progress has been made towards the operationalization of the National Commission for Disarmament, Dismantlement and Reintegration  the State body charged with coordinating efforts to curb gang activity, continued support as well as steadfast political resolve and decisive action will be necessary to ensure that the Commission is capable of performing its tasks as the Government moves towards adopting a National DDR/CVR Strategy and steps up its efforts to counter the proliferation of illicit weapons and ammunition.



Mr. President,



6. Haitis contemporary history has demonstrated time and time again that acute political polarization and weak State institutions constitute catalysts for violence. Since I addressed this Council in June, several Government initiatives, including on economic and governance reform, have gained momentum despite running up against some internal criticism. Anew penal code was enacted; certain elements of which the next two years will provide an opportunity to fine-tune in order to build consensus around a text which all Haitians can embrace. Finally, the recent appointment by President Moise of a new Provisional Electoral Council has elicited strong reactions from segments of Haitian society, including the Court of Cassation; purportedly because of the bodys lack of representativeness and the scope of the mission it was given.



7. The continued lack of trust between political forces is impeding all but the slightest progress on priorities that had previously garnered a wide consensus across the political spectrum, such as the necessity to undertake constitutional reform to better reflect current Haitian realities and address key shortcomings of the 1987 Constitution prior to holding new elections. Even as the window to design a process acceptable to all is fast closing, many political stakeholders view the forging of a political consensus and the establishment of a government of national unity as essential to a conducive environment for participatory elections.



8. As the country prepares to enter a new electoral cycle, it is paramount that key aspects of the electoral process, such as the electoral framework and calendar, be addressed in order to reduce the risk of contested elections and further violence. While BINUH will continue to engage national stakeholders, I urge Member States to amplify their support to a process that, if properly managed, will contribute to ensuring that the overdue polls renew Haitis elected leadership, lead to a greater representation of women in political life, and reinvigorate the social contract between Haitian citizens and the State.



Distinguished members of the Council,



9. Though less virulent in Haiti than initially forecast, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have compounded the already debilitating effects of almost two years of political unrest on the countrys economy. The onset of the health emergency in the spring stopped any potential economic recovery in its tracks, and since then, the situation has only further deteriorated. Despite an increase in remittances and the recent success of measures to strengthen the national currency, households across the country have seen their incomes drop while prices of basic goods have risen sharply, thus leading to a further increase in food insecurity. Investments in the critical manufacturing and agriculture sectors stalled, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs. Overall, the domestic impact of the pandemic, as well as the effect it has had on the economies of essential trading partners, will likely contribute to Haiti experiencing another year of recession.



10. To countervail the effects of the protracted multidimensional crisis and to revitalize the economy, the Government intends to launch a three-year Post COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan premised on the stimulation of domestic production and exports through economic diversification, support to small and medium enterprises, and investment in the energy as well as agricultural sectors. Likewise, through the implementation of the recently adopted National Social Protection and Promotion Policy, it will seek to reinforce social safety nets and enhance the provision of relief to the most vulnerable, an undertaking that would unquestionably be bolstered by increased levels of donor funding for humanitarian assistance.



Mr. President,



Mr. President, distinguished members of the Council,



It is an honour to have the opportunity to provide you with an update on the situation in Haiti, on the eve of the first anniversary of the departure of peacekeeping troops from the country and the creation of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti. During its first twelve months of operation, BINUH has strived to carry out its mandate by, among others actions, seeking to foster a conducive environment for key sectors of Haitian society to overcome the impasse in which the country is currently ensconced and set it on a path towards long-term stability and sustainable development.



Nevertheless, as we meet today, Haiti is once again struggling to avert the precipice of instability. Apprehension about the future has been increasingly palpable, but especially since the shocking assassination, on 28 August, of the president of the Port-au-Prince Bar Association, Monferrier Dorval  a respected scholar whose murder epitomizes for many the weak state of rule of law in the country. The slaying of Maitre Dorval constitutes a tragic loss for Haitian society as he represented an example of civic engagement and commitment to the promotion of the rule of law. In the past months, unrest  sometimes in the form of violent protests  has become increasingly prevalent, and perceptions of insecurity have grown ever more acute. Gangs continue to challenge the authority of the State, especially in the more populous neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, and a fringe group of disaffected police officers calling themselves Fantom 509 has, along with its followers, brought disorder to the capital on several occasions.



As the police and judicial authorities struggle to address their persistent challenges in meeting the Haitian populations legitimate demands for security and accountability, violence persists, and human rights violations continue to be committed. The widespread perception of impunity which these dynamics elicit can only be countervailed by ensuring that the rights of victims of human rights violations and abuses are upheld and that perpetrators are held to account.



Although the Haitian National Police has consistently proven its operational proficiency since assuming sole responsibility for providing security throughout Haitis territory, it would require at least an additional 10,000 well trained and equipped police officers to meet internationally accepted policing standards and cement its capacity to deliver professional, human rights compliant, police services to the population. While, over time, it has proven successful in reversing such negative trends as the sharp increases in homicides and kidnappings observed in the past months, the HNP needs to be adequately funded and equipped by its government to overcome its recurrent shortcomings and continue developing to meet those international standards.



Similarly, whereas progress has been made towards the operationalization of the National Commission for Disarmament, Dismantlement and Reintegration  the State body charged with coordinating efforts to curb gang activity, continued support as well as steadfast political resolve and decisive action will be necessary to ensure that the Commission is capable of performing its tasks as the Government moves towards adopting a National DDR/CVR Strategy and steps up its efforts to counter the proliferation of illicit weapons and ammunition.



Mr. President,



Haitis contemporary history has demonstrated time and time again that acute political polarization and weak State institutions constitute catalysts for violence. Since I addressed this Council in June, several Government initiatives, including on economic and governance reform, have gained momentum despite running up against some internal criticism. Anew penal code was enacted; certain elements of which the next two years will provide an opportunity to fine-tune in order to build consensus around a text which all Haitians can embrace. Finally, the recent appointment by President Moise of a new Provisional Electoral Council has elicited strong reactions from segments of Haitian society, including the Court of Cassation; purportedly because of the bodys lack of representativeness and the scope of the mission it was given.



The continued lack of trust between political forces is impeding all but the slightest progress on priorities that had previously garnered a wide consensus across the political spectrum, such as the necessity to undertake constitutional reform to better reflect current Haitian realities and address key shortcomings of the 1987 Constitution prior to holding new elections. Even as the window to design a process acceptable to all is fast closing, many political stakeholders view the forging of a political consensus and the establishment of a government of national unity as essential to a conducive environment for participatory elections.



As the country prepares to enter a new electoral cycle, it is paramount that key aspects of the electoral process, such as the electoral framework and calendar, be addressed in order to reduce the risk of contested elections and further violence. While BINUH will continue to engage national stakeholders, I urge Member States to amplify their support to a process that, if properly managed, will contribute to ensuring that the overdue polls renew Haitis elected leadership, lead to a greater representation of women in political life, and reinvigorate the social contract between Haitian citizens and the State.



Distinguished members of the Council,



Though less virulent in Haiti than initially forecast, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have compounded the already debilitating effects of almost two years of political unrest on the countrys economy. The onset of the health emergency in the spring stopped any potential economic recovery in its tracks, and since then, the situation has only further deteriorated. Despite an increase in remittances and the recent success of measures to strengthen the national currency, households across the country have seen their incomes drop while prices of basic goods have risen sharply, thus leading to a further increase in food insecurity. Investments in the critical manufacturing and agriculture sectors stalled, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs. Overall, the domestic impact of the pandemic, as well as the effect it has had on the economies of essential trading partners, will likely contribute to Haiti experiencing another year of recession.



To countervail the effects of the protracted multidimensional crisis and to revitalize the economy, the Government intends to launch a three-year Post COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan premised on the stimulation of domestic production and exports through economic diversification, support to small and medium enterprises, and investment in the energy as well as agricultural sectors. Likewise, through the implementation of the recently adopted National Social Protection and Promotion Policy, it will seek to reinforce social safety nets and enhance the provision of relief to the most vulnerable, an undertaking that would unquestionably be bolstered by increased levels of donor funding for humanitarian assistance.



Mr. President,



Above all else, it is the ability of Haitis political and economic classes to compromise and resolve their differences without resorting to violence, as well as the capacity of the countrys fledgling institutions to take the necessary steps that will determine whether free, fair and inclusive elections will be held in a conducive climate; whether attempts to restart the economy and put the country back on a positive development trajectory will succeed; and, whether the perennial issue of impunity will finally be addressed.



12. Leveraging the complementarity of the diverse expertise shared between BINUH and the United Nations country team, we stand ready to continue supporting authorities in the accomplishment of these endeavors, and to accompany Haiti as it strives to rekindle the Sustainable Development agenda. To effectively fulfill these roles, we will continue to transform the way in which we work, by making more efficient use of the UNs political and programmatic resources to better address the intractable structural obstacles that prevent meaningful and tangible progress in Haiti.



Thank you.Above all else, it is the ability of Haitis political and economic classes to compromise and resolve their differences without resorting to violence, as well as the capacity of the countrys fledgling institutions to take the necessary steps that will determine whether free, fair and inclusive elections will be held in a conducive climate; whether attempts to restart the economy and put the country back on a positive development trajectory will succeed; and, whether the perennial issue of impunity will finally be addressed.



Leveraging the complementarity of the diverse expertise shared between BINUH and the United Nations country team, we stand ready to continue supporting authorities in the accomplishment of these endeavors, and to accompany Haiti as it strives to rekindle the Sustainable Development agenda. To effectively fulfill these roles, we will continue to transform the way in which we work, by making more efficient use of the UNs political and programmatic resources to better address the intractable structural obstacles that prevent meaningful and tangible progress in Haiti.



Thank you."



HL/ HaitiLibre


















- A month ago, Joyce Mwangi (not her real name) woke up to find a message on her phone indicating she had withdrawn KSh 150,000 from her bank account

- In June 2020, another victim claimed KSh 300,000 had been stolen from her account

- Tabitha Tongoi, a business lady, shared her experience online and got refunded

- In some instances, the criminals collude with rogue bank employees who have access to crucial customer data and information

- In May 2020, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) fired 13 of its staff who were accused of abetting fraud that led to the loss of an undisclosed amount of cash

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A month ago, Joyce Mwangi (not her real name) woke up to find a message on her phone indicating she had withdrawn KSh 150,000 from her bank account.

She started making frantic calls to the bank as well airing her frustration on social media in an attempt to have the bank refund her cash for she had not made any withdrawals nor instructed anyone to do it.

After interrogating the customer, the bank refunded all her money. She breathed a sigh of relief but instantly withdrew all her cash and changed banks. Joyce is not alone.

In June 2020, another victim claimed KSh 300,000 had been stolen from her account.

Tabitha Tongoi, a business lady, shared her experience online and managed to get the attention of her lender who took up the matter and eventually refunded her cash.

These are just some of the numerous incidents of fraud that have been targeting bank clients' accounts in recent months.

Whereas a good number of cases have been reported, others choose to remain mum and follow up silently with the banks which are often very hesitant to disclose such matters because they want to safeguard their confidence in customers.

Some of the banks affected by the attacks include Equity Group, Kenya's biggest bank by customer numbers, and NCBA Bank.

Tabitha Tongoi claimed the money was withdrawn from her account in early June 2020. Photo: Tabitha Tongoi.

Source: Instagram

Who are the perpetrators?

A 2020 survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (Pwc) identified at least six most likely perpetrators of these costly criminal activities.

The Pwc report titled Kenya Economic Crime and Fraud Survey notes organisations face numerous threats in terms of where the next economic crime attack would originate.

"It could be internal; from the Board, management, operations staff; it could also be external; your customers, organised crime syndicates, suppliers; or a joint effort where both internal and external parties collude.

In the past, most of the incidents were perpetrated internally, however in most cases there is an element of collusion with external actors."

According to the survey, internal parties were the most notorious perpetrators of these crimes in Kenya and by extension Africa, unlike globally where the incidents by external perpetrators were found to be higher.

External perpetrator accounted for 27% of the crimes committed, internal perpetrator 36% and collusion between internal and external 32%.

Fraud perpetrated by operations staff ranked highest of the fraud attributed to internal actors at 53%, an indication of ineffectiveness of controls at lower levels or more daring attempts by junior staff.

"Middle level management were the most active group of internal actors in 2018 (decreased from 41% to 28%). Kenya, however, seems to be the exception, as elsewhere, senior management were reported to have committed more fraud," the report indicates.

The survey revealed Customer Fraud also continues to be rampant, topping the list of external perpetrators of the economic crimes at 43% of externally perpetrated economic crimes.

"Instructively, whereas Customer Fraud is the most prevalent globally at 35%, it is lower in Kenya where the prevalence rate is 32%," says the report.

The survey found 34% of the economic crimes were being committed by other third parties like vendors and suppliers, who companies invite into their organisations through outsourcing of services.

"They (the companies) expose themselves to risks from parties seeking to illicitly enrich themselves at their expense. With 34% of economic crimes attributed to these third parties, this paints a scary picture as to the level of trust needed and risks organisations face in the business environments they are forced to operate in."

How the criminals operate

TUKO.co.ke spoke to a number of experts in a bid to understand how the cybercriminals bypass the generally sophisticated bank account and credit card security and gain access to customers' accounts.

Ben Roberts, a cybercrime expert and the group chief technology and innovation officer at Liquid Telecom, pointed out that once a person gives away their password and/or other private information by knowingly or unknowingly clicking on a suspicious link online, this paves way for someone to hack into their bank accounts.

In some instances, the criminals collude with rogue bank employees who have access to crucial customer data and information.

For instance, in May 2020, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) fired 13 of its staff who were accused of abetting fraud that led to loss of an undisclosed amount of cash.

The lender also sent home 34 employees in 2017, over 30 in 2016, some 33 staff in 2015 and about 90 employees in 2014 accusing them of professional negligence and/or conning customers with the intent to enrich themselves.

"The biggest weaknesses in cybercrime is in the people. A company may have invested a lot in software but the workforce needs to be upscaled so that they cannot induce the breach through social engineering. Breaches mostly happen through staff who are having the security information," Roberts told TUKO.co.ke.

Allan Lwala, User Awareness and Training (UAnT) group leader at Kenya Cyber Security and Forensics Association, elaborated further on how the criminals ply their trade.

He said the offenders work in an organised group akin to a mafia with each person having defined roles.

"Cybercrime attacks mostly happen at night when there are few employees in the office. People are taking advantage of there being not enough staff in the office to orchestrate the different attacks with everyone having a specific role. They first gather information before moving to the next move," Lwala told TUKO.co.ke

He urged people to use information that is not easily identifiable that can lead to breaching, adding they should also understand the cybercrime laws.

Ensuring safety of clients funds

Safety of your money in the bank is paramount and no one understands this better than the banks themselves.

At Equity Bank, for example, they have put in place a plethora of anti-fraud measures on their mobile banking platforms. Below are some of them:

Remember your PIN is your secret. Do not share your PIN with anyone or allow anyone to assist you perform any transaction from your phone. You can do all your transactions yourself.

Do not save your PIN, banking details on an SMS. Never share personal details, especially your ID number / Account Number via SMS.

Contact the bank immediately if you lose your phone so that your SIM card is blocked.

Equity Bank led by CEO James Mwangi has put in place stringent measures to ensure customers' deposits are safe. Photo: Equity Bank.

Source: Facebook

Avoid using passwords or PINs that are personal such as birthdays or are easy to guess e.g. 7777 or 1111 or year of birth or the current year etc.

Always keep your Equity payment card with you. Again, do not share your PIN with anyone. When making transactions at an agent or at a merchant (paying for goods and services at hotels, supermarkets) ensure that you can always see your card at all times, and that the Agent only records your account number.

All official calls from Equity will only come from one number, that is 0763 000 000. Don not engage anyone who calls you from any other number.

Remember no Equitel or Equity staff will ever call to ask you for your PIN, ID Number or any other personal details.

Should you be asked for your PIN, or asked to dial and input your PIN, immediately terminate the call and forward the number used to reach you to 333.

Always note that all messages from EQUITEL (Finserve) or EQUITY, shall have a senders title reference EQUITEL or EQUITY. You will Never receive SMSs from Equitel or Equity using personal lines or personal numbers.

Equity Bank also advises customers not to call number if they receive a text message informing them that their account has been blocked, suspended, deactivated or any other text.

At Equity, we do not block your accounts and will not require you to call us to unblock your account. Should you come across any people purporting to be Equity / Equitel (Finserve) employees, pretending to be testing for Equitel network signal do not give them your phone or engage with them, the lender advises.

In addition, customers are advised to avoid participating in any promotions that are not licensed by the bank.

Our promotions will never ask you to send money in order to participate nor will it be communicated through personal numbers. Some fraudsters have also impersonated Equity sales agents for SIM Cards, phones or technicians checking signal strength. Please note that all Equitel SIM Cards and phones are only sold at branches and selected Equity agents. If you meet such people, please ignore them and contact us immediately.

The measures are not limited to the above. Equity warns the criminals are likely to use many other techniques to defraud people, and therefore it encourages customers to be vigilant so that they do not fall prey to these fraudsters.

At KCB, they advise account holders to avoid clicking on suspicious emails with attachments and report any case of suspected fraud immediately.

Central Banks guideline

In 2017, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), the banking sector regulator, issued a guidance note on cybersecurity to public institutions requiring banks to report critical attacks within two hours.

The report listed the minimum requirements for financial institutions and other businesses to prevent cybercrime.

One of the requirements was that members of the board of a company must understand cybersecurity matters and possible threats to the business.

The Central Bank also advised lenders to perform regular checks to ensure they were safe from cyber theft.

Early in 2020, DCI detectives warned Kenyans against careless online behaviour which would not only see them lose money through dubious sellers but have their crucial ATM card details stolen by online fraudsters.

The Communication Authority of Kenya (CA)had earlier drawn attention to such scams and the DCI pointed out that fraudsters were impersonating websites and mobile applications of banks, insurance, government agencies, among others.

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Source: TUKO.co.ke
The defendants and their families fought for a prosecution in Britain rather than the United States, where criminal punishment is harsher. But Britain stripped Kotey and Elsheikh of their British citizenship and expressed reservations about a prosecution there. A court in London last month cleared the way for British authorities to provide evidence to U.S. law enforcement after Barr agreed not to seek the death penalty in exchange.
Skepticism toward science fell globally during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new survey data commissioned by 3M.

The big picture: Science is having a moment as researchers race to create COVID-19 vaccines and treatments and people seek information about how to curb transmission of the virus.

The COVID-19 pandemic is undoubtedly causing people to think more about science, says Gayle Schueller, chief sustainability officer at 3M, which worked with the research firm Ipsos on its State of Science Index.

Key takeaway: After three years of trending upward, skepticism toward science fell globally from 35% of people agreeing with the statement "I am skeptical of science" in a pre-pandemic survey to 28% in a survey taken in July and August of 2020.

What they found:

Trust in science and scientists also rose during the pandemic. That's in line with a recent Pew Research Center survey that found majorities of people around the world had at least some trust in scientists, though there are significant differences between those who lean politically left versus right in places like the U.S. and Canada.

Healthcare (both treatments for COVID-19 and for cancer and chronic illness), STEM and social justice equity, and addressing climate change were the highest priority issues for science to solve among the people surveyed.

In the U.S., 50% of people who said they were discouraged from pursuing science in school cited gender, race and ethnic inequalities as a reason, compared with 27% globally.

Globally, 82% of respondents agreed there are negative consequences to society if science isn't valued and 92% agreed people should follow scientific evidence about COVID-19.

Yes, but: 32% of people surveyed said if science didn't exist, their everyday life wouldn't be that different, a disconnect seen in earlier surveys.
Fans of modern design and luxury furnishings are likely smiling at the opening of one of the citys chicest new condo buildings: the Giorgetti.

Branded with the name of the 122-year-old furniture maker and filled with Giorgetti products, the 7-story midrise in the Upper Kirby District stands out not just for its taste, but for its tasteful restraint.
Hong Kong police made at least 87 arrests on Oct. 1, as thousands of protesters took to the streets in defiance of a police ban on a protest march in support of 12 activists detained by the China Coast Guard as they tried to flee to democratic Taiwan. Among the arrestees was a man who was surrounded by riot police as he was smoking a cigarette on the street. In an incident filmed by the media, the man was later shoved to the ground, his glasses flying off his face. The man, who gave only the nickname Kelvin, spoke to RFA's Cantonese Service about his experiences in police custody:



I told the riot police they should either charge me or arrest me. One of them snatched away my phone. I told them if they wanted to arrest me, they should arrest me, not rob me of my personal property. I said I would give them my belongings for safekeeping if they completed a normal arrest procedure.



I was very upset that they just stole my personal property without going through proper procedures.



I told them: "I don't have a problem if you want to give me a ticket or arrest me, but I want you to do it legally."



[The police proceeded to arrest Kelvin, who later asked for medical treatment for injuries sustained during the arrest.]



After I arrived at the hospital, I was told by a riot police officer I didn't know and hadn't seen before that the officers had used excessive force, and that he didn't see any reason to arrest me.



He told me: "How about we just make a symbolic arrest. Your personal belongings or phone won't be confiscated and you won't be cuffed when you go onto the ward."



When we got to the triage station at Ruttonjee Hospital, the riot police couldn't undo the cable ties [used to secure my hands]. My hands were bruised and bleeding.



Then they got very nervous and started asking around for scissors, asking a woman working in the emergency room if they could borrow some. They managed to cut it open, but I was left with cuts from the scissors on my right and left hands.



They are supposed to be professionally trained to use appropriate force and restraining methods, but they couldn't even get the cable tie open. I think it was unreasonable of them to injure an arrested person trying to get the cable tie open.



This was totally an arbitrary arrest. As members of the public, we have no control over arbitrary arrests by police, who can arrest as many people as they like. But there's no way to press charges against them after you have been arrested, so what's the point [of complaining]?



I think people who have acted against their conscience will be punished one day.



After the video was released, I was asked if I was afraid of getting into more trouble with police.



I would like to say that from the first day I took to the streets, I was expecting to be arrested. I am not afraid.



[Police later released Kelvin and three others arrested at the same time on bail. They are required to report to local police stations this month.]



Reported by Man Hoi-tsan for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Concerns have been expressed this week at the devastating impact new Level 3 restrictions will have on communities and businesses across County Kildare.

The local economy is already reeling from three weeks of a local lockdown in August as well as the nationwide wide-ranging measures since March to stop the spread of Covid-19.

The latest range of curbs mean restaurants and wet pubs cant serve customers indoors, employees must work from home if possible, shoppers cant come from outside Kildare  but schools and creches can remain open.

County Kildare Chamber warned of a heavy business impact on the pre-Christmas shopping season as more and more customers may shop online and not even buy from local suppliers.

The GAA also declared all club games were suspended.

Chamber Chief Executive Allan Shine also called for immediate and specific supports for businesses impacted by the latest restrictions.

Mr Shine said: The economy comes a very close second to public health and I dont believe the Government was ever going to entertain Level 5 because there was too much at stake with the Budget happening next week and the ongoing Brexit negotiations.

He added: There are already delays in businesses getting money from the July Stimulus package announced during the summer and there are six or seven week delays to the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS).

He said many sectors had re-hired staff and were upskilling their workforce but now many workers will be temporarily laid off again.

Mr Shine said that the timing for the latest restrictions was very unfortunate with retail and hospitality heading into the busy pre-Christmas trading period.

He said that non-grocery spending could go online and goods may be bought from abroad rather than supporting the local economy.



Busiest time

Barker & Jones bookstore in Naas said it is heading into its busiest time of the year with a flurry of books published and being snapped up by Christmas gift buyers.

Store manager Kate Hayes told the Leader: We are concerned because this is the start of the main book publishing season and we are seeing new titles on our shelves from Graham Norton and Mary McAleese and its bringing customers in.

I also believe we will have a very busy October due to people doing their Christmas shopping early  so its important that there is minimal impact on book shops and other retail outlets who are trying to claw back a bit of trade before the end of the year.

Farrell and Nephew bookstore in Newbridge would have stayed open even if Kildare went to the most restrictive Level 5 as it sells products deemed as essential supplies such as office stationery.



Local footfall

However Director Dermot Finnegan, whose uncle Michael Farrell and his wife Kitty founded the premises in the 1950s, said customer footfall will be down due to the restrictions.

He told the Leader: If non essential retail have to close around us and if people are working from home, it will hit footfall and will impact on our business.

But its good news that schools are staying open as they are our regular customers and thats a very important part of our business.

Senator Fiona OLoughlin had earlier cautioned against the most serious restrictions, adding: South Kildare cases are low, we should not be penalised again for reckless behaviour by some.



Personal behaviour

She added: Personal behaviour is paramount.

It is incumbent on every one of us to adhere to the regulations such as halving our social contacts, socially distancing, washing hands and wearing a mask - we have to live with Covid-19 for now, but by ensuring we all adapt these behaviours we can keep businesses, hospitality sector and schools open.


The upgrade plan is based on the installation of 21 main towers and 19 secondary towers

Egypt's Transport Minister Kamel El-Wazir discussed on Wednesday with a delegation from Germany's Siemens progress in the project to modernise Egypts railway signalling system along the Banha-Port Said line.

The project, implemented under an agreement signed between the Egyptian National Railways and the German technology giant in December 2015, aims at raising the safety level along the railway line passing through Benha, Zagazig, Ismailia, and Port Said, and the line connecting Zagazig and Abu Kebir.

The upgrade plan is based on the installation of 21 main towers and 19 secondary towers.

The German delegation told El-Wazir that Sharqia's Abu-Hamad station tower is expected to be operational before the end of October, while Benha's Sheblengah station is set to go into service by 2020.

Siemens' representatives said the rest of the towers are scheduled to be operational successively as per the underway electronic link system, according to a statement issued by the ministry following the meeting.

El-Wazir underscored the necessity of intensifying work on this project, given its significance in increasing the safety a of trains, the statement added.

The minister noted the project aims to renew the signalling system and set up a modern electronic system instead of the current mechanical interlockings system to increase safety, reduce the duration of trips, and increase the number of daily passengers and cargo trains.

El-Wazir also said the upgrade targets maximising freight transport from Port Said.

The statement added that the ministry is working on current and future ventures to modernise the signalling systems over 1,800km, and with a total cost of EGP 46.8 billion.

Siemens has been operating in Egypt since 1859 with its technologies having been implemented in different areas across the country.

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WATERLOO REGION  Public health nurses recruited to help Waterloo Regions schools manage COVID-19 will be on the job next week.

All 25 nurses have been hired and the last group is currently finishing training before theyre assigned to schools starting on Tuesday after the holiday weekend.

Their top priority will be case and contact management for positive cases among students and staff in the regions schools.

Our first focus is to ensure those cases are followed up with as quickly as we can, said Sharlene Sedgwick Walsh, director of healthy living for the region.

Each nurse will provide support to about 12 schools including those in the public, Catholic, English and French school boards as well as private and parochial schools.

The province is providing extra funding for the nurses as part of its school reopening plan.

Once the region hired its nurses, training took about two weeks to complete including the process of case and contact management.

The majority of them have not worked in public health before, Sedgwick Walsh said.

They come from a variety of backgrounds including hospital, long-term care and family medicine practices. Some are newer, some longer on the job.

Its a really nice mix of folks in terms of skill and experience, Sedgwick Walsh said.

Theyll reach out to their schools once assigned, and schools will also know who they can contact with questions or concerns.

RELATED STORIES Waterloo Region New public health nurses will support school reopening

Along with managing contact tracing in schools, the nurses will also provide recommendations related to outbreaks and infection control measures, conduct virtual or on-site visits as needed for outbreak investigations, and work with school boards to co-ordinate reporting of positive cases and outbreaks.

Public health has already been providing a lot of support to schools since they reopened a month ago while awaiting the new nurses, including ensuring classrooms are as safe as possible. But the extra hands are welcome, especially since the schools are a new area of concern since they were shuttered at the start of the pandemic in the spring.

Its going to be very helpful, Sedgwick Walsh said. Theyre a good addition to try and meet the demand.
This is the emotional moment two Chinese parents sobbed uncontrollably as they were reunited with their son three decades after he was abducted from their home as a toddler.

Mr Lei and Ms Jiang were left devastated when their child was snatched away by a houseguest who stayed with the family for a week in 1989.

After 31 years, they finally met their son again last Tuesday after police tracked down the man with the help of a national DNA database, according to reports.

This is the emotional moment two Chinese parents sobbed uncontrollably after they were reunited with their long-lost son three decades after he was abducted as a toddler

Mr Lei and Ms Jiang (pictured) were left devastated when their child was snatched away by a houseguest who stayed with the family for a week in 1989. She is embracing her long-lost son

Mr Lei and Ms Jiang, who lived at a remote town in southwest China's Guizhou province, saw a stranger appearing at their doorstep in October 1989.

The man, who claimed to be a traveller from the eastern Chinese province Jiangsu, offered the family some money so he could live with them for seven days.

During his stay, the houseguest took the couple's one-year-old son, Shuwen, and fled when the parents were out.

After discovering his child's disappearance, Mr Lei gathered a dozen family members as they spent 10 days travelling across the province and looking for Shuwen  but to no avail.

Local police also got involved but failed to solve the case at the time due to a lack of information about the traveller.

Mr Lei (pictured centre) and Ms Jiang (pictured right) were left inconsolable when their child was snatched away by a houseguest who stayed with the family for a week in 1989

After discovering his child's disappearance, Mr Lei (pictured left) gathered a dozen family members as they spent 10 days travelling across the province and looking for Shuwen (right)

While comparing his DNA with a national database, the authorities discovered that the 32-year-old man, now known by his surname Shen, was the toddler who was abducted in 1989. The picture released by local media shows Mr Shen holding his mother's hand tightly

The investigation remained stalled for another three decades until earlier this year when the son, now known by his surname Shen, went to a local police station to update his ID.

The officers collected Mr Shen's blood sample as part of the procedure for issuing a new ID.

While comparing his DNA with a national database, the authorities discovered that the 32-year-old man was the toddler who was abducted in 1989.

Mr Shen, a restaurant owner, is living with his wife and two sons in Jiangsu province's Pizhou, nearly 1,900 km (1,180 miles) away from his birth parents.

Mr Shen, a restaurant owner, is living with his wife and two sons in Jiangsu province's Pizhou, nearly 1,900 km (1,180 miles) away from his birth parents. He is pictured with his birth family

The ceremony held by Xuzhou police last Tuesday also saw another Chinese father finding his son (pictured right) who was kidnapped from the family's front yard aged four in 1989

The man told reporters that he had no idea about his abduction and his adoptive parents had treated him well.

On September 29, Mr Lei and Ms Jiang finally found their son again after 31 years of waiting.

They met each other during a ceremony held by Xuzhou police in Jiangsu and dedicated to reuniting families with their missing children.

The Chinese parents are seen in an emotional video bursting into tears and crying inconsolably as they embraced their long-lost son.

Mr Lei later said in an interview: 'It's been 31 years. [We] had always been waiting, always looking. Now we finally found [you].'

Mr Shen said he would look after his birth parents and bring his wife and children to visit them as often as possible.

The ceremony also saw another Chinese father finding his son, Zhang Zhan, who was kidnapped from the family's front yard at the age of four in 1989.

Human trafficking has been a serious issue in Chinese society. An estimated 70,000 youngsters  from babies up to teenagers  are snatched away from their families in the country every year.

Some are bought, some are simply stolen. They end up as labourers, in forced marriages or as the adoptees of wealthy families, either in China itself or overseas.
Gov. Charlie Baker decided against a state mandate banning or limiting trick-or-treating ahead of Halloween, encouraging Massachusetts cities and towns to lay out their own ground rules for residents and visitors.

Speaking from Salem, Baker and Mayor Kim Driscoll took questions from reporters on what to expect on the citys biggest holiday of the year. The city canceled several Halloween parades and events in August, including the Salem Food Truck Festival and Haunted Happenings Grand Parade, but the city doesnt plan on stopping its residents and visitors from celebrating, as long as they abide by safety precautions.

Salem, which sees hundreds of thousands of tourists in the fall, is one of 18 cities and towns with higher COVID-19 rates and testing support under the states Stop the Spread campaign. Driscoll, a Democrat, said the city has fined some people for not wearing masks but that officials have seen more success with city officials and state ambassadors educating the public on the proper safety precautions.

If were getting 95% compliance by educating people with downtown ambassadors, its working, Driscoll said.

Other cities and towns have canceled or limited trick-or-treating altogether, but Baker held off from a statewide mandate. Asked why he decided against a statewide order, Baker said a mandate would likely have unintended consequences that would lead to higher community transmissions.

The reason were not canceling Halloween is that [celebrations] would have turned into thousands of indoor Halloween parties, which would be a heck of a lot worse for public safety than outdoor organized and supervised trick or treating, Baker said Tuesday afternoon. I think our view on this is there are some very simple things people can do to manage their kids and themselves with respect to Halloween outdoors that most people would agree is much safer.

Four communities in Massachusetts - Lawrence and Leicester, Springfield and Worcester - have already restricted or canceled the door-to-door tradition over concerns of spreading COVID-19, which has killed more than 9,000 in Massachusetts.

Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno suggests families read a Halloween story together instead of going door-to-door for candy.

It boggles my mind why any family would want to potentially put their child or children and themselves in harms way for a candy bar," Sarno said. "Once we defeat this COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, and we will, many of our traditions will come back and be welcomed.

The state website reminds people to wear a face mask and socially distance when celebrating Halloween, but it otherwise directs people to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for guidance.

The CDC warns people with COVID-19 or who have been exposed to the virus to avoid in-person celebrations, as well as people who are at higher risk of becoming severely ill if they are infected. The federal agency says celebrating Halloween in-person outside of your house may pose varying levels of risk.

Baker said he doesnt see COVID-19 stopping people from flocking to Salem for Halloween, including out-of-state tourists. Still, he said, he believes the city has created a culture of wearing masks and social distancing that can withstand the influx of visitors.

Theres no question, there will be people in Salem in October," Baker said. Its just going to happen.

Douglas Hook contributed reporting.

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Press Release

7 October 2020

The IHG Owners Association, which represents IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) franchise hotel owners worldwide, held its Board of Director's third-quarter meeting in person, September 22-23 at the InterContinental Buckhead in Atlanta, Ga.* The meeting is seen as a significant step towards returning to normal business practices and restoring consumer confidence in business travel.

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In August, the Board voted overwhelmingly to hold this meeting in person with a virtual video-call option for those unable to attend due to government-mandated travel restrictions. Following extensive preparation from both the Association and the host hotel, with an emphasis on IHG's Meet with Confidence protocol and CDC guidelines, the in-person gathering demonstrates a commitment to working with owners and operators to execute cleanliness and safety brand standards that will bolster consumer confidence in IHG-branded hotels and the hospitality industry at large.

The two-day event featured meetings with the Board as well as IHG leaders and covered a wide range of pertinent, owner-driven topics, many of which focused on recovering from the financial fallout of COVID-19. Notably all dining during this event was hosted on-property and provided by the hotel's F&B department.

"From the moment we stepped into the hotel, it was evident that all precautions had been taken and that the well-being of guests is prioritized," said 2020 Association Chair Wayne West III. "I believe future travelers will experience the same IHG Clean Promise care upon arrival to all IHG properties."

Fourteen days following the meeting, all attendees reported good health and commended the efforts of the Association and the InterContinental Buckhead in providing a safe and comfortable environment for both the meetings and meals. From ensuring proper social distancing to providing all necessary personal protective equipment, including face-masks, hand wipes, sanitizer and more, the hosting parties ensured attendees would be able to focus on matters at hand for their meetings.

* Per www.georgia.gov, the State of Georgia currently allows gatherings of 50 people or less without restriction and permits gatherings exceeding 50 people, provided they are able to maintain at least six feet of distance between individuals. Mask guidelines were followed in all public spaces in the hotel.
Advertisement

Violent protests that erupted in Los Angeles on Monday night reportedly causes tens of thousands of dollars in property damage, authorities revealed Tuesday.

Dozens of demonstrators marched on the LA Police Department headquarters on Main and First streets around 9:40pm, during which windows were shattered, doors were kicked-in and ATMs were damaged.

The unruly scenes were thought to be sparked by the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man, Jonathan Price, in Texas over the weekend, with his name spray painted on a number of buildings throughout the area.

Last night DTLA experienced a spasm of violence, the LAPD tweeted Tuesday evening. Our people did their very best to quell the violence, and will strive to arrest those responsible for the vandalism and destruction.

Scroll down for video

Dozens of demonstrators marched on the LA Police Department headquarters on Main and First streets around 9:40pm on Monday

Windows were shattered, doors were kicked-in and ATMs were damaged (pictured: A glass storefront along nearby Spring Street damaged during the protest)

Other footage captured from Monday night showing masked activists burning an American flag

The remnants of the burned flag is seen above in this photo captured near to the LAPD HQ on Monday night

Officers in riot gear stood and watched as members of the crowd  some wielding umbrellas  tore down temporary barriers that had been erected outside the LAPD headquarters.

The police department said that no damage was inflicted on its headquarters, however windows and doors of nearby structures were broken, and other property was damaged during the demonstration.

The front doors of the California Secretary of State building on Spring Street were also smashed.

The LAPD retweeted a video from Scriberr News that showed a group of protesters smashing the front windows of a nearby building with metal pipes before fleeing the area.

Other footage captured from Monday night showing masked activists burning an American flag, and a nearby building was reportedly spray-painted with the message: kill more cops.

The police department said that no damage was inflicted on its headquarters, however, windows and doors of nearby structures were broken, and other property was damaged during the demonstration

One protester is photographed standing in front of a line of riot-gear clad officers holding a sign that reads 'Racist Cops Are Not Fit to Protect and Serve', as a helicopter circles overhead

Many in attendance were carrying Black Lives Matter and 'Defund The Police' signs

A smoke bomb, fireworks or some other kind of pyrotechnic device was set off during the incident, according to KCAL-TV.

One demonstrator was shown in social media video standing in front of a police vehicle on Spring Street where he reportedly shouted kill me  do it, I f***ing dare you.

News video shows several protesters being detained, but no arrests were made, LAPD Officer Drake Madson told the LA Times.

No injuries were reported in the demonstration and police said the crowd dispersed at around 11pm.

Multiple doors and windows were boarded up in the area early Tuesday morning as a result of the widespread damage caused the night prior.

Los Angeles:

10/5/2020 21:42



Antifa / BLM black bloc militants vandalized the Los Angeles Education Partnership building with a message for law enforcement. pic.twitter.com/9TELH0ykUd  Kalen DAlmeida (@FromKalen) October 6, 2020

A protester raises their first as demonstrators square off against police on Monday night

Officers in riot gear watched as members of the crowd  some wielding umbrellas  tore down temporary barriers that had been erected outside the LAPD headquarters

News video shows several protesters being detained, but no arrests were made, LAPD Officer Drake Madson said

No injuries were reported in the demonstration and police said the crowd dispersed at around 11pm

The unruly scenes were thought to be sparked by the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man, Jonathan Price (left), in Texas over the weekend, with his name spray painted on a number of buildings throughout the area.

There is no official word on who organized the protest or what the group was protesting, but many in attendance were carrying Black Lives Matter and 'Defund The Police' signs.

The unrest is thought to have been caused by the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Jonathan Price, an unarmed black man, in East Texas on Saturday.

Prices family say he had been trying to break up a domestic violence incident inside an Exxon gas station in Wolfe City on Saturday at 8:30pm, just moments before he was shot.

The familys attorney Lee Meritt said hes been informed that when police arrived at the scene, Price raised his hands and attempted to inform the officers exactly what had happened. But instead he was tasered and shot multiple times.

Shaun Lucas, the officer who shot Price, was arrested Monday and charged with murder. He has since posted his $1 million bond and is currently out on bail.
Renovation to take place at Kim ong Primary school at Hoa Long B site in Kinh Cung Township, Phung Hiep District

Project to upgrade one classroom, one playground and one toilet block

Fifth school built by BASF and its customers since 2015, as part of the long-term commitment to Vietnams education development

Hau Giang, Vietnam  October 6, 2020  BASF, the worlds leading chemical company, and its three partners, MKVN, Tam Tran and Nippon Paint Vietnam, and other project co-sponsors today broke ground on a joint school renovation project, for a primary school in Hau Giang Province. The project will offer one new classroom, one toilet block and one playground, with a total area of 357 square meters for the Kim ong Primary School, at Hoa Long B site, located in Kinh Cung Township in Phung Hiep District. Facilitated by Saigon Childrens Charity CIO, the construction project will be completed in 2021. Over 90 schoolchildren will enjoy a cleaner, safer and a more comfortable learning environment after completion of this fifth school project by BASF Vietnam, in close coordination with its partners.

The co-sponsors are donating cash and materials to renovate the school. For the fifth consecutive year, Nippon Paint Vietnam, a well-known paint and coatings manufacturer, is providing low odor products that meet Green Label Certification, made with BASF ingredients to reduce impact on human health and environment. The financial sponsors include MKVN Chemicals, a distributor of care chemicals, nutrition and health, and other functional products, and Tam Tran Company, a company specializing in supplying and making consignment sales of basic chemicals for paints, inks, plastic, etc.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, a total of 300 pairs of shoes, made by Khoan Nghi, a manufacturer of shoes and slippers, were presented to all students from different sites of the Kim Dong Primary School. The shoes made with BASF materials enhance the comfort and safety of children and adults.

BASF continuously supports local communities through a variety of programs, including this school renovation to provide a healthy learning environment for schoolchildren. This initiative has also inspired our partners to jointly support the common cause of supporting remote communities get better access to quality education. With this project, we are also thrilled to celebrate the fifth school we have renovated with our partners, showing our long-term commitment to support Vietnams sustainable development, said Erick Contreras, Managing Director, BASF Vietnam.

The Hoa Long B satellite site of the school currently has four classrooms, three of which are for primary classes and one for kindergarten level. The classrooms were built in 1996 with basic structures and materials and for almost 25 years, the classrooms structures have been deteriorating. The condition gets even worse during the rainy season since the rusted corrugated iron roof leaks and creates nuisance noise negatively affecting the learning environment.

Located over 270km away from Ho Chi Minh City, Phung Hiep is one of the poorest districts in a province where 11% of the total number of households are classified as poor*. A study conducted by the Ministry of Education & Training showed that less than 50% of primary schools in Hau Giang were built with proper concrete structures**. Without stable foundations and a safe environment for learning, students safety is at risk. In 2017, BASF and its partners renovated two schools in the district, benefitting 140 students at Long Thanh 3 Primary School and Tan Long Kindergarten.

BASF Vietnam has been active in multiple community projects including the partnership with Saigon Childrens Charity to renovate schools. Moreover, BASF has also provided

scholarships to disadvantaged university students for their four years of studies and held its interactive education program BASF Kids Lab for 5,000 primary school students since 2011. Additionally, BASF constructed four public playgrounds accessible to more than 12,000 children to promote a sense of exploration, inspire creativity and develop different skills among children.

* Source: http://baohaugiang.com.vn/xa-hoi/huyen-phung-hiep-giam-3-43-ho-ngheo-75290.html

** Source: https://www.ungm.org/UNUser/Documents/DownloadPublicDocument?docId=339570
When an 80-year-old man at a bar near Buffalo, New York, noticed a fellow customer not wearing a face mask, he confronted him. The customer responded by swiftly pushing him to the ground, the police said. Five days later, the man was dead.

On Monday, the customer, Donald Lewinski, 65, of West Seneca, New York, was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of the 80-year-old, Rocco Sapienza. The case is believed to be one of the first of its kind in New York state.

Lewinski pleaded not guilty on Tuesday in court in Erie County. The charge carries up to four years in prison.

The encounter followed months of tension and often vitriolic confrontations across the country over masks. Disputes have escalated to violence: retail employees have broken up fistfights between customers, and in New York City dozens of transit workers have been attacked after trying to enforce the rules.

Some encounters have also turned deadly. In New York City, a woman died in April after she wandered the emergency room of a Brooklyn hospital and was shoved by another patient, who had apparently become irate that she had broken social distancing guidelines. And in Michigan, prosecutors said a security guard at a Family Dollar store was fatally shot in May after he told a customer that their daughter needed to wear a mask inside the store.

John J Flynn, the Erie County district attorney, said he believed the confrontation between Sapienza and Lewinski  who apparently had exchanged terse words before the shove  was one of the first disputes over face coverings in New York state that had led to someones death. He said preliminary autopsy results showed that Sapienza died from blunt force trauma to the head.

Its beyond sad, Mr Flynn said. These kinds of situations have continued to escalate, and this should cause everyone to pause and think twice now about how we as a society want to conduct ourselves during this pandemic.

Sapienza and Lewinski were regulars at Pamps Red Zone Bar & Grill in West Seneca, and both men had been at the bar for a few hours on 26 September when they clashed around 7.45pm over Lewinskis failure to wear a mask, according to Captain James Unger of the West Seneca Police Department.

In New York state, customers at bars and restaurants are required to wear face coverings when they are not seated. Debbie Ehlers, the owner of Pamps, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but said in a statement to WKBW that Sapienza was a part of our Red Zone family and loved by all.

Pamps Red Zone Bar & Grill, in West Seneca, where the incident occured (Google Maps)

Mr Flynn said surveillance video showed the two men sitting alone at different sections of the bar. Lewinski got up a few times, including to bring a round of drinks outside the bar area. Each time, he was not wearing a mask.

The bar owner went up to Lewinski and spoke with him for about a minute before Sapienza put his mask on and walked up to them, Mr Flynn said the video showed.

Out of the blue, Lewinski two-hand shoves Sapienza, Mr Flynn said. As he fell, Sapienzas left arm knocked over a nearby bar stool and his head hit the floor. He appeared to lose consciousness.

At Erie County Medical Centre, he underwent brain surgery, but remained unresponsive until he died on Thursday, the police said.

Minutes after the incident, Lewinski paid his bill and left.

In a statement, Barry Covert, a lawyer for Lewinski, called Sapienzas death a tragedy, but said that he had initiated the confrontation.

It was unclear whether the two men knew each other before that evening.

Recommended Coronavirus news you may have missed overnight

Captain Unger said that Sapienza was very well-liked among customers at the bar and often took on a role of protecting the staff. Lewinski had made lewd comments to other patrons and employees, the police said, which might have fuelled the dispute.

They had exchanged words prior to the confrontation, Captain Unger said, and then the incident with the masks was the culmination of all those little verbal spats.

In an interview with The Buffalo News, Robert Graziano, Sapienzas stepson, said the episode was senseless. He described his stepfather as a boisterous ex-Marine who could fill a room with his personality. Sapienza was also retired from an office job.

Mr Graziano said that his family wanted charges brought against Lewinski, who is scheduled to return to court next month for another hearing.

Its good to see that this was recognised for what it was and justice is going to be served, he said.

New York Times
Robin Swann has outlined a new Covid-19 surge plan for Northern Ireland for the coming months, to prepare the health service that has already been "badly bruised and scarred" by the pandemic.

In a statement to the Assembly, the Health Minister said he is still committed to rebuilding services affected by the first wave of Covid-19. However plans to publish the next phase of Trust rebuilding work has been paused in light of the "deeply concerning" rise in cases.

Mr Swann said that "given the perilous and developing situation we now find ourselves in", there was no choice but to hold back the publication.

"However let me reassure members - just because the publication of the plans may be paused, that does not for one moment suggest the efforts of our clinicians to support patients have been paused. Even with the prevailing Covid situation I expect that the rebuilding effort will of course continue, as far as that is possible."

The new surge plans include:

l The establishment of a regional cancer reset cell to oversee the resumption of screening, diagnosis and treatment of patients,

l Monitoring the continued availability of the first Nightingale facility at Belfast City Hospital,

l Additional step down capacity at the second Nightingale facility at Whiteabbey Hospital; and

l The establishment of dedicated centres for day case and orthopaedic procedures.

Meanwhile, surgeons have said a shortage of nurses in Northern Ireland presents a "major barrier" to restarting health services. Eight in 10 are concerned about lack of staff while patients deteriorate in "inhumane" queues for care, a survey from their professional body added.

Nearly 40% on the waiting list have been in line for more than a year for in-patient or day case treatment as many elective services ground to a halt during the pandemic.

One consultant in orthopaedic surgery quoted by the professional body said: "Northern Ireland had the worst waiting times pre-Covid. Elective orthopaedic procedures were stopped, so many patients are deteriorating with this inhumane wait."

The Royal College of Surgeons of England report said responses from Northern Ireland highlighted the "significant impact" workforce shortages are having on surgeons' capacity to deliver planned care.

When the surgeons were asked about the barriers to resuming elective operations, 82% highlighted a lack of staff.

The review said: "Moreover, when asked which single measure would increase the number of patients they could see in the coming weeks, almost all of the surgeons who provided an open text response specifically mentioned the need for more nursing staff to increase surgical capacity."

Mr Swann is due to meet the Royal College today to discuss the concerns.

Earlier this year he secured funding to deliver an additional 300 nursing and midwifery undergraduate places this year, bringing the total to 1,325.

The minister said: "The responses from our surgeons highlights the significant impact workforce shortages are having on the capacity to deliver planned care.

"This was a problem before Covid and will remain so after Covid; however the pandemic has only exacerbated it."
PHOENIX - The Border Patrol raided a humanitarian groups aid camp on Monday, following a pattern of criminalization that has grown under the Trump administration.

Agents apprehended 12 immigrants and detained seven volunteers at a No More Deaths camp near the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona in what was the second raid since the summer. The volunteers were eventually released without charges. The raid follows the two trials the federal government has brought against Scott Warren, a volunteer with No More Deaths who was eventually acquitted of harbouring immigrants.

No More Deaths is a faith-based group that formed in 2004 in response to a large number of migrants who were dying while attempting to cross the brutal Sonoran Desert. Dramatically increased enforcement and deterrent tactics that began in the mid 1990s, along with the increasingly limited ways in which someone could legally migrate to the U.S., resulted in tens of thousands of people dying while trying to cross through treacherous and dangerously hot desert areas where they were less likely to be detected.

No More Deaths has two aid camps in Arizona, and volunteers leave water jugs and lead search and rescue or recovery operations in the desert.

Their work and the work of other humanitarian groups around the world has increasingly come under attack as nationalistic and xenophobic viewpoints become more prevalent, experts say.

Even after years of coexisting with the Border Patrol mostly peacefully, No More Deaths has seen its water jugs destroyed by border agents, and several of its volunteers have faced federal charges. The Border Patrol also executed a search warrant at the camp near Arivaca, Arizona, on July 31.

Paige Corich-Kleim, a volunteer who was present on Monday, said agents destroyed much of the camps infrastructure, including a window to a locked office and dishes. A low-flying helicopter also caused several tarps to blow over, and a storage shed was ripped apart, Corich-Kleim said. She described the raid as violent.

The U.S. Border Patrol declined to answer questions from The Associated Press.

In several tweets, however, Tucson Sector Chief Roy D. Villareal said that agents had executed a warrant at the No More Deaths camp near Arivaca and that the group was harbouring immigrants with unknown health status. He said some of the immigrants were wearing camouflage.

Multiple sex offenders, multiple gang members apprehended this year attempting to illegally enter our country. You dont know who youll encounter, Villareal said.

Calling it a so called Samaritan camp, Villareal added: Huge risk to themselves, our communities, and our country.

Corich-Kleim said seven volunteers were who were on site were detained for several hours but were not criminally charged. She said the camp helps migrants who are often dehydrated or have severe blisters from walking so much.

We have tried to keep open relationships and open communication with Border Patrol but have seen a dramatic shift in their enforcement tactics over the last few years, Corich Kleim said. She added that although the group previously had written and verbal agreements with the agency that allowed them to carry out their work, there hasnt been an agreement in place for a while.

Part of what protects humanitarian workers at the border is their citizenship, and for the most part, theyre not under the purview of the Border Patrol, said Bijal Shah, associate professor of law at the Sandra Day OConnor College of Law, at Arizona State University. Shah said the Border Patrol appears to be crossing lines it hasnt before  targeting not just non-citizens for immigration violations, but citizens for carrying out aid.

Since the Trump administration took office, several No More Deaths volunteers have faced criminal charges.

Scott Warren, whose case galvanized international support, was first tried in June 2019 for helping two Central American men who had crossed the border illegally. A jury deadlocked on charges, but the government went forward with a second trial. Warren was acquitted a year ago.

Rachel Gore Freed, the vice-president and chief program officer for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, said the pattern of criminalizing humanitarian work is a global phenomenon and has grown over the last few years as nationalistic views have risen.

I think racism and xenophobia and scarcity mentality kind of dictate why theres so much attention to our southern border, Freed said. Her group partners with No More Deaths.

To me, compassionate, humanitarian assistance is the fundamental part of protecting someones dignity and of protecting human rights. Its a basic part of protecting both our individual and collective human rights, Freed said.

Corich-Kleim, the volunteer, said No More Deaths will continue to carry out its work.

I think we dont really have a choice. As long as there is a need, were gonna try our best to be there and help folks, she said.
ESI Group (Paris:ESI) (ISIN code: FR0004110310, Symbol: ESI), has been recognized, for the second year in a row, for the quality of its financial and regulatory communication, by the Grands Prix de la Transparence and ranked among the Top 3 in the non-SBF120 companies category.

As part of the 11th Edition of the Grands Prix de la Transparence organized bythe Study Council teams of Labrador and whose study is labeled by the Bureau Veritas Certification, ESI Group shows an improvement of its financial and regulatory communication transparency, by moving up one place in the ranking of companies in its category, among an increasing number of applicants.

ESI Group is fully committed to a corporate social responsibility approach, reflected in its CSR policy articulated around 4 axes (Employees, Customers, Civil-Society Planet), with the aim of working towards responsible economic and social development. This award emphasizes on the daily measures deployed by the Group in favor of an even more reliable, readable and transparent communication, a vector of the company's sustainable development.

For 11 yearsthe Grands Prix de la Transparence measure and reward the public information materials provided by French CAC 40, SFB 120 companies and non-SBF 120 companies since last year, on the basis of 4 pillars defined with the regulator: Accessibility, Accuracy, Comparability and Availability of information, centered on 231 criteria. The purpose of this annual and objective evaluation is to make issuers aware of the quality of their transparency and to identify best practices in order to establish them as true market standards.

Corinne Romefort-Regnier, Corporate Governance Director of ESI Group, comments:  We are honored to be rewarded for this new edition of the Grands Prix de la Transparence. This distinction shows the strong and daily commitment of ESI Group's teams to guarantee the transparency of our financial and regulatory communication. In a world undergoing profound change, where sustainable growth is taking a central place, it is the responsibility of companies to work towards an increasingly ethical approach. The quality of our public information materials is a guarantee of transparency for our investors and other stakeholders, to whom we wish to continue ensuring an ever-increasing readability of our activities.

Laurent Rouyres, Founder of the Grands Prix de la Transparence and CEO of Labrador, comments:  Today, an increasing number of medium-sized companies are considering the transparency and quality of their corporate information as an attractiveness lever on the markets and with candidates. Their standards are today forestalling larger companies with greater resources..

About ESI Group

Founded in 1973, ESI Group is a leading innovator in Virtual Prototyping solutions and a global enabler of industrial transformation. Thanks to the company's unique know-how in the physics of materials, it has developed and refined, over the last 45 years, advanced simulation capabilities. Having identified gaps in the traditional approach to Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), ESI has introduced a holistic methodology centered on industrial productivity and product performance throughout its entire lifecycle, i.e. Product Performance Lifecycle, from engineering to manufacturing and in operation. Present in more than 20 countries, and in major industrial sectors, ESI employs 1200 high level specialists around the world and reported 2019 sales of 146 million. ESI is headquartered in France and is listed on compartment B of Euronext Paris.

For further information, go to www.esi-group.com.

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Interview With Gen. Spalding: the CCPs Disinformation Campaign, the TikTok Ban

Beijing uses 'political warfare' to interfere in US elections

The Chinese regime is leveraging propaganda about President Donald Trumps COVID-19 diagnosis to manipulate public perceptions ahead of the presidential election, said Retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding in a recent interview with The Epoch Times American Thought Leaders  host Jan Jekielek.

Spalding also explained Beijings tactics to interfere in U.S. politics, and his analysis of why Washington banned Chinese social media apps WeChat and TikTok from the United States.

Political Warfare: CCPs Disinformation Campaign on COVID-19, US Elections

Spalding first pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is responsible for the pandemic. A good graphic out there now showing the 6 million people that traveled from Wuhan and really carried infection everywhere, while they were locking down travel within China, back in January, he said in the interview.

Spalding criticized the CCPs disinformation campaign about the spread of the virus and how state-run media reacted to Trumps infection. He believes the CCP aims to reduce support for Trump and to create this perception that the president may not make it.

The president announced early on Oct. 2 that he and First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive for COVID-19.

Spalding said that the CCPs false narrative of the president mishandling the coronavirus coincides with the stance of the media in the United States and is adding fuel to the American domestic political situation. He calls this tactic political warfare.

Political warfare is not necessarily where they have to create the entire momentum themselves. What they try to do is help accelerate the momentum thats already going in their favor, Spalding said.

Furthermore, Spalding pointed out that intentions behind the CCPs wolf warrior diplomacy and the state-run medias rhetoric on Twitter reveal that they dont want to see him [Trump] reelected.

Spalding also pointed out that the CCP used the same strategy to interfere with the U.S. domestic politics. The anti-Trump forces in both the Democratic and Republican parties have put certain narratives through the media and on social media, and the narrative that the Chinese Communist Party then adopts through their proxies and bought, he analyzed, its bandwagoning. The CCP used the strategy of amplifying that message in the issues of Antifa and Black Lives Matter, the general added.

US Bans WeChat and TikTok

Spalding revealed the threats the Chinese apps WeChat and TikTok pose to the American people. WeChat is widely used among Chinese users in China and in the United States, and TikTok is owned by ByteDance Technology, a Beijing-based company.

He pointed out that while the CCP banned Facebook and Twitter in China, it extends its influence to the free world through WeChat and TikTok, which gives the Chinese Communist Party an effective ability to censor and control what happens on that platform and really control the narrative.

Using modern technology to control the narrative in order to have social, political and economic influence. Its really a fabulous weapon of war, he added

As to Beijings appeal to WTO regarding the ban, Spalding called out the CCPs hypocrisy: So in this case, the Chinese Communist Party is completely two faced and saying, Hey, why are you blocking WeChat and TikTok, when they do that, behind the Great Firewall, having spent a lot of time negotiating with the Peoples Liberation Army.

Spalding also elaborated on the power and influence of big companies such as Facebook, Google, Netflix, and Amazon. He said that these companies have created this power to influence on the basis of data they collect on individuals  they use it to make essentially trillions of dollars in wealth.

He compared them with similar Chinese companies such as Baidu and Alibaba, highlighting the fundamental difference that besides economic gain, the CCP use it for social and political influence as well. So this is the power of an authoritarian regime in the 21st century.

Spalding makes a clear distinction between the CCP and the Chinese people, so you have to separate the Chinese Communist Party, he stressed. He tried to push the distinction even when he was in the White House.

He said that when the CCP is being criticized or sanctioned, it relies on the confusion between the Communist Party, China, and the Chinese people to challenge U.S. policies.

The rhetoric in both Chinese and western media benefit the CCP as they portray those [policies] as being either racist or xenophobic against China or the Chinese people, he said.

Theyre a malign actor, theyre a totalitarian regime, but they dont actually support the Chinese people. And when you criticize them, you are criticizing the regime, youre not criticizing the nation or the people.

With reporting from Jan Jekielek; Follow Jan on Twitter: @JanJekielek
Photo credit: Nwando Emejulu

From Women's Health

When I was in my late twenties, I decided that I was going to donate my eggs. I had learned about egg donation through a friend whose aunt was going through the IVF process, and I thought it was a wonderful way to help a couple who was in need.

At the time I wasn't 100 percent sure that I wasn't going to have children, but I was already leaning toward no. So I researched the egg donation process and decided to go through with it in order to aid a couple who had that yearning that I didn't have. But while preparing to undergo the process, the doctor retrieving the eggs made a discovery: I had fibroids growing inside of my uterus.

The doctor told me not to worry about them for the time being, but that eventually I might have to get them removed, and so at the time I didnt think they were a big deal. After all, at that point I had never experienced any symptoms from having them. (In fact, most women with fibroids never experience any symptoms and require no treatment.)

Though my mom dealt with uterine fibroids herself (she had surgery to remove hers when I was younger, but we never really talked about it), my knowledge about the condition was very limited. I didnt know that you are more at risk of developing fibroids if you have a family member who also has them. I also didnt know that fibroids are more common and severe in African American women than those of other ethnicities.

A few years later, I started experiencing exhaustion and heavy periods.

Though Im now a Pilates instructor, at the time I was a restaurant manager working 12-hour shifts. I was experiencing exhaustion, heavy periods, and just an overall feeling of heaviness. I looked bloated, and if I touched my belly it literally felt hard. I wondered if maybe the symptoms I was experiencing were because of my long shifts, but deep down I knew I had to go visit a doctor.

When I went to the doctor, I discovered I had about eight or nine fibroids and that my uterus was the size of someone who was about three months pregnant. The fibroids had also caused me to become anemic, which is what I suspect was causing my exhaustion at the time.

Story continues

In 2013, I scheduled the surgery to have them removed, and when I went in, what was supposed to be about a 90-minute surgery turned into a three-hour surgery and two days in the hospital.

When the doctors went in to remove the fibroids, they discovered that there were more fibroids than my initial scans had picked up. They tried to remove as many as they could, but I lost a lot of blood and had to get a blood transfusion.

In the end, the doctors told me they couldnt get to all of them, especially the ones that were embedded very deep in my uterus, because I had already been under anesthesia for too long. They told me that the ones that were left would grow larger and that I would eventually have to get another surgery.

I was very disappointedborderline madat the thought of undergoing surgery again.

Photo credit: Nwando Emejulu

When I was first told about my fibroids, I could have never imagined that it would be something that was going to affect my life in such a big way.

I could have never anticipated the complications that I dealt with while undergoing my first fibroid removal surgery.

It wasnt until I joined a Facebook support group for people with uterine fibroids that I felt like I really began to understand the health condition.

One thing I learned from the group is this: Ten to 30 percent of women who undergo surgical fibroid removal will require a second surgery within five years.

The only way to be sure that you wont deal with fibroids again is to get a hysterectomy, something that I would have considered back then had I been equipped with this information.

When a woman opts for fibroid removal surgery, what she is really doing is buying herself time to have children. This was the case for many of the women in the Facebook group. Unlike many of the women I came across, I have never felt the pang to carry a child, and I still really don't.

I recently learned I currently have about 20 fibroids.

I just want to be done with fibroids, since they've already taken such a huge toll on my life, at times even interfering with my work. Teaching Pilates requires a lot of energy, and as my fibroids get bigger, I feel my energy levels get lower.

The week leading up to my period is also difficult since bloating means my abdomen swells up even more, and that makes it difficult and borderline painful to demonstrate abs exercises. Then there's also the time I have to take off to undergo and recover from surgery, since I can't teach or stand or do strenuous activities for three to four weeks. It's a lot to deal with.

I now plan on getting a partial hysterectomy.

During this surgery, I will have my uterus and Fallopian tube removed, but not my ovaries in order to prevent early menopause.

My one concern is the possibility of a pelvic floor prolapse, which is when the muscles and tissues supporting your pelvic organs become weak, and possibly loose. But I'm not too worried about it because as a Pilates instructor I'm always working on my pelvic floor.

However, I do understand that a hysterectomy isn't the best option for everyone, especially those wanting children and it is a very personal choice. Hysterectomies make pregnancy impossible, and can lead to other side effects like blood clots, infection, and damage to surrounding areas, like the bladder and nerves. Some studies have even linked hysterectomies to an increased risk of depression.

I wish I'd been better informed about fibroids when I first learned I had them.

Thats why Im so happy Senator Kamala Harris introduced a bill into the U.S. Senate to provide more funding for uterine fibroids research, public education, and data collection about the populations that are most affected by this condition.

Im hopeful that her work with the fibroids bill will make it easier for other women who will develop uterine fibroids in the future. There isnt enough talk about this condition and I encourage all women who feel that they are at-risk of developing fibroids or other reproductive system issues, like cysts, to talk to their doctors, ask them questions, and even push for a screening, if necessary.

We don't have all the answers right now, but my hope is that even if a cure for fibroids isnt found that we can at least figure out what exactly causes fibroids and that doctors can discover preventative measures women can take to stop them from developing.

Hopefully Kamalas work on the fibroids bill can get us closer to that. So like Michelle Obama suggested, I'm hitting the polls like my life depends on it.

Photo credit: Nwando Emejulu

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Manchester United's move to sign Ousmane Dembele from Barcelona is now off.

There had been late hope that the move could be revived with Barcelona appearing to soften in their stance for a permanent sale.

United were only interested in a loan deal for the 23-year-old and the two parties have been unable to come to an agreement as a result.

Manchester United's move for Ousmane Dembele on loan from Barcelona is now off

There had been reports in Spain that the injury-prone winger could also bypass a medical in a bid to get the deal over the line before the deadline.

Dembele, who was an unused substitute for Barcelona against Sevilla last night, missed training today.

United have also been linked with a move for Watford's Ismaila Sarr, but Dembele is a more attainable target at present.

The 23-year-old isn't guaranteed regular playing time if he remains at Barcelona this season, especially if Memphis Depay joins the club.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side are eager to bring in Dembele on loan without an obligation to buy

A move for Watford winger Ismaila Sarr appears unlikely to happen before the deadline

United are set to bring in experienced ex-PSG striker Edinson Cavani on a free transfer

United want Dembele on loan which would leave them free to pursue a move for Borussia Dortmund star Jadon Sancho next year.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side are set to sign former Paris Saint-Germain striker Edinson Cavani on a free transfer.

As well as Cavani, United are set to bring in defender Alex Telles from Porto for 14.5million

Highly rated 18-year-old winger Amad Traore is likely to join United from Atalanta in January

In addition, Porto defender Alex Telles has arrived for 14.5million.

United are also set to sign Amad Traore from Atalanta, with the 18-year-old winger poised to arrive in January.

Facundo Pellestri, another 18-year-old winger who plays for Penarol, could also join.




Haiti - Politic : The Congresswoman, Maxine Waters against the organization of elections in Haiti





The Democratic Congresswoman (California), Maxine Waters, ardent defender of the Haitian people in the United States Congress, speaks out against the organization of elections under the current conditions in Haiti, marked by violence and insecurity.



In a correspondence addressed to the American Ambassador in Port-au-Prince, Michele J. Sison, asks het to oppose the organization of these electons, until in particular "the politically motivated attacks against the opponents of the power in place, cease and that their perpetrators are arrested and brought to justice."



Maxime Waters says she is in favor of the establishment of an Independent Electoral Council with the participation of civil society in accordance with the Haitian Constitution in order to organize credible and transparent elections in the country asking Ms. Sison to use her influence with the Haitian Government to promote respect for the rule of law and fundamental human rights.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















External Affairs Minister and his Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi on Wednesday participated in the India- Strategic Dialogue, during which they discussed cooperation in manufacturing, skills, infrastructure and health sectors, reaffirming the similarities in their respective India-Pacific visions, that are based on rule of law and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.

During the 13th India- Foreign Ministers' Strategic Dialogue, the two ministers exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual interest and agreed that the strong and enduring partnership between the two countries will play a pivotal role in overcoming challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Jaishankar is in Tokyo to attend the foreign ministers meeting of India, the US, Australia and Japan, which was held yesterday.

"Reaffirming the mutual trust and shared values, they reviewed the progress made in India- Special Strategic and Global Partnership and discussed convergence in various areas, including maritime security, trade and investment, manufacturing, skill development, connectivity and infrastructure, health and wellness, Indo-Pacific Ocean Initiative (IPOI) and UN Reforms," a statement by Ministry of External Affairs read.

Jaishankar and Motegi emphasised that a free, open and inclusive India-Pacific region must be premised on diversified and resilient supply chains.

"The two ministers concurred that the Indo-Pacific region has acquired greater salience in recent times and underscored the need for India and Japan to work together for the benefit of the region. Reaffirming the similarities in their respective Indo-Pacific visions, that are based on rule of law and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, the Japanese side agreed to be the lead partner in the connectivity pillar of the Indo-Pacific Oceans' Initiative (IPOI) and jointly take both countries' respective visions for the Indo-Pacific forward," the statement read.

The two ministers welcomed the finalisation of the text of the cybersecurity agreement. The agreement promotes cooperation in capacity building, research and development, security and resilience in the areas of Critical Information Infrastructure, 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), among others.

"India and Japan recognizing the increasing role being played by digital technologies, the two ministers highlighted the need for robust and resilient digital and cyber systems and in this context, welcomed the finalization of the text of the cybersecurity agreement," the statement read.

The two ministers wished each other the very best and looked forward to the conduct of the next Annual Bilateral Summit in India at a mutually convenient time for the two Prime Ministers.

(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.)
I am the 76-year-old daughter of a 20-year Marine Corps member who enlisted the day after he graduated from high school in a small town in Iowa.

Dad served in the Pacific, in Korea and later in Japan, as well as becoming a pilot and teaching naval aviators how to fly. He also was a faithful Republican throughout his life  he died of prostate cancer at 79 years of age. I must write this letter for my father because he would have been so ashamed of the actions being suggested by our current president to thwart a fair national election in November.

My father was not a kind man, nor a good father really, but I learned a great deal from him by how he lived his life  about fairness, objectivity, love for country, support for those who cannot speak for themselves, valuing honesty and truth, and taking responsibility for ones actions.

I write for him today to call myself and others to stand up for these principles. We cannot tolerate an unfair, biased election, the kind our president is describing tonight on the news: Well get rid of the ballots, and then there will no transfer of power. As the fine Marine, my dad, would do, I will try to defend a free and fair election and honor its outcome.

Charla Hayden

Albany

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HELSINKI (dpa-AFX) - Finland's trade deficit decreased in August amid a fall in both exports and imports, preliminary figures from the Finnish Customs showed on Wednesday. The trade deficit narrowed to EUR 245 million in August from EUR 264 million in the same month last year. In July, the trade deficit was EUR 455 million. Exports declined 14.8 percent year-on-year in August and imports fell 14.4 percent. Shipments to the EU countries decreased 14.3 percent in August and imports from them fell 11.8 percent. Exports to countries outside the EU decreased 15.4 percent and imports from those countries declined 17.7 percent. For the January-August period, the trade deficit was EUR 2.4 billion compared to a EUR 771 million shortfall registered a year ago. Exports declined 16.4 percent and imports decreased 12.3 percent. 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.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lankan authorities have banned all public gatherings as a new cluster of COVID-19 expands in the Indian Ocean island nation.

Health authorities said early Wednesday the outbreak centred at a garment factory has risen to 830 confirmed infections while more than 1,000 people have been asked to quarantine at their homes.

The health ministry ordered the public not to conduct public gatherings such as exhibitions, parties, conferences, indoor or outdoor events, carnivals, musical shows and processions.

The majority of the infected people are co-workers at a garment factory. The government has also widened a curfew in two suburbs of Colombo where many of the patients live. It earlier closed schools and universities and imposed restrictions on public transport.

The country has reported 3,733 patients with 13 deaths. Of the total patients, 3,266 have recovered.

In other developments from the Asia-Pacific region:

 India has registered more than 72,000 new coronavirus cases, driving the countrys total to 6.75 million. The Health Ministry also reported 986 deaths, taking the toll past 104,500. Nearly 10 states account for 77% of the total active cases in the country. Indias recovery rate stands at more than 84%. The government has cited that figure as a reason for further opening the economy by allowing movie theatres to partially reopen next week with 50% capacity. The health ministry also issued guidelines for large gatherings during upcoming religious festivals and barred people from touching idols and holy books at such events to prevent the spread of the virus.

 New Zealand has again eliminated COVID-19 in the community as life is about to return normal in its largest city, Auckland. From midnight Wednesday, limits on public gatherings and activities will be lifted, though social distancing is advised. The Ministry of Health said the last six active cases associated with a minor outbreak in Auckland have recovered, an announcement that Health Minister Chris Hipkins described as a big milestone. New Zealanders have once again through their collective actions squashed the virus, Hipkins said. New Zealand went 102 days without a case of community transmission before the Auckland outbreak, which concluded with 186 cases between Aug. 11 and Sept. 25. Three new cases were reported Wednesday in people quarantined after travelling overseas, bringing the number of cases in managed isolation or quarantine facilities to 37.

 Australias economic leader says the countrys conservative prime minister and its health minister would not liken coronavirus to influenza as President Donald Trump had done. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was asked at the National Press Club whether Trumps social media posts that liken COVID-19 to influenza were irresponsible. Well, you wont see (Prime Minister) Scott Morrison putting out those sort of messages. What Scott Morrison, what (Health Minister) Greg Hunt, what myself and others have always said is that this virus is deadly and it is creating a massive health and economic challenge for us, Frydenberg said. Frydenberg on Tuesday announced a raft of pandemic-relief measures in the budget that would create a record $153 billion deficit in the current fiscal year.

 South Korea has reported 114 new cases of the coronavirus, its first daily jump of over 100 in a week. Health officials had raised concerns that infections would rise because of increased travel during the Chuseok harvest holiday that ended Sunday. Ninety-two of the cases reported Wednesday by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency were from the Seoul metropolitan area, where the virus has been resurgent since mid-August. Health officials have been struggling to track transmissions linked to various places, including an army unit in Pocheon, where 37 troops so far have tested positive.

___

The summary has been CORRECTED to say restrictions are being eased in a New Zealand city, not an Australian city.

Read more about:
Job Title: Technical Process Operator (8

Entry Level Jobs)

Organization: Movit

Products Limited

Duty Station:

Kampala, Uganda

Report To: Production

Manager

About US:

Movit Products

Limited (MPL) is a leading Quality Cosmetics Manufacturing Company in Africa

with operations in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic

Republic of Congo and South Sudan. Movit Products Limited manufactures healthy

beauty hair, skin and nail care products aimed at empowering every person to

face life with confidence.

Job Summary: The technical process operators will be responsible

for ensuring that the equipment (Line) in production will be working on optimal

levels by safeguarding proper handling, maintenance and repairs of the

machines.

Key Duties and

Responsibilities:



Operate

and maintain equipment and processes according to specifications and standard

operating procedures



Clean,

lubricate, inspect & tighten equipment parts were necessary.



Startup,

setup & switch off equipment in a shift.



Proper

usage of raw materials (SFG) & packaging materials in a way that avoids wastages.



Avoid

equipment down time by performing routine inspection and arresting of minor

breakdowns on an equipment according to the maintenance SOP.



Troubleshoot

equipment and process failures



Conduct

product line quality control inspections, segregate defectives & record all

non-conformities.



Conduct

equipment set-up changes according to established procedures



Complete

all required shift reports/documentation accurately



Perform

housekeeping and work area organization tasks



Communicate

safety, quality, and production issues to peers and production assistants.



Ensure

product quality specifications are met & elimination of packaging errors.



Supervise

all casual operators & production assistants



Perform

any other duty as instructed by the technical process supervisor.





Qualifications, Skills and Experience:



The

applicant must hold a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering (Manufacturing /

Industrial option), Chemistry, Electrical or any other related science

discipline.



One year

of relevant experience in FMCG environment or busy manufacturing setup.



Awareness

in occupational health & safety.



Must

have excellent communication and reporting skills, ability to relate well with

co-workers, keeping up to date with changing technology, good trouble shooting

& technical ability.

How to Apply:

All candidates

should download the MPL

Job Application Form, fill it and send it as an attachment to

hr@movit.co.ug (Not more than 1MBs). Please quote the name of the job title in

the subject line.

Deadline: 12th October 2020

Note:

While we thank all applicants for their interest in working with Movit Products

Limited, Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.

For more of the

latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline






Nine has picked up local rights to David Attenborough latest natural history epic, A Perfect Planet.

Attenborough will use A Perfect Planet to explain how weather, ocean currents, the sun and volcanoes foster and shape the natural world. Made by Silverback Films, the series is co-produced with Tencent Penguin Pictures, ZDF German Television, China Media Group CCTV9, France Televisions and The Open University.

It will also screen in Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Lithuania, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Spain, Slovenia, Sweden and on BBC Earth channels across Africa, Asia, Canada, Nordics and Poland.

Paul Dempsey, president of global distribution for BBCS, said: Appetite for authentic and engaging factual content is growing each year with the Planet series, in particular, connecting to audiences around the world. We are seeing increasingly younger audiences who are passionate about protecting the natural world coming to the genre, and I expect to see this continue with A Perfect Planet.

Life in Colour, produced by SeaLight Pictures and Humble Bee Films, was also co-commissioned by Nine, Stan, the BBC and Netflix.

Source: TBIVision
The shooting of Amazon Prime Video's upcoming Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) web series has resumed in Auckland, New Zealand after the pandemic. However, a casting call for actors willing to do nude scenes has upset the franchise's fans.

According to reports, the casting call by BGT talent agency read, "Comfortable with Nudity? Up to $500 per day. Use reference NUDE. We need Nude people based in Auckland - age 18 plus, all shapes and sizes (Intimacy guidelines will always be followed onset)." A report in India Today also revealed that the production team for the show also has an intimacy coordinator who is present on the sets, suggesting the series could include sex scenes.

As soon as the news hit social media, fans expressed their unrest over the changes being made to the series and its theme. Fans are worried that Amazon will turn LOTR series best known for its kingship and adventure into something dark like HBO's hit fantasy drama, Game Of Thrones (GOT).

One user wrote, "The whole point of Game of Thrones is that it wasn't LOTR. But conversely, the whole point of LOTR is that it could have been GOT, but Tolkien, as a socially conservative traditionalist, decided not to go that direction." Another user pointed out the best part of the LOTR series, and wrote, " The reason the original 3 Lord of the rings movies were so successful were because they didn't have pointless nudity or sex in them. That type of shit doesn't fit in Tolkien's world. If amazon does this they are making a big mistake."

Take a look at more tweets,

Hobbit sex...Like, gee...Just what I always wanted...  #Not Like seriously, who TF thought this was a good idea?  https://t.co/O00MsJDZRk  Random Snake Facts (@random_snakes) October 7, 2020

if they're gonna turn it into GOT they might as well ruin the ending ahead of time so we don't get our hopes up  Alice (@AliceDraws_LM) October 6, 2020

Hi, please meet the "Laws and Customs among the Eldar " where Tolkien describes how elves have sex and highly enjoy it pic.twitter.com/oyISjBtVcH  Lucius Arobel (@_Jaiel_) October 6, 2020

okay thats enough complaining about lotr amazon series



i wish they would have left tolkien content to warner brothers but here we are. i blame everyone who complained about the hobbit  Chichi  || CEO OF BARDUIL (@Lvkevans) October 7, 2020

Amazon's Lord of the Rings web series is said to be a prequel to JRR Tolkien's novels and will start off in the Second Age of Middle-earth. The era was best known to have caused the end of Sauron at the hand of an alliance led by Men and Elves. Amazon has already greenlit a season two for the show.

The Lord of the Rings Star Ian Holm Dies At 88: Fans Pay Tribute The Bilbo Baggins Way

James Bond And Game Of Thrones Star Diana Rigg Passes Away At 82
Announcing the new rules on Wednesday, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher echoed the broadcasters argument: Almost nobody watches childrens content on commercial television. The new rules will mean networks are no longer obliged to air animated shows like Beat Bugs (image at top) and Alien TV.

Trade body Screen Producers Australia (SPA) condemned the changes, predicting that thousands of jobs will be lost and the production of Australian and childrens content will fall by at least half. In a statement, CEO Matthew Deaner said:

Deregulation of legacy platforms without a transition plan into regulation of new platforms creates a disjointed and incomplete policy response that tinkers around the edges, appears to have been driven by old-world thinking, and has scant regard to the future of Australian screen content. A once-in-a-generation chance to reset the foundations for Australian stories for future generations and bring regulation into the 21st century has been presented to the government in a unified way by the screen industry and the response presented today falls short and needs rethinking.

The new platforms Deaner mentions are central to this debate. Streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon have drawn audiences away from linear broadcasters while escaping regulation in the country. Producers had hoped that, far from watering down the quotas, the government would extend them to the streamers  a policy it had considered. That isnt happening yet, but the streamers will now be required to report their content acquisitions to the government.

To support producers, the government has also unveiled a new funding package. The Australian Childrens Television Foundation, a nonprofit childrens media organization, will receive USD$14 million, while Screen Australia will be given USD$21 million for the production of local drama, documentary, and kids content. Another USD$2 million will go toward supporting screenwriting and script development. Fletcher explained:

Our direct funding  complements what the broadcasters might choose to do. The most popular programs for children are overwhelmingly on ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation] and children are high users of downloaded content, streaming content. What we want to do is continue to support Australian high-quality childrens tv to be shown in Australia and globally.

In its statement, SPA welcomed the funds, but added that they wont offset the damage caused by the changes to the quotas:

Additional funding  is welcome, however with no regulation to stimulate commissions, we are concerned as to the effectiveness of this as a measure to meet the needs of Australias child audiences as it doesnt in its own right trigger production and could amount simply to development of projects with no pathway to audiences  No amount of incentives can protect a sector that starts to structurally become reliant on irregular and patchy commissioning.

This dispute resembles a debate currently playing out in the European Union, where local production quotas currently imposed on networks are due to be extended to streamers. In France, Netflix is actively resisting this change.
On the face of it, the first round has gone to Edappadi K Palaniswami. Not only has he been named chief ministerial candidate, that too by his one-time bete noire Panneerselvam, he also gets one member more in the steering committee than OPS. He can now hope to wean away one or more members of the OPS team in the steering committee just as he had done with other leaders in the latters camp, post-reunification.

That was also OPSs concern, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

IMAGE: Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam announces the name of Edappadi K Palaniswami as the AIADMK's chief ministerial candidate for the 2021 assembly elections, at the party headquarters in Chennai on October 7, 2020. Photograph: ANI on Twitter.

It is celebration time for the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam cadres in Tamil Nadu.

In state capital Chennai, AIADMK coordinator and deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam (OPS) named incumbent Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) as the partys chief ministerial candidate for the assembly elections next year.

The announcement, preceded by the setting up of the much-delayed steering committee, as agreed upon during the reunification of the party in 2017, has also put in place an internal mechanism to choose / shortlist candidates for the assembly elections and also act as a high-powered committee reporting to the top two.

When he started his Dharmayudh 2.0 on Independence Day, OPS had insisted only on the steering committee, which EPS had personally opposed almost until the last minute.

But with a pre-announced deadline of October 7 for the party to announce its chief ministerial candidacy, which he coveted even more, EPS had little choice but to yield.

On the face of it, the first round has gone to EPS. Not only has he been named chief ministerial candidate, that too by his one-time bete noire, he also gets one member more in the steering committee, currently split 6-5 between him and OPS. He can now hope to wean away one or more members of the OPS team in the steering committee just as he had done with other leaders in the latters camp, post-reunification.

That was also OPSs concern. Over the past three years, he was witness to the systematic shrinking of his base, which was none too large to begin with.

Even when he launched his Darmayuth at late chief minister Jayalalithaas samadhi, he had only 11 of the total 130-plus party legislators supporting him. The head count in terms of district unit secretaries and those below was also nothing much to go by.

If this was also one of the major reasons for OPS agreeing to the reunification, but for the honourable way out provided by the ruling BJP at the Centre and the latters ideological supporters nearer home in Chennai, the faction might have had a slow and painful death.

OPS recognised it, he also recognised in recent times that he needed to restore the confidence of his own camp followers if he had to arrest his sliding popularity within the party in the long run-up to the assembly polls.

For EPS had already consolidated his position in the government and the legislative wing. What remained for OPS to throw at the other was only the unfulfilled joint commitment to set up a steering committee. Though weighted in favour of the EPS camp in terms of numbers, it would still give OPS the elbow room to prove to his team that he had not forgotten them for personal benefits.

This is because an impression was gaining ground, and not entirely without justification, that OPS was keen only on promoting his son, P Raveendranath Kumar, first as a Lok Sabha candidate and later for making him a member of the BJP ally-led Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Kumar, who has since officially changed his name as P Raveendranath, was the only AIADMK alliance candidate to win a Lok Sabha seat last year, which gave the rival DMK combine a sweeping 38-1 lead.

According to local media reports, EPS had then thwarted Raveendranaths chances by proposing a senior Rajya Sabha member of the party for the lone MoS position the BJP was reportedly willing to offer the AIADMK.

In between, veteran leader M Thambidurai, a former Lok Sabha deputy speaker and former Union minister, has been elected to the Rajya Sabha after he had lost native Dharmapuri district to Congress field worker Jothimani by a huge margin.

The question is also if the current truce will help OPS to count on EPSs backing for making Raveendranath as a minister of state at the Centre. This may however require the BJPs nod to begin with but then EPS may also want Thambidurai or any other veteran from his camp named to a Cabinet berth. There can be many a slip between the cup and the lip.

Such sequences also need to be read in the context of the BJPs own ambitions at the national level and consequent plans for Tamil Nadu.

The buzz from distant Delhi is that the party high command may be looking for more MPs, either of its own or of its allies from the South and the East, should its current strength in the Hindi heartland were to reduce in the Lok Sabha polls that are not due before 2024.

The option for the party in the state thus is to hope at the impossibility of strengthening the BJP, or continue to depend on the AIADMK ally and facilitate its ability to increase its numbers.

A month ago, state BJP president L Murugan asserted that the AIADMK still led their alliance, though his party by itself was capable of winning 60 assembly seats in a total of 234.

The AIADMK patch-up may now force the BJP to revise its hopes on the number of seats it hoped to contest.

If it remained rejuvenated at election time as now, the AIADMK may not be inclined to grant more seats to any ally, leave alone the BJP with its 2-3 per cent vote-share when contesting alone.

The party may then quote rival DMKs late patriarch M Karunanidhi after their alliance lost the 2016 assembly polls by the smallest one per cent vote-share difference in the state. The figure was 41-40 per cent in favour of the ruling AIADMK under incumbent chief minister, Jayalalithaa.

At the end of the 2016 polls, Karunanidhi, citing the strike rate of the DMK alliance, publicly stated that they lost only because the Congress ally was given a high number of 41 seats and the party could win only eight.

In any seat-sharing negotiations with the BJP, a reunified AIADMK leadership could well cite the 2016 precedent of the rival, and ask the other to be reasonable, pragmatic and not over-ambitious in its expectations.

It is another matter that a section of the AIADMK cadres still feel that the humiliating defeat of 2019 owed to the alliance with the BJP. According to them, Dravidian voters had not still accepted the partys ideology and perceptions of performance in the 21st century.

Inside the AIADMK from now on, the jostling for seats may commence sooner than later.

The post-Jayalalithaa amended constitution of the party provides only for a coordinator and joint coordinator and also a 11-member advisory committee. It does not envisage a steering committee. The leadership hence has to look for some dissenters unhappy with the EPS-OPS deal, to flag the issue. It would be enough that the nomenclature is change, now or later.

However, on larger issues, round one has gone to EPS, and it is advantage EPS all the way -- or, so it seems.

OPS has not only got party positions for his supporters, but has also been careful to name only those that he can trust as steering committee members representing his camp.

More importantly, the two camps have carefully avoided party seniors and veterans before their own generation, in terms of age and seniority in the party for any significant organisational position.

In this, party presidium chairman and former minister E Madhusoodhanan is the lone exception. He had identified with the OPS camp during the earlier split but retained his position after the patch-up.

When during the recent bickering some EPS supporters wanted a new presidium chairman, Madhusoodhanan had retorted that Amma had declared that I would hold the post as long as I am alive.

In the interim, OPS can continue to hope that the other camp would still have to depend on his joint signature on Form B, for allocation of the AIADMKs Two Leaves poll symbol to individual candidates in individual constituencies. The party law says that both the coordinator and joint coordinator will have to sign together.

However, in real terms, trouble for OPS can commence after the polls. If the party wins, EPS would become chief minister. He can then fast-track the downsizing of OPS and have the general council remove him as coordinator.

On the reverse, should AIADMK not make it in the polls, then again, the EPS faction can continue to harass OPS as the coordinator, which post the latter seems to feel would otherwise put him permanently one up on the other.

N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and political analyst, is Distinguished Fellow and Head-Chennai Initiative, Observer Research Foundation.
Lisa Curry and Grant Kenny's daughter Morgan Gruell put on a brave face at her baby shower this weekend, following the tragic loss of her older sister Jaimi just three weeks ago.

And on Tuesday, heavily pregnant Morgan shared a sweet video to reveal her pregnancy 'party trick' as she prepares to welcome her second child next month.

In an attempt to stay positive in an unimaginably difficult time, Morgan said: 'Want to see a party trick? Pro to being 35 weeks pregnant...'

Not long now! Jaimi Kenny's sister Morgan Gruell has revealed her pregnancy 'party trick' following bittersweet baby shower with her grieving family - three weeks after her sibling's tragic death at 33

She then moved the camera to her blossoming bump, revealing she was using it to hold her food as she ate.

'Sometimes, belly becomes a plate! Woo!' she laughed.

'Treating myself - blueberries, strawberries, coconut yoghurt, peanut butter, Tim Tams... and a chocolate fudge cookie!'

Morgan was joined by her mother, Lisa Curry, 58, and her father Grant Kenny, 57, at her intimate baby shower over the weekend.

'Nearly ready to be a granny again': Morgan was joined by her mother, Lisa Curry, 58, and her father Grant Kenny, 57, at her intimate baby shower over the weekend. Lisa and Grant are pictured far right alongside Morgan, middle

'Nearly ready to be a granny, pa, gigi and opa again,' Lisa captioned one Instagram image.

She added: 'Beautiful afternoon for a baby shower with a beautiful couple. Will baby be pink or blue?'

In the pictures, Lisa and Grant cuddled up to their pregnant daughter, who was cradling her firstborn son Flynn, two.

Family: Pictured is heavily pregnant Morgan, with her son Flynn, two

Heartbreaking: Morgan (right) had shared a touching tribute to her sibling on Instagram, saying 'she was the most sentimental person Ive ever known, she saw the beauty in everyone and everything'

They were also joined in the photo by Morgan's husband Ryan and his parents.

Lisa also shared images of Morgan's cake and the blue and pink baby pins and rattles used as decorations at the party.

Jaimi Kenny died at Sunshine Coast University Hospital on September 14 at the age of 33, after a long battle with alcoholism and an eating disorder.

Morgan had shared a touching tribute to her sibling on Instagram, writing: 'She was the most sentimental person Ive ever known, she saw the beauty in everyone and everything.

'I will always remember her taking the time to stop and take a photo of a pretty flower, an interesting door, or her feet standing next to crunchy leaves that had fallen from the trees. I promise to always appreciate these things as she did.'

On Monday, Lisa revealed some of the warning signs she noticed in her daughter's behaviour prior to her death.

Lisa also shared images of Morgan's cake and the blue and pink baby pins and rattles used as decorations at the party

In posts shared to the 'Happy Hormones' Facebook group, the three-time Olympian explained that Jaimi had struggled with her health for years after being diagnosed with a 'chemical imbalance' aged 15.

'Sometimes, an individual, even adults like us, can disregard little red flags, thinking it doesn't matter or won't matter,' the grieving mother wrote.

'I know people want to know why and how [Jaimi died], but it's not important at this time, or maybe ever, I don't know.'

Heartbreaking: It comes after Lisa revealed some of the warning signs she noticed in her daughter Jaimi Kenny's behaviour prior to her death last month at the age of 33. Pictured with Jaimi

'What I will say though is that Jeff diagnosed her with a chemical imbalance 18 years ago when we started to see some tiny red flags,' she added, referring to Jeff Butterworth, a naturopath who specialises in hormonal disorders.

The former competitive swimmer begged other parents in the Facebook group not to ignore the warning signs like she had with Jaimi.

These 'red flags' included making bad food choices, being inactive, handling stressful situations poorly and spending time with 'toxic people'.

'Don't wait until it's too late to make changes do it now while you can starting right now,' she wrote.

Tragic: Jaimi died at Sunshine Coast University Hospital on September 14, after a long battle with alcoholism and an eating disorder. Jaimi and Morgan are pictured

'Recognise the little red flags. Don't live your life in turmoil, regret or guilt.'

Jaimi was laid to rest at a 100-person funeral on the Sunshine Coast, which was attended by her parents; her younger brother, model Jett Kenny; and her sister, Morgan.

Following Jaimi's death, Lisa confessed that she didn't know 'what to do' with herself while carrying so much grief.

She wrote on Instagram: 'I don't know what to do...' alongside emojis depicting a sad face, a broken heart and an angel.

For free and confidential support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, or the Butterfly Foundation for eating disorder concerns on 1800 ED HOPE
Joyce Naytowhow-McLeod made history last week when she became Montreal Lake Cree Nations (MLCN) first woman chief.

Naytowhow-McLeod, who beat incumbent Frank Roberts by 142 votes last Wednesday, has promised to tackle overcrowded housing, transparency, and issues affecting youth in the community. She previously worked as a teacher and spent roughly 20 years in Alberta, British Columbia and nordthern Canada before returning to the First Nation.

Naytowhow-McLeod spoke to The StarPhoenix about closing the gender gap in leadership positions and recovering from the economic fallout of COVID-19. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What do you think is significant about your election?

A: (Treat Six signatory) William Charles was my great, great grandfather from my mothers side. It is, for me, a blessing to look back at it. Ive (also) always seen a lot of women like Chief Tammy Cook-Searson from (Lac La Ronge Indian Band). I look up to her as a great leader. Coming from B.C., Ive seen other women leaders there. A lot of those are hereditary chiefs.

People needed change. I didnt campaign because I wanted to be the first woman chief. I hadnt been around here in over 20 years. When I came back here, I realized things were still the same as 20 years ago.

Im back home now and I want to do something with my community. I saw people that were kind of oppressed, (with) things happening that were even worse with COVID-19. I thought, You know what? Im going to campaign. But I didnt think I would be successful.

Im the type of the person that would advocate for women, advocate for the youth, advocate for the elders. And with that, I broke history.

Ive had people saying, Youve made history, youve made history. We made history and it hasnt been done before. Its good to make history, but its about something bigger.

Q: What are your plans for MLCNs recovery from COVID-19?

A: We have to have an economy, but how can we have an economy if we dont even have an economic development officer? Theres money for that, but its just a matter of finding it. Thats the challenge Im facing. Where do we find the money?

Montreal Lake is known for fishing and yet we dont even have an industry. We dont have a marina, we dont have anything like that. Theres a lot of things we have to plan to make it a tourism place. We can do better starting our own businesses.

Theres so much to do.

Q: Whats your advice for other women running for office this fall?

A: Just go for it. You never know what will happen in the future. Just go for it, if you have determination, if you have integrity.

If people believe in you, you just have to do it. I would encourage (that for) any woman in politics, whether its provincial or band. We have a strong role as women. Were the backbone of the society.
The first of these will be Kings County Distillery's 7 Year Single Barrel Bourbon , which may be the oldest age-statement bourbon distilled outside of traditional bourbon country and the oldest age-stated pot-distilled bourbon . Distilled in July 2013 and bottled at 107 proof, this barrel saw 34% angel's share and spent its career in the greenhouse-like upstairs aging room in the Navy Yard distillery. Barrel forward and full of dry spice, this is the most traditional-flavored bourbon from Kings County. With silver foil on the label and a handsome wooden box (made in Brooklyn!), this is truly a celebratory whiskey.

This single barrel release marks the first of a waterfall of older and exceptional single barrel releases from Kings County. While these first barrels will be offered exclusively from the distillery starting on October 14th at noon, future versions of the Single Barrel series will be distributed throughout Kings County's best accounts in NY and around the country.

"Less than a handful of legitimate distillers outside of Kentucky have released an age stated whiskey of 7+ years," said distiller and co-founder Colin Spoelman. "This coincides with a watershed moment for craft distillers. We've always known our whiskey compared well to whiskey in its peer age group, but we never had whiskey aged comparably to some of the best American whiskey until now. While we are still holding barrels for even longer aged whiskeys, we feel these older barrels mark another stage of maturity in our evolution as one of the most determined, creative, and uncompromising distillers in the country."

The distillery also offers its whiskeys for sale to roughly 40 states online and through distributors in 22 states and 7 countries. It has reopened its tasting room, the Gatehouses, for outdoor consumption and tasting, and in place of tours is organizing live, distanced education events. The factory pivoted to hand sanitizer production from March to June, making it available online as a pay-what-you-can basis, as well as donating to front-line workers.

KINGS COUNTY DISTILLERY is New York City's oldest, largest, and premier whiskey distillery. Founded in 2010, Kings County makes handmade bourbon, rye and other whiskeys out of the 121-year-old Paymaster Building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Kings County draws on many different distilling practices and cultures to create creative American whiskeys that remain traditional but defy convention. Kings County's whiskeys that have been praised by the New York Times, Wine & Spirits Magazine, and Whiskey Advocate and is recognized as one of the preeminent craft distilleries in the United States, having been named Distillery of the Year in 2016 from the American Distilling Institute.

For more information, contact Colin Spoelman at [email protected] or 347-689-4211.

SOURCE Kings County Distillery

Related Links

www.kingscountydistillery.com


They were forced to stay in a caravan park for the night before returning home

were confronted with 43 steps to climb instead the six seen in the brochure

They booked Trezelah Cottage for the 'easy access' for Bill who had had surgery

An elderly couple were left furious after they were faced with nearly 50 steps to access their dream holiday cottage - instead of just six pictured in the brochure.

Valerie and Bill Barrett had booked a rare trip away to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary which they believed had 'easy access' as he relied on a mobility scooter to get around.

Online pictures of the property, advertised by Sykes Holiday Cottages, appeared to show a short incline of just six steps to reach the door.

But the couple faced a holiday from hell when they were confronted with 43 steps to climb that had been added to the property after the images were taken.

Valerie and Bill Barrett were left furious when confronted with nearly 50 steps to access their holiday cottage in Looe, Cornwall - despite telling holiday company Sykes Bill was 'very poorly' from major surgery and would struggle up steps

Valerie, 78, says she struggled to make it to the top, but said Bill, 79, had to stop half way and became ill.

They then abandoned the 13-day break and spent one night at a caravan park before returning home to Curry Mallet, Somerset.

And they expressed their anger at the difference between what was advertised and the reality they found on arrival at Trezelah Cottage in Looe, Cornwall, on 19 September.

They were initially told they weren't entitled to any money back as they never went inside, but have since been refunded after raising concerns through the press.

Brochure: Online pictures of the property, advertised by Sykes Holiday Cottages, appeared to show a short incline of just six steps to reach the door

Valerie, who took 'before and after' images of the site, said they had checked on several occasions if it was accessible for people with limited mobility and were given reassurances that it was.

She said: 'Bill is a very poorly man and has had major surgery over the last two years. He can only walk short distances and there was no way he could climb those steps.

'We were meant to stay for 13 nights to mark our 25th wedding anniversary and had saved up for a special trip away.

'It cost just under 800 and we were told we were not getting a rebate as we did not go inside. We did not want to go inside. There was no way we could get up those steps. It was ridiculous.'

'But when we arrived on September 19 we astounded by the height of the steps. It was ridiculous,' said Valerie

Valerie said they had been looking for cottages in Cornwall as Bill had never been and needed to be able to take the dogs.

She added: 'This cottage showed up with two gates and what appeared to be just a few steps down to a bit of grass.

'The inside looked quite nice and in the write up it said there was a few steps and a slight incline. So I thought I suppose I can manage and could help my husband who uses a mobility scooter.

'I asked Sykes if the property was OK for an invalid and kept asking if they were sure about these steps. But they said there was not many.

'We paid a bit in each month and were so looking forward to it.

'But when we arrived on September 19 we astounded by the height of the steps.

'It was really deep and had been built recently into the old steps. I just managed to get up there and was puffing by the time I had got to the top. I counted and there were 43 altogether.

'There was no way Bill could do it.'

The couple said the owner of the cottage had even given Sykes a photo of the long flight of steps but it was never added to the company's website listing for the property.

Valerie added: 'I came down and took photos on the way. My husband got out and only made it halfway and had to sit down on the steps.

'We got him back into the car and he became quite ill. One of the owners came down and made him a drink and took me to the patio where I started to ring Sykes.

'We stayed until 5pm hoping he might turn up. We were put in touch with a caravan park and booked in for the night. But we came home the next morning as we were so despondent and the dogs were uncomfortable.

'They have only now refunded us because of the negative publicity. We won't re-book though. I am going to get a new washing machine and tumble dryer instead.'

'We never go away. In 2002 we moved to Cyprus for 10 years but haven't been away anywhere since. This was meant to be our first holiday since to celebrate our 25th anniversary but it did not happen.'

Sykes Holiday Cottages said: 'We were sorry to hear of the Barretts' experience and have now been in touch with them to offer them a full refund.

'While the customers are not entitled to any refund under our usual T&Cs, we recognise that they've had an unpleasant experience so have refunded them in full on this occasion.'
UP: Elections not won on exit polls basis, results will be surprising: Kamal Nath

Hathras case: AAP demands removal of Uttar Pradesh women's commission chief over her 'silence'

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Noida, Oct 07: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) workers in Gautam Buddh Nagar have questioned the "silence" of Uttar Pradesh Women's Commission chief Vimla Batham over the Hathras case and demanded her removal from the post.

"Around 50 AAP workers, including district unit president Bhupendra Jaduan, on Tuesday tried to gherao Batham's residence over the issue but were stopped midway by police," party office-bearers said.

Hathras case: SIT gets 10 more days to submit investigation report

The AAP workers, who had started a march from the ISCKON temple in Sector 33 to her house nearby, submitted to police a memorandum addressed to Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, demanding Batham's removal in the wake of the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman after an alleged gangrape and over crimes against women in the state.

Shaheen Bagh case: SC says can't occupy public space indefinitely | Oneindia News

"Cases of rape with women and girls are emerging in the state every day. They are not safe in Uttar Pradesh. The state's women commission chief Vimla Batham has not spoken a single word on these issues despite serious incidents in Hathras, Balrampur, Bulandshahr, etc, she has not gone to meet the victim's families also," stated the memorandum.

"Looking at the inactivity of the women's commission chief, we demand her removal from the post," the memorandum stated.

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Story first published: Wednesday, October 7, 2020, 11:34 [IST]
Some of the 129 Kenyan students who were repatriated from Sudan after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic have finally flown back to resume their studies.

Speaking to the Nation at the Moi International Airport on Tuesday, the students expressed happiness to finally resume their studies.

The students, who are on scholarship, are from Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi and Lamu counties.

Baishe Idriss, the leader of student group "Kenyan students in Sudan", said the universities re-opened on September 20 and that learners have already resumed their studies.

"The university notified us that the institution has reopened and we were expected to return. We thank God for all those who assisted in our evacuation when the situation was bad," said Mr Idriss.

The students landed in Kenya on June 28 following government intervention.

Flattened curve

Mr Idriss reckons that the Covid-19 curve in Sudan has flattened and that the situation is under control.

Mr Salim Bakari, a second year Financial Economics student at the International University of Africa, said it feels good to have been with their families.

"We appreciate those who have made our return a reality, being away from our loved ones has been quite heartbreaking," Mr Salim said.

But 28 students from Lamu County expressed concern that some of their colleagues might not be able to resume studies due to financial constraints.

"We are happy to be going back to school, but we are sad that some of our colleagues have not been able to raise money for air tickets. We appeal to the government and well-wishers to assist our colleagues to resume their studies," said Mr Idriss.

He said those stuck are students from Kwale and Kilifi counties.

Mr Abubakar Shalali, who was escorting the students, urged the government to assist Kenyan students studying in foreign countries.

"The students are on a full scholarship but we hope the government will include them in its budget so that they do not face any challenges," he said.

He also thanked the Lamu government for supporting education.

Mr Mohammed Imam, one of the parents, thanked leaders who sponsored the return of the students.
Egypts Supreme Administrative Court upheld Sept. 26 a previous ruling prohibiting the annual celebration of the birth of a Jewish rabbi in Beheira governorate, in the Nile Delta in the northern part of the country.

The court, which is the highest administrative court for administrative appeals in Egypt, ordered removing the shrine in which Rabbi Yaqoub bin Masoud, known as Abu Hasira, is buried, from the list of Islamic and Coptic antiquities in Egypt. In addition, it rejected a request to transfer his remains to Israel, which was submitted by Tel Aviv through UNESCO in 2012.

The court based its refusal to transfer the rabbi's remains because Islam respects the divine religions and rejects the exhumation of graves, and because Palestine is an occupied land and legitimizing the Jewishness of the state must be avoided by keeping this shrine on Arab land.

The appeal was filed by the Egyptian government; the previous ruling thus became final and irrevocable.

The previous ruling was issued by the Administrative Judicial Court in Alexandria governorate in December 2014, before the government challenged it without disclosing the reasons for the appeal.

The Administrative Judicial Court ruling was issued following a lawsuit filed by Egyptian lawyer Ahmed Mohammed Attia, in which he demanded transferring Abu Hasiras remains to Israel and canceling the annual Jewish celebration that takes place at the shrine.

Following the December 2014 ruling, concerns emerged about its implications on cultural diversity in Egypt and the freedom to hold religious rites. Magda Haroun, head of the Jewish community in Egypt, denounced the courts decision to ban the celebration of Abu Hasiras birth, describing it as unconstitutional.

On Dec. 30, 2014, Haroun told the press that the Egyptian Constitution guarantees followers of the three monotheistic religions the right to conduct their religious rites.

In another statement that same year, Haroun had rejected the decision to remove Abu Hasiras shrine from the records of Egyptian antiquities and said that this would lead to the demolition of his tomb, even though Abu Hasira has a great position with the Jews of the Middle East in general and Moroccans in particular because he was of Moroccan origin, and it could increase religious tourism.

The Administrative Judicial Courts decision, which was upheld by the Supreme Administrative Court, annulled the 2001 decision of then-Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni to include the Abu Hasira shrine, the Jewish cemeteries around it and the hill on which it is located, among the Egyptian antiquities.

The court also ordered removing the shrine from the records of Islamic and Coptic antiquities in Egypt because it lacks archaeological characteristics, and informed the UNESCO World Heritage Committee of this decision.

Abu Hasira was a Jewish rabbi of Moroccan origin who lived in the 19th century (1808-1880). He hailed from a large Jewish family, some of whose members immigrated to Egypt and other countries, while others remained in Morocco throughout the ages. Many Jews believe that he is a blessed figure, but some question this narrative.

A celebration of the birth of Abu Hasira is held every year between Dec. 26 and Jan. 2, in a synagogue in Damatyuh village near the city of Damanhur in Beheira governorate. Hundreds of Jews make the pilgrimage to the shrine, especially from Morocco, France and Israel.

In 2001, an Egyptian court banned the celebration, but the Egyptian authorities allowed it to be held annually until 2010.

Since the January 2011 revolution and until now, no programs, grave visits or celebrations have been organized, due to popular rejection. Egypt informed Israel at that time that it was difficult to hold the celebration due to security reasons. Celebrations stopped in 2011, but some were held to a very limited extent in 2018, then ceased again.

Annual celebrations used to take place in Damatyuh village, where the hill where Abu Hasira is buried is located; buses full of visitors used to travel there to hold religious and ceremonial rituals in the vicinity of the shrine. However, the celebration always sparked great controversy, as the citizens of the village, in addition to political forces and movements, expressed their rejection of what they considered normalization with Israel. As a result, security guards would need to be present during the event.

Those who oppose holding the celebration believe the celebrants often engage in activities that violate the values and customs of the rural community in Egypt, such as drinking alcohol, among other rituals contrary to public morals. This was stressed by the Administrative Court in the merits of its ruling when it said that the celebration contradicts the dignity and purity of religious rites.

The Israeli media has always expressed anger at banning the celebration and refusing to transfer Abu Hasiras remains to Jerusalem.

Prior to all the controversy, the annual official trips from Israel to the shrine began following the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt.

On Sept. 29, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported that the residents of Beheira governorate were overjoyed with the ruling banning the Abu Hasira celebration, explaining that the residents used to suffer under the celebrations strict security measures that impeded movement inside the village and nearby villages.

Meanwhile, Egyptian experts expressed concern that the decision to ban the celebration would be used to tarnish Egypt's image regarding the freedom to practice religious rites or be exploited politically by Israel.

Ammar Ali Hassan, a professor of political sociology at Cairo University, told Al-Monitor that Egyptians in general do not differentiate between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as a political project through which the State of Israel came to exist, considering that this is a major reason for the popular refusal to celebrate the birth of Abu Hasira.

He added, Israel presents itself as a state for the Jews, and its exploitation of the Jewish religion as the ideology of the state created this confusion and justified it.

Hassan noted that although Egypt and Israel have signed a peace agreement, Egyptian society still does not accept the idea of full normalization with Israel. He added that the collective mind of Egyptians refuses to let relations with Israel go beyond an agreement concluded between two authorities to end a state of war between them.

There are always doubts among Egyptians about whether or not Israel has good intentions toward Egypt. As long as these doubts exist, I do not think that Egyptian society can go beyond normalization of formal relations between the two countries, Hassan concluded.
Voters should reject Proposition 22 because no industry deserves to free-ride at public expense.

Lyfts and Ubers steadfast refusal to comply with Assembly Bill 5  a law that unequivocally defines their drivers as employees entitled to basic wage and benefit protections  and threat to end operations if theyre forced to are blatant illustrations of their rapacious culture. So, too, is their attempt to buy exemption from the law by expending greater than $50 million each (and counting) on Proposition 22, making it the most expensive initiative in state history. These desperate efforts to evade regulation elucidate that the companies have yet to demonstrate a path to becoming sustainable without leaving destruction behind them.

As money-losing enterprises, Lyfts and Ubers futures are ambiguous. Their existence is predicated on subsidizing their product with venture capital and passing costs onto susceptible workers who get lured in before grasping these costs. Only because of this have consumers who wouldnt or couldnt afford the services come to depend on them; if they had to pay the full costs, the companies would not have the scale they do. These practices dont just harm frontline workers. Related and competing industries  taxis, airport shuttles, rental car companies, private parking lots  do not rely on venture capital or expense passthroughs to subsidize their product and cannot equitably compete alongside cheaters that do.

The companies claim that 80% of drivers prefer independence and flexibility and that these practices will vanish if drivers become employees. But, while most drivers in this industry are side hustlers allured by such attributes, most work is done by drivers who commit too many hours to have any meaningful independence or flexibility. An Economic Policy Institute study found that full-time Uber drivers fulfill half of the trips on the platform. They are the bread and butter of the industry, but get discounted due to their minority status.

Moreover, Lyft and Uber use coercive incentives to lever when and where drivers work, further minimizing what independence or flexibility could exist.

Labor activists contend that AB5 doesnt require elimination of independence and flexibility, and that contrary assertions are scare tactics  as though work will be the same, just with better pay. But this, too, is misguided, if not willfully misleading. Theres the law, and theres the economics of the law. If drivers must be paid for every minute and mile worked, even when a rider isnt in the car, that expense will force companies to more efficiently align worker supply with travel demand by assigning hours, locations and trips rather than offering or promoting them.

To be sure, this is net-positive and effectively what Lyft and Uber have done to comply with a minimum wage law in Manhattan, New York  a positive side effect of which is less needless traffic since saturating streets with empty cars is now a company expense rather than a driver expense.

This dynamic highlights where The Chronicle erred in its endorsement of Proposition 22: It relates ride-hail driving to traditional independent contracting. Its not. In traditional independent contracting, the work is a defined task agreed to beforehand. For ride-hail drivers, work includes extensive time and miles spent remaining available for impromptu tasks and traveling between them  all for $0 plus the public cost of empty car traffic.

Inevitably, some suggest a better solution is letting drivers independently define fares and standards. But this has been tried and failed and is the basis of taxi regulation. Independent taxi markets  which this true independence scheme is  have such low barriers to entry that too many operators enter, so race to the bottom by underbidding fares and using substandard equipment to save costs. It also makes the industry vulnerable to hit-and-run operatives who capture periods of high demand, leaving low-demand scraps for vested operators. Taxi regulation protects the public and operators from this by setting fares and quality standards, and stabilizing operator supply by limiting entries and exits by leasing a fixed number of medallions that must be paid over time.

Lyft and Uber deserve credit for disrupting the taxi industry by forcing it to become tech-modern and localities to reassess their supply of medallions. But in the absence of evolving away from lawlessness and subsidy-dependence, their futures are dubious as regulators close loopholes on which theyve capitalized. AB5 is one such example; it sends a clear message that if companies cannot afford to provide basic pay and benefits to core workers, they neednt exist in California.

We should all support this principle by rejecting Proposition 22. But we need to accept that if we are going to tell companies whose model depends on passing costs onto workers without just compensation that they cant, they will cease to exist  which is a good thing. Should Lyft and Uber refuse to evolve, taxis and other law-abiding competitors are ready to serve in their place.

Legislatures now need to keep the momentum rolling by strengthening antitrust laws to prevent venture capital from being used to undercut established industries that play by the rules.

Zakhary Mallett (@zgmallett, www.zakharymallett.com) is a Ph.D. candidate of Urban Planning and Development at the University of Southern California, former ride-hail driver, and former member of the BART Board of Directors.
President Muhammadu Buhari has congratulated the new Emir of Zazzau, Ahmed Nuhu Bamalli, and advised him to be the leader of all.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, announced the new appointment after weeks of tension.

The long-awaited appointment comes 17 days since the stool became vacant.

Mr Bamalli succeeds Shehu Idris, the 17th Fulani emir of Zazzau who reigned for 45 years before his death on September 20.

Princes from three of the four dynastic lines of the emirate jostled for the post with four of them believed to be the frontrunners.

Following the announcement on Wednesday, President Buhari said in a message to the new Emir: I congratulate you on making history by becoming the first emir from the Mallawa ruling house in 100 years. You deserve the appointment and I am confident you will justify the confidence reposed in you.

According to the President, While you bask in the glory of the moment, I want you to be the leader to all and treat all your people fairly in the performance of your duties.

This is a challenging moment and therefore, I want you to use this opportunity to unite all members of the ruling houses for the interest of your people, he advised Amb. Bamalli.

May Allah grant you wisdom and guidance in the discharge of this responsibility, President Buhari added.

Also, the All Progressives Congress national leader, Bola Tinubu, has congratulated the new emir.

In a statement by his media office signed by Tunde Rahman, Mr Tinubu, who is a former Lagos governor, also commended Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai for making a good choice.

He said: Ambassador Nuhu Bamalli is a prominent diplomat, tested administrator and a first-class traditional title-holder. I congratulate him on his appointment as the 19th Emir of Zazzau.

My congratulations also to Governor Nasir el-Rufai for making a prudent appointment.

As Magajin Garin Zazzau, Ambassador Bamalli distinguished himself as an excellent high chief of the Zazzau Emirate, just as he performed brilliantly well as top diplomat, serving Nigeria as Ambassador to Thailand.

Like his immediate-past predecessor, Alhaji Shehu Idris, who died last month after 45 years on the throne, Ambassador Bamalli is also a highly detribalised Nigerian and a friend of all. I urge him to continue in that fashion and consolidate on the tremendous gains recorded by the late Emir.

As the first Emir from the Mallawa Ruling House in 100 years, the burden of history is on Emir Bamalli. I pray to Almighty Allah to grant him divine wisdom, guide and protect him so he can steer the ship of the Emirate successfully.
More than 4 million Americans have voted already, more than 50 times more than the number that had cast ballots at this point in the 2016 election, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing data from the United States Elections Project.

"We've never seen this many people voting so far ahead of an election," said Michael McDonald of the University of Florida, who administers the project. "People cast their ballots when they make up their minds, and we know that many people made up their minds long ago and already have a judgment about Trump."

The voting pace is setting up what could be record turnout in the showdown between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. McDonald said that with 4 million ballots already in four weeks before Election Day, turnout could reach 65 percent of eligible voters, the highest rate since 1908.

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Google Street View

One of San Francisco's few gas stations is now the center of an existential battle over the city's approach to climate change, affordable housing and city-owned property.

Twin Peaks Auto Care on Portola Drive, a decades-old gas station, leases land from the city. But with its lease almost up, the business petitioned the city for a 25-year extension, with the option for five more years on top of that. The proposal is causing consternation among the Board of Supervisors, some of whom are arguing that in the era of extreme climate change, a 25-year deal is far too long to allow a fossil fuel-based business to continue on city land.
A view of Bamako, Mali with the Niger River in the background.

The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has lifted a trade and travel blockade on Mali after the military masterminds of the August 18 coup agreed to form a transitional government led by a civilian.

The regional bloc said on Tuesday that the decision to lift the sanctions against the junta was taken because of the appointment of Mali's 25-member interim government on Monday.

Bah Ndaw, 70, is president of the 18-month transition government with military junta leader Col Assimi Goita as vice-president and former Foreign minister Moctar Ouane as prime minister.

In the new cabinet, military officers occupy four key portfolios -- national security, defence, national reconciliation, and regional administration.

Announcing the lifting of sanctions on Tuesday, the chairman of Ecowas Authority, Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo called on the Mali government to comply with other demands by the 15-member regional bloc to dissolve the ruling military council and release detainees.

In the statement released in Abuja, Nigeria, President Akufo-Addo said the junta explained in the Transition Charter that the vice president is in charge of defence and security, but would never replace the transition president.

"But it remains unclear if the new government enjoys the support of Malians, especially, the opposition coalition M5-RFP, which spare-headed national protests that preceded the military sacking of the government of elected president Ibrahim Keita."

Ecowas had on August 20, 2020, imposed sanctions on Mali following the ouster of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

The 15-member bloc had said that the sanctions would only be lifted when a civilian prime minister is named to oversee the transition.

The sanctions included a ban on commercial trade and financial flows, but not on basic necessities such as drugs, equipment to fight the coronavirus pandemic, fuel, and electricity.

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Ecowas also directed its member states to close borders against the embattled country and suspended Mali from all its decision-making organs and imposed restrictions against the military officers, their partners, and collaborators in the coup pending restoration of constitutional order.

The bloc dispatched a high-level delegation to the West African nation to restore normalcy, which also demanded the release of all detained civilians and military personnel.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres also demanded the "unconditional release" of President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse as well as the "immediate restoration of constitutional order."

The junta has established the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) to superintend a transition to civil rule.
The General Overseer of Sotitobire Praising Centre a.k.a. Prayer University has been sentenced to life imprisonment by Ondo State High Court.

The Court sitting in Akure, the state capital, yesterday, also sentenced to life imprisonment five other members of the church over a missing baby, Kolawole Gold, during Sunday service in the church on November 10, 2019.

The presiding judge, Justice Olusegun Odusola, said the prophet and his five members were guilty of the two-count charge of kidnapping, aiding and abetting kidnapping leveled against them.

While condemning the Police for its complicity, compromise and lackadaisical attitude after the one-year-old boy got missing, Justice Odusola, also struck out the application to restrain the DSS from investigating the attorney to Prophet Babatunde Alfa, Barrister Oke.

LEADERSHIP recalls that Kolawole Gold's parents had during the Sunday service on November 10, 2019, raised the alarm over their missing son from children section of Sotitobire Praising Centre, Oshinle, Akure.

The incident led to the destruction of the church and killing of a police officer when some angry youths stormed the church and razed it on December 18, 2019.

The police officer, who lost his life was at the scene to restore law and order. The police was accused of shielding the leader of the church from prosecution before the Department of State Service (DSS) took over the case.
The government claims that the undisclosed alterations were a result of sloppiness and not a deliberate attempt to mislead, Goelman said. It would be easier to give the government the benefit of the doubt if the alterations didnt fit a false narrative pushed by the President, or if they werent made by a team specifically chosen by the Attorney General to provide political aid to President Trump, or if Bill Barr hadnt already demonstrated his willingness to cast aside the Department of Justices tradition of neutrality in an attempt to help President Trump.
The sight of US President Donald Trump proudly taking off his mask at White House after getting treated for coronavirus may have a scientific explanation. A recent study has revealed that men are less likely to wear a mask and follow the social distancing rules. The medical experts have repeatedly been asking people to follow the rules to prevent the spread of deadly coronavirus.

The study conducted by New York University and Yale University researchers was published in Behavioral Science & Policy this month.

Researchers have observed that women have followed the preventive practices of physical distancing, mask wearing and maintaining hygiene to a greater degree than men. It was also found that women were more likely to listen to experts and exhibit alarm and anxiety in response to the coronavirus.

Irmak Olcaysoy Okten, a postdoctoral researcher in NYUs Department of Psychology and the papers lead author, explains that the previous research before the pandemic had shown that women frequently visited doctors in their daily lives and followed their recommendations more so than men. The recent study is a reflection of womens behaviours toward medical attention.

Okten said that women also pay more attention to the health-related needs of others and hence it is not surprising that these tendencies would translate into greater efforts on behalf of women to prevent the spread of the pandemic."

Multiple videos and reports have pointed out how some men have reacted furiously when asked to wear a mask. A few world leaders like the US President Donald Trump and Brazils President Jair Bolsanaro have openly trivialised the seriousness of the virus and both have contracted the COVID-19.

READ: Low Testosterone, More Deaths: Why is Coronavirus Hitting Men Harder than Women?

For the recent study, researchers queried nearly 800 US residents and asked them their tendency to keep social distance and to stay at home, frequency of handwashing, number of days of in-person contact with family or friends, and number of days of in-person contact with others.

They also analysed aggregated GPS location data from approximately 3,000 US counties and 15 million GPS smart-phone coordinates between March 9 and May 29. They found that individuals in counties with a higher percentage of males showed comparatively less social distancing as the pandemic surged between March 9 and May 29.
GREENSBORO, N.C. - A city council in North Carolina has approved a resolution which apologizes for the shooting deaths of five demonstrators at a 1979 rally against the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party.

The Greensboro City Council voted 7-2 on Tuesday night to approve the resolution, which says in part that the city admits the police department neglected to act on knowledge it had that the Nazis and Klan were planning violence, the News & Record of Greensboro reported.

This apology is 41 years too late, councilwoman Michelle Kennedy said. On behalf of the 5-year-old kid I was then ... I am sorry for what the city of Greensboro failed to do on that day and for the things that we did. There is nothing in my professional life or in my adult life that means more to me than saying what we are saying tonight and the only thing I regret is that it didnt happen 41 years ago.

The resolution also creates a scholarship for five high school students in memory of the five who died.

The demonstrators were shot and killed during the Nov. 3, 1979, rally at a low-income housing community in Greensboro. Juries acquitted several people of killing the protesters and wounding others. A subsequent civil case found six members of the Klan and Nazi party and two Greensboro police officers liable for wrongful death in whats now known as the Greensboro Massacre.

Councilwomen Nancy Hoffmann and Marikay Abuzuaiter voted against the resolution, saying they couldnt support it because they feel it suggests that the police somehow colluded in bringing about the shootings.

The words of this resolution continue to place the police department and our city under a cloud of negativity, Hoffmann said. While it may be preferable to find yourself in the majority on substantive policy matters, there are times that circumstances do not permit that.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan said the resolution needs to be viewed in a historical perspective.

I dont believe that there was any conspiracy or collusion between the Greensboro Police Department and other parties, Vaughan said. But, she added, the police purposely took a low-profile approach to the event.